Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (10 page)

“Pray the Gods it is still intact,” said the
High Lord, giving a very human head shake, such as he had learned from his time
with the Ambassador.  “But even if it is not, we are sure that you will find a
way.  Your people are most innovative, and they will come up with something.”

Horatio looked over at his old friend.
I
hope you are right, High Lord.  But I think we need that station, and if they
brought some warheads onto the
Donut
like the one that destroyed your
dock, I fear that it may be gone.

*    
*     *

CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

Countess Esmeralda Zhee slammed her fist
against the arm of her chair once again, causing all the people in the room to
flinch.  She was the smallest person in the room, barely a meter and a half
tall.  With a different skin tone and finer features she could have been
mistaken for a Malticoran.  As a countess, she was not of the highest social
rank in the chamber either.  But she held political power well beyond that of
anyone else in the gathering, due to over a century sitting in the Lords’
chamber, dealing and making connections. 
And now that damned Archduke has
pulled half of my political following away from me.  I will not stand for that.

“There really is not a whole lot we can do,”
said Duke Walther Konig, frowning.  “I know none of us want to admit it, but
there it is.”

Zhee looked from face to face, seeing no hope
in any of them. 
It’s not that we’re not patriots
, thought the Countess,
who had dueled politically with three Emperors, including this new upstart. 
We
are the greatest of patriots, working for the good of the Empire, trying to
bring the most competent leadership to the rule of the realm.  Our own.

“I am not willing to accept that there is
nothing we can do,” said Zhee, scowling at her last supporters.  “This Emperor
is going to lose this war, and none of us, the entire species, can afford that
loss.”

“He just won a great victory,” said Konig, glaring
at Zhee.  “I’ve studied what I have been able to gather from the reports coming
back from that battle.  Sean did not always make the best of decisions, but his
generalship was competent.  And, seeing as how he is so young, I am sure he
will only improve.”

“If we are still around by that time,” screamed
Zhee, pointing her finger at the Duke.  “Now, are you on my side, or theirs.”

Konig smiled and stood up, looking around the
table.  His gaze fell last on Zhee.  “And you think you would make a better leader
than Sean?” he said with a laugh.  “You, who have no military experience.  Who
have no claim to the loyalty of the military, who you treat as idiotic servants
who need to kiss your ass.  I’m through with you, Zhee.”

“I’ll break you, your Grace,” said Zhee,
standing up to her full height, something which was not intimidating in the
least.  “I’ll make sure that you are thrown out of the Lords.”

“I have a hereditary seat, Countess,” said the
Duke with a barking laugh.  “It will remain in my family for life.  Now, have
fun sitting around playing your power games.  I will be talking with the people
who actually have the best interests of the Empire at heart.  And not a bunch
of elitist fools who only care about themselves.”  The Duke gave the room a
nasty gesture with his hand and walked from the chamber.

Zhee stared after the man, realizing that she
had lost yet another powerful supporter.  She was stunned for a moment, before
her personality asserted itself, and she only felt hatred toward everything and
everyone who stood in her way. 
I will get back at them.  At all of them, no
matter what it takes, or how long.

Chapter
Six

Every soldier thinks
something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and
if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

Curtis
LeMay

FENRI SPACE.  NOVEMBER
26
^TH
, 1001.

Brigadier General Samuel Baggett winced as he
watched another kinetic warhead come down, this one a strike to one of the
refugee camps they had established to protect the former slaves of the Fenri. 
Some of those slaves had told him that such would happen, that the Fenri,
having their property taken from them, would now want to destroy that
property.  But the humans and their allies hadn’t really believed it.  And now
millions of those slaves had died, with over a billion more at risk.

And we really don’t have any way to protect
them
,
thought the soldier, looking at a feed from the area.  It was heartbreaking, to
see so many sentient beings of all ages lying dead on the ground, not counting
the thousands who must have been vaporized by the strike. 
We didn’t have
bunkers to put them in, and the few remaining Fenri underground shelters had
filled up too fast.  Dammit, we needed our own bunkers for our people.

He felt responsible for what was happening to
these people.  They had not asked for the New Terran Empire to come in and make
them the targets of their former masters.  They had freed the slaves as more of
an afterthought of taking the planet.  But in freeing them, they had become responsible
for them.

“Assault shuttles are on approach,” came a call
over the com net.

Baggett closed his eyes for a moment,
dismissing all concerns for collateral damage. 
I’ve got a job to do.

The enemy had come into orbit several hours
before, fighting the few shore batteries the Lt. Gerneral Nowitski had
allocated to challenge them.  It had not been enough.  The humans hadn’t really
expected it to make much of a difference.  The enemy had taken out the orbital
defense satellites at range, what few had been left, in an uneven exchange of
fire, then closed to far orbit to start pounding the planet with kinetics. 
Fifteen laser batteries and a dozen missile platforms had fired on them,
getting a couple of hits that did some damage, before being taken out from
space.  The problem was, even though the planet was now covered with electronic
warfare jamming that made it almost impossible for space based sensors to look
through, and holographic projections to spoof visual, once a weapon fired on
orbital platforms, it could be targeted and hit.

