The Forgotten Empire: War for the Empire by Raymond Weil (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

-

Admiral Cleemorl was in the midst of making a hard decision. After the attack on the inhabited moon of Clovian, he had sent out battlecruisers to find the base where the Zynth fleet operated from. He considered taking the fight to them, rather than let them continue to attack the various worlds and inhabited moons of the Hagen Star Cluster whenever they felt like it. At some point one of those attacks would be successful.

“In another week the first warships will come out of the shipyards above Tantula Five,” reported Captain Fulmar. “They’re already producing large numbers of attack interceptors.”

“What about the other six major systems in the cluster?”

“They’re about one week behind in their ship construction. It won’t be long, and they’ll put up a sizable fleet to handle the defense of the entire cluster.”

Dylan nodded. “We have dozens of worlds now building warships and attack interceptors throughout the Empire.”

Captain Fulmar nodded. He knew Dylan had been working hard to fortify the Hagen Star Cluster. If the Confederation launched a major attack, no doubt this cluster would be one of the early primary targets.

“What do you want to do about the Zynth? Already today two more Zynth ships had jumped into the system to run their normal scans.”

“We attack,” said Dylan. “We know where their base is, and the last thing they’ll be expecting is for us to launch a full-scale attack against them. We can take them by surprise and, with a little luck, get off the first shots. If we annihilate this fleet, the Confederation will no longer know what’s taking place in this cluster, and that’s what I want.”

“So you spoke to Fleet Admiral Marloo about your plans?” Captain Fulmar knew the fleet admiral had to approve any such attack, as that which Admiral Cleemorl was planning.

Dylan nodded. “Yes, I did. He just said to do everything in our power to keep our losses to a minimum. We can’t afford any major fleet losses at this time.”

Captain Fulmar understood this very well. “So, how large a fleet are we taking?”

“I’ve thought it over. We’ll take five hundred of our battlecruisers and all our dreadnoughts. That should give us an advantage in ships and firepower. If we can get in the first strike, we should hold our losses to a minimum.”

“When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. We need to make arrangements to ensure our remaining ships can protect the cluster while we’re gone.”

Captain Fulmar nodded. That would give him plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements.

-

Back in the core worlds, Derrick was on board the new Destiny. They had just arrived at the system that the core worlds normally used for war games. The system had eight planets, dozens of moons, and two small asteroid fields that had long since been mined out.

“System is empty,” confirmed Major Nower.

Derrick nodded. All ships had been told to stay away from this system for the next twenty-four hours. “Pick out a couple large asteroids, and we’ll test our main weapons systems. We’ll hold off on the particle beam cannons, until we’re satisfied everything else is working as it should.”

-

The Destiny approached a large asteroid, and its heavy fusion weapons rotated until they were aimed at the large space rock. Suddenly fusion energy beams leaped out to strike the surface, carving deep glowing gashes into the ground. For several minutes the Destiny assaulted the asteroid, as the ship turned to bring all its fusion weapons to bear. When the firing stopped, the large asteroid was crisscrossed with glowing canyons, where the beams had cut deeply into the asteroid’s surface.

The ship backed away, and its missile ports slid open. From six of the ports, antimatter missiles flashed out to strike the surface of the asteroid. The explosions were massive, and bright fusion fireballs rose above the battered surface. When the fireballs died away, glowing craters appeared, kilometers deep. Some of the debris from the blasts had been hurled into space, some of it even impacting the energy screen of the Destiny.

“All weapons systems check out,” reported Captain Banora. “Now we just need to test the particle beam cannons.”

Derrick nodded. So far he was very pleased with the performance of his new flagship. “Pull us back to ten thousand kilometers and then hit the asteroid with both of the twin cannons for the particle beams.” Derrick was anxious to see how much more powerful the particle beams were compared to the fusion ones. “Make sure we’re recording everything.”

-

The Destiny reoriented itself, until it faced the large asteroid, and then two light-violet beams shot out, striking the asteroid. A pair of tremendous explosions shook the asteroid and threatened to tear it apart. A massive cloud of dust and debris rose over the stricken area. Then the next two beams fired hit the same location. The asteroid shook violently and slowly split apart.

-

Derrick gazed at the ship’s main viewscreen in shock. Not only had the particle beams caused an unbelievable amount of damage to the asteroid but the second firing had actually split the asteroid in two.

“Do you see that!” said Audrey excitedly, her mouth open in shock. “Can you imagine what these beams would do to a Confederation warship?”

“Probably destroy it,” answered Derrick. “I want to hit both of those different pieces of the asteroid with the particle beams again. I want to see if we can duplicate what we just did or if we happened to hit a weak spot on the asteroid.”

The Destiny targeted one of the asteroid pieces and fired again. In a massive explosion, the section of the asteroid targeted blew apart, sending debris flying across space. When the debris field cleared, the asteroid had been blown apart. The ship then fired on the other large asteroid piece with the same result.

Audrey shook her