Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (36 page)

The nose was broad and had a single nostril on
the end, while the hair was a mass of golden curls, looking much like the mane
of a lion.  She was sure the interior of the creature would not show many
similarities.  Convergent evolution tended to work more on exteriors than on
internal organs.

“Greetings,” said the creature in a melodious
voice, the words not really matching the lip movement.

Because it’s a translation
, thought Sung.  “And
greetings to you from the New Terran Empire.  And thank you for attacking the
Ca’cadasans.”

The creature showed a predator’s sharp teeth as
it smiled.  “They are vermin, with no honor.  We exterminate them when we can,
since they seem to eschew the honor of fair battle.”

“We are at war with them,” said Sung, wondering
if this could be another ally.  A true one, unlike the
Megeda,
who had seemed to be the ultimate mercenaries.

“Ah, a martial species,” said the
being at the other end.  “Would you like to battle?”

“Excuse me?” said Sung, not sure
the translation had come through.

“I asked if you would like to
fight?” said the creature, its lips curling back to reveal the double row of
sharp teeth.

“We are not here to fight,” said
Sung, shaking her head, then realizing the alien might not know what the motion
meant.  “We only fight when we must.”

“That is unfortunate,” said the
alien.  “We find combat to be most enjoyable, and we would only engage to first
damage.”

“I think they mean like counting
coup,” said the Tactical Officer.  “Like the Amerinds.  They fight until someone
touches the other with a lance.  Or in this case, with a beam weapon.”

“So you fight for enjoyment?”
asked Sung.

“Of course,” said the still
smiling alien.  “Unless it is with such as the ones we destroyed.  Only a fool
does not strive to win when the stakes are life and death.  But among honorable
opponents, it is enough to prove skill.”

“We are involved in a fight with
the ones you destroyed.  Back in our home space.  And there is no honor
involved in that fight.  They mean to destroy us, and we don’t intend to be
destroyed.”

“I like the spirit of your
people,” said the alien, whose designation for himself came up on the holo
beneath him. 
Grilyon
, she thought, wondering if she was pronouncing it
correctly in her mind.  “But why were you running from these creatures?  You
outmassed them by a factor of three.”

“We are not warships.  We are
explorers, looking for allies against the Ca’cadasans.  Until you came along,
these were following us just out of missile range.  And we thought you were the
force the others of them had been sent to fetch.”

“There are others of these things
coming?” asked the Grilyon commander, his ears perking up and rotating to the
front.  “Many of them?”

“We don’t know how many,
Captain.  Only that they would bring enough to destroy us.  They came upon us
almost two weeks ago, sometime after we met with the Megeda.”

“You met with those dishonorable
thieves,” said the Grilyon, making a motion that swished his mane around his
head.  “And they sold you out to the Ca’cadasans.  You should never have
trusted those ….”  The word that came was not translatable, but Sung would have
been surprised if it wasn’t derogatory.

“If you seek allies, we might be
convinced to be on your side.  But first, we must go and find these Ca’cadasans
that are following you, and bring them to glorious battle.  And we do not fight
to damage with such as they.  We crush them.”  The three fingered hands opened
to reveal its sharp claws.  “We destroy their vessels, and let the bodies of
those not incinerated float through the cold of space, forever.”

“And when you have taken care of
them?”

“Then we will come back for you,
and escort you to our nearest base.  We would learn more of you people, as I am
sure you would learn more of us.  And perhaps we can come to an understanding.”

“I don’t think these are the
folks we were sent to find,” whispered the Tactical Officer.

“I really don’t care.  They seem
to relish fighting, and it we can turn them fully against the Cacas, we might
just take some of the pressure off of our front.  I would call that a win for
us.”

“And the other power we are being
sent to contact?”

“Maybe these guys know about
them.  And, if not, they will still be there in the extra couple of months it
takes us to negotiate with these new guys.”

She turned back to the holo.  “Do
you want us to steer a certain course, while we are waiting?”

“One of our ships will accompany
you, while we pick up others of ours on the way to the enemy force.  They will
show you the way.”

The holo went blank, followed
moments later by a com request from another of the vessels.  Sung felt better
than she had in weeks, with a strong ally to help guard them in the unknown
section of space.

*     *     *

REPUBLIC
AND OUTSIDE SPACE, DECEMBER 30
^TH
, 1001.

“We have another large force of enemy ships
heading our way, Madame President,” announced the Crakista Admiral in Charge of
Republic Battle Fleet Three.

Really more of the commander of the entire
Republic Fleet
,
thought President Julia Graham, looking at the face of the Admiral on the portable
holo her aide carried around so she would be in constant contact.  The holo was
linked into the wormhole com aboard the heavy cruiser she was using as her
transport.

The President looked up from the holo to the
cityscape she was touring. 
Or, maybe that should be the ruins of a
cityscape
, she thought.  New Washington, the capital city of the Republic,
on a world of the same name, had once been her home, both her birthplace, and
the central location of the government she had been the leader of.  Now she
stood on a hill made up of the smashed rubble of the downtown business
district, looking over the crater where her residence and office used to stand.

Until those bastards came,
she thought, glancing
up to the sky.

The New Terran Republic had fought wars
before.  Against the Crakista in the far past.  Against the Klang, frequently. 
Even one against the New Terran Empire.  And never before had they seen such
destruction among their own core worlds.

