The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) by D. J. Holmes
Authors: D. J. Holmes
Tags: Science-Fiction, Space Opera, Military, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Exploration, Space Exploration, Galactic Empire, Space Fleet, Space Marine, Colonization
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been a close thing. Even if the next few hours would be a lot safer, James knew the tension in his shoulders wouldn’t completely leave him. He had had enough of being a hero. He had much more important things to live for. It was time to head home and let those who were paid better make the big decisions. With a quiet sigh he settled himself and prepared to wait out the rest of the journey towards the safety of the system’s mass shadow.
*
Still tense James almost jumped when alarms began to go off all over the bridge as Drake approached the edge of the system’s mass shadow. He wasn’t the only one, everyone on the bridge looked startled.
“Sir, we’re picking up intense gravimetric anomalies ahead. There are a number of ships dropping out of shift space right on the shift limit. Correction. I now make at least thirty ships exciting shift space. They’re about ten light minutes from where we planned to make our jump out.”
“Understood,” James called out. Sensors train everything we have on this fleet as we go by. Navigation, we’re going to have to cruise out to at least one more light hour from the shift limit before we jump. Start to recalculate our jump if you please.”
He didn’t want to take the risk that their jump out would be detected by this fleet or another ship that might jump in after it. “Sensors, is there anything you can tell me about this fleet yet?” James queried.
He had no concern for their safety. Drake was well outside the range at which their radar absorption would be overloaded yet close enough for their passive sensors to get a good read on the Chinese ships as they radiated electromagnetic and heat energy into space.
“Well sir, they clearly have no desire to hide,” O’Rourke began as he reviewed the current sensor feed. “The entire fleet has just begun a high acceleration burn. We are getting a clear read on forty-one ships. The computer has classed them as eleven cruisers, including a battlecruiser, twenty smaller combat ships along with eight more freighters. There are also two other ships producing signatures the computer doesn’t recognize. They produced the largest gravimetrical anomaly I have ever seen coming out of shift space. I’m going to tentatively designate one as the new Chinese battleship we have been hearing all about, the other I’m not sure what it is.”
That pricked James’s interest. The Americans and the French had both begun to construct a new class of ship. Larger than a battlecruiser it was also significantly slower. Yet it traded speed for firepower and the Americans boasted one of their battleships could go up against any two battlecruisers and come away without a scratch. James had put that boast down to American bravado yet the stats were impressive all the same.
Their design and production had come after years of pushing by American and French top naval advisors for a larger class of ship capable of taking on a Russian Behemoth. In the last interstellar war, the Russian Space Federation had tried to invade New France and take it for themselves. A joint armada of British, American and German ships had pushed the Russian offensive back but not without loss. The Russians had never been able to source their own valstronium and no one else had wanted to sell them any. As a result they had been forced to build all their spaceships out of nano-carbon alloys. This gave their ships a slower maximum speed and less acceleration than their main rivals. In an effort to reduce these disadvantages the Russians had fully committed to their design philosophy.
To the amazement of all their rivals, they had secretly constructed a number of what became known as the Behemoth class spaceship in their colonial worlds. Mounting over thirty missiles on each broadside the Behemoths sought to overcome the disadvantage of their weaker armor, with very powerful offensive capabilities. The armada’s ships were able to
*
Still tense James almost jumped when alarms began to go off all over the bridge as Drake approached the edge of the system’s mass shadow. He wasn’t the only one, everyone on the bridge looked startled.
“Sir, we’re picking up intense gravimetric anomalies ahead. There are a number of ships dropping out of shift space right on the shift limit. Correction. I now make at least thirty ships exciting shift space. They’re about ten light minutes from where we planned to make our jump out.”
“Understood,” James called out. Sensors train everything we have on this fleet as we go by. Navigation, we’re going to have to cruise out to at least one more light hour from the shift limit before we jump. Start to recalculate our jump if you please.”
He didn’t want to take the risk that their jump out would be detected by this fleet or another ship that might jump in after it. “Sensors, is there anything you can tell me about this fleet yet?” James queried.
He had no concern for their safety. Drake was well outside the range at which their radar absorption would be overloaded yet close enough for their passive sensors to get a good read on the Chinese ships as they radiated electromagnetic and heat energy into space.
“Well sir, they clearly have no desire to hide,” O’Rourke began as he reviewed the current sensor feed. “The entire fleet has just begun a high acceleration burn. We are getting a clear read on forty-one ships. The computer has classed them as eleven cruisers, including a battlecruiser, twenty smaller combat ships along with eight more freighters. There are also two other ships producing signatures the computer doesn’t recognize. They produced the largest gravimetrical anomaly I have ever seen coming out of shift space. I’m going to tentatively designate one as the new Chinese battleship we have been hearing all about, the other I’m not sure what it is.”
That pricked James’s interest. The Americans and the French had both begun to construct a new class of ship. Larger than a battlecruiser it was also significantly slower. Yet it traded speed for firepower and the Americans boasted one of their battleships could go up against any two battlecruisers and come away without a scratch. James had put that boast down to American bravado yet the stats were impressive all the same.
Their design and production had come after years of pushing by American and French top naval advisors for a larger class of ship capable of taking on a Russian Behemoth. In the last interstellar war, the Russian Space Federation had tried to invade New France and take it for themselves. A joint armada of British, American and German ships had pushed the Russian offensive back but not without loss. The Russians had never been able to source their own valstronium and no one else had wanted to sell them any. As a result they had been forced to build all their spaceships out of nano-carbon alloys. This gave their ships a slower maximum speed and less acceleration than their main rivals. In an effort to reduce these disadvantages the Russians had fully committed to their design philosophy.
To the amazement of all their rivals, they had secretly constructed a number of what became known as the Behemoth class spaceship in their colonial worlds. Mounting over thirty missiles on each broadside the Behemoths sought to overcome the disadvantage of their weaker armor, with very powerful offensive capabilities. The armada’s ships were able to
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