Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (17 page)

Along with that force were the hyper VII
carriers and their wings of inertialess fighters.  They wouldn’t use those
ships against the outer fleet, but they still needed to be in a position to
launch a strike at the inner force.  All the ships in the force started
accelerating inward at almost five hundred gravities, giving the appearance of
attacking the enemy fleet.

Time passed, the missiles, over four thousand
of them, getting closer to the enemy by the second, while the rest of his force
moved through hyper on a course that would put them right next to the Fenri,
moments after those missiles arrived.  Len always hated the waiting, the
feeling of total helplessness as they waited for the battle to actually
commence.  This was the time of thoughts, everyone in their own space for what
seemed like an interminable period.  Time for self-doubt, fear, beliefs that failure
was the only option.  Especially for the fleet commander, who had set the
operation in motion, after approving all the deployments and planned actions of
his subordinates.  But eventually even time that seemed to stretch into forever
had to end.

“Translating, now,” called out the Fleet
Navigation Officer, as the lights dimmed for a second, and the feeling of
nausea came over all of the bridge crew.  Lenkowski had always been an easy
translator, and his nausea only lasted a few moments.  By the time he recovered,
the fleet was firing on the enemy ships.  The missile wave was going in just
ahead of them, disrupting the enemy formations, even those ships that were not
targeted, as they tried to avoid weapons and their own ships, also trying to
avoid those same weapons.

The space ahead blossomed with a thousand
pinpoints of fire from missiles that had been intercepted by counters or
beams.  Radiation traces came from behind, where other missiles had been struck
further out.  And larger points of light flared with actinic fire as missiles
broke through defenses and hit targets.

Into this the human fleet thrust like a knife,
cold plasma fields at full strength, lasers and particle beams striking within
seconds of firing.  Over a thousand human ships in the center, four hundred
battleships and superbattleships, three hundred cruisers, the rest escorts
there for their counter-missile capability.  To the port were the Margravi and
Klashak ships, while to the starboard was a battle group made up of Elysium
units.  All took the closest enemy vessels under fire, concentrating the
weapons of multiple capital ships on one Fenri, tearing through defenses that
could withstand the power of one battleship, but not a dozen.

“Missiles away,” shouted the Fleet Tactical
Officer, and thousands of icons appeared on the plot.  It took almost a minute
before the enemy opened fire with their missiles, due in part to the shock of
being struck so ferociously.  What fire they did get off was ineffectual at
best, attempting to get through the defenses of the specialized missile defense
craft.

King Edward II
shook with the hits of
particle beams, and a couple of near miss missile detonations.  The big ship
was obviously important, and was drawing a lot of fire.  Damage started
registering on scores of the heavy ships, while the icons of some cruisers and
destroyers completely left the plot as they were destroyed.  More enemy ships
were being blasted apart, and the space around the battling fleets started
filling with plasma, illuminating the lasers linking the ships like ribbons of
light.  A human battleship disappeared from the human fleet, then another,
followed by an Elysium vessel.

“Second wave translating, now,” called out the
Fleet Tactical Officer, and another eight hundred ships popped into normal
space on the starboard flank of the enemy formation.  The odds had just
improved, though the enemy still outnumbered the allied fleet, and the initial
shock was wearing off.

The pounding match continued for almost a half
an hour, the human ships and their allies riding the tougher vessels, with
slightly more advanced tech on the whole.  Both sides took damage, the numbers
mounting, though the losses of the Fenri far exceeded those of the allies, and
grew exponentially as the fight continued.

“Third wave translating in, now,” called out
the Tactical Officer, and another six hundred warships, mostly smaller units,
light cruisers and destroyers, translated in and began to release missiles into
the flanks of the enemy formation.  Missiles were not as effective at close
range, and only managed to do some minor damage to the enemy force, picking off
a ship here or there.  It was still enough to disrupt the enemy defenses.

“We have enemy trying to break out to the
port,” yelled out one of the task force commanders.  It was now obvious that
the enemy was not going to win this fight.  Despite the damage done to the
allied fleet, the enemy had lost much more, over three thousand ships.  Only
seven hundred were left, and even the hyper-territorial Fenri could see that
dying in place was not going to help them defend their territory.

“Shit,” growled Len.  The battle plan called
for them taking out this entire force, not letting several hundred ships
escape, which might, eventually, come to the aid of the other force.  He linked
in with the combined Klashak and Margravi force, which was still more or less
intact, sustaining only minor casualties.  Still, one of the ships that had
sustained major damage was the Margravi flagship, which meant it had suffered
casualties to the crew.  Which meant that the intelligence that had controlled
it at the start of the battle was no longer the same that was in charge now.

“We will comply,” came back the com from the
Margravi force, and they boosted for the enemy, the Klashak coming in to cover
their flanks.  The Margravi flagship took some near misses from missiles as the
enemy concentrated on them.  The Margravi Admiral in Command, who was really
the composite mind of the entire crew, changed words in the middle of sentences
as parts of its intellect were removed.  It was disconcerting to Len, to say
the least, what seemed to him was really a weakness to their military command. 
At full complement the Margravi flagship was a military genius.  At three
quarters complement about the equal of an above average human commander.  At
half strength, not much more than an academy dropout.

I’ll have to ask them sometime how they handle
command when there are more ships with higher intellectual ability than the
flag
,
thought the Admiral.

