by D. J. Holmes
“You fool,” D shouted, “You have brought them down on us.”
Angela didn’t have the patience to argue with the young man. He was welcome to think that if he wished. It wouldn’t change either of their situations. She had planned on warning him about the Indian frigate, but now there was no point. Without bothering to reply, she cut the COM channel. It was every ship for themselves. When her COM unit beeped again she ignored it. Instead Angela focused on her breathing. With her ship charging as fast as it could to safety, there was nothing else she could do but wait. Allowing panic to overtake her would accomplish nothing. To focus her mind, she stared at the Indian frigate. As Dalliance moved further and further away from the mining freighter, it would have to decide which ship to pursue. Relief flooded her when it became clear the mining freighter was its target. With her head start, and the detour the frigate was taking, she was going to get away. Her mind quickly turned to what to do next. She couldn’t stay in the Indian colonies. Her ship’s sensor profile would be shared with all the Indian customs officials. It would probably be shared even further. She would have to go back to Quebec. Her contact there would hook her up with an engineer who could make enough changes to Dalliance to alter her profile. It’ll probably cost a good chunk of my platinum, but there’s no choice now.
An abrupt change on the sensor display made Angela swear. The mining freighter was cutting its engines! What is going o… Angela swore again when it hit her. The Indian frigate had demanded the mining freighter surrender and they had complied! They’ve probably dumped the weapons overboard. They’ll play the innocent victim. Heck, they’ll probably claim I was a pirate trying to raid them. Angela wanted to scream in frustration. Being hunted as a smuggler was one thing, being classed as a pirate was something else entirely. Dalliance’s sensor profile would be shared through the entire Human Sphere. Military and Customs ships would open fire on her without warning.
Thoughts of her future were suddenly cut off when the Indian frigate changed course. It was turning after her. Seconds later a shuttle emerged from the frigate and headed towards the mining freighter. Angela’s fingers danced across her command console as she carried out some calculations. She didn’t know the maximum missile range of the frigate for sure, but she had a fair idea. “Damn,” she swore as she punched her command console. Dalliance wasn’t going to make it to the mass shadow before the frigate opened fire. They’ll only get one shot, but they’ll make it count. “What are we to do girl?” she asked the only constant in her life, “Do you think we can make it?” The ship didn’t reply, but Angela didn’t see that she had any other choice. She had paid a lot of money for the small freighter’s upgrades. She had a couple of point defense lasers, and powerful maneuvering thrusters. It was enough to give her a chance against another smuggler that might try to get cute with her. But a military grade missile? Angela didn’t know, but she feared she was about to find out.
Thirty-five minutes later a new contact emerged from the frigate. “They didn’t even send us a warning,” Angela complained. “Not that it matters.” She wasn’t going to surrender. Not when they likely thought her a pirate. “Ok.” She rehearsed in her mind how she wanted things to go. She had practiced for such a scenario, but it was very different when it was actually before her.
As calmly as she could, she watched the missile approach her ship. As soon as she could, she opened up with her two point defense lasers. Her heart beat faster and faster as beam after beam zipped past the missile. Its ECM and evasive maneuvers were too much for her. Failing to control her anger and her fear, Angela smashed the laser’s firing controls and grabbed the flight stick. The missile was just twenty seconds away. Throwing the freighter into a corkscrew, she tried to get it to lose lock. At the same time the freighter released two decoys. Almost as if it was laughing at her, the missile flew directly between the two decoys and perfectly matched her corkscrew. Coldness settled onto Angela’s heart. She had been a fool. Thinking a civilian frigate could outsmart a military grade missile was worse than stupid.
