Empire Ascendant

by Dietmar Wehr

  “Admiral! Com systems have been damaged by the tower’s collapse, but we can reroute signals through other transmitters! I’ll have that ready for you in a few seconds!”

  “As fast as you can,” said Delacor. The main display, which had gone dark by the time Delacor had reached the Operations Room, came back up to show the Fleet in orbit.

  “Show me Yamato and Ardennes,” ordered Delacor. Two of the green triangles started flashing. They were right over the capital city.

  “Fleet Com is back up, Admiral!” said one of the personnel. “We’re picking up a fleet-wide transmission!”

  Delacor nodded. She wasn’t surprised by that. “Let’s hear it.”

  “—forced to take this action to save the Empire. With the death of both the Empress and Grand Admiral Delacor, I and Admiral Neilson will temporarily assume the positions of Acting Co-Emperor and Acting Co-Empress effective immediately. We—”

  “Shut that traitor off!” yelled Delacor. “I want to broadcast a video message to the whole Fleet!”

  “Ready, Admiral!”

  “This is Grand Admiral Delacor! Admirals Xavier and Neilson have committed murder and treason! I’m ordering the Fleet to ignore any orders they give, and I specifically order the officers and crews of Yamato and Ardennes to—”

  “—arrest Xavier and Neilson!” Xavier switched off that com channel and looked up at Neilson’s image. “Delacor’s still alive! Fuck!”

  “She has to be in the Ops Room to have responded so quickly!” said Neilson. “If we fire again, the combined beams might penetrate down that far!”

  “Yes! We have to co-ordinate our fire!” said Xavier. “Lieutenant, tie in with Ardennes’ TO and fire as soon as both ships are able!”

  Delacor had just finished her transmission when she heard the rumbling again, and this time it was louder. The external image of the tower’s pile of rubble was showing metal girders melting.

  “They’re firing on us again!” shouted someone.

  They’re not giving me enough time to end this with minimal bloodshed, the bastards! If I don’t go with Scorpion now, we’ll all be dead in a minute, and they’ll have won.

  She ran over to one of the consoles. “Activate Scorpion. Authorization Lambda Epsilon one four four.”

  “Authorization accepted,” said an electronic voice. “Scorpion has been activated.”

  Ardennes’ tactical officer stared down at his console in disbelief. “Admiral! Our lasers have stopped firing and are shifting their targeting to…Yamato!”

  “Well, stop them, you fool!” shouted Neilson.

  “I CAN’T! THEY’RE NOT RESPONDING TO MY CONSOLE!”

  Neilson shuddered with the horror she was now feeling. I have to warn Trev! She turned to look back at the video screen where his face had been just a few seconds ago. The screen was now black.

  Xavier noticed Neilson’s image disappear from his screen at the same time as he felt a frightening vibration from the ship.

  “WE’RE BEING FIRED UPON, ADMIRAL! ARDENNES IS FIRING ON US!”

  “WHAT! NO!” She’s turned on me, that bitch! “SWITCH TARGETS FROM THE TOWER TO ARDENNES!”

  Delacor knew that Scorpion was working when the rumbling stopped. “Can we get a close-up visual on either Yamato or Ardennes?” she asked.

  “One second, Admiral. I think we can get that for you.”

  When the image did appear, she heard someone gasp with surprise. She saw what she expected to see. Laser beams were slashing at Yamato’s armor. Atmospheric venting could be seen. The battleship’s turrets were firing too, but not at the ground. They’re firing at each other now. A lot of innocent people on those ships are going to die, but they didn’t leave me any choice. Damn you two to hell for that.

  By the time two minutes had passed, both ships were no longer firing. Yamato was a wreck. Delacor couldn’t see Ardennes, but was willing to bet it was in similar condition. The distance between the two ships had been less than ten kilometers. At that range, the lasers had cut through both ships’ armor like a hot knife through butter. She ordered the nearest ships to send shuttles with medical personnel to look for survivors, plus a few marines in case either or both of the traitors were still alive. She also demanded that all ships reaffirm their willingness to accept the new chain of command as laid down by Empress Contessa herself. Delacor, now the new Empress, didn’t completely relax until all ships had signaled their recognition of her new status. She hadn’t wanted to be Empress. Being Grand Admiral had been satisfying enough, but she was willing to embrace her new authority. Now I can grieve for my friend; oh Contessa!

  New Mount Fuji star system:

  Ten days later.

  Terranova entered Valley Forge’s Flag Bridge and got settled in his Command Station chair. The long, careful deceleration into the New Mount Fuji star system was a tedious process and one that he wasn’t completely certain would work. Rather than emerge from uber-space at the edge of the system and decelerate quickly via L-drive, thereby tipping off the defenders to Second Fleet’s presence, the fleet had attempted something never before tried. It had begun decelerating a full light-year away and had reduced L-drive deceleration continuously in small increments to keep it at levels where the resulting weak gravity wakes would—at least in theory—not be detectable by Tanaka’s people.

