Galactic Empire Wars: Insurrection (The Galactic Empire Wars Book 5) (20 page)

Kaluse was a
Zaltule and firmly believed in the superiority of the warrior clan. Genedt was
a Kleese from another clan but very good at building exploration ships and the
assault ships used to keep the conquered worlds of the empire under control. He
was also very supportive of the Zaltule. Minor Overlord Drusiid was also a
Zaltule and very well versed as a warrior.

“All of the
new battlecruisers are en route to Military Overlord Harmock,” Kaluse said as
he shuffled his six feet upon the Command Pedestal of the Zaltule shipyard. “As
soon as they arrive Harmock will begin his assault on the Human led Alliance.”

Genedt looked
at one of the large viewscreens, one of many that covered the walls of the
massive Command Center. On the screen, an older Zaltule battlecruiser was
visible. Beyond it, several assault ships could be seen patrolling around the
shipyard. “We have sent the new battlecruisers away, and War Overlord Tetus has
many of our remaining older battlecruisers searching for the Human fleet
reported to be in our space. We also have many vessels out searching for
Supreme Overlord Xatul. If the Humans manage to reach our core worlds, they
could be in danger.”

Drusiid
stomped his feet noisily. “Even with our reduced forces, our worlds are still
heavily protected. If the Humans show up here, we will destroy them!”

Genedt didn’t
reply. He had worked with the warrior clan to ensure the continued safety of
the core worlds from the Humans. He greatly feared that in their desire to
destroy the Humans and their Alliance, the Zaltule were endangering the very
worlds they had sworn to protect.

“In a few
months the Humans and their Alliance will be a thing of the past,” Kaluse said.
“When our Military Overlord returns with his fleet, we can then complete our
search for Xatul. If he is not found, then we will have confirmed he has fled
the empire.”

Genedt nodded
but remained silent. In the past, he had spoken to Council Overlord Bixutl
about the Humans. He wondered if the Zaltule realized the risk they were taking
in attacking the Human led Alliance. In many ways, he preferred the former rule
of Supreme Overlord Xatul. At least his cautious approach in dealing with the nonaligned
worlds and using the neutrality agreements to control them had assured the
continued growth of the empire.

-

In Sector
Thirteen, Military Overlord Harmock was in the Command Center of the trading
station responsible for the sector. He despised coming aboard any of the
trading stations because they were full of vermin from so many Kleese
controlled worlds. Inside the Command Center, a large number of Nabians
operated most of the control stations under the supervision of a few Kleese.
Harmock gazed about in contempt at the Nabians who seemed so dedicated to their
masters. Once he was finished with the Humans and their Alliance, there would
be some major changes in the empire. He would require all vermin to be removed
from the trading stations and qualified Kleese brought in to take their places.

The other
clans of the Kleese, in Harmock’s opinion, had become weak and too reliant on
the subject races of the empire to play important roles on the stations and
even on Kleese exploration and assault ships. All that would soon change. A new
order would sweep across the empire. Those Kleese who were deemed unfit would
be removed and eliminated. With the twenty-six hidden Zaltule Queens producing
more Zaltule warriors, they would soon have the numbers to force the other
clans to do their bidding.

“Overlord,”
spoke the station’s commander. “All of your vessels have been repaired and
resupplied.”

Harmock looked
over at Kamdel. He was from one of the other Kleese clans but had shown
considerable initiative. Harmock had already witnessed him using the small
black box he always carried in eliminating a number of the vermin on the
station who were too inefficient at their jobs.

“As soon as
the rest of my fleet arrives, we’ll be leaving,” he responded.

Looking at one
of the viewscreens, he was satisfied at what it showed. Numerous Zaltule
battlecruisers were visible. The ships were three kilometers across and one
thousand meters thick. They were the most modern ships in the Kleese Empire.
Once the rest of his ships arrived, he would have a fleet of nearly ten
thousand Zaltule battlecruisers, which he would use to crush the Humans and
their Alliance.

