Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One

of the Directorate.”

“You should know, Admiral, that the Fleet’s political liaison, John Quintanilla, is still trying to have that blocked…at least to have the Military Board reconsider its decision.”

“Quintanilla is an asshole.”

The AI, designed to provide information rather than to hold conversations, remained silent. “He is an asshole with power and with friends,” Koenig added. “We’ll have to watch our backs. But…I think we can discuss Mr. Quintanilla’s shortcomings in the morning, don’t you think?”

He was exhausted. He’d not slept since the alert had sounded, and he’d left Karyn’s side for the ship…had that only been early this morning?

The memory gnawed at him, sharp and biting.

He began undressing, getting ready for bed.

“We will be going out there, again,” he told his AI after a moment. “Arcturus. Alphekka. And as deep into the Beyond as we need to go to keep the Turusch from doing this again. They got entirely too close today.”

“Twenty-nine astronomical units from Earth,” the AI said. “Approximately.”

“We got lucky. That young pilot, Lieutenant Gray. His idea was brilliant…and it almost didn’t work. The AMSO warheads were triggered early by the Turusch impactor salvo. The sand clouds were so scattered by the time they hit the enemy fleet, it’s a miracle they did any damage at all.”

“Enough sand grains impacted enemy targets to destroy shields and cause ablative damage,” the AI said. “There was sufficient damage to render the enemy fleet vulnerable to conventional attack.”

“Like I said. We got lucky.”

“I suggest,” the AI told him, “that you get some sleep. You will have a heavy agenda in the morning, both with fleet affairs and with conferences with Military Directorate personnel.”

“Yes, Mother. Lights.”

He fell asleep thinking about Karyn, and the savage tragedy of war.

He would take this war to the enemy. And soon.

Epilogue

5 November 2404

Liberty Column

North American Periphery

0915 hours, local time

Trevor Gray sat once again upon the head of Lady Liberty. Just how the ancient icon had managed to survive the tidal wave coming up the Narrows of New York Harbor was still something of a minor mystery. Witnesses had said the wave had engulfed the statue, submerging her completely, before it had rolled on to smash across the vine-choked ruins of Old Manhattan. Likely, the geometry of the Narrows to the south had deflected the wave somewhat. Most of the unimaginable force of that wave had swept north across Brooklyn, and the green islands of the Manhattan Ruins.

Some of those islands still stood, stripped of their vegetation, looking naked and broken in the morning sun.

There was talk that they would be refurbishing Lady Liberty. They’d found her arm somewhere at the bottom of the harbor; there were rumors that the arm would at last be raised, that a nanocladding technique would be used to restore her coppery skin, to strengthen her, to rebuild her.

And the same rumors said that they would be rebuilding Old Manhattan as well.

The Turusch impactor had been a hell of an urban redevelopment program. But Gray was glad that people were at least talking again about rebuilding. To ignore the Periphery was to ignore one’s own advancing illness. It was time that the Authority acknowledged the rights and the talents of all of its citizens.

With America back in port at SupraQuito, Gray had grabbed a precious couple of days ashore, had come back to this spot to do his grieving. So many people he’d known-his family in the Ruins- gone.

And Angela, too. There was no word on her, nothing definite, so there was still, he supposed, hope…

But he knew she was dead.

In fact, she’d been dead to him since her stroke, since the medtechs had tinkered with her brain. He knew that now. And, slowly, he was coming to feel it as well. The psych office had cleared him a week ago, officially put him back on flight status. Marissa Allyn had been working him like a dog ever since the Defense of Earth, using him as her deputy CAG to hammer out a new strike wing organizational chart…and to break in the newbies coming in each day from Oceana.

But it wouldn’t be lasting much longer. Rumors were swirling through the fleet at faster-than-light speeds. Something called Operation Crown Arrow…a deep strike into Turusch space.

Good. He was ready. Ready to strike back at the bastards, ready to hit them, hit them hard wherever among the stars they tried to run.

A tone sounded in his mind. “All hands, now hear this, now hear this. This is a ship deployment update. Star Carrier America will be leaving space dock at 0700 hours tomorrow, shipboard time. You should be back on board and ready for space no later than two hours prior to debarkation.”

He’d be up the space elevator tether and back on board long before that deadline.

Back home.