Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3) Read online

  Lieutenant Spacemage

  By Timothy Ellis

  Imperium Spacemage, Book Three

  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

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty One

  Fifty Two

  Fifty Three

  Fifty Four

  Fifty Five

  Fifty Six

  Fifty Seven

  Fifty Eight

  Fifty Nine

  Sixty

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Read the series in this order

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  Being an AI obviously has some advantages.

  No, I’m not an AI. I’m talking about Jane.

  With everyone partying last night after the promotions and awards ceremony, Jane still managed to completely redesign the Excalibur, and have a simulator version ready for us after breakfast.

  We were spared the dawn patrol, thankfully, because I think most of us had to use the PC medical monitor to lower our blood alcohol levels down to an acceptable level to get us as far as the mess in one piece. That didn’t mean someone didn’t do the patrol, it just wasn’t us. Maybe it was a promotion present. No-one said, no-one asked. But as we were all lieutenants now… No, that didn’t follow. We were still the lowest ranked squadron.

  Breakfast was subdued. We’d partied hard the night before, and celebrated the team’s elevation to being real officers for the first time. I’d had a little longer in the rank, but we’d never had the chance to properly celebrate it when it happened.

  I pitied the newcomer squadrons in training. As we’d found out last night, a lot of them had no idea of a lot of the PC options available to them, and plenty of them looked hung over, as I looked across the tables in the mess. A lot of them still looked unhappy, but those who’d been demoted were probably going to remain that way for a while.

  Even with the alcohol content of my blood stabilized around normal, I can’t say my head was actually functioning at optimal efficiency. Or maybe any. The party had gone late, and Serena had gone later again.

  While eating I finally managed to drag some semblance of functionality out of my brain, and checked on the upgrade status of my new command, the super-corvette Long Water. It was still in the upgrade bay, along with its eleven sisters. But there were large holes in the hulls, and obviously something major was going on. The new specs were not available. At least not to me.

  After breakfast, the arrow pointed us to our simulator room, which was where we discovered Jane’s nights’ work waiting for us. I was launched individually into my own isolated space, which usually only happened when we were in a new ship, and I know it took me a minute or two to figure out the change.

  We’d been flying Excalibur mark fours for some time now, and getting quite good with them. But this ship was being called an Excalibur mark five prototype, or in reality, just a single V now sat down one corner where there usually was a IV. I didn’t get time to work out what was different before the simulation started, and I found myself with a hundred Trixone fighters between me and a battleship they’d just launched from.

  My brain was so sluggish, it took a minute to realize going through the cloud would be stupid, and I needed to jump. I needed to do something, and so I did what I did in a normal combat, and reached out to the local system sun, and let it feed me some energy through my magic. My brain cleared immediately.

  Jane was still my AI, so I told her where to jump to, and we slipped in behind the battleship, giving me four seconds to get some fire in. I pulled the triggers, and the normal front guns fired. I pushed the front and rear missile launchers, and both sent out two FF missiles. I pushed the torpedo button, and six torpedoes launched, followed by another six, and yet another six.

  “Freeze simulation,” I yelped.

  Everything stopped, with me a half second from jump, and a second from having my shields blown down.

  “What was that?” I went on, a little more dignified this time.

  “Your suggestions yesterday in action.”

  “Remind me what I suggested?”

  “You wanted six torpedo launchers.”

  “Oh.”

  I did remember saying something along those lines. I pulled up the specs to see how. The ship seemed basically the same, but it looked like an extra layer had been added to the underside, making it a quarter again deeper from top to bottom. The added space was packed with torpedo magazines, and their delivery system to the launchers. But the launchers themselves made me frown.

  “That doesn’t look right.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “The launchers. Missile and torpedo where they were, three torpedoes underneath, and two more underneath them. Makes no sense.”

  “You wanted six.”

  “But you had to make the space, and the space can take more.”

  “More launchers, but not more magazines.”

  “How often are we exhausting magazines?”

  “Got me there. Not often. So you don’t think we need spares?”

  “We need more firing at once, not more for later.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Just what I needed. Ship design 101 on a morning after. But I didn’t have a choice except to give it some thought. She was after all an admiral, and I was a lowly lieutenant.

  “Can you put the missile launcher in the middle of two torpedo launchers, and then three torps launchers underneath twice?”

  “Not without problems with feeds. Although I could use the small cargo space, but that means redesigning the whole lower front end of the ship.”

  “Is there a problem doing that?”


