* * *
OUTSIDE OF CONGREEVE SPACE.
“We have ships entering sensor range,” called out the Sensor Officer.
“We already have lots of ships in our sensor range,” said Lasardo, looking back at his captain, the Duke Maurice von Rittersdorf.
The Captain of the James Komorov stared at the holo, which was indeed filled with over a thousand vector arrows, ships moving in hyper VII on a course that would take them to the Congreeve system. There were even more vessels off the holo, ships that had already passed beyond sensor range.
“These are on a different heading,” said the Sensory Officer, as the ships in question turned a different color and started blinking on the holo. “Toward the Duchess’ task group.”
“Let her know they are coming,” ordered the Captain. He looked at his helmsman. “How long before we can jump into following mode, without them knowing we’re behind them?”
“Their last ship will be out of detection range of our jump to hyper VII in twenty-eight minutes.”
The Captain looked at the tactical holo again, making up his mind. “Jump ten minutes after that last ship is out of detection range of us. Then we’ll follow them all the way to Congreeve.”
Von Rittersdorf grabbed the arms of his chair as he continued to stare at the holo. I wish we were there at the kill, but I guess picking off the stragglers will have to do.
* * *
“Captain von Rittersdorf is reporting enemy ships heading our way, Ma’am,” said the Squadron Com Officer from his station.
“Part and parcel of our job,” said Commodore the Duchess Mei Lei, looking at the holo that showed the beginning of the formation of Caca ships to their port. They had only picked up the fleet a day out of Congreeve. It had been a balancing act between not spooking the enemy force, and doing what was expected. The enemy would know that there were picketing forces around any system the Emperor would be visiting. To not show them those pickets would be to arouse too much suspicion. So instead, the pickets had met the enemy a day out, while a line of ships, sitting in normal space had tracked them and kept command informed as to their movements, which had been predictable. And now, the enemy was sending out a force to drive off the pickets, also predictable.
“We’ve picked up the ships he was telling us about,” said the Squadron Tactical Officer, as the vector arrows appeared on the huge holo in the center of the flag bridge. “We’re tracking thirty ships, twelve of them capitals, along with ten supercruisers.”
“Looks like they mean to take us out, Ma’am,” said her Flag Captain, standing beside her.
“Then I intend to disappoint them,” said Mei, grinning as she watched the superior force come her way. “Range to missile engagement envelop?”
“Based on all data, about fifteen minutes,” said the Tactical Officer.
Based on the assumption that they will send their missiles on a maximum acceleration profile through hyper VII, thought Mei. An assumption that could be wrong, but most likely isn’t. “All vectors at one hundred eighty degrees from the oncoming ships, maximum acceleration. All ships are to launch two volleys of missiles when they are within our range.”
The Tactical Officer nodded and Mei smiled. Her people knew the plan, she didn’t need to tell them what they were going to do. She only needed to give the commands at the proper time.
The time ticked off the clock, bringing the enemy ships ever closer. The force was moving at point nine five light through the hyper dimension, just a little slower than the enemy. Reverse engineering the Caca electromag shields had allowed the Imperial Fleet to almost reach the same maximum safe velocity in hyper. Almost. They had been ahead of them initially, and let the Ca’cadasans catch up. Because of relativity the fifteen minutes they waited was more like forty-nine minutes in the standard Universe, where very few large material objects traveled at that speed. The computers aboard the ships adjusted for the time diffraction, but it was easier for the minds of the organic beings aboard to simply convert it to the time frame their senses were used to.
“Missile launch,” called out the Tactical Officer, looking back at the Commodore with a smile.
“You know what to do,” she said, nodding at the holo.
The Tactical Officer’s smile widened, and he turned back to his board. “All units. Fire two volleys at the enemy.”
Acknowledgements started coming back immediately, and moments later the vector arrows of enemy missiles appeared on the holo, separating from the icons of the ships. Those arrows were piling on the velocity, accelerating at eight thousand gravities. They would reach the Imperial force well before the human missiles, accelerating at a mere five thousand gravities. The human missiles would not reach the enemy before their own weapons pounded the Terran ships.
“It’s looking bad for the good guys,” said the squadron Flag Captain, standing next to the Commodore’s chair. He couldn’t keep the wide smile off his face, though it was apparent that he was trying.
This seems so surreal, thought the Commodore, looking over her flag bridge crew who were so relaxed, despite the appearance of certain death heading their way. In other circumstances, I would want everyone on this bridge to have a psych eval. But, then, she thought, smiling as she watched the incoming missiles, I would need one as well.
Some of the vector arrows dropped off the plot, then more, victims to the long range counters that the ships were throwing out. The long range counter missiles had their own hyperdrives, and there were only a limited number aboard each ship. It was a losing battle trying to take out the incoming missiles. Still, the ships tried their hardest under the direction of their Tactical Officers, but most made it through.
