A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2)

by D. J. Holmes

  “But what about your people?” James said in frustration. “They are dying out there even as we speak. You need to let them decide. Surely some of your people would be willing to fight to protect their young.”

  “Our leaders have decided. This has been the Kulrean way for the last two thousand years. We will not change who we are,” Hallock said.

  “Suit yourself,” James shouted in frustration, “but sooner or later your people are going to have to face up to reality. Even if you run away now the Vestarians will not simply go away.”

  James didn’t listen to Hallock’s reply; instead he focused on his own frustration. The alien was leaving him with no other option. It was just like his encounter with the Swedish colony ship all over again. He was now faced with certain death if he stood against the Overlord’s fleet. Yet how could he run away? Cowardice was not the RSN way, and he would bring shame on all of mankind if he just left a defenceless civilization to destruction.

  James’ thoughts turned to the final battle with the Chinese in the V17 system. There he hadn’t hesitated following Rear Admiral Jensen into a mad dash against overwhelming forces. Yet that had been a heat of the moment decision. Now he had plenty of time to think over what he would do.

  Deep down he knew there was nothing to think about. He had changed. He wasn’t the man from before the Void War. Like Christine, he had learnt the price of duty. Now it was time to put those lessons to use. After the battle over Haven and the recent raid on the refuelling Vestarian ships he had complete confidence in his own abilities. Endeavour was going to give as good an account of herself as he could possibly manage.

  “It’s time to show these aliens what a King’s ship can really do,” James said to the bridge and Superintendent Hallock. His decision was made. When he looked around the bridge he saw that all the officers were nodding at him. They were with him.

  “Good luck Superintendent,” James said, turning back to the holo projection of the alien.

  “What do you mean, where are you going to go?” Hallock asked.

  “You’ll see,” James said before he cut the COM channel, he was too angry at the alien’s refusal to help his people to give him anymore time.

  “COMs, send a replay of my conversation with the Superintendent to the rest of the system. Instruct the Kulrean people that if they want to help Endeavour defeat the fleet attacking their system they should follow the plan I gave Hallock,” James ordered.

  “On it,” Sub Lieutenant King responded.

  “Jennings, take us away from Kulthar and back towards the approaching fleet. We have the advantage in missile range so we’re going to use it. Becket, coordinate with Julius on the auxiliary bridge and Chief Driscoll. I want them to transfer all our anti-ship missiles from the port tubes to the starboard ones.”

  “Acknowledged,” Jennings and Becket said one after the other.

  “What’s your plan Sir?” Mallory asked.

  “We need to thin out their numbers as much as possible,” James answered. “We have the advantage in missile range and they won’t deviate from closing with Kulthar. That means they will be flying right into the face of our missiles. If we can group up enough missiles we can punch through their point defenses and start to destroy the ships on the edges of their formation. Unless the Kulreans decide to join us there isn’t too much else we can do.”

  “I understand, given the circumstances I guess that is the best plan we have for now,” Mallory said.

  “Indeed,” James replied.

  “Tactical,” James said, turning to Lieutenant Becket. “We’re going to make a charge towards the Overlord’s fleet. As soon as we line them up I want you to flush missiles out of our launch tubes. I want you to vary the speed at which you flush them out so that they will reach the point that they can engage their engines at the same time. The calculations will be too imprecise to get exact but get them as close together as you can. We’ll fire off two super volleys and then decelerate away from the Overlord’s fleet, turn around, and then do it again if they will let us.”

  “Yes Sir, I’ll set up the firing solutions,” Becket answered.

  Ordinarily attacking fleets would come in on semi random attack vectors to make it difficult for the defenders to fire ballistic projectiles at them. Some of the human powers had experimented with mass drivers but they had proved to be too inaccurate over long ranges. Missiles were far better weapons.

  Endeavour’s missile tubes had the capacity to fire their missiles on ballistic trajectories to extend the range of the missiles but usually it was too difficult to predict where an enemy fleet would be. Instead the tubes were used to impart some initial velocity to the missiles and once they cleared the tubes the missiles would engage their own engines and home in on their targets.

  The Overlord’s fleet was coming in on an unchanging vector. That was going to allow Becket to launch a series of volleys of ballistic missiles, each one with slightly more initial speed. Once the missiles got into attack range they could power up their engines and engage together.

  “I think we will be able to get off two super volleys of forty missiles,” Becket said.

  “Begin flushing the tubes as soon as you are ready, then I want you to line up the flak cannons. Fire off as many tungsten spears as you can. Time them to impact just as the first volley of missiles will be switching on their engines and seeker heads.”

  “Got it,” Becket responded.

  For almost fifty minutes Endeavour flew straight into the teeth of the approaching battle fleet, flushing missiles as soon as the missile crews could reload the tubes. Just before she entered the maximum range of the Vestarian missiles Jennings began to slow and reverse Endeavour’s course.

