Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (34 page)

And that is
definitely not true
, she thought, watching the battle in the system over
wormhole com, observing as the human force absorbed the Ca’cadasan’s first
missile attack, and now tried to prepare for a second one that would be hitting
them in just under four hours. 
We want to live as much as anyone else
in this fleet.  And the fear of ending before we accomplish all that life
has to offer lives just as deeply in our minds as it does in those of the
humans.

The Admiral
looked around her flag bridge, still mostly manned by her own people, with the
addition of fourteen humans who were liaison with the Republic’s contribution
to the force.  She could read the lines of tension in those humans, the
fear for their own safety, and the even greater fear for the safety of other
humans, both Imperial military and the civilians of a rival power. 
Glancing at several of her own people, she could read the tension within them
as well, something no human could do with someone of her species.  They
hid it well, but it was still there.

“ETA?” she
asked, something she had already calculated, but still desired confirmation of.

“Fifty-one
hours,” called out the Navigator.

So if I tried
to get my hyper VII ships there sooner, they might arrive a couple of hours
before the rest of us
, she thought, her tail twitching in a sign of
negation.  They would not get there in time to influence this battle, and
would arrive a couple of hours after the enemy relief fleet.  Too late to
be of use now, and maybe too weak to really tip the balance later.  Since
it was the only thing they could do, she pushed the worry down, concentrating
on what they could do.  Even if all they could do was grant the evacuation
effort on the planet some more hours, so they could save some millions more of
the human civilians.

*    
*     *

Suttler did not
like the way things were going in the battle of the outer system.  His
part was going just fine.  They had eliminated all enemy resistance in the
orbit of the planet and beyond, all the support ships had come through the
wormholes, and were now in place to defend the planet.  It still wasn’t a
large enough force in his opinion, but no one had asked him his opinion.

Now the fleet
heading toward the planet had been hit by what had looked like the best the
enemy could do.  Except now they had launched an even larger missile
storm.  And the wave of missiles coming in from the human fleet just
didn’t look large enough to do much harm to that force. 
If only the
inertialess fighters had accomplished something
, thought the Commodore,
replaying the scene of the tactical holo in his mind over his implant. 
Only one wing had been able to attack on the first pass, and had had the shit
shot out of it.  The same was true of the second attack pass, only they
had come back into normal space too far to immediately strike.  And that
wing had been destroyed.  What was a real shock to the people watching
that part of the battle from afar was that it had failed so completely, when
such attacks in the past had been devastating to the Cacas.

Has our new
wonder weapon already become obsolete?
he thought.  That was an
eventual aspect of war that everyone had to deal with, on both sides. 
Technological innovations worked well for a time period, sometimes
devastatingly well.  And then the other side developed
countermeasures.  Of course, this failure had not come about because of
enemy action, but due to the failure of the fighters to find their targets
while in their warp bubbles.

There has to
be a way around that
, thought the Commodore, who had applauded the
deployment of the fighters in past battles as a game changer.  So far, no
one had come up with a way to communicate with the fighters while they were in
the bubble.

And the enemy
should be getting their next surprise right about now.

*    
*     *

“We have missile
launch,” called out the Tactical Officer.

The High Admiral
leaned forward in his chair and stared at the tactical plot, watching as more
vector arrows appeared, with impossible velocity figures beneath them. 
There seemed to be hundreds of the arrows, closely bunched.

“How many?”
asked the High Admiral with a sinking voice.

“Nine hundred,
my Lord.  Not an overwhelming number.”

Not by
themselves, but added to what is already coming at us
, thought the High
Admiral.  “What is their launched velocity?”

“It’s.” 
The Tactical Officer stammered for a moment while he stared in disbelief. 
“Point nine light.  Acceleration, five thousand gravities.”

“Estimated
velocity when they reach us?”

“Point nine
eight light, my Lord.”

“That’s
impossible.  What would be their velocity if they came at the same time as
the other missiles?”

“Point nine five
light, my Lord.”

