Stand Into Danger: Empire Rising Book 0 (11 page)

All the missiles but those needed for the mock engagement with the cruiser had been removed from their magazines and were now being towed behind
Surprise
. They were all set to detonate simultaneously. With any luck the Chinese would mistake the explosion for their fusion reactors overloading. That was the plan at least.

As the Chinese ship entered range, ten missiles shot out towards
Surprise
. Lightfoot returned fire moments later to keep up the pretense of trying to land a knockout blow. The missiles were timed to reach the Chinese cruiser just as
Surprise
was going to detonate her towed missiles. Not for the first time Lightfoot prayed their missiles would disrupt the Chinese sensors enough for them to buy the fake reactor overload.

As the Chinese missiles entered counter missile range Lightfoot keyed the ship wide communications. “Everyone hold on, this is going to be a rough ride.”

He watched the holo-display as one, two, three and then four missiles were knocked out by the counter missiles. Then the point defense plasma cannons opened up. Two more missiles exploded taking direct hits. Four more still bore down on
Surprise
.

Five seconds from impact the missiles accelerated to attack velocity. Just as they went into overdrive Lightfoot hit the switch, telling the towed missiles to detonate. At the same time the charges on the remaining struts holding the cargo bay in place detonated and the ventral maneuvering thrusters went full burn for one second.

Behind
Surprise
a massive fireball erupted as fifteen thermonuclear warheads exploded. Everything on the bridge went dark as the explosion disrupted power across the ship. Two of the Chinese missiles dived straight into the expanding fireball and exploded, adding their nuclear power to the detonation. The other two had their seeker heads fried by the intense radiation given off and shot off into space tracking nothing.

Lightfoot had been knocked momentarily unconscious by the g-forces caused as the explosion shook
Surprise
. As he came to he immediately looked around him to see if his crew was all right. Everyone looked more than a little shaken up but they were all in one piece.

“Tactical,” he began, trying to keep the shaking he felt inside him from reaching his voice. “What is our status?”

It took the Sub Lieutenant almost a minute to get his console up and running again and to find all the relevant information. “Sir, it appears your plan worked. We are on a ballistic trajectory with a twelve degree rotation. All our engines are shut down and all nonessential equipment has been turned off. Our valstronium armor has been seriously fried by that explosion but most of the engines seem to be in working order. We won’t know for sure until we try to fire them back up.”

“Very good Lieutenant,” Lightfoot said with a smile. “And what is our Chinese friend doing?”

Again the sub lieutenant spent over a minute checking his console before replying. “Sir, most of our passive sensors have been badly damaged but it looks like he’s still heading for the freighter.”

“Even better,” Lightfoot said as his smile grew into a grin.

*

Zu finally allowed himself to relax. He had been worried that this second frigate would be a flak frigate like the first. If he had been forced to spend too long hammering another flak frigate into submission the last freighter might have managed to escape. Now his sensor officer assured him that the frigate was a tumbling ball of wreckage.

After reading through the damage reports from the last near miss he stared at the holo-display watching the distance count down to the remaining freighter. Ten minutes and he would be able to blow it to pieces. He was already beginning to compose his report to the Admiral, focusing on the successes of the mission and all the valuable intel he had managed to get about British battle tactics. Hopefully that would be enough to gloss over the loss of his sister ship.

Suddenly the sensors officer brought him back to reality. “Captain Zu!” she frantically called, “I’m picking up an energy spike from the wreckage of the frigate.”

“Show me the visuals immediately.” Zu demanded. He had a sinking feeling as the wreckage came up on the holo-display. The frigate was slowly rotating and even as he watched its main plasma cannon came into view. Quicker than he imagined possible it traversed to track his cruiser and opened fire.

Before Zu could call out any orders the twin plasma bolts covered the distance between the two ships and blew through the valstronium armor of his cruiser. By chance they managed to knock out the communication links between the bridge and the central firing control for the cruiser’s plasma cannons. The order to return fire never made it to
Yang Wei’s
weapons officer.

Within seconds two more plasma bolts ravaged the
Yang Wei
and then two more burst right through the ship causing her to explode in one more dramatic fireball.