Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front

by Doug Dandridge

  And a wonderful addition to the human force it was. The twenty million ton superbattleships were no longer the mightiest ships in the fleet, but they were still a force to be reckoned with. Prince Henry, was one of the first of that class to be commissioned, but regular upgrades made her the equal of every other ship of her type.

  “I hope you understand, Commodore. We’re not here to fight. We’re here to help organize the evacuation of this system and protect it from any missile storms the Cacas might send our way.”

  Which means you could still end up getting your entire force vaporized trying to stop the unstoppable, thought Sung, nodding. “I have already relayed that information to Chairwoman Pallion, Admiral. I‘m just waiting for her to give the order.”

  Thankfully, the Chairwoman, through her Admiral in Charge, had finally given the weapons free order to all of her military units. By now most of the ships in orbit, including their watchdogs, were boosting out, and the orbital weapons and forts were realigning their axis of fire to face the oncoming Caca fleet. At least that made sense, since whatever missile storm came in would be from that axis. But she still hadn’t given the evacuation order. Once she gave it, the entire world would be mobilized to evacuate. If they tried to go ahead without her order, there might be a storm of order and counter-order that might cause problems.

  The big forts that are targets are still within sight, she thought with a breath of relief. If they had moved, the Commando teams would have been SOL, unable to reach them with their encounter suits. They must want to keep us under their weapons, just in case. Lucky for us.

  The Admiral nodded in return. Sung was sure the woman knew what her orders were, and that they would be implemented as soon as Pallion gave the orders they needed her to give.

  And why hasn’t she given them? thought the Commodore. She had to realize that she needed to get as many of her people out of here as possible, and any delay was dooming some of her people, which was the same thing as the manpower of her nation.

  More ships came through the wormhole, much smaller than the superbattleship, but still larger than most of the Klavarta ships in the system. A squadron of light cruisers, all of the newest missile defense class. As soon as they had cleared the wide open wormhole, which was actually growing wider by the minute as its frame was expanded, another squadron came through. Following them was the first squadron of missile defense destroyers.

  Sung looked at the tasking order on a side screen, information that had been sent over from the Harry. There would be a total of forty light cruisers in four squadrons, as well as eighty-four of the tin cans in seven squadrons. A powerful missile defense force, and one that would melt in the midst of a full scale onslaught by the approaching Caca fleet.

  “She needs to give that order as soon as she can,” said Wallace. “We need to start getting their hulls through the wormhole during the slack periods between our own deployments. And she needs to start loading our shuttles.”

  As the Admiral spoke every ship that had come through the wormhole was disgorging every shuttle they carried. In fact, every ship had been loaded with extra shuttles, and there were soon many hundreds of them in space, joining the thousands already there, awaiting permission to land on the moon.

  “Hold a sec, Admiral. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Sung blanked the holo to the commanding officer, then had her Com Officer contact the Chairwoman.

  “Chairwoman Pallion. We need you to give the evacuation order, now. We need your ships to start through the wormhole, and our shuttles must be given landing instructions. Please, ma’am. Every second counts now.”

  “But my shuttle hasn’t gotten here yet,” exclaimed the woman, almost in a panic.

  “Ma’am, you will have plenty of time to get away. It will take the Cacas at least twenty hours to reach the planet, and that’s if there is nothing to slow them down. Even their missiles, if they launch from their current position, will take over three hours, almost four, to reach here. So you will be able to get to safety. But every minute we wait means that thousands more of your people will be lost.”

  “I will send out the order, Commodore. But the Pures must be evacuated first.”

  Oh crap, thought Sung, almost panicking herself. The Emperor is not going to like this. Of course we want to get the non-modified humans away, but not by sacrificing the modified humans that make up the bulk of this nation. Think fast, Natasha.

  “Ma’am. We have thousands of shuttles and small ships that will be coming in. When more of our merchant and transport hulls get here, this space is going to get really crowded, so we need to get what we have here loaded and out of here. Of course we’ll evacuate your Pure humans as fast as possible, but we won’t have the landing strip space to send all of our shuttles to your capital. We will send as many as we can there, but we will also have to land at the fields of your Klavarta servants. So please, give the order.”

  “Very well, Commodore. I will give the order. And what in the hell is that?”

  Sung looked at the holo that was centered on the wormhole in time to see the front end of a twenty-five million ton superfreighter come bursting through. While only a fourth more massive than a superbattleship, it appeared to be much larger due to its less massive construction. As soon as it cleared the wormhole its huge cargo hatches opened and a swarm of shuttles flew out.

  “More shuttles, Madam Chairwoman. Now you need to give that order.” Sung muted the com for a moment and turned to look at her Com Officer.

  “Broadcast order has gone out for the evacuation on all channels,” called out the officer. “All citizens to report to landing fields, or to take whatever ships are ready into space with full loads of refugees.”

  “I’ve sent the order out, Commodore,” said Pallion as soon as Sung got back to her.

  And you never got to launch your master plan to take my ships, did you, bitch. “Thank you, Commodore. Any word on your shuttle”

  “Five minutes,” said Pallion, her face pale, like she was thinking it was five hours.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then, Chairwoman,” said Sung with a smile. She waved a hand at the Com Officer, and he sent the signal he had been ordered to when he saw that signal.

