by D. J. Holmes
*
Sub Lieutenant Becket approached the Captain’s ready room. Adjacent to the Captain’s quarters it provided him with a more private briefing room than the tactical briefing room. She had a report she felt needed to be passed up the chain of command and the ship’s sensors said that both the Commander and the Second Lieutenant were here. As she raised her hand to activate the chime on the door to request permission to enter she heard raised voices.
“This is insane sir! Your lust for glory is going to get us all killed!” Lieutenant Gupta’s voice could be clearly heard despite the sealed doors.
Instinctively, Becket turned to leave. It wasn’t unknown for Drake’s Commander and her Second Lieutenant to get into shouting matches. Under such circumstances it had become the Sub Lieutenants’ custom to get on with their duties and simply record an audio message for either the Commander or Second Lieutenant to look over in their own time. Something about the strain and desperation in Gupta’s voice made her hesitate though. Although she knew she should not, she lowered her hand and continued to listen.
“We’ve discovered the Void, we’ve identified that the Chinese are already here. The Admiralty needs to know what we know,” Gupta continued, just as loudly as she had begun.
“Listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once!” James sharply retorted. “How many times in the six years before I took over command did Drake return to Earth for a refit or upgrade to the sensor package?”
“Six times sir, we had a yearly upgrade cycle which you know full well,” Gupta spat.
“And how many times have we been to Earth since I took command? James followed up.
“None.”
“And where have we undergone our upgrades? Not even in Britannia, but at Cambridge. Where the parts and the equipment had to be shipped in just for us at a much greater cost to the Admiralty. Haven’t you figured it out yet? My promotion to command Drake wasn’t because I used my family connections to get a foot up the ladder. And it wasn’t about your lack of command ability. I was banished!”
James paused and eyed Gupta to let his last sentence sink in. “Sent out here, away from the high life of London and the nobility. I’m not doing this because I have a blood lust for fame and fortune. I’m doing this because it is all I have. If I don’t command Drake to the best of my ability and somehow grind my way out of this situation, I will likely be here until I retire an old commander long forgotten on Earth.
“So get a grip of yourself. I read all of Captain Hank’s reports on you. She recommended you to take over her position when she was promoted or at least to get a promotion to First Lieutenant and a chance to prove yourself on a combat ship. If you still want to be angry with me then fine. I can deal with that. But understand that you are stuck here passed over for promotion not because I tried to use my connections to steal what you had earned. This is a punishment for me, not something I sought out. I’m sorry you have been hit in the crossfire. But if you can possibly, just for one minute try and set your grievances aside and consider my proposals from a military perspective maybe you will understand my actions. Can you do that?”
Again James paused for effect but before Gutpa could begin to answer he went on. “If we go back now what do we have to tell the Admiralty? There is this Void, yes, but what else? A single Chinese warship? How are they going to make any decisions on such a scrap of information? And it will take them weeks or months to get any more up to date intelligence. We are the ship on station. We need to get home with the fullest report possible. Neither of us is paid enough to make the big decisions but our job is to help those who are. That Chinese ship was not laying out the welcome mat for us. Who knows what else the Chinese have in the Void, this could easily mean war.
“You are an officer in the Royal Space Navy, not a spoiled brat; it’s time we got over this impasse. I will admit I have been taking out my frustrations on you. That has been my fault and I apologize. But now we are in a serious situation here. We need to focus on the task at hand. We are both naval officers.”
Slowly and reluctantly Gupta relaxed, uncoiling her tense shoulders and clenched fists. She opened her mouth to speak but then paused. Instead she looked her commander in the eyes and gave a small slight nod. Then she turned sharply and began to walk out of the ready room shaking her head.
“Banished?” James heard her whisper faintly as she swiped the door control. Still shaking her head, Gupta didn’t even notice Becket standing on the other side of the door with her mouth hanging wide open.
As Gutpa left James sighed. Opening up to Gupta had been something he should have done months ago but he had been too angry over the situation himself. He knew Gutpa hated him. That was as plain as day on her face when she had first walked into the briefing room. Yet he hoped their heated conversation had at least served to clear the air between them.
Looking up, he caught sight of Becket standing beside the door before it closed behind Gupta. “Yes Sub Lieutenant, do come in,” He called out.
Startled back to reality, Becket entered the commander’s private briefing room. Without looking him in the eyes she explained her presence. “I was doing some analysis on the other planets in the system and I thought you would want to see what I found.”
Without waiting for a reply she reached over and handed James a datapad. As he began to scan through her findings she summarized for him. “As you know there are two gas giants in the system. The larger of the two isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. The second one however, has the highest hydrogen mixture we have ever seen.”
Nodding, James managed to finally catch her eye. “And why am I only being informed of this now?” He asked.
