EMPIRE: Conqueror (EMPIRE SERIES Book 6)

by Richard F. Weyand

  Well, that’s something Benton didn’t expect. No military targets in the system at all. Luck of the draw, he supposed.

  “Have we received reports from our other formations?”

  “Yes, Sir. Everybody is reporting the same thing. No military targets in any of the systems. No ships, no military facilities, no nothing.”

  They were all lesser systems, not provincial or sector capitals, but that still surprised Benton. The expectation was they would run into some Imperial Navy formations, and gain combat experience against some of their new construction before assaulting the larger forces defending their provincial and sector capitals. But the enemy wasn’t required to live up to your expectations.

  “All right. Let’s report all this to Navy headquarters. And see if you can get some information on what the other fleet commanders are reporting. Somebody must have hit some Sintaran ships somewhere.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “In the meantime, contact the planetary governor.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  A half-hour went by while Benton tried to figure out what was going on. Was this one of those ‘fall back in the middle and then close in on the sides’ strategies? Were the Sintarans just afraid to confront them on equal terms? He made a note to send a warning to his formation commanders to beware of smash-and-run raids, which was one possible adjunct to this sort of strategy.

  Like most senior naval officers in both the Democracy of Planets and the Sintaran Empire, Benton was well educated. He had a PhD in military history from the University of Campo. The DP was divided into districts, which were subdivided into precincts. Campo was the capital planet of the Campo District, and the university there was well regarded.

  Benton thought back through historical military campaigns, looking for an analog to his current situation. Cannae was the obvious fall-back-in-the-middle prototype, sure, but that was a tactical battlefield situation, not the structure of a whole campaign.

  It was probably most like the Russian defeat of the Germans in the Great War of the twentieth century. The Russians ultimately defeated the Germans when the Germans were deep in Russian territory, with long supply lines. The Russians pounded the German supply lines constantly from the air. The Germans ran out of food, fuel, and ammunition, and multiple desperate attempts to resupply them failed. The onset of winter and Stalin bringing forward the Siberian divisions once he was sure Japan wouldn’t attack in the east had been the icing on the cake

  Was that what this was? The Democracy of Planets was more densely populated, with the same rough population as Sintar and its recent annexations, but Sintar’s population was spread out across three times as many planets. That was a lot of territory to cover, much like the Germans from the more densely populated Central Europe being strung out across the less densely populated Russian plains.

  If so, supplies were his biggest problem. Logistics, of course, was always a problem. But if this campaign were modeled on the Eastern Front of the Great War, he should see signs of it soon.

  “Sir, I have the planetary governor. His name is Michael Cosgrove.”

  Benton made the connection, and he had visual connection to a pleasant-looking man in his mid-fifties.

  “Good afternoon, Admiral Benton.”

  “Good afternoon, Governor Cosgrove. I seem to be in military possession of the Andorra system.”

  “I agree, Admiral. We surrender.” Cosgrove shrugged. “We certainly have no means to oppose you. The Imperial Navy pulled out a couple weeks back.”

  “I find that curious, Governor. The Empire will not defend its territory?”

  “That’s way above my pay grade, Admiral. The Emperor has not taken me into his confidence in this matter. When the Navy pulled out, I asked, ‘What do I do if the DP Navy shows up?’ and they said ‘Surrender, of course.’ So there you are.”

  Benton nodded. He could sympathize with Cosgrove, with a whole planet of a billion or two billion people to care for, and no way to militarily defend them.

  “All right, Governor. Well, we have what we have. What I most require of you at this point is re-supply. I don’t think Imperial Navy missiles are any use to me, but reaction mass and food supplies would be useful.”

  “We’ll help there as we can, Admiral. The Imperial Navy cleaned us out when they left, though. We don’t have any reaction-mass tanks with the proper space fittings on the planet at all. If you bring your tanks down here, we can fill them for you, but we can’t swap tanks. We just don’t have any.”

  “And food supplies, Governor?”

