Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) (30 page)

This view was at an
angle, looking from forty-five degrees above.  There was some blurring from the
distance and the velocity that the ship was moving at.  This ship also had
laser rings, and it had somewhat different lines than the standard Caca
superbattleship.

“What are we looking at?”
asked Sean, not sure what they were seeing.

“Here is the plot,” said
the Chief Analyst.

The plot showed the enemy
ship as an icon, moving forward at point three light.  Suddenly another icon
appeared, moving at point six light and accelerating ahead at eight thousand
gravities.  A couple of seconds later another appeared, then another, two seconds
apart, until there were seventy on the plot, all accelerating ahead.

“Wormhole launches?”
asked Sean.

“We believe so, your
Majesty.  Unfortunately for them they haven’t perfected the system.  The
missiles came out much further apart than our wormhole launchers would have
sent them, and at a much lower velocity.  We believe that they are launching
them from free space and accelerating them up to the gate over a light hour’s
distance.  We doubt they have launching facilities such as ours, and are trying
to make do with what they can cobble together.”

“And they made a major
mistake, didn’t they?”

“Yes, your Majesty.  They
could have snuck them up on us if they had just let them coast toward us. 
Instead, they weren’t satisfied with their velocity, and had to push them up to
an attack speed.  We actually caught on to them after their first launch.  That
attracted our attention, and we looked in on their second launch.”

So now they have wormhole
capable launches as well.  Not as good as ours, and certainly not as many.  But
still troubling.

“Do you want us to
capture that ship, your Majesty?” asked Admiral Lenkowski.

“I want it destroyed,”
said the Emperor.  “They can’t have too many wormhole equipped ships.  They’re
still force multipliers, no matter how primitive they are compared to ours, and
I want them off the field of battle.”

“We’ve thought of
something else, your Majesty.  Even our most pessimistic estimates give them
the ability to make at most a couple of wormholes a week, compared to thirty a
day for our production facility.  They had four of them tasked with the attack
on Jewel and the
Donut
.
 
They couldn’t have more than a dozen of
them tasked for this entire battle.”

“And they would have been
better served to have kept their wormhole equipped ships hidden,” said Sean
with a tight smile.  “That’s the only way they can keep communications open
between their forces.”

“Now that we know what to
look for, we’ll take out their command and control vessels,” said Len.

And teach them another
lesson,
thought the Emperor.

“We have another force
appearing outside of the New Kiev system,” said another of the Analysts. 
“Coming in from antispinward.  It looks like we’re not going to be able to hold
there, your Majesty.”

Sean looked over at the
large scale tactical plot that showed the entire battlefield.  New Kiev had
once been a prosperous system, with a population of over two billion.  The
Cacas had taken care of that population.  Every man, woman and child had been
killed, either in the military action of the invasion, or from the ravenous
hunger of the huge carnivores, to which most other intelligent species were a
food source.  The system was of no importance any more, except as a
battleground, since most space faring races still preferred to fight in normal space,
where the danger of a catastrophic translation was non-existent.

“How many wormholes still
in the system?”

“We’ve lost four in the
fight so far, Majesty.  Which leaves twenty-seven, including the ship gate.”

“And we don’t have any
reinforcements waiting at the other end of that gate?”

“What reinforcements we
had for that system had already gone through to stack the odds against the
force we were already fighting.”

“Then order those ships
out of there,” said Sean with a frown.  He didn’t like giving up on a fight,
but he had finally learned the wisdom of retreating when necessary.  “I assume
that all of the wormholes are aboard hyper VII ships.”

The Chief Analyst looked
off holo for a moment, bringing up the order of battle.  Sean shook his head,
hoping no one had been stupid enough to equip a hyper VI ship with a wormhole. 
Doctrine was to only equip hyper VII ships with wormholes, since they would be
both capable of outrunning pursuit and incapable of using a wormhole gate
without dumping the one they carried.  He would have ordered all of their
wormholes closed down if that is what needed to be done to rescue that force to
fight another day.  He would order the shipgate closed down if they couldn’t
save it.  Earlier in the day it had seemed like they would have to save every
single one no matter what the cost.  Now he could lose every single one in that
system and they would replace them in a couple of days.  Less than a day when
the
Donut
was back up to full capacity.

