New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Your interference is unwelcome. This is your only warning,” a synthesized voice came over the speakers. “We are watching.”

  “The message repeats a few times but that’s all there was, ma’am,” a shaken Lieutenant Ellison reported.

  “New contacts!” Adler called out. “Four distinct returns. They just appeared within the system.”

  “Phage?” Celesta asked.

  “Negative. Contacts are quite large but appear to be metallic in nature.”

  “That rules the Vruahn out,” Barrett asked. “Could they be Terran?”

  “They don’t fit any known design methodology for Terran starships, sir,” Accari said. “Computer analysis of initial radar contacts is inconclusive. I don’t think this is the Asianic Union’s new fleet, sir.”

  “Nor I,” Celesta said. She’d been running the numbers in her head. Given the amount of time it took for a radar signal to get out and then for them to receive a return, the ships had appeared in the system before the Ares had been detonated. They also had come in much further towards the primary star than most Terran ships were able. That left only one unpleasant probability.

  “Coms! Broadcast this on all frequencies: Unknown alien fleet … this is Captain Wright of the Terran starship, Icarus. You have violated our borders and threatened us. Please clarify your intentions.”

  “Sent, ma’am.”

  “Now send an encoded message over the Link to the rest of the taskforce,” she said. “I want them all making best speed back to the jump point we came in through and tell that Prowler it’d be best if they made a hasty retreat. CENTCOM needs to be aware of this ASAP.”

  “Link is now populating more contacts within the system,” Accari called out. “Eight more contacts total and they’re converging on the rest of the taskforce.”

  “They already know where all our ships are,” Celesta said tightly. “Coms, tell all ships to go full active sensors and they’re free to unsafe weapons. Nobody is to fire first until we have confirmation of intent.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Ellison said tightly. “No response from your open hail yet.”

  “Tactical, lock on Shrikes, two each, on the closest four targets,” Celesta said as she looked at the course plots. “Helm, bring us about! Reciprocal course, keep your turn as tight as you can. Nav! Begin updating our track back to the jump point. Let me know if it looks like we’re going to be cut off. Coms, keep looping my original all-frequency message until we get some sort of response.”

  There was a chorus of affirmations and a few pops and groans could be heard as the Icarus was put into a tight turn and fought against her inertia. Celesta was suddenly very much wishing the RDS was active and available even as the helmsman throttled up the mains to keep the turn as tight as possible. A “tight” turn in interstellar terms was still over a hundred thousand kilometers at the speed they’d been flying, but when the Icarus came out the other side they’d still be carrying most of their forward velocity.

  “Ma’am, the Midlands wants confirmation of RoE,” Ellison said, referring to the rules of engagement Celesta had handed down regarding use of weapons.

  “Reiterate that they are not to fire first,” Celesta said. “Nav, do we have a path up past the four ships facing us to the jump point?”

  “No, ma’am,” the chief at Nav said immediately. “They’re too far out and arrayed too wide. We have no angle to take that they can’t easily beat us to.”

  “Very well,” Celesta said calmly. “Plot a course for the X-Ray jump point.”

  “Ma’am, the X-Ray jump point is—”

  “I am well aware of current flight restrictions, Chief,” she cut him off. “Under the circumstances I would say I’m more interested in extending and escaping than adhering to the rules of a Senate subcommittee that no longer exists. Now carry out my orders!”

  “Aye aye, ma’am!” the chief said, his face bright red. “X-Ray jump point course plotted.”

  “Helm, come onto new course and bring the engines to full power,” Celesta ordered. With the orientation of the system at that particular time the X-ray jump point was more or less “behind” them, giving them the option of running around the primary star and trying to put some distance between her and the four ships facing off with her. If she was actually required to transition out of the Xi’an System using that jump point she knew it may very well be out of the pan and into the fire as it was impossible to know what was beyond. The Senate subcommittee on territorial expansion had strictly forbid any flights past Xi’an after the war, even simple recon flights by automated drones.

