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  The bunker shook with some kind of powerful if distant impact. The rumblings seemed to go on longer than could be accounted for by a single kinetic.

  “Sir,” yelled one of the techs in a panicked shout. “The Cacas just took out all of our jammers with kinetics.”

  “How in the hell did they…?”

  He wasn’t able to finish the sentence as more impacts bounced the bunker. The Cacas had taken out their jammers, all but the microdrones still in flight, and those by themselves were not enough to stop them from getting a good look.

  “Everyone into your armor, now,” he ordered.

  Most of the people moved, getting to where their suits were standing, open and waiting. Each trooper got in and closed it up, giving them the best protection they could get. Some people were slow to move, sticking by their consoles, trying to get more information. It was a commendable decision, and a very stupid one. One young woman paid the price as part of the rock ceiling came down to crush her at her station.

  “Get your asses into your armor,” yelled Baggett, grabbing one tech by the shoulder and pulling the man out of the chair, pushing him toward the suits.

  “And get your ass in yours, sir,” said the sergeant major, stomping up in his suit. Another tremor shook the bunker, and another piece of ceiling came down. Baggett was directly underneath, and only had a fraction of a second to realize he was dead. The sergeant major stepped in and pushed the falling block of masonry away before it could strike.

  “Thanks, Top.”

  “Get your ass in your suit, sir. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  Baggett nodded and ran to his suit, stepping back into it and ordering it to close with his implant. He could imagine other people it would hurt more to lose at the moment. But the sergeant major was correct. Getting himself killed because of stupidity wouldn’t help anyone. The suit closed up around him, the nanites in the alloy sealing him in, obliterating the seams and making it a solid piece of armor. It also meant that if he lost power he was in trouble, since he wouldn’t be able to open the suit again until someone got energy to him. That was the tradeoff.

  “We’re being hit all along the front, sir,” said one of the techs, linked into the tactical system through her suit. “The little bastards are coming in under the covering fire of the big sons of bitches up above.”

  “We need to get more jammers online,” he ordered, and was gratified to see that his people got right on it. No panic here, despite almost getting crushed.

  And the smart bastards waited till they had all of our jammers plotted before they fired, he thought. Next time he would have the backups ready to come online if they took out the primaries. If there was a next time.

  * * *

  “We have a formation coming within range, sir. What do you want us to do?”

  Commodore Bryce Suttler stared at the plot that appeared beside the image of the ship captain he was talking with. He had been promoted out of commanding one of the stealth ships, though at the moment he wished he was in the place of the young woman commanding the Grampus. His odds of surviving this war might have gone down considerably, but then again, he wouldn’t feel the guilt that was about to hit him in the face.

  The plot showed eleven ships on a least time profile for the planet. Three troop transports, a quartet of freighters, and four escorts, including one of the Caca supercruisers. There was no way that Grampus could take them all out. No one could be that lucky. But the mission called for the ship to take out as many as possible. It had been waiting in place for some time for just this opportunity. In the cold calculations of war the cost of that ship and crew would be worth less than half of that convoy.

  “I want you to take as many of them out as you can, Commander. One launch, then get your ass out of there.”

  The commander turned away from the holo for a moment, shouting out orders. Suttler could imagine what was going on in that ship. Everything they could do without was being powered down. The center of their stealth capability, the wormhole that syphoned their heat off to the sink back at the Donut, would start moving up the conduit leading to the front of the ship, where it would become the opening of the launch system. The other end would also be in motion, transferring from the heat sink to one of the launch tubes in the new structure that had been created just for this kind of attack. The new heat sink in the ship, a twenty meter wide globe containing a hunk of ice at near absolute zero, would now channel the heat of the craft. It was a working solution, but only for thirty minutes or less. After that the ship would be radiating heat energy, still not much, but enough for sensitive instruments to detect. Enough to doom them.

  It would have been nice if they had enough warp missiles to do the job. Unfortunately, Grampus was out, and the missiles were in short supply. There were none available from depot, and the ones that would be available in a couple of days were of no use right now. So it was back to preaccelerated missiles, still deadly, but requiring the one wormhole the ship possessed.

  “Target will enter range in eleven minutes,” said the commander, turning back to the man in charge of her squadron. “Do you want us to try to get one of them with a laser hit, too.”

  The ship only carried one offensive laser weapon, a forward mount that could generate enough energy to burn through the electromag screen and armor of a cruiser class ship. It wouldn’t be enough to destroy one without a lot of luck.

  “Don’t bother. Just get your missiles off and slide away like a shadow.”

  The young lady smiled. She had a pretty face, fine features and freckles on her nose. Stella Koslowski he recalled, pulling up her file on his implant. From New Croatia, a developing world, parents still alive, two older brothers, making her the baby of the family. He knew from her record that she had graduated near the top of her class at the academy she had attended. It might not have been Peal Island, but the academy on New Detroit had turned out its share of legends. If she survived she might join their ranks. Joined the stealth service because it offered quick advancement, mostly because of the casualty rate. Suttler kept the expression from his face, the sorrow and guilt he felt about what he had ordered her to do. But without people willing to obey those orders and do that duty, this war was lost. And she had volunteered for this duty.

