The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) (3 page)

Aboard the
Yang Wei,
Zu was struggling to contain his anticipation. Both of the British warships were coming right for him. It would allow him to quickly dispatch them before the freighters and the other frigate could make their escape. “Hold fire until we enter optimal missile range,” he commanded.

Zu knew the British had a slight advantage in missile range but he was gambling they would not want to fire the first shot. There was no way his opponents could know what their fleet was doing out here and as there had been no declaration of war there was no reason for the British ships to risk a diplomatic incident by opening fire first. That said, it was obvious the two British combat ships knew their business. They were putting themselves right between his two cruisers and the freighters they had been escorting.

Speaking to his bridge crew Zu began to bark out orders. “Contact the
Chao Yung
, I want them to prepare to fire on my mark. Spread the missiles between both ships.”

Zu watched the range gradually drop. “Prepare to fire….Fire, missiles away.”

As shouted the command to fire, Zu found himself sitting at the edge of his command chair. It would take over five minutes for the gunners to reload the missile tubes but he hoped that their first salvo would be enough to obliterate the British ships. With both pairs of ships accelerating towards each other it would only take another fifteen minutes for them to enter plasma cannon range. He smiled, he knew both British vessels would be space dust before then.

“Impact in sixty seconds,” his weapons officer announced. “They still haven’t opened fire.”

Dismissing his concern Zu leaned closer to the holo-display. At forty seconds out both British ships began to fire off counter missiles.

Zu frowned. The frigate was putting out more than twice the amount of counter missiles intelligence said its class could. His twenty-two missiles had been reduced to ten. Then, in disbelief, Zu watched as the missiles entered the range of the close point defense batteries and all but one of his missiles disappeared off the gravimetric sensor screen before they reached their targets. The final missile detonated close to the British light cruiser but its gravimetric signal continued on strong.

After a string of Chinese curse words Zu brought up the imagery of the battle. The two pairs of ships were so close now that he could almost watch the British counter missiles fire in real time. When the missiles were twenty seconds out, space around the both British ships lit up as they fired off their point defense plasma cannons. Zu’s frown deepened. Along with the bursts from the plasma cannons there were other explosions. They looked like, like, flak explosions he had seen from 20
th
century war films. Quickly Zu zoomed in on the frigate and let out a final curse. The frigate only had a single missile tube down its flank. Instead of the customary second one it had two large railguns mounted fore and aft.

“A flak ship,” he shouted. “That frigate is a dedicated flak ship! They are firing some kind of exploding shell! Order the next salvo to be targeted on the frigate and fire immediately.” Flak ships hadn’t been used in hundreds of years of warfare, not since wet navies had duked it out with airplanes back on Earth. It had been deemed that space was just too big and the velocities involved just too great for exploding flak rounds to actually hit an incoming missile. The British had obviously found a way to bring the concept into space warfare and they had managed to keep it a secret too!

Looking down Zu saw that they were just waiting for number three tube to report target locked. Moments later
Yang Wei
Zu shuddered as she fired her second salvo at the British.

Almost as soon as the twenty-two Chinese missiles appeared on the gravimetric plot nine more appeared from the two British ships as they eventually returned fire.

Zu almost didn’t notice as he was checking the distances between the two pairs of closing ships. He would have time for one more salvo before they entered plasma range. “Navigation, reduce us to ten percent thrust, we can’t let them use their plasma cannons.”

Reducing their closing speed would give him time for another salvo before the British would get too close. With luck one extra salvo would do it. Zhu sat back and watched his missiles approach the enemy ships. He left defending his own to his subordinates. A
Yang Wei
class cruiser was designed to defend itself against incoming salvos of ten missiles; his two cruisers should handle the British missiles easily.

One by one his missiles began to drop off the plot as British counter missiles intercepted them. Twelve made it through into close point defense range. Again they began to explode quicker than should have been possible yet not quickly enough. The frigate didn’t seem to be doing as good a job of destroying the missiles when they were headed straight for it.

Two made it through and as they both dropped off the plot showing they had exploded, the British frigate dropped off as well. Looking quickly over to the visual sensors Zu was able to see both missiles penetrate the frigate before they turned it into an expanding ball of particles.

Zu’s smile was immediately replaced with a startled snarl as the bridge shook violently. “What was that?” he demanded.

His first officer, who was responsible for the point defense, replied in a concerned tone. “The British must have had a dedicated ECM missile in that salvo. Just before we began to fire counter missiles it activated and suddenly our sensors thought we were facing fifteen missiles rather than nine. The targeting computer didn’t have time to distinguish between them so it targeted them all. One got through and got a proximity hit.”

“Damage report?” Zu snapped.

Again the first officer had to speak up as no one else wanted to take responsibility. “We have lost some sensor blisters on our port side along with one missile tube and a counter missile emplacement. Engineering is reporting a fluctuation in engine number three; they have had to shut it down for now. Everything is at full functionality.”

“We’ll soon have our revenge. Target the light cruiser and fire our next salvo when ready.” Zu growled in anger.

