“Entering optimal firing range in one minute,” announced Ngovic.
“I want you to take out those two supercruisers, Browne,” said the Suttler over the wormhole com. “All eight missiles up their guts, four each.”
“And after that, sir?” asked the commander of the Dolphin.
“The next spread right into the station. That’s the priority target. I just want to disrupt their protection force enough to let us get away.”
“Good idea, sir. Will do.”
“Twenty seconds to optimal firing range,” called out Ngovic.
Not really optimal, thought Suttler. Optimal would be right up next to that station. But then this would be a suicide mission.
“Ten seconds. Five, four, three, two, one.”
“Fire,” yelled Suttler. It still took a human command to launch, and as commander of the squadron it was up to him to give it to all the ships.
All of the ships fired within so small a time span it might as well have been simultaneous. Missiles were hurled from their launch tubes at twenty thousand gravities, then kicked in their internal systems for a sustained ten thousand gravities. At the same time each ship fired its nose mounted particle beams, sending streams of antiprotons at the station at point nine eight light.
To the enemy it was as if the missiles appeared from nothing, jumping into normal space. For a microsecond the stealth/attack ships were detectable, and they switched acceleration to reverse with a side vector component, changing their location to one the enemy still had to guess at.
It took less than two seconds for the tubes to reload and the second spread of missiles to head for their targets. Thirty-two missiles sped toward the enemy, then another thirty-two, moving at the point zero one light of the launching ship, then adding ninety-eight kilometers per second per second to their velocity, point zero two light added to the total.
The missiles glowed like stars with the heat their grabbers were radiating. Only supermetals could have handled those temperatures, hundreds of thousands of degrees. They were easy to track, or would have been if not for the sensor jamming both the missiles and the attacking ships were putting out. Along the way smaller decoys dropped off the missiles, which were also juking and dodging on the way in.
It took the enemy a couple of seconds to realize the missiles were coming in, even though the particle beams had already ripped through the weak screens of the station and were exploding holes through the hull. It took one second of exposure to the antiprotons before the field strengthened enough to repel half of their strength, and another four before enough cold plasma entered the field to intercept the rest. The antiprotons were still exploding as they struck the plasma, and radiation was still impacting the hull, but it was nothing like the force of the antimatter striking the skin of the station.
Weapons powered up on the station and the ships around it, and soon they were throwing lasers at the weapons. It took more than a microsecond of contact to destroy a missile, and in most cases that was all they got. Still, two missiles were exploded in less than a second, and the first wave of missiles went into their special attack routine.
Each missile fired one hundred of the one megaton warheads, each massing about a half ton, each continuing to accelerate toward their targets at ten thousand gravities. They didn’t have a long acceleration life. They didn’t need it. It didn’t take as much of a hit to destroy the smaller projectiles, but there were over three thousand of them, and even though several hundred were hit, it was not enough.
One of the supercruisers was the first target to be hit, with both two missile bodies and over a hundred warheads hitting the ship, while another hundred and fifty detonated close in proximity kills. There was not enough kinetic energy in the missile, or explosive power in the warheads, to completely destroy the vessel. There were enough to leave a lifeless hulk drifting away in space, propelled by the force of the explosions.
The tanker was hit next, the one missile targeting the ship slamming in with all of its ejected warheads. The tanker disappeared with an immediate flash as the antimatter broke containment across the vessel. This added to the confusion of the ship and station sensors trying to track the weapons.
The second supercruiser suffered the same fate as the first, tumbling off into space as a wrecked hulk. And then the weapons hit the station.
The station was enormous. But it was not a warship. Not structurally as strong, not as heavily armored. Twelve of the twenty-three missiles targeting it, and over a thousand of the twenty-three hundred warheads, struck the station. It came apart at the seams, huge pieces flying off to continue to break up as they tumbled away. Actinic points of light erupted from within the crumbling structure as internal stores of antimatter and missile warheads went off. In seconds it was over, a cloud of expanding plasma and thousands of tumbling pieces all that was left of the two hundred million ton station. And all that was left of the more than ten thousand Ca’cadasans, and their slaves, that had inhabited the station.
The second wave of missiles, now an unnecessary redundancy, tried to acquire other targets. Most failed, though some succeeded in damaging the remaining ships, some heavily.
“Target those other ships and fire,” ordered Suttler over the com. A second later the third and final spread was launched, aiming for the remaining supercruiser and the scout/escort vessels, while the Imperial ships continued to back out.
Suttler checked in with his other ships and was horrified to find that one of his stealth/attack ships had been destroyed in the other attack, though the second station and its defending ships were also gone, except for a few surviving scout/escorts. The three remaining in their area were now on a search and destroy pattern, but there were not enough of them to do an effective job.
“Configure the wormhole to accept reloads,” he ordered the engineering section over the com, sure that the other captains would be doing the same thing. Until they took aboard more missiles, and stores for the particle beams, they were helpless, except for their ability to fade into the background. Which was what they were doing now.
