by Aer-ki Jyr
Suddenly the hulks of the three Chinese destroyers and frigate passed by the outer cameras on the battleship in a blink of an eye, with the dead cruiser drifting by moments later. Voss took a moment to get his bearings…everything had happened too fast.
“No nukes hit,” his 1st officer reported.
“Where are the rest of the fighters?” he asked while searching the displays himself.
“Past us now…wait! Four more alongside the carrier.”
Voss’s eyes moved back to the massive ship and almost missed it, because it was nearly on top of them. Just ahead of it the fighters launched their missiles.
Voss punched his buttons hard, tagging the nukes, but he needn’t had bothered. With the conventional missile storm already having abated every gunner on the ship was free to scan the area and picked up on the launches the moment he did. Every one was shot down, as well as the fighters, but the carrier got by with only a few small hull punctures due to laser impacts.
“Corvettes, get after it!” Voss ordered aloud. “How many cutters are operational?”
Over the din he heard the shouts of 3 of the cutter pilots, though all seven were still showing on his control board, the rest with varying degrees of damage.
“Get moving, best speed to intercept. I don’t want anything getting away, not even the debris until we’re sure it’s completely dead. There could still be live weapons even if the ships are immobile.”
“It’s going to take time,” the helmsman pointed out. “You want us following them?”
Voss glanced at his control boards, finding the long range map.
“No, take us here,” he said, tagging an orbital facility. “The destroyers and frigates come with us. The rest keep after the carrier. Drop a marker beacon for our damaged ships and destroyer debris, then get us moving…and get me a comm channel to the Orion and Mjolnir.”
It took a long time for the corvettes to match speed with the Chinese carrier, then there was the matter of eating up the distance in between without overshooting themselves. As they patiently pursued, the lighter cutters began to catch up, but they were also a great distance behind, with the navigational calculations suggesting the corvettes would catch up first if the carrier didn’t add any more thrust into the mix.
It didn’t, which was odd to Voss. Either the ship had expended all of its fuel or it didn’t think that it could escape the pursuit…which it couldn’t, but if you were going to be killed wouldn’t you want to stretch out your remaining time left?
The Turok’s captain got his answer just before the first of the corvettes came within weapons range in the form of a text transmission from the carrier, in English, signaling their surrender.
Voss raised an eyebrow. “Reopen the comm line to the Orion.”
A few moments later Captain Minsk’s face appeared on Voss’s communication screen. “Yes, Captain?”
“Is Paul still there? I need a quick answer.”
“I’m here,” the Archon replied, appearing behind Minsk on the screen. The captain moved aside to give him his seat.
“We just received a transmission from the carrier, signaling their surrender,” Voss reported. “What are your orders?”
“Accept. I’ll get a cargo ship with security on an intercept course. Request they slow down with whatever fuel they have left.”
“You’re sending one of our ships to pick them up?” Voss asked. His prior orders had been to have the Chinese civilian fleet pick up their own people.
“I don’t want to wait for them,” Paul said resolutely. “I want that ship disposed of as soon as possible.”
“Define ‘disposed of.’”
Paul chewed on his lower lip as he thought. “No need to make another mess of debris. I think we’ve done enough of that to send the proper message. I’ll send a recovery crew to bring it into one of our shipyards for dismantling.”
“So we just have to babysit and wait for reinforcements?” Voss asked, wanting to clarify.
“Pretty much. Three ships should do it,” he answered, guessing to the Captain’s line of thought. “We’ll give you a reprised target list later, depending on how we plan to proceed. Until then, redeploy what you need for the shipyard and scatter the rest in standard patrol routes.”
“And the Mjolnir?”
“Split deployments. We shouldn’t need a combined force again for some time.”
“Yes, sir,” Voss acknowledged with a satisfied nod. “Then I’m guessing Harper will be wanting his ships back.”
“Take what you need, then reshuffle the rest. You’ve got mission priority,” Paul ordered just before disappearing from the screen.
Voss leaned back in his chair, studying his navigational, ship, and radar screens, getting a feel for the position of everything in orbit. With the Chinese military fleet now out of the picture one might have thought that they had the situation under control, but Voss knew better. The Chinese civilian fleet was still running dark, and with their nuclear arsenal all it would take was one missile launch out of a retrofitted cargo bay to destroy one of their orbital facilities.
As it was, Star Force engineers were equipping them with light defense packages, suitable for shooting down a handful of missiles or running off any unarmed ship attempting to board, but there were so many Star Force stations now that it was going to take more than a year to get to them all, meaning they were still vulnerable should China wish to continue pushing the conflict.
He expected that hunting orders for the civilian ships would be coming down soon, but for the moment the Chinese shipyard responsible for making all their warships was their sole target…along with the partially completed ships housed within its berths.
This wasn’t going to be a simple ‘shoot and destroy’ mission…his orders involved co-oping with a boarding party that was already enroute, with the backup plan being a naval bombardment of the facility if the capture of the station became unfeasible. Also, some of the partial ships could have active weapon systems onboard, which Voss would have to find and disable before the SR could close to deliver the boarding party.
