The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  “How likely is it the Indians have managed to mount similar weapons on their warships?” James followed up. That the British fleet hadn’t encountered such weapons yet suggested they hadn’t managed such a feat. However, if they did, it would be a game changer. Indian warships could close to plasma cannon range with their opponents without fear of being torn to shreds themselves.

  “As I remember, the projected power demands from an anti-plasma cannon were significantly higher than a plasma cannon,” Scott explained. “However, if the Indians have several working anti-plasma cannons on Haven, then it wouldn’t be impossible for them to mount similar weapons on their larger warships. The problem would be getting a clear lock on incoming plasma bolts. Computing the targeting data and firing before the plasma bolt hit the ship would be an almost impossible shot.”

  “Yes,” James agreed. “And more often than not when a ship is attacked by enemy plasma cannons they don’t even know they’re under attack until it’s too late. Still, it’s something to think about. Good work Sub Lieutenant.”

  “Captain,” Mallory said. “We can still attack the supply depot with valstronium tipped ground attack missiles. I have analyzed the heat signature from the tungsten spear. Whatever lasers they have based on the supply depot, I don’t think they would be powerful enough to burn through a valstronium missile before it impacted the surface.”

  “And what about collateral damage?” James asked. Ground attack valstronium missiles were essentially kinetic weapons. They used the colossal speed a missile obtained on entering a planet’s atmosphere, boosted by the missile’s impulse drive, to cause a massive explosion on the surface of a planet. They were called city busters, as one missile could take out an entire city. UN law forbade the use of nuclear weapons on a planet’s surface, but a valstronium ground attack missile had the same effect without the downside of having to deal with large amounts of radiation.

  “We don’t have the most accurate data on Havenite construction processes,” Mallory answered. “The force from the impact would likely send shockwaves into Liberty. Quite a few buildings could be damaged or even destroyed, certainly those on the edge of the city near the supply depot. We could order an evacuation. Give the locals half an hour to evacuate the buildings closest to the depot. There is no way the Indians could move out enough supplies in that time to empty the depot.”

  “No,” James said after a couple of seconds. “We need to be seen as liberators. If we begin the ground battle with the Indians by accidentally destroying a third of Haven’s capital, the populace will never warm to us. Besides, if we can take that supply depot intact, we may get our hands on one of these anti-plasma cannons. I suspect our Science Directorate would be very interested in taking a look at them. We’ll leave the supply depot to the marines.”

  Having to ignore the supply depot, James turned his attention back to Becket and her orbital bombardment. She had already destroyed six Indian facilities strung out around Liberty. Gupta and Discovery had taken out another ten. It wouldn’t be long before the Indians would be reduced to whatever mobile forces had managed to flee into the Havenite forest, or dig in to Liberty itself.

  *

  HMS Churchill, Haven System

  For the final time, Admiral Cunningham looked over the sensor data Captain Somerville had sent him. His sensor experts had analyzed the data, though their inferences had been far from conclusive. Based on the limited readings Endeavour and Discovery had been able to obtain of whatever the Indian fleet was approaching, it was impossible to say for sure what was out there. Nevertheless, his gut agreed with Somerville. It made no sense for the Indians to be so willing to come into missile range when they were so heavily outnumbered. The Indian Admiral might be trying to get off a single broadside at his fleet before fleeing, but she seemed determined to reach the point in space were Somerville had detected the anomalies. Seeing nothing to change his mind, Cunningham gave the order. “Fire,” he said.

  Forty minutes ago he had split his fleet. Taking three quarters of his warships, he had turned Churchill away from Haven towards the intercept course with the fleeing Indian fleet. The two marine transport ships and the rest of his warships were continuing on to Haven. They would be enough to secure Haven’s orbitals and cover the initial stages of the invasion.

  Over two hundred missiles shot out of their missile tubes and ignited their impulse engines as they accelerated towards the Indian fleet. For ten minutes they accelerated until, as one, every missile cut its engine and flew through space on momentum alone. Cunningham knew to the Indian Admiral it would look like he had tried to fire a missile salvo at extreme range. Such a thing was easy to attempt, but very difficult to pull off.

  As expected, the Indian fleet turned onto a slightly new trajectory as soon as his missiles cut their engines. Going on momentum alone, the missiles would no longer be able to alter course to target the evading Indian fleet. It was possible for the attacking force to anticipate their opponents course change and factor that into the targeting data of the missiles. However, in practice it was all but impossible to predict where a fleet would go in three-dimensional space.

  Thankfully, Cunningham’s real targets couldn’t maneuver away from his missiles as easily as the Indian fleet. Ten minutes after cutting their engines, the British missiles reappeared on the gravimetric plot as their impulse engines kicked in once again. Following the targeting data they had received before launching, they turned towards the anomalies.

  Now we’ll see if they really are missiles, Cunningham thought. His salvo of missiles would take less than five minutes to get into the area of space where the anomalies were. The Indian fleet commander, Admiral Kumar, may have been outwitted once or twice by the Havenite defenders. But, assuming she was still in charge, Cunningham knew she wasn’t a fool. She would know exactly what he had planned. If she acted fast, she should be able to save many of her missiles.

