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

by Doug Dandridge

  “Good job,” he finally said, all he could say. “I don’t expect we’ve seen the last of these raiders.”

  “No, sir. I think they will keep sending them through as long as they have the chance of getting a few of them into our space.”

  “Yes. So we must keep reducing those odds. So keep patrolling.” And we’ll keep looking for their bases of operation, hoping to get lucky. The holo died, and Lenkowski sat at his desk shaking his head, until the next chime came in from the com center.

  “Rear Admiral Sosoboski is reporting that one of his patrols is one week overdue.” As the officer spoke a blinking dot appeared on the holo plot. It was a nondescript star, like so many millions of others in this space. So it was just what they were looking for.

  “Order my staff to assemble within the next fifteen minutes,” he ordered. At least we can take out one more nest of their resistance.

  * * *

  PARLIAMENT, CAPITULUM. SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1002.

  “And so, I have decided that continuing support to the best of our abilities for the Nation of New Earth is in our best interest,” said Sean, standing at the podium he had occupied so many times in the past. Memories of the time the shapeshifters, the Yugalyth, had attacked this chamber came to the forefront. Scores of the Members of Parliament had died that day. He looked out over the faces in the chamber, Lords, Commons and Scholars, at least sure that none of them were imposters. He still wasn’t sure about the loyalties of all concerned, but he was sure that they were the citizens of the Empire that they appeared to be.

  Not all of the expressions were friendly. Some looked on him with anger that he would be taking resources away from the defense of their Empire, and most importantly, their home worlds, in order to make sure an ally they had never actually seen was kept in the war. Many nodded their heads, showing support for his policy, if not rapturous acceptance. He saw more acceptance than anger, telling him that he would not face stiff opposition to his stance.

  Some hands tentatively moved, as if their owners were about to raise them and ask a question, or make a demand. But this was not the time for such. It was against protocol to interrupt a Monarch who was making his wishes known to a combined session of Parliament. Objections could be raised in the house meetings and committees that would follow, and in the legislation they would enact. The only power they had to check him during wartime was the Imperial checkbook. It was a powerful check, but not one that didn’t have ways around it.

  “If the Nation of New Earth falls, then we will face the full might of the Ca’cadasan Empire on our front. I don’t think I need to tell you that we would be sorely pressed to hold up against that might. So we must, to use the old adage, divide and conquer.”

  He called up his notes from his implant for a moment, making sure that he had covered all of his points. This speech was not just for Parliament. It was going out over all the planetary broadcast services, and instantaneously through wormhole link to those worlds on that net. It would go through the slower but still massive hyperlink network for the worlds that had that com source, and by couriers to all the other worlds. The citizens of the Empire would also hear this speech, and it was important that he leave them with a sense that he knew what he was doing, that his plans would be successful, and that in the end all would be well with the Empire. Their Empire.

  “I won’t lie to you. This will be a long and drawn out war. We have barely seen the first volleys of this fight. The enemy we battle is implacable, with enormous resources. The only way we can win this war is through our supreme effort and will. Through the courage of our military and the sweat and determination of our workers, we can win. We have proven that in equal numbers we are more than the equals of our enemy. But they outnumber us you say. True, their slave Empire, built on the blood, sweat and tears of their conquered subjects, is huge. They have built their military on the backs of those who hate them. Peoples they cannot trust.”

  But they’re still getting a lot of labor out of those people, a lot of effort. Fear and training from an early age works wonders in getting the cooperation of slaves.

  “We, on the other hand, are a free people. A people of many species working together. And we have allies, those who have thrown in their lot with us willingly. Our traditional allies, the Margravi, the Klashak, and the peoples of Elysium. The other human nations, The New Terran Republic and the resurgent New Moscow.” He knew he was stretching the point a bit on that last one, but he had to build hope in the many refugees from that nation as well. “Our new allies, the Crakista, who have fought us with honor, courage and determination in the past. And, of course, our long lost brothers, the peoples of the Nation of New Earth, who had been fighting against the Ca’cadasans for decades before our contact with our enemies.

  “So keep the faith, sacrifice, and never give up, and I promise victory. Victory over our enemies. Victory over our own fears. Victory over our old enemy, who would see us totally destroyed. Instead, it is they who will face destruction, and we who will take advantage of their system of a slave holding Empire in the recruitment of new allies.” He was careful not to mention that they already had such allies, the Maurids, working within the Ca’cadasan Empire already. That was of the ultimate top secret security classification. It would not do for the enemy to get even a hint that the courageous aliens were anything but loyal servants.

  “We will be victorious. This I promise you, citizens of the Empire.”

  Sean raised his hands, and the people in the chamber surged to their feet, clapping and cheering. He could read from some of the faces that many of them were just playing a role, showing their people and their constituents that they stood with their fellows, when in their hearts they were against their Emperor and his policies. That show would be enough for now. That the majority were with him was heartening. Their support would make the victory he promised possible.

