Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle

by Doug Dandridge

  “All armored units, move to sector three five six,” came the order from the corps commander. “Engage enemy armor.”

  Baggett breathed a sigh of relief. That sector was over a hundred kilometers from his brigade, meaning they were in no immediate danger. He checked his tactical feed and started issuing orders, moving his men to another position so they could wait for a follow up attack, if one developed.

  Overhead aircraft streaked at high Mach, engaging in combat. At the same time lower level ground attack aircraft took each other on, each trying to stop the other side from attacking its infantry and armor. Baggett watched the action for a moment as he moved with his men, amazed that so many enemy aircraft had survived to be deployed in this action.

  They’re like fucking roaches, he thought, watching as one of those spiraled out of the sky to strike the ground a couple of kilometers away, sending a fireball into the sky. Now I hope the Fleet handles its part of the plan, or all this is for nothing.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Jay Cummings sat in the turret of his Mark IV King Tyrannosaur and watched the multiple view screens. The thousand ton heavy monster moved swiftly over the ground on its grabber units, speeding along at two hundred kilometers an hour. He lay back in his reclining seat, one of the features that made the huge tank’s profile less than three meters above the ground when configured for movement. When the secondary turrets deployed the profile was raised by another half meter, but a hit on those extensions wouldn’t do much to hurt the tank, outside of destroying those defensive weapons.

  The screens to his front and side showed the terrain around the vehicle, and the forms of the two other tanks in his platoon, one to either flank. A small holo directly to front showed the overall battlefield. He glanced at the lower level of the turret, where his gunner and assistant sat at their stations, the visors up on the helmets of their light battle armor. The man and woman chatted with each other in quiet voices, but since they were paying attention to their instruments, he didn’t see a need to tell them to quiet down. He couldn’t hear anything on the intercom, and thought that his driver and engineer were probably lost in their own thoughts.

  Dear God, get us through this, he thought, tapping into the company net to get the take from the other tanks in the unit. Each platoon had three tanks, and there was a command tank, for a company of ten. His company was at full strength, something the other companies couldn’t say. The battalion at full strength had a total of forty-two heavies, with the addition of two command vehilces, and fifteen lighter scouting tanks. Currently that number was thirty-six and eleven respectively, still a strong unit. And three other battalions were moving into action.

  “First tank to tank action, sir?” asked the Staff Sergeant who was his second in command, sitting in a smaller compartment in the rear of the hull.

  “Yep,” agreed Cummings, looking at the face of the woman in a view screen. “You been through any, Moesta?”

  “No, sir. Been in armor for ten years, but Lasharan space was the first action I ever saw. And, from what I hear, tank on tank is very rare these days. So cheer up, sir. We’re making history.”

  I’ll cheer up when we make it through this, and can read our history.

  “Prepare for action,” said the company commander over the com. “Cummings and Rodriguez. Your platoons to my left, Cummings left most. Kim, to my right. We’re on the far left of the battalion, which is to the far left of the task force, so there will be friendlies to our right, but nothing to the left. Anything you see there is a target.”

  That’s not really the news I wanted to hear. That meant his platoon, unlike most of the others, had to worry about more than just the front. There was a possibility of an enemy getting a flanking shot against their thinner side armor.

  “Deploy weapons, sir?” asked the gunner, waiting for the order.

  “Yes, go ahead. Tanks Bravo and Charlie two,” he said, using the company code for those vehicles. “Deploy main weapons, configure hulls for combat.”

  On the turret of the tank, itself a four hundred ton structure, the barrel of the main rail gun extended to twice its travel length of ten meters, becoming a twenty meter long magnetic accelerator tube. The tank lowered it treads, which, while slowing the maximum ground speed to a hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, would also guarantee that it would not bounce higher into the air during movement, giving the enemy a larger silhouette to fire at.

  On both sides of the hull were light amplifier crosses that were both offensive and defensive weapons, while the twin particle beams on either side of the main gun extended. The top turrets stayed under cover so they wouldn’t give away the tank prematurely.

  “Cold plasma field to max,” called out the assistant gunner as the electromag screen around the vehicle strengthened, and the matter that helped absorb beam weapons was injected into it.

  “All checks out,” said the assistant tank commander, watching her instruments to double check what the rest of the crew was calling out.

  Cummings was busy looking over the tactical situation, monitoring his other tanks, and listening for commands from higher up the chain.

  “Launch drones,” came the command from brigade. Cummings hit the switch on his board that launched ten of the hundred small drones the vehicle carried, then hit it again to launch another ten. All of the tanks launched, and soon there were thousands of the small vehicles moving over the battlefield, feeding information into the tactical net.

  “Enemy tanks spotted,” came one call over the net. “Moving across our front at fifteen kilometers.”

  Moments later the first action of the battle took place, as the human drones met the enemy drone screen in aerial combat, each trying to look past the other’s while keeping the other side’s from developing their deployment.

  The first engagement between the tanks took place at ten kilometers. Main guns fired hyper fast projectiles and missiles, while angry red particle beams screeched through the air. Both sides launched missiles, then took the other side’s under fire with lasers. An Imperial tank took a hit where turret met hull, and the upper structure went spinning away through the air. Three enemy tanks went up in balls of fire, and both battle lines engaged.

