“Eyes only?”
“No, sir.”
“Then put it up on the holo.”
The face and upper body of Vice Admiral Sheila Mtwambe, the commander of all stealth/attack forces in Sector IV, which meant most of them at this time, appeared in the holo.
“Suttler. We have a tasking order for you.”
“Yes, ma’am. What’s the mission?”
“You are to relocate your ships to these spots outside the system, then reconfigure your wormholes to cargo gates.”
“For what kind of cargo, ma’am?” asked the curious officer with a thrill, pretty sure he already knew what was coming.
“These,” said the Admiral, and her form left the holo, to be replaced by what looked like a small version of their own ship.
Not really our ship, thought the Commodore, leaning forward in his chair to look at the thing he guessed was a weapon. It had the same flattened surfaces as Seastag, angled to reflect active sensor probes away from the transmitting ship, the same flat black, light absorbing material. It looked like a missile of some type, but the grabber fins were tiny as compared to any missile he had even seen.
“Something new from R & D?” he asked. The woman appeared on the holo once again, the missile in the background, with people around it to give it scale. It appeared to be the same size as a standard missile, like those carried by the stealth/attacks.
“We call it, the Viper,” said the Admiral, nodding. “It strikes from the dark, without warning. It’s been under development for the last three years, originally as a weapon against Lasharan incursions. It was to be placed near inhabited planets, activated when enemy ships drew near, then launched into its attack profile. The first the Lasharan ship would know it’s there would be when it went into final attack acceleration within ten thousand kilometers of the target.
“Those grabbers look a little small for much acceleration,” said Suttler, bringing up the original view of the weapon on a side holo.
“They generate ten thousand gravities, same as your standard attack missiles,” said the Admiral, referring to the weapons carried by the stealth/attack, used for short range high acceleration attacks. “But only for that very last ten thousand kilometers. The heat generated is enough to burn off the grabbers in a little over twelve thousand kilometers, so they can’t accel very far off their optimal attack pattern”
“Amazing.”
“You are to load one hundred missiles each for the six of your craft, pushing them into space as soon as they arrive to make room for more. And from there, you are to program all the missiles for a long, slow run into the system, looking for Caca targets.”
“You really think we’ll get any of them with these things?” asked Bryce, liking the idea in theory, wondering about it in practice.
“I don’t know, Commodore. I kind of wondered that myself. Their success depends on their getting in really close to ships with very good sensor suites. And the first one that strikes an enemy ship will cause the others to ramp up their efforts at detecting them. But if we have to spend six hundred expensive missiles to damage one even more valuable ship, as well as making the Cacas more paranoid, they will have served their purpose.”
“And why do you want them released from those specified points?”
“That doesn’t really have anything to do with the attack by these missiles,” said the Admiral with a cold smile. “You are also to download three hundred mines, to emplace in those areas. From there you will monitor incoming and outgoing enemy ships. And you will keep us apprised of those comings and goings. On our command, you will launch the missiles from the mines at ships moving toward them in hyper.”
“And just what kind of ships are we looking for?”
“Just send us the intel, Commodore,” said the Admiral. “And we will decide when we attack them.”
Which means she really doesn’t know what they’re looking for themselves. Wonderful.
“No problem, Admiral. We’re here to serve.”
“Good man, Suttler. And I understand you wish to stay on deployment, despite your promotion to true flag rank. Most unusual, but appreciated. It’s nice to have someone who thinks outside the box at the pointy end. And also someone who knows how to follow orders, without being completely idiotic about it.”
Bryce nodded and smiled, realizing that her comment needed no reply. After all, while they were Fleet, they were also considered some of the elite of that Fleet. Not to be sacrificed for no reason, depended upon to give a return for the investment of their lives.
“Mtwambe out,” said the Admiral, and the holo died.
“Helm, get us to those coordinates, slow and easy. We don’t want to be spotted. Com, send those orders to the other ships as well.” The crewmembers went about their duties, leaving Suttler to settle back into his chair and think, sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.
* * *
“We need to get back on the offensive,” growled High Admiral Kellissaran Jarkastarin, red eyes glaring across the table at the Great Admiral.
I wish I had sent you and your force off to the nether regions before calling this meeting, thought Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow, glaring at the slightly younger male who was his military inferior, and, unfortunately, his social superior. He looked around the table at his gathered high admirals, the males who ran the conquest fleet at his command. Up until a couple of weeks prior, his had been the largest conquest fleet in the history of the Empire. The only larger was the one fighting on the other side of the Empire, and that was not a conquest fleet. That was an armada, trying to take down the greatest threat the Empire had ever encountered. The kind of force we need here.
“We are too weakened from the human offensive to go on the attack,” said one of the other High Admirals, he whom the Great Admiral saw as his voice of reason, even if other males called him a coward to his back. That he had killed scores of strong males in fair fights was one reason they would not say such to his face.
“We only advance the goals of the Empire in the attack,” shouted out a third male. “We are here to destroy these people, to grind them into dust, to be forgotten by the Galaxy. We do not do this by sitting here in this system.”
