The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) (17 page)

Samuel paused and switched back to his personal COMS unit. “Corporal Almaty how long until your explosives go off.”

“Thirty seconds sir,” came the reply.

Switching back to the ship wide channel he continued. “In thirty seconds we will be blowing the port weapons control center. I suggest you evacuate it immediately.” Johnston then paused and counted down the seconds. Right on time the entire ship rocked as Corporal Almaty’s explosives went off.  Satisfied that they now had the ship suitably under their control Samuel reached behind his back and switched on his locater beacon. It sent out strong radio pulses, which would alert
Drake
that the mission had been a success. With luck,
Drake
would be able to pull along the port side of the Chinese destroyer and extend a docking arm within thirty minutes. Then his men could be reinforced.

Again he switched to the ship wide COM channel. “Chinese crewmen, we have now secured your port weapons batteries. Our ship, HMS
Drake
will be closing to dock with this vessel and transfer the rest of our marines and a prize crew aboard. This is the first and only chance I will be giving you to surrender. Your ship was illegally within a system awarded to the Great Britain by the UN Interplanetary Committee. By lying in stealth, your intentions were clearly not friendly. Surrender now or face being treated as common pirates.”

As he finished his call for surrender, Becket motioned for him to look at the holo-display. “Major, I have finished the systems check. As you can see the ship is almost fully functional. The upper two decks, ten and eleven, have almost entirely been vented into space. However, no major damage has been caused. The explosion from the port battery control center has caused secondary damage to the sensor relays but the computer is working to bypass the damage now. I have full control of the ship from here. I’m going to begin a deceleration burn on the engines to allow
Drake
to come alongside quicker.”

“Impressive Lieutenant, you have done well on this mission.” Johnston commended. Now all his men had to do was hold tight for the next thirty minutes or so and hope the Chinese didn’t try anything.

The distances involved in interstellar war means that whoever is on the offensive almost always has the advantage. It simply takes too long for help to arrive after an attack has begun.

-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

28
th
February 2465, HMS
Drake
, the Excalibur system

Aboard
Drake,
James was beginning to get very worried. The mission timing was meant to be very precise. The marines and Sub Lieutenant Becket should have landed on the destroyer almost ten minutes ago. By now they ought to have signaled if they had managed to capture the ship.

Just then a small fireball erupted from within the hull of the destroyer. James had been watching the visual and so had seen it almost instantaneously. Fisher saw it on her console too.

“Sir, infra-red is picking up a small explosion from the destroyer. I estimate it to be coming from the port side weapons control center.”

James had already surmised that from the visuals and so only nodded. Instead he addressed the bridge as a whole. “Blowing the control center was a fall back plan if they couldn’t capture it. They must have the bridge or they would have blown the whole ship. Navigation, take us alongside them, keep us under their portside.”

Seconds later Major Johnston’s radio beacon sprang to life on the sensors but three more minutes passed before a communication finally reached
Drake
on the operations channel. “
Drake
, this is Major Johnston, do you copy, over?”

“Major, this is Commander Somerville. What is your situation?”

“Ah, Commander, my long range COMS must have taken some damage, I am speaking to you through the ships communications array, we had to reactivate it. We have secured the bridge and engineering, the port missile batteries have been disabled. Sargent Harte and Corporal Smith are both dead. Mr. Jones has sustained a nasty injury to his leg but he should be ok. We have begun a slow deceleration burn to allow
Drake
to come alongside sooner. Lieutenant Becket has the ship firmly under control.”

Before replying James looked over to Thirlwall who was manning navigation. “How long until we come alongside them.”

“Fifteen more minutes and we will have matched velocities sir.” She replied.

“Ok Major, we’ll be with you in fifteen minutes, you and your men just need to hold on until we get there,” James said as he opened the communications channel again.

An hour later James was getting another situation update, this time from Lieutenant Gupta.  “Commander, all the Chinese crew have surrendered. As far as we can tell there were a total of one hundred and ninety on board. Twenty-three were killed in the fighting so we have one hundred and sixty seven prisoners. Major Johnston is organizing the Marines from
Drake
. Some are guarding the prisoners in one of the cargo holds; the others are carrying out a sweep of the rest of the ship. I have my prize crew manning the Bridge and Engineering. We have locked everything else down for the moment. Oh, and by the way the ship’s name is Tian’e.”

“Very good Lieutenant, you and Becket have done a fine job. It’s a pity neither of you can keep her as a prize, there is a RSNI crew with the Admiral that will be taking her home. I’m going to disengage the docking arm, we’ll be back as soon as possible, try to stay out of trouble.”

“Yes sir,” Gupta replied. She watched on the Chinese destroyer’s bridge holo display as
Drake
undocked from the destroyer and began to turn towards the mass shadow. It would take her three hours to reach the mass shadow of the system and then Rear Admiral Jensen’s fleet another three hours to return to the destroyer. Six hours she had, six hours as the senior commander aboard a warship. It was what she had dreamed of ever since she had been a little girl. None of her family had been spacefarers. Her parent’s trip from New Delhi to Britain had been their only space journey. Yet, ever since she had seen her first naval officer in uniform on the streets of London, she had wanted to join up. Sure she only had the command for the next few hours but it was hopefully a taste of things to come.

After giving herself a couple of minutes to savor the moment, she turned her mind back to her duties. There was a lot to get done. The ship had to be made ready for the RSNI types to come and take over. The damage done to the destroyer in the firefights had to be repaired and the prisoners had to be secured for the long voyage back to Earth. Every other ship that had come in Jensen’s fleet was in the Void to stay. The destroyer would be the only ship leaving and so the prisoners would have to stay aboard her. That posed a risk. The crew would know their ship much better than Gupta and her crew. They would have to be secured properly to make sure they could not find a way to escape. Picking up her COM unit she contacted Major Johnston and arranged to meet him in an hour to go over his plan to detain the prisoners.

