Into the Breach (Empire Rising Book 15), page 5
For five weeks now, Achilles had been exploring space out beyond the Rosso mining station. Thanks to science officer Munroe’s astute guesses, they had discovered six new systems. Yet, none had been worth writing home about. They hadn’t encountered any habitable worlds, He3-rich gas giants, or planets or asteroids with large deposits of valstronium or other rare elements. James knew if the boredom was getting to him, it was certainly getting to Achilles’ crew. “Let’s fire a standard thermonuclear warhead into the midst of those comets,” Jonathan said as he decided to make the exercise more challenging. “I want every chunk with a diameter larger than ten meters to be blown to bits. The gunnery team with the highest hit count will get a triple ration allocation. How does that sound?”
“That sounds like something the gunnery teams will get on board with,” Lieutenant Schmidt said from his tactical console. “Maybe I could take command of one of the heavy plasma cannons and have a chance at winning those extra rations?”
Jonathan chuckled as he shook his head. “Not today. The last thing we need are our gunnery crews accusing an officer of stealing their rations.”
Schmidt grimaced, but then broke into a smile as he glanced at the other bridge officers. “Maybe next time, Captain, we could have a competition between the senior officers. “
“Then you’ll all be accusing me of stealing your extra rations,” Jonathan said as he winked at Lydia.
“I’ve seen him operate a cruiser’s heavy plasma cannons,” Lydia commented, “I have no desire to compete with the Captain.” Schmidt eyed Lydia and then Jonathan, clearly trying to decide if they were joking or not. After a few seconds, he shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his console.
“How are we getting on?” Jonathan asked Cortez.
“We’re almost ready, Captain,” she replied. “We make a course change in three minutes and then the comets will be just fifteen minutes out. The crews are moving to their stations. When do you want to fire the missile?”
“Let’s wait to the last second,” Jonathan ordered. “And don’t inform the crews we’re going to fire one. That can be a little surprise for them.”
“Aye, Captain,” Cortez said enthusiastically.
Turning back to his report, Jonathan continued to idly read through it as Achilles changed course towards the comets. “We are just three minutes out of maximum energy weapon range,” Lydia reported a short time later.
“Permission to fire our missile, Captain?” Schmidt asked as Jonathan set his datapad down.
Jonathan eyed the comets. No doubt the gunnery crews had been tracking the comets closely. Interspaced between the six large ones were more than a hundred smaller chunks. Each and every one of them would be plotted and firing solutions already prepared. “Okay, time to throw the cat among the pigeons,” he said to Schmidt.
With a touch of a button, Schmidt sent a single thermonuclear warhead missile towards the comets. It took sixty seconds to reach the comets. It’s detonation ripped four of the larger comets apart, sending hundreds of large chunks in every direction. Suddenly, the gunnery crews’ task had become far harder.
As soon as Achilles’ heavy energy weapons came into range, they began to open fire. Heavy plasma and laser cannons released gigajoules of energy. First, the two remaining comets were struck again and again until they broke apart. Then, hundreds of plasma bolts and laser beams sought out the smaller chunks. Over the course of three minutes, Jonathan watched explosion after explosion vaporize the rock and ice. Only when Achilles’ sensors couldn’t detect a single piece of comet larger than ten cubic meters did the energy weapons cease firing. On a secondary holo display, a running count had been keeping track of each gunnery crew’s hits.
“It looks like gunnery crew three have won the day,” Cortez said. “They won by eleven targets,” she added as her eyebrows rose. “Impressive.”
Jonathan agreed, though he was more focused on the bottom four gunnery crews’ results. Each of them were more than sixty behind the winning crew. That was quite a margin. “Send my congratulations to gunnery crew three, and inform them I hope they enjoy their extra rations. Let the four lowest scoring gunnery crews know that I that expect a significant improvement the next time we run a live fire drill. Assign them extra simulation sessions over the next two weeks.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Cortez acknowledged.
“Captain,” Lydia said in a very different tone to Achilles’ First Lieutenant, making Jonathan turn around towards her. “I think our sensors are picking up a ship.”
“Show me,” Jonathan said at once. Immediately, the main holo display changed from showing the remnants of the comets to a sector of the system much further away from Achilles.
“It’s moving very slowly,” Lydia explained. “But it is definitely not natural. There has been a small course change. Though we didn’t detect any gravimetric waves. It’s too far away for our passives to get a good read, but some stray emissions from our active sensors washed over it when we were tracking the comets.”
“You think it is a ship in stealth, trying to hide from us?” Jonathan asked, his excitement and curiosity rising together. An unknown contact was a far better break to the monotony of the past weeks than shooting up a comet.
“It may well be,” Lydia said as she tapped on her command console. On the holo display, a projected course appeared in front of the contact. It took the ship, if it was a ship, out to the edge of the system. “If there is a shift passage there, then it may be trying to get there before we detect it and jump out.”
