by D. J. Holmes
“Navigation, take us in towards the fifth planet, full military power. Once we get up to our maximum velocity we’ll reenter stealth mode.”
“Yes Captain,” Jennings acknowledged.
*
Aboard the Havenite cruiser Solitude, Admiral Harris watched the approaching alien armada. The last week had been one long nightmare. After refusing to trade weapons technology with the alien race their ship had departed only to be replaced by a number of warships that had raided the mining outposts in the outer system. In response he had dispatched his fastest ships to the outer rim of the system to fend off the attacks.
Being beyond the mass shadow of Haven’s star, the aliens had proceeded to simply jump out of the system every time his ships got near. That had continued for almost a month. Eventually he had succeeded in predicting one of their targets and managed to get two frigates into a blocking position. The ensuing battle had set his mind somewhat at rest but now he knew it might be their doom.
Before the battle he had been calling on the councilors of the Havenite Collective to send diplomats to Earth to request aide. He thought he had been winning them over but after the success of the first real battle with the aliens the councilors didn’t want to risk telling the Earth nations where they were. Now it was too late.
The small skirmish at the edge of the system had gone in his ship’s favor. The two frigates had managed to get into missile range and fire four missiles at the single alien ship that had jumped into the system. Its point defenses had destroyed three of the missiles but the fourth had hit the alien vessel damaging it enough that it immediately jumped out of the system.
Everyone on Haven had thought it was all over. The aliens had been shown that Haven could defend themselves and would therefore leave them alone. They had been wrong. A week ago an alien armada had jumped into the system with over fifty ships. They had demanded the colony with all its technology and orbital industries be surrendered to them. After the Council refused, the alien fleet had attacked a number of mining stations and slowly made its way to Haven itself.
Harris suspected the first attacks on the stations had been to test Haven’s defenses to make sure they had no surprises. Now they were coming in for the kill.
“Sir, we’ve just lost the Valiant,” one of his officers reported, bringing his mind back to the battle.
“What? Show me a replay of the sensor feed,” he ordered.
As he watched the replay, Valiant fell out of formation with the rest of the small fleet that was attacking the alien armada. Solitude’s infrared sensor’s showed the Valiant flaring up before it exploded.
“It looks like whatever they were hit with burnt the valstronium armor right off their ship before it tore its way into their hull,” the sensor officer commented.
“Some kind of directed energy weapon,” Harris concluded. “Inform our attacking ships not to get any closer to the alien fleet than Valiant did.”
He had eight, no seven now, he reminded himself in anger, ships attacking the incoming armada. They were his smallest and fastest ships, which allowed them to charge into range with their missiles and fire off a volley before the enemy could return fire with whatever weapons they had. At least that had been the plan. They weren’t having it all their own way with the loss of Valiant.
As he stared at the plot he knew his tactic wouldn’t work. The small ships weren’t doing enough damage to stop the aliens. At this rate they would get into range of the planet and be able to engage the rest of the Havenite fleet. If they managed to destroy his ships in orbit, the colony would be at their mercy. They could bombard it from space or land ground troops to take whatever they wanted.
He was determined that it wouldn’t be a one sided fight. Fear of the Earth nations had driven the councilors to fund the construction of two defense stations around the planet. They weren’t very impressive by the standards of the other human powers but each one was almost twice as powerful as his flagship. More importantly, they were disguised to look like the other industrial stations in orbit and should come as a surprise to the approaching aliens.
Around them he had gathered the rest of the Haven fleet. In formation with his cruiser Solitude, he had three light cruisers, eight destroyers, and another eight frigates. They were ready to go down fighting.
“Sir, I’m getting an incoming transmission from a ship designating itself as HMS Endeavour. Her captain wants to speak to you,” the COM officer announced, sounding as if he didn’t believe his own report.
“Put the transmission on the main holo screen,” Harris ordered, wondering what on earth was going on.
Earth indeed, he thought to himself as the image of a warship’s bridge appeared with what was clearly a British Captain sitting in the command chair.
“Hello,” James said, “I am Captain Somerville of his Majesty’s ship Endeavour, with whom am I speaking?”
“Welcome Captain,” Harris said already running the tactical possibilities through his head, “I am Admiral Harris, the commanding officer of the Havenite fleet, I hope you’re here to offer your assistance. As you can see we are in a little bit of trouble.”
“Greetings Admiral,” James answered, though it took just over five minutes for his reply to reach Harris. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. Can I ask who these hostiles are that are attacking your world?”
“Aliens, Captain,” Harris’ reply came back five minutes later. “I know I know, it’s almost impossible to believe but we have had the last few months to get our head around it. They showed up in our system and demanded we trade weapons technology with them. When we refused they began attacking our mining stations and a week ago this fleet showed up. It looks like they intend to take our planet and our technology by force,” Harris said and then waited patiently for Somerville’s response.
