That wasn’t true for most of the crews in her force. They had families. Parents, siblings, wives and children. People who would miss them. Yet, even knowing what the mission was about, and the risk they were taking, they still signed on. Less than two hundred people hadn’t signed on, and the Fleet hadn’t even bothered to replace them. That was ominous in itself. Like they thought they were going to lose those people anyway, so why add more casualties to the total?
The vid zoomed in, showing a view of the planet as it had appeared a week ago, further back in its orbital path. The ship’s computer started looking at everything of interest, zooming over hundreds of objects in a second, then presenting a menu for the humans to choose from, ordered in the priority its algorithms had decided upon. Human analysts were already pouring over it back at Fleet, and soon the people on the flag bridge were also going through the images.
Within a minute objects were being assigned to the flagship as the analysts found them of interest. Mei pulled a couple up, giving a slight humph as she looked over the first one. An orbital station with the look of a factory. In close proximity were a pair of commercial ships, with shuttles in space going between station and vessels. It looked like they were taking off all of the guts of the station. What they didn’t appear to be doing was taking apart the structure of the station, something they would do if they were moving it in toto. They were leaving the structure behind as bait, while taking what was still useful to their war effort, removing it from the system.
There were also the traces of ships leaving the system, both in normal space and in hyper once past the barrier. All outgoing, and all with the signatures of commercial hyperdrives. With no visible escorts. It appeared that the Ca’cadasan Empire didn’t have the ships to spare at the moment. Mei thought that the Fleet would soon be vectoring ships onto their courses, preying on those commercial vessels and making sure that the cargoes they were carrying profited the Cacas no more.
“Admiral,” said the CNO, her head appearing in a holo to the right of Mei’s command chair. “We’ve looked over what you’ve sent. You move up in two days and start into the system after two days of surveillance. The battle force will come in behind you twenty-four hours later.”
“And we release the inner strike force?”
“As soon as you enter normal space. Cut them loose at a point one five light. Are they ready?”
Mei laughed. “Suttler has kept them ready. I thought his people might start abandoning ship with all the drills he’s been running.”
“He’s good at what he does,” said McCullom, shaking her head. “I wasn’t for someone with his rank leading the strike, but he insisted, and the Emperor agreed. Now I’m thinking that it was a good idea. He’s a taskmaster, but very good at his job.”
Mei nodded, happy that she was in a part of the fleet where rank wouldn’t remove her from the front lines. Yet. If she ever rose to full admiral she might have to start thinking about how she was going to enjoy sitting on her ass in a staff position. She wasn’t battle fleet, and the positions in scout force for full admirals were very limited. She didn’t think that Mara Montgomery was going to go into retirement anytime soon. At least not until the war was over, and she doubted even that would force the woman into retirement.
“We’ll be ready, ma’am,” she finally told the CNO after a moment’s thought.
“I’m sure you will be. Just, be careful.”
The holo died, leaving Mei alone with her thoughts again. Why are we all worrying so much about this mission, she thought, huffing out a breath. Every time they met the Cacas in battle there was a chance they wouldn’t go home. Mei herself had been in over a dozen major battles, many of which she was sure were going to be her last. The very first encounter with the Cacas had almost been her last, in not just one but in many different circumstances. Getting out of the Sestius system with the newly elevated Emperor and all the adventures along the way. That time she had been trapped in hyper in a damaged ship that was about to run out of power and drop catastrophically. There couldn’t possibly be a more stressful situation. But this one was playing on all their nerves. Possibly because they had too much time to think about it. And the sheer magnitude of someone blowing up a star to get them. Not really blowing it up, she thought, but close enough.
“We need to get this thing kicked off,” she said under her breath, walking over to the central plot and looking at everything they knew about this area. Unfortunately, they had to sit here until it was time to move. Looking around at the people on the flag bridge she could see the tension in all of them. They were all busy, working their analyses on the data coming in. But it was not the right kind of task to take their minds off their mortality.
With a smile she thought up of a good way to take everyone’s mind off of their mortality. With a good long battle drill, wargaming the situation ahead.
* * *
“We’re seventy-three hours from translation, sir,” said the flag captain, his holo popping up to the side of the admiral’s machine.
“Any particular reason for reminding me of this hour,” said Admiral Conrad Alvera, the commander of the battle force that was the Empire’s primary bait on this mission. The admiral was working through his tension in his private gym, just off his main cabin. He had been working out for over an hour, pumping iron, then doing cardio on a stationary bike. A workout enthusiast since prior to his entering the Academy, an athlete on both the football field and the soccer pitch, he always tried to get in an hour every day. Not always possible when entering a combat situation that might go on for days.
The flag captain stared at the admiral for a moment, a confused look on his face. The officer shook his head, smiling sheepishly. “I, uh, just thought you might want to know, sir.”
“It’s getting to all of us, Wally,” said the admiral after a short laugh. “Don’t worry. When have I ever failed in this war?”
