“Wait,” Connandra ordered. “Get the human admiral on the com.”
The Klassekian com tech nodded, then closed her eyes and went into a trance like state, connecting with her sister. There was no need to use devices in that connection, as mind to mind they could communicate instantaneously across any distance. The sibling, of course, would connect to another through machinery, either lascom of wormhole, unless they had the next link sitting on the same ship. If the com went through many of them it would be degraded, somewhat. Still, it was better than having to wait for hours for a light speed transmission.
The human admiral made him wait. Maybe she had something of importance going on, but to him there was nothing more important than his ships and his people. He was starting to get impatient, about to demand that she contact him, when the Klassekian looked over and nodded. A holo appeared in the middle of the bridge, transferred through the mind of the alien who was in link with another of her kind. A blurry image of the human admiral in charge of the entire force appeared within that bubble, crackling with static.
“Admiral Connandra,” said Bednarczyk, nodding in his direction. “Why aren't you boosting for the nearest gate?”
“What is your intention for the Terran battleship occupying this cluster?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“It will continue to fire on the Cacas until they get close enough to endanger it,” said Bednarczyk, her eyes narrowing. “At that time it will move its wormhole out and erect a gate so it can escape from the system. We will reduce the gate and move it by plasma thruster.”
“And you will use it to spy on the Cacas?”
The human stared at him, refusing to answer, which made the anger already living in the mind of the Slarna officer rise, bubbling to the surface. “You don't trust us with your plans?”
“I don't have time to argue about how I run my command,” said the Terran admiral, her face flat and expressionless.
Connandra couldn't read human emotions perfectly, though he had studied them enough so he could gauge her responses. It was his responsibility to his people to know what in the hell the officer put over command was thinking, based on her responses.
“So, you must have something in mind. What is it, Admiral?”
“I think it is a bad idea for my ships to run to the next gate. We will be under fire the entire way, And we are running low on counters. Since we don't have one of your wonderful wormholes, we can't resupply until we get in close proximity to your ships, unless you let the battleship near us bring over a resupply.”
“That would take many hours, Admiral. And I want them to continue firing in that time frame.”
“So, you see my problem. I'm guessing you want us to draw enemy fire that won't menace your own ships. I was willing to put my ships in danger to attack our common enemy. I am not willing to do so just so your can have another decoy.”
The face of the human admiral showed an anger response. “I would never..”
“Of course you would, Admiral,” said Connandra, his eyes half closing. “I would do the same. My ships are not that valuable to you. Not now that we have launched all our missiles. But I have a responsibility to my own nation to bring as many of my ships back as possible.”
“So, you want to go home?”
“Not at all, human. We will continue to fight with you once we are rearmed. But I will not play the part of target. Understood?”
The human admiral was silent for some time, and the Slarna officer wondered if he had pushed too far. She wouldn't fire on him, but she might leave his ships in the system to die at the hands of the Cacas. Of course, that would mean that she was leaving behind the Klassekians onboard his ships as well, citizens of her Empire. That might not sit well with her leader.
“I'm assuming you want to stay under cover of the asteroids and ride the gate the battleship will erect out of the system. You realize it will have to put up the gate twenty minutes sooner than it would have, meaning twenty minutes less firing time, nine hundred fewer missiles.”
“And nine hundred missiles will defeat the Cacas?”
“Of course not. But there are other complications as well. Letting you use that gate will risk the wormhole. The Cacas might close to the point where they will pick up the gate, maybe even fire on it.”
“Then calculate what you need to do, Admiral. And I will do what I need to do. Connandra out.”
* * *
“Damn that Slarna bastard,” cursed Beata when the transmission ended.
She was furious with the other commander. She was also angry at herself. Because he had been right. She was going to use his ships as decoys, something the Cacas could fire at, missiles that would not be attacking her ships. It was a shitty way to treat an ally, though she had to admit that their capital ships were the least useful in her command. Still, no reason to sentence more of them to death by making them targets.
“Get me the captain of the Indefatigable,” she said, naming the battleship that was in that asteroid cluster, still sending streams of wormhole missiles into the Cacas.
“Captain Lee here, ma'am.” The image of the Asian man, she thought he was of Korean ethnicity, though it was hard to tell with all the genetic mixing that had gone on since the Empire was established, appeared crystal clear. It had come through a wormhole com with no degradation of the signal.
“Status?”
“We are continuing wormhole bombardment of the Caca main fleet. They have been returning fire, but our position in the asteroid cluster makes us a difficult target.”
Beata visualized their position. Asteroids in belt were normally widespread, many so distant from the others that they were undetectable by anything but active sensors. Most belts still had some clusters, areas where from tens to hundreds of rocks had happened to gather. The largest were the Trojan points of gas giants, which could have thousands of large rocks. The cluster the Indefatigable was sheltering in was not at a Trojan point, but still had several hundred rocks, from one to forty kilometers in diameter. A missile hit would shatter most of them, but it was a strike that wouldn't impact a ship. And the remains would still provide cover.
