Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (23 page)

The forward
section of the
Queen Elizabeth III
disappeared in a cloud of fast
expanding vapor, taking what was left of the gate portal framework and the
stealth/attack ship
Grampus
with it.  Fortunately for that area of
space, there were not many particles left above the size of a molecule, so all
the other vessels in the area were able to weather the blast.

The stern fared
no better, and it was much worse on the whole for the surrounding area than
that of the front.  The wormhole pinch that severed the vessel in half cut
through the front section of engineering, where the matter antimatter reactors
were housed.  Two of the containment vessels were ruptured at the front
end, releasing their antiprotons into the region.  The forty gigaton blast
ripped the rear half of the battleship apart, and the other containment
capsules ruptured in the blast, adding their antimatter to the fury, boosting
the forty gigaton blast up to three hundred gigatons.  Warheads breached
containment microseconds later, adding almost two hundred more gigatons to the
small star that birthed in the middle of the gathered force that had been
waiting for transit.

Later analysis
would show how fortunate it was that the rear, antimatter rich section of the
ship exploded in that system almost a thousand light years away.  If it
had gone off thirty thousand kilometers from the inhabited planet, the
radiation wave could have killed a hundred million of the humans on that
world.  As it was, it caused heavy damage to dozens of the nearer vessels,
moderate damage to scores more, and lighter hull scaring to hundreds of
more.  Four thousand crew, beside the five thousand four hundred who had
been aboard the battleship, died in the blast, while tens of thousands more
were injured.

The worst of it
was the destruction of the gate, which should have been allowing all of the
ships in this gathering to transit into the battle zone.  Now they were
separated from the battle area by a thousand light years, with no way to get
there in any conceivable time frame that would be helpful to the ship fighting
for their lives over New Moscow.

When the forward
part of the ship detonated
Seastag
was sitting two hundred kilometers
away. 
Seastag
was far enough from the blast zone that there was
little in the way of physical effect, just a slight shake that lasted for less
than a second.  She was hit by heat and radiation, and warning klaxons
went off on the bridge.

“We’re losing magnetic
containment on the gate,” called out the Assistant Engineer, his voice
panicking.  “That radiation wave has disrupted the superconductors.”

“What can you do
about it?” asked Suttler, hoping there was something, or the force would have
lost half of their gates in minutes.

“I can get a
crew out and route new superconductor cable through it.  It will take some
time, but I think we can save the gate.”

“Odds of the
gate collapsing before you fix it?” asked the Commodore as he watched a light
cruiser come through the gate, one of the specialized missile defense ships
they had been waiting for.

“I really can’t
give you better than a good guess,” said the Assistant Engineer, who was in
charge of this task while the Chief Engineer handled the engines that were
providing power to the gate.  “But I would say eighty percent.”

“Get on it
then,” said Suttler, looking over at the Com Officer.  “Get me the Admiral
on the com.”

Moments later
the face of Vice Admiral Patrice Ngumo, the flag officer in charge of this stage
of the operation, appeared before him.  Suttler explained the situation
and gave his recommendation.

“We’ll keep
moving ships through that gate, Commodore,” agreed the Admiral, a worried look
on her light brown face.  “I know it’s a risk, but it’s more of one to
leave it idle while you fix it.”

“Very well,
Admiral.  We’ll try to get it done as fast as we can.”

“We have missile
launch, sir,” called out the Tactical Officer.  “Two thousand one hundred
contacts.  Range, sixteen light minutes.  Acceleration eight thousand
gravities.  ETA approximately two hours, twenty-one minutes.”

That was a huge
mass of incoming missiles, but not insurmountable, especially if they got
sufficient ships in place before they got there.  One thing in their favor
was that the enemy fleet was still moving outbound, and the missiles had to
overcome that velocity first before they could come inward, giving them a
little more time.

“Second launch,”
called out the Tactical Officer.  “Same density and acceleration.”

That was different,
since the missiles could adjust velocity for a short period of time, so the
entire wave came in as one.  And the ships were not the only target in
their zone.  In that region of potential targets was the planet they were
here to liberate, and all of the humans on that planet.  A couple of dozen
misses that happened to hit the planet would render that world lifeless. 
Some of those in armored suits would survive, but none of the unprotected
humans had a chance.

“Third launch,”
called out the Tactical Officer.  Twenty seconds later it got even worse
as the Tactical Officer announced the fourth and final launch, and eighty-four
hundred weapons were heading their way.

*    
*     *

“Turn…..” 
The static that was blotting out the signal from the Great Admiral blotted out
the rest of that sentence.  “…fire.”

