Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  “Well, there’s something of interest there now. What do we have that we can get there, quickly?”

  “We have Commodore Grigsley’s task force, ma’am. One heavy cruiser, two lights and six destroyers. They can be there in two days.”

  “Goddess,” swore Mara. “I was hoping we had something closer. Okay, order them on their way, and caution the commodore to not stick his nose into a trap. No telling what else they might have there. HIMS New London has a wormhole launcher, does it not?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then let the commodore know he is to keep his distance and probe them with fire if he sees anything of interest. And Sanford is to stay in place. No telling what might come along in the next couple of days. I think we might want to move the main force closer to that star as well.”

  Mara looked with satisfaction as her orders were transmitted and vector arrows and courses appeared on the plot. Most of her force would continue their sweeps, but she had enough to scout that one star, and hopefully enough coming up to quickly support them, if necessary. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to find anything there, but wishful thinking had nothing to do with reality.

  * * *

  Commodore Nathanial Grigsley stared at the local viewer that showed the space of the unnamed star they had just translated out from. It was a K class, a type that commonly had worlds in the proper areas for life, though that was only a necessary but not sufficient requirement. There were worlds there, and all of the ships in the squadron were training all sensors on every object they could detect. They knew there were Machine ships out there. Or at least there should be, since they had been detected entering this system, and there had been no trace of them leaving. That didn’t mean they hadn’t, but if they had they were still in normal space, which meant they were close.

  New London was a powerful vessel, one point six million tons of the largest cruiser the Empire produced. She had two of the nine hundred thousand ton light cruisers with her, and six two hundred and twenty thousand ton destroyers. A total of almost five million tons of warships. He still wished he had a capital ship with him, a battleship, or at least a battle cruiser. But he had what he had, and the admiral had wanted him to close on this system as soon as possible. He had to agree with her, and if he had been in command, he would have ordered the same. There had to be something here that interested the Machines. And if not, there were still Machine vessels here, somewhere. The overall mission had always been to destroy as many of them as possible. That was the only possible step on the path to extermination of them once and for all.

  “I’m catching some reflected starlight from the orbit of one of the planets, sir.”

  “Any indication of life on that world, Lieutenant?” he asked the young sensor officer.

  “No sir,” she replied. “There is no atmosphere that I can detect, no light diffraction like you’d expect an atmosphere to produce. It’s dead. But long-range view with grav lens is showing something.”

  “So it’s either a highly reflective natural object in orbit,” said the commodore, staring at the viewer, which was now centered on that planet. “Or it’s something that doesn’t want to be seen, and has failed at the job.”

  No one spoke. No one on the bridge could say for sure what it was, so they were leaving the decision to their commander, who sighed and looked over at the tactical officer.

  “Do we have missiles in the pipeline?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want me to give them a spread?”

  What he really wanted was for the officer to fire a single wormhole launched missile at the planet, set to acquire and target whatever that was. Unfortunately, the far-off launchers were not configured that way. There were thirty missiles in the tube, accelerated by the magnetic rings along the thousand kilometer long launcher. When the far end of the wormhole that led to the endless loop was snatched out of the way during the firing, a process that took nanoseconds, all of the missiles would fly through and enter the wormhole linking to the ship. There was no way to send only one missile through. It was all or nothing. And it was thought to be a waste of combat resources to have only one weapon in the tube, since in most fights the launching ship would almost always want as many missiles as they could get out of each firing cycle.

  “Give them a spread. Then, when the next tube is ready, send one at this gas giant. Then this one. Might as well cover the most likely bases. Let’s see if we can flush the roaches.”

  Ten seconds later the nose of the cruiser aligned with the planet, and thirty missiles erupted into space traveling at point nine-five light. They were programmed to go into a wider spread formation as they neared the planet, covering as much of the orbitals as they could, turning on active sensors on approach and going for anything that looked interesting. Not a standard attack, and they would be seen on sensors from several light minutes out. But the objective here was to make the Machines go active and give themselves away. If nothing appeared they would think of something else, since absence of evidence wasn’t evidence of absence.

  The nose of the cruiser realigned and let out another spread, this one heading for the innermost gas giant. Then another realignment, and a shot at the next gas giant out, the final one. Several hundred million Imperials of missiles were now heading at targets that might not be there, mostly acting as probes. And now all the organic crew could do was wait and see.

  In one hour and ten minutes they got their first indication that there was indeed something here, as over a score of graviton signatures erupted from around the innermost gas giant, the first target the missiles were due to approach. More graviton signals appeared on the plot as the Machine ships fired their own missiles, most heading out to challenge the wormhole weapons that were already maneuvering to hit the active ships, the rest heading out toward the Imperial squadron.

  “Tell the admiral that we got a reaction. The kitchen light is on and the roaches are scattering.”

  The missiles approaching the outer gas giant went in with no reaction, eliminating it as a prime target, though it would still be checked out much closer when the admiral’s force got here. The ones that headed for the rocky inner world got a reaction, and almost fifty Machine ships started moving and firing. Twenty-nine missiles fell off the plot, victims of defensive fire. Moments later the final one fell off as well, taking a Machine cruiser with it.

