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

by Doug Dandridge

  The station sent its own spread of missiles in return, concentrating all of its fire on Sevastopol to the exclusion of the other five ships that were engaging the fort. Fifty missiles came in at eight thousand gravities, nine seconds flight time.

  Tactical tried their best, and the ship knocked down twenty-one of the missiles as they came in. The other battleships took out another twenty-three, firing every defensive weapon they possessed in an integrated missile defense network. Close in weapons hit the remaining six at close range, saving the ship from a direct hit. Still, they took out most of the electromagnetic projectors on the bow side of the ship facing the station, as well as one of the forward laser rings.

  Schmidt cringed as the casualty figures came across his link. There had been over a thousand fatalities, most of them completely destroyed, some of the low percentage of recoverable not able to be recovered at this time. The clocks of those people’s continued existence was ticking away, and there was little he could do about it. There were also more than two thousand injured, many seriously, to the point where their suits were putting them into cryostasis to keep them intact until they could get medical care. Search and rescue groups would of course be trying their best, but since most of the casualties were outside of the protected central capsules of the ship, it was hazardous to even make the attempt of getting at them.

  Sevastopol shook again, and the Captain was starting to think he might have to order abandon ship. No, by God, he thought, an eye still on the damage schematic. We came here to free our capital, and save our people. His ship could still fight, and he was determined that it would.

  Another missile detonated off the stern, a mere kilometer away, and kicked the ship in an end over end tumble along with a spin. The Helmsman fought the motion, bringing the grabbers in to counter the motion, bringing Sevastopol back onto an even keel.

  “Laser rings C and D have both lost emitters,” yelled the Tactical Officer over the klaxons. “Rings are at seventy five percent capacity.”

  One of the other battleships took a direct missile hit, the gigaton warhead detonating against the hull and vaporizing its way deep into the ship. The capital ship went into a spin for a few moments as it flew away from the blast, then broke across the middle into two large pieces that spun off on their own courses.

  Schmidt stared at the wrecked vessel in horror, his fear warring with relief that the battleship had been an Imperial vessel, and not one from the small New Moscow fleet. He fought the guilt at that relief, then pushed the thought from his mind. There were more important things to think of at the moment.

  The station itself was taking a beating. There was scarring all over the hull, gashes caused by beams, pitting from missile fragments. Several of the lasers domes were dead, melted or smashed, while a particle beam projector had been swallowed up by a large crater. The view was blurry, looking through the cold plasma field of the fortress. That damage was visible was a sign of its serious nature.

  The battleships were all heavily damaged as well. The super battleship Enterprise, an Imperial vessel, was the most intact, both because it had entered the fight relatively late, and because of its more powerful defensive systems. That ended as a volley of missiles targeted the ship, and a half dozen got through the defensive net to detonate close to the vessel. Two of the laser rings, those on the stern, died, their nanomaterial skin ruptured in several places, the internal glow dying.

  “Com from the Commodore,” called out the Com Officer.

  “Put her on.”

  The face of Commodore Sheila Stepanowski appeared on the holo to the right front of the Captain. Her face was streaked with sweat, her eyes wide, and the bridge behind her shuddered as Czarina Ekaterina shook from a hit.

  “We’re getting pounded here,” she told the Captain. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, that thing will still be up here ruling the orbitals while we’re nothing more than debris.”

  Schmidt nodded. He was sure that the ships coming through the gate could eventually take care of this monster, but there was also the close enemy force, which was now only ten light seconds away from the gates. Those ships were throwing everything they had at those portals, realizing that if they could shut them down the could win the battle of the orbit. And that if they didn’t shut them down, they were doomed as well. The force the two battleships were a part of could do nothing to aid in that part of the fight. They were on the other side of the planet from the gates, blocked by the mass of the world. The important part was that they were also keeping the fort out of the action.

  “I’m having my Tactical Officer send a firing plan to your Tac,” she continued. “We’re going to bust through that cold plasma field and hit them with every antiproton beam we have. Then we’ll follow it up with missiles.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the Captain as he pulled up a schematic that showed what they knew about the state of the enemy fort. The targeting information sent over from the commander’s ship pointed to one spot on the fort. The cold plasma field was strong at that point, as it was everywhere. They could blast through the field, but it was self-repairing, and more cold plasma was being injected into the field every time it was depleted. They were still getting through, just as the fort was getting through the fields of the ships. But the beams were being attenuated enough that the damage was being reduced by half.

  “Firing,” called out the Tactical Officer. The ship shuddered slightly as the lasers were fired and missiles were released. Seconds later the particle beams fired, sending their positively charged antiprotons toward the same target area as the lasers were striking.

  The lasers of seven capital ships, two superbattleships and five battleships, flashed instantaneously across six thousand kilometers of space. All hit a small area, about twenty meters across, of the cold plasma field. The beams slashed through the field and hit a similarly small area, burning into the hull, causing a large breach. The cold plasma was superheated and radiated heat in all directions, including back into the station.

