The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1)

by D. J. Holmes

  Once safely in orbit, both ships had then begun picking off targets the RSNI had identified as either facilities used in the Chinese military industrial complex or belonging to Politburo members. Everything in orbit had been destroyed but the ground targets had been selected more carefully. With a limited supply of ground assault missiles, they had been reserved for heavily protected facilities. In each case, the British ships had given the occupants at least an hour’s warning before the facilities had been destroyed. For the rest of their targets, including ones that were in heavily populated areas, the marines had been sent in to plant demolition explosives. At a number of targets, firefights had broken out between the marines and the Chinese army contingents based on the planet. Yet there wasn’t a centralized garrison to coordinate the defense. Whoever had sent the army units to the planet as guards had simply assigned platoons or companies wherever they were needed and left them in charge of their own area. Thus, there had been no way to mount a coordinated defense. That left the Chinese army units sitting ducks for the Marines. Wherever the defenses had been too strong the marines’ shuttles had simply pulled back and poured heavy plasma cannon fire into the buildings, destroying them with their defenders inside.

  After the first several hours a woman, claiming to be a RSNI agent, had contacted Ghost. She had been working on the planet for the last two years. Major Johnston had taken a squad of marines and picked her up. She had passed all the checks Lightfoot had been given before embarking on the raiding mission. She gave her name as Julia Bell and had provided the two destroyers with a number of secondary targets she had identified over the last two years. Two of which she insisted the marines assault in order to see what intel they could gather. To everyone’s surprise Julia had also insisted she accompany the marines and from Major Johnston’s report, she had clearly undertaken some special opps training in the past. After personally dispatching at least five Chinese soldiers, she had instructed the marines to carry out a number of Chinese computers and other hardware. The two shuttles carrying her and Major Johnston’s men had been so full after their two raids that they had struggled to get back up to orbit. At the time James had wondered just how many RSNI desk jockeys it would take to go through all the data Julia was bringing them.

  Along with the damage to the planet’s infrastructure, the destroyers had also captured and destroyed six freighters carrying war material. In each case they had ordered the crew to abandon the freighters before they blew them up. The first Chinese Captain had refused and tried to escape out of orbit from Wi Li and head to the protection offered by the two destroyers at Wi Liang. Lightfoot had simply fired a missile with its acceleration reduced to minimum at the fleeing freighter. Without ECM or point defenses the freighter couldn’t escape and Raptor’s sensors had shown most of the freighter’s crew had abandoned ship just before the missile had caught up with them. James had hoped that if anyone had been left on board, the foolish Captain had been one of them.

  When the ships had exhausted the list of targets supplied to them by RSNI and Julia they had broken orbit. Behind them they had left a traumatized planet. Every major population center had numerous smoldering ruins where buildings had been. Just outside the three main cities there were huge gouges in the countryside where bombardment missiles had been used to take out the three planetary defense instillations. Despite appearances, James had been confident that the people themselves would still recover. They hadn’t destroyed anything vital to their economy nor to their food production or distribution. Despite the Marines best efforts, it had been estimated that around two hundred civilians had been killed. Both Lightfoot and James regretted every single one of them but short of risking the lives of the marines by sending them to visually check every square inch of each target, preventing them had been impossible.

  On their way towards the mass shadow and the shift passage to New Shanghai, Ghost and Raptor had swung by the gas mining station. After calling for the workers to evacuate, they had poured plasma cannon bolts into the station until it had broken up and began to fall into the gravity well of the gas giant it orbited. Only then had the regrouped Chinese warships begun to charge after them, seeking revenge for the destruction done to Wi Li.

  The plot on Raptor’s bridge showed the Chinese ships would catch up to her in two more hours. Yet in only another ten minutes she would reach the edge of mass shadow of the system and would be able to jump to shift space. The next target on Lightfoot’s mission brief was New Shanghai.

  To pass the time as they waited to jump, James asked the bridge at large, “so how many billions of credits of damage does anyone think we have caused over the last forty eight hours?”

  Romanov began to scratch his chin as he thought about an answer. Sub Lieutenant Becket was the first to speak. “It must be in the tens of billions Captain, I’d guess maybe eighty billion?”

  Sub Lieutenant Graham, another transfer from Drake answered next, “It has to be way more than that. The gas mining station alone probably cost more than ten billion to construct. I’m going to go for two hundred billion.”

  “I would guess even higher,” Romanov answered, “three hundred and fifty billion.”

  Secretly James thought all three of their answers were a little naive. Even though his father had lost most of the family’s wealth, James still knew what it cost to operate and run even a moderate industrial enterprise. He suspected the damage done would run into the trillions. Before saying so he waited to see if anyone else would speak up. He didn’t think anyone else would but he wanted to give them an opportunity. None of the rest of the bridge crew knew him like Becket and Graham did. Hopefully though, seeing the ease at which they spoke up would help to break down the barriers that always went up between a crew and a new commanding officer.