-

In a nearby
star system, Captain Hailey Rogers sat in her command chair in the light
cruiser
Sparrow
nervously drumming the fingers of her right hand against
the armrest. The
Sparrow
was four point seven light years distant from
the large Kleese trading station in Sector Thirteen.

“FTL signal
detected,” reported Ensign Gene Taylor from Communications. “Zaltule ships are
still at the trading station.”

The signal he
was reporting was the single ping given off by one of the tracking devices the
Ellipse
had attached to a number of the Zaltule battlecruisers. Each device gave off a
single tracking ping once per day on an obscure communications frequency.

“Let’s hope
they stay there,” said Lieutenant Allen Stein, Captain Rogers second in
command. He was also responsible for the ship’s sensors.

Captain Rogers
looked over at Lieutenant Stein. “They have so far.” Hailey leaned back in her
command chair. There were twelve of the small tracking drones attached to
Zaltule ships. So far each was giving off its short ping once per day
confirming the Zaltule ships hadn’t left the station.

The
Sparrow
was in a small brown dwarf system. The star was about seventy times the mass of
Jupiter. The small star emitted no significant light and was nearly invisible
on the viewscreens. The ship was a good twenty million kilometers away from it.
There were no planets in the system, no asteroids, and no outer cometary field.
It was a very lonely place to be as far as star systems went.

“Ship status?”
asked Captain Rogers.

Lieutenant
Stein turned toward Hailey. “All systems are operating at minimal power.”

Hailey nodded.
They had orders to stay in this system until the Zaltule gave an indication
they were leaving the trading station. If they departed the station, then they
would probably be heading toward the Alliance or the Solar System. The
Sparrow
had left a line of small Kivean designed FTL communication buoys between the
brown dwarf and the Alliance. Each would boost the signal from the ship’s small
FTL comm system. This would ensure that Alliance Fleet Admiral Rivers had at
least a four to five day warning before the Zaltule could reach the nearest Alliance world.

“Contact!”
Lieutenant Stein suddenly called out as a warning alarm sounded on his sensor
console. His hands ran quickly over the console touching several command icons
on one of the screens. “Kleese assault ship at forty-two million kilometers.”

“Should we
raise our energy shield?” asked Lieutenant Callie Smith from Tactical.

Hailey pursed
her lips as she thought. As long as the ship stayed powered down, it was
doubtful the assault ship would detect them. “No, not unless it turns toward
us.” Hailey looked once more toward Lieutenant Stein. “What’s it doing?”

“Nothing, the
ship is just sitting there. At a guess, they might be taking scans of the
system.”

Hailey nodded.
The
Sparrow
was covered with a composite material the Kiveans said
should be impervious to scans. As long as they didn’t increase the ship’s
power, they should remain invisible.

On the ship’s
tactical screen, the small red threat icon wasn’t moving. If it came down to a
battle, she knew her light cruiser should be able to destroy the assault ship
with little effort. The
Sparrow
was three hundred meters long, fifty
meters wide, and thirty meters high. The small ship had a crew of one hundred
and fifty plus twenty Marines. Her primary weapon was the single particle beam
cannon on the bow. The ship also boasted four dual pulse fusion turrets as well
as eight missile tubes. For this mission, the ship’s missile tubes had been
modified, and they all contained the new multi-warhead antimatter missiles.

“Detecting
active scans,” reported Lieutenant Stein.

“I wonder if
this is just a routine sweep of the system?”

“Possibly,
Captain,” Stein replied. “As close as this system is to the trading station, it
might be a routine patrol.”

The minutes
passed slowly and the tension inside the Command Center was high. If they were
detected, their mission would be a bust and they wouldn’t be able to give
Alliance Fleet Admiral Rivers an early warning of an impending Zaltule attack.

“Detecting an
energy spike,” reported Lieutenant Stein as he leaned forward intently,
watching his sensors.

Hailey looked
toward the tactical screen just in time to see the red threat icon vanish. She
breathed out a long sigh of relief. They hadn’t been detected and their mission
could continue. She knew that back in the Alliance Fleet Admiral Rivers was
hurriedly training the new ship crews which would soon be needed. He had a
daunting task, but Hailey knew that if there was anyone who could do the
impossible, it was Fleet Admiral Rivers.

