Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (45 page)

“Are you ready to go,
Mara?” he asked, nodding his head at the busy bridge.

“Ready, willing and
able,” said Mara Montgomery, giving her superior a tight smile.  “You give the
word and we'll go and get the Imperial butt out of the crack it’s in.”

“You always were a
sacrilegious bitch, Mara,” said the Grand Fleet Admiral with a laugh.  “I wish
I had more to send with you, but yours are the only Hyper VII ships I could
gather on time.”

“Hell, Admiral,” she
said with a gesture toward her bridge holo.  “We have two squadrons of battle
cruisers, two squadrons of light cruisers and two and a half squadrons of
destroyers.  If we can't perform a rescue with that, then it'll take a battle
fleet to do the job.”

Mgonda thought there
was a big disparity between eight small capital ships, two dozen cruisers and
thirty four destroyers and a full battle fleet.  But he had picked Montgomery
not just because the battle cruiser squadrons were part of her organic scouting
force.  He had picked her because she was an audacious and cocky bitch, like
many officers in the scout force.  If she couldn't do it, there was no Hyper
VII force capable in the sector that could.

“You have the word, Admiral,”
said the sector commander.  “And may God go with you.”

“I will take the Goddess
with me instead,” said Mara Montgomery, a devout Wiccan.

“I will still ask the
blessing of the Pope and all the saints upon you,” said Mgonda with a laugh.

“I'll take it.  We'll
break orbit in five minutes.  You should hear from us in nine days, eleven at
most.  Montgomery out.”

Well
, thought the Grand
Fleet Admiral, looking at the dispatch he was working at on the flat comp,
I've
set in motion all that I can do right now.  Until the rest of the battle fleet
gathers.

Ignoring the dispatch
for a moment and summoning another holo, the Admiral looked over the map of the
sector, with the scattered icons of his assets.  Some were sure to be gone,
destroyed by this invading enemy.  Others would take weeks to contact.  All
that had been contacted were on their way to rally points.  And hopefully there
would be something coming up from the core systems in the near future.

*     *     *

“Missiles firing,” said
the tactical officer.

Captain Dame Mei Lei
sat in her command chair, battle armored with helmet nearby.  The
Jean de
Arc
bucked slightly as she released a spread of missiles from the starboard
tubes.  The port threat had been taken care of by the remnants of the fighter
force that had originally struck the enemy fleet.  They had continued on,
accelerating away from the action.  Two hundred fighters had swarmed over the
enemy force, taking out the three cruisers and the super destroyer pair of that
force.

The battle cruiser was
now firing on the other force, which was more distant than was thought at
first.  They had fired as well, and the battle cruiser's fighters were forming
a screen between their mother ship and the enemy, waiting for the incoming
missiles.

“Missile ETA in fifteen
minutes,” said the tactical officer, his voice cracking with tension.

We’ve all been under
too much tension for far too long
, she thought, watching the holo display.

“I wonder why they
haven't thrown their fighters at us,” said Commander Jackson from CIC.

“We don't know enough
about the capabilities of those platforms,” said the tactical officer.  “They
may be too short ranged to be employed against us.”

“Ours could chase us
three times around the system,” said Jackson.  “I wouldn't assume theirs were
any less capable.”

“Maybe they just didn't
think of it,” said Sean, his voice flat.

“What did you say, your
Majesty?” asked the Captain, wondering if he was being sarcastic.

“What if they didn't
think of it,” said Sean, his voice coming alive.  “What if they don't think as
well as we do?  After all, we are the most powerful race in this region of
space, able to out think most of the dozens of other sentients in this region. 
Maybe we are smarter on the average than the Ca’cadasans.  Maybe we are better
at strategy and tactics than they are.”

“They are more advanced
than we are, your Majesty,” said the tactical officer.

“By what,” said Sean. 
“Maybe a couple of decades.  Maybe less.  I can tell you that some of the
advanced tech I have seen from these demons from our past is similar to what we
have on the drawing boards right now.  Hell, some of it is in predeployment
trials right now.”

“And they were
thousands of years ahead of us, thousands of years ago,” said the Captain,
nodding her head.  “And that time includes a thousand years in transit, without
a lot of advancement going on.  Now they are only decades ahead of us, if
that.”

“They are too big,”
said Sean, smiling into the link.  “They have rolled over everyone they have
ever come in contact with.  There was no pressure to advance, while we were
involved in the fight of our lives against other powers that were more or less
technologically equal to us.  In some cases superior.  And we continued to
advance so we could continue to win.”

“And we learned from
those who had ruled this space before us,” said Jackson.  “We picked up their tricks,
and tech from our friends.”

“They are still really
big,” said the tactical officer.  “Even if we catch up with them.  I think it
was Stalin who said quantity has a quality all its own.”

“You know your history,
Lt. Commander,” said the Emperor, his eyes glowing.  “It will be a fight.  But
we may have the advantage in smarts.  As long as we keep those dumb asses in
Parliament out of the way.”

He's coming back to us
, thought the Captain,
a smile breaking out on her face
.  He can see hope in the future, and that
is lifting him up.

“We have translation
ahead,” called out the tactical officer.  “Something big.”

The Captain's eyes
narrowed.  Of course there was so much going on in the near hyperspace to this
system that they were having trouble tracking individual ships.  But it
couldn't be coincidence that the ship was coming in right here, right now.  And
they were so close to the hyper limit themselves.

“Can you tell whose it
is?” she asked the tactical officer, feeling her chest tighten.

“It could be one of our
super battleships from the size of it,” said Jackson hopefully.  “Or it could
be...”

