Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle

by Doug Dandridge

But without people like him there will be no safety for any of us, thought Rebecca, opening her flat comp and digging into her mathematics homework. And without a lot of work I won’t become a person like him.

  * * *

  Baron Emile von Hausser Schmidt took in the view of Capitulum as he was led to his table. Der Jagermeister was the best German restaurant in the capital city, perfectly duplicating the food of the best establishments on New Berlin. It should be, thought the Baron of Brandenburg, one of the largest baronies on the planet of his birth. It was run by one of the former chefs of his father, a man famous for his wild game dishes on the mostly German world.

  “Good evening, Baron,” said Herr Goebbels, the chef in question, greeting his former liege lord himself. “Your tables are ready. The best view in the building.” The portly chef/restaurateur glanced at the six men and women who accompanied the Baron and raised an eyebrow.

  “Part of the price of power,” said the Baron with a smile, slapping Goebbels on the back. “Someone thinks my ass has now grown in value, just because I got the big office.”

  “Of course,” said Goebbels, looking at the people who moved with slightly more grace than most, constantly looking, watching everything.

  I don’t like having so much security either, old friend, thought the Baron as they made their way to the tables. One was straight ahead, closest to the low wall that separated the dining area from the hillside the restaurant was built upon. Villas populated the rest of that famous ridge of hills, the neighborhood of the rich, and the eating and entertainment establishments of that exclusive area. The heart of the city lay beyond, looking like pillars and strings of jewels in the early night.

  The Secret Service agents split up and headed for two nearby tables, taking their seats while their eyes continued to roam the room. The Baron was seated by the waiter who had been stationed by the table and ordered his drink. The restaurant was filled with a lively crowd this night. It was a popular place, but the Baron never had a concern about getting tables.

  I miss the officer’s mess, thought the Baron, while waiting for the people he was having dinner with. Although still a young man at fifty-four, he had spent twenty years as a heavy infantry officer in the Imperial Army. He had risen quickly through the ranks without resorting to favoritism, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel and a battalion command. Then had come the death of his father in a space accident, and his discharge from the army to take his place. And now the Leader of the Lords, thought the young man who had only been a member of the Lords since the death of his father.

  “Your guests are here, Baron,” came the voice of his security detail chief over his link. “We have scanned them on the way in, and they’re clean.”

  And that was something else he hadn’t worried about in the Army. Oh, you could get killed very easily in the Army, just not by your own people while taking down time. But since the last three Leaders of the Lords had met bad ends, two killed and one imprisoned, the Prime Minister was not willing to take chances with his life.

  “Countess Zhee,” said the Baron, getting to his feet. “So good to see you again. Archduke Marconi, Count Cornwell.”

  “I have heard so much about this place,” said Zhee, a smile across her perfect porcelain face. “I have always wanted to try it.”

  “German food is too heavy for my digestion,” said Cornwell, scowling.

  “They have other food if you wish,” said Schmidt, motioning for the waiter to come get their drink orders. “Something that might not have a deleterious effect on your delicate digestion.”

  The drink orders taken, the Baron engaged his guests in small talk until they arrived. Afterwards the privacy field was engaged, and Schmidt prepared to get down to the business of the evening, an adversarial discussion with three of his staunchest enemies in the Lords.

  “The Prime Minister asked me to meet with all of you, as the leaders of the loyal opposition,” said the Baron, looking around the table.

  The glares that were returned let him know how these people felt. Until recently they had been the majority party in the Lords. Now they held onto a large minority that was having trouble advancing their agenda against the coalition that had elected the Baron to the leadership position. And one of you is not what you appear to be. But who? The Lords had voted down the proposition that all members be deep scanned. Even the ones who disagreed with the platform of the Opposition party were not keen on giving up their freedom of person.

  “We wish to see what we can do to get you on board with the Emperor’s plan?”

  “Have that young genius actually formulate a plan that would work,” said Cornwell, to the nods of his fellow clique members. “So far, all we have seen is defeat after defeat, while the Cacas overrun and destroy our worlds.”

  “The Emperor is fighting the battle that he can, Count,” said Schmidt, knowing that this was an old argument. “We cannot afford to commit the fleet to a battle they cannot win, and allow the enemy free reign in our space.”

  The food came, venison for the Baron, Schnitzel for the others. Schmidt carved off a piece of deer meat and took a bite. Delicious, even if the company is not grand. Zhee and Marconi also dug into their food, while Cornwell continued to look at his meal with a disgusted expression.

  “Oh, come now, Count. Schnitzel is a specialty of this establishment. Don’t insult the cook by not even trying his masterwork.”

  “Come on, Cornwell,” said Zhee, swallowing a bite of meat with an appreciative expression. “At least try it.”

  The Count carved a small piece off of his Schnitzel and took a bite, chewing carefully, then spitting it out onto the plate. “I am sorry, but I do not like this food.”

  Did you get enough into his system to get a reading? asked the Baron over his implant.

  “It would have been better if we had gotten a larger sample into him,” came back the voice of the head of detail. “But it will have to do. Uh oh.”

  Uh oh, what?

