Deep Time. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ four thousand kilometers ahead and behind, and two more of America’s squadrons were covering the rest of the orbit. Adjustments were made from orbit to orbit so that four strike fighters were always passing over Verdun every ten minutes or so.

      “So how’s the fight going down there anyway, Skipper?” That was Lieutenant Enrique Martinez, one of the squadron’s newbies fresh up from Oceana.

      “According to plan,” Mackey replied. “The first LCs hit the fortress walls a few minutes ago. The big Choctaws are touching down now.”

      “But when will we know?”

      “When someone decides to tell us, Lieutenant. And until then, stay sharp and stay connected. The rebels aren’t going to take this lying down.”

      The rebels. It sounded strange, the way Mackey used the term. Confusing, even. Until recently, the USNA had been the rebels, fighting for independence from the Earth Confederation. But since the Confederation government had fallen to the Starlighters, rebels now meant the holdouts in the original government—Korosi’s people.

      “I’m not getting anyone down there but ’Pactors,” Connor said, reading her ship’s long-range scan. Six fighters from VFA-31, the Impactors, had deployed into the atmosphere over an hour ago, taking out the big planetary defense turrets mounted on the fort’s upper surfaces with high-velocity KK projectiles accelerated in from space. The strike had been the second phase of Operation Fallen Star, necessary to allow the transports to get in without being vaporized.

      The first phase had been initiated by the Virtual Combat Center in Colorado Springs, an all-out electronic assault by former pilots linked in through the Confederation’s computer nets, opening backdoor channels and covert access feeds either discovered or, in many cases, created by the super-AI Konstantin from its base on the far side of Earth’s moon.

      “Hang on a sec,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Chris Dobbs said. Another newbie, he’d been in the squadron less than seventy-two hours. “I’ve got multiple launches … dead ahead. Range, twenty-six hundred kilometers!”

      Damn, the kid was right. The range put the launch site somewhere in central or southern Turkey, close to the Mediterranean … and Turkey was still part of the Confederation. Those fighters might well be rebels—pro-Korosi forces. They’d certainly timed their launch nicely … moments after the lead element of the Black Demons had passed overhead in their orbit.

      Connor let the data flood through her. How many spacecraft … and what kind? Were they after the lead element, coming up on them from behind? Or were they going counter-orbit and closing with her?

      “They’re firing!” Mackey warned.

      Eight fighters—Confederation Todtadlers—and they were closing with Connor and her fellows at a very high acceleration. They’d just loosed a sand cloud, whose pellets were now hurtling toward the four fighters like the blast from an old-fashioned shotgun.

      And in seconds, the battle was joined.

       Emergency Presidential Command Post

       Toronto

       United States of North America

       0016 hours, EST

      Koenig thoughtclicked an in-head icon and emerged inside his own body, gasping for air, stretched out on a recliner in his own office in Toronto. Marcus Whitney, his chief of staff and senior aide, was leaning over him with a worried look on his face. “Mr. President?”

      “I’m okay, Marcus.”

      “Your vitals took a real jump just now.”

      “Nothing like the vitals on Lieutenant Widner.”

      As an admiral in command of a carrier battlegroup twenty years before, Koenig had had a lot of trouble giving the orders that sent young men and women to their deaths.

      It wasn’t any easier now.

      “I’m going back in,” Koenig said. “Link me in with … let’s see …” He ran through a mental list of the Marines in Alfa Platoon, the ones still on their feet. “Staff Sergeant Gerald Swayze.” He was Widner’s senior NCO, and would be commanding the platoon now.

      “Sir,” Whitney said, “it’s not like you can affect the outcome of the fight …” He sounded worried. “Damn it, you’re flirting with VRSD.”

      The acronym was pronounced “ver-sid,” and stood for virtual reality stress disorder. What it really stood for was a whole spectrum of neurological injuries, addictions, and pathologies, including—most important—perceptual neural shock, or PNS. Though not common, some had suffered heart attacks, strokes, or slipped into comas when they “died,” even though their physical bodies were perfectly safe and healthy.

      Koenig knew there was a risk, but he’d been in combat before, and experience tended to reduce the psychological impact of even the most traumatic experiences. Too, there were electronic safeguards designed to cut him from the circuit if monitors showed that his body back in the Emergency Presidential Command Post was reacting too strongly.

      “I don’t think so,” Koenig told Whitney. He raised his voice slightly. “Health monitor? What say you?”

      “Your heart rate peaked at one twenty-six,” the voice of the medical AI in the presidential complex told them. “Respiration peaked at thirty-five. Both are well within tolerable limits.”

      “See, Marcus? I’m fine.”

      “I still don’t like it, Mr. President. You could just let your intelligence people brief you after the fact, like a normal president.”

      “Well, damn. Where’s the fun in that? I don’t think that—”

      He stopped in mid-sentence. An alert was coming through from the suite of artificial intelligences overseeing the entire battle. It was data relayed from the star carrier America or, more specifically, from one of her squadrons. Eight Confed fighters had just boosted at high velocity from central Turkey and launched an attack on four of America’s fighters in low Earth orbit. The AI running the intelligence side of the operation was tagging the attackers as Korosi rebels.

      Interesting. There was no way eight Todtadler fighters could seriously challenge three USNA strike fighter squadrons for space superiority, especially if they had to claw their way up out of Earth’s gravity well. Even if they got through the orbiting fighters, there were three USNA destroyers and four frigates farther out, providing in-depth support. Earth was bottled up tight right now against any attempt to break away.

       What the hell were they trying to accomplish?

      “Take them out,” Koenig ordered. “And keep me informed.”

      A new icon had appeared within Koenig’s in-head a moment before, labeled with Staff Sergeant Swayze’s name. He thoughtclicked it … and opened his eyes, once again, in the shrieking, noisy hell of combat.

       Chapter Two СКАЧАТЬ