  “Watch your flank, Cummings,” called out the battalion commander. “We’re picking up enemy vehicles coming in on that angle.”

  “Platoon,” yelled Cummings over the platoon net. “Turn left twenty degrees. Gunners, turret left another twenty degrees, and prepare to engage.” He pushed a button on his board and the three defensive turrets on the main structure rose into the open, barrels for the laser and two miniguns on each extending for action.

  The tank bucked slightly as the main gun fired, sending a superplatinum penetrator at the target at three hundred kilometers per second, the maximom velocity of the rail gun. The only sign of its passing was the swirl of dust that was sucked in after it had gone by. That, and the tremendous hypersonic crack as the superplantinum, an element that didn’t exist in nature, many times denser than Uranium, split the air. It hit the enemy tank like a beam of light, in the turret with an ear shattering crack, splashing alloy into the air and incinerating the Fenri crew as its vapor spread through the vehicle.

  The gun reloaded in an instant, and the turret turned twenty degrees in less than a second, smoothly tracking onto the next tank. The tank bucked again, while the twin particle beams reached out and struck the enemy vehicle a micro-second prior. The beams were bounced away by the enemy electromagnetic field, which did little to slow down the penetrator. That tank suffered the same fate as the first.

  A pair of enemy shells came in. The defensive turrets and laser crosses fired in the nanoseconds they had to fire. One shell was knocked off course to hit the dirt in a spray of glass and dirt. The other slammed into the turret, taking out one of the particle beam projectors, and making the alloy ring like all the bells of hell.

  Crap, thought Cummings, lowering his armored visor and bringing both hands up to h
is agonized head to feel the blood leaking out of his ears. He knew he was deaf, and he wouldn’t get his hearing back until his nanites repaired the damage. I don’t have time for this, he thought, bypassing his hearing and linking his auditory centers to the tank’s audio sensors, hearing through the vehicle.

  One of his tanks was off link, and he cringed internally as he looked at the feed of the destroyed vehicle, turret gone, the hole it had sat in smoking. Sergeant Tsombar, the others, he thought, seeing the faces those crew members he had commanded. No, more than commanded. Ate with, shared dangers with, lived with.

  He looked back at the main viewer and saw another enemy tank, its turret starting to swing his way. “Gunner,” he yelled out. “Enemy tank, ten degrees left. Fire.”

  For just a split second Cummings thought the gunner wasn’t responding, and he started to link the controls to his board. Then the gun swung into action, the turret moving smoothly and stopping right on target. The gun spoke, just a fraction of a second before the enemy’s. The shell hit, and the turret of the other tank started to fly off the vehicle, just as its own gun fired, sending its projectile on a trajectory that took off one of Cummings’ tank’s defensive turrets.

  “Cease fire,” came a command over the brigade net. “Cease fire. All enemies destroyed.”

  Cummings linked into the tactical net to look over the losses to both sides and was amazed. The brigade of four battalions had lost fifteen tanks. In this kind of battle, the loss of a vehicle normally meant the loss of the crew, but miraculously two crews had survived, mostly. And the enemy had lost almost four hundred tanks, heavy, medium and light. It was a decisive victory, one that would go down in the history books. And more importantly, one he would be able to read about.

  * * *

  “All units, stand down,” came the command over the Corps net. “Report your assets over the Corps net. Then stand by for orders referencing mop up and search and destroy missions.”

  It never ends, thought Baggett. One operation ends, and we’re immediately in another.

  He wondered how the Fleet was doing. But when he tried to link into the Fleet net, he met with nothing but dead air, which was not a very comforting discovery. If the Fleet failed, then they were stranded on this planet, to wait the coming of an enemy force that would eventually kill them.

  The Fleet units in orbit, meanwhile, continued to strike at ground targets, until all the shore batteries were silenced, and jamming dropped to almost nothing.

  * * *

  On the edge of the system the battle raged. The Fenri fleet had the upper hand, for a moment. The human ships were better armored, better armed, and had more advanced tech. But they were outnumbered three to one, out massed two to one. And then the hidden force, arrayed outside the system in four formations a half light hour from the battle, powered up their ships and let loose with a deadly barrage of missiles.

  The Imperial ships in close in combat started to move away from the fight, still firing. Now the enemy was out massed, and the humans had the advantage in a long range missile duel. The Fenri ships had been on a vector into the system during the close fight, and had passed the hyper barrier. It would take hours to slow their momentum to zero, hours more to come back out beyond the barrier to jump into hyper, where they would have to avoid human ships that were waiting for them, and could also follow them into hyper. Until then they were targets for the missiles accelerating toward them from the outer system.

  The Fenri Fleet fired back, sending missiles at the enemy ships. And then they took their punishment as the Imperial missiles struck. Afterwards there were only a dozen fully functional ships, and several hundred with varying degrees of damage, from half functional to drifting hulks. And then the surrender transmissions started coming in, as the surviving Fenri realized the hopelessness of their position, and were certain that the humans would take them prisoner.

