Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield.

by Doug Dandridge

  Now they would drift in space, turning off their beacons until they received the signal to engage them. They could survive in those pods, or in their suits if they hadn't been able to get to the escape capsules, for over a week.

  “Three point one is reporting seventy-three percent, ma'am.”

  Still not bad, when they had been put into a situation where their ships couldn't possibly survive.

  Not really, thought Mara, looking at task force two point one as it jumped into hyper and started to move to another position. That group had survive, if only because someone had called the enemy force off, or their commander had a brain. She doubted this tactic was going to work a second time. Only if she moved several thousand ships, a target the enemy couldn't ignore, would they move again. On the plus side, they still didn't know where her larger forces were located. They could trace the paths of the missiles back and have her relative position along that line. But not exact. Still, if that commander over there was the smart son of a bitch they had faced before, she could expect spreads of missiles coming in at her three forces. They wouldn't get many hits, but any they got would pinpoint her for the follow up volleys.

  Still, they had to do something. She couldn't just hang out here in space and let Beata continue to take a pounding, while Mara had over a hundred wormholes. She had hit them, and now they would react to her, while she prepared her next strike.

  “How about our fast attack craft and fighters?”

  “Light casualties on the fast attack craft,,” said her chief of staff. “Ninety-three percent survived without damage. They're reloading their tubes as fast as they can and readying themselves to move.”

  That was the brainchild of Captain Michael Goruptal, her chief of staff. Fleet chiefs of staff were promoted into their positions because of their tactical acumen, so they could be groomed for higher command. Goruptal was intelligent, unorthodox, and she thought the world of him. He had come up with the idea of holding back forty percent of the mines for a second shot if needed, which hadn't been necessary. Now, at the command of the small vessels many of them had ejected their missiles at almost zero velocity. The fast attack craft were now moving around picking up the full sized capital ship missiles that fit their own tubes perfectly.

  “The fighter force was not involved. No casualties.”

  “Order them to stay put. I want them in position to support the fast attack craft when they move.”

  The situation in the outer system was already pure chaos. She intended to make it more so. The Caca commander might be bright, though she doubted he was as smart as her or Beata. She was also sure that the lesser commanders were nowhere near as smart as any of her subordinate commanders. And she was willing to let them make all the dumb moves they would on their own.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There are ups and downs, but whatever happens, you have to trust and believe in yourself. Luka Modric

  “Admiral Chan loves your Klavarta captain's idea, Admiral,” said Sean, looking out of the com holo. “Of course, Director Yu doesn't like it at all. She's worried about losing that asset.”

  “But you approve?” asked Beata, closing her eyes and taking a breath. She still hadn't fully recovered from her radiation exposure. The nanites, a more than full complement, were doing their job, but she would only start to feel right after a couple of days worth of sleep. Something she couldn't think of doing until this fight was over.

  “I understand her point. That is one expensive piece of equipment, and something that will prove useful to our future plans.”

  “But...?”

  “But your ships and crews are more important to me. As well as that planet we spent so many lives and energy to defend. So yes, you have my approval. I just hope it works.”

  Beata looked closely at her monarch, a young man less than a fourth her age. Sean looked tired, on the verge of exhaustion. At his age, still not in his mid-thirties, he would recover quickly, if given the chance to get some rest. She was concerned about him, but it really wasn't her problem or decision on how closely he supervised his military. So far he had not interfered with the tactical decisions of his commanders, as long as they were sound and fit into his strategic vision. That was the way it was supposed to be.

  The Emperor, the CNO, and their analysts were in charge of strategy. You go here, take these objectives, give me your requirements, then figure out how to do it.

  “Try your best to keep that projector in one wormhole gate intact, and don't let anything the Cacas fire poke their noses into the black hole system.”

  “I'll try my best,” said Beata, mentally crossing her fingers as she spoke. If the Cacas did what she thought, she would be happy to whittle down their massive wave at the loss of a wormhole, or even the energy projector. Anything that would give her a fighting chance.

  “Next wave coming in, ma'am,” called out one of her tactical analysts. “This should be the last big one.”

  And you think that's a good thing, thought Beata. They had estimated that this was the last one from the combined Caca fleet that had been sending massive waves at them. They had then split and moved to the compass points of the system. Which meant that nothing was going to come from that point from now on, unless they moved back to that location. After this they just had to worry about the separate launches from constantly shifting cardinal points. Which could be more of a threat than that one big launch.

  “Estimation of first launch from those twelve points?” she asked. She doubted that missiles would be coming from all of those points. As far as she knew, the Cacas didn't have enough wormholes to launch from all of those points. Since she didn't know which ones were real, and which were decoys, and wouldn't until weapons started coming in, she had to play it safe and act as if all had wormholes. And they very well might.

