Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (17 page)

Unshackled

The First Warlord looked at the large tactical display side of the view screen. The number of green icons representing vessels under Sattar’s command was clearly breathtaking. In total, the entire Darian navy consisted of only one hundred and thirty war capable hulls in space and sixty seven of them were here en route to Earth. The Emperor had latched onto the Earth Republic’s offer of territory expansion, technical knowledge, and alliance like a drowning cat grabbing a lifeline as he kicked and flailed about in the churning waves. The Earth Republic’s desperate generosity had given him the perfect political tool with which to overrule the senate and if not declare an outright state of war against the Coalition, challenge them more than the Darian Empire had ever had the nerve to do before. Only a fool would believe that war wouldn’t be declared upon them after this taskforce carried out its orders, but that was a matter for another day.

True, if the Earth Republic fell, their own fate would be similar, but if it survived the war, then the Darian Empire was likely to become a real power in the galaxy once more, second only to the Earth Republic itself. He savored the thought of the Earth Republic owing them for saving their besieged home world.

Flexing the claws of his left hand, the overwhelming eagerness to spill Coalition blood that filled the hearts of every Darian warrior on the bridge began to infect him as well.

First Warlord Sattar’s smile grew wider as he questioned his pilot. “We’re pushing our drives to their maximum level of efficiency?” His pilot answered without looking up from his duty station as he desperately tried to correlate his efforts with the engineering deck. “As per your order, First Warlord,” he assured Sattar. “Good, then we should be reaching the rallying point of the Republic’s gathering fleet in only a few hours. Then we shall make a combined assault against the Coalition forces occupying the Earth Republic’s home system and drive them back to the very depths of whatever dark pit they have slithered from,” the First Warlord said to no one in particular.

First Warlord Sattar pondered, “Though whatever Earth Republic Fleet admiral is present will be in overall command of our joint fleet, I do believe convincing the humans to allow us the honor of jumping into the Earth system ahead of his own ships will be very difficult.”

Sattar dug his claws into the armrest of his chair in anticipation of the coming battle. The mewling bureaucrats of the Ka’tta had held back the Darian navy too long. Finally, with their Emperor’s blessing, they would have the opportunity to spill the blood of their shadowy enemy.

The Darian art of space combat was far different from the human’s or any other sentient species for that matter. Darian society placed a great deal of importance upon individual honor and duty and their style of delivering death to their enemies reflected that.

Humans, both of Earth and the Coalition alike, fought their wars with massive capital ships and “walls of battle”. The Darian navy sported ships of equal size to the human Dreadnaught class of vessels, but those ships were not armored hulls filled to the brim with missile tubes and rail guns. Instead, the Darian ships were transport ships loaded with full complements of over two hundred “Claws,” which are small one manned attack craft.

Each highly maneuverable, Claw carried two ship killer missiles designed to leave crippling holes in the armor of capital ships. With these heavy weapons, they also carried a moderately powerful rail gun that excelled at low level and close in strafing runs. Claws lacked any sort of true defensive capability other than a small handful of decoys to throw off incoming missiles. Their hulls were light enough that a single hit from anything other than another fighter would reduce them to flaming bits and pieces but this was offset by the Claws’ main advantages over a capital ship: speed and maneuverability

Claws lacked the capability to open Null Points, but in Normal Space, they were the fastest short-ranged strike craft in the galaxy. They could get in close, inflict heavy damage, and get out only to return and strike again. Their speed and size made it extremely difficult for anything above the size of a cruiser to engage them directly, thus capital ships could only truly strike at Claws with their close in defense systems.

A Claw’s hull shape was similar to a capital ship’s missile and designed to cause maximum damage if a pilot elected to use his fighter as such. There was no greater honor for a Darian than to die in battle, and all warriors were willing to sacrifice their lives to ensure nothing less than total victory.