  “Not as such, no. But I’ll need to bounce it off Jon, since it was his design in the first place.”

  “The Imperator designed the Excalibur?”

  “Not so much designed, as specified the way to change from a previous privateer design. The original Centurion had a small cargo bay and airlock on the front of the ship because it was a long range fighter which could be used for small scale trading by a privateer.”

  “We don’t need the trading. Just more launchers and magazines.”

  “True.”

  “Can one magazine feed three of the launchers at once? One per three launchers, and then daisy chain the spares?”

  “Maybe.”

  That would give the ship eight torpedo launchers, and the one missile front and back. Twenty four torpedoes fired within two seconds would make a good bomber. Not as good as eighty from a corvette, but at least a fighter could get in a decent punch without hanging around for too long. Especially with the Trixone finally ramping up their shields.

  “Makes the magazines an odd number though. Can we speed up the rate of firing?”

  “You want more and faster?”

  “Of course,” I grinned.

  “If I reduce the size of the magazine to eighty, firing out eight at a time, that gives you ten launches. If the speed can increase to get you five launched in two seconds, you’d have two attack runs before needing to swap the magazine, but you’d have a forty torpedo launch in that two second window.”

  “Now that’s a bomber version. But why swap magazines?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Design a new magazine which feeds all eight launchers, and is then reloaded from behind by …”

  I stopped. That made no sense. Jane waited for me.

  “Fuck it,” I said.

  “I should have let you sleep in this morning, shouldn’t I have?”

  It did get a chuckle from me.

  “Try this. We’re building a bomber. Remove the front missile launcher completely, and whatever remains of the original cargo bay. Replace with nine torpedo launchers, and a single magazine to feed them at once. Daisy chain additional magazines behind it, but when the first one is empty, they shuffle the whole load forward. Ninety shots per magazine, and you select how many you want fired on each button press, up to a maximum of forty five, giving you two shots before a reload. Speed up the firing so each launcher can fire five inside two seconds.”

  “Probably doable. What about missiles though?”

  “Three missile launchers across the rear. Pilot chooses the loadout. I’d probably go two launchers for IR’s and the other for FF’s.” I stopped for a moment. “No, maybe the other way around. IR’s are for surgical strikes and we don’t do that with Trixone fighters. Or anti-missiles, and the turrets should be taking care of them along with mosquitoes from a larger ship.” I paused. “Is Long Water getting mosquito launchers?”

  “Yes. Not many, but enough to protect a squadron.”

  “Fine. How does that all sound?”

  “Pretty much the same as Woof and Jill just said.”

  “Why ask me then?”

  “I’m asking everyone.”

  “Ah. Is any of it possible?”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  The simulator reset, and I found myself in limbo for a few minutes, until assigned to a new simulation. This time I was leading a squadron of Brawlers, all of pilots being those in retraining.

  I spent the rest of the morning teaching people to strafe. Apparently the rest of the squadron did the same, but I didn’t find out until lunch time.

  Two

  After lunch I found myself following Space Commodore Algy Lacey, callsign Eagle, to another meeting.

  Once again, I was junior officer at the table, and had no idea why I was there at all. The room filled up with admirals, leaving me, a lowly lieutenant, feeling like I was in the wrong place. Even as a mage master, I still wasn’t in their playpen. My PC tagged each of them as they sat.

  Darius Jedburgh, with four stars, had the head of the table. Beside him was Susan Bentley, with three, and Jane, with her new second one. Jedburgh and Bentley drove titans, while Jane drove a crewless super-battleship, as well as being ship AI for I didn’t know how many ships, including mine.

  At the one star level, Ron Greer and Miriam Young commanded Chaos class dreadnaught squadrons. And Eagle was the Fleet CAG, and technically not actually navy, even though he wore blue. But he was working with Jane on special projects at the moment, some of which involved me and my squadron. Which still didn’t explain why I was there.

  The only other person was Fleet Captain Ecclestone, the legendary Dreamwalker, who now flew a Chaos class, but commanded a task force which included two of them, two carriers, and an assortment of smaller ships, all flown like fighters.

  And then there was me, with my super-corvette still in the shipyard, and my squadron of fighters. I wondered if I put an invisibility shield around me, if they’d even notice I wasn’t there.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Jedburgh. “The Imperator wants me to make a few changes to the independent commands, which is why you’re all here.”

  He was looking at me while he said it, and I guess technically Navy Mage Squadron One was an independent command. But it was really commanded by now two star Admiral Jane.

