Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

by Doug Dandridge

  “What our viewers want to know is why you took it upon yourself to assault an Imperial prison with a military force to take a woman out of lawful custody,” said the reporter. “In fact, according to the IIB and the Imperial Prison Commission you released twenty-three other prisoners, and had hidden their location from the proper authorities.”

  “That is because the proper authorities had them in detention illegally,” said the Admiral, his voice rising. “I am not about to allow those people to disappear again.”

  “And that is why you are staying on this warship in orbit around the planet?” said the reporter.

  “I don’t want to get into a conspiracy theory,” said the Admiral, nodding. “Neither do I want to disappear like those people you have been asking about.”

  “So you take the law into your own hands?”

  “I am a sworn officer in the Imperial Navy,” said the Admiral, glaring out at the invisible audience. “The oath I swore was to defend the Empire against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I think we have an enemy domestic in this case. And so I acted.”

  “And you are above the law that is calling for you to report to a hearing of the Lords Council?”

  “I am responsible to the Emperor,” said the Admiral. “And when an Emperor is seated, I will answer to him.” Lenkoswki looked into the camera for a moment, a tear starting in one eye. “Augustine was a good man and a good Emperor. He did not deserve what happened to him. And the people of the Empire do not deserve to have his leadership taken away. I will find out who is responsible. And I will see that they are brought to justice.”

  The holo switched to the face of another woman in the Capitulum studio of the Galactic New Network, looking straight into the camera.

  “Patriot fighting a battle against those who took the life of the Emperor,” said the woman. “Or a megalomaniac with no control on his power. What do you think, Imperial Citizens?

  “And in further news, the capital has completely shut down all activity as it goes into official mourning for the Emperor and his family. The Imperial Athletic Games, scheduled to have begun next week in honor of a thousand years of Empire, have been cancelled. All flags are flying at half-mast. And…”

  “Off,” yelled Interim Prime Minister Theo Streeter, the Duke of Coventry, and the holo died. He turned his angry face on the woman in charge of the Lords’ security, Sergeant of Arms Countess Judy Decker. “Why can’t you get him before a justice committee?” he screamed at the woman. “He is making a mockery of the Lords. Of the entire Parliament.”

  “And how do you propose I do that?” asked the woman, standing up and going face to face with her superior. “He is sitting on a twenty million ton warship, one of the most powerful in the fleet. Which is surrounded by other warships. What do you want me to do? Order a broadside to broadside battle with Customs’ cutters against battleships. I’m sure that would play out well on the news.”

  “And still no luck on getting naval personnel to see that they are violating the law?”

  “Not a chance,” said the woman. “Fleet is loyal.”

  “And what about a surgical strike,” said the Duke, looking at the ceiling and thinking.

  “With what? IIB Commandoes? SWAT?”

  “Yes,” said the Duke. “Exactly. With those people.”

  “He is surrounded by Imperial Marines, minister,” said the woman, her voice rising in exasperation. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have naval commandos aboard as well. The best of the best. They would go through anything we sent their way like a laser through paper. No, as long as he is aboard that ship he is beyond our reach.”

  “Then maybe we need to take that ship out,” said the Duke under his breath, visualizing the superbattleship going up in an explosion and solving all their problems.

  “I’m not sure I heard you right, minister,” said the Countess, a frown on her face.

  “You just keep trying to get him before our committee,” said the Duke, pointing a finger at the woman. And I’ll see what else can be done. If I can ever get that damned agent to act.

  * * *

  “The scouting pods will be going in within the next six hours, my Lord,” said the officer, standing at the doorway of the Admiral’s private command room.

  Low Admiral Hrisshammartanama grunted in acknowledgment as he stared into the holo tank that occupied the center of the room. It showed the local area, ten light years in diameter. A dozen stars occupied the view, only one of which was of interest. And around that star were the vector arrows of the Low Admiral’s force, moving toward the target in hyper VII.

  I wonder if we will ever find a way to go faster, thought the Low Admiral, thinking of how far they were from the imperial capital. Almost two years travel time at their best rate. And five centuries before it would have been almost a decade, while they were still limited to hyper VI. And in that time these humans have developed travel through three levels of hyper, from IV to VII. What drives them so? And is there any way we might be able to incorporate their drive within our own Empire?

  The Low Admiral gave a head toss of negation at that thought. The emperor had declared that this species was to be destroyed. Then he thought of the humans that still survived within the Empire, though they only survived at the sufferance of the Emperor, and only that they might be of aid against their kinsmen. But such a waste, he thought, willing the holo view to expand and show more of the local area. More stars filled the field, more with the icons of inhabited systems, numbers underneath showing what they knew of those clusters of planets. Two other systems showed the icons of Ca’cadasan assault forces, all timed to strike at more or less the same time.

  The only thing we don’t know is how many ships are in each system, he thought, staring at the stars as if willing them to give up their information. They could be empty of vessels, everyone out on patrol. Or we could fly into a system brimming with warships, and no one will know what happened to us, only that we didn’t return from our mission.

