Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.)

by Doug Dandridge

  People sat around outside the tents, talking in whispers, needing to get their fears out in the open while afraid they might be overheard, and that things might get worse for them.

  “When will the Imperials come?” was the most asked question, one to which no one had a good answer. The next most common question was whether they might be able to stage an escape by themselves. The only problem with that was no one wanted to be the sacrificial lambs that absorbed the Caca fire while others got away. And the odds were not good that they would get away for good. A few might be able to hide, but no one was stupid enough to think they would be among them.

  Cat thought that she just wanted someone to take care of things for her. She hadn’t seen her parents since the first day of the invasion, when the Cacas had landed and so many were fleeing for their lives. She didn’t think her parents would have left her alone on purpose, which meant they were probably dead. She had no adults around her who thought of her as their priority, not like family would have. So she kept waiting for someone to do something, and every day was the same.

  * * *

  IMPERIAL ARMY TRAINING FACILITIES, SECTOR IV.

  “The damned robot’s overheated again,” cursed the engineering NCO. The robot in question was fifteen meters into the earth above the cavern, with another ten meters to go, stuck.

  Captain Stella Artois looked over the schematics of the robot on the HUD of her suit of heavy battle armor. She immediately found the problem, a cooling system that had clogged. This was the second unit with the same problem, something to be expected when they tried to work an old dependable unit into a new role.

  This isn’t what I wanted to do, thought the small blond, who was made large by the half ton of armor encasing her body. She had decided on engineering as a career because she had wanted to build bridges, bunkers, dams, things that could be translated into a civilian career in an ever expanding Empire. She had known there might be some combat involved, but now she and her company were to be dropped right into the middle of the shit. Of course they didn’t ask me what I wanted to do, she thought as she sent the report of the problem up the line to the techs who would try and correct the problem.

  Seven of the ten robots completed their mission, cutting all the way to the surface and rising past the ground and into the air. The suited engineers shot up the openings after the robots cleared, moving into deployment. And we have no idea what we will be deploying into, thought the Captain, looking around the empty plain that surrounded their training area. Wherever they went, she was sure it would not be empty, and she wasn’t all that sure what would be filling that space.

  * * *

  JEWEL.

  The nanites went in first, flooding the cavern and providing sensor data and cover for the probes that came next. Those machines moved through the tunnel taking in the feed from the microscopic robots, which winked off line as the EMP blast hit them. The probes, with much better shielding, weathered the pulse and started lashing the large cave with sensors, picking out the five human sized forms who had taken up firing positions covering the entrance.

  Particle beams reached out and hit two of the probes, while the remaining four, under remote control, fired back with wide beam lasers that caused severe burns to the creatures they touched. Two more went down at the same time as the first squad of infantry came through the entrance, spreading out and taking the defenders under fire while the next squad moved through.

  One of the defenders survived to back into a tunnel and get away, while the two squads of infantry secured the cavern, allowing the rest of the platoon, a squad of engineers, and a dozen of the naval commandos into the cave.

  “Keep up the pressure,” called Captain Rykio through his com as he pointed toward the tunnel where the lone survivor had retreated. A squad started that way, one team of two leading the way, the rest following in a spread so they wouldn’t all be caught by an explosive device.

  More probes were launched from outside and came flying through the entrance, then vectored to one or the other of the side tunnels. Swarms of pizos and nanites took off after them, setting up a search pattern that would swarm through the entire complex. They had a good idea of the general layout from the deep radar probing the engineers had conducted, but there were still bound to be some surprises.

  The cavern ended up going kilometers into the earth, hundred meter long tunnels ending in large caverns with multiple exits, a veritable maze that eventually ended. That was when the artificial tunnels started, going deeper into the mountains, until Ishuhi feared that it might exit on the other side of the range, and all of this search and destroy exercise would be for nothing.

  They finally found what they were looking for at the end of one tunnel that sloped down at a steep angle for ten kilometers, ending in a room that had been barricaded. Eleven of the creatures that only looked human held that barricade, and had a heavy particle beam and a mounted grenade launcher. As soon as the feet of the Imperial Army troopers came within sight they were taken under fire. The heavy beam burned through the armor of the first two men, taking their feet off at the ankles and sending enough heat into their lower legs to incinerate them up to the waist. Those suits continued to float on their upper grabbers as the armored bodies bobbed up and down, attracting more fire. Meanwhile the next pair of troopers flew just over the floor on their stomachs until they had a clear line of fire under the feet of their dead mates.

  The particle beams struck, killing four of the defenders, but not getting through the shield of the heavy beamer. One shot from the heavy beam hit one of the troopers in the helmet, burning through in an instant and converting the head underneath to vapor and burned bone chips. The second trooper fired a grenade into the barricade, the explosion shattering part of the barrier and killing two more of the Yugalyth. The soldier then slid backward and out of sight, while the heavy particle beam continued to fire down the tunnel, scoring hits on the dead, digging runnels in the wall and floor.