  Second Fleet was now within one A.U. of New Mount Fuji with a velocity of 10% of light speed. At this point, L-drives were shut down, and the fleet was coasting on a trajectory that would cause it to pass the planet at a distance of 5,000 kilometers. Long before then, the reconnaissance drones that Second Fleet had launched an hour ago would be passing by the planet. Their radar-deflecting design and ballistic trajectory would make them hard to detect, and their data transmissions would be low-powered comlasers. But right now, they were still too far from the planet to pick up signs of enemy warships. Commercial traffic, on the other hand, was easy to spot. Like all other star nations, Shogunate commercial space vessels were required to constantly transmit their identity, velocity and trajectory. Second Fleet didn’t need to use its radars to see them. They did, however, use their radars to make sure they didn’t run into any uncharted navigation hazards.

  “Show me the problem, FAO,” said Terranova, referring to the matter that had brought him to the Flag Bridge. The main display’s system-wide tactical image zoomed in to the space ahead of the fleet. One of the many yellow dots representing Shogunate commercial ships was flashing. A curving white line showed its projected path, and that path would bring it to within radar range of Second Fleet.

  “It’s changing its vector, Admiral. That’s why it wasn’t a problem before,” said the fleet astrogation officer. “We can already detect its radar emissions, but at this distance, the return signal will be too weak for them to pick up. That will change in about six minutes, though.”

  “Damn,” muttered Terranova. There was no way to avoid detection. Using EG-drives wouldn’t get the fleet out of radar range in time, and using L-drives would tip off the Shogunate fleet to their presence too. His careful approach had been a waste of time. Destroying the vessel before it detected the fleet would be difficult without using missiles that would also be detected, and in any case, having a freighter suddenly go radio silent would definitely attract attention.

  “Signal the Fleet to go to Condition One,” ordered Terranova.

  Second Fleet was at Battle Stations by the time the freighter’s radar detected them. It was obvious when that happened. The freighter’s L-drive shut down only long enough for the ship to shift its heading before accelerating away from the oncoming fleet.

  “That ship is now transmitting an omnidirectional code omega, Admiral,” said the com officer.

  “How long before that signal reaches the planet?” asked Terranova.

  “Four hundred eighty-eight seconds.”

  Eight minutes, more or less. He was certain that Shogunate fleet elements would begin maneuvering by L-drive shortly after that
.

  The eight minutes passed quickly, and nothing happened. There was no sign of any Shogunate warships, but commercial space traffic began reacting to the code omega signal as soon as the signal wave reached them.

  “Is it possible that we caught them without any warships defending their planet?” asked Terranova of his Flag Bridge personnel.

  “It certainly looks that way, Admiral, but I can’t imagine them making that big of a blunder,” said Murcheson, the tactical officer.

  “I agree, but there’s more to it than that,” said Terranova. “We know how many ships Tanaka sent to New Danzig, and we have a fairly good idea of how big his fleet is, so if Hashimoto took half his fleet to attack Delisani and the rest of the fleet isn’t here, then where did it go? I wonder…” he said after a pause.

  “Wonder what, sir?”

  “I wonder if Tanaka sent the other half to Corona. If he did, then Grand Admiral Delacor is going to have all the fun. Meanwhile, we’ll stay the course and wait for the recon drone reports.”

  Those reports started to trickle in roughly eleven minutes later as each drone detected something that its AI deemed worth reporting, but the results were not what anyone expected.

  “TacComp is having a hard time classifying these recon sensor readings, Admiral,” said Murcheson.

  Terranova got up and went over to the Tactical Station. “What’s your assessment, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, I can only come up with two possible explanations. Either these multiple anomalous visual sightings are one very large object, impossibly large in fact, or the drones are picking up hundreds of very small objects.”

  “How small are we talking about?” asked Terranova.

  Murcheson shrugged. “It could be as small as a piece of luggage or as large as”—his eyes opened wide with sudden comprehension—“a missile pod.”

  Terranova nodded. “Yes. I think that’s it. If they’ve laid hundreds, perhaps even thousands of system defense missile pods, that would explain why they might send the rest of their fleet somewhere else. Is there any sign of unidentified ships?”

  “No, sir. If there are any warships near the planet, they’d have to be holding position on the far side.”

  “Which they might be doing as well. Keep analyzing the recon data in case they detect something new, Lieutenant. I’m going to order the Fleet to decelerate to zero velocity. We’ll hold position here, out of range of those missile pods, and see what Tanaka does.”

  Six hundred and fifteen seconds later, Second Fleet had slowed to zero velocity. To prevent being caught by surprise, Terranova ordered all twenty-one ships to begin radar scanning in all directions. When Lieutenant Murcheson asked for confirmation of the radar scanning order in a tone that clearly showed his confused state of mind, Terranova looked at him with an amused expression.

  “Radar scanning order is confirmed, Lieutenant. It’s not like they don’t already know where we are, is it?

  The Lieutenant’s confused look changed to one of embarrassment. “Yes, sir; I mean, no, sir.”

  “And let’s make sure that the fleet-wide tactical net is updated with the recon data and that the areas in question are designated as containing missiles pods.”

