Scout Ship: Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Novel 01 Read online

  Katy blushed, “I figured if it was needed, they’d be right behind us captain, so I stuck to bullet points of their speed capability, weapons range, how often they fired, and what we did to counter it and survive, varying accelerations and spinning the ship. Then I listed all our weapon deficiencies in bullet points, the rear being their most vulnerable location on the ship, and at the end I added the bomb pumped x-ray laser missile suggestion. Below that, I added unproven speculation bullet points, about gravity sensors, and other unproven guesses. I didn’t bother with any of the supporting data or how we drew those conclusions, they were appended on a separate report.”

  The burn cut off and we flipped, then cut back on. We were now decelerating so we’d come to a rest a few thousand miles past the central cruiser. I worried, we only escaped because we were running from them. Yes, they’d had forty-five gravities, but they’d started from a dead stop after the transition, and we’d already been moving fast enough that our five gravity burn gave us the time we needed.

  This battle would be fought from a dead stop, relatively speaking, and I worried how easily they’d be able to move into our lines and dance around our formations. If they didn’t just sit there and slug it out like the admiral was obviously hoping for, we’d be in danger of hitting each other with only a light second separation between us all. Of course, maybe the admiral was right, if they did try to come in among us, one of us would have a shot at their backside.

  The captain replied, “Good job Katy.”

  Katy blushed again, and I thought I understood. She’d always been great at her job, but her tendency to skirt regulations as much as she did probably meant she wasn’t praised that often.

  Katy’s frowned, “Captain, they’re already here, less than two minutes. All ships are firing, including missiles.”

  John reported, “Thirty seconds before we’re behind the line captain. Should I speed it up?”

  The captain ordered, “No, we don’t want to stop, start a variable burn between three and five gravities, and then flip ship in ten seconds and continue.”

  The ship began to jump, jerk, and shake us. It wasn’t any more pleasant than the first time.

  She added, “Cindy, as soon as we flip over fire all four plasma arrays, try to concentrate them all in one spot.

  Cindy replied, “Aye maam, firing all four on opportunity.”

  Katy said, “Eight minutes and thirty seconds for the first four missiles, maam.”

  The twelve ships, including ours, opened up on the enemy with everything we had. That was ninety-two phased plasma arrays firing beams at the mile-long alien ship hitting the front of it and the sides. Their glowing hull grew brighter for moment as it absorbed the attack.

  Katy said, “Minimal damage captain, we’ve scorched the paint.”

  An almost equal amount of missiles, four less since we didn’t fire any, were destroyed by the gravity shielding and had no impact at all as we expected. I felt immediately guilty, as the surge of relief hit me when the alien ship decided to take out the most powerful enemy first. Not that it would save us if we couldn’t kill the ship.

  Katy reported, “Captain, one of the battle ships has taken major damage, as well as what looks like secondary explosions. I don’t know if it’s our lesser speed, or if they’ve compensated somehow with their targeting, but they were able to target the center of the ship. Maam, the admiral’s ship is drifting.”

  We all fired again, this time only eighty plasma beams, the alien ship’s shield brightened again to absorb it, but then there was an explosion. When it all cleared, there was a large hole in the ship. Relatively large anyway, a twenty-foot hole was small in comparison to its mile length.

  The captain barked, “Analysis.”

  Katy replied, “There was a lot of fire power focused on that one section, three in the same spot, and a fourth a few milliseconds later. It didn’t seem to affect the rest of their shield, but it poked a small hole in it in that area, perhaps their shields can only drain off and distribute so much energy at once,” she added, “The second battleship has taken damage, but only glancing. They lost two of their twelve Ion engines.”

  The captain asked, “Can we do that with our four arrays?”

  Cindy shook her head, “No captain, only a battleship or cruiser. Ours aren’t strong enough, but I’ll make sure our missiles attack in that pattern, they should be a little stronger than the battleship arrays.”

  “Katy, send that information to the task force, I’m sure some of them have figured it out, but no one’s taken command yet after…” she trailed off as the second battleship exploded into dust particles on screen.

  I was rather speechless myself.

  Katy said, “Done, that was a fusion explosion maam, they must have hit the core.”

  The captain asked, “What’s going on with that special weapon, have they even fired it yet?”

  Cindy replied, “Maybe it has a long charging cycle, the thing is a monster.”

  Katy said, “Seven minutes for missile completion. I hope that it works, the alien ship moves too fast and is keeping us from surrounding him or getting behind him.”

  It was a little ironic that the powerful alien ship was the one that kept backing up. I also wondered why just one? We’d seen a lot more than that in their solar system, so why just send one? Maybe this was a test of some kind, of our capabilities? To see how big a threat we were? Did their FTL communications work between stars, and was their world leadership watching as this unfolded, or was it just some kind of gravity pulse they could send out in a local system. If we did manage to destroy it, would another one just pop in?

  The next few minutes went by as we exchanged fire with the enemy, more holes and explosions were seen along the alien ship, but there didn’t seem to be anything all that vital up front. It was great that we could pierce their shielding, even just one ship could if it was a cruiser, but the enemy still held the upper hand. Our only shot was if the missile idea worked, and if it did, getting enough made for fleet.

