Lieutenant Commander Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 4) Read online

  Lieutenant Commander

  Spacemage

  By Timothy Ellis

  Imperium Spacemage, Book Four

  Copyright © 2020 by Timothy Ellis

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  The author is Australian and the main characters in this universe are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Read the series in this order

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  “What the hell?”

  I stopped abruptly after stepping though the rift to Long Water from our living room on Haven station.

  Serena stepped straight into me, and we both crashed towards the deck, which was fortunately carpeted. Jill stepped through and fell over Serena, going down over the top of both of us. Woof ended up lying on top of her.

  “WAIT!” I yelled.

  Metunga stuck his head through the rift, and started laughing. He vanished, and the sound of a lot of laughter came through the rift instead. Woof scrambled off the top of Jill, she rolled off Serena, who picked herself up, leaving me spread full length. I looked up at the three of them, but they were ignoring me completely.

  I wasn’t surprised. We were not on Long Water. That much was obvious.

  Someone had moved my rift.

  Picking myself up was easy enough, but the girls helping me would have been nice. Instead, they were staring, mouths open, at the much bigger than expected room we were in. It was definitely a living room, but set up for a lot more people than we had. Long Water’s upper living room sat thirty comfortably. This one looked like it sat sixty.

  “Where the hell are we?” asked Jill.

  I moved away from the rift, noticing all the other rifts were in place as I expected, albeit the wall was a lot longer than needed for the rifts. The girls followed me, but Woof moved to the side of the rift we’d come in through, and stuck his head back through it.

  “It’s okay now,” he said, pulled his head back, and stepped aside.

  Metunga stepped through, looked around with an amazed look on his face, but kept moving. The rest followed. By the time all of them were through, I’d moved to the door to the main passageway, and they followed me out. A quick glance in each direction showed me this was a much bigger ship than the corvette I’d expected to return to. I turned for the bridge, and everyone followed me.

  The bridge was substantially bigger than I was used to, and had three main chairs down the middle instead of two. The layout was bog standard Imperium, but the third chair was raised on a rostrum, and was obviously meant for an admiral.

  Leanne and Tamsin were waiting, seated on opposite ends of the main console, but swiveled to watch us walking in. Both were grinning. We all still looked like we were sleep walking in someone’s dream, and hadn’t yet figured out whose.

  A figure popped up on the console to one side of the helm chair. Not a head and shoulders as we normally saw, but a full half height figure. This one belonged to Admiral Jedburgh.

  “Welcome to your new ship, Commander. All of you please be seated. I won’t keep you long.”

  I sat in the captain’s chair, while Jill took the XO’s chair to my left, and Serena the third officer’s chair to my right. The others divided themselves to the left and right chairs. Given our ships had so far been designed for only three people and the ship AI, I had no idea why they still had so many chairs on the bridges.

  Technically, as far as I knew, I still reported to Rear Admiral Jane. Even being promoted yesterday to lieutenant commander, there had been no word of anything changing, and the morning after a particularly good party was an unexpected time for things to change radically on you. Jedburgh wasn’t Jane’s superior, as she worked for the Imperator, but he was the Admiral who commanded the Imperium’s space navy. And so, my ultimate boss, no matter who was giving me orders.

  “You’re all getting new ships,” he went on. “Commander, you get the biggest one, in the form of a new class of cruiser, which is essentially a scaled down Relentless class dreadnaught. It’s half the length, but not half the firepower by any means. I’ll leave you to find out what it does hit with.”

  He looked directly at me.

  “The class hasn’t been named, and so far, it’s one of a kind. It was built specifically for you, completed and acceptance tested several days ago, but we hadn’t at the time the ship was designed expected you to be promoted quite so soon. So instead of someone else getting her for a shakedown cruise, you do.”

  “Thank you, sir. May I ask her name?”

  “You may change the name if you wish, but for now, she’s called ‘Judge Thorn’.”

  I smiled at him, as did everyone else. Thorn had been my great-great uncle, and the most powerful mage ever. Naming a ship after him made sense, and me being her first captain was an honour.

  “Sounds perfect to me, sir.”

  He looked around the rest of my team.

  “You remain Navy Mage Squadron One, but your corvettes are being reassigned in preparation for Navy Mage Two, when they are ready to step up. You’ll find the rifts in the squadron living room lead to twelve destroyers, which are also a new class, based on the Water class super corvette, but using a more scaled down version of this ship. The original idea was to use whatever destroyer hulls were available, but the first of them proved too difficult to modify the way your corvettes were. So we built twelve brand new destroyers instead.”

