“How many wormholes still in the system?”
“We’ve lost four in the fight so far, Majesty. Which leaves twenty-seven, including the ship gate.”
“And we don’t have any reinforcements waiting at the other end of that gate?”
“What reinforcements we had for that system had already gone through to stack the odds against the force we were already fighting.”
“Then order those ships out of there,” said Sean with a frown. He didn’t like giving up on a fight, but he had finally learned the wisdom of retreating when necessary. “I assume that all of the wormholes are aboard hyper VII ships.”
The Chief Analyst looked off holo for a moment, bringing up the order of battle. Sean shook his head, hoping no one had been stupid enough to equip a hyper VI ship with a wormhole. Doctrine was to only equip hyper VII ships with wormholes, since they would be both capable of outrunning pursuit and incapable of using a wormhole gate without dumping the one they carried. He would have ordered all of their wormholes closed down if that is what needed to be done to rescue that force to fight another day. He would order the shipgate closed down if they couldn’t save it. Earlier in the day it had seemed like they would have to save every single one no matter what the cost. Now he could lose every single one in that system and they would replace them in a couple of days. Less than a day when the Donut was back up to full capacity.
“And the ships that can’t use the gate?” asked Lenkowski.
“See if we can lure a large force of their ships, here,” ordered the Emperor, looking at the plot and indicating another once prosperous system that was now dead as well. “If we can gate enough ships in there to lay in wait, we should be able to take out that force.”
“That should work, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski.
And the next time we meet the Cacas, they may be able to do the same to us, thought Sean. A frightening thought. Even if the Cacas were never able to match them in number of wormholes, they would still have enough to shift forces around, much as the Empire was doing now.
“Tell all the task force and group commanders to proceed cautiously from this point,” he told his staff after that last thought hit him. “They might try to pull something similar to what we have been doing, now that they have wormholes themselves.”
The holo died at a thought, leaving Sean alone again with his problems. At heart the only thing he cared about the battle was that it would end. And then he thought again on the small life that had been snuffed out on Jewel. One of many millions, but to him the most important one of all.
Chapter Twenty-two
When in doubt, don't. Benjamin Franklin
“The enemy fleet is moving into the system, my Lord,” said the male who was acting as the Fleet Tactical Officer. “Our initial force is moving out to meet them from their staging point.”
Great Admiral Mgananawan K’lantariana gave a head motion of acknowledgement and continued to stare at the plot. He was about to enter unknown tactical territory, with no idea how things would turn out. Of course, until we happened upon these vermin once again, everything was so predictable. We showed up with overwhelming force, the poor fools we confronted either pissed themselves and gave up, or fought and lost, and we won another conquest.
The humans on both fronts, and on the other front their allies as well, we’re not such easy prey. They fought hard and they fought smart, and they didn’t give up just because of a loss. And unfortunately, they didn’t always lose.
“And they are coming in on the vector we anticipated?”
“Yes, my Lord. They appear to be rushing headlong into our trap.”
And appearances can sometimes be deceiving, thought the Great Admiral. It appeared to be a massive fleet moving into the system. At least forty thousand of the Klavarta vessels, though most were the small raider class they used so extensively. Maybe a couple of hundred larger ships, almost the size of the cruisers used by the Ca’cadasans. There were forty other, larger ships, of the configuration used by the other humans.
He had a force of more than two thousand ships moving out to meet them as they came in from the hyper barrier. Only five hundred of his vessels were the superbattleships that formed the strength of the Ca’cadasan fleet. Another five hundred were supercruisers, with the remainder of the force being made up of scouts. He actually had more tonnage than the enemy, but he knew that another force was on the way in, far out of detection range. Having only four wormholes in his entire command, he had to use some judicious decision making in his deployments. One of those deployments was a superbattleship sitting doggo in space a couple of light years from the system, along with two more on different axis of approach. One had picked up the incoming fleet, and had sent the details through its wormhole. Another ship had picked up the follow-up force, twice as large as the first one, coming in from a different angle.
Their strategy was clear. Lure out his fleet with the first force, getting it away from the base and its orbital structures, while the second force came in behind it and destroyed the infrastructure and forts. Afterwards, both forces would have his fleet trapped between them, and they would win.
Only it wasn’t going to go down that way. Not since he had his own wormhole gate in orbit around the base planet, and had been bringing in reinforcements over the last week. Now those reinforcements were lying cold and powered down in deployments that would allow them to take the second force in the flanks as it came deep into the system, while his first force fought a running battle with the leading enemy fleet.
“We should be able to route them in a day,” said the Chief of Staff, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “And then begins the chase back to their home world.”
Wherever that might be, thought the Great Admiral. He doubted they would run back to their home world, and there was no way to pick it out through the normal means of checking out the prime stars. Most intelligent species who had developed on green worlds preferred those planets, which were most numerous around G and K class stars, and infrequent around Ms. The Klavarta were satisfied with the secondary stars and space habitats, and red dwarves were the most numerous stars around.
