Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front

by Doug Dandridge

“We need to get moving,” said the Security Officer who was in command of her escort, and was in charge of getting all of the Council out of the building. “The stairs at the end of the hall. We’ll go up those and get to the roof.”

  Pallion nodded in acknowledgement. The roof was two floors up, and from there they would have access to a number of aircars that were already parked on the landing platform. The security people could get them open and started if given a moment’s time. They started moving, the workers trailing behind, held back by some of the security people. That way they remained a meat barrier to whatever was coming up those stairs.

  Just before they got to the door it opened, and a huge creature in battle armor stooped down to enter, a heavy rifle in its hands. The leading security guards aimed and fired, their high velocity pistol rounds bouncing harmlessly from the armor. The few that had particle beams tried to force themselves forward, but the crush of the crowd was too great. The Ca’cadasan brought his rifle up as another stooped through the doorway. A red beam shot from the rifle, accompanied by the angry buzzing sound of relativistic protons splitting the air.

  “No,” yelled Pallion as the beam swung her way, burning down security guards and several Council members as it moved. Pallion was a woman who was used to being obeyed, her word law. But she could say nothing that would stop these death beams from burning out her life.

  * * *

  Well, that part’s done, thought Cornelius as he watched through the eyes of one of the puppets. He recognized Pallion, and observed as the beam vaporized the upper torso of the primary target. A third and a fourth puppet joined the first pair, and added their fire to the mix. Scores of security personnel were burned down along with the Council, bodies partially vaporized, charred remains falling to the floor. He had to make sure that he got all of the Council. He couldn’t allow even one to escape, lest that one try to grab power in the future. Another puppet and one of the shape shifters came through the door, while some more of the puppets and the second remaining Yugalyth came through the doors to the other set of stairs.

  One of the security men with a particle beam finally got a shot in on one of the puppets. The beam had to remain in contact for seconds to burn through the armor, but they had thought of this as well in planning the mission, and the creature collapsed, its heart stopped, as soon as the beam touched the suit. More security personnel opened fire, these his own men in disguise, and soon the Cacas were all dead on the floor, puppets and shape shifters.

  We had no way of getting them out without giving away the game, he thought as the other two Yugalyth in the special group were burned down. Sorry, but your Mother gets to live, as well as the others we have in captivity, because your sacrifice shows how useful you can be to us. And hundreds of people have witnessed this play.

  “Major,” came the call over his com. “We’ve destroyed all spare clones and the memory traces.”

  “Good job. What was the bill?”

  “We lost twenty-three people, sir.”

  Cornelius winced as he heard that figure. “And collateral?”

  “The vault was heavily guarded,” said the young officer. “We had to have killed at least a hundred. Fortunately, because of the element of surprise, we were able to stun a hell of a lot more of them.”

  “Then get to the extraction point soonest,” Walborski ordered. That point was actually the roof of the building, where resistance members would pick them up in aircars and transport them to the nearest shuttle port. The wormhole had already been extracted. It was needed elsewhere. “Everyone,” he called over the com. “If you are in the middle of engagement, disengage. Make sure all of the puppets are dead, then head to the extraction point.” And I’m never going to do another mission like this, thought the Soldier. Sean can kiss my ass if he expects me to become his assassin.

  * * *

  “I have an anomaly picked up during the attack by those damned, things,” said the Sensor Officer. The holo over his board showed a sine wave that looked like nothing the Great Admiral had ever seen, a three dimensional structure that was much like a hyperwave transit on strength enhancing drugs.

  “This appeared as the first one started to fade in,” said the Sensor Officer. “I think it was them coming out of whatever kind of warp phenomenon they were in. It disappears when they are fully in our space, then reappears in a reverse profile as they fade back into wherever they came from.”

  “So they teleported here, through some kind of warp?” asked the Chief of Staff.

  “I don’t have enough information to make that kind of judgement sir,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “But it gives us something to work with,” said the Great Admiral. He looked over at the Com Officer. “Send out an all fleet transmission. See if anyone else picked up this anomaly.”

  “Only a few ships in the fleet have the latest sensor package,” said the Sensor Officer, looking back at the Great Admiral. “I doubt many vessels picked this up.”

  “Still, make sure all vessels get this report and the data that goes with it,” ordered the Great Admiral. “If they’re on the lookout for it, maybe we might get a few seconds warning before the next attack. And be able to get some fire on them before they get away.”

  “You might want to see this too, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer, switching the view on the central holo.

  The Great Admiral immediately recognized the moon that was the capital of the Klavarta nation, the world they had come to crush. The big New Terran Empire vessels were still in orbit around it, two in clear view, one just coming around the curve of the moon. But there were a lot of other ships there, what were obviously more of the human Empire ships, one very large. And some round ships of a type he couldn’t recognize, though the lines screamed commercial vessel. And behind one of them, a large mirror? That’s what it looked like, until the bow of a ship thrust through the mirror surface, which rippled as it passed.

  “It’s a wormhole,” shouted the Great Admiral. “They are real.”

