by D. J. Holmes
Wen picked up his datapad and quickly scanned through some documents. “Thirteen months,” he replied. “However, we can have the Henna, which is in orbit at the moment, prepped and ready to go in five. I suggest we load her up and send her off as soon as possible. If we can establish a colony on one of the planets then we can quickly move more people onto each of the others.”
“Very well,” Chang said as he stood and brought both his hands to rest on the table everyone sat around. “This is the discovery we need to ensure we overshadow Britain and Germany. If we can colonize and industrialize this cluster of systems we will be able to out produce anyone else.”
Everyone took this as a sign that the meeting was over and so began to stand up and leave. Chang then continued more quietly, “Minister Quin,” he said to the Minister of Defense, as he was about to leave. “Please remain behind, we need to discuss some other scenarios in case Britain doesn’t dance to our tune.”
Outside Na exchanged a glance with Wen-Chong, another junior member of the Politburo. It seemed their worst fears were coming true. When he had expressed an interest in going into politics his father had warned him that things weren’t quite as they seemed. The political minds of the upper echelons of the Community Part were changing, he had said. Over the last several of years Na had been able to see this for himself. As many of the Politburo members and leading Communist Party officials felt backed further and further into a corner by British and German expansion there had been a growing sense of isolation and hostility. China and her interests were of paramount importance. The rest of humanity could be dammed for all they cared.
This had been expressing itself in the growing border tensions with Britain and Germany, which, in turn, had spilled over into the public domain. Na knew that the Minister of the Interior spent many millions of credits each year on propaganda aimed at encouraging the general populace to see Britain and Germany as China’s natural enemies. Worse, the feelings of resentment and hostility held by the leading communists had also led to successive waves of military expansion. Even though the British economy was valued at roughly one hundred and thirty percent of the Chinese, the Politburo had thrown far more credits into building up its naval forces. Of course the Politburo had also ensured that only lieutenants who agreed with the party line concerning Britain and Germany gained advancement to the rank of Captain and beyond. Every time there was a border incident Na feared that it would erupt into war for the Chinese navy now had too many trigger happy Captains who were just waiting for the chance to fire a shot at the British.
Yet Na knew there were many who did not share this view, even within the leadership of the Party. Wen-Chong was one of them. When Na had first expressed his concern to him Wen-Chong had revealed his own fears. Even so they were both junior members of the Politburo. Actually doing something to avert the self-destructive path their leaders were taking them on had seemed impossible. Now, thought Na, it didn’t matter, there was no turning back, they had already travelled too far.
Chapter 1 – Loose the Dogs of War
The First Interstellar Expansion Era began in 2203 with the discovery of the shift drive. Tensions between the space faring powers were always strained and often frayed as one power sought to cut off exploration routes from another.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
15th November 2464, HMS Surprise, the Damang system.
Commander Lightfoot sat in the command chair of HMS Surprise as his ship exited shift space. As an Archer class frigate Surprise was just a baby among the fighting ships of the RSN, which meant she was assigned all sorts of menial tasks. Lightfoot had already tired of his current mission on the outward journey to their destination. Now that they were finally heading back to Earth he was beginning to look forward to his next assignment with a bit more hope.
As the sensors began to update the holo-display Lightfoot could see that almost all the ships in the convoy had excited shift space in formation. Surprise, along with the Lancer class frigate Renown and the light cruiser Resolution were escorting a convoy of nine freighters. They had made the five week journey to the British mining colony in the Reading system and were now on their way back home. Typically freighters would make their own way to their various destinations but Admiralty regulations stipulated that all freighters had to be escorted to and from Reading.
Thanks to a quirk in the UN Planetary Allocation Act, Britain had been awarded the mining rights to the Reading system even though it was only accessible by passing through Chinese territory. Given the past scuffles between China and Britain and the rising border tensions, the Admiralty had set up a convoy every three months to Reading in order to deliver supplies and pick up processed ore from the system. As a commander of a frigate in the RSN these kinds of tasks always seemed to fall to him.
Sub Lieutenant Samson, who was manning the communications console of the bridge, turned to speak to his commander. “Sir, Captain Turner is hailing us from the Resolution.”
As Lightfoot nodded Samson put the feed onto the main holo-display. Impeccable as ever Lightfoot thought, as the Captain appeared in front of him, though he was careful to keep his face impassive. Captain Turner was from a wealthy noble family back on Earth and he always seemed to be immaculately dressed and turned out no matter what the occasion or hour.
“Commander,” he began, “it seems we have lost one of our charges again. The Captain of the freighter Jackson has signaled to say that he picked up a shift space exit off his port bow. I’m sending you the coordinates now. No doubt someone made a miss calculation. I’m sure the freighter will start radiating heat as soon as they bring up their main drives so it won’t take you long to find them. We’ll wait here with the rest of the convoy until you return.”
