Star Glory (Empire Series Book 1) Read online

  To the left of the otter captain now moved the pink floater who so resembled an airborne jellyfish. It moved to within a meter of Smooth Fur. Its pink flesh changed colors, much like the skin of the Sendera chameleons. The Empire boss blinked.

  “It seems you and your other ships have acquired the secret of our magfield spacedrive. Clearly you traveled to a market world within the Empire.” Its brown nose sniffed. Its thick tail swished to one side. “But your claim to have a fleet of other ships is suspect. We detected your arrival. You emerged as a single ship. Then another four neutrino emissions appeared nearby. Now you have arrived at a different part of the magnetosphere. The same event sequence occurred. Why should I believe those neutrino signatures are not simply spare fusion reactors you tossed into space, then recovered, then released again?”

  The captain smiled. It was a smile full of his white teeth. “Because in addition to acquiring the magfield drive for my ship and the other four Earth starships, our specialists have figured out how to generate your stealth field.” The captain gestured forward. “As you can see from their moving neutrino emissions, my other ships are independently powered. More vital, they can disappear from your detection when they wish.”

  The otter’s whiskers went flat against his muzzle. “Why did your ship not also disappear?”

  “My ship is the survivor of your sneak attack. I want you, and your crew, to always be aware of its presence. Here, in your backyard. And elsewhere along the frontier of your arrogant Empire of Eternity.” The captain paused and lowered his hand. “Our five ships outnumber your two. We will reach them before they can fire on the Sendera ships. Have them flee or watch them die.”

  The otter’s tail thumped loudly against its floor. “Your ships may move quickly. And if you do possess our stealth field, you know that you must lower the field in order to fire your weapons. But my ships have the better weapons and weapon range. If you humans wish to die along with the remnants of the Sendera, you may do so.” The giant otter paused. Behind him moved other crew aliens, including the scaly reptile and the hunter cat of the Toka species. “The Empire of Eternity is eternal. Some have challenged us. All have failed. The Empire has more ships than any single species. We have other abilities not yet seen by you humans. We will prevail. Your Earth will become a black ball. You humans will all die. Or become homeless in the galaxy. Channel closed.”

  The otter image vanished. Leaving just the Bridge view and the system graphic imagery. The captain shifted in his seat. “Astrogation, how soon until we pass the Sendera ships?”

  “Sir, I estimate we will pass them in thirty-one minutes,” Ibarra said.

  “Com, send a signal to the Sendera leader.”

  “Neutrino signal sent on their original contact frequency,” Wetstone said hoarsely, reminding me how much he had yelled on winning the Best Dancer award at last night’s Ship Dance party. Evelyn had been one of the finalists. My limited abilities at dancing had drawn smiles and shakes of the head. “Incoming,” the man said.

  On the vidscreen a third image appeared. The same seven Sendera stood in a line on their bridge, which I now noticed had small green plants scattered here and there among silvery metal blocks, vidscreens, elevated panels and wallscreens that flashed with blue and green imagery patterns. One spoke.

  “Captain Neil Skorzeny, thank you for coming to help us,” said the voice of Random Thoughts as the skin of the middle Sendera flickered through a complex pattern of color changes. “Your five vessels move quickly. As quickly as the Empire ships. Do you possess the secret of their fast movement?”

  “We do,” the captain said hurriedly. “Random Thoughts, you offered to fight the Empire with us. That is not necessary. I have enough ships to defeat the two pursuing you. Remain on your current vector. We will join you at the edge of the magnetosphere when we finish this battle.”

  The Sendera’s mobile black eyes twisted sideways, paused, then faced forward. “We Sendera are able to fight. We fought when the Empire invaded our home system. We fought above our world, until the Empire dropped down the canisters filled with the black death. Two of our ships died here, defending our new colony. My people insist that we fight with you.”

