Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion.

by Doug Dandridge

  “Porpoise is reporting a near hit,” called out the com tech.

  Suttler glanced at the Klassekian. He wasn’t really familiar with the aliens, but this one seemed to be holding up as well as any of the crew. Surprising for a being that had grown up in a society where only the elite few ever made it into space.

  “Damage.”

  “Minimal,” replied the tech, getting the point of his question immediately.

  We need more than minimal returns, he thought.

  A large prominence rose from the star, curving up, reaching a million kilometers out before curving back in to fall back into the surface. Those were about to become a real threat as more of them rose higher and higher. When the star blew it wouldn’t matter how good they were at dodging the slow moving plasma. They would fry, instantly.

  The admiral looked over at a holo he had brought up as soon as they had detected the hyperdrives coming online. Twelve point sources, and a larger source in the center of the star. Roiling the plasma at the point where fusion was occurring, ramping it up. Soon it would reach the point where the gravity of the star wasn’t enough to hold everything together. It would, burp, was the only word he could think of, and the pressure wave would rise quickly, until it hit the outer layer of the star, where the pressure was the least. The force of the event would release the photon storm that was the destructive power of the star, heat and radiation moving out in a globe at the speed of light. That would burn everything this close to the star into plasma. That plasma would almost immediately be pushed out by the material component of the blast. Superhot plasma moving at much less than light speed, still destructive enough to finish off whatever the photon storm left.

  The point at the center of the star was growing in power. The admiral had no idea as to the timing of this event. They had figured from the few they had observed that it took about an hour from the time the projectors flipped on until the blast. What they didn’t know was what would happen if the hyperdrives were flipped off short of critical mass. Would the star just settle down, or would it still trigger, just with a shorter, less violent event?

  The ship shook again, a little less than the last time. There was more cursing, a few shouts on the edge of panic, then everyone got back to work. Suttler pulled up another holo, this one showing the one scan they had of a sub-supernova in progress. The current one looked like it was going along at a much faster clip, which meant they probably had less time than he had thought.

  Maybe the missiles Admiral Mei fired will get here and do the job, he thought, snorting at the thought. Little chance of that. Those missiles would hit the ever thickening particle field going at point nine-five light, and moving a greater distance their sensors would degrade even faster than those on the weapons he had fired. If the warp ships got here in time they might have better luck. Of they might not. The only thing he had any control over, little as it was, were the ships in his command.

  “Sure you don’t want to back off for a moment,” came the voice of the exec into his private com circuit.

  “Hell, no. If they set off the star we’re dead. If we’re going to die, it might as well be trying to stop them from killing us, and everyone else.”

  “Hit,” called out the tac officer in triumph.

  Suttler looked up to see the close up view of the platform, hoping to see it breaking up. It wasn’t, but one section near the rear of the ship was gone. If it had been a wormhole launched missile that still might have shattered the platform. As it was, the warhead hadn’t been enough to do that. That told of the toughness of the platforms, which in no way were like the antimatter sats they mimicked.

  “Figure out how you did that and do it again,” shouted Suttler. “And how long till we have the particle beam?”

  “Three minutes,” called out the officer.

  “As soon as its online, fire them up.”

  “Gladly, sir,” replied the officer, fingers flying over his board as he programed the next attack run.

  The ship bucked again, two more missiles on the way. That left fourteen missiles aboard. Suttler wasn’t sure they would be here to fire off all of them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  You can't build a revolution with no education. Jomo Kenyatta did this in Africa, and because the people were not educated, he became as much an oppressor as the people he overthrew. Fred Hampton

  Captain Wilma Snyder watched as the pilot maneuvered the ship into what was hoped to be the optimal position. It was a really tricky maneuver, getting set up just right to take a shot. The ship would be standing still in space, relatively, as soon as the drive was cut off. They wouldn’t be able to close with the missile, though they could swing their nose with thrusters. So coming out at the right place and time was paramount.

  The ship turned off the drive, a process that took several seconds, then stopped dead in space. The sensors started gathering information, feeding it into the computers. In less than a second they knew. The transition had been perfect, more or less, and they were sitting almost two light seconds straight ahead of the missile. Even better would have been directly behind, since the thing was coming right at them. They had three seconds to fire and get out of the way. Fortunately, the solution came through within a second, and the pilot opened up with the nose mounted particle beam. A gram of protons, accelerated up to over ninety-nine percent of light speed, slammed into the nose of the missile and blasted through, all the way to the warhead, which detonated as soon as the antimatter touched the matter of the casing.

  With a flip of the joystick the pilot turned the ship, hit the drive, and moved out of the way at two hundred gravities. A moment later the warp drive spun up, and they were again moving at faster than light, heading for the next target.

  We won’t get them all, thought the captain, listening to the report from the com tech. Eighteen of her ships had made a hit, which meant six had not. Eighteen out of four hundred meant they still had too many missiles to take out. Even at their best they might get half of them, most probably less at a seventy-five percent success rate.

