His naval rank was captain, but in formal conversation he was given the honorary title of commodore. There could be only one “captain” on board ship.
Dixon flew with
“What’s our squadron status, CAG?”
“Three at full readiness, Admiral. One, the Rattlers, is light at nine spacecraft on the flight line. I took what was left of the Dragonfires and put two of them in with the Black Lightnings, the other two in with the Nighthawks.” He hesitated. “One pilot hasn’t reported back aboard, so the Nighthawks are down one fighter as well.”
“Understood. How fast can you get them off the carrier?”
“The Nighthawks and the Impactors are on ready five, Admiral. Lightnings at ready ten. The rest…half an hour.”
“Do it. Commander Craig will be sending down specific orders. Your people are going on deep recon.”
“
“As many as we can kick out there, CAG. And as quickly as we can do it.” He began filling Dixon in on his conversation with Caruthers, and on the threat of a Turusch alpha strike from one side of the sun, with a diversion on the other.
“I see,” Dixon said after Koenig had explained the situation. “If Force Bravo isn’t there, we’re late to the party. If it is, we show up early, with real shit for odds.”
“That’s about the size of it. The battlegroup will be following along behind you.”
“To pick up the pieces?”
“Are you and your people up for this, CAG?”
“Of course we are. It’ll be worth it, if we can spoil their strike. I’ll pass the word.”
“Good. We’ll begin launching as soon as we begin gravitic acceleration. You may scramble your pilots.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
When Koenig emerged from the simlink, Quintanilla was gone. The two-G acceleration had let up a moment before, and he must have left then.
“All hands, this is the captain. Stand by for gravitic acceleration, five hundred gravities, in five…four…three… two…one…
Space-bending energies flowed from
Carefully balanced to avoid catching the ship in a destructive flux of tidal forces, the singularity continued winking on and off, on and off, creating the effect of a steady pull of five hundred gravities out ahead of
And the carrier fell outward into darkness.
Joseph Dixon squeezed down into his Starhawk, letting the seat accept his weight and enfold him in its harness. Above him, his crew chief slapped the top of his helmet. “You’re good t’go, CAG!”
“Keep the coffee hot, Chief. We’ll be back.”
“Roger that!”
The cockpit sealed around him, plunging him momentarily into darkness. The lights came up an instant later.
Around him, on the Alpha flight deck, other Black Lightning pilots were racing across the deck, lowering themselves into cockpits, settling into their seats. The alarm klaxon blared somewhere overhead, echoing through the cavernous chamber.
He turned his full attention to his instruments, both those glowing at him from his console and those now appearing in open windows in his mind as his neural hardware linked in. His fighter was sinking now through the viscous black liquid of the nanoseal covering the hatch beneath him. He felt the sudden shift of attitude as his nose pivoted down; he brought up his visual display, and found himself looking out through the carrier’s open launch deck, at stars wheeling past as the hab modules continued to turn.
“This is Lightning One-zero-one,” he announced over the comm. “I am clear of the hatch. Ship systems are hot. AI on-line. Weapons safed. Ready for drop.”
“One-zero-one, PriFly. You’re clear for drop, CAG.”
“Copy. Release when clear.”
“Hold for other fighters in your stick coming on-line. Ten seconds, CAG.”
Dropping was slow. The launch tubes had the advantage of giving the fighter an extra burst of speed-a free six hundred kilometers per hour of velocity, but fighters could only launch two at a time that way, and it took special preparation to get all twelve spacecraft in a squadron up to the keel for sequential loading into the tubes. This time out, the Nighthawks were going out the bow-the luck of the draw, since they were next on the rotation and the fighters already loaded on the spinal flight deck.
Everyone else would be dropping out of one of the three rotating flight decks, outboard on the hab modules. The hab rotation gave them a free half-G kick outward, a lateral delta-V of five meters per second, easily compensated for later. The advantage was that six fighters could be launched at a time, with just thirty seconds between drops; an entire squadron could be spaceborne in half a minute.
“And
The steady pull of half a gravity vanished as he went into free fall, his fighter slipping through the launch deck opening and into space. To either side, the other five fighters of his stick fell in perfect unison. Peters. Aguilera. Hennessey. Michaels. And one of the replacements from the Dragonfires, Collins.
He had an uneasy feeling about that one. She’d come from a squadron that had suffered a paralyzing sixty-six percent casualties, including, he gathered from the psychtech’s report, her lover. She might well be psychologically unstable, even after three weeks.
Still, she’d been cleared by psych, as had the other Dragonfire pilot transferred to the Lightnings. That was Allyn, the Dragonfires’ former skipper, and she would be hurting, too, after losing most of her squadron. It was important to get them back into the thick of things as quickly as possible, let them start fitting in with the new unit before they had too much time to think of dead comrades.
The other two Dragonfire pilots, Tucker and Gray, had been assigned to the Nighthawks…except that Gray didn’t have medical clearance yet. According to the records, Gray was absent in any case, left behind when
The Starhawk’s AI rotated the fighter and applied a gravitational boost of two Gs. The maneuver was perfectly orchestrated with the other five Lightnings in the stick. They continued to fall out from the
Ahead, Dixon could see the familiar kite-shaped constellation of Bootis; alongside was a U-shaped curve of stars, like an upraised arm. That was Corona Borealis, and the provisional navigation point for him and three other pilots-Aguilera, Hennessy, and Collins.
Astern, the second stick of six fighters in the Black Lightnings dropped clear of
Once clear of the
