A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2) (11 page)

Again the holo display changed and this time what it displayed caused a number of gasps to escape from the on lookers. “Almost unbelievable I know,” Scott said, “current Admiralty projections predict either us or the Indians will have surveyed out that far in another fifty years or so. Yet the Havenites seem to know shift passages that lead out there already.”

The holo display had changed again, zooming out from Earth and the projected position of the Havenite colony to show British, French, Canadian and Indian colonial space. From the Indian system of Andaman, a series of dotted lines jutted off into unexplored space, showing the shift passages the freighter had used to get to Andaman.

These shift passages were the only way ships could traverse the great distances between stars, for although the shift drive allowed faster than light travel, it was severely limited by the dark matter strewn between the stars. The dark matter prevented the shift drive from engaging and humanity had to map out a safe passage through the dark matter if they were to use the shift drive to reach another solar system. Often the dark matter completely surrounded systems, or caused shift passages to abruptly end, making it impossible to travel to them. On a map the shift passages often looked like the roots of a tree with many smaller and smaller roots breaking off, almost all of which ended in dead ends. As a result, all the space powers were involved in an exploration race, seeking out new shift passages and new solar systems as they competed for the limited galactic real estate that the shift drive had made accessible.

“How can this be?” Second Lieutenant Mallory asked. “The Indians and us have been exploring this section of space for over two hundred years, there is no way the Havenites should be out here.”

Evidently no one had an answer and First Lieutenant Ferguson asked another question to break the silence, “What are their shift drives like?”

“Chief,” James prompted.

“Primitive,” Chief Driscoll answered, “they’re basically the same design we use but they resemble shift drives from about eighty years ago. I’d guess if these Havenites have any military ships they would be a bit more impressive but not by much.”

“So they have no other type of drive system? Nothing to explain this data,” James asked.

“Not as far as I can tell,” Driscoll said. “It’s a mystery to me.”

“So what do we do?” Gupta asked. “We’ve come too far to turn back now.”

Instead of a general discussion breaking out like James had come to expect from such meetings aboard his previous ships, everyone looked to him. They had all been working together for over three months but it hadn’t been enough time to break down the barriers of rank that usually prevented junior officers from venturing their own opinions.

“I brought you all here to see what you think,” James said, “I want to hear some options.”

Silence descended on the meeting until Becket spoke up. She had served as a Sub Lieutenant on his first two commands and she knew he welcomed everyone’s opinion. “We are here to find Chang, I don’t see why we don’t continue?” she asked.

Her question broke the silence and an energetic debate raged over whether
Endeavour
should return and leave the political decisions up to the Admiralty or push on and see where these new shift passages led.

Surprisingly, Ferguson was leading the argument for returning home and he was making a strong case. Already, they could be in trouble for commandeering a Havenite ship, never mind aggressively boarding an Indian gas mining station. Partly because of the weight of his arguments and partly because none of the Sub Lieutenants wanted to contradict their First Lieutenant, the debate died down.

James was pleased to see the fourth Lieutenant wasn’t so intimidated. “Let’s be realistic,” Becket began. “We have already seen that however Chang is orchestrating this, he is very good. He got himself out of Chinese space, snuck through the Sol system under everyone’s noses, passed through French and now Indian colonial space. And, somehow, he has gotten himself tied up with this Haven colony. I don’t think there’s any doubt. If we don’t follow him now, his trail will be long since cold by the time the Admiralty decides what to do and sends another ship out this way. If we really want Chang, we have to act now.”

One or two of the other officers looked like they were about to offer their own arguments against Becket but James held up his hand to hold them off. “I have heard enough. I have made my decision. Scott, load your data into the navigational computer. We’re going after Chang.”

But at the time everyone thought we were alone in the universe, who could have guessed what would be discovered.

- Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

1
st
May 2466 AD, HMS
Endeavour
, unknown system.

Four weeks after leaving the Andaman system, James sat in his command chair on
Endeavour’s
bridge waiting for his ship to jump out of shift space at their destination. For the first week they had carefully made their way up the shift passages the freighters had used to get to Andaman. They had taken small jumps along each shift passage to survey the dark matter and make sure the passages really were passages. Any ship that was unexpectedly pulled out of shift space by a gravimetric anomaly could be torn apart and jumping up an unexplored shift passage would usually be suicide. After a week though, James had run out of patience and the freighter’s data had continued to prove 100% accurate. He had decided to jump
Innocence
the full length of the shift passage they were in. Her crew had been replaced by a couple of volunteers and they had made the jump. Just as the data from the freighter’s computer had suggested, they had come out in an unexplored star system. After receiving the good news James had taken
Endeavour
to the new star system.

