The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) (23 page)

When no one stood or raised a hand Chang sat and pressed a button on the conference table. A group of aides entered and began to distribute the ballot papers. A hold over from generations ago the paper voting was meant to keep it anonymous. The reality was that each member voted with his faction, there was never any suspense.

Na watched the vote in despair. As a junior member he didn’t have a vote on tactical decisions. Instead he had to watch his ‘betters’ unanimously agree to plunge his beloved country further towards the brink of destruction. Na had earned his position thanks to his grandfather’s and great grandfather’s foresight. Both men had invested heavily in the first Chinese colonies. Na and his father had followed their lead and, as a result, Na was one of the wealthiest men in Chinese space. For the last twenty years he had been using that wealth to promote further colonial expansion and exploration. Eventually it had landed him his role on the politburo as Minister for Exploration. Yet, because of his wealth and his off world investments, he knew just how precarious the situation was in the colonies. All of the political power in the communist party still resided on Earth. His fellow politburo members only looked to the colonies as a source of wealth and raw materials to be used to build up China. As a result, the economies of the colonies were delicately balanced, constantly trying to stave off disaster as the men in power funneled much of their wealth and profits back to Earth.

The war had changed all that. With trade being limited and industrial output being focused on military matters, the colonies were being neglected. Na had been using his personal wealth to try and alleviate some of the worst problems yet it was just a drop in the ocean. Already he had noticed significant opposition to the war developing among the populace. Many of the older couples in Chinese society had children who had moved to the colonies. In turn, many of the students that attended the best Chinese universities were children of off world settlers. Through both lines of communication, news of the effects of the war was spreading back to Earth. People were unhappy. The rest of the politburo members had not realized the window of opportunity that this was opening but Na had.

When the voting was completed, Chang sent his naval aid out to convey the Politburo’s orders to the awaiting freighter that would then travel to Cook with the orders to attack. Satisfied that he had gotten his way he yielded the floor to Minister of the Interior.

“I wish to bring you all up to date with domestic affairs here on Earth. As you know we have refrained from mobilizing our ground forces as they are not likely to be needed and we didn’t want to cause too much strain on the economy. There have been some problems with switching other areas of our economy to a war footing. Supplies both at home and in our colonies have been running low, though we are largely on top of the problems. As a result, our people have not had to feel much strain, overall their optimism is high.

“We are getting some indications of organized student opposition to the war. At the moment it doesn’t look like it is going to cause us a great concern. It does indicate a more widespread problem however. My general read on the populace is that they are confused. They know the importance of the Void and they are not too worried about the strain the war is putting on our economy. However, most believed the information coming from the UN. We have tried to put our spin on it but so far we had little success. As it stands, it looks like we fired first, both in the Damang Incident and in the Void. It also appears that we have rejected a fair British offer to share the Void. In another country I would say we should begin to worry. I believe our people will remain loyal however. They may not understand our actions but they all trust the faithfulness of the Communist Party, we can rely on them to back us, no matter what.”

Na was not surprised at this attitude. The Communist Party had ruled in China for over five hundred years. It had gone through some changes in philosophy and structure true, but China was still a one party state and the people were loyal to their party. The expansion into space hadn’t been easy for some of the more democratic countries. The liberal American government had fallen to a conservative coup that had wanted American to regain the lead in the space race. France and Britain had just survived an Islamic revolution after the Meccan incident and whilst Britain had quickly gotten back on her feet, it had taken France decades. Other countries had gone through their own troubles too yet China had remained strong. Her people had remained loyal.

“What about the recent news of defeat, how do you see that affecting the populace’s mood?” Chang asked.

“It is too early to tell at the moment.” The Minister of the Interior answered. “If we can control the spin on the battle, we may be able to undo much of the damage. I feel we need a win and quickly though. If the people see us losing and can’t understand why we are fighting in the first place, the situation may change quickly. My fear is that the spin coming out of the UN and from allies of the British may also begin to persuade some of our people. In the long run I am confident they will remain loyal but we may experience the occasional short term problem.”

“That’s all very well,” Xiang said. “I think everyone would agree that we don’t want to take any chances though. What measures are you taking to ensure we don’t have to divert any resources to handling the populace?”

