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

by Doug Dandridge

  “We will take losses.”

  The Duke looked out the window again, and Miroslav didn’t know what to say to him at the moment. She knew what the man must be thinking. He had lost many friends as well, especially when the Conundrum system had been taken by the Cacas. We’ve all lost too many people we cared about, she thought. And we’re about to lose more. The only way we’re going to leave this nightmare is with victory, or death.

  She held up her glass in the sign of a toast. “To victory, or death,” she said, clinking her glass with the Duke’s.

  “With it or on it,” replied the Duke, bringing his glass to his lips and taking a sip.

  * * *

  OUTSIDE IMPERIAL SPACE. NOVEMBER 14TH, 1001.

  Commodore Natansha Sung looked at the holo viewer, at the glory of a globular cluster that was unseen from Imperial space. Too many damned gas clouds in the way, she thought. Just because of some weird alignment.

  Nina was over six thousand light years from the borders of the Empire, an estimated twenty eight thousand light years from her destination. Pinta and Santa Maria were moving along with her in normal space. Pinta had experienced some difficulties with one of her hyper generators. It was a delay in the mission, but one she was willing to put up with to ensure that all of her ships made it to their destination. Command had concurred, since the delay would only add a week onto their travel time. The other two ships both lay to either side of the flagship, a hundred thousand kilometers from the Nina. Pinta had humans and robots swarming over her troubled hyper drive generator, which was much more massive than such a device on a normal hyper VII ship. The thirty-one million ton ships were meant to travel for years in hyper VII, and the larger than normal generators were built to give them the redundancy to take one offline, and rest the other periodically.

  This was supposed to have been an exploration trip, she thought, remembering the optimism that the crew had exhibited when they were commissioning these vessels. Journeys of exploration, where the goal was to seek knowledge, to see what had never before been seen, to find new civilizations, and remains of old ones. Now the mission was to contact an unknown power that was also fighting humankind’s greatest enemy. With no idea of who that power was, of how they would greet the ships from earth.

  They had gathered much information on the way to this point.

  I guess it’s just my luck that the space we have traversed so far was full of interesting signals. They had picked up many hyper emissions to this point. Fourteen in hyper III, seven hyper IV, even a couple of Vs and a VI. From the different resonances it was believed they had detected five different interstellar civilizations, though one of the scientists thought it was six. It was a given that the civilizations had detected the passage of the three hyper VII ships, maybe through the center of their realms. It must have caused a panic, but the ship didn’t have the time to waste to drop out of hyper and calm alien nerves.

  “We’re picking up hyper resonances moving our way, Ma’am,” came a voice over the com.

  “In what dimension?”

  “Hyper VII, ma’am.”

  “All crew to battle stations,” yelled Sung over the com. “All weapons ready.”

  We’re not warships. If those are battleships coming our way, and they’re hostile, this voyage is over.

  “ETA?”

  “Hard to determine ma’am,” said the Sensory Officer, sitting in her insulated compartment. “It’s a new resonance, and I have nothing to compare it to.”

  * * *

  NEW TERRAN REPUBLIC SPACE. NOVEMBER 14TH, 1001.

  “It would have been nice if they had waited a bit,” said President Julia Graham, looking at the reptilian face in the holo.

  “They move according to their own strategy,” said the Crakista Admiral who had been given overall command of Third Republic Battle Fleet, the newly organized force of Crakista, New Moscow reinforcements, and what had been the Xenia system defense force, augmented by some of the older Imperial ships. “It is not logical to expect them to act according to your wishes. Especially if they have no way of knowing them.”

  Julia shook her head. It had only seemed proper to give the Crakista Admiral, whose name was not pronounceable by a human, the command of the Third Battle Fleet, based on the fact that she had the largest contingent of the force. Or would have, when the rest of the ships Crakista was sending to the Republic as an expeditionary force arrived.

  She looked at the holo that showed her Republic, wondering what she could do that she hadn’t thought of. The gap picket had let them know the enemy reinforcements were coming their way, but she had expected them to take some time to organize before going on the offensive. Instead, they had arrived at their forward bases and immediately went onto the offensive, catching the Republic Navy off guard.

  The holo showed the state of her people, and it was not a state to be envied. There was a large arrow stuck through the middle of the four hundred light year diameter globe, totally penetrating the Republic. And now the enemy was widening that shaft through the heart of her government’s territory. And in the center of the Republic, penetrated cleanly by that shaft, were the most populated and industrially active of her worlds.

  I almost wish the next election would take place tomorrow, so I wouldn’t have this responsibility on my shoulders. But the way the war was looking, there would not be an election next year, or maybe ever. She might be stuck with the job until the Republic fell.

  “I think we should advance the timetable of our own counter offensive,” stated the Crakista, her emotionless face and tone showing not a bit of impatience.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to wait for your other ships, like you originally requested.”

  “The situation has changed,” said the Admiral. “The enemy has expanded the amount of space their fleet occupies.”

  “And that helps us, how?”

