“Your transport will be waiting in five minutes,” said the Brigade Leader, coming up to the General. “I wish you would reconsider, my Lord.”
The General waved that protest away with the wave of his hands. He would get to the place where he could exercise command, and he would have the heads of the obstructionist incompetents who could not put him in touch with his other commanders. He looked forward to that last.
* * *
“We have liberated all of the camps, your Majesty,” said Senior Marshal Beatrice Sanginawa, the commander of the Imperial Army in Sector IV, and the overall ground force commander of the operation in New Moscow space.
“And how are we doing with the evacuation?” asked Sean, sitting in his chair in the Hexagon conference room where all the principals involved in the operation were seated, at least holographically.
“We’re starting on it,” said the Senior Marshal, a troubled look on her face. “It may take a little longer than we predicted.”
“How much longer?” The initial plan had called for three days to get everyone off the planet. Eventually, many of them would be coming back, if things worked as planned.
“Five days to a week,” she said, looking down at the table. “There were, complications we didn’t foresee. There were more survivors than we thought going in, and the estimates of getting them through the gates were, well, too optimistic.”
Sean looked over at the tactical holo that showed the overall area of operations. The Republic had taken their objective, with a seventy some percent success rate. They had lost some civilians on every one of the planets they had taken. And they had lost one planet entirely, over thirty million civilians.
The Emperor didn’t like those numbers from his allies operation. But he realized that things happened, and that the Republic had done the best they could. He couldn’t blame them for a fail, when they had saved almost a hundred million people. Some of his other operations hadn’t gone off as well either, and his forces had also lost a planet, along with thirty million, while saving another ninety million. But they had over seven hundred and sixty million humans on New Moscow, three and a half times the number of people they had saved on the other worlds combined. This was the nation of New Moscow, the heart and soul, a seed that could grow a new kingdom.
“What do you plan to do about it?” he asked the Army commander, pinning her holographic image with a stare.
“We have people working on the problem,” she told him, returning the gaze. “We still have to fight a battle on the planetary surface, and the Fleet,” the woman’s eyes glanced over at Sondra McCullom, who was actually in the room at the Hexagon, “through no fault of theirs,” she said hurriedly, “is not able to provide us with the support and logistics we need. So we’re going to have to work out the means of getting what we need to the surface of the planet ourselves. Which means we are going to have to use the wormholes.”
“And if you don’t get the support you need?”
“Then, your Majesty, we will be forced to continue fighting the Cacas all through the evacuation, and I can almost guarantee we will lose a hundred million or more of the refugees.”
“And that is unacceptable,” said Sean, looking back at the holo. “A million is not acceptable, but I know we will lose more than that. A hundred million,” he shook his head. “No way will I allow that to happen.”
The Senior Marshal looked away, unable to meet the eyes of her ruler. Sean felt bad for the woman, and he would make it up to her, someday. But at the moment he needed her on the hot seat, using her brain to come up with a solution.
“What can the Fleet do about it, Sondra?”
“We are already doing everything we can, your Majesty,” said the Chief of Naval Operations. “We were not expecting to lose a gate so early in the operation.”
“But you can get more logistical support and reinforcements to the ground forces?” he asked. When she didn’t answer immediately he knew she didn’t want to say what she knew he wouldn’t like, even though he had proven in the past he was not a shoot the messenger type of ruler. “Look, I can’t blame you for something like losing a gate to enemy fire. I wish you had added some more redundancy into the equation, but there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. So, what’s the solution? What about bringing the logistics support in through the gates that are riding along with the invasion force moving insystem?”
“We could do that, your Majesty,” said McCullom, shaking her head. “But it will still take over twenty-eight hours to get any of those ships into orbit, and we will have to guard them through a battle. I really don’t see how bringing them in right now is going to help. Maybe once we get the gates in orbit.”
“So, no matter what we do, we will probably still be fighting the Cacas on the surface when this force,” he pointed to the Caca fleet that was coming in from outside New Moscow space, “arrives at the hyper barrier and attacks our fleet. Which, if I understand it, outnumbers us to the point where we have little chance of winning the battle. Which means,” he said, trying to keep his voice under control and only partially succeeding, “we will still be struggling to evacuate a hundred and fifty million or more civilians while their fleet is inserting themselves into orbit and bombarding us from space.”
He looked back at the holo, focusing on Lenkowski’s force, which would be able to challenge that Caca fleet. But they would not get to the hyper barrier of the system until well after the enemy fleet was bombarding the planet and landing troops on the surface.
“So we have four days before this force enters the system,” said Sean, highlighting the large Caca fleet, which, though it wasn’t the size of the one he had defeated at Massadara or Conundrum, was still a powerful force, “which means we have three days to figure out a way to either get all the civilians out of New Moscow, or have something in place that can defeat the Cacas.”