Instead of surveying it, he headed straight to the next shift passage the freighters had used and on towards their final destination. Now at last they were about to enter the system the freighters had begun their journey from. Despite their best efforts to question the captain of the Havenite freighter on the Indian mining station James and his subordinates were none the wiser about what they should expect. Everything they understood about the Haven expedition and the potential of the shift drive said it was impossible for anything to be this far from Earth. Yet here they were.

“We will exit shift space in thirty seconds,” Sub Lieutenant Jennings announced from the navigation terminal.

“Passives only,” James said to the Sensor officer.

As usual the bridge crew only felt a slight wobble run through the ship to alert them that they had exited shift space. 

“What have we got Sensors?” James asked as the sensors began to update the plot on the main holo display.

‘The star is a class M,” Sub Lieutenant King reported.

“I’m also picking up seven other planets in orbit around the star. Wait,” King said dramatically and bent over his terminal. Everyone turned to look at him and his prolonged silence only served to raise the tension.

“The computer has identified a number of electromagnetic disturbances,” he finally said. “It is estimating that they were caused by thermo nuclear explosions. It looks like there has been a battle in the system recently. Very recently in fact, they can’t be more than a day old.”

“Not quite what we were expecting,” James said to help break the tension. “Chang certainly likes to keep life interesting for us. Are the passive sensors picking up any signs of infrastructure on any of the planets King?”

“Yes Sir, there is a lot of electromagnetic radiation coming from the fifth planet. It is consistent with a heavily industrialized world,” King answered.

“Sir, we’re not alone,” Sub Lieutenant Jackson, who was manning the tactical station, called out over his college, “the gravimetric sensors are picking up a large fleet moving towards the fifth planet.”

“He’s right Sir,” King added. “I’m detecting two smaller fleets. One is maneuvering into what looks like a defensive position around the fifth planet while the other is angling towards the larger fleet.”

James nodded and watched the drama play out on the main holo display. He could already guess how it was going to go. When they got closer to the large fleet the smaller group of ships suddenly veered away. At the same time the gravimetric plot showed a new group of contacts accelerating rapidly towards the large fleet.

“Missiles,” Ferguson said, “the battle isn’t over yet.”

“No,” James said. “What information have we got on those ships?” he asked to give himself time to think. They had stumbled into a major battle, one that looked like it was going very badly for the defenders.
Endeavour
was no ship of the line. She wasn’t designed to take her place amongst the heavier ships of the RSN and fight in major fleet actions. If he took her towards the planet that had likely been Chang’s destination he would be risking his ship and his crew. Yet he needed to find out more about what was happening.
There shouldn’t be an industrialized world out here, never mind two war fleets engaging each other,
he thought.

“The two smaller groups of ships appear to have the same acceleration profiles,” Sub Lieutenant King reported. “They appear to be using impulse drives, though they don’t seem to be as powerful as ours. The larger fleet is a lot slower. I’m detecting a trail of ionized particles from them but I can’t make out what they are. It doesn’t look like they are using any drives I’m familiar with.”

“Send the data over to Lieutenant Scott, see what she can make of it,” James ordered. “I’m designating the two small fleets as Havenite warships. The third fleet are unknowns for the present. As impossible as it sounds I think we have just discovered the elusive Haven colony. I don’t know how they got here, or what they have been up to, but it seems like they may need our assistance.

“Navigation, take us in towards the fifth planet, full military power. Once we get up to our maximum velocity we’ll reenter stealth mode.”

“Yes Captain,” Jennings acknowledged.

*

Aboard the Havenite cruiser
Solitude,
Admiral Harris watched the approaching alien armada. The last week had been one long nightmare. After refusing to trade weapons technology with the alien race their ship had departed only to be replaced by a number of warships that had raided the mining outposts in the outer system. In response he had dispatched his fastest ships to the outer rim of the system to fend off the attacks.

Being beyond the mass shadow of Haven’s star, the aliens had proceeded to simply jump out of the system every time his ships got near. That had continued for almost a month. Eventually he had succeeded in predicting one of their targets and managed to get two frigates into a blocking position. The ensuing battle had set his mind somewhat at rest but now he knew it might be their doom.

