Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm

by Doug Dandridge

  “Don’t jinx us, XO,” said Mei, taking a meal in her cabin, trying to get some rest while she could.

  The ship was cruising through Hyper IV at point eight light, about as high as anyone wished to risk her with damaged electromag fields. But soon they would be back at a defended base, if it still existed. It has to still exist, thought the Captain, shaking her head. They couldn’t have conquered so far, so fast. She thought about that for a moment, wondering if that were true. The Ca’cadasans had been in the conquering business for ten thousand years. They had to be pretty good at it, having conquered half the Galaxy. But is that true? She remembered the maps of the Ca’cadasan Empire from the time of the Chase of a Thousand Years. And they had conquered the ten thousand light years since then. At most they controlled less than an eighth of the Galaxy, compared to the one hundredth of the Galactic Disk controlled by humanity.

  “We’re picking up hyper resonances, ma’am,” came the voice of the Assistant Sensor Tech.

  Mei noted that the voice was calm, so she suspected that they were not enemy that the resonance chamber was picking up.

  “Sounds like six hyper VI freighters and a pair of destroyers, ma’am” said the Tech. “On a heading out from Conundrum.”

  So they haven’t conquered so far into the Empire, yet, thought the Captain. Those freighters have to be on the way out to some forward system.

  The Captain pushed her half-finished meal away, put on her boots, and headed back to the bridge. She waved everyone back to their seats and headed for her chair, an idea in mind. “Com. Can we signal that convoy?”

  “We can grav pulse a signal that they will pick up, ma’am,” said the officer. “But we will only be able to flash simple code over it at this distance.”

  “Doesn’t do us much good,” thought the Captain, dismissing the idea of trying to get one of the destroyers to head back to base and let them know what had happened to Jean de Arc. And those freighters need their protectors.

  “We have a translation ahead, ma’am,” yelled out the Assistant Sensory Officer who was standing watch. “Nine degrees off the starboard bow at minus twelve degrees inclination. Range, twelve light minutes.”

  “One of ours?” asked the Captain, her heart pounding in her chest.

  “One of theirs, ma’am,” called out the officer.

  “We have missile launch,” called the Assistant Tactical Officer from his post in CIC. “Missile launched, heading our way at eight thousand gravities.”

  “I told you not to jinx us, XO,” whispered the Captain as alert klaxons sounded across the vessel.

  “It’s launched another missile,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  “Have you identified the ship?” she asked the Sensor Tech.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the Tech. “It’s a Ca’cadasan scout ship. The Chief’s here now, ma’am. I’ll let him take over.”

  “Good job, Petty Officer,” said the Captain, still glad that the most competent person aboard the ship was now on the job. Even as that thought went through her mind the Tactical Officer appeared on the bridge, running to his station and linking into his board.

  “Closing speed point eight one light,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Charging all lasers to full. Eta of first missile, fourteen minutes.”

  “What about the second missile?”

  “ETA fourteen point five minutes,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back at her. “Right behind the other. Two more launched.”

  If we were fully functional four missiles would be no problem, thought the Captain, trying to think of a way out, and finding none. Just have to hope we can stop them.

  “Enemy ship is trying to vector onto us,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “Will they be able to?”

  “Probably not, ma’am,” said the officer. “They entered hyper from an almost standing start. Their current vector is on a ninety-five degree angle to our path, and point zero five light.”

  “So if we get past them we’re free?”

  “They can still fire missiles at us, ma’am,” said the Tactical Officer. “They’ll be chasing us, and when they overtake they won’t have much in the way of relative velocity. And after an hour we will be out of range.”

  “So we only have to survive this volley,” said the Captain, nodding her head.

  “Which just grew bigger by two missiles,” said the Sensor Officer. “Six incoming.”

  Mei studied the plot, trying to think of some way to reduce the damage the missiles were sure to cause. “Power up the plasma torpedo.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” said the Tactical Officer. “You have a plan?”

  “Not much of one. But hopefully enough to help.”

  “Missile is entering beam range,” called out the Sensor Officer.

  “Tracking,” said the Tactical Officer. “Firing.”

  The fully functional laser A let out with a one second burst of light, tracking it across the path of the missile, which was now approaching on an evasive path. The first shot missed, as did the second, and the ship started pulsing the weapon in microsecond bursts, covering the possible approaches on a random pattern. A shot hit, and the missile flew a bit off course as hull metal vaporized. It tried pull itself back on course, and flew directly into another shot, losing more of its outer skin and falling further off course.

  “Take that,” yelled the Tactical Officer, getting lock on the now straight path missile. A laser shot out, full power, full one second duration, striking the missile dead on and exploding it in space. Antimatter broke containment, flooding space with radiation.

  “Electromag field is handling the radiation,” called out a tech on one of the ship defense boards. “Can’t say how long that will last, ma’am. The strain of handling the normal radiation of this place was bad enough.”

  “And that radiation will only last for about thirty seconds before it all falls back into normal space,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “Which really won’t do us any good,” said Mei in a whisper. “We’ll be through the cloud in a few seconds, but the damage will be done.”

