Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (9 page)

Laura Reiss Fleets Master of the Empire walked down the corridor of Fleet Headquarters on Sanctuary’s moon – Thanatos. The entire moon belonged to the Fleet. The moon itself didn’t support life, but the Empire had the technology and was able to build facilities with their own artificial atmosphere and gravity. Laura turned a corner, and reached her destination. She entered the meeting room and found that everyone who was supposed to be there had already arrived. Immediately after entering she started the meeting, she had known people inside for a lifetime, and there was no need to waste time on greetings.

“The Emperor had finally sent the word, from about an hour ago the Fleet is officially on the imminent war footing. We don’t know when the attack on Nelus will begin, but we need to be ready. You all know the plan, as soon as the Sowir fleet gets committed to sieging Nelus, our fleets will attack the Sowir Dominion’s territory. Until that happens we need to focus all of our resources on figuring out what we can expect from the Sowir, their capabilities, numbers, and anything else that may impact the war. We will also increase our ship building efforts. The more time the Sowir take to commit to their attack on Nelus, the more time we will have to build new ships, train crews, and upgrade our existing ships. Questions?”

Oswald Mein Commander of Fleets was the first to comment. “We are really going to leave Nelus to themselves? We are going to sacrifice them to defeat the Sowir?”

Laura shook her head. “There is another plan concerning Nelus, if they hold out long enough or Sowir take too long before they attack we will help them. The key to our plan is that using our trans-travel capabilities we will be able to move faster through Sowir territory. If most of their fleets are committed at Nelus we will be able to smash through any other defenses they have and lay waste to their industry, before the fleets attacking Nelus realize what is happening. And once they do find out, their most likely response will be to race back to defend their territory. Rest assured, if we are able, we will give aid to Nelus.”

Relieved Oswald nodded. Then Maret, former Retnor of Nuva now Fleet’s Head Quartermaster spoke, “I assume that I am free to start constructing support ships and stations? We also need to choose a staging system, someplace out of the way but still close to Sowir territory, preferably a hub system with many outgoing and incoming trans-lanes.”

“Yes, I am approving the fabricator time for your department. As for the staging system, we will be meeting separately later to discuss that.” Laura answered.

“What about our warship construction lines?” Daria Veisi Head builder for the Fleet asked.

“We’ll have other meetings, but for now you should prepare for a full scale ramping up of all our projects. I am also approving your designs for the Furious class battleships.”

“What about the Kraken class dreadnoughts?” Daria asked.

Laura grimaced. “I am not so sure about that one. The thirty five percent less firepower than the Mark Two dreadnought class worries me.”

“But it would be at least three times as maneuverable.” Daria pressed.

“We’ll talk about it later.” Laura said. Then she looked around the room and clapped her hands. “Okay, go meet with your people, write up plans and send them to my office for approval. We have no time to waste.”

***

A couple hours later, Laura sat in a room surrounded by holograms and displays, listening to Daria and her team trying to convince her that the Kraken class dreadnoughts were viable. They started with listing all of the specifications of the proposed ship, then moved to the simulations they ran, and finally to what the role of these ships would be in a fleet.

“Everything that you have just told me, a Mark Two can do better.” Laura said.

“The Mark Two’s are slow, the Kraken class could move to engage much faster-” Daria started.

“We have battleships for when we need to engage faster. You are not doing a great job of convincing me that we need these ships…” Laura interrupted.

Daria looked helpless, Laura could see that both she and her team were very enthusiastic about it, but they just didn’t provide a sufficiently valid reason to make these ships. Laura sighed, she was about to call an end to the discussion when one of the Daria’s team leaders stepped forward.

“Ma’am, if I may.” He said. Laura looked at him, reading the name provided by her implant above the man’s head.

“Go on Ritsarni.” Laura said, and the young Nel took a deep breath. He was very young, Laura accessed his files and saw that he was 24 years old, and that he was also one of the first Nel to be born in the progeny centers on Nuva.

