Hundreds of other vessels had been destroyed either in free floating docks, or where they had sat in space, waiting for the final touches before their shakedown cruises. Altogether the fleet had lost hundreds of capital ships, the primary targets of the attackers, and at least as many cruisers and escorts. Tens of thousands of crew and shipbuilding engineers had been killed. And again more than a hundred free floating docks had been destroyed, more resources lost.
“We can’t keep everyone at the highest alert status,” continued the Admiral. “We need to continue all rescue efforts while maintaining the watch. Any word on what’s happening on Jewel?”
“From what we’re hearing,” said one of the Com Officers, turning to look back at the Admiral, “they got hit hard. At least a hundred million casualties, including the heir.”
Nakama opened his mouth to speak, and found that he had nothing to say. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the idea that over a hundred million people had died, or that the fact that one baby was killed seemed more painful. But that baby was destined to become the future Emperor.
“And the Donut is still under attack,” continued the Com Officer. “It has sustained an undetermined amount of damage.”
And the Fleet is involved in a battle with the Caca fleet at the edge of our space, thought the Admiral. The Emperor must be going crazy.
“Admiral. Admiral Mei is on the com.”
“Put her through.”
The face of the tiny woman who had commanded the scout group through the battle appeared on the holo, an anxious expression on her face. “Admiral Nakama. We have started interrogating the Captain of the freighter we captured. We need to warn the Donut that something really bad is coming their way.”
* * *
“You’re cleared for landing, Chief,” said the voice of the traffic controller of the field.
“Thanks,” said Visserman, the only words she felt like saying at the moment. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. She had wanted to see action, and had become an ace in a day, accounting for nine enemy fighters. She had never wanted that action to occur in the skies of the capital planet. The nine fighters she had shot down had a significant effect on the battle. But it had not prevented the deaths of over a hundred million people, as well the destruction of much of the city.
I should have been able to do more, thought Debra as she brought the fighter in for a soft touchdown, just away from the hardened hangar outside which stood a Fleet rating, waving her in with paddles. Her own base had been heavily damaged; she wasn’t even sure if her own mechanic had survived, and the nearest operating field was on Peal Island, which had escaped with light damage, only a couple of kinetic hits that had fallen on unoccupied class buildings and dorms.
The fighter touched down on the tarmac, while a small tractor came from the hangar to hook up and pull her under cover. Visserman sat in the cockpit, her mind continuing to replay the fight over the skies, the last scene in her mind the Imperial aircar going down after taking the blast of a particle beam. She had taken that enemy out, too late. And had later heard that one of the Imperial family had been aboard the aircar that she had been too late to save. She didn’t know which member of the family it was. That really didn’t matter, since any member killed on her watch, while she was supposed to be protecting them, was more than she could tolerate.
“We’ll make sure everything’s working in your ship and rearm her, ma’am,” said the rating, with the rank tabs of a Petty Officer First on his uniform. Probably used to servicing the training craft that cadets would take up as part of their coursework at the Academy. “Why don’t you go over to the pilot’s ready room and get some food? They’ll have a cot for you as well, if you want some rest.”
“Any word on the enemy?” she asked, wondering if there was something on the net that hadn’t been communicated to her.
“Nothing in local space. They captured the ship that had the wormhole on board. And things are still up in the air at the Donut.”
“Wait,” exclaimed Debra, turning in her tracks. “Wormhole? The damned Cacas have wormholes?”
“It seems so, ma’am. At least a couple of them. One here, one in Donut space.”
The Cacas have wormholes, she thought in disbelief. And they’re threatening the source of ours.
“Nothing we can do about it here, ma’am,” said the Petty Officer, walking around the outside of her ship and giving it a once over. “All we can do is get everything ready in case they come back.”
What could she do? She was an atmospheric fighter pilot, and the action was now in another system, and in a place where the only atmosphere was within the containers intelligent beings put into that space. Her ship could move through vacuum, but no one was ever going to mistake it for a spaceship.
“Thanks, PO. I’ll go and get some of that grub.”
The walk across the tarmac wasn’t long enough for her to process all of her thoughts. She didn’t feel much like eating, but knew that she needed to put some fuel in her body. The cot didn’t look very comfortable, and she wasn’t sure she could quiet her mind enough to actually sleep. That thought was still on the edge of her awareness when darkness closed in on her.
* * *
“The Donut is reported heavy damage and casualties, sir,” said the Com Tech from her station.
Sean looked away from the plot where he had been watching the battle unfolding across thousands of cubic light years of space. As far as he knew, he was the first leader ever to be able to follow the events of a complete campaign in real time. Every one of his forces had at least a dozen ships equipped with wormholes, tapped into the net. His flagship, an Augustine class super heavy battleship, had eight of the portals installed, giving her unprecedented com capabilities, as well as other things.