Alliance Fleet
Admiral Rivers gazed in frustration at the main tactical screen of the heavy
battlecruiser
Independence
. The fleet had just jumped into the Darovin
System and ships were scattered over a twenty million kilometer area.

“Crap,”
muttered Commander Greerman, shaking his head. “That won’t work; the Kleese
would cut our ships to pieces.”

“Lieutenant
Rodriquez, what the hell just happened?” demanded Admiral Rivers. If they
dropped out of Fold Space to engage a Kleese fleet like this, their entire
force would be wiped out in a matter of minutes.

“Fleet
computers aren’t synching,” Rodriquez replied with a heavy frown. “There are
just way too many different operating systems and they’re interpolating the
navigation coordinates differently.”

With a deep
sigh, Rivers turned his gaze back to the main tactical screen. He had over
three hundred warships under his command. Somehow, he had to get this problem
worked out before the other fleet contingents arrived.

“Why didn’t we
have this occur on the rescue mission to Delton? If I recall correctly, all of
our drop outs were far better than this.”

Rodriquez
hesitated and then responded. “We were using a Delton navigation program. It’s
quite advanced, and is capable of interacting with all the navigation systems
of the fleet.”

“Why aren’t we
using it now?”

“The Calthan,
Fallon, and Janvian battlecruisers don’t have the Delton navigation program
loaded into their nav computers. They insisted on using their own.”

Admiral Rivers
looked intently over at Rodriquez. “And how long would it take to load the
Delton program into their navigation computers?”

“A few hours,
if they’re agreeable.”

“They’ll be
agreeable,” Admiral Rivers said sharply. “Ensign Entz, I want a direct line to
all of the ships in those three fleets, immediately!”

Rivers wanted
to swear. The problem with working with so many different fleets was that the
nonaligned worlds they came from were so advanced they found it hard to accept
someone might have something that worked better than what they already had.
This navigation error was a good example of some of the problems he was facing
coordinating this fleet. More worrisome there were still over twenty additional
fleet formations from other Alliance worlds scheduled to join Fourth Fleet in
the next few days. He had hoped to have most of the problems in his core fleet
ironed out before they arrived.

Commander
Greerman looked over at the admiral. “This is a pretty large fleet; overall
they’ve done pretty well with the combat drills we’ve run so far.”

Fleet Admiral
Rivers shook his head. “It’s easy to blow comets or asteroids apart; they’re
not shooting back. What I really want to do is place several Human officers in
the Command Centers of each one of those ships.” Only a few of the Lanolthian,
Tureen, Nalton, and Pradelian ships in the fleet had ever experienced combat,
and that had been on the Delton rescue mission. The rest of the ships from
those four races were in their home systems helping to train other ship crews.

“All ships are
making their way to our position,” Lieutenant Mandy Hertz reported from her
sensor console. “It will take a few minutes for them to take their assigned
spots in our fleet formation.”

“I have all
the indicated ship commanders on the command link,” added Ensign Entz.

Admiral Rivers
nodded. Now he would have to explain why it was so important that the Delton
navigation program be downloaded to all of the fleet’s navigation computers. He
had already decided any ship that refused would be sent home. He hoped that
would be enough of an incentive to ensure all the ship commanders complied.

-

Once the fleet
had reassembled, it didn’t take Fleet Admiral Rivers long to convince all the
commanders to accept the Delton program. They were made to understand, in no
uncertain words, what would have happened if there had been a Zaltule battle
fleet waiting on them in the Darovin System. Only a few commanders had
objected, but when threatened with being removed from the fleet they had
acquiesced.

It had taken
nearly four hours to get the navigation program downloaded to all of the ships
and tested to ensure it was working properly. It had been necessary to send a
few Human computer techs over to help with the interfaces to make the new
program compatible with some of the navigation computers in the fleet.

