Center of Gravity (44 page)

By demanding a secure channel, Koenig wasn’t simply guarding against others eavesdropping on the conversation. He was also making certain that
America
’s two alien guests did not have access, through the ship’s Net, to other parts of the ship’s electronic anatomy. If they’d sent a covert message at Alchameth, they could do it here, with the nearest enemy ships less than a light minute distant.

“Admiral?” Wilkerson said. “They’re here, and I have them online. Secure, as you requested.”

“Thank you. Please stay on the link, would you? In case I need help with them.”

“Of course, Admiral.”

“Gru’mulkisch? Dra’ethde? This is Admiral Koenig.”

“We greet you, Admiral,” one of them said.

“How may we be of service?” the other added. Although the translated voices were slightly different in tone and timbre, Koenig had trouble telling the two apart.

“We have encountered warships of an unknown design,” he told them, uplinking to the tactical tank and pulling in the telemetry images of the alien vessels. “I’d like you to look at it, and tell me what you know.”

“Ah,” one of the Agletsch said. Had there been something like dismay in that mental voice? Surprise? Or something else? “That would appear to be a Soru claw.”

“Soru. What’s that?”

“An alien sophont species,” one of the Agletsch said. “From very deep within Sh’daar space.”

“We think they may have an empire—subservient to the Sh’daar masters, of course—in toward the galactic core, within what you humans call the Sagittarius star clouds.”

“Agreed. If the Sh’daar have brought in Soru and their vessels, they must consider you of the Confederation to be a serious threat, yes-no?”

“Why do you say that?”

“The Sh’daar have… let us say, serious concerns about species with advanced technology. Weapons technology in particular. When the Soru were absorbed into the masters’ empire, they were already at quite a high level of technological development. The Sh’daar gave careful thought to the possibility of exterminating them, in fact, but ultimately decided to bring them under their direct rule.”

“We know little about the Soru directly, Admiral—only that they are extremely dangerous.”

“They are… what would the human term be? Arrogant. They see every other sophont race as inferior, except, just possibly, the Sh’daar.”

“So if they’re so powerful, how do the Sh’daar control them?”

“The Sh’daar are by far the oldest species remaining in this galaxy, Admiral, and have the most advanced technology.
Anything
is possible to beings of that scope and power.”

“I see.” Koenig thought for a moment. He was tempted to ask the Agletsch straight out whether they’d passed a message to the enemy at Alchameth, but decided against it. At the moment, the aliens wouldn’t know that he suspected that such a communication had taken place, and Koenig knew enough about intelligence work to realize that such ignorance could be useful.

“What can you tell us about Soru military tactics?” he asked instead.

“We are not trained in military matters, Admiral. We know that they make extensive use of extremely powerful lasers, operating at extremely short electromagnetic wavelengths… what you call gamma radiation. So far as we know, they do not use unguided kinetic munitions.”

“Missiles?”

Bleep.

“I don’t think Gru’mulkisch understood the question,” Wilkerson’s voice put in.

“Do the Soru use missiles? Small, guided craft carrying explosive warheads?”

“We don’t know, Admiral.”

“What are the Soru like physically?” Koenig asked. He was looking for insight,
any
insight, into how they thought, what they were like.

“I fear we do not have the…
bleep
. . . to answer.”

“Do you know anything about their homeworld?”

“They are likely from the world of an extremely bright, hot star, Admiral.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Notice the images you have shown us. There are markings here…”

Koenig looked at the image of the Soru ship in his in-head window. He saw a cursor dance along one of the ship’s curving wings, but saw no markings.

“I’m sorry. I don’t see what you mean.”

“Ah. Perhaps if you use false-color enhancement, yes-no?”

“Yes,” the other voice added. “Look for ultraviolet.”

Koenig gave a command, and an AI shifted the image colors. The scarlet panels faded until they were a reddish gray hue… and along the wing a series of loops and slashes appeared, glowing bright purple. Apparently the Soru saw further into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum than did humans. Since brighter stars were richer in UV radiation, it might mean the Soru hailed from a world bathed in the stuff.

Or… it might not. Terrestrial honeybees and numerous other insects saw in UV light. All the discovery really did was rule out a red dwarf as the Soru home sun, since they gave off very little UV compared with longer wavelengths.

