Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (18 page)

Runningdeer
looked over at the heavy launcher they had hauled to this overlook, and the two
packages that sat next to it, containing the warheads in their shielded
containers.  Everything was powered down so their electronic signals
couldn’t be detected.  There were infrequent air patrols over the
mountains, and even more sparse ground sweeps.  The Commander was sure
they could avoid being sighted by either type of patrol, but the mission
parameters called for extreme care.

The Commander
checked the time once again, something he had been doing for the past couple of
hours, and saw that there was still an hour and forty-five minutes to go. 
He looked over his launcher once again, for the hundredth time, making sure
nothing was bent or dinged or otherwise made unoperational.  Of course he
could find nothing wrong with it, but he didn’t want it to malfunction when it
was needed.

“It’s going to
work, sir,” said Petty Officer First Marconi, one of his missile team, and the
one that should have been using the launcher.

“I know it is,”
replied the officer, who had insisted that he take the shot.  “I just wish
the damned clock would tick down.”

The Commander
looked up at the clear sky, and the sparkling stars that sat in it.  He
could pick out several of the orbital platforms up there from reflected
sunlight.  They were more of a danger to the ground forces than this
defensive station, while it was more of a threat to Imperial shipping. 
But the orbiting platforms were not his problem, while the defensive station
was.  He checked the time once again, swearing under his breath that it had
only advanced another half minute.

Move your ass
,
he thought of the time.  But of course it didn’t listen to him, and ticked
down in the manner of timers in this kind of gravity, slowly, one tick at a
time.

*    
*     *

“Everyone’s a go
in my division,” said Major General Klash’tar, the commanding officer of the
Phlistaran 512
^th
Heavy Infantry Division.  His division had
been reinforced by a full brigade of the 25
^th
Armored Division,
while two of his battalions had been traded to that unit to make it, along with
the reinforcement of the 47
^th
Heavy Infantry Division, a more
infantry heavy unit.

“No checks down
at all, Klash’tar?” he asked.  It was almost unheard of to get near to one
hundred percent, but it could happen.  He wouldn’t blame the commander to
not mention one or two suits that had been down checked.

“None have been
reported to me,” said the Division Commander, the view behind him of scores of
armored Phlistarans shifting in place, obviously ready to take the bit between
their teeth and go.  “If there are any, I’m sure the armorers are hard at
work getting it corrected.”

Baggett almost
asked if everything was topped off, but stopped himself before the question
could leave his mouth.  Klash’tar was a good officer, and he knew what to
do.  His soldiers were well disciplined.

“We go in less
than two hours,” he told the Phlistaran.  “You know the mission, so I
expect your Division to perform to standard.”

“They will,
sir.  Don’t you worry.”

Baggett nodded
and switched the feed to another unit, this one a pair of human heavy infantry
companies along with a company of heavy main battle tanks.  The mirrored
surface of a wormhole stood in front of the first rank of infantry, not large
enough at the moment to pass a tank.  But at the signal it would expand,
as it would on the other end.  The sun was going down on the location on
the planet they were on.  It would be coming up at this moment on the part
of New Moscow where these people were heading.

“You ready,
Colonel?” he asked the Battalion Combat Team commander.

“Ready and
raring to go, sir,” announced that officer, his voice fraught with tension.

Of course
he’s scared
, thought Baggett, pulling up the officer’s face on the
holo. 
This kind of assault has never been done before.  There is
so much that can go wrong.

It was too late
to worry about all the things that could backfire, and all the damage such
events could cause.  He spent the time productively instead, talking to
his commanders, making sure that none of them had last minute questions. 
And wishing that he could be with the first wave to hit the planet.  He
knew that last thought was stupid.  He was a Corps commander, not a
platoon leader, and what they needed on the ground first off were combat
troops.  He and his command team would come across when there was space
available through the wormholes, and not before.  He just hoped that
things hadn’t gone completely to shit by that time.

*    
*     *

“The first ships
will translate to normal space in one hour and forty-three minutes, Admiral,”
said Rear Admiral Lawrence Kelso over the holo.  Kelso was the Emperor’s
Chief of Staff, and had been assigned to the assault fleet as Sean’s liaison.

