“Why must we die for a bunch of filthy aliens,” growled a voice from the next bunker over. “When the Cacas get here they're just going to lick their boots.”
“I don't want to hear any more talk like that,” yelled Canara, jogging over to that bunker in a rage. “We are not those people anymore.”
“But, sir,” said another voice, this one subdued.
“I will not tolerate bigotry in my company,” growled the officer, pulling open the hatch to the bunker and staring in at the soldiers within. He knew both of them, since they were in his command. Not as well as the people who worked with him more closely. Squad leaders, platoon sergeant or LT.
“Why is the government leaving us on this rock, sir?” asked the older of the men. “I mean, we really aren't going to accomplish anything. All we'll do is contribute to the collateral damage.”
“I can't answer that, Warrior,” said the captain, who silently agreed with the soldier. “All I can say is we have been given orders, and warriors always obey orders. Now, I can't tell you what to think, but I can tell you what you can and can't say. And I don't want to hear any more bigotry. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The officer, who had wholeheartedly bought into the new policies of the government, walked back to his command bunker with his thoughts in turmoil. He had to wonder how many of his fellow Warriors, as well as the Alphas and Engineers, felt the way those soldiers did. After all, they had all been raised to believe that only their own species was truly intelligent, blessed to rule all of space and to not share it with lesser species. When the war with the Cacas had started, that mighty empire with so many alien subjects, the immortal rulers had decreed that all other intelligent species were enemies, and only one thing was to be done with them. Extermination. Which made them pariahs to the species who had the power to stand up to them. The humans from the New Terran Empire had changed all that after the rulers had died in the explosion that had taken out the capital planet, along with the invading Caca fleet. They had turned out to be not quite the immortal beings they had been presented as, which went a long way to knocking them off their pedestals.
Why are they setting us up to oppose a landing, thought the captain, turning his attention back to matters at hand, at the moment more important than any historical or sociological matters. If he had been in charge he would have scattered all of his people into the wilderness. Let them fight a guerrilla campaign. As it was, they were too exposed here in the cities. Even worse, the civilians were exposed for collateral damage. Of course, he wasn't in charge, and the people who were seemed to have no interest in his opinion.
* * *
“We're past the barrier, ma'am,” said the fleet navigation officer. “We can jump whenever you are ready.”
Beata looked over at the plot. The nearest enemy missiles were still four hours away. They could jump into hyper when they were minutes away and the Cacas wouldn't get a hit. And it surely would infuriate their commander when their enemy jumped out of normal space just ahead of those missiles.
“Enemy fleet still moving?” asked Beata, looking over the plot. “We haven't had any of their ships come to a stop anywhere?”
“No, ma'am. All are still boosting. Either accel or decel.”
That was a relief to the admiral. The Cacas did have wormholes. Not many of them, but they were capable of erecting gates. As far as intelligence knew, and they seemed to have some deep operatives in Caca space, though it was above Bednarczyk's pay grade to know anything about them, the big aliens hadn't built any accelerator units yet. What they could do was boost missiles in another system up to high relativistic speed and send them through a gate. Many thousands of them per minute, more than she could put out. Since they did all their boosting in another system, and none after entering the area of the target star, they would head to their targets without a trace. A couple of thousand of those things coming out of nowhere and hitting her ships would ruin a perfectly good operation for a lot of people. Since they couldn't deploy that gate while moving at high velocity it looked like she was safe from that threat.
The Cacas had a weakness with that deployment. Her missiles came out of the accelerators with a full battery load for boosting. The Caca missiles did not. They probably used over eighty percent of the energy stored in their crystal matrix power cells boosting up to high velocity in the other system. They still retained more than enough power for last minute course corrections. But not enough for a considerable vector change. Which was great if she moved to someplace where they no longer had the delta v to reach her. Not so good if she picked them up less than a minute from impact.
“How goes the rest of the evacuation?”
“Everything according to the timetable, ma'am,” said Janssen, her chief of staff, looking up from his station, where he was relentlessly going over all the data coming in.
“And the Slarna?”
“They are starting through the gate the Indefatigable left behind. The stealth/attack ship Grouper is waiting to mount the wormhole and hide in the system.
When all of her ships had gone, or the crews had been taken off of the ships to be scuttled, there would be twelve stealth/attack left behind for surveillance. They might be allowed to take a shot if a fat target appeared, with Beata's permission. But she wanted those ships and their wormholes in the system when she decided it was time to return.
“The only two gates still open are the one behind Pleisia and the one in orbit around the gas giant Larantia,” said Janssen, highlighting the points of interest on the plot. “Ships are still on vector for Larantia. A couple of our destroyers, a heavy cruiser, and what left of the Gernas battle group C. Fifty-three ships on a maximum decel for the gate.”
“And the fast attack craft?”
“All that are able to get away through a gate are heading for them. Which leaves just over three hundred of them on a vector out of the system.”
“Have we arranged for their pickup?” Beata didn't want to leave anything behind that couldn't hide with little chance of being picked up on sensors.