“And bring news of our presence to whatever civilization the ship belongs to,” Jonathan mused. “What do you make of it from the little sensor returns we have received so far?”
Lydia shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Very little, except to say, its stealth tech can’t be overly impressive. It was only a few stray emissions that reached the contact, and we still got a return. Of course, without the Kulrean sensor tech we now have, twenty years ago, we might never have picked it up.”
Jonathan nodded as he thought through the limited data they had. They hadn’t exactly been trying to sneak through the system even before they had opened fire on the comets. The contact had to have seen them. That it was moving so slow either meant it couldn’t go any faster, or that it was intentionally trying to stay hidden. Achilles was currently moving towards the center of the system where Lieutenant Munroe would deploy the Kalassai dark matter sensor to check the entire system for potential shift passages. If he deviated from his course now, the contact would know it had been spotted.
Yet, if he didn’t, it could get away. But we know where it is going, he mused. So even if it escapes from the next system before we get there, we will have the beginnings of a trail to follow! For the first time since leaving Bastion, Jonathan actually felt his mission could end up being worthwhile. “We continue as normal,” he decided, “I don’t want to spook them. Let’s find another comet or something to target and accidentally send a few more stray sensor emissions their way to see if we can get a better fix on them. And we’ll hold off on deploying the dark matter sensor. They may not know we have such a device, so we won’t use it until we are sure they have jumped out.”
“Here’s a good candidate,” Schmidt suggested as he altered the view on a secondary holo display. “There is a small group of asteroids not far from us. It looks like they escaped from the fourth planet’s ring a few thousand years ago, and have been in a wide orbit ever since.”
“Perfect,” Jonathan said. “Change course to intercept. Inform our four worst performing gunnery crews their extra training sessions begin immediately. And let’s be a little sloppier with our sensor emissions.”
“Aye, Captain,” Cortez acknowledged.
Over the next hour, Jonathan watched the contact as it continued towards the edge of the system. Schmidt found two more targets to engage, ensuring the contact only blinked off from Achilles’ sensors for a few short durations. When the contact crossed the point where Achilles could have jumped out and didn’t, it confirmed Jonathan’s suspicions that the ship wasn’t as capable as his destroyer. That was good. It hopefully meant that whoever they were, they weren’t going to be a new threat Rear Admiral Salamanca, or his father, would have to start to worry about.
“The contact is gone again,” Lydia reported twenty minutes later. “I think it has jumped this time. We still have a few emissions that should be getting returns.”
“Let’s wait a minute,” Jonathan said, wanting to be extra cautious. Slowly, he counted down to himself. The contact did not return. “Ok, change course, take us right to where they disappeared, maximum thrust. Lieutenant Munroe, prepare to deploy the dark matter sensor.”
“Yes, Captain,” Munroe said as Lieutenant Scholes began to turn Achilles’ nose around towards where the contact had disappeared. Moments later, Munroe changed the main holo display to show the readout from the dark matter sensor. “Activating the sensor now,” Munroe announced. From the center of the read-out, where Achilles was, a small sphere appeared. Quickly, it began to expand as a wave of exotic particles was released from Achilles. It spread out, covering the system they were in in seconds, then it kept going. As it passed beyond the edges of the system, it began to pick up dark matter. Everything it detected was mapped, and soon pockets devoid of dark matter began to appear.
The first time Jonathan had seen the sensor at work, he had been impressed. Now, he was used to it. That didn’t stop him moving forward in his seat slightly. A passage through the dark matter was indeed appearing right where the contact had disappeared. A smile spread across Jonathan’s lips. There was no doubt in his mind now, the contact had been a ship, which meant it was owned by a civilization the Empire hadn’t met. And we know where it is going. With luck, he might just be about to make first contact with a new species!
“Prepare to jump us into shift space as soon as we pass the system’s mass shadow,” he ordered. “That ship has a head start on us, and we’ll have to stop several times to continue to map out the shift passage, but if we can, we’re going to try and catch it.” Every officer around Jonathan met his words with a smile. They were as excited as he was.
*
As it turned out, there was no need for Jonathan to rush. Four days later, when he ordered Achilles to stealthy slip into the system where the shift passage ended, it quickly became apparent the contact would not be able to give them the slip. At least, it wouldn’t be able to hide the location of its species homeworld from Jonathan.
“It’s impressive,” Schmidt couldn’t help but say. “At least, their gas mining facilities would come close to rivalling anything we have built.”
“They certainly would,” Jonathan agreed.
“And yet, their orbitals look sparse,” Cortez commented. “More like what Earth did three or even four hundred years ago.”
“Which makes their gas mining and storage orbitals all the stranger,” Jonathan replied. “There is a mystery here. I want as detailed a survey of the system as our passive sensors will allow. Lieutenant Rutherford, begin collecting and translating every COM message we can pick up from the planet. Let’s see what we can find out about our new neighbors.”
