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Eagle Against the Stars

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Eagle Against the Stars

Steve White

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Page 1

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-57846-4

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, January 2000

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

To Sandy, more than ever.

BAEN BOOKS by STEVE WHITE

The Disinherited

Legacy

Debt of Ages

Prince of Sunset

Emperor of Dawn

Eagle Against the Stars

The Starfire series

(with David Weber)

Insurrection

Crusade

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In Death Ground

PROLOGUE

The sun broke over the edge of Earth, bringing with it a slender blue-white sickle of dawn that

encroached on the expanse of darkness that was the planet's nightside as seen from low orbit. The

Orbital Command-and-Control Station's viewport polarized against the glare.

But, thought Colonel Michael Roark, there was still plenty of light to see despair by. The swarm of

spacecraft that had no business being there were in visual range, although their daunting massiveness was

reduced to the dimensions of iron filings by the distance, and the sun glinted on them.

He shifted uncomfortably in his pressure suit. They'd all been wearing the things, rather than the usual

blue jumpsuits with U.S. Air Force Orbital Command shoulder flashes, for almost twenty-four hours.

That was how long it had been since those impossible ships had appeared, effortlessly matching orbits

with OCCS, and they'd gone to Red Alert status. Since then the uncharacteristically rigid military routine

had been armor for their sanity in the new world of unreality they'd abruptly entered. Still, eyes constantly

wandered toward the viewport, and Roark wasn't inclined to reprimand anyone for it.

At least the aliens— Lokaron , they called themselves—hadn't kept them in suspense. They'd responded

to the Station's hails at once, with a lengthy message to be transmitted to the U.S. government. Roark

had patched them into the satellite net as requested—a process which had given him access to the

message. He hadn't shared it with his personnel, for they would be just as able as he was to foresee the

governent's response . . . and the likely consequences for themselves.

Roark shifted position, moving with the ease of one long-practiced in the art of walking in zero gravity on

a metal deck with magnetic soles. Drugs counteracted the effects of long-term weightlessness on the

human skeleton and immune system, but nothing could prevent the loss of muscle tone. I'll be weak as a

kitten down there at first, he thought . . . then laughed silently at himself. Unless he was very wrong

about his probable future, he didn't need to worry about anything pertaining to his return to Earth.

There was a sound of awkward movement by his side. Sidney Kazin, PhD, wore the same USAF issue

as everyone else on the station, but he couldn't conceivably have been mistaken for any kind of military

man, even on the Orbital Command's relaxed standards. He lacked zero-gee experience, and had been

miserably uncomfortable since a shuttle had brought him up to run tests on some quirky new

instrumentation. That discomfort had been forgotten the moment the strange craft had appeared, as had

everything else.

"Anything new, Colonel?"

"No, Doctor." Not in the last five minutes, Roark didn't add. "Our latest word from Cheyenne

Mountain is to sit tight and await further orders. And the . . . Lokaron still haven't been inclined to chat

with us."

"But they've told us quite a lot, you know . . . just by the way they arrived." Kazin's eyes glowed behind

his Coke-bottle glasses, and his frizzy hair and beard formed a weightless aureole. Roark smiled at him,

and wondered what the ecstasy of scientific curiosity was like. "In the first place, their message was in

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English. They've obviously been around a while for their computers to have cracked the language."

"But maybe not as long as we might imagine," Roark demurred. "After all, we don't know the capabilities

of their computers. Besides, nobody's seen them conducting any studies."

"Come on, Colonel! Remember how they just appeared out of nowhere, without being tracked until they

were practically entering orbit?" Kazin laughed nervously. "Big surprise! We're dealing with a technology

that can beat the lightspeed limit and send a major expedition—not just some half-assed little robot

probe—across interstellar distances! Unless they want us to detect them, we won't detect them."

"Funny the UFO cultists in the last century, with all their alleged photos and radar sightings, didn't think

of that," Roark mused. "But why do you assume they came here faster than light? Granted, interstellar

travel slower than that would take a long time. But it doesn't violate any physical laws, which

faster-than-light travel does."

"Oh, I'm not saying they can actually break through the lightspeed barrier. You're right, that's a

mathematical absurdity. But they must be able to get around it in some way." Kazin pointed out the

viewport. "Those are too small to be STL interstellar ships."

"Small? You call those things small ?"

"Colonel, anything designed to keep a crew alive that long would have to be humongous ! I don't care

what it's using for propulsion. And that's another thing," Kazin went on, words practically tripping over

themselves. "What does make those suckers move? They didn't perform any magic feats while matching

orbits with us—they've obviously got to play by the rules of inertia. But they've got nothing that could

possibly be exhaust nozzles or anything like that. They have something that isn't a reaction

drive—something Newton didn't allow for. Something we can't even theorize." An uncontrollable shiver

ran through the young scientist, and he hugged himself to contain the trembling. "Dear God! The things

we'll be able to learn from them!"