“The fleet carrier Montauk is on the way with a wormhole,” said Janssen. “They will set up at two light days out and power down.”
“Escorts?”
“Minimal,” said Janssen, shaking his head. “Three destroyers. I thought it best that we not put too many ships in a location where they might be picked up.”
“Try to get those fast attack craft out,” ordered Beata, pointing to the plot. “I'll need them later. But if it comes down to it, evacuate the crews and scuttle them. I want the people and that carrier out of there before the Cacas get too close.”
“Understood,” replied Janssen, walking over to the com station.
* * *
“We're being ordered to vector out of the system, sir,” said the com tech, her strange alien face looking over toward the commander's chair.
What the hell for, thought Ensign Kallaris Plisias, the commander of fast attack craft Charlie five. In three hours they could be at Larantia, through the gate and out of the system. The gate is not going to be open that much longer, so they're telling us to get the hell out on our own. He wasn't sure how that was going to work. They weren't hyper capable, and there were over three hundred craft in their group. It would take fifty ships to carry them all on their hulls without obscuring their own weapon mounts.
“We're being ordered to rendezvous with a fleet carrier at two light days out, sir,” said the Klassekain. “They will be laying low until we get there, then opening a gate to let us through.”
“What's our ETA to that location?” They could get up to point nine-two light before particle radiation started to penetrate their field and armor. It would take them nine hours to get up to that velocity on the required heading, then twenty-six hours to decelerate down to a complete stop.
“Ninety-one hours, sir.”
And we'll be looking over our shoulders the entire time, thought the ensign. With an enemy that would
probably be throwing missiles at them most of the way.
“I don't like it,” said Plisias, shaking his head. “But we don't have any choice, do we? Start us on the way out. Make sure we stay with the other Charlie ships.”
Plisias knew that they would be coming back to fight over this system. He hoped that the next time they wouldn't be the ones running out.
* * *
Admiral Connandra had been staring at the forward viewer from the moment they had transited the wormhole in the center of the New Terran Empire. The object on the screen, taken by the stern cameras, was beyond belief. It was lit up with flashing strobes and millions of internal lights.
“Just how big is that thing?”
“We're estimating almost eight million kilometers in diameter, sir,” said the executive officer of the ship, monitoring the passive sensors. “Twenty-five million kilometers in circumference. How in the hell did anyone build something like that?”
“Slarna ships,” came a voice over the com, cold and unfeeling. “Maintain current course. Do not deviate.”
“That didn't sound very friendly,” said the exec, sitting at one of the sensor stations on the bridge.
“No,” replied the admiral, giving his species version of a head shake, a circular motion. “At least they aren't coming out and threatening to blow us out of space.”
Not that they needed a verbal threat. There were over a hundred warships arrayed in an elongated cylinder around his force. Only a dozen of them were battleships, but in case he had thoughts of challenging them with his fleet, all of his passive sensors were lit up with the targeting sensors of thousands of weapons. Most of those were mounted on the station that was turning in orbit around the black hole in the center. Targeting sensors were coming on and off as the station rotated. Other sensor readings were coming off very large structures in orbit around the station.
So much power, thought the admiral. The structure itself was unbelievable, something his own people couldn't build in a thousand years, and only then if they used the total industrial strength of their nation. This nation had built it in a hundred years, if they were to be believed, and with a fraction of their resources. They considered it their most vital resource, the source of their wormholes. It was no wonder they were so protective of it. Only the defense fleet, all Terran vessels, were allowed within a billion kilometers of it. So in a way, the Slarna were being honored to be allowed this close. If being targeted by so many weapons could make anyone feel anything but terror.
“Do you want me to give the active sensors a look at that station,” said the sensor officer, looking back at his commander.
“No,” shouted the admiral, glaring at the crewman. The humans might not be concerned with the energy of a sensor impacting their station. Or they might consider it an attack, and all of their weapons would blow his force out of space in an instant.
“The last of our ships are through, sir,” said the exec. “The human battleship is coming through right after.”
Connandra watched the zoomed take as the viewer showed the huge human ship coming through the mirrored surface of the portal. It continued out on the tail of the Slarna force, whether as an additional guard, or because they weren't allowed near the station either, he couldn't tell.
“What the hell are they so worried about?” asked the exec. “It would take a thousand ship killers to destroy that thing.”
Just being cautious, thought the admiral. He couldn't blame them. Sure, the thing could obviously take a lot of firepower, but it also had to be home to pentatons of delicate equipment, as well as millions of highly trained personnel. He had felt offended at being ordered into such a restrictive formation, being surrounded by so much firepower. Now, having seen what they were protecting, he was just happy that they had allowed him to escape the Pleisia system through the wormhole.
“Com coming through, sir.”
“Put it on.”
A human officer appeared on the holo. The admiral didn't have any idea who it was. Connandra still had trouble telling males and females of the human species apart. He did recognize the rank insignia on the collar though, and he bowed his head to the four-star officer that was his equal in rank.