“Having “outgrown” the use of such small fighters, the humans were ill prepared to stand against such tactics in combat,” the First Warlord thought with an internal smile. It was a fact that had helped the Darians greatly in their war with Earth but nonetheless, and mostly through sheer numbers alone, the humans had won that long ago conflict. While they had won the war, Earth had taken the kind of severe damage that comes with giving up thousands of lives for every inch of Darian space that was taken.

That said, however, the Darian style of fighting held several major drawbacks. The carrier ships for the Claws were slow, easy targets for the Coalition capital ships, and could not stand against them toe to toe in an open engagement despite their equal tonnage. Under the right set of circumstances, a Coalition capital ship could destroy a carrier before it could even launch its Claws. If a carrier was destroyed during the course of a battle, its Claws, limited to Normal Space travel and unable to access Null Points, would become stranded with no way home or to even resupply their weapons and fuel.

Today, the Darian navy used capital ships much like those of the other races, but only in a support role to screen their carrier ships by drawing incoming fire. The fact that they could also return fire on a tactical level was a plus to having them as well. The fleet of sixty plus ships under First Warlord Sattar’s command contained only eighteen Battle Fortresses, two Destroyers, formerly the largest class of ship recognized by the galactic sentients, and one Super Dreadnaught. The rest of its number consisted entirely of carriers and their Claw squadrons. Yet it was more than a formidable opponent for anyone to engage, for his fleet certainly had fangs and the urge to bare them.

An Armada Assembles

Admiral Casa sipped at the mug of iced coffee he held as the number of green dots on the tactical display of his command chair continued to grow in number. The Alestrair system contained a direct Null Point to Earth and was a much preferable location to gather the ships he would be taking under his command. This was a strategically better plan than the Null Point at Mars where the Coalition had left a taskforce to prevent just that from happening. Though modern medicine had stamped out the health hazards of smoking, Casa had given up the habit at the request of his wife three years back. Time had done nothing to dull the sharp edge of longing he felt for a cigar in a moment like this.

The fate of his home world, perhaps the entire Republic itself, rested uneasily upon his shoulders. Coffee was his one weapon against his old addiction when it came at him this hard, and in the face of the level of stress he felt, it was failing.

The assembled fleet already contained three times the number of ships that had tried and failed to hold Earth against the massive Coalition force. In spite of the massive amounts of military hardware, they had been swept aside as if they were nothing more than children’s toys from an overturned toy box.

The larger green icons of a dozen Republic Super Dreadnaughts dwarfed those of the smaller but more numerous icons of his battleships, destroyers, cruisers, and troop transports that swam through the dark space between the stars and around the larger vessels. Together, they carried the firepower to level entire civilizations. Impressive as the armada before him might be, Admiral Casa knew they were still outgunned.

Based on the scattered reports he had received from the few Earth ships that had managed to escape the Sol system during the battle above Earth, the Coalition force contained no less than eighteen enormous dreadnaughts like those under his command and outnumbered his regular vessels at a margin of three to one.

How the Coalition had been able to build such a fleet of this size in total secrecy was a mystery. Admiral Casa was troubled by the fact that none of the Republic's allies across the galaxy had heard so much as a whisper of its existence until it was gunning its way towards Earth at the maximum possible velocity.

Casa sat down his coffee mug, his fingers unconsciously flicking the ashes of a phantom cigarette as Mitchell, his Weapons Officer, turned in the seat at his station to address him.

"The Medlin just dropped into the system, sir. She's the last of the ships we were waiting on."

"Noted," Casa grunted.

Mitchell continued to stare at him as if awaiting further orders.

"Cool your jets, Lieutenant," Casa told him.

Mitchell's eyebrows rose at the archaic expression. Casa didn't know if his Weapons Officer understood it or not, and honestly did not care. Sighing, Casa leaned back in his command chair. "We all want to kick some Coalition arse, son, but we're not ready yet."

"Not ready, Admiral?" Mitchell asked.