  “Targeting second missile,” called out the Tactical Officer. Laser A started cycling through its firing sequence, trying to hit the moving target. The fully functional ship would have taken a single missile out in a moment, and only a saturation attack would have made it through. Now it had trouble with just the one.

  The second missile actually got closer to the ship before being taken out, and the radiation storm was much worse. The electromag screens took up most of the charged particles, but allowed the neutrons through, causing more damage to the ship’s systems and to the organics within.

  “Sensory skin degraded thirty-four percent,” called out the Sensor Officer.

  “Electromag field is at critical,” yelled the tech who was monitoring that system. “Working at twenty-three percent of optimal.”

  The next missiles came in as a pair, making it even harder to target them, especially with degraded sensor systems. The A ring brought one missile under fire, while the much reduced B ring fired at the other.

  “Fire plasma torpedo,” yelled the Captain, standing up from her seat. “Now.”

  The ship bucked slightly as it released ten tons of superheated plasma. It moved out at point nine light, a tenth of light speed faster than the launching ship. Its following capsule converted to energy as soon as it left Jean de Arc’s hyper field, it started to expand as soon as it left the launch tube, and a ton of it dropped out of hyperspace each second, turning it into a growing but evaporating ball. Still, it lasted long enough to hit one of the incoming missiles, which could not figure out how to avoid an object already twenty kilometers wide at that point. The closing speed of over point nine light shattered the missile as soon as it contacted the cloud. Antimatter hit matter plasma and released more energy, sending a flood of elementary particle into the near space.

  The Captain felt the sickness come on and knew that the ship was being filled with
killing radiation. A quick check of her implant showed that she had already taken a lethal dose, but that could be corrected, if they made it out of this mess.

  The second of the pair took a direct hit from ring A and exploded far enough away to do no additional damage. Which left the last two that were coming in. A ring tracked on one missile, missing multiple times before getting a hit. Not enough of one to destroy, just enough to cause the missile to lose lock for a moment. The missile reacquired, then was hit full on by another shot, blasting it out of space.

  The second missile avoided the weakened B ring. The pair of hits were too cursory and weak to do much to the missile, and it bore in to strike the ship on the upper hyperdrive projector. The weapon was not a capital ship killer, detonating with a mere two hundred megatons of force. The missile and three quarters of the projector went up in vapor, and the explosion ripped two hundred meters into the hull of the ship, stopped only by the underlying central capsule.

  The Captain was flung to the limits of the straps holding her in her chair, her armor absorbing much of the force. The telltale feel of a concussion rattled her mind, and she was confused for a moment, wondering what the loud warbling noise in the background meant. She cleared her head, still nauseated from the radiation sickness, and looked around the bridge at the confused crew.

  “Report,” she croaked, hoping she would get a reply.

  “We’ve been hit, hard,” said the Tactical Officer. “That last missile really knocked the shit out of us.”

  “I could tell that,” said the Captain, grimacing. “Medical. Emergency distribution of nanites. Now.” She could tell that some of her nanites, probably most of them, had been knocked out by the radiation storm. Medical would have shielded supplies, enough for the entire crew. And they needed them now.

  “Damage control,” she called out next, noting that her implant was not bringing schematic information into her mind. “What’s the condition?”

  “We have damage to all systems, across the board,” came the hazy voice of the officer in Damage Control. “Electromag still working, but the system is straining to handle the normal radiation load. Three quarters of our functional grabbers are down, and I’m not sure how many we can make operational. Hangars 1 and 3 have been obliterated, as have outer decks one through fifteen in the central dorsal region. Central Capsule B has a ruptured skin. And Laser B is totally inoperative.”

  My God, thought the Captain, putting her face in her hands. What will the butcher’s bill be? She looked back at the tactical plot, seeing another pair of missiles following them, and a minute back another pair. “Get on those repairs.”

  One of the missiles disappeared from the plot, and the Tactical Officer smiled. “Those following weapons are much easier to deal with,” he said.

  “Captain,” called out a strained voice over the com.

  “What is it, Engineer?”

  Lt. Commander Jose Hernandez hesitated for a moment. “The upper hyperprojector is completely destroyed.”

  “Can it be rebuilt?” asked the Captain, afraid of the answer.

  “There’s almost nothing left of the unit, Captain,” said Hernnadez. “Rebuild is impossible.”

  “It seems the other unit is keeping us in hyper,” said Mei, looking at her side viewer that showed they were still in the presence of hyperspace.

  “The one unit can keep us in hyper, Captain. That isn’t the problem.”

  “So what is the problem, Engineer?” said Mei, knowing that she was missing something, and with a foggy brain not able to figure out what it was.

  “It takes much more power to go in and out of hyper, ma’am,” said the Engineer, taking a deep breath before continuing. “We have enough projector power to maintain ourselves in hyper. But we cannot leave, except by catastrophic translation.”

  “Oh,” said the Captain, the predicament finally getting through to her. “And how long can we maintain our presence in hyper IV. I’m assuming it isn’t indefinite.”

  “No, ma’am,” said the Engineer. “We have enough antimatter to maintain ourselves in hyper for two weeks and two days. After that there’s nothing we can do to prevent our dropping back into normal space.”

