Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (39 page)

“All offensive systems are ready,” said the
Petty Officer who was also the weapon’s officer of the craft.

“Inertial navigation system online,” said the
Pilot, looking back at his commander.  He would have much more responsibility
than the other pilots of the wing, as his commander, who was also the wing
commander, would have the entire wing to think about.  “All drive systems
nominal.”

“Engineer.  Anything to report on the reactor?”

“Reactor at fifty percent, ma’am,” said the
Chief, looking out of the viewer.  “Testing now.”

The power dials on the reactor, visible from
the bridge, went up to ninety percent, then peaked at one hundred, before
dropping back to fifty.

“Reactor is nominal,” said the Chief. 
“Negative matter containment at one hundred percent.”

And that’s all we can do here in the hangar,
thought the Captain. 
They would have to wait until they launched before they could test the
electromag systems, which were integral both to their particle shielding and
the negative matter bubble needed for their inertialess drive.

“Launch in one minute,” called out the
controller from the ship’s aviation control center.

“We’ve finished uploading the targeting data,
ma’am,” called out the Pilot.

Svetlana nodded, looking at that data herself. 
The
Akagi
had been in normal space for eight hours, accelerating toward
the star until she had built up to point eight light.  With the turbulence in
hyper they were not picking up the graviton emissions of any ships within the
Massadara system.  Of course, theirs were not being picked up either, which was
a two edged sword.  Fortunately for the attackers, them, they knew where to
look for the enemy ships, while the enemy had no idea where they would be
coming from, or that they were even there.

The ships had been scanning the space ahead
with their visual sensors, picking up any sign of an object, no matter how
faint, and matching it with the known bodies in the system.  And they had found
most of the enemy, if not all.  They were gathered in two groups, one well
within the system, near the habitable planet.  The other just a half light hour
in from the hyper barrier.  There might have been other ships in the system,
but probably not in any large groups.

I think we have their measure
, she thought, looking
over the groups.  Her wing had been tasked to hit the inner group.  The other
wings from the two accompanying carriers were targeted on the outer group. 
Neither attack was thought to be enough to take them out.  But they would cause
damage, and confusion, and the odds of the missile launching ships destroying
those groups would increase exponentially.

“First Division checking in,” called the
commander of that half of the wing.  “All ready.”

“Second Division.  All ships are ready.”

“Acknowledging,” she said, watching as the
clock in her implant ticked down, until.

“All fighters, launch, launch, launch.”

The oversized doors to the hangars were already
open, and the first layer of ships lifted off the deck and boosted out at
twenty gravities.  As soon as they were clear the next layer lifted and followed. 
It only took three minutes for all of the vessels to leave both hangars, where
they altered their vectors onto the heading toward their target.

“OK, people,” said Komorov over the com, not
really worrying about the enemy listening in on their signal.  They would
outrun the light of their com lasers, which were not aimed into the system in
the first place.  “Form up into the attack pattern.  Then we’ll make sure we
have the most up to date data and bubble up.”

It took about a minute for the ships to all get
into place, First Division on the port, Second on the starboard, while Komorov
and her command group, hers and two escorts, took the center.  She really
wasn’t sure why she needed escorts.  There really wasn’t anything they could do
to protect her if someone shot at her ship.

“On my command, raise bubbles and boost for the
target,” she said into the com.  “Raise bubbles, now.”  On the ninety fighters,
electromag shields ramped up to full power, while the twin negative matter
containment tanks released their materials through magnetic conduits that ran
into the field that englobed the ship.  A moment later all of the ships were
cut off from the normal Universe, all radiation, including gravitons, excluded
from their space.

“Boosting ahead, now,” said the Pilot, taking
his cue from the program that every ship was running that would time their trip
to the attack.  “One thousand gravities.  Two thousand gravities.  Five
thousand.  Ten thousand.  Fifteen thousand.  Twenty.  Twenty-five.  Thirty. 
All systems nominal.  Velocity, point eight c.  Time to light speed, three
point four minutes.”

And time on target, after we achieve our
maximum velocity of two c, five and a half hours.
  Now there was
basically nothing to do for the next five plus hours.  The crew would look
after the ship.  She pulled up the information they had on the enemy ships,
their systems and her own weapons, studying information she already knew by
heart, just in case there was something in there she had missed previously. 
She might not find much, but anything that could get her and her people through
the shit would be worthwhile.

*    
*     *

OUTSIDE CONUNDRUM
SPACE.

“What does the objective look like, Commodore?”
came the voice of Grand Fleet Admiral Len Lenkowski over the wormhole com.

“No change, Admiral,” replied Commodore Bryce
Suttler, looking at his tactical plot which showed the Conundrum system, with
the visual plots of all enemy ships. 
Sure made it harder to track them
,
thought the Stealth/Attack Ship commander.  Graviton emissions were just about
unreadable at this time, thanks to the supernova.  So everything was visual,
which left something to be desired.  First off, it was not near real time, like
graviton tracking.  Second, it was easy to lose individual ships at a distance,
especially when they were sitting dead in space and not putting out huge
amounts of waste heat.

The Cacas had received reinforcements the day
before, not unexpected, and not what the Cacas had been expecting. 
They had
been expecting many more, but the Republic came through and took quite a few of
them out.
  For some reason the outer Caca force had moved further out,
closer to the barrier, as it they were planning something.  And there had been
some ships that had left the system some days before, or so it seemed.  Even
with the interference, he had been able to visually confirm that they had
jumped to hyper I.  But from there, because of that same interference, he had
no idea.  Not that they were really able to do anything out there, not as few
as they had been.

