The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  As Retribution and Discovery entered orbit over Agra’s fifth planet, their plasma cannon gunners took out the stationary ground facilities just as easily as the gunners of the two destroyers had their targets. As the four ships met up and proceeded towards the shift passage to Gujarat, more than one gunner was thinking the endless drills they had been doing were proving to be much more challenging than real life.

  *

  23rd July 2467 AD, HMS Discovery Gujarat system

  Captain Gupta was in her briefing room studying Discovery’s sensor data. Technically, her watch had ended two hours ago, but she had been too focused on her mission to sleep. Lightfoot had sent Discovery ahead of the squadron to scout the Gujarat system. Given whatever warships were in the system had received ample time to prepare for the squadron’s arrival, Lightfoot had thought it wise for Discovery to sneak in ahead of the rest of the British warships.

  Discovery was cruising up to the edge of Gujarat’s mass shadow. If there were any Indian warships in the system planning to ambush the British ships, that’s where they would be. It was another three hours until Lightfoot and the rest of the ships were due to make an appearance. Knowing it was too little time for her to get any real sleep, Gupta watched the sensor data as her analysts searched for any sign of nearby Indian warships. Before she knew it, a beep from her COM unit let her know there were just thirty minutes until Retribution was due to appear. With a stretch, she stood and rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen their tension. She took a moment to check her uniform in the mirror she had installed in the briefing room before walking onto the bridge.

  “Still no sign of any ships out there?” Gupta asked First Lieutenant Romanov.

  “None yet Ma’am,” he replied. “It all looks quiet, but that’s what we’d expect if the Indians were planning something wouldn’t we?”

  “We would,” Gupta responded. “At least if the Indians are in any way proficient at what they’re doing.”

  As she sat down in her command chair, Gupta manipulated the main holo display with the touch of a few buttons. “This is where Retribution is expected to arrive,” she said. If the Indians are waiting near the mass shadow they’re hopefully going to have to change course to intercept. I want our sensors focused in this area,” she ordered as she touched a few more buttons to highlight the most likely locations for any warships waiting in ambush. “We may only get a few seconds to detect any course change, so everyone needs to be at their best.”

  In the Void War Gupta had learnt that despite the intensity of interstellar warfare, the vast majority of a naval officer’s time, even when in hostile territory, was spent waiting for the action to begin. Today proved to be no different for as soon as she finished speaking, she found herself with nothing to do but watch the sensor data as it came in, just as she had been doing in her briefing room.

  Right on cue, alarms went off on Discovery’s bridge. “I’m detecting a huge gravitational anomaly just over a light hour away,” the sensor officer reported. “It doesn’t look like the normal signature for a ship exiting shift space, this is far larger.” After pausing for a couple of seconds the sensor officer spoke rapidly. “Now there’s two more anomalies, wait, they’re not shift space anomalies, they are acceleration profiles from impulse engines. Now all three have disappeared.”

  “It looks like everything went to plan,” Romanov said.

  “Let’s just hope the Indians see what we want them to see,” Gupta said. “Keep your focus on the mass shadow.”

  Lightfoot’s plan had been smart, but there was no way to predict just what the Indians would think of what their sensors had just told them. The best explanation was a ship had malfunctioned exiting shift space, causing a far greater anomaly than usual. The two brief moments of acceleration from two other sources would look like two other ships had tried to avoid a collision with the first ship.

  Discovery was less than two light minutes away from the area of space Gupta reckoned the Indian warships were hiding in. As the time approached when any electromagnetic signals from that area would reach Discovery, the bridge got exceptionally quiet. As the silence continued, the tension grew. If the Indians were lying in wait there was no way they would use their impulse engines at a level where they would produce a gravimetric anomaly. Instead, they would slowly change their course. Detecting such a course change relying solely on picking up the electromagnetic radiation given off by the warships’ engines operating at very low levels of acceleration was difficult. If the Indian ships were there and Discovery missed them, then Retribution and the two British destroyers could be in a lot of trouble. As time dragged on, it became increasingly likely that either Discovery had missed the Indian warships, or they hadn’t been there in the first place.

  “I think I’ve got something,” the sensor officer said. Gupta relaxed her shoulders as a weight of stress lifted off her. The deathly silence on the bridge made it sound like he was shouting as he continued, “I’m picking up two very brief electromagnetic sources, right where you said they would be Captain.”

  “Did the drone capture anything?” Gupta asked.

  “I’m analyzing the drone’s data now,” the sensor officer replied. “Hold on. Yes, it was very faint, but the drone got something as well. I’m triangulating the data now. Here,” he said after a few more moments as he sent his data to the main holo projector.

  “It looks like there are two ships here,” he said, pointing. “I can’t get an exact fix on their new trajectory, but they turned towards the general direction of Retribution.”