“What kind of damage? And try to get some idea of the casualties.”
He had already heard a report from the Capital System, and it had been enough to raise his rage and anxiety to their maximum limits. He still wasn’t sure how he was keeping everything under control. Losing a son and heir would have been enough to push most people into losing it. Losing over a hundred million citizens of his capital city would have been enough as well. Both?
One of the holos floating in the air around the Monarch changed, showing the view of a Ca’cadasan superbattleship coming apart under the particle beam barrage of another Augustine class ship, the protons, accelerated through a massive accelerator on the Donut, moving much faster than any ship generated beam could. The protons blasted through the armored hull like it was made of plastic, ripping into the interior and setting off multiple breaches of internal antimatter. The twenty-five million ton ship was gone in a flash. The screen switched views, this time showing an Imperial heavy cruiser in the process of eating a high relativistic missile, the one point six million ton ship and over a thousand crew gone in an instant.
“They’re reporting dozens of impacts with missiles. Holes through the hull, some dozens of square kilometers in extent. Reports of over five hundred electromagnetic generators damaged or destroyed. Casualties estimated at about a hundred thousand.”
Sean nodded, thinking about what he had just heard. Five hundred of the generators represented a substantial amount of resources, as each massed more than a battleship. There were over three million of the devices on the Donut, what gave it the massive power generating capacity it needed to make up to thirty wormholes a day, with the excess going into antimatter and negative matter production. It had taken over fifty years to construct and place all of those devices, which meant it would take considerable time to replace the damage as well.
And if they take that out, we lose all of that capacity, as well as our wormhole production. He looked over at a holo that was showing another Ca’cadasan ship dying under the particle beams of the same Augustine class ship that had killed the last one. Those beams were an order of magnitude greater than any other shipborne weapon in this war, and if the Donut were taken out, they wou
ld lose that weapon as well. They would still have the missile acceleration tubes in free orbit around the Donut, those which already had wormholes installed. They would have no more, and any ship with one of the launch systems that was taken out, along with its end of the tunnel, would be irreplaceable.
Sean opened his mouth to speak, shutting it immediately as he realized there was really nothing to say. What could he order that wasn’t already being done? His people on the Donut and manning the system defenses would do everything they could to protect that vital resource. Anything he could say now would just be a distraction.
“The Captain is reporting we are targeting the nearest Caca ships,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer from his station on the flag bridge. A moment later the ship shuddered slightly as its four wormhole launchers let loose their first volleys of high relativistic missiles, one hundred and twenty weapons travelling at point nine-five light toward targets that were much too close for them to have achieved that velocity on their own. The ship shook again as four more wormholes loosed streams of protons, or in the case of two of them, antiprotons. The beams slashed out, on a wide spread, obliterating incoming enemy weapons and fighters. Those that made it through were instantly taken under fire by the ship’s lasers and close in weapons, until that threat was neutralized.
“Targeting and firing again,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer. The ship shuddered again as another hundred and twenty missiles came out of their portals at point nine five light.
And we have to hope that they overlook those acceleration tubes, thought the Emperor as he watched another of the enemy ships disappear from the plot, this one from the missiles launched by this vessel. These wormhole weapons were his ace in the hole, that and the ability to shift forces across great distances. If he lost them in the middle of a battle, this fight might be over before it really began.
* * *
Admiral Mei sat back in her seat, watching the floating holo that showed the questioning her Marines were putting to the captive humans. True interrogation would come later, at the hands of Fleet Intelligence. Her Marine Commander was just there to get some preliminary information, something that might help them battle the other ship, the one that was targeting the Donut.
“We think they were trying to bring another wormhole through the one we were carrying,” said the handsome human who had been the leader of the penetration squad that had navigated the freighter into Imperial space. “I’m not completely sure what would have happened, but from running the math, I knew it wouldn’t be good.”
My God, thought the Admiral. She knew what would happen. The same thing that had happened at the homeworld of the Klavarta. An explosion that had scoured the surface of a world clean, actually shattering the crust and destroying over ten thousand Caca ships. What would it have done to the Capital system? she thought. Scoured the surface of Jewel clean, at least the hemisphere facing the blast. It would have left the planet denuded of atmosphere, while the cracked crust would have spewed magma into the vacuum around the planet. All of the structures of Central Docks would have been blown away, completely obliterating the yards and every vessel in it. New Terra would have suffered less damage than Jewel, but it would still be close to a total loss. Ariel would have come through with the least damage, probably no more than a severe dose of radiation, enough to kill most of the life on the world.
Eighteen billion people killed, she thought, shaking her head, her eyes locked on the face of the man, a member of her own species who had been raised to hate his own kind. To think of the Cacas as not just his masters, but almost as the Godlike beings whose destiny it was to rule the Universe. Willing to do whatever it took to help his masters accomplish their goals. All of their goals, including the extinction of his own species.
