The Temple of Light (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 5)

by Kal Spriggs

  All fourteen vessels opened up on the four ships of Gamma Squadron. Their fire took between seven and eleven seconds to reach their targets.

  Reese had timed the strike to take advantage of the outgoing task force commander's change of command, when he figured the forces in the system would be at their least prepared. It had taken precision and perfect timing to arrive so close to the blockade's patrol route. Reese had plotted the course himself, thanks to guidance from Marius Giovanni. He felt some satisfaction at the perfect ambush... but he regretted that the squadron would die because they had done their jobs.

  The ships had just begun to turn, trying to bring their thicker axial defense screens into position to block the inbound fire just as the salvo began to hit.

  Twenty mass driver rounds struck first, the heavy tungsten-alloy rounds smashed through the thinner belly-band defense screens and blasting into the squadron's armor. The two enemy destroyers simply vanished, ripped apart by over eight hits each. The third destroyer reeled, spinning out of control as the starboard drive pod exploded and the port-side drive pod went to full acceleration. Any crew would have been instantly killed as the acceleration exceeded their inertial compensators under ninety or more gravities of rotational acceleration.

  The enemy cruiser held up the best, shuddering under multiple impacts, yet then the railgun rounds hit, individually weaker but all of them aimed for the single cruiser. Forty of the fifty-six rounds hit, punching through weakened armor or finding gaps and the older cruiser erupted in detonations as its systems detonated in a chain of explosions.

  A follow-on salvo put the destroyer out of its misery and Reese nodded, "All ships, advance on the planet. Prepare to launch the assault shuttles."

  ***

  Senior Captain Semyon Varlamov stared at the display with shock. Gamma Squadron had died with startling suddenness, the most one-sided defeat that the Centauri Confederation Fleet had ever received. And I'm in command, he realized with horror. His career was effectively over.

  The enemy force had four cruisers and ten destroyers, with what looked like two light carriers spawning squadrons of fighters. There were also four or five light transports and their courses looked to take them in to land on the planet.

  "Orders to all ships," he snapped, realizing that if he could at least salvage something out of this that he might be allowed to retire instead of facing a summary execution. "Bring up our drive systems, prepare to engage the enemy vessels."

  He listened to the somewhat ragged replies from the ships of his command. Many of those officers were hungover, some of them were probably still intoxicated from the party or parties they'd thrown aboard their own vessels. He had never expected an attack, who in their right mind would want to go down to Gorgon with its cultist colonists and dangerous artifacts? For that matter, who would dare to draw the attention of the Centauri Confederation in such a blatant attack?

  He didn't understand it, but he knew that these attackers would not stand up against the full might of his command. Gamma Squadron had been the smallest and oldest of his ships, relegated to the outcasts of his command, those who were too by-the-book.

  The rest of his ships might be old, with crews made up of incompetents, but there were still sixteen destroyers, five cruisers, and a battlecruiser. In numbers he had a forty percent advantage, and his battlecruiser alone massed larger than all four of the enemy cruisers combined.

  The enemy force had already launched a dozen shuttles from their cruisers. Those shuttles and the transports would have plenty of time to land. I'll destroy them from orbit or kill them as they try to take off, Captain Varlamov told to himself.

  "Sir, should we transmit that we are under attack?" his XO asked, his voice nervous.

  "No!" Captain Varlamov shook his head, "No, not until we have the situation under control!" The last thing he wanted was someone senior looking into this until he had everything in hand. Once he had defeated this force, then, after his officers were sober and had been warned of the consequences of too much honesty, then he could transmit to command about the attack.

  The blame can be put upon Captain Tutin, he thought, I can say that he disregarded my orders...

  He could still salvage this situation.

  ***

  Junior Lieutenant Stephan Caras finished drawing on his environmental suit as the alarms continued to wail. This wasn't a drill, he knew. Senior Captain Varlamov rarely ran drills, and those that he did run were expected and planned for ahead of time.

  Not that this was entirely unexpected...