  The Yugalyth stopped firing when no targets appeared for the next few moments. The next thing that came at them was one they didn’t have time to react to, as a hyper velocity missile flew barely over the floor, ducked beneath the floating dead troopers, and slammed into the heavy particle beam weapon before the gunner could react. The barrier blew apart, sending pieces of bodies in every direction, and the rest of the squad of infantry overran the position and continued on.

  * * *

  “Captain Rykio,” came the call on the com. “You’ve got to come see this, sir.”

  Ishuhi ran down the tunnel, excited from the images the infantry officer was sending his way. The bodies had been taken down by that time, the barrier partially cleaned up, and he hurried by on his way to the center of the lair. He passed more bodies on the way, Yugalyth who had tried to keep the invaders away from the one who created them all.

  And there it was, in plain sight as he entered the large chamber. It looked in no way human, and not like any alien he had ever seen. There were scores of partial bodies thrusting out of the alien at the center, what would have been operatives if given time to develop properly. An entire squad of infantry was arrayed around the creature, weapons at the ready.

  Ishuhi stepped in front of the creature, careful to stay out of reach. He looked into the multiple eyes of the creature, its huge mouth growling like an animal beneath it. The Captain had seen one of these before, one of the only human alive to have done so. The last he had seen had resisted until it was incinerated by the particle beams of the commandos he had brought into the operation. But this one was alive, and looked to be under control.

  “Do you want to live?” he asked the creature, his eyes locked on its many orbs.

  “It matters not to me, human,” said the creature in a rasping voice, coming from a speaking apparatus not made for such. “The mission is all that matters. And the survival of our species.”

  “And if we could come to an accommodation with you?” he asked, thinking about what Fleet Inte
lligence might think of it. “Would you be willing to work with us?”

  Ishuhi wasn’t sure command would go for this, and he was pretty sure that the Emperor would raise holy hell in the recruiting of such intrinsically evil creatures.

  “I would be willing to work with you, as long as you allowed my genome to survive. For my people to survive.”

  The Captain was not sure if he believed that, but if he could at least make it think he was going to deal with it, he might be able to get it into captivity, where they could study it.

  “Can you separate from your constructs?”

  “They are my children,” said the Yugalyth in a halting voice. “They are not ready.”

  “Can you separate from your children before they are ready? Or must we destroy them in place, and cause you physical pain?”

  “I can separate from them, and they will survive, if you let them.”

  “Then do so, and we will also capture them.”

  * * *

  NEW MOSCOW SPACE, MARCH 17, 1002.

  Commander Ariella Ben Gurian watched as they dropped the wormhole, one of two they carried aboard the Narwhal, into space. As soon as they dropped it they lost control over the device, a small, one centimeter wide ring of machinery holding the negative matter that kept the tiny wormhole from collapsing completely.

  “That’s our part of it,” she said to her Exec, watching the plot that showed the wormhole, and only because they knew where to look for it. She studied the rest of the plot, trying to find any evidence that they had been seen, and letting out a half held breath when she realized that nothing had made them and that they were still safe.

  The tiny construct turned in space, then began to accelerate as the particle beam feeding in from the other end started accelerating it away, toward New Moscow planet. It boosted at thousands of gravities for about ten minutes, then coasted most of the way to the planet, not generating any kind of graviton signature, impossible to detect as it approached its target world. At the proper distance it turned in space and started its deceleration, going into a shallow orbit while it turned again and the instruments looking through the hole scanned the planet, looking for a landing area that met the requirement.

  After ten orbits the small device again reoriented and sent out enough particles to drop into a reentry path. The tiny grabber units took over as it hit the outer edge of the atmosphere, putting out such a tiny graviton trace that it could not be picked up against the background of the massive body of the planet.

  Winds buffeted the device, its grabbers pulling it along against the little bit of resistance its tiny cross section generated. The controllers back on the planet that anchored the other end of the hole looked over the ground as it dropped below the clouds. They left the device in a hover for about fifteen minutes while the tactical staff looked over the world, making their selections. At the end of that time they dropped it closer to the ground, flying it into the cover of a deep woods in low rocky mountains. The walls of the canyon rose up on both sides, and they let the device again hover for fifteen minutes while they scanned the area until they were satisfied that there were no enemies, or the enemy’s devices, around. It also found the caverns that had been expected in that area. Expected didn’t always mean realized, and a feeling of relief passed among those manning the control room when they were found.

  The device aligned itself in the canyon and started to unfold, more structure coming through the hole and expanding the ring, until a gate a meter wide stood under the trees. A small probe came through the mirrored surface and slowly cruised around the area, double checking, making sure, before anyone was put at risk.

