Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) (25 page)

Nothing can escape from
it.  Nothing can harm it.
  She stared at the hole for a moment, watching the
reflection of light around the event horizon, the distortion of the stars on
the other side.  It was the source of their power, the energy they generated to
make wormholes.  And could it be used to stop this enemy who was determined to
destroy the station?

“The wormhole generation
satellite is almost in place,” called out another Tech, bringing Lucille back
to the here and now, and the next task.

“I will take control of
the satellite,” said Lucille, pulling up the holographic control panel to hang
in the air before her.  “Starting countdown, now.”

*     *     *

“Objects ahead,” called
out the Tactical Officer, pointing at the forty-two new icons that had seemed
to appear out of nowhere.

“Where the hell did they
come from?” asked the High Admiral, scowling.

“They must be some of
those impossible fighters we were told about in the mission briefing,” said the
second in command over the com.  “But why did they jump back into normal space
ahead of us.  They lack any kind of closing speed.”

That was true.  The
fighters were actually still moving toward the station at almost point three
light, while the Ca’cadasan ships were coming up behind them at point five
five.  The closing speed was only point three light, almost standing still as
far as state of the art targeting systems were concerned.  And anything they
fired would start off killing the momentum of the launching vessel while trying
to claw their way back to their targets.

“Their firing, my Lord,”
called out the Tactical Officer, as one hundred and sixty-eight icons, four for
each fighter, appeared on the plot.  The vector arrows were actually pointing
away from the Ca’cadasan force, the figures below them showing deceleration at
fifteen thousand gravities. They dropped away from the launching fighters,
letting the oncoming Ca’cadasan ships catch up to them at an increasing closing
speed.  That closing velocity would never get much above point five light,
still too slow to avoid most laser targeting systems.  And then it happened.

“Half the icons
disappeared,” yelled out the Tactical Officer, his voice close to panic.

“Where?”

The explosions went off
all around the Ca’cadasan force.  The inertialess missiles had not had time to
get up to more than point six light, but that still brought an inertia rebound
that converted sixty percent of their mass to energy.  Eighty-four explosions, none
aimed with any kind of accuracy, at a force that was spread with a score of
kilometers between the ships.  Some of the blasts went off behind the force, a
few to the side, most in front, sending their waves of heat and radiation into
the oncoming superbattleships.  One exploded on top of a capital ship, leaving
little more than spreading plasma and debris particles expanding in space.  One
went off a little further from a ship, far enough that it didn’t shatter the
vessel, close enough that it still killed most of the crew and left the
battleship a tumbling wreck.

The fighters started to
close as well, firing their lasers and particle beams into the oncoming
warships, maneuvering for all they were worth to avoid return fire.  Their
conventional missiles closed to attack range, most falling prey to defensive
fire.  A few achieved close misses, adding slight damage to some of the
warships.  Then the weapons of the Ca’cadasan ships started targeting the
fighters.

*     *     *

Two down
, thought Captain Chavez,
watching as the graviton emissions of two superbattleships dropped off the
plot.  They were still ten light seconds distance, and it would take some
moments before he actually saw what happened to them.  As long as they were out
of commission that was really all that mattered.

His ships were now firing
their pea shooters at the vessels that outmassed them by over fifteen thousand
times.  Any hits they got would be absorbed by electromagnetic fields and
armor.  But his force had given its best shot, and they had no more missiles to
fire.

Two of his fighters
dropped off the plot, and he decided that it was time to get.

“All ships are to go back
into bubble drive, now,” he ordered, looking over at his Com Tech.  “Set course
for the station, all fighters to come out in defensive configuration.”

The orders went out, and
moments later the negative matter bubble was in place, thirty-nine fighters
disappearing from the sensors of every near ship.

*     *     *

“One light minute to
target,” called out the Weapons/Tactical/Sensor Officer from his position in
the forward cockpit.

And what a target it
was.  The High Captain, who was the leader of the entire first strike, couldn’t
take his eyes off the tactical plot that showed that target.  It was the
biggest target he had ever seen, since the Ca’cadasan fleet didn’t make a habit
of attacking stars.  Over twenty-five million kilometers in circumference,
almost eight million in diameter, larger than the width of most stars, though
not near as massive.  Probably the largest intelligently designed object in the
known Universe.

