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

by Doug Dandridge

  Cornelius ducked down, using the body of the Caca for cover while he caught his breath and took an appraisal of the situation. His HUD was functioning, or at least most of it, now that the self-repair nanites had gone to work. What he saw almost made him stop breathing. He only had about seventy effectives left. Less than thirty of his original company, and the replacements had been hit just as bad. The heavy weapons platoon that had been seconded to him was at squad strength, and all of the tanks were gone. There were at least three hundred Cacas still on the field, and no telling how many more on the way. Even as he looked two of his people, replacements, men he didn’t really know, fell off the plot.

  With a growl the Captain was back on his feet, looking for Cacas. The battle line stretched along eight kilometers, the space between along the side of the field between the camp and the jungled foothills. That was a lot of area for so few troops, even fewer now, and it took him a second to find a target through the smoke and dust, the burning tanks and particle beam heated suits spoofing his sensors. He finally found one to shoot, and sent that one to whatever afterlife the Cacas believed in.

  We’re going to lose this one, thought the Captain, moving forward low to the ground, looking for the next target, then finding a squad of the enemy moving up. He aimed at one, knowing the others would target him immediately, and prepared for what he was sure was going to be his last battle. I knew I wasn’t going to live forever, he thought as he started to squeeze the trigger, his mind already picking out his next three targets. I wanted to go back home, to see Devera and Junior again, and the squirt, Rebecca. But I’m a soldier, and I knew this came with the territory.

  Before he could pull the trigger the Cacas turned to the south, swinging their weapons that way. Particle beams flew through the air, and one of the Cacas went down, the others looking for cover. He followed his target in his scope and got off the shot before that being could make it to cover, hitting him in the lower torso. The Caca fell to the earth and tried crawling away, until Cornelius put a two second blast into his back.

  What the hell is going on? thought the Captain, turning to the south to see a line of heavy suits flying low over the ground, firing away with particle beams and grenade launchers, here and there one shooting off a rocket from a backpack launcher. And the Cacas went into full retreat as the attack moved in, their victory turning over into defeat in a heartbeat.

  * * *

  Captain Artois looked over the tactical display as she landed among the people who had made it to the rally point before her. Thirty some had not made it there yet, and she looked over the map on her HUD as she waited.

  It looked like the Cacas were about to overrun the Ranger position. Other Rangers were attacking from the north, the company holding those positions sending a platoon to hit the flank. The Cacas were sending some of their troops that way, and it looked like the Ranger assault was going to be repulsed with heavy casualties. And to the south, by the jungle? Nothing that she could see except maybe a squad of Cacas as flank security.

  “That’s where we’re going,” she said to her platoon and squad leaders, as she sent a map of her intentions to every soldier in the company. “We’ll fly low to the ground and loop around into the jungle. And once we’re set, we’ll hit them in the flank with the whole company.”

  The acknowledgements came back, and she lifted her suit off the ground to a height of about a meter, then flew quickly to the assault point. She knew there was no time to lose. Any delay, and the Ranger line would be broken. Moving through the foliage of the jungle, which was almost devoid of animals, those that lived there having run away, she thought about what she was going to do.

  I’m no damned infantryman, she thought, landing twenty meters back in the jungle and waiting for the rest to assemble. I just want to build things, or sometimes blow them up. I didn’t want this shit.

  But she realized that she had signed up for it, when she had accepted her commission. They had never guaranteed that she would not have to throw her precious body into close combat. Only that it was unlikely in her specialty.

  “We’re all here,” called out her Exec over the com.

  “Everyone check weapons. We move in one minute. And please, check your targets before firing. I don’t want any friendly fire incidents if we can help it.”

  Again the acknowledgements came back, and she watched the clock tick down on her HUD. When it hit zero she gave the order, and one hundred and thirty-eight heavy suited engineers came crashing out of the jungle in a two kilometer long line and hit the Cacas in the flank.

  At first the aliens didn’t even know what was happening, many of them killed by shots from their sides that were their first indication an enemy was among them. One entire platoon of Cacas, moving up to reinforce the attack, was wiped out in less than a minute, though they did kill some of the engineers. Stella cringed as she watched her troops fall off the plot, the men and women she was responsible for. They were killing more of the Cacas than they were losing, thanks to the surprise they had been gifted with.

  About a kilometer into the attack the aliens started to realize that they had a menace on their flank, and some of them started to turn to meet the advance. Most were still caught up fighting the Rangers, and turning to meet the flank attack just meant they were turning their own flank to another enemy.

  “Keep moving,” the Captain yelled into the com. She had yet to fire her own rifle, all of her attention taken by keeping her company in a formation, keeping the two reserve squads under her command. They had swept four kilometers in when the HUD showed the Rangers to the north breaking through the Caca defense that had been weakened to send some of their troops against hers.