  Hrisshammartanama grunted and scoffed at that idea. He was sure that his ships were superior to those of the humans. He was also sure that they could swarm him under by weight of numbers if they possessed that advantage. But that was unlikely, was it not?

  The Admiral walked from his private room and onto the bridge, waving the crew back to their positions as he walked to his chair. They are doing important work, he thought, looking at the viewer that showed the star ahead, and the vector arrows of his assault force moving into place. Ahead were the three scouting pods, eight ships each. Curving to the side were the containment forces, moving to seal off the system and keep leakers from getting out to carry the word to others. To either side of his ship were the other battleships, paired up with the cruisers and escorts they carried with them, the standard deception of the fleet that would hopefully fool the enemy as to his numbers, for just a while. And behind were the troop transports and their escorting vessels, there to complete the conquest of the system as soon as he smashed the vessels and anti-ship defenses of the enemy.

  “Any indication that they know we are here?” he asked his tactical officer.

  “No, my Lord,” said the officer. “We have had no contact with their vessels since we took out that squadron of their scouts a couple of hours ago.”

  The Low Admiral grunted at the remembrance. There had been five ships in that group they had found in hyper VI, all just under a million tons. They had fought skillfully. And they had died quickly, overwhelmed by the Ca’cadasan ships. But they had left a positive impression on the Admiral. This was not an opponent to be taken lightly. He had tried to impress that on the captains, but wasn’t sure they had seen his point. They will learn, he thought, turning away from the tactical officer and looking at the main viewer. They will learn, or they will be replaced by death.

  “They are surely detecting us by now, my Lord,” said the sensory officer. “We are well within detection range for hyper VII.”

  “And they wi
ll be confused by what they are seeing,” said the tactical officer, a smug look on his face. “They will wonder, and worry, and finally panic.”

  And that they will not do, you pompous fool, thought the Admiral, shooting a glare at the oblivious officer. This is not a species that panics. It is species that perseveres, and I hope we can knock them out quickly.

  Chapter 9

  War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

  “We’re picking up emissions from the hyper VII band,” said PO Jaworski, the sensor tech on duty on the system picket ship HR-11987. The ensign on duty, and the only other officer on the ship beside the Commander, looked up from the book he was reading on his flat comp.

  “What do they look like?” asked Ensign Kim in a bored voice as he looked up at the tactical plot with showed some fuzzy contacts about two light years out.

  “Hard to tell sir,” said the tech, focusing on his panel’s graphical display. “Their emission lines don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. No sound like I've ever heard. They have to be large energy emitters to be detectable from that far out.”

  “Any idea of speed or direction?” asked the ensign, clearing the book from his comp as he linked with the ship’s computer, bringing up data on unusual emissions.

  “Estimates are pretty poor right now,” said Jaworski, playing with his instruments. “We’re not a damned battleship. They carry more than our total mass of these kind of sensors.”

  Kim nodded as he thought of any way of getting more information. The picket was a very small ship, operating a light week out from the hyper limit of Massadara. She was based on the same ten thousand ton hull as the courier and fast attack craft, but packed electronics into the spaces those craft used for cargo or weapons.

  “First guesstimate,” said Jaworski, “is ten or more large objects moving at about point five c in hyper VII. Decelerating at about three hundred gravities, according to Doppler readings. Should arrive at translation point for Massadara in about six hours.”

  “Damned tight for a guesstimate, PO,” said Kim, hitting the alarm. Within seconds the rest of the crew of the fourteen man vessel was out of bed, including the Commander. She was the first of the new awakes, running into the small bridge still pulling her shipboard coveralls on.

  “Report,” said Lieutenant JG Martinez as she threw herself into her command chair. The PO tech rendered a quick summation of what he had found.

  “This doesn’t look good,” she said, watching the tactical display which now indicated two dozen of the large warships, that’s what she thought they must be, heading for the system.

  “System outer buoys should pick them up in a little under two hours,” said Jaworski, looking up from his board. “Ships in the inner system should get them about ten minutes later.”

  “And if we send our data in?” asked Ensign Kim, chewing on his lip.

  “They’ll get complete data in about a week,” answered the Commander, chewing on one of her nails. “Whatever will happen will definitely have happened by then.”

  “What if we go hyper and run for the system?” asked Spaceman First Wittaker, taking her position at the helm station.

  “They’ll know where we are and run us down,” said Kim. “We can only do hyper V, and they can do hyper VII.”

  “Send a signal to the system,” said the Commander to the just arriving com tech, Spaceman Second Anderson. “Give them the specifics by grav wave.”

  The com tech looked at the information scrolling across his board and frowned.

  “It will take about five minutes to send one cycle of that message,” he said. “The bare facts. Number, speed, heading and ETA.”

  “Damn,” cursed Martinez. FTL com had always been the dream of the navy. The hyperdrive could be used to pulse gravity waves, which since they also traveled in Hyper VIII were almost instantaneous. But they were also clunky, in that the information had to be sent in a slow binary code that left a lot to be desired. The wormhole gates promised a workaround to the communication problem. But the picket ship did not have a wormhole on board, and was unlikely to be chosen for one in the near future.

