Free Earth Strike by Ian Douglas Page B

back into normal space with the velocity we had when we engaged the Alcubierre Drive, out in this system’s Kuiper Belt, something less than one kilometer per second. We would then have to begin accelerating all over again. If we started decelerating at the halfway point, our total trip would take twenty-five and a half hours. If we keep accelerating, we’ll reach Haris in a total of eighteen and some hours. At that point we’ll be zorching along at one-point-oh-eight c , just a hair faster than light, but we’ll cut the Alcubierre Drive and drop into normal space at a modest one kps.”
    “I just hope when we do, we’ll find those fighter pilots alive.”
    “War means death, Mr. Quintanilla, the deaths of brave men and women doing their duty. I don’t like it any more than you do, and if I could wave my hand and change the laws of physics, I would.”
    “But another nine and a half hours…”
    “Let my people do their jobs, Mr. Quintanilla. There’s nothing you can do to change things, one way or the other.”
    Quintanilla thought about this a moment, then swam for the CIC exit.
    The hell of it was, however, that Quintanilla was right about one thing. The oplan should have called for more fighters in the first strike. The mission planners on Mars, however, had feared the consequences if America didn’t have a sufficient defensive capability once she started mixing it up with the Turusch.
    Had it been up to Koenig, he would have launched all six fighter squadrons from the Eta Boötis Kuiper Belt, and trusted the destroyer screen to keep the carrier safe.
    But, as he’d told the damned civilian, it was too late for second-guessing the mission plan now.
    Blue Omega One
VFA-44 Dragonfires
Eta Boötis System
1335 hours, TFT

    A nuclear fireball blossomed a hundred kilometers ahead, and Commander Marissa Allyn twisted her gravfighter hard into a tight yaw. A trio of Turusch fighters flashed past her starboard side, bow to stern, particle beams stabbing at her Starhawk. She sent three Kraits after them, then followed that up with the last two Kraits in her armament racks, locking on to an immense Turusch battlespace monitor just emerging from behind the planet.
    The sky around her was filled with fire and destruction, with twisting fighters, lumbering capital-ship giants, and tumbling chunks of wreckage. “ Mayday! Mayday! ” sounded over her com link. “This is Blue Eleven…two golf-mikes on my tail…”
    “Blue Eleven! Blue Three! I’m on them!…”
    Golf-mikes—gravitic missiles—were looping through battlespace, their sensors locking on to any powered target not transmitting a Turusch IFF code. The damned things were next to impossible to shake, and there were so many of them in the battle now that the Confederation pilots were having to concentrate on evading them more and more.
    “This is Blue Eleven! Breaking right! Breaking—”
    The voice cut off with a raw burst of static. The icon representing Oz Tombaugh, Blue Eleven, on Allyn’s tactical display flared and winked out.
    Damn…
    “Omega Strike, this is Blue Omega One!” she called. The squadron’s expendables were almost gone, and there was little more serious damage they could do to the Turusch fleet with what was left. “Let’s get down on the deck! Make for the planet and home on Mike-Red!”
    Eight members of the squadron remained in action, including Allyn.
    And they still had more than nine hours to go before the relief forces arrived.

Chapter Five
    25 September 2404
    Blue Omega Seven
Eta Boötis IV
1353 hours, TFT

    Trevor Gray slogged across wet, marshy ground, a soft and yielding surface smothered in a vibrantly red-orange tangle of vegetation. It was raining now, with big, heavy drops splattering across the ground cover, which appeared to be stretching and expanding under the pounding.
    He’d heard and felt a savage boom behind him some minutes before—probably the Tushies dropping something nasty on the wreckage of his