Ought. There were a hell of a lot of unknowns in the equation.
And what if the Sh’daar themselves had posted robotic sentinels to pick off drones as they emerged from elsewhere? It waspossible. After their spectacular attack on the Rosette Consciousness, they might not be feeling particularly sociable rightnow. The possibility that the Consciousness was alive and out for revenge must be preying on the minds of the N’gai Refusers.
“Admiral?” Rand said. The captain was standing next to the sensor display suite on the main bridge.
“Whatcha got, Captain?”
“A ship coming out of Alcubierre Drive. Ten light-minutes astern.”
Gray glanced at the chronometer: 1232 hours. “Can you make them?”
“At this distance . . . no, sir. But it’s big. I’d like to sound general quarters, just as a precaution.”
“Absolutely.” Until they knew what that vessel was—who was running it, and why they were out here at the Penrose gate—it wouldbe a good idea to be prepared. The chances that two ships should show up at a TRGA at almost the same time was . . . remote.
The alarm klaxon went off, bringing America to full readiness. Gray stared at the sensor data on the flag bridge repeater, trying by sheer force of will to drag moreinformation from the screen. That ship out there was big . . . over half a million tons, at least, which put it roughly in America’s class. And it was probably human. The drive signature matched most human FTL drives more closely than it matched any ofthe alien signals recorded in the ship’s sensor library.
“I’m getting additional targets out there, sir,” Lieutenant Brandon Vasquez, the sensor officer, reported. “We may be lookingat a carrier dropping fighters.”
“Very well.” Gray was thinking with furious speed. The squadron might very well be under attack, though they had no way ofknowing who was attacking or why. Standard tactical doctrine dictated that America launch her fighters. When the attacking vessels reached the America, enough fighters would be in space to throw a serious wrench into the enemy’s planned tactics. At the same time, the escortingvessels, Arlington, Birmingham, and Seare, would take up screening positions to protect the carrier, blocking the enemy’s approach.
But it would take time to launch the fighters. America currently had two squadrons on ready-five, meaning it would take just five minutes to get them out into space . . . but ifthose strangers out there were deploying for an assault, they would arrive when America’s fighters were still launching. They’d not put up a combat space patrol because there’d simply been no need for it, and they would have had to recover the fighters before proceeding through the TRGA.
There was a need for it now.
“Unknown fighters are accelerating, Admiral,” Vasquez announced. “Blue doppler! And . . . into the ultraviolet!”
The blue and UV shift meant they were accelerating all out, the light he was seeing shifted by their velocity to the blueend of the spectrum. Fighters could manage gravitational accelerations so high they could nudge the speed of light in justunder ten minutes. However, Gray thought it unlikely that these would come zipping past his squadron at c, because they would be blazing in too fast to do very much at all. More likely was that they would accelerate for half thedistance, or a little more, then decelerate to kill their velocity.
So . . . allowing for the time lag, those fighters had begun accelerating ten minutes ago. If they came past at c, they would be here any second now. But if, as was far more likely, they pulled a mid-course deceleration . . . well . . .make it eight to ten more minutes before they arrived.
That gave the USNA squadron a little—a very little—time to prepare for the assault.
“Are you tracking them now?” he asked.
“Just barely, sir,” Vasquez replied. “They’re masked by their grav projectors. But we can see them.”
Of course. Gray had taken advantage of that effect himself more than once, back when he’d been a Starhawk driver. The drivefield projected ahead of a fighter severely warped local spacetime, making tracking the craft from ahead extremely difficult.But at least America’s sensors should be able to keep a lock on the enemy ship’s mass.
“CAG!” Gray ordered. “Launch your ready-fives! And put three more squadrons on ready status.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral.”
“Captain, I’d be obliged if you would position the ship in front of the TRGA opening . . . make it, oh, say ten kilometers from it. I want us to be ready to thread the needle when the time comes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant West!”
Janice “Wild” West was the flag bridge communications officer, in charge of keeping the tiny squadron connected and in touch.“Yes, Admiral!”
“Give me a channel to Captain Ferguson.”
“Right away, Admiral.”
James Ferguson was the skipper of the T-AOE fast supply vessel Acadia. His voice came through within Gray’s in-head a moment later as West opened the channel. “Yes, Admiral?”
“I’ve got a special mission for you, James.”
“You’ve got my full attention, Admiral.”
“Yeah, well . . . I don’t think you’re going to like this.” Gray then explained what he had in mind.
He heard Ferguson’s whistle of surprise when he’d finished. “Yessir, we can do that. But . . .”
“I know it’s nuts.”
“That doesn’t begin to cover it, Admiral. I do see how you got your handle, though.”
“Get on it, Captain. Time is critical.” He thoughtclicked to another link. “Lieutenant West? Let me talk to Birmingham, Arlington, and Seare.”
“Aye, sir.”
The captains of the three fleet escorts checked in—Captains Roberts, Chavez, and Messinger. “Formation Delta,” he told them.“When the bad guys come past, I want you to hit them with all we’ve got—HELs, pee-beeps, and AMSOs. We’ll accelerate for theTRGA as soon as we know we’ve blunted the assault.”
The replies came back stacked on top of one another.
“Copy that.”
“Right.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral.”
“And when I give the order to move,” Gray continued, “then move. Follow the America through the triggah right on her coattails!”
“Admiral!” That was Rand. “Missiles! We have KK missile launch from the fighters! Speed of approach . . . point
