Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  “And do you want to pay seventy-five percent tax as well, my Lord?” asked Halbrook.

  “No. I’ll pay one hundred percent tax. I don’t need any more money, and the Empire sure doesn’t need for its leader to become even wealthier. So take all my profits, and plow them back into war production.”

  “And of course publicize that you are doing that,” said Halbrook, his grimace turning into a smile. “I’m sure that will play well with the public.”

  “I really don’t care if it plays well with the public, Lord Halbrook,” growled Sean. “I only care about how it aids the war effort. Now, if it can shame some other nobles to do the same, great. If not, then we have to come up with another way to tap their wealth. After all, having great holdings doesn’t do them any good either, if they are vaporized, or sitting in the belly of some Caca.

  “OK. Anything else. Lord H’rressitor. You look like you are about to be ill. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not even sure if I should mention this, your Majesty,” said the big male of a species that was probably closer related to dinosauroids than avians, but due to the beak and feathers was put in that classification by most people outside their race.

  “Mention it, Lord H’rressitor. If it doesn’t reach my ears, there is really nothing I can do about it.”

  “It concerns a minor bill, your Majesty. One of no real importance, except to my people. A small spending bill to allow conversion of ships already being built in our shipyards to be crewed by my people.”

  “I was assured by Baron von Hausser that the bill would pass when it got to his House,” said Sean, a look of confusion on his face. “And the funding has already passed the Commons.”

  “But the bill never made it out of the Lords Military Appropriations Committee,” said the being in a choked voice. “And if it never passes the committee, it can never be voted upon.”

  And the idiots on that committee insult one of the most loyal species of the Empire, he thought, looking at the distressed Minister. His people had been considered loyal citizens for the last seven hundred years, after a hundred years of proving their loyalty. They had proven themselves in war and peace, offered freedom from their former oppressors and a future with the liberators. Not all species joined the Empire in such circumstances. Some were the conquered, the past oppressors, who had resented the humans. After several generations of assimilation into the Empire, while retaining the roots of their own cultures, even they became enthusiastic partners. But not all humans thought they deserve a fair shake.

  “I am signing an order right now to pull that bill out of committee and onto the floor of the Lords,” said Sean, linking in with the building computer, and through them the comp at the Parliamentary Lords Office Building. He looked over the bill, gave the order, and affixed his electronic signature to it.

  “Will that not incense the Lords?” asked the Minister.

  “I really don’t care how the Lords feel about it,” said Sean, standing up and looking over the table at all the ministers. “I am trying to restrain myself from instituting martial law, but they keep trying my patience. We are at war people. A real war, to the finish. And that makes me the dictator of the Empire, if I so wish. I don’t wish, and they will bow down to me in this matter, lest they find themselves with little in the way of power. Am I understood? If Parliament ever interferes with your business in this time of trouble, I want you to let me know.”

  The heads nodded around the table, as Ministers looked at him with wide eyes.

  “You are your father’s son,” said T’lisha, a smile on his long face.

  Sean nodded, smiling at the compliment, then sat back down so they could get back to business.

  * * *

  RUBY, SUPERSYSTEM. DECEMBER 18TH, 1001.

  Bagget looked up at the dim orange star in the sky as he stepped onto the reviewing stand. The gravity felt normal, as would be expected on a planet with a one point zero one field. The local vegetation was variations of purple and orange, the terraformed life of Tau Ceti, mostly orange out here on the grasslands.

  I haven’t been back here since I graduated from Sandhurst, thought the officer of the Imperial Army Academy that was located on this, the major army training planet of the Empire, orbiting around the star Umber. Sanctuary D-IV was the official nomenclature for the planet, it went by the common name Ruby, and it was one of the major land warfare bases of the Empire.

  He reached the top of the reviewing stand and looked out over the open field, on which was arrayed the prize that the Emperor promised him. The First Heavy Infantry Division, one of the oldest and most decorated of the Empire. Over twenty thousand men and women standing in their armor out in the cool sun. And it’s all mine. Hopefully, I can lead some more of them back than I did from my last unit, he thought. That division was also on Ruby, receiving replacements, rebuilding. In another three months they might be combat ready again. Then again, it might take longer.

  The three close combat brigades of the division were arrayed toward the front, each with three rectangles of heavy armor suited infantry, almost eight hundred to a group. Behind them was each brigade’s armored battalion, thirty-two of the one thousand ton King Tyrannosaur heavy tanks, and fifteen of the smaller Velociraptor light scout tanks, a mere two hundred tons. Standing behind the tanks was the headquarters battalion, including the actual HQ company, and companies of engineers and antiair.

  Back behind the line brigades was the combat support brigade, with the division headquarters company, as well as three artillery battalions and a heavier ADA battalion. Also attached to this unit was a heavy engineer battalion, with all of the various machines needed to help dig the unit it, or an enemy out. And the specialized jamming and countermeasure companies that would help to obscure the unit from space.