“I see,” James said, careful not to show any emotion. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Harris, aliens were a far-fetched explanation. Sure, the scientists insisted that humans would come across sentient alien life eventually. After all, most of the habitable planets they had discovered had some form of life on them. Yet they had been exploring the stars for over two hundred years and found nothing smarter than a dolphin.
“I’m going to need you to send me everything you have got on these ships and whoever is controlling them,” James said guardedly.
“It’s already being sent,” Harris answered. “May I ask, where is your ship? We can’t pick it up on our sensors. Are you close enough to help us before their fleet gets in range of our planet?”
James didn’t answer immediately. Instead he waited for Ferguson and Scott to go over the data they had been sent.
“I don’t see any other explanation Sir,” Scott began, “the particles from their drives and the readings we’re getting from their ships do not match anything humans have built nor any experimental technology I’m aware of.”
“I concur Sir,” Ferguson added. “Their ship designs are like nothing the RSNI has data on and the residual electromagnetic radiation from the outer system is consistent with Harris’s story about being attacked.”
James nodded before taking a moment to let the gravity of the situation sink in. Humans were not alone in the galaxy. Worse, already they seemed to be at war. Yet the British weren’t at war. Maybe the Havenites did something to start this fight and maybe the aliens would be happy to open peaceful relations with the other human nations. There were just too many unknowns. And then, he thought, what help can Endeavour be? It looked like their technology was more advanced than the Havenites and these aliens, but is it enough? He didn’t know the answer to that question; nevertheless, he had to make a decision, that was the burden of command.
Taking a deep breath, he faced the recorder that would transmit his words back to Admiral Harris. “Ok, we’re in,” he said, “Endeavour is an exploration cruiser but we have some teeth. We’re currently closing in on the alien fleet from behind. We entered the system over six hours ago
and accelerated up to our maximum speed. Now we’re in stealth mode closing on the aliens. What is the tactical situation?”
When he got the transmission Harris almost shouted for joy. Plasma cannons, he thought as he controlled himself. Maybe we can win this.
When the Haven colony ship had left Earth over two hundred and fifty years ago Harold Maximilian had ensured that some of the best scientists on Earth came with the colonists. They had brought with them theoretical designs of the shift drive and although it had taken them nearly one hundred and fifty years to develop it, they had managed it.
When the first Haven ships had made contact with French vessels from Earth they had been surprised to find out that Earth had developed the shift drive over a century before them. Just as surprising had been the revelation that Earth warships were equipped with plasma cannons.
As Haven had begun to develop warships they had also come to the conclusion that long-range missiles were the way forward. However, they had also known that a shorter-range energy weapon would be very effective against warships. Lasers had been rejected for their effective range was severely limited by the diffraction of the laser and the current technical limitations on reducing the wavelength of the beam. Plasma cannons on the other hand were known to be theoretically possible and would have made ideal weapons, but their scientists hadn’t yet managed to crack stabilizing the containment fields for each bolt.
Since they had made contact with the Earth nations they had managed to procure a few working examples of hand held plasma rifles through the black market to reverse engineer, but as yet they didn’t have a working prototype to begin to equip their ships with. For the last week Harris had been cursing their failure to prioritize this for he knew they would have made a big difference in the coming battle.
Now at least we have some, he thought.
“You can no doubt see their fleet with your own scanners,” Harris began. “They have forty nine ships. Twenty of their larger ones, and twenty nine smaller ones. We’ve designated the larger class of ships as cruisers and the smaller ones as frigates. The smaller ships carry four missile tubes on each of their bows. We haven’t seen what their cruisers carry but we suspect they will have at least ten missiles to each broadside. Their missiles seem to have an effective range of half a light minute so we have a slight range advantage but not enough to make a difference.
“Under my command I have a cruiser, three light cruisers, eight destroyers, and eight frigates. There are another seven frigates currently harassing the alien fleet. They have managed to destroy two of the alien frigates. Their point defenses are good but our missile ECM is able to penetrate them.
“We also have two defense stations disguised as industrial nodes. My current plan is to wait for the alien fleet to get into optimal range of our missiles and fire everything we have at them. We don’t have any plasma cannons so my only play is to hope we can overwhelm their defenses and cause them enough damage that they break off.”