“After you finish this cycle you are to eject your wormhole and gate it.”
“We still have time for another couple of cycles, ma'am,” said Lee, his brow furrowing.
“Negative. You are to erect the gate and go through it. The Slarna vessels will follow you to your destination.”
“You sure, ma'am. I'm not sure they have authorization to enter the black hole system in proximity to the Donut.”
Sean and the officers of that installation had grown very protective of it since the multiple attacks, two attempts to destroy the massive structure in as many years. It was the most vital installation in the Empire. The Emperor would admit that it was more important than the capital planet and everyone on it, himself included. Even the close allies, the Brakakak and the Crakista, were watched closely by the Imperial defense fleet when they transited the gates, and none of their ships were allowed within a billion kilometers of the station. Of course they had people aboard, technicians and liaison personnel. But nothing that could launch a warhead at the structure, no matter how minor the strike would prove to be. And now five hundred ships of a nominal but not truly trusted ally were going to transit to the Donut, and well within a million kilometers of it, where the other end of the new gate would be erected.
“I will get them the required authorization. Just follow the order.”
Beata terminated the transmission, not wishing to engage in any further discussion. She turned her attention back to the plot. Everything was going according to plan. She would be out of the system within three hours, except for the twelve stealth ships that would take on wormholes and stay hidden in the local space. Indefatigable had one limpeted onto her hull that would be released and take on her wormhole after the gate was collapsed. The rest, those not attached to a stealth ship, would be maneuvered to points near the edge of the syste
m, or in orbit around a gas giant moon, where they would escape detection while allowing continued surveillance of the system. Two would be near Pleisia, for close in surveillance.
She still had ships in danger. The fast attack craft, the Gernas, some few of her warships, all boosting to escape. She wasn't worried about the warp fighters. The Cacas had nothing that could catch them. If she was correct she would have destroyed almost a quarter of the Caca fleet, an exchange rate of over fifteen to one in tonnage. And she would be back.
* * *
“My Lord. The enemy ships all seem to be fleeing,” called out the chief sensor officer on the bridge.
“Show me,” growled Mrastaran, stalking over to the officer's station.
“We have many groups heading for the outer system, my Lord,” reported the male, highlighting those units on the plot. “Others heading for Pleisia, some for one or other of the gas giants or some places in the asteroid belt.”
“Why would they be heading to places where we will finally be able to bring them to battle?” asked the chief of staff, Admiral Trostara.”
“They will have erected wormhole gates at those points, and escape through them,” said Mrastaran, turning to looked at his chief of staff. When he saw confusion on the males face he huffed in exasperation. “They have wormholes all through the system. The ones near the barrier can leave with them. The ones further in cannot. They'll use them for gates, get everything out, then reduce them in size and move them into hiding.” Except for what they put on those damned stealth ships of theirs.
He could have his entire fleet spread out and search the system, but they could leave twenty of the damned sneaky ships here and he wouldn't be able to find them. While they spied on him, and maybe took some strategic shots at antimatter tankers and missile colliers. And if they left them behind, it meant they were planning to come back here. Well, the Emperor would like to hear that, since he wanted to set some kind of trap for the humans. If they never came back that trap would be useless.
“Fire on all of them while you can,” he ordered, looking over at his tactical officer. “Calculate where they are going and fire missiles at those spots as well.”
“Yes, my Lord.” The tactical officer froze in place for a moment. “We're picking up massive launches from eight different points, my Lord.”
“Where? Show me.”
“From both their northern and southern forces. From the vicinity of Pleisia, mostly from the region of their moon. One each from both of the closer gas giants. The others from spots along the asteroid belt.”
“Target them and fire on them.”
“All of them, my Lord,” said the chief of staff. “Need I remind you that anything we fire at those polar positions will only get there after those forces are long gone.”
Mrastaran growled in frustration. Of course those missiles would be wasted. He wanted to hit those ships so bad, and all the missiles he had already fired at them would coast into interstellar space with no targets. They might be able to signal most of them to decelerate, but none of them would have the battery power to come to a complete stop. Ships might be able to catch some of them, but he was sure to lose a high percentage of those weapons.
“Belay targeting those outer forces,” he growled, his anger rising. “Fire on those others.”
He probably wouldn't get anything with those launches either, unless, as he suspected, they had fixed missile launchers located at each spot. Anything mobile would be gone.
Mrastaran had gone into this battle knowing little about the human commander. He had learned much since coming into this system. She had fought a brilliant ambush and delaying action, costing him precious ships and crew at a much smaller loss to herself.
“We're being hit by those damned laser mines again, my Lord,” shouted an angry tactical officer. “About twenty thousand of the damned things. We just lost more than a hundred ships.”
“Send this order out, immediately,” screamed the great admiral. “The fleet is to change to these vectors, half to the north, the other half to the south. In one hour they are to shift back to the most immediate vectors back to Pleisia.”
