Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front

by Doug Dandridge

  * * *

  “The wing is ready for deployment, Captain,” said the Executive Officer of the unit over the com.

  “Understood, XO,” said Chou, who was not only commander of her own wing for this mission, but the overall leader of the entire strike force. She looked over at her Klassakian com tech, Spacer Second Class Mzzarat Naranta. “How is your contact with your siblings, Mzzarat?”

  “Five by five, Ma’am,” replied the Spacer. “Our sister is aboard the Pinta with the others, and linked into that ship’s sensor network. The other sister is still at our point of origin, and the connection is just as strong with her.”

  The Captain nodded. It was thought that the Klassakians could communicate among siblings through their quantum connections from anywhere in the Universe. But this was the first confirmation it worked at a distance of over thirty thousand light years.

  Mzzarat had seven siblings, a normal sized litter for her people. Six of them, including her, were aboard inertia less fighters as com techs, while the other two were split between the Donut, back in Imperial space, and the exploration ship Nina. The other vessels of the six flight wings were also equipped the same way. This would be the first test of the concept in battle. Chou was happy they were actually going to put their new toys to use, but she had hoped it wouldn’t have been against the odds they were facing this day.

  “Com from the Klavarta command,” said Mzzarat, looking over her shoulder. “We are cleared to deploy as we see fit. Data coming through on dispositions and orders for their own fleet.”

  Well, that’s nice, thought Chou, who had been wondering how much information the Klavarta would be willing to share. It was hazardous enough traipsing through the system almost blind, when running into anything could blow them out of space. Knowing the proposed positions of the friendly ships would be a great help.

  “Last wing coming through the portal, Ma’am,” called out the Pilot, his eyes locked on the small tactical holo over his board.

  Chou looked over the larger holo in the center of the cabin and ran a finger over a proposed path, then some others, assigning the courses of three strike subgroups, each composed of two wings, that she had decided would be the best way to hit the Cacas. They would hit them in three waves at different areas of their fleet, then turn around and strike at three other elements. That way she could spread the raw fear that her ships would cause. And maybe even get in a reload and strike again. She had no illusions that she would defeat the Cacas, but stinging them would have to be enough.

  She sent out the tasking orders through the normal short range laser com, then waited for the acknowledgement from all ships.

  All of the fighters started accelerating at their space normal maximum of fifteen hundred gravities. They would only be able to carry the velocity out of warp that they brought in, so they needed to build up to that speed before they warped out. That took just over three hours, a time when they could be tracked by their graviton emissions. They were still almost a light hour from the enemy at that point, and Chou almost wished the Cacas would fire on her command, because they would be gone before those weapons got to them.

  “Prepare to raise warp bubble,” she ordered, and the command went out to all the ships over the new Klassakian network.

  “All have acknowledged,” said Mzzarat after a moment of listening to her sister’s thoughts.

  “Raise warp bubbles and begin acceleration,” was the next order.

  On six hundred and sixty of the fifteen hundred ton attack ships the negative matter tanks released their loads into the strong electromagnetic fields, forming the warp bubble that separated them from the normal universe. As soon as the field was in place each ship started to accelerate at its maximum in field rate of thirty thousand gravities. Outside of the field that acceleration would have been over twenty-eight thousand gravities beyond the capabilities of the inertial compensators, enough to crush the crew to beyond paste, and make even the tough alloys of the vessel flow like soft plastic. Inside the field it was as if the acceleration did not exist.

  Chou studied the tactical holo, which would normally have shown the estimated position of the attack craft and all other ships in the system. With the Klassakian net they were receiving the feeds from hundreds of ships, some close, some far, en mass enough to show where the enemy ships really were, as well as their own positions.

  And soon we get to see if this works in a real attack pattern, she thought, leaning back in her chair and trying to relax, while they built up velocity to the speed of light and beyond. And these Cacas don’t have a clue what’s coming their way.

  * * *

  “Our analysts have been looking at the situation, your Majesty,” said McCullom. “I wish I could tell you that we had a chance to salvage that system, but my people can see no way out.”

  “We have to be able to do something,” said Sean, slamming a hard hand down on his desk. The holo flickered for a moment, and the Emperor felt the shame of losing his temper in front of a subordinate. “What can we do, Admiral? Can we project enough force into that system to make the Cacas back off.”

  “Your Majesty. We have looked over all of the data sent through by the Nina and her sisters. There appears to be twenty-five thousand Ca’cadasan ships, more than were in the initial invasion force that hit us and the Republic, and took out New Moscow. Even if we were to transit all of home fleet, and all the ships we have near enough to gates to move through within forty-eight hours, we would still be outnumbered, us and the Klavarta, six to one in tonnage. We would just lose those ships.”

  “Then what do your analysts suggest, Admiral?”

  “Evacuation. We send as many hulls as we can, troop transports, liners, freighters, and a shitload, er, I mean a bunch of shuttles, and pull as many of those people as we can out of the system. We can repatriate them later, to one of their major industrial worlds.”

