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

by Doug Dandridge

  At least we’ve cut everything coming and going into this area, he thought. And the Birds aren’t making any headway against my perimeter. With everything cut going in and out, there was little fear of official communications going to the human station. But how long before someone comes through, sees what is going on, and goes back? Or a damned Bird goes through and warns the humans?

  “Cacada warriors,” yelled a junior officer, standing up from behind the barrier they had erected. “Follow me.”

  The male shot forward on his suit grabbers, a dozen other warriors following, all firing their weapons at maximum power. The officer was the first to go down, followed by several of the warriors. Two suits continued on their internal power, carrying dead Cacada who absorbed more fire before their wrecked forms went over the Birds’ barrier.

  Grenades and missiles hit the Birds’ positions, blasting through suits, sending Bird warriors into the air to strike ceilings and walls. And suddenly there were a dozen Cacada warriors over their barrier, sending red beams of protons into anything that moved.

  “Take that room,” yelled the General, waving more of his troops forward. They flooded down the hallway, taking the other Bird position that was guarding another corridor from behind.

  “Get the power hook ups on that gate,” he yelled, running into the medium sized chamber that contained what he had come for. The silvery surface he had heard of, the entrance to the central part of the enemy’s realm. Engineers went to the side of the gate and started attaching power leads to battery packs, preventing the enemy from cutting the energy that kept the gate open. Supposed to be a magnetic field holding negative matter in place. Can’t use that much energy to power that field, and we only have to keep it open for a couple of hours.

  “First platoon,” he yelled, looking away from the gate and toward another junior officer. “Get through that portal. Kill everything on the other side, and get me a perimeter around that gate.”

  The first male went through the gate as the engineers continued to rig their connections. It might take some time getting all of my males through that that gate, he thought, looking at a portal that, while wide enough for more than two Birds or humans to go through at a time, was definitely not made for his people, who had to duck on the way through.

  * * *

  THE DONUT.

  That first male to come through the gate was completely confused by the experience. It had seemed like he had died, and gone to the heaven of his people. He saw the past Emperors, sitting on their thrones around a semicircle, throngs of worshipping males arrayed before them. A sense of well-being came over him, followed by a feeling of ecstasy. It was everything he was hoping for, what he had been told would be one of his rewards for going on this mission. He dropped his weapon and knelt with the others, taking in the glorious aspects of the past Emperors. Days went by, then a week. And then…

  He was standing on some hard surface, strange looking beings all around him, some pointing fingers in his direction, some screaming unintelligible words. Something in a strange uniform was pointing a thing at him that looked like a weapon. He knew he needed to do something, but couldn’t figure out what.

  Something slammed into his back, sending him sprawling forward, just as a stream of pellets cracked over his head. There was a grunt behind him, and the warrior went sprawling to the ground. His head was still fuzzy, but he knew he had to defend himself. He was surrounded by enemies, so he took his weapon and held down the trigger, sending a buzzing beam of angry red into the largest clump of creatures. Clothing was set afire, flesh vaporized, and scorched bodies and pieces of bodies fell to the floor. A moment later another particle beam joined his in striking the, humans, he knew them now to be humans, and hated enemies. He got up from his sprawled position and ran toward a hard stone structure filled with soil, strange plants growing within, and dropped behind it, looking for targets.

  Now the warriors were coming through the portal, pulled to the ground by those who had already regained their wits until they could function normally. Within a minute there was a platoon in the large chamber. Humans with weapons were starting to flood in from both ends. A pair of missiles, both tipped with one ton mini-nuke warheads, covered the hundred meters to both ends of the room and stopped that influx, while the armored Cacada sought what cover was available.

  * * *

  After the first company had come through, the General followed.

  “What in the name of the Gods was that,” said the senior mission officer, sweat running off his face.

  “It passes, well, not quickly, my Lord,” said the Company Commander, helping the General away from the gate so more could pass without knocking him down. “But it does pass.”

  The General stared about the room, not the first human inhabited structure he had ever seen, but still strange to his eyes. He took in the destroyed ends of the room, and all the smaller bodies lying about. “Start moving your men in that direction. Start taking territory as fast as you can. I’ll send the next company through the other way.” I don’t know much about this station, except that it is enormous. And that I want my bombs set as far apart as possible, to do the maximum damage.

  He became aware of the siren like sounds filling the air, and the flashing lights. He looked back at his engineers, who were hooking up power packs to the gate, and severing all other connections. “And Engineering Officer. Send some males to shut off that disturbing racket.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  FENRI SPACE. NOVEMBER 19TH, 1001.

  “The Fleet is pulling out?” shouted one of his battalion commanders in the meeting chamber of the bunker. “And leaving us behind? Who the hell came up with that plan?”

  “Not me, Colonel,” said Baggett, rubbing his eyes. All were in their soft skins, the uniforms they wore under their armor. Baggett had ordered it for all personnel not on the perimeter of a compound, or out on patrol. And now it might be a while before we get out of the damned things again, he thought, shaking his head. “It was decided to evacuate all the warships, and that includes our transports, until they can bring up the other task groups and retake the system. The transports had to run for the barrier as soon as the news came in, so they would have a chance of getting out.”