  “Engines answering all ahead flank,” the helmsman called as the Icarus swung past the apex of the ponderous turn she was executing.

  “Coms, tell the taskforce they’re now operating autonomously,” Celesta said. “We’ll be too far out of range soon to effectively communicate orders. Make sure you emphasize that nobody is to fire without being provoked. OPS, give me a status update.”

  “The four original contacts are moving to pursue us.” Accari read off a summary list he’d been keeping updated. “So far they’re just pacing our acceleration curve almost exactly. The other eight contacts have broken into four two-ship formations, three of which are pursuing the other taskforce ships and the fourth appears to be heading to our entry jump point.”

  “Another enemy that seems to know a lot about us while we know absolutely nothing about them,” Barrett grunted.

  Celesta said nothing, but was forced to agree with her XO. This new group could only be another space-faring race that, for some reason, seemed to have a low opinion of humans. Now that she was able to think for a few moments while the Icarus raced ahead of her pursuers, she tried to objectively analyze their options.

  They had mentioned a “warning,” yet were chasing them around the star system. Celesta had to assume their tech was at least slightly more advanced than what she had at her disposal given that they seemed to just appear deep down into the system, managed to retrieve the Ares and bring it back, then rig it to blow in a demonstration that was impressive in its raw destructive power. The initial analysis by the CIC indicated that the blast was on an order of magnitude greater than the Icarus’s entire weapons payload combined.

  So turning tail and running was the only viable option in the short term while she was facing a numerically superior enemy of unknown capability, but she needed to come up with something else and come up with it fast. Her hope was that she would get a response soon from her still-transmitting message, but the longer the engagement went on the less likely that seemed. Whatever the motivation for the warning, they weren’t talking.

  “The support frigates have transitioned out of the system, ma’am,” Accari said after another four hours. “However, the Vought has dropped off the Link. Waiting on confirmation from the Midlands as to what might have been the issue. They were still twenty-two hours from the jump point at last update.” Celesta clenched her hands. The Vought was a heavy assault cruiser that probably should have been retired from service six decades ago. It was as likely she’d floundered and lost power while trying to run as it was she was destroyed by the enemy, a term Celesta had to now concede was appropriate.

  “Direct message from the Midlands,” Ellison reported. “The Vought was destroyed by what they’re calling an energy lance of some sort. After it had destroyed the Vought, the ship vanished.”

  “Vanished?” Celesta turned to glare at her com officer, her mouth going dry at the news of a lost ship.

  “That’s what the report says, ma’am,” Ellison said helplessly.

  “All ships, this is Agent Uba aboard the CIS Prowler,” the familiar voice overrode their com system and was broadcast over the bridge speakers. “The enemy vessels are apparently attempting to capture Terran ships. Do not let them close on you. The Leighton has been captured and somehow transported out of the system while the Vought was lost completely … I suggest to the taskforce commander that we break contact and escape w
hile possible. The Prowler is on the way out of the system now. This has to be reported to CENTCOM. Agent Uba out.”

  “Coms, broadcast the emergency withdraw order,” Celesta said without hesitation. “Emergency short hops are authorized … just tell them to get away as best they can.”

  “Captain, our four bogies are accelerating,” Lieutenant Commander Adler said. “They’ll overtake us before the X-Ray jump point at their current rate.”

  Celesta looked at her own display to verify the information herself. “Helm, zero thrust,” she said. “Bring the prow about to course one-eight-zero by zero, attitude jets only.”

  “Engines answering zero thrust, aye,” the helmsman said after pulling the throttles all the way back. “Bringing the Icarus about to course one-eight-zero by zero.” The manual course commands would have the ship rotate about on her Z-axis so she would be flying in the same direction but stern first.

  “Tactical, optimum range for the first volley of Shrikes, if you please,” Celesta said, the familiar adrenaline of combat beginning to course through her.

