The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  “Fire,” Gupta ordered as she nodded at her waiting Lieutenant.

  With the touch of a button, six heavy plasma bolts shot out of Discovery’s three twin plasma cannons. They covered the distance to the unsuspecting frigate in less than fourteen seconds. As one they struck the frigate, burnt through her valstronium armor and penetrated deep into the small ship’s hull. Two of the bolts hit her reactors, a second later the frigate exploded, killing all eighty crew members on board.

  “Send the pre-recorded message,” Gupta ordered her COM officer as soon as the frigate’s destruction was confirmed.

  “Message sent Captain,” the officer replied.

  Gupta was sure pandemonium was breaking out on the asteroid mining station the frigate had been guarding. Their one line of defense against attack had vanished in the blink of an eye. Now there was a large, hostile warship bearing down on them. As Gupta waited for a reply from the station she contemplated what had just happened.

  In the Void War, and in her limited role in Captain Somerville’s mission to Haven, she had been involved in the destruction of many enemy warships, and the inevitable death that came with such acts. Yet, she had never been the Captain. Now the buck stopped with her, every life Discovery took was taken at her hands. It was sobering, yet, it was exactly what she had spent the last twenty years training for. The next few weeks with Commodore Lightfoot would show whether or not she was truly ready for command.

  “We’re getting a response from someone claiming to be the Chief Engineer on the mining station,” Gupta’s sensor officer announced. “He says they are beginning their evacuation. He predicts it will take ten minutes, he requests we hold fire until then.”

  “Tell him we will do as he asks, but, if we detect any sign of weapons powering up on the station we won’t hesitate to fire,” Gupta ordered.

  “Aye Captain,” the officer replied.

  For the next ten minutes Gupta twiddled her thumbs and watched the holo plot of the rest of the Kerala system. Despite what she had just done, the rest of the system looked peaceful. It would take over three hours for the electromagnetic radiation produced from the frigate’s destruction to reach the Kerala colony and, at the moment, everyone else in the system was oblivious to what had just happened. All that was about to change.

  “Send them a sixty second warning,” Gupta ordered after the ten minutes were up. Her sensor officer had detected forty small ships and escape shuttles that had already taken off from the station. If there were any more, they needed to take off immediately. “We need to move onto our next target, I’m not waiting any longer.”

  Almost as soon as the warning was sent, three more shuttles took off from the station and space around the large asteroid base went quiet. “Fire,” Gupta ordered once she had counted to sixty.

  From Discovery’s port missile tubes, four thermonuclear missiles shot out, accelerated to 0.1c by the tubes’ electromagnets. The missiles engaged their own engines and rapidly accelerated towards their target. It took them just over a minute to reach the asteroid and as they impacted the large structure, four miniature suns erupted on its surface. The resultant explosion from the nuclear detonations ripped the asteroid apart, shattering it into hundreds of fragments.

  The hollowed out asteroid had been the center of a large mining operation in one of the asteroid belts on the edge of the system. It might only take the Indians a couple of years to rebuild a similar station to oversee and process all the minerals they were mining in the asteroid field, but it would be a costly project.

  “Take us to the next target,” Gupta ordered.

  As she sat back in her command chair and watched her subordinates carry out her orders, she kept one eye on the holo plot of the system. As soon as her four missiles ignited their impulse engines everyone in the Kerala system would have known something was wrong. The gravimetric disturbances created by the accelerating missiles would alert every ship in the system with a gravimetric sensor that someone had just fired upon the asteroid mining station. Word of the British fleet’s actions had likely reached the Kerala system before Lightfoot’s squadron had arrived. Gupta was sure the ranking Indian naval officer in the system would know full well what the launch of four missiles meant. The British had come to pay a visit.

  *

  Captain Natalie Price, of the destroyer HMS Fang, was eagerly awaiting her first chance to fire the weapons of her ship in anger. She had captained Fang for the last four years but had been stationed in the Chester system when war had broken out with the Chinese. Frustratingly, she had been forced to sit out the entire war, only able to read about and watch the holo videos of the action she had trained all her life for. Now she was finally getting the chance to test her warship outside a simulation. The four missiles that had appeared on her ship’s gravimetric sensors were the signal she been waiting for. “Do it,” she ordered.

  In response, her subordinates took Fang out of stealth and powered up every system on the ship. At the same time, a similar message to the one Gupta had sent to the asteroid mining station was sent to the gas mining stations Fang was accelerating towards.

  Alongside the habitable planet within the system the other thing that had attracted the Indians to Kerala was the smaller of the system’s two gas giants. It was rich in the He3 needed by the fusion reactors that were a staple of human society. Alongside the two gas mining stations Fang had firmly locked her missiles onto, there were seven large freighters that Price wanted to make sure wouldn’t escape.