Finally, all ships
reported compliance and Fleet Admiral Rivers had the fleet practice making some
short Fold Space drop outs in various sections of the system. After each drop
out he closed the formation and did it again, emerging each time with the ships
evenly spaced from each other and ready for combat. He finished with the fleet
dropping out in a tight formation next to a grouping of comets and obliterating
them with the fleet’s energy weapons and pulse fusion beams. Overall, he was
satisfied with the navigation program’s performance. He breathed a sigh of
relief, satisfied the problem had been solved. Now it was time to go on to
others.

-

“How much
longer do you think we have before the Zaltule make a move on the Alliance?” asked Commander Greerman as he watched a disintegrating comet on one of the
viewscreens. The comet had been hit with several pulse fusion beams from
Calthan and Fallon battlecruisers. The fleet was continuing to perform battle
drills in the comet and asteroid field.

Admiral Rivers
looked over toward his second in command. “I don’t know. We have no idea what
effect Admiral Adamson’s fleet will have on the Zaltule. If they’re going to
respond to the threat of Seventh Fleet, there should be some movement shortly.
So far the
Sparrow
hasn’t sent back any messages indicating they’ve
detected anything.”

On one of the
other viewscreens, a large asteroid blew apart as several Lanolthian
battlecruisers used their powerful ion cannons on it. They then finished off
the smaller pieces with their energy cannons.

“Nice
shooting,” commented Rivers. The Lanolthians had come a long way in the last
few years. It was one of the reasons Lanolth had been chosen as the capital of
the Alliance. The Lanolthians also had the largest contingent of vessels in
Fourth Fleet, with more promised.

Commander
Greerman studied some information on his command console before turning back
toward the admiral. “What about the six smaller fleets we’ve set up, what are
we going to do with them?”

“We have a
Human heavy battlecruiser in charge of each one,” Admiral Rivers answered as he
watched a Tureen battlecruiser make an attack run on a rather large comet. A
single sublight missile left the ship and almost instantly, the comet vanished
in a blaze of light as a forty-megaton antimatter warhead detonated.

Commander
Greerman had a thoughtful look upon his face. “Those Tureen antimatter missiles
are pretty powerful. Can you imagine what the firepower of a Janvian
battlecruiser would be if we could place our multi-warhead missiles with Tureen
warheads in their missile tubes?”

Greerman was
referring to the fact that the Janvian battlecruisers were one thousand meters
in length. Their primary weapons were powerful sublight antimatter missiles.
Each ship had sixty missile tubes, which could be used for highly precise and
coordinated missiles strikes. The ship’s hull also had numerous energy beam
turrets for offense and defense. On the bow, there was a large energy cannon
that could fire a highly concentrated beam of energy.

Admiral Rivers
allowed himself to smile. “We’re working on that. A fleet of Janvian
battlecruisers is currently in the Solar System having their missile tubes
modified for multi-warhead missiles. There are some Tureen scientists there as
well helping to adapt their antimatter warhead technology to the missiles. Once
they’re finished the ships will be assigned to Fourth Fleet.”

The Tureen
were the only race known to have developed a technology capable of producing a
forty-megaton antimatter explosion. Antimatter in quantities capable of
generating more than a twenty-megaton explosion normally became unstable and
had a tendency to detonate without warning.

On the
viewscreen, the Tureen battlecruiser was moving away from the destroyed comet
to join back up with the fleet. On other screens more asteroids and icy comets
were being pulverized by various ships.

“When will
Second Fleet and Third Fleet be joining us?” asked Greerman. The other two Solar
System fleets were already well past their deployment dates.

Admiral Rivers
hesitated for a moment. “Not for awhile; there’s a growing concern in command
circles that the Zaltule might strike the Solar System instead of the Alliance.”

Greerman’s
face turned pale at the thought. “What are General Mitchell and Fleet Admiral
Kelly doing to prepare for that?”

“They’re
beefing up the defenses in the Solar System. From what I understand, they’re
installing more ion cannons around all the colonies. Vesta is being turned into
a veritable fortress.”

