Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm

by Doug Dandridge

  “Hit her with another. Helm, get us out of here, maximum accel,” she ordered and the ship started away at a hundred and forty gravities, pulling the crew forward against their couch straps with a force of ten gravities. A second plasma torpedo left the bow, striking into the hell hot maelstrom that already engulfed the forward section of the enemy vessel.

  It was too much, and power systems went down all over the dying ship. Containment breached and tons of antimatter blew the vessel apart in a furious explosion that blanked the viewer of the human ship with its brightness. Liquid and gas bubbled from the surface of the ice ball that was shoved into a new orbit by the blast, while millions of pieces of ship blasted a shotgun pattern across the ice.

  Pieces struck the human ship as well, and there were some penetrations that were soon sealed up by the nanoliquid between layers of armor. When the screen cleared the enemy ship was gone, and the human ship was still around.

  “Good job, Captain,” said Jackson over the com.

  “How you doing, Exec?” asked Mei, a smile on her face.

  “I should be out of here in no time,” said the Exec. “And now I can look forward to a quiet trip back to base.”

  “Ma’am,” said the Sensor Chief in a tone that let the Captain know right away that things were not OK. “We’ve got trouble.”

  “What are you picking up, Chief?” asked Mei, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  “Ca’cadasan resonances,” said the Chief. “Three of them in Hyper VII. Estimating nine hours out at best decel and translation profile.”

  “Are they more of the destroyers?”

  “Two of them are the super destroyers the enemy uses as scouts, ma’am. The other contact is bigger. Much bigger.”

  * * *

  “Emergency,” called out the computer voice over the com system. “Collision alert.”

  “This is Yu,” called Lucille into the com link. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s been an explosion on number four wormholer,” said the voice of the duty engineer over the link, using the common term for the graviton projector spheres that formed one end of a wormhole. “We were in the process of forming a wormhole for a passenger gate, and it just blew.”

  “Crap. What were the stresses?” Lucille thought of what the loss of one of their eight wormhole builders would do to their schedule. They were making ten wormholes of the gate variety every day, their present production run, rotating among the wormholers so they wouldn’t overtax any of them. There were twelve more on order with the Navy, and a belief that they could build an extra four gates each day with twenty of the devices to rotate among. But now?

  “Stresses were normal, Director,” said the man on the other end of the link. “I don’t know why the damned thing exploded like that.”

  “Anyone aboard?”

  “No, ma’am. We follow the regs on every one of these. But a tug got in the way and got whacked. It’s heading for the hole right now. I don’t think we’re going to be able to get her before she crosses. And a big piece of the wormholer is heading for the station.”

  “Crap again,” said Lucille as the implications of what the man said hit her. The wormholer itself was over thirty kilometers in diameter, and each of the more than a score of graviton projectors was the size and mass of a battleship. And the tug was also oversized, about thirty million tons of ship, with a crew of hundreds. It was a powerful ship, able to maneuver large masses around the hole, and had done such in building the station. It could normally get out of anything. But come to close to the black hole, and even its grabbers couldn’t pull it away.

  “What’s the size of that piece of ejecta heading our way?”

  “Wait a second,” said the tech, and Lucille knew the man was looking at his readouts, trying to get an idea. “Two graviton projectors, and a good sized section of connectors and outer hull. Say, about thirty-five million tons.”

  “Crap,” yelled Lucille, pulling up a holo that showed the course of both the projectile and the tug. That sized object was not really a threat to the integrity of the station as a whole, moving at the speed it was. Unless you happened to be where it hit, and it looked like it was going to hit an active dock area. She could see the red flare that indicated the danger area, and while small on the complete hundred kilometer wide, fifty kilometer deep station, a closeup showed quite a few cubic kilometers in danger. Several hundred of them, with over ten thousand people in them. Those people were hurrying to get out of that zone, and most would. But Lucille could already tell that some wouldn’t.

  She noticed something else on the edge of the view. Another tug, headed toward the damaged one.

  “Control. Can you tell me if that tug can reach the debris before it hits us?”

  “Hold on, ma’am.” Lucille waited for what seemed like much too long before the controller came back on the link. “They say they could reach it, but they have to go after their mate first.”

  “Tell them I want them to go after the debris. It’s much more important that we keep it from hitting the station.”

  The control went off the link again for a couple of moments, then came back on. “The captain of the tug refuses to go after the debris, ma’am. He says it’s more important to rescue the tug and its crew.”

  “Link me to him, control,” ordered Lucille, then waited for a moment for the man to come on the link.

  “Director,” came the tense voice of the captain on the link. “This is Captain Paulo Kleinfeld of the Icarus. I know what you want, but I think it is more important to rescue the Hercules, and the people aboard her.”

  “I realize your priority, Captain,” said Yu, keeping her voice calm when she wanted to shout at the man and order him to do what she wanted him to do. She looked at the holo display, and noted that the ship was four light seconds com range from her position. “And I know there are over three hundred people aboard that tug, though at this point we can’t tell how many survivors. But if that big piece of alloy and machinery hits the station thousands are going to die. Do you understand me, Captain? Thousands.”

