Empire in Crisis
Authors: Dietmar Wehr
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #War, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Alien Invasion, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet
Empire in Crisis
By Dietmar Arthur Wehr
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2016 by Dietmar Arthur Wehr
Other books by Dietmar Arthur Wehr:
The Synchronicity War
Part 1 on Amazon
(now free)
The Retro War
(stand-alone novel within Synchronicity War universe)
Rumors of Glory
(The System
States Rebellion series book 1 now free)
Rumors of Honor
(SSR series
book 2)
Rumors of Salvation
(SSR series
conclusion)
The System States
Rebellion
(The complete SSR series in one omnibus edition)
Contents
Empire Space Force Rank
Structure(Old):
1
AO Astrogational Officer
AFCT Advanced Fleet Combat Tactics
CO Commanding Officer
CSFO Chief of Space Force Operations
DCSFO Deputy Chief of Space Force Operations
DFC Deputy Fleet Commander
FAO Fleet Astrogation Officer
Fastro Short form of Fleet Astrogation Officer
FC Fleet Commander
FTO Fleet Tactical Officer
HO Helm Officer
SWG Strategic Working Group
TC Tactical Computer also known as Tac Comp
TO Tactical Officer
XO Executive Officer
7-stars Senior Grand Admiral
6-stars Grand Admiral
5-stars Senior Fleet Group Admiral
4-stars Fleet Group Admiral
3-stars Fleet Admiral
2-stars Admiral (Task Force or Capital Ship
squadron leader)
1-Star Vice-Admiral (Battlecruiser or heavy
cruiser squadron leader)
New Space Force Rank Structure:
5-stars Grand Admiral
4-stars Senior Fleet Group Admiral
3-stars Fleet Group Admiral
2-stars Fleet Admiral
1-Star Admiral (Task Force or Capital Ship
squadron leader)
Senior Commander (Squadron leader for any
cruiser squadron)
Triara Davinus stepped off the ramp and slowly
followed her comrades. Feeling the wind on her face only accentuated her
conviction that she and most of her race were very close to crossing the
ascension threshold, and yet here she was on an alien world trying to establish
trade with a primitive and by all appearances brutish race. She felt her soul
become…lighter was the only word that came to mind. Their mission to this
world, which had seemed so important not that long ago, now seemed childishly
trivial. The Tollarian race had experienced mass ascension once before, and
enough firsthand accounts of that event had survived that the signs of another
impending spiritual evolution were recognized for what they were. However, just
like last time, almost a thousand years ago, there were those who would not
ascend and who hadn’t felt the impending changes. Her Ship-commander seemed to
be one of them. When she and others in the crew had told him that the Change
was near, he dismissed their request to return home out of hand. As she reached
the group, she felt a vibration in her body that seemed to intensify the closer
she got to her fellow Tollarians. Some of them looked back at her. Was it her
imagination or did a couple of them actually have blue light coming from inside
their eyes?
The harsh, guttural shout from the approaching
group of locals pulled her attention from that beautiful blue light. They were
armed of course, but her people were armed too. Force seemed to be the only
thing these Deimens respected. This was not the first time her people had
interacted with this planet, and several demonstrations of Tollarian firepower
had been needed to teach the Deimens that aggression against Tollarians would
not be tolerated.
She closed her eyes and felt herself levitating
into the air. The Change had begun. Everyone else was rising as well; she could
feel that without needing to look. Everyone except the Ship-commander of
course. She felt sorry for what was about to happen to him. The higher she
went, the farther into the future she could see. The Deimens loved to fight,
and they were about to throw themselves into a war the likes of which they had
never even imagined. But enough of looking down. Triara turned her inner gaze
upward, and her spirit soared with delight and awe at what she saw.