* * *
“We have them, Mr. President. Madame Vice,” said the Klavarta commander of the fleet, Admiral Regis Larista, transmitting to the nearby Imperial battlecruiser that was carrying a wormhole.
“Be cautious Admiral,” said Admiral Mikas Silveski, the commander of all New Terran Empire forces on this front, lent to the Klavarta for the war.
Lent to us, but not for our unrestrained use, thought Larista, stopping a head shake in mid-motion. That was unfair. Over a third of the human fleet assigned to this front was with her now. If anything happened to her force they would share in the disaster.
“I am sure Admiral Larista will keep an eye out for trouble,” said another of the people in on the com conference, speaking in a strange accent. A small side holo showed a non-human face, with a semi-rigid beak and fine feathers. Vice Admiral Mashara Ignoa was a Gryphon, among the most numerous alien species in the New Terran Empire, and full citizens of that polity. He not only commanded the human element of her fleet, but was also second in command of the entire force.
“I have full confidence in the Admiral,” said the Klavarta President, Manstara. Beside him stood the pure human Thallia Thrann, the Vice President of the Nation of New Earth. “But I have a bad feeling about this new commander of the Monsters.”
As do I, thought Larista. Before, the Ca’cadasans had been arrogant, and predictability grew from that arrogance. They had been able to fight the Monsters to a standstill for a long period of time, mostly because of their predictability. And now things were changing. The Monsters showed hints of those changes in the last campaign. They no longer just charged into battle, they retreated when expedient. And their ships were also changing, adapting, borrowing the traits and techs from their enemies.
And things are changing for us as well, thought the Admiral, glancing at the holo th
at showed the Gryphon officer. A very short time before, their nation killed any and all aliens that entered their space. There was still much guilt among both the Klavarta and the pure humans over those policies, even if they hadn’t been the fault of those who now ruled and commanded. They had been the policies of the mad immortal rulers of the nation. The humans and aliens of the New Terran Empire had thrown off the yoke of the rulers, and in the process had destroyed most of the invading Monster force.
This conference was part of the changes that were happening in the Nation as well. A dozen people in ten different locations, light years apart. It was something that would have been beyond the imaginations of most of the people on this com conference just six months earlier.
“The enemy force is firing, Ma’am,” said Captain Ngerita Olsaf, Larista’s Chief of Staff.
“Tend to your force, Admiral,” said the President. “I assume your people will keep us informed of what is happening.”
“I assure you they will,” said Larista. A moment later most of the holos died, the connections severed by the President, leaving only her senior commanders still on the com.
“All of their ships have fired, Admiral,” reported the Chief of Staff. “We have fifty thousand missiles in space. Our own ships are returning fire.”
The flagship didn’t shake. It was in the second force, and was not actually on the battlefield as of yet. The plot showed the battlefield that was the enemy system, the two forces approaching each other, the enemy from insystem, the Klavarta from out. The icons of missiles appeared on the plot, the fifty thousand vector arrows from the enemy appearing as a solid mass in the wide view. The Klavarta force had just launched, their missiles also appearing as a solid mass. What wasn’t showing were the ninety missiles fired by the three wormhole equipped ships, streaking silently, without a trace, toward the enemy force at point nine light. A minute later a second volley followed, indicated by the numbers underneath the launching ships which came up as the holo zoomed in automatically.
It took ten minutes for the three ships to go through their launching cycles, putting nine hundred silent killers into space. They had the advantage of approaching the enemy without the chance of detection, until they were within the range in which their stealthy bodies could be detected by active sensors. And they would be speeding in at a high engagement velocity, true ship killers. When they turned on their grabbers they would light up the scans of every ship in the system, almost instantaneously. That was their disadvantage. They would have to go active in order to strike targets. The targets appeared to be in a close cluster on the plot, but in reality were more than a hundred kilometers apart, making their formation more of a sieve than a mass. If the missiles turned on their grabbers too soon, they could be targeted at range by counter missiles, falling into close engagement range after lighting up every targeting sensor in the enemy fleet. If they engaged their drives late, they ran the risk of not being able to change their vectors enough to actually hit anything. And if they engaged drives at the perfect moment, they still had little choice of what target they hit. If luck was with the humans, they would all strike major targets. It was more likely that they would get a twenty percent kill rate, one hundred and eighty ships, which was high in a missile duel. But most of those kills would be the scout ships that screened the force.
In a half an hour they would be ready to fire again, as soon as new missiles were pre-accelerated in their launch tubes back at the Donut. A little less than forty minutes to reach their launching velocity in the acceleration tubes, they would launch in the same order as before, if that was what was wanted. Or they could be held for some time until needed. And the Admiral was sure that they would be needed in this fight. Would that he had more, but there were other fights going on, and the Empire had to first look after their own.
