Exodus - Empires at War 04 - The Long Fall (Exodus Series #4)

by Doug Dandridge

  Out from the habitable zone was the mineral rich asteroid belt, the treasure of the system, and home to millions of people who were descendants of the old Belters of Sol System. And out from there a half dozen moon colonies around gas giants, mining the deuterium, tritium and helium 3 from the atmospheres of those massive planets.

  Over hundred ships were in space, moving inward and outward, feeding the commerce of system. And among them were the four ten million ton system monitors, twelve heavy cruisers and twenty-two destroyers, all more maneuverable in normal space than their hyper capable counterparts, and all trapped in the system. They were another invention of Parliament, who had wanted a force that couldn’t run, also for the peace of mind of the citizenry.

  There were also about thirty hyper capable warships in the system defense force, including two older battleships. Mgonda was transmitting orders to them to leave the system. They might be vital units in the coming year. And I wonder how those men and women will feel leaving family and friends behind while they run. That was the sore spot to this whole thing. He wouldn’t be surprised if some of those ships refused to obey orders. And then what was he supposed to do? He wouldn’t fire on them, and if this was the system the Cacas were heading to the mutinous ships would not be around for a court martial.

  And just why in the hell are they heading here? he thought, looking at a holo map of this region of space. This isn’t the most important industrial system in this part of space. It has over seven billion people, the great majority of them human. Is that it? More people to kill.

  “Thalmina should be at orbital insertion in twenty-six hours, fourteen minutes,” said the Flag Navigation Officer.

  “And the leading elements of the enemy force will be jumping into the system in approximately thirty-four hours,” said the Flag Tactical Officer.

  “Order the monitors and other system defense ships out to the hyper barrier,” said Mgonda to his Com Officer. “At least they can do some good out here.”

  “Com coming in on subspace from Cimmeria’s Archduke,” said the Com Officer.

  “Put it on my personal link,” said the Admiral, not looking forward to this transmission. And then I’ll have to deal with the Archduke of Aquilonia, with the same news. We aren’t here to save you because that is impossible.

  *

  “Scout pods will be making the last jump in ten minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  The Great Admiral sat staring at the plot. He was doing everything by the Ca’cadasan tactical book, sending in a wave of scouts to look over the system first. They would report back by graviton wave, using the code to send whatever they could. Not that it would prevent the rest of the fleet from going through their last jump. They were already committed. It was either jump from hyper I, or run into the barrier with all the disastrous consequences that entailed. But at least the scouts would trigger whatever was waiting , if anything.

  “Enemy scout capital ships and escorts are still hanging off to the side in III,” said the Sensor Officer.

  “Where they can tell the system everything they know about us through those damned wormholes,” said the Great Admiral, turning a baleful eye toward his human slave, as if it was her fault.

  “We’ll see how they handle a Ca’cadasan battle fleet,” said the Intelligence Chief with a feral grin on his face. “We will crush them, and then the path to their home system will be open.”

  The slave was staring at the Intelligence Chief, then back at the holo. She is afraid. Very good. And after she sees her fleet destroyed she will lose hope. And in losing hope, she will be more malleable to questioning.

  Time went by as it always had, one tick of the clock at a time. It only seemed longer to the beings living it, waiting to see if their plans were going to work. But finally the time passed.

  The hyperwave transmissions of hundreds of vessels came over the sensors, the signature the scouts jumping into normal space. What soon followed were the hyperwave signals from the scouts, sending unwelcome but not unexpected information back.

  “Scout pods are under attack,” said the Com Officer, looking back at his leader.

  “And if the enemy are following their normal pattern, those ships will be outside the barrier, shooting in at our ships as they come out of hyper,” said the Great Admiral, looking at the com officer. “Order task groups seven through twelve to emergency decel. I want them to jump a half light hour outside the barrier. They are to engage the enemy ships and not allow any to escape.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” said the Com Officer.

  “Two minutes to jump,” called out the Navigation Officer, and the Great Admiral sat in anticipation of the victory to come.

  *

  “The enemy fleet is entering the Cimmeria system, your Majesty,” said the Com Officer in the war room underneath the palace.

  Sean paced back and forth over the walkway, looking down into the room that had been modified recently for just this purpose. Before the advent of wormhole tech there would have been no need for this kind of facility. The results of a battle would have been slowly percolated back by courier ship, or at best, by hyperlink, taking days to weeks before the information made it to high command. Now, they could actually monitor the battle in real time, and offer advice.

  And that’s something we need to be careful about, thought Sean, looking at the holo plot of the Cimmeria system that was being fed by scores of wormhole com systems. He had already discussed the situation with his senior military officers, his teachers, who had suggested that micromanagement was not the way to go. But strategic decisions would be made in rooms like these, and strategy would drive the tactics of the local commanders.

  “So far so good,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCollum on the holo showing the meeting room at the Hexagon.

