shook his head slowly. “God help us all.” He glanced at Whitney. “Anything from Tsiolkovsky?”
The chief of staff shook his head. “Nothing good, Mr. President. I talked to Dr. Lawrence on the AI Center staff. They say there’s no response from the system. It’s like Konstantin isn’t in there at all.”
“That makes no sense,” Armitage said. “Where would it go?”
“Konstantin must have created a bolt-hole for himself,” Koenig said. “The Rosetters appeared to be … feeding, for lack of a better word, on the digital uploads of the various Sh’daar beings out at Kapteyn’s Star, and that would include their AIs operating inside their virtual reality. Konstantin must have had an escape hatch in case the Rosetters came here. And he’s smart enough that we’re not going to find it.”
“So it’s hiding from the Rosetters, you think, sir?”
“Almost certainly. Let’s just hope they can’t find that hiding place either.”
Bridge
TC/USNA CVS America
Outer Asteroid Belt
2053 hours, TFT
Captain Gutierrez studied the inflow of data with grim determination. “How much longer before Task Force Ritter gets here?”
“They’re within extended launch range now, Captain,” Commander Mallory told her. She could see the computer graphics unfolding within an in-head window—the advancing wall of red light marking the Consciousness microcraft, the tiny knot of oncoming human ships, the retreating clusters of fighters. “Twelve minutes …”
“Sensors!”
“Yes, Captain!”
“How big is that thing? How massive?”
“The cloud is roughly half an astronomical unit across, Captain,” Lieutenant Scahill replied. “Mass … it’s tough to tell when it’s that diffuse, but I’m guessing something on the order of two times ten to the thirty grams.”
“That’s as big as Jupiter!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And how the hell did you fight something as massive as the gas giant Jupiter?
Gutierrez shifted her attention back to the fighter screen, and to the teeming swarm of microcraft beyond. She was juggling a number of variables—maintaining distance from the leading edge of the cloud but moving slowly enough away from that cloud that the fighters could catch up. The fighters, too, were engaged in a kind of complex three-dimensional dance, continuing to fire nuclear warheads in front of the cloud, causing it to slow, to spread out, to break into separate masses, while staying ahead of the swarm and closing with the carrier. One squadron, VFA-190, the Ghost Riders, had already caught up with America and was currently recovering back aboard.
Despite her message to Earth, Gutierrez had not yet loosed the one ace she had hidden up her sleeve. Once she began firing nano-D at the approaching alien cloud, that region of space would become deadly for America’s fighters, and she wanted to get her people back on board before initiating the new tactics.
It seemed more and more likely, however, that she was not going to have the chance. America’s sensors were already picking up incoming fireflies slipping past the carrier’s outer hull. They didn’t appear to be doing any damage; they weren’t disassembling America’s hull or otherwise posing an immediate threat to the ship.
But they were proof that the human defensive force was losing the race.
Another fighter, a Black Knight with VFA-215, flared into an incandescent blossom.
“Weapons officer!” Gutierrez ordered. “Ready two disassembler rounds for immediate railgun launch!”
“First two rounds are loaded and ready,” Commander Kevin Daly, America’s new weapons officer, replied. “At your command …”
“Target inside that cloud. Have them detonate at least half a million kilometers beyond the farthest Starblade.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. We’re locked and loaded.”
“Fire!”
The star carrier mounted two magnetic-launch railguns running most of the length of the kilometer-long vessel’s slender spine, emerging in side-by-side ports at the center of the broad, massive shield cap forming the vessel’s prow. The ports opened … and two one-ton projectiles hurtled into space, accelerated in an instant to nearly 1 percent of the speed of light.
Recoil nudged the immense carrier … hard. Gutierrez’s seat jerked back, yanking her along. “Helm! Compensate!”
“Got it, ma’am …”
“Reload!”
“Reloading!”
“CAG! Pass the word to our fighters to lay down everything they have left around the periphery of that cloud.”
“Captain? …”
“I want to force it to move through the center.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Weapons!”
“Weapons, aye.”
“Mr. Daly! Hold your fire. In a few minutes I expect that cloud to begin contracting toward its center. When it does, I want you to slam as many nano-D warheads into that center as you can!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
She leaned forward, staring into the CGI panorama ahead. She could see white points of light moving swiftly out from the fighters, warheads swinging out and to the sides. Blinding flashes marked the detonations, and, sure enough, the cloud began to contract. Thermonuclear blasts were ravaging the outer edges of the alien swarm, and the individual microcraft responded by moving toward the center.
“Very well, Mr. Daly. Fire! And continue firing!”
“Firing …”
Two more warheads packed with nanotech disassemblers slammed out of America’s bow. And two more … and two more …
VFA-211, Headhunters
Outer Asteroid Belt
2059 hours, TFT
Meier and the rest of the Headhunters—those who were left, at any rate—continued to fall back toward the America, now just ten thousand kilometers distant. The Ghost Riders had already been taken aboard. The Black Knights were retreating alongside the Headhunters, all semblance of an ordered flight formation lost in the melee in front of the alien cloud.
He triggered his last pair of Kraits, sending them streaking into darkness. The order had come through from CIC moments before to fire