*

Rear Admiral Jensen had been in her ready room taking a nap.
Drake
had left her fleet hours ago and so she had taken the opportunity to go over her plans once more before catching some sleep. When her COM unit went off she was awake and alert instantly. An ability she was always thankful for being born with.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Admiral,
Drake
has returned, the mission was a success,” Captain Chambers said over the channel.

“Ok, signal the fleet, break formation and prepare to jump into the system. Inform the RSNI tech team that they can ready themselves to take over control of the destroyer. Don’t wait for me, take us in immediately.”

Jensen had commanded the Britannia response fleet for over a year. In that time she and Captain Chambers had built up a very good working relationship. She had already recommended the Captain for a promotion to flag rank. However, with only a handful of fleets and task forces in the RSN there weren’t enough commands to go around.

By the time she dressed and made it onto the bridge, the fleet had already formed into their jump formation. The communications officer had just finished informing Captain Chambers that the last ship had reported their shift drive fully charged. Before giving the command, Chambers looked over at Jensen. She simply nodded.

“Give the order to the fleet, we jump in thirty seconds,” Chambers said.

Only milliseconds after making the jump to shift space, the fleet re-emerged on the edge of the Excalibur system. After sitting stationary for five minutes and closely watching the space around them, Jensen was satisfied that
Drake
hadn’t missed anything.

“Signal Commodore Williams, tell him he can take his task force to Camelot and proceed with his mission. Tell him to keep the bulk of his force together, if they encounter anything I want them to be able to give a good account of themselves.”

Jensen watched as a heavy cruiser, light cruiser, two destroyers and two frigates broke off from her main fleet and began to re-orientate themselves for the jump to Camelot. The system
Drake
had initially designated V48 also fell within British space and although it was less strategically important, the Admiralty wanted a British presence there as well. Jensen was concerned about splitting her forces, especially with a Chinese battleship out there. However, orders were orders.

“Ok, take us into the system. Inform
Norfolk
that she is to ready her passengers to disembark onto the Chinese destroyer. Once
Drake
has charged her drives and jumps back in, order her to make for the captured destroyer and begin to take her crew off. They won’t be needed by then. Order the destroyers, scout frigates and remaining survey ships to begin operation Nimitz.”

Nimitz called for the smaller ships that didn’t specialize in point defense to begin a coordinated sweep of the system with their primary radar projectors. Jensen wanted to make sure there wasn’t another Chinese ship lying in stealth somewhere.

“And inform
Respite
that she can begin her mission too.”

Respite
was the final survey ship in the fleet. She was tasked with jumping to the V17 system and delivering a message to the Chinese Admiral there. The message was simply the recording of the UN Interplanetary Committee meeting that had awarded the Excalibur and Camelot systems to the British. Alongside that there was a warning that if any Chinese ships entered British space it would be considered an act of war and they would be fired upon.

*

3
rd
March 2465, HMS
Drake
, the Excalibur system

Drake
had spent the last three days scouring the Excalibur system along with the other light ships of Admiral Jensen’s fleet, when her sensors finally picked something up.

Fisher alerted Lieutenant Gupta as soon as she detected it. “Lieutenant, a ship is dropping out of shift space approximately half a light hour away. It is right on the edge of the system’s mass shadow.”

“Alert the Commander and switch off the radar. Navigation, shut down our drives and put us into stealth mode. Once we are running silently, make a course correction towards their likely route into the system.”

The ship that had just jumped into the system would almost immediately pick up the heat and radar radiation
Drake
had been pumping out into space. However,
Drake
hadn’t been accelerating and so they wouldn’t be able to track her using their gravimetric sensors. It would take the ship half an hour to realize that
Drake
had gone into stealth mode and by then
Drake
would be able to significantly close the range to whoever had arrived into the system.

Already the Chinese had sent two light ships into the Excalibur system. The first had broadcast a message claiming Excalibur for the People’s Republic of China and threatening the destruction of the British ships if they did not leave. The second had sought to dive into the system and get a firm sensor reading on the British fleet. Admiral Jensen had been keeping the main body of her fleet close to Excalibur and had been letting her ships go into stealth at random intervals. She was trying to keep her Chinese counterpart from getting a fix on her numbers.

A destroyer had chased the second ship off and had almost managed to score a hit. The Chinese ship had just succeeded in getting back to the shift space limit before the destroyers missiles caught up to it.

“Status report?” James asked as he walked onto the bridge and over to the command chair.

“A ship has just jumped out of shift space half a light hour away. We’ve entered stealth mode and are waiting to see what they do sir.” Gupta replied.

With a glance James acknowledged Gupta’s report and then turned his attention to the main holo display. After sitting stationary for a couple of minutes the ship that had just jumped in lit off its drives and headed into the system. The sensors weren’t able to identify the ship based on its acceleration profile but given that it wasn’t trying to hide, it was likely to be a friendly.

Twenty-five minutes later Sub Lieutenant Graham broke the anticipation that had been building. “Sir, I’m picking up a message from the incoming ship. She is the
York
, one of the survey ships Admiral Jensen sent out to survey the Void before we went after the Chinese destroyer. She is broadcasting her IFF signal and says she has an important message for the Admiral.”

“Sensors, what do you make of her?” James asked.

“I can’t say for sure sir, not at this range.” O’Rourke began. “However, their acceleration rate is equivalent to
York’s
maximum military acceleration and her heat seepage seems consistent with a Cook class survey ship.”

“Ok, take us out of stealth, broadcast our IFF signal as well and return us to our survey route.”