Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution Read online

  Exodus: Machine War:

  Book 4:

  Retribution.

  by

  Doug Dandridge

  Dedication

  This novel is dedicated to all the team of Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey and their Revelations Cycle series, which is breaking new ground. I am in the anthology, A Fistfull of Credits, released at LibertyCon, and was proud to be a part of this endeavor.

  Contact me at [email protected]

  Follow my Blog at http://dougdandridge.com

  Follow me at @BrotherofCats

  Copyright © 2017 Doug Dandridge

  All rights reserved.

  Please respect the hard work of this author. If you found this book for free on a pirate site, please visit Amazon and buy a copy of your own. I feel that I charge a reasonable price for this work. I would also like to thank Ruth de Jauregui for the wonderful job she has done lettering my books.

  For more information on the Exodus Universe, visit http://dougdandridge.net for maps, sketches and other details of this work.

  Books by Doug Dandridge

  Doug Dandridge’s Author Page at Amazon

  Science Fiction

  The Exodus Series

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4: the Long Fall.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:

  Exodus: Empires at War Book 8: Soldiers

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12: Time Strike.

  Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:

  Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Beast of the Frontier.

  Exodus: Machine Wars: Book 1: Supernova.

  Exodus: Machine Wars: Book 2: Bolthole.

  Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above.

  The Deep Dark Well Series

  The Deep Dark Well

  To Well and Back

  Deeper and Darker

  Theocracy

  Others

  The Shadows of the Multiverse

  Diamonds in the Sand

  The Scorpion

  Afterlife

  We Are Death, Come for You

  Five By Five 3: Target Zone:

  A Fistfull of Credits Anthology.

  Lockdown: Zombie Anthology.

  Fantasy

  The Refuge Series

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

  Refuge: Book 3: The Legions

  Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:

  Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

  Others

  The Hunger

  Daemon

  Aura

  Marathon

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  Prologue

  The AI had miscalculated. If it had feelings it would now doubt its abilities. Since it didn’t, it still was certain that its calculations were correct, and always would be. But only if it had been given the correct data. It had calculated that it would be able to destroy the creators, the humans. But it had not held three vital pieces of data about their capabilities. It had not known they could achieve hyper VII, a dimension which at the time of its attack none of its ships could reach. It had not known of the human wormholes, which had been used to transport forces great distances in an instant, as well as launch missiles traveling at fantastic speed that were almost untraceable. And it had known nothing of their faster than light fighters, and the incredibly powerful weapons they could deploy. All had come as a surprise, and all had contributed to the human victory. Now it had the secret of hyper VII, and could probably make wormholes if it had the resources to do so, which it didn’t at the moment. The faster than light fighters were still beyond it, and it didn’t think it would puzzle out their secret without a capture, which was unlikely.

  The situation had changed, and the information coming in was indicating that things would not get any better in the near term. Maybe if it could weather the coming storm it could battle back and win a victory. Maybe not. But defeatism was also emotionally based, and so was not a part of its programming.

  The signals kept coming in from the scattered units of the Machine fleet. Here a bit of grav pulse code from vessels not capable of sending more than simple messages. There a more complete message from a more capable platform. The Central AI gained almost the same information from all the transmissions, sparse and detailed. The human ships were on the move into Machine space. Small groups of their hyper VII ships, hundreds in all, scouting, striking at targets of opportunity, and there was very little the hyper VI machines could do about it. The AI was in the process of retrofitting some of its extant ships to VII standard, but it would be some weeks before the first were ready, and it would still be heavily outnumbered in that dimension.

  To make matters worse, the main human fleet of hyper VI ships were moving out from their two known systems. Several thousand vessels, many of which had to be equipped with their wormhole weapons, were on the move. It had no idea how many of their faster than light warp fighters were embarked on that fleet, but it could be thousands. The AI didn’t panic at this news. That was an emotionally driven response, one that was impossible for any of the machines. All it could do was look at the forces coming toward it, to the best of its knowledge, and go through its own order of battle to see what moves it could make. It could estimate the total enemy capabilities based on what the enemy had done in the past, but could not guess at what new surprises they might spring. That took imagination, something else the Machines were totally devoid of.

  Still, it could make its dispositions and plan its contingencies. Not all of its systems would be defended. Some units would remain in those systems determined to be expendable, mostly the base defense and industrial units that could not be moved. They would be sacrificed to take advantage of the enemy’s attention, and hopefully cause damage to the human fleet. Meanwhile, the bulk of the forces would be brought back to the half dozen industrial systems thought to be of greatest importance, there to fight the battles of attrition that could weaken the enemy enough to increase the odds of winning the final battle. That battle would be fought in this system, if it came to that.