  Her face disappeared from the holo, leaving the tactical plot hanging alone in space. The ships came closer, the supercruiser leading, the three scouts forming a triangle around the middle. The three freighters were toward the center, the more capable troop transports around them. The missiles would be programed for individual targets. Every one would receive at least two, a few three. The stealth/attack ship would be sending the targeting programs through the wormhole, making sure each one knew what to look for. They would have less than two seconds transit time. Under the old attack system the ship would attack from less than one hundred thousand kilometers, since anything they launched would have to accelerate into the attack, and wouldn’t have much time to do it. These missiles would be coming out at point nine-five light, letting the ship launch from two light seconds distance.

  Suttler held his breath as the last seconds ticked off before the attack. At the exact moment thirty more icons appeared, the missiles coming out carrying point nine-five light, their grabbers going to full power to get them onto their designated targets. Some of the escorts got off a shot, and a couple of missiles dropped from the plot before they connected. But four freighters, three troop transports and two of the scouts dropped off the plot as well.

  “We’ve been hit,” called out the voice of the commander over the com. “The cruiser put a beam right through our engineering spaces. We..”

  The com died in midword.

  “Get them back,” shouted Suttler, feeling the dread that came with knowing someone you had just been talking to was gone.

  “The wormhole shut down on this end, sir.”

  Suttler knew what that meant. When one end of a wormhole was destroyed, the other end ceased to exist as well. Whi
ch meant that the stealth/attack ship was gone, and its crew with it.

  They had taken out an important convoy, stopping reinforcements from getting to the planet. If they were lucky those ships had carried Cacas on them and not Fenri. At least the ship crews were sure to be the big aliens. He wondered if that would make the young commander’s parents feel any better when they got the news.

  Chapter Twelve

  Don't time travel into the past, roaming through the nuances as if they can change. Don't bookmark pages you've already read. James Altucher

  DONUT SPACE. JUNE 6TH, 1003.

  “We have more ships coming in through one of the wormhole gates,” reported one of the Ancients on the bridge.

  “Bring in the human,” said the commander, watching the unusual looking ship coming through the gate.

  Jackson walked onto the bridge, wondering what they wanted from him this time. The Ancient vessel was still making its way toward the station, keeping down the acceleration to make sure it couldn’t be detected. Their stealth technology was thousands of years ahead of the Empire’s, their weapons and defensive tech must be the same level, but Jackson could see that the Ancients were not warriors. They were too cautious. But with only some thousands of them still extant, and few ships, they really couldn’t afford to take many chances.

  “Human, what species owns that vessel?”

  Jackson studied the ship for a moment. He hadn’t seen many of them, but they were very distinctive in their appearance. I wonder where they are going? he thought. There were ships coming out of one gate and heading toward another. He had to guess that the gate they were coming out of had to lead to the Elysium capital world. He had no idea where the other gate led, but if he had to guess, he would say it led to a rallying point near an active front.

  “What is going on at the front?” he asked, not really interested in answering their question, but very much so in what his people were facing.

  “Tell us what those ships are and we will tell you,” said the commander, his eyes stalks zeroing in on Jackson.

  “I thought you knew everything about this region of space.”

  “Will you answer us, or will you be returned to your quarters?”

  Jackson really didn’t want to help them, even in such a little way. But he was dying to get any information about the war, and the Ancients always kept their word.

  “Those are ships from the Elysium Empire. They are allies with my people.”

  “We thought so, but wanted to be sure. We lifted their people into space thousands of years ago. And it looks like they are not in this system to stay, but are on their way to elsewhere.”

  Jackson stared at the alien, waiting for his return on the bargain.

  “The beings you know as Ca’cadasans are attacking your empire yet again. They are pushing ships into both the human nation known as the Republic, and the empire of the Fenri.” The Ancient was silent for a moment, regarding him for a reaction. “You younger races are so foolish. Life is short enough, with nothing after, and you waste it killing each other.”

  The Ancient commander turned away, ignoring the human. Jackson felt the end of a tentacle on his shoulder and turned to look into the eyes of Klorasoft, hovering just inches from his face.

  “It is time to go, Xavier Jackson. There is nothing you can do here.”

  Jackson nodded. Nothing he could do, yet. His eyes rested on the emergency tool locker, set into the hull. The time might come, and he had to be ready for it. But that time was not now.

  * * *

  Lenkowski watched as his ships gathered again at the wormhole gates. It had been a much harder fight than the last one, and he had lost more ships. The Cacas had still gotten the worst of it, since the allied fleet had outnumbered them badly, and had the new tech. But this Caca admiral was very good at handling his fleet, and he had pulled some surprises out of his hat. And Len had to admit that he hadn’t fought his best battle either. That was a fact of life, every commander had his day, but when he had a bad day, people died who wouldn’t otherwise.