Someone is going to be surprised when they come back here, thought Suttler, thinking of all the logistics ships and small groups of warships he could prey on in the future.
* * *
CAPITULUM, JEWEL. NOVEMBER 11TH, 1001.
“So, are you ready to deal with the Emperor like adults,” said the Regent Samantha Ogden Lee, looking at the two Lords sitting in her office. The Archduke and the Countess are at least human, if not the most loyal of subjects, she thought.
“I do not like the insinuation that we are children,” said Countess Zhee in a frosty voice, while Archduke Marconi simply sat there and glared at her.
“Then quit acting like children. The Prime Minister proved to you that you were being manipulated by those damned shape shifters.”
“While it is true that the aliens had infiltrated the Lords, and that there was some manipulation involved, that doesn’t mean the concerns we have about this Emperor aren’t real,” said Zhee, supposedly the subordinate, but acting like the leader, more than the actual Leader of the Opposition sitting there. “He is running the Empire into the ground, ruining business, raising taxes, just to lose battles and planets.”
“Were either of you ever in the military?” asked Samantha. “Do any of you know what is involved in military operations? The fear, the uncertainty, the knowledge that you might not make it back, and your death may be without meaning?”
“What does that have to do with how the Emperor is conducting the war?” asked Zhee, crossing her arms over her chest and looking bored.
“Do you know what it would do to morale if we started sending our Fleet into a meat grinder with no hope of victory?”
“They are paid to fight,” said Zhee, brushing off the concern with the wave of a hand. “And they take oaths to do whatever is needed.”
“Like you take oaths, Countess,” said Samantha in her most condescending voice.
; “Why you low…”
“About to say I was lowborn, Countess,” said Lee, leaning across the desk and glaring into the woman’s eyes. “Because I don’t have a title like Countess. I’ll have you know that I don’t need a title like that, since I was born into the Imperial family. And I am the Regent, which makes me your social superior yet again.”
Samantha leaned back in her chair, wondering what she was going to do with these two obstructionists. I can’t have them executed, as tempting as that is. I can’t have them arrested. I can’t even have them thrown out of the Lords. Both are hereditary seat holders. It would be tempting to ask Ekaterina if she could have them assassinated. She mentally shook off that last thought. The Empire was based on the rule of law. If she started breaking the law in her position as Regent, there might not be an end in sight. Besides, Director Sergiov, loyal as she was, might just order such a hit, and where would that lead.
“Did you ever serve in the military, Countess?” asked the Regent, already knowing the answer, but wanting to hear it from the woman’s own lips.
“Of course not,” said the woman with a sneer. “I was the daughter and heir to a count.”
“Lady Hannah was the daughter of a Duke, and served in the Marines to the rank of Major General, prior to becoming the Minister of War. And Grand Fleet Admiral Taelis Mgonda is a Duke. So don’t give me that old story of being too important to the Imperial government to risk your hide. You were looking for an excuse.”
“And what does this have to do with the Emperor’s conduct of the war?”
“My dear Countess, this has everything to do with his conduct of the war. He wants to preserve the Fleet, so he can strike back when he has the advantage.”
“Losing whole systems, and billions of people, in the process?” growled the Countess, clenching her fists.
“If he acted otherwise he would have still lost those systems, and most of the Fleet,” said Samantha. “And right now the Ca’cadasans would be rolling into half the Core World systems.”
“And that’s another thing,” said Zhee, raising her voice to shout over the Regent. “He keeps pulling ships out of the Core systems, leaving them undefended.”
“And what would those system fleets accomplish that a battle fleet couldn’t,” said Samantha, raising her voice, using what the Navy had taught her to project. “Those system forces would be snuffed out, one by one, while they serve a greater purpose as units in a maneuver Fleet in Being.”
“Which are not being used.”
“Of course they’re being used. We are sniping at the enemy on all fronts. We have driven Lashara out of the war, and are in the process of doing the same to the Fenri. And the Emperor has ongoing operations that will set the enemy back severely.”
“And what are these operations, Regent?” asked Marconi, finally making his voice heard. “Why have we not had been informed of what is involved in these, operations?”
“I can’t tell you at this time,” said Samantha.
“We have clearance,” said Zhee, the anger still radiating from her like a palpable wave.
“But not a need to know,” said Lee, shaking her head. “The conduct of the war is the concern of the Emperor. The financing of that war is your concern.”
“But, we have concerns about the way he is conducting that war,” said Zhee. “And hiding that conduct from the eyes of the Lords is not the way to address those concerns.”
“We can’t risk letting the information about the operations to get out,” said Samantha, shaking her head.
“We are loyal citizens of the Empire, as well as Lords,” said Zhee, her voice screeching.
“And we were consorting with spies,” said Marconi, speaking up again, his eyes looking at the floor. “Not intentionally. But intentions would not matter if, because we allowed someone not to be trusted into our confidence, a major operation failed.”
Well, at least one of them can see reason.
“I was not in the military myself, much to my shame,” said Marconi, rubbing his eyes. “I would be willing to go to the front, and see what military operations are about.”
