by D. J. Holmes
When the plot came up, Mallory saw that it was going to be very close. “We’re probably only going to get two or three missile salvos at the destroyer,” he said. “Becket I want you to contact Chief Driscoll, see if he can transfer a penetrator missile to the forward missile tubes, we’re going to have to make each shot count.”
“Aye Sir,” Becket responded.
Satisfied that he couldn’t do anything further, Mallory sat down in his command chair and watched his orders being carried out.
It took the destroyer fifty minutes to reach its maximum velocity of 0.3c. As Endeavour began her acceleration burn from a relative stand still, it took her another forty minutes to reach her full velocity. For three hours Endeavour slowly pulled back the distance the destroyer had opened up between the two ships.
Just forty minutes away from the system’s shift limit and less than ten before Endeavour would enter weapons range with her bow tubes, the gravitational sensors let out a new beep. “The destroyer is accelerating again,” Malik said. “It looks like they are putting caution to the wind and risking a strike from a cosmic particle.”
“Damn,” Mallory said as he pounded his fist into his command chair. The plot had just updated to show that Endeavour would only get to fire one salvo at the destroyer.
“They have opened fire,” Malik reported before Mallory could say anything else. “One missile is inbound.”
“Becket, fire when ready,” Mallory said, ignoring the single missile. Even though only a fraction of Endeavour’s point defenses would be able to target the missile as it came towards the nose of the ship, they would take it out easily.
“Firing,” Becket said when they entered range. As soon as she spoke two missiles erupted from Endeavour’s forward missile tubes.
Mallory looked over to where James was sitting. The Captain appeared unperturbed by the change in events. He seemed to be confidently watching the holo plot. Mallory wished he could be so sure of himself. If Becket’s missiles missed, then the destroyer would get away. Their mission would almost be over before it had begun. If the Indians knew they were coming, it might prove impossible to slip Major Johnston and his men onto Haven.
That doesn’t matter now, Mallory told himself, focus!
“Flak cannon engaging,” the Sub Lieutenant assisting Becket at the tactical console called out. Endeavour had two flak cannons but only one was able to target directly ahead of the warship. It did its job and the Indian missile exploded harmlessly when a piece of shrapnel penetrated its armor.
“Now it is our turn,” Becket said.
On the holo plot, Mallory saw the penetrator missile activate just before the destroyer’s point defenses opened up on the two British missiles. Two missiles suddenly became seven. Small plasma bolts and AM missiles filled space around the seven targets. A number of AM missiles exploded right beside some of the British missiles. When the British missiles continued on unharmed it was obvious they were just ECM ghosts. The destroyer’s defenders refocused their aim and within a few seconds a real explosion announced the destruction of one of the missiles. The five fake missiles disappeared from the destroyer’s sensors. They got the penetrator missile, Mallory thought.
It was too late; the second missile dove alongside the destroyer. Failing to get a direct hit, it exploded as close to its target as it could get. A wave of electromagnetic energy crashed into the destroyer, burning off valstronium armor, sensor blisters and point defenses emplacements. The force of the blast also buckled a number of internal struts, causing a large groan to sound throughout the destroyer as its framework bent and warped. Disregarding the damage, the destroyer’s Captain hit the button to jump her ship into shift space as soon as it crossed Independence’s mass shadow.
“They’re gone,” Malik shouted just after he reported the proximity hit.
“What?” Mallory said in concern, it didn’t look like the proximity hit had caused enough damage to destroy the destroyer.
“I think they jumped out,” Malik said. “There is no sign of the ship or any debris.”
“Shit,” Mallory said, “replay the sensor data, figure out how much damage we caused. Maybe they blew up as they tried to enter shift space.”
Ten minutes later there was no doubt. The destroyer had escaped. Its Captain would get to Haven ahead of Endeavour and warn the Indians about Endeavour’s presence.
“I’m sorry Sir,” Mallory said, turning to James.
James ignored Mallory’s comment. “Plot us a course to Haven Jennings, then jump us out as soon as we cross the mass shadow.”
Standing, James walked past Mallory, “With me Lieutenant,” he said.
Mallory’s heart sank, he was more upset with himself for letting his Captain down than letting the Indian destroyer get away.
When they walked out of the bridge James gestured towards the door to his office. As they walked in, James called for his steward Fox to bring them both black coffee.
James smiled at Mallory and clasped him on the shoulder. “Don’t look so nervous. You did a good job. If you hadn’t thought to transfer that penetrator missile to the bow tubes right from the start, we would have been caught with our pants down when that destroyer exceeded their maximum velocity. As things turned out, there was nothing else you could have done.”
“Thank you Sir,” Mallory replied, not sure how genuine James was being.