Once they won this battle they would have bought more time. Time they could use to bring the new ships online and surprise the Monsters with something different. She didn’t think the new ships would win the war, at least not in one fell stroke. But now that they were allied with the New Terran Empire, more and more innovations would roll off the designing boards. As surprising as the Monsters were becoming, the two human powers would become even more so.
“Any sign of other ships in the system?” the Admiral asked Olsaf.
“None that we have seen, ma’am.”
“Excellent.” We have them, thought the Admiral, then remembered what the President had told her. Be cautious. Because if she lost this fleet, the Cacas would once again be knocking on their door. If that happened before they built the new fleet, they would surely lose the war before any more innovations came to the fore.
* * *
“Show me more,” ordered the Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire, Jresstratta IV. He was enjoying himself, having a good time, something that came infrequently of late. Emperors had sent males and ships into battle for generations. Jresstratta had done so himself for over a thousand years, though most of the fights he had sent his people into had been one sided. Not so over the last three years. And unlike any time in the past, he had a real time view of the battles. He could see what was happening, how both sides were moving and reacting. And he could see the mistakes being made in each fight.
Not what I have been told, he thought, watching the three holos hanging in the air in front of him. One showed the tactical plot of a system, another a much closer tactical view, the third a real time view of the space around the ship carrying the wormhole. Not what they wish to tell me. But what I can pick and choose to watch for myself.
His line was one of the most intelligent in the Empire. The original Emperor had been the best strategist and tactician that the Ca’cadasans had produced to that time. And he had bred into lines that produced scientists and thinkers. It was all well and good to be strong and brave, a great warrior. But a good leader needed more. And then his people had, for the most part, placed the Emperor away from the decision making, isolated behind sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear. No more, he thought. They still wouldn’t allow him to lead in battle, but now he could judge the results himself, give the orders, and make sure those orders were carried out.
As he watched the plot, following an exchange of missiles, a hundred and eighty vectors arrows sprung into existence less than ten light seconds from the edge of the Ca’cadasan force they were targeting. There was no warning. They were just suddenly there, their graviton emissions indicating hard vector changes. A few were taken out by close in weapons systems. Many more missed their targets, though some reacquired new ones further in. And forty-two ships disappeared from the plot.
The Emperor stared in disbelief. He had heard about the wormhole launched missiles, and their disproportionate kill rate as compared to other weapons. But seeing it was a different thing, even if it was just a graphical representation on a tactical plot. He knew his own military was trying to develop wormhole launched weapons, but they were still years behind the humans, and didn’t have the wormholes to boot.
Another view, this time from a camera, shot from one ship toward another. Both were traveling on the same vector at the same velocity, so the other ship appeared to be standing still in the view. Suddenly a quartet of stupendous flares appeared around the other ship. The one directly behind looked like a star had been born out of empty space. Two more grew out of empty space to either side. And a moment later one appeared right on top of the superbattleship, engulfing it in a blast of almost impossible fury. The ship came apart in an instant, three large multiton pieces, a score of smaller, and a cloud of various size particles.
“What in all the hells were those?” roared the shocked Emperor.
“Something new, Supreme Lord,” answered one of the Admiralty staffers who was standing by to answer questions. “We think it is a weapon akin to their impossible fighters. Very powerful, but extremely inaccurate.”
“Doesn’t look like they need much accuracy,” said the Emperor under his bre
ath. The blast looked to be in the terraton range, more than a thousand times as powerful as the gigaton class ship killers that both fleets were throwing around.
“They send out much the same signal that the impossible fighters do,” said the staffer. “Unfortunately, by the time we pick them up, they are only seconds from coming out of their warp. And by then it’s too late. They detonate on reentering normal space, so hitting them with close in weapons really accomplishes nothing.”
“We must have that technology,” said the Emperor in a loud voice. “We must duplicate it.”
“The impossible fighters, Supreme Lord? Or the missiles?”
And why do we keep calling them impossible fighters, when they’ve been shown to be extremely possible, thought the Emperor with a head motion of disbelief. “Both. We must have both of those technologies. Perhaps the human scientist who has helped us with wormholes can help us with that as well.”
“We will make him help us, Supreme Lord.”
The Emperor gave another head motion, this one of negation. When will my people learn that pain and fear will not result in the best the human scientists can give us. “I will want to talk with Dr. Smirnov myself,” said the Emperor. “Bring him to my chambers in an hour.” He looked back at the holos, where the action of the battle was still unveiling. And to another set where the battle in the enemy space on the other side of the Empire was also in progress. “Make that two hours.”
“He will be there, Supreme Lord.”
“And be gentle with him. I want him well treated.” As long as we give him safety for himself and his family, he will work for us, if not entirely willingly. But willingly enough.
* * *
The news services were all over Capitulum in force, as well as all the other cities of Jewel. The expensive ultra-high definition holo was centered on a young woman talking, the Galactic News Network logo below her image. And behind her, the image of the city, shattered buildings, smoking pits. Here and there an intact structure still towered, off in the distance entire neighborhoods of low rises were still sitting peacefully under the smoke filled sky.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 29