  The final contingency was also set in place. A score of ships were being prepared to flee, each in a different direction, to carry the essence of the Machines to other locations, some within the Galaxy, some outside of it. If the AI had been human it would have railed over the fact that it had failed in this attempt, after so much time and effort had been put into it. It would not regret. It would do all that it could, which was to continue to fight, while making sure that its mission would go on into the future. And, per its calculations, there was still a chance of victory in this time and place. And with that in mind it prepared one final strike force, to attack the other intelligence in the area. If it could use that attack to pull some of the human force out of its own territory, so much the better. And if the humans didn’t bite, it could at least destroy one more technologically advanced space faring species. That in and of itself was worth the effort.

  * * *

  “We need your technology, female,” said Hraston Gonoras, the supreme dictator of the Gorgansha People.

  And my title is not female, thought Rear
Admiral Natasha Khrushchev, trying to hold her temper in check. It wouldn’t be a good idea to piss this being off, especially since she and her diplomatic team were on the planet, basically at the mercy of the dictator. Her ships were in far orbit, at a range where they could detect any attack on them in time to defend. She was sure her battle cruiser could destroy fifty times its mass in the less advanced warships of this species before it was destroyed. The point was, she was not here to start a war with these people, as enjoyable as that might be, considering their attitudes. She was here, at the orders of her Emperor, to bring them into an alliance against the Machines. While it was true that Admiral Bednarczyk was on the move, and probably had enough force to destroy the Machines, though most likely at a high cost to the Empire, she didn’t have enough ships to patrol every possible escape vector from Machine space. The Gorgansha fleet would prove to be very helpful in that regard. As far as Natasha was concerned, the alien fleet could provide all the targets the Machines could fire at, using all of their offensive weapons so the human force could take them with ease. Command would probably veto that idea, but it was nice to dream.

  “And my Emperor has said that we are to help you increase your tech base,” said the admiral. “But that doesn’t include everything in our tech base. Our engineers are willing to give you enough to improve your fleet. Over time, as we develop more trust, we will give you more.”

  “You do not trust us, female?” growled the dictator through the translator. The being looked angry, but then they always looked angry. Based on what she knew of his culture, he was probably thinking of horrible ways to torture her and her diplomatic team. And then he wouldn’t be getting any of the tech he desired.

  “It is the policy of my Empire to not gift new contacts with more than we are sure they can handle.” She watched the trinocular gaze of the being narrow as she raised her hand. “From what we have learned of you, I am sure you can be trusted.” To do what’s right as long as you need to, to get our tech. Then to stab us in the back. “I am sure that your people will prove to be deserving of everything we can give you.” And what I would like to give you is a ship killer missile right on top of your palace. “But I am helpless to change policy, which is made by those who do not know your people the way I do.” And if they did, they would sure as hell not give you anything.

  It wasn’t as if she thought all of the people of the Gorgansha race were evil. No, she was sure that the average peasant of this feudal society was no better or worse than any other such downtrodden people. As far as she could tell, the overlords were evil. She didn’t know much about the slave races they held. Since the overlords had found out that the Empire didn’t hold slaves, and didn’t subjugate their alien members, they had insisted on keeping the humans away from those people. Didn’t want them to get ideas, obviously.

  “Very well, female,” said the supreme dictator. “We will do it the way your masters demand.”

  Yes, we will, thought Natasha with a smile. That was the only way they would get tech, unless they tried to take her ships, and she didn’t think that would work for them. No, they would get the tech. And then, when the war with the Machines was over, and they had to take down these expansionist bastards, it would become a much more difficult proposition. Not impossible, not even that difficult given the disparity of forces. But it would cost the Empire much more to take them down at that point.

  Chapter One

  If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it. Michel de Montaigne

  EDGE OF MACHINE SPACE: AUGUST 9TH, 1002.

  Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk stared at the large holo tank in the center of the flag bridge. By the magic of holography it appeared to stretch for hundreds of meters. Any ship she had was on that plot, linked in real time through wormholes or Klassekian com techs. It was a technological edge she couldn’t have imagined when she was a task group commander. In those days, she would be lucky if the scouts she sent out could actually find her to report. And sometimes they didn’t come back, and she never found out what had happened to them.