“To date,” the Interior Minister began, “we have severely clamped down on any independent media sources that have tried to operate within our sphere of influence. We have also greatly increased our cyber warfare division. The British are trying to flood our datanet with propaganda about the war but we now have enough specialists to take down their uploads as soon as they appear. My PR division is putting the finishing touches on a release concerning the battle as we speak. The general line will be that the so called battle at Excalibur was simply a skirmish by a light Chinese squadron testing the British defenses.”

“There is one problem with that approach,” Xiang announced. “If you portray it as a small skirmish then the public will be expecting a decisive victory to follow. In fact, given everything that has happened so far, I think that is exactly what they need to hear about. I would like to purpose that we send orders to Admiral Zheng to bring the British fleet to battle. Only by forcing a decisive victory will we be able to show our public that this war is in our best interest.”

“For once I agree with you Minister,” Chang said. “It’s time we brought this war to a close. The attacks on British systems will be a first step. Defeating their fleet in the Void will finish them off and appease our populace at the same time. Now, if the junior members of this meeting would excuse us, I wish to discuss the finer details with my colleagues.”

With that Na got up and left. He knew now that Chang and Xiang would never end this war. They were taking China to the brink of disaster. Thankfully, he already had contingency plans in place. It was time to activate some of them.

*

27
th
March 2465 AD, HMS Vulcan, Earth

As Admiral Somerville was sitting at his desk a chime from his office door alerted him someone wanted to enter. With a command he opened the door and Admiral Russell walked in.

“Good afternoon sir,” Russell began and, without letting Somerville welcome him he continued. “I have just received some sensitive intelligence information. One of my operatives in China was contacted by an intermediary claiming to bring a message from Minister Na.”

“Minister Na?” Somerville asked.

“He’s a junior member of the Politburo responsible for overseeing the Chinese exploration efforts.”

“Ah, I thought his name was familiar, what has he got to say to us?”

“That’s just it. I’m not sure if we can take it seriously or not. He is claiming that he represents a faction within the Chinese government that wants peace, a faction that didn’t want to go to war in the first place. But that is not the most time pressing issue. As evidence of his sincerity he has passed us information on the next Chinese plan of attack. He is claiming that they have secretly constructed a number of missileboats, essentially small fighter type ships. They are supposed to already be in the Cook system awaiting orders to attack our orbital instillations. According to Na the Politburo gave those orders an hour ago.”

“Right,” Somerville said as he jumped up and sprang into action. “If there is even a chance this is true we need to act immediately.” On his control terminal he punched in the commands to open a COM channel with the courier ship
Swift
.

“Commander, I have no time to talk. I need you to immediately boost towards the Alpha shift passage. You’ll be taking orders to Cook. I’ll transmit them to you once I have them ready. You have my permission to break all the safety procedures. Get to Cook as fast as you can.”

After the Commander nervously acknowledged his orders Somerville ended the COM link. “Right,” he said turning back to Russell. “We have four hours until we need to transmit our orders to
Swift
before she jumps out. We need to decide what orders to send to Cook and how we’re going to respond to this escalation. Then we need to decide what to do with Na. We have been looking for an opportunity to unite the popular unrest in China against the Politburo. This might just be our chance.”

The greatest fear in warfare is the unknown. This hasn’t changed since the dawn of time. What is the enemy planning? Where are his troops? Ever since humans stepped foot into space, this fear has been magnified. With the constant ongoing revolution of technology, commanders must deal with the unending question; what is the latest trick the enemy is going to use and can it be countered?  

-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

11
th
April 2465 AD, HMS
Ghost
, destroyer class, outer edge of the Cook system.

Third Lieutenant Rosin Johnston was sitting in the command chair on the bridge of HMS
Ghost
when the sensor officer motioned for her to come to his station.
Ghost
had just left Cook’s main shipyard a month ago and was in the last phase of her work up before she could be deployed.

“The sensors have been picking up some intermittent thermal signals, Lieutenant. At first I thought they were just a bug we hadn’t worked out of the system yet but they are too regular.”

Leaning over the sensor officer’s shoulder Lieutenant Johnston remained silent as she looked at the information the consoles was displaying. “What vector are these readings coming from?” she asked.

The sensor officer manipulated his console to display a 3D image of the Cook system. 
Ghost
was at the very edge of the mass shadow caused by Cook’s star. She was out here calibrating her deep space sensors and preparing for a stealth run into the system as the last check of her systems before she could be declared battle worthy. The whole crew was looking forward to seeing how far
Ghost
could sneak into the Cook system before the local defenders spotted her. The 3D image marked out a line proceeding from
Ghost,
heading further out of the system giving an estimated position of the sensor readings.