“Get me all recent surveillance on and around the shipyard,” Voss ordered. “And stay on your toes…with nukes in play one sneak shot will be all it takes to cause us a world of hurt.”
When Paul switched off the comm from Captain Voss the feed immediately switched to Greg’s face, who’d been waiting throughout most of the conversation. “What’s up?”
“Confab with Davis. Where are we at with the Chinese civilian fleet?”
“They’re still running dark. Until they show themselves again they’re a threat, especially with the Chinese using nukes…and even if they play nice, I want every ship that delivered troops to Luna seized.”
“So we’re not kicking them back dirtside?” Greg asked.
“Personally, I can go either way with that, but if we do it’s going to involve a lot more work up here.”
“I hear that, but we really need to make sure they feel the pain on this one. I doubt they really care about losing a few ships and people, so the penalties need to affect the government.”
“No weapons, for starters.”
“No Lunar territories either, now or in the future. Same goes for other territory?”
Paul hesitated. “Through us, no. On their own…I don’t know. Work it out with Davis. Just let him know that if we let them pursue civilian colonization I’m keeping them on a very short leash up here. He can decide where we tether it.”
“That’s what I needed to know,” Greg said. “Have we got their carrier yet?”
“It just surrendered.”
“Surrendered? Really. That’s a change.”
“They were about to get blown to bits with nothing to shoot back with…not all that surprising.”
“True,” Greg conceded. “We have a clean slate then?”
Paul nodded. “All known military assets have been neutralized, and I’ve got the Turok headed in to deal with the shipyard that
made them. Unless they’ve got some trick up their sleeve, or someone else wants to jump in the fight, things should be deescalating pretty soon.”
“And cue the political reprisals,” Greg added dramatically.
“That’s Davis’s problem,” Paul gladly deferred. He didn’t have the patience required to deal with their stupidity short of physical contact.
“I’ll get him up to speed and an update back to you within an hour or two,” Greg promised.
“Sounds good. Enjoy the real gravity down there. I’ll be back to kicking your butt on the track in a few weeks. Make the most of the advantage while you’ve got it,” Paul prodded.
“We’ll see,” Greg said, wryly smiling as he signed off.
“What’s the difference?” Minsk asked as Paul returned his seat to him.
“With what?”
“The gravity,” the Captain said.
Paul did a double take. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” Paul said, trying to figure out how to explain it. “How long has it been since you were planetside?”
“A little over two years.”
“After this mess is over, take a week’s leave and head down to Atlantis. Your body will explain better than I can.”
“I think I’ll take you up on that,” Minsk said, curious. The Orion had become his home, and now that Paul had mentioned it, he wondered how much of a difference there really was between AG and the real thing.
7
March 28, 2060
A salvo of defensive missiles leapt out from a small launcher attached to the Chinese shipyard towards the lone Star Force destroyer encroaching on its perimeter, but the anti-laser systems ate them up before they even got within intercept launch range. Another salvo followed with similar results, then a large laser shot from the destroyer melted/exploded the base of the launcher, disconnecting the missile box from its power and control lines. The few missiles left inside ceased to be a threat as they floated away from the station, twisting around in a chaotic list.
The destroyer continued to move in towards the octagonal station, coming into range of another launcher and quickly dispatching it as well. The center of the zero gravity station was a large block, with eight berths radiating out from the sides. Unlike a more traditional construction ‘slip’ the berths were entirely self contained and pressurized, allowing the workers a shirtsleeve environment to construct the gigantic ships. Six of the berths were closed, but two were open to space with nearly complete warships showing, docked via umbilicals so workers could continue the internal construction.
From one of those two a small stream of bullets flew out towards the destroyer as it made a close flyby over top. The small Gatling gun was designed for anti-missile work, but apparently whoever was inside the docked ship decided to try and poke a few holes in the attacking destroyer. Most of the rounds simply deflected off the Herculium armor, though a few did manage to put a few scratches on it.
The small gun quickly blew apart from a pinpoint laser strike, ending the brief and wholly one-sided space battle. The missile boxes on the Chinese frigate were unloaded, and the nearby destroyer had no operational weapon systems. Both ships were forced to sit in their berths, exposed to space, but powerless to do anything about the Star Force destroyer making a long loop around the station, searching for any more hidden weapon systems or surprises.
Several hundred kilometers away sat an SR with the boarding party, as well as two cargo ships full of support personnel and security. Once the destroyer signaled that the station was disarmed Voss ordered the ships in to take possession of the shipyard.
Meanwhile, the Turok and the other larger Star Force ships in Voss’s small armada were still several hours away, enroute after rendezvousing with a refueling ship. The destroyer they’d sent on ahead had been almost fully fueled at the time of the battle, while the other ships had had to travel longer distances to get there, eating through their massive reserves of liquid hydrogen.