  “Yeah, so far so good,” agreed Sean as he wondered if it was good enough. Should I have ordered an all-out defense of that system, despite the risks. The military brain trust had agreed with the decision, but they would not be the ones to bear the blame for the deaths of billions of humans, even if it was the right thing to do. I will not allow them to take the blame. The responsibility is mine.

  They needed the Fleet to remain in being. If it were destroyed the enemy would be able to split into smaller units and conquer the Core Worlds quickly. He understood that. It still didn’t make it any easier to issue the orders that needed to be given.

  “Missile strikes on the Ca’cadasan scouts,” called out the War Room Tactical Officer. “Multiple strikes.”

  The holo showed the vector arrows of the Ca’cadasan ships that had entered normal space, along with those that had yet to enter. The icons of the human force, all of Admiral Mgonda’s hyper VII ships, including several with the wormhole missile capability, sat a light hour out from the system, still in space. And between them were tens of thousands of icons, the missiles they had been firing for the last four hours, based on the information they had received through wormhole com from the scout force. The first of those missiles were vectoring perfectly onto the two hundred or so Ca’cadasan scout ships, pulling point nine five c. The Ca’cadasan ships could see them coming, could even start to cycle their defensive missiles and engage with their lasers. In fact, they were able to hit over half the missiles coming in before they had acquired their targets. And many more before they were on final approach. So the Ca’cadasan force only lost fifty-one of their scouts to catastrophic hits or multiple near misses.

  The missiles were still coming in as the main body of the force arrived. The enemy lost some ships during this time as well, not as many as before, but the ships lost this time were battleships and supercruisers. Another thirty ships were blotted from existence.

  “We have ships jumping in further out,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  “You were right, Admiral,” said Sean, smiling at the holo of McCollum.

  “My intelligence officers were right, your Majesty,” said the CNO. “They thought the Cacas migh
t react to that stunt Mgonda pulled on them before.”

  The enemy ships were still moving into the system at point three c, and now had the choice of either jumping back into hyper, just so they could come back into normal space before the barrier. Or they could try to decel and come back out. Either way, they weren’t going to catch the ships that were releasing their last missiles, then jumping into hyper III to get away from the enemy.

  Next time they’ll have a following force that will catch those ships, thought Sean. And we’ll just have to come up with something new.

  His own force had done what they could. They had stung to run away and hit another day, and hit they would, wherever they found the enemy to be weak.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. Franklin Roosevelt.

  CIMMERIA SPACE, AND CAPITULUM, DECEMBER 30TH, 1000 THROUGH JANUARY 6TH 1001.

  So, this is what one of their population centers looks like, thought the Great Admiral, looking at the 3D viewer that brought it to life. There was one living planet in view, a lovely world which expanded in the viewer, blue and white and green, like most living worlds. And totally infested with these humans. He wished he could simply send a swarm of missiles at relativistic speeds into that target and annihilate them all. But the priests, who came along on every mission, would not allow such, so he would have to close the distance and bombard the population centers from space, and possibly land troops to take care of the rest of them.

  He knew there was another planet in the system, and not seeing it realized it must be on the other side of the white star. It would take a little longer to kill the humans on that world, but it would still be done. The rest of the system was abuzz like a nest of biting insects kicked by a hard boot. There were ships everywhere, or at least the images of ships as they were hours before. Freighters, tankers, ore carriers, trying to seek some kind of safety that didn’t exist. The interstellar capable were running for the hyper barrier. They were already being tracked by missiles that would blow them out of space before they reached that barrier. Those that made it into hyper would be caught and destroyed by the forces that were surrounding the system in hyperspace. There would be no escape from this doomed system.

  “We have located over five hundred insystem bases or settlements,” called out the Tactical Officer. “We are targeting them now.”

  The orders went out, and scout ships and supercruisers started to adjust their vectors to intercept those targets. First they would assess them for their intelligence or industrial value. They would ransack those that had any value, and destroy those that didn’t.

  “These have been tagged as warships,” said the Tactical Officer, and objects were surrounded by red boxes.

  The view expanded on one, a large warship, more than twice the tonnage of a supercruiser. But different from the scout capitals they had seen before. It took the Admiral a moment to discern the major difference. “They’re not hyper capable,” he exclaimed, noting the absence of the human type hyperdrive projectors on the ship. “Why, in the name of all the Gods, would anyone build a warship without hyper capabilities. What a waste of resources.”

  “We have targeted extra missiles on those ships,” said the Tactical Officer.

  “I want orbital insertion to that planet as soon as convenient,” said the Great Admiral, looking at his Navigation Officer.

  “We can be there in twenty-five hours,” said the Navigation Officer.

  “Time is really of no importance,” said the Great Admiral, disappointed that there were no more of the enemy forces in the system. Perhaps they will come if we stay and destroy everything in the system. Weaklings like the humans cannot just stand by and watch as we slaughter billions of their fellows, can they? Deep down he knew that his own people would not be able to stand by and watch their females and children killed. But it was something he couldn’t admit, as it would make the humans more understandable, and himself more sympathetic to them.

