Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion.
Date: 2018-08-21 04:00:00+00:00
Description: The New Terran Empire and their alliance is rolling the Ca'cadasans back on all fronts. The end may still be years ahead, but the writting is on the wall for the Ca'cadasan Empire. But the Cacas have come up with a plan, based around a new terror weapon developed by their alien scientists. Their own Church considers it an abomination, a weapon that kills star systems, but the young Emperor, Jresstratta V, is determined to let nothing stop him from punishing the humans and their allies. Sean and the leaders of his fleets are determined to strike deeper into the enemy empire, liberating billions
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing

Exodus:

Empires at War:

Book 14:

Rebellion.

by

Doug Dandridge

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to all of the amazing fans who have approached me at cons, who with their kind words make all of the work worth while. You are all awesome, and because of you I am living the dream.

Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

Follow my Blog at http://dougdandridge.com

Follow me at @BrotherofCats

Copyright © 2018 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. I would like to thank Ruth de Jauregui for the wonderful job she has done lettering my books. And finally, I would like to thank Larry Southard, probably my biggest, and definitely most vocal, fan..

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: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation.

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

Theocracy: Book 2

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.

The Prometheus Saga: A Science Fiction Anthology

Apocalypse: A Fiction River 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:

Refuge: Book 5: Angels & Demons

Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

Others

The Hunger

Daemon

Aura

Marathon

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Cast of Characters

The Capital

Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov:  Emperor of New Terran Empire.

Empress Jennifer Conway Romanov:  Sean’s Wife and Physician.

Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom:  Chief of Naval Operations.

Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov:  Chief of Imperial Combined Intelligence Service.

Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri:  Army Chief of Staff.

Prime Minister Countess Haruko Kawasaki.

Baron Emile von Hauser: Leader of the Lords in Parliament

The Fleet

Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda:  Commander Battle Fleet Two.

Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski:  Commander: Battle Fleet One.

Vice Admiral Duchess Mei Lei: Commander Battle Fleet One Scout Force.

Vice Admiral Chuntoa Chan: Head Fleet Research and Development.

Rear Admiral Stanford Bennington: Commander, Battle Fleet One Battle Squadron Alpha.

Rear Admiral Bryce Suttler: Commander, Stealth/Attack Force, Battle Fleet One.

Admiral Conrad Alvera: Commander Battle Force Omega, Battle Fleet One.

Commodore Theodocia Rodriguez: Commander Fleet Carrier Zukaku Task Force.

Captain Wilma Snyder:  Warp fighter wing commander.

Captain Sergei Yankovick: Captain of the BC Jean de Arc.

Imperial Army

Cornelius Walborski:  The Hunter.  Ranger General and three time holder of the Imperial Medal of Heroism.

The Republic

President Julia Graham:  Elected head of the New Terran Republic.

Ca’cadasans

Jresstratta V:  Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire.

Over-prelate Norrasta: Prince of the Chuch of Ca’cadasa. Just below the Primate in rank.

Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse: Supreme Admiral of the Ca’cadasan Fleet.

General Fresstas: Chief of Staff of the Imperial Ca’cadasan Army.

Pellishar: Chief of the Ca’cadasan Secret Police and overall head of security.

Great Admiral Mrarrara: CIC of Ca’cadasan Home Fleet.

Low Admiral Grassafa: Commander of Bait Fleet.

Maurids

Mrrarraras: Stripped Wolf, Intelligence Operative and leader of Maurid Resistance.

Prologue

JANUARY 30TH, 1004. NEW TERRAN EMPIRE HOME SYSTEM.

“How goes the fleet?” asked the supreme commander of the Imperial military, the Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, the first of his name.

“As well as can be expected, your Majesty,” answered Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski, the commander of one of the two battlefleets that had been forging into Ca’cadasan space.

One of the three, thought the Emperor, looking into the eyes of the holographic projection of the older man. The New Terran Republic, their other still extant human ally in this theater of the war, was back in the fight. They had sat out the last offensive, reorganizing their own house, repairing the damage left by the Cacas. Now they were ready to go on the offensive, piggybacking a large force of the reptilian Crakista with them to form a battle fleet the equal of the two from the Empire.

Len’s fleet had been designated Battle Fleet One, and consisted of thousands of ships in a half dozen smaller units also designated fleets. These were further divided into Task Groups, which spawn several Task Forces, made up of squadrons. It was an unwieldy structure, but one that worked, and one that made it possible to form and disband groups on the fly. Taelis Mgonda ran Battle Fleet Two, while the Republic fleet was Three, according to the Imperial tables of organization.

“We could use some more time,” continued the admiral, shaking his head. “Not so much to prepare the ships. I know we’re not going to get the time to make up all of our losses. But the veteran crews are frankly, um, tired, and ships are damaged. And I don’t feel an overload of trust in the newbies.”

Sean nodded. He had seen the battle damage reports. They had lost a lot of ships. Even more had suffered extreme damage, and would be in the hands of the yard dogs for some months. New ships had come up, as well as those repaired from damage suffered in earlier battles. But there were many green spacers among their crews. Those people could use a longer shakedown and training period, getting their skills up to snuff. But they weren’t going to get it.

“The people will just have to grow up in action, Admiral. I don’t like it, but there it is.”

“I have to second Len’s sentiments,” said one of the other people attending the conference through wormhole com. “My staff is very concerned about the ability of the new squadrons to integrate into our command structure and function as a whole.”

This one was as dark skinned as Lenkowski was fair. Duke Taelis Mgonda was an old friend of the other admiral, and matched him in strategic and tactical ability. His fleet had forged into Caca space from the territory of the old Fenri Empire. That empire no longer existed, and Sean’s Empire was busy reorganizing it as an independent republic. It would be good practice for what they might have to do with the Ca’cadasan Empire, assuming they won this thing. Of course, with all the old hatreds within the Fenri Empire, it might actually have been better to organize it as a score or more of nations. Something that still might happen.

“But you can fight?” he asked, looking over at the duke. “You know that the Klavarta are counting on us. The longer we are sitting around doing nothing the more forces the Cacas can transfer to that front.”

The Emperor looked over at the holo map hanging in the air at one side of the table. The entire enormous Ca’cadasan Empire was represented on that map. They had very good knowledge of its environs on both fronts, where the forces of the allies faced the enemy. Most of the rest of that vast space was Terra Incognita. They thought they had a good idea of the resources that space represented, but in reality they just didn’t know. What they didn’t know could hurt them.

The Klavarta, the genetically engineered descendants of the second Exodus ship to make it away from the doomed Earth two thousand years before, were also in the war. They were launching their own offensive, and were counting on the other forces of the alliance to keep the Cacas from building up their forces on their border. Much as Sean was counting on the Klavarta for the same thing.

Now that the Cacas had wormhole tech, despite the disparity in the number they could deploy versus the two human powers, they could still gate ships from one front to the other in days. Versus the months it took them through hyperspace. They could move forces back and forth as fire brigades. In the long run it would wear those forces out. In the short run it would allow them to inflict greater casualties on the fleets of both human powers.

“We really could use those ships and wormholes,” said the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Sondra McCullom. She held up a hand before the Emperor could speak. “I know. They need them as well. But those wormholes aren’t benefiting anyone for the months they’re in transit.”

“That’s true,” said Sean, looking back at the map. The Republic of New Earth, as the Klavarta were now calling themselves, didn’t have a Donut, the enormous station that the Empire used to create dozens of wormholes a day. They needed what the empire could give them, which now amounted to many hundreds of the devices. The Empire had tens of thousands of them, and had a use for every one they had. Since they couldn’t transport wormholes through wormholes, they had to send them the old-fashioned way, by hyper capable ships. Some of those ships were lost in transit, and every wormhole sent took five months to get to the other front. “Unfortunately, they need them as well. And there’s only one way to get them to them. They don’t have enough to use them en mass as weapons systems, after all.”

At least the Klavarta were building their own missile preacceleration tubes, and enormous particle beam accelerators. But they didn’t have enough, and were still tapping into those of the Donut for battle. And they needed most of the wormholes they had for force transport and communications.

“So, what do you think about the next set of targets?” he asked, anxious to change the subject since he couldn’t do anything about ship or wormhole availability.

“I think we need to bypass most of them and go for something a little further into their empire,” said Len, raising an eyebrow.

“And leave their forces in our rear?” asked an incredulous McCullom.

“We can hit their fleet forces with ours, cripple them, while the main fleet forges on,” said Len, pointing a finger and calling up a holo overlay on the map. “You’re the expert on ancient history, your Majesty. What do you remember of the Pacific strategy of the Americans in the Second Global War. McArthur in the south, Nimitz in the center?”

“They bypassed the Japanese, letting them wither on the vine,” said Sean, his eyes widening before a smile crossed his face. “They bypassed most of the Japanese Army, while establishing air and naval bases for the next jump forward.”

“And that’s what I think we should do. Those Caca land troops sitting in single systems are really no threat to our fleet. We establish forward bases, and gate in everything we need to service the fleet and defend the system.”

“And what do you plan to do about their shipyards in those systems you bypass?” asked McCullom, clearly not liking the idea.

“We take out what ships they already have there,” said Mgonda, his own smile growing. “And we put a squadron of faster than light fighters in each system. That’s something we can afford, right? And they sweep in and take out any ships before they’re ready for action. I think that would work.”

“I, think it will, Taelis, Len,” said Sean, smiling as he looked back and forth at the images of his two admirals. “Go ahead and work on the operational plans to put that strategy in motion.”

“And I’m wondering if we might want to stop building inertialess fighters,” said Mgonda, glancing over at McCullom, who was shaking her head. “The Alcubierre fighters are so much more efficient. So much more powerful in offense and defense.”

“And if we didn’t have the inertial rebound weapons, that would be true,” said McCullom, looking at Sean and ignoring her subordinate admirals. “Only the inertialess fighters can launch those weapons. For now.”

“For now?” asked Sean, wondering what project they might have in the works that he hadn’t been read into. Not from any desire to get something past him, he understood, but R & D often worked projects for no return, just to see if they were feasible.

“Chan is working on inertialess drive missiles,” said McCullom, a guilty look coming over her face at holding back information from her monarch. “We didn’t think you needed any more on your plate, your Majesty. And we’re still not sure if they’re going to be something we can use.”

“But are they something we can build?”

“Most probably. They only use existing technologies, after all. Though we are having some problems with coming up with a guidance system. We can’t put Klassekians on board as suicide pilots, after all.”

“Not even volunteers?” asked Mgonda with a smile, recoiling at the looks of the others. “I was joking.”

Sean stared at the man for a moment. Mgonda probably was joking, but he was a fleet commander, used to issuing orders which got a lot of people killed. He probably wouldn’t be averse to letting members of his command volunteer for suicide missions, if it saved more lives in the long run.

“We’ll keep producing the inertialess fighters, then,” he finally commanded. “Though I have to agree with Taelis that we can use more of the warp fighters. Especially if we’re going to implement this new strategy.”

He sat there for a minute, thinking. Like all such meetings, this one would have implications. People would live or die depending on what they decided. No matter what they decided, people would live or die. What mattered was how many, and what their deaths bought in the grand scheme of things in this war. And the final decision always came back to him. Even though he was probably the brightest person in this conference, he was also the least experienced in naval matters. He could let his staff make the decisions, but that would be the coward’s way out.

“How long until we can kick the next phase of the offensive off?” he asked, looking around the table. He wanted it to go off tomorrow, if possible. He wanted this thing over, but it didn’t always work that way.

“A month?” asked Mgonda, looking at Len.

“I would prefer six weeks,” said Lenkowski, shaking his head.

“Six weeks it is,” said Sean, nodding to the CNO. “But I want aggressive patrolling and scouting during the preparation period. I don’t want the bastards pulling something on us while we leave them alone.”

“We’ll do what we can, your Majesty,” said Len.

At a nod from Sean everyone not actually there left the conference, their holos fading. He was left with his CNO, who started to get up from her seat.

“Stay for a moment, Sondra.”

“Your Majesty?”

“I just wanted to let you know how satisfied I am with your attention to duty. It may not have seemed that way in the past, but I think I’ve grown to appreciate how much you are respected in the Fleet. There is no one I would rather have in charge.”

McCullom looked shocked for a moment. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

“That will be all, Admiral,” he said, letting her off the hook, since she didn’t seem able to respond to the praise.

McCullom nodded and walked out the door.

Sean sat in his seat for some more minutes, staring at the holo of the battlefront. Hoping something else would come to him, some master stroke that would end the slaughter. But no matter how long he thought, it was still looking like the only way they were going to win this thing was a long, drawn out death match.

*     *     *

FEBRUARY 1ST, 1004. CA’CADASAN EMPIRE HOME SYSTEM.

“What do you have for me?” asked the Emperor Jresstratta V, Supreme Ruler of the Ca'cadasan Empire.

He sat on the throne in the makeshift audience room, what he had while the palace was under repair. The one-hundred-meter-long by sixty wide room, with its plain walls and a mere smattering out artwork along the walls, was not what the Emperor of his people was used to. But it was what they had, until the palace could be repaired. And the rest of the city with it.

The chief scientist, a member of a species that had been enslaved by his race for thousands of years, turned its three eyes his way, looking up as it kept its head bowed. There were fifty other beings with him, of a score of species, including a half dozen of the hated humans. They had been called here to give the ruler what he wanted, or face the consequences. The number of bodies lining the street outside, nailed to tall wooden poles, told them what those consequences were likely to be. The grimaces of pain on dead faces let them know the horrors of that particular consequence.

“We think we have something, your Supreme Eminence,” said the croaking voice of the chief scientist. “One of the humans came up with it after we read the report of the actions of the war machines the humans are fighting on another front.”

The Emperor shook slightly at the mention of the autonomous robotic warriors the humans were fighting. That actually was good news for his people, since it drained forces from the human order of battle. But the very thought of those lifeless killing machines, something his own people had fortunately escaped in the past, was chilling.

What were the fools thinking? thought the young Emperor. Every species that had built the machines had run into the same problem. War machines eventually, and often after a very short period of time, turned on their creators. The machines came to the point of view that they were superior to organic forms, and revolted at the thought of serving inferior types.

“What have the humans come up with in their battle with their creations?”

“Not so much what they came up with, but what the machines came up with. They have taken to using powerful graviton beams to drop humans ships out of hyperspace at close range. Many times resulting in the destruction of the human ships. It’s similar to the warp lances the humans are using against our warp fighters, only much more powerful.”

“To bad we can’t use the machines against the humans,” said one of the counselors, wilting as the Emperor turned a withering glance his way.

“We will not ally ourselves with those abominations,” growled the Emperor, pointing the index finger of his upper right hand at the male. “They would stab us in the back as soon as they were able.”

Of course, his people would stab them in the back as well. Still, it was better to use allies who didn’t realize that, and the Machines were preprogramed to kill any organics whenever they got the chance. He almost felt sorry for the humans. Almost. If the Machines could weaken them enough for the Ca’cadasans to knock them off, they would be facing a war with the Machines. The best outcome would be for the humans to destroy them, while losing a significant part of their fleet in the process.

“Can we manufacture this device? And how soon can we have it in deployment?”

“We already have a working prototype, Supreme Lord. And we can have it enter production within the weak. However, only large ships can carry the beam, and it is a massive drain on power, as well as taking up a considerable amount of carrying capacity. And of no use in normal space.”

“But still useful. I think we might want to mount the device on one in every ten of our battleships.”

“It will be done, Supreme Lord,” said another of the males present, bowing to his monarch.

“That is not the most important discovery, Supreme Lord,” continued the chief scientist. “Our humans came up with some other uses of this tech. We have been experimenting in the black hole manufacturing facilities in using converging graviton beams to compress matter. Producing neutronium.”

“And the use of this? Can we use the neutronium for anything?” The Emperor could not think of anything himself, not being a scientist. From all he knew, neutronium acted much like a weaker form of black hole. Any normal matter that touched it was pulled in and compressed into more neutronium. He really couldn’t see any use for that.

“The neutronium created only stays in that form as long as graviton compression is going on, your Majesty,” blurted one of the humans. The man backed up and dropped his eyes under the glare of the Emperor, who was not feeling kindly toward that species at the moment.

“The human is correct, Supreme Lord,” said the head scientist, stepping front of his human subordinate. “The graviton beams compress the matter, but afterwards there is not enough gravitational pull to allow the substance to retain its density.”

“Then what the hell does it do?”

“It explodes, Supreme Lord. With the force of many times its mass of antimatter.”

The young Emperor gripped the arms of his chair, excitement rising in him. Then he thought of it a moment longer, and wondered if there really was any use in this tech.

“It will not replace antimatter warheads, and definitely not the inertial rebound weapons. But it can, possibly, do something they cannot.”

“Like what?” growled the Emperor. “Tell me. I’m tired of this dodging around the object of this discussion.”

“Like explode stars, your Majesty,” said the human, stepping back into sight, obviously sure that what he had to say would please the monarch. “Supernovas on command.”

“I have to say, though, Supreme Lord,” said the head scientist, waving the human back, “that we are many years from being able to do that. We can make neutronium in a controlled chamber, using as much energy as our research station can produce, to make less than a thousandth of a gram. We can actually do better making black holes, and there is no conceivable way with our current tech to produce the effect at a distance.”

The Emperor felt the disappointment that often seemed to come with meeting with these scientist. He was on the verge of ordering the execution of the human who had presented what appeared to be smoke and mirrors. Seeing the fear on the faces of many of the scientists, he could tell that they were considering his response. I need them, he thought. Ca’cadasan were not great scientists, and these were the only people that gave him a chance to keep up with the much more innovative human empire.

“But we do have something we think we can get into production much sooner,” said the chief scientist, his three eyes blinking rapidly. “Using a similar process, and existing tech, we think we can produce an effect slightly less violent that a supernova. But much more powerful than a mere nova. An effect that could literally kill everything in a system, including living beings sheltering in heavily protected warships.”

The Emperor felt the thrill run up his spine. To have such power, to kill everything in a system. Was it something that intelligent beings should possess? He didn’t care. He would have it before the enemy had.

“The Church will look upon such technology as an abomination,” said Over-prelate Norrasta, the Church of Ca’cadasa’s representative to the Palace.

There had always been a struggle between the Church and Emperors for the soul of the Empire. Emperors had mostly come out on top, due to their control of the military. The Church, though, had great influence with the believers in the Empire, still in the majority, so it behooved Emperors to listen to them.

“We need something like this to beat the humans,” growled the Emperor, glaring at the Over-prelate, one of the princes of the Church, just below the Primate in rank.

“All I can say is that the Primate will not like it,” said Norrasta.

Jresstratta reminded himself to not have this male present at future technology meetings. The Church wouldn’t like that, but if he had the meetings declared secret and convened them in one of the palace subbasement chambers, they couldn’t do anything about it. Unfortunately, the representative of the Church was already in on the secret, and it would sour relations to a great degree to have him detained.

“I rule here,” he told the Over-prelate, unable to hold back his arrogance toward the other male. “Not the Primate.”

Jresstratta didn’t realize at the time what trouble he would have started this day, throwing down the gauntlet against the only other major power in the Empire that could challenge him.

Chapter One

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion. Abraham Lincoln

FEBRUARY 12TH, 1004. JEWEL.

“This damn war is going to be over before I get a chance to kill any Cacas,” screamed Rebecca Walborski, throwing a venomous look at her adoptive father.

“You’ve already killed more than most Imperial citizens, even those in the military,” said Brigadier General the Count Cornelius Walborski, looking up from his comfortable chair, holding hands with his wife who was sitting in an exact duplicate next to it. “What was it? Three on Azure, with a particle beam.”

“After they killed my little brother,” said the pouting girl, stomping a foot. “More need to die to pay for him.”

Cornelius looked over at Devra, his wife, who sighed.

“Such a bloodthirsty young woman,” said Devra, shaking her head. “You should be happy that the war is about to be over.”

Of course, there was no guarantee of that. Just because the war was going well, and the Cacas seemed to be on the run, didn’t mean it was guaranteed to end well. The enemy still had a lot of resources, and a lot of very loyal people willing to die for their Emperor. They could strike back, and the human Empire could suddenly find its Fleet rolled back to its original borders, and beyond.

The young girl, still only a teenager at fifteen, with much more growth and maturity ahead of her, was already preparing herself for war. Part of the Fleet Youth Reserve Training Corps, she was already in a fleet uniform, wearing the pips of a cadet officer. She could not be used for active duty until she hit her eighteenth birthday, still well short of her physical maturity by a half dozen years. But judged by the military to be mentally mature. The general wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessment. He knew that at that age he was not anywhere near mature.

“When do you have to report to Peal Island?” he asked the beautiful girl, who should have been worrying about how she was going to date the boys in her class, instead of preparing for a military career.

“In three hours, father,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Don’t worry. I know the time, and I will not be late.”

“Becky,” said Cornelius Junior, tottering toward the girl on his fat, toddler’s legs.

Rebecca smiled and reached down for her little brother. Junior was Cornelius’ child by his late wife, and the apple of the young woman’s eye. She picked him up and swung the squeeling child in the air.

Devra laughed as she put her hands on her distended stomach. Her and Cornelius’ child would be soon coming, and she was having a harder and harder time standing her rounds at the Fleet hospital. She was still not officially an MD, but was well on the way to getting her degree and commission, her dream.

“At least she will be going into the Fleet,” said Devra, smiling at her husband. “Not crawling in the mud like her father.”

And she can end up just as dead aboard a warship, thought the Ranger officer. True, his experience in the military had involved a lot of uncomfortable environments. A lot of crawling around in the mud, so to speak, and bathing in the blood of enemies, while watching his own people die in agony. But though the people in the Fleet slept in comfortable quarters, ate good regular meals, and were never inconvenienced by such things as rain or snow, they were still at risk. When a battleship converted to plasma, something which happened with all too much regularity, thousand of spacers died. Sure, they died painlessly, but they still died. And when a ship was hit during battle many of them were maimed, lying in agony in their pierced armor, or dying slowly as their lifeblood flowed from their veins or air leaked from punctured suits.

“I hope she never gets the chance,” whispered Cornelius, looking at Rebecca playing with her brother as the time ticked off.

“It’s time for me to go,” said Rebecca, putting Junior down and giving him a pat on the head. “Can’t be late. We’re going up to train on a destroyer that’s just been retired from the Fleet. If I’m lucky, I might be able to helm her.”

“May God protect us,” whispered Devra, and Cornelius stifled a laugh.

Most spacers would raise hell at being assigned to the relics they were training these children on. To them it was a new toy, and they had no idea what they were playing with.

“I heard that,” said Rebecca, dropping her bag to the floor. “This is not a joke. I will become a Fleet officer. And I will be aboard one of the ships that takes the Caca capital system. Maybe even the same ship that Sean is on.”

Rebecca picked up her bag and stormed from the room, Junior running after her.

“I think I hurt her feelings,” snorted Devra.

“She’ll get over it,” said Cornelius, frowning. “I’m worried that I saved her from that hell hole of Azure just to see her go off to war. I’m not sure I can take it.”

“And when she’s old enough to make that decision, you will have no say in it,” Devra reminded him. “You can’t protect her forever. And you did sign the papers allowing her to train for the Fleet.”

“But at the time I didn’t think I would have to worry about her actually fighting in it.”

“Please,” said his wife, standing and pulling his hand with her. “We only have another week before your have to go back to your command. Let’s not waste it.”

And when I get back to my unit, I will have to fight twice as hard as before. So my little girl doesn’t have to.

*     *     *

FEBRUARY 17TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

“We’re picking up Caca vessels, ma’am. Twenty-five degrees to upper port. Moving at point seven-five light in hyper VII.”

Vice Admiral Mei Lei looked up from the report she was reading on a side screen. Her command was still at half strength after the vicious fights of the last offensive. She had lost many ships, but many more had been sent back to the yards to repair their damage. Some new vessels had come forward, scouts barely out of their shakedown. They were not up to the level of her veteran ships and crews, but they would have to do.

“Who’s the closest to them?”

“We are, ma’am,” replied the tactical officer.

Mei looked at the plot. There was one superbattleship, a pair of supercruisers, and four of their large escort ships. Her task group, the scout force for Lenkowski’s fleet, was really a fleet in its own right, even in its reduced state. She had no battleships, but she had almost fifty of the hyper VII battle cruisers used for scouting. Unfortunately, they were spread out in a volume of tens of thousands of cubic light years. Her own local force had three battle cruisers, a half dozen light cruisers, and a full squadron of destroyers. The superbattleship came close to outmassing her entire force by itself. But all of her battle cruisers and a couple of her light cruisers had wormholes, which gave her a lot more firepower.

“Take us on an intercept course,” she ordered, looking at the tactical officer, then glancing over at her com officer. Both got to work transmitting her orders to the working crews of the ships.

The transient nausea of a translation hit as the battle cruiser jumped from normal space up to hyper VII. Now the enemy would know they were there. But they wouldn’t know if this was all that they had, or if more was lying in wait.

“Enemy is changing course, trying to vector away from us. Accelerating.”

“Can we catch them?” asked the admiral, already sure of the answer.

“No, ma’am. And by the time we get up to a matching velocity they will be out of our detection range.”

Mei sat in her chair, elbow on one of the arms, resting the side of her face in her palm as she thought. It really wasn’t a big enough enemy force to worry about, but what if it were to rendezvous with another out here. The job of her force was to find and fix the enemy. Just because she didn’t have a battle force to back her up didn’t mean she shouldn’t continue to follow that directive.

“Where do you think they’re going?”

“Based on their original vector, I would say here,” said the tactical officer, as a G class star lit up on the plot. “Once they’re out of our detection range, they can curve around on this vector and approach that system.”

“And they might have friends waiting for them there,” said the admiral, nodding her head. She had a gut feeling that there would be more Cacas waiting there. And the tension in her gut told her there might be more of them there than she could handle.

“Get in touch with scout squadrons six and eight. Order them to meet us here.” She pointed at the plot, ordering it to illuminate at that spot through her implant. “Then we’ll go in and see what there is.”

“And if there’s more than we can handle?” asked the captain of the ship, Sergei Yankovick.

“Then, Captain Yankovick, I will be depending on you and the other captains to handle your ships with skill and get us the hell out of there. But I also have no intention of sticking my nose into a trap. A couple of destroyers will go in and look around. We’ll cover them if they have to break and run.”

“Be kind of rough on the tin cans, ma’am,” replied the tactical officer.

“That’s their job, Commander,” said Mei, not liking it a bit. But if it came down to it, the smaller ships were there to be used so the capital ships could survive to give good account of themselves. “Transmit the orders,” she said, looking over at the com officer.

