Singularity. Ian Douglas

list proved one important thing. The Sh’daar and their Turusch proxies were stretched thin. It couldn’t really be otherwise, not in a galaxy of 400 billion stars. The enemy couldn’t maintain a guardian fleet within every star system. They couldn’t even put guards within every inhabited system.

      Koenig was certain now that the Alphekkan base had been designed for nothing less than building a fleet intended to subjugate—possibly to destroy—Earth. A huge number of ships, empty and waiting, had been captured there. The Sh’daar might be planning on using the newly captured base at 70 Ophiuchi, but that was across 42 degrees of Earth’s sky, a straight-line distance of 62.5 light years from Alphekka. The almost overwhelming likelihood was that the enemy had hit 70 Ophiuchi as a diversion, to pull human fleet resources away from Sol. The main strike, Koenig thought, would come from the direction of the constellation of Corona Borealis, from Alphekka.

      Operation Crown Arrow called for an initial strike at Alphekka in order to cripple the Sh’daar assets there … and that strike had been an unprecedented success. But the follow-on had called for CBG-18 to continue deeper into Sh’daar space, ideally drawing off the enemy forces now pressing so hard on Sol, getting them to follow America and her consorts.

      Exhaustive analyses had gone into the planning. Step by step, Koenig, using a small army of artificial intelligences, had shown conclusively that running from point to point to meet individual Sh’daar advances—like the taking of Osiris—would inevitably leave Earth vulnerable to a final, overwhelming attack. The Confederation did not have the capacity in personnel, in equipment, or in industrial strength to meet the Sh’daar on anything like an equal basis long term.

      That, Koenig, thought, should have been self-evident. According to the alien Agletsch, the Sh’daar dominated something like a third of the galaxy, which meant more than 100 billion suns, billions of habitable worlds, and an estimated 5 million technic civilizations. The Confederation had Sol and a handful of colonized star systems—twenty-five, at last count, plus a couple of hundred outposts and research stations. Twenty-five worlds against an unknown number of billions … a flea against some giant, enormous extinct beast, a tyrannosaur, a titanothere, or an elephant. It was impossible. …

      But Koenig had an idea that might work. Alphekka had been a spectacular victory; now, CBG-18 needed to hit the next target, and the next one after that. The Alphekkan Directory had pointed him to a likely candidate, a star system not listed on any human catalogues, but known to the Agletsch as Texaghu Resch.

      Hit that, and Koenig believed that every Sh’daar fleet within a thousand light years would be chasing him. After that …

      “Admiral? Incoming … from Captain Harrison, on the Illustrious.”

      Koenig checked his internal clock. What the hell? Only five minutes had passed since he’d sent the message to Harrison; he hadn’t even had time to receive it yet. This must be one of those “great minds” moments; Harrison had tried to reach him within moments of his trying to communicate with Harrison.

      “Put it through. Randy? Listen in, please.”

      Within his mind, a communications window opened, and Harrison’s face appeared. “Alex! This is Ron Harrison. Remember me? The academy speech, two years ago.”

      Koenig remembered. The two of them had together addressed the 2403 graduating class at the Naval academy. It wasn’t the last time he’d seen the man, but it was the last time he’d had more than a few minutes to talk with him.

      “What the hell is going down, Alex?” Harrison continued. “Giraurd is about to bust a gut. He’s calling you a traitor and worse, and he’s told us that he intends to attack your squadron if you don’t do exactly what he says.

      “This mess is a put-up hatchet job, I’m certain of that. This isn’t the Senate speaking. It’s a small clique inside the Senate—the damned Conciliationists. They haven’t figured out yet that appeasement never works.

      “Now, I notice the other USNA ships in our flotilla broke off and followed you. That was to be expected. Illustrious and two others, Warspite and Conqueror, are under my direct command … and I’ll be damned if I’m going to see them fire the opening shots of a civil war. Give the word, and I’ll slide the three of us over to your side of the line.

      “Harrison, awaiting your reply. Out.”

      “Well, well,” Buchanan said. “Division within the enemy’s ranks?”

      “They’re not our enemies,” Koenig said.

      He was thinking furiously. How well did he trust Harrison? Was this a genuine offer to change sides … or was it a covert move directed by Giraurd, an attempt to get three major warships in close to the America? Koenig hated the paranoid thought, but he had to consider every possibility.

      What, he wondered, had been the speech at the academy? When the topic didn’t come immediately to mind, he downloaded it from his personal database. Koenig’s speech had been about the need to be vigilant and develop a unity of purpose and strategy in the war against the Sh’daar. Harrison’s speech had been titled “The Worm Within: Covert Penetration of the Enemy’s Infrastructure.” He’d been telling the graduating midshipmen that they needed to think outside the box, to think not only in terms of classical fleet strategies, but to use high-tech infiltration techniques to tap into alien command and control systems. Koenig had done exactly that three months before, when he’d deployed a small SEALs team to covertly breach and enter a giant H’rulka warship moving into the Sol System in order to establish contact with the beings inside.

      And now, Koenig thought, Harrison was using the title as a warning. This was a covert attempt to get his forces in close to the America.

      “Ramirez,” Koenig said. “Reply to Captain Harrison, personal and confidential. Message begins.

      “Hey, Ron, you Limey bastard. Got your message, all of it.” He thought for a moment. Chances were good that Giraurd was tapped in to Illustrious’s comm suite and reading the mail. He decided not to mention his previous message, which Giraurd may or may not have seen.

      “The thing about a civil war,” Koenig went on, “is that it is never civil. We can’t afford to bloody each other, and I refuse to become the bone of contention that splits open the Terran Confederation. The enemy is out there, not within our own ranks.

      “I appreciate your offer, but for now, I’d prefer that Illustrious, Warspite, and Conqueror remain with the Pan-European fleet. We are establishing a no-cross line one hundred thousand kilometers from the America, and we ask that you respect that.

      “I hope that when this is over, you and I can sit down in a wardroom, your ship or mine, and have a cold one and a good laugh about this. For now, please stay clear.

      “Koenig, America, out.”

      In the tactical tank, the two fleets continued to draw closer together.

      Chapter Three

       10 April 2405

       VFA-44

       Kuiper Belt, HD 157950

       98 light years from Earth

       1715 hours, TFT

      “Things are about to go supercritical,” Gray said over the squadron tac channel. “Reconfigure to sperm mode.”

      The SG-92 Starhawk’s outer hull consisted of a matrix of conventional metals and ceramics blended with nano-molecules controlled by an electrical field projected by his ship’s AI. Launch configuration was a slender needle with a swollen central area housing the cockpit, designed for magnetic acceleration down the launch tube. Combat configuration looked a bit like a headless bird with down-canted wings, providing widely separated weapons and sensor platforms useful in a fight.

      Sperm