Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front

by Doug Dandridge

  That last was really helpful, as these ships, some with interstellar capabilities, most without, would be able to land on the moon and take on passengers. The biggest problem was that most would not be able to take more than twenty passengers, while straining their life support systems to the breaking point.

  “The liners and freighters really won’t do us much good if we can’t get people from the surface of the moon into space, Admiral,” complained Wallace. “You’ve got a whole system defense fleet around that black hole. And tugs. Lots of tugs, some of which can make a landing and lift people off. What about them?”

  “I’ll look into it, Admiral. McCullom out.”

  Wallace stared at the blank holo for a moment. She felt the guilt of not being able to get more people off the moon, even though she was doing everything in her power to do so.

  * * *

  “Good job, Cornelius,” said the Emperor over the com.

  Walborski stood on the deck of the gateroom, looking at the face of his Monarch and friend in the holo over the counter. It had taken some time to egress from the mission. First an aircar ride, in a convoy, to a shuttle field. And not the nearest field, no, but to one almost a thousand kilometers from the city. Then a flight up to one of the exploration ships which still had a wormhole on-board, and the long step across to the Donut. To be informed that his Emperor wanted to speak to him. For what, congratulations on carrying out a perfect assassination mission?

  “Thank you, your Majesty.”

  “What’s wrong, Cornelius?” asked Sean, a frown on his face.

  “It’s just that I have a bad taste in my mouth, your Majesty.”

  “Call me Sean, Cornelius. I have a feeling you need to talk to me as a friend, and not your Emperor. So you feel dirty for executing some people that we needed, that I needed taken out. Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t need to be eliminated. How would you feel if I made myself immortal through cloning and became the Eternal Emperor Sean, the man without a conscience? That was essentially what Pallion and her crew did.”

  “I understand that we needed them out of the way,” said Cornelius. “That we needed an ally, and that they needed one as well, and that wasn’t going to happen as long as these people were in power. But wasn’t there another way to do it? A more up front way, that didn’t involve killing some poor slobs who were just doing their jobs?”

  Sean looked at him for a moment, an expression of sorrow on his face. “I’m sorry, my friend, but we couldn’t afford to have them in power, lest Parliament and the media sabotage any efforts to forge an alliance. And we didn’t have a high enough percentage of the population of their nation, modified and unmodified humans both, on the side of the rebellion, to allow any of them to escape. A civil war might have broken out, and that would have done no one any good.”

  “So, why me?”

  “Because you were the one man in the Empire I knew would let nothing stop him from completing this mission. You think of it as an assassination. But how was it different than when you took out that enemy HQ on Azure. These were enemy leaders, in that they stood in the way of our powers combining, and giving us a chance to win this war. I understand your reservations, and I will not ask such of you again. But I have to let you know that Ekaterina has requested your transfer to IIA. She thinks you will make a hell of an agent. And so do I.”

  “No thanks, Sean. I’m a soldier.”

  “You would get a promotion. As an agent, you would be the equivalent of a full colonel.”

  “I would rather resign my commission and go back to being a common soldier, your Majesty,” hissed Cornelius, feeling his anger start to rise, pushing him toward the edge.

  “No,” said Sean, holding up a hand. “No one will force you to leave the Army. Keep your commission. I have big plans for you, no matter what part of the Imperium you are working for. Just come right to the palace. Your family would like to see you again. The Empress and myself would enjoy your company.”

  “I’m not sure if I would be very good company, your Majesty,” said Cornelius, now feeling embarrassed at how he had spoken to his Monarch.

  “You speak your mind, Cornelius. You speak the truth. So your company is always desired. So get your ass to the gate to the Hexagon, and get to the palace as fast as possible.”

  The holo went dead. Cornelius still felt angry at his Emperor. But he considered the pressure that was on the man. A trillion beings depended on him to make the decisions that would allow them to go on living free. He shook his head as he went over to his Sergeant Major to let him know where he was going, and to make sure the men were taken care of. His job was hard. The Sergeant Major’s job was hard. But no one had a harder job than the young man he had just gotten off of the com with.

  * * *

  Sean took in a deep breath as the holo died, the signals of a half dozen other coms coming in over his implant. Everyone wanting his attention for some important matter or other, right now. He thought about how much easier it would be to be a lowly junior naval officer, an option no longer open to him. Even if he were to step down as Emperor, the Fleet would allow him nothing less that flag rank, which, while not quite as stress producing as his current rank, would still be so in very different ways. And there was no one, literally no one, with the proper lineage that he would trust to take over.

  So I’m stuck with it, no matter what I want, he thought. And if I don’t end losing up the entire Empire, the entire species, I’m likely to be Emperor for more than a hundred years. Probably many more. And how will I be seen in the history books?

  That was the question. Constance had not been known as the Great during her lifetime. Only after she had died had that label been attached to her. Some of the truly terrible Emperors had been tagged with ‘the Mad,’ or the ‘Terrible.’ He laughed for a moment at that. So if I really suck at this job, I’m likely to know what I will be called for all time before I die. And if I do a great job, I will never know.