  “That’s good enough,” Gupta said. “Send it to Retribution,” she ordered her COM officer. “That should be all they need, there’s no doubt where the Indian warships are headed. As long as Retribution knows what direction they are coming from, she should be able to handle them.”

  Gupta sat back in her command chair, knowing that once more she could only wait and watch. Discovery couldn’t alter her course for fear the Indian ships would pick up her course correction and give the plan away. She was out of the fight; all she could do was hope the British warships managed to get a lock on the Indians first. Otherwise the next thing Discovery would detect would be Retribution’s reactors exploding under a hail of plasma bolts from the Indian warships that were setting out to ambush her.

  “No sign of any COM message from Retribution,” the COM officer reported ten minutes after they had sent the targeting data to the British warship.

  “And nor will there be,” Romanov said. “They will not do anything that will risk giving away their position. We won’t hear anything now until it’s over.”

  The bridge crew on Discovery waited with trepidation to find out what would happen. In her head, Gupta played out the scenario as if she was Captain Lightfoot. Given the angle at which the British warships would have exited shift space and the trajectory from which they knew the Indians were approaching, she would have taken her ship upward and to starboard of her enemies. It would be the place the Indians would least expect them to be.

  The worst natural course for the British warships to take would be to head straight for the mining station in orbit around the second planet in the Gujarat system. That was where the Indians would be expecting the British ships. If Lightfoot had done what Gupta suspected, and he managed to detect the Indian ships that were in stealth before the Indians detected his ships, then Gupta estimated the action would begin right about now.

  “Two ships just lit off their impulse drives,” Discovery’s sensor officer shouted in excitement.

  “They’ve given away their positions,” Gupta said. “It will be over quickly.”

  “All signatures just cut off,” the sensor officer reported almost before Gupta had finished speaking. “There is no sign that it was an intentional reduction in engine output. I think those ships were just hit.”

  Gupta didn’t respond, instead she waited for confirmation that Lightfoot had destroyed his targets. She got it less than a minute later when thr
ee new contacts appeared on the gravimetric plot. Her sensor officer quickly identified them as Retribution and the two other destroyers in the squadron. All three were accelerating towards the sole orbital mining station in the system.

  “Light up our drives,” Gupta ordered. “Navigation, lay in a course towards the mining station, make it so that we converge with the squadron as we approach.”

  “I don’t understand Captain,” the Sub Lieutenant manning the sensor station said. “Why did those Indian warships suddenly accelerate? They gave away their position to the plasma cannon gunners on Retribution and the two destroyers.”

  “I think that’s something you’re going to have to ask Acting Commodore Lightfoot,” Gupta responded. “But if I had to guess, I’d imagine Lightfoot ordered one of his destroyers to fire their plasma cannons in the general vicinity of where they expected Indian ships to be. The Indian Captains, fearing they had already been detected, panicked and began evasive maneuvers. As soon as they lit off their impulse drives they gave Lightfoot’s gunners a clear target.”

  “I see,” the Sub Lieutenant replied and turned back to her console. The look on her face told Gupta that she was thinking deeply about Lightfoot’s tactics. Gupta had no doubt that she and the other Sub Lieutenants would learn a lot on this mission.

  *

  The squadron decelerated as it approached Gujarat’s mass shadow. The sole mining station that had been in orbit around the system’s fourth planet had been destroyed hours ago. For anyone in the system with a working gravitational sensor, it looked like the squadron was heading towards the shift passage for Dunagiri. As the squadron passed the system’s mass shadow, they jumped into shift space and disappeared.

  Less than five seconds after entering shift space, the squadron reverted back to real space. Slowly, relying only on their maneuvering thrusters, each ship turned and began a slow acceleration burn back into the Gujarat system under stealth. If New Delhi had sent any warships after them, they would get to the Gujarat system and the survivors from the mining station would point the pursuing ships towards Dunagiri. With luck, it would allow Lightfoot’s squadron to get to Nicobar without any additional Indian warships pursuing them.

  *

  “New contacts,” Discovery’s sensor officer shouted four hours after the British squadron had returned to the Gujarat system. “I’m picking up five ships accelerating into the system from the shift passage that leads back towards Agra.”

  “What can you tell me about them?” Romanov asked.

  “Nothing much yet,” the sensor officer reported. “The computer is still analyzing the acceleration profiles, though at this stage I don’t think there is anything larger than a destroyer.”

  “Very well,” Romanov responded. “Let me know as soon as you get a firm fix on the identity of the ships.” With a few touches to the input panel on his command chair he sent the message to his Captain, alerting her to the development.

  Three minutes later Gupta walked onto the bridge. “What have we got?” she asked.

  “Three Indian destroyers and two frigates accelerating into the system,” Romanov reported. “It looks like they’re headed towards the wreckage of the mining station.”