  “I understand you, Director,” said the man in a deflated voice after the delay. “I don’t want to, but I do. Is this just a numbers game?”

  Lucille looked at the plot and saw that the vector arrows and numbers of the tug had changed. He’s doing it, she thought, wanting to shout in elation until she remembered that others were going to die. If they aren’t dead already. That tug took a hell of a whack before being pushed toward the hole.

  Thirty-five millions tons of metal fell toward the station, gaining velocity from the gravitational pull of the black hole, while a thirty million ton tug chased after it. The tug was mostly MAM reactors and grabber units, with huge magnetic grapples on one end. It was coming in at an angle, gaining on the debris, but from the plot it didn’t look like a sure thing.

  She knew the tug did not have compensators in proportion to her bulk, as such ships were never made to accelerate over a hundred gees. No, what they were made to do was pull massive objects from place to place, moving them into position. But the tug seemed to be moving way too slow from her vantage point, and it looked like the debris was going to hit the station, killing all of those people, while the other tug also fell into the hole and killed its crew.

  Come on, she thought, as the objects drew together with agonizing slowness. Then the tug slammed to a stop, and the debris, though still separated by twenty kilometers, also stopped moving. Then both objects were swinging around the station, and Icarus released. The debris fell away in an arc, toward the event horizon below.

  “Thank you, Icarus,” said Yu over the link, feeling her heart beating in her chest.

  “Listen to this, Director,” came the voice of the Icarus’ captain. “Listen to this.”

  The sound of screaming came in the background, of people yelling for god to help them. The screaming raised in pitched until it was drowned out by the sound of metal rending and tearing. “That was Hercules, D
irector. Falling into the hole. Some of the crew were alive and conscious.”

  Lucille severed the connection. It was too much for her, especially over memories of the Imperial family and so many of her colleagues falling into that monstrous appetite below the station. She thought of resigning that day, but remembered what the Admiral had said, about them needing her. That didn’t mean she could escape the screams through her nightmares that evening.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The human genome was found to be very plastic, able to accept great manipulation, to a point. We were able to extend the human lifespan, increase strength and intelligence, to make the human being a better example of a sophont species. We were able to get rid of genetic defects that had plagued humankind through the ages; schizophrenia, bipolar, diabetes, heart disease. There were limits of course. When we went too far with intelligence we found new forms of madness. When we increased strength and speed we ended up decreasing lifespan, except in the case of exceptional genomes. And lifespan? Ah, lifespan. There was a natural limit, despite our manipulation. It seems that a human is only supposed to live so long, despite all our attempts at extension. We were scientists and physicians, but we soon found that we were not God.

  Memoirs of the Human Genome Project, Imperial Year 172.

  SESTIUS SYSTEM, MARCH 25TH, 1000.

  Cornelius cursed under his breath again as he pushed the foliage out of the way. Katlyn stumbled along with him, still weak, while Becky carried the newborn baby for them. The baby kept trying to cry, and Becky would put her finger down the infant’s throat, choking off the noise as the little boy gagged. At first Cornelius had been horrified by this behavior on the part of the older woman, and had protested.

  “Old North American Aborigine trick,” said the older woman. “They used it so their children wouldn’t give them away to enemies. Kind of like now. And it won’t hurt the child, or at least not as much as he being found by the Cacas would.”

  And those Cacas seemed to be everywhere. The sounds of fighting broke out on both sides of the small party, the men folk of the Freehold ambushing the enemy, then fighting their way out of contact so they could do it again.

  The bears were with them, scouting ahead and to both sides. Becky really didn’t want them in a following position, feeling that they would be no match for modern weapons. Just behind the point were a couple of sows and the cubs. Cornelius’ dogs were out ahead of them, doing yeoman’s work of scouting by scent.

  “I can’t go on,” said Katlyn, sitting down on an exposed root. Cornelius knelt down beside his wife, fighting the fear for them both that was threatening to overwhelm him.

  “I know you’re hurting,” he said, putting his hand to the side of her face. “I know you’re tired. But we need to keep on. That little baby needs his mother, and for him I want you to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

  “I can’t,” said Katlyn, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on the root. “You’re going to have to take care of him.”

  “I’m not going to let you die,” said Cornelius, the ears of his helmet picking up the sounds of movement, a hundred meters away and getting closer. “Come on,” he said, reaching down, picking her up. then slinging her over his shoulder. “If you can’t go on, I’ll just have to go on for both of us.”

  Cornelius moved off under the additional weight of his wife. The farmer was strong, and she was not particularly heavy. But the farmer was also tired, on the edge of exhaustion, and he found that the extra weight prevented him from moving above a fast walk. The need to negotiate over roots and around foliage also slowed him down. The noise from behind grew louder in his helmet system, and he was glad that his wife wouldn’t be able to hear it with her normal ears. Then some shouting came from behind, in a deep tone, and in an unintelligible language, and Cornelius knew that they were in real trouble.