  I only wish I was so sure of all the enemy positions, she thought, scowling. She knew where a lot of them were, or at least the systems they were in. But not all. The Machines could have robotic ships in any of a million systems, in an expanse as large as any sector of the Empire. She could send ships into some of those systems, but not all. And Machines could lie doggo in the systems she did scout, waiting for the human vessels to leave. She didn’t have the ships or the time to thoroughly sweep systems she wasn’t absolutely sure of. And the clock was ticking.

  Why the hell did that boy have to put me on a timetable like he did? she thought. She knew why. This was a tertiary front. It was of primary importance to the people out here, particularly to those species who were in the crosshairs of the Machines. Their very existence was at stake. The humans felt responsible for their situation, since the Machines originally came from human minds. Still, in the overall scheme of things this front could not be as important as the primary and secondary ones where humanity was under assault. But this was her front, and currently she thought she had the resources to win here, but it could all be taken away at any moment.

  There were a couple of problems that she had that the commanders facing the Cacas didn’t have to deal with. For one thing, in the history of interstellar warfare, it wasn’t often that the opponent had to be totally exterminated in order to win. If some got away into the dark of space it really wouldn’t matter, at least for quite some time. Of course, that hadn’t been true with humanity, but if the Cacas hadn’t been so set of wiping out her species, they probably would have become another slave race, and not established themselves as an empire thousands of light years away. Out here, if one Machine got away, they would probably establish themselves in another part of the Galaxy, and unlike most organic creatures, they could reproduce at a geometric rate, and become a menace in almost no time.

  And there were millions of systems in this sector of space, which consisted of billions of cubic light years. Machines didn’t have the limitations of organics. They didn’t need life support, heat and atmospheric processing. They could lie hidden in systems, powered down completely, undetectable, only running a couple of passive sensors and a small portion of their central computer. Since there was no way to sneak up on anyone through hyper, the Machines would always know they were coming.

  Even if I had the entire Fleet out here, I couldn’t cover all the bases, she thought. The best she could do would be to smash their industrial base and send the Machines running. But those were not her orders. They were to kill all the Machines, to not let any of them escape. And as impossible as those orders were, linked as they were to the impossible situation, she was determined to do it.

  “One of our scouts has found another enemy system, ma’am,” called out one of the many com techs manning the boards of the flag bridge. “They’re far enough out that they think the enemy doesn’t know they are there.”

  The admiral walked quickly over to that station, looking over the shoulder of the tech, who knew better than to stop working her board. Beata was a stickler for discipline, but not at the expense of what was truly important, doing the job. If someone was engaged in a vital task, they were to ignore their superior officers, maybe acknowledging their presence if possible.

  “Are they using the subspace probes?” asked the admiral.

  “Yes, ma’am,” agreed the tech with a smile. “Snuck them right in and into normal space. The Machines are still working their ore beds in the asteroids.”

  The holo over the com board showed what the tech was talking about. Heat sources out in the asteroids, some denoting ore processing, others, even brighter, what could be shipyards.

  “Force commander is reporting launch.”

  Beata nodded. She wouldn’t be able to see that launch, since it was coming out of
a wormhole on a battlecruiser, the flag of the small force. Thirty missiles were on the way, all running silent from twelve light hours outside the barrier. At point nine-five light they would arrive on target in just under fifteen hours, driving past the barrier and into normal space, right to where the enemy installation would be by that time. When they were about ten light seconds from the target they would engage their drives and adjust their courses, heading into the targets, striking with powerful warheads and the mass of kinetic energy they carried. The battlecruiser adjusted its aiming point and sent off another stream at a second grouping of industrial targets. Then another, making sure that all of the potential targets were serviced.

  “What’s their next destination?” asked the admiral.

  The holo over the board changed, showing a small sector of the region, and another nearby star. It wouldn’t help to send the scouting force into the current system, since they might be facing heavy odds, and she couldn’t afford fights like that. Their job was to take out Machine industry, to destroy their ability to make good their losses. And to take on their major forces with heavy battle groups.

  The admiral cursed under her breath and shook her head, turning and walking back to the central plot. It was like trying to single handedly stomp out a forest fire. For every fire she put out another couple sprung into life.

  I need those new allies, she thought. She hadn’t liked what she had heard about the Gorgansha, but at the moment she didn’t care if they stunk like shit and left slime trails on every surface. They had ships and crews, and they could be of use in scouting the numerous systems the Machines could be hiding in. And if they took heavy losses? Well, that was war. And since they were so repulsive of habit, it wouldn’t break her heart if they died in the place of her people.

  “We have a major action developing, ma’am,” said another of the techs.

  “Where? Who?” asked Beata, turning and walking quickly to that station.