“Okay. Thank you both. I’d appreciate it if you would stay linked with Dr. Wilkerson, in case I need to ask another question in a hurry.”

“It would be our honor to do so, Admiral.”

And what would an Agletsch mean by the word
honor
?

Still, they’d seemed willing enough to help. The information about Soru vision had no immediate application that Koenig could think of, but it had been something, information they’d not needed to give. Were they trying to ingratiate themselves for reasons of their own, or were they genuinely committed to helping the Confederation battlegroup?

“Ah… one more thing, please?”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“I intend to apply a
great
deal of deceleration within another few minutes,” Koenig said. “I intend to bring this battlegroup to a complete stop relative to that orbital factory up ahead, get in close, and pound it to pieces. Do you think those three Soru vessels will be able to stop us from doing so?”

“I… am sorry, Admiral. I don’t know how to answer that. The Soru claws are extremely powerful, but your fleet outnumbers them by a considerable margin. Your plan may work, but if the Soru get close, you will suffer severe casualties.”

“Thank you, both of you,” Koenig said. “I’m done, Dr. Wilkerson.”

Sinclair was watching him from across the tactical tank. He’d been following the conversation, patched in through the secure CIC net. “Some kind of ruse, Admiral? We
can’t
decelerate at more than five hundred Gs. We’re going flat-out max now, and no matter what we do we’re going to zorch past that factory in something quicker than the blink of an eye.”

“Of course. The Agletsch may not know our capabilities exactly. Even if they do, the Turusch are likely to play it safe, just in case we’ve developed something new.”

“And if the Agletsch
are
in communication with them? What do you expect them to do?”

“If they think we’re going to pull up alongside of the factory, they’re going to go for the Holy Grail.”

“ ‘Holy Grail,’ sir?”

“Englobement.”

Sinclair’s eyes widened and he nodded. “
Very
slick… .”

So far, the majority of the Turusch defensive fleet at Al–01 had been tucked in close and tight next to the deep-space factory, providing a quite literal close escort. It was a static defense, which would be a weakness in combat, but it was the best defense possible if they wanted to use their point-defense and anti-missile weapons to best effect, parrying the Confederation battlegroup’s strike as they flashed past.

It would also be a deathtrap if the Confederation ships
could
halt relative to the station. They would have trouble maneuvering without fouling one another, and would be easy targets for concentrated fire from the human warships,
especially
the fighters.

No. If they thought
America
and the rest of the CBG was going to match speed and course with Al–01, they would pull back, possibly by thousands of kilometers, spreading out in a cloud with Al–01 at the center. When the human fleet slowed, they would close again, with the human fleet trapped at the center.

Englobement was an old, old concept in space-fleet tactics, but it was a chimera, a tactic that quite simply could never be pulled off. Space combat, generally, was a matter of speed, the faster the better, and you could never count on an enemy to stay put or go where you expected him to go. It was impossible to englobe an enemy when they were moving at a high relative velocity to the englobing fleet, and jinking all over the sky to boot.

Of course, if the Agletsch passed on this tidbit to the Turusch, it was unlikely that the enemy would move immediately. They would wait until the last possible moment so that they would not tip whatever it was they used for their hand.

“Comm,” Koenig ordered. “Make to all ships. The enemy may reposition himself at the last moment. Watch out for it, and keep a lock on your targets. Be certain that AI targeting interlocks are on. It’s going to be a confused mess in there, and I don’t want anyone scoring an own goal.”

“Message transmitted, sir.”

“Good.” He checked the navigational readouts: 50 million kilometers to go. A third of an AU… about twenty minutes more.

He turned his attention to the fighter squadrons closing with the enemy ships, now accelerating from astern and less than five minutes from intercept.

These Soru could still wreck everything.

VFA–44

TC/USNA CVS America

Alphekka System

1954 hours, TFT

“All Dragons,” Allyn called. “Go to combat mode. Spread out and keep jinking. We need to get
closer
!”