Another Admiral might have taken Mitchell's head off for questioning him in such a fashion on his bridge, but Casa was well aware of just how tightly he and his crew were wound up, so he simply shrugged it off. Casa dumped the data on his display onto Mitchell's at his station with a few quick finger strokes.

"Look at your screen, numbnuts. Those ships out there represent the bulk of everything the Republic has left to throw at the Coalition Lieutenant Mitchell, and we're still outnumbered. If we rush into this and fail, then we have lost them for nothing, that's the end. The Republic is dead. We're either going to re-take Earth in one decisive strike now or. . ." Casa shook his head. "No, we wait until we are ready. Either we need a plan, or even better yet, a miracle."

"I understand that, sir," Mitchell agreed, "but every minute we remain here, that many more folks are dying on the ground back home."

Beyond the armored hull of Casa's command ship, Athena, waves of energy rolled about and flashed like lightning as the Null Point stirred.

"Incoming!" Mitchell shouted, whirling back around in his seat at the tactical station, his fingers dancing over the Athena's sensor controls.

"Do we have a good read on what's coming yet?" Casa demanded.

"Not really, sir, but I can tell you this much, there is no way they are Earth vessels!" Mitchell answered, a tinge of panic in his voice.

"Bring the fleet to battle stations," Casa ordered.

A giant ship the size of a Super Dreadnaught dropped into Normal Space in front of them. Casa recognized the markings on its hull at once as more of the giants emerged from the Null Point.

"Hold your fire!" Casa barked.

"They're Darian, sir," Mitchell confirmed his own observation with hard data. "Their flag ship is transmitting on an encrypted channel asking for the 'Commander of the Earth Fleet' Admiral."

"Put it onscreen." Casa relaxed as he reached for his coffee and begged God to send him a cigarette.

A tiger-like, black furred Darian officer filled the viewer.

"Greetings, Admiral," Xarn purred. "I am First Warlord Sattar of the Darian Empire."

"I know who you are, First Warlord." Casa shifted in his command chair. "I must admit to being caught off guard by your appearance. I was under the assumption that your people were staying neutral in this war."

In his veins, Casa's blood flowed like ice. There were a lot of Darian vessels already in the system and more continued to pour through the Null Point. His best guess put their numbers at close to half of the Empire's known naval strength. He didn't have the ships to waste in a pointless engagement with them if they were hostile, not with Earth still firmly grasped in the Coalition's clutches.

"First Warlord, I sincerely hope you don't intend to try to stop us from reaching Earth." Casa's words were every bit the threat they sounded. Sattar showed his fangs in what looked like the Darian version of a grin Casa thought.

"Nothing of the sort, Admiral," the First Warlord laughed. "We've come to join you in your travels."

Admiral Casa gently set down his coffee mug as he stood up and stepped closer to the Virtual Array of his bridge, "Then let me be the first to welcome you boys to the party. I can't wait to see what you brought to share with our guests."

Live Fire Exercise

Five Coalition troops marched a dozen, wounded and unarmed Earth soldiers down the debris filled city street. Abigail and Dinah carefully watched them from their hideout on the rooftop of a nearby store. Neither of the two young recruits was able to see any women in the group this time, and Dinah was thankful for that.

They had already seen what the Coalition bastards did to women they were able to capture. Just a couple of hours earlier they had come across a group of fifteen Coalition soldiers who had corralled two young women near the entrance of an grey tenement building. Though that group had been much larger, Abigail had barely been able to stop Dinah from opening fire on them. If she had, she knew they would both be dead now, and those poor women still would not have been any better off.

Dinah found it hard to believe that her fellow Infantrymen below were really going to be allowed to live, even if they had surrendered. She recognized the leader of the Coalition squad as the same one who had lead the group that had tortured and raped the two women earlier in the day. She was learning quickly just, what a sociopath this man truly was. Watching him closely through the lenses of her scope she could make out his self-satisfied grin, she figured she would wager a good bit that he was merely playing a game with his new captives, making them sweat while giving them a shred of false hope before torturing them one by one until they were all dead or he had ran out of games to play. He was clearly the type who liked to play games, and undoubtedly had killed or molested at least one family pet as a child.

