Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (43 page)

“There may still be
ground based weapons on the planet,” said the Low Admiral, waving a hand toward
the world in the background.  “As well as troops defending the planet itself. 
It should not require much damage to the planet to take the surface, but there
will be some.”

“You have the blessings
of the Gods to do what may be necessary,” said the priest, bowing to the Admiral.

The Admiral returned
the bow, happy that the formalities were over.  Now he could reduce the planet
as needed, taking this world away from the enemy so that his people could have
it for their own use.

“My Lord,” said a young
officer, walking into the command chamber and rendering a salute.  “A message
from our pursuit ships.”

“And what is the
message?” he asked the young officer, impressed by the bearing of the man, for
he could tell that the news was not good, and the officer was coming forth
without fear.

“The enemy is soon to
be overtaken,” said the officer.  “But aid is coming to the enemy ship.”

“What kind of aid?”

“A lesser ship, larger
than one of our cruisers, is on a rendezvous with the enemy battleship.  This
ship is very fast, my Lord.  Faster than our cruisers, maybe faster than our
scouts.”

“How is that possible?”
asked the Admiral in a growl.  “Are they more advanced than we thought?”

“I believe I have an
answer to that, Admiral,” said the tactical officer, looking up from his board.

“Go ahead, young Lord,”
said the Admiral, glancing at his tactical officer.

“These aliens may be in
the middle of a refit cycle,” said the Ca’cadasan Lord.  “There may be one
level of ship that is manning the front lines, while others are being built and
deployed, to eventually take the place of the vessels now being used.”

“That is a good theory,
tactical officer,” said one of the other command deck officers.  “May I speak,
my Lord?”

“Go ahead,” said
Hrissnammartanama.  “Everyone's opinion should be heard this day.”

“They must not have too
many of these newer class ships,” said the officer, “or we would have met more
of them this day.”

“But they will have
more of them, in the near future, and we will meet them,” said the tactical
officer.

“Send a signal to all
ships on the periphery,” ordered the Low Admiral.  “They are to send couriers
back to the fleet with this information.  The faster we consolidate and strike
at the human systems, the sooner we can take them out before they accrue any
more advancements.

“And young messenger,”
said the Admiral, before the officer could leave with his Lord's commands.  “I
also want more vessels to join in on the hunt of that enemy ship.  We must stop
them from getting whatever they are carrying out of the system.  Its importance
shows in that they will risk even more ships in helping it to leave.”

The Admiral and the
command deck officers went back to their study of the approaching planet, and
their stratagems for taking it.  The rest of the system would receive its
orders and respond accordingly.

*     *     *

Sergiov
pitched yet again,
partially completing its evasive maneuver before the missile detonated, within
a hundred meters of the battleship.  Sean winced in his acceleration tank as he
slammed into the hard plastic of the side.  His elbow was still numb when he
floated back into the center of the tank.

That was too damned
close
, he thought, just like he had thought the several dozen times other missiles
had come close enough to send more than just heat and electromagnetic radiation
into the ship.  The stern of the ship had taken a pounding.  He tapped into the
ship's computer, looking over the schematics of the damage.  The last blast had
taken out Z laser ring, which had only been working at twenty-five percent at
that point.  The Y ring had been knocked out almost twenty minutes earlier.  Most
of the stern counter missile tubes had also been destroyed.

The Prince looked over
the performance measures of the ship, noting that some of the inertial
compensators had been damaged, and the overall acceleration of the ship had
fallen by ten gravities.

Sean switched to a view
of the overall action, and the enemy ships continuing the pursuit.  There was
still one cruiser and three of the scout ships following, slowly catching up. 
They had heavily damaged one of the scouts themselves, the ship coasting in
space five hundred million kilometers behind.  One of their missiles had also
damaged a cruiser with a near miss, and the
Jean de Arc
had gotten in a
lucky shot that had hit the cruiser on its damaged side, shattering the vessel
into trillions of fragments and plasma.

Will we make it out of
here?
he thought, as he looked on the sensor grid and noted that there were more
alien ships vectoring in for the chase. 
Jean de Arc
, was vectoring in
from the side, ahead of
Sergiov
and sliding over. 
Sergiov
would
continue catching up with the battle cruiser, while it slid into the same
vector as the battleship.  If the battleship was still here.

And if I don't make it,
my sister Valeria will become Empress, even though she's only three.  Or one of
the idiot cousins will seize the throne, and that bastard of a Prime Minister
will rule the Empire through him.

The battleship began to
rotate in space, the grabber units capable of boosting the ship at full power
in any direction, no matter the orientation of the ship.  At first Sean was not
sure what the Captain was about.  Then he realized that the ship's commander
was placing his still operating bow section where it would do the most good,
facing the nearest pursuit.  Which meant.

No
, he thought.  That
would put Gorbachev and the rest of his team in harm's way.  That of course was
their job, just like everyone else on the vessel.  But he was supposed to be
with them, leading them and taking the same risks that they were.

Except that I have a
bigger job to do
,
he thought bitterly. 
I can't allow Valeria to become Empress with a regent
in charge.  Or the Parliament to select and rule through a proxy in time of
war.  I know what father wanted.  So I am the one who has to lead, even if I'm
don't want to.

And he couldn't get to
them even if he wanted to, in the heightened gravity field of the boosting
ship.  Leave this tank and he would be crushed to the floor.  His blood would
not flow, his heart would stop beating, and he would be unable to draw breath
into his body.  He would die, accomplishing nothing.  If he ordered the ship to
slow down, overriding the Captain, they would be caught before the battle
cruiser could match vectors with them, and most likely everyone aboard the ship
would die.  Not a very satisfying state of affairs, with no choices that were
desirable.