  The first man through was an Army Ranger, an actual specialist from a Recon unit, eyes constantly on the move. He sent a signal through the hole, then stood aside as the rest of his squad came through. In minutes they had made sure the entire woods was secured, then signaled for the rest of the company, which followed. Some of them stayed above ground, providing security, while the rest of the company took shelter in the caves. And the first unit to invade the surface of the planet was there.

  Chapter Six

  If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

  Maya Angelou

  NEW MOSCOW, MAR 19TH, 1002.

  “The humans are probing us in strength,” said the Low Admiral in charge of intelligence. “We believe that they are preparing for an offensive into this space.”

  “How soon?” asked Great Admiral H’rastarawaa, looking up from the holo he was studying that showed the processing figures for the humans. They were falling behind on the projected finish date, and, except for just going ahead and killing them all, and wasting the protein, there seemed to be no way to catch up.

  “My source within their empire is telling us four or five months.”

  The Great Admiral gave a head motion of understanding, pulling up a holo of the kingdom and the region around it. New Moscow was in the center of a globe that reached out in a radius of just over a hundred light years, containing just under a million stars. A little more than five hundred of them had been inhabited, and most had been emptied of human life by now. There was a hundred and fifty light years of uninhabited space between the outer border of the New Terran Empire and New Moscow almost directly along the antispinward direction of the arm. There was a space of almost two hundred light years from the nearest border of the Republic and New Moscow on an angle that cut across the arm. That space wasn’t totally uninhabited. There were several alien species who had yet to leave their systems, if not even their home planets. And some small human colonies made up of people who for one reason or another wanted to be out of the jurisdiction of any of the larger polities. They were not in good locations for such purposes, as they would soon be encroached upon, most probably by the Empire.

  Except the Ca’cadasans would get around to them first, if they had their way.

  “Do we have any way to interdict these probes?”

  “Sometimes we can,” said the Low Admiral. “Often we can’t, since they cross into this space in such numbers that the interdiction force would be swamped. Unless we can get some of the ships garrisoning the major systems released.”

  The Great Admiral thought about that for a moment, looking at the blinking icons that indicated encounters with the enemy. One of the major problems with tracking them was that they didn’t know how many snuck through. There was no way they could station ships around the periphery of that globe in a dense enough picket to pick up everything. They could be sending a hundred ships a day through the periphery into New Moscow space and not pick up more than half of them. And once they were in that space, it was again a crap shoot to pick them up.

  “I don’t want to uncover the major systems, yet,” he told his subordinate. “Not until we finish processing the humans. We’ve picked up a few ships scouting out this system, too far out to attempt an intercept. Which means there were others we didn’t pick up, especially if they’re using those damned stealth ships of theirs.”

  “And when they finally come calling?”

  “By then we will either have received reinforcements from home, or we will be long gone from here, and the humans are welcome to the temporary occupation of a world they are no longer extant on.”

  * * *

  KLANG CAPITAL WORLD, MARCH 20TH, 1002.

  “The humans are here,” announced the General, running into the throne room to stop before his King, staring at the big, horned male.

  King Thrashanja of the Klang looked up, his fierce eyes staring from out of his mane wreathed face. The monarch wished he could turn his anger against the humans, to drive them from his world. If that were possible he would have already done it, before the human force had destroyed the combined wa
rlords’ fleet that had attempted to defend their monarch’s capital. Now their cruisers and raiders were so much drifting debris and plasma, as the purpose built warships of the enemy had pounded them from long range.

  And where were their allies while this was happening? The Ca’cadasans had promised the Klang undying friendship and loyalty, and had reneged on every promise they had made. It was just like a carnivore to do such, to the mind of the king of fierce herbivores.

  “They are on the surface?” he asked in his rumbling voice.

  “They are at the entrance of the palace, my Lord,” said the General, going to one knee. “The guards are prepared to resist with their lives, if you so order it.”

  The Monarch lowered his head and shook his horns from side to side, negating the suggestion of the officer. He didn’t see what good it would do to resist, except to get even more males killed, when the damned war had already killed over half of the adults of that gender. Some of the clans had sustained almost total losses of their adult males, while many others were reduced to a couple score of breeding age. Their people would be weak for most of a generation, and the memory of this defeat would continue through the ages.

  “Do not attempt to stop them,” he told the General.

  “Then I cannot guarantee your safety, your Majesty.”

  “No one can guarantee my safety,” said the King with a grin that held no humor. “But you can guarantee your own deaths, and that will serve no one. No, let them in, and we will see what they do.”

  The General saluted and turned, marching with heavy steps from the throne room. The King sat there on his throne, looking at the entrance the male had left through, waiting for something very different to come back. He wondered if he would even be alive at the end of the next hour. The humans weren’t exceptionally cruel, not like some species. But they could be ruthless, and his people, under the command of his warlords, had done great harm to their empire.