Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy

by Doug Dandridge

  And I can be the next one, she thought with a smile on her face.

  * * *

  CAPITAL WORLD, CA’CADASAN EMPIRE.

  Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire, Jresstratta IV, looked at the faces of the Cacada sitting around the conference table, noting many expressions of concern, if not outright fear. The gift of my predecessors, he thought with a scowl that heightened the fear. For generations untold Emperors had held the power of life and death over any subject of the Empire, no matter how low, or high, their station. That had made males afraid to speak the truth, afraid to fail. That had been fine when the Empire was expanding against weaker species. Now that they were fighting a power that could give as good as it got, he couldn’t afford to have leaders who were afraid to make decisions and take risks.

  Jresstratta had tried to change that culture, a little bit at a time. He had been forced to pronounce doom on the Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow, and punish his family since he couldn’t get his hands on the Admiral. But he had also let some transgressions pass that would have resulted in punishment in the past, under his father.

  “We should be prepared to resume offensive operations against the human Empire and its allies on schedule,” said Supreme Admiral Hassartaj L’sinantrana. “The first wormhole gates will arrive at the forward base in forty-seven days.”

  “And the infiltration ships?”

  “They will arrive at about the same time, my Supreme Lord. They are being carried by a pair of battleships each, so they can travel through hyper VII. As soon as they arrive, we will work on getting them through the frontier.”

  “So you believe the plan is working?” asked the Emperor, wondering if the proposed probes would really accomplish anything, other than letting the enemy know something was up.

  “We believe so, Supreme Lord. While we have no means of tracking their picket ships, our analysts believe there is no way they can cover the entire area. We have been moving larger and larger groups through with no response. We believe there is a high probability we can drop off the infiltrators past the frontier, but before we get to their original borders, without the humans realizing what we are doing.”

  “And if they do intercept the infiltrator ships before they make it into the human Empire?” asked the Emperor.

  “The crews have been instructed to destroy themselves before the humans discover there are Cacada aboard, and before they have any suspicion that we have actual working wormholes.”

  The Emperor gave a head nod of acceptance. While he wouldn’t trust any of the human slaves who were aboard to act as the faces of the crew to destroy themselves, Ca’cadasan warriors would do so without hesitation. The humans that might intercept any of the infiltrators could become very suspicious, thinking they had found smugglers, but would have no idea what was actually going on.

  “And you still think these daggers will strike the target?” asked the Emperor, still nervous about committing two of his scarce and precious wormholes to this project.

  “There are no guarantees, Supreme Lord. If they both hit home as expected, we believe the disruption to enemy command, control and industry will be well worth it. If only one strikes home, it could still be a crippling blow, depending on which target we get to.”

  “And we know nothing about these targets,” growled the Supreme Leader of External Intelligence. “Their defenses. The distances between targets at each location. We could end up there and find them impossible to take out.”

  “We have the information from our prisoners giving us the general layout,” argued the Supreme Admiral.

  “And you trust intelligence gathered from creatures who will tell you anything in order to live,” shouted the chief spy.

  “Enough,” yelled the Emperor, slamming all four hands hard on the table. “It is decided. We must take some risks, and it is my decision that we go forward with this mission.”

  The Supreme Leader of Intelligence bowed his head in acknowledgement. There was nothing else he could do when the Emperor commanded. The Supreme Admiral smiled, since the Emperor’s declaration put the success of the mission on the ruler’s shoulders. The only one in the Empire who could make a decision without worrying about the personal consequences.

  The expression on the Supreme Admiral’s face changed, and the Emperor had to wonder what bad news was coming.

  “As you know, Supreme Lord, we also dispatched a wormhole to the other front, so that we might have communications with them as well. The ship is still two months away from the Front HQ, but it met a courier coming from the front back to the capital.”

  “And I assume that the courier had news of import.” The Admiral continued to look at the table with a worried expression on his face.

  “Spit it out, Hassartaj. I am sure that the news had nothing that you could be responsible for.”

  “It is grave news indeed, Supreme Lord. The Front Commander had intelligence about the enemy’s home base, and acted on it.”

  “So, he sent a fleet to take out their home system? Something we have wanted to do since the war started on that front. But from the way you’re acting, something went wrong.”

  “Several things went wrong, Supreme Lord. For they found that not only were the Klavarta actually a genetically engineered type of human, the humans of this Empire we have been discussing had also made contact with them. They used some more of those impossible fighters to harry the fleet.”

  “And how did the Imperials get their fighters there?” asked the Emperor. “Let me guess, wormholes. So both groups of humans are now in contact with each other. By the Gods, what else could go wrong.”

  “Much more, Supreme Lord. Much more.”

  “Well? As I said, Admiral, I will not hold you responsible what happened. But if you don’t give me the information, the truth, you will be punished.”

  “Yes, Supreme Lord,” said the Admiral in a soft voice, bowing his head again. “They seem to have solved the problem of controlling and directing their impossible fighters. But we may have found a way to track them while they are in their FTL configuration.”