Suttler looked over at the other holo, which
showed the approaching Imperial fleet.  His sensors were, of course, not
picking them up.  And so neither was the enemy.  Instead, he was getting the
fleet’s own track from the wormhole com of the flagship.  And it was an awesome
sight, even if it was not the entire thing.

Hundreds of ships moved through hyper VI on
their way in, still far from the first barrier.  To the side of them was
another formation of hundreds of vessels.  And behind them were more, and even
more behind those formations.  The Commodore knew the assigned order of battle,
and it was still awesome.

“Our first ships are getting ready to drop down
to V,” said the Grand Fleet Admiral over the com.  “Let me know what you
detect.”

Suttler nodded and pointed at Ngovic, letting
the Tactical Officer know he was up.  He glanced back at the tactical holo,
noting that the formations were stretched out, one ship after another, each a
light second back from the vessel ahead.  It took three seconds to jump, and at
their current velocity of point two light, they would be jumping one after the
other at five seconds intervals, which would keep them from making the
overwhelming noise of hundreds of simultaneous translations.

“First ship jumping now,” said Lenkowski.  “A
destroyer.”

Ngovic looked up and shook his head.  “Nothing
Admiral,” said Suttler.  “We’re picking up no trace of translation.”

Another destroyer jumped, then a third. 
Normally this would be setting off every alarm in the system, but the sensitive
pickups on the
Seastag
were not showing a trace.

“This one’s a light cruiser,” said Lenkowski as
the next ship jumped.

“Still not a trace, sir.”

“Heavy cruiser up next.”

That ship jumped without a trace.  As did the
next ship, a battle cruiser.  After twenty more vessels it was the turn of a
battleship, then a superbattleship.  And finally, the last test, a superheavy
battleship, twenty-seven million tons of warship. 
And if this doesn’t set
off the detectors, nothing will
, thought Suttler as the huge vessel jumped.

“We are registering a slight indication of
gravitons,” said Ngovic, looking over at this commander.

“That registered a bit, Admiral.”

“Enough for them to detect us insystem?”

“No, sir,” said Ngovic, running the trace
through his system.  “I doubt they will pick anything up in the system.”

And the jumps down to lower levels should
generate even less noise
, thought Suttler, looking at the Admiral.  “Looking good,
Admiral.  I think you’re going to get in clean.”

“Thank you, Commodore,” said Lenkowski.  “Now,
I’ll turn you over to one of the com techs.  Keep monitoring.”

The holo went blank, coming back to life over
the Tactical Officer’s board.  Suttler continued to watch the procession of
ships on the holo, one after the other jumping, until all were in V.   Minutes
later the front of the line started to jump to IV.  When they were through the
next line was jumping to V, a perfectly choreographed dance where no two ships
were changing dimensions at the same time, minimizing their signature, slipping
through under the hyper interference of the supernova.

*    
*     *

“We’re jumping into normal space, your
Majesty,” said Kelso over the com.

“Thank you, Admiral,” said Sean, looking at his
own tactical holo.  His command room was itself the holo, and he was standing
within it, looking at all of his units as they arrayed themselves in normal
space outside the Conundrum system.  There were still two lines of ships, a
Margravi detachment and part of the Elysium fleet, coming in behind them, one
still in I, the other in II.

He switched the holo to a real time visual of
the system, a composite of the feeds from every wormhole equipped ship in the
fleet.  The bright point of the star was ahead, the dots of planets ranging
out.  There were some glints near the planet, more toward the outer system just
inside the hyper I barrier.  Sean zoomed in on the glints, which revealed
themselves to be large formations of Ca’cadasan ships.  Of course, he was
seeing the outer group as they were six hours ago, the inner group over two and
a half hours later still.  Supposedly, they were still in position, not knowing
that an enemy fleet had just appeared outside their system.  At least,
according to Lenkowski, there had been no appreciable translation signal.   All
of the ships were in stealth mode at the moment, their skins set to absorb all
photons impacting on them, their grabbers propelling them inward at a sedate
twenty gravities.  At that rate they were producing very little heat, most of
it projected into space behind them, where there were no observers.  The enemy
would have to know exactly where they were, then use their most intense light
gathering visual sensors on a slow track to actually see them.  And the odds
against that were merely astronomical.

Sean zoomed in on his own task group.  His
heavy cruiser, the
Manila
, was surrounded by a trio of specialized
missile defense light cruisers and a dozen of the same kind of destroyer.  They
were tucked in close to a task force of hyper VII carriers, which, unfortunately,
had not been able to use the higher dimension for travel. 
That’s one we
didn’t see coming
, he thought.  They had lost some ships that had tried to
translate down from VII, and there were still half a hundred vessels trapped in
that dimension.  It had been an expensive lesson, and he was glad that his
fleet hadn’t been traversing VII at the time the star had exploded, or they
would have been trapped for two weeks, or longer.

The carriers were starting to launch their
inertialess fighters, which would sweep in just ahead of the missile storm to
strike at the enemy, hopefully causing a lot of confusion.  The main fleet, in
six different formations, were now launching their missiles, the weapons moving
in at five hundred gravities to avoid detection.  The inertialess fighters
would continue in at fifty gravities, waiting until they got much closer to the
system before they raised their bubbles and moved at full acceleration.

Next, Sean switched the view to the tactical
readout at Massadara, watching as the ships started in, and the estimated
positions of their inertialess fighter force.  Then to Sestius, all through the
wormhole coms of the ships involved.  He stayed on that one for a moment,
thinking of the people that had elected to stay on that world he had visited
soon after being informed that he was the Emperor.  He didn’t know how many
were still alive, and could only hope that some were.