Fleet Admiral
Jerry Kelvin, looked at the tactical holo and verified that the force was
arrayed how he wanted it.  He looked back at Kelso, who he had made his
own Chief of Staff as soon as he had come aboard the flagship.

“How are the
specials doing?” he asked Kelso, who had been put in charge of the new wrinkle
they were deploying, one more thing for the newly promoted fleet admiral to
worry about.

“The frames are
holding up just fine,” said Kelso, a smile on his face.  “I guess the real
test will come when we translate back into normal space and deploy them.”

Kelvin thought
about that for a moment.  The frames were, at the moment, separated,
attached to the pair of ships that would join them when they were ready to
deploy.  In tests the ships had been able to join and deploy the frame
within minutes.  But the system hadn’t been tested coming out of a jump. 
Deployment depended on the ships coming out in near proximity to each
other.  If they came out of hyper too far apart, it might take ten minutes
or more to join the ships, and those would be minutes wasted.

“I hope this
works, Admiral,” said Kelvin, feeling the trepidation that most commanders felt
when deploying what was basically unknown technology in a first battle
situation.   “With what we’re going to be facing, we’re sure to need
for it to work.”

Right now the
holo, updated from information coming through the wormhole com, showed that
they would be facing about four hundred enemy vessels soon after
translation.  They wouldn’t be within energy weapons range, which was a
very good thing.  But about half of the enemy ships would be able to hit
them with missiles within twenty minutes or less.  And within six hours
the missiles launched by the ships coming out from the inner system would come
streaking in.  They would possibly be overwhelmed.   That would
still serve the primary purpose of the force, which was to distract the enemy
ships from the inner system, focusing their attention on the oncoming invaders
instead.  But unless his force defeated them, they would head back in and
take care of the force that would be in orbit around the planet supporting the
ground forces.

His own force
might hurt the enemy enough that they couldn’t win the next battle in the inner
system.  But he would prefer if his force, including himself, were still
around at that point.

*    
*     *

“Let’s do a last
systems check, people,” ordered Captain Beauregard Morris, checking the timer,
then pulling up a diagnostic holo of the overall systems of the fifteen hundred
ton fighter.  The rest of the crew acknowledged and pulled up their own
screens.  They would do the individual checks of the systems they were
responsible for, while he would do an overall check of how the systems were
interfacing.

Zokoku 1
was
the only ship he was sure was going to be there in one hour and forty some
minutes.  He believed that the others would be there as well, but as they
were all separated from the Universe in their individual warp bubbles he had no
way of knowing the conditions of the other ninety-nine ships in his wing. 
They could have run through an uncharted meteor swarm and most of the other
ships could be gone, plasma traveling at high velocity in the general direction
the fighter had been going.

Morris shook his
head as he traced the command circuit for the forward laser ring.  
It did no good to worry about the things he didn’t have control over.  That
way lay madness.  He had to believe that when they came out of the warp
bubble the other ships would be there as well, and he would again be able to
command his wing.

All systems
checked out.  Now there was nothing to do but wait, wishing for the
madness to ensue when they were flying through an enemy force that was trying
to destroy them.  That was the craziest thought of all.

*    
*     *

“What do we
have?” asked Great Admiral H’rastarawaa, sitting in his command chamber on the
large station that orbited directly over the primary continent of New Moscow.

“Eighteen
hundred enemy ships,” said High Admiral Lisantr’nana.  “I expected
more.  I don’t think I will have any problem handling them.”

The Great
Admiral looked at the tactical holo that showed the less than two thousand
enemy ships moving through hyper I toward the system.  He noted that most
of the Ca’cadasan ships in the system were also now represented by vector
arrows pointing toward the blinking icon that represented where the enemy force
was being predicted to come out of hyper.

The Great
Admiral thought for a moment, wondering what the proper response would
be.  If ninety percent of the warships he had responded to this threat, he
would be uncovering the other approach routes to the inner system.  But if
he didn’t send enough force to stomp on the invader, he was risking the ships
he sent.  And since he didn’t know that reinforcements were coming, he
needed to preserve his fleet as far as possible.

And if
something else comes at us while the fleet is engaged with this enemy force, we
still have all the humans on the planet as hostages
, he thought.  They
didn’t dare strike at the planet as long as he had the lives of over seven
hundred million humans to bargain with.

