A King's Ship (Empire Rising Book 2) Read online

  “One last time,” Johnston said as he leveled his gun right at the Indian’s head. “Where has Chang gone?”

  “No,” Bell shouted but she was too far away to do anything.

  Becket saw no alternative, she was closest to the Major so she took two quick steps and shoulder charged him out of the way. There was another crack as the Major’s side arm went off.

  “Damn you Lieutenant,” Johnston growled as he heaved Becket off him. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “I’m sorry Sir, I slipped,” she replied sheepishly

  Johnston grunted and then shoved her out of his way as he approached the Indian Commander again, gun already raised. Thankfully Bell was already at his side leaning over him, shielding him from Johnston’s line of sight.

  “Listen to me,” Bell was saying to him. “I can’t protect you from him. You either tell me what we want to know or I let him at you again.”

  As Bell moved back slightly Becket could see a nasty gash along the Commander’s cheek; Johnston’s second shot had grazed him. He looked shocked and bewildered from the sudden realization that he might not get through this ordeal alive.

  “Fine, just leave me alone. I didn’t want him here anyway,” Chowdhury said.

  “Want who here? Chang?” Bell asked.

  “Yes, yes. He was here,” Chowdhury admitted.

  “And where is he now?” Bell followed up.

  “Two freighters came for him four days ago. He left on the first one yesterday. The other is here taking on the cargo Chang brought with him,” Chowdhury informed Bell.

  Becket spun round to access one of the stations control panels, searching its logs. Quickly, she found what she was looking for. “Two freighters did enter the system four days ago, one of them left yesterday. The other is the freighter docked in bay five.”

  “Major, you stay here until you have calmed down,” Bell said. “If you try to follow us I will be forced to report what happened here. Becket, you’re with me.”

  On their way through the station Bell contacted the marines who had boarded the freighter and ordered them to make sure no one on the freighter touched anything. She didn’t want them to purge their computers.

  When they arrived at the freighter a marine escorted them straight to the bridge. “Let me introduce myself,” Bell said to the Captain, “I am Special Agent Julia Bell of the Royal Space Naval Intelligence. We’re here looking for former minister Chang. There’s no point beating around the bush, we know he left yesterday on another of your freighters. We want to know where it was headed.”

  “Let me introduce myself,” the freighter captain said in a strange accent Becket couldn’t place. “I am Captain Stockport of the Haven freighter Carmen. As our two governments haven’t signed any official political treaties and we’re not a member of the UN, I’m afraid you have no legal right to detain us. I demand you release my ship immediately.”

  Oh crap, Becket thought, things just got interesting.

  Turning out of earshot Bell opened her COM unit, “Captain, we may have a problem. We believe Chang left on a Haven freighter yesterday. I’m speaking with the Captain of another Haven freighter at the moment. He wants us to release his ship.”

  James took a few minutes to reply. A ship from Haven was the last thing he expected to find here. Only a few of them had ventured into the colonial space of the Earth nations. Whatever happened now would be a diplomatic incident. In for a penny, in for a pound, James said to himself. “See what you can find out from the Captain Agent Bell, I’m sending over Science Officer Scott to look at the freighter’s computers. We are here to find Chang, the political ramifications will have to sort themselves out later.”

  *

  Several hours later James gathered his Lieutenants, Sub Lieutenants, Endeavour’s Chief Engineer, Agent Bell, Major Johnston and Commander Gupta in Endeavour’s briefing room.

  Lieutenant Scott stood to begin her briefing. As she looked at everyone she couldn’t help being nervous. Giving a scientific lecture to peers who knew you were an expert in the field was one thing. Addressing Lieutenants and the Captain who all had far more experience in space than her was another. Still, she told herself, you have to start somewhere.

  With a deep breath she began, “The colony ship Haven left Earth over two hundred and sixty years ago. As you know the French first made contact with a Haven ship in the Mauritius system two years ago.

  “Before the discovery of the shift drive almost one hundred sub light colony ships left Earth. Since then we have made contact with several of the colonies that were established, however, it seems the vast majority of them set out for planets that are not accessible through the shift drive. As a result, the last colony we made contact with was over a hundred years ago. Until two years ago we weren’t expecting to ever hear from the rest again – unless someone volunteered for a very long sub light voyage to visit one.

  “Well, as you all know our first contact with the Haven ship came as a big surprise. What’s even stranger though is that we still haven’t located the Haven colony itself. Given that their colony ship didn’t have shift drive technology it couldn’t have travelled further than here from Earth.” As she spoke Scott manipulated the holo display in the briefing room to show a red sphere projected around Earth. Outside the sphere was the system of Mauritius where the French had first made contact with the Havenites.

