Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit Read online

  Birthright:

  Battle for the Confederation

  Pursuit

  Ryan Krauter

  Copyright © 2014 by Ryan Krauter

  Cover art by Ryan Krauter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Novels by Ryan Krauter

  (hyperlinks)

  Birthright Series:

  Invasion

  Reprisal

  Crusade

  Turmoil

  Pursuit

  The Out of Nowhere Series: (Young Adult)

  Out of Nowhere

  Shadow of Doubt

  The Fixer (click to follow link)

  My Own Prison (short story) (click to follow link)

  Acknowledgements

  Ahhh, writer’s block. How I have managed to hide from thee, my nemesis. I find that if I can just sit down and fire up the old electronic typing apparatus, I can manage to get some work done. And yet here I sit, not knowing who or what to acknowledge in the appropriately named ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Well, it’s better than not having any idea how to end the novel, wouldn’t you say?

  I could thank technology, from my home built PC to my iPad and bluetooth keyboard, for allowing me to work on my novels anywhere I can find time and a place to write.

  I could go the other direction, and wax romantic about getting away from the previously mentioned technology; going camping, setting some marshmallows on fire and slowing down a bit. That’s a good time as well.

  I think it’s high time I pay respects to you, those that have shelled out a few bucks to read my works. I wrote the first two novels in the Birthright series before I realized I could put them up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for sale. It’s been about three years since then, and the Kindle Store is a very different place. There are seemingly exponetially more authors and subjects to choose from than when I started. If it doesn’t create a generation gap, go ahead and picture Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man right now. “In my day, we had to grind up wood and make papyrus and then write using ink we made from spit and berries, and we liked it!”

  So thank you, dear reader, for reading my books. I hope you enjoy them, because I had a geniunely good time writing them. It’s more fun for me than watching reality TV and just consuming. I wanted to create something instead, and I sincerely hope you found it worth your time. There are a lot of authors out there today, and that’s a good thing because as a reader myself I feel like there are a lot of people out there who are writing books I’ll enjoy.

  Cheers!

  Dedication

  As always, my work is dedicated to Krista, Colin, Chase, and Sydney.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The small moon hung innocently in space, turning the days away as it had done for the uncaring eons, orbiting a gas giant that had captured it from its trip through the solar system millions of years ago. Some combination of gravity from the gas giant as well as the composition of the moon itself had served to establish enough mass and a magnetic field to produce an atmosphere, even some peaceful oceans. It featured a small temperate zone at the equator whose conditions had attracted researchers and adventurers, some of whom had set up a fairly profitable mining operation for those unique elements that were below the moon's surface. There was a smattering of indigenous animal and plant life, though nothing that would excite the average biologist.

  About the only interesting thing about the place was the task force of Confederation warships in orbit, high above the tranquil forests. There was a pair of destroyers, a cruiser, a Crusader class hunter/killer, a Starshaker class battleship, and even a Marine Assault Ship.

  "The electromagnetic fields from the gas giant are playing holy hell with the sensors," muttered the officer at the Sensors station in the spacious briefing area at the rear of the Assault Ship's bridge.

  "The miners down on the moon's surface supposedly had an algorithm figured out to see through all the garbage," the officer's partner quipped as he tapped some commands of his own. "Isn't it in the mission file anywhere?"

  "Hang on; I'm looking."

  The second sensor operator scanned the surface once again. The naval force was orbiting high above a former mining encampment; the biggest on the whole moon, in fact. It was quite an operation, with multi-story buildings, a fully developed town and housing for almost ten thousand, and two separate spaceports for taking ore up to orbit for shipment.

  The only thing missing was the people. It had been almost a month since the Governing Committee and its head, Senator Zek Dennix, had announced the formal suspension of hostilities between the Confederation and the invading Priman force which had been cutting a swath through the galactic arm they resided in. Since that announcement, many settlements and interests along the frozen borders had been evacuated and abandoned; it was clear that Confed was leaning more toward appeasement and cooperation than in protecting its pre-invasion territories, and many had seen the writing on the wall and had left for the relative safety of the inner planets.

  Senator Dennix had even gone so far as to issue a list of places that were off limits to Confed civilians and military alike; only in recent days had he finally relented and given the navy a list of places they were in fact allowed to investigate.

  That brought them here, to a moon claimed by the Galactic Ore Corporation. The minerals mined here were of some value, but more importantly this system was the farthest out that Confed units were allowed to roam. Fleet Admiral Privac had wasted no time in ordering a scouting force to recon and secure the moon. The navy had plans to install a listening post and do what they could to monitor Priman traffic outside Confed borders. The Fleet Admiral had been hampered by Rules of Engagement issued by the Governing Committee which required him to use minimum practical force so as not to possibly antagonize any Priman observers who might see them.

  "Ok," the first sensor tech announced proudly, "I have the algorithm running. It's not exactly written with our hardware in mind, but I made a few changes and I think we're all right."

