Empire (Empire, Book One)

by Logan Rutherford

  “I’m doing well,” she said with a smile that warmed him. He and Heather were always nice to each other and he’d forgotten how much he missed their conversations—usually during some fundraising dinner while Gerald was off trying to score votes. “It’s nice to see you, Joshua.”

  “Likewise.” Ivan searched frantically in his clouded mind for a suitable excuse as to why he was calling. “Is your husband around?”

  Heather frowned and squinted. “You want Gerald?”

  Ivan cleared his throat, regretting ever calling. “If he’s busy, I perfectly understand.”

  “Well, he is actually out of the country right now. I’m sorry.”

  Ivan waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. In any case, I met your son today. He made it safely on board.”

  Heather smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes growing more obvious. “Oh how wonderful! I’m so happy he’ll be training with you, Joshua. Make sure you keep an eye on him. I don’t want anybody messing with him just because he’s the First Son.”

  Ivan scoffed and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, ma’am. He’s an L-Cadet. More than capable of handling himself, I’m sure.”

  She nodded her head. “Yes, of that I’m sure.”

  There was a beat of silence. Ivan cleared his throat and leaned forward against his desk. “Well, Heather, I better get going. It was nice speaking with you.”

  “Yes, Joshua. It was a pleasure hearing from you. Don’t be a stranger, alright? I want to hear from you again soon, okay?”

  “Of course.” Despite how much he enjoyed speaking with her, he had no plans to call back anytime soon. “Have a nice night.”

  “You as well.”

  Ivan ended the call, slid his tablet across his desk and leaned back in his chair. He covered his face with his hand, sobering up as he realized what he’d just done.

  Chapter Ten

  “Captain Ivan, sir?”

  “Yes, Angelica?”

  “We’ve received new orders.”

  Ivan shot up in his bed like someone had poked his back with a hot stick. “New orders?” he all but shouted. His mind raced, the dull headache he felt not doing much to impede his thoughts.

  “That’s right, sir. They’re coming straight from Space Fleet headquarters. I’ve sent them to you tablet.”

  Ivan climbed out of bed, the cold floor beneath his feet a stark contrast from the heat he felt in his head. He crossed the room in just a few strides, yanking his tablet from its charging port. His breathing grew heavy. It’d been two years since he’d received orders. And those didn’t work out so well for him.

  He hit the flashing icon on the screen and a page loaded up, the words biting at him like a viper. He poured over every letter, trying to make sense of it all. “Angelica, ping my head officers. Have them meet me in the debriefing room.”

  “Yes, of course, sir. Should I delay the beginning of the simulations or should they proceed as normal?”

  Ivan thought about it for a moment. “Delay them for the time being. Once we get this taken care of, they’ll proceed as usual.”

  Ivan stood in the debriefing room. A few fresh-faced officers were already in their seats, nursing cups of coffee. Others fidgeted and scanned the room.

  But he knew the truth. This wasn’t a simulation. There might not be any danger. But it was the real deal—even though he wasn’t going to tell them that. There was no reason for it. They could think of it as a bonus exercise.

  “Shut the door behind you,” he told Hayden Key as he walked in, the last one to arrive. His mind wandered to the conversation he’d had with Hayden’s mother the night before, but he pushed that out of his mind. Now was not the time to be thinking about any of the Keys. “This is just a regular briefing. You’ll have one of these every morning when you’re stationed on a ship.”

  Ben Tillows, Ivan’s Commander of the Air Group—or CAG—for the day, raised his hand at the front of the room.

  “This isn’t a classroom, Cadet,” Ivan said.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I was just wondering if these meetings would always be two hours before they’re scheduled?”

  Ivan glared at Ben. He wanted to hate him but, then again, had his father won the presidency, maybe Ivan would be an admiral back on Earth instead of a captain playing babysitter on the edge of space. “When in war, cadet, these meetings can happen at any time, depending on the situation. That’s what these simulations are for, after all.”

  Tillows nodded and slunk back into his chair.

