Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (28 page)

“Do we have a
target?” Captain Vladimir Schmidt asked his Tactical Officer.  He was
looking at a globe of the planet that showed all of the known concentrations
from both sides.  Known being the operant word.  They had very good
data on their own troops on the ground, but not so much on the enemy. 
Some positions, like barracks, fortifications, airfields and shore
batteries,  were there as firm targets.  They didn’t know if some of
those positions were still there, or the state them if they were.  And
they had little idea of where the enemy mobile units were, except where
communications with scout assets placed them for a certain limited duration.

A particle beam
rose up from the planet, moving so fast it seemed to just appear.  It
missed the battleship, a testimony to the effectiveness of the jamming systems
the Imperials had deployed through all the layers of the battlespace.  The
ship was able to trace the beam back to its point of origin on the ground, and
sent a particle beam and a pair of lasers back in return.  It was
difficult to tell if the counter fire had any effect, but it did show whatever
was on the ground where the battleship actually was.  The next beam that
came hit the battleship, slashing through its weakened electromag field and
penetrating armor that had already been scarred or melted by other weapons
earlier in the battle.

Sevastopol
fired
again, and a trio of beams came up and hit her again.  This time two of
the beams penetrated through the armor, blasting into the ship all the way to
the rear central capsule, barely stopped by its armor.  The ship shook
like a beast in agony from spears driven through its body.

“We have a
target lock,” said the Tactical Officer, his voice almost shaking in
tension.  “They’re not close to anything of importance.”

“Give them
everything we got,” ordered Schmidt, wincing as another beam struck his ship.

The tubes on the
port side of the ship, the six that still functioned, facing the planet, spit
out six missiles toward the target.  All of the hundred and fifty ton
missiles accelerated at five thousand gravities for a second, building up their
velocity well beyond what they would achieve by merely falling into the gravity
well.

A beam reached
up and hit one of the missiles, vaporizing it on contact.  One more was
hit by an anti-aircraft missile that struck through the side, sending pieces of
weapon flying out to fall in random directions.  The other four hit the
ground, coming down like streaks of fire thrown at the planet by an angry
god.  Each was without a warhead, depending completely on their velocity,
mass and the kinetic energy they generated.  Each generated twenty
megatons of force that was focused into the ground, blasting through the
plasticrete and armor into the positions below.  A quartet of mushroom
clouds rose into the sky, coalescing into one that pushed into the
stratosphere.

The Captain
waited for another beam to rise from the position they had hammered.  When
nothing happened for a minute he knew they had taken that battery out, and could
go searching for another target, or let the target come looking for him. 
His ship would be at extreme risk during this kind of operation, but it was his
homeworld, and he was willing to take that risk to free it from those who had
come to destroy it.

*    
*     *

“That’s the last
one, sir,” said Rear Admiral Kelso, looking out of the holo from the station he
was manning in CIC.   “We’re a little behind, but maybe we can catch
up.”

Fleet Admiral
Jerry Kelvin shook his head, thinking about the part of the problem they really
had no control over.  Everything had been presupposed on a tight
timetable, the ships on the other end actually pre-accelerating toward the gate
based on the velocity they wanted to be at when the portal was
opened.   Almost a hundred ships had maneuvered at the last minute to
miss the gate frame, since it didn’t have a transmittable portal at the
time.  And it wasn’t like they could just try again now that the gate
actually was open.  No, all of those ships would have to spend twelve hours
or so to slow to a stop and turn around, then another twelve hours to come back
in the proper velocity to transit.  Those ships would not be participating
in the battle of which they were a necessary component.

He only had two thirds
of the battleships he should have had, and a mere nine fleet carriers.  He
wondered if they could even generate a missile storm large enough to panic that
enemy, much less hurt them badly.  There were a few ideas he was willing
to try, but since they were new, he wasn’t sure how well they would work. 
And how well they worked could be the difference between winning or losing this
battle.

At least we
have the ships still in the line coming through,
he thought.  All the
battleships that were coming through had already transited.  Now two of
the gates were sending through battle cruisers and heavy cruisers, while the
other two were transiting light cruisers and destroyers.

“Where are those
missile colliers?” he asked Kelso, who he expected would have some knowledge of
where the support ships were located in the other systems.

“About fifteen
minutes from the gates,” said Kelso, activating an overlay on the bridge
central holo tank that showed the large freighters that were carrying their
resupply of missiles.

Kelvin walked
over to that holo and looked at the orientation of the missile supply
ships.  He linked in with the ship’s computers and fed in the distances
and acceleration figures, ordering the system to show a representation of what
he was thinking about.  The courses were calculated, and he smiled at the
result.

“Send a request
to the Admiralty,” he told Kelso.  “Show them this short study and tell
them I recommend this use of the reserve missiles.”

“They may want
to hold them back for our defense of the system,” said the other Admiral.

“And we will not
be here to defend the system if we don’t use them.  So send them the
information and my recommendation.”

Kelvin stared at
the holo, once again set to show the tactical situation in the system as it stood
at the moment.

“We have missile
launch,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.  “Three thousand missiles,
velocity point two light, acceleration eight thousand gravities.”

And so it
begins
, thought Kelvin, looking at those red vector arrows that were pointing
his way.   As he watched another wave separated from the enemy fleet,
then a third, fourth, and fifth.  Of course they would come in as one
wave, adjusting their accelerations to adjust their positions, so that they
would come as fifteen thousand missiles.  While that might not totally
destroy his command, it would do enough damage to weaken him to the point where
he couldn’t possibly win.

*    
*     *

“We have
contacts,” called out the Tactical Officer, while the vector arrows appeared on
the holo.  “Three hundred plus contacts, velocity point nine light.”

