Only a thousand missiles made it past that final approach stage, one twentieth of the initial storm. The defense had been amazingly successful, taking out that many missiles. But one thousand weapons, all carrying gigaton range warheads, was still a frightening prospect for the ships targeted. One hundred and twelve missiles actually hit, killing one hundred and three ships, mostly destroyers and cruisers, though three battleships joined the plasma cloud that was spreading through the fleet. Most of the rest were near misses, what were called proximity kills, warheads that detonated close enough to a ship to send significant heat and radiation into the hull. In some cases it could result in a kill, and a battle cruiser, three light cruisers and nine destroyers exploded from the damage caused antimatter breach.
And then it was over, and the fleet, battered but not destroyed, was still heading in. All of the super heavy battleships survived, as did all of their wormhole tubes, though two had sustained some hull damage.
Now they assess the damage they did, based on how many of our ships are still emitting gravitons, and react accordingly, thought the Admiral. It didn’t take long, only a couple of minutes, until that reaction materialized.
“We have missile launch,” called out the Tactical Officer, as the first of the red vector arrows appeared. After the multiple volleys were fired they had a count of the missiles coming in. Thirty thousand, and the Admiral had to wonder if they could weather this storm as well, or if his fleet would be mere wreckage after they arrived.
* * *
The Crakista known as The Admiral in Charge of the Republic Battle Fleet stared at her own holo as the mixed force moved through hyperspace. Since the majority of her ships could only achieve hyper VI, that was the dimension they were traveling in. Now she was second guessing herself, wondering if she should have sent her hyper VII ships ahead in the higher dimension. There weren’t many of those, and they didn’t include any battleships or heavy cruisers, only a couple of score battle cruisers and a hundred and fifty odd light cruisers and destroyers. And if she ordered them to translate into VII now, it would take more than a day to decel down to where they could make the transition.
The warm blooded reptiloid did not feel any guilt from her decision possibly not being the best she could have made. Her people didn’t feel guilt. Or, more accurately, they subsumed any guilt they felt under the calm they had trained into themselves. Her people felt emotions, and in fact felt them deeper than most other intelligent species. Almost killing themselves off in a world war gave them reason to explore how to control those emotions, and now they were known throughout the region as being emotionless.
And that is definitely not true, she thought, watching the battle in the system over wormhole com, observing as the human force absorbed the Ca’cadasan’s first missile attack, and now tried to prepare for a second one that would be hitting them in just under four hours. We want to live as much as anyone else in this fleet. And the fear of ending before we accomplish all that life has to offer lives just as deeply in our minds as it does in those of the humans.
The Admiral looked around her flag bridge, still mostly manned by her own people, with the addition of fourteen humans who were liaison with the Republic’s contribution to the force. She could read the lines of tension in those humans, the fear for their own safety, and the even greater fear for the safety of other humans, both Imperial military and the civilians of a rival power. Glancing at several of her own people, she could read the tension within them as well, something no human could do with someone of her species. They hid it well, but it was still there.
“ETA?” she asked, something she had already calculated, but still desired confirmation of.
“Fifty-one hours,” called out the Navigator.
So if I tried to get my hyper VII ships there sooner, they might arrive a couple of hours before the rest of us, she thought, her tail twitching in a sign of negation. They would not get there in time to influence this battle, and would arrive a couple of hours after the enemy relief fleet. Too late to be of use now, and maybe too weak to really tip the balance later. Since it was the only thing they could do, she pushed the worry down, concentrating on what they could do. Even if all they could do was grant the evacuation effort on the planet some more hours, so they could save some millions more of the human civilians.
* * *
Suttler did not like the way things were going in the battle of the outer system. His part was going just fine. They had eliminated all enemy resistance in the orbit of the planet and beyond, all the support ships had come through the wormholes, and were now in place to defend the planet. It still wasn’t a large enough force in his opinion, but no one had asked him his opinion.
Now the fleet heading toward the planet had been hit by what had looked like the best the enemy could do. Except now they had launched an even larger missile storm. And the wave of missiles coming in from the human fleet just didn’t look large enough to do much harm to that force. If only the inertialess fighters had accomplished something, thought the Commodore, replaying the scene of the tactical holo in his mind over his implant. Only one wing had been able to attack on the first pass, and had had the shit shot out of it. The same was true of the second attack pass, only they had come back into normal space too far to immediately strike. And that wing had been destroyed. What was a real shock to the people watching that part of the battle from afar was that it had failed so completely, when such attacks in the past had been devastating to the Cacas.
Has our new wonder weapon already become obsolete? he thought. That was an eventual aspect of war that everyone had to deal with, on both sides. Technological innovations worked well for a time period, sometimes devastatingly well. And then the other side developed countermeasures. Of course, this failure had not come about because of enemy action, but due to the failure of the fighters to find their targets while in their warp bubbles.