The look on his flag captain’s face said that there was always a first time.
True enough, thought the admiral, a feeling of disappointment in his heart. His part in this mission was not much. Just get the attention of the Cacas by driving in, looking like he was going to strike at the ships in orbit. Everything else depended on the actions of others. He knew that the people chosen for those other roles were good at their jobs, but he didn’t like having his fate in the hands of anyone other than himself. Unfortunately, that was part of being a warrior, from the the lowliest spacer up to the person just below the CNO. Still didn’t mean that he liked it.
“Don’t worry, Captain Garrison. We’re going to make it through this thing. You have my word on this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you don’t have to give me an hourly report on our arrival time. Okay.”
The flag captain nodded sheepishly, then the holo died, leaving the admiral alone. He started back with a furious peddling on the bike, setting it to a mountain road in a one point five gravity field. He pushed it for another hour, then went to his cabin to clean up, sending an order through his implant for food to be delivered by his steward by the time he got out of the shower. After the food had been delivered, simple fare that was filling, he sat at the table looking at the holo of the Kallfer system slowly rotating in the air. Trying to find a way to bring his command out of the system if the mission hit the crapper. Hours later he still hadn’t found a way, which meant he still had to depend on others to get him out.
The admiral yawned, looking at the time and just realizing that he had been sitting at the table for four hours. Too long. He did a quick look at the tactical plot, wondering why he was bothering. If anything appeared, like a massive Caca battle fleet heading on an intercept, bound to destroy his smaller force, he would be alerted to its presence. Not that he expected such a fleet to materialize. Everyone seemed sure that the Cacas were setting a trap for his force, so why would they send in a fleet for a slugging match that was sure to lose them a lot of ships, when the destruction of the human force w
as assured. At least as far as the Cacas were concerned, having no knowledge of the human plan.
He shouldn’t have been concerned that the enemy might have something else, something unexpected, waiting. He couldn’t help himself. Some admirals might have gained their rank by taking chances. Alvera had gained his by cautiously making smart decisions. It was not smart to rush in without taking a second look, sometimes a third. This plan was not smart or cautious according to his way of thinking. But orders were orders, and he was not about to gain a reputation for cowardess. He was cautious, but he wasn’t a coward.
Still, before he turned in he made one last contact to the flag bridge, making sure that the scouts he had ordered out to the flanks and ahead were still there. With relief he saw that they were still in place, transmitting their sensor readings back to his ship. Nothing to report, and he began to beat himself in his mind for being such a worrier.
“Admiral,” came a call over the intercom. “The scout force to our port is reporting they are picking up hyper resonnances. They appear to be merchant ships, on a heading away from our target system.”
“No warships?”
“There don’t appear to be any, sir. Should we order the scouts to go after them?”
“No,” said the admiral after thinking for several moments. “We have a priority mission, and I intend for us to get the entire battle force there, intact. Send a report up to fleet. We’ll leave it to them to vector some raiders in on those merchies.”
Caution, he thought as he lay back in his bed and commanded the lights off through his implant. Some of the other admirals might laugh at him for not engaging a target of opportunity. He really didn’t care. His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was that he was doing what he thought best, and so far what he thought best had led to victories with the fewest losses of any officer in his position. That the system ahead might end that record, along with his life, haunted his dreams that night.
* * *
“It looks like a definite trap is being set for us in that system, your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom over the holo com. “We have verification that they have been pulling out all of their industrial machinery. There’s only one problem with the whole setup.”
“And what might that be, Admiral?” asked Sean, leaning forward in his seat. He had been working on other matters while waiting for reports to come in. As much as he wished he could turn his entire attention to the coming battle, one that, while not the largest of the war, was of vital importance. If they failed, they lost a billion beings of an allied race, along with the possibility that those creatures would no longer trust humans.
Unfortunately, he was not only the war leader of the New Terran Empire, first among equals in the alliance. He was also the head of state and responsible for all the executive functions of his government. Add to that the bargaining he had to do with Parliament on a constant basis, and he had enough to keep him up late most nights doing paperwork. Affixing his electronic signature on the document before him, an appeal to Parliament for an increase in funding for negative matter production, he turned off his system and turned his attention fully to his CNO, who had waited patiently for her monarch to look back at her.
“We can’t find their projector ships. There are several places where they might be hiding them, but we can verify that they are not in orbit around the star. At least not at what we have determined to be the optimal distance from the photosphere.”
“Shit. You think this might not be the setup we thought it was going to be. Maybe they’ll just satisfy themselves with bombarding Kallfer to lifelessness from space.”
“We can only hope not,” said McCullom, eyes narrowing. “All I recommend at the moment is going ahead with the attack, and hoping that we can find their ships before they get too far into the process. They have to come out into the open, don’t they?”