“As you can see Lieutenant the computer can’t get a good estimate of the range of the thermal signals, only their angle.”

“That’s strange,” Johnston thought out loud. “Whatever it is it’s even further out of the system than us. There is no good reason for a ship to be so far from Cook.” Speaking up for everyone on the bridge to hear her she continued, “navigation, plot us a course towards these signals, though don’t take us directly towards them. Approach at an angle so we can get a better fix on the range. Sensors you have the bridge; I’m going to go and inform the Captain. Oh, and don’t take us out of stealth.” The Lieutenant ordered as she left and walked down the corridor towards the Captain’s quarters.

An hour later Captain Lightfoot was the one sitting in the command chair contemplating what was going on. After surviving the Damang Incident and safely returning to Earth he had found himself a bit of a celebrity. He had been forced to endure a lengthy debrief and then had been assigned to the RSN Tactical Think Tank. Basically a group of RSN officers and other specialists brought in from outside the RSN, the Think Tank’s job was to assess new battle tactics and incorporate new technologies into the RSN’s existing tactical doctrine. He had enjoyed the mental stimulation but with the Think Tank based in London he had been plagued by the media. Eventually, the Admiralty had given him a newly minted destroyer, HMS
Ghost,
as a reward and he was glad to be aboard a spaceship again.

As his ship continued deeper into open space he reviewed the sensor readings once more. The strange thermal blips had continued for another ten minutes before disappearing. The sensor officer had backtracked his readings and identified another five blips the computer estimated were a part of the same pattern. All in all that made thirty estimated blips. What would make such a small thermal blip and yet hope to go anywhere? They were hours away from Cook itself. If the heat emissions were from a ship they hadn’t been large enough to do anything more than effect a course change. Yet the blips had all originated from the same location. Whatever was causing them wasn’t moving. If they were from a fission reactor restarting or experiencing difficulties it had to have been the smallest fission reactor in space. What purpose could it serve? The rhythm his fingers were strumming on his command chair suddenly stopped as it hit him!

“Navigation, make a direct course for the blips, take us there at full stealth acceleration.”

“Yes sir,” came the reply.

“Tactical, I want you to run a number of simulations based on our data of the Cook defense network. Assume those blips are either thermal leakage from a long-range stealth missile’s drive kicking in or from a small fission reactor starting off. See what the chances are of Cook detecting such a missile before it could get into attack range of the industrial complex in orbit.”

Fusion reactors powered all British anti-ship missiles. They were smaller and easier to produce in large numbers. A missile with a fission reactor would have a much greater range. However, they would be slower and any target they could attack would have lots of time to get out of the way; unless, of course, the location of the missile’s targets could be predicted: like the geosynchronous orbit of an orbital shipyard or factory.

“Communications, I want you to prepare a brief information packet to send back to Cook. Detail our findings and my belief that the thermal readings could be from some new form of Chinese missile designed to approach the inner system under stealth. Let them know what to look out for.”

Lightfoot paused and looked back to his navigation officer. “How long until we can get into visual range of the area?” he asked.

“Another hour at this rate of acceleration sir.”

*

Aboard the battlestation
Chester
in orbit around Cook, Commander Harte was on watch. Five hours ago a courier from Earth hand jumped into the system. It had been accelerating at full speed towards Cook ever since. Only five minutes ago the first message from the courier had reached the battlestation. It was broadcasting a warning that RSNI believed there was an imminent Chinese plan to attack Cook and its orbitals. Harte had already sent the information to Admiral McGreevy, who was in charge of Cook’s defenses. The Admiral was on his way up. When the second message from HMS
Ghost
arrived Harte sat up in his chair. He had hoped to leave any big decisions to the Admiral. Yet the Admiral wouldn’t thank him for delaying if there was a serious threat to his system. Speaking loudly he addressed the various officers who were manning the sensor and tactical stations that made up the battlestation’s command and control center. “I want us to bring the system’s defenses to alert status one. We have a credible threat. All ships and battlestations are to go to powered active scanning. I want our pickets to establish an outer ring thirty light minutes from the planet. Nothing is to get close to Cook without us knowing about it. Pay special attention to this vector,” he said as he brought up the data from
Ghost
. “Our Chinese friends may be sending us a few unwelcome presents.”