With just ten seconds left Angela jumped from her command chair. She took three quick strides to the cockpit’s emergency escape pod. As soon as her bum hit its seat, she hit the eject button. It had taken her just five seconds to get there. It took another second for the pod to initiate, and then it was shooting away from Dalliance. Time seemed to slow down. Through the viewport she watched as her ship shrunk. The Indian missile was already in view. It was only seconds away from hitting its target. She knew the explosion would hit her escape pod too. Shutting her eyes, Angela braced herself for the explosion. Her last thoughts were of her father. She had forced him to buy her the freighter. She had insisted she wanted to make her own way in life rather than join his businesses. It would break his heart when he heard of what was about to happen to her. He would blame himself. Though her eyes were still tightly shut, a tear ran down her cheek. Then the escape pod’s proximity alarm blared and Angela gulped down her last breath as every muscle in her body clenched.
She was thrown around in her chair. Her restraints tightened to the point where she could barely breath. Several clashes echoed around her as bits of something – her freighter no doubt, hit the pod. Then there was silence. If it wasn’t for the force of the restraints on her chest, Angela would have thought she was dead. Instead, her lungs were screaming for air. Reaching up to her chest, she undid the restraints. As they fell away she gasped as she gulped in oxygen. I’m alive, she thought in amazement as she enjoyed the feeling of her lungs filling. I’m alive!
Only then did she open her eyes. They widened far more than she had intended when she saw the viewport. Thousands of cracks spread out from a single point. Something had smashed into it. A piece of Dalliance, Angela thought. She could see no sign of her freighter. It had been blown to bits and debris had hit the escape pod. As the implications crossed her mind, she became aware of the blare of warning alarms.
Reaching out for the small control terminal, Angela brought up the pod’s systems status. Her elation at being alive faltered. The pod was damaged, badly. Its thrusters and COMs were down. Its oxygen supply had also been compromised. She had just four hours left, and no way of contacting anyone for help. Even if the Indian frigate came to investigate the debris of Dalliance, by the time it caught up to what was left of her freighter, the escape pod would be long gone. Its momentum was still taking it towards the edge of the New Delhi system.
Angela swore and kicked and bashed anything that was within reach. She was going to die in the middle of nowhere. Alone and with her oxygen supply dwindling, she would slowly suffocate. Her only company would be the regrets and recriminations she already sensed bubbling up in her mind. Worst of all, she was going to die for nothing more than a few bars of platinum. For months she had been full of anger. At the UN, at the new Empire and most of all at her father. Her older sister had signed onto the Canadian navy at her father’s encouragement. He had wanted her to have some naval experience before joining the family business. She had fought and died trying to protect Earth from the Karacknids. Angela had blamed everyone and anyone for her sister’s death. Now, as her own death stared her in the face, she was jealous. Her sister had died doing what she believed in. The letter she had sent Angela days before the battle had made that much clear. Angela was going to die for nothing. Her life had been a waste. With a sob, Angela reached for the plasma pistol she still had holstered to her hip. She pulled it out and turned it towards her head. With trembling fingers she tried to make herself pull the trigger. With a curse she let her arms drop to her side. She couldn’t do it! It would be far better than suffocating, and yet she couldn’t do it. “You’re such a wuss,” she shouted. She lifted the pistol and pointed it at the smashed viewport. Again her arm and hand trembled. Again she let the pistol drop to her side. She was too afraid.
Tears streaming down her face, Angela began to cry. Thoughts of her mother, father and sister kept them flowing. For more than two hours she replayed me
mories from her childhood over and over again as she couldn’t help but think through everything she was going to lose. Her thoughts became so fragmented that she thought she was beginning to suffer from oxygen deprivation.
She was so sure that was what was happening, that she ignored the sudden jolt. Then, when the view of the stars out the cracked viewscreen stopped rotating, she dismissed it as a wishful delusion. When the hatch to the escape pod opened, she couldn’t dismiss the light that flooded in. Raising her hands to shield her eyes, she desperately tried to see what was happening. Hope and fear filled her. She wasn’t going to suffocate! But it was very possible she was about to be arrested and executed for piracy.
“Don’t move,” a stern voice ordered from outside the escape pod. “Do you have any weapons?”