The city of New Washington had once been the
home of fifty million people.  Now it was the home of no one, except the stray
dogs and other vermin that stalked the streets, trying to feed their starving
bodies.  The planet had once boasted a population of ten billion, the most
densely populated in the Republic.  Now there were a mere twenty million
survivors.  Fifteen million had been evacuated before the enemy had blockaded
the planet.  Most of the rest had died from the orbital bombardment, nine
billion of them, followed up by the landings and the slaughter of hundreds of
millions more.  And then had come the round up to the camps.

Graham almost vomited as she thought of the
tales she had heard from some of the survivors of those camps.  About how the
Cacas entered on a daily basis to select their victims, slaughtering them in
front of the others, then field dressing them and hauling away the meat for
their own consumption.

And then the Caca fleet had left, leaving a
skeleton crew of warriors behind to continue the harvest, to stock the larders
for their eventual return. 
Only we got here first
, she thought, staring
at the ruins that stretched to the horizon. 
Savages.  Even the Klang don’t
eat us.  Filthy barbarian savages.

“What are your orders, Madame President?”
repeated the Crakista female who was their ranking officer in this space. 
“Most of my fleet is still in the early stages of moving out of the region.  We
are still in position to intercept them.”

“How large is the force?”

“At least four hundred ships, Madame
President.  You should have already received the report from your picket.”

“Of course I have,” she replied, reaching down
and picking up a child’s plastic man that had ended up somehow on top of the
rubble.  
I just wanted your confirmation. 
“Can you hit them?”

“We can.  But I must warn you that we will take
casualties, even if we ambush them.  After all, they can also send missiles
between dimensions.”

“Can you hurt them worse than they hurt you,
Admiral?”

“While I can guarantee nothing, I believe the
odds are in our favor, Madame President.”

“Then hit them, Admiral,” she said, looking at
the small toy that had once portrayed a soldier of her Republic.  “Hit them
with everything you have.  Keep hitting them until you don’t have anything left
to fire.  I don’t want any of the bastards to ever see the stars of their
home.  Understood?”

The Crakista Admiral looked taken aback by her
display of emotion.  She looked like she wanted to say something, then
straightened and saluted in the human manner.  “Understood, Madame President. 
We will avenge the children of your people.”

*     *     *

SECTOR IV
SPACE.

“We are picking up nothing from
the planet,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back at the High Admiral.

By all the Gods, what is this?
thought
High Admiral
Kellissaran Jarkastarin
.  “This is supposed to be
one of their developing worlds, with over a hundred million of the humans
infesting it,” he growled.  “They couldn’t have all escaped.”

“We are picking up no signals
from the planet, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer, shrugging both
shoulders.  “Nothing on any of the com channels.  No indication of intelligent
life.”

“Lights?  Heat sources?  Graviton
emissions?”

“Nothing, my Lord.  But remember, we are
looking at the day side of the planet, so we would see no lights.  And heat
sources would have to be very strong and robust for us to pick them up.”

“And graviton emissions?  What of them?”

“With all of the static through hyper, I am
having trouble picking up the emissions of our accompanying ships, my Lord. 
Much less anything else.  There are a few irregularities near the planet, but I
cannot get enough of a fix on them to tell what they are.”

“Com Officer,” said the High Admiral. 
“Transmit orders to three scouts on each of our flanks.  I want them to change
their vectors enough that they see at least a sliver of the night terminators
of that planet.  I cannot believe there is nothing there.”

He looked at the tactical plot again, which
basically showed him all the larger bodies of the system, and his own ships. 
And nothing else.  “Tactical.  I want that planet watched continuously with
visual scans.  If there is a pebble in orbit reflecting any sunlight, I want to
know.”

Hours went by, the High Admiral sitting on his
bridge, watching the viewer that showed the planet, his eyes shifting every few
moments to the tactical holo.

“Scout ships are reporting no lights at the
terminators,” called out the Com Officer.  “No heat sources at all, save for
one volcano in eruption.”

“Tactical.  Anything in space?”

“We have tracked a couple of small objects in
low orbit around the planet, and that is all, my Lord.”

“They couldn’t have evacuated a planet with
over a hundred million beings on it,” growled the lead male.  “Not when they
didn’t know we were coming.  That’s impossible, even if they had a wormhole to
take them off the planet.”  He thought some moments about that idea, dismissing
it as soon as it came.  It would have taken months to get that many beings off
of a world, marching them as fast as possible through the wormhole all day and
night.

“Orders, my Lord?” asked the Helm.

“I believe we should be cautious, my Lord,”
said the Tactical Officer.  “We do not know what is on that world.”

“Bah,” spat Jarkastarin.  “There are no ships
in orbit.  No forts.  We cannot even pick up defensive platforms.  If they are
there, they have turned off everything on the surface and are cowering in
underground shelters.”  He pointed a finger at the viewer.  “They are there,
and I mean to blast them out of their hiding places.”

“We could launch missiles at the planet from
where we are now,” advised the Tactical Officer.

“I advise against that, my Lord,” said the Helm
Officer.  “It is forbidden to kill living worlds, unless they are terraformed. 
And according to our spectral analyses, this is not a world with predominantly
Terran life.”

“Bah,” said Jarkastarin again.  “We do not need
missiles to chase them from their burrows.  We will go into orbit and pound
them with kinetics.”

“All of us, my Lord?” asked the Helm, his
posture showing that he was not enthused with that idea.

“Send a couple of pods of scouts into orbit
first,” said the High Admiral after some thought.  “They can drop some kinetics
on the planet, and see if the vermin are stirred from their lairs.  Once they
have established that there is no threat to the rest of the fleet, we will move
closer to add our firepower.”