Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (35 page)

“Thank you,” she said,
trying to pull the depressed look from her face
.  Can’t have everyone going
into battle with this weight on their shoulders,
she thought.  They had
enough on their plates as it was.

*     *     *

Admiral Sir Gunter
Heinrich stood on the flag bridge of
HIMS Archduchess Constance Leonardo
,
the battleship that was leading Task Group 4.9 of the Imperial Fourth Fleet,
trying to keep his face from showing the shock he felt.

“The whole damned
family,” he whispered as he handed the message flimsy to his flag Captain.  Captain
Myra Lamborgini looked over the flimsy, her eyes widening as she swallowed.

“You realize what this
means?” she asked, handing him back the note.

“It means the little
shit officially outranks us,” he said with a shrug.  “And even though he has
not been through a coronation, he is for all intents and purposes the Emperor.”

“And we have to get him
to safety,” she said, nodding.  “Without letting him know what kind of power he
has just come into.”

“We have to let him
know,” said Heinrich, looking at the tactical plot.  “How can we lie to our
Emperor?”

“A lie of omission,”
said the Flag Captain.  “To protect his life so he can exercise his power for a
greater good.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know he will
refuse to leave if given the choice,” said Lamborgini, staring into the eyes of
her Admiral, who was also her lover.  “He has that damned honorable streak
about him.  The same one his father had.  He would see it as his duty to die
beside his comrades, especially if he is now the Emperor.  And we would have
turmoil in our government.”

“Order him placed on a
destroyer and taken from the system?” asked the Admiral.  “Is that what you
would do?  Without letting him know why?”

“I suggest ordering his
ship to leave formation and make a run for hyper,” said the Captain, running
her fingers through her hair.  “That way the ship’s Captain could pretend to be
following a tactical command from his Admiral, and the Prince wouldn’t have to
know what is going on before it was too late to do anything about it.”

“I just don’t know,”
said the Admiral, pacing a short distance and back.

“I know it takes a ship
from your order of battle,” said the Captain, putting a hand on his shoulder
and giving it a quick rub.  “But we need to get him out of here somehow, and
you know this is the most expedient manner to do it.”

“Admiral,” called the
tactical officer in a tense voice.  “You’ve got to see this.”

“What have you got?”
asked the Admiral striding over to the tactical station, his Flag Captain at
his heels.

“Tactical feed from the
ships,” explained the Lt. Commander.

As if I needed that
instruction
,
thought the Admiral, since his flag bridge didn’t have independent sensor feeds
that didn’t go through the warships.

“We have eighty objects
out there now decelerating down our throats,” said the officer, pointing at the
red arrows in the large holo tank that showed an overview of the system.

“Eighty?” asked
Lamborgini in disbelief.  “How could they have kept those other ships hidden?”

“I think they calved
them,” said the tac officer.  “Each of the thirty million ton capital ships was
really a twenty-five million ton capital ship with a four million ton
supercruiser and two of the scout ships riding on her.  They just separated to
prepare for battle.”

“And the smaller ships
have better accel than the capital ships,” said the Flag Captain into the Admiral’s
ear.

“Get me the Captain of
the
Sergiov,
” he called to the com officer.  “Ears only.  Right after
him get me the commander of their squadron so I can tell him what I have in
mind.”

“Where will you take
it, sir?” asked the com officer, knowing that she wouldn’t be privy to an ears
only comcast.

“I’ll be in my day
cabin with the Flag Captain,” said the Admiral.  He looked over at the tactical
officer before leaving the bridge.  “Keep me immediately apprised of any more
changes to the enemy order of battle.”

“Aye sir,” said the
tac.  “Anything at all I’ll send right through to you.”

Admiral Gunter Heinrich
nodded to the officer, then walked from the large room through the hatch to his
day cabin, where he could be near to the flag bridge at all times.

“Their squadron is not
going to like it,” said the Flag Captain, plopping down in the second chair in
the cabin while the Admiral took the one behind his desk and linked to the com.

“You were the one
arguing for this,” he said with a grimace.  The coal black face of Captain
Ngano appeared on the viewer and the Admiral raised a hand to signal for the
battleship commander to wait.  The bottom of the viewer displayed a numeric of
the time lag, twelve, meaning that the other battleship was over six light
seconds away.

“I’m just stating
fact,” she said softly into his ear.  “But we have to do it.”

Heinrich nodded and
turned back to the screen.

“Captain Ngano,” he
said in a command voice.  “I have shocking news for you.  And orders that may
be just as shocking.”

*     *     *

“Why not just send him
over to a destroyer on a shuttle?” asked Captain Sebastian Ngano, looking at
his task group commander on the viewer.  He waited the few seconds for his
message to reach the flag, then come back to him.

“I realize you don’t
want to pull your ship out of the formation,” said the Admiral over the com. 
“But we are in a combat situation, and there’s no telling what might happen
next.  I don’t want the Emperor out there in a fragile shuttle if missiles
start coming out of nowhere.  Nor do I trust his life to a damned tin can. 
Your ship is one of the most survivable units in the group, he’s already on
your ship, so I’ve decided that you will be the package to carry him to
safety.  Is that understood, Captain?”

“Yes sir,” said the Captain,
letting the mixed feelings wash over him.  He was more likely to survive by
running, as would his crew.  He would gain the admiration of the fleet for
being the Captain who brought the Emperor to safety.  But he would be letting
his fellow spacemen down by withdrawing such a powerful unit from the group. 
And the whole thing was out of his hands.

