The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) (34 page)

After spending a couple of hours with both Lieutenants, James had come to agree with their conclusions. The best way forward was to split up and draw the Chinese ships into a wild goose chase. Resigned to the proposed course of action James also had to accept the fact he wasn’t going to change Lightfoot’s mind about which ship to send to ambush the Chinese convoy.

Instead he was back on the bridge preparing to attack the first target that would lead them to the Fujian passage. Both James and Lightfoot knew that as soon as they showed themselves the Chinese Commander would try to quickly close the net around them. Their attack would have to be swift.

As soon as they came into range of the asteroid mining facility both
Raptor
and
Ghost
opened up with their plasma cannons. Their first targets were the two freighters approaching the facility. If they could be destroyed before they could change their acceleration profile, it would take an hour or two for the electromagnetic radiation from the attack to be detected by the Chinese warships.

Someone on board one of the freighters must have been awake though, for as soon as
Raptor’s
stealth field came down when she opened fire, the freighter began to accelerate wildly. To anyone in the system watching their gravimetric scanners it would be a large flashing beacon indicating that something was up. The acceleration only lasted a couple of seconds before three plasma bolts cut through the freighter, causing it to explode. The second one disappeared without ever even trying to evade. Even as another volley of plasma bolts drilled into the station, two Chinese picket ships that had been in close proximity to station powered up out of stealth and both began to accelerate towards where the station had been. Further away, both the squadron that had been following them into the system and the larger squadron waiting for them altered course and began to accelerate towards the station.

Soon the space around the station was filled with radar beams as every picket ship in the vicinity began to search for the destroyers. There was alarm on the bridge of both British ships as the amount of radar energy hitting them began to rise towards levels their absorbing tech could no longer handle. As they moved further and further away though the strength began to decrease. Eventually Lightfoot ordered a course change and once again both ships slipped back into the darkness of space.

James remained on the bridge for another half hour and then retired to his quarters, giving Gupta the watch. Five more times he returned to the bridge to watch target after target being hit. Three of the targets were destroyed without giving any immediate warning. He had been able to watch the Chinese’ delayed response as the heat and light radiation from the explosions had made their way across the system. Twice more ships had managed to radically alter their acceleration profile, alerting the Chinese that they were under attack. Each time Lightfoot had managed to steer them around the net that kept threatening to close in on them. Two hours before they entered range of their last target, the two destroyers had closed with each other and, slowly and carefully, transferred ten missiles from
Ghost
to
Raptor
. It was a procedure every cadet at the naval academy had to train for but rarely was it actually ever carried out outside the simulators. Everyone had, therefore, been on their toes but thankfully, it had been carried off without a hitch.

After the last target had been hit, the whole system had suddenly come alive as if a loud siren had gone off. Every warship had boosted to its full acceleration profile. It was now obvious where the British ships were going. The first six targets had been selected to make it look like the British ships were either trying to work their way around to the Paracel passage or to get to a better point from which to launch an attack on the inner system. The last target had given their real objective away, just as it had been chosen to do. Now every Chinese ship was racing to get to the Fujian passage before the British ships could make it there themselves. As a result, and also a part of the plan,
Ghost
and
Raptor
had been forced to drop all pretense at remaining hidden and boost for the system’s mass shadow and the opportunity to jump to Fujian.

As the counter ticked down, indicating when the two ships would reach their jump point,
Raptor
began to prepare to return to stealth mode. She powered down her engines, reactors and all non-essential equipment. Two minutes before the jump point James received a communication from
Ghost
. It was Captain Lightfoot. “Well, it’s time to say our goodbyes. I hope everything works out as planned. All being well, I’ll see you back at the Damang system. It may take us a week or two to work our way back around to meet you but I’m sure we’ll both have some interesting stories to tell. Make sure you put our missiles to good use.”

“Don’t worry sir we will,” James replied. “Just make sure you don’t try to do too much without them. There’s no need for you to take any unnecessary risks. Good luck sir”

“Good luck to you to Somerville,
Ghost
out.”

James only had to watch the main holo display for a few seconds until he saw the brief flash that indicated
Ghost
had jumped to shift space. As she did
Raptor
immediately went into stealth mode, venting all the electromagnetic energy she could not contain away from the New Shanghai system and the Chinese warships. Then, slowly, she pivoted in space and brought her engines up to three percent thrust. It would take over four hours at that rate to come to a stop before she could then begin to work her way back into the New Shanghai system and towards the Paracel shift passage.

The slow acceleration meant James and the bridge crew had the best seats to watch as twelve Chinese warships made their way to the Fujian shift passage and, one by one, jumped out in pursuit of
Ghost
. The rest turned back towards the inner system and began to take up patrol positions. James was willing to bet he had not been the only one aboard
Raptor
who prayed a silent prayer for
Ghost
as the Chinese ships had jumped after her.

Before the discovery of the shift drive science fiction novels were filled with ideas and visions of what interstellar warfare in space would look like. No one had envisaged the impact shift passages would have both on strategic and tactical warfare.

-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.