  Of course, if it did work, and their world was watching, they’d defend against the attack next time, truly I counted on them ignoring the missiles at this point, even if they did go for the rear of their ship.

  I also felt ashamed, because I was clearly happy about being in this scout vessel and far down on the threat level. Strangely enough our most powerful and usually securest ship just became the most dangerous to serve on. I was willing to die for my beliefs, but if there was a choice, I’d rather not die, the enemy should do that instead. Both battleships were down, although the admiral’s ship wasn’t destroyed, only drifting and without a control room. I imagine there were hundreds of crew on there, still alive but running out of atmosphere, they’d be rescued of course, if we won.

  Two of the cruisers were out of the fight, which left five more and the three untouched scouts. Okay, in this battle, we were still heavily damaged from our first fight.

  Katy said, “Two minutes for missiles.”

  The screen turned white for a second.

  Captain said, “Report!”

  Katy said, “That was the experimental weapon. I’m not sure what it just fired, but it cut through the enemy’s shields like they weren’t there, our sensors are picking up several flash fires in the fifty-foot-wide hole cut deep into the ship as it decompresses. The ship is still operational.”

  That last was rather obvious, as the ship that fired was immediately attacked. Though the damage was minimal, the acceleration differences seemed to be working, maybe the battleships were just too massive for the acceleration to throw off the enemy’s attacks by enough. The two cruisers they’d manage to remove from the fight had taken six hits first, and of the five left they’d evaded a lot of attacks as far as I could tell, and had taken minor damage.

  It seemed clear that cruisers filled with those missiles, if they worked, would be the fighters in the upcoming war, the battleships just wouldn’t be able to do much, outside of a volley or two.
I supposed I was assuming there would be war, but if this wasn’t a test to determine how strong we were, and the best way to kill us, I’d eat my ship suit.

  The captain snorted, “So an awesome weapon, if they have six minutes to charge it up?”

  Cindy sighed, “Yes, which makes it rather worthless.”

  The last two minutes was rather painful, and although not fully destroyed they’d managed to remove two more cruisers from the threat board, leaving just three left, plus the three scouts.

  Kate said, “The chief said the new missiles are loaded up and ready to go.”

  The captain said, “Fire.”

  Cindy hit the button. I think we all held our breath, I know I did, as the four missiles were ejected and then started a two hundred G burn on an elliptical course around the alien ship.

  As I’d hoped, the missiles were completely ignored as one of the cruisers managed to just dodge another gravity attack. When the missiles made it around to the other side, they flipped aligning themselves, and then exploded. Three at once, and then a millisecond later the fourth.

  To my eyes of course, it looked simultaneous as the four bomb-pumped x-ray laser missiles exploded, and attacked the rear of the ship, which we couldn’t see. I expected to see a very large explosion, as the enemy core was breached.

  Nothing happened, at all.

  Captain frowned, “Report! What went wrong?”

  Cindy said, “Not sure captain, that should have worked. Maybe they have a shield directly around the core? No, that still would have destroyed their engineering…” her voice trailed off. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why, still no explosion but...

  The ship was slowly collapsing in on itself.

  John said, “Maam, we’re being pulled toward the alien ship!”

  It was the first time I’d seen him really spooked.

  The captain said, “Eight gravities, now, maximum acceleration away from that thing.”

  The other two scouts, and three remaining cruisers followed suit, but we watched in horror as the enemy ship seemed to fold and crush in on itself, and the four dead in space cruisers and the battleship were being pulled towards it. We were too, and so were the rest of the ships accelerating at full, but much more slowly.

  The captain said, “Theories?”

  I hit the button, which was ridiculously hard at eight gravities.

  “Maam, I think I know why their core needed only small amounts of hydrogen at a time and had no feeds, they don’t use fusion, or fission, it’s a micro-singularity power core. I’d say they only need to release a tiny stream of single hydrogen atoms to keep it active and generating great amounts of power. I’d also say we blew their containment, and the singularity is eating their ship and wants us too.”

  It also explained why the ship didn’t explode, and the delay before we could see what was happening.

  The captain grunted, “Where did you come up with that?”

  “My mother is a theoretical scientist and wanted me to be one, and it’s the only thing that fits what’s happening to us right now. Our best chance is if the singularity runs out of mass to eat before we’re close enough to eat, it will grow fast, but once it runs out of matter to absorb it will just cease to exist.”

  Katy said, “Based on how fast the ship is going, it’s possible it won’t eat our other ships either.”

  I hoped that was true, there had to be thousands of living people on the five disabled ships falling toward the shrinking enemy ship. We had a weapon now if we needed it. Although, if the enemy was watching us the real trick would be to see how they counter it in the next confrontation.

  I let out a breath of relief and closed my eyes, when the alien ship winked out of existence, and the ship shot forward as the singularity collapsed, the four disabled ships were safe as well…

  Chapter Twelve

  It was a close thing, but thanks to their diverse vectors of drift, and some being farther away than others, the four drifting ships didn’t smash together where the singularity had been.

