Centre of Gravity. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ said, as around him the other fighters drifted up from the ground, levitating a few meters into the night sky. Only two, Dragonfires Five and Eleven, remained lifeless on the tarmac.

      Perhaps, Gray thought, he should say something to the skipper. But one societal quirk of the Navy was identical to one found in the squatters living in the Manhat Ruins. You didn’t carry tales about others, even if you hated them. Being marked as an informer, a tattler, could be as socially crippling as being a Prim.

      So long as withholding the information didn’t compromise the squadron or a mission, he would keep what he knew about Kirkpatrick to himself.

      “Situational update is coming on-line,” Allyn told them.

      Gray saw the data coming through … a ship of alien design, almost certainly one belonging to a Sh’daar subject race, was approaching cis-lunar space. He looked at the stats and gave a low whistle. The thing was huge.

      “VFA–44,” a voice came in over the com link, “this is New York Met ATC. You are cleared for emergency launch, vector one-zero-eight plus four-one degrees at ten gravities, over.”

      “New York Met ATC,” Allyn replied. “We copy clear for emergency launch, vector one-zero-eight plus four-one degrees at ten gravities. Thank you.”

      “Roger and Godspeed, VFA–44.”

      “Stand by to boost, close formation,” Allyn said. “Nav on auto.”

      Together, the ten fighters swung their needle prows up to a forty-one-degree angle off the tarmac, then swung to face the southern horizon. Gray could see the string of faint stars marking the SupraQuito strand up in synchorbit almost directly ahead.

      “Ten gravities, in four,” Allyn continued, “… three … two … one … boost!”

      As one, the ten fighters hurtled skyward at one thousand meters per second per second. Gray had a brief, blurred impression of the massed lights of the eudaimonium falling away below and behind as the fighters shrieked through fast-thinning atmosphere. He thought of Angela … and decided it was good knowing she was alive.

      He wondered if he would ever see her again … wondered if he wanted to.

      The Starhawks had been in their atmospheric configuration for their flight in over the ocean earlier that evening, their manta-wings stretched wide to assist with banks, turns, and lift. There was no need for such finesse on the way up, however. To reach space they required only raw, savage power and high Gs. The needle configuration gave the greatest streamlining and, as the fighters climbed above the forty-thousand-meter line, they were able to feed more and more power to the flickering singularities off their bows, increasing their accelerations to just over five hundred Gs, increasing their velocities by half a million meters per second per second.

      As they rose above the tenuous, uppermost wisps of Earth’s atmosphere and the stars became colder, harder, and more brilliant, flight control transferred from New York Metropolitan to SupraQuito. At the halfway point, eighteen thousand kilometers out and just two minutes later, they switched their singularities around to aft and began slowing.

      “So why are we going back to the barn, Skipper?” Lieutenant Terrance Jacosta asked. “This download says the enemy is just half a million kilometers out!”

      “Because we’re flying just a little light on snakes right now, numb-nuts,” Allyn replied. “Get your head out of party mode and get with the program!”

      “Oh, yeah. Right.”

      They’d not needed missile or impactor round load-outs for a fly-by above a friendly city, so the only weapons capability the squadron had at the moment were their StellarDyne Blue Lightning PBP–2 particle beam projectors, since those weapons pulled charged particles directly from the zero-point field. The weapons of choice for long-range work, however, were VG–10 Krait smart missiles. Starhawks generally carried a warload of thirty-two Kraits, or snakes, plus fifty thousand rounds apiece for their kinetic-kill Gatling cannons.

      Gray looked at the schematic of the intruder. Sending a squadron up against that thing with nothing but beam weapons would be suicide the easy way. At least with Kraits, usually carried in load-outs with variable-yield warheads of five to fifteen kilotons, you could stand off at long range and pound the bastard until something gave. With the PBP, you had to be close, and you had to be surgically precise. With something that big, you might get better results giving the alien the finger.

      In close formation, then, the ten fighters neared the SupraQuito dock facility. Gray could see America in her berth, connected to the main base structure by a transit tube and a web-work of mooring lines. Still slowing, now, to a few tens of meters per second, they passed the carrier and the dock beneath their keels—though concepts such as up and down, of course, had no meaning in microgravity. Clearing the structure by seven hundred meters, they continued decelerating, balancing their drive singularities to bring them to a dead halt relative to the America, just half a kilometer off her stern.

      “VFA–44,” a voice said, “you are cleared for trap in Landing Bay Two.”

      “Dragon One,” Allyn’s voice replied. “Copy. Okay, people. Switch to AI approach. Land by reverse numbers.”

      Cutting their drives and flipping end-for-end, they opened aft venturis and fired their plasma-maneuvering thrusters, using jets of super-heated water as reaction mass. Unlike uniform gravitational acceleration, the thrusters had a kick. Gray was plastered against the embrace of his seat at three Gs as he began gaining speed once more, this time directly toward the aft end of the America.

      In normal space operations, they would be using their gravitic drives and coming in from much farther out, at much higher speeds. Trapping on board a carrier snugged up to the dock was child’s play by comparison, or it would have been if a missed cue or a lapse in concentration hadn’t risked punching through the gossamer strands and struts of the synchorbital base.

      The hab modules on board the carrier were turning, providing spin gravity for the crew. Each approach had to be precisely on the money; Dragonfire Twelve—Lieutenant Jacosta—made the first approach, accelerating slightly as he slid into the deep shadow beneath the carrier’s belly, then at the last moment fired his lateral thrusters to give him a side vector of seven meters per second, matching the movement of the landing bay as it swung in ahead and from the right. Dragonfire Eleven—Kirkpatrick—was missing from the formation. Tucker was next, in Dragon Ten.

      The landing bay was rotating at 2.11 turns per minute, so every twenty-eight seconds, the opening swung around once more and another incoming fighter was there to meet it.

      And now it was Gray’s turn. Traveling at one hundred meters per second, he passed into the shadow beneath the carrier, watching the massive blisters, domes, and sponsons housing the ship’s quantum taps and drive projectors smoothly passing seemingly just above his head. It took almost ten seconds for him to traverse the length of America’s spine. His AI used his thrusters to adjust his speed with superhuman precision, dropping into the sweet-spot moving pocket and nudging him to port for that critical side-vector of seven meters per second. For an instant, the gaping maw of the moving docking bay appeared to freeze motionless as the fighter swept in across the line of deck acquisition lights. At the last moment, he entered the tangleweb field that slowed his forward momentum sharply, bringing him to a halt.

      Magnetic grapples clamped hold of his ship and rapidly moved it forward, clearing the docking bay for the next incoming fighter, just under СКАЧАТЬ