Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (20 page)

“Next up is the appropriations bill for the
expansion of the New Hanou shipyards,” said Zhee, forcing herself to hold her
hand down.  Everyone knew how she was going to vote, since the shipyards
benefited her own home system, but decorum must be observed.

“I think we can all agree on that one,” said
the Duke.

Especially since one of your missile facilities
is coming up for an expansion contract
, thought Zhee, looking at the Duke. 
You
scratch my back, von Schlieffen, I’ll scratch yours. 
That was the way
committee work had always been done, and none of the members saw any reason to
change it now, just because of a little thing like a war.

Chapter
Twelve

We are going to have peace
even if we have to fight for it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

FENRI SPACE.  DECEMBER
4
^TH
, 1001.

“We’re coming up on orbital insertion,” said
the Navigation Officer from the primary bridge of
King Edward II
.

Len sat in his chair on the flag bridge,
watching the viewer that showed the superbattleship and eight regular
battleships sliding into orbit.  They weren’t the first vessels to achieve
orbit.  There were already more than a hundred vessels in everything from low
orbit, about five hundred kilometers, to past geosynch, over forty thousand
kilometers.  About half of the ships were logistics vessels and troop
transports, and space was thick with thousands of shuttles falling into and
coming out of the atmosphere.

Thank God there were still some of our boys
left
,
he thought, looking at one of the shuttles on a zoom from the holo.  It was
rising up, on a heading for this very ship.  On-board was the highest ranking
surviving officer from the expedition.  Among the less than ten thousand from
the initial ninety K that had originally taken the planet. 
We got here in
time to save the survivors, and we paid a price to do it.

The Fenri had been caught off guard by the twin
punch of the inertialess fighters and the wormhole launched missile swarms.  
The inertialess ships had hit first, coming out of their bubbles about twenty
light seconds from the enemy fleet.  Far enough away for the enemy to have
gotten off some shots.  But too close to allow them to coordinate their defense
against an enemy they hadn’t even known was coming.  The attack craft had hit
hard, knocking out almost three hundred of the enemy ships on their pass
through.  They had lost over a hundred and fifty of the very expensive craft. 
A trade off most commanders would have been ecstatic about. 
But not the
family and friends of those people
.

The missiles had come flying out about fifteen
minutes later, moments after the first of the ship launched weapons were
nearing attack range.  A thousand missiles came out at an unexpected angle,
traveling at point nine five light.  The Fenri defenses had been swamped by the
two simultaneous waves, with only a hundred and four ships surviving.  Most of
those surrendered, their commanders and crews in complete shock.

The fleet losses hadn’t been one sided.  The
Fenri missile swarm had taken out over a hundred ships, and damaged twice that
many.  The Margravi had been the most seriously hit of any of the contingents,
their penchant for sacrifice for the good of the whole causing them to take
more risks than any of the other species. 
But their sacrifice allowed more
of our other ships to escape damage
, thought the Admiral of the courageous
insectoids. 
Or, is it courage, when fear is impossible for them to
experience?.

Now they controlled the system again.  And,
according to their intelligence, the Fenri fleet was finished as a fighting
force.  There were still some ships in their Empire, but no large forces.  The
New Terran Empire fleet had ravaged them here and in the other four systems
they had struck.  It would be years before they could start replacing their
losses, while the Empire would take advantage of any breaks in the primary
theater to keep hammering them.

Starting here
, thought Len, looking at the ship gate
that was being put together in high orbit.  That would allow the Empire to
shift whatever resources they needed to this system if the Fenri tried to
surprise them. 
You may have been theirs at one time, but you are ours now,
thought Lenkowski, looking at another holo that portrayed the entire system,
with the icons of his fleet showing on it.

“Shuttle will be docking in four minutes,” came
a call over Len’s personal com.  “You said you wanted to know.”

“Right,” said the Admiral, looking at the holo
that showed the assault shuttle on final approach.  Most would be heading
straight to the transports, and then home through the ship gate, as soon as it
was assembled.  There they would be used as the cadre to rebuild the terribly
eviscerated divisions, until the heavy corps was again ready for redeployment. 
“I’ll be right down.”

