The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) (24 page)

“It’s possible sir,” the tactical officer began after reviewing the data, “the Cook system has one of the largest bubbles of dark matter. If they jumped far enough out, they could turn around and jump back along the mass shadow towards the shift passage. That or they could disembark another flight of fighters to make a second attack run on the system from another angle.”

Lightfoot almost didn’t hear his Lieutenant’s last sentence. If they sortie another attack there was nothing he could do, but if they were planning to regroup with their fighters and then go to Britannia and launch another strike… that he could deal with.

“Navigation, plot the likely least time jump pattern those freighters would use to reach the Britannia passage. Then plot us a series of jumps to follow, only keep us 1.1 light hours back from them. They probably don’t have military grade gravimetric sensors but I don’t want to take the chance they get a sniff of us.

*

“Flight Leader, this is
Red Dragon Two
. The power readings on our impulse drive are fluctuating beyond the safety parameters. We’re going to have to drop back out of formation.”

Flight Leader Le cursed after he keyed an acknowledgement. That was the second missileboat that had been forced to drop back. After an initial burst of their impulse engines to clear the freighters, his ships had cruised into the Cook system for an hour before lighting off their engines again. If they were spotted they didn’t want to draw any attention to the freighters that were their only ride home. He now had his flight of twenty-eight remaining missileboats making a slow burn up above the star’s ecliptic. Once far enough away from the freighters, they would turn back down and charge into the system to deal out as much destruction as possible.

As his ships continued their cruise, Le began to zone out his surroundings and enter into the mediation technique he had been teaching himself. Ever since the first day of training for operating the new missileboats he had had to endure long simulator runs. Almost every attack plan his superiors had been able to come up with involved long engine burns into a system toward their targets. It could play havoc on anyone’s nerves, being so closely confined for up to ten hours at a time. The only way Le had stayed sane during his training had been using a mediation technique he had downloaded off the datanet and had been teaching himself. When the time came for his missileboats to alter course and begin their dive into the system he gave the order, barely noticing it. Even when another missileboat reported engine trouble and had to drop back he was able to stay calm.

Eventually they got to within one light hour of their target. Slowly Le brought himself out of his meditative state. Almost as soon as he did his ships began to report active radars ahead. At this range Le knew they could only be from a ship’s main search radar. Someone knew they were coming. Instead of being able to carry out a simple sweep in towards Cook, he now had to contemplate dancing his way past a number of patrols before he could get close enough to launch his missiles.

Before leaving Chinese space he had drilled for just such a situation with his fellow pilots. Everyone knew what to do. Their one advantage was that their ships were too small for the system pickets to hit with their anti-ship missiles. They would have to close to plasma cannon and anti-missile range. If Le could manage it, he should be able to dart through the picket line before they realized that they would have to close with him.

For the next ten minutes he allowed his missileboat’s computer to analyze all the radar energy his flight was picking up. Soon he had a rough plot of where all the picket ships were. Carefully, he planned out a route past them all and sent it to the rest of his ships via laser links. Any radio transmissions would give them away.

When the final missileboat acknowledged Le sent out the order. As one, the missileboats turned onto the new vector. He was reasonably confident that the pickets wouldn’t pick up the thermal readings from their small maneuvering thrusters. However, they would have to make their next course adjustment only twenty light minutes from one of the picket ships. That was going to be close.

All of a sudden the radar sweeps from the pickets began to change. The sweeps switched from a regular pattern to random high-powered beams. It also seemed as if the pickets themselves had given up their pre-set flight path and were now deviating their trajectory randomly.
They know we’re not missiles
, Le thought to himself. Or at least standard missiles, they think we can maneuver past their pickets. Le smiled. With luck they wouldn’t realize just how good their stealth tech was. It had been one of the Chinese intelligence services’ better successes. His missileboat and the other twenty-six of his remaining flight were covered in an outer layer of the latest British radar-absorbing tech. Even the picket’s random search patterns shouldn’t be able to detect them all.

Le looked down as the computer beeped. The new trajectories of the picket ships meant they would have to make their next course change soon. If they delayed any longer the thermal bloom from their engines would be detected. Yet their new course would also now bring them closer to several British ships.

After sending the updated course to his flight Le keyed the audio link. “This is Dragon Leader. We’re going to pass close to three British ships. If they detect you I want you to go to full power and make a run at the ship. See if you can take it out. Hopefully that will get everyone’s attention and allow the rest of us to get through to our target. We all volunteered for this and we knew what we’re signing up for. Good luck. Dragon Leader out.”