  “Tactical,” called out the commodore, looking over at that officer. “What do we have?”

  “A total of seventy-one vessels, sir. Twenty-three capital class, nineteen cruiser class, and twenty-nine scout class.”

  “Shit,” cried out the sensor officer. “Um, I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You just beat me to it by a couple of seconds, Lieutenant.” The commodore swore under his breath, then looked at the com officer. He also had a Klassekian com tech aboard, but for this he preferred the wormhole. “Get Admiral Montgomery on the com, please.”

  * * *

  “I understand, Commodore,” she responded, looking into the anxious eyes of the man. “Your orders are to maintain sensor contact with the Machine force, but do not under any circumstance allow them to get you into a missile duel. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the officer, relief on his face.

  Can’t blame you a bit, Nathanial, thought Mara. He had never served under her before, and only knew her by reputation. And part of her reputation was as a crazily audacious scout commander, willing to take any risk for glory. That wasn’t quite accurate. She would take risks, but only after weighing the benefits completely. He probably was afraid I would order him to attack a force that outmassed his by more than ten.

  “I want you to continue to launch wormhole missiles as long as you can. If their weapons get too close, retreat into hyper, then come out somewhere else and bring them under fire. Repeat as necessary. And we should be there in another thirteen hours.”

  “And if they run from the system, and split up?”

  “Then follow as best you may, bu
t don’t let them close with you. You know what that means?” She wanted to make sure that this officer didn’t try to do something that got him into trouble he couldn’t get out of.

  The commodore nodded.

  “Good man.” She thought he got the plan. The Machines really couldn’t go any faster in hyper than his ships, though they could accelerate much faster, up to over a thousand gravities. Which meant that a smaller imperial force had to maintain proper distance so they couldn’t be run down. Sometimes easier said than done, but an experienced tactician like the commodore should have no problem with it.

  “We will be approaching the system from this direction,” she said, nodding to her com officer to send the information. “Anything approaching from any other vector is not us, no matter what the resonance is.”

  So far the Machines had not tried to spoof them using Imperial resonances. Mostly, she was sure, that was because spoofing like that meant not running their own propulsion systems to full efficiency. But it would only take once to surprise them and hurt them badly.

  “Keep them busy, Nathanial. And we’ll be there to destroy them. Mara out.”

  Montgomery sat back in her chair, feeling hunger pangs, realizing that she hadn’t eaten in almost twenty hours. She could order some food sent up to the bridge, but she hated eating here. No, it would be better to eat in the officer’s mess. Or better yet, in one of the crew messes, where she could be seen and heard, while seeing and hearing the people who actually ran her flagship. It would be good for morale as well.

  Her ship was one of the newest hyper VII battleships, sixteen million tons, one million more than a standard VI. It had more or less the same dimensions, the same interior spaces and layout, maybe just a little less so they could cram in more power conduction and storage units. She had been mostly deployed to battle cruisers, and both types of capital ship provided flag officers with simply luxurious quarters, which was fantastic when they could use them. She didn’t think she had used her quarters for more than six hours since this campaign had started, taking meals in her office, or sleeping on the configurable couch that was provided there. This was the first time she had commanded a force this large, though she had controlled forces even more spread out. And the stress of this kind of deployment was starting to affect her.

  Crew turned as she entered the mess after riding a lift down to the deck. People started to jump to their feet as a petty officer opened his mouth to shout the order for attention. There were at least a hundred people in the hall, which had room for twice that number. But then the crew ate in shifts, and there was more than one enlisted mess aboard.

  “At ease, everybody,” shouted Montgomery before the PO could speak, waving her hands for them to sit. “This is your break time, so just pretend I’m merely another crewman.”

  Like they could really do that, she thought with a smile. They could never forget that she was the god of the battle group, with the power of life and death over all of them. Not in the way the Gorgansha exercised it, of course. She couldn’t just order someone shot, unless they were a clear danger to the ship or the mission. Due process had to be followed. But she could order any and every ship in the force to throw itself into a sure loss situation. That was a power that weighed heavily on most officers. Her reputation was of someone who would do whatever it took to win without a thought for the casualties. On the surface that was true, but many had been the night she had cried in her cabin for the lives she had ordered sacrificed. That was something she had in common with Bednarczyk. Both had the tough as duralloy facade, and both could see beneath the exterior of the other.

  “What’s good today, Chief?” she asked a senior NCO.

  “The lasagna is excellent, ma’am” said the man, not as discomfited as most of the other people in the large dining hall. Chiefs were used to being around officers, even high rankers, and they had the time in service to have seen this behavior out of superiors before.

  “Then that’s what I’ll have,” said the admiral, walking up to the serving line to grab a tray. The master cook looked out of the kitchen, a nervous expression on his face, while the two crew on the serving line looked like they were about to faint.

  “The lasagna, please,” she said, looking at the tray the food was being served out of. “And some of those beans. And of course, some garlic bread.”