  "Do not forget what we offer you," the woman said, her voice suggestive as she rubbed against him. His body stirred at her touch, but he couldn't quite meet her gaze. Her ruined face didn't bother him, but there was an edge of something in her eyes.

  Yet the feel of her warmth against him and the promises she and the other women had made... Caras knew he'd never rise above Junior Lieutenant. The lowest of the officer ranks was still higher than a man like him could hope to rise, yet he'd clawed his way to the rank from hard work and through thirty years in the Centauri Fleet, doing every task as ordered.

  Those tasks had been onerous, often with terrible consequences. He'd gunned down civilians, murdered prisoners, he'd rounded up women to serve as 'recreation' for unruly crews, and he'd even fired on civilian vessels and stations in the ongoing civil war. His most recent task had been to provide "entertainment" for the Captain and his senior officers... and that was how Meera had found him.

  She'd first treated it as a business arrangement. She'd provided women with the right physical characteristics who proved willing, even eager to fulfill the officer and enlisted requirements. She'd provided booze, drugs, even some exotic enough to keep the XO happy. All of this had been good for Junior Lieutenant Caras... right up until she showed him the recording that one of her women had taken of the senior officers.

  They mock me, he thought, they mock my lower-class accent and my willingness to do their scut work. They ape how I get along with the enlisted and they laugh at how I'll never be promoted. That recording had nearly sent him into a homicidal rage... until Meera had offered him a different release. They'd become lovers, then confidants, and now...

  "I won't forget," Caras said to her as he pushed her gently to the side. She had offered him far more than Captain Varlamov ever could. Far more than Caras ever could have hoped for under the Centauri Confederation.

  He stepped out of the small compartment he shared with a half-dozen other junior officers, all of them like him, risen from the lowest-classes... and all of them working in different departments aboard the Orlan. Every ship in the Centauri Confederation had them, the men who worked hardest so that they could rise above their means.

  Junior Lieutenant Caras moved to his station, outside the Orlan's armory. He nodded at Lieutenant Renovich, his superior. "Stupid drills," his boss muttered. He keyed in the code for the armory door, a code that Junior Lieutenant Caras wasn't supposed to know. They would never trust one of us from the lower class with such things, Caras thought with a mental snarl.

  He kept his expression blank, though as the Lieutenant opened the armored hatch and stepped inside. "We should probably do an inventory..." Lieutenant Renovich trailed off as he stared at the pistol rack near the hatch. That was the officer ready rack, in case of the need to put down a mutiny by enlisted crew, it was kept with loaded and ready pistols, close to hand so that officers could quickly be armed.

  Occasionally those pistols would be drawn by an officer who disciplined his enlisted, as a backup form of protection. The small, easily concealed pistols provided confidence to an officer who might otherwise fear that one of his crew would attack him over severe punishments. The integral suppressed M17's also had occasionally served senior officers who wanted to dispose of enlisted men --or women-- who knew too much about their indiscretions.

  The rack, however, was entirely empty. Not a single pistol remained of the twenty pistols normally available. "What.
.."

  Junior Lieutenant Caras was an efficient man. He didn't take the time to gloat to his nominal superior. He simply shot him in the back of the head, the suppressed pistol shot muffled. Blood and brains splattered across the empty weapon rack. Caras grabbed the dead man by his feet and dragged the corpse out of sight and used Lieutenant Renovich's key to unlock the other weapons racks. He then pulled out his ship's comm. "Cleanup detail, report to the Armory."

  ***

  "Skipper," Petty Officer Godbey said from the sensors, "looks like the Confederation ships are moving to intercept."

  Forrest breathed out a sigh of relief. He'd worried that Reese's ships would have unimpeded access to the planet, but it looked as if the Centauri Confederation actually had more than enough forces to deal with Reese. "Good, let's just keep observing, then."

  They'd spent the past five days learning everything they could about the Widowmaker's systems, but Forrest didn't feel confident in taking it to battle. They had emerged from shadow space over fifty thousand kilometers behind Reese's force and with the destroyer's stealth systems fully engaged, he hoped they'd avoided detection.