  This was different. These Sendera sounded almost human in their stubbornness. I checked the shimmering of the antimatter injector tubes which now fed afterburner push to our thrusters. And antimatter sideways to Bill’s beamer block. Two of my good friends were directly involved in this battle, with Warren piloting one of the shuttles that now flanked us in convoy formation. It made me wonder what Oksana, Cassandra and Evelyn were doing. The latter two were on Science Deck while Okie was on Astrogation and Intelligence. Were the three of them discovering anything that might help in this fight? If they were I was certain they would interrupt the captain no matter what their personal bosses said. And perhaps other NCOs and officers elsewhere on the Star Glory were watching what I watched and also wondering what else they could do beyond following orders. My lunch crowd were not the only people with bright ideas.

  “Accepted. But only for your ship,” the captain replied after a few moments. “Reverse your thrust. Then resume thrust along the vector used by the Empire ships. We will pass your other ships in thirty minutes. By then you should be sharing our inbound vector.”

  The chameleon’s black eyes blinked but stayed focused ahead. “We will do as you wish. Seven ships will continue outward. My ship Red Hope and my lineage will reverse course and follow you to battle with the Empire. But you swim faster than we do. Will you pass us?”

  “No,” the captain said quickly. “As we pass your outbound ships we will reduce our thrust. In truth we will swing our ship around to fire against our forward vector. That will bring us down to your speed of ten psol. Together we will intercept the Empire ships.” The captain smiled. “Though our speed will be reduced, still, our two ships will cross paths with the Empire very quickly. I will coordinate our weapons firing with you so that both Empire ships die. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” replied Random Thoughts. “I go now to consult with our Chief Biter. She knows our weapons best. Until we join forces.”

  “Until then,” the captain said.

  The image of the seven chameleons vanished, leaving only the Bridge and the system graphic. The graphic showed both us and the Empire ships as within a half AU of the fleeing Sendera ships.

  “Astrogation, flip the ship. Engineering, apply full thruster exhaust and magfield deflection once our stern is aimed at the Empire ships. All Ship, go to General Quarters!”

  “Flipping the ship,” called Ibarra as she tapped her touchscreen.

  My boss grunted. “Full thrust of 16 psol will continue upon aiming of stern at the Empire vector.”

  I tapped my touchscreen, shutting of the antimatter flow. The chief did the same on his thruster panel, killing the three fusion pulse thrusters. Another tap shut down the magfield drive.

  “Ship is now reversed in orientation,” Ibarra said over the All Ship.

  Chief O’Connor tapped the magfield panel. Then he used both hands to activate the thrusters. I tapped on the antimatter flow.

  “Chief, antimatter is flowing again,” I said.

  He nodded. “Captain, we are all full speed reduction. The thrusters are putting out 10 psol. Stewart’s antimatter tubes are giving us an extra one percent. And the magfield drive is pushing against the star’s magnetic field with a force equal to five psol. I estimate we will be down to a vector speed of 10 psol in twelve minutes.”

  “Thank you, Engineering,” the captain said, sitting back. The man reached up and rubbed his bare neck with a gloved hand. “Waiting is no fun.”

  I fully agreed. Action impended. Lives would be at risk. Warren would fly his shuttle and fire its nose laser at any target chosen by the captain and Tactical. Bill would do the same with his beamer. And I would monitor the antimatter flow to the thrusters and Bill’s beamer, hoping that everything went perfectly. Of course, in battle, nothing ever goes
perfectly.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Sir, the Red Hope is off our starboard,” called Ibarra. “We are inbound at 10 psol. The two Empire ships are six minutes away and closing.”

  “Tactical, show me an image of the enemy. And of our ally.”

  “Going up, sir,” Chang said hurriedly, her fingers flying over her control touchscreen.

  In my bulkhead vidscreen there now appeared two new images. One was a scope image of Red Hope. The chameleon ship resembled a long sausage adorned with three rings at its bow, midbody and stern. Briefly I wondered if those were particle accelerators. Then I put aside the thought. If the Sendera had the ability to use antimatter as afterburners they would have said their speed could reach 11 psol, like our speed in the Kepler 37 system. Therefore the three ring tubes had to be something else. Maybe we would discover that when the fighting happened. The other image showed the two Empire ships. As before they were dumbbell-shaped ships with a bow ball and stern ball connected by a thick tube. The reddish-brown hull was covered in black and white streaks. From the stern flared an orange-yellow exhaust. That exhaust was the same as ours. But their internal magfield drives gave them an extra five psol on top of their thruster speed. But they now approached at just 10 psol. The scope imagery included scales in both pictures. The Red Hope was seven kilometers long. Which made sense for a generation ship holding hundreds of thousands of people. The Empire ships were 300 meters long, slightly less than the 340 meter length of the Star Glory. I did not care. I just wanted to see those two ships go up in a flare of star fire.