  "Whatever would we do without you?" the second tech asked sarcastically, but with a grin that was born of much mutual ribbing.

  Ignoring him, the first tech continued. "Ok. I see our landing force on the eastern side of the city. They've spread into the town under air cover from the Talons that escorted them down. Hovertanks and powered armor are moving up. Looks like we're on schedule. Still no life signs other than our people."

  "I'll tell the captain; he's convinced the Primans are hiding behind every asteroid we fly past. Maybe now the poor guy can calm down a bit."

  Captain Second Rank Kleth Orjon, one of the senior ground commanders from the Marine Assault Ship Aniteo, stood atop his hovertank and surveyed the countryside through his electronic field glasses. The young Drisk man had the traditional high-ponytail of his people and in fact loved anything with a tradition and heritage. While he could have used his data pad, the mini holo generator in his tank or the data projected on the faceplate of his helmet, he preferred to see things with his own eyes using the old fashioned magnifiers. As a result, he'd parked his command tank on the biggest hill just outside of town and surveyed his troops as they converged on and entered the city.

  It was an honest-to-goodness town, not just some ratty mining encampment that had sprawled up and crept across the terrain surrounding the processing facility. There were shopping centers, entertainment complexes, apartments; everything he'd expect to find on a major planet. His troops hadn't been in a lot of urban combat; in fact, t
he few engagements they'd been in had all seemed to be over lonely Confed outposts and armories, usually in out-of-the-way locations or on airless moonlets. He wasn't going to pass up this chance to review urban operations, and had deployed most of the 5000 troops and mechanized units at his disposal.

  "Jumper One and Two," he said into his headset as he looked through his field glasses.

  "Here," came two voices over the headphones. Kleth saw both companies of powered armor suits as they established their position on a hill and set up their perimeter.

  "We're almost set here," Kleth continued. "Get ready to advance."

  "Understood."

  He watched as the powered armor units changed orientation and spread out for their advance into the city. Confed's latest generation of powered armor made the average soldier about a full head taller while wearing the suit. It was an exoskeleton, armored and powered by a fuel cell good for almost a week in sustained combat. They carried the venerable HMR-12 assault rifle, but most troops also packed specialized weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles, flamethrowers, flechette guns, heavy machine guns, even EMP and Electronic Warfare weaponry. They'd be ready for whatever they came across in town, but unfortunately he didn't expect to see any Primans.

  Aboard the battleship Renown, Captain Mora Grell sighed in disappointment. She'd just received the latest updates from the surface as well as the Marine Assault Ship Aniteo, named like most of the class for important worlds in the Confederation.

  There was nothing to report. No ships on this entire side of the solar system. Nothing on the surface, either. That was the most surprising. With the mining company's presence gone, she'd expected thieves, looters, pirates, scavengers of some sort. There was a lot of useful equipment down there just begging to be removed from the planet. But there was no activity at all. This mission was turning into a great disappointment. Sure, it was the most action she'd seen in weeks, but she wished desperately that it was more than an operation to seize an uninhabited moon, grab some refined ore and plant a few sensor platforms. There were more Primans needed killing than sensors that needed placing, and assaulting an empty planet wasn't going to accomplish anything, no matter how convincingly they did it.

  "How long until the main sensor platforms are deployed?" she asked her ops officer. With any luck they could at least patrol around the outer reaches of the system once they were done and maybe find out something useful.

  "City secure," Captain Orjon heard through the tactical net. Well, that's it then, he thought. There was apparently not going to be anything interesting worth seeing here. Perhaps that meant the Primans were actually obeying the treaty and staying out of Confed territory? Not that the navy knew; they were so hamstrung by their ROE that they couldn't even patrol much of their own territory near the DMZ between Confed and the occupied space around it and coreward.

  "Alright," Orjon said over the net, trying to not sound disappointed. "Jumper One, you take your mechanized troops and head for the mining company's offices and secure as per the plan. Jumper Two, you take the spaceport on the other side of the city. Tanks, we're heading back to our rally point on the outskirts to set up a perimeter. Bring in the rest of the vehicles, dismount, and we'll search the city for anything interesting. Might as well be sure nobody got left behind."

  Aboard the Aniteo, the sensor techs were about to go off-shift. Being the most experienced at their positions, they had been on station during the run-in and initial landings, but now with the system clear they were turning their consoles over to the next junior officers and would observe them at work.

  "And we have this site over here marked for gunnery practice from the Aniteo's surface bombardment guns later," the sensor tech was telling his replacement as he pointed to a scrap yard outside of the city limits. Ground assaults were rare where the Primans were concerned, and the captain had wanted to get everyone some practice, even the crew of the huge surface bombardment batteries. "Hang on," he said, annoyed at the computer. There was a glitch now, a sensor shadow around an area behind one of the newly-deployed orbiting sensor platforms. "Stupid thing." He looked over at his partner. "Can you check Platform Four? We just lost a quarter of its scanning sectors."

