Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front Read online

  Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

  Winston Churchill.

  NEW MOSCOW SPACE APRIL 14TH, 1002.

  Captain Vladimir Schmidt stared at the holo, set to the space a quarter light hour out from the planet of New Moscow. His death was on that holo in the form of the Ca’cadasan fleet that was heading right at him. And all he had was one battered old battleship, no missiles and only half his beam weapons. Sevastopol had been battered in the battle of the New Moscow orbit. He had lost two thirds of his crew, dead or injured, and the ship could barely make fifty gravities.

  His was not the only Czar’s ship in orbit. In fact, every New Moscow Navy vessel that had participated in this part of the system fight had stayed in orbit. Every captain, including Schmidt, had given their functioning crew the option of leaving their ships and transferring other allied vessels. None had taken advantage of the offer. The Spacers and Marines of New Moscow were still trying to live down the shame of their crime of surviving the coming of the Cacas, and they were not about to abandon their people again.

  “They’ll be here in a little over three hours, sir,” said the Tactical Officer, standing behind his Captain’s chair while techs worked on his station.

  “Any chance of using the plasma torpedoes?” asked Schmidt of his officer. Three of the four plasma torpedo projectors were still functional, one forward, two aft.

  “They will probably start firing their beam weapons at us from a light minute out,” said the Tactical Officer with a shake of his head. “We won’t be able to hit them with the torpedoes until they’re within two light seconds.”

  Schmidt nodded. The Cacas would open fire with their beam weapons at about eighteen million kilometers, while the plasma torpedoes couldn’t strike until their targets were within six hundred thousand kilometers. And with the weight of energy that would be coming in, he doubted they would have a ship to house the torpedo launchers by the time the enemy was within range.

  “I want every beam weapon we have concentrated on one of their superbattleships as soon as we’re within firing range,” he told the Tactical Officer. He figured he’d get at least one more strike in for his people before he was completely rolled over.

  * * *

  “Come on,” whispered Fleet Admiral Jerry Kelvin as he looked at the pair of holos hanging in the air before his chair. One showed the New Moscow system, and the forces arrayed in the space around that star. His own immediate force, the one under his direct control, was the second smallest on the plot. Most of his force had not survived the series of battles he had put them through. His own flagship, the super heavy battleship Constance the Great, had been battered, but survived. That was due to it being the largest, most heavily protected class of ship in the system. The same could not be said for the great majority of the other ships in his command, and even one of Constance’s sisters had been destroyed in the running battle.

  Jerry felt the crushing burden of guilt from those losses, from ordering other ships into situations where they couldn’t possibly survive, while not putting his life at the same level of risk. Part of his job was keeping himself and his command staff alive, so they could command. That wasn’t the primary consideration, but it was a consideration.

  Kelvin dismissed that thought as he looked at the second holo, the one that showed space out to one light year from the primary. And the swarm of ships that were on approach. They would have gotten to the planet in a day and a half at least time transit, thought the Fleet Admiral, a feeling of accomplishment rising in him. Not accomplishment for himself, but for the men, women and aliens under his command. They had stretched that day and a half, doubled it, by making the enemy cautious, always on the lookout for some trap, even when there wasn’t one. And now that enemy was going to pay or his caution.

  They still might hit the planet, though, not to mention those New Muscovite ships in orbit. And then we’ll have fought and died for nothing.

  * * *

  High Admiral Leshilan’tra Marsharaten stared at the planet on the holo with hate. He knew he wasn’t supposed to lay waste to the entire planet, only kill the humans infesting the surface, something his people had been trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, he would not be harvesting them, and their protein would be wasted.

  “Three hours to orbital insertion,” called out the Navigation Officer.

  And nothing to stop us, thought the High Admiral, who had the command of the fleet shoved into his own four hands when the flagship was converted to vapor. The second in command was also killed when his ship intercepted another of the unseen missiles that had come in at an impossible velocity. And the fleet, a larger command than he was really prepared to handle, became his.

  The plot showed the enemy force that was still in the system, mostly concentrated in three large and one small concentration. There were about a thousand ships total, while he still had twenty-four hundred vessels after the three day running battle and exchange of missiles at long range. The enemy had sent swarms from different directions, and then had come the impossible small attack craft that had come out of nowhere, much like the missiles. They had not only swept in and hit from out of nowhere, but they had disappeared into nowhere as soon as they passed. And they had come back, again and again, though only the first attack had really hurt him. What they had done was make him more cautious, not sure what was going to appear next and cause him more worries.

  There were only a score or so of ships in orbit, and they were not going anywhere, which made him have to ask why? He couldn’t imagine that they thought they could stop him, or even slow him down.

  “Can we sweep those ships out of the way?” he asked his Tactical Officer.

  “With missiles? They haven’t fired at us with missiles for the last hour, and I’m thinking they are out. It might be better to just come in close and hit them with beam weapons.”

  “I agree. We’ll…”

  “We’re picking up ships in hyper, my Lord,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Resonances match human vessels.”

  “How many?”

  “Over a thousand, my Lord. More. More appearing.”