*

Aboard the frigate
Ajax,
Commander Montgomery wasn’t sure what the Admiral was thinking. Currently Montgomery had his ship powering through space making random course changes, often severe ones. That and having to run his primary search radar for so long was going to mean
Ajax
would be making a trip to the repair yard at Cook sometime soon for a replacement. He understood there was a creditable threat to the system’s industry, but fighters? And ones that would be able to sneak past the outer picket the Admiral had set up – it seemed far-fetched! Orders were orders though and if
Ajax
had to spend some down time at the repair dock his crew would enjoy the shore leave.

Just then alarms went off around the bridge. “Commander,” shouted one of the bridge officers, “we have picked up two small anomalies twenty light seconds off the starboard beam. They are very small but they are in the range of what we have been told to look for.”

Montgomery tried to shake himself out of his doubtful thoughts but it was difficult. “So you think these are the fighters we are expecting?”

“They appear to match the data
Ghost
sent to the fleet sir,” the officer replied.

“Very well, can you get a missile lock on them?”

“Not a clear one, they must have some radar absorbing tech. Even at this close range we’re struggling to get a read on them,” the tactical officer said.

“Ok here’s the plan. We’ll launch two missiles at each of those craft and then we’ll come about and head for them at full power. Hopefully, when we get closer our radar will be able to burn through their protection and give the missiles something to lock onto. In the meantime we will try and get into plasma cannon range, we won’t need a firm lock to begin to pick them off with plasma.”

Before he had finished speaking the tactical officer had already updated the missile’s firing solutions. “We’re ready to fire when you give the word Commander,” he reported.

“Navigation, are you ready to bring us about after we fire?”

“Yes sir.”

“Ok Tactical, fire!”

Almost as soon as the four missiles left the acceleration tubes the two anomalies plus a third craft began to maneuver. Their engine plumes immediately gave them away, allowing the missiles to get a firm lock on them. It only took
Ajax’s
tactical officer moments to fire another two missiles at the third craft. Yet as the missiles approached their targets, it was clear they weren’t going to get things all their own way.

Two counter missiles shot off from each of the small craft, taking out two of the incoming missiles. Then the small craft went to full power and began drastic evasive maneuvers whilst powering up their ECM jammers. Three of the remaining four missiles missed their targets but one managed to get a proximity detonation. The small craft simply vanished in the expanding nuclear fireball.

As soon as the other two ships were clear of the missiles pursuing them they swung around and headed straight for
Ajax
. Commander Montgomery looked at the status of the missiles tubes.
Ajax
had expended all her missiles and it would take another two minutes to reload. By then the small craft would be within range of
Ajax’s
counter missiles, never mind her plasma cannons.

“Tactical, target the main plasma cannons, then use point defenses to take them out if you have to.”

Montgomery watched as the main plasma cannons had little effect.
Ajax’s
cannons were designed to punch through the valstronium armor of another ship, not swat these smaller flies. The random jerks and twitches the two small craft were making made it impossible for the plasma cannons to track them.

Before Montgomery could think of a new plan the tactical officer broke his thoughts.

“Sir, I’m detecting two more launches from each of the fighters. They’re not firing counter missiles, these things are bigger, anti-ship missiles I think.”

As he stared at the plot the two incoming ships ceased their jerking to line up their shots. One blew up as a plasma bolt finally managed to make a direct hit yet the fighter had already got away its two missiles.

Quickly Montgomery worked out the closing speeds in his head.
Ajax
was heading straight for the fighters at 0.2c. The fighters were closing at 0.35c. If they had acceleration tubes their missiles could be coming in at over 0.4c, never mind the acceleration they would put on once their own engines kicked in. They would be closing at almost the speed of light!

Even as he shouted orders to put the ship into reverse and bring the point defense network to full, he knew it was too late. The sharp thud of counter missiles being fired off in rapid succession by the ship’s automated defenses told him the missiles were already very close. Before he could finish his next thought he was thrown out of his command seat and right across the bridge as the concussive force of a missile hitting his ship threw everyone to the floor. As the missile detonated,
Ajax
exploded, leaving nothing behind but atoms in space. Alone the kinetic energy from the missile that had hit the ship vaporized the front nose section. The nuclear explosion finished the rest of the ship off.

In contrast to the later wars humanity would get itself embroiled in, only rarely did the wars between the different human space faring powers overspill into attacks upon orbital and planetary targets. Yet when they did, the destruction always proved devastating.

-Excerpt from Empire’s Rising, 3002 AD

11
th
April 2465 AD, inner Cook system.

Flight Leader Le didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or depressed. He had managed to steer his flight of missileboats through the outer picket of Cook’s defenders. After hours of cruising into the system they were now only ten minutes out from their target. Yet of the thirty missileboats he had begun the mission with, three had dropped back because of engine problems. The pickets had destroyed a further five, although his ships had taken out a frigate and a light cruiser. Now he only had twenty-two missileboats left. That gave him forty-four missiles, not enough to get the job done. Dismissing his pessimism, Le instead turned his mind to the task of re-evaluating his targets.