  “Impact in thirty seconds,” Becket called out.

  James focused his attention on the gravimetric plot. The distances were too great for the rest of the sensors to give him a real time update on how successful his attacks would be. Just when Becket predicted a number of Vestarian ships disappeared off the plot. Over a hundred tungsten spears had been fired at the center of the fleet, it looked like ten had hit their targets.

  At the same time forty new contacts appeared on the gravimetric plot as the missiles engaged their engines. They weren’t lined up in a perfect volley so the Vestarians would have a chance to pick many of them off with their point defenses. On the other hand, the Vestarian fleet was charging straight towards the approaching missiles and the closing speed was more than half the speed of light. James knew from Jil’lal that their computers weren’t nearly as advanced as human ones and he hoped their firing computers would struggle to hit such fast moving targets.

  “It will take the missiles five minutes to hit their targets,” Becket announced.

  “Enemy fleet is beginning evasive maneuvers,” Mallory said. “I think our second volley will still be able to hit them but we won’t be able to repeat our trick.”

  “Bring us about,” James ordered. “Jennings, match their course and speed. Becket resume firing as soon as we come into range, we’ll just have to keep hammering them with single broadsides.

  “How are we doing on missiles?” James asked Julius over the COM to the auxiliary bridge.

  “We have moved all of our missiles over to the starboard tubes already,” Julius answered. “Becket should have another forty to play with. After that we will have to resort to the missiles we took on at Haven. They have about half the range of our missiles but they still pack a punch and their ECM isn’t too bad.”

  “Ok,” James said, “Keep moving them over.”

  As he switched his focus back to the gravimetric plot he saw that the first wave of missiles had entered the Vestarians’ point defense range. The forty missiles had been reduced to thirty four. They were further reduced to less than twenty when they all disappeared as they detonated amongst their targets.

  When the plot cleared up Becket let out a whoop. “We got at least fifteen of them!” she shouted.

  James was imp
ressed. The Overlord’s fleet had numbered one hundred and seventy nine when it had entered the Kulrean system. Thirty were now lagging well behind the main fleet which had now been reduced to one hundred and twenty four. They were making a real dent. It’s all for nothing unless the Kulreans are prepared to stand up to them though, James thought to himself.

  “Second super volley has ignited its engines,” Becket announced, “they should all be able to get into range.”

  James turned to the gravimetric plot to follow the progress of the missiles. Before they reached their targets the plot updated to show eight more contacts as Becket fired off another volley of missiles.

  “I think we got nine of them this time,” Malik said after their second super volley hit the approaching fleet.

  For the next half an hour Endeavour flew in front of the charging fleet as if she was leading them straight to Kulthar. The only indication that she wasn’t intent on the same death and destruction were the regular broadsides of eight missiles that she threw out at the Vestarians. Occasionally one of the missiles from the broadsides would get through and take out one of the alien warships but with only eight targets the Vestarian point defenses were able to do a much better job.

  “That was the last of our missiles,” Becket reported. “If we want to keep hitting them we’ll have to switch to the Haven missiles.”

  Everyone looked towards James to see what he would say. They all knew what it meant. The Haven missiles still had a slight range advantage over what they knew the Vestarians could do, yet because the Vestarian fleet was flying straight towards them their missiles would also have the momentum imparted to them from their motherships. That meant the Vestarians had the greater effective range. For Endeavour to be able to get into range to use the Haven missiles she would have to enter into the range of the Vestarian ships.

  “We have no choice,” James told everyone on the bridge, “take us into range and open fire.”

  The only saving grace for Endeavour was that the enemy ships could only fire their forward facing bow tubes. James hadn’t yet seen how many bow missile tubes the Vestarian ships had but he was sure it wouldn’t be as many as they carried on their broadsides.

  “First Haven volley is away,” Becket said.

  “The Overlord’s ships are opening fire,” Malik announced.

  “Here we go,” Mallory said as new contacts began to appear on the gravimetric plot.

  “I’m counting eighty missiles Captain,” Malik informed the bridge. “I think it was only the frigates that opened fire. I don’t understand why the cruisers didn’t fire too.”

  “Maybe they don’t have any bow missile tubes,” James thought out loud. “Their x-ray lasers and the power plants they need to supply them probably take up a great deal of space.”

  “We may yet survive this,” Mallory shouted with a grin.

  “Malik, prepare four of our recon drones for launch. Program them to give off signals to make them mimic Endeavour. We’re going to throw up a flak screen, fire off a volley from our point defense plasma cannons and then take Endeavour into stealth mode. With any luck all the remaining missiles will lock onto the drones,” James ordered.