  Two aviation battalions were also assigned to the division, and their ground crews stood to the side of the combat support brigade. Their vehicles, twenty four ground attack craft, fourteen heavy transports, and a dozen air superiority fighters, were hovering in the air above the division.

  “The unit is ready for your review, sir,” said Brigadier Dagni Thorwaldsdottir, her regrown leg still in a supporting cast while nanites and stimulation reconstituted its strength. She had also received a promotion, and Baggett had requested her as his exec. The original division commander had been promoted up to corps command, while the exec had been given another division.

  “I trust they are all in order,” said Samuel, smiling at the beautiful warrior, who would be cleared for suit duty in another week or so, it was hoped.

  “You can count on it, Sir Samuel,” said the woman with a return smile.

  Baggett nodded and stood as the unit passed in review, the first of the heavy infantry brigades marching out of their rectangles and along the front of the stand. The brigade commander, battalion and company commanders all saluted as they passed, their helmeted heads turned toward the stand. The tanks followed in a line. As soon as the first brigade passed in review the second marched out, and then the third. Combat support command and the aviation battalions followed suit, until the entire division had passed.

  “We will be deploying in a week, from what I have heard,” said Baggett to his exec, after the last trooper had marched away.

  “Combat drop, or slow and easy?” asked the woman, referring to a safe shuttle landing.

  “I think they have something else in mind for us and the other corps.”

  “Corps, as in multiple? Just what are they planning?”

  “We’re going to take back our planets, Dagni” said Baggett, looking off into the sky. “While our Fleet is blasting the damned Cacas out of space, we’re going to kill every damned one of them we can catch on the ground.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

  Salvador Dali

  SECTOR IV SPACE. DECEMBER 21ST, 1001.

  “Oh shit,” said Dr. Larry Southard, looking at the most
current scan of the blue supergiant. Most recent, in that it was over three hours ago in real time. We’re dead, he thought, looking at the spectrograph that showed the star was starting to fuse silicon. Millions of tons of silicon a second, piling up the same mass of iron in the core. And when enough iron accumulated the star would stop putting out energy, it would collapse inward, until it reached the pressures were it couldn’t collapse any more. And then it would rebound.

  “Captain,” he called out on the com.

  “I see it Doctor,” said that officer, his voice still calm. “We’re boosting for the hyper barrier right now. We should arrive in seven hours. Dr. Tashiga assures me that we will still have plenty of time to make the jump.”

  “Dr. Tashiga couldn’t assure me that he knows where his ass is, Captain,” said Southard. “I think we better get in the tanks and put on all the acceleration we can. And the destroyers need to be warned, now, so they have a chance of escaping.”

  “This isn’t supposed to be happening,” protested Tashiga over the com. “It wasn’t supposed to be burning silicon for at least another week.”

  “Unfortunately, Tashiga,” said Southard in his best sneering tone, “the star decided not to listen to you.”

  “All crew,” called the voice of the Captain over the com, his voice echoing over the speakers as well. “All crew, report to the acceleration tanks. We need to move, people. Emergency accel in three minutes.”

  Normal procedure called for a five minute period between the warning and initiation of emergency boost. That the Captain was cutting it short meant he was taking the threat very seriously. If only you had taken it seriously enough when we weren’t in danger.

  Southard was in his designated tube in two and a half minutes. He hoped the other crew had made it as well, though he really didn’t care if Tashiga was in his or not.

  “Emergency boost in twenty seconds,” came the voice over the com. When the clock ticked down, Gringo went into her emergency max of five hundred and twenty gravities, thirty-two above the maximum her inertial compensators could handle. There was no more reserve available. If something happened to the compensators, they were all dead.

  An hour passed, then another, while the ship piled on the acceleration and clawed for the barrier. If all they needed to do was to get there it would be one thing, but they also needed to decel to a low enough velocity to make a jump, or the heat and electromag radiation from the supernova would still burn them out of space. Southard was linked into the ship’s sensors, and through them the transmission from the satellites. Not that the satellites would do much good, as their signal would reach the ship about the same time as the thermal wave.

  “We have major graviton fluctuations,” said the voice of the computer over the com. “Graviton emissions are off the scale.”

  Which means the star has collapsed, and is now exploding.

  Three and a half light hours away that was what was happening. The star exploded, sending a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion tons of high temperature matter out in a globular blast that would spread for thousands of years at a high fraction of light speed. Running ahead of it was the wave of heat and light. Everything in the system that got in its way was vaporized, to be added to the plasma from the star that would eventually form a stellar nursery.

  The explosion of the star itself was forging elements far heavier than iron, the only way these substances could be created in the natural Universe. They would help to enrich the planets that would form around the new stars, and could possibly be of use to whatever life developed on those worlds, if any.

