Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3)

by Dietmar Wehr

  All eyes were now on the tactical display that showed the green icons of Europa’s ten missiles approaching the tiny gold circle that represented the projected enemy position when the missile laser warheads would fire. Would Leviathan maintain its present vector? Drake realized that his fists were clenched as a result of the tension. With only seconds left now, Drake held his breath as the red icon touched the gold circle. Because the display was only tracking the missiles’ projected trajectories, there was no way to know if they had in fact detonated on schedule until Europa’s hull sensors detected light and radiation from the explosions after the appropriate delay due to the distance involved, but the Ether detection system was able to pick up a change in Leviathan’s behavior. Its acceleration dropped to zero at precisely the moment when the missiles should have fired their x-ray laser beams. The other three ships continued their acceleration.

  Drake heard someone say “Got ‘em!” He couldn’t tell who it was, but it expressed the same enthusiasm that he felt. While it was possible that Majestic was faking damage to Leviathan, Drake couldn’t see any advantage of doing that. It made a lot more sense that Leviathan had suffered damage to its power plants and therefore couldn’t maneuver. Lack of power, and the resulting loss of communications with the three escorting ships, would also explain why they weren’t maintaining formation with Leviathan.

  “Com! I want to record a message to be sent to those escorts,” said Drake.

  “I’m recording, Sir.”

  Before Drake could begin his message, the display pinged and showed all ten missiles detonating as sensors received delayed confirmation.

  “This is Fleet Commander Roland Drake calling the Commanding Officers of the three ships escorting Majestic. If your personal implants have lost contact with Majestic, it’s because we’ve damaged Majestic’s ship and quite possibly Majestic itself. If you’re able to, we urge you to fire missiles at Majestic’s ship in order to destroy it before it can repair itself. We have the technology to deactivate and remove your implants safely. That’s the only way any of you will ever be completely free from its domination. I’m standing by and welcome contact with you. Drake clear.”

  With the message sent, all they could do was wait. It would take almost nine seconds for the message to reach those ships and another nine seconds for any reply to reach Europa. After eighteen seconds had passed with no reply, Drake was beginning to wonder if his gamble had failed. Europa was now beginning its descent back into Midgard’s atmosphere. The ship would be over the main Colony in another four minutes. Just as he decided to record and transmit another message, the display pinged and Drake saw the icon representing Leviathan break up. That had to mean that at least one escorting ship had fired its missiles at Majestic. The Bridge erupted with cheers, and Drake added his voice as well. As the cheering died down, Drake wanted to talk with Lorelei but remembered that with Europa over the main Colony, she was now on the other side of the planet.

  “Incoming message on Tac three, Sir,” said the Com Tech. Drake switched his headset over.

  “—missile strike! Repeat, the colony has been targeted with a missile strike! They’ll hit atmosphere in less than thirty seconds. We don’t have the ability to stop our missiles. Can you stop them, Drake?”

  “Guns?” asked Drake..

  “AM systems are active and charging, Sir!”

  “Get us over the Colony NOW, Helm!” shouted Drake.

  “Already on it, Sir!”

  Drake felt a chill go up his spine. Incoming missile warheads would have so much velocity that Europa’s anti-missile lasers would only have a couple of seconds at most to lock onto the plunging warheads and fire at them, and that only because of the trails of fire caused by air friction. Their stealthy designs would prevent normal radar from tracking them sooner. He checked Europa’s position. She was still almost 40 kilometers above the planet and descending.

  He heard the Weapons Officer shout something unintelligible and then felt the ship fall out from underneath him along with a terrifying vibration. The loss of lighting told him that power had failed. He realized that the falling feeling wasn’t going away. One of the incoming warheads must have detonated close above the ship. If the warhead had actually hit the ship, Europa would have been blown apart. So it had to have been a near miss, but close enough to cause a lot of internal damage due to the sudden downward jerk. That initial impact should have abated by now with maneuvering engines and inertial dampeners bringing the ship back under control, but power wasn’t coming back on.

  My God, we’re falling out of the sky! If the ship hit the ground anywhere close to the colony, the resulting concussion wave would devastate the colony just as much as a direct hit from nuclear-tipped missile. Drake tried to activate internal communications in order to contact Engineering, but without power, the system was dead. He heard cries of panic and fear from some of the others. It took all his will power to keep himself from verbally expressing his own fear. He had no idea how long it would take for the ship to hit the ground, and in any case, the massive adrenaline surge he was feeling was almost certainly distorting his sense of time.