The refugee camps had just been too damned big
to hide, and the holographic projectors had been in too short supply to cover
all of them completely.  It may have seemed cruel to not cover them, but the
mission came first, and the cover and concealment of the soldiers was a mission
priority.

Now hundreds of shuttles were flying from the
Fenri ships, carrying loads of troops.  Accompanying them were hundreds more
craft, orbital to atmosphere fighters and ground attack ships that would try to
protect the shuttles, then try to gain air superiority and support the troops.

Baggett looked at the scene on his HUD, then
assigned the ground batteries he wanted to engage them with.  The order went
out, weapons were given missions, and the guns and missiles opened fire.

High in the atmosphere, dozens of craft
exploded, spilling armored troopers into the sky.  Not all the hits were to
troop carriers, and more than a dozen fighters and attack ships were destroyed
as well, raining down their pieces from the sky in fiery trails.  The human
weapons got off another shot, or sometimes two, before lasers and particle beam
strikes came down from above, taking most of them out.  The shore guns had all
been set on remote control, their crews not on board, so there were few human
casualties.  Not all of the guns were targeted and destroyed, and several
survived to get off more shots.  The first wave of the enemy suffered over ten
percent casualties, but the survivors came on, and more came in a second wave.

Baggett tasked the next battalion of guns, tank
like lasers, particle beams and projectile weapon projectors, and even more
mobile missile batteries.  They also took out two and a half times their number
in enemy craft before being targeted and destroyed.

And that’s it
, thought the Brigadier, looking at the
casualty figures for his antiair assets scroll across his HUD, and seeing no
functional weapons. 
Now all we have left are suit fired weapons, and they
aren’t going to do anything to aircraft at altitude.

“All soldiers, prepare for close assault,” he
ordered as the shuttles came lower.  His suit comp, much more advanced than
those of most of his subordinates, started tracking the paths of the shuttles
in his area, with the help of data being sent down by Corps.  The comp crunched
the data and assigned probabilities to landing zones.  Baggett examined the
probabilities and made his guesses depending on them, then sent the information
to his brigade and battalion commanders.

The shuttles dropped lower to the ground and
streaked at less than a thousand meters altitude toward the flat areas where
they would disgorge their troops.  Vehicle and suit mounted antiaircraft
weapons opened fire, taking one shot and moving, shoot and scoot.  Most of the
shots were misses, but several craft in each attack formation went down
trailing smoke.

Baggett grunted in satisfaction as twelve of
the fifteen assault zones that his comp had suggested, and that he had
approved, turned out to be accurate sites, while three others that had been
considered low probability turned out to be targets.

“They’re coming in,” he called into the com. 
“All units are weapons hot.  Give them hell.”

The shuttles dropped their troops over the
landing zones, the small forms of armored Fenri falling on grabbers out of the
aircraft and lowering themselves to the ground.  Particle beams and hyper
velocity rockets reached into the air to swat many of the enemy down.  The
Fenri fired back, engaging the humans at a major disadvantage, out in the open,
while the Terran troops shot from cover.  Hundreds of Fenri dropped heavily
from the sky in smashed and broken suits, while more were released, including
the first mecha of the invasion, five meter tall suits piloted by Fenri, their
version of light attack vehicles.

Fenri reached the ground, as they had been
bound to given their numbers.  The ones on the ground started to assault the
human positions around them, not making much headway, but at least distracting
the humans from firing on the dropping infantry, allowing more of them to make
it to the ground and feed the assault.

“Tank battalion,” yelled Baggett into the com,
as his infantry closed with the enemy to engage in very close combat.  “Prepare
to assault with task groups on these axes, at points alpha, delta, gamma, omega
and epsilon.”  He looked at the areas he had specified, wishing he had enough
tanks to hit all the landing zones, and realizing that he did not.
We’ll
just crush the ones we can, and work from there
, he thought.

*    
*     *

Lt. Jay Cummings checked out the terrain on the
holographic plotting system of his Mark IV King Tyrannosaur.  The one thousand
ton monster was at one hundred percent operating capacity, and was thus the
most dangerous war machine on the surface of the planet.  With over a meter of
the toughest carbon alloy known to the human race, and destroyer class
electromag projectors, it was almost impossible to kill by anything not
specifically made to do so.  Unfortunately, there were things on and above the
battlefield that were made to destroy vehicles such as this.

“All weapons go,” said the gunner, in his own
turret compartment to the right of the officer’s.

Cummings looked at the schematic, satisfied
that the main magrail cannon and its two coaxial particle beams were all goes. 
A quick look showed that the laser crosses on both sides of the turret,
primarily defensive weapons, were also charged and ready.