  “Now of course,” Scott continued growing in confidence, “the chances of the Haven colony being anywhere near the outskirts of this sphere are very slim. If they have had the time to build up their colony to the extent where they can build orbital construction yards and freighters, then they must have founded their colony at least one hundred years ago. This means their colony is likely to be somewhere within this sphere.”

  As she manipulated the holo display again the sphere shrunk to less than half its original volume. “Now here is the strange part. The Havenites on our freighter tried to purge their computers but their tech is not nearly as sophisticated as ours and I was able to retrieve most of their data, including their flight data. Here is the flight path the freighter used to get to the Andaman system.”

  Again the holo display changed and this time what it displayed caused a number of gasps to escape from the on lookers. “Almost unbelievable I know,” Scott said, “current Admiralty projections predict either us or the Indians will have surveyed out that far in another fifty years or so. Yet the Havenites seem to know shift passages that lead out there already.”

  The holo display had changed again, zooming out from Earth and the projected position of the Havenite colony to show British, French, Canadian and Indian colonial space. From the Indian system of Andaman, a series of dotted lines jutted off into unexplored space, showing the shift passages the freighter had used to get to Andaman.

  These shift passages were the only way ships could traverse the great distances between stars, for although the shift drive allowed faster than light travel, it was severely limited by the dark matter strewn between the stars. The dark matter prevented the shift drive from engaging and humanity had to map out a safe passage through the dark matter if they were to use the shift drive to reach another solar system. Often the dark matter completely surrounded systems, or caused shift passages to abruptly end, making it impossible to travel to them. On a map the shift passages often looked like the roots of a tree with many smaller and smaller roots breaking off, almost all of which ended in dead ends. As a result, all the space powers were involved in an exploration race, seeking out new shift passages and new solar systems as they competed for the limited galactic real estate that the shift drive had made accessible.

  “How can this be?” Second Lieutenant Mallory asked. “The Indians and us have been exploring this section of space for over two hundred years, there is no way the Havenites should be out here.”

  Evidently no one had an answer and First Lieutenant Ferguson asked another question to break the silence, “What are their shift d
rives like?”

  “Chief,” James prompted.

  “Primitive,” Chief Driscoll answered, “they’re basically the same design we use but they resemble shift drives from about eighty years ago. I’d guess if these Havenites have any military ships they would be a bit more impressive but not by much.”

  “So they have no other type of drive system? Nothing to explain this data,” James asked.

  “Not as far as I can tell,” Driscoll said. “It’s a mystery to me.”

  “So what do we do?” Gupta asked. “We’ve come too far to turn back now.”

  Instead of a general discussion breaking out like James had come to expect from such meetings aboard his previous ships, everyone looked to him. They had all been working together for over three months but it hadn’t been enough time to break down the barriers of rank that usually prevented junior officers from venturing their own opinions.

  “I brought you all here to see what you think,” James said, “I want to hear some options.”

  Silence descended on the meeting until Becket spoke up. She had served as a Sub Lieutenant on his first two commands and she knew he welcomed everyone’s opinion. “We are here to find Chang, I don’t see why we don’t continue?” she asked.

  Her question broke the silence and an energetic debate raged over whether Endeavour should return and leave the political decisions up to the Admiralty or push on and see where these new shift passages led.

  Surprisingly, Ferguson was leading the argument for returning home and he was making a strong case. Already, they could be in trouble for commandeering a Havenite ship, never mind aggressively boarding an Indian gas mining station. Partly because of the weight of his arguments and partly because none of the Sub Lieutenants wanted to contradict their First Lieutenant, the debate died down.

  James was pleased to see the fourth Lieutenant wasn’t so intimidated. “Let’s be realistic,” Becket began. “We have already seen that however Chang is orchestrating this, he is very good. He got himself out of Chinese space, snuck through the Sol system under everyone’s noses, passed through French and now Indian colonial space. And, somehow, he has gotten himself tied up with this Haven colony. I don’t think there’s any doubt. If we don’t follow him now, his trail will be long since cold by the time the Admiralty decides what to do and sends another ship out this way. If we really want Chang, we have to act now.”

  One or two of the other officers looked like they were about to offer their own arguments against Becket but James held up his hand to hold them off. “I have heard enough. I have made my decision. Scott, load your data into the navigational computer. We’re going after Chang.”

  Chapter 9 – Burden of Command

  But at the time everyone thought we were alone in the universe, who could have guessed what would be discovered.

  - Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  1st May 2466 AD, HMS Endeavour, unknown system.

