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

by Doug Dandridge

  The holo faded, leaving the Captain alone with his own thoughts. Biomedical was still working on a way to detect the creatures reliably from a distance, with little success. There were theories, but so far nothing that had borne fruit.

  But we have more than enough samples of these things to work with, thought the Captain, remembering all of the children they had captured when they had taken the mother. He was sure that all they needed was time. The only problem was not knowing how much of that commodity they had.

  * * *

  “Your Majesty,” said the Countess Esmeralda Chee, bowing before the redheaded woman who had entered the room. Fiona Ogden Lee Romanov’s almond shaped eyes, the color of sapphires, sparkled as the tall woman returned the bow with a shorter one of her own. She looks just like her mother, thought the Countess, recalling the appearance of the Empress Anastasia.

  “Not Majesty, yet,” said the woman, who had that ageless look that said she could be anywhere from forty to a hundred and forty. “And my brother has been crowned and seated, so I really don’t see how I can ever sit the throne.”

  “And would you, if it were made available to you?”

  “I would,” said the woman, smiling. “I hate to speak ill of the Emperor, but I do not think my brother is suited to be ruler. Not like father, or Dimetre. Or even Henry, when it comes to that. But he is healthy, and married, and has an heir on the way, so I really don’t see the throne opening up for me.”

  “But if it did open up, you would be willing to take it?”

  “Of course,” said the Princess. “It would be my duty to do so, if only to assure that the Empire is not thrown into confusion in these troubled times. But why even ask, since it is unlikely that anything will happen to Sean?” The woman’s eyes narrowed, and her gaze became focused. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

  “Code alpha sierra one one four three zulu papa,” said Chee in a flat voice.

  The eyes of the Princess went from laser focus to unfocused as soon as the last word left the Countess’ mouth. She stood still, not a muscle moving, while Zhee smiled. It works perfectly, she thought. The programers did a wonderful job.

  “You will forget everything we have talked about today concerning the succession,” she told the woman in the flat, commanding voice she had been trained to use with the deep programed. “You will only remember that you met with me today and we made pleasant small talk. And when you hear the triggering code, you will step up and take charge of the Empire, but only under my control. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

  The Princess nodded, her eyes locked on the wall straight ahead.

  “Oscar charlie november three three six,” said the Countess. As the last word left her mouth the eyes of the Princess focused again, and a smile crossed her face.

  “Look at the time,” said Fiona, checking her implant clock.

  This was another critical point. If the Princess noticed that time had gone by that she couldn’t acount for she might start asking questions that would require additional programing to squelch.

  “I’ve really enjoyed our little talk, Countess. And look forward to meeting with your party in the near future.”

  Zhee watched as the woman walked out of the chamber, led by her Major Domo. The first part of the plan was in place. Now all they needed was a plan to remove Sean from the equation. They didn’t have that plan, but she was sure they would be able to come up with one. After all, if the young fool was going to keep putting himself in dangerous positions, the odds of something happening to him were good. And with a little push here and there, they might even approach certainty.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined To longevity.

  Sun Tzu.

  NEW MOSCOW, APRIL 9TH, 1002.

  Walborksi walked in a crouch to the last position, the one from which he would observe the opening of the operation, then lead. The modified medium suit weighed over two hundred kilos in this gravity well. A normal soldier couldn’t have carried the suit and its equipment, which was where the augmented warriors came in. There were some problems with that, of course.

  Cornelius lay down next to the last of the snipers in his unit. Both were in the medium combat armor they would wear into battle. That armor was powered down, and the Captain had his visor up to at least catch a little bit of the morning breeze on his face. The sweat was rolling down his back as the suit caught his body heat and had no environmental systems to deal with it. As they didn’t want to give off any electronic signals the enemy might detect, everything was off.

  The sniper and his assistant looked over at the company commander and gave him a thumbs up. The sniper lay behind his weapon, a beast that had taken the strength of two normal men to move into place. That had been done through the night by men who had moved equipment into position without suits, so they wouldn’t have to carry all of that weight as well.

  Cornelius pulled out his unpowered field glasses, which depended on fine optics alone to bring in clear images from across the distance. He scanned the camp once again, something he couldn’t stop himself from doing despite the depression it caused. It was still the same, a mass of people in a huge fenced in area with a hundred thousand or more tents as the only shelter. Humans still huddled in the camp, looking cold, frightened and starving, while Cacas moved through the camp killing selected people and throwing them into the carts, which were pulled by dejected looking humans.

  This is the last day, you bastards, he thought, focusing in on one of the guard towers that looked over the camp. After today, they’ll all either be free, or dead. That last part really scared him. He was a soldier, as were all of his men. They had signed up for this, but the civilians in the camp hadn’t.

  His shoulder blades itched, and he couldn’t reach the area to scratch. He felt uncomfortable in the armor, and was sure that his men held the same opinion. He still wished they could have attacked without armor. But the weapons to be employed this day were capable of causing mass casualties among unprotected soldiers. They might cause those casualties among the civilians as well, but there was little they could do about that that they hadn’t already done.

