Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (42 page)

“Send a transmission to
that ship, Lieutenant,” she ordered the officer.  “Coded Zeta Five.  Inform the
Captain of my intentions to come to his aid.”

“Orders for
McArthur
?”
asked von Rittersdorf, his brows furrowing.

“I don't see where your
ship will be of much help to us if we get into a full out battle,” she
replied.  “And I really hope we can get in and out without having to get into a
knock down drag out.  So your prior orders stand.  Get out of the system and
get that intelligence to command.  On my authority.”

“Yes, ma'am,” agreed
the Commander, nodding his head.  “We're heading out.  Von Rittersdorf out.”

“Godspeed, Commander,” Captain
Lei whispered under her breath.

“Helm.  Set an
intercept course for that battleship.”

“Aye, ma'am,” replied
the rating who was steering the battle cruiser.  “Setting course for intercept
of the battleship.”

“We should be matching
courses in twelve hours ma'am,” called out the navigator from her station.

“Very good,” said Mei
Lei, wondering how much difference it would make if it wasn't.  The laws of
physics controlled their actions now that a decision had been made.

“Tactical,” she said as
she swiveled her seat, looking over at the weapons station.  “I want a solution
on those enemy ships  ASAP.  Then I want you to fire a full three spreads of
long range missiles at them.  Let's get their attention.  And maybe we'll get
lucky.”

“Aye, ma'am,” replied
the tactical officer, setting his board to track the enemy ships and come up
with the optimum firing solution.

“I will be in my cabin
for the next couple of hours,” said the Captain, standing from her seat.  “Crew
is to rotate off station for meals and rest breaks.  All crew to be at stations
in armor when we are four hours out from
Sergiov
.”

“Aye ma'am,” echoed the
officers as the Captain left the bridge, wondering if the decisions she had
made would allow her ship to accomplish its new mission.  And maybe even bring
its crew back home alive.

*     *     *

“We are passing through
the debris of their fleet, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.  “Our first
wave of missiles should be striking their orbital fortresses by now.”

“Good,” said Low Admiral
Hrissnammartanama, wiping his muzzle with a mid-hand and giving his cup back to
a slave for refilling.  “Very good.  I would prefer to make an easy planetary
insertion, without having to worry about battling those monsters.”

“Yes, my Lord,” agreed
the officer.  “It would be well to.  My Lord,” said the officer, his voice
rising and his eyes widening.  “We have launches.  Hundreds of missiles.  Nay,
over a thousand missiles.  Accelerating at five thousand gravities.”

“From where?” demanded
the Low Admiral, coming to his feet and slapping the cup bearing slave from his
path.  The being landed hard on the floor of the command chamber, the bottle of
wine flying from his hand to smash over the hard surface.  He looked up with fear
etched on his face, as the Lord of the ship strode over him without a backward
glance.

“We have no launching
vessels on sensors,” said the tactical officer, panic in his eyes.  “I don't
know where they are coming from.  All ships are sweeping the area.  First
impacts in less than one minute.”

“Find those launch
vessels,” said the Admiral, growling deep in his throat.  “Find them before
they launch another spread.”

“Sensors are
backtracking the enemy missiles,” said the tactical officer, moving around his
panel to put some distance between himself and his towering Lord.  “They are
coming from the debris field.  But there are no launch vessels among the
debris.  Only debris.”

“The enemy commander
reaches from beyond the grave with his cleverness,” said Hrissnammartanama. 
“He seeded space with launching pods, mines, whatever they call them.”

“We will defeat this
stratagem,” replied the tactical officer.  “Their weapons are not effective
enough to destroy the fleet.”

The Admiral watched the
holo display as the red arrows moved toward his ships, and the green arrows of
counter missiles reached out to intercept them.  Red arrows began to drop off
the display, though others launched as soon as their platforms got within range
of a Ca’cadasan ship.

The arrows came too
close to one of the scout ships.  The holo displayed the blinking red dots of
missile detonations.  The scout ship's icon began to blink as well, then went
bright red before it faded from existence.  Hrissnammartanama looked up at a
wall display to watch the scout convert into glowing plasma, which was then
kicked out by the greater fury of the internal explosion of its onboard
antimatter.

Other ships were hit,
some sustaining light damage from near misses, others taking the full hits of
gigaton warheads.  Within minutes it was over, and three Ca’cadasan battleships
had joined the obliterated scout ship, while a pair of battleships and numerous
lesser vessels had been damaged to the point where they were of no use to the Low
Admiral.

“They have exacted
partial revenge,” said the Admiral, watching the display.  He stood there for
minutes, as the remaining ships of the force he had led to this system
continued to decelerate toward the planet.  He then turned away from the
frightened tactical officer and walked back to his seat, motioning for the
slave, who had picked himself up and cleaned the broken bottle's remains, to
bring him more of the wine.

*     *     *

“We have an incoming
transmission, sir,” said the com officer on
Sergiov
.  Everyone was in
the tanks, jacked into the systems.  The battle was well behind them, and the Captain
was trying to squeeze everything he could out of his ship, hoping against hope
that the enemy would not catch him before he was able to escape the system.  Or
get his passenger on a ship that could.  The ships that were following him were
still a half billion kilometers behind.  But even with his crew in the tanks
the cruiser class ships of the enemy were still generating twenty-five gravities
more acceleration than his ship was capable of.

They were also
continuously firing missiles at his ship, and he was continuously firing back
at them.  So far
Sergiov
had been lucky enough to take out everything
that was coming after them.  Part of that was that the ship was accelerating
away from the vessels that were firing at him, which took off a small but
significant amount of the firing ships' terminal missile velocity.  And the
chasing ships were adding to his missiles' terminal velocity, allowing him to
get in some close detonations through their defenses.