  "Sure. Stand by." Clicking, typing, swiping, the second sensor tech worked the controls at his station while the junior officers stood behind them, eager to have their time on the consoles and trying their best to not look annoyed.

  "Oh, sheifah," the sensor tech said in dismay.

  "Captain!" Mora Grell heard the excited call from her comm officer and was about to mention something about maintaining composure until she saw the look in the woman's eyes.

  "What is it?" Grell asked as she hurried to the station.

  "The sensor platform feeding us this info just got scrambled and went offline, but it sent us this." She tapped a spot on the touchscreen and an image sprang up on the main holo display at the front of the bridge. It was a huge mass of Priman capital ships.

  Captain Vol smiled as he surveyed the formation ahead of him on the main display of his bridge. He had two dozen heavy cruisers at his disposal; he'd learned a painful lesson not very long ago that one should never assume one had enough ships to deal with an enemy. As a result, he'd virtually demanded that his force for this operation had enough hulls to be decisive. Things had been uncertain until Representative Ravine, who had become a trusted comrade and now his patron among the senior military, simply assigned him the ships he'd requested.

  Representative Ravine stood at his side now, sharing his knowing grin. She saw the incoming data and drew the same conclusions he did. The loyal Confed forces attempting to seize this moon could put up a solid fight, but Priman ships now carried the operational version of the EMP torpedo that was part of their new arsenal of electromagnetic weaponry.

  "Disperse the flanking units," Vol ordered his ops officer. "We don't want any of them running. Or surviving."

  Ten of his cruisers split off to encircle the Confed ships. Vol's forces had been lying in wait, powered down and virtually undetectable. It would have prevented them from moving to intercept an enemy and so was of limited tactical value, but the Primans had known the Confed navy was coming and what they were after. Those forces were now backed up against the moon's atmosphere with his own ships converging on the sides to cut off escape; the Confeds had nowhere to run.

  Captain Vol turned to Representative Ravine. "Would you care to give the order?"

  Ravine acknowledged with an eager grin and nod. She turned to the weapons crew on the starboard side of the bridge. "Launch EMP torpedoes."

  Captain Grell was just putting the finishing touches on a quick deployment order for her task force on her data screen when she heard the weapons officer call out a torpedo launch.

  "Why the hell would they launch this far out?" she asked of the weapons tech as she stomped over to his station. "We'll have forever to let our point defense turrets generate a shoot-list and take them down. I suppose a few will get through, but that's a serious waste of weapons, especially considering they don't have reloadable tubes like we do."

  "Agreed, Captain," the officer noted. "All launches came from external hard points."

  Mora Grell wondered what the Primans were intending with such a long-range first salvo, when suddenly things clicked together and realized with stark horror what was heading their way. She'd only received the updated brief this morning and hadn't even had time to send it out to her crew yet; the Primans were rumored to have field-tested some incredibly advanced EMP weaponry. There was no reason a torpedo couldn't be equipped with the same tech.

  "Start firing now!" she yelled. The weapons tech looked at her quizzically. "I know they're outside effective range, but those are EMP torpedoes; nothing we have can protect us. So start shooting now, dammit!"

  The tech stabbed the override button on the computer's standard programming and released the AA/point defense turrets to fire at will.

  Captain Orjon was standing on the top deck of his
hovertank, switching between his field glasses in one hand and the comm unit in the other.

  "Captain!" he heard from within the tank. His driver/gunner, a Drisk woman who was more proficient at stringing together off-color curses than anyone else he knew, popped up from the hatch and gave him a chilling look.

  "What's wrong?" he asked, immediately sensing that something was seriously amiss.

  "It's the Aniteo," she said in a rush. "They're reporting the Priman fleet just launched a huge spread of torpedoes at our ships and the planet itself."

  "Well," he replied cautiously, "that sort of what happens when two groups of people are at war with each other. They'll do something mean to us, and then we'll do something mean back to them."

  "No, dammit all," she continued, frustrated. "They warned us they were some new kind of EMP weapon. They said we might be on our own."

  Captain Grell watched anxiously as her fleet maneuvered. She'd given the order to scatter, break apart as much as possible in the hopes that the effective radius of the EMP torpedoes was smaller than the volume of space her ships could occupy.

  She watched at her point defense batteries choked space with rapid laserfire, chopping away at the incoming weapons. She wished these were just plain old torpedoes and she could roll the hull and just let them hit Renown's heavily armored keel. But there were just too many of them...

  The first wave lost most of its members, only a half dozen torpedoes surviving to get within detonation range. One detonated on the aft of the Crusader class ship. The hunter/killer showed no apparent signs of trauma, other than the fact that over the course of several seconds every last light extinguished. The drives sputtered and went dark, their mysterious energies dispersed. The now-dark ship just coasted off in the direction it had been going, inertia destined to keep it on the same course forever, out into the reaches of interstellar space.