  “We’re transferring the wormholes over now, sir,” came the call over the com. “We should be ready to transit in fifteen.”

  “Thank you,” replied the admiral, watching the viewer as another ship, this one a twenty million ton superbattleship, went through the wormhole. Nine years ago that had been the newest class of capital ship, what was eventually going to replace the standard fifteen million ton vessel. Now the super heavy battleship, like the Anastacia Romanov, his flag, were the ships of the future. The superbattleship was a dead end. The shipyards would finish the ones still under construction, but no more would be laid down.

  He would have over three hundred wormholes waiting for him before the next battle, over twice as many as he had for this fight. All of the wormholes from the first battle had been moved into place, plus more had arrived on hyper VII ships. This would be the first fight he would actually have a significant number of wormhole weapons, which was good since he would have fewer ships than this last battle. They could make a big difference.

  The one thing Lenkowski hated more than translating through hyper was the gut wrenching feel of going through a wormhole. The feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, the sense of time passing so slow that it took hours to go through, when measurements showed it was really milliseconds.

  The Romanov came out of the wormhole at the sedate speed of three hundred meters per second, taking nine seconds to finish the transit. The tactical plot immediately filled in, showing over a thousand ships already waiting in this space, just inside the hyper V limit of the target star. And thousands more would follow him through. Other wings would come in at other gates on other points of the compass, and the carrier force, much larger this time, would enter at yet another point, ready to release their waves of fighters as soon as they closed with the system.

  He was going with the same opening strategy as before, with some changes, including the multiple attack points. While all of his forces might be at greater risk because of their separation, he was depending on some tech advantages to make up for that. And the decoy force was much larger, over two thousand ships, sitting in the system, and they were prepared to defend a planet that had much more human life on it than any of the previous worlds in this campaign. There were other defenses there as well, systems the enemy wouldn’t see until they were put into use.

  “Enemy fleet is moving toward the system,” came a voice from the com. “Approaching on two axes. ETA, four hours, thirty-one minutes.”

  Len activated the holo in the chamber, looking at the masses of Caca ships moving in. They were not yet detectable from the system, but the scouts were out there to keep track of them. Sure enough, they were coming in along two lines of approach, about forty degrees apart. If he had been the Caca commander, not knowing what he was heading into, he would have kept his force together. That made him wonder what the Caca commander, who would be the senior on this line of advance into the Republic, was thinking.

  He checked his own deployments once again, cognizant of the fact that he might have to change his own plan in motion. Well, that’s why they called them the enemy. Their plans would always conflict with his. In fact, they would do their best to make sure his plan didn’t succeed, while theirs did. Neither would get exactly what they wanted, but the winning side would get more of theirs than the loser.

  “Shit,” he cursed in a loud voice. Not all of his ships would get here in time to move with the rest. That was the first change the enemy had thrown at him. It was difficult to run everything on a perfect time table across interstellar distances, and being off a couple of hours was not too bad. He could wait another couple of hours and go when they were all in place, but that would put a lot of pressure on the defenders in the system, maybe too much. No, it would be better to go on time, and use the late comers as an emergency reserve.

  “Admiral. We have the President on the com.”

  “Put her on.” Graham with
a pep talk? That wasn’t like her, so he was expecting trouble.

  “Admiral Lenkowski. We have another problem.”

  * * *

  “How in the hell did they slip forces like those through the lines?” growled Sean, glaring at his CNO.

  “Your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom, looking very uncomfortable. “We really have no excuse. Remember though, you have tens of thousands of ships maneuvering through a front of almost two million square light years, about two billion cubic light years. There was always a chance of something like this happening, and it happened.”

  Sean looked at the plot that showed a good portion of his empire, the outer section of sector III and part of IV, as well as most of the Republic. The main force was still in Republic space, far enough out that they weren’t threatening any major systems, yet. Another arrow showed one of the two forces that had seemed to come out of nowhere. It was closing in on a major industrial planet of the Republic. As far as they could tell, that was several hundred ships, not a main effort, but enough to threaten a system with few defenses. And the nearest wormhole gate was twenty light years away. If they got hyper VII ships there, it would still take over a day to climb out of the gravity well, then about a day to accelerate and decelerate through VII to the target system. The enemy would already be well into the system by that time. If they fired on the planet from a distance it would become a cinder. If they didn’t, there was a chance.

  The second arrow was smaller, but much more worrisome to Sean, being that it was less than a day from his empire, in Fenri space and heading into Sector II. And on a heading toward the system that housed the Other Universe Project. He didn’t know if that was on purpose or just an accident. The project hadn’t accomplished what his father had envisioned when he authorized it, but some of the new dimension spanning technologies had come out of the project. And he had very little that could get there before the enemy. The question was whether he should order the people there to destroy the physical facilities, or hope that the Cacas just missed the planetoid it was on altogether. There was a planet being terraformed in the system, in fact almost ready for settlers. It might capture the Caca’s attention. Or it might not.