  The admiral looked at the plot, taking in her own dispositions. The Klavarta fleet, what was left of their capital ships, was in the process of limping in. They would be behind the shield in another ten minutes, decelerating with as many gravities as their damaged ships could pull. This was the danger point for them. They were back in the bullseye, and they didn't have the coverage of the shield. She had over half of her destroyers, few as they were, out covering their allies. It might lead to total loss of her scouts for no return if the Klavarta ships still got blown to hell. She felt responsibility for her allies. They had just followed the orders of a fool. And if she could help them get to safety, and lend their defensive firepower to her efforts, it was worth the risk.

  “Admiral Klanarat is on the com, ma'am. He says its urgent.”

  Of course he does, thought Bednarczyk. “Put him on.”

  “Missiles have passed our probes, five light minutes out,” called out the tactical officer. “ETA, five minutes, thirty-two seconds.”

  Beata took another quick look at her dispositions as she readied herself to deal with the insubordinate admiral. Her ships was all deployed near the edges of the shield, ready to take out anything that looked like it was going to loop around the defensive field. She could have clustered them toward the center, and that would have protected them from virtually anything, since the shield would stop all the missiles. Some of the radiation would punch through. But anything looping around might hit the planet, and she hadn't sacrificed so much to see it and its inhabitants killed.

  “Admiral Bednarczyk,” said the hated voice of Admiral Klanarat.

  I won't have to deal with you too much longer, thought Beata. The orders had already come down relieving him of command. She had decided to sit on it until he was back in the defensive position, to ensure that he didn't cause any more trouble.

  “I need you to shift the shield over to protect my ships.”

  “Sorry, Admiral. No can do. The destroyers are out there to help defend your flank. We don't have time to move the projectors, and I can't afford to open up any gaps in our coverage.”

  “Admiral. We need you to protect us. If you fail to do so, I will register
a protest with your Emperor.”

  Good luck with that. Beata knew that Sean would back her on this. The New Earth president might not like losing the last of his capital ships, but even he would realize that his own admiral had gotten his ass in a crack by himself. Beata didn't really care about those ships. The Klavarta were building more, a lot more of the much bigger ships, in the same class as the standard battleships and battle cruisers of the Empire.

  “Damn you, Admiral. These are my people.”

  Then you shouldn't have led them out where they became a big target. They didn't know they were being fired on, but their commander did know that the enemy had wormholes, and the capabilities to launch massive waves of fast moving weapons.

  “Their blood is on your hands, Admiral.”

  “ETA, four minutes.”

  “That's bullshit, Admiral. You are the only one at fault here. You have put me in a bad position. I had to make a choice of protecting you or protecting this world behind me. And I have come down on the side of the billions of beings sitting on the surface of Pleisia.”

  “ETA, three minutes and thirty seconds.”

  “I suggest that you shut down you drives, now,” said Beata, a thought coming to her. “Give the enemy no emissions to track. After this volley passes you can continue to decel, then come back in.”

  “No. I will get under cover as soon as I can. I...”

  “Admiral. You are relieved of command. I am having my com officer transmit the verification from your President. Now, put your second in command on the com.”

  “No. No. I...”

  “We don't have time for this, Admiral. I am sending an order to your security chief. Consider yourself under arrest. I...”

  “This is Fleet Admiral Tavasrta,” said the voice of an Alpha, as another face appeared on the com holo, replacing that of the grand fleet admiral. “I am ordering our ships to stop boosting. I only hope you know of what you speak.”

  Me too, thought Beata. She knew it wasn't her fault that the Klavarta were in this predicament. She could have left them out there, shut down and not giving out any emissions. If Klanarat had been reasonable it might have worked. Or he might have cut all com and continued on.

  “Impact in one minute, thirty seconds. Field at full strength.”

  Or at least as full as it can get without that sixth graviton generator, she thought. Because of the lack of that one generator her field was covering one sixth less area. She could have spread it out to get the same range of coverage. But not the same strength.

  The wave hit, thousands of warheads a second detonating as they hit what amounted to as solid space. None of the matter made it through, but the light did, and that light carried a lot of heat. Burn through was the term the engineers had come up with. If a ship was too close to the shield it could take serious damage to its hull. Those further back still took some damage, not much, but noticeable. The crew of the facing aspect stayed further in, safe. That was not where the danger came from.

  Scores to hundreds of missiles a second looped around the shield, boosting out then in, looking for targets. Ships launched counters, fired lasers, cycled their close in auto-cannon. Those systems were not one hundred percent on any of the ships other than the destroyers that hadn't faced the nova ejection. Warheads started going off around the edge, destroyed by counter fire. A couple of ships were hit, gone in an instant. More took damage from missiles detonating a couple of hundred meters from their targets, sending plasma into the targeted ships at the same velocity the missile had possessed.

  Beata grimaced as she watched the pair of ships fall off the plot, the blinking cursors of those that had been damaged. And three of the Klavarta ships were hit and gone. She wasn't sure what had caused them to attract those missiles. It seemed like pure chance. The good news was that the Klavarta would be under cover by the time the next wave arrived. The bad news of that? She had no idea how effective those separate streams were going to be.