  With the feeling that death was just about to reach for him, Drake noticed with considerable relief that the lights, and more importantly the maneuvering engines, were coming back on, and he felt the ship begin to slow. Now the question was could they halt their plunge before running out of sky. The answer turned out to be yes. Europa stopped its descent less than a kilometer over the city.

  During the hours that followed, Europa made its way back to Avalon Island where the three escort ships also landed. None of the incoming warheads got close enough to the colony to cause any damage or injury. The evacuation was cancelled. When Drake was able to leave the ship and take a good look at it, he was shocked at what he saw. The top third was caved in as if a giant had smashed it with a sledgehammer.

  Over the next several days, all of the escort ships’ crewmembers had their implants deactivated and removed. The three commanding officers joined Drake and Lorelei in her quarters aboard the Corpus Christi for a conference and a meal. Lorelei asked the question that Drake had also been wondering about.

  “How did you manage to fire a missile at Majestic’s ship without your implant interfering?”

  “Actually it was easy once I figured out how,” said one of the C.O.s. “I ordered a missile to be programmed to fire straight ahead after a twenty second delay. Since there was nothing ahead of the ship, my implant had no objection. I then ordered the ship to be rotated one hundred eighty degrees so that it was pointed directly at Majestic’s ship. That act by itself posed no threat to Majestic and therefore the implant did nothing. When the twenty second countdown was up, the missile fired, and Majestic’s ship just happened to be in its path.”

  Everyone laughed. When the laughter died out, one of the other C.O.s leaned forward and said, “What happens now?”

  “With Earth devastated, that means the Federation is gone, as is the Empire. A lot of planets have also been devastated by the bio-weapon, and others are going to de-civilize due to the breakdown in interstellar shipping. Midgard has everything it needs to become the nucleus of a new, multi-planet entity that will avoid the mistakes that caused the civil war to begin with. If you want a home, you can find one here. We’ll have the ability to maintain your ships and eventually build more. Will you join us?”

  All three C.O.s answered in the affirmative. Drake proposed a toast, and everyone drank to celebrate the end of a nightmare and the beginning of a new era.

  This ends Rumors of Salvation and the System States Rebellion series.

  Final Author’s Comments:

  When I started writing Rumors of Glory, I had no idea that the System States Rebellion would turn out to be so vast in scale and so complicated in scope. I also didn’t know how it would end. As with my Synchronicity War series, the story takes me where it seems to want to go. If you’re wondering if there’s more to come in this ‘Rumors’ univers
e, the answer is I don’t know. The Rebellion is over and this seems to be a good point to end the ‘Rumors’ Series. I have deliberately left a few loose ends such as what happened to Majestic’s new secret base? What will happen to those colonists who elected to stay behind on Excalibur? Which group of colonists will eventually dominate the planet of Midgard and what does that mean for the recovery of what used to be the Federation? All very good questions which I may answer some day. If I do attempt to answer those questions, I will probably follow H. Beam Piper’s lead where Space Viking, the sequel to Cosmic Computer, takes place 500 years later but I might feel differently in the future.

  As with all my books, I encourage those of you who liked RoS, to take the time to post a review. Not only do I like getting constructive feedback but having lots of reviews really does help maintain the book’s visibility and that helps sales. If you are able to read RoS and post a review within the first 48 hours of its publication, please email me (via my website, www.dwehrsfwriter.com, if you don’t know my email address) and include the username you used for your post. I’m going to keep track of who does that and I’ll find some way to show my appreciation.

  If you haven’t already joined my mailing list, you can do that by clicking here. The mailing list service I use (MailChimp) will send a confirmation email and a welcome email. I’ll keep you posted on announcements and writing progress but you won’t be swamped with emails. (I promise).

  I’m sure that some of you are wondering about my next writing project. At the time of this writing (Dec 5th), I’m still debating what that will be. I think I’ll take a few weeks off from writing and enjoy the holidays while I decide what to write about next. When I’ve made that decision, I’ll let everyone on the mailing list know what’s ahead.

  Long Live Space Opera!

  D.A.W.