  “We can give you fresh food, Admiral. The Imperial Navy doesn’t buy space-processed food for Navy ships from us anymore. Hasn’t in maybe four, five years. We don’t even have the means to make those anymore. We have regular commercial foodstuffs – you know, canned and dehydrated foods and the like – but nothing set up for space travel.”

  Fresh food would spoil in a week, maybe two, without the freezer capacity to keep it. Canned and dehydrated food was an option, but not much of one.

  “The other thing, Admiral, is that you would have to come in to the planet to get it. We can shuttle it up to you, but we don’t have any freighters to run it out to you. They all fled the system when the Imperial Navy pulled out.”

  Even less of an option, then. It would be a diversion of a week or more to go in to the planet, bring up everything for twenty thousand ships on individual shuttle runs, and then come back out to where hyperspace up-transition was safe.

  In the meantime, they would be trapped in the barrel if the Imperial Navy showed up.

  “All right, Governor Cosgrove. I’ll think about all of that and be back in touch. In the meantime, don’t do anything to break the rules of surrender.”

  “Oh, I won’t, Admiral. I’m more than happy to stay within the rules.”

  Benton broke the connection, and Grant was waiting for him.

  “We’ve been getting reports back from Navy headquarters, Sir. None of the twenty fleets has encountered any enemy combatants or military targets in any of the two hundred systems.”

  Benton would be willing to bet they would soon report there were no supplies available to commandeer as well. Sintar’s pull-out here had been too thorough to be anything but systematic.

  “There are other reports as well, Sir. Sintar began hitting military installations in the Democracy of Planets over a week ago. They are systematically destroying military installations as they proceed into the DP. They’re using all picket ships and light cruisers. No one has seen any of the Imperial Navy’s main force.”

  And there it was, Benton realized. Sintar was pounding their supply lines behind them. If he was a betting man, Benton would bet they would also start seeing freighters not showing up at their destinations. ‘Lost in hyperspace, presumed destroyed’ would be the notation. That would be consistent with the rest of the picture.

  And that meant his fleet and the Democracy of Planets Navy as a whole was in deep trouble.

  “What’s our status, Pavel? How are things going?” DP Prime Minister Harold Pinter asked his defense minister, Pavel Isaev.

  “Not well, at the moment, Harold. Sintar’s strategy is starting to become clear. They’re avoiding our actual advance and instead going after our rear, attacking our infrastructure and logistics.”

  “But we’re occupying their planets, right?”

  “Yes, with no resistance whatsoever. We haven’t run into a single Sintaran warship in Sintar space. Nothing. All the battles of this war so far are being fought within the DP, and those we’re losing. They stand to wipe out all our military infrastructure.”

  “Are they obeying the Treaty of Earth?”

  “Oh, yes. Scrupulously. Everything they attack is either a freighter, a warship, or a space-based military facility. No planet-based attacks, no attacks on commercial space-based infrastructure.”

  “What about the freighters. Those are commercial, right?”

  “And specifically allowed under th
e treaty. Commerce raiding between belligerents is allowed. Passenger liners is a different thing altogether, but there haven’t been any attacks there, either.”

  “Why aren’t we defending our infrastructure?”

  “We’re trying, Harold. We put more and more warships in critical systems, and the more warships that are there, the more of those picket ships show up. They overwhelm our forces with missile storms from box launchers, and then destroy all the infrastructure anyway.”

  “I thought we had box launchers, too.”

  “We do. Some, anyway. We put all the ones we had on the attack force. If they ever ran into a Sintaran force, they’d be in good shape. But they’re avoiding us at the front and hammering us in the rear.”

  “We can’t move them back here, or make more?”

  “By the time we could, it would all be over. Sintar is methodically moving through our systems wiping out everything. And we couldn’t move them on freighters. We’re starting to get a lot of no-shows with our freighters. They go into hyperspace and simply disappear.”

  “Are we sending escorts with them?”

  “Yes, and the escorts disappear, too. We don’t have any reports of what’s happening to them, but we can guess.”

  “More of the picket ships?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought being able to launch missiles in hyperspace negated that advantage, Pavel.”