“And the ships that can’t
use the gate?” asked Lenkowski.

“See if we can lure a
large force of their ships, here,” ordered the Emperor, looking at the plot and
indicating another once prosperous system that was now dead as well.  “If we
can gate enough ships in there to lay in wait, we should be able to take out
that force.”

“That should work, your
Majesty,” said Lenkowski.

And the next time we meet
the Cacas, they may be able to do the same to us
, thought Sean.  A
frightening thought.  Even if the Cacas were never able to match them in number
of wormholes, they would still have enough to shift forces around, much as the
Empire was doing now.

“Tell all the task force
and group commanders to proceed cautiously from this point,” he told his staff
after that last thought hit him.  “They might try to pull something similar to
what we have been doing, now that they have wormholes themselves.”

The holo died at a
thought, leaving Sean alone again with his problems.  At heart the only thing
he cared about the battle was that it would end.  And then he thought again on
the small life that had been snuffed out on Jewel.  One of many millions, but
to him the most important one of all.

Chapter Twenty-two

When in doubt, don't. Benjamin Franklin

“The enemy fleet is
moving into the system, my Lord,” said the male who was acting as the Fleet
Tactical Officer.  “Our initial force is moving out to meet them from their
staging point.”

Great Admiral Mgananawan
K’lantariana gave a head motion of acknowledgement and continued to stare at
the plot.  He was about to enter unknown tactical territory, with no idea how
things would turn out. 
Of course, until we happened upon these vermin once
again, everything was so predictable.  We showed up with overwhelming force,
the poor fools we confronted either pissed themselves and gave up, or fought
and lost, and we won another conquest.

The humans on both
fronts, and on the other front their allies as well, we’re not such easy prey. 
They fought hard and they fought smart, and they didn’t give up just because of
a loss.  And unfortunately, they didn’t always lose.

“And they are coming in
on the vector we anticipated?”

“Yes, my Lord.  They
appear to be rushing headlong into our trap.”

And appearances can
sometimes be deceiving
, thought the Great Admiral.  It appeared to be a massive
fleet moving into the system.  At least forty thousand of the Klavarta vessels,
though most were the small raider class they used so extensively.  Maybe a
couple of hundred larger ships, almost the size of the cruisers used by the
Ca’cadasans.  There were forty other, larger ships, of the configuration used
by the other humans.

He had a force of more
than two thousand ships moving out to meet them as they came in from the hyper
barrier.  Only five hundred of his vessels were the superbattleships that
formed the strength of the Ca’cadasan fleet.  Another five hundred were
supercruisers, with the remainder of the force being made up of scouts.  He
actually had more tonnage than the enemy, but he knew that another force was on
the way in, far out of detection range.  Having only four wormholes in his
entire command, he had to use some judicious decision making in his
deployments.  One of those deployments was a superbattleship sitting doggo in
space a couple of light years from the system, along with two more on different
axis of approach.  One had picked up the incoming fleet, and had sent the
details through its wormhole.  Another ship had picked up the follow-up force,
twice as large as the first one, coming in from a different angle.

Their strategy was
clear.  Lure out his fleet with the first force, getting it away from the base
and its orbital structures, while the second force came in behind it and
destroyed the infrastructure and forts.  Afterwards, both forces would have his
fleet trapped between them, and they would win.

Only it wasn’t going to
go down that way.  Not since he had his own wormhole gate in orbit around the
base planet, and had been bringing in reinforcements over the last week.  Now
those reinforcements were lying cold and powered down in deployments that would
allow them to take the second force in the flanks as it came deep into the
system, while his first force fought a running battle with the leading enemy
fleet.

“We should be able to
route them in a day,” said the Chief of Staff, a predatory gleam in his eyes. 
“And then begins the chase back to their home world.”

