Exodus: Empires at War: Book 17: The Rebirth

by Doug Dandridge

  “I agree,” said Sean, looking into the tortured eyes of his military leader. “I'll leave the decisions up to you.”

  “You realize that the Cacas are now engaged in a guerrilla war, “ said Yamakuri, looking down. “They are going to avoid contact unless they think they can get an exchange rate in their favor. I hate to say it, but landings are going to become much more expensive.”

  “Then we need to avoid them when possible. And the other thing we need to concentrate on is training our people in counter-insurgency. The men and women on that landing zone acted as they had been trained to do when confronted by that kind of situation. We need to come up with a better response, and make sure our people have been trained to the point where they react without thinking.”

  “We'll get on it, your Majesty. And thanks, for you decision on Baggett. It's hard to see a good man like that get hit like he did. Even worse when he gets crushed under foot by people looking for scapegoats.”

  Sean dismissed the holo, sitting back in his chair and thinking about what the grand marshal had said. People were likely to play the blame game when the shit hit the fan and a lot of people were lost. He himself had been blamed for many of his decisions, though in retrospect he thought he had made the right call. Still, the press had taken him to task, like he was sure they would do with Lt. General Samuel Baggett when they got hold of this story.

  If there was a silver lining to this, and it was hard to find, it was the fact that no Knockermen or Crakista had been in the landing force. Elysium had only deployed marines, as had Crakista, and those kind of soldiers were only deployed in space on the current campaign. Capturing ships or stations, but not trying to take territory on planets or large moons. He could imagine the flack he would be getting from his allies in those nations if thirty to forty thousand of their ground troops were killed. Not that it was any different than losing tens of thousands in a space ambush, but the videos would have a greater impact. He knew he had felt sick to his stomach when he viewed so many troops killed, by heavy mauls, from having limbs ripped off, from being hit by hyper velocity missiles that blew red tinted steam from rents in the armor. It was a much more visceral image than seeing a ship converted to plasma, even thought the beings aboard the ship were just as dead.

  What next, he thought. At least they were no longer killing systems while trying to lure his ships in to their own destruction. Whether that was because their new Emperor didn't believe in killing systems, as had been intimated by intelligence, or because it simply wasn't working any more, he didn't know.

  But now that we're sure they're not going to do it, he thought with a grimace, it might be the best time to pull it off again.

  He would have to get with his leaders and make sure that they weren't taking things for granted. That was the path to disaster.

  Chapter Twelve

  I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. William Tecumseh Sherman

  AUGUST 10TH, 1004.

  “We have not been able to attack any of their allies on the ground, Supreme Lord,” said the army commander who was coordinating those actions along the front. “They refuse to commit them. Though I must say they are starting to bypass more worlds. The hunting is getting scarce.”

  “The human leaders are not stupid,” said Mrastaran, looking into the eyes of the male across the light years. “Especially that young Emperor of theirs. He is a student of their history as well, and I am sure he will pick out the patterns.” And maybe I can use that against him, thought the Ca'cadasan Emperor.

  “And how go the Guerrilla actions on the planets they have landed on?”

  “As well as can be expected, Supreme Lord. We are getting a favorable exchange rate, at least as compared to how we were doing before. But I must say, the warriors don't like this skulking in the shadows.”

  And they aren't very good at it either, thought the Emperor. At least not compared to their smaller foes. Ca'cadasans had evolved as hunters, using cunning and weapons to kill their prey. They had never been good at stealth. They were too large, too clumsy. The humans were fast and sneaky, able to use their small size to blend in to shadows that would never hide a Ca'cadasan. The Maurids were even better, but most of them had gone over to the human side. If not for the stupidity of Jresstratta the Younger, the Empire might still have those stealthy fighters on their side.

  “They also feel it is dishonorable to not meet the enemy in open combat. Proving their strength and courage.”

  And getting slaughtered in the process, thought the Emperor, letting out a sigh of exasperation.

  “We are in a war of attrition now, Great General,” he said to the male in his best calming voice. “We have more people to spend than they do, and it seems they value the lives of their soldiers and spacers more than we do.”

  That was something the Emperor planned to change, eventually. Individual Ca'cadasans should consider themselves valuable servants of the Empire. Instead, they thought of themselves as pawns to be expended on the orders of their betters. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to enact the changes he wanted. So he had to make use of the males he had, with their present attitude.

  “I rankles to fight this way, Supreme Lord,” groaned the male. “I realize that it is yours to command, and that we are being beaten back on all fronts. But to one raised to constant victory, this is hard to take.”

  That was part of the attitude he needed to change, right now. The Ca'cadasans had always seen themselves are the supreme warriors, always victorious. Rolling over every culture either because they had the greater firepower, the better technology, or both. They had even enjoyed those advantages against the human nations when they had first engaged them, after a thousand years of searching. Not anymore, and though his forces still outnumbered those of the alliance, he no longer held the firepower or technological advantage over them.

