Exodus: Empires at War: Book 17: The Rebirth

by Doug Dandridge

  “President Klanarat says hello,” he told her as soon as he walked into the room. A good move on his part, as the angry expression left her face, replaced with concern.

  “How is he? You know I'm worried about his health.”

  Always the doctor, thought the Emperor. Concerned about the health and well being of friends more than anything.

  “You know he's reaching extreme old age for his people,” said Sean, taking a seat at the head of the table. It wasn't the long affair of the banquet room, but the settings were as decorative, and expensive, as any used for state.

  “It's criminal that the people that engineered them built in such a short life span,” said Jennifer, the angry expression returning to her face.

  At least it's not directed toward me, thought Sean, thankful that his deflection had worked. “And how are the young heirs doing this fine evening.”

  The children were in high chairs on the side of the table, looking expectantly at their father. Maids were attending to them, bowls of porridge set and ready.

  “They're turning into holy terrors are what they are,” said Jennifer in mock anger, the smile on her face belaying her words. “Glenn went from crawling to running overnight. And Augustine will not be far behind, I'm afraid.”

  Augustine was actually the oldest of the twins, birthed minutes before his brother. Unfortunately, his involuntary venture in time travel had left him chronologically the younger by two months. The difference was starting to disappear as they got older. By the time they reached school age they would look again like what they were, identical twins.

  “I wish there was something we could do for President Klanarat,” she said as she reached over and patted Sean's forearm.

  “All we can do is keep supporting him, and hope he lives to see the end of this thing,” he said, covering her hand with his own. The way things were shaping up, and the way Klanarat looked, Sean doubted the president would still be alive when this war ended.

  * * *

  “How in the hell did they get a force in so far behind the front line,” yelled Sean at his CNO.

  The Emperor was not one who believed in punishing the messenger, but this was really pissing him off. The Cacas were avoiding contact as much as possible, only striking when they had the advantage, or when they were back into a corner with no way out. Basic guerrilla tactics. Smart, and so unlike their actions throughout this war. And this targeting of Elysium and Crakista was threatening to drive them out of the alliance.

  “The same way we do these things, your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom, shrugging her narrow shoulders. “With stealth and patience.”

  A Caca force, not very large, only a dozen battleships and the smaller support ships, had appeared out of nowhere to strike at a supply depot. The defense force had taken them out, with extreme prejudice, but not before they had destroyed a logistics force with vital supplies for Fleet and Army. They could be replaced, over time, but the Empire had already been stretched too thin as it was.

  “I want more patrols of those systems, Sondra.”

  “Yes, your Majesty. Only they are so hard to find when they are nothing more than a collapsed wormhole in the expanse of a system. We will, of course, run more close patrols, since they do have to get near enough to attack. But don't expect miracles.”

  Sean did expect miracles. This officers had given him so many in this war. Why not another?

  “Make sure our allies ships are in the centers of any formations,” he ordered.

  “And then they start protesting that we are treating them like incompetent cowards,” complained the CNO. “It's damned if we do, damned if we don't.”

  Sean agreed. But what else could they do?

  “Keep me informed.” said Sean, the most useless command he could possibly give. He thought if the Cacas were planning to force a stroke on him, one way of causing a crisis of succession in the Empire, they had a good plan.

  Chapter Ten

  The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  JULY 22ND, 1004. JUST BEHIND THE CENTRAL FRONT.

  The last thing on the minds on anyone in the Marsas system was the end of the war. The newly freed natives were still celebrating the absence of the masters and the arrival of their liberators. Those liberators, humans and Elysium citizens, were preparing to move on to another system, one that intelligence said was very lightly held. And others were preparing to destroy everything they could get in their sights.

  “Admiral on the bridge,” called out the Brakakak spacer from his station near the entry hatch.

  “So, how is the system today?” asked Rear Admiral Marakak, striding on thin legs to his command chair.

  “All quiet so far, sir,” said the young duty officer who had been watching out for priority messages that might call for waking his leader. “Not that we expect anything else. The Cacas are well and truly gone from here, after all.”

  Marakak smiled, then frowned. Of course he liked to believe the Cacas were well away from here, and from all indications they were. Still, it was not good for the spacers under his command to assume that nothing could touch them here. In that attitude lay inattention, and the possibility that someone would miss the sign that something was amiss, until it was too late.

  The admiral looked over the plot, as he had every day of the last three, the time they had been in the system. He had gone down to the planet on the second day, guarded by Knockerman marines, to take in the adoring crowds who welcomed their liberators. He had eaten and drank from the local fare, food and drink that appealed to his pallet, and was certified safe by his medical staff. It did his heart good to see beings who had been suffering under oppressive rule find the freedom they had sought. That he had been the deliverer of that freedom was a reward in itself.

  “Lasastra reports they are picking up faint graviton emissions near the moon of planet four, sir,” called out the flag com officer.

