EMPIRE: Warlord (EMPIRE SERIES Book 5)

by Richard F. Weyand

  She stripped down to T-shirt and panties, jamming her shipsuit in one of the drawers under her bunk. Others, both male and female, were doing the same. No body-modesty issues here. They were all friends, and were all engaged in the same exhausting business.

  She climbed into her bunk, the middle of three in the stack, then closed the privacy door over the opening. It ran on tracks like an overhead door. With it down, the photograph of Dick and the kids was exposed on the surface above her face. She kissed her fingers, transferred the kiss to the photograph, then rolled on her side. She grabbed the extra pillow and hugged it to her like a teddy bear.

  She turned out the reading light and was asleep in seconds.

  “Sir. I think you’d better take a look at this,” said sensor tech specialist Petty Officer First Class Judy Bench.

  “What have you got, Ms. Bench?” Lieutenant Alan Steadman asked as he came over.

  “I’m not sure, Sir. It looks like some sort of hyperspace fog.”

  “Hyperspace fog?”

  “Well, hyperspace is always sort of fuzzy and indistinct, Sir. But this is a volume that’s more fuzzy and indistinct than usual, and it’s headed this way. See here, Sir.”

  She played him the time lapse in the display. The fog was toward Sintar from their location, and was moving in their direction. It was already well into Phalian volume.

  “Is it masking anything, Ms. Bench?”

  “I don’t think so, Sir. I can see ship movements behind it. Mostly Phalian local freighters making their normal runs. I don’t think it could be masking much. Nothing as big as a heavy cruiser or a battleship. It’s just a little more indistinct than usual.”

  “Keep an eye on it, Ms. Bench. Let me know if there are any status changes.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “So that’s the plan,” Rear Admiral Forrest Jones told his assembled flag staff. “Any questions.”

  “I have one, Sir,” Commander Stan Wrobel said.

  “Go ahead, Commander.”

  “When we go spacing into Sintar, won’t they be able to see us coming in hyperspace with their pickets?”

  “Of course.”

  “And that isn’t a problem, Sir?”

  “The question for them, Stan, is, What are they going to do about it. Forty-two thousand squadrons spacing in their direction, into their space, around their planets. Now multiply that by nine. Almost four hundred thousand squadrons, moving into Sintar space. That’s as big as their whole navy. They’re either going to have to try to pry us out of each system one at a time, which system we will trash on our way out, or sit down and negotiate in good faith over the outstanding issues.”

  “Ah. I see, Sir.”

  “Does everybody get that?” Jones asked. “They’ll see us coming. So what? It actually works to our advantage, because they’ll have maybe a week to think about it before we all start dropping out of hyperspace. And once we do, thirty percent of Sintar is ours. They will have to deal. No more dictates from Sintar. We’ll be in the driver’s seat.”

  The general quarters alarm sounded on HMS Raptor. Spacers ran for their bunks to man their VR consoles. Knowing when the GQ alarm was coming – knowing when the picket ships were timed to drop out of hyperspace – many of Raptor’s spacers were already in their bunks. Drills had stopped twelve hours before, and everyone had had a chance to get a solid eight hours and be well-fed and rested when the alarm sounded.

  More than sixty picket ships and eight warships dropped out of hyperspace in an otherwise unremarkable spot in deep space. This scenario was repeated six thousand times across a broad arc-section of a sphere light-years in diameter. The only thing these six thousand locations had in common was that they were within two hours’ spacing of the Alliance mustering point in Wingard.

  The situation repeated itself eight other times in Alliance space, in Doria, Phalia, and the Rim, also on the far side of Sintar from the Democracy of Planets, and in Annalia, Cascade, Nederling, Preston, and Terre Autre on the side of Sintar toward the Democracy of Planets.

  One of the light cruisers accelerated at one-half g toward the distant mustering point, as their clutch of picket ships got organized and streamed along behind them. All they needed to transition back into hyperspace was the system maps for where in the target systems the enemy lay.

