Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (24 page)

Which means they are
probably dead
,
thought the General, shaking his head. 
Someone has to man the listening
post, and it’s just the luck of the draw if something comes along while you’re
out there.

“We have a lot more
activity out there,” continued the Commander.  “Looks like capital ships.  And
first indication is that these are the Ca’cas.”

“Shit,” said one of the
other officers, and the General glared him shut.

“We always knew this
day would come,” he said, looking around the room.  “We always hoped it would
come later than sooner.  But here it is and we have to deal with it.”

“But, sir,” said a Colonel
in charge of the shore defense batteries around the capital city.  “The
Ca’cas?”

“Calling them cute
names isn’t going to change the reality of them,” said the General, frowning.  “The
Ca’cadasans may be coming to dinner, and it’s up to us to set a fine table for
them.  If them it is.  If not, then we will just have to prepare a welcome for
whoever it is.  But we will prepare that welcome, and set a price for their
feast.”

The table was silent,
and the General knew that all of them were scared to death.  He didn’t feel all
that brave himself at the moment.  He was hoping for maybe a promotion to lt.
general, maybe colonel general before he retired.  Maybe a minor title and some
land.  Now it looked like he might have the chance to play hero, something he
had tried as a younger officer in a couple of wars.  Something he had hoped he
wouldn’t have to do again.  But here it was.

“We will meet them as
they land, gentleman and ladies,” he said in his best forceful voice.  “Now
where are the militia commanders.”

“They’re on their way,”
said the Colonel who was his adjutant, Reese.

The room erupted in
laughter for a moment, and the General slapped his hand on the table.  “There
will be none of that,” he roared.  “None of that at all.  The militia will be
fighting and dying beside us, and they will be treated with respect.”

“They don’t have the
equipment or the training to stick with my boys,” said one of the brigade
commanders, Brigadier Chow.

“Then use them to
screen your men,” said Zhukov with a nod to the one star.  “I know they’re no
damned good, but they can catch it so the first team can strike back. 
Understood?”

“Understood,” said the
Brigadier with a smile.

“Now I want the rest of
you to look over our plans and see which is the most likely,” said Zhukov. 
“Then figure out B and C and we’ll meet back here in an hour.  Meanwhile, I’ll
try to get on the com to the Countess and see what she thinks.  Clear?”

“Yes sir,” echoed the
room.  Before the words finished leaving their mouths he was out of his seat
and headed for the door.

I might be going into
an unexpected campaign
, he thought as his boots hit the hall. 
But I will not
fail from lack of effort.

*     *     *

On the surface of
Massadara the people swarmed like ants in a kicked over nest.  Civilians ran to
the shelters, trying to get their loved ones and few precious belongings
underground where they might survive.  Shuttles took off and landed as fast as
they could cycle, bringing reserve personnel up to the orbital stations and
noncombatants back from space.  Ground units formed up at barracks, then
scattered to their predetermined hiding places.

“It still looks too
conspicuous to me,” said the battery commander as he flew in the air car over
the number three laser mount of the ground based defensive artillery.

The other three mounts
of the battery, at the points of a diamond shape five kilometers on a side,
blended in with the terrain and vegetation to the point where only someone who
knew where to look could find them.  But number three, with patches of dying
grass and parts where soil had washed away from the plasticrete outer covering,
looked just like what it was.  A weapons position that had not been well
hidden.  The laser dome was hidden by the foliage it would burn away on its
first shot.  But the fifty meter circle around that point made a good facsimile
of a target bulls-eye.

“Not much we can do
about it now,” said the CPO of the battery.  As they watched dump trucks came
along and dropped piles of dirt over the crete, while dozers pushed them flat. 
“Maybe the hostiles won’t notice anything amiss.  After all, they can’t be real
familiar with us.”

The Lt. Commander
looked up as a flight of four atmospheric fighters flew over, a contrail behind
each ship as they moved at high Mach in the upper atmosphere.  He looked back
down at the position and frowned.

“I just hope it doesn’t
draw fire to the other mounts before they go into action,” he said, looking
down again.

“Take us back to the
control center,” he ordered the driver.  At least he and the men he commanded
would be under a half kilometer of earth and armor, where they might survive.

*     *     *

“We’ve been picking up
the emissions from the capital ships for almost a half hour now, ma’am,” said
the operations officer.  “The smaller ships are just making their presence
known.”

“Thank you Commander,”
said Vice Admiral The Countess Esmeralda Gonzalez, looking at the firming
tactical plot in the system holo tank.  The tank was zoomed into that small
corner of the system, out beyond the hyper limit.  There were over fifty of the
smaller dots of the escorts, followed closely by the twenty-four larger dots of
capital ships.  And behind them were twenty dots of an intermediate class of
ships. 
Troop transports?
she wondered.

The outer buoys had
been tracking the destroyers for over an hour and sending their limited grav
pulse information in-system.  Now the emissions were readable into the life
zone of the system, strong enough to overcome the dampening of the star’s
gravity well.

Still not clear enough
to make a real time guess as to their intentions
, she thought
.  If
only they could have waited a few more years.  Then we might have had enough
wormholes to make instantaneous com a reality.

“Ground force commander
wants to talk with you, ma’am,” said the com officer.

The Countess looked
around the command center of the orbital defenses.  The thirty naval personnel
were going about their duties with quiet efficiency in the large chamber,
monitoring communications and analyzing tactical displays.  But she could feel
the tension in the air.  She wished she could promise all of them, and all of
the other personnel under her command, that everything would be alright.  But
even here, in the most heavily guarded center section of the two hundred
megaton fort she could guarantee nothing.  Except that she would give them the
best she had.