Lightfoot replied with a simple, “Yes sir,” before switching off the feed from Resolution and turning to his navigation officer. “Avery, do you have the coordinates?”
“They’re coming through now,” Avery replied without turning round to directly address his commander.
“Very well, take us there at eighty percent thrust,” Lightfoot ordered.
Two hours later Surprise had opened up a distance of twenty light minutes from the rest of the convoy. They had just picked up the freighter on their thermal scanners and sent her a message ordering her to make for the convoy when a message arrived from Resolution.
Sub Lieutenant Samson scanned over it before addressing his commander. “Sir, Resolution has just picked up a fleet dropping out of shift space. Based on the readings they obtained from the re-entry patterns they think they are Chinese. Resolution estimates there is a battleship, a battlecruiser, three heavy cruisers and at least thirty other ships that they can’t make out yet, though they think some are freighters. They are reporting one more large vessel that they can’t identify. It isn’t a battleship but it seems to be in the same mass range.”
Lightfoot grimaced. Ordinarily the opportunity to see a Chinese fleet maneuvering would provide priceless intel. Yet, ideally, he would like to get the information while lying in stealth, not while escorting a convoy that would be lighting up every sensor within a light day. Britain and China might be at peace but being out in the open so far from home made him feel a little nervous. Not to mention the battleship. The Chinese only had one of the mammoth ships in their fleet. What was it doing out here?
“Tactical orientate our optical and heat sensors towards these new comers. Let’s see what our Chinese friends are doing with themselves out here in the back end of nowhere.”
It would take over fifty minutes for the heat and optical data to travel from the Chinese fleet to Surprise, twenty more than it would take to reach the convoy. Yet getting so much information back to the Admiralty and the Royal Space Navy Intelligence would be priceless.
*
Aboard the Chinese medium cruiser Yang Wei Captain Zu was just receiving a communication stream from his admiral. “Captain, you know the importance
of our mission and the importance of secrecy. Those British ships cannot be allowed back to Earth. You command our fastest ship, I’m detaching the Yang Wei and her sister ship the Chao Yung. I want you and Captain Kuang to destroy that convoy. Don’t leave a single ship alive. I know you didn’t sign up for these kinds of missions but it is essential that the British do not learn our fleet was here. No word can be allowed to get back to Earth. I’m going to jump on to our next destination once we have charged our jump drives. You are to follow once you have finished here. Understood?”
“Yes sir, they will all be turned into space debris.”
The Admiral smiled as he clicked off the communication. He had handpicked his Captains for this mission because he knew they would follow him no matter what. He had just ordered his subordinate to fire on friendly naval vessels and unarmored freighters and he hadn’t even blinked! Fifty years ago such an order would have been unthinkable but the British were about to find out that things had changed in China. He knew the ultimate responsibility would fall on him for what was about to happen but he did not care. That, he suspected, was why he had been chosen for this mission. His superiors knew he would do whatever it took to ensure China acquired the four habitable worlds they had discovered.
*
“Sir,” Sub Lieutenant Erickson said with alarm from his tactical station aboard Surprise, “two of the Chinese ships have gone to full acceleration. They are heading straight for the convoy.”
Ordinarily ships could only be detected by the radiation they vented into space. They, therefore, did everything they could to prevent any radiation escaping but when it came to heat radiation it was almost impossible. With fusion reactors and impulse drives operating at even sixty percent a ship lit up in the cold dark expanse of space like a firework in the night’s sky back on Earth.
However, as radiation only travels at the speed of light, ships were effectively limited to looking into the past. Over short distances this didn’t cause a problem but for anything over a light minute away it meant that a Commander was always reacting to what his opponent had done in the past.
The only exception is when a ship wants to use anything close to its full acceleration. The impulse drives human vessels use for traveling through normal space produce huge levels of acceleration. Yet, in doing so, they create gravimetric disturbances that could be picked up instantaneously over long distances.
Cursing, Lightfoot brought up the feed from the gravimetric sensors on his own console. Erickson was right; the Chinese were heading straight for the convoy. He transferred the data to the main holo-display and let the computer crunch the numbers.
Lightfoot swore even louder. The convoy had been slowly heading into the mass shadow of the Damang system as they waited for Surprise to locate the stray freighter. A system’s mass shadow was the area of space where the combined mass of the system’s star and planets produced enough of a gravimetric disturbance to prevent ships using their shift drives. The Chinese had come out of shift space right on the edge of the mass shadow; almost exactly at the same position the convoy had entered the system. Even if the freighters went full burn on their drives they couldn’t reach a safe place to enter shift space before the Chinese ships got within missile range. Knowing Captain Turner he guessed what was about to happen next.
“Sir,” Erickson called excitedly, “Resolution and Renown have gone to full military acceleration, they are heading straight for the two Chinese vessels.”