  Their crews, almost a hundred million spacers in total, settled in to wait. It wouldn’t be long.

  “Sir?” PO/1 Judy Bench called.

  “Yes, Ms. Bench?” Lieutenant Alan Steadman asked as he came over to her console.

  “Sir, that hyperspace fog has mostly dissipated. It started dissipating maybe an hour ago, and now it’s mostly gone.”

  “That’s curious.”

  “Yes, Sir. It had almost reached us, and it looked like it was concentrating, and now it’s just gone, or mostly gone.”

  “All right. Well, keep a sharp eye on your scans, Ms. Bench. We wouldn’t want to get surprised.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The First-Wave Attacks Earthside

  At each of the nine attack points, fifty thousand picket ships dropped out of hyperspace at a location the tactical people thought might be a logical place within each system for the Alliance warships to be mustering. They had hoped they might come out close enough to the mustering warships for the first-wave attack force to do some damage before the main wave, the second wave, showed up.

  It was pretty much luck of the draw, though.

  Annalia

  In the Autarchy of Annalia, the Alliance warships were mustering in high orbit around the one big gas-giant planet in the system. The first-wave attack dropped out of hyperspace in a ring around the planet and nearly on top of the Alliance ships. The picket ships went to their full ten gravities acceleration immediately and leapt to the attack.

  As they bore in on the hapless Alliance formations, they mapped the locations of all the enemy ships in the system and sent them via QE radio to the waiting second-wave Sintaran formations.

  As they settled into their attack runs, the second-wave attack was already on the way.

  “Sir! We have forty thousand– No, fifty thousand hyperspace down-transitions around the planet. They’re right on top of us, Sir.”

  “What?” said Annalian Fleet Admiral Chen Kunhua, commanding all Alliance forces at the Annalia mustering point.

  “They’re Sintaran picket ships, Sir. They’re incoming at ten gravities acceleration. They’re too close for missile attack.”

  “How the hell– Orders to all formations. Battle stations. Coordinate point-defense. Defense Plan Alpha.”

  “Orders transmitted, Sir.”

  The Alliance ships did not have their plasma bottles at anywhere near full operating pressure. They were operating at just high enough pressure to run the thrusters for station-keeping. There was no time to bring them up to full pressure, so they were hampered in the amount of power they could expend on their point-defense lasers.

  Nevertheless, ship’s crews scrambled to their point-defense positions and brought up their sensor systems.

  “Nearing their point-defense envelope, Sir.”

  Imperial Navy Fleet Admiral Dexter McGee’s avatar on the flag bridge was a study in calm oversight. Of course, a picket ship didn’t normally carry the flag, but you could implement a flag bridge in VR and there weren’t any larger ships in the first-wave attacks to carry the flag. As overall commander of the Empire’s attack force for the Alliance’s Annalia mustering point, he and his staff were along for the first-wave attack.

  “All ships. Engage ECM.”

  “Orders transmitted, Sir.”

  “Engage point-defense,” Captain Jason Orr of the Annalia battleship ANS Hunan ordered.

  “Point-defense engaging, Sir.”

  “Lasers at fifty-percent, Sir. Plasma pressure at thirty percent and climbing.”

  Orr watched the incoming attack unfold on his tactical display. Even fifty thousand of the dangerous little picket ships, with their
ramming offense, could impact no more than fifty thousand of the Alliance’s three hundred and fifty thousand ships in the system. And only a fraction of them would get through the coordinated point-defense of all the Alliance ships. This attack would not stop the upcoming invasion of Sintar. More troubling was how they had known to find them here, and what that portended.

  “Sir, point-defense ineffective. We’re getting solid lock, but the lasers are not scoring hits.”

  “Is it the laser strength?”

  “No, Sir. The systems are missing their targets. They’re spoofing our sensors somehow.”