While it wasn’t
technically impossible that the missiles couldn’t reach point nine eight light
or above, there were many practical considerations that made it unlikely. 
At point nine eight light the missiles would have more than five times their
mass at rest, as compared three point two two at the standard max of point nine
five light.  At point nine nine it was over seven times rest mass. 
The missiles still had enough capacity to move themselves even at that mass,
but they would move more slowly, to the point that they would become easier
targets.  And the time dilation would change by the same factor, meaning
that missiles traveling much faster than point nine five light would also have
less subjective time for their own comps to calculate.  Even worse for the
missiles was the velocity generated radiation, which would degrade the
effectiveness of the seeker heads.

“Then that is
when they will strike,” said the High Admiral, sure that he was correct.

More vector
arrows bloomed on the plot, a little ahead of the wave of missiles already
headed their way.  “Number?” blurted the High Admiral.

“Twenty
thousand, my Lord,” said the disbelieving Tactical Officer.  “I don’t know
where they came from.  They just appeared out of nowhere.  Like they
had been coasting, and just turned on their grabbers.”

“And they will
get here at the same time as the other wave?”

“Yes, my
Lord.  They will.”

So now the wave
of missiles headed their way had almost doubled, and nine hundred of them would
be coming in at a maximal attack velocity, hardest to target, hardest
hitting. 
What other tricks do they have
? thought the High
Admiral. 
Should I launch another wave at them, while I have the time,
or wait until I can assess the damage from my first strike?

He finally
decided to wait.  He had already sent off two massive volleys, and a third
would just about run his magazines dry.  While there was another force to
fight after he destroyed the enemy fleet to his front.

Chapter Twenty-four

The only thing that makes battle
psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each
other to get by.

Sebastian Junger

PLANET NEW MOSCOW, LATE
AFTERNOON. APRIL 8
^TH
, 1002.

Cat felt like
her legs were going to give out as she walked through the tunnels.  
At
least they’re cool
, thought the child.  The temperature had to be five
degrees cooler under this cover.  It was revitalizing in a way, but not
enough to completely overcome the weakness of months in the camps.

The walls of this
tunnel were obviously of artificial construction, the rock fused and
polished.  Hopefully enough to handle a heavy weapon.  The look of
them made Cat feel safer, that and all the military around them.

The line through
the tunnel ended at a large cavern, where several openings fed more people into
the chamber.  There were people with flatcomps here, talking to refugees
as they entered and inputting information into their devices.

A woman in a
soft uniform sans body armor approached her, looking down at Cat.

“Where are your
parents, young lady?”

“They got
harvested in the camp,” she replied, feeling deep despair at the thought of her
parents killed by the Cacas, even if she had never actually seen them taken.

“I am so sorry,”
said the woman, who seemed genuinely caring.  “What’s your name?”

Cat gave her all
of her information, the woman, wearing an Imperial Navy uniform, entering all
the data into the comp.  Other people were finishing with their
interviewers and headed for another line, this one eight people wide, that was
shuffling forward into the silver mirror set in a heavy frame.

“What’s going to
happen to me?” Cat asked, looking up at the woman, who was pulling a small
strap from a pouch and running it over her comp.

“We’ll find a
family to take care of you.  And you’ll be given the choice of living in
the Empire, or coming back here as soon as we have this space secured.”

Cat thought
about that as the woman put the band on her left wrist.  She had no doubt
that it was a tracking device of some type, with her personal information on
it.  And she was not sure she wanted to live in the Empire.  Not
after hearing mostly negative things about it while growing up.  But these
people had come here to save them.  While Cat wasn’t a military
strategist, she did know enough to realize the Imperial Fleet would have been
better served to have just bypassed this system, or at least have taken on the
Cacas with a straight out invasion.  Instead they had risked disaster to
try to save as many civilians as possible.

“We need to get
you off planet,” said the woman, gesturing to the line.  “The band will
identify you as someone who needs special help.  Have you ever been
through a wormhole before?”

Cat shook her
head as she stared at the silver mirror, which seemed to ripple as people moved
through it.  Each refugee stepped into the mirror, then seemed to be
sucked in, moving like they were jogging forward.

“Of course you
haven’t.  Well, you just step into it and you will step out on another
world.  It’s a little scary at first, but nothing to worry about. 
Now off you go.”

