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And while Gregory relished the idea of fighting the Russians, he was aware that the defending forces might have lost the battlebefore it had even properly begun.

Chapter Eight

12 April, 2429

VFA-96, Black Demons

Omega Centauri TRGA

1510 hours, FST

Gregory watched the Russian destroyers drifting in a broad and steadily expanding arc near the TRGA as they slowly orientedthemselves, turning to face the distant America. Nuclear flashes scattered across the battlespace ahead showed where the Headhunters were already hammering at the Russianescorts. Gregory tagged one of the destroyers and flashed the data to the other members of his squadron. “Designating targetAlfa-One!” he called. “Everybody gang on him. Approach velocity one kps. Kraits armed.”

By having all ten fighters in the Black Demons attack the same target, they increased the chances that something would slippast the enemy’s close-in defensive perimeter. With an approach speed of one kilometer per second, the human pilots couldmake broad judgment calls—and change targets at the last moment if necessary—but would still have to rely on their AIs forthe final instant of approach and launch.

The Russian destroyers were closer now, each bullet-capped, long and slender, a two-hundred-meter needle with a blunt tip. Moment by moment, the targeted ship loomed larger across the sky ahead. The range was still well over 100 kilometers, but the optics in Gregory’s fighter made the target look huge, and very close.

Which, of course, it was, given the velocity of his fighter.

“Fox One!” Gregory yelled over the squadron link.

“Fox One!”

“Fox One!”

The other Black Demons added their voices to the chorus as their missiles dropped from their Starblades, then acceleratedtoward the looming target. Volleys of laser and plasma beam fire from three of the destroyers stabbed and snapped at the oncomingfighters. Lieutenant Hall’s Starblade took a direct hit and flared into a fireball of hot plasma. Lieutenant Randle’s Starbladeflared and crumpled an instant later.

Gregory held his course, daring the Russian weapons crews to claw him down. The other fighters peeled off, giving themselves sufficient lateral vectors toclear the enemy target, but Gregory continued arrowing through the wall of defensive fire. “Fox One!”

His second Krait missile slipped smoothly through the Russian point defense and detonated just aft of the destroyer’s shieldcap, a dazzling flare of incandescence that swiftly cooled, revealing drifting debris and the slow spinning axis of the shiptrailing a tangle of wreckage where the shield cap had been mounted. The shield cap had been blasted free and was now spinningin the midst of a glittering, expanding spiral galaxy of frozen droplets of water.

Gregory’s Starblade hurtled through the debris field.

Ice and small metal fragments pinged and cracked across his hull, but the fighter’s nanomatrix absorbed the myriad impacts.Beyond the debris cloud, Gregory saw the oncoming maw of the slowly tumbling TRGA. And rising from the cylinder’s enormousopening . . .

“All ships! All ships!” he called over the squadron channel. “Russian carrier emerging from the triggah!” In another minute they would hear that warning back aboard the America. For right here and now, the Black Demons and the Headhunters might be able to do some real damage.

He triggered a salvo of nuke-tipped Kraits, then swung around his grav projection, braking savagely. For a moment, he thoughthe might crash into the giant ship in front of him, but his AI squeezed an extra few Gs of lateral thrust and he sailed acrossthe carrier’s hull, scant meters from the blurred expanse of power modules, sponsons, and point defense turrets racing by.For just a moment, he imagined himself plunging into the Russian carrier . . .

But . . . no. In another instant, he was past the Moskva and decelerating for another pass. What had happened to his missiles?

Intercepted. Clawed from the sky by the Russian point defense system.

“Urgent message from the America,” his AI whispered in his mind. “All squadrons are to break off the attack and regroup with our carrier.”

Behind his faceplate, Gregory scowled. Shit!

Still, those few moments of heart-pounding combat seemed to have dissipated his blood-rage. He lined up for another shot,then loosed his last two Kraits at the now-receding Moskva.

“Fox One!”

One of his missiles was intercepted by a Russian pee-beep, but the second detonated just above the hull, a brilliant flashthat left Gregory dazzled. As his vision returned, he could see extensive damage across the carrier’s portside. His warheadhadn’t actually impacted the target, and the Russian hull shields had diverted most of the hard stuff.

But the Russian was hurt.

And Gregory was out of shipkillers.

So tempting . . .

“All Demons! Break off! Rendezvous back at the America.”

Gregory was shaking as he piloted his Starblade back to the carrier.

Flag Bridge

CIS CV Moskva

Penrose TRGA

1521 hours, GMT

“Your information appears to have been accurate, Doctor,” Oreshkin said. “The America battlegroup is, indeed, at Omega Centauri. I wonder why?”

Fedorov shrugged. “The prisoner believed they were hunting for signs of the Consciousness.”

“Are there such signs?”

“None that we’ve been able to detect, sir.”

“First Officer!”

“Sir!” Kulinin replied.

“We will close to attack. Long-range missiles and beams, if you please. Commander Nikolayev!”

“Yes, sir!” his air group commander replied over the com link.

“Launch fighters.”

“Yes, sir!”

They had America pinned against the Rosette of black holes, positioned perfectly for attack.

USNA CVS America

Flag Bridge

Omega Cluster

1525 hours, FST

Gray considered his options. He didn’t have a hell of a lot of them.

Five surviving Russian destroyers were steadily approaching, and the carrier beyond was loosing clouds of fighters, even as America began recovering her own fighter groups. The America battlegroup was seriously outnumbered and badly outgunned. Even if somehow they were able to beat them off, America and her two escorts might well be crippled, her fighter squadrons shot to pieces, and—if the Acadia was destroyed in the fight—they would be unable to replenish their consumables.

Discretion was decidedly the better part of valor in this confrontation. The question was where to run. He’d told Dr. Conyersthat they could make the run all the way to Earth under Alcubierre Drive in three point eight years, but they would have tostop for resupply every month or so. If the Russian squadron pursued them the same way, then sooner or later they would catchup with