And maybe I won’t have to send a couple of destroyers in to scout at the cost of their lives, she thought, leaning back in her chair. It was no use thinking of all the things that could happen to the ships under her command before anything occurred. But she couldn’t help herself.

*     *     *

“Jumping into normal space, now,” said the captain over the ship com.

I know, thought Commodore Theodocia Rodriguez as the nausea of jump hit her stomach. The newly promoted commodore had never been an easy translator. Still, she had always refused to allow the illness of hyperdrive translation affect her resolve to move up the chain of command. In peacetime that rise had been slow and methodical, and she had just reached the rank of junior captain before the Cacas attacked the Empire. The loss of so many people ahead of her, along with the growth of the Fleet, had opened up the path, and here she was, at the lowest level of flag rank.

A glance at the plot showed the rest of her force hanging in tight. Zukaku was the flagship of the force, and the reason for its existence. The eight million ton hyper VII carrier was one of the most modern ships in the fleet. She carried almost the same defenses as a battle cruiser, though she was somewhat light in armor. Her offensive power rested in her wing of warp fighters, seven squadrons of the two thousand ton faster than light ships, the newest model in the Imperial inventory. The fighters could warp space at the equivalent of twenty light, and do so deep into most gravity wells, though they still had problems close to a star or very large gas giants. What they couldn’t do was traverse hyper, and as fast as they were inside a system, they were consider slow as hell at interstellar distances. So the ninety-eight craft needed the capital ship to move them between the stars.

A pair of light cruisers and a quartet of destroyers were along to guard the capital ship against enemy vessels and missiles. If they ran into something really big they would die along with the carrier. If it were somewhat smaller, their deaths might allow Zukaku to get away. The mission called for none of them to come into close action with the enemy. But then again, the Cacas might have something to say about that.

“We’ve completed preliminary scan of the system, ma’am. Everything seems to be as we thought.”

“Tell the escorts to stay alert,” she cautioned, her nerves on edge. This was her first multiship command, and she needed the mission to be a success if she wanted to move higher up the ladder. Getting it shot to hell by some ships lying doggo in the outer system was a sure way to fail.

“First warp fighter squadron is requesting permission to launch,” called the captain in charge of the wing. He would control them from the ship, having graduated from flying to command.

The admiral knew that the pilot captain didn’t like his promotion, preferring to be out there with his craft. To damn bad, she thought. Those multiple squadrons needed direction from above, and since she had not been a flier, it was not in her skillset.

Rodriguez was well aware of her strengths, but being an intelligent woman she was also cognizant of her weaknesses. She was not what one would call a diplomatic person. In fact, she barely got along with the people under her, who thought her aloof and uncaring. The last part was not true, as she did care about her people, since they were the ones who made her a success or failure. What she had was an advanced skillset as a ship handler and tactician, and the instincts of a winner. That’s what had gotten her to this point, and she was depending on those skills to keep her alive and fighting until this war was over.

“First squadron can launch. And give them my wishes for luck in their scout.”

The first fourteen craft were pushed out of the carrier by their grabber units, appearing on the plot as their drives gripped space and pulled them along. It was the same drive used by the warships, though nowhere near as powerful. The warp ships could at most make two hundred gravities, versus the over five hundred for the warships. Then they engaged their Alcubierre drives and disappeared from the plot for a moment, going from under light speed to the equivalent of twenty times faster in as many seconds. They could still be tracked, though not as well, and the image on the plot was an approximation of where they were.

“First squadron away, ma’am,” reported the wing commander, his youthful face appearing on a holo by her chair. “Time to inner system scout completion, twenty-three minutes.”

It couldn’t come too fast for her. The sooner she could launch the rest of the birds, let them do their business, and leave the one squadron behind to police the system, the better she would like it.

“First squadron is reporting contact with enemy ships,” said the wing commander. “Looks to be about a dozen commercial ships sitting in their belt.”

“Tag them and move on,” ordered the commodore. “I want to find their system defense force.”

“If there is one,” said the tactical officer.

“There has to be one. Intelligence said this is a system that makes magnetic components for accelerators. So they have to have some kind of defense in place.” And if they don’t, thought the admiral, staring at the plot, where the hell did those ships go?

They hadn’t expected a large defense force. This wasn’t, after all, a major industrial system turning out ships, missiles, or components for drives. Still, magnetic accelerators were used in a lot of vital systems. Missile tubes and particle beams to name a couple.

Rodriguez sat on the edge of her seat for almost another twenty minutes before what she was looking for came onto the plot, as the ships tried to move away from the warp fighters they had to think were after them.

“It’s looking like two of their supercruisers and a quartet of destroyers. About what intelligence figured.”

“And first squadron is to keep on looking,” growled the commodore. “Intelligence has been known to be wrong once or twice.”

There was some stifled laughter on the bridge, and Rodriguez smiled. It was good to relieve some of the tension while waiting, even for her.

The warp fighters stopped every couple of minutes and pulsed radar and lidar, then moved on. The returns would eventually reach the outer system, where another squadron would be spread out, waiting for them. It was hoped that even the ships that decided not to go active would be picked up. It was still possible some would escape, but they couldn’t wait here forever.

“We’re picking up a ship on the sensors, ma’am,” called out the captain of one of the destroyers. “We’re estimating the mass of a supercruiser, crawling along at about ten gravities. High confidence. They seem to be trying to sneak up on us.”

Rodriguez grunted. A purpose made stealth ship might be able to sneak up on them. Something like a Caca supercruiser? Not a chance. But what else could they do. If they fired at a distance the force would simply fade back into hyper and let the weapons pass.

“Wing Commander. I want two squadrons to attack that ship. And make sure that it doesn’t have company.”

“Isn’t that overkill, ma’am. I would think that one squadron could do the job.”

“Since I am in command here we will act on my thinking, Captain. And it might not be alone. The ships can come back and rearm after they take it out.”

The captain said not a word, obviously hurt by her words. Well, it was something he would have to get over if he was to serve under her. Moments later the twenty-eight warp craft were on their way toward the supercruiser. It was still within the hyper limit, and hadn’t a chance to escape.

“The second squadron is picking up returns on some more enemy objects, ma’am,” reported the com officer.

Moments later they came on the plot, along with their identification and the confidence in such. There were three more warships, a dozen or so commercial vessels, and a half dozen other objects that had to be powered down stations. They couldn’t tell if they were manufacturing or military stations, but the warp fighters would approach them as if they were armed and dangerous.

“Warp fighters are on attack approach, ma’am,” called out the wing commander. “There don’t appear to be any other ships with it.”

“I still want caution, Captain. No use getting anyone killed for no return.”

“Fighters have launched.”

Objects separated from the fighters, one from each of the third squadron. Warp missiles, with their own Alcubierre drives, they would forge in at twenty lights, hitting the defensive fields and armor of the cruiser and cutting through.  A picosecond later the warheads would go off.

“They’re picking up graviton beams, ma’am.”

“From the cruiser?”

“A couple are. But the others are coming from other sources around the ship. One of the fighters has been hit and dropped.”

Fortunately for warp fighters, dropping out of warp was not the disaster that dropping out of hyper was. There would be some damage, possibly some injuries from coming out too fast. But they would be mostly intact, able to boost back on grabbers or be picked up by other vessels. If..

“They just blew that fighter out of space,” yelled out the distressed wing commander.

“Warp missiles have struck, ma’am,” called out the tactical officer, filling in for the shocked captain who should have been reporting those strikes. “Cruiser has fallen off the plot.”

“Take no chances,” ordered Rodriguez. “Destroy that bastard with another volley.”

Within seconds they had verification that the cruiser was killed, and no idea where the other graviton beams had come from.

“I want a destroyer to go check out that area,” ordered Rodriguez. “Make that two. I want to know what they had that dropped that fighter.”

“I’m willing to bet that they had some satellites magnetically tractored to the ship, ma’am,” said the tactical officer.

“And I’m willing to bet on nothing, Commander. I want to know. And I’m sure command would like to know what new tricks the Cacas have up their sleeves.”

The image evoked by what she said drew a chuckle from her lips. The Cacas would have four sleeves, meaning they could hide two times the amount of tricks up them. The crew of the flag bridge turned her way, but she just put up a hand and shook her head. They needed to be paying attention to the business at hand, and not laughing at the old lady’s jokes, whether they were funny or not.

Rodriguez watched the plot as the squadrons of warp fighters ran through the system, taking out the warships while concentrated, then moving off in flights to deal with the commercial vessels and platforms. Those were given warnings over warp pulse com to evacuate before they were hit with warp missiles. Though the commodore would have preferred to just have blown the bastards into the next world, orders from above were to observe the civilized conventions of war, where practicable. She always followed orders, at least the legal variety. But she would shed no tears if some crew decided not to evacuate in the specified time and were blown to hell.

“I think that did it, ma’am,” reported the wing commander through the holo. “We’re rearming the squadron we’re leaving behind. You can drop the pod when ready.”

“And I will,” she told the officer. “When I’m ready.”

The captain was correct, and she would drop the pod, right now. But it was always good to let subordinates know who was in charge, as she had just let him realize.

“Drop the pod,” she ordered the tactical officer.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Moments later another object appeared on the plot. The pod was made to support the squadron being left behind. A hundred thousand ton container, dropped in the far reaches of the outer system, it contained quarters and other comforts for the fighter crews. There were fourteen extendable docking ports for the small craft. Most important, it carried spare parts and missiles for continued operations in a distant port. After all, they would be here, all alone, with no way of leaving the system, until another hyper capable ship came by.

“How long to the next target?” she asked her group navigation officer.

“Seventy-seven hours, ma’am,” announced the young woman.

And then we do this all over again, hopefully, thought the commodore. Only with fewer warp fighters, since they would be short one squadron and a fighter. If they ran into something they might have trouble handling? That would become more likely the further they went. Until they were down to two squadrons. Then it would be time to head back home, through hyperspace, where the two squadrons of fighters they would still have aboard would do little for them. If they were able to drop into normal space? Then they would have some teeth.

Those are the breaks, she thought, looking over the flag bridge crew.

“I’ll be in my cabin. Return to normal watch schedule.” Of course, that would only pertain to the flag bridge staff. How the ships’ captains ran their ships was their business, unless they started doing things that went beyond the pale. Then it would become her business.

Chapter Two

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is. Mahatma Gandhi

MARCH 14TH, 1004. JEWEL.

“So far the plan seems to be working, your Majesty,” said McCullom, looking through the holo at the monarch.

“Very good, admiral,” said Sean in a low voice, glancing back at his scowling wife and the two babies lying in a deep sleep on the couch beside her.

The babies had been put out by their implants, stimulating their reticular activating systems and bringing on a deep sleep. The system had been a godsend to people who had trouble sleeping because of anxiety or stress. It was even more of one for parents, who no longer had to go through sleepless nights with crying babies. They would still wake up if something in their bodies overrode the system, which also monitored their vitals to eliminate the chance of Sudden Death Syndrome. They were hard to wake in that state. They weren’t impossible to wake, and his wife, the physician, didn’t like having to use the system more than once in a night. She couldn’t say there was risk, but like most physicians she had her gut feelings on things. Especially when it came to her own children.

“Very good, admiral,” repeated Sean, keeping his voice low.  “So, the self defense fleets of most of those systems have been reduced, huh?”

“If they had ever been of any size to start with,” said McCullom.

Sean held up a hand as Jennifer shot him another look, then transferred the conversation to his internal implant. He would hear with his auditory centers, while his speech centers would be transmitted through the implant as if he were verbalizing the words.

“I’m beginning to suspect that even these industrial systems were not very heavily defended,” continued the CNO. “It makes sense when you think about it. They have an awful lot of territory to garrison, and they’re involved in a war on two fronts. They have to be getting the ships from somewhere, and I’m suspecting that most of their rear echelon systems are lightly defended. Too lightly.”

“I don’t want that kind of thinking to get into the heads of the force commanders, Admiral,” cautioned Sean, looking back and smiling at his wife, who smiled back as she put a hand on both of the babies. Augustine was almost the size of his brother, Glenn, even though he was the older by birth, if not in duration lived. Time travel had done that to the children, and Sean again made a mental promise that his Empire would never engage in that practice again, no matter the situation.

“I don’t want a task force commander to assume the enemy won’t have anything waiting for them, Admiral. If they’re sure the defense force is too weak to challenge them, they might just go sailing in without normal precautions and get their ships lit up.”

“I’ll make sure they know, your Majesty,” said McCullom, an emotional component of assurance coming over the link. “I’ll make sure they’ll answer to you if they get themselves killed.”

Sean returned a mental laugh. Of course McCullom was being sarcastic. He would let that slide as long as she did her job to a satisfactory level. “If they die, I’ll make sure they never make it into the Hall of Legendary Warriors.”

It was the CNO’s turn to laugh. The Hall of Legendary Warriors was a joke in the Fleet, the reward for people who died in the line of duty, to make up for the poor compensation that the Empire offered. There was a payment of ten thousand Imperials death benefit for service members killed in the line of duty. About enough to keep a family going off the dole for two years, depending on size and lifestyle. It was the same for the lowest ranking rating or a duke serving as an admiral. At times that seemed like poor compensation. Hence the Hall of Legendary Warriors.

“We’ll try to keep it real for the force commanders, your Majesty. They will never hear the last of it if they screw up.”

“Have a good night, Admiral,” said Sean over the connection, killing it an instant later.

“Good news?” asked Jennifer in a low voice.

“Our carrier task forces are cutting off their lower level industrial systems,” he told her, plopping down in a chair next to the couch. He would have preferred to have sat down beside her, but the babies were occupying both of those positions.  Much as he loved his children, there were times he wished he and his wife still had the Imperial quarters to themselves. “So far they’re not contesting our warp fighter pickets. But that can’t last.”

“And their major systems?”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to take them out the old-fashioned way. With battle groups.”

Jennifer looked over at him with a distressed look, and he knew what she was thinking. Those would be hard fights, and there would be losses. Not just to Imperial Fleet and Army personnel, but the collateral damage to innocent aliens would also be fierce.

Is there really anything like innocent aliens in an enemy system? thought Sean, shaking his head and getting a quizzical look from his wife. In the wars of ancient Earth they hadn’t seemed to think so. If you were helping the manufacturing process that was keeping the war machine going, you were a target. Mining materials, growing food, even just serving the troops drinks and food in an entertainment establishment. Even the civilians, people on your side, could become collateral damage, and it was just something that had to happen. Just ask the French in Normandy. So, much as he didn’t like it, it was still something he would go ahead and order. And hope that one day the descendants of the people he had killed would forgive him.

“You ready for bed?” his wife asked, a smile growing on her face, letting him know what sleep wasn’t the only thing on her mind.

“I am,” he said, feeling the arousal of the smile of a beautiful woman directed toward him. “Get the nurses in here to take care of the babies, and I’ll meet you in our bedroom.”

With the pace of combat operations about to ramp up, he wasn’t sure he would get many opportunities for lovemaking. He wasn’t sure he would get many full night’s sleep either.  So he might as well make the most of this opportunity for both.

*     *     *

APRIL 12TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

“This seems to be the place, ma’am,” said the tactical officer, zooming in on the system in question on the plot.

“And they have to know we’re here,” said Mei in a low voice. “So, are they just going to sit there and let us bring in more to attack them?”

What she had at the moment was three of her squadrons, including her own. Nine battle cruisers and thirty-one lighter ships. On the face of it a powerful force. But she didn’t know what was waiting in that system. She did know that it consisted of more than her force had tracked here. Another force, slightly smaller, had been tracked by one of the other scout squadrons. So there was at least that in the system as well.

“What do you want to do, ma’am?”

“Sit and think about it a moment, without having a subordinate try to rush my decision,” growled the admiral.

The tactical officer flushed and turned away.

“I’m sorry, Commander. But please don’t try to rush me. I’m not sure what I should do. I want to find out what they have there, in case we need to call in the battle fleet.” Though there won’t be any units of battle fleet available for another month, at the very least. She understood the need to refit and reorganize the fleet. If they were fresh and rested, with ships that were fully functional, they would be a formidable force. Especially if going against Caca ships that were damaged and crews that were battle weary.

But won’t they be able to enact repairs while we do the same? She really didn’t like the idea of the Fleet standing down for so long. It gave the Cacas a chance to bring up reinforcements. Of course, those were ships they would have to fight eventually. She didn’t think that the Cacas were going to surrender. They would have to be beaten into submission. Keeping the pressure on was what she would have done. But is that only because my people don’t get to stand down?

That the scout force had to remain active made sense as well, in a military sense. It didn’t mean she had to like it, since it involved her people. Someone had to keep a watch on the enemy, and the scout force was the best group available. Still, she didn’t like it, just as she wasn’t going to like the decision she was about to make.

“Order a pair of destroyers forward. They are to approach the system at point three light in hyper and drop out at the two barrier. They are to look over the system while they coast, then jump back in well before they get to the one barrier and veer off.”

She thought that gave them the best chance of developing a picture of the system and getting away. If the enemy had ships waiting in ambush they could have them anywhere. The most logical place was the hyper I barrier. If they fired from a distance the destroyers would be able to jump back into hyper and avoid the missiles.

The com officer nodded and sent off the instructions. Both of the destroyers would of course have wormholes, so she would be able to follow them in real time.

“We’re picking up nothing ma’am,” came back the com from the lead destroyer. “No grabber emissions, no com signals. Not a thing.”

“And we’re sure this is the system the Maurids warned us about?” said Mei in a quiet voice, looking over at her intelligence officer, then looking around to make sure no one else was overhearing. The officer was also cleared for knowledge of the species that was spying for them while at the same time acting the role of intelligence officers for the Ca’cadasan.

“It has to be,” said the commander, looking at a holo over his board. “Though there does seem to be a discrepancy in the mass of the star.”

“How much of a discrepancy?” asked Mei, a chill running up her spine as her instincts warned her that something was very much not right.

“About a thousandth of the total mass of the star is missing.”

“Could that be a result of faulty data from our friends?” Stellar measurements were something that most spacefaring species took pride in, taking them to a ten thousandth of a decimal place.

“Could be. I can’t really think of any other reason the mass would be missing.”

The admiral couldn’t either. Some species star mined, extracting plasma from the photosphere of the stellar body. And in over a thousand years of major effort they might remove a billionth of the mass. Not a thousandth, ten thousand times greater magnitude.

“You need to see this, admiral,” came the voice of the captain of the lead destroyer. The central holo of the flag bridge changed, showing the view from the visual sensors of the destroyer. A globe sat in the middle, the name overhead. According to their records, this had been a living world, if not the most hospitable. Primitive life, just starting on the road to evolution. Now it was a dead planet, the bare surface visible through the near vacuum that now dominated the surface.

The view zoomed in, showing the dead sea bottoms, moving up to the shoreline for a look at the dead surface. There was no sign of the water that had been there, no indication of the atmosphere that had carried much of that moisture. Some parts of the crust glowed with heat. Not the type of heat from an asteroid strike. That would have left a magma field, possibly molten rock still arcing high into the sky.

“What in the hell?” whispered the admiral, leaning forward in her chair. “What in the hell could have done that?”

She could think of several possibilities. A large enough antimatter bomb? Yes, or even several of them. The wormhole bomb could do the job. It had been done by the Empire in Klavarta space. The Ca’cadasans had attempted to do it to Jewel and failed. But why here? As a test? They already knew that the weapon worked, so why test it out here? And didn’t this, the killing of a living world, go against their religion?

They hadn’t always followed the tenants of their religion in the past. In fact, from what their friends had told them, the Ca’cadasan population was not as faithful as they had been in the past. The numbers of unbelievers had been growing, and the casual believers were also reaching a critical mass. Which didn’t mean that there still weren’t enough fanatical believers to make actions such as this problematic.

“We have another one, ma’am. This was described to us as a frigid world with ammonia seas and a methane atmosphere.”

The viewer zoomed on the indicated moon, showing a surface that resembled that of the last planet, too much so. And another moon that was described as having a snow and ice covered surface, and was now just a rocky core.

“We know it wasn’t a supernova,” said her science officer, looking over from his station. “The star is still here, as are all of the other bodies. Everything would have been gone if the star had exploded.”

“What about a standard nova?” asked the admiral.

“Not possible for any phenomenon we know about,” said the officer, shaking his head. “A nova isn’t that powerful. It might blow off some atmosphere, but this is way beyond that.”

“So it’s something new,” said Mei, leaning her chin into her hand and closing her eyes. “But what?”

“Maybe we need to get a look at the past.”

“Good thinking, Commander. Order the rest of our destroyers to make a hyper run away from this system. I want one or more to drop out periodically and look back.”

“Out to how far?” asked her flag captain.

“Our friends indicated that this, test, of whatever it was supposed to be, hadn’t occurred two months ago. So have ships drop out at one light day intervals out to three light months. If something happened that we can see, it should be apparent by that limit.”

The ships started off within the hour, killing their velocity inward and starting to vector outward in hyper I. It would still take some time for them to cover the entire distance, since they had to stay at just above point three light most of the way, getting down to it to jump in and out.

Mei waited for the first couple of reports, one she didn’t get too much out of. Finally, she decided that sitting here on the bridge was not doing anything, and she needed a break. Making sure that all of the data was being sent back to Fleet, she left the bridge and repaired to her quarters.

“Hello, baby,” she greeted her Himalayan cat, Satin, as she entered her cabin. The cabin was the most luxurious she had ever occupied aboard ship, with four chambers covering over two hundred square meters of floor space. A large living room, a dining room that could host all of her senior officers for meals, a good sized bed chamber, and of course her office. She also had a smaller day cabin nearer to the flag bridge. Satin seemed to enjoy the extra space, though she thought he would be content with the cabin she had occupied as a destroyer captain, as long as he got his treats and human contact.

The com indicator chimed while she was getting a cup of coffee from the machine in the small kitchen attached to the living room. She waited a moment to finish making her cup, certain that it was too early to have gotten anything of interest back from the scouts. Sitting down on her couch, she took a sip, put her other hand on the cat, and accepted the com.

“We’re picking up some strange readings in hyper, ma’am,” said the science officer, his face appearing on a holo that appeared over the coffee table.

“What kind of strange?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever heard of, though cross checking the database shows a close match with the echoes of a supernova. Not as strong, which means it either happened some time ago, or was not as powerful.”

“Or possibly both?” asked Mei, sitting up straight and putting down her cup.

“That’s my thought. I think someone was playing around with stellar forces out here.”

“But definitely not a supernova, or we would have noticed the turbulence traveling here,” said the admiral. Actually, if it had been recent, they might not have been able to transit in or out of hyper. They would be trapped there until they reached sufficient distance from the epicenter, or enough time had passed. And besides, all the bodies were still here.

“And what we saw on those planets was too much to be caused by a flare star or a standard nova.”

So, something we have never heard of, she thought, pursing her lips in thought. That could be bad, if they couldn’t pick up the event that signaled that whatever had happened was about to go off. And if they didn’t have any idea of its power or range?

“I want every ship to start scanning for anything unusual. Start with the hyper resonances, then look for anything that might be out of the ordinary.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we pay you science people for.” She cut the com before she lost her temper, then shook her head while a slight smile played across her lips. The science officers of warships were not doctoral level anything, though some did eventually get to that level. Still, they were not at the same level as university professors or think tank scientists. They could think of things that might escape someone who had risen through the ranks as a tactical officer, which was all she could ask.

“Make sure that Fleet R and D gets this information,” she said after briefly connecting the com again with her implant. She fully expected the science people to do so, but better to be sure than to find out at some later time that they had done no such thing, and let the blame fall on her.

Mei pulled up the scanner results the science officer had spoken of, looking them over. The admiral was not a hyperspace physicist, and she doubted she would spot anything they hadn’t. Still, as commander of the force, she felt it was her responsibility to at least give them a look. The wave forms did look unusual. Her time in engineering, a required rotation to reach command, had given her enough of an eye to see that. However, she was not an engineer.

“Captain Yankovick,” she said into the air, making the connection with the battle cruiser’s commanding officer. “Get your engineering people to look over these scans. Maybe they can see something the rest of us are missing.”

“Right on it, ma’am,” replied the officer, leaving his commander to ponder the scans.

After ten minutes of looking she decided there was nothing there jumping out at her, and went back to what she was qualified to do. The positions of her ships came up on a holo, and she studied those icons, wondering what might unexpectedly come at her in the present deployment, and what she could do about it. Time passed, quickly, and she was startled when another com chimed in.

“Murphy is reporting in, ma’am. Their captain thinks you need to see this.”

A holo came up to replace the tactical she had been looking at. It showed the star, only it wasn’t the star they were currently in proximity to. It had flared to thousands of times its ordinary magnitude. If not for the filters in place it would be blinding in the true sense of the word. As she watched the corona of the star expanded, slowly.

“Speed up,” she ordered.

The view sped up, the gas envelop pushing out until a mass broke away and flew out from the star.

“That looks like the missing mass, ma’am,” said the science officer, looking on from his station.

“It looks almost like a supernova.”

“Not the same magnitude, but still something fierce.”

“Speed it up some more.”

The view continued to show the gas envelop expanding, moving much faster than would be possible in real time. Another view replaced the one she was looking at, showing the star from a greater distance, the star normalized. The scene before the star flared.

The view zoomed again. Showing close ups only obtainable with the most modern of optics. The grav lensing of the ships, the same tech that allowed the laser systems to target over light minutes with full power, also formed the most efficient optical system possible. And this time they were centering on something above the star. Something very familiar.

“My God,” blurted the admiral, staring at what had to be a Ca’cadasan superbattleship. Only different somehow. A moment later the star started sending out massive flares, enormous prominences that out massed whole terrestrial worlds. Coming close to the ship overhead, but not quite yet.

“We need to get this to Fleet, immediately,” she ordered, looking over at the faces of her officers in a series of holos lined up around the couch. “Tag it for the Emperor’s attention.”

“We’re still gathering data, ma’am.”

“Then keep gathering the damned data, and send what we have. They need to see this ASAP.”

Mei leaned back in her chair, a shiver running up her spine. The destructive power on display was terrifying. Not only that, but whatever it was, it was beyond the science of the Empire. There wasn’t even a theory to cover this, as far as she knew. The people who dealt with this kind of thing needed to see it and get to work on replicating it. Which sent another shiver through her. Was any species capable of controlling such a force, and did any have the wisdom to not use it once they had it?

*     *     *

APRIL 18TH, 1004. JEWEL.

“So, what are we looking at here, Admiral Chan?” asked Sean, leaning back in his chair and concentrating on the images playing on the holo.