  Possible, but probable? he thought, looking over the people he would have to work with. I can’t do this all myself. I‘m depending on these people to come up with the ideas, the innovations, that will make that victory possible. That is the one area that I am sure we will surpass the Cacas in. They do not advance as fast as we do, and if we can hold them at bay for a decade, we will surely be their superiors in all areas, with the exception of numbers.

  He thought of the old Earth saying attributed to a man who had led one of the most powerful nations of pre-space humanity. A man of great evil, of paranoia, but also of great resourcefulness under stress. He had said that quantity had a quality all its own. Which was true, but he had to believe that the quality of his forces would come to dominate.

  “Great speech, your Majesty,” said Samantha Ogden Lee, his cousin and his constant ally in his quest to win over the Lords. “You almost had me believing it.”

  “Then I still have work to do,” said Sean, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If I can’t convince the people closest to me that my vision will become reality, I have failed.”

  “Just be happy that we’re willing to throw in our lot with you, cousin. You’re the only horse in this race with a chance, so of course we’re going to bet on you.”

  Which I supposed is the best I’m going to get at this time, he thought with a smile.

  “We’ve got a meeting over at the Hexagon to attend, Sean,” said Samantha, the smile leaving her face, a mask of fatigue falling into place.

  And we’re all just too damned tired, he thought, wondering when the next wave of mistakes would come forth to hit them.

  * * *

  “We’re not picking up any of the pickets, my Lord,” announced the Com Officer.

  Where the hell could they be? thought the Great Admiral, looking at the plot. Of course the scout ships guarding the system would be sitting in normal space, undetectable from hyper. There still should have been a flurry of grav pulse signals going back and forth, demanding identification of the incoming Ca’cadasan force while sending messages down the line to the system informing them
of the fleet arrival. There should have been a globe of four hundred scouts surrounding the system out to two light years, ensuring that nothing snuck up on the fleet and logistics forces sitting in space around the F class star.

  “Order all ships to prime alert status,” he responded to his Com Officer. Moments later the grav pulses went out. The ships were already at secondary alert status, since they had fought a sniping battle all the way here. But no ship could remain forever at prime status, with all warriors at their battle stations. Males needed food and rest, and secondary alert allowed half of them to be off duty at any time, though prepared to come back to their posts at a moment’s notice.

  The fleet was still sixteen light hours from the first hyper barrier, which was a further eighteen light hours out from the last barrier, a total of thirty-four light hours from where they would be jumping back into normal space. So anything they saw from out here would be almost two days old, but it would still give some idea as to what had happened.

  “Drop a scout force into normal space as soon as they can decel down to translation velocity,” he ordered. “Tell them I want a report as soon as they develop some intelligence.”

  It took almost an hour for those ships, forty scouts, to decel to the point where they could jump. The Great Admiral fretted the entire while, fearful that the scouts might be jumped by some force lying in wait as soon as they were outside of the protective bulk of the fleet. There was no attack, and the scouts translated down without incident. Minutes later the first of their grav pulse transmissions came through.

  “Scout leader is reporting that they see nothing in the system except for our mobile base. The base appears to be heavily damaged, but still there.”

  That was disturbing news. The mobile base was the largest hyper capable object that the Ca’cadasans knew of. Almost two hundred million tons of hyper VI capable vessel, it had been developed to allow the Ca’cadasans to project forward bases quickly. They were tough and well-armed with defensive weaponry, and were not easy to take out.

  “And nothing else?”

  The Com Officer spent a few moments sending that signal through the Ca’cadasan digital code, where it would be converted to understandable language. Unfortunately, it took a lot of time to send a simple message through the pulse, about a fifteen word sentence every minute. It was all the Ca’cadasans possessed for communication beyond laser range in hyper, or between levels of hyper and/or normal space. Until they had met the humans of the other Empire, they hadn’t thought any other method was possible.

  “Nothing else, my Lord,” said the Com Officer after he had received the complete message.

  “Order the scouts to rejoin the fleet. The fleet is to move in to the hyper VII barrier and translate as soon as possible. Once into VI, all ships are to head for normal space translation at the hyper I barrier on a least time profile. All ships are to stick close to the fleet, and I want everyone coming through ready for battle. But, and I want you to repeat this, no one is to fire until they have verified their targets.”

  The Com Officer went back to transmission, while the Great Admiral continued to stare at the plot, wondering how complete a disaster he was heading into. He had left almost eight hundred combat ships here, two hundred of them battleships. That should have been enough to secure the system, and guard the vital logistics ships that had also been left here. Those logistics ships included missile colliers and antimatter tankers, with enough of those vital resources to top off all of his remaining ships and prepare them for further action.