  “We’re picking up warp drive signatures on approach,” called out the sensor tech.

  “How many?” She didn’t have to ask whose, since command hadn’t informed them of any reinforcements coming her way.

  “It looks like fifty, ma’am.”

  “Outstanding,” growled Wilma, clenching a fist. Make that much less than half the missiles, she thought.

  * * *

  Low Admiral Grassafa watched the holo closely as the event worked its way to critical mass. He caught several of the bridge crew looking back with curious expressions. They had no idea what was going on. The admiral cursed himself for a fool, worrying about how the crew had been led into this blindly. In a short period of time it wouldn’t matter. They would all be going into the afterlife. The crew, by not knowing, would be blameless, and ascend to paradise. At least that was his hope.

  “We have a hundred and fifty-two missiles getting to the target zone,” said the tac officer, looking at the plot that was tracking them by graviton emissions. “They should be releasing in a moment.”

  That was something they wouldn’t be able to track in real time, though the signals from the missiles should come in within minutes.

  “Enemy missiles should be approaching our barrier,” called out the tac officer. “In one to three minutes.”

  It was looking like they had timed it just right. Of course, now it was looking like this was an exercise that had no meaning. The star would detonate well before the human missiles got there. They would burn up like insects in a flame as they bore in. In the end it really didn’t matter, since those weapons they had launched were doomed to be destroyed with the system as well.

  “And it looks like our warp fighters are about to make contact, my Lord.”

  That was something they could track in real time from the disruptions in space time caused by the warping of space. The track was showing twenty-four human craft, moving at twent
y lights and turning toward the Ca’cadasan ships. His spacecraft were moving at just over ten lights. If it had been a chase his ships would never have been able to catch the humans, or get away. The humans, unfortunately for them, were trying to protect their missiles, and had to think that the Ca’cadasan ships were there to destroy them. So they were committed to a dogfight. How it would play out would be of interest to command, and all of the data, at least that which could be picked up from this distance, was going back by the one wormhole in the system.

  The admiral sat on the edge of his seat, curious. He might be about to die, but he would relish this last bit of entertainment.

  * * *

  “What are you doing?”

  The sub-officer stiffened, stopping his motion of raising the heavy tool overhead. The circuit board that was his target sat there, doing its job of controlling the power run to the hyperdrive generator.

  “Just making some repairs, my Lord.”

  “With that tool? What are you going to do? Hit it until it starts to work.”

  The sub-officer turned slowly, getting a look at the male who had caught him before he could commit the sabotage. That male was aiming a particle beam pistol at him, a disapproving look on his face.

  “Move away from that assembly,” said the officer, waving the pistol.

  “I think not.”

  “You think not? Are you mad? I will blow your head off if you don’t move, you mutinous vermin.”

  “And if you shoot me, you are likely to hit the power run. Not a good mix, fast moving protons and delicate equipment.”

  “If you won’t move, then I will have to,” said the officer, stepping to the side.

  The sub-officer could see what the officer planned immediately. He would line up the sabatour so he could get a shot that would burn into a bulkhead if any made it through his body. He prepared himself to charge, an action that would probably lead to his death. The sub-officer thought he had no other choice.

  There was a movement behind the officer, then the smack of a heavy object hitting a thick skull. The eyes of the officer rolled up and his body pitched forward. The sub-officer dropped his tool and picked up the particle beam pistol, checking the setting and making sure it was at max.

  “Thanks,” he told his friend. “Now step back, and I’ll make sure that this abomination of a mechanism never works again.”

  He raised the pistol and aimed it at the circuit board. With a pull of the trigger the angry red beam connected with the board, which went up in a shower of sparks as much of it converted to plasma. The sub-officer took another step to the side and aimed directly at the power run. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when he did this, and with a look he sent his partner further away.

  The beam hit the run, and the sub-officer played it over the conduit. Electric bolts arced, reaching out to slam into other electronics, causing them to short as well. With a small explosion the run disintegrated.

  “Let’s get over to the other. One more, and this ship won’t be doing anything to this star.”

  The other male gave a head motion of agreement and followed on the heels of the sub-officer. They only had to gun down one officer on the way.

  * * *

  “One of the platforms just went offline, my Lord.”

  “What happened,” yelled Low Admiral Phlirassaa, anger and panic rising in him.

  “We don’t know, my Lord. The graviton beam halved, then stopped entirely. Wait. Another platform has stopped producing.”

  The admiral looked over at the plot, which was now showing only ten platforms sending their beams into the core. The alignment was no longer optimal as well.

  “Order the remaining platforms to reorient,” he ordered, sending the new alignments over to the com officer.

  “What if the other platforms come back online?”

  The admiral doubted that would happen. Something bad had happened to those platforms, and surely it would take longer than a half an hour to fix it.

  “Sending,” said the com officer. “Receiving acknowledgements. All will….”