  “OK,” she finally said. “Cycle what we have through four repetitions.”

  “Then what?” asked Kim, looking at her with wide eyes.

  She could feel the weight of the decision on her shoulders. She would decide, and they would either live or die with that decision.

  “Then we run like hell in normal space,” she answered. “Away from the hostiles. And we stop and play rock at the first hint of a translation to n-space by our newly arrived friends. We are here to give warning to the system, which we are doing. We are not here to die for…”

  “More contacts,” called out Jaworski, as red dots appeared on the tactical display, much closer to the picket ship. “Estimate twenty or more ships, mass between destroyer and light cruiser. Speed point four c and decelerating at three hundred gravities. Estimating ETA at hyper boundary in four hours.”

  “OK,” said the Captain. “Add that to the transmission on the next cycle through. We’ll keep transmitting as long as we can and then make our break for it.”

  “A couple of the ships are changing vector,” said Jaworski, looking back at the Captain.

  “Estimated target of the course change?” asked Lieutenant JG Martinez, feeling a knot in her stomach.

  “Us, ma’am,” answered the sensor tech. “Us.”

  * * *

  Klaxons went off all through the HIMS Archduchess Constance Leonardo, the battleship that was leading Task Group 4.9 of the Imperial Fourth Fleet. Along with the alarms notification was sent throughout the ship over the net to the implants of every crew member. Within moments everyone aboard the fifteen megaton flagship was awake, if not completely alert. Those off duty pulled on duty coveralls and sealed boots at the cuffs. Some waited for a moment, cursing the drill that was being called on their off time. Until the this is not a drill call came through the alarm.

  Admiral Sir Gunter Heinrich pulled himself out of a deep sleep as the alarm went off. His first thought was a drill as well. That notion was dismissed as he remembered that he was the ranking officer in the system, and no drill would be scheduled affecting his flagship without his knowledge and approval. He sat up in bed and sent a command through his implant for coffee, then swung feet to the floor and stood up. A quiet knock on his door got his attention. His steward walked in with a tray holding a cup of steaming coffee, white and sweetened, with a carafe of refill.

  “Thank you, Beria,” said the Admiral, taking the cup from the tray and putting it gingerly to his lips. He felt better after a sip of hot liquid.

  “Ready a duty uniform, if you please, Beria,” he said to the steward. “While I see what all of the hoopla is about.”

  The Admiral jacked into the net and overrode the cacophony of requests and demands that were flooding it. His priority code took him directly to the flag bridge, where the duty officer answered.

  “Commander Nagaya here, Admiral,” said the officer.

  The Admiral could feel the controlled fear in the man through the circuit. But controlled was the key. He knew this was an officer who would do his duty no matter the threat.

  “What the hell is going on, Nagaya?” he asked, looking over the data himself in his mind’s eye.

  “Sir,” said the officer. “A long range picket about a light week out picked up the gravity waves of a force moving through hyper VII. A large force, coming our way.”

  “Did they identify the force?”

  “No sir. The coded transmission indicated that they were an unknown but probably highly advanced threat.”

  “Any further information?”

  “The transmission went through two five minute
cycles,” said the Commander. “At about one minute into the third cycle we picked up the gravity waves of two translations from hyper VII to n-space by vessels between destroyer and light cruiser mass. The transmission ended at that point and contact has not been reestablished.”

  Probably lost, thought the Admiral with a stab of regret as the steward brought in a duty coverall and a set of boots. Unless they were very good, or very lucky.

  “OK,” said Heinrich, letting the steward pull the coverall onto his body. “Alert the staff that I will be in the flag conference room in two minutes. I want all known information on the threat force as well as our own forces within the system. How is the system alert proceeding?”

  “All personnel on planetary surface or orbital stations are being recalled,” said the Commander. “Estimated that all ships will be ready to boost in an hour. Ground forces are also on alert. System commander requests contact, and wishes to know your intentions.”

  “OK. I’ll get on with her and coordinate. Heinrich out.”

  The Admiral sat for a moment to let the steward put his polished boots on. He stood up in the comfortable uniform, regretting the fact that he would probably be in combat armor within a couple of hours. He nodded at the steward, picked up his cup of coffee, and walked from the bedroom through his large and ornately furnished living area.

  The Marine guard at the entrance to his quarters snapped to attention with a rifle salute. The Admiral returned the salute and strode off down the corridor through the fifty meters to the flag bridge and the conference room next to it. Crewmen scrambled along the corridor, checking that all systems were working or heading for duty stations.

  I won’t insult Captain Steinman by asking her if she is prepared for combat, thought the Admiral. It’s her ship, and I’m just a guest on it.

  Stopping outside the conference room he linked with the system commander who was getting ready for her own staff meeting on the one completed Class I fortress in orbit around the planet. Normally that officer would plan and order the defense of the system, along with the dispositions of any warships currently around this star. But Heinrich was in command of a full task group, with four star rank, while the system was a Vice Admiral with three stars.