Exodus: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation
Date: 2018-02-21 05:00:00+00:00
Description: The Caca offensive into the New Terran Empire is on its last legs, and the Imperial Fleets and those of its Allies are on the move. The Cacas have new technologies themselves, and new tactics to go along with them, and they are determined to keep the humans out of their space, battling through the territories they have captured from the human and Fenri Empires Admirals Lenkowski and Mgonda are in the lead of the two largest fleets in the history of the Perseus Arm. Tens of thousands of vessels, tens of millions of people. Those people are ready for the fight of their lives in space, while the
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing

Exodus:

Empires at War:

Book 13:

Retaliation

by

Doug Dandridge

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to all of the readers that have made the Exodus: Empires at War series such a great success. You are all awesome, and because of you I am living the dream.

Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

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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. Credit goes to J Alfred Goodwin for the great job he did on proofing this work. The book is much better for his efforts. I would also like to thank Ruth de Jauregui for the wonderful job she has done lettering my books. And finally, I would like to thank Mike Majewski, reader and officer in the Louisiana National Guard, for giving me the idea about troops serving at the front while a loved one dies at home.

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.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

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

AUGUST 12TH, 1003. CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

"We're getting reports from our scouts, your Majesty," said the officer on the holo, his grim face looking out from image hanging in the air.  Behind him was a compartment of a ship, the flag bridge. Or at least the tiny bit that was in the direct view of the holo. People in uniform were moving into and out of the view, about their tasks. "The enemy is starting to move."

Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov nodded as he sat behind his desk in the temporary palace. He still wasn't used to this place, and was looking forward to the rebuilding and restoration of the old palace. Of course, that might have to wait, for how long he didn't know, but not until some bit of time had passed.

"I still have to wonder why they've waited this long to commence their offensive, Admiral," said Sean, looking over at the holo map of the region that hung in the air to the side of his desk.  Known enemy concentrations were in red, his dispositions in blue. At first it looked like he was heavily outnumbered, and the enemy would brush aside his forces.  However, looks could be deceiving, as his formations weren't entirely defensive. There were enough defensive formations to slow the enemy down, but most of the fleet was deployed in three masses of warships, ready to move into flanking positions and rout the enemy. Still, the concentrations on the holo were enough to make him feel uncomfortable and uncertain. He could only imagine the feelings of the people in the forces facing them. Uncomfortable seemed a little tame for those feelings.

"I don't know, your Majesty," answered Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski, his eyes narrowing. "Whatever it is, it can't be good for us."

Len had wrinkled weathered skin, green eyes gazing out of his face, and spoke with the drawl of his New Texas home world. Sean suspected that the people of New Texas purposely adopted that accent to set them apart, though everyone of them he had asked had denied it.

Sean had to agree with his admiral. He could think of several reasons the enemy had delayed. To move up additional forces, to work in new weapons, to make the New Terran Empire think that they had something new up their sleeve. That was truly frightening, but he couldn't let it get to him and make him change his plans.

"Think you can handle them until Mgonda gets his part of the offensive going?"

"I think so, your Majesty. Least I can do is fall back and sucker them in. Or falling back might be the only option. We won’t let them box us. Don’t worry about that."

Sean pulled up another holo, this one with production graphs. In another six months he would have forty thousand new ships, which would have been twenty percent of the total Fleet strength at the beginning of the war. He still wouldn't have as many ships as he had had at the start, though his combat capabilities would have almost doubled. New ships, new tech. The fleets of his allies were also increasing, though not at the same rate as his own. He had no idea how fast the enemy was rebuilding or replenishing their fleet. He knew they had a massive empire, with many more worlds than his own, and many more people. Did that mean they had more shipyards than he did? Things didn't always work like that. They might have more people, but most of them were slaves, and didn't directly contribute to the military manpower of their empire. And much of the military power they did have must be involved in keeping those slaves under control.

They had seen the same thing with the Fenri, who depended on slaves for much of their labor. Superficially, their empire had been strong, but it had been rotten on the inside, something Fenri had found out as they were invaded from without. They had been fighting two forces, one from within. He hoped that the Ca'cadasans were facing the same problem.

"Hit them hard, Len. Try to keep them off balance, but don't take too many risks."

"Kind of contradictory orders, you Majesty," said Len with a smile. "I'll do my best to follow both sides of the contradiction, but if I see an opening to their throat, I'll have to go for it. Unless you want someone else running the center."

"No, Admiral. That I do not. It's yours. Do what you must. Just don't lose my fleet."

Len was one of his two best fleet commanders, Mgonda being the other. If asked he really wouldn’t be able to say which one was better. And it wasn’t that important to know. He had two fleets on two wings, and both of his senior commanders had one. There was a third wing, in the New Terran Empire, but that force was under the joint command of that government and the Crakista Empire. They would eventually join the offensive, once they had gotten their defenses in order.

Sean disconnected the holo, wondering if he had pushed too hard. Of course the admiral had to exercise his command as he saw fit, and didn't need the Imperial brat looking over his shoulder. That was the danger of the instantaneous com they now possessed. Someone at the rear could overrule all the decisions of the commander at the front, which took away the initiative from said commander. Why make decisions when you knew they were likely to be countermanded by someone sitting in comfort thousands of light years away? However, he still intended to retain some control over his force, much like an army group commander of old.

Another thought came into his head, and he connected into the com with his implant, calling one of his prime subordinates.

"Your Majesty," said Ekaterina Sergiov as her face came up on the holo. Ekaterina was almost a hundred years older than Len, but looked to be fifty years younger. Lustrous black hair framed a heart shaped face, her dark eyes the only sign that went along with her reputation.

"Admiral," he replied to his chief of overall intelligence. Sergiov had run the Imperial Intelligence Agency, the IIA, the Empire's primary spy department, until she had been elevated to full admiral and put in charge of all intelligence activities, whether Fleet, Army or civilian. That had put all the threads in her hands, so hopefully nothing would slip by due to the lack of interagency cooperation and inertia.  There were some in Parliament who hadn't liked to see so much of the security apparatus in the hands of a single citizen, but Sean had pushed the measure through, calling in numerous favors along the way. "What have you heard from Striped Wolf?"

"All kinds of things, your Majesty. But of course they're all three months out of date."

Sean nodded. That was the problem with the Ca'cadasan spies that had come over to his side. The Maurids were a strong and capable species, who had been in servitude to the Cacas for several thousand years. Yet they had never given up on the idea of regaining their freedom. They saw humans as their greatest hope of becoming free once again. It was a dangerous game, one that could see their home world wiped clean of their kind if their masters discovered their duplicity. So far they had come through with a wealth of information. Again, none of it timely, but not all needing to be. Sean hoped that the further the Empire drove into Caca space, the timelier the information would become.

"Can they tell us anything about the status of the slave worlds in Caca space, Admiral? I would really like to know if the lid is starting to boil over, and what ways we could apply more heat to the fire."

"According to our sources, the slaves are always about to boil over, your Majesty. The only problem is that they don't have the weapons to make a go of it."

"Any way we can get them weapons?"

"It will be difficult, your Majesty. Anything we send into their space is going to stand out in its obviousness."

"Subspace?"

"We could send in some ships with that kind of drive, your Majesty. At least to some of the worlds near their closer frontiers. But it would take months to set up an operation like that."

Sean cursed under his breath. He was hoping they would be able to start a general uprising among the slaves, much as they had done with the Fenri. Yet with the Fenri they had already had the ships to move weapons into their Empire, and they were already on the move with the Fleet. That had prevented them from having to overwhelm many of the planets they captured with their own ground troops, and the slaves they had armed even further after they had been liberated had been a major factor in stopping the Cacas from taking back those worlds for their Fenri allies.

"Get together what you can, Ekaterina. I want some kind of covert operation working for us. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Sean killed the com, shaking his head, wondering if he was pushing too hard. He wanted to hit the bastards hard, from multiple fronts. But this war looked like it was going to go on for a long time, and that was something he couldn't stand for. He wanted to land a knockout blow on the evil bastards that had attacked his people, and he wanted to land it fast.

Maybe Muldoon and Wahlberg can land it for me. He was sending a dagger thrust to their center, which probably wouldn't be sufficient, but might be enough of a push to entice them into making the kind of major mistake that could hasten the end of the war. Or it could enrage them to the point where they hit his empire with every bit of force they possessed. Which also might work out to his advantage, if they came in stupid. Which, after all, was something they were known for.

*     *     *

CA’CADASAN HOME WORLD.

Jresstratta V, Supreme Ruler of the Ca'cadasan Empire, sat on his throne and stared down at his military staff, taking a knee on the audience chamber carpet.

"I want these humans crushed, and I want them crushed now."

"We have been trying, Supreme Lord. But the humans are smart and strong."

"They are prey," screamed the Emperor, pointing the finger of an upper right hand toward the male, one of his great admirals. "They are never to be called smart or strong. They are weak. They are stupid. And they should be wiped out to the last being. We are Cacada, the rulers of the Galaxy, and nothing can stand before us."

The young Emperor had been dealing with feelings he was not used to since ascending the throne. Fear. He was now the head of the Empire, and all decisions landed on his desk. And he felt the management of the war to be beyond his abilities. Which made him make rash decisions to try and keep his own subjects off balance.

"The great admiral is correct, Supreme Lord," said one of the other males, a high admiral on the planning staff. "We can talk all we want about the humans being stupid, but they have countered every move we have made. They.."

The Emperor looked over at one of his palace guards, nodding. That male drew the ceremonial long sword from the sheath on his back and stepped forward. The blade went up, then down, the point entering behind the neck of the high admiral and instantly severing his spine. The light went out of the eyes of the male and he fell forward, a widening pool of blood spreading underneath.

The rest of the males stared at the scene in horror. Many of them glanced at each other in turn. They had gotten used to speaking their minds with the last emperor. The newest of the line could guess what they were thinking, and he approved of their fear. This was his realm now, and as far as he was concerned they could keep their defeatism to themselves, or pay the price, as the high admiral had. He didn’t want them adding to his fear.

"Now, we will hear no more talk about how brilliant the humans are. We are Cacada. We rule this region of the galaxy, and it is our destiny to rule it all. I expect my great grandson will be sending expeditions to Andromeda, and will conquer new worlds, new peoples."

He looked over at the great admiral. "So, what I want to know is how we will defeat the humans. I don't want to hear any more about their power, or their technology. If they have technologies we don't have, I want them. If they have wormhole weapons, I want them, and I want more of them than they have. Is that understood?"

The great admiral stared at him in disbelief, eyes wide with fear that his head would join that of the lesser ranking admiral's laying on the stone floor.

"I said, Great Admiral, is that understood?"

"Yes, Dread Lord. I understand. And I will do everything I can to make your vision a reality."

"You will make it happen, Great Admiral. Or I will find someone who can."

“Perhaps some of the human scientists we captured from their smallest nation,” said the great admiral, stammering as he sought for answers.

“Do whatever you need, Great Admiral. But get it done, unless you want yourself and your line to end.”

The Emperor waved his officers away, dismissing them from his presence. The fully armored guards stayed with him on the wide balcony overlooking the capital city of his Empire. They were trusted to have weapons around him, having been conditioned to be totally obedient to the leader of the Empire. They would kill anyone he ordered killed. They would kill each other if he asked it. They would even kill themselves if he commanded. As long as they were with him, and no one else was allowed armed into his presence, he would be safe. His father had made the mistake of trusting his soldiers other than his bodyguards around him with weapons.

He patted the holster by his side, one that contained a powerful particle beam pistol. That was another mistake he would not make. His backup weapon was on him at all times, and he had made sure that he was very proficient in its use.

The young male took a deep breath into his great lungs, looking out over his city. His palace was the largest building in the central section of the city, built of hard carved stone. The representative heads of past emperors and great warriors looked out from the top of massive columns. A new head was being carved for installation, his father, Jresstratta IV. And one day his own countenance would adorn the front of the palace. The palace itself had grown over the years, until now it encompassed an area of thirty square kilometers, rising three hundred meters into the air. With over a hundred thousand chambers, from the massive throne room to the small cubicles used by the household slaves for their infrequent rest periods. There were banquet rooms and party chambers for official functions, and the private quarters for himself and his household, including the hundreds of concubines set aside for his use.

Across the large square, swarming with armed Ca'cadasan males, and even more slaves performing the tasks of maintaining the city, was the enormous Palace of the Gods. Thousands of priests worked and worshiped in that building, keeping the Ca'cadasan Empire on its spiritual path. The prime religion of the people was not all that advanced, more of primitive spiritualism, which was well known and comfortable to the Ca'cadasans. It had always been a part of society, and it seemed it always would be. Even a non-believing Emperor was expected to attend important services, part of his duty as the spiritual and material leader of the Empire. One of its’ major tenets was that the genotype of a planet was a gift of the gods, and not to be destroyed. That was on tenet that several Emperors had ignored in their commands to destroy the humans, and all planets bearing the life of their home world.

For twenty kilometers on each side of the palace was the city of the Cacada, modern structures, many of them almost as ornate as the capital building, though much smaller. Most of them were the comfortable houses of the Cacada who supervised the many slaves who occupied the outer regions of the city. The slave quarters went from between twenty to over a hundred kilometers in each direction. There were sections that were really little more than hovels of what wood and stone scraps could be piled upon each other, and sections with comfortable houses, the quarters of scientists and engineers and such. Those were valuable members of the society, performing tasks that, viewed realistically Cacada, were not very good at.

Intermingled within the regions of slave quarters were the fortress-like barracks of the soldiers who were the last resort at maintaining order. There were larger forts on the outskirts, as well as landing fields for shuttles and aircraft.

There were five million Ca'cadasans in the city, and fifty million slaves. The planet had over eight billion beings on it, a quarter of them the dominant Ca'cadasans. The Empire had ten trillion of the Ca'cadasan species, and forty trillion slaves. The Emperor knew there were more efficient ways to run a society, and that slaves were not really the best use of limited resources. But Ca'cadasans were a tradition bound lot, and slave labor was the traditional muscle of the empire. Thus, so it would remain.

*     *     *

NEW AFRICA.

"Make me proud, son," said the old man in the large bed, looking up at the younger man who knelt by his side.

The sunlight of the pleasant world came through a large window that looked out on fragrant flowering gardens. A breeze blew through the transplanted Australian pines, raising the relaxing hiss of wind through needles. New Africa was a beautiful world, though the wild areas were not for the faint of heart. Part of the heritage of the world, especially for the wealthy, were hunts that could be as lethal for the hunters as the prey.

The bed chamber was large, with polished wood paneled walls. Servants waited out of ready sight. It was the chamber of a wealthy man, and the old man in the bed was the titular head of the barony that this manor house was in.

"I will, father," said Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo, the youngest son of the baron, holding onto the chocolate dark hand of his father. "We will kick those bastards back to their home system and make sure they never bother us again."

"Why must you both speak of violence," said the older woman in the room. Older than Jason, her son, but much younger than her husband, the baron.

Ngcobo looked over at his father’s young wife, Tiffany, no more than a hundred and fifty, with red hair and fair skin, so very unlike the features of the baron's own African heritage. Jason himself had much lighter brown skin, with blue eyes that mimicked those of his mother.

Baron Peter Karl von Ngcobo was a very old man, older than most people could ever hope to reach even among a long lived species such as modern humans, and he was near to death. Jason knew the baron knew it, but the man was not afraid of the coming darkness. He had lived a long life. Most would say a well lived life. He had been a general in the Imperial Army prior to taking the barony from his own father on that man's death. He had sired nine children by his first wife, another four by Tiffany, and all of them had achieved honorable adulthood. The baron had scores of grandchildren, and great grandchildren as well. His barony had prospered under his stewardship.

“When do you ship out?” asked the baron, looking into the eyes of his son.

“My orders say I have to report to the division base at the frontier in two days,” said Jason. He did not give the name of that system. That was need to know, and though he had no reason to be concerned that anyone in this room would give away the information, it was still a good habit to be in.

“Will you be here if your father needs you?” asked Tiffany, her forehead furrowed with concern.

“Wife,” said the baron. “The boy has a duty to perform. The Empire has need of his services, more than I do.”

Jason smiled. He would always be ‘the boy’ to his father, even with almost six decades of life himself. When he was younger it made him angry. Since, he had come to the conclusion that it was just part of his father’s manner.

“Please try to come home when I call,” said his mother softly into his ear as she walked him out of the room.

“I’ll try,” said Jason, though he doubted it was even a possibility. The campaign would go on for months, and he doubted his father had that much time left.

Chapter One

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  Lao Tzu

AUGUST 31ST, 1003. CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

"We've got the first formation coming through the center," said Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski, his holographic image looking around the table. The wrinkles on his face were even deeper than usual, indicating his heightened concern. "Twelve thousand ships, by our best estimate. Designated Alpha."

The huge holo of the front floated over the conference table, the force in question highlighted in red, a vector arrow showing its projected path, straight into one of the major base systems of that region, Saures.

"We have contact with two other forces, designated Bravo and Charlie. Both are approximately the same size as Alpha, and from the projections they appear to be looping around, on a course to come in around Saures and cut it off. My staff think they are trying to force a major engagement in that system. I would like to bring them to battle in normal space before they reach their target. Unfortunately, they don't have to drop down into any of the systems along the way."

"Do you think you can take them in hyper?" asked Grand Fleet Admiral the Duke Taelis Mgonda, his own image frowning as he studied the holo.

Sean kicked back in his chair, one of the few corporeal beings actually in the conference room, along with Vice Admiral Mary Innocent, his staff intelligence officer, and Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov, the director of Combined Intelligence. Several of the grand fleet admirals' staff were also in attendance by holo, along with Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations, Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Imperial Army Chief of Staff, and Field Marshal Betty Parker, the Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps.

It still amazed him that they were having a real-time conference when some of the attendees were thousands of light years away from each other. Prior to the deployment of so many wormholes, the only way they would have been able to keep in touch would have been through couriers, at least to those places that weren't connected by hyper-link, which still took over a week to reach from the capital of the Empire to the frontier. The old way worked, after a fashion, in that orders and assessments could be passed. Always far behind the real-time events. Assessments would come in too late for anything to be done about them, orders would go out to commanders no longer facing the situation those orders were meant to deal with. No, they could almost control the action at the front, though Imperial doctrine still called for the man or woman on the spot to make the determination and give the orders.

"Oh, we can take them, alright," said Len with a tight smile. "Especially if we move our ships around through our mobile gates. It's just that we have a much better power ratio against them in normal space."

The Emperor had to agree with that assessment. Many of his ships were still hyper VI, able to move at a pseudospeed of just above ten thousand lights. Unfortunately, all of the Caca vessels were the more advanced hyper VII, able to get up to over forty thousand lights, four times that of VI. The Empire was no longer building hyper VI craft. Everything being laid down or coming out of the building slips was hyper VII standard now, but there had been a lot of hyper VI vessels in the fleet at the beginning of the war. In fact, over ninety-five percent of the warships in the Imperial order of battle had been VI, the VIIs restricted to some battle cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers used for scouting. Many of those older ships had been destroyed, but many had also survived, and were no longer able to keep up with the predominantly VII forces. Those ships were best used for system defense, or taking systems, though the wormholes and multi-purpose missiles still allowed them to strike at ships in the higher dimensions. Also, inertialess and warp fighters couldn't operate in hyper, and so were more or less useless between systems.

But the hyper VII ships that had wormholes were more than a match for their Caca opponents. The two problems they had were that the Cacas now had wormholes of their own. Not in the numbers the Empire deployed, thank God, but enough to become a worry. And the gates that allowed the Imperial ships to move from place to place as fast as their ships could get through the portals didn't allow other wormholes through. So, though they could send thousands of ships to reinforce threatened areas, the wormholes that made them so effective couldn't go with them.

"They obviously aren't going to give us that advantage until they hit Saures," said Mgonda, shaking his head, then reaching off the holo for something, his hand disappearing for a moment before returning with a mug of some liquid.

The other grand fleet admiral was in his dress uniform, unlike Len, who liked to wear casual shipboard clothing even when in high level meetings, if he wasn’t really there. The duke had a broad face and nose, dark eyes looking out from under bushy eyebrows. Mgonda liked to say his family was descended from the Zulu tribe of South Africa on Earth. From what Sean had seen in the records, his face did resemble those of the fierce warriors. Which proved nothing, with all the genetic mixing that had gone on in the Empire.

Sean reached for his own cup, only to discover that it was empty. He nodded for his steward to bring him a fresh cup, then looked back at his admirals.

"I think we need to hit them with everything we have on the way in," said Sean, looking from grand fleet admiral to grand fleet admiral to grand high admiral. "Hit and run, with our fastest wormhole equipped ships. And everything we have that can't catch them or run from them will be waiting for them in Saures."

"Sounds good, your Majesty," said McCullom, looking at the deployments as they appeared on the holo. "But what if that's not all they have?"

Sean scratched his nose for a moment, thinking. What if they had something else coming forward, and hit him someplace they weren't ready. Lenkowski had a fleet of over forty thousand ships, Imperial, Crakista and Elysium. Eight thousand capital ships, while the Cacas probably had a similar number in their fleet. Mgonda had thirty thousand ships in his fleet, still in the process of taking back the Fenri systems and ejecting the last of the Caca vessels in that region. He also had Elysium ships in his force, but the majority of his vessels were Imperial. There was a fleet of twenty thousand ships in the Republic, mostly the vessels of that nation, along with Crakista allies.

And far back behind the lines, in five base systems three hundred light years back, were the ships he was hiding from the enemy. Another fifty thousand vessels. They could be committed to action if necessary, but they were there to provide the nucleus of the promised offensive he was going to spring on the Cacas. The offensive he had promised his people and Parliament for over a year. If they were committed to action, the offensive might be delayed by a year or more while ships were repaired and missiles were replenished.

"Might I suggest, your Majesty," said Mgonda, setting down his mug and reaching for a cigar. "I think we can wrap up this business in Fenri in a week or less. Then I can move my fleet in on a vector that cuts the Cacas off from their logistics."

"They'll still have their wormholes," cautioned McCullom. "We won't be able to completely cut them off from their support."

"But the duke has a point," said Sean, looking into the dark eyes of the admiral as he puffed on his cigar. Sean hated the habit of smoking, but as long as the duke was blowing his smoke two thousand lights years from his nose it didn't bother him. "They don't have that many wormholes, and any they have to use as gates are wormholes they won't be able to use for other things. I think that's an excellent idea, Duke Taelis. Now, if we could get President Graham to commit the Republic to come in on the other flank."

"I doubt that she would be willing, your Majesty," said the CNO, shaking her head. "She's still terrified that the Cacas will be coming back."

Sean couldn't blame her for that, though it was tying up forces he could use. Forces that weren't his to command unless she gave him the reins to them. The Republic had been hit hard by the Cacas, twice. The Empire had been hit several times as well, and just as hard. But the Republic didn't have the mass to absorb the body blows that the Empire had. Still, he needed those ships. Perhaps after he had driven into the Ca'cadasan Empire, and the chance of them returning had been reduced to a low probability event.

"So, I guess the next question is, do they have enough behind this wave to be coming back? Or, after we take out this wave, will the way be open to their capital?"

There were some alarmed looks around the table, coming from McCullom, Innocent and Sergiov, and Sean smiled at them and gave a small head shake, letting them know he hadn't lost his mind.

"We think they have another force coming up behind this one, your Majesty," said Sergiov, regaining her composure. "They're like the damned Russians in that Second Great War you know so much about. Wave after wave, and it never seems to end."

Sean chuckled. A lot of his people thought his obsession with old Earth history strange, but he had learned so much from those times. And the point was well made. The Russians of that war seemed to have endless reserves, just like the Cacas. Yet if the Caca had sent all of their forces in one large offensive they would have rolled over the Empire in a couple of months, though maybe not all of it. The spinward sectors might have held on for several years, but once the core worlds were taken out it would have been over in all but name.

"Is it going to end?" he asked, putting down the fresh cup of coffee after taking a sip.

"From our sources within the Ca'cadasan Empire, we think they are reaching the end of their reserves. They still haven't reached it, but the day is coming. They have a very large Empire to hold down, after all."

That was the biggest problem the Cacas faced. Unlike the allied powers, all made up of people who were willing subjects of their leaders, living in free and prosperous societies, the Cacas were slavers, and ninety percent of their subjects, they weren't citizens by any means, were enraged at their slave masters. Almost all male Cacas were soldiers, necessary to hold down the downtrodden subjects of their Emperor, and the more forces they committed to the fronts, the less they had to intimidate their slaves.

"And what about the Klavarta front?" asked the Emperor, looking back at McCullom, who was responsible for liaison with the human nation on the other side of the Ca'cadasan Empire.

"They're still recovering from the last Caca offensive, your Majesty. Their shipyards are working night and day to get more vessels into the fleet, and they have a new ally in the Slarna. We're estimating that they will be ready to go back on the offensive within two months. If only they could convince more of the species in that region to sign on."

Which was the problem with the Klavarta, the genenged species of human that had been developed to fight the Cacas in that region of space. The original leaders of the nation, clones of their founders, had unmercifully exterminated whole species, and weren't trusted by those who were still around. The humans from the Empire who were out there for support and liaison were trying their hardest to make the other star nations see that the Klavarta were not responsible for the actions of their former rulers, and that they were under new management. So far, they had been unsuccessful with the exception of the Slarna, a moderate size star nation that had added some five thousand ships to their order of battle.

"If we could get them on the offensive, it would surely take some of the pressure off of us," said Len, looking at the CNO.

"They will only do what they are willing to," said McCullom, shaking her head. "They are not under our command, after all."

The conference went on for some hours, points made and defended, plans made to halt the Cacas, then to strike back at them. It was getting late, and Sean realized his front-line officers needed to get with their staffs and get their plans in motion. He dismissed most of them, leaving only McCullom, Innocent and Sergiov still in the conference room, or at least their holographs.

"And how goes the strike against the Caca capital?"

"They are on course and on schedule, your Majesty," said McCullom.

Sean nodded. He had really hated to keep this information from his front line commanders, but the term need to know definitely covered this knowledge. There were enough people in the Empire in the know, and the only way it would work was if they came in without the Cacas realizing they were there. With wormhole communications, if the plan was leaked it would get to the Cacas in their home system, and they would be ready.

"I guess that's all we can ask," said the Emperor, praying for the brave men and women carrying out that strike. If the four ships were intercepted they would be destroyed, over ten thousand crew would be killed. If they reached their objective and launched the strike of four hundred ships, only to find that the Cacas were laying in wait, they would lose over a million people. Yet if they succeeded, they might take the head off the snake.

*     *     *

"And how are our little darlings this fine day?" asked Sean, walking into the nursery, where Jennifer still spent most of her time. He was still worried that she was obsessing over the children, but at least now she was showing an equal obsession, no longer completely focused on Augustine. Glen was still larger than his older brother, who was really two months younger, despite being born first, thanks to the actions of the time travel people who had kidnapped him during the Caca attack on Jewel.

"They are both fine," said a smiling Empress, looking up, her eyes twinkling as she looked into those of her husband. She put Glenn down on his back in the crib, then took a couple of steps and was in Sean's arms. "And it's so good to see you this beautiful day."

Jennifer’s blue eyes smiled up at him from her fair, freckled face. Her red hair was cascading down her back, and Sean thought her even more beautiful than when he first saw her. He had fallen instantly in love with her, and had worried for many months that he had lost the woman he loved to her obsessions. Now it was appearing that she was coming out of it.

Sean smiled down at her, then looked over at the twin cribs. Jennifer had finally started to allow the nurses to take care of the babies, something that Sean had been hoping for. It was wonderful that she showered the children with so much affection, but she was an adult, with needs of her own. As was he.

"I would like you to come to the formal dining room tonight," he said, looking into her eyes. "We could use some time together. And with the Caca offensive, I don't know how much free time I'm going to have in the foreseeable future."

He waited for her to object, to say that she had to be with the babies, but instead she nodded her head and agreed. It wasn't the dining room they had been used to. Hell, it wasn't the house they had been used to. The palace was still in the process of being rebuilt, and wouldn't be ready for occupancy for many more months. The Emperor had wanted to simply put that on hold until the war was over. After all, there were many more important projects that needed the labor and materials, but the Parliament and the people of Jewel had insisted that certain landmarks be restored as soon as possible. Parliament, the Grand Cathedral, the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, the Imperial Library, and the Palace. Sean had gone along with Parliament, since they needed a meeting place large enough for joint sessions of all three houses. And he had insisted on rebuilding the Hexagon, for the sake of military pride. He could even understand the zoo, since the animals who had lived there had not asked to be removed from their natural environments, and needed the enclosures that simulated their native worlds.

The formal dining room was the only large eating facility in the manor, a house on the northern coast that had belonged to an uncle who had died in the war. He had been childless, and so this estate had reverted back to the Imperium, so the Emperor could give it to another worthy noble. The dining room had large windows on two opposite sides, one looking out on the beautiful rock formations of the bay, the other on the forested slope that dropped down into the river valley. Sean thought this might be a good manor for Cornelius, when the young man came back from the current mission. It came with over eight hundred square kilometers of wilderness, fine hunting lands, bordering on thousands more of the wilderness area. The county it was in had several fine towns, three on the coast, two more on the river. Not what most nobles would desire, but probably perfect for the man called the Hunter.

"This is really good," said Jennifer, pulling some of the meat from a native crustacean and dipping it in butter.

"Caught right down the coast," said Sean, wiping a bit of butter off of his chin after swallowing some of the delicious seafood.

"I feel safe here," said Jennifer, looking up at her husband. "I feel like the children are safe here."

The Emperor nodded. As long as no one knew where they were, they were perfectly safe. A company of the Imperial Guard Division was quartered here in the outbuildings, and a number of aircars were always overhead, watching. The people near here were simple fishers and farmers, people who had been loyal to his uncle, and were unlikely to say anything to the newsies. And the wormhole that had been installed in the subbasement made travel back to the capital instantaneous. Wormholes were expensive, and precious, but if the Emperor couldn't requisition one temporarily, no one could.

"We'll eventually have to return to the capital," said Sean, reaching over and putting a hand over one of hers. "When the palace is ready for occupancy. The people expect us to be in residence."

"But, I don't want to go back there. I don't want to be hounded by strangers."

"I'm sorry. We can stay here for the time being, but we have public appearances to make. I can handle it for a while, but people will want to see their Empress, and the heirs."

Jennifer looked down for a moment, and it looked like she was going to cry. Sean had been hoping she was fully recovered, but now it was looking like she still had a long road to travel. Then she looked up, her eyes narrowing in thought, then nodded her head while letting out a breath.

"Give me another week and I'll be ready," she said. "Now, we don't have to think about leaving this beautiful place right now."

Jennifer stood up and walked around the table, sitting herself in the lap of her husband and putting her arms around him.

"Why don't you get ready for bed," she said in a soft voice. "Surely you don't have to work tonight, after all."

*     *     *

"Field Marshal on deck," yelled out the major who had been assigned the task of monitoring when the old man was going to walk into the room.

Field Marshal, thought Samuel Baggett, shaking his head. At the beginning of this war he was a mere light colonel. Then the Cacas had come, and with them a meteoric rise in rank. His last assignment had been as a colonel general, and army commander on the Fenri front. It had been a blood bath, his army had been almost destroyed, but somehow they had held on until the fleet could relieve them. The Emperor considered it a victory, and the poor fool had given the credit to Baggett, who felt like he had been in over his head. His reward was to be given an even larger assignment, something he felt was even further over his head.

Baggett was a compact man, average height and muscular build. Short sand colored hair barely covered his scalp, and hazel eyes looked out of his tanned face. He was younger than many of the men he commanded. If any resented it, they didn’t show it, though that might not mean anything.

The normal progression of command was to lead a unit successfully, most probably in peacetime, then go to a training school to prepare for the next rank. A colonel was to attend General Staff College before getting his first star, and again several times while moving up the ladder. Baggett hadn't even attended the first school. His were all battlefield promotions, similar to a lieutenant moving up to captain.

"At ease," he shouted out in his best drill field voice.

Very few of the people in the chamber had actually been at the position of attention, though they had gotten to their feet. Most were general officers, and they no longer felt the need to snap to stiff attention for anyone, save perhaps the Emperor.

Baggett looked around the room, noting the four colonel generals at the end where his chair was set. Three army commanders and his second in command. Two human males, a female and a male Phlistaran. He recalled all of their names through his implant. Rodriguez, Humbolt, Kim and Klrazare. There were a dozen lieutenant generals and a couple of score major generals down the table, plus a few brigadiers who were in important staff positions. This wasn't all of the junior flag officers in his command. Some were still in transit, others were still organizing their units and had been excused from this meeting. But most were here, including..

"Dagni," said Baggett with a smile. "Good to see you again." He smiled at one of the most beautiful women he had ever had the pleasure of being around, Dagni Thorwaldsdotter. His eyes widened as he saw the star on each shoulder. "And congratulations, Brigadier."

He had last served with Dagni when she was a lt. colonel and he a brigadier, in charge of a heavy brigade on the Lasharan home world. She had been severely injured, losing a leg, which had required some months of regrowth therapy. Yet here she was again.

"I think the congratulations are in order for you, Field Marshal," she said, her blue eyes twinkling.

"And you are," he said, searching his implant for the information, "my army logistics officer."

"That is correct, sir. I really didn't want to have to face fire again. I'm, not a coward, but..."

“I understand. You have more sense than I have." Losing a leg, and all the rehab that went with a regrowth, would be enough to make anyone reluctant to put themselves in that position again.

He looked around the room at the other officers, many of whom would be going planetside with their people when the time came. Something he wouldn't have to do again if he didn't feel the need. There was still a risk just being on the headquarters vessel of his army group, but it wasn't the same as being under enemy fire in a land battle. He felt some shame at that relief, but not enough to make him go into fire if he didn’t have to.

"Everyone, take your seats," he said, letting go of the hand of the woman and making his way to the head of the table.

"Can you tell us what the mission is, sir?" asked Klrazare in his rumbling voice, his belly on the bench made for his kind. "Are we to be deployed to fight the Caca invaders."

Baggett could almost feel the eagerness in the huge sophont's voice. Phlistarans were a warlike species. They had never been conquerors, as humans had found them still restricted to their one world. They had also been a freedom loving people that would not let those among them who had a mind for conquest have their way. They had accepted the humans from the beginning, given the freedom to choose their own course. Over the centuries they had become one of the most loyal members of the Empire, with many serving in the Army and Marines through history.

"We are not going to deploy to defend against the invaders," said Baggett, taking in the disbelieving expressions. "That will be the job of the Twelfth Army Group. The job of the Fourth Army Group will be to take the first Caca planets away from their Empire. We will be accompanying the Fleet as they drive into Caca space."

Cheers erupted around the table, while hands beat on the wood surface.

"Calm down, people," shouted Baggett. "I thought this was a meeting of flag officers, not the cheering section for the academy football squad."

The officers calmed down, though there were still a lot of smiles, and many grins stretching from ear to ear. He knew how they felt. He had felt the same way when he had been given the news. For three years they had been fighting the Cacas on human territory. They had carried the fight into Lasharan space, which was little more than a sideshow, and then into the Fenri Empire, which had been a little more in the right direction, but still not the main event. Now the main show was about to kick off, and they would be battling on the territory of their enemy.

"We have a lot to talk about.  I know all of you want to put paid to as many of the Cacas as possible, but there will be innocents in the way. They are a slave holding Empire, just like the Fenri, and we want the people they have held down to be on our side. Understood?"

He could tell that most of the people in the room didn't like this part. Hell, he didn't like it either. He was more concerned about his own people, but the Emperor had given the order. It was up to him to make sure the soldiers under him followed it.

*     *     *

"Congratulations, General," said Lt. General Walther Preacher Model, welcoming the newest flag officer in the special ops community.

"Why couldn't you leave me a lieutenant, sir," growled Cornelius Hunter Walborski, returning the salute. "Or captain, at most."

"You're lucky you're not going to prison, son," said Preacher, dropping the salute. "Disobeying an Imperial order. If you weren't his personal friend, I would have insisted that you get busted back to private and given some time to think about it."

"That would have worked."

"Well, you don't get your wish," said the higher-ranking officer, holding out a hand. "So welcome aboard. We can use you."

Cornelius took the hand and smiled, then took the offered seat and the offered coffee.

"The long-awaited offensive is on," said Preacher, a wide smile on his face. "It kicks off.."

"One month from now," said Cornelius, his own smile growing.

"Which is top secret," hissed Preacher.

"I'm friends with the guy who holds all the secrets, sir. You said it yourself."

"True," said Preacher with a chuckle. "And he knew what your assignment would be."

"Which he didn't tell me."

"So," said the lt. general, shaking his head. "I can tell you something you don't know. Praise God."

"There's a lot I don't know, sir. And I definitely don't have your connection to the almighty. Now, what is our part of this thing?"

"We aren't going to be going in with the heavy infantry, if that's your concern. Some of our people will be going in covert on the main targets, organizing the slaves to form a resistance. But that won't be our main focus. And definitely not the one of your regiments."

"And our mission?"

"We will be dropping a battalion each on nine important industrial systems that are off the axis of our advance, along with a wormhole for supply and reinforcement. Not as important as the ones we will be assaulting with heavy units, but important enough to interrupt their production."

"And you want us to go down and enlist those poor slaves," said Cornelius, not liking the idea at all. He had seen what happened when that had been done in the Fenri Empire. To the people he had led into combat, the poor sophonts who had been slaves of the Fenri. Most had died in combat, and many had lost their families as well. It was a shitty thing to do, but they had been more than willing to fight back against their tormentors.

"Can you do it? I know you saw some horrible things in Fenri space. You won't be serving on the ground in this campaign. Which doesn't mean that you won't know what is happening. So, can you do it? If not, we will get you a training command."

"I can do it," said Cornelius, through gritted teeth. "I'll feel like a shit not being there on the ground with my men, but I can do it."

"Remember, you promised his Majesty that you wouldn't go running off and desert your command. I don't want to hear anything to the contrary. You can tour the front if necessary, but you are not to go leading combat patrols, or partisan raids."

"I understand."

"And we will be working with aliens. I know you have experience working with other sophonts. That's what you did when you went over the hill in Fenri space. And I understand you had some experience with our friends. So it's about time you met them."

Preacher closed his eyes for a moment, sending an order over his implant. A moment later the door to the room opened and a trio of aliens came in, long and lean, walking on all fours, their long muzzles sniffing the air. One had a striped hide, another a series of splotches, while one was a solid reddish black.

Cornelius felt panic rise up in him. He had fought these creatures, or some like them, on Azure. He had bested them, which was why he was still here, and those members of this species weren't. He had never encountered a deadlier sophont in his time in the army. Maybe the Phlistarans were deadlier, but they weren't as murderously stealthy.

"Is everything alright, Walborski?" asked Preacher.

"I've just run into some of these, gentle beings, in the past."

"And you were not able to best them," said one of the aliens in heavily accented anglo, putting himself into a chair that had been made for his species.

"Oh, I bested them, alright. I cut three of you down with a knife blade, hand to hand."

The aliens stiffened and sat up. "You are the one we heard about? The Hunter?"

"That's him," said Preacher. "And I expect you will be giving him your full aid in planning his operations." He turned back to Walborski. "These fine gentle beings are Maurids, a species that has been enslaved by the Cacas for thousands of years. The sons of bitches have used them as scouts and intelligence gatherers for most of that time."

"And then you decided to switch sides?"

"We would be free. And we see your people as our best chance."

"And how many of you will be fighting for us?"

"None of us, on the surface," said the one with the solid coat. "We will be working with the masters, as far as they know. But we will be feeding information to your people."

"Can we trust them?" asked Walborski, staring into the eyes of the Maurid spokesman.

"The Emperor says we can. So I have to assume we can."

"I know it will be difficult to trust the lives of your warriors to us, but we three will be at your headquarters as, what do you call it, liaison. Doubling as hostages."

"Good enough," said Cornelius. "And if your people betray us, I will personally cut your throats. Understand?"

The Maurids all smiled at him, as if they didn't believe he could do what he said. Some moments of staring into the coldest eyes any of them had ever seen and their expressions changed, and Walborski knew that they now believed him.

Chapter Two

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt

SEPTEMBER 3RD, 1003. FENRI FRONT.

"We have a track on incoming warp fighters," called out the fleet sensory officer.

"We knew they were coming," said the fleet tactical officer, looking back at the task group commander.

Yes, we did, thought Vice Admiral Steffan Molineux. Knowing it was coming and seeing it materialize in front of you were something else altogether. They had entered what was supposed to be a Caca occupied system in the space of the former Fenri Empire. There weren’t many of their warships here, as far as they could tell.  Which was why Molineux had been ordered here with a force that amounted to overkill. The enemy warships were not the real target. Their task force was known to be carrying a number of their version of the warp fighter the Empire was employing so successfully. Those were the targets, the objectives. The test subjects, though they wouldn’t know it, hopefully, before it was too late.

The second part of the mission would be to prevent word of the test from leaving the system. Molineux had left enough ships in hyper around the system to kill anything that tried to get away. So here he was, providing the targets, waiting for the enemy to deploy their warp fighters to damage his force before a main engagement they couldn’t possibly win.

"Are the special ships in place?"

"Not yet, sir. They're moving into position."

Molineux cursed under his breath. There really was no reason to expect that the specially equipped ships would be in the right place at the right time. That they could move into their screening positions in time had been thought a given. Now, looking at the plot he wasn't sure that it was a given, since the warp fighters were sweeping in at eight times the speed of light. Not up to the standard of the Empire's version, but still frighteningly fast. Also not from the predicted direction, the location of the enemy fleet.

"Enemy is launching missiles."

They were still light minutes out, beyond where Imperial warp craft would launch. The missiles appeared on the plot, translated into their most likely positions by the technology of the Empire, which had been developed along with the warp fighters.

"Time to impact, twenty-two seconds."

The screening destroyers were still moving into position, and they would not be in place before the eighty warp missiles came in. They didn't know what kind of warheads they were carrying, though a good guess would put them at five hundred megs or more, not quite up to the capacity of the standard one gigaton ship killers. They would also carry no kinetic energy, a major component of standard missiles, that often came in at point nine five light. The warp field was dangerous enough, something that would rip through shields and hull armor with ease to deliver the warhead near to the vitals of the ship.

Two of the missiles were closing on a light cruiser, the first ship in the path of the swarm. The ship was putting out everything it could, lasers, particle beams, close in weapon projectiles, even some counter missiles. The beams did nothing, the warp field of the missiles ripping them apart before they could hit. The same was true of the close in weapon rounds, thirty-fire millimeter projectiles fired out of magnetic accelerator guns at point three light. The problem was that matter, no matter how much kinetic energy it carried, was not able to penetrate the compression field without much more mass. If thousands of them happened to strike within microseconds of each other they might blast some through. The probability of that was low. A counter-missile might take one out, if it came in at an angle that avoided the compression field. Another low probability event, since the missile was moving at a pseudospeed above light.

Both missiles struck the light cruiser, their compression fields pushing through the cold plasma and into the hull armor before the warheads went off.  A pair of bright flashes blotted out the image of the cruiser, the flashes combining as the ship blew into a small star.

"Estimating warhead yield at one gigaton," called out the sensor officer.

Molineux felt his heart skip as he heard that figure. That was the same yield as a ship killer. And they had definitely killed the cruiser, even without the kinetic energy a capital ship missile carried.

Six destroyers and three more cruisers disappeared from the plot, while the graviton emissions of three battle cruisers and a pair of battleships were reduced by more than half, one coming to a complete cessation of thrust.

The forty warp fighters maneuvered back into position, moving in to launch again, this time coming in from the other side, where the special ships were not. Eighty missiles came in, and killed nineteen vessels. The group had started with over three hundred ships, and had now been reduced by almost eight percent in numbers by only forty craft that together massed less than a destroyer.

"They're coming around again, sir," called out the sensor officer, panic edging her voice.

Molineux nodded, his eyes still locked on the plot, and the special ships moving into position. Imperial warp fighters carried four missiles, but it was looking like the Cacas mounted more on theirs. And they could take out another twenty ships on this pass if they weren't prevented.

"Enemy ships launching."

This time the eighty missiles were all flying into the corridor of the special defense ships, and within seconds they went into action.

The theory had been developed at the same time as the warp fighters. The fighters had to maneuver in a way that didn't force any of the formation into the forward compression field or stern expansion field of another fighter. It would disrupt their own field, causing the fighter to drop out of warp at the least, and possibly destroying them. So a system of compression field generators had been installed on test ships and tried out on practice missiles, until they had come up with a weapon that worked.

It took a lot of power to work the beam, which massed over twenty thousand tons itself. It wasn't something that could be put on every destroyer without robbing them of other necessary weaponry. It was thought that eventually every capital ship would have at least one of the devices aboard, since they had the overall mass to handle the increase. If the Empire could afford them.

Similar sensor returns appeared on the plot as the twenty-three destroyers opened fire. Space was warped out to two light minutes, the effect traveling at over a hundred times light speed. Every missile that crossed one of those beams fell out of warp, their warheads detonating as they were ripped apart.

Forty-nine of the missiles were destroyed as the beams swept through space. The destroyers maneuvered while they swung the beams, going after the ones that had escaped the first sweep. Two of the warp craft were also intersected by the beams, falling out of warp, one exploding as it reentered the normal universe, the other sitting dead in space. Five missiles made it through. One of the special destroyers was hit by two missiles, blasting it from space, while a heavy cruiser took two more and turned into plasma. The final missile hit a battleship, damaging it severely and leaving it dead in space.

The Caca warp fighters continued on, with thirty-eight survivors. They swung around in space, coming in at a different angle, and launching their last missiles. The warp beam destroyers were not in place to stop them, and eighteen more ships were destroyed or damaged. The warp beam ships couldn't stop the missiles, but they did get firing solutions on some of the fighters as they flew through, dropping eleven more of them out of warp.

"See if you can get somebody to capture a few of those ships," ordered Molineux, frowning as he looked at the list of ships he had lost. Research and Development, as well as Intelligence, would like to get a look at them. It looked as if the warp beam tech worked, but they needed more of the ships, and the possibility of arming capital ships looked even better. He didn't have those ships at this time, and the enemy had proven they could maneuver around them if he knew where they were.

Moments later the force was firing missiles on the enemy ships that were sitting half a light hour away. They launched their own warp fighters, which had been held in reserve so that they could see how effective the warp beams were. Nothing escaped the system.

*     *     *

"The warp beams work, your Majesty," said an animated Admiral Chuntuo Chan over the holo. The excited expression left her face and she looked down. "But we need a lot more of them. The Cacas really hurt the task group they attacked.”

"What were their losses?" asked the Emperor, feeling sick to his stomach at the reminder that the Cacas now had warp fighters. He knew they would have them, once the Empire demonstrated that they did. He had really hoped to keep them under the table until they had forged into Caca territory, unleashing them when they had some major fleet actions in Caca systems. Unfortunately, when the enemy had released their fleets on attacks into Imperial space, and threatened to overrun the Republic, the human led ally of the Empire, he had to use them, and the cat was out of the bag.

"They totally destroyed thirty-three ships, and badly damaged forty-one more. Almost a third of Admiral Molineux’ force. They were using missiles with the same yields as our own ship killers, something else that was unexpected," said the admiral, looking down, her voice lowering.

“What remained was able to destroy the enemy force, and the warp beams also proved useful in ripping apart some of the missiles in their first launch. Unfortunately, we didn’t do as well against the next three. The warp beams had overheated, and weren’t of much use at that point.”

“We still got hurt,” said Chan, one of the most brilliant officers in the Fleet. She looked down once again, her voice dropping low. “I should have made sure more warp beams were on that force’s screens."

"Not your fault, Admiral. We needed to deploy more of the weapons, and that's my fault."

"We don't have them yet, your Majesty," said the admiral. "And that's no one’s fault. We'll start deploying them in mass in the coming months."

Sean nodded. The warp beams were really nothing more or less than intensified graviton beams, manipulated in such a way as to compress space. That meant that they required super metals. Unfortunately, so did everything else in Imperial technology. The good news was that the warp beams were also effective against objects in normal space, such as missiles, and so could do double duty. They weren't all that effective as offensive weapons, since the times when ships came within beam range of each other were less than five percent of offensive actions, and lasers and particle beams had much greater range and much more firepower.

"Keep up the good work, Admiral," said Sean, his mind already switching to his next task. "We couldn't have accomplished so much without you."

The diminutive admiral broke out with a wide smile, obviously basking in the praise of her monarch.

Sean killed the holo, sitting back in his chair. He had known the enemy would deploy warp ships, and they had caught Mgonda’s fleet by surprise a couple of weeks before. He had hoped they would be further down the road, but they were here, now. The Fleet would have to deal with them. At least they had a defense against them, if not enough, while the enemy didn't have any, at the moment. One thing he was sure of, once they knew the Empire had it, they would too. He couldn't guess how long it would take them, but if he had to bet, it wouldn't be more than a couple of months to develop a prototype, and then maybe two more before they started deploying them. Which would mean losses of his own warp fighters. He hoped he could count on them to continue to whittle away at the Caca forces, no matter the defense. Knowing the Fleet, he was sure he could.

Chapter Three

Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon Bonaparte

SEPTEMBER 12TH, 1003. SPACE OUTSIDE THE GALACTIC DISK.

"Turnover in five days, Admiral," stated the navigation officer, sitting at her station on the flag bridge.

Vice Admiral Jefferson Muldoon, the insertion force commander, nodded as he studied the plot. They had been following the course well outside the galactic disc for about five months, almost four of those actually over the Ca'cadasan Empire. It had been hoped that the huge aliens wouldn't have much of a presence this far out from the dense stellar population of the disc, and so far that had proven true. His flagship, the Retaliation, was one of four of her class in his command.  Revenge, Vengeance and Retribution were the other ships in his force. Each was almost four kilometers in length and massed over twenty-eight million tons. All had been built as long-range explorers, much like the ships that had made contact with the Klavarta on the other side of the Caca's empire, they hadn't been intended to be warships. Originally, their hulls had been armored to about the same scale as a light cruiser, making it quite fragile for its size. Before this mission they had been uparmored and upgunned as compared to the other explorers. Still not warships, but probably much better able to survive.

Each ship had a wormhole emplaced to provide com and whisk away waste heat. Each also carried twelve wormholes that would mostly be distributed to the assault force when they came through the gates. Forty-four of those would go into ships, while the remaining four would be expanded into ship gates, ready to bring in reinforcements or for the retreat of the force as needed.

It was a risky venture, not just in men and ships, but in precious wormholes. If it went according to plan, it would be worth their loss. If not, then it wouldn't be worth any of the sacrifices. Everyone aboard the insertion ships was a volunteer who knew the odds against them. Not so the crews that would be coming through the wormholes. Those had simply been assigned, though Muldoon doubted any of them wouldn't have volunteered if given the chance. The Fleet wanted payback for what had happened to Jewel and New Terra, and they wanted it as soon as possible.

Retaliation, he thought, the name of his flagship, and the reason for the mission. He had some misgivings about operating so far from home, but despite his fears he had jumped at the chance to lead the insertion.

"Sir," called out the force tactical officer, looking back from his station. "We have six Caca ships on the plot, coming in from our forward point in hyper VII."

Muldoon was out of his chair in an instant, walking toward the holo tank which displayed the tactical plot, as if that would make the enemy ships go away. Or become more real.

They can't have wormhole com, thought the admiral, thinking about what he was going to do. Worrying about what might happen in the next hour. They had known this might happen. It was more likely to happen when they worked their way into the center of the enemy empire. It still might happen there, but it had happened here.

"Prepare to fire on those ships," he ordered, walking to and sitting back in his chair. "All ships, two wormholes, full streams."

We can't afford to let any of them get away, he thought. Two hundred and forty preaccelerated missiles. That should be enough. If it wasn’t enough, and one got away, it would be on him.

"What about their missiles?" asked the tactical officer.

That was a good point. He couldn't afford to take any damage at this point in the mission.  "One more wormhole per ship is to fire a stream set for interception. But wait until they fire."

The tactical officer nodded and went back to his board. The enemy ships drew closer. The admiral was wondering what was going through their minds, meeting Imperial ships this far out from the disc, and so far into their own space. Or if they would even recognize his ships as human.

The closer the better, he thought. If they could reduce the flight time for the preaccelerated missiles to less than ten seconds, the enemy wouldn't have a chance.

"The enemy ships are firing," announce the tactical officer.

"Return fire."

The plot was now populated with missiles, flying through hyper VII, first only the hundred or so from the enemy force, now identified as one supercruiser and five scout ships. Seconds later the two hundred and forty Imperial missiles, traveling at point nine-five light, were heading into the enemy. Two seconds later one hundred and twenty more missiles were fired, set to intercept the enemy incoming.

The enemy didn't have a chance. They intercepted less than twenty weapons, and took direct hits by more than twice that, turning them into plasma that fell out of hyper. Only two enemy weapons came within any kind of range, both sending heat and radiation into two of the Imperial ships at extreme range.

"Enemy ships are destroyed, sir," said the tactical officer.

"Retaliation is reporting minor damage to port hull and two grabber units," called out the force com officer.

The admiral blew out a held breath. They had gotten off light while destroying the enemy, and the Cacas still didn't know they were out here. A winning situation for the Empire, and good training for the crews, because he was sure they would run into more before they got to their target.

*     *     *

"We have found a way to engage with our inertialess fighters, Supreme Lord," said the high admiral in charge of military tech development.

"And what does that mean, High Admiral?" asked the younger Emperor, leaning back in his throne. This sitting in the chair and ruling was boring. Not at all what he had expected when he had set his father up for assassination, and he didn't understand half of the things his males brought before him. That wasn't his fault. His father should have ended the stupid cultural education he had insisted on and trained his son to be a warrior, such as he had been.

"The weakness of the inertialess fighters is their inability to communicate when they are in their bubble, Supreme Lord. You understand that, yes?"

"I am not an idiot, High Admiral. And if you wish to keep you head on your shoulders, you would do well to remember that."

The high admiral lowered his eyes to the floor and bowed, his hands shaking. All knew that this emperor was more than willing to order anyone he thought insubordinate or insufficiently subservient to die. Death by beheading was one of the more merciful manners in which he might order them to die.

"I, am truly sorry, Dread Lord," said the high admiral, keeping his eyes to the floor. "I understand that you are the most intelligent among us, your intellect knowing no bounds."

The young emperor smiled. He knew the admiral was trying to impress him with flattery. His father's lessons had included that much of worth, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. "So tell me about this new means of communication."

"One of our slave scientists discovered a new dimension, Supreme Lord. It can be detected from our dimension, and from within the bubble of the inertialess craft. It will allow us to vector our fighters onto the enemy despite their movements."

"And that will accomplish what, Admiral?" growled the emperor, sitting up straight on his throne. "The enemy is overrunning the systems we have taken, taking our ships out two to one. Do we have the weapons for our intertialess fighters to make a difference?"

"Not, yet, your Majesty," said the admiral. "We are working on getting them developed, then deployed."

The inertial rebound weapons of the enemy had come as a shock. A fifty ton missile would reenter space as the equivalent energy of that much antimatter. And the human fighters, using their singular allies that could communicate with each other through any space over any distance, had brought the craft onto to target in almost every case. While the Ca'cadasan fighters were still missing almost every attack. Especially since the humans had figured out how to track the fighters while they were in their bubbles. Not accurately, but good enough to know they were there and from which direction they were coming. His people could now do the same, but they couldn't move out of the way like the humans could. Not with their instantaneous communications assets.

"What happens when the fighters come out of their bubbles with rebound inertia, like the missiles of the humans do?" asked the emperor, a sly gleam in his eyes.

"The same thing as the missiles, only with more power," Supreme Lord.

"Then that is what they will do."

"Supreme Lord?" asked the officer in confusion.

"Do you recall the story of the Shadow Warriors, admiral?" asked the emperor, first seeing recognition in the eyes of the male, then a recoiling as he saw the connection.

The Shadow Warriors had been ancient fighters of the original Ca'cadasan world government, the one that had fallen to the invading insectoids who had conquered the world. They had been pledged to destroy all enemies of the ruling council, even at the cost of their lives. And they had done so, strapping explosives to their bodies to sneak into the hives of the enemy and detonate the devices. While the Ca'cadasan nation was reeling in defeat, they had carried the fight to the enemy, killing the queens that were needed to make more of their warriors.

"Are you serious, Supreme Lord?"

The Emperor just stared at the male for a moment, letting his fear grow. Of course brave males went into combat with the expectation of dying. It was their place. But they went in knowing there was a chance to survive. The tactic of the Shadow Warrior left no chance, since they were the weapon.

"I have never been more serious, Admiral. Our inertialess fighter crews are ordered to go in as Shadow Warriors, to destroy themselves, and take the enemy with them." He stopped for a moment, thinking, then looked back at the admiral. "And what would happen if eighteen hundred tons of fighter turned into an inertial rebound bomb in close proximity to a human battleship?"

"It would shatter the ship, Supreme Lord. It might result in the destruction of several nearby vessels."

"And the exchange would favor us, correct?"

"Yes, Supreme Lord."

"Then we will work out an exchange for the crews, their lives for prosperity for their offspring. That has always worked in the past, true? Then that is what we'll do."

The Emperor leaned back in his chair, a predatory smile on his face. He would have liked to see the faces of the human commanders when such powerful explosions went off within their formations.

*     *     *

SEPTEMBER 18TH, 1003.

Saures system had belonged to neither the Ca’cadasans nor the humans at the start of the war. It had been outside the borders of each. The Ca’cadasans, on discovering the humans still existed, had bypassed territory they normally would have explored and consolidated so they could get at their hated enemies.

The K class star was unassuming, but it was home a a number of planets, like most stars. Seven bodies orbited, including two gas giants, along with an asteroid belt. Finally, the prize of systems of interest to carbon based life, an inhabitable planet in the life zone. More it had life, and not just that, but intelligent life. The society on the planet was the equivalent of early bronze age, with many kingdoms and some expanding empires.

The Empire had established a base in the system, to service the fleets they expected to hurl into enemy space. Multiple stations now sat in orbit, along with massive fortresses. There was no telling what the inhabitants of the planet thought of the new stars in their sky, and the Imperials tried their best not to disturb them. The planetary facilities that would be set aside for rest and recreation were on an uninhabited landmass. When the war had passed the Empire would decide what to do about them. The moral and ethical code of the Empire was to help more primitive societies to get past the ravages of war, famine and disease, and to join the brotherhood of star faring species, if that was possible. In some cases it was not, as the intelligence of the sophonts had not reached that point. The sophonts of Saures had reached the point where they could be educated to understand modern tech, given time.

Lenkowski stood on his flag bridge, watching the icons of incoming ships. Ca’cadasan ships, thousands of them. He would fight his battle in this system. If all went according to plan, the enemy would not have much of a fleet leaving here after the battle. But when has anything ever gone according to plan, thought the grand fleet admiral with a slight smile that covered his feelings of apprehension.

He had two objectives in this fight. To destroy as much of the enemy fleet as he could while preserving as much of his as possible, and make sure nothing happened to the inhabited planet. He could think of two primary ways of doing that, a far defense, and a near one. Far would put his ships out by the asteroid belt, hidden, able to take on the enemy fleet as they came in. It would put him out of mutual support range of the facilities in orbit, and the enemy might still fire missiles at those satellites that could hit the planet. Or he could put his ships near the planet, making them easier to detect, but giving him a position of mutual support and the ability to defend the wormhole gates in orbit.

Alternatively, he could split his force, putting enough in orbit to catch the enemy’s attention, while setting enough in the belt to ambush them, catching them in a crossfire. That was the riskier move, and the one with the greatest payoff if successful, and that was the one he had picked.