The fighters had been launched in sperm mode, jet-black teardrops with long energy-bleed spikes stretching out astern. At Allyn’s command, however, their variable-geometry nanoform hulls began reshaping themselves, flattening out, and extending the Starhawks’ characteristic drooping, crescent-shaped wings, a configuration reminiscent, Gray thought, of the multiple crescent-wing shapes of the enemy. He wondered if there was a chance in hell that the enemy would be confused by the change… then decided that was a bit too much to hope for. The enemy would have been tracking them ever since their release from
America
.

Still accelerating, the Dragonfires hurtled toward the enemy ships. Gamma-ray bolts snapped out toward them, but they were still far enough out—almost one light second—that the enemy was having trouble locking on.

But the closer they got, the more accurate the enemy’s deadly fire.

“Jink, people!” Allyn was screaming over the tactical channel.
“Jink!”

Then a Starhawk took a direct hit, flaring into a dazzling, unfolding fireball as the fighter was transformed into plasma at star-core temperatures. Dragon Two—Commander Allyn’s wingman Thom Evans.

He hadn’t even known the man, Gray realized with a start. Just another one of the strangers within the squadron.

Gray fired his Starhawk’s particle beam, saw the beam discharge across an alien’s oily black hull. Those crescent-winged ships were still too distant to be seen directly, but battlespace drones relayed images of circumambient space, and his AI used those to present a targeting picture within Gray’s in-head display. He could see the beam crackle as a violent electrical discharge across the alien’s screens, but it seemed to do little in the way of damage. At this range, the proton beams were too attenuated to do much. PBPs were intended as medium to close-range weapons. They weakened with distance, could be deflected by magnetic fields, were scattered and defocused by atmosphere.

How the hell were you supposed to kill those things?

And then Gray thought he just might see a way… .

Chapter Twenty-four

25 February 2405

VFA–44

Alphekka System

1959 hours, TFT

“Dragon One, Dragon Nine!” Gray called. “Sandcasters! A Fox Two volley might disrupt those beams!”

In space-fighter combat, a call of “Fox One” signaled the launch of a Krait or other all-aspect homing missile, usually with a variable-yield nuclear warhead. A “Fox Two,” however, was an AS–78 AMSO, or anti-missile shield ordnance. Accelerating at two thousand gravities, its detonation released a cloud of compressed lead spherules, each roughly the size of a grain of sand. Spreading out like the blast of a shotgun, the cloud from a sandcaster round could be deadly to any ship or missile traveling at a high relative velocity. Usually, the intended target was an incoming enemy missile, since impact and ablation through the sand cloud would vaporize, or at least cripple, any but the very largest missiles.

But a sand cloud would also absorb light… and it ought to absorb or scatter even high-energy radiation beams, like gamma-ray lasers. The beams would vaporize the sand, of course, but enough would block a half-second pulse. And the resultant plasma cloud, if Gray was right, would also serve to scatter and diminish additional shots.

“You’re suggesting we use sand clouds like a shield?” Allyn asked.

“It might let us get close enough that our weapons can do some good.”

“If it doesn’t work…”

“I volunteer,” Gray said. “Let me give it a try!”

There was the slightest of hesitations from the other end. “Okay. Go.”

“I’m going in with him,” Tucker added.

“Copy. Good luck… and we’ll be coming in behind you.”

“Pull this off,” Kirkpatrick’s voice added, “and we’re gonna have to change your handle from ‘Prim’ to ‘Sandman.’ ”

Months earlier, in the desperate fleet action in Sol’s Outer System, Gray had suggested using sandcaster rounds released at near-
c
as an anti-ship weapon. The idea had worked well, well enough to get him a commendation in his personnel jacket from Admiral Koenig himself.

And now he was using sandcaster rounds in a different way. But… why not? They were relatively low-tech weapons that could be extremely versatile—when you factored in the laws of physics—cheap, and almost impossible to counter.

Gray opened up his drive and accelerated. “I’m on target,” he said. The nearest of the alien destroyers was rotating now to face him, and he had the targeting cursor lined up with the ship’s bow, smack between the reach of those curving and outstretched wings.
“Fox Two!”

The first of his AMSO missiles streaked from the belly of his Starhawk, its drive burning brilliantly as it boosted to fifty thousand kilometers per second. An instant later, the simple-minded AI on board triggered the warhead.

