Browne had about four seconds to celebrate the kill before the first enemy missile made it through his defensive fire. Stealth/attacks were built to kill, not to defend themselves in head on combat. Still, Dolphin took out six missiles before the seventh hit. Browne and his crew were not even aware of that strike. Nanoseconds after contact they were dead, the ship shattered into a million pieces and plasma. Some pieces of combat armor survived, a few with intact body parts in them. Those were the only remains, and they would never be collected for a funeral service.
* * *
The nearest ships launched at the visible enemy. It took a couple of minutes for the missiles to reach the target. Before they did, the enemy’s missiles were flaring in space as they approached one of the Ca’cadasan scout ships which was its final target. The High Admiral thought for a moment that it would get them all, even watching as the last missile took a glancing blow and veered. But hit it did, and the scout ship went tumbling off into space, all communications lost with it. Seconds later the seventh missile of the first flight to reach the enemy vessel hit, turning the stealth ship into a ball of plasma. A moment later the scout ship that had contacted the Admiral’s force flared from a missile hit, the light transmitted over the five light minutes of distance.
“May the Gods curse them for the vermin they are,” shouted the High Admiral, slamming his lower hands on the arms of his chair. He knew the human ship had been manned by brave beings, but in the moment only cared about the harm they had done his force.
“Shall we hunt down the others, my Lord?” asked the Tactical Officer.
“No,” he yelled, then sat for a moment calming himself down. “Contact every other ship in this system. They are to join us in hyper I space.”
“Hyper I space, my Lord?”
“Yes, you fool. The stealth ships cannot sneak up on us in hyper. I don’t wish to deal with these cowards. So send the signal, then we will jump into hyper. I want to be on the way to Congreeve as soon as possible.”
“To warn the Great Admiral?” asked the Tactical Officer.
The High Admiral sat in his chair and refused to give his officer an answer. No, to see how he got his mating organ stuck in a grinder.
* * *
Bryce Suttler cursed as he slammed a hand into his chair arm. He hadn’t expected the enemy to react so swiftly, and as a result, he had lost another ship. And a ship captained by a man he had come to like and respect. He wasn’t supposed to play favorites, but Commander Browne and the Dolphin had been his favorites of this command. And now they were gone, all because of a lucky laser strike.
“What the hell are they doing?” asked Ngovic, looking at the enemy ships on the tactical holo. All had jumped back into hyper minutes after sending out a broadcast message to the system. Since they had jumped at almost a stop where they thought the station was going to be, well outside the hyper barrier, such a tactic was available to them.
Most Caca commanders would have tried to find Suttler’s ships, with a vengeance. They would have spread out and swept the local space. That would have made the area very hot for the human ships. It also would have given the stealth ships an opportunity to take shots at the much bigger ships, and possibly get a kill. But now?
“They’re sitting where we can’t sneak up on them,” said Suttler, staring at the icons of ships he would so like to strike. His ships would make too much noise jumping into hyper. And they would continue to make that noise while moving through it, even sitting in it, really. That’s one smart bastard of a Caca. Wish we had got him with a missile or two. Hope I can still kill your ass someday. He knew it was insane to think of revenge on one man, or one crew, in a war like this. But personalizing the insanity was one of the only things that would keep him sane.
Chapter Nineteen
DREADNOUGHT AUGUSTINE I. NOVEMBER 15-16TH, 1001.
The thin ribbon seemed to go on forever, backed by the star filled black of space. The ribbon itself was lit, though from this distance it was difficult to make out the individual sources of light. In the background, centered around the circle of the slender ribbon that was only really thin in perspective against the huge circumference of the ring, a small circle of distortion warped the light behind it into another ring.
The Donut, thought Sean in his dream. It has to be the Donut. And this is a prophetic dream?
The point of view swept in, like that of some impossibly maneuverable spacecraft. It passed stations that were enormous in their own right. Stations with long thin tubes running through them, the accelerators that flung missiles at high relativistic velocities through wormholes. Stations that housed heat sinks of almost zero Kelvin to absorb the waste radiation of stealth ships. Stations that were ship yards, and antimatter warhead storage magazines. The space around the ribbon was filled with an ever expanding Dyson cloud of structures. Thin now, but in the future it would be a truly impressive orbital industrial complex, with more capacity than any three core systems.
He could now pick out the ships of a task force, sitting near to the shimmering surface of ship gate. He zoomed in on other forces, all arrayed around this one ship gate.
It’s either now, or in the near future, thought the Emperor with a quick scan of the objects in his view. And what is this trying to tell me?
The view zoomed out again, taking in the entire ribbon, millions of kilometers. Something flashed along that ribbon, an impossibly bright flare. The view zoomed in again, to a slow motion capture of the hull of the Donut blowing out. A large section, the entire width, and three hundred kilometers in each direction from the blast, exploded outward. The event horizon of the black hole flashed with a thousand sparks as material from the explosion was crushed out of existence in bursts of gamma radiation.