The flight of twenty-five
thousand ships had come out of the wormhole well below their maximum velocity
for safety reasons, then had started boosting on a least time profile for the
station.  They weren’t able to use the standard strategy of coasting most of
the distance, making it difficult for the enemy to track them.  They were
boosting the entire way, first accelerating, then decelerating, putting out
heat and gravitons.  Only the humans had solved the problem of staying
stealthy, but only by using wormholes and boosting at very low rates.  So they
were being tracked the entire way, as evidenced by the defensive fighters that
had blown through their formation, trading missiles and beam weapons.

Ca’cadasan attack
fighters were less massive than human ship launched fighters, even the space
superiority version.  At six hundred tons, they carried a crew of three, verses
seven for the human birds, and were more maneuverable.  The attack fighters
massed eight hundred tons and carried a crew of four.  The human fighters they
tangled with were specifically designed to fly protection for planets and space
stations, and lacked the endurance of ship attack fighters.  They massed a
hundred tons each, with a crew of two, and were the most maneuverable craft in
this fight.  They were also the most lightly armed, their lasers and particle
beams commensurate with their size.  They had destroyed over two thousand of
his ships on the pass, versus about fifteen hundred of their own.  The human
fighters had turned on the grabbers, decelerating at fifteen hundred gravities,
trying to kill their momentum so they could come back and attack the Ca’cadasan
ships that were deceling at twelve hundred gees.

“Setting up attack profile,”
the other officer said.  This was also not a standard attack, where they would
be roaring in at maximum velocity to put missiles into ships.  There weren’t
enough missiles in both strikes to do more than sting something the size of the
station, and stinging it wouldn’t help the main strike that was coming in
behind both waves of fighters.  No, their mission was to locate defensive
structures on the station and take them out.  The most frightening part of that
mission was locating defensive structures, which could only be done by enticing
them to fire on the fighters, not a proposition that encouraged thoughts of
long term survival.

The fighters had reached
a stage where they were almost at a standstill compared to the station’s
position, if not its rotational velocity.  As they slid closer the weapons on
the station, lasers placed on the hull, close in autoweapons, particle beams,
started firing at the Ca’cadasan ships.  They were still hard to hit, going
into evasive maneuvers that made small targets multiple light seconds away
difficulty to pin down.  Hard didn’t mean impossible, and on the final approach
hundreds of craft were blasted out of space.

“Starting target
acquisition,” called out the other officer, running the tracking software that
linked with the other ships of the wave, locating weapons that had fired,
marking their positions on the station among nearby installations, then
cataloguing and prioritizing them.  The fighters swung into a tight orbital
path around the station, moving against the rotation.  Fighters started to fire
on the station, two hundred megaton missiles targeting laser domes and particle
beam nozzles, lasers and particle beams striking out at the close in
auto-weapons.  Secondary targets included hatches, sensor domes, and any other
installations which defied identification.

Weapons systems struck
back, blasting fighters into fast moving debris.  Some hit the station,
generating small secondary explosions.  Small, that is, in relation to the size
of the station.  And then the defensive fighters came boosting back in, mixing
it up with the enemy fighters in what would have been called dogfights in
atmosphere, but were considered insanity at the speeds they were moving.  Over
a thousand ships were gone on each side in less than a minute.  The attacking
force spread as it completed orbits around the station, until the space near
the outer skin was one continuous fur ball.

*     *     *

“We’re going to take
years getting this thing back together again,” said one of the Officers in the
War Room.  Vibrations from explosions were coming through the hull
continuously, muted not because of their lack of power, but due to the
massiveness of the object they were transmitted through.

If we’ve still got a
station left to repair
, thought Admiral McCullom.  It had taken a hundred years,
and a good percentage of the industrial capacity of the Empire to build it in
the first place.  They didn’t have the industrial capacity to spare in the
middle of this war, nor the time.  If it was destroyed they lost it, and with
it the war.

