Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (22 page)

*    
*     *

“I want us
through those ships,” yelled Great Admiral H’rastarawaa at the officers on the
bridge.

“We’re trying,
my Lord,” replied the Station Commander from his position behind the tactical
station.  “But these are major warships, and it is taking time to kill
them.”

The deck
underneath shook slightly from a hit.  The holo with the schematic of the
station showed red areas where enemy weapons had pierced the hull or destroyed
surface installations.  The station was down to seventy percent of its
defensive weapons on the facing side, and the Great Admiral was tempted to
order a turn to present an intact side to the enemy.  He held back on that
temptation, thinking that it would be better to wait, when he could hit this
enemy with the full strength of that side of the station.

“We got one,”
yelled out one of the males at the tactical station.   One of the
holos showed a ship flying from a brilliant flare that had to be a missile
detonation.  Moments later it broke into two pieces, both flying off in
different directions.  There were other holos hanging above the station,
each showing one of the ships they were fighting.  All showed heavy
damage, with the exception of one of the larger enemy vessels that had just
entered the fray.

“Destroy that
ship,” shouted the Great Admiral, wanting to take part in the battle and not
remain bystander.

The station
shook as it sent off a full spread of missiles, all aimed at the large ship,
which was lashing the fort with beam weapons.  Only six got within
proximity of the superbattleship, the bright flare obscuring the ship for
several seconds.  When the flare died down the ship was still there, but
the two laser rings on the stern were cracked and dark.

“Now hit that
one,” he ordered, pointing at the holo of the other superbattleship. 
If
we can kill both of those monsters, we can break them
.

The station
shook again, much like other hits.  What followed was nothing like the
other hits, as the station shook like it was on the ground in the middle of a
major quake.

“What was that?”
he asked, seeing one part of the schematic of the station turn an angry
blinking red.  A portion of the hull was red, and an expanding area under
the armor.  Reaching a hundred meters into the station, and a hundred
meters wide, it grew as he watched, doubling, tripling, showing massive damage
to the interior of the fort.

“Major damage to
sector twenty-seven,” called out one of the crew at the damage control
station.  “We have lost all contact with that sector.”

The annihilated
zone spread, until it hit the reinforced bulkheads that separated that sector
from the bordering ones.  Even there it burst through in a couple of
places.

“Twelve are
coming through,” yelled out a terrified voice.

H’rastarawaa
looked away from the damage schematic to the tactical holo, which showed a
dozen vector arrows within two seconds of the station.  One disappeared,
followed by two others that were caught in the blast of that one
intercept.  Two others tumbled away, detonating moments later and sending
heat and radiation into the fort.  Three hit directly into the target
area, a three gigaton detonation that not only burst through hull in many
places, but pushed a fast moving wall of plasma into the opening made by the
particle beams.  That wall broke through the armored firebreak around
sector twenty-seven and flared into the surrounding areas, destroying cubic
kilometers of the interior and killing thousands of Cacas.

The last four
warheads were caught in the explosion and detonated themselves with hundreds of
meters of the hull, adding their fury to the onslaught of the fort.

The deck
actually threw males into the air as it rebounded.  The Great Admiral flew
from his feet and hit the nearby console.  A sharp pain shot through his
lower left arm, and he knew that the bone in the forearm had broken.

The command
center was in the most shielded portion of the fort.  Not only was it the
best protected by armor, with extra shielding in its sector, and even
reinforced bulkheads.  It was also the best protected by inertial
compensators, and even with that extra absorption of the shock the impact had
been terrible.  As it was, almost half the bridge crew was put out of
action.

Around the rest
of the station it was much worse.  In the hangar areas, where three
quarters of the station’s fighters were still in the process of being prepped
and readied, the shock wave threw the hundred ton vessels around like they were
made of hollow plastic.  Many flipped over, others were thrown against the
wall.  Pilots were killed in their craft, or still making their way to the
ladders leading to their cockpits.  Crew were thrown around all over the
station, breaking limbs and skulls.  Liquid conduits broke and sprayed
water and coolants over walls.

When the blast
flare cleared, the station, though still superficially intact, was for all
intents and purposes dead.  Most of its internal systems were gone,
totally destroyed.  That which was repairable no longer had the healthy
personnel to fix it.  And the battleships that were still hammering the
station with beam weapons were not about to let it come back online.

*    
*     *

Sevastopol
shook
from one last hit, a particle beam that ripped through some of her armor near
her centerline.  The beam punched through the weakened outer armor and
underlying structure, through part of the cooling system underneath, barely
missing one of the side missile magazines by fifteen meters.  The powerful
beam vaporized its way through the armored side of the amidships central
capsule, one of the three areas of the ship holding the more heavily protected
resources, including quarters, messing facilities and one of the medlabs. 
Said medlab was directly in the path of the beam, which burned through the hull
and incinerated twenty-six medical personnel and almost a hundred evacuated
injured.  In a flash they were all gone.

Captain Vladimir
Schmidt felt a bit of relief as the beam was off by the one hundred and forty
meters it would have needed to hit the bridge, which would have killed him and
his command crew.   Relief turned to anger as the path of the beam
sank in.

“Captain,”
called out the shaken Com Officer, who had also realized that they were alive
by stupid luck.  “The Commodore is on the com.”

Schmidt nodded,
and the face of the Commodore appeared on a side holo.  The bridge behind
her had a beat up look, and he realized that
Ekaterina
might have been
hurt even more than his own command.

“Schmidt. 
Our plasma torpedoes are offline.  I want you and all the other ships to
fire a spread of torpedoes at that fort, so we can move on and take care of
further business.”

“Gladly, ma’am,”
replied the Captain, motioning for the Helm Officer to align the ship for that
action.  “Tactical Officer.  Prepare the plasma torpedoes for
firing.”