Clearing her throat Becket tried to keep her hands from fidgeting. “It’s my fault sir, we were so focused on going over the data on the planet and rechecking the valstronium data that we didn’t get round to the other planets until now.”
Chuckling at her nervousness James sought to sooth her. “Well, given the circumstances I think your oversight can be excused. Give me a rundown of what you think this means for He3 production in the Human Sphere?”
Summoning back her courage Becket tried to project an air of confidence. “Well our analysis has only been brief so far. But if we can get a military gas mining station up and running within the year we should be able to meet sixty percent of the RSN’s fuel requirements within a further six months. If we open it up to private investors V2 could begin to compete with the USA’s Utah system. Certainly we could take over supply for civilian traffic in British, Chinese and French space.”
“Agreed” James said as he set the datapad onto his desk. “Well, leave this with me and go and carryout a more in-depth economic analysis. In fact, inform all the Sub Lieutenants that I want separate tactical and financial reports on the implications of these discoveries by the time we get back to Cambridge. Dismissed.”
“Thank you sir,” Becket said as she turned to leave.
Focusing his attention back on his own data terminal James realized he had a dilemma on his hands. He had already begun to compose his briefing for the Admiralty before Gupta had interrupted him. Initially, he had intended to report the discovery of valstronium as the single most important discovery since Britannia. Yet now he wasn’t so sure. The valstronium deposits would ensure the British had a monopoly on its production for decades to come. Yet in the short term the gas giant might have a bigger financial impact. It’s small gravimetric pull and high hydrogen concentrations meant that the extraction costs would be far less than at any other gas mining stations except those in the Utah system. In turn, this meant that whoever got the rights to extract He3 from V2 would be able to undercut their competitors and grab a large share of the market.
Deciding he would leave his report for another time, James made his way to his quarters for a quick nap before Drake was due to make her jump out of the system. He hoped his ‘heart to heart’ with Gupta would have some effect. James didn’t know if divulgi
ng some of his personal difficulties with Georgia would help their relationship but he’d finally decided it couldn’t make it any worse. And if he was right and the Admiralty intended to keep him effectively locked up in Drake for the foreseeable future then he may as well attempt to make things a little smoother between himself and his Second Lieutenant.
Chapter 6 – The Lion’s Den
Whilst the first battleships were not constructed until 2461 AD, they soon became the status symbol of all the naval powers. With the armor and defenses to withstand a fleet of smaller ships, they also carried the missile throw weight to reduce anything else to dust in one salvo.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
23rd November 2464. HMS Drake, the Void.
Drake exited shift space two light hours outside the V17 system after visiting V48 and V31. In both systems she had deployed a spread of recon drones on slow ballistic courses into each system. Their slow velocities were designed to give Drake a chance to survey V17 and the end of the Void before returning to recover the drones. That way all their data could be downloaded into the ships main computers for analysis without having to rely on their limited burst transmissions.
James and Gupta were both on the bridge when Drake re-entered normal space. James had taken Gupta’s silence on their current mission as a sign that the Second Lieutenant had changed her mind. Although, it was just as likely that she had filed a report detailing her severe misgivings with the mission and intended to throw it in James’ face if they made it back to Earth.
Immediately upon entering the system Drake shut down all of her non-essential systems and went into stealth mode. James had carefully considered what route to take through the system. They could head straight for the habitable planet and make a close pass as they had done in V2. Yet, of all the planets, this was the most likely to be occupied by the Chinese. If there were ships orbiting the planet, or even a ground or orbital base, then it would be impossible to avoid detection.
Going for the safest option possible, James had chosen to drop back into real space two light hours from the shift limit. That way Drake could slowly work up to her full speed before she entered the system proper. In addition, he didn’t plan to get any closer to the planet than five light minutes. That would allow Drake’s passive sensors to get a good look at the planet and anything in orbit and yet give Drake a lot of maneuvering room in case she had to make a quick escape.
“Ok navigation, take us in along the pre-set route. It’s time to enter the lion’s den again,” James said to the bridge at large.
There was an air of trepidation among the bridge crew on duty. They were aware that picking up the first Chinese destroyer had been a turn of very good fortune. If there were similar ships lurking around in this system, the first notice they might get would be a missile or plasma bolt hurtling towards them.
The V17 system made matters worse. Its star out massed V2’s by thirty percent, meaning that it had a much larger mass shadow. Added to the fact that Drake had jumped in two light hours from the edge of the mass shadow meant it would take a total of twenty-one hours for Drake to transit through the system. No one on board was looking forward to spending so long in stealth mode, not knowing whether the next few seconds would be his or her last. They hadn’t even entered the system and already nerves were on edge.
