A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2)

by D. J. Holmes

  Just as he reached for his COM unit to contact the bridge it beeped at him. “Captain, I think you will want to come up to the bridge,” Ferguson said. “Lieutenant Scott seems to be excited about something.”

  “On my way,” James said, hoping it was going to be good news.

  When he stepped onto the bridge there was a hive of activity around the science terminal. One of Lieutenant Scott’s ensigns was at the terminal but Scott and two other researchers were leaning over the terminal as they studied its read out.

  “What exactly is going on?” James asked when he got close enough to look at the terminal.

  Scott jumped in fright at hearing her Captain’s voice so close.

  “Sorry Captain,” she said a few seconds later as her face reddened from embarrassment. “I didn’t hear you come onto the bridge.”

  “That’s ok,” James said, “you’ve obviously found something that has caught your attention.”

  “Yes Sir,” Scott said, her face lighting up again. “Tachyons! Our sensors detected a brief tachyon burst that zipped past the ship.”

  “Tachyons?” James asked.

  “They are theoretical particles that astrophysical scientists have long posited exist in our universe.” Scott answered. “For over four centuries we have been looking for them though we haven’t detected any and we are still at a loss as to how to artificially generate them ourselves.”

  “That’s all very good,” James replied. “I’m sure you’ll get to publish a very interesting paper from this data but how do they help us on our current mission?”

  “Tachyons can travel faster than light Sir,” Scott said excitedly. “That means they can be used for FTL communication. The beam of particles that passed by our ship was travelling at over two thousand times the speed of light.”

  “Amazing,” James said impressed. Yet he still wasn’t sure what this had to do with finding the Vestarian’s homeworld. Yet the implications of artificially generating such particles were staggering. “If we could produce our own Tachyon beam we could send a message from Earth to the Alpha system in just under five hours,” James calculated.

  “Yes Sir,” Scott agreed, “it would revolutionize our society. Almost like the invention of the radio in the early twentieth century. There is more though. I don’t think the Tachyon particles we picked up occurred naturally. The beam was too narrowly focused. I believe it was artificially produced by another intelligent race.”

  “The Vestarians!” James said.

  “Perhaps,” Scott said, happy that the Captain was following her. For the last few weeks she had been almost depressed. As it had become obvious that her initial calculations regarding their ability to follow the Vestarian fleet hadn’t been accurate she had felt the weight of her failure growing. Endeavour had been traveling further and further into the unknown and as each day passed their ability to follow the Vestarians dwindled. It had begun to look like the entire venture to follow the Vestarians would prove to be a failure. One that would have been her fault, yet now the tachyons changed that, they had a new lead!

  “The Vestarians seem to have a strange mix of primitive and advanced technology,” Scott continued, “so it’s certainly possible. Though this is an order of magnitude greater than any technology we have seen yet. It’s possible that this beam was produced by another race.”

  “Another intelligent race,” James said out loud as his mind ran through the possibilities. “The Vestarians did say they were being attacked by another race. Maybe they are the ones with the advanced technology. That would explain how the Vestarian tech is so diverse. Their ships could be a combination of their own tech and stolen tech from their enemies.

  “Either way,” James said looking back up at Scott. “Can you trace this beam to its point of origin?”

  “Yes Sir,” Scott answered. “We were working on that when you came in. Can you put it on the main holo display?” she asked one of her ensigns.

  Nodding, the ensign switched the science terminal’s display onto the main holo display.

  “We can trace both the point of origin and the intended destination of the beam. That’s what tipped us off that it was artificial. It is just too accurate to be random,” Scott said once the holo displayed a map of local space.

  “The beam originated in a system only five light years away. Its destination is a system over one hundred and fifty light years away from us, further out into unknown space. I think we have just found the first two worlds inhabited by an alien race,” Scott said excitedly.

  “Guessing from the shift passages in this area of space it could take anywhere up to two months to reach that far away planet even if we had all of the space between here and there mapped out,” James concluded. “I’d say this nearest planet is the Vestarian homeworld. The other planet could be their enemies. Ferguson what do you think?” James asked his First Lieutenant.

  “I agree Sir,” Ferguson said. “There was what looked like a fork in the shift passage we are in about a day’s journey back that suggested it led in the direction of this new system. I suggest we back track and explore it. If this system was the alien’s destination there has to be a shift passage that leads to it somewhere nearby.”

  “Navigation, plot us a course back to Ferguson’s shift passage. Take us there at best speed,” James ordered.

  “Lieutenant Scott, I want you to continue to analyze the data you got on that Tachyon beam, see if you can decipher any form of communication embedded in the particles.”

  “Yes Sir,” Scott said eagerly.

