Synopsis

Someone tried to destroy the Earth. They nearly succeeded, just missing our planet and shattering our Moon. Millions of fragments rained down on the Earth. The death toll was staggering.

Fortunately, mankind had reached a point in its development when flight to the stars was possible. The four surviving starships were converted from exploration to military use, and sent out on a journey taking them farther into the galaxy than any humans had ever gone before.

The goal: find the race that tried to destroy them.

The mission: revenge.

EXCERPT

“I understand the math, Dr. Carlton.  What you are saying is that at speeds very
close to the speed of light, the mass increases to a very large number.”



“Couldn’t have put it better myself.  And then it follows that multiplying the
speed times the mass gives much a much higher number for the force of the
explosion.  Much more.”



The military mind is always quick to latch onto new weapons.  “Then what you
have,” General Smith said, “is a very effective bomb.  Makes nukes look like
firecrackers.”



“You got it, General.  Now back to our Moon Strike.  Either some race was
trying to visit us and their ship never decelerated from near light speed, or
you have a weapon deliberately fired at the earth.  I believe, gentleman, that
this object, this relativistic bomb, was aimed at the earth.  Luckily it
missed.”



“Luckily!” cried General Smith.  “Blowing up our moon and killing millions. 
Millions!”



Dr. Carlton looked at the general over the rim of his glasses.  “It could have
been worse,” he said simply and softly.



For a minute no one spoke as they imagined what would have happened had this
object struck the Earth.



“Probably no less than the elimination of the entire human species,” Dr.
Carlton filled in for them.  “Save for a few of us who were off the Earth at the
time.”



“Why do you think it missed, Doctor?” asked the President.



“Probably difficulty in aiming.  You see, we can assume that this bomb started
out as a starship.  It left some planetary system, accelerating as rapidly as it
could, probably ejecting massive amounts of reaction mass.  For a long time, it
accelerated, maybe a year or two.  Then, when it was traveling at almost the
speed of light, it traversed the space between their star system and ours.  As
it neared our system, it was traveling at full speed, nearly c.  At that speed
you can’t change course.  You’re covering 300,000 kilometers every second. 
That’s 186,000 miles.  Every second.  Something going that fast cannot have its
course changed easily.  This means that they have to be very careful in their
aim when the ship is traveling slowly enough to still change its course.  They
could only make course changes while very far away from our solar system.  I
think they simply missed.”



“My God!” said the President softly.  He covered his face with his hands.  Dr.
Carlton watched with interest.  He was good an explaining things but in this
case he was glad that he did not have to make the decisions.



“Mr. President.  We have to retaliate,” said General Smith.



“How?  Build a relativistic bomb ourselves?  Hell, we don’t even know who
launched this thing!”



“I believe we may be able to backtrack it,” said Dr. Carlton.  “We have this
photo,” he said with a wave towards the display still on the screen.  “And, now
that we know what to look for, there may be other tracks we can find.  I’d say
there is a good chance we can find out where it came from.”



“Then I suggest we contact the other nations and prepare a fleet to go there,”
said General Smith.  “And kick their butts!”



The President only shook his head sadly.  “We have met three races in space. 
All three have been friendly.  There are some who maintain that any race
intelligent enough to discover interstellar drive is intelligent enough to
understand the illogic of war.  Who could have done this?  Who wants the human
race wiped out?”



No one had an answer for him.



For a long time these four men looked at each other, unable or unwilling to
voice their thoughts right then.



Finally the President took in a deep breath.  He muttered, “How am I going to
tell the public?”  Then, louder, “How do we keep people from panicking?  How can
we tell them than some race out there has the ability to totally destroy the
Earth in a second?  And they just tried!”



“And,” added Dr. Carlton, “that another such bomb may be on its way as we
speak.”



The President turned pale.  It took several long seconds before he could speak
again.  “General, you’re going to get your wish.  I want you to head up a
commission that will include all nations.  Explain the problem and ask them to
help formulate a response.  An armed response.”



“Yes, Sir!”



“Dr. Carlton, I want you to find out where these bastards live.  We’re going to
go visit them.”