Next was the turn of the lasers. Lasers, being more energetic than matter, lasted in hyper for about a minute or so before all of the photons were kicked out. After a couple of seconds almost half the photons were gone, and they kept dropping out second by second, almost like the radioactive half-life of short lived hot elements. By a minute, only twenty percent was left. Most of the hits on missiles were too weak to do much more than minor damage. Of course, in hyper, even minor damage might drop a missile out of the dimension, and several did. The closer the missiles got, the more effective the lasers became. They dropped more missiles, and a few blew up as their warheads breached. But overall, it was a losing tactic, a smaller force trying to stop a heavy swarm attack from the much larger attacker.
Then missiles came through the defensive fire, at first scoring proximity hits that put heat and radiation into the hulls of the ships. Systems went off line, especially telling those of the defensive firing computers and weapons. And then the first hit came, shattering a battle cruiser and sending it out of hyper in a catastrophic translation. After that it was only a couple more ticks of the timer before the whole force was gone. Four battle cruisers, eight light cruisers and twelve destroyers, gone as if they never existed.
“We’re dead,” said the Tactical Officer, and laughter broke out across the bridge.
“Whoever thought of this was a genius,” said another officer.
And we may never know who that was, thought the Commodore.
The Fleet went through regular refit cycles with their ships. At least once a year their electronics were upgraded by nanites. Every five years they underwent a physical refit, usually lasting a month, with the ship in dry-dock. After twenty years the vessels were retired, unless there was an extreme shortage of their type. And if there wasn’t, they went into the mothball fleet, the mass of ships kept at carefully guarded ship yards for emergency use. That storage could last for ten years, or thirty.
Almost all of the ships in the mothball fleet were smaller than those in active service. That was just the evolution of warship design. Seven million ton battle cruisers had evolved into eight million ton vessels, just as battleships had grown from twelve million tons to fifteen megatons, and now beyond.
The ships of the squadrons that had just been destroyed came from that
mothball fleet, retrofitted with a modern hyper VII drive. The only other major expense had been the one wormhole that the flagship of the squadron had carried, linking it to Mei’s force. All of the ships had stayed close enough that the flag had been linked to the other vessels by laser, so that the officers on Mei’s ship could control them remotely.
And they fell for it, completely. A small victory for them, something to feed their arrogance before they go into combat. “Let the Admiral know that the ploy worked,” she told her Com Officer. She turned toward her Flag Tactical Officer. “And go ahead and bring the next force up into their sensor range. Maybe we can get another reaction from them.”
* * *
THE DONUT.
Dr. Lucille Yu periodically walked the station on an inspection tour. The whole idea was kind of ludicrous, since even the occupied section of the station took up over ten thousand cubic kilometers. That didn’t include the half million cubic kilometers of almost empty storage that was in use, the hangars, billions of cubic kilometers of machinery that generated and stored the power that opened the wormhole gates that were the reason for the station’s existence.
The was no way she could even walk a millionth of the occupied station. But, as the Director, it just felt right. But the station doesn’t feel right, she thought, passing more and more military personnel. It was supposed to be a civilian station, with the offices of companies major and minor, the new transportation hub of the Empire. She knew that there still would have been a military presence in that station of her dreams. The military needed a lot of those wormholes, a lot of that transportation capacity, but not like now. Now they needed almost the whole damned thing.
“Everything up to your standards, Dr. Yu?” asked Jimmy Chung, walking beside her.
“Not really, Jimmy. To many uniforms.”
“Sign of the times, Lucille. And the military will be expanding three fold in the next couple of years. I’m sure we’ll see more of them before we see less.”
“What do you think of Admiral O’Hara?” she asked, something that had been on her mind since the morning, when she had learned that he had lessened the security around many of the wormhole gate rooms. The Admiral had said that the men were needed for other assignments, but that didn’t ring true, not with all the military personnel on the station.
“He seems kind of distant,” said Jimmy, looking up at her. “Even his men seem to feel he is an asshole. They call him ‘Old Tight Ass’. All Navy. And scary as hell to his subordinates.”
“Something doesn’t seem right about him to me. It’s? I don’t know. I get a strange feeling about the man.”
“You want me to check into him for you?”
“Is that legal?” she asked in surprise.
“The IIA is in charge of the overall security of this station,” said Chung. “We do background checks on all civilian personnel, and vet the checks done by the military.”
“And you monitor some of the communications on the station? At least enough to get a general idea of what’s going on?”
“We monitor all communications, or at least as much as it’s possible to monitor. Anything that tips off one of our algorithms gets looked into.”
“And you have been monitoring the Admiral?”
“I didn’t think there was any need to specifically monitor the military chief of the station,” said the Agent with a frown. “And if he didn’t trip any of the algorithms, we wouldn’t have a live agent actually listen to it.”
“Could you flag all of his recent conversations, and listen to them?”
“I’m not sure about all of them. He’s a fucking admiral, Lucille. A five star. He generates coms like a dog does shit.”
“I would feel much better if you checked him out, Jimmy,” she said, looking up and down the mostly deserted corridor before putting her arms on his shoulders. What the hell am I trying to hide, anyway. Half the station has to know we’re lovers.
“I could assign a couple of agents to look through the records, see if there’s anything suspicious there.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“With a Fleet Admiral in charge of a project like this. A week. Maybe a little less. Depending on far back we want to go.”