  “Keep at it.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Orr frowned. That was a new wrinkle. and an unwelcome one. If Alliance point-defense couldn’t score against the Sintaran ships, fifty thousand incoming might mean as many as fifty thousand ship losses. It still wouldn’t stop the invasion, but it would hurt.

  “Yes! We’re starting to score on them now, Sir. Their spoofing is less effective as they get closer.”

  And then a Sintaran picket ship impacted the Hunan amidships, and she exploded with all hands.

  “Damage report,” Admiral Chen ordered.

  “Still compiling, Sir. Rough numbers are we destroyed approximately ten thousand of the incoming attackers. The rest got through to their targets, and we have approximately forty thousand ship losses. Crew losses are assumed total in all cases, with an estimated one hundred and twenty million dead. They targeted the battleships, Sir.”

  Of course. He would as well, with that many targets available. Forty thousand of his three hundred and fifty thousand ships lost. But that was almost half of his battleship strength. They would have to adjust the invasion plans.

  The bigger issue, though, was, How did they find them here, and what else was on the way?

  “Orders to all ships. Bring all ships to readiness. Prepare to space soonest. Transmit that.”

  “Transmitting, Sir.”

  Chen called over his chief of staff.

  “We need to get out of here. Make plans for the soonest departure we can manage.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Report,” Admiral McGee ordered.

  “We lost ninety-seven hundred ships to point-defense fire, Sir. All those losses were in the second half of the point defense envelope. The ECM was largely effective for the first half of the point defense envelope. The other forty thousand three hundred ships successfully impacted their targets. We’ve cut their battleship strength from ninety thousand to just under fifty thousand ships.”

  “Excellent. Time to arrival of the second wave?”

  “About forty-five minutes now, Sir.”

  Cascade

  There were two gas-giants in the Alliance’s mustering-point system in the Dominion of Cascade, one much larger than the other. The Sintaran picket ships of the first-wave dropped out of hyperspace around the larger of the two, only to find the Alliance forces were mustering around the smaller one. As luck would have it, the two planets were currently in opposition, on opposite sides of the local star. It would be many days spacing to the other side of the system in normal space, so the Sintaran ships had to be content to map the enemy and send the map on to the second-wave ships via QE radio.

  Cascade Fleet Admiral Miles Borland, in overall command of the Cascade portion of the Alliance invasion force, VRed into his flag bridge from his cabin, where he had been awakened by the alert from his staff. VR implementation of the bridge and flag bridge was one of the many technical advantages of the new DP-supplied warships that formed the bulk of his forces.

  “Status report,” he ordered

  “Sir, we have fifty-thousand hyperspace down-transitions in the system. Sintaran ships. They’re approximately two light-hours away, around the other gas-giant.”

  “Ship types?”

  “They look like all picket ships, Sir.”

  “No projector ships?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Ha! They guessed wrong. It pays to be unpredictable. Still, they know where we are, somehow. Orders to all formations. Prepare to space as soon as possible. Advise status.”

  “Transmitting, Sir.”

  “Fred,” Borland said to his chief of staff, “we need to get out of here. We haven’t seen anything big enough to take us on in our scanning, so it’s probably days before they can get a sufficient force out here. Let’s not be here when they get here. Expedite emergency provisioning of the ships that aren’t restocked yet, and make plans to get us into hyperspace soonest.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Nederling

  In the Kingdom of Nederling, there were also two gas giants in the system the Alliance had chose for its mustering point. This time, though, the two gas giants were in near-conjunction, on the same side of the local star. It was still several hours spacing from one to the other, even with the picket ships’ speed.

  Faced with two gas giants to choose from, Imperial Navy Admiral Natalia Shvets had decided to split her first-wave attack force between them. Twenty-five thousand Sintaran picket ships dropped out of hyperspace around each of the two planets. Half of them were within final attack range of their targets, and they leapt to the attack at ten gravities of acceleration.

  “Sir, we have twenty-five thousand hyperspace down-transitions around the planet. They’re Sintaran picket ships, currently making ten gravities acceleration toward our positions. They’re too close to target with missiles.”