  Katlyn must have known they were in trouble too when high velocity rounds started to crack around them. She squirmed and shouted, and Cornelius picked up his pace, risking a fall that would spill them to the ground and allow the threat to catch up.

  Something hit the farmer in the back, a hard thack that was still strangely muffled. He stumbled forward, his leg hitting a root, and fell, trying to cushion the fall for Katlyn, who was also strangely silent. He lost control and she fell away as he hit the ground, and Cornelius was on his hands and knees in an instant, getting to her side. He saw the blood on her clothes, but his mind refused to accept it.

  “Come on, baby,” he said, turning her over, trying to believe that the limpness of her muscles was simply from being knocked cold. “Wake up. We’ve got to move.”

  When he saw her staring eyes he knew that the woman he loved was no longer there. The blood still welling from her chest completed the picture of death. Cornelius cried out, and pulled her to him. She had been his childhood sweetheart on New Detroit, where they had spent the years talking about their dreams of settling a frontier world, raising children, building a future for a large family. Now it was gone.

  A noise from behind caught his attention, even through his grief, and he knew that those who killed her were moving toward him. A cold fury seized him, and a desire to kill those who had ended his dream on this world. But it was not a rage. Cornelius would later be surprised by that aspect of his anger. He gently laid Katlyn’s body on the ground and crawled away, keeping low to the ground.

  Cornelius had grown up on New Detroit, which was not the same as this world. The core world had almost five billion inhabitants. But by law it also had extensive areas of wilderness. Humankind had learned while still in the Solar System that it was not healthy to expand into all the wilds of a planet. Of course, most of those wilds were not accessible to the common people, beyond the parklands set aside for public use. His father had been a gamekeeper on an Archduke’s private preserve, and Cornelius had helped him lead hunts that would have killed the novice nobles, if not for their skills.

  The farmer worked his way around a tree and propped his rifle on a root that also gave him cover. He took aim with his rifle at a spot he thought an enemy likely to appear, the telescopic sight giving him a restricted view. He kept his off eye open, giving him a wider view, and he waited.

  Moments later the guttural sounds of Cacada speech came to his ears, and he saw the movement of the foliage around the spot where his wife lay. Two of the large males stepped into the space, looking down at the body at their feet. Both retracted their faceplates, and one put a foot on the woman, nudging her, making sure she was dead. One alien looked at the other and said something, and they both made barking sounds that must have been the laughter of the creatures.

  Cornelius’ vision reddened with anger, and he forced himself to take a couple of calming breaths, then focused the rifle on the nearest of the Cacada, getting a good sight picture, squeezing the trigger. The rifle bucked hard into his shoulder, almost a surprise to him, like good shots were supposed to be. But not as much of a surprise as it was to the two aliens.

  One’s surprise lasted only a fraction of a second, as the high velocity six millimeter round punched through his face at an upward angle, plowing through his brain, striking the helmet on the other side, and bouncing back into his skull. The male dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut by the hand of God. The other warrior started to turn to look at his companion, his visor starting to come down. Cornelius shifted his aim and let off the next round, jerking a little in his speed to get off the shot. The shot was still good enough, plunging into the lower face of the creature and destroying his jaw, then ripping into his spinal cord and killing him just as fast as his companion.

  Walborski got to his feet, a feeling of savage satisfaction in his heart. He stood over the two dead Cacada, glaring down at the ones he was sure had killed his wife. The sounds of more of the creatures moving through the jungle came to his ears, very close, and he was sure that he would enjoy their deaths as well. Sorry bastards came to my home to kill us all. Killed
my wife Now you die. And with that thought he faded back into the jungle, stalking the next alien that had no idea it had now become the hunted.

  The next ten of the enemy were harder to kill, and Cornelius had to get inventive as to how he bagged them. A few he got when they stopped and raised visors to drink from water bottles or popped food in their mouths. Several were killed with a particle beam he picked up from one of the dead. The weapon was too large and unwieldy for a human, but Cornelius was able to manage. Three he stunned with one of the grenades he took from the dead, and were shot down at close range, the farmer looking down on them and coldly blasting them.

  No, he thought, as he looked down at the armored bodies. Not farmer. Not anymore. Guerilla. And I’m gonna murder as many of these bastards as I can before they get me.

  The hunt became more dangerous at this point, as the aliens realized they were being stalked. Cornelius followed them with his eyes and ears, satisfied that they were no longer on the trail of the Freeholders, and most importantly his son. He still took a couple of the enemy soldiers down, despite their alertness, and came to the conclusion that humans were better hunting animals than these carnivores who were separated by tens of thousands of years from their primitive origins. He was almost starting to have fun despite his fury when he walked into the trap.

  The first he knew he had been fooled was when a net came flying out of the jungle to wrap him up. He fell forward, trying to bring his rifle to bear, but it was also entrapped in the folds. And then a dozen of the Cacas stepped into the open, and he revised his estimation of their hunting ability.

  “Where are the others?” asked the leader in passable Terranglo, his faceplate open and his red eyes looking down on Cornelius.