  Ivan looked across the room, meeting the eyes of the dozen or so division lead officers. “Anyone else have any ridiculous questions?”

  Nobody responded.

  “Very well. First up, we’ve received orders from Space Fleet to investigate a ship that we’ve lost contact with while it was patrolling the Earth Territorial Line.”

  “What ship, sir?” A young black girl asked, sitting up in her seat.

  Ivan could tell from the look in her eyes that her mind was racing. Worry shrouded her face. He decided not to scold her. She looked terrified and he wanted to know why. “The USS Ricochet.”

  She sat back in her chair, shock on her face.

  “What’s your name, cadet?”

  “Millie Roscoe, sir,” she said.

  “You do know, Cadet Roscoe, that this is all just a simulation?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry, sir. Forgive me for the interruption. It’s just that my sister is stationed on the Ricochet.”

  “Not a problem. It’s good that you worry about your family. I hope that you feel the same for your shipmates. Do that and you’ll make a fine officer.”

  The young lady smiled and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  Ivan smiled at her, guilt spiking his stomach. He’d just lied to her. According to the orders, they’d had problems with the USS Ricochet’s quantum communication systems in the past. Space Fleet just needed a ship to check in on them and make sure everything was okay. The USTS Empire was the closest. It was just routine. Although the fact that the ship was stationed near the ETL did worry him a bit—he couldn’t lie to himself about that. The thought of what lay beyond that invisible line in space sent a chill down his spine.

  Ivan shook his head and brought himself back to reality. “Once we check in on the Ricochet, you’ll be one step closer to becoming an officer in the Space Fleet. The conclusion of your training begins right now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hayden sipped his coffee as he looked over the charts Ben had given him. The words on the tablet blurred as his eyelids dropped, begging to close. The XO’s office was a large room with a couch in one corner, and a cold metal desk in the middle. There was a small screen behind him that projected a view of space zipping by outside. A small lamp lit up the area of the room he was using, leaving the tiny kitchenette in the corner next to the door in darkness.

  He took another sip and forced his eyes open. Ben had forced his squad to wake up every thirty minutes during the night in order to do twenty pushups—which kept Hayden and his squad up all night long, too. Hayden tried getting Ben to stop, but Tillows was within his rights as squad leader. The only way he’d get them to stop was by fighting them—and that definitely would not have looked good.

  Hayden wanted to disapprove everything Ben had given him but he knew that wasn’t what a good XO would do. And despite what he or Captain Ivan would try, Hayden wanted to do everything in his power to be a good XO.

  For the next hour he went over paperwork—and he hated paperwork. He’d heard so many stories about the battle simulations, the ship raids, and all sorts of other fun stuff that would happen during wartime sims. Nobody ever talked about all the paperwork, though.

  When he was finished, he filed away the paperwork in the right folder of his tablet and got up from his desk, eager to get to the bridge of the Empire. He walked down the hallway. People bustled around him, looking over charts, doing their patrols or looking down at their tablets.


  Hayden reached the elevator, and pressed the button for the bridge. His heart beat fast as the elevator shot to the top of the ship. He didn’t know what he’d do first. They were still in FTL transit towards the USS Ricochet, so there wasn’t much for him to do except to make sure everyone was doing their job.

  The door slid open, leading straight into the bridge. A cacophony of voices and computer beeps bombarded him as people went about their business, monitoring sensors and reporting to their superiors on what their next task would be. The bridge was set up as a circular level of work stations. Three staircases were positioned evenly around the semicircle, leading down to the bottom in a small slope where the captain’s chair sat.

  Hayden blocked all of it out. He focused on the massive floor-to-ceiling screen in front of him. In the middle, the feed showed the view of space outside the bridge. To the sides, smaller boxes showed feeds from various other cameras outside the vessel.

  Light streaked around the ship in a beautiful blue-green display, illuminating the inside of the bridge. The Empire stretched out before him, the bridge sitting on the back of the ship, looking out upon the rest of the vessel.