  Sean was still chuckling to himself as he made contact to the com that was tagged as the most important.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Violence isn’t always evil. What’s evil is the infatuation with violence.

  Jim Morrison.

  NEW EARTH SPACE.

  “The scouts have run into something, my Lord,” called out the Com Officer. The scout screen was twenty light seconds ahead of the main body, while the flagship was fifteen light seconds back from the front of that formation. The com was coming in by grav wave, almost instantaneously, but with little information other than coded text.

  “Well, what is it, you idiot?” yelled the Great Admiral. At the same time the tactical holo lit with red vector arrows coming out of nowhere.

  “One of the scouts was struck by a missile, my Lord. Now they are reporting multiple missile launches.”

  “Mines?” asked the Chief of Staff.

  “Mines,” growled the Great Admiral. “Somehow they seeded mines in front of our path.”

  Mines were actually single shot missile platforms, passively stealthy, sitting hidden in space until a target was almost on top of them. They then launched their capital ship killer missiles, too late for most ships to react.

  Several of the scout icons disappeared from the plot, moments later some more. It was a masterfully laid trap. There was no way the fleet could now avoid them. They were in the deceleration phase of their trip into the gas giant system. They had no way of avoiding the minefield that was now less than ten light seconds ahead of the main body of the fleet. Fortunately the scout screen was going to take the brunt of it.

  There were thousands of the mines, and maybe one in ten achieved a hit, which still killed or severely damaged a hundred and forty-one scouts. A score or so of the mines didn’t fire on the scouts, and took out a pair of supercruisers in the main body. It was a sting, but a minor one.

  If they expected this to slow us down, they were wrong. And our missile volley will be striking them in another tw
enty minutes. He looked back at the holo, to see the remainder of the Klavarta fleet, still forging ahead, a mere shadow of itself. This was shaping up into a total victory for his Empire. They would destroy the Klavarta home fleet, annihilate the homeworld, and hurt the New Terran Empire at the same time. The only negative was the exchange rate from those damned impossible fighters, some of which had come back for a second attack. He had lost hundreds of ships to them, for an exchange of maybe thirty of the fighters, maybe less.

  But we know how to track them, at least in the final stages, as they’re coming back into normal space from wherever they had been. Eventually our people will figure out how to anticipate their attacks.

  Moments later the next shock struck, as one of the superbattleships on the edge of the main body flared in a bright flash and converted into a plasma cloud. Seconds later a supercruiser a little further in did likewise. Three more ships went up a second later, as if something was working its way in through the ships of the fleet.

  “What the hells,” called out the Tactical Officer as the icons of vessels dropped off the plot, the computer blinking them for a second to show the loss of graviton signals. More ships disappeared, as if an invisible weapon was picking them out at random and erasing them from the universe.

  “What is that?” growled the Great Admiral as the path of destruction worked its way in toward the center of the fleet. Most of the ships were bypassed, and there was no apparent reason behind which ships were being destroyed.

  “We’re getting reports of missile tracks,” called out the Com Officer, who was reading the text from multiple grav wave transmissions. “They’re barely picking them up as they pass within two hundred thousand kilometers, then losing them.”

  “They’re coming in ballistic?”

  “They seem to be, my Lord.”

  “And where are they coming from. How were they launched? How did they build up such velocity without us picking them up?”

  “Unknown, my Lord,” called out the Sensor and Tactical Officers simultaneously.

  Suddenly, over six hundred red vector arrows appeared on the plot, driving forward at ten thousand gravities. Targeting the ships in the center of the fleet formation. All heading for whatever vessel was closest to each, and five were heading toward the flagship.

  Immediately every ship with five light seconds of a missile opened fire with every defensive weapon they had. No one had much time for target acquisition, and most missed with counter missiles and beam weapons. There were hits, and at least sixty missiles disappeared in bright flares of light. Some of the beams hit other ships, ripping through electromag fields and surface armor. A few counter missiles struck vessels as well, doing minor damage. Close in systems took missiles under fire as they bore in, having less than a second to engage.

  The flagship rocked and shuddered as missiles detonated at close range, the last no more than a couple of kilometers from the hull. The fast moving plasma from that weapon blasted through the electromagnetic field and into the armor, blowing into the flagship and killing almost a hundred crew.

  When the blasts cleared, there were two hundred and twenty-four ships destroyed, and a few others damaged, including the flag.

  “They must have been sent in ballistic, set to penetrate to the center of our formation, trying to take us out,” said the Tactical Officer. “They must have randomly hit some ships on the way in, or we never would have known they were there until they went active.”

  “And how many more of those are coming at us?” asked the Chief of Staff.

