Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  A Fenri slammed into his back, and something penetrated his suit, causing a sharp pain to his left shoulder. Baggett pivoted around, his right hand grabbing the arm of the Fenri and throwing him to the ground, where he stomped down with a left boot on the creature’s helmed head, crushing it.

  The General grabbed his rifle from where it swung on its carbon fiber strap and raising it toward the enemy, pulling the trigger and sending a sustained blast that he swept like a sword through the aliens, dropping eight of them to the ground with slashed suits spurting smoke and steam.

  People starting cheering on the division com circuit, in clear violation of regulations. His people were well trained, so he was sure something must be going on to spark the lapse. Baggett looked past the Fenri who were running away, to see a mass of the little aliens lying in heaps on the ground about seven hundred meters away. He looked to the side, to see the burning forms of three King Tyrannosaurs, and knew immediately what had saved his division from overrun. You people are heroes, and your families will receive your medals, if we ever get out of here. God bless and keep you, he said in silent prayer for those crews. May you get a hero’s welcome in heaven, for no greater love does man have, than to lay down his life for his brother.

  “All troops,” he called out over the com, breaking over the voices of all the others clogging the circuit. “Move into the rubble and take up positions. Dig in people,” he said, looking at the retreating Fenri, and knowing that his people would soon be under kinetic bombardment. “Prepare to make those bastards pay for every inch they take.”

  * * *

  “Translation into normal space in twenty minutes,” called out the Fleet Navigation Officer.

  Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski sat in his command chair and looked at the tactical holo that showed them what they knew about the system. Which, all things considered, was quite a bit, considering that the wormhole equipped probes had just gone in over an hour before. The probes, of course, would have been picked up when they entered the system, but a quick boost at high gravity, followed by a complete shutdown of all drive systems, had made them all but impossible to detect.

  And they’re coming out to meet us, just like we figured, thought the commander of Operation Surigoa. The enemy fleet outnumbered his own, even with the losses they had inflicted to the pickets on the way in. In fact, both the fleet waiting at the hyper barrier, and that starting out from the planet that was the focus of the operation, outnumbered his entire force by themselves. Hopefully, they won’t be ready for everything we’re bringing to the table, though.

  The picket certainly hadn’t been. His advanced force, including a dozen ships with wormhole launchers, had taken out the several hundred ships the enemy had managed to get in front of them with the loss of one battleship and a pair of destroyers. And the enemy, who didn’t have any kind of com system that would transmit from hyper to the space within a system, at least not at range, would have no idea what had happened to that force.

  “Force alpha is dropping out of hyper, now,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.

  Len looked to the plot and saw that those ships had indeed translated for enough out to have avoided early contact with the enemy outer fleet. As soon as they were in normal space they started launching. Hundreds of missile icons appeared on the plot, all travelling at point nine c, fired from the acceleration stations outside the Donut. It would take them some twenty minutes to reach the alien fleet, and they would be coming in at point nine five light, optimum attack velocity.

  Along with that force were the hyper VII carriers and their wings of inertialess fighters. They wouldn’t use those ships against the outer fleet, but they still needed to be in a position to launch a strike at the inner force. All the ships in the force started accelerating inward at almost five hundred gravities, giving the appearance of attacking the enemy fleet.

  Time passed, the missiles, over four thousand of them, getting closer to the enemy by the second, while the rest of his force moved through hyper on a course that would put them right next to the Fenri, moments after those missiles arrived. Len always hated the waiting, the feeling of total helplessness as they waited for the battle to actually commence. This was the time of thoughts, everyone in their own space for what seemed like an interminable period. Time for self-doubt, fear, beliefs that failure was the only option. Especially for the fleet commander, who had set the operation in motion, after approving all the deployments and planned actions of his subordinates. But eventually even time that seemed to stretch into forever had to end.

  “Translating, now,” called out the Fleet Navigation Officer, as the lights dimmed for a second, and the feeling of nausea came over all of the bridge crew. Lenkowski had always been an easy translator, and his nausea only lasted a few moments. By the time he recovered, the fleet was firing on the enemy ships. The missile wave was going in just ahead of them, disrupting the enemy formations, even those ships that were not targeted, as they tried to avoid weapons and their own ships, also trying to avoid those same weapons.

  The space ahead blossomed with a thousand pinpoints of fire from missiles that had been intercepted by counters or beams. Radiation traces came from behind, where other missiles had been struck further out. And larger points of light flared with actinic fire as missiles broke through defenses and hit targets.

  Into this the human fleet thrust like a knife, cold plasma fields at full strength, lasers and particle beams striking within seconds of firing. Over a thousand human ships in the center, four hundred battleships and superbattleships, three hundred cruisers, the rest escorts there for their counter-missile capability. To the port were the Margravi and Klashak ships, while to the starboard was a battle group made up of Elysium units. All took the closest enemy vessels under fire, concentrating the weapons of multiple capital ships on one Fenri, tearing through defenses that could withstand the power of one battleship, but not a dozen.

