Center of Gravity (37 page)

Which was good. He needed a little time alone with his thoughts.

Enforcer
Shining Silence

Alphekka System

0945 hours, TFT

Tactician Diligent Effort at Reconciliation considered its preparations yet again, and was satisfied. Every preparation was complete, every ship and weapons system at full readiness.

It was impossible to gauge precisely when the Human fleet would arrive in-system. The intelligence received from the H’rulka Seedcarriers had noted when the enemy had begun acceleration, but human FTL systems were less efficient than were those of the Turusch and other allied species. Based on Turusch understanding of human technologies, the enemy fleet
could
have been here fifty
g’nyuu’m
ago. Or they might not arrive for another hundred to come.

“Threat,”
the Turusch’s Mind Above cried, shrill and writhing.
“Anxious waiting! Impatience! Act!”

But Diligent Effort at Reconciliation had long experience and considerable training in shunting the narrowly focused demands of the Mind Above aside, allowing rationality and forethought to rule. To the Turusch, the inner voice they called Mind Above represented a more primitive, more atavistic part of themselves that had been the whole of Turusch sentience millions of
g’nyi
ago. The Mind Here was the modern, more rational complex of thought, memory, and planning, while the Mind Below was the melding of separate minds… and, for those gifted with the Seed, the link with the Sh’daar masters.

“Patience,”
the Mind Below counseled.
“The enemy will be here soon. There is nothing more to be done that has not been done.”
Part of that thought had originated with Diligent Effort’s twin, the other Turusch, which shared its name, with which it was life-paired. But part, too, had come from Diligent Effort’s Seed.

It was good to know the masters were here, that they would be watching and guiding the Turusch Fleet’s effort soon.

“Very soon, now,”
the Seed said, reading the thought.
“And victory will belong to us.”

“Kill!”
cried the Mind Above.

Chapter Nineteen

25 February 2405

CIC, TC/USNA CVS
America

Outer Reaches, Alphekka System

1112 hours, TFT

At a precisely calculated instant,
America
’s metaspace bubble collapsed and the star carrier dropped into normal space, excess velocity bleeding off in the intense pulse of photons characteristic of FTL deceleration. She’d emerged at the fringes of the Alphekka system, some fifty astronomical units from the two close-spaced suns.

The carrier was drifting above an immense, red wall of light.

Alphekka’s protoplanetary disk was enormous, a flattened ring of dust, gas, and debris with a sharp, inner edge thirty astronomical units from the star, trailing off to a fuzzy outer rim well over a hundred AUs out. Invisible to the naked eye, the disk glowed an eerie, sullen red at IR wavelengths;
America
’s AI was superimposing the infrared data on the optical, making it visible as a broad and somewhat grainy-looking ring. Such disks, Koenig remembered, had first been detected from Earth using IR telescopes. The dust grains picked up radiation from the central stars, then re-emitted it at long, infrared wavelengths.

In toward the double sun burning at the ring’s center, thousands of comets gleamed with an icy, blue-white light, their tails streaming away from the brilliant stellar pair. Many of the larger specks of debris along the inner stretch of the ring also showed comet tails, as volatile gasses were heated and blasted out-system by radiant sunlight.

Several planets glowed brightly under infrared, including a large one, perhaps three times the mass of Earth, circling at the sharp inner edge of the ring. Under magnification, its surface showed as a partially molten, ember-glowing sphere.

A planetary system in the making… .

The scene stretched across the CIC bulkheads and overhead, spectacularly and indescribably beautiful, held the personnel in
America
’s CIC spellbound for a moment. “My God in heaven,” one voice said against the silence.

“Duty stations, people!” Commander Craig snapped, all business. “There’ll be plenty of time for rubbernecking later!”

In the tactical tank, a dozen green icons showed those members of the battlegroup that had emerged within a few light seconds of
America
. One by one, farther and farther out, other Confederation ships began dropping into view.

Koenig continued studying the big overhead display.
America
appeared to be skimming above the surface of the disk, which was perhaps five astronomical units below. A number of glowing red knots were visible to the naked eye, protoplanets forming as debris and planetesimals clumped together.

One point of light was highlighted by a targeting reticule, however, and carried the identifying alphanumerics
AL–01
.

