Time Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  “Inertialess fighters will hit them in thirty-three seconds,” called out another voice on the deck.

  Mgonda leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, composing himself. When he opened them again the plot was showing hundreds of Caca ships disappearing, blown to plasma or damaged to the point where drives had failed. The enemy had done just what he had wanted them to do.

  “Enemy is continuing to boost toward the barrier, sir. Leaving the wounded ducklings behind.”

  And what else could they do? To stay with the damaged ships was to invite destruction. Not that many of these ships would make it back to their home stars. He had another fleet waiting for them in normal space just outside the barrier, ready to attack.

  And not a moment too soon, he thought, accessing his implant to read the time in Galactic standard. It was almost time to start sending the rest of Len’s force his way. He had promised the Emperor he would take care of business in two days. That had been a slight exaggeration. In two days he had hit their major force and destroyed it, then started dribbling ships back to the Central Front. He had held on to what he needed as long as he could, finally retaining five thousand of those reinforcements. That was the bad news for Len. The good news? Now he would send him even more ships than had been ordered.

  “Get me the Emperor on the com,” he ordered, getting up from his seat. “I’ll take it in my ready room.”

  The holo was already hanging in the air.

  “We beat their last large force, your Majesty,” he told the young man he had sworn allegiance to.

  “Good job, Duke Taelis. Of course, there will still be work to be done.”

  Taelis nodded, trying to keep his inner feelings off his face. This young monarch had almost destroyed the empire with his rash decision to attempt to change the timeline. The other senior officers had convinced Taelis that they still needed him to run the empire. He had agreed with them, barely.

  “I’ll take care of it, your Majesty. Don’t let it worry you.”

  “I won’t, Duke Taelis. I have complete trust in your abilities.”

  The holo died. Taelis wondered if Sean was having trouble facing the people who might blame him for the disaster he had almost caused. Everyone in the know had sworn to keep the secret, all the blame falling on Count Stumpfield and his cabal. But it was sure to get out, eventually.

  We do need him, thought Mgonda, shaking his head. And he had to admit that he had made some very good command decisions in the past. Perhaps he would have learned something from all of this. And they would be keeping a close eye on him in the future, so he wouldn’t be tempted again to tamper with the past.

  * * *

  “General. They’re pulling out.”

  “What?” Baggett had been getting a little bit of sleep while he could, on a cot, his armored suit no more than a couple of meters away. It had been a relief to get out of the armored monster, which smelled like a demon from the pits of hell had been wearing it for far too long.

  “They’re shuttling the Cacas off the planet, sir,” explained the young officer. “They’re firing on the Fenri who are trying to get into the landing field.”

  “My God,” exclaimed Samuel, jumping out of his cot and starting for the nearest monitor board. He stopped for a moment and looked back at his armor, then shook his head and went for the board. He would take the chance that he wouldn’t need the protection.

  Holos over the board showed scenes of panic at the nearest landing field. Armored Cacas were seen boarding their large assault shuttles, while more of the big aliens manned the barricades to keep their allies out. Some of the Fenri wore armor, and were brought under fire as soon as they were sighted by the Cacas. The rest of the small aliens didn’t have a chance of getting past the Cacas, who shoved them back with savage cruelty.

  Of course, they want to leave if their allies are going. The people here are going to massacre them when their protectors are gone.

  “We’re picking up ships boosting out of orbit, sir.”

  “It’s over,” yelled out one of the techs, eliciting cheers.

  “Calm down, people,” shouted Baggett, raising his hands. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I want orders going out for everyone to stay alert and to remain under cover until we’re absolutely sure they’re leaving.” And hope they don’t launch a last strike from space. “And make damned sure that command knows about this.”

  An hour later it was clear. Everything in orbit was boosting toward the hyper limit.

  * * *

  Cornelius Walborski looked up at the bright orb of the daystar that illuminated this planet, wondering if he would ever see this particular stellar object again. He took a breath of the air, savoring the scents of the world that had seemed strange when he had first arrived, and now smelled normal.

  A shuttle drifted overhead, on a course for the clearing a kilometer away where the pickup was to be made. The Ranger had thought about walking back to the cave that contained the wormhole, a hundred kilometers distant. But he was tired, so tired, and the sooner he got home the better. He couldn’t wait to see his family again. If they don’t throw me in prison, he thought.

  “Thank you, Colonel,” came a voice from behind him, under the canopy of the forest.

  “And thank you, Sgornar,” he replied, turning to look at the large, eight limbed alien. “I have never served with better soldiers.”

  “The honor was ours, Colonel.”

  “You have a lot of work ahead of you,” said Cornelius, walking up to the alien and looking up into its multiple eyes.

  “It is work we will relish, building our world, and our lives. As long as you don’t let the Cacas come back.”

  “I can’t promise, my friend. But you know how hard we will fight those bastards. If anyone can stop them, we will.”

  “Then you will,” said the alien, reaching a three digit member forward and resting it on the Ranger’s shoulder. “Remember us. And come back for a visit, if you can.”

  Walborski nodded, the emotions rising to the point where he couldn’t speak. He would miss these people he had lived and fought among for what seemed like an eternity. The alien nodded, then turned and loped back into the forest.