  “Up to some number of picket ships. If they’re willing to spend enough picket ships to do it, they can take out the escorts. We don’t know that’s what they’re doing, but that’s our guess.”

  “So now what?”

  “The attack force left with maximum supplies – reaction mass, missiles, food, everything. Those big new-design ships can carry a lot. The expectation was the attack force could resupply from commandeering local resources as well as us sending significant supplies from the rear. We didn’t expect it to be a problem. Sintar’s strategy is specifically designed to make it a problem, while denying us any opportunity to harm them in any real way. It’s maddening, but we’re working on it.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “The attack force has been ordered to send out foraging parties, and see what they can round up. Sintar can’t have pulled everything out. They have to have supplies of their own somewhere.”

  “All right, Pavel. Keep me posted.”

  “I will, Harold. When there’s any news, you’ll be the first to hear it.”

  “What’s our status, Admiral Leicester?”

  “Operation Cupboard is in process, and will complete in another two weeks, Sire. We are more than halfway across the DP now. They are concentrating defensive forces in the more critical systems with the largest infrastructure, but it hasn’t been anything we haven’t been able to handle. We just send in sufficient forces to match the forces we know are there.

  “Operation Roaches is running much lower loss ratios than we initially saw, using the new software to drop out of hyperspace when DP warships fire missiles. We are forcing the convoy escorts to fire at multiple attacks, burning their tubes. That effort’s winding down because commercial freighters are refusing assignments while the commerce raiding is going on.”

  “Are we attacking them if they are in orbit in a system, Admiral Leicester?”

  “No, Sire. We are only commerce raiding ships under way.”

  “Good. Carry on, Admiral Leicester.”

  “Yes, Sire. The DP attack force has now successively occupied six hundred systems. None of these systems had any resources for them to commandeer. Admiral Conroy just told me it looks like they are beginning to detach what may be foraging forces to visit more systems and see if they can find supplies. She is picking up smaller hyperspace traces leaving occupied systems.”

  “Have there been any atrocities, Admiral Leicester? Any violations of the Treaty of Earth?”

  “No, Sire. Every planetary governor has surrendered and offered what support they could to the DP commanders. They have noted we took all the useful resources with us when we left, but would help them any way they could.”

  “Good. Thank you, Admiral Leicester. What are your recommendations?”

  “I think it’s time for Operation Leeches Two and Three, Sire.”

  “Sitting Duck and Flying Duck, Admiral Leicester?”

  “Yes, Sire. Go after the foraging detachments, and also pester the main force in hyperspace and get them to burn out their missile tubes.”

  “That would be the modified Operation Flying Duck, then, Admiral Leicester?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Very well, Admiral Leicester. Operation Leeches Two and Three is approved.”

  “Yes, Sire. Thank you , Sire.”

  Operation Sitting Duck

  “All right, Guns, are you guys gonna be ready?” asked Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert ‘Fitz’ Fitzhugh, the senior non-com aboard HMS Raptor.

  “Sure, Fitz, we’re ready,” said Senior Chief Petty Officer Nathan ‘Guns’ Gunderson, the head of the missileers aboard Raptor. “Go in, pop a bunch of DP ships, get out. No biggie.”

  “Well, it’s our first time up against these guys, and they must think they can counter our moves, so don’t be all cocky and shit. The probably got some moves of their own, so let’s be ready for trouble.”

  “Sure, Fitz. I’ll tell my guys to be ready for anything.”

  “There ya go.”

  For this first action under Operation Sitting Duck, Fleet Admiral Espinoza planned on overdoing it. It was a learning experience, to see what the DP was about, what their new construction could do.

  DP Fleet Admiral Benton had detached ten separate forces from each of his ten formations to go foraging in Sintaran systems on their line of advance. Once they heard back, his main force would be in a position to move to any system with supplies, or to move forward to a new system. His foraging parties, too, would move on to new systems.

  Each of the one hundred foraging parties consisted of a squadron each of battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers. A total of thirty-two hundred warships set out for a hundred other Sintaran systems to see what supplies there might be, on the theory the Imperial Navy had to have supplies stashed someplace. Even so, they totaled less than two percent of his overall fleet strength.

