The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  Indeed, they are, Mallory thought. Rear Admiral Rooke had rearranged the fleet to put the slowest ships at the back. They were the ones running the risk of striking cosmic particles and, if they did encounter any problems, they were less likely to cause a collision with other ships in the fleet. Now they were going to have to contend with the Indians firing missile salvo after missile salvo at them. The only saving grace was that the Indians would be pursuing the British fleet from directly astern and would only be able to bring their forward missile tubes to bear on the British ships.

  “New orders from the flagship,” Sub Lieutenant King reported. “Rear Admiral Rooke is ordering the fleet to accelerate to 0.34c.”

  “That is madness,” Lieutenant Becket complained as she lifted her hands into the air. “Rooke is going to do more damage to this fleet than the Indians.”

  “Lieutenant,” Mallory snapped, “that is enough. One more outburst from you and you’ll be spending the rest of this day confined to your quarters.”

  The look of hurt that crossed Beckett’s face was almost enough to make Mallory say something conciliatory. Yet the thought of what was about to happen firmed his resolve, the fleet was in enough trouble without his Lieutenants undermining the morale of Endeavour’s crew. Becket may not see it that way at the moment, but he knew she would understand later. For now, she would just have to deal with her bruised ego.

  “Captain, several of the ships at the rear of the fleet are sending COM messages to the flagship asking for confirmation of the latest command,” Sub Lieutenant King reported.

  Mallory tried to think fast. Rear Admiral Rooke’s command had been crystal clear, the Captains were obviously trying to get him to reconsider. If he joined them, it would put more pressure on Rooke to reconsider. Yet it could bring a very quick end to his short career as Acting Captain. Nevertheless, lives were in the balance. Despite her outburst, Becket had been right. “Copy the message from the other ships and send it to the flagship as well,” Mallory ordered.

  Everyone on the bridge turned to look at him but Mallory kept his gaze fixed on the main holo display as it projected the Indian and British fleets. In silence, he waited to hear Rear Admiral Rooke’s response. Nine ships had sent a query to the Rear Admiral. Mallory ground his teeth together as he looked at the ships that had sent the request. Of all the more modern ships in the fleet, Endeavour was the only one to send such a message.

  “The flagship is responding,” King announced. It had seemed like an eternity to Mallory but it had been just over a minute. “It’s simply a repeat of the order for the fleet to increase its velocity.”

  “So be it,” Mallory said. “Sub Lieutenant Jennings, you may follow the orders from the flag.”

  “We are receiving a personal message from the flagship,” King said softly, so softly Mallory didn’t quite make her out.

  “What was that Sub Lieutenant?” Mallory asked.

  King took a second to clear her throat, but when she spoke, her voice still betrayed the emotion she was feeling. “Endeavour is receiving personal orders from the Rear Admiral, we are being assigned a new position in the fleet. We are to join the second heavy cruiser flotilla as one of their escorts.”

  Mallory didn’t respond, he didn’t trust himself to. The second heavy cruiser flotilla was at the back of the British fleet. Both of the heavy cruisers in the flotilla were of an older design and unable to maintain the speeds Rooke was demanding of them. Already one of the heavy cruisers had reported a cosmic particle strike, though thankfully it hadn’t damaged any crucial sections.

  It’s punishment, Mallory thought. And everyone in the fleet, and on board Endeavour will know it. Rooke is putting us in harm’s way simply because I wanted to clarify his orders.

  You didn’t just want to clarify them, he snapped at himself. You were openly questioning them, and you know it. Now you’ve put your whole crew at risk.

  A wave of shame threatened to wash over Mallory. He had been a Captain for less than a month and he had already failed his crew. A beep from his command chair drew his attention to a message he had just received. When he read it, it threw a bucket of cold water on his self-recrimination just as it threatened to overtake him.

  You did the right thing; Endeavour’s point defenses are among the most sophisticated in the fleet. If there is going to be a stern chase Endeavour is right where she needs to be. So don’t waste your energy worrying about how she got there. Just make sure you fight my ship to the best of her capabilities. James.

  Mallory knew James was right, now wasn’t the time for his emotions to get the best of him. He would have the rest of his life to deal with the consequences of what he had just done. For the next few hours he had more important things to worry about. He forced himself to focus on his duties.

  “Take us to our new position in the fleet,” he ordered, sounding a lot more confident than he felt. “We have proven the effectiveness of our point defenses against the Vestarians and the Havenite fleet that was going to attack the Kulrean envoy ship. Now it’s time for us to show these Indians just what Endeavour can do. Pass the word to the rest of the crew, tell them, ‘Endeavour is going to prove her mettle once again.’”

  “Aye Aye Sir,” Sub Lieutenant King said with a lot more gusto than she had shown just a few moments ago.

  “Hold on a second Sub Lieutenant,” Becket said. “Send the crew a recording of everything that Mallory said.”

  “That was my plan,” King responded with a smirk.

  Mallory shook his head; he didn’t have time to argue with them. “Just send it, then order the crew to battlestations.”

