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

by Doug Dandridge

  Move your ass, he thought of the time. But of course it didn’t listen to him, and ticked down in the manner of timers in this kind of gravity, slowly, one tick at a time.

  * * *

  “Everyone’s a go in my division,” said Major General Klash’tar, the commanding officer of the Phlistaran 512th Heavy Infantry Division. His division had been reinforced by a full brigade of the 25th Armored Division, while two of his battalions had been traded to that unit to make it, along with the reinforcement of the 47th Heavy Infantry Division, a more infantry heavy unit.

  “No checks down at all, Klash’tar?” he asked. It was almost unheard of to get near to one hundred percent, but it could happen. He wouldn’t blame the commander to not mention one or two suits that had been down checked.

  “None have been reported to me,” said the Division Commander, the view behind him of scores of armored Phlistarans shifting in place, obviously ready to take the bit between their teeth and go. “If there are any, I’m sure the armorers are hard at work getting it corrected.”

  Baggett almost asked if everything was topped off, but stopped himself before the question could leave his mouth. Klash’tar was a good officer, and he knew what to do. His soldiers were well disciplined.

  “We go in less than two hours,” he told the Phlistaran. “You know the mission, so I expect your Division to perform to standard.”

  “They will, sir. Don’t you worry.”

  Baggett nodded and switched the feed to another unit, this one a pair of human heavy infantry companies along with a company of heavy main battle tanks. The mirrored surface of a wormhole stood in front of the first rank of infantry, not large enough at the moment to pass a tank. But at the signal it would expand, as it would on the other end. The sun was going down on the location on the planet they were on. It would be coming up at this moment on the part of New Moscow where these people were heading.

  “You ready, Colonel?” he asked the Battalion Combat Team commander.

  “Ready and raring to go, sir,” announced that officer, his voice fraught with tension.

  Of course he’s scared, thought Baggett, pulling up the officer’s face on the holo. This kind of assault has never been done before. There is so much that can go wrong.

  It was too late to worry about all the things that could backfire, and all the damage such events could cause. He spent the time productively instead, talking to his commanders, making sure that none of them had last minute questions. And wishing that he could be with the first wave to hit the planet. He knew that last thought was stupid. He was a Corps commander, not a platoon leader, and what they needed on the ground first off were combat troops. He and his command team would come across when there was space available through the wormholes, and not before. He just hoped that things hadn’t gone completely to shit by that time.

  * * *

  “The first ships will translate to normal space in one hour and forty-three minutes, Admiral,” said Rear Admiral Lawrence Kelso over the holo. Kelso was the Emperor’s Chief of Staff, and had been assigned to the assault fleet as Sean’s liaison.

  Fleet Admiral Jerry Kelvin, looked at the tactical holo and verified that the force was arrayed how he wanted it. He looked back at Kelso, who he had made his own Chief of Staff as soon as he had come aboard the flagship.

  “How are the specials doing?” he asked Kelso, who had been put in charge of the new wrinkle they were deploying, one more thing for the newly promoted fleet admiral to worry about.

  “The frames are holding up just fine,” said Kelso, a smile on his face. “I guess the real test will come when we translate back into normal space and deploy them.”

  Kelvin thought about that for a moment. The frames were, at the moment, separated, attached to the pair of ships that would join them when they were ready to deploy. In tests the ships had been able to join and deploy the frame within minutes. But the system hadn’t been tested coming out of a jump. Deployment depended on the ships coming out in near proximity to each other. If they came out of hyper too far apart, it might take ten minutes or more to join the ships, and those would be minutes wasted.

  “I hope this works, Admiral,” said Kelvin, feeling the trepidation that most commanders felt when deploying what was basically unknown technology in a first battle situation. “With what we’re going to be facing, we’re sure to need for it to work.”

  Right now the holo, updated from information coming through the wormhole com, showed that they would be facing about four hundred enemy vessels soon after translation. They wouldn’t be within energy weapons range, which was a very good thing. But about half of the enemy ships would be able to hit them with missiles within twenty minutes or less. And within six hours the missiles launched by the ships coming out from the inner system would come streaking in. They would possibly be overwhelmed. That would still serve the primary purpose of the force, which was to distract the enemy ships from the inner system, focusing their attention on the oncoming invaders instead. But unless his force defeated them, they would head back in and take care of the force that would be in orbit around the planet supporting the ground forces.

  His own force might hurt the enemy enough that they couldn’t win the next battle in the inner system. But he would prefer if his force, including himself, were still around at that point.

  * * *

  “Let’s do a last systems check, people,” ordered Captain Beauregard Morris, checking the timer, then pulling up a diagnostic holo of the overall systems of the fifteen hundred ton fighter. The rest of the crew acknowledged and pulled up their own screens. They would do the individual checks of the systems they were responsible for, while he would do an overall check of how the systems were interfacing.