  “It’s a pretty great view, huh?” Millie asked.

  Hayden came out of his trance. He looked to his right, having no idea when Millie had snuck up on him. “Yeah, I don’t know if a view like that could ever get old.”

  “I’ll agree with you there. Where’s Vick at?” she asked.

  “He’s a pilot today. I can’t wait to hear what it was like serving under Ben.”

  Millie looked back down at her tablet, reading some sensors. “We’ll find out tomorrow when he’s XO.” She walked back to her station where she was overseeing the Empire’s navigation.

  Hayden stood on his own, looking around at all the people he was in charge of. Even if it was just for a day, even if he didn’t work for years to earn the role of XO, he was still proud. He did work for two years to get here. Nobody could take that away from him. He walked around and glanced over crewmen’s shoulders at their computer screens as they worked, getting ready for their first mission. Were they jealous? Jealous not only that they weren’t an L-Cadet, graduating with the rank of lieutenant but also that L-Cadet’s, on average, rose through the ranks three times as fast as E-Cadets. Did they look at Hayden, resentful that they’d only be an ensign while he was an L-Cadet lieutenant, working in ultra specialized jobs?

  Hayden stopped short. Space zooming by them onscreen. Out there in the vacuum of space, rank didn’t matter. If you’re dead, you’re dead. These people were the ones that would keep him alive and that’s all that mattered. Besides, he did feel a bit jealous that the E-Cadets only had to spend six months in training before reaching the war sims. Two years of his life, on the other hand, were spent getting ready for the next two weeks and the rest of his life. He knew in the grand scheme of things, two years wasn’t much. But when you’re twenty, two years is a major chunk of your life. Two years ago, he was eighteen, joining the Fleet, thinking he had it all figured out. Two years before that, he was sixteen, learning to drive for the first time. Getting a taste of what love felt like. Two years before that, he was fourteen, everything about him changing, growing into the man he would one day be.

  The thought of who he would be when he was twenty-two frightened Hayden. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Doesn’t matter. Let’s get through the next two weeks first.

  “Captain on deck!” a marine behind him shouted.

  Hayden nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, Captain Ivan heading right towards him. Hayden saluted. “Captain.”

  Ivan gave a slight nod. “XO. How long until we reach our destination?” he said loud enough to be heard by the navigation crew.

  “Sixty seconds, sir,” Millie responded.

  “Very good.” He walked to the middle of the room where his command chair sat like a throne.

  “Put the ship on sit-rep one,” Hayden told one of the cadets, offering a smile of excitement. “Everyone at their battle stations.”

  “Belay that order, cadet,” Captain Ivan told the wide-eyed young man at communications. His chair turned to face Hayden.

  “Sir?” Hayden asked,.

  “This is just a recon mission. No reason to go on high alert. If we did that every time, the crew would get used to it. Desensitized. They need to know that when we go on alert, we mean it.” Ivan pointed a finger at Hayden to emphasize his point.

  “Thirty seconds until arrival, sir,” Millie shouted.

  Hayden faced the communications cadet. “Do it, cadet. High alert. This is all a war simulation. War means battle, battle means sit-rep one.”

  The cadet’s eyes darted back and forth between Hayden and Ivan.

  “This is just a recon mission, a checkin,” Ivan said.

  Hayden whipped his head around and faced him. “I’m not going into the ETL without being on high alert.” Was Ivan testing him? This was all a simulation, after all. The Ricochet wasn’t really lost in space, so why was Ivan acting like it was? Hayden’s resolve grew with every second that passed. Ivan was just testing him. Had to be.

  Then why did he look so serious?

  Do this long enough and I guess you pick up an acting skill or two.

  He stared at the cadet. Nobody moved.

  “Ten seconds,” Millie shouted, her voice growing nervous.

  “Dammit,” Hayden muttered. He ran around the cadet’s console and yanked the headset off his head. This had better be a damned test —or I’m in trouble. He held the microphone up to his mouth and activated the intercom for the whole ship. “Everyone, sit-rep one. Battle stations, I repeat, battle stations.”