As James listened to the tactical situation he kept an eye on the sensor feed of the alien fleet. It was an impressive armada. He knew the Havenite weapons technology was at least two decades behind the other Earth nations, probably more like three or four behind Endeavour’s state of the art tech. The aliens appeared to be slightly behind the Havenites. Yet what they lacked in quality their fleet appeared to make up for in quantity. Even as he watched the seven attacking Havenite frigates veered into missile range and fired off a volley of fourteen missiles at the nearest alien cruiser. When the missiles entered point defense range hundreds of AM missiles shot from the alien ships and they took out all but one of the missiles. It managed to get a proximity hit on the large alien ship but the ship continued on, apparently able to shrug off the hit.
“There’s one more thing, Harris added. “The aliens have some form of directed energy weapon. You should have been sent the sensor feed of Valiant’s destruction; it will show you their effective range. My scientists believe it is some form of x-ray laser but they can’t understand how they have enough power output on their ships to be able to fire it over such long distances.”
“Thank you,” James said, “give us a few minutes to formulate a plan. I don’t think we have time to join you in orbit. We’ll have to engage the alien fleet separately and hope we can whittle them down enough for you to be able to manage them when they get to Haven.”
“Very well Captain, we’ll take whatever help you can give us,” Harris said.
After James watched the Admiral’s last message he opened up the small holo projector on his command chair and projected the current sensor feeds. James had seen more combat than he had ever imagined he would when he signed up to the RSN. Yet he knew he still had a lot to learn when it came to leading a ship into battle. The Void War had taught him that. If we’re going to survive this and help the Havenites we need to use all of Endeavour’s strengths, he thought to himself. Slowly, a plan began to formulate. When he was happy with it he sent it over to Lieutenant Ferguson’s command chair. “What do you think?” James asked Ferguson.
It was five minutes before James and Ferguson were happy that they had worked out all the details of the plan. When they were satisfied, James contacted Harris again, “I’m sending you our plan, please make sure your frigates are made aware of our approach. We will need them to coordinate their fire.”
“You will have our support,” Harris replied after the five minute delay in transmission.
Cutting the COM channel James then opened one to Innocence, “your mission is a go Commander. Once you have your target don’t wait around for us.”
“Aye Sir,” Gupta acknowledged. “Happy hunting Sir. I wish I was on the bridge with you.”
“Me too Commander, but you have your own hunting to do. Good luck” he added with a smile as he cut the transmission.
“Open a channel to the whole ship,” James commanded the COM officer. When she nodded at him to let him know it was open he addressed the crew.
“Men and women of Endeavour, I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that we are facing alien warships. They are headed straight for a human colony and it seems that their intention is to invade or bombard it. It may not be a British colony but those are our fellow human beings down there. We have a duty to protect them and who knows, if these aliens aren’t stopped here, it may well be a British colony they attack next. The Havenites have no tradition of warfare but they stand ready to fight these aliens. We know how to fight, so let’s show these aliens that Humans aren’t as easy prey as they seem to think!”
Nodding to the COM officer to cut the transmission, James turned to the navigation officer and said, “Power up the engines, let get this battle started.”
Chapter 10 – All or Nothing
It’s an old saying, yet one that the history of space warfare has proven true; no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
- Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
1st May 2466 AD, HMS Endeavour, Haven system.
As soon as Endeavour’s four fusion reactors powered up and funneled energy into her impulse engines she became visible to everyone in the vicinity of the Haven colony. While the two fleets battling each other had been too busy to notice her first acceleration burn into the system she was now operating in an area that was being heavily monitored. Ignorant of the surprise on both the Havenite and alien warships at seeing a new ship appear so close to them, James was focused on his immediate goal.
“Ferguson, take command of the main plasma cannons, target one of their cruisers and hammer it until it’s destroyed. Tactical, wait until the Haven missile salvo passes us and then add our own. They should be targeting the two alien frigates on the edge of their formation.”
“Aye, Sir” Julius, the Third Lieutenant called from the tactical terminal. Ferguson didn’t bother answering; the bolts of super-heated plasma that shot towards the alien fleet spoke for him.
The first four bolts tore through the armor of the alien warship
like it didn’t exist. There wasn’t any immediate sign that the bolts had done any serious damage but thirty seconds later, when another four bolts crashed into the ship, it tore apart and disappeared in a colossal explosion.
Satisfied that their plasma cannons were able to destroy whatever the alien ships were made from, James switched his attention to the Havenite flotilla of frigates. The seven small warships were once again angling towards the much slower alien fleet. They unleashed a volley of twelve missiles at the aliens. Becket timed her launch perfectly and Endeavour added eight of her own to the volley.
When the missiles got into range of the alien’s point defenses hundreds of AM missiles began to pour out of the alien ships, trying to intercept the larger ship killer missiles. Sensing the incoming AM missiles, the Haven and British missiles switched on their ECM and randomly altered their flight path, making themselves harder to track.
“Two missiles have been taken out,” Julius called. “Now three.”
“Penetrator missiles activating now,” she said several seconds later.