  *

  6th July, 2466 AD, HMS Endeavour, unknown system.

  A week later and Endeavour’s bridge was crowded with all the senior officers except Mallory, who was in the auxiliary bridge. After locating the fork in the shift passage James had taken his ship towards the planet where the Tachyon beam had originated from. After a couple of dead ends they had finally found a small shift passage that led to the system. In thirty seconds they would be exiting shift space four light hours from the system’s mass shadow.

  Technically, Endeavour could exit right on the edge of the mass shadow created by the planet’s star but doing so would give their arrival away to any ships that were patrolling that region. James was taking every precaution so they were going to exit shift space a long way from the inner system and cruise in slowly under stealth.

  “Exiting in five, four, three,” the navigation officer called out.

  As soon as they jumped out everyone who wasn’t manning one of the command stations focused on the main sensor plot and the gravimetric plot.

  “No ships appearing on the gravimetric plot,” Ferguson reported. The gravimetric sensors were able to pick up the gravimetric waves given off by ships that were quickly accelerating or decelerating and could therefore give an almost instantaneous view of what ships were operating within a system.

  “The planet is in a binary star system and I’m picking up six planets orbiting the two stars,” Sub Lieutenant Malik said from the sensor terminal. “There’s one gas giant and one planet in the habitable zone.”

  “Acknowledged, focus our passive sensors on the habitable planet,” James ordered. “Navigation, angle us towards the habitable planet. I don’t want any acceleration though. We don’t know if they have any gravimetric sensors or how sensitive they are if they do. Let’s just coast in using our velocity from exiting shift space.”

  “Yes Sir,” Sub Lieutenants Malik and Jennings said.

  “I’m picking up a lot of residual electromagnetic energy emanating from the edge of the system’s mass shadow directly in front of us. It looks like a lot of Vestarian ships have been jumping into shift space in this area recently,” Scott reported.

  “I guess we’re in the right system after all,” James said.

  *

  For the next two hours Endeavour cruised up to the mass shadow of the system’s star. By then James had a much clearer picture of what was going on in the system. There appeared to be
a small asteroid mining complex on the edge of one of the denser asteroid fields in the outer system. Apart from that and the habitable planet, the rest of the system appeared devoid of alien activity. Even the habitable planet was strange. There was one large satellite in orbit and what looked like a number of smaller ones. Yet there was nothing to suggest whoever lived on the planet had the technology to build a fleet of warships. Or even had the kind of space based civilization that needed FTL communications.

  On the planet itself there appeared to be a number of major cities that were giving off all kinds of electromagnetic energy, suggesting that whoever lived on the planet, there were certainly lots of them. One city dwarfed all the others and at its center there was a massive structure. Everyone on Endeavour’s bridge had been mightily impressed. Even Earth’s largest structures weren’t visible from this far away in space.

  “Continue to take us in,” James said to the Navigation officer. “We’re not going to solve this mystery unless we get a close look at what’s going on.”

  “Lieutenant Scott,” James continued. “How are your attempts to understand their COM chatter going?”

  “Surprisingly well Sir,” Scott answered. “The translation software the aliens gave the Havenites was easily transferable to our main computer. It seems that whoever is on that planet speaks the same language as Haven’s attackers for our computer can translate the COM signals we are picking up. Though I haven’t found anything useful yet.”

  “That’s ok,” James said in an understanding tone. He had already looked at the COM chatter coming from the planet and finding anything useful would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It seemed that every building on the planet was broadcasting openly without any encryption.

  “I want you to put together a team to go through what you can, use your science team and take Lieutenant Becket and a number of the Sub Lieutenants, see if Agent Bell will join you as well. The more we can learn about these aliens the better.”

  “Yes Sir, I’ll get right on it,” Scott acknowledged.

  *

  8th July, 2466 AD, HMS Endeavour, in orbit around Vestar.

  James finally felt ready to make first contact with the planet below him. He had taken Endeavour into high orbit around the planet and for two days they had silently watched the planet go about its day to day business. Scott, Bell and Becket had spent the time trawling through the mountains of communication data and just a few hours ago they had felt ready to present their findings.

  It seemed these aliens were the Vestarians, their language matched, the visuals of the aliens on the ground matched bodies recovered from the battle over Haven and they called their planet Vestar.

  The largest city was called Amack and the impressive structure they had seen from the edge of the system was the palace of their god-king. At least that was what Bell and Becket had taken to calling the planetary leader. As far as they could tell, the government loosely resembled a military junta from Earth’s history. Every city was heavily garrisoned with what looked like military units and there were military outposts and checkpoints throughout the rest of the planet. Their capital was the most heavily defended and the palace where the Supreme Overlord resided was more like a fortress.