“Get a better
signal,” ordered High Admiral Lisantr’nana to his Com Officer.  “I need to
know what is going on.”

What he did know
was going on was more enemy ships were appearing around the planet every moment. 
He was picking up their graviton emissions, but could not tell where they were
coming from.  He wasn’t sure what to do.  The enemy force, the larger
force, was still ahead, and he was accelerating toward them.  He was
planning on launching on them in another couple of hours, giving the other task
groups in the system the time to coordinate their attacks.

“That is the
best I can do, my Lord,” said the frightened Com Officer.  “There is too
much static.  The enemy is generating jamming across all frequencies.”

“Fool,” screamed
the High Admiral, storming over to the com station and smacking the officer in
the head with a powerful lower arm.  “I need to know what the Great
Admiral wants.”

The High Admiral
stormed back to his command chair and threw his heavy body into it.  He
sat there for a minute.  The Great Admiral should have sent a message
through on grav wave, but no such communications had arrived.  And
standard radio was being jammed beyond recognition.

“We will
continue out toward the larger enemy force,” he finally ordered.  “It must
be dealt with, and I mean to do just that.”

“What about the
planet, my Lord?” asked the Tactical Officer in a soft voice, glancing over at
the Com Officer, who was cradling his injured ear.

“Fire a couple
of volleys their way, with missiles set on recognition target seeking.” 
The High Admiral thought for a moment longer.  “Make it four.  I want
to swamp that force with too many missiles for them to survive.”

“What about the
station, my Lord?” asked the horrified Tactical Officer.  “What about the
planet?”

“I doubt the
station will be there by the time those volleys arrive,” said the High Admiral.
“I couldn’t give a Gods damned for that planet.  Let it burn, and I’ll apologize
to the Gods at a later date.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ten soldiers wisely led will beat
a hundred without a head.

Euripides.

PLANET NEW MOSCOW, MID MORNING,
APRIL 8
^TH
, 1002.

Walborski
squatted with his men in place, just outside of the fighting position the
engineers had dug, waiting for their next orders.  He looked up at the
sky, wondering where their air support was.  Taking the perimeter of the
camp was the easy part of the task.  Now they had to hold it, while
simultaneously protecting and evacuating the civilians in the camp, while the
Cacas were sure to throw other forces at them.

The first lines
of refugees were coming out of the camp.  He looked back at the nearest
line, two kilometers away, zooming in with his suit vision to see the poor scarecrows
stumbling along, guided by some of the people from Second Company, keeping them
on the path through the minefield, all of which should have been cleared, but
there was no use taking chances.

It was six
kilometers from the camp to the jungle covering the lower slope of the mountain
range.  These people would be herded through that distance and into the
caves that had been built for the troops, giving them some shelter as they were
led through the wormhole.  It would take days to get everyone out of the
camp and through the gates.  And that whole time the Cacas would be trying
to stop them.

Of course,
defending and protecting the refugees was only part of the plan, and Cornelius
was kind of irked that he and his men had been assigned this duty.  Smashing
the Cacas was the job of other units, mostly heavy infantry and armor. 
Their job was to be hunters, not set in a fixed position, targets.

“Look at that,
sir,” came the voice of the company First Sergeant over the com.

Cornelius turned
to the direction of the cursor on his HUD and swore under his breath. There
were several bright flares in the sky, with the look of explosions beyond the
atmosphere.  Really big, powerful blasts that were still expanding as he
watched.  Another expanded with light that would have damaged his optic
nerves if he hadn’t the protection of his faceplate.

The Captain
looked back at the line of refugees, sure that he was going to see something he
really didn’t want to.  Sure enough, many of the civilians had stopped and
were looking at those explosions.  Within moments there was yelling and
screaming as civilians put their hands over their now blinded eyes.  The
people guiding them tried to prevent any more of them from looking, to no
avail, and soon the line was made up of mostly blind humans with no idea of
their heading.

“Gonzalez,” he
shouted out to his second platoon leader.  “Get your platoon back there
and help to guide those stupid fuckers.”  Walborski chided himself for
calling people names who did what just about any untrained human would do, look
at the most noticeable thing around.

The LT took his
suited men and flew toward the line, skimming low over the ground.  One of
the men hit the sensor area of one of those mines that was not supposed to be
there anymore.  The disc flew up into the air, to the waist height of the
Ranger, throwing out its monomolecular wire snares on the end of a floating
ball, while the disc spun, hitting the soldier with what were essentially
sweeping blades.  An unarmored soldier or civilian would have been sliced
in half, then sliced again as the disc spun in a swift circle.