  “How many of those major industrial worlds do they have, Admiral. And how much do they lose if they lose this system?”

  “According to what they told Sung, they have over a thousand inhabited systems in their nation, of which fifty-four are of the major industrial variety. They’re not as heavily populated as our core systems, maybe two billion each, but almost all of their industry is military in nature.”

  “So what’s your estimate on their loss of productivity and military power if, no when, they lose this system?”

  “Worst case scenario, your Majesty. And this is mostly guess work. They will lose about five percent of their industry, and probably from fifteen to twenty percent of their military power. That’s based on how large their home fleet is, since they seemed so determined to hold that one system.”

  Which is biting them in the ass, thought the Emperor. And something we need to remember.

  “About the same percentage industry and population as we lost when the Cacas took out Cimmeria and Aquilonia,” continued McCullom.

  Sean felt the guilt that threatened to overwhelm him whenever he thought about that system which had contained two core worlds. They had been wiped out by the Cacas, and, even though he could have ordered the fleet to make an all-out effort to defend the system, the fleet would have been wiped out. The dream that had identified the target had also told him that he would lose the war if he reacted to it. It had been the right decision, which still didn’t make it any easier to reconcile with the fact that he had doomed over seven billion sentients, mostly human, to death.

  “They can recover from that, your Majesty. And my people think we can get two billion or more out of the system before the Cacas get within orbit of their primary moon.”

  “Out of five or six billion?”

  “Two billion is still a better number than what we rescued from New Moscow, your Majesty. I wish we could get all of them out of there, but in the real Universe we have to accept our limitations. And there’s the possibility that the Klavarta can get even more out, depending on how many hulls they can get to the gates in time.�
��

  “Very well. Do it, Admiral. Tell whomever you’re sending through to command our forces that my recommendation is for the Klavarta to get as many of their people through as possible. I’m sure their government will want to pack adult warriors and industrial workers through the gates first, but I want as many of their children to get through as possible.”

  “Good idea, sir. It will definitely help us to gain the loyalty of the Klavarta.”

  “And it’s the right thing to do, Admiral. Remember that.”

  “I worry that the civilians they interact with might not be so accepting of them, your Majesty. You know that their genetic modifications go well beyond what our laws allow.”

  “I’ll deal with that, Admiral. They weren’t modified under our laws, and they can’t help what others did to them to make them that way.”

  “What about their government? They’ll surely try to get through the gate if we don’t get them first. And when they’re here, it might hurt our relationship arresting and trying them as genocides.”

  “They are not to get through that gate, Admiral. No matter what. They will die in that system, heroes of their people. As soon as the Chairwoman issues the evacuation orders, I want the operation to go forward to take them out as planned.”

  “Understood,” said the Admiral, though her expression told that though understood intellectually, it was not accepted on an emotional level.

  As long as she follows orders, she can feel whatever she likes. I’m the one the guilt falls on at the end of the day. And I can accept that.

  * * *

  Ships had been coming through the gate since a few minutes after the small fighters had appeared. Liners, freighters, smaller vessels that looked like pleasure craft. Hundreds of the former, thousands of the latter. She still wasn’t sure what use they would be, unless? Are they trying to pull us out, along with our most important people? We could do that.

  “More objects are coming through the wormhole, Ma’am.”

  And there were, ships that looked like some of her kingdom’s largest warships, in the two hundred thousand ton range. Or they would have been if not for the mass of pods that were attached to their hulls.

  “What are those?” she asked, looking at the holo of the Admiral.

  “They have told us they are minelayers,” said the Admiral, holding his ear as he listened to the com unit lodged within his auditory canal. “Each is carrying fifty pods of ten missiles each. They will accelerate into the paths of the enemy and lay the pods, which are heavily stealthed. They will launch when the enemy ships get within range to pick them up despite their stealth.”

  There were twenty ships already in system, with more coming through every moment. Each ship was carrying five hundred capital ship missiles in their pods, between them thousands of weapons. While not enough to destroy the Monster fleet, it would sting them. But would enough stings drive them away? She doubted it, which made getting herself and as many of her immortals as possible through one of the wormholes a priority.

  “Can we transit that wormhole back to their Empire?” she asked the Admiral.

  “Not while they’re transiting ships and weapons into our system,” said the Admiral. “There would be too much chance of a collision.”

  Then we wait, she thought, looking over at the holo that was showing a unit of her home fleet closing with the enemy, the arrows of missiles flowing both ways as they fired on each other. That was the only way they could track what was going on in real time, as the grav waves of the grabber units involved almost instantaneously transited the light hours of space.

  Missile icons started falling off the plot as they were taken out by counter weapons. The weapons from her ships were falling off faster than those of the Monsters, since the massive fleet was able to engage the weapons of only a few thousand much smaller craft, most with only a dozen missiles. Then the Ca’cadasan missiles started getting through, and her ships started disappearing from the plot as well. Scores at first, then hundreds. A few enemy ships were destroyed, some more damaged, but only a hundred or so of the Klavarta attack ships actually got within beam weapon range, and they got much the worse of that duel as well.