“Go ahead and
take care of them as fast as you can, Lisantr’nana,” he told the other
Cacada.  He killed the holo and brought up the com link to the General in
charge of the surface force on the planet.

“My Lord,” said
the General as soon as he saw who was on the holo.  “What are your orders?”

“I want you to
prepare to wipe out the camps at my order,” he told the officer.  “I do
not want you to do this at this time, but the preparations need to be
made.  How long will that take?”

The General
scratched the base of one horn while he thought.  “It will take time to
kill all of the vermin if we approach it as males killing them with personnel
weapons.  We can do it faster with heavy weapons, but the most efficient
way to destroy them is with kinetic weapons from space.  After that,
detonating multi-megaton warhead within the camps would be the most efficient
manner.”

“Prepare the
warheads, just in case,” he ordered the General, thinking about the possibility
of his orbital platforms being taken out.  Not that he thought that
possibility was likely.  He looked at the tactical holo once again,
thinking about what the most probable outcome of this day’s battle would
be.  He licked his lips as he thought about the reward he would receive
from the Emperor for the defeat he was about to inflict on the humans.

Chapter Fifteen

You must all be aware that modern
war is not a mere matter of military operations. It involves the whole strength
and all the resources of the nation. Not only soldiers, but also all citizens
without exception, take part.

Chiang Kai-shek.

NEW MOSCOW ORBIT, APRIL 8
^TH
,
1002.

“Zero,” shouted
out the Tactical Officer as the timer ticked down the last second.

Suttler stared
ahead at the tactical holo.  It was time for them to fire, but the other
elements of the operation had yet to appear.  He could look over at the
tactical holo and see that the incoming fleet was still in hyper, coming close
to the barrier, when it would have to jump, or crash into the limit and fall
catastrophically into normal space.  They had to come through very soon,
or their part of the mission was over before it began.  The inertialess
fighters were also close to their entry point, at least according to the holo,
that showed the projected position of the small vessels.  Unfortunately,
that projection could have little to do with reality.

“All ships,”
ordered the Commodore over the com.  “Prepare to fire on my command.”

“The Admiral is
asking when we will be ready to deploy,” said the Com Officer.

“Tell him that
we are still waiting for the other deployments,” said Suttler, staring at the
holo as if he could will everything to come.  To deploy everything at the
moment would be to reveal where they were, and that would soon be followed by
an overwhelming attack.

“The decoy fleet
is starting its translation,” called out the Sensor Officer.

The vector
arrows of the leading edge of the incoming force changed color slightly,
denoting their translation into normal space.

“We’re picking
up the graviton emissions of a hundred ships coming through,” continued the Sensor
Officer.  “More are coming through each second.”

So they had the
decoy force coming through, but still nothing from the fighter force.  And
the ground forces were ready to go, probably chomping at the bit, in danger of
discovery the longer they waited.

Suttler was
ready to give the order despite the absence of the inertialess fighters when
the first of them appeared.

“We have twenty
one sources appearing at four light seconds,” called out the Sensor
Officer.  “Velocity is point nine zero light, acceleration, one thousand
gravities.  Twelve more, sir.”

“Fire,” yelled
Suttler over the open com, the command going out to all of the vessels in his
command.

Seastag
shook
as her particle beam opened fire at the first platform on her targeting
list.  The particle beam was one of the modifications that had been made
to all of the stealth/attack ships in his force.  The particle beam was of
similar class to those used by twenty million ton superbattleships, but were
accelerated on space stations in orbit around the central black hole of the
Supersystem.  The ships went into almost full acceleration to maintain
station against the push of the point nine nine five light beam of antiprotons
coming out of the noses of the vessels.

Kilograms of
antiprotons hit the platform that had to mass about three hundred thousand
tons, pointing its weapons at the surface of the planet below.  It was
caught totally flat footed, weapons powered down, cold plasma field dead. 
Not that the field would have done much good.  The antiprotons slammed
into the hull of the platform, imparting considerable kinetic energy that
blasted the already exploding antimatter deep within the satellite.  With
a series of brilliant flashes the platform tumbled out of orbit, breaking up as
it spun and flew away from the planet.