  The rest were looking enthusiastic, and quite obviously wanted to sprint back to the living room rifts, and claim a ship.

  “Are we still operating as carriers?” I asked.

  “Yes. Eagle Wing will be coming aboard as soon as you’re ready for them. You’ll get some time to get used to your new commands, and then receive orders to pick up more squadrons.
For now, you’ll get a mix of Excalibur fours and fives. Most of the new squadrons will be fives though. You’ll shakedown for a day or two, and then we have a mission for you.”

  “Are we getting an admiral, sir?”

  I was wondering if we’d be seeing Jane again.

  “Not immediately. And from now on, you report directly to me, as one of the independent commands. But Admiral Jane still has an interest in you, and of course, anything which needs an immediate response will have orders coming from her as usual. All ships cruiser sized and above are being fitted out for flagship duty now, so having the extra chair and rooms does not indicate they will be used. Likewise, we took what you did with Long Water to ensure the squadron had its own living rooms on the flagship, so you can remain a team while your squadrons have their own living areas. Any questions?”

  “No, sir. I’ll await our formal orders.”

  “Good. Carry on, Commander.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The hollo vanished.

  “YES!” said Woof, doing a fist pump.

  Two

  Their co-pilot AIs were waiting beside a rift.

  We watched them all step through onto their own ship, and then Serena and I went back to our bridge. One by one they popped up on the much wider console between Leanne and Serena. No-one said anything, as we all dived into the ship systems to verify everything was as it should be. Even midshipmen were taught never to accept a ship without checking it first yourself.

  An hour later, I was satisfied Judge Thorn was indeed ready for action. I’d even verified our cargos from our corvettes had followed us, mainly being Ralnor goodies we’d not really had a chance to sample properly yet. I suspected Syrinx had done the transfers of the rifts and cargos, as very few mages could move one end of a rift like this. It saved me the trouble of having to do them all again myself, or even Gitte or Haynes having to.

  The Judge, as I was already thinking of this ship as, was essentially a pocket battleship. The length was a half kilometer, making her a cruiser hull, but everything had been retained at battleship levels. Three main turrets to each side of the basic oblong hull shape, two located forward and one aft on two sides, and one forward and two aft on the other two. All of them could fire in any direction at the same time, which somewhat negated the layout, I thought. While being cruiser sized turrets, what came out of each barrel was a battleship pulse.

  The ship was covered in destroyer turrets, also overpowered, firing cruiser pulses. It also had standard one hundred firing mosquito launchers dotted all over the ship, and plenty of bigger missile launchers for the latest types. And wherever there was a spare bit of space on the hull, there were point defense turrets, and anti-fighter turrets.

  With a bridge right in the middle of the front of the ship, there was no ship view ahead, just gun barrels visible if you looked in any direction. Apart from the battleship turrets and the forward facing overpowered cruiser guns, the main broadside was two hundred torpedo launchers, in groups on the nose in each quarter of the ship front.

  There were internal fighter bays for four twelve ship squadrons, which was the same as a Scimitar class carrier, but only because we didn’t need maintenance bays or launch tubes, or fabricators for parts. The bays could do basic repair and rearming, but if we needed replacement fighters, they’d be jumped to us. In addition, there were four Lightning couriers aboard, and both captain and admiral’s gigs.

  There was a cargo bay under the bridge level, running the length of the ship, which I thought we’d been phasing out of new ships, but some of it was allocated for the storage of wrecked fighters to go back to the shipyard for repair, and the rest had enough ordnance to completely resupply the destroyers twice.

  Needless to say, there was enough pilot accommodation for fifty people, plus the usual living and training facilities for them. There were already rifts in place from each bedroom to a fighter bay, allowing a just woken up pilot to take seconds to reach their ship. Their main living room also had forty eight rifts which did the same thing, not leaving much in the way of actual wall space left. There was also a rift back to Haven station.

  On the bridge level, there was of course captain, XO, and third officer quarters, plus admiral’s quarters which were bigger than mine, and the major living area we’d come in through. The wet room had two thirty person spas, and the mess and conference rooms sat the same as the living room. It made me wonder if the ship had been designed to support double the number of destroyers. Admiral, XO, and third officer had their own offices, and mine was the usual ready room off the bridge. We had our own small armoury as well, with combat suits already standing in recharge bays for both of us, and our AIs.

  I turned my attention to the Boulder class destroyers. They were essentially a scaled down version of my ship, and while destroyer sized at two hundred and fifty meters long, they were pocket cruisers. Almost identical to Judge but smaller, the front end was only different in having one hundred torpedo launchers. The Boulder class were long and thin, the same as Judge, where the Water class corvette was short and squat. So the front end of the destroyer wasn’t much bigger than the corvette had been.