  “Captain, one of the freighters is powering up, it’s trying to burst away from the gas mining station,” her sensor officer called.

  “You know what to do,” Price said as she looked over to the tactical officer.

  With a nod, the officer launched a single missile at the freighter. Instead of accelerating at its maximum acceleration, the missile slowly boosted after the freighter. “It should take ten minutes for the missile to reach its target,” the tactical officer reported.

  “Good,” Price said, “that will give them plenty of time to evacuate. Open up a general COM channel.”

  “Channel is open Captain,” the COM officer announced a few moments later.

  “Indian ships, we are here to destroy the gas mining station and your freighters. We can do it with or without your crews on the ships. The choice is yours. I will not be so lenient to the next freighter that tries to escape. I’ve already sent evacuation orders to the gas mining station, as we pass it, it will be destroyed, along with all the freighters in orbit. You have been warned.”

  With a move of her hand across her throat Price ordered her COM officer to cut the channel.

  “No movement from any of the other ships,” the sensor officer reported. “Wait, I’m picking up evacuation pods launching from a number of the freighters and the gas mining stations.”

  “Very good,” Price said. “It looks like our first action is going to go according to plan.” The Indians continued to evacuate their stations and ships. Once she was confident there were no more civilians on board any of her targets, Price ordered her tactical officer to fire missiles at the two stations and the six remaining freighters. The seventh had already been destroyed by the first missile that Fang fired, its crew having wisely abandoned ship as the missile approached.

  “Take us towards the rendezvous point,” Price ordered once her targets were destroyed.

  *

  HMS Retribution, along with her consort the destroyer Flame, were traveling on a course that would bring them within missile range of the Kerala colony at their maximum speed of 0.36c. In orbit, the defenders had already been warned that something was afoot. The missile launches from the asteroid mining station and around the system’s second gas giant would be all any competent commander would need to know that his system was under attack.

  The two Gwalior battlestations that were in orbit around the planet had switched on all their active sensors and were filling space with electromagnetic energy as they tried to d
etect any threats to the planet. The light cruiser and frigate that were in orbit had also powered up their active sensors and each ship had taken station alongside one of the battlestations.

  Lightfoot knew if he combined his squadron, his ships could take on one of the battlestations and take it out. However, it would be risky. He had another plan. His job wasn’t to risk any of his ships so early in his mission. Therefore, he intended to fly by the planet at maximum speed, this would allow him to fire off two broadsides at the colony’s orbital industry. The nearest battlestation would get to fire one missile salvo in response, but at the speed Retribution and Flame were traveling at, he was confident their point defenses could deal with the Indian missiles.

  “Fire,” Lightfoot ordered as soon as his two ships entered missile range.

  Seconds after his order, eighteen missiles were launched by the two warships and boosted towards the colony. Five minutes later, thirty-two missiles erupted from the Indian battlestation and the frigate assisting it as they sought to repay Retribution and Flame for their attack on the colony.

  As the British missiles left their warships with a velocity of 0.46c towards the Indian colony, they reached their targets first. They had been aimed at key industrial nodes spread across the colony’s orbit to make it difficult for the battlestation and frigate to intercept them. Lightfoot cursed as a number of the larger industrial stations opened up with their own point defenses. He had hoped the only point defenses would be on the battlestations and the warships. Still, the Indian point defense fire wasn’t enough to hit every missile. Four thermonuclear explosions erupted in orbit around Kerala and, seconds later, the remains of four large stations tumbled towards Kerala’s atmosphere. The Indian defenders only had six minutes to regroup before the second wave of British missiles arrived. They failed to do any better at protecting their new targets and five more orbital installations were destroyed or severely damaged.

  As soon as they fired their second salvo, the two British warships turned away from Kerala and towards safety. The Indian missiles managed to reach a relative velocity of 0.62c by the time they got into range of the British warship’s point defenses. It had taken them over thirty-six minutes to catch up with the British ships. As Retribution and Flame had continued on past Kerala at 0.34c, it meant that the Indian missiles’ closing velocity was only 0.28c. Designed to engage missiles with much greater closing velocities, the British ships swatted the Indian missiles away with little fuss. It helped that the Indian missiles had used most of their fuel trying to catch the British ships and had only been able to carry out limited evasive maneuvers.

  The two British warships continued on the same trajectory and then they decelerated. An hour later, they met up with the other two ships of the squadron. Both Discovery and Fang had reached the rendezvous point ahead of them.

  “Discovery and Fang are reporting their ships are fully combat ready,” Lightfoot’s COM officer reported. “Both Captains have sent across their action reports.”

  “Acknowledge that we have received them, I will look over them later,” Lightfoot said.