Roark felt a wave of sadness wash over him. He knew the type. Kazin was considered politically

harmless, or else he wouldn't have been sent up here. Indeed, he was a member of the Earth First Party .

. . under constant suspicion, and as blissfully unaware of that suspicion as he was of the philosophical

contradictions between his work and the Party's antiscience doctrines. It wouldn't last forever, of course.

Sooner or later, he'd be told he couldn't publish something because his findings were ideologically

unacceptable. Like the innocent he was, he would voice his indignation openly . . . and there'd be yet

another mysterious disappearance, officially blamed on "reactionary elements" and used as an excuse for

still further encroachments on the civil liberties Americans would once have missed.

Presently, Kazin went below to his tiny cubicle. It was no accident he was staying at OCCS; it was the

only manned installation in orbit. The Orbital Command's weaponry—and most especially the

fusion-pumped X-ray lasers that waited to die that they might yield up ultrahigh-energy pulses at the

moment of death—were unmanned. All the rest of the Command's personnel were dirtside. Only Roark

and a few others were actually in orbit to oversee America's remote-controlled defenders. Defenders

against what? he wondered in prudent silence. The continent-sized slum that is Russia? Or whatever

generalissimo is currently top snake in the snake pit that used to be China? Nobody else was in

space at all.

Roark's eyes strayed to the bone-white crescent of Luna. Men had set foot there, more than fifty years

ago. The science-fiction writers of his grandparents' generation had imagined a lot of things in connection

with the first moon landing . . . but not that humans would attain that ancient dream and then simply drop

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the ball. Such idiocy had been beyond even their powers of imagination.

We turned our backs on the universe. Roark's gaze swung back to the alien ships. But the universe

didn't take the hint.

"Colonel?" The comm technician's voice, charged with an odd mixture of diffidence and tension, broke

into his thoughts. "It's Cheyenne Mountain, sir. Top security."

"Of course," Roark sighed. So soon? I'd hoped to have a little longer. He turned to the comm

console, where General Harris' face looked out of the screen, as haggard as Roark felt. The image, like

the sound, was carried on waves that were scrambled into meaninglessness and reconstituted only at this

console, with no appreciable delay. The Lokaron wouldn't be able to intercept anything useful.

"Colonel," Harris said heavily, "the Lokaron demands have been reviewed at the highest level. The

decision has been made to implement Case Gamma, effective immediately."

Roark heard the muttering around him in the cramped spaces. Everyone present knew what that meant.

He ignored it. "General, you realize of course—"

"Those are my orders, Colonel—and yours!" Harris' voice cracked.

In a detached sort of way, Roark wondered at his own despair. This was, after all, merely what he'd

expected. "General, we have a civilian here—Doctor Kazin. I feel uncomfortable about putting him at

risk. I respectfully request a delay so that we can send him down. A shuttle can be made ready in—"

Another Air Force-uniformed figure pushed Harris out of the pickup. The new image in the screen had

only one star to Harris' two. But that didn't matter—Roark recognized him as the Orbital Command's

resident political officer. "Doctor Kazin is a member of the Earth First Party, Colonel," he snapped. "As

such, he—unlike, it seems, certain others—will recognize the necessity for this action. He will be glad to

place himself in the front line of defense—a defense of everything America has achieved in the last two

decades under the Party's progressive, enlightened guidance! Everyone's behavior in this crisis will be

subject to later scrutiny. Everyone's , Colonel. Do I make myself clear?" With a final sneer, he turned

away.

Harris moved back into the pickup. "Carry out your orders, Colonel," he said firmly. Then, with a

sideways glance as though to make certain he was alone, he spoke in a different voice. "Good-bye,

Mike."

"Good-bye, sir," Roark replied . . . but to a blank screen, for astonishment had rendered him speechless

until after the general had cut the connection.

He set to work briskly, allowing himself to think of nothing save the series of orders he needed to give.

Those orders went out, and at various points in various orbits, weapons began to ponderously realign

themselves on a single target, or rather a cluster of targets. The personnel of OCCS moved just as

mechanically, performing a task about which they dared not brood.

That task was about done when Kazin's head appeared in the hatchway, wearing an expression brewed

from alarm and disbelief. Roark smiled. The rumor mill worked quickly in a small, enclosed environment

like this.

"Colonel, what's going on? I've got clearance, you know. What are you doing?"

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