  Endeavour carefully made her way through the British fleet to take up position. Then the bridge crew had nothing else to do but wait and watch as the Indian fleet slowly gained on them. The new velocity Rear Admiral Rooke had ordered meant the Indian ships would only get into missile range for an hour before they could jump out of the system. They just had to hold on.

  The wait was made harder as reports came in from the ships around them about dangerous levels of radiation. Whilst increasing their maximum speed wouldn’t increase the risk of a cosmic particle strike, faster velocities meant the crew of the older ships would be exposed to more dangerous levels of radiation. It was starting to have an effect. The oldest ship in the fleet, the light cruiser Prometheus, was reporting that almost ten percent of her crew had serious radiation poisoning. They had been forced to evacuate almost a third of the ship as it was becoming too heavily radiated.

  Alarms went off on Endeavour’s bridge as the destroyer Cook pivoted out of formation. Before any of the nearby ships could react, she turned directly into the path of the Corvette Wasp. Both ships disappeared in a blinding flash as the momentum from the impact released more energy than several battlecruiser sized thermonuclear missiles.

  No one on the bridge spoke, they didn’t have to. Everyone knew what had just happened. Cook had suffered a cosmic particle strike, one that must have done critical damage to her engines or fusion reactors.

  “There’s nothing we can do for them now, they are already dead,” Mallory said as the silence dragged on. “We can remember them later. For now, we need to make sure the Indians don’t add any more names to the list of British lives lost in this damned system.” He knew he was being harsh, but his bridge crew needed something to pull them out of their shock. The fleet’s losses were mounting. Never before in the history of the RSN had so many ships been destroyed without at least firing back at the enemy. This was a situation none of them had been trained to face.

  Despite his words, Mallory sensed that some of the bridge crew were still in shock. There was nothing more he could do though, if they hadn’t already pulled out of their own thoughts, the Indians were about to do it for them.

  “Missile launch,” Sub Lieutenant Malik announced. “I’m tracking over ninety missiles headed our way.”

  Having fired from their maximum range, it would take the Indian missiles almost twenty mi
nutes to reach the British fleet. Even before their first missiles came into range of the British ships’ point defenses, the Indians fired another salvo and there was likely to be a third fired at any moment. Just before he gave the order for the point defenses to open fire, Mallory checked the timer he had set up. It would be another forty minutes before the British fleet could jump to shift space and safety. In that time, he reckoned the Indians would be able to get off another four volleys. Things were about to get very dicey for the British ships at the back of the fleet.

  At least the Indians won’t have it all their own way, Mallory consoled himself. The British fleet was finally able to open fire with their stern missiles tubes and two salvos of their own were on their way towards the Indians.

  “Open fire with the flak cannons,” Mallory ordered as soon as the Indian missiles came into range.

  Lieutenant Becket already had their fire pattern locked in and, with the touch of a button, Endeavour’s two flak cannons spewed out explosive shells. When they got ten light seconds from the ship they exploded, creating a wall of shrapnel for the incoming Indian missiles to penetrate.

  In conjunction with Becket’s fire plan, twelve other flak cannons from the rear ships filled space with shrapnel. Luck was on the Indian missiles’ side though, for of the ninety missiles, sixty made it through the first wall of shrapnel. Hastily, Becket and the other tactical officers redirected their fire. The second round of flak cannon shells covered the area with the densest collection of Indian missiles and took out another twenty. Then it was time for the point defense plasma cannons and the AM missiles. Every British ship that could bring their weapons to bear on the Indian missiles fired.

  Space became awash in color. Green plasma bolts and fiery explosions rippled across the wave of Indian missiles. The remaining forty missiles were quickly reduced to thirty and then twenty. Then, a last-ditch effort from the British gunners shot down nine more in quick succession. That still left eleven. Each of which homed in on their targets with deadly intent.

  As the explosions cleared, Mallory searched the holo plot to see what damage they had caused. Thankfully none had been targeted on Endeavour. The other British ships hadn’t been so lucky. The frigate Thunderer was missing. Then reports came in from the other ships, two destroyers and a light cruiser had suffered proximity hits that had caused some light damage. The medium cruiser Minotaur had also taken a direct hit, yet miraculously the damage hadn’t been enough to slow her down. She was still able to keep up with the fleet. The rest of the Indian missiles had failed to cause any real damage.

  “Fire orders are coming in from the flagship,” King reported. “All ships are to target the Indian warships identified as beta one to ten.”

  “Becket, pick your target, fire with the fleet,” Mallory ordered. Seconds later the third British salvo leaped towards their targets.

  Having analyzed the attack patterns of the Indian missiles, the second, third and fourth wave of missiles were handled more effectively. No ships were lost, though a number took proximity hits. As each new salvo of Indian missiles came in Mallory became more and more nervous, they couldn’t keep beating the odds.