  “Missiles away,” shouted the Fleet Tactical Officer, and thousands of icons appeared on the plot. It took almost a minute before the enemy opened fire with their missiles, due in part to the shock of being struck so ferociously. What fire they did get off was ineffectual at best, attempting to get through the defenses of the specialized missile defense craft.

  King Edward II shook with the hits of particle beams, and a couple of near miss missile detonations. The big ship was obviously important, and was drawing a lot of fire. Damage started registering on scores of the heavy ships, while the icons of some cruisers and destroyers completely left the plot as they were destroyed. More enemy ships were being blasted apart, and the space around the battling fleets started filling with plasma, illuminating the lasers linking the ships like ribbons of light. A human battleship disappeared from the human fleet, then another, followed by an Elysium vessel.

  “Second wave translating, now,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer, and another eight hundred ships popped into normal space on the starboard flank of the enemy formation. The odds had just improved, though the enemy still outnumbered the allied fleet, and the initial shock was wearing off.

  The pounding match continued for almost a half an hour, the human ships and their allies riding the tougher vessels, with slightly more advanced tech on the whole. Both sides took damage, the numbers mounting, though the losses of the Fenri far exceeded those of the allies, and grew exponentially as the fight continued.

  “Third wave translating in, now,” called out the Tactical Officer, and another six hundred warships, mostly smaller units, light cruisers and destroyers, translated in and began to release missiles into the flanks of the enemy formation. Missiles were not as effective at close range, and only managed to do some minor damage to the enemy force, picking off a ship here or there. It was still enough to disrupt the enemy defenses.

  “We have enemy trying to break out to the port,” yelled out one of the task force commanders. It was now obvious that the enemy was not going to win this fight. Despite the damage done to the al
lied fleet, the enemy had lost much more, over three thousand ships. Only seven hundred were left, and even the hyper-territorial Fenri could see that dying in place was not going to help them defend their territory.

  “Shit,” growled Len. The battle plan called for them taking out this entire force, not letting several hundred ships escape, which might, eventually, come to the aid of the other force. He linked in with the combined Klashak and Margravi force, which was still more or less intact, sustaining only minor casualties. Still, one of the ships that had sustained major damage was the Margravi flagship, which meant it had suffered casualties to the crew. Which meant that the intelligence that had controlled it at the start of the battle was no longer the same that was in charge now.

  “We will comply,” came back the com from the Margravi force, and they boosted for the enemy, the Klashak coming in to cover their flanks. The Margravi flagship took some near misses from missiles as the enemy concentrated on them. The Margravi Admiral in Command, who was really the composite mind of the entire crew, changed words in the middle of sentences as parts of its intellect were removed. It was disconcerting to Len, to say the least, what seemed to him was really a weakness to their military command. At full complement the Margravi flagship was a military genius. At three quarters complement about the equal of an above average human commander. At half strength, not much more than an academy dropout.

  I’ll have to ask them sometime how they handle command when there are more ships with higher intellectual ability than the flag, thought the Admiral.

  The Margravi ships went to full power, five hundred gravities into the teeth of the fleeing Fenri task force. To the Margravi the individual didn’t count, only the species, and it didn’t matter how many casualties they took as long as they fulfilled the mission in front of them. Which the insectoids did, magnificently, taking on the larger enemy force until the missiles from the human force had closed with the foe and struck them a terrific blow. In the end there were few surviving ships from the enemy outer system fleet, a few more than a mere score of vessels. Lenkowski’s fleet had sustained casualties of a quarter of their vessels lost, many more damaged. And there was still the inner fleet, outnumbering his and on their way out.

  Maybe I should have brought everything I had with me to this place, thought the Admiral, looking at the Tactical Plot and not really liking what he saw. Unfortunately, he had sent over a third of his force, split into a half dozen task groups, on separate missions to strike at other enemy systems where naval installations were known to reside. Those missions were important to the overall success of the operation, but not more important than taking this system back and relieving the Army.

  “Carriers are launching their birds,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  Len looked on as the small ships appeared on the plot, their graviton emissions showing their approximate positions and acceleration. A moment later those icons dropped off the plot, the indication that they had erected their negative matter bubbles and effectively left the normal Universe. They would be going into extreme acceleration in a moment, and there would be no graviton emissions to show where they were. They were invisible, to all intents and purposes, until they dropped those bubbles. And they would only drop those bubbles just before they went into the attack.

  Enjoy your surprise gifts, assholes, thought Lenkowski, looking at the enemy force on the holo. They had to think they had the advantage at this point, at least numerically. And they had to be pissed, after seeing so many of their own people killed.

  Lenkowski had no idea as to the social structure of the Fenri. What kind of family groups they had, how they counted their relations. But, after seeing so many of their own kind killed, no matter how close or distant they were, they had to be riled up.

  “Missile launch from the enemy fleet,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  Len looked at the holo, to see red icons blooming close to the enemy force. Lots of red icons, with more following every moment.

  “Order all ships to open fire. Let’s get every missile into space that we have. Might as well let them build up as much velocity as possible.”

  “What about the outer group?” asked the Tactical Officer.

