Empire in Crisis Read online

  Empire in Crisis

  By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2016 by Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  http://www.dwehrsfwriter.com/

  Other books by Dietmar Arthur Wehr:

  The Synchronicity War Part 1 on Amazon (now free)

  The Synchronicity War Omnibus

  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

  Glossary of Terms:

  Empire Space Force Rank Structure(Old):

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four:

  Chapter Five:

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven:

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine:

  Chapter Ten:

  Chapter Eleven:

  Chapter Twelve:

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Chapter Eighteen:

  Chapter Nineteen:

  Appendix A:

  Author’s comments:

  Glossary of Terms:

  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

  Empire Space Force Rank Structure(Old):

  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)

  Prologue

  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.

  Chapter One

  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 loca
l 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 emer
ging 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!”