“You are correct Fleets Master, together our battleships and dreadnoughts can do the same thing that the Kraken class would be capable of. But it isn’t really about that. Currently our fleets are much more firepower oriented, I believe that what happened with the Ra’a’zani scared us in a way. We downsized our drone program before it even had the chance to shine, because we knew that those drones wouldn’t be a match for the Ra’a’zani.” He turned to look at the screen.

“We chose to focus on quality over quantity, and we turned our fleets into juggernauts. We stopped building cruisers, and instead focused on battleships and dreadnoughts. Because we are not limited by budgets and costs, we made them bigger, more powerful yes, but we lost a lot on utility. Our battleships are fast and sturdy, but they have limited amount of ammo. Our dreadnoughts are fleets in of themselves. Each one of our Mark Two dreadnoughts alone could lay waste to a fleet the size and capabilities of the one that attacked Nuva thirty years ago. But only if it managed to force that fleet to fight, the Mark Two’s are too slow. We need a class of ship that can move fast and force the enemy to fight, to keep them occupied until our dreadnoughts arrive.” He waved a hand in a Nel placating gesture and cut off Laura before she even had a chance to interrupt.

“Yes, I know that is the job of our battleships, and they are fully capable of fulfilling that role against enemies that are on the technological level of the Sowir or Nelus. But do you believe that they could do the same against a Ra’a’zani fleet? And I am talking about the ships of the same class as the one that almost destroyed the second fleet, not a fleet that included their bigger ships, and we know that they have much larger ships.” Ritsarni looked at Laura determinedly.

“Our battleships are great at short engagements, or fighting within systems where they could easily be resupplied. And yes, I understand that fleets have supply ships, but they won’t be able to resupply battleships while they are actively engaging the enemy. That is why we need the Kraken class, it is a hybrid class, a cross between a dreadnought and a battleship. Faster than both, sturdy, and capable of prolonged engagements. The loss of firepower compared to the Mark Two is intentional, we don’t need them to fulfill the role of the Mark Two’s, we just need them to keep the enemy fleets occupied long enough for the rest of the fleet to arrive. That is why it has so much more ammo space compared to a battleship and less weapons than the Mark Two and an extra two power cores, it is supposed to last in a battle longer than the Mark Two. We need to introduce more versatility into our fleets.” Ritsarni said, he seemed to prepare to say something else, but Laura brought a hand up to stop him.

She started thinking about what he said, and immediately realized that he was right. The events in the Solar system had scared them, and the Empire’s response was to build bigger and much more armored ships. That was one of their strengths, their ability to work with metals, and the Empire had focused on it. Their response to the Ra’a’zani weaponry and technology was to make even larger, more massive metal monsters than what they had sent to Earth.

The only reason they even managed to defeat the much more technologically advanced Ra’a’zani warship was because they had far thicker hulls, greater mass, and pure destructive power of their ballistic weapons. Humans had learned that their weapons were considered obsolete and primitive, which in a way Laura agreed with, but only partly. The reason why most races eventually abandoned ballistic weapons in favor of energy weapons was that at the distances that energy and light speed weapons could effectively engage were impossible for ballistic weapons, and they were also much more cost effective and could be fired as long as you had the energy. Any ship that saw ballistic weapons fired at it could easily move out of the way. That doesn’t in any way negate their effectiveness, if such weapon hit it would inflict damage.

The materials that technologically advanced races used for their hulls were geared towards defending from energy and laser weapons, and deflecting small grains of debris in space. Not to stop a 200 kilogram slab of metal. But in order for it to hit you either needed to trick the enemy or close the range. And that was what the human ships were built to do. Withstand the enemy fire until you closed the range, and then pound them into oblivion. But that was also a problem, fighting in space was very different. It was almost impossible to engage a moving opponent if he didn’t want to fight, unless he was much slower than you.

Ritsarni was right, they needed ships fast enough to close the distance and keep the opponent fixed in place while their slower ships arrive. Laura brought the schematics of the Kraken class back on the display and studied it more closely, now keeping in mind what its role would be in a fleet. Daria and her team shifted uncomfortably, but Laura noticed that they looked more hopeful now.