At almost the same instant, the Soru destroyer fired—possibly aiming at Gray, possibly at the incoming missile, which appeared to be the most immediate threat. The beam struck the cloud of tiny compressed-lead spheres when it was still less than three meters across and burned straight through it in a searingly brilliant flash of blue-white light.

The beam missed Gray’s fighter by almost a kilometer; perhaps it
had
been aimed at the missile, rather than at him.

It didn’t look like the sand cloud had dampened that beam in the least, but his sensors noted otherwise. A lot of the gamma-beam’s energy had been absorbed by the cloud. A few seconds later, Gray’s AMSO cloud hit the alien ship, partly as high-velocity grains, partly as hit plasma, returning a bit of the alien’s energy to the sender.

He couldn’t tell at this range if the cloud had damaged the Soru ship. Using his fighter’s AI, he programmed a string of five AMSOs to detonate in rapid succession, throwing up a chain of sand clouds moving toward the target.
“Fox Two!”
he called. “Multiple
Fox Two
!”

“And multiple
Fox Two
,” Tucker added. The two Starhawks loosed a barrage of ten sandcaster rounds; then they accelerated, slipping in behind the barrage and closing rapidly with the enemy.

Gamma-ray bolts snapped toward them… and the space between Soru and humans lit up with repeating, strobing flashes of brilliant energy. Gray’s own energy screens flared and nearly fell as leakage from the Soru fire slipped through and clawed at his fighter, but the energy had been sharply attenuated, the beams refracted enough that they lacked the focus to burn through Gray’s defenses. Ahead, a glowing cloud of plasma swept between the Soru destroyer’s forward-curving wings. Another Soru shot was absorbed and re-radiated as heat and dazzling light. Gray opened up with everything that he had, slamming Krait missiles, particle beams, and KK rounds straight down the Soru ship’s throat.

As the universe appeared to explode with fireball brilliance immediately ahead, Gray’s energy screens failed… along with his forward shields. Something hit his fighter hard, a chunk of whirling, white-hot metal, he thought, and then his Starhawk was tumbling through darkness.

His external sensors were dead, fried by the surge of energy.

“Damage control!” he screamed at his AI. “Damn it,
damage control
!”

His fighter’s tumble slowed, then stabilized, and a moment later his sensors came back on-line. Starhawks had a considerable degree of regenerative control, using their nano systems to absorb and regrow damage. His power and drive systems appeared unharmed. He began to decelerate, searching the sky for Tucker.

There she was.

And there was the Soru destroyer, or what was left of it… jagged chunks of hull and curving wing section spinning out from an expanding cloud of hot gas.

“This is Dragon Nine!” he called. “I’m okay! Scratch one DD!”

Briefly, Gray wondered what type of beings had crewed that vessel… and why they’d come so far out among the stars to die. An update was coming through on his link with the CBG Net.
Soru
, the new race was called, according to the Agletsch liaisons.

What were they?

“Copy that, Nine,” Allyn replied. “Ten! Are you okay?”

“I’m… okay,” Tucker replied. “Got a little singed going through the—”

Tucker’s Starhawk exploded in a blue-white flash, cutting off her words. A second Soru destroyer had rotated to face her fighter, had speared her with a gamma-ray bolt.

“Shit!” Gray screamed. “Shit!
Shit!
. . .”

The second destroyer lined up with him, and the shot, at longer range, missed by meters, nearly overloading Gray’s already shaky energy screens.

“Dragon Ten,” Allyn called. “Do you copy?”

“She’s dead!” Gray replied. “Katie’s
dead
!”

“Okay, Gray. Stay clear of those DDs. We’re coming in.”

Sandcaster rounds, dozens of them, were already slamming into the two remaining Soru ships, coming in from half of the sky as the widely dispersed fighters bore in from numerous directions. For a confused moment, the sky filled with blue-white flares of energy, tightly clustered around the destroyers… and the nuclear fireballs blossomed.

Lieutenant Jacosta, Dragon Twelve, died in the final seconds of the attack.

Right behind the survivors of the Dragonfires, the Night Demons came in tight and hot, adding their barrage of sand and fire. “Trevor!” Ryan’s voice called. “Trev, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, Shay,” he told her. “I’m not sure how.”

