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anchor, they found that they were able to project themselves far out ahead of the carrier.At the same time, though, they experienced an oddly disturbing duality of being. At one and the same time, they were awareof being projected out ahead of the carrier in an arrow-straight beam and of being smeared out across space on the surfaceof an immense and ever-expanding sphere with the Yorktown at its center.

Like a photon, at once particle and wave, Koenig was both, and the duality was strange enough that he was having trouble integrating the sensations. After a time he gave up and simply experienced the heady feeling of the headlong plunge through the night.

Four targets—massive and fast—resolved themselves in the distance. The Nungiirtok planetoids were headed away from the gestaltat very nearly the speed of light. The moving consciousness, pure energy, was moving at the speed of light, and so was very slowly closing on the target. They were still a full astronomical unit—just over eightlight-minutes—from the Nungiirtok ships. Minutes passed . . . and more minutes . . . and Koenig could see that they were closingthe range, but so slowly that the change was very nearly imperceptible.

He was aware now of other targets, much smaller masses, points of energy, in the distance beyond. Fighters, he thought. Fighters off the America.

And then the night erupted in light.

Chapter Twenty-one

27 April, 2429

Koenig

The Godstream

1718 hours, FST

For a long moment, the light ahead outshone that of the distant sun far astern, a white radiance that brightened to an unbearableintensity, then gradually faded. “Sandy” Gray, Koenig decided, had fallen back on his old tactics once again. The radiationsignature was definitive, and he could detect clouds of vaporized nickel-iron blossoming into space around the ravaged planetoid.Gray had stopped the intruders cold . . . or rather, he’d stopped them very, very hot.

A closer examination revealed three pinpoint nuclei of light and heat at the core of the fireball. All four planetoids continuedto hurtle toward the America, though their speed had been somewhat reduced. One appeared to still be maneuvering, its outer crust only nicked by a burstof kinetic energy from an AMSO near-miss. The other three had been savaged by the attack; two, including the largest, seemedto be adrift without power. The last one was decelerating, but half of its surface glowed lava-red.

An ancient adage of maritime warfare held that a stern chase is a long chase, and that certainly applied here. The stricken Nungiirtok ships had been slowed only slightly, if at all, by the impact of multiple AMSO rounds. But Yorktown was closing the range at half a c from almost an AU out, and the group consciousness projecting itself out ahead of the carrier felt like it was very nearlythere.

“I’m launching Yorktown’s fighters,” Captain Taggart told them. “We’re going to end this.”

 

VFA-96, Black Demons

Sol System

1720 hours, EST

As the minutes continued to slog by, Gregory worked to correct his course, decelerating sharply, flipping his Starblade end-for-endand applying the full force of the knot of distorted spacetime projected from the craft’s prow to slow himself. He’d seenthe flash, nova-bright, as the squadron’s AMSO rounds had struck, but the impacts would do little to slow the oncoming Nungiirtokmountains, and they were still approaching at close to the speed of light. If the Black Demons wanted to engage those ships,they would have to kill their own forward velocity and apply long minutes of thrust going back toward America.

The last of his AMSO warheads were gone, so he loosed a volley of 200 megaton nukes, trusting his onboard AI to guide themto their target. At some point, they passed the Nungiirtok planetoids, but so fast that he saw nothing, not even a blur orthe flash of nukes. He continued decelerating until his speed relative to surrounding space was zero, then began acceleratingonce again, now chasing the rapidly fleeing mountains. His instruments registered the detonation of nuclear weapons ahead—flashesof light and heat and hard radiation—and detected the fiercely radiating heat of the enemy planetoid’s surfaces. His AI paintedCGI images showing the rocks’ locations, giving fast-increasing ranges.

Slowly, he began the drawn-out process of matching velocities, an agonizing stern chase as space ahead of him pulsed and strobed with violent blossoms of fierce white light. Dozens of missiles were impacting those asteroids now, streaking in from all directions as other squadrons off the America, and the capital ships of the America battlegroup itself, all pounded away at the targets.

There was no response from the planetoids, no defensive fire, no screening, no attempt at maneuver.

He wondered if the AMSO barrage had knocked them out already. How dead did one of those things have to be before it was nolonger a threat?

“Heads up, Demons,” a new voice announced in Gregory’s head, distorted by the computer-corrected effects of the relativistictransmission. “This is Commander Forsley of the Renegades, flying strike off the Yorkie. Hang on to your headgear! We’re coming up on your six at point-seven c and boosting.”

Where the hell had they come from? Still, Gregory was delighted to see them.

“Welcome aboard, Renegades. We’ve got the bastards on the run, but it’s gonna take us a while to catch them. Good luck!”

He didn’t see them, of course, but CGI in-head showed a dozen green icons whipping past from astern and dwindling into thedistance ahead so swiftly the human eye and brain couldn’t possibly follow them. The Black Demons had only just begun theacceleration phase of the chase after slowing to a stop, then reversing their course. The Renegades had launched from theYorktown already traveling at half the speed of light and were boosting hard on their original vector. They would catch up with theNungies long before the Demons got there.

But the one-two punch—Yorkie’s fighters followed up by America’s—would be a devastating combat tactic. In the distance, four more squadrons off the Yorktown flashed past, chasing the fleeing planetoids, as five squadrons from the America tightened up their formations and kicked up their gravs a notch. It was an exhilarating moment. Gregory really did feel as though they had