A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2) (30 page)

For five minutes Becket trotted along beside Johnston as their team followed the winding path through the palace that had been uploaded into their combat armor’s computer. She came to a sudden halt along with everyone else when the marine who was on point signaled that there was movement up ahead.

Johnston shuffled forward to join the marine. When he peeked around the end of the corridor he immediately ducked back as the wall exploded from a laser hit.

“Becket, contact Lieutenant Jeffers, let him know we have encountered more defenders and to be on the lookout,” Johnston ordered. “Sergeant Jones, take your squad and double back, see if you can flank the Vestarians up ahead. Let me know when you are in position.”

“Yes Sir,” Sergeant Jones said before moving off.

To keep the defenders’ attention on him, Johnston poked his plasma rifle around the corner and fired off a couple of quick shots before lobbing a grenade at them.

Two minutes later, after a few more grenades had been thrown, Becket could tell everyone was getting nervous that Sergeant Jones hadn’t reported in yet as many of the marines were fidgeting with their guns.

“We’re in position,” Jones said, breaking the tension. “We encountered another Vestarian patrol, I think they were trying to flank you. We took them out.”

“Good work,” Johnston said. “Take them when you are ready.”

“We’re moving in,” Jones said.

From down the corridor Becket heard the sound of high explosive grenades going off. Johnston seemed to wait a long time before he led his men around the corner but as usual Becket saw he had timed it perfectly to catch the defenders in a cross fire while their attention was focused on Sergeant Jones’ flanking maneuver. 

The firepower from both groups overwhelmed the defenders and they were forced to retreat. Johnston and Jones led their marines in pursuit and for the next five minutes a long firefight developed as the defenders fled towards the throne room. One marine took a laser to the leg but the shot must have been fired from beyond the laser’s effective range for his armor managed to deflect most of the energy. Another wasn’t so lucky and as Becket tended to him she saw that the laser had melted a hole through his armor and burnt off a lot of flesh.

“You’ll be alright,” she said to him after she upped the pain medication his armor was injecting into his system. As she stood she looked around the open expanse they had fought their way into.
There
, she thought as she saw a corner with a number of Vestarian chairs arranged around it.

“Let me help you to your feet,” she said as she hefted the marine. “We’ll have to leave you here behind some cover. Don’t worry we’ll be back for you once we get the Overlord.”

“Don’t worry about me Lieutenant,” the marine said, “I can take care of myself. Just make sure you complete the mission.”

“I will,” she called to him as she laid him down behind a chair out of sight. With only a quick look back to make sure he wasn’t visible from the center of the open area she jogged off to catch up with the rest of the marines.

“I think I got the last of them,” Jones said when Becket caught up to the front line, “it looks clear ahead.”

“Move out slowly,” Johnston cautioned.

As they moved up they didn’t encounter any more resistance. “The throne room should be down the next corridor,” Johnston said.

“It looks like Lieutenant Jeffers and Tak’ar have beaten us here,” Reynolds said from her position on point. Becket understood what she meant as she rounded the corner with Johnston. There were several dead Vestarian guards along with one of Tak’ar’s resistance fighters and a dead marine.

“It’s Blackfoot,” Reynolds said as she rolled over the dead marine.

“Keep going,” Johnston said gruffly, not wanting to let Reynold’s sorrow penetrate his focus. Ahead it looked like one of the doors to the throne room had been blown open with a shaped charge and the sound of plasma rifle fire could be heard from within.

In a matter of seconds, they were through the door and in the throne room. If Becket had time she would have been even more impressed with the throne room than the outside of the palace. She barely noticed the decorations and carvings though for the room was strewn with dead Vestarians and in the distance she could see the Overlord hiding behind his giant throne. His head was poking out though and he was calling orders to the guards who were standing around him firing volleys of laser beams at their attackers. Lieutenant Jeffer’s marines and Tak’ar’s Vestarians were weaving their way between the abandoned rows of seats the Overlord’s attendants used when he was holding an audience.

“Covering fire,” Johnston ordered as he took cover behind one of the back rows of seats and fired into the defenders. The marines got in position and fired a wave of plasma bolts which killed the remaining guards or forced them to take cover. The respite allowed Lieutenant Jeffers and Tak’ar to lead their team in an open charge towards what was left of the defenders.

In a matter of seconds it was over and both Tak’ar and Jeffers were on the central platform aiming their weapons at the Overlord. With the fighting over Johnston stood up and advanced. Becket joined him and together they made their way down the throne room.

“What are they doing?” Becket asked as Tak’ar and his men surrounded the Overlord.