  “All four tangos are within optimum performance envelope for the Shrikes,” Adler said.

  “Very good, Lieutenant Commander,” Celesta said. “Stagger fire pattern, twenty-second delay between shots, maximum yield.”

  “Parameters set, Captain.”

  “Fire!”

  “Missiles one through four are away,” Adler said. “Missiles five through eight standing by.”

  “Coms, broadcast to our remaining ships that they are weapons free but their priority is to escape,” Celesta said.

  “Second volley is away!” Adler said.

  “Confirm tracking,” Celesta ordered.

  “Tracks confirmed,” Accari said. “All eight missiles are burning hot and tracking true.”

  “Helm, bring the Icarus to bear on her original course and then run the mains to full emergency acceleration,” Celesta ordered. “Nav, begin a running update on acceptable snap-jump locations if we have to bug out immediately.”

  “Disabling safety locks now,” the helmsman said. “Engines answering full emergency thrust.” The pronounced rumbling of the decks let Celesta know that the Icarus was now giving all she could to stay ahead of their pursuers.

  “First volley impacts targets in … five hours, seventeen minutes,” Adler said and put the clock up on the main display so that Celesta could see it without having to ask. She nodded her approval to her tactical officer before returning her attention to the Link updates. The Icarus and the Midlands were showing as the only ships in the system. She didn’t know if the Prowler was still hiding out near the perimeter but she did know that she’d lost two ships, one apparently captured by the enemy. This was a whole new fresh hell from the previous alien that had appeared on their doorstep and had just decided to kill as many of them as it could.

  “I’ll be interested to see what the intel folks have to say about the sensor feeds after this,” Barrett said quietly. “Another alien species coming into the Xi’an System and kicking us around … and this time it looks like they’re abducting ships just for good measure.”

  “It at least solves the mystery about how they brought the Ares here.” Celesta swallowed hard, trying to keep the bile down at the thought of all the spacers she’d just lost. It was inexcusable. She’d flown them right into a trap, so confident was she that it was just a bizarre ploy by the AU. If she had followed the protocols that she had helped develop, sat back near the jump point and let the Jacobson drones make the initial incursion she might have avoided one of the worst mistakes by a Fleet officer since the beginnings of the Phage War.

  She would certainly be relieved of command, but that was the least of her worries. There was a new enemy now. Someone who could prove to be worse than the Phage and, to make matters more complicated, their motivations were even more mysterious than the simple eradication tactics of the previous invaders. Where did they take the Leighton? Was the crew still alive? How would she even begin to try and track them down? Her ruminations were interrupted by a startled, sharp inhale from her tactical officer.

  “Two enemy ships are now accelerating away from their formation,” Adler reported. “Shrikes are compensating, impact on leading targets now in three hours and decreasing.”

  For the next three hours they watched in horrified fascination as two of the enemy ships quickly closed the range. She could see from the high-power radar returns that the ships had an ungainly, blocky appearance and were roughly symmetrical. The sensors on the Icarus could not determine the enemy’s method of subluminal propulsion other than it produced a slightly lower thermal signature than their own plasma thrust drives. She checked their velocity and position, quickly running the numbers in her head.

  “Helm, engines to zero thrust,” she said after a moment. “OPS, deploy the warp drive. Nav, stand by to execute a snap jump on my command.”

  “We’re waiting to see if the Shrikes do any damage?” Barrett asked.

  “Correct,” Celesta said. “We have to take something away from this disaster that will be useful to CENTCOM.”

  The Icarus continued to fly unpowered as the bridge crew watched tensely, well aware that the data they were getting from the sensor suite on the enemy was at least fifty minutes old. Normally that would have been considered a significant safety buffer against Terran or even Phage ships, but new enemies also came with new and unknown capabilities. The fact they could seem to make entire ships vanish from within a star system was enough to make Celesta question whether their twenty-five light minute gap would be any real obstacle for them.

