That’s all they were at the moment, a distraction. They had been given a taste of freedom by the Empire, self-determination, and were now fighting and dying to keep it. The great powers had agreed that they would be given that freedom. Sean had wanted to offer them inclusion into his empire, but the other powers had balked at that possibility. The Crakista and the multiple peoples of Elysium all thought the human empire was large enough. So a deal had been worked out between the great powers to reform the former Fenri empire as a confederation, under the control of the former slave species. The Fenri would also have a place, as just one of many species. The tasks of the supervising powers would include making sure the Fenri weren’t slaughtered by the other races in an orgy of revenge. And the bastards weren’t making that task any easier by returning to try and enslave the newly freed species once again. Of course, the armed freed beings were making that task difficult, and costly, but many millions, if not billions, of those sentient creatures were dying before they could fulfill the promise of their freedom.
“Today we plan our advance,” said Mgonda, calling the meeting to order. Speech stopped immediately, officers ending their conversations to look at their commander. They would be allowed to speak when the time came for remarks. For now, the spotlight was on their commander.
“Admiral Lenkowski was very successful at striking the flanks of the enemy formations in the Republic, one at a time.” He looked at several of the flag officers who had been in that fleet, nodding. “He then went after the center. We will do it a little differently here.”
A hand went up, and several officers sent scowls at the officer who was wearing a different uniform from their own. Taelis gave the officer, an Imperial Army Senior Field Marshal, wearing the same number of stars as he did, a glare for a moment. Maeklos Kardisian was new to the front. The last commander had resigned her commission in protest over so many of her troops being left on their own behind the lines instead of being evacuated, as was custom. Junior officers couldn’t just resign in wartime. For flag officers, a resignation indicated either an unwillingness or inability to follow the plan, and they were given their walking papers and replaced immediately in most cases. The Fleet was considered the senior service, with admirals always giving orders to generals of equal or lesser rank. It was not unheard of for an admiral of one lower rank to command higher ranked generals. Kardisian was new to the command, but had come in making it clear he wanted his people rescued.
“Yes, Field Marshal?”
“I would like to remind the Admiral that there are millions of Imperial ground troops, and also some Marines and commandos under fleet command, still fighting behind the lines. They look up at skies that are not under friendly control, at an enemy who can drop kinetics on them at any time, and can reinforce their attacks at any point on the globes.”
“We do understand that, Field Marshal,” said Mgonda with a tight smile. “Which is why you will be happy to note that we will be taking on the central force right from the start. Where over half of our ground forces are gathered. I wish we could relieve them all, but that’s not about to happen. Not if we want to win this battle. Sorry.”
Mgonda nodded to the field marshal. The man nodded back, expressing his understanding, if not agreement. The mission of his fleet was to destroy the Caca force, and to send what few survivors there were running back into their space to spread the tale of a massive defeat against the fearsome humans. The ground troops had their own mission, to delay the enemy by whatever means possible, including their own deaths.
“We will strike this largest force in the center first, while we have our entire fleet.”
“The entire fleet, sir?” asked one of the flag officers, the leader of his scout force.
“Not the whole force, Jana. I’m letting you and your hyper VII ships cut loose and roam. Find out where they are weakest, then hit them, and run before anything strong enough to take you on comes up. Concentrate on their supply lines. I don’t want them getting any of the commodities they need to prosecute the battle.”
The golden skinned woman smiled. That was a mission any scout force commander could embrace. He was sure she would do her best. His only hope was that she would not get too audacious.
“In what system will we wait for them?” asked one of the battle group commanders.
“We will hit them in hyper, before they get to a system,” said Mgonda, holding up a hand as people started shouting questions. All of the Caca ships were hyper VII, while only a third of his were. And some of those VIIs would be going off with Jana Nakama to look for trouble on the fringes. “I will be taking all of our hyper VII super heavy and regular battleships with me, with all of our available wormholes, any not needed to be sent the flanks in readiness for the later operations. We will fire at maximum range, as many as we can get off before the accelerators are empty.”
There were nods and smiles at that. The preacceleration tubes were still their ace in the hole. They would not be connected to any of the powerful particle beam accelerators back on the Donut. Those weapons would be useless in hyper unless they were within five or fewer light seconds from the target. Even at one light second a good portion of the protons or antiprotons would fall out of hyper.
I sometimes wonder why we even bothered with the things, thought the admiral. Sure, they were great for close in work, but there had not been a lot of that in this war. Then again, they didn’t take up near as many resources as a thousand kilometer long launch tube, being only ten kilometer diameter accelerator rings. If he had to use them in the first engagement he was in trouble, since he had no intention of letting the enemy come close, or even getting a good shot at him.