  By the time Terranova returned to his Command Station, Valley Forge’s captain was calling.

  “Yes, Captain Montoya?”

  “My TO thinks those are missile pods too, Admiral. He also suggested that we use decoys to flush those pods out into the open.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Captain.”

  “You’re welcome, Admiral.”

  It didn’t take long to arrange for each ship to launch one of its decoys. The decoys were programmed to generate the kind of longitudinal waves that battlecruisers and battleships would generate if they were accelerating at less than their maximum rate. Tanaka’s people would interpret that gravity wake data to mean that the Empire fleet was moving forward in a careful manner. The decoys would also be radar scanning, which meant that the Fleet had to stop its scanning in order to avoid giving the game away if the two sources of radar emissions were somehow detected.

  As soon as the decoy formation got within standard missile range, nine hundred gravity wakes were detected, originating from the missile pod fields. The interception of the decoy fleet by the Shogunate missile barrage was anti-climactic. All 921 gravity wakes disappeared. Fifteen seconds later, the external sensors picked up the multiple detonation blasts that to the human eye looked like one very big explosion.

  Terranova counted to thirty, then turned to look at his FAO. “Okay, we’ve given Tanaka and his admirals enough time to congratulate themselves on their brilliant victory over an Empire fleet. Second Fleet will now accelerate at two thousand gees.” Terranova counted the seconds until there was a reaction from the planet.

  Eighty-nine seconds later, 28 gravity wakes were picked up coming from very close to the planet, as if those ships had just come out from behind the planet using their EG-drives and were now switching to the much faster L-drives.

  “TacComp has classified those gravity wake sources, Admiral: two battleships, twenty-six battlecruisers.”

  “How confident is that assessment?” asked Terranova.

  “Ninety-eight percent, Admiral.”

  Terranova relaxed. That was about as confident as the tactical computer got; as far back as he could remember, TacComp had never come up with a higher percentage. That admiral is going to believe he can win because he outnumbers us, but my three battleships to his two just about evens the odds, even without adding our Mark 10s to the equation. When we add those, he doesn’t stand a chance.

  “FTO, I want a full missile barrage set up for max acceleration, followed by a ballistic trajectory that will produce a ring formation wide enough to surround the enemy fleet. Program them to detonate as soon as they have good radar locks on targets.”

  “Yes, sir.” Thirty seconds later, Terranova heard the tactical officer report. “Fleet-wide missile barrage is ready, Admiral.”

  “Very good. Give the order to fire, Lieutenant.”

  Shogunate Fleet Command, New Mount Fuji:

  “What does that fool think he’s doing?” asked a puzzled Tanaka. “Can those missiles reach my fleet with some remaining maneuvering power?”

  “No, My Lord,” said one of the admirals standing nearby. “The range is more than ten times the standard powered-flight envelope of anti-ship missiles.”

  Tanaka turned and glared at the admiral who had just spoken. “You had better be right, Admiral Nagumo.” He returned his focus to the large tactical display. His fleet could not fire back yet and would not conduct evasive maneuvers since the enemy missiles would be without power by the time they got close. His ships could easily dodge out of the way at the last minute if necessary.

  Tau Ceti Empire Flagship Valley Forge:

  Terranova looked away from the tactical display and took a deep breath. Note to self. Next time get closer before firing. This is taking so long that I’m almost falling asleep!

  “Detonation in ninety seconds, Admiral,” said Murcheson.

  “It’s about time,” muttered Terranova.

  As the sidebar timer approached zero, Terranova closed his eyes and imagined what his missiles were about to do. Each warhead had discarded its outer hull to allow for a dozen long rods of special metal alloy to aim at the missile’s designated target. At the precise instant of detonation, the warhead would explode with a fission reaction, and in the tiny fraction of a second before the blast vaporized the rods, they would concentrate and focus the resulting x-rays into extremely intense lasers that would slash through even the densest ship armor. The beam was so powerful that if it hit a ship head on, it would penetrate all the way through and out the other end. Second Fleet had fired 450 missiles, which meant that each Shogunate ship would be targeted by at least 16 Mark 10 warheads. If all 16 beams hit, the targeted ship would almost certainly be too badly damage
d to maneuver or fight.

  The range was too far to be able to determine visually what damage had been inflicted, but all 28 gravity wakes stopped when the countdown timer hit zero.

  Shogunate Space Command, New Mount Fuji:

  Tanaka stared at the tactical display in shock. Hundreds of fission detonations had just occurred ahead of his fleet, and his ships had suddenly stopped accelerating at almost the same time.

  “Contact Admiral Fujita and ask him what the hell just happened!” snarled Tanaka.

  The report came back seconds later. “My Lord, we’re unable to contact Admiral Fujita’s flagship. Telemetry links have also gone down.”

  Tau Ceti Empire Flagship Valley Forge:

  “Admiral.” Terranova turned to look at Murcheson. “Sensors are picking up atmospheric venting from multiple ships,” said the officer in a low voice.