As Drake approached the edge of the system’s mass shadow, Sub Lieutenant O’Rourke transferred the feed from his terminal to the main holo-display. “Sir, I’m picking up a number of heat signatures from orbit around the planet. There are also two or three intermittent sources further out. The computer can’t quite make them out yet but the ones around the planet are definitely ships.”
“So I see Lieutenant, very good.” As James spoke the plot updated showing that as Drake approached the planet the ships would just be coming up over the horizon. Drake’s passive sensors would get a good look at them as they went past.
A further hour later Drake was traveling at her maximum velocity of .31c. O’Rourke had managed to firm up the other heat sources. He estimated that one was a cruiser and the other two were smaller, possibility destroyers or frigates. The ships wouldn’t come into range of their optical scanners for a number of hours, so there was no way to get a clearer picture yet. A fourth signal had been picked up beyond the planet but it was still too fuzzy to be confirmed.
As the plot firmed up, revealing that the other two contacts were indeed destroyers, the crew became increasingly nervous. It was now obvious that one of the destroyers, clearly assigned to patrolling the approaches to the planet, would come very close to Drake as she coasted through the system. Unless she changed course in the next hour, the destroyer would come within two light minutes.
Over the next forty-five minutes the tension grew steadily. The only distraction was the constant updates from O’Rourke as the passive sensors updated the bridge on the other ships in the system. The fourth heat source beyond the habitable planet did indeed turn out to be another ship; a destroyer, clearly following a patrol pattern that mimicked the other ships.
Orbiting the planet, the cruiser had turned out to be playing escort to five freighters. The freighters had clearly carried in enough materials to construct a pre-fabricated orbital base of some description. Judging by the heat emissions, work was going full pace to put together whatever it was that they had brought with them.
“Sir, the destroyer is altering course,” the sensor officer reported.
James peered at the holo-display as it charted the destroyer’s new course. It had only altered its trajectory by a few degrees but it meant Drake would pass even closer to it. “Navigation, I want you to engage our aft maneuvering thrusters. Use micro second bursts to direct us away from that destroyer. We can’t let them get within a light minute of us or they will pick us up.”
Over an hour ago Drake had begun to pick up faint traces of the active radar waves the destroyer had been firing out into space as it monitored its assigned patrol route. Drake’s valstronium armor had been covered with a thin layer of the latest radar-absorbing tech. If she ever saw action, it would be the first thing to be burnt off the hull by a proximity hit but until that day she was able to absorb significant amounts of radar energy.
Yet the destroyer’s change in direction meant that she would get close enough for her the radar emissions to reflect off Drake’s hull. The radar-absorbing coating could only handle so much before it became overloaded. James had to take the risk of engaging the maneuvering thrusters or else they would be picked up for certain.
For five minutes Sub Lieutenant Thirlwall sporadically engaged the maneuvering thrusters slowly turning Drake away from the destroyer. As they passed each other the crew on the bridge let out a sigh of relief.
Yet almost immediately everyone held their breath as O’Rourke broke the silence. “Commander,” he shouted with alarm. “The destroyer is turning again, she’s bringing her high-energy radar projectors around to look in our direction.”
James let out a silent prayer. For every second the destroyer delayed powering up its main radar, the gap between them opened exponentially. Both ships were on almost perpendicular paths, giving Drake a glimmer of hope.
Eventually the destroyer managed to bring on its main radar projectors. Too powerful to run all the time, a ship’s high-energy radar projectors were usually kept in reserve until battle was joined as they wore out quickly from over use.
This time James let out a prayer of thanks. The destroyer was searching a broad spectrum of space and so the radar’s strength was being diluted over a vast area. Whatever the destroyer had picked up it hadn’t got a clear fix on it. As the gap quickly opened James began to relax, the chances of a broad-spectrum sweep overcoming their radar absorbing outer skin were quickly diminishing.
Yet even as he began to think they had made it past the destroyer, the situation changed again. Even though they were all watching the tactical plot O’Rourke needlessly informed the rest of the bridge crew
, “the destroyer is decelerating, she is angling to come back along our trajectory.”
Almost simultaneously, the radar sweeps changed from a broad-spectrum search of Drake’s area of space to more tightly aimed blasts of radar waves. Whoever was in charge aboard the destroyer had figured that if there really was something out there the only way it could be so close and avoid detection was to have radar absorbing tech. They were now trying to overload Drake’s absorbing capabilities with more powerful electromagnetic energy.
Immediately James sprang into action. “O’Rourke figure out what sector of the destroyer’s sensor gird must have detected us.” James knew they couldn’t have got a radar return or they would have immediately been able to lock in Drake’s position. The destroyer must have picked up a stray radiation leak from Drake.