20
th
May, 2465 AD, HMS Raptor

In total it had taken James and
Raptor
two days to secretly work their way past the Chinese warships patrolling the New Shanghai system after
Ghost
had jumped out. After that, it had taken another twenty hours to travel up the shift passage to the ambush point. Now
Raptor
was sitting, waiting for her prey. The Chinese convoy was expected to exit shift space within a sphere of space with a diameter measuring roughly one and a half light hours. James had placed his ship right in the center of the sphere. It was possible the ships of the convoy would come out somewhere where
Raptor
wouldn’t detect them but the chances were low. Still, in the journey to the ambush point James had trouble sleeping, he didn’t like leaving anything to chance.

Since Lightfoot had left, James had found himself comparing himself to the more senior Captain. He knew he had done well in the difficult situations he had found himself in as the commander of
Drake
. Yet the past week of operations as a Captain of a warship had begun to show him he wasn’t quite the invincible Captain he had thought himself to be. Lightfoot had handled the stress of being chased like sheep by a pack of wolves through the New Shanghai system without letting it influence his command ability. James had felt the pressure building and building until he knew he had been performing well below his optimal. He was beginning to realize there was a reason why the Admiralty had a slow process of promoting someone up the chain of command. It took time to develop true command capabilities, capabilities that only came after years of experience. Lightfoot had spent over six years as a Captain of a warship. James’ two years as the Commander of a survey ship didn’t even come close. Nevertheless, Rear Admiral Jensen saw something in him and Captain Lightfoot had entrusted this mission to him. That was something.

In the old style naval books he had been rereading, the Captain often took a tour of his ship before combat. Sitting in his command chair reflecting on the coming battle, James decided that he would do the same. “Romanov, you have the bridge. I’m going to carry out a quick tour of the ship. Please don’t inform anyone I’m coming. I’d like it to be a surprise.”

When Romanov nodded he strode out of the bridge. He chose to make his way to the engineering section first and then work his way back to the bridge. As he walked in Chief O’Neil had an access panel open on number three reactor and was tinkering with something inside. One of his officers tried to warn him about his Captain’s approach but James waved the ensign off. When he got right behind the Chief, James shouted in his best command voice, “attention on deck.”

Chief O’Neil swore as he immediately tried to straighten up and banged his head, dropping whatever tool he was holding. A few snickers escaped some lips and, as James looked around, he could see more than a few of the engineering crew trying to hold back smiles. The Chief continued a string of expletives as he picked up his tool and turned to see who had startled him. As soon as he saw it was the Captain he cut off mid-sentence. “Eh, Captain. Eh, I mean, my apologies Captain. I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me.”

“Don’t worry yourself Chief. I thought I would take a tour of the ship before the battle commences. I’m glad to find you so engrossed in your work.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir. There has been a slight energy fluctuation in reactor two so I was taking this opportunity to make sure it wouldn’t develop into something more serious once the fighting begins.” Only once he had finished speaking did the Chief manage to look past his Captain to see many of his crew staring, some with open smiles on their faces. Glaring at them he continued, “I only hope my example will rub off on this useless lot of space vermin. Sometimes I despair at the men and women the Admiralty sees fit to recruit.”

Turning to take in the men and women who were watching them, James saw that the Chief’s outburst had actually managed to increase the number of people who were openly enjoying the Chief’s discomfort. “Oh I don’t know Chief,” James said. “It looks like you have a fine group of engineers here. You might want to designate someone to give you a heads up the next time an important member of the command staff comes down to engineering though. It might save you a bit of bother.”

That brought a couple of chuckles from the bystanders. The Chief dismissed them with an angry wave of his fist. “Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”

“No Chief, I just wanted to show my face before we go into battle. I trust you have everything under control.” Turning to address the engineering crew directly James said, “we’ll be counting on you all back up in the bridge. I know Chief O’Neil will make sure you all do your best. Good luck everyone.” With that he shook the Chief’s hand and turned to leave. As he walked out a couple of shouts followed him, wishing him good luck or welcoming him back to engineering any time, before Chief O’Neil’s angry voice directed them all back to work.

As he toured through the various weapons stations, the marine barracks and the auxiliary bridge, James found very similar situations. Everyone was giving their equipment a once over in preparation for the approaching battle. Nerves were clearly high but James did the best he could to put people at ease and bring out a few chuckles. In the auxiliary bridge he had a quiet word with Lieutenant Gupta reminding her that if they managed to make contact with the Chinese convoy doing as much destruction as possible was paramount; more important than getting the ship home in one piece. If they could stop just one supply shipment from getting to V17 it would weaken the whole Chinese fleet there.

As he exited the auxiliary bridge his personal COM beeped. “Captain,” Lieutenant Romanov began in an excited voice, “we have ships exiting shift space all around us.” Without even bothering to reply, James sprinted down and around the corridor he was in to the nearest turbolift. Thirty seconds later he burst through the bridge doors and threw himself into the command chair. Looking at Romanov he half shouted, “status report?”

The Lieutenant already had the sensor plot on the main holo display. Pointing to it he explained the situation. “We’ve picked up forty six ships that have excited shift space. So far we’ve identified five warships with a possible three more. The rest are all freighters.”

