Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship by Joshua Dalzelle Page B

starships simply spun around and used their aft-mounted main engines to decelerate, a warship had to be able to keep her sensors and weapons on a target no matter their acceleration profile. To accomplish this the designers gave the Raptor -class four engines that could direct their thrust fore or aft, the plasma being routed to whichever magnetic constrictor and nozzle that was needed to provide power. One drawback was that when slowing down to make orbit the hot exhaust coming forward from the mains could distort the thermal sensors on the nose if the engines were run up past thirty percent power. Anything above eighty percent would completely wash them out.
    "Ten seconds to decel burn," Celesta called over the shipwide intercom. "All crew brace for reverse thrust." Shortly afterwards the rumble of the mains died away for a second before building again, increasing in pitch and intensity as the massive engines began to slow the Blue Jacket's descent towards Xi'an. The sensation of being thrown forward was fleeting as the gravimetric generator adjusted to compensate.
    They had now gotten close enough to the planet to see that the cloud coverage was actually made of particulate matter, not water droplets. Jackson's mouth formed a thin line as he considered the possibilities. Something had either exploded on the surface with tremendous force, or something had struck the planet from orbit. As he looked through the revised data from Tactical he could almost postulate that maybe both the orbital construction platforms had fallen to the surface simultaneously, but even that astronomically unlikely event didn't explain the disappearance of all the other orbital constructs nor the com drone platform deeper into the system.
    "Standard orbital insertion," Jackson ordered. "The debris appears to be sparse enough that we shouldn't have any issues. I want us at an altitude of six hundred and thirty kilometers with an orbital inclination of forty-six degrees. Nav, get the necessary adjustments to the helm."
    "Aye, sir."
    "OPS, that's going to give us a full orbit approximately every two hours," Jackson said. "I want to be recording the entire time, full spectrum."
    "We're still not receiving any transmissions from the surface and we're not detecting any power sources," Celesta said quietly. "Could this possibly have been a natural disaster?"
    "No," Jackson said mostly to himself, ignoring the looks from his crew. "Xi'an was attacked. I'm certain of it."
    "Attacked? By whom?" Celesta asked. Jackson ignored her and continued looking at the main display as the planet began to grow in size and detail and the horror of the situation began to sink in.
    "Sergeant!" he barked without warning. "Lock down the bridge! Ensign Davis, cut all telemetry and sensor data streams to the lower decks, all data comes here and only here. I want all the servers locked out and local terminals disabled in the data center. Coms, disconnect all internal links to the bridge and deactivate all bridge personnel comlinks."
    "Captain?" Celesta said, seemingly in shock as the heavy blast doors to the bridge entrance slammed shut.
    "We are on lockdown until further notice," Jackson said to his stunned crew.

 
    Chapter 8
     
    "Xi'an had four major cities in the northern hemisphere and dozens of smaller support settlements in the south tied to their new manufacturing and production facilities," Ensign Davis said, reading off her screen after the Blue Jacket had completed her second orbit.
    "Had?" Jackson asked.
    "Yes, Captain," Davis said, swallowing hard. "They're gone. There's no trace of them left on the surface."
    "That's impossible," Chief Kazenski scoffed. Jackson turned to glare at him, but had to admit he agreed with the man.
    "One would think so, Chief," Davis said, still pale and her voice unsteady. "But the images we've captured from orbit don't lie. There is no trace that this planet was ever inhabited."
    "Put the images up on the main display," Jackson said,