His super heavy battleship flagship currently sat near to a large asteroid, a body three hundred kilometers in diameter. Almost five hundred ships were with her. Other task groups sat near other large asteroids, or clusters of smaller ones. Over ten thousand ships in total in the belt, comprising the outer force. The inner force, another ten thousand, sat just out from the planet. The inner force was using deception measures, including smaller ships with overloaded grabbers to simulate much larger vessels. It would look to the enemy like a force almost twice as large as it was. If the enemy decided to use active sensor pulses to verify the human force, so much the better. There were frameworks of girders covered in a special reflective foil that would reflect a return similar to one from a cruiser or battleship.

Len looked at his dispositions, wishing he could have done more, but no matter how much he had done, and how much he had, he would always want more. That was natural in any commander. And he had reinforcements available if he really needed them, as well as some more hidden assets

Come and get it, you bastards, he thought. The anxiety of coming battle was setting his nerves on edge, but his anger at this opponent that wanted to wipe out his species overwhelmed the other feeling.

“Enemy force is jumping down into normal space,” called out the fleet tactical officer. “Range to hyper limit, one point four light minutes.”

They had learned not to be so predictable as to jump out right at the limit, and into a possible ambush. But Len had decided that he wouldn’t be predictable either.

Chapter Four

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.  Samuel Beckett

SEPTEMBER 23RD, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT.

“They seem to be clustered around the planet, my Lord,” said the tactical officer, looking back at the command chair and bowing his head slightly. “So far, we’re getting a read on about fifteen thousand ships. Most of them are moving, but they aren’t boosting out in our direction.”

Great Admiral Zhrattalus Hresshatrasha gave a head motion of acknowledgement, looking at the plot. He had expected the enemy to set an ambush near the hyper I barrier. He had counted on it so much that he had translated over a light minute out, weapons hot and ready, prepared to hit them before they could react. He knew that if they had a number of their wormhole launchers he was still going to get hit, and hit hard. But it was his best chance at getting a quick strike that could lead to a quick win.

“Any ships in near space?”

“Not that we can find, Lord. We are pulsing active sensors. We should know something in a couple of minutes.”

The great admiral gave another head motion of acknowledgement. Ships within a couple of light minutes should be detectable by passive sensors, unless they happened to be some of the damnable stealth ships of the humans. Active sensors should detect everything out to half a light hour, but it took time for the lidar and radar to pulse out and return, the limit being light speed. But enemy ships powered down and outside of passive sensor detection range could be sending streams of wormhole launched missiles at him right this minute. There was talk about new technology to detect wormhole translations, but if it was true, he didn’t have it.

“Why are they moving if they’re not coming out?” he asked, his mind parsing the possibilities. Zhrattalus was that most unusual of Ca’cadasans. Quick minded and intelligent, he had avoided the battles that killed many young males looking for advancement. He fought when it was to his advantage, and retreated when it wasn’t. The slurs of contemporaries didn’t bother him. What he wanted was victory at all costs. And he normally got it. And with the deaths of so many other ranking officers the opening had come for a brilliant tactician. All had seemed to be going his way, until the Emperor had died, under suspicious circumstances, and his idiot of a son had taken the throne. Now intelligence and tactical acumen were no longer the desired abilities, at least not by the throne. Now ferocity and bull-headed charges were again the currency of leadership.

“They’re up to something. So I guess it’s time for us to throw something at them as well.”

He didn’t approve of the new tactics, but since he was required to use them, he had decided to use them well.

“Launch all inertialess fighters. Orders are to strike at any concentrations of enemy they can get at. Then prepare the fleet to move in. We will hit their fleet before they can recover from the fighter attack.”

*     *     *

“Their fleet is boosting in, sir,” said the fleet tactical officer. “Estimated five hundred and twenty gravities. Course appears to be toward the planet.”

“You get that, Suzanne?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fleet Admiral Suzanne Stagnowski, looking out of the com holo. She was the senior five-star flag officer in his command, and so she had gotten control of the decoy force. It was actually slightly larger than the one he had kept, as per the plan. “We’re ready.”

“It might make more sense if you went ahead and feigned panic when they have gotten well into the system.”

“I don’t think there will be much in the way of feigning,” Suzanne said with a smile. “Seeing all those big ships coming at one is enough to bring on a real panic.”

Len laughed. He knew the woman had the courage of a lion. That was how she had worked her way from commodore up to fleet admiral in three short years. That and surviving in the thick of combat when many senior rankers didn’t. She was also telling the truth. Seeing a large force bearing down on one, when any of the weapons they launched could be the one that had your name on it, was a frightening experience.

“We’ll give them a show when they get far enough in,” said Stagnowski. “Just make sure you have our back.”

“We have it, alright,” said the six-star admiral who commanded this entire fleet. “We’ll be putting streams right up their ass before they know what’s happening.”

“We have ships breaking off from the main formation, sir,” called out the fleet tactical officer. “The way they’re diverging, I suspect they’re going to be coming into the belt in scout teams.”

“Shit,” growled Len. He had been hoping for one of the stupid Caca officers. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be what he was getting. Darwinian evolution had been taking out a lot of the stupid ones, and the smart ones were surviving and gaining control of larger forces. He didn’t know what he might expect from this one, but whatever it was, it was sure to not mesh with his plans.

He needed them far enough in the system, going at high enough velocity, that they couldn’t back out of the fight. He wanted them all, and if they stuck their noses in far enough, he could have them.

“Any change of plans, sir?” asked Stagnowski.

“Nope. Well, yes. If they look like they’re going to get close to us before the first stream would get to them, we’ll open fire. My tactical officer will let you know when we’re about to open up, and I want you to send every wormhole missile you can fire their way.”

Len looked over at his tactical officer. “Freddy. When do we expect they’ll fire on Admiral Stagnowski?”

“Right about here, sir,” said Commander Joseph, his dark face screwed up in concentration.

The enemy would try to fire at a range where their missiles would be pulling point nine five light, about the maximum to be expected in normal or hyper. They would come it at a velocity that made them difficult to target. It also made them less likely to be able to adjust onto a second target if the first one was hit by something else. It was a tradeoff, but common knowledge was that long range missile fire was the best option.

“And if we fire in three hours we’ll hit them just before they open fire.”

“And for Admiral Stagnowski?”

“Fifteen minutes before we do.”

“Set up your firing solutions for that time,” said Len, looking at his second in command. “We’ll hammer them before they get off their first shots.”

“Understood,” said the other officer. “They’re still going to get off a large volley.”

“No help for that,” said Len. “We’re going to take some losses no matter what. If we can reduce them to an acceptable level, while destroying them, I’ll take it.”

And what’s an acceptable level? thought Lenkowski. Acceptable to the survivors? To the families of those who are killed?

*     *     *

Sean sat back in his office, alone, and watched the interplay of one of his two senior field commanders and his second in command. The holo beyond the com showed the system the battle was to take place in. He had a vantage point like no other Emperor before him. He could countermand any order given, direct the battle as if were the senior officer on the spot. And he couldn’t allow himself to do so.

If the Emperor intervened in every front-line decision, eventually admirals would come to expect it. And then he would snuff out initiative in his fleet. Tradition was that the officer on the spot made the tactical decisions. Plus, he would have done pretty much the same thing Len was. He approved of the actions of his grand fleet admiral. If he won the battle, he would have won it with his decisions. If he lost it? Then he would have lost it taking actions his Emperor approved of. Sean couldn’t have done better himself.

Still, it was torture to watch the unfolding battle and not take a hand in it.

*     *     *

“Signals coming in from our fighters, my Lord. They are slightly off course according to their inertial guidance systems. We are sending them course corrections to get them back on track for the enemy fleet.”

The Great Admiral hissed in satisfaction. Until now their inertialess fighters were almost helpless in tracking the enemy while they were in their warp bubbles. They could be set on a vector, with orders to drop out after a certain flight time at certain accelerations and velocities. And they could still come out of their bubbles having missed the enemy ships by almost a light minute. Once they were out, they could go back in, but they still had to kill their velocity, which could take over a half an hour, before heading back for their target. Which might have moved again.

One of the human scientists the Empire had captured from the kingdom once known as New Moscow, he who had given the Ca’cadasans the secret of wormhole gates, had solved the problem. It was amazing what the creatures could do, especially when the lives of their mate and children were at stake. He had found a dimension that was accessible through its apparatus to objects in warp bubbles, using graviton waves. It could be used to signal to them in a binary code. Not as good as what the humans had, but you couldn’t have everything. That new technology, along with the tactics the fighters were about to use, should come as a surprise to the humans.

By the Gods, it should come as a shock to them. And it might just hit them hard enough that we can make it in and destroy them. If he could do that, take away this system that they were trying to use as a springboard to invade the Empire, while destroying a major fleet, he would be hailed as a hero, his name added to those of the greatest conquerors in the history of his people. Not that he would care what that useless excuse for an Emperor thought. That being might put the ribbon around his neck, but the adulation of other warriors, the real power of the Empire, was what he desired.

And someday the little piece of offal might come to his senses, and realize that his father was right after all.

*     *     *

"We have incoming inertialess fighters, ma'am," called out the task group sensor officer.

Fleet Admiral Suzanne Stagnowski didn't have to ask whose fighters. The Empire was not using them in this system, though they did have a wing of warp craft that could be deployed at any time needed.

"Can we get a good track on them?" asked the admiral, looking at the plot, showing the probability cloud of the location of the enemy fighters. They had a pretty good lock on their direction from the fleet, but the cloud widened as to how far they were.

"Give me a few moments, Admiral, and I should be able to firm it up," replied the sensor officer.

Stagnowski nodded. The new sensor software, developed using their own inertialess fighters as a baseline, should be able to narrow the track, though they didn't have complete data on the Caca version.

"Track is firming up."

The cloud narrowed, and it looked like the inertialess fighters were close, within a few minutes of reaching attack range.

"All ships to defensive posture Delta seven," ordered the admiral, setting all the ships onto heading that would guard the capital ships while the escorts put out everything they had. It was a cold-blooded response, putting the smaller ships in harm's way. But any way it was cut, the capital ships were much more important than the tin cans. "All ships up to four hundred gravities accel. Course forty-five degrees to port, twenty-five degrees to the ecliptic."

The capital ships were still arrayed to protect the planet and the objects in orbit around it. That was truly the priority, since they were not able to defend themselves against any kind of attack, and they were still forty-five minutes from launching their wormhole missiles at the enemy. All of her launchers were aboard capital ships, another reason to protect them at all costs.

It took a half minute for the destroyers to get into position, and the track was now within less than a minute and a half from attack range.

"I wonder if they'll actually find us," said the chief of staff, eliciting some smiles on the bridge.

As far as they knew, the Cacas still hadn't solved the problem of communicating with their inertialess fighters. And the task group was now moving at four hundred gravities onto a different vector, something the attacking ships should not be able to compensate for.

"We're picking up strong graviton waves, ma'am," called out another sensor tech. "Coming from thirty-seven degrees below the ecliptic. Estimated range, one point three light hours."

"What the hell is that?" asked the chief of staff, running up to the sensor station and looking at the sine waves. It was a regular pulse, like a com, but more powerful than anything they had ever seen.

"Inertialess fighters are altering track, ma'am. They're shifting vector toward us. Attack range in one minute."

"How in the hell are they doing that?" yelled out the chief of staff.

Stagnowski stared at the plot, her mind working overtime. There was no way those fighters knew her formation was changing course through their own devices. Inertialess fighters couldn’t see things happening in normal space, not even the graviton emissions of large vessels. But they were changing course, coming after her ships. Maybe they had figured out some way to communicate with them, through some kind of grav pulse resonance. And any ship in normal space would know where her ships were by their graviton emissions. She could try another course change, but doubted she could generate enough vector in the time remaining to make any difference.

"Screening ships firing."

Every destroyer and light cruiser in the screen was now putting out everything they could, trying to put up a wall of fire that would stop the enemy fighters. They wouldn't be able to cover the entire area with an impenetrable screen, but they might be able to pick off some. Lasers weren't worth much, but they might be able to burn through if enough intersected the incoming craft, a low probability event. Particle beams had a better chance, since they would put matter into the inertial bubble and degrade the negative matter within. Counter missiles were a nonstarter, there was no way they could get through, but they were set to explode near enough to maybe put some matter in the way. Close in weapons could put enough shots in, and things would get better when the inertialess fighters got closer and were down below lightspeed, the velocity they would have to be at to translate back into normal space.

"They're coming in too hot," called out one of the sensor techs. "Estimated speed, two light."

"That's too damn fast," yelled the chief of staff. "They won't be able to launch at us."

No, they won't, thought the admiral, a shiver of fear running up her spine, wondering what they were about to be hit with. It seemed now that she wouldn’t have to feign panic.

*    *    *

"What are they doing?" asked the male in charge of the inertialess fighter, looking over at the male who was manning the com panel.

"They are moving to spinward of the planet. Boosting at four hundred gravities."

"I've got them positioned, sir," called out the male running the inertial navigation track.

There were sixty fighters in this attack wave. Normally they would be commanded by a senior pilot, but in this kind of attack they were more or less singletons. In a normal attack they would blow through and start to decelerate, coming back into normal space as they reached their entry velocity, then continuing to decel until they could come back, receiving their orders from the male in charge. That would not happen during this attack. They would not be blowing through, they would not be coming back.

Ca'cadasans lived for a very long time, up to three thousand Earth years, some exceptional specimens living even longer. Most long-lived species were not profligate with their lives, preferring to live as long as possible. Bu the Ca'cadasans were a warrior culture, each individual willing to sacrifice his life for the whole. That whole embodied by the Emperor. This was not the kind of attack these males would have preferred. But it was what they had been ordered to conduct. And it was the only way they could use these craft to hurt the humans in the most extreme manner possible.

All the males had been promised rewards, in this life as well as the next. Lands and wealth for the families, positions for their children and grands. And since all were elder males, above twenty-five hundred years, they didn't even have as much to sacrifice as the younger members of their families.

The humans had a name for it, this suicide attack by small craft to destroy larger. The male had read about it in some of the human databanks they had captured, and since the Ca'cadasans didn't they adopted the human term. Kamikaze. The wind of the Gods. Today they would be the wind that blew hundreds of thousands of humans out of existence.

*     *     *

"They must be preparing to launch inertial rebound weapons," said the chief of staff, panic in his expression.

The admiral felt a shiver of fear run up her own spine. Inertial rebound weapons were a deadly development of inertialess technology, using the tendency of matter to convert to energy when coming out of a warp bubble with greater velocity than entering. It was like an equal amount of matter/antimatter exploding, as powerful by mass as anything possible. The Cacas had not used any weapons like that, while the Empire had used them to stop the offensives by the big aliens into Fenri and Republic space. Once they were known it would not be hard to reproduce them. All that was needed was the intertialess technology in the first place, and the implementation was simple.

They were in the wrong formation to withstand that kind of an attack, with ships too close to each other. They couldn't stop the attack, all they could have done was to make sure the ships were spread out enough that a single blast wouldn't take out more than one. Instead, they were in a compact formation to defend against missile attack, able to put out the most counter fire into the smallest area.

"Order force dispersal," she yelled out, stepping quickly to the com stations, and knowing that it was already too late.

The first blast occurred just outside the formation, one that showed that they weren’t missiles, but something much larger. Eighteen hundred tons of fighter dropped its bubble, converting to seventy petatons of power. No ships were close enough to actually get caught up in the small blast wave, but space was flooded with heat and radiation, and hundreds of crew were killed instantly in positions near the outer hulls of the closest ships. The fighters were moving at faster than light, so more explosions occurred within the fleet formation before they had even registered the first blast.

Within seconds thirty-seven flares of star-like power exploded within the fleet. Over a hundred ships were shattered by close blasts. Others were left lifeless by waves of radiation. Many hundreds were damaged. Twenty two more blasts lined up on the other side of the fleet, ships who hadn't dropped out at the right time, wasting their fury on open space.

Vice Admiral Suzanne Stagnowski stared at the plot that showed many of the vessels of her fleet gone, others crippled. Her fighting power had only been reduced by a fraction, but the sensors were showing many more of the inertialess fighters out there. It didn’t take a genius to figure where they were heading.

"Get on the com, now," she shouted, picking herself off the deck where she had been thrown, and stumbling to the communications stations. "Admiral Lenkowski has to know about these things."

The Cacas had found a way to hurt them, a new way which might not be that easy to counteract. Depending on how many of them they had, they might be able to cause catastrophic damage to the Fleet.

“All wormhole launchers are to target the enemy fleet,” was her next order as she sat in her chair, lowered her faceplate, and strapped herself in.

“It’s not time,” shouted out the confused tactical officer.

“We’re going to lose ships,” she said, trying to sound calm as she stared into the eyes of the man. “Some of them will have wormholes aboard. And I intend to get off as many shots as I can before they hit us again.”

She sat there looking at the cloud that indicated the enemy fighters. There seemed to be more of them in this wave. Many more.

“All ships are to go over to cycling offensive missiles at the enemy, as many as they can get off,” she ordered. She was afraid she was about to be reamed by this attack, and she didn’t want offensive missiles going up with their launching platforms.

Three hundred fighters came in the second wave, and the sensors showed an even larger group following.

*     *     *

“We’ve hurt them, my Lord.”

Hresshatrasha could see that. Since all the enemy ships were boosting, the number falling off the plot as their grabber units ceased functioning showed at least a badly damaged ship. He couldn’t tell at this distance how many of those were kills. But over seventy ships had fallen off the plot for the cost of less than a hundred fighters and crews.

“Second wave reporting contact, now.”

Over two hundred icons fell off the plot. He was sure that not all were kills, but a ship that couldn’t boost would eventually be a kill. He still didn’t like sending males in on suicide attacks, deliberately sacrificing themselves. But it did seem to be working, and it was looking like he might be able to destroy this fleet while keeping his own fighting power intact. Not that he expected to not have any losses. The icons of enemy missiles heading his way, tens of thousands of them, put a lie to that hope. And there were probably thousands of the invisible silent missiles launched by their wormholes.

“Third wave will contact if three minutes,” called out the tactical officer. “Fifteen minutes until our own launch.”

Hresshatrasha still had some religion in him, unlike many of the high-ranking males of the Empire. He closed his eyes and said a prayer for the people who were dying to kill enemy ships, and he said a prayer for the souls, if any, of the humans who were dying in those attacks.

“Any word from the scouts?” he asked as he opened his eyes.

“No, my Lord. First teams are coming into passive sensor range of twenty percent of the belt.”

“Order them to go active. If there’s anything there, they’ve got to know those ships are coming. And I will feel much better when we know for sure that the only enemy we have to face is the one in front of us.”

Chapter Five

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.  Ernest Hemingway

“I should have arranged my fleet differently, your Majesty,” said Lenkwoski over the com. “They’re hitting Stagnowski with those damned fighters of theirs, and I’m not there to thicken her defenses.”

“They caught us all off guard, Admiral. What I need you to do is destroy that fleet while preserving yours. We’ll try to come up with something to counteract those fighters.”

And fast, thought the monarch. If the enemy could continue to engage them at an exchange rate like this, it could damage his fleet beyond repair. And that couldn’t be allowed. He could continue to hit them with inertial rebound missiles, not as powerful as their craft doing the same thing. And he wouldn’t order his people to perform those kind of attacks. Hell, if he tried, he would have a mutiny on his hands. The people in his military had sworn to put their lives on the line. They had not agreed to press suicide attacks.

“They still don’t know where your force is, right?”

“So far. We are watching their scouts get closer, and I think it will be only minutes before they have us. But our first volley will be hitting them before that.”

“Keep the pressure on them. And move your fleet out beyond the limit and into hyper if you need to, to escape those damned fighters.”

That sounded like a good order. Once in hyper the enemy fighters wouldn’t be able to do anything to them. But they were currently standing still, or as still as they could be in an orbit around the star out by the star’s asteroid belt. They could get to the barrier in just under nine hours, including the time needed for them to decel down to translation speed. During all that time the enemy fighters could strike. Depending on how many of them there were, Len might lead a gutted fleet out of the system, if he survived.

“I think you need to launch every inertialess fighter you have and set them to intercept the enemy,” said Sean after a moment’s thought. He didn’t like the order. They hadn’t tried fighter to fighter combat since the inertialess birds had made their appearance. He wasn’t sure if they could even attack, or if attacking they would survive. But they had to do something.

“We only have a couple of wings, your Majesty, and it seems like the enemy brought more to the show.”

The plot zoomed in on Stagnowski’s position, again showing ships dropping off of the plot, this time over three hundred. The fleet was dispersing as fast as they could, getting distance between ships, so that a blast wouldn’t take out more than one. And that only with good luck for the enemy, bad luck for the defender. Then the missiles of the enemy would be among them, and the ships would be on their own for close in defense. It couldn’t be helped. They had to pick their poison and deal with it, and right now the fighters seemed to be the greater threat.

“We just lost one of the wormhole gates and a fort,” called out a voice from the wormhole, an officer behind Lenkowski monitoring the situation.

“They’re hitting the orbits of the planet, your Majesty. And if one blows up above the planet, or on the surface?”

A blast like that could just about wipe life off the surface of the world. There was an intelligent species there, all of that species. The Empire had not contacted them, nor moved a population off the planet. That was looking like it might have been a mistake, one that could lead to the extinction of a distinctive genotype, and the intelligence that had arisen from it.

“I’ve lost contact with Admiral Stagnowski’s ship,” said another voice, one fraught with tension.

Sean looked back at the plot, ordering the recognition sign for the admiral’s flagship to appear. When it didn’t he knew the story. Either it had been destroyed or badly damaged enough that the com was no longer working. Or the wormhole.

“Our missiles just went active, your Majesty,” said Len with a cold smile. “Now we get some payback.”

The plot zoomed in on the enemy fleet, fifteen thousand warships crammed within an area three light seconds across. Six thousand missile icons bloomed on the plot, activating their grabbers and accelerating in for the kill. Within seconds almost half of them were gone, destroyed by the enemy defenses. A thousand finally made it into final attack range, and over three hundred enemy ships dropped from the plot. Four seconds later five thousand more missiles appeared, these from the force near the planet, and the enemy was caught off guard again. Over two hundred more ships dropped from the plot. Thirty second after the first wave from Len’s ships hit, the second struck. The enemy force had been arrayed to defend against volleys from the planet, their screens oriented to that axis. They had very little between them and Len’s force, and their capital ships were getting the brunt of it.

More ships from the force by the planet fell off the plot, victims to the next wave of suicide attackers. Sean glared at that plot, angry at the enemy, angry at himself for not being able to do anything. His mind searched for that answer. The tactic of the Cacas reminded him of what the Japanese had done near the end of the Second World War. And he tried to recall what the Americans had done to counteract that tactic. As far as he could remember, all they had done was absorb their losses, and continued the war. They had the advantage of numbers. He didn’t. At best he had parity with the enemy force.

Minutes passed. More swarms of wormhole launched missiles hit the enemy. Half the enemy fleet was gone, destroyed or badly damaged enough that they could no longer boost. The same had happened to two thirds of the force that had been commanded by Stagnowski. But those same minutes had passed without another attack.

“Either they have no more fighters, or they’re coming for me,” said Len. “I’m continuing to fire on their fleet and maneuvering.”

That was all the admiral could do, and Sean was hoping it would be enough. Wormhole launch missiles were still coming from the inner force. Not as many, since many of the wormholes had gone up with their ships, but they were still firing. Their ship launched missiles were still on the way toward the enemy fleet as well. The problem was, so was the enemy missile swarm, with estimated contact in less than thirty minutes. And the fleet was still dispersed to reduce the effects of the fighter attacks.

*     *     *

“Scouts are picking up large forces of enemy ships in the asteroid belt,” shouted out the com officer.

The great admiral growled, glaring at the male. Of course there was a large force there. He had just been hit by two waves of the almost undetectable wormhole launched missiles. Along with one from the region of the planet. And he was sure that many more waves were coming.

“Open fire on those ships. And order the fighters to shift their attacks to that force.”

“They’re almost in attack range of the enemy force, my Lord. It will take some time for them to switch to attack those other groups.”

“Do it,” he screamed. Of course it would delay their attack, but the force near the planet was dispersed enough that he would probably only get a kill for every ten fighters. While he could get a kill for every two against the still congregated force. If they stayed congregated.

Another wave of enemy missiles struck, more of his ships turned into expanding balls of plasma, and he started thinking of what he was going to do. His orders were to drive in and destroy the enemy, no matter the cost. As far as he could determine the cost would be his entire force, and he would not be able to destroy the entire enemy force in this system. He might be able to take the one out by the planet, but that was all. And he only had two more wings of two hundred fighters each to continue the suicide attack.

“Plot our best path out of the system, avoiding both enemy forces,” he ordered his navigation officer.

“But, my Lord…”

“Do it. I intend to have a fleet that can continue the fight, not die here in this unimportant system. And make sure the course zig zags on the way out.”

The navigator gave a head motion of acknowledgment, then went to work.

If he could work things out right he could get a little less than half of his fleet out of here. A lot of it depended on them maneuvering the entire way in a manner that gave the enemy an unpredictable target. They could continue to send wormhole launched missiles at them, but if they were light minutes from their predicted course when they went active, they wouldn’t be able to pull the boost to acquire. He could only hope that the enemy didn’t have another large force waiting for him out beyond the barrier. If they did, he would just have to fight his way through. He had no intention of dying here, of watching his fleet die.

*     *     *

"They're suicide attackers, your Majesty. They bore in at faster than light, then translated among our ships, bringing enormous energy along with them. The way they maneuvered they had to be manned. Those were not just large missiles. The damned things went in knowing they were going to die." The expression on Len’s face showed what he thought of the idea. He was horrified, and so was his monarch.

"And we're lost how many ships to these Kamikazes, Admiral." Sean had a good idea, but the admiral was on the spot, and his analysts had looked at the battle damage.

Lenkowksi looked off holo for a moment, looking up some figures.

"We've lost over five thousand ships to these attackers, your Majesty. In this one battle. Over eight hundred of them battleships. Fortunately, they can't strike us in hyper. As long as they’re there, we’re invulnerable to that form of attack."

"But we can't stay permanently in hyper, not if we want to go on the offensive and take systems from them. And you know they’ll have every system we come too seeded with these things."

Len nodded, and Sean figured he was also considering that all the Cacas would have to do was hunker down in their systems and out wait the Imperial forces. Eventually they would be overextended, and the Caca fleet could hammer them in hyper.

"That is unacceptable, Admiral. We need to be able to stay on the offensive, no matter the cost."

Lenkowski nodded again, a morose expression on his face. Sean knew his admirals would follow orders and press the attack no matter the cost. It wasn't what they would want to do, but it wasn't what he would prefer to do either. Defeating the Caca offensive had already cost millions of lives, and though it would cost millions of more, no matter what, he didn't want the casualty figures to run higher than needed. His front-line admirals didn't seem to have an answer, but he knew someone who might.

With a thought he connected through a secure channel to Admiral Chan's office. He also sent over the data he had on the enemy inertialess fighters and their new attack pattern.

Moments later the face of Admiral Chan appeared on the holo. Her brow was knitted in concentration and she was staring at something off screen, hopefully some of the data he had sent.

"Give me a moment, your Majesty," said the admiral, not looking up.

Sean would have felt slighted if any of his other admirals had acted this way, but he understood this officer. She didn't have great social skills, but her genius with technology made up for that. As long as she kept delivering, he wouldn't care if she called him names every time they talked. He had plenty of admirals who were smooth talkers and diplomats. He only had one Chan.

"Very interesting," she said, finally looking up and making eye contact with the monarch. "And I assume you’re looking for a defense against them."

"That would be nice, Admiral," Sean said with a smile.

"And they are more or less invulnerable to any of our normal weapons. But we have done tests with our own inertialess craft, and they can be affected by space compression beams."

"Like the ones generated by the warp fighters?" said Sean, rubbing his forehead as he thought about what they could do. "And the warp beams we are using against them? I think Mgonda got a couple of kills with his lances. But there were not enough of them."

"Exactly, your Majesty. Not only will they drop warp fighters out of their warp, they will also drop inertialess fighters. Now, they will still come out with a rebound explosions, so we will have to take them down at a distance. But it is possible." Chan had seemed to completely ignore the fact that they didn’t have enough of the warp lances to make much of a difference.

"We don't have enough of the space compression beams," said Sean, thinking about how he might ramp up their production and deployment. But no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't see any way to get them to the Fleet in any appreciable numbers in months. And meanwhile the enemy would keep hammering his ships with this new tactic.

“The enemy seems to be using some new com procedure,” said Chan, excitement showing in her face. “As far as we know, there is no way for a craft in bubble to get information. But we do it with our Klassekian com techs, because of quantum connectedness.”

“Do you think that’s what they’re using?”

“Actually, no,” said the small admiral, a frown wiping away her excited smile. “We had no luck on developing a quantum connection com, and we have the Klassekians to study. We’re estimating in a couple of years, ten at the most, and we’ll have it. I don’t see how the Cacas can do it without the example of the beings who do it so easily. But there may be a dimension that can be accessed both through normal space and the bubble. There are, after all, an estimated billion total dimensions in space, many of them interacting with others.”

"Is there such a dimension?" asked Sean, who had kept up on all dimensional theory that had been formulated since the beginning of the war. He reached for his cup of coffee, the only stimulant he was allowing himself at this time, since he wanted his mind clear.

"Until now I would have had to say no. But obviously the Cacas discovered something. And now that we know it is possible, we can find it ourselves. Though I don't see how it will help us, since the Klassekians already fulfill that function for us more efficiently."

Sean had to smile as what she said penetrated his thoughts. Chan was brilliant, IQ off the scale, and sometimes things still went over her head.

"We don't need to use that type of com system, Admiral. What we need to do is learn how to jam it."

Her face brightened, a child who had been handed a new toy. "I'll get right on it, your Majesty."

*     *     *

“Damn. I wish we could have taken out that Caca commander,” said Sean, putting his silver fork down on the gold chased dinner plate.

“He was a smart one?” asked Jennifer, looking up from where she was feeding a spoonful of solid food to Glenn, who had graduated to regular food.

“He maneuvered his fleet out of the system like a master. We still got some of them, but not enough. And Len got hammered by the suicide fighters.”

“He’s okay?” she asked in an alarmed voice.

“Len’s pretty damned good at maneuver himself,” said Sean, nodding and reaching for his wineglass. “He lost about a hundred ships to the fighters, mostly screens. But he got out of it with an intact force. Stagnowski’s fleet was hit hard by the enemy missiles. I doubt if more than a thousand ships came out undamaged. Fortunately, Admiral Stagnowski survived. Her ship was a wreck, but the command team survived.”

“Thank God for that,” said Jennifer, bowing her head.

Sean had never been very religious, and he had lost what little belief he had since the coming of the Cacas. He couldn’t reconcile a deity who thought well of humans, but allowed an implacable enemy to drive into their territory, attempting to slaughter them all. Jennifer, who had been raised Reformed Catholic, was still a devout believer. That was a bone of contention between them, but both tried to work around it.

“They caught us off guard,” hissed Sean, slapping a hand on the table.

Glenn and Augustine both started at the sound, and Augustine started crying, pitching a fit.

“Please,” said Jennifer, putting down the spoon and getting up, raising the baby into her arms so she could comfort him.

“I’m sorry,” said Sean, reaching a hand over to stroke Glenn’s head. “It’s just that every time they catch us with our pants down, we lose more people. And we were lucky this time they didn’t kill a world with a distinctive genotype.”

Jennifer shifted Augustine in her arms and performed the sign of the cross from forehead to heart to shoulders. The Reformed Catholics believed that all life was from God, and sacred. Sometimes killing was necessary, as in this war. But genocide was a mortal sin, and one that could not be forgiven.

“What are you going to do about the Caca suicide attacks?” asked Jennifer, putting a mollified Augustine back into his high chair.

“Me? Nothing. That’s why I have the people I have working for me. I’ll order them to do something and they’ll get it done.”

“I thought you had no faith,” his wife said with a smile.

“No faith in things I can’t see or touch. But a lot of faith in the ingenuity of our people.”

Chapter Six

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.  Niccolo Machiavelli

OCTOBER 13TH, 1003. CAPITULUM. JEWEL.

"My Lords, Ladies," said Sean, standing at the front of the assembly and looking out at the faces of those in attendance. "Members of the Commons, Scholars. What I am about to tell you is considered top secret, and its dissemination is punishable under the Official Secrets Act."

The building they were meeting in was normally employed as a theater, one of the most opulent in the city. With Parliament still under construction, it was one of the few venues large enough to contain the several thousand members of the three houses of Parliament. The Lords, the hereditary aristocracy of the Empire, were permanently housed in the Parliament building on Capitulum. The Commons, the representative house of the people of the Empire based on population, met on the industrial world of Forge, while the Scholars, the representative house of the scientists and philosophers of the Imperial University system, met on the university world of Cambridge. Neither of their houses were sufficient for a joint session, and by tradition these sessions were always held in Capitulum, the home of the Imperial branch of the government.

The people in the hall sat up straighter in their chairs after his threat, many looking angry, others disgusted, some fearful. He wanted them to think that what he was telling them would be information it was vital to keep secret, and it would keep their interest.

"We are the midst of another attack by our enemies, the Ca'cadasan Empire. The frontier is on fire with battle. With the exception of the select members of certain armed forces committees, knowledge of the battle has been kept close to the vest. But now I can tell you. We are winning, and winning big. We have suffered our losses, as in any battle. The price has been high, but higher still for our foe. And I can tell you that the enemy offensive has collapsed, totally."

The noise level in the room rose as neighbor spoke with neighbor. The excitement was sweeping the room. These people had seen so much adversity, so much death and destruction, even if it had been at a remove for most of them. Morale had hit rock bottom, but news of victory was always welcome.

"And now I have to tell you that," said Sean, increasing the volume on the sound system, "as we speak, Sixth and Eleventh fleets are moving into position to launch an offensive into Ca'cadasan space. They will kick off the attack in less than two weeks, forty thousand ships driving toward six targets on the imperial frontier. Within one week the other forces currently engaged at the front will start their own attack, lending their weight to that of the other fleets. Another forty thousand ships, an overwhelming force. Our timetable calls for Sixth and Eleventh fleets to reach their first objectives within one week after the kickoff date, and to take them before the end of two weeks. By this time the ships of the other forces will have caught up to them, hammering the reinforcements we are sure they will deploy."

Hands went up, voices yelling for attention. Sean knew that not everyone in this room was for the war. Some still thought there could be a diplomatic solution to the problem. He and his advisers thought that nonsense. The Cacas had made it known that they wanted to totally destroy humankind, to exterminate the last human in the Universe. Sure, they used some humans they had saved for infiltration of Imperial space. But everyone in the know thought that those members of the species were living on borrowed time.

"I will answer questions at the end of my speech, ladies and gentlemen," he shouted out, not looking forward to that part of this presentation at all. He nodded to an aide offstage, and a huge holo appeared behind him on the theater screen.

"Here you can see the front, with the combat still going on at this time."

Hundreds of stars were blinking red, where action was still going on. Many of those battle zones were limited to ground combat, as the Imperial army still struggled to force the Cacas to surrender, or die. There were still some space battles going on, mostly between smaller forces, Ca'cadasan ships trying to evacuate their assets, or Imperial vessels trying to stop them, and in most cases succeeding. The Cacas were fighting back furiously. They were a brave species, if not the brightest sophonts on the block. Humans were just as brave, and they now had the overall technological advantage.

"These regions show where our forces from the two leading fleets are staging for their assault."

Ten star systems slightly to the rear of the front, within thirty light years, showed as blinking green. Moments later green arrows moved out from the staging areas, combining on the six targets that were blinking blue. Not all of the arrows led to the targets, several of them moving past and curving on paths that would block Caca forces moving up.

"As soon as we take these systems the Fleet will restage quickly and move on to the next targets."

The arrows moved on, slicing through Caca space and converging on six more targets, while other arrows moved on smaller targets, and the following fleet caught up.

"And on and on, as long as we can keep the momentum going."

"Why not just strike out for their capital?" yelled out one of the ministers, Duke Callious of New Hanou, a man known for his arrogance. "They did it to us, after all."

"I'll answer that question, your Grace," said Sean, his sound system amplifying his voice. "And then I'll get back to answering the people who actually have manners."

The face of the duke flashed crimson with anger. Sean really didn't care. He already counted the duke among his most vocal of enemies.

"There is a thing called logistics," he said, changing his tone as if he were talking to a child. "Ships use missiles, antimatter, spare parts. They take damage, and crews are reduced by combat deaths. If we tried to drive directly to the Ca'cadasan capital, ten thousand light years or so behind the front, we would arrive, if arrive we did, with a tiny worn out force. And whatever they could gather for a last defense would most likely totally destroy our force. That is not something I want to see."

He of course didn't tell them about the strike that would be going in against the Caca capital system within months. That attack needed complete secrecy in order to be successful. If the Cacas knew they were coming they would have an overwhelming blocking force waiting for them, and the mission would only result in ten thousand dead and fifty-two very expensive wormholes destroyed. Telling these people about the coming offensive really didn't mean much, since the Cacas were sure to know it was coming, unless they suffered a complete intelligence failure. He really didn't care if this information got out, especially since the targets shown on the holo were not the real targets. He didn't think any of these people were traitors, though his intelligence people thought there might be some leaks coming out of Parliament. Maybe not leaks intended to hurt the war effort, but still damaging with their lack of concern for official secrets. No use taking chances, and these people didn’t need to know all the details.

"So you still think this war is going to be long and drawn out?" asked one of the members of the Commons. Sean didn't recognize the woman, but it was hard to keep up with the thousands of members of a body that was constantly changing as voters changed their minds and support. Still, he enjoyed almost complete support in that house.

"I am afraid so, ma'am. I wish there was some way we could deliver a knockout blow to their Empire, but its size and longevity work against that. We're still estimating ten to twenty years of war ahead of us." Unless we can take off their head, and with it their resolve.

“My constituents are tired of the war,” said the woman, who Sean’s implant was now identifying as The Honorable Rachel Ngursky of the planet Warsaw.

“And I’m tired of war as well. What I am not tired of is the continued survival of the Empire, and the majority species of our Empire. Once I place my foot on the necks of the Cacas, I will not remove it until they are defeated.”

“And will you kill all of them if you have the opportunity?” asked a man in the ornate gold and red robes of the Scholars. “That is a concern with the people I represent. Are we going to kill all of the Ca’cadasans, as they have stated they will do to us?”

“The Empire I rule,” said Sean, feeling his face flush with anger, “will never engage in genocide. No matter how tough the fight, we will not get down to the level of our enemy. We will defeat them, then we will decide what needs to be done. What needs to be done will not include exterminating an entire intelligent species.”

There were some loud voices echoing through the chamber. Sean knew that some of the members of Parliament would have rejoiced in the murder of the Cacas. There were times he wanted to wipe them out himself. But he didn’t want to become that man, one who would go down in history as the greatest mass murderer in human history.

Sean let them discuss the matter for some minutes, wondering if the people in the chamber were going to come to blows. When they finally quieted down he raised a hand in the air and turned away from the podium. He’d had his say, and didn’t have anything else to tell them.

“How was the meeting?” asked his wife as he got back to their borrowed manor house. The wormhole gate in the basement made commuting quick and easy. The Secret Service loved it, since it didn’t expose him to any of the risks that were always on their paranoid minds.

“I hope I raised morale among the Members of Parliament. And I hope some of those angry bastards lose some of the murderous rage they hold in their hearts.”

“They’re rightfully angry,” said Jennifer, getting up from her chair and walking over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “But as long as you are in control, they won’t get their way. And you’ll save the soul of our people.”

“You know I don’t believe in souls, my dear,” said Sean, running both hands down her arms. “You can’t measure one, after all.”

“It’s a concept, not a measurable thing. And I’d prefer for our sophont friends to think well of us before we take over the Galaxy.” She smiled at the last part, showing how she thought of the concept of ruling all of the stars in the Milky Way.

“They will, if I have anything to do with it.” It didn’t seem to like much of a stretch. Humankind ruling the Galaxy. Not as oppressors, hopefully more as allies. But he didn’t think his species could do any worse than the others who had already tried to conquer all the stars they could see.

Chapter Seven

Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men. Sun Tzu

OCTOBER 16TH, 1003. FENRI FRONT.

"We have enemy inertialess fighters on the track," called out the Fleet tactical officer, looking over at Grand Fleet Admiral Taelis Mgonda, sitting in his command chair on the flag bridge of the super heavy battleship Constance the Great.

The Constance that had started the war had been lost in an earlier battle. Named after one of the greatest admirals in the history of the fleet, for a short time the greatest traitor, then one of the greatest Empresses, the woman the ship was named after had had quite the career. This current incarnation of her name was one of the largest class of battleships ever built, the most powerful warship in known space. It was the best defended platform a flag officer could find himself on. Unfortunately, being such a powerful offensive weapon, it was also always in the thick of battle.

"Well, this is something new," he said, stroking the arm on his chair. The Connie was in the middle of the force at the moment, and she wouldn't be making her way to the outer screen. Taking on these craft was something for the destroyers and cruisers of his force. The fighters were very hard to hit, but extremely fragile. Shooting at them with battleship guns assured no greater accuracy, and was overkill when a hit was achieved.

"First time we've seen them out here," agreed Commodore Willis Horsekiller, his chief of staff, his dark eyes staring out of a copper face at the plot.

Mgonda had to agree with that. The Cacas had sent a fleet into Fenri space to try and kick the Empire out. Or, failing that, putting enough Fenri troops back on the ground to make clearing out the former slave empire a nightmare. They had failed at the first objective, and partially succeeded at the last. There were still Fenri on the ground, but the former slaves had been given enough weapons and equipment to eventually root them out, leaving the Fleet to continue chasing the Cacas away. But though inertialess fighters had appeared on other parts of the long front, they had been scarce in this section, until now.

And maybe this will be the last thing they throw at us in this system, he thought, barking a short laugh at that picture. Several of the people looked back at him, questions in their eyes. But you didn't ask a six star flag officer what he thought was funny.

Duke Taelis, like most of the senior flag officers of the Empire, had wanted a major war before his career was over. Something to test his mettle, something besides one of the interminable uprisings by the Lasharans, or the pinprick raids of the Ming barbarians. Some conflict that would allow someone of his rank to be something other than a sector commander, sitting in an office on some orbital station while other people moved squadrons through space on patrols. He thought it would never come, but it had, and he was able to command one of the two most powerful formations that had ever existed in Imperial space. Now he was ready for the damned thing to be over, so he could retire to his Ducal estates and let someone younger take charge. Unfortunately, it would not be over until he and the others of his age group, McCullom, Lenkowski and himself, won it. The next war would be up to another set of younger officers, and as far as he was concerned, they could have it.

"They seem to be coming in hot, sir," said the tactical officer. “I think this might be a wave of the suicide attackers command told us about.”

The flag bridge was crowded with personnel. There were four main sections around the central holo tank that was the main viewer in the thirty by thirty meter compartment. Twelve com specialists, three officers and nine techs, manned the many boards that brought all the group and squadron leader coms to their admiral, and sent his orders out the them. The sensor station, also three officers, but only seven techs, monitoring the sensor scans of the fleet. The tactical section had four officers and six techs, keeping track of all the basic firing arcs and the threats that entered them. And then there was the analyst section, with five officers and a couple of senior chief petty officers. They actually digested all the information and fed them to the fleet commander's station so he had their appraisals at his fingertips.

"What do you mean?" asked Mgonda, sitting up straight in his chair, then leaning forward. He had read those reports, and they had been troubling. A troubling report was a different animal than an actual attack heading straight at him.

"We're estimating that they're still well above light speed," said the officer, his brow furrowed in thought. "It's looking like they won't have slowed down to under light speed before they reach us."

Mgonda stared at the officer while he digested what the man had said. Inertialess fighters had to come out of their warp bubble at the same exact velocity they went in. Coming out faster resulted in an inertial rebound that converted mass to energy. If they came out faster than light the entire mass was converted to energy, the same amount as that mass of antimatter. If they came out under their entry speed they were destroyed in a different manner, all the energy sucked out of the craft and it collapsing into a dead hulk, crumbling within seconds into atomic dust. Either way, coming out at a different velocity than going in was bad news, and they couldn't possibly enter at faster than lightspeed.

"Could they be launching rebound weapons?" asked Mgonda, watching as the estimated plot showed them closing. Not wanting to really believe that the creatures were coming in to commit suicide to take out his fleet, though deep down he knew that was exactly what was happening.

"We've not seen them before, your Grace," said Horsekiller, his black eyes also staring at the plot, as if trying to make the enemy ships give up their information by will alone. "That doesn't mean we won't be seeing them now. But I doubt they’re going to be using those weapons here. Not when they have something much deadlier."

Mgonda nodded, wishing the chief of staff disagreed with him, even though that would be dishonest. Rebound weapons would only come in with the conversion of a hundred tons at most, while the fighters would carry almost two thousand tons, twenty times the explosive power.

"All units are weapons free," ordered the duke. "I want everyone who has a firing arc putting out everything they have before they enter range. Tactical, give the ships their weapons firing times. I want them there just before the enemy ships enter range."

It was difficult to engage the inertialess fighters, though not quite as difficult as the faster warp fighters. But Mgonda's force had practiced this maneuver many times, both in simulators and live fire. They were as well drilled as any Imperial formation, and he would still have expected some kills on his force if these had merely been launching weapons his way.

"Estimating one hundred fighters coming in," shouted out one of the tactical techs. "Estimated contact in three minutes."

Now it was just a waiting game. A few of the screening vessels shifted position on orders from their squadron leaders to cover gaps, probably on orders from task groups based on information coming from the flagship. The counter missiles fired first, their tubes putting them into space at point zero five light, their grabbers taking charge and pushing them to twenty thousand gravities acceleration. The beam weapons, lasers and particle, then fired. The lasers probably wouldn't do much, but there was always a chance, and particle beams could put enough matter into a warp bubble to erode away the negative matter. Sometimes. Close in weapons fired last, sending out hundreds of thousands of twenty, thirty and fifty millimeter rounds, accelerated by their cannon up to a tenth of light speed. They were in their own specific arcs so that they wouldn't interfere with the missiles.

The enemy fighters were first engaged by the missiles, most missing as they had a hard time getting a lock on the craft due to the reflective nature of their bubbles. Still, there were a couple of direct hits, and the missiles were set to detonate in front of the fighters if their mechanical minds thought they would be off the mark for a hit. A half dozen fighters fell out of their bubbles and detonated like eighteen hundred ton masses of antimatter. Several other fighters were hit with the blast waves and masses of superfast, superheated plasma and fell out themselves.

When the majority of the fighters hit the firing boundary then ran into the streams of shells, many hitting, many more bursting on their preset ranges. It took a lot of shells to drop one of the fighters out of its bubble, but eight were hit with enough that they did fall out. Particle beams took out several more, though the lasers seemed to be a wash in this attack. Then the warp beams, the new weapon based on the space compression tech, went into action. There weren't very many of them, seven in the entire force, and they only had a relatively short range. They were fired in a sweep, and they only needed the merest touch on the warp bubble to drop a ship back into normal space. The accounted for another eleven of the enemy, and the other seventy plus continued in.

"They're not releasing," called out one of the tactical officers.

Sure enough, they weren't. There were no new icons, those that would denote the inertial rebound missiles on the way in. Instead the fighters were coming in themselves, suicide attackers.

The first came out of bubble three light seconds from the screens. Since they were all traveling faster than light, it was not seen before the rest had gone off like a string of firecrackers through the formation of ships and beyond. Seven went off among the screening destroyers and cruisers, killing four ships and damaging ten more. Then they hit the main formation.

Mgonda gripped his chair arms as the Connie shook from the blast wave hitting her. Alarm klaxons sounded, while a damage schematic came up on one of his side screens. He wasn't in charge of this ship, but it was still nice to see if one's mount was in good health. The red of damage was displayed along the entire port side, not reaching very far in, but enough to show that there were numerous hull breaches. Which meant that the tough outer skin had also been holed.

"Damage reports coming in from the bridge," called out one of the com techs.

"Damage reports coming in from the fleet, sir," yelled one of the officers, holding up a hand to silence the tech.

"Send it to my screen," ordered the admiral.

He sucked in a breath as he saw how bad it was. He hadn't lost any of the super heavy battleships, though another had sustained even more damage than the Connie. But he had lost four battleships, two battle cruisers and twenty-one smaller vessels, with another eighty showing various amounts of damage. It hadn't destroyed his force. In fact, it hadn't even destroyed one percent of his fleet. But for a strike by a hundred eighteen hundred ton crafts, it had been devastating, taking out tonnage at over a thousand to one ratio.

"Get me on the com to Imperial Fleet command," he ordered, looking over at the chief com officer. "And get me the exact figures of what we just went through," he said, looking over at the tac section.

Fleet wouldn't like what he was about to tell them, but it was something they needed to know.

*     *     *

"You have any ideas, Admiral Chan?" asked Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations. “We can’t afford to keep taking losses from these suicidal bastards.”

Chuntoa Chan shook her head. She had no ideas about this new thing. None at all. But everyone in the Fleet was sure she would have.

They don't understand how this works, thought the small woman who possessed one of the brightest minds in the Empire. Unfortunately, they thought her mind could do anything, but they were wrong. She was well versed in the sciences, and had advanced degrees in chemistry and physics. In fact, she had multiple PhDs in both fields. In physics that included the basic variety as well as astrophysics, quantum physics and hyperspace physics. She also had multiple degrees in chemistry, and a few in the biological sciences, and practical education in warship design. There was no one on her staff who had her depth of education. There was probably no one in human space who could claim her expanse of knowledge, which didn't mean that she was the best in every field. She had people on her research and development staff who were much smarter than she was in their respective fields. And some of the civilian talent simply blew her out of the ball park. But what she did have was a knowledge that spanned all the fields of physical science, and the ability to assemble the separate pieces into something that might be of military use.

"I'll have to run it past my staff, Admiral. Right now I can't think of anything. But let me get it in front of my people and see if anyone can come up with something."

"This is important, Admiral Chan," said McCullom in a frosty voice, her eyes narrowing. "We can't have these bastards pulling kamikaze attacks on our fleet. With this kind of exchange rate we could very well see ourselves repelled from the Ca'cadasan Empire."

What the hell is a kamikaze? thought Chan, leaning back in her chair for a moment, looking up the word through her connection to the central computer in her asteroid base. My, she thought as the image came up. It was a fitting word for what the Cacas were doing, and was it as much an act of desperation as it had been for that ancient Japanese Empire so many millennia ago.

"I will convene a meeting with my brain trust immediately, Admiral. I'm sure we can come up with something to knock them out of space before they get to our ships. And in the meantime, I would suggest installing more of the warp beams on our ships. They seem to work."

"And if we take out half of their attack force? The other half still makes it through. And we lose a half dozen major warships for the cost of a hundred fighters. We, can't, afford, that kind of exchange rate." The CNOs eyes were bugging out, veins were popping out on her forehead, as she leaned forward in her chair to glare at her research wizard. "So I need you to get off your ass and come up with a solution."

The holo died, leaving Chan alone in her office. She had a reputation for being a cold-hearted woman, all brain and no heart. But her heart was aching at the moment, as she thought about all the people who had just died in that suicide attack. She knew this was war, and in war people died, even in the most one-sided battle. But everyone seemed to think she could do miracles, that she could come up with something that would keep any more people from dying. But it doesn't work that way, she thought.

Everyone thought that she was responsible for all the innovations in the Imperial Military since she had assumed command of Research and Development. Like there hadn't been discoveries before she came along. Like she was responsible for there not being an immediate solution.

Chan started to cry, all the emotion she had kept pent up through the years finally out. Sobs wracked her body as tears rolled down her cheeks. It wasn't fair. She had never claimed to be behind all of the discoveries. In fact, every report she had ever turned over to the CNO or the Emperor had listed everyone involved, and their relative contributions. True, if she hadn't been the synthesist on the project they might have never seen the light of day. She never claimed to be the only brain involved, even if she was the front woman of the research teams.

The small admiral wiped the last tear from her eye, sniffled, and sat up. We don't have time for this, she thought, again pushing her emotions down and becoming what the Empire wanted, one cold brain of great intellect.

"I need the prime team to meet, now," she said into the com.

She waited several minutes for the computer system to get in touch with the staff people she wanted. Finally it reported back.

"Dr. Seward will not be available for fifty-three minutes. Admiral Chi will not be available for thirty-seven minutes. Dr. Zukhov will..."

"Enough," she told the system before it counted down through all of the staff. It started out with the one with the longest lag time. Other meetings, experiments in the midst of running, trips to satellite facilities. She was actually fortunate that no one was further away. "We will convene in one and a half hours in conference room alpha. Let everyone know we may be there until late tonight.”

She would spend the time looking over the problem, and making sure everyone present had a report on what they knew.

*     *     *

"Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen," said Admiral Chan, looking around the table. Of course they had come. She was in charge of this department of the Fleet, and she had ordered them to come. If the military personnel had decided not to come, without a pressing reason, they would be guilty of at least insubordination. The civilians couldn't be charged under the military regs, but they could find themselves looking for a new job, with a black mark on their records that would prevent them from receiving any kind of government funding in the future.

"I hope everyone had a chance to look over the report of the attacks on Admirals Lenkowski and Mgonda's fleets?"

There were head nods around the table, eighteen of the people agreeing with her. Two looked at her blankly, and she noted they were the people who had the least time to address the problem on their rushed schedules.

"What does Admiral McCullom expect us to come up with?" asked Dr. Amelia Zhukov, raising an eyebrow.

Zhukov was a physicist, an expert on hyperspace, and someone who might not be the best person to contribute to the solution of this problem, but Chan didn't get to where she was by excluding specialists just because she wasn't sure how they would contribute.

"I would think something to defend the Fleet against these suicide attacks," said Admiral Suzwan Chi, rolling her eyes. Chi was her tactical expert, a former instructor at the Imperial Fleet College, who had been promoted out of her job when Chan was looking for someone to turn ideas into tactical reality. As a plus Chi had doctoral degrees in astrophysics and hyperdrive theory. In a society where people lived on average for more than two centuries, with little in the way of neurological deterioration, most people with more than a bump of curiosity took advantage of the opportunities to learn throughout their long lives.

"I understand that," said Zhukov, her face reddening.

"I will not entertain personal attacks at this meeting," said Chan, looking from one woman to the other. "Or any others that I preside at."

She made eye contact with all of her people. All of the people in the chamber were extremely bright, within the ninety-nine point ninety ninth percentile, one in a million at the very least, many approaching one in a billion. Chan was probably the brightest of them all, according to tests, with definitely a one in a billion mind. That allowed a mere Fleet officer to ride herd on all of this brain power, people who could become arrogant and condescending to people they saw as less intelligent. No one saw her as less than they were, or if they did, she was quick to put them in their places.

"Now, the CNO, and through her the Emperor, is asking us to come up with a defensive solution to these attacks," she said, leaning back in her chair and steepling her fingers under her chin. "Already they have killed hundreds of thousands of Imperial spacers and Marines, and destroyed thousands of ships, with a few attacks. That doesn’t even count the damaged. And you can be sure that if they continue to experience success in their early attacks, they will start to swarm us with limitless numbers of these attacks."

"I have to agree with Admiral Chan," said Chi, putting her coffee cup on the table. "Historically, if a devastating form of attack works, as this one seems to, an enemy will put every resource they can afford into that tactic. We've done it with the inertial rebound missiles. Hell, they're rolling off the production lines as fast as we can crank them out. Their only limit will be the production of negative matter."

"But they need negative matter for their wormhole production," said Dr. Camron Stephens, their expert on wormhole theory.

"Yes," interjected Dr. Liana Negril, their expert on industrial engineering. "But wormhole production is already bottlenecked, and negative matter is much easier to produce. They can ramp up its production and have more than enough to make tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of inertialess fighters."

Several people around the table had shocked expressions on their faces. They could imagine what a hundred thousand suicide fighters could do to the fleet. They couldn’t use them in hyperspace, as least yet, until someone came up with a discovery that allowed them to erect inertial bubbles in hyper and go the equivalent of FTL in those dimensions. Which so far seemed unlikely. Even so, they could possibly make their systems inaccessible to Imperial ships. What idiot would bring a fleet into normal space when thousands of suicide attackers could gut it in hours?

"What about the warp beam system?" asked Commodore Tanis Grylon, and Gryphon who specialized in fighter operations. "That seems to be effective for dropping them out of their bubbles."

"Right now we're facing a bottleneck in the production of that system," said Negril, shaking her head. "It requires more superplatinum than a battleship's propulsion system to make one warp beam, actually more than we need for a warp fighter. It takes a lot more energy to project that narrow beam over a long range, a light minute or more, than it does to propel a fighter for the same period of time. It travels hundreds of times faster, if travel is even the right word."

There were more surprised expressions around the table, along with some head nodding. Supermetals were a necessary ingredient to modern industry, especially warfare. The three elements existed in an island of stability among ultra short lived substances, many with half lives in the nanoseconds. Supermetals had half lives in the decades, sometimes centuries, and required massive industrial plants that could smash lighter heavy elements together to get a small percentage of the metals.

Superiron, supersilver and superplatinum were the common names given to the elements. Superiron was the lightest by two atomic numbers, and had a half-life of over four-centuries. It was used in structural components, armor and penetrator rounds, and made up about seventy percent of the supermetals used in grabber units. Fortunately, it also made up eighty percent of the industrial production of the metals. Supersilver was four numbers higher, with a half-life of seventy years, and made up seventeen percent of production. It was also used in grabber units, and was part of the alloy that made magnetic accelerators so powerful. Meaning missile launchers and particle beams.

But the prize was superplatinum, only found in three percent of the product, and with a half-life of twenty-one years, making it not only the rarest, but the most fragile. And it was needed as part of the alloy of the best armor, the best accelerators, and the space compression expansion drives of the warp ships. Which put them in direct competition for the new warp beams.

"So, from what I understand, we're making as many of them as we can afford without cutting into our other production?" asked Chan, watching as several of her experts nodded. She thought about that for a moment. While there might be some ways to cut down on some of that production, she couldn't think of how they could reduce it to any significant levels. They still needed armor, grabbers and accelerators, and the warp fighters were the newest big thing on the offensive front. And there wouldn't be any new supermetal plants online for months, with several of them taking the place of old ones that were essentially reaching the end of their productive lives. As their cold moons began reaching terminal temperatures.

"And we can't really ramp up warp beam production without hurting the other lines?"

"That's the truth, ma'am," Negril, frowning. "The easiest way we can free up superplatinum is to cut back on warp fighter production, and I don't see that happening."

Chan couldn't see it happening either, and wasn't sure that it would be a move in the right direction. But they were losing too many ships and people, and something had to be done.

"We already have another warp beam system, ma'am," said Commodore Grylon. "In production and ready to go."

Gryphons had a hard beak, and it was hard for those not familiar with them to read their expressions. Chan had been working with the commodore for a couple of years, and she could recognize the anticipation in his expression. He was not the brightest of her staff where science was concerned, but he was a genius at adapting the science to tactics.

"And what might that be, Commodore?" asked Negril, her forehead furrowing.

The holo over the table came to life, showing a warp fighter. As it turned the graphical representations of the space compression drive shone from the front like a spotlight.

There were some expressions of lights coming on in brains, but many more looks of confusion.

"What are we looking at?" asked Zhokov in a peevish voice.

"A flyable warp beam, Ma'am," said the commodore, looking at her for a moment, then back at his commander. "The craft generates a compression field up to several light seconds to the front. With a little fine tuning we might be able to increase that by three-fold."

"But the beams are compression/expansion fields," argued Zhukov, frowning.

"Yes," said the Gryphon, nodding. "But I believe the compression field should be enough to collapse their field on its own. And I believe we can work out the maneuvers and tactics to make use of them as interceptors. They should be most efficacious in that role due to their speed. After all, the Caca inertialess craft can at best do what, three light? While the warp craft are capable, in their current incarnation, of twenty."