There was no telling how many mines they had waiting on their path. But there was no way they could have them covering all possible approaches. Was there?
* * *
“The Emperor has given his permission for the Slarna to transit into the black hole system,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom over the wormhole com. “They are to immediately start boosting on the vector they emerge from. They are not to deviate from that vector for any reason. Any ship that changes vector before ordered will be fired upon by the defenses of the Donut and the home fleet.”
“Those prickly bastards are not going to like this one bit,” said Beata, grimacing.
“The gate will be set within three million kilometers of the Donut,” continued McCullom, her eyes hard. “We don't have time to move it further out, and it must be as stationary as we can make it. If they would prefer to stay in that system and deal with the Cacas they are welcome to it. They are not trusted allies. In fact, the Emperor also wants the Klavarta ships as far from the Donut as we can keep them.”
“He doesn't trust them?” asked a horrified Beata. These were their fellow humans, even those who had been genetically engineered into other forms. They had the same number of chromosomes, ninety-eight percent of the same genes.
“He trusts their government,” said McCullom, closing her eyes for a moment and slowly shaking her head. “He trusts President Klanarat, and Vice President Thrann. But he doesn't trust all of their officers, the xenophobic bastards. And I don't blame him one bit.”
“They've turned away from those practices,” said Beata, shaking her head, wondering if that was totally correct.
She had gotten the feeling from Admiral Klanarat that he didn't particularly like aliens. The admiral wasn't sure he liked humans that weren't of his genetic type.
“According to our intelligence sources within the Nation of New Earth, not all of them believe in the new ways. Many of them still think it is their mission to cleanse the Galaxy of anything that can't draw a genetic line from Earth.”
“Our intelligence sources? You mean Sergiov has spies within a government of an ally?”
It was something she hadn't really thought about. But from what she knew of Sean, a historian of old Earth, she shouldn't have been surprised. He oft quoted the Second Global War on old Earth. The United States and the Soviet Union were staunch allies during that war, and turned into deadly enemies as soon as it ended. A lesson for them all, nineteen hundred years later.
“Oh please, Admiral,” said a sneering McCullom. “Don't be naive. We have intelligence assets in the capitals of all of our allies. We need to know what's going on, even with our friends. Today's friend may be tomorrow's enemy, and we can't afford to get caught flat footed.”
Beata didn't like thinking of that. She preferred to believe that their allies were trustworthy friends, but from she had seen of the supreme commander of the Klavarta fleet, she didn't consider him worthy of her trust, nor was he a friend.
“There is still a lot of sympathy for the old regime,” continued McCullom, “the cloned bastards who set them on a path that made them enemies of every other species in their region. Just be careful, Admiral. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you have never been adept at playing the political game.”
“I never wanted to,” said Beata, feeling herself puff up with anger. “I am an officer in his Majesty's fleet, and that is all I want to be.”
Sondra laughed, and Beata felt her face heating up at the thought that her superior was laughing at her.
“Don't be offended, Beata,” said the CNO, her expression softening. “I never wanted to play the game either. Unfortunately, I was put into a position where it was learn to play the political game or fail to serve my Emperor. Something I wouldn't countenance. You may never have to be as good at it as most other grand fleet admir
als, not as good as Duke Taelis, or Lenkowski. But you still have to learn to play the game. It's as important as knowing how to defeat and enemy in battle.”
“Point taken.”
“Don't get taken in by those people out there, Admiral. Trust in their president and vice, but be careful of everyone else. And make sure the Slarna know what they have to do if they're going to evacuate from the system to the Donut. I really don't want to see a blue on blue incident.”
It would be one of the shortest friendly fire incidents in the history of the Galaxy. The firepower based on and around the Donut was daunting. If she could have had that firepower in the Plesias system she would have made short work of the Cacas. But Sean was not about to uncover his most vital resource, not even a little bit. Mobile units might be moved, in small lots, but anything permanent was there to stay. They might be winning the war, overall, but taking out the Donut could still turn things around for the Cacas.
The com died, leaving Beata alone with her thoughts. Having a heart to heart with the Iron Woman herself, thought Bednarczyk with a snort. She wasn't looking forward to giving Admiral Connandra those instructions. Because she wasn't looking forward to it, she thought she better get it over with.
Chapter Nineteen
Some defeats are only installments to victory. Jacob Riis
Captain Xferd Canara looked up to the sky, trying to make out the objects he knew were up there. The bright star shining down on the day side of the planet made that impossible. If it had been the night side he would have been able to pick up the lights of the objects he knew were up there. The gate and most of the ships were always on the day side, away from the enemy. And most of those ships were going through that gate, to safety.
But not us, thought the captain, wishing that he wasn't honor bound to the code of his class. Klavarta warriors didn't surrender. They didn't leave their posts. They died where they stood. It was an honorable tradition, and one he was coming to regret.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 15: All Quiet on the Second Front? Page 25