  “That is good news, Admiral.” The Emperor looked over at his Science and Industry Ministers. “I want all of our resources directed to perfecting that method, no matter what it takes.” He looked back at his Supreme Admiral. “Am I to assume that the Front Commander’s fleet destroyed the enemy capital system.”

  “They did, Supreme Lord. But the Imperials evacuated much of the population away with a wormhole. And then the humans did something with their wormhole and released a blast of unimaginable power. They destroyed half of the fleet that had deployed for offensive action. And with it the Front Commander.”

  Just as well he died in combat, thought the Emperor of the male that had led half of his force to destruction. “How powerful was the blast?”

  “The Admiral who took over the force estimated that it was in the three hundred petaton range. It scoured the moon clean and actually sent much of the crust into space, while destroying ships up to ten thousand kilometers distanct.”

  “Then we need to find out how to generate such a force ourselves,” said the Emperor, looking back to his tech experts. “Put resources into this as well. We cannot afford to have the enemy possess such destructive power and not have it ourselves.”

  “Yes, Supreme Lord.”

  “Then we will adjourn for now,” said the Emperor, thinking they could get to work on what he commanded and they would get back to him when they had something to report. He knew it would do no good to try and pressure them to come up with results. Technological progress didn’t work that way.

  “And Admiral,” he said as he stood up. “I want to know as soon as we have instantaneous contact with the Front commander. Understood?”

  The Emperor really hadn’t expected to hear anything from the Supreme Admiral for days at least. So he was surprised when that male commed him a couple of hours later, when the Emperor was settling down to a meal. Since all of h
is leaders knew not to disturb him at such times, unless it was something important, he didn’t think the news was going to be good.

  “We have a revolt on one of the slave planets, Supreme Lord,” said the Supreme Admiral, looking out from the holo.

  “And the military can’t handle something like a revolt?”

  “I believe the only way we can put down this revolt is by bombardment of the planet, Supreme Lord. And only you can order such, since it might mean the extinction of an intelligent species.”

  “Which species?” asked the Emperor, knowing that if they were talking extinction, it must be a newly conquered species that had not spread off their homeworld. An image formed in his mind of who it might be, and he gave a head shake of negation.

  “These, Supreme Lord,” replied the Admiral, and the holo switched to show the scene of a city of wood and stone, and some large placid looking creatures going about their business.

  Rashanis, thought the Emperor, surprised despite having guessed their identity. They plodded along the street, taking ponderous steps, looking like the most tractable sentients there could be. Not anything that could be a threat. He really couldn’t tell males from females in this species, and wondered if maybe the nondominant sex was restricted from being in public, much as the females of his own species. They look like they would make good beasts of burden, but nothing more. But he had seen two of the creatures in the arena, and they had looked anything but placid at that time.

  “And this is the view we have of their capital city after the incident that turned them.”

  The holo now showed an entire square full of the creatures. They no longer plodded. Instead, they moved with speed, their red eyes darting everywhere, claws extended. Where before they had looked like lumps, now they appeared cut with strong muscles. Every once in a while one would attack another, like two angry predators accidentally intruding into each other’s territory. But mostly they concentrated on the aliens in their midst.

  The view zoomed in on one of those intruders, a Cacada in full battle armor. Ca’cadasan males were large creatures, even more so in their armor. And the male was dwarfed by the massive creatures that backed it up into a corner and pounded on it. Even the stout claws couldn’t penetrate the best armor Ca’cadasan science could devise. But they were putting massive dents into the armor where they struck, bending the alloy into shapes that told of broken limbs underneath. When they had hit him enough, the male went down, and the Rashanis stomped on him until he was no longer moving.

  Other Ca’cadasan warriors were firing weapons into the rampaging crowd. Hypervelocity pellets penetrated tough skin, but only incapacitated when they hit vital areas. Particle beams killed, if they hit head or torso. Anything else was only a wound, even if it took off an arm or a leg. Creatures with one arm continued to attack with the other, while those missing a leg crawled forward, continuing to advance on the Ca’cadasans.

  They feel no pain, he thought as one of the creatures picked up a Ca’cadasan warrior and flung him hard to the stones of the street, then stomped on him. They’re only stopped by death. What would they be like with modern armor on their bodies.

  “The entire planet has gone into revolt, Supreme Lord,” said the Admiral. “It is like something in the air, like a pheromone, that set them all off, spreading from creature to creature.”

  “What was the incident you spoke of?”

  The Supreme Admiral looked down for a moment, as if reluctant to tell his Emperor what stupidity had set off an entire planet full of peaceful sentients and turned them into murderous monsters.

  “The incident?”

  “One of the warriors on the ground killed a child that would not get out of his way fast enough. The creatures looked at the dead child for some minutes, then started up a keening, until some started to change. The change swept out, until they were all like this.”

  So these creatures believe their children are important, the same as we do. And the military commander of that planet couldn’t drive that important lesson home to his troopers.