“After we hit them we will run for this system, where the rest of the fleet will be waiting. I want to engage them as soon as they come out of hyper. I know. That might give them a chance of getting some of their fleet back into hyper. Some of their fleet, while the rest will be expanding plasma. I can live with that. We will then plan the next engagement. And as soon as we have destroyed the central force, we will go after the next largest, working our way down until we are able to split our fleet and go after the other formations with still overwhelming superiority.”
“What about our train,” asked another officer. The woman looked over at the field marshal. “The army troops will be in need of immediate medical attention, many of them.”
“They will stay in safety. Any worlds we come to that need immediate aid will have it, through the wormhole gates we are bringing with us.”
Mgonda thought for a moment before speaking again, letting his officers murmur to those they were in the same rooms with, while virtual images tried to get across messages with facial expressions and hand movements. There was a plan to bring hyper VI vessels into VII through the gates. They really didn’t have the power to open a portal into the higher dimension, but they did possess the means of staying there. But if the gate they had translated through was destroyed they risked being stuck in VII until they ran out of energy, and dropped out catastrophically. Still, it was something that Plans had thought up as a way to equalize the battlefield in hyper VII. And something the admiral might consider in the future.
“We move at six am standard time tomorrow,” he said finally. “I know we won’t have all of our ships here yet, but I feel comfortable with eighty percent. The latecomers will be available to fill in our ranks after we take losses.”
That brought some more shocked expressions. Losses before a battle were always expected, but never discussed. It was considered bad luck, and Mgonda, who didn’t believe in luck, or any other superstitious or supernatural constructs, didn’t care. It was a fact he was going to lose ships, probably thousands of them, possibly his own, and his own ass onboard it. Might as well come to terms with the facts, as far as he was concerned.
“Everyone make your plans, but make sure that you get some rest as well. We might not be getting much of it over the next couple of weeks. I’ll be on my bridge two hours b
efore kickoff time if any of you need to get in touch with me. May the Gods of War smile upon us, and curse our enemies.” He didn’t believe any of that either, but sometimes it was helpful to play along with those who had some kind of spiritual belief.
* * *
“What in the hell are these things?” asked Baggett, looking down at the body on the table. Whatever it was, it was huge. The Cacas, with their three meter height and bulk, were huge to humans, and these creatures dwarfed their masters. The one on the table was almost four meters in length while prone, and had to mass almost a ton. Whatever helmet it had been wearing was gone, as was a good portion of its face. What skin was left was gray and leathery. Most of the body was covered by a thick skinsuit, enough protection to stop lasers for some seconds, and maybe a quick burst of particle beam. Over the skinsuit were panels of strap on armor plate, four centimeters thick.
“That doesn’t look like powered armor,” remarked the general.
“No, sir,” answered the intelligence officer. “It’s strap on. Tough enough, but it doesn’t give the thing the advantages of enhanced strength. From what the soldiers have reported, it didn’t need any enhancement.” The officer looked over at the lt. colonel who had come in with creature.
“I had never seen anything like it, sir. A company of these things overran the battalion next to mine. We took them out from range after the last life sign disappeared. They were already on the way toward our position, and if they didn’t have powered armor, they still moved faster than anything that size has a right too. Some of them blurred, sir. Goddamn me is they didn’t blur with speed, and they carried weapons that would have dropped one of our special weapons suits into the dirt trying to carry it.”
Baggett walked up to the creature, his nose wrinkling with the odor of strange burnt flesh. The skin suit appeared to be loose on the creature. Normally they were skin tight on all the species that used them. The armor plates appeared to be overly large as well.
“It seems to have shrunk after it died, General,” said the lt. colonel, pointing to an arm joint. “It filled its suit to capacity, and then some. But as soon as it died, it changed. And it didn’t die easily.”
“And you said the company of them took out a battalion?”
“One of our reduced battalions, sir. Maybe three hundred people. But their company was short as well. Some special weapons suits took down a pair of their assault shuttles, and they hit hard when they came down. Not even these things could handle that kind of punishment. But enough were dropped intact to take out the other battalion.”
“Good thing you let them have it with indirect fire, Colonel.”
“You know it, sir. If they drop a division of these things, we’re in trouble.”
Baggett shook his head as he looked the creature over from top to bottom. Whatever it was, it was a biologically superior form in many ways. He couldn’t tell if it was an intellectually superior being, but he doubted it. Evolution normally didn’t work that way, though there was no saying that this creature had evolved its current physical abilities. It could have been engineered this way.
“Send orders out to all units to be on the lookout for these things,” Baggett said to his aide. “All troops are to avoid contact and bring them under fire with heavy weapons, if possible.”
“And if not possible?” asked the infantry battalion commander.
Then we’re screwed, thought the general. If they took his people out on a two for one basis in close combat, and there were enough of them, his force would dissolve away like ice in a nuclear blast.
