Black Legion - The First Trilogy Page 4

  “This is the Captain. We have just received word from our sentry drones. A force of Laconian ships has been detected in quadrant alpha twelve. Check your systems, we jump in thirty seconds.”

  Thirty seconds and enemy ships detected. Is this it?

  Xenophon gulped at the realization he was finally going into action. His mouth dried at the mere thought of the dreaded Laconian fleet. His training kicked in, and he ran his eyes along the lines of data, checking the power levels, plasma generators and targeting grid.

  As the craft moved from the protection of the vast Armada, each one flashed and then vanished. The faster than light (FTL) engines of each frigate propelled them away at unimaginable speed to their patrol area. Inside the ship, Xenophon did his best to not retch. No other members of the vessel seemed to be adversely affected by the journey. He was certainly the most recent addition to the crew, but even so he would have expected other members to experience at least mild discomfort during the trip.

  “Three minutes until arrival, charging up primary weapon generators. All stations report in,” said the Captain.

  Xenophon scanned from left to right, looking at scores of numbers and diagrams that showed him everything from the temperature of the barrels to the heart rates of his two assistants.

  “Everything looks good,” he said, partially to confirm, but also to reassure him that he had made no mistakes. The trigger locks were still active and could only be withdrawn by the tactical officer or commander of the gun deck.

  “News coming in from Headquarters, a Strike force has been tracked by our primary fleet, and they are in pursuit. Arrival in sixty seconds,” said the Captain.

  Xenophon’s pulse was now pounding. He could see his own life signs on the monitor suite next to him. The increase in heart rate simply made him more anxious. One alert message popped up. There was a slight anomaly in the targeting system. It wasn’t serious, but it did throw him into a minor panic. The change in pressure inside the ship hit inside his skull, and the feeling of sickness quickly returned.

  We must be there, he thought.

  “Battlestations!” called out the Captain through the embedded communication nodes fitted to every crewman. The small device was fitted behind the ear and several millimeters under the skin. Xenophon reached out and touched the spot where it had been inserted. The doctors said he wouldn’t feel its presence, but he felt it anyway. The ship FTL engine cut out, and his view of the stars shifted from streaks to a still, almost beautiful starscape.

  “Enemy ships detected at mark three point five. Ready the guns. It’s a scouting party.”

  Xenophon looked around to the rest of the gun deck and then up to the command centre. Dozens of crew moved about, and each carried out their duties as quickly as they could. He had two of the crew under his control, and they worked furiously to carry out their work of preparing the individual guns, monitoring their power levels and anything else needed to get the ship ready for battle. There were two other gun deck sections, and just like this one, they were arrayed in a crescent shape around the command centre of the ship. It meant the Captain, command crew and the gunners, were all in sight of each other. Each gun deck, and its weapons, had an arc of fire that covered a full third of the ship. His particular gun deck on the starboard side was tiny compared to the similar parts of the much larger capital ships. He imagined himself commanding a gun crew on one of the Titans stationed around the supply base. That was just a dream though.

  Xenophon was a young midshipman of just twenty-five years of age, and this operation was already making him feel sick. This was his first assignment in the fleet of the Alliance Armada, and his nerves were already frayed. He was hardly one of the gruff infantrymen that swaggered through the ship, each waiting for their chance to engage the enemy in some close ranged brawl. Xenophon was lean, almost slender in build. His fair skin was in stark contrast with the sunburned faces of the more seasoned crew who had fought on land, and in space, during their many years of service in the war. He spotted the nearest midshipman, a red faced man called Maxentius. He was sat waiting with his system ready and his guns online. Xenophon was captivated by the calm on the gun deck until he realized his was the only station not yet ready. He brought up the targeting matrix and focused on the Laconian cruiser that sat ninety kilometers away. The display showed the power levels rising in the gun battery’s power cells.

  The communication node whispered to him, and once more distracted him from his work.

  “Damned thing,” he muttered.

  “Gunners, hold your fire.”

  He checked the enemy ship again. It looked similar to their destroyers. The greatest difference, as far as he could tell, was one of aesthetics. Whereas the Alliance ships were smooth and almost pretty to look at, the Laconian League ships were rough and angular, almost suggesting they were unfinished. They operated far fewer ships, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in ferocity. The Laconians might not be a great space faring colony, but they had won several devastating land battles, and their fleet had so far eluded the more experienced Alliance ships. Even more important was that the Laconians had sacrificed speed and living space for more weapons and armor. In a one on one fight they had the advantage, unless the Alliance captains made use of their speed and longer ranged guns.

  “Sir, guns are ready, power levels are correct and the targeting matrix is active,” said Private Loraine, a stern looking young woman in her early twenties.

  Xenophon had tried to make friends with her and the other enlisted men and women in the crew. For some reason, he had never been able to break the ice. There was something about him they had issues with, and he wished he knew what it was. Private Loraine, for example, gave the impression she hated him and had done so from the first moment they met.

  “Good, chain them for linked fire. We won’t have long to hit them. It is a small window of opportunity.”