  Because of the reduced range James didn’t have to wait long for the Vestarian missiles to reach Endeavour’s outer point defense ring. Under Mallory’s supervision the flak cannons created a wall of flying shrapnel in front of the missile swarm. Thirty of the eighty missiles were destroyed.

  Next was the point defense plasma cannons. As James had ordered they fired one burst of plasma bolts, taking out a further five missiles. Silence descended on the bridge as Endeavour shut down all her non-essential systems and powered down her engines and reactors.

  At the same time Malik activated the four recon drones that would mimic the electromagnetic profile of Endeavour that the Vestarian missiles were homing in on. The remaining forty five missiles split up into five groups. Forty one missiles split over four groups dived towards the decoys but five continued on towards Endeavour.

  “They are still detecting something to home in on,” James shouted. “Evasive maneuvers now Jennings!”

  Jennings was ready to act but with Endeavour’s reactors powered down to stealth levels she was severely limited in what she could do. As the sound of AM missiles being automatically launched by the ship’s computer filled the silence on the bridge Jennings desperately tried to throw Endeavour into a series of spins and turns.

  Three missiles lost their lock on the ship because it was still only giving off a small amount of waste electromagnetic energy. The other two stayed true and though they failed to get direct hits, both exploded less than twenty meters away from the ship’s hull.

  Everyone on the bridge was thrown about in their seats and a number of alarms went off. “Damage report,” James ordered.

  “We took two proximity hits,” Julius said over the COM. “No sign of any internal damage though everyone is a bit shaken up. Wait… I just got a report from Chief Driscoll. He says one of the reactors is fluctuating dangerously. He is going to have to take it offline.”

  “How are our point defenses?” James asked.

  “One flak cannon is down, we have also lost contact with about twenty percent of our point defense plasma cannons. I think the two proximity hits just burnt them right off the hull,” Julius replied.

  “Damn,” James said.

  “I don’t know if we can take another volley like that one,” Mallory said, concerned.

  “No,” James concluded. “But what would you have me do? Could you live with yourself if we ran away just to watch what happened at Kulpath repeated at Kulthar?”

  “No,” Mallory said.

  “No indeed, and every ship we destroy now will give the Kulreans more of a chance to flee,” James added.

  “Close us to plasma cannon range,” he ordered Sub Lieutenant Jennings.

  “Aye Sir,” she replied quietly, everyone on the bridge knew what the order meant.

  “We took out another two Vestarian warships with our first broadside of Haven missiles,” Becket reported. “They are having a hard time targeting our missiles at this reduced range. I think I can get a couple more before we enter plasma cannon range.”

  “Do it,” James said.

  Endeavour’s crew and her automated systems were obviously far better than the Vestarians for as Jennings closed the range further, Becket got off another broadside and managed to destroy three more warships before the Vestarians replied.

  “Seventy missiles inbound,” Malik reported when the Vestarians finally managed to reload their missile tubes. “Hold on, twenty of their cruisers are turning, they are bringing their port missile tubes to bear on us! I now count two hundred and seventy missiles in bound in two staggered volleys.”

  “Will we get into plasma cannon range before the hit us?” Mallory asked Jennings.

  “No Sir,” she answered deflated.

  “Then this is it,” Mallory said. “It’s been a pleasure serving with you Sir.”

  “And with all of you,” James said to the bridge. “But we are not dead yet. Becket, see if you can get off another broadside. Jennings boost us past our top speed. If a stray cosmic particle penetrates our armor and kills us all it hardly matters now. Mallory, as soon as we get into plasma cannon range I want to hit a cruiser with each of our cannons. We can still go down fighting!”

  None of the Lieutenants replied, they simply threw themselves into obeying James’ last orders. Sure enough Becket got off another broadside of missiles but moments after their engines ignited thrusting them towards their targets the Vestarian missiles arrived. The point defenses took out almost forty of them but over two hundred tore in towards the British warship.

  Jennings’ evasive maneuvers managed to avoid the first few missiles but then three got proximity hits at once and the explosive force threatened to tear Endeavour apart. Moments later a fourth got a direct hit, it impacted the ship right in Endeavour’s nose, penetrating through
half the valstronium armor before it exploded.

  On the bridge everyone was already being thrown about from the force of the proximity hits when the fourth missile exploded. The concussive force momentarily overloaded the inertial dampeners and James was hurled about so violently that he blacked out. The rest of the bridge officers didn’t fare much better and when the explosion from the fourth missile threw Endeavour into wild spin no one was in a position to correct it.

  An eternity seemed to pass as James slowly regained consciousness. “We’re still alive?” he asked out loud, hoping someone else was more aware of what was going on than him.

  “Yes,” Mallory said groggily, “I’m not quite sure how though.”

  “We’re currently spinning out of control,” Julius said over the COM, “one of my Sub Lieutenants is correcting now.”