“Put him on,” she said
as she leaned forward in her chair.  The tactical display changed view to a
large chamber where people in Imperial Army uniforms did much the same as her
people were doing.

“Countess,” said Major
General McKenzie Zhukov, smiling through the transmission.  “My analysts feel
those must be troop transports coming in behind the capital ships.  They’ll
probably translate after the battle in space is decided and move up to land
their ground forces.”

I think I figured that
out myself
,
she thought, then shook her head. 
He couldn’t know that I knew that.  He’s
just offering up the information he has.  It would be criminal not to.
  She
looked at the decorations on his uniform, including an armor badge, infantry
badge and heavy infantry badge.  There was also an award for valor and several
minor decorations. 
At least he has a lot of experience
, she thought. 
That was better than the bureaucrat brigadier she had been saddled with before Zhukov’s
arrival.

“That’s our take on the
matter too, General,” she said, looking at a side screen that had a top down
view of the system, showing the estimated separation from the coming storm.  “Good
news bad news, huh.”

“Yes ma’am,” agreed the
man, nodding his head.  “They probably aren’t going to blow the planet out from
under us.  But you can bet they’re going to try and dig us out of the ground.”

“Are you ready?” she
asked, knowing better than to ask if he could stop it.

“I have a division of
light infantry, a brigade of armor and a brigade of heavy infantry,” he said. 
“I’ve spread them around the ground with an eye for surviving any kind of
bombardment they might bring down on us.  And I’ve put the mobile ground
defense artillery units where they can surprise the hostiles, and maybe hurt
them during their landing.”

“Militia?”

“I’ve tried to get them
under cover and dispersed as well,” said the General, a frown on his face. 
“Some of their commanders will not listen to reason and insist on holding the
cities.  And I don’t have time to arrest them and try to make their troops do
what I want them to.  They’ll just have to do as well as they can, and maybe
they’ll be a bit of a distraction.”

“What about civilians? 
Are they protected?”

“We’re trying to move
most of them into the wilderness camps,” said the General, the frown turning
into a scowl.  “Some of the fools insist on going into the under city shelters
though, and I’m not going to fight with them if they want to be trapped like
rodents in the ground.”

“Like you will be General?”
she said with a smile.  The planetary command center was buried under ten
kilometers of rock and a hundred meters of armor.  But she knew it was still a
target.

“No ma’am, Countess,”
said the man, his New Texas drawl coming to the forefront.  “I plan to evacuate
when they are an hour out from bombardment range.  I believe I can fight the
battle better out there with my men than trapped in here.  We’ll keep this
bunker powered up, and maybe draw some fire as a diversion.”

“Sounds like a good
plan, General,” she said, nodding her head.  “I’m sorry you had this burden put
on you.  The Lt. General that is supposed to command the system should be here
later today.  But I’m afraid he will not be here in time.”

“No problem, Countess,”
said the man, smiling.  “When I made general’s rank I was told there might be
days like this. I can just pray to God that we all make it through.”

“Then pray for me,
General,” she replied, smiling.  “To whatever God you see fit.  Gonzalez out.”

“Hyper translations,”
called a voice over the com systems.  “Multiple translation emissions at the
hyper limit.”

Chapter 10

I have yet to see any
problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not
become still more complicated.  Poul Anderson.

Pod Leader Klesshakendriakka
looked at the tactical display while he fought off the nausea of translation. 
The display was constantly changing as new information came in from the leading
ships of the pod of scouts.  Solid red triangles indicated known enemy installations. 
Hollow triangles gave the locations of probables.  As the huge hexaped watched
two of the hollow triangles blinked and turned solid, numbers appearing under
them, a probable turned to a known.

“The system is alive
with emissions,” said the Subcommander who was in charge of the pod’s tactical
systems.  “I have electromagnetics across the spectrum.  From the third planet,
two asteroid belts and several of the outer moons.  And a large number of what
have to be space vessels.”

“What about orbiting
the planet?” growled the pod leader, looking at that living world on the holo
viewer.  “That is our primary concern.  Not the damned moons or belts.”

“There are three large
energy emissions in orbit,” said the Subcommander, returning his stare as one
of the upper nobility were wont to, not fearing the wrath of a military
superior but social inferior.  “Probably fortresses.  The scopes have located
and cataloged them by visible spectrum.  There also may be a couple of civilian
docks as well.”

The tactical display changed
to an orbiting platform.  The pod leader did not know what the structures on
the outside of the platform signified, but was sure that some were weapons
systems.  And some of the holes in the structure had to be missile tubes.  The
platform itself was very large, and to lend it scale there was a large warship
in the foreground.  Of course this vid was showing what had been going on near
the station almost four hours before, the light from that time period just
reaching this area at the hyper limit.

“We also have a number
of large vessels in orbit,” said the Subcommander, pointing out what the pod
leader already knew.  “And some, from their vectors, must have left the
vicinity of the planet and are heading out in our direction.  So they must have
started scrambling as soon as our hyper emissions were detected.”

“And the information is
over four hours old,” growled the pod leader, returning to his earlier
thought.  “Conditions could have changed drastically since those light waves
left the vicinity of the planet.  By the hells they must have changed
somewhat.  They must have known we were coming for two or three hours before we
popped out of hyper.” 
And that’s one of the big tactical problems
,
thought the pod leader,
and not one that we’re likely to solve any time in
the near future.  No way to sneak up on anyone from hyper.  And it takes too
damned long to make a trip in from interstellar into a system in sublight
.