That’s impossible, thought Sean. That would have taken a bomb with thousands of tons of antimatter. How could anyone get a bomb that big onto the station.
The ribbon broke at that point, and the station was thrown off its equilibrium. It took minutes for the entire station to react to its new, unbalanced condition. One side swept closer to the hole, while the other continued to rip apart down both sides away from the explosion. Gravity grabbed hold of the section that was closest, accelerating the inward fall. Ships started to launch from the ribbon, people evacuating the structure. But for most of them it would be too late to seek a ship or a life pod, and those closest to the hole were pulled in to a death by crushing.
The ribbon touched the event horizon, to disappear in a flash of gamma radiation. The ribbon on both sides of that point accelerated as it was sucked inward, until acceleration exceeded the strength of the structure, and the whole thing started to come apart. Many of the pieces, from several to a thousand kilometers in length, fell into the hole. As many pieces were ejected outward, to speed away from the hole, at accelerations that overwhelmed the inertial compensators and killed those still aboard.
And then is was over, trillions of tons of vital station, millions of people, the technological edge of the Empire, the ability to create wormholes, gone. And thousands of those wormholes gone as well.
Sean knew that was not the end of the destruction. On hundreds of ships and stations across the Empire the heavy gravity of the black hole sucked matter through the wormholes, destroying many of those ships and stations. And as suddenly as that, the war was over, humanity defeated.
Sean woke up with a scream, sweat pouring off his bare skin. Arms encircled him, and in his panicked state he almost rolled over in the embrace and attacked, until he remembered where he was.
“What happened,” said Jennifer, her mouth close to his ear as she tightened her embrace.
“It was just a dream,” he said, shaking his head.
“Don’t give me that,” said Jennifer, her soft hair rubbing on his cheek and neck. “It was one of your prophetic dreams, wasn’t it? What happened this time?”
“The end of the war. And no, we didn’t win.”
Sean rolled over till he faced his
woman, then told her about his nightmare.
“And, when did this happen?” asked Jennifer, her eyes open in shock.
“It would have to be soon. How soon? I really don’t know. But the people in charge of the station need to know something is happening.”
Sean linked into the com net as he got out of bed and got his clothing for the day, laid out in the dressing chamber by his steward.
“That’s, hard to believe, your Majesty,” said Fleet Admiral O’Hara, the naval commander of the Donut.
“You know about my gift, Admiral? How it runs in my family.”
“I have heard of it, your Majesty. I just have trouble believing in magic.”
“It isn’t magic, Admiral, though I can understand how it might look like it. It has something to do with Quantum fluctuations, and my brain’s ability to tap into them, and see probabilistic futures.”
“Sounds like magic to me, your Majesty.”
“I am giving you a direct order, Admiral, to put the station on lockdown. Everything that enters and leaves that station is to be checked out, checked over, and checked again. Is that clear Admiral?”
“Crystal clear, your Majesty.”
“And I want the station on full alert.”
“I can’t keep this thing on full alert for an indefinite time period,” complained the Admiral. “Eventually people will get tired.”
“Then put them on alert until further notice, Admiral.”
“Understood, your Majesty.”
“Sean out,” commanded the Emperor, and the connection faded.
“That didn’t sound like it went too well,” said Jennifer, sitting on the couch and watching as the holo faded.
“Not everyone has faith in the Imperial curse,” said Sean, sitting down and rubbing his eyes.
“I thought it was a gift?” said his woman, standing up and walking to him, to sit down in his lap and put her arms around him.
“To the outside world, it’s a gift. Prophecy. A warning of what might happen in the future. To the person who possesses it? Oh yeah. It’s a curse.”
“What are you going to do about that Admiral?”
“What do you mean, my dear?” asked Sean.
“It was obvious you weren’t happy with him. Will you put someone else in charge?”
“I’ll have to think about that. Probably. But not right now. I’ve got other things to worry about. After this battle is over, I’ll look into possible replacements.”
Sean looked into the blue eyes of his love, glad that she was here, and again wishing that she wasn’t. “I wish you were in a safe place. I could still get you to safety through a wormhole. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about you.”
“And then I would continue to worry about you,” said Jennifer, shaking her head. “Someone has to watch after your crazy ass, and keep you out of trouble.”
“I am a Spacer,” said Sean. “I belong here.”
“No, you don’t. You are now the Emperor, and you should be giving orders from the palace, not trying to emulate some ancestor who felt a need to lead from the front. You have good people in command. And an advantage that your ancestor did not possess.”
“I know. I can give orders across the light years, follow the action in real time. But it’s not the same.”
“No. It’s not. It puts the head of the Empire at risk, and makes the people under you have yet another burden they shouldn’t have to bear.”
“I am not a burden,” said Sean, putting his hands under her arms and lifting her from his lap.
“And you’re not Buck Barton, Star Ranger,” said Jennifer in a rising voice, naming the hero of a popular trivee from a decade ago. “You’re not going to save the Galaxy from the bridge of a ship. You do a better job sitting the throne, and working from within the government.”