  This was of no interest to the people aboard the research ship. They were counting down the arrival time of the thermal wave, and finding no hope in that countdown. The clock was off by several seconds, the people aboard surviving for just a bit longer. Dr. Southard’s last thought was he hoped the explosion actually did what the Empire wanted it to. Then he, like the ship around him, was converted into a fine hot plasma that was later pushed along by the material wave of the explosion.

  The destroyers picked up the graviton disturbances as well, and their captains made the proper decision. The ships fired up their hyperdrive projectors and attempted to open up the holes into the higher dimension, sure that the superhot matter would pass them by. Unfortunately for them, the projectors could not open those holes. Space and hyperspace was roiling from the explosion, and this close to the blast hyper was not available. The destroyers and their crews suffered the same fate as the research vessel. The one equipped with a wormhole com was able to get out the message that the star had exploded, fulfilling that part of its mission.

  Gravitons sped off from the explosion through all dimensions of hyper, in VIII at a pseudospeed of a hundred and sixty thousand times the speed of light. Hyperspace became inaccessible for several light years around the former star converted to expanding nebula. And for hundreds of light years in every direction the dimensions reverberated with the blast of gravitons. No instrument capable of tracking ships through the dimensions could hear through that noise. Just what the Empire had been counting on.

  * * *

  THE DONUT.

  “My God,” blurted out the com tech on duty in the Fleet Command Communications Center. “They’re gone.”

  “What are you babbling about, Sheila,” said Lt. Commander Tosh McIntosh, walking over to the Tech’s panel.

  The room was filled with people, sitting at over a hundred stations, one of scores of such chambers across the Donut. Their job was to keep track of all the myriad ships and commands that used wormhole coms.

  “It was the Minimoto,” said the Tech. “One of the ships watching that star that was about to blow. They shouted ‘it’s blown up’, then dropped off the net completely.” The tech started checking her diagnostics, then looked up at the Commander with wide eyes. “The wormhole link has been severed, sir.”

  Did they mean the star had blown. There couldn’t really be any other explanation, could there? “Link up with the nearest wormhole equipped ship from that star. I want a report from them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Tech, getting to work.

  “I’m going to kick this upstairs,” said McIntosh. “I know they’ve been waiting for this, but I don’t think they figured it would be this soon.”

  McIntosh sent up the com request to his immediate superior, all the time hoping that there had been some mistake. Otherwise, three destroyers and their crews had died in a manner in which no human ever had before.

  * * *

  CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

  “Your Majesty,” said the voice through his priority com. “It’s happened.”

  Sean opened his eyes, looking at the sleeping form of the woman beside him. Her arm was now healed, and as far as he could tell she was settling into the position of Empress just fine. Not that she had any really pressing duties, since hers was more one of an ambassador of goodwill to the people on the Homefront.

  “How long ago?” he asked, not even needing to ask what the woman on the other end was referring to. Senior Agent May knew better than to disturb him at night about anything that wasn’t of the utmost importance.

  “Initial report came in to Fleet twenty minutes ago,” said the Agent. “It was verified fifteen minutes later by another wormhole equipped ship about five light years from the star.”

  “Why did it have to be verified? What did the ships on the scene say?”

  “This is Admiral McCullom, your Majesty,” came the voice of the CNO over the com. “We lost contact with our ships after the first report. I am afraid that the destroyers and the research ship might not have made it away in time.”

  Sean closed his eyes, feeling the pain of losing yet more people, in a situation he really hadn’t thought there would be that much risk. Why couldn’t they jump to hyper before the thermal wave reached them? He dismissed the thought he didn’t have time for. We weren’t ready for it to happen so soon, but it happened when it did.

  “W
hat are your orders, your Majesty?” asked the CNO. “The clock is ticking.”

  I realize that, Admiral. It seems the damned thing never slows down. “Alert all commands. We will move as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” said McCullom, her voice showing anxiety and eagerness both. “The joint chiefs will be meeting within the hour to finalize our deployments.”

  “I will be there, Admiral,” said Sean, sitting up in bed. “Sean out.”

  A hand touched the Emperor on the back. “What’s going on?” asked a sleepy voice.

  He turned to see Jennifer propped up on one arm, her other hand rubbing across his shoulders. And I’ve got to leave you again. But better you stay here, safe, so I have one less worry while I’m out with the fleet. “The star blew up,” he said, turning, putting the back of his hand against her cheek and caressing her.

  “I thought it wasn’t going to go supernova for another week or two?”

  “Unfortunately, the stars don’t ask when they can do what they want,” he said with a sad smile. “We’re going to have to jump off faster than I expected.”

  “Just make sure you come back to me.”

  “Oh, I’ll be back after the meeting with the Joint Chiefs.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Jennifer, sitting up and kissing him. She broke the kiss and touched his face. “No matter what, you come back. No heroics. Lead, but don’t go charging into the fray like some damned knight on horseback.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” agreed Sean, kissing her, then getting up from bed. “Now, I need to look presentable before I appear before my levymen. You know how they think their Emperor is always ready.”