  “Captain, one of the Indian ships is breaking orbit,” Retribution’s sensor officer shouted. “They’re accelerating pretty hard towards the shift passage back to New Delhi.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Lightfoot said. “The system commander is bound to know the colony is at our mercy, at least until he can get some reinforcements here.”

  “What should we do?” Lightfoot’s First Lieutenant asked.

  “We’re going to show him that he’s right,” Lightfoot replied with a feral grin. “We are here to cause as much damage as we can.”

  His squadron formed up into one unit and turned back towards Kerala. Together they made three more passes at the colony, each time firing thirty two missiles at the orbital infrastructure. With the combined point defenses of all four ships they easily dealt with any Indian counter fire. It was only when Lightfoot decided they had used up enough missiles that he turn his squadron away from the colony. He was sure the Indian system commander would have expected him to take his fleet to the Nicobar system. It was by far the most well developed colony on this side of Indian space. Instead he turned his squadron towards the shift passage that led to the Agra system and several other systems the Indian Star Republic claimed. They were less important targets, but they would provide the perfect opportunity for Lightfoot to throw off whatever warships were sure to be sent from New Delhi to pursue him.

  Chapter 15 – Scorched Earth

  Since mankind settled its first colony there have only been five scattered decades of complete peace. For the rest of the time, humanity has been involved in one armed conflict or another. The establishment of the Empire largely put an end to the wars fought within our species. For the majority of the Empire’s population it has ushered in an era of unimagined peace and prosperity. Yet we owe it all to the Empire’s Navy and Marines, while others have rested they fought to protect the borders.

  -Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  19th July 2467 AD, HMS Retribution, Agra system.

  The Agra system was rich in a number of the key minerals any modern industrial society hungered after. A small Indian colony had been formed on the fifth planet in the system. It was a rocky planet only about one third the size of Earth. With almost no atmosphere, the colony had been built entirely underground. As the light cruiser approached, the only structures visible to Retribution’s visual sensors were the ore refineries and large storage facilities above ground. Scattered around the rest of the system were numerous small mining stations harvesting the precious ore from the asteroid fields which dotted the outer system.

  When Lightfoot’s squadron jumped into the system there had been more than a hundred small vessels traveling back and forth from the outer asteroid to the mining colony, bringing ore for processing. For a few hours the ships continued about their business, obviously assuming the newly arrived warships were friendly. However, when the British ships failed to respond to the hails the colony had sent them, the Indian mining ships scattered. With no armor and very small engines, they were sitting ducks to the British warships and their Captains were trying to get them out of harm’s way.

  The mining ships would be easy to replace however, as would the small mining stations scattered around the system. Lightfoot’s main target was the refineries on the surface of the fifth planet, without them, the Indians could do nothing with any ore they mined in the system. Even so, he dispatched the two destroyers to cruise along either edge of the outer system to take out as many of the small mining stations and ships as they could while Retribution and Discovery cruised towards the colony.

  With no more than a hundred thousand residents, the colony itself was of no interest to Lightfoot. He had already sent them a message warning them to evacuate the refining facilities on the planet’s surface. He would be satisfied with destroying them and then moving on.

  “Send a message to Discovery, tell Captain Gupta we will brake, enter orbit and use our plasma cannons to destroy the refining facilities,” Lightfoot ordered. “We’ll save our heavier ordnance for another day.”

  “Aye Sir,” his COM officer replied.

  Being such a small colony, there had only been one frigate in orbit as they had jumped in. As soon as Lightfoot accelerated towards the colony, the frigate’s Captain had realized the danger she was in. The frigate had broken orbit and accelerated towards the shift passage to Gujarat. Its commander obviously wanted to warn the colony of the British squadron’s presence. Unless it wanted to fight its way past the British warships, there was no way it could get back to New Delhi.

  “I guess prudence is the better part of valor in this case,” Lightfoot’s First Lieutenant commented as the frigate jumped out of the system.

  “I think so,” Lightfoot replied. “With luck, that frigate and whatever ships are defending the Gujarat system may try to put up a fight when we get there. At least then we may get to add a kill to
our name.”

  With nothing else to do until his ship entered orbit around the target, Lightfoot satisfied himself by watching his two destroyers sweep around the edge of the system. As they got into range of the mining ships and stations they vaporized them with their plasma cannons. Taking out such easy targets wasn’t exactly what their crews had signed up for, but every plasma bolt put another dent in the Indian economy. Lightfoot was all too aware that almost every war in history had shown the winner was the side whose economy and logistical capabilities out produced their rivals. In space, combat almost always gave the advantage to the attacker, for it was very difficult to protect an industrial base spread out over several systems. It might not seem like much, but the actions of his ships were significant steps towards defeating the Indians.