  “Weapons impact imminent,” Adler gave the final warning. Since the Shrikes were smart weapons that would track and adjust to targets once they were locked on, and given the distances involved, it wasn’t uncommon for up to a five-minute variation from when they expected the weapon to intercept the target and when it actually did.

  “Coms?”

  “Still no response, ma’am,” Ellison said. He sounded tired and Celesta knew he wasn’t alone. During the engagement first watch had been on duty for thirty-two hours straight, and there didn’t seem to be any reprieve until they transitioned out of the system. With a completely unknown adversary she just couldn’t risk swapping out critical personnel like she would if it had been a Phage Alpha chasing her.

  “The two straggling tangos are braking, reducing speed and—no, they’re veering hard off, ma’am. It looks like they may be trying to reverse course,” Adler reported. “The two others are still on a direct pursuit course. Weapons are running silent so I have no update other than I expect sensor returns on the detonation within ten minutes.”

  “Nav, execute emergency warp transition immediately!” Celesta barked sharply.

  “Aye aye!” the startled chief said. “Assuming helm control now.” They all felt the mains run to full power as the Icarus dipped her prow to aim down below the ecliptic plane and surged to their final transition velocity. It seemed like mere minutes before the vibrations ceased and Celesta could see on the main status board that they were being purged and secured from primary flight mode.

  “Two tangos have appeared BEHIND us!” Adler said sharply. “Range is less than one hundred thousand kilometers!”

  “Snap fire aft Hornets! Auto-target mode,” Celesta ordered. “Nav!”

  “Standby for warp transition!” the chief shouted even as the forward distortion ring began to cause the main display to darken. There was a sharp bucking as the ship vanished from the system and, a moment later, a more pronounced shaking as she reappeared two hundred and fifty light minutes outside the Xi’an System.

  “Report!”

  “No damage, no casualties, Captain,” Accari read off his master status display. “Engineering is requesting we secure from powered flight mode until they’ve had time to inspect the warp drive.”

  “Tell Commander Graham he has ninety minutes and then we’re underway whether he’s finished or not,” Celesta sai
d.

  “Aye, ma’am.” Accari pulled his headset back up and began speaking into it.

  “How did you know?” Barrett breathed.

  “Lucky guess,” Celesta said. “The two trailing ships either left the system or dropped back to give themselves a greater degree of accuracy to try and appear close behind us. Since Agent Uba said they were trying to capture Terran ships, and we hadn’t shown ourselves to be much of a threat, it had to be the latter.”

  “That’s not really a lucky guess, ma’am, but whatever you call it you just saved our ass again.” Barrett was still speaking quietly amid the chaos created by a short warp flight on a drive that was not designed to perform such a maneuver. Celesta ignored the well-meaning compliment, still physically ill over the loss of at least two ships under her command.

  “Listen up!” she called loudly. “That time limit isn’t just for Engineering. Get with your backshops and get the Icarus checked out stem to stern … we have no idea what sensor capabilities the enemy might have so we need to be underway as quickly as possible.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” Ellison said as he let his headset slip down around his neck.

  Celesta opened her mouth to chastise him, but he’d said it to himself and, honestly, she shared the sentiment. Not even a decade of peace and in the middle of major political upheaval it looked like they had a new alien threat to deal with. She fervently hoped the Prowler, with its extensive sensor capability, was well on its way back to New Sierra with the record of the engagement for CENTCOM to view.

  ****

  “The Icarus made an emergency warp jump out of the system.” The sensor operator turned in his seat. “That’s the last taskforce ship to get clear.”

  “Not all got clear,” Agent Uba said, pacing the cramped bridge of the CIS Prowler. He’d had to pull rank and, against the Prowler captain’s protests, had ordered them to stay on the edge of the Xi’an System with stealth protocols enabled. The small ship was now sitting just inside the orbit of the outermost planet, just a dark hole in space, her passive sensors soaking in and cataloging every detail, every emission.