  “Connect me with Random Thoughts on Red Hope,” the captain said calmly, not appearing to be in a hurry.

  “Incoming neutrino comsignal,” Wetstone said, still sounding hoarse.

  On the bulkhead vidscreen the images became five with the appearance of Random Thoughts. This time he stood alone behind a pillar that held a flat panel. His wrinkled skin was covered in changing patterns of blue, green, orange and red. He looked ahead.

  “Red Hope responding to Star Glory.”

  “Random Thoughts, I note the two Empire ships are arranged with one below the other. While they are widely separated, this arrangement solves one issue. Please fire on the lower ship. My ship will fire on the upper one. We have a . . . unique weapon that will destroy the upper ship. As for the lower ship, we will also fire our carbon dioxide, proton and gamma ray lasers at it. Our four allied ships will fire lasers at that ship. If you apply your weaponry against it, surely it will die.” The captain paused. “One point. Our ship will also fire two missiles at the lower ship. Those missiles contain five warheads each. The warheads will explode and activate the x-ray laser rods within each warhead. The x-rays will surely kill anyone they can reach inside the lower ship. Understood?”

  “Your fighting plan is understood.” Random Thoughts looked sideways to a nearby chameleon. “Our weapons rings are ready to attack. My Chief Biter will make certain we do not harm your large ship or the four smaller ships.”

  “Good. My Tactical person will send you a neutrino comsignal when we fire at the upper ship. Let us both attack our targets at the same time.”

  “Agreed. My Chief Biter is standing nearby. She will fire our rings upon detection of your signal.”

  “Good,” the captain said quickly, his manner now more focused than earlier. “We will maintain our neutrino transmission to you. Please do the same for us. And now, I must tend to my fighters. See you on the other side of this battle.”

  “Yes, the far shore will be welcome.”

  “Astrogation, depress the ship’s bow by 45 degrees. That will bring the upper Empire ship into the antimatter beamer’s aperture.”

  “Depressing ship’s bow,” Ibarra said. “Sir, our proton and nose lasers will be perfectly aligned to fire on the lower Empire ship thanks to this attitude change.”

  “Yes they will.” The image of the captain looked up at the Bridge ceiling videye. “PO Watson, your target is the upper Empire ship. Only you will be firing on it. Be aware that our ship will be jinking up, down, sideways and even backward using the magfield drive. I wish to make hard or impossible the enemy’s target tracking. While I do not know how quickly they will engage their own antimatter beamers, our ship and Red Hope will be under laser strikes once the Empire arrives within 100,000 kilometers of us. Be ready.”

  “Ready, sir,” Bill answered. “My tracking scope and my passive sensors are all locked into the upper Empire ship. It is now coming into my firing aperture. Will fire on your command. Sir.”

  The captain looked ahead. “Tactical, what is the range to the Empire ships?”

  “Sir, 140,000 kilometers and closing. In eleven seconds they will be in range of us.” Chang leaned forward, looking down at her Tactical touchscreen. “Our two ships will be in targeting range of the Empire ships for only a minute, sir.”

  “Understood. Weapons, launch those two missiles.”

  “Launching,” Yamamoto said, excitement in his voice.

  Now the system graphic, which had enlarged greatly to show the two red dots of the Empire ships, the five green dots of our ships and the purple dot of Red Hope, that graphic showed the distances shrinking rapidly. We were two firing platforms approaching each other at ten percent of the speed of light. That meant we would pass each other quickly. The shooting had to be perfect. I crossed my fingers, wishing I had access to a proton laser. I didn’t. But others did. They were ready. The captain was ready. Bill was ready.