There has to be a way around that, thought the Commodore, who had applauded the deployment of the fighters in past battles as a game changer. So far, no one had come up with a way to communicate with the fighters while they were in the bubble.
And the enemy should be getting their next surprise right about now.
* * *
“We have missile launch,” called out the Tactical Officer.
The High Admiral leaned forward in his chair and stared at the tactical plot, watching as more vector arrows appeared, with impossible velocity figures beneath them. There seemed to be hundreds of the arrows, closely bunched.
“How many?” asked the High Admiral with a sinking voice.
“Nine hundred, my Lord. Not an overwhelming number.”
Not by themselves, but added to what is already coming at us, thought the High Admiral. “What is their launched velocity?”
“It’s.” The Tactical Officer stammered for a moment while he stared in disbelief. “Point nine light. Acceleration, five thousand gravities.”
“Estimated velocity when they reach us?”
“Point nine eight light, my Lord.”
“That’s impossible. What would be their velocity if they came at the same time as the other missiles?”
“Point nine five light, my Lord.”
While it wasn’t technically impossible that the missiles couldn’t reach point nine eight light or above, there were many practical considerations that made it unlikely. At point nine eight light the missiles would have more than five times their mass at rest, as compared three point two two at the standard max of point nine five light. At point nine nine it was over seven times rest mass. The missiles still had enough capacity to move themselves even at that mass, but they would move more slowly, to the point that they would become easier targets. And the time dilation would change by the same factor, meaning that missiles traveling much faster than point nine five light would also have less subjective time for their own comps to calculate. Even worse for the missiles was the velocity generated radiation, which would degrade the effectiveness of th
e seeker heads.
“Then that is when they will strike,” said the High Admiral, sure that he was correct.
More vector arrows bloomed on the plot, a little ahead of the wave of missiles already headed their way. “Number?” blurted the High Admiral.
“Twenty thousand, my Lord,” said the disbelieving Tactical Officer. “I don’t know where they came from. They just appeared out of nowhere. Like they had been coasting, and just turned on their grabbers.”
“And they will get here at the same time as the other wave?”
“Yes, my Lord. They will.”
So now the wave of missiles headed their way had almost doubled, and nine hundred of them would be coming in at a maximal attack velocity, hardest to target, hardest hitting. What other tricks do they have? thought the High Admiral. Should I launch another wave at them, while I have the time, or wait until I can assess the damage from my first strike?
He finally decided to wait. He had already sent off two massive volleys, and a third would just about run his magazines dry. While there was another force to fight after he destroyed the enemy fleet to his front.
Chapter Twenty-four
The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by.
Sebastian Junger
PLANET NEW MOSCOW, LATE AFTERNOON. APRIL 8TH, 1002.
Cat felt like her legs were going to give out as she walked through the tunnels. At least they’re cool, thought the child. The temperature had to be five degrees cooler under this cover. It was revitalizing in a way, but not enough to completely overcome the weakness of months in the camps.
The walls of this tunnel were obviously of artificial construction, the rock fused and polished. Hopefully enough to handle a heavy weapon. The look of them made Cat feel safer, that and all the military around them.
The line through the tunnel ended at a large cavern, where several openings fed more people into the chamber. There were people with flatcomps here, talking to refugees as they entered and inputting information into their devices.
A woman in a soft uniform sans body armor approached her, looking down at Cat.
“Where are your parents, young lady?”
“They got harvested in the camp,” she replied, feeling deep despair at the thought of her parents killed by the Cacas, even if she had never actually seen them taken.
“I am so sorry,” said the woman, who seemed genuinely caring. “What’s your name?”
Cat gave her all of her information, the woman, wearing an Imperial Navy uniform, entering all the data into the comp. Other people were finishing with their interviewers and headed for another line, this one eight people wide, that was shuffling forward into the silver mirror set in a heavy frame.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Cat asked, looking up at the woman, who was pulling a small strap from a pouch and running it over her comp.
“We’ll find a family to take care of you. And you’ll be given the choice of living in the Empire, or coming back here as soon as we have this space secured.”
Cat thought about that as the woman put the band on her left wrist. She had no doubt that it was a tracking device of some type, with her personal information on it. And she was not sure she wanted to live in the Empire. Not after hearing mostly negative things about it while growing up. But these people had come here to save them. While Cat wasn’t a military strategist, she did know enough to realize the Imperial Fleet would have been better served to have just bypassed this system, or at least have taken on the Cacas with a straight out invasion. Instead they had risked disaster to try to save as many civilians as possible.
“We need to get you off planet,” said the woman, gesturing to the line. “The band will identify you as someone who needs special help. Have you ever been through a wormhole before?”
Cat shook her head as she stared at the silver mirror, which seemed to ripple as people moved through it. Each refugee stepped into the mirror, then seemed to be sucked in, moving like they were jogging forward.
