Free Empire Ebook Full by B. V. Larson

of gravity plates. Instead of using
     only magnetic forces, we pushed the huge bullets by causing them to fall away from
     the gravity plates. It was as if we were dropping the projectiles on the heads of
     our enemies—in any direction we chose.
    I’d considered creating a railgun powered entirely by gravity-repellers, but hadn’t
     perfected any of the designs yet. Our systems at this point remained hybrids, and
     I was sure they were far from perfect. They did, however, quickly and quietly launch
     a projectile at great speed. As far as I was concerned, that was enough.
    The battle station’s lighting systems dimmed when the first volley was ejected. For
     a split-second, every ounce of power we had went to the railguns and they were greedy
     for more. Down in the depths of the station I knew skinny black arms of metal were
     loading the next projectiles, slamming them into place and locking them magnetically
     so they were suspended between the rails and ready to fire. When the lights went green
     again, each battery fired.
    Some of the batteries seemed to operate more smoothly than others and thus had a faster
     rate of fire. Most took somewhere around eight seconds to reload. A few could move
     up to a seven-second cycle. The asynchronous rate of fire wasn’t optimal, but I didn’t
     try to fix it. I ordered everyone to put as much metal into the path of the enemy
     as they could, as fast as they could. My only wish was that I’d started firing thirty
     seconds earlier. Some of the ships were going to be breaking off and evading the barrage.
    On the holotank screen, I saw our projectiles as yellow slivers, the enemy ships as
     red wedges and cylinders. So far, they weren’t firing more missiles at us, but that
     may have meant they were holding their fire for even closer range.
    “They’re moving fast, sir,” Welter said, reading a dozen screens at once. “Some are
     breaking off, moving out of our cone of fire. The bulk of them is still plowing straight
     into us. Should I fire our heavy lasers, sir?”
    I hesitated. The ring was within effective range for my three heavy beam weapons,
     but I didn’t want to have them show themselves immediately and get targeted. Beam
     weapons on a stationary platform were very vulnerable, and I knew I might see a target
     I would rather have them take out in the next minute or so. On the other hand, if
     they sat idle in this high-speed battle they might as well have been knocked out already.
    I struggled to get into my battle suit, as did everyone else who hadn’t listened to
     my orders previously. I didn’t really like clanking around in the thing when inside
     a vessel, but while out in open space or on a hostile planet, it made you feel like
     a god.
    “Target the heavy lasers on the outlying ships, the ones that are flying off at random
     angles. Take them out one at a time.”
    New green lines snapped into existence as the lasers lanced out after their prey.
     For this type of weaponry, we were in close range. The holotank shifted a moment later,
     as the enemy reacted to my play. A shower of new tiny contacts appeared: missiles.
    “Dammit!” I said, “I knew they’d go for my big lasers the second I revealed them.”
    “They’ll get in a few minutes of firing time, Kyle,” Sandra said. She stood supportively
     near me. I liked the sentiment, but I was still gnashing my teeth about losing the
     big lasers. I’d wanted to take out their dreadnaught with them if I had the chance.
     We hadn’t seen the big ship yet, but it was only a matter of time.
    The lasers were doing nasty work out there. We’d ranged them carefully, and each pulsing
     ripple of fire that lanced out finished a cruiser, ripping through the decks and as
     often as not igniting the engine core. Ships flashed and winked out of existence with
     regularity.
    “Why haven’t they fired any more missiles, sir?” Welter asked, staring with me as
     the battle played out.
    “There’s only