  * * *

  “You’re a go on your mission, Major,” came the call over the com. “We’re expanding the wormhole on the other end. First transit in two minutes.”

  And that would be me, thought Walborski as he looked back at the first platoon of his first company of his unnamed rump battalion. All were dressed as Council Security, though their augmentation would make them much more effective than those people. That brought the thought that he and his men could be executed as spies if they were caught. Hell, they’d probably kill us anyway, for attempting to assassinate their Council, even if we were wearing uniforms made of Imperial flags.

  “Two minutes,” he called out to the officer and men who had been standing there, waiting. All stood up straighter, or got up from the floor, those who had been sitting.

  “I wish you would reconsider going first, sir,” said the Ranger First Lieutenant who was a meter from him.

  “Not on your life, Lieutenant. I’m not about to let anyone go first into an unknown like this. You just stay on my ass and get your men through, and spread out when we hit the other side.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the other officer, who still didn’t look happy with the decision.

  If they’re waiting for us, you can be the second to die, after I get mine.

  “Wormhole has finished expanding, now,” came the voice over the com. The microdrones they had sent through earlier were looking at the wormhole. Its frame had been expanded by sending new elements through that were assembled by the drones, while more negative matter was sent through to fill the magnetic field within that frame.

  “Rangers,” yelled Walborski, waving a hand forward. “Follow me.” With that he leapt into the portal, his augmented muscles sending him flying through the air, holding his weapo
n at the ready. He hit the mirrored surface and the disorientation of wormhole transit hit him full force. It seemed to take hours to move through the portal, while his mind seemed to occupy all of space and time. He really wished he could remember what he had seen while in this state, but the human mind was not capable of retaining that knowledge. And then he was flying out the other end of the portal, the momentum of his leap carrying him into the large basement chamber that the drones had shown waiting on the far side of the wormhole. And there were Klavarta waiting for him, just as the drones had shown. He hoped they were the ones they were expecting to be waiting. If not, this would be a very short mission.

  One of the Klavarta stepped forward, a member of the scary looking warrior subspecies. He had seen vids of them, all teeth and claws and spikes, bred especially for war. He thought he could probably still take one, thanks to his augmentation, but it wasn’t something he wanted to test.

  “Welcome, Major Walborski,” said the being in a strange hissing speech caused by his over developed jaws and teeth. “We have been expecting you.”

  He noticed now that the Klavarta were all also dressed in Council Security uniforms.

  “Are you ready to help us to the Council offices?” asked the Major, as more Rangers came through the portal at his back.

  “We are. And your, pet, Monsters?”

  “They’re coming along right after my first platoon. And you realize that the only ones that have any self-will are not really Cacas? Uh, your Monsters. They’re shape shifters in the form of the Monsters. And the real ones do not have any mental faculties of their own.”

  “So we have heard,” said the Klavarta, an unreadable expression on his face. “It is hard to believe, but my contacts have told me to act as if it’s true, whether I believe it or not.”

  “Part of the deception plan, uh, what do I call you?”

  “I am Captain Tushara. And all of these with me are fellow officers. It was hard to find enlisted Klavarta who would believe in this revolution, so we gathered what we had. And I have to ask, couldn’t you just fake vid, footage was the word I think my contact used? What a strange term.”

  Walborski nodded, aware that the last of first platoon had come through, and it was time for their puppets and imposters to make their appearances. “I think the term was coined on Old Earth, though I don’t know what it came from. But even the best fake vid can be determined to be false with the proper analysis. So high command decided that we would have the real thing.”

  The first of the Cacas, the imposters, came through on hands and knees, arrayed in the battle armor of the Ca’cadasan Empire. That one stood up, and looked around, while several more of the same kind came through. Walborski stared at the Cacas that he knew to be a Yugalyth. The creatures still gave him the creeps, and he didn’t think he would ever get used to them.

  “You know the plan,” he said to the leader of the Yugalyth. “Make sure you play it up for the cameras.”

  “Yes, Major. We know what to do.”

  More of the Cacas crawled through the portal, these the real thing. Their eyes looked vacantly out at the world as if there was nothing behind them. Actually, there wasn’t. Their higher functions had been destroyed and replaced with computer interlinks that allowed others to control their movements. The controllers came through next, followed by more Rangers.

  Walborski looked at one of the puppets. It was one of the Cacas he had promised would be treated well on New Moscow. He had meant that promise when he made it, but had learned that the word of a mere captain meant nothing when generals, admirals and even emperors decided different. Even though it had been taken out of his hands, he still felt soiled by the whole deal.

  “Follow me,” said Tushara, pointing to some doors on the side of the chamber. “And I assume that all of your people have downloads of the building layout.”

  “We do. First platoon and the imposter unit will come with me, while the rest of the battalion finds their own way through their planned routes. Now let’s go ahead and get this over with.” Before I puke at what we’ve been asked to do.

