Exodus: Empires at War: Book 17: The Rebirth

by Doug Dandridge

  The missiles had been standing still relatively in space. His ships, unfortunately, had still been carrying a lot of velocity, though they had been at full decel, and now were doing even more. They could go into accel now, and start to change vectors, but even with emergency power it wouldn't make much difference. His ships were providing most of the closing speed, and the enemy missiles would be engaging at just under point nine light.

  His eleven battleship squadrons, forty-four ships, were arrayed in a series of mutually supporting diamonds. They were starting to maneuver themselves to get the maximum defensive weapons on the incoming missiles. The assault ships and transports were in as protected positions as he could ask, though still vulnerable. His forty eight light cruisers and one hundred and eighty destroyers were all in emergency boost, trying to get themselves into the paths of the missiles. The squadrons that had been on that forward flank were going to make it, while the others didn't have a chance.

  “Order light cruiser squadrons one, three, five, and seven to remain in their current positions,” he told his Klassekian com tech. “All destroyers along with them to remain in place.”

  “They won't do us any good where they are,” said the chief of staff.

  The battleship shuddered slightly, launching counters and offensive weapons set to detonate as close to the enemy missiles as possible. Enemy weapons were already falling off the plot. Lots of them. Enough? The next fifteen seconds would tell.

  “I suspect that there are more launchers out there, and I don't want the enemy to pull all my support out of position,” said the admiral by way of explanation.

  The chief of staff grunted, giving the admiral his point.

  * * *

  Commander Sheila Francois-Ramirez gripped the arms of her chair with her armored gauntlets as the destroyer Matt Murphy went into maximum boost. While she knew that most of the ship captains in the fleet didn't insist on their people wearing battle armor while not at battle stations, she had always been more cautious than most. Even more, now that she was a married woman, her spouse serving on the other front. Not one to make her crew do what she wouldn't, she stood all of her watches while moving into an unsecured system in her armor, only leaving her helmet racked.

  And how are you doing, Henri, she thought, picturing her husband in her mind for a second. Before their marriage they had served on the same ship. Promotions, followed by a request for permission to marry, had resulted in them being moved to separate commands. While she couldn't fault the logic, since a married squadron commander might hesitate to send the spouse into a dangerous situation, that didn't mean that she liked it.

  She had wanted to become a wife and a mother, but she was in for the duration of the war. No resigning commissions, no leaving the service, as long as humanity was in the fight of their lives. With the current casualties rates it was looking like the duration would never come for her, as it hadn't for so many others.

  Now she was trying to put her ship in the way of the missiles coming toward the fleet. It didn't look like she was going to make it from her current position. That brought feelings of relief and guilt. Relief that she wouldn't be in the way of those ship killers, missiles that deserved the name when it came to escort vessels. Guilt that someone else would be making the sacrifice.

  “We're receiving orders from the flag to remain in our current position, ma'am,” said the Klassekian com tech.

  Sheila let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't expecting the order she was hoping for. It was obvious the enemy missiles would reach their targets before she could do any good, and someone was thinking up there at the top.

  “We have hits on the fleet,” stated the tactical officer. “Three cruisers. Thirteen destroyers.”

  Bad luck, thought the commander, closing her eyes and saying a quick prayer. Over half of the incoming missiles had fallen off the plot, victims to counters, close in weapons, and the devastating shock of gigaton ship killers fired in a defensive role. More were falling off as she watched, until a couple of hundred weapons got into engagement range. All of those were gone in seconds, along with one battleship and two of the transports. The transponder on an assault ship started bleeping its distress signal, the sign that the ship had taken a near enough miss to cause considerable damage. A glance at the plot showed that it was no longer boosting. Never a good sign.

  “We have missile launch from the starboard side, thirty light seconds ahead. Ten thousand or more. ETA, thirty-six seconds.”

  “Move us into our defensive position,” ordered Sheila, her heart skipping a beat.

  Her luck had run out, and now she would be moving into the firing line. She reached up quickly to close the visor of her hastily donned helmet, then ran the suit diagnostics. Everything was in the green.

  “Launch counters. Maximum rate. And prepare to take incoming missiles under fire with beam weapons and close in guns.”

  She had given all the commands that would be needed for some time. Possibly forever. The ship was on its proper course, sending out packages of destruction to blow enemy weapons out of space. Now, once again, it all came down to luck.

  * * *

  Corporal Charles Han made his way down a corridor that was crowded with people trying to get off the ship. Most were spacers in their lighter battle armor. Easy to push aside with the heavy infantry armor. Those in engineering suits, as heavy as the infantry combat version, were much more difficult. Han felt bad pushing anyone aside, but to him the most important person to get off this ship was wearing his suit.

  “Imminent reactor breach,” came a panicked voice over the intercom. Some unfortunate sap who was staying at his station to help others to get off.

  Almost there, thought Han, looking at the schematic overlay on his HUD. Another thirty meters, then a left for another twenty, and he would be at the airlock. He hoped someone had enough sense to leave the lock open. Otherwise, there would be more wasted time trying to cycle through. Anyone going through would have to at least be in a skin-suit and helmet, or they would be going out into space just to die.

