LITMIR.BIZ

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of Confederation vessels. Moments before, it had lashed out at seven of the closest vessels and destroyed them, including the destroyers Kaufman and Symmons, and the frigate Milton, all members of CBG–18. Symmons had gotten off a spread of Mambas, however, and those were slowly closing on the enemy, which had just, unaccountably, divided into twelve smaller vessels.

      The enemy was now about one light minute distant, and moving so quickly—close to sixty thousand kilometers per second—that it was likely that, by now, those ships had already either gone into metaspace or been struck by Symmons’ salvo.

      The intruder’s behavior was puzzling, to say the least. H’rulka military technology was, at a guess, a century or two ahead of Earth-human mil-tech. At the Battle of 9 Ceti twelve years ago, a single H’rulka warship had wiped out a small battlefleet of fourteen Confederation vessels, including the light Star Carrier Illustrious. Their primary ship weapon appeared to be a means of creating small gravitational singularities, artificial black holes launched at high velocity and with unerring precision, something that was completely beyond current human technology. Their drive systems were better, too; their huge ships could accelerate faster than any human warship, as fast or faster than many human missiles, and their equivalent of Alcubierre Drive allowed them to drop out of metaspace much deeper within a target star system than could human vessels.

      With those advantages, why had the intruder gotten as close to Earth as Earth’s moon, less than two light seconds away … and then turned tail and run? The obvious answer—that they’d decided to return valuable data to their home base or fleet rather than risk a general engagement—was only a small part of the story. They could have wiped the Confederation fleet out of the sky, wrecked Earth’s space elevators, and left the planet almost completely helpless.

      And that was just one ship.

      Or, arguably, twelve. Koenig wasn’t yet sure what to make of that twelve-in-one surprise trick.

      The tugs were drawing back from America’s flank. In another minute, the ship scene outside began to swing counter-clockwise as the carrier pivoted … and then the dockyard slid past and fell away astern. America was under way at last.

      “Admiral?” Captain Wizewski called over the CIC net. “Permission to begin launching fighters.”

      Koenig checked the readout on squadron flight status. The last of VQ–7’s Shadowstars had dropped from their hab module launch bay moments before America had been nudged clear of the dock. And VFA–49 was on Ready Five, ready for launch in five minutes.

      “Let’s hold that, CAG,” Koenig decided. “Give the Peaks some space to run their metrics. I want to know if that intruder is alone, or if there are lurkers.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.”

      Starships, even monsters like the fleeing H’rulka craft, were insignificantly tiny against the backdrop of an entire star system. Even in the Sol System, heavily traveled and scattered with bases, outposts, and comm relays, at ranges of more than a few kilometers the largest ships were essentially invisible if they weren’t powered up and under way. Those H’rulka vessels were sharply visible at a range of one light minute, now, because their drive singularities were creating the three-dimensional equivalents of wakes as they plowed through empty space.

      If they weren’t moving, if their power plants were off and their life support was drawing battery power only, if their IR emissions were damped, if they weren’t being directly painted by radar or lidar, no one would know they were there. Koenig was concerned that the chase now being played out between the orbits of Earth and Mars was a diversion, a show arranged to convince the Confederation fleet that the threat was gone, perhaps even to draw defending ships away from Earth herself.

      America’s reconnaissance squadron had especially sensitive instrumentation that would detect all but the most stealthy of stay-behind lurkers.

      And the squadron now ready for launch off America’s forward rails was VF–41, the Star Tigers, a squadron still flying the older SG–55 War Eagles. They didn’t have anything close to the acceleration necessary to catch the receding H’rulka ships, and their drive singularities would screw the local metric of space, making it impossible for the Sneaky Peaks to pick up powered-down lurkers.

      If there wasn’t an immediate need to get America’s complement of fighters off her decks, it would be better to let the recon squadron do what they did best … scouting ahead, looking, listening, sensing with every electronic trick at their disposal for the presence of hidden enemy craft.

      “Captain Buchanan?” Koenig said.

      “Yes, Admiral?”

      “I want—”

      A close-spaced trio of nuclear fireballs pulsed against the darkness ahead.

      “Direct hit on one of the enemy ships!” Commander Sinclair called. In the next instant, a fourth fireball appeared, expanding, slowly fading from its initial glare of incandescence.

      “Ten of the H’rulka craft have just gone FTL,” Commander Katryn Craig, the CIC’s operations officer, reported. “Two appear to have lost their drives.”

      Several people in the CIC cheered.

      “Belay that,” Koenig snapped. “We don’t have them yet! CAG, put the Star Tigers over there. I want a closer look at those ships.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.”

      Both H’rulka vessels were continuing to travel out-system on divergent paths with the same velocity they’d had when their drives were cut—about sixty thousand kilometers per second.

      “Commander Craig?”

      “Sir.”

      “We need a VBSS team over there. What assets do we have in the area?”

      “SBS–21 is at SupraQuito, Admiral. And the Tarawa is there too.”

      “Let’s give this one to the SEALS. Patch a call through.”

      “Aye, sir.”

      “Captain Buchanan.”

      “Sir.”

      “Take us closer to those disabled ships. We’re going to put some fighters in that area.”

      “Yes, Admiral.”

      America swung slowly to one side, accelerating. The cluster of habs and facilities at Synchorbit fell rapidly astern, followed a moment later by Earth’s moon.

      Ahead, the four nuclear fireballs from Symmons’ barrage continued to expand and fade.

       ONI Special Research Division

       Crisium, Luna

       1612 hours, TFT

      “We are trying,” Dr. Wilkerson said slowly, “to understand you.”

      He heard the rasping buzz of the Turusch language as the AI translated his words and put them out through the NTE robot.

      From his point of view, he was hovering above the deck in one of the rooms off to the side of the main Turusch colony cavern, occupying a white sphere hanging from the ceiling. In front of him was the pair of alien Turusch brought back from Eta Boötis two months before—the two known jointly as Deepest Delver of the Fourth Hierarchy. Each looked like an immense terrestrial slug, more or less, but with the forward quarter of the body covered by a jointed carapace, and the belly covered by leaf-shaped, overlapping scales. Slender tentacles, always in whiplash motion, sprouted from seemingly random parts of the unarmored bodies.

      The two, Wilkerson knew, in some way not yet fully understood by human xenosophontologists, were in fact one. They seemed to think of themselves as a single individual—as Deepest Delver. Two separate brains—and yet neuropattern scans had shown that their brains appeared to fall into synch with each other when they spoke, using a buzzing sound generated

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