  “We have antimatter production facilities closer to the star,” said the Tactical Officer, and the viewer shifted to show hundreds of karats, then closer to show a large solar array, covering thousands of square kilometers, all feeding the power into two cubic kilometer manufacturing facility. Storage tanks were arrayed along one side of the center, antimatter in containment fields capable of destroying the entire complex.

  “Order scouts to take as many of those facilities as possible,” he said to the Com Officer. “Instruct them to extreme caution. The stations are to be boarded by ground assault troops and secured before the scouts attempt to offload that antimatter.”

  “Do you really think they will allow us to take that antimatter?” asked the Intelligence Chief.

  “Some of the humans on those stations may want to live,” said the Great Admiral. “And we can always use antimatter.” That’s my main weakness, thought the Great Admiral, looking on those stations with avarice. We are getting tankers from home, and of course the new facilities around Massadara are starting to add to the mix. But we can always use more, rather than run out and be immobilized.

  The Great Admiral realized that he needed to knock this opponent down as quickly as possible, lest they find themselves on the defensive. If I can even take twenty of those stations, I can top off my assault force and attack more of their Core planets. And force them to battle.

  The viewer changed its aspect again, showing a near view, and the bright dot of a spaceship blowing apart in space. One of the enemy insystem warships, overwhelmed by missiles. That was followed by more explosions, until the outnumbered and outclassed insystem force was gone. He looked over at the tactical plot, which now blossomed with thousands of vector arrows as the graviton transmissions of the battle station launched missiles reached the flagship. Nothing to worry about, he thought. He had thousands of ships, a doubted very much that anything would get through.

  *

  For three days Sean watched the total destruction of Cimmeria system. He stayed at his post day and night, watching through the wormhole com as ships were chased down or blasted from space by missiles. As moon or asteroid bases were blasted from existence by relativistic missiles coming in at high fractions of c. While orbital stations were rendered helpless by beam weaponry, then boarded so they could be looted. And he watched as ships from orbit dropped kinetic weapons onto the cities and industrial centers of two worlds.

  That last was the worst, watching from surface cameras as the heavy masses flared quickly through the atmosphere, striking the ground with a flash and a rumbling roar. Then would come the mushroom cloud, rising with a fireball into the upper atmosphere. Meanwhile, more rounds would come down, striking nearby and raising more fireballs. Sean could only imagine what were in those clouds. Pieces of buildings, trees, pets, people. The vaporized bodies of children.

  Most of the population had retreated to underground shelters, the same central capsules carried by warships to protect their crews from anything that got past the external armor, with inertial compensators to protect the inhabitants from shock. Most would sustain a hit without harm coming to the people taking refuge in them. Maybe even several. But the Ca’cadasan would hit each shelter with a dozen rounds, as soon as they located one. And the shelters were dropping off the fiber optic net with alarming rapidity.

  As he watched a dozen penetrators came down on the capital city of the world. The city itself was ruins, the skeletons of skyscrapers and even a few megascrapers pointing their internal bones to the sky. The buildings of that city were made of modern construction materials for the most part, impervious to seismic stresses or weather. And torn apart by the kinetic rounds like a child’s toy city. The rounds were now coming down to take out the shelters under the city.

  “You need to rest,” said Jennifer, seeing him in her capacity as personal physician. Sean could see the concern in her eyes. He had been without sleep for the past four days, and had only gotten infrequent bites to eat.

&nbs
p; But they are dying on my orders¸ he thought, turning away to look at the holos. It behooves me to experience their destruction, now that such is possible. And that was the rub. Past Emperors never would have been able to experience this. Had never had the chance to torture themselves. He was the fortunate first Emperor who would be able to experience the destruction of his own worlds, the deaths of his own subjects, in great lots.

  “Well,” said Jennifer, pulling a syringe from her medical bag. “If you won’t listen to reason.”

  “You will not put me to sleep,” he growled, spearing her with his eyes.

  “It’s just a combination of cleaner nanites and nutrients,” said Jennifer, pulling his arm down, then pressing the airgun to his arm. “Since you won’t listen to sense, I’ll just have to save you from yourself.”

  She ejected the contents through his skin and into his arm, and Sean could already feel the effects as soon as it hit his heart. She leaned close and put her lips to his ear.

  “It’s not your fault, you know,” she whispered. “You didn’t ask for these assholes to come along and throw their destructive weight around.”

  “I could have sent the Fleet in to protect the system.”

  “And then there really would be hell to pay,” said Jennifer, pulling his arm and turning him toward her. “Either you defeated them but had your fleet gutted, in which case the next wave of their ships would have had free reign in Sector Four and the Core Worlds. Or you lost the battle and had the first result, and the destruction of the Cimmeria system.”

  “I know that,” he said, looking down at the floor. “But there is no one else to blame.”

  “Then don’t blame anyone. Or simply blame the Cacas.”

  “Parliament will blame me. As will the people.”

  “Some might,” said Jennifer, nodding. “And you may need to live with that blame for a while. But in the end you will be vindicated. I know you will. I have faith.”