“And back to
the six smaller fleets we have?”

“Each of those
fleets has only about seventy battlecruisers. They’re going through the same
type of training we are though I think it would be wise to require all ships
that are joining the different fleets to have the Delton navigation program
installed. We should pass that word on to the six smaller fleets as well.”

Commander
Greerman turned his attention back to one of the viewscreens. A squadron of
eight-hundred-meter Nalton battlecruisers were making a pass over three large
asteroids. As they did each cruiser fired a barrage of high-intensity energy
beams at the asteroids, cutting them in two.

-

Back in the Solar
System, Colonel Wade Nelson was visiting Marken at a weapons research center
deep inside a small asteroid a short distance from Vesta. Inside the research center,
scientists from all the races who had taken up residence in the Solar System
were hard at work trying to devise a new weapon to stop the Zaltule fleet if
and when it attacked.

Marken and
Wade were in an observation room where they were watching the prototype of a
new energy weapon being tested. The weapon fired and a searing white beam of
energy tore through its target with relative ease. The two-meter thick piece of
ship armor had a glowing round hole six inches in diameter all the way through
it.

“Impressive,”
Wade said, turning to look at Marken. “If we applied this to one of our
warships, how much more powerful would it be?”

“Only twelve
percent,” Marken said with a sigh. He turned away from the observation window.
“It’s the same with all the weapons we’ve come up with. They’re mostly new
versions of what we already have. We can improve all of them slightly but not
enough to make the difference we need.”

Wade nodded
his understanding. The problem was the size of the Zaltule fleet; six thousand ships
were just too many to deal with. “I understand some of the Delton computer
scientists have run some simulations of what will happen if the Zaltule attack
the Solar System.”

“Yes,” Marken
replied with a worried frown spreading across his face. “In every instance, the
Zaltule are victorious and all life in the Solar System is wiped out.”

“Even Vesta?”
It was hard to imagine Vesta being destroyed as large as the asteroid was and
considering the massive defenses on its surface.

Marken nodded.
“Even Vesta; if the Zaltule use enough antimatter missiles they can eventually
crack the asteroid open.”

This caused
Wade to feel great concern. Over six million people lived inside Vesta. It was
home to his family as well as the cloning facility and so much more. Vesta was
the one colony in the Solar System they couldn’t afford to lose. He wondered if
anything else could be done to strengthen the asteroid’s defenses.

Wade walked
back over to the window overlooking the room where the enhanced energy beam had
been tested. “I just feel we’re overlooking something. There has to be a way to
destroy the Zaltule fleet. Something we haven’t thought of that could even
things up.”

“We have the
finest minds in the Solar System working on it,” answered Marken, moving to
Wade’s side. He was greatly concerned also. If the Zaltule destroyed the Solar
System, then his race would be ended as well.

“The Zaltule
fleet hasn’t moved from the trading station in Sector Thirteen,” Wade said
after a moment. This worried him as it indicated that Admiral Adamson’s mission
to attack former nonaligned worlds in the Kleese Empire had failed. If it had
failed then what did that mean for Ryan? Wade hoped his brother and Casey were
all right. “Marken, is there anything we could use as a weapon we haven’t
thought about? What if we built hundreds of small bombers like we used to have
on Earth, and arm them with antimatter missiles? Hell, I’d throw the kitchen
sink at the Zaltule if I could get close enough or try to trick them into
flying into the sun.”

Wade turned
around and saw a strange look on Marken’s face. Wade had known the Kivean for
years and this was the first time he had ever seen such a look. “Marken, what
is it? Are you feeling all right?

Marken
hesitated for a moment. “You got me to thinking about your comment. Perhaps
you’re right and none of our current weapons are the solution. Maybe we need to
look at something much simpler and more direct.” Marken’s eyes took on an
excited look. “I may have an idea, but I need to talk to some of the others
about it first.”

“What is it?”
Wade was intensely curious about what the Kivean had come up with. If there
were a way to destroy the Zaltule fleet and save the Solar System, it would be
the Kiveans who would come up with the answer.