  Zokoku 1 was the only ship he was sure was going to be there in one hour and forty some minutes. He believed that the others would be there as well, but as they were all separated from the Universe in their individual warp bubbles he had no way of knowing the conditions of the other ninety-nine ships in his wing. They could have run through an uncharted meteor swarm and most of the other ships could be gone, plasma traveling at high velocity in the general direction the fighter had been going.

  Morris shook his head as he traced the command circuit for the forward laser ring. It did no good to worry about the things he didn’t have control over. That way lay madness. He had to believe that when they came out of the warp bubble the other ships would be there as well, and he would again be able to command his wing.

  All systems checked out. Now there was nothing to do but wait, wishing for the madness to ensue when they were flying through an enemy force that was trying to destroy them. That was the craziest thought of all.

  * * *

  “What do we have?” asked Great Admiral H’rastarawaa, sitting in his command chamber on the large station that orbited directly over the primary continent of New Moscow.

  “Eighteen hundred enemy ships,” said High Admiral Lisantr’nana. “I expected more. I don’t think I will have any problem handling them.”

  The Great Admiral looked at the tactical holo that showed the less than two thousand enemy ships moving through hyper I toward the system. He noted that most of the Ca’cadasan ships in the system were also now represented by vector arrows pointing toward the blinking icon that represented where the enemy force was being predicted to come out of hyper.

  The Great Admiral thought for a moment, wondering what the proper response would be. If ninety percent of the warships he had responded to this threat, he would be uncovering the other approach routes to the inner system. But if he didn’t send enough force to stomp on the invader, he was risking the ships he sent. And since he didn’t know that reinforcements were coming, he needed to preserve his fleet as far as possible.

  And if something else comes at us while the fleet is engaged with this enemy force, we still have all the humans on the planet as hostages, he thought. They didn’t dare strike at the planet as long as he had the lives of
over seven hundred million humans to bargain with.

  “Go ahead and take care of them as fast as you can, Lisantr’nana,” he told the other Cacada. He killed the holo and brought up the com link to the General in charge of the surface force on the planet.

  “My Lord,” said the General as soon as he saw who was on the holo. “What are your orders?”

  “I want you to prepare to wipe out the camps at my order,” he told the officer. “I do not want you to do this at this time, but the preparations need to be made. How long will that take?”

  The General scratched the base of one horn while he thought. “It will take time to kill all of the vermin if we approach it as males killing them with personnel weapons. We can do it faster with heavy weapons, but the most efficient way to destroy them is with kinetic weapons from space. After that, detonating multi-megaton warhead within the camps would be the most efficient manner.”

  “Prepare the warheads, just in case,” he ordered the General, thinking about the possibility of his orbital platforms being taken out. Not that he thought that possibility was likely. He looked at the tactical holo once again, thinking about what the most probable outcome of this day’s battle would be. He licked his lips as he thought about the reward he would receive from the Emperor for the defeat he was about to inflict on the humans.

  Chapter Fifteen

  You must all be aware that modern war is not a mere matter of military operations. It involves the whole strength and all the resources of the nation. Not only soldiers, but also all citizens without exception, take part.

  Chiang Kai-shek.

  NEW MOSCOW ORBIT, APRIL 8TH, 1002.

  “Zero,” shouted out the Tactical Officer as the timer ticked down the last second.

  Suttler stared ahead at the tactical holo. It was time for them to fire, but the other elements of the operation had yet to appear. He could look over at the tactical holo and see that the incoming fleet was still in hyper, coming close to the barrier, when it would have to jump, or crash into the limit and fall catastrophically into normal space. They had to come through very soon, or their part of the mission was over before it began. The inertialess fighters were also close to their entry point, at least according to the holo, that showed the projected position of the small vessels. Unfortunately, that projection could have little to do with reality.

  “All ships,” ordered the Commodore over the com. “Prepare to fire on my command.”

  “The Admiral is asking when we will be ready to deploy,” said the Com Officer.

  “Tell him that we are still waiting for the other deployments,” said Suttler, staring at the holo as if he could will everything to come. To deploy everything at the moment would be to reveal where they were, and that would soon be followed by an overwhelming attack.

  “The decoy fleet is starting its translation,” called out the Sensor Officer.

  The vector arrows of the leading edge of the incoming force changed color slightly, denoting their translation into normal space.

  “We’re picking up the graviton emissions of a hundred ships coming through,” continued the Sensor Officer. “More are coming through each second.”

  So they had the decoy force coming through, but still nothing from the fighter force. And the ground forces were ready to go, probably chomping at the bit, in danger of discovery the longer they waited.

  Suttler was ready to give the order despite the absence of the inertialess fighters when the first of them appeared.

  “We have twenty one sources appearing at four light seconds,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Velocity is point nine zero light, acceleration, one thousand gravities. Twelve more, sir.”

  “Fire,” yelled Suttler over the open com, the command going out to all of the vessels in his command.

