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

by Doug Dandridge

  “A nebula?” asked the Admiral, leaning forward in his chair. “That shouldn’t affect us enough to bother.”

  “No, my Lord. But it could explain why we are having trouble acquiring their grav waves. Especially if they went through it.”

  “Then we should be able to pick them up when we are through,” said the Admiral. “You think they did this on purpose? Did they know we were following them?”

  “No telling, my Lord,” said the officer. “But it would be the smart bet.”

  The Admiral made a head gesture of acknowledgement as he continued to stare at the plot. Until the horrible sound of a vessel dropping out of hyper through catastrophic translation flooded the bridge speakers.

  “What happened?” yelled the Admiral.

  “One of the cruisers fell out of hyper,” called out the shaken com officer. “They must have hit a gravity well.”

  “In here?” croaked the Admiral, gesturing toward the plot that showed nothing but the weak gravity field of the gas cloud. And then something else, as a dark blot appeared far to the port, and moved by quickly.

  “There are wanderers in the cloud,” shouted the Sensor Officer.

  “All ships are to be extremely watchful,” said the Admiral to the Com Officer. And I wonder if this was also planned, a trap for us to fall into.

  * * *

  “We got one of them, Admiral,” called out the Sensor Officer, a smile on his face. “Sounded like one of their supercruisers.”

  “So, four million tons of enemy warship gone,” said the Tactical Officer, “and only a couple hundred million to go.”

  Montgomery shot the officer a look that shut the man’s mouth, even as she admitted to herself that he was correct. That one ship would not make a bit of difference when they came to battle.

  “Enemy is accelerating,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “What should I do, ma’am,” said Captain Stafford over the com.

  “Steady as she goes, Captain,” ordered Montgomery. “There’s really nothing else we can do.”

  * * *

  IMPERIAL BATTLE FLEET SECTOR FOUR, HYPERSPACE, APRIL 12TH, 1000.

  “One of the forward scouts has picked up something,” called out the Com Officer. “A large vessel falling out of hyper in a catastrophic.”

  “Whose?” asked Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda, sitting up in the chair he had been slouching in. Around him the flag bridge of the superbattleship HIMS Frederick de Grosse bustled with the activity of a major command preparing for battle.

  “From the resonances, the destroyer reports it to be an enemy,” said the Com Officer.

  And we won’t get much more than that for some minutes, thought the Admiral, looking at the central holo tank which showed his fleet scattered over the light years. Twenty light years ahead was the net of destroyers, sixty in all, spaced a half light hour apart in hyper VI, or about a light year in normal space. The ships were able to communicate with their closest neighbors by com laser, though they could get a message through much faster by grav wave transmissions that traveled through Hyper VIII.

  A chain of cruisers connected the destroyer screen with the three task forces that made up the fleet. A message sent by the grav wave chain would travel from the screen to the command ship in a little bit more than an hour, but could only transmit the meager information of binary code. Laser would cover the chain in a little less than five hours, with full vid, degraded a bit by static, but still better than code.

  “You think that could be them, Admiral?” asked Commodore Blanca Gomez, the Fleet Intelligence Officer.

  “It could just be an enemy scout force that ran into something they didn’t expect,” said the Admiral, looking at the blinking dot on the plot that indicated where the event had happened. “Anything of interest in that area?” he asked, looking at the cartography officer.

  “A small nebula,” said the Lt. Commander. The plot zoomed to show the gas cloud in that part of space as recorded by the last survey. “It has wanderers,” said the young man, looking up from his station.

  “Just what someone like Mara would try to lead an enemy through,” said Mgonda, looking closely at the patch of gas and noting its proximity to his screen. “And if she is there, that destroyer should pick them up any second now.”

  “They’ve already picked them up, Admiral, if they are there,” said Gomez. “But it will still take us some time to receive a signal.”

  The communications problem, thought the Admiral, shaking his head. There was a solution coming down the pipe. He knew it was the answer to their prayers, and would give them a tactical advantage over all their enemies, including this one. And it was a tech no one could copy, until they built a huge generating station around a black hole, like humanity had.

  “Another signal coming in, Admiral. The Frances Beacon reports they are picking up the resonances of a good size Imperial force, moving through Hyper VII on a least time decal.”

  “That’s them,” said Mgonda, holding up a clenched fist. “I know it is. There’s no other large VII force out this way. And whatever’s chasing them has just lost a large ship to a wanderer.”

  “It doesn’t do us much good while they’re in VII,” said Gomez, pointing at the blinking green icon that now showed where the Hyper VII scout force was located. “They might as well be in another Universe. And if they drop into normal space it will take us even longer to reach them.”

  The Admiral nodded his head, thinking over the problem. If Mara’s force dropped down into normal space then his force would also have to drop down to normal, which would take more time than they had, since his force was moving at point eight c. And if they dropped too far away, or had to traverse much space in VI at point two c, it would also take too much time. There was only one solution he could think of. The reason he had loaded those hyper VII missiles aboard.