“We only have the ships we have, your Majesty,” protested McCullom. “We should have stationed a larger blocking force. It’s too late to bother with that.”
Sean looked over at the holo again, taking in ship deployments, calculating the transit times, his superior mind crunching the numbers much faster than most.
“What about moving these ships in from these star systems,” he said, pointing to large task groups in the Republic area of operations.
“That still wouldn’t completely redress the balance of forces,” said McCullom after looking at the holo for a minute, then pulling up some information in her personal flat comp. “And those are not our forces to command.”
“But it will help,” insisted Sean, looking from face to face. “I’ll get in touch with the President of the Republic immediately,” he said next, dismissing the meeting with that statement. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Now get to work on something else while I partially plug the hole in our order of battle.”
* * *
“I’ll issue the orders immediately, your Majesty,” said President Julia Graham over the wormhole com.
“You do realize that you are putting those units out on a limb?” asked Sean, his anxious face looking out of the holo.
“Part of the game, isn’t it. I really don’t like sending my forces into that kind of situation. But you were there for us when we were being rolled over, and if it gets some more of those civilians away it’s worth it. And it’s the right thing to do.”
“Thank you, Julia. I appreciate it. And I’m sure the people of New Moscow will appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, Sean. Just use my people well. I don’t expect for all of them to come back, but if they don’t, please don’t waste them.”
“I can guarantee that we will treat them the same as we do our own.”
The holo blanked, and President Graham realized that the Emperor of her larger ally had more on his plate than anyone should have to deal with. Well, I’ve got the same, she thought. She never thought she would be the President of the Republic during its direst hour, when her people faced
a merciless enemy in a war of annihilation. Again she thought of the camps she had toured on her own capital planet after they had recaptured it from the Cacas. That image alone would have pushed her into making this decision.
“Admiral,” she said as the holo came back to life, showing the reptilian face of the commander of her joint battle fleet. “I have a new mission for you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived.
Simon Wiesenthal.
NEW MOSCOW SPACE, MID DAY, APRIL 8TH, 1002.
Suttler watched the viewer as a ship came out of the gate attached to his ship. The gate had been down for almost twenty minutes, the wormhole dilated to a couple of meters across, while the engineering crew had hastily laid down some new superconductor cable to replace the section which had been damaged by the heavy radiation influx. It had been tense, watching the Assistant Engineer and his twelve people, along with some robots, lay in that cable while a space battle was going on around them. The force had only had two gates to bring ships through during that time period, and they were far behind the buildup time table. But now they were back to three gates, and while they would never catch up, at least they wouldn’t be falling behind as fast.
The near enemy force had been sending missile volley after missile volley at the human force, damaging many of the ships that were gathered around these wormhole gates. They have to be running through their magazines, he thought. The Caca ships had no way of resupplying their missile magazines at this time. When they fired off all they had on board they were no longer capable of attacking from long range. And he couldn’t see them coming in close for a beam to beam fight. Not when they had been getting pounded in return throughout the exchange. There wasn’t an intact warship in that group, and he could only imagine what kind of damage they had taken to their laser and particle beam systems.
The destroyer finished its transit and moved away, curving its vector to get into place to defend against the massive missile storm heading in from further outsystem. That force was still on a vector to meet up with the human task group coming in from the outer system. They still outnumbered that force, and obviously wanted to defeat it before turning back in and fighting the human task group in orbit. Or maybe they would just continue out of the system and save themselves.
Another ship came through almost immediately. Another destroyer, another specialized missile defense ship. The destroyers were coming through faster than capital ships. They were more maneuverable, and command seemed willing to risk faster transits with the smaller screening vessels.
He looked over at the tactical holo, which showed all of the Imperial ships that were now in orbit around the planet, most in the one large group in far orbit that surrounded the three working gates. There were two score capital ships among that group, now joined by almost the same number of smaller screening vessels, and the one assault ship. Many of those vessels had sustained damage already, some severe, especially those who had taken on the massive orbital fortress.
The next ship to come through was a surprise to the Commodore, who had been expecting more screening vessels to deal with the incoming missile storm. Obviously someone higher up the chain of command had decided that another assault ship was needed by the ground forces. While it was probably a good decision as far as those ground forces were concerned, Suttler was a naval officer, and to him the most important part of this operation was the naval battle to control the space in the system. If the naval component failed, the whole operation failed.
The assault ship completed its transit and boosted toward the planet, moving to take up its own launch station. The assault ship that had come through earlier, the damaged vessel, was still moving into position, a pair of destroyers riding herd.
“Watch it,” called a voice over the com net.
Suttler’s head whipped around, focusing on the tactical holo that showed a dozen missiles from the most recent volley breaking through the defensive screen. And all of them were ranging on one of his ships, one with its own gate, which was currently transiting a fleet carrier.