  “Order all ships to change their intervals and positions,” the Great Admiral told the Com Officer. He looked over at the Helm Officer. “Move us five hundred thousand kilometers further back in the formation and three hundred thousand kilometers to port. All ships to drop deceleration for one minute, then return to original decel. We’ll make it a little more difficult for them to target us from long range.”

  The Great Admiral sat there in silence for some minutes, thinking about the ships he had just lost to a surprise strike that had cost the enemy nothing but some missiles, achieving an unheard of kill ratio. And where in the hells did they come from? More of their wormhole magic?

  “One of the ships in our portside screen is picking up hundreds of the anomalies,” reported the Com Officer. “They… They’re under attack by those fighters.”

  The Great Admiral looked up at the tactical plot, to see almost three hundred red vector arrows driving into that side of his fleet. More vector arrows left the objects, missile launches. Fifty-three of his ships disappeared from the plot, along with twenty-two of the incoming fighters, which soon disappeared again from the plot, this time going into whatever state is was they came from.

  Almost three hundred red vector arrows appeared, driving in from another angle, again launching, taking out sixty-two ships for the cost of fourteen of theirs. And then they were gone. The Great Admiral cursed. He had lost over three hundred ships in less than five minutes, with very little damage to the enemy. Those must be all of those fighters they have, or they would have attacked with more.

  “How long before our second wave of missiles reaches that moon?” he growled, angry as hell and wanting to strike back.

  “Twenty minutes, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  And then you will get the payback you deserve, he thought, fascinated with the holo that was showing doom descending on his enemy.

  * * *

  Chou looked at the holo that showed the enemy fleet falling behind her fighter, and the massive waves of missiles heading toward the gas giant system. I guess that’s all we can do, she thought. All of their support ships were either back in the Supersystem, or soon to be heading through one of the two ships gates back to Imperial space. We really hit them hard, but not hard enough to stop them. Maybe if we’d had ten thousand of these ships, but not six hundred.

  ‘Setting course to system egress and rendezvous, ma’am,” said the Pilot, setting the path into his board.

  And now we ride this small ship for a month, she thought. Not really what they were intended for. But it was the only way to get out of the system. By the time they could get back to the wormhole gates it would be too late. So they would cruise for a month at twice the speed of light and come back into normal space two light months out, where they would rendezvous with one of the scout ships, which would open a gate for them to return to Imperial space. Not her preferred means of leaving the battle space, but at least it would allow them to leave with their ships, to fight again another day.

  And when we hit the Cacas on our front, our new way of operating will catch them by surprise, since the news of this attack will not reach that sector of their Empire for over a year, probably longer.

  Another advantage of the wormhole gates and the bypass of the communication lag the enemy still operated under. Hopefully it would be enough of an advantage to come out the final victor in this war.

  * * *

  “Missile impact in fifteen minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  “We need you to go, Admiral Manstara,” said Natasha Sung over the com, looking into the face of the Alpha. Shuttles were leaving the station, taking most of the crew off, but the stubborn Admiral had refused to leave. “Please, your people are going to need your leadership, and this war is far from over.”

  “I can’t leave these people behind,” the Alpha said in a pleading tone, sweeping a gesture back at the holo of the moon of New Earth behind him.

  Sung nodded, understanding how he felt. There were still two billion people on that moon who would not get away. With the storm of missiles coming in, there were sure to be a number of hits on the moon, and there wasn’t enough lift in the system to get them out.

  She looked back at her own tactical holo, and all of the vector arrows on it, almost all of them headed for one of the two wormhole gates in orbit. Liners, freighters, troop transports, old battleships and battle cruisers and heavy cruisers, obsolete,
but still capable of carrying refugees. All packed to where their life support systems were strained to the breaking point. Along with them were tens of thousands of shuttles and multiple private ships, also packed, no longer concerned with docking with larger vessels in this space. They would get to safety, then unload as transport became available.

  Tugs were also pulling most of the stations out of orbit toward the gates, all but the two monster forts, including the one the Klavarta Admiral was on. The stations were also packed, and the tugs. And thousands of suborbital craft were rising off the surface and reaching up to orbit, higher than they could get to on their own, using the extra grav units that had been installed to let them get into space. They would disappear through the wormhole and into Supersystem space. The craft were still spaceworthy as far as life support went, and they could keep their passengers alive until they were picked up by a larger ship.

  The defense station was too large to fit through the wormholes unless they were widened considerably, and that was not going to happen. Some of its smaller modules had been cut off and pulled through the wormholes by tugs, also filled with people. It reminded Sung of something from Earth history, but she couldn’t place it. Dunkirk, it finally came to her. It was like that evacuation, pulling as many soldiers and, in this case, workers, as they could from an enemy advance.

  “What good is it going to do for your people if you die here, Admiral? We can get you off and onto this ship in a couple of minutes.” The Nina was just off the huge station by a couple of hundred kilometers. They were also packed to the brim, and all of their shuttles were in use. But they still had a pair of small repair capsules that could be used to transport a couple of passengers.