  Each destroyer was carrier to two squadrons of fighters. There was enough cargo space for a single full reload of both fighters and the ship, after which they needed resupply from Judge. But the way we fought at the moment, no fighter was going to use a full load of torpedoes in one action.

  The navy captain had the usual captain facilities, but was expected to come to Judge for any gathering of navy people. The pilots did have everything they needed, and the captain could of course join them.

  All thirteen ships were lean mean fighting machines. Designed for moving a large fighter force as far as needed, and supporting them. All we needed now was the extra squadrons.

  One by one the others checked in as being ready to proceed, and I had to chuckle as I found out the ship names, which largely mirrored the Water class. Jill had Long Boulder. Dorm had Small, Davis had Big, Fina with Hot, Haynes with Cold, Edna with Still, Metunga with Rolling, Woof with Carved, Norden with Falling, Gitte with Sliding, Mel with Ice, and Loren with Space Boulder.

  The Imperium military leaders were really fast tracking us. Lieutenants were now captaining destroyers, where once this was the realm of full commanders. Captains used to command cruisers, and now here I was in command of a pocket battleship while a newly minted lieutenant commander. Mind you, experienced full commanders were now piloting dreadnaughts, so I was one step closer to our goal to get one of these ourselves.

  Leanne laughed when Jill announced Long Boulder was ready for anything, given it was the third ship we knew of with Long being the first part of the name. Her change of name had been vindicated faster than expected. And since Jill’s AI had a unique name which was not the ships, there was only one Long named AI out there we knew about. Long Ocean.

  “Announce us ready for fighters,” I told Tamsin.

  Three

  Sixteen squadrons jumped in to meet us.

  Four of them jumped aboard Judge, and I recognized them as the original Eagle Wing, plus one. One squadron joined each destroyer. This meant three more squadrons had gone operational in the last few days. I assumed we had another twelve to go.

  All four on Judge were equipped with the Excalibur mark five. Eight of the destroyer squadrons were still flying the mark four, including the newly activated squadrons. The dynamics of four different types of ships in the task force was going to require some thinking, and a lot of practice. I braced myself for a long boring day.

  Squadron Leader Lacey, still with the callsign Eagle, which was still also the wing name, in spite of him being demoted yesterday from Space Commodore, bounded on to the bridge looking a much happier man than he’d been in recent weeks. He took the empty XO’s seat as he always did, and grinned at me. He now wore the same insignia I did, and so did another fifteen officers, all like him, leading squadrons. He still had Imperium time in service on his side, whi
ch is why he was still acting wing commander.

  Technically, we were equals. In practice, I commanded the navy squadron, which was always senior. But he had donkey’s years of experience through multiple wars, and I didn’t. Finding a balance was going to be interesting.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t get the chance.

  “Orders, Commander,” said Admiral Jane, as her half height image popped up on the console next to Serena. “You’re to go through the rift the Imperator left in place to the other side of the core, and jump to a system I’ve sent Tamsin. There you will find a small convoy of traders, and some Trixone fighters.”

  “You want us to destroy the fighters?” I asked.

  “No. Protect them. They are the sole survivors of the battle there a day ago, and the Imperator and others who watched it cheered them on as they escaped. They successfully avoided several Rawtenuga fleets, but they don’t know they’re about to run into another one. Go and save all of them.”

  “Do we really care about Trixone fighters?” asked Eagle.

  “Just these ones.”

  “What if they fire on us?”

  “Ignore them if possible. Jump in, kill the dinosaurs, and jump back to the end of the rift again.”

  “You do know we’ve never so much as done a simulator run flying these ships,” I said, “let alone with sixteen squadrons of fighters as well?”

  “We have faith in you. Get moving.”

  Her image vanished. I looked at Tamsin and nodded.

  “All pilots to your ships. Prepare for combat launch. This is not a drill.”

  There was a solid thump behind me, followed by a lesser thump, and we looked around to see Eagle lying flat on his back on the deck.

  “Fuck!” he exclaimed, rolling onto his side, rubbing his nose.

  Beyond him on the wall, there was no outline of a rift down to the hangar deck, like we’d had on Long Water. As he sluggishly made it back to his feet, I looked up where his fighter was located, and put a rift in place to take him directly there. I made it more than normal outlined as a door. He looked at it suspiciously, put his hand through, and then stepped into it. Needless to say, he was last popping up on the console, with even his eagle faced co-pilot beating him.