  “It gives us opportunity to strike at smaller concentrations of the enemy with our three battle fleets, destroying those concentrations three at a time. The logical reaction of the enemy will be to pull back, losing territory, and buying us the time we need to rebuild your forces, and possibly bring in more units from my government and the Empire.”

  “And you can guarantee that this will work?”

  “There are no guarantees in war,” said the Crakista, folding her arms over her chest. “There are only probabilities. But based on what we have gleaned about the psychology of the Ca’cadasans, I would state there is a seventy-seven percent chance that they will react as predicted.”

  The President thought about that for a moment as the Crakista sat patiently on her ship. They’re never impatient, never in an unnecessary hurry, but quick to move when they feel the time is right. She thought back on the history she had learned, of the past wars between Crakista and humans. Most of those wars had only involved the Empire, and not the Republic, but there had been two where the human governments had joined forces. And the Crakista had proven to be fierce and intelligent opponents, the best at playing the statistical game of strategy. The humans had prevailed by using unpredictability, throwing the Crakista off balance. That took a very special battle commander. Her fleet had counted two such among its admirals before the Ca’cadasan invasion. Both had died early on. So this Crakista Admiral was the best she had.

  “Plan your attack, Admiral. I will inform my other battle fleet commanders of the plan, and will let them know that you will be in overall command.”

  “That last is not necessary, Madame President,” said the Crakista with no change in expression.

  “I believe it is, Admiral. You came up with the plan, so I expect you to carry it out.”

  “Then I will do so,” said the Admiral. “I would like to begin operations in six days. That will allow my force to move into position, along with the others, so we can strike with as much simultaneity as possible.”

  “I will make sure that you get all the intelligence we have on their dispositions,” said the President. She
waited for a moment for a thank you. Some kind of pleasantries. She should have known better. Moments later she cut the transmission and returned to the paperwork of a chief executive of a government at war.

  * * *

  SECTOR IV SPACE. NOVEMBER 15TH, 1001.

  “We are three days from the human system,” said the Great Admiral, looking around the table at his strategic staff. “And we still have little in the way of intelligence on what we may be facing.”

  “We still have the major problem of communication lag,” said the Senior Intelligence Officer, with a shrug of all of his shoulders. “Even if our network gets information that we need, it still may not reach us in time. And if they develop information in an enemy military system, it is also difficult to get it out of the system.”

  “Those are excuses,” roared the Great Admiral, slamming both lower hands on the table. “Not solutions.” He looked back at his Senior Intelligence Officer. “Any word on our strike against their wormhole generating station.”

  “No, my Lord. Again, we have no way of transmitting that information across interstellar space. We will know it has happened when it has happened.”

  “And how will we know that?”

  “From what we understand, the majority of these wormhole gates, or at least one end of them, are housed on this generating station of theirs,” said the officer. “At least, that is what we have gotten from interrogations of the few human crew we have captured with intact memories.”

  “Then, when the station is destroyed, they will lose much of their wormhole capability, as well as not being able to make more?”

  “That is what we understand, my Lord.”

  “And how do we get information about this system we are traveling to?”

  “I can think of no way other than jumping a scout force into the system before our main force arrives, my Lord,” said another of the officers. “They can do a quick sensor scan of the system, and tell us by graviton transmission what they have found.”

  “And how does that help us when we are committed to the system?” asked the Great Admiral.

  “It will give us some flexibility over when and where we jump in,” said the officer. “We need the scout force commanders to know what they should be looking for, and get a quick take on it.”

  “We might lose that scout force,” said yet another officer.

  “That is their job,” stated the Great Admiral, staring at the officer who had just spoken, and wondering what kind of coward he might be. “Do what is necessary,” he told the officer who had made the scout force suggestion.

  Later, on the bridge of his ship, he sat in the commander’s chair, staring at the holo and thinking. His entire command, at least what was on this mission, was on that large projection. He had other ships operating in the area, the focus of his conquest fleet. He had a large force operating in the Terran Republic, as it was called, and some vessels in Fenri space, though not enough to make much of a difference. But most of his force was here, in the Empire. And over one half of his operational forces within the Empire were involved in this attack. If it was a legitimate target, they would totally smash the Emperor’s protection squadron and the battle force that was in the system. Even if the Emperor got away, they would still strike a blow to the morale of the enemy, once the populace learned their leader again run for his life. And if it was a trap laid by the enemy, one meant to catch a Ca’cadasan force in the jaws of a vice, his force would be large enough to crush it as well. Sure, there would be serious loses, but the enemy would have to suffer corresponding casualties that would cripple their fleet.

  I wish I still had that little slave, thought the Great Admiral, looking directly at one of his pet humans. The man saw the Ca’cadasan leader was looking at him and bowed. These raised humans are of no use whatsoever. They may be of the same biology as the wild humans, if not as enhanced, but they have a totally different psychology. The slave, Gorbachev, may have been a pain in the posterior, but at least she gave me some insight into the mind of the enemy. He wondered where the human was now, and thought that she must be dead. Plunging into the atmosphere of a planet with ships in orbit shooting at her, and pursuit ships on her tail. The ship had been seen to blow up from space as well. No, that one is dead.