“A pistol,” Angela managed to croak. “It’s on the floor.”
“Alright, unbuckle yourself and come out with your hands up,” the voice ordered in a tone that didn’t give Angela any room to protest.
Doing as she was told, Angela slowly walked out of the pod, she was immediately greeted by the most orderly looking cargo hold she had ever seen. It could only be the hold of a military vessel. “Where am I?” she asked as she looked at the man who had been speaking to her. He was wearing some kind of combat armor and had a plasma rifle pointed at her chest. She expected to see a pair of handcuffs moving towards her at any moment.
“You are on board IS Ferret,” the man replied. “I am Sergeant Brady, Imperial Marines. Welcome to the Empire.”
“The Empire?” Angela spluttered in surprise. That was the last thing she had expected. She had thought the marine was an Indian customs’ enforcer. “What are you doing out here?”
“We’ve been watching the New Delhi system for a couple of weeks. We were sent here when rumors of trouble started to filter into the Sol system. That’s all I know. You’ll have to talk to the Captain if you want to find out more. She is waiting to speak with you in her office.”
“You’re not going to arrest me?” Angela asked, almost as shocked by that as the fact she had been rescued by an Empire ship.
“Not yet,” the marine sergeant chuckled. “You’ve had some dealings with the locals. We watched your little showdown with that Indian missile. I suspect the Captain will find your intel valuable. Though I’m sure if you want we can take you into custody after she’s done with you.”
Angela didn’t react to his jibe; she was looking around the ship’s cargo hold with a fresh set of eyes. She was alive. She wasn’t going to be executed. She had her whole life ahead of her. A thousand possibilities filled her mind. They all focused on her parents and sister. She didn’t want to let them down again.
Chapter 1
Even in victory loss is inevitable. A naval commander must never succumb to the trauma of war, yet neither can they harden themselves to it. Danger lies in either extreme.
Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
IS Argyll, unnamed system, 13th May 2482 AD (two days after Admiral Gutpa’s death in the Jaranna system).
Admiral Lightfoot stood gazing out the viewport towards the shift passage his flagship had just emerged from. Images of the battle two days ago were still fresh in his mind. Trapped between a Karacknid fleet and a heavily defended convoy, Admiral Gupta had led a small force to their deaths to buy time for him to lead the rest of the fleet to safety. Massively outnumbered, thousands of missiles had enveloped Gupta’s squadron. Somehow, miraculously, Earth, Admiral Gupta’s flagship, had survived the maelstrom. But the Human warship did not survive the second salvo the Karacknids threw at her. Alone, she had stood no chance. Hundreds of antimatter missiles had wiped her out of existence. But then Gupta’s real attack had materialized. Every fighter in Gupta’s fleet had used the diversion to close with the Karacknid ships. Their attack had cut down most of the Karacknid capital ships. The sacrifice of Earth and the fighters had allowed the rest of the fleet to engage the Karacknid supply convoy and flee. They had hurt the Karacknids; but the price for such an opportunity had been high. Too high, Lightfoot thought as he tightened his hands into fists.
Yes, his ships had wreaked havoc among the large Karacknid supply convoy and escaped the Karacknid fleet that had come to chase them out of Jaranna. Nevertheless, they had paid a heavy price in both ships and personnel. Gupta and Commodore Flew had been great naval commanders. We don’t have many of those left, and the war is far from over, Lightfoot couldn’t help but think. As he stared out the viewscreen, other thoughts assaulted him. His fleet was alone, behind enemy lines and hundreds of light years from any Allied force. They had used up all their missile pods and the fleet’s fighters had sacrificed themselves to allow the escape from Jaranna. The negative feelings he had struggled with over the last couple of days threatened to rise again. With an effort he fought them down. Yes, they were in dire straits, but he couldn’t let anyone else see that. You have a fleet to lead, he chastised himself as he turned back to the officers gathered in Argyll’s main briefing room. The hushed discussions immediately stopped. Everyone looked to Lightfoot. He was sure they all had the same kinds of thoughts he had going through their minds. He couldn’t help that. But he could try and show them everything was not yet lost.