  Despite his estimation of Admiral Kumar, for three minutes the gravimetric display was silent. Then it came alive as a swarm of new contacts appeared. “Multiple missile ignitions detected,” the sensor officer near Cunningham shouted. “Over fifty missiles detected, no wait, there are more igniting every second.”

  “What is their velocity?” Cunningham asked.

  “It looks like they haven’t been fired out of any kind of acceleration tube,” the sensor officer answered. “They are beginning with a velocity close to zero in relation to the system’s sun. I’m now detecting over one hundred missiles coming our way.”

  Cunningham took a couple of seconds to survey the pattern of the incoming missiles then he turned to his Flag Lieutenant. “Order the fleet to change to formation alpha foxtrot three,” he requested.

  As the British fleet prepared to fend off incoming Indian missiles, their missiles exploded among the Indian anomalies. “It looks like we hit multiple targets,” the sensor officer reported. “I’m detecting multiple secondary explosions around our missiles after they detonated.”

  “I’m sure the Indians had more missiles than just the one hundred and forty coming towards us,” Churchill’s Captain said over the open COM channel from his command bridge. “If they were planning to try and overwhelm an invading fleet, they probably had three or four hundred missiles prepared to fire. If not more. I think we all owe Captain Somerville a drink when this is all over.”

  “I imagine you are right,” Cunningham said. “We can thank him later, for now though, let’s see if we can’t give these Indians a bloody nose before they turn tail and run.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Captain Hughes replied.

  As Hughes went back to his duties, Cunningham sat back in his command chair and stretched out his arms to remove some of the tension from his body. The sensors predicted the flight time on the Indian missiles would be twenty minutes. His fleet would have plenty of time to track each one individually and prepare to engage it. With Churchill, he had the battlecruiser Sovereign, five heavy, ten medium and fourteen light
cruisers, along with twenty destroyers, fifteen frigates and eighteen corvettes. One hundred and forty missiles might cause some damage if they were unlucky, but they weren’t a serious threat.

  As the missiles entered engagement range, the combined fire from more than forty flak cannons wore them down to less than sixty. On the visual feed, it quickly became impossible to make out what was happening as thousands of plasma bolts and hundreds and hundreds of AM missiles tore through space towards the Indian missiles, causing explosions all around them. Cunningham switched to watching the gravimetric plot. The Indian missiles were crystal clear on it for the gravimetric sensors couldn’t detect the plasma bolts and the AM missiles looked like flies compared to the acceleration profile of the heavier Indian missiles.

  The sixty missiles were reduced to thirty, and then ten. Only two made it past the point defense fire. One exploded sixty meters off the port bow of a light cruiser, causing minimal damage. The second also only managed to score a proximity hit, however it exploded less than thirty meters away from a point defense corvette. The small ship was almost torn in two by the explosive force. Cunningham ordered one of the frigates to decelerate and search for survivors. He didn’t hold out much hope, but if anyone was still alive he wanted to make sure they weren’t left behind.

  Enraged, Cunningham balled his hands into fists. The Corvette was the first ship he had lost since the war with the Chinese. The losses the British fleet had suffered under Rear Admiral Rooke in the Indian colonies had been almost as bad as the losses suffered during the entire Chinese war. Nevertheless, they hadn’t been his ships, now it was his ships the Indians were destroying. With a renewed desire to crush his enemies, Cunningham turned away from the damage report from the light cruiser to the main sensor display and the Indian fleet.

  “Missile launches,” Cunningham’s sensor officer announced. “The Indian fleet has opened fire. I’m detecting one hundred and thirty missiles angling towards us.”

  “There will be more,” Cunningham said. He was sure his missile salvo hadn’t destroyed all the missiles the Indians had lying dormant in space. Almost as soon as the Indian fleet fired, another one hundred contacts appeared on the gravimetric plot from the anomalies Somerville had identified. They rapidly accelerated towards Cunningham’s fleet. It quickly became apparent both groups of missiles had been timed to converge less than five minutes before they would reach Cunningham’s fleet.

  We all owe Somerville our thanks, Cunningham thought. If the Indians had managed to pull off the ruse they would have been able to hit us with a significant missile salvo.

  “The Indian fleet is turning,” the sensor officer reported less than thirty seconds after reporting the second Indian salvo. “It looks like they’re going to make a run for the shift passage back to Indian colonial space. I don’t think we’ll be able to get into range with our forward tubes before they reach the mass shadow and jump out.”

  “Inform the fleet we will give chase nevertheless,” Cunningham ordered his Flag Lieutenant. “We’ll shift to formation delta seven as soon as we deal with this Indian salvo. If we can, we’ll pick off a few stragglers, and if nothing else, we will make sure the Indians actually do jump out of the system.”

  “Aye Sir,” Cunningham’s Flag Lieutenant said with a smile towards his Admiral. Not everyone on the flagship knew Endeavour and Discovery weren’t the only ships Cunningham had sent into the system ahead of the main fleet, but he did.

