Foolishness, he thought as he left the lift to the sight of the cab coming in for a landing. He stepped into the cab and sent it the address for Margo’s apartment. Soon enough we’ll be living in the same space. Margo was an old fashioned girl, raised on a frontier planet. And she refused to move in with him while they were still nothing but friends and sex partners. In less than a month that would change.
* * *
“Christ,” cursed Sean, looking at the face of his most trusted Ambassador in the holo hanging over his desk. “I don’t think I can push that through Parliament. They’re already up in arms about us giving our allies access to so many of our secrets.” Secrets they might use against us in a future conflict, thought the Emperor, shaking his head. He didn’t concern himself about possible might be future events, not when he had an annihilation event on his doorstep. But not everyone in the government had the same attitude.
“The High Lord says they are going to vote tomorrow on a measure to bring their fleet home, your Majesty. What are we going to do if their ships start leaving their posts?”
What can we do? thought Sean. Fire on them? Start another war? Of course he could deny them access to the wormhole gates and make them take the long way home, a petty move that would earn him few friends in their Empire.
“Fortunately, there is no indication of a Ca’cadasan offensive in the immediate future,” said the Ambassador, raising an eyebrow, turning the statement into a question.
Sean nodded, saying nothing. The Ambassador of course did not know everything that was going on. Need to Know was a concept the Empire took seriously. The Ambassador to a friendly power needed to know what was important for their job, which did not include complete military intelligence. There was an indication that something might be happening on the frontier facing the Ca’cadasan Empire in the near future. A lot of ship movements, including penetrations of the frontier. There had been months of skirmishes between groups of vessels up to the task group size. Intelligence agreed that it was time, and missing the Elysium ships could be telling in a coming fight.
The Ambassador gave him another questioning look. The Ambassador was not an idiot, and as a former Admiral he still had connections with the Fleet. But Sean was not about to confirm or deny anything dealing with either front. And there’s a major offensive in progress on the Klavarta front. Something neither the Ambassador nor our allies in this region of space need to know the details of. It’s enough that they know we have allies, and that they are fighting hard for the common goal.
“Make sure the High Lord knows that the Crakista are still onboard,” he told the Ambassador. “As well as the Klassaks and the Margrav. If they leave the alliance, they will miss out on the benefits of our community.”
“I don’t think they want to leave the alliance, your Majesty. I think what they do want is to be on an even technological playing field with us.”
“And they will get this by our giving them wormholes? They still won’t be able to make their own without an enormous industrial investment. The same with the launching and particle beam systems. And they’re already complaining about what the war is costing them.” Sean felt himself getting angry. As if he didn’t have enough trouble with his own people, now he was having to deal with the childish tantrums of other governments.
“What do you want me to do, your Majesty?”
Do I give in to Elysium? thought Sean. If he gave them wormholes and Klassekians, he would then get the same demands from the other members of the alliance. He doubted his traditional allies, The Klassak Concordium and the Margravi Hegonomy, would jump ship, since they owed their existence to his Empire. The Crakista had said that they would side with the humans because the alternative, the Ca’cadasans ruling the Galaxy, was unthinkable. The Crakista used reason to make their decisions, not letting their emotions interfering. Though it might be a good decision to force the humans to give up all of their secrets, since the logical response to their withdrawing from the alliance would be to beg them to stay, no matter what it took.
“Try to get them to see reason, Ambassador. If the Ca’cadasans win, Elysium is the next to fall.”
“And if they still insist on a technology share?”
“We will deal with that when it comes.”
Sean dismissed the com, no longer wishing to talk about this problem. He reached up and rubbed his neck, working on a kink. There was not an Emperor he could think of who had to deal with so much. A war that might exterminate the human species had never happened since the days the predecessors had left Sol system on the run. Dealing with so many other powers that had their own agendas? The Empire was used to fighting its own wars. The Death Machines that humanity thought they had destroyed, returned and threatening an entire region of space.
“Your Majesty,” came a call over the com while he was still thinking about what he needed to do next. “We have a problem on the Fenri Front.” The face of Sondra McCullom hung in the air over his desk, people moving frantically behind her in the war room.
What the hell now? thought Sean, composing himself to deal with the next crisis.
Chapter Four
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood. George S. Patton
NEW MOSCOW SPACE. DECEMBER 10TH, 1002. D-21.
Great Admiral Ljarritta’ran watched as the second ship gate took shape on the viewer. His ship had come through the first one, brought in by a blockade running scout ship. His superbattleship was one of the first through, and was now surrounded by a hundred of her sisters. The Emperor’s Grip was of the first group of the newest class, sporting laser rings instead of domes among other improvements.
“The other gate will be ready in another half an hour,” stating his Chief of Staff, walking up behind him.
“We need to learn how the humans put their gates together so fast,” growled the Great Admiral, who in less than twenty days would be leading his fleet against the humans in this sector.
