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blue star was . . . here, a shrunken remnant spitting high-energyparticles from its two polar jets.

Gregory wondered how much longer the fighters would be able to hang around out here, outside the embrace of America’s protective shielding. Their prelaunch briefing had said they would remain at station-keeping for one hour before trappingand being replaced by another squadron. It had only been a few minutes since launch now, and his fighter was warning him ofdangerously elevated levels of radiation.

“CIC to all fighters! Here they come!”

Picket drones adrift in the maw of the Rosette two light-minutes ahead had spotted the Russians coming through—forty-eightfighters, followed by five destroyers arrayed as a broad pentagon, and finally, by the monstrous bulk of the Moskva. The picket drones relayed the images to America, where they arrived in the Combat Information Center two minutes after they’d been transmitted.

Gregory watched Moskva moving clear of the twisted space within the Rosette. He saw damage—the result of his last Krait fired at the Russian backin Omega Centauri—and felt a small thrill of excitement surge up his spine. He’d gotten the bastard! He’d gotten him good!

“Black Demons, CIC! You may commence your run!”

“Okay, boys and girls,” Gregory said, his heart pounding. “Let’s get them!”

In a sense, the twelve fighters of VFA-96 were being held in place by their grav drives like the shot of an immense catapult.By cutting their drives, they began falling toward Straggler Alfa, accelerating rapidly in its intense gravitational field.Tightly knotted gravitational singularities winked on just ahead of each fighter, dragging it forward as the singularity flickeredin and out of existence at thousands of times per second, accelerations building rapidly as the America began dwindling astern.

Accelerating, then, their gravitic drives boosted their velocity even more; moments later, they flashed past the Stragglerat a significant fraction of the speed of light, their courses meticulously guided by their onboard AIs. Space was bent bythe nearby black hole; their AIs used that warp in spacetime to adjust precisely the course of the Starblades, aiming themstraight at the gathering Russian fleet.

They passed the Straggler moving far too swiftly for Gregory to even glimpse the thing, so great was his speed. A flare ofbrilliant light from the accretion disk, lasting an instant, and then he was past and hurtling toward the emerging Russiansquadron.

Under his AI’s guidance, his Starblade began to decelerate, bleeding off the incredible speed generated by slingshotting pasta 200-kilometer black hole.

The brass, Gregory decided, had really scoped this one out. By remaining behind the Straggler, they’d at least delayed themoment when the Russians would pick them up. By using the Straggler’s intense gravitational field for a slingshot effect,they picked up a lot of free energy, and that translated as speed.

They were on the Russians before they even knew the Americans were there.

Each Starblade carried two Kraits, but their primary armament for this pass were bundles of AS-78 AMSO. A cloud of sand, moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, did astonishing damage to enemy fighters, to the most massive capital ships, and even to entire planetary hemispheres.

He let his AI select a destroyer as his first target, and he gave the warning that meant an AMSO round had been loosed. “Fox Two!”

Gregory continued to decelerate as his AMSO rounds flashed toward the enemy.

And battle was joined . . .

 

Strike Force Reaper

Marine Battalion 3/25

N’gai Cluster

1612 hours, FST

Lieutenant Colonel McDevitt leaned over the backrest of the pilot’s seat, studying the main screen. Images relayed from battlespacedrones were showing the play of battle just ten light-seconds away: flashes and silent flares bright as lightning as the combatantsquadrons merged.

“That looks like our cue,” he told the pilot. “Goose it.”

“Aye, aye, Colonel. Goosing it . . .”

The Headquarters Company of the Three-Deuce-Five was crowded into a VBSS-Mk. 87 Lamprey, a recent addition to the USNA MarineCorps’ arsenal. The VBSS craft—the acronym stood for Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure—was an ugly, snub-nosed spacecraftthat could carry a company of 120 Marines, fully suited and armed, crammed into its troop bay like heavily armored sardines.Normally, McDevitt would have stayed behind in a CIC command center, overseeing the op from there, but this time around hewould not be relegated to running things from the safety of the rear.

For one thing, in space combat there was no “safety in the rear.”

So McDevitt floated inside the crowded flight deck of the transport pod, watching the action unfold.

“They see us yet?” he asked the pilot.

“Not sure, Colonel. We’re in stealth mode, but sooner or later they’ll tag us. We just need to hope to God that happens laterrather than sooner.”

Accelerating, the Marine troop pod fell toward the battle now unfolding ahead.

 

VFA-96, Black Demons

N’gai Cluster

1614 hours, FST

“Fox Two!”

“Fox Two!”

Space was fast becoming filled now with drifting clouds of sand. The Russians had fired their own AMSO rounds, volley uponvolley of them, attempting to scrape the incoming fighters out of the sky and to partially block the American sandcaster volleys.Where sand clouds met at high velocity, searing flashes of heat and light and X-rays smeared across space. One of the Russiandestroyers had taken a full load of sand amidships at something approaching 0.5 c, and the impact had scoured hull metal and surface matrix from the ship, revealing a ravaged internal structure glowing white-hotfrom the friction. The American fighters were past the remaining destroyers now and closing on the Moskva, the Russian carrier looming huge at point-blank range.

Too close for AMSO rounds now. The target was so close the missiles wouldn’t have time to accelerate to a useful velocity.Gregory switched to guns, engaging his Starblade’s Gatling RFK-90 KK cannon and loosing a stream of magnetic-ceramic-jacketedslugs at a cyclic rate of twelve per second. Each round, with a depleted uranium core massing half a kilo and traveling at175 meters per second, carried a savage kinetic-kill punch that rivaled that of a small tactical nuke, powerful enough toshred hull metal and defensive shielding.

He was tempted to target the damaged expanse of the enemy carrier’s flank—he wanted to see that monster die—but the squadron’s orders were to focus on the enemy’s point-defense weapons.

It