  “They’ll be looking for survivors to find out what we did and where we went,” Gupta said. “Are they actively scanning?”

  “Yes,” Discovery’s Third Lieutenant said from the tactical console. “The levels of electromagnetic radiation are well below what our stealth coating can handle. Based on our current trajectories, the Indian ships will pass closest to our squadron in another two hours, even then, our stealth coating should keep us from being detected.”

  “Then we have nothing to worry about,” Gupta responded. Nevertheless, she remained on the bridge to watch the Indian ships approach. As they passed by the closest point to the British squadron she let out a small breath. She was confident that Retribution, Discovery and the two destroyers could take on the Indian warships, but they wouldn’t have been able to destroy them without taking damage themselves.

  “I’m going to retire to my quarters,” Gupta said to Romanov. “I’ll return before we jump out of the system, until then you have the bridge.”

  “Aye Ma’am,” Romanov replied.

  Chapter 16 – Reinforcements

  With the widespread use of tachyon FTL communication it’s almost impossible for us to imagine life without such technology. Yet in the not so distant past battles and wars were won or lost simply because it took a day too long for a vital piece of intel to arrive.

  -Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  1st August 2467 AD, HMS Discovery, Nicobar system.

  “New orders from the flagship, ‘prepare to fire on my Mark,’” Discovery’s COM officer reported.

  Here we go, Gupta thought. Discovery’s tactical console was tied into Retribution’s by a direct laser COM and the order to fire came directly to Discovery’s tactical officer.

  A few seconds after the flagship sent the fire order, twenty-eight missiles shot from the four British warships towards the second moon orbiting Nicobar’s single gas giant, announcing the presence of the British ships to everyone in the system.

  “I’m detecting a number of ships lighting off their drives in orbit around the moon,” Discovery’s sensor officer reported. “Three of them look like they have military grade engines, the rest are freighters and transports.”

  Gupta didn’t reply, instead she waited and watched the holo display. It quickly became clear which ships were which. The freighters and transports scattered, trying to flee the colony and escape the incoming missiles. Two of the contacts on the holo display turned towards the incoming missiles once they broke orbit, clearly intent on intercepting them.

  “The computer is estimating contact sierra one and sierra two to be a frigate and a destroyer,” the sensor officer informed the rest of the bridge crew.

  “Prepare to fire a second salvo on those two warships,” Gupta ordered her tactical officer.

  “Captain, I’m detecting a number of new drives powering up from orbit around Nicobar,” the sensor officer warned. “At least one of them looks large enough to be a light cruiser.”

  “Keep an eye on them,” Gupta said. “But let’s not get distracted, it will take any ships at Nicobar at least an hour to get to us, that leaves us plenty of time to have some fun.”

  The plan was to make one pass on Nicobar II. They would do as much damage as they could and then head into the outer system. There was a large asteroid mining industry within the system, doubtless it had grown over the decades as the demand for raw materials from both colonies had steadily risen. It was Lightfoot’s plan to raid as much of the mining industry as he could.

  “New firing orders coming in,” the COM officer announced. “We are to target the frigate designated sierra two.”

  “I’m getting a firing solution and countdown from the flagship now,” Discovery’s tactical officer reported.

  “Very well,” Gupta said, “fire as ordered.”

  “Firing,” the tactical officer reported five minutes later.

  By the time the first salvo of British missiles was approaching Nicobar II, Lightfoot had already sent orders for the two British destroyers to divert their missiles towards the Indian warships. The group of British missiles broke into two. Twelve of them angling towards the two Indian warships while the rest continued on towards Nicobar II.

  Without any flak cannons, the first sign the Indian ships were trying to defend themselves was when a hail of green plasma bolts began to shoot towards the British missiles. Of the twelve that were approaching the Indian warships, three were destroyed within seconds. Almost as soon as the third British missile exploded, new, smaller explosions erupted around the British missiles as Indian AM missiles joined the fight.

  All but one of the British missiles aimed at the two warships were destroyed. The Indian destroyer, free from having to defend itself, turned its fire on the second group of Britis
h missiles. The frigate on the other hand was still desperately trying to avoid the remaining missile aimed at it. A last-ditch evasive maneuver allowed it to avoid a direct impact but the missile, sensing that it would overshoot its target, detonated, sending a wave of electromagnetic energy into the frigate’s stern.

  “We got it,” Discovery’s tactical officer shouted. “That was one of our missiles.”

  “How much damage did it cause?” Gupta asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” the sensor officer replied. “But the frigate is falling out of formation with the destroyer. On the visual playback it looks like the explosion hit the frigate’s main engines. They may not be out of the fight yet, but their engines are wrecked. They won’t be making any significant course alterations.”

  “They are done for,” Gupta said. “Our second salvo will finish them off. Show me a replay of the rest of our missiles as they reached Nicobar II.”