  The admiral perked up at that announcement. Lasastra was one of his cruiser class ships, assigned to make periodic sensor sweeps to a sector of the system. Marsas was the third world orbiting around this G class star, and the only one with an inhabitable planet. World four was a cold rocky planet with a thin atmosphere, of no real use, though its large moon was resource rich. One the Cacas had not exploited, but that the natives definitely would, once their space based industry had gotten a toehold.

  “Can they tell what it is?”

  The officer spoke into the mic at his board, interrogating the officer on the other end of the com. The words were converted to grav pulses using the latest code, then transmitted across the light minutes almost instantaneously.

  “No, sir. Only that it was faint, there for a second, then gone. They are maneuvering in to get a closer look. ETA, fifteen minutes.”

  Probably nothing, thought the admiral. Faint graviton traces were a constant in space, and most often meant nothing more than the gravitational pull of system bodies on each other. Sometimes a small gravitational anomaly created by the star. However, he wasn't one to take chances. He would feel much better once one of his ships got within visual observation range and found it clear.

  Unfortunately for the admiral, this was not a morning for feeling better.

  * * *

  “That was the last ship, Lord,” said the com officer on the large bridge of the Ca'cadasan super battleship.

  “The enemy cruiser is continuing toward us, Lord,” reported the sensor officer. “Still the only ship within light amp range.”

  “And don't assume that just because its the only one we can see,” said Low Admiral Lokasure, waving a right index finger in the air.

  “They are grav pulsing, Lord,” called out the com officer. “Communicating with someone.”

  And if not for those idiots aboard one of my own scouts, they wouldn't even be looking, he thought, imagining the punishment he would meet out to their helm officer.

 
The insertion had been perfect. The stealth craft had erected a gate, and his ships had slid through using only the new cold jet thrusters. Until the last scout had come through, too fast, and found itself on a collision course with the supercruiser to its front. The helm officer had panicked and applied a quick burst of one hundred gravity grabber power. Not much, but enough for an enemy ship to detect and come in for an investigation.

  Lokasure had forty super battleships, fifty super cruisers and ninety-three scouts. Not the traditional Ca'cadasan force, but close. Things were changing, and Lokasure wasn't sure he approved of all the changes. It wasn't up to him, and at least their new Emperor didn't appear to be an idiot.

  As far as they could tell, the enemy force was smaller in both number of ships and tonnage. They had at most eighteen battleships, some fewer of their scout capitals, forty odd cruisers and almost a hundred scouts. The scouts would give them slightly better screening capabilities than he had. Or they would have, if they were all in the proper position to ward against missiles. Unfortunately for the enemy, over half of the cruisers and destroyers were scattered about the system on various missions.

  “All ships are to fire on my command,” said the admiral. “And I mean as soon as the word leaves my mouth.”

  The com officer gave a head motion of acknowledgment, as did the tactical officer.

  “Closest three battleships are to fire on that cruiser when the rest of the force opens up.”

  He had enough tubes aboard his ships to pound the enemy to hulks in three volleys or so. The admiral did not intend to launch three volleys. His ships carried large numbers of the mines they had copied from the humans. Dual purpose weapons, they could either be cut loose to ambush the unwary, or fire directly from the ships that carried them.

  The Ca'cadasans had a modern industrial plant in every respect. Nanofabbers, using nanites and the proper raw materials, could quickly turn out large numbers of whatever they were tasked with. No retooling, no retraining of workers, and new tech was rolling out for the use of the fleet. The antimatter, produced in star orbiting satellites, was readily available for producing warheads.

  The force was slowly coasting around the edge of the moon. With the current orientation of the system bodies, there would be nothing obscuring the enemy fleet when Lokasure's force was ready to fire.

  “Now,” he ordered as the last of his ships came into the clear. He didn't think the enemy had seen them, since they were tiny dots with radiation absorbing hulls at the distance of three light minutes. But even if they had, it was too late.

  Three of his battleships boosted away from the force, their light amp weapons firing at the enemy cruiser. Like all of his battleships they were older models, equipped with the less efficient laser domes, allowing at most sixty percent of the ship's fire to engage any single target. They would be more than enough to take out a cruiser. The rest of the fleet boosted at five hundred and forty gravities toward the third planet. And instant later the ships started spinning in space, releasing each tube as they came to bear. Half the mines fired as well, sending thousands of additional missiles at the enemy force. Which started to boost as well, though it really wouldn't do them any good.

  * * *

  “Ships boosting near the fourth planet,” called out a panicked tactical officer. “We have missile launch. Over two thousand missiles boosting at ten thousand gravities, sir. No, make that seven thousand missiles.”

  “All ships, prepare for defensive fire. All screening vessels are to move into position. All ships are to fire on the enemy as their tubes bear.”

  Marakak glanced at the plot, alive with the icons of boosting enemy warships, enemy missiles. He was looking for a way to move something between his force and the enemy before the missiles arrived. And finding nothing.

  “Lasastra reports they are taking laser fire, sir,” squawked the com officer. “They're...They've stopped pulsing.”

  So they were either heavily damaged, or destroyed, thought the admiral as he watched his own fire, counters and offensive weapons, populate the plot.