  “Just keep hitting them, General. Ambushes, traps, sniping, anything that kills their warriors. Set off bombs when the time is right, the bigger the better. Let your warriors know that every enemy they kill, even at the cost of their own lives, is a victory for the Empire.”

  The general looked doubtful, but he gave a head motion of agreement. That was all Mrastaran could ask. He would not punish males for their thoughts, as long as those thoughts didn't interfere with their duty. They could curse him in their mess all they wanted, as long as they didn't foment rebellion. Rebellion was the one thing he couldn't tolerate, and as much as he hated it, the old punishments were the best deterrent. A slow painful death in front of their fellows.

  “Set explosives wherever you can get away with it,” he lectured the general. “Whenever a number of them gather, set them off.”

  “And if none gather?”

  “Wait a sufficient time, then set them off anyway. Rattle their nerves with the blasts. If you take out civilians on those worlds, so be it. Then prepare to take out their medical and rescue personnel when they show up.”

  That was another thing he hated. The humans were merciful in their attention to the wounded, especially the non-combatants. His people weren't. They saw collateral damage as adding rations to their larders. He admired the humans for their attention to the helpless, and yet he was ordering them slaughtered whenever they showed up at a bomb site.

  He terminated the connection to call up one of his admirals, the one who was in charge of the Guerrilla campaign in space.

  “How goes it, Great Admiral?” he asked the male, one Hiistrara. The male had been languishing in duty occupying Imperial space that had no need for his innovative intelligence. Mrastaran had moved him into his present position, over another male who couldn't think his way out of his own house.

  “So far as well as can be expected, Supreme Lord,” answered the male. “The decoy ships have already taken out thousands of their marines, including some
from the allied nations.”

  That was good news. The enemy had taken to blowing his ships out of space, not bothering to board them. They would order abandon ship, and scan all life pods before ordering the occupants to evacuate in their suits, scanning those as well before letting them onboard a purpose built construct where they could divest themselves of their suits in an atmosphere. The then naked males would be searched again, under the guns of marines, and then allowed to board the enemy ships. They had smuggled some bombs aboard in the bodies of males, but the humans had thought of a way to prevent that after they had taken damage to some of their ships. Nanoprobes, injected into the bodies of the males, would search at the cellular level, and any male found to be harboring explosives was immediately terminated by the nanites.

  They had settled on another tactic. All of the warships in the Empire were built and crewed by Ca'cadasans. But those weren't the only ships in the Empire. Almost all the commercial and freight vessels in the Empire were of alien subject race construction. The Ca'cadasan males thought the running of such vessels as beneath them, so subject races that were trusted more than most ran those ships. They moved ore, food and finished products among the planets of the Empire. Most were interplanetary vessels, since most commerce stayed within the system. Only twenty percent, all larger ships in the millions of tons range, had hyperdrives.

  The shipyards of systems ahead of the human advance were working overtime to convert most of those ships to what the humans called Q-ships. Not able to take on a fighting vessel in a slugging match, they could get in a couple of licks to a warship before they were blown out of space. Or they could play helpless, let alliance marines board them, and detonate their antimatter stores, turning ship and invaders into a spreading cloud of plasma. The tactic wouldn't be effective for long. The alliance would quickly react, and start blowing the commercial ships out of space, often from long range and hopefully without allowing the crew to evacuate. And every ship they destroyed would add to the bad will they garnered in occupied systems.

  Pinpricks, he thought with a snort. The death of a thousand cuts. He didn't think any of these tactics would result in a victory in the end. All he could hope was that the humans grew tired of the war. If their allies left the alliance, the brunt of the deaths would fall on the humans, and they would have to tire of the slaughter even faster. Wouldn't they? Only time, and multiple millions of deaths, would tell.

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is the place?” asked Cornelius, looking over at Shadow, who was crouching by his side.

  “This is where the administrator of the nearby town said they would be,” hissed Shadow in a barely perceptible voice. “And I can smell them. Their stench is pervasive, and could only be made by a great number of the, big bastards.”

  Cornelius nodded, not doubting his friend for an instant. The native administrator, what would have been called a mayor in the Empire, had coughed up the information fast enough. That might have been suspicious in itself, only Cornelius had seen the reaction of intelligent beings to the bared teeth of the Maurid interrogators.

  The brigadier waved a hand in the air, letting the people around him know that they were ready to move. He had almost a hundred Rangers with him, and an equal number of the Maurids they had been training with. All were dressed in tough camouflaged skin-suits, able to resist low velocity pellets, as well as several seconds of laser fire and at least one of particle beam protons. They all carried rifles and pistols that used chemical explosives to propel their rounds. No electronics whatsoever, no signals to give them away to scanning sensors. Even the implants that every being in the company carried in their brains had been deactivated for this mission.

  The natives they had questioned had pointed them to this location, the entrance to a cavern system that the Cacas had converted into a barracks and armory. At least a couple of hundred Cacas, organized to supply and support the Guerrilla units that were scattered about the region. Most of the irregular soldiers were still loyal natives who could blend in, striking from the shadows and fading into the populace. It was a hell of a way to fight, but the combined human/Maurid units had been formed for just these kind of operations.