The strands
wrapped around the soldier, whose suit protected him from the cutting action,
its armor tough enough to stand up to even the molecule wide cutting wire that
had no real mass behind it, unlike a knife or sword blade.  Another
soldier hit the disc with a blast of fast moving protons that blew it apart,
and the Ranger who was wrapped up pulled out his own monomolecular knife and
cut the strands that were wrapping him.  The rest of the platoon continued
on, sweeping back and forth to trigger any mines that might still be
hiding.  They landed next to the line of civilians and started to organize
them, tying a nylon rope to the leading soldier from the other company, and linking
other climbing ropes so they could lead the blind civilians.  Others,
still sighted, were coming out of the camp and were being led around the
unfortunates who had looked up and stared at the sky.

More bright
points appeared in the sky, and Cornelius turned his attention back to that
phenomenon.  Someone up there was pounding the hell out of someone else,
or both the other, at energy levels that a grunt couldn’t even really
comprehend.

The ground
rumbled, and a mushroom cloud rose in the distance.  That was a force that
the Ranger Captain could understand, since he had used such weapons in the
past.  A second mushroom cloud rose at what his suit indicated was a
little further away and about fifteen kilometers further north.

“Incoming,”
yelled the voice of one of the men on outpost duty over the com.

His HUD showed
the objects arcing through the air, and his suit comp quickly identified them
as mortar rounds, coming from a launcher about twenty kilometers away. 
The targeting indicated that the first line of civilians was what they were
aiming at.

“Air defense net
activated,” he yelled out over the com, watching as the suits assigned to that
duty acknowledged and slaved their weapons to that net.  Those suits took
over and aimed the particle beam rifles of their wearers at the objects as they
flew in.  The beams came on at just the proper moment, a pair of beams
crossing high in the air and intersecting on the rounds, which detonated with
terrific force a thousand meters up.  The close sky filled with
explosions, the defensive net working as planned.  But eventually a round
would get through if the mortars kept firing.

“Tango A-1,” he
said into his com.  “This is Ranger Charlie Actual.”  At the same
time he sent the targeting information that was coming in over his suit comp to
the contact.

“Ranger Charlie
Actual.  This is Tango A-1.  I have received your coordinates. 
Will engage the target with HE.”

One of the
massive tanks that sat in hull down position, having dug itself in so that only
the turret was sticking out, turned that turret until it was pointing toward
the designated target.  With a loud hiss it sent the high explosive shell
through the barrel of its accelerator cannon.  It travelled at nowhere near
the velocity of the penetrators they had fired earlier, but then they didn’t
need to.  It still took less than a second for the shell to arc over the
horizon at a low angle, bursting its small antimatter charge directly over the
target, the mortar unit that was trying to murder civilians.

There was a
flash at the horizon as the twenty kiloton shell detonated, sending most of its
energy into the ground.  It still raised a mushroom cloud that climbed
high into the atmosphere.  The two tanks directly beside the leader fired
their own guns, their shells bursting a kilometer to either side of the initial
blast.  Making sure.

“We have
movement,” called out one of the outposts, which was ten kilometers closer to
that enemy than the defensive line.  “Estimate three hundred battle suited
Cacas, along with twelve combat mechas.  Advancing at forty kilometers an
hour.”

“Bug out and get
back here as soon as we get you some cover,” he told the men.  Then got
back on the circuit with the tanks.  “You got that, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. 
Firing.”

All five of the
tanks fired, sending their shells into the long line of enemy identified on
their battlefield tactical holos.  Two of the shells reached their target,
detonating in twenty kiloton blasts that destroyed the suits, and their wearers,
who were within two hundred meters of the blast.  Those out to five
hundred meters sustained some damage to their suits, not enough to put them out
of action for the most part, but enough to degrade their combat
capabilities.  The other three were taken out by the defense net of the
enemy, exploding well before they reached their targets. The closest was only
ten kilometers from the Imperial line, and the blast wave washed over the men
in their fighting positions.

“We can’t afford
to have those shells detonate so close,” shouted Cornelius over the com,
looking back to see the line of civilians laying on the ground as the hot wind
of the blast wave kicked up dust around them.  He didn’t think any had
been injured, but a closer blast would have resulted in many wounded, as well
as some killed.

The Cacas came
into line of sight of the Rangers, whose suits allowed them to see through the
swirling dust that now encompassed the battlefield.  The Cacas had their
own suits to full stealth, shimmering behind invisibility fields that were
partially disrupted by the dust hanging in the air, projecting holos of suits
around them, even deploying decoys that mimicked the heat signature of their
armor.  The suits of the Rangers were doing the same, as were the tanks
with them, while portable electromagnetic field generators erected an augmented
field around them.

“First platoon,
fire at will,” commanded Cornelius over the com.

