Freefall (Rebel Stars Book 4) by Edward W. Robertson

Author:Edward W. Robertson [Robertson, Edward W.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

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They traveled full speed ahead toward a spot near the narrow end of the Cone that Toman had determined was as close as they could get to the upcoming battle without being in any danger of getting swept up in it. The two interdiction fleets were still flying in wide ovals across the System at unbelievable speed, timing themselves to intercept the Cone at the same time the Lurkers would pass through it.

When Toman wasn't talking with officials and military, which wasn't often, he speculated with Rada about where the Lurkers would attempt to strike and whether they would fight with everything they had, or if a stiff enough resistance would push them away to rejoin their main fleet.

"I'm leaning toward the latter," Toman said, elbow propped on the arm of his bridge chair and chin propped in his hand. "Let's observe how they've fought us previously. Both in their ships and during MacAdams' raid on their base. How do they strike at us?"

"From the shadows," Rada said. "They like to set traps. And then ambush you, ideally with overwhelming force."

"Right. But this encounter is neither of those things."

"Unless it is."

"They're close enough for us to have an exact count. Either one of our interdiction fleets outnumbers them two and a half times over. Their ships aren't big enough to be carriers of any kind, either. So unless they're about to unleash some alien techno-magic on us, it's looking to be a straightforward clash of fleets. My guess is they'll engage just long enough to test our strength, then disengage to rejoin their main fleet. They might take a potshot at a couple of stations along the way to try to demoralize us, but I doubt this will be a decisive battle."

She turned away from the tactical readout to the view of the stars. "I don't think we know nearly enough about the Lurkers to know how they're going to act. After all this time, we barely know ourselves."

She didn't think that this had always been true. She felt they'd learned it quite deeply during and after the Panhandler. Over the centuries, though, that knowledge had been lost, rubbed away by time until it only continued to exist in places like the Locker, Rum Bay, and some of the rougher Dasher outposts. But they hadn't needed to be like that anymore, had they? If they'd stayed that way—violent, warring, half savage—they probably would have killed themselves a long time ago.

The day before the fleet was set to arrive, the Cone's radius, once a wide funnel, had shrunk all the way down to a slightly tapered pipe. Rada went to the bridge and found Toman leaning over a desk glaring at the screens, a half-empty glass of something strong sweating next to his right hand.

He didn't turn. "Do you see this?"

"At the vector they're coming in on, they can hit Saturn and Earth, can't they?"

"I was afraid they wouldn't be able to pass the chance to line both of those targets up.

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