Center of Gravity (39 page)

Schiere checked his instrumentation again. When he’d cut his drive an hour ago, he’d been more than 70,000 kilometers away from Al–01. Since then, he’d drifted 43,200 kilometers toward the object, while the object, orbiting the suns at 7.5 kilometers per second, had traveled 27,000 kilometers toward him. Their combined velocities had closed the remaining distance rapidly. It also meant that he would be flashing past the object at 20 kps, and most of the mission objectives would be carried out through Roger’s superhuman senses.

Another three hundred kilometers. The objective was visible now as a tiny gray-white point of light ahead.

Simply
seeing
the object, to say nothing of the protoplanetary disk and the nearest asteroids, was a major technological feat, one requiring Roger to sample small amounts of incoming radiation from the Shadowstar’s shields and use them to build up an image of the universe outside, even though most of that radiation was bypassing the invisible fighter entirely. With his drives off and his quantum power plant down—the Shadowstar’s remaining systems were operating on battery power alone—he was still effectively invisible to the universe outside.

Which, he decided, was a very good thing. Roger was pinpointing and highlighting more and more ships as they drew closer. The objective swam through the protoplanetary disk within its own small cloud of capital ships and accompanying fighters.

To make matters worse, the enemy would know that he was coming. At high-G accelerations, his Shadowstar gave off gravitational waves that could be detected across millions of kilometers, and they’d scanned him repeatedly on the way in with radar and laser-ranging sensors. They couldn’t see him
now
, but they would have a pretty good idea of where he was.

Throughout the past thirty minutes, they’d taken repeated shots at him. He’d jinked enough during the final phase of deceleration that they couldn’t be certain of where he was, exactly. But they were throwing up a hell of a lot of kinetic-kill projectiles, along with clouds of anti-missile sand. Individual grains had been pecking at his shields for ten minutes now, some from the protoplanetary disk, some from sand canisters fired hopefully in his direction.

So far, nothing had come in heavy enough to do him any damage.

But the enemy ships were starting to move, accelerating out from their huge consort, shifting into a defensive phalanx to attempt to block him. Roger was already using some of the fighter’s limited stores of reaction mass to slightly change vectors in unpredictable directions, just so they couldn’t guess exactly where he was by extrapolating earlier data on his incoming course and velocity.

How close could he get before the shit really hit the fan?

One hundred kilometers. Objective Al–01 swelled huge ahead, five seconds away and growing larger. Roger had calculated the final inbound path to carry them within ten kilometers of the huge object, which now filled the sky.

And Lieutenant Schiere studied the object now, his eyes growing wider.

So
that
was what the thing was!

It was astonishing. Awe-inspiring.

And terrifying…

Chapter Twenty

25 February 2405

CIC, TC/USNA CVS
America

Alphekka System

1628 hours, TFT

“Admiral! We’re getting a signal from Shadow Probe One! Priority urgent!”

The probe had been 69 light minutes ahead, the signal that far out of date.
America
was still 6 AU from the objective.

“Let’s hear it.”

Lieutenant Schiere’s voice came through, faint behind blasts of static. He was passing through the protoplanetary disk now, and the debris field was causing considerable interference.

He was also under fire, and the discharge of particle-beam bolts tended to drown radio signals in waves of static.

“ . . . Huge, bigger than any man-made structure. It looks… factory! Incredible scale… data…”

The voice faded out for a moment. Then:

“ . . . Scrambling fighters to catch… going into stealth mode… blackout…”

“The signal from Shadow Probe One has cut off, Admiral,” Ramirez said.

Almost a billion kilometers ahead, Lieutenant Schiere was fighting—no, had
been
fighting—for his life. With no weapons, the Shadowstar’s only viable tactic was to shut down almost completely, going into full stealth mode, which was why the radio signal had been cut off.

By now, Schiere was either dead or fifty thousand kilometers past the objective, drifting through the plane of the protoplanetary disk.

“Did we get a data stream from his AI?”

“Yes, sir. It’s going through the cleaner now. We’ll have something useful in a few seconds… here. Coming through now, Admiral.”

Within Koenig’s in-head display, a new window opened up, and for the first time he could see the enigmatic Turusch object in close-up detail. Range and vector data appearing in the corner of the visual field showed that the object was currently seventy kilometers away, moving toward the cameras at a velocity of almost twenty kilometers per second. The video had been slowed by a factor of ten, however, so that the target drifted slowly through the field of view.

