Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (25 page)

And we are too damned aggressive as a species
, thought the Great
Admiral, looking down at the table and thinking. 
Maybe I should send my
more aggressive males off on a strike.  Either they’ll be successful, or
they’ll be destroyed.  And either way, I win.

“We are only a shadow of the conquest fleet we
were,” said the cautious High Admiral.  “We should wait for reinforcements from
the Empire.  Or at least until the ships from their Republic get here, even if
it doesn’t bring us back to full strength.”

And those ships were due within a couple of
weeks, if they had left the Republic as soon as they were contacted. 
That
is why we need those wormholes, more than any other reason.  I have no way of
knowing what is the current location or status of my forces outside of this
system.  And it still takes us six months to get new ships from the Empire to
here.  Hopefully that human scientist will pan out, but that will still be
years in the future.

“We have enough of a force here to take out
several of their core systems,” argued Jarkastarin, staring at the Voice of
Caution.  “Reduce their industrial capacity by a significant percentage, kill
some more billions of these humans.”  The High Admiral shifted his gaze back to
the Great Admiral.  “Accomplish what we were sent here to accomplish.  Not
cower like zagratta in the shadows.”

No, we are not zagratta
, thought the Great
Admiral, thinking of the small vermin that tended to infest most Ca’cadasan
farming concerns. 
But neither are these humans.  They are closer to
sliggothra.
  He pictured in his mind the huge predators that had been the
bane of early Cacada, before the early hunter gatherers wiped them out.  Now
they only existed in zoological gardens, recreated from their ancient DNA. 
Just
as someday we might recreate humans, which, in my opinion, would be a major
mistake.

“The humans will track your force,
Jarkastarin,” said the Voice of Reason.  “They will move forces in with their
damned wormholes, overwhelm you, and we would just lose more of our fleet for
no return.”

“Then perhaps it is time to resort to hit and
run attacks,” said Jarkastarin, hunching both pairs of shoulders.  “Strike from
the edge of the system.  Come out of hyper, launch, then go back in.  The ships
they bring in by wormhole would arrive too late to do anything to us, they
couldn’t catch us in hyper, and we would move on to the next target.  And if
they don’t have a wormhole gate in that system, we could move in and totally
destroy the human presence there.”

“And in that case, you might get ambushed after
you poke your nose too far into the system to back out in time,” said the Voice
of Reason.

“Then we will just hit and run,” said
Jarkastarin, looking like he wanted to call the other Admiral a name, then
thinking better of it.  “We fire in spreads of missiles and take everything of
value out at long range.”

“You must not hit their planets with those
missiles,” cautioned the Great Admiral, wondering if this idea might be just
what he needed to get the recalcitrant male off his back, and raise the morale
of his fleet.

Jarkastarin’s expression showed what he thought
of human planets, and the creatures that lived on them, even nonhumans.  “Of
course I will not harm their precious planets.  I will only target ships,
mining stations, antimatter production facilities and the like.”

“Very well,” said the Great Admiral, giving a
head motion of acceptance.  “You may take your personal force, and another
hundred ships.”  He looked around at the other High Admirals.  “I will
authorize two similar forces, to the first two High Admirals who ask for
command.  But no more than a third of the fleet here gathered is to go out
raiding.  I mean to hold this system, and by that I include the planet that the
humans still infest.  All ground combat males are to remain here, so that they
can be used to reduce the Conundrum planet.”

“I must protest that order, Great Admiral,”
said Jarkastarin, slamming a heavy right lower hand onto the table.  “What if I
need ground combat males to take enemy ships.”

“Then you will destroy those ships, and not
risk any of yours in trying to capture them.  You will not risk having them
project antimatter onto your ship, by whatever means they do so.  Is that
clear?”

“But…”

“Is that clear, High Admiral?  Because if it
isn’t, I can just keep you here in this system, and let another commander go in
your stead.”

The other officer glared for a moment, then
gave a head motion of acknowledgement.

“Good.  Then this meeting is over.  The three
commanders who will lead raiding parties will present to me their proposed
orders of battle for my final approval.  And no stacking your task groups with
battleships.  These will be balanced forces.”

The Great Admiral stormed out of the room, not
really caring if his subordinates approved of his decisions or not.  The
Emperor had put him in command, and as long as he held that position, he would
command.

*    
*     *

“Admiral on deck,” shouted a voice over the
hangar intercom.

Admiral Chuntao Chan was torn between smiling
and crying as she looked over the officers and Marines gathered on the utility
hangar deck of the HIMS
Akagi
, the flagship of Task Force Four, her
first, and probably, last major combat command. 
At least the Emperor gave
me the chance
, thought the woman, who was widely thought to be one of the
greatest minds of the Empire. 

That was the reason she was being relieved of
command of this group of six hyper VII Fleet Attack Carriers, which, along with
their defending escorts, comprised the Task Force.  Those, and the six wings of
inertialess attack fighters they had launched into the battle, the whole reason
for their being.

“It was a pleasure serving with you, Admiral,”
said a tall, blond Captain with the insignia of naval aviation on her collar.

“The pleasure was all mine, Svetlana,” said the
small Asian woman, returning the salute, then shaking the other woman’s hand,
looking up into ice blue eyes.  “Your wing performed admirably.  They, and the
others, were instrumental in our victory.”

The other woman, Svetlana Komorov, returned a
sad smile at the praise, and the flag rank scientist realized what she must be
thinking. 
Almost half of your force destroyed was a heavy price to pay,
even if extracting a hundred times the cost to the enemy.  But that doesn’t
matter when they’re your people.

“If you would like, I could get you a berth in
R and D,” offered the Admiral.  “I could use someone like you to run herd on
the pilots we will need.”