“Admiral Connandra,” said the officer. The admiral thought it a male from the timber of the voice. “We request that as soon as you hit the one billion kilometer mark you decelerate to this ring of gates. We will be sending you through to the Central Docks region of our capital system. There we will rearm you, replenish your supplies, and make what repairs we can to your damaged warships.”
“Thank you, Admiral?”
“Conrad. Dimetri Conrad. I am the commander of the Donut defense fleet.”
“We appreciate your attention to my ships and people.”
“My pleasure. We will give any aid possible to our valiant allies.” The com blanked, leaving the Slarna admiral to his own thoughts.
“Make sure that we get all the passive readings on everything out here that we can,” he ordered the exec, who was also his chief of staff on the undersized capital ship. He was sure that some of that data would be valuable. If not to his own people, then to someone.
* * *
“Admiral Klanarat,” said the old Alpha on the com.
“Mr. President.” The admiral didn't like seeing the older members of his species. The genetically altered members of his species had a life expectancy of little more than sixty Earth years. Something to do with the augmentation process, though many suspected it was because the former immortal masters hadn't wanted servants who lived long enough to challenge them. The humans were engineering the next generations to live for a hundred and fifty years or longer. The admiral was not of that new generation, and at fifty-four he was looking mortality in the face. The president was even older, and probably had at most another two years.
“I have gathered up a respectable force, sir. A thousand battleships, three thousand smaller vessels, as well as a couple of hundred support vessels. And we are closing on another force of seven hundred ships. I should be able to reach Pleisia with five thousand ships. Adding what the Terrans have, and what you can send me from the core defense fleet, we should be able to challenge the Cacas.”
“Change of plans, Admiral,” said the president with a deep frown. “We are currently evacuating Pleisia.”
“What?” blurted the admiral, his face flushing with anger. “The Terran admiral couldn't hold the system?”
“No one could hold that system, Admiral. Not without the total strength of our fleet, which was not available to Admiral Bednarczyk.”
Meaning, in not that many words, that I lost too many ships to make resisting the Cacas possible, thought the still angry officer. “Where will Bednarczyk meet me. I'm anxious to get those ships integrated into my command so we can start to maneuver against our enemy.”
“Admiral Bednarczyk will send you instructions on where to rendezvous with her fleet, Admiral Klanarat. Until she decides where that is going to be, you are to continue on a vector that takes you to the capital.”
“Until she has decided?” Klanarat slammed a fist down on the arm of his bridge command chair. “It is my fleet. By what right does she decide anything?”
“Admiral,” said the stony-faced president. “Calm down. We have decided that Admiral Bednarczyk is more qualified to fight this kind of battle. So she will be in charge.”
“That's outrageous,” screamed the admiral, his anger rising and passing into rage. “I am the senior officer of the Klavarta fleet. It is mine to command by right of position.”
“You serve at my discretion, Admiral,” growled the president, his eyes narrowing as he stared out of the holo. “And at the discretion of the congress. Remember that. You will be serving under Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk. You will follow her orders to the letter. That doesn't mean you can't ask questions for clarification, or make suggestions. But digging in your heels and refusing to follow an order will be considered insubordination. Understoo
d?”
The admiral sat staring straight ahead for some moments, unsure how to answer.
“I asked, is it understood?” asked the president, his tone dripping icicles.
“Why are you doing this to me?” asked the admiral, tears welling in his eyes. He had done his best to defeat the Cacas. His plan had been good. It should have worked. He hadn't expected the Cacas to oppose him with a commander who was actually good at his job.
And that was your mistake, Jrasstra, he thought. You thought yourself superior to any possible commander the enemy could throw at you.
“I'm not doing this to hurt you, Admiral,” said the president, his tone low, softening. “We need a commander in place that we can be confident of. Both our people and those of the New Terran Empire. Bednarczyk has just fought a brilliant campaign against the Cacas in Pleisia, hurting them badly while taking little in the way of losses herself. Emperor Sean and I both agreed that she needs to take command of the entire front.”
Klanarat didn't like the sound of that. In his opinion the Terrans already had too much influence on his nation. He was smart enough to realize that the president didn't want his opinion, and voicing it at the moment would not aid his cause. The admiral would just have to bide his time, and wait for the opportunity to take charge of the fleet and win the battle. He couldn't do anything overt, but by dragging his feet covertly he might be able to watch the Terran admiral fail, possibly getting killed. As long as the rest of the fleet survived, and he was in place to take charge, things could turn out in his favor.
“I understand, sir. I don't have to like it, but I will do my duty to my people.” Even if that means letting an ally down, he thought. His president might not agree, but he thought it vital that the Klavarta people become their own saviors. For the honor of their people.
* * *
“We will be ready to insert into orbit in three hours, my Lord,” said Admiral Trostara, Mrastaran's chief of staff.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 15: All Quiet on the Second Front? Page 26
