“Something like this happened during the initial testing,” answered Lucille Yu, staring at some holos that appeared in the air to her front. “We normally only run the generation protocols for three and a half minutes, then power them down until the next event. We produce a wormhole every forty-eight minutes during a normal day.”
Sean checked the time on his implant. They had been running the dynamos for five and a half minutes so far, full power. Two minutes past the sweet spot.
“Well, do something,” yelled McCullom, glaring at the director.
“Short of shutting it down, there's really nothing we can do,” said Yu, shaking her head.
“Will it hold together?” asked Chan, looking decidedly more nervous than Sean had ever seen her.
“It should.”
Too many damn shoulds, thought Sean, grimacing. The station had to hold together. It had stood the detonation of several quarkium devices. A little shaking shouldn't do much. If it did, if the station fell apart, they would not only lose that fleet in Pleisia space, they would have lost the most vital resource in the Empire. And they couldn't replace it, not in anything less than a hundred years. Maybe a little less, the second time around. They could still make wormholes, just like the Cacas, the Elysium Empire, the Crakista, even the Klavarta. Maybe a couple a day if they converted a number of supermetal production sites over to making wormholes.
Every one was looking his way, waiting to hear his decision. Another one that could cost many lives if he made the wrong one. Including his own.
“Keep it running,” he said through his gritted teeth. “It's march or die time, ladies and gentlemen.”
There were some confused looks in the room at that last statement, though all the military people understood. This was the time to dig in their heels and fight, no matter the consequences.
* * *
Grand Fleet Admiral Jrasstra Klanarat stared at the viewer in shock as his ship tried to shake itself apart around him. He had protested when the additional electromag projectors had been added to his ships, and the laser emitter power feeds were rerouted. His protest had been acknowledged, but the orders stood, and he found himself bringing a force into an action he had not been fully briefed on.
If I knew it was going to be this madness I would have resigned, he thought as he gripped his chair arms.
The admiral, along with all the crews of his ships, was in full battle armor, the suits filled with the same oxygenated liquid that filled all the crew compartments of the vessels. He could see that he was still being exposed to heavy radiation, though the liquid environment helped to absorb some of the neutrons. He knew it had to be worse on the Imperial, Slarna and Gernas ships, which didn't have that extra particle shielding. Plus the Alphas, having been engineered for space, were much more rad resistant. Still, if he continue to sit through this kind of radiation exposure even his own people would start getting sick.
“How much more of this do we have to endure?” asked Captain Freedrich Gammara, Klanarat's chief of staff, his voice bubbling in fear.
“I, don't know,” stammered the admiral, closing his eyes and mumbling a quick prayer, then opening them to stare at the massive lightning storm playing over the graviton shield all the way to his own flagship's electromag fields. But whatever the plan was, it doesn't appear to be working. If we survive this, and the Imperial Admiral doesn't, I'm taking this ragtag fleet over.
* * *
Admiral Mara Marie Montgomery sat in her flag bridge command chair, gripping its arms just as tightly as if she were in the middle of the storm, and not six light hours away. Eventually that deluge would reach her, but it would have spread so far by that point that her electromag fields would fend it off without problem.
Dammit, Beata. Why did you have to go along with such a crazy plan? Beata was more than her superior officer. She was a mentor, and a friend. And she was sitting in the center of a hell-storm, and Mara should have been beside her.
Instead, she had been given a heavy cruiser as a temporary flagship while all of her battle cruisers had been reassigned to Beata's main fleet. The admiral had need every heavy ship she could get her hands on, which in this case meant everything over four million tons.
The reason for the reassignment had been given as the need to keep an Imperial officer in command if something happened to the grand fleet admiral. If something happened to all the alien commanding officers, some of whom were still aboard their flagships in the center of that storm. It would have made sense to assign some of them to smaller ships so they wouldn't be sitting on the bullseye, taking them off of their flagships. Operational security had made that impossible.
Mara smiled briefly as she thought about the howls of protest that would be raised by the allied governments on this front. If the plan worked, the howls would eventually die down. If it didn't, and the hearts of the allied fleets were vaporized, those governments would withdraw from the alliance. Not that it would make any difference, since they would then have nothing to offer. A cold equation that made Mara uncomfortable, and hardened her resolve to not rise to the position where she had to play such political games.
“Report.” she ordered, looking over at her com officer. Of course her ship had a wormhole, so she had instant com back to the Donut, and through it to Beata's fleet.
“There's a lot of chatter over the com, ma'am,” said the young officer, his face scrunched up in concentration. “People panicking. I'm trying to cut through it.”
“My siblings on the fleet are also near panicking,” said her Klassekian com tech. “Only our link is allowing them to keep it together as much as they have.”
Shit. This is not good. If the highly discipline spacers, who could keep it together through the storm of battle, were about to lose it?