  “Perhaps we should transmit strike the colors,” said the ship's captain over the admiral's personal com. “They are going to wipe us out otherwise.”

  It only took a second's thought to reject that plea. Against other species, humans, Crakista, they could expect an honorable surrender and to be well treated as prisoners of war. Even the crazy as hell religious fanatics, the Lasharans, wouldn't kill and eat them. Not like the barbarians they faced this day.

  “We fight,” he said through gritted tooth plates. “All ships are to fire as long as they have working tubes.”

  He thought for a moment if there was anything else he could do. “Release all fighters. They are to strike at the enemy, then stay clear and observe after they have expended all warp missiles.”

  There. That was all he could do, except wait and ride out the missile storm. Fortunately, the missiles were launched from mere light minutes distance, and wouldn't have time to build ship killing kinetic energy. Unfortunately, enough hits from gigaton class warheads and all of his ships would at best be reduced to drifting hulks.

  “Impact in seven minutes?” called out the tactical officer.

  Marakak was about to ask the officer whose missiles he was talking about, then decided that it really didn't matter.

  * * *

  The viewer was zoomed ahead on the planet Marsas, focused on the drifting debris field in far orbit. That had been the enemy force. There were a couple of battleships that had survived the storm, but they were mere wrecks. One missile had hit the planet, dead center on the northernmost continent, the most heavily populated. A huge crater spewing magma occupied what had been fertile farmland. The high clouds rippled from the shock wave, and forested land blazed and let out massive banks of smoke.

  Lokasure was sure that over a billion of the natives had died in that strike. He felt nothing but satisfaction that the lesser beings who had betrayed their masters had paid with their lives. The propaganda victory in the Empire would prove to be most satisfactory, proving to the slaves that they were never safe in the caring arms of the enemy.

  The plot was alive with ships, cruisers, destroyers, many commercial vessels, all running for hiding places. He had launched on anything that looked like it might take a hit before it got to the hyper barrier. And ignored the warp fighters that had swept in, staying out of range of his warp lances, and launched their missiles.

  “We have two ships not capable of boosting, my Lord,” reported the com officer.

  “Order the crews to evacuate to other vessels. Then scuttle those ships.”

  He had been hit. Not as hard as the enemy, but they had gotten some blows in. The two battleships reduced to hulks. Another pair that had been blasted to plasma. A dozen more that had sustained major damage, though capable of going back through the wormhole to be repaired. Nine cruisers and fifteen scouts had joined the ranks of the losses.

  “All ships are to boost for the fourth planet. Let's get everyone through the gate and home.”

  The stealth ship would soon be erecting the gate again. The admiral was concerned that the warp fighters might detect the gate and come boosting in to take it out. He was sure the enemy had a wormhole aboard one of their battleships. That was standard operating procedure for their forces. And therefore enemy command had to know what had happened here. Or at least what was happening when their wormhole equipped ship had been blown to hell.

  The stealth ship would, of course, collapse the gate and piggyback on a supercruiser that would form a small task force that would head out to another system. Its work was done here, and this system held little promise for future operations.

  All in all a successful operation, and if the force he had destroyed had little importance in the wider scheme of things, it was still a victory. The admiral could still look forward to promotion, and the leadership of bigger and better forces.

  * * *

  “How in the hell did th
ey pull this off, Sondra,” yelled Sean at his CNO.

  Not one that believed in punishing the messenger, the situation was causing his anger to rise with every occurrence. The Cacas were not acting like the same beings he had gone to war with several years before. They were smart, only engaging when they had the advantage, or when they were trapped and had no other choice. Standard Guerrilla tactics that were threatening to drive a wedge between Crakista, Elysium and the rest of the alliance. Hitting hard and leaving nothing but vacuum for him to counter to.

  “The same way we do such things, your Majesty,” replied Sondra, shrugging her narrow shoulders. “They used one of their stealth ships to erect a gate, then brought through a large enough force to defeat Rear Admiral Marakak's task group. Afterwards they retreated back through the wormhole.”

  “Any chance of finding and destroying that stealth ship?”

  Sondra shook her head. “Intelligence thinks it was taken out of the system on one of the ships in the small force that left through hyper. No telling where it is, or where it's going.”

  Only that it's going someplace where it can cause us more problems, thought Sean, closing his eyes and sighing. It had been so much better when the alliance had been the ones unveiling the surprises on the enemy. Making them dance to a tune of Sean's choosing. Not anymore, and it was wearing on the Emperor. Hell, he was sure it was wearing on everyone from him on down to the newest recruit on the front.

  “And they killed over a billion people on Marsas,” said McCullom, her expression conveying her disgust. “The ecology of the world will take decades to rebound.”

  “Probably not a purposeful hit,” said Sean, not really sure if that meant anything. “Collateral damage.”

  “I always hated that term, your Majesty,” said the admiral, a defeated look on her face. “It just means someone screwed up and didn't stop something they should have.” She looked off holo for a moment, someone else asking for her attention. “Have the Brakakak gotten in touch with you yet?”