“Thank you, Jimmy,” she said, putting her arm around him and leading the way back to the tram station. “I really appreciate it.”
“Why don’t you show me how much you appreciate it?” asked Jimmy with a smile.
“I could do that,” she said, already making plans on how she was going to use the agent in bed. “As long as you get on it fairly soon.”
“Tomorrow? I guess that will be soon enough.”
“And we’ll probably find nothing, except that he’s an asshole.”
“If it makes you feel better, I have no problem with verifying his status as an asshole.”
* * *
THE PALACE. JEWEL.
“I’ll see you at three, day after tomorrow,” said the man on the holo. “And I don’t have to be back until Sunday night.”
Rebecca saw the holo as soon as she entered the room. And the smile that broke out on her face was genuine as she saw who it was. “Hey, Cornelius. I mean Dad.”
“This isn’t a live transmission,” said Devera, looking up at her adopted daughter, smiling herself as she saw the beaming face of the thirteen year old. “The good news is he will be here this weekend, so you can talk with him face to face all you want.”
“Unless you two are in the bedroom,” said the child with a laugh.
“Rebecca,” Devera said in a scandalized voice.
“Well, you are newly married. And I know you don’t just go to sleep when you lock yourselves in there.”
Seeing the smile on her adopted mother’s face made her feel good. Then a thought entered her mind and stole that happiness. She saw her mom and dad, her real parents, and remembered how happy they had been with each other, before the Cacas came and ended that forever.
“I am so sorry, honey,” said Devera, on her feet in an instant and moving toward her adopted daughter with open arms. “I didn’t mean to bring those memories back.”
“Those memories will be with me forever,” said Rebecca, burying her face in Devera’s hair as her adoptive mom knelt down on the floor and held her. “It’s not your fault. It’s not Cornelius’ fault. I want you to be happy, but sometimes, it’s so hard.”
Devera just held her, no words passing between them for several minutes. Rebecca tried to deal with the conflicting feelings running through her. Sorrow, happiness, uncertainty. But mostly, and she had to smile as she identified this feeling, safety. Her knight in shining armor would be home this weekend. And how could she feel anything but safe with a superhero in her home.
* * *
AUGUSTINE I.
Sean stood in the room that would be his station. He had been here before, and sampled the awesome features of it. But now he was in the system that would be the battlefield, and wanted to try it out again before the action. He was alone in the chamber. Tomorrow there would be someone else here as well, though not someone on active duty. This room would be his alone, except for the support he might need.
He activated the system, and the medium sized chamber seemed to become a room the size of the Universe. Space stretched out in all directions, infinite. In all directions were limitless stars, fields of them, the smudges of globular clusters, the glowing gas of nebulae. He focused on one of the clusters through his link, and the image grew until he could count the individual stars. He found another object, and zoomed in on a Galaxy. It was a godlike feeling, one that could affect his judgment and cause him to make decisions based on arrogance if he weren’t careful.
He collapsed the view back into the system, sweeping the view around the globe of the Galaxy that surrounded him. He looked at the nearby nebula, the glow of stars showing the filaments of color, reds, blues and golds. There were darker regions in that cloud of gas, which was almost as perfect a vacuum
as could be produced by nature, despite the appearance of thick vapor. The darker regions, areas of thicker gas, would eventually collapse into new stars, which would be surrounded by an accretion disk that would form a planetary system. The giant star that had formed that cloud had blown up over forty thousand years before, sterilizing planets for fifty light years in all directions. The former life bearing planets had been turned into dead worlds, still possessing oceans, and atmospheres. Most of the oxygen had fallen out of that blanket of gas, no longer replenished by the plants that had once covered the surfaces. Now those worlds were to be terraformed, easily converted back to living worlds. The Congreeve system had been lucky enough to be outside the sterilization zone, though its ecosystem had taken a hammering. And that hammering had led to an evolutionary leap that had resulted in the final step in the climb to intelligence. And so advanced the Universe, the death of some worlds allowing the advancement of others.
He swept the focus back, to see the nebula filling a significant portion of the spinward sky. Hell of a backdrop for a battle, he thought. A beautiful canvas that would one day bring life, overlooking the space that would bring death to so many the next day.
With a thought every asset in the system appeared on the globe. Beneath every ship and station was its name or designation. The assets with wormhole coms appeared in green, everything else was in blue. All of the green icons would have video feeds into this system, as real time as it got. He decided to check everything out in that real time vid, starting at the planet.
Congreeve looked amazing on the vid. The night side, the hemisphere the enemy would see on coming into the system, was lit up with the lights of huge cities and industrial complexes. He switched to infrared, and it looked even more real on the heat signature. I hope you escape damage, he thought, looking at the world, which had a very unusual ecosystem. He had been pissed when he found out this planet housed an intelligent species like no other. By then it had been too late, the plan already set in motion. And as he was responsible for the actions of his Fleet, if the planetary ecosystem was destroyed, the fault would be his. They had evacuated enough of the life on the planet to start over, if need be. But it would still be a tragedy if something happened, a missile strike, a large ship falling to the ground.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle Page 29