Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.)

by Doug Dandridge

Missiles were most effective over distance for one reason, and one only. The longer they had to boost, the faster they were on the approach. Greater velocity made them both harder to intercept, and able to impart a more devastating kinetic impact. If they were chasing his ships, and his vessels were up to a high percentage of light speed, it would reduce the approach speed of the missiles, making them easier to engage and less devastating if they happened to generate a direct hit. It did nothing to reduce the effectiveness of the carried warhead, but you couldn’t have everything.

  An hour later the enemy ships were translating in, three thousand of them a light hour out from the hyper I barrier, two thousand right on the barrier. All fired multiple volleys of missiles at Glavin’s force, then the further force translated back into hyper while the nearer accelerated in at maximum, on the trail of the smaller Terran force. And chillingly for everyone aboard that force, over thirty of the ships forging inward were not Fenri, but Ca’cadasan.

  Moments later the images of the ships in orbit around the planet changed, turning from battleships and cruisers into merchant ships, miners, ore freighters, many vessels that were barely space worthy. And Glavin now saw how masterfully they had been suckered into this ambush. They could lose a third of the Terran invasion force in this battle, unless there were some miraculous maneuvers. Thanks to the wormhole com, the rest of the fleet would know what had happened. There would not be another ambush like this, but there would still be the threat of the combined Fenri fleet defeating the widely separated forces of the New Terran Empire in detail.

  * * *

  SECTOR IV.

  “And here we have the most recent maps of the surface of New Moscow,” announced the Lt. Colonel of Intelligence, her serious face looking out over the auditorium that seated all of the battalion commanders, brigade commanders, division COs, as well as the three lt. generals and full general that commanded the upper echelons of the army tasked with taking the planet.

  “Note the hardened bunkers in these barracks, most of which are built close to the camps.”

  Baggett did note them, and in his mind they were one of the things that made this entire mission a gold plated bitch.

  “Why can’t we hit them with kinetics before going in?” asked a battalion commander from the Phlistaran division of Baggett’s corps. “It would be a lot easier than trying to take them by ground assault.”

  “It is thought that the use of kinetic weapons powerful enough to defeat the bunkers would prove much too harmful to the human civilians, many of whom are within a few kilometers of the target zone.”

  The big Phlistaran Lt. Colonel nodded his massive head. It was easy enough to forget, when your own species massed a half ton and was covered in armor plate, that humans were much more fragile.

  “Surely we can hit them with something that leaves the captives untouched,” said a human brigade CO. Baggett was glad to see it wasn’t a man with one of his divisions, since to him it seemed like a very stupid statement. The Intelligence Officer must have thought so too, but couldn’t say such to full bird colonel.

  “Give them a demonstration, Huan,” ordered General Lucius Arbuckle, the Army commander.

  The almond eyed woman gave the four star a slight bow, then started punching up commands on her flat comp. The holo changed to view one of the bunker complexes. It was laid out much like a human camp of that type would be, with a high berm wall and weapons towers on each corner. Within the camp were a couple of administrative buildings above ground, three large heavy structures that were the entrances to underground garages. Six smaller structures were arranged closer to the center, the entrances to the underground bunkers that housed barracks and armories.

  “The surface structures are of course armored,” said Huan, her laser pointer landing on one of the administration buildings. “Nothing that a modern infantry borne heavy weapon couldn’t handle. The entrances to garages and bunkers are something different altogether.”

  The holo showed a simulation of an infantry launched antitank weapon striking one of the admin buildings and blasting a large hole in the side. The same kind of weapon then struck one of the bunker entrances. There was the same kind of explosion, but not more than superficial penetration. One then hit the door, blasting a hole through.

  “Now, unfortunately, blowing a hole through the door will not cause any significant damage to the underground structure. To do that will take something much more powerful.”

  The holo showed another weapon coming in at slow motion, striking the hardened structure, and seeming to blot it out in a flash of bright fire. When the fire cleared, there was a large hole, almost the whole side of the structure, showing.

  “This would do enough damage that there would be significant casualties down below, possibly total.” The holo zoomed out to show the camp at a distance, along with the edge of the human enclosure. The fireball rose from the strike, spreading out, burning through vegetation while it rolled toward the enclosure. Tents flared into fire and dissolved to nothing, while representative humans became torches that fell to the ground, twitching for moments before going still.

  Baggett knew this was only a simulation. But it was a realistic simulation, hitting him right in the gut.

  “As you can see, a weapon that would destroy one of the bunkers would also cause significant damage to the nearby camp, and its inhabitants.”

  “What about dropping individual bunker busters on each one?” asked another officer. “You know, localize the damage to the underground region?”

  The holo moved in again, the enemy camp miraculously restored. A bunker buster round, a long rod penetrator, came down on the top of one of the structures and disappeared in a spray of dust. An explosion rose through the hole, the sign of the fury of what was going on underground. This time the explosion was contained enough where the human camp was not damaged.