Mara herself felt as if she were about to lose it. In any battle she had ever been in she would have been able to do something to try and salvage the situation. Move through hyper to catch the attention of an enemy. Interpose her ships and their defenses between an aggressor and his target. Let off streams of missiles. Here she could do nothing that would help in the least. It was a feeling she didn't like one bit.
* * *
“How much longer?” shouted Beata over the roaring in her ears. She wasn't sure if that background noise was real, or a result of the shaking she was receiving. It felt like the ship was plunging into atmosphere. There couldn't be that many particles making it through the graviton screen, could there?
“Four minutes, ma'am,” reported Chin, still maintaining his calm, or at least the facade of such. “Eight at the outside. We're not really getting all that much of it. Maybe three percent.”
Three percent, thought the terrified fleet commander. She could only imagine what ten percent would do. Fifty. All of it.
“Radiation levels are climbing,” called out one of the sensor techs.
“Some of the neutrons are making it through the shield,” stated Chin, his own voice cracking slightly. “And of course those are blasting right through the electromag fields.”
“All ships are to inject as much cold plasma into their fields as they will hold,” ordered Beata.
That was a last resort measure. The ships only carried so much of the gaseous plasma, chilled to near absolute zero and stored in special containment vessels. Cold plasma could absorb the energy of lasers, and stop most neutral particles. It would heat up after some exposure, until it itself posed a threat. At that time the electromag field would release it and more plasma would be ejected, until there wasn't any left.
“Radiation levels are stabilizing,” called out the sensor tech that was monitoring the flux.
“Projectors two and five are overheating, ma'am,” said Chin. “We need to shut them down for a moment.”
“And then we fry? No thanks. We ride the odds.”
She made her decision. If they left those overheating projectors up and running they might fail within the event time frame. If she shut them down, more par
ticles would come sleeting through, and all of her people would die.
And then the decision was taken out of her hands.
* * *
Great Admiral Mrastaran stood in front of the viewer, watching the take they were getting from the system. An image of what had occurred over six hours before.
“They have erected wormhole gates, my Lord,” said Trosara, stating the obvious. “Six of them.”
“Yes. But what in all the hells are those things?” asked the great admiral, a pair of right index fingers pointing at the viewer.
Large objects, each the size of a large capital ship, were coming through each of the gates. One after the other until scores had come through each, with more following. Heavy push tugs started to maneuver the sections, for it was obvious that they were part of some larger construct, into position. Smaller machines, or were they vessels, darted in and started making connections. As soon as two sections were connected the were pushed together and the engineering machines welded them together.
The constructs started to grow, quickly. This was obviously a well practiced maneuver. The great admiral couldn't figure out what they were for, but the humans wouldn't have brought them into that space unless there was a good reason. But what?
* * *
“Perhaps we should evacuate the station,” said Baron Hauser, his face a shade of pale associated with illness.
“We have over a hundred million people on this station,” replied Director Yu.
We really didn't think this whole thing out, thought Sean. The station was crowded with life. Every intelligent species in the Empire, and from most of the allies, were aboard the station. Engineers, technicians, com experts, scientists, security. Also the representatives of every major and many of the smaller corporations of the Empire. Every shipping concern. But then it would have taken weeks to move them all off, the same time to move them all back. If that had been a consideration, this operation would have been stillborn.
The look the baron shot the Emperor let Sean know the man was thinking the same thing. It had seemed so simple, the risk to the station so minuscule as to be almost non-existent. He still didn't think that the structure was in any danger, but all the trillions of tons of vital equipment was another thing altogether.
“We just lost thirty-one percent of the superconducting runs, ma'am. Switching power to the other runs.”
“Which puts them at risk,” said Yu, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“I thought these were high temperature superconductors?” asked Duke Taelis, one of the two people in the room who didn't have to worry about their own safety. That he and Len were still worried was a given.
“They are high temperature superconductors, your Grace,” replied Yu, her eyes still locked on the readout holos in front of her. “But running them at ten thousand degrees makes them failing superconductors. Rerouting through the rest of the network. And we have sixteen percent capacity back.”
“We just lost shield projector five, ma'am,” came the voice of Admiral Chin over the com. “That gives us only four to work with. I'm boosting the power on one and two, but need you to adjust the laser feeds to them from the inoperative projectors.”
“Will do,” said Yu without argument. How could she argue with the man on the spot. There was no time for debate, only for action.
“Shield is firming up, but it won't last for long,” shouted Chin.
“How much longer is this going to last,” shouted Lord Tlisha, his basso voice hitting a high note that Sean had never before heard from the massive Phlistaran.
“Two more minutes,” said Chin, his voice cracking. The man was definitely sounding ill, and Sean had to wonder how much radiation the people out there were absorbing.
“We just lost another superconductor run,” called out the voice of the station's chief engineer. “Rerouting. We'll have the power back in thirty seconds.”