  Green laser, red proton and purple plasma beams shot out from both Empire ships. One array of beams hit Red Hope. Another array hit Star Glory. Or rather, they did not hit. Our Astro lady Louise moved our ship up and sideways using the magfield drive. Someone on Red Hope did the same for their ship, though it moved by way of normal chemfuel thrusters, augmented by directional stern thrusters.

  “Range is 87,000 klicks,” Chang said softly.

  Another volley of CO2, proton and plasma beams shot out at us and a separate volley pursued Red Hope.

  “Hits on the hull above the bow,” reported Chang. “Topside railgun is down. No penetration to the water jacket.”

  I saw the live image of the Red Hope. Its rear ring glowed to strikes from the Empire beams. Sparkling fragments spun away from the ring, which was now only partial.

  “Range is now 43,000 klicks.”

  A third volley of red, green and purple beams shot out, aiming for both of our ships. I winced as I saw two purple plasma beams again hit the rear ring of the Red Hope. But there was no sign of water leakage. Hopefully their hull was built to withstand multiple laser and directed energy beam strikes. The volley aimed at us missed entirely, including our four shuttles, again thanks to Louise’s use of the magfield drive and the agile jinking of each shuttle pilot. Go Warren!

  “Range at 21,000 klicks!”

  “PO Watson! Fire your beamer!”

  “Firing, captain.”

  In the true space image of the two Empire ships I saw a long black beam reach out and impact on the front ball of the upper enemy ship. The beam maintained its intercept vector, slicing down the middle tube and into the stern ball. A star glow of expanding orange-white light overlapped the antimatter beam. Which now disappeared from the live image.

  “Upper Empire ship is gone,” Chang reported. “Range is 17,000 klicks.”

  “Weapons, fire the warheads.”

  In the true space image there now appeared two small suns. From them speared out 50 white x-ray beams from each sun as the thermonuke fed high energy photons into the gain medium of the x-ray lasing rods. The 100 white beams hit the rear ball of the lower enemy ship. Red, green and purple beams that had been shooting from that ball and aiming to hit the Star Glory and the Red Hope, those beams vanished. But the front ball fired a black antimatter beam at us.

  Before I could flinch the beam passed us by. The Star Glory was intact. We were alive!

  “Shuttle Three is gone,” called Major Owanju.

  Was th
at Warren’s shuttle!

  “First Sergeant Khan will be missed,” the major said.

  Shivers ran down my back. I scanned the vidscreen. It held too many things, all of them deadly.

  “Range is 9,175 klicks.”

  From our front bow there shot forth a green CO2 laser beam and a red proton laser strike. Our port-side gamma ray laser added an orange beam to the mix. From the Red Hope its two weapons rings shot out purple plasma beams. All beams struck the front ball of the surviving Empire ship. The true space imagery showed black holes appearing as the beams cut through the front hull. White gas and silvery water globules appeared. Yellow electrical explosions happened. Fragments of the ball’s hull now shot outward, blown loose by internal explosions. Behind the ball the central tube wrinkled, then bent as the rear ball’s momentum pushed the tube into the rear segment of the dying front ball.

  A new sun blossomed.

  That had to be its antimatter reservoir losing containment. Freefloating negative antimatter combined with the innards of the ball to turn alien flesh, water, air, equipment and arrogance into the stuff of suns. Pure plasma radiated outward in an expanding ball. I blinked my eyes, wishing I could shut down my infrared vision. The infrared made a super bright image even brighter. I looked away. Then I looked back, focusing on the system graphic. Four red dots of new Empire ships were just seven AU short of our position. What would the captain now do?

  “Captain, incoming neutrino signal. From . . . from the Golden Pond ship, sir,” called Wetstone.

  “Put it up.”

  The images of the Red Hope, our three surviving shuttles, the system graphic and the Bridge overhead view were now joined by a new image.

  “Where did you obtain our antimatter beam!” snorted Smooth Fur, his whiskers spread wide and his thick tale swishing from side to side faster than I had ever seen.

  The image of the captain showed him sitting back in his seat. “I am Captain Neil Skorzeny of the heavy cruiser Star Glory, lead ship in our fleet of four Earth cruisers and one Sendera fighting ship. Do you wish to sacrifice the four oncoming ships to our antimatter beams?”