She pressed her rifle firmly into her shoulder, holding it steady as she took aim at his grimy, smug face. Abigail was aiming at a target of her own beside her, but Dinah knew Abigail wouldn’t fire unless she was sure they could safely take the Coalition scum out. Given their position and the element of surprise, the odds were very much in their favor. Even if a superior force in numbers, firing from an elevated and hidden position on an unaware enemy stacked their deck. Abigail slowly reached over with her free hand and touched Dinah on the elbow before placing it back on the foregrip of her rifle. Taking a breath and slowly exhaling, she squeezed the trigger and took her shot.

One of the Coalition troops spun about as Abigail’s first round blew a clean hole through the combat armor covering his chest. Behind him, blood and small bone fragments from a shattered vertebra splashed onto the street as the bullet exited the man’s back.

Dinah squeezed her trigger but her target was already in motion, reacting almost instantaneously to Abigail's shot. Her round grazed the side of the sick fuck’s helmet; dropping him to his back with what Dinah imagined would be a very intense headache. He appeared unconscious but very much alive. Dinah hoped that she had at least managed to cause a fatal subdural hematoma as she quickly lined up her next shot.

Dinah’s rifle cracked again and a third Coalition soldier dropped quickly to his knees, spewing pink bubbles from his mouth while sickening, wet, gurgling noises escaped from the mangled mess of his throat.

Finally ascertaining where the fire was coming from, the two remaining Coalition troops aimed their weapons high to let loose on Dinah and Abigail’s position. Dinah squeezed the trigger of her rifle a fraction of a second earlier than her enemy did. Her bullet scored a hit directly on the bridge of the Coalition soldier’s nose and a mass of brain and bone exploded out the backside of the soldier whose spray of bullets went wide and then stopped. The second enemy soldier sprayed undisciplined fire towards the edges of the buildings that surrounded them, unsure exactly where the incoming fire was coming from. In spite of the inaccuracy of the weapons fire, Dinah and Abigail slid down onto their backs to take cover.

Dinah heard Abigail cursing loudly even over the rapid staccato of the gunfire. “Get into the building! Let's get the frag out of here before he figures it out!” Abigail ordered, rolling to her feet away from the roof’s edge, to make a mad dash for the stairwell that led to the lower levels of the store.

Dinah scrambled to follow her as she heard the familiar “whoomp” of a grenade launcher lobbing death their way. Abigail was already a few flights down the stairs as Dinah threw herself through the doorway as the grenade detonated on impact with the roof behind her. The force of the blast carried her further than she had intended to jump and she struck the stairs hard, bouncing down to the landing below her. Dinah took some bruises but managed to stop herself by grabbing hold of the railing before rolling ass over teakettle down the next flight of stairs.

Suddenly, Abigail was beside her and unceremoniously hauling her to her feet. “Get your ass downstairs and out the backdoor,” Abigail growled through clenched teeth. “By the way, nice shooting back there. Just try not to get into any more trouble.”

If the Coalition survivors called in back up to his position, things were going to get even uglier very fast. They needed to get out of the immediate area before either of those things happened. Dinah’s breath came in ragged gasps as she sprinted after Abigail, the muzzle of her rifle swinging side to side as she ran through the building.

Abigail kicked open the door leading into the alley behind the store and hurled herself through it, her weapon sweeping from left to right for targets, finding it to be clear of enemy troops. Abigail poured on the speed heading southward while Dinah did her best to keep up. Scattered blasts of automatic fire came from somewhere behind them but Dinah didn’t look back, choosing instead to keep her eyes locked on Abigail as she pushed herself on.