  “Unfortunately, it will take seven of these to take out the one camp, and we have limited orbital support at the initial stages of the mission. So, while we might be able to do some damage, we will not be able to take out the entire camp. So, if we drop a heavy nuke or antimatter weapon.”

  The holo changed again, another flash, this one much larger than any previous. Again the fireball rose, and the heat wave rolled out, and a large section of the human camp burned, while the rest was battered with the blast.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we really don’t have much choice in the matter,” said General Arbuckle, standing and sweeping the room with his gaze. “We are going to have to take these camps by close assault, or at least bottle up the troops inside them so they can’t interfere with our evacuation of the civilians.”

  “We’re going to take casualties,” said Major General Kristoff Parker, one of the division commanders of the other corps. “More than I want to think about.”

  “That’s what they pay us for, boys and girls,” said Arbuckle with a tight smile that held little humor. “We’re soldiers, and it’s our job to do the bleeding, so the civilians don’t have to. Make no mistake about it. There are going to be casualties. Among us, hopefully more among the Cacas, but also among the civilians we are there to rescue. All I can ask anyone here, and all those under your command, to do is your best. Now let’s get to our dispositions.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Huang, as the holo changed again to a view of the major hemisphere of the planet. “Each of these camps will have a combined arms battalion assigned to its assault. Each assault force will comprise a full battalion of infantry, an armored company, and a company of armored engineers.”

  Twenty-five of the camps started blinking on the globe, leaving three that weren’t. “The rest of the Army will be held in reserve so that they can be reinforced if necessary. We will use two wormhole gates at each camp. A company of Rangers or Force Recon will also be on site for each camp, and will coordinate with the assault team commanders. ”

  “What about the three camps that aren’t blinking?” asked Baggett, staring
at that section of the map.

  “Those camps will be handled by special ops. We’re trying something new there. Hopefully it will go as planned.”

  Baggett knew how that went. Some genius had come up with another plan, one that would bring glory to his part of the service if it worked. And which would result in a bloodbath if it didn’t.

  * * *

  Seastag sat in space fifty-four million kilometers from New Moscow, three light minutes. Or, more accurately, it was in an orbit of the star at that approximate distance from the planet, watching as the world caught up to the straight line that would occur between it and the sun in two and a half days. It sat there like a small asteroid, radiating almost nothing. Unlike an asteroid, it was also reflecting nothing.

  Commodore Bryce Suttler sat in his command chair, looking at the tactical holo that showed the enemy shipping that was not coming closer than two light minutes to any of the ships under his command. Four squadrons of Stealth/Attack ships, eight vessels to each squadron, for a total of thirty two of the craft. Each had deployed two wormholes to the planet, while Seastag and three other vessels, Grampus, Orca and Cachalot, held the semi collapsed framework of a wormhole ship gate on their hulls. Each gate had all the carbon alloy framework and negative matter it would need to expand into a full sized ship portal. All it would take was time, and hopefully he could deploy all of the gates before they were noted by the enemy. It all depended on so much that was beyond his control. That was something that every naval officer was faced with in his or her career. They never had to like it, but they did have to acknowledge it.

  The tactical holo also showed the location of all of his vessels, transmitted through the wormhole com net. Unlike any time in history, ships could sit within enemy territory and communicate with each other, without that enemy knowing.

  Sixty-two hours before this part of the operation went down. Sixty-two hours. The time couldn’t go by fast enough, when, despite their stealth advantages, they could still be discovered by fluke chance on any tick of that clock. The wait was nerve wracking, and though he wouldn’t have believed it, the action would have to be a letdown after the tension of waiting.

  Chapter Eleven

  Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

  Sun Tzu.

  NEW MOSCOW PICKET, APRIL 6TH, 1002.

  “Oglethorpe is picking up multiple contacts in hyper VII, on a direct heading for New Moscow,” called out the Com Officer on the bridge of the light cruiser Orleans. “Range, four light years in normal space. Estimated pseudospeed, thirty-eight thousand light speed.”

  “How many contacts?” asked Commodore Natasha Romanov, pulling herself out of the bed of her day cabin and ordering the tactical holo to come alive over her desk with a thought. She zoomed out on the holo until the first of the red vector arrows that indicated enemy shipping appeared on the three dimensional display. She zoomed further out until she reached the edge of the net’s sensor range for vessels in hyper VII traveling at their velocity.

  “They’ve counted a hundred and forty-seven so far, ma’am. A hundred and sixty-three. More keep coming. Ma’am.”

  “I’ll be up in a moment,” she said as she pulled on her shipboard skinsuit. It took a moment to pull on and seal the boots, then pull her belt on and click it closed. Then she was out the door at a run heading down the corridor to the bridge.

  Unlike Imperial ships, Republic vessels didn’t station Marines at the entrance to vital command centers or the commander’s quarters. They did have automated ID systems that saw she was someone authorized entry, that she was not under duress of any kind, and the door opened for her.

  “We’ve counted over five hundred of the vessels, ma’am,” reported her Tactical Officer as she headed for her chair and flung herself into it.