“And you, Countess? You are one of the leaders of the opposition in the Lords, after all.”
“And as such, I need to stay in the Capital, where I can monitor the work of my party. Where you should stay, Percival.”
“I will go, as I said,” repeated the Archduke.
“You are needed here, Percival,” said Zhee. “I forbid you to go.”
“And I am not yours to forbid,” said Marconi.
“Damn you,” growled Zhee, getting out of her chair and stalking from the office. She turned just before she walked out the door. “I will hold a vote of the Opposition. I wouldn’t count on being leader too much longer.” And then she was gone.
“Well, at least I was able to deal with one adult today,” said Lee with a smile.
“I have more friends in the party than Zhee does, Regent,” said Marconi. “When I come back, the Opposition may find it still has the same leader.”
And maybe one I can work with, thought Samantha as the man left the office.
* * *
DREADNOUGHT AUGUSTINE I. NOVEMBER 12TH, 1001.
Senior Master Chief Jana Gorbachev sat at her console in the weapons control center of the Augustine I. This baby sure has some firepower, she thought, looking over the weapons board to her front. She had been the third in command of the B ring lasers of the battleship Sergiov, then one the mightiest ships in the human fleet. The only class more powerful at that time were the new twenty million ton superbattleships, with twenty-five percent more laser power packed into their third again greater mass. Mostly the lower beam power to mass ratio of the bigger ships was so they could pack more missiles into their hulls.
But Augustine I, the first of its class, used new technologies and multiple wormholes to give it a firepower all of proportion to its mass. And it’s all under my control, she thought. And soon I will be able to use it to light up those bastards. Soon now. Very soon.
“How is everything going, Master Chief?” asked her section chief, Commander Sheila McGregor, walking up behind her.
Jana was startled for a moment, finding herself in her mind back in the slavery of the Cacas. She said a calming mantra, then looked up at the officer. “It’s going just fine, Ma’am.”
“That bad, huh,” said the Commander, laying a hand on Jana’s shoulder.
Gorbachev cringed inside, hating to be touched, but her face betrayed no emotion. She’s just trying to be nice, thought the Master Chief. McGregor was an avowed lesbian, but Gorbachev, who had been strictly heterosexual, knew the woman would not try to take advantage of a subordinate. Now Gorbachev did not consider herself to have any kind of sexual orientation. Not after what she had been through, being the forced slave lover of another human, a man she had killed. That had soured her to any kind of relationship.
“I wish you would take some time for yourself, Master Chief.”
“I’ve had enough time for myself, Ma’am. I need to make sure I know these systems, backwards and forwards. So I can serve the Empire, and the Fleet.”
“That’s your decision, Master Chief. From what I have seen so far, I trust your abilities.”
Even if you’re not sure about my mental stability. And neither is the Fleet. But a command from the Emperor trumps all, and the boy feels obligated to me. “What’s the word on the Cacas?”
“They should be at Congreeve in six days. And we’ll be there in three, in plenty of time to give them a warm welcome.”
As long as I get to welcome them to hell, thought Gorbachev, a smile crossing her lips. “We won’t let you or the Emperor down, Ma’am. We’ll give them that warm welcome.”
“I know you will, Master Chief. I know you will.” The Commander turned and walked away, to go chat with one of the junior officers who also manned a console in the weapon’s center.
Jana turned back to the board, running weapon’s simulations, f
iring particle beams and lasers, launching massive spreads of missiles. Fighting simulated battles with the enemy. When it came to combat, she would, of course, not be manning the firing switches. She would be monitoring everything, making sure that others were doing their jobs within the center, double checking, being part of the team. But I can always dream of sending a particle beam up the ass of the damned Great Admiral, she thought with another smile. And you never know. People die in combat, and I might just find myself with the triggers under my fingers.
Chapter Seventeen
DREADNOUGHT AUGUSTINE I. NOVEMBER 14TH, 1001.
“So, what do you think, your Majesty?” asked the woman over the holo, her eyes looking into his.
And she has the same last name as my old battleship. From what I understand, her great grandfather was the actual duke the ship was named after. “What is your recommendation, Director Sergiov?
“I think we need to take the, Maurid, up on her offer,” said Ekaterina Sergiov.
“Who was the agent that made contact?”
“Agent Sonia Rupert.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“She was on your father’s security detail,” said Sergiov. “After he was killed, along with your mother and brothers, she asked for transfer from the detail.”
“Why,” said Sean, a cloud passing over his face. “Did she do something wrong? Did she screw up?”
“Not at all, your Majesty. I don’t think you know how much stress your security detail is under, trying to keep you and those closest to you safe, despite all the, uh, let us say, less than brilliant, things you insist on doing. You are their lives, and when something happens to one of you, it takes everything out of them. Rupert couldn’t take it anymore, so she asked to be reassigned. Normally, she would have been given an assignment commiserate with her rank and experience, Embassy station chief maybe. But she insisted on an assignment to an out of the way place.”
“Which was a frontier world?”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle Page 22