  The ship had some incredibly advanced stealth systems. If the manuals were to be beleived, then the "active" stealth system was the next best thing to a full cloaking system, complete with emission refraction. The ship wasn't just a hole in space, its stealth field bent transmissions around it so that it didn't even occlude stars or other emission sources. It was somewhat terrifying to think of what a ship like the Widowmaker could do.

  "Are any of the ships headed to the station?" Forrest asked.

  "Negative," Petty Officer Godbey replied.

  Forrest gnawed on his lip. He brought up a link to Lieutenant Medica, "You're our resident expert, what do you think they'd need to do to activate that station?"

  "Uh," Lieutenant Medica stared at him, "I'm hardly an expert in ancient alien tech. I mean..."

  "You studied with Rory and Feliks," Forrest interrupted, "you had to have picked up something."

  "Okay, sure," the engineer waved a hand, "but this is light years beyond anything I know. For that matter, I doubt Rory or Feliks fully understand what this nutjob is trying to do..."

  He rubbed a hand over his face, "Look, sir, as far as I can tell, that alien station blasts anyone who tries to dock with it. Whatever Reese plans to do, he's got to do it from the Temple and then try to gain access to the station.

  Forrest considered that for a moment. "So... if I'm getting this right, then if we can stop him from going to the station from the planet... then we're good?"

  "Maybe?" Lieutenant Medica shrugged, "I don't know. There may be some connection in that giant column of light. He might be able to control it from there, but if so..." He shrugged, "That's just my best guess."

  "Got it," Forrest said. "We're going to position ourselves so that no matter what happens in this battle, we can intercept any attempt to get from the planet to the station."

  He just hoped that it would be enough.

  ***

  Senior Captain Semyon Varlamov scowled as the enemy force didn't form up to face his oncoming forces. In fact, they looked more as if they were establishing a perimeter or screen for him, which made no sense at all.

  "What are they doing?" His Executive Officer asked. "Why are they not readying to defend themselves?"

  "I don't know..." Captain Varlamov growled. "And I don't like it."

  "Captain, I have a theory," Junior Lieutenant Grahowski spoke up. Captain Varlamov scowled at the junior officer, but the man, despite his low-caste background met his gaze with confidence. If he has some idea of what is happening, Captain Varlamov thought, perhaps he could be useful... besides, I can always have him killed if he's wrong. That was the point of junior officers from the lower classes, they provided scapegoats for when things went wrong.

  "Come here," Captain Varlamov gestured. "What do you think, Junior Lieutenant?"

  "It's very simple, sir," Junior Lieutenant Grahowski said as he stepped closer. "They're establishing a defensive perimeter for the change of command."

  "What?" Captain Varlamov shook his head, "That's absurd, why would they do that?" Obviously the junior officer had become unhinged.

  "Because they helped to plan your change of command," Junior Lieutenant Grahowski said as he casually drew a M17 pistol and fired into the XO's forehead from less than a meter.

  Captain Varlamov flinched as blood and brains splattered his face. He opened his mouth, though whether to beg for his life or snarl defiantly, he didn't know.

  Yet before he could force out words, Junior Lieutenant Grahowski aimed the barrel of the pistol at Semyon’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  ***

  Lieutenant Commander Wung-See was the most junior ship commander in the blockade taskforce. As such, he'd mostly kept his head down, followed orders, and quietly done what he was told. He wasn't particularly attentive to the details of orders. In fact, he didn't even want to be an officer. His father was an Admiral, though, so that meant he either offended his patriarch or he did as he was told and joined the military.

  He'd viewed the exile to Kapteyn's Star with a great deal of relief. There wouldn't be any atrocities he'd have to commit in the civil war. He wouldn't have to bomb a colony out of existence or host a company of scary Centauri Commandos. All he'd need to do was do routine patrols and chase off the odd treasure hunter. It was perfect. He'd left the majority of the day-to-day operations of his elderly destroyer to his Executive Officer, who mostly ignored him anyway.

