Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) (27 page)

“Understood.
Do it! I’m executing missile launch now, Guns!” said Drake as he touched the
‘execute’ button. “Lor, we’ve launched our birds and Europa is heading for the
colony. We’re committed now. We just have to hope we can pull this off.” He
paused and then said, “let’s keep this channel open no matter what happens.”

“Oh
God, yes,” said Lorelei in a relieved voice. As it turned out, the two of them
said very little during the next twenty minutes, but it was comforting to know
that the channel was open. Drake chastised himself for cutting off
communications the first time. At least the enemy ships were maintaining their direct
approach, which meant that the calculated interception point the missiles had
been programmed with was still viable. The missiles themselves were tracking
their targets with their own internal Ether detection systems, but a radical
course change might still prevent interception if the missiles ran out of power
before getting into optimal firing range. He decided not to fire Europa’s
superluminal lasers at Leviathan during the dash to the colony, because a hit
by the less powerful photon lasers might cause Majestic to make a radical
course change. Better to hold his fire until the more powerful x-ray
laser-armed missiles were close enough for accurate shots.

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’ universe, 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 5
^th
), 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.