“Nevertheless, I am needed out here.”
“Oh, grow up, you fool. Before you cause more harm than good.”
Jennifer turned and stormed away, through the door to the bedroom. That door slid closed behind her, and Sean felt like it was a slam, though that of course was impossible with a mechanical closure.
Dammit, thought Sean, looking over at his cat and reaching for it. “At least you aren’t angry at me.” The cat looked in alarm at the hands of its master and jumped off the couch, heading for the bedroom door, which opened at its approach and allowed it through. “Traitor,” he yelled after the kitten.
For a moment he was tempted to go into the bedroom and try to smooth things over with his fiancé’. What’s the use, he thought.
“Would you like some breakfast, your Majesty?” asked his steward, appearing at the door to his quarters as if by magic.
“How long have you been there, John?”
“I just came out of my quarters, your Majesty.”
“And how much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to know that there was a fight. And that the lady had left the room, which meant it was safe for me to approach.”
“And do you agree with her?”
“That is not for me to say, your Majesty,” said Jacobs. “You are in command here, and everywhere else in the Empire.”
“But do you have an opinion?”
“Of course, your Majesty. Everyone has an opinion.”
“And you’re not going to give me yours?”
“Would you like me to prepare some breakfast, your Majesty?” asked the steward in a show of refusal to answer.
“No thanks,” said Sean, getting up from his couch and grabbing his jacket. “I’ll eat in the officer’s mess this morning. You can wait on the lady, when she decides to stop tantruming.”
With that, he headed for the door, driving the argument from his mind, and the possible future danger to the Donut, so he could concentrate on what decisions needed to be made this day.
* * *
THE DONUT.
The being known as Fleet Admiral Benjamin O’Hara sat at his desk for several minutes after the com holo died. That damned Imperial gift of his might endanger the mission, thought the Yugalyth that had assumed the form of the human. It didn’t know exactly when the mission was scheduled to go off, since it had received its instructions prior to the Knockermen delegation going off to make contact with the Ca’cadasans. Now that the Emperor had seen something about the destruction of the station, he was sure that it was a go. And, based on the passage of time since the Knockermen went off on their mission, it might be going down, soon.
The creature had been alive for ten thousand years, as far as it could tell with its unique memory. As far as it knew its kind was immortal, in the same way that a microorganism was, reproducing as it did by fission. It had started life as a subsentient juvenile, budded off the form of an adult, and then achieving sentience. Since that time it had been the budding organism, creating other copies as needed.
Still, they could not keep the memories of forever in their limited brain matter, especially as they survived by taking the forms of other creatures, and all intelligent beings had limited brain capacity. It was rumored that there were members of its kind that were nothing but enormous brains, with only enough body to keep that intellectual capacity alive.
The creature had picked its target well for this mission. The Admiral was not only in command of the military element of this station, he was also a solitary soul who avoided the company of others whenever possible. With his rank, that was an easy task. It had allowed him to isolate the Admiral, to capture him and obtain a DNA sample. It had allowed him the couple of days necessary to change his outer appearance to that of the Admiral. Same height, same weight, same moles, freckles and wrinkles. Even enough of the man’s memories to perfectly play the role. And still it had been an anxiety provoking five months, avoiding the deep scans called for by the security measures of the station. It knew time was running out, but now it looked like it didn’t need much more in the way of that commodity.
O’Hara logged onto his secure terminal, the one that required hi
s fingerprint and DNA scan, as well as a password, and erased all records of the com from the Emperor. There would, of course, still be a record in the com databanks of the station, and still a chance that the conversation would eventually be noted by the security apparatus in place, which had the com records of tens of millions of beings to monitor. The IIA was in charge of that monitoring, and he had no power to interfere with their work, as they did not fall under his command. They might find it using keywords, but it would still probably have some time before that happened. And in the meantime, it could do all it could to make sure the station was as ill prepared as possible for an attack.
* * *
CONGREVE SPACE.
Prester Johnson cursed the unloyal crew who had refused to man his personal yacht for a run out of the system. He had left the thirty thousand ton vessel parked at the planetoid his company had been exploiting, where it would hopefully be out of touch, or at least out of mind, of the authorities.
The ship, appropriately named Enigma, was one he had specially ordered from his own shipyards, and had some less than legal modifications for a civilian vessel. Ostensibly, those modifications had been done for very obvious reasons to someone who had made his living in space before becoming a billionaire and beyond. There were pirates at large, and wars that unleashed fleets of aliens into human space, and the Imperial Military was not always around when needed.
Now the ship was boosting for the hyperspace barrier, not that he had any intention of jumping at that point. He would continue out into space, until he was beyond the detection range of a hyper I jump. Then he would get away.
You assholes, he thought as he looked over the military class system holo. He could see every ship in the system that was detectable by either graviton emissions or transponder. He could also pick up some by infrared emissions. His own ship was as stealthy as he could make it, absorbing sensor beams, then returning them as what he wanted other ships to see, an Imperial frigate.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle Page 26