Urtur The Great could not believe his luck when
he saw all but one of the blue-skinned aliens dissolve into balls of light and rise
into the air, leaving their clothes behind. He was glad that he had taken the
time to study the history of these strange people, including that other time
long ago when 99% of their race vanished in the same way. Recognizing what he
was seeing allowed him to react quickly. The lone blue-skinned alien left was
clearly surprised by the disappearance of his fellows, and best of all, he
himself was not armed. Urtur’s guards quickly subdued him, and Urtur grinned as
he saw the look of fear on the man’s face. Urtur then turned his attention to
the alien ship standing quietly a short distance away. To the Tollarians, his
people must have looked primitive, but they had some technology with
heavier-than-air flying craft, armored land vehicles and ships that could
travel under water. So the idea of a ship that could fly between the stars,
while impressive, didn’t intimidate them. His people would ‘convince’ this
quivering alien to show them how to operate the ship, and with it he, Urtur The
Great, would conquer the rest of this world before travelling to other planets
where these blue-skinned devils lived to see if the Change had taken 99% of
their inhabitants too. The thought of a Deimen Empire rising from the ashes of
the Tollarian Empire was a thought so intoxicating that he felt light-headed
for a few seconds. He gave a loud laugh and patted the alien on his shoulder.
“Fear not, Ship-commander, we will not hurt you
as long as you co-operate. Now, tell me everything you know about your ship.”
The alien moaned with understanding, and as he started talking, tears rolled
down his face.
SubCommander Tyler Logan entered the
Information Center and strolled over to the Command Chair where the Officer on
duty was seated.
“Okay, Tory, you’re relieved,” said Logan in a
casual, almost bored voice.
The reply was equally enthusiastic. “I stand
relieved, SubCommander.” As Logan took his place in the chair, Tory continued. “Mission
status is unchanged. All recs are still in contact. No sign of an exit. God I
love this job.”
Logan grinned at the dripping sarcasm. “Forgive
me if I’m not sympathetic, Sam. As I recall, you jumped at the chance of a fast
promotion for volunteering for this mission.”
Tory shrugged. “Had I known it would be like
this, I might have resisted the temptation, and you know as well as I do that
it’s not just the boredom. It’s all this blackness; it’s enough to make you go
mad if you stare at it long enough.”
Logan nodded. He knew Tory wasn’t exaggerating.
On similar missions in the past, more than one person had suffered a nervous
breakdown. For some people, finding a path through the emptiness of the Rift
between sections of the local spiral arm was psychologically so difficult to
handle that the Space Force required psychological testing for all volunteers.
The problem stemmed from the nature of
travelling faster than light. While warp drive technology made it possible to
travel faster than the speed of light, it wasn’t fast enough. The best speed
obtained so far was only 4.4 times light, so a trip to the nearest average star
at maximum warp speed still took almost a year. That would have resulted in
very slow expansion into space had not the development of warp technology also
given engineers the ability to detect anomalies in the fabric of surrounding
space, and wormholes had been discovered as a result.
It hadn’t taken long to figure out that there
were a surprisingly large number of wormholes, with many star systems having
half a dozen or more. Wormholes connected a star system with adjacent star
systems even if those happened to be many light years away. And when
exploration had reached the edge of the spiral arm, the discovery that
wormholes extended into the Rift had made the idea of crossing the Rift a real
possibility.
The Emperor, prior to his assassination, had
decided that he wanted to know what was on the other side of the Rift. That was
three years ago. Initial estimates said that it would take about a year to
reach the other side. After three years, they were only halfway. Logan had
heard that although the Emperor had initially found this difficult to
understand, he eventually had grasped the problem.
The Rift wasn’t completely empty of stars; they
were only few and far between. Wormhole theory said that even stars separated
by hundreds of light years should have a wormhole connecting them so long as
there was no appreciable mass in between. As it turned out, there were lots of
masses in between, usually in the form of big, rocky, dark and cold planets
that were impossible to see. The other end of this wormhole was near a rocky planet
instead of the star they were aiming for, light years further away. But near
was a relative term. Stars were so massive that they pulled wormhole exits
closer. With much smaller masses like planets, the entrance to the wormhole was
further away and sometimes much further away, which meant that the volume of
space that had to be searched increased exponentially. And if a rocky planet
could connect via a wormhole with a star, it could also connect via a wormhole
with another rocky planet.