  “Just like the Goddam Fleet,” spat out another battalion commander. “Look after their own, and leave the damned grunts to die in the mud.”

  “I can’t blame any of you for your feelings,” said Baggett, raising a hand to stop further recriminations against their sister service. “It does us no good to sit here and complain. Now, how are your units, as far as fortifying their locations go?”

  “We’ve got as many bunkers prepared as we can,” said the new Assistant Brigade Commander (ABC). “Primary, secondary and tertiary. As soon as the word is given, we can post to them.”

  And the word will be given as soon as the enemy is on final approach. As long as they don’t know where the bunkers are, they can’t hit us with kinetics. But if they do locate one, the kinetics come down and that position dies, and anyone in a suit who can’t get out is dead with it.

  “Any idea when the Fleet will return?” asked the first Battalion Commander to speak.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Colonel. But if I had to guess, a week. Maybe more. They’re concerned about gathering enough of a force to beat the Fenri Fleet completely, while not sustaining many losses themselves.”

  “Sound military planning,” said the ABC. “But meanwhile, we face what is sure to be a superior landing force.”

  “And the bunkers overlooking the likely landing zones?”

  “Prepared, but in my opinion they leak a little too much heat. I really don’t like the idea of having our troops sitting in them. They’ll be sitting ducks.”

  “I don’t intend to have any of our people sitting in those bunkers. I want the Fenri to target them all, then come in fat and happy, congratulating themselves on how they shattered our defense.”

  “And when they’ve
landed?”

  “That’s when we close with their landing forces, and make it extremely difficult for the Fenri to target us without endangering their own.”

  He saw the looks of doubt on his officers’ faces at that. “Look, you all have been in heavy infantry your entire careers. I started in light infantry, then later went into medium, when my unit got sent to Sestius. We had to fight a Caca landing force that was supported from orbit. With jamming, we were able to stay close to the Cacas for two days, while their ships more often than not hit them instead of us. So don’t give up hope. We can do it.”

  Now he saw some hope in their eyes. Maybe not a whole lot, but enough for him to work with. “I won’t lie to you and tell you it will be easy. We’re going to take a reaming. But I will tell you this. We will ream them right back. And when the Fleet returns, we will be here to greet them.” Not sure if we will be among the greeters, but some of ours will.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Jay Cummings stood outside in his light combat armor, watching as the crew of his number two tank, the only one remaining besides his own in the platoon, backed it into the pit they had prepared for it.

  “Make sure everything is powered down,” he told the Staff Sergeant in charge as the tank came to a stop.

  “Yes, sir,” said the Sergeant. “Not an erg of power will be detectable.”

  Moments later the crew bailed out of the vessel, while the engineers snaked a crawl tube made of carbon fibers underneath the tank. They attached the tube to the bottom escape hatch of the tank and made sure it was secure.

  The robodozer the engineers had used to dig the pit now went to work, shoveling dirt and debris around the tank, then picking up big slabs and placing them on top of the armored vehicle with its scoop equipped arms. There was a full engineering brigade on the planet, as well as each division’s pioneer battalion. Right now they were the busiest units on the world, preparing the defenses.

  When the tank was fully covered Cummings checked out the tube, crawling through and into the tank. He went through the vehicle, making sure that everything was powered down. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the Sergeant, but everyone was tired, including himself, and mistakes could be made. The Sergeant had crawled into Cummings’ tank after it had been buried, and had performed the same inspection.

  After he was satisfied, he crawled out, meeting up with the rest of his platoon members outside, then leading the other eleven tankers to their hiding place, a couple of kilometers from the vehicles, which were separated from each other by a half kilometer of city rubble.

  “What do we do if the tanks don’t survive their landing, sir?” asked the driver of the number two tank.

  Cummings pointed at the mag rifle the soldier carried, a weapon they all thought they would never have a use for. “Then, Specialist, we become infantry.” Damn piss poor equipped and ill trained infantry. I think there’s an old term for that. Cannon fodder.

  * * *

  CONGREEVE SPACE.

  “Order the hyper barrier force to hold their ground,” ordered the Great Armiral, looking at the holo that revealed the enemy force in the Kuiper Belt. “When we have turned around we will work our way out to them, then smash that enemy force.”

  “What about the other blockading forces?” asked the Advisor, pointing to the dozen smaller task forces that were arrayed around the system, some of them moving in to try and catch the Imperial Security Squadron, which was still on a course to run to the hyper barrier.

  “They are to carry out their missions as ordered. I want the blockade continued, and that squadron captured.” He pointed at the icons of the small squadron that intelligence said might carry the leader of the humans as he spoke that last.

  “But, if they are jumped by superior enemy forces? Out of range of our support?”

  “Then they will have died performing their duty,” growled the Great Admiral, clenching all four of his fists. “We are not here to run. We are here to crush these vermin.”

  All on the bridge looked at their leader with dawning understanding. The pheromones on the bridge were overwhelming, all were feeling the rise in aggressiveness. And it had affected their normally calm and reasoning commander most of all, as he reverted to a Ca’cadasan male defending his territory at all costs.