“Yes, sir,” said
that officer, turning to input the command into his board.

Like all older
ships, meaning something that had been common up to a couple of years ago,
Sevastopol
carried two plasma torpedo tubes front and rear.  They were termed
Finishers
by crews, as they were normally only employed at very close range to finish off
already badly damaged vessels.  Plasma was carried preheated in one of the
reaction chambers, then shifted to the second one, where the temperature was
raised to several million degrees.  On receiving the firing command, the
containment capsule was ejected into the chamber behind the plasma and the
whole mass, a ton of plasma plus the capsule, was fired through the
acceleration tube.  The weapon lacked range because the following capsule
could only project its magnetic containment field for a couple of minutes
before burning out, and the plasma would cool rapidly as it was exposed to
space.

It exited the
ship at point zero zero six light, a mere eighteen hundred kilometers per
second, taking three and a third seconds to splash into the target.  The
two, one ton spheres of plasma hit the side of the fortress that was already
heavily damaged from missile and particle beam strikes.  The torpedoes of
three other ships join the assault seconds later, and eight tons of million
degree plasma splashed into every opening of the hull it could find, making
some new openings through parts that had been weakened but not completely torn
through.  The plasma ravaged through the hull, burning into intact areas
where living crew still sheltered, vaporizing machinery and Ca’cadasans, and
thousands of their slaves, whose only crime was to be dragged along by their
masters to this time and place.

Moments after
the torpedoes hit the target area was mostly molten or vaporized alloy, while a
good quarter of the previously intact interior of the fort was now gutted.

The battleships
turned away, all but the most heavily damaged of them, which was left behind
with the task of continuing to hammer the remains of the station until it was
obvious that nothing could have survived.

*
    *     *

Suttler clenched
the arm of his chair as another battleship came through the gate attached to
his own ship.  There were now fifteen battleships stationed between his
gate ships and the enemy.  He was still waiting for the light cruisers and
destroyers that were needed to deepen the defensive screen.  In the
meantime The battleships were doing a good job of blocking the enemy force
which was trying to get at the gates.  That enemy had to know it was a
losing battle if they couldn’t stop those gates from discharging ships.

The gate
attached to his ships discharged another vessel, this one of those cruisers he
was waiting for.  Next through was scheduled to be an assault ship, not
something he needed, but definitely the kind of support vessel the soldiers on
the planet would soon need.

The volley of
missiles, over a hundred and fifty of them, came screaming in at point three
light.  That was still slow for missiles, but fast enough to present a
challenge to the defenses of the guarding ships.  Counter missiles took
out over half of them on far approach.  Lasers took out sixty more, before
the fourteen remaining boosted past the battleships, looking for the target
they had been programmed for.  Ten of them were destroyed by the close in
weapons of the battleships that hit them with a crossfire.  Several of the
ships hit their companions, though the fast firing weapons cause only minor
damage to a heavily armored vessel.   The warheads detonated close
enough to three of the battleships to cause significant hull scaring on the
sections facing the explosions.

One of the
missiles that had made it through the close in defensive fire was kicked over
by the blast particles and went spinning out of control.  Three made it
through intact, their sensors scanning for the targets they had been set to
look for.  Two located the same target, while the third couldn’t find what
it was looking for and instead locked onto the largest vessel in the area, an
eight million ton assault ship.

The lone missile
that homed in on the attack ship almost made it through untouched.  The
assault ship, the
Kharkov
, picked up the missile at the last
moment.  The ship was not equipped for ship to ship offensive operations,
but the defensive suite was comparable to that of a heavy cruiser.  Short
range lasers fired, while the missile juked and swerved, its jamming systems
coming up to full power.  Close in weapons took over, sending a wave of
explosive shells toward the missile.  One shell hit the missile body,
shredding it, and the warhead followed suit.  The weapon detonated five
kilometers off the bow of the ship, sending its blast of radiation into that
part of the vessel.

The ship
shuddered from the breech of its lightly armored hull, and one of the forward hangars
blew open, throwing orbit to atmospheric craft out into space, destroying a
quarter of the ship’s complement of support craft. 
Kharkov
limped
on, trying to get into position to support the people on the surface while
streaming atmosphere from multiple hull breaches.

The last two
missiles came in on the same target, one of the stealth/attack ships with an
attached gate.  The ship was almost helpless, unable to bring its own
defensive weapons to bear due to the portal being in the way.  A
battleship was in the process of transiting the gate, the fifteen million ton
Queen
Elizabeth III
.  Half of the ship was through, but it was still in no
position to defend itself or the gate.  Still, the forwardmost laser ring
was able to get in a pair of shots.  One hit a missile square on the nose
from a hundred kilometer range, detonating the missile at a distance from which
the radiation load was minimal.  The second missile was hit by the stern,
causing it to go into a tumble that caused it to detonate a kilometer from the
gate.

The battleship
would have handled that close a blast with little problem except for some
surface damage.  The gate itself was much more fragile, and the frame
couldn’t handle that heat.  Two hundred meters of the outer portion of one
frame side boiled away into vapor, destroying the connection that kept the
magnetic field operating that held the wormhole open.  The wormhole
collapsed, shearing through the section of the ship that was still transiting
the hole as if it didn’t exist.  The forward end of the ship separated
from the hole and flew out into space at two kilometers a second.  One of
the missile magazines had been cut in two, and a warhead breached containment a
moment later, causing a gigaton class explosion that ripped through that part
of the ship.  Thirty more warheads went off in sympathetic detonation, a
brilliant flare that blinded every visual sensor for thousands of kilometers
around.  The safety systems had engaged a microsecond before, sending more
warheads out into space sealed in protective cases, their emergency com systems
blaring for a pickup by a friendly ship.