Forty-three
Rangers opened fire at the same moment, particle beam rifles, heavy beamers,
grenade launchers in the hands of the rangers.  The Cacas fired back,
their suits running along the ground at a hundred kilometers an hour, dodging
from side to side.  The mecha ran with them, keeping up easily.  They
were hard to hit, and the particle beams that could convert half an unprotected
sentient to steam and ash were only effective against the medium suits of the
Rangers with either a sustained contact or multiple contacts of individual
beams.  The Cacas were wearing their equivalent of heavy suits, slightly
tougher than the ones the Rangers were wearing.

Angry red beams
cut through the dust, crossing at places.  The Rangers were entrenched in
fighting positions the engineers had dug with their heavy suits.  Most
held their weapons above the berms, tracking their targets by the HUD on their
faceplates. 

Beams returned
from the Cacas, striking berms, flaring into wider beams as they hit
electromagnetic fields and were slightly attenuated.  One Ranger screamed
out as a beam struck one of his gauntlets, vaporizing some of the armor and
superficially burning the hand underneath.  Mecha fired with their more
powerful beams, high velocity autocannon joining in.

Now the Rangers
had real targets, their targeting systems tracing beams back to suits and
highlighting them through the static of jamming and the other spoofing
systems.  The tanks were able to locate the mecha, locking them in. 
The targeting information came in through Cornelius’ suit.  He waited a
moment while the targeting information firmed up, letting the Cacas get closer
as he assigned assets and set up his fire plan.

“All units, open
fire,” he yelled into the com, raising his own rifle over the berm and letting
his suit comp assign it a target.

Beams struck
out, multiples crossing through the center areas of a score of suits, rupturing
the armor, burning through to vaporize the Caca underneath.  The tanks all
fired on the command, sending hyper velocity penetrators through five of the
mecha, blasting apart their operator section, spraying molten alloy and gore
out the rear.  Each tank also fired their twin mounted heavy proton
cannon.  The tanks swept the oncoming Cacas with these heavy beams, each
ten times more powerful than the heavy beamers used by the squad heavy support
troopers.  Where one of those beams hit a portion of the suit the armor
converted to vapor, along with the being underneath.

Grenades
exploded over advancing Cacas, while mortars fell from the sky, launched from
the tanks.  The exchange of fire went on for a minute, the Rangers under
cover, the Cacas out in the open, some squatting to make of themselves less
conspicuous targets, some falling to their stomachs into a prone
position.  The Cacas got the worst of it, losing over a hundred troopers
during the exchange, while the Rangers lost nine.  All twelve of the mecha
were taken out by the fast firing tanks.  Several had gotten hits to two
of the tanks with their own particle beams, with the result of burning shallow
craters into the tough armor.  The heavier combat vehicles had won their
part of the battle with ease, and the tanks concentrated on the enemy infantry.

Something
exploded up in space, a blast that made the ones that came before look like
fireworks.  The Rangers looked up as the firing slackened for a moment,
the men wondering whether that explosion presaged a victory or defeat in
space.  The Cacas looked up too, and it must have been enough to cause
most of them to break.  In seconds they were on their feet, some pausing
to fire before they took off, others just running as fast as their mechanical
legs would take them.

“Sustain fire,”
ordered Cornelius, rising up in his position and aiming for the back of a
Caca.  They were again obscured by their stealth systems.  The rest
of the Rangers joined in, firing away, mostly missing, but still getting some
hits.  Walborski smiled in satisfaction as one of his shots connected with
a Caca and held, burning through the armor and blasting the body forward as
some of it converted to steam and blasted out of the hole like a rocket.

“Got the
bastard,” said the officer under his breath.  He truly hated the Cacas,
and would never turn down a chance to kill one.  Because every one of the
bastards he killed was one he didn’t have to take care of later.

The
hypervelocity missile seemed to come out of nowhere, moving too fast for the
degraded sensor systems to pick up in time for any kind of defensive
reaction.  It slammed into the turret of the tank furthest south, hitting
right where the main gun joined the body of that turret.  It burst through
the armor, killing the tank commander in his compartment and rocking the tank
back with the imparted force.  Each tank had three separate armored
compartments, making the crew as a whole very hard to kill.  The commander
and gunner were in one compartment at the front of the turret, the assistant
commander and tactical tech in one to the rear, while the driver and sensor
tech were in yet another at the front of the tank hull.  The round, from a
vehicle mount, came through the forward part of the turret armor and blasted a
jet of molten alloy straight through the light combat suit of the
commander.  The molten metal bounced around the compartment, destroying
electronics, injuring the other tanker in the compartment.