"Won't maneuvering to that kind of interception present problems?" ask Dr. Melanie Stutzmuller, an aerospace engineer and an expert on propulsion.

"Every new tactic presents problems," said Grylon. "And the solution is to develop the doctrine to handle the problem, then training the crews to it. I'm sure we can make this work."

"How long?" asked Chan, closing her eyes for a moment to visualize the types of maneuvers the commodore must be considering.

"A month. Two. Three. I really can't say, Admiral. It depends on how many problems we run into along the way. But surely no more than three, though I would tend to split the difference and say two."

"Then I will suggest this to Admiral McCullom and see what she says."

There were several groans around the table, mostly from the civilians, who didn't care what the CNO thought about how they considered her. Chan could sympathize. McCullom had her own Strategic and Tactical Board, made up of combat commanders who for one reason or another could no longer serve in a command capacity. She tended to listen to them more than to Chan's brain trust. Well, maybe I should just go to the Emperor with this, she thought. It wouldn't be the first time, and though McCullom really didn't like her doing it, it probably wouldn't be the last.

“Another problem we are facing is the apparent grav com the Cacas have developed to communicate with their inertialess fighters,” said Chan, switching gears. “They’re using it to change the vectors on their courses and press their attacks.”

“How do we know they are doing this?” asked Chi, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, the fleet picked up grav pulses of unprecedented strength in the battlespace, and the Cacas changed vectors soon after.”

“And we want to duplicate it?”

“No, Admiral,” said Chan, shaking her head. “Well, maybe we need to duplicate some of the tech, so we can figure out how to jam it.”

“Do we have readings from the fleet on these grav pulses?” asked Zhukov, her brow furrowing.

“Hours and hours of them, Amelia,” said Chan, feeling hopeful as the scientist returned a wide smile.

“Then I think my team can get to work on that,” said Amelia Zhukov. “And won’t they be surprised when they move into an attack and their line home goes down.”

Chapter Eight

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. George S. Patton

OCTOBER 21ST, 1003. NEW TERRAN EMPIRE FONTEIR AND CA’CADASAN SPACE.

"The first weapons are going in," said the soldier operating the com. "Our people are reporting contact with the Maurids. They've come along with enough other sophonts to take the weapons to the caches."

Walborski nodded. He wanted to be there with them, on the ground, killing Cacas. That had been denied him by Imperial decree. Because of that there wasn't any conceivable way he could get there. Other augmented soldiers on his staff were under orders from the Emperor to prevent him from going into the bush again.

"You're too valuable to the war effort to go gallivanting off on your own, Cornelius," had said Sean over the wormhole com. "I know you want to kill the bastards, and I can't blame you. But that's what you have Rangers under you for. They do the job, and you decide where they need to be to do it."

He knew his friend meant well, but it stuck in his craw to have to sit in a protected control center while others risked their lives. It seemed to him that he was exhibiting cowardice in asking others to put their lives on the line when he wasn’t, and it was almost killing him.

"How long will the hole need to remain at that location?" he asked, looking over at the dark furred Maurid that was his primary liaison. He understood what the creature was risking, if not personally, then to his people. They had been the trusted servants of the Cacas for over a thousand years, scouts, enforcers, slave masters. They had been given more freedom than any of the other slave races. The Cacas would take it as a personal insult if they revolted, and might actually take out their home world. There were enough of their species off that planet that they would probably survive as a people. Still, the majority of them would be killed.

"If you can get the weapons through, no more than an hour."

Cornelius nodded. They were shipping through enough weapons to equip a brigade of slaves, five thousand. Mostly particle beam rifles, with fewer heavy weapons than a human unit would have, but still enough to give them some hitting power. One platoon of Rangers would be with them to add some tactical direction. The planet would have a battalion of Rangers, three companies, three platoons per company, for a total of nine units. Forty-five thousand guerrillas, enough to tie down three times their number of Caca soldiers, or so it was hoped. But it wouldn't be enough to take the planet. The Cacas would still be there in force, trying their best to kill the rebels, and their human advisors if they could be found.

The wormhole would be moved around, building up the caches of the other bands, then supplying them with the weapons they would need for the replacements. And the same was happening on nine other worlds, the number of battalions he had in his command. All behind Caca lines, on worlds where the Cacas controlled the air and the orbitals.

A shitty way to run a war, he thought. The slaves would have motivation enough. They would lock their teeth, or whatever they happened to use for them, on the throats of their conquerors. But they didn't have the training, nor would they have the armor of Imperial troops. They would spend their lives like water flowing through cupped hands. If they killed a Caca for every five they lost, it would be considered a victory. And most likely they would be crushed in the end, their families killed in retribution. All to slow down the production of worlds that would supply the Caca fleet and army in the sector the Empire was attacking.

"Is something wrong, human?" asked the Maurid, his eyes staring at the Ranger.

"Nothing," said Cornelius, eliciting a sharp toothed smile from the creature.

"You wish you were there to face your enemy, to look into his eyes while you take his life," said the Maurid. "I wish the same. But we have survived to reach the positions we are in, and so must let others have that pleasure."

Cornelius smiled back at the Maurid. He was beginning to think that he might just come to like this creature.

*     *     *

"I don't like it, Admiral," said Sondra McCullom, staring out of the holo at her tech wizard. "I was asking you for a new weapon to use against their suicide attackers. Not to try and repurpose something that we already have a purpose for. In fact, an important offensive purpose. I can’t authorize training them as interceptors, to the detriment of their purpose as attack fighters."

"But..."

"You've failed this time, Admiral," said McCullom, a smug expression on her face. "I never thought I would see the day. Maybe we should send a notification to the news vids."

Chan felt her face heat up in anger. She had always tried to do her best. It was not about her winning or losing, it was about was best for the Empire.

"I resent your insinuation, Admiral. My staff feel this is the best solution, at least for now."

"Well, I think it's crap, Admiral. I expected better of you. Maybe I expected too much."

The holo died, leaving Chan alone with her anger. Her staff agreed that this solution would work, as well as anything they could come up with in the short term. The fighters were already in the inventory, and the factories were turning out ships as fast as possible. Anything else they tried to come up with would take many months of development, probably more than a year before it was ready for mass deployment. And the warp beam technology, though already developed, would also take the same resources as the fighters.

The main problem with the warp beam, despite being potentially an effective weapon, was its limited deployment options. If placed on any warship, and Chan was sure the opinion would press for deployment on capital ships, they would only have a limited firing arc. And the ships would have to maneuver to take the incoming fighters under fire. While the warp fighters would be able to speed all over the battle space to take on any threats, taking them out before they even threatened the ships that were their targets. It was an elegant solution, one she was putting her entire reputation behind.

And now McCullom was threatening to throw the entire idea in the garbage bin.

We'll see about that, she thought, linking into the com system of the base. The Emperor would not take direct calls from just any full admiral, but he had dealt with her in the past, and she was someone who had come through for him time after time.

*     *     *

OCTOBER 23RD, 1003.  JEWEL SYSTEM.

"That sounds like an elegant solution, Admiral," said Sean, returning the smile of the officer in the holo. "I like it. And I’m sure the crews of the warp fighters will come to love the idea of becoming dogfighters. Of course, I would really like to see some other solutions as well. It never does to go with a single layer of defense when we can have two or three."

"I agree, your Majesty. But at least this could give the Fleet some respite."

"And have you told Sondra about this solution?" asked the Emperor, raising an eyebrow.

"I have, your Majesty. She wasn’t too enthused with the idea, and I wanted to make sure you heard our recommendation before she, uh."

"Sat on it," said Sean, his eyes narrowing.

The Emperor had had problems with his CNO in the past. He had thought of relieving her of the position, but who would he put in her place. Lenkowski had been CNO, and probably the best the modern Empire had ever had. But political considerations had led to his demotion, into the position he had really wanted, Fleet commander. Sondra had been the commander of Home Fleet, probably the most prestigious command outside of CNO, with the possible exception of one of the prime sectors. Mgonda hadn't wanted CNO, not with a war on the horizon. So McCullom had been it. And for the most part she had done the job well.

And besides, Sondra McCullom had stood behind him when he had made the mistake of backing the Temporal Realignment Faction. She had been sworn to secrecy, and so far had kept her oath. It would be disloyal to turn against her and relieve her of her position. There was always a possibility that she would accept a demotion to fleet command, since all flag officers seemed to want a piece of this war. But as far as he was concerned she was not an inspiring combat leader, being more of an administrator than anything else.

And there was still the problem of what she could do to his reputation if she talked about the failed Time Strike. He would have to order Sergiov to place her under arrest, and that might lead to a mind wipe. Something he wanted to avoid if at all possible. He didn’t want to become a tyrant, and arresting someone for what they might do, and punishing them with the same consequences as people convicted of a capital crime, would be wrong in so many ways. He couldn’t think of anything that would define him more accurately as a tyrant.

But if she was sitting on important information from R&D, what else was she holding close to the vest. Intelligence? This was something he couldn't tolerate, and he would have to have a discussion with her.

"She is in charge of the Fleet," said Chan, looking down.

"But you don't agree with her decisions as far as tech matters are concerned?"

"Understand, your Majesty. I don't think she shuts down projects just to get back at me. I think she really believes in what she presents to you, and truly believes that the projects she rejects are not going to work."

"And you don't agree?" asked Sean, nodding his head. As far as he was concerned, every project he had ever seen from Chan had merit. Maybe not on first look, but after consideration everything she had ever backed had worked. Even the projects he had found out about after the CNO had killed them. He actually trusted Chan more than he did the CNO.

"I don't think she has either the technical background nor the strategic acumen to make decision on weapons development."

"But she is your superior, and you are supposed to report to her, correct?"

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll look into it, Admiral Chan.”

*     *     *

"Why did you go over my head, Admiral?" asked Sondra McCullom, angry eyes looking out of the holo.

"I thought the Emperor needed to know about our idea, Admiral McCullom. So I thought it best if I contacted him directly." McCullom's eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward, her jaw working as her teeth ground together. "He has talked with me directly in the past, Admiral. So I didn't see why he wouldn't now."

"You are my subordinate, Admiral," McCullom said, spitting out each word. "You are not to talk to the Emperor without my permission. Do you understand me?"

"And if he contacts me? Am I supposed to refuse to speak to him, to refuse to answer the questions of the man my oaths are sworn to?"

"Don't play quarters lawyer with me, Admiral. Of course you can speak to him if he calls you. And then you are to call me and let me know what he wanted. Understand?"

"I understand what you want, ma'am. But I don't see why I must tell you everything I talk to the Emperor about."

Chan thought McCullom looked like she was about to have a stroke. She wasn't sure if that was a bad thing, not that she would wish that on anyone.

"You must tell me what you talk about because I am ordering you to," hissed McCullom, pointing a finger at Chan. "I don't care how damned smart you think you are, I am in charge of the Fleet and everyone in it, while you are a member of that Fleet."

Chan thought for a moment before she opened her mouth again, feeling uncomfortable under the glare of the seven star admiral. She was only a four star, a very high rank as far as flag status went, but nowhere near what McCullom was. But she was also a citizen of the Empire, and if the Emperor asked her something in confidence, her responsibility as a member of this society was to keep that confidence.

"I don't think your authority goes that far."

"You don't think my authority goes that far?" growled the CNO, the hand she had been pointing at Chan balling up into a fist. "You don't think my authority goes that far? You goddamned, self-important, stuffed shirt moron. I have the authority to order you to do anything I feel you should have to do, for the good of the Empire. That means anything. I could order you to jump out an airlock without a suit and you would have to do it."

"I only have to obey lawful orders, ma'am. If it was necessary for me to go out the airlock for some reason vital to the mission to survive, then yes, you can order it. If for no reason, then no, ma'am. I do not have to obey."

"Until further notice you are confined to quarters, Admiral," said McCullom, a cold smile on her face. "You are to contact no one until I give you permission. I will be talking with the Judge Advocate to see if I can press charges against you."

"And who is going to run research and development, ma'am?" asked Chan with a smug smile. She knew that McCullom might try and break her, but she doubted the woman would be able to. She was too valuable to the Empire. If necessary she would resign her commission, as painful as that would be. She could function just as well as a contractor in charge of projects given to her by the Emperor, and she would make out much better financially as well. And she would not have to deal with the arrogance of the CNO. But there was something else she could do.

"Request the Emperor to contact me," she said into the com net.

"You are not authorized to use this com system," came the response from the computer.

"Code zeta zeta seven dash four one three override," said Chan, activating one of her many backdoors. "Now, get the Emperor for me, please."

*     *     *

"Sondra. What's the problem you're having with Chan?"

"She an insubordinate asshole, your Majesty," said McCullom, her face going white.

Sean had used his own override command to break into the conference she was having with some of her strategic staff. They were shuffled aside, looking at dead holos displaying the coat of arms of the Imperial family, while he had just popped up on her feed. It really was a dirty trick, using his Imperial override to break into any official government conversation, and one the Emperor tried to avoid if at all possible. But this battle of senior officers could have an effect on the technological progress of the Empire, and that could not be tolerated.

"And what is it that I'm hearing about you not passing on some of her board's recommendations?"

McCullom stared out of the holo for some moments, first an angry, then a shocked expression on her face. She swallowed, then started talking in a reasonably toned voice. "I simply vetoed uninspired or unworkable ideas, your Majesty. I didn't think we should waste the time on proposals that wouldn't help. I didn't think we should waste your time. That's part of my job."

"Uh huh. And who else looks at these ideas before they're vetoed? Besides Admiral Chan, that is?"

"I never saw the need to show them to anyone else," said McCullom, trying to regain her composure.

Sean had to admit that she had recovered well from her initial shock, and he almost willing to bet that she had not been throwing away truly important discoveries. Most of the time.

"You never felt the need to show them to anyone else. Not even the Shipbuilding and Design Board?"

"Your Majesty. What do you want me to say? I took it upon myself to vet or not the technologies coming from the R&D Board. I can send you all of the records on the ideas I threw out, if that's what you want. I didn't think you would have time for going over everything that Chan came up with. And we have both contacted you on the ideas that seemed to have war changing value."

"Go ahead and send the files over to my box," said Sean, almost smiling as he saw her eyes widen. "And all of them, Admiral. I don't want to find out that you've been hiding anything from me."

"I would never do that, your Majesty," said the woman in a frosty voice. "I take my oath seriously. I take my job seriously, unlike some people."

Sean felt his own face heating as he caught her meaning. He hadn't been doing his job when he had allowed the fanatics of the Temporal Realignment Faction free reign on the Donut. He didn't think she was making a threat to expose what had really happened. Everyone involved had sworn an oath to not reveal what had really gone on that day. And anyone breaking that oath was looking at a very long term of confinement, along with a bit of mind wipe.

"Sondra. I'm not accusing you of any wrongdoing, but I would like to see for myself if you have made the proper judgments in regards to all of Chan's projects. We can all make mistakes, and you have done an exemplary job as CNO. I'm not sure anyone could have done it better."

With the possible exception of Lenkowski or Mgonda, he thought, and they couldn't be spared from the front. It had been easy to get Len out of the CNO position, one he really hadn't wanted in the first place, and one that stood in the way of the combat command he had always wanted. And Len was showing the signs of his command stressing him to the breaking point. It might be better to bring him back as CNO, but then who would take his command? He didn't like the idea of Sondra McCullom taking over Len's fleet. Perhaps Beata Bednarczyk. She was a five star, and he would have to promote her up to six to take over a command of that size, but he thought she could handle it.

"Thank you, your Majesty." Her shoulders visibly relaxed for the first time on this com call, and Sean smiled back at her, then terminated the connection.

He thought that had gone as well as could be expected, and he hoped he had put the fear of God into the admiral. He wasn't sure he trusted her judgment as far as Chan was concerned. Admiral Chan had that effect on people. She was brighter than most anyone she interacted with. There probably were a few brighter people in academia, possibly a couple hyperspatial engineers. But not many. And some people didn't react well when dealing with someone they were sure was looking down on them.

And what to do if McCullom tried to go to the press about what had really happened on the Donut? Fortunately, there were less than thirty people who knew what had really happened. And several of them were under chemical restraint in a confinement facility. Dr. Kenji Guitarrez had not been one of them, and he had been given a well supervised lab to experiment in interdimensional travel. Nothing to do with time travel, and he would never be allowed to work with it again. But the rest were all senior officers, and anyone lower ranking had been subjected a brain wipe of selected memories, with others transplanted to explain what had happened. It wasn't something he had wanted to do, but Admiral Sergiov had insisted that it must be done.

They could do the same thing to McCullom, but it wasn't something he wanted. But if he thought she was about to talk, too either get back at him or to keep him from doing something to her?

No, I've got to trust her, until she proves otherwise, he thought, resisting the impulse to get on the com with Ekaterina Sergiov and set things in motion. He didn't want to end up the kind of dictator the Fenri had to put up with. And he would do everything he could to avoid that.

"You have new files sent from Admiral Sondra McCollum," said his personal secure computer over his implant.

Might as well get to it, he thought, calling up his desk holo and pulling in the first of the files.

Chapter Nine

Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. Miyamoto Musashi

OCTOBER 25TH, 1003. JEWEL SYSTEM.

“That appears to be the last of them, your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom, sitting at the conference table in the rebuilt Hexagon.

Partially rebuilt, corrected Sean in his mind. The external structure was finished, support beams in place, walls and windows set. It was actually larger than the old building whose place it was taking. The old Hexagon had been four hundred and seven floors, each with hundreds of rooms. This new version was four hundred and sixty-three stories, with almost fifty percent more internal space overall. There had been some discussion on whether it needed to be so large, or if the military offices should be spread across several cities, even multiple planets, to reduce the chance that a strike would take out the military brain trust. After all, with wormholes they could communicate across the light years as quickly as from within the same building.

Tradition had finally decided the matter. The headquarters of the military was at the heart of the Empire, as well protected a location as any. Even though the strike by the Cacas had proven that premise unfounded, the defense of the capital system was something the military took pride in. So far only about a third of the offices, and a couple of the war rooms, had been completed. Even so, it was a working building, and high-level meetings were again being held here.

McCullom looked at one of the other personages present at the meeting, this one thousands of light years away and attending by holo. Sean had noticed that the CNO was having trouble making eye contact with him. His confrontation with her over Chan had frightened her, and she was having trouble keeping her composure during this meeting.

“Do you agree, your Grace?” asked McCullom of the man she was looking at.

“It seems likely,” said Taelis Mgonda, a smile on his broad face. “I have scout groups out looking for any we might have missed. Don’t want to leave any behind when we move on, now do we?”

“We still have a few groups hanging on,” said Len Lenkowski, shaking his head, his image blurring a bit from his movement. He, too, was attending across the light years, slightly closer than the duke, but what was a couple of hundred light years between friends. “I’ve got detached task forces on the way to take care of whatever might still be there. While I get the rest of my fleet back together for the offensive.”

“Okay,” said the Emperor, picking up his cup and taking a drink of his favorite coffee, the variety grown for the Imperial family in the mountains on the shores of the southern ocean-lake of New Terra. He savored the taste of the best coffee in the Empire, with rich cream and sugar, and looked at Len.

“Your force was hurt the worst, Len. So we’ll have to wait on you before we kick off the attack. Do you think you can be ready to roll in a month? If we can get the reserves up to you in time?”

“I think we can reasonably be expected to be ready,” said the admiral in his New Texas drawl. “I would like all the time I can get, but I understand we don’t want to give them too much time to prepare for us.”

Sean nodded. He had always wondered if people from the core world of New Texas actually talked like that at home, or assumed the drawl because it fit with their image.

“I want to kick it off before they’re ready, of course,” said the Emperor. “But I don’t want to send a damaged fleet into battle if I can help it. So, if you need more time, say so. And we’ll let the duke start the show off on his front a little early.”

Lenkowski and Mgonda were the best of friends, but they were also rivals. And throwing a challenge down to motivate them might not be fair. No one said a ruler had to be. He had to get things done, and he preferred the carrot to the stick.

“We’ll work out the exact timetable when we know more,” said Sean, looking to all of his senior commanders, making sure that he caught and held the eyes of the CNO. He couldn’t afford to have her think she couldn’t speak her mind in front of him. He sent out a thought through his implant, and the huge holo of the battlefront appeared over the table. He knew the same holo was projected in the chambers the two fleet commanders were currently occupying with their staffs.

“Len. These systems are yours. All three are major bases, and are sure to have strong defenses. But taking them away from the Cacas will severely hamper their logistics all along the front. You will be assigned an entire army group to secure each of these worlds. I have worked out the particulars with Grand Marshal Yamakuri, who will be getting with you later today. Each army will have six corps. two for the initial assault, two for immediate reinforcement, and two for ready reserve. Try not to waste these troops. We’ll try to bring up reinforcements when we can, but they’ll be competing with the supplies you’ll need for your fleet.”

“Understood, your Majesty. Be gentle with the ground pounders.”

Nine more systems in that region started blinking.

“These systems will not be of direct concern to you, but I want you to know what’s going on in your backyard. Nine battalions of Rangers will be operating on these planets, one to each. They won’t be front line fighters, but will instead be leading slave revolts. I know it will be rough on these sophonts, but if they want their freedom from the Cacas, they have to be willing to fight for it.”

Everyone in the meeting nodded. Not all looked happy about it, and the Emperor couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t happy about it either. But they needed to take worlds away from the Cacas as they moved into their Empire. Leaving a lot of planets behind them still under the control of the Cacas, even if they had no fleet forces, was a recipe for disaster.

“I want you to give all aid you can to resistance movements, and to avoid collateral damage to the enslaved sophonts whenever possible.”

“And if it puts our forces at risk?” asked Mgonda, leaning forward in his seat, his image blurring from the movement.

“You have to make that decision,” said Sean, turning his attention to the other grand fleet admiral in the meeting. “I won’t try and second guess you. If it’s something you need to take out on the surface, or in space, do it. But remember, at all times. We want these people to be our friends. To see us as liberators. And our allies should also see us as liberators. You know how the Crakista and Brakakak feel about killing civilian populations. Some of my people might not care.” He thought about some of the members of the Lords who couldn’t care less about their fellow humans, much less what they thought of as a bunch of smelly non-humans. “I do, and I want us to be an example to those slaves in the Ca’cadasan empire.”

He looked at Len for a moment, until the admiral gave him a head nod. Then he turned his attention back to Duke Taelis. “These three base systems are yours, your Grace. Same instructions as to Len. You won’t have any Rangers operating on your flanks. What you will have are units of Fleet Commandos and Marine Recon that you can use at your discretion, if you happen to notice any worlds that might need liberation along your route.

“After we take the first layer of objectives we will talk with our consultants and see what the next targets should be.”

Everyone in the conference knew who the consultants were, but no one mentioned them by name, since not everyone on their staffs knew. But now was when they expected the compact with the Maurids to really bear fruit.

*     *     *

“We have a ship of unknown configuration transiting from hyper, ma’am.”

Vice Admiral Mei Lei nodded as she looked at the plot. They had been tracking the unknown for the last couple of hours as it made its way through the layers of hyper to this system. Her scout force sat just within the barrier, powered down as much as possible, not giving themselves away.

“Resonances match Caca hyper drive, ma’am,” said the force tactical officer, looking back at the force leader, a question in his eyes. The same one he had been asking periodically the entire time the ship had been on the way in. “Shouldn’t we open fire? Or at least try and capture the thing?”

“For the last time, tac, you are not to take any action against this ship.” She looked over at the com officer. “Transmit the code.”

“May I at least ask why we are meeting with this ship, ma’am?” asked the tactical officer, like a dog with a bone, unwilling to drop it.

“Need to know, commander. When people above my pay grade decide you need this information, you will be given it.”

The admiral wished she could tell her crews what these things were. It would lessen tensions all around, and reduce the chance that some fool might fire without orders. But command had been firm. If the information got out, it could dry up this river of intelligence. And possibly doom billions of members of an allied species to death.

From what they say, every one of these things is on board. And none of them will ever talk, no matter what kind of interrogation techniques the Cacas use. Wish we could say the same about our species. Unfortunately, that was not true. The admiral wasn’t really worried about any of her people betraying secrets for personal gain. What she was worried about was some fool talking about what they had seen on a mission where someone with bad intent could hear it. They knew there were sellouts in the human species who were feeding information to the Cacas. She couldn’t understand why, since the Cacas had made no secret of the fact that they wished to make the human species extinct.

“Recognition code coming back, ma’am,” said the com officer. “It matches.”

“Transfer their signal to my office,” ordered the small admiral. “Full encryption protocols. Record to be transferred to my personal account, top secret galactic.”

Several of the flag bridge crew shot her looks of disbelief. Top secret galactic was the highest level of confidentiality. Only the Emperor, the Joint Chiefs and the head of Intelligence were automatically on that list. Others were given access as needed. And unauthorized access was a court martial offense, that could lead to mind wipe in extreme cases.

“Aye, ma’am,” said the com officer in a hushed voice.

As soon as Mei was in her chair she activated the com over her implant. The face of an alien looked out at her. A shiver of fear ran up her spine as she looked into the eyes of a consummate predator, one that had retained its evolved weapons even with the development of intelligence. She had seen videos of the creatures before, but it was a completely different experience having one focus its attention on one, even at several million kilometers remove.

“You are the human officer we were sent to meet?” asked the alien in heavily accented terranglo.

“I am,” she replied, surprised that it could speak the primary language of the Empire without a translation device. Of course, this was an agent, and probably well versed in the ways of humanity.

“Then I am to transmit our information to you. Are you prepared to receive it?”

“I am. Code November alpha seven seven seven six four Quebec tango three.”

“That is the correct code. Transmitting the information, now.”

Several terabytes of intelligence now passed between the Maurid ship and her flagship. Video, graphics, documents. All being shuttled through the ship’s com system with ultimate level quantum encryption. She would not even have access to the information, which really sparked her curiosity. Need to know, that damnable phrase that wrapped all important military information.

It took less than ten seconds for the information transfer across the light seconds.

“Acknowledge receipt of information. And thank you.”

The creature returned a wicked show of teeth that might have been a smile. Or might have been acknowledgement that she looked delicious to it.

“We will be leaving now,” it said, and the com screen blanked.

The Maurids were playing a dangerous game. They were intelligence agents and scouts for the Ca’cadasan Empire. The Cacas gave them a modicum of freedom and ships for their own use. And they were double agents, transmitting just enough intelligence to the Cacas to maintain their cover, while actually giving the Empire everything they could develop in the way of intelligence on Ca’cadasan intentions.

“Get me a direct link to Fleet Intelligence,” ordered Mei over the com. “To this address.” She sent the fifty digit address over to the com officer, with a request acknowledging the address in full. If there was anything in the intelligence that she needed to know, it would come back to her, along with that which could be disseminated to selected crew members.

Need to know, she thought as she huffed a laugh. It was all well and good in theory, but it killed her curiosity. She wanted to know what was in that message. She actually could unlock it and read the encrypted information. But that would be disobeying orders, and she was not about to risk the consequences. She liked having her memories. After making sure the entire file had been transmitted up the line, and that acknowledgment had been received, she punched in the code that would irretrievably erase the information from the system, overwriting it with junk information.

The Maurid ship translated out, moving up the levels of hyper on the plot until it disappeared, on with whatever mission the Cacas had assigned them.

*     *     *

Sean had taken a quick glance at the information that Ekaterina had sent him in his home office. He felt so much more relaxed at the manor house that had belonged to an uncle, and was now the makeshift palace. Soon he would have to move back to the real Imperial Palace. It wasn’t finished, but the section for the Imperial family was undergoing the last of the finishing touches to make it ready for occupancy. He didn’t look forward to telling Jennifer they would have to go back to where they would be under the public eye most of the time.

“How did it go?” she asked as he appeared in the dining room.

She had ordered a late meal, waiting herself so she could eat with her husband. The children had been fed hours before and were in bed, the gentle waves of hypnotics lulling them into a deep sleep that would last the night. Sean had read about the horror stories of babies that wouldn’t sleep, and kept their parents awake all night. Modern medicine and tech made that a thing of the past. Anyone who wanted a full night’s sleep could have one, with no after effects the next morning.

“Fine. Not everyone was on board with the timetable, and we had to make some adjustments, but we should be able to kick it off in a reasonable time.”

“I’ll be so happy when this whole damned business is over,” said Jennifer, put her forehead in her hand and leaning her elbow on the table. “All this death and destruction. I’m damned tired of it.”

“Me too,” said Sean, sitting down next to her and putting a hand on her shoulder, kneading the muscles. “But we’re in it, and we have to finish it. Unless we want the damned Cacas to finish us. They’ve made it clear what they think about us. If we break off now, they’ll just come back with a more powerful fleet and we’ll lose more.”

“Do you think they’ll surrender when we hit their capital system?” she asked, turning her head in her hand to look at him. “I mean, if we smash that system, won’t they realize they can’t win?”

“It didn’t work on us,” said Sean, shaking his head. “Maybe if we kill their Emperor, they might think twice. But I’m betting it makes them even more angry. Enraged.”

“Then why do it?”

“There’s such a thing as morale in our military. Among our civilians. I’m willing to bet they feel it too. And striking at the heart of their empire is sure to raise the morale of our people. If it lowers theirs, it’s a plus. And hopefully it has as much effect on their industry as theirs did on ours.”

“And if it pisses them off so much that they come at us harder?”

“Then we kill them as they come after us. The defender normally has the advantage.”

Jennifer just sat there shaking her head. “I feel so helpless. I’m not doing anything but sitting here and eating.”

“You’re taking care of the babies.”

“The nurses can do that. I need to be doing something useful. I had a profession before I broke down like a distressed damsel. I could still work as a doctor.”

“You know I don’t like the idea of you exposing yourself like that.”

“Then let me work in the military hospital again. The security’s as good there as anyplace. I need to do something.”

“You could attend meetings with me. Make speeches.”

“The meetings I might be able to handle. Standing up in front of a crowd? I’m not sure about that. Not yet.”

Then we need to get you out in public more, thought Sean. Not in front of the crowd making speeches, but at least by my side. He was encouraged that she was talking about doing something outside of the palace. Her job as Empress was to be one of the familiar faces of the monarchy. She had been shirking that duty, and he had been letting her.

Part of that was the fear that she would just want out of the whole deal. Divorce was a possibility. There was nothing saying that one member of an imperial couple couldn’t dissolve the union. It had happened before. She would not get custody of the children, no matter what. No judge would give the mother of the heirs’ custody if it removed them from the palace and the protection of the Imperial Secret Service.

The way things had been working out lately, love life and all, he didn’t think divorce was a possibility, unless she felt so stifled she couldn’t breathe.

“Let me talk to the Chief of Detail and see what he thinks.”

“And if he doesn’t think it a good idea?”

“Then I’ll ask him to reconsider. If it’s that important to you, it’s that important to me.”

She stood and wrapped him in her arms, crying as she squeezed. He lifted her chin and kissed her, Jennifer returning the kiss. It had been a good day. Now it was looking like it would be an even better night.

Chapter Ten

As a man sow, shall he reap. and I know that talk is cheap. But the heat of the battle is as sweet as the victory. Bob Marley

OCTOBER 27TH, 1003. CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

Sean leaned back in his chair and yawned. It seemed like he had been looking at these proposals all day, when it had only been four hours. Still, it seemed never ending, even though he was skimming them as fast as he could, and only stopping when something really interesting appeared.

There had been one about improving the inertia compensators by ten percent across the board. That had seemed promising, until he had read all the particulars and seen that it had taken fifty percent more supermetals to make it work. That, and the fact that it would take a complete refit cycle in dock, had made it a nonstarter in the middle of a war.

Another had been a new type of wormhole bomb, smaller than the huge weapons they had used in the past. Slinging a ship the size of a fast attack craft at point nine light through the wormhole. It wouldn't cause all the collateral damage of the major weapons, and could actually be fired from a ship by missile. The problem with that was that the rebound weapons they were currently using seemed to be much more useful, and usable. And wormholes were too damned expensive to use them for such a weapon.

Yet another had been an enhanced magrail rifle, based on the technology of the cannon used in main battle tanks. It didn't seem worth putting into production since it wasn't as powerful a weapon as the particle beams that heavy infantry and Marines carried. And then there was the improved cryo system, when what they had was good enough for preserving bodies for reanimation, and the improvement didn't seem have any practical advantage.

Here's something, he thought as a schematic for a new type of ship came up. He read on, and thought it might actually be of use. But in cross referencing it, he found that the Shipbuilding and Design Board had submitted a very similar design several months before, and it was being considered.

He had already gone through eighty some odd proposals, and couldn't fault McCullom for discarding any of them. They would have been a waste of his time. And of course he was wasting that time now.

"The Empress would like to know if you will be having supper with her, your Majesty," said the palace Major Domo over the iontercom.

"Tell her Majesty that I will be there in fifteen minutes," he replied. "Can the chef keep the meal fresh until then?"

"I think we can convince him to do so, your Majesty," said the head servant, the hint of a smile in his voice.

Sean went through three more proposals, then noticed that he had spent twenty minutes at it. He locked down his system, not that he thought anyone in the palace would come snooping, but it was a good habit to get into.

Lionel Haverty, the major domo, held the door open to the formal dining room for the Emperor. Jennifer shot him a glance as he entered, then smiled as he noted that both of his children were in high chairs on either side of his wife. He smiled at her, and it widened when he noted that two of the nurses were in attendance to take care of feeding the babies. She had been letting them take care of them more and more, while still giving them some mommy time.

"Something important?" she asked, just before he walked to stand over her and leaned in to give her a kiss.

"Not too important," he said as he took the couple of steps to his chair, and the serving staff came in with the meal on trays. He took in the odor of Beef Wellington, along with crispy asparagus and a fresh baked bread. The wine steward presented the beverage, and he nodded in approval, then thanked the man as he poured the vintage into fine crystal goblets for himself and the Empress. Another servant placed plates of mashed potatoes and chopped vegetables for the twins, and the nurses went to feeding the children before they became too fussy.

"So," said Jennifer as the last servant left the chamber, Lionel closing the door behind them. "What was not too important that it took the entire afternoon?"

"Just an argument going on between two of my senior officers," he said, putting down his goblet and picking up his knife and fork to attack his meal.

"Oh. Which ones?"

Sean took a bite of the Wellington and started to chew. He was very hungry, and he chewed most of the meat and pastry before he started talking around it. His mother would have been horrified with his table manners, but he was the master here and now, so he could do as he wanted.

"Who else? Chan and McCullom."

"Your head of research and the CNO? What in the galaxy could they be arguing about now?"

"Maybe it's a female thing. You know how you are."

Jennifer picked up a napkin and threw it at him on a gentle motion. Sean smiled. Her being able to joke again showed that she was indeed recovering.

Seriously," he continued, picking up the napkin and tossing it near her plate. "There seems to be bad blood between them. I think what brought it on was Sondra questioning a proposal of Chuntoa's."

"And was the proposal of any use?" asked Jennifer, picking up a fork full of asparagus.

"It was, actually. Remember what I told you about the Cacas using inertialess fighters for suicide attacks."

Jennifer's eyes widened. She had been disturbed by the notion of the small fighters gutting an entire task group, killing hundreds of thousands of people. She was still a physician, and the thought of so many dying hurt her to her soul.

"Well, Chan, or one of the members of her team, proposed using warp fighters to intercept them on the way in. Sondra didn't like the idea. To her, the warp fighters are a purely offensive weapon, and she does not want to use them for defense. Plus, she had given Chan instructions to produce a new wonder weapon to take care of the Cacas, and Chan wasn't able to make anything else work."

"But, people can't just produce brilliant ideas on demand," said Jennifer, scowling. "Science doesn't work that way."

"I know that, and I'm sure Sondra knows that as well, but she feels her back is up against the wall and she needs something to stop the Caca suicide fighters. I looked over the proposal this afternoon and approved it, which I'm sure won't make my CNO feel warm and fuzzy toward me."

"Well, it's your call to make."

"It is, but there's more. Chan went over Sondra's head to give me the information, and Sondra was livid. She threatened to bust Chan. Now, Chan did jump over McCullom's head, bypassing the chain of command. Unfortunately, she had made the right call about the warp fighters, and Sondra made the wrong call. So I approved it. And had a conversation with McCullom about it. Jennifer, I can't afford to lose Chan. Her and her team have improved our tech many fold over the course of the war. I need them to be working at full efficiency."

"I hope you can smooth the ruffled feathers, dear," said Jennifer, holding up her empty glass so the wine steward would notice.

All of the service staff had top clearances, based on their being around the people who knew so much that couldn't be disseminated to the people of the Empire. Which didn't mean they always had the need to know. But Sean was willing to let them stay so he and his wife could have their meal together.

"I'm afraid I ruffled them some more," said Sean, shaking his head. "I asked Sondra for all of the files on projects she had dismissed in the past. I'm sure she suspects I'm going to go back and second guess all her decisions. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, so far I haven't found anything I would disagree with, though I would with her latest decision. Oh, there were a few projects that might have significant value in the future, but are really of no use to us right now."

"And now you've got a CNO who thinks you don't trust her, and a research wizard who doesn't trust her either. Sounds like a real mess."

"It does. I've thought of moving Sondra to another position, but I can't think of one that she won't see as a slap in the face."

"No, there probably isn't one. But couldn't you move her to a fleet command, like you did for Lenkowski?"

"That would work, if I had any faith in her ability to handle that large a combat command at this stage in the war. If she had some more practical experience under her belt it would be different. I could move her to sector command, but that would definitely have been seen as a demotion for cause."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Leave her as CNO for the time being. I have no complaints about her administrative abilities, which are most important for that slot."

"And Chan?"

"I can't relieve her, and I can't leave her where she is. I need her working at full efficiency, not wasting energy in a battle with a superior."

"And your answer?"

"Leave them alone for now, but give Chan that direct line to me she so cherishes. I know it might piss Sondra off, but she works for me, not the other way around."

"Good luck with that," said Jennifer, pushing her plate away, then looking over at Glenn, where the nurse was wiping his face with a cloth. The children were growing, and they were almost ready to start walking. But it would be years before they have what anyone would call table manners.

“And how was your first day back on the job?” he asked her with a smile.

“Probably about the same as yours,” she replied with a frown.

“Not what you were hoping for?”

“You know I want to work at hospital again,” she answered.

“It’s a first step. And if you had seen the panic on the face of the Chief of Detail when I told him what you wanted to do, you might be a little more understanding.”

Jennifer stared at him for a moment, and Sean was sure she was going to begin yelling any moment, until she broke out in a deep laugh. “I could just imagine how his heart rate must have gone up.” She waved her hands in the air, trying to get her breathe back while she continued to laugh. “Okay. I’ll be patient. And at least I’m getting my feet wet, back into medicine, even if it is just reviewing files. But it’s not where I want to be.”

“Give it a week, and I’m sure we can get you back to seeing patients. Maybe not in an emergency ward. Would an obstetrics ward be acceptable?”

A wide smile stretched her face at the possibility of working with new mothers and babies. Mortality during childbirth was almost unheard of, but most babies were still birthed with a physician in residence.

“I think I could work with that,” she said, shaking her head. “I think that would be perfect.”

*     *     *

"Having gone over all of the files you sent me, I have to agree with your decisions on all but two of them," Sean said, looking into the eyes of the woman on the other side of the holo. "One was the more efficient electromag field generators. I know," he said, raising a hand. "There are some production drawbacks, but in my opinion we can overcome them with some more thought and work."

"And the second?"

"The use of the warp fighters for intercepting the Caca suicide birds."

"I see."

"Not too bad, out of hundreds. An error rate of less than one percent."

"Not according to Admiral Chan," growled McCullom. "According to her I was losing the war by rejecting some of their projects. When I pass so many."

Sean nodded. Yes she had. Inertialess fighters, wormhole launchers, the new warp fighters. Hundreds of innovations had come from Chan and her teams, and McCullom had passed all of them to the Emperor to be approved. Which made what he was about to say so difficult.

"You've done an outstanding job as chief of naval operations, Sondra. And I want you to continue in the job. However, I want to give R&D a direct line to me. And you are not to retaliate against Admiral Chan. Understood?"

"Perhaps it would be best if I resigned my commission and.."

"Didn't you hear a word I said. You are doing an outstanding job of keeping this far flung Fleet together. I don't have anyone to replace you with. Any resignation you tender will be refused, due to the needs of the Fleet, on my command. You know what that means?"

"That I will be prosecuted for desertion if I leave my post without your permission. A hell of a way to show gratitude, your Majesty."

"And I am sorry about that as well. But as I said, we don't need to be shuffling our command structure during an offensive. So, you will be staying in as CNO. Consider that an Imperial decree."

"Yes, sir," said the woman, her eyes downcast.

"The Empress asked me to invite you and some of my other officers to dinner. How would Wednesday evening be for you?"

"At your command."

"Now, dammit, Sondra. This is an invitation, not a command. I could understand it if you refused, but the Empress would be hurt."

"Well," said McCullom, squaring her shoulders and looking the Emperor in the eye. "Far be it for me to hurt the Empress. I will be there."

"Good. My social secretary will get in touch with you as to the time. And thank you, Admiral McCullom."

The holo faded away, and Sean let out a deep breath. He thought that went as well as it could. He couldn't afford to let her leave her post. And he couldn't afford for the chief administrator of the Fleet to be involved in a feud with the officer most responsible for upgrading their military technology base. He thought he had settled it, at least for now.

*     *     *

"How did it go?" asked Jennifer as Sean walked into the sitting room.

This was their private space. Servants could be summoned, but weren't allowed to enter the room unsummoned. There was plenty of security, outside the room. Even the monitoring system was offline, only activated by a code word spoken by a member of the Imperial family. And when they weren't in residence the room was swept for threats.

Sean stood for a moment, looking around the large chamber. It was called a sitting room, but it could have sat thirty people easily in all the chairs and couches. Heirlooms from the family dotted the shelves and tables, mostly objects his uncle had accumulated over the centuries of his life. Portraits of family members graced the walls, not all of them of Emperors or Empresses. He missed the private quarters in the old palace, still under repair, never to be the same. Yet if he had to have some place to hang his hat, this seemed like a good lair.

"As well as could be expected," he said, flopping onto the couch next to his wife, who put down her reader. "And what are you perusing at the moment?"

"Nothing of interest, dear. Just the Imperial Journal of Neurology. I may not be practicing in that field, but that's no reason to let my knowledge grow rusty."

Sean nodded, a slight smile on his face. This was a good sign as far as he was concerned. That she was once again engaged in her life. That the children were important to her, but no longer the sole focus of her life. Since he was a big part of that life, he heartily approved.

"McCullom, of course, wanted to resign. But I was able to, uh, talk her out of it."

"Threatened her, huh."

"Not really a threat. Just pointing out the regs." He leaned back in the overstuffed couch and let out a sigh. "I wish my senior officers weren't such a bunch of children. All more worried about their own little fiefdoms than the overall state of the Empire."

"Oh, I doubt that," said Jennifer, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking into his eyes. "Your people are doing their best for the Empire. But they're just people, and under extreme stress. Trying to control a situation in which there is no real control."

Sean looked at her in surprise. "I didn't know you were a psychiatrist."

Jennifer laughed. "And here you were just thinking that I needed one." She shook her head. "I took a rotation in medical school in psychiatry, but surgery was my talent. But I've learned from being around people in the hospitals where I worked. People under stressful situations, some frightened out of their wits. And I think your brave warriors are no different, even if the situation is."

"And your advice, doctor?"

"Give your people as much space as you would want them to give you. Not hands off. Not entirely. But don't go breathing down their necks either."

"And you know I have to keep control of this damned war," said Sean, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"And do you have control? Any? Some? Your most important job right now is in running the Empire. A political job." She raised a hand as Sean started to speak. "I know you have to keep tabs on the military. That you have to approve all major operations. But delegate."

Sean nodded. It was good advice, and he thought it might do him good to follow it, to a point. But his dreams had showed him that he would be on the flag deck of a ship when the Fleet attacked the center of the Ca'cadasan Empire. If it kept her happy, he would delegate for the time being. He would also keep his hands in the works, and if something important happened, he would be there to sort things out and make a command decision.

"Now, how about we have drinks," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"That sounds like great idea," he said. "Two martinis in the sitting room," he said in the air in his best command voice, setting the process in motion that would have the drinks in their hands in less than a minute.

Chapter Eleven

To be prepared is half the victory. Miguel de Cervantes

OCTOBER 29TH, 1003, SUPERSYSTEM SPACE.

Captain Wilma Snyder looked with approval at the take from the simulations the squadron was going through. It was one of her squadrons, the first of the seven in her wing that would be run through it, training them in how to close with and destroy the intertialess fighters that were wreaking such havoc among their Fleet. That needed to be stopped.

The latest run was a victory, the fourteen fighters sweeping in and taking out twelve of the inertialess craft with their leading space compression fields. They lost one of their own in the turn, one craft drifting too far and intersecting the compression field of another, but the thirteen got away, their space compression drives getting them out of trouble, away from the blasts of ships entering normal space in inertial rebounds. Blasts that would have destroyed them if not for their pseudospeed.

The simulation ended and reset, and the fourteen crews found themselves again in the virtual world of the attack. This was the fiftieth attack they had conducted in the last half an hour, going from locating the enemy to moving to contact to attacking, a process that could take up to fifteen minutes in real life, but only took that many seconds in the simulation. To the crew involved, linked through their standard military implants to the massive computer system used for the purpose of combat simulation, it was as if they were really there. In four hours they would have run through hundreds of attacks, their brains absorbing the knowledge even as their muscle memory was trained.

It was the same process that ship crews went through prior to battle, learning every possibility, hopefully ready for whatever came. The Admiralty still preferred that all crews worked some real time attacks, firing their very real weapons. Sometimes that was not possible, like now, and these warp craft were needed at the front, immediately.

"How's it coming, Captain?" came the voice of Admiral McCullum over her implant.

"As well as can be expected, sir," replied the wing commander. "I wish we had the time for real space maneuvers, sir. We won't know how good they are until they actually meet the enemy in combat."

"I wish we could do that as well, Captain. Unfortunately, we’ve lost ships to these bastards. Too many of them. And we’re about to go into combat with them again. I don’t want us to continue to lose that many people."

The captain nodded, the acknowledgment going out over the implant. Losing even one ship to those suicide fighters was too much, and they had been losing fifty or more every day during the counter-offensive that drove the Cacas out of the border space between Empires. The few ships with warp beams had worked as well as could be expected, but there weren't enough of them, there never would be, and they couldn't always be in the right place when an attack came in.

"I want your wing deployed to the front by tomorrow. Ready to move with Lenkowski’s ships when he heads into Caca space. If he gets to a system where there are no enemy inertialess fighters, perhaps you can get in some real space maneuvers. But if they’re there, you’ll have to conduct on the job training."

"And how are we to be deployed, ma’am? Among what task forces?"

"A squadron to each of his task forces on the left flank. That will give him a wing per task group, several per battle force. And we have other wings to complete the coverage. And in the coming months we should be able to double the number of interceptors."

The wing commander didn't like it. One squadron per task force was not enough. Her squadrons might be facing overwhelming numbers of enemy. And they had not been intended as dogfighters. They were attack ships, made to go after larger vessels. Not ships smaller and more maneuverable than they.

No, she thought, not more maneuverable. The inertialess fighters, despite their name, still had to reckon with inertia when they accelerated, decelerated, and changed vector. While the warp craft could stop on a proverbial dime, and change vectors in a heartbeat.

The admiral severed the connection, leaving the wing commander to her own thoughts, working on her deployments. Her own ship would of course be deployed with one of the squadrons, as would her exec's. Which meant she and her crew would need to go through the evolutions along with the squadron they were to deploy with if they had any chance of being of use, or of surviving.

*     *     *

“The pilots and crews are reporting satisfactory results of their simulations, your Majesty,” said McCullom over the com.

From her expression she still wasn’t happy with the whole idea of using the fighters, but she seemed to have put all of her effort behind it when the Emperor said he wanted it done. That made Sean happy enough. She didn’t have to like everything she was asked to do. He couldn’t control what his people thought or felt. All he could do was reward those who implemented his orders, and punish those who refused to. So far she had followed his orders to the letter.

“So you think they’re ready to deploy?”

“They’re nowhere near ready to deploy, your Majesty,” said the exasperated CNO. “It’s all well and good to work out the tactics in simulators, but no officer is going to sign off on this until they have at least a couple of months of real flight training. Sending them in with anything less is risking their dying for no practical return.”

“And while we wait for them to get that training, the Cacas are eviscerating my fleet. I know it’s a shitty thing to do, Admiral. But I have to look at the big picture here,” he said, feeling an attack of guilt at what he was going to order serving officers to do. “If I lose an entire squadron of those fighters and all of their crew, but save one battleship, it’s a victory. I would prefer getting a little more of a return for those fighters. Hell, I prefer that they go out there and destroy all the evil suicide fighters with no loss to themselves. But I know that’s not going to happen.”

Sondra gave him a look that was part accusation and part understanding. As a flag officer, she had given commands that had put people at risk, without letting her concerns for their safety sway her. As CNO, she had sent entire fleets into action against forces they couldn’t defeat, because it needed to be done.

“Very well, your Majesty. I’ll have the orders cut to deploy those fighters. Hopefully they can get some practice time before they actually go into combat.”

And if they don’t, they’ll have to make do with simulator time, thought the Monarch. And every one of them would be on his conscience if it wasn’t enough. Then they’ll just have to get in line to parade through my nightmares.

*     *     *

“You’ve got the first of your dogfighters coming through the wormhole, Len.”

“My what, Sondra?”

“Your dogfighters. It’s a term I learned from Sean. Something about atmospheric fighters going round and round each other while trying to blow each other out of the sky. I looked it up, including some really old two dimensional video. Exciting stuff.”

“And you expect they’ll do this with the inertialess fighters?”

“Well, that’s not the optimal outcome. We hope they’ll knock them out of space with their space compression drive. It’s worked in simulations. Now it’s up to you and them to make it work in reality.”

“Joy,” said Len, shaking his head. “And when it blows up everyone is going to blame me.”

“The Emperor has said that he will take all the responsibility for the failure of this idea, if it fails. And you know how he is.”

Len nodded as he reached for the cup of coffee his yeoman had brought. One thing he had to say for the Emperor, he had an imperial sized sense of responsibility. If he made a decision and it went wrong, he was the last person to go out looking for scapegoats. Despite some bad decisions in the past, the Time Strike came to mind, he usually made very good, very well-reasoned judgments. Enough that the senior command still had faith in him to run the Empire.

As long as he doesn’t try to mess with time again, thought the admiral, taking a sip of the good coffee.

“So, is Taelis getting any of these, uh, dogfighters?”

“Not as many as you. But he will be getting his share. It’s up to you to make better use of yours than he does of his.”

“Is that a challenge?” asked Lenkowski with a smile. He and the duke had been friends since their days at the academy. Like many good friends, they had been in competition through the years. They both had received promotions through the ranks within months of each other. Mgonda had gotten his sixth star first, then Len had passed him by to get his seventh as Chief of Naval Operations, the highest rank in the Fleet. He had come to regret that promotion almost immediately. Now they were again the same rank, running the two major offensive fleets of the Empire.

“If you two boys want to pretend you’re playing soccer at the academy, go to it. As long as you bring me results.”

The com holo faded, leaving Len alone with his thoughts. It was all well and good to think of everything as a competition, but seriously, they both needed to get the new anti-kamikaze attacker tactic working, and working well.

Chapter Twelve

The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory. Douglas Haig

OCTOBER 30TH, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT REGION.

Field Marshal Samuel Baggett looked at the holo plot that hung over the table, centered on his part of the gathering fleet. He wasn't really concerned with the warships, except when they were necessary to break down the space defenses that might keep his forces from inserting, or when they were needed to protect the vessels carrying his force from enemy ships. While in space his armor and infantry were almost completely helpless. One enemy superbattleship could destroy his whole command if he didn’t have a proper escort. He hated that part of the military equation, but it was what it was.

"It sure is impressive," said Brigadier General Dagni Thorwaldsdottir, sitting next to the field marshal at the table.

Baggett nodded. There were seventy assault carriers on the plot, each capable of carrying a brigade of heavy troops, a tank battalion and two or three battalions of infantry. They would also base over a hundred orbit to atmosphere fighters and attack craft, launching from the ships and speeding down to the planet to provide air cover and ground support. These ships would carry seventeen of his divisions, or five or six divisions in each of his three armies. That wouldn't be enough, not by a long shot. Each army had eighteen divisions divided into six corps, for a total of fifty-four divisions under his command. He would also have sixty-four independent brigades and multiple smaller units. A total of almost two million men and women. Most of the rest would be carried in the transports and freighters that would accompany them, over seven hundred of them.

The assault carrier itself was an impressive ship, five million tons of hyper VI vessel, heavily armored, with a variety of shore bombardment weapons and three huge hangar decks. What it lacked were sufficient weapons to make it a warship. The transports and freighters were even more feeble. There would be a force of over a thousand warships riding herd on them, including some thirty battleships.

"How are we set for supply?" asked the field marshal of his logistics chief.

"We have room for six months basic supply, sir," said Dagni, "but only enough munitions for a week's combat. If we have all of our units engaged at the same time."

Which wasn't likely to happen. At most they would have twelve corps in contact with the enemy at any given time. They would have to depend on the supply train to keep them furnished with what they needed when the embarked supplies were consumed. That was the responsibility of the Fleet, and Dagni was responsible for making sure the Fleet knew what they needed, as the next thing she said made clear.

"We're trying to find lift for more of everything we need, sir. But the Fleet is claiming priority."

Which was their prerogative. They needed missiles, antimatter, a million and one other sundries to keep ships and crews running. Without those the offensive would falter, and his troops wouldn’t be needed. If the Fleet couldn’t get through the enemy defenses, his people might as well stay home.

"Prioritize munitions and batteries," he ordered, making his decision. "We're unlikely to run out of food, and if we do, the Fleet will be obligated to supply us. I don’t think they’ll let us starve." I hope, he thought. He had seen what the Fleet thought of ground pounders in the Fenri campaign. They were more than willing to help the Imperial Army, if they had something to spare. Otherwise, the army could go hang itself, while Fleet took care of itself and its precious Marines.

"Which munitions, sir? Proton packs, hypervelocity missiles, projectiles?"

"We're going to run out of the heavy stuff first," said Baggett after a moment's thought. "Prioritize hypervelocity missiles, all types, then tank projectiles."

His force faced a logistics problem like no army of the past. They had twenty different kinds of batteries, from miniature units for hand held coms, to suit and weapons packs, to the large systems needed for tanks and other vehicles. They could recharge them of course, and universal chargers could handle all of them. But sometimes there wasn't time to charge them, such as when a battalion was in continuous combat, and they needed batteries, and they needed them right now. Armorers could rearm proton packs for particle beam weapons, but sometimes they needed them now, and couldn't wait for their armorers. Engineers needed high tech materials that couldn't be found in the natural environment of any world, and would have to be brought along. Hypervelocity weapons depended on supermetals, and couldn't be forged on the spot, nor could they be salvaged, since the weapon vaporized the specific alloys when used.

Spare parts, spare suits, replacement vehicles, medical supplies, the list was endless. And everything had to be packed to make best use of the available space, while still being accessible, ready at hand when it was needed. The ships were so tightly packed that it was a process of last on, first off. So they needed to pack what they would need first, last, when they didn’t always know what they needed first. Logistics was a subject that most officers didn’t like to study, but those who excelled at it were worth their weight in superplatinum, especially experienced officers like his beautiful logistics wizard.

"We still haven't received all the spares we requested," said Dagni, her forehead furrowing in worry. “I’m worried we might have to kick this thing off short.”

"We still have another couple of weeks before our part of this thing kicks off. That gives us time."

The battle fleet would be moving out in a week, and they were supposed to follow a week behind. That would give the fleet the time to take out any enemy force that might ravage the ground forces while still aboard ship. At least that was the hope.

"And what about the special ops people?" asked Dagni, the worried expression never leaving her face.

Baggett shook his head, putting a hand on the brigadier's forearm. "That isn't our concern, General. Let the special ops boys and girls worry about that. I'm sure they've got something planned."

*     *     *

“We’re ready to roll, your Majesty,” said Len, sitting in the command chair on his flag bridge.

His fleet was back up to over thirty thousand ships, including six thousand of the various classes of battleship. He had almost a thousand wormholes, with more to come, and three thousand warp fighters. There still weren’t enough of the warp beam weapons. More of those were promised as well, with the caveat that there would never be enough. And he had an entire Imperial Army Group, fifty-four divisions of armor and heavy infantry. They came with their own air support, over seven thousand orbit to ground attack craft and fighters, and a lot of ground based firepower, but would depend on his ships for their orbital fire.

“Have all your logistics ships arrived?” asked Sean, a concerned expression on his face.

Len knew that the Emperor had been ordering everything up, to get there on time. But like King Canute ordering the tide to stop, Imperial decrees couldn’t make things appear by themselves. It took ships and people to move the supplies, and they could only work so many hours a day, and so fast during those hours. Pushing them harder led to injuries and deaths, and diminishing returns.

“We have enough. I think we can handle a couple of fights before we need resupply, especially if we lean on the wormhole launchers.”

Sean nodded, picking up a cup of coffee and taking a sip.

“We’ve finally got missile production back up,” said the Emperor. “We’ve been expending more of them than we figured. Don’t get me wrong. I would rather be sending too many into the enemy than losing people from not sending enough. But we’ve been hitting a wall on grabber unit production.”

“So, do you want me to conserve?” asked a worried Len. The wormhole launchers had given them a considerable firepower advantage since the early days of the war. If he had to cut back, he could be looking at heavy losses. Too many battles with heavy losses and the offensive could grind to a sudden halt.

“I want you to use as many weapons as it takes to win the battle, Admiral. I would rather you use too many and preserve lives, than too few and lose them. Let me worry about the weapons. We’ll get them to you.”

I know you’ll do your best, your Majesty, thought the admiral. But you can’t shit missiles, as enjoyable as that might be to see.

“And I see your scout force has already entered Caca territory.”

Len nodded. There were another thousand ships in that command, including a hundred and fifty hyper VII battle cruisers, the rest being light cruisers and destroyers. Mara Montgomery was his preferred scout commander, but she was still in the Bolthole region, and was unlikely to be moved back.

“Admiral Lei has done a great job of organizing the force. I have total trust in her to find and fix the enemy.” That was true enough, and Mei Lei had done an exemplary job of scouting since she had risen to her new rank and position. But he had worked with Montgomery for years, and felt like they had an almost supernatural connection where knowing what the other was going to do was concerned. He hadn’t made that connection with Admiral Lei, though she had proven to be an intelligent commander with just the right mix of caution and audaciousness to be effective.

“We’re almost to the barrier, your Majesty. I need to hold a holo conference with my task group commanders before I wish them on their way.” He wasn’t sure how much the monarch would buy of what he had just said. All the flagships had wormholes, and he could meet with them any time over the voyage, but the Emperor had to know that his admirals wanted to get on with it, without him looking over their shoulders.

“Very well, Len,” said Sean with a smile. “I’ll let you get to it.”

The Emperor dropped off the holo, leaving Len time to lean back in his chair and close his eyes. He was still exhausted. He had gotten most of his people some rest, but there had been too much for him to do. He wasn’t good at taking care of himself, and he wasn’t looking forward to more months of death and destruction, of sending his people into situations they wouldn’t come back from.

But if not me, who? he thought. It was a shit job, being the overall commander of a fleet, but someone had to do it, and he couldn’t hand it off to some other poor sod, when he was still useful for at least another couple of battles.

Chapter Thirteen

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. John Adams

NOVEMBER 3RD, 1003. CENTRAL FRONTEIR.

"We're picking up enemy ships ahead, sir," called out the fleet com officer, listening to her earbud. "Several hundred vessels, and more appearing each second."

Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski glanced over at the holo tank that was now showing the tactical plot. His force, over ten thousand ships, was centered, the edge of the approaching enemy force on the forward end.

"Enemy force moving through hyper VI at point six light," called out the fleet tactical officer.

Len nodded. That was unexpected, since all of the Caca ships were hyper VII capable. Not all of his ships were. By this time almost fifty percent of the front-line strength was, but that still left about half only able to reach VI on their own. They had discovered ways around that. Risky for the ships involved, but in war risks had to be taken. The Cacas being in VI showed that they meant to fight a battle, since they couldn’t drop missiles down through dimensions of hyper any faster than point three light.

"Well. We were expecting it. It only makes sense that they would try to fight us in hyper, where our other advantages are eliminated."

They couldn't use inertialess or warp fighters in hyper, and theory seemed to indicate that they never would. They still had wormholes, and the launchers that were hooked up to them. The Cacas now had wormholes themselves, and could also fire missiles through them. But it was like someone with a squad of bolt action rifles going against fast firing machine guns. They could still kill, but with nowhere near the efficiency of the more advanced weapon. As far as the Empire knew, the Cacas still had to accelerate missiles through normal space for hours before they entered the wormhole. There was no way they could fire a volley without enough prior notice, while humans, with their wormhole launching systems, could call up a stream whenever needed at maximum velocity.

There were, of course, the inertialess fighters they were using for suicide attacks, but inertialess fighters were a new development for the Cacas, and there was no telling how many of them they had. Intelligence was saying more than a few, less than the Empire. Quite a ballpark to be playing in. Could numbers be the reason they were attacking in hyper, and not waiting until the Imperial fleets got into a system.

The enemy force, detected by their graviton emissions, was growing steadily, more and more coming onto the plot every second. It was looking like they were going to face a superior force. So far only they, of the three wings moving to intercept the Caca offensive, were confronting any resistance. He wasn't sure if that would change, but had to doubt the Cacas would be able to coordinate multiple engagements across hundreds of light years.

"Start bringing across our reinforcements," ordered the admiral.

The commands started going out, setting the process in motion. It had been thought out completely ahead of time, and practiced by the fleet, but there were still problems, with new ones bound to appear.

Six of his ships had been modified with moving portals, mostly hyper VII battleships that could function in all the dimensions. At the other end of their wormholes were other ships, also moving, ready to accept the vessels to be transported.

His own flagship, the Anastasia Romanov, had been refitted along with the repairs of her battle damage. A portal had been installed on the super heavy battleship, actually overlapping all dimensions of the ship. The ship was currently boosting to the side, the portal pointed forward.

The first ships through were a trio of destroyers, specialized missile defense vessels, already moving at a velocity slightly higher than the ship carrying the portal. It had been a difficult maneuver to perfect, with the ship on the other end moving through normal space at the same velocity as the receiving fleet in hyper. It meant they had to be in a continuous coast, ready for deployment to whichever force needed them. And each fleet also had two other portals, connecting to each of the other fleets and allowing them to cross reinforce if that became necessary.

Another trio of destroyers came through, then two more groups, until an entire squadron was joined. A pair of light cruisers were next through. Wormholes couldn't come through, and the fleet really didn't need more offensive firepower, carrying as it did over four hundred wormholes. What it needed was more missile defense, to protect those wormhole equipped ships, and so they were bringing through destroyers and cruisers. These had dedicated defense systems, and were much more expendable than capital ships.

Not that the crews would think so, thought the admiral as that fact entered his mind. In the cold calculation of combat a missile strike at a high enough closing velocity could kill any ship. A destroyer or a super heavy battleship, the missile and the laws of physics didn't care. But a twenty-seven million ton super heavy battleship took over one hundred and twenty times the resources and labor to build as a two hundred and twenty thousand ton destroyer. And a super heavy battleship had almost nineteen times the crew. It made sense to put the smaller ships in the front line of missile defense where their weaponry would defend both themselves and their more powerful fleet mates.

In minutes there were hundreds of destroyers and light cruisers pushing to the front and thickening the screening force. As even more enemy ships appeared on the plot, it was seeming that he hadn't overreacted in calling forth his reinforcements after all.

"Enemy has opened fire, sir," called out the tactical officer. The plot was now speckled with tens of thousands of missiles, fired from the tubes of the approaching Caca ships. From the pattern it seemed like they hadn't let off any wormhole launched weapons. Which didn't mean there wouldn't be any in the near future.

The Cacas had started the war with dual purpose missiles, able to be used in both hyper and normal space. The Empire had used two types of missiles, carrying mostly normal space weapons, since that was where most combat occurred. Now they carried their own dual purpose weapons, with a difference. The hyperdrive units could be taken off before firing in normal space, saving resources and allowing the missile to accelerate at a greater rate without the extra mass. All of the wormhole acceleration tubes attached to this fleet were using missiles configured for hyperspace, and now Len decided to use them.

"All wormhole launchers are to give them a volley," he ordered, and moments later the plot was speckled with groups of missiles, all coming in groups of thirty from the acceleration tubes thousands of light years away. Three hundred launchers, each with thirty missiles, could put out nine thousand missiles. Not an overwhelming volley against a fleet like the one they were facing, but their speed would make them difficult targets to intercept.

"Time on target for the next volley, tac," said Lenkowski, looking at the incoming wave of twenty thousand missiles. He recalled the old saying, for what we are about to receive, we thank you. He preferred another one, “It was better to give than to receive,” and he was about to give.

"Yes, sir," replied the officer, doing the computations on his board, then sending the results to the com station for transmission to the rest of the fleet.

The ship bucked slightly as she released all of the weapons on her off side. The ships that weren't carrying portals started firing from one side, rotating the ships until every tube would eventually bear and fire. They were programed to vary their acceleration at first, until all of the weapons could join up in a single mass.

The first wave of wormhole launched weapons reached the enemy fleet, thousands falling off the plot before they reached their targets. About five hundred made it all the way through the defensive basket, and enemy ships started to fall off the plot as well as contact was made.

Romanov bucked some more as she started cycling counter missiles. All of those weapons were also dual purpose, and all of the ships had twice as many counter tubes as they had offensive weapons. The special missile defense ships had even more, four times, and tens of thousands of counters were in space as the enemy missile wave were close to entering their range. Most of the ships would get off four cycles of counters before the missiles were too close. Just before the third cycle they would fire their laser rings. The photons fell out of hyper quickly, the lasers losing half of their power in a second, half of that in another. Still, they took out some, before the enemy weapons got in close enough for the autocannon to fire. The shells of the autocannon, accelerated to one tenth light speed, would fall out of hyper within a second, giving them a range of thirty thousand kilometers. Only the forward screens would fire these weapons, since the ships behind could hit them unintentionally.

The fleet fired another volley before the enemy wave got to them, but the enemy had also released another, and a second massive wave was on the way in.

"Firing wormhole weapons," called out the tactical officer, and the three hundred odd launchers in the fleet let off their second volley. These were heading toward the enemy fleet at point nine five light, and would catch up with the standard launch wave just as they entered the enemy defensive basket. The plan was that the other missiles would attract the most fire, and that more of the speedy wormhole launched weapons would make it through to attack.

Screening vessels kept erupting from the portals, frantically boosting to get into position. Not all would. But they would reinforce and thicken the screen for successive waves, taking the places of the lost.

The remains of the missile wave, a couple of thousand weapons, made it through the defensive basket and started to engage. Over a hundred ships in the human fleet fell off the plot, some totally destroyed, converted to plasma. Others were simply damaged to the point where they could no longer maintain a hyperfield. That was the reason no fleet really wanted to fight in hyper, since a catastrophic translation was the result, and the odds of surviving that were on the order of five percent. Mostly what fell into normal space were very small pieces of wreckage and plasma.

The enemy kept firing, but with fewer missiles in each wave as they lost ships. The humans returned fire, tactical officers trying to keep ship launched and wormhole launched weapons hitting within seconds of each other. Screening vessels kept coming through the portals, making up the losses. Not every ship lost was a screen. That would have been statistically impossible. Hundreds of heavy cruisers, battle cruisers and even battleships died.

Len sat his chair, gauntleted hands in battle armor gripping the arms of his seat. His ship was in a protected position, due to it being the flag and a portal vessel. Which didn't mean there weren’t many close calls. The admiral didn't want to die. He recognized that was true of almost all of his people, and he really didn't want those who did under his command, since they were likely to get others killed for no return.

Watching the enemy ships on the plot was like watching snowflakes falling onto a hot rock, then melting away as volley after volley hit them. He was losing ships too, but less than half what the enemy was. In total tonnage it was more like three to one, and it was an exchange the enemy couldn't sustain. A couple hundred of their ships were able to get out of range in their final retreat. But over four thousand vessels, and millions of crew, had died in the battle.

Len had lost just under two thousand of his own ships, and all the crews those carried. He couldn't feel triumph at that exchange, unlike what his friend Mgonda would have. Too many lives lost. The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that this was a fight to the finish, and he didn't think there were too many other people who could do better. He had to think that, or else he might as well step down from command and let someone else have it.

*     *     *

NOVEMBER 10TH, 1003.

"We're about to engage a large enemy fleet, sir," said Admiral Juan Jimenez from the com. "Much larger than my force."

"Can you keep them at bay with maneuver, Juan?" asked Lenkowski.

"They're in VI, same as the fleet you took out," said the four star flag officer. "I think if we change vectors we might be able to slow them entering engagement range."

"We'll start sending ships over now," said Len, looking over at his com officer and nodding for that officer to send out the orders.

It had been several days since the enemy hit his force, and he had destroyed that fleet. He was beginning to wonder if this was all that they had. And if they had more, why hadn't they tried to defeat his fleet in detail. It would have made more sense for them to try to take out each of his forces by itself, just as the Empire had done to the Caca fleets during their last offensive. It seemed to be a lesson they had still not learned. In fact, it seemed that in some ways they were unlearning many of the lessons they had been taught by the Empire in this war. Like they were regressing. Well, they had worked out a strategy to take care of them even if they had tried to gang up on one force, and the current strategy of the enemy was making that method even more efficacious.

"Ships are heading across, sir," said the com officer.

This time the ships would be coming from both the two other groups, his own included, and from the ones in the reinforcement group still in the Empire. Once his force had been balanced to make up for losses, the rest of the screening units had headed back to rearm, while colliers had come through to rearm his own ships. Resupplying in hyper was not the easiest thing to do, but the Fleet had a long history of logistics support in all areas of space. Ships could mate up, their hyperfields overlapping, while crew moved weapons between the vessels. Not the easiest of maneuvers when two hundred ton missiles were involved, with all the inertia that entailed. Across a fleet this size there were always a few who got in the way of something and ended up in critical condition. But the fleet needed resupply, since they never knew what might be around the corner, and it wouldn't do to run out of missiles, especially counters, in the midst of a battle.

Len watched as the icons of multiple ships cruised toward larger icons and joined, the several icons disappearing as they met the larger, destroyers and light cruisers transiting to the other fleet. He looked at another screen that showed a view of approaching destroyers, five of them, less than fifty meters between them, moving into their transit lane. It was now a well programmed maneuver, the computers of the vessels handling their helms with a precision no human could match. Not that the commanding officers or helms of those vessels weren't sweating to be so close to other ships that their hyperfields touched.

"Coming across now," said Admiral Jimenez, a view coming through over a holo of the same destroyers Len had just watched entering the portal coming out of the one on that side.

In the distance a toy sized ship birthed five smaller ships, which immediately boosted for separation, then ahead to thicken the screening element of the fleet. He looked at another holo that showed the graviton plot of that force, fed through the sensors of Jimenez' flagship. Five ships were showing the translations of other objects. Three of them were transiting from the reinforcements to the rear, one each from the other two fleets. They moved twenty-five ships between them, every ten seconds. One hundred and fifty ships moved a minute.

Len reached out and pulled up another holo, this one of one of the reinforcing systems. A battleship was moving at point six light around the perimeter of a star system, trailing several thousand other vessels, the great majority of them light cruisers and destroyers. The trailing ships were all in packs of five, one in the center, the other four out on the four cardinal compass points. One quintet was disappearing through a portal, the closing speed a couple of kilometers a second. Still fast enough to make the small ships disappear in a blink, the mirrored surface of the wormhole rippling for a couple of seconds. Ten seconds later the next in line flew through, and so on.

"Enemy will be entering firing range in three minutes," called out a voice on Jimenez' command deck.

Now the enemy force was entirely on the plot, with dead space void of ships behind. They slightly outnumbered the other admiral's force, but of course outmassed him due to the preponderance of their superbattleships. The Empire had predicted that going for heavy screening forces gave them a much better missile defense, since the same mass of Imperial destroyers as a Caca superbattleship gave them a ten to one advantage in counter missile tubes.

Jimenez' people were busy in the background, crew running to different stations to give commands while com officers and techs worked swiftly to send out the orders to the other vessels. Len could almost feel the tension on the bridge, the anxiety that always preceded action, but the trained professionals didn't let that affect their performance, and they worked as efficiently as if they had been in training simulators.

"Enemy launching."

"All ships, open fire. Tactical, time the wormhole launch to arrive with the ship fired missiles."

"Yes, sir," shouted the force tactical officer over the loud speech of com staff talking into their mics.

It was the same tactic that Len had used, bringing in a devastating volley, most of the missiles moving point seven light by the time they reached the enemy ships, with the wormhole launch moving through them as they just reached the defensive basket at point nine-five light. The easier to engage slower missiles were mostly there to absorb the counters of the enemy, while the faster moving weapons were the rapier intended to thrust into the heart of the foe.

The battle went much the same as the one his force had fought. Except this enemy seemed to try and target the transports in the very center of the force. That meant fewer hits to warships, in exchange for three transports and a division's worth of troops. When it was over the enemy force had been defeated, while Jimenez had lost more than eight hundred ships.

The last Len had seen of the other admiral had been a panicked expression on his face as the ship's tactical officer called out missiles bearing in. Then the com blanked.

"The admiral's ship has been destroyed," called Vice Admiral Melanie Lockerbie, the second in command, her voice cracking.

Len felt his own heart sink. He didn't know everyone in his fleet, though all were important to him. But the flag officers were all well known, many having been friends for years. And now another of the senior officers were gone.

"We'll try to get you another portal link, Melanie. But it's going to take some time. Meantime, configure one of your Donut links as a portal."

Every wormhole except the five portal links were being fed from the Donut, at the moment connected to banks of missile acceleration tubes. But one could be moved out and attached to a ship to perform the same kind of duty the others were. It would take some shifting of resources, but that was why the wormhole net across the Empire had been established. It gave them one of their greatest advantages over the enemy.

"Will do sir," said the vice admiral in a hushed voice.

"Are you going to be okay?" asked Len, concerned that the loss of her superior, her friend, might affect her judgment.

"I'll get it together, sir. Just give me a moment."

The people on the flag bridge behind her seemed to be going about their tasks as normal, so he thought she could have her moment. Again, the enemy had lost more than they had. And again, it really didn't mean anything in and of itself. Only that the enemy had lost military resources, and hopefully were that much closer to defeat.

*     *     *

“Sir. We just lost Gallipoli and General Xin,” said the com officer. “Three transports in all.”

Gallipoli had been an assault carrier, the same as Tarawa, Baggett’s flagship. The field marshal linked with his implant to the computer system he had been assigned on the ship, his heart sinking as he saw the casualty figures. Fifteen thousand of his soldiers, dead before they ever got into combat. People he had known and served with for years. People he wouldn’t recognize if he was in the same room with them. All of them important to him.

The Fleet had lost over a million people in the fight. They were important too, and eventually that shock would also hit him, but right now all he could think about were his own people, and that should have been enough for anyone at the moment.

“Pull ninth and fifteenth divisions out of the assault queue,” he ordered. “We’ll move them to reserve until we can get some brigades up from the Empire to replace their losses.”

“Yes, sir,” said the shocked looking second lieutenant com officer he gave the order to.

Just out of the academy, thought Baggett with a slight smile. To the young woman, everything had been academic up to this point. Now she was seeing that it was no longer an academic problem. That real people were being killed. That she might be one of them in the near future.

After the attack on Admiral Lenkowski’s force the transport groups had been moved up to close with the battle forces. It was thought that they would be better off if a large enemy fleet found them. The transports and escorts wouldn’t have stood a chance out by themselves if a force that size had detected them and attacked. They were still a target with the battle force, but at least they had more protection.

“Eight days until we reach the first target system,” said Major General Fatina Dhanial, his chief of staff. The woman had come up through armor, as signified by the tank and crossed sabers on her collar. Since Samuel hadn’t ever deployed in tanks, her viewpoint on their deployment was just what he needed.

“Yes,” said Baggett, pulling up a holo of the target system, Barequar in the language of the Cacas. No one knew what its original name had been, in the language of the sophonts the Cacas had conquered. The Cacas no longer cared, and hadn’t even bothered to put it in a record that their Maurid spies had access to. They had occupied it for a mere twenty-three years, on the leading edge of their Empire. Still, they had heavily fortified and industrialized the system, and moved many of their other slaves to work the factories and mines. The original sophonts, a radially symmetric people with an aggressive disposition, had not fared well. They had gone from over three billion to less than five hundred million under the tender mercies of their masters. The Cacas wouldn’t exterminate the species, they would keep enough around to keep them extant, but intractable creatures were not of benefit to their Empire, so their Empire would not benefit them either.

“Give the Fleet two days, maybe three, to clear out the enemy space forces in the system, then another two days to get us into orbit for the assault,” said Baggett, ticking off each point on his fingers. “So, twelve days before we deploy. And hopefully no more attacks on us during that time.”

That could be a false hope. Nothing was guaranteed. Hell, there might be a massive enemy fleet, more than their own could handle, waiting for them at the target system.

*     *     *

“This is our target system,” said the briefing officer, standing at the front of the room. “The Cacas call it Barequar.”

The globe turning on the holo was a beautiful world, as were most that oxygen breathing life could inhabit. Blue oceans, white clouds, great swaths of greenery, some brown patches of deserts. Lit metropolises on the night side.

Lt. Colonel Ngcobo was paying attention to the presentation with half his mind. The other half was concentrating on what was going on at home. He knew he should be focusing all of his attention on the information being presented, since the lives of himself and his people might depend on it. But family was important as well, and there was no way he could just dismiss his worries and get on with it. All he could do was try his best and review the material on his own later.

“It’s estimated that there are four billion sophonts on the surface. About one hundred million Cacas, which gives us an estimated thirty million adult males. The rest are females, who are not sentient, and young. The adult males are all potential warriors, no matter their current positions. Not all of them are in military units, but all of them have access to weapons.”

Blinking dots appeared on the globe, several different colors denoting different types of installations. “And here we have the militarily important installations on the planet. Shore batteries, landing fields, barracks. The green areas are urban concentrations. Over two billion of the slaves live in these regions. And of course the Cacas put their military bases close enough that collateral damage is almost a given. Now, we will hit the planetary defense batteries from space. There’s no getting around the fact that we have to suppress these weapons before we can put assault ships and transports into orbit and insert the ground forces. We will hit the landing fields with enough firepower to take out craft in the open, which shouldn’t have much of an effect on the urban areas. The barracks will be ours. It will be up to us to engage and kill the enemy ground forces, with as little collateral damage as possible. Remember, the Emperor wants these people to see us as liberators. And we can’t liberate them if they’re dead.”

“Question,” said one of the senior officers, a brigade commander, his image blurring slightly to reveal that he was a hologram. “Doesn’t the Emperor care about his own people?”

There were some gasps and head shaking at that. The brigadier might have washed up any chance he had at career advancement with such a statement. Of course, he might also have seen enough war that he really didn’t care.

“The Emperor, of course, cares about his people,” said the briefing officer, talking slowly and choosing his words carefully. “But we need these people to fight on our side. In fact, we will be arming as many of them as are willing to fight, dependent on the weapons we can get down to the surface. We expect that tens to hundreds of thousands of these sophonts will die in the insurrection. Possibly millions. And every Caca they kill will be one less your people will have to face. But if we blow them all to hell and gone from space, I think we can count of little in the way of cooperation.”

“Kind of a shitty way to treat intelligent beings,” said the brigadier.

“Yes,” agreed the briefing officer. “It is. But if they are to become free, they’re going to have to pay for it in blood, just like we will to liberate them.”

The brigadier kept his mouth shut for the rest of the briefing, and the officer continued laying out the facts. Ngcobo agreed with the general in some respects. It was a shitty way to treat sophonts who hadn’t asked to be in the position they were in, but no one had asked for this war, with the exception of the Cacas.

Chapter Fourteen

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.  William Arthur Ward

NOVEMBER 11TH, 1003. FENRI FRONT.

"Missiles incoming, sir."

Taelis Mgonda nodded as he looked at the plot. There were a lot of missiles coming in, the display filled with vector arrows. That was not unusual. Battles involved a lot of missiles going both ways. One side would try to kill as many ships of the enemy while keeping most of theirs alive, while the other would do the same. But these were coming on in some unusual formations.

They had been in this system for several hours, driving in past the hyper barrier toward the one inhabited planet. This was not an important system to the Cacas. In fact, they had held it for less than a year, a waypoint on the route to the Fenri Empire. But they did have a force here, since it would make an ideal logistics base for Mgonda’s force, coming in at an angle to Lenkwoski’s, which was on the straight path into their Empire.

He had split his fleet into four major battle groups. One of the others was also attacking a system thought to hold enemy forces. The other two were forging ahead, trying to fix the enemy forces that were falling back and trying to delay their hookup with the other axis of advance.

"Any idea why they're spaced like that, Tac?"

"No, sir. Still trying to figure that one out. It looks like we're going to have an easy time with this one."

And that's what worries me, thought the duke. Missiles waves were sent in on spreads, so that one killed wouldn't fratricide its fellows. Some were still killed from the collateral damage from hits. But why anyone would set up a situation where more of their weapons could be taken out on the way in by proximity kills from their other missiles? That just didn't make sense.

"There's a lot of graviton jamming coming in ahead of them, sir," called out the Fleet sensor officer, monitoring the take from all the screens. "It's making it hard to look past their first wave."

"Do you think they're trying to sneak something in on us, sir?" asked the tactical officer.

"I can't think of any other reason for jamming," said Mgonda.

In fact, it was rare to use graviton jamming on missiles. They would still know that there were missiles coming in, and no amount of jamming could obscure their relative numbers or positions. And from the strength of the signal, some of those birds had to be dedicated jammers.

"Time to engagement?"

"Forty-seven minutes," said the tactical officer. "Estimating engagement velocity at point eight seven light."

Mgonda nodded. That was a respectable engagement speed. Not the absolute best, but enough to generate some hits if they got through the defenses, which some were sure to.

"Do you want to return fire, sir. Or should we go ahead and take on the incoming missiles."

"I don't know," said the duke, staring at the plot. They might get some distant kills at the current alignment. But missiles, at least the big shipkillers, were not really the most efficient at killing other weapons. Normally they would have to expend almost two missiles to kill one. If they were wormhole weapons, coming in and closing from behind at a low speed, the kill rate improved, about one point four attacking birds per kill. But coming in at a high fraction of c, against weapons also coming in at high c, made for difficult targeting solutions. Counter missiles weren't any better, normally taking up to ten to kill one offensive weapon. But counters were small and cheap, and a dozen of them were worth one shipkiller in real value. Actually, it was more than worth a hundred of them to stop one of the larger weapons from hitting a ship, since they saved the vessel.

"Fire all wormholes at their force," he finally said. "Launch a spread of ship fired from all the capital ships at the incoming missiles. Let's see what happens before we make any other dispositions."

The Imperial ships let loose a volley of wormhole weapons, thirty in each stream from thirty-seven launchers, Just over eleven hundred missiles flying silently through space at point nine five light. The enemy ships started changing their vectors at maximum acceleration.

"Looks like they're learning," said the duke, putting a hand on his tactical officer's shoulder as he leaned in to look at his holo. The main plot was showing almost the same information. Almost. The tactical officer was running his own take on the situation, looking at the numbers as they came up to the side of the holo.

"I think we're going to reach the point, your Grace, where we can only fire the wormhole weapons at close range. Or else when we can get a clean shot from a distance without them knowing we are there."

It looked like the enemy was starting to assume that wormhole launched missiles were going to be coming at them whenever a significant human force appeared. The two strengths of the weapons were the high velocities they carried out of the launchers, which translated into reduced flight times, and earlier engagements. And their stealth, as they flew through space without engaging their own grabbers, small cold objects that were as stealthy as anything in space, absorbing almost any sensor pulses that struck them. However, if their target moved they had to engage their grabbers to reacquire, which gave them away and made them no more effective than regular missiles travelling at high relativistic speeds. Wormhole launched missiles were no more expensive than ship launched. The launchers were the major expense, and there were limits to how many each force could be hooked up to, as well as the absolute availability of the systems.

"Missiles are starting to acquire their weapons, sir," said the tactical officer.

Graviton sources approached each other on the plot, still fifteen light minutes away, so visual was not possible. The sources started falling off, but not as many as hoped. At least not as many of the enemy weapons, though the Imperial missiles were falling off at an alarming rate.

"They must be using enhanced active defenses," said the tactical officer, looking up at his admiral.

"Must be heavy with the damned things," replied Mgonda, watching as a couple of hundred missiles fell off at the return of only a half dozen enemy weapons. He knew that missiles could carry lasers, and even their own counter missiles. He also knew that because of the extra mass and power requirements they couldn't carry many lasers or more than one or two counters. Unless these missiles were larger than average, or substituted their warhead for another payload. He wasn't sure that made a lot of sense, since the purpose of a missile was first off to hit its target and transfer a mass of kinetic energy into it, and barring that to set off the largest blast possible as close to the target as possible. Leaving out the warhead obviated one of those responses.

"We're picking up something behind the first layer of enemy missiles," said the sensor officer. "I still can't make them out, but whatever they are, they're giving off a lot of gravitons. And I can't really get a good fix on them."

The duke was getting a really bad feeling about this. An unknown was heading for his force, and he had no way of telling not only its capabilities, but even what the hell it was.

"Keep sending missiles at them," he ordered. He wasn't sure what else he could do, since they weren't within range of any of his other weapons.

The enemy weapons kept coming on, more and more of them dropping off the plot. If this had been a standard missile attack the results would actually have been favorable. The Imperial force was using too many missiles, but because of their wormhole launchers they had a reserve, so they could afford the expenditure. The thought of what the Emperor had said about missile expenditures came to mind. But he was not going to sacrifice ships to save missiles. Ships took a year of more to build, and had people aboard, while missiles were turned out in hours, with no living crew to be concerned about.

"I'm getting a return on one of them, sir," said the sensor officer, her eyes wide as she looked back at her admiral. "It's, big, sir. Really big."

"How big are you talking about?"

"I can't get a firm read, sir. But I'd say in the five to ten thousand ton range. And its accelerating just as fast as the smaller missiles ahead of them."

Mgonda felt a shiver run up his spine. That was larger than any missile he had ever heard of. It was in the range of a fast attack craft. But it couldn't be one of those manned vessels, since no possible inertial compensator could protect a crew at thousands of gravities acceleration, unless the craft was almost all inertial compensator. Whatever it was, it had to have a powerful warhead, much more than any traditional antimatter warhead. He doubted it was depending on its kinetic energy, since a two hundred ton missile could kill a battleship, and a ten thousand ton weapon could still only kill one. Correct?

"Enemy missile wave is thirty seconds from entering counter missile range," called out the tactical officer.

The counter tubes on all the ships, from destroyers up to super heavy battleships, were the same model. Throwing a twenty ton missile at point zero five light, the weapon accelerated at twenty thousand gravities for up to five minutes, always leaving enough crystal matrix battery power for terminal maneuvers. Besides batteries and grabbers, the missile was a ton of sensors and a small, twenty megaton warhead. It would try to hit the incoming missile, but if that appeared impossible it would go for a proximity kill, trying to destroy the target with a close blast, sending a wave of heavy particles into its path.

"Screen missiles are engaging."

The light cruisers and destroyers on the outside of the formation would fire first, since the enemy weapons entered their engagement envelope first on the way in. There were still tens of thousands of weapons coming in, and the screens fired over ten thousand counters in their first volley. Counters normally killed one incoming for every ten of them expended, sometimes better, sometimes not. Missiles started falling off the plot, and more and more counters went out to kill more incoming. A minute into the engagement the heavy cruisers and battle cruisers started cycling their counters, pushing them through pathways that avoided the screens. By the time the missile storm was almost upon the screening vessels the battleships started cycling.

Some of the missiles acquired and engaged the light cruisers and destroyers. Ships started to fall off the plot, within seconds the flashes of their explosions reaching the flagship. Mgonda stared at the viewer. He had always hated this part of the battle, watching the men and women under his command dying, most times by the vagaries of chance. He also felt his own mortality, his hope that the missiles wouldn't get to him and end his existence, even if another ship got in the way to prevent it. He felt guilty about those feelings, even though he knew they were normal in all humans. No one wanted to die. If he could do anything about it none of his people would be killed in this battle, but of course he couldn't do anything about that.

The light from the blasts reached them just before the still intact missiles that were heading their way. They were furiously large blasts, looking like supernovas against the firmament. A couple of the enormous missiles also fell off the plot without any resulting blast, proof that they were not merely carrying large amounts of antimatter as their warhead.

"I've got a sensor lock on one of the super-missiles," called out the sensor officer, throwing up the read on a holo.

Mgonda leaned forward, getting a look on the data on the missile. They, of course, couldn't see it, since the light from the current track hadn't reached them yet. All they were getting was the graviton emission spectrum of the object, which gave them a good general representation of them. It appeared to be in the twelve thousand ton range. A missile went off next to a standard battleship, taken out by its close in weapons.

The next missile hit that same battleship, and the enormous blast went off an instant before the missile burrowed into the body of the large warship. This time the explosion used the fifteen million ton body of the ship to propagates the blast, sending waves of fast moving plasma out, killing everyone aboard another nearby capital ship, sending it tumbling through space. A half dozen other vessels were hit hard, blasting through their side armor and opening the outer compartments on their facing side to space.

Mgonda stared at one icon on the plot that was heading directly toward his ship, his doom coming at him. Even if it hit a nearby vessel, it still might destroy this ship. A heavy cruiser got in the way. Mgonda would never know if it had done so on purpose, or by accident, but it really didn't make any difference. The ship went up in the massive blast, thirty kilometers from Mgonda's flagship, the plasma wave striking the huge super heavy battleship. The duke was thrown from his feet, the visor coming down on his helmet automatically just before he struck the bulkhead. If not for the battle armor he and everyone aboard the ship wore he would have been crushed. The grabber units built into the suit also incorporated inertial compensators, and they took up enough of the force to keep him alive, if not conscious. The last thought he had before blackness took him was that his fleet was going to be destroyed.

*     *     *

"I'm very happy that you weren't killed in battle, Duke Taelis," said Sean, looking at the commander of his right flank fleet on the holo.

"Probably not as much as I am, your Majesty," said the duke. "But they managed to kill enough of my ships."

Sean nodded. He had seen the after-action reports. The enemy had gotten one more of their massive volleys in, again providing cover for what they were dubbing supermissiles. The fleet had already spread out, under the orders of their re-awakened commander, and sent every wormhole missile they had into the swarm. Some had still made it through. Not as many as the first wave, but it had still done damage to the force. After that it had devolved into a standard missile exchange, one that the larger human fleet easily won. They had destroyed over two thousand Caca ships, and lost almost as many of their own.

Admiral Mgonda's super heavy battleship had taken heavy damage, and he had been forced to transfer his flag. The supermissile had used the mass of the heavy cruiser it had hit, one million six hundred thousand tons, as the fuel for its blast wave. Constance the Great had suffered severe damage to her starboard bow, the destruction running in for hundreds of meters, scouring the corridors clean of life. Over fifteen hundred crew had died, another thousand were injured, just under half the crew. Mgonda and his flag bridge crew had come through mostly intact, due to their protected position on the centerline of the vessel.

"You did well, Admiral. They threw something new and unexpected at you. You didn't panic, and you fought your force as well as could be expected. Now it's up to us to formulate a defense against these things."

"And just what were these things, your Majesty?" asked the duke, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Admiral Chan and her people think they were quark warheads. Just like they used against the Donut some time back."

A Caca strike team had smuggled some of the powerful weapons onto the huge space station that was to vital to the human war effort. They had come through the wormhole from the Elysium Imperial capital. That had almost resulted in disaster when they had been able to detonate two of the weapons, cutting through a pair the kilometer wide supercables that helped keep the station together. There were six of the cables, and if one more had been severed there would be a real risk of the station coming apart. Fortunately, Cornelius Walborski, with a scratch force of naval commandos and other rangers, had prevented it.

Mgonda looked out of the holo with a surprised look on his face. "If they had so many of the damned things, why haven't we seen more of them before now?"

"Ah, that's the question. Sergiov thinks that they didn't have this many of them before now, but they’re cranking up their production."

"Are her assets within their empire telling her that?"

"Yes," said Sean, nodding his head and reaching from the hot chocolate he had taken to drinking at night, when he was trying to wind down. "They're saying that the Cacas really had little use for them in the past. They only had a few around as demonstration weapons if they needed to intimidate someone. But they know how to make them, something we still can't say."

Quark warheads were to fusion weapons as a blue supergiant was to a red dwarf. Splitting the protons and neutrons apart into their trio of quarks, then into their meson-quarks, released thousands of times more energy than the annihilation of matter and antimatter. Fortunately, the warheads were very large and difficult to sneak anywhere. They did it with the Donut, but it had taken a dozen large Caca warriors and antigrav units to move all of them. And the ones that had hit Mgonda's fleet were estimated to be a hundred times more powerful than those weapons.

And now we have to worry about them getting into the black hole system and firing them at the Donut, he thought. It would still take more than one to kill the station, he hoped. The defenses of the station were much more formidable than they had been when the Cacas had attacked the system, the first time. Lasers, particle beams, wormhole missile launchers, all had been increased four-fold. The system defense fleet had also been doubled. It was a drain on the resources of the front-line fleet, but they couldn't afford to lose that structure. He thought the defenses would pick up any such missiles coming in and take them out, but if they found a way to coast them in on a ballistic course, they could cause real problems. He would have to see if they could increase their detection assets in the system.

"I'm thinking we're going to have to start using more probes to get a better angle on their missiles storms, your Majesty."

Sean had to agree with that. All ships carried some probes, but they had gone out of style with the increased efficiency of graviton sensors, and jamming had gone by the wayside as well. Why jam when it was impossible to hide the graviton emissions of a missile or ship in boost. You might be able to confuse the enemy somewhat as to what you had, but missiles were missiles, large warships gave off a larger emission than small warships, and jamming your opponent also meant jamming some of your own sensor assets. It was a trade-off that didn't really advantage anyone. However, if the enemy had something different coming in that was a powerful ship killer, they might need to find a better way to get a look. Because they didn't know what was coming their way with every wave, and they needed to.

"I'll get word to Chan. I'll order her to put a team together to look into what we can do. And I'll also make sure the strategy and tactics board starts working on what we can do with what we already have."

Sean thought for a moment while Mgonda also looked silently out of the holo, recognizing that his Monarch was deep in thought. The Emperor had never gotten an advanced degree, nor had he achieved great rank in the Fleet. But he definitely possessed the Imperial genotype, which made him a naturally augmented individual, his IQ in the upper ninety nine point nine to the tenth percentile. There were more brilliant people in the Empire, but only a handful, and his people had learned to give him room to think. He was also smart enough to know that when a problem eluded him, he could let his experts work it out.

*     *     *

NOVEMBER 15TH, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT.

"All systems are go, sir," said the mechanic, looking down at the colonel from the upper hull of the Tyrannosaur IIIA.

"It should be," said Lt. Colonel Ngcobo, looking up from where he stood on the floor.

The top of the hull was almost three meters above the floor, raised on the tracks that would carry her close to the ground when the grabber units were disengaged, as they were now. The wide turret reached up a further two meters above the hull, giving the heavy tank a silhouette of just over five meters. That was low for such a massive vehicle. The ten meter long gun poked from the front of the turret. That weapon was a magnetic accelerator, capable of throwing a one hundred millimeter supermetal penetrator at near ten thousand kilometers a second, enough to actually throw the eleven hundred ton bulk of the tank back if not for the integrated grabber recoil system. That was the primary weapon, one which could take out any armored vehicle on the battlefield, and even hit ships in orbit. There would be a hundred rounds stowed away, mostly the solid penetrators, but also some antimatter high explosive rounds.

Two small particle beam projectors flanked each side of the main gun. Small as compared to the vehicle, but more powerful than any of the weapons carried by the heavy infantry. Another barrel was on the back of the turret, and one was mounted on the forward hull. Along the sides of the turret were two laser crosses, similar to the laser rings mounted on warships, capable of firing coherent light at a variety of frequencies, in one beam or a dozen. Several close in weapons systems completed the armament, twenty millimeter autocannon similar to the close in weapons systems of warships, using mag accelerators to put almost a thousand rounds a second through their multiple barrels.

The beast had almost a meter of armor protection at the thickest points, the forward hull and the sides of the turret, from supermetals to lightweight alloys to ceramics, sandwiched in an almost indestructible matrix. Over it was projected an electromagnetic field that would bend light and slow incoming projectiles.

Ngcobo climbed up the rungs set in the side of the monster and walked a few steps on the hull to the next set that led up to the top of the turret. From there he hit the access switch that opened the thick hatch, pushing it up from its almost seamless fit on the top of the turret, then rotating out. The colonel climbed down into the hatch, stepping onto his seat and lowering into a sitting position, pulling up all of his screens and looking over the diagnostics. Everything was in the green, batteries topped off, fusion reactor fully fueled.  When going into combat he would have seven other people aboard. The driver and his assistant would sit in the forward portion of the hull, while the gunner and assistant shared the front of the turret. His sensor/com witch occupied the rear of the turret, while the defensive systems specialist was buried deep in the hull. The last member was the engineer, stationed near the fusion systems. At one time there had been a suggestion to reduce the crew, but it had been found in combat that everyone was needed.

"It all checks out, Sergeant," he said over the com, talking with the mechanic who was still standing in front of his diagnostic station plugged into the front of the behemoth.

"Yes, sir. Now I'll get on your exec's tank."

Ngcobo sat in his seat for some minutes, pulling up his command screen and looking at what he was going to bring into battle. His own and the exec's tanks were the command group. There were three companies, each with a command tank and three platoons of four vehicles each. Forty-one tanks, over forty-five thousand tons of war machines. Well led they could make a difference. Poorly, and they would melt away on the battlefield like lumps of ice thrown into a laser beam. It was up to him to see that they were well led, based on his experiences as a platoon leader, company commander, and now battalion commander.

After checking that everything was working to his satisfaction he climbed out of the tank, then back down to the floor of the hangar on the assault transport. All of his vehicles were crowded onto this deck. Another chamber had the sleds that would let them drop into the atmosphere of their target. In another couple of days they would be mated up, checked so that nothing would go wrong when the drop came. The crews were in the simulators, running through possible battle deployments. Something he needed to do himself, if he wanted to keep up with them.

"We have a message from your family, sir," said his clerk as he walked back into the battalion office he had been assigned aboard the base. "Coming in over the system's wormhole."

"I'll look it over in my private office," he said, walking to that door and placing his hand on the access panel, authorizing it to open for him.

"Your father is getting worse," said the recording of his mother. "He would like to talk to you. And I have to again beg that you come home."

Ngcobo sat at his desk, head in his hands, not really wanting to return the message, not at this time, not before a major operation, but he needed to talk to them. At the same time he felt guilty that his rank and family influence allowed his mother to get through. Everyone was allowed to send messages home, once they had been screened by the censors. There was enough bandwidth through the wormhole net to allow millions of servicemen to send a reasonable sized message a day, and receive a reply. When battle was joined this was no longer possible, and the people didn't have time for personal matters anyway. Very few had the pull to contact family in real time, and those only the people with the highest ranks, or noble lineage. Even the youngest son of a minor baron qualified.

Guilt or not, he wanted to talk with his father before the end, so he would take advantage of his family influence.

"This is Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo. I am requesting contact with Baron Peter Karl von Ngcobo."

That was all he had to say. If the request was one the system could accommodate, it would do so. It knew where his family was located, and their local com call signal. He waited a few minutes. Through the wormhole network there would be little in the way of transmission lag. The flagship with its wormhole was only a thousand kilometers away, less than three hundreds of a second. It would pass through maybe three other switching stations, adding a couple of hundredths more. Not even enough to be noticeable. The greatest lag would be on his home planet, where the station containing its one wormhole could be twelve thousand kilometers from his home.

"Jason," came the voice over the com, just before the holo formed over the desk showing his mother. "Jason. Can you come home?"

"You know I can't, mother," he said, trying to meet her eyes. "I've important things to do here. I can't tell you what, but believe me. I have a vital job."

"What could be more important than seeing your father?"

"Is that Jason?" asked a weak voice from off holo. "Let me talk to him."

His mother's face disappeared from the holo. A moment later a coal black face appeared, crowned in silver hair. Ice blue eyes looked out at him, eyes that carried the sight of their own mortality in them.

"Jason," said the voice that was so like the one he had grown up with, and so different. Like the energy behind that voice was almost played out.

"I'm here, father. I'm here."

"Jason." The old man's eyes lit with recognition, while a smile stretched his face. "Jason, my son. It is so good to see you again. But, you had breakfast with me this morning."

His father's mind was going, quickly. It couldn't be long, and he would have given anything to be there, but it was not possible.

"I love you, father."

"And I love you, son." His father’s mind seemed to clear for a moment. "You are about to go into battle, yes? I am so proud of you my, son. I wish I still had the strength to fight alongside you."

"You did enough, father." Jason knew that was undeniably true. The baron had risen to the rank of Major General of Infantry in the Imperial Army, over two hundred years ago, and had retired with honors. He could have probably risen farther, but from the stories he had told he had become tired of the death he had witnessed in the Lasharan expeditions. Yet he had been obviously proud of every one of his offspring who had gone into Imperial military service.

"Still, I wish I could have done more." The old man stared ahead for several moments, and Jason wasn't sure what he should say. Then the light of understanding seemed to go out of the old man's eyes. "I hope you'll come see me again tomorrow. It's Kelvin's birthday, you know."

Kelvin was one of the sons of his first wife, who had died while on patrol, his ship lost.

"Your father is tired, son," said his mother, her face coming back on the screen, her eyes accusing him of not being there.  "Try to talk to him again tomorrow. He gets so much out of your talks."

"I will try, mother. But we are going into action, soon, and I don't know how often I can use the wormhole."

His mother nodded her understanding, but her eyes made a lie of that nod. And then the connection was gone.

"The general is asking where you are, sir?" said his aide over the com.

"Tell the old man I'll be there, soon." He sat for a moment. Of course he was the only battalion commander not in the briefing room, but everyone knew about what was going on at home. He didn't expect much in the way of trouble, and he had to sit and process what had gone on between him and his father. There was always the chance he would get to say goodbye before the candle of his father's life blew out, and there was the chance that he wouldn't. The old man was in the late stages of dementia, something almost unheard of in this improved version of mankind, only striking when the end was near. So it was, for the baron.

Chapter Fifteen

Believe you can and you're halfway there.  Theodore Roosevelt

NOVEMBER 18TH, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT.

"We have more of their inertialess fighters coming at us, sir."

Admiral Kurt Denofrio looked over at the tactical officer, his muscles freezing. His force, three hundred warships, was escorting over five hundred transports and logistics vessels into the system. They had been assured that the enemy had no further presence here, but someone had missed a few of them it appeared.

"How many?"

"It looks like a couple of hundred of them, sir," said the tactical officer, eyes wide as his lip quivered.

"Shit."

And his force had none of what they were now calling the warp beam weapons. There were never enough to go around, but knowing that didn't help when he was standing on the bullseye of enough explosive power to destroy half his force. And he didn't have any of the warp fighters that were supposed to be the answer to this new threat.

"All ships are to form up for defensive fire on that side of the fleet. Maximum dispersal as well."

The com officers and techs started shouting into their pickups, relaying the orders to the squadrons, where they would disseminate down to individual ships. All would tap into squadron nets, which would integrate with group and force nets, to try to present the best fire plan they could to this enemy. Only it wouldn't be enough.

"Counters firing," called out the force tactical officer, as thousands of missile killing weapons leapt from ships on courses that would take them into the enemy force. The inertialess fighters were coming on at three lights, better than the Imperial version could do. They would be difficult targets to hit, not only because of their speed, but because the warships couldn't get a firm track on them. Still, they had to try, and the counters went out and exploded in space at a range that was hoped would put enough particulate matter in their way to blast some of them out of their bubbles prematurely. Unfortuntaley, these enemy fighters had extra thick bubbles of negative matter erected, with all of the reserves they would normally carry to make up losses, for the purpose of making them as hard to kill as possible.

They counters a few lucky hits. Most of the matter was too diffuse to penetrate the negative matter of the bubbles, but in two instances they did. The bubbles dropped and those two craft went up in a pair of pentaton explosions, taking out a third craft with their deaths. Then they were past the engagement envelope of the counter missiles, though the defending ships were still putting them into space and hoping.

Thousands of lasers and particle beams lanced out, trying to sweep through the fighters. Lasers did next to nothing, only heating negative matter that couldn't leave its electromagnetic containment field. Particles beams could erode a bubble, if they put enough matter into the field. Otherwise they just ate as much negative matter as they massed, their momentum meaning nothing as they canceled out. Still, a half dozen fighters were knocked out of their bubbles and exploded from the rebound effects.

Next it was the turn of the close in weapons, twenty or thirty millimeter explosives shells fired from accelerator cannon at one tenth light speed. Again, their momentum meant nothing, and the few that hit were for the most part absorbed in the negative matter exchange. A couple more fighters took more hits than they could handle, and came out in their massive blasts.

Finally, the inertialess fighters were in close proximity to the fleet. They couldn't get an exact fix on its’ location, only knowing they were close through their grav wave coms. The fighters started dropping out of their bubbles in massive blasts of energy, working their way into the formation like a string of stellar level firecrackers, blasting their way through and beyond the fleet in mere seconds.

A hundred and seven ships dropped off the plot, eighty-four of them warships, the rest precious logistics ships carrying supplies the battle fleet would need, or personnel to man new repair facilities.

Denofrio looked on in disbelief as his force was gutted. He still had an escort force, and most of the fleet train had survived. But the Imperial fleet had lost so much in this one-sided engagement that it sickened him.

"We have another wave on the way, sir," shouted the quivering voice of the tactical officer. "Three hundred of them."

“Get us those damned warp fighters,” yelled the admiral, staring at the plot and seeing disaster heading his way. If the fleet had deployed the grav com jammers they had been talking about it might help them avoid the enemy fighters. But so far the promised com disruption devices hadn’t made an appearance.

*     *     *

"Task force 33.4 is calling out for help, ma'am," said the Klassekian com tech.

"Thank you, Mestraple," said Captain Wilma Snyder, looking over at the repeater plot by her chair.

The information started to populate it, filtered through the mind of the Klassekian, showing her the location of the task force, five light minutes to spinward, and the probable location of the enemy inertialess fighters, coming in from six light minutes away. Which meant the enemy could be on the task force in two minutes or less, while they could be there in?

"What's our best course to intercept, Lt. Jackson?" she asked of her wing navigation officer.

"This one, ma'am," said the young officer. "It will bring us in behind them in eighteen seconds from start."

"How many is the commander of 33.4 calling?" asked the captain.

"At least a hundred of them, ma'am," said the com tech.

"Send course to all the other ships and tell them to follow our lead," said the captain with a smile. This would be the first time the new tactic had been put into use for real. It had worked perfectly in simulations. Of course, the history books were filled with tactics that had worked perfectly in simulations, and failed spectacularly in real life.

If only I had more ships, she thought, making her last second calculations.

Unfortunately, she only had the two squadrons along with her command bird, giving her twenty-nine warp fighters in all. According to doctrine that should be enough. The problem was, doctrine was never finalized until it was tested, so no one really knew how effective this was going to be.

"Engage," she ordered her pilot, Lt. SG Connie Nguyen.

The ships all went into warp, going from standing still to twenty lights in less than five seconds, heading on a curving path that would bring them up behind the enemy fighters. They would only have an approximation on their location, and there was always a risk that they could run into one of the fighters, but doctrine stated they should rip them apart with the compression field before that happened.

The fighters didn't actually move through space as much as they moved space around them. For a half light second ahead, a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, they compressed space, while the same distance to the rear they expanded it, returning it to its natural configuration. Anything entering either of those fields was stressed across space-time, in most cases ripped apart as the space that contained it was distorted to the extreme. It was like hitting the event horizon of a black hole, only the effect didn't swallow them up, it scattered them through space as constituent particles. If they hit a large enough object though, one the distortion couldn’t take out of their path, they might end up becoming the particle debris themselves.

"Coming up on the reported location of the enemy, ma'am," called out the navigation officer.

"Slow to five lights and begin sweep," she ordered, setting them on their attack path.

The compression field would still reach out a half light second, and they wouldn't close quite as fast. What they didn't want to do was run up into one of the fighters, so they would sweep their compression field across by swinging the fighter, hopefully catching one in a fraction of a second contact that would collapse their bubble and send them back into normal space. As soon as they picked up the space-time distortion of that collapse the pilot would swing the nose away violently, and no matter how close they were to the blast, which could only propagate at light speed, they would outrun it. At least, that was how it should work in theory.

The warp fighters came in, carefully sweeping to make sure they didn't run into each other's compression fields, all aware of where the others were from their own close in space-time distortions. They slowly started hitting and dropping inertiless fighters back into normal space.

Nine inertialess fighters dropped in the first pass, not great when twenty-nine craft had attacked. The warp fighters maneuvered away from the blasts, then came back in on another attack run, homing in as best they could on the emissions of the enemy craft. Another pass, and fifteen more inertialess fighters were expanding clouds of energy, while only one of her own ships fell off the com net and couldn't be contacted. Wilma had known there were likely to be losses, but it actually occurring came as a shock, one she had to recover from immediately.

The captain stared at the plot again, seeing the information transmitted from the ships, which didn't have a firm track, to her com tech, who had no track. There has to be a better way, she thought, but she could think of nothing better right now, and the enemy ships would be at the fleet in less than one minute.

"Make another pass," she ordered, looking over at the pilot, then at the Klassekian. "We'll hit where we think the front is this time."

That would be more dangerous than striking the rear, especially since the fleet would be putting up their own weaponry any second, but she thought they might get more of them this way.

The warp fighters came in, this time almost perfectly aligned with over fifty of the enemy. Twenty-nine enemy craft fell out of bubble and exploded almost instantly.  Seconds later twenty-five more followed suit, and she lost contact with two more of her fighters.

"Let the admiral know we're breaking off," she told the tech, worried that they were going to enter the firing arcs of the warships. They had destroyed over half of the enemy force, at the cost of three of her own. She didn't consider that a bargain, since her ships were much more capable in most ways, and dammit, they had people she knew and cared about. She couldn't have cared less about the monsters crewing those inertialess fighters if she tried. But every inertialess craft dropped out and destroyed away from the fleet was one that wouldn't detonate within their formation.

"Admiral acknowledges, ma'am. And thanks us for our efforts."

In three seconds the fighters, now at a cruising speed of ten lights, were thirty light seconds out of the zone, nine million kilometers. She ordered them out of warp so they could see what happened, all of their normal space sensors straining to pick up every photon, every grav wave.

The twenty-two remaining enemy craft hit the defensive envelop, which unfortunately didn’t include what they were calling the warp beam, the compression field weapon. It would have come in handy. Three of the enemy craft fell out of their bubbles, dropped by the concentrated defensive weapons fire. Eight went off before they reached the fleet, one dropped out on its attack run before it got to a target and kept going, while seven blew up after transiting the fleet. Three detonated within the fleet formation, and one light cruiser fell off the plot, while three more vessels dropped their acceleration.

The crew on the small bridge cheered, and Snyder smiled as she looked at each of them. There were casualties in the fleet, and she had lost three ships and thirty crew. But they had prevented the disaster that would have occurred if fifty or more of them had made it through the defensive fire of the warships.

"Send a signal to command," she said after a moment's thought. "Tell them the concept works, but we might need to make some adjustments."

*     *     *

"The humans have figured out a way to stop our fighters before they get to their targets," said the high admiral who was detailed to report to the Emperor. It was not a job he wanted, but the Cacada over him had given it to him, so it was his.

"What are they doing?" growled the young male who was the undisputed leader of the Ca'cadasan Empire.

"They are using their warp fighters to intercept the attacks, Supreme Lord. Some are still getting through, but they have destroyed most of the waves on their way in."

The Emperor slammed a fist on the arm of his throne. That in itself was not enough to cause fear, since the male was still not quite an adult, and lacked the strength of a full grown member of his species. That he could order everyone in the chamber killed with a word was frightening, and the high admiral dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

"I need for my suicide attacks to get through," growled the male in a petulant voice. "It is an affront to those males that their attacks don't succeed."

Maybe if you led one of the suicide attacks fleet morale would go up, thought the male, keeping his eyes to the floor. If wasn't something he could say, and if the little piece of excrement even guessed his thoughts were straying in that direction, he would suffer mightily before he died.

But the simple fact was that morale was dropping across the fleet and the army. They were ordered to wade into any formation of humans they found themselves facing. And while they caused much damage themselves, they were also suffering horrendous casualties. After many of these battles there was no one left to pass on the lessons learned, and it was as if every new Ca'cadasan formation was facing humans for the first time, because essentially, they were.

"How many of the warp fighters do we have deployed, admiral?" asked the Emperor, lowering his voice and looking down at the male with hooded eyes.

"Several thousand by now, Supreme Lord. Still not as many as the humans, and we haven't been able to get ours up to their velocity."

"And when will those sluggard scientists and engineers make us something that surpasses what the enemy has?"

"They try, Supreme Lord. And we are manufacturing quarkium warheads for the first time in centuries."

Quarkium warheads were to antimatter as thermonuclear was to fission. They actually split the atom apart into quarks, then split the quarks into meson-quarks, the next level in the construction of matter. The Empire had possessed several score of the weapons entering the war. There had not been a need for them over the centuries, so no more were made, while a few were used every century against one or other enemy of the Empire. Now they were making them again, huge warheads to equip the new twelve thousand ton missiles that were still in limited numbers.

Smaller warheads that could be attached to the small missiles carried by warp fighters were under development. It was thought they would be a nasty surprise for the humans, especially since they had shown no ability to make the warheads themselves. But miniaturizing that kind of weapon was no easy task. They could make the first level of quark weapon in the three hundred ton range, one that only split the atoms into quarks. Still too large for a fighter launched missile, or even a standard ship launched weapon, and the meson-quark weapon massed at least a thousand tons.

"And when we have enough we will use them against the humans?" asked the Emperor, scowling. "I would rather use what we have now."

"You understand, Supreme Lord, that it is better to deploy new weapons en mass so we get the best surprise advantage out of them that we can?"

"I am not a child, high admiral," yelled the young male, standing up from his throne and stalking down the steps. "I understand military principles."

The Emperor slapped the officer across the face. The high admiral had been hit much harder in his life, but he went with the blow as if it actually hurt.

"Now, listen to my orders, and obey, if you wish to see the sun rise in the morning. I want our own warp fighters deployed to destroy their warp fighters before they can stop the suicide attacks. Every attack by inertialess fighters is to go in with warp fighters for cover."

The high admiral wanted to tell the piece of excrement that they had no plan on how to use warp fighters against warp fighters. They had never worked out the strategy and tactics of fighting with them in fighter to fighter actions in space, intending to use the warp craft to strike enemy warships. He kept his mouth shut and gave a head motion of acceptance.

"Good. Now see that it is done. I will be checking, admiral, so do not think to ignore me, as your kind have so many times in the past. Now, go."

The high admiral got to his feet and turned, walking quickly from the presence of the child that now ruled the Empire. As he walked he thought about how they could salvage something from the rule of the young idiot, and came up short.

*     *     *

"You up to this?" asked Sean of his wife as she settled into her chair around the table.

"I think so," she said with a slight smile. "It's about time I started taking an active part in this team again."

Sean nodded. This was not a conference that had anything to do with her role, but it would probably be easier on her than talking about battles and casualty figures.

"We can start now," he said into the air, setting the computer control in motion.

The first figure shimmered into existence, Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations. The admiral nodded at the Emperor, then the Empress, while the second figure came in to being. Ekaterina Sergiov also seemed surprised at the presence of the Empress, but she gave a smile after the surprise had abated. The last to appear was Admiral Chuntoa Chan, the Chief of Research and Development. She seemed to be distracted by something off holo, and her lips were moving for some seconds before she noticed that she had been joined to the conference. She smiled in embarrassment, looked off holo for a second more, then focused her attention on the Emperor, paying none to Jennifer.

Sean grinned as his wife, and she smiled back. Both knew the brilliant officer, probably the most intelligent in the fleet, meant nothing by her distraction. She always had something on her mind, and Sean would rather she be however she needed to be as long as she kept coming up with new wrinkles on their technology. He thought she had as much to do with the position the Empire was in now as anyone in the Fleet, though she had commanded only one fighting formation during the war, for one battle.

McCullom stared at the lower ranking admiral for some moments. Really more of a glare. The CNO was obviously still angry at the woman. Hopefully she had her anger under control.

"I'm sorry, your Majesty," said Chan, her own face reddening. She looked over at the Empress, a smile growing on her face. "And it's so good to see you again, my Empress."

"I am glad to be back," said Jennifer, and Sean could have reached through the holo and hugged the small admiral if it had been possible. She had put Jennifer at ease as much as he could have done in an hour of talk with that simple greeting.

"What do you have for us, Admiral?" he asked, anticipation building. Chan could have just sent her findings over to the palace, probably through the CNO. But she preferred to do it in person, and if it made her happy, Sean was willing to go along, though it was still a bone of contention with her superior.

"We've been playing around with the wormholes, your Majesty. Nothing drastic, just some improvements. But they're improvements that may pay huge dividends in the near future."

"When you say nothing drastic," said McCullom, her eyes narrowing, "I hope you mean that you're not going to take my wormhole weapons offline."

"Not many, Admiral," said the still smiling Chan. "Not where you would notice it, I should say. We've always got about ten percent of our launchers out of the loop for basic maintenance. I think we can afford to perform maintenance on five percent, while we improve the other five percent. I'm not sure if it's something we want to do while in the middle of an offensive, but it might be something to consider when we are at a staging point, waiting for the next phase of the assault."

"And what kind of improvements are you talking about, Admiral?"

Every eye around the conference table turned on Jennifer, surprised that she had asked the question. And she continued to look at Admiral Chan, not in the least concerned with anyone else.

"Yes," said Chan, looking slightly embarrassed once again. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I was letting my thoughts get away with me again."

Sean stifled a laugh. He knew that Chan could be as focused and decisive as any other officer when faced with an emergency. But when she wasn't she allowed her wonderful mind out to play. And this was one of those times.

"I'm thinking about extending each of our launchers, or at least a percentage of them, adding fifty percent to the length of each one. It would not only reduce our acceleration time below eighty percent, but we could get swarms of forty-five missiles out at a time, versus the thirty we are currently restricted to."

"I can see where that might be nice in some single ship to ship actions," said McCullom, frowning. "Or maybe a single ship against a task force. But it doesn't seem to make much sense in a fleet to fleet action. After all, we'd have from twenty to a hundred wormholes in such an instance."

"For warships it probably wouldn't make much sense, ma'am," said Chan, nodding at her superior. "But this is really just the first step toward an effort at integration."

The holo over the table came to life, showing a warp fighter rotating in the air. It looked pretty standard, until the front came into view. The nose had a large opening in a place the fighters normally didn't mount weapons. The reason was, the fighters moved by compressing space ahead, while expanding it behind, and both of those regions weren't usable for any kind of weapons launch while they were in warp. When out of warp the lasers and particle beams mounted back from the nose did their job perfectly, so the nose was left free.