  The captain said, “Stand down the auxiliary room, I want the four of you to get six hours’ sleep, and then relieve us. We’re all tired after the last few hours. Don’t worry about SAR operations, I’ll handle it.”

  We wouldn’t be much help with only two attack shuttles that could hold eight, but it would still make a difference. Assuming of course they were even intact, I knew our landing bay had been hit while running for our lives in 61-virginis. We might not even be able to help with SAR operations. Although, it might be possible to dock directly with another dead ship, and just have the crew walk right on ours. I unstrapped and stood up, my magnetic boots held me to the floor. After all the shaking the last eight minutes, and that last eight G burn, it felt pretty good to be weightless.

  We’d won, at a very high cost, but with the missiles I hoped it would be a bit more equal next time around.

  Katy said, “Two of the cruisers don’t need help captain, they’ll have enough systems restored in four hours to get home to a repair platform on their own. The other two and the battleship are a lost cause and will probably be scrapped.”

  I didn’t catch the captain’s response, as I walked out of auxiliary control and straight to my quarters. It was a relief to be alive, and I ignored the relieved smiles and banter of the ensigns behind me. It was normal at times like these, and the regulation for properly purporting themselves before an officer could be overlooked. Despite the twisty course past the damage sections it didn’t take long to reach my quarters, and my abused and adrenaline fueled body crashed moments after my head hit the pillow…

  I woke up to some soothing Jazz.

  Amy said, “You’re due on the bridge shortly.”

  I groaned and my body felt stiff, six hours hadn’t been nearly enough sleep, but I rolled out of bed and got into the shower. The captain and senior bridge team hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. I wouldn’t take too much time or dally, but I needed to at least get a fast shower and grab a snack. Two minutes later I was drying off, and pulling on a fresh ship suit and my boots.

  At least there was gravity. Wait, why was there gravity? I didn’t even remember hearing the gravity alarm, had I slept through it?

  “Status?”

  Columbus answered, “Subspace, in route to Sol system, E.T.A. in two hours.”

  I grunted and left for the mess hall. When I walked in, the ensigns were already eating.

  “Cassie, don’t you ever sleep?”

  She laughed, “Of course commander, I slept just last month, or was it the month before?”

  I grabbed the plate of food, which was rice and beef, with some soy based sauce? It looked good.

  “Thanks Cassie. Short on time today.”

  I sat down and shoveled down my food. I started to feel a bit more human and alive after the shower, and now fuel. I finished up and then grabbed a coffee on my way out, the ensigns right behind me.

  “You’ve all done really well under the pressure of the last few days, I’m going to recommend commendation letters for you all.”

  Carly said, “Just doing our best sir.”

  Ally said, “Thank you, sir.

  I nodded, “And you’ve always been good at your jobs, but that has very little to do with showing fortitude and courage under fire. The former has very little to do with the latter, and both are required in our line of work.”

  Jerry said, “Thank you sir, just wish I didn’t feel useless, our countermeasures and point defense is worse than worthless.”

  I shook my head, “Eventually we’ll figure out how they do what they do, and countermeasures for it. Plus, we still have human enemies out there, your job is still critical, even now. Perhaps more so, if we end up in a war I don’t doubt the pirates and other idiots won’t try and take advantage of the situation.”

  We entered the bridge and I walked over to the captain.

  “I relieve you maam, go get some sleep.”

  She smiled, “Michael,
I stand relieved. The SAR operation took five hours, obviously no other alien ships showed up. We’re on our way to Mars to get the ship refit, and of course, for the debriefing and reminders about top secret information. Take us in at one G when we get there, that should take about a week from our exit point.”

  Cindy said as she left the bridge, “Six days, thirteen hours, and five minutes, good night.”

  At least I could handle the piloting. Everything capable of harming the ship, and getting past the deflectors had been charted and identified long ago in the Sol system. Chances were almost certain that the course navigated would be perfect and without obstruction, I’d just have to hit a button and keep an eye on it. Still, I was sure after a rest I’d get my pilot back on the next shift, and the captain would handle hers, per regulations.

  I watched the captain and the others leave the bridge, they all looked exhausted and like they were hanging on by a thread. I wasn’t looking forward to the debriefing on Mars, or the veiled threats about leaking top secret information. Very few people outside of those on this ship, and the admiralty, probably had any idea we had the location of an alien ship derelict to capture and reverse engineer.

  It was a rather daunting proposition, singularity reactors, energy shields which may or may not be dependent on an alloy we didn’t recognize, gravity weapons, artificial gravity aboard ship, inertial dampening, gravity or impulse propulsion, FTL communications, subspace scanning of some kind, faster subspace travel through better navigation and understanding, gravity based normal space sensor scans, and that list of things was just what we knew we didn’t know. Who knows what other advances are within the ship waiting for us to find and reverse engineer.

  I forgot, there might even be an armory with a hand-held gravity gun in it.

  Daunting was an understatement, it would take years, if not decades or centuries depending on the road blocks. We’d have to depend on explosively pumped x-ray laser missiles until then, and I very much doubted the aliens weren’t currently analyzing our final attack in the battle, and devising a solution of some kind. My gut told me that’s why there hadn’t been a second ship in five hours, when they could have gotten one there in under ten minutes.