MAIYAN DELIVERANCE    by Will David Mitchell and Carol L. Mitchell

Suddenly Maiyan utopia is shattered. 

SpaceShip-22, en route to colonize and mine the asteroid Psyche, across the solar system, mysteriously goes dark. Maiya sends a fleet to Search And Rescue (SAR).

New California Mercenaries kidnap the top Maiyan leaders and accelerate away toward Earth at a bone-crushing 5-Gs, in a stolen Maiyan space fighter. But they miss a couple of key people.

Admiral Rudan expends her enormous personal strength to thwart the kidnapping from within, and returns the ship to the Maiyan Nation in a wide, decelerating spiral, not knowing her radios have been retuned to Earth frequencies. 

At the same time, the New Californians mount a ten-ship attack on the Maiyan Asteroid, determined to crack her shell and thus destroy all 1,000 inhabitants, They plan to scoop up the iridium stores. And they have new Focussed Electro-Magnetic Pulse (FEMP) weapons to demolish any Maiyan resistance.

No Maiyan ships are able to launch in defense, but a couple are out on very wide patrol.  Others are on SAR duty, weeks away.

With their core defences controlled from within the metallic asteroid, thus shielded from FEMP, Maiya fires on Rudan, mistakenly thinking she is a maurader, breaking her neck.  Before she perishes, she takes out several New Californian ships. Her ship crashes heavily on the nearby asteroid Ceres.

Heartbroken, General Addis Kahn, her husband leads a 65-ship sortie to Earth, to avenge her death and take out the leader of the New Californians. They attack against a 3-1 majority of space ships, on New California's home turf, where their PHOX ships have no particular advantage over conventional ships.

Anne solves the 20th Dynamic Phase of Matter Equation, a step toward Faster Than Light (FTL) travel. FTL phenomena do exist. Her solution involves partial, imaginary, dimensions of space. But unfortunately the solution only reveals a 21st equation to solve.  She begins work on that, so that possibly they might learn to jump their asteroid across the solar system. The chances are nil.

Addis' ships limp home in modest triumph, but he reveals a major turn in events.