“Get them,” he whispered under his breath as two of the missiles disappeared from the plot, detonated by defensive lasers. Moments later another pair disappeared, then three more. Two disappeared when the wave was within five seconds of hitting its target. Suttler was beginning to think they might get them all when one more disappeared, until the last two made it into final approach. One of those missiles was taken out by the underpowered close in defense systems of the stealth/attack. The other came in unerringly, hitting amidships on the vessel, just forward of the gate on the same side it was housed, detonating with a blinding flash.
The gigaton class warhead vaporized the ship in and instant, the explosion reaching out to completely destroy the framework of the gate in the same instant. The tip of the nose of a heavy cruiser was poking through at that instant. It caught the brunt of the blast, blowing through its armor and into the body of the ship. The wormhole disappeared a microsecond later, which was all that saved the crew in the forward half of the ship. The ship continued forward in the space it was in, no longer transiting a wormhole that wasn’t there anymore.
Suttler stared at the disaster, his eyes squinting to handle the brightness of the explosion that was already stepped down a hundred fold. Hundreds of people died in that blast, a tragedy in and of itself. But even worse, they were already behind in getting ships across from their deployment points into the battle, and now they had lost half of their deploying capability. In the long run that could lead to the death of millions, and the loss of this battle.
* * *
Captain Nora Kevista sat in the cockpit of her F310 orbit to atmosphere fighter, the Pteranodon, waiting for the permission to take off. Her flight mates were up on her console, three faces looking out of the screens while the status of their craft were indicated on the bars beneath them.
Nora anxiously waited. They should have already been sent into action, but when Kharkov was damaged right after coming through the gate the entire timetable had gone to hell. A third of the wing had been destroyed or damaged when the hanger they had been housed in had been damaged by that blast.
Kharkov shook as she was hit by something coming up from the planet. The Captain had no idea what it was, as that information was not coming over her system, but if it was enough to send vibrations through the eight million ton vessel, it had to be something big. Let us off this big bitch, she thought, wanting to shout over the com.
“Alpha tango seven two one,” came the call over her com. “You are cleared for launch. Good luck Nova.”
Hot damn, thought the Captain, checking to see that her flight was also ready. “We’re on, Joey,” she told Warrant Three Thomas Joseph Jasper.
“About time,” said the sensor/weapons officer, sitting in the second cockpit behind her own.
“Here we go,” she replied as the counter on her dash went from three to zero in what seemed to be slow motion. The fighter flew out of the hanger, its three flight mates around it, all under control of the ship until they were well clear.
Something hit the assault carrier moment after they left, a bright flash by the bow. A destroyer that was moving between the carrier and the planet was firing back, trying to interpose itself and its defensive systems to protect the injured vessel. A particle beam shot up from the planet and hit the electromagnetic screen of the destroyer. The beam was spread by the field from a meter wide to five meters, still pushing through the screen, but striking the armor of the destroyer in a more attenuated beam that still pushed the energy into the hull. But, being a wider beam, it lacked the penetration of a weapon that would have put twenty-five times the energy per meter that this beam did. It still blew through much of the armor, being a battleship grade weapon, and the destroyer spun on its long axis to turn part of its still intact armor toward the planet.
Shuttles were
leaving the carrier on the tails of the fighters. Much larger craft, with heavier armor, they were carrying double squads of heavy infantry. Hundreds of smaller capsules, each carrying an individual infantryman, were being fired out of the ships by acceleration tubes, veering onto a course that would bring them down close to their landing zone on the planet.
And then she had no time for anything but her own entry into the atmosphere, which she was approaching at twenty kilometers per second. That was almost slow motion as compared to space flight, but for something about to come slashing into the thick gas blanket of an inhabited planet, it was fast indeed.
Nora twisted her stick, moving her ship out of the way of a beam that was firing up from the planet and being swept in an arc in an attempt to destroy the incoming fighters. All of her flight mates followed suit, and the beam missed them. A fighter in another flight, part of her squadron, didn’t move in time, and the particle beam swept through the aircraft and turned it into an expanding cloud of plasma.
The fighter starting bucking as it hit the outer atmosphere, the outer skin heating up quickly, rising to over several thousand degrees. She applied her grabbers, decelerating at five hundred gravities for several seconds, bringing her speed down to ten kilometers per second. She banked on her grabbers, her wingman pulling in close, the other team of the flight closing up on each other and taking up station several hundred meters to her starboard.
“Transitioning to atmospheric flight,” she called out over her com, hitting the panel which caused her craft to covert from a reentry vehicle to a true air combat fighter. The wings swept out from the fuselage, adding their lift and maneuverability to her profile, while staying in close enough to not interfere with the hypersonic flight.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 28