  “I assume we’re letting the net commander know what’s going on?” she asked her Com Officer.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the Com Officer, looking back at the Commodore for a moment before turning her attention back to her board.

  Actually, the information was not just going to the net commander, since it had to first be transmitted by wormhole com back to the headquarters of the Republic Navy, which sent it to the Imperial communications net and then on to the Imperial Fleet cruiser which commanded this screen. All of those would be monitoring the incoming coms, and every major command in the sector would know about the Cacas as soon as everyone in the screen did.

  The ships in the screen did what they were supposed to, nothing but sit there and keep track of what was coming through their space. They had the capability to launch missiles that could translate from normal space into hyper VII, but the command had not come down to do so. Higher command must have thought it was more important to remain unseen and unknown than to try to pick off some few of what looked to be a massive enemy force.

  An hour later the last enemy ship had passed, and the final tally had been sent up the line. Over three thousand vessels, the great majority of them warships. Eight hundred of the huge superbattleships, another eight hundred of the supercruisers, along with sixteen hundred of the large scout ships. All headed for New Moscow as far as they could tell from their current heading.

  “Where in the hell did they get a force like that?” asked the Tactical Officer, looking back at the Commodore.

  I wish I knew, was her thought. They thought they had routed the enemy force in this space, except for what remained in the remains of the Kingdom of New Moscow. And as far as they knew, the Cacas hadn’t had any fresh forces close enough to deploy this quickly.

  “How long until they reach New Moscow?” she asked her Navigation Officer, well aware that the operation concerning that world was kicking off in two and a half days.

  “Five days, ma’am,” said the Navigation Officer. “Which means..”

  Which means they’ll get there while the operation is still going on, thought the Commodore, and well before the battle fleet arrives. And that could spell disaster for the civilians.

  * * *

  PLANET NEW MOSCOW.

  “There,” said the Intelligence Officer, looking through the tiny wormhole as the operator maneuvered it through the camp. The wormhole was actually hanging in the air, twenty meters above the ground. It was only a centimeter across, floating on a micro-grabber that was not detectable against all of the background noise the Cacas were generating themselves.

  The view had been grim, row after row of tents with starving people sitting on the ground in front of them. It was not yet curfew, so the inhabitants were forced to be out in the open. They watched as the meager rations were served. And people wolfed down the insufficient food. The Cacas were only interested in keeping the people alive so they would still be fresh meat when they were processed.

  They had been looking for certain people, those who had been members of the military prior to the invasion. There were not as many as predicted, and after watching the Cacas move through the camp and harvest the people the Imperial operatives could guess why. The Cacas had everyone marked, and anyone who was reported as a trouble maker or agitator was killed and taken for processing.

  But now they had spotted one who had been a colonel in the New Moscow Army, Pietrov Gorbunov, who appeared to be laying low and not letting himself be marked for early termination. The same kind of surveillance was being done on all the camps, hoping for the best.

  “Get the operatives ready,” said the Intelligence Officer. “I think we have a go.”

  Moments later the four members of the resistance that had been assigned this mission came into the chamber, looking wide eyed at the scene being shown on viewer. The three men and a woman were all thin, if not quite on the same level of starvation as those in the camp. They wore the same dirty rags of clothing that the inmates of the camp wore, dirt was caked under their fingernails and in the crevices in their faces.

>   “We located Gorbunov in this camp,” said the Intelligence Officer to Sharon Vakhrusshev, the leader of the party, and a former intelligence operative for New Moscow. “That was one of the people you named as a possible contact.”

  “Yes, it was,” said the woman in a voice that vibrated with nervousness. She looked over the man’s face on the viewer in the scene it had captured of him before it panned the area around the man. “I can only hope he hasn’t changed, that he still has the spirit to resist.”

  The Commander nodded as she looked at Vakhrusshev. All of these people, what there was of an underground, had escaped the clutches of the Cacas and somehow survived on the planet. It was asking much to ask them to give themselves into captivity, even if it was supposedly a hidden deployment. If the Cacas decided to check their chips they would be found to have none, and that would raise questions that would probably lead to their deaths. And if the man they were being sent to contact had sold out for the chance of a longer life, they would also be dead.

  “Is the mission still a go, Senior Agent?”

  Vakhrusshev looked over at the other people in her group. All were augmented, and even if not in full flesh, they were stronger and faster than unaugmented humans. Rangers or Naval Commandos could be sent in if the New Moscow team refused to go, which was their right, as they were not under the Imperial chain of command, and they were volunteers. The biggest problem was that Imperial special ops would look out of place with their muscular, well fed bodies.

  “It’s a go,” said the Senior Agent after getting the head nods from her people.

  The Intelligence Officer nodded, then looked back at the rating who was operating the wormhole’s propulsion systems. Once the team was through they would be out of touch with them while they moved the wormhole back to its pre-assault placement. They had working implants, and would be carrying transmitter amplifiers that would be off until needed.