“We will, my Lord. But for the moment, this is good enough.”
The Great Admiral gave a head motion of agreement. They didn’t need to get their entire fleet into this space in a day. Not even a week. And to be honest, he hadn’t really expected to have this many wormholes at his disposal.
With all of the activity at the frontier, moving ships back and forth through the hidden picket line that the Ca’cadasans knew had to be there, they had slipped fifty scouts through to the other side of the pickets. Three of the scouts had carried wormholes, a trio of the only four he had at his disposal. In the future there would be more, but four wormholes were needed elsewhere, and two were on the Second Front. So four was all he had, and one had to stay at his base on the other side of the frontier. There were more being made, but they had to be shipped through hyper to their destinations. Sending one through a wormhole was a recipe for disaster, unless one wanted the resultant megablast.
And all three made it, he thought, rubbing both pairs of hands together. Two were in this system, one in another, and all were bringing his fleet into this space behind the pickets. Unless the enemy stumbled upon him by accident, unlikely since they had taken a page from the Klavarta book and chosen red dwarf systems that were unremarkable in their frequency.
“Make sure that no ships leave these systems in hyper until we are ready,” he told his Chief of Staff for not the first time. “I don’t want some fool giving us away before we are ready.”
The Chief of Staff gave a head motion of acknowledgement. The male was one of the few in the fleet that knew the entire plan. The Great Admiral thought it too complicated, but he had to admit that it would lead to a spectacular victory if it succeeded.
The humans were coming to depend on their wormhole weapons, which were giving them an advantage in almost every engagement. Missiles that
left the launchers already at near optimal attack speed. Particle beams an order of magnitude more powerful than anything a warship could carry. Without them they would be a much less formidable opponent. Denied their use in the middle of a battle, it was thought that they would panic.
They won’t panic, thought the Great Admiral with a snarl. The humans might be many things, but they weren’t prone to losing their heads in combat.
“The decoy force will attack in sixteen days,” reminded the Chief of Staff.
And that will start the offensive, thought the Great Admiral. Five thousand ships hitting the frontier, moving through like a sledgehammer and attracting all the attention. Then his force would move out on three axis, making for the New Moscow system and two others, making a couple of stops along the way to force the enemy to battle. That would attract more of the enemy’s attention, and then the real blow would fall on the enemy home worlds, and the battle would swing his way. Or so it was hoped.
“I will eat,” the Great Admiral told his subordinate. “Let me know if any news comes from command. Otherwise, I am not to be disturbed.”
* * *
CA’CADASAN SPACE BORDERING KLAVARTA SPACE. DECEMBER 15TH, 1002.
“There appears to be no organized resistance ahead of us,” said Chief of Staff Ngerita Olsaf to his commander.
Admiral Regis Larista nodded to her chief of organization and looked at the large holo that hung in the center of the bridge. The tactical plot showed her force moving into Ca’cadasan space on several axes of advance. Her flagship was with the main force, about a half day’s travel in hyper VII behind the leading force. There were plentiful scouts around both forces, making sure that nothing that saw them could report back. If they were lying doggo in space, they would be tracked and swarmed as soon as they tried to jump into hyper. And so far, there had been very few Ca’cadasan ships that had attempted that, and none that tried to send grav pulses to vessels down the line.
And that’s what worries me, thought the Klavarta Admiral. This current Monster admiral seemed to be smarter than the average Ca’cadasan. It was unclear how smart, but he did things differently than the rest of his people. She was not sure if the lack of covering forces was a sign of great intelligence or great stupidity. And not knowing which was what was causing her great anxiety.
“How far are we from their base system?” she asked the Chief Navigator.
“Fifteen days, ma’am. We will begin deceleration in thirteen days.”
That was putting them quite a distance into the space of the enemy. Over five hundred light years in, which would make any attempt to escape that space a fifteen day chase, if not more. The Klavarta fleet had already experienced a long chase from the Monsters in their own space, which had almost turned into a complete disaster for her people. Running through an enemy space that they did not know that well could be even more disastrous. She couldn’t afford to lose this fleet, and now she was having second thoughts about having proposed this offensive.
But if it’s successful, we can take this entire border region away from them, she thought, trying to still the anxiety. A very big if.
“I will be in my day cabin,” the Admiral told her bridge crew as she stood up from her seat. “Be sure to alert me if anything comes up.” Not that she expected anything to happen this soon. The two most likely outcomes would be that they had taken the Monsters by complete surprise. Or that the Monsters were waiting for them, ready to spring a trap. Either way, nothing was likely to happen until they reached the enemy base, which would leave her with over two weeks to worry about which it was to be.
* * *
“We have received the signal, my Lord,” said the duty officer, his face appearing on the com holo. “They have crossed the frontier.”