  * * *

  In the middle asteroid belt, three thousand kilometers from the station, a wormhole portal opened. Moments later the first of the combat suited Naval Commandos came shooting through at a velocity of twenty kilometers a second. The suit immediately started a slow deceleration, giving off minimal heat. A second suit shot out two seconds behind the first, then another, until there were sixty of the Commandos on the way toward the station that housed the Commander of the Klavarta fleet. It was not really that large a station as they went, only a couple of million tons, and with maybe two or three thousand personnel.

  The initial plan put forward had been to destroy the station and kill the Pure human Admiral who was in charge of the Klavarta fleet, the only one this far from the homeworld who could send the codes giving the modified Klavarta control of their weapons systems. And the one who could take those weapons away from them with another code. The Emperor had vetoed the plan to destroy the station with antimatter warheads attached to the hull. That would have taken the lives of innocent beings, when the only ones that needed to die were the four clones aboard the station, the commanding Admiral and his three subordinate officers.

  I’m not really sure we shouldn’t have just gone for the initial use of warheads, thought Commander Nguyen Than, the officer in charge of this assault. Doing an insertion and assault on the command staff might have saved the lives of the many Klavarta on the station. But it put his own skin and those of his men at risk. Which seemed to him to be a losing proposition, when most of these people were going to be killed by the Cacas anyway.

  Nguyen’s suit slowed to almost a standstill by the time he reached the station, landing on the hull and adhering to it by the magnets in his armor. A moment later his Chief landed, followed by more, another every two seconds.

  “Let’s get into this can and do the job,” he told his men over the short range com.

  “There’s an access hatch over here, sir,” said one of the Petty Officers. “Let me link into the station system and let us in.”

  Good thing we got their operating system from the rebellion, thought the Commander, sending his agreement to the PO.

  It took several tries before the order was accepted, and the hatch slid open. The Commandos filed in, five at a time through the airlock, spreading out along the corridors as they entered the station proper.

  “Remember, stunners only until we reach the targets,” ordered the Commander. “Stealth fields on full.”

  The suits were already wrapped in their stealth fields, rendering them all but invisible. They would still be seen on infrared and other sensors, but they had been augmented with distortion projectors that would make them look like something they weren’t. Like some kind of alien, in this case the Maurids that the Imperials knew were servants of the Cacas. And that the Klavarta knew of as well.

  It only took minutes to push the five hundred meters into the center of the station. One hundred of those meters were against no resistance, only a few of the warrior subspecies stunned into helplessness. The specialist PO triggered the alarm that signaled evacuation of the station, removing thoughts of resistance from the great majority of the crew, who ran hell bent for the escape pods and shuttles.

  They caught the Admiral and his three subordinates leaving the command center, themselves heading for the shuttle bay. Nguyen had lost three men at this point, and was not in the best of moods. He gunned down the targets himself with a particle beam, leaving their charred and partially vaporized remains on the floor. He felt some guilt in killing them, realizing that some of these people had been around since the end of Old Earth. And also realizing that was why they needed to go. Cloning was forbidden, and for good reason.

  “The station is evacuated, sir,” said the Chief over the com.

  “Then set the devices and let’s get out of here,” ordered the Commander, watching as the men with the antimatter de
vices set them and moved away.

  Nguyen looked back just before he flew through the wormhole, just in time to see the weapons they had left behind detonate within the station, blasting it to small pieces and plasma.

  Minutes after the last Commando left the system, a ship came through the temporarily expanded wormhole. One of the new two hundred thousand ton stealth scout ships, capable of travelling through both hyper VI and subspace, the ship had arrived without the wormhole it normally used to carry away all of its revealing waste heat. It took about five minutes for the ship to take the wormhole it had transited into its hull and set up its heat sink. With that it disappeared from all sensors that could possibly spot it, and started accelerating slowly toward the edge of the system, simultaneously watching the space around it and reporting instantaneously to headquarters, and ensuring that at least one wormhole gate of the Empire would remain in this space, and in human hands.

  * * *

  At the under the mountain base that housed the Klavarta homeworld ground and orbital defense command, and the General who also had the codes to the entire system weapons array, another wormhole opened. It had taken over twelve hours to maneuver the almost microscopic hole through the heavily guarded entrances and down the elevators to the command center. The operator had sat in tense anxiety, sweating as she maneuvered past all of the security that had been set to make this base impenetrable. And so it might have been, against someone who didn’t control wormhole technology.

  There was little security in the command center itself. Who had seen the need, when any attack would have to get past ten thousand warriors and the heaviest security in the system. In fact, many in the government had thought it paranoid to spend so much time and effort to make it so impregnable. It was short work to disable any of the alarm systems that were present, setting some of them to continue recording, while the others got only static.

  The wormhole opened in a small conference room as the order came, and the hit squad came through in full stealth, blurring as their invisibility fields bent light around them. Following them were the three puppets, Ca’cadasans in everything but mind, wearing light combat armor, all that was thought to be needed for this part of the op. They clanked ahead, heading for the control center that was down a short corridor. There were some soldiers at the end of the hall, at the final security checkpoint before the command center. They panicked as the Cacas came into sight, almost falling over each other to pull their weapons. The stealthed Rangers took them down with stunners. After all, they wanted witnesses to the Cacas killing their commander.