  *

  HMS Retribution, outer Haven system.

  An hour later Commodore Lightfoot’s anticipation was growing to a point where he almost couldn’t bear it. Today’s battle wasn’t the first time he had been forced to watch others fight while he hid in stealth and it never got any easier. Watching the second Indian missile salvo crash into Cunningham’s fleet had been difficult. Though it looked like only one small ship had been destroyed, British lives had been lost. A light cruiser and a destroyer had both fallen out of formation and were slowly making their way towards Haven. It was likely both had suffered significant damage.

  Not long now, he said to himself as he forcibly calmed his nerves.

  “The Indian fleet has just passed the point where it was closest to us,” Retribution’s sensor officer reported. “Still no sign their active scanners have penetrated our stealth coating.

  “Very good,” Lightfoot said.

  For another ten minutes Lightfoot watched the Indian fleet cross the bow of his ship in silence. “Fire,” he ordered just before the Indian fleet moved out of plasma cannon range.

  From Retribution and the two destroyers with her, ten heavy plasma bolts shot towards the Indian fleet. Three bolts each targeted the two medium cruisers, while the remaining four targeted a heavy cruiser. All ten found their marks and the three Indian ships rippled as explosions erupted from their engine compartments.

  “All three targets are falling out of formation,” his tactical officer reported.

  “Good shooting,” Lightfoot said. “Navigation, time to get us out of here.”

  As quickly as he could, Retribution’s navigation officer turned the light cruiser away from the Indian fleet and accelerated out of plasma cannon range. The two destroyers accompanying Retribution followed suit.

  Lightfoot guessed the Indian Admiral had been surprised by his attack for it took more than a minute for the Indian fleet to fire its first missiles at his fleeing ships. As he was directly astern of them, they were only able to use their stern missile tubes. The fire was also haphazard, first six missiles were launched after his ships, then another eight, then twenty more left their missile tubes more than four minutes after the first group.

  “We’ll have to deal with the first two groups of missiles on our own,” Retribution’s tactical officer reported. “The fleet should be in range to assist us with the final twenty.”

  Lightfoot smiled. His input into today’s fighting had been limited, yet it would ensure the British would come out on top. He had lined up his ship so they were already heading back into the inner system as the Indian fleet passed them. He had fired on the Indians just before they passed out of range of his plasma cannons. The gap between the Indian fleet and his squadron was rapidly widening as both groups of ships accelerated away from each other. Admiral Cunningham was coming up fast behind the Indian fleet and it wouldn’t be long before Retribution and Lightfoot’s other two destroyers would pass through the middle of the British fleet.

  His three ships easily dispatched the first six Indian missiles. The next salvo of eight missiles was just as easily dealt with. As his ships passed by the flagship she waggled her starboard missile tubes as a sign of respect. Lightfoot grinned with the rest of his bridge crew at the honor that Admiral Cunningham had given them.

  More than one of the bridge crew let out a cheer as the sensor officer reported all three Indian warships they had damaged had struck their colors. They had surrendered rather than face being destroyed by the British fleet.

  “Send a message to our squadron,” Lightfoot ordered. “Tell them, ‘Well done.’”

  “Aye Captain,” the COM officer responded with a look of pride.

  “You have the bridge First Lieutenant,” Lightfoot said as he stood. He had been on the bridge for the last twelve hours, it was time to retire to his quarters. No doubt Admiral Cunningham would have new orders for the fleet but he was confident his First Lieutenant could handle whatever the Admiral had planned.

  *

  As the Indian fleet reached Haven’s mass shadow and disappeared off his flagship’s sensor screen, Cunningham gave orders to rearrange the fleet. He intended to leave more than two thirds of his fleet on the edge of the system’s mass shadow. It was likely Admiral Kumar would run all the way back to New Delhi, but on the off chance she tried to sneak back into the system to harass his attempts to retake the colony, he wanted to be ready to fight her off. Once he was happy the ships he was leaving behind knew what they were to do, he ordered his flagship to reverse course
and head towards Haven. The system is ours, Cunningham thought as his flagship and a few escorts left the fleet and began their maneuver. However, I’m afraid the bloodletting is just about to begin.

  *

  ISF Shiva, shift space.

  “Damn it,” Admiral Kumar screamed as the door to her personal quarters shut behind her. She lashed out at a picture she had on the desk from her graduation day. Every one of her friends would now be laughing at her. It was bad enough the British Captain had managed to slip past her fleet and attack the troop transport she had been in charge of escorting. Now, the British had managed to thwart her surprise attack and capture three of her warships. She swore to herself that if she managed to keep command of Shiva she would get revenge. We’ll be back, she said to herself as she looked out the artificial porthole in her cabin. The display was still showing the planet of Haven below her ship. No one had thought to change it since they had broken out of orbit to flee from the British fleet.

  Chapter 27 – Ground Offensive

  The Marine training world of Valhalla is almost entirely artificial. It has been made to recreate every environment known to man. Marine cadets spend three years in training on Valhalla before they graduate and are sent to their various units. At any one time there are over fifty million marines in training on the planet.