  The Klavarta force was gone. They had fought with suicidal ferocity, as they always did. Which may have worked when there were thousands of attack ships attacking a hundred or so of the Monster ships. This was not that situation, and there was no way they could crack the defenses of that large a fleet.

  “Madam Chairwoman,” came a call over the com identified as the Imperial Commodore. “Taking them on a piecemeal with your home fleet is not going to work. You need to concentrate your forces and hit them with a hammer.”

  “You think that will work?”

  “No, Chairwoman. I do not. You will still lose this system, and there is no way we can get enough aid to you in time to save it. But you will cause more damage to the enemy by hitting them with a concentrated force, which is the best you can hope for. Or you can continue to throw away your warriors for no return, and the Caca fleet will be stronger at the end, when they go for the rest of your systems.”

  “Very well,” said Pallion, switching the tactical holo to show all of her industrial platforms and mining outposts on moons and asteroids, and the antimatter facilities around the star. It had taken almost six hundred years to build this infrastructure, and it was doomed to be wiped out in a little more than two days. “I will order the fleet to do as you suggest. Now, what about the rest of us who are trapped here. Our graviton tracking is showing that the Monsters have surrounded the system and that there is no escape.”

  “I believe the Emperor and the Admiralty is working on an evacuation plan, Madam Chairman. We should be getting word soon, but I suggest that you start gathering every shuttle and every space capable hull you can put your hands on.”

  “And how do we get out of here?” said Pallion, in a panic forgetting what the Imperials had in orbit.

  “Through our wormhole, of course,” said Sung.

  And I will be among the first to get through to safety, thought the Chairwoman. And then we will return with all of the marvelous tech of the Imperials, and let the Monsters, let all the aliens in this part of space, beware.

  Pallion sat there for some minutes, watching as the minelayers accelerated past her moon and headed for the Monsters. Until she was again interrupted by the com. “Madam Chairman. You need to see this,” said the familiar voice.

  “What is it?” she asked as the holo showed a long range zoom of the inertia less fighters, the distance marker showing that they were over ten light minutes away.

  “Those fighters, Ma’am. They just, disappeared, Ma’am,” gasped the Admiral in charge of orbital defense over the com.

  Pallion watched the holo herself, and the ships first erected silver globes around themselves, then completely disappeared from all sensors. Visual, radar, lidar, even heat sensors lost all trace of them, as if they had teleported away. We need their tech, she thought, her own greed for power driving all other thoughts from her mind for the moment.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.

  Hunter S. Thompson.

  The fleet forged on ahead, accelerating at five hundred and twenty-five gravities. When they reached the halfway point they would start decelerating at the same rate, on a course that would bring them into the gas giant system. The tactical holo showed that the situation hadn’t changed. There were still small groups heading at him, obviously intending to attack as soon as they could. Some were already launching, trying to get the best use out of their weapons at long range. His ships, or at least as many as needed to, were returning fire. The enemy was coming in the same old way, all to his advantage.

  “They are slowing, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  They were, as he could see himself. Most were still heading his way. It took time to change vectors. He wasn�
�t sure what they were trying to accomplish. The forces that couldn’t slow and reverse before they got to him were still forging ahead. It really did no good to slow themselves so that they were converging with his fleet as easy targets. But the rest were trying to do something else.

  “They’re just delaying the inevitable,” said the Tactical Officer.

  But the changing vector arrows concerned the Great Admiral. Every ship that was heading his way that could avoid close action was slowing, or thrusting along new vectors. He ordered the holo to show him projected courses and cursed.

  “Are they trying to run?” asked the Chief of Staff, his own eyes locked on the holo.

  “No. Someone is finally thinking over there. They are trying to gather their forces so they can form one strike force.”

  “We should still be able to beat them, yes?”

  “Oh, we’ll beat them, but I’m going to lose a lot more males than if they had come at us the same old way.”

  The holo showed a mass of vessels, several thousand at least, forming up in a far orbit of the gas giant and vectoring toward his fleet. Some of those readings were of ships larger than any Klavarta vessel they had ever run into. Fire million tons or so. And it was radiating in the same resonance as the other Klavarta ships, so he didn’t think it was Imperial. He was fairly sure the vessels that had yet to join that main body would change their vectors to join up before they struck.

  We’ve been in the system for less than three hours, and they are already adjusting to the reality of us being here. Not that it’s going to help them all that much. We’ve got them flat footed, and they have to realize it.

  * * *

  “Commodore Sung. I am Vice Admiral Connie Wallace. I am taking command of our part of the operation in this system.”

  “Glad to see you, Admiral,” said Sung, looking at the small petite blond in the holo. “We’re shooting all information we have on the system, the Klavarta and the Cacas over to your ship.”