  The guns could be fired individually or in groups, one of the many benefits of this kind of energy weapon. No ships in the Alliance Fleet were allowed to make use of computer control systems for anything other than communications and navigation. All engineering and weapons control were under the strict control of their human operators. It seemed archaic, and even a little stupid, to require so many people to operate vessels in space. But as powerful as computers were, they were also vulnerable to all kinds of hacking. The reliance upon these professionals made the Alliance ships more powerful and flexible than the ships in any of the known empires in the Galaxy, but also far less numerous.

  “Jammers are active,” said the Captain, his voice calm and collected through the communication node. Xenophon could almost make out his actual voice over the noise on the command centre, but it was easier to just listen to the electronic voice in the node.

  The Alliance ships, like probably every military ship in existence, were packed with advanced and powerful electronic jamming and countermeasures equipment. Jamming weapons lock and communication systems was critical to combat in space, unless you wanted your ship destroyed thousands of kilometers away from the enemy. Xenophon had learnt on his first day of training that a computer system could lock onto and track a vessel thousands of kilometers away, and hit it with torpedoes or even solid fuel missiles. Through simple use of electronic counter measures (ECM), the enemy could be forced to use their weapons on manual operation. This made them slower and reduced their effective range when done correctly. He thought back to the class where they had tried to hit a simulated Empire frigate. The vessel had been fast, too fast. The computer could hit it, but as soon as the jamming started, he had to take over. No matter how carefully he led the target, it was just too hard to hit the small ship. He just hoped that when the time came to target and fire the plasma cannons, he would strike his target in a quick and efficient manner.

  “Xenophon, you ready for this?” called out his friend and now commanding officer, Second Lieutenant Roxana Devereux. The confident women stood tall. Her thick auburn
hair and grey eyes betrayed wisdom after relatively little time in the military. She was almost the same height and build as Xenophon himself and that was no doubt part of her ability to sway the weaker minded in the crew.

  Ready for this, are you kidding? I should be back at home and studying like the rest of the citizens my age, he thought angrily.

  “Ready, Sir,” he answered as confidently as he could manage.

  She spotted him looking about nervously and frowned at his discomfort. She was a tall, confident woman and had been his friend back when they both studied under the philosophical master, Kratez. He had tried on multiple occasions to get her interest, but she seemed completely unaffected by his advances; no matter how persistent he had been.

  He watched her, but all he could think was how much she seemed to be enjoying her position on the ship. Unlike Xenophon, she had volunteered five years ago and already proven herself in three battles against the enemy. While she was busy fighting the enemies of the Alliance, he had continued his studies. For her performance at the battle of Arginusae, she had been promoted on the spot to the position of Second Lieutenant. By all accounts, it had been a truly momentous victory, sullied by the loss of a number of famous captains who had vanished in the final hours of battle. She walked towards him and smiled with a grim expression on her face.

  Come on, try and look at least half confident.

  It was her job to monitor and command the starboard gun deck, an important responsibility, and one that could win or lose a deadly battle in space.

  “Xenophon, watch your station. The enemy ships are preparing for battle, just like us.”

  And again I crash and burn, he thought, once more.

  “Aye, Sir,” he replied nervously and turned back to his tactical screen. The curved unit gave him a one hundred and eighty degree view of the space around his ship, and if he concentrated, it was as though he was actually outside and floating in space. Small colored boxes flashed around the target, each giving him the status of the enemy’s shields, weapons and armor. It was just like when he had practiced on the simulators. The single difference being that he knew his life actually depended on his and others’ competency.

  His mind drifted for a moment as the sight of Roxana reminded him of his last night back home. Xenophon and his friends from the capital had been drinking and ended up getting involved in a scuffle with some of the democrats. It was people like them that had voted year on year for the war to continue. None of his friends, with the exception of Roxana Devereux, had volunteered for the war. But after nearly twenty-seven years of war, it seemed the voting public wanted it to end. He had been conscripted to join the last Armada. This fleet was a collection of every remaining ship controlled by Attica and her allies with one simple mission, to find and destroy the primary Laconian fleet, and end the war once and for all. His thoughts were interrupted by an unfamiliar sound. It was the communication node again.

  “This is Captain Agrippa. Enemy scouts are approaching our position. We are detecting at least six, possibly more, on an approach vector. Gun crews, check your weapons and open all gun ports. Locks have been removed.”

  The locks are off. I can target and fire the guns whenever I want! The moment of worry and fear were gone, even if just for a few seconds. The feeling of power when given control of these weapons was not unlike the feeling he had when stood on a cliff edge or on top of a tall building. That brief moment when he knew he could easily fall or do something with devastating results.

  Hey, come on. Get ready, he told himself, angry at becoming caught up in the moment instead of concentrating on what he should be doing. He looked at the multitude of screens and systems around him and went through a mental checklist.

  Gun hatches open.