“I would think so,” replied Sean. He couldn’t think of any way they could stealth ships that large, that close to the star. True, Duchess Mei had done that with her battle cruisers, but even then she had problems with the heat of the star giving her away, when she had powered down almost everything aboard her ship. The projectors ships would have to be running their reactors full out, and once they started up their hyperdrive projectors they would stand out like purposeful beacons.
Another chime came through on the com network, and Sean took an instant to see who was waiting. He wasn’t surprised to see that Countess Haruko Kawasaki, the Prime Minister, and the Baron Emile von Hausser Schmidt, Leader of the House of Lords, were waiting on him. It was a priority com, but so was his conversation with Sondra, and he couldn’t imaging anything they had to say that was more important than the matter at hand. He sent an acknowledgment of receipt, along with the notice that he would be with them momentarily.
“Okay. We’ll go ahead with the attack and hope everything goes as we expect. But I want our force prepared for a standard fleet engagement, just in case.”
“Very well. It will be done as you command, your Majesty.”
Meaning that if anything went wrong with the mission, it would be on the Emperor’s shoulders. The CNO had given her information and recommendations, and the decision was now someone else’s. The CNO had given advice to continue the mission as planned, but it was only advice.
“Countess. Baron,” said Sean, connecting to the other com channel. “What’s so important?”
The pair looked out at him through a single view, showing that they were in the same room. The countess was the leader of Sean’s government, taking on all the varied tasks he didn’t have time for during wartime. The Baron was the Leader of the Lords, once a member of the opposition party before being convinced to sign on with Sean’s faction, bringing many of his party with him. The pair worked closely together, and sometimes the Emperor wondered just how close they were. He had his suspicions, but frankly thought it none of his business, and not something to concern Imperial Intelligence with just to satisfy his curiosity.
Of course the pair had no idea that the Fleet was about to kick off a major and risky operation. Parliament had the right to be informed about the overall prosecution of the war, especially when it came to funding and manpower. They didn’t have the right to know about battle plans, not even their oversight committees.
“There are demonstrations taking place outside of the Lords, your Majesty,” said von Hausser, taking point for this conversation. “Not riots, but enough to make the Lords anxious when coming and going.”
“What kind of demonstrations?” asked the Emperor, eyes narrowing. He had his suspicions before the vid of the huge square in front of the Parliament building appeared in the air beside the holo of the two nobles.
The Parliament building itself was still undergoing repairs. The inside was finished, the halls of the Lords were occupied, but the ornamental stonework on the outside was still in the process of installation. Originally it had been planned to wait until the war was over to finished the ornamentation of the building, but the Lords had insisted that their dignity demanded the structure be restored to its pre-attack glory. A kilometer across the large square was the Cathedral of the Reformed Catholic Church, the seat of the faith. It too was under repair. The grand chapel was open for services, but the stonework still needed to be placed on the exterior. The Church, at least, had been reasonable enough to not demand immediate repairs.
The square itself, a public gathering place for the city center, where people brought lunches and sat watching other people, or simply enjoyed the day, was packed with as many people as could fit in the square kilometer and a half space. Many were just standing there and watching the commotion. A large group were directly in front of Parliament, waving holographic signs while a couple of people were yelling out their spiel to the crowd.
The signs were waving in the sky, taking up a ten meter by five space. Smaller signs were waving in the crowd, most of these the old fashioned kind, a board attached to a slender post. A couple of hologra
phic billboards were also present, quickly flashing their sequence of messages.
Police stood along the outskirts of the gathering, standard cops in strap on armor, stun pistols holstered. SWAT would be on call if things got out of hand, and in minutes there could be a hundred police in heavy powered armor descending on the crowd. So far there had been no call for them. Freedom of assembly was guaranteed in the Empire, as long as it was peaceful, and this space had been apportioned as one of those set aside for assemblages such as these. They were rarely used for such, but many of the citizens of the capital city were aware of its purpose.
Sean focused on one of the signs, eyes widening as he read one of the messages before it flashed to another. Bring our Sons and Daughters Home, Alive, it proclaimed. An instant later the sign was proclaiming End The War. Start The Peace Process.
Sean snorted a laugh. There would be no peace process with the Cacas until the Imperial Fleet sat in orbit over their home world. He wasn’t sure why these people thought different, but then there were always well meaning fools who didn’t let reality intrude on their dreams.
Some chanting came over the audio of the com channel. Not very loud, and it seemed like less than ten percent of the people gathered were there for the cause. The great majority was just there to observe.
“I’m guessing the Caca Emperor doesn’t have to put up with this,” said the Prime Minister. “One thing we can envy him for.”
“Though I, for one, would not want that kind of totalitarian regime on our space,” said von Hausser.
If only you knew, thought Sean, struggling to keep the smile off of his face. Maybe before the current troubles Jresstratta wouldn’t have had to worry about protests. And any that had dared would have been hustled off the streets and into prison, those who weren’t simply shot down where they stood.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion. Page 21