“What do we have?” he
asked through the net, not sure what they had coming his way and trying not to
allow his hopes to get too high.

“
Jean de Arc
,”
replied the com tech, looking through the data banks.  “Hyper VII capable
battle cruiser of latest design.”

Damn
, thought the Captain. 
It was better than he had hoped.  The latest design of hyper VII ships were not
only as fast as anything known in hyperspace, able to reach the highest transmittable
dimension, they could pile on twenty gravities of acceleration better than any
hyper VI battle cruiser, which gave them a forty-five gravity advantage over
the
Sergiov
.  About the same as the pursuing Ca’cadasan ships.  That
came at a cost, though, as the battle cruiser carried about half the missile
load of a hyper VI ship of that class.  But a full complement of defensive
ordnance.

“Transmission
decrypted,” said the com officer, leaving the command circuit as the replay of
the signal was routed to the Captain's private band.

“This is Captain Dame
Mei Lei,” said the slender Chinese woman who appeared on the vid.  “We have
received your message and are on our way at best standard speed to your
location.  ETA twelve hours, ten minutes.  Hang in there
Sergiov,
and we
will be there to come to the rescue, at least for your passenger.”

“Best standard speed,”
cursed Ngano, looking at the calm young woman in whose hands the fate of his
passenger would rest.

“Send a return message
on tight beam,” ordered the Captain, summoning his com officer back to the
command circuit.  “Eyes only for the Captain.  I'll leave it to her to tell
whomever on her crew she sees fit to give the information to.  But I want her
to know exactly who the passenger is, his importance to the Empire, and my
request that they get in the tanks and pile on all the accel they can manage.”

“Yes sir,” replied the
com tech, giving the Captain a virtual nod over the net.  He cut the circuit so
he could compose the message and send out the simulacrum of the Captain over
the tight beam.

That will shave a half
an hour off their arrival time
, thought Ngano, going over the possible
scenarios in his mind.  His ship might be a wreck by that time, but as long as
the Emperor was still alive, and could be transported to that fast ship, he
would have accomplished his mission.

*     *     *

Captain Dame Mei Lei
sat in her day cabin, the one attached to the bridge, holding Satin, her silver
and smoke Himalayan, in her lap.  The cat was purring while the Captain stroked
it, watching the vid of the
Sergiov's
Captain's most recent message.

“So this young man is
now the Emperor,” continued the Captain, looking out at her from an hour ago in
real time.  “He must be gotten to safety, no matter what.  So, Captain Lei, though
I do not have command over you, I am requesting that you get everyone in the
tanks and pile on the extra thirty gravities.  The Emperor's life is in your
hands, and your hands alone.”

“Damn,” cursed the Captain,
looking down at her beloved pet.  “I guess I need to get you ready for the tank
as well.  I know you don't like this, precious, but I have no choice.”

The Captain massaged a
point on the cat's back in a certain way.  The cat purred for a moment, then
went completely limp as its conditioning was activated.

“Bridge,” said the Captain
as she lifted the cat from her lap and carried him to the pet tank that was
installed in the cabin.  The com circuit heard her command and connected her to
the bridge.

“Yes, Captain,” said
the tac officer, who had the con in her absence.

“Signal the ship to
prepare to tank,” she ordered while she slipped the breathing mask over the
cat's face and checked the seal.  “We go to emergency boost in ten minutes.”

“Aye Captain,” came the
reply from the bridge.  “Emergency boost in ten minutes.  Computing course
change for intercept at new velocity and trajectory.”

Mei Lei lay the cat
gently into the fluid tank, then checked that he was breathing normally. 
Satisfied, she pushed the commit button and the tank sealed itself, protecting
the delicate animal from the acceleration that was to come.  She then hurried
out of the cabin and onto the bridge, where the tanks had already raised from
their storage areas beneath the floor and were starting to fill with fluid.

“Captain on the
bridge,” called out the com officer, the first to see her.  Everyone stiffened
for a moment.

“As you were,” she
ordered, walking over to her personal tank, opening the hatch and pulling her
breathing mask from its container.  She checked the mask, then took a few
practice breaths.  Fitting the mask, she then jacked into the computer, linking
with the ship and the over three thousand crew who would man the virtual
systems while in the tanks.  She climbed into the tank and hit the commit,
sealing the hatch and completing the sequence that would fill it with liquid.

The Captain kept
checking crew status as personnel continued to tank up across the ship.  The
last red icon turned green with a full two minutes to go.  Klaxons continued to
sound in case someone had not gotten the message, and was somehow unaccounted
for.  At the correct moment the klaxons were silenced and the ship boosted an
extra thirty gravities beyond the limits of the compensators.

*     *     *

Low Admiral
Hrissnammartanama watched the viewer showing the approaching planet.  It was
beautiful, as were most life bearing planets in the Galaxy.  Blue of water and
green of vegetation, with an overlay of white clouds.  One of the southern
continents showed a red glow in the grasslands, along with the smoke that had
been generated by the magma that was now coming to the surface, following the
strike of fast moving debris on the crust.  There was also a swirling pattern
of clouds in one of the northern oceans, where another fast moving object had punched
through the crust under the water.

“It will heal, priest,”
he said to the robed Ca’cadasan who stood with him looking at the world.

“Better not to damage
it in the first place,” said the priest, looking over at the Admiral with a
show of teeth.  “But it was necessary for the people to be victorious, so it
was necessary for the planet to be hurt.”

The viewer switched to
a close up of the orbital region of the world.  Several large chunks of orbital
forts floated in the space, among groups of smaller debris that were all that
remained of the planet's close in defenses.