Cat nodded, then
ran toward the line and got in the back.  The line moved quickly, with
more people coming in from behind so that it never ended.  When it came
Cat’s turn she hesitated for one moment, and people behind her started calling
for her to go.  She stepped forward, putting her right foot into the
mirror.  As soon as her foot sunk in she felt like some force was pulling
her forward, and she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The child
stepped out on an open field filled with people.  A sun shone down from
the sky, the light a bit different from what she was used to.  She felt
slightly lighter on her feet, the gravity less.  There were people in
uniform all around, and aircars, including ambulances, around the edge of the
field, which looked to be a large tract of grazing land.  In the distance
the towers of a city rose toward the cloudless sky.

A group of
people walked through the crowd, centered around a young man in an ornate uniform. 
Directly around the man was a group of men and women in civilian clothes, all
moving with the grace of dancers, or some of the warriors the child had seen on
New Moscow, men not in armor who had been at the caves.  Around the
security was another layer of protection, soldiers or Marines in medium powered
armor.  She didn’t know who the man was, only that he must have been
someone very important.

“That’s him,”
said a woman, pointing a finger at the man.  “That’s the Emperor.”

New Moscow was a
kingdom, an Empire in all but name, and unlike the Republic, people knew how to
respond to those of higher class.  While not as subservient as the
citizens of ancient Empires, they still engaged in the protocols.  Now
tens of thousands of people took a knee and bowed their heads in respect for
the Monarch.  He may not have been their ruler.  In fact, they didn’t
know if they still had a ruler.  He was, however, the ruler who had
ordered his military to free them from certain death.

People started
to shout at the man, thank you, bless you, other acknowledgements of
thanks.  Cat took a knee with them, looking down at the ground, feeling
the tears flowing from her eyes.  Everyone around her was cheering, but
she could not find the voice to say anything.  She wasn’t sure how long
she was down there, until she realized someone was standing over her, looking
down at her.

Cat looked up,
her eyes widening as she saw who it was.  Blue eyes in a tan face looked
down on her, a warm smile stretching his lips.

“And who are
you, child?” he asked, holding out his hand to help her to her feet.

“I am Cat, your,
your Majesty,” said Cat.

“I like
cats.  They’re one of my favorite animals.”  The man looked around a
bit, then back down at the child.  “Where are your parents, Cat?”

A small woman
standing beside the man aimed a flat comp at her, looking at the screen. 
She moved closer to the Emperor and whispered in his ear.

“I am so
sorry.  But we will get the Cacas back.  Believe me.”

She did believe
the man.  She wasn’t sure why.  She had seen the power of the
Ca’cadasans, who had crushed the pride of the Czar’s military without
effort.  But for some reason she believed that the military of this man
would return the favor on the hated aliens.

What looked sort
of like a man on a horse approached at a trot, the refugees hurrying out of its
way.  She realized that it was not a human, but some kind of scale covered
alien with a large snout full of teeth.  It wore a naval uniform fitted to
its form.

“Your Majesty,”
said the creature in a rumbling voice, bowing.

“Yes,
Commodore.”

“We’re
processing these people as fast as possible, but many of them are coming
through in worse shape than we thought.”

“I understand,
Doc,” said the Emperor, and Cat noticed the emblems of medical corps on the being’s
collar.  “Just make sure they aren’t going to die of something
unrecoverable.  If they’re too sick to move, put them in cryo and get them
out of here, so we can keep bringing them in.”

“Yes, sir. 
We’ve found quarters for about a million of them in the city, but we’ll have
ship most of them to other venues.”

Cat couldn’t
stop staring at the creature.  She thought that if the Emperor had
creatures like these in his military, beings larger even than the Cacas, he
couldn’t lose.

“What’s going to
happen to me?” asked Cat, reaching up and taking the Emperor’s hand.

“What do you
want to happen to you?”

“I want to grow
up to fight the things that killed my parents.”

“Then that is
what you will do.  But first you need to grow up, and learn to be an
adult.”

The Emperor
patted Cat on the head, then walked on, leaving her to stand there on the
field, the huge Commodore looking down at her.

“Come with me,
child,” said the Commodore.  “We are gathering the children without
parents in the city.  We’ll get you a family to stay with, until we can
figure out something permanent.”

“You need to
walk slow, sir,” said Cat, fascinated with the immense size of the being.

“I’ll do you one
better, child,” said the creature.  “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“A couple of
times.”

The being knelt
down on both sets of legs, grabbed her with his arms, lifting her onto his
back.  “Hold on tight,” he said, and started off at a trot.