  The beams were flying fast and furious at the end, just before the Cacas broke and ran, the few that were left. Stella was just about to congratulate her people when one of the last Cacas to fire caught her in the chest with a particle beam. She screamed in pain as the beam, which didn’t fully penetrate the thickest part of her heavy suit, sent flash burns into her chest. She was still screaming as the suit injected her with pain killers and nanites. She was unconscious when the medics got to her.

  * * *

  Cornelius knew he should be shooting at the Cacas that were running away from the fight. After all, any they killed here were fewer they would need to hunt down in the coming weeks. The Captain was just too tired, fatigued to the bone. He was physically sapped, but also worn down on an emotional level. He lay there in a prone position, too tired to get up, looking over his command on his HUD. The Captain was almost in shock at his loses. Out of the company he had brought to this world, he had fifteen survivors, and six of them were too badly injured to fight without some hospital time.

  “You OK, sir?” asked his Top Sergeant over the com.

  He monitoring me, just like he’s supposed to, thought the officer of his tough noncom, one of two NCOs to survive. And I should have known that old bastard would survive.

  “This was no fight for Rangers, Top,” he replied to the First Sergeant. “They should have had heavy infantry here. This was their type of fight. We’re hunters, not line soldiers.”

  “We’re soldiers, first and foremost, sir. We go where they tell us, and do what they need doing. And if we die in the process, that’s just part of the deal.”

  “And how many times have you fought a battle like this?”

  “Like this? This is the first. And I hope the last. But if the Army tells me to do this again, I guess I be putting on one of these suits a reprising my role. But I much prefer to be the hunter as well, sir. I prefer to be the one initiating the action, not the punching bag.”

  Walborski forced himself up from the ground, looking over the field that was filled with the suits of the dead, holding what was left of their bodies. Maybe they’ll let us hunt down the stragglers, thought the Captain, shaking his head. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to do that. He had just wanted to kill Cacas, and now he thought he might have had a stomach full of ki
lling.

  * * *

  “They’re on the run in my sector, sir,” reported Baggett to his commanding officer. “On all fronts.”

  He raised his faceplate for a moment, then lowered it immediately, taking in a deep breath. I should have known better, he thought, looking out over the field that was covered in ruptured suits, Caca, Phlistaran and human. The stench had been unimaginable, the rotting smell of three similar but slightly different biologies.

  “We’ve got them on the run all over the planet, Samuel,” said General Lucius Arbuckle, a core of fatigue running through his voice. “But stay alert. Intelligence estimates that there are at least twenty thousand of the bastards still out there. I don’t think they’re going to be doing much but hiding, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they staged some raids.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You did good, Samuel,” said Arbuckle. “This one was a real bastard, but you did a great job.”

  “I guess.”

  “Try not to take the blame for the people you lost, Samuel,” said the older man. “I know you will, because God knows I will. But don’t go overboard. Get some rest, get some food and booze in your stomach, and learn from the experience. We’re going to need you further on down the road. This war is not over by a long shot, and I’m afraid we’re going to see a lot more battle fields before it’s over.”

  The General dropped out of the com, leaving Baggett alone with his own thoughts. He looked up at the sky. The Army’s part of this operation was all over but the mop up. Now it was up to the fleet to handle their part. He hoped they did, because he had been on the receiving end of one enemy attempt to retake a planet he was standing on. And he didn’t want to go through that again.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

  Winston Churchill.

  NEW MOSCOW SPACE, EVENING, APRIL 8TH, 1002.

  “Impact in twelve minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  The High Admiral gritted his teeth and watched the tactical plot, which showed over fifty thousand objects bearing down on his fleet. Not an insurmountable swarm, but one that was going to maul his command. Most of the objects were coming in at point eight-three light, a velocity that made them dangerous enough, if not the most dangerous weapons possible. That would be reserved for the nine hundred missiles that were coming in at point nine five light, while still accelerating. They would hit just a couple of seconds after the main swarm, while his ships’ computers were coming off their defensive cycle, at his most vulnerable.

  The wave had already blown past the fighter screen he had placed out ahead of his ships. They had accounted for some thousands of the missiles, while losing a couple of hundred of their own craft. He wished he had the same fighter capacity as the humans, with their dedicated carrier ships, another shortcoming they would have to make up in the near future. But not one they could compensate for at this time.

  The fleet had been sending out counter missiles for the last ten minutes, whittling down the swarm, though not enough to suit him. If he had his way the counters would take out seventy-five percent of that swarm, though forty percent was a more realistic figure. He was thinking fifty to sixty percent, when the missiles brought their jamming up to full power and spoiled that hope.

  “Some of their missiles have left the plot, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer. “And we had nothing near enough to hit them.”

  The flagship shook from missile launch, all tubes cycling as fast as they could put out the ten ton long range counters. In five minutes they would switch over to the two ton short range weapons, and tried to acquire and destroy missiles with those interceptors all the way in to two minutes out.

  “What the hell are they?” he demanded of the officer.