  “Any minute now, sir,” said Corporal Schmidt, the sniper. That man was once again checking his targets, then looked over at the Captain. “Any minute now.”

  Cornelius nodded, checking the time on his internal implant. The implants were of course activated, at least their basic functions. As long as they didn’t use them to tap into a net, which at the moment they didn’t have, there was no way they could be detected. His timer said there was still an hour and forty-five minutes to go, and he wished he could cause the time to advance. Lacking that power, like every sentient being he had ever heard of, time was going to advance at its own rate.

  Now everything depended on the Fleet’s part of the operation going off on time. The first act of that play was up in two minutes. And if it didn’t go off on time, the second act would be stillborn, and the third act would come in without knowing that the others hadn’t gone off as planned. And if that happened, the ground element would just have to sit in place, until orders came down to do otherwise. The problem was that every minute the tens of thousands of troops sat in their positions the odds of discovery increased.

  Nothing to do about it but wait, thought Walborski, putting his glasses back to his face and sweeping them back over the camp, his heart beating fast as he waited to see the alarm go off down there, the Cacas to react before the operation got off the ground. If that happened, this might turn out to be a good day to die, and for the civilians the last day of their lives.

  * * *

  Captain Stella Artois stood in her heavy engineering combat suit in the cavern ten meters below the floor of the camp. She was starting to feel claustrophobic, both from being packed into the multiple caverns with a battalion of Range
rs in armored suits and her engineering company. Added to that was the helpless feeling of being trapped in a half ton of armor that her own muscles couldn’t move. It had taken four Rangers sans armor to pick her up and carry her to this point.

  It has to go off soon, she thought, checking the timer and cursing under her breath when it showed that she still had an hour and forty-five minutes trapped in the damned unresponsive armor before she could power up. Of course the Fleet was beginning their part of the operation in two minutes, and not for the first time she wished she had opted for the Navy instead of the Army. At least they got to sleep in comfortable quarters, eat good meals, stay more or less clean, and didn’t have to wait in armored coffins.

  And we really don’t know if any of this is even going to work, she thought for the hundredth time. They still had to try, as they were the only hope the prisoners above them had.

  * * *

  Cat dropped the last of the devices she had been given into the dirt by the inner fence. She knew she should have gotten it there sooner, but the Cacas had been patrolling the area unexpectedly, and this was the first chance she had gotten.

  She didn’t know why she was dropping the small devices out by the perimeter fence, and they never told her what they were. She knew enough about modern tech to know they were electronic devices of some kind, and that they were powered down. The people who had given them to her had hinted that something was going down this day, without giving her any idea of what it was. Only that it was important, and the only thing she could think of that would be important to any of them was freedom from the Cacas.

  She looked up at the noise of a Caca unit moving through the camp, six of the carts behind them, two already fully loaded. One of the Cacas was checking his scanner and pointing out people, so several of the soldiers with him could terminate them and toss them into one of the carts. As always in a situation where everyone had lost hope, there was no struggle, no attempt at escape. They simply stood there or sat, and stared hopelessly at their captors until a dart was placed between their eyes.

  Cat looked at the conquerors with hate filled eyes, hoping she would be around long enough to see them get theirs. She was still glaring when the leader looked up, pointed the scanner at her, and shouted out a command, pointing a lower left index finger at her.

  Cat had not given up hope, not since she had been enlisted in the underground. She wanted to live, just so she could see retribution come to the ones who had killed so many of the people she had cared about. As one of the soldiers started walking her way and raising his pistol she spun to the right and ducked between a couple of tents, then took off at a run.

  The Cacas shouted behind her. Some darts ripped through the material of a tent, just missing her, though a cry from another tent indicated that they hadn’t missed everything. Go to hell, you assholes, she thought as she negotiated a right turn beyond another tent and took off down a walkway that was crowded with people trying to get to the morning ration delivery.

  An adult would have been dead meat at this point. A child, especially a smart, athletic and frightened to death one like Cat, could take advantage of the crowding. She twisted and turned, sliding between adults, at one point punching a man in the groin, anything to get through the crowd and get away from the Cacas who wanted to turn her into unprocessed rations.

  One more dart sped by, plowing into the back of a woman in front of Cat. She dodged around the falling body and worked her way deeper into the camp, until she found a place where she could scoot into some shadows and hide.

  She knew the Cacas would now be looking for her, though she didn’t know how much effort they would make in finding her. There was nowhere to go, and eventually they would spot her. Her stomach grumbled, and she realized she would not be having a morning meal today. Now all she could do was hope that whatever was supposed to be going down would do so soon, so that she might have a chance to live beyond this day.

  * * *

  “We’re picking up movement in hyper I, sir,” called out the Tactical Officer of the Seastag. “Estimating eighteen hundred ships.”