“Where in the
hells did they come from,” shouted High Admiral Lisantr’nana, his face a mask
of shock.  The objects hadn’t been picked up over a distance, like would
be expected from stealthy craft.  The profile of those kind of ships was a
faint return at a distance, then a firmer one closer in, then much of the same
until the contact was firmed.  If they ever got a firm contact at all.

These things had
gone from not even being there to becoming firm contacts in an instant, as if
they had teleported there.  Since teleportation on that scale was clearly
impossible, there was something else going on here.

Were the
rumors true
, he thought, looking at the vector arrows, most of which were
pointed in a direction that would take them far astern of his force.  But
a hundred of them were aimed right at his fleet.  The rest seemed to have
missed the mark.

“Intruder one
accelerating at twelve hundred gravities,” called out the Tactical Officer, the
vector arrows of the attack force that were coming at the Ca’cadasan on a clear
intercept blinking.  “Range, thirty-seven light seconds.  Estimated
mass, twelve to fifteen hundred tons.”

So they were
some kind of attack fighter, but how had they gotten to within clear sensor
range without being seen?  And why were two of the forces so far off on
their attack?  Even as those thoughts were going through his mind those
two forces disappeared once again.

“We have missile
launch,” called out the Tactical Officer.  Over two hundred new vector
arrows appeared on the plot, forging ahead at ten thousand gravities. 
Moments later two hundred more appeared.

How many do
they carry?
thought the High Admiral.  He had four hundred weapons
heading his way, due to arrive about thirty seconds.  Would there be more
coming, or was that all?

“All units are
to fire on the missiles,” he finally ordered, going with his instincts that the
fighters couldn’t be carrying that many more ship attack missiles, if any at
all.  “Only fire on the fighters if you have a ninety-five percent hit
chance.”

The fleet opened
fire, putting out a short wave of counter missiles, then switching to lasers
and particle beams.  Missiles exploded as they were hit, brilliant flashes
against the star fields.  A hundred and sixty came through, taken under
fire by the close in projectile weapons.  A few of the fighters went up as
well as some ship or other locked them up with tight fire control.  The
close in weapons knocked down another fifty-three missiles, the sheer volume of
fire cutting through their jamming and hitting weapons on evasive maneuvers by
statistical chance.

One hundred and
two missiles reached engagement range, and suddenly the plot blossomed with six
hundred and twelve objects as their warheads released from the body.  Four
hundred and thirteen hit one hundred and forty-one ships, their fifty megaton
antimatter warheads detonating with bright flashes that blew pieces of hull and
armor into space.  A few of the smaller vessels exploded into plasma, a
pair of cruisers broke up, and even one superbattleship lost all acceleration
as it grabber ring was shredded.  Over a hundred ships were damaged to the
point where their combat capabilities were significantly degraded.

Now all of the
defensive fire switched to the fighters that were boosting, changing their
vector to fly over the Ca’cadasan fleet.  They were easier targets than
the missiles due to their size, but they also had better electronic warfare
systems and stronger defensive screens.  The fighters fired their lasers
as they maneuvered, getting in some couple of hundred hits that caused small
but sometimes significant damage.

Sixty-one
fighters made it over and away, moments later again disappearing from the plot.

“That really
hurt them,” said the Tactical Officer, a predatory grin on his face.

The High Admiral
glared at the male, his own mind running over the balance of damage between his
own force and the fighters that had just blown past them.  He had
destroyed just over sixty thousand tons of enemy warship, and by his best
estimate, about two hundred or so humans.  In return, he had lost over ten
million tons of warships destroyed, and almost five thousand males
killed.  Added to that were many more millions of tons of warships that
were now damaged, along with many more thousands of casualties.

He stared at the
tactical holo for a few moments more.  He didn’t know where those other
two wings had gone.  And he no way of knowing when they would return,
though he was sure they would.  That depended on their acceleration rate,
something he had no information about.  He was sure they would appear when
he least expected them, and he would lose more ships.

“Order the fleet
to reduce acceleration to four hundred gravities,” he told the Com Officer.

“That will increase
our approach time to the enemy fleet,” said the Tactical Officer, turning with
an expression of shock on his face.

“But it will
muddy their guess on our position whenever they come out of whatever they come
out of,” said the High Admiral, making a guess based on their attack pattern
that they had to predict where their targets would be in the future.

If they did hit
him again, it would probably be another sting, like that first attack. 
But like most intelligent creatures, the High Admiral did not like being stung.

*    
*     *

“Dammit,”
growled Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski, sitting back in his chair on his flag
bridge.  He had just watched the attack of the inertialess fighters in
more or less real time through the wormhole com that projected information into
the flag bridge’s central holo tank.  “More than two thirds of the damned
attacked missed.”  He slammed a hand on the arm of his chair. 
“Missed.”

The holo no
longer showed the fighters, which had disappeared from the scan after they had
raised their warp bubbles and gone accelerating away from the enemy.  Or,
in the case of the two wings that had missed their targets, decelerated so they
could come back on a return attack.  They might have fired their missiles
anyway, which would have fought to change their vectors and attack the enemy
ships.  The Admiral was just as happy that they hadn’t, since those
missiles, from all projections, would have come in at a crawl from a rear angle
on the ships, an easy target.

Lenkwoski had a
view of the battlespace that no commander in history had ever enjoyed. 
Every ship with a wormhole in the New Moscow system was transmitting its
tactical information into that com net to Naval Headquarters in the Hexagon,
and from there to his flag.  With graviton tracking they could tell where
every boosting vessel was in real time.  With the exception of those
fighters in their warp bubbles.