* * *
“Those are the last of that wave, my Lord,” said Admiral Trostara, standing over the command chair of the great admiral. “Are you sure you want to move the forces. The next wave will be here in less than a half an hour.”
“And we have been here for forty-five minutes,” growled Mrastaran, looking up at the other male. “We estimated that the enemy have wormhole equipped ships in from one to six hours of this point. Worse case, we have wormhole launched missiles roaring in within the next fifteen minutes. And I'm not willing to take that chance. So we will translate into hyper and move to here. The other forces are to make similar moves.”
Trostara gave a head motion of acceptance and moved away to transmit the orders while Mrastaran, continued to look over the plot, trying to figure out where the enemy might be out here. Still no sign of them, and there wouldn't be if their commander was smart. He had no reason to think whatever commander the humans had left in the outer system was not intelligent.
The great admiral looked on a side holo to see the wormhole gates of his force collapsing. Soon it was being pulled aboard the flagship, while the other two were taken aboard other superbattleships. An instant later Mrastaran felt the nausea of a translation overcome him, the flagship opening the portal into hyper I and sliding through.
Mrastaran never knew if he was correct about missiles going through his position or not, but he was just as happy to not find out. The probes he had left behind would let him know, along with the vector they had traveled on. That, and the time they arrived, would allow him to pinpoint the enemy fleet. And then they would be his.
Chapter Ten
A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep. Vernon Howard
“I am sorry, Admiral Klanarat. But I am not taking commands from you. The human Admiral, Bednarczyk, is in charge of this fleet.”
Klanarat stared open mouthed at the alien, a Slarna, standing on the bridge of its ship and threatening....
“That's mutiny, Admiral Connandra. I will have your head.”
“I do not serve at your pleasure, Admiral Klanarat. I serve at the pleasure of my government, not yours.”
Klanarat looked over at another holo that showed the smallish, four million ton battleship of the alien. The Slarna had the smallest ships that had been committed to the line. Paradoxically, their relatively low tech ships had held up better than most under the particle storm. Something to do with their specific alloys, and something that would have to be looked into. But not now.
“I'm warning you..”
“Warn all you want, Admiral Klanarat. There is nothing you can do or say that will change my mind.” The holo disappeared, the connection severed from the other side.
The Gernas, the only other ally that had been on the line, had already refused him, which left him with his fleet, and his fleet alone. He still had all of his escorts out in the outer system. From five to seven light hours away. And over sixty percent of the total ships in this fleet.
“Prepare the fleet to move on my command,” Klanarat told his chief of staff, Captain Gammara.
“But, Admiral. Admiral Chin's tactical officer sent over a threat assessment. They are expecting enemy missiles at any moment.”
“All the more reason to get off the bullseye,” growled Klanarat, glaring at his COS. Why is everyone giving me such a hard time, he thought. It just made sense to move. If wormhole missiles were coming in at them, and they were undetectable until thirty seconds away, it was best to be moving. The missiles would either miss or be forced to change vectors, becoming visible from much further out. “We move in five minutes, on this course. Maximum accel.”
“Not every ship will be able to keep up, sir,” protested Gammara.
“Then they will have to do the best they can,” growled Klanarat, holding down a temper that threatened to take over. Not realizing that he was already acting on emotions, and not his reasoning ability.
* * *
“This the latest take from the planet,” said Tronasta. “Still some hours in the past.”
Mrastaran leaned forward in his chair. It was an enemy, and he knew he should only be feeling anger toward them. But their ingenuity was impressive.
“A graviton field projector,” said Mrastaran, voice filled with awe.
“You have heard of this?” asked Trostara, his voice filled with doubt.
“From a research paper captured with their University in the Kingdom of New Moscow. One of their scientist was working on it. The same scientist that gave us the secret of wormhole technology.”
“Then he could probably reproduce it as well?”
“I'm sure he could,” said the great admiral, a smile playing across his face. If that idiot of an Emperor hasn't had him executed in a fit of rage when he didn't produce a miracle immediately.
“How did they power such a thing. It stood up to the particle storm from a nova. That would take more power than our entire fleet could produce. More than they could possibly generate.”
“Their wormhole producing station,” said Mrastaran, the answer coming to his sharp mind immediately. “They must have beamed the power through from their station.”
“Then the war is lost?” cried out Trostara. “No matter the outcome here, we can't fight power like that.”
Maybe not and win a military victory, thought Mrastaran, staring at the viewer. But maybe we can still convince them to sign a peace. It might be our only hope.
And the first step to getting that peace was to win the battle here, and crush every ship the enemy had in this system.
* * *
“We ready for the second act?” asked Sean, feeling decidedly nervous as he was looking over at Director Yu.
The woman wore a pained expression on her face. Sean was sure she was thinking of the further damage this act might cause to her station.
“It won't be as much of a strain,” said Yu, as if she tried to make herself believe it.