  The pair went to work, the man making sure she got the best looking portion of lasagna still in the tray, the woman making sure the beans and the garlic bread were still hot. Mara nodded to them and headed for a table, one that was mostly full with only a couple of open spaces.

  “Continue with your conversations,” she said as she took a seat, then took an experimental bite of the main course. It was delicious. One thing about the Fleet one could take for granted was the food, always good, always plentiful, at least aboard a warship or a base. The people in fighters and the Marines didn’t always get the best due to the necessities of combat deployment, but when they were aboard ship they did. She sometimes shuddered when she thought about what the army got while they were in the field, though their rations in base were just as good.

  “Spacer,” she said, looking at a young woman seated next to her in a shipboard skinsuit with the emblem of engineering on her collar. “What do you think of this deployment?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What do you think about being deployed out here on the ass end of nowhere, risking your life fighting murder Machines?” asked Mara before taking a bite of garlic bread.

  “I think it’s a good thing someone is out here, ma’am. After all, those damned things need to be destroyed. But..”

  The spacer hesitated, and Mara smiled at her. She wanted to know what the woman really thought. That was why she was here, instead of eating in the officers’ mess, or the admiral’s cabin. “Speak up, spacer. No one will take exception to what you have to say.” As long as it’s not disrespectful, thought Mara. Then your chief will rip you a new one after I leave.

  “I wish I were back at the main front, ma’am. Fighting the Cacas. I have people back in Sector IV. I had other people there who are no longer alive.”

  “I’m so sorry, Spacer Negron,” said Mara, looking up the name on her implant, reaching out to put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I doubt there’s anyone out here who hasn’t lost someone. I lost a lot of people I cared about when they first struck.” As she talked the images of lost friends and crew mates moved through her mind. Officers she had served under and with. Young officers and enlisted who had shown so much promise, their futures snuffed out in a war of annihilation.

  The spacer nodded, then looked back at her plate.

  “I wish I was back there as well,” Mara told the people at the table. “I would prefer to be leading raids into the supply lines of the Cacas. But I’m an officer in the Emperor’s Fleet, and I’ve taken oaths to obey. The same as all of you have. And I really didn’t want to have to fight the damned merciless Machines we lost so many centuries ago. And so, when I was told to come out here and serve under Admiral Bednarczyk, I didn’t complain that I was being wasted. I’ve served under Beata Bednarczyk in the past, and knew of her quality. But you know what. This is an important battle zone as well.” She looked back at the young spacer, who had taken a bite since she had spoken.

  “Are you religious, Spacer Negron?”

  “I was raised Reformed Catholic, ma’am.”

  Mara nodded. That was the largest religious denomination in the Empire. The Emperor belonged to it, and all the emperors before him. It was the semi-official state religion, but it was not a mandated faith by any means. Everyone in the Empire was free to worship anything or nothing as they wished, as long as it didn’t bring harm to anyone else. “And what does your faith tell you about life?”

  “It tells us that all life is sacred, and to be protected. Sometimes killing is necessary, but only to protect.”

  “And I was raised in the Wiccan church, Spacer Negron, and we hold nothing more sac
red than life itself. And that is what we are doing out here. Protecting life itself. One day we’ll all be able to go back to the Empire, and then we can liberate all those poor souls the Cacas have enslaved.”

  Everyone was looking at her, and she thought she knew what was going through their minds. What about these people who they had taken on as allies? They kept slaves. But no one spoke about that, because they were allies.

  “Admiral,” came a call over the comm. “You’re needed on the bridge.”

  Mara looked at her half-finished meal, regretfully, and got to her feet. “Duty calls. But remember what I said. What we’re doing out here is important.”

  She headed for the exit, hearing hushed whispers behind her.

  “The old lady never catches a break, does she?”

  And she was all smiles on the way down the corridor, having achieved her goal of connecting with some of the crew.

  * * *

  “What do you have?” asked Montgomery as she came quick stepping onto the flag bridge.

  “Sanford is picking up another group of Machine vessels moving in the direction of the target system that New London is in,” said the com officer, looking back at the admiral.

  Mara walked over to the plot to see what was displayed there, and zoomed into the area in question. She glanced back at the com officer, sitting next to one of the Klassekian techs at their station. She actually had a half dozen of the aliens aboard. She still wasn’t sure how they had jury-rigged the complicated system that allowed her to talk with every ship in her force, as well as every other battle group commander and high command. Wormholes were a big part of it, allowing them to send unlimited masses of data through to the Donut, no matter what the wormhole was currently being used for. From there it entered other wormholes and was transmitted to the intended target, if it had one as well. But less than two hundred ships in this fleet had access to that net. Ships within normal com range of them could also take advantage of the fast long range com, but things got complicated when many ships were from light hours to a hundred light years from a vessel equipped with a wormhole. That was where the aliens came in, with their wonderful ability of being able to contact others of their kind no matter how far away. Unfortunately, it only worked with their birth siblings, those they had shared the womb with.