  Maybe we can catch this Emperor of theirs, he thought in a moment of good spirits. What a source of information that would be. But no, I can’t be that lucky. It will be enough to scatter his atoms in space.

  * * *

  CONUNDRUM SPACE. NOVEMBER 15TH, 1001.

  “Where are the stations?” growled High Admiral Kellissaran Jarkastarin, staring at the holo. His force had just jumped into the Conundrum system. He expected most of the ships of the fleet that had been based here to be gone, on some fool massed strike, when they could have been employed running over a hundred systems at once.

  “They are gone, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer, staring back at him. “They’re both gone.”

  “Were they moved out of the system?” asked the Helm Officer. “Or were they…”

  “Destroyed,” stated the Sensor Officer. “My Lord, I’m picking up particulate matter and plasma in a wide area, exactly where the station was.”

  “What could have gotten to them through the defenses?” asked the Helm Officer.

  “All ships to full alert,” yelled the High Admiral. “Plasma fields to full, all weapons powered up.”

  “There’s nothing here, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “I concur, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer.

  “You idiots. It had to be one of their stealth ships. If not more than one.”

  Alarm klaxons sounded and crewmen jumped from their seats, running to their armor cubbies. Com holos came alive as the other ships in the force announced their preparations for combat, and asked for instructions. Within minutes all crew were armored, all weapons manned, and heavy active sensor beams scanning space.

  “We’re getting a transmission from insystem,” called out the Com Officer.

  The holo came to life, with the image of another male sitting on the bridge of a small ship.

  “This is Low Captain Sresrestifal of the scout ship Zzrrassafa,” came the voice over the holo. “I am currently the ranking officer in the system. Please identify yourselves. And be warned, there are human stealth ships in the system. Multiple vessels. They destroyed the stations.”

  “Send them our identification, and inform that officer that he, and all other ships in the system, are now under my command.”

  “It will take five minutes for the return transmission to reach him, my Lord.”

  “If he was that close, why did you not pick him up on sensors before we received his transmission?” roared the High Admiral.

  “I do not know, sir,” said the Sensor Officer. “Wait. I see him now, coming around that ice ball.”

  The ship appeared, obviously a Ca’cadasan scout ship, headed their way at high acceleration.

  “We have missile launch,” called out the Sensor Officer.

  “From that ship?”

  “No, my Lord. We cannot detect the firing vessel. More launches,” yelled the officer in a panicked voice. “All around us.”

  “Fire on those launching vessels.”

  “We cannot detect them, my Lord,” yelled out the Tactical Officer.

  “Aim at the points the missiles were originally detected at and sweep the area, random pattern. Order all other ships to follow suit.”

  All of the ships in the force followed the order, firing at the origination points of the missiles, then sweeping around those points. Other weapons fired at the incoming missiles. Pinpoint flashes flared through space as missiles detonated. Most were shot down, but a couple came on until they separated into their multiple warheads.

  The High Admiral watched with growing anger as one of his supercruisers was shattered, while two scouts sustained severe damage. Something had flared with the hit of a couple of lasers, and a ship appeared in spa
ce while gas gushed from several breaches in the hull.

  “Destroy that ship,” ordered the High Admiral, pointing at the ship.

  * * *

  I guess Momma Browne’s boy isn’t going to get out of this one, thought Commander Chris Browne, as the Orca rocked to the hit of lasers. Klaxons went off, and a schematic of the ship showed where the hull had been penetrated, and atmosphere was gushing out. It wasn’t bad damage, as far as battle wounds went. And it was enough to kill his ship, by taking away its ability to stealth.

  “All ahead full,” he ordered. “All beam weapons on that nearest scout ship. Load all tubes and fire.”

  The crew went about their tasks with quiet efficiency, as if they weren’t sitting on a bulls eye.

  “All that think they can make it off in time can go to the life pods,” he announced over the com. Nobody on the bridge moved.

  Dolphin shuddered again from another laser hit, then two more.

  “We have missile launches,” shouted out the Tactical Officer. “Ten, no, eighteen missiles, all on vectors heading our way. All tubes fired and on the way.”

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen, we gave it our all,” he said into the com, as the ship bucked yet again. He watched the viewer as his particle beam and lasers ate into the hull of the enemy scout ship, until with a great shake of a hit the proton weapon went offline.

  “Missile impact in one minute,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  Browne thought to ask him whose, then decided it didn’t matter. His missiles, with ten thousand gravities of acceleration, would hit first, those that made it through the counter fire. Two were knocked out seconds later in brilliant flashes. Three more died moments later under laser fire. Two died on final approach, and Browne was beginning to wonder if he would get a hit after all. He cursed as something blew the port rear grabber off the last missile, causing it to start into a veer that might have caused a miss. Instead, it caused the missile to slam into the scout at an angle. That made little difference to the scout when the warhead detonated, blowing a massive hole in the side of the vessel and sending it on a death spin into space.