  The bridge shook violently, the deck rumbled underneath. The sternward bulkhead pealed away as a blast of superheated flame came bursting through, instantly turning everyone in the chamber to plasma.

  * * *

  “Yes,” yelled the tac officer as he played the particle beam over the platform he was targeting. He had control of the ship for the moment, aiming the bow at the target, the only way to fire this kind of weapon.

  Several kilograms of antimatter per second came flying through the portal, accelerated up to one hundred thousandth less than light speed, impossible velocity for any ship mounted weapon. The accelerator back on the Donut was one hundred kilometers in length, formed into a bent toroid that moved the charged particles around and around until they built up to their ultimate velocity. A thousand times larger than any particle accelerator that would fit on the biggest warship, it was the ultimate beam weapon in this war.

  The kinetic energy was devastating, cutting through the hull and armor of the platform like that hard alloy was mere gas. The antimatter, less a tiny bit that had blasted through the particles in the way, released almost ninety megatons of explosive power per second. Not as much as a missile warhead, but after the first second all of the explosive power was detonated within the platform. In five seconds it was a wreck, spinning through space on a loop that would smack into the star in minutes. There might still be some Cacas alive on the platform, but they were no longer a concern.

  “Good job, tac. Now find another one.”

  “It’s going to take a few minutes to get into firing position.”

  “Then get moving.”

  “And two of them just went offline on their own,” called out the sensor officer.

  “Why?”

  “Unknown, sir. But they are definitely not projecting gravitons.”

  It really didn’t matter why, though it might later, if they started up again. Another platform stopped projecting, this one from missile hits, one of the attack ships getting lucky.

  So we have eight working, and they aren’t on an even pattern, thought the admiral with a smile. They might just win this thing. Even better, though less likely, they might make it home. As that thought went through his mind another of his ships fell off the plot, and he realized that the fight was not going all his way.

  * * *

  “We’re getting a graviton signal from one of the platforms, my Lord,” stated the com officer, looking confused for a moment. “I’m not sure what this means.”

  “Well, tell me what it says, fool.” Low Admiral Grassafa was feeling irritable. There were indications that things were not going well in the neighborhood near the star. Only eight of the platforms were working. They had received signals from two of them that their power runs were down, with no explanation, along with repair estimates of many hours.

  “Firefight in engineering,” said the com officer.

  “What else?”

  “That was all, my Lord. It repeated once and then stopped. Should I send a reply.”

  The low admiral thought about that for a moment, then slowly gave a head nod of negation. What could he order? If it was a mutiny, something he had feared since the start of this mission, what could he do about it out here. Anything he sent to help wouldn’t arrive on time. Anything he sent that left the proximity of the planet would be snapped up by the human fleet. That fleet was coming closer by the moment, and there was no way he could defeat it. If the star detonated that would not be a concern, for anyone. If it didn’t go up the humans would win here. He had been ordered to prevent them from getting what they wanted, and he looked at the globe of the planet in a holo, dreading that decision, not sure if he could do it.

  That’s insane, he thought. If the mission went as planned that world would be destroyed anyhow, so why did he feel guilty about bombarding it? Because the destruction of the system was on the leaders who had set up the situation? Th
e projector platforms were not really under his command. If he ordered the bombardment of the planet with the force under him, it was on him.

  As he looked over at the holo that showed the graviton waves of the projector force, another ship went offline, its hyperdrive and the field it was projecting going dark. He slammed a fist on his chair, attracting the attention of the entire bridge crew, the expressions on their faces showing that they still didn’t understand what was going on, but realizing that it wasn’t going according to plan.

  Theoretically, six of the platforms spaced out properly could cause the detonation. It would just take longer. Hells, two could do it, if given a standard day to accomplish it. The reason so many vessels were used was to prevent the incoming force from having the time to interfere.

  Since there was nothing he could do about the situation, the low admiral did something he hadn’t done in decades. He closed his eyes and said the mantra that would put him into a trance, prepared to pray to the Gods in a much deeper way. He asked forgiveness, he asked guidance. He spent two minutes in the trance, until his shouted name brought him out.

  “My Lord. The human warp fighters have broken away from the dogfight and are heading in.”

  “How many?” The low admiral had a rush of confusing emotions. He almost wanted them to succeed. That was a traitorous thought. Traitorous to the Emperor, but was it really to the empire? After all, the Empire was not just its leader. It was the people. It was the Gods. And the Gods had to be angered. And from what he had heard, the people back on the home world definitely were.

  “Is there any way we can stop them?” he found himself asking, almost out of reflex.

  “No, my Lord,” replied the tactical officer with regret. And another platform fell off the plot, leaving six.

  * * *

  “Is it my imagination, or is the sun brighter and hotter, sir?” asked the sergeant.

  Cornelius looked up at the sky, trying to determine if the NCO was correct. The fighting had died down, both sides just too worn out to continue without a rest. The Maurids, despite their bloodlust, were grateful for the rest. The humans, while not wanting to admit that they were at the edge of their limits, were also.