The hangar was a bustle of activity, as a
Marine honor guard and many of the ship’s officers made ready to greet the VIP
coming aboard.  The main hatch was open, fifty meter high by fifty meter wide
double doors open.  Beyond the opening was the vacuum of space, the only thing
between the people and it the shimmering electromagnetic field, holding the
cold plasma in place that kept the air molecules from leaving the hangar.

The assault shuttle, as unlovely a ship as
there was, pushed through the cold plasma field slowly, scarred nose leading. 
Its grabber units were glowing red with the heat of their operation, and the
landing pads lowered as soon as it was in the hangar.  With a clang, followed
by a double as the two remaining pads thumped on the deck, the shuttle settled
to the hard floor.  A moment later the side hatch opened, and the naval
personnel craned their necks to get a first look at the passengers.

“Commander, XXXXI Heavy Corps, on deck,” called
out the loudspeaker, and all of the naval personnel rendered a hand salute,
while the gathered Marine company brought their ceremonial rifles to present
arms.  Len saluted like the rest, even though he was at least three ranks
higher than an Army Lt. General. 
And he’s not even that,
thought the
Admiral, looking up the record of the man they were saluting. 
Only a
Brigadier by permanent rank, brevetted to Major General to command a division
when the commander was killed.  And then taking over the corps when all
officers above him were killed or otherwise incapacitated.  But he still
deserves our salute, after what he and his people have been through.

He looks like hell
, was Len’s next
thought as the man stepped onto the deck.  He had on a fresh uniform that had
been flown down with the shuttle, and looked like he had showered.  His face
was clean shaven, probably taken care of by his battle armor nanites.  But the
face was what surprised Len.  It was gaunt, to say the least.  Like the man had
lost ten kilos of mass while on the planet.  And the eyes had a stare to them,
a look that seemed to be light years away.  Len had seen that look before, from
naval crew and Marines who had gone through the hell of extended combat.  This
man looked the same.  The officer stood still for a moment, looking confused,
then rendered a perfect return salute, dropping it and stepping forward.

“General Baggett,” he said to the officer,
stepping out of line and offering his hand.

Baggett snapped back to attention and saluted,
and Len was beginning to think they had performed enough saluting here to last
a lifetime.

“Welcome aboard my flagship.  I hope you will
remain comfortable here on the trip home.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Baggett in a voice that
sounded hollow with his exhaustion.  “And we’re here to stay,” he said,
motioning toward the hangar doors, which were in the process of closing.  “We
lost a lot of people holding this rock, and there are a lot of Fenri slaves
down there counting on us to protect them.”

“When we leave here, there will be four
divisions on the planet, as well as four brigades of planet based antiship
artillery.  That, in and of itself, may not be enough to hold the planet if the
Fenri decide to commit all the ships they have left in their totally trashed
fleet.  But the system is only a wormhole gate away from major reinforcements.”

“And my orders, sir.  Will I be staying with
the corps, or at least the division?”

“I don’t know what your final orders will be,”
said Len, shaking his head and wishing he had some news to give him about his
future disposition.  “But I do have some good news for you, at least short
term.  You’re going to Jewel.  The Emperor has you on his list of guests, and I
am so happy I was able to recover you before his wedding.”

*    
*     *

Major General Samuel Baggett, and the two star
rank had just been verified by Imperial order, knelt in one of the chapels of
the superbattleship.  This one had been configured as a Reformed Catholic
shrine, the largest denomination of the Empire.  Baggett had not been much of a
church goer in recent years, but his current experience, one that had taught
him how truly fleeting life was, had convinced him that maybe it was a good
time to return to the faith.

Maybe I joined the wrong service
, he thought, as he
took a second to look around the well-appointed chapel. 
Yeah, they have to
go through their own version of hell when they fight.  They might not see guts
splattered everywhere.  Or they might possibly could.  When death strikes the
Fleet, it comes in fast.  But, by God, they get hot meals, showers and beds. 
And that’s sure something higher class than what we get, while we’re dying in
the mud.