“My place is here, Admiral,” said the Captain,
shaking her head.  “If you order it, I will give it my best shot.  But I’m not
a genius, like you are.  They need you back there, that’s for sure.  Just like
they need me here.”

Now it was Chan’s turn to shake her head.  “I
will not order you to leave your command.  The offer is genuine, and you would
be an asset.  But I will leave it up to you.  You are also an asset here, and
you will have your hands full rebuilding your wing before the next offensive.”

When those ships would be coming was anyone’s
guess.  The Empire had plenty of six hundred ton insystem fighters, and one
thousand ton attack fighters.  But not fifteen hundred ton inertialess attack
fighters.  The production lines for them were still in the process of ramping
up, and there was only so much negative matter around, and too many priority
uses for the substance.

“Just get us what we need to win this war,
ma’am,” said the Captain with a smile.

Chan nodded and turned, walking toward the
shuttle that was waiting for her. 
I’m not the mind that creates
, she
thought as she stepped aboard the armed assault shuttle. 
I’m the brain that
refines, that finds the flaws and corrects them.  I’m important, but not as
much as those scientists who do the theoretical work, the creation, the initial
engineering.

As soon as she was in her seat, and the cabin
attendant, a young warrant officer, had checked on her, the shuttle raised from
the deck and boosted toward the cold plasma field that kept the atmosphere inside
the open hanger.  They put on the acceleration as soon as the shuttle cleared
the carrier, heading for the ship gate that had been erected just inside the
hyper barrier.

The Admiral watched the task force recede
behind them on her seat holo, zooming in to look at her flagship. 
Akagi
was
easily distinguishable from the standard hyper VI fleet carrier.  It massed
twelve million tons, two more than a regular carrier.  Most of that extra mass
went into the more robust hyperdrive projectors, and the reactors needed to
power them.  About half a million tons went into the larger than normal
hangars, and the missile magazines needed to rearm those ships with the hundred
ton weapons they carried.

The ship, while armed with lasers and some
particle beam projectors, as well as a quartet of missile launchers, was not
made to enter into close combat.  She couldn’t stand up against any other type
of capital ship in a beam fight or missile duel.  Most had doubts the ship
could even hold out long against a couple of heavy cruisers.  That was not her
mission, and the dozen light cruisers and thirty destroyers in the task force
were there to defend her and her sisters from enemy missiles, and to sacrifice
themselves to protect her against larger enemy vessels closing on her position.

She zoomed out the holo, changing it to a
tactical view.  Icons sprung up all over the plot.  Not only her task force,
but the other hyper VII carrier group.  Hundreds of battleships, a thousand
escort and supporting vessels.  What had gathered so far, and only a fraction
of the strength that would soon be stationed here.  A lot of ships from the
last battle had gone through the ship gate on their way to Central Docks, for
repairs and upgrades.  There were many more that had gone off on the strike on
Fenri space, scheduled to be back in a week.   And…

“We’re being ordered to steer clear of the gate
for the moment, ma’am,” said the shuttle pilot over the com.  “We have priority
traffic coming through from the other side.”

Must be high priority
, thought the Admiral,
as her shuttle veered away from the gate while putting on deceleration, and
vectoring in a curve that would lead to a position where they could again make
a gate approach, when the time came.

She zoomed the holo on the gate and gasped as the
nose of a ship poked through, soon followed by the rest of the fifteen million
ton battleship.  It was not of human design, a more elegant, beautiful form
that probably gave up a little bit of toughness, while gaining acceleration and
maneuverability.

Elysium Empire ships
, she thought, admiring
the lines of the big warship as it pushed through the gate, then accelerated
away to its fleet staging area.  A moment later another ship came through,
followed by yet another.  Altogether, the shuttle was put on hold for two
hours, while over three hundred ships from the Elysium Empire came through. 
They were a welcome reinforcement in her eyes, and a sign that the humans were
not in this alone, not anymore.  There were already some Crakistan ships in the
system, with more scheduled to arrive any day.  The next battle against the
Ca’cadasans would feature the three strongest empires in this region of space
standing shoulder to shoulder against the aggressor.

“We’re clear to go through,” said the pilot,
and the shuttle started to accelerate toward the gate.

I really don’t like this part,
thought Chan, who had
been in on the original tests of the portals.  The feeling was like nothing she
had ever experienced, ranked as a nine on a scale where puking her guts out after
a college party was a five.  The shuttle plunged through, and the feeling of
being stretched across space and time almost overwhelmed her.  Time seemed to
tick with agonizing slowness, and then she was through, catching the breath she
had been starting to take when they had first penetrated the mirror surface.

This is new
, thought Chan, looking on the holo that
showed the outline of the ship gate flower that had been put together since the
last time she had been there.  The shuttle accelerated, changing its vector to
head toward the gate that led to Central Docks, where she would transfer
through the passenger gate system to her final destination.  The icons of forts
blinked on the holo, as well as those from over a hundred ships, the defensive
force that would keep an enemy from coming through one gate and attacking the
industrial base of the black hole.  Since only one ship could come through at a
time, two if the attacker wanted to take greater risk, the fleet would pretty
much immediately overpower any enemy.  Or at least it was so hoped.

Chan expanded the holo, zooming out, until the
icon of the
Donut,
and all of the myriad of
ships and stations in
orbit around the black hole, filled it.  From Central Docks she would be taking
a passenger gate back to the
Donut,
cutting five hours off of the route
heading straight from here to the station on her shuttle.  They could also head
to one of the forts, and jump to the station, but that portal was actually much
further from her connection than the one coming from Central Docks.