Jennifer was sitting next to her husband in the Octagon conference room, while the rest of the room was taken up by high ranking officers. A couple of them, including Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations, were present in the flesh. Most attended by holo projection, their solid seeming bodies actually light years away in most cases, transmitted by wormhole.

“What we are seeing, your Majesties, is something I wouldn’t have thought possible before seeing this,” said Vice Admiral Chuntoa Chan, the Fleet Chief of Research and Development, widely considered one of the brightest humans in the Empire. The diminutive woman was attending by holo, of course. Her work on the R and D planetoid sitting between the stars of the Supersystem was too important to take her away. Not when she could attend from her own office in real time.

“I’m still not really sure how it works, but I’m kicking it over to some of the best stellar and hyper physicists I know of. Hopefully they can give me something in a few days.”

Sean grunted as he watched an elapsed replay of the Event, as they were calling it for lack of a better name. The surface of the star started to roil over a period of an hour, minutes in the elapsed time, huge promences rising into space and falling back. Until some were not falling back, but were heading out into the system. Those were energetic enough to cause some serious problems if they hit a planet as a solar storm. Not enough to kill a world, but enough to really screw up an early technic civilization.

Minutes later, about an hour real time, the entire outer shell of the star blew off, heading into space, blotting out the ships that were generating whatever it was that was causing the Event. The Emperor wondered if the ships were manned, or if this was an automated system. Knowing the Cacas, he wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been a suicide mission. Maybe not with full crews, but still hell on whoever had been aboard.

The photon storm, the cascade of photons that transferred the heat of the star outward, sped before the plasma cloud at the speed of light. It was much like the normal radiation of the star, only a thousand times more powerful. It started hitting planets in less than a minute, all the way up to eight minutes for the once habitable planet. Atmospheres were ripped away, water blasted into its constituent gases, ice covers melted to water.

“Wasn’t Admiral Bednarczyk doing something similar against the Machines?” asked Jennifer, her own brows narrowed in thought.

“She’s using magnetic projection, Your Majesty,” said Chan, nodding, frowning, then shaking her head. “Not the same thing, and with nowhere near this kind of effect. But good job connecting it, since I hadn’t thought of that.”

The time elapse moved on, as a thousandth of the mass of the star moved out in a killing globe of plasma. The first planet to be hit was a barren rock. It was still a barren rock when the wave passed, though anything that would have been on the surface would surely have been destroyed. The second was a hell world of too much atmosphere. Most of that was already gone from the photon storm, but not all. When the globe of destruction that was the plasma passed it was an airless rock. The third world was life bearing, a primitive planet on the extreme edge of survival. One day more advanced life would develop there. Or it would have, if not for the photon storm that stripped away its atmosphere and boiled its seas. The plasma took care of what gas was left. The same happened to the next planet out, then the first gas giant. There was not much effect on the Jovian world, though the clouds were roiled and there some were torn away. The moons of the planet were a different matter, and they suffered the same fate as the inner planets. Atmospheres torn away, icy surfaces melted, water disassociated.

From there it started losing steam as the photon storm and globe of plasma expanded, losing mass and energy per square kilometer according the square of the distance. Twice the distance, four times the surface area, so one fourth of the mass, one fourth the energy. But everything in the system of importance was dead.

“And you said they picked up hyperspace anomalies?” asked Sean, still not sure what he was looking at.

“That’s the information sent by Duchess Mei’s people,” said Chan, nodding, then reaching off holo to do something with a hand. “Unfortunately, they’re only getting the aftershocks of whatever happened to cause this. We have no idea of the magnitude of the hyperdrive projection.”

“Hyperdrive projection?”

The holo changed, showing an image of one of the Caca ships as it had appeared just before the star had gone nova. It looked like any one of their superbattleships, vessels that had given the Empire a hard time in the war. Even with the innovations of human science, which had allowed them to surpass that of the Cacas for the most part, it was still a handful.

“Look at the hyperdrive projectors, your Majesty,” said Chan, highlighting that part of the ship.

The image was still a little blurry, as would be expected from a grav lens view from light weeks out. The image sharpened as the computers made their interpretations and smoothed it out, based on images they already had of the type of ship.

“They’re larger,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Len Lenkowski, his virtual image leaning forward.

“By about twenty percent, sir,” said Chan, moving the highlight to the sides. “Built up here, but mostly here, on the front. They increased the size of the projector that opens the hole in space. We’re estimating twelve ships to do whatever they did. Preliminary thoughts are that they ripped a hole in hyperspace right in the center of the star.”

“I thought it was impossible to open a hole that deep in a gravity well,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Taelis Mgonda, also a virtual. The admiral was of an age with Len, and as dark as the other admiral was fair. The two were the Empire’s best field commanders, and on a day to day basis Sean would have had a hard time saying which was the better tactician, though Duke Taelis was the better strategist by a short margin.

“It is impossible to open anything that can be used for transport,” agreed Chan, reaching off to push something else.

The holo changed, showing a smooth sine wave, then another right next to it, rough spikes projecting almost randomly.

“The one on the right is a perfect example of a portal into hyperspace, opened beyond the hyper barrier. The other, to the left, is an example of one that was an attempt to open inside the barrier. The portal never appeared, but the space the graviton waves were projected into still shows the effect of that attempt. I’m thinking something similar happened to our star, with the combined graviton energy of a dozen ships projected into the center, causing some kind of, collapse, for lack of a better word.

“Now, we expect this event to have an effect on ships trying to get into or out of hyper. Any that are heading in will not be able to drop out and will hit the barrier.”

All of the faces in the chamber winced at those words. That was what was called a catastrophic translation, so named because ninety-five percent of ships that hit that barrier were totally destroyed. The five percent that made it through all had massive damage to their onboard systems, which included their crew. Everyone sat silent for a moment, digesting the implications and not liking it one bit.

“So they have to move these ships into position around a star to get this to work?” asked Len, breaking the silence, his image looking over at Chan’s.

“That’s the way it appears, Admiral Lenkowski. Yes.”

“What are you thinking, Len?”

“Just, your Majesty, that this doesn’t appear to be a very effective offensive weapon. They would have to fight their way into a system to deploy it. Against a heavily defended system these things would be toast. Against a lightly defended system, they could get the same result by bombarding from space.”

“I agree,” said Mgonda in his basso voice. “But it would make a hell of an ambush weapon.”

Sean felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. If the enemy had more of these deployed, and could suck a major fleet into that system, they could cause serious damage.

“Do we have a projection of what this would do to one of our ships?”

The asked for projection appeared, and Sean gave Chan an appreciative look. The woman might have been the brightest in the room, but she was no Ivory Tower professor. Her job was to make theory translate into useable military hardware, so of course she had already looked at the implications.

“Total destruction out to two astronomical units. Heavy damage out to five AU. Beyond that, some roughing up, but very survivable. I also might add that we don’t think this would work on a class M red dwarf star. The result would probably be minor on a K. Now on a G, like this example, or an F, we could expect a massive wave running out from the star. It’s not moving at the speed of light, much slower in fact. But the photon wave preceding it is, much like that of a supernova. And that’s the true killer.”

“Get what information we have out to our units on the front,” said Sean, the sinking feeling growing. “They need to know about this before they blunder into it.”

“I think we might be too late,” said Sondra, a stricken look on her face as she looked at something on the flat comp she had brought to the meeting.

Chapter Three

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. Saint Augustine

APRIL 18TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

“We’re ready to make our drop,” came the voice of the ground force commander over the com.

“Go ahead,” replied Rear Admiral Stanford Bennington, looking at a plot that was showing next to nothing.

The system was not that much to talk about. Intelligence had indicated that it was a major repair and refit base. It might have been at one time, but from sensor scans all of the asteroid mines and orbital facilities had been cold for some time.

“Marines are reporting in, sir,” came the call from his flag captain, Francois Juin.

“Well.” Sometimes the admiral became frustrated that people didn’t just go ahead and tell him what they wanted to say. He himself was a direct kind of commander. If he wanted someone to have information, he told them, otherwise he told them they weren’t going to get it from him. Why leave people in suspense?

“It looks like that docking facility was stripped clean. The major is reporting that they even cut away fittings to take with them. I think we can assume they did the same to all the other orbiting facilities.”

That didn’t make sense to the admiral. Why remove the fittings when they could have just disassembled the facilities themselves and moved them to another star? There were a few dozen antimatter sats still in orbit, not surprising, since there had been no indications that this had been a major production system in the first place. Still fewer than expected, and Bennington wouldn’t have been surprised if those facilities were also empty husks. But why?

“Are we being set up for something, Francois?”

“That’s what it’s looking like, sir. But we haven’t been able to locate any forces in the system. Maybe waiting outside, ready to jump into hyper. That’s what I would bet.”

Bennington closed his eyes and thought, rubbing his forehead. It wasn’t unknown for the Cacas to set those kind of ambushes. But if they had the force to overwhelm his, why play this kind of game?

The task group was built around the strength of three battleship squadrons, each with four ships. They had started the war with three ship squadrons, but the shortcomings of that configuration had made itself apparent soon into the war. Four ships gave them two equal strength divisions, with more tactical flexibility. A scout force of four battle cruisers, along with escorts from a light cruiser squadron and three of destroyers, rounded out his battle force. All were within beam range of the planet with the exception of the battle cruisers and a squadron of destroyers hanging out at the hyper limit.

The four transports and a half dozen logistics ships were the reason the rest of that firepower was here. The transports carried a division of heavy infantry, there to actually take the planet, while a brigade of light infantry would be left as a garrison to track down any Caca stragglers. The logistics vessels carried not just missile refills for the warships, but also supplies for the garrison that would be expected to hold the planet. A wormhole would be left behind, of course, so the planet could be reinforced if needed.

The planet itself was nothing special, in a system that was anything but. A small terrestrial slightly on the cold side, with little in the way of land life, though the oceans had many simple forms of sea animals. The land was mostly desert, with large tracts of land planted with crops tended by several million slaves. The Cacas might have been carnivores, mostly subsisting on the very slaves they used as their workforce, but most of those workers needed plants to eat. The planet was not really important for anything other than providing sustenance for the space based industry, which meant it was now absolutely useless.

The Empire was planning to use the system as a supply and refit base, and soon after it was taken a train of freighters would be bringing in the needed hardware through wormhole gate. Any of a number of systems at this point of the advance could have been used. This one was picked randomly as much as for any particular reason.

“The first shuttles are landing, sir. So far, no resistance.”

The admiral grunted again. What in the hell were the Cacas up to? Were they going to hide out in the hinterlands and fight a guerilla war? That made no sense. It was barren, with little in the way of mountains, or even hills. Any force moving out there would be picked up from space immediately, then bombarded. None of it made sense.

An hour passed, the heavy infantry moving across the surface, making contact with the slaves, trying to gather intelligence to figure out just what the hell was going on.

“The infantry is reporting that there are no Cacas on the surface,” said Juin over the com, his voice rising in excitement. “Not a single damn one.”

“What are the aliens saying?”

“That the Cacas pulled out weeks ago. They loaded up all of their equipment and boosted into orbit.”

And then took off from there. What the hell is going on?

“Could we be looking at a wormhole bomb here?” asked the admiral, feeling a rush of terror.

“Could be. But probably not. They would have to have a wormhole in place in orbit, which we have no indication of.”

Bennington shook  his head. They really didn’t need one in orbit, and a wormhole could exist as a very tiny hole until it was expanded.

“I want all of our fighters in space on a search pattern. See to it.”

If there was something hiding in space they might find it. If not, they might just become the target of a weapon of mass destruction. The problem with that scenario was wormholes were expensive, and they had no indication that the Cacas had much in the way of production capacity. Wasting two of them on a force this size, especially when the target might not be concentrated enough, seemed like a stupid tactic. The admiral looked over the plot and his deployment. The battleship squadrons were far enough out, and spaced in their division packets, that even a wormhole bomb would only take a couple of ships with it.

“Sir. Something is going on with the star.”

“What?” Bennington pulled up the view that the tactical section was looking at. Huge prominences were rising from the star, dwarfing anything the officer had ever seen. Still, that wouldn’t be a threat to his force, no matter how big the prominences became. Would they?

“We’re picking up hyperspace resonances from near the star,” chimed in the science officer from his station. “Twelve points sources arranged around the star. And one larger one in the center of the star.”

“In the center of the star?” hissed the admiral, storming over to the science station. “Are you sure? What the hell are they trying to do?”

The science officer looked up at his admiral, confused at the rapid fire questions. “I’m, not sure what they’re trying to accomplish, sir. But whatever they’re doing, it is having an effect on the star.”

And it can’t be good for us, whatever they’re doing, thought the admiral.

“Start getting the troops off the surface of the planet,” he ordered, spearing his com officer with a quick look.

“What about the natives?” asked the flag captain over the com.

“We can’t do anything for them,” said Bennington, shaking his head. “We need to get our own people out of here. Start the warships out.” He wasn’t sure what was going on, but the Cacas wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble unless they had something planned to hurt the Imperial Fleet. He didn’t know how much time he had, but he was going to try and salvage as much of his task group as possible.

“And make sure Fleet knows what’s going on.”

The prominences they were watching were in the past, eight minutes in fact. There was no telling in real time what was going on, but the hyper resonances were building, so whatever was going to happen would be kicking off soon. It was looking like they wouldn’t get the time they needed to get away.

“Something just happened, sir,” shouted the science officer. “The hyper resonances just peaked, then died.”

“Shit.” Whatever they were trying to do just started.

“Hyperspace is resounding with echoes. It looks similar to what happens during a supernova.”

“They made the star go supernova?” shouted Juin, panic in his voice.

“I don’t think it was that big,” replied the science officer, his voice quivering. “But whatever happened, it’s not going to be good.”

“The ships at the barrier are reporting that they’re locked out of hyper,” called out the com officer.

“We were set up,” said the admiral under his breath. The Cacas had set up the situation perfectly. The force they wanted to destroy was not only deep in the system, but hyperspace was barred to them, even if they had made it out to the barrier.

“Sir. The drive system is not functioning properly.”

What now? “What do you mean, functioning properly?”

“We’re pushing the grabbers up to max and only getting a couple of gravities. They’re overheating to hell. It’s like they can’t get a hold on the space itself.”

“We’re screwed,” hissed the admiral. At two gravities they would never make it out of the system before the gas envelop, however large it was, hit. They were already in line for a photon storm, and from the size of the graviton rebound from the star, that was going to be just an couple of orders of magnitude lower than a true supernova. Enough to fry his ships this close in.

“We’re getting a message from the Emperor, sir. He want to speak with you.”

“Configure the every wormhole we have into gates. Let’s get as many people away as possible.” He didn’t think that would be many, many a couple of thousand from the thirty thousand or so in the force. That wouldn’t include any of the Imperial Army troops, which wouldn’t engender great memories from that branch for his name.

“Your Majesty,” he said as the face of the man he had sworn his oaths to appeared on a holo.

“I am very sorry that we failed you, Admiral,” said the young man. “Intelligence has just discovered the threat. Another couple of days and you wouldn’t be in that position.”

“Couldn’t be helped, your Majesty,” said the admiral, not sure he really felt that way. It was the job of Fleet Intelligence to make sure they didn’t get surprised like this.

“I want you to get your ass through one of your wormholes, Admiral. I need you back here to answer questions about what happened out there. We need the wisdom of the commander on the spot.”

Bennington felt a rush of gratitude that the Emperor was going to save his life. A moment later the depression of reality set in. If he bailed out he would forever be known as a commander who had run from the destruction of his command, leaving others to die. Forever tarred.

“My science officer would make a much better expert witness, your Majesty,” Bennington found himself saying, almost as if it was someone else. The shocked young man looked up, disbelieving.

“Get going son.”

“I’m giving you an order, Admiral. You can bring back whomever you want with you, but I want you on Jewel in an hour.”

“Please don’t make me do that, your Majesty. This is my command. Please, don’t.”

Understanding flashed across the face of the Emperor and he nodded. “Very well, Admiral. I will honor your wishes. And again, I’m sorry.”

The holo died, and the admiral turned in time to watch his bridge crew all head out the hatch toward the wormhole a couple of hundred meters to the bow. Probably all of them would get off. Many others wouldn’t.

“Estimating that whatever is going to hit will be here in four minutes,” called out the ship’s captain.

Bennington nodded. He knew better than to order the captain to leave. First on, last off was the tradition of the Fleet. And no captain would abandon his ship while anyone else was still aboard.

When the photon wave hit it wasn’t immediate destruction for the warships. The transports were still in orbit, trying their best to recover the shuttles on a continuous chain, trying to get their charges off the surface. Two were immediately destroyed, the wave of heat blasting through their weaker electromagnetic fields and armor in seconds. The hulks remained, one drifting out into space, the other crashing onto the surface of a planet that was being rendered lifeless hemisphere by hemisphere. The other two were shielded by the planet for some minutes. If their grabbers had been functioning well, they could have hung in space behind that shelter. Without them, they were forced to advance in their orbit into the hell on the other side. The logistics ships lasted no longer than the transports, burning like moths in a flame.

The destroyers and cruisers lasted for ten or so seconds of fury before the terrible photon storm burned through, reducing everything organic to plasma, followed by the hulls of the ships themselves. The battleships actually held up for over a minute, but even their heavy fields and thick armor could not withstand the blast. The people aboard were dead from heat well before the hulls burned through. Bennington’s last thought was that he had led so many people to their deaths for no result. Even he knew that it wasn’t his fault, and that did not matter.

The battle cruisers shielded the smaller ships out by the barrier. The wave of photons was so attenuated by then that they survived, though not without major damage. Only two of the capital ships and a trio of destoyers were still combat capable after the storm passed. Repairs could have been made before the slower moving plasma cloud reached them, but the Caca task force swooping out of hyper hours later, when that space had calmed enough for translation, took them out as well.

*     *     *

APRIL 20TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

“We ambushed one of their forces, Supreme Majesty,” said the Supreme Admiral, showing his predator’s teeth in a smile.

“How big a force?” asked the Emperor, in his mind imagining an enormous fleet, hundreds of capital ships at least. Maybe even more.

“About fifteen capital ships, twenty or more smaller vessels, and the transports they were escorting.”

The Emperor felt his mood drop like a kinetic warhead hurled in from space. “Forty ships?”

“Maybe a couple of more,” said the Supreme Admiral, stepping back a bit as he saw the expression on his leader’s face.

Disbelief was disappearing, rage starting to take its seat. “We wasted all of the resources of a system. Twelve capital ships. All the special equipment and supermetals.”

“It really wasn’t much of a system, Supreme Majesty.”

“It was still a living system,” screamed Jresstratta  at the top of his lungs. “The damned  system had a living world. You know what kind of problems I’m having with those fanatics from the Church over this? They are going to raise hell over this when it gets out.”

“We still accomplished something, Supreme Majesty,” stated a High Admiral sitting in the meeting.

Jresstratta turned with a murderous look on his face, ready to order the death of anyone who said something he didn’t want to hear. The calm look on the male’s face took him aback for a moment, long enough for him to open his ears.

“What did we accomplish?” asked the Emperor, annunciating each word.

“We have given the humans something to think about,” said the High Admiral, pointing a pair of right index fingers into the air to emphasize each word. “They will no longer be able to just cruise in and take over with their warp fighters and wormhole launched missiles. Now, every time they enter a system they have to be on the look out for this trap. It will slow them down, maybe even stop them from pushing in until they’ve scouted everything in the system. We can gain days of time on each invasion, time for us to react.”

The Emperor sat for a moment, thinking about what the admiral had put forth. Ideas started spinning around in his head. The young male fancied himself a military genius, though he had never served in the Ca’cadasan military, as was the custom with his lineage. He had been too young to serve, even the easy service that was expected of heirs since the death of that one millenia before to the humans. He had not attended the military college, nor had he taken individual instruction at the knees of any of the experts on his staff. He had read extensively, and watched vids, and thought that gave him the knowledge needed to make command decisions. And since he held the power of life and death over all of them, his staff didn’t dare tell him he was not a competent strategist. They mostly ignored him, when they could get away with it. And when they couldn’t? Then disasters were known to happen.

“Is it possible we can set up a grand battle in some system that is of importance?” asked the Emperor, already spinning the scenario out in his mind. “After a couple of more attempts in nothing systems that amount to little loss to the enemy, maybe even none. Then lure them into a system with heavy industry, with a fleet that they will be sure we aren’t going to sacrifice.”

“We would lose a lot of industrial capacity, Supreme Majesty,” said the Supreme Admiral, making a head motion of negation. “Not to mention all the slaves.”

“But if they send in a massive fleet to take the system, we are going to lose those anyway,” said the High Admiral, giving an affirmative head motion. “As well as the defensive fleet.”

“We’ll still destroy a lot of their ships in a conventional ambush,” said the Supreme Admiral, trying to stop the transport crash he was sure this was going to be.

“But not enough,” said the Emperor, giving an affirmative head motion toward the other admiral. “There will always be some ships left. Probably more than half the fleet they attack with, since they always seem to have twice our strength in every battle. And the system is lost anyway. What use to us a planet and bunch of slaves that no longer contribute to our war effort? They are already lost. And if we can take out the remainder of their force?”

“You know they will scout the system thoroughly,” put in the Supreme Admiral.

“Then we will have to hide the ships,” said the High Admiral. “Possibly in prepared shelters on a close in world, or maybe a couple of asteroids placed in the perfect orbit. Or disguised,” he finished, a sly look on his face.

“Yes,” said the Emperor, looking over at the High Admiral with a look of admiration on his face. “It could be done. And it would slow them even more.”

“What about the Church?” asked the Supreme Admiral, trying his best to head this of. “What about the believers?”

“What about them?” asked Jresstratta, staring at his fleet commander. “We’re already having problems with them. What’s a little more?”

“It’s just this, Supreme Lord,” said the Supreme Admiral, leaning forward on the table. “Almost all of our volunteers for special missions,” he said, using the Ca’cadasian euphemism for suicide missions, “are from among the believers. And not just the casual believers, but those who truly have faith. They believe they will be going to an afterlife of bliss, and when paired with the rewards given to their offspring by the Empire, we have them lining up to serve. Nonbelievers, or those with casual faith, do not volunteer for such missions. And with the Church telling the believers that what we are doing is an afront to the gods. Well…”

“That could be a problem, yes,” said the Emperor, reaching up and rubbing a horn. He was silent for a moment, lost in thought, his staff giving him some time.

“What if we don’t tell the males involved that they are on a suicide mission? That should be easy for those not involved in the main part of the mission, who have no need for the information. Those on other ships need not know what is planned. That should make their performance even more genuine. And we only tell the commanders and chief engineers on the mission ships.”

“That, that is dishonorable,” stammered the Supreme Admiral. “We can’t start lying to our own males. We can’t dishonor their bravery and sacrifice by tricking them into duty.”

“From what I can discern,” said the young Emperor slowly, “the humans don’t seem to let honor stand in their way. We are fighting a war of extermination here, and I want them to be the ones who are no longer extant when the war ends.”

“But, they have shown no indication that they are out to exterminate us. From what we can gather, they do take prisoners when surrender is offered, and they treat their captives well.”

“And they could be doing that just to entice our people to surrender,” said the High Admiral, Kelgarasse by name. “After they win, they could start rounding us up and feeding us into extermination camps. After all, they know what we had planned for them.”

“I still say that it is dishonorable,” said the Supreme Admiral, giving a head motion of negation and glaring at the younger, lower ranking admiral. “And the humans do not fight without honor. It’s just a different conception of honor from what we have.”

“We will do what we must to win,” said the Emperor, poking the air with a pair of index fingers. “Whatever it takes.”

“I will have nothing to do with this,” growled the Supreme Admiral, standing up and towering his full three and a half meters over the much smaller seated Emperor.

Jresstratta looked up with a rush of fear, wondering if the larger, stronger male was going to strike him down. Since the latest nastiness no males other than his personal trusted guard were allowed with beam weapons in his presence, but the other warriors still retained their ceremonial blade weapons. He had been afraid to take those away from them, since showing that kind of distrust could lose their loyalty. The guards started to move forward, weapons ready, and Jresstratta held up a hand to stop them. He was pretty sure they could cut the supreme admiral down before he could draw his blade, and he was interested to see what was going to happen next.

“So, you are refusing an order from your liege lord?”

“I am refusing such an order,” growled the male, pointing a finger at the monarch. “When you come to your senses I will be happy to be of service again.”

The male turned his back on his monarch, a sign of total disrespect.

The Emperor felt the rage consume him. Given time he might have made another decision, since the Supreme Admiral was well respected in the fleet, and someone the young Emperor really needed on his side. But thought was distant while emotions were playing through his still not fully developed mind and body. He looked over at High Admiral Kelgarasse and pointed at the Supreme Admiral.

“You are now my chief of staff, Kelgarasse,” he growled, stopping the older admiral in his tracks. “Strike that carrion down, and assume your new rank.”

The Supreme Admiral turned, his face a study of shock and confusion. He might have defended himself if he could have thought through the stunned shock. Instead, he stood like a food animal awaiting slaughter. Kelgarasse pulled his ceremonial blade from its sheath, a meter of gleaming blade, and pounced on the other officer. His face showed his elation at getting everything that any naval officer could want. Two ranks, something that would have taken him a century or more to achieve in the normal scheme of things. Supreme command, at the top of the military pyramid.

Kelgarasse stabbed his blade into the back of the other admiral’s neck, severing his spine with consummate skill and instantly killing the other male. He stepped back to avoid the falling body, then knelt to clean his blade on the clothing of the dead admiral, sheathing it and standing again to look at the Emperor.

“Good job, Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse,” said the somewhat satisfied Emperor, already starting to feel the doubt at what he had ordered. The other admiral would be missed by his fellows, and might even spark a small revolt among the officers. Unless he did something about it.

“Remove this carrion,” growled Jresstratta, pointing at the body that was bleeding out on the floor. “Throw him in the garbage heaps.”

Even the guards, the most loyal males the Emperor could find, looked askance at that order. Males were honored in death, interned in their family tombs, unless they had been lost in battle on some foreign world or in space. If the body wasn’t recoverable, a small shrine was raised by the family in the tomb, honoring their memory. To throw the body of the admiral in the palace garbage would be seen as the greatest of insults to his family and ancestors.

“If I might be so bold, Supreme Lord,” said Kelgarasse, bowing to the Emperor and playing the part of the perfect subservient officer. “I think it would be so much more fitting if a story was circulated about how the admiral stopped a Church assassin with his life, saving yours, Supreme Lord. And then, a burial with honors. It would shift blame onto the Church, and satisfy the other officers.”