Before the battle he had been calling on the councilors of the Havenite Collective to send diplomats to Earth to request aide. He thought he had been winning them over but after the success of the first real battle with the aliens the councilors didn’t want to risk telling the Earth nations where they were. Now it was too late.

The small skirmish at the edge of the system had gone in his ship’s favor. The two frigates had managed to get into missile range and fire four missiles at the single alien ship that had jumped into the system. Its point defenses had destroyed three of the missiles but the fourth had hit the alien vessel damaging it enough that it immediately jumped out of the system.

Everyone on Haven had thought it was all over. The aliens had been shown that Haven could defend themselves and would therefore leave them alone. They had been wrong. A week ago an alien armada had jumped into the system with over fifty ships. They had demanded the colony with all its technology and orbital industries be surrendered to them. After the Council refused, the alien fleet had attacked a number of mining stations and slowly made its way to Haven itself.

Harris suspected the first attacks on the stations had been to test Haven’s defenses to make sure they had no surprises. Now they were coming in for the kill.

“Sir, we’ve just lost the
Valiant
,” one of his officers reported, bringing his mind back to the battle.

“What? Show me a replay of the sensor feed,” he ordered.

As he watched the replay,
Valiant
fell out of formation with the rest of the small fleet that was attacking the alien armada.
Solitude’s
infrared sensor’s showed the
Valiant
flaring up before it exploded.

“It looks like whatever they were hit with burnt the valstronium armor right off their ship before it tore its way into their hull,” the sensor officer commented.

“Some kind of directed energy weapon,” Harris concluded. “Inform our attacking ships not to get any closer to the alien fleet than
Valiant
did.”

He had eight,
no seven now
, he reminded himself in anger, ships attacking the incoming armada. They were his smallest and fastest ships, which allowed them to charge into range with their missiles and fire off a volley before the enemy could return fire with whatever weapons they had. At least that had been the plan. They weren’t having it all their own way with the loss of
Valiant
.

As he stared at the plot he knew his tactic wouldn’t work. The small ships weren’t doing enough damage to stop the aliens. At this rate they would get into range of the planet and be able to engage the rest of the Havenite fleet. If they managed to destroy his ships in orbit, the colony would be at their mercy. They could bombard it from space or land ground troops to take whatever they wanted.

He was determined that it wouldn’t be a one sided fight. Fear of the Earth nations had driven the councilors to fund the construction of two defense stations around the planet. They weren’t very impressive by the standards of the other human powers but each one was almost twice as powerful as his flagship. More importantly, they were disguised to look like the other industrial stations in orbit and should come as a surprise to the approaching aliens.

Around them he had gathered the rest of the Haven fleet. In formation with his cruiser
Solitude,
he had three light cruisers, eight destroyers, and another eight frigates. They were ready to go down fighting.

“Sir, I’m getting an incoming transmission from a ship designating itself as HMS
Endeavour
. Her captain wants to speak to you,” the COM officer announced, sounding as if he didn’t believe his own report.

“Put the transmission on the main holo screen,” Harris ordered, wondering what on earth was going on.

Earth indeed
, he thought to himself as the image of a warship’s bridge appeared with what was clearly a British Captain sitting in the command chair.

“Hello,” James said, “I am Captain Somerville of his Majesty’s ship
Endeavour
, with whom am I speaking?”

“Welcome Captain,” Harris said already running the tactical possibilities through his head, “I am Admiral Harris, the commanding officer of the Havenite fleet, I hope you’re here to offer your assistance. As you can see we are in a little bit of trouble.”

“Greetings Admiral,” James answered, though it took just over five minutes for his reply to reach Harris. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. Can I ask who these hostiles are that are attacking your world?”

“Aliens, Captain,” Harris’ reply came back five minutes later. “I know I know, it’s almost impossible to believe but we have had the last few months to get our head around it. They showed up in our system and demanded we trade weapons technology with them. When we refused they began attacking our mining stations and a week ago this fleet showed up. It looks like they intend to take our planet and our technology by force,” Harris said and then waited patiently for Somerville’s response.

“I see,” James said, careful not to show any emotion. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Harris, aliens were a far-fetched explanation. Sure, the scientists insisted that humans would come across sentient alien life eventually. After all, most of the habitable planets they had discovered had some form of life on them. Yet they had been exploring the stars for over two hundred years and found nothing smarter than a dolphin.

“I’m going to need you to send me everything you have got on these ships and whoever is controlling them,” James said guardedly.