Empire Rising Box Set Read online

  Empire Rising Box Set: Books 1-3

  The Void War

  A King’s Ship

  Return to Haven

  D. J. Holmes

  https://www.facebook.com/Author.D.J.Holmes

  [email protected]

  Comments welcome!

  Cover art by Ivo Brankovikj

  https://www.artstation.com/artist/ivobrankovikj

  [email protected]

  These is are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © D. J. Holmes 2019

  Table of Contents

  The Void War

  A King’s Ship

  Return to Haven

  The Void War – Empire Rising book 1

  Prologue

  July 11th 2456, Near Earth Orbit.

  HMS Vulcan floated in high orbit over the British Midlands. With minimal maneuvering thrusters, she wasn’t really a spaceship, yet her designers hadn’t wished to break with tradition when naming her. If anyone asked, the explanation was that S stood for Shipyard.

  Construction bay twenty seven was a hive of activity. For a number of months construction workers had been expanding its capacity to accommodate the latest designs for a new class of ship, the first British battlecruiser. A few thousand meters higher up in orbit, work was being completed on two identical giant structures, soon to be attached to Vulcan and designated bays twenty eight and twenty nine. Likewise, they too would be focused on churning out new battlecruisers for the Royal Space Navy.

  Once completed this retrofit and extension would simply become one more in a long list of alterations in Vulcan’s history. Initially constructed when Britain decided to invest heavily in interstellar expansion, Vulcan had been serving the RSN for over two hundred years as its main shipyard. Once the shift drive had been discovered and the stars opened to humanity, interstellar exploration had taken off. Britain had banked a substantial percentage of her GDP on gaining a lead over the other space faring nations and Vulcan was the result.

  With the discovery of Britannia this investment had paid off eighty years later. HMS Vulcan had hastily dispatched her third colony ship full of handpicked volunteers from all over Great Britain as well as her Moon, Mars and asteroid colonies. Britannia contained one of the rarest metals yet known to man. Named after its discoverer, valstronium was almost as revolutionary as the shift drive.

  Officially classed as a metal, though the designation was still debated in the universities, it showed a remarkable ability to protect a spaceship from the wear and tear of space travel while blocking harmful cosmic radiation from injuring a ship’s crew. And, once fixed by a combination of electrical and thermal treatments, the metal actually flowed like a liquid in an effort to retain its original shape when damaged. This was a ship designer’s dream as it provided the perfect armor.

  With the discovery of valstronium on Britannia, Britain gained a monopoly almost overnight. Along with this monopoly came the military power and diplomatic capital that allowed Britain to fuel its expansion beyond the Sol system and become one of the dominant space faring nations.

  Despite over one hundred and fifty years having passed since the discovery of Britannia, and two hundred since the discovery of the shift drive, the exploration and colonization race between the major space faring nations showed no sign of letting up. Paid for through valstronium sales HMS Vulcan continued to churn out all kinds of civilian and military craft to further Britain’s interstellar empire. With the new construction bays about to be finalized, battlecruisers would soon be added to that list.

  Almost unnoticed among the hustle and bustle over bays twenty-seven, twenty-eight and twenty-nine, a small ship slipped out of construction bay thirteen. Encased within its own valstronium armor, HMS Drake made her way out into space for the first time. She was one of an ever-increasing number of RSN Survey Ships. With almost one hundred and fifty in commission they served the RSN by mapping the dark matter between the stars.

  *

  May 7th 2464. Beijing, China, eight years later.

  Na Zhong turned from the large holographic display to face the other politburo members. As the Minister for Exploration he was a junior member in the politburo and so tried to keep his head down in these meetings. Today, that was impossible. He was the one they were all looking to.

  “And so you see,” Na concluded. “There are four habitable worlds and over fifty two other systems with varying degrees of resources. This is the find of the century.”

  Most of the other members were still looking over his shoulders at the sphere the holographic projector was displaying. Within the sphere there were fifty-six white dots, four of which were flashing red.

  Na took a moment to take in the awe on many of the faces of his fellow politburo members, such a find was unheard of in humanity’s history of exploring the stars. He started when he saw Chang staring at him rather than the holo display.

  “Minister Na, what did your scout determine about the likeness of a shift passage into British space?” Chang Lei asked.

  “As you know our scout vessel did not deem it wise to spend time investigating all the systems before coming back with this news. However, they did spend two weeks surveying the perimeter of the sphere in order to identify any passages that may lead to British space,” Na replied to the Minister of Defense. “There is at least one passage leading off in the rough direction of British space, though of course, without exploring it extensively we can’t know where, if anywhere, it goes.” This brought all eyes back to Na.