  Without those resources he was leading a crippled force, with barely enough antimatter to get them back to Ca’cadasan space, and most of his ships down to their last spread of missiles. He had been hoping to rearm, refuel and resume operations against the Klavarta. Now, with the supply situation in doubt, he would have to retreat and come back to fight another day. When he told his chief of staff his musings, the male agreed.

  “There is no way we can get more logistics ships through those swarms they’re sure to have out there, my Lord. It would take a major fleet force to protect them.”

  “And we’re the only major fleet force available,” finished the Great Admiral. “That makes only one decision possible.”

  Yes. Head back for home with our tails between our legs. Not my plan when I started us out on this campaign. But one more battle and we’re out of long range weapons. And then what do we do?

  “We will see what we find here first,” he told his senior staff officer. “Then we will make our decision.”

  Six hours later they had completed their stair step approach and the twenty thousand odd ships jumped into normal space. The Great Admiral gripped the arms of his chair. He was sure his force was too powerful for the Klavarta to challenge him to a heads up battle. The problem was, he had been sure of so many things during this campaign, only to be proven wrong again and again.

  The translation of the fleet went without event. All of his ships started scanning the system as soon as they were able, and information came flowing back to the flagship, none of it good. Many debris fields were plotted throughout this portion of the system, the outer reaches just within the hyper barrier where most of the forces would have been deployed. That showed that most of the ships had not been destroyed by missiles moving at high relativistic speeds, which would have shattered them completely and caused antimatter breaches that would have reduced them to plasma. While he was sure that fate had happened to many of them, others had been taken out by lasers and slow moving missiles, resulting in fields of debris much larger than molecules of plasma. There were even a few ships seemingly intact further into the system. Seemingly, until scanned more closely. That was when the damage became apparent, and the ships were seen to have been battered, hulls holed in many places, the gashes of beam weapons in others.

  The station was hardest hit of all. There were no intact sections. Thousands of holes large and small penetrated the hull. A few areas were gone, most probably from warheads. The structure was useless to everyone, though the Great Admiral was sure the Klavarta had boarded and gotten what they could out of it. Of Klavarta ships there wasn’t a trace. He was sure this didn’t mean they hadn’t taken casualties, but was a sign of complete policing of their part of the battlefield. Everything had been removed or destroyed, and there would be no intelligence to be gathered from their enemies at this place.

  “Order the fleet to be prepared to move out within the hour,” he ordered his Com Officer.

  “Our heading, my Lord? If I might ask.”

  “Back to our own space,” said the Great Admiral with a grimace. He looked over the plot one last time. We will be back, you bastards, he thought. You had better believe we will be back, and next time you will not be able to stand against us.

  * * *

  “They’re leaving, Admiral,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back at his flag officer. “Course consistent with a heading out of our space, back to their home base.”

  And they will find another surprise when they get there, thought Admiral Regis Larista, returning her officer’s smile. She didn’t have enough here to challenge the Monster fleet, though she could and would snipe at any strays and stragglers that happened present themselves. She didn’t expect the enemy to make it easy for her, but she was sure she could take out another hundred or so of the ships.

  The greater part of her force had forged ahead, heading for the enemy main base over the border into Ca’cadasan territory. That force was also not enough to challenge the Ca’cadasan main fleet, but she thought it might be sufficient to take out the prime base, even if it was twice as well guarded as this forward base had been. No matter how well guarded it was, she was sure the Monsters would find an unpleasant surprise.

  “Any word from the lead force?” she asked her Com Officer, who would relay her message to the Imperial battle cruiser. That ship would contact one of her sisters with a Klassekian aboard, and the information would come back.

  “Enem
y base appears to be lightly held, says the commander of the lead force,” said the Com Officer, translating the grav pulse signals from the Imperial battle cruiser. “They are preparing to move in an execute the attack plan.”

  “Keep me informed.” All looked to be going well, and though the Monsters had hurt her people and her fleet, their own bloody nose was about to be struck another blow. We won this battle of attrition, she thought, or at least garnered a draw. But there are so many more of them than us. We can’t continue to fight at this kind of exchange rate and expect to win.

  But new tech was coming online, and the first batch of wormholes from the Empire were only a week away from the border of the Nation. When they had those portals, and the next hundred that were two months behind, the situation was bound to change for the better. Especially since they knew the Monsters didn’t have wormholes.

  Epilogue

  PALACE HOSPITAL, CAPITULUM: NOVEMBER 8TH, 1002.

  “This is your son, your Majesty,” said the delivery room Doctor, handing the swaddled infant to Sean. The little wrinkled face was scrunched up in a cry, eyes still closed. The child had a mop of hair, the red of his mother.

  “Is he healthy?” asked Sean, who really had no experience with newborns.

  “Everything checks out, your Majesty,” replied the Doctor. “All appendages large and small in place, all vital signs within normal limits.”

  Sean nodded, looking down at the small face, trying to determine which parent the baby most closely resembled and drawing a blank. To him it looked like a wrinkled old man. But it’s my son. My heir.