Deep Time. Ian Douglas

a long shot, I know,” Gray replied. “If you or your team have any ideas, tell me now.”

      “Your old sand trick occurs to me, Admiral,” Mallory said, grinning. “‘The Gray Maneuver,’ they called it in Tac-Combat download training.”

      Gray snorted. “It’s a dangerous option here,” he said. “We’d risk vaporizing those four fighters we have on the alien’s tail.”

      “Sandy” Gray had gotten his nickname two decades earlier, when he’d released clouds of sand—the warheads of AMSO anti-missile weapons—at close to the speed of light. Even a single grain of sand traveling at that speed was deadly, and a cloud of them could disintegrate a ship, wipe out a fleet … or even scour the hemisphere of a world with flame. Under certain circumstances, it could be a highly effective weapon, but targeting something as small as a ship was chancy at best, and the danger of scoring an “own goal” in the rough-and-tumble of space combat made the tactic one of desperation.

      “True. Of course, only the Concord would be positioned to deliver the shot, anyway.”

      “I know—and risk or not, it’s what I asked them to do. Those fighters aren’t going to be able to do much, so it’s probably our only chance.”

      AMSO rounds fired by those USNA ships chasing Charlie One and its fighter escorts would be completely ineffective, because both they and the targets were traveling at close to c. But sand released by the High Guard ship, approaching from slightly off the alien’s bow, would impact Charlie with its velocity plus that of the target, which was very close indeed to the speed of light.

      “My concern, then,” Gray continued, “is that he might hold off for fear of hitting the USNA fighters behind it.” Something dawned on Gray then, and he scowled, calling up a data feed from America’s AI, looking for biographical information on Concord’s captain. He’d pulled down a bare minimum of biographical data on the man before, just enough to verify that he was North American. Right now, Gray needed more.

      There it was: Commander Terrance Dahlquist. Born in Windsor, Ontario, but with most of his life spent in New New York, up the swollen Hudson from Gray’s old stomping grounds. Well-to-do family. He had an uncle who’d been governor of Manitoba … and a cousin who’d been a USNA representative to the Confederation Senate. Joined the Navy in 2016. Naval Academy at Oceana. Commended for valor at Freya in 2020—He’d been skipper of a gunboat, the Ajax, during an operation against renegade H’rulka fleet elements there. Transferred to the High Guard in 2022.

      Why? To leave a career with the Navy proper could be seen as a less-than-positive career move. Ah … there it was. He’d been passed over for promotion to full commander while skippering the Ajax. By taking the High Guard posting, he got an immediate promotion.

      Gray shook his head. Nothing in the data raised any flags; nothing particularly unusual or of concern.

      It was frustrating, though. The nature of modern space warfare meant that individual ship captains and flotilla commanders often had to fight alongside fellow officers whom they’d never met and didn’t know. With typical operations encompassing volumes of space many astronomical units in diameter, often there was no way to coordinate with them during the battle. Speed-of-light time lags could mean the passage of hours before a reply to a message could be received. Was a given officer aggressive? Cautious? Slow off the mark? Meticulous? Hotheaded? Incompetent? Daring? It made a hell of a big difference, and not knowing could royally screw combat strategy.

      He took a big mental breath. Worry about it later, he thought. There was nothing he could do about it until America and Concord were closer.

      On the flag bridge tactical display, the four pursuing fighters were drawing gradually closer to the fleeing Charlie One and its Confed escorts.

      He checked the time. Concord should have received the message ten minutes ago and be getting into position now. The High Guard ship was just too far away for the light carrying that information to have reached America. Hawes and Elliot were still on the chase as well, but like America, were still much too far astern to take part in the coming clash.

       Dahlquist better be moving …

      Because without the Concord, those four Starblades were on their own. And, as always, it would be the fighters that bore the first, hardest shock of contact with the enemy.

       VFA-96, Black Demons

       In pursuit

       0120 hours, TFT

      Megan Connor thoughtclicked a mental icon and enlarged the object visible now within an in-head window. It was tough to make out details; the view of the surrounding universe outside was wildly distorted by her fighter’s speed. At relativistic velocities, incoming starlight was crowded forward until it formed a ring ahead of the ship, with chromatic aberration smearing the light into a rainbow of color: blue ahead, red behind.

      Somewhere within that “starbow” was the light from the fleeing alien, also distorted by the near-c velocities of pursuer and pursued. The AI running Connor’s fighter was extracting that light and recreating what the alien would have looked like to human eyes at more sedate speeds … a beautiful assembly of fluted curves, sponsons, teardrop shapes, and streamlined protrusions that looked more grown than assembled. It was five thousand kilometers ahead, now, and seemed to be struggling to maintain that dwindling lead. The image was being transmitted by one of several battlespace drones the USNA fighters had launched moments before. Their acceleration was just good enough to let them creep up on the alien, meter by hard-fought meter.

      The pursuing fighters were now within missile range … but USNA ship-to-ship missile accelerations were not much better than the fighters themselves. Piloted by small AIs, it might be hours more before they could close the remaining distance.

      Drones possessed better AIs; they had to in order to maneuver for the best views of a target, to assemble the clearest picture of a contested volume of space, and to avoid enemy anti-missile defenses. They also had somewhat more powerful drives so that they could quickly fill an entire battlespace volume, and to give them long-term endurance on station.

      All of which gave Connor an idea.

      USNS/HGF Concord

       4-Vesta

       0121 hours, TFT

      Commander Terrance Dahlquist studied the tactical display on Concord’s bridge. The out-system craft tagged Charlie One was just over one AU from Vesta, now, and was reaching the closest point to the asteroid on its outbound path. Four USNA fighters were in close pursuit.

      The images he was seeing, thanks to the speed-of-light time delay, were about nine minutes out of date, which meant that alien craft had already passed the nearest point and was well beyond now.

      And Dahlquist was worried.

      “You know, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Ames told him, “you could land yourself in a world of shit.”

      Ames was Concord’s executive officer, Dahlquist’s second in command. She was a GM transhuman and he respected her intelligence, a carefully crafted intellect connected to in-head systems that purportedly made her as good as that of the best AI.

      “It’s a kind of a nebulous area,” he told her. “I don’t take my orders from … people like him.”

      Both the line Navy and the High Guard answered to HQMILCOM, the USNA’s military command center located on and around Mars, and, after that, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Earth. Until one or the other of those command entities officially directed him to follow Gray’s orders, he was in the right if he ignored the man’s instructions. It was a technicality, but the military was built on technicalities.

      “Not as nebulous as you might think, Captain,” Ames told him. “Admiral Gray is still a flag officer, and that puts you in probable