  “Goddamn it,” Ivan shouted as he stood from his chair. “It’s just a rec—”

  The ship left FTL travel and slowed to a sudden halt. Hayden could feel the intense internal dampeners working as hard as they could to contain the g-force.

  The feeling subsided and Hayden looked up at the screen. “EVASIVE MANEUVERS!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  The ship jolted as it moved around the junkyard they’d flown into, the red planet below reflecting an evil glow across the rubble. The ship avoided the largest chunks of debris, but he could hear the smaller pieces pelting into the shields on the hull.

  “Unknown vessel on radar!” a woman shouted from across the bridge.

  “Where’s the Ricochet?” Captain Ivan yelled, his grip tight on his chair.

  Hayden scanned the screen, and a pit grew in his stomach. He recognized the larger chunks of debris as Space Fleet design. “I think it’s all around us, sir.”

  Captain Ivan’s face went white and the bridge went silent.

  “Sir, we’re clearing the debris field. The unknown vessel should be coming into view,” Millie said.

  The pit in Hayden’s stomach grew like a black hole when he saw the ship up ahead. It was the Mortuks.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hayden waited for the bridge to explode in a cacophony of voices. He waited for people to scramble for their next move. But they froze. The simulation was so real. It looked exactly like the Mortukian ships he’d seen in footage back at the academy, though sleeker —their black hulls dark as night. The reflection of the red planet below ran down the side of the ship as if it was a fun house mirror.

  Captain Ivan didn’t move. He stared at the window, his face white as if he’d just seen a ghost.

  Strange. Hadn’t he done this every few weeks for the past two years? Why did he look so afraid? Maybe even now, after all these years, Ivan had some sort of PTSD associated with the simulations. That was Hayden’s only answer.

  The only other answer was that the Mortukian ship was real.

  And if it was real, Hayden knew they were screwed.

  “They’re launching fighters!” someone shouted.

  Ivan still stared at the screen that stretched before them.

  Hayden took a deep breath. It looked as if it was up to the XO to get the
m through this simulation. “Order our Mambas to intercept!” he shouted. “Then get us within weapons range and fire our starboard weapons at them.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  A flood of Mamba fighters appeared in front of them, flying in formation towards the oncoming Mortukian fighters. The Empire moved towards the mothership. Unlike it, the alien fighters looked nothing like he remembered from class. Instead of being sharp and sleek like a dart, these were wider and bulkier. An engine sat on each side, a cockpit connecting the two. Unlike the Empire’s Mambas, they had no wings—just large, black and bulky cockpits with engines.

  But when the Mambas reached them, he realized why. A bright white light emanated from the front of the cockpit and a laser launched from the ship. It tore through two oncoming Empire fighters in an explosion of debris and a flash.

  The platoon of enemy fighters fired their devastating lasers at the ships. The Mambas initiated their evasive maneuvers and their armor offered them scant protection against the alien blasts.

  Hayden couldn’t take his eyes off the scene before him. It was so realistic. How was Space Fleet able to make the simulations look so good? The rest of the bridge crew was just as enamored with the scene and the room filled with excited whispers.

  A Mamba managed to get one of the enemy vessels in its sights, and the green lasers from the Empire fighter lit up the red and white scene. The volley of green lasers hit the black hull of the enemy ship, but its armor absorbed the radiation. There was no damage to the ship, and the vessel performed a flip with more agility than Hayden thought possible for such a ship.

  The Mortuk fighter moved behind the Mamba that had attacked it and the white blast from its weapons—brighter and larger than any before it —tore through the Empire fighter like they were nothing.

  Hayden’s heart sunk to the floor as if the artificial gravity had been turned up to ten. Something was wrong. Some Mambas would be AI-controlled, sure, just so the Mortuk ships could destroy them and thus add more realism to the scene. But not this many. With two weeks of simulations to go, they’d run out of fighters by the end of the first week.