“You’ll be getting some more replacements today, Colonel,” said Baggett, moving toward the door, his stomach turning from the stench of the creature. Not enough. There’s never enough. Hopefully, some of his original soldiers would still be here when they were relieved.
* * *
“I think it’s a go for a quick action,” said Stumpfield, the leader of the group. “I just got off the com with the Emperor, and he wants to meet us tomorrow to discuss deployment.”
“Which deployment?” asked Okoye. They had several plans they had broached with the Emperor, as well as a couple of more they hadn’t mentioned.
“He didn’t say. But since he controls the means of striking, that will be up to him.” Stmpfield said it in a way that made the others think he did not approve of Sean having that much of a say in the matter. But unless they could come up with launching tubes of their own, they needed someone who had them.
“There is still much risk in any of the plans,” said Doctor Kenji Guitarez. He almost wilted under the glares turned his way. He had been an outsider, brought in because of his research into the reverse time dimension. The scientist had been warning them the whole way that there was great risk to any of their plans. Even if the legends of the Ancients were just stories told to frighten children, there were very real and quantifiable dangers. If they went back and hit the Cacas before they could strike at the empire, people who had died in the conflict wouldn’t, they would be back, alive. While seemingly a good thing, there was no telling what the actions of so many people previously erased from the timeline would cause in the ripples of time. And would it end the threat of the Cacas? Maybe, but probably not. “And the Ca’cadasans could still find us in the future. In fact, they would be greatly motivated to find us, more motivated than before.”
“If we can convince the Emperor to let us go far enough back, we could end the threat once and for all,” said Stumpfield, clenching a fist in the air.
That sent a shiver down Kenji’s spine. If they struck far enough back, they could end the Ca’cadasan Empire before they ever really got established. That would not only change the timelines of thousands of species, including the Cacas themselves, but humanity would never have had to flee Earth. Trillions upon trillions of people who had been born would never exist. Was that something they wanted? And if the legend of the Ancients was true, there was no way humanity would survive such a change. They would be wiped from the timeline as if they had never been, as that would be the only way to keep so much change, so much damage, from occurring.
“What if the Emperor won’t go for that much of a change?” asked the scientist.
“He doesn’t have to go for it. In fact, if we can keep the damned wormhole going back for a couple of thousand years, we can wipe the damn things out for good.”
“And who will we get to do this in the future?” asked one of the subordinates.
“Why, us, of course. We still have cryo, and I could use a three or four thousand year nap. We might have to remove ourselves from the Empire if the Cacas do end up still overrunning us, but with three thousand years of tech advancement, we probably wouldn’t even need that big a fleet to send back.”
“And then we are no more?”
“And then we are no more,” agreed Stumpfield with a nod. “No one in the new timeline will realize that we were the heroes, but I’m okay with that. I’m sure God will rescue our souls, and those of the others we snuff out. That’s enough for me.” The count lowered his head, as if in prayer.
Guitarez stared at the leader in horror. He had known the man was mad, but until this moment hadn’t realized he was a religious fanatic as well. The scientist was an atheist, and didn’t believe for a moment that anything existed after death, or erasure from existence. Many people in the empire were still religious, over half in fact. But in almost every case it was a comfortable religion that had found its peace with the scientific reality of the Universe. But this madman believed in a god that would save them from themselves, even if they went and totally screwed up the universe.
I can’t let this happen, thought the scientist. He wouldn’t let them destroy so much for so many. The humans would win the war with the Cacas the old fashioned way, or they would lose, and become as so many failed species had before them. But he wouldn’t let them cause so much damage to the universe. Especially if the tale of the Ancients was true, and they faced a multitude of exploding
stars in their future.
* * *
“And GNN has learned tonight that the presumably dead heir, Augustine, is not dead,” said the woman over the netwaves. “Sources close to the Imperial family have stated that agents were able to go back into the past and retrieve the heir before he was killed. They point to the fact that there were no repercussions from the operation, and that this opens up the possibility of other operations.”
Sean sat in shock on the living room couch, staring at the anchor who was well known across the Empire. And everyone will believe her, of course, unless we do some damage control, he thought. He looked over at Jennifer, who was also watching the screen. Her continence showed the lack of alertness the drugs had brought. But they calmed her, and let the nurses take care of the children, like they were meant to.
“Get me Sergiov,” he ordered into the com system. “Are you seeing this?” he asked in an angry tone as soon as her face appeared on the holo.
“I am, your Majesty. I’m not sure where she got the information, but it is accurate. Isn’t it?”
“You’re my spymaster, so you should already know. I want to make sure the leak didn’t come from your people.”
“I can’t guarantee that, your Majesty. I’ll have my staff start an investigation, but the greater question is, are you really allowing people to do this? You know the risks.”
Time Strike Page 25