  “And they are passing ships from wherever they’re coming from to here, my Lord,” said the Chief of Staff. “Which I don’t consider a positive.”

  “Orders, my Lord?” asked the Tactical Officer.

  “What is the status of the Klavarta fleet?”

  “They have almost consolidated at a range of just over a light hour. They are accelerating on an intercept vector at six hundred gravities. Several thousand ships have yet to join the main force, but all are on a course to join up before they get within twenty light minutes of us.”

  “Fire on that wormhole, then. Enough missiles to ensure its destruction. Forty thousand should do it.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer, imputing the commands on his board, which sent out the command to the rest of the fleet with the flagship code attached. Moments later every ship within a light second of the flagship fired, then more as the order swept out, until forty thousand missiles were on their way toward the moon, set to target anything that was not a natural body in orbit around the gas giant.

  “The Klavarta fleet is firing on us, my Lord,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Forty thousand missiles tracked. Eighty thousand. One hundred and twenty thousand. Acceleration, forty-five hundred gravities. All appear to fit the standard Klavarta missile profile.”

  “Return fire,” ordered the Great Admiral. “Let’s test their defenses in a massive barrage.”

  “Yes, my Lord. Now one hundred and sixty missiles in their waves.”

  Moments later another set of vector arrows started separating from the fleet, tens of thousands of them, accelerating at the standard eight thousand gravities of Ca’cadasan missiles. More icons joined the flood every second, until over two hundred thousand of the weapons were on the way toward the Klavarta fleet. A few minutes later came a second series of launches, targeting every significant concentration of enemy ships in the system.

  With luck we have just won this battle, thought the Great Admiral, looki
ng at the holo. And if not, we will still have hurt them badly. Much more than they could possibly hurt us. After all, by their measure he had invaded the system with at least twenty times the tonnage of all the enemy ships in system combined. Probably much more. There really was no way to lose.

  * * *

  “Approaching attack point, now,” called out the Pilot as he activated the controls that pulled the magnetic field into a configuration to funnel the negative matter back into the storage tanks.

  “All craft dropping out of warp,” said Mzzarat from her station.

  Chou nodded as she looked at the tactical holo that put them at almost exactly ten light seconds from the edge of the formation, velocity point nine five light. The other twelve ships of the formation appeared to both sides, also on an almost perfect profile. Ahead was the outer layer of the formation, which were not their targets. Comprised of four million ton supercruisers and six hundred thousand ton scout ships, they were the screen and escort of the ships they had come to kill. Those ships only had seconds of warning before the attack fighters were past them and heading for the priority targets.

  “Locking onto targets,” called out the Pilot, who had weapons under his control. Reticles appeared over two of the ships that were about four light seconds ahead. Antimatter tankers, they really didn’t have much defense against what was coming at them. They had some counter missile defenses, which were totally useless at this range, and some close in weapons, which were useless as well because of the lack of time to bring them to bear.

  The ship vibrated slightly as it dropped two of its weapons, which boosted ahead for a second before splitting into multiple warheads. The Pilot pulled the ship up at maximum normal space accel, fifteen hundred gravities, trying to get as much separation from the targets as possible.

  Both targets were hit by most of the warheads targeting them, and thousands of tons of antimatter breached containment in explosions that dwarfed the weapons that had caused those breaches. The attack fighter absorbed megawatts of heat and radiation, and alarm klaxons sounded in the cockpit. The fighter bucked a bit, but passed through faster than the plasma cloud that had been two antimatter tankers could travel.

  “We took damage to all of our external systems,” reported the Engineering PO from the stern of the craft. “Initiating self-repairs.”

  “Can we still raise the warp bubble?” asked Chou. If they couldn’t, they would be a target the entire way out. While it was unlikely that any missiles fired at them would catch them at their velocity, beam weapons might get a strike, and any hit by a warship weapon would blast through the little bit of armor they had on their hull.

  “Two of the magnetic field generators are offline, but the remaining six should be able to handle the bubble.”

  And thank God for redundancy, thought the Captain. “Put up the bubble, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Mzzarat shrieked, a sound that combined pain and shock. Chou looked over at her, wondering if there was something about Klassekian physiology that was incompatible with long term space travel. The Com Tech stared straight ahead for a few moments, then closed her eyes and clenched her teeth.

  “What’s wrong, Spacer?” asked the Captain, still feeling concerned, but also needing the Com Tech to get back on the job. We really can’t afford for her to lose it right now.

  “My sister,” stammered the Tech through her speaking/breathing orifice, her ingestion orifice open in shock, large eyes staring at the Captain while her smaller motion detection orbs darted all over the place. “She was there one moment, then gone. It was like having part of my soul ripped out.”

  The Captain grimaced. There were eight siblings in Mzzarat’s birth litter, six of them serving aboard her wing, two at different command and monitoring stations to link them all and access the wormhole com network. If all seven of the surviving sisters went offline, the wing would still be able to function, but they would have the same old problems with vectoring six of their craft, including the wing commander’s, onto targets.