Within five
seconds thirty two of the platforms were gone, only nine remaining.  Those
nine started to turn in space, their cold plasma fields coming up as they tried
to get into an orientation where they could hit the now visible stealth/attack
ships.  None completed the turn, as the particle beams ripped through the
cold plasma fields and struck the hulls with almost as much force as had been
generated in hitting the satellites without the defensive screens.

As soon as the
first beam was on its way each of the ships started to launch their
missiles.  Again, the ships had been modified, and another wormhole had
been added to each ship, these  linked to other stations where the
missiles were pre-accelerated up to point nine light before shooting from the
portal.  As they left the ships the launching vessels imparted the
targeting information to the weapons, which immediately began turning their
vectors and headed for their priority targets.

The Cacas were
caught completely off guard, many of their ships crippled before they could get
off a shot, some blasted to plasma.  All major orbital platforms were
gone, only the quartet of space docks and the two forts, including the massive
primary, still there.  The docks were fairly harmless, but were still
targeted, while the forts were tough nuts to crack with their defensive
weaponry.

Suttler cringed
as he watched two of his ships disappear from the plot, hit by enemy
fire.  Stealth/attacks were destroyer sized ships, and were incapable of
handling much in the way of damage.  A third ship disappeared, and Suttler
held his breath as he made sure all of his special ships were still
there.  He counted all four, and went ahead to send the command for their
next maneuver, the deployment of the wormhole gates that would bring their
reinforcements to them.  In minutes he knew that the ships that had been
lured away would send volleys of missiles back at his force.  They had
maybe fifteen minutes before the missiles reached back to the planet, and there
was no way his command could weather that storm.  And there were still
enemy ships, including superbattleships, in close proximity, and they were
starting to power up their weapons and load missiles.

*    
*     *

“Hi ho,” called
out the Pilot as
Zokoku 1
dropped its hyper bubble and the sphere of the
planet appeared in front of the fighter.

Morris smiled as
he checked their positioning on the plot.  He wasn’t surprised that they
were where they were supposed to be as related to the planet.  After all,
they had one hundred percent accuracy in determining where something as big and
steady as a planet would be at any given time.  Where the enemy was, was
another matter, since they could move unpredictably.

It took several
seconds for the tactical plot to update, and for all the ships in the wing to
link in over the tactical net.  And the targeting information loaded into
the plot and each ship was assigned the most opportune target.

“Setting ship on
new vector,” announced the Pilot, accelerating the fighter onto the revised
setting at twelve hundred gravities.  A Caca superbattleship centered in
the viewer, the HUD updating with its velocity, acceleration and vector as
compared to their own.

They were seven light
seconds to the target, a little under eight seconds at their current
speed.  The Caca ship didn’t open fire on the swiftly maneuvering fighter
until they were four seconds away.  They launched four of their antiship
missiles a second later, the weapons streaking off at ten thousand gravities,
separating their multiple warheads less that fifty thousand kilometers from the
target.

Fifteen of the
twenty-four warheads, each in the fifty megaton range, slammed into the
superbattleship at point nine three light.  The remaining warheads
detonated in proximity kills, sending their heat and radiation into the enemy
ship, or what remained of the enemy ship after the hits from the other
warheads.  What was left of that ship was several hundred fairly large
pieces and an expanding plasma cloud.  Internal antimatter breached and
turned over half the intact pieces into more plasma.

Zokoku 1
shook first from some near misses, then from the turbulence of the plasma she
passed through as the superbattleship exploded.  Warning klaxons sounded
as red areas appeared on the ship’s schematic.

“Forward
grabbers down,” called out the Pilot.  “Rear grabbers still online, but
two are heading into overheated status.”

“Engineer,”
called out Morris, looking over at the tactical holo and noting with a sinking
feeling that only fifty-eight of his ships had made it through the
attack.  The second wing appeared at that moment, and they were not in
quite as advantageous placement as his wing had been.  “Can you get the
grabbers back online?”

“I would have to
say no to the forward grabbers, sir,” said that officer from the rear of the
small ship.  “They’re gone.  As far as the stern units, I’m could try
to reroute the cooling systems, but I’ve got something else to worry about at
the moment.”