“One of theirs,” said
the tactical officer.  “Thirty light seconds ahead on our present bearing.”

*     *     *

“We have them,” called
out the tactical officer, as the Captain looked up from his command throne.

“Yes, we have,” said
the Captain, his teeth showing in a predatory smile.  “The Admiral will reward
us well for this accomplishment.  Prepare to destroy them.”

“All forward weapons to
bear, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.

“Fire,” said the Captain,
and the Ca’cadasan battleship bucked from the release of missiles.

*     *     *

“We have incoming
missiles, ma'am,” said the tactical officer, looking back at her from his
station.

Armored as are we all
, thought Mei Lei,
looking at the display where missiles had sprung into existence on the holo. 
Lot
of good it will do us when those missiles hit.

Already the
Jean de
Arc
was launching a full spread of defensive missiles.  But they would not
be enough against the volleys that beast ahead of them could put out.

Traveling at point six
c, the battle cruiser would hit the first missiles in thirty-five seconds, and
be past the battleship in fifty.  Then it would be the enemy missiles trying to
catch them from the stern, which would be a losing proposition for the
missiles.  But the battleship would still be able to hit them with lasers well
after they cleared it.

The
Jean de Arc
bucked as she went into evasive maneuvering, all of her electromagnetic shield
power shifted to the front.  Fighters accelerated ahead and interposed
themselves between their mother ship and the enemy.  And they would hit the
first spread of missiles before they even had the next volley on their sensors.

“All forward tubes
fire,” ordered the Captain, praying for a lucky hit.  “Keep firing until the
magazines are empty or the tubes melt.”

*     *     *

“What in the hell is
that?” asked Commander Bryce Suttler, sitting up in his chair. 
Seastag
had
been waiting in stealth on the edge of the system, hoping that some prey would
come along.  The Imperial battle cruiser was heading their way, and Suttler had
intended on helping them out, and maybe bagging some of their pursuit in the
process.  But he hadn't expected this.

“It's one of their
battleships, sir,” called out the tactical officer.  “I don't think they know
we're here.”

The readouts showed the
battleship to be less than one hundred thousand kilometers away, much closer
than a light second.  His ship was at extreme risk, but they weren't paying him
to play it safe when his sovereign was in danger.

“All weapons ready to
go?” asked Suttler, knowing the answer before he asked.

“Aye, sir,” said
tactical, giving his commander a quick smile.

“Helm, line us up,”
ordered Suttler, and the helmsman gently nudged the ship to point at the enemy.
“Fire.”

Seastag
released all her tubes
at the same instant that she fired her forward facing lasers and particle
beams.  The triple array of terrawatt lasers took less than point three three
seconds to strike the enemy vessel.  The battleship's electromag shields were
augmented to the front, weakened to the sides and stern, in anticipation of a
slugging match with another capital ship.  And the knowledge that nothing
threatened her from any other angle.  The lasers penetrated the attenuated
shields and burned into the hull, vaporizing alloy and composites as they swept
across the ship.  One second into strike and they shifted frequency, before the
skin of the enemy ship could react and configure to reflect them away.

The four antimatter
particle beams, traveling at point nine five c, struck after a point three five
second flight time.  Antimatter combined with matter with the predictable
results, flashing with explosive power that blew out surface installations on
the vessel.  Installations that included close in defense systems, missile
tubes, and electromagnetic shield projectors.

Twelve missiles left
their tubes at the same instant as the beam weapons were fired.  The latest
design, accelerating at ten thousand gravities, the missiles headed straight
toward the enemy battleship, jamming systems at full blast.  Taking advantage
of the damage being inflicted on the enemy ship, they stayed in the new sensor
shadows being created by the beam weapons.  Ten seconds behind them came
another twelve missiles, then another twelve ten seconds behind those.

*     *     *

“What is that,” growled
the ship Lord, his eyes darting to the tactical display.  The beams were coming
from a point in space, followed by a spread of missiles that had appeared from
nowhere.

“It appears to be an
advanced stealth craft, my Lord,” called out the tactical officer, while the
ship shuddered under the strikes of the powerful beam weapons.  “It does not
show on our sensors.  Not even infrared.”

“How can that be?”
asked the Captain, looking at the damage figures appearing on his display.  “We
don't have such abilities.  How can they?”

“They obviously are
beyond us in at least one area,” said the tactical officer.  “We cannot firm up
a bearing on them.”

“Then fire at the
origin point of the beams and missiles, you fool,” yelled the Captain, as his
ship shuddered and lost two more missile tubes and a trio of laser domes.

“Yes, my Lord,” cried
out the frantic officer, sending the commands through his board.

*     *

“Incoming missile,”
called out the tactical officer as the red arrow made it through the wave of
interceptor missiles and drove for the battle cruiser.

“Brace for impact,”
called out the Captain, grabbing the arms of her chair.

Laser ring A fired a
tight beam at the missile, hitting it within ten thousand kilometers of the
ship.  Radiation and heat flooded into that section of the ship, taking out two
missile tubes and a battery of close in weapons
.  Jean de Arc
bucked as
she sent out a volley of missiles.  So far nothing had gotten through the enemy
defenses, and Captain Mei Lei was wondering if they would hurt the enemy at
all.

“Explosions on the port
side of the enemy vessel,” called out the tactical officer, looking back at the
Captain.

“From where?” asked Mei
Lei, sitting up in her chair.  “We're not hitting them with anything.”

“From somewhere to
their port side,” said the tactical officer.  “We're not sure what it is.”