“The evacuation is
proceeding as fast as we can get them through the gates,” said one of the Com
Techs, looking back from her station.  “The station commander is asking if he
can start moving military personnel through.”

“No,” growled McCullom. 
“We will defend this station to the last.”

“What about getting as
many wormholes off the station as we can?” asked another Officer.  “Just in
case.”

“And how would you
evacuate them?” asked Sondra, pointing to the plot, which was covered with
objects quickly changing their orientation, when they weren’t just disappearing
altogether.  “Put them on shuttles and try to fly them through that mess?  And
what do you think the Cacas are going to think of any ships we try to sneak
through them?”

And that was the other
thing.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time to put most of the wormholes
here on the station, where they could serve as the instantaneous com and
logistics links of the Empire.  That had been the purpose of putting so much
space on the station not devoted to energy generation and storage, or to
industrial concerns like antimatter and negative matter production.  The
station was to be the hub of the industry of the Empire, with business
travelers stepping from planet to planet through this hub.  Now they might have
to rethink that, and spread the hub to multiple locations.  Unfortunately, two
thirds of the wormholes in the Empire linked to this station, and if it were
gone, so were those links.  Or were they?

“Get me Dr. Yu on the
Com,” ordered McCullom, an idea forming.

Chapter Eighteen

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody
isn't thinking. George S. Patton

“What information have
you heard from the Empire?” asked the Klavarta Admiral over the com holo.

“Nothing good, ma’am,”
replied the human Vice Admiral.  “They hurt us, bad, in the Capital system. 
Reports are still fragmentary.  Preliminary reports are that we beat off the
attack, but they hurt us.  Over a hundred million dead, hundreds of ships lost,
docks, shipbuilding facilities.  It sounds like we lost a major battle, though
it could have been worse.”

“And the
Donut?”

“That’s still up in the
air,” said the Vice Admiral. 
And unfortunately, more than two thirds of our
wormholes terminate at the
Donut,
or one of the orbital stations around
it.  If the Cacas take those out, we’re in a lot of trouble.

“We can’t do anything
about it,” said the Klavarta.  “So I guess we need to concentrate on what we
can do.”

We could pray
, thought the Vice
Admiral, herself not a believer in any deity.   She didn’t think more than half
of the citizens of the Empire did, and she wasn’t sure there was any kind of
religious belief among the Klavarta.  But it was just about the only thing she
could think of.

“So you want to go ahead
with the offensive?” asked the Vice Admiral.

“I don’t know what else
we should do,” said the Klavarta.  “We have the ships in place, and the eyes of
the enemy are on the other front.  Your intelligence is saying that they have
reinforcements coming this way, but they aren’t here yet.  So now is the time
to strike.”

And intelligence hadn’t
been too sure about their information
, thought the Vice Admiral, looking over at the
tactical plot that showed the projected dispositions of the enemy units, mostly
clustered around the score of inhabited systems nearest to their primary front
base.  The enemy had been weakened in the last Klavarta operation, coming on
the heels of the attack by the Cacas deep into the Nation of New Earth’s
space.  Losses had been heavy on both sides, but the Klavarta had new
construction coming out of the shipbuilding slips, and some reinforcements had
come through from the Empire.  And they had wormholes, over a hundred of them,
with more coming.  Half the wormholes reached back to the Empire, two to ship
gates that would allow vessels from either front to transit immediately to the
other.  The rest to weapon systems that doubled as com portals.  The other half
had come to the front with both ends carried in sealed containers, and were now
functioning as ship gates and com portals for the Klavarta Fleet.

“I still wish the
intelligence was a little more, firm,” said the Vice Admiral.  “It would have
eased my mind if more of your scout ships had come back from their missions.”

“The ones that came back
reported information that agreed with your intelligence estimates.”

And that was what was
bothering the Vice Admiral.  Anything that had come across any unsuspected
shipping might have been destroyed.  While it was unlikely that everything sent
out that stumbled upon something would have been snapped up, it was always a
possibility.  And any intelligence they developed in the Ca’cadasan Empire, an
expanse twenty-five times larger than the New Terran Empire, would of course be
sparse, and suspect.  But this was not her command, or her Empire’s.  She and
her ships were here to support the Nation of New Earth in their prosecution of
the war.

