Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12: Time Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  “Other groups are on approach, sir,” called Commander McGurty. Since this plan was for the main part his, Len had thought he would let the young man be in charge of fleet tactical. “The enemy should be picking them up at any time.”

  Two of those forces were carrier groups, coming in at right angles to the planet on either side. They would launch the rest of the inertialess fighters and the nine hundred remaining warp ships. And the ten thousand standard fighters that were carried on hulls for this mission. The third and fourth forces were battle groups, one each coming in from above and below the plain of the ecliptic. The admiral wasn’t really sure what those forces would accomplish other than grabbing enemy attention. They would be in position to hit the enemy on attacks of opportunity, depending on how they reacted to the knowledge that they had been tricked.

  * * *

  “We are estimating twenty-five thousand ships, my Lord. Coming in on three axes of approach, with the largest along the closest path to the planet.”

  “Then where are the rest of them?” asked the great admiral. “Those are not enough ships. There must be more.”

  “That is a very large force, my Lord. Larger than those that took out the wings.”

  “And that was in many separate battles,” growled the admiral, pacing the deck. “They would have to know we have at least the same force as the wings. And they would send in enough ships to take care of it.”

  “We have many more ships than the wings, my Lord.”

  “And they have been scouting us for five days. They would have to realize we have many more ships. Even if we only had twenty thousand, this is still not a large enough force to take us on.”

  “But they don’t know about our mines, my Lord. And they must not have accounted for how many wormhole launched missiles we can send at them.”

  “I want a hundred thousand of missiles launched through the wormholes as soon as that first force enters normal space,” the great admiral ordered.

  “Do you want us to start accelerating them now, my Lord.”

  The great admiral thought about that for a moment. It would take over three hours to accelerate them up to attack speed, sending them through the gates and into this space. If something happened and the target didn’t come out where they expected, decelerating and possibly jumping back into hyper, those missiles would be sent out into the void with no targets. They could send orders to decelerate them, but there would be no way they could come back into the system to be reused.

  “Wait until they enter normal space and are on the way into the system. I want to be sure they have committed their force to the system before we fire.”

  At the time it had seemed like the smart decision.

  * * *

  “It’s time, ma’am,” said the pilot, looking back from his station.

  Captain Anvi Patel had been paying attention to the time herself, and was about to give the order, but the pilot had beaten her to it. Her wing was on a direct right angle to the planet that was the target, two light hours away, still coasting along at point three light. All one hundred and three of the craft in her wing were already pointing down toward their target. Visual sensors had identified the targets, five of them, sitting out in the open. There were defensive ships clustered around them, enough to defend them from conventional missiles, unless they were coming in overwhelming force.

  “Engage,” she ordered, and the pilot went back to his board while the com tech sent the command to the rest of the ships.

  All of the ships in her wing engaged their Alcubierre drives within seconds of each other. The ring around the middle of the fighter started to spin up, until the negative matter within was spun to a significant fraction of light speed. Grabber units engaged at the same time, sending out waves of gravitons on an interference pattern fore and aft. The negative matter sent out waves of antigravitons in the same patterns, blending with the gravity waves. Space in front of the ship on a narrow path compressed out to half a light second, while the space behind expanded by the same ratio. The ship, now enclosed in a warp bubble, slid through the disruption in space at a pseudospeed of twenty light. The craft were spaced far enough to each side that they didn’t run into each other’s warp tunnels, something that would result in disaster for at least one of them, if not both.

  As soon as the warp drive was engaged the point three light vector was gone, the momentum absorbed in the warp field. If they were to stop they would be at a dead halt in space, until they boosted along another vector with their grabbers, or engaged warp once again. They were now almost invulnerable, but they were currently on the tracking sensors of every ship in the system.

  The timer over the main viewer showing five and a half minutes to the target. Hopefully too little time for the enemy to react effectively. They would soon find out.

  * * *

  “The warp fighter wings have engaged, sir,” said the com officer. “Inertialess fighters are also boosting at this time.”

  “So now they know some of what we have snuck into the system,” said Lenkowski. “Let’s just hope they accomplish what they were sent in to do.”

  “We will be in detection range of enemy pickets in fourteen minutes, sir,” said McGurty. “Of course, that’s just an estimate.”

  Which means they might not pick us up for another thirty minutes, thought Len. Or they could make us in less than five. Does it really make that much difference?

  “Let me know when the warp fighters finish their strike,” said Len. If they took out their targets he would feel better about boosting. Not that it made any difference, since he would be in detection range of the Caca pickets whether the fighters took out their targets or not.

  * * *

  Klaxons went off as warning lights flashed on the bridge.

  “What is it?” yelled out the great admiral, jumping to his feet.

  “We’re picking up the warp signatures of those new fighters, my Lord. We’re trying to get a fix on them right now. We’re also picking up the signals of inertialess fighters. We can’t tell where they are. Only that they are within the system.”