  The other nineteen fleet commanders of the DP attack force did the same. A total of sixty four thousand DP warships in two thousand foraging parties set out in front of the main attack force.

  Rear Admiral Jose Sandoval’s foraging force – eight battleships, eight heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, and eight destroyers, all new-build units – had just down-transitioned into the Pharen system.

  “What have we got, Sandy? Anybody else here?” Sandoval asked his chief of staff, Captain Sandy Miller.

  “No, Sir. Nobody here but us.”

  “All right. Let’s get us under way. Formation orders. Set course for the planet. One gravity acceleration.”

  The DP warships started for the planet. They weren’t going to be content with being told there was nothing here. They were going to go look.

  “Sir, we have a hyperspace down-transition. Two hundred Sintaran picket ships on the port beam. They’re just out of missile range. Going to ten gravities toward us.”

  “I guess I spoke too soon,” Miller said.

  “Formation orders. Come to two-seventy mark zero. Stand by box launchers.”

  “Message sent, Sir.”

  The DP formation turned to the left to face its enemy as Sandoval and Miller watched the tactical plot.

  “In missile range now, Sir.

  “Wait for it. Stand by.”

  “Missile separation. Estimate sixteen hundred incoming.”

  “Formation orders. Fire box launchers.”

  “Message sent, Sir.”

  Admiral Espinoza was on her flag bridge, which was currently attached to one of the picket ships of the attack on the DP formation in the Pharen system.

 
“Missiles away, Ma’am.”

  What would the enemy do?

  “Missile separation, Ma’am. Estimating four thousand incoming.”

  “Formation orders. Follow the missiles in. Let them make a path for us.”

  “Geez, Chief, would you look at those big bastards,” Kowalski said.

  The DPN battleships were twice the size of an old-design Imperial Navy battleship, much less the smaller new-design crewless ships.

  “Cut the chatter, Kowalski. Just keep an eye on those engines in case La Loba decides we scoot.”

  “I got ‘em, Chief.”

  The two waves of missiles met between the opposing forces and fought it out with nuclear fire, the Sintaran picket ships coming in hard behind them. Surviving DP missiles targeted the wildly evading picket ships, and a bare dozen picket ships made it out the other side. The coordinated point-defense of the DP warships dispatched them easily.

  Admiral Espinoza’s flagship was destroyed, and she found her flag bridge unattached to any ship, a VR simulation without a home.

  “Well, that was disconcerting,” she said to her chief of staff.

  “Now what, Ma’am?” Admiral Kim asked.

  “Hit ‘em again. Let’s see how deep their box launchers are.”

  “Yeah! Now that’s how you do it,” Admiral Sandoval said when his wave of missiles took out the incoming Sintaran missiles and the bulk of the picket ships behind them, and then the point-defense cleaned up the remainder. “Clean sweep. Nice work, everybody.”

  Sandoval let the congratulations and high-fives die down before speaking again.

  “All right, now get ready to do it again. You didn’t think that was the whole party, did you?”

  The second time the Sintaran picket ships came in on the DP squadrons in Pharen was a replay of the first. Over thirty-eight hundred missiles answered Sintar’s launch of sixteen hundred missiles, and the Sintaran picket ships and missiles were overwhelmed by them.

  The third time the Sintaran picket ships came in on them, the DP ships were not so lucky. A one-hundred-and-twenty-eight missile salvo from the DP ships’ impellers were the answer to the third Sintaran sixteen-hundred-missile launch. The DP missiles did what they could, but almost fifteen hundred Sintaran missiles survived. Two more DP salvos were fired before the remaining thirteen hundred rapidly accelerating Sintaran missiles were inside the DP’s missile range. Point-defense clusters killed another nine hundred, before the remaining four hundred Sintaran missiles impacted their thirty-two targets. Nuclear fire walked through the DP formation, and, when it was over, none of Admiral Sandoval’s ships remained.