  “His internal nanites are striking at the nanoprobes. We’ve got a battle on our hands.”

  “Are you alright, Baron?” asked Zhee, giving Schmidt a curious look.

  “The other two are clean. Pure human,” said the agent.

  “I am insulted by the behavior of the count. I have never seen such a lack of manners. I….”

  “Bingo. The Count is a shape shifter.”

  Cornwell, or the creature imitating the Count, must have received a signal from his internal nanites that something was up. His nanosystems were very good, blocking the action of most things trying to penetrate his system. And since the Lords were refusing deep scans, which could only be demanded in the case of entering the presence of the Emperor, or a secure military installation, which all three of these nobles had been careful not to attempt, this was thought to be the only method of possibly getting a tissue sample.

  The Count moved, almost a blur of motion, coming over the table at the Baron. Schmidt was ready, raising his left arm and firing a dart from the bracelet on his wrist. The dart struck the creature in the neck, and injected enough tranquilizer to knock a sauropod off its feet. It staggered the shifter, but didn’t put it down. The creature hit the table, then rolled over and started on a staggered run toward the exit.

  The low hum of sonic stunners filled the air. People caught in the crossfire went down, but the shifter continued on its way, taking heavy steps, until it saw the trio of agents in its path. Without hesitation it turned and ran for the safety wall, jumping up and falling over.

  “What the hell is going on?” screamed Zhee, standing up and moving away from the table.

  “Cornwell is a shape shifter,” yelled Schmidt, pulling a sonic from under his coat.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Marconi, looking in horror as Cornwell went over the wall, probably to his death.

  “We’re sending a car to pick up the body,” said the head of detail, running up to the Baron. “We would have preferred to get it alive, but if dead, it’s stil
l out of operation.”

  “Cornwell wasn’t human?” asked Zhee, her eyes wide with shock.

  “Nope,” said Schmidt. “And their kind have been playing your clique, using you to their own advantage.”

  “That’s, unbelievable,” said Zhee, looking at her fellow Lords.

  “You two are clear. Or at least you’re clear of being aliens. I’m willing to believe you were not at fault in aiding our enemies.”

  Zhee sat down, her face going pale. “What have we done? What can we do?”

  “We can talk about that,” said Schmidt, sitting back down. “I’m sure we can broker a deal that will be beneficial to all of us.”

  “We can’t find it, my Lord,” came the transmission of the head of detail.

  What happened to it? A fall like that should have killed it?

  “We found blood, and an impression of a body. But that is all.”

  Keep looking. If that thing gets away, no member of the Lords will be safe.

  Nothing I can do about it now, thought the Baron, getting down to the business of brokering a deal while most of the rest of the patrons left. I’ll make sure Herr Goebbels gets paid for tonight’s disaster, he thought, cutting off a piece of venison while Zhee talked. I sure hope he lets me come back.

  Chapter Eight

  CORE WORLD SPACE. SEPTEMBER 14TH, 1001.

  “How long till we drop below light speed?” asked Commander Svetlana Komorov, looking at the tactical holo that showed a representation of the system. Of course it was all guesswork, based on the data they had loaded into the system before cutting themselves off from the normal Universe.

  “Twelve minutes, fourteen seconds,” answered the ship’s navigator.

  “And then another twelve minutes until we can unmask,” said the Pilot.

  I damn sure hope this works, thought Svetlana, staring at the holo that showed the predicted location of their target. It’s fine that it works in practice, but now we get to see if the concept works against an unwilling opponent.

  Still, it was amazing how the technology worked, limited as it was. The launching ship had been heading into this system at point eight light, and had released thirty-four of the specially configured attack ships at that velocity. Each of the fifteen hundred ton vessels had immediately erected their shield of negative matter, after receiving the most current sensor snapshot of the system. The ships all deployed an electromagnetic field that held the negative protons in place, forming the bubble that allowed the ships to accelerate without inertia.

  In normal space all the ships could have reached eight hundred gravities acceleration. Within the null inertia fields they were able to increase that acceleration by more than twenty times, over sixteen thousand gravities as measured in normal space, or one hundred fifty-six kilometers per second. It took an unbelievable three hundred and eighty five seconds to pass light speed. At that time they were outrunning the initial image of their own launch. At thirty-two minutes they were at twice the speed of light, and what was considered the maximum safe operating speed for the vessels.

  Twenty minutes of coasting and they were over a light hour into the system, on a heading that should take them on a close approach to their targets based on their projected course. Then it was thirty-eight and a half minutes of deceleration to reach a speed where they could drop their negative matter screen without being destroyed by an inertial backlash.

  Now was the time when detection was theoretically possible, once they had dropped below light speed. Of course, the enemy didn’t know what they were looking for, so it was hoped that the possible detection would not happen. Please don’t let it happen, thought the Commander, looking at the timer that was adjusted to relativity as if it affected them. Without inertia, relativity stopped working, and time passed as if in a null gravity field with no acceleration. Though that would change when they entered the real Universe again.

  “Fifteen seconds,” called out the Navigator.

  “All weapons ready?” asked Komorov, looking over the status herself on her commander’s board.

