The Void War (Empire Rising Book 1) Read Free

arrived from Resolution.
     
    Sub Lieutenant Samson scanned over it before addressing his commander. “Sir, Resolution has just picked up a fleet dropping out of shift space. Based on the readings they obtained from the re-entry patterns they think they are Chinese. Resolution estimates there is a battleship, a battlecruiser, three heavy cruisers and at least thirty other ships that they can’t make out yet, though they think some are freighters. They are reporting one more large vessel that they can’t identify. It isn’t a battleship but it seems to be in the same mass range.”
     
    Lightfoot grimaced. Ordinarily the opportunity to see a Chinese fleet maneuvering would provide priceless intel. Yet, ideally, he would like to get the information while lying in stealth, not while escorting a convoy that would be lighting up every sensor within a light day. Britain and China might be at peace but being out in the open so far from home made him feel a little nervous. Not to mention the battleship. The Chinese only had one of the mammoth ships in their fleet. What was it doing out here?
     
    “Tactical orientate our optical and heat sensors towards these new comers. Let’s see what our Chinese friends are doing with themselves out here in the back end of nowhere.”
     
    It would take over fifty minutes for the heat and optical data to travel from the Chinese fleet to Surprise , twenty more than it would take to reach the convoy. Yet getting so much information back to the Admiralty and the Royal Space Navy Intelligence would be priceless.
     
    *
     
     
     
    Aboard the Chinese medium cruiser Yang Wei Captain Zu was just receiving a communication stream from his admiral. “Captain, you know the importance of our mission and the importance of secrecy. Those British ships cannot be allowed back to Earth. You command our fastest ship, I’m detaching the Yang Wei and her sister ship the Chao Yung . I want you and Captain Kuang to destroy that convoy. Don’t leave a single ship alive. I know you didn’t sign up for these kinds of missions but it is essential that the British do not learn our fleet was here. No word can be allowed to get back to Earth. I’m going to jump on to our next destination once we have charged our jump drives. You are to follow once you have finished here. Understood?”
     
    “Yes sir, they will all be turned into space debris.”
     
    The Admiral smiled as he clicked off the communication. He had handpicked his Captains for this mission because he knew they would follow him no matter what. He had just ordered his subordinate to fire on friendly naval vessels and unarmored freighters and he hadn’t even blinked! Fifty years ago such an order would have been unthinkable but the British were about to find out that things had changed in China. He knew the ultimate responsibility would fall on him for what was about to happen but he did not care. That, he suspected, was why he had been chosen for this mission. His superiors knew he would do whatever it took to ensure China acquired the four habitable worlds they had discovered.
     
    *
     
     
    “Sir,” Sub Lieutenant Erickson said with alarm from his tactical station aboard Surprise , “two of the Chinese ships have gone to full acceleration. They are heading straight for the convoy.”
     
    Ordinarily ships could only be detected by the radiation they vented into space. They, therefore, did everything they could to prevent any radiation escaping but when it came to heat radiation it was almost impossible. With fusion reactors and impulse drives operating at even sixty percent a ship lit up in the cold dark expanse of space like a firework in the night’s sky back on Earth. 
     
    However, as radiation only travels at the speed of light, ships were effectively limited to looking into the past. Over short distances this didn’t cause a problem but for anything over a light minute away it meant that a Commander was always reacting to what his