  “Do you have a plot of them?” asked the High Admiral.

  A moment later the plot appeared, showing the enemy force as a mass of vector arrows coasting at point three light as they approached the hyper V barrier. There were at least a thousand ships, and the counter went up every second, until it hit two thousand, still rising with no end in sight.

  “Find us a way out of here,” yelled the High Admiral, almost panicking. There were now three thousand ships on that plot, and it didn’t look like they had gotten to the end of the enemy fleet. Translation emissions had started coming in from the front of that force as they moved from down to IV.

  “We should be able to handle that force as well, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer. “We still outmass them, and we have the better ships.”

  The High Admiral thought about that for a moment. After seeing both the missiles that appeared out of nowhere and the attack fighters than appeared and disappeared, he wasn’t so sure about that last point.

  “You heard my orders,” said the High Admiral. “The fleet is to change its vector until we are on a heading out of the system, away from that other force. We will fight our way out, so that we can bring this news back to sector headquarters.”

  “And the ships in orbit,” said the Tactical Officer, his eyes on the floor so that his look wouldn’t offend his superior any more than his tone was sure to. “Perhaps we can send some missiles in to take them out.”

  “We’ll need them to get out of here,” said the High Admiral, giving a head motion of negation. “Just get us out of here, now.”

  The bridge officers all acknowledged, and the orders were sent out to the fleet, which immediately went to five hundred gravities acceleration at an angle that would curve them away from the planet and eventu
ally onto a course that would take them out of the system, away from the new force moving in. The enemy ships kept coming, until there were over four thousand of them. His force still outmassed them, barely, but he didn’t have the confidence to beat them.

  * * *

  “The enemy is changing their vector, Vladimir,” said Commodore Sheila Stepanowski over the com.

  “Yes, ma’am,” agreed Captain Vladimir Schmidt, looking at the plot that was showing the main New Terran Empire battle fleet coming in, close to the same image he was sure the Cacas were seeing on their own holos. But they weren’t seeing everything, and in about two hours the next part of the surprise would appear.

  “Any missile trace?” asked Schmidt of his own Tactical Officer. That was the only danger now, that the Cacas would send a wave of missiles their way. It really wouldn’t take much of a wave to take them out, and kill everything on the surface of the planet.

  “None, sir,” replied the officer, a worried expression on his face.

  The Captain knew that the enemy could always send missiles their way at any time. It seemed that the Commodore had known what she was talking about when she said they wouldn’t waste the weapons on them.

  “We’ve won, Vladimir,” said the Commodore on the com. “Our kingdom is saved.”

  Schmidt wasn’t sure about that. But the future was looking much better at this point.

  * * *

  Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski checked the central holo plot as his flagship, the superbattleship Anastasia Romanov, translated back into normal space. The translation nausea hit him like a fist to the stomach, and he barely controlled his gut, preventing the vomit from rising up his esophagus. He was normally an easy translator, and the series of hammer blows that had hit him this time in, as the twenty million ton warship had negotiated each level of hyper, had come as a surprise. Must have been the stress of the radiation on my body, he thought, glancing around and seeing even the younger people having a hard time handling the dimensional jump.

  As far as medical could tell, they were all doing well from the repair of their cellular structure, but it might be weeks before they actually felt up to par. What was important now was they had made it to the system, in working ships, before the planet could be attacked.

  “All targets locked on,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer in a croaking voice.

  “All ships may open fire when ready,” ordered Len, trying to keep his voice steady. “Four volleys.”

  The ship bucked slightly as its acceleration tubes shot the missiles out of the vessel. The green vector arrows of thousands of missiles appeared, the number ever increasing as the two thousand capital ships and heavy cruisers in the force fired, until over a hundred and fifty thousand weapons were in space, accelerating toward the enemy force, or to where the enemy force would be by the time they got there. It was an overwhelming swarm, but not one he expected would wipe out the fleet. If he took out half of it, he would be happy, as long as the other ships also sustained some damage.

  The enemy ships had a one and three quarter light hour trip to the barrier, which they would reach, including the time it took them to change their vectors and head outward, in a day and a half. The missiles had over three light hours to get to intercept range, which they would achieve in a little over twelve hours. There was no way the enemy force could escape the missile swarm. They would be forced to fight it, and they would be hurt badly doing so.

  “The support ships and their escorts will boost on a least time profile to the planet,” he ordered his Com Officer. “Battle force is to go into a pursuit profile of the enemy force. Let’s see if we can keep them going the way we want them to go.”

  * * *

  “Felicia has found some, Captain,” said Staff Sergeant Mika Jefferson, his eyes closed as he linked with his superjaguar. “She counts twelve of the creatures.”

  “Where are the other jags?” asked Walborski, waving for the rest of his team to gather round.

  “Drago is also on site, keeping watch on the Cacas,” said the Handler. “Caesar is sweeping the area, looking for other Cacas.”

  “We’re moving out,” Cornelius told the fourteen Rangers on is hunting team. “Sergeant Jefferson. If you would lead the way.”