“We will move on our
targets in six hours,” said the Klavarta Admiral, a firm order that left no
room for argument.  The Klavarta turned on the holo.  “Send the orders to all
units.”  Looking back at the human Admiral she smiled.  “And if you would be so
kind as to let you units know my orders, and transmit them to my units in their
proximity.”

The human nodded, then
turned to her own com people to give them the command.  The ship carried one
wormhole.  There just weren’t enough on this front to give any vessel more than
one.  She also carried a half dozen Klassekian Com Techs, each the member of a
different sibling group.  There was still pressure by the Klavarta to assign
some of the aliens to their commands, but so far the Empire had been adamant at
keeping them aboard their own ships and stations.

“Then let us be about
it.  In four days we strike the first targets.  We’ll adjust our objectives
depending on what we find.”

Which was at least some
common sense from the normally aggressive Klavarta, who seemed predisposed to
charge in and think later.  That was probably the truth, since they were
genetically engineered to be fighters.  At least some of the Imperial human
thinking was starting to rub off on them, and they were willing to be audacious
while still taking precautions that the audaciousness didn’t lead to disaster.

Six hours later the ships
started to move.  It was still a two-day journey to their target.  Other task
groups started off at the same time, still more later, so that all the groups
would reach their targets at approximately the same time.  Most of the ships
were still the raider and small destroyer class of the Klavarta, soon to be
replaced for the most part by larger Imperial designs.  The only problem was,
the Klavarta were not willing to let go of perfectly good ships while they
could still be of use in the war.  Their philosophy was that warriors were
cheaper than the weapons they used, so they sacrificed warriors to get the most
of the weapons while they had them.

*     *     *

“Magnificent,” said the
Great Admiral as he watched some of his reinforcements coming through the new
wormhole gate.  It was to date his only wormhole gate, the other three deployed
to ships.  And with things heating up on the other front, he wasn’t expected
too many more in the future.  There actually was one more on the way.  He knew
this because the ship carrying it was in communication with the capital, which
was in an instantaneous link with his headquarters through this very gate.

The superbattleship
finished its translation, coming through at less than a kilometer per second. 
It wasn’t going anywhere beyond the system for the moment, so there was no need
for high velocity.  It took four seconds for the ship to complete the transit. 
Twenty seconds later another ship came through.  All were of the older
designs.  Only a few of the experimental vessels, the new battleships, were in
commission, and this was still considered a secondary front.

“They aren’t sending
everything you asked for,” said his Chief of Staff.

“It will still double my
force,” said the Great Admiral, thankful that he still had his command.  What
they were sending him would not have doubled his original command.  Not even
close.  He had lost so many ships and crews in his assault on the Klavarta that
he barely had enough to hold the frontier as it was.  He thought a strong
attack by the Klavarta would crack his defenses, and leave the worlds behind
him helpless.  And with a five-month travel time from the industrial heart of
the Empire to his command, he hadn’t thought he would get the reinforcements
he, or his successor, needed.

Now potential
reinforcements were just a short jump away.  This very day his force would grow
by two thousand warships.  Tomorrow by the same amount.

“We’re receiving a grav
pulse message, my Lord,” said a male, running onto the observation deck of the
station.  “It comes from the surveillance line.”

The Great Admiral grunted
his acknowledgement.  They had taken a page out of the Klavarta book, and left
a line of scout ships leading from deep into their territory all the way to
this base.  The earlier offset line had given them early warning of the enemy
entering their space.  Now this one gave them the final alert that they were
indeed heading here.  Just like the Klavarta had done to him, he had stationed
his ships just within grav pulse range of each other.  Three hundred ships,
stretched across just under two hundred light years in normal space.  Under
orders to not reveal themselves until a major movement of enemy ships was
detected.  Then, of course, the ships that had picked up the movements would be
located, and there was the possibility that enemy ships would be dropping into
normal space looking for them.  But the ones further up the chain would not be
detected, since they would have transmitted their messages already and have gone
silent by the time the enemy got within detection range.