And we are too damned aggressive as a species, thought the Great Admiral, looking down at the table and thinking. Maybe I should send my more aggressive males off on a strike. Either they’ll be successful, or they’ll be destroyed. And either way, I win.
“We are only a shadow of the conquest fleet we were,” said the cautious High Admiral. “We should wait for reinforcements from the Empire. Or at least until the ships from their Republic get here, even if it doesn’t bring us back to full strength.”
And those ships were due within a couple of weeks, if they had left the Republic as soon as they were contacted. That is why we need those wormholes, more than any other reason. I have no way of knowing what is the current location or status of my forces outside of this system. And it still takes us six months to get new ships from the Empire to here. Hopefully that human scientist will pan out, but that will still be years in the future.
“We have enough of a force here to take out several of their core systems,” argued Jarkastarin, staring at the Voice of Caution. “Reduce their industrial capacity by a significant percentage, kill some more billions of these humans.” The High Admiral shifted his gaze back to the Great Admiral. “Accomplish what we were sent here to accomplish. Not cower like zagratta in the shadows.”
No, we are not zagratta, thought the Great Admiral, thinking of the small vermin that tended to infest most Ca’cadasan farming concerns. But neither are these humans. They are closer to sliggothra. He pictured in his mind the huge predators that had been the bane of early Cacada, before the early hunter gatherers wiped them out. Now they only existed in zoological gardens, recreated from their ancient DNA. Just as someday we might recreate humans, which, in my opinion, would be a major mistake.
“The humans will track your
force, Jarkastarin,” said the Voice of Reason. “They will move forces in with their damned wormholes, overwhelm you, and we would just lose more of our fleet for no return.”
“Then perhaps it is time to resort to hit and run attacks,” said Jarkastarin, hunching both pairs of shoulders. “Strike from the edge of the system. Come out of hyper, launch, then go back in. The ships they bring in by wormhole would arrive too late to do anything to us, they couldn’t catch us in hyper, and we would move on to the next target. And if they don’t have a wormhole gate in that system, we could move in and totally destroy the human presence there.”
“And in that case, you might get ambushed after you poke your nose too far into the system to back out in time,” said the Voice of Reason.
“Then we will just hit and run,” said Jarkastarin, looking like he wanted to call the other Admiral a name, then thinking better of it. “We fire in spreads of missiles and take everything of value out at long range.”
“You must not hit their planets with those missiles,” cautioned the Great Admiral, wondering if this idea might be just what he needed to get the recalcitrant male off his back, and raise the morale of his fleet.
Jarkastarin’s expression showed what he thought of human planets, and the creatures that lived on them, even nonhumans. “Of course I will not harm their precious planets. I will only target ships, mining stations, antimatter production facilities and the like.”
“Very well,” said the Great Admiral, giving a head motion of acceptance. “You may take your personal force, and another hundred ships.” He looked around at the other High Admirals. “I will authorize two similar forces, to the first two High Admirals who ask for command. But no more than a third of the fleet here gathered is to go out raiding. I mean to hold this system, and by that I include the planet that the humans still infest. All ground combat males are to remain here, so that they can be used to reduce the Conundrum planet.”
“I must protest that order, Great Admiral,” said Jarkastarin, slamming a heavy right lower hand onto the table. “What if I need ground combat males to take enemy ships.”
“Then you will destroy those ships, and not risk any of yours in trying to capture them. You will not risk having them project antimatter onto your ship, by whatever means they do so. Is that clear?”
“But…”
“Is that clear, High Admiral? Because if it isn’t, I can just keep you here in this system, and let another commander go in your stead.”
The other officer glared for a moment, then gave a head motion of acknowledgement.
“Good. Then this meeting is over. The three commanders who will lead raiding parties will present to me their proposed orders of battle for my final approval. And no stacking your task groups with battleships. These will be balanced forces.”
The Great Admiral stormed out of the room, not really caring if his subordinates approved of his decisions or not. The Emperor had put him in command, and as long as he held that position, he would command.
* * *
“Admiral on deck,” shouted a voice over the hangar intercom.
Admiral Chuntao Chan was torn between smiling and crying as she looked over the officers and Marines gathered on the utility hangar deck of the HIMS Akagi, the flagship of Task Force Four, her first, and probably, last major combat command. At least the Emperor gave me the chance, thought the woman, who was widely thought to be one of the greatest minds of the Empire.
That was the reason she was being relieved of command of this group of six hyper VII Fleet Attack Carriers, which, along with their defending escorts, comprised the Task Force. Those, and the six wings of inertialess attack fighters they had launched into the battle, the whole reason for their being.
“It was a pleasure serving with you, Admiral,” said a tall, blond Captain with the insignia of naval aviation on her collar.
“The pleasure was all mine, Svetlana,” said the small Asian woman, returning the salute, then shaking the other woman’s hand, looking up into ice blue eyes. “Your wing performed admirably. They, and the others, were instrumental in our victory.”
The other woman, Svetlana Komorov, returned a sad smile at the praise, and the flag rank scientist realized what she must be thinking. Almost half of your force destroyed was a heavy price to pay, even if extracting a hundred times the cost to the enemy. But that doesn’t matter when they’re your people.