  “Some of those missiles are pulsing graviton signals on the way in, ma'am. Right after they pass the thirty light second mark.”

  “How many?”

  “Hard to say, ma'am. What with all the graviton echoes and all. Several hundred at least.”

  Right about the time we would be picking them up if we didn't have the sensor probes out covering the path in, thought Beata. That was bad. It would give the Cacas a look at how her fleet was defending against them. Allow them to adjust their future shots to take advantage of her defenses.

  “Send that data off to one of your departments, Sigurd. Let's see if we can find something that can be used against the enemy.”

  * * *

  “We're crunching the data coming in from our probes, my Lord.”

  Mrastaran leaned forward expectantly in his command chair. They had seeded each of their launches with several hundred probes, missile bodies without a warhead, packing sophisticated electronics and sensor packages in its place. They were programmed to start sending information back at the same time as the other missiles started their final boost, masking their transmissions. Hopefully. It was a very restrictive way to transmit data, but it was better than nothing.

  “What are we getting?”

  “You understand that this is all preliminary, my Lord. It will take some time to analyze the data.”

  “I know that,” growled the great admiral, glaring at his chief of staff for a moment. He cut off the insult he was going to add. It would only spur the other male's resentment.

  “We're getting a good analysis on the shield. Estimating a diameter of fifteen thousand kilometers. Everything that is striking the surface is being destroyed. I'm thinking that some of the heat and radiation is getting through, but we can't tell how much from those probes. They just don't get enough of a look traveling at their speed, and they can't get a good read on the other side.”

  “Just determine the best way to attack that thing.”

  Mrastaran could imagine sending the entire stockpile of the Ca'cadasan Empire into that defense for little return.

  Each wave lasted just over a minute from front to rear, and probes were seeded throughout that mass. Mrastaran looked at the readouts from the grav pulses. They were limited to a transmission rate of a couple of kilobytes a second, horribly inadequate. Add to that all the graviton static, and they weren't getting much from any one probe. Getting it from several hundred, parsing and comparing the data, might give them something.

  “That wave has finished its attack, my Lord. We picked up a pair of their ships detonating.”

  Or they assumed that they had breached their antimatter. Since the ships weren't boosting, there was no cessation of those emissions to verify their destruction.

  “Next wave will be in attack range in twelve minutes.”

  That would be the next form of attack. Missiles coming in from five different directions. Three of those points were using two wormholes, two of them a single. Those, combined, would be just as large as the singular strikes they had been launching before moving.

  Mrastaran's forces had already moved four times since that initial launch. Three more launches were already on their way. The fourth was just about ready to burst out of the gates. With the information they were now receiving they could alter their launch points and profiles to get around the shield.

  Unless they can curve it somehow, thought the great admiral. They hadn't seen that yet, but that didn't mean it wasn't coming. Mrastaran was tempted to just combine his fleet and head into the system as fast as he could get to the planet. Unfortunately, he had seen that act before, and wasn't willing to chase the ghost that enemy fleet would become once they could see where he was the entire way in.

  “Battle group four is reporting wormhole launched weapons coming in. Estimating nineteen hundred weapons, all in the smaller range.”

  Which meant it was their new, undersized weapons that carried less in the way of kinetic energy. Still enough to totally destroy a battleship, and with more of them
there was more chance of hits.

  “Order them to track those missiles back to origin. Then they are to reorient their wormhole and launch on that vector.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  He thought he could hurt that force. While he couldn't pinpoint their position, the missiles he sent along that vector would eventually hit them. Wouldn't they?

  Maybe, he thought. The enemy could move their ships after launch, boosting at a low acceleration rate. Not all that far before the wave got to them. Maybe far enough to generate some hits. Maybe not.

  Mrastaran yelled out at the top of his lungs, slammed his lower fists into the arms of his chair. The bridge crew turned to stare at him, terror flitting across many of their faces. Mrastaran closed his eyes and gave a head motion of negation. He had not meant to engender that emotion in the males who were working under him. Ca'cadasan commanders who did that on purpose were beneath contempt, as far as he was concerned. But he was getting damned tired of having to fight this kind of battle. He had the ships to bring the enemy to battle and blow them out of space. Especially if he used his fleet wisely. But the enemy was not allowing him to fight that battle.

  Close with the enemy? And take fire from multiple points all the way in. While he couldn't move one of his gates at the same acceleration as his ships, and a big fat target moving at speed was likely to be blown out of space.

  Meanwhile, the clock was ticking, and the lives of himself and his family members were on the line. Which meant he might have to make a decision that could cost the Empire dearly. He didn't care how it effected the child Emperor, but his loyalty to his people, his species, was as great as ever.

  No, he would stay the course for now. His wives and his sons were in as safe a place as there was in the empire. With loyal friends in secure, unpopulated regions. No place was totally safe, but he thought there was a good chance they wouldn't be found. Except for his three surviving older sons who were serving in the fleet. They would be too easy to find, and surrounded by legions of potential enemies.