  “Are the probes in place?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the officer. “Outer probes are in place, inner probes still moving at point nine light.”

  “Very well. Order the outer force to release missiles. Let’s give them a second surprise on top of the first.” And now we just sit back and watch, until enough time goes by for us to actually hit each other.

  * * *

  THE DONUT. DECEMBER 2ND,1001.

  Lucille looked over the films of the damage her station had taken, almost wanting to cry. She knew the vids looked much worse than the actual overall damage. After all, only one of the six cable supports had been taken out, and, according to the specs, it would have taken three to destroy her. That wasn’t quite correct. If both cables to either side had been severed, the twisting forces might have pulled hard enough to have caused major damage. In that case, even the four remaining cables might not have been enough.

  But they only got the one. And we’re back at full operating capacity. Turning out all the wormholes the Fleet needs. Or at least trying to. With a thought she changed the holo view to a live shot of the repair work on the cable. Large robots were weaving new carbon and metal alloy fibers into the fabric of both sides of the break, then stretching them across and holding them together until the nanites could weave them together.

  It would still be about five days until the cable was again in one complete piece. And then I’ll relax, thought the Director of the Donut Project. They can talk all they want about safety margins, but this thing is my baby. And she’s hurt.

  With another thought she changed the view to the outside of the station. Where repair ships and men in armored work suits were toiling to replace the hull. That would take more than several weeks, though the structural components would be repaired within a couple of more days. After that, it would be cosmetic repairs. And I wouldn’t want to be one of those people for anything, she thought, zooming in on one of the suited figures who was busy using a laser cutter to trim off some of the damage. Her eyes looked past the worker to the light halo around the black hole, almost four million kilometers away. If the worker’s grabber units failed and he was pushed in that direction, it was a fall into infinity, with no chance of survival once he reached a certain distance from the intense gravitational point source that was the hole.

  “We’re lucky she survived,” said Jimmy Chung, walking up and looking at the holo with her.

  “I’m afraid it might happen again,” she told the IIA Chief of Security who was also her lover.

  “Security has been tripled,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “They stationed an entire new division of Marines here, and, from what I’ve heard, the Army is going to put a couple of light infantry divisions aboard.”

  “That’s still a lot of territory for an extra sixty thousand men to cover,” said Lucille, switching the holo to a schematic of the station. “There’s no saying that they have to hit the part of the station with the most people on it.”

  “We’re setting up a factory on the station to crank out micro drones,” said Chung, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe a couple of billion of those little buggers would help to cover some of this area.”

  “Trillions would be more like it,” said Lucille.

  “The station proved it could take a major hit,” said Chung, rubbing his hand over her shoulder, massaging the tight muscles. “It’s going to take some serious firepower to take this thing out.”

  “I’ll feel better when we capture that son of a bitch, O’Hara. Or whoever he happens to be now.”

  Chung nodded his head at that. Fleet Admiral Benjamin O’Hara had turned out to be one of the shape shifters that had been plaguing the Empire as of late. O’Hara had actually reduced station security prior to the attack.


  “There’s no telling where that particular agent is,” said Chung. “At least we know where they come from, and the Brakakak have given us some pointers on how to ferret them out.”

  Lucille nodded at that. She had seen some of the new security measures employed herself. While the aliens could mimic the DNA of the human they were replicating perfectly, their mitochondrial DNA was not a match for the donor, since they still had to manufacture energy for the cells, which were still alien despite their appearance as being human. That, and the small imperfections in their retinal and finger prints, which were perfect enough to fool most scans, but not the new techniques IIA and its sister service, Imperial Investigation Bureau, were now implementing.

  The security still wasn’t foolproof, but anyone trying to penetrate the more secure parts of the station now had a gauntlet to run. Lucille found it a hassle herself, but one she was willing to undergo in order to keep her station safe.

  “I’ll still feel much better when we take some of those things out,” said Lucille, looking down into the eyes of the shorter man. “Some confirmed kills, and a nice body count.”

  * * *

  SUPERHEAVY BATTLESHIP AUGUSTINE I. DECEMBER 2ND, 1001.

  What a bloody mess, thought Commander Marc Dawson, as the shuttle carried him over the outer hull of Augustine I, the Emperor’s former flagship. The skin of the ship was pockmarked with holes and gashes, some filled with the silver liquid metal that was made to flow into wounds and then harden. Other openings looked into the darkness beyond the hull, where machinery like electromag projectors, missile feed tubes, laser emitters and other, less glamorous but still important equipment had been destroyed.

  And just like the bastards to give her to me as a first command, thought the Chief Engineer, who had spent the last several months on a station side assignment, getting Congreeve system ready as the bait. He had never served aboard one of the twenty-seven million ton behemoths, especially as head of engineering. Only a handful had, including the Chief Engineer who had been aboard during the battle. Unfortunately, she and her first assistant had been killed in the battle, and Admiral Miroslav had recommended him for the position for the foolish act of performing above and beyond his duties while under her command. Not that he didn’t want the command, it being one of the most powerful warships in space and all. Just that a mint condition one right out of the yards would have been appreciated.