  “Well, they found us. Somehow. Orders to all ships. Battle stations. Coordinate point-defense. Defense Plan Alpha,” said Nederling Fleet Admiral Olaf Scheransky, the overall commander for the Nederling portion of the Alliance invasion force.

  “Transmitted, Sir.”

  “Sir, there’s another twenty-five thousand hyperspace down-transitions around the other gas-giant. They’re making their best time to us, at ten gravities. Estimate arrival in fourteen hours.”

  “We’ll deal with them after we’ve dealt with these.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  As in Annalia, the Alliance point-defense gunners found their point-defense systems had no problem achieving lock on the incoming attackers, but when they fired, at least in the first half of the point-defense envelope, their shots simply missed. It wasn’t until the attackers were halfway across their point-defense envelope that the Alliance defenders began to make successful hits on their targets.

  Over twenty thousand of the Sintaran picket ships survived the Alliance point-defense fire to make their attack runs, and they slammed into the Alliance formations.

  “Report,” Scheransky ordered.

  “Point-defense fire destroyed almost twenty percent of the incoming attackers, Sir. Just over twenty thousand survived to attack, and they targeted our battleships. We’ve lost just over twenty thousand battleships, destroyed with all hands. We’re estimating sixty million dead. Final numbers will take a while, Sir.”

  Over twenty percent of his battleship strength. That was bad enough. The bigger issues, though, were, How did they find them? and What else was on the way?

  “Sir, we still have twenty-five thousand incoming. They’re making ten gravities acceleration toward our position. Estimated arrival time is now thirteen hours.”

  “Orders to all ships. Stand down from general quarters. Prepare for attack in thirteen hours. Incoming force is from sunward. Prepare for missile launch when in range. Reprogram point-defense systems not to waste their fire on the outer half of the point defense envelope. Concentrate all fire on attackers within the inner half of the envelope. Send that.”

  “Transmitted, Sir.”

  Scheransky called over his chief of staff.

  “Boris, I don’t know how they found us, but we need to get out of here. Expedite emergency stocking of those ships who haven’t restocked yet, and make plans to get us under way. I want to be out of here in no more than twelve hours. Maybe we can avoid this other force, as well as anything else on the way.”

  “That’s a tall o
rder, Sir.”

  “I know, but I feel like a sitting duck here all of a sudden.”

  “We don’t see anything incoming on the scans, Sir.”

  “Yes, and we didn’t see these fellows on the scans, either,” Scheransky said, waving a hand at the tactical plot of the incoming attackers. “What if they have another hundred thousand or so of them in the neighborhood?”

  His chief of staff’s eyes grew wide.

  “I’ll see to it, Sir.”

  “Orders, Ma’am?”

  “The map has been sent?” Admiral Shvets asked.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Well, we can’t attack them with our remaining ships before the second wave gets here. We’re just too far away. But we can keep them looking in our direction and get them all pointed our way. Continue to make our best speed for the enemy formation. No turnover. We’ll accelerate all the way.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Time to second-wave attack?”

  “One hour, Ma’am.”

  “Very good. Maintain profile.”

  And with that, Admiral Shvets transferred her flag to her second-wave attack formation.

  Preston

  In the Kingdom of Preston, the Alliance had chosen a small red-dwarf star without any major planets as its mustering point. The seventy formations of the invasion fleet instead orbited the star itself, exactly four light-minutes from the feeble star, on the ecliptic of the star’s spin axis, spaced equally about the orbit at ten light-second intervals.

  Faced with a system without planets, Imperial Navy Admiral Mah Muping aimed for an enemy orbiting the red dwarf in the so-called Goldilocks zone, the distance from the sun where a habitable planet would be if there was one. There was no reason to orbit there, but navies – and naval commanders – often did things out of force of habit, and Mah was betting the odds. He picked a round number in light-minutes from the red dwarf in the middle of the Goldilocks zone, and aimed his force at an orbit four light-minutes distant from the star.