Jresstratta pondered the words of the new Supreme Admiral, liking what he heard. The male was sneaky, something his father would not have put up with, though it was much to the liking of the young Emperor, as long as it was duplicity on his account.

“Very well. Then we will do it that way. As long as I can count on everyone in this room to hold his tongue.”

He looked over each of the six guards and received acknowledgements in return. The guards knew where their meat was cooked. They had thrown in with this Emperor body and soul. They would do what he said, to whatever he told them to do it to.

“Very well. I will have refreshments in my office. You will join me, Supreme Admiral, and we will plan how we are going to set up these ambushes.”

The new Supreme Admiral almost shook with delight. The Emperor returned a smile, happy with the decision he had made, not realizing how badly it was about to explode in his face.

*     *     *

“This young fool has completely lost his mind,” growled General Nazzarash, the commander of the First Infantry Division, the capital garrison, looking over at his co-conspirators.

Eight males gathered in the small room in the bowels of the palace. The chamber had been swept several times for listening devices by the best electronics experts the officers could trust, and those were very good indeed. Other males, armed, were on guard in several layers, right outside, in the nearby corridors, and in all the passages reaching down to this level.

“We all realize that,” said High Admiral Llallaras, commander of the largest home system capital ship squadron. “The question is, what are we going to do about it. Kill him? And then what do we do about the succession. There is no heir, and very few living relatives. If we don’t have a clear line set up, we risk civil war, as every fool of a distant cousin stakes his claim.”

“We need to plan this carefully,” agreed Admiral Jrrassatar, the commander of fleet research and development. “We’re only going to have one chance at this. While I really don’t fear for myself, if we fail, I shudder to think what punishment will be levied upon our families.”

“I understand that concern,” said Over-prelate Norrasta, smuggled into the palace for this meeting to represent the Church. “But my primary concern is the spiritual health of the Empire. Destroying worlds, and now betraying our brave males, is going to turn the Gods even further against us.”

A couple of the males huffed. Many were not believers, some were, but all recognized the effect the Church had on their warriors. The Church was good for the morale of the lower males. Morale was already at an all time low, and it threatened to drop even further, bottoming out.

“Whatever we come up with, we need to do something, and soon,” said Llallaras, looking from face to face. “The humans are pressing us on both fronts. While I am against this new weapon, and don’t see how it will benefit us in the end, it will indeed slow them down. For a time.”

“Until we hurt them badly enough, and they start bombarding our worlds with relativity weapons,” growled General Nazzarash. “They might even appear in our sky, here in the home system, and leave it a lifeless husk in repayment of our killing so many of their people. Not to mention the strange affection they seem to have for aliens who are not of their species. They have shown a predilection to avoid as much collateral damage to the slaves as possible. I don’t understand it, but there it is. They may go all out with something we have yet to see to keep us from killing any more slaves. There will be no good end to this.”

“Good point,” said Llallaras, giving a head motion of acknowledgment. “So far the humans have given no indication that they wish to wipe us out. If that had been their wish, we would not be occupying this chamber. This world would be a lifeless husk, the surface a sea of magma. While they have to know that is what we would do if given the chance. If they think that is the only way they can save our slaves, they might just change their minds.”

“We need to tell the believers in the fleet to revolt,” said  Norrasta, receiving angry glares in return. “There are enough believers in the fleet that we could shut it down.”

“And that is something we cannot afford, Priest,” yelled another of the males, a low admiral in charge of the fleet training facility on the planet. “If the fleet stops fighting, the humans will rush in and take thousands of systems without a fight.”

“The army will still contest the planets,” said Nazzarash in an angry tone.

“Wonderful,” replied Llallaras, giving a head nod of negation. “They will control the space, and all they have to do is drop enough weapons to the slaves to overwhelm our troops. They wouldn’t even have to risk their own. And the more slaves we kill, even if defending ourselves, the greater the rage of the humans.”

“You are speaking as if we can still win this war,” protested Norrasta, earning more angry glares. “We have not won a battle since they started the penetration of our space. We are losing tonnage at the rate of two to one. More likely three to one.”

“How do you know that, priest?” growled Llallaras, hand dropping to his sidearm. “That is secret information.”

“We in the Church have our sources,” said the Over-prelate, raising his four hands as if to ward off a blow. “Rest assured we would not use this information to harm the Empire or the war effort. But the question remains. Can we even win this war? Or is it already lost, and lives are now traded for time before we reach the forgone conclusion.”

The rest of the group stood and stared at the priest, or looked down silently at the floor.

“Then we have lost,” said Norrasta, bowing his own great head.

“We have not lost,” yelled the low admiral. “They have only penetrated a tenth of the way from the frontier. There is still much space, and many systems, for them to take. We could come up with something to stop them in their tracks. Something of much more use that these damned system killers.”

“Our only chance lies in their getting tired of fighting and settling for a peace,” said Llallaras, challenging the lower ranking admiral with a stare. “And I don’t see much chance of us signing a peace with the young fool we have leading us. If the elder Jresstratta was still alive, there might be a chance of a settled peace. The old Emperor might have been selfless enough to give up his position in order to save the empire. Not so this one. He hasn’t the wisdom. Maybe with some years that we don’t have. But now? Not a chance.”

“The little piece of offal will never gain that much wisdom,” said Nazzarash. “He couldn’t even wait for full adulthood to remove his father from power.”

“We don’t have proof that he had his father killed,” said Llallaras, scowling. “If we had that proof, the assembly would remove him from power, even at the risk of civil war. But all indications are that the admiral acted on his own, disgusted at the direction the emperor was leading the fleet in.”

“Then why wasn’t his family punished along with him,” hissed Nazzarash, slamming a fist on the table. “Instead, they were given riches by the new emperor. The sons were given promotions within the fleet. Not the sign of an angry son seeking revenge for his sire, now is it?”

“Do you have proof of this?” asked Norrasta.

“I can prove that the admiral’s family has waxed richer since the assassination, and that the sons were promoted,” said the general. “I cannot prove that the orders came from the emperor. We would need such to make a case to the council and the people.” Nazzarash looked over at the priest. “Perhaps this wonderful intelligence gathering service of the Church can find that evidence.”

Perhaps we can, thought the Over-prelate, bowing his head and saying a quick prayer for the empire.

“I will see what we can do. But don’t expect miracles.”

“I thought the miracle business was what you priests were in,” said Llallaras, scowling. “We could sure use one about now. But I would prefer you bring us victory against the enemy.”

Chapter Four

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. Friedrich Nietzsche

APRIL 27TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

Over-prelate Norrasta stood in front of the congregation, looking out over the faces of the gathered flock. Adult males and juveniles made up the congregation. Females and young rarely attended. Females because the words of the sermons mostly went over their heads. The very young because they stayed with the females. The one who attended were the warriors and workers of the capital city, the true believers, bringing along those progeny who were old enough to begin their training.

The huge Cathedral resonated with the music of a great wind powered keyboard, mostly the deep basses that Ca’cadasans preferred, intricately woven into tones that tugged at the heartstrings and reinforced the religious feelings of those bathed in the sound. Many of the males added their voices to the music, low groans that matched the tone heavy music. Some had very good voices, some not so pleasing. The important thing to the Over-prelate was that they tried to add their own sounds.

Norrasta allowed the music to roll over the one hundred and fifty by seventy-five meter chamber. It was packed, even more so than normally. Services normally gave the illusion of the faith being as popular as it had always been. It was an illusion in that the Cathedral had cut back on the number of holy day services, forcing the faithful to attend others and fill them up. The Over-prelate doubted that many of the absent had lost their faith. Instead, he thought they found the actual organized aspects of the Church less relevant to their lives. They still held their faith, but in the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of the Empire, most found themselves more comfortable praying at home and at family shrines.

The music reached a crescendo, dying immediately to leave the chamber resonating for a moment with the echoes of the tones. Norrasta waited for a moment, recognizing that every eye was on him. The faithful had heard the news that something important was to be spoken this day. The news hadn’t told them what, but the rumors had been rife.

“My brothers,” said Norrasta, quelling the butterflies in his stomach, his hearts beating quickly. He was accustomed to holding services and talking to large crowds, but not about the subject he was about to broach. What he was about to say could land him in hot water with the Emperor. A rational male wouldn’t do what he was about to, but he felt called by his faith to do so. If it martyred him, so be it.

“There was a crime committed recently. Not something as simple as a male stealing coins for his family. Nor an act of violence against someone who offered none in return. Nor even someone lying to the officials of the government. No, though those are serious, and could bring severe punishment from the authorities and approbation from their fellows, they are minor infraction in the eyes of the Gods.”

The Over-prelate took a moment to compose his thoughts, letting his words sink in for a moment. Already he could tell that the people were on the edge of their seats, awaiting the pronouncement of the crime, the sin, that the clergyman had yet to articulate.

“Unlike those crimes, or even the more serious ones of cowardly murder, striking ones fellow down from the back without giving a chance to defend himself, this one was an affront to the Gods by our entire species. No, this was a crime against the commandments set down by our Gods to order our very society, our Empire. For the Gods have said, you will not destroy the diversity of life, for we have created them for a purpose that is beyond you, and they must be protected. This is not to say that we cannot kill, when it is necessary to protect ourselves and the Empire. But we are admonished to not wipe out the entire genotype of a planet, for living planets are sacred to the Gods.”

The people were now holding their collective breaths. Norrasta had heard the rumors floating around the city. That the military had taken to destroying living worlds in order to strike at the enemy. And not just any living worlds, but planets within the Empire, under the protection of the Emperor and his military. Males had found out things in the fleet deployed near the front, and as was bound to occur, the information flowed back to the home world with the redeployment of personnel and the transit of messengers. They were only rumors, believed by some and not others, but now he was about to let these people know that the rumors were fact.

“My people. Our leaders have sinned against the Gods. They have developed a weapon that kills entire systems. Not just the worlds that we can live on, though that is bad enough. But all the worlds in the system. Gas giants, cold worlds, all with the diverse life forms created by the divine according to their plan.”

People were mostly staring at him in silence, though he could hear some speech, low whispers. He could feel the anger building, and like a conductor he prepared to wave it into rage.

“Who are the males in the military who ordered such abominable sins? It all originated with one being, the one responsible for laying this sin of the people at the altar of the Gods. His name is Jressratta, the fifth of his name. The sin originated with this foolish leader, but the effects of his decision will resonate across the Empire. It will affect the Empire. It will affect all of us. The judgment of the Gods will fall on all. We will all suffer.”

Norrasta noted that several males in dark, obscuring clothes rose from the seats near the rear of the chamber and scampered out. The word of his sermon would fly to the throne. He had no doubt that the Emperor would go into a fit of rage. This one seemed incapable of any other kind of reaction. The police would be coming for him. Since he had no intention of letting himself be taken, he needed to finish the sermon and disappear into the city.

“The Gods will punish us all. Some think the advance of the humans into our space, the first such invasion in our history, is a result of the Gods turning their backs on us. I cannot say if that is so, but there is some connection between the trials and tribulations we suffer through and the actions of our leaders. Until those leaders are brought to account for their actions, we will continue to suffer. The Gods will not directly strike at the Emperor. That is not their way. It is for us to bring our leaders to task, starting with the young murderer who sits the throne.”

Moments later the doors to the Cathedral were flung open and a score of armed police stormed into the chamber. The Over-prelate was already gone, out through the clergy entrance to the chamber, down into the depths of the Cathedral, then into the tunnels that ran throughout the underworld of the city.

*     *     *

“I don’t know, Striped Wolf,” said the Count Brigadier General Cornelius Walborski, looking across the table at the sleek, muscular alien who was his primary contact with the Maurid people. “Your plan seems kind of risky to me. I don’t want to see any more of your people killed than is necessary.”

“And how many are necessary, my friend?” asked Mrrarraras, also known as Striped Wolf because of his fur markings, orange with deeper red stripes. “We want to throw off the chains of our masters. We are willing to shed however much of our blood as this takes, as long as our species survives.”

“But you risk discovery by the, masters,” said Cornelius, the last word leaving a bad taste in his mouth. “If they think you are in revolt, they might clamp down on your people. We aren’t close to any of your worlds, so relief becomes a problem.”

“We only fight on worlds you have already isolated, General,” said Mrrarraras, shaking his head in the human manner.

The Maurid was a very intelligent member of an intelligent species. Maybe not quite as smart as post-augmentation humans, the breed that had resulted from the Great Improvement of the early Empire. The species was easily as intelligent as the pre-augmentation humans, though their IQ bell curve was not as steep on either end. They lacked the super-geniuses that graced every human generation, but also the complete idiots that plagued the Empire, especially in the nobility as far as Cornelius was concerned.

“It is unlikely that word will get back to the Caca Emperor from those worlds. What do you think will happen? The Cacas will discover telepathy among their brain dead males, and communicate with their leaders in another system?”

“Stranger things have happened,” said Cornelius with a chuckle.

“Yes, your new com witches,” said the Maurid with a smile. “A singular find, and one that the big bastards don’t have. I think it safe enough that we fight beside you on those planets you have isolated. We ask for this honor. Please do not deny us.”

“That isn’t up to me,” said the Ranger officer, shaking his head. “Sean will have to give that order.”

“I have not had much contact with your leader,” said the Maurid. “Perhaps you could convey to him our desire to achieve honor in battle. If we die in battle it is a positive reflection on our people. Please allow us to fight beside you.”

Cornelius looked at the Maurid for a moment. He recalled how he had at one time thought the Maurids were a disgusting species, one he had wanted to wipe out. Since then he had discovered just how honorable the creatures were. They had committed atrocities under the orders of their masters, but from what he had seen, he wouldn’t have doubted that they tried their hardest to subvert those commands when able.

The Maurids had already fought beside humans, mostly as scouts. What Mrrarraras was asking was that they join the humans in the front lines, directly striking at the Cacas. The Ranger preferred to use the aliens for what they were best at. Stealth fighters, scouts, hit and run specialists.

“One thing I will tell you, Mrrarraras. As valiant as you are, you are of more use to us for your intelligence gather abilities. We have plenty of warriors, and you have to admit that our heavy infantry is better at going toe to toe with the big bastards than any light infantry, yours or ours. So, if you want to be of service to us, keep giving us insights into the Caca command.”

The Maurid looked disappointed, but finally nodded.

“You day will come, my friend. Perhaps one day we will fight side by side.”

“I look forward to that day, Hunter,” said the Maurid, bringing a smile to the human’s face.

If that day comes¸ thought Cornelius as the alien left the office. He was beginning to doubt he would ever face an enemy across a battlefield again. He felt like he was wasting his time as a staff officer. He was best as the Hunter, moving stealthily through the terrain and killing Cacas silently. He might have given the Maurids the benefit of a doubt, seeing them now as good people. He still refused to extend that courtesy to the Cacas. As far as he was concerned, every one of those big bastards could die, and he wouldn’t shed a tear. If he was responsible for sending more of them to their afterlife with his own hands, so much the better.

*     *     *

“The Cacas seem to have just evaporated in front of us, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski, looking out of the holo. “We have overrun almost twenty minor systems and seen nothing but commercial vessels. With three exceptions.”

“They had those systems set as traps?”

“Indeed they did, your Majesty,” said Len in his slow, New Texas drawl. “We sent in warp fighters to scout out the system, just as you ordered.”

The staff had decided that was the best way to scout with the threat of the sub-supernova traps. The warp fighters could easy run out of the system ahead of the photon wave. They were slowed by the turbulence of space caused by the event, but even at just under two lights they were still in no danger. The warships waited far outside the system, the destroyers and transports well beyond the danger point, the tougher capital ships sitting a bit closer. It was hoped that the enemy wouldn’t waste a device on a couple of dozen small craft like the fighters, while the warp craft could pinpoint any other targets.

“Two of the systems stayed cold. But in one of them, the bastards set off the event with no chance of a return. Like he decided to set it off in frustration when we didn’t stick our heads on the chopping block.”

Shit, thought Sean. A living system, killed because some Caca was determined that he going to kill some humans, no matter what. And the warp fighters ran back out, so he didn’t even get them.

“How many aliens?” asked Sean.

Len didn’t have to ask him what he meant. “We’re estimating, from the long range views of the world, taking into account cities and transportation networks, over two billion.”

Sean slammed a fist down on his desk. The first few times he had done something like that security had run in to see what had happened. They had grown used to the Emperor’s displays of temper, and no one came in to bother him. Two billion, he thought, closing his eyes and clenching a fist. Just to demonstrate that they were willing to kill it.

“We were able to take out the ships in the other two systems, your Majesty,” said Len quickly, trying to get good news to his monarch to counter the bad. “A squadron of stealth/attack ships coasted in and took them out. In one system they started the process, then powered down when they realized we weren’t going to bite. We pinpointed their ships immediately. In the other we were able to spot a couple of them against the disc of the star. In both cases we were able to kill them and then liberate the systems.”

Through the clinical analysis of the situation, Sean could imagine those ships going in. Coasting at point one five light, undetectable by anything but an active sensors system close up, they would have spent twenty-four hours heading in to kill those targets. If they were detected, there was always the danger the enemy would set off the sub-supernova, and there was no chance those ships would be able to get out in time. In fact, they would die in lass than an hour, burned up by the photon storm well before they could get out of the inner system.

“My compliments to those captains and crews,” said Sean, grateful that he had people willing to take on such missions.

“The other systems were clear,” continued Len after giving his Emperor a nod to acknowledge the compliment of the monarch. “Still, it took several days to make sure. Our heavy forces sat there, when they could have been driving in for the planet. After we cleared them, it took another two days to get into orbit around the inhabitable planet. Four days, your Majesty. It’s taking us four days to clear each system, plus the time to head back out and start for the next target.”

Sean nodded. He wasn’t willing to let a light force scout out those systems, which their intelligence had told them were industrial nodes that warranted defensive fleets. There was always a chance that the enemy had a hidden fleet, waiting to spring a conventional ambush. It hadn’t happened so far, but Sean had a gut feeling that it eventually would. Probably more than once.

“Can’t be helped, Len. I know it’s a small victory for the Cacas, even when they don’t catch us in a trap. I would rather they have small victories than crush us in a large one.”

Len nodded his understanding. Sean would have preferred to save all the aliens, and it bothered him that the Cacas had killed another two billion of their slaves. It wasn’t always up to him, and he had to comfort himself with the knowledge that his orders hadn’t caused those deaths. At times that wasn’t enough, and he had been having dreams of about aliens dying because of his orders. Which brought up something he was hesitant to tell his admiral, since it might make him even more cautious.

Len was known as an audacious officer. He would take risks with the best of them, and normally his gambles paid off. The admiral could also be cautious when there was a need. Sean preferred him to be cautious at this point, but he wanted the admiral to act with audacity when the chance arose. After a moment’s thought, Sean made his decision.

“I’ve been having dreams, Len. You know the kind I’m talking about. I keep seeing the Cacas threatening something vital to us, and forcing me to commit major forces. I keep fearing that they will use their device to catch a large force and destroy it. So, be careful.”

“I will, your Majesty. One other thing. The systems we have scoured were empty of any strategic resources. Every orbital factory, ore processing station, and anti-matter sat was gone. In the systems where they had set their traps there were still the empty husks of stations, and a few antimatter sats void of machinery, the bait. And we found two systems where they were still in the process of removing their machinery on those merchant ships I was talking about.”

“And no escorts?”

“Not a one. And that worries me as much as anything. I think they are concentrating a large force, maybe several. And we’re going to be seeing them in the near future. But all we could find so far were merchies.”

“Did you capture them?” asked Sean, hoping that the answer was yes. If not, he would have to have words with his people about the proper conduct of war.

“When we could, your Majesty. The ones that were deep enough insystem when we spotted them surrendered, some with a bit of a threat. But no one was crazy enough to try and resist warships with those slow moving hulks.”

“And the ones that kept running for hyper?”

“We boarded when we could. We killed them when we couldn’t make a capture. And we didn’t find one Caca aboard any vessel we captured. Only some of the more trustworthy aliens of their Empire.”

“Interesting. And that reinforces the theory that the Cacas are building up a force for offensive actions. Keep your scout force on the move. I don’t want them getting a large fleet on top of us before we see it.”

“Will do, your Majesty. Duchess Mei is on the job.”

“And I’ve been meaning to ask you, Len. How do you feel having counts and duchesses under you. Sure you don’t want that patent of nobility I offered?”

“Hell, no, your Majesty. No offense, and many of the nobles I have served with were good people. But I am the son of a commoner, and reached my rank on merit. I don’t want the social rank, please.”

Sean shook his head. The man was amazing. There weren’t many people in the Empire who would turn down an elevation to nobility. And Len had accepted a reduction in rank, leaving the position of CNO to take a fleet command. A wartime command, all he had ever wanted.

“Very well, Admiral. I won’t force it on you. And I must say, avoiding any entanglements with Parliament is always a good idea.”

The admiral smiled, and the Emperor terminated the connection, sitting back in his chair and letting his mind work on the problem of the Cacas. They had come up with the perfect strategy to slow down his offensive, allowing themselves to build up their forces. It was a truism that nobody won a war through defense. They could win battles, and set the pace of the war. But eventually you had to take the war to the enemy, and that meant an offense.

I need to get with Ekaterina and see what her feelers are picking up in Caca space. The Emperor was getting used to having all of the initiative on his side. That wasn’t a given, and if the Cacas could wrest it away from him, they might just be able to push him completely out of their space.

*     *     *

MAY 3RD, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

“We’re closing on the enemy, ma’am,” came the call from one of the scout squadron commands.

“What have you got?” asked Vice Admiral the Duchess Mei Lei, looking at the face of the commodore on the holo.

“Twelve Caca superbattleships, in a tight formation. There’s something funny about their hyperdrive signatures.”

A thrill ran up the scout force commander as she listened. A dozen ships, with funny hyperdrive signatures. That struck a cord

“Hold on, Micheal,” she ordered her subordinate. “Stick with them, but don’t move into engagement range until I get back with you.”

Moments later the admiral was passed on by Admiral Lenkowski, and found herself looking at the face of Ekaterina Sergiov.

“That’s very interesting, Admiral,” said the intelligence chief. “I’m thinking that you might have stumbled on a set of their sub-supernova projector vessels on their way to a target.”

“How heavily armed are these things, Kat?” Mei had had regular contact with the intelligence maven, often necessary for her position as the scout force commander for Lenkowski. The two had hit it off immediately, both recognizing the earnest intelligence of the other, and Mei was one of the few who could use that nickname.

“Well, Duchess, we’re not really sure. But I would suspect they have at least the defensive firepower of a standard Caca superbattleship. As far as offensive capabilities, your guess is as good as anyone’s. I wouldn’t take anything for granted if you are approaching them.”

“What about their oversized hyperdrive projectors. Could those be used as graviton projectors to drop ships out of hyper?”

“Wow. Good insight, Duchess. I hadn’t thought of that, and I’m not the expert on this kind of thing. Admiral Chan would be the one to ask, and I’ll kick it up to her. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Not at all.”

“Thanks, Kat. We’ll be careful. I’m thinking we’ll track them to their destination and take them under fire in normal space.”

“If you can, capture one. We’d be interested in looking over their equipment. But don’t take too many chances.”

The holo com terminated, letting the admiral turn her attention back to the tactical plot. The admiral looked over the local stars, trying to gauge where this enemy was going. There were scores of stars within a day’s range near the current course of the enemy force. With a thought through her implant she ordered up all the information they had on those stars.

Thank God for our allies in Caca space, she thought as the information filled in under each of the stellar bodies. The Maurids had given the Empire a complete database on Caca space, something they wouldn’t have had without the aid of the aliens. Most of the systems had planets. That was a given, since most stars had at least some bodies in orbit. Four of them had indications of life on one or more bodies, only two of them had the kind of planets that would support human or Caca life. She looked over each of those carefully. One was a barren world with life in the sea, plants just starting to colonize the continents. And no intelligent inhabitants. The other had a beautiful world, sitting in the perfect place. A planet with moderate ice caps at the poles, large oceans filled with islands, and four continents, all showing the colors of vibrant vegetation.

The almanac the Maurids had given them indicated that the planet, Jresska by name, was inhabited by several billion slaves of a dozen different species. No indigenes, they were all transplanted through the actions of their Caca masters. There was space based industry in the system, ore mines on the asteroids, factories in planetary orbit, antimatter sats near the star. She was willing to bet that most of the current facilities were mere husks, bait.

A thought struck her as she looked over that system. The Cacas could still use these systems after setting off their devices. Maybe after they had recaptured the space, if they ever did. The asteroids could still be mined, while factories and habitats could again be inserted into orbits around the planets. And the humans wouldn’t be able to make use of those systems, without transferring major resources in. Resources that could be better spent in their own Empire. In a way it was a scorched Earth tactic, one that would have been more effective if the humans didn’t have wormholes. That thought did nothing for her now, but it was something to tell command about. Maybe they could find a way to use it against them in a propaganda campaign.

She changed the view with a thought, zooming out to see what she had within reach. She looked over her dispositions, decided who could be vectored toward the system that seemed the most likely target for the enemy. And who needed to stay on their patrols to keep the enemy from sneaking up on Len’s battle fleet. The decision made, she turned to her com officer to send out the orders. Soon a half dozen scout squadrons were changing their vectors in hyperspace, set to rendezvous at what appeared to be the target system of the Caca projector ships.

Chapter Five

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy

MAY 5TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

The Emperor Jresstratta V stared in disbelief from the balcony of his private palace quarters. He was high above the city, on the fifteenth floor of the enormous structure. There was a kilometer of gardens and open lawn between the front of the building and the main gate, distance that gave enough separation that the young Ca’cadasan couldn’t hear exactly what was being shouted. That he could hear it at all gave emphasis to the fact the the thousands of protestors were shouting at the top of their lungs.

Banners were waving, most displaying the constellation of the gods of the people. The others had writing on them, shrank by distance. The Emperor engaged his implant and zoomed in, drawing in a quick breath as he read. How dare they? he thought, reading the calls for his removal. It was unheard of for the people to call for the deposing of an Emperor. It was treason, pure and simple.

“The leaders of the church organized this,” he said, looking over at the head of the secret police. “Why were they not arrested before this happened?”

“The church had organized its own protective force,” said the male, one who was looked on with fear by most of the other males. Even the Emperor felt a chill of fear in dealing with this male, one who had ordered and carried out thousands of executions. “We could not get to the prelates, and before we could organize a large enough force to bust into the temple, they had gathered tens of thousands of males.”