The leading hemisphere of the object looked like an enormous gray-silver doughnut, with a central opening half as wide as the entire structure… more than fifty kilometers. The surface appeared to be a solid, curved sheet of metal, with a shimmer that suggested there were defensive shields up. As the Shadowstar drifted past, however, the opposite hemisphere came into view, an uneven, almost ragged structure of struts, beams, spheres and cylinders, conduits, and radiator panels. It was those heat-shedding panels that were the source of most of the infrared from the object; whatever was going on inside was creating a
lot
of waste heat.

A factory, Schiere had said. A titanic space-going factory 112 kilometers across and massing almost 30 quadrillion tons…

“I think I understand,” Koenig told the others. “That thing’s designed to orbit through the Alphekkan protoplanetary disk, probably with a slight tilt to swing it a little above and below the ecliptic. That opening, that…
mouth
, sucks in debris, gas, and dust and rocks small enough to digest, and uses them as raw material.”

“Yeah,” Craig said, her voice low, almost solemn as she watched the transmission in her head. “Raw material for
what
?”

“Look in there.”

Using his implant controls, he zoomed in on the image, until their viewpoint plunged past the outer forest of struts and girders, centering on a cluster of objects just inside. It was difficult to make out the shapes through the beams and surrounding structure, but the magnified image appeared to be of a group of Turusch warships. Koenig could see at least four of them—round-snouted, awkwardly bulked cigar shapes that looked like Juliet-class cruisers. If so, each was three quarters of a kilometer long and massed something like 300,000 tons.

Curiously, those bundled cruisers were plain, dark gray metal. Turusch warships generally were painted in jagged patterns of either black and red or black and green; these, apparently, were unpainted.

There were other ships drifting outside the huge structure’s shell, trailing just behind the monster in its wake. Papa-, Romeo-, and Sierra-class cruisers, Tango-, Uniform-, and Victor-class destroyers, dozens of Toad fighters… and all appeared to be inert. The warships gathered outside the structure had been painted in the typical Turusch duotones, red and black, green and black, and other combinations. One destroyer was even fitted out in bright pink-and-black livery.

“It’s a shipyard,” Koenig said. “An orbital shipyard designed to scoop up raw materials by the gigaton and transform them into starships.”

“One industrial facility to mine, smelt, tool, and build that many ships?” Buchanan said from the bridge. “It’s not possible!”

“Why not?” Koenig replied. “We use Scroungers to pick up raw elements from asteroids, comets, and small moons, and nanoassemblers use those materials to turn out whatever the fleet needs. Food, water, and air, mostly, but spare parts and replacements too… even entire fighters. Why not capital ships as well?”

“Yeah, and we use synchorbital nanufactories to build them,” Buchanan said. “We haul raw materials in from different places throughout the solar system and assemble our ships in orbit, either at Earth Synchorbit or at Mars.”

“Seems to me the Turusch have just streamlined the process a bit,” Koenig said. “That protoplanetary disk contains
everything
that will go into a planetary system someday. Volatiles, in the form of various ices. Carbon. Metals. Even radioactives.”

“Yeah,” Commander Craig put in. “All they have to do is sift out what they need, and nanotech would certainly give them that capability. We do as much on Earth when we nanogrow an arcology tower from dirt and ancient landfills. But… they’re doing it on such a huge scale!”

“If you have the raw material to do it, why not big?” Koenig said.

“This might explain Fleet Red Two,” Lieutenant Commander Hargrave suggested. He was one of
America
’s tactical officers. “New ships, waiting for delivery.”

“Which begs the question,” Buchanan replied. “Where are the crews?”

“There’d be no point in keeping thousands of Turusch personnel here waiting for their ships to grow,” Koenig said. “They probably bring them in on transports or troop ships periodically.” He pointed. Several Turusch fighters were accelerating past the silent, waiting fleet, closing with Schiere’s recon probe. “There are some crews based here, at least.”

“That monster is big enough,” Craig observed, “to base the entire Confederation fleet, and then some.”

“America,”
Koenig said. “We need revised estimates on the number of
active
warships in this system.”

“This is necessarily a rough estimate, Admiral,” the AI’s voice replied. “But long-range scans coupled with data received from Shadow Probe One have so far identified forty-three capital ships that appear to be powered up and crewed, all within ten light minutes of Objective Al–01. We are tracking fighters in the vicinity of Al–01 as well. Several of the active warships, however, are types known to carry Toad fighters, and so more crewed fighters could be forthcoming.”