  Now the particle beams ripped through the weakened defensive field and into the hull of the fort, flashing into energy as the antiprotons interacted with the matter of the station. A large portion of the hull, fifty meters across, flashed into superheated plasma, while thirty meters farther around the circumference the armor crumpled and exploded outward in millions of pieces. The following antiprotons hit the hole and flew into the station, blasting apart chambers, corridors and the bodies of Cacas. The missiles, sixty weapons launched from all of the ships, followed close behind, aiming for the same point.

  * * *

  “I want us through those ships,” yelled Great Admiral H’rastarawaa at the officers on the bridge.

  “We’re trying, my Lord,” replied the Station Commander from his position behind the tactical station. “But these are major warships, and it is taking time to kill them.”

  The deck underneath shook slightly from a hit. The holo with the schematic of the station showed red areas where enemy weapons had pierced the hull or destroyed surface installations. The station was down to seventy percent of its defensive weapons on the facing side, and the Great Admiral was tempted to order a turn to present an intact side to the enemy. He held back on that temptation, thinking that it would be better to wait, when he could hit this enemy with the full strength of that side of the station.

  “We got one,” yelled out one of the males at the tactical station. One of the holos showed a ship flying from a brilliant flare that had to be a missile detonation. Moments later it broke into two pieces, both flying off in different directions. There were other holos hanging above the station, each showing one of the ships they were fighting. All showed heavy damage, with the exception of one of the larger enemy vessels that had just entered the fray.

  “Destroy that ship,” shouted the Great Admiral, wanting to take part in the battle and not remain bystander.

  The station shook as it sent off a full spread of missiles, all aimed at the large sh
ip, which was lashing the fort with beam weapons. Only six got within proximity of the superbattleship, the bright flare obscuring the ship for several seconds. When the flare died down the ship was still there, but the two laser rings on the stern were cracked and dark.

  “Now hit that one,” he ordered, pointing at the holo of the other superbattleship. If we can kill both of those monsters, we can break them.

  The station shook again, much like other hits. What followed was nothing like the other hits, as the station shook like it was on the ground in the middle of a major quake.

  “What was that?” he asked, seeing one part of the schematic of the station turn an angry blinking red. A portion of the hull was red, and an expanding area under the armor. Reaching a hundred meters into the station, and a hundred meters wide, it grew as he watched, doubling, tripling, showing massive damage to the interior of the fort.

  “Major damage to sector twenty-seven,” called out one of the crew at the damage control station. “We have lost all contact with that sector.”

  The annihilated zone spread, until it hit the reinforced bulkheads that separated that sector from the bordering ones. Even there it burst through in a couple of places.

  “Twelve are coming through,” yelled out a terrified voice.

  H’rastarawaa looked away from the damage schematic to the tactical holo, which showed a dozen vector arrows within two seconds of the station. One disappeared, followed by two others that were caught in the blast of that one intercept. Two others tumbled away, detonating moments later and sending heat and radiation into the fort. Three hit directly into the target area, a three gigaton detonation that not only burst through hull in many places, but pushed a fast moving wall of plasma into the opening made by the particle beams. That wall broke through the armored firebreak around sector twenty-seven and flared into the surrounding areas, destroying cubic kilometers of the interior and killing thousands of Cacas.

  The last four warheads were caught in the explosion and detonated themselves with hundreds of meters of the hull, adding their fury to the onslaught of the fort.

  The deck actually threw males into the air as it rebounded. The Great Admiral flew from his feet and hit the nearby console. A sharp pain shot through his lower left arm, and he knew that the bone in the forearm had broken.

  The command center was in the most shielded portion of the fort. Not only was it the best protected by armor, with extra shielding in its sector, and even reinforced bulkheads. It was also the best protected by inertial compensators, and even with that extra absorption of the shock the impact had been terrible. As it was, almost half the bridge crew was put out of action.

  Around the rest of the station it was much worse. In the hangar areas, where three quarters of the station’s fighters were still in the process of being prepped and readied, the shock wave threw the hundred ton vessels around like they were made of hollow plastic. Many flipped over, others were thrown against the wall. Pilots were killed in their craft, or still making their way to the ladders leading to their cockpits. Crew were thrown around all over the station, breaking limbs and skulls. Liquid conduits broke and sprayed water and coolants over walls.

  When the blast flare cleared, the station, though still superficially intact, was for all intents and purposes dead. Most of its internal systems were gone, totally destroyed. That which was repairable no longer had the healthy personnel to fix it. And the battleships that were still hammering the station with beam weapons were not about to let it come back online.

  * * *

  Sevastopol shook from one last hit, a particle beam that ripped through some of her armor near her centerline. The beam punched through the weakened outer armor and underlying structure, through part of the cooling system underneath, barely missing one of the side missile magazines by fifteen meters. The powerful beam vaporized its way through the armored side of the amidships central capsule, one of the three areas of the ship holding the more heavily protected resources, including quarters, messing facilities and one of the medlabs. Said medlab was directly in the path of the beam, which burned through the hull and incinerated twenty-six medical personnel and almost a hundred evacuated injured. In a flash they were all gone.

