Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (25 page)

“We know that they have
probably not manufactured additional fortifications,” said the Subcommander,
showing his teeth in a grin.  “And they have probably not miraculously
teleported more warships into the system.”

What a sarcastic ass,
thought the pod leader,
glaring at the Subcommander.  He gave a head shake of resignation.  “Pulse all
active sensors at the inner system.  Full sweep, since they already know that
we’re here.”

“Need I remind the pod
leader that this will tell them what we are when they receive those sensor
pulses.”

“And need I remind you
that light waves will have told them that by that time,” replied the pod
leader.  “No matter our stealth capabilities.

“Ship master,” called
the pod leader to another male sitting at a panel to his front.  “Move us into
the system toward the planet.  Two hundred and seventy gravities.  And signal
the rest of the Pod to keep formation.

“We will go in and
fight for our information,” he said to the Subcommander.  “So that the group
leader will have the best data to judge by.

“Prepare to fire long
range on those orbital targets,” the pod leader ordered the Subcommander. 
“Let’s stir this hive up a little and see how they react.”

A pair of long range
missiles left the bow of the ship, accelerating at eight thousand gravities. 
Each of the other seven ships in the pod fired a pair as well.  The sixteen missiles
headed in system, tracking their targets by the four hour old emissions.  Four
of the missiles were hard coded to attack the orbital stations.  The other
twelve were coded to track on those stations and veer off on targets of
opportunity as they presented themselves.  If those targets were large enough
to warrant an attack.

And may first blood go
to us
,
he thought, as his ships oriented to the planet and surged ahead.  The two
other pods of the scout force moved at angled vectors to their pod.  Anticipation
was high as the pack moved in for the kill.

*     *     *

The sixteen groups of
forty-eight fighters had matched velocities and vectors by the time the
Ca’cadasan scouts had translated at the edge of the system.  Their sensors had
given them a direction and basic distance to the alien ships as they had left
hyper VII and entered N-space with the flood of energy they had released from a
smooth transition.  It was enough to get them started in the right direction. 
And the fighters had not had the problem of giving themselves away by hyper
emissions.

“Let’s get this show
moving,” said Captain Jessica Frazier, seated in her command chair on the small
bridge of an attack fighter.  She was the senior flight officer in the system,
in charge of the station based fighters.  Normally she would command the
fighters from a distance.  But the distance was too great for any kind of
control, and it was thought that she should be on the scene to make the
decisions that might start, or prevent, a war.  She thought the logic sound,
even though she had thought her days of leading fighter groups from the front
were over.

The pilot nodded and
punched in his commands on the flight board.  The com officer sent the signal
to the rest of the craft that set them in motion.  Soon all of the fighters and
attack craft were in motion toward their target.

“Keep it down to seven
hundred gravities,” she reminded pilot and com.  “We don’t want to give our
capabilities away too soon.”

Both officers nodded. 
The Captain switched her attention back to the tactical display that she had in
her head.  Four groups of six hundred ton space fighters led the formation, in
four V shaped groupings two light seconds apart, between two and three light
seconds ahead of the main body.  Each of the groups of forty-eight fighters
were led by a pair of fighters configured for recon, with attached sensor pods
and four probes in place of the internally carried antiship missiles.  The
other fighters carried said antiship missiles in their internal magazines.

The other twelve groups
followed, made up of mostly fighters, with eight squadrons of one thousand ton
attack fighters carrying four of the more powerful Mark XII antiship missiles,
as well as a pair of decoys.  There were also eight attack birds configured as
command and electronic warfare platforms, with more sensor, jamming and decoy
equipment on board.  Frazier’s bird was one of those.

“Background static is
increasing,” called out the sensor officer.  “Everyone is trying to keep
everyone else from getting a good look.  We’re compensating so far.”

“And adding our own
static to the mix.” said Frazier.  “And it’s going to get worse.  Much worse, when
all those transmissions overlap.”

The seven hundred and
sixty-eight fighters accelerated toward the targets.  She knew that two
squadrons of ten thousand ton fast attack craft, nineteen ships in all, were
also heading toward the target on different vectors.  They would provide a real
punch if they could get their missiles through.

“Keep us steady and on
target,” she told her pilot, looking at tactical again.  “We’ll just see how
they react when they see us.”

*     *     *

A cloud had hung over
courier ship HLC-12305 on the entire voyage out from Sector HQ.  While not told
the nature of their priority message, some of the crew had heard the news over
the net before leaving the system.  The Emperor and his two oldest sons were
dead.  They were on the way to the system where the third son’s ship was
supposed to be.  It didn’t take genius to guess what the priority message might
be.  And it didn’t take a psychologist to figure that the message would not be
welcomed by the young man it was intended for, out on the frontier of the
Empire.

CPO Lysander
Popodopolis sat in the tiny bridge of the twelve thousand ton vessel, watching
the interplay of shades of red on the viewer that looked out over the dimension
of Hyper VII.  The ship was decelerating to translation point.  The pilot and
navigator sat to his front checking their panels, while the com/sensor tech sat
to his left looking over her instruments.

Lysander looked over at
the sensor tech as she made a sound in her throat.

“Something interesting,
Melissa?” he asked.

“Maybe something,
Chief,” she answered, looking back at him.  “I’m getting a lot of grav waves
coming into the sensors.  Hyper VII to n-space translations all over the
place.”

“Can you identify who’s
making them?”

“I’m not sure, Chief. 
But the frequencies are like nothing I’ve ever seen.  I’m running them through
the comp right now to see if I can come up with a match.”

