Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy

by Doug Dandridge

  The pair had been prowling this space for several days, taking a couple of merchant ships that had wandered into their hunting grounds. They had not attracted any attention, which gave them even more of an advantage. They had not really been satisfying kills for the Fenri warriors. They had only been part of the mission, the burning of holes through the thin hulls not made for war, the ending of lives lacking the courage of warriors. These ships gave promise of something much more.

  * * *

  “Captain Pasce thinks they are about to jump back into hyper,” said the Klassekian com tech, looking back at Lt. Commander Terrance Zhukov, the captain of the Angela Collins.

  “Makes sense to me,” said Lt. Commander Sophie Drake, the XO, from her station back in CIC. “It’s only a light cruiser, and it has to see it’s outclassed by our force.”

  Zhukov nodded as he looked at the tactical plot that showed the intruder a light hour away. Tactical was identifying it a warship in the light cruiser range, preliminary ID, Fenri. And what the hell are they doing here, over three hundred light years from their own space?

  Naval intelligence was reporting that almost ninety percent of the Fenri fleet had been destroyed. What was left was laying low, fighting what amounted to a privateer war, striking where the Empire was weak, going after small convoys and lone transports.. And they were still losing, since Fenri space swarmed with Imperial patrols. Somehow this one had penetrated deep into Imperial space, probably trying to find lone merchant ships to prey on. Despite the war, there were still some of those, though the smart ones always waited for convoys and the protection of warships.

  “They’re starting to jump,” called out the Sensor Chief over the com. She was located in a quiet room near the hyper-resonance chamber that allowed the tech to read the resonances of ships moving in, out and through hyperspace, without the distractions of other shipboard systems. “ID confirmed. Resonances match Fenri hyperdrive. She’s opening a hole into VI.”

  “Which is most likely its limit,” said Drake.

  “Captain Pasce orders the squadron to jump to VII and follow the intruder,” reported the com tech. “Squadron will jump into VI when we have caught up to them, pattern Sierra Four.”

  Zhukov nodded. The command made sense. They would be able to pass the Fenri ship at a low enough velocity to jump down to hyper VI when needed, and their pattern would put them in a trapping formation. Their ships outmassed the Fenri by a factor of two, and Imperial tech was better. So taking the Fenri cruiser should be easy.

  “Jumping to VII,” called out the Chief who ran the helm of the destroyer.

  Lights dimmed for a moment, nausea struck for a few seconds, and then the ship was in the red tinged space of hyper VII. The other ships jumped within a second of each other, and all moved into position as they chased after the enemy ship.

  It wasn’t a long chase, and the squadron passed through the region the Fenri cruiser occupied in the lower dimension. The Fenri were decelerating at their maximum rate, and Zhukov had to wonder what they were up to. It must have been obvious even to them that they couldn’t outrun the Imperial squadron, and maybe they thought their only chance was to drop back to normal space and try to hide. Moments before the ships reached the optimal translation point to drop on top of the enemy ship the Fenri beat them to it, opening a hole and translating down into normal space. Seconds later the Imperial force was translating down to normal space as well, putting on all the decel they could handle.

  When they reached the space of black backdrops and brilliant points they were only a little over a light minute from the enemy, who was still moving in their general direction. The Imperial ships were about to fire spreads of missiles at the enemy cruiser, when something else caught their attention, and they realized how good the navigator was on that Fenri ship.

  “Object powering up at range of five light seconds,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Crap,” shouted that officer, his eyes widening. “It’s a battle cruiser.”

  That fast the equation had changed. They had outmassed the enemy two to one, but now they were facing an opponent that outmassed them by a factor of four. And before they could think what to do the battle cruiser opened fire with lasers and particle beams.

  Shei Ju was the closest vessel to the enemy capital ship, and the first to be hit by the ravening light amp weapons of the seven and a half million ton warship. Lasers blasted through the destroyer’s electromagnetic cold plasma field and tore into the hull, knocking out both forward laser rings and three of the bow grabbers. A microsecond later the particle beams struck, burning deep into the hull and knifing into the main engineering section. Antimatter breached, and the two hundred and fifty ton destroyer converted to a miniature star spewing superhot plasma.

  “Jump,” yelled Zhukov to his Helmsman as every other crew person on the bridge stared in shock at the remains of their dead sister. The ship shook for a moment as a laser hit the hull, luckily nowhere near the power of those that had killed the Ju. Then they were through the red tinged hole in space and back in the safety of hyper VII.

  Zhukov stared at the holo plot for a moment, relieved to see that Scranton was with them in VII, then hissed as he saw the icon of the Zulu disappear from the plot. So now they only had two ships left, and his had sustained some damage, the red areas of the schematic in his head showing him where the hits had occurred. Nothing too bad, but no commander wanted any damage to his command.

  “Message coming through from Scranton, sir,” called out the Com Tech. “Captain Pasce wishes to know our status.”

  Zhukov checked the status of his ship on his implant. The angry red of damage showed on the schematic. Damage to one laser ring, two emitters out. Hull breach in several places near that point. One forward grabber nonfunctional.