Morris looked
over at the damage schematic and felt his stomach sink yet again.  The
forward electromagnetic field projector was blinking red, and looking at the
output figures, he could see that it was only operating at one quarter
capacity.  And the output was dropping.  At their current velocity it
was the same as plowing through a hard radiation field as they hit slow moving
particles at their own fast speed.  When the forward electromagnetic field
dropped to nothing, they would be taking a deadly dose of hard radiation.

They had killed
an enemy capital ship, probably at the cost of their lives.  In the cold
equation of war, it was a bargain of a deal.  But when he considered that
it was his life in the balance, it was not a deal he would have taken if he had
a choice.

*    
*     *

Suttler looked
again at the tactical holo and did not like the story that it was
telling.  The second wing of the inertialess fighters had passed, and
there were still enemy ships in proximity to the planet.  Unfortunately,
some of the fighters had attacked on vectors that took them into a profile of
some of the mostly harmless support ships.  It really wasn’t their
fault.  They only had seconds to act, and they were limited by the targets
that they could vector in on, which meant that many of the fighters found
themselves only able to attack the support ships.  That left three
supercruisers within energy weapons range of Suttler’s ships.   And
fifteen ships, including four superbattleships, moving into that range.

The space fort
was also a concern, but it happened to be one hundred and eighty degrees around
the planet, and it would be several minutes before it had a firing arc from its
geosynch orbit.  It was launching space fighters, which could put ordnance
into the stealth/attack ships if they could find them.  That was not so
difficult now that the ships were firing away with everything they had. 
And when the fort got within firing range it was going to get worse.

“Deploy the
gates,” he ordered over the com as his ships continued to duke it out with the
supercruisers.  They were supposed to be bombarding ground targets by now,
but they couldn’t take their attention off the enemy warships that were
threatening their own existence.  Under normal circumstances it would be a
completely one sided fight.  With their enhanced particle beams and
missile launchers it was a fight the smaller ships could win, and the
supercruisers were taking a pounding.  But the equation would change when
the other ships entered the battle.  Even now the Caca force built around
their heavy capital ships was knocking down the missiles being launched at
them, and an energy weapons duel seemed obvious.

“Gates are
deployed,” called out the Tactical Officer.

“The Admiral is
asking what he should send through first,” called out the Com Officer.

The plan had
been for missile defense vessels to come through first, cruisers and
destroyers, since it was thought that the first threat would be the missile
volleys of the main Caca force on the outward heading.  But now the threat
had changed.

“We need
battleships,” yelled Suttler, turning toward the Com Officer.  “We need
ships that can take on those superbattleships.”

“The Admiral is
acknowledging, sir.  First ships should be coming through in seconds.”

True to his
word, within seconds three of the now expanded gates had the noses of capital
ships poking through them.  It didn’t take long, even for ships coming
through at less than three kilometers per second, for two Imperial
superbattleships, twenty million ton vessels, and one standard fifteen million
ton battleship, to enter the space around the planet.  Moments later a
fourth ship, another standard battleship, came through.  The four ships
immediately oriented themselves and sent volleys of missiles toward the oncoming
enemy, while they locked on and fired their lasers and particle beams on the
nearby supercruisers.

A second set of
battleships came sliding through the gates, while the near supercruisers were
all put out of action.  That was when the oncoming enemy sent out their
first volley of missiles, enough to overwhelm the defenses of at least one ship
if they targeted in that way.

A third set of
battleships, this also including one of the twenty million ton behemoths, came
through the gate and started moving to interpose themselves between the portals
and the enemy.  The orbital fort moved enough under its grabbers to enter
the fight, and the twelve battleships found themselves in a close in fight with
an object that outmassed all of them together, while they continued to fire
missiles at the enemy warships.

*    
*     *

“Captain to all
crew,” said Vladimir Schmidt over the shipwide intercom as HCS (His Czar’s
Ship)
Sevastopol
headed for the mirrored surface ahead.  “We are
about to reenter our home space, on a mission to save the last of our
people.  Many of you feel that we lost all honor by leaving the Kingdom
during its time of crisis, despite our orders to do so.  I too felt that
shame.  Now we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of the Galaxy, and in the
hearts of our people.  We will not fail.  To paraphrase the Spartans,
at day’s end we will either be carrying our shields, or we will be on
them.  Our people will either be free, or dead.  There is no third
alternative.”