Not that she’s got the
skills of a chief tech on a destroyer
, he thought,
or she wouldn’t be here
. 
He was sure she would be able to tell known from unknown though, especially
with the help of the ship’s comp.  He reached over and punched a panel on the
arm of his chair.

“This is an alert
situation,” he called over the com.  “Everybody get to your duty stations and
be prepared for anything.  We may be entering a hot zone.”

He leaned back in his
chair as the last bridge crewman came in, jumping into the tactical seat.  It
entered his mind to increase the decel to the max and come up short of the
hyper limit.  Then they could stay in VII and head back to sector.  But he
would never live it down if it turned out to be nothing but a training exercise
in the system ahead.  And he had a priority message deliver.  And that meant at
all costs.

“Weapons ready,” said
the tactical tech, looking up from his boards.

Two twenty gigawatt
lasers and some point defense autocannon
, thought the CPO as he looked at the sensor
data.  Maybe enough to get them back into hyper.  Maybe not.  Depended on what
waited for them in the system.

“Bring us out a few
light minutes further than normal, McMurty,” he said to the helm.  “Just in
case we have to duck back in and take off before we run out of room and hit the
limit.”

The helmswoman nodded
her head and glanced over at the navigator.

I can always send the
message in and get the hell out,
thought Popodopolis. 
Then they can’t say I
didn’t fulfill the mission parameters.

He leaned back in his
chair with a tight humorless smile and followed the tac data as they continued
toward the system.

*     *     *

“You know what this is
about sir?” asked CPO First Jana Gorbachev as she slid into the lift just
before the doors closed.

“The system is under
attack,” said Sean, looking over the tactical data through his link with the
battleship’s tactical computer.

“So why the yellow
alert?” asked the confused NCO.  “I mean, if we’re under attack and all.”

“Because they are more
four light hours away,” said the officer, checking the schematic again.  “Right
now we’re moving to a rendezvous point with the rest of the task group.’

The lift started
moving, heading toward the bow of the ship, sliding through layers of the
forward central capsule that contained their quarters, mess facilities and
recreation decks.  It picked up speed quickly, as shown by the movement of the
digital indicator beside the door.  There of course was no feeling of motion,
the lift’s inertial compensators saw to that.

A warning light blinked
on the indicator as they left the heavily shielded capsule and moved out into
the working area of the ship.  Sean looked down to his breast and checked the
radiation badge, making sure it was a new one.  He didn’t really worry so much
about extra rads.  He and Gorbachev were both in the light armor that was
required to work in the weapons and engineering spaces of the ship, and both
had more than enough nanites in their systems to handle even a killing dose. 
But people survived in space by taking advantage of all the redundant systems. 
That had been drilled into him at Peal Island, and Captain Ngano insisted on
adhering to those operating regs on his vessel, with no exceptions.

“I think you’re doing
fine, sir,” said the NCO, breaking into the Prince’s thoughts.

“Huh,” he said,
wondering what she was talking about while taking in her fine featured face. 
And
you are very fine
, he thought, dismissing it as soon as it came.  He had no
business thinking that about a subordinate, and one that wasn’t even an officer
or a noble.

“I said you are doing
fine, sir,” she repeated, looking him in the eyes.  He felt a thrill run up his
spine.  “You are a good officer.  And when the shit hits I am sure you will be
OK.”

“Thank you, chief,” he
replied, breaking eye contact before he said something he regretted.  He was
saved by the doors opening, revealing the landing room for that deck.

“Let’s go,” said
Gorbachev, leading the way across the landing and to the hatch leading to the
ring control room.  The thick door opened as they approached, then closed
behind them, and they walked the short distance to the next door, which opened
directly onto the control room.

“Officer on deck,”
yelled out the Petty Officer in charge of the duty watch.  Sean waved everyone
back to their seats.

“Everyone check their
battle armor?” he asked, and saw the negative shakes of all in return. 
Of
course not,
he thought. 
They just got an alert, and they’re checking
the systems first like good spacers.
  “Go ahead and check it, then we’ll do
a complete diagnostic on the system.”

That set everyone into
motion, people moving to their personal battle armor cubbies and opening them,
giving them an eyeball check, then a diagnostic.  All were supposed to be fully
charged and repaired in the cubbies, like most equipment aboard.  And like most
equipment aboard a warship things could go wrong with automated repair and
maintenance systems, so it was best to check everything at intervals.  And this
seemed like a good time, while they had it.

More of the crew came
in and Sean set them to checking armor while he sent those who had completed
that task to checking the emitters.  As far as he knew they were all in great
shape, even the one that had been giving them trouble.

“How are the power
matrixes?” asked the Prince of his chief NCO when she made it to her station.

“We have fifty percent
charge on all matrixes,” she said, looking over the graphs that came on holo
display.

Just where they’re
supposed to be while we’re sitting in system
, thought the Prince, leaning over her
shoulder to see the graphs.  “Go ahead and bring them up to ninety percent. 
We’ll bring them up to full when we are expecting action.”

“Yes, sir,” said
Gorbachev, setting the charge to power up the storage cells.

There were over four
hundred thousand tons of the crystal storage matrixes on board
Sergiov
,
and sometimes that didn’t seem like enough.  They were level three, same as
those used on infantry weapons, and a compromise between safety and power
storage.  Level one and two were much safer, but also much weaker.  And four
was used for explosive devices, like infantry grenades, and was very unstable. 
And no one wanted four hundred thousand tons of unstable crystalline matrix on
board a warship.