Wherever that might be
, thought the Great
Admiral.  He doubted they would run back to their home world, and there was no
way to pick it out through the normal means of checking out the prime stars. 
Most intelligent species who had developed on green worlds preferred those
planets, which were most numerous around G and K class stars, and infrequent
around Ms.  The Klavarta were satisfied with the secondary stars and space
habitats, and red dwarves were the most numerous stars around.

*     *     *

“We have them, Mr.
President.  Madame Vice,” said the Klavarta commander of the fleet, Admiral
Regis Larista, transmitting to the nearby Imperial battlecruiser that was carrying
a wormhole.

“Be cautious Admiral,”
said Admiral Mikas Silveski, the commander of all New Terran Empire forces on
this front, lent to the Klavarta for the war.

Lent to us, but not for
our unrestrained use
,
thought Larista, stopping a head shake in mid-motion.  That was unfair.  Over a
third of the human fleet assigned to this front was with her now.  If anything
happened to her force they would share in the disaster.

“I am sure Admiral
Larista will keep an eye out for trouble,” said another of the people in on the
com conference, speaking in a strange accent.  A small side holo showed a
non-human face, with a semi-rigid beak and fine feathers.  Vice Admiral Mashara
Ignoa was a Gryphon, among the most numerous alien species in the New Terran
Empire, and full citizens of that polity.  He not only commanded the human
element of her fleet, but was also second in command of the entire force.

“I have full confidence
in the Admiral,” said the Klavarta President, Manstara.  Beside him stood the
pure human Thallia Thrann, the Vice President of the Nation of New Earth.  “But
I have a bad feeling about this new commander of the Monsters.”

As do I
, thought Larista. 
Before, the Ca’cadasans had been arrogant, and predictability grew from that
arrogance.  They had been able to fight the Monsters to a standstill for a long
period of time, mostly because of their predictability.  And now things were
changing.  The Monsters showed hints of those changes in the last campaign.  They
no longer just charged into battle, they retreated when expedient.  And their
ships were also changing, adapting, borrowing the traits and techs from their
enemies.

And things are changing
for us as well
,
thought the Admiral, glancing at the holo that showed the Gryphon officer.  A
very short time before, their nation killed any and all aliens that entered
their space.  There was still much guilt among both the Klavarta and the pure
humans over those policies, even if they hadn’t been the fault of those who now
ruled and commanded.  They had been the policies of the mad immortal rulers of
the nation.  The humans and aliens of the New Terran Empire had thrown off the
yoke of the rulers, and in the process had destroyed most of the invading
Monster force.

This conference was part
of the changes that were happening in the Nation as well.  A dozen people in
ten different locations, light years apart.  It was something that would have
been beyond the imaginations of most of the people on this com conference just
six months earlier.

“The enemy force is
firing, Ma’am,” said Captain Ngerita Olsaf, Larista’s Chief of Staff.

“Tend to your force,
Admiral,” said the President.  “I assume your people will keep us informed of
what is happening.”

“I assure you they will,”
said Larista.  A moment later most of the holos died, the connections severed
by the President, leaving only her senior commanders still on the com.

“All of their ships have
fired, Admiral,” reported the Chief of Staff.  “We have fifty thousand missiles
in space.  Our own ships are returning fire.”

The flagship didn’t
shake.  It was in the second force, and was not actually on the battlefield as
of yet.  The plot showed the battlefield that was the enemy system, the two
forces approaching each other, the enemy from insystem, the Klavarta from out. 
The icons of missiles appeared on the plot, the fifty thousand vector arrows
from the enemy appearing as a solid mass in the wide view.  The Klavarta force
had just launched, their missiles also appearing as a solid mass.  What wasn’t
showing were the ninety missiles fired by the three wormhole equipped ships,
streaking silently, without a trace, toward the enemy force at point nine
light.  A minute later a second volley followed, indicated by the numbers
underneath the launching ships which came up as the holo zoomed in automatically.