  The Handler nodded and moved out of the clearing they had all gathered in, into the thick jungle. One of the superjaguars, Monica, was waiting for them, its super heightened senses making sure that nothing in this jungle full of predators was sneaking into an ambush. Cornelius caught the merest glimpse of the fast moving creature as its coat blended in perfectly with the shadowed jungle, making it all but invisible.

  It took an hour for the Rangers to cover the distance, moving like shadows themselves, their ghillie suits blending them in with the jungle, if not as well as the cats, then well enough. Jefferies linked his take from his cat into the com link of the Captain, letting him take a look at the Cacas they were observing.

  The colors were a little strange, but not what he would have expected from the eyes of a cat. It took him a second to realize that the colors were a mix of the visual spectrum and infrared, that the cat not only had the most perfect light gathering night vision that man could formulate, but also heat sensing sight. He saw the twelve Cacas gathered in a small clearing. They were definitely a mixed bag. There were two in heavy battle armor, four in some kind of light armor, and six who were in the light uniforms they tended to wear when not at battle stations or when they were in garrison on a planet. Walborski thought they must have been Caca soldiers who had discarded their armor. That was not surprising. What was surprising was that any were still in armor, a week after they had been defeated on the ground. There must not have been a lot of power left in those suits.

  Walborski sent the image of what he had seen through his com to his men. “Take out the ones I’ve marked with fire. I want these two alive. Or, maybe I should say, General Baggett wants prisoners. I‘d prefer for them all to become food for whatever comes along after they start rotting.”

  He received the acknowledgements from his men, and the team moved in, taking great care to move as silently as possible. The breeze rustling through the leaves made more noise than his team combined. They moved into position and got their targets in sight.

  A warbling call through the forest sounded, carrying. All of the Cacas looked up with a start. For ten of them that was the last move they would ever make in life. Rifles phutted through silencers, putting one killing round into four of the unarmored Cacas, the ones with armor receiving multiple shape charge penetrators that killed them instantly.

  The two who were not shot had varied reactions. One froze in place, while the other jumped to his feet and ran into the jungle. The one that froze was swarmed over by a quartet of Rangers, while the other took off as fast as he could run. Right into his worst nightmare.

  “Stop,” yelled Cornelius in Ca’cadasan, one of the hundred or so words he had picked up. He held his rifle pointed down, trying to resist the temptation of shooting the creature. The Caca must have thought he could overpower the human, and he swatted at the rifle with two left hands while his lower right member pulled a monomolecular knife from a sheath.

  Cornelius moved his rifle out of the way, tossing it aside and going into overdrive. He blocked the knife hand with his left, then sent a right cross into the lower shoulder of the Caca, rocking him on his feet. He got in two more punches, these to the ribs, before the Caca could react and try to bring the blade back in. Again he blocked that hand, this time with both of his, and grabbed onto the forearm. The Caca hit Walborski in the head with his right upper hand, then opened his mouth in a shriek as the Ranger twisted the lower arm, pulled it down hard, and snapped it over his rising knee.

  Walborski stepped back, his eyes continually on the Caca, who had dropped his knife and was cradling his right lower arm with his left. He wanted to finish this fast. The creature had triple his weight, and was three times stronger than a normal human. It had th
e advantage of four upper limbs plus the legs. Or it did, until Cornelius had broken the elbow joint of one of those arms. It didn’t have Cornelius’ speed, and he was much faster. He had also been studying Kenpo Karate as his chosen martial art, and one of the Grand Masters of the form had been adapting it for combat against aliens, including Cacas. Part of his training had included Ca’cadasan anatomy, so he would know where to rain his blows.

  The Caca growled and stepped forward, bringing both upper arms down in strikes to his head. Cornelius leaned back out of the way while his right foot came up and chambered, then snapped out in an abdominal level side kick. His foot came back to chamber, and he stepped down and in, his hands snapping into a combination; solar plexus, two to the ribs, one to the sternum, then back to the ribs and following with the solar plexus again; six blows in a little over a second, blurring with speed and rocking the Caca with power. The creature grunted in pain, its eyes closing for a moment, giving Cornelius the opening he needed for a jump round kick to the head.

  The Caca staggered back, shaking his head, then roaring in anger. Cornelius was sure he could kill this creature with his hands, but that was not the mission. He set his feet, throwing another side kick into the solar plexus, placing his foot and turning into one of the most powerful kicks in his repertoire, the back spinning side kick. His foot lifted the creature off the ground, and he continued the turn to take a step forward.

  Two other Rangers came from behind and jumped on the Caca, overpowering the injured, hacking creature. Walborski was almost disappointed that this opponent had been taken out by his men, but he nodded and smiled to them.

  “You’re one of the lucky ones,” he told the Caca in its own language. “For now.”

  * * *

  The High Admiral sat in his command chair on his bridge almost in shock. He still had a powerful force around him. Only a third of what it had been when he had been on approach of the planet, only twenty-nine hours before. In eight hours they would be crossing the hyper barrier, and were in the process of decelerating so they would be at the proper velocity for translation when they crossed that line.