  And they snuck them in right under our snouts, the bastards, thought the great admiral. He wasn’t as worried about the warp fighters as the inertialess ones. The warp fighters were more dangerous, but the new inertia rebound weapons of the older craft were more of a threat to his fleet.

  “Send the orders out to battle groups to disperse,” he told his com officer. He would present them with the most dispersed targets possible. The weapons were devastating, though very inaccurate, but a lucky hit could take out many ships if they were close enough. And when the standard missiles came in he would want his ships closer together, where their weapons could cover each other against the incoming weapons. It would be a dance of maneuver, and if done properly it would really aid him in this battle. If not, it could be a disaster.

  “The fighters are coming in from above the ecliptic, my Lord,” shouted out the panicked tactical officer. “Speed, twenty lights. ETA, five minutes.”

  The great admiral stared at the male for a moment, his mind trying to work out what they were going for. His ship? They had no idea where his ship was among the thousands in the system. The planet? Not unless they wanted to slam some relativistic missiles into the world, and that was not something the humans did. Not to a world that had belonged to them, and they had to hope would be theirs again in the future. So what?

  “The wormholes,” he shouted, looking around the bridge. “Get those wormhole gates collapsed. We must get them hidden in ships. Order our guard vessels to interpose themselves between those fighters and the wormholes.”

  “It will take fifteen minutes or more to collapse the gates, my Lord,” cried out the tactical officer. “And we can’t get very many ships up there in time.”

  “Stop them,” yelled the great admiral, swinging four fists down on top of the tactical station. “Stop them now. That’s an order. On your life.”

  Fear flashed acro
ss the face of the tactical officer, who had no idea how he could fulfill an impossible order. The attention of the great admiral left him in an instant, the huge male stalking toward the plot to stare at the icons coming down from above. He clenched and unclenched his fists. The gates were his most important asset, and the enemy was coming down on them at a speed none of his vessels or missiles could match.

  It wasn’t fair that the enemy had ships like that, and he didn’t. He had been told that his side would have them operational in six months. But he had four minutes before they ripped the heart out of his plan.

  “Order ships to fire everything they have in their path,” he shouted out. It might not be enough, but it was all he could do.

  * * *

  “Thirty seconds to contact,” called out the pilot. “Weapons have target configuration and are ready to launch.”

  Patel sat in her seat and didn’t say a word. None needed to be said. All crews would fire their weapons when the time came.

  “We have missile launches from the enemy ships.”

  Of course we have, thought the captain. They were going to put everything they could in front of her wing and try to take them out. A momentary touch of particle beams or lasers would mean nothing, they wouldn’t get through the warp field. Close in weapon projectiles would be torn apart by the field. The same didn’t hold true for counter missiles, and the warheads going off within the field would take out a fighter. That was the risk, and one they had known about going in.

  “Firing now,” called out the pilot.

  One hundred and one ships dropped a missile each, the warp weapons engaging their own fields on minimum, only extending them a meter before and behind, then sliding out of the launching vessels’ warp field in a flash. A warp field could protect an object from a warp field, as long as it wasn’t speared by the compression/expansion tunnel, otherwise they would be torn apart by the gravitational overload. As soon as they were away from the launching vessels they dropped their fields for a moment, got a look at the target, locked it in, and raised their fields again, and streaked off at twenty lights for the huge objects ahead.

  Each wormhole gate was ten kilometers in width, held in place by a ring fifty meters in thickness. Large targets with very small areas where they could actually sustain damage. The rest of the gate was the wormhole. Anything entering that would soon be in other space, and in the form of particles, since an active warp field going through the wormhole would be stressed to the point of collapse, and whatever was inside would collapse with it.

  Each wormhole had twenty missiles targeting it, the farthest from the launch twenty-one. One wormhole was hit by three missiles on the frame. Each hit cut through the frame, destroying a hundred meters to each side. Without a constant and consistent ring of negative matter to hold it open the wormhole collapsed, flashing inward at near light speed to disappear, along with the remainder of the frame. With no opening on one side the connection was gone, and the other opening thousands of light years away disappeared.

  Three other wormholes each took one hit, with the same result. One wormhole survived, for now.

  The wing flew through the space in an instant at twenty lights. One warp fighter hit a counter missile. The warp field disintegrated the weapon, but the antimatter warhead blew through and vaporized the fighter. Another fighter hit a cruiser amidships. The damage to the warship was severe. That to the fighter was absolute.

  And then they were through, with four of their targets destroyed for the loss of two ships. The warp missiles that did not contact a target flew on. They were set to fly for one minute, drop their fields, then acquire whatever targets presented themselves.

  * * *

  The great admiral watched in disbelief as four of his five wormholes disappeared. They hadn’t even known that the enemy had these weapons when the offensive kicked off. And now they had all but taken away his ace in the hole.

  “We still have the one, my Lord,” said the tactical officer. “We can still get missiles across it.”