  As he was about to speak, Gupta beat him to it. “Well, if I had to guess I think I would have to put it somewhere round one trillion four hundred and fifty billion,” she said with a mischievous grin.

  “Really?” James asked sarcastically, “and why exactly would you feel confident in being so precise may I ask?”

  “It’s quite simple actually,” she answered again, smiling as she passed James a data pad. “In the last few hours Julia has been completing a preliminary report on the raid. That is her figure on the damage we have caused, including the loss in taxes the Chinese government will suffer from the reduced industrial output of the system.”

  Romanov whistled in surprise at the figure and the look on all the Sub Lieutenants’ faces was priceless. None of them came from wealthy backgrounds and so James was sure they couldn’t even imagine how much a trillion credits was really worth.

  “It looks like we’ll all have some interesting reading to do on our journey to New Shanghai,” James said, as he waved the datapad in the air. Almost everyone nodded. A silence then fell on the bridge as minds were turned towards thinking about the damage they had just caused. Everyone was wondering what impact it would have on the Chinese government and the Politburo members who had just seen some of their wealth evaporate. James knew it was not much more than a drop in the ocean for some of the leading Chinese government officials but he also knew Ghost and Raptor weren’t the only ships raiding Chinese space.

  The silence that had descended on the bridge was broken by the COM officer, “Ghost has signaled that she is ready to jump.”

  James looked at the status board on his command chair. “Confirm we are ready too. Jump on their command.”

  With a brief flash both destroyers vanished from the Wi system, leaving an angry Chinese Commander behind. Three hours later another series of small flashes in the same area indicated a group of ships had just arrived, a squadron of reinforcements from New Shanghai. It took them a few hours to confirm what had happened at Wi but once they had, they turned around and jumped back towards New Shanghai in pursuit of the raiders.

  *

  After the stress of the assault on Wi Li James had felt drained and exhausted. The shift passag
e between Wi and New Shanghai was especially tight and twisty and so it had taken just over three days to reach their next target. During that time, James had made every effort to rest and prepare himself for what was coming next. New Shanghai had been colonized sixty-five years before the Wi system had even been discovered. It only had one habitable planet but the planet had an atmosphere that was breathable and, thus, as soon as it was discovered the Chinese government had begun to ship colonists out to it. Now it boasted a population of over a billion. On the two main continents, the original flora and fauna was all but a distant memory as animals and plants from Earth had been imported and seeded into the environment. In orbit there was a growing shipyard, numerous smaller facilities utilized by the mining and trade industries and three large battlestations bristling with offensive weapons.

  Lightfoot’s plan was very simple. He had decided to take a leaf out of Gupta’s playbook. After lying in stealth for a number of hours to observe the ships in the system Ghost and Raptor would boost into the system under full acceleration. Intentionally alerting the Chinese to their presence, the ships would then switch into stealth mode when they reached their top speed. Being still so far out from the inner system and in stealth would mean they could pick any target and slowly make their way towards it. New Shanghai was what the RSN academy instructors called a target rich environment. The Chinese system Commander would know they were coming but he wouldn’t know where they were going. Lightfoot and James would thus be able to see how he reacted and chose their targets accordingly.

  As Raptor excited shift space, James watched as his bridge crew frantically analyzed all the sensor data coming through. Following standard doctrine, Ghost and Raptor had excited shift space one and a half light hours from the edge of the system’s mass shadow. A ship exciting shift space produced small gravimetric disturbance detectable up to one light hour away. RSN stealth doctrine therefore called for ships to enter a system at least a one and a half light hours out so any ships patrolling the system’s mass shadow wouldn’t detect them.

  Romanov was again manning tactical. He was the first to shout a warning, “A ship has just gone to full acceleration. Its half a light hour off our port bow, heading directly for us.”

  Before James could register the implications of the ship’s presence the sensors officer called another warning, “Another ship has just gone to full acceleration right towards our position. This one is point two of a light hour to starboard.”

  As James was trying to decide what to do Lightfoot appeared on a COM channel. “It’s a signaling system. A warning must have got out of Wi, they were expecting us. They must have ships strewn out along the end of the shift passage waiting to detect us. The last thing they will expect us to do is take on one of those ships. Follow the vector my navigational officer will send you.” Without waiting for a reply, Lightfoot had already gone.

  When the channel closed James cursed, he should have seen it sooner. The British were doing the very same thing in the Void. Their approach was a little bit more sophisticated with different course changes and acceleration burns signaling different things. Yet the Chinese system, crude as it was, would be just as effective. With two ships accelerating towards the same point, the Chinese system Commander would be able to know exactly where Ghost and Raptor had come out of shift space.

  “Navigation, follow the course Ghost is sending over to us,” James ordered. “Sensors, have you been able to identify either of the two ships coming towards us yet?”

  “Yes sir,” the officer replied. “The first one is a frigate, the second one a destroyer. I can’t determine the class of either though.”

