Earth Strike. Ian Douglas

port and low, another gold-red star shone almost as brilliantly—twice as bright as Venus at its brightest, seen from Earth. That, Gray knew from his briefings, was the star Arcturus, just three light years away.

      Arcturus, however, was not his problem. Not anymore.

      And not yet.

      “Imaging,” he said. “Squadron ships.”

      Green-glowing, diamond-shaped icons appeared on the stellar panorama, above, below, and to the left, each attended by a string of alphanumerics giving ship number and pilot id, and Gray felt just a little less lonely. Eight other Starhawks besides his drifted in the void out there, their AIs nudging them now into a ring ten kilometers across. As the minutes passed, three more strike-fighters moved up from astern, taking their places with the squadron.

      The formation was complete.

      “Okay, chicks,” Commander Marissa Allyn said over the squadron comnet. She was VFA-44’s CO, and Flight Leader for this op. “Configure for high-G.”

      Each of the Starhawks had emerged from the diamagnetic launch tubes in standard flight configuration, a night-black needle shape twenty meters long, with a central bulge housing the pilot and control systems, and the mirror-smooth outer hull in a superconducting state. At Gray’s command, his gravfighter began reshaping itself, the complex nanolaminates of its outer structure dissolving and recombining, drive units and weapons and sensors folding up and out and back, everything building up around the central bulge in a blunt and smoothly convoluted egg-shape with a slender spike tail off the narrow end, and with the fat end aligned with the distant, golden gleam of Eta Boötis.

      “Blue Omega Leader, Omega Seven,” he reported. “Sperm mode engaged. Ready for boost.” Gravfighter pilots claimed their craft looked like huge spermatozoa when they were in boost configuration. His Starhawk was now only seven meters long—not counting the field bleed spike astern—and five wide, though it still massed twenty-two tons.

      “America CIC, this is Alpha Strike Blue Omega One,” Allyn said. “Handing off from PriFly. All Blues clear of the ship and formed up. Ready to initiate PL boost.”

      “Copy, Blue Omega One,” a voice replied from America’s Combat Information Center. “Primary Flight Control confirms handoff to America CIC. You are clear for high-grav boost.”

      “Acknowledge squadron clear for boost,” Allyn said. “Don’t forget about us out there, America.”

      “Don’t worry, Blue Omega. We’ll be on your asses all the way in.”

      That wasn’t quite true, Gray thought. According to the operations plan, the task force would be following, but it would be another eighteen hours, total, before they reached the target planet.

      The squadron would be on its own until then.

      “Blue Omega Strike, Omega One,” Allyn said over the squadron’s tac channel. “Engage squadron taclink.”

      Gray focused a thought, and felt an answering sensation of pressure in the palm of his left hand. The twelve fighter craft were connected now by laser-optic comnet feeds linking their on-board AIs into a single electronic organism.

      “And gravitic boost at fifty kay,” Allyn continued, “in three … two … one … punch it!”

      A gravitational singularity opened up immediately ahead of Gray’s Starhawk.

      He was falling.

      In fact, he was accelerating now at fifty thousand gravities, falling toward the artificial singularity projected ahead of his gravfighter, but since the high-G field affected every atom of the Starhawk and of Lieutenant Gray uniformly, he was not reduced to a thin organic smear across the aft surfaces of the cockpit. In fact, he felt nothing whatsoever beyond the usual and somewhat pleasant falling sensation of zero gravity.

      Outwardly, there was no indication that within the first ten seconds of engaging the gravitic drive, he was traveling at five hundred kilometers per second relative to the America, his speed increasing by half a million meters per second with each passing second. The stars remained steady and unmoving, unwinking in the night.

      After one minute he’d be traveling at three thousand kilometers per second, or 1 percent of the speed of light.

      And in ten minutes he’d be pushing hard against c itself.

      In strike fighter combat, speed is everything.

      CIC, TC/USNA CVS America

       Eta Boötean Kuiper Belt

       0312 hours, TFT

      Admiral Alexander Koenig watched the slowly growing green sphere of local battlespace, now four light minutes across and still growing. Perhaps half of Battlegroup America was accounted for now. The others were out there, but scattered so far by the uncertainties of pinpoint navigation across interstellar distances that the information heralding their emergence from metaspace wouldn’t arrive for some time yet.

      The America’s Combat Information Center, located just aft of the bridge, was large, but had a tightly packed, almost cluttered feel. Located at the carrier’s hub, it was designed to function in microgravity. CIC personnel were tucked into workstations that let them link electronically with the ship and with other stations. Curving bulkheads and the shallow dome of the overhead displayed seamless images of the sky surrounding the huge ship, relayed from CCD scanners on the rim of the shield cap forward. The local space display was on the stage at the center of the compartment, just below Koenig’s station. By moving his hand within the glowing and insubstantial console projected in front of him, he could rotate the sphere and enlarge a portion of it, checking the ID alphanumerics.

      Altogether, some twenty-seven ships made up the task force, including heavy cruisers and a battleship, four destroyers, half a dozen frigates, a small flotilla of supply and repair vessels, and a detachment of eight troop transports, all empty. Of all of those, only nine ships were linked in so far.

      Ah! Good. The railgun cruiser Kinkaid was visible now, two light minutes abeam, at 184 degrees relative. They would need the Kinky’s massive kinetic-kill firepower if this op degenerated into a fleet action … and Koenig was certain that it would. And the destroyers Kaufman and Puller were on-line now as well. They would be vital if—no, when—the Turusch va Sh’daar spotted the battlegroup and deployed their heavy fighters to meet it.

      That made eleven so far.

      A gangly, long-legged shadow swam across the scattering of stars against the overhead dome, backlit by the gold gleam of Eta Boötis. John Quintanilla, the battlegroup’s Political Liaison, floated upside-down, from Koenig’s perspective, clinging to the back of the admiral’s couch.

      “Shouldn’t we be accelerating or something?” the civilian asked.

      “Not until the rest of the battlegroup forms up with us,” Koenig replied.

      “Your orders from the Senate Military Directorate,” Quintanilla said, his voice low, “require you to reach Gorman’s force in the shortest time possible. Time is critical! He can’t hold out very much longer.”

      “I am very much aware of that, Mr. Quintanilla.”

      “Those fighters you launched aren’t going to have much of a chance against a Turusch war fleet. Your orders—”

      “My orders, Mr. Quintanilla,” Koenig snapped, “include the requirement to keep my battlegroup intact … or as intact as combat allows.” Koenig moved his hand, calling up an AI-generated image of the planet nine and a half light hours ahead, outlined in green lines of latitude and longitude. “We will not help General Gorman if we piss away the ships of this battlegroup a few at a time!”

      “But—”

      “This is what’s waiting for us in there, Mr. Quintanilla,” Koenig said, interrupting. The sphere at the center