  A fifth of what they planned. Not the best of starts to his planned defensive battle. And the plot was showing another wing of warp fighters, coming in two minutes behind the first. He didn’t need a seer to tell him what their target would be. That last wormhole was on borrowed time.

  “Order all ships to fire along the approach path of the next group of warp craft. Everything they have, including full spreads of counters. And launch every fighter we have that can get there in a minute. I want them to form a wall.”

  This time, when the fighters came through and annihilated his last gate, eight of them were destroyed. It was not enough.

  * * *

  “They’ve taken down all the wormholes,” said McGurty, a smile on his freckled face, blue eyes shining.

  “At least all we know of,” imparted another officer.

  “The Cacas didn’t have that many wormholes to start with, and they have other groups of this offensive to support,” said McGurty, glaring at the other officer.

  “We will find out in due time,” said Lenkowski. “Have the standard fighters reached the area of the presumed minefields.”

  “They will be entering the area in the next ten minutes, sir.”

  Len nodded, looking at the plot. The fighters were coasting in, of course, not giving off gravitons, powered down and producing very little heat. At their size they were just about undetectable, and the sensor platform would have to be very close. It was a dangerous mission, nonetheless. The fighters had been thought to be near obsolescence as a military concept at the beginning of the war. They had still been effective in the early stages, striking with these kinds of stealth tactics. They hadn’t done too well against Caca fighters, which were smaller and more maneuverable. There had been debate about retiring them, and then the inertialess fighters had burst on the scene, followed by the warp variety. Which left hundreds of thousands of the older fighters still in service without a real mission.

  They were small and fragile, and once they were detected they were easy to kill. They could still carry a sting, and a group could take out a capital ship with some luck. Capital ships still carried a squadron or half of one, since they could perform recon duties as well as many larger ships, and they widened the area of any search. Many of the best pilots had been transferred to the new classes of fighters, leaving average and below to man the old class. If the Empire had its way, the new classes would be all that were deployed with the Fleet. Unfortunately, the new classes, and their weapons, required negative matter. Which was also needed in wormholes. It was a strategic resource in short supply. More industrial plants were in the building stage, but they weren’t here yet. And the old-style fighters were. Twenty thousand of them spread across a wide cone, looking for mines. There was only one Klassekian com tech per squadron, but the other fifteen ships of each were close enough for tight beam communications.

  “We’ve been made, sir,” called out one of the com officers manning the long communications station on the flag bridge. The officers were all human, the techs mostly Klassekians. There were members of their species undergoing officer training, most former members of their own military. In a year there would be Klassekian com officers aboard Imperial ships.

  “What do you have?” asked the admiral.

  “Two scout ships, four hundred thousand tons each. Moving to port at a forty-five degree angle at five hundred and thirty gravities. They’re grav pulsing as well. We’re picking up return pulses, or relays, thirty-three light minutes to port.”

  They would of course have to relay the signal around the star, since it would absorb any grav waves that tried to pass through it. Either way, the enemy would now know that something was here.

  “Wormhole launch on those scouts. And launch on the relay ships as well,” said Lenkowski. “We might as well have some of our pickets go to active sensors. Not all of them. Let’s keep them guessing.”

  The orders went out, and a hundred scouts started pulsing their act
ive sensors, sending out radar and lidar on a wide beam. They started getting back hints of returns, enough to send the results to the massive computer systems aboard each vessel. Hints that showed the most promise resulted in narrow beam sensors. And over a score of Caca ships showed up on the plot. To immediately be engaged by missiles.

  “Order all ships that have sent out sensor pulses to start boosting to port,” said Len. He pointed out a couple of squadrons on the plot, a battleship squadron, one of battlecruisers, a group of heavy cruisers, and another of lights. “And these as well. All are to boost at full on this course for one half hour.”

  That would give the ships further out something to look at while the rest of his force continued to coast in. They wouldn’t be coasting much longer as it was. The plan called for them to start boosting and changing their vector in forty-one minutes. The course would take them around the star at seventy light seconds’ distance, twenty-one million kilometers, using the gravity of the body to help curve them around it. They would come around and into the view of the planet moving at point four light, heading directly toward the enemy. It was the reverse of the tactic the Emperor had used to escape the Cacas at Sestius. They wouldn’t be going quite so close to the star, but they would still pick up a bit of heat on the passage.

  * * *

  “Our pickets are picking up ships on the other side of the star, my Lord,” said the com officer.

  “How many?” growled the great admiral, turning away from the plot to walk over to the male’s station.

  “About forty, my Lord. Mostly their small scout class and cruisers, though they have some capital ships.”

  “A feint, my Lord,” said the chief of staff, looking at the plot that was now showing the enemy ships, or at least the ships according to the information transmitted by the pickets.

  “And what are they feinting for?” asked the great admiral, looking over at the old male. “What are they trying to cover up? We can see their other forces coming at us.”