  * * *

  “One hour till we reach attack position,” said the Pilot, staring ahead at the simulation that was their tactical plot.

  And hopefully we’ll have just as much luck this time, thought Komorov. Her wing was moving as a coherent force, theoretically. As soon as they had reached rest she had turned them around, plotted the probable location of the enemy Fleet at the time they would reach them, then started them on their way. This time they would not reach their maximum velocity. It was not necessary, as long as they outran their own light the enemy would not know they were coming, would not see them raise their bubbles of negative matter and start heading their way. When they went under light speed, decelerating down to point nine five light, they might be detectable by a direct scan for that brief time before they dropped their bubbles. That was unlikely. They would not be at risk to anything except a random collision until that time came.

  But whether they see us or not, they know we’re coming, thought the Captain. “Everyone relax, as much as possible. We’re just along for the ride for the next fifty odd minutes.” Komorov lay back in her chair, activating a music program that was pumped directly into audial centers of her brain. Now, as much as possible, she lost herself in the Sixth Symphony of Mastrich, New Berlin’s greatest composer.

  * * *

  THE DONUT.

  Cadet Lieutenant Cornelius Walborski stepped into the wormhole gate on the world he was stationed on, thoughts of his weekend with his wife and children the only thing on his mind, and stepped into a battle. Warning klaxons were going off, lights were flashing, and people seemed to be running this way and that in a panic.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked the Spacer who ran by, a pistol in hand.

  “The station has been invaded, uh, sir,” said the woman, pulling up and noticing Walborski’s uniform.

  “Invaded,” cried the Ranger, confused. We’re at the heart of Empire. What the hell could invade us here? “By what?”

  “Cacas,” said the wide eyed Spacer. “We got Cacas on the station.”

  “And they’re that way?” asked Cornelius, pointing the direction the woman had been running.

  “Hell no, sir,” said the woman shaking her head. “That’s for the Marines to handle. We’re getting our asses to safety.”

  Cornelius observed other Spacers running by through the civilians. All had side arms, out and ready. Probably in case they run into some of the Cacas that might get around them.

  “Stop,” he yelled in his best command voice, just as he had been taught at the NCO Academy. “All military personnel, come to me.”

  Most of those military personnel were Spacers, with a smattering of Imperial Army soldiers. Almost all of these were clerical specialists, or supply, mechanics, engineers. Not combat personnel. Most of the military people in the chamber came to him, though some shook their heads, or just looked at him in disbelief, and ran on. Cornelius really couldn’t blame them. It took a special sort of fool to volunteer to run toward the sound of the guns. He had to hope he could convince some of these people to do so.

  He tossed his bag to the floor, and motioned to one of the Spacers who had a rifle and pistol. “I need a weapon, Spacer. Give me one of yours.”

  The man looked at his rifle for a second, then unsnapped his pistol belt and tossed it to the Ranger. Wish you had given me the rifle, he thought. I definitely could put it to better use than you. But he wasn’t about to demand the man give him his primary weapon, so he buckled on the belt, happy to have the extra magazines of pellets.

  “Look, people. I know none of you thought you were going to be in close combat when you were assigned here. The enemy has decided otherwise.”


  “Shouldn’t we be letting the Marines deal with this?” asked one young man with the tabs of Army Supply on his collar. “That’s what they’re trained to do.”

  “So, you think this is just a reconnaissance in force by the enemy,” said Cornelius, pulling out his new pistol and reassuring himself that it was something he had used before. He moved the selector to maximum velocity, not sure it that would be enough to penetrate Caca battle armor, but all he had. “I don’t think they would stage an invasion of this station just to gather information. They are here to do damage.” He looked up and down the chamber. There were a hundred gate cubbies on each side, two hundred total, and half of them were active. “Let’s say they destroy all of the gates in a room like this. Or ten of them. That sets our war effort back by months, at a time when we cannot afford such a loss. And waiting for the Marines could cause that much of a loss, or more.” He held the pistol in the air. “I want all of you to follow me into battle. Even if we only accomplish the saving of one of these rooms, we’ll have accomplished a lot. So, who’s with me?”

  There were a few cheers, some head nods, some more shakes. But when Cornelius went out the exit of the chamber, in the direction of the Cacas, he had thirty-two men and women behind him.

  * * *

  “Does anyone have an idea of the layout of this thing,” yelled the General, looking at a computer terminal that had been set there for public use. He could pull up a schematic that told him where he was located, and the routes to get to other areas, but it was of no help with getting an idea of the actual scope of the station, or where to plant his devices. Which are still on the damned Bird station, thought the General, looking back at the gate that was sending his troops into the human structure.

  They were exiting at the rate of one every three seconds, as fast as they could be pushed through. So far four hundred males had made it onto the station, of the six thousand he had brought with him. He had lost about an equal number on the Bird station, and was sure he would lose more before he got his entire force here. For a moment he had the idea of just bringing the weapons across and detonating them in this room, together. But he had no idea about the structural layout of this station, or if setting off four one hundred gigaton devices in one area would sever the ring and send it off balance into the black hole.