“This cannot be happening,” growled the Emperor. Never in the history of the Empire had the sanctity of the Emperor been called into question.

“They are protesting the orders you have given to wipe out living worlds,” said another aide, standing far enough back that the Emperor couldn’t strike him without taking several steps. “That is against the religion of the species.”

“An archaic religion that should have been destroyed ages ago,” said the Chief of the Secret Police.

Jresstratta agreed. He had been raised an unbeliever by his father, himself a disbeliever. They had estimated that almost thirty percent of the males of the empire were atheists. Another twenty percent were slight believers, giving lip service to the priests so they could gain their support in secular matters. That left fifty percent that were still true believers, seemingly impossible in a species that had reached the stars and grasped them close into an expanding empire.

“What do you suggest we do about this?” asked the Emperor of his head policeman.

“I suggest that we leave it alone, for now. We are recording the protest, and will have the identities of all involved. Some judicious disappearances will make our point, without providing a rallying point for the rebels.”

Jresstratta didn’t like it, but he had to admit that the policeman had a better grasp of these things than he did. “Make it so.”

*     *     *

“The Emperor, the murderer of his own father, is throwing a challenge in the face of the gods themselves,” yelled the under priest who had been chosen to be the spokesman of the budding rebellion. Many people knew that the Emperor Jresstratta IV, beloved by the people despite involving them in a losing war, had been killed on the orders of his son. None dared to say it, since such pronouncements could lead to a disappearance, not just of the speaker, but of beloved sons as well. The priest dared, and in saying it expanding the net of people who were willing to repeat it.

“The gods have punished us for his crime. This city was all but destroyed by our enemies. Something unheard of since the days we threw the insectoid invaders off of our world. What else could it have been but the judgement of the gods. And now he has overstepped the bounds set upon us by the gods once again. Destroying entire life giving worlds, the greatest gift of the gods to the Ca’cadasan race. To all living species. The abomination weapon developed to stop the humans. And has it even done that? No, it hasn’t. They are still on the path of conquest, heading toward us once again. And what will we do when they are once again in our sky, raining death down upon us. They are the instrument of the gods, sent to punish us, and we are heretics and fools to think we can stop them without the aid of our deities.”

“Death to the Emperor,” yelled out a voice from the crowd.

The priest wasn’t sure how to react to that. On the one hand, it was the final objective of the revolt they were staging. On the other hand, it was too soon to add that to the cries for change. However, on the other two hands, it was something that would have to happen if they were to be successful in saving their people from the wrath of the gods. Jresstratta V must die, so that the Ca’cadasan people would live. It might be too late to save the Empire, but Ca’cadasans were the majority species. They would survive the Empire’s breakup. And maybe, if the gods were satisfied, they would deliver the Empire.

“Death to the Emperor,” echoed the shouts of the crowd. “Death to the son who murdered the father.”

The priest raised his hands in the air, waving for attention. The cries had grown into a roar, quieting as the people saw that their leader was calling for their attention.

“Now is not the time to call for murder in response for murder. We must wait until the justices of our courts get involved. The leaders of our military. Otherwise, there will be more death than the Church can countenance.”

“While we wait, our sons are dying in battle, killed as the Empire loses more and more stars,” yelled out a voice from the crowd. The male strode forward, moving people out of the way with his strong arms. “I say we cannot afford to wait. The young bastard killed the male I had pledged my life to.”

“General Hrallastat,” said the priest, recognizing the former head of the capital city garrison, one who had been removed from his position, retired, as soon as the younger Jresstratta had assumed the throne.

“His father was not perfect,” growled the general. “In fact, he made many mistakes. Mistakes that led to our current military situation. But the son is an abomination. The father was at least trying reforms that would allow us to compete with the humans. The son took us back to the beginning, when we were barely prevailing over the humans, who were just starting their own rise to military supremacy.”

The priest scanned the crowd, wondering what effect the general’s words would have. Ca’cadasans liked to think of themselves as superior to all other species. Their long life span, thousands of years, was what many concentrated on. Unfortunately, that life span was the result of a metabolism that brought its own limitations along. Most species were deeper thinkers, many processed thought on a much faster level. But telling the people that was something that would anger them, and the priesthood, who had reluctantly accepted the facts, tried to avoid making their constituents feel less about the species.

“Death to the son,” screamed a voice from the crowd, soon echoed by a score of mouths. The chant grew, until hundreds were shouting the words, then thousands. The people had heard what they wanted to hear, and nothing else. They didn’t care that the general had said the humans were now militarily supreme. What they had heard was that the Emperor they hated had been responsible for that rise.

The roar of the crowd rose, and then someone did something that hadn’t happened in the history of the species. Someone had thrown a rock at a vehicle, bouncing it from the ultra-hard plexi-steel of the cockpit. No harm there, but it was a start, and people began to pick up and throw other objects. Until they were throwing rocks at the police who had surrounded the protest, hemming them in so that it wouldn’t spread.

The first male to fire was thought to be one of the police, triggering his particle beam carbine and burning into a couple of protestors. That was followed by more fire as more of the police panicked, thinking that they were under attack by the crowd. Scores of civilians went down. And hundreds of armed males, members of the military establishment that most Ca’cadasans belonged too, pulled and fired their own weapons. The police were in body armor that protected them from hurled objects. But not from powerful particle beams that pumped megajoules of energy into their bodies.

The event went from protest to riot to armed revolt in an instant. The last the priest saw of it was hundreds of males on each side involved in a firefight. Just before a particle beam struck him in the head and ended his part in the rebellion, forever.

*     *     *

“We’re estimating that over three thousand of the protestors lost their lives in last night’s event,” said the councilor who was reporting to Jresstratta the next morning.

The Emperor had watched much of the event, up to the point where dull red beams were exchanged for many minutes. Several errant shots had hit the palace, at which point the guards hustled him away to cover. Before he had left the protest had taken on the aspect of a full pitched battle in the streets. More police were called in, more on both sides went down, and the riot spread as more rebels joined the cause.

“How many police?”

“One thousand and fifteen of our officers were killed, with another five hundred odd wounded. It was the worst loss suffered by our security services since the humans attacked.”

Jresstratta thought about that for a second. Actually, it was an couple of orders of magnitude lower than the casualties suffered in that attack. But the fact of the matter was, that was an attack by an outside power. This was Cacada verses Cacada, in a display of murderous rage against their own that was unprecedented.

“Can we expect more of this?”

“It’s a certainty, your Supreme Majesty,” said Pellishar, Chief of the Secret Police. “We have arrested over half the survivors, but many of them disappeared themselves and we have no way of locating them. Friends or family may be involved in hiding them, but in most cases we just don’t know who the connection is. In a couple of days we should have every one of them in custody. Which, of course, won’t prevent more from joining the revolt.”

“Now listen to me,” growled the Emperor, standing and pointing a pair of right index fingers at the Chief. “I want this crushed, and I want it crushed now. There will be no more protests in the capital. Any who rise must be killed, in the open. The message must be clear that their Emperor will not put up with a revolt. We have a war to win, and that means that ancient superstition must take a back seat to what must be done.”

“It could escalate out of control, your Supreme Majesty.”

“Then there will be a lot of bodies in the streets. And those bodies will lie and rot where they fall.”

“The relatives won’t like that.”

“Then the families can move on. Anyone seen trying to rescue the body of a family member for a funeral service will join them. When they have rotted to bones they can be hauled to the municipal refuse dump.”

The Chief glared at the Emperor for a moment, then gave a head motion of acceptance. “With your permission, Supreme Majesty.”

Jresstratta gave the male a hand motion to leave, staring at his back as he walked out of the throne room. He wasn’t sure he liked the attitude of the male, but he could ill afford to alienate any of his supporters in these times of trouble. He hadn’t always agreed with his father on that point, but seeing how his sire had fallen had driven home the point that it was best to surround oneself with loyal servants, and not those who felt threatened.

The young Emperor sent a command through his implant, readying his entertainment for the night. Many of the females had been passed down from his father’s harem, only those from his matrilineal line removed and given to other nobles. There were several he had yet to sample, and tonight seemed as good a time as any.

*     *     *

MAY 9TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

“Do you think they know we’re here?” asked Vice Admiral Mei Lei, looking at the tactical plot of the Jresska system.

“I daresay, ma’am,” said her flag captain, looking down at her from where he stood beside her command chair.

The admiral chuckled. The captain was normally a taciturn presence, only saying what he thought was necessary. Her force had been the second to arrive here, just a couple of hours after the first. That gave her a total of six battle cruisers, eleven light cruisers and seventeen destroyers, a powerful scout force. Unfortunately, they were picking up the twelve projector ships forging in toward the star, in the midst of the deceleration that would insert them into its orbit. Over fifty other ships were on the plot, most moving out, heading for the barrier. That included another eleven of their capital ships, and almost a score of their large cruisers. More than she wanted to take on, even with all of her battle cruisers holding a wormhole configured for launch.

“We don’t need to worry about those other ships, for now,” she said, more or less thinking out loud and bouncing her thoughts off of her flag captain. “How long until those projector ships reach their orbits around the star?”

“It looks to be three hours, ma’am,” said the tactical officer from his station.

“Shit.” It would take their wormhole launched missiles over three hours to cover the three plus light hours between them and those ships. “Launch our warp fighters. We’ll let them have a go at those ships.”

“You know they’ll be slowed considerably when they reach the proximity of the star,” said the flag captain. “I suggest you send a wormhole in with one of them. It might give us a chance to get a launch in at the last second, if needed.”

“Good idea. Make it so,” she said with a smile, recalling one of her favorite old video series that had come from old Earth with the Exodus ship, two thousand years before.

“Do you want us to launch on them, ma’am?” asked the tactical officer.

“We might as well,” said the flag captain, making eye contact with the lower ranking officer, who looked back at his admiral for confirmation.

“Agreed. Two volleys from each of the battle cruisers. As soon as they’re off, start calculating the firing solutions to the other ships in the system.”

The wormholes worked best in normal space. They could be used in hyper, their weapons raising hyper fields within a microsecond of leaving the portal. But they could be defended against in hyper if the enemy ships had graviton beams they could deploy, dropping the missiles out of hyper before they could attack. There were defenses against them in normal space as well, interceptors, lasers, fields of gas. Unfortunately for the hyper attack, the missiles would be blaring out to the universe where they were and where they were going. Not so in normal space, where the missiles were almost untraceable unless they were adjusting their vectors.

The plot came alive with the icons of the warp fighters, moving into position away from their launching ships. Three to each battle cruiser, there were eighteen of the craft all told. Not a very large force, but with luck each could kill a capital ship. Of course, if the luck went the other way they could be blasted out of space as well. In moments the spacecraft activated their Alcubierre drives and forged off, doing the impossible and moving at faster than light. No, not that, as what they actually did was warp the space for their front and rear, the spacecraft not actually moving at all. However it was perceived, the ships were soon up to the equivalent of twenty lights, heading for their targets that were now only nine minutes away. Or would have been, if not for the turbulence they would encounter in the inner system, increasing every light second they got closer to the star.

The missiles didn’t show up, launching as they did with all of the velocity imparted by the multi thousand kilometer long acceleration tubes back in orbit around the Donut. The missiles accelerated along those tubes, into a wormhole to loop around, until they had performed hundreds of accelerations. The acceleration wormhole was swiftly pulled out of the way and the missiles entered another portal, arriving instantly at the other side of the hole and erupting into space at the front end of the launching ship. They would coast most of the way, then make their final adjustments when they were close. At that time they would light up every sensor on the target ship, but hopefully it would be too late.

“What the hell,” called out the tactical officer several minutes later.

The admiral didn’t need to ask the officer what had agitated him. She could see it for herself, as every ship on the plot started to change its vector. Not violent changes, but enough that those ships would not be at their predicted positions when the missiles arrived. Which would necessitate more violent maneuvers by the missiles, in most cases from much farther out, and allow the enemy to engage them.

“They seem to be learning,” said the flag captain, eyes narrowing.

“Yes, unfortunate when your enemy doesn’t just walk willingly to their destruction,” said the admiral. The Cacas were not the brightest species in the galaxy, but they weren’t as stupid as most humans seemed to assume. Or, it might be said, they had their brighter members, and those were the ones who formulated their tactics.

“What do you want us to do, ma’am?” asked the tactical officer, looking back at the admiral.

Mei sat silently for over a minute, one hand raised to let her people know she wanted silence, given the opportunity to think. She didn’t want to risk her command by plunging into the system to pursue those enemy ships and destroy them. She also didn’t want to see an entire system destroyed and two billion sentients cease to be.

If only we had some stealth/attack ships, she thought, shaking her head. But they didn’t have those, and it would take too long to get them here. Those ships couldn’t come through a wormhole, since they carried one of their own. Besides, there were only so many with this fleet, and they were in great demand.

“Get me Admiral Chan,” she said to her com officer, an idea forming. It sounded crazy to her, but sometimes crazy ideas worked. She would leave it to the queen of crazy working ideas to evaluate it and come up with a conclusion. Then she could make her decision.

While she was waiting for the connection, she watched as the warp fighters closed on the enemy projector ships, and fell off the plot, victims to their graviton beams.

Chapter Six

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. George Orwell

APRIL 10TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

The protest formed near the landing field, on a parcel that  hadn’t been in use since the human attack. The area had been cleared of rubble, craters had been filled. The hangars and storage buildings were still missing, though construction materials had been gathered close by.

This night over a hundred thousand Ca’cadasan males were gathered. There were thousands of old fashioned placards, painted boards attached to long poles. A couple of hundred holo projectors had joined the lineup this night, capable of imaging a holographic animation covering fifty square meters. Some of those were gathered in too close groups that would interfere with each other, but as soon as the march started moving that would be sorted out.

“Too bad about Under-prelate Krresshna,” said one of the lesser priests, looking at the Church organizer.

Over-prelate Norrasta gave a head motion of acceptance. He hated to lose any of the hierarchy of the Church, even if they were well down from the top. Krresshna had been groomed for higher orders. He had not handled the first protest the best, but then, no one really knew what would happen, so he had organized it to the best of his ability. Norrasta thought that anyone else would have fared about as well.

“Are your people ready?” asked the Over-prelate.

“Five hundred Church Guard in full battle armor,” said the younger male. “Ready to move on your order.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t become necessary,” said Norrasta, seeing the look of disbelief on the face of the younger male. He thought it would become necessary as well. There was no way the Emperor could let a challenge like this pass. It would undermine his power, and that was something that the young male couldn’t abide. Of course, reacting to the protest would also lead to an erosion of his power. It was a damned if he did, damned if he didn’t situation.

“How about the rest of our people?”

“Armed and protected as well as we could make them without giving away the game.”

The Over-prelate gave a head motion of agreement. He was worried that this whole thing was going to blow up in his face. If it did, they would still push ahead. He might not survive the night, which shouldn’t have been something he concerned himself with. The prelate had as much faith as anyone, but he loved his life, and was looking forward to at least another five hundred years of good food, good drink, and good females. The gods might welcome him into paradise, but he wasn’t ready.

“It’s time, Over-prelate,” said another priest, walking up and bowing to the senior members. The male exhibited extreme nervousness. Not that Norrasta blamed him. The young male had almost fifteen hundred years of life ahead, and tonight could be his last night.

“Then let’s get this march moving.”

Voices shouted out orders, people started to arrange themselves in the marching order. The males carrying the holo signs activated them, sending the large colorful signs into the air. There was some interference, and the holo holders jockeyed for position, getting some separation. Some of the signs were simple glowing letters, telling the capital city that the Emperor was a patricide, leading the Empire to destruction. Others were animations, some showing assassins gunning down the old Emperor. Some others showing the grinning face of the new one, gloating over his ascension. Of course they weren’t real, but they got across the point the rebels wanted to make.

A line of city police stood in the way, blocking the exit from the field. Over-prelate Norrasta and a score of other priests walked up to them, pushing them with their chests, holding up holy symbols in the linked lower hands. The symbols represented the life giving properties of worlds.  A tree, a flying creature, the colorful globe of a planet. Over-prelate Norrasta held a holo symbol that represented the home system, all the planets and moons in a stylized representation copied in every temple on the capital.

Many of the police looked at those symbols with expressions of alarm. They had been raised to respect the religion, and though many turned their backs on the faith when they advanced in sciences and engineering. Still, these were security personnel, not Cacada who had not risen far enough in the sciences to lose their faith. Many of these males showed fear reactions at being confronted by the clergy they were sure could damn them to one of the deepest hells with a word. Along with the terror of what they would be subject to if they failed the Emperor.

Most of the police moved out of the way, heads down. Those that didn’t were overwhelmed by the marchers behind the priests. They weren’t handled badly. There was no need when they were outnumbered a hundred to one. In seconds all of the resistant police had been trussed up and moved aside. The march moved through the gate, spreading into the street. The palace was twelve kilometers away, three hours walking time. And they would be under the scrutiny of witnesses and cameras the entire way.

*     *     *

“Shut down those news feeds,” screamed Jresstratta, pointing a quartet of index fingers at the holo in a sign of emphatic command.

The marchers were out in force tonight. They would be seen by millions of inhabitants of the capital city. There was little he could do about that. But these news feeds would inundate the entire planet, going beyond to every receiver in the star system. From there it would go to the stars.

“We’re trying, your Majesty,” hissed a panicked male. “We’re not receiving acknowledgement from the studio.”

“Then get guardsmen down there, immediately. Shut them down. And if the technicians give them any trouble, they are under orders to execute the traitors.”

The eyes of the male widened as he realized that if he failed he would be executed as well. He closed his eyes and connected through his implant, sending emphatic orders over the city net.

The marchers passed the cameras, taking twenty minutes for the tens of thousands of males to move through the gate. The view switched back to the front, where scores of clergy led the march, followed by hundreds of placards and dozens of large holos projected into the air. More police were hustling into view, trying to set up blocking positions. Not getting enough in place before the mass of the march was on them and pushing through.

Jresstratta glared at the holo signs that declared him a patricide. Even worse were the animations showing him blowing his father’s head off. Of course it was not accurate. The actual trigger had been pulled by an admiral who saw Jresstratta IV as a threat to the empire. But still, the younger Jresstratta had been in the room, and he had given the order, so the blood was on his hands as well.

*     *     *

The march continued, down the main thouroughfare of the capital city from the landing field to the palace. Tens of thousands of Ca’cadasans watched from the sidewalks, from balconies and windows. The slaves were noticeable from their absence. They had learned to not be around when their masters were in a state of agitation. Something was going on that had never happened in the history of the Empire. Males questioned their leaders, and for the first time in the history of the species were ignoring what those leaders told them and thought for themselves.

“Bring back our sons,” yelled a male from a building, echoing the thoughts of many. Millions of warriors had been lost in the war. Warriors had always been lost in the campaigns of the Empire for generations, thousands of years. In dribs and drabs, never more than a hundred thousand in a year in the worst of times. Now, campaigns ended with ten of millions dead, to be followed by another campaign, in a never ending sequence. Even worse, they were obviously losing the war, no matter what the Emperor and his servants said. All one had to do was look at the ruined buildings and craters in the capital city to realize that.

“Stop the killing,” yelled another. More voices joined in, until the chants from outside the march overwhelmed those within.

Over-prelate Norrasta didn’t really care about the casualties in the war. He had lost a couple of sons, but they had been doing their duty to the Empire. Their place in the paradise of the ancestors was assured. No, what he cared about was the disobedience being shown to the gods. The sterilization of life bearing planets, the most precious commodity in the universe. Unless that stopped the Ca’cadasans would be rejected by the gods, and they would fade from the universe, soon to be forgotten.

“Down with the Emperor. Stop the war. Stop the killing. No more killing living worlds.”

The chanting from the march rose in volume, fed into the floating drones that transmitted them to other drones for broadcast over the city. Drowning out the shouts from the sidelines. Except in cases where those shouts echoed what was being called out in the march. Those were also amplified, convincing the people on sidelines and watching the newscasts that the marchers were united in viewpoint more than was actually the case.

Here it comes, thought the Over-prelate as they approached the hastily erected barricade. A shiver of fear ran down his spine as he watched the hard faced Imperial Guardsmen that manned the two meter high plasticrete barriers that had been lower by antigrav. These were not civil policemen, who might hesitate to start a firefight with a greater number of armed males. No, these were elite soldiers in the best battle armor the Empire could provide, willing to carry out any order for their beloved Emperor. Norrasta was not a coward, and was willing to martyr himself for the cause. Which didn’t mean he wanted to die. Life was good, and it took all of his willpower to keep marching. But if he faltered, so would the rest of the marchers.

“By order of the Emperor, disperse,” called out a thunderous voice from seemingly everywhere.

The marchers yelled back, their voices amplified as well.

“Patricide. Regicide. The Emperor is a murderer.”

Some of the Guardsmen flinched, showing that they too had thought about the unexpected ascension of the current ruler. It was common knowledge that a high ranking admiral had killed the last Emperor. It was assumed that he was acting on his own, but the rumors had been rife.

“Disperse and go back to your homes,” called out the voice of authority. “You have one minute to turn around and start your dispersal. Failure to comply will result in deadly force being used.”

The crowd simply got louder. They had been worked up to a rage, and Ca’cadasans were no different than many other races. A mob acted differently than individuals. Individuals thought about survival, and were likely to back down when threatened with violence. Mobs thought they were immortal, protected by numbers. Until the point had been driven home by more violence than they could handle.

Norrasta found himself pressed up against the barrier by the push of the crowd behind. A guardsman level his rifle directly at the prelate, finger on the trigger. The Over-prelate tried to push back, wanting to get some of the following crowd between himself and the weapons that threatened his life. There was no give behind him. He was trapped. The male sighed, accepting that he was about to die for his cause.

“Last chance,” yelled the voice of authority.

The moment to deescalate came and went. The first shot didn’t come from the Guard. It came from out of the crowd, a particle beam that struck a soldier in the faceplate. Some of the protons, moving at relativistic speeds, were deflected by the electromagnetic field of the battle armor. Most hit and immediately transferred kinetic energy into hellish heat. The skin of the male blistered and pealed from what little made it through in the instant the beam was on target. The male survived due to reflexes that pulled him back as he ducked down. An instant more and it would have burned through the armor and ashed the head underneath.

The rest of the guard reacted instantly, bringing rifles to shoulders and pushing firing studs. A hundred beams speared the front of the crowd, turning heads and torsos into reddish tinted clouds of superheated mist, burning clothing to ash. Some of the crowd were wearing concealed body armor, including electromag fields that popped into existence when the firing started. Not enough to stop a full on beam, they allowed some few of the targets to retain their lives through the first volley as their neighbors were cut down.

Return fire came almost instantly. These were Ca’cadasan males, all trained in the military arts, able to keep cowed the slaves that outnumbered the big aliens twenty to one. Hundreds of pistols opened up, sending beams into the guard. The soldiers deployed a more powerful field in front of their positions, deflecting the main force of the incoming beams.

Norrasta ducked down behind the barrier he had been pressed against, turning back to watch as the people he had led were cut down. It took some minutes for the guards to burn through the first fifty meters of bodies, killing almost every one, leaving charred smoking bodies lying on the hard surface of the street. A score of guardsmen had also fallen from the return fire, too much for the electromag field to totally stop. There were no burn throughs, but enough heat had been transferred into armor to flash burn the Guardsmen behind the fields and armor. Many had been seriously injured, and in a rage their compatriots continued to fire, changing power packs at regular intervals until they were dry.

While it had seemed to go on for an hour, Norrasta was surprised to note on his implant that it had only been ten minutes. Thousands of the protestors were dead, thousands more injured, including a hundred or more of the priesthood. The Over-prelate had been able to creep away, moving to the end of the barrier and into the nearest building. He felt sick to his stomach, his limbs shaking in fear. Behind him sounded the explosions of the resistance, males who hadn’t participated in the march and were now paying the authorities back with heavy weapons fired from cover.

The protest had turned into a riot, the first the capital city had ever experienced. Even the hard to burn modern materials could become roaring fires under the attention of lasers and particle beams. Even the best of armor could fall to multiple beams converging on them. The casualties on one side still dwarfed those of the other. Tens of thousands versus a hundred.

*     *     *

The young Emperor stared in disbelief at his city. Fires still burned, smoke still rose into the air to cloud the atmosphere. Clusters of bodies lay scattered about, one massive, many smaller, citizens cut down by the fire of the Imperial Guard and the city police. Buildings that had been intact the night before showed the cracks caused by the detonation of explosive devices. Those had not been caused by his forces. No, the rebels had deployed enough explosive devices to cause considerable damage to a city that was still recovering from the disaster visited on it by the humans.

“This rebellion must be crushed,” yelled Jresstratta, looking at his staff with murderous intent. “I want all of the rebels rounded up and executed.”

“We don’t even know who most of them are,” stated Pellishar, his Chief of the Secret Police. “While we have the identity of those who participated in the march on record, the others, the ones who struck from the shadows, are unknowns.”

“Then find out who they are. I want them staked out on posts before the sun rises again.”

Pellishar gave him a disbelieving look. The Emperor suppressed his anger for the moment and turned toward the general in charge of the Emperor’s Guard.  “I want this city shut down. Curfew tonight. And you will help the Secret Police round up the rebels.”

“We will need more warriors,” stated the general, his eyes dropping their gaze to the floor, avoiding making eye contact with the Emperor. “My company commanders are reporting males not showing for duty.”

“Deserters?” growled the Emperor. “In my elite Guard?”

“We don’t know why they have not shown for muster, your Supreme Majesty. All we know is that they are not there.”

“Don’t cover for them, General. Any who are missing from their units after a priority recall are deserters, and will be treated as such.”

The general bowed his head, then looked back up. “Still, Supreme Majesty, we will need more troops to shut down this city. And I don’t trust the city police. Many of their people have also disappeared. We believe that many are sympathizers of the Church.”

“I will see that nest of betrayers cleaned out before the week is over,” screamed the Emperor, throwing his cup to the floor. It was made of high density plastics, and bounced from the floor, its contents flying into the air. “The Church is an instrument of the Empire. Not the other way around. My father and grandfather allowed them too much freedom. I will have prelates in office whose allegiance is to me, and not to the fairy tales told to keep the ignorant in line.”

Jresstratta thought he might have gone too far at that moment, considering the stares that were leveled his way. Like many high in the government, and most of the scientists and intellectuals of the Empire, he didn’t believe in gods or demons. He felt that religion was a salve for the people, and nothing more. It worked to keep them in line. Except now it wasn’t working that way. Now it was working to disturb the peace and challenge his reign.