To add insult to injury, the Rift exploration
fleet eventually discovered that the fastest route between one star and another
distant star in the Rift wasn’t always the straightest. Sometimes taking a more
round-about path could actually be faster due to the relative positioning of
specific wormhole exits. It was the mapping of those detours that posed the
biggest risk of literally getting lost in the space surrounding a rocky planet.
If a ship’s astrogation system malfunctioned and gave incorrect estimates of
its position relative to the wormhole exit point it came from, that ship could
theoretically wander around forever without finding that wormhole exit again.
That’s why new wormholes were never explored by just one ship. One ship always
stayed very close to the wormhole exit, broadcasting a continuous signal to let
other ships know where that wormhole was.
Logan knew that he wasn’t the only officer who
occasionally checked to make sure they were still receiving the wormhole exit
signal while on Bridge duty. It was also common for the main 3-D holographic
display to be turned off. Even when set to tactical instead of visual, the lack
of any detected object for hours and days at a time was unnerving. And while Logan’s
ship, the Bird of Prey, wasn’t the only ship looking for the next wormhole in
this planetary system, the position of only one of the other four ships was
known.
“Report status of reconnaissance drones,” said Logan.
The electronic voice of the ship’s computer
answered immediately. “Twenty-four drones are on station and operating within
acceptable parameters.”
Logan sighed. The Bird of Prey class of light
cruisers could only carry a maximum of 30 recon drones, and those extra 6 were
being held in reserve as spares in case some of the others broke down. If the
ship could carry four times as many, they could cut down the average time
required to find a wormhole in half, and they’d be at the other side of the
Rift by now. However, bureaucratic inertia and political maneuvering by
admirals who cared more about their personal fiefdoms than the Empire had
resulted in these light cruisers being used instead of the more efficient
Euryalus-class battlecruisers with their heavier drone load.
Then again, if the larger battlecruisers were
performing the mission, he would still be a Senior Lieutenant instead of the
probationary rank of SubCommander. Assuming they found a route to the other
side AND got back home, his new rank would become permanent, as would all the
other incentive promotions of officers in the Rift Exploration Squadron.
For the next hour, he kept himself occupied
with administrative tasks and was just about finished with those when he heard
the gentle two-tone sound of a status change.
“Gravitational anomaly has been detected by
recon drone #13. Do you wish to see the data on the main display?” asked the
electronic voice.
“Yes.” The display lit up with a tactical
representation. Optically, the anomaly was invisible because it wasn’t emitting
any EM radiation whatsoever. Logan looked at the display carefully for a few
seconds before making the obvious decision.
“Head for the anomaly, Helm, and bring us to a
stop at the standard range. Bridge to Commander Montoya.” It took a couple of
seconds before he heard the reply. The CO had probably been asleep.
“Montoya here, Bridge.”
“We’ve detected an anomaly and are moving
closer to confirm it, Commander. It’s too early to say for sure that it’s a
wormhole.”
“Very good, XO. I’ll be on the Bridge shortly.
Clear.”
By the time Montoya arrived on the Bridge, the
ship was close enough to confirm that this was indeed the exit point of a new
wormhole. Its relative position to the rocky planet at the center of this
system gave them a rough idea of the direction that the other end of the wormhole
would be, but not the distance. It could be the star that sensors said was
roughly 144 light years away, but Logan was willing to bet that there was
another rocky planet in between.
With Montoya once again in command, Logan
vacated the Command Chair and took off his helmet. Montoya wasted no time in
executing the standard protocol for this kind of situation. First thing was the
sending of one of the spare recon drones into the wormhole, with programmed
instructions to do a quick scan of the other side, then re-enter the wormhole
at that end and come back here. That would take almost an hour, and the crew
hated the wait. But orders were orders. Very occasionally, wormholes were too
unstable for a safe transit, and it was better to lose a recon drone than a
whole ship.