“The report we’re getting
is that an enemy fleet is continuing to move in our direction.”

“Show me,” ordered the
Great Admiral.

A holo plot sprang to
life in the center of the chamber, and the Great Admiral and his staff turned
their backs on the viewer that was showing the new arrivals.  The holo showed
the local stars, out to three hundred light years from the base in the
direction of the Klavarta, only a score in the other direction.  The volume of
stars looked like a thin mist among a sea of black.   Two blinking red dots had
vector arrows leading from them, one behind the other, about thirty light years
out, where the first of the scout line ships were stationed.  And the vector
lines were definitely pointing toward Ca’cadasan space in the general direction
of the base.

“And I guess we can
assume that they are coming here, on a direct assault?”

“That would be the most
likely scenario, my Lord,” said the Chief of Staff.  “If they are smart they will
be coming here in mass, especially since they know we have spotted them.”

“That would be the smart
way to bet,” said the Great Admiral.  “But I am unwilling to bet that way.  The
Klavarta themselves would be likely to rush at us like enraged animals.  The
other humans with them would not, and we must count on them trying something
unexpected.”

“Your orders, my Lord?”
asked the Chief of Staff.

“Put the fleet on alert. 
All recon groups are to move out to their pre-arranged positions and prepare to
maintain contact with the enemy when they come within range.  Force A units are
to form up into battle groups and move to a light hour from the hyper-limit. 
The rest are to go into their waiting positions.”

“And then?”

“And then we wait and see
what shows up at our door.”

*     *     *

This might not be the
best idea I’ve even had
, thought Angel Sergio Martinez, landing on the platform of
the building in his very expensive high tech armor.  The armor could be
stealthed to a degree that would surprise most members of the Imperial
military.  It was stronger, tougher, and had more gadgets, all coming at a
premium price.  And it was also very recognizable, when not in stealth, as
something different than anyone else would be wearing this day in this city.

Right now that wasn’t his
worry.  He took a moment to glance at the city around him, his heart sinking as
he took in the destruction.  A kilometer away was the Imperial Library, the
central branch of the largest collection of books and papers in human space. 
Fifty square kilometers of footprint on the ground.  The thoughts and theories
of a hundred million scholars, the imagination of the same number of fiction
writers.  Books from old Earth, some originals.  Most of the really valuable
tomes would be held in the secure vaults under the building, but from the
collapsed state of the structure, it wasn’t a sure thing that those vaults
survived.  There were a half dozen craters in the building, and easily a third
of the structure had collapsed from kinetic hits. 

A kilometer separation to
the north was the Imperial Art Gallery, covering another twenty squares
kilometers of ground footprint.  Millions of reproductions from old Earth,
along with some priceless originals.  Tens of millions more works that had been
created since humanity had reached this space.  The building hadn’t been
damaged to the extent that the library had, but it seemed not for lack of
effort.  Seven holes cratered the building.

The bastards
, he thought, imagining
the gloating faces of the Cacas.  A rage bubbled up from his stomach.  He may
have been a roughneck Naval Commando at one time, and then an assassin.  But he
still appreciated the finer things in life, and the Cacas had struck at the
heart of the Empire.  His Empire.  It had been a long time since he thought of
it as such.

The cries for help came
once again over his audio pickups, and he turned his attention back to the here
and now.  Part of this building was collapsed, and there were citizens in this
part with no way out.  Search and rescue was out in force, probably every
surviving member who could still move.  But given the magnitude of this
disaster, they were not enough.  There wasn’t much one person could do, but
whatever it was, he would do it.  And he was better equipped than most.

“Move as far back from
the rubble as you can get,” he said over his suit loudspeaker, hoping that his
words would make it through to the trapped.  He gave them ten seconds, then
activated his suit laser, cutting through one of the beams that formed the
wall.  Sparks flew, and the power level on the laser went down slowly as he cut
through.  Checking the wall with his suit sensors, bouncing deep radar beams
from the rubble, he picked the next cutting point and went to work.  That done
he did another check, making sure nothing he was about to pull out would cause
a collapse.