“America,”
Koenig said, addressing the ship’s AI. “What is target Al–01?”

“Unknown,” the ship replied in his head. “Sensory data so far suggests an artificial structure one hundred twelve kilometers across and massing at least two point eight times ten to the sixteen tons.”

“That’s gotta be a mistake,” Sinclair said, shaking his head. “No ship…”

“Enhance and magnify,” Koenig demanded.

An inset window opened up on the bulkhead display. The object remained fuzzy and quite grainy, at the very limits of optical resolution. Oblong in shape, it glowed with intense infrared heat, and appeared to be skimming just along the upper fringe of the main body of the ring. A readout in the window gave the estimated range: 12 AUs.

“What makes you think it’s artificial?” Koenig asked. To his eye, the object appeared to be an irregularly shaped planetesimal, the first stage in the creation of a planet.

“The object is radiating more heat than it would receive from the suns at that range,” the ship’s AI replied. “It is also the source of numerous radio transmissions of intelligent origin, as well as gravity wave signatures characteristic of paired artificial singularities used for quantum power generation.”

“It might be a Turusch base built on an asteroid,” Craig suggested.

“Or a converted asteroid vessel,” Sinclair added. “Like their Alpha- and Beta-class ships. Just… bigger.”

“
Much
bigger,” Koenig agreed. “It’s got to be a base of some kind, not a ship.”

“We are also detecting numerous point sources of RF transmissions,” the ship added, “in the immediate vicinity of the object. These transmissions are consistent with Turusch fighters, operating in large numbers.”

“
How
large?” Koenig asked.

“I have so far identified four hundred ninety-five discrete RF sources in close proximity to Al–01,” the ship’s AI said. “I am also picking up other clusters of small ships scattered about the system, including three separate concentrations of gravitic, IR, RF, and coherent EM radiation that are almost certainly large numbers of enemy warships. I estimate a total of more than five hundred capital ships, and perhaps one thousand fighters.”

“Distance to the nearest concentration.”

“Eight point two astronomical units.”

Koenig checked the time. The battlegroup had begun emerging from FTL at 1112 hours; the light announcing their arrival would reach those ships at something just over sixty-five minutes… call it 1217 hours.
America
had that long before the enemy became aware of their presence.

The sheer number of enemy ships facing them in the Alphekka system was daunting, as daunting as the size of that base ninety-six light minutes away. Koenig had been expecting some sort of supply depot in the Alphekkan system, and possibly a number of Turusch warships as well… but the capital ships alone outnumbered the entire Confederation fleet, and on a strictly fighter-to-fighter basis, the enemy outnumbered the Confederation fighters by more than six to one.

Koenig’s first thought was to order an immediate withdrawal. The Confederation battlegroup couldn’t face a fleet that large, not with any hope at all of survival.

But not all of the battlegroup’s ships had emerged yet from metaspace. Stragglers might take as long as another ten minutes to arrive, and they would be scattered all over a sphere as large as thirty light minutes across. It would take a half hour or more to contact them all and give them new orders.

Ships arriving late would die.

Was
there a chance?

In modern space combat, there is a blunt aphorism that dictates the shape of all fleet maneuvers: Speed is life. The battlegroup had to begin accelerating—it didn’t matter much in which direction—to build up the highest possible velocity. If they weren’t moving when the first flock of Toads reached them, they were in for a beating.

Essentially, two choices presented themselves. They could order the battlegroup to accelerate out-system, hoping to build up enough velocity to switch over to Alcubierre Drive before the full weight of the enemy fleets caught up with them… .

Or they could plunge into the system’s heart, toward that enigmatic monster object skimming above the Alphekkan protoplanetary disk, and seek to cause as much damage as possible.

If they turned outward, all but that one closest body of ships would be behind them, chasing them with higher accelerations than Confederation capital ships could manage. If they headed in-system, the situation became… more flexible.

“How many of our ships have checked in?”

“Twenty-eight so far, sir. Three are still missing…
Crucis
,
Diablo
. . . and
Remington
.”

Koenig thought about this. Two frigates and an AKE… the replenishment ship by far the most important of the three.