  Captain Vladimir Schmidt felt a bit of relief as the beam was off by the one hundred and forty meters it would have needed to hit the bridge, which would have killed him and his command crew. Relief turned to anger as the path of the beam sank in.

  “Captain,” called out the shaken Com Officer, who had also realized that they were alive by stupid luck. “The Commodore is on the com.”

  Schmidt nodded, and the face of the Commodore appeared on a side holo. The bridge behind her had a beat up look, and he realized that Ekaterina might have been hurt even more than his own command.

  “Schmidt. Our plasma torpedoes are offline. I want you and all the other ships to fire a spread of torpedoes at that fort, so we can move on and take care of further business.”

  “Gladly, ma’am,” replied the Captain, motioning for the Helm Officer to align the ship for that action. “Tactical Officer. Prepare the plasma torpedoes for firing.”

  “Yes, sir,” said that officer, turning to input the command into his board.

  Like all older ships, meaning something that had been common up to a couple of years ago, Sevastopol carried two plasma torpedo tubes front and rear. They were termed Finishers by crews, as they were normally only employed at very close range to finish off already badly damaged vessels. Plasma was carried preheated in one of the reaction chambers, then shifted to the second one, where the temperature was raised to several million degrees. On receiving the firing command, the containment capsule was ejected into the chamber behind the plasma and the whole mass, a ton of plasma plus the capsule, was fired through the acceleration tube. The weapon lacked range because the following capsule could only project its magnetic containment field for a couple of minutes before burning out, and the plasma would cool rapidly as it was exposed to space.

  It exited the ship at point zero zero six light, a mere eighteen hundred kilometers per second, taking three and a third seconds to splash into the target. The two, one ton spheres of plasma hit the side of the fortress that was already heavily damaged from missile and particle beam strikes. The torpedoes of three other ships join the assault seconds later, and eight tons of million degree plasma splashed into every opening of the hull it could find, making some new openings through parts that had been weakened but not completely torn through. The plasma ravaged through the hull, burning into intact areas where living crew still sheltered, vaporizing machinery and Ca’cadasans, and thousands of their slaves, whose only crime was to be dragged along by their masters to this time and place.

  Moments after the torpedoes hit the target area was mostly molten or vaporized alloy, while a good quarter of the previously intact interior of the fort was now gutted.

  The battleships turned away, all but the most heavily damaged of them, which was left behind with the task of continuing to hammer the remains of the station until it was obvious that nothing could have survived.

  * * *

  Suttler clenched the arm of his chair as another battleship came through the gate attached to his own ship. There were now fifteen battleships stationed between his gate ships and the enemy. He was still waiting for the light cruisers and destroyers that were needed to deepen the defensive screen. In the meantime The battleships were doing a good job of blocking the enemy force which was trying to get at the gates. That enemy had to know it was a losing battle if they couldn’t stop those gates from discharging ships.

  The gate attached to his ships discharged another vessel, this one of those cruisers he was waiting for. Next through was scheduled to be an assault ship, not something he needed, but definitely the kind of support vessel the soldiers on the planet would soon need.

  The volley of missiles, over a hundred and fifty of them, came screaming in at point three light. That was still slow for missiles, but
fast enough to present a challenge to the defenses of the guarding ships. Counter missiles took out over half of them on far approach. Lasers took out sixty more, before the fourteen remaining boosted past the battleships, looking for the target they had been programmed for. Ten of them were destroyed by the close in weapons of the battleships that hit them with a crossfire. Several of the ships hit their companions, though the fast firing weapons cause only minor damage to a heavily armored vessel. The warheads detonated close enough to three of the battleships to cause significant hull scaring on the sections facing the explosions.

  One of the missiles that had made it through the close in defensive fire was kicked over by the blast particles and went spinning out of control. Three made it through intact, their sensors scanning for the targets they had been set to look for. Two located the same target, while the third couldn’t find what it was looking for and instead locked onto the largest vessel in the area, an eight million ton assault ship.

  The lone missile that homed in on the attack ship almost made it through untouched. The assault ship, the Kharkov, picked up the missile at the last moment. The ship was not equipped for ship to ship offensive operations, but the defensive suite was comparable to that of a heavy cruiser. Short range lasers fired, while the missile juked and swerved, its jamming systems coming up to full power. Close in weapons took over, sending a wave of explosive shells toward the missile. One shell hit the missile body, shredding it, and the warhead followed suit. The weapon detonated five kilometers off the bow of the ship, sending its blast of radiation into that part of the vessel.

  The ship shuddered from the breech of its lightly armored hull, and one of the forward hangars blew open, throwing orbit to atmospheric craft out into space, destroying a quarter of the ship’s complement of support craft. Kharkov limped on, trying to get into position to support the people on the surface while streaming atmosphere from multiple hull breaches.