And how many lapses will they survive? thought the Emperor, forcing himself to remain silent. Nothing he said now would be of any use, and might prove to be a distraction the working station personnel didn't need.
Hold on admiral, he thought, his eyes moving from viewer to viewer, trying to take in too much. He had felt this helpless before, but thought once he assumed the throne he would never feel that way again. And now he was finding out how wrong he had been.
* * *
“Radiation levels reaching lethal levels,” said the soft computer voice in the admiral's suit. “Recommend leaving this area immediately.”
If only it was that easy, thought Beata, grimacing. Her stomach had turned, and she was on the verge of vomiting in her armor.
“Admiral,” came a voice over the com. “Commander Levitt here.”
“Shit.” Beata knew what the ship's chief surgeon was going to say. And she didn't have a good answer for the woman.
“I'm receiving reports from all over the ship of people collapsing. We need to get out of this rad storm, now.”
“And how do you suggest we do that, Commander. If we move we're dead.”
“We might be dead if we don't move.”
“Might versus will be. I'll have to take the might. Just be ready to move out and start treating people as soon as this is over.”
“The particle storm is starting to fall off, ma'am,” said the sensor officer. “Down to seventy-two percent. And falling rapidly.”
“We're showing overheating on projector five,” called out Admiral Chin.
Shit. Bad news follows right on the heels on the good. Beata wasn't sure what the long term physical effect of this day would be. What she did know was she was going to have nightmares about this nightmare for months on end.
“Particle density down to forty-one percent.”
“Nanite immune system offline,” said the computer voice. “Massive cellular damage detected.”
Beata's vision started to blur. She wondered how the people closer to the outer hull were reacting. There weren't supposed to be many out there, most having been ordered to take cover deep inside the ship, Those required to work out there were clad in engineering armor, with two hundred percent better rad protection. Still, they would be getting many more rads, so that might not be enough.
All citizens of the Empire had nanites within their bodies, both the smaller mechanical type and the slightly larger biological kind. It protected them not just from all known contagions, but any conceivable germ. They also repaired cellular damage, such as that caused by radiation. However, too many fast moving particles sleeting through the body and the nanites took damage as well. By this point there were probably less than ten percent of the initial nanite contingent still in the bodies of any crew, and they would soon be suffering the effects of rad damage without the ability to recover.
Here we go, was the last thought she had before the vomit came rushing up her throat and she sprayed the inside of her helmet. Normally the suit nanites would handle that, but the suit nanomachines were also on the decline.
“Particle density down to twenty-three percent,” said the sensor officer, retching with every other word. “I'm sorry ma'am.”
Beata wanted to tell the young man that it was okay. That she was proud he was still doing his duty. But she was too sick to push out the words.
“We're up to one hundred and twenty percent of capacity on the remaining projectors,” said Chin, coughing out the words.
Beata looked at the screen, still showing the arcing lightning of charged particles interacting with the ship's electromag field. It was beautiful. What she didn't see were the neutral particles that were sleeting through the fields and into the armor. Most were stopped by that armor, but many were flying through to continue on into the crew.
Had the ship's shaking declined, or was she imagining it?
“Particle density at nine percent and falling fast.”
“We're going to make it,” said Chin in a whisper.
And how many of us didn't she thought as her vision blurred o
nce again.
“Five percent.”
“It may take its time dropping from here on,” said Chin, huffing out a breath of relief. “But it's essentially over.”
“Get those nanites distributed,” said Beata over the com, just before her vision went black and she knew no more.
* * *
“Powering down,” called out the chief engineer.
It took several seconds, but the vibrations ramped down until they were gone.
“What is the status of the fleet?” asked Sean, closing his eyes and trying to eject some of the stress that was overwhelming him.
“The fleet's still there, your Majesty,” said McCullom, her eyes closed as she linked with the fleet com net through her implant. “But we're getting reports of significant casualties.”
“Can you get Admiral Bednarczyk on the com?”
“She's listed as one of the casualties, your Majesty.” said McCullom. She grimaced as she listened to further reports. “Admiral Klanarat is temporarily in charge.”
Sean didn't like hearing that. He and the Klavarta president had agreed that the Alpha would not be in charge of the fleet from here on. But if the commander was incapacitated, and he took over by dint of his rank, what could they do?
“Get me President Klanarat on the com,” Sean ordered. He needed to get something worked out where the Klavarta fleet admiral didn't sabotage all of their efforts to get to this point. And soon there would be another battle to fight.
Chapter Nine
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. Khalil Gibran
“Get me Admiral Bednarczyk, right now,” ordered Admiral Chin. He took a moment to take in some water through the helmet nipple. Not just because of a tremendous thirst, but also to wipe the vomit taste from his mouth. He would take care of his face and body when he was out of the armor and in the shower, though that might still be some time in the future. There were issues that still needed addressing.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield. Page 10