  Wung-See knew that there was something wrong, first with the destruction of Gamma Squadron and now with the sudden chaos in other ships in the blockade. Several of them cut power and he flinched as he saw a destroyer and cruiser collide, both vessels sending a cascade of debris outward in an expanding arc.

  "Lieutenant Chung," Wung-See spoke nervously, "do we have any orders from the flagship?"

  "No, sir," his Executive Officer said casually as he tapped commands in on his console. Wung-See didn't much like the man. He was of the lowest caste, born in the deepest levels of Chi-Lung Colony. Wung-See's father had referred to men like him as Penny-Weights, that he could buy a thousand of them for a few pennies.

  Wung-See had allowed the man to run the ship, mostly because he seemed to know what he was doing and had let him focus on other things. "Well, let me know if anything changes," Wung-See said.

  "It looks like a mutiny, sir," Lieutenant Chung said after a moment. "Unfortunately for you, it seems to have gone off without any major issues and we've seized every other surviving ship in the fleet," Lieutenant Chung looked up. "You see, we'd originally wanted to keep around someone of your rank to talk to any ship captains who didn't fall in line or where the mutiny failed."

  He drew a pistol from inside his uniform tunic. No one on the bridge so much as flinched as he drew it... no one but Wung-See.

  Wung-See's eyes widened as he stared down the pistol bore. He felt warmth run down his legs as he wet himself. Then he heard the gunshot.

  Wung-See heard nothing after that.

  ***

  "Congratulations, Captain," A soft voice spoke in Stephan Caras's ear as he stepped onto the bridge. He looked over at Meera, her scarred face lit with joy and her eyes alight with excitement.

  "Thank you," he said in reply. It was her network of 'recreational' women who had passed messages from ship to ship. It was her promises that had encouraged other junior officers throughout the fleet.

  He nodded to Grahowski as he walked over and then settled into the command chair. Caras ignored the sticky blood and the lingering stink that Senior Captain Varlamov's corpse had left. There was just something powerful about knowing he now commanded a multi-million ton warship.

  "Status update?" he asked.

  The communications officer looked pale and terrified, but he was one of the handful of "elites" that Caras's people had allowed to live. "Sir--" the officer stuttered and then tried again, "Si
r, the other ships report... they report success."

  "Excellent, Lieutenant," Caras smiled, well aware that the communications officer had been one of those to mock him. He'd be merciful, however, and let the man live. For now, he thought.

  "Open a channel to the Ranger, it'll be the Independence-class cruiser at the center of their formation."

  The Lieutenant blanched as he realized that meant that Caras was in communication with the forces that had destroyed Gamma Squadron. A shame about that, Caras thought, Tutin was the best of a bad lot.

  A grizzled officer's face appeared on the screen. "Captain, we have seized the blockade force. We await further orders," Caras said.

  "Excellent, Commodore Caras," the man replied. "Our forces are landing now. Lord Giovanni asks only that you hold the internal perimeter, we'll screen your forces and signal when you are safe to withdraw."

  "Thank you," Caras felt tears fill his eyes as he heard confirmation. Ambition had driven him to work so hard, yes, but also pride. He had wanted to be an officer, wanted to command... and now he had that. No matter what happened now, no one would take that from him.

  He settled back into the command chair and cut the connection. "Bring the ship to full combat readiness," he said. He watched as people scurried to follow his orders, those who'd been most loyal to the late Senior Captain were the most eager to show that they could be useful.

  It was good to be in charge.

  ***

  Chapter XVII

  Kapteyn's Star

  Centauri Confederation

  March 5, 2410

  The UCS Constellation emerged from shadow space and Senior Captain Daniel Beeson let out a hiss of relief as he saw Confederation icons appear on the sensor display. He also saw a good number of ships without transponders, though. "Open a channel to the blockade force," Daniel said.