  And the Cacas only have three hundred ships in their outer system picket, thought Commodore Bryce Suttler, his knuckles white as he gripped his chair arms and waited for his part in this most unconventional plan. The three hundred ships in the outer system picket were not really his concern. The almost two thousand in the inner system were another story. If he had to deal with all of them, the operation was over before it began.

  “Resonances match Imperial ships,” continued the Tactical Officer. “Estimated time to translation, fifteen minutes.”

  “Command confirms that those ships are Force Alpha,” said the Com Officer.

  The timer showed one hour and forty five minutes before the inertialess fighters were to strike, and his ships were supposed to open fire at the same time. If all the ships were still in place at that time his part of the offensive would be short and brutal. Which didn’t mean they wouldn’t open fire, since the ground forces were depending on them.

  “Update on targeting?” he asked his Tactical Officer, who was also running the overall targeting profile for the entire stealth/attack force.

  “All targets locked in. Firing solutions at one hundred percent.”

  Suttler nodded. One hundred percent was just about impossible to achieve, but anything over ninety nine point five percent was assigned that perfect tag, since it didn’t get any better than that.

  “Wormhole gate status?” he next asked the Navigation Officer, who had been assigned the task of monitoring what was probably the most vital part of the space component of the operation.

  “Frames are ready for expansion,” called out that officer, who was monitoring the status of the four units that were being carried by the quartet of ships that had been assigned them, including Seastag. “Negative matter reservoirs are filled to capacity. All parameters met, deployment is a go.”

  “We’re picking up graviton emissions from six hundred and four of the ships near the planet,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Accelerations varying in the range from four hundred and fifty to five hundred and thirty. Vectors consistent with headings for the outer system.”

  It would take those ships about thirty hours to make it to the hyper barrier on a least time profile. If they met the incoming Imperial force on a least time profile a battle would occur in fifteen hours. But more importantly for this mission, the enemy ships would be over ninety-seven million kilometers from the planet. Over five and a third light minutes, well out of energy weapon range, and even fifteen minutes or more by fastest missile acceleration, since the missiles first would have to kill the outward velocity of the launching vessels.

  Suttler looked at the tactical holo. Not only were the ships in orbit accelerating on an outward vector, but the great majority of the ships in the system were moving onto a similar path that would reach the incoming Imperial Fleet at about the same time.

  “What do we have left?”

  “Two hundred and twelve ships, sir,” said the Sensor Officer. “Only sixty-eight of them are warships, twenty-eight of them superbattleships. The rest are cargo ships and troop transports.”

  “Assign priorities to those targets,” ordered the Commodore, looking at the holo. “Secondary and tertiary.” He hoped he wouldn’t have to fire on those targets. They should be the prey of the inertialess fighters, which, if they were on time, should be leaving their warp bubbles at the same time his force was scheduled to open fire. He was locking them in just in case.

  * * *

  Lt. Commander Nahuel Runningdeer looked once again at the target. His Naval Commando platoon, one hundred and twenty strong, was spread out all along this section of the mountain range that overlooked the line of shore defense weapons. It was obvious from the way those weapons were fortified that the Ca’cadasan had built these defenses with the intention of staying. Other emplacements were of a more temporary nature, mere mobile weapons platforms hidden away.
The main advantage of that kind of defense was they were hard to locate until they fired, and then they could move. But these fixed defenses packed a much heavier punch, contained in a more massive defensive structure.

  This target was made up of massive half domes that contained particle beams and lasers, sheltered by hundreds of meters of armor, plasticrete and carbon reinforced alloy, the exception being the aperture of the beam weapon of the emplacement. There were four of the domes set in a pattern across two square kilometers of land. The secondary domes of electromagnetic field projectors surrounded that field, while outside of that field were emplacements for anti-aircraft and missile defenses. It was estimated that there were several hundred Caca infantry in each of these defensive fields, the defenses against ground assault.

  Runningdeer looked over at the heavy launcher they had hauled to this overlook, and the two packages that sat next to it, containing the warheads in their shielded containers. Everything was powered down so their electronic signals couldn’t be detected. There were infrequent air patrols over the mountains, and even more sparse ground sweeps. The Commander was sure they could avoid being sighted by either type of patrol, but the mission parameters called for extreme care.

  The Commander checked the time once again, something he had been doing for the past couple of hours, and saw that there was still an hour and forty-five minutes to go. He looked over his launcher once again, for the hundredth time, making sure nothing was bent or dinged or otherwise made unoperational. Of course he could find nothing wrong with it, but he didn’t want it to malfunction when it was needed.

  “It’s going to work, sir,” said Petty Officer First Marconi, one of his missile team, and the one that should have been using the launcher.

  “I know it is,” replied the officer, who had insisted that he take the shot. “I just wish the damned clock would tick down.”

  The Commander looked up at the clear sky, and the sparkling stars that sat in it. He could pick out several of the orbital platforms up there from reflected sunlight. They were more of a danger to the ground forces than this defensive station, while it was more of a threat to Imperial shipping. But the orbiting platforms were not his problem, while the defensive station was. He checked the time once again, swearing under his breath that it had only advanced another half minute.