"I propose mounting a wormhole in the nose of a warp fighter. Now I know we have done this before, but the fighters were limited by only being able to put out thirty missiles every half minute in one burst. While that may seem sufficient, you have to remember that the warp fighters don't always come out in the optimum position to take a shot. But when they do, I would like to see them put out more missiles."

"I see," said Sean, staring at the fighter in the holo. "And you think this improvement would really be worth the effort?"

"I do, your Majesty. While it might seem that a forty-five missile swarm is only fifty percent as massive as a thirty missile group, analysis has shown that we can expect seventy percent more hits with such a swarm."

"Seventy percent?" asked McCullom, sitting up in her seat, then saying something off holo to a subordinate.

Sean thought she was probably asking one of her staffers to pull up a report Chan had sent ahead of this meeting. He pulled up the same report in his implant, looking over the math and not finding fault with it in such a cursory look.

"That's what my statistics are showing me," said Chan, looking off holo at something of her own. "Of course, we're going to have test it out in combat to see if the math matches reality."

Sean nodded. It was something he respected in the admiral. She was supremely intelligent, but she was no ivory tower professor. She understood the realities of combat, and that just because something looked good on the drawing board didn't mean it would perform out in the field. She had always tested everything she backed as much as possible, and so far she had always delivered.

"Now, of course we can link these improved launchers to our forces in hyperspace, which might be more important at the moment, since if I were them I would be trying to hit us outside of systems."

Sean nodded. He had to agree with that. The Imperial forces had most of the advantages within systems, in normal space. They were still almost even in hyper, with the exception of the wormhole launchers, capable of pushing missiles out that raised hyperfields as soon as they left the hole, not even having to spend energy to enter hyperspace.

"Our analysts are looking at ways to take out their industry within the systems without having to move a major fleet into each one," said McCullom, waving over someone off the holo, then whispering something to whoever that was.

The holo changed again, showing a typical Caca industrial system, not a major one, but one of the hundreds or thousands they were thought to have. A central star, with an orbit of antimatter satellites close enough to take advantage of the starlight to make their product without being so close that they melted from the heat. A couple of rocky planets, at least one inhabitable, then an asteroid belt and some gas giants with many moons. Not all systems were like this, but all had at least one inhabitable world, otherwise the system would have been bypassed during their expansion. Some had up to three inhabitable planets or moons, and there was often more than one asteroid belt.

"One thing we're thinking about is just letting the force launch through wormholes from the outside of the system," said McCullom, nodding at her subordinate. "Swamp them with missiles, taking out all of their industrial platforms. Even those around the planets. We could spend some missiles to take out the system defense fleet. In fact, our analysts recommend that. But it's not necessary at all. We can just move on to the next one, damaging what ships we can't destroy, and leave them unable to be repaired or refueled."

"Won't that put the inhabited planet at risk?" asked Jennifer, eyes narrowing as she leaned forward.

"It might," said McCullom, sounding as if she really didn't want to answer the question. "But we consider that a low risk event."

"I'm sorry, Admiral," said Chan, shaking her head. "If we fire a group of high relativistic missiles at objects in orbit around a planet, not giving them time to make the last-minute adjustments needed to miss such a large object, the chances of a hit increase to almost certainty."

"We can't do that," said Jennifer after hissing in a breath. "That would be killing hundreds of millions, billions, of innocent beings."

Sean nodded, agreeing with his wife. He wished he didn't. It would have been so much simpler to just kill every one of the planets the Cacas occupied. But the human species as a whole believed in the sanctity of life. Life was precious. They might not think the Cacas were that precious, but they occupied thousands of worlds, all with their own evolutionary paths. Life that would never be duplicated exactly anyplace else in the Universe. That viewpoint would cost the humans many more millions of their people, but history would judge them if they turned into genocidal bastards.

There were those who would argue that what mattered was the here and now, and history would take of itself. But humanity had an image of itself, and the other intelligent species around them also had an image. That image was, for the most part, positive. It would no longer be positive if they started killing worlds. He knew for a fact that the Crakista and Brakakak would look on in horror, possibly desert the alliance, maybe even prepare for a war against the monsters they had discovered in their midst. All that aside, he was the conscience of the human species at this time, and he refused to let them become the monsters that the CNO was suggesting they become.

"We will not be killing planets, Admiral," he finally said, looking into her eyes, making sure she knew he meant what he said. "I do not want to hear any talk of such, and you will plan accordingly. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," said the CNO, looking down. She then flashed an angry glance at Admiral Chan, and Sean thought he might have to intervene in any future battles that might occur between the senior officers. The Fleet was McCullom's fiefdom, but he knew if it came down to it he would support Chan. There were several other people who could take McCullom's place if it came to it, much as he thought that might weaken the organization of the Fleet. He could think of no one who could take the place of his R&D wizard. Of course, he could always ask Chan to retire from the military and make her a high-ranking contractor, but the admiral had worked hard for her rank, and she might consider that to a slap in the face. Something I’ll worry about later, if somehow this blows up.

"I may have an answer to this as well, your Majesty," said Chan, ignoring the look from her superior. At the moment she was in her element, and it didn’t matter what the CNO thought.

The holo changed again, showing what looked like an unusual warship, proportions much like that of a destroyer, but somehow wrong. It had a single ring that had to be a light amp weapon, oversized grabber units bow and stern, and one large orifice at the front.

"This is a drone my people have developed, your Majesty," said the tech wizard, a gleam in her eye. "It is, of course, unmanned, and is controlled through the wormhole mounted within. It's about the same mass as a standard fighter, eighteen hundred tons, and capable of ten thousand gravities acceleration, or much lower acceleration levels that allow it to be as stealthy as anything we have made. The wormhole whisks away the waste heat, provides the energy feed, and allows a human to pilot it from afar. It does carry a laser ring and some close in weapon systems for defense."

"And the wormhole?"

"This, your Majesty, is one of the reasons we looked into developing the extended wormhole launch system. The wormhole can be configured as a missile launcher or a particle beam."

"And how stealthy is it, Admiral Chan?" asked McCullom, her voice still frosty, but interest in her eyes.

"We flew one through Home Fleet earlier this week," said Chan, a beatific smile on her face. "Didn't you receive the reports?"

McCullom looked off holo again, searching the reports.

"There were no reports of any unknown objects flying through Home Fleet," said the CNO, the expression on her face alternating between anger and disbelief.

Sean laughed, feeling bad for his CNO, but enjoying her discomfort at what Chan had pulled over her.

"I propose that we develop these drones to attack Caca systems, your Majesty. We can drop them outside a system, maybe light months, and sneak them in under stealth. Then they can close with industrial systems, including those in orbit around habitable worlds, and launch pinpoint strikes. We can launch the standard missile, or we can launch a smaller weapon such as a fighter attack weapon."

"And the utility of such a missile?" asked McCullom, obviously trying to find fault with the other admiral's proposal.

"First off," said Chan, ticking off that point on a finger, "it's a weapon that, coming out of a launcher at point nine five light, can still destroy most orbital installations through kinetic transfer. About the only thing they can't take out is a fortress, but a stream of them should still do the job nicely. And second, any misses that hit a planet, something that is very avoidable if we set up the proper engagement angle by the way, will result in minor damage. Think twenty tons versus two hundred. But I really don't think that will be a problem."

The holo went into a short video, showing the drone firing at an angle that made it impossible to hit the planet. The shot was in extreme slow motion, leaving the drone that was standing still, then streaking toward the orbital factory, striking. The kinetic energy flew out from the hit, shattering the structure, an instant before the antimatter warhead detonated and flared into the already disintegrating factory.

"What do you think?" asked Sean, looking over at his wife. It wasn't her decision at all, but he wanted to get her involved, to keep her involved.

"I love the idea," said the Empress, smiling. "If we can take out their military resources without hitting the planets, I'm all for it."

That was why he had wanted her at meetings like this. She was his conscience, the conscience of the Empire. And he had missed this input.

Sean nodded again, looking into the eyes of Chan and smiling. "I think this is something I can get behind. In fact, let's go ahead and do it all. As long as it doesn't restrict our normal shipbuilding schedules."

"I think I can guarantee that, your Majesty. The drones don't cost all that much, only the cost of a wormhole."

"Which cost enough," said McCullom, her face a stone mask. She was obviously still feeling petulant with Chan. Sean watched her closely, hoping that the feelings wouldn’t overrule her reason, and force him to make a change. When she said nothing else he nodded to Jennifer in satisfaction, seeing by her return smile that she had noted the same things that he had.

"I want you to facilitate these projects, Sondra," said Sean, pointing a finger at the CNO. "We will test this weapon as soon as possible on a secondary system. If it works out, I want some assigned to every fleet."

"But, your Majesty."

"No argument, Admiral. I'm not saying that they have to be deployed every time. When not in use we can use the wormholes on the warships that are carrying them. That way we can still use that weapons system in hyperspace."

McCullom nodded, not looking happy, but agreeing.

What else could she do? thought Sean.

"Very well. I think we accomplished a good deal here." He looked over at Chan. “Thank you, Admiral."

Chan's image disappeared from the conference.

"Okay, now let's hear your intelligence appraisal, Kat."

"Yes, sir," said Sergiov, changing the holo over the table. "Our Maurid operatives are telling us that the high command of the Caca military is in disarray. They think we…”

Chapter Sixteen

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack. Sun Tzu

NOVEMBER 16TH, 1003, CENTRAL FRONT.

"Scouts have translated into normal space, sir. So far, no indication of enemy ships in hyper on the way in."

Len looked at the plot that was being transmitted through the wormhole aboard the battle cruiser in command of the scouting force. Two squadrons of the smaller capital ships, eight of them in all. Along with them were four squadrons of light cruisers, totaling thirty two of the eight hundred thousand ton warships. All were hyper VII ships with over-sized grabber units for greater acceleration. Two of the battle cruisers had wormholes, giving them some redundancy in case one got taken out.

This was the first of the major systems they had been tasked with taking. The first where they would crash through an enemy system defense force and take the planet, liberating the slaves, and procuring it as their own base.

"It doesn't look like they're going to contest hyperspace anymore," said the chief of staff. "Maybe we weakened their fleet to the point where they can't afford to meet us in fleet actions."

Len thought about that a couple of seconds. The Caca Empire was vast, an estimated twenty-five times the real estate of his star nation. They were in a war on two fronts, and had already expended a great number of vessels. But that didn't feel completely right to him. Of course, they also had to hold down a huge empire with over a hundred thousand inhabited worlds, worked by slave races. They should be able to accomplish that with ground troops, but major revolts could result in the need for ships to transport troops where they were needed most. It was hoped that an invasion by an outside force that seemed determined to liberate the slaves would increase the number of revolts, fanning the flames into a wildfire that could sweep across the Ca'cadasan Empire. Partisan forces on their own could probably not liberate their worlds, and uncounted billions would probably die in the attempt, but if it disrupted the industry and flow of resources in the Caca empire, it would be worth it. At least to the humans and their allies. If it would be worth it to the natives who were slaughtered was another question. In the long run? Definitely, since they would be free and able to determine their own fates.

But was their freedom a good thing in the long run? What if they fragmented into a thousand smaller star nations, each with space faring technology. That could bring about its own problems. It might be better for the Empire to just annex the whole thing, though the leaders of the other allied powers wanted no such deal.

Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you, Len? They still had a long war, and they were only into the fringes of the Caca Empire. When they hit the core planets the resistance was sure to intensify, if the Cacas didn't build up enough of a reserve force to go back on the offensive and kick them out. Even though the Emperor wanted unconditional surrender in the end, was that a realistic goal? After more billions of Imperial citizens were killed, a realistic prediction, and the populace became more and more war weary, might the choice of a negotiated peace look all the better. Sean wouldn't rule forever. The chances he took with his own life made it reasonable to suppose that he could die at any time. His successor might not be willing to keep what looked like an endless war going. As that successor was likely to be a child, with a regent who actually did the ruling, there was no telling what the political climate would be like after his demise. Then there was the question of what to do about all the slaves the Cacas had. If they all revolted in time of war they would be considered traitors by their masters. What might be their fate then?

Stop it, Len. You're just an old spacer. Let the politicians figure out this stuff. He could think about it all day. He could even discuss it with others, but he would not be making any policy decisions, now or in the future.

"Scouts are reporting preliminary passive scans of the system, sir. Picking up a lot of enemy activity. It looks like they mean to fight us in normal space this time."

That was very peculiar. The humans had even more advantages over the enemy in normal space. Warp fighters, inertial rebound weapons, wormhole particle beams. They must have felt they had something that could take back some of the advantages the humans enjoyed, and he wouldn't know what they had until he engaged them.

Of course they still had their inertialess fighters, but intelligence was thinking that they had expended so many of them that they must be getting near the bottom of the barrel. And the new defensive tactics were killing them in droves. Enough were still getting through to make the tactic worthwhile for the Cacas, but not for the return they had been achieving.

"How are the other groups doing?"

"Group Baker is about nine hours out from their target system, sir. Charlie still has about thirty-three hours to theirs."

So, we get to engage first. At least we can let the others know what they should expect after our opening round. He found cold comfort in that thought. But someone had to stick a toe in the water first, and it looked like he was the one.

*     *     *

Commodore the Duke Maurice von Rittersdorf looked at the plot on the central holo of his flag bridge. The system ahead was alive with ships, from the readings both warcraft and industrial vessels. He was sure there were more that were not moving. A smart enemy shut down everything that didn't have to be in motion as soon as they detected ships moving in hyper for the system. And there was no excuse for not knowing there were visitors when forty ships translated back into normal space.

Rittersdorf looked at his flag bridge crew at work. He missed his former command. Destroyers were what he had come up in, finally reaching the rank of full captain and command of a squadron. He had also been able to stay in command of his flagship, since tin cans didn't have room for a separate flag bridge, and it didn't make sense to have a flag officer looking over the shoulder of a ship's commander on his own bridge. The brand new hyper VII light cruiser Sarasota was a beauty, eight hundred and fifty thousand tons of swift scout. She had not been built for screening bigger and better ships, like most of the cruisers and destroyers. She had been envisioned as a fast reconnaissance platform, or as a raider, and her seven consorts, the rest of the squadron, had come as a nice addition.

"What do you think, Maurice?" asked the Duchess Vice Admiral Mei Lei over the holo com.

Rittersdorf had served under the duchess for many years, and they had developed a comfortable rapport, guessing what the other thought. The small woman was on the flag bridge of her battle cruiser flagship, in charge of all of the scouting assets of Lenkowski's force.

"I don't think they're showing us everything they've got, ma'am. And since they know we're here, I think we should go active."

"I agree. And since your squadron is already spread into an optimum formation, why don't you start the ball rolling

The duke took pride in her comment. He had drilled his squadron to come out of hyper in the optimal formation for scouting the system. Each ship was at a couple of light seconds separation from the others, seven light seconds spread, two million one hundred thousand kilometers from end to end. That made them a long baseline system for receiving and interpreting active sensor signals, as well as enough of a spread to triangulate passive returns.

"All ships, pulse radar and lidar," he ordered, pointing to a point on the system plot. "Here, I think."

Here was an area less than two light hours away, near a large gas giant and proximal to a section of the outer belt of the system. They were already reading the graviton returns of active ships and the larger astronomical bodies in the region. They would use those to compare with their returns and get an idea of what they weren't seeing on graviton emissions.

The eight light cruisers all pulsed the strongest radar and lidar beams they could, sweeping them across the area in question. They wouldn't receive the returns for almost four hours, and there was always a chance the enemy would try to chase them away before they got the information back. The other squadrons were now in position, and they too sent pulses to different areas. All launched a dozen probes each through their missile tubes, the hundred ton objects accelerating into the system at five thousand gravities. The enemy might destroy some of them, maybe most of them, but they were the definition of expendable. About half of them would be pulsing on active, the other half, more stealthed and cutting thrust at an earlier point, only observing passively. All would transmit information back by grav pulse, following it up by laser. The scout ships would receive the grav pulses, gravitons partially existing in all layers of hyper, almost instantly. It would be sparse information, directions, mass, numbers, but enough for further study. The lasers would bring back more detailed information, including visuals, in the time frame of light speed.

"We have missile launch, sir," called out the squadron tactical officer. "Estimating five hundred birds. Range thirty-one light minutes. Acceleration eight thousand. ETA, two point one two hours."

"What do you want to do, ma'am?"

"I think we will let them get close, then drop back into hyper until they pass," said the admiral. "After all, we won't miss anything, will we."

The ships continued aiming and pulsing, aiming and pulsing, covering the entire system while the missiles drew closer. They were in a spread-out swarm, and would take five minutes to pass, so the plan was to drop into hyper for ten minutes and then come back in. As many times as needed if the enemy kept firing missiles at them. So far there had been no sign of ships coming out to chase them off, which could mean there were no ships near, or that they would continue to lay in wait until a bigger target came along.

The ships jumped back in, and one hour and twelve minutes later they were getting their first returns from the active sensors. Some large stations showed up, too large to be effectively stealthed. The same with some of the industrial ships. There were also some unknowns.

"What do you think this is, ma'am." Maurice pointed at the cloud that appeared in one portion of the asteroid belt. "I doubt that many rocks would just cluster like that."

"No," said the admiral, shaking her head. "As far as I know, they only do that in the Trojan points.

Maurice nodded. The areas ahead and behind large planets tended to gather asteroids, the Trojans. But this wasn't a Trojan point, and even those gatherings weren't this thick. The rocks of a belt tended to spread out. There might be some clusters, up to dozens, but nothing like this.

"I'm betting we're looking at either ships or missiles," said the duke. "We'll have probes in that region within a couple of hours."

"And Admiral Lenkowski's force will be in normal space in less than an hour," said the duchess.

"All we can do is point that cluster out to them," said Ritterdorf. "And this one as well." Another return, just arriving, showed another cloud in another region of the belt. "Either we're looking at a lot of ships, or even more missiles just sitting in space. Either way, it could be bad news for the fleet."

"We're sending the information to Admiral Lenkowski," said the scout force commander.

That was what they were here for. How that information was used was up to the fleet commander.

*     *     *

“And now we wait,” said Field Marshal Samuel Baggett, looking at Brigadier Dagni Thorwaldsdottir, sitting her chair on the other side of the large table. The rest of the army group staff was also present, though not the commander of the army involved in taking this system. That worthy was aboard another ship, Baggett not wanting to have too many of the senior eggs in one basket.

His ship wouldn’t even enter the system, staying out beyond the hyper barrier with the logistics train. He had wanted to go in with the two assault corps, but the grand marshal would have none of that.

“What are you going to do, wave a particle beam rifle from space and cow the Cacas?” had asked Mishori Yamakuri, laughing. “You’ve proven your courage in the past. Now it’s time that you used your command and organizational skills away from the front.”

“I just feel like I’m letting my people down by not being there.”

“Bullshit. You just want to salve your conscience for not being under fire. Well, I’ll asked you something. How do you think I feel, being back in the capital while millions go to battle on my orders?”

“Relieved.”

Mishori had laughed at that, his eyes twinkling. “Relieved, of course. And my wife even more so. But no, I feel some of the same guilt you do. Maybe not as much, since I’ve had more time to develop my cold heart.”

The grand marshal had been correct of course. He had felt guilty. He still felt the stab of guilt. It was no longer his duty to put himself under fire, though if that happened he would fight as he always had. Now it was up to him to see that his people came out of this mess alive. Or, if that was not possible, making sure that their lives were not wasted. Which was something he couldn’t accomplish while they were in space, and everything depended on the Fleet. Once they were on the ground he would be in charge again.

“I almost wish that I was back with a battalion,” said Dagni, shaking her head.

“Do you?” asked Baggett, reaching across the table and putting a hand on her forearm, looking into her eyes.

What the hell are you doing, Sam, he thought, removing his hand. She’s in your chain of command.

He knew such abuses happened all the time. He had seen it himself, officers using their position to pressure their subordinates into relations. From the expression on the woman’s face she would probably be willing, but he didn’t want to be that kind of person.

Dagni shook her head as she looked down at her forearm, then back into his eyes. “Hell no, I don’t want to be in that shit anymore. I want to come out of this war alive. And I want to explore the possibilities being alive will bring me.”

If we can wait that long, thought Baggett. He was willing to wait. He didn’t have anyone waiting for him, not like the grand marshal. Neither did Dagni as far as he knew. He would be willing to wait. Would she?

No use worrying about that at the moment. There was no guarantee that either or both of them would be alive when this thing was over, or even if the human species had a future.

*     *     *

"I have to agree with you, Admiral," said Lenkowski over the com holo. "If they have that many ships hiding there, I really don't want to poke my nose into the system. But they have to be missiles."

It wasn't a new tactic, it had been used through the ages. Hanging missiles in space for system defense, The defender could fire a lot more weapons in a short period of time than any fleet, no matter how large. It was something new out of the Cacas though, but then again the Empire had never entered a system that the Cacas had held long term. This was their territory, and they had had  a score years or more to fortify it.

"We've found several other suspicious regions in this belt, and one around one of the further gas giants," said Lei. "I think they must not have been here long enough to build the mass of forts they needed to hold the system. There are a pair of smallish forts around the inhabitable planet, fourth world out. They look to be in the eighty million ton range."

The large class I forts around developed and core worlds in the Empire were in the three hundred million ton range, while developing and frontier worlds had to make do with class II, or maybe class III. Class IIIs were actually larger than the forts the Cacas had here. Forts were an idea whose time had come and gone, as far as Len was concerned. They could dodge, a little, and had strong defenses, but mobile forces could set up and kill them from long range. The Empire still had them since people seemed to feel more secure with them in orbit, and since they couldn't leave the systems they were defending they were definitely committed, unlike a mobile force. And Parliament listened to their constituents, and demanded that forts still be constructed. The Fleet didn't like them, since they sucked up resources that could be used to build ships, and skilled crew. There were forts within the supply train, and they would probably use them here as well, since the Fleet wanted to get some use out of things they had poured resources into.

"We've tracked eight hundred ships on graviton detectors, and another four hundred on active scans."

Len thought that over a moment. They expected the enemy to have as many ships hidden as they showed, which meant there should be sixteen hundred vessels in the system. The ratio should be the same as what they had seen in the past, one to one to two, which would give them four hundred superbattleships, four hundred supercruisers, and the rest scouts. That had been the ratio of the conquest fleets, which didn't mean it would be the same here. Scouts took heavier losses in battle than the more armored heavy vessels, and the ratios tended to change due to combat.

"The ships we've tracked included only one hundred of their big boys," said the duchess. "The ones we've scanned indicated maybe fifty more. So we might be looking at their standard ratio."

"I hope that's true, Duchess. But I don't intend to stake my fleet on it. We'll go in assuming they are not showing us everything they have. And maybe by the time we come out of hyper your probes will have some more information for us."

The duchess disappeared from the holo, and Len looked up at his chief of staff.

"I feel like there's something bad waiting for us. Maybe I'm turning into an old maid, but damned if I want to see us take heavy loses getting our troops to the planet. So here's what we're going to do."

*     *     *

All of the wormhole armed ships dropped out of hyper beyond the hyper II barrier, able to jump back into hyper I if needed. Every vessel had firing solutions programmed in, only needing the minute or so to orient themselves to normal space and make sure they had a lock on all of the objects that formed the benchmarks of any star system, the major planets. As soon as those were locked in they started to fire, letting off streams of wormhole missiles at everything but the inhabited planet.

Six thousand missiles went out every thirty seconds. Particular attention was given to the fuzzy areas that they thought might indicate groups of missiles. Hundreds of thousands of missiles. Ship concentrations were also given particular attention, though it was expected that they would have their own defenses, while the missiles concentrations wouldn't.

The fire plan went on for five minutes, going through all nine of the wormhole accelerator tubes linked to each launcher. They were basically all that the Empire had, eighteen hundred of them. At the end of the cycle there were fifty-four thousand missiles in space, winging their way silently at point nine-five light, undetectable until they reached under a half light minute from active sensor systems.

An hour later the first of the tubes had its missiles back up to their maximum, and the cycle started again. Another fifty-four thousand missiles were sent inward.

They went through the cycle four times, over two hundred thousand weapons. Missiles were expensive both in supermetals and antimatter, as well as in masses of crystal matrix batteries, but a missile cost a ten thousandth that of a battleship, and that was not even considering the highly trained crew. The attack was as expensive as the cost of twenty battleships, and there would be no letters to send home to their families. The people working the factories where they were produced wouldn't give a shit that they wouldn't be coming home.

It took almost four hours for the first missiles to get into attack range of their targets. Len wondered what the Cacas were thinking as the fleet stood outside their system and bombarded them with a barrage they couldn’t respond to. The timer kept ticking down, and he gave the command that might prove unnecessary.

"All ships into hyper."

Hopefully the expected barrage of enemy wormhole launched weapons, if there even was one, was almost to them, and they would spend the next fifteen minutes in hyper to avoid them. That might not be in long enough, but they couldn’t stay in hyper forever. Caca weapons fired through their large wormhole gates would probably only be traveling at point eight-five light, and they had no way of knowing where that gate was at the moment.

The fleet moved while they were in hyper, fifteen light seconds, four and a half million kilometers from their original position on a random heading. When the fifteen minutes was up they translated back in, reacquired targets, and waited see what the result would be of the volleys they had already fired.

Len sat his chair trying to look calm, in the best tradition of naval commanders throughout history. It was all an act, just like it had been for those countless other commanders of the past. Every one of those people had to feel doubt while facing the enemy. If they didn't, they had to be psychopaths, devoid of feeling. Those people could be as much of a threat to their own side as the enemy.

"We have missile track," called out the tactical officer. "Approximately ten thousand objects going into boost to acquire. Range, twenty light seconds."

The plot was alive with missile icons, most of them on courses that would easily miss the fleet, boosting for all they were worth to change vectors. For the great majority of them that wouldn't be enough. They would fly into space, trying to slow until they ran out of battery power. Some might reverse course, to come back days later at a very low velocity. Many would continue out into interstellar space.

I hope they have self-destruct features like our own, thought the admiral. Imperial weapons had a setting that would cause their warhead to detonate if they hadn't acquired a target within a specific time period. If not, there would be millions of weapons at the end of this war on ballistic courses through interstellar space. Not much danger to ships in hyper, but possibly deadly if they wandered into a system, which some surely would. Ten years, twenty years, a hundred years later. Even thousands of years, and they could hit ships, or even worse, planets.

About ten thousand weapons were on a course they could modify to attack the fleet. Fifteen seconds away, with more entering engagement range every second, and there was no time to ramp up the hyperdrive and fade from normal space.

"They're learning," said the chief of staff after sucking in a breath that indicated his own surprise. "Good thing they didn't zero in on us."

The enemy had fired a wide spread, assuming that the human force would drop into hyper and move, probably not very far. There were a lot of wasted missiles in this swarm, and only one in ten would be able to attack, but the economics of missile warfare worked much the same for the Cacas. If they could get one kill for every thousand weapons it was a win.

The ship shuddered slightly as counter missiles were released. There was barely enough time for two launches, and then the missiles were in close in weapons engagement range. Five hundred made it through, and thirty-nine vessels disappeared from the plot, nine of them capital ships. In the cold equations of war it had been a payoff for the enemy.

"Ships are ready to go into hyper, sir," announced the fleet com officer.

"Get us back in and move us, but this time I want us twenty light minutes to spinward." He wasn't about to fall into their engagement basket again.

"They're learning," said the chief of staff.

Yes, dammit, they are. He would have preferred an opponent that always acted stupidly and never changed tactics, but that was too much to ask for.

When they were again back in normal space the plot was lit with the icons of missiles. Millions of them in great swarms that moved in spreading waves from their launch points.

"What in the hell is going on?" asked Len, his voice hushed as he watched more firepower than he had ever seen in his life, heading out on an incomprehensible path.

*     *     *

"We're getting hits on the whatever those clouds are," said the sensor officer of the Sarasota, who was also the chief sensory wizard of the squadron.

"Any idea what they are?" asked Commodore von Rittersdorf, walking over to put a hand on his com officer's chair as he looked into the face of the sensor officer on an intercom.

"No, Sir. All I can tell is that the wormhole missiles launched by the fleet are engaging their grabbers, and then falling off the plot in from ten to twenty seconds after they show up. So they are finding targets and engaging them. But what they are?" The officer shrugged his shoulders.

"No help for it," agreed the commodore. Until they had actual faster than light sensor suites, and not just wormholes that still had to be transported across normal space, the situation would continue.

"You see this, ma'am?" asked the commodore on the com, pulling up a holo of Admiral Mei in the air beside him.

"I sure am. Either Admiral Lenkowski's missiles are hitting something, or something is taking them out before they're getting to their targets."

"We should have a probe within range of that first cloud within another hour," said von Rittersdorf, pointing to an area of his own central holo, knowing that the object he had highlighted would be highlighted as well on the holo tank on the admiral's flag bridge.

"If it even gets there," answered his superior officer.

That was a good point. The thing was as stealthy as anything they could possibly have sent into the system. They would have no idea if it found anything, or if it had been detected, until it started pulsing a grav wave to them. At which time the enemy would know exactly where it was, and most likely what it was, and their priority would be to destroy it before it sent any more information back to its launching vessel.

"What the hell," shouted the tactical officer. At the same moment the admiral looked off holo as someone shouted something behind her.

The commodore looked over at the holo in time to see a mass of icons that had just appeared, more than he could count, all moving out in a fan shaped path from their launch points. Acceleration figures filled in underneath, thirty gravities, low for weapons.

"Use them or lose them," said Mei over the com. "I'm guessing they want to get them out of the target zone and not waste them."

"That makes no sense," said von Rittersdorf, staring at the icons, and the count the sensors were getting from all of the grabber units working. Millions. It was only an estimate, and the objects were too close for them to get good readings on every grabber. Interference, convergence, every phenomenon they could think of was at play. But it was obviously more than a million.

"It makes perfect sense, Maurice," said the admiral, looking back at him through the com holo. "If they leave them clustered in space like they were, while we toss gigaton warheads into them, they'll lose dozens, scores, hundreds of missiles with every blast. By boosting them out and spreading the target zone, we'll only be able to kill a missile with a missile, until we work up something that goes after multiple contacts. And when they signal them to attack, they won't have much vector to change. Maybe not the best use of them, but really the only one they could come up with at the moment.

Wormhole launched missiles were still acquiring and falling off the plot, so something was going on. Most likely they were still killing missiles. Maybe not in the hoped for numbers, but any that were taken out were a positive.

"Missiles acquiring on the ships around the gas giant," came another call, and more icons, in a different area of the system, started going active and falling off the plot.

"We need something better," said von Rittersdorf.

"Yes, we do," agreed the admiral. "But research and development has already given us so many miracles, so maybe we might have to be a little patient in waiting for them to deliver that one."

"Admiral Lenkowski's force is back in normal space," called out a com officer on the admiral's ship. "We're still updating all information into their tactical systems."

And that was all the scout group could do for the moment, since they had received no orders to proceed into the system. As far as von Rittersdorf was concerned, they could wait a good long time before giving that order. The place was looking like a fleet death trap, and he no desire to try recon by dying.

*     *     *

"Why the hell are they not coming into the system?" asked the high admiral in charge of the defense. He turned on the male who was his primary strategist. "You told me they would come in when they didn't see enough shipping to challenge them. You said nothing about them sitting out there and lobbing missiles at us. Or that they would move so far in hyper that all of our subsequent attacks would miss."

"We did kill some of them with the first wave, my Lord," said the male, his voice stammering.

The high admiral had not been in a good mood since learning that the enemy was on the way here, to the system that was not just his to defend, but also to rule.

"They have never attacked one of our long-held systems, my Lord. They must be feeling cautious."

"I thought their monkey curiosity would bring them rushing in. And now we've lost all of the missiles I have been stockpiling for so long."

The system, known to the Ca'cadasans as Barequar, was not a shipyard, or a ground force production base. It was a major industrial center for missile production, turning out tens of thousands a week. The high admiral had sent his quota to fleet command by collier, holding back as many as he could. Ten thousand a week, five hundred and twenty thousand a year, until he had stockpiled almost a million and a half of them. What he didn't have were launching tubes to start them off accelerated on their way, or defensive structures to protect them until they were ready for use.

The plan had been to lay them in space, cold and dead until the command was given for their systems to fire up and their grabbers to hurl them across space at the invading force. They were small objects, and wouldn't show up on passive sensors, and in the past the humans hadn't taken the time to pulse active sensors for long periods of time at the edge of systems. They had seen after action reports from other battles, many of them, where humans had come in using variations of the same tactics. They didn't pulse active sensors that might give the enemy as much information about themselves as they got. Only this time they did, and the swarms of missiles had been found.

Next time, we'll spread them out so they can't locate them, he thought. Only next time would be another system, and not the one he ruled. That one would be taken from him.

"Are the fighters ready?" he asked, looking at another of his officers.

"They are prepped and ready, my Lord. The crews are ready to go into a glorious battle for you and their kind."

The great admiral shook slightly at hearing that. Not that any Caca wasn't prepared to die in battle. That was their heritage and their responsibility to the folk. But to go into battle knowing for a fact that they were to die. That the strategy of combat called for suicide. That was much harder to stomach. But the order had come down from the Emperor himself, and was not to be ignored.

"Tell them to prepare themselves," he ordered, looking at the plot. "If the enemy will cooperate and come into the system, I think we will attack them here."

*     *     *

“Enemy ships are firing, sir.”

“And so it begins,” said Len, smiling after the words left his mouth.

It was something he liked to say, even though the battle had really begun hours before. The million plus missiles of the enemy were still boosting out at low gees, between twenty-five and thirty, continuing to spread. They had continued to take them under fire with missiles, and the warp fighters had joined in, sweeping past them and coming from behind to blast them from space, dropping out of warp and hitting them with all of their laser power, all that they could target. When that group was finished, they would go back into warp and track down the next.

Len wasn’t sure if that tactic was really accomplishing anything, but he really didn’t like the idea of a million missiles floating through the battlespace, ready to accelerate to targets on command. Especially since they were going to bring transports and logistics vessels in here.

“Hit this one out by the gas giant first,” he ordered, pointing a finger at the plot and illuminating the target. That was the largest enemy force, and the location of the suspected wormhole they were using. At least the tactical plots seemed to agree that the swarms of already accelerated weapons were coming from that direction. “Once we take it out we’ll switch fire to the one near the planet.”

“And if they won’t uncover the planet?” asked the fleet tactical officer.

The man knew the answer to that question, though he had to be hoping for another. They couldn’t risk a miss hitting a living world, one home to so many slaves. If they wanted these people to see them as liberators, they couldn’t afford to sling relativistic missiles into worlds their fellow slaves were inhabiting. It took away some of their tactical options, and left them open to more enemy fire. But it couldn’t be helped, so Len ignored the question altogether.

In moments everyone was too busy for questions, as the tracks of inertialess fighters were picked up on the sensors.

*     *     *

"I'm sorry mother, but there's no way I can cut lose and come home."

"Your father is dying," said the Baroness Tiffany Ngcobo, her eyes narrowing as she looked out of the com screen. "He wants his children by his side."

Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo shook his head. They were on the verge of the largest operation of the war, and there was no way they would let him have leave at this time. His tank battalion was an integral part of a heavy infantry division, and his division was slated for the first landing operation of the offensive. If he had been a private, or even a tank commander, he might have been able to convince his superiors to let him jump through a wormhole back to New Africa for a day or two to visit. But not someone in command of a battalion.

"Why can't you come home?" said his mother. She was his father's second wife, and much younger than the baron, and at the moment much too distressed to think straight. She had to know why he couldn’t be at his father’s side at the man’s deathbed, but she refused to acknowledge it.

Baron Peter Karl von Ngcobo was three hundred and fifty-one standard years of age. Most of his long life, extended even for a society where most could look forward to living two hundred and fifty years or more, had been full of vibrant health. He had skied the mountains of Everest for his three hundredth and fortieth birthday, hunted the jungles of Amazon for his three hundred and forty-fifth, and was still in relatively good health just last year. But even modern genetic improvements and medicine couldn't make one immortal. There was always the possibility of cloning and mind upload, but the former technology was forbidden in the Empire, since it always resulted in amoral monsters. His father had also balked at the idea of living in a virtual world, where he would basically have no rights, and the plug could be pulled at any time.

Eventually the human body just wore out. The longest-lived human of all time had made it to three hundred and sixty-two, which put his father in some very elite company. Cells stopped regenerating, and old age came roaring in like a hurricane, turning a healthy person into a dying husk in months. The baron had lived a good long life, full of adventure, himself a retired army major general. But all things had to end, eventually.

"All of your brothers and sisters will be there, Jason. But you know your father. He will be asking where his youngest is."

And he’ll be delirious, thought the officer. If he was in his right mind he wouldn’t ask about his son the tanker. He would know where he was and why he was there.

Jason looked down at the deck, seeing only the metal surface of the hangar where his tanks were undergoing a last-minute servicing before the assault carrier entered the system on the way to the target planet. He was in his private office, a chamber off the hangar that had the same flooring and walls as the rest of the area. All of my brothers and sisters, he thought with a little smile. Or at least the ones who were still alive.

The baron had been married twice in his long life, his first having died at the age of two hundred and thirty, slightly below the average. That wife had provided him with twelve children, nine of them still living. Tiffany was his second, and she had birthed seven more, of which Jason, now fifty-three, was the youngest. Two of his full siblings had died in the war. One of the halves had died in an accident, the other two in an earlier war when the ships they had been serving on had been destroyed by the Lasharans.

"Can you at least tell me why you can't come home?" pleaded her mother.

Tiffany was still very much in love with the baron. She was still under one hundred and fifty, a handsome woman who would have no trouble attracting another man, especially with the wealth she would acquire as the widow of the baron. The eldest son would inherit, of course, but as the dowager baroness she would be well taken care of. He didn't think that concerned her at all, since the man she had loved for over a hundred years was on his death bed.

"It's top secret, mother. I wish I could tell you, but we can't talk about it. With anyone."

"That silly military protocol," she screamed. "This is family."

"Ask father about military protocol," said Jason in a low voice. "He'll understand. Now, get back in touch with me if anything changes. I'll try to arrange to com father at the last."

With a thought he terminated the com. It wasn't something he had wanted to do, but he really couldn't take any more.

"Sir,” said Sergeant Major Bufford, standing at the door in a respectful attitude. "It's time for the battalion leader's meeting."

"Of course," said the colonel, nodding his head and picking up his flatcomp from the desk. "Let's get to it."

Chapter Seventeen

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. John F. Kennedy

NOVEMBER 20TH, 1003.

"We have a lot of ships coming out at five hundred gravities, Admiral," said the Fleet sensor officer, looking out of the holo that appeared over the conference table.

Lenkowski was having a last minute talk with his task group leaders as they headed into the system to battle the remaining enemy force, the one that had been sitting near the inhabited planet of Barequar. They had just fought a missile duel with the other Caca force, the one out by the belt, and had taken the heart out of the million or so missiles the enemy had launched to keep them from being taken out. Good plan, except the inertialess and warp fighters of the human fleet had gone after and destroyed most of them. The same had happened with the enemy fighters used in suicide attacks. Now all of those fighters were back aboard their carriers, being refueled and rearmed, while their exhausted crew took a break. He had thought the ships around the planet might wait for him to come in closer, where they could have been in mutual support of the forts they had. But no graviton emissions had come from those ships. Nothing. They had visuals of some, though more might be hiding behind the planet, but no graviton emissions indicating vessels in boost. Nothing. Seeing as this was an important system for the enemy, a regional base, that was unexpected. No one thought they would just let the attacking fleet come in without more of a fight. Well, now they were reacting.

"How many?" he asked the sensor officer, holding up a hand to silence the other officers in the room or attending by holo themselves

"We have about four hundred and twenty contacts, sir. Just under two hundred of their superbattleships, the rest their cruiser class. And no scouts."

"None," blurted out Vice Admiral Tumbecu, the leader of one of the four major task groups in the fleet. "That's strange."

Lenkowski nodded. The Cacas normally came into battle with a certain proportion of ships, one to one to two in capital ships, cruisers and scouts. There might be some discrepancies due to loses in past fights, but never none.

"Another thing, sir. There's a hell of a lot of electronic warfare going on. More than I've ever seen from the Cacas."

Len scratched his head. Both sides used electronic warfare during battles, though normally to little effect. False radar and lidar signals, static, flares of light. They normally didn't do much to the tracking and targeting systems of ships in knife range of each other. The sensor returns might come back distorted, but powerful enough active radar/lidar would still get enough to pinpoint the target. EW worked better against missiles at range, distorting their track. Unfortunately, missiles were normally fired at a small area, then turned on their own sensors less than a light minute out, depending on the on the mission, and normally got enough of a return to zero in on the target, even using visuals if nothing else worked. Some ships would even use holographic projections to try and fool visual tracking. Sometimes that worked, often it didn't.

"We're getting jamming from some godawful big platforms, as well as the ships. That's why I can't give you an exact figure." The officer was silent for a moment, her eyes narrowing as she looked at something off the holo display. "They haven't fired yet."

“Any indication of those super missiles that Mgonda reported?”

“I can’t see anything consistent with the readings he sent back, sir.”

"Then we will hold our fire until we get a better track," ordered Lenkowski. He turned to the other people in the conference. "It looks like the enemy is going to make it easy for us, ladies and gentlemen. And I really don't like that. Cacas aren't the brightest bulbs in the Universe, but I expected more than a straight down the throat attack."

Lenkowski looked over at Vice Admiral Lei, his scout force commander. "Mei. I want you to send your ships in to fully englobe the system from beyond hyper."

"And then?" asked the attractive Asian woman.

"Sit tight and watch. Have your ships send anything they see by grav pulse, so we can be sure everyone gets it. I want to be sure they don't have something else laying for us."

But what else could they have?
thought the Fleet commander. They had seen about what they expected them to have in this system, and he had brought along more than double their tonnage. They had beaten their larger force in the missile duel, maneuvering to put his wormhole launched weapons into their formations, while staying out of the basket for theirs. It had been a frustrating fight over more than a day, but it had resulted in a victory. So he should be happy that this was what they were facing. But only an idiot assumed that everything you saw was everything there was.

"Let's be about it, people. I want these assholes wiped from the Universe, and as few of our own people lost as possible."

The people attending by holo faded out, while the captain of the flagship and the flag captain got up from their seats and headed out. Len sat for a moment in his chair, pulling up the system plot on the holo and looking at the returns.

What in the hell are you up to? he thought, glaring at the enemy icons, their own graviton emissions burning right through their jamming. It was like they were trying to have it both ways. If they had come up at minimum acceleration the jamming might have obscured their graviton emissions. As it was, it was accomplishing nothing.

*     *     *

"We're up to point five light, my Lord," said the chief of staff, looking over at the high admiral.

"Prepare to release the scouts," he ordered, standing up from his chair and walking over to the plot. “And prepare to change vectors as soon as they're all off."

The high admiral wondered if he should make a speech to the crews of the scouts. They were preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the Empire. It was an honor, but one he was happy he had not been called on to make. Fortunately, the orders had not come down for any of the more capable warships to make that kind of sacrifice. It might come down next for the cruisers, when they ran out of scouts.

He might still be going to his death. This was his system, his. He had to defend it, and his mates and children, but would it really do them any good if he died and the enemy still took the planet. It really made more sense to maneuver and keep himself and the major warships of his force alive. Or was that fear speaking?

"Ships are away," called out the tactical officer. They of course didn't appear on the plot. They had minimal crews, just enough to man their propulsion and primary weapons systems, about a quarter their normal complement, with most sections of life support shut down, and sensors cold. They were more or less holes in space. They could be detected when they got close enough, but hopefully that would be too late for the humans. If not, it was just more waisted males.

"Changing vector, now," called out another officer. They detected no change on the bridge, since they never got above the limit of their compensators, but they had shifted their acceleration thirty degrees to port at five hundred gravities.

The clock ticked down, and the high admiral ordered the next course change. "Fire missiles,” he ordered after they had changed vectors once again, still veering away from the corridor the scouts were in, while staying close enough that the human ships would continue to come in on an expected vector. He still expected to get hammered hard, but not as much as the enemy.

"First volley away," called out the tactical officer. "No sign of the humans responding."

And there might not be a sign, if they were using their multitude of wormhole launchers. He only had two in his force, and they didn't lead to any accelerator missile tubes back in the home systems. They would have missiles again, in about a half an hour, a lot of them. But they would never have the on demand launches the humans had, and he would have to be careful in how he vectored his weapons in on them.

"Second volley away," called out the tactical officer.

"Stop at three," ordered the senior officer. They weren't his primary attack this time, but he could still use them later, when the human formation was disrupted. Right now three hundred and twenty-seven four hundred thousand ton scouts, accompanied by over nine hundred of the old standard fighters, were coasting toward the enemy force at one half light speed. Along with them were two thousand powered down missiles. Even if they were detected from a light minute away they would still come as a nasty shock to the humans.

*     *     *

"They're firing a third volley, sir," called out the sensor officer. "And coming onto a new heading. Seventy degrees toward the plain of the ecliptic."

"What the hell are they doing?" asked Commodore Mikael Grayson, Lenkowski's chief of staff. "Are they drunk?"

"It's looking that way," said Len. He couldn't tell what they were up to, but it looked like they were trying to pull something. For the life of him he couldn't figure it out. If they had sent wormhole launched missiles, which he knew they had, they wouldn't need to do all of this maneuvering.

"All wormhole launchers have let off another stream, sir," said the tactical officer.

They were aiming where they thought the enemy would be, but if they kept maneuvering like they were that stream was likely to miss as well. They could send a grav pulse code to set them to active, allowing them to change vectors, but then they would be tracked all the way in.

Maybe that's the tactic. Yet they couldn't think that would work for long. As soon as he got within a couple of light minutes of them, which would happen, eventually, none of their maneuvers could change their vectors fast enough to avoid his incoming missiles. They would also be moving just as fast as if they had been fired from over a light hour away. He couldn't make sense of any of it.

"Get Admiral Lei on the com."

The slight woman appeared in the holo near his seat. "Admiral."

"Any sign of other enemy insystem?"

"No, sir. And nothing sneaking from outside either."

"Well, keep your eyes and ears open. They’re trying to pull something, and I can't tell you what. I don't have to tell you how much that bothers me, do I?"

"No, sir. We'll keep a close watch. But so far the only things moving in that system are the ships already on your track, in that one formation."

Len dismissed the holo and turned back to look at the main plot. As the scout force commander had said, the only things on the plot were the enemy ships, which were in the middle of another vector change. And the three volleys of missiles, ten thousand or more each, coming in.

"Go ahead and signal our wormhole missiles to go to active tracking when they reach ten light minutes of their proposed targets."

"The enemy will pick them up."

Of course they will, thought Len with a snort. "At least they can still change vectors enough to at engage," said Len, saying it slowly, like he was talking to a child. "It's better than letting them fly off without engaging and spending all of their battery power coming to a stop."

The tactical officer nodded, then went back to his board to make sure the grav pulse code was sent out. The missiles would still proceed most of the way in coasting, undetectable, and that might give them some advantage. Not as much as he would like, but he couldn't have everything his own way. He was starting to wonder if the Cacas might have come up with a way to neutralize the effectiveness of the wormhole launchers, at least when they knew enemy ships were near.

They couldn’t do that, he thought. That’s not physically possible. But a lot of things that had been thought not physically possible at the beginning of the war were now routine, like the inertialess and warp fighters.

This was the first system his fleet had attacked since they had started rolling back the Caca offensive. The other two battle groups were still on the way to their targets. One would be there in hours, the other in a couple of days. They all expected a hard fight. There had been the meeting engagements in hyper, never a favorite of spacers. Two had been costly, though more so to the enemy than his side. One had been nothing to write home about. That last battle had still cost him people and ships, and to the people important in their lives that might as well have been a defeat. Still, as a commanding admiral, he would take a four to one exchange in ships and people any day. There would still be nightmares, but they would be as bad in either case, and at least a victory brought some waking comfort.

"I want everyone to remain alert," he ordered, looking over at the tactical and com officers.

"Can we at least send some of our people to eat and get some rest?" asked the captain of the ship from the bridge. "None of their weapons are going to get here for another couple of hours."

Len thought about that for a moment. It was tradition to not keep ships at battle stations when an enemy wasn't in position to strike. But there was no telling if they had wormhole launches of their own coming in, and he wanted all systems and backups manned.

"Not at this time, Captain." He looked over at the com officer. "Signal to all ships. Refreshments and food can be served to personnel at their stations. But I want the entire fleet to remain at red alert."

This wouldn't be the first time that had been done during a fleet action, and Lenkowski was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"Time till missile contact?"

"Two hours, thirty-five minutes, sir. Estimated velocity at impact, point eight-nine light."

The missiles had been launched from craft already up to point five light at time of launch. The missiles should be coming in much faster than point eight-nine. It looked like they had dialed their acceleration back. Which also didn't make sense. Nothing made sense, which was not something to help his digestion.

The admiral's yeoman was soon at his side delivering a cup of coffee, the way he liked it, heavy cream, and a pastry fresh from the oven. Indigestion or not, the pastry smelled wonderful, and he wasn't about to let a little thing like a near future missile exchange to ruin his appetite.

*     *     *

"First missile wave has engaged, my Lord," said the tactical officer, looking at the plot, which was showing the missile icons falling away. There was a reduction in graviton emissions from a couple of the screening vessels, and one cruiser fell off the plot entirely. Not much of a return for so many missiles, but then again, they really hadn't expected that much. If it kept the enemy occupied, it had done all it was intended to do.

"We're picking up enemy missiles going into active twenty-four degrees to port. Range ten light minutes."

Which meant, if they could change their vectors enough, they would be here in less than eleven minutes. And there was no reason to think they wouldn't have the power to do that.

"Prepare all vessels for missile defense," ordered the high admiral. His ships were already in a pretty good arrangement for defense, but now the cruisers would position themselves out where the scouts would normally be, the initial screen, since they didn't have any of the smaller screening vessels.

"Our second volley is hitting them, my Lord. And the suicide attackers will be within detection range in nine minutes."

And then things would get interesting. He was sure they would still get some of his ships before they got within close attack range, and then they would get a shock.

*     *     *

"First wave of wormhole missiles are engaging enemy, sir."

The first wave had of course gone to grabbers at ten light minutes out, as per their coded instructions. It would have been better if they had been able to slide in undetected until the range was ten to twenty light seconds. Unfortunately, that had not been possible, but they were still coming in at point nine five light, with more than enough power in their batteries for violent evasive maneuvers. They probably wouldn't get as many kills, but with almost three thousand weapons screaming in, there had to be some.

"Hits," yelled out the tactical officer as several enemy icons, what they could see through the still intense jamming, fell off the plot, along with hundreds of missiles. Most had not had perfect targeting solutions, and many couldn’t pull the final turns needed to engage. More fell off over a five second period as the missiles penetrated the formation, until only a couple of hundred or so were left to fly through and start decelerating, their computer brains hoping to return for another attack. That would not happen. They barely had enough power to get up to point nine-five light and make some terminal adjustments from a standing start. Already traveling at terminal velocity, and having engaged in vector changes for ten minutes, they wouldn't have the energy to stop, and would end up coasting out of the system at over point one light.

"It looks like we got seven of them, sir. With maybe ten more damaged. But it's still hard to tell."

"Send codes to the leakers. Self-destruct."

That way the damned things wouldn't continue out into interstellar space, maybe to hit something the Empire didn't want hit in a couple of years, or a thousand, or a million.

"Second wave will hit in twenty-seven seconds, sir."

Len smiled. So far he was winning the long range missile duel. He had more ships, and more weapons. He really didn't want to come into beam range with those monster ships. And they had lost more in the first exchange than he had. If things went as they were, the enemy fleet would be a wreck before beam range, and he would still have over ninety-five percent of his force.

The admiral continued to watch the plot, and the duel. His flagship was tucked back in the fleet, one of the safest positions. Not that he didn't wish to share the dangers with his people, but he was the fleet commander. Not to say someone better might not take his place if the ship converted to plasma, but there was bound to be some confusion during the command change.

"We're picking up objects coming in at point five light. Three two seven objects. Range, three point three light minutes."

"What the hell are they?" asked the admiral, sitting up in his chair and leaning forward.

"CIC reports high confidence that they are Caca scout ships. They appear to be in the mass range from the returns."

"All ships are to fire on those vessels. I want them stopped before they reach us."

The enemy scout ships started putting out gravitons as they boosted at five hundred and thirty gravities toward the Imperial force, increasing their velocity by five point three kilometers every second.

"I expect they're going to veer off before they get to us," said Commodore Grayson.

"I don't think so," said Len, the proverbial bad feeling coming over him.

"Enemy ships are firing missiles, sir. Jammers coming online."

Missiles were screaming out from the enemy ships, while offensive and defensive weapons were launching from the Imperial vessels. The plot was a mass of close in objects, too many for a human to count, though the computers were doing a pretty good job of it. Enemy ships were falling off the plot at a horrendous rate, a score a minute or more, while several of the human vessels were also hit. There weren't enough missiles hits for the number going out, but they couldn't determine what kind of new defense the enemy might be using. The missiles from the scouts were hitting at just above point five light, not carrying the kinetic load of long range shots, though the gigaton class warheads were still enough to kill smaller vessels, and seriously damage even battleships.

"Picking up approximately nine hundred smaller objects, sir. CIC reports returns consistent with Caca fighters."

Those vessels appeared on the plot, hundreds of them, and the mystery of the enemy missile defense was now solved as they fired on every weapon that came within beam range. They were working dedicated missile defense as they now boosted forward at their maximum rate. A few were killed by missiles, but they were small, fast maneuvering targets. More were killed by the faster maneuvering counter missiles, but five hundred still made it into close in weapons range. They fired their own antiship missiles on the way in, adding to the plot confusion while hitting some of the screening ships, putting thirty-four out of action.

"They're not veering off," called out the tactical officer. "Are they trying to penetrate our formation."

"I don't think so," said Len again, the hollow feeling in his stomach growing. It would be suicide for scouts like that to come within beam range of so many capital ships, in a space where multiple ships could hit them with lasers and particle beams at once. "It's suicide," he called out. "It's a suicide attack. All ships. Stop those vessels."

"Enemy fleet is changing vector. Heading straight toward us at five hundred gravities."

It was looking like the enemy fleet would take advantage of the confusion to come into knife range.

Two hundred and fifteen of the scouts made it to interpenetration range. Beam weapons struck at them, blasting through electromagnetic fields and the thin armor of the scouting vessels. Even close in weapons struck them, not doing much damage, though in some cases streams of rounds penetrated, which still did nothing to stop the vessels.

The enemy scouts and fighters fired back with everything they had. Imperial destroyers and light cruisers took serious damage from the beam hits, while heavy cruisers and larger ships had light or less from the same hits. Then they all stopped firing, as every vessel went to over a thousand gravities of acceleration, killing their own crews as the ships sped into intercepts with Imperial ships.

They mostly aimed for heavy cruisers or larger vessles, with particular attention paid to capital ships. That didn't mean that no screening vessels were hit, and two score of destroyers and light cruisers went up in clouds of plasma or spun off in tumbles through space, sometimes into other ships. Forty-three capital ships were also hit by scouts, the four hundred thousand ton spears pushing through hulls and armor at point five two light. Forty-one of those ships went up in plasma, while two took damage from the glancing blows their attackers generated. Sixteen heavy cruisers also went up. The four hundred odd fighters also hit, not carrying enough mass to become capital ship killers, though they did destroy some more of the screening vessels, and caused considerable damage to many of the larger vessels. Then it was over, just in time for the human fleet to take on the Cacas wormhole launched stream of over nine hundred weapons.

When it was over the human force had been reduced to two thirds of its original combat capability. Over two hundred and fifty vessels were gone, a thousand were damaged, and over three hundred Caca ships were still heading for them, spitting missiles as they came.

"Get those damaged vessels to the rear," yelled Len to his com people. "Get in touch with whoever is taking command of task forces and groups, and get this cluster arranged."

If he could get his force arranged in time and the chain of command working again, he could present a strong enough force to kill the enemy fleet coming toward him. He could probably still beat them even if disorganized, but he would lose a lot more vessels and people, and he had already lost enough.

Of course, they were sending all of their data back to high command, so he doubted this same attack would work again in the future. Which didn't make the reaming he had undergone any easier to take.

"How many wormholes do we have left?" he shouted out.

"Thirty-one, sir," replied the tactical officer. "We lost some with their carrying ships."

"Get them all to launching at the enemy. As many streams as we can get out there. And get our working destroyers further out. I want them scouting, so the bastards can't get another attack in like that."

Putting the screening ships out so far could be hard on them, but that was their purpose, after all. Not that their crews had to agree.

The enemy ships fought their way in, trading missiles with the Imperial ships. They lost two to one, a victory for the humans, but not what Lenkowski wanted. Only about fifty ships got within beam range, into the knife fight.

*     *     *

The high admiral had thought that only the scouts and the fighters were going in on the suicide attack. He had been wrong, and the orders had come down to sacrifice his force to cause the most damage possible to the humans. He thought it a waste. Also, he didn't want to die, but when the order came directly from the Emperor he had no choice. Not just because it was an honor to obey the orders of the Emperor, but also because his entire line was at risk if he disobeyed. So he drove himself and all of his males into a fight they couldn't win.

Ships were hit all around his, pieces of hull and armor flying out into space. Missiles exploded ahead, those that didn't reach before being taken out. Ships converted to plasma. Bright beams of light speared through the dust and  debris. His flag ship bucked again as his close in weapons took out a missile, too close, the blast wave striking the hull.

An enemy ship blew up in the viewer, then another. The superbattleship nearest the flag exploded into plasma, and this time a much more violent blast wave struck, enough to throw the high admiral from his chair to land hard on the floor. He shook his head to try and clear it, then struggled up to his seat. It wouldn't be long now, and he wanted to face his death, not cower on the floor like vermin.

*     *     *

"We've stopped them, your Majesty," said Lenkowski, looking over at his Emperor.

"You stopped them, Admiral," replied Sean, looking on the viewscreen that was showing him exactly what the senior officer was looking at.

Ahead of the shuttle loomed the enormous bulk of a Ca'cadasan superbattleship. It was obviously non-operational, great holes blasted through its hull in a score of places. The heavy alloy of the armor was melted under the heat of lasers and particle beams. The grabber ring was rent all along its length, showing that the ship had been deprived of motive power during the battle. A couple of space suited Cacas floated in space near the ship, one with his faceplate turned their way, a large hole in the center. There were several without helmets, blown into space before they could get them on, if not dead before, then surely killed by the lack of air.

Behind the Caca ship floated the familiar hull of an Imperial vessel. It looked like a heavy cruiser, and it had a slow tumble. Obviously it was also dead, probably killed by this very ship.

"They came in the way they had at the beginning," said the quiet voice of the admiral. "In a rush, like they couldn't wait to kill, or to die. No strategy, no tactics, just close and rend. After that damned suicide attack disrupted my formation. That part was new. But we still killed most of them before they got in beam weapon range, our wormhole weapons taking them out by the hundreds. And then they were within beam range and we hammered at each other until there were none of them left."

"How many?" asked Sean.

"How many of them?" asked Len. "Across the entire system? Three thousand? More? One of my staff probably has the complete figure. All I know is that we killed all of them. Not a one of them tried to get away. It was like they had learned nothing from the war. They had turned from an intelligent opponent into savage barbarians, just like they were when we first encountered them."

"And how many did we lose?"

"Over a thousand ships?" said the admiral. "Over a million people, dead and injured."

So, it was a victory, but my front-line commander can't think of it that way, thought the Emperor, shaking his head. And I can't afford to let him sink into depression.