  Soon after the Fenri surrendered their missiles started to reach the human battle groups beyond the hyper barrier. As the missiles came screaming in at point six light the Imperial ships simply jumped into hyper I, waiting for the missiles to pass before returning to normal space.

  The battle was over, in space and on the planet. And while the Fenri still had a fleet, they had lost almost half their capital ship strength, something from which it would take years to recover.

  Chapter Sixteen

  CONUNDRUM SPACE. NOVEMBER 11TH, 1001.

  The stations were huge, over two hundred million tons of hull, power generating facilities, life support and storage areas, not to mention the living quarters of over ten thousand beings. They were larger than any human built station, other than some in Central Docks, and, of course, the Donut. And unlike most human built stations, they could move through hyper.

  Oh, the New Terran Empire had some large stations that could move through hyper. Stations in the fifty million ton range that could be used as repair docks and logistics supply bases, much like this Ca’cadasan version. They could plod along in hyper IV, eventually getting to where they were needed, sometimes in time. But this monster could cruise through VII, the same dimension as all of their warships. It represented a huge investment in time and resources to build, and an even larger investment in trained Cacada.

  The Ca’cadasans had originally moved one station into the former Imperial space they had occupied. Two more had been on the way, while that one was being destroyed by an Imperial raid that caught them unaware of the possibilities of wormhole ship gates. They had made it to the front, and had been moved up to the Conundrum system, the former main base of sector IV before falling to the enemy. Imperial command was sure one would be moving, as soon as the Cacas found the perfect system to put a logistics base in. But for now, there were two big fat targets in the Conundrum system, and very little left to defend them.

  “All ahead, ten gravities,” ordered Commodore Bryce Suttler, sitting in the captain’s chair of the Seastag. The ship had all electromag screens set to light bending, hiding the ship from visual scans. Almost all of the heat she was producing was going through their wormhole to a just above absolute zero heat sink, over a thousand light years away. The hull of the vessel absorbed any active scans sent her way, what wasn’t bent around the ship by the electromag fields.

  “All ahead ten gravities, aye,” echoed the Helmsman. The ship could actually have put on twenty gravities with no problem, her two hundred ton structure radiating fewer gravitons under that acceleration than the thousands of Plutinos within a half light hour of the station. Suttler thought it was better to fly well under those parameters though. Time was not much of a factor in this attack. Getting through the enemy cordon intact, and hitting the target with all ships, was the only important consideration.

  “Ten gravities, aye Commodore,” reported Commander Chris Browne of the Dolphin over the wormhole com. His ship was about a hundred thousand kilometers to the port of Seastag, while the other two were to starboard.

  Everyone was creeping in, and a quick check of the data feed from the other four ships in the squadron showed that they were moving in on their target in the same attack profile, concentrating on one side of their station so they only had to get their missiles through less than half of its potential defensive fire.

  There were three four million ton supercruisers, and eighteen of the six hundred thousand ton scout/escort ships the Ca’cadasans used, in proximity to the station. Four of the scout/escorts were actively patrolling, moving around the station on sensor sweeps. A few times during the approach sensor beams pinged on the hull. There was always the possibility that one of those beams would detect them, despite their stealth, if it touched long enough in a close enough proximity.

  Even though the bridge was perfectly climate controlled, everyone was sitting and sweating at their stations. Nervous tension. And there was plenty to be nervous about. They were at risk moving in, and even more so after they accomplished their task.

  “I want that tanker near the station taken out with
our first missile,” ordered Suttler, looking over at Ngovic. The Tactical Officer nodded, a smile lighting his face. The officer had been with Suttler when they struck at the first station, when a pair of tankers had been their target. Both knew what a spectacular explosion it would make if it had a full load of antimatter. And, since it had just arrived in the system the day before, they were pretty sure it did.

  “All missiles still green,” said the Tactical Officer, checking his board to make sure that what he was reading from the instruments was accurate. “Maximum load out on all weapons.”

  Suttler nodded his head, checking the readouts and firing solutions through his link. Each of the stealth/attack ships had eight forward oriented tubes, and carried cruiser sized weapons. Each was loaded with a hundred one megaton mini-antimatter warheads. It was the newest thing in warheads, designed to penetrate the defenses of ships by weight of numbers.

  The missiles themselves were also among the most advanced in the Imperial inventory. Capable of ten thousand gravities acceleration, versus the five k of the standard weapons. Their grabber units used three times the artificially produced elements known as supermetals, S-platinum, S-iron and S-gold. It took enormous industrial resources to make the materials, which were used in grabber units of all kinds, as well as many other high tech applications. There were never enough of the metals around, and at three times the cost for twice the acceleration, the missiles, which had been developed prior to the coming of the Ca’cadasans, were only used for special applications, like stealth/attack which killed from close range.

  Maybe one day we’ll reverse engineer the Caca missiles we’ve captured, thought Suttler as he stared as the decreasing range figures. They figured out how to make eight thousand gravity acceleration weapons with the same amount of supermetals as we use to make our five k class.