  “Tell him we are still combat capable, and able to keep up with them,” said Zhukov, sending the file take of his damage to the com board for transmission.

  After a few moments the Com Tech looked up again. “Captain Pasce wants us to follow his lead. We will trail the enemy ships and find out where they are going. He will be sending his appraisal of the situation to us to send on to command. He wants us to see if they will vector some more ships to us so we can take this battle cruiser out.”

  “Send my acknowledgement,” replied Zhukov, watching as the icons of the enemy ships shifted from normal space to hyper VI. Acceleration figures appeared beneath both icons, showing that the ships were on a vector that would bring them further into the Empire.

  Where the hell are you going? thought the Lt. Commander, pulling up a side holo of the region. Two hundred light years ahead was a path between the core worlds and some very important developing systems. That region of the Empire, hundreds of light years from any border, along the Sector III/Sector IV line, had seen no combat activity in this war, and so was the perfect target for a commerce raider.

  They could really hurt us if they get into that region. If they go after merchant ships and liners, they could take out several hundred million tons before they’re stopped. And there was no way their two ships could take the battle cruiser out in open battle.

  * * *

  Winston Nagawa led his team into what must have been hell for the laser ring crew that had occupied this section of the hull. It couldn’t have been many, since each of the three rings only had a battle station crew of twelve people. There had been four in the control room located in the center of the hull, protected enough to survive the hit. Two had been out here on the perimeter, in a staging room for the photon emitters on the port side of the hull. The beam from the Fenri battle cruiser had come burning through the thin armor and the underlying hull to rip straight through this room. One crewman was completely gone, nothing left except some vapor, most of which was the alloy of his armor. The half body of the other spacer, a young woman, lay on the floor, her lower section gone, dead eyes staring out of her faceplate.

  A three meter wide hole entered and exited the room. One interior s
ide looked on one of the six photon emitters of the laser ring. The three meter hole continued deep into the emitter, which was sparking from shorted power contacts. The unit was obviously trashed, and there was nothing his crew could do to get it back into working condition. Given a few days, engineering could probably fabricate the needed replacement parts, and the ubiquitous nanites could put everything back together nice and tight. But not today.

  The hole through the other side of the room looked out on the melted alloy look of the liquid nanometal which had flowed into the opening, then hardened in place. It was nowhere near as strong the original hull and armor, but it would do for now. Senior Chief Kongbo would be supervising the robots working out there to make some temporary hull repairs. Nagawa couldn’t imagine going out there in the flesh, working on the hull with the deadly substance of hyper less than a score of meters off the ship. A slip and a spacer could find themselves outside the hyperfield, falling back into normal space in a catastrophic translation they were unlikely to survive.

  “We’re going to cut the power leads to the emitter, Chief,” reported Nagawa to the NCO in charge of this ring. “All it’s doing now is draining power.”

  “Go ahead,” said the rough female voice over the com.

  She sounds like she wants to cry, thought Winston, shaking his head. He was sure he would feel the same way if people he worked with on a daily basis were now gone.

  “Let’s get to it,” he told his crew, watching as a couple of spacers deployed the laser cutter. The sooner we get this done, the better I’ll feel.

  Chapter Three

  As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

  Christopher Dawson

  CA’CADASAN EMPIRE CAPITAL: AUGUST 13TH, 1002

  Emperor Jresstratta IV sat in his box, looking through the security field that protected him from any assassination attempts while also giving him a zoomed view of the arena floor. Not that the Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire had any worries from his own people, who almost worshipped him. But slaves were everywhere in the Empire, and some of those would gladly give their own lives to take down the leader of the government that held them in thrall.

  On the sand below two of those slaves battled for their lives. Two large arthropods, Scilla, who needed no weapons besides their two razor sharp snipping claws. The left middle leg of one lay discarded on the sand, the victim of the other’s claws. Greenish blood leaked from the stump of the leg, but otherwise the warrior did not seem inconvenienced by the wound.

  I tire of this, thought the Monarch, his fierce eyes narrowing as he watched the spectacle. The Empire ground on, year after year, century after century, enslaving more species at every turn. Stopping them in their own development as they became mere pawns to the Ca’cadasans. Sometimes the Emperor wondered if the Universe had a special hell reserved for his people.

  “The wounded one looks like he’s about finished,” said one of the nobles who shared the box.

  The Emperor looked back at the fighting floor, where the whole Scilla had pushed the other over and was now on top, its left claw menacing the throat of the wounded one. That Scilla turned a compound eye toward the Emperor’s box, awaiting the signal. Jresstratta was about to give the standard signal for such a battle, but his heart just wasn’t in it this day. Instead, he signaled mercy, and the several hundred thousand Cacada in the arena murmured at the breach of protocol.

  The hell with them, thought the Emperor, his eyes roaming the crowd. He was the ruler, and what he said would go.

  The two slaves were led from the arena. Both would fight again another day, probably not each other, but some other species, just to make things interesting. Moments later two new slaves were brought into the arena, of a species that no one in the venue had ever seen.