“We ready, Moesta?” he asked the Staff Sergeant
who was his second in command, and the one who would fight the tank if he were
killed.

“Ready as we’ll ever be, LT,” said the woman
from her compartment at the back of the turret.  “Cold plasma is fully injected
into the electromag field.”

“Tank Charlie Two,” said Cummings into the
com.  “Ready to rock?”

“You’ve got that right, LT,” said the commander
of the only other tank in the reduced platoon, which was missing its third
unit, destroyed in an earlier battle.  “Let’s hit these bastards.”

“Wait for the signal from company,” cautioned
the Lieutenant, looking at the tactical plot and seeing the other four tanks of
the reduced company on the holo.  They had started out with ten of the
monsters, and Cummings was pretty sure that they would have even fewer after
this action, no matter the outcome.

“All units, let’s roll,” came the call of the
Captain over the com.

“That’s it,” yelled Cummings, feeling the
combined rush of fear and excitement raise his adrenaline levels through the
roof.  “You heard the man, second platoon.  Let’s roll.”

Acknowledgements came from the other six crew
members, then the commander of the second tank.  The driver started them
forward, using the company commander’s vehicle as his guide.  The Tyrannosaur
accelerated ahead, reaching a hundred kilometers an hour within seconds.  That
was only half speed, but it was all they needed for this mission.

“We’re being targeted,” called out Moesta.  “I
think we can expect some KE rounds.”

“Evasive maneuvers,” called out the CO.

 At that command all of the vehicles went into
seemingly random paths.  Adjusting their velocity, slowing down, speeding up,
turning from side to side.  Their jamming systems went to full out, adding to
the interference that was already spoofing enemy sensors.  Smoke ejectors added
their mix to the atmosphere, meshing with the holographic projections that hid
everything underneath from visual.

The ground shook underfoot, while a cloud of
dirt and dust rose up into the sky, adding to the obscuration of the company. 
Another weapon struck, while a particle beam ripped through the cloud cover to
rip a trench in the ground ahead.  Cumming’s tank lifted over the trench on
grabbers, coming down on the other side and juking to the left just in time to
avoid another kinetic weapon.

“Targets ahead,” shouted out the CO.  “All
units.  Take enemy under fire as they present.  Fire at will.”

“Target acquired,” called out the gunner. 
“Round up.  Firing.”

The tank bucked as the main gun, telescoped to
its maximum length, sent a penetrator down range at three hundred kilometers a
second.  It looked like a beam of light, fixing and smashing a large mecha six
kilometers ahead.  The twin particle beams fired a moment later, sending
streaks of red fury into the enemy positions.

The hit mecha was still turning through the air
in several pieces when the gun spoke again, hitting another mecha.  Two more
fired back, sending hypervelocity rockets at the tank.  One hit straight on the
frontal armor of the turret, bouncing away with an enormous clang.  The other
was hit by one of the defensive lasers and pushed off course, a clean miss.

The gun spoke again five more times while the
tank closed the distance.  Three killed mechas, including one massive machine
that had to mass half that of the tank.  The others flew through groups of
enemy troopers, slicing through a dozen suits and killing more Fenri with the
concussive effect of a hundred kilogram shell tearing them apart within their
armor.

One of the tanks was knocked out by mecha fire,
enough of the machines concentrating their heaviest weapons on the vehicle to
stop it in its tracks, heavy turret spinning through the air above it.  Another
was caught by a near miss of a kinetic warhead that stopped its progress, just
before a particle beam came down from orbit to shear through its tough armor as
if it were paper.

Tanks rolled through the landing zone, all of
their secondary weapons, laser crosses, defensive turrets, targeting anything
that moved that was not of Imperial origin.  Cummings’ tank shuddered from the
hits of weapons that would have killed a lesser machine.  Even some hits from
weapons that had an outside chance of killing a Tyrannosaur.  They might have
gotten bogged down in that close in fight, overwhelmed by an enemy that was
able to surround them.  But the company of heavy infantry took that moment to
hit the distracted Fenri from the flanks, destroying all resistance.  The
carnivores were brave, to a point, but lacked the altruism that allowed humans
to continue fighting, no matter the odds.  They broke and ran, to be picked off
by humans who destroyed their smaller groups.

The last vehicle killed belonged to the Company
Commander, and after the four remaining tanks overran the enemy positions,
Cummings found himself the sole remaining officer in a company that was more of
a reinforced platoon.  His second tank made it through as well.  Good fortune?

We took out this landing zone
, thought Cummings as
he directed his company back to their assembly area, his drivers taking
advantage of all the cover and concealment that was the obscured surface of the
planet.  Their prepared positions were waiting, and the massive vehicles slid
under cover in the caves that were made up of the rubble of the city, powering
down and preparing for the next mission.