So his friend, Chief
Petty Officer Jana Gorbachev, and the rest of the team operating laser ring B
would be risking their lives.  Something they had taken an oath to do, in
defense of the Emperor and the Empire.  Something he had taken an oath to do as
well.  But his life had changed, and was no longer just his life to give.

Chapter 19

True service is
sacrifice.  Anyone can serve their people when it is convenient.  It takes an
exceptional human to practice service when the cost is their life.

Marine Commandant
Julius Caesar Strang.

Captain Dame Mei Lei
backed up into the cubby, allowing the unit to fit her with the battle armor
she might need in the coming half hour.  They were five minutes from vector
matching.  Both ships had untanked their crew, and
Jean de Arc
was
hiding as best she could in the shadow of the battered battleship.  Said ship
was still taking a pounding from the enemy vessels that would soon be in
effective energy weapon range.

“We are ready to launch
shuttles in four minutes, fifty seconds,” said Captain Nagano over the com.  He
was getting into his armor as well, preparing to sacrifice his ship to make
sure that his Emperor got out of the system.

“We will wait until we
have everyone aboard before we go to maximum normal accel,” she replied,
stepping out of the cubby and walking over to her bridge couch.

It had been decided,
after much hot debate, that every shuttle on the battleship would launch and
try to make it to the battle cruiser.  All of the wounded who could be gotten
aboard shuttles had been placed in stasis and put on a shuttle, along with some
of the healthy crew who were deemed nonessential.  Of course more would become
wounded in the interim, but that couldn't be helped.  What could be done would
be done to get the injured away.  And the Emperor's shuttle would just be one
of many maneuvering between the ships, one of thirty three targets for the
enemy to concentrate on, giving the young man a much better chance of making it
to the safety of the battle cruiser.

“You should boost as
soon as the Emperor is aboard,” said Ngano, frowning over the screen.  “He is
the most important part of this maneuver.”

“And I forbid it,” said
Sean Ogden Lee Romanov on the split screen, seated in the cabin of one of the
shuttles.  “You will wait until all of the shuttles are aboard.  Or at least
those capable of making it.  I will not run to leave others behind who have a
chance of making it out.”

Both sides of the split
screen shook for a moment.  Mei knew that the battleship had taken another near
miss.  Her own ship bucked slightly as she sent a volley of counter missiles
and some offensive missiles out.  The weapons maneuvered in space, weaving
around the battleship and heading toward the enemy vessels.

“We could possibly help
you to defeat the enemy ships,” said Mei Lei, knowing what the answer would be.

“And I forbid that,”
said Captain Ngano, his face growing hard.  “This system is doomed.  We are
doomed, no matter the outcome of this little fire fight.  Your ship has the
speed to get the Emperor out of here.  But not if you're pounded as badly as we
are.”

“He is correct,” said
the Emperor, nodding his head.  “I don't like agreeing with him, not at this
time.  But we need to get out of here.  I realize that.  I'm not running out of
fear.  I'm running out of necessity.  And I plan to be back, with whatever it
takes to push these sons of a bitches out of here.  So follow the plan, Captain
Lei.”

“Yes, my Lord,” said
Mei Lei, feeling a shiver run up her spine.  She had doubted whether this
rescue was the proper course even while she embarked upon it.  In the back of
her mind had been the nagging suspicion that she should have taken the
information she had and gotten out of the system.  That had been reinforced by
a scan of the then Prince's personnel files.  Not a horrible officer, but semi
uninspiring.  But this man, though young, had fire.  She could see the late
Emperor in him, and realized that this man was more important than any
intelligence they might take from this system.  This man was worth saving, and
she would do whatever it took to save him.

“Opening flight bay
hatches,” came the command over the
Sergiov's
com net.  Captain Lei
could hear the slight whine over the shuttle com link as the Emperor's craft
started to warm up.

“Launch in two minutes
and twenty seconds,” came the call over the battleship's net.

“Our shuttles are being
launched at this moment,” said Jackson, the XO, over the battle cruiser's com
circuit.  “Fighter launch commencing as well.”

The Captain watched the
smaller repeater screens showing the four flight bays, as
Jean de Arc
got her own unmanned shuttles out of the way, and her eight long range fighters
launched on their protective mission.  The shuttles and fighters moved out into
space, turning to head back toward the battleship.

“Launch in one minute,”
said the controller over the com circuit of
Sergiov
.

Captain Mei Lei looked
on as the counter clock moved down the range, clicking off the seconds.  At ten
seconds, with ship separation at less than one hundred kilometers, the
Jean
de Arc
cut all acceleration, as did the
HIMS Duke Roger Sergiov I
I
. 
At that moment the battleship launched all of her shuttles, as well as venting
most of her stored water from tubes in the bow section of the ship.  She also
launched a plasma torpedo from her one working bow launcher, followed by a
series of plasma torpedoes in a ten second series.

The enemy were still
too far for the plasma torps to actually harm them.  That was not the point.  The
torpedoes were set to explode after traveling fifty thousand kilometers,
flooding the space between the predators and prey with a sensor shield of
plasma and radiation.  The water vapor falling behind the battleship had much
the same purpose, spreading out into an opaque barrier.  Following were the
unmanned shuttles launched from the battle cruiser, boosting along at a
leisurely pace toward the enemy.  They would provide targets for the enemy
ships, and upon destruction they would spread more particles and debris in
front of the chasing vessels.