”I am signaling your
squadron commander as to my actions,” said the Admiral.  “So don’t bother
getting in touch with her.  Just get your ship moving as soon as possible.  I’m
sending the
Jana Kleinman
along with you to run interference if you need
it.  I figure a destroyer might just be able to screen you from long range
missiles.  At least a little bit.”

“Yes sir,” said the Captain,
looking over at the small tactical display on the wall screen.  The destroyers
and light cruisers were spread out behind the battleships in the formation, between
the capital ships and the approaching decelerating enemy.  One of the destroyers’
vector arrows began changing and it started moving closer to
Sergiov
.

“Good luck, Captain,”
said the Admiral.  “That young man is now the most important asset in the system. 
Do whatever you need to get him home.  Heinrich out.”

The screen went blank and
Ngano leaned back in his chair for just a moment. 
Should I tell the Prince
,
he thought, going through the possible responses to that in his mind. 
No. 
His Majesty the Emperor.  Best to not.

The Captain jumped up
from his chair and strode from his day cabin back onto his bridge.  The men and
women were in battle armor, helmets and gloves off but near.  He could feel the
tension in the air as the bridge crew tried to keep busy enough to drive
thoughts of the upcoming battle from their minds.  There was a lot to do on the
bridge, but in another fashion not that much, and the officers and enlisted
personnel had too much mental reserve to not focus some on the imagined horror
of the next two hours.  Plopping into his chair he noted that all the eyes on
the bridge were focused on him.

“Helm,” he said to the
young man seated in front of him at the control board shared by the navigator. 
“Put us on a course out system.  Quickest vector that keeps us away from any
known hostiles.  Full power, execute.”

The helmsman punched in
the commands that set the ship in motion.  She stopped boosting toward the
planet and put all of her acceleration into a new course that would cause her
to bend away from the formation and end up at the hyper limit.

“All crew,” said the Captain,
tapping into the internal com through his link.  “All crew.  Prepare for
acceleration tanks.  Emergency acceleration in ten minutes.”

“What’s going on sir?”
asked the exec over the link, at the same time as the helm and navigator turned
back to look the question at him with their eyes.

“Can’t say just yet,
exec,” replied the Captain.  He looked around as the floor units opened and the
acceleration tanks rose from below.  “When I can say you will be the first to
know.  Just know that we have orders from the Admiral to do exactly what I’m
ordering.”

The tanks rose to the
full height of their cylindrical forms and their doors opened.  A bit of fluid
came up from the floor and then stopped, as each tank made sure it had an
uninterrupted flow from the liquid storage units.

“Everybody make sure
you’re jacked into your systems,” ordered the Captain.  “All repair bots on
remote.  Then everyone into the tanks.”

There was some grumbling
on the bridge as crew members began to walk to and back into their battle armor
cubbies.  Backing up into the retaining arms, they opened the seals on the
armor and allowed the cubby to pull it from them, stripping them down to their
skin suits.  Some of the crew left their gloves and helmets attached to the
holders at their battle stations, while others brought the attachments with
them and placed them in their holders within the cubbies.

The skin suited crew
then climbed into the acceleration cylinders.  The doors slid shut and sealed
as crew members fitted breathing masks to their faces.  As the doors became
seamless parts of the cylinder walls the liquid started to flow in again, until
each and every crew member was covered and floated upright in the tank.

The Captain got up from
his chair as the last crew sealed into the tanks.  He made sure that his link
was working in interface with all of the ship’s systems he needed to interact
with, got out of his armor, and climbed into the tank.  He jacked into the
ship’s command and control system as soon as he pulled the breathing mask on
and the tank started filling with liquid.

Sergiov
was accelerating at
two hundred and fifty gravities, her maximum safe increase.  That acceleration
limit was based on the power of her inertial compensators, which could absorb
about two hundred and fifty-five gravities on all of her crew accessible areas,
giving her just a little bit more of a safety margin if needed.  The grabber
units of the ship, the ether paddles as they were known by physicists who
worked on the theories of such things, were capable of more than three hundred
fifty gravities of acceleration.  This gave the ship a reserve so she could
maintain capabilities through damage to the space propulsion system.

The crew was enhanced
through nanosystems above and beyond the normal populaces’ enhancement, with
increased blood flow to the brain and venous compression in the legs forcing
blood back to the heart.  They could take up to ten gravities for minutes at a
time without blackout, though it was still dangerous to leave an acceleration
couch.  And the tanks, floating the crew’s bodies in a liquid cushion, would
allow them to handle an additional thirty-two gravities.

The Captain monitored
the ship’s systems while he floated in the liquid, assuring that everyone was
safe and secure in the tanks.  When the last red crew icon turned green and he
was sure all were where they needed to be he sent the command through the
circuit. 
Sergiov’
s grabber units increased the force of their pull on
space as the reactors fed them more power.  The gravities built up until the
battleship pulled two hundred sixty gravities, then up to two hundred seventy,
then two hundred and eighty.

The crew was still
linked into their systems, ready to fight the ship if need be.  If it became
clear that danger was imminent the ship would be powered down to normal safe
max and the crew would leave the tubes, armor up, and assume their stations.

But so far so clear
, thought the Captain
as he plotted the vector curve that his ship would take out of the system.  Now
all he had to wait for was the reaction of the enemy to see how exciting this
little cruise might get.

*     *     *

“I wonder what the
hell’s going on?” asked Lieutenant SG The Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, moving
to his armor station and pulling the unsealing straps.  He backed up into the
cubby unit and felt the armor lock into the retracting arms.  The armor opened
up and was pulled off of him into the cubby.