  Seastag shook as her particle beam opened fire at the first platform on her targeting list. The particle beam was one of the modifications that had been made to all of the stealth/attack ships in his force. The particle beam was of similar class to those used by twenty million ton superbattleships, but were accelerated on space stations in orbit around the central black hole of the Supersystem. The ships went into almost full acceleration to maintain station against the push of the point nine nine five light beam of antiprotons coming out of the noses of the vessels.

  Kilograms of antiprotons hit the platform that had to mass about three hundred thousand tons, pointing its weapons at the surface of the planet below. It was caught totally flat footed, weapons powered down, cold plasma field dead. Not that the field would have done much good. The antiprotons slammed into the hull of the platform, imparting considerable kinetic energy that blasted the already exploding antimatter deep within the satellite. With a series of brilliant flashes the platform tumbled out of orbit, breaking up as it spun and flew away from the planet.

  Within five seconds thirty two of the platforms were gone, only nine remaining. Those nine started to turn in space, their cold plasma fields coming up as they tried to get into an orientation where they could hit the now visible stealth/attack ships. None completed the turn, as the particle beams ripped through the cold plasma fields and struck the hulls with almost as much force as had been generated in hitting the satellites without the defensive screens.

  As soon as the first beam was on its way each of the ships started to launch their missiles. Again, the ships had been modified, and another wormhole had been added to each ship, these linked to other stations where the missiles were pre-accelerated up to point nine light before shooting from the portal. As they left the ships the launching vessels imparted the targeting information to the weapons, which immediately began turning their vectors and headed for their priority targets.

  The Cacas were caught completely off guard, many of their ships crippled before they could get off a shot, some blasted to plasma. All major orbital platforms were gone, only the quartet of space docks and the two forts, including the massive primary, still there. The docks were fairly harmless, but were still targeted, while the forts were tough nuts to crack with their defensive weaponry.

  Suttler cringed as he watched two of his ships disappear from the plot, hit by enemy fire. Stealth/attacks were destroyer sized ships, and were incapable of handling much in the way of damage. A third ship disappeared, and Suttler held his breath as he made sure all of his special ships were still there. He counted all four, and went ahead to send the command for their next maneuver, the deployment of the wormhole gates that would bring their reinforcements to them. In minutes he knew that the ships that had been lured away would send volleys of missiles back at his force. They had maybe fifteen minutes before the missiles reached back to the planet, and there was no way his command could weather that storm. And there were still enemy ships, including superbattleships, in close proximity, and they were starting to power up their weapons and load missiles.

  * * *

  “Hi ho,” called out the Pilot as Zokoku 1 dropped its hyper bubble and the sphere of the planet appeared in front of the fighter.

  Morris smiled as he checked their positioning on the plot. He wasn’t surprised that they were where they were supposed to be as related to the planet. After all, they had one hundred percent accuracy in determining where something as big and steady as a planet would be at any given time. Where the enemy was, was another matter, since they could move unpredictably.

  It took several seconds for the tactical plot to update, and for all the ships in the wing to link in over the tactical net. And the targeting information loaded into the plot and each ship was assigned the most opportune target.

  “Setting ship on new vector,” announced the Pilot, accelerating the fighter onto the revised setting at twelve hundred gravities. A Caca superbattleship centered in the viewer, the HUD updating with its velocity, acceleration and vector as compared to their own.

  They were seven light seconds to the target, a little under eight seconds at their current speed. The Caca ship didn’t open fire on the swiftly ma
neuvering fighter until they were four seconds away. They launched four of their antiship missiles a second later, the weapons streaking off at ten thousand gravities, separating their multiple warheads less that fifty thousand kilometers from the target.

  Fifteen of the twenty-four warheads, each in the fifty megaton range, slammed into the superbattleship at point nine three light. The remaining warheads detonated in proximity kills, sending their heat and radiation into the enemy ship, or what remained of the enemy ship after the hits from the other warheads. What was left of that ship was several hundred fairly large pieces and an expanding plasma cloud. Internal antimatter breached and turned over half the intact pieces into more plasma.

  Zokoku 1 shook first from some near misses, then from the turbulence of the plasma she passed through as the superbattleship exploded. Warning klaxons sounded as red areas appeared on the ship’s schematic.

  “Forward grabbers down,” called out the Pilot. “Rear grabbers still online, but two are heading into overheated status.”

  “Engineer,” called out Morris, looking over at the tactical holo and noting with a sinking feeling that only fifty-eight of his ships had made it through the attack. The second wing appeared at that moment, and they were not in quite as advantageous placement as his wing had been. “Can you get the grabbers back online?”

  “I would have to say no to the forward grabbers, sir,” said that officer from the rear of the small ship. “They’re gone. As far as the stern units, I’m could try to reroute the cooling systems, but I’ve got something else to worry about at the moment.”