“Is the planetary invasion force about to hit the planet?” Sean knew very well that it was. The invasion force had been released for the assault, and its admiral, who had not been in the system space battle, was not a shocked bundle of nerves.

“It’s on the way. We got all the ground pounders here.”

"And how long until you can get your fleet moving again, Admiral?"

The view switched to Len's face, and it was the face of a man in agony to his very soul. "Moving?"

"I need you to get your force moving again, Admiral. Before the army takes the planet. Mgonda is still moving. Still on the offensive, and I need you to move up to support him. The only way we're going to keep the pressure on these bastards is to keep hitting them at two to one odds so they'll keep losing more heavily than we do."

Keep the sceer on, thought Sean, thinking of a quote from one of the greatest general of America's Civil War of the 1800s. Forrest was a right bastard, but his personal courage and his military genius were unquestioned.

Len looked at him again and sighed. "I can get us moving by morning, your Majesty. I will have to transfer my flag, since my ship will need major repairs to become combat ready again. But I can get all our ships still capable of combat to the hyper limit and on the way by the morning."

"Will you be okay, Admiral?"

"I'm not sure what okay is, sir. But if you mean can I still kill Cacas, then the answer is yes. But I will be most gratified when this hell is over."

"Me, too, Admiral. Me too."

Sean killed the transmission and sat back in his chair. How many people was this war going to cost the human species? Not just dead, but broken. The Empire could heal almost any physical injury, short of death, and even death wasn’t always a permanent condition, if the body could go in cryo in time. People still died, from accidents, old age, and of course from combat. They could still suffer many psychological maladies. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and the so called serious psychosis were no longer in existence. The genetic component had been removed from the human species. But what Psychiatry liked to call the Neuroses still existed in all of their manifest forms. Personality disorders, PTSD, and several others. This war was going to result in millions, hundreds of millions, of extreme cases of PTSD. Modern psychiatric reprogramming could alleviate the suffering, some even said cure it, but in his experience the person that came out of it was never quite the same, which is why most people just sucked it up and dealt with it, when they could.

And what about me? thought the Emperor. He had been through his own share of trauma. That was one of the things that had led to his break in the recent past, when he had done the unthinkable and almost destroyed his own people.

And now I'm supposed to be a font of strength, he thought, even to people he had actually thought of as stronger and wiser than he was. Maybe he wasn't as strong as they were, but as long as they thought so he had to play the role, so they had something to hold on to. Some person on a pedestal that those who felt like they couldn't go on could look to as an example of what they should do, of what they should be. That was his father. That was supposed to be his oldest brother. It was never supposed to have been him. It was, though, so he just had to live with it.

Chapter Eighteen

It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.  George Washington

NOVEMBER 20TH, 1003.

Baggett sat at his station in the assault force flagship, a standard battleship, still one of the mightiest vessels in the Imperial inventory. He had been given a large chamber configured for the use of his headquarters, similar to the force flag bridge ten decks up. A large holo tank sat in the center of the chamber, with a score of stations arrayed around it. Forty more stations were set against the raised platform on the wall, while Baggett and his staff occupied the platform above that one, giving him a complete view of the entire workspace. The holo was currently set to display the entire battlespace. The three fleets were moving past the systems they just had cleared, looking for enemy forces to resume combat. Leaving the invasion forces to take the planets they needed for bases, and liberating the slaves who could be of use working those planets for the good of their liberators.

"XXX Corps is about to go in, sir," said one of the aides, standing by the field marshal's shoulder.

"That's Gamma Seven Three, right?"

"Yes, sir. Local name is Lokotaca. Major industrial system. The Fleet's still working it over."

Which meant that there was going to be a hell of a fight to take the surface, which would have kept some weapons emplacements under cover and powered down until they saw incoming troops.

Baggett looked down at his right hand, which was shaking slightly. He was having a low-level flashback, riding an assault shuttle through a turbulent atmosphere as weapons blew other entry craft out of the sky. He closed his eyes for a moment, dismissing the vision, then opened them to see his aide looking at him with a concerned expression.

"Are you okay, sir?"

"I'm fine." He was glad that he was nowhere near the invasion, and felt guilty at that thought. A hundred thousand beings were about to drop into the hellhole of battle, on his orders. Of course, if he hadn't have given those orders, they still would have been given.

XXX Corps had three divisions, an armored and two heavy infantry. Most would be going in the old fashioned way, assault shuttles, or individual insertion capsules, or in the case of tanks, the sleds that turned them into their own entry vehicles. Some would be going in through wormholes that were being maneuvered into the atmosphere, at the moment no more than a couple of centimeters across. As soon as they reached their targets they would expand, and each would release a heavy infantry battalion to unleash hell on the defenders of that world.

"XXXV Corps is prepped and ready to follow?"

"Yes, sir."

XXXV was the second corps of the Nineteenth Army, the one tasked to take Gamma Seven Three. XXXIX and LIX Corps of the army were the ready reserve, tasked to go in if the leading two Corps needed them. XLIII and XLV Corps would remain in reserve unless needed, and lead the attack on the next system up the line. Two corps to attack, two in support, two in reserve, allowing the two attackers to rebuild before they were called into action again, if everything worked out. If it didn't all six corps might see action, and all would be facing the next invasion chewed all to hell. Baggett really didn't like that part of the plan. Each Army was scheduled to take a dozen planets, a total of forty-eight worlds, each corps assaulting at least six of them. Casualties would be high, and the field marshal worried about the morale of survivors who saw their buddies killed off on landing after landing, slugfest after slugfest, while new troops were fed into the ranks to be killed in their turn.

It was going to be a hard road for everyone. Soldiers, Marines and Spacers. All were going to take casualties. Hopefully the enemy would sustain more, many more, which would not console the families of the Empire's dead in the least.

"Let's see the show," said Baggett, settling into his seat. It felt almost obscene to be in a soft uniform watching the action, but his flagship was not near any of the target worlds, and there was nothing of the enemy for light years in any direction. He really didn't want to see the show, but it was his duty to watch, to see where mistakes were made as well as the best decisions, so they could integrate that data into the next attack.

The holo now showed the globe of a world, the blue of oceans, reddish/orange of vegetation, wispy clouds floating through the atmosphere. The oceans were smallish, and there were large brown areas that denoted desert. An arid world on the whole, still the home of billions of intelligent beings, with other large areas of irrigated land under cultivation, while the silver-gray of built up areas crowded the coasts. It was a major agricultural world for feeding the Caca Fleet, as well as an industrial center, supplying them with the weapons and spare parts needed by any technologically advanced force.

There were scores of ships in the view, triangular carets identifying them, numbers underneath. A couple of standard battleships, nine heavy cruisers, seventeen destroyers, the current orbital bombardment element. Other warships orbited further back, ready to come in to replace vessels that were destroyed or damaged. Just behind the warships were the assault ships, eleven of them, each holding an attacking brigade and a wing of atmospheric craft. Brilliant flashes appeared on the surface, kinetics striking the planet, taking out defensive installations and any troop concentrations they could find. Flashes also went off in space, weapons coming up from the surface, most intercepted by the point defenses of the warships. One hit a destroyer, the flare showing that it was in the twenty megaton range, not enough to kill a ship like that, still enough to cause heavy damage. The destroyer tumbled slightly as it vented atmosphere from several punctures, then righted itself and continued to fire back.

Baggett held his breath for a moment as the shot went home, guilty that his next thought was that the warhead would not be used against his assault shuttles. As that thought passed through his head the first of the shuttles went in, following on the heels of a wing of atmospheric fighters that would attempt to knock down anything coming up at the birds carrying the soldiers.

The field marshal switched the take to one of the squadron leaders of an orbit to surface fighter squadron, burning into the atmosphere on full decel. They were moving in slow motion compared to true spaceships, a mere ten thousand kilometers per hour. Still, they were hauling it for penetrating a gas envelop, the outer skin heating from red to white. Early reentry vehicles, from the time humankind first entered space, would be burning up unless they entered with a rounded heat shield. These craft were going in nose first, weapons and sensors pointed ahead. Baggett was actually looking through the eyes of the lt. colonel piloting the craft. The control panel was straight ahead, a small tactical holo projected above it. The HUD display took up most of the forward cockpit viewer. Baggett wasn't sure how the woman was keeping track of everything.

The other fifteen fighters of the squadron were displayed on the tactical. Suddenly other objects appeared, then disappeared, hypervelocity weapons on the way up from the surface, with flight times of less than a second. All of the fighters opened fire, comp systems engaging before the human controllers were even aware of the threat. Lasers, particle beams, and in a few cases even some autoweapons, fired on the approaching weapons while the fighters went into automatic evasives. Two fighters were hit, one exploding into fragments, the other spinning through the air, its grabbers fighting to get its trim back.

Fourteen continued in, then banked for a moment to allow the kinetics launched from above them through their path, heading into the ground installations where the hypervelocity rounds had come from. A couple of particle beams linked the ground to orbiting destroyers, while one of the fighters flew through one and disappeared in a splash of plasma as it was hit by a weapon made to strike at warships. Which left thirteen of the craft, slicing in, then leveling out at five thousand meters.

Targets started to appear on the squadron commander's display, ground installations, vehicles, even some squadrons of atmospheric craft rising into the air. She assigned targets quickly, and teams banked away to engage enemies with their own hypervelocity missiles. Each carried four ground attack weapons, and they fired them all within seconds of locking onto targets, then banked up, losing another fighter to an antiaircraft weapon blasting away with lasers and chasing the craft into the path of a hyperv weapon.

The twelve fighters swept onto a squadron of Caca craft. The Caca ships were larger, as befitted transports for such large creatures, and though they carried heavy firepower, they were not in the same class of maneuverability. The human craft swept through, taking out eleven of the eighteen Caca craft while losing two more of their own. Then the nine remaining fighters swept back up into space, heading back to their carrier and rearming. They had lost almost forty-four percent of the squadron, a casualty rate that was unsustainable across a long campaign.

More aircraft swept in, each assault carrier holding eight squadrons of fighters or attack ships, a total of one hundred and twenty-eight craft. The enemy could have thousands of fighters on the planet, sheltered from observation until they were ready to deploy. It was hoped that the fire from the orbiting spaceships would make up for that disparity. They would find out with this invasion. If they were wrong, this could become a slaughter.

Fighters went into attacks on enemy aircraft, keeping them off the ground attack craft that concentrated on the landing zones, clearing them of all spotted defenses. Kinetics continued to rain from the sky, raising more mushroom clouds into the air, further obscuring visibility.

And then the first of the shuttles started in, thousand ton ships, heavily armed and armored, though still small craft. They could take punishment, just not a lot of it. Each carried an entire platoon of heavy infantry. Their suits could protect them from some damage, but anything that blasted through the armor of the shuttle would blast through them as well. If the shuttle came apart their odds of getting out were not good either.

One hundred craft made their way into the atmosphere, their electronic warfare suites working for all they were worth to jam the enemy sensors. The ships above them in orbit added to the noise, while over a thousand small drones mimicked the shuttles in the hope of gaining the attention of weapons systems that would otherwise target the troop carriers.

Most of the shuttles made it through, only six getting hit, one totally destroyed with all hands, two severely damaged, with half of their troops still able to float down on their personal grabber units to the ground. Some of those were blown out of the sky as well. There was just too much stuff being thrown both ways for there not to be hits.

The ships were also launching warriors in capsules, with maximum stealth, four decoys launched for every one containing a trooper. All started to shred in the atmosphere, making even more of a chaff that reflected sensors. A fast enough computer working long enough would be able to pick up the real targets. Unfortunately for the enemy, they wouldn't have that time.

One of the tanks coming in on its sled was hit, a heavy hyperv meant to strike at orbiting ships, blowing through the turret armor and incinerating every member of the crew. The tank tilted in the air, then fell out of the sky to crash into the surface, the turret flying free.

On the ground the wormholes opened, near the landing zones where the first shuttles were on approach. They expanded within thirty seconds to gateways, four meters high by ten wide. A heavy infantry battalion poured through, weapons at the ready, fanning out to form a perimeter. The first shuttles flew over, ejecting their troopers through the floor ports to let them float to the ground. Capsules followed, filled with supplies.

Baggett almost cringed from what he was watching. It was a textbook assault of a heavily defended planet, and of course there were casualties. Not as many as there could be, but still heavier than he liked.

The first tanks reached the ground, rolling off their sleds to meet up with their infantry. They were followed by other vehicles on sleds, antiaircraft, artillery, supplies. Just in time to start intercepting the incoming rounds the enemy was starting to lob their way.

Nukes and antimatter warheads detonated in the air, hit with lasers and streams of projectiles before they could make it to their targets. The feed grew hazy. There was too much energy coursing through the air for the signal to punch through clearly.

"Are all the command groups down?"

"All but first brigade of the 95th division, sir. We lost contact with them on the way in."

So they were shot down on the way in. The division commander was supposed to turn command over to the most senior battalion commander, and he'll take charge. That was what was supposed to happen, if the division commander knew what was going on.

The holo changed to a globe of the world, showing the dispositions of the eight brigades that were deployed or deploying on the surface. Their targets were also highlighted, including a half dozen huge cities. It would have been so much easier to just hit those cities and keep hitting them with kinetics, but the rules of engagement forbade that approach. Instead the ground troops would fight their way in, and hopefully start a revolt that, while getting a bunch of sophonts killed, would roll over the Caca defenders.

*     *     *

"We're ready to drop you, colonel," came the call from division command over the com.

Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo looked over the status of his tank over the screens that surrounded his station, then the status of the rest of his battalion. Everything was in the green, not unusual in this day, when all mechanical devices were kept in perfect repair by their internal nanites. Sometimes larger systems had to be replaced, and they could still be destroyed in combat, but as long as they were in good repair the nanotech would keep them that way.

"We're ready when you are, control," he replied.

"Prepare for launch."

The screen showed that the hatch to the loading bay was now slowly opening, the heavy battle steel doors sliding to the side. The hangar had already been evacuated, the tanks had been locked into their landing cradles, and everything was a go as far as he could tell.

The doors were now open, showing the sparkle of stars and the half circle of the planet below. It was a beautiful view, almost enough to make the anxious officer forget that they would be dropping into an inferno, until he saw the brilliant pinpoints of fusion and antimatter warheads going off in that space.

The tanks were massive, heavily armored beasts, and the cradle they would be flying on carried as much armor as the side hull of the vehicle. Add to that the electromagnetic projectors it carried, and they were probably the hardest thing to kill that would be dropping through the atmosphere this day. Which didn't mean they were invulnerable, not to things that could blow through the armor of warships.

The first four tanks launched into space simultaneously, the grabbers on their cradles boosting them on the predetermined path to get them through the atmosphere. Four more followed seconds later, then another quartet.

"Our turn, colonel," called out the driver, who would be the pilot on the way down.

The tank/cradle floated out into space, and suddenly everyone in the vehicle was in free fall. Some people still had problems with it, but everyone in the battalion was either able to handle it on their own, or given the medications that would allow them to stand up to it without puking their guts out. The grabber units cut in and suddenly they had gravity of a sort, pushing them back in their seats. They were pulling ten gees into the atmosphere, and the weak compensators of the cradle ate nine of them. Just before they hit the air the cradle moved to place its bottom heat shield toward the surface, then blasted into the turbulence that marked the outer atmosphere.

The colonel checked his status boards and saw that all of his tanks were present and accounted for. All were falling on the prescribed trajectory toward the designated landing zone. And all were out of the fire cones of the ships above, which were still sending kinetics and beam weapons to the surface. What they couldn't do was avoid the fire cones of the surface batteries, which the Empire had no control over. The sensors began picking up missiles and beams coming from those batteries.

"Prepare for defensive fire," he ordered over the short-range com.

Acknowledgments came back, while his screens updated with objects moving toward them and the firing arcs of the battalion weapons. They wouldn't be able to fire their onboard weapons at anything below, since the cradle was in the way, and turning so they could would destabilize their flight profile, and heat up the hull of the vehicle. But they had lasers on the cradle, as well as several hyper-v missiles.

"You have control of the weapons, Sergeant Major?" asked Ngcobo, ready to take over if something happened.

"Got it sir,” said the highest-ranking gunner in the battalion, and hopefully the best.

Lasers and hyper-vs fired, taking out the smaller antiaircraft missiles that were questing for them. A couple hit, weapons that could tear apart the more fragile hulls of fighter and attack aircraft, but couldn't penetrate the cradles. If they had fired heavier weapons they might have blasted through, but what were left of those were being flung toward the ships in orbit. One tank tilted as a couple of rockets hit the side of the cradle, then righted itself before it could complete the flip.

It seemed like they had been falling forever, and Ngcobo was starting to wish he was home in bed, and not waiting for the ground to come up so he would again feel secure. He wasn't a flier; the ground was his home. He checked the scanner and saw that he had only been falling for ten minutes, and had five to go before they could ditch the cradles and become tankers again.

"Cutting in grabbers," called out the driver minutes later. "We're locked onto designated landing zone, sir. I can't say the same for the entire battalion, but we'll be coming in the way we're supposed to."

Ngcobo thought about that for a moment. A drop where everyone ended up in the right place was unusual. He had hoped that this time it might come to pass.

Chapter Nineteen

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Horace Mann

"We've got them buttoned up in their base, sir," came the call over the com.

Cornelius Walborski watched the take over the wormhole, wishing he could be there, aiming the launcher himself. Such was denied him in this operation, and all he could do was watch and silently cheer them on.

The guerrillas on this world had done yeoman's work in their fight against their former masters. The Cacas were stronger, and still better armed and organized. But the former slaves were willing to give their lives to take down their former masters. Reports had come back of aliens found dead with their teeth tearing out the throats of Caca soldiers. They had lost five to one, maybe six to one, but they had outnumbered their masters twenty to one, and they had been more than willing to absorb the casualties to win.

Now the Cacas were in this last fortress, a massive underground fortification with weapons out the ass. The slaves had already tried a couple of assaults, and lost fifty thousand beings.

"How are the guerrillas equipped?" he asked over the com. They had brought in over a hundred thousand weapons, mostly magrail with a few thousand particle beams mixed in. They had been shipping in weapons ever since the start of the campaign, trying to replace those lost in combat and continuing to build up the forces.

"We have thirty thousand of them armed and ready, sir," came back a voice that his implant identified as Lt. Colonel Max Frederick, commander of the Ranger battalion advising the sophonts. "I wish we had more armor for them, but they're willing to put their hides on the line with what they're got."

Of course they are, thought the brigadier. And we'll be having nightmares about the slaughter we caused on this world. On all the worlds.

"Preparing for launch, now."

Of course, the Ranger would be deploying the missiles. They had too much power to trust to the sophonts, who only had the little bit of training the humans had been able to give them over the weeks of combat.

"Launching."

Four launchers fired as one, sending their missiles in on low, ground hugging trajectories, all aimed toward the center of the installation. Each carried a fifty megaton warhead. Combined they weren't enough to destroy the base. The best they could hope for was partial destruction of the surface weapons installations, and some breaching of the armor.

The missiles were hyper-vs, coming in too fast to be intercepted. All detonated over the fort, four bright fireballs erupting as one, then combining into a massive riser that climbed up into the sky.

Now we wait, thought the brigadier. The fusion weapon had very little residual radiation, but that ground would be too hot for soldiers not in heavy battle armor for an hour or so. The Cacas had heavy battle armor, and they could start bringing weapons to the surface as soon as the fireball was gone. Now though, they wouldn't have the power of the weapons that had been emplaced on the surface of the fort, and which had hopefully been destroyed.

The hour passed, the heat of the fortress died down to a survivable level, and the guerrillas started in. They moved across the open field, staying as low as they could get and still move with speed. Some were not capable of getting low, not being built for it, and they showed their courage by going in just the same. As expected, the Cacas had brought weapons up, and the bright beams of crew served lasers shone through the dust and smoke as they swept over the field, cutting down hundreds of attackers on each sweep.

The Rangers started dropping mortar rounds in on the Cacas, the sixty-millimeter shells rising into the air from their tubes, tumbling over, then adjusting their trajectories as their seeker heads homed in on targets. Shrapnel couldn't do much to Cacas in powered armor. These were not shrapnel shells. Smalls jets dropped them directly onto the armor and shape charge heads threw supermetal penetrators through the suits. The barrage went on for minutes, hundreds of rounds coming down, ending with over a hundred Cacas killed and many weapons destroyed.

The former slaves advanced over a carpet of their own dead, finally making it to the Cacas and close combat. The huge aliens in their armor were more than a match for a dozen unarmored slaves, but they swarmed in numbers much greater, and Cacas started to go down. Monomolecular blades stabbed through armored torsos, cut through limbs, split helms. Thousand more sophonts died to take down the hundreds of Cacas, but take them down they did. Then it was time to look for the entrances to the fort. Several were found, breaches that had been blown through the armor, and the aliens swarmed them.

"We've taken the fort," came the call over the com.

"How many Cacas?" asked Cornelius.

"Over three hundred, sir."

"And how many of our allies?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"We're estimating sixteen thousand, sir."

So the former slaves had given up sixteen thousand lives to kill three hundred Cacas. Over fifty to one casualties. And the sophonts of the world would clamor to be given weapons to replace those who had fallen.

"We think we'll have this one tied up in another week, sir," said Colonel Frederick.

That was a surprise. They had never intended to actually liberate these worlds, only to keep the Caca army busy and away from the main invasions. Instead the Cacas were not reinforcing these worlds so they could contest the invasions of Imperial troops.

And maybe we can keep them free, thought Walborski. If the Cacas don't come back, he thought. If they did come back it would be with a vengeance, and millions of the former slaves would die, while the survivors would again be slaves.

*     *     *

"Get us disconnected and moving," yelled out Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo, keeping an eye on the tactical holo.

The driver and assistant were busy making sure all of the clamps were hand released, a process that insured they wouldn't come loose on their own during the drop. The gunner and his assistant were making sure all weapons survived, while the sensor witch was watching for anything that might be targeting them.

I don't know how she does it, thought the tank commander as he watched her take, seeing too damned much, then raising his armored head above the hatch to get a visual take of his surroundings.

The Tyrannosaur IIIA was the newest version of a tank that was only four years old, the most potent armored vehicle ever deployed by the Empire. The original had massed just over a thousand tons, while the A version added a hundred tons of armor and electromag shields. It could take a lot of punishment, but it was not invulnerable, and sitting still made it a tempting target.

The tank was set down on a flat plane near some foothills, the mountains towering in the background, woods on the other side. Flames were rising from the forest, along with clouds of black smoke. Another tank, that of the battalion executive officer, was down a hundred meters to the north. As far as he could tell A company was less than five kilometers away, on the other side of the woods.

"We have incoming," shouted Corporal Bronkowski, the sensor witch.

"Button up," shouted Ngcobo, the only one who was outside the tank, just to be sure. He dropped down the hatch, his seat retracting and the overhead cover sliding into place.

The close in weapons system buzzed above, and something flashed in the sky, followed by a blast wave that caused the hull of the tank to vibrate.

"Let's get moving," yelled the colonel.

"We're moving," called back the driver over the intercom.

The tank lifted on its grabbers and started moving forward, its close in weapon system and lasers firing again, this time taking out several conventional shells. One got through and hit the ground less than ten meters from the tank, shrapnel bouncing from the armor.

"Get us over to A company," ordered the colonel. "Klein," he yelled over the com to the executive officer. "Get your ass moving."

"We've got some problems with the main drive," called back the major. "Something penetrated into the engine compartment."

"Can your engineer get it up and running?"

"He's dead, sir. Whatever it was went into his compartment and penetrated his armor. But we're up on our grabbers, and I think we can move at ten kilometers per hour."

Too slow, thought the colonel. His tank could get to A company in a couple of minutes, while it would take Klein's tank a half hour to cover the same distance. He needed to link up with that unit, then with the other two companies, so he would have a fighting force. And then they needed to link up with their infantry support to be truly effective.

"Get there as best you can," he said over the com. He could almost see the expression on the officer's face. One tank by itself was at risk, while a group could cover each other. "We'll send a platoon back for you." Four heavy tanks should be sufficient to protect the damaged tank, and herd it into the brigade support area, where it could be repaired. If it survived long enough for them to get there.

The tank rolled along, lifted a half meter over the ground, the crew watching all sensors for traps. There shouldn't be any out here, where the tanks had come down purposely, away from any possible concentrations of enemy. It would be better to meet them in the open, after the Imperial force had organized, than to find themselves in combat during the landing.

"We just got hit by a laser," shouted the sensor witch. "Feeding targeting to weapons."

The turret rang with a hit, a sound that would have been deafening if not for the helmets of the tankers. The round penetrated partially into the armor, not enough to destroy them, but enough to worry those who were riding in this huge target.

"Target locked," yelled the gunner.

"Fire," shouted the commander.

The tank rocked slightly as the main gun accelerated a supermetal penetrator at ten thousand kilometers per second, striking the enemy vehicle like a beam of light. A fireball marked the target, followed by the cockpit of the Mecha tumbling through the air. Another round came in, striking the tank, again without enough penetrating power to kill the Tyrannosaur. A return shot killed the second of the Mecha teams.

If that's all we have to face, we aren't going to have a problem, thought the commander. The Mecha massed at most a hundred tons, and didn't carry a primary weapon with near the power of the linear accelerator the tank carried, or anywhere near the armor. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be all they would be facing. The enemy had some heavier weapons, some larger Mecha, some heavy antitank weapons, and, of course, what air-power they could sneak through. What the enemy would not have was orbital bombardment assets. Unlike what the Empire had faced on most of their campaigns, the enemy did not control space, which gave the ground forces an enormous advantage.

*     *     *

The platoon moved across the open area, half the unit laying in wait with weapons ready to provide covering fire, the ancient overwatch tactic. The moving element floated ten centimeters above the ground on their grabbers, weapons at the ready. Every suit was on cammo setting, blending in to their backgrounds, a slight blur of electromagnetic fields showing on the edges.

Lieutenant Stephanos Nixos was fresh from the academy, on his first combat assignment, and he couldn't have felt more out of place. Half the platoon was made up of newbies, but half were old timers, some who had been in combat since the start of the war. The platoon sergeant had fifteen years in the heavy infantry, and Nixos was in charge of these people.

"Listen to your platoon sergeant, son," had said Captain Singh, her brown eyes staring into his. "Follow his lead, and you might just come back alive from this thing. Try to play like you know it all, and your remains will come back in an urn. That doesn't really bother me all that much, but a lot of good people will be heading home with you, and that does concern me."

What she had said had made him mad, at first, until he had time to think about it. Then it made sense. The combat veterans were a proven commodity, one the company commander could count on. He was not, and until he proved he was, she wasn't going to care about him.

The platoon sergeant, Altoon, was back with the covering element. As soon as the lead element went to ground it would be his turn to move. To Nixos' way of thinking, that gave him a fifty-fifty chance of being in the open if an enemy did open up on them.

"We’re getting something on the drones, LT," came Altoon's voice over the com. "Take a knee while we move up."

Nixos lowered his suit to the ground and knelt, pointing his weapon to the front. The other troopers covered front and sides, while he tapped into the feed from the drones.

A group of creatures moved through the woods, trying to stay under cover. The drone could pick them up on infrared, and soon it picked them up on radar. There were a number of shapes moving under the foliage, none of them Cacas.

"It looks like the slaves are coming out to meet us," said Altoon, his suit floating by as he led the other half of the platoon forward. "Everyone stay alert. The Cacas may be using them for cover. But don't shoot unless they show hostile actions."

The lieutenant really didn't like the rules of engagement. They were on a hostile planet, and they had to watch what they were shooting, when anything out there could be waiting to get a shot at them.

"They look like the real thing, LT. Why don't you inform company that we have made contact with guerrillas?"

The aliens didn't come out from under the trees, they waited for the humans to come to them. Nixos was used to aliens, since there were scores of different species in the Empire. But he had never seen any of these. Most were tall furry humanoids, what might have been the dominant form on this world before the Cacas came. Other species included what looked like a twelve-limbed crawler, and a six limbed insectoid with an endoskeleton. All were armed, most with weapons that didn't really fit their body type.

"This is Abrax, LT," said Altoon, introducing one of the humanoids to Nixos. "He's the leader of this cell. Abrax, this is my officer."

The alien nodded, and Nixos had to wonder how much of terranglo the being understood. Not much if he didn't miss his guess. Then he noted the translator box attached to a cord around the being's neck. So they could understand, and his own translator would probably let him understand them as well.

"Abrax says his people know a way behind the Caca defenses into the city ahead," continued Altoon. "I think the captain needs to know about this."

*     *     *

Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo stared at the holo that showed the best-known representation of the battlespace. His thirty-seven tanks were spread out across the field, facing where they thought the enemy was. Company A was to the right, two platoons forward, one back, while B company was in the same configuration to the left. Company C was behind, again two platoons forward, one rear, with the command tank in among the leftmost platoon. They were moving forward in the standard overwatch formation, half of each forward platoon moving forward while the other half kept watch with weapons ready. Each platoon had a platoon of heavy infantry along with them, moving with them in the same overwatch formation.

Tanks were still the best weapons for taking on tanks. Infantry had anti-tank weapons, but they weren’t as powerful as those on a tank. Tanks had anti-infantry weapons, but infantry were better equipped to deal with their own kind. Which was why putting them together still made the best possible combat team.

"That's a real dead space up there, sir," said the sensor witch of his tank, who was also the primary for the battalion. "I don't like the returns I'm getting."

Ngcobo nodded, then acknowledged by voice. He didn't like it either. The atmosphere was full of static from all the various forms of jamming, theirs and the enemy's. They could more or less see through their own, though it wasn't a hundred percent transparent. The enemy's was much harder to look through. That was the purpose of jamming. Then there were all the heat sources that would not normally be there. Burning vehicles and buildings, hot spots from kinetics and nukes. And the smoke. It made it a nightmare to try and see through. But in front of them loomed a black hole that their sensors couldn't penetrate. Almost too perfect.

The colonel thought for a moment of ordering the infantry ahead, but their colonel might not see that as a good idea. He was nominally in command of this combat team, but the other officer had veto power on decisions concerning his troops. He also had a half dozen smaller recon vehicles, which couldn't handle the fire that his tanks could, and he hated the idea of reconnaissance by death.

"We have something on the screens," called out one of the forward tank commanders.

"We have nothing that way," put in the sensor witch.

"Take the shot," ordered the colonel, trusting in his sensor witch’s judgement. "Everyone, keep it tight and ready."

The designated tank fired, sending out a round at ten thousand kilometers a second as its eleven hundred ton bulk rocked from the recoil. The tanks could actually fire on ships in orbit, though that wouldn't be necessary on this mission. The only limit of range for ground targets was the horizon. The round flew from the gun to the target so fast it might have been a beam of light. A fireball rose into the air at the horizon, followed by the tumbling upper torso of a mech, one of the large machines the Cacas used instead of tanks. They had been starting to deploy medium tanks at the front, but obviously still had many more of the mecha in stock.

"We've got trouble, sir," yelled out the sensor witch, taking in the feed from all the other tanks.

Before he could say more the mass of enemy opened fire, sending hypervelocity missiles and particles beams into the Imperial forces.

The colonel didn't need to say a word. Everyone that had a target opened up. Tanks started sending their rounds into the enemy, penetrators heading out at low relativistic speed, rocking the tanks back while raising swirls of ground debris that disintegrated into particles from the intense force . Particle beams flared out, the thinner ones of the infantry, larger for the heavy beam weapons, even thicker for the vehicle mounts.

A tank exploded, a hypervelocity missile hitting it head on and blasting through the armor. Moments later another went up, spinning its three hundred ton turret into the air. Infantry started to fall, one almost vaporized by the hit of a heavy weapon, while the others fell with holes burned through their armor. Men and women started to drop to the ground, seeking cover, still returning fire.

Two more tanks exploded. The air filled with fire, sensors were overloaded, and both sides kept up a murderous cacophony of beams and projectiles.

The battle ended as a squadron of ground support craft came roaring over, dropping heavy loads of submunitions across the length of the enemy positions.

"Forward," yelled the colonel, and all of the vehicles lifted on their grabbers, moving toward the enemy while putting out as much fire as they could, the infantry moving along with them. Fire still came from the enemy positions, much reduced, and quickly beaten down.

The colonel looked at the enemy positions from his commander's station as they rolled through. Now he had thirty-two tanks, and there was still a ways to go to get to the city that was their target.

The tank rocked slightly as it rolled over a couple of mecha. There were scores of them in view, shredded by fire. Some were almost blown in half, hit by hypervelocity rounds. Others had the holes of particle beams burned through them. The partial bodies of Cacas were interspersed among them. The Cacas wore body armor, though not of the class of the Imperial heavy infantry. They were at a disadvantage in protection in ground combat, both their infantry and their armor, only their numbers and their weaponry giving them any weight in battle.

"We're getting some artillery support ahead," said the com specialist over the line. "Approximately eleven kilometers to the northwest, commencing, now."

The horizon lit up in the indicated direction, followed by the rumble of the heavy rounds striking their target. Some of the rounds exploded in the air, an indication that the enemy had laser defenses. Not enough, as most of the rounds made it through, and after some seconds the defenses were gone.

The artillery shells were the standard high explosive version, using level IV crystal matrix filler that was a thousand times more powerful than any chemical compound. They had seeker heads and small terminal guidance systems that brought them onto target as they were on final approach. At one time it was thought that artillery was obsolete, with its role going to orbital craft that could drop their weapons from above. That hadn't proven true, and so divisions still carried at least a battalion of ground based artillery, sometimes more.

"Get me C company," ordered the colonel. He would send that company and their infantry escort off to make sure that the area that had just been bombarded was cleared, so they wouldn't be hit on the flank as they moved toward their target. He looked down at the holo and called up the loadouts of his vehicles, making sure they had enough for a major firefight, and planning on his resupply. If they ran out of projectiles and protons they could still fight. They had lasers after all. But their combat efficiency would be severely hampered. And the colonel didn't plan for that to happen on his watch.

Chapter Twenty

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory. Sun Tzu

NOVEMBER 24TH, 1003. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

"We have another enemy patrol on approach, sir."

Muldoon pushed his plate away. He had just sat down to get a bite, something he had not been doing enough of lately. Just when he thought he might have time for some rest and relaxation, the Universe decided to laugh at him.

"How big?"

"Forty-one ships, sir, including three of the big bastards."

"Shit." The admiral was on his feet in an instant, linking in to the ship through his implant and looking at the situation on his occipital lobe, while his body carried him out of the officer's mess and into the corridor, heading for the lift.

He had been expecting the enemy to become thicker as they got closer to the enemy capitol. They were only a thousand light years from their destination, approximately eleven days.  But he saw no reason they would have such a strong patrol this far into their empire. Reason or not, here they were.

"Heading?" he asked as he walked through the doorway to the flag bridge. Not all of the first shift were here. A couple ran in behind him, taking empty stations, the first of the soon to be swelling combat crew.

"On a heading forty-five degrees to port, sir," called out the CPO manning the force tactical station, for the moment. "They're trying to change their vectors, but unless they have some capabilities they haven't shown us before, they're not going to do it. They're going to have to come to a stop behind us and chase us. But they will be able to send missiles our way."

Muldoon sat and thought, while more people came into the bridge, including the primary tactical officer, who took the chief's place while that worthy slid over into a secondary station. So the enemy wouldn't be able to catch up with them, since they were plowing ahead at point nine light in hyper VII, about the same as the maximum safe velocity of the Caca ships. They could fire missiles, that would not be able to hit before they killed all of their momentum and started piling on the acceleration. No missile known had enough energy storage to be slowed from point nine light and then pushed up to point nine light the other way. The problem was, everything they fired would have the same problem. Except for the wormhole launched missiles. Those would come out at point nine five light in whatever direction they were launched. They would catch up with the enemy and attack.  The problem was, they would be coming in at between point zero five and point one light, depending on what the enemy did. Missiles traveling at that low of a closing velocity made easy targets.

The real danger came if those ships were able to make it to someplace with instantaneous com, and alerted the home system they were coming. If that happened there might be a major battlefleet waiting for them, and that was something they couldn't afford.

"I want all wormholes configured for launch. All of them," he repeated when some disbelieving looks were aimed his way. "Trajectory to catch them after they pass."

"That will waste a lot of weapons, sir," said the tactical officer.

"And we have the weapons to waste. So let's be about it."

*     *     *

"We're ready, Admiral," called out the captain of his ride.

"We're good to go whenever you are," said Rear Admiral Bruce Suttler, sitting in the command chair of the stealth/attack ship Tigershark. He had thought after his promotion to commodore that he would never take another of the silent service's vessels into combat. But this was a task group action, the first of the war involving these vessels, and he had no intention of remaining at a base and commanding from afar. Fortunately, Admiral Lenkowski had agreed with him, and here he was.

The stealth/attack ship, one of the eight attached to the battle cruiser, had been riding it as it accelerated up to point five light after coming into normal space well outside the detection range of anything in this system. There were four other battle cruisers in the group spaced around the outer edge of the system, each with eight stealth/attack in piggyback. Forty ships that were about to be cut loose to coast into the system, radiating no heat, no electronic emissions, invisible for all intents and purposes.

"Cutting you loose," said the ship's captain. There was a clunking sound heard through the hull as the grapples were released, then the battle cruiser started to decelerate, letting the eight smaller vessels, each less than four hundred thousand tons, drift ahead.

"Do you have our target picked out, Lt. Jonson?" asked Suttler, looking over at his navigator.

"Yes, sir," replied the young woman, sweat rolling down her face. "Sending it over to the helm now."

Suttler smiled at the officer, hoping to put her at ease. It was her first combat mission with a stealth/attack. He could recall the bad old days, when they had to use subspace portals to whisk away the heat. A process that wouldn't work deep in a gravity well. Then they had sweated in a hull that was designed to trap all the heat, just as this one was, but with no way to offload it.

Suttler looked at the central holo tank that showed the system forty-five light hours ahead. They were getting firm readings off of any large ships moving with high boost. They were also showing all of the visuals, factories, orbital shipyards, everything that made this a major base system for the enemy.

"Coming on to new course," called out the helm, a CPO who had been piloting ships for decades.

The ship was boosting at one half of a gravity, too low for any kind of gravitic sensor to pick up even light minutes away. That was putting out very little heat, and all of that was being whisked into the wormhole to the heat sink back in the Supersystem. It would take them ninety hours to coast into the system, and the forty ships were already diverging their courses. They had been released at different points around the system, and would come in on their targets within the system within minutes of each other.

If everything worked as expected they would reach those targets without the enemy having any idea they were there. The crews would have to stay alert on the way in, because shit happened. There were always unexpected things that could appear in their way and necessitate drastic maneuvers that could cause them to show up on the sensors of the enemy. But the tacticians had figured that the odds were high, over ninety percent, that they would make it to their firing points without the enemy knowing they were there. And then the surprise would be complete.

"Check in on the rest of the force," ordered Suttler, looking over at his com officer, Lt. Commander Switzer, the com chief of the group.

"Yes, sir," said Switzer, nodding, then getting to his board. All of the ships had a wormhole, and all were in undetectable com with each other. It took Switzer several minutes, but he finally looked up with a smile. "All units are reporting all systems functioning and on course."

"Very well. Order the crew to go to condition amber. All watches are to resume their rotations."

It was no use keeping everyone at alert status for what was essentially going to be three and a quarter days.

He would, of course, take the first command watch. That made sense, since he didn't think he could sleep at this time, and he didn't feel in the least hungry. This was the first large scale stealth attack in history, and he wanted it to work, so that his service would take a larger role in the war. Not that it would go off the tracks if he got some sleep, but his anxiety was at a peak, even if he had to act like he was imperturbable.

"The battle cruisers are away, sir," said Switzer, looking up from his station.

"Any sign of enemy activity?"

"No, sir," said the tactical officer, Commander Noturu Longo, looking over from his station.

Suttler nodded, a smile on his face. It looked like they had snuck in the door, and now all they had to do was pad through the living room.

"You head for your rest, Commander," said Suttler to his tactical officer. "I expect you to relieve me in eight hours."

And by then I'll know for sure they don't suspect anything, thought the admiral. If they didn't start a search going out here within that time frame, it was unlikely they ever would.

*     *     *

"We have enemy ships ahead, sir," came the call over the intercom. "A trio of scouts, and they seem to be looking for something."

"I'll be right up," replied Suttlers, coming out of his bed. Even a flag officer's quarters aboard a ship like this was smaller than most quarters on a capital ship. There was no special cabin for a flag officer, and he was relegated to the captain's quarters. One thing that hadn't seemed to have changed since his days of commanding his own ship was being woken from a deep sleep for emergencies. He had never seemed to get a full eight hours sleep, no matter the circumstances.

On a stealth/attack there was no day cabin for the commander. His cabin was only forty meters down the corridor from the bridge, and he was in his uniform and through the hatch in less than a minute.

"Are they using active sensors?" he asked as he headed for his chair, the duty officer, Command Longo, moving out of the way and returning to his own station, which the petty officer in place vacated to move to a side station.

"They are, sir," said Longo. "But not in our direction. Not in the direction of any of our other ships either."

"Range?"

"Five point four light minutes, on a heading ninety-three degrees to port from our course."

Suttler stared at the plot, wondering what they were about. They didn't seem to be wise to the existence of his force in their space. That didn't mean those ships weren't a threat.

"Order all the other ships to report in," said Suttler to the com tech manning that station.

It wouldn't hurt to see the status of all the other ships. That was really his job, and one he could have done back at his headquarters. But just because he was out here in one ship didn't mean it wasn't still his responsibility.

The com tech went down the checklist, certifying that the thirty-nine other ships were still on their attack profile and not at risk of detection.

"Enemy ships are changing vector, sir," called out Longo, running his calculations at his board. "They are decelerating at five hundred gravities, coming to a stop, still pulsing active sensors."

"Shit. What the hell are they up to." Suttler leaned forward in his chair. The enemy would still have trouble picking them up on passive sensors further than five light seconds, about fifteen hundred thousand kilometers. On active they might be able to pick them up at thirty light seconds. And they were pulsing active, which increased the risk substantially.

And the electronic warfare suites of the ships were inactive. They worked by jamming the sensors of the enemy, or fuzzing up the returns. They didn't want the enemy to even know they were in the system, so fuzzing up the returns was not an option. There was talk about other systems soon to be out that might actually be useful, but they weren't ready for this mission.

"Can we avoid them?" asked Suttler of his tactical officer and helmsman.

"Not if they're doing what we think they are," said Longo, looking over and getting a nod from the helm.

"The commander is correct, sir," said the helm. "I would have to boost up to twenty gravities to guarantee avoidance, and we would be putting out more than twenty times the graviton emissions."

"Well, do what you can to alter our course without giving us away," the admiral ordered. It might not do much, or it might do enough, and be worth the attempt.

"How far are we from the target?"

"Seventeen hours, sir," answered the exec, Commander Lois Leandris, from CIC.

So we're still over eight and a half light hours outside the system. They could jump into hyper to get away from the enemy ships, though they would just jump in after them and pursue. And in hyper they would not be in stealth, their hyperfield generators putting out a constant emission pattern that could be picked up light months away.

The minutes ticked down, and the first faint signals of active sensors registered, coming over the intercom as a haze of soft noise. The oscilloscope repeater near the captain's chair showed the signal, along with the line that indicated when they would be within detection range. The stealth/attack ships had the best passive sensor protection available, a skin that absorbed over ninety-five percent of the sensor emissions that hit them, and reflected another three percent at random angles away from the detectors of the emitting vessels. That left only a two percent return in the best of situations, and even then it had to be within close range. The scope was showing the lines of the radar and lidar, which wasn't actually aimed their way. They were getting the side bleed, which still might be enough. The lines kept getting stronger, reaching toward the detection line.

"Do you have a good targeting solution on those three ships?" asked Suttler of his tactical officer. He would have preferred not to fire on them and give his position away, but he might not have a choice. If he could take them out quickly enough the Cacas in system might not know what had happened. If there was only one of them, it might be possible that none of them would get off a signal. With three, there was no way something wouldn't get out. Once they spotted his ship they would fire on it. The Tigershark, still coasting at point five light, would go streaking by them, but not fast enough. They would be in beam range for over two minutes, and any missiles they fired in the first thirty seconds would be able to engage. After that they would have to accelerate after them in a chase that could last hours, unless they fell off the track, and that was only if they had survived the pass.

They were only seconds from falling into the estimated detection range, and the scouts were starting to turn in space.

"Graviton emissions," called out the sensor tech. "Spiking."

And then the enemy ships were gone, off the plot, having translated into hyper.

"They're bugging out for the system, sir."

Suttler breathed a sigh of relief. The ships were gone, with seconds to spare. Just another day in the silent service, he thought with an internal chuckle. Only seventeen more hours to go before they could fire.

*     *     *

DECEMBER 1ST, 1003. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

The Caca home system appeared on the viewer, magnified thousands of times while still remaining a view of the entire system. The bright dot of a G2 class star sat in the center of the view, while blinking dots with carets underneath pointed out all the major orbiting bodies.

"Think they know we're here?" asked the captain of the ship, Xavier Bien, his holo image up in the air beside the admiral's chair.

Muldoon didn't think so. They had dropped out of hyper five light months out, using their maskers to simulate Caca hyperdrive resonances. Then they had slipped into subspace, an older technology that was no longer used by any of the major combatants. Or hadn't been, until a wealthy eccentric had used it on a ship to sneak out of an Imperial system without the authorities being able to track him. Now it was making a comeback in Imperial service, in a limited manner. Limited, because as soon as the Cacas realized that the Empire was using it they would start installing the tracking systems in their own ships. For now it was still the perfect faster than light stealth technology.

The four ships had crept up at their maximum velocity in subspace, which had a twelve to one correspondence with normal space. It was actually better correspondence than hyper I, which only gave a nine point eight to one exchange. They could cruise forward the equivalent of ten point eight lights, covering four light months in a little over eleven days, constantly scanning hyperspace at the same time. Currently they were sitting twenty-six light days out from the star, above the ecliptic and looking down. They were still moving inward, coasting at point one light. And as far as they could tell, the system ahead wasn't at any kind of alert status.

In the meantime, those four ships were still looking at the system through passive sensors.  Camera views were fed into the massive computers of the ships, which looked over every body, finding any anomaly. The grav lens systems then focused in on those anomalies, bringing them into sharper view, feeding them back into the computers to enhance to ultimate resolution. They picked up three habitable planets, a quartet of gas giants, a pair of asteroid belts. The closer examination showed scores of huge space habitats, stations, factories. A couple of very large shipyards sat in the belts, multiple gas mines orbited the giants, and a hundred thousand antimatter production satellites sped in close orbit around the star.

"What do you think, tac?" asked the admiral of that officer.

"It looks like a heavily industrialized system, sir. That doesn't prove that this is the system we've come for, but it would be the way to bet."

Muldoon nodded. This system was at the proper coordinates, what the Maurids had given to Admiral Sergiov. Still, the plan had called for them to sneak in here and make sure, then make the determination on whether they would strike here, or move on. The admiral wasn't sure where they were supposed to move on to, since they would at that point have no idea where another likely system was located.

More information came in, enough to tell them that this was one of the most heavily industrialized systems anyone had ever heard of. Did that make it the capital? Maybe, but it was definitely worth hitting, and was more of a sure thing than trying to find another system.  Thousands of warships, many more industrial ships, tankers, ore freighters, repair vessels, transports.

"We're picking up a broadcast from inside the system, sir," said the force com officer. "Translations coming through."

A video of a Caca sitting behind some kind of podium appeared on the viewer, the being talking. The word 'emperor' was mentioned often enough, along with council.

"This has to be it," said Muldoon, looking over at his sensor officer. "Anything close to us in hyper."

"No, sir. There are a lot of ships coming and going in hyper, but nothing that seems to be on any kind of a search pattern. At least this far out."

"Then I think we're safe enough to start bringing across the rest of the force in a standard timeline," he said.

The orders started going out, and soon three wormholes were unshipped, gate frames erected around them, pointed toward the system. Minutes after the first of the gates was up the first ship came through, a standard hyper VI battleship, obsolete in many ways, but still an effective combat unit. Ships started coming out of all the gates, using thrusters to maneuver into position without the grabber emissions that might give them away to any passing enemy vessels. At the end of ten hours two hundred ships were in space, many now sporting wormholes transferred from the insertion vessels.

Along with the ships came the attack force commander, Admiral Heidi Wahlberg, aboard her battleship flagship, taking charge of everything as soon as her ship left the wormhole.

"Have we acquired all the targets?" asked Wahlberg of the insertion force commander after her entire attack force was in space. First they would swarm the system with untrackable wormhole launched missiles.  Then the ships would go in and mop up.

"I think these might be of interest, ma’am," said Muldoon’s tactical officer, pulling up a holo over his station, then expanding it into the empty space to the right while sending it over the com to the Teddy Roosevelt, Wahlberg’s flagship.

"I do believe so," replied the admiral, looking at the set of two shimmering mirrors above one of the habitable planets. A nearby Caca superbattleship gave it scale, large enough for four of those type of vessels to transit simultaneously.

The gate was round, verses the square arrangements of Imperial gates. Still, it seemed to be functional, and if Muldoon didn't miss his guess, it would be used to reinforce the front with his Empire. Which made them prime targets.

"And these?"

Another holo showed another gate, sitting above a gas giant, around which floated constructs that looked like dockyards. A lot of very large dockyards.

“Yes,” said Wahlberg. “Those will do nicely. Let’s make sure those all get enough to service them completely. I want nothing left behind but small pieces of debris. I would prefer plasma, but I'll accept small pieces."

Right now Muldoon’s flagship would control the wormhole launches from out here, since they already had their own launchers ready to go.

"I think I can guarantee that, ma’am," said the smiling tac officer, his fingers flying over his board, locking in targets before uploading the information into the firing net that would control all the launches. "All ships reporting in, ma’am. Everyone has their firing assignments and are ready to execute. ETA to system, seven hundred and seven hours."

Muldoon nodded as he looked at the other admiral across the com. He thought it was a very long time to wait, but it was a compromise, allowing them the best chance of getting the missiles in without the enemy realizing they were there. As soon as the first started hitting the assault force would jump into hyper and head in, taking four hours to get there, four hours while target after target exploded into plasma, and the enemy was disoriented. Now he had to hope that nothing got in the way of one of the missiles before they reached the system. Either by hitting something or going into boost to avoid that collision. It still might not matter, but it was something that could throw a wrench in the attack.

After he had fired the wormhole launches his part of the attack was over. Wahlberg would lead her force in, while he sat out here, waiting for her ships to come back for transit back home. Or until her force had been destroyed, in which case he would carry the news home. The only thing he could do otherwise was make sure the wormhole gates were still here. Hopefully by hiding. If forced to by fighting, in ships that really weren’t warships.

It took four hours to fire all the missiles set for the attack. Fifty wormholes, each firing thirty missiles every thirty seconds, without stop. Seven hundred and twenty thousand missiles. The greatest barrage ever launched by a human force, using every preacceleration tube in Imperial space. All offensive action had been halted on the front while this barrage went in. They would get their launchers back soon after the barrage. In one month the system ahead of them would catch hell.

And maybe we'll kill the son of a bitch that commands this cluster, he thought. That would be nice, icing on the cake so to speak.

*     *     *

“The ships have gotten to the insertion point, your Majesty,” said Sergiov over the com.

Though Admiral McCullom knew about the operation, the actual command and control was going through the intelligence chief. Sean had thought the CNO had enough on her plate, and Sergiov was in the secrets business.

“They have fired the missiles at the Caca system. ETA for engagement, seven hundred hours.”

A little less than a month, thought the monarch. A lot could still go wrong in that time. If the force was discovered they would go immediately to plan B, the assault force roaring in and smashing everything they could. They probably would get out. The hope would be that the wormhole missiles would be missed, and would still strike when they reached the system.

“Are we sure this is their capital?” asked Sean. Really too late, if the launch had already occurred.

“We have a high level of confidence, your Majesty. Everything seems to indicate that this is the place.”

“Keep me informed,” said Sean, terminating the com. He had another meeting to attend, and there was nothing he could do about something happening almost ten thousand light years away.

*     *     *

Lt. Colonel Jason Ngcobo stared at the zoomed image on his screen, taking in the ruined towers and columns of smoke rising high into the air. The city, one of the largest on the planet, was their current target, though they would not be entering it at this time. Fighting in a city was a no win situation, as shown by many battles in past wars. Armored vehicles, and even infantry, were at a disadvantage against defenders dug into their home territory. The defenders knew every building, every street, every underground tunnel. The Imperial Army might still kill more enemy than they themselves lost, but no one thought that was an enviable outcome.

The native infantry gathered under cover, brandishing the weapons and equipment they had been given by the Empire. There were at least two dozen species in that gathering of tens of thousands. Most were of a large, furry humanoid species that appeared to be the original inhabitants of this world. The next most common was an insectoid species that was gifted with a propensity to dig, fast and deep. They had dug the earthworks all of the other guerrillas were sheltering within.

There were at least ten thousand more guerrillas within the city, ready to rise up at the proper signal, which would soon be given.

We should have just pulled them out and flattened the damned place, thought the officer. To him that just made sense, as it would let them kill the defenders without putting so many of the former slaves at risk.

Command had decided instead that the shelter and machinery of the city would be needed for the survival of the natives. The planet was one with severe seasons due to its axial tilt, and its elliptical orbit brought on very hot summers and extremely cold winters. The way Ngcobo saw it, they were about to flatten the city anyway, and there wouldn't be much left intact when they were finished.

Not my call, he thought, shaking his head. He was only in charge of his own battalion during this assault, not the entire brigade. The other two battalions, heavy infantry, along with a couple of companies of support, were under the command of the brigadier just like his own. That woman would make the call.

The guerrillas were becoming restless, the irregular warriors talking furiously, gesturing. Ngcobo was expecting some them to start in without orders, and he was grateful for the heavy infantry troopers that were circulating among them to stiffen their discipline. They were still going to get slaughtered, but if they followed the plan more of them might be around at the end of this day than otherwise.

The tanks were in hull down position, their lower hulls behind earthen berms, their guns sticking out of the ports in the upper section of the fortifications. They had limited traverse, but the thirty-four tanks between them could cover the entire face of the city.

"Get ready, Colonel," came a call over the com. "Fire plan Alpha."

"Acknowledged." He changed the channel for a moment, going to the battalion net. "Unit will take fire command from brigade. Plan Alpha."

Now his people knew what to do, and he really had nothing to do himself but command his own tank. Unless the situation changed and new orders came down. The heavy infantry were getting ready for their part of the fire plan. They would stay in the earthworks, using their suit sensors and weapons to provide pinpoint fire support, while the artillery companies further back would drop rounds in from above. Hopefully it would be enough to keep the Cacas from effectively engaging the guerrillas. Hopefully, but Ngcobo wouldn’t count on it.

"Fire," yelled a voice over the com.

The tank bucked as the main gun sent out a supermetal penetrator at one hundredth light speed, three thousand kilometers a second. Slower than usual, the guns had been throttled back so the unarmored guerrillas wouldn’t have to undergo quite the kinetic beating. The building it was targeting exploded outward from its lower stories as the round impacted, channeling as much kinetic energy as five kilotons of explosives. Unlike explosives that would have detonated outside the building, the penetrator punched its force right into the bones of the structure. Hard metal girders snapped, others softened from the heat, and the weight of the building above the strike was more than it could take. With a groan the structure collapsed, almost appearing like a slow motion special effect from a movie. Dust rose into the air, obscuring the view for hundreds of meters in every direction, hopefully wiping out the Cacas who were using it as a defensive position. Barring that, it would at least obscure their vision.

Within seconds all thirty-four of the rounds hit, and more buildings collapsed, while in several areas huge chunks of earth gouted into the air. That was the signal for the artillery to fire, and scores of heavy rounds came plunging from the sky, launched from tubes far back and mortars close up. About half of the rounds made it, the others were detonated in the air by the counter fire of the enemy. Rounds screamed overhead toward the artillery, most of it taken out by lasers from the ground and orbit.

"Secondary targets locked in, sir," called out the gunner, and the plot came up on one of Ngcobo's screens. They had tracked the enemy fire, including their counter-fire, and now had those targets locked in for something they couldn't do anything about.

"All tanks, fire as you acquire. Then fire at will."

The command tank bucked again, sending another round downrange, and hit a laser defense site with a flare of fire, showering the city for hundreds of meters in each direction with dirt, mixed in with the remains of that weapon's crew. Even if the defense had been able to hit the incoming round, it covered the range too fast for any physical effect on it before it struck.

More artillery rounds arced in, this time only a few meeting interceptions, the rest impacting within the city.

"Guerrillas in the city are attacking, sir," said the com tech over the internal system. "Irregulars are being ordered in, now."

Ngcobo grunted in acknowledgment, watching on his viewer as the first of the aliens guerrillas got to their feet, however many they had, and charged over the earthworks. Some fired their weapons as soon as they were in the clear, a useless reaction as they had nothing to fire at. At the moment they were little more than targets to draw fire, letting the Imperial Army take out the enemy.

Lasers swept out from the enemy positions, illuminated as they cut through the dust. The irregulars were without armor of any kind, unless they happened to have salvaged some pieces from their former masters. The beams sliced through living bodies with ease, moving like an infinite sword blade. Beings screamed as limbs were lopped off, or fell in silence as heads or upper torsos were sliced, severing the brain or cutting through the lungs before they could expel the air needed for voices. Those with sense fell into depressions or got behind objects. The latter tactic didn't always work. It depended on the thickness and composition of the object, and hundreds of beings found to their terror that what they sheltered behind was not enough.

Tanks and infantry resumed their fire, keeping it well over the heads of the creatures they were supporting. Everything that had fired at the allies was targeted, most of it put out of action. The hypervelocity rounds from the tanks carried swirls of dust behind them, the vacuum knocking down beings still standing, in places causing physical damage to the creatures they flew over.

Rounds started coming in from the enemy artillery, and the defensive armament of the heavy suits and the vehicles blew almost all of it up before it could hit. Against the armor of the Imperial Army they would have caused no damage, but against mostly unarmored soft bodied creatures they wreaked a terrible killing, shrapnel scything down to cut living beings to shreds.

Artillery went over from the other direction, targeting the enemy guns, while kinetics came down from the warships above. The artillery duel didn't last long. It couldn't, when the human weapons outnumbered those of the enemy and the warships in orbit could overwhelm them with kinetics.

The guerrillas were back on their feet, roaring their anger, pain and fear as they ran toward the city. More lasers struck out, but went silent in instants as tank guns and particle beams from the infantry responded. The irregulars were up and down, getting closer with each rush.

"They're in," came the call over the com. "Cease fire."

The battle was not over by any means. Now it would be a close in slugging match between armored Cacas and unarmored former slaves. The Cacas had the advantages as individuals, while the irregulars had the advantage of numbers and the hate they carried with them.

The colonel opened the hatch over his station and raised himself out until his light battle armored body was out in the open. He stared over the field, filled with the distorted bodies of the more than ten thousand irregulars who had fallen in crossing it. Some were complete bodies, dead with no visible indication of the cause. Some were recognizable as the majority of the creature, parts missing. Some were basically the small pieces of what had been living beings. Ngcobo felt his stomach lurch as he looked over them, very glad that he was breathing the canned air supplied through his suit. The stench would have to be unbearable, especially with the passage of time. The engineers would be here to push them into mass graves before that happened, but the sight would never leave his memory.

The battle for the city went on for three hours. The heavy infantry had to move in to support the irregulars, getting into the fight, but the tanks stayed outside.

"We've taken it," said the voice over the com. Minutes later the first of the heavy infantry suits started to come out of the city, floating above the ground on their way back to their assembly areas. Some helped to carry other suits, troopers who had been wounded, or had their suits rendered ineffective, and the tanks would remain in place for a moment.