Only something had happened within him, a change of heart. According to the Captain there were over a hundred thousand of the slave humans in the Ca’cadasan Empire, all brainwashed from birth to help the masters destroy their own kind. Unless they had not been told the real plan? Maybe they hadn’t been told that the masters wanted to push their species to extinction. And this one had figured it out.
“Make sure that information gets to as many wormhole equipped ships as possible,” said the Admiral, looking at her Com Tech. “Tell everyone that the information has to get to the Donut.”
If her group had been fully operational she would have had enough wormhole coms to get through herself. The way everything was so disrupted at the moment, she wasn’t even sure if anyone she would be talking to could get through, so the only choice was a broadcast to everyone.
“Orders, ma’am?” asked the Helmsman.
Mei looked at another Com Tech, nodding to get his attention. “Order all ships to take aboard any available crew and weapons we can load in the next fifteen minutes,” she ordered. She knew it was really time she didn’t have, but some of her ships had taken a beating, and if she was going to fight a large Caca force she would need every crew member she could get to effect repairs on the way to battle.
“Then order the group to go through the wormhole to the black hole system.” We might not accomplish anything. We might be too late. But if there’s even a chance that our being there might make a difference, we have to be in place for the opportunity.
“Admiral Nakama is stating that he can have volunteer crew aboard us in ten minutes,” said the Com Tech, looking back with a strained smile. “And as many missiles as they can put aboard our hangers in that time period.”
Mei nodded. They could move the missiles once aboard through the internal shift tubes that linked all the magazines. It would take some time, and effort, but with more people they could get it done.
“We also have some more ships asking if they can join us, ma’am.”
“The more the merrier,” said the Admiral. “But I only want hyper VII ships. The VIs can stay here and guard the system, in case something else comes along.” The wormhole gates to a few of the other supersystem planets had disgorged more warships during the battle. She was sure that had been part of the Caca plan, why they had attacked with fighters at first, to try to lure as many Imperial ships into the zone of destruction as possible. Some of those ships needed to stay here, for she would be damned if anything else hit them out of the depths of space without the system being covered.
Chapter Seventeen
If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. George S. Patton
“My Lord. We are picking up numerous objects in orbit around this station.”
The High Admiral in charge of the mission looked up at the plot, tearing his mind away from the thought that he would never see his sons again. Unlike his subordinates, who had been ordered onto this suicide mission, and had obeyed unquestioningly, as was their way, he had volunteered for a hopeless charge that could win the war for his kind in a day. And bring glory and honor to his sons, advancing them in their careers.
“Show me.”
Whatever they were, they weren’t radiating gravitons, so were probably not ships. And all of them were very large, in the hundreds of millions of ton range, many much more massive. The Ca’cadasan ships were only getting sensor returns on them now, and none of them were stealthed.
The one that appeared on the screen was a squat cylinder, the sensor readouts showing a length of over fifty kilometers, a width of twenty. It was putting out gravitons, the kind that were generated by the simple mass of the object, and not by any technological means.
“Mass reading estimated to be over a hundred billion tons,” called out the shocked Tactical Officer. “Purpose unknown, but I believe it is a wormhole production satellite. Should we target it?”
“No. We will move forward with the primary mission.” I would hate to fail for the lack of a missile, thought the High Admiral. “And what is that?”
This obj
ect was over a thousand kilometers in length, though less than a single kilometer in width, looking all the world like an enormous needle. It massed less than a billion tons, probably closer to eight hundred million. Thousands of smaller objects inhabited the vastness of the space around the station, most of unknown purpose. They must have been factories, docks, antimatter storage containers. The industrial potential indicated was massive. The destruction of so much potential would be devastating to the war effort of the humans, but it was still nothing compared to their station, which represented a thousand of the power generating worlds his own Empire would need to equal its energy producing potential.
“Second wave of missiles should reach the station in another minute,” called out the Tactical Officer.
Most of the missiles were visible on the plot, the specials looking like ghost images even to Ca’cadasan sensors. Many were dropping off the plot each second as counter missiles from the station took them out. The plot showed the third wave, still five minutes from contact, followed by the first wave launched by the warships, over six minutes behind that one.
“Time until we reach detonation range?”
“Seventeen minutes, my Lord. We should launch our last missiles in thirteen minutes, then follow them in.”
“Then that is what we will do,” ordered the High Admiral. “And I will want detonation within ten thousand kilometers from of the hull of the station. Leading vessels will shoot by before then.” And just maybe we can survive the blast and get out of this system, he thought. That wasn’t in the plan of the people who had sent him, but if it got him out alive it was his plan.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 22