  Both were very large, almost four meters in height, bipedal, with thick muscular bodies and a hard looking pebbly skin. Both looked big and clumsy, with dull looking eyes that showed a distinct lack intelligence. His curiosity piqued, the Emperor linked into the Imperial database to get information on this species, one newly conquered. His eyes widened as he looked over the data, sitting up in his seat to see what would develop.

  The two beings, Rashanis, were pushed toward each other. Both stepped forward slowly, looking up into the crowd, blinking. They looked as peaceful as the data stated, at least for the moment. The crowd started to yell insults at the creatures, calling for the guards to make them fight.

  Both creatures had submission collars on their necks, and now one of the arena controllers used them to punish the two creatures. Both jumped, screams rising from their wide open mouths, bodies trembling. They still didn’t do what the controller wanted, which was to attack each other, so the punishment was increased. That was when the change occurred.

  According to the data on the species, they were now going through a rapid metabolic change, a supercharging hormone that triggered changes in all body systems. It was a survival mechanism evolved in a normally placid species on the low end of the intelligence scale. What took place looked more like a magical transformation.

  The muscles of the creatures expanded, their skin thickened, retractable claws that had been hidden to this moment appeared, and the now super-strong, super-fast, and super-agile aliens attacked. But not each other. The first made a graceful turn, eyes locked onto the nearest of the Ca’cadasan guards, and took off in a blur. Before the guard could react the Rashanis had covered the thirty meters, its left hand reaching out and grabbing the Cacada by the throat. With a jerk the creature pulled the guard into the air and snapped his neck. He continued the motion and threw the guard high enough into the air that its arc carried the body into the crowd.

  The second ran to the wall, a twenty meter high barrier with a sonic barrier at the top, intended to keep the gladiators within the confines of the fighting pit. With a tense of leg muscles that rippled with strength the huge body flew into the air, penetrating the sonic screen that should have rendered it unconscious. It was very much active when it landed in the seats, to the detriment of several Ca’cadasans who were within reach of its hands. In an instant those beings were dead, and the berserk creature was reaching for more.

  The one still on the sand meanwhile, had killed another guard, while being shot repeatedly by magrail pistols that didn’t slow it a bit. It was in the process of attacking a third guard when a particle beam reached out from the stands and speared the creature through the back. Its skin, no matter how tough, could not stand up to the fast moving protons that vaporized their way through. Still, it turned enough to get an arm in the way and forged on toward its next victim. The beam speared out again, this time striking a leg and blasting out the connective tissue between thigh and calf. The creature went down, growling in anger, if not pain, and continued in a crawl. A third beam hit, this one aimed at the head, vaporizing the crown and into the brain. The Rashanis went down, body twitching, an activity that continued for minutes.

  The second creature continued to kill. Ca’cadasans were a brave people, used to being the ones that brought fear into the hearts of lesser creatures. The Cacada in the stands closest to the Rashanis were now terrified, scrambling over each other to get away from the creature that was leaving bodies in its wake. A dozen of the big Cacada males were dead, as many lying in the stands groaning in pain, blood flowing from wounds. A few of the braver Cacada, warriors of note, stood their ground, long ceremonial knives out. One buried his knife in the shoulder of the Rashanis, the monomolecular blade sliding easily through the tough hide and into the muscle below. The Rashanis backhanded the Cacada with its other arm, knocking the warrior through the air to land on his back. The Rashanis appeared to lose most of the use of its left arm, but that didn’t stop it from stalking toward the Cacada that had injured it.

  Hyper-velocity rounds now impacted on the creature, while a half score of warriors stood and fired
their magrail pistols into the Rashanis. The high velocity rounds penetrated skin and muscle, but it seemed to shrug them off like they were pin pricks. The warriors continued to fire, hoping to bring it down by volume. Some rifles opened up, sending in heavier projectiles at quadruple the speed of those fired by the pistols. The rounds thwacked into the creature with a sound like hammers smacking side of meat. The creature went down on one knee, then jerked back to a standing position and took the last couple of steps to stand over his victim.

  A pair of rifle rounds struck the Rashanis in the head, blowing through hide and skull, blasting the brain into goblets that flew from the other side. The eyes of the Rashanis rolled up in its head, it made the motion to bring a heavy foot down on the injured Cacada, then leaned to the right and fell down the steps in a roll.

  “I wonder how they taste?” asked one of the courtiers in the box, which was being surrounded by scores of armored soldiers.

  “I have heard that they taste awful,” said another with a predatory smile. “And I think that hormone they flood themselves with makes the meat taste even worse.”

  The Emperor was not thinking about what the meat tasted like, but what they were going to do with a planet full of creatures like these. If they ever revolted against the Empire, there might be no choice but to exterminate them from orbit. He couldn’t see how they would control them on the ground if they all went berserk like that. Wiping out an entire species was serious business, and against the will of the Gods that the Emperor no longer believed in, but that many of his people still did.

  “I think the games are over for this day,” he ordered, looking at his ministers. He turned away without waiting for a reply. He was the Emperor, and could turn his back on whomever he wished, whenever he wished. Except he couldn’t turn his back on the Empire, as much as he would have liked to.