It took ten minutes for
the three ships to go through their launching cycles, putting nine hundred
silent killers into space.  They had the advantage of approaching the enemy
without the chance of detection, until they were within the range in which
their stealthy bodies could be detected by active sensors.  And they would be
speeding in at a high engagement velocity, true ship killers.  When they turned
on their grabbers they would light up the scans of every ship in the system,
almost instantaneously.   That was their disadvantage.  They would have to go
active in order to strike targets.  The targets appeared to be in a close
cluster on the plot, but in reality were more than a hundred kilometers apart,
making their formation more of a sieve than a mass.  If the missiles turned on
their grabbers too soon, they could be targeted at range by counter missiles,
falling into close engagement range after lighting up every targeting sensor in
the enemy fleet.  If they engaged their drives late, they ran the risk of not
being able to change their vectors enough to actually hit anything.  And if
they engaged drives at the perfect moment, they still had little choice of what
target they hit.  If luck was with the humans, they would all strike major
targets.  It was more likely that they would get a twenty percent kill rate,
one hundred and eighty ships, which was high in a missile duel.  But most of
those kills would be the scout ships that screened the force.

In a half an hour they
would be ready to fire again, as soon as new missiles were pre-accelerated in
their launch tubes back at the
Donut. 
A little less than forty minutes
to reach their launching velocity in the acceleration tubes, they would launch
in the same order as before, if that was what was wanted.  Or they could be
held for some time until needed.  And the Admiral was sure that they would be
needed in this fight.  Would that he had more, but there were other fights
going on, and the Empire had to first look after their own.

Once they won this battle
they would have bought more time.  Time they could use to bring the new ships
online and surprise the Monsters with something different.  She didn’t think
the new ships would win the war, at least not in one fell stroke.  But now that
they were allied with the New Terran Empire, more and more innovations would
roll off the designing boards.  As surprising as the Monsters were becoming,
the two human powers would become even more so.

“Any sign of other ships
in the system?” the Admiral asked Olsaf.

“None that we have seen,
ma’am.”

“Excellent.” 
We have
them
, thought the Admiral, then remembered what the President had told
her. 
Be cautious.
  Because if she lost this fleet, the Cacas would once
again be knocking on their door.  If that happened before they built the new
fleet, they would surely lose the war before any more innovations came to the
fore.

*     *     *

“Show me more,” ordered
the Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire, Jresstratta IV.
 
He was
enjoying himself, having a good time, something that came infrequently of
late.  Emperors had sent males and ships into battle for generations. 
Jresstratta had done so himself for over a thousand years, though most of the
fights he had sent his people into had been one sided.  Not so over the last three
years.  And unlike any time in the past, he had a real time view of the
battles.  He could see what was happening, how both sides were moving and
reacting.  And he could see the mistakes being made in each fight.

Not what I have been told
, he thought, watching
the three holos hanging in the air in front of him.  One showed the tactical
plot of a system, another a much closer tactical view, the third a real time
view of the space around the ship carrying the wormhole. 
Not what they wish
to tell me.  But what I can pick and choose to watch for myself.

His line was one of the
most intelligent in the Empire.  The original Emperor had been the best
strategist and tactician that the Ca’cadasans had produced to that time.  And
he had bred into lines that produced scientists and thinkers.  It was all well
and good to be strong and brave, a great warrior.  But a good leader needed
more.  And then his people had, for the most part, placed the Emperor away from
the decision making, isolated behind sycophants who told him what he wanted to
hear. 
No more
, he thought.  They still wouldn’t allow him to lead in
battle, but now he could judge the results himself, give the orders, and make
sure those orders were carried out.

As he watched the plot,
following an exchange of missiles, a hundred and eighty vectors arrows sprung
into existence less than ten light seconds from the edge of the Ca’cadasan
force they were targeting.  There was no warning.  They were just suddenly
there, their graviton emissions indicating hard vector changes.  A few were
taken out by close in weapons systems.  Many more missed their targets, though
some reacquired new ones further in.  And forty-two ships disappeared from the
plot.

The Emperor stared in
disbelief.  He had heard about the wormhole launched missiles, and their
disproportionate kill rate as compared to other weapons.  But seeing it was a
different thing, even if it was just a graphical representation on a tactical
plot.  He knew his own military was trying to develop wormhole launched
weapons, but they were still years behind the humans, and didn’t have the
wormholes to boot.