  The ship shook underfoot. The corporal had no idea what that meant, but shaking on a ship was never a good sign. He kept forging forward, reaching the turn and pushing that way. The ship was rumbling constantly now, and with his heart in his throat he reached the lock. Both hatches, inner and outer, were open, and people were flinging themselves into the blackness of space. As soon as Han was lined up he engaged his grabbers to full power, shoving the people ahead of him into space. With a thought he brought the suit to emergency boost, ten gravities, nothing really compare to everything else in space.

  Han turned in space so he could see the future bomb the ship was about to become while moving backwards. He had no idea how far he needed to boost, so he decided to keep it up until the ship exploded or he ran out of power. As he watched pods ejected from the ship. A hanger door partially opened, then stuck in place. Alloy puffed into vapor, illuminated by the red of the laser, made visible by the very materials they were vaporizing. After some moments the hatch half came loose and fell away, boosted by its own ejected vapor. Right on its heels came the nose of an assault shuttle, boosting as fast as it could into space. Four seconds later it was followed by another.

  I should have tried to get to the hangar bay, thought Han, a feeling of hopelessness settling into him. That might have been a good move. Maybe not, as everyone on the ship would be trying their best to make it to a pod or a shuttle. Assault shuttles wouldn't be the first choice, since they were not made for deep space, lacking the acceleration needed for vector changes that would get them to a habitable planet. The one thing they had going for them was toughness.

  Another assault shuttle poked its nose out of the bay. It was not to be, as the middle of the assault ship went up in a blinding bright flash, taking the shuttle with it. The bow and stern tumbled away, moments before the cloud of plasma at the center flashed into another blast. There might still be survivors on the two sections propelled away. O
r there might not. One of the shuttles that had escaped was now tumbling through space, hit by something.

  The space around was a light show of brilliant flashes, warheads detonated in the distance. Han cringed as he thought of what would become of him if one went off closer than a couple of kilometers. Nothing good, and his lifeless body might drift forever through space after such an event. There were other flashes, more colorful, the beams of lasers intersecting the gases released by the combat. If one of those beams, made to burn through hull metal, hit his suit, all that would be left would be a mixture of him and alloys spreading into a thin cloud of gas.

  So many things to kill me, he thought, grimacing. If he waited long enough the lack of air and water would do him in as surely as getting hit by a weapon. There was no way he could get to a planet, the one they had been heading for still hours away at his current velocity. If he did luck out and reach the world, the most likely result was burning up on reentry. Suits were made for atmospheric insertion, but he had none of the specialized equipment attached to make it.

  “Radiation alert,” said the voice of the suit computer. “Severe radiation impacting the skin of the suit. Bleed through will result in a lethal dose within twenty minutes.”

  “Direction of particles?” he asked, then gasped as the HUD showed it coming in from multiple angles. It made sense, seeing that there were so many radiation sources blooming all around. Warheads and reactors sending out waves of neutrons and gamma rays. He couldn't do much about the neutrons, but the charged particles were another matter.

  “Raise electromagnetic field to maximum,” he ordered. The field was not made for this, being more of a diversionary shield against lasers and particle beams. Since it was all he had, he would use it.

  “That will result in total loss of power in Four hundred and seventy-eight minutes,” said the computer.

  And the good news keeps a coming, thought the corporal. “Alert me when we are down to sixty minutes.” He wasn't sure if that would help, but it would at least give him a choice.

  A ship was streaking by, one of the battleships, a flash and it was gone, heading in the other direction. The corporal was not a spacer, but he was well enough read to realize that it was decelerating, while he was still coasting at his original velocity. He needed to reach a ship. Even a shuttle would do. If it didn't have the means or the room to allow him inside, he could at least latch onto the hull and let it carry him along. The suit had magnetic grapples in boots and gauntlets, and without any air resistance he could ride along no matter the velocity or acceleration. And take advantage of the shuttle's electromag field.

  He used the suit's sensor to check on anything moving around him. The ships he picked up were too far away and moving in the wrong direction. There was the one shuttle he had seen leaving the transport, moving away. And the two tumbling pieces of the assault ship, also moving away on separate vectors.

  The order was to not use the distress beacon right after leaving the ship, lest the Cacas come after him. No one wanted to be captured by aliens who would make one a meal. But if he didn't get help soon he doubted if he would. So he engaged the beacon, then started boosting toward the nearest section of the ship. It would take hours to reach it, and there was no telling what was still there. Still, it might provide a refuge, and that might was worth pursuing.

  * * *

  “Missile impact in fifty-four seconds,” called out the tactical officer of the Northrup.