  “I think they are dedicated jamming devices, my Lord. When they disappear there is a massive spike in jamming that last for ten seconds or so. When that jamming dies, another two score of the devices detonate and refresh the jamming.”

  The High Admiral watched the screens over the tactical station, one which was being watched by the officer in charge and the eleven males that worked with him. Each screen showed a section of the swarm, and every ten seconds about half the missiles on each viewer faded as the jamming birds went off. They slowly faded back in, until at the ten second mark the missiles were all back on the screen, their acquisition degraded still by the normal electronic warfare systems of the missiles. Unfortunately for the targeting systems, all of the missiles were moving in maneuvers to make it difficult to calculate where they would be by the time counters got to them. The missiles covered by the jamming came back onto the plots in unpredictable positions, and so it went on around the entire swarm.

  “Is there anything we can do to defeat them?”

  “I cannot see how, my Lord. Maybe with more preparation, some research into their systems versus our own. But in the next fifteen minutes?”

  And more of them are going to get through because of this, thought the High Admiral, looking back at the main tactical holo, relieved that his ship was in the center position. He was the most important being in this fleet, and his ship, because it carried him, the most important vessel. The entire tactical defense plan was based around defending this ship. But if his fleet was smashed, even if the flagship survived, he would still be hunted down and destroyed by the humans, who now had quite the considerable fleet around the planet.

  The missiles passed the engagement envelope of the long range counters, and the vibration patterns of the launches changed as the launchers switched to the shorter ranged weapons. Thousands of missiles dropped off the plot, then ten thousand, while the lasers of the ships opened up, trying their best to hit fast moving objects that were doing their best to not be targeted. Beams struck, and warheads detonated in flares of brilliant antimatter fire.

  A different kind of jamming came up now, as a new type of dedicated missile flared with a gigaton of energy each, this time strobing a super-bright flare of light and static that hit sensor systems like a hammer. The missiles forged on, thousands of them dropping out every minute, until the calculation that seventy-five percent might make it through seemed too low.

  The missiles entered the one minute range, and the lasers and particle beams became more accurate, striking hundreds of missiles despite the jamming and the evasive maneuvers. At thirty seconds the missiles pulled their last trick. Where there had been fifteen thousand missiles, now there was an expanding cloud of smaller warheads coming at the fleet, more than a million. Most of the warheads were tiny, one megaton devices that would pop like super firecrackers on the hulls of the target vessels, degrading their sensor, weapons, electromag screens and armor. Their carrier missiles each released four hundred of the units as they bore into their targets, two million of the devices. They only contained rudimentary targeting, computation and boost systems. About a half million of them were destroyed before they reached their target, contributing to the cover of the other missiles, at the same time interfering with the target acquisition of many of the incoming warheads.

  The High Admiral felt a shiver run up his spine as he watched the damage reports coming in. None of his ships were destroyed by the sub munitions, but over half sustained major damage to their systems, while almost all of them took some hits. A moment later the first of the multiple warheads, two hundred megaton devices, struck, and ships did drop off the plot by the hundreds.

  Three seconds later the fastest of the missiles came in, now traveling at point nine six light, with enough kinetic energy to shatter a twenty-five million ton superbattleship with a direct hit. Three hundred and five of those missiles did hit, and two hundred and ninety-seven ships blinked off the plot, converted to clouds of plasma.

  “That was the last of them, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer, his eyes wide with fear even as he breathed out in relief. The flagship had been hit by several of the submunitions, a
nd one of the multiple warheads, and had taken the heat and radiation of a near miss by one of the powerful unitary weapons. It had lost about a third of its grabber power, half of its laser domes, and would only be able to traverse hyper VI without a visit to a major shipyard.

  We survived, thought the High Admiral, walking away from the station with a leaden step. But most of his fleet didn’t. He had a mere seventy-three ships left, and most were too badly damaged to get into hyper, or boost at more a couple of hundred gravities. They were a damaged force incapable of giving a good account of themselves in a battle, and the humans had more ships in the system, enough to totally destroy what he had left, even if he wiped out the human force his missiles were now streaking towards.

  “Orders, my Lord?” asked the Tactical Officer, looking from the High Admiral to the Helm Officer.

  “Order the force to scatter,” he said with a sinking heart. “All ships to make it to the hyper barrier at best acceleration.”

  “And the ships that can’t boost, my Lord?”

  “They will just have to stay and die. Evacuate all crew off of them, then rig the vessels to detonate when boarded.”

  He walked over to stand before the central holo. We will not get out of here. The humans have won this fight. The only way we will be avenged will be if other Ca’cadasans destroy them. And I pray to the Gods that the day will come, soon. He stared at the holo, watching his own second strike approach the enemy force he had targeted. Or maybe I can get a bit of revenge right now. Strike them, my beauties. Blow them out of space.

  * * *

  “Missile impact in fifteen minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer, and Fleet Admiral Kelvin stared at the plot showing the massive wave of enemy missiles coming at him.