  “Order the Beacon, or any other ship within range, to send them a signal giving our location and course. They are to modify their course to head our way, and drop down into VI at their earliest opportunity.”

  “Yes sir, Admiral,” said the Com Officer, getting to work on her board.

  “Now if only everything will work out the way I want it to,” said the Admiral, looking over at his Intelligence Officer. “But of course that never happens.”

  * * *

  HYPER VII BATTLE CRUISER SIR GALAHAD, APRIL 12TH, 1000.

  “I knew I would find you here,” said Samantha in a voice that dripped ice.

  Jennifer looked up from the bed she was sitting on, the Emperor’s arm about her. She had been frightened when the ship had first hit the gravity ripples, like the other civilians on board, not sure of what was going on. And when Sean had come to the door of her small room, she had jumped at the chance for the companionship of a strong man.

  His eyes were the same color that Glen’s had been, and he had the same little boy smile. And in her fright she could not send him away.

  “So, you have found me here, cousin,” said Sean in the same tone. “Now quit butting into my personal business.”

  “You commissioned me to look out for your business,” said Samantha, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  “Samantha,” said Sean, standing and glaring at his cousin. “I will trust you with the affairs of the Empire. But not with the affairs of my heart. Is that understood?”

  “You need to start thinking like a Monarch,” said Samantha, pointing a finger at Sean. “And that means thinking with your brain, and not your cock. Maybe you should be thinking of the coming battle, instead of how you’re going to dip your wick.”

  Samantha turned and walked out of the room, the door swishing shut behind her. Sean looked at Jennifer with an open mouth, words failing him.

  “She’s right, you know,” said Jennifer, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder. “You have enough on your mind right now, without trying to win over a woman you hardly know.”

  “I love you, Jennifer Conway,�
�� said Sean, putting his hand on top of hers.

  “I like you, Sean,” said Jennifer, looking into his blue eyes and feeling weak in the knees. “Someday I might come to love you. But not yet. I have too much to think about myself.”

  “Then I am a pig,” said Sean, taking his hand from hers and turning away.

  “Wait,” said Jennifer, but Sean had already gone through the door. She stood there for a second, wondering what she should do. She was attracted to him, and not just because of his social rank. Making up her mind she went through the door, only to find a corridor with lots of people in it, but no Emperor. And his guards nowhere in sight told her that he had fled the area.

  * * *

  THE DONUT, APRIL 12TH, 1000.

  The station shook underneath her, and her bed shook with it.

  “What the hell,” said Chung, waking in an instant.

  Lucille pulled herself groggily out of her sleep, her hand seeking her bed partner, who was also her chief of security, to assure herself that he was still there. “What’s going on?” she asked, barely audible over the sounds of alarms.

  “Something with the station,” said the agent, jumping out of bed and grabbing for his clothes. “Something serious.”

  Lucille sat up and linked into the station system to see what was going on. What she saw sent a tremor of terror through her body. Someone had activated a quarter of the station’s millions of grabber units, and pulled the huge construct just a bit off balance. Just a bit didn’t mean much, until the black hole it orbited around was factored in. And the other grabber units were doing nothing to restore equilibrium.

  Chung looked over at Lucille, recognition on his face indicated he knew what she was doing. “How long?”

  “Twenty minutes to the point of no return,” said Lucille, getting out of bed and grabbing a robe. “We have to get to the control center, now.”

  “Right,” said the agent, his eyes unfocusing a bit as he pulled his weapon. “There’s no answer from the control center. I’m sending men there now, and getting the lift into position so we can sprint there.”

  Lucille nodded as she followed the agent out of her quarters and into the hall. She was only dressed in her robe, he in his pants, gun in his hand.

  The lift was waiting for them when they arrived at the entrance. The pair piled in with a trio of IIA agents and a couple of Marines. The lift doors closed and it took off, programmed for a nonstop to the corridor outside the control center.

  “Link into this signal,” said Chung, looking over at Lucille.

  She found the security carrier and linked, her breath catching in her throat as she watched something that looked exactly like her walking into the control center, then shooting down the four people on duty. Her doppelganger then sealed the hatch, closing the emergency doors that were meant to keep any intruders out of the center, using her fingerprints and what must have been Lucille’s DNA to operate the system.

  The imposter ran to the control panel, overrode the safety links, and sent the signal to the grabbers to pull the station off its even orbit. The grabbers pulled with a two gee jerk for a few moments, then shut down as the safety systems overrode the override. The intruder then inserted a little known code in the system and cut the power to all the grabber units, then ran back to the doors and started doing something to them.

  “Shit,” said Lucille, looking over at the agent. “How are we going to get into that room?”

  “Leave that to Callahan and the Marines,” said Chung. “You just worry about getting the station back in line.”

  Lucille nodded, looking at the monitor which showed their progress across the lift line. The lift slid to a stop at the limit of her built in compensators and the doors slid open. She ran out at the heels of the IIA agent. He held out a hand to stop her from turning the corner to within sight of the doors.

  Callahan ran up with a squad of armored marines following.