  Cornelius turned and started walking toward the pickup point and home.

  Epilogue

  JULY 9TH, 1003.

  “Order all forces to pull back,” said the Emperor, looking into the eyes of his supreme admiral. “This offensive is over. We have already lost too much, and it looks like the enemy is ready for whatever we send at them.”

  “That is not what a Ca’cadasan warrior should think, your Majesty,” said the supreme admiral with a disapproving expression on his face. “In the history of our race, ever since we threw the invaders off of our world, we have never retreated. Until this war. It is an insult to all the generations of warriors who have gone before us.”

  “Watch your tongue, Supreme Admiral,” growled the Emperor, stepping closer to the other male, his hairs rising. “While I want you to speak truth about our tactical and strategic situations, I will not tolerate impertinence.”

  “Impertinence?” screamed the other male, rising up to his full height, eyes wide, all fists clenched.

  The Emperor felt a shiver of fear. He was politically the most powerful male in the empire by an order of magnitude. Traditionally the Emperor was also considered the premier warrior of the empire, which might have been true in the early days. Jresstratta doubted that he could take this male, who had spent his entire life as a warrior, in a physical contest.

  Guards, he sent over his implant. The supreme admiral would pay for this effrontery. He stood his ground, waiting for the guards to arrive. And waited.

  “They are not coming, your Majesty. Or should I say, ex-majesty.”

  “You are mad, Admiral. The empire will not follow you. Only someone in the Imperial line can assume the mantel of Emperor.”

  Jresstratta turned and headed for his local desk, where
he kept a particle beam pistol in a safe that would only open at his signal.

  “The weapon is not there. I made sure that it was removed before I arrived. And as far as someone in the line, that we have.”

  “A distant cousin?” barked the Emperor, following with a laugh he didn’t really feel. “Someone no one has ever heard of. Good luck, Admiral. The military will depose you in an instant. And then my son will take my place.”

  “Speaking of that,” said the admiral with a cold smile.

  One of the doors to the room opened and the heir came stalking through, the Emperor’s missing pistol in a lower hand.

  “My son. Your father has been threatened. Hold this thing under threat of your weapon until I can summon the guard.”

  The prince leveled the pistol at the Emperor, his hand steady.

  “What is the meaning of this.”

  “You have betrayed our people, father. You have turned your back on the proud heritage of our military, which has never once retreated or surrendered since the days of the liberation of our homeworld. Until your reign.”

  “We were on a path to destruction,” pleaded the Emperor, staring at the deadly pistol that his son was holding. “We needed to change our behavior, or the humans would destroy us.”

  “Our way worked for tens of thousands of years, father. I was taught that by the people you assigned to educate me. The people you chose. So it must be true. And the only way to reverse our ill fortune is to go back to the old ways. To attack, always attack. Never to retreat. So our warriors can retain their honor.”

  “So, you will kill your own father,” growled the Emperor, staring into the young male’s eyes. “Patricide, and regicide. Both crimes punishable by death. Even for one of the Imperial line.”

  “Of course not, father. I must not commit those crimes. Admiral,” he said, looking over at the older male, then handing him the particle beam.

  “You will die for this, Admiral.”

  “Someone must die that the Empire might live,” said the male, taking the pistol and aiming it at the head of the Emperor. “I will die knowing that I have fulfilled my oath to defend the empire.”

  “And your oath to me?”

  “One must be violated to fulfill the other,” said the admiral, shrugging both sets of shoulders. “My life is the Empire’s, and I gladly give it to save what I love.”

  “Wait,” hissed the Emperor, raising all four hands in a stop motion. “We cannot win fighting the humans on both fronts if we don’t make the changes I have initiated. We must continue to fight with intelligence, and not with pure savagery. We…”

  The admiral growled deep in his throat and squeezed the trigger of the pistol. The deep red beam connected the barrel with the head of the Emperor in an instant, while the sounds of angry buzzing insects filled the room. The head exploded in a mass of gore as the brain matter and blood turned into superheated steam.

  “Your Majesty,” said the admiral, bowing to the young male and offering him the pistol. “You must place me under arrest for the murder of the Emperor.”

  “I will never forget your sacrifice, Admiral,” said the new Emperor. “I hereby sentence you to death.”

  The admiral bowed once more, just before the young male sent the particle beam into his head.

  “My father is dead,” reported the new Emperor over the com to the palace guard. “I have apprehended and executed his killer, and now claim the throne as the heir apparent.”

  Within moments a contingent of the palace guard was in the room, their shocked faces taking in the scene. It took them a moment, but they finally all dropped to a knee and bowed their heads to their new liege lord.

  “Now, get my councilors to meet me in the conference room. I have orders to give.”

  * * *

  “We’re picking up ships in hyper, ma’am. On a general heading for our force.”

  “How many?” asked Admiral Natasha Sung, pulling herself out of bed. It was the third watch on the ship, and most stations were manned by backups. Still, it would be hard for even a third teamer to miss a large number of vessels.

  “Several hundred so far, ma’am. With more appearing every second.”

