Star Carrier - 02 - Center of Gravity by Ian Douglas

Author:Ian Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780061840265
Publisher: Eos
Published: 2011-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

29 January 2405

Alchameth-Jasper Space

Arcturus System

1147 hours, TFT

From Gray’s point of view, the entire flight, from launch to objective, had lasted scarcely twenty minutes.

As a ship approached the speed of light, time dilation did strange things to time on board, slowing its passage to a fraction of the normal rate. Accelerating at fifty thousand gravities, the fighters had reached 99.9 percent of the speed of light in just under ten minutes, with time passing more and more slowly as they neared c. For the pilots of the three squadrons of the advance strike force, the following 160 minutes in the outside universe was for them just 7 minutes, 9 seconds. By skimming across 20 AUs at just less than c, Gray and the others had lost over two and a half hours as the rest of the universe measured time—were two and a half hours younger than those left behind in the relatively slow-moving battlegroup.

As the three Starhawk squadrons decelerated into circum-Alchameth space, subjective and objective times began to fall back into phase. Their weirdly distorted view of the surrounding cosmos, a starbow of light ringing the blackness around each fighter thirty degrees forward of center, began to smear back into the accustomed stars of non-relativistic flight.

Gray tried to shove aside the rising fear, the memories of nightmares—tried, and failed.

He’d been in the Arcturus System before. Fourteen months earlier, the Star Carrier Ticonderoga and seven escorts had responded to a courier request for help. Gray, fresh from a training squadron at Oceana, had been the FNG in VF–14, the White Furies, and as the Tike had entered the Arcturus System, he’d been spin-deployed on Combat Space Patrol.

The Turusch had been waiting for them. Probably, they’d noted the escape of the courier and guessed that Confederation reinforcements would arrive within a few days. Several enemy task groups had been scattered across the Arcturian system, and one, by chance, had been less than thirty light minutes from the Tike’s emergence point.

For six hours, the Ticonderoga had fought off waves of enemy fighters, ship-killer missiles, and gunships. She’d limped clear of the battle at last, shield cap breached and spewing ice crystals, screens gone, most of her weapons smashed, three quarters of her crew dead or dying of radiation poisoning. It had been a miracle that she’d been able to slip into Alcubierre Drive and escape, a miracle that the Turusch had not pursued her.

Gray had been back on board rearming his ship. He was one of just two White Furies to survive the Battle of Arcturus Station.

This time, of course, it was different. A powerful carrier battlegroup was launching an alpha strike at an enemy that did not know they were coming. Three fighter squadrons were hurtling into the system just behind the wavefront announcing their arrival. This was payback, not a repeat of the disaster of fourteen months ago.

But Gray still felt the fear. “Pucker factor,” the pilots called it, the feeling that you were gripping the acceleration seat of your fighter so tightly with your ass that you were never going to be able to let go.

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