Taking a deep breath, he began. “We are safe, at least for now.” No enemy ships had been detected in the system they had fled to. It had been part of the Mindus civilization, but even they hadn’t named it. The system consisted solely of a red dwarf star. There was nothing else of note. “Now, we must figure out how we’re going to get home. We cannot return to Jaranna. It will be swarming with Karacknid ships. I have no doubt what ships survived Admiral Gupta’s attack will be hard on our tails. My staff have been reviewing the local star maps. As far as we can see, we have two options. Commander Houston,” Lightfoot said as he nodded to his Chief of Staff.
Houston jumped to her feet and powered up the room’s holo projector. “We are here,” she began as a system in the center of the projected star map flashed. “Here is the extent of Karacknid territory. They have incorporated all of the former Mindus civilization and have pushed their borders out by two or three systems from there. With returning to Jaranna being an impossibility, we cannot return to Earth via the Holstein colony. Nor can we attempt to reach Alliance space, there are far too many Karacknid battle fleets in the way. We need to find another route. We believe there are two options, with some variation in each possible.” Two snaking paths appeared in orange and blue. One led from the system they were in towards the outer edge of the former Mindus civilization’s territory. It skirted the border of the Karacknid Empire until eventually turning towards Human space and the Chinese colony of Xiachuan. The other turned towards the borders of the Karacknid Empire prior to the invasion of the Mindus civilization. It actually proceeded into the Karacknid Empire’s core worlds for several systems before turning back on itself and working its way back towards Human Space. It ended at the Chinese colony of Damang. “Each route has its advantages and disadvantages,” Houston continued. “Route one is shorter, it would likely take us about three months to return to Human space. But there is a potential problem.” One system along the path began to flash. “We believe this is the system from which the Karacknids launched their invasion into our territory. We avoided it on our way to Jaranna. But if we take route one, we will have to pass through this system. It’s possible there is a sizeable Karacknid garrison still stationed there. With our numbers depleted we might take heavy losses if we had to engage it. Route two may pass through systems the Karacknids have not thought would come under attack. They may be lightly defended, if the Karacknids have warships stationed in them at all.”
“We have no way of knowing that,” Captain Gar’am said in a tone that suggested he was not happy even discussing such an idea. He was the senior surviving Captain among the Varanni warships. “The scouts we sent out a year ago barely managed to penetrate several systems into Karacknid territory. This route would take us deeper tha
n that. We have no idea what we might find or come up against. To venture into the unknown would be a grave risk, perhaps a fatal one.”
“We also have to remember that we are Earth’s only line of defense,” Captain Nolan of the heavy cruiser Prometheus added. “We all saw how many ships the Karacknids were able to get to Jaranna within days of our attack. If they have more ships nearby, they could redirect them towards Earth. We need to get home as soon as we can.”
“What about our mission?” Captain Scott asked. “Varanni Prime and Cria must still be under threat. We have hit the Karacknids hard, but how can we know if we have done enough? If we take the longer route, we may encounter another Karacknid supply convoy. Or another supply hub that we could raid.”
“Or we could walk into another ambush and get ourselves killed,” Nolan countered. “I know the risk we all face if the Karacknid invasion of Alliance space is not thwarted. But we cannot throw our lives away. We have done what we came to do. Now we are needed at home.”
“We cannot forget about the Karacknid ships that Gupta fought,” Scott replied, the emotion in her voice unmistakable. She had been close to Gupta. “Yes, many of their dreadnoughts were taken out. But their smaller screening ships survived the battle unscathed. They’re likely no more than hours behind us. If we take the shortest route home, just as they will expect, they could follow us and wait until we engage this garrison. Then we’d be caught in a pincer attack.”