Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Earth, the opsats weren’t seeing them. Looking for a
dark object against a mostly dark background was pretty difficult. If, on the
other hand, the opsats were moved into higher orbits and looked down instead of
up, they would have a better chance of spotting a dark object against Earth’s
lighter background. The question was how high was high enough and how high was
too high. If he moved them to the edge of the hyper-zone, the gaps in coverage
between one opsat and the next would be huge, and Trojan’s ships might slip in
between them. If the opsats were moved halfway, the gaps would be much smaller,
but there was no guarantee that Trojan’s ships would be at a lower altitude. It
was the kind of decision that military strategists dreaded. If he guessed
wrong, every living human being on the planet might pay the price, and if he
did nothing, they might still pay that same price. Chenko made his decision.
     
    “This
is Chenko. Move our opsats to three hundred thousand klicks altitude asap, and
re-orient their sensors to look down while they’re ascending.” Almost
immediately the green dots started flashing to show that they were maneuvering.
Chenko hoped his roll of the dice would pay off. Most of Earth’s orbiting space
stations were at lower altitudes, and if Trojan’s warships were maneuvering to
attack them, they might drop that far down before firing. If the opsats still
didn’t see anything at 300K kilometers, he could always move them even higher.
     
    1st
Empire Fleet Flagship Conqueror:
    Romanov
paced from one side of the spacious Bridge to the other and back again. His
squadron of five stealth cruisers were carefully maneuvering closer to Earth in
order to maximize the accuracy of his point defense lasers as they attempted to
pick off the 55 x-ray laser satellites that were Earth’s primary defensive
assets. Once those lasersats were destroyed, he could order his ten troop
transports to move down while his cruisers fired missiles with tactical nukes
at selected military targets such as troop concentrations, ground-based missile
batteries, etc. All that would take time, and getting his cruisers into the
right orbital position to take out the lasersats had to be done very carefully.
As seen from a position over the North Pole, the lasersats orbited
counter-clockwise. His cruisers would orbit in a clockwise direction and use
optical sensors to pick up the lasersats’ silhouette against Earth’s lighter
background. Once each of the defense satellites’ positions were known with
precision, his ships’ laser turrets could disable them all within a few
seconds.
     
    He
checked Conqueror’s status on the main display sidebar. Altitude was just over
350,000 kilometers and dropping. That meant that it would be another 44 minutes
before they reached their target altitude. He was just about to call the
Officers Mess and order coffee brought to the Bridge when the main display
switched to tactical mode and pinged for attention. All five of his cruisers
were launching missiles!
     
    “Who
ordered a missile launch?” he yelled out as he turned to look at Senior
Lieutenant Nolan, his Weapons Officer. Her anguished expression caught him off
guard. Instead of replying, she pulled out a pistol from inside her uniform
jacket. Romanov had just enough time to wonder why she was carrying a weapon
while on duty on the Bridge contrary to regulations when he saw her point the
pistol at her weapons console and fire several times. The swarm of tiny,
tungsten darts fired at high velocity penetrated the console and turned it into
useless scrap. As he opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she was doing,
she shifted her aim until her pistol was pointed at the Communications Station.
The Com Officer, who had turned just in time to see her destroy her Weapons
Station console, leapt up from his chair as she fired again. Some of the darts
hit his right shoulder and spun him around. The rest hit his Com Station
console with