  “I’ll be heading for the flag bridge,” said Sung as she sealed her uniform, then started to pull on her boots. “Get the captain and the first watch to their stations.”

  The flag bridge crew turned as she entered, excited or anxious looks on their faces.

  “The aliens are in VI, on approach,” said the woman filling the squadron sensor officer’s station. “We’re receiving grav pulse signals from them that the computer is identifying as the code we gave to the Slarna.”

  “Wonder what they want?” asked the admiral as she sat back in her chair. The plot was now active, showing the icons of ships moving toward them in VI, hundreds of them, with scores more appearing every second. She didn’t think they were any threat to her force, since she was in VII, and as far as they knew the Slarna were not capable of reaching that dimension. As far as they knew.

  “Signal coming across, Admiral. It reads, ‘we received word from the ancients. They recommended that we join your crusade.”

  “Get the captain to the bridge,” Natasha ordered, sure that the man was already on the way, but wanting to make sure he was moving. “Order the fleet to boost to match velocities with the Slarna so we can meet them in VII. I think this calls for a face to face.”

  And won’t the Emperor be happy to learn that this mission wasn’t a complete waste of time. She took one more look at the plot, which was now populated with over a thousand objects, the harbinger of a mighty force that would be of great help on this front.

  The End

  The Story So Far

  In 2254 the human species had spread to eight star systems after the discovery of the Subspace drive, allowing humankind to achieve pseudospeeds of over eleven times the speed of light. That was the year the human species first encountered the long lived Ca’cadasans, three meter tall horned carnivores whose empire had been expanding for thousands of years. That was the year the aliens attacked the Epsilon Iridani V colony. When the heir to their imperial throne was killed after the colony had surrendered, the Emperor ordered the complete extermination of the human species. After a short, sharp war, humanity had no other option than to try and flee the killer aliens. The six Exodus ships were built, each capable of moving fifty thousand humans in cryostasis, along with all the knowledge of the human species. One ship is known to have gotten away through subspace, a dimension through which the more advanced hyperspace faring Ca’cadasans are not prepared to follow. Four generations of crew navigated the Exodus III over ten thousand light years in a thousand years, reestablishing humanity in a system of eight stars in orbit around a black hole, the Supersystem. Once the home of an extinct species that had helped raise most of the intelligent races of the area to technical civilizations, it was also the perfect region for the newcomers. Over the next thousand years the New Terran Empire fights, wins and expands in a number of wars, improving their technology at breakneck speed, becoming the dominant military power of the region. Humanity also improves its genome, becoming stronger, faster and smarter, and seemed destined to rule the Perseus Arm, given time.

  On the thousand year anniversary of the empire, Emperor Augustine I is having prophetic dreams, the gift and curse of his line. He has seen the ancient enemy returning, finding the human species disunited in its three governments, and utterly destroying them. Augustine has fought to expand the military, running into obstructionism from the Lords House of Parliament. It is an uphill battle in the Constitutional Monarchy the Empire has become. Meanwhile, the Donut, a century long engineering project, is nearing completion. The enormous station, built as a ring around a black hole, and using the swirling gravitational energy to generate wormholes, has begun to make the many portals that will be used to eventually link the Empire. And spies have infested the Empire, a race of shape shifters who make most security measur
es moot, adding sabotage and espionage to the problems facing the Emperor.

  Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, the third son of the Emperor, is a serving naval officer on a battleship in a relatively quiet sector, with no thoughts of ever assuming the throne. He was a mediocre officer, despite his superior intelligence. With two brothers ahead of him in the succession, and a still young father, the throne seems like the least his worries. By this time the Ca’cadasans have made contact with some of the enemies of the Empire, and sent the information back to their leaders. The ancient enemy has been found, and can now be eliminated. Ships begin to disappear in Sector IV, and sightings are made of vessels that fit no known description. Many people refuse to believe these are the Ca’cadasans, and some think that Empire must have fallen in the near past. The Emperor continues to try to rally support for increasing the size of the human military, while Parliament fights him on the economic effects of such a move, and alien powers protest that the humans are planning territorial expansion.

  There is an attempted assassination attempt on Sean, and a successful attempt on the Emperor and his two older sons during a tour of the Donut. The assassin is an officer of the Imperial Protection Detail, causing distrust to grow among the agencies charged with the security of the Empire. The same day as the assassination, the Leader of the House of Lords is killed in his home. Sean is now the heir to the Empire, and the man who must be seated as soon as possible on the throne, but he is almost a week’s one way com range from the capital.

  The Ca’cadasans now attack, sending large fleets into several industrial or base systems, and smaller forces to many other stars. The Massadara system, a major Imperial base, is one of the systems attacked. Sean is serving on one of the battleships that happens to be in that system, and is aboard the vessel as it heads into combat with the enemy. Word comes to the system that Sean is the uncrowned Emperor, and his ship, against his protests, is ordered out of combat. His ship, the Sergiov, heads out of the system before the main battle begins, a small Ca’cadasan force on its heels. The main battle is joined, and, though it inflicts casualties on the Ca’cadasan fleet that is only about a decade ahead in technology, it is defeated, and the system falls.