For the first
time in months Cat finally felt safe.

*    
*     *

SECTOR IV.

Sean watched the
Commodore in charge of Sector IV Fleet Medical go trotting off with the child
he had just met seated on his back like he was a horse.  He smiled at the
sight.  Phlistarans loved children, even those not of their own
species.  They were consummate parents.  So he wasn’t too surprised
that the flag officer was playing horsey with a parentless child.

He had a thought
while watching them recede into the distance.  A lot of people had said
that an assault by Phlistaran infantry was synonymous with an old time cavalry charge. 
Now he started thinking about new possibilities. 
Probably wouldn’t
work, but it’s worth kicking over to Army Command.

“This is
probably the only part of the operation going according to plan,” said Rear
Admiral Jacob Coker, the Fleet Commander in charge of this stage of the
evacuation.  Ten of the gates on New Moscow led to this world, the
developing planet of Hang Dou, a world with almost two hundred million people
living on it.  The Army had staged out of here, all of the Rangers and a
brigade of the heavy infantry.   It was planned for a hundred and
fifty million of the refugees to evacuate to here, which would put some strain
on the food and medical systems of the planet, not to say the available
shelter.

There were
superfreighters in orbit  filled with millions of tons of food. 
Twelve medical battalions were on the surface, augmented by a hospital
ship.  And every large venue on the planet had been converted to temporary
quarters, while the semi-permanent structures used for military deployments had
been placed within kilometers of each gate.

“I think the
reason for that is that the evacuation has not gone as planned,” said Major
General Carla Manuel, the liaison for the Army.  “Not meaning any
disrespect, Admiral, but if as many people as we thought were coming through we
would be swamped right now.”

“No blame on
anyone,” said Sean, looking from one officer to the other.  “Nothing like
this has ever been attempted before, definitely not on this scale.”

“But, if we
don’t get them all off the planet fast enough, and the Cacas take it back,”
said Coker, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“That is not
going to happen,” said the Emperor, patting the Admiral on the back.  “No matter
what it takes, we are going to get those people to safety.  They’ve been
through enough.”

Sean looked back
over the field, at the wormhole that was still transiting almost a score of
people every five seconds, and the mass of people moving away from it in a
semi-orderly fashion. Most of them were still confused, though he thought
relief must have been the dominant emotion. 
I will get you out of this
,
thought Sean, standing there and watching the evacuation. 
That I
promise, on my crown and my throne.

*    
*     *

PLANET NEW MOSCOW.

“I need you to
get two platoons of your people over to the southeast perimeter,” said the
voice of the Ranger Colonel over her com.

Captain Stella
Artois grimaced as she looked at the location the Colonel was ordering her to
go.  Or at least two of her platoons. 
Not that I would let over
half my command go there without my presence
, she thought.

“I already have
a squad in that area reinforcing their fortifications.  Do you want us to
fortify them to an even greater extent?”

“No,
Captain.  Captain Walborski’s company is about to get rolled over by the
enemy.  I need your people to act as heavy infantry and reinforce
them.  I’ve sent everything I can to them, but it probably won’t be
enough.”  The man on the other end of the com coughed.  “I don’t have
time to debate this with you Captain.  You have your orders.  Now
follow them.”

The com went
dead, and with it any hope Stella had of questioning the Colonel.  He was
correct.  She was under his command, as were her people.  All had
been trained as heavy infantry before attending engineering training.  And
all knew that they could be called upon to fulfill that function again.

She made an
immediate decision on which two platoons would go.  She wanted them to
come back, so it only made sense to send two that were at full strength. 
And her command section as well.  That would give her just over a hundred
troopers, all in heavy armor, many with heavy weapons.  She sent out the
orders, indicating a rally point.  The Colonel hadn’t said that the attack
was in progress, only that it was imminent.  If she was going to lead her
people into battle, she wanted them deploying as a unit, and not fed in
piecemeal.  That done, she lifted her suit five meters into the air and flew
over the heads of the civilians that were flowing toward the lift shafts so
they could get out of the line of fire.

*    
*     *

“We have
movement,” said one of the tank commanders over the com, their sensors linked
into the drones and ground units they had recently deployed.  “Estimate
nine hundred hostiles, including fifteen large contacts, most probably mecha.”