  “Two weeks! You mean your Commander knew about this sphere of space for two weeks and didn’t think to come straight back to us?” Shouted the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

  “No,” Na reluctantly admitted. “But in his defense, his mission was to seek out potential shift passages into British space,” he added as meekly as possible, hoping to placate Fen’s anger.

  “Calm down Fen,” the Chang said as he lifted his hand towards the Minister for Foreign Affairs to stop any further outbursts. “This is useful, it may be a little later than we would have liked but at least we know the British may want to join our party. So what are our options?” he asked the room at large.

  Chang Lei was the Intelligence Minister for the Chinese Communist Party and currently the power behind the President. Everyone knew he would make the final decision regarding this new discovery.

  Fen was the first to speak, “We all know what we are expected to do. Those swine at the UN will want us to publicly declare this discovery first thing tomorrow.”

  Smiling Chang shook his head, “You all know our attempts to grow our space empire have been falling behind the other major powers. This is not an opportunity we are just going to let pass us by. We only have six habitable planets colonized so far; this is our chance to almost double that. What other options do we have? Options that will ensure China benefits from this discovery and not those lackeys at the UN.”

  “Well, we could send elements of third fleet into this new area of space,” began the Minister of Defense. “Once we establish military bases on each of the habitable worlds we can declare our discovery and present them with a fait accompli. No power would dare go to war with us over these planets then.”

  “Ha,” interjected the Minister for Development, Wen Xiang, “and how long do you think it would take the British to figure out where our ships were going. It seems that we can’t keep anything from them.”

  Chang tried to hide a grimace. The Minister of Development was his closet rival and so did not fear his wrath. Whi
lst Chang prided himself on the power of his intelligence services both at home and abroad, it was undeniable that the British had managed to penetrate their government and military. Not that Chang liked being reminded of that of course.

  “And don’t think the British won’t fight for what they think is theirs.” Wen continued. “Our military might out-mass theirs but whoever controls this new discovery will become the dominant power in our area of space, there can be no doubt about that. We need to present them with a fait accompli true, but one that cannot lead to war. As you all know, we have one colony ship sitting in orbit waiting for just this kind of opportunity. We also have another two under construction. I suggest we rush their completion and get civilians on the ground as soon as possible. We can colonize three of the habitable planets and offer one to the UN. That way, when the British demand it from the UN they will look like the bad guys. Plus, there is no way the British will start a war over a planet already occupied by zealous Chinese nationals – even if they could win a planet from us, they wouldn’t want to deal with the occupation.” Sitting back Wen looked over at Chang for his response.

  Chang bowed his head in a begrudging sign of respect. “I think this will work. We will need a cover story for when we ask for colonial volunteers. I’m sure Minister Zhong and I can come up with something before your colony ships are ready to depart. How long until those under construction will be ready?

  Wen picked up his datapad and quickly scanned through some documents. “Thirteen months,” he replied. “However, we can have the Henna, which is in orbit at the moment, prepped and ready to go in five. I suggest we load her up and send her off as soon as possible. If we can establish a colony on one of the planets then we can quickly move more people onto each of the others.”

  “Very well,” Chang said as he stood and brought both his hands to rest on the table everyone sat around. “This is the discovery we need to ensure we overshadow Britain and Germany. If we can colonize and industrialize this cluster of systems we will truly be able to rival the United Colonial States once again. We cannot let this opportunity slip out of our grasp.”

  Everyone took this as a sign that the meeting was over and so began to stand up and leave. Chang though continued more quietly, “Minister Quin,” he said to the Minister of Defense, as he was about to leave. “Please remain behind, we need to discuss some other scenarios in case Britain doesn’t dance to our tune.”

  Outside Na exchanged a glance with Wen-Chong, another junior member of the Politburo. Having spoken to Wen-Chong, Na knew they shared the same concerns. It seemed their worst fears were coming true. After tirelessly working his way through the ranks of the Communist Party he had been shocked by the disregard many on the Politburo had for the other human nations. In one sense he understood, many of the Politburo members and leading Communist Party officials felt backed further and further into a corner by British and German expansion. As a result, there was a growing sense of isolation and hostility. Yet he feared the paranoia of some of his superiors would end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the last decade they had been taking more and more actions that had caused tensions to rise within the UN, especially with the British and Germans. This latest discovery could send things over the edge, Na thought to himself as he walked away, wondering just what Chang and China’s Minister of Defense were discussing.

  Chapter 1 – Loose the Dogs of War

  The First Interstellar Expansion Era began in 2203 with the discovery of the shift drive. Throughout the era relations between the space faring powers were always strained and often frayed as one power sought to cut off exploration routes from another.