“I’m not sure,” Johnston said as he broke into a jog.

When they got close enough their suits were able to pick up what Tak’ar was saying. “In light of the crimes against our people, the embezzlement of billions of credits, the limiting of free speech, the illegal imprisonment of thousands of peaceful protestors, the execution of hundreds of freedom fighters and the reign of terror and fear you have put our entire planet through I sentence you to death by hanging.”

“No,” Becket shouted as she saw the resistance fighters throw a long rope over one of the beams above the Overlord’s throne. “You can’t let him do this,” she pleaded to Johnston.

With a final burst of speed Johnston was beside the Overlord holding up his hand to Tak’ar. “No Tak’ar, you don’t want to do this. This isn’t how you want to begin this new era for your people. If you execute him without a trial, you will be just as bad as him. If that happens then he has won.”

“Stay out of this Major,” Tak’ar said, “you don’t know what he did to my parents.”

Becket took an involuntary step back at the look of rage in Tak’ar’s eyes. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the look in Johnston’s eyes not so long ago.

“I know what you are feeling,” Johnston said. “But this isn’t the solution. Trust me.”

“You know nothing,” Tak’ar spat. “Finish it,” he ordered his men.

At his command three resistance fighters pulled on the noose that was already around the Overlord’s neck and he was yanked into the air.

Before anyone could even blink Johnston had swung his rifle up and shot the rope with a plasma bolt that burnt through it, dumping the Overlord back on the ground with a grunt. Following his initiative Lieutenant Jeffers and the marines in the immediate vicinity leveled their rifles at Tak’ar and his fighters.

“I’m taking the Overlord into our custody,” Johnston said. “He is responsible for an attack on a human colony and the orbital bombardment of civilians. My people will want to see him stand trial for his crimes before he is executed.”

Tak’ar looked like he was about to lash out at Johnston but the voice of his wife broke the tension. “Stand down Tak’ar,” Mul’li’la said from the middle of the throne room. She was making her way up to the Overlord followed by more than a hundred Vestarian resistance fighters.

“We have fought side by side with the humans today. Each of us has shed blood for the freedom of our people. This is not how this day will end,” she added as she mounted the steps to the throne. When she got close enough that only Tak’ar and those around him could hear she placed her hand on his weapon and said, “I know what he did to your parents. But this will not honor their memory. They fought for freedom and justice. The Overlord will get what is coming to him. But he wronged more than just you. Our whole planet needs to see the Overlord pay for his crimes.”

Gently, she prized Tak’ar’s weapon from his hands and when he let go he turned and walked deeper into the palace. Johnston made to follow him but Mul’li’la held up two of her hands. “Let him go,” she said. “He just needs time.”

“I understand,” Johnston said. “Can I turn the Overlord over to your custody?” 

“Yes,” Mul’li’la replied. “I will ensure no harm comes to him.”

“My government will want him to stand trial on our homeworld before you carry out any sentences against him,” Johnston added.

“Don’t worry, we won’t execute him until your people and mine have had a chance to see him stand trial. He has many crimes for which he will have to pay,” Mul’li’la said. 

Johnston nodded and turned back to Lieutenant Jeffers and Becket. “Let’s get our dead and wounded gathered up. We’re done here. The Vestarians will have to figure out where to go from here. The Captain is going to want us back on board
Endeavour
ASAP. We still have to warn the Kulreans.”

Whilst tactics are always changing in space warfare as weapons technologies evolve, one thing has remained the same, the element of surprise can stack the odds in your favor.

- Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

5
th
August, 2466 AD, HMS
Endeavour
, unknown system.

James was sitting in the command chair on
Endeavour’s
bridge when the cruiser exited shift space into another unknown system. It was the twelfth they had visited since they had left Vestar a month ago. James had been pushing
Endeavour
and her crew as fast as he could to get to Kulthar ahead of the Overlord’s fleet. Despite everyone being worked flat out the mood of the ship had been somber during the flight from Vestar. The initial celebrations that
Endeavour
and her crew had been involved in after the liberation of Vestar had only served to delay the sense of loss that had hit the crew.

Agent Bell, Sergeant Harkin and three marines had been killed when the Omen Facility had self-destructed and another four marines had been killed in the Overlord’s palace. Despite the compartmental barriers between the marines and the rest of
Endeavour’s
crew it was impossible for friendships not to form and each marine’s absence was noted. In addition, James had known that Bell exhibited a larger than life personality but he hadn’t realized how much she had touched so many of the crew in her brief time on board
Endeavour
. Everyone was feeling her loss. Lieutenant Scott was also on everyone’s mind as she recovered in sickbay. The doctor had been forced to remove both her legs and one of her lungs, as well as set over thirty broken bones and replace over fifty percent of her skin with synthetics. Once they got her back to Earth she could have two replacement legs and a lung grown but that was still a distant prospect. At the moment the doctor had her heavily sedated as he continued to work on her and to keep her from the shock of losing her legs.

