Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One

How did transcendence equate with death?

Why would human transcendence be of concern to an alien species…in particular, an alien species like the Sh’daar, which might be half a billion years old?

Humans had just taken the first step in beginning to understand the Turusch; they didn’t yet know what the Sh’daar looked like, much less understand how they thought.

Somehow, Koenig thought, humans were going to have to come to grips with those questions, to begin to understand who and what the Sh’daar were and how they thought.

And they would have to do so very swiftly indeed, if humankind was going to survive….

Chapter Twenty-Three

18 October 2404

Starhawk Transit

Fleet Rendezvous Point

1.3-AU Orbit, Sol System

0735 hours, TFT

Hurry up and wait.

Lieutenant Gray had heard that ancient military axiom often enough during the past five years. Likely it had been invoked by grizzled NCOs in the army of Sargon the Great forty-eight centuries before. But this was ludicrous.

Starhawk Transit had boosted from Oceana at 0414 hours. It had taken nine minutes to get up to whispering range of c, a coasting phase of just three minutes, and another nine minutes of deceleration to reach Rendezvous Point Defender, roughly halfway between the current positions of Earth and Mars. By 0445, Gray and the other twenty-three Starhawk pilots were drifting in an empty sector of space, waiting. There was no one else there.

Other naval vessels had begun arriving a few at a time. The destroyers Trumbull and Nehman and Ishigara. A heavy monitor out of Earth Synchorbit, the Warden. A Russian heavy cruiser, the Groznyy. One light fleet carrier from the European Federation, the Jeanne d’Arc. Others would be coming, but they were scattered across much of the Inner System-or they were still docked at synchorbital bases circling Earth or Mars, their crews still in the process of returning aboard, their power plants still off-line, some even with their weapons or drive systems partially disassembled for routine maintenance.

It took time to get a capital ship under way unless, like America and her consorts, the quantum taps were already running and the ship rigged for space.

Three fucking hours, Gray thought. We could have been out there by now….

Just over an hour and a half earlier, at 0600 hours, he’d transmitted a request to the America, now outbound. At that time, the America battlegroup had been about one AU out from Mars, about two from the fleet rendezvous point, so they would have received the transmission at around 0615.

It had been over an hour now, and still no response. By now, the battlegroup, accelerating at 500 gravities, would be three and a half AUs from Mars, about four and a half from the fleet rendezvous point, and traveling at around 72,000 kps. Even with the thirty-six-minute time lag one-way, he should have gotten a reply-if one was coming-at some point in the last forty-five minutes.

“What the hell are they doing out there?” Gray said.

“Don’t sweat it, Skipper,” Lieutenant j.g. Alys McMasters told him. “They’re probably arguing about it with Earth, and the time lag’s a killer!”

Gray started, then bit off a curse. He’d not realized the channel was open, that he’d transmitted his exasperated comment over the fighter commnet.

“I’m seriously considering boosting anyway,” Gray replied. “We’re useless here.”

“A great way to end a promising career, Boss,” Lieutenant Frank Osterman said. “Last I heard, we go where we’re told, when we’re told. We don’t make strategy.”

“Roger that,” Gray replied.

But that didn’t make the wait easy.

During the past hours, information had been moving across the solar system like expanding ripples from stones chucked in a lake. Limited by the speed of light, representing only small portions of the total picture, that information only slowly reached all of the people involved, all of the decision makers, all of the ships. The picture was complicated by retransmission delays, and by decisions by various officers and politicians along the way to pass the data along only to certain command levels.

Which meant that units like the Starhawk transit squadron were operating in the dark. For all Gray and the newbie pilots in his command knew, the enemy fleet was zorching in at this moment, only a few minutes out…and no one had bothered to tell them. They knew that a Turusch signal beam had been intercepted some three hours earlier, confirming that there were at least two groups of enemy ships out at the thirty-AU shell, knew that the America battlegroup was headed for Point Libra, away from Triton.

But they knew precious little else.

“Incoming transmission,” Gray’s AI announced. “Source TCN America.”

“Let’s hear it!”

“Starhawk Transit Squadron, this is America CIC,” a woman’s voice said, static hissing and crackling behind the transmission as the Starhawk’s communication suite up-shifted the frequency to compensate for the Doppler effect. “Your provisional op plan is approved. Initiate immediately. You are designated Green Squadron, and are now under America CIC control. Lieutenant Gray is confirmed as Green Squadron Leader. Please note attached transmission, and acknowledge receipt. Transmission ends.”

Gray felt a surge of relief…mingled with adrenaline-sparked terror. We’re going!

His “provisional op plan,” as the CIC officer on America had put it, had been the rather strongly worded suggestion, made hours ago, that the twenty-four Starhawk fighters now orbiting at 1.3 AUs begin boosting immediately toward Point Libra. America had sent five squadrons toward Libra some four and a half hours ago-fifty-some fighters against a Turusch invasion fleet of unknown but certainly powerful composition.

Throwing twenty-four more fighters into the ongoing battle out there might, might make a difference.

He checked the attached transmission, an imbedded signal…and saw that it was an intercept picked up first at Earth, then transmitted under a classified security lock to the America, then retransmitted back to the rest of America’s battlegroup, including Green Squadron.

Opening the imbed, he and the others in his squadron watched the final seconds of the Gallagher and the other unarmed High Guard ships at Triton, watched until the final camera view spun crazily, then vanished in a burst of white noise.

“Jesus, Qwan-yin, and Buddha!” someone muttered.

“It’s okay, people,” Gray said. “We’re going in the other direction-out to Point Libra.”

“Yeah, where it’ll be worse,” Lieutenant j.g. Harper pointed out.

“Volunteers only,” Gray said. “If you’d rather sit here feeling useless until the Tushies come to you, do so. I’m boosting out to meet the bastards.”

“I’m with you, Lieutenant Gray,” McMasters told him.

“Yeah, Skipper,” Lieutenant Tolliver added. “Let’s go kick Tushie tush!”

Gray was already feeding orders to his AI, his Starhawk rotating sharply, bringing its prow into line with an