“If you would like, I could get you a berth in R and D,” offered the Admiral. “I could use someone like you to run herd on the pilots we will need.”
“My place is here, Admiral,” said the Captain, shaking her head. “If you order it, I will give it my best shot. But I’m not a genius, like you are. They need you back there, that’s for sure. Just like they need me here.”
Now it was Chan’s turn to shake her head. “I will not order you to leave your command. The offer is genuine, and you would be an asset. But I will leave it up to you. You are also an asset here, and you will have your hands full rebuilding your wing before the next offensive.”
When those ships would be coming was anyone’s guess. The Empire had plenty of six hundred ton insystem fighters, and one thousand ton attack fighters. But not fifteen hundred ton inertialess attack fighters. The production lines for them were still in the process of ramping up, and there was only so much negative matter around, and too many priority uses for the substance.
“Just get us what we need to win this war, ma’am,” said the Captain with a smile.
Chan nodded and turned, walking toward the shuttle that was waiting for her. I’m not the mind that creates, she thought as she stepped aboard the armed assault shuttle. I’m the brain that refines, that finds the flaws and corrects them. I’m important, but not as much as those scientists who do the theoretical work, the creation, the initial engineering.
As soon as she was in her seat, and the cabin attendant, a young warrant officer, had checked on her, the shuttle raised from the deck and boosted toward the cold plasma field that kept the atmosphere inside the open hanger. They put on the acceleration as soon as the shuttle cleared the carrier, heading for the ship gate that had been erected just inside the hyper barrier.
The Admiral watched the task force recede behind them on her seat holo, zooming in to look at her flagship. Akagi was easily distinguishable from the standard hyper VI fleet carrier. It massed twelve million tons, two more than a regular carrier. Most of that extra mass went into the more robust hyperdrive projectors, and the reactors needed to power them. About half a million tons went into the larger than normal hangars, and the missile magazines needed to rearm those ships with the hundred ton weapons they carried.
The ship, while armed with lasers and some particle beam projectors, as well as a quartet of missile launchers, was not made to enter into close combat. She couldn’t stand up against any other type of capital ship in a beam fight or missile duel. Most had doubts the ship could even hold out long against a couple of heavy cruisers. That was not her mission, and the dozen light cruisers and thirty destroyers in the task force were there to defend her and her sisters from enemy missiles, and to sacrifice themselves to protect her against larger enemy vessels closing on her position.
She zoomed out the holo, changing it to a tactical view. Icons sprung up all over the plot. Not only her task force, but the other hyper VII carrier group. Hundreds of battleships, a thousand escort and supporting vessels. What had gathered so far, and only a fraction of the strength that would soon be stationed here. A lot of ships from the last battle had gone through the ship gate on their way to Central Docks, for repairs and upgrades. There were many more that had gone off on the strike on Fenri space, scheduled to be back in a week. And…
“We’re being ordered to steer clear of the gate for the moment, ma’am,” said the shuttle pilot over the com. “We have priority traffic coming through from the other side.”
Must be high priority, thought the Admiral, as her shuttle veered away from the gate while
putting on deceleration, and vectoring in a curve that would lead to a position where they could again make a gate approach, when the time came.
She zoomed the holo on the gate and gasped as the nose of a ship poked through, soon followed by the rest of the fifteen million ton battleship. It was not of human design, a more elegant, beautiful form that probably gave up a little bit of toughness, while gaining acceleration and maneuverability.
Elysium Empire ships, she thought, admiring the lines of the big warship as it pushed through the gate, then accelerated away to its fleet staging area. A moment later another ship came through, followed by yet another. Altogether, the shuttle was put on hold for two hours, while over three hundred ships from the Elysium Empire came through. They were a welcome reinforcement in her eyes, and a sign that the humans were not in this alone, not anymore. There were already some Crakistan ships in the system, with more scheduled to arrive any day. The next battle against the Ca’cadasans would feature the three strongest empires in this region of space standing shoulder to shoulder against the aggressor.
“We’re clear to go through,” said the pilot, and the shuttle started to accelerate toward the gate.
I really don’t like this part, thought Chan, who had been in on the original tests of the portals. The feeling was like nothing she had ever experienced, ranked as a nine on a scale where puking her guts out after a college party was a five. The shuttle plunged through, and the feeling of being stretched across space and time almost overwhelmed her. Time seemed to tick with agonizing slowness, and then she was through, catching the breath she had been starting to take when they had first penetrated the mirror surface.
This is new, thought Chan, looking on the holo that showed the outline of the ship gate flower that had been put together since the last time she had been there. The shuttle accelerated, changing its vector to head toward the gate that led to Central Docks, where she would transfer through the passenger gate system to her final destination. The icons of forts blinked on the holo, as well as those from over a hundred ships, the defensive force that would keep an enemy from coming through one gate and attacking the industrial base of the black hole. Since only one ship could come through at a time, two if the attacker wanted to take greater risk, the fleet would pretty much immediately overpower any enemy. Or at least it was so hoped.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike Page 22