Koenig felt a surge of excitement at that. The Confederation battlegroup was composed of twenty-six ships, not counting the five transports and supply vessels attached to the fleet. They were
only
facing forty-three enemy ships near Al–01, not the hundreds they’d first assumed to be combatants.
And
the CBG possessed the initial advantage of velocity.

Speed is life.

“Admiral,” Sinclair said, interrupting. “Excuse me, sir, but Fox-Sierra One has increased its acceleration and is closing. Time to intercept… twelve minutes.”

“Very well,” Koenig said. “Captain Buchanan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We are commencing launch ops. Please cut ship acceleration. Mr. Ramirez? Pass that on to the other ships of the fleet.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

America
and the other ships of the fleet were currently traveling at 94,749 kilometers per second, and continuing to accelerate by 5 kilometers per second per second. If
America
was going to launch her fighter contingent, she had to be moving at a constant velocity, and without the powerful space-warping effects of her drive singularity bending space in her immediate vicinity. A fighter passing through that encapsulating zone of bent space could be torn apart.

And the entire fleet had to decelerate together, coordinating the maneuver over the fleet tactical link; otherwise, one second after
America
cut her drive, every other ship in the fleet would have left her behind.

“All commands report acceleration has ceased, Admiral.”

“Very well. CAG? You may begin launching your fighters.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral. Some of my pilots are probably ready to tear their way out into hard vacuum with their bare hands by now.”

“
Close
CSP, CAG. I don’t want them scattered.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Mr. Ramirez?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Make to all ships of the battlegroup. Prepare to commence deceleration, maximum gravs, on my command.”

“Sir…
de
celeration?”

“You heard me.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Speed was life… but sometimes it had to be
controlled
rather than flat-out.

VFA–44

Alphekka System

1630 hours, TFT

“Dragonfires, this is PriFly. Carrier acceleration has ceased. You are now cleared for drop. Tactical updates are coming through on your primary feeds now.”

“About damned time!” Kirkpatrick said.

“It’s time to do some turning and burning!” Lieutenant Walsh added.

“Okay, Dragons,” Allyn said. “Drop on my mark in three… two… one…
drop
!”

Twelve drop bays accommodated one squadron of fighters on the outboard aft section of each rotating hab module. The ships of VFA–44 pivoted, facing down, then dropped as one, falling out into the night.

America
was traveling now at 94,749 kilometers per second, over 31 percent of the speed of light, but with her drive powered down, both
America
and the fighters now emerging from her launch bays shared that same forward velocity. From the fighters’ points of view, however, the huge carrier hung motionless in space as they fell outward in all directions, a ring of fighters expanding at five meters per second.

“Engage drives,” Allyn commanded. “One hundred gravities for one second in three… two… one… and
boost
.”

Accelerating to one kilometer per second—a hair over, actually, since they were already moving at 5 mps—the fighters raced out into a much larger circle, clearing the five-hundred-meter curve of the flattened dome of the carrier’s forward shield.

“CIC, Dragonfires, handing over from PriFly.” Primary Flight Control handled only the launches and recoveries of fighters. Everything else was CIC’s responsibility.

“We’ve got you, Dragonfires.”

“Roger that. We are clear of the ship.”

“Copy that, Dragonfires. Stay well clear. We’re about to decelerate at five hundred Gs.”

“Copy.”

And suddenly, the star carrier was no longer there. With singularities projected aft,
America
began decelerating at five hundred gravities, which meant that, from the fighters’ viewpoints, she suddenly receded into the distance, five kilometers away after one second, fifteen after three, falling farther and farther astern with each passing second.

Commander Allyn gave a sharp command, and the twelve Starhawks of Dragonfire Squadron rotated 180 degrees and began accelerating after the huge ship, catching up within moments, then matching accelerations in order to maintain their relative distance from her.

The maneuvers were routine, easily handled by the fighters’ AIs. Gray monitored the process, while continuing to skim through the tactical downloads.

An enemy fighter swarm was closing fast, would intercept
America
in just a few minutes. The most problematic aspect of the tacsit was
Remington
, currently two light minutes behind
America
and off to one side. VFA–44 was being assigned to protect the
Remington
, to keep the Turusch hunter-killer packs from cutting her out from the rest of the herd and pulling her down.