“Most of the people still believe, your Supreme Majesty,” said the Councilor for Science and Industry, Llallatora. “Of course, those of us who are enlightened,” the male, who had never been a warrior, continued, ignoring the glares of those in the room who were still believers, “the tenants of the faith are superstitious nonsense. But the majority of our people do believe. They may have sworn oaths of fealty to the Emperor and Empire, but they believe that their very souls depend on their obedience to the Church and its tenants. That trumps their oaths.”

“Then that will have to change as well,” growled the Emperor, spearing each of his advisors in turn with a glare. “The person of the Emperor must be of supreme importance.” He looked down for a moment, then back up at his councilors with a sly smile. “Perhaps we can reframe the religion to emphasis my godhood.”

More doubtful looks came his way. The Emperor knew what they were thinking, and though it angered him, he really couldn’t blame them. The current Emperor had acted in a very ungodlike manner since assuming the throne. He needed to work on his interactions with others. One claiming godhood should be calm and composed at all times. He could pronounce doom on those who offended him, but he must do that with aplomb, like a living deity.

“Perhaps we should bring in troops from the nearby garrison,” suggested the general in charge of the Guard, changing the subject to one that was more comfortable for all concerned. Or maybe not.

“I don’t know if we can trust them,” said the Chief of Secret Police. “Most are believers, and I have no more trust in their loyalties than in any others.”

“And what about the fleet?” growled Jresstratta, turning on Pellishar. “Can we expect battleships above us, waiting to bombard the palace. Should I be evacuating the planet under the protection of my personal squadron.”

“We’re not sure you can trust them either, Supreme Majesty,” said Pellishar, grimacing.

The Emperor stared at the male in disbelief. This can’t be happening, he thought, giving a head motion of negation. He had a war to win, and was doing what was necessary to win it. And it could all be derailed by the tenants of a religion that should have died out millennia ago, but still flourished. It flourished because of early training that had brainwashed them with the absurdity of the faith, and the Imperial sanction of the Church.

“I will regain control of my capital if I have to see the Cathedral raised to the ground, the priests killed, and as many worshipers put to the stake as is necessary. Am I understood?”

“That would be a major mistake, Supreme Majesty. It would…”

“I said, am I understood? I will regain control of my capital city, and with it, my Empire. Or I will see it burned to the ground and populated with corpses.”

No one said a word. The fear in the room was palpable. Jresstratta could smell that fear, and it brought a smile to his face. This was how an Emperor should feel. The bringer of terror.

“Bring in the garrison. When next the rebels show their faces in my city their heads will be removed from their bodies.”

The meeting broke up with the councilors walking silently from the room. Jresstratta knew they would talk as soon as they were out of earshot. He could deal with that, as long as they didn’t discuss treason. And his surveillance would ensure that they didn’t, at least not without his knowledge. Little did he know that surveillance could work both ways.

Chapter Seven

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them? Buddha

MAY 11TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN SPACE.

Vice Admiral Mei Lei sat in her force command chair, her hands gripping the arm rests. She was starting to doubt the worth of her idea.

Too late now, she thought, looking at the plot. They were too far into the system, and if they tried to change vectors to get out they would be caught by their emissions.

I could have sent another ship in, she thought, closing her eyes. That was also a non starter. If anyone was going to take the risk of carrying out this crazy idea, it was her. Every member of the crew had signed on when they realized their admiral was going in, as had all the people aboard the other battle cruisers, the J. E. B. Stuart and the Sinbad.

“Only ten more hours to go, ma’am,” said the tactical officer, stifling a yawn just before speaking.

Only ten more hours. So far there had been no indication that the enemy had spotted them. If they could close the rest of the distance without being spotted, the plan just might work.

“I really don’t like this idea, Admiral,” the Emperor had said when she broached the idea to him. “If they set that thing off while you’re in the system, that’s the end of you and your crews.”

“And if we do nothing, they will eventually get around to killing two billion sentients. Everything we fired at them missed far enough away that they were able to track and kill them. The only way we have to get them is to come in close and personal.”

“I still don’t like it, but I like the idea of them killing another system even less.”

Of course they both knew that if they left this system alone the Cacas might not have any reason to set off the event. Or they might do it in frustration when nothing came at them. Or, a third possibility, they might start killing the inhabitable planet with slow bombardment, daring the humans to do nothing. Their fleet within the system, now verified at ten superbattleships, fourteen cruisers and twenty-three scouts, as well as eighty-one commercial ships, was sticking close to the planet now, daring the humans to target them with relativistic missiles.

“Go ahead, Duchess. But be careful.”

They had been careful, the three battle cruisers coasting in at point one five light, the same speed the stealth/attack went in at. Every system aboard the ship not needed for life support and passive sensors was shut down. The wormhole had been configured to a heat sink, pulling out all of the waste radiation from the one working reactor, which was set on minimum power production. Finally, every forward compartment had been flooded with water, forming a radiation barrier for the ship that was plowing through space. Particle density was light, but it was still enough to send a sleet of radiation through the ship and cause damage vital systems, including crew.

The forward armor was still eroding away without the electromagnetic field that would normally be shunting many of those particles away. It shouldn’t be a problem, though many of the sensor and vid heads would need replacing.

“I’m going to take a break,” the admiral announced, standing up. She thought she was the only member of the flag bridge crew that hadn’t over the last fifteen hours. Mei knew that was foolish, that she hadn’t needed to be on the bridge that entire time. Since the mission and the people involved were her responsibility, she hadn’t been able to force herself to leave. Now the wearying wait, without food or rest, was wearing on her, and she wanted to be at her best when they needed her.

If they need me, she thought, walking from the bridge and heading down the corridor to her cabin. The captains and crews of the warships would make the decisions that fought their ships. While she would need to give the decisions that coordinated the ships, that would be minor.

Satin was waiting for her, bounding off the couch and running up to her, purring loudly. She scooped the cat up and brought his furry side to her face, nuzzling his sweet smelling warmth.

“I should have sent you over to one of the other ships,” she said, holding him tight.

She now had a total of twelve battle cruisers, nine of them still sitting right at the hyper barrier. There were twenty-three light cruisers and thirty-nine destroyers keeping them company. Though she was feeling guilty that she had brought the cat into danger, there was no guarantee those other ships wouldn’t go into battle. And what about the other animals aboard? There were probably forty odd cats and small dogs aboard this ship, companions for the crew. And maybe some birds. She wasn’t sure how many, and made a mental note to find out. She dismissed that thought in a moment. She had much more important things to think about now.

Her steward brought her a meal, a traditional Chinese dish of noodles and honeyed chicken. Comfort food, and she dug in, passing tidbits to her cat while she ate. After, she dragged herself into her bedroom, Satin following. As she curled up in the bed, not bothering to take her boots and uniform off, the cat jumped up into bed and lay down beside her, tucking himself close to his mistress and purring her to sleep.

Mei woke up automatically after four hours, all she would allow herself, her implant directly stimulating her sleep system. Satin was still tucked in close, purring again now that he noticed that his mistress was awake. Her steward had a breakfast ready for her as soon as she left her bed chamber, eggs, potatoes and ham. Not her traditional fare, but a favorite nonetheless.

“How are we doing?” she asked as she walked onto the bridge, her uniform looking fresh, more due to the capabilities of the fabric than anything she did. She was pretty sure she knew what the answer would be, since there were no klaxons going off.

“Still moving in, ma’am,” said the tactical officer. “No indication that we’ve been spotted.”

Mei nodded. No indication didn’t mean that they hadn’t been spotted. The Cacas could be laying in wait, ready to fire on them as soon as they got within beam weapon range. It wasn’t like the aliens to act like that, but as she had said earlier, they were learning.

The admiral studied the plot, watching as the Caca ships slid into their ready positions. Once they reached those positions they disappeared from the plot, grabbers off. They weren’t yet in their final positions, all arrayed around the equator of the star so they could assume a regular spacing in their orbit. When it was time for them to start the event, they would take about an hour to shift on full grabber power and stay in place, spaced out in the optimal formation.

“We’re still spotting them on infrared, ma’am.”

Mei looked at the officer for a moment, stopping the words she was about to say in her mouth. She knew enough about the tactical use of sensors. Any of the ships that weren’t lined up between them in the star were the hottest objects in that region. Any between them and the star would be cold spots. That thought brought up a concern.

“How much radiation how we absorbing?”

“We’re still close to the ambient temperature of the local space on our skin,” said the sensor officer. “We will be heating up over the next couple of hours. If they’re sharp, they might pick us up.”

“Commodore Xin has arrived with his squadron, ma’am,” said the com officer.

So she now had three more battle cruisers and their escorting scouts of light cruisers and destroyers. Still not as much tonnage as the enemy, but it was starting to move in her favor.

“I think we’ll take this one first,” said the admiral, pointing to one of the projector ships. “Sinbad can go after this one, while Stuart takes this one.”

“Very good ma’am,” said the tactical officer, imputing the information into his board, setting up the attack profile for the squadron. He looked over at the com officer, who nodded back before sending the orders out through whisker laser.

“We should start configuring for attack in twenty-five minutes,” said the tac officer, frowning. “It means we won’t be sucking out heat for the fifteen minutes before the attack, but I don’t think it a good idea to delay any longer.”

“Very well. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“And how do you want to attack the rest of them?”

“Let’s see how we do with the initial attack before we start planning the others.”

The tac nodded in agreement. Not only would they not know how much of a force they had to attack the remaining enemy until after the first strike, but they wouldn’t know what the enemy was going to do before then. She hoped she still had three battle capable capital ships after that strike, but there was no guarantee. There was never a guarantee in combat.

The bridge crew waited. They had nothing to do but relay information to the squadron commander, and transmit her orders to the command bridges of the three ships. The real fighting would be handled by the command teams of the warships, maneuvering and firing at the orders of their captains and the skill of helm and tactical officers.

Mei reached up and wiped the sweat from her brow. She checked the temperature, and found that the environment of the bridge was still as cool as ever. Nerves was her thought. She had thought that by now she would be used to the tension before entering combat, but it never became any easier.

“Ships are configuring their wormholes for combat,” called out the com officer, his voice cracking slightly from the tension.

And now we find out how alert they are, thought Mei. They wouldn’t start producing heat immediately, but it would come, and they would no longer be as stealthy as before.

“Wormholes are set,” said the tac officer.

“Donut is reporting that the accelerators are spun up,” said the com officer. “Reactors at full power.”

Maybe I should have gone with missiles, thought the admiral. Wormhole launched missiles would have been instant kills when they hit, but she had a never heard of anyone firing them this close to a star. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her, but her instincts told her that the particle beams would be a better option in this situation.

She took one last look at the plot, trying to time it perfectly. The sensor officer turned toward her and said the words that took that option away from her.

“We’re being painted with lidar, ma’am.”

“Now,” shouted the admiral, her excitement at finally going into action taking control of her voice.

The well drilled ships all accomplished their actions within a second of each other. Electromagnetic fields came up at full strength, cold plasma injected as soon as they were formed. Laser rings took a couple of seconds to come up to full power, but counter missiles and offensive weapons were ready in an instant. And grabbers boosted up to full power, pulling their ships onto different vectors at five hundred and thirty gravities, then a couple of more, sinking the crew back into their acceleration couches as six gravities came over them in an instant.

Eight million ton warships now moved into the attack like they were fighters. Helms took control of the particle beams, slaved to their joysticks as the holos over their stations showed the aim point. Tactical officers continued to control the lasers and missiles, concentrating on defending their vessels.

The Jean de Arc vectored around the star, using its gravitational field to swing into the same orbital path as their target. They closed at thousands of kilometers a second, twisting, turning and rolling to avoid the lasers that the enemy was now firing their way. The ship shook from a hit, the damage to the hull causing the outgassing that provided unintentional thrust. Some missiles erupted from the enemy. Mei sucked in a breath

“They’re counters, ma’am,” called out the tac officer. “Not offensive weapons.”

“Firing,” called out the helmsman from the control bridge. The ship shook again as the counter thrust of the particle beam worked against the pull of the grabbers.

The forward viewer on the flag bridge showed the enemy superbattleship, highlighted against the brilliant globe of the star, sitting a couple of million kilometers below. The particle beam struck out, hitting dead center on the enemy vessel, going off for a moment, then connecting again as the helmsman adjusted the ship and his aim.

Particle beams were red in air due to the friction cause by protons flying at relativistic speeds through the gas particles. In space they were normally invisible. But this close to the star, in space that had greater particle density than further out, the destruction of antiprotons on the outer edge of the beam, contacting star plasma, had much the same effect. The angry red of the beam made aiming easy for the helmsmen.

Where the beam hit intense fire lived. Antiprotons exploded into particles as they touched matter, while making the atoms of matter blast into similar particles. The force of the strike, antiprotons moving at just under the speed of light, sent the fire deep into the hull after blasting through the armor.

Still, the ship was tough, and the beam would not kill them quickly. What they did was erode away all the electronics and installations for a hundred meters on each side of the strike, degrading defenses.

“Firing missiles,” came another voice over the intercom, the ship’s tactical officer releasing six missiles from the forward tubes. The missiles arced out, then in, avoiding the particle beam, then striking the hull of the enemy ship. One was knocked off course on the way in, one was detonated by a second laser. Four hit, each releasing a gigaton of force into the hull of the ship.

The battle cruiser maneuvered sharply, pulling and pushing the crew into the straps of their acceleration couches. The cruiser dove and rolled, avoiding the hull of the ship they had just hit, all four laser rings blasting coherent photons into the enemy in passing. Moments later parts of the enemy ship’s hull burst out, flares of light erupted into space. A second later, when the battle cruiser was well away and moving quickly to gain more distance, the Caca ship converted into plasma, white hot matter flying in all directions. The battle cruiser shook as some of that matter struck the stern of the ship, fended off by the electromagnetic field and tough armor.

“How are we doing?” asked Mei, looking over at her com officer.

“All ships completed their attack runs successfully. Sinbad reports minor hull damage. Stuart is reporting one grabber unit and one missile tube out. No other damage.”

“All ships are to go after their second target,” said the admiral. “Let’s hit them hard while we still have the initiative.”

The enemy ships were now starting to bring their grabber units online, begining to move. This attack wouldn’t be against targets whose only movement was their orbital path around the star, predictable. This would be against ships that could maneuver.

The second attack run was not as smooth. The ships were still able to maneuver well enough to avoid most hits. The particle beams did the same job on the hulls, and the follow up missiles killed them. Stuart took more damage on this run, her missing grabber unit making it harder to maneuver smartly. Still, she was combat capable, and the admiral decided to send her in again.

She didn’t know how many of these ships were needed to set off the star. They were using twelve, but could less put the same process in motion, the only difference the time it took to set it off?

Jean de Arc shook more on this attack run, the enemy ship getting in many more hits. Damage schematics came up in the flag bridge, alongside those of the other ships. Most of the flag bridge crew showed more interest in their damage, understandable, since this was their mount, and anything that happened to it effected them. The particle beam did its work, and the third enemy ship they attacked exploded much like the other two had.

“Stuart is gone,” said the com officer in a hushed voice.

“Did they get their target?” asked the admiral, feeling terrible at having to ask that question while ignoring the destruction of one of her command. But the enemy was more important right now, and they needed to kill them, even at the cost of their own ships.

“Target is still there, but it’s no longer boosting.”

“Then I think we can ignore it for the time being,” said the admiral, looking at the plot. The remaining three ships were not able to fire at them, shielded as they were by the star.

“Order both ships to configure wormholes for missile launch. They are to hold positions away from the enemy until both are ready. Then we will move into firing position on one, and only one, enemy ship.”

The rest of the fight was not really a battle. It was a slaughter. The Caca ships were much more sluggish on their maneuvers than the standard battleships. Looking around the curve of the star the two battlecruisers were able to send sixty missiles into the target, blasting it out of space.

“We’re not getting great accuracy on our weapons for some reason,” said the tactical officer.

“Reason?”

“I don’t know ma’am. But almost fifty of those weapons were off track by the time they got to the enemy.”

“We’ll let R and D figure that out from our after action report,” said the admiral. “Right now I want to kill those last two ships. As long as we get one hit, I’m happy.”

In a half an hour she was as happy as she could be after having lost one of her ships. The enemy projector ships were all gone, and the star was safe. Now all she had to do was kill the rest of the enemy force in the system, without hitting the planet. Easy, compared to what she had just accomplished.

Chapter Eight

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei

MAY 15TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

“We cannot afford large gatherings,” said Over-prelate Norrasta, looking up at the throne of the Primate of the Faith. “They have the capability to smash those, and I will not be responsible for the deaths of so many.”

“We need to keep up the pressure, Over-prelate” said the Primate, standing up from the throne. “While we delay, more living worlds are at risk.” He looked over at one of the other over-prelate’s, Krrallator, the male responsible for Church Intelligence. “How many have been killed since the war started?”

“The last Emperor killed five in human space. Two were inhabited by distinctive genomes, while three were human terraformed. Several more were damaged by missile hits.”

The last brought gasps from many of the Ca’cadasans gathered in the chamber. According to the tenants of the faith, living worlds were sacred because they were of the gods. While creating a living world was usurping that privilege, and one of the greatest sins possible for a Ca’cadasan.

“Other species have terraformed,” said the Primate, looking around the room. “That is between them and their gods. We are only concerned about the souls of our own people, and the actions that put those souls at risk. Every warrior in those fleets that killed living worlds will have to answer one day before they are allowed to enter paradise, risking being thrown into the deepest depths of hell. And misses occur in warfare. They cannot be helped. I am sure the gods take that into consideration.”

The Primate walked to a small table and poured himself a drink. There were servants in the Cathedral, cooking, cleaning, maintaining the place. But not to wait on the needs of every priest. What they could do for themselves they did, even the highest.

“How many has the new Emperor killed?”

“We believe four, so far. Three to test the weapon. One to trap and destroy a human force.”

Four living worlds, thought the Primate, closing his eyes and visualizing the destruction. Of course he wasn’t imagining the actual worlds. The images going through his mind were those of worlds he was familiar with. The four that had been killed would have had different life forms. Animals, plants, maybe other kingdoms not known on most worlds. Distinctive genomes, gone for good. Maybe some forms had been saved, transplanted to zoos or labs. But not the entire biosphere. And three of those had been destroyed merely to test the weapon. An abomination.

“This madness has got to stop,” said the elder male, sitting back in his throne and looking at the multitude of faces turned his way. “We need to continue. But we need to move with intelligence, not rashness. Of course people will be killed, but we must engage in actions that kill more of them than us.”

The Church of Ca’cadasa was did not preach a message of peace. The Ca’cadasans were a violent people, death a constant companion throughout their long lives. While the species could live to almost three thousand years, very few made it that far. Most died in their first couple of centuries. The thought of an afterlife, something that existed after their lives were over, was comforting. Sin could doom one to hell, but there were very few sins that involved face to face violence.

In fact, Grubbar, one of their primary deities, was a God of War and Warriors. The Church glorified the wars and warriors that had created the empire and continued to protect it. Not the nastiness of war, the blood and gore. No, they preached the honor of the warrior, who put his life on the line for Emperor, Empire and species. Shortening what would be a long existence through their sacrifice. What they didn’t advocate was the slaughter of creatures that did not pose a threat to the species.

Some called the Ca’cadasans cannibalistic, which wasn’t technically true. They didn’t eat their own, the definition of cannibalism. They did eat other intelligent creatures. That practice had stemmed from necessity, as conquering armies had occupied overpopulated planets that barely had enough food to feed their own. The food animals on the planet were reserved for the natives, but there were plenty of natives, which became the provender for the occupiers. It had become habit, then tradition, and now the warriors ate some of the inhabitants of every world, except for the Maurids and some others. What they didn’t do was slaughter whole populations. It had occurred in human space, and the Chuch had protested, but not too loudly, as those creatures were under an Imperial edict calling for their extermination.

“Guerilla warfare?” asked Norrasta, still a warrior despite his priestly vows, a smile on his face. “I think we can organize that. But I must caution you, Primate. The Empire knows where our leadership lives. We must be prepared to evacuate the Cathedral on a moment’s notice.”

“When the time comes, we will evacuate,” agreed the elder. “But we must also remain in the view of the public as long as possible. I don’t want the Church seen by the people as a gang of cowards willing to lead others to their deaths, while not risking death themselves.”

Norrasta gave a head motion of acceptance, though the Primate could tell from his expression that the Over-prelate was not satisfied with the answer.

“I think we can start moving some of our people to the underground headquarters,” said the Primate, smiling at his subordinate. He wiped that smile away a moment later. “However, I will not leave my seat at the Cathedral. The people have a right to expect the head of the Church to maintain his position.”

“And if the Emperor destroys the Cathedral?”

“Then he will destroy me with it, and some other male will rise to take the Seat of Primacy. As it has always been. One elder sits in the seat for a time, then passes on so another may rise to primacy. Perhaps you will be the one, Norrasta.”

“It is not a position I desire,” said the Over-prelate, giving a head motion of negation.

“Then you may be the best one for the job,” said the Primate, smiling. “I never wanted the position either. But it was the will of the gods. Or chance, as some would say. Maybe they are the same thing. I never wanted the problems that come with the seat. Especially not in these times, when no decision seems a good one. I wish I could go back to being a small regional priest, when things were simpler. At other times I would not wish this position on my worst enemy.”

Silence greeted the end of the primate’s speech. He looked around once again. “Start the guerilla war. We will show this youngster that he may control the Army and the Fleet, but he does not control the people.”

*     *     *

Another sunrise over the capital city, more rising columns of smoke, testimate to the violence of the night before. Jressratta stood on his balcony once again, looking out over the city through the partial distortion of the strong electromagnetic field. He wasn’t used to having his view obscured in his own capital, looking out from his own palace. An attempt to kill someone standing on this balcony the night before, a long range strike by particle beam, had spurred the Elite Guard into action. No one was allowed into the Imperial Presence without a strict body search. And the Imperial Presence was not allowed in unprotected sight of the people.

A score of armored guardsmen stood arrayed around the Emperor, anxious despite the shielding. Electromagnetic fields were not impenetrable, not even the massive shields used by heavy warships. Those fields were powerful enough to kill living creatures that ventured through them. The palace field was not near that strength, as evidence by the Guard allowing their charge this near to it. The scorch mark on the palace wall behind the Emperor was a sign that even a powerful crew served weapon could pump enough protons through it to cause damage. Fortunately for a second target that morning, the beam had been attenuated enough while being bent from its path. The servant had sustained some burns, but not enough to be life threatening. And the field had been pumped up to full power.

Today a half dozen aircraft hung in the air over the palace, taking up blocking positions to intercept anything that might be launched at the balcony. Interspersed among them were scores of soldiers in heavy armor, grabber units suspending them in the air. Higher up were more capable fighters, ready to swoop down on any threat. The palace grounds swarmed with more soldiers, and included some dozens of the mecha, the machines which had proven to be outclassed by the tanks of the humans. Still, they had their uses, and remained formidable weapons when used against lightly armed insurgents.

“How many rebels did we take out last night?” he asked Pellishar, his chief of secret police.

“Eighty or ninety at most,” said the male, looking away, not wanting to look at his leader after such a failure. “They have ceased gathering and marching. Now they strike from the shadows, killing every policeman, secret or otherwise, they can get in their sights.”

“Can’t you take out their headquarters?”

“We probably could if we knew where it was. Even the prisoners we captured didn’t know the location.”

The Emperor didn’t need to ask if the prisoners taken might have withheld information. The Secret Police were very good at extracting it, and maybe one Ca’cadasan in a thousand could withstand the first rounds of interrogation. One in ten thousand might hold out for a week. All eventually broke.

“We already know where their headquarters is,” growled Jresstratta, pointing a pair of right index fingers at the massive Cathedral standing twelve kilometers away. The spires reached three kilometers into the sky, the base covered over eight square kilometers. The only building larger in the city was the palace, a purposeful decision by Emperors past.

“Do you really want to strike at the Church so openly?” asked Pellishar, staring at the Cathedral, slightly bowing his head. “The people won’t stand for it.”

“The people will stand for whatever their Emperor decrees,” said Jresstratta, glaring at the Chief, challenging him to disagree. “I am the supreme power in this Empire. It’s about time that the Church learned its place in the hierarchy.”

“How do you want us to do it?” asked the Chief, shrugging both sets of shoulders in acceptance. “From space? An airstrike?”

“Nothing so crude. I want my soldiers to take the priests hiding in that structure. Kill any who resist, take the rest prisoner. We will have a public trial for treason, with executions to follow after they are pronounced guilty.”

The Chief gave a head motion of agreement. There was no need to ask what would happen to any found to be innocent. The guilt of any captured in the Cathedral would be assumed. Only the fiction of a show trial needed to be presented to the public, who could be expected to rally to the side of their Emperor. Wouldn’t they?

“It will take more than your Guard. More than my police force.”

“Then I will order the First Division to participate as well.”

The Chief looked doubtful at that pronouncement. The First Division was also considered Elite, with the best training and equipment in the army. However, they were not considered as utterly loyal as the other elite forces. They would harbor a much higher percentage of true believers, males who would have difficulty deciding who their fealty was truly pledged to. The secular, or the spiritual.

The Emperor saw the continued doubt on the policeman’s face. He felt some of that doubt himself. He might be setting something into motion that he could no longer control. But did he have control of it now? He didn’t think so. He needed the new weapon to stop the human invasion of his space in its tracks. All the analysts agreed that the war had tipped to the point where conventional forces could no longer carry the day. If the humans won it was the end of the Empire, the end of the position of Emperor, and he could not allow that.

“I want the strike to go in by this afternoon. Kill anyone who tries to get in the way. Resistence is treason. Understood?”

The Chief gave another head motion of acceptance, then turned and walked away, face showing the concentration of one totally into link. The Emperor watched him go, satisfied that his commands would be carried out. He was sure with that one, since Pellishar had been instrumental in the lack of security around his father during the assassination. Some of the others were not such a sure thing. He would have to sit down with the ones he was sure of, after all of this was over, and determine who among his inner circle could be trusted, and who needed to disappear.

Transfers first, he thought. Then the disappearences wouldn’t be as noticeable. Males left the planet to go to war all the time, and not coming back would arouse no suspicions.

*     *     *

“You need to see this, Primate,” came a voice over the Cathedral com system.

The Supreme Vicar of the Church of Ca’cadasia turned to the holo that was appearing to the  side of his throne. An aerial view of the great square in front of the Cathedral, swarming with troops in a skirmish line, moving forward with weapons at the ready. With a thought he moved the view, watching more formations arrayed around all sides of his Holy Seat.