  “We move,” he said to Shadow, again waving a hand just high enough for the people around him to see. Those soldiers repeated the signal until it spread to the entire unit. Stealthy creatures born to it, along with the best trained humans in Imperial space, crept forward noiselessly, their augmented and natural predator eyes scanning a darkness made near bright as twilight.

  Cornelius felt more alive than he had in over a year, Hunter back on the hunt, going after the bastards that had been responsible for the death of his first wife. His rifle was across his back, secured tightly in place with quick release straps. His right hand gripped the hilt of his monomolecular blade, ready for some silent bloodletting.

  Sean would kill me if he knew I was doing this, he thought, a tight smile crossing his face. His friend and monarch had assumed that Cornelius would be involved in the intelligence gathering aspect of the mission. Not in the search and destroy portion. Since the monarch hadn't given a direct order for the Ranger to avoid this fight, he took that as permission.

  Something moved ahead, a great shadow in the night. It coughed, revealing its species. Only the Cacas on this world had such a deep cough, and the big clumsy creatures were terrible at staying quiet. Maybe in their native environment they had the skills of the hunter, but not in many other places.

  Other shadows rose up around the sentry, a human and a Maurid who had gotten within arms reach undetected. If the Caca had been scanning the night around him with his night vision gear he would have caught sight of them before they had closed. Unfortunately for the male, he had suffered from the normal inattention of a guard on long duty. The Maurid went for the throat, leaping up with fluid grace and clamping terrible jaws around the windpipe of the big alien. At the same time the Ranger sliced through the left leg of the Caca, starting him on a drop to the ground.

  Similar actions occurred in the night, all going perfectly, until the inevitable happened and a particle beam rifle went off in the hand of a dying Caca. Suddenly the night was lit by the flares of particle beam rifles basically firing at nothing, while the phutting of silenced rifles sounded underneath the buzzing of the heavier weapons.

  Cornelius lunged to his feet and closed the distance on a Caca who was focusing his attention the other way. A quick jab with his knife punctured the single kidney of the alien. He pulled and punched four times in a second, each driving his knife deep into the internal organs of the alien, who fell lifelessly to the ground in a heap. Shadow rose from the Caca he had killed, spitting out the blood that was fouling his mouth.

  In seconds the battle outside the cave was over, the outnumbered Cacas swarmed by a death they had barely acknowledged before it claimed them. Fire started reaching out from the cave entrance, and some few of the Rangers and Maurids went down. A trio of hard flung grenades, blasting the darkness with a flash of intolerable light and deafening noise, stunned those guardians and ended the Caca resistance. The combined force were on their feet in an instant and swarmed into the cavern.

  Cornelius was near the lead of the group that moved into the maze of tunnels. He knew he shouldn't be in that position, that it was important that he come out of this attack ready to work on the next. The Hunter couldn't help himself. His instinct was to lead from the front, taking the fight the the enemy with his most effective warrior, himself. Tossing a flash bang ahead, toward the tunnel junction with multiple defenders, he followed it up immediately with a fragmentation/concussion weapon. He gave it a second for the frags to clear, not wanting to run into the effects of his own grenades, then was on his feet and running flat out, flying into a staggering Caca and driving him off his feet. A quick slice with his blade and the Caca was choking out his life on the rock floor of the cavern.

  Cornelius rolled off the Caca, his right hand pulling his rifle from its elastic
strap and pulling it into position. The Caca he aimed in on had on full body armor, only missing the helmet he was trying to secure while at the same time firing his rifle. Cacas had four upper limbs, all equally dexterous, a sure advantage, but this one was shocked and confused, and both helmet and rifle were not cooperating. Cornelius shot the enemy in the face, the heavy round blasting through the skull and into the brain behind, dropping the Caca dead to the ground in an instant. The alliance rifles used an advanced smokeless flashless powder with little in the way of odor, which along with their lack of electronic signature, made them the perfect weapon for a fast moving commando force.

  Grenades, both thrown and rifle launched, took out most resistance along the way, and the defense of the shocked Cacas crumbled. The last Cacas were still struggling to wakefulness when the combined force overran the central chambers of the cavern system. The command cave was filled with electronics, the coordinating center of the resistance cells they had established in this region of the planet. Most of that equipment was captured intact, a windfall for the intelligence types who would soon be swarming through the cavern.

  “A good fight,” said the smiling Shadow after they cleared the cavern complex.

  Cornelius nodded as he took a deep breath. They had lost people, twenty-two dead, a dozen wounded. In exchange they had killed over three hundred Cacas. And had uncovered a mother lode of weapons and equipment, some of it made for Cacas, most built for the physiognomy of the natives of this world. Enough to arm thousands of them, and set scores of large explosive devices across the planet.

  “It was good to see the combined unit in action,” said Cornelius, patting his friend on the shoulder. “I will be sure to report back to training command.”

  “And will you tell your Emperor of your part in this night's operation?” asked the smirking Maurid.