But he couldn’t hold the rest of the battlegroup for them.

“Make to all commands,” Koenig said. “Target Al–01 and go to maximum acceleration. CAG?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“We will be launching for CSP only.”

“All combat squadrons are ready for launch, Admiral.”

“You may commence launching the first three. We’ll hold on the rest until we need them.”
And we will
. . .

CSP—Combat Space Patrol, the modern analogue to flying CAP over the fleets of old-time oceanic navies—required that fighters fly in fairly close formation with the carrier and other vessels of the battlegroup, rather than accelerating to near-
c
for a long-range strike hours in advance of the capital ships. At five hundred gravities, the alien objective was just over ten hours away. If he ordered a long-range high-G fighter strike, the fighters would reach the objective in sixty-five minutes. He would keep that open as an option, but Koenig wasn’t going to exercise it until and unless he needed to. Fighters operating on their own for more than six hours before the rest of the CBG arrived faced annihilation.

He stared up at the overhead display, wondering what that bracketed point of light against the disk might be. Fortress? Warship? Asteroid base? Supply depot on an unimaginable scale?

The tactics he decided upon—and the chances of survival for the next few hours, both for the fighter wing and the battlegroup, depended upon the answer.

“CAG? I want a flyby of Al–01. Bring Commander Peak into this, will you?”

“Aye, sir.”

They needed to know what they were facing in there.

Drop Bay 2, TC/USNA CVS
America

Outer Reaches, Alphekka System

1114 hours, TFT

“Pilots. Man your fighters!”

Gray stepped down into the deck hatch, put his arms up high, and slid, the narrow boarding tube dropping him three meters into darkness. He dropped into the soft and narrow embrace of his fighter, feeling the acceleration couch mold itself around his legs and torso. His palm came down on a touch panel, and the cockpit lit up. Data flowed through his awareness, letting him know that the ship was powered up, checked green, and ready for launch. The fleet’s objective came up within a mental window.

“What the hell
is
that?” Lieutenant Canby asked.

“A baby planet,” Collins suggested.

“A big rock,” was Lieutenant Ben Donovan’s guess.

“Cut the chatter, people,” Commander Allyn said. “And listen up. The squadron is on indefinite hold.”

Several of the pilots groaned in chorus.
Indefinite hold
meant they wouldn’t be launching immediately, that they would be stuck inside the bowels of
America
until someone up in CIC decided to set them free. The wait wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. Starhawk cockpits, after all, were designed to accommodate pilots for missions lasting for many hours, even days. Gray’s jackies and the seat beneath him took care of his biological output needs, and a small food assembler provided him with meals and fresh water when he needed them. But it was boring, waiting for hours, possibly, before PriFly decided to dump him into the Void.

Gray and the other pilots of VFA–44 would be launching from the drop bays this time, rather than being fired out of
America
’s twin spinal rails. Located aft of the rotating hab modules, they connected directly with the hangar decks above them. When it came time to launch, Gray’s Starhawk would pivot ninety degrees, pointing out-and-down relative to the bay, the magnetic clamps would release, and the hab module’s rotation would drop him into space with a half G of acceleration—about five meters per second.

A speed of 5 mps was insignificant compared with the 167 mps velocity of fighters fired from
America
’s 200-meter spinal launch rails, and the vector was out from the carrier, rather than straightforward, toward a distant objective. Both velocities, however, were insignificant compared with near-light, a speed the fighters could approach after just ten minutes of acceleration at fifty thousand gravities. The magnetic launch tubes were holdovers from an earlier day, when space fighters had been limited to eight to ten Gs because their acceleration was felt by their pilots. Periodically, critics of the Navy’s star carrier program wondered—often vociferously—why carriers had the launch tubes at all… or why they weren’t converted into kinetic-kill cannon like those carried by the
Kinkaid
and other railgun cruisers.

Of course, so far as the hotshots in the squadron were concerned, there was simply no contest. Where was the coolness factor… getting dumped from a rotating hab like garbage, or being fired off the carrier’s bow at seven Gs? A fighter pilot had his or her
image
to consider, after all.

Gray tried to approach the issue as a professional. It didn’t matter how you launched, so long as you had the delta-V to engage the enemy.