Alongside the sense of loss and sadness the crew had developed a steely determination. They all knew that they were going after the remnants of the fleet that had attacked Haven and which now sought to carry out the last orders of the Overlord. Everyone wanted to see the fleet destroyed so as to finish off what Bell and the marines had died to accomplish. James had been using that desire to drive everyone forward.

Now they were in the final system that led to Kulthar. As usual, James had jumped
Endeavour
out of shift space in stealth mode right on the edge of the system’s mass shadow. He didn’t have time to jump further out and slowly cruise into each system, instead he had opted for jumping out of shift space under stealth and waiting for half an hour to get an initial reading of the system. If everything looked clear, then he had ordered
Endeavour
to charge through the system under full power.

“Anything on the sensors yet?” James asked Sub Lieutenant Malik after waiting for over a minute.

“Just the usual so far, no signs of artificial electromagnetic radiation coming from any of the planets. Though the gravimetric sensors are picking up some anomalous readings. I’m running a systems diagnostic now,” Malik replied.

“Anomalous in what way?” Ferguson asked from the second command chair on the bridge. James was happy to see that Ferguson was slowly relaxing back into working with him, yet their relationship was still frosty. Things had been said that couldn’t be taken back.

“Small blips from deep within the system, it looks almost like a ship is accelerating for one or two seconds and then powering down again,” Malik answered.

“Focus our passive sensors in that direction, let’s see if there is anything out there,” James ordered.

Five minutes of silence passed as Malik ran the diagnostic on the gravimetric sensors and the computer analyzed the data from the other passive sensors.

“Diagnostic was clear Captain,” Malik said. “There is something happening out there.”

“Has the computer been able to make anything out from the passive sensors?” James asked Ferguson.

“Small traces of heat energy and other electromagnetic radiation in the delta and gamma range, they are faint but consistent with the kind of energy leakage we’ve seen from Vestarian ships before,” Ferguson answered.

“Navigation, adjust course for these anomalies, we may have found the Overlord’s fleet,” James ordered.

“Are we going to try and engage them?” Ferguson asked with obvious concern. “I thought we were just going to warn the Kulreans and head back to Earth.”

“We’re just getting closer for a better look. Let’s see what we find before we make any decisions,” James answered.

*

Two hours later there could be no doubt. They had found the Vestarian fleet, all two hundred and twelve warships. To everyone’s surprise right in the middle of the fleet were four extremely large ships. It appeared as if they were some kind of resupply ships. The fleet had split into four squadrons and each was in the process of having its ships dock with a larger ship to presumably take on supplies.

“Do we know what they are doing yet?” James asked.

Julius was the first to speak up. “I’ve been communicating with Chief Driscoll,” she said. “We’ve been looking over some of the technical specifications we managed to steal from the construction yard’s computers. They included designs for what we thought was an outdated fission reactor. Now we’re not so sure. If the Vestarian ships need fissionable materials to run their ships, it’s no wonder they need resupply. They have been traveling to Kulthar for the last six weeks. That many shift jumps would eat up a reactor’s fuel.”

“Didn’t Scott say she had detected evidence of an impressive power source on their warships at Haven?” James asked. “Something far beyond a fission reactor?”

“She did,” Julius replied. “But we have already seen a very strange mix of technologies from the Vestarians. It’s possible the advanced power unit supplies the x-ray lasers and the fission reactors the rest of the ship. Certainly, there is no way a fission reactor could power the lasers we have seen them use so they must have more than one power source.”

“The sooner we get Scott debriefed the better. There was definitely something going on in that Omen facility,” James said in frustration.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Julius agreed.

“Are we going to head to Kulthar now?” Ferguson asked. “We have more than enough evidence to convince them this fleet is about to attack their world.”

“Not yet,” James said. He had already decided what was about to happen, but he knew Ferguson wouldn’t like it. “Focus our passive sensors on the squadron closest to the Kulthar shift passage,” he ordered Sub Lieutenant Malik.

“Captain, you can’t seriously be planning an attack,” Ferguson said, guessing what James’ request meant. “There are two hundred warships out there.”