Jonathan gave his officers a couple of hours to sift through all the data Achilles’ passive and COM sensors were picking up. He passed the time watching the movements of the various ships within the system. Achilles was tracking over a hundred of them. Compared to what he was used to seeing in an Imperial system, one hundred wasn’t very many. Even so, most seemed to be ore freighters moving back and forth from several asteroid mining facilities and the species’ homeworld. Whoever they were, they seemed to be making good use of the rare element deposits their system had been blessed with. “All right,” Jonathan said when he figured he had given his people enough time. “Let’s hear it, what have you all got? Rutherford, let’s start with you.”
“Right, yes, Captain,” Rutherford replied. “I believe they call themselves the Bar’samins. At least that is what the Kulrean translation tech seems to think. There are copious amounts of unencrypted transmissions coming from the surface. The vast majority are likely of little interest. The ship’s computer is still compiling much of it. What we have found is interesting. They seem to be ruled by a single government. A democracy, actually. At least, they have representatives leading their government, though how exactly they are elected or how long they serve for, I don’t know yet.” He paused for a brief second.
“More interestingly, I think they haven’t long discovered the shift drive. They have several news reports that speak of exploration ships they have dispatched to try and find shift passages to the nearest stars.”
“That is interesting,” Jonathan replied. “So the contact we detected might have been one of those. Maybe it didn’t know about any of the other shift passages in the system we encountered it in.” As he spoke, Jonathan eyed the sole contact that was travelling from the mouth of the shift passages Achilles was in towards the alien’s world. If it was just an exploration ship, that would explain its slow speed and limited stealth tech. “What is their homeworld called?” he asked as his eyes drifted to the world.
“Ulan’nagn,” Rutherford answered. “We have figured out the names they use for all the planetary bodies in the system, do you want them?”
Jonathan shook his head. “Not at the moment.”
“Is there any sign they have encountered other species?” Cortez asked.
“Yes, that is the most interesting information we have found. They know of at least one. The Bar’samins simply refer to them as the enemy. At first, I thought the name was just coming from a mythical tale or some modern holo story, but it comes up too many times for that. This enemy is mentioned over and over again, as well as the defensive fleet the Bar’samins are building to protect themselves. It sounds almost as if they fear being bombarded from orbit by whoever is threatening them.”
Jonathan shared a glance with Cortez. If there was another hostile race out there, their lives were about to get even more exciting. The Bar’samins being under threat might also make first contact a little easier. It was very likely the Bar’samins would be keen to make friends with another powerful race who could help them. “It sounds like they might be happy to meet us,” Jonathan commented.
“They might,” Rutherford agreed. “Though I think they may have already met another race. It hasn’t come up as often, but three or four times in the encrypted data we have been able to decrypt, another alien race is mentioned. They are not named either, but they are referred to as the Saviors. It sounds like this race has promised to protect them from the enemy.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows rose. “So, we may have just discovered three new species.”
Rutherford nodded. “It appears that way, Captain.”
“Three species in quite the diplomatic stand-off,” Cortez commented. “We could be walking into a powder keg.”
“Yes, not ideal at all. But we are here, so we will have to make the best of it. Lydia, what have the passive sensors told us?” Jonathan asked as he turned to his Second Lieutenant.
“Not too much, Captain,” Lydia responded. “Obviously, without active sensors, we can’t see too much, but what Rutherford just shared has maybe answered a question I had. I have estimated their tech level to be around where we were three hundred years ago, at least judging by the orbital industry and ships we have got a decent look at. That would fit with Rutherford’s report that they have just recently discovered the shift drive.
“What is strange, as you pointed out, are all the gas storage facilities. Their mining capacity and storage facilities are way too built up for what they need. Either they have some massive power generators on their planet’s surface that are guzzling He3, or they are mining more than they require. But if there is another species in the picture, these Saviors, then maybe the fuel is meant for them. I estimate they are storing enough fuel for all of Rear Admiral Salamanca’s fleet to pass by here and restock their tanks.”
“So whoever they are, these Saviors need a lot of fuel,” Jonathan said.
“Or, they have a lot of ships,” Cortez added.
Jonathan nodded. “That is a more worrying prospect. These Saviors may be a lot more powerful than the Bar’samins, which means whoever the enemy is, they may be too. Nothing else of note you have picked up in the system, Lydia?”
Lydia shook her head, “Nothing really. There do seem to be a number of objects in orbit that we can’t get a good read on. They may be freighters undergoing light repairs, or old orbital stations no longer in use. We’re not getting any real energy readings from them.”
“Eh, maybe we are now,” Schmidt said as he raised a hand and pointed at the main holo display. “Look.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to the display. More than eighty new contacts had suddenly appeared. The passive sensors were having no trouble picking them up, they were breaking orbit fast, giving off high levels of energy.
Lydia’s hands flew over her console’s controls. “Warships,” she said moments later, her voice rising. “They have to be. They are too small to be freighters and those power levels…”