Thank God, thought the colonel as he watched the infantry. This was the last one on this continent. There still might be some strongholds on the planet, but nothing of this size. He took in the view from space in his station holo, looking over the hundreds of square kilometers of urban areas. About half of the structures had survived, which would give shelter to the survivors, but how many had died? More than he wanted to think about. This world had been freed from its masters, and the Imperial corps that had taken this hemisphere had taken much fewer casualties than if they had had attempted to take the land areas by themselves. That allowed them to retain most of their strength for the next slated invasion. It was cold, but in the equation of war it made sense. It still wasn't something to be proud of.

Chapter Twenty-one

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory. Sun Tzu

DECEMBER 7TH, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT.

"We've taken their central command center, General," came the call over the com. "I think Tonatus is ours."

Cornelius linked in with the com, pulling up the holo that showed the face of the regimental commander on the other end.

"That's, unexpected," he said, pulling up the information on the target planet on another holo. It really was unexpected, since the mission had only been to cause disruption to the industrial planet. Only a battalion of Rangers had been deployed. They had organized maybe a hundred thousand guerrillas out of the slaves. At no time had that seemed enough to take the world away from the Cacas, who had occupied it in force.

"What happened, Colonel?"

"Beats the hell out of me, sir. All we know is that there have been a lot of shuttle departures in the last week, and we have stopped running into any organized formations of Caca troops. There are still some small units, but nothing to worry about."

Cornelius thought about that for a moment, and it still didn't sound right. He didn't expect the Cacas to fold that easily. That wasn't like them. They might be murderous bastards, but they weren’t cowards.

"Don't let down your guard, Colonel. I have a bad feeling about this."

"I don't think we have a worry, sir," said the lower ranking officer, a smile on his face. "The bastards have to know they're beaten here. They've evacuated and headed for better battlegrounds."

"I don't like that attitude, Colonel," said Cornelius, his eyes narrowing. "Again, I want you to be cautious. Don't let your men let their guard down. Not until we're sure that they're not up to something. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now I'll let you get back to your conquest, while I work on the mission orders for the next series of invasions."

Walborski shook his head. He had heard the term victory disease from his classes in OCS. The idea that everything was going so well that nothing could possibly go wrong. Until it did. One thing he had never done on a mission was let his guard down. He couldn't even understand that attitude, and it drove him crazy seeing it in others. Letting down your guard while in the field was just asking for trouble.

"I would like data on how the battle goes on all of my brigade's operations," he told his computer, and waiting a few seconds for the holos to come up.

It was as he thought. The Cacas were fighting tooth and nail on all of the worlds except for Tonatus. They fought for every inch of land. The forces his people were organizing had been able to take them on, overwhelming them by numbers, concentrating on a small formation of enemy and then swamping them. But Tonatus was different. There the enemy had retreated in almost all instances. It didn’t make sense, unless they had a smarter than average commander who knew what he was about.

I wish I knew what was going on there, he thought. Unfortunately, they didn't control the orbitals of any of those worlds, so observation from space was out. They had some limited drone support, as long as the damned things weren't shot down. Which was normally within minutes of deployment. They could put a few microsats in orbit, but the reconnaissance value of a small number of the sats almost nil. All they had was ground recon, and that didn't give them a good picture of what was going on over the horizon.

"Get Colonel Marshal on the com," he said, waiting a few moments for the com signal to go through the wormhole, then make its way to wherever the colonel had his own command post.

"Sir," said the man, looking surprised that his commanding officer was contacting him again so soon.

"There's something going on at Tonatus, Colonel. I've compared the patterns of all nine worlds in my area of operations, and Tonatus is different."

"Because their forces have collapsed, sir. Isn't that a good thing?"

"They have apparently collapsed, Colonel. And we have come to accept that it is so."

The other officer stared at him. Colonel Marshal had been in the Army for almost thirty years. He was a graduate of the Saint-Cyr Academy, near the top of his class, and had been in special operations for over twenty-five years. So it went without saying that he was suspicious of a superior who had been in the Imperial Army for less than five years, and was a Mustang to boot, an elevated enlisted man. Even if that enlisted man had many times the intensity/hours of combat experience of the officer.

But, dammit, I know I'm right, thought Cornelius, deciding it was a bad idea to browbeat this officer. Walborski was a leader, so he needed to lead.

"Humor me, Colonel," he finally said. "I know I haven't been at this game as long as you have, but I've been in the shit. And my instincts are screaming at me. Consider it a caution from one of your senior NCOs. You'd listen to them, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then listen to this jumped up sergeant who lucked out enough to get some rank handed to him. I have the feeling that the Cacas are trying to pull something. So do me a favor, and make sure your men are ready to duck and cover. Okay?"

"And the guerrillas?"

"Try your damnedest to make them listen. Try to get as many of them under cover as you can before the shit hits it. But you can only do what you can do. They aren't disciplined troops. They're closer to being barbarian warriors than anything, and I don't expect them to listen to reason. But try anyway."

"And then we abandon them? Isn’t that kind of a shitty thing to do?"

"No, Colonel," said Cornelius, feeling his own anger rise with his exasperation. "We don't abandon them, but standing out in the open and dying with them accomplishes nothing. Now, nothing might happen, and I could just be turning into an old lady."

"I doubt that, sir," said the officer with a smile. "No one gets an Imperial Medal of Heroism by being a granny. Much less three of them."

Good, thought Cornelius. He really hadn't given a damn for the medals themselves, but the effect they had on other fighting men could be useful at times.

"Then listen to your courageous leader," he said with a laugh, eliciting one from the other officer.

"I'll tell my people to look out, sir. And I'll try my best to get our guerrillas to listen as well."

"That's great to hear, Colonel." And it means I won't have to relieve you of duty, which wouldn't do your career any good.

Cornelius ended the transmission and went back to work, with the nagging worry of what might be going on on Tonatus, and when it was going to bite them in the ass.

*     *     *

"Firing range in five minutes, sir," said Longo, looking back at the admiral.

"Very well," said Bryce Suttler, staring at the system plot, wondering if there was anything he was missing. It showed everything they knew about the system, including a lot that had been guesswork most of the way in. Like where powered down ships were located. A group of those were the first target. And all of the stealth attack ships were on the plot, since they were estimating their own positions by triangulating on system objects, then sending their data through their wormholes.

The wormhole on Tigershark was currently reconfiguring from heat sink to missile launcher. The most involved part of that process was going on back at the Donut, where that aspect of the portal was transferred from the supercold heat sink to the launching platform. Their ship would still hold in most of the heat of the mostly powered down vessel. After twenty minutes they would become noticeable at close range. Within an hour they would become a heat blip on every ship within fifteen light minutes of their position. Of course, once their missiles started hitting targets the enemy would have to know something was in his midst.

"Everyone ready?" the admiral asked the com tech, who had been constantly monitoring the task group net.

"All units are reporting primed and ready, sir. Clocks synchronized."

Suttler nodded. All would not be in the perfect position for their shoot. Since they were firing missiles that would be closing on their targets at near light speed, it didn't really matter as much as the weapons all engaging within the time frame. That would give them the best chance of getting away. Of course, if they hit all their targets they could leave the system at full boost while blaring their com on all frequencies, yelling obscenities at the Cacas, but they couldn't count on that.

"Two minutes," called out Longo, their first target now centered in the viewer.

Suttler leaned forward in his chair, a tight smile on his lips. There were five superbattleships on the viewer, all looking like small toys as the view was expanded out to cover them all. The admiral triggered his own view through his implant, and found himself looking at one of the twenty-five million ton warships, until very recently the most powerful vessels known. They were still a major threat, and something the Empire needed taken out.

"Manta is reporting that they are taking active sensor pings," called out the sensor tech.

Suttler pulled up the location of that ship on the plot, swearing under his breath. Manta was on the other side of the star, in position to fire on the asteroid production facilities in the first belt, one AU out from the habitable planet. If they were discovered, whatever was there could grav pulse a signal telling everyone else there was a threat to the system. It wouldn't get through the star, but anything at an angle would get it, and they could relay it to the other side. Unless they had a wormhole in the system, which was doubtful, they couldn't get detailed information to the rest of their units. That probably wasn't going to cause to much of a problem, but Suttler would prefer to avoid the chance of something going wrong.

"One minute."

"Manta is reporting that they are being fired upon by a cruiser class ship. They've taken a hit. They’re opening fire."

There were forty seconds left on the clock, Too little time for the enemy to do anything, wasn't it? But if they activated their electromag fields and their close in defense systems, there could be some misses.

"Grav pulse signals permeating the system, sir," called out the sensor tech.

There was no more time to wait. The decision was here.

"All vessels are to open fire as soon as they have a solution," ordered the admiral. "Commander Longo, you may fire when ready."

It only took the commander five seconds to have the missiles locked in on a new solution. "Firing," called out Longo. The ship shook slightly as the stream of missiles left the wormhole portal.

The five Caca battlewagons were almost a light minute away, just over a minute's flight time for the missiles. The other targets were further off, from two to seven light minutes. Suttler had assigned these targets to his vessel on purpose. The other ships were going after much more closely spaced targets, with the exception of the eight ships attacking the antimatter sats near the star.

"Locking on to second target," called out Longo when the thirty seconds needed to switch the other end of the wormhole to another launch tube had passed. The data, entered at his panel, went into the station keeping system of the ship, turning her nose onto the target. The ship shuddered slightly again, and sent another thirty missiles off, this one at the nearby docks. Those would require at least a second launch, and the ship continued to point at the target, two light minutes distant, for the next shot.

"First launch, contact," yelled out the tactical officer. The ships were not in boost, so there was no way they were going to get a sensor read on it in real time. The viewer zoomed in on them, while the tactical officer sent the second launch at the docks, then oriented the ship onto the third launch, four and a half light seconds away.

The viewer had zoomed out, taking in all the battleships in the group, glinting in the starlight. The timer ticked down, the missiles silently zooming in, then appearing on the plot as they engaged their grabbers for terminal maneuvers, three seconds from the targets. In four seconds all of the grabber signals had disappeared, and the timer switched to the countdown to visual.

The first sign that something had happened was the lidar detector going off. Three of the ships had fired lasers, and a trio of warheads blossomed in space as bright points, just before a score more went off right on top of the battleships. The viewer zoomed in on one of the ships in time to see it come apart under the combined assault of kinetic energy and antimatter warheads. The ships didn't have a chance, and in less than a second one hundred and twenty-five million tons of warships, along with almost twenty-five thousand crew, converted to fast moving plasma.

"Yes," shouted Longo, pumping a fist in the air. He looked back with a smile of triumph on his face, which soon reddened as he realized he had other targets to service.

"Firing on third target," he called out, and the ship shook again, sending out the fourth launch of the attack.

Suttler switched his attention back and forth from the viewer now looking at the docks and the overall system plot. Information was coming in from all the ships, showing their locations, targets engaged, and strikes. So far everything was going according to plan. Thirty-two ships were firing missiles, while the eight in among the antimatter sats were using fraction of a second bursts of wormhole particle beams to take out the manufacturing satellites. Those ships would lock onto the future position of a sat, then released a short burst of the protons into an intercept. A moment later they would lock onto the next one and repeat the process. They weren't using valuable missiles and warheads on targets much too fragile for them, and were taking out a hundred of the sats a minute each, much better than they could have done with missile launches.

"We have missile launch, sir," cried out the sensor tech, hands flying over her board as she tried to keep up with all the data. "Nothing heading our way," she said with a relieved voice.

"Manta just dropped off the net, sir,” called out the again anxious com officer. “So has Grampus," she said, her voice rising.

The battle was joined now, the enemy picking up some of the intruders and returning fire. It was still an unequal fight, and it didn't take long for all enemy launch platforms to be silenced.

Suttler watched as the vid from the launch on the docks came back. As with the ships, there was a scattering of defensive fire, and a quartet of warheads detonated prior to reaching their targets. About half the docks went up in plasma, scaffolding, quarters and ships under construction or repair vaporized. The visual on the second wave came in thirty seconds later, and more defensive fire took out eleven of the incoming weapons. When the flashes of antimatter fire cleared there were still nine docks left.

"Take the docks under fire with another stream," ordered Suttler. He switched the view to the next target, a set of habitats in orbit around the star, their attendant factories along with them. That was one of the targets he had qualms about, since most of the structures were the quarters of what would be considered civilian workers in the Empire. High Command had gone to some lengths to explain that they were what would be considered militarily vital personnel and structures, and taking them out would significantly impact the Caca war effort. The only way to take them out without heavy casualties to the enemy and their slave workers would be to board each individual habitat, and no one wanted to do that.

The habitats had little in the way of defense, and the vid coming back showed them coming apart under the bombardment. Some were in the billion ton range, so a hit didn't mean total destruction, and large pieces went tumbling off into space. The factories were a different story, and each one hit was a kill.

"Send another stream toward the habitats," ordered Suttler, still feeling a lot of guilt at hitting structures that could contain females and children, knowing that Caca females were not vital workers. And the slaves had surely not wanted to be there. He knew he would have nightmares down the road about this attack. If it saved the lives of citizens of the Empire he would take the nightmares.

In fifteen minutes it was over everyplace but the environs of the star. Ships were heading out, still coasting at half light. The ships near the star were still on their paths, taking out every satellite they possibly could in the allotted time. When they passed eighty percent of the antimatter production of the system was no more, and they turned on their axis and continued to fire as they fell away.

"Launch the drone toward the planet," ordered the admiral. The small drone, as stealthy as anything in space, left the ship and decelerated at thousands of gravities, headed on a path that would first take it into orbit of the habitable planet, then into the atmosphere to scout out the surface. When it found a suitable point it would land and deploy a self-expanding wormhole gate, and the liberation of this planet would begin. Soon Rangers and weapons would come through, and more would die.

Twenty hours after the attack all of the ships were ten light hours outside the system, kicking in their deceleration so they could jump into hyper and move away, to rendezvous with their hyper VII carriers, the battle cruisers, at the predetermined points.

Suttler sat back in his seat, his nerves a frazzle from being up for over twenty-four hours. The mission had been a complete success. He had lost four ships and crews, always hard on a commander. But his people and vessels had performed as expected, and another alien system had been taken off the board as a military resource.

*     *    *

The artillery came in on the position of the guerrillas with less than a few seconds warning. Not that warning would have done them much good. They had nothing in the way of defensive weapons to shoot down artillery and rockets, and they didn't control the orbitals of this world.

The Rangers had been ordered to move away from the irregulars, who were too busy celebrating their victory over their former masters. A couple of hundred thousand beings danced and capered through the streets of the last stronghold city, one that had fallen so easily and with so few losses. Now they would pay for it. They drank and ate, firing their weapons into the air, totally unaware of what was about to happen.

The first thing to hit was a pair of kinetics coming down from the one Caca destroyer still in orbit. Each with yields in ten megaton range, they took out scores of square kilometers of area, incinerating everything within those regions. Hundreds of artillery rounds fell on the other regions, killing more thousands of beings. Next, air strikes came over and hit the largest remaining clusters of beings.

The forty thousand or so irregulars still alive panicked, not an unusual reaction considering what they were being hit with. That was when the Caca armor and infantry struck, thousands of them coming out of hidden redoubts to overrun the disorganized irregulars.

Cornelius watched the take of the slaughter. The flashes of the kinetics, the artillery rounds bursting in the air to scythe down unarmored irregulars, aircraft dropping cluster bombs on groups of civilians.

The irregulars still outnumbered the attackers, which was their only advantage, but the thousand or so armored Cacas went through them like a laser through soft tissue. It didn't take long, and the Cacas were not taking prisoners. In the end the entire force of guerrillas was destroyed to a being. The Cacas took no chances, killing everything not of their race, leaving bodies behind.

"We got our people out in time," said Colonel Marshal, his shocked face looking out of the holo. "We tried to get the aliens out, but they refused to move. Why the hell wouldn't they listen to us?"

Because they didn't have the discipline of soldiers, thought Walborski. Because they thought they had beaten the hated masters, and it was time to celebrate. They weren't about to let reality spoil their party.

"Get that battalion back into the wilderness, Colonel. I don't want them providing a target for the enemy."

"And then, sir?"

"And then we’ll see about recruiting some more irregulars and arming them," said Cornelius, not really liking the sound of that. More former slaves would die, trying for the promise of freedom for themselves and their families. And most of them would only achieve the freedom of death.

"Yes, sir," said the Colonel, then faded from the holo as Cornelius disconnected the com.

The brigadier slammed his fist on his desk, his enhanced strength making it sound a crack that could be heard outside his office. An aide stuck a head in the room, seeing if his commanding officer was okay. A glance and a snarl from the Ranger sent the man closing the door and heading back to mind his own business.

I should never have accepted promotion, thought Walborski, staring into the space the holo had occupied, the one that had showed him so many people dying, their only crime listening to the Empire and accepting the weapons they had been given. Once I accepted OCS, I set myself up for this.

If he had stayed enlisted the most he would have had to worry about was eventual promotion to first sergeant, and he would still be out in the field. He might have had to accept his medals, and possibly a patent of nobility, but he wouldn't be in the position he found himself in now. Now he was trapped. The military wouldn't allow him to resign in time of war, and if he disobeyed orders he might be facing jail time. He had pushed it as far as he could with the Emperor, and it would be bad for discipline if he were allowed to get away with anything more.

"You have your orders, Colonel. The hard transcripts will come down shortly. I want you to organize as many freed slaves as you can. Kill Cacas, Colonel. Kill them until there aren't any more to kill. Don't give them a break, unless that break is in hell."

Chapter Twenty-two

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. Robert Frost

DECEMBER 12TH, 1003. CENTRAL FRONT.

"Colonel. You have a personal message coming in from home," said the brigade com officer from their portable headquarters.

Jason Ngcobo looked at the com panel at his command station as if it were a ghost snake from his home world, about to bite his hand and inject its agonizingly painful venom into his body.

The battle for the planet was over. They had taken heavy casualties, but the former slaves had taken devastating loses. The world was now theirs, and they had paid the price. They were celebrating their victory, but soon reality would strike, and the mourning would be up to epic proportions.

"Put them through," he replied, sure who was going to be on the other side of the com. He felt guilty at having the military and social rank that allowed him to hear from home, when so many others in the army were cut off until the priorities of the campaign were taken care of.

"Jason," said his mother as soon as her face appeared on the holo. "It's over. Your father is gone."

Ngcobo felt what could only be thought of as relief. Not that he had wanted his father to die. Anything but. But his time had come, and the man had lived over three hundred and fifty years, a good long life by any measure, and almost four times longer than the relative maximum of humanity before they had left the Earth. He had been suffering for over a year, on death's doorstep. And now he was gone.

"He's in Heaven now, son," continued his mother, tears streaming down her face.

Jason didn't believe in Heaven. He had lost his belief in any kind of God decades before, and being immersed in death as he had been in this campaign, he saw no reason to change his opinion. The personality that had been his father was gone. They could have uploaded him into a computer, as some of the very rich did. But his father had been a believer, a practicing Reformed Catholic, and to him it was blasphemy to try and avoid his fate. The colonel himself wasn't sure what he would do when his time came, if he actually had some warning, and it didn't happen in a flash of fury that took his life and consciousness in an instant.

"I am so sorry, mother."

"Will you be here for the funeral?" she asked. Implicit in that question was the accusation that he hadn't been there at the deathbed when his father was living his last days.

"I can't. Mother. We are in the middle of a campaign. Father would have understood. I am a soldier, and it's my duty to fight for the Empire against its enemies. I watched hundreds of the people under my command die, and thousands of others who weren't my responsibility."

"Your father might have understood," she said, her eyes narrowing and her expression turning angry. "But I don't."

The holo faded before he could say another word. He thought for a moment about trying to get her back so he could explain. But that wouldn't do anything. She was thinking with her emotions, and there was no way he could reason with her.

I'll mourn him later, he thought. Now he only had time for taking care of his duty. He had letters to record, addressing all of the men who had died under his command. And then there was the reorganization that his battalion would have to undergo before it was ready for the next fight. Hopefully that wouldn't come for another month, but he needed to get it as ready as it could, because the future was not set. He might be called on to fight in the next week, or possibly tomorrow.

It'll do me good to keep busy, he thought, opening the hatch leading out of his station and starting to climb out. He hadn't showered in almost a week, and it would be good to get out of his battle armor and attempt to feel human again. He wished wars were similar to what was in the old novels. Glory and medals, and people always dying for good reason. Instead, it was blood and guts, no glory, and death that wasn't always meaningful. It was up to him to take the commands of those above him and try to make the deaths of his people mean something. Including his own, if it came to that.

*     *     *

"We got all of my people off the target zone, sir," said Walborski, looking into the face of the man he had tried to emulate, becoming a Ranger, then a Ranger officer.

Preacher nodded, looking into the eyes of the younger man.

Walborski still felt like a pretender at times. He had jumped up the promotion ladder while most of the people under him had worked slow and steady in the mostly peacetime army getting their rank. They had put in the time, he hadn't. This man had done it the slow way. Missions here and there, enough to become a legend in the community, as he worked for years to ascend each rung of the ladder. Unlike a jumped up Maverick.

Sometimes it seemed to him that he got his rank due to his friendship with so many people in high places. People like Preacher, and of course the Emperor. They would deny it, saying that he had proven himself on the field of battle. Still, he had his doubts.

"How the hell did you know they would do that?" asked the senior officer, looking out of the holo.

"It just made sense to me, Preacher. Of course, I've spent the last couple of years crawling through the brush, looking for ways to hurt the enemy. And to me this looked like too good a chance to pass up. It would have been something I would have done if I had been in their place."

Tens of thousands of former slaves, with no military training, armed and advised by humans to become a guerrilla army. With no armor, no air support, no air and space defense weapons. The best way to fight a force like that was not to engage until they stepped into a situation where you could bring your own heavy firepower to bear.

“It was a good call. You saved a battalion of Rangers.”

“But I let the guerrillas die.”

“You didn’t let them die, son. You tried to get them to move off the impact zone. But they didn’t have the training to realize you knew what you were talking about. Good thing Marshal did.”

Or maybe the people who put me in charge knew what they were doing, he thought. The Rangers were elite troops, just like the Marine Recon and Fleet Commandos. They were trained in organizing covert behind the lines missions, which in space could mean hundreds of light years behind the front. The wormholes had brought a lot of changes in how they could deploy and how they could resupply. Prior to wormholes there was an over fifty percent chance that an insertion would be discovered and all of the troops wiped out. Now it was unheard of for a unit to be destroyed before they were on the ground. Still, they were used to dealing with their own, highly trained, highly disciplined soldiers who rarely made stupid mistakes.

And they were being called on to organize guerrilla bands who were not well trained, and not at all disciplined. The former slaves fought with emotion, with passion, and didn't always think things out. They were liable to run in their thousands right into the heavy fire of prepared defenses, or out into the open where they could be hit by heavy weapons or space based assets. The Imperial forces wouldn't be among them. Cornelius thought it a shitty deal for the guerrillas. But command thought that if they wanted their freedom, which was obvious from the way they fought and died, they should provide the bodies to take their homes back from the Cacas.

"I would like to pull my men off of that planet. We've lost the irregulars, and there is no way a battalion of Rangers can fight the division the Cacas have left. At most we can snipe at them, and even then they’re prepared for us."

"Sorry, Brigadier," said Preacher, shaking his head. From the expression on his face he was hating himself for the order he had to give. "Orders have come down from Central Command. We are going to ship in more weapons, enough for twenty thousand more irregulars. Your battalion is to organize them into companies and continue to hit the Cacas. And this time you are to emphasize to your people from the beginning that they are not to hit them where they are strong, and they are not to celebrate their victories, no matter how final they may seem at the moment."

"My people are not going to like this. They got attached to many of the irregulars who were killed."

That was a major danger with an operation like this. The Rangers had to live with the guerrillas. They heard their stories, learned about their lives, in many cases even met members of their families. And then they had to lead them into battles where the exchange rate could be ten to one against them. Or, like had happened here, be wiped out almost to a being. Now they had to talk thousands more into taking the places of those who had died, telling them all the time that they had a chance against their technologically advanced enemies. The only chance they had was to weaken them, then survive long enough for the Fleet to come in and land heavy troops while they controlled the orbitals.

Cornelius had led guerrillas. He knew how it felt, getting close enough to see them as individuals, not merely as numbers on a ledger. It might have been easier on him if he was still out there, taking the same risks.

"And they don't have to like it," growled Preacher, his own anger at the orders rising to the fore. "You think I like it. Sending all these thinking beings into the meat grinder. Killing fathers, sons, mothers, daughters."

"There were some neuters and other sexes in there as well, sir."

"You know what the hell I mean, Cornelius. They're thinking beings. They had their own hopes and dreams, which didn't include their lifeless bodies rotting under some sun or other."

"I guess the same must be true of the Cacas," said the other officer with a tight smile.

"The hell with them,” said Preacher. “I don't give a damn about any Cacas. They can all die and rot for all I care."

Cornelius nodded as he clenched his fists and throttled back his emotions. He hated the Ca'cadasans with a passion. They had killed his first wife, and he had seen what they had done to other planets. They had turned him into the Hunter, and he would go out of his way to kill any and all of them, at any time and place.

Chapter Twenty-three

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. Will Rogers

DECEMBER 27TH, 1003. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

"We're picking some anomalous readings from outside the system, my Lord," said the officer in charge of the deep space sensor array control center.

"Well, what are they?" asked the high admiral in charge in the system defenses.

"It appears to be something engaging with grabbers, my Lord. Either a large object with normal boost, or something smaller with a very high boost. And, it's gone."

"Could it have been a missile?" asked the high admiral over the holo.

"It could have been, my Lord. Or it could have been a ship."

"I want a patrol to sweep that area immediately," the admiral ordered. He stood and thought for a moment, then looked back at his subordinate. "And send a patrol to backtrack whatever it was."

"We don't have a full course on it, my Lord."

"Then draw a line from the location of the trace into the center of the system, and back from there, you idiot,” yelled the admiral, frustrated at the stupidity of his subordinate. “That will give the patrol something to work with."

"Yes, my Lord."

The high admiral stared at the other male for a moment, wondering why he had been burdened with such incompetents. The answer was, they needed all the competent males out with the fleet, and he got whatever was left over.

The holo went blank, and the high admiral considered whether he should kick this upstairs or not. After much thinking he decided it wasn't worth the effort. It was probably nothing, and if it disturbed the Emperor it could lead to his demise. Better to see if it really was something first.

*     *     *

"Sir. One of our missiles just went into avoidance boost."

"Where? And for how long?"

"Approximately here, sir," said the tactical officer, pulling up a schematic. "It boosted for approximately four seconds. Seven hours away from target."

"Damn."

"And we have ships from the outskirts of the system jumping into hyper."

"Double damn." He looked over at the tactical officer. "Time till first impact?"

"Approximately seventy-three minutes, sir. On what we think is the proximity of the capital planet."

Well, it could have been worse, he thought. It was too late to evacuate the primary targets of the system. They might be able to get some hundreds of thousands away, but that still left hundreds of millions on the bullseye. It would have worse if they had been targeting the living worlds, which they were not. Every weapon had been programed to avoid those planets by ten thousand kilometers, which left plenty of targets.

“Get this information to Admiral Wahlberg. She’ll probably want to prepare for an early attack.”

If it had been up to me, we would have put fifty missiles into each of those worlds, thought Muldoon, who had had family on both Cimmeria and Balduras. Balduras, a frontier world, had been invaded, and all humans killed, many to be taken as rations for the obligate carnivore Cacas. Cimmeria had been wiped clean of life, everyone killed. He would have preferred to raise the temperature on every Caca inhabited world to ten thousand degrees. But the missiles had been programed with their failsafes back in the launch tubes, and there was no way he could override them.

Just as well, he thought. Enraged as he was at this enemy, he really didn't think he would have been able to live with the title mass murderer attached to his name. He would have to be satisfied with the waves of fighters that would mob those worlds, hitting definite military installations.

"Are all ships prepared to jump?"

"Yes, sir," said the com officer moments later. "Admiral Wahlberg reports they are, as she said, locked and cocked."

What he really wanted to see were the looks on the Caca high command's faces when the missiles started going off, and they picked up over four hundred capital ships and cruisers heading into the system. And that bastard of an Emperor? He might actually survive if they got him to shelter on one of the planets.  That would be a shame, but they didn't have the Marines to invade and root him out.

Not long now, he thought, checking the countdown in his implant. Not long at all.

*     *     *

"We've picked up more anomalies, my Lord. Closer to the system. We.... just picked up one within twenty million kilometers of Martqua."

The high admiral stared at the holo in disbelief. Martqua was the innermost gas giant of the system, and one of the primary hydrogen sources of the Empire. Not that hydrogen rich gas giants were rare, but the industrial facilities to process their bounty were. There were hundreds of industrial facilities in orbit or on one of the many moons, and over fifty tankers in close proximity at any given moment. And any of those could be targets.

"We have a confirmed kill, my Lord. The cruiser was able to get a full strength laser shot into it from behind and it blew. Estimated yield in the gigaton range."

So it was a missile. The admiral looked at the plot, realizing in an instant that this could not be the same anomaly they had picked up previously. That one had been on track to enter the inner system in a couple of hours, while this one had been much closer.

"Send out an alert, now," he yelled at the male on the other side of the holo.

"What kind of alert?" croaked the surprised male.

"Maximum alert, you fool. We're under attack."

"Under attack," stammered the male.

The high admiral severed the com in disgust, making a mental note to punish that male when he had the time. He connected to the general net instead. "Maximum alert. The system is under attack."

Chatter started coming back through the system, calls of clarification, of disbelief. One com overrode all the others, and the image of the supreme admiral, newly promoted since the ascension of the young Emperor, appeared.

"What are you talking about?" screamed the supreme admiral, his eyes glaring out of the holo.

"We have two anomalies that could be missile tracks, my Lord. And one turned out to be a genuine missile, in the gigaton range."

"Two anomalous tracks," said the supreme admiral. “You're calling a system wide alert for two anomalous tracks."

"But the missile detonation? That proves that there’s something out there that can hurt us." The com system was blowing up with calls. Close range laser coms, grav pulses, thousands of ships, bases and commands, all asking clarification.

"Have you investigated the detonation? Determined what it was?"

The high admiral looked with disbelief at the being that was in charge of the entire Ca'cadasan military. The former commander hadn't been the brightest officer ever, but he at least possessed some basic intelligence. This male had to have achieved his position because of loyalty, and nothing else.

"We don't have time to investigate, my Lord. We are under attack."

"Next time, prove it before you call a maximum alert. If there is a next time."

The holo went blank. The high admiral recognized the threat at the end of that last statement. And implicit was the cancellation of the alert.

And that is something I will not do, he thought, connecting back into the net. "We have a maximum alert. Repeat, maximum alert. Attack imminent. All units are to fire upon anything that doesn't meet security protocols." The alert was going out on all channels, radio, laser, and grav pulse. Every unit in the system was receiving it within seconds of transmission.

Signals started coming in, and the high admiral recorded and sent out an automatic acknowledgment that the alert was real. There were also several coming in from command. Those he ignored. He knew his duty, and would pay the price if it came to that. Now he could only hope that it was not too late.

*     *     *

"We have another grabber pulse, sir. Another of our missiles went into avoidance."

"Shit." The first strike was less than ten minutes away. There was nothing they could do about it, was there?

"The system is lighting up with grav pulse coms, sir. We can't read most of it, but what we are able to decode is repeating some kind of alert."

"They know something is up, sir."

No shit, thought the admiral, looking at the sensor officer. You must have scored very high on your intelligence measures.

"We have ships on the move, sir. Several hundred, grabbers on full. First impact in three minutes, twenty-two seconds."

"Let's turn their attention toward us for a couple of minutes. Get me Admiral Wahlberg."

A moment later the face of the commander of the attack force appeared on the holo near Muldoon's command chair. Full Admiral Heidi Wahlberg looked too damned relaxed to be an officer about to lead an outnumbered assault force on an attack of an enemy home system. Her blue eyes sparkled as she ran a hand down her pony tail of red hair.

"Admiral. I suggest that you start your assault." That was all he could do, suggest, since he was only the commander of the insertion group, and not the overall leader of the attack force.

"I agree, Admiral. I'm sending out the order now. And if you would please make sure our escape route stays open, I would appreciate it."

"We'll try, ma'am," said Muldoon, bowing. After all, Wahlberg was a countess, he a mere knight, so she outranked him both militarily and civilly.

The holo died, and he turned his attention to the plot, where all of the ships of the attack force were boosting at their maximum rate, jumping up into hyper moments later. They continued to boost until they reached the halfway point to the next barrier, then decelerated, jumping down to V, then repeating the process down to IV, and so on. Hopefully catching the attention of the Cacas for some few minutes. Minutes later the Cacas had other things to capture their attention as missiles started boosting on final approach within the system, thousands of them.

*     *     *

The high admiral stared at the plot as several thousand new objects appeared, missiles moving at point nine-five light, their grabbers pulling at the fabric of space to make the final adjustments. Seconds later the first of the tracks disappeared, since they had contacted their targets and no longer existed except as clouds of spreading plasma. Several of the targets were within ten thousand kilometers of the capital planet.

A space habitat went up in a brilliant flash, visible from the surface, visible from the viewer in the admiral's command bunker. Twenty thousand beings went up with that flash, the great majority Ca'cadasans. The dockyards the habitat serviced went up a microsecond later, so small a unit of time that it seemed to be simultaneous. Six missiles slashed into the dockyard, taking out thousands more intelligent beings, and carrying many ships in various stages of production with them.

More habitats, docks, fortresses, and space defense satellites were hit. Ships in orbit, freighters, transports and system defense vessels, went up moments after the easy to track targets. It took some more maneuvering to hit ships that might not have even been there when the missiles were launched. Still they were hit and blown out of space. None were able to lock on and fire in their defense. Most only had a few seconds to react, and they were not ready. None were able to handle the kinetic energy that was transferred into them, the gigaton warhead doing little more than mix the plasma slightly. Within seconds of the start of the attack there was not an object in orbit that wasn't closer than ten thousand kilometers from the atmosphere of the world.  Some objects in the outer reaches of that forbidden zone were also hit, the reason why the region had been so large.

Terrified inhabitants of closer in habitats and stations, ships in lower orbit, watched as hundreds of bright flashes occurred above them. They waited for death to come for them. It was coming, but they would have to wait some time for its arrival.

Flashes appeared across the surface of the airless primary moon, blasting across and through the crust of the no longer tectonically active world. Fireballs rose into the air, not fed by flame, but instead by the superheating of the actual regolith of the surface. Cities, military installations, fusion plants powering new negative matter production, all were blotted out, some by direct hits, others by the massive quakes generated by the relativistic missiles. When the missile storm was over the once lifeless world was devoid of life again, but this time its surface was molten. It now had an actual atmosphere of vaporized rock and metal. The smaller moon, also an industrial base, was worked over at the same time.

The high admiral checked the coms after the storm was over, horrified that such destruction had come to the environs of the home world. And shocked that nothing had actually hit the home world. He couldn't understand it. The humans didn't have the religious belief of the Ca'cadasans, and they had every reason to kill this world. Still….

"We need to get the Emperor into a shelter," he shouted over the com, knowing it was all he could do. If the enemy did hit the planet with a number of relativistic missiles, there was no shelter built that could save him, but evacuating him into space at such a time would be a sure death sentence.

The plot was now showing hundreds of enemy ships coming toward the system in hyper, least time stair step approach. He was about to send out an order for all ships in the system to relocate to a position where they could hit the enemy soon after they entered normal space, when thousands of more object appeared on the plot, inside the system.

*     *     *

"Supreme Lord. We need to get you to safety."

"What is happening?" asked the Emperor Jresstratta V, the young ruler of the Ca'cadasan Empire. He had watched his father killed to get to this position. Hell, he had set up the situation, firm in the belief that his father's new policies would bring about the ruin of his warrior people. Now he felt in over his head, too young and inexperienced to make the decisions that needed making.

"We are under attack, Supreme Lord. The humans are in the system."

"How? Who is responsible for this? I will have his head." It really didn’t help the situation, but it was all he could think to say.

The male who was in charge of his security simply shook his head and took the emperor by the arm. The younger male glared at him, but let himself be led away, through the corridor and to the lift that led down to the deep shelter under the palace.

The Emperor thought about what he had said on the way down, realizing that it wasn't the wisest thing he could have uttered. Who is responsible for this? The humans, of course, and he would have to beat them to take their heads, and they had no intention of letting that happen.

"How bad is it?" he asked as they continued down in the high-speed lift.

"We're not sure yet, your Majesty. But they have taken out every space installation in orbit around this planet and the moons."

The emperor felt his breath leave him. That was an impossible disaster, something that had never happened in the history of the Empire.

The doors to the lift opened and a squad of palace guard snapped to attention. The security chief waved them back and escorted the emperor to the central control room, which was already buzzing with activity. Scores of males sat at stations, all jumping to their feet when their supreme lord entered the chamber.

The Emperor stood there, basking in the feeling of power he had over his people, until the security chief yelled into the room.

"What in the hells are you doing? All of you, back to your stations. We have a battle at hand."

The Emperor looked up at the security chief who towered over him, his anger rising.

"These males have a job to do, your Majesty. Please let them do it. There is a seat over there for you, where you can watch your brave subjects try to defend you."

The Emperor felt that the male was talking down to him, and was about to order his arrest, when he looked up at the huge viewer at the front of the room that was showing a tactical plot. Showing tens of thousands of objects approaching several of the prime industrial nodes of the system. In shock he stumbled over to the offered chair and fell into it, staring in disbelief at the overwhelming attack that was falling on his system.

*     *     *

Klarga, the next world out from the home world, was a cold planet. Capable of sustaining life, but not comfortable for the Ca'cadasans that lived there. There weren't that many of them proportionately. With over two billion inhabitants, less that a hundred million were the dominant sophonts. The rest were the slaves that worked the numerous mines and farms that helped to feed the system. Up above, in orbit around the planet, it was the opposite. Thirty million intelligent beings worked in the largest shipyards of the Empire, and over twenty million of them were Cacada. Three quarters of the habitats, factories and dockyards were beyond the ten thousand kilometer mark. Hundreds of ships also hung in space near the facilities, including a couple of antimatter tankers there to deliver supplies to the dockyards. Hundreds of shuttles rose from the planet, or returned, bringing foodstuffs or staff up and workers on leave down.

As with the home world, by the time the weapons were boosting on their grabbers, acquiring targets, it was too late. The warriors on the platforms and in the ships had received the alert, but were not able react in time. Some systems were activated, on automated control. Most weren't.

In slow motion it would have looked like a string of fireworks moving from one end of the orbital to the other. In real time it was more like an instantaneous set of explosions, taking out everything beyond the ten thousand kilometer limit. Or almost everything, since there weren't enough missiles in this grouping to hit every target. Still, when the blasts cleared, eighty percent of everything that had been in orbit was plasma or debris, while twenty-five million beings were dead.

Among the casualties was one of the new wormhole gates, its framework struck by two missiles that collapsed it on this end, causing it to die on the other end as well. A battleship that was transiting was cut in half, the far end coming out as a heavily damage half ship, the near end blown to plasma by the combined blasts of the two missiles. Hundreds of shuttles were caught up as well, none by direct hits, all by collateral damage from the massive blasts that ravaged the space.

The Cacada on the ground looked up in shock and horror as the thousands of flares erupted in near space. The antimatter tankers looked like suns springing to life, actually projecting heat onto the upturned faces. Warships with full loads of antimatter and warheads looked much the same, only in their cases the explosions were in two stages. The slaves looking up felt shock as well, though some cheered and were punished for it as soon as the surprise faded in their overseers. Most only cheered inside. They had heard of the people their masters had fought, and had hoped to see a day like this coming. Some tens of thousands ran from their duty stations, to find the weapons that had been hidden, some for generations. To them the time for revolt was here, since it looked like the humans would be liberating this system in the very near term.

Most of those slaves were dead before the day was out, along with hundreds of thousands of others caught in the crossfire. They did not gain their freedom, but they did accomplish something that would be of benefit to the humans. Now the Ca'cadasans had to look over their shoulders on every world, lest the specter of revolt rear its’ deadly head there as well.

*     *     *

Martqua was another industrial powerhouse in the system. A super-Jupiter, with three times the mass of the king of the Sol system, it and its forty moons were the most developed planet-moon system of its kind in the Empire. Fusion fuel was mined from the upper atmosphere of the giant all day every day, while three of the moons were supermetal production facilities, three more crammed with power plants feeding capacitor banks that once a week would churn out a wormhole.

In this planet-moon system there was no ten thousand kilometer limit. Over a hundred missiles struck at the enormous mining stations and tankers within the gas envelop. They formed streaks of fire that rolled deep into the mostly hydrogen atmosphere, an effect of the friction of two hundred ton objects penetrating at point nine-five light. Over half of the missiles didn't make it to their targets as they exploded from that friction induced conflagration. Most still accomplished their purpose, hitting targets directly or sending out enough of a blast wave through the thick atmosphere to crush platforms and ships with their shock effect.

Every moon received hits. The supermetal moons were left covered in the twisted alloys and ceramics of their plants, the surface temperature melting the icy outer layer and rising to the levels where the bodies would not be useful for production until cooled back to extremely low temperature, which would take decades. The wormhole production stations were in no better condition. It would be years before those moons were again ready for industrial operations. It would be years before any of the moons were worth anything other than glowing lights in the sky of the gas giant.

There were survivors, not many, but enough to get on the grav pulse coms and report the disaster that had befallen the moon system. Not that there was anyone capable of sending help, since everyone else had been hit just as hard or more.

The other gas giants, though not as heavily industrialized, took hits from later waves, until the they too had been reduced to wreckage.

*     *     *

The Ca'cadasan fleet system defense force was stationed at a half dozen localities around the system, riding in far orbits, away from the industrial concerns. All were fully manned, fully armed, going to alert status as soon as they received the grav pulse. They were as ready as ships could be on such short notice.

Three of the groups were still victims of total surprise as over a thousand missiles each appeared on active sensors from twenty-seven light seconds out, meaning they had less than ten seconds notice by the time the sensor beams were reflected back to the receiving sets. A couple of hundred missiles were taken out in each targeted group by close in weapons, before the rest acquired targets and started boosting.

The three targeted groups all suffered over fifty percent casualties destroyed or heavily damaged. But they weren't quite out of the game. The other three groups were hit five minutes later, and they fared slightly better, only sustaining thirty percent casualties.

Soon all of the ships that could were boosting out, ready to challenge the enemy vessels that were heading in.

*     *     *

The antimatter sats, an important resource in any industrial system, were among the last targets to be hit. Fragile and almost undefended, with little in the way of boost power to move them out of the way, they were easy kills. The only problem was there were too many of them, hundreds of thousands, spread out in close orbits around the star. The Imperial force would have had to fire all of the missiles at the sats to take them all out, and most hits only took out the one, though there were some collateral kills, the released heat and radiation taking out close satellites.

Still, there were several hundred small tankers working the sat fields, and those were the targets of choice. Most had tons of antimatter aboard, the take from hundreds of sats each for several weeks production. Those flared into small stars as they were hit, mostly invisible in the inner system against the backdrop of the star. Missiles came in for hours, some hitting sats, some tankers. At the end of the time all of the spaceships were gone, and the sat field had lost over fifteen percent of their number. That was a pinprick, but the antimatter wouldn't be harvested until the ships were replaced, and though the missile storm was through, the attack wasn't.

*     *     *

The assault force, a hundred battleships, an equal number of battle cruisers, and two hundred heavy and light cruises, dropped out of hyper at the II limit, not where the enemy were expecting them. Forty-eight of the ships carried a wormhole configured to double as a com portal and a missile launch tube. In less than five minutes they could be reconfigured to particle beam projectors.

There were no carriers on this missions, they being too fragile and valuable for the knife fight that was about to take place. Each ship carried one or more of the Alcubierre drive fighters, two to each capital ship, one to the cruisers. Six hundred fighters dropped from their mounts and boosted out to safe distance, engaging their warp drives and speeding into the system at twenty times light speed. They quickly separated into twelve groups of fifty ships, six groups going after Caca warships, the others heading for industrial targets that had yet to be hit.

Admiral Heidi Wahlberg paced the deck of her flag bridge aboard the battleship Teddy Roosevelt, her eyes rarely leaving the central holo tank. Her tactical experts thought they had everything in the system pegged, but there was no way to know that until well into the battle. She doubted there was too much hidden, and she didn't have time to play it cautiously.

"That seems to be their largest force, ma'am," said the fleet tactical officer, highlighting the concentration of enemy ships heading out at maximum boost from the capital planet. There were over five hundred ships in that force, though only eighty of them appeared to be battleships.

"They may be able to link up with this one coming over from the second gas giant." This one was a force of about a hundred and fifty ships, but only contained a dozen battleships.

"The other three appear to be much weaker. It looks like Fleet intelligence got it right."

Wahlberg nodded, stopping in her tracks for a moment as she focused on the system. Intelligence thought that most of the vessels in this system would be scout class or smaller, patrol vessels meant to search and investigate incoming and outgoing traffic, with just enough heavy firepower to stop any unexpected task group from making it back out of the system. They really hadn't expected anything like this to appear at their doorstep, ten thousand light years from any front.

You should have expected it, you bastards, thought the admiral. After all, you gave us the idea.

"Okay. First and second task forces will head toward the force, while the other two go after other targets. But, before we split, I want every wormhole equipped ship to send a couple of streams toward that largest group. Let's see if we can whittle them down some."

"The Alcubierre fighters will get there first, ma'am."

"And they can do what they can, but I'm sure there will be enough survivors for our missiles to find gainful employment." She smiled at her own joke, then got more serious. "Make sure all ships are looking for anything out of the ordinary. And I don't want anything coming into the system behind us to surprise us."

Intelligence, with information from whatever source they had in the Ca'cadasan Empire, thought there might be major bases on some of the nearer systems, some less than three light years away. If they were based on the outskirts of the system they could be here in less than eighteen hours, and could find the human force deep into the gravity well, unable to escape. She thought her force would be able to fight its way out, but she didn't want to risk its complete destruction.

"And what about Muldoon's ships?"

"They're lying doggo where we left them, powered down and undetectable."

The admiral nodded again. Without those ships and their gates they would also be trapped. Given time they could use some of their weapon wormholes as gates, but it would take hours to get one unshipped from its weapons satellite and set within a frame, while sending the other frame through to be assembled on this side.

"Missiles away," shouted the tactical officer, as fourteen hundred missiles left the wormholes at maximum speed, followed thirty seconds later by fourteen hundred more.

Wahlberg strode to her chair and fell into it. There was no way she could relax in the middle of this attack, and nothing she could do at the moment. All she could do was stare at the plot, letting her mind work over the information and try and detect any patterns that might become important to her tactics.

*     *     *

"We've sent an alert through our remaining wormhole, Supreme Lord," announced the male in charge of the control room.

The young male who was supreme ruler looked at the other male, not sure what to say. At the beginning of the day they had had four wormholes in the system, the most at any one point in the empire. Now they had one, it only still around because it was a passenger gate in one of the low orbiting stations around the world.

I will have the heads of everyone who let this happen, he thought, his anger rising to the point where he considered ordering the executions of random males, just to make his displeasure known. He throttled back on the rage a bit, forcing himself to hold his tongue. He would let the battle play out, observing, seeing who he could trust and who he couldn't. Then he would decide on who would be minus a head at the end of this debacle.

"Enemy battle force is moving into the system," called out one of the warriors manning a tactical station. "They appear to be splitting up, largest force on a heading for our prime force. Others starting to change their vectors, targets unknown at this time."

"Do we have enough to destroy them?" asked the Emperor, his voice now quivering as the next threat became real to him. He snapped his jaws shut. He could not appear afraid in front of his people. The Emperor had to appear strong, fearless, intelligent, and he was feeling none of those at the moment.

"I cannot say, Supreme Lord," said the high admiral who was the local commander. "We might be able to hold them. But we only need to hold out until the fleets from the nearby systems get here."

And how long will that take? thought the Emperor, afraid to voice the question.

Chapter Twenty-four

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

The first the Ca'cadasan ships knew they were under attack was when they picked up the space-time anomalies of the warp ships. They couldn't tell the exact number, they couldn't tell the exact range. They knew they were out there, and were sure that they were the targets. They only had to wait seconds to confirm that last, as one hundred warp missiles came speeding in at twenty times the speed of light.

The Ca'cadasan ships fired everything they had in an attempt to stop the missiles. Counter missiles, lasers, close in weapons spitting tens of thousands of explosive projectiles. Anything that got in front of a missile was torn apart by the space compression fields of the weapons. They took out a total of two missiles, enough weapons coming in through the sides of those weapons’ fields to overload the bubble.

Most of the missiles slammed into their targets, warp compression fields blasting through electromagnetic shields and distorting the armor underneath. Alloy flowed like water, disassociating into constituent atoms, eating in the hull underneath. The antimatter warheads went off as soon as the feedback of a compression field hitting too much matter rebounded into the missile. They exploded like shaped charges into the hulls, fifty megatons of force. They were smallish warheads, and they carried none of the kinetic energy of a standard ship killer. A few missed completely, flying off into space, turning so they could come back. Only one of those made it.

The warheads weren't enough to kill a battleship, not even one of the supercruisers, though every scout ship struck was left a spinning wreck. The cruisers continued on, working at half efficiency on average. The battleships were not as bad off, though they still limped away from the battle, along with the over four hundred ships that hadn't been hit.

The next group of fighters came in without as much surprise. They lost one of their number, and six missiles didn't make it. Some hit targets that had already been struck, and a couple of supercruisers flared into clouds of plasma, while a few of the battleships lay dead in space.

The next group hit them again, and the next, and still another, and the final group took out fewer than any before. But when they were past over a third of the force had been destroyed, and less than a hundred of the vessels were still intact.

The admiral of the force waited nervously for them to return, but they flew on, other targets on their minds. An hour later the first wave of wormhole accelerated missiles struck.

*     *     *

The high admiral currently in charge of the system defense sat in the control room, wondering when his time would come. The station orbited at just over a thousand kilometers from the surface, and so had not been targeted. He wasn’t sure why, but he was happy to still be alive. But he was sure that his turn would come.

He looked over the grav pulse signal that had just come in from the defense force, and grimaced as he read the damage that the enemy warp fighters had caused. They had their own warp fighters now, but none in the system. They weren't the caliber of what the humans had anyway, but they at least could have made a fight of it.

He wasn't sure what their fighters would do when attacking a planet. Their sensors could only pick up ships that were moving with grabbers, unless they dropped out of warp, in which case they were stationary targets. And stationary targets could be easily hit. Now, if they had brought some of their other fighters along, but so far there was no evidence of that.

"My lord, we've picked up the signatures of their inertialess fighters," came a call over the com.

The high admiral felt his hearts pick up their beats, now out of rhythm with each other. He looked up at the plot. They could pick up the general direction of the incoming fighters, but not an exact bearing, and definitely not their distance.

When the six hundred inertialess fighters dropped their negative matter bubbles they were moving at point one light, decelerating furiously at twelve hundred gravities. They released missiles seconds after they were back in normal space and could lock on targets. These weapons were not ship killers, massing less than twenty tons, they were not carrying the killer kinetic energy of those weapons of mass destruction, and warheads of only twenty megs. The risk of them killing a world were nonexistent, though they could kill a moderately sized town.

Twelve hundred missiles came streaking in, some knocked out of space by defensive weapons, most not, and every object in orbit on that side of the world died. The fighters swung around the globe at distance and let off their remaining missiles, and the space around the capital world was cleared. Some missiles entered the atmosphere, still traveling at above point one light, looking like laser beams as they transited the air and hit the ground.

It took over ten minutes for the fighters to get down to a comfortable speed, but there was nothing in space to shoot at them, and very little on the surface. The fighters vectored in, firing the specially developed kinetic warheads, dropping them on anything that had the look of a military or industrial target. Bright flashes ran across the landscape, balls of fire rose into the air. When the kinetics were done the ships knifed into the atmosphere on a kind of attack they were not really made for, but there was very little to oppose them in the air. Lasers and particle beams did the job now, and anything of interest that was still around fell flaming in molten alloy and crushed plasticrete to the ground.

The human force didn't get off unscathed. Only five hundred and forty-seven fighters raised their bubbles and started to accelerate back to the fleet for refueling and rearming.

Fighter groups hit the other habitable worlds, taking out anything they could find that looked like it would aid the Caca’s military effort. They avoided large cities and farming areas. Sean had not wanted the many slaves to suffer, preferring to only kill their masters. That was not completely possible, but he made the effort, nonetheless, and hoped that the slaves would remember when his fleet finally thrust into Ca'cadasan space.

*     *     *

The ground shook and the rumbling of heavy explosions carried through the kilometers of earth. All of the screens in the control room were blank of anything but static, until some techs decided to show replays of information they had already received.

"What's going on?" shouted the Emperor, slamming a lower right hand on his chair arm.

"We, don't know, Supreme Lord," said the bowing high admiral, the expression on his face showing his fear. Whether fear of what was happening up above, and might reach down to them, or of the wrath of his adolescent emperor, was not known.

The Emperor felt almost overwhelming fear himself, something a ruler wasn't supposed to experience. This was the capital of the mightiest empire in the galaxy, most likely the most powerful one ever known. Enemies weren't supposed to penetrate this far into that empire. They weren't supposed to raze the industrial heart of the empire. Now they were doing it, supposed to or not.

"I need to know what is happening outside of this tomb," shouted the Emperor, getting the attention of everyone in the room. Unfortunately, the required link to the surface did not appear. And all he could do was sit in his chair and rage, which accomplished nothing.

*     *     *

Now it was the turn of the antimatter sats, the eighty-five percent that had survived the missile strikes. The warp fighters came first, sweeping in, unable to see their targets. They knew the general location of the orbits, and therefore the general location of the sats. Each sat massed about fifty thousand tons, most of it in spread out solar collectors that funneled the energy into the accelerators that flipped the charges on the hydrogen protons that had been gathered from the solar wind. They had no armor, no defenses. And they didn't have the structural strength to hold up to the space compression fields of the warp fighters.

The craft swept around the sun, stressing the space in front of them. Hundreds of sats exploded as their antimatter storage tanks breeched. The craft kept moving around the orbit, taking out hundreds more on each turn around the star. Finally, it was time to come out of warp, and four hundred warp fighters sat still in space, locking in on their nearest targets and opening fire.

Moments later the inertialess fighters joined them, dropping their bubbles and swinging around the star at the sedate pace of five hundred kilometers a second, firing at every sat that stood in their path. It was almost an impossible job, there were too many of them. They did their best, and at the end of a three hour attack over half the antimatter production capacity of the system was no more.

The recall signal came in through grav pulse. It was time to set the ambush for the ships that would be coming to relieve the system.

*     *     *

Admiral Heidi Wahlberg looked at the plot that showed every ship still moving in the system, including her own. She had lost ships. Even with overwhelming strength and complete surprise it had been bound to happen. The enemy was not completely incompetent, especially the lower rank warriors who didn't have to think out the tactics of the fight, just execute. Still, she had lost less than thirty ships, seven of them battleships, another nine battle cruisers. The enemy had lost over nine hundred warships, plus uncounted commercial vessels. And the infrastructure of the system was in shambles, ten times, maybe fifty times, worse than what the Cacas had done to Jewel, New Terra and the Central Docks.

"Damaged ships are on their way out to the insertion vessels," said the fleet tactical officer.

Wahlberg focused on those ships, twenty-seven of them that had been damaged to the point where they could no longer boost at full power. Since they would have to flee this system in the near future, she was not willing to risk the crews of those ships. Besides, she thought she had enough to take on whatever was coming, especially since she still had forty-six wormholes.

Now we just have to wait for them to show up, so we can take them out. It was her call, and she would be within her rights to call the attack a success and leave. But as far as she was concerned, there was still more payback coming.

*     *     *

"Supreme Lord. We have established grav pulse communication with one of the bases on Garvon," said the high admiral, refering to the inhabited planet in from the capital. It was a hot world of steaming jungle and swamp, populated by slaves working plantations, and Cacada who were sent there to supervise as punishment.

"Is that all?" asked the Emperor, trying to glare in anger at his admiral and failing. He was too terrified.

"I'm afraid so. We were able to send a shuttle up into orbit to send the pulse, and they were able to do the same. So we don't know about anything else."

But it looks like they've smashed the system, thought the Emperor. There was no use pretending. However the enemy had done it, they had come here and taken out every military asset they could find.

"What do we do if they land here and come after me?" asked the Emperor.

"I doubt they have the troops to attempt a landing, Supreme Lord. We have millions of males on this world, all ready to give their lives to defend you."

"And they will have ships in orbit," screamed the Emperor, slamming his lower fists on the chair arms. "They can destroy our people from above. They can destroy this planet, kill everything on it, including me." He jumped up from his chair and strode the control room, throwing murderous glares at everyone in the room.

"They seem to have avoided hitting anything but military targets on the surface, Supreme Lord," said the high admiral, trying to calm the headstrong young male.

"That is because they don't want to kill too many of the slaves," yelled the Emperor, walking toward his admiral with all four fists balled up. "They want those idiots to think the humans are on their side, so they will rise up in revolt and tie down more of our forces."

"That may be, Supreme Lord. But they are still not hitting the living areas of the world."

"When they are gone, I want every tenth slave killed, in front of the others," growled the emperor.

"Supreme Lord. No. We will need every one of them to clean up the damage."

"Are you telling me no, Admiral?" The emperor lashed out, striking the older male across the face, the leaning in to look up at him, snout upraised and almost touching that of the admiral. "You will never tell me no. Do you hear me? Never."

The Emperor turned away, storming back to his chair and falling into it. The humans will pay for this, he thought through his rage. My military experts will pay for their stupidity.

"They will all die," he said under his breath, but loud enough that all the nearby males could hear him. They were not sure who he was talking about, and that was just what he wanted.

Chapter Twenty-five

Without a plan, there's no attack. Without attack, no victory. Curtis Armstrong

The first of the damaged ships disappeared through the gates. The three thousand crew on that vessel were safe, back in the black hole system. Within the hour all of the wounded vessels would be back, safe, headed for shipyards to have their injuries repaired, then on to the front. It would have been nice to let them have a break beyond the time it took to repair them, but every one of them would be needed.

I'll be happy when all of the ships are through, he thought. His would be the last, and then all of the wormholes in this system, unable to be transported back home, would be collapsed on the other end, causing the ends here to collapse as well. Expensive, but necessary.

Muldoon checked the time on his implant. They had been in the system for seventy-three hours. The system was a wreck, every ship, every station, destroyed, and as far as they knew the only living creatures were on the worlds and moons. Mostly on the habitable worlds, but some may have survived deep underground on some of the other bodies. If it had been up to him all of their ships would be preparing to transit back to Imperial space. But it wasn't up to him. And Wahlberg wanted to kill more Cacas, so here they stayed.

"Sir. We're picking up Caca ships coming in from antispinward."

In the position they were in, and the fact that they were far outside the gravity well of the system, they would be the first to pick up ships moving through hyper. Wahlberg's vessels, sitting near the hyper I barrier, wouldn't pick them up for another fifteen minutes.

"What do we have?"

The plot populated, showing three score ships moving through hyper. That didn't look like too much of a fight, until more appeared on the plot, and more, until there were five hundred ships heading in, and more appearing every second.

"Get me Admiral Wahlberg on the com. And shoot her this data."

"Jefferson," said Wahlberg, her face appearing on the holo. "I see we have some company on the way."

"Yes, ma'am. And it appears to be a little more than we bargained for."

"No worries, admiral. I'm set to light these bastards up when they come out of hyper."

“We're still picking up ships, Heidi. I'm worried there might be more ships coming in than you can handle."

"And what do you want us to do, Muldoon? Jump into hyper and head back out. So they can track and attack us. I'm afraid we're set up in the best position we're going to get. So, we are going to hammer them when they come down into normal space."