The Margravi ships went to full power, five
hundred gravities into the teeth of the fleeing Fenri task force.  To the
Margravi the individual didn’t count, only the species, and it didn’t matter
how many casualties they took as long as they fulfilled the mission in front of
them.  Which the insectoids did, magnificently, taking on the larger enemy
force until the missiles from the human force had closed with the foe and
struck them a terrific blow.  In the end there were few surviving ships from
the enemy outer system fleet, a few more than a mere score of vessels. 
Lenkowski’s fleet had sustained casualties of a quarter of their vessels lost,
many more damaged.  And there was still the inner fleet, outnumbering his and
on their way out.

Maybe I should have brought everything I had
with me to this place
,
thought the Admiral, looking at the Tactical Plot and not really liking what he
saw.  Unfortunately, he had sent over a third of his force, split into a half
dozen task groups, on separate missions to strike at other enemy systems where
naval installations were known to reside.  Those missions were important to the
overall success of the operation, but not more important than taking this
system back and relieving the Army.

“Carriers are launching their birds,” called
out the Tactical Officer.

Len looked on as the small ships appeared on
the plot, their graviton emissions showing their approximate positions and
acceleration.  A moment later those icons dropped off the plot, the indication
that they had erected their negative matter bubbles and effectively left the
normal Universe.  They would be going into extreme acceleration in a moment,
and there would be no graviton emissions to show where they were.  They were
invisible, to all intents and purposes, until they dropped those bubbles.  And
they would only drop those bubbles just before they went into the attack.

Enjoy your surprise gifts, assholes
, thought Lenkowski,
looking at the enemy force on the holo.  They had to think they had the
advantage at this point, at least numerically.  And they had to be pissed,
after seeing so many of their own people killed.

Lenkowski had no idea as to the social
structure of the Fenri.  What kind of family groups they had, how they counted
their relations.  But, after seeing so many of their own kind killed, no matter
how close or distant they were, they had to be riled up.

“Missile launch from the enemy fleet,” called
out the Tactical Officer.

Len looked at the holo, to see red icons
blooming close to the enemy force.  Lots of red icons, with more following
every moment.

“Order all ships to open fire.  Let’s get every
missile into space that we have.  Might as well let them build up as much
velocity as possible.”

“What about the outer group?” asked the
Tactical Officer.

“Are the probes in place?”

“Yes, sir,” said the officer.  “Outer probes
are in place, inner probes still moving at point nine light.”

“Very well.  Order the outer force to release
missiles.  Let’s give them a second surprise on top of the first.” 
And now
we just sit back and watch, until enough time goes by for us to actually hit
each other.

*    
*     *

THE
DONUT. 
DECEMBER
2
^ND
,1001.

Lucille looked over the films of the damage her
station had taken, almost wanting to cry.  She knew the vids looked much worse
than the actual overall damage.  After all, only one of the six cable supports
had been taken out, and, according to the specs, it would have taken three to
destroy her.  That wasn’t quite correct.  If both cables to either side had
been severed, the twisting forces might have pulled hard enough to have caused
major damage.  In that case, even the four remaining cables might not have been
enough.

But they only got the one.  And we’re back at
full operating capacity.  Turning out all the wormholes the Fleet needs.  Or at
least trying to.
 
With a thought she changed the holo view to a live shot of the repair work on
the cable.  Large robots were weaving new carbon and metal alloy fibers into
the fabric of both sides of the break, then stretching them across and holding
them together until the nanites could weave them together.

It would still be about five days until the
cable was again in one complete piece. 
And then I’ll relax,
thought the
Director of the
Donut
Project. 
They can talk all they want about safety
margins, but this thing is my baby.  And she’s hurt.

With another thought she changed the view to
the outside of the station.  Where repair ships and men in armored work suits
were toiling to replace the hull.  That would take more than several weeks, though
the structural components would be repaired within a couple of more days. After
that, it would be cosmetic repairs. 
And I wouldn’t want to be one of those
people for anything
, she thought, zooming in on one of the suited figures
who was busy using a laser cutter to trim off some of the damage.  Her eyes
looked past the worker to the light halo around the black hole, almost four
million kilometers away.  If the worker’s grabber units failed and he was
pushed in that direction, it was a fall into infinity, with no chance of
survival once he reached a certain distance from the intense gravitational
point source that was the hole.

“We’re lucky she survived,” said Jimmy Chung,
walking up and looking at the holo with her.

“I’m afraid it might happen again,” she told
the IIA Chief of Security who was also her lover.

“Security has been tripled,” he said with a
shrug of his shoulders.  “They stationed an entire new division of Marines
here, and, from what I’ve heard, the Army is going to put a couple of light infantry
divisions aboard.”

“That’s still a lot of territory for an extra
sixty thousand men to cover,” said Lucille, switching the holo to a schematic
of the station.  “There’s no saying that they have to hit the part of the
station with the most people on it.”

“We’re setting up a factory on the station to
crank out micro drones,” said Chung, putting a hand on her shoulder.  “Maybe a
couple of billion of those little buggers would help to cover some of this
area.”

“Trillions would be more like it,” said Lucille.

“The station proved it could take a major hit,”
said Chung, rubbing his hand over her shoulder, massaging the tight muscles. 
“It’s going to take some serious firepower to take this thing out.”

“I’ll feel better when we capture that son of a
bitch, O’Hara.  Or whoever he happens to be now.”

Chung nodded his head at that.  Fleet Admiral
Benjamin O’Hara had turned out to be one of the shape shifters that had been
plaguing the Empire as of late.  O’Hara had actually reduced station security
prior to the attack.