Still, it needed to be done if the fleet were going to survive this battle. And possibly even win it.
“We have a full charge on the crystal matrix batteries,” called the chief engineer from the control room. “We can feed through a quarter of the charge we had to deflect the nova storm, and keep the batteries charged by running the dynamos at half strength.”
“Sounds good,” said Sean, smiling at Yu. “Just be prepared to go full out if it doesn't perform as expected.”
This time they were going to try to stop something different. Deadly in its own way, a missile storm of tens of thousands of one hundred ton objects traveling at high relativistic speed, carrying one gigaton yield antimatter warheads. Something that had never before been done, but then this was the day for such things.
“Your Majesty,” came the voice of Admiral Chin over the com. “We're ready on this end. And that idiot Klanarat is boosting away from the planet. He won't be covered. I've tried to tell him that, but he's ignoring my coms.”
“Get me the president,” said Sean, a sinking feeling in his gut. He really didn't care if the idiot Klavarta Alpha got himself blown to plasma, but he would be taking a hell of a lot of valiant spacers and valuable ships with him. And that couldn't be allowed to happen.
* * *
“We're receiving pulses from one of our probes, sir,” said the sensor officer, his helmeted head looking back.
Everyone on duty was still in battle armor. They had been given time in shifts to get out of the suits, shower, eat, and get back into the hardware that had been cleaned and serviced by newly installed nanites. They were still in a battle, even if the enemy hadn't been seen. They were out there, and they were sure to hit the fleet with everything they had.
“Show me,” ordered Chin.
The stealth/attack craft in that had remained in the system had seeded it with hundreds of thousand of small probes, all no more than a couple of kilograms. They weren't good for much more than picking up nearby
disturbances and pulsing for several seconds before their power gave out. The stealth/attack had all been carrying wormholes, so they had access to almost unlimited supplies of whatever command wanted them to deploy. Including mines. Those had been positioned behind planets, moons and larger asteroids so they would survive the nova storm. The probes hadn't, and over ninety percent of them, those in the shadows of planets, had been taken out. But enough remained to give some coverage.
A point appeared on the plot, showing the location of the probe. A second later another fired up, allowing the tactical officer to plot them as a line, pointing right at them.
“Estimating contact in three and a half minutes, sir,” called out the tactical officer. “We have graviton emissions,” said the officer in a tone filled with tension.
“They're too far out to start engaging their grabbers,” protested Chin. He knew enough about tactics to know that wormhole missiles only engaged grabbers when they were at the end of their runs. Unless.
“A bunch of then are veering away, heading toward the Klavarta fleet.”
“Shit.”
And because of the stupidity of the Klavarta admiral, they were out on a limb, in ships that had at most fifty percent of their defensive capabilities, uncovered by the shield Chin was about to raise.
“Are the warp fighters ready?”
“Three wings are armed and ready to go, but the others haven't transited the wormhole.”
Chin nodded. They only had four working projectors, so the two wormholes not being used for powering the shield were purposed as ship gates now, and the warp fighters assigned to the fleet were coming through.
“Order those wings to engage warp and go after the missiles targeting the Klavarta.”
“They won't get all of them,” said the tactical officer, while the com officer started to send the orders.
No, they wouldn't even get a useful fraction of them. But it they saved some ships and lives it would be worth it.
* * *
“I am ordering you to immediately change course and repair back to the planet,” said President Klanarat in a hard tone to his cousin. “Admiral Bednarczyk is still in charge, and you will not take independent action without her express permission.”
“But, Mr. President. She is not in charge. She would not take my coms, so I have no doubt that she is incapacitated, unable to assume command.”
“And their Emperor has assured me that she is still in command.”
“Then he is a liar,” shouted the admiral, feeling his rage rise. He didn't trust the humans from the Empire, and he trusted their leader least of all. As far as he was concerned they were just using his people to soak up Caca fire so it wasn't directed at their own fleet.
“I will pretend I didn't hear you call a valued ally, one who has done his all to aid us in our fight, a liar. Without them we would have already been overrun.”
Klanarat narrowed his eyes and cut back the retort at the edge of his lips. The president could relieve him on the spot, and order his own people to arrest him if he refused. The admiral knew the political ramifications of such an act. He had his own friends in the congress. But if he pushed it too far, he would be relieved, and no amount of political capital would save his career.
“I..” he started.
“Sir,” called out a panicked officer watching the fleet sensor sweep. “We have missiles engaging grabbers and changing vectors.”
“How?” stammered Klanarat. “Where to?”
“They are tracking to come at us, sir. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”
“Engage all defensive systems,” yelled the admiral, ignoring the shocked face of his president on the side holo.
“Sir,” called the engineering officer over the com. “We are operating at thirty-three percent electronics capacity. Our tracking and ECM systems are barely working. And we only have one laser ring up.”