  From what Scott had picked up from the plant’s communications, the Supreme Overlord had been in power for the last forty years and a cult of personality had sprung up around him. Every residence was expected to have a picture of the Overlord and each morning the whole population was to swear allegiance to him. Almost every visual of the various cities James had seen had contained some statue or poster of the Overlord.

  The whole situation still felt surreal to James. Even though they had spent the last two days orbiting the planet watching the aliens, their very existence, not to mention the strangeness of their ways, was still a shock to him. Here was an entire alien civilization. One which did not share the thousands of years of history that every human took for granted in their day to day dealings with each other.

  Perhaps the oddest thing of all was the planet’s tech base. Militaristically they weren’t much beyond where Earth’s militaries had been at the beginning of the twenty first century. The satellites in orbit that seemed to serve the sole purpose of monitoring the population were the same. Yet, from what Scott could estimate, agriculturally they were leap years ahead of Earth’s production capabilities, which allowed them to maintain a population almost twice the size of Earth’s despite having about the same land mass to work with. Their buildings were also impressive, especially the tall thin spires that dominated the capital and stretched almost three kilometers into the sky. James doubted human engineers could produce such thin towers that still had the capability to resist the wind strengths they encountered at such high altitudes, for whilst Vestar resembled Earth in many respects, its weather was far harsher.

  Despite these impressive technologies, what stood out was the large satellite orbiting the planet. According to Scott’s analysis, it was centuries ahead of even the most impressive technology on the ground. Doubtless it had been the source of the tachyon beam. James had slotted Endeavour into orbit at the opposite end of the planet to ensure the satellite didn’t detect them.

  There was no sign that any of the other satellites in orbit and the ground observation stations they had detected were able to detect Endeavour while she remained in stealth. That made the situation all the more surreal. All the evidence before him suggested that this could not be the planet that the alien fleet which had attacked Haven had originated from. Yet, it also suggested that this planet could never produce a satellite as sophisticated as the one they suspected was the source of the tachyon beam. There were a lot of unanswered questions going around James’ head.

  There is nothing else for it, James said to himself again. We’re only going to get answers by speaking directly to this Supreme Overlord.

  “COMs, open a channel to the planet, run my words through the translation software,” James requested.

  “Should I direct the channel anywhere specific or to the entire world?” The COMS officer queried.

  “No doubt the Overlord will want to hold a private COM conversation once we reveal ourselves but first I want the whole planet to know we are here. That will make it harder for the junta to spin our arrival to their favor. Until we find evidence to the contrary I’m treating this Overlord as a potential hostile,” James answered.

  “Channel open,” the COMs officer announced.

  James took a deep breath and began, conscious that this might be the first time this planet had ever heard the words of an alien species. “People of Vestar. My name is James Somerville. I am the Captain of a human exploration ship called the Endeavour. My ship followed a fleet of warships that attacked one of our planets to this world. I am here to open diplomatic relations with your people and to ascertain where this fleet of warships came from and why they attacked my people. I would like to formally introduce myself and my people and request that we open diplomatic dialogue between our two races.”

  Finished, he nodded to the COMs officer to cut the transmission. He had spent hours preparing what he wanted to say and in the end he had decided to keep it short and sweet. He didn’t want to come across as too hostile but at the same time he wanted to make it clear that attacking human worlds would never be tolerated. The Admiralty may not be happy with his decision not to mention Britain, not to mention the government, but he had decided he didn’t want to let the aliens know that their race consisted of various fragmented nations. It would weaken his position too much if they thought they were only dealing with one faction of another race.

  “Sir, the readings from that alien satellite have spiked. It looks like it is powering up,” the Sub Lieutenant Malik reported from the sensors station

  “It’s sending out a tachyon beam,” Scott shouted in excitement, “the satellite is transmitting a message, same direction as the one we picked up previously.”

  “It’s beginning to accelerat
e and change its orbit,” Sub Lieutenant Malik chimed in again. “Looks like it is trying to intercept us.”

  “Can we match its velocity and keep our distance from it?”

  “Yes Sir,” Navigation answered.

  “Then make it so,” James said. “I suspect it is guessing our position based on the origin of our COM broadcast. If we can keep the planet between us and it, we should be able to remain invisible. Keep a close eye on it, let me know if it launches any probes our way,” he added as he settled down into his command chair to await a response from the Supreme Overlord.

  Chapter 17 – The god-king

  Once we thought we were alone in the galaxy, now we know that is far from true. Yet when all is said and done, many are surprised to find that so many of the aliens we have encountered share our flaws of pride and self-centeredness.