Three destroyers were frantically making their way towards Cook’s orbital shipyard while a frigate was settling into position to cover the planet’s main defensive battlestation that was in orbit over the largest city. A second frigate was boosting around the planet to join the defense of the battlestation.

Bringing up the visuals of the nearest frigate, Le knew his fears were justified. The frigate was one of the new flak frigates and that meant the second frigate likely was too. Since the intel from the Damang Incident, his officers had run simulations going up against the new British flak frigates with missileboats. They never ended well. While their small size and stealth technology made them hard to hit with conventional missiles and even heavy plasma cannons, the flak rounds were another matter. Only the front thirty percent of his missileboats were armored with valstronium to protect against cosmic particles. The rest of the missileboats only had titanium armor and a flak round traveling at even 0.1c would shred his boat apart. Never mind the fact that the frigates would be able to knock down more of his missiles as well.

Quickly, he readjusted his attack plans and then transmitted them to the other missileboats. As each ship acknowledged he watched as his force split into three groups. He had ordered first flight to attack the shipyard while the ten missileboats of his third flight headed for the main battlestation. One of the missileboats of second flight carried a special weapons package so the rest of that flight would escort it to its target.

As the shipyard was the closest target, Le had a few seconds to watch first flight’s attack commence. Racing in at 0.35c, the missileboats released their missiles as soon as they came into range. The three destroyers had already fired their own anti-ship missiles and were filling space with plasma rounds as well.

Ignoring the threat to their own lives the missileboats’ commanders kept their ships directly on line with their target until all their missiles had been deployed. Only then did they begin evasive maneuvers as they turned away from the shipyard and tried to put some distance between them and the defending destroyers. Too late for some, for two anti-ship missiles managed to get proximity detonations, taking out three missileboats. The rest managed to escape as both the destroyers’ and the shipyard’s defenses switched over to trying to take out the incoming missiles.

Compared to the attacks on the system pickets the closing speed of the incoming missiles was a lot less, giving the defenders a few vital seconds to target the oncoming threats. Of the sixteen missiles launched at the shipyard, five fell to the point defense plasma cannons of the defenders. AM missiles took out another eight but three managed to penetrate the defensive fire and strike the shipyard, sending shockwaves along the large structure as they exploded.

Le didn’t have time to watch as he began to lead his own flight on its attack run. If he had, he would have seen the shipyard quickly break into a number of large pieces, all of which were dragged down towards Cook by the planet’s gravity.  A number of them quickly burned up in the atmosphere but three large sections of the shipyard continued on to plummet towards the planet’s surface, forgotten by both the attackers and defenders in space as the battle raged on.

Le’s ten missileboats soon became nine as the battlestation opened up with all its heavy plasma cannons. Not designed for point defense, the larger plasma cannons were all but useless against missiles. Yet the sheer weight of fire the battlestation could put out meant his missileboats had to go into evasive maneuvers. The flak frigate also began to rapidly fire rounds off at the incoming missileboats as they approached but, at its outer range, the fire was spread too thin to be a real threat and only one more missileboat was hit.

As the missileboats finally entered the range of their own missiles, time seemed to slow down. As one the remaining eight ships ceased their evasive maneuverers and turned towards the battlestation. Immediately, one missileboat exploded as a flak round detonated in close proximity to it. Within two seconds the remaining seven missileboats fired off their fourteen missiles. The gunners aboard the battlestation
Chester
and the flak frigate
Crossbow
took full advantage of those two seconds as plasma cannon fire destroyed two missileboats and a flak round took out another.

As with the attack on the shipyard, the remaining missileboats managed their escape when the defenders switched their fire to the incoming missiles. Confident that he was safe, Le watched the missiles make their final attack runs. Pumping his fists he urged the missiles on. Fourteen became eight as the flak frigate filled space with a withering hale of explosions. Then the point defense plasma cannons added their fire. Eight became seven and then six. Finally the AM missiles were launched from the battlestation and frigate and six became two. Both struck the superstructure of the massive battlestation and Le saw it buckle as two explosions erupted from deep within. Yet, no secondary explosions followed and in dismay Le watched as the battlestation used its maneuvering thrusters to reorientate itself and open fire once again on his remaining missile boats with its large plasma cannons. Automatically setting his craft into a series of evasive maneuvers Le tried to pick out second flight from all the information on his holo display.

Second flight’s target had been on the other side of the planet and so they had headed up over the northern hemisphere of Cook. Decelerating as they approached their target, their missiles would have the smallest closing speed though their target was also the smallest. Sitting in geosynchronous orbit, the battlestation
Oak
was a much smaller version of
Chester
. Her job was to protect the small valstronium mining operation on the planet’s surface.