Shit
, he thought, not the most appropriate thing to
go through his mind in what amounted to a church.  But the feeling of going
through a wormhole was that disconcerting, and was something he had only
experienced a couple of times before.  There was the feeling of being
everywhere in the Universe at once, as time stretched out endlessly.  And then
the shock of coming back to the Normal Universe, even though everything looked
the same. 
Because you’re aboard a spaceship, genius
, thought the
General, shaking his head, even barking a short laugh.

“Are you OK, sir?” asked a man in a naval
uniform with the insignia of a Lt. Commander on the shoulder boards of his
semi-formal uniform, and the crosses of a Christian chaplain on his lapels.

“Are you a priest?” he asked the man.  Just
because it was a Reformed Catholic chapel, and the chaplain had the crosses of
a Christian denomination on his uniform, didn’t mean the man belonged to that
denomination.  Military chaplains were expected to cover a number of the
faiths, and it wouldn’t have been very strange at all to find a Baptist
minister counseling a Wiccan.

“I am, General,” said the man, bowing his
head.  “I’ve been a Fleet chaplain for the last twenty years.  Before that, a
parish priest.  Until the New Vatican gave me orders to serve our fighting
men.”

“No family?”

“I had a wife, and two children,” said the man,
whose name tag said Martinez.

“Had?”

“They died on Cimmeria, General.  Like so many
others.”

“I am so sorry,” said Baggett, not really
knowing what else to say.  He thought it over for a moment, while the man stood
patiently by.  “Do you ever feel guilty?  Surviving them, I mean?”

“All the time,” said the man folding his hands
to his front and looking down.  He looked back up into Baggett’s eyes.  “But it
was God’s will that I survive to serve my fellow beings.  As painful as that
sometimes seems.”

Baggett looked down himself, wondering how he
was going to broach the subject to a man who in many ways had lost so much more
than he had.  He had loved his troops, in an abstract sort of way. 
Hell,
there at the end, I didn’t even know two percent of them.  And he lost a wife,
and two of his own children.

“Are you feeling survivor’s guilt, my son,”
said the priest, laying a hand gently on the shoulder of the General.

“Yes, Father,” said Baggett, blinking back his
tears.  “That I do.”

“That’s a normal reaction, my son.  And you
were in charge of a Corps?” asked the Priest, his eyes unfocusing for a moment
as he went into link to gather information.

“I started in charge of a brigade,” said
Baggett, shaking his head from side to side.  “And I’m not even sure I was
ready for that much command, since I had just become a battalion commander less
than a year before.  And then, people started dying, lots of them under me,
some over, and I just kept getting more and more responsibility, until I got
the top slot.  And things just kept getting worse.”

“I’m sure you did the best you could do,
General,” said the Priest, patting Baggett’s shoulder.  “And that’s all God can
ask of any man or woman.”

“And better than most of us could do,” said
another voice from behind Baggett.

The General turned to see Grand Fleet Admiral
Lenkowski standing behind him, changed into a duty uniform since the reception
at the hangar.  He still had six stars on his collar, and looked every inch the
high ranking Admiral.  The Admiral stepped forward and moved into the pew from
the other side, sitting down beside Baggett and motioning for the General to
take a seat.

“I was looking over your after action report
with my Marine commander, Major General Sopworth.  She felt that you did an
outstanding job, considering what was facing you.  I agree.  A lot of men just
would have given up, and hoped the enemy was in a prisoner taking mood.”

“I didn’t bring many people with me off of that
planet,” said Baggett, shaking his head.

“And I lost a third of my fleet in the action
to retake that system,” said Len, frowning.  “I wish I could have done a better
job, and brought more people home.  And by people, I mean all of the sentients
under my command.  Instead, I lost six hundred ships, and over four hundred
thousand beings, to rip the heart out of the Fenri fleet.  Unfortunately for my
people, it was the best I could do.  And fortunately for my people, I did my
best.  Do you see what I’m saying, son?”