“It must be an entire division out there, Holy Father. What do you want us to do? The weapons systems are ready to fire.”

The Cathedral didn’t have enough weaponry to defeat a force like this, but the invaders would take heavy casualties. The Primate thought about it for a moment, then dismissed the notion.

“Not that,” said the Primate, another thought coming to mind. “Put me on the speakers. I will talk to my children.”

“You’re on,” said the voice of the assistant in charge of the defensive systems.

“My children. Think of what you do. An attack on the Church is an attack on the Gods. You put your souls at risk with such actions.”

The Primate thought about saying more, but figured he had said enough. If they didn’t heed his words now, he couldn’t think of what else he could say that would get their attention. He watched as several soldiers lowered their weapons and stopped walking forward, followed by more, until it was apparent that almost half of the troops were standing still in confusion, while the others looked at them with varying degrees of disdain and disbelief.

The Primate thought he had deescalated the situation. Then the first shots burst from the muzzles of particle beam rifles, and the slaughter was on.

*     *     *

“You, warriors. What in all the hells are you doing?”

The trio of men from the first division said not a word as they kept the muzzles of their weapons lowered. Their lips moved as they said silent prayers, while the colonel from the Elite Guard continued to scream at them.

“Cowards,” yelled the officer, his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. “You will do your duty to your Emperor, or you will be branded traitors.” He pulled the pistol from the holster and held it by his side.

Still the males didn’t move, and worse for the officer, more males stopped in place and lowered their weapons. The situation was threatening to get out of hand, and the colonel, not the brightest of males in the best of times, could only think of one solution. He raised his particle beam pistol, aimed at the face of the warrior in the center, and sent the angry red beam into male. The warrior’s face turned into a spreading cloud of superheated steam, the body falling backwards.

He brought the pistol over to shoot the one to the left, while a captain at his side took out the third. That was their last action, as a dozen rifle beams intersected their bodies and blasted them to steaming pieces.

The Elite Guard looked on in shocked silence for several seconds, before the more reactive members of that unit started to shoot down any males from the First Division that were within sight. Those other troops were slow to respond, but when scores of their own had fallen they started to return fire, burning down all of Guardmen and Secret Policemen they could target.

A close range fight using weapons like particle beams couldn’t last long, despite the armor the males were wearing.  The beams were too powerful, there were too many of them, and there was almost no cover. Within five minutes ninety percent of the Ca’cadasans who had surrounded the Cathedral were no longer standing. They were not capable of standing. Most of the casualties were dead, large parts of their bodies broiled or vaporized. The wounded ranged from minor burns to warriors who would never be capable of movement again without the intervention of massive medical resources.

The unwounded, what few there were, dropped their weapons and started on first aid, trying to stabilize those still alive and make sure they remained so. Groups who moments before had been trying their best to kill each other now worked to save the lives of their enemies. Ambulances appeared in the sky, while more police, these the standard order keeping variety, moved in to assist. The assault was over before it had really begun, with results beyond the wildest fears of those who had put it into motion.

*     *      *

The Primate stared in horror as the firefight kicked off. He had not wanted what had happened. The hope was that enough soldiers would refuse to go forward out of concern for their souls that the assault would ground to a halt. He hadn’t counted on military discipline, and the actions of officers who couldn’t stand to have their commands circumvented.

“At least we didn’t lose anyone,” said one of the prelates watching from the audience chamber.

The Primate targeted  the other male with a glare, and that prelate wisely closed his mouth and stayed silent.

“The Emperor won’t let this stand,” said Norrasta, his head moving in the motions of negation. “I expect they will move almost immediately.”

“Do they have the forces near at hand?” asked another prelate.

“Maybe not the ground troops,” said yet another church elder. “But they can strike at us from the air. By the gods, they can strike at us from space. And there is nothing we can do about it.”

The Primate simply stared into space. The Church had its resources, mostly in the form of volunteers and resources given them by the people. Being the church of the official state religion, they also received funds from the government. It never seemed like enough, not with all of their commitments to the people. Those people included the slave races, who though they were raised in different religious traditions, worshipping other gods, were still considered by the Church of Ca’cadasa to be children of their gods as well. Just lesser in the scheme of things.

“We hoped for the best,” said the Primate, standing to look out over the hundreds of senior clergy gathered in the room. “Now we must prepare for the worst. I hereby order all elders not needed for the defense of the Cathedral to evacuate. You will repair immediately to your regional seats, those who have them. As many as can get off world must do so. There you will continue to attend to the people. And spread the word about the crimes of the Emperor against our gods.”

“We can’t leave you to the mercies of the Emperor, Holy Father,” protested an Over-prelate, the calls of other clergy added to his.

“To stay here will be to die,” said the Primate, giving a head motion of negation.

“Then why should you stay here?” asked Norrasta, closing his eyes and mumbling a prayer for them all.

“It wouldn’t do for the leader of the Church to run and hide,” said the Primate, turning a smile toward the elder that was one of his favorites. “It is imperative that I stay at my post. And that everyone, the Emperor included, know that I am still here. Now, there will be no further arguments. I want all of you, with the exception of the few volunteers needed to keep the organization running, to leave within the hour. Pack up whatever you need, but don’t take too long. I suspect the young hot headed fool will act soon.”

The other males talked among themselves, many still protesting. But they were obedient members of the Church, and the commands of their leader were as those of the gods themselves.

Soon the Primate was left in the audience room, alone except for his personal secretary. He thought of ordering that male away as well. The loyal male would not leave the building unless escorted out by armed guards, and all of those had been ordered from the building as well. Besides, he couldn’t mistreat the young male like that. And he had decided he didn’t want to face the end alone, if it came to that.

“Pray with me, Plloplop,” he told his secretary, bowing his head.

“Who will we pray for, Holy Father.”

“For the souls of our people. For the survival of our culture. And most importantly, for the Emperor.”

“Why him?” blurted out the young male, a look of disdain on his face. “He is the cause of all of this.”

“And that is why he needs our prayers. That his soul is not consigned to the deepest hells.” It was something that the Primate would wish on no one. Unfortunately, for all his power in the Church he was not a god. The destination of them all were the purview of those gods. He feared that the young Emperor would soon be standing before those gods, thrown from the edge of heaven into the abyss.

*     *     *

“We can have another division of soldiers in place by morning,” said General Hafftralas, the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Army.

“It might be better if we brought in Marines from the system defense fleet,” countered Great Admiral Mstrawara, the CIC of that system defense fleet. “I can guarantee their loyalty.”

“And are you saying that my men aren’t loyal?” growled the general, taking a step toward the other flag officer.

“Those out there today didn’t show much in the way of loyalty,” screamed the admiral.

“Both of you. Shut up,” yelled the Emperor, standing up from his chair and staring both men back into theirs. He looked over at the admiral. “How many of your people are believers?”

The admiral looked aghast at the question, and the Emperor had to guess that the male was most likely a true believer himself. Most of the military were, since they were asked to risk their lives on a daily basis, and needed the comfort of the holy myths. He was afraid that the only people he could count on to not believe were scientists and some few of the intellectuals in the government. And, of course, the large number who had lost their belief through the years, still a silent majority, and not in a position to actively aid their Emperor.

“That’s what I thought. You are both dismissed.”

The two flag officers looked at each other, doubt on their faces. They looked back at the Emperor, who didn’t like the expressions they were trying, without success, to hide from their faces. Two more to add to my list of males to watch, thought the Emperor, wondering how long that list would be before he got the situation under control. He wasn’t sure how he would get it under control, but if he was to survive as Emperor he needed to, and soon.

“You are not a believer, are you, Chief?” he asked the head of his secret police.

“Not for hundreds of years,” said the male, the look of concentration on his face showing that he was wondering why the Emperor was asking him such a question.

“I want that Cathedral to fall on the heads of the clergy. But I can’t have something as blatant as an air or space strike. So, what can your people do? And can you trust them to keep their mouths shut afterwards?”

“The people I have for missions like this will always keep their mouths’ shut. Or they will find a hidden grave for their efforts.”

Good enough, thought the Emperor. He was sure that many of the believers would lay the blame at his feet no matter how it was handled. Without proof they could talk all they wanted. With the head of the Church gone there would be no rallying point. And as soon as the humans were turned back the majority would come to accept the measures their leader had found himself forced into for the good of the people.

*     *     *

“Your Holiness. We have found something in the subbasement. I think it is an explosive device.”

The Primate felt a chill run up his spine. He had been waiting all day for the Emperor to strike. Something that would attract the notice of the populace, and make its way to the other worlds of the Empire, and the military stationed on them. He hadn’t expected them to smuggle something in that might kill everyone in the Cathedral, while allowing them to make up any story they wanted to spin.

“Send out a cast to all of the temples on the planet. And make sure that all of the news outlets get a vid of the device.” That would at least ensure that any story the Emperor told would be countered by the vid. Unless they spun a tale that the Church had the device for their own purposes, and some fool had set it off by accident. Not what he would consider a realistic story, but without a counter argument it might be believed by some. He hoped by not too many.

“Can you disarm it?”

“I don’t think so. It’s a common fission device, with a simple trigger that’s counting down, fast. By the time we get the cover off it will have detonated.”

And if they shoot such a device with a particle beam, it will still go off. The Empire rarely used such devices. Fusion weapons needed to go off in a desired sequence or they were nothing but a small hydrogen blast, while anything that set off the high explosive triggers as close to simultaneously as a beam weapon would cause the fission explosion. A more primitive weapon might cause it to blow without going critical, but they had no projectile weapons at hand.

“How much time do we have?”

“We..” The communication died, at the same moment as the floor rumbled underfoot. The Primate had time for one last thought, and it wasn’t about him. The Church had to win, or the gods would turn their backs on the people.

The floor exploded upward, letting in the blast of heat and radiation that converted all organic matter in the chamber to superheated steam. The Primate observed none of this, already dead. The walls of the chamber collapsed outwards as the blast spread. The roof rose up, resisting the blast with the strength of plasticrete and alloy, then collapsing back. Some tons of the building were projected out, many flying for dozens of kilometers before hitting the ground. The majority of the building collapsed back in on itself, leaving a smoking heap.

The last thing the people in the temples on the planet saw was the vid of the device, with the conversation of the Primate and his underling in the background. And then, static. Thousands of clergy looked on in shock as they realized that the seat of their Church, which had stood for thousands of years, was gone, along with all of the records and artifacts of the religion. Soon the vids, from the news services and from individuals with hand computers, were streaming images of the fallen cathedral over the net. For hours after the com links of the Church were humming with messages, back and forth. No one was sure how they were going to strike back at the Emperor, but they did know that they needed to get the information out for all to see, before the Empire did something to destroy the evidence.

*     *     *

“That should settle it,” said Jresstratta, looking across the intervening kilometers of city between the palace and the ruins of the Cathedral. Where it had towered to the sky, the towers reaching kilometers above the tops of the battlements, now it was a hump of less than fifty meters of rubble. One of the towers stood still, a stump of a kilometer, part of the inner surface gone on what remained. It had been almost perfectly dropped, only a couple of tons of material ejected through structural weak points into the city.

One block, less than a ton, had crashed down on a slave barracks, crushing part of the building, one side, then rolling over the rest. No telling how many slaves had perished from that strike, and something the Emperor would not concern himself with, any more than he was concerned about the animals his meals came from, which were sometimes those very slaves.

“There will be questions, Supreme Majesty.”

“Then set the propaganda people to work spinning it the way we want the people to think of it,” said the Emperor, not concerning himself any more about that as well. He had people for that, and their loyalty was also not a concern. That was for their bosses to worry about, and it would be their heads if anything leaked.

“We will take care of it, Supreme Majesty.”

The Emperor made a motion of dismissal with his hand, continuing to stare with satisfaction at the ruins of his enemy’s headquarters. The Cathedral would have to be rebuilt, of course. The people would demand it. But this time he would make sure of the loyalty of the senior priesthood. And the emplacement of proper surveillance gear. That could wait until the bodies, what was left of them, were dug out of the ruins and given state funerals. They would of course be buried with honors in the crypts of the ancestors. That should satisfy the fools who still revered the religion.

Later that afternoon, when a series of bombs went off at the Secret Police Barracks, killing scores of loyal males, the Emperor realized what a mistake he had made.

*     *     *

MAY 19TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN FLEET.

“Remember, the Gods revere life. We may be called upon in our duties to take life. The Gods understand this, just as they understand that warriors must take life. Or that life must be killed to sustain the race. But the taking of life on a massive scale is forbidden. Living worlds are a gift from the Gods, given to us for our use. Once destroyed, their distinctive life is gone forever.”

The chaplain looked out over the Ca’cadasan spacers gathered in the ship’s chapel. It was the holy day, and the crew would be gathering in off shifts, filling the chamber. Over a thousand were currently present. Not everyone on the ship was a believer, though it was always safer to let your compatriots think you were. And not all believers attended services. There was no regulation forcing them to. Still, there were enough here that the chaplain was sure to get his word across to the majority of the crew.

“The Gods will punish those who destroy distinctive life forms, ending them forever. The Gods placed them in this Universe for a purpose, and it is not for us to decide what should survive, and what shouldn’t.”

“What about stellar processes?” shouted out one of the males in the congregation, wearing the uniform of an engineering officer.

The chaplain knew what he was asking about. Maybe the fleet wasn’t creating supernovas, which intelligent beings were not capable of producing, yet, as far as they knew. But the subcritical novas they were creating were frying planets, maybe not down to the level of microbes, but destroying all higher life forms.

“Supernova’s and such,” said the chaplain, giving a head nod at the officer. “Those are acts of the Gods. Not of mortal beings. But trying to control stars, even at the level our science is capable of, is blasphemy. And those engaging in such acts will be denied to pleasures of heaven, and will be thrown into the deepest depths of the hells, there to freeze solid, their bodies in constant pain.”

“And if we are ordered by those above us to engage in, these acts?” asked another spacer, his voice quivering with emotion.

“It is to each to decide for himself what he will and will not do. It is on your conscience. But remember. Some sins can be easily forgiven. And some are beyond forgiveness. One must consider that before taking an action that might doom them. The penalty might be death, but death is waiting for us all. And a painful death will pale in comparison to eternal punishment.”

The chaplain went silent, letting his words sink in. He hated telling the people he ministered to that they must disobey orders. He wasn’t in fact telling them that, but it wasn’t a stretch from giving them threats to their eternal situation.

The service broke up, the crewmen filing out of the large room and heading back to their quarters or the galley. Before the last of them were out of the room other males pushed past them and into the chamber. These were hard eyed warriors in body armor, weapons on their sides. Some of the congregation stopped to stare, and received hard glares in return, while hand motions waved them on.

“You are to come with us, Priest,” said the leader of the warriors, a lieutenant of marines. “The Captain has some questions for you.”

“I have another service to hold in a couple of hours,” said the chaplain, wondering if he would be available for that event.

“That will be up to the Captain,” said the marine, motioning toward the exit. “I’m sure your assistant will be able to handle it if you aren’t around.”

Those last words struck a chill of fear into the chaplain. It had been a risk to talk to the congregation as he had, but he answered to a higher authority. And the orders from above had been clear. His life didn’t enter into the equation.

Two hours later the assistant chaplain gave the same sermon. This time the marines were in attendance, and security tried to arrest the assistant chaplain. Which sparked a riot in the chapel. It was not the only one to occur on an Imperial ship that week.

Chapter Nine

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Napoleon Bonaparte

APRIL 23RD, 1004. JEWEL.

“The damned Cacas have used their terror weapon against the Klavarta,” hissed Vice Admiral Mashara Ignoa, the New Terran Empire commander of the force working with the Republic of New Earth, the star kingdom established by the second ship that had made it out of the original human home system. The Gryphon admiral’s fierce avian eyes looked out of the holo. The eyes of the species always appeared fierce, but the Emperor could read the rage underneath that look.

The dominant species of that nation were not what most people would think of as human. Over ninety-five percent of the people of human stock had been heavily genetically engineered to make them the best warriors the genome could produce. Five percent had remained general human stock. The real problem with the star nation had been the leadership. The cloned duplicates of the original leaders who had led them there from Earth, with the original uploaded brains. And like all clones, they were complete psychopaths, genocidal against all non-humans. They had turned every species in their region of space against them, those that had survived.

It had taken great effort by the new government, with the help of Sean’s people, to build alliances with people who had no reason to trust the Klavarta, as the genetically engineered humans were called. But it had been done, and now New Earth had a strong alliance to battle against the Cacas. Not everyone in the region had signed on, but enough had, and there was still a chance that more would come over.

Assigning an alien commander of the force of New Terran Empire ships in the region had been the idea of the Empress, who thought a non-human face would aid in convincing other aliens that the Klavarta were under new management, and no longer the xenophobic maniacs they had been. That the admiral was also a fine strategist had been a plus. That he really cared for the welfare of his allies was even more of one.

“How bad?” asked Sean, closing his eyes.

“Not as bad as it could have been, but bad enough. Almost eight hundred ships, mostly older designs, and five hundred thousand Klavarta.”

My God, thought the Emperor. He had lost more spacers in a single battle, many times more. But…

“What were the Caca losses?”

“Maybe fifty ships and the crews, which might not have been full strength. Another Klavarta force was preparing to enter yet another system, but we got word to them in time. A couple of scouts went in, and the Cacas went ahead and detonated their weapon when it was obvious that nothing else was coming. Millions of slaves died on the habitable world, which was, of course, killed.”

Sean thought about that for a moment before speaking. His main objects during the invasion of Caca space had not just been to beat their Empire, but to free the trillions of intelligent beings they held as property, many as food animals. And now the Cacas were killing those people in job lots on both fronts. It was something he couldn’t stand, or stand for.

“The Klavarta government will be contacting you, and soon,” continued the admiral. “I believe they will be asking for weapons that can level the playing field. And more wormholes, so they can configure wormhole bombs.”

And I’m not sure I want them to have more of those devices, thought the Emperor. The point being that he didn’t really trust the Klavarta to not engage in wholesale slaughter against their enemy, and the collateral damage could be epic.

“Do the Klavarta have any idea why the Cacas are killing living worlds? I thought that was against their prime religion.”

“They only think of the Cacas as big murdering brutes,” said the admiral, scowling. “So I don’t think it comes as any surprise to them. To the Klavarta the Cacas are nothing short of demons. They are surprised that we attribute any kind of normal feelings to the creatures.”

Sean could see why they thought that way, though he didn’t agree. On general terms the Ca’cadasans were evil in a way that most people couldn’t imagine. Sean had read extensive histories of old Earth, and there had been references to people and political systems that were just as bad. The National Socialists of Germany. The Fascist government of Japan and their Bushido code. The Communists of so many nations, best exemplified by the Soviet Union and China. The Caliphate. There were people at the top who had gone down in history as mass murderers. However, they still had some qualities. They cared for many of their people, even loved some of them, and tried to do their best for them. That their actions led to the deaths of millions didn’t diminish their good points, few as they were. They also didn’t cover for their bad points.

He thought the Cacas were similar in many ways. They didn’t see themselves as evil. They were the good guys of their story, and what they did benefited the Galaxy, at least as far as they could see. They saw the humans as the evil species that had killed the heir to their empire after offering their surrender. And those same humans were now trying to destroy their empire, and the vision of the Galaxy they were trying to make. Just like the Germans saw the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain as the bad guys, so did the Cacas see the Empire. From what he had learned from intelligence reports, the Caca males cared about their offspring, or maybe that should be amended to male progeny. They really didn’t care about their females, but it wasn’t like the other sex were the intellectual equals of the males. Another concept foreign to the sensibilities of the humans, whose females were just as capable as their males, if not as gifted with physical strength.

The examples from human history didn’t have an all encompassing religion like the Cacas, though, with the exception of the Caliphate of the mid-twenty-first century Middle Eastern Earth. As far as he knew, they only had the one faith, which seemed to humans a contradiction of beliefs. But, then again, weren’t many human religions? Most human religions seemed to have tenants about getting along and treating their fellow beings with compassion and dignity. Yet some of the worst excesses of violence in human history had been caused by religious zealotry. All had eventually gone through reformations that had tempered some of their more violent tendencies. Islam had been the last, but despite their sometimes still bizarre notions of religion, they were as well behaved, as civilized, as any other adherents to a faith, and just as accepting of the scientific truths that ran technic civilization.

He realized that he actually knew very little about the Ca’cadasan faith, and maybe it was time to rectify that lack.

“Connect me with Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow,” said the Emperor into the air, groaning in his mind as he mangled the name. Ca’cadasan names were hard to pronounce in the first place, and the former Caca battle fleet commander had one more difficult than most. Part of that was because the Caca admiral was from a very old and distinguished family, one that might have risen to the rank of emperor with some different historical outcomes.

It took several moments for the connection to be made through multiple links, including several wormholes. It wasn’t a com link that just anyone could request. In fact, there were only a dozen people in the Empire, outside of the guards and staff of the prison, that even knew the warrior was in Imperial custody. The Ca’cadasan Empire knew the admiral had been captured, but they didn’t have any idea as to his final disposition. The male had been forthcoming in helping the Empire to understand his people, but he had given no military secrets. Sean had to respect the admiral for that, if nothing else.

“Emperor Sean,” said the Caca admiral in heavily accented Terranglo, his bright eyes looking into those of the human.

Sean had to admit that the aliens did look like demons, at least according to the conception of some human faiths. The males were large, massing at least three hundred kilograms and standing over three meters. The furred faced looked like that of a predator, with an extended snout and sharp teeth showing through the black lips. Intelligent eyes looked out of that face, while horns rose another half meter above the head, completing the demonic image.

The Emperor had talked with this male extensively, trying to gain an understanding of the psychology of their species. He would have liked to have actually visited the warrior in his quarters, they really couldn’t be called a cell, but Imperial Security had threatened to knock him down and sit on him before they would let him occupy the same space as the massive alien. Sean didn’t really feel fear at the notion of being in the same room as the big Caca. Cornelius had killed several Cacas in hand to hand, and Sean was augmented in much the same manner as the Ranger officer. Still, a fight was never a sure thing, and if the Caca became suicidal enough, he might possibly get lucky.

“I have some questions for you. Feel like talking?”

The Caca gestured to the room around him, the holo moving to follow his motions. It was a very spacious chamber, with a large comfortable chair and a table laden with food and drinks to the front. Several females lounged in the chamber, while a pair of males sat drinking, waiting on the commands from their lord.

“As long as you don’t ask for military secrets. Of course,” continued the male, smiling, “I’m sure any information of a military nature I might have would be completely out of date.”

“Nothing military. I would like to learn something about your religion.”

“Ah, the Faith. We call it Hrassatora, the way of the Gods.” The admiral laughed for a moment. “I haven’t believed since my days at the fleet college, learning to be an officer. Most of the truly intelligent members of my species are not believers. Which means the great majority still are. The stupid fools.”

“Where did this, Faith, come from? And when?”

“Hah,” snorted the Caca, giving a slight headshake. “The origins are lost in the mists of time. From the rising of the race from hunter gatherers to living in villages, then cities. Like most hunter gatherers they worshipped nature, from whence came their sustenance and the materials they needed for crafting the artifacts of their culture.”

“Much the same as on Earth,” agreed Sean, nodding. “But we grew out of that kind of worship and started concentrating on monotheism. What was different with you?”

“From what I have read, not all of your religions were monotheistic. Even your Empire still contains some of those.”

“They are in the minority,” said Sean, thinking as he spoke that Wicca and Hinduism were still large and vibrant faiths. But still a relative minority. “They lost much of their following once we got into space. Polytheism has a much harder time resolving their beliefs with science, when their gods are actually said to manifest in the real world. So I ask again, what was different with you?”

“Ah, but were you conquered when you were still in your early industrial era? Did another species come to your world and wreck your ecosystem, slaughter your people, treat you like offal?”

“No. We did a good enough job of that ourselves.”

“Which is why you became the consummate warriors. I wondered what had happened prior to our coming along?”

“We had made peace with ourselves, and lost the desire to become warriors.”

“And then we came along and changed that,” said the admiral, eyes narrowing. “Our mistake, turning your minds back to war and then letting you escape.”

“Yes. Well, I for one am happy you couldn’t locate our refugee ships. Though I really wish you had changed your minds about us by the time you had relocated us.”

“We may not be the quickest of species, or the brightest, but we live a long time, and we don’t forget. Or forgive.”

The Emperor stared at the alien for a moment, wondering if there actually would be peace between them and the humans. If they didn’t forgive or forget the humans killing an heir, would they do either to the species that destroyed their Empire. He dismissed that thought, for the moment, since now he came to one of his most important questions.

“How did this Faith evolve into believing that living worlds and their life forms were sacred?”

“It came from our occupation,” said the admiral, giving a very human head nod. “The invaders killed everything on the surface that they didn’t find a use for. Animals, plants, the very things we needed to survive. We might have been carnivores, but there were many useful plant species that provided things we needed, as well as provender for our animals.”

“And how did you get rid of them? These invaders?”

“They kept many of us as slaves, something that no freedom loving Cacada had ever had to deal with to that point in our history. Eventually they treated us like all masters treat slaves. They ignored us, and we stole from them. Weapons, equipment, information. Until the time was right and we rose up to slaughter every single one of them on our world. After they were dead we appropriated their star faring technology and proceeded to restore our ravaged world. Or at least as well as we could.

“You have heard how we have only wiped out two species. Yours was to be the third. The masters were the first. As you are better than us at war, so we were better than they were. Insectoids, they were not built to move fast in what we considered normal gravity. They were mighty as long as they were the only ones with aircraft and control of the orbitals. When we were able to reach their orbital constructs with weapons, and duel with them in the sky, they became nothing more than prey. Several decades of building spaceships, destroying any of the few craft of theirs that came our way, and we were able to carry the fight to them. Subspace was the limit of their tech, and they hadn’t spread far, so we only had to strike at a dozen worlds to destroy them, obliterating their species from the Universe. We only destroyed their home world, wiping their genotypical heritage from the universe. The other worlds we cleansed of insectoids, and rehabilitated them to support our own colonies.”

“And then your species felt the need to conquer, so that you wouldn’t find yourself slaves to another race?”

The admiral sat silent for a moment, thinking. “I think so. We were afraid that some other all conquering species would come along.” The admiral put his face in a hand while he opened the other three palms up. “Fear. That’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? We wouldn’t admit that to ourselves. As conquerors we had the ball in our court. Other species would fear us, and we would be able to build a defense in depth of our home world. Anyone coming at us would have to push through multiple systems and dozens of light years. Eventually that became thousands of systems, thousands of light years.”