“The hull.” Laura started, “You want to use ceramic alloys, reinforced with ri-steel only in a few places.” She grimaced, “And with reduced hull thickness it will lower the amount of punishment they will be able to take.”

Now it was Daria who stepped in. “Not if we incorporate the shimmering field generators from Warpath into the design.” Daria said, and Laura nodded. She had read up on the Warpath’s find, and while the way the Fleet built their ship didn’t allow most of them to be upgraded, she was looking into upgrading those that could be.

Seeing that Laura wasn’t commenting emboldened Daria and she continued. “But even without it the Kraken class would be more geared towards fighting laser and particle weapons, so far we are the only race that is using ballistic weapons in our neighborhood. And using these materials lowers the mass of the ship by sixty percent, which is what will give us additional speed and maneuverability. Our drives are extremely powerful, but most of our ships are so massive that it takes a lot out of them to move the ships. The Kraken would be able to take advantage of our powerful drives. We estimate that they will be faster than the battleships by at least twenty five percent, while still being larger and having about the same mass. Even if we encounter another race that uses similar weapons as we do, the Kraken’s maneuverability will be enough to evade any ballistic fire.”

Laura looked at the schematics again, taking in the shark like shape of the ship. It was clearly influenced by Nel designs, not the boxy and sharp angled human ships. She then skimmed through the list of weapons and many other things. The ship was supposed to be 1100 meters long, four hundred meters shorter than the Mark Two dreadnoughts. A few minutes later Laura looked back at Daria and her team.

“Alright, I am approving the design. But we still need to discuss how many of them we need and what are we going to cut down on.” Laura said, and immediately smiles broke out on the faces looking at her. Laura returned their smiles and stood to leave the room when Daria hesitantly spoke.

“Um… We did have one more thing that we wanted to present you.” She said.

Laura narrowed her eyes at her. “Really? Tell me, what more have you prepared?”

“Well, we have a suggestion concerning the Furious class battleship design.” Daria said.

Laura raised her eyebrow and remained silent, waiting. Daria sighed and sent the package to the room’s computer from her implant. A moment later the displays and holograms of the Kraken class were replaced by those for the revised Furious class. Or as it looked a complete rework.

“You want to make it a drone?” Laura said skeptically. “A missile-boat drone.”

“Yes.” Daria said simply, studying Laura. When Laura failed to comment, Daria continued talking. “We don’t need another battleship class, especially if we are going to start production of the Kraken class. The battleships had simply become obsolete in our current Fleet, as far as the attack fleets are concerned at least. We can still use them effectively for system defense.”

Laura heard her words, but still didn’t comment. She kept her eyes locked on the data in front of her. The drone program was born out of the Empire’s lack of personnel at the time, and they were built to replace the classes of their ships that simply didn’t hold up in a fleet engagement, light and heavy cruisers. The cruisers were the ships most likely to be destroyed in battle, and humanity couldn’t afford any loss of life. But with the birth of the Empire and the start of the progeny programs, the problem of personnel slowly went away. The Fleet simply focused more on building battleships and dreadnoughts, with a few frigates as patrol ships and escorts. The drones that they had built before changing gears were delegated to system defense of Sanctuary, and later distributed among the clans.

The proposal of Daria’s team was to cut down the 800 meter long hulls of the Furious class battleship by twenty percent and turn it into a drone missile boat. Laura saw the redesigns of the hull where more missile launchers would be placed, but she also saw that the ship was stripped out of all other weapons other than missile launchers, no point defense and no other offensive weapon.

“This isn’t an alteration, this is a completely new thing. That isn’t a battleship anymore.” Laura commented.

“We know, but the Furious class was proposed years ago. We simply didn’t have the need to build it. What we now need is something different. A missile boat might be exactly that.” Daria said.

Laura looked over the design for a few more minutes before finally sighing and turning to Daria. “Alright Daria, you convinced me. You can start playing with these new toys. But let’s wait a bit on the missile boats, we need more proven ships right now.”