“Did you want to notify the relay ship now,
Commander?” asked Logan.
“Might as well. Open a channel, Comm.” When the
Comm. Tech looked at him and nodded, Montoya cleared his throat and began
speaking.
“Bird of Prey to Black Eagle.”
“Black Eagle to Bird of Prey. Magnasson here.”
“Montoya here, Seth. We’ve found a wormhole.
The difference in time signals indicates we’re about one hundred forty-four
light minutes from you. You can notify the rest of the squadron and come on up.
We’ll hold the fort down here for you guys.”
Logan heard a voice in the background but
couldn’t make out the words. The tone, however, indicated that something
unusual had just happened.
“Ah, not so fast, Ren. We’ve just picked up
five, I repeat, five unidentified ships heading this way at point eight cee. If
they maintain this speed, they’ll get here in about thirteen minutes. Here’s
the interesting thing. They’re coming from the same direction as your
longitudinal signal. I think it’s highly likely that they came out of that same
wormhole just a short while before you found it. Standby while we try to make
contact with the rest of the squadron.”
Logan stepped closer to Montoya’s Command
Chair. When Montoya turned his head in Logan’s direction, Logan leaned over and
said, “If they came out of this wormhole, there may be more of them emerging at
any moment. I recommend we pull back to extreme detection range.”
Montoya nodded. “See to it immediately,
SubCommander.”
Logan went over to the Helm Station and told
the Helm Officer what he wanted done. Detection of ships using warp drive was
limited to a range of just under 11 light minutes or 200 million kilometers. At
Bird of Prey’s maximum speed of 4.4 times the speed of light, travelling that
distance would take just 2.5 minutes. The trick was to stay in contact with the
relay ship by longitudinal wave transmission. That wasn’t a problem for Logan’s
ship since they knew exactly where to point their transmitter, but the relay
ship had to be kept updated via data transmission as to what Bird of Prey was
doing so that it could adjust its transmitter to compensate.
Logan checked the chronometer for elapsed time
since the relay ship had begun detecting the bogeys. Almost four minutes had
gone by. He wondered about the bogey’s speed. If they were capable of faster
speeds, why not do so? Could it be that their detection range was shorter than
the squadron’s light cruisers’? His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of
Black Eagle’s commander.
“Oh Christ! Ren, those five bogeys have just
boosted to four point six cee! They’ll be here within ninety seconds! We
haven’t been able to make contact with any other ship yet! I’m taking us to
Battle Stations, Ren! Stand by!”
“XO, bring us to Battle Stations too.”
Montoya’s voice had been calm. Logan wondered
if his CO’s stomach was churning just as much as his own was right now. Logan
ran over to the Helm Station and used it to sound the Battle Stations alarm.
“We’re at Battle Stations, Comma—“ Logan’s
sentence was cut off by Magnasson’s voice.
“Okay, they’re dropping back down now! They’ve
gone sub-light! They’ll be within weapons range any second now! Stay on your
toes everybody! We hold our fire unless I say otherwise! Here they come, Ren!
OH, GOD, THEY’RE FIR—“
The cutoff in mid yell was jarring. After a
couple of seconds, Montoya looked over to the Comm. Tech and made a slashing
motion across his throat to signal that the Comm. Tech should cease
transmission. Montoya manipulated his own virtual controls and Logan watched
the main display zoom out. It now showed both wormhole exit points, the rocky
planet, Bird of Prey’s location and the estimated locations of the other ships.
Without direct contact, there was no way of knowing where the other ships
really were. They could be many light seconds away from the estimated points.
Logan looked at the display and tried to guess
what Montoya was thinking. If the planet was the center of a clock, the new
wormhole would be at three o’clock and Black Eagle’s wormhole would be at eleven
o’clock. The other three ships were at one, six and nine o’clock respectively,
but that only told part of the story because they were exploring this planetary
system in three dimensions which meant that the clock analogy didn’t take into
consideration up and down vectors.