*

As the first visual images were picked up by
Ghost,
Lightfoot had to admit he was surprised by what he was looking at. He had been expecting some kind of Chinese warship. Instead there were two American built freighters. Could the American’s be carrying out some sort of espionage on the Cook system? It hardly made sense. American freighters passed through the Cook system all the time. They had no need to go around sneaking about in the outer system. The Chinese must have bought them he concluded. “Tactical, what does the computer make of the images? Is there any sign that the freighters have been modified to fire missiles?” he
asked.

“No sir,” the tactical officer replied. “As far we can tell the freighters are the same as when they left their American shipyards. If there are any changes they must be on their underbelly, it’s the only side of the ships we can’t get a visual of.”

“What systems do they have fixed to their underside?” Lightfoot snapped.

“Nothing much sir, most of the underside is taken up with the loading bay. This class of freighter is designed to allow atmospheric craft to fly up from the surface of a planet, enter the loading bay and then return directly to the surface with their cargo.”

“What is the likelihood they are unloading missiles through the docking bay and using some kind of small craft to reorientate them before firing them into the system?” Lightfoot followed up.

“It’s possible sir, but I don’t think it is very likely”

“Why not?”

“Well,” the tactical officer began. “You would want to be very careful unloading any missiles, especially from a ship not specifically designed to handle them. Even if they had two tugs to take the missiles out of the freighter and line the missiles up, it would take quite a while to unload thirty missiles. All our sensors blips occurred in pairs. That would suggest two tugs, yet we haven’t spotted any yet. And even if they are there the time between blips was very short. It seems more likely that whatever was coming out of the docking bay was maneuvering itself.”

At that the bridge went silent. Everyone was thinking the same thing but it was the First Lieutenant who was the first to voice it. “Some kind of small fighter like craft?”

Lightfoot had his doubts but before he could voice them the tactical officer chimed in, “it’s possible sir, given enough spare valstronium a small ship could be made reasonably safe for high velocities. If it could be kept relatively stealthy they would make good surprise attack craft. They’d be damned hard to spot at anything more than close range.”

Slowly, a new picture dawned on Lightfoot as he seriously considered the possibility. The Chinese must have bought the two freighters and converted them to house these small attack craft. The freighters would have had no problem passing the checks in the Sol and Alpha systems unless someone actually boarded them and obviously no one had. Whatever armaments the small attack craft were carrying were going to be bad for the defenders of Cook.
“Communications send a signal back into the system. Inform the Admiral that we believe these two freighters have just deployed a group of fighters. Let them know that the fighters may be coming in on a different attack vector than the one we sent them. If they are in any way maneuverable, they will alter course before lining up for their attack run. A straight line into the system would only lead our defenses back to the two freighters.”

“Message away sir.”

“Good, navigation how long until we get within weapons range of the two freighters?” Lightfoot asked.

Instead of replying the navigation officer frantically danced his fingers across his command terminal. “One moment sir, the two freighters have just powered up their drives and are altering course.”

There were two beeps in quick succession from one of the secondary display screens. Each beep indicated the gravimetric sensors had detected a ship jumping into shift space.

“I’m afraid we have lost them sir. Both freighters just jumped into shift space. The computer is trying to calculate their precise route now. It may take up to thirty minutes though. The only thing I can say for sure is that they didn’t jump towards a shift passage. It looks like they jumped somewhere further round the edge of the system.”

“Damn,” Lightfoot swore as he punched his fists down on his command chair. Before saying anything else that might give away his disappointment he began to think. Whatever size those fighters are they can’t have their own jump drives. That means they have to meet up with those freighters again if they want to get out of here after their attack. “Tactical, bring up the rough estimate of the direction the freighters jumped.”

When the image appeared on the holo display Lightfoot studied it. “It looks like they jumped at an angle to make their way around the mass shadow and towards the Britannia jump passage, what do you think tactical?”

As the tactical officer began to run the numbers, Lightfoot pictured the Cook system in his mind. Every solar system created a mass shadow within which the shift drive wouldn’t work because of the system’s gravimetric field. That same gravimetric field also created a bubble in the dark matter that was strewn about the galaxy. Often the gap between the mass shadow and the outer edge of the dark matter bubble was negligible. Yet, in certain systems like Cook, it was large enough to allow ships to make a series of shift drive jumps around the edge of the system. Doing so, allowed ships to move from one shift passage to another without having to enter the inner system. Since Cook was colonized the British government had had problems collecting transport fees from shipping companies who ordered their freighters to skirt around the edge of the Cook system to avoid any fees.