  The bubble was up, just in time, as multiple Caca ships fired on the position they would have been at if the Pilot didn’t pull their vector up to the ecliptic the moment they disappeared into warp.

  “Can you function, Spacer?” asked Chou, trying to keep her tone concerned, since she knew the Spacer really didn’t need someone yelling at her at a moment like this.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Mzzarat, closing her eyes. The holo changed, first showing the attack of the attack fighter her now deceased sister had been crewing. They put a missile each into two missile colliers. The approach was too close to one of them, and when the warheads of over a thousand gigaton range missiles went off, a tiny attack craft within twenty thousand kilometers was toast. The other nine thousand missiles were blasted free of the ship, half of them detonating as they flew out into space. The view was taken from another of the attack fighters, this without one of Mzzarat’s sisters aboard. There was a small flare, minor compared to the thousands of bright pinpoints in space that were exploding capital ship killer warheads. But that small flare was centered in the holo due to its importance to the Klassekian who was transmitting the picture over her implant.

  Mzzarat opened her eyes, staring at the holo, then closed them again. The holo changed, showing the entire attack in replay, as vector arrows flew through the icons of the screening force, heading for the icons of the target. Arrows representing missiles left the attack craft, two each, and homed in on their targets. The icons of twenty-six ships disappeared right after the warheads calved, along with the vector arrow of one of the attack craft, the one containing Mzzarat’s sister. She sucked in a breath, then closed her eyes again and concentrated on the task at hand.

  Fourteen antimatter tankers, seven missile colliers, and five troop transports were gone as if they never were. Moments later seven more ships exploded, victims of debris or missiles spinning out from one or other of the colliers. Eight more ships stopped accelerating, or dropped to a pitiful acel as they were damaged. For the exchange of one inertia less fighter killed, and four with varying degrees of damage, they had destroyed over sixty million tons of enemy shipping, killed at least thirty thousand Caca ground troops, and left another twenty million tons of ships heavily damaged.

  I would call that a successful attack, thought the Captain, looking over at her Com Tech. Yes, they were light casualties, with a terrific payoff. But she had still lost a crew, five people that were under her command. They were a new crew, and not people she knew well. But they were still hers, and now they were gone, as if they never existed. No, she thought. Not as if they never existed. Not as long as the Fleet remembers them.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

  Epicurus.

  NEW EARTH SPACE: JUNE 3RD, 1002.

  “We have forty thousand missiles targeting us, Admiral,” called out the Flag Tactical Officer, looking back at Vice Admiral Connie Wallace.

  The three star flag officer nodded as she stared at the holo which showed the entire system, and all the maneuvering assets in that space. Every asset was being tracked in almost real time by its graviton emissions, which couldn’t be hidden if a ship were accelerating at any kind of high rate. But they were also getting feeds from the Klassekians aboard the inertia less fighters and the wormhole transmissions from the few assets in the system with them.

  “Get those platforms unloaded, pronto,” she ordered, looking over at the Flag Com Officer. She looked over at a side holo that was centered on a massive superfreighter with tugs clustered around the doors to its cargo bays. Each tug was pulling multiple defensive weapons platforms from the hold to boost into a far orbit of the gas giant, where they would be in position for several days to intercept incoming missiles, like the storm heading their way. We might have enough to get them all, she thought, along with the Klavarta platforms. There w
ere thousands of those platforms in orbit or near orbit to the New Earth moon. She still wished she had more of the specialized missile defense ships, that were now moving out to a far interception position from the moon. Hell, I wish I had a couple of hundred squadrons of battleships. Not that it would have made a difference against what the Cacas were sending against her. Six hundred battleships would still be destroyed, and the Cacas would have sent a hundred times the missiles at them if they saw those ships in orbit.

  I’ve got all they’re going to send me. I’m surprised they were able to find so many superfreighters, shuttles and tugs. There were a lot of them in the Supersystem, but the jobs for them were also overwhelming. It would have taken a week to cut loose what they had. It took the Emperor an hour to get the assets moving, one reason that one man was given absolute command of the military and all civilian military assets in time of war. There were some people in the Empire who didn’t think one man should have that much power, but wartime proved that Emperor was still a valid concept.

  “How are the minelayers doing” the Admiral asked the Flag Tactical Officer, realizing as she did that the man would have no way of knowing. All I can do is hope that they are doing their job. And since we can’t pick them up at our sensors from ten light minutes away, we can only hope the Cacas can’t pick them, or their cargo, up from over forty light minutes away.

  The Admiral turned her attention back the local area, where shuttles were rising in their hundreds from the moon, while thousands more were in the process of loading at moonside fields, or unloading at liners and cargo ships in orbit. They were packing in the refugees standing room only on some of those ships. After all, they only had to make it through the wormhole and a couple of hour trip to the Donut, where they would be unloaded and sent through the holes to other destinations, those that couldn’t find room on the station. Not that the station didn’t have room for everyone on this world, but it was still a work in progress, and the facilities for housing and feeding an extra couple of billion sentients were not there yet.