Deep Time

And with that, Koenig knew that the fight for Fort Douamont was over.

VFA-96, Black Demons

LEO

0019 hours, TFT

Lieutenant Connor threw her Starblade into a hard-left roll and engaged her forward grav projector. A brief burst of acceleration at twenty thousand gravities and she was hurtling past the incoming projectiles, several of which flared into vapor as she brushed them with the intensely warped pucker of space just ahead of her fighter. Two of the Todtadlers ahead and below twisted around to meet her, but she caught one in a target lock with her PBP-8 and slammed it with a high-energy particle beam, flashing the fighter into star-hot vapor.

The Pan-European Todtadlers—Death Eagles—were highly advanced, modern fighters. They easily matched USNA fighters like the SG-101 Velociraptor, but they were utterly outclassed by the newer Starblades. Connor could feel her mind pervading every part of her ship’s consciousness, directing weapons, power, thrust, and attitude together in a rapturous dance. Her fighter shuddered as a KK projectile passed through one temporary wing … but the nanomatrix hull flowed around the slug as it passed through, directing it harmlessly past the pilot compartment and other vital elements, and back into space. Connor didn’t need to spin the craft. Rather, she simply reformed it in flight, bringing weapons to bear on the second target and vaporizing it in a flare of radiation and plasma.

“Demon Five!” she called over the tac channel. “Two kills!”

“Demon Seven! Scratch one Toddy Velocicrapper!”

And the fighters merged in an angry tangle of fire and destruction …

Emergency Presidential Command Post

Toronto

United States of North America

0020 hours, EST

Koenig emerged again from his virtual connection. A chorus of screams and yells filled the Presidential Command Center and rang off the walls—a roomful of military officers, civilian officials, aides, and technicians jumping and shouting and hugging one another and slapping hands together, congratulating each other. In a smaller room just off from the center’s main control room, Koenig blinked against the overhead lights. “What the hell is that noise?” he asked.

“The guys are going a little nuts, sir,” Whitney replied. “They got Korosi!”

“I know,” Koenig said, sitting up. “I was there. And it was the One-Five Marines who got the bastard, not us.”

“It was a group effort, Mr. President.” He gestured toward the other room. “They found Korosi, and they tracked him to Verdun. And you gave the order …”

“And the Marines dug him out, and rescued Roettgen. Tell them to knock it off and get back on the job. We still have to withdraw our people.”

“Yes, sir.”

Whitney’s attempt to spread credit for the success around irritated him. Koenig had a particular and heartfelt disdain for the type of national leader who assumed the credit for his or her military’s successes. I directed … I ordered … We attacked … Bullshit. It was the men and women who were boots-on-the-ground in-theater—the ones getting shot at and taking the risks—who should get the credit, not the damned REMFs peering over their shoulders through drone cameras, satellites, or in-head links.

Admiral Eugene Armitage, the head of the Joint Chiefs, grinned at him. “But we did get the bastard, Mr. President.”

“Yes,” Koenig said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “We got him.”

Whitney nodded. “There’s more, Mr. President. You might have missed it, but they just flashed the word back. They’ve captured Denoix as well, trying to leave the perimeter by air car.”

Koenig smiled. His chief of staff was scolding him, mildly, by letting him know that the information he’d wanted had come through to the command post just as quickly as Koenig could have gotten it from a direct link. “Outstanding, Marcus.” He glanced at Armitage. “Admiral?” he said. “Please flash Meteor a ‘well done’ from me, personally.”

Armitage nodded. “As you wish, Mr. President.”

“There’s … ah … there is still one part unresolved, sir,” Whitney told him.

“The recovery, yes. I assume you have the heavy transports on the way.”

“Yes, sir. But it’s not that.”

“What, then?”

“Eight Todtadlers launched a few minutes ago from a site in southern Turkey … a city called Adana.”

“Adana? What do they have there?”

“It’s one of Turkey’s larger cities, sir … and the site of a small spaceport. Incirlik.”

Koenig nodded as data flowed through his in-head. “Got it.”

Once, Incirlik had been a joint U.S. and Turkish military air base, back in the days of the old NATO alliance. After the mid-2100s and the beginnings of the Pax Confeoderata, the facilities had been developed as a local spaceport for Pan-Europe’s burgeoning asteroid mining initiatives. Turkey, geographically astride both Europe and Asia, had been an ideal region for economic development after both the Islamic Wars and the more recent Sino-Western Wars.

But the rise of the space elevators—first at SupraQuito, then in Kenya and in Singapore—had perhaps already doomed such antiquated assets as national spaceports. There wasn’t much at Incirlik now, save for a small military base.

But why were they attacking the USNA fighters in LEO?

For a moment, Koenig watched the data flow describing the slash and stab of aerospace fighters in low orbit. That why was becoming an increasingly important question. With the fighting at the Verdun planetary defense center all but over, there was no reason to challenge American space superiority, none at all.

Unless …

He called up a holographic map display, the board hanging transparent in midair showing the orbit of America’s space superiority fighters southeast across the Balkans, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula, and out over the Indian Ocean. A red dot flashed at the northeastern corner of the Med, marking Incirlik. Four of America’s fighters had just shot down the last of the Todtadlers from the base; four more USNA Starblades were four thousand kilometers ahead … coming up now on the southern tip of India.

“A second launch, Mr. President,” Armitage reported. “More Death Eagles.”

“How many?”

“Five, sir. No … make that six …”

“From where?”

“Surat, Mr. President. North India.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Koenig said, thoughtful. Surat was a large city on India’s northwestern coast, next to the Gulf of Khambhat. “I think those Death Eagles are trying to punch a hole through our orbiting squadron,” Koenig said.

“For what possible purpose, sir?” Whitney asked.

“For an escape. Admiral Armitage?”

“Sir!”

“I suggest you order the Elliot and the Hawes down from their perch for a closer look.”

“Right away, sir.”