“However, there is one thing” James continued, ignoring Mallory’s tentative reply, “You need to get better control of your emotions when you are leading others into battle. Everyone on the bridge did their best today. Your reaction when the Indian ship escaped will have caused them to doubt and blame themselves. Just like you are doing now. Yet, no one is at fault, we can’t win every time.
“And in the future, if you want to apologize to me, do so in private. If the crew thinks you doubt yourself, then they will doubt you for sure. If you look confident, they will trust you. You don’t think I am as confident as I look all the time, do you?” James asked with a chuckle.
“Well, I thought that maybe you were...” Mallory began.
“Ha,” James broke in with a laugh. “That just shows you how good an actor I am.”
“Now,” he went on before Mallory could say anymore. “We have to figure out the best approach to Haven. We are going to need to be a little more cautious than we originally planned. For all we know, that destroyer broke apart in shift space as soon as it jumped. However, we have to assume it didn’t.”
Chapter 13 – Return to Haven
Today Haven is one of the heaviest populated and most industrialized systems in the Empire. It’s beginning as a small independent colony was a lot less conspicuous, yet since it was rediscovered by the Earth nations, the planet and its colonists have played a key role in human affairs.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
26th April 2467 AD, HMS Endeavour, edge of the Haven System.
James sat on the bridge of Endeavour surveying the Haven system. He had exited shift space five light hours from the system’s mass shadow to avoid detection. As he expected, there was already an Indian fleet in the system. Whoever was commanding it wasn’t taking any chances. There were a number of warships aggressively patrolling the three shift passages that led to the Haven system.
The gravimetric pulse a ship produced when exiting shift space could be detected by ships up to a light hour away and James was confident Endeavour’s arrival would go unnoticed. He had planned a number of scenarios with his Lieutenants on how to approach their current mission. James had been tempted by Mallory’s suggestion. The First Lieutenant wanted to launch a number of drones into the system which were programmed to give off bursts of electromagnetic radiation and strong gravitational waves at random. They would light up the patrolling warship’s sensors with so many false signals that they would have no hope of finding Endeavour.
If the Indians had been warned about Endeavour, Mallory’s plan would have been a real option. However, as
James surveyed the Indian fleet dispositions, it looked like there were many more ships patrolling the shift passage that led to Indian space and the Sol system than that to Independence. That was where the Indian Admiral would expect any attack from the British to come from. Of course the Indian Admiral could just be luring me into a false sense of security. There could be many more ships waiting out there in stealth, James thought.
“We’ll go with plan gamma,” James said to his bridge crew, deciding he had to assume that the Indians didn’t know about his attack on the cruiser at Independence yet.
The thought of the Indian Admiral chasing shadows for the next few days had made James seriously consider Mallory’s plan. Yet, it would alert the Indians that something was happening in the system. Even if they couldn’t find Endeavour, it would cause them to heighten their patrols. That would make it harder for Major Johnston to land on Haven. If the Indians didn’t know they were coming, there was no sense in broadcasting their arrival.
Instead, James planned to take things slowly and make sure the Indians never even knew Endeavour had been in the system. At least until it was time to leave. As a result, James and the rest of Endeavour’s crew sat silently for the next four hours as they watched the patrol patterns of the Indian ships within the system.
“I think we have enough data, Jennings, plot us a course towards Haven,” James said.
“Aye Sir,” Jennings answered from the navigation console. Within seconds she had two courses projected onto the main holo display. “The blue course should keep us well away from the Indian patrol ships but it is four light hours longer. The red course is shorter but it will take us close to two of the patrolling Indian ships. If either of them alters their patrol patterns it won’t give us much time to alter course and avoid them.”
“Let’s play it safe,” James said. “Take us on the blue course. Don’t exceed ten percent of our maximum thrust.”
“Yes Sir,” Jennings said.
*
Ten hours later James returned to the bridge after taking a nap. They had successfully circumvented all the Indian patrol ships in the outer system. Now, things were about to get a lot trickier. As per his orders, Endeavour had come to a halt just one light hour from the colony. They were more than close enough to make out the fleet that was orbiting the planet.
“What have we got?” James asked Sub Lieutenant Malik who was manning the sensor station.
“You can see the main fleet orbiting Haven on the screen Captain,” Malik began. “We have counted one battlecruiser, one heavy, three medium and four light cruisers. There are six destroyers with the main fleet as well. Around the rest of the system we have detected at least another eight destroyers and fourteen frigates.”
“Any sign of the other battlecruiser the Haven freighter reported seeing?” James queried.
“None Sir,” Malik answered. “Unless the Indians are keeping it permanently in stealth it’s not in the system.”
“Makes sense,” Mallory said from his command chair. “At least it does if the Indians don’t know about the Gift. They are probably keeping two of their three battlecruisers In New Delhi to block any attempt by our fleet to get to Haven.”