  “That’s ok,” James said. “That’s all we need to know for now. Romanov ready a full spread of missiles. Contact the tactical officer aboard Ghost to work out the best defensive formation given the damage both ships have taken. We’re going to be taking on that destroyer.”

  Even as he spoke, James felt Raptor come alive as she turned and began to make for the approaching Chinese destroyer. It had only been point two of a light hour away when they had emerged from shift space and already the range was closing fast as it accelerated towards the point they had emerged. Both Ghost and Raptor had emerged from shift space with the same velocity they had entered it. Traveling at 0.1c they were beginning to move away from where they had come into the system. It wouldn’t be enough to avoid the destroyer though. They would have to fight.

  For a moment James had to wonder at the speed of Lightfoot’s reactions. While he had still been struggling to react to their situation, Lightfoot had already figured out what the Chinese were doing and had realized they couldn’t avoid a confrontation. As James thought about it he was sure all the Chinese Captains who were patrolling the shift passage had orders to engage whatever came out of the shift passage. Only by pressing the British forces into a fight could the system commander know what he was facing. It was a cold logical approach. The System Commander was willing to sacrifice a frigate, or even a destroyer, in order to get intel on his enemy. Still, just like the signaling system, it would work.

  Once Romanov had conferred with his counterpart on Ghost, he brought up their plan on the main holo display. “Here’s our suggestion sir, Ghost will take up position above our forward starboard side. I’m still not happy with the repairs we have managed to do to the point defense plasma cannons in that section. This way we shouldn’t have to use them. We have also planned a number of evasive maneuvers we can take together that will allow our best point defense weapons to keep engaging any incoming missiles. We’ll have to come out of stealth and increase our speed before we engage the destroyer for them to work effectively. Ghost’s tactical officer is running it by Captain Lightfoot now.”

  “And what about our flak cannon?” James asked. Romanov had been able to repair two of the cannon’s barrels during their raid on Wi Li, from spare parts on board Raptor. Without time in a repair yard that was the best he could do. With only two barrels the cannon’s rate of fire was halved, along with the area of space it could fill with shrapnel.

  “Diagnostics indicate the repairs are fully functional. I have slaved control of it to Ghost’s tactical officer though. It will be more effective if he can use our reduced firepower to enhance his own flak cannons rather than use them as two separate weapons.”

  “Agreed,” James said. “We’ll be entering missile range in ten minutes, sooner if Lightfoot approves the acceleration,” he spoke to the bridge at large, “inform the crew to prepare for battle.”

  *

  Aboard Ghost, Lightfoot was reassessing his options. While everyone else was preparing for the duel with the approaching destroyer he had been reviewing New Shanghai’s defenses. Agent Bell had been able to fill some gaps in the RSNI intel and even before jumping into the system, he had been coming to realize their mission might be impossible. The system was simply too well defended. Now, with all the data that was coming in from the sensors on the inner system he was more convinced. Included in his orders to attack New Shanghai and Wi was a secondary objective. It was secondary because it was more of a long shot but it looked like it would have to be bumped up the list. Still, if they could take out the approaching destroyer quickly, they could yet cause a bit of havoc in this system.

  Switching his thoughts back to the coming battle, he reviewed his tactical officer’s plans. “Approved,” he called out knowing his officer would know what he meant. “Take us to full acceleration, fire as soon as we come into range.” Even with Raptor’s damaged flak cannon, the coming battle was all but a forgone conclusion, yet he didn’t want to take any chances. His tactical officer’s request for more maneuvering flexibility was a sensible one, even if it gave away their position a little sooner than he would have wished.

  As the previous battles with Chinese warships had gone, his ships got to fire off the first missile salvo. Twelve missiles sped off towards the approaching destroyer. Raptor had used her two penetrator missiles against the light cruiser at W
i but Ghost had one left. Lightfoot had chosen to keep it in reserve; a couple of volleys and the enemy ship should be destroyed. The fact that the three ships were almost heading straight for each other meant the missiles closed quickly with their target. Nevertheless, the Chinese ship still managed to get off two missile salvo’s before the first British missiles came tearing in on their target. The point defenses took out nine of them but three got into engagement range. Not one of them managed to get a direct hit but three proximity explosions rocked the destroyer. Immediately, it lost acceleration and began to roll violently. Lightfoot studied the visual feed carefully to observe the damage. The destroyer looked like it was out of the fight already but he didn’t want the same trick he had played at the Damang to be played on him.

  Satisfied that the ship did indeed look like it had taken serious damage, Lightfoot waited until Ghost’s and Raptor’s point defenses had taken out the first Chinese salvo of five missiles. Then he spoke to the COM officer, “hail the Chinese ship, inform them that we’re going to close to plasma cannon range and destroy their ship. They are to evacuate now. If they don’t evacuate we’ll assume they intend to fight on and we’ll send another volley of missiles their way.”