  His worst fears were realized when twelve missiles from the fifth Indian salvo broke through the British point defenses. Six of them were targeted at two medium cruisers. Despite the best efforts of the cruisers’ navigators, neither cruiser dodged all of the incoming missiles. One cruiser took two direct hits which ripped gaping holes in her sides. The other medium cruiser avoided a direct hit, but as all four missiles targeted at it exploded less than two hundred meters away from the ship, a shockwave tore into the ship, causing severe damage.

  “Both the Ajax and Sandstorm have been hit,” Sub Lieutenant Malik shouted as soon as the sensor data was clear enough to tell him what damage the Indian missiles had done. “They are falling out of formation.”

  “Then they are done for,” Mallory said sadly.

  As he expected, no new orders came from the flagship as both cruisers fell behind. With no orders coming in, the two Captains took it upon themselves to act. The bridge crew on Endeavour watched in silence as both cruisers turned towards the Indian fleet, presenting their full broadsides. Together they launched twenty missiles at the lead Indian ships. Then, before the next wave of Indian missiles came, they launched another twenty and then another. They were firing as fast as they could instead of taking time to target their missiles accurately.

  “More than half of the last wave of Indian missiles are targeting those cruisers,” Malik reported. “I don’t think they want Ajax and Sandstorm to continue to pepper them with so many missiles.

  “They have bought us the time we need to escape,” Mallory said as he checked the countdown to shift space. He paused, trying to think of what James would want him to say. “I want you all to watch their sacrifice, remember this day. There is going to come a day when we get a chance to repay the Indians for this. When it comes, I want the ships we have lost here today to be our inspiration.”

  The British cruisers fired a fourth salvo of missiles just before more than forty-five Indian missiles exploded all around them. When the sensor data cleared, there was no sign of either ship, they were both gone.

  With only forty missiles in the final Indian salvo targeting the British fleet, they were easily dealt with. Then, as the British fleet crossed the system’s mass shadow, the order came from the flagship to jump to shift space. Being at the back of the fleet, Endeavour was one of the last ships to jump out. We made it, Mallory thought as the ship transitioned into shift space. But at what cost? They had already lost a number of key warships, and who knew how many crew members had been impacted by the radiation Rooke’s command to increase velocity had caused. The fleet was going to make it back to New Delhi, but it would be in no condition to fight.

  Chapter 14 – Surprise Attack

  Nothing can be more frustrating to a defender than a small group of independent ships operating without a base of operations. With nothing to defend they are free to strike wherever they wish.

  -Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  14th July 2467 AD, HMS Retribution, Kerala System.

  Acting Commodore Lightfoot was sitting in the command chair of the light cruiser Retribution surveying the sensor data for the Kerala system. It had taken him just over six days to bring his squadron from New Delhi to Kerala. With Retribution, he had the exploration cruiser Discovery and two modern destroyers, Flame and Fang. Discovery was by far the stealthiest ship in the squadron, but the others would still be able to cause the Indians a lot of trouble.

  Kerala was a mid-level Indian colony. It had a population of over a hundred million and an extensive space industry, both in orbit around the colony and on a number of other planets and larger asteroids in the system. Lightfoot had a plethora of targets to choose from. He had his small squadron cruising towards the mass shadow of the system. They had jumped out of shift space five light hours away from the mass shadow and, as they had drawn closer, they had been carefully mapping out every electromagnetic source they could detect with their passive sensors. With the picture Lightfoot’s team had built up, it looked like the Indians had stripped the system bare of most of its defending ships. As far as Lightfoot could tell, there were only three warships in the system.

  As the squadron crossed the mass shadow created by Kerala’s star, Lightfoot finally settled on a plan of attack. Carefully, he composed a series of orders and sent them out to his other Captains. Then he sat back in his command chair. Retribution was already on a direct course for the Indian colony, that’s where he was going to make his attack.

  *

  14th July 2467 AD, HMS Discovery, Kerala System

  “Lightfoot has just sent us our orders,” Discovery’s COM officer reported.

  “Send them to my command chair,” Captain Gupta responded.

  As she read the orders she couldn’t help but grin. Lightfoot was using Discovery to her full potential. With luck, h
er ship was about to get its first combat kill. “Take us on our new trajectory,” she ordered the navigation officer. “Then send the crew to get a warm meal in shifts, we’re going to be at battlestations for a while once the action heats up.”

  After changing course slightly, Discovery cruised into the system for another three hours. Then, she slowly decelerated, being careful not to produce any gravimetric anomalies from her impulse drives other ships in the system would detect. With her heatsink activated and her waste vents projecting any stray electromagnetic energy back into deep space Discovery was almost impossible to detect.

  “Target locked in,” Gupta’s tactical officer reported as he looked over to his Captain, awaiting her orders.

  Gupta couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the crew of the ship less than ten light seconds off Discovery’s port bow. Discovery’s sensors had easily identified the ship as an Elephant class frigate. They had been the workhorse of the Indian Navy around thirty years ago, but now they were hopelessly out of date. It hardly mattered though, the frigate could have been newly completed yesterday. Its defenses still wouldn’t stand up to the firepower Discovery was about to bring against it.