  “We’re less than twelve minutes to the point of no return,” said Lucille to the officer

  “And what happens when we reach that point?” asked Callahan, a confused expression on his face.

  “Then nothing we can do will save the station,” said Lucille. “Imagine half the station falling into the black hole, while the other half flies away in pieces. That will happen within five minutes after we pass that point.”

  “Can you do anything about it?”

  “If I can get to the controls, maybe.”

  “Is there an auxiliary control anywhere?” asked Callahan, clearly not liking the situation.

  “We have control rooms at four locations,” said Lucille. “Each is ninety degrees of arc around the station. And until we get the internal wormhole network set up, there is no way we’re going to get to one in less than a couple of hours.”

  “Shit,” cursed Callahan, looking at the floor. “But you can communicate with these other control rooms in real time, yes?”

  “Of course. There are wormhole com portals linking them together.” Callahan looked up with the beginnings of a smile on his face. “But the coms are in the control rooms,” finished Lucille, “so we would have to secure that room to be able to send commands to the other stations, which by the way, are currently unmanned and locked down.”

  “So I guess the only thing to do is to take this control room back,” said the Captain, “in less than ten minutes.”

  Agent Chung pulled a tiny disk from his pocket and activated it, and a small holo sprung up above the object. Lucille gasped as the first of the bodies came into sight, horribly burned to the point of mutilation. The view shifted to show Lucille’s double standing at one of the control panels, staring at the door.

  “She’s using a particle beam,” said Callahan. “She can get through my men’s armor with a weapon like that, so we’re going to have to just go in and kill her quickly.”

  “I wouldn’t kill her,” said Chung, pointing to the object he zoomed the holo in on. “That looks like an explosive device, set onto the main login panel. And I’m betting its hooked up to her life signs.”

  “Then what the hell do we do?” asked Callahan. “We have less than nine minutes before this station loses equilibrium and falls into the hole. I can’t just teleport men in on top of her.”

  Teleport, thought Yu, her mind going into overdrive. It might just work. “I need to get to Doctor Ramirez’ lab, now,” she said to the IIA Agent, grabbing his arm. “I can’t explain now, Captain, but get your men ready to force that door on my signal.”

  Lucille and Chung ran down the corridor to Ramirez’ lab, just a thirty second run from the control room. She explained what she was going to do breathlessly, or as much as she could in so short a time, and Chung seemed to understand.

  The lab had been closed off since Ramirez’ death in the assassination. Lucille knew what the man normally kept in the secure lab, and hoped that what she wanted was still there. She checked the storage vault as soon as she entered and pulled the small globe that was marked with danger symbols from rack it was on, then ran over to the quantum teleportation machine.

  “That’s the negative matter?” asked Chung.

  “Yep,” agreed Lucille, placing the globe in a holder and making the adjustments to keep it in place. “Negative protons in a magnetic bottle. Hope it’s enough.” And I hope enough of it gets to the target to make a difference.

  Next, she powered up a magnetic field within the machine and connected it to the sphere. Satisfied that all was as it should be, she opened the sphere and injected the negative matter into the machine, hoping that the field would trap it all. A leak now, and the whole task could turn into a disaster, one that led to a greater one when the station crashed into the black hole.

  The clock was ticking in her head, and she worked in a world of extreme tension as she tried to balance speed with precision. Too fast, and she might make a mistake that would doom them. It was more pressure than she wanted, but today it was hers.

  Chung stood by silently, k
nowing better than to ask a bunch of questions while she was working. A glance at his face told her that he wanted to know what was going on, but was holding it in. I’ll just have to tell him afterwards, she thought. If there is an afterwards.

  Lucille pulled up a holo that showed a schematic of the station. She reached into the holo and pulled her hands apart, zooming in and focusing on the control room. A couple of more pulls and she was looking at a real time holo, fed through the cameras the security people had linked in, and could see the device she needed to neutralize. She put her finger over it and pushed, and the holo was now locked onto that object.

  The clock was reading four minutes when she fed all the information into the station computer. A few seconds later the solution came back, feeding into the teleportation machine. The machine had to know the coordinates for itself and the target, as well as the motion of the station, which had changed since the saboteur had shifted its equilibrium. Lucille made sure everything was powered up like it was supposed to be, then hit the commit button at the three minute fifteen second mark.

  The material being held in the magnetic field shimmered for a moment, and then was gone, for the most part. Lucille knew there would be some negative matter protons left in the magnetic field. And some of it would be teleported through the quantum tunneling process to other places. The other side of this room or the other side of the Universe, individual protons or small groups would appear in millions of locations, never enough to cause harm. Or hopefully not, she thought, as the laws of probability stated that the whole missing mass could not come to rest in one place. A one in ten to the hundredth power possibility, but real nonetheless.

  On the holo she could see the shimmering effect around the explosive device, and pumped her hand in the air, knowing she was on target. But it only counts if enough negative matter goes where I want it to. An instant later over half of the device disappeared, and it was obvious from what was left that it was not a functional unit.