Great Admiral Mgananawan K’lantariana grinned as he heard the news. The enemy was on the way, and he was as well prepared as he could be for them. Prepared enough? He thought so. He hoped so. Only battle would prove if he was correct.
“And they are unaware that we know they are coming?”
“As far as we can tell, my Lord. We received no notification that any of their ships were waiting in normal space. As far as we know, they all came over the frontier in hyper, and nothing dropped down to normal space within the sensor range of any of our ships.”
The Great Admiral gave a head motion of agreement. The plan had been his, and he was very pleased with the result. Scout ships arrayed along the frontier had counted the enemy ships, waiting a day until all had passed, then sending grav pulse signals down the vertical line until they reached the end, some ten light years to the far side of the human formation. From there the signals were transmitted up the line, out of detection range of the enemy, until they reach a point where they were again transmitted laterally to the base and his headquarters. It had taken some seven hundred scouts to string the com line, and almost four hours to send the signal all the way up. Those ships would form another layer of force to help prevent an enemy retreat in good order.
“Send word to the Emperor that the enemy is on the way. We should find ourselves engaged at about the same time as his offensive goes forward against the other humans.”
He knew the Emperor would be pleased. There was always the concern that the humans would reinforce the front under attack with units from the other front, if they were available, sending them across the thousands of light years by wormhole. Now it looked as if both fronts would be engaged in a fight for their lives, and neither would be able to give aid to the other.
* * *
THE HEXAGON, CAPITULUM. DECEMBER 20TH, 1002. D-11.
“Ma’am.”
Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom looked up from the document she was reading on her flat comp, a frown on her face. Sometimes she wished she had never accepted the position of Chief of Naval Operations. Sure, it was the ultimate position in the fleet. No one else in her service was allowed to wear the seven stars of her rank. It also meant that the buck stopped with her, as far as military planning was concerned.
Only that’s not really true, she thought. The Emperor always seemed to stick his nose into everything. He had the right, but most Emperors before him had simply made their wishes known and let the professional officers deal with the how and wherewith. She hadn’t had that much oversight when she had been the commander of Home Fleet, and many times she had found herself wishing that she was still there.
“What is it, Xiun?” she asked the young Captain who was her aide.
“The Commander of the New Moscow system is on the com. Says she had a problem.”
“Of course she does. And she couldn’t kick it up to Mgonda or Lenkowski?”
“The Admiral says she tried to get orders from Admiral Mgonda, but he told her to talk to you.”
“Great,” said McCullom, turning off the flat comp. “Send her to me.”
A moment later the holo sprung to life over the desk, showing the worried face of the Vice Admiral in charge of the system and all of its space based defenses. Three stars glinted on each collar, and she should have had enough authority to handle any situation in the system that didn’t involve a full invasion. Unless that damned new Czar is making new demands.
“What can I do for you, Admiral Schwartz?”
“It’s the Elysium fleet, ma’am. They are demanding transit clearance for the ship gate back to Sector IV HQ.”
“How many ships are they requesting transit authority for?”
“All of them, ma’am. Their entire fleet.”
“And what the hell is their entire fleet doing in your system?” asked McCullom, sitting up straight in her chair and grabbing a stylus to twirl in her fingers, anxiety about the overcome her. The Emperor had warned her that the Elysium fleet might be withdrawn, but she had thought it an idle threat. Or at least something that wouldn’t happen for some time.
“They have been coming in over the last couple of days, ma’am. When I asked them what they were doing here, all they would tell
me is they were a sovereign power, and to ask their commander when he arrived. I kicked it up the chain, and was told that they were within their rights. Admiral Mgonda thought they were just trying to reorganize before the next action, and ordered me to cooperate with them as far as possible.”
“So, what is your question, Admiral?”
“What the hell should I do, ma’am? We need their ships on this front. Can we let them leave?”
“What do you suggest, Admiral. Shutting down the gate? Opening fire on them if they attempt to transit their ships?”
“No, ma’am. But they’re leaving the front.”
So they are. And all we can do is hope the Emperor can talk some sense into their leaders at the summit. “Listen to me, Admiral. You will allow them transit of the gate, and allow them to send any coms through ahead of time that they wish. And you will be polite and cooperative in all ways. We will still need their help in the future, and it will do nobody any good to let tempers flare and feelings be hurt.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the other Admiral, looking off the holo for a moment. “We have transmitted authorization.” She was silent for a moment longer. “They are reporting that they will begin transit in five minutes, and will complete it in twelve hours, fifteen minutes. They are requesting that we clear all traffic from the other side for that time period. They are also requesting that the gate back to the central black hole be cleared as well. It seems like they are going home.”
And there really is nothing we can do about it, thought McCullom as she terminated the com, then sent a request from her own office. Moments later the face of the Emperor was looking out of a new holo above her desk.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 5