As all but one of second flight’s missileboats launched their missiles at
Oak
she tried her best to swat them out of the sky. Two fell to plasma fire and another two to AM missiles but that wasn’t enough. Multiple missiles struck
Oak
and she simply disappeared. Coming in sixty seconds behind her sister ships, the last missileboat of second flight fired off her two special missiles. They immediately dived into the atmosphere of Cook and used their ground penetrating radar to lock onto the underground mining facilities. Upon striking the surface, their valstronium cores allowed them to penetrate down almost a kilometer before exploding. Their momentum alone caused an explosion of several kilotons and the thermonuclear detonations of the two missiles ensured that nothing of the mining operation survived.

Once he had led his flight out of range of the remaining battlestation, Le waited for what was left of his other two flights to join him. Their numbers were severely depleted; of the initial thirty missileboats he had lost half. Yet they had accomplished their primary target, the shipyard was destroyed. The British would also no doubt have felt the loss of the valstronium mine and would have to divert important resources to repair their large battlestation. The mission had been a success. As the missileboats joined up and aligned into a single formation Le began to plan out the attack on Britannia. If Cook was anything to go by not many of his missileboats would make it out of Britannia alive. Still, that was what they had signed up for; they would do their country proud.

*

For the last several hours, Captain Lightfoot’s fists had been clenching into smaller and smaller balls as he had watched the updates come in from Cook. The initial destruction of two of the picket ships had been a shock; no one had expected the Chinese fighters to be able to take on a warship. What had happened next almost threatened to rewrite the rulebook on space warfare. Less than thirty enemy fighters had destroyed a shipyard and a precious valstronium mining facility. The officers on
Ghost’s
bridge had been trying to quietly discuss the significance of the attacks without Lightfoot hearing. Initially he had agreed with their shocked conclusions that the attack had left the RSN’s fleet obsolete. After having time to review the data as
Ghost
continued her journey around the edge of the Cook system, he had changed his mind. The flak frigate assisting the battlestation
Chester
had handed out a lot of damage to the attacking fighters and had also almost stopped all their missiles. If the second flak frigate had made it to
Chester
in time the battlestation probably wouldn’t have taken any damage. Likewise, if the shipyard had been fitted with three or four flak cannons, it too probably would have survived. The Chinese’ main advantage had been surprise and, if he had anything to say about it, they wouldn’t be getting that advantage again.

Ghost
had dropped out of shift space 1.5 light hours from the shift passage to Britannia and in stealth he had begun to creep towards the area he expected the freighters to be in. For the past several hours the missileboats had been on a steady course towards the freighters, the gravimetric signals from their engines, now working at full power, giving them away. Only twenty minutes ago they began to decelerate and from this new data his navigation officer had been able to work out exactly where the freighters were waiting.  No doubt they were powered down to avoid detection and Lightfoot planned to use this to his advantage.

“Sensors, let me know when you get a visual,” Lightfoot requested.

Before waiting for a reply, he switched his holo display to bring up the face of Lieutenant Beckford, the commanding officer of
Ghost’s
marines. Usually a destroyer warranted a full Major to command her marine contingent but as
Ghost
hadn’t officially passed her space trials one hadn’t been assigned yet. “Is everything ready at your end Lieutenant?” Lightfoot asked.

“Yes sir, my boys are suited up and ready to go. We’re about to load into the two shuttles now. I’ll be leading first platoon, while Sargent Jamison leads second. I’ve selected a number of navy personnel to accompany us on the shuttle in case we need them on board the freighter,” Beckford replied. 

“Very good Lieutenant, I want you to run a final test of your jamming equipment five minutes before go time. It’s vital they don’t get a signal out.” Glancing away for a moment at another screen, Lightfoot then turned back to the marine. “We’re twenty minutes out now, good hunting.”

As the marine saluted before switching of his screen, Lightfoot walked over to the tactical station. Looking down at Lieutenant Johnston’s console he watched the Lieutenant for a few seconds. “Are you confident you can do what I’m asking?” He said.

“Yes sir,” she replied. “I’ve reviewed the technical designs of the American freighters. From the visuals, the computer is certain they’re both Liberty class freighters. All of their communications relays are mounted on the aft mid-section of the hull. Our point defense plasma cannons should be able to take the relays out without causing any other damage; we just need to get into range. I’ve also reviewed the most recent American freighter designs, in case these freighters have been updated with any new tech. If they have any secondary communication relays we’ll identify them and take them out before they can be powered up.”

Satisfied that Johnston had things under control, Lightfoot patted her on the shoulder and returned to his command chair. After reviewing the details of the plan once more he spoke to the bridge at large to reassure them. “Ok everyone we’re ten minutes out from point defense plasma cannon range. You all know what to do. If you see even a hint that they are going to resist or are going to get a signal out you are to bring up our jammers. Otherwise let’s sit tight and let the marines have some fun for a change.”