Nodding, Lightfoot had to push down the urge to rebuke Erickson for his enthusiasm. The boy really needs to grow up, he thought to himself. Battle was never a thing to get excited about!
Instead he asked, “and what are our charges doing?”
“They are beginning to accelerate now, wait, from their acceleration patterns it looks like they are scattering. Some are going for the mass shadow, others are diving into the system,” Erickson answered.
“Have you been able to identify the two Chinese ships?”
“The computer has a positive match now. Their acceleration rates are higher than anything we have ever seen from a Chinese ship before. They must be the new Yang Wei class. Only three have left the construction yards according to intelligence. One of them is bound to be the Yang Wei herself. ”
Lightfoot ran the numbers in his head. Resolution and Renown could only put out a combined salvo of nine missiles. RNI estimated that the British missiles had better ECM capabilities than the Chinese but that wouldn’t make up for the disparity in numbers. The Chinese medium cruisers had thicker armor than Resolution, and combined, had a throw weight of twenty-two missiles.
Turner was no fool. He must know the odds too. Lightfoot guessed he was hopping that Renown’s armament would cause enough of a surprise to allow Resolution to get in close. All human warships were equipped with plasma cannons. Short ranged weapons, they shot out super-heated plasma bolts that could shred even valstronium armor. If Resolution could get into plasma range she could cripple both Chinese cruisers with a single salvo allowing the rest of the convoy to escape. Resolution would never survive the return fire but she would go down fighting.
Turning to First Lieutenant Cromwell, Lightfoot sought his opinion, “what do you make of all this?”
“Well sir,” he began, “it seems the Chinese don’t want us in this system, or at least they didn’t want us seeing that fleet of theirs. We’re too far away to come to Resolution’s aid but if those two ships blow through Resolution and Renown they’ll be coming straight for us. I’m sure they will have picked up our gravimetric signature too.”
Lightfoot nodded solemnly. “Agreed. Unless there has been a declaration of war since we left Earth those ships don’t want us reporting back what we’ve seen. There’s no good reason for them to have a fleet all the way out here, even if we are at war. We can’t help Resolution so we’re going to have to think only of ourselves, as hard as that is. Getting this information back to the Admiralty could be more important than all the ships in our little convoy. Given how far into the system’s mass shadow we are I don’t think they’re going to let us get to use our jump drive, I do have a few ideas though.”
Cromwell leaned in closer to his Commander to hear him outline his plan.
*
Aboard the Yang Wei, Zu was struggling to contain his anticipation. Both of the British warships were coming right for him. It would allow him to quickly dispatch them before the freighters and the other frigate could make their escape. “Hold fire until we enter optimal missile range,” he commanded.
Zu knew the British had a slight advantage in missile range but he was gambling they would not want to fire the first shot. There was no way his opponents could know what their fleet was doing out here and as there had been no declaration of war there was no reason for the British ships to risk a diplomatic incident by opening fire first. That said, it was obvious the two British combat ships knew their business. They were putting themselves right between his two cruisers and the freighters they had been escorting.
Speaking to his bridge crew Zu began to bark out orders. “Contact the Chao Yung, I want them to prepare to fire on my mark. Spread the missiles between both ships.”
Zu watched the range gradually drop. “Prepare to fire….Fire, missiles away.”
As shouted the command to fire, Zu found himself sitting at the edge of his command chair. It would take over five minutes for the gunners to reload the missile tubes but he hoped that their first salvo would be enough to obliterate the British ships. With both pairs of ships accelerating towards each other it would only take another fifteen minutes for them to enter plasma cannon range. He smiled, he knew both British vessels would be space dust before then.
“Impact in sixty seconds,” his weapons officer announced. “They still haven’t opened fire.”
Dismissing his
concern Zu leaned closer to the holo-display. At forty seconds out both British ships began to fire off counter missiles.
Zu frowned. The frigate was putting out more than twice the amount of counter missiles intelligence said its class could. His twenty-two missiles had been reduced to ten. Then, in disbelief, Zu watched as the missiles entered the range of the close point defense batteries and all but one of his missiles disappeared off the gravimetric sensor screen before they reached their targets. The final missile detonated close to the British light cruiser but its gravimetric signal continued on strong.
After a string of Chinese curse words Zu brought up the imagery of the battle. The two pairs of ships were so close now that he could almost watch the British counter missiles fire in real time. When the missiles were twenty seconds out, space around the both British ships lit up as they fired off their point defense plasma cannons. Zu’s frown deepened. Along with the bursts from the plasma cannons there were other explosions. They looked like, like, flak explosions he had seen from 20th century war films. Quickly Zu zoomed in on the frigate and let out a final curse. The frigate only had a single missile tube down its flank. Instead of the customary second one it had two large railguns mounted fore and aft.
