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“We will also need some sort of operational nexus close to the targets,” Koenig pointed out. “The Godstream requires a certainamount of infrastructure to support us.”

“We should at least be able to observe the engagement out there,” Konstantin said, “but I am now in communication with theYorktown. Captain Taggart will be deploying her vessel within a few moments, and that carrier should provide us with the necessary operational infrastructure.”

“Let’s go then,” Koenig—together with the minds of a billion others—replied. “What are we waiting for?”

USNA CVS America

Flag Bridge

Sol System

1705 hours, FST

America had accelerated to nearly 0.5 c and her sensors had detected the wavefront of four oncoming masses pushing light speed to within one percent. That velocity,Gray knew, made the enemy vulnerable, and he intended to exploit that vulnerability to the limit.

“Weapons,” he said. “Load the launchers with AMSO rounds.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Lieutenant Janice "Wild" West chuckled. “‘Sandy’ Gray rides again!”

He ignored the jibe. Or maybe he reveled in it, just a bit. But he didn’t let that show.

“Commander Mackey . . . pass the word to the fighters. Be sure they begin their assault with AMSO rounds.”

“They’ve been briefed, Admiral.”

This tactic had worked well against enemy ships like destroyers and carriers, but he’d never tried it against something thesize of a flying mountain. It would be a physics experiment on an unprecedented scale.

He was quite interested in exactly what would happen.

VFA-96, Black Demons

Deep Space

1708 hours, EST

Lieutenant Commander Gregory’s Starblade was moving at nine-tenths c toward an enemy target he couldn’t see. His fighter’s AI projected the target location on his screens and in his mind; in fact, it was rare in space combat that you actually got to see your opponent with your physical eyes.

Still, it felt eerie plunging into a star-crowded sky, knowing that four flying mountains were somewhere up there in the night . . .and that he would be on them so quickly that if he passed them, they would be gone in less than the blink of an eye.

“All squadrons, this is America CIC,” a voice crackled in his head, distorted by the frequency shift of his velocity. “First pass will be AMSO rounds. Unloadeverything you’ve got.”

“Yes, Mother,” Gregory replied. “We’ve got this.”

It would be something like thirty minutes before his reply was picked up on board America, but he did wonder if he’d be dinged for that crack when he trapped on board the carrier later. He doubted it. They tendedto allow for the stress the pilots were under.

And of course, there was a fair chance he wouldn’t make it back in the first place.

His fighter AI was giving him data on his vector, and the shifting launch windows open to him. The best one was coming upin another fifty seconds, targeting the largest of the enemy planetoid ships.

There was a long pause. “Be sure to hit your brakes, Demons,” CIC announced, and it was almost as though they were answeringhim. “Don’t fly into the fireball.”

Sheesh, he thought. Micromanaging bastards! But he kept the thought to himself this time.

He shifted to the squadron command frequency. “Okay, chicks. You heard the man, and you all know the routine. Launch, thenbrake hard and break off.”

One by one, the Starblades in his squadron acknowledged.

“Setting up the shot. Locked in . . . and four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . and launch!”

Four AMSO rounds dropped from his Starblade’s weapons bay and accelerated, adding their increasing velocity to the half-c velocity of the fighter. The other fighters launched at the same instant, sending a barrage of AMSO missiles hurtling toward the enemy. Seconds later, simultaneously, they detonated, releasing a large and quickly expanding cloud of sand-grain-sized particles, still traveling on the same heading and at a speed of nearly 0.6 c.

The Nungiirtok armada was moving at nine-tenths the speed of light when it plowed into the sand clouds at relativistic velocities.The combined velocities could not, of course, exceed the speed of light, but they did release energy . . .

A very, very great deal of it.

Nungiirtok Fleet

Sol System

1710 hours, FST

Ashtongtok Tah staggered as though it had struck a far-too-solid wall, and 4236 Xavix slammed against his restraints despite the ship’sinertial dampers. Dazed and in considerable pain, he tried to understand what was happening. The lights in the control centerhad failed and the compartment was in absolute darkness, but he could hear the shrill screams and warbles of injured Iad andTok. He smelled blood—a lot of it—and could taste his own. He tried to shout for his first officer, but the words were a harshcroak, drowning in his own body fluids. He fumbled with the harness but had difficulty finding the release.

Then the emergency lighting came up, and Xavix saw the smashed wreckage of Ashtongtok Tah’s control center. The mutilated body of a Tok drifted past, still twitching with the last shreds of life. Pieces of a wreckedcontrol console bumped against his seat. They were, he saw, in zero-G.

The human weapon, whatever it was, had crippled his vessel.

Somehow, he cleared his speech orifice and began snapping off orders. What was the extent of the damage? Were they still moving?And perhaps most important of all:

Where was the enemy?

“We are blind, Lord,” the Iad at the sensor panels reported. “Whatever hit us, it burned off the forward surface of the ship.”

“Impossible!”

“I can’t explain it, Lord, other than to suggest that we were hit by a kinetic weapon at relativistic speeds. We may havelost a tenth of the planetoid’s mass.”

A tenth! How was that possible? Ashtongtok Tah used focused gravitics to provide shielding from incoming warheads and projectiles. Whatever it was that had savaged the ship,it had been powerful enough to burn through even the warp of space around it.

“Get our sensors back on-line!” Xavix ordered. “The human fighters will be here soon!”

But he seriously doubted that they were going to be able to do a thing about it.

Koenig

The Godstream

1715 hours, FST

Surfing the gravitational wave ahead of the accelerating Yorktown, Koenig and the gestalt consciousness were experiencing space and time in an utterly strange and new way. Using Yorktown’s computer network as a kind of