And so many
weren’t
okay. Gray found himself shaking at the realization. The Dragonfires numbered just five fighters, now: Allyn, Collins, Kirkpatrick, Donovan, and Gray.

But all three Soru warships were gone, now, reduced to drifting, ruined hulks and far-flung clouds of gas and droplets of molten metal swiftly freezing into expanding cascades of glitter.

“
America
CIC, this is Dragon One,” Allyn called. “Three Soru destroyers down.”

“Shit,” Donovan said. “Where are the others? Where are the Nighthawks and the Lightnings?”

Gray checked his scanners. The two squadrons had merged with the enemy at high speed, and would have passed through the formation swiftly. He was picking up distant targets, now, several million kilometers out… six… seven…

“I’ve got eight on my screens,” Allyn said. “No… nine.”

Nine left, out of twenty-four in the two squadrons.

At this rate, there wouldn’t be many fighters left for the endgame at Al–01.

“
America
CIC, Dragon One,” Allyn called. “Target destroyed. What are your orders?”

There was no immediate reply.

CIC, TC/USNA CVS
America

Alphekka System

2004 hours, TFT

“Admiral Koenig?”
America
’s space boss asked. “Do you want to retrieve our fighters?”

Koenig stared into the tank display. Four fighter squadrons had just hurled themselves at the three Soru ships, a display of stunning bravery. The cost had been far too high… .

“Sir?”

“Eh?” Koenig blinked and looked up. Other faces were watching him around the display tank. “No. No, tell them to take up close formation with the fleet.”

“They’ll be low on expendables after that little scrap, sir,” Craig pointed out. “They need to re-arm.”

“I know. But it will take time—time running at zero deceleration—to take them back on board, and more time to re-arm.” He shook his head. “We don’t have a choice. They’ll have to ride through the close passage with us.”

“And through the protoplanetary disk,” Sinclair added. “Some of them… their shields and screens are pretty badly damaged. They might not survive it.”

“Then they can break off and get clear before the passage!” Koenig shouted. The startled expressions on the CIC crew’s faces stopped him, and he gentled his voice. “Tell them they’re authorized to use their own discretion.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

If
America
stopped her deceleration now, she might not be done taking the fighters on board when they passed Al–01. By allowing those able to make the disk fly-through to go in with the capital ships, he would add a small amount of additional firepower to the fleet’s split-instant volley, and the far faster, more maneuverable fighters would be useful in keeping Turusch Toads from dogging the more cumbersome fleet.

But Gods, the
price
.

As a military commander, Koenig was wrestling with two distinct problems. It tore him apart to order his men and women into tactical situations that, most likely, would end with them being killed or tumbling off into the emptiness of space. That was the worst, always—sending young men and women off to die.

But from a strictly logistical perspective, he also needed to husband his resources; while new fighters could be nanufactured on board the
Remington
and the
Lewis
, he had a sharply limited supply of experienced pilots. It would be possible to accept volunteers from throughout the fleet and give them the download training for basic space fighter combat and piloting skills, but it would take a lot of time in simulators and in non-simulated cockpits before they could take on a Turusch Toad head to head and survive.

Worse, recruits were thoroughly screened for aptitude when they first entered the military, and those candidates with unusual talent and inborn skill for piloting, for three-dimensional navigation and orientation, for being able to judge vector and angle and lines of fire on the fly were invariably siphoned off for naval aviation. That suggested that there would be few
good
candidates throughout the fleet. It took a special set of mental twists to make a good pilot, and those skill sets were all too rare.

But Koenig would make do with what he had.

There were few damned alternatives.

Ryan

VFA–96

Alphekka System

2006 hours, TFT

“Stick close to me, Twelve,” Lieutenant Charles Forrester called over the tactical link. “Don’t wander off and get lost!”

“Copy,” Shay Ryan replied. She considered adding something nasty—she didn’t like Forrester’s patronizing, risty attitude—but thought better of it.
This isn’t the time or place
. . . .

Ryan found she was shaking inside, and bit off a sharp curse. She would
not
show weakness, not on board the
America
, and for fricking sure not out here.