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Starhawk’s acceleration to 3,000 gravities, turning again to race toward the planet.
    As always happened for Gray in combat, a rushing sense of speed, of acceleration washed through him, matching, it seemed the acceleration of his fighter.
    He might not be able to outrun Trash missiles in a flat-out race, but in most combat situations, outrunning them wasn’t necessary. Most missiles held their acceleration down to a tiny fraction of their full capability. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to match a low-G turn by their target, and they would wildly overshoot. So the remaining missiles on Gray’s tail were putting on just enough speed to slowly catch up with him.
    “Two new missiles now locked on and tracking. Terminal intercept in twenty-four seconds.”
    And that was the other half of the equation. Standard Turusch tactics were to fire whole swarms of missiles, sending them at him from all directions, until no maneuver he made could possibly jink past them all.
    “Three missiles of original salvo still closing. Terminal intercept in eight seconds.”
    Gray moved his hand through the control field and the Starhawk flipped end-for-end, bringing his particle accelerator to bear. The three closest missiles appeared as a triangle of red blips, the alphanumerics next to each flickering as range and time-to-impact swiftly dwindled.
    His eyes held one, and a red square appeared around the blip at the triangle’s apex, signifying target lock. He moved his hand and a stream of neutrons turned the missile into an expanding cloud of plasma. He shifted his attention to a second blip, and watched it explode as well.
    The third had vanished.
    “Ship!” he said. “Confirm destruction of all three missiles!”
    “Two anti-fighter missiles confirmed destroyed,” the AI’s voice said. “Negative confirmation on third missile. Two missiles of second salvo still locked on and closing. Terminal intercept in sixteen seconds. Third salvo fired, locked on and tracking. Terminal intercept in thirty-seven seconds….”
    That was the way it worked in modern space-fighter combat…with more missiles fired, and more, and more . Worse, from his mission’s perspective, the more time he spent trying to dodge incoming missiles, the less able he would be to carry out his primary objective, which was to close with Turusch capital ships and destroy them.
    He pulled the Starhawk around until it was again traveling straight for the planet ahead.
    “This is Blue Omega Seven,” he called. “Request clearance for PCO launch on this vector.”
    “Omagea Seven, Omega One,” Allyn’s voice came back. “You are clear for AMSO.”
    “Firing PCO in three…two…one… Fox Two !”
    In space-fighter combat, Fox One signaled the launch of any of a variety of all-aspect homing missiles, including the Krait. Fox Two , on the other hand, signaled a sandcaster launch—Anti-Missile Shield Ordnance, or AMSO. An AS-78 missile streaked from beneath his cockpit, accelerating at two thousand gravities. After five seconds, it was traveling one hundred kilometers per second faster than Gray’s Starhawk and, when it detonated, the individual grains of sand—actually sand-grain-sized spherules of matter-compressed lead—were released in an expanding cloud of grains, each traveling with the same velocity and in the same general direction. Sandcaster missiles were dumb weapons as opposed to smart; protocol required requesting clearance for launch, because a grain of sand striking a friendly fighter at several thousand kilometers per second could ruin the day for two pilots, him and his unintended target.
    Over the tacnet, he could hear other Omega pilots calling Fox Two as they slammed sand at the oncoming missiles.
    In a few more seconds, the sand cloud had dispersed to the point where it created a physical shield several kilometers across. His initial velocity after his turn-and-burn with the enemy ship-killers had been just over twelve thousand