Just then the gravimetric plot beeped to announce new contacts. Zu had to blink to make sure what he was seeing was real. The British had fired another salvo, only three minutes after their first.

“Weapons, what’s going on?” Zu demanded.

“Sir, I’m not sure. Wait, we’re getting active radar seekers from all nine missiles. I think they have gone into a rapid-fire mode. At this close range they aren’t trying to upload targeting data from their ship’s sensors. They are just pointing and firing them, letting the missiles lock on to us themselves.”

Cursing Zu finally realized what the British had intended all along. They had never thought that they could make it to plasma cannon range. They had banked on their flak frigate getting them close enough to shift to their rapid-fire mode. One or both of his cruisers was about to take a hammering.

Zu watched dispassionately as the British missiles zeroed in on his sister ship.
Chao Yung
managed to get off another coordinated salvo before the British missiles reached her. Again they seemed to magically multiply on the sensors just before they entered counter missile range. All but two were destroyed however both proved to be real missiles not ECM illusions.

Neither managed to directly hit the
Chao Yung
but both got proximity detonations. The blast waves washed over her
and she visibly shook on the holo-display as Zu watched. Moments later damage reports came across from the other ship. She had lost most of her external sensor nodes and sixty percent of her point defense capability. Her stabilizing thrusters were in disarray and Zu watched as she began to roll slowly.

His weapons officer brought his mind back to the fight. “Sir, our missile salvo is about to enter counter missile range.”

Zu looked back to the main holo-display showing the progress of his missiles. There was no sign of any counter missile fire. Then the plot erupted with eight more contacts. The British had managed to get off another salvo!

Just as he released a sigh of relief when he saw the missiles were going for
Chao Yung
and not his ship, the British light cruiser erupted into a fireball. In delaying their counter missile fire to fire their own salvo of anti-ship missiles they had sealed their fate. The light cruiser had only knocked out seven missiles before the rest of his third salvo vaporized it. Yet she would have the last say in this engagement. Reluctantly Zu forced himself to watch as eight missiles closed in on the damaged
Chao Yung
.

*

Back on board
Surprise
there was a groan as first one and then both of the gravimetric readings from
Resolution
and
Renown
dropped off the plot. There was a muted cheer when one of the Chinese medium cruisers quickly followed but as the final cruiser re-orientated itself towards
Surprise
all eyes turned towards Lightfoot.

“You all know my plan by now. We can’t hope to stand up to a single medium cruiser even if she took some damage from
Resolution
. Cromwell, signal the freighter and tell them we are going ahead with the plan.

As Lightfoot turned back to the main holo-display he watched as one by one the other freighters that had been with
Resolution
dropped off the plot, a clear sign that missiles from the Chinese cruiser had caught each of them.

On cue the remaining freighter, the one they had been sent to find, dumped all its cargo and went to full burn on its engines. They were heading towards the mass shadow at an angle that would give them the best chance of escaping into shift space. The plot on the holo-display updated to show that the Chinese cruiser would still catch the freighter before she could make her jump. Yet there would only be minutes to spare. Clearly the cruiser had taken some damage in the skirmish with
Resolution
as she was only producing ninety percent of the acceleration she had before.

If
Surprise
could delay the cruiser, even just for a couple of minutes, it might give the freighter time to escape. At least that was what Lightfoot wanted the Chinese Captain to think. In reality there was no way the freighter could sneak all the way back to Earth through Chinese space. It was just not designed with the stealth capabilities required for such a task.

As soon as the cruiser entered maximum range
Surprise
opened fire. Unlike the
Renown
she was not a flak frigate and so could bring two missile tubes to bear on the enemy cruiser. Her slight missile range advantage allowed her to get off three salvos before the cruiser was able to open fire.
Surprise
only carried one of the new advanced ECM missiles. The crew had whooped for joy when it managed to confuse the cruiser enough to let the second missile of the first salvo score a proximity hit. However, the joy was short lived as the cruiser flew through the explosion and relentlessly kept on coming. With
Surprise
now running at full speed away from the cruiser she was almost able to keep the range open enough to stay ahead of her pursuer, however, even damaged the cruiser had a slightly greater acceleration rate and, eventually, was able to get into attack range.

As the Chinese ship opened fire Commander Lightfoot turned to his first lieutenant. “Is everything in place?”

“Engineering has just reported in sir.” Cromwell confirmed, “The warheads on all the missiles are keyed to detonate on your command.”

“Very good. We’re going to have to cut this very close so tell everyone to secure themselves into the emergency harnesses.”

Lightfoot looked away from the lieutenant, trusting him to ready the crew. They hadn’t been idle as
Resolution
and
Renown
had fought for their lives. From the destruction of
Resolution
it had taken the Chinese cruiser over four hours to catch up with
Surprise
. In that time Lightfoot had ordered the cargo bay and some of the surrounding superstructure to be cut away from the rest of the hull. Only a few key struts were still holding it in place.