  -Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  15th November 2464, HMS Surprise, the Damang system.

  Commander Lightfoot sat in the command chair of HMS Surprise as his ship exited shift space. As an Archer class frigate Surprise was just a baby among the fighting ships of the RSN, which meant she was assigned all sorts of menial tasks. Lightfoot had already tired of his current mission on the outward journey to their destination. Now that they were finally heading back to Earth, he was beginning to look forward to his next assignment with a bit more hope.

  As the sensors began to update the holo-display Lightfoot could see that almost all the ships in the convoy had exited shift space in formation. Surprise, along with the Lancer class frigate Renown and the light cruiser Resolution were escorting a convoy of nine freighters. They had made the five week journey to the British mining colony in the Reading system and were now on their way back home. Typically, freighters would make their own way to their various destinations but Admiralty regulations stipulated that all freighters had to be escorted to and from Reading.

  Thanks to a quirk in the UN Planetary Allocation Act, Britain had been awarded the mining rights to the Reading system even though it was only accessible by passing through Chinese territory. Given the past scuffles between China and Britain and the rising border tensions, the Admiralty had set up a convoy every three months to Reading in order to deliver supplies and pick up processed ore from the system. As a commander of a frigate in the RSN these kinds of tasks always seemed to fall to him.

  Sub Lieutenant Samson, who was manning the communications console of the bridge, turned to speak to his Commander. “Sir, Captain Turner is hailing us from Resolution.”

  As Lightfoot nodded Samson put the feed onto the main holo-display. Impeccable as ever Lightfoot thought, as the Captain appeared in front of him, though he was careful to keep his face impassive. Captain Turner was from a wealthy noble family back on Earth and he always seemed to be immaculately dressed and turned out no matter what the occasion or hour.

  “Commander,” he began, “it seems we have lost one of our charges again. The Captain of the freighter Jackson has signaled to say that he picked up a shift space exit off his port bow. I’m sending you the coordinates now. No doubt someone made a miss calculation. I’m sure the freighter will start radiating heat as soon as they bring up their main drives so it won’t take you long to find them. We’ll wait here with the rest of the convoy until you return.”

  Lightfoot replied with a simple, “Yes sir,” before switching off the feed from Resolution and turning to his navigation officer. “Avery, do you have the coordinates?”

  “They’re coming through now,” Avery replied without turning round to directly address his commander.

  “Very well, take us there at eighty percent thrust,” Lightfoot ordered.

  Two hours later Surprise had opened up a distance of twenty light minutes from the rest of the convoy. They had just picked up the freighter on their thermal scanners and sent her a message ordering her to make for the convoy when a message arrived from Resolution.

  Sub Lieutenant Samson scanned over it before addressing his commander. “Sir, Resolution has just picked up a fleet dropping out of shift space. Based on the readings they obtained from the re-entry patterns they think they are Chinese. Resolution estimates there is a battleship, a battlecruiser, three heavy cruisers and at least thirty other ships that they can’t make out yet, though they think some are freighters. They are reporting one more large vessel that they can’t identify. It isn’t a battleship but it seems to be in the same mass range.”

  Lightfoot grimaced. Ordinarily the opportunity to see a Chinese fleet maneuvering would provide priceless intel. Yet, ideally, he would like to get the information while lying in stealth, not while escorting a convoy that would be lighting up every sensor within a light day. Britain and China might be at peace but being out in the open so far from home made him feel a little nervous. Not to mention the battleship. The Chinese only had one of the mammoth ships in their fleet. What was it doing out here?

  “Tactical, orientate our optical and heat sensors towards these new comers. Let’s see what our Chinese friends are doing with themselves out here in the back end of nowhere.”

  It would take over fifty minutes for the heat and optical data to travel from the Chinese
fleet to Surprise, twenty more than it would take to reach the convoy. Yet getting so much information back to the Admiralty and the Royal Space Navy Intelligence would be invaluable.

  *

  Aboard the Chinese medium cruiser Yang Wei Captain Zu was just receiving a communication stream from his admiral. “Captain, you know the importance of our mission and the importance of secrecy. Those British ships cannot be allowed back to Earth. You command our fastest ship, I’m detaching the Yang Wei and her sister ship the Chao Yung. I want you and Captain Kuang to destroy that convoy. Don’t leave a single ship alive. I know you didn’t sign up for these kinds of missions but it is essential the British do not learn our fleet was here. No word can be allowed to get back to Earth. I’m going to jump on to our next destination once we have charged our jump drives. You are to follow once you have finished here. Understood?”

  “Yes sir, they will all be turned into space debris.”