James paused to think about how he wanted to answer Ferguson. On face value it looked like suicide to face such a large force. Yet they had the advantage of surprise. James momentarily imagined what Captain Lightfoot would do if he found himself in a similar situation. James almost chuckled to himself, there was no doubt what Lightfoot would do, he would already be charging into battle. After the battle over Haven James knew that he could handle
Endeavour
, and this was to good an opportunity to pass up.
It’s time to see what you are made of
, James thought to himself.

“We’re certainly not going to take on all two hundred of them,” James said in response to Ferguson’s question, bringing a nervous chuckle from the rest of the bridge officers. “But this is an opportunity we can’t pass up. We don’t know what kind of defenses the Kulreans have. Every ship we can destroy now is one less ship they will have to fight over their homeworld. This is to good an opportunity to pass up. Navigation, plot us a course that will take us directly into the middle of that fourth squadron then bring us up to our top speed. Let’s see how good our stealth technology holds up against Vestarian technology,” James ordered before Ferguson could come up with any more arguments.

Thankfully the First Lieutenant held his tongue but as he sat back further into his command chair James could see out of the corner of his eye that Ferguson’s hands were in tight fists.
As long as he doesn’t directly challenge me
, James said to himself.

He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. In terms of sub light speed
Endeavour
was one of the fastest ships the RSN had yet built. Her valstronium armor allowed her to reach up to 0.38 the speed of light. Anything more and the electromagnetic radiation of space would boil her crew or a collision with a stray cosmic particle would tear the ship apart. 

The bridge descended into silence as everyone watched the enemy fleet getting bigger and bigger on the holo display. When they were an hour out from combat range James ordered the crew to their battlestations.

“I want our first full broadside from the starboard tubes aimed at that resupply ship,” James ordered ten minutes out. “Target the cruisers with the other broadside and the frigates with the plasma cannons. At our rate of closure we’re only going to get ten minutes to engage them before we pass out of plasma cannon range. Let’s make every shot count. Navigation as soon as we open fire begin evasive maneuvers. They are not going to be expecting us so it may take them a while to warm up their lasers but when they do I want to make it as difficult for them to get a lock on us as possible. A few hits from their lasers and we could be done for.”

After Sub Lieutenant Jennings acknowledged the order, Lieutenant Julius chimed in. “Captain, I think we should deploy the gaseous shields as soon as we come out of stealth,” she said.

“Explain,” James said, intrigued.

Gaseous shields were a holdover from the days before valstronium had been discovered. When starships had been made entirely out of nano-carbon composites they needed extra protection from cosmic particles in order to reach speeds anywhere near the speed of light. Without such protection a ship or its crew could be destroyed simply by running into a stray cosmic particle. The gaseous shields worked by venting a charged gaseous mixture into space. Electromagnetic fields projected by the ship would then form the gases into a cone in front of the ship, giving additional protection from cosmic particles.

“It was actually something Lieutenant Scott was working on before she was injured,” Julius said. “From her analysis of the battle over Haven the Vestarian lasers all use the same wavelength. She was working on altering the charge and density of our gaseous shields so that they would give us some protection from the lasers. The Chief Engineer and I have been trying to finish her work. We haven’t been able to perfect it but we believe we can reduce the power of any hits by ten to fifteen percent.”

“That’s a great idea,” James said. “Ten to fifteen percent isn’t a lot but it is far better than nothing. As soon as we come out of stealth you may power up the gaseous shields.”

With five minutes to go James walked over to the tactical station and picked out targets with Julius. They were able to backtrack their sensor data and identify ships that had already been resupplied. They would become the primary targets, for once the resupply ship was destroyed the others would have to move to one of the other three ships to take on more fuel. That would hopefully buy the Kulreans some more time to prepare their defenses.

With a minute to go James sat down in his command chair and watched the timer count down. “Fire,” he shouted when they entered range.

Eight missiles shot out of the starboard missile tubes towards the resupply ship in the middle of the enemy formation. They had delayed opening fire until they were within plasma cannon range and six green plasma bolts tore into the nearest Vestarian frigate. It exploded before its commander even knew what was happening.

Two more explosions blossomed among the Vestarian ships as two of their cruisers disappeared. Both of them had been holding station near the resupply ship and with their position so predictable James had ordered that a tungsten spear be fired at them from each of the flak cannons. Normally mass driver type weapons were largely ineffective in long range space warfare for it was all but impossible to predict where a ship would be several minutes in the future. In this case the Vestarians had removed that problem.
Endeavour’s
flak cannons had launched the spears seven minutes ago and they had silently closed in on their stationary targets.