  The response was instantaneous. The thought process from the implanted node gave him full control over all systems other than primary fire control. From the video feed on his curved display, he could see the multitude of other ports opening up. The ports were grouped together into batteries of two guns, each pair controlled by a man or woman just like him. As the ports opened, the barrels of the powerful 60mm plasma cannons pushed out so that the last meter protruded from the ship. These weapons were the standard armament of small warships, and also used as secondary weapons on capital ships. They were rapid firing weapons that hurled magnetically sealed bolts of plasma into space. The velocity of the projectile was higher than conventional kinetic weapons, but they were short ranged because the seal would break down after just a few hundred kilometers.

  This is more like it. He started to smile, his confidence returning.

  “This is the Captain. The enemy formation is shadowing us. I suspect they are scouting for their own fleet. Wait for the order.”

  Here it comes.

  Xenophon nodded to himself, double-checking his control system and the status of his gun battery. So far it was all looking good. The next ship in formation did the same, and he watched his screen in awe as the three batteries on the port side of the ship opened up to reveal the teeth of the scout ship. It might be a small ship, but for Xenophon, it was his first exposure to warships in an actual combat operation. He had seen the guns firing during training and was convinced nothing could withstand the power of the 60mm plasma shells. The last demonstration he had seen was incredible. The plasma shell had smashed into the simulated hull and vaporized nearly half the ship it hit. He became almost impatient to see what damage he could inflict with his own pair of plasma cannons. With eighteen of these plasma cannons in total, the ship was adequately equipped to deal with small scouts and survey ships. Though the class was considered the lowest class of vessel capable of fighting in deep space, it was poorly equipped to deal with a full size warship.

  Xenophon glanced back to the command centre and watched the XO move to the Captain to speak about something. Although it was a matter of meters away, the command crew looked as if they were in a different world to him. Whereas they knew what was happening overall, Xenophon was only given as much information as he needed to do his job.

  Come on, what’s happening? Tell us something.

  There was nothing on his system that told him anything about the tactical situation or even the intent of the enemy. It didn’t seem to bother the rest of the crew in this part of the ship, but it served as a constant source of irritation to Xenophon.

  “Watch your screen. There are reports of a rogue fighter squadron in this sector,” said the XO loudly, choosing to ignore the communication nodes. His voice made Xenophon jump. He looked up towards the raised platform used by Second Lieutenant Roxana Devereux. Her viewscreen gave her a full display of the area of space around the ship, and she was seated at the periphery of the command deck itself. She had a perfect view of the rest of the gun crew, as well as the systems used to control the plasma cannons. Her job was to carry out the orders of the tactical officer who resided on the bridge along with the rest of the command crew. The gun deck was an important part of the ship, but there were also the more powerful anti-ship torpedoes. These devastating weapons were controlled by the tactical officer and resided in the armored housing near the front of the ship. Xenophon had tried to be posted to the more prestigious gun crew in the bow, but so far he had been unable to leave his current position on the flank. It was of little importance to most people, but Xenophon wasn’t used to being so insignificant. With his knowledge, skills and family connection, he was still convinced he should have his own ship. The main lights switched to red, and an emergency tone flashed through the gun deck and the rest of the command centre.

  Looks like trouble, about time though. Let’s get this over with.

  A dull rumble shook the ship as it powered up its engines. The gravitic generators did their job well and maintained a standard one gee of gravity throughout the vessel. It was not critical to provide this on board a ship, but it did offer many benefits, the most significant the wellbeing of the crew. Bone development issues and muscle deformity had all caused pro
blems for long-term travel and operations. Gravitic generators required larger ships, but it meant they could stay out for much longer duration operations.

  Xenophon looked up to Lieutenant Roxana Devereux.

  “We’re moving into range. Gunners, lock your weapons on the highlighted vessel. Target her engines and communications array. Wait for my command.”

  Xenophon nodded and checked his screen. The nearest Laconian vessel was turning from them, and its engines glowed brightly. He used the two control sticks to track the vessel. The gunnery computer calculated the current course and projected position to help with him leading the target. Xenophon treated the system like a helpful friend that assisted him with his combat duties.

  “All locked in, Lieutenant,” he replied smartly.

  She continued looking at her screen, presumably watching the rest of the enemy formation and waiting for orders from the Captain. The emergency alarm dropped in volume and finally switched off, but the battle lighting stayed red. Xenophon noticed the Captain say something to the crew in the command centre, and she almost immediately turned to Xenophon and the rest of her gun deck.

  “They are powering up their FTL engines, open fire!” she called out.

  Xenophon exhaled in excitement and pulled the triggers. The vibrations from the magnetic launch tubes could be felt even this far from the power generators. He watched the burst of whitish-blue energy as it blasted from the twin guns and hurtled towards the enemy. Streaks of similar fire erupted from the other guns, all at the same target. With just a thought, the optical unit zoomed in closer to the target so that it filled his view. The first bursts of fire arrived, of which only four rounds actually hit home. He almost jumped up for joy as one of his projectiles struck eight meters from the port engine nacelle. A blue flash indicated a powerful hit from the weapon, and he smiled with pride as a section of at least fifteen meters tore away from the ship.