From the plot James could see that
Raptor
was almost right in the middle of the formation. “That’s way more ships than our intel suggested. This must be an important convoy. Have they spotted us yet?”

“No sir,” Romanov answered, “the warships are just now beginning to scan local space with their secondary radar arrays. They’ll pick us up in the next minute or so I believe.”

“Very well, how many warships are in missile range?”

With a single command Romanov changed the holo display to only show the warships. “There is a destroyer off our port bow just outside plasma cannon range, a light cruiser off our starboard bow a little further out. One frigate is at the edge of our missile range. The other destroyer and three frigates we’ve detected are all further off.”

“Ok, navigation, as soon as we open fire take us towards that destroyer at full speed. Romanov, on my mark fire a full spread of missiles from each broadside at the destroyer and the light cruiser. Then target the plasma cannons at the destroyer. We’ll still get hits even though they are just outside our maximum range, we just won’t be able to penetrate their armor. Hopefully we’ll cause enough confusion to help our missiles get through. Target as many freighters as possible with our forward and stern tubes. After you have fired the first salvos I want you to hand over control of the starboard missiles tubes to the auxiliary bridge. They are to keep hitting that light cruiser as hard as possible. I want you focused on the port missiles tubes. As soon as we take out that destroyer I want you to switch everything towards hitting as many freighters as possible.”

“Understood Captain,” Romanov acknowledged.

“Everybody else know what they’re doing?” James asked the bridge at large. After a chorus of, “yes sir,” James looked back to Romanov. “Fire.”

Instantly, fourteen missiles erupted from
Raptor,
announcing her presence to the Chinese convoy. They were closely followed by a rain of plasma bolts that pierced their way through space towards the Chinese destroyer. Accelerated to almost the speed of light, the first plasma bolts reached it only a handful of seconds after the ship’s sensors had detected the British ship. The bridge crew hadn’t had time to react before damage reports started coming in. Unable to penetrate the valstronium armor the plasma bolts were still able to damage the point defense weapons and sensors that bristled on the hull of the ship.

James wanted to cross his fingers as the seconds ticked by without any response from the Chinese ships. Every moment of delay greatly increased his chances of doing some serious damage to the convoy. Even as they watched a freighter exploded. It had been close enough for
Raptor’s
point defense plasma canons to reach. Checking to see what happened James saw Romanov had the foresight to designate the freighters as secondary targets for the point defense weapons to engage if there was no in incoming missiles. Realizing what the Second Lieutenant had done James called to the navigation officer, “Keep us heading for that destroyer but if you can get us close enough to another freighter for the point defense weapons to take it out do so.”

“Yes sir,” Sub Lieutenant Jackson said.

A full minute after the first plasma cannon bolts had begun to pepper the hull of the destroyer it finally opened fire. James was alerted by the new beeps that came from the gravimetric sensors, announcing five new contacts heading their way. This was closely followed by another set of contacts as the light cruiser also fired eight missiles at
Raptor
.

Ignoring those threats for the moment, James watched his six missiles close with the destroyer. They had loaded their final penetrator missile in one of the port tubes and so the first salvo was going to do the destroyer a lot of damage. James didn’t know whether to thank his lucky stars that they had the penetrator missile already aimed at the closest threat or not. A part of him would have liked to be able to fire it at the light cruiser in the hope it would have kept it off his back for a while. 

He could only play with the cards he was dealt however and, as he watched, the Chinese point defenses began to try and pick off his missiles. As they entered range of the AM missiles there were three remaining. Only one was destroyed, the other two closed in for the kill. One scored a proximity hit along the destroyer’s stern while the second ploughed right into the midsection of the destroyer and exploded. On the visuals James could see a gaping wound where two of the destroyer’s missile tubes had been. As he switched the display to zoom in on the stern of the destroyer where the second missile had scored a proximity hit, he saw a volley of plasma bolts rip through the ship’s engine compartments. The proximity hit had burnt off enough of the valstronium armor to allow the plasma cannons to penetrate what remained. Once they began to punch through the destroyer’s armor, they tore through the innards of the ship, causing a number of secondary explosions. The third one actually blew through the rear of the ship, taking out one of the engines and immediately sending the destroyer into a sharp roll. The ship desperately fired off its maneuvering thrusters to try and arrest the roll and bring its weapons to bear but they barely made a difference. Without being able to stabilize itself the destroyer no longer posed a threat to
Raptor
.

With the demise of the destroyer, Romanov fired off another missile salvo from the port missile tubes. He had been holding back from firing another broadside at the destroyer until he saw the effects of the first. Now the six missiles raced off, each one in pursuit of a freighter. Already the freighters were doing their best to flee from the British warship. On the main holo display it looked like someone had thrown a stone into a 3D lake. The freighters formed what looked like ripples heading off in all directions emanating from
Raptor’s
central position on the plot. As James watched, two of the closest freighters disappeared even before the latest missiles began to close with their targets. Romanov had begun to pick off those in range of the heavy plasma cannons.