  And we won’t survive another trip like that, thought the Captain. That first was a once in a lifetime chance, and we don’t get a second.

  * * *

  HYPER VII BATTLE CRUISER SIR GALAHAD, ON HEADING FOR CONUNDRUM. APRIL 11TH THROUGH 12TH, 1000.

  “You sure this is a good idea, Admiral?” asked Captain Stafford over the com, his worried face looking out of the holo.

  “You have a better idea, Captain?” asked Mara, locking eyes with the ship’s commander. “I don’t want to engage these people in hyper, where they have all the advantages. I would rather fight them in normal space, and a solar system gives us a chance to hide, or maybe to use some of the elements of the system to our tactical advantage.”

  “Not much of an advantage,” said Stafford, his expression showing his doubt.

  “As I said before, Captain, do you have a better idea?”

  “No ma’am.”

  I wish you had, Captain, thought the Admiral. Because I’m not really thrilled with this idea either.

  “How long till we can jump from hyper?” the Admiral asked her navigator.

  “A little over twenty-one hours, ma’am,” said the Navigation Officer.

  “Hopefully, they will think one of those two close stars ahead is our base,” said the Helm Officer, pointing to the tactical plot showing two gravity wells within a light year of each other.

  “And good thing they can’t detect normal space radiation in hyper,” said the Com Officer. “Or at least I hope they can’t.”

  And if they can we’re really screwed, thought Montgomery, staring at the black dots that represented the stars. Then they’ll know for sure there is nothing there. Nothing putting out energy other than the stars themselves. No com signals, or EM bleedoff from power plants and such.

  “Here’s something interesting, ma’am,” said the Navigator, switching the plot to a closer view. “There’s a small nebula ahead. About twenty-four light years. With a minor course correction we could move through it.”

  “Six and a half hours,” said the Admiral quietly. She looked back at the Navigation Officer. “How small?”

  “About seventy light days across, ma’am. It’s the remnants of an O star supernova.”

  Mara whistled at the thought. Sometime in the recent past, in the scale of Universal time, a star a thousand times more massive than the weaklings humanity was used to huddling around exploded in fury. Sending its gas out in a still spreading cloud, where new stars would someday birth.

  “And what good does that do us?” asked Sean, his voice strained. “We’ll be through that in no time.”

  He’s feeling all of that guilt at getting us into this situation, thought the Admiral. Well, good. He needs to remember that if he gets out of this, when he is making life and death decisions for others.

  “Remember your basic hyper theory, your Majesty,” said Mara, looking back at Sean. “Gravity?”

  Sean sat there for a moment thinking, then looked up at her with a smile on his face. “The gravity of the particles will interfere with our own waves. And they will have trouble tracking us through it.”

  “More important than that, your Majesty,” said the Navigation Officer, “is that we have that cloud plotted. And there are at least fifty wandering bodies in there that have been surveyed. Everything from large asteroids to a gas giant. We know where they are, and the Cacas don’t.”

  “Still take a lot of luck,” said Sean, his face clouded in doubt.

  “Have a better idea, your Majesty?” asked the Admiral. She waited a moment and no answer came. “I thought not. So that’s the intermediate plan. Until something better comes along.”

  * * *

  Sean looked at the real time visual of the nebula as they approached. He knew that in normal space it would look
like an incandescent cloud of gas, glowing from the light of nearby stars. The same stars whose planets the supernova had probably sterilized, making this a lifeless area of space.

  In hyper the cloud looked like a mass of darkened space in comparison to the red of hyper. There were some tendrils that were darker still. The combined effect of a supergiant stars worth of scattered matter, with not enough gravity in any one section to drop a ship out of hyper. But enough to cause interference with the gravity waves generated by a ship. The waves used by another ship to track them through hyper.

  The ship started to shake a bit, waves of gravity that were too random for the ship’s computer to completely smooth out. Not really a danger, but Sean was sure that it would be causing some panic among the civilians, who had never experienced anything like this.

  And with that thought he was heading for the lift, and for someone he hoped would be as glad to see him as he was to see her.

  * * *

  “Their signal is fading, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer, a look of confusion on his face.

  “How is that possible,” growled the Admiral, jumping from his seat to walk to that officer’s station.

  “I am not sure, my Lord,” said the panicked officer. “Their signal was steady up until a moment ago, and they had not changed their rate of deceleration.”

  “Com Officer,” yelled the Admiral, heading for that station. “Order all ships to accelerate until we catch their track.”

  “Is that a good idea, my Lord?” asked the Tactical Officer.

  “I will make the decisions as to what is a good idea or not,” growled the Admiral, pointing a pair of clawed digits at the officer. “I will not lose them. If we can’t find their base, then at least I will make sure they are destroyed.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer, and all others on the bridge stayed silent, lest they offend their leader, and possibly lose their lives.

  The minutes passed with still no sign of the enemy, the ships steadily piling up acceleration, trying to find them.

  “Look at this, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer, putting a view up on the screen. The space ahead looked darker than the surrounding hyper, with some darker tendrils scattered through it.