And the rest of the fleet is not in much better shape, thought the panicked admiral. He had planned to make repairs while they were on the move and looking for a place of safety. And an enemy to engage. Now they were separated from their only support, in a damaged fleet that really needed to be in dock and not maneuvering for battle.
“Can you defend the fleet, Admiral?” asked the president in a hushed voice.
“I, don't know. But I need to concentrate on the fight now, sir.”
Klanarat dismissed the holo and turned all of his attention to the plot, where a huge wave of missiles were completing their looping turns and heading toward him.
“Range, one point three light minutes,” called out the tactical officer, his voice cold and flat in the way of officers facing death and determined to do everything they could before it struck. “Velocity, point nine light. ETA, one minute and fifty-one seconds.”
The only positive the admiral could see was that his ship was near the edge of the formation, away from the missile swarm. He didn't know if that would save him. In fact, he wasn't sure if it should.
* * *
“Those missiles are going to hit the Klavarta in less than a minute, sir,” said the tactical officer, looking back at Chin.
“And how long before they would have reached us if they had continued straight on?” asked the engineer, wondering if that was all of them, or only a portion.
“Two minutes and ten seconds, approximately.”
“Director Yu,” he said into the air, engaging the com back to the Donut. “We're going to need full power in one minute.”
“You'll have it,” said Yu.
Chin could hear in her voice that she didn't want to put her station through more in this day. Still, they wouldn't be pushing the power levels up as high as they had against the force of nature they had faced several hours before. Hopefully.
“Klavarta fleet is maneuvering, trying to stay together in formation.” called out the sensor officer. “Maximum accel in four hundred seven gravities.”
Crap. Klavarta could normally accelerate at five fifty gravities or above, which meant that many of those ships had damaged drives, power runs, or both.
“You keep following them,” he ordered the sensor officer. “While you,” he said to the tactical officer, “keep your entire focus on what might be coming our way in, about a minute.”
“Yes, sir,” said both officers in unison.
He still didn't know all the people on the flag bridge. There really hadn't been time for introductions. But everyone seemed to be accepting his commands, and he couldn't fault them on their attention to duty.
“Go ahead and fire up the shield,” ordered Chin as the timer he had set on his implant got down to one minute and counting. “I want full power in thirty seconds.”
“We have Klavarta ships and Caca missiles disappearing from the plot, sir,” said the sensor officer. “From the ratio, it isn't looking good for the Klavarta.”
“Missiles coming in at us, sir. Engaging grabbers. ETA, fifteen seconds. Field at fifty percent strength.”
“Dammit.” Chin was thinking that he should have ordered the shield up even sooner. He had given all the commands he could. Anything else he could say at this time would just distract the people with their hands on the controls.
“Lasers ready and tracking,” called out the tactical officer.
The light amp weapons couldn't penetrate the firming shield, but they were primed and ready to take on anything that might make it through.
“Contact,” yelled the tactical officer as missiles slammed into the other side of the graviton shield. They all carried terratons of kinetic energy, along with the gigaton warhead. Some energy came through with each strike, unfocused. A few ships were hit with heat and light, and nothing else.
“It's working,” yelled Chin in triumph. “We have our magic shield, your Majesty.”
The magic shield that had been the dream of every weapons planner for generations. Able to stop matter and energy both. Stopping missiles that would shatter a battleship. Now all they needed was a po
wer source. They could, of course, use the Donut, in limited situations. But it wasn't an elegant solution.
“We're starting to get burn through, sir,” called out the tactical officer.
“We need more power, Director Yu.”
“We're sending it,” yelled the director over the loud humming that had appeared in the background of the transmission. “We're sending it.”
“Power had increased by sixty-five percent,” said the tactical officer. “Still getting a couple of burn throughs, but nothing significant.”
Chin looked at the readout on holos he pulled up to surround his station. A hundred missiles a second were impacting the shield, bringing all their energies into the collisions. The shield itself was a circle fifteen thousand kilometers in diameter, enough to cover the entire face of the planet as well as the ships. It was placed twenty thousand kilometers out from the surface, far enough that even the burn throughs, energy that penetrated and continued on in paths curving from the course of the weapon that produced it, were little risk to the planet. Little, but not no risk, and a few wide beams did hit the planet, slicing through the atmosphere and striking the surface of the world. Several kilometers in diameter, they left circles of ashed vegetation or steaming water. Or the swirling ash remains of people who had been out and about.
A couple of ships were hit, but their own electromag fields did much to mitigate the effect. There was some damage, some casualties, but nothing like what they would have sustained had they been facing the missiles without the shield.
“I think that was it,” shouted the tactical officer as a trio of missiles impacted.
“Keep the shield up for a couple of minutes. And once the shield is done I want mines scattered out to a light minute in front of us.” Chin was not willing to let them get close unannounced, and the mines would track on any material object that got within a hundred thousand kilometers, as picked up by their active sensors.
“How are you holding out, Director?” he asked of the woman of most importance to this mission back on the Donut.
* * *
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield. Page 12