The refueling ship was a converted Leo, with the cargo bays having been retrofitted into holding tanks. During mid flight…which in space was the same as standing still…it had connected to the Turok and other ships in turn via a long, flexible umbilical into their shielded refueling ports after the armor slabs slid out and away to expose the connections.
The battleship had three such ports on the starboard side, and the refueler connected to all three simultaneously, two with liquid hydrogen lines, the other with liquid oxygen. Most of the tanker’s supply was hydrogen, given that that was what the plasma engines on all of Star Force’s ships used to create the plasma. Heavier elements were used in the competition’s engines, but none could match the thrust or efficiency levels of the Star Force designs.
The reason for using hydrogen only was twofold. First, hydrogen was the most abundant element in the known universe. Second, Star Force engine design ‘efficiency’ was laughable compared to the most primitive designs recovered from the V’kit’no’sat pyramid in Antarctica. Most of the technology in the database was so far above the engineers’ heads that Davis had told them to focus on one thing and try and push that single technological vector as far up the rankings as they could, hoping to break through to enough discoveries that would allow them to begin to ‘mine’ the scientific knowledge that they’d stumbled upon.
That single vector, as far as engine designs were concerned, was hydrogen-based plasma engines.
In addition, the electrical power that ran the starships was produced by fuel cell engines that also ran off of liquid hydrogen combined with the liquid oxygen, producing water as a byproduct. That excess water was then returned to the refueler, which would carry it back to either a storage depot or one of the fuel production facilities in orbit that collected solar energy and stored it in the form of hydrogen and oxygen, using the immediate electric current collected to execute hydrolysis on the water, splitting it apart into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
All Star Force technology operated off of this simple process, eschewing nuclear reactors in favor of continuously upgrading the fuel cell technology until Star Force could master the more basic power generating systems noted in the pyramid database, the closest of which involved using metallic hydrogen…something that Star Force had only recently been able to create in minute quantities for a brief period of time. The pressures required were immense, something only naturally seen within stars and larger planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn.
Which meant that for the time being Star Force was going to have to make do with the simple technologies at its disposal, though fortunately those were far more advanced than their competition had access to.
The SR and cargo ships thrusted their way in towards the shipyard with controlled bursts from their plasma engines, breaking with the same as they neared, then maneuvering about with thrusters based on the same design. The SR deployed shuttles to dock with the station, delivering their boarding parties led by Jason and Alpha team, which quickly began spreading out and neutralizing all of the shipyard’s work crew.
Nathan Hampton was sitting strapped into his zero gravity work chair when the alarm sounded, bolting him out of his thought-induced coma staring at the technical specifications for the next generation of warship Solaris Industries was planning to build for the Chinese. He and the other Solaris personnel on the station were hired contractors, borrowing construction berth space in a contract arrangement designed to save the nation a considerable amount of currency on their purchases…and to give the Chinese total oversight on the project.
“What is that?” one of the other Solaris engineers asked.
“I don’t know,” Nathan said, unstrapping and floating up until he grabbed one of the handholds on the low ceiling. He hand-walked over to the open doorway leading out into the hall and poked his head out, seeing several other people doing the same and conversing in a smattering of Chinese he couldn’t fully understand. His knowledge of the language was workable, but he wa
s by no means fluent enough to pick apart multiple conversations overlapping on top of one another.
“Something’s up for sure,” he said, ducking back inside along with the other two Solaris engineers on station in the small design room. Most of their staff was located in the fabrication areas, leaving no one nearby to fill them in on what was going on.
“What can we do other than sit it out?” Ric asked, seeming not to worry.
“And if it’s a hull breach? Nathan pointed out.
“If it was a hull breach,” he countered, “we’d either be dead or in a secure…”
A scream from outside cut him off, with Nathan bouncing off the ceiling as he reflexively turned his head towards the sound and sent his body twisting erratically. He grabbed hold of another edge and righted himself as more screams and small puffs were audible from outside.
One Chinese man floated past the door in a hurry, followed by two more scrambling to get down the zero g hallway away from something. A few moments later a large white-armored figure passed by the doorway, apparently in pursuit.
Nathan and the others shrank back into the room as far as they could go, with Ric hiding behind one of the chairs. None of them said a word, willing themselves to sink into the walls.
Suddenly the entryway filled with a smaller, yet equally terrifying red-armored soldier hoisting a rifle. It shot Ric in the head as he panickly jumped across the room trying to run to who knew where. There was only one entry/exit and the soldier was blocking it.
The other engineer went down next, leaving Nathan just enough time to blurt out a few words.
“Wait! We’re not Chinese, we’re Solaris…” he shouted, but the red soldier didn’t care and shot him in the chest.
Nathan’s vision went blurry and he felt a sense of disconnection from his body a moment before a second caused him to black out completely.
With a violent twitch Nathan banged his head on a very solid floor as he woke, sending waves of pain throughout his body.