“Of course you haven’t. Well, you just step into it and you will step out on another world. It’s a little scary at first, but nothing to worry about. Now off you go.”
Cat nodded, then ran toward the line and got in the back. The line moved quickly, with more people coming in from behind so that it never ended. When it came Cat’s turn she hesitated for one moment, and people behind her started calling for her to go. She stepped forward, putting her right foot into the mirror. As soon as her foot sunk in she felt like some force was pulling her forward, and she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The child stepped out on an open field filled with people. A sun shone down from the sky, the light a bit different from what she was used to. She felt slightly lighter on her feet, the gravity less. There were people in uniform all around, and aircars, including ambulances, around the edge of the field, which looked to be a large tract of grazing land. In the distance the towers of a city rose toward the cloudless sky.
A group of people walked through the crowd, centered around a young man in an ornate uniform. Directly around the man was a group of men and women in civilian clothes, all moving with the grace of dancers, or some of the warriors the child had seen on New Moscow, men not in armor who had been at the caves. Around the security was another layer of protection, soldiers or Marines in medium powered armor. She didn’t know who the man was, only that he must have been someone very important.
“That’s him,” said a woman, pointing a finger at the man. “That’s the Emperor.”
New Moscow was a kingdom, an Empire in all but name, and unlike the Republic, people knew how to respond to those of higher class. While not as subservient as the citizens of ancient Empires, they still engaged in the protocols. Now tens of thousands of people took a knee and bowed their heads in respect for the Monarch. He may not have been their ruler. In fact, they didn’t know if they still had a ruler. He was, however, the ruler who had ordered his military to free them from certain death.
People started to shout at the man, thank you, bless you, other acknowledgements of thanks. Cat took a knee with them, looking down at the ground, feeling the tears flowing from her eyes. Everyone around her was cheering, but she could not find the voice to say anything. She wasn’t sure how long she was down there, until she realized someone was standing over her, looking down at her.
Cat looked up, her eyes widening as she saw who it was. Blue eyes in a tan face looked down on her, a warm smile stretching his lips.
“And who are you, child?” he asked, holding out his hand to help her to her feet.
“I am Cat, your, your Majesty,” said Cat.
“I like cats. They’re one of my favorite animals.” The man looked around a bit, then back down at the child. “Where are your parents, Cat?”
A small woman standing beside the man aimed a flat comp at her, looking at the screen. She moved closer to the Emperor and whispered in his ear.
“I am so sorry. But we will get the Cacas back. Believe me.”
She did believe the man. She wasn’t sure why. She had seen the power of the Ca’cadasans, who had crushed the pride of the Czar’s military without effort. But for some reason she believed that the military of this man would return the favor on the hated aliens.
What looked sort of like a man on a horse approached at a trot, the refugees hurrying out of its way. She realized that it was not a human, but some kind of scale covered alien with a large snout full of teeth. It wore a naval uniform fitted to its form.
“Your Majesty,” said the creature in a rumbling voice, bowing.
“Yes, Commodore.”
“We’re processing these people as fast as possible, but many of them are coming through in worse shape than we thought.”
“I understand, Doc,” said the Emperor, and Cat noticed the emblems of medical corps on the being’s collar. “Just make sure they aren’t going to die of something
unrecoverable. If they’re too sick to move, put them in cryo and get them out of here, so we can keep bringing them in.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve found quarters for about a million of them in the city, but we’ll have ship most of them to other venues.”
Cat couldn’t stop staring at the creature. She thought that if the Emperor had creatures like these in his military, beings larger even than the Cacas, he couldn’t lose.
“What’s going to happen to me?” asked Cat, reaching up and taking the Emperor’s hand.
“What do you want to happen to you?”
“I want to grow up to fight the things that killed my parents.”
“Then that is what you will do. But first you need to grow up, and learn to be an adult.”
The Emperor patted Cat on the head, then walked on, leaving her to stand there on the field, the huge Commodore looking down at her.
“Come with me, child,” said the Commodore. “We are gathering the children without parents in the city. We’ll get you a family to stay with, until we can figure out something permanent.”
“You need to walk slow, sir,” said Cat, fascinated with the immense size of the being.
“I’ll do you one better, child,” said the creature. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”
“A couple of times.”
The being knelt down on both sets of legs, grabbed her with his arms, lifting her onto his back. “Hold on tight,” he said, and started off at a trot.
For the first time in months Cat finally felt safe.
* * *
SECTOR IV.
Sean watched the Commodore in charge of Sector IV Fleet Medical go trotting off with the child he had just met seated on his back like he was a horse. He smiled at the sight. Phlistarans loved children, even those not of their own species. They were consummate parents. So he wasn’t too surprised that the flag officer was playing horsey with a parentless child.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 35