“Perhaps,” James said. “That may be the case. Or else the Indians know all about the Gift and that battlecruiser has been sent to the exit near Chester. Remember how badly our crew was effected both times we passed through? It would only take a few heavy warships to shred a much larger fleet when it came through the Gift. That second battlecruiser could be waiting to ambush Rooke’s fleet.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mallory replied.
“Something we will have to investigate,” James said. “What about system defenses?” he asked, moving on.
“There is no sign of any battlestations or fixed defenses being installed yet Sir,” Malik answered. “But there does seem to be a lot of activity going on in orbit all across the planet. Whatever the Indians are doing, I can’t make it out at this distance. We’ll have to get closer and use our optical scanners to really see.”
“We may have a problem Captain,” Lieutenant Becket said, interrupting Malik’s report. “Look at the gravimetric plot.”
James saw immediately what Becket was concerned about. Just a few minutes ago there had only been two ships actively moving about at the entrance to the shift passage to Independence. Now there were five and they were moving fast. As James watched one of the new contacts changed course, then after only a few seconds it changed direction again.
James knew exactly what it was doing, Admiral Jensen had used the same tactic against the Chinese when guarding the newly discovered planet Excalibur. She had known that the Chinese had a vastly superior fleet nearby. In order to maximize her chances to get her defending fleet into an advantageous position in the event of an attack, she had worked out a signaling system with her patrol ships. The gravimetric waves given off by a ship’s impulse drive when it was operating above a certain threshold were detectable in real time across an entire solar system. Admiral Jensen had assigned certain acceleration profiles that would communicate different messages. It allowed her patrolling ships to update her on what was happening in the outer system in real time.
James knew that the techs in the Admiralty were already working on a gravimetric wave generator that could be used to send signals in real time using Morse Code. From what he had read of the system’s specs, it was due to be rolled out to every RSN ship in the coming months.
“One of the destroyers near the battlecruiser is accelerating out of orbit,” Malik reported. “Wait, it is changing direction too.”
“It’s a signal for the ships in the system,” James explained.
Even as he spoke a number of the ships guarding the other shift passages turned towards the shift passage to Independence and accelerated. Four frigates broke away from the main fleet in orbit around Haven and powered towards the shift passage.
“I think we can assume our friend from Independence has made it to Haven,” James said.
“Maybe they had to stop to carry out some repairs,” Mallory suggested.
“Maybe,” James echoed. “Either way they are here now.”
As the system came alive with moving ships James kept Endeavour powered down, a light hour away from Haven, to watch how things unfolded. Soon a pattern emerged. The four frigates that had broken orbit from Haven spread out and formed a line actively scanning in all directions as they traversed a course straight for the shift passage to Independence. Of the ships that had already been guarding the shift passage, most of them had formed up into a similar formation and were slowly making their way towards Haven. It seemed that the Indian Admiral believed Endeavour was already in the system. She was trying to catch his ship as he made his way to Haven.
“We’re getting bombarded by radar waves from multiple sources,” Becket informed James. “It’s not close to the maximum our stealth coating can absorb, but there is a heck of a lot of electromagnetic radiation being thrown around out there.”
James was inclined to agree. It seemed that the Indian Admiral wasn’t going to take any chances, they had every one of their ships actively scanning space with their main search radars. James could hardly blame the Indian Admiral. If it hadn’t already, a message from the destroyer that escaped them at Independence would be arriving telling the Admiral that one of her medium cruisers had been destroyed. That would make anyone grumpy! James chuckled.
“Right,” James said. “We’ve been sitting around long enough. Keep an eye on the radiation levels Becket, let me know once they start to increase.”
“Aye, Sir,” Becket said.
“Jennings,” James said, “plot us a course to Haven. I want to enter a high orbit and keep station on the opposite side of the planet to the Indian fleet. We’re going to drop off Johnston and then beat it back to the outer system. If we stay too close to Haven we are going to get caught sooner or later.
“Mallory, I want you to take Sub Lieut
enants Malik and King and work out a plan to launch a number of drones into the system. If things get hairy we may have to use your initial idea after all.”
“With pleasure Sir,” Mallory said as he stood and motioned for Malik and King to follow him.
*
For over an hour Endeavour crept closer and closer to Haven. The amount of radar rays hitting the hull continued to increase, but they still weren’t near the levels that James felt he needed to get concerned about. Just when things looked like they were going to go smoothly, an update on the holo plot made James sit up in his seat.
“The destroyers are spreading out from the main Indian fleet,” Malik reported. He had returned from working with Mallory twenty minutes ago.
Having already seen what was happening, orders were on the tip of James’ tongue, “Project their courses.”