  Captain Gail Merkle looked at the plot which was now showing those missiles, boosting to adjust their vectors to take her out. To logistics ships were with her, able to keep up since the carrier could do at best three hundred gravities. Behind her, warding her from harm, were the remaining five light cruisers and twenty-nine destroyers of the screening force. Along with two of their battleships. One of the capital ships was at almost full combat capability. The other had been hit hard, and was actually having trouble making as many gees as the carrier. Merkle had decided to throttle back just a bit so the battleship, the Oregon, could keep up. She doubted the extra acceleration would do that much for getting them away from the enemy, while the firepower of even a damaged battleship could make a real difference.

  She still didn't know what had fired on the force, and what might be there to come after them. Her own ship was a wreck, capable of three hundred gravities, leaking atmosphere from numerous holes. The hangar decks, the reason for being for a carrier, were for the most part gone, their fighters along with them. One hangar was still intact, though the hatch was welded shut, There were sixteen functional warp fighters in that hangar, and crews were down there frantically trying to free the hatch. Sixteen warp fighters might have not have seemed like much, not when they had almost five hundred before the attack. Still, they were a weapon to be added to the too few she had. The nine in the only still functioning hanger.

  “Any luck getting other fighters on the com?” she asked the communications officer.

  The tactical officer had suggested that one of the patrol squadrons might have survived, at least partially. If that was true that was more warp fighters, and she would welcome them with open arms.

  “Nothing, ma'am.”

  “Chief engineer here, Captain.”

  “Report.”

  “We're running on one reactor. Number two is just too unstable to trust at this time. I'm evacuating all of the antimatter back to containment vesicles.”

  “Any foreseeable problems?”

  “No, ma'am. We only need the one right now.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  There was so much that needed doing, starting with freeing crew that had been trapped in various compartments. Every one freed was another hand to put to work, if they weren't too badly injured. If so, they needed to get to med bay.

  “Rear screens are taking the missile storm under fire,” called out the tactical officer.

  Merkle looked on as more icons appeared on the plot, counters fired by all of those ships. Of course the logistics ships weren't firing. They would only open up on something that was an immediate threat. The carrier still had two laser rings and five counter tubes, and she was launching counters as fast as she could through those launchers.

  “Get some people on moving missiles from isolated storage to the working launchers,” she ordered. The captain wasn't sure that her ship would still be there by the time those counters were needed, but she had to operate from the assumption that moving them would do some good.

  The enemy missile swarm, about five thousand missiles moving at point eight light, started disappearing from the plot. Counters were making individual kills, while the detonation of ship killer missiles was taking out scores at a time. Then the enemy missiles hit the lasers of the screen, fired on spreads to take many engaged simultaneously. The enemy weapons continued on through the laser light for fifteen seconds, building up heat. Suddenly hundreds of missiles detonated, killing more of their fellows, and only a couple of hundred made it into engagement range, and into the millions of projectiles from the close in weapons.

  Then it was over, with a light cruiser and three destroyers turned into spreading clouds of plasma. More ships were reporting damage, including one of the battleships. Not enough to leave behind, and the force continued on.

  “We have ships boosting behind us. On a pursuit course.”

  “How many?” asked the captain, looking at the mass of icons that had just appeared.

  “Several hundred ma'am.”

  And the good news just keeps coming, thought the captain with a grimace on her face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go. Jean de La Fontaine

  “We've hit their logistics and carrier force, Supreme Lord,” said the grinning male on the holo. “Three of the four carriers were blown out of space. Along with all but two of their logistics ships. Three of those destroyed, based on the fury of the blast, were antimatter tankers.”

&n
bsp; “Very good,” said Mrastaran, looking over at the figure appearing on a second holo. “And no losses to yourselves, I see.”

  The Emperor had expected there to be none, considered they had blindsided the enemy. Still, things happened, and a lucky launch might have hit some of his own ships. So far, this was a total victory.

  “We are starting in pursuit of the remaining carrier, the two remaining battleships, two logistics ships, and a number of escorts. Based on the acceleration figures of that force, one or more ships were heavily damaged. My navigator estimates that we will catch them inside of five hours.”

  Mrastaran digested that data. The fleet could kill all of those ships at a distance. The one advantage of coming after them, of spreading the kills out over time, was those ships would be communicating back to their own base. The entire drama would have horrible effects on enemy morale, whose leaders couldn't miss the message that the Cacas were toying with them. He expected them to take countermeasure to avoid such situations in the future. The expected response would be for their leaders to concentrate forces even more, slowing their advance. That was the best outcome he could think of at this point in the war.

  “Be careful, Admiral Lokasure,” the Emperor cautioned. “Make sure you don't stick your head into a trap set by this retreating force.”

  “We will lead with our scouts, Supreme Lord. And screens will be searching our flanks. Unless they have something set up ahead of time there will be nothing to worry about.”

  Mrastaran had to agree with that. If the enemy hadn't known the attack would take place, how could they have anything in place to ambush his force. In the future that would be a concern, but not at the present time.

  “So far you have not hit their inner system force with the same results,” said the Emperor. “Oh, I didn't expect miracles there, since that is a strong force, and you are only hitting them with mines so far. Just try to hurt them as much as possible, without risking your own ships.”