  “We have no way of control the surface at this point, and the creatures show no signs of calming. That is why we are requesting an orbital bombardment.”

  “No,” shouted the Emperor, slamming a fist on the arm of his chair. “You will continue to observe them. If you have to evacuate the surface, do so. And I want a population of specimens collected and sent to a research station. I want them to find out how to control these beings, so we can make use of them.”

  The Emperor looked again at the vid showing hundreds of the creatures wading through the fire of the Ca’cadasans. Scores went down, while the remainder rushed their tormentors and ripped into them, perfect killing machines. And what will our enemies do when we land divisions of these creatures, fully armored, on their planets?

  * * *

  FENRI SPACE.

  “We will be launching these ships within the next couple of weeks, your Majesty,” said the shipyard Engineer.

  “And all have the modifications for raiding?” asked the Emperor of the Fenri, his eyes locked on the holo that showed the hyper VII battle cruisers sitting in space around a nondescript planet. There were a dozen of the ships, as well as twenty-four light cruisers that would be their consorts.

  “All, your Majesty. These should come as a complete surprise to the humans.”

  And we are reduced to hitting them where they are weakest, in battles that really mean nothing, thought the Emperor. It was hard for the Fenri to take, but it was reality. If only we had not taken the word of the Ca’cadasans, thought the Emperor. The huge aliens had promised the Universe, and delivered very little, leading the Fenri on a campaign that had turned disastrously against them almost from the start.

  If we survive this, we need to make some changes to our culture, thought the Emperor, remembering all the horrible decisions that had been made during the campaigns. Some of them were his horrible decisions, and there was no one left to blame. Being Emperor, he could have scapegoated someone else, but he had to honest with himself if he wanted to lead.

  The Fenri had evolved as pack hunters on a world where they were among the smallest predators on the planet. They had started out as the most ferocious of hunters, using their numbers and courage to overwhelm and drive their larger competition out of their territories. With time had come intelligence, and the extinction of their competition. Eventually they had conquered space, then benefited from the benevolence of the Ancients. But they had found themselves once again the smallest of the spaceborne species. And again their pride and ferocity had come to the fore, while they carved out an Empire among the stars.

  That pride and ferocity had not served them well when they had encountered the humans, who, while no less prideful, fought with cunning. And now we need to learn to fight with cunning as well.

  “Any word on the second wave of ships?” asked the Emperor after they dismissed the Engineer.

  “So far the news is not good, my Liege,” replied the Liaison Officer. “The humans swarm through our space, and we know that six of the teams have been destroyed. Of the remaining four, we know not.”

  And such is our Empire, that we must sneak through space to punish the humans, while they are in the better position to punish us even harder. But what else can we do? The Emperor didn’t even pause to wonder at his thought processes, the same that had doomed his people in this war.

  * * *

  “That’s another one,” said Grand Fleet Admiral the Gabriel Len Lenkowski, watching the take as a Fenri battleship converted to plasma from a direct missile hit. “And that’s what? Eight so far?”

  “Correct, sir,” said his Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Xiang Dou, nodding her head. “But, of course, we don’t know how many there are, how many we need to kill. So it’s hard to get too excited about one more kill.”

  “True,” said Lenkowski after taking a sip of fine wine. “We really need to find the little furry bastard running the whole show and take him ou
t.”

  “Kind of racist, aren’t you, sir.”

  “I refuse to hide my feelings for the little slavers. I hate their asses, and wouldn’t shed a single tear if all of them disappeared tomorrow.” He raised a hand before his Chief of Staff could protest. “I know. The Emperor would have a fit if I proposed genocide. I’m not sure I could live with myself either, but the little hairy bastards truly piss me off.” The Admiral took another sip of wine, wishing he could just go ahead and get falling down drunk. He had sent enough people to their deaths in this war, the largest in human history. He would be just as happy to not have to send any more. But he was realistic enough to realize that he was one of Sean’s best field commanders, and it would be selfish of him not to serve.

  And I’m always on duty, he thought as he put the wine glass back on the table. Even with sober-up, it’s something I really can’t risk.

  “The solution, sir, is not to kill the Fenri Emperor. If we could capture him, and get him to order his forces to stand down, we win. He is, after all, the ultimate alpha male of his species. What he says goes, and no one of their military would think to disobey.”

  “If we can convince him to issue such an order,” said Lenkowski, shaking his head. “They’re stubborn little bastards, and he’s likely to be even more stubborn than the rest.”

  “We could program him. Or possibly we could use a computer simulation to fool the Fenri.”

  “Maybe,” said Lenkowski, motioning for his steward to refill his glass. The Petty Officer came quickly with the open bottle and poured more of the white, a vintage from Duke Mgonda’s own estates, into the glass. The Admiral gave the Steward a smile, knowing how hard it was to find a good one, and looked back at his Chief of Staff. “But I wouldn’t count on such a strategy working. No, we need to capture the real deal, and parade him in front of his people in a manner such that they can’t dispute the reality of his orders.”