  Four weeks after leaving the Andaman system, James sat in his command chair on Endeavour’s bridge waiting for his ship to jump out of shift space at their destination. For the first week they had carefully made their way up the shift passages the freighters had used to get to Andaman. They had taken small jumps along each shift passage to survey the dark matter and make sure the passages really were passages. Any ship that was unexpectedly pulled out of shift space by a gravimetric anomaly could be torn apart and jumping up an unexplored shift passage would usually be suicide. After a week though, James had run out of patience and the freighter’s data had continued to prove 100% accurate. He had decided to jump Innocence the full length of the shift passage they were in. Her crew had been replaced by a couple of volunteers and they had made the jump. Just as the data from the freighter’s computer had suggested, they had come out in an unexplored star system. After receiving the good news James had taken Endeavour to the new star system.

  Instead of surveying it, he headed straight to the next shift passage the freighters had used and on towards their final destination. Now at last they were about to enter the system the freighters had begun their journey from. Despite their best efforts to question the captain of the Havenite freighter on the Indian mining station James and his subordinates were none the wiser about what they should expect. Everything they understood about the Haven expedition and the potential of the shift drive said it was impossible for anything to be this far from Earth. Yet here they were.

  “We will exit shift space in thirty seconds,” Sub Lieutenant Jennings announced from the navigation terminal.

  “Passives only,” James said to the Sensor officer.

  As usual the bridge crew only felt a slight wobble run through the ship to alert them that they had exited shift space.

  “What have we got Sensors?” James asked as the sensors began to update the plot on the main holo display.

  ‘The star is a class M,” Sub Lieutenant King reported.

  “I’m also picking up seven other planets in orbit around the star. Wait,” King said dramatically and bent over his terminal. Everyone turned to look at him and his prolonged silence only served to raise the tension.

  “The computer has identified a number of electromagnetic disturbances,” he finally said. “It is estimating that they were caused by thermo nuclear explosions. It looks like there has been a battle in the system recently. Very recently in fact, they can’t be more than a day old.”

  “Not quite what we were expecting,” James said to help break the tension. “Chang certainly likes to keep life interesting for us. Are the passive sensors picking up any signs of infrastructure on any of the planets King?”

  “Yes Sir, there is a lot of electromagnetic radiation coming from the fifth planet. It is consistent with a heavily industrialized world,” King answered.

  “Sir, we’re not alone,” Sub Lieutenant Jackson, who was manning the tactical station, called out over his college, “the gravimetric sensors are picking up a large fleet moving towards the fifth planet.”

  “He’s right Sir,” King added. “I’m detecting two smaller fleets. One is maneuvering into what looks like a defensive position around the fifth planet while the other is angling towards the larger fleet.”

  James nodded and watched the drama play out on the main holo display. He could already guess how it was going to go. When they got closer to the large fleet the smaller group of ships suddenly veered away. At the same time the gravimetric plot showed a new group of contacts accelerating rapidly towards the large fleet.

  “Missiles,” Ferguson said, “the battle isn’t over yet.”

  “No,” James said. “What information have we got on those ships?” he asked to give himself time to think. They had stumbled into a major battle, one that looked like it was going very badly for the defenders. Endeavour was no ship of the line. She wasn’t designed to take her place amongst the heavier ships of the RSN and fight in major fleet actions. If he took her towards the planet that had likely been Chang’s destination he would be risking his ship and his crew. Yet he needed to find out more about what was happening. There shouldn’t be an industrialized world out here, never mind two war fleets engaging each other, he thought.

  “The two smaller groups of ships appear to have the same acceleration profiles,” Sub Lieutenant King reported. “They appear to be using impulse drives, though they don’t seem to be as powerful as ours. The larger fleet is a lot slower. I’m detecting a trail of ionized particles from them but I can’t make out what they are. It doesn’t look like they are using any drives I’m familiar with.”

  “Send the data over to Lieutenant Scott, see what she can make of it,” James ordered. “I’m designating the two small fleets as Havenite warships. The third fleet are unknowns for the present. As impossible as it sounds I think we have just discovered the elusive Haven colony. I don’t know how they got here, or what they have been up to, but it seems like they may need our assistance.

  “Navigation, take us in towards the fifth planet, full m
ilitary power. Once we get up to our maximum velocity we’ll reenter stealth mode.”

  “Yes Captain,” Jennings acknowledged.

  *

  Aboard the Havenite cruiser Solitude, Admiral Harris watched the approaching alien armada. The last week had been one long nightmare. After refusing to trade weapons technology with the alien race their ship had departed only to be replaced by a number of warships that had raided the mining outposts in the outer system. In response he had dispatched his fastest ships to the outer rim of the system to fend off the attacks.

  Being beyond the mass shadow of Haven’s star, the aliens had proceeded to simply jump out of the system every time his ships got near. That had continued for almost a month. Eventually he had succeeded in predicting one of their targets and managed to get two frigates into a blocking position. The ensuing battle had set his mind somewhat at rest but now he knew it might be their doom.