Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One

ineffective.

By reprogramming the missile guidance, Gray had set them to proximity detonation-“proximity” in this case being a rather broad term that included ten light seconds, approximately three million kilometers. Radar signals transmitted when the warhead was twenty seconds from the target took only ten to make the trip back, since the warhead itself was also traveling at very close to the speed of light.

The missiles had been accelerating at two thousand gravities the entire time. Without Alcubierre capabilities, however, the extra acceleration nudged the projectiles a bit closer to the speed of light, but essentially only added to the warhead’s relativistic mass.

Five and a quarter AUs out from Green Squadron, some sixty minutes after launch, the lead AS-78 salvo picked up a return within ten light seconds and detonated. What Gray had not allowed for was the possibility that the target itself would be traveling close to light speed, and was approaching the AMSO warheads just behind the reflected radar signals that triggered the sandcaster firing. Six missiles exploded. Five missed, the sand clouds still tightly packed as they streaked past the oncoming KK impactor rounds fired by the Turusch fleet.

One sand cloud caught one impactor, however, and the results were…spectacular. Grains of sand-perhaps as much as one gram out of the ten kilograms in the missile’s warhead-traveling at close to c hit a one-ton projectile traveling in the opposite direction at close to c. The combined velocity of that impact, of course, was not twice the speed of light, not if Einstein knew what he was talking about, but it did release a nontrivial flash of energy.

A lot of energy.

The alignment of the two converging salvos of impactor warheads and sandcaster rounds was not perfect; all of the AS-78s detonated as they passed within three million kilometers of the Turusch impactors, but the fast- moving sand clouds were gone, hurtling on at.998 c, long before the blast front reached them. And the Turusch impactors, an hour after launch, were scattered enough that not all were caught in the sudden, supernova flare of released kinetic energy.

But many were.

And the flash of that one impact burned for long seconds in the darkness of the Outer System, the wave front spreading out in all directions at the speed of light.

Red Bravo Flight

America Deep Recon

Inbound, Sol System

1115 hours, TFT

“Incoming transmission,” Allyn’s AI told her. “Source, Green Squadron.”

“What the hell is Green Squadron?” she asked…but just the possibility that reinforcements were on the way out from Earth made her immediately accept the signal.

Help was on the way…twenty-four more Starhawks straight from Oceana, and under the command of Lieutenant Trevor Gray. And they had launched…great God in heaven!

“All fighters!” she yelled over the tactical channel. “All fighters! We have near-c incoming! Clear the battlespace!”

And a moment later, a flash appeared, briefly outshining the sun.

The survivors of America’s five-squadron deployment had already begun clustering together, ahead of and several thousand kilometers off the line of the Turusch fleet’s advance. By forming up together, they could better protect one another from attack runs by Turusch Toads; for some time now, however, the enemy had seemed content to leave the Confederation fighters alone, to watch them, to match their course with a group of Toads pacing them from a few thousand kilometers away.

Perhaps the Turusch had been hurt more badly than Allyn’s wing had realized. Perhaps they were sick of the blood-letting as well.

Or perhaps the handful of remaining Confederation fighters simply didn’t matter any longer.

“My God!” Collins said over the tac channel as the light flash grew brighter, grew larger. “What the hell is that?”

“At a guess…it’s sandcaster rounds hitting the Trash impactors. Hivel kinetic release.” Allyn didn’t trust herself to even guess at how much energy was represented by that brilliant star. It had appeared on their inbound flight path, and was shining within a few degrees of the distant sun. It wasn’t more than a star, a pinpoint of light, but it hurt to look at it with unshielded optics, and for a moment or two, Sol was blotted out by its glare.

Together, the fighters began accelerating away from the Turusch fleet. Gray’s warning had been specific; near-c sand clouds were coming in close behind the warning itself, and any fighters close to the enemy fleet might be hit. Maybe none of the outbound AMSO rounds had made it past that first, far-off detonation. But if any had-

A Turusch Juliet-class cruiser near the enemy’s van began sparkling…or the forward gravitic shields of the vessel did, at any rate. Each flash was dazzlingly bright but very tiny, a single flash by itself too small to cause major damage…but as flash followed flash the enemy’s gravitic shields collapsed, and then a storm of strobing detonations began eating through the enemy warship’s bow cap.

Allyn watched, transfixed, as the Turusch cruiser began coming apart, shields smashed down, hull devoured bite by bite, as internal structure began showing through the missing gaps in hullo plate and armor, as the ship’s interior began glowing white-hot.

The same was happening to other ships in the Turusch fleet as well.

“I’m being hit!” Lieutenant Wellesly cried. His was one of the last of the Star Tigers’ War Eagles, and he was struggling to bring up the rear of the retreating Confederation fighters. His grav shields were sparkling and flashing like those of the Turusch warships.

Then Lieutenant Cavanaugh’s Starhawk was being hit…and Lieutenant Dolermann’s ship, one by one, working from the back of the flight toward the front. Allyn was registering impacts on her fighter’s shielding now, isolated, individual hits by pellets each massing less than a tenth of a gram, but traveling at a fraction less than the speed of light. Her shields shrugged off one hit…a second…a third…but the rate of impacts was increasing, and her shields threatened to fall.

More and more of the Turusch vessels were being hit. Five had been destroyed outright, beginning with the Juliet. Eight more…ten more…fifteen more were badly damaged, their shields down, gaping, white-hot craters glowing against their outer hulls. Many of the enemy warships vanished as their gravitic shields went up full…but the impacts continued until the shields failed, exposing the naked hulls of the huge vessels within.

Numerous projectiles were striking the tight-wrapped knots of folded spacetime ahead of each Turusch vessel, the drive singularities pulling them onward at five hundred gravities. Since those singularities, by definition, had escape velocities greater than the speed of light, the incoming sand grains couldn’t pass through, but were trapped…and by becoming trapped, they each yielded very large amounts of energy.

Some of the enemy vessels began releasing their dust balls, switching off their forward drives. Some switched off the forward drives and flipped them astern, decelerating. Others threw out drive singularities to port or starboard, up or down, attempting to turn, to get out of the way of that incoming shotgun cloud of destruction.

Like a shotgun blast, the individual grains had been scattered across a very large area of sky, but the cloud was still thickest in the vicinity of the Turusch fleet, while Allyn and her fighters were accelerating out and away through the cloud’s ragged, outer fringes. Wellesly’s War Eagle suddenly exploded as his shields fell, and the fighter’s hull succumbed to that thin, deadly sleet of sand. Cavanaugh’s shields were down…and Collins’ shields as well…and Raynell’s and Donovan’s and Tucker’s as well.

Without orders, several of the Confederation pilots began cutting their acceleration somewhat, dropping back in the pack to put their fighters between those pilots whose shields had failed, and the incoming sleet.

And then, hurtling outward at half the speed of light, the surviving fighters cleared the vast, cone-shaped cloud of high-velocity sand.

Or, perhaps, the storm of sand had simply passed. Once she was sure the impacts had stopped, Allyn ordered the remaining fighters to decelerate, to turn, to again close with the enemy fleet.