  “What sort of changes?” asked Young.

  “Well, since you asked, let’s start with you.” She grinned, but shook her head at the same time. “Dauntless is being reassigned to the Wayward Task Force, under Jane. You’re getting your last Chaos class tomorrow. Ship name is Hubbub.”

  Dauntless was an old style ‘ship of the line’ type dreadnaught. I gathered it was just filling the slot in the squadron while the last Chaos was built.

  “Who’s the captain going to be?” she asked.

  “The Bhockah captain on Dauntless. You’ve worked with him, so he’ll continue with you. Can you actually pronounce his name yet?”

  “Hell no,” she laughed. “I can’t spell it either. We keep trying to get him to take a callsign instead, but nothing fits yet. He’ll be pleased with the shift though. And he’s earned it. Totally mad of course, but a damn good pilot, for a big cat battleship driver.”

  “Who’s getting Dauntless?” asked Jane.

  “New import,” said Bentley. “British battleship driver by the name of James Cook. Was due to retire later this year, but I convinced him he needed to step up to a dreadnaught instead. He’s used to the older style ship of the line, so I think he’ll do really well. He knows the formation is commanded by an AI, and is looking forward to it.”

  Jane nodded. She had that command.

  “Any shake up for me?” asked Greer.

  “Do you want one?” asked Jedburgh.

  “No!” responded Greer, holding up both hands, palms out.

  “The next squadron of Chaos class is also coming out of the shipyard tomorrow. We need to decide where we assign them.”

  “I’ll certainly take three more,” said Young.

  “Ditto,” said Greer.

  “I can use more,” said Ecclestone.

  “I’ve a different idea,” said Bentley.

  “What?” asked Jedburgh, although I had a pretty good idea he already knew what was coming.

  “We already have two squadrons of Chaos class supporting our titans, doing jump point duties when we take a new system away from the Trixone, and playing guard dog on the Claymore Task Force.”

  “Hey!” reacted Ecclestone.

  “So,” she went on, ignoring him, “I’m thinking we need a third independent Chaos squadron. The two existing ones and the Wayward fleet continue supporting troop operations, but we need a reaction force to support the Claymore Task Force, Eagle Wing as it gets built, and Navy Mage Squadron One.”

  “Agreed,” said Lacey. “We do need heavy backup to call on. Jane and I have ideas for the lieutenant there and his people, but a single corvette and a squadron of fighters c
an get outclassed very quickly. Even my existing four squadrons of fighters could be wiped out with a single bad jump. And even when the other new squadrons go live, we only need to hit a planet with several thousand Trixone fighters on the ground, and we’d be in big trouble.”

  “Who would command the new Chaos squadron?” asked Jedburgh.

  “Me,” said Bentley.

  All eyes went to her, and there was a lot of surprise in the room now.

  “Seriously?” asked Jane, who for once, obviously hadn't seen this coming.

  “Yes. I’m dead serious about it. I never wanted to be promoted off a battleship in the first place. First it was to a dreadnaught, and then a titan, and more stars than I ever wanted, and quite frankly, a three star in this small fleet is totally wasted anyway, because we’re too small yet to need a fleet coordinator as well as a full admiral, and I don’t want to wait around for that role. You can bust me back to a one star with my blessing. I never wanted the other two anyway.”

  It sounded like a perpetually lost argument she’d been having for a long time.

  “And quite frankly,” she went on, “on Hammer I’m bored out of my brain, because it rarely does anything interesting.”

  “Which ship did you want?” asked Jedburgh.

  “Rogue.”

  “You can’t have Rogue,” said Jane, in a voice which conveyed total conviction.

  “What’s Rogue?” asked Greer. “I don’t remember seeing that name on the list for the Chaos class still to be built.”

  “It’s not on the list, because Rogue is not Chaos class.”

  “What is she then?” asked Young.

  “Rogue is a prototype super-dreadnaught. She’s bigger than Chaos but smaller than BigMother, carries more guns than Chaos does, and puts eight titan guns in the nose.”

  “That’s why I want her,” said Bentley.

  The other Chaos drivers looked like they did as well, now.

  “I designed it for Jon.” Which dropped like a lead balloon. “I’ve been listening to all the comments on what was wrong with the Chaos class, listening to people telling Jon BigMother was needed for the third army as their primary carrier, and him not wanting to change ships at all. So I decided to design a better Chaos for him. It’s a prototype. If it works out, we’ll probably standardize on it for a while.”