  “All charged and ready to go,” called out the Navigator, who was also the tactical officer.

  “Three, two, one,” called out the Pilot. The lights on the bridge faded as the negative matter bubble opened, and they entered the world of inertia and relativity once again. It took about a second to suck the negative matter back into its tank, always a delicate procedure when the reverse of normal matter could cancel both itself and parts of the ship out existence.

  Komorov felt her body react to the increased inertia. The ship had come back to normal space as close to the optimal profile as possible. Which didn’t mean perfection. The body of the ship stressed and strained, while the inertial compensators went into overdrive to protect the most fragile systems aboard, the crew. There was still a short moment of near blackout before the crew was able to function.

  But then the instruments cleared to the vision of the crew, and they saw that their target was within the attack parameters. “Fire,” yelled the Commander over the subspace com that now connected her command, and the attack began.

  * * *

  “Any sign of an attack force?” asked the Captain, looking out over the tactical plot. They had picked up the human carrier well before it dropped out of hyper, and had fixed its position as it came flying out of the higher dimension and into normal space, well beyond the barrier. It had started accelerating toward them as soon as it was able, pulling four hundred gravities and building up its velocity. That in and of itself was very unusual behavior for that kind of vessel, which typically tried to keep its distance from enemy warships. Normally they launched their fighters, and let the small craft do the accelerating.

  All of this was picked up on graviton detectors. The carrier was not detectable on visual, and wouldn’t be for some time, when the light of her image reached the warship. Until that moment there was no way to tell what she was up to, or even if it actually was a carrier, or some kind of cruiser masquerading as a carrier.

  “Still no sign of a fighter launch? Missile launch?”

  “No, Sir,” said the Tactical Officer. “Nothing. I can’t figure out what they’re up to.”

  Over the hours the enemy ship continued to accelerate, as noted by her graviton emissions. I can’t wait to get an actual look at that ship, thought the Captain, wondering what new thing was in operation here.

  “They’ve stopped accelerating,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Estimated velocity, point eight light.”

  A few minutes later the situation changed and the carrier started accelerating again. “They’re starting to change their vector. It looks like they’re going to veer off and try to leave the system. Estimated range, a little over two light hours.”

  “Are we going to engage them, sir?” asked the Helm Officer.

  “That isn’t within our mission parameters,” said the Captain. Though we could throw some missiles at her, and probably get some hits.

  Almost two hours passed with nothing visible except the graviton track of the carrier curving away. The enemy vessel hit closest approach and started to open up the distance.

  “Still nothing, sir. Wait, we’re picking up graviton emissions. From thirty-four point sources. Close, and accelerating at eight hundred gravities.”

  “Where the hell did they come from?” yelled the Captain, seeing the objects appear on the tactical plot.

  “We’re being hit by lasers,” yelled out the Tactical Officer, at the same moment as the first visual came through of the enemy craft. “Damage to hull. Twenty-one electromag projectors down.”

  “Eject cold plasma into the field,” yelled the Captain in panic. He stared at the holo, which showed the enemy as dark objects without detail, an indication that they had powerful electromag fields with cold plasma in place.

  “Particle beams hitting us,” yelled out the Tactical. “We have missile launch. Missile launch, one hundred and twenty-eight incoming objects. Acceleration,” t
he Tactical Officer looked back with an alarmed expression, “sixteen thousand gravities.”

  “Take out those missiles, now,” yelled the Captain.

  The Tactical Officer knew his job, and was already working on it. His board showed the ship cycling counter-missiles, while its lasers took everything they could reach under fire. “They’re, calving,” yelled the Tactical Officer, as each of the missile vector arrows sprouted scores of smaller objects.

  “Impact in one minute,” yelled out the Tactical Officer, looking back at his captain.

  “Any way you can stop them?” asked the Captain in a choking voice, already sure of the answer.

  “Not a chance, sir,” said the Tactical Officer as he stared at the holo.

  * * *

  As soon as Komorov shouted the command over the com all thirty-four of her group struck out at the warship. She felt a moment of relief as she saw that all of her ships had made it. As with any new technology, things didn’t always work as planned, and a malfunction of the inertialess system could become a disaster.

  All of the ships fired the lasers from the ring structure on their noses. Each ship carried a larger than normal amount of the highest capacity crystal matrix batteries, and the lasers released their energy in the gamma ray band of the spectrum. They were not made to destroy much larger ships, just to cause damage that might facilitate the penetration of the missiles. At the same time the two particle beam projectors in the nose of each vessel sent a blast of antiprotons toward the enemy ship. And the four one hundred ton missiles mounted on the bottom of the craft dropped and boosted ahead at sixteen thousand gravities for thirty seconds, gaining almost five thousand kilometers per second to their velocities.

  At thirty seconds, before any of the counter-missiles could reach them, before any beam weapons could make contact, the missiles calved. Each released forty smaller missiles, each massing less than one ton, each with a one megaton warhead. The body of the main missile continued on at ten thousand gravities, the same acceleration as the calves, carrying its one hundred megaton warhead toward the target.