The plot was showing more than a thousand ships, three hundred of them the enormous twenty-five million ton Ca'cadasan superbattleships. Muldoon fretted over that number, which kept growing. Wahlberg had the warp fighters, and the inertialess variety, so she still might have the balance of power in her favor. Or maybe not.

It still looked like more than he would have wanted to deal with, which was probably one reason he wasn't in charge of the strike force. He specialty was sneaking in, making the decisions that would get his ships through enemy space. Some combat might be involved, and he had engaged enemy on the way in, but it had always been planned as a sneak attack on his part, not giving them a chance. Wahlberg would also be ambushing the enemy, but though they didn't know her exact location, they knew something was up, and they would be ready. The admiral had picked just a couple of light seconds inside the hyper barrier, the most likely emergence point. They might drop further out, but if they did there would be no way of estimating where that would be.

"Shit," cried the tactical officer. "Enemy ships dropping to normal space. Two light minutes from the barrier."

Wahlberg’s ships were sitting dead in space, powered down as much as possible. Unfortunately, they hadn't been sitting long enough, were still giving off considerable heat, and would be spotted over so short a range. Unfortunately too, they were out of beam range, so that part of the ambush was a no go from the start. But they did have thirty-eight wormholes.

"Admiral Wahlberg is reporting wormhole launch. All wormholes launching on enemy."

One thousand one hundred and forty missiles were now in space, moving at point nine five light, a little over two minutes from their targets. And untraceable. Thirty seconds later another swarm was on the way, then another, and..

"Enemy is jumping back into hyper, sir."

"What the hell."

The enemy ships were now all in hyper, sliding in at point three light and decelerating at their maximum rate. And the waves of wormhole launched missiles slid by them in normal space, wasted. Even a signal sent to them ordering them back would only allow them to decelerate at fifteen thousand gravities, taking hours to stop, then coming back with little left in their batteries, maybe making it in four hours at a velocity of point two-five light.

The enemy was learning. Now it remained to be seen how much they would hurt Wahlberg's force.

*     *     *

"All ships, prepare to fire as soon as they're back in space," yelled Admiral Heidi Wahlberg, her eyes staring at the plot that was showing the enemy again coming in through hyper. They had to jump back into normal space before they hit that barrier. They had to, or they would be coming out in the most hazardous way possible, and probably losing over ninety percent of their force.

"All Caca ships are firing, ma'am," called out the tactical officer. Tens of thousands of missiles were on the plot, coming in through hyper, accelerating at ten thousand gravities. That was something new. The best acceleration they had seen out of Caca missiles in the war was eight thousand gravities, and the ones they had seen in the system all seemed to be held to that standard. These were accelerating as fast as human missiles on a long-range shot. They would be just under point three light when they hit the barrier, the translation limit. They wouldn't be carrying that much kinetic energy, but if they achieved hits with ship killer warheads they wouldn't need it.

"All ships, fire on defensive arcs. Maximum rate on counters. I want all warp and inertialess fighters to hit that force on the flanks as soon as they drop."

She still had over ninety battleships, eighty-six battle cruisers, and just under a hundred and seventy cruisers. All were aligned where they could put their broadsides into space, and seconds before the first missile translated down they fired. Every laser ring, every particle beam, every close in weapon, forming an almost impenetrable screen in front to the force. Several lanes were left open, ready for the counter missiles to fire through.

Thousands of missiles fell into hyper, still accelerating, starting to pick up their targets from the massive jamming the fleet was putting out. Decoys exploded into space, taking off on angles, trying to lure the missiles into following them and not the targets ahead. Over half the missiles blew apart as close in beams and streams of magnetically accelerated projectiles hit them. Antimatter breached, gigaton warheads detonated, and the blast of superhot plasma continued into the fleet. Counters went out, most to explode before they got halfway to their targets. Wormhole launched weapons also sped through the plasma, fragmenting as soon as they encountered the cloud of superhot gas, adding their own, but this outgoing and blasting through the incoming.

"Switch out the launchers for particle beams," yelled the admiral, afraid that she had been too late. But when the enemy came out of hyper they would be too close for more than one launch of missiles, and there was no guarantee that any of them would get through the hell that was burning in space. The same plasma that was hitting their hulls, a percentage blasting through the electromag fields, eroding armor and surface installations, welding hatches and accesses closed on the facing sides of the ships.

"Enemy dropping out of hyper," yelled the tactical officer, just an instant before the massive ships of the Cacas appeared on the plot, in normal space.

The enemy ships opened fire the moment they appeared, putting out as many missiles as they had tubes. Unfortunately for them every missile went into the hellish maelstrom between the fleets. Hot plasma, beam weapons, the explosions of new missiles entering the field, and it was almost impossible for anything to pierce. It actually blotted out the sensor returns and obscured the targets.

"Order the fleet to back the hell out of here," ordered the admiral. She needed to get some space between her and the enemy so she could get good firing solutions.

The com techs got busy trying to get the message out to the other ships, fighting their way through the interference. Wormhole equipped ships became relays, their internal com ports unaffected by the interference outside.

"Warp ships are on attack vector," called out one of the tactical officers.

The enemy would be taking some fire, and soon. The admiral was happy about that, since she was now outmassed by five to one, and her ambush hadn't gone as planned.

The first of the superbattleships poked its nose through the maelstrom, damaged, but still able to fire. It started hitting a light cruiser with its beam weapons, burning through electromagnetic fields and hull in an instant. A moment later it was speared by three wormhole carried particle beams, produced by massive particle accelerators on the Donut, accelerated up to point nine nine nine nine light, making them much more powerful than any ship carried weapon. The beams burned through the hull of the Caca ship in an instant. The ship was penetrated from one side to the other, then cut apart as the three beams swept through.

More ships poked through, then more, and the exchange of beams heated up. The Cacas had the advantages of numbers of ships and total mass, while the humans had the wormhole weapons. It was still not enough of an advantage for the humans if not for the other attack elements.

*     *     *

"We have a crisis developing on the capital strike," said Sondra McCullom, looking out of the com holo.

Sean looked over from a conference he was having with some of his people in Research and Development. He cut the com without comment. People who talked with him always knew he might have to go in an instant, and he could apologize later.

"What happened?" Sean had seen the report of the strike as early as an hour ago, and everything seemed to have gone well. They hadn't killed any of the life-giving planets, but they had destroyed every space based industrial or defense facility. Just as planned. And with minimal casualties, at that time.

"A large enemy force arrived before they could get out of the system," said the CNO, her eyes narrowing. "Wahlberg elected to fight."

"Why in the hell would she do that? Dammit, Sondra. I wanted someone who was audacious, but not a total fool."

"She thought she had a good position, but the enemy did something she didn't expect."

And that was just damned inconvenient, thought the monarch. The trouble with battle plans was the enemy had their own, and part of their plan was to make sure their enemy's plans didn't work. It would be nice if the other side would do exactly what you wanted them too, but if they had any intelligence they would try to figure out what you wanted and not do it.

"Can Muldoon get his ships out if Wahlberg can't?"

"We think so, your Majesty. But we can't order him to retreat through the wormhole until she has a chance to make it out."

"Crap." Of course the junior admiral couldn't leave while there was still a chance of the strike force retreating. They had to stay in place to defend the gates, else the enemy could just get to them and destroy their frames, collapsing them. Wahlberg, who had the majority of the wormholes, might still be able to expand one into a gate. Or she might not.

"We might be able to send some more ships through the gates, sir," continued the CNO. "It would put more ships at risk, but we might be able to get her enough help to get her out of her jam."

And what happens if more Caca ships come along?, thought the Emperor, shaking his head. Every habitable system near the capital probably had a fleet presence. There were bound to be more along sooner or later. Sooner would end in disaster for anything they sent there.

He hadn’t wanted to get into a general fleet action in their home system. If he had wanted that, he would have sent an entire battle fleet through. What stopped him was the possibility that they might be trapped thousands of light years behind the lines, cut off from resupply and defeated in detail.

"What do you have in the system the gates lead to? Anything really fast? Like warp fighters?"

"We have two wings of warp fighters working up in the system, your Majesty," said McCullom, expression disbelieving. "Only one of them has missiles, and they are training weapons."

"But they can still form a distraction, right?"

"Your Majesty. They are not ready for deployment."

"They are now. Get them through the gates. See if Muldoon can get them some live rounds, then send them in to attack."

"Your Majesty.."

"That's an order, Admiral. Now get them moving."

McCullom nodded, then disappeared from the holo.

Sean felt like a total shit for giving that order, but Wahlberg still had three hundred ships and over six hundred thousand personnel. And those two wings amounted to less than two thousand. Even without missiles they should be able to sweep in and keep the Cacas off balance. Maybe long enough for the other ships to get away.

*     *     *

The warp fighters came in first from the flanks, their pilots warned away from the inferno zone between the fleets. It still caught a couple of them, their warp fields not enough to protect them from thousands of kilometers of superheated plasma. The rest launched their missiles at close range and turned up and over, flashing to the other side of the enemy formation and carrying on for twenty light seconds before turning back for another attack.

The inertialess birds came in next, only capable of a little less than two lights, but with much more powerful weapons, those which still had them. A ripple of eighty-three inertial rebound warheads went off through the Caca force, killing two score ships. Then the warp fighters were back, firing what they had left and speeding off. They still had lasers, but they would have to drop out of warp to use them, making themselves easy targets for the chance to fire feeble weapons into warships hardened to withstand them.

*     *     *

"Keep firing," ordered Admiral Wahlberg, watching the plot as her ships backed away at maximum acceleration. Unfortunately, the enemy was still carrying their momentum from translation, moving at over point two light. Soon the formations were interpenetrated, ships firing at point blank range. The Cacas still had more powerful lasers, and more mass to absorb them, while the Imperial ships, at least thirty odd of them that still had wormholes, had the deadly particle beams.

Rays of bright light, illuminated through the gas and plasma, shone onto hulls and blew through armor. Atmosphere gushed through holes, sometimes followed by space suited bodies. Some smaller ships on both sides exploded, a few cruiser class went tumbling through space. Missiles slashed from tubes to hit targets seconds away, gigaton warheads flaring, some as direct hits.

"All ships are to boost at maximum on this vector," yelled the admiral, sending the coordinates through from her chair. She had to get away from the enemy. They outgunned her in this knife fight, and she had to get out of beam range if she wanted to survive. The wormholes would still give her an advantage in a missile duel, but they needed to generate side vector while the enemy ships continued on into the system. They would not be able to stop in time to prevent that missile duel, if there were any launch platforms left to engage them.

The vector arrows on the plot shifted, most of them, the ships still able to boost heading on the most likely avenue of escape. Ships continued to drop off, whether destroyed or rendered incapable of boost. Wahlberg's flagship shook from multiple hits, lasers hitting the armor, blasting through, creating enough kinetic energy to push the ship. Three enemy superbattleships were concentrating on the fifteen million ton vessel they each outmassed, pouring in light amp. The flagship hit one in the bow with its particle beam at a range of two light seconds, the protons blasting through and deep into the ship, leaving the forward third an empty husk of molten alloys. It transferred its beam onto the second ship, hit it a hundred meters from the bow and sweeping in back to the stern, tearing through the ship and out the other side.

A pair of missiles struck, gigaton class warheads transferring their fury into the hull. Lasers ripped through those opening, mortally wounding the vessel. The last thing Wahlberg saw was the flashing warning to abandon ship, breach imminent. Then the fifteen million ton battleship and almost four thousand crew converted into plasma.

One hundred and eighty-one ships survived to get out of effective beam range, most of them battleships and battle cruisers, those able to handle the most damage and continue on. A couple score of heavy cruisers were with them, only a couple of the light cruisers. And twenty-nine wormholes, all now reconfigured to launch missiles and streaming them out at thirty every thirty seconds. Their missiles were ripping in at point nine five light, hard to stop, and they were generating a lot hits. The enemy was firing back, but their missiles were not carrying the kind of momentum the human weapons did, and they were having to overcome the momentum of the firing ships, actually decelerating before they could gain the proper vector. Still, they got a couple of hits, but for most it was hopeless as they tried to come back at the human ships that were boosting out of the system and heading toward the gates.

The Cacas kept up the missile fire, as many as they could get out, for as long as they had them in their magazines. The distance between them grew, and with it the effectiveness of the Caca weapons as they built up velocity.

Then the two wings of new warp fighters came ripping in, using their warp fields to tear missiles out of space. Two hundred and thirty-two fighters destroyed over a thousand missiles in their pass, losing three of their craft. The warp craft that had been in the system for the strike came in after them, taking out more missiles, while the strike force kept running for the gates.

Finally, the enemy ships arrested their momentum inward and started back out. They could only keep flinging missiles, and taking on the preaccelerated weapons coming their way. The warp fighters kept speeding in to hit the missiles with their warp fields, taking half out of space, losing one or two of their own with each pass.

*     *     *

"Prepare to enter gate," ordered Vice Admiral Jefferson Muldoon, looking at the plot. The strike force, what was left of it, was heading back out, decelerating to a velocity they could use to carry through the gates without a disaster. There were about one hundred and twenty ships left, many of those damaged. He had noted that Admiral Wahlberg had not made it, which was probably in her favor, since the Emperor he had just talked to had seemed enraged that the officer had attempted an ambush, and not just packed it in when she had achieved her objective.

"I want you to get those ships and your crews back, now," had ordered the Emperor, ice blue eyes ablaze as he looked out of the holo. "You did everything asked of you, Admiral. Now get yourself and your people home. We'll take care of those gates as soon as the last of the strike force are back."

Left unsaid was that Wahlberg had gone beyond the scope of her orders. She had smashed the Caca home system, with little loss to her own. And then hung around too long. Intelligence had guessed that the Cacas might have reaction forces nearby, and there was the possibility that they had wormhole communications with systems that had other forces. She knew that, and she knew the mission parameter was to get in, smash everything they could, and get out. And she had ignored the last part of that order.

"Ships are aligned, Admiral," called out the navigator.

"Let's go home," said Muldoon, nodding toward the viewer which was showing the mirrored surface of the wormhole.

An hour later the first of the strike force ships had reached the gates and were going through. Two hours later the last of the ships, still under fire, made it through, soon followed by the remaining warp fighters. After the last one passed the discarded wormholes and the gates were all collapsed on their ends, causing the dimensional pathways to cease to exist.

Chapter Twenty-six

There is no fool like a careless gambler who starts taking victory for granted. Hunter S. Thompson

DECEMBER 29TH, 1003.

"Great job, Admiral," said Sean over the com holo. "I have just ordered your promotion to full admiral.

"Thank you, your Majesty," said Jefferson Muldoon, bowing toward his monarch. "But there were many other people involved. I just gave the orders, and my people made it happen."

"And many of your people will be facing promotion as well, Admiral. Never fear. I'm afraid your crews will be broken up and reassigned. We really don't need your ships at the moment, and they'll be mothballed until we do."

Muldoon really didn't like the sound of that, though it did make sense. No leader liked to lose the vessels that had just carried him successfully through battle. But his ships were not warships. They were exploratory vessels that had been adapted for this mission. They might be of use as transport or fast cargo ships, and would only require a fifth of their current crews, and not the specially trained people they had been crewed by. Warships were constantly coming out of the building slips, ships that needed as many experienced crew as possible.

Retaliation had lived up to her name, as had her sisters. They would go down in history as the vessels that had carried out the greatest long-range strike in the history of the human species. His name would be in those records along with the ships. Something to be proud of, if he never accomplished anything else.

"And we will have another surprise for you when you make it back to Jewel. Don't protest too much, Muldoon. It took extreme courage to take on that mission. And we have high hopes that it will help to erode the morale of our enemies."

I hope so, thought the admiral, though he had his doubts. The alien strike on the Jewel/New Terra double planet hadn't destroyed the morale of the Empire. It had, as one famous admiral said millennium ago, filled the Empire with terrible resolve. Might it do the same to the Cacas?

*     *     *

Emperor Jresstratta V coughed as the smoke hit his lungs. His eyes burned from the particulate matter in the air, and he stared at the cityscape before him as he stepped from the bunker lift. The palace was still intact behind him. He wasn’t sure why. Luck, or because of deliberate calculation. In fact, the whole city was still more or less intact. More, or less.

The guards formed around their liege, some in the new combat armor that was being tested for deployment to the military. The humans had had much better ground combat suits from the start of the war. Ca'cadasans were very large and strong creatures, and had never seen the need for powered armor in the past. The humans used powered armor which made them much stronger than the larger aliens. The slave scientists of the Empire were now working on better ground combat gear, including tanks, since the humans had shown their enemies how ineffective mecha were. But that was far from his mind at the moment as he looked over the megalopolis that was his capital city.

Most of the buildings within sight were intact, and various beings were on the walkways and balconies outside. Most appeared to be in shock. The Emperor could understand that feeling, since shock was what he was feeling. In the twelve thousand years of the Empire the home world had never been attacked. In fact, the last time it had seen any kind of military action had been when the Cacada had kicked the insectoids off the planet.

The areas that had been hit were noticeable in their sparsity. The military headquarters building was no longer there. In its place was a crater, and nearby buildings were partially collapsed, parts of them falling into the crater. A barracks had also been converted into a crater, with the same effect on nearby buildings. There was one large office building that had not been a military target, though really anything having to do with the bureaucracy of the Empire could be considered a target. It was also gone. All of those were kinetic strikes, the Emperor knew, and they had been very precise.

The spaceport to the north of the city was visible from this point, since the palace had been built on a three hundred meter high prominence. The main terminal and the many clusters of hangers were all gone. There were some kinetic craters, but most of the damage seemed to have been done by smaller hyperv weapons, lasers and particle beams, and of course the exploding fuel stores of the craft that had been based there.

The old growth forest that was a favorite hunting preserve of the Imperial family was ablaze, thousand year old trees now torches, masses of smoke rising into the air. The Emperor could imagine the animals he loved to hunt now fleeing in panic, those that could make it, dying uselessly in the inferno.

He knew that other parts of the world had been hit harder, anything of perceived military value struck by the fighters that had swarmed through the atmosphere. And that was nothing compared to what had happened to the space based industry, refining and mining, ship building, and all of the massive defensive installations. In a couple of hours this had gone from the largest industrial node in the Empire to less than one of the predominantly new farming colonies. He was even cut off from the rest of the Empire, the new wormhole coms gone with their portals.

Jresstratta clenched his four fists in anger, his instincts wanting to strike back at the creatures that had done this to his capital. At the moment that couldn't be done, they were out of his reach. As soon as he got back in touch with his fleet command, or what survived of his fleet command off of this world, he would set events in motion to punish them.

But he had to punish something right now, petulant adolescent that he was. His angry eyes swept the city, and then fell upon the perfect target. The huge slave quarters to the west, a series of prefab houses and low concrete building, just enough to protect the slaves from the elements and giving them places to sleep. There were tens of thousands of the beings in evidence, standing outside their quarters and staring at the city. They hadn't been touched by the attacks. And now they were looking at the structures of their masters that had been destroyed.

The vermin, thought the Emperor, his anger rising as he looked at the beings who were probably celebrating the blow his Empire had taken. They must pay.

"I want the slave district razed to the ground," he told the high admiral who was his senior adviser on the spot. "And all of those slaves are to be put down."

"Supreme Lord?" asked the confused male. The slaves were really nothing to the Ca'cadasans, but traditionally they were not to killed without purpose. They were the labor force of the Empire, and those who disobeyed or were prone to being incompetent were put down. Those made up of compatible proteins might be used to sustain the Cacada population, but to kill them for no reason was foreign to most of the Ca'cadasans.

"You heard me, High Admiral. I want the slave district raised to the ground and all of the slaves killed. Immediately."

"But, why?" replied the open-mouthed male, too shocked to think clearly about what he was doing in questioning the monarch.

"Kill him," said Jresstratta, pointing a pair of right index fingers at the admiral as rage seethed through him.

One of the guards immediately fired a particle beam into the still confused male, the angry insect sound drowning out his quick scream as the red light vaporized most of his torso. The dead male dropped to the ground, a quarter of his upper torso gone, most of the rest turned to carbonized flesh.

"Now, someone do as I say. Destroy that district."

An officer bowed quickly, then spoke over his com. It took almost a half hour for the army to respond, as busy as they were in other places, still trying to recover from their own shock. Word of the Emperor's mood had gone out as well as the orders, and they responded as fast as they could.

Heavy machinery rolled through the buildings, while aircraft hovered over and put lasers and particle beams into others. Beings ran screaming, some of them dropping to their knees to plead with the Gods, or with the Emperor, neither of which were listening this day. In minutes much of the slave district was on fire. Slaves attempted to flee for their lives, most cut down by infantry who had deployed around the outskirts of the district.

The Emperor looked on with a hard expression, a tight predator’s stare on his face. If his people were to suffer, then so were the lesser beings who were also his subjects. In an hour it was over, and the slave district was leveled, smoke rising from the ruins, nothing moving except the Cacada troops patrolling and looking for survivors to kill.

The Emperor let out a satisfied huff, turning to go back into the palace. Not knowing that he had just killed a dozen of the scientists who were working on military breakthroughs for his fleet.

*     *     *

"We have been going over the data from the strike, your Majesty," said Ekaterina Sergiov, looking out of the holo.

"And?"

"I think we can agree that it was a total writeoff of their military and industrial capabilities for that system. We didn't leave an orbiting habitat or factory, a supermetal or antimatter facility, nothing of any import that's not sitting at the bottom of a gravity well. And even there we hit many of their planetary facilities with our fighters."

"And that was what?" asked Sean, shaking his head. "A hundredth of their industrial capacity. A thousandth?"

"Probably closer to the first figure, your Majesty," said the intelligence chief as she scratched her head. "Their home system had to be unusual in its capacity. If it's representative of every other system they have, we might as well throw in the towel now."

That made sense. It was thought that the Cacas had shown the extent of their military might. If they had a thousand systems with the capacity of their capital system they would have put so many ships into space they would have already rolled over the Empire and all of its allies.

"Any idea of how many casualties we caused?" asked the Emperor, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He really didn't care how many of the Ca'cadasans they killed, as long as they didn't exterminate the species. But there had to have been hundreds of millions of slaves in that system, probably closer to several billion. Which was the reason he had ordered relativistic missiles not be used on the habitable worlds.

"At least several hundred million, sir," said the admiral. "Possibly a billion. They had some very heavily industrialized moons in that system, and we hit them with massive weapons."

Which meant a lot of slaves had died in that strike, beings who hadn't wanted anything to do with their masters' conquests. But they were part of the military/industrial complex, and they were collateral damage. The emperor hated that term, which basically meant it was more important to destroy inanimate objects than it was to preserve life. He had a feeling he would go done in history as the greatest mass murderer ever. At least in the minds of some.

But I'll be known to many more as the man who saved the human species, he thought. And the Cacas are already the greatest mass murders in the history of the Galaxy. Not something to relieve him of the guilt of the other part of the equation, but maybe enough to let him sleep at night.

The chief spy must have seen what was going on in the mind of the monarch through his expressions.

"Our Maurid operatives have told us that the Cacas kill billions of slaves every year," she said, looking into his eyes through the holo. “Some are killed to feed the Ca'cadasans, those with compatible proteins and large populations. Like cattle. Others work extremely dangerous jobs with high accident rates. Some are just in the wrong place when a Caca lord is angered. No matter the reason, they die, and the damned Cacas don't give a damn about any of them. So, if we stop them, we save billions, if not trillions of lives in the long run."

Sean sighed. Of course it was necessary, and it would help all of those peoples in the long run. He planned to offer them their freedom whenever he overran a Caca world. Either their independence, or their citizenship in his Empire, whatever the majority decided. And those who didn't want inclusion into the Empire, whether worlds or individuals, would be allowed to go their own way. But so many of them would die while he was liberating them.

"Of course it's necessary," said Sean, bowing his head. "And it's also necessary that hundreds of millions of my own have to die, if not billions, to win this war. That doesn't mean I have to rest easy with any of my decisions."

Sergiov looked at him for a minute, not saying word, then nodded. "If I may be permitted to speak my mind, your Majesty?"

"Of course, Kat."

Sergiov smiled at the sound of her nickname, one that very few people were allowed to use. "I don't know about anyone else, but if I had to guess, I think they would feel the same as me. And I, for one, am glad that your decisions bother you. I would be afraid to serve someone who didn't feel for the people his decisions affected."

Sean nodded, then cut the transmission, thinking about what she said. He himself didn't trust leaders who couldn't empathize with the people under them. He wanted people who hurt from making bad decisions. That didn't mean they wouldn't made the hard decisions that would get those people killed, but hopefully they wouldn't just throw people away for no reason. Life was precious. That was what the human species believed as a whole. And the only moral reason to expend life was to save more life. It didn't always work out, but it was the only way to think.

I'll try to keep the faith, Kat, he thought, pulling up the plan he was working on for the next phase of the offensive. It might not always be possible to balance the scales of life and death, but he could damned sure do his best. That was all the Empire could ask of him.

*     *     *

The Empress Jennifer Romanov stood at the podium and looked out over the group that had gathered to hear her speak. Dozens of drones floated in the air, holding the cameras that were getting her and the crowd at all angles. Unlike her husband, she had never been raised to interact with the public in this way. Unfortunately, it was expected of her in her present position. It was part of her duty to the Empire. That and producing heirs, a task she had already accomplished.

She had grown up on a developing world, in a small town, where she knew everyone. That had changed when she went to the local college in a city of about a hundred thousand, then to the medical school in the capital of the planet. Still, she had not been called on to speak before groups of people larger than a normal sized class. Now she was looking out over tens of thousands of faces, all gazing at her with rapt attention.

Calm yourself, Jennifer, she thought as she looked down at her notes once again. She didn't really have a prepared speech, preferring to ad lib with notes to remind her of the points she intended to hit. It wasn't the polish of a trained politician, but people who commented on her interaction with the public tended to typify her amateurish presentation as honest and refreshing. Of course, in the time since the Caca strike on Jewel she had not interacted much with the public, and many articles had come out wondering if she had been damaged beyond repair.

Almost, she thought with a slight smile. With the patience of her husband, and the medical treatments she had gone through, she had regained the confidence of the physician she was. She took one last look at the audience before launching into her talk. She could pick out some of the agents throughout the crowd, people chosen for their ability to blend in while providing surveillance of the crowd. She had been around those kind of people enough now that they might as well have been wearing strobe lights. The uniformed security stood at the edges of the crowd, while battle armored troopers hung in the air. Further up a number of aircraft cruised back and forth. It was another thing she had gotten used to, especially after the Caca attack.

The city itself was in the process of reconstruction, at least what could be accomplished at this time, when so many resources were needed for the war. The cathedral that was her backdrop had been rebuilt to the point that services were again being carried out inside. It was an important ceremonial structure, and soon the facade would undergo reconstruction. Across the huge square Parliament was also under reconstruction. And again, the inside was almost finished. The outside could wait, as long as the meeting spaces were usable. The severely damaged buildings had been pulled down, and those capable of being repaired were in the process of such. New megascrapers would go up in time, when there were the resources and labor to do so.

"Lords and ladies, citizens of the Empire," she started, her clear soprano voice sounding through the speakers. "Today we are here to remember the fallen of our Empire. Those who have given their lives so we could live our own. That we could continue the greatness of the human species, now and into the future. And not fall by the wayside, victims of the genocidal bastards who would see us end."

She looked out over the crowd, seeing the anger flash across many of those faces. She knew they weren't angry at her. Their anger was directed toward those bastards she had just mentioned. This was Remembrance Day, a new day of thought and prayer about the war and all the sacrifices that had been made. Both by the military and the civilians who had been caught up in the fighting.

"A year ago today our beautiful capital system went through an attack. One that was as unexpected as it was savage. Great works of architecture were destroyed, works of art obliterated. Our capital city was all but destroyed. But, most terrible of all, were the hundreds of millions killed. And if the enemy had had his way, Jewel and New Terra would both have been rendered lifeless, not just of humans, but of all of the wonderful life forms roaming their surfaces. It was not the greatest loss of life of the war. That terrible distinction goes to the planets Aquilonia and Cimmeria, destroyed early in the war. That was a complete tragedy, over seven billion lives lost."

She stopped for a second to let what she had just said sink in. Those two worlds had occupied a single system, one of the core group that were the industrial muscle of the Empire. The Cacas had attacked it with the intention of bringing the Imperial fleet to battle. Sean had refused to send his fleet into a battle it couldn't win. If the Cacas had destroyed it at that time, the war would have been lost, and with it the human species. Some still blamed the Emperor for the loss of those planets. Most thought he had done the right thing, including his wife. But some, including a minority of those who followed his orders, still cursed his name.

"But in striking at this system they struck at the heart of the Empire. No, not the heart. At the brain, as it were. And they came very close to succeeding in their diabolical plan. If not for the courage and decisiveness of our brave men and women of the Fleet, Marines and Imperial Army, they would have succeeded. Many gave their lives in performing the duty they had sworn, destroying the enemy before they could take more innocent lives.

"I remember that day well," she continued, closing her eyes for a moment as she brought the image to her mind. It was a thought that had had her screaming in the night for half a year, and still caused trepidation when she brought it to mind. "I was in the stands at the parade with my children. The Imperial Secret Service did their jobs and attempted to get me and the babies to safety. I made it with one of the babies, the other was shot out of the sky, and for some time I thought my child had died. Fortunately, both of my children survived. But I lost many people that day. People I saw on a daily basis. Members of the Imperial staff, military, friends among the citizens and aristocracy of the city. People I miss to this day."

She could see many heads nodding in the crowd, and some were crying, remembering their own dead.

"This time a year ago we were still on the defensive. We were striking at them here and there, trying to keep them off balance. We had gone from the time of Aquilonia and Cimmeria, when we couldn't risk our fleet in a major battle, to a time where we could beat their fleet, any time, any place."

Some applause and clapping broke out in the crowd, along with an increasing number of nods.

"Now we are on the offensive. Now we are striking into their Empire. We are on the road to their capital. It is going to be a long hard road, and it may take many years to reach its end. But it will reach its end, and at that end we will be victorious."

The cheering rose to new heights. The newcasts from the front had shown proof of what she was talking about. There was no guarantee that they would continue to advance, but people believed it to be true. The morale of the people of the Empire was rising. And now was the time to hit them with the latest revelation. It was still secret, but as soon as she told this group, and all of the billions of people in the capital system that were watching this speech, and the hundreds of billions on worlds that were accessible through the wormhole net, it would be out. And it would be released across the Empire from the most populous worlds to the most sparsely populated frontier planet, as soon as the message could reach them. Whether through the older hyperwave net or through transport by ship.

"I am here today to tell the people of the Empire that the Fleet has struck the capital system of the enemy."

The crowd went silent for a moment, disbelief, shock.

"A force was sent secretly to their capital system. A strike force entered through wormholes and attacked every militarily significant target within that system. It was a pinpoint attack, not like what the enemy did to Jewel. There, of course, was some collateral damage, but our people, unlike our enemy, went out of their way to not strike at the civilian population, especially the slaves of the Ca'cadasan Empire."

The disbelief turned into joy and triumph. The crowd roared its approval, and echoed from the thousands of buildings in the center of the city, where millions more were watching on their trivee sets.

"Retaliation. We have paid the Cacas back. We left their system a wreck, devoid of shipyards and orbital factories. We don't know how much damage we did to their government, but we must have sent shock waves through all of their systems. And now, the Emperor is at the front, seeing to the new offensive which will be starting up within hours. We have penetrated the first layer of their Empire, and now we will take the next. Have faith in our people, human and others. Have faith in our military. It will be a long fight, but we have fought through the early rounds, and we have the momentum."

Jennifer stepped back from the podium to the roaring cheers of the crowd. She smiled, waving at them. She had been suffering under her own depression and shock for too long. But now she was back, and able to contribute to Sean's government, if only as the face of reason for the executive. She walked back under the cover of the Cathedral she had come out of, feeling like she was once again whole.

*     *     *

"We need to slow the offensive and regroup your Majesty," Said Sondra McCullom over the holo. "Many of our ships need time in a yard, or at the very least in the hands of a repair ship. Those that are still in good shape need refits, and our fleets have outrun our logistics. I just got off the com with the Grand Marshal, and he stated that the Army is in no better shape. They need replacements of people and vehicles, along with training and orientation. If we send them out with new people slotted in, the replacements will die in droves."

"I want to keep the pressure on them, Admiral," said Sean, shaking his head, remembering all the generals who advocated keeping the pressure on, to keep the enemy from getting their feet back under them. Two in particular. A link with the computer system through his implant gave him the references. Ah, yes. Erich von Mannstein, German general. And George S. Patton. Not the nicest people in the world, but they knew how soldiers thought.

"I understand that, sir. But if you keep pushing the fleet forward like this you're asking for a disaster. Give them a month to get everything back together. Give the spacers a little bit of leave time, get all the missiles and close in weapons systems magazines restocked. Then let them loose again, and I promise they'll be straining at the leashes. As it is now, my people, your people, are exhausted."

Sean didn't like the idea. He thought that giving the Cacas a break would cost more lives in the long run, but he recalled his time as a Fleet officer. Even though it hadn't been wartime, with the exception of the one terrifying battle he had been involved in, he had still relished the time he could get away from the ship for some odd hours. He would have killed for a couple of days on a planet, able to walk around under the warmth of a sun and breath open air, even if it smelled of alien life and soil. It was still the next best thing to home. With the wormhole network, some small percentage could actually go home for a week.

"Three weeks, admiral. I'm willing to give them three weeks to rest, recuperate and repair. But I want the ships up to a hundred percent before people start getting leave or liberty. Understood."

The expression the CNO turned on him showed her anger at being insulted. "Your Majesty. The readiness of the Fleet is always the first concern. Always. Every vessel that can be brought up to one hundred percent in three weeks will be. And if they can't, they will be heading back to the yards for repair and refit."

"Can we perhaps move some ships up from rear areas, then rotate those in need of major repairs back into those regions, to be fixed in place."

"We could do that. Though those areas will be weakened considerably. Moving a fully functional battleship and replacing it with one that has a third of its normal firepower is not one to engender love from a sector commander."

"And I really don't care if they love me, or you. I need a sword, and if I have to raid the armory to get one, I'll do that." Parliament would again raise hell. At least those that had always been his enemies. Those he really didn't care about. He would never do enough to satisfy them, so he had decided to stop trying. He had his allies in all of the houses, and enough of a majority where they would do what he said, as long as he didn't do something too disastrous.

"Anything coming through at the front about the attack on the Caca home system?" he asked next. He knew what the result was, and so would the Caca high command. But he had to wonder what affect it was having on the front-line Caca forces.

"Not that we can see, yet. But I'm not really sure it's going to have the hoped for effect. They could likely become even more fanatical and suicidal. Like the, what were they called." The admiral went silent for a moment, searching through her own implant for the information. "The Japanese?. In, what was it, the second of the global wars on Earth?"

"World War Two," said Sean in corrective agreement. "There was always that chance. But it was one I was willing to take. If we could have decapitated their leadership it might have crippled their war effort. At the very least it might cause them to hold back some forces for the defense of their core worlds."

"And if they launch a counter strike against our core worlds?"

Sean shivered at the thought. That was one thing that had made him reluctant about the strike on the Caca home system. They could try the same thing. Maybe not against the Supersystem, which now had pickets out to ten light years in every direction. The Klassekian com techs made sure that anything that tried to get through would be reported, and an interception made by a strong force. But he couldn't cover the entire periphery of the Empire, especially the expanse above and below the ecliptic. If he pulled his entire fleet back and into picket duty, he still wouldn’t have enough. All the core systems had wormhole gates, so if they discovered something heading for one, they could move a large force in to defend. But large enough? In time? He didn't want a replay of Cimmeria and Aquilonia, and had no doubt the Cacas would render any system they struck lifeless.

"That's one reason I want to keep the pressure on. If they pull enough ships off the front to hit us hard in our rear, we should be able to roll over them. It's a risk, but one I'm willing to take."

The expression on the CNOs face showed that she was more than happy that it wasn't her call. Sean almost wished it was someone else’s, but it was his and no one else’s.

"Make sure the Fleet is on the move in three weeks. And that doesn't mean I don’t want us to not have anything in contact with the enemy. I want scout forces out searching, and reaction forces ready to intercept. It's all well and good to stand down for a short period, but if the enemy comes calling we still have to be ready. For whatever might come over the horizon."

"Understood, your Majesty. I'll get Lenkowski and Mgonda to work on figuring out who they need to stand down first, and who they can leave at the front."

Sean nodded, a frown on his face. He really wished his two fleet commanders could stand down as well. With the weight of command on their shoulders, they needed a break more than anyone. And they wouldn't get it. Someone needed to organize and plan, and that job was theirs.

"Give them all the help you can, Sondra. I want them as fresh as they can be when we start back on the offensive. I know that's not going to be a lot, but at least a couple of days, and some good sleep during the down period. They do us no good if they're at the edge of exhaustion all the time."

"We could relieve them for a couple of weeks, sir. Bring them back to the capital system. Replace them with some of the people under them."

Sean thought about that for a moment, and didn't like the possibilities that came to mind. In history, many commanders had been sent back home for a rest, which was the time the enemy attacked. And the superior tactician was not at the front, not able to affect the battle for many days. Just like had happened to those same Germans he had been thinking about during the D-day invasion.

"We'll leave them with their fleets, Sondra. I want them to be there if something bad goes down."

"It seems like you want it all, your Majesty," said the CNO with a frown. "I'm not sure you'll always be able to get it."

Sean dismissed the holo before he started to say something he might regret later. He wanted his people to do their best, and having him come down on them like a ton of neutronium was not the best way to get that best. He also had to admit that McCullom was correct. He did want it all. And sometimes that was not possible.

But if we can take out the Cacas, once and for all, we can get back to the business of building our civilization once again. He wouldn't exterminate them. That would make humanity as big of criminals as they were. But he could pull their teeth, so to speak, and make them just another alien species among others, part of the Empire that humanity was going to build across the Galaxy. Whether anyone else knew it or not.

Epilogue

JANUARY 1ST, 1004. CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

The capital city was still not in good repair. Some of the megascrapers would have to be brought down and new towers raised in their place. Many of the smallest buildings, mere skyscrapers under five hundred meters, low rise housing, individual homes, had already faced the wrecking machines. In places the rubble still piled up, in others it had been scraped clean and hauled away. Their repair and replacement would have to wait, the war was taking up too much in the way of labor and resources to waste on things that weren't absolutely necessary.

Some buildings were under repair. The frame of Parliament had been raised, and workmen were busy putting the finishing touches on the outer walls, while others put in the structures of the various floors. The main meeting rooms were again in use, while the Lords used other buildings for their offices. The building would not approach the beautiful, fanciful art of the original. The Parliament building was a necessity, the sculpture and paintings that had adorned the original were not. Across the square the Reformed Catholic Cathedral was also under construction, as were several government buildings nearby. The Imperial museums could wait. What survived of their collections had been stored away, waiting to come back out when the time was right.

The huge zoological garden was also the site of construction. Habitats were going up, places to house the beasts that had been rendered homeless by the attack, but many of the structures that had made the garden such a pleasant place for humans would also have to wait.

At least the streets have been cleared away, thought Sean, looking down from his viewing box above the largest of the thoroughfares through the capital. A lot of shops in buildings that had not come down were open, serving refreshments to the day's crowds.

And crowds there were, hundreds of thousands within sight, millions along the parade route, here to see the heroes who had struck back at the hated enemy. The admiral, captains and representative crew of the four vessels that had snuck across enemy space to launch the strike. The news services were calling it Retaliation, the Payback mission, a return on the damage that had been dealt to the capital system a year in the past.

It was also Imperium Day, a celebration of the history of the Empire, which was also the day the Cacas had struck at the home system. It seemed fitting that on the anniversary of the attack they should celebrate the retaliation.

The ground cars moved slowly down the street, some of the people sitting on the raised backs waving and smiling, others looking uncomfortable. The ceremony that had given medals to all those people had occurred at the origin point of the parade, and the gold and silver objects hung on colorful ribbons around their necks. Marching bands and units of soldiers and spacers marched along between the cars. Marines and spacers from the mission made up the majority of them, though the bands were based on Jewel.

A hundred aircraft flew over in v formations of a half dozen, at different points along the route, one of the centermost craft flying up and disappearing, the missing man formation, reminding the viewers that not everyone had made it back. Signs flashed lights, fireworks exploded over the sidewalks, and large viewers played back scenes of the attack. The crowd cheered at points, went silent and bowed their heads at others, but all in all this was a celebration of the military and its ability to strike back at the enemy.

"Amazing," said Jennifer, sitting next to her husband and smiling down at the parade. "I never thought I would see the people of the capital so happy again."

Sean looked over at her, his own happiness rising as he thought about her being out in public once again. She had handled the adulation of the crowd at the beginning of the parade, when she stood with her husband as he made his speech, and senior officers hung the medals around the necks of the people honored. She had smiled as the spectators had cheered the sight of the heirs, sitting up in their high-tech strollers. The security detail made sure nothing happened to those children, and their strollers contained more safety apparatus than most spaceships, or at least more for their mass.

His wife was back in her comfort zone, at least for a small period of time, and she seemed even more comfortable in the Emperor's box, out of the direct view of the crowd.

A thought struck Sean, and he frowned, closing his eyes.

"What's wrong?" asked Jennifer, putting a hand on his arm.

"Just thinking of all the dead," he said. "Ours, and theirs."

"I'm sorry so many of our own people died," she said, looking down, then looking up and into his eyes, a savage grin on her face. “Too bad their leader survived.”

The bad news that had come back through the Maurid operatives was that the Caca Emperor had survived. The good news was that he was a total incompetent, and would do more damage to their war effort by remaining in power.

"And I’m beginning to change my mind about those big bastards. I almost wish they had killed all of those demons on their home world. Especially their Emperor. The Universe would be better off without him."

Sean nodded, not wanting to get into an argument with his wife. But he didn't agree with her. Sometimes he wondered how the Ca'cadasans would have turned out if they hadn't have had to fight an alien invasion of their world so early in their history. That hadn't been their fault, nor had it been their fault that they had grown up under such a system. Which didn't mean he wouldn't hit them as hard as he needed to stop them, since his loyalty was to his own. Some of the liberals of the Empire called that attitude racist, thinking humans were more important than other species. But that was an attitude that allowed the human species to survive. It was paramount for the survival of all species, thinking they were special, and had more right to existence than others. That they would fight tooth and claw for survival, and think of other groups when that imperative had been secured.

The newcasters had disagreed with his hidden attitude on the war. They had talked for days, on hundreds of shows, about the relative merits of wiping out the Ca'cadasan race. Wondering why the Emperor hadn't hit their home worlds with enough high relativistic missiles to turn their surfaces molten. Other had argued the very point the Emperor would have made. Genocide didn't suit the human species, and there were so many billions of slaves on those worlds. But most had argued that the Universe would be better off without the Cacas, and that collateral damage to slaves were just those beings hard luck.

Today the common man in the street was celebrating the victory, the kicking of the Cacas in the teeth, and many were praying that their leadership had been killed in the strike.

"Your Majesty," came a call over his com link. He tuned in to the voice only portion of the transmission.

"I'm here," he sub-vocalized. "I'm with the Empress, Sondra. Watching the parade. Is this important?"

"Striped Wolf has just conferred with Admiral Sergiov, your Majesty. He's conveyed the possibility of a general revolt among the slave populations of the Ca'cadasan Empire."

"Interesting, but not anything I can do something about at the moment. Anything else?"

"No, sir. Enjoy your day."

The transmission ended, and Sean smiled. He had put himself at the top of the decision tree so often that his subordinates seemed to think he needed to make all of them. Well, he was going to see about delegating more often. If it didn't work out, he would step back in, but today they could make their own decisions, while he enjoyed the time he spent with his wife and children.

Augustine cried out, while Glenn cooed, and Sean smiled as he thought about how different their personalities were for twins. He reached over and put a hand on the heir's head, stroking the soft hair.

"What do you want to do, tonight?" he asked Jennifer, still looking down at his son.

"We could let the nurses take charge of the children," she said, smiling. "Do you still have a permanent box at that little restaurant in Frisco?"

"I sure do," he said, sending out a command over his implant for his security detail to make reservations and see about his protection on the way to and from the large coastal city to the north. It too had been damaged in the attack, though not to the extent of Capitulum. Their people would also be celebrating. Tomorrow it would be back to the work of winning the war. But today it was time to live.

"We've got reservations," he told her as the communication came back over his 'plant. Sometimes it was good to be king.

*     *     *

JANUARY 3RD, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

"The humans have slowed their offensive, Dread Lord. We think they had overreached themselves, for now. But how long can we expect them to sit and regroup?"

Jresstratta V sat the throne that had been constructed for him at this temporary palace, overlooking the river that ran through the center of the capital city. That city was still a ruin, the palace undergoing superficial repairs that he hadn’t wanted to have to listen to. The headquarters and all of the military barracks had been pounded to ruble. The warrens of slave quarters still extended for hundreds of kilometers in all directions. Most of those were little more than ruble to start with, the hovels of the laborers. Those of the scientists and technicians were almost as well built as those of their masters. That wasn't due to any effort by the Ca'cadasans. The more intelligent slaves built their own houses with care, and the masters were willing to let them have comfortable quarters. One section that had been the home of the more advanced slaves was burned out, the result of the young Emperor losing his temper on the day the humans attacked. There were still Cacada neighborhoods more or less intact, since the humans hadn't seemed to try and strike at anything that wasn't a military target. A sentiment the Emperor couldn't understand, as he hoped to destroy all of their worlds after this.

"That is what you are supposed to be telling me, Great Admiral," said the Emperor of the Ca'cadasan Empire, staring at the male. He relished the feeling of fear in others when he was displeased, but it really wasn't enough.

They don't really respect me, thought the young male. Oh, they fear me, because I have others who will follow my orders, because I am acknowledged as the leader of our people. But I have never been a warrior, never faced an enemy in a fight to the death, like most of my males.

"I am sorry, Dread Lord," stammered the male, who had been known as a mighty warrior in his day, before he had been relegated to the halls of power. "Our intelligence operatives in the human Empire have gone silent. Even our Maurid slaves have not been able to give us the warning we need when the humans attack."

The Emperor thought about that for a moment. The Maurids were fearsome creatures. Though smaller than Ca'cadasans, they were tougher in many respects, faster, with natural weapons that very few sophonts could match. They were also smart, probably smarter than the Emperor's people. If things had turned out different, they might have been the masters, and the Cacada might have been their servants. That hadn't been the way it had turned out, and the Maurids respected strength above all else. Strength which the Ca'cadasans had in plenty. Now, seemingly, so did the humans.

Can we even trust the Maurids? thought the young male. Like most of the slaves of the Empire the Maurids had a single home world. And like most slaves of the Empire they had spread far beyond that world, thanks to the masters that needed their services. Unlike almost all the other slave species, Maurids were allowed to work on their own. They were spies, soldiers, enforcers, which meant they had communications equipment and weapons. And he couldn't think of another species that could cause the Empire more harm if they decided to revolt.

"I want the leaders of the Maurid people brought here. I would talk with them, and see where they stand in their support of the Empire."

"And if they are wavering in that support?"

"Then we will take their heads, and send their decapitated bodies back to their people as an object lesson."

The great admiral bowed his agreement, though the Emperor caught something in the cast of his eyes that told him that the male really didn't agree. He didn't care. He couldn't control his peoples' thoughts, only their actions, and as long as they did what they were commanded he could ask no more.

"And how are the new soldiers coming in their training?"

"They are mastering the simpler tasks, Dread Lord. But I fear they will never be as good at the job of operating our technology as our males are."

With a thought the Emperor pulled up a holo that showed an image of one of the beings in question. The Cacada were used to being the largest creatures around. He had seen images of the Phlistaran aliens of the human Empire, fearsome beings that, though not as tall as his own people, were much bulkier, while giving up nothing in the way of speed. He still didn't understand how the humans made other species their so-called equals. Maybe it was all a ruse, but the aliens bought into it, and fought with all the ferocity and tenacity of their masters.

The image in the air showed something that was even larger than a Cacada, or a Phlistaran. A four meter tall biped, as bulky as the hexapodal alien ally of the humans, with a stupidly placid face. It looked like a perfect laborer, but not much of a fighter. That look could be deceiving. When they were frightened or enraged their glands released a hormone that caused their skin to thicken, their muscles to engorge, and for the raging creatures to become engines of destruction. They had used them against the humans in the Empire of the Fenri, those small beings who had become allies of convenience to the Ca'cadasans. They had been devastating in their attack of the humans, catching them off guard, slaughtering even their warriors in their powerful armored suits. Until the humans figured out to not let the creatures get close to them, and killed them at a distance.

The image shifted, to show the being in its pumped up state, muscles engorged, claws out. But this being was covered in the best armor the Ca'cadasan Empire could provide. It didn't increase their strength like most powered armor. That wasn't needed, but it gave them protection against even powerful modern weapons. The helmet did more than just protect its skull. It controlled the secretions of the glands, allowing its masters to trigger the raging change on command. And allowing them to control it actions. It would never be able to crew armored vehicles or aircraft, but they were the perfect shock troops.

"I want as many of these as are available to be deployed to the nearest planets to the front. If the humans continue into the Empire, I want them to meet our monsters."

The great admiral gave a head motion of acknowledgment while keeping his mouth shut. All knew that the Emperor had demanded that not another light year was to be given up to the humans. But Jresstratta was not an idiot, though young. He knew that he could not command a star to not collapse into a black hole, nor could he stop a fleet just by commanding it.

"And the special units?"

"We have more than enough craft for them, Dread Lord. And more than enough volunteers."

"Then we will kill humans in space and on the surfaces of worlds. Then we will see how the humans stomach deaths in the hundreds of millions. The billions." The Emperor thought of humans as weak creatures, soft hearted, not willing to sacrifice for the good of their species. Greedy and individualistic. He was sure if enough of them were killed they would accept a truce. And a truce couldn't help but work in the favor of the Ca'cadasan Empire, as they rebuilt their military, using the technologies they would steal from their enemies along the way.

*     *     *

The chamber was filled with the sound of growling. Some of it the low-pitched speech of the beings, some just the angry rumbling of creatures who had had enough of slavery and were willing to do anything to escape it.

The leader stood at the front of the room on his hind legs, his sharp eyes looking out over the crowd. His black coat shone in the light. He was not the largest of the Maurids in evidence. He was thought to be the smartest, and in a species which had left behind choosing leadership based on mere physical strength, he was the obvious choice.

There were over four hundred of his kind in the chamber. Coats varied from white, to orange, to black, solid, striped or spotted. None of the fur variations signified races or ethnicities, only the variations of genetics. About half the Maurids stood on all fours, the rest on hind legs so they could look over the others. Both means of standing, both means of locomotion, were equally comfortable.

Scattered about were a number of other beings, unofficial leaders of the myriad slave species of the Empire. All showed signs of anxiety at being at this gathering. Not just because of the consequences that would come their way if the masters found out they were at such a meeting. Being in the proximity of Maurids, about as lethal an intelligent species as had ever walked the surface of any world, was enough to strike fear into the stoutest of hearts. The Maurid home world was about as deadly as any inhabitable world came, and nature had equipped even the planet's sophonts to an unheard of degree. Their jaws could easily cut through bone, and all twenty of their digits were equipped with razor sharp six centimeter retractable claws.

"I would speak," said the leader, whose native name was Loquados, in a carrying voice. He was known to most of the people in this room as Shadow, in whatever word that was in their language.

The noise lowered, at least the speech quieting, though the low-level growling continued. Shadow stared out for a moment, waiting for even that to abate. He finally gave up, deciding to be satisfied with what he had gotten from his enraged people.

"The humans and their allies have taken the first layer of the empire of the masters."

Some howling greeted that announcement, until other angry males slapped them to order. A few slaps drew blood, which resulted in more angry growls and the snapping of teeth.

"The humans and their allies are coming. And the rebellions we have organized, equipped by the humans, have played major roles in taking whole worlds away from the masters."

There was some grumbling noises from the other beings in the room. Their people had paid the blood price for taking those worlds. There were people who were angry that the Maurids hadn't paid as well.

And we've explained that to them, over and over, thought Shadow, wondering if they would ever truly get it. While it was true that his people were very good warriors, they would still go down in the thousands in assaults against armored Ca'cadasans, and they were much better as covert operatives. As long as they took no overt action, the masters would still trust them as their agents. The Maurids listening in to the communications and plans of the masters, transmitting that information to both the rebels and the humans, was their true value.

"I realize the price has been high, and that some of you don't think my people are doing all that they can."

The Maurids again howled, this time in anger that anyone should question their courage. Shadow held up his forehands.

"For the moment, we will stay in the background, getting you the intelligence that you need."
While giving the masters just enough intelligence to make them think we are still on their side. "But the day is coming when we will come out into the open, to strike the masters from the back. To strike them in their own strongholds, their command and control centers, even on the bridges of their warships. And when we do, their Empire shall fall, and our liberators will flood into the Empire, to free us from our shackles."

Now the howling took on a triumphant cast. The other beings waved upper members into the air and called out in their own forms. Hoots, whistles, shrieks filled the air.

"Go back to your people. Tell them that the day of reckoning is coming. That we will soon be masters of our own destiny."

Shadow turned and walked from the room, going down to all fours, the fingers of his hands curling up into a walking pad. He looked forward to the humans taking this space away from the Ca'cadasans, and he hoped the humans were as good as their word. From what he had seen, they treated the alien species of their empire well, like full partners, but they also had a history of incorporating territories they had taken away from other powers into their own nation. That was something the Maurid nation would not stand for. When they were freed from their masters, they would accept no others, no matter how benevolent. Something the humans would someday learn.

The End

About the Author

Doug Dandridge is the author of over thirty self-published books on Amazon, including the very successful, Exodus: Empires at War series, the Refuge techno-fantasy series, The Deep Dark Well Trilogy, as well as numerous standalone science fiction and fantasy novels.  In a five year period as a self-published author, Doug has sold well over two hundred thousand eBooks, paperbacks and audio books.  He has amassed over 5,000 reviews across his books on Amazon, with a 4.6 star average, and a similar number of ratings on Goodreads with a 4.12 star average. He served in the US Army as an infantryman, as well as several years in the Florida National Guard in the same MOS.  Doug, who holds degrees from Florida State University and the University of Alabama, lives with his five cats in Tallahassee Florida.  He is a sports enthusiast and a self-proclaimed amateur military historian.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well Trilogy

The Deep Dark Well:  An Adventure 40,000 years in the making.  Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama.  She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future.  Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars.  Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back:  Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization.  But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own.  Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

Deeper and Darker:  Pandora Latham is on the warpath.  Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic Empire.  The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her cause.

Theocracy:   A young gunpowder era monk becomes the only hope for his doomed world as he is caught up in the game of empire between two more advanced cultures.

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1:  The introduction to the Exodus Universe.  Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home.  Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire.  Until the enemy appears once again at the gates.  And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2:  The saga continues.  The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic.  There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans.  And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  Sean is rescued, but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire.  But will his decision put the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4:  Sean is crowned Emperor, and attempts to organize the Empire for war against the Ca’cadasans.  But he finds that planning battles and winning battles are two different things. Defeat follows defeat.  Can anyone snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?  Or will the new Emperor fail before his reign even really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger:  Cornelius Walbroski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of the most deadly planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.  Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will  promising career end before it really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle:  Sean and the Empire need a victory before human morale goes completely into the black hole.  He develops a plan to bring the Ca’cadasans into battle in space of his choosing.  But the Cacas are not an easy opponent, and they have plans of their own, for the Donut.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:  The Empire has weathered the Ca’cadasan onslaught, and now it’s the time to strike back with an offensive of their own.  A victory could win the war.  But will it?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers:  The Cacas have been ejected from Imperial space, for the moment.  But millions of citizens of New Moscow are still held captive in death camps in their former empire, processed for rations for the large aliens.  Sean is determined to save as many as he can, and the Fleet and Army are prepared to carry out his directive; free the prisoners at all costs.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front:  The exploration mission sent around the edge of the Ca’cadasan Empire has found the other Empire at war with the large aliens.  They are not as expected, and Sean must order his military to perform actions that could vilify him in the eyes of his new allies.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy:  The Fenri, all but beaten, have not given up, and their new plan promises random death and destruction in the Empire.  The Cacas have launched a new offensive against the Klavarta, and their new commander is much more intelligent than the last.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy:  The Cacas have a plan to end the war by taking out the capital system and the Donut at the same time.  Only the bravery of the Imperial military can prevent a disaster from which the Empire can’t recover.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12: Time Strike: The Cacas have launched another invasion, and Sean had been approached with the idea of hitting them where it hurts, back in time.  But messing with the time stream is never a good idea.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:  Three novelettes concerning Exploration Command, the arm of the Fleet tasked with pushing back the boundaries of the Empire, and discovering the technology needed to win the war.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Beasts of the Frontier:  Three novelettes and three short stories about the dangers of the frontiers of the Empire.  The Cacas are not the only threat.  Sometime the danger is the wild, at other times, other humans.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova:  When a civilization is discovered that has a special ability that would be of tremendous benefit to the Empire, great excitement is generated.  When it is found that a nearby blue giant star is due to supernova in less than a year, destroying that world, excitement turns to a frantic race to save as much of that species as possible.  And enemies from the past, lurking in space, bring forth a new war to the embattled Empire.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole:  The Machine Intelligences are back, with a vengeance.  While the Empire is busy fighting a war of survival against the Cacas, the murderous killing machines they had created hundreds of years prior are now ready to strike back.  And the Imperial stronghold of Bolthole is in their sights.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above:  The Machines are on the move, and their great planet killers have the Bolthole system in their sights.  Only the courage and ingenuity of the organic defenders can save the only system that stands between the machine intelligences and the life forms of the sector.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution: The Empire goes on the offensive against the Machines, using their superior technology to take out system after system. And finding out along the way that they have a bigger problem than they thought.

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand:  When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened.  The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob.  There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love.  The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion:  The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist.  Kestral McMann had been in on the kill.  Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States.  McMann is the only man who can stop him.  But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age.

The Shadows of the Multiverse:  Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages.  It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension.  Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

Afterlife:  What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions?  And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want?  And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality?  What would you do?  Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You:  When aliens strike the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way.  They prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology?  The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race will satisfy their evil intent.  There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but can they be deployed in time?  Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1:  A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy.  The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality.  But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge.  The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2:  The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians.  And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function.  So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance.  Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods.  And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy.  But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions:  The human invaders are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and internal combustion engines.  But they still have knowledge of many other techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of the ancient world.  Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and his magical forces.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:  When the evil half lich Emperor sends his minions on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods, an artifact which can control the minds of millions, it is up to Kurt von Mannerheim to stop them.  Along with his fellow immortal, Jackie Smith, the human Physicist/Mage James Drake, the Ellala Ranger Fenris and the Grimakan Priest Garios, they must head to the frozen north to foil the plan, and ensure that the evil artifact never sees the light of day.

Refuge: Doppelganger: Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim.  The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology.  And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger:  Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life.  Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire.  When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her.  The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath.  But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon:  A Steampunk Fantasy.  The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years.  Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth.  But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp.  It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

Aura:  Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner.  Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage.  Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer.  While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras.  Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

Books with other Authors:

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:  Novellas by New York Times Bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, along with Prometheus Award Winner Dani and Eytan Kollin, Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, and Exodus Empires at War Author Doug Dandridge, make this a must have book for the military science fiction aficionado.

A Fistfull of Credits: Fourteen authors write fourteen short stories set in the Revelations Cycle Universe.  Doug Dandridge, Mark Wandrey, Chris Kennedy, Chris Nuttall, Brad Torgerson, Jason Cordova, Kevin Ikenberry, Jon Del Arroz and others.

Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled Zombie stories:  The name says it all.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Epilogue

The End

About the Author