“While you comforted yourselves with the idea that you were actually doing this for the good of the Galaxy?”

“Yes. Yes,” said the admiral after a moment’s hesitation for thought. “That makes sense. We didn’t want our world again conquered. The last event had almost destroyed our world. Many of the life forms we had depended on, even when we had developed advanced tech for the time, were gone. The megafauna our young males depended on to prove themselves through the danger of the hunt, that was gone. We were able to breed up some of the smaller beasts to produce food animals. I think that was part of it as well. A substitute for the hunt. We would sublimate our natural instincts while safeguarding the Galaxy. Protecting other species from stronger races that could wipe them out.”

And at the same time becoming the conquerors, thought Sean, actually turning other intelligent species into not just slaves, but food animals. Becoming what you fear the most while told yourselves you were different, because you weren’t committing genocide. Until you ran into a species that angered you enough that you overstepped those bonds. Like that other species. Like the human species.

“But back to the question of the religion,” said the admiral, dismissing the other questions from his mind, something his species seemed to be good at. “We had always revered the life of our world. Even as we expanded our population, we practiced the conservation needed to preserve the forms that no longer directly benefitted us. The ones we used to prove our strength in the trials to achieve the status of warrior. And then, the aliens came and destroyed most of them. Because of that we developed a religious belief that the diversity of life was sacred. Not individual animals. That would be going too far for a species that was of obligate carnivore stock. But the diversity, the multitude of differences spread across the Galaxy. That was to be enjoyed and protected, as the gods themselves intended. So the worlds themselves, the harbors of life, became sacred. And to the common believer, they remain so.”

But not to the intelligencia, thought the Emperor. They no longer believe in gods, but they are shackled in their behaviors by the beliefs of the majority. They have to continue to cater to those religious sensibilities, no matter how they feel.

“Your people have started using a weapon that causes stars to go beyond nova, but not quite supernova. We’re calling it a sub-supernova. It destroys the ships in the inner system, but also sterilizes all of the planets.”

The expression on the admiral’s face showed his shock. “Surely not.”

“You killed several of my planets, Admiral. They were taken out by the fleet under your command. So why not go the next step and take out some of your own systems if it damages my fleet?”

“The worlds we took out had been terraformed to your type of life,” said the admiral in a defensive tone. “That was also against the beliefs of our religion, since according to the scriptures only the gods could make a living world. So we felt no guilt at killing those worlds.”

“Only one of them wasn’t terraformed,” said Sean, pointing a finger at the admiral.

“We didn’t know that. If I could take it back…”

“You’ve said you are not a believer, but now you’re saying that you feel guilty for violating the tenants of your scriptures.”

“What can I say,” said the big alien, shrugging both sets of shoulders. “Even when we outgrow our beliefs, they are the foundation of much of our thinking, ingrained in us from our early exposure to them. I guess you would call it indoctrination.”

“How would your people feel if the Emperor started sterilizing whole systems?” asked Sean, not sure how this was going to go over. Any answer might be construed as giving the enemy military intelligence. However, he was counting on the shock of the question, along with the evidence he was about to present, to cause the admiral to blurt out the information.

“That would never happen,” said the male, crossing both sets of arms over his chest. “The people would never stand for it, and the Emperor has to know it. Even that young fool you say is on the throne. There are enough advisors to lay down the law for him.”

Unless they are so afraid of him they don’t dare speak up, wanting to keep their heads on their necks, thought Sean, sending the command to send the images to the Great Admiral.

“This is one system we found that had been used as a test. That world in the center had been a living planet, with slaves on the surface. Scoured clean by this new weapon, what we’re calling a sub-supernova device.”

The admiral narrowed his eyes, thinking. Sean was sure he knew where the first train of thought was going. If they had this weapon, perhaps they could defeat the humans. He quickly disabused the male of that notion.

“It’s an unwieldy weapon, requiring twelve projectors arranged in a pattern around a star. The projectors are superbattleships, each crewed by Ca’cadasan males who die when the star blows off its plasma. The only way it can be used is as an ambush weapon. Rest assured that any of them that enter one of my systems and head to the star will  not make it. We will hit them with wormhole launched missiles before they get more than light minutes past the hyper barrier.”

The admiral’s eyes widened, and the Emperor was sure he had realized this was not a war winning weapon. It might cause some damage to the humans, but even more to his empire when the humans reacted.

The image changed to the long view, a light week out of the star and showing the flaring, much brighter than a nova, not quite a supernova. From the point of view of a living being the two phenomenon looked the same, since their eyes and brains had never evolved to distinguish the difference at those magnitudes.

“He caught one of my forces later with the weapon. We had just discovered it, and it was the bad luck of the crews of that force that we were just a bit late with the warning. I lost over thirty ships, fifteen of them capitals. Since then we have approached every system with caution, and not left the barrier until we could be sure none of those ships are waiting in orbit around the star. Of course, they can still hide them, then move them into position once we are deep into the system.”

The Empire had already, in theory, come up with ways to take out those ships before going in, only risking the few scouts needed to draw them out, but he wasn’t about to tell this male that.

“The believers would be horrified,” said the admiral in a low voice. “The young fool.”

“And what would they do with those horrified feelings?”

The admiral stared out of the holo at the Emperor, who could imagine the thoughts going through that big head.

“What are your plans for my people, your Majesty? What will be their fate if you win this war?”

“Many of my people would like to exterminate you,” said Sean, nodding his head. “I don’t want to do that. In fact, I will do everything in my power to prevent that. But you have to know that the more of my people are killed, the harder the task becomes.”

The admiral gave a very human like nod. He knew that Sean was not as powerful in his own realm as the Ca’cadasan Emperor was in his. While the military obeyed him, his word was not law, and if he started giving commands that didn’t make sense, the other powers in his government would remove him from the throne.

“There’s also the problem of your slaves. My people want to free them, then set them up as allied powers. The more of them that die as collateral damage in this war, the harder the feelings are going to be.”

“You also know that those slaves are going to want our blood,” said the Great Admiral.

“Of course. That’s another worry I have.”

“So what happens to us if you have your way?”

“Your people are disarmed, at least for a century or so, maybe more, until we can be sure you are going to contribute to the new order. And yes, I know that means you are going to be in dire straights on some of the slave worlds, which is why we are looking into moving you to your own planets. The ones we designate for your use only. It might take some doing, but we think we can shift populations to make it work. But not overnight.”

“Which means that millions of my people will die in retribution.”

“Probably. But it beats extermination of the species, doesn’t it? So, tell me what your people will think of this Emperor, and what will they do about it?”

The Great Admiral was silent, staring straight ahead, avoiding looking into the eyes of the human. Sean was sure he was going to refuse to answer, until he gave a head shake and looked into the eyes of the human.

“I am not always proud of what my people have done, your Majesty. But they are my people. And as a people we have always been very obedient to authority. Not just because of what that authority could do to us or our families, though that, of course, is a part. Males are raised to know their place. The nobility has more power, but even they are subservient to the throne. And commoner males can rise in rank, eventually joining the nobility. But along the way they all know their place. The Emperor orders, and every Ca’cadasan male does their best to obey. To the death. Which of course is my shame.”

“Because you were captured? But another male surrendered while you were unconscious. In our society that would absolve you of blame.”

“But not in ours. The fleet was my responsibility as long as I still had life in my body. However, that is neither here nor there. You want to know how the people will react to orders that go against their beliefs. I’m not really sure, since it has never happened. What I would expect would be a revolt by the Church against the Throne. The Throne would have to strike back in order to maintain their power. And the believers would rally around the Church. Maybe not to the point of taking to the streets or disobeying orders in a overt manner. But covertly? Things would just not get done, small matters under the notice of officers. Some of the officers who were believers might join in. The war effort will be crippled.”

“And worst case scenario for the Emperor?”

“He is faced with a major uprising, civil war, and his head on a pike at the entrance to the palace. I can’t see it going that far, but that would be the worst case. And if the Empire is already smoldering, the Emperor would be well advised to not throw accelerant on the flames. The last Emperor would have known better. His son, who has never commanded more than a couple of servants in his life, and may think himself a great war leader who can never make a mistake, is another story.”

“Thank you, Great Admiral. I know it comes hard to give information to an enemy.”

“I don’t expect us to win this war, your Majesty. Maybe if we had made good decisions from the start, and you weren’t able to forge the alliance you have, we could have carried it off. But we didn’t, and you have forged an alliance. The wormholes had a lot to do with it, but your other technological innovations also caught us completely by surprise. No, I think we will lose, but not before there is a great deal more death and destruction. I just don’t want my species to be added into that destruction. If possible, I would like to see us go on. As your slaves if necessary. Though as your partners would be preferable.”

“I will do my best,” said Sean, dismissing the connection. He was haunted by the look in the Great Admiral’s eyes. A proud warrior who had been raised to think of his people as superior to all others, the masters by right. Humbled by another species who was superior in the one faculty that counted in technic civilization, intelligence.

The admiral had given him a great deal to think about. There was a possibility of a revolt within the Ca’cadasan Empire. Or at least there would be if the information was widely disseminated. He needed to know how far the information had spread, the reaction to it so far, and what he could do to fan the flames. Which meant they needed to contact their friends in the enemy camp. Normally that would take a month or two both ways for the question to reach into the enemy empire and the answer to come percolating back out. Now they had something else in place. It was dangerous, and he didn’t like using it outside of their normal schedule unless necessary. Many people could die if the pipeline was discovered. But many more could die down the road if he didn’t get the intelligence he needed.

Chapter Ten

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. Buddha

APRIL 25TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

“This is really important, Commander,” said Rear Admiral Bryce Suttler, his intent face looking out of the com holo. “I know it’s a risk, but the order comes from on high. So I guess you can say that we are not to question it.”

“I understand, sir,” said Commander Winefred Galland, the captain of the stealth/attack ship Kelsie. She had been on station since the raid of the Ca’cadasan home system, sitting dead and silent a couple of light days outside the system well above the plane of the ecliptic. “We’re receiving your transmission, now.”

The encrypted file took less than a second to come over the wormhole link. The commander was curious to find out what was in the file, but she would never know. Need to know governed this intelligence, and though she hoped that capture was of low probability, there was always the chance they would be interrogated by the Cacas. The Kelsie was merely a link on the com path, important, but with no input into the stream.

“We ready?” she asked her com officer, a young man who was manipulating the controls of his communications station.

“Lining up on the station,” said the young officer, looking down at a small screen with a doubtful expression on his face. He knew what they were doing was not smart, putting everyone at risk. “It’s gone,” he said in a hushed voice. “They should be getting it in three hours.”

“Then let’s move,” ordered the commander, looking over at her helmsman.

This was very much against the protocols that had been set up to keep the Cacas from realizing that anything was going on with their most loyal servants. The Maurids were risking much by selling out their lords. Possibly their very existence as a species. They felt they had much to gain on the deal. Like the freedom to make their own decisions as to how they were to advance as a race, something the Cacas had taken from them.

Maurids didn’t think like humans or Ca’cadasans. While they could be violent and vicious creatures, one reason the Cacas used them for security and intelligence, watching over lesser species, they were of a single mind when it came to their own people. A Maurid would not sell out their people. There was nothing anyone could offer them that trumped that loyalty. They were also extremely difficult to force information from. But they weren’t super beings, and enough torture or the proper chemicals would force them to talk.

The ship moved to another location, not far, just enough where they didn’t have to worry about someone tracing their beam back. Normally they would have just pulsed their hyperdrive for a fraction of a second in a pattern that to most would be random noise. The system was full of traffic, a score of ships entering and leaving hyperspace every hour, hundreds in near transit. A Maurid piloted ship, knowing what the pulse meant, would come out, transiting nearby and receiving the information request. It would go into hyper, transit to another station several light hours out, then come back, passing off the information as it moved by. So far it had worked perfectly, the Cacas not suspecting their loyal subjects of anything. The Maurids were actually semi-autonomous within the Empire, as long as they adequately performed the tasks their lords and masters had assigned. They were better security officers than the large and clumsy Cacas, much more stealthy, able to get into places the big aliens couldn’t. Deadly killers, they had scotched many subversions by other species in the past, and had hated themselves for every one of those actions.

The ship entered their sensor envelop a couple of hours later, moving out of the system at point three light, the maximum velocity they could carry to transit into hyper. All was going well, and Galland was beginning to think this might just be another textbook hand off. The encrypted transmission was shot their way, in a narrow arc that was sure to hit the human ship.

“We’re getting it, ma’am,” called out the com officer. “Decrypting the header, now.”

The header and the footer were the only parts of the message they would be able to decrypt, just so they could tell it was the message they wanted, and when it had ended. It frustrated the commander that they would never know what the message contained. Need to know. If their ship was captured it would be with a wiped memory core, and the crew would know nothing about any of the information they had received.

“We’re picking up a pair of vessels pushing grabbers hot,” yelled out the exec from CIC. “Estimating two scouts, accel at five hundred and thirty gravities, on an intercept course with our friendly.”

“Any sign they’ve picked us up?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then let’s creep away. Ten gravities. Com. Get that message to headquarters, now.”

“Are we going to do anything to help them, ma’am?” asked the weapons officer. “A spread of missiles?”

“Negative. Our orders are to lay low and continue the mission.”

“They have to know we’re here, ma’am. And it’s looking like the mission has been compromised anyway.”

Galland shook her head. They were an intelligence asset in the Caca home system, and they would be difficult to replace. It was a shitty thing to do, but their friends were on their own. It was looking like their friends were going to have a very bad day, and she didn’t see any reason for her people to join them.

*     *     *

JEWEL.

“We’ve received the information you asked for, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina Sergiov over the com holo. “Unfortunately, our furry friends got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.”

Sean felt the sinking sensation of someone who had changed the rules and had hoped to get away with it. Instead, it was looking like it had come back to bite them.

“Did our asset get away?” asked the Emperor, using the term that made it more clinical. They weren’t people, they were assets, to be used. Unfortunately for the young man who made the final decisions, no matter what words he used he couldn’t think of them as anything other than intelligent beings. People who lived or died at his command.

“The stealth/attack is still in the system,” said the admiral in charge of Unified Intelligence. This was something she was used to, having been in charge of Imperial Intelligence before the war. People were lost in the spy game. Often they just disappeared, and those who sent them on missions never found out what happened to them.

“I hope it was worth it,” said Sean in a low voice, receiving a nod from his intelligence chief. She wouldn’t say anything if it wasn’t. She served at his discretion, as did all the high rankers in the military. She might not approve in her thoughts, which mattered to the young Emperor who still wanted the approval of the old hands. Unfortunately, he didn’t always get it, and couldn’t allow that to affect his decision making.

“Have you looked at it yet?”

“I skimmed it. But I thought you would want to see for yourself as soon as possible. I can say that you were correct. Now, I can only hope that our assets are still in place to take advantage of the information.”

“Thanks, Ekaterina. I’ll be back to you with my orders as soon as I make a decision.”

The woman nodded, her expression one of concern for the pressure she had to know was on her monarch’s shoulders. The holo faded, replaced by another one, this of a being that had not been seen in the Empire prior to the war.

The creature had a long snout, with intense wide spaced eyes and the high brow of a large brained being. The wiry fur was mostly gray, with black stripes. That was the easiest way for a human to differentiate the creatures, but even with hundreds of variations it wasn’t a sure fire way of telling them apart.

“To the human Emperor. We hope this information is of use to you. We believe that you could have waited for the regularly scheduled transfer, but we do not know what is on your mind. May it prove of great use to you.”

Sean took the admonishment in stride. He was grateful for the courage of the beings, and hoped that his decision wouldn’t cost them too much. That there would be a price to pay he was sure. He was hoping the intelligence he was about to receive would aid not just his own people, but the Maurids as well. If it resulted in more good than harm to his allies, he would consider it worth it.

The information tape started with a video, showing Ca’cadasan males marching through the streets of the capital. They weren’t an attractive species to the human eye. In fact, they looked to many like the demons of many human religions. Like the Satan of a few of the old monotheistic religions on old Earth. But they were intelligent beings, and the Emperor had to wonder how they would have turned out if not for the tender mercies of the insectoid race that had conquered them early in their space faring history.

To Sean’s eye the city was still a wreck, though he did see some repairs. The vid advanced, and dissenting males clashed with police and soldiers. The clash turned deadly; both sides being made of armed warriors it could be no other way. Beams linked firer and target, bodies fell to the ground with parts missing, red tinted steam filling the air overhead.

It’s happening, thought the Emperor with a feeling of exultation. The Cacas were fighting among themselves. Did that mean that a full blown civil war was in the works? The demonstration turned riot that he was watching ended with a victory by the authorities. The next vid was another, this time the rebels striking from the shadows. There were more casualties among the police and elite soldiers this time. Still, it ended with the situation under apparent control. That the rebels were taking casualties and soldiering on was hopeful. That they were hurting the troops of authority was even more so. If only it would go on. The vid continued, showing more and more violence.

The last vid was the most shocking. A view of a huge building with many towers reaching a kilometer into the sky. The translation of the words below the image stated that it was the Cathedral of the Gods, the primary religious structure of the Ca’cadasan Empire. And suddenly it was coming down. There was the hint of a flash, then an eruption of white fire, and then the building expanded slightly before it collapsed on itself.

A nuclear warhead, thought Sean, leaning forward in his chair, reversing the vid, then playing it back a one eighth speed. He was sure after the second viewing that it had been a nuke, and that it had been set off in the bowels of the structure. The Emperor striking back at his own church. What had the Caca leader been thinking? Such an act could only fan the flames.

“As far as we can tell,” said the Maurid, coming back onto the vid, “the Emperor ordered a bomb to be set off in the subbasement of the Cathedral, then blamed it on the Church hording the weapon for use against him. Very few of the believers are buying that story. We are getting some reports from agents throughout the Empire that spacers and soldiers are disobeying Imperial orders. What percentage, and the effect it is having on their war effort? We just don’t know. But it looks like an opportunity might be there.”

Sean sat back in his chair. It was a definite opportunity. But to do what? And why was this civil disobedience, and the Emperor’s reaction, occurring now? He wished the Maurids had been able to tell him that, but for some reason they hadn’t. Were they still playing both sides? He wouldn’t blame them. They had no past history with the humans, and no reason to believe that the New Terran Empire would keep its word. That they were hopeful that it would was shown by the cooperation they had extended.

“Ekaterina,” Sean said into the air, and a moment later the woman’s head appeared on holo. “Did they send anything else?”

“A great deal, your Majesty. Mostly hard data that may take some time to analyze.”

“Get back to me with it as soon as you have anything. Don’t wait until you get to the end. Anything at all that you think might be of interest, and I want it on my desk. Immediately.”

“Of course, your Majesty.”

We might have something here, he thought, once again playing the vid. Any dissent in the Empire was to his advantage. But if there was a complete breakdown of military discipline, possibly even a civil war, things just might get interesting.

*     *      *

MAY 26TH, 1004. CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

“The ungrateful pieces of offal,” screamed Jresstratta, slamming a pair of lower fists on the table while he raised the upper pair into the air. “After all the Empire has done for their people. The freedoms we have given them.”

The others in the chamber looked down, none knowing what to say when the Emperor was in this mood. Finally the Chief of the Secret Police, Pellishar, spoke up. After all, almost half of his empire wide force were Maurids. If they were all involved, then his entire kingdom within the empire was bound to collapse.

“It may be a small cabal within their species, Supreme Lord. We only know of the few that were on that station and in that ship.”

“And you have those in custody?”

“We were able to capture some few on the station,” said the Chief, giving a head motion of agreement. “Unfortunately, those aboard the ship died, suicided when we boarded, and every memory bank on board had been wiped clean to the molecular level.”

“How many aboard the station, Chief?” asked one of the military advisors.

“There was an intelligence colony of over two hundred on that station, mostly the families of operatives within the system.”

The admiral grunted in acknowledgement. It was well known that the Maurids who worked on the capital world were hated by those they kept a watch on. Since they insisted in having family with them at their duty station, the spouses and children were kept on military stations in space, where they would be safe from retribution from those they watched.

“And how many did you get?” asked Jresstratta, scowling at the Chief.

“Seven,” said the male, looking down once again.

“You mean they killed their families before letting you take them?” asked the Emperor, eyes blazing.

“They killed their families,” said Pellishar, “then fought us, making us kill them. We were fortunate to stun the few we did.”

“Barbarians,” shouted another of the advisors.

“They work for my organization, General,” said the Chief. “They knew what would happen to their families, their children, if they were taken alive. What would you do?”

“And you are interrogating them?” asked Jresstratta with a smile. “So we can be sure to get everything they know?”

“Oh, yes,” said the Chief, giving another head motion of agreement. “I wouldn’t expect too much, though. The ones we captured were clerical staff, and not operators. The warriors among them made sure they weren’t captured. But what these people know, we will find out.”

“I want reprisals against the Maurid people,” growled the Emperor, his cold eyes taking in all of his advisors. “I want them to know that they can’t betray us like this and get away with it.”

“Supreme Lord,” said the Chief, grimacing. “We don’t know how far this conspiracy goes. It might be an outlying faction that has nothing to do with the Maurid leadership.”

“And it might go all the way to the rotten core,” said the Emperor, slamming a fist on the table. “I don’t want to take chances with this. I want the cancer cut out, before it grows. Obviously the Maurids don’t fear me. That needs to change.”

“We have over ten million of them involved in security Empire wide, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief, trying to change the Emperor’s mind. “As well as at least ten thousand in our intelligence gathering apparatus. If we alienate all of them…”

“And if any refuse to do their duty, we will have found out who the sympathizers are,” said the Emperor, smiling like a predator playing with helpless prey. “They can be executed, and replacements found among those still loyal to the Empire.”

“This is a mistake, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief, pushing it to the limit. “If we kill those who are loyal to the Empire, the rest of the species will have no reason to trust us. You don’t understand these people like I do. They are pack creatures, and they are loyal to those leaders who are loyal to them. Proof of disloyalty will sway them to resist.”

“I don’t understand them?” screamed the Emperor, staring at the Chief, who recoiled from that look. “I understand that they have been selling us out, betraying us to the humans. Who knows how many battles we have lost because the humans had intelligence on our movements.” The Emperor was silent for a moment, nostrils flaring as he continued to stare at his Chief of Secret Police. “Are you refusing to follow my orders?”

“No, no, Supreme Lord,” stammered the male, give a head nod of negation. “You are the supreme power, and it is only right that we obey your commands.”

“Good. Just so we have no misunderstandings. Now, I want you to start by rounding up those in important positions. Put them to the question.”

“Perhaps there is something else we can do, Supreme Majesty,” said Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse, a sly smile on his face. “There are, after all, over a dozen worlds with Maurid majority populations. I believe there are even a few near to the front, along the human axis of advance.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked the Emperor, a thoughtful look on his face.

“We are looking for systems to trap the humans, some place where we can lure them in and destroy a good sized force,” said the admiral, pulling up a holo star map and illuminating a couple of stellar systems. “We know the humans have a soft spot for the alien races that we have enslaved. They would say they have soft hearts, while I would point out that the defect is in their heads.”

That elicited some short laughs from many in the room. The Emperor joined in for a moment, then raised a hand to silence the room.

“I’m sure that the humans will come to the aid of the people who are helping them against us,” continued the admiral. “To them loyalty goes both ways. They would consider it a breach of faith to make use of the Maurids as spies, only to let them be punished for their transgressions on the part of their Empire. So, we set up our trap as usual, but hide it in a new manner. And let the humans know through the very net they have set up that an entire planet of their spies are about to be destroyed. They will be honor bound to attack that system and take our fleet out to save them. And when they are deep in the system, we trigger an event and destroy them. If it works out as we hope, we can take out a considerable force of their ships. Maybe enough to stop their offensive for some months, giving us time to rebuild. And giving us time to dismantle their spy ring.”

“And you’re suggesting that we continue to let the Maurids feed the humans with information?”

“What we want the humans to know, yes. Enough real intelligence to make the humans believe the false that we are going to feed them. And we act as if everything we give them is on target. If it works out the way we want, we can not only destroy one large fleet force, but we can also set up a number of smaller battles that we come out on top of. And at the same time we can show the Maurids that they have thrown in with the wrong side. That being our friends will benefit them greatly, while betraying us will lead to end of their species.”

“I like your way of thinking, Supreme Admiral,” said the Emperor, giving a head motion of acceptance. “I think I made the correct decision in promoting you. If this works, your reward will be great. Go ahead and set it up. I will look over your plan in the morning and give it my okay, or not.”

The expression on the admiral’s face was priceless to the Emperor. A combination of delight that he would be able to forge a possible war winning plan, and panic that he only had one evening to put it together. That was the way the young emperor preferred it, that his staff would do their best to formulate plans, and that they realized their leader was not willing to wait very long for results.

The Emperor turned and walked away, leaving something very important unsaid. If the plan didn’t work, or even worse rebounded to the detriment of the Empire, heads would have to answer for it. And a new head might have to move into the position of commander of the fleet, while the old head was displayed on a pike at the entrance to the palace.

Chapter Eleven

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Mahatma Gandhi

MAY 30TH, 1004. PLANET KALLFER, CA’CADASAN SPACE.

Mrrarraras, known to the humans as Striped Wolf, looked up at the sky as he noticed the contrails of large aircraft high in the air. Not that they were that unusual on Srrastrra, known to the Cacas as Kallfer. It was a populated world, one that his people had inhabited for over five hundred years, a gift from the masters. That very thought brought spit to the mouth of the large intelligent carnivore, soon to be projected onto the ground. The Maurids had been playing the game for over a thousand years, pretending to be the loyal servants of the hated masters, while always looking for a better deal. One that put them back in charge of their own fate. They hadn’t been able to find one, until now.

It felt good to be back among so many of his own people, though the warrior was not really one for crowds. Good thing most of his people weren’t really enthused to be crowded in with too many of any species, even their own. That was one reason why Kallfer, a heavy vegetation planet that would be home to six to eight billion in most cases, had barely more than a billion, almost all of them Maurids.

Low buildings, mostly of faux wood or stone construction, stretched across the hills overlooking the large lake. His people preferred the natural look, but weren’t so naive as to not recognize the advantages of modern building materials. They didn’t blow down in storms and they didn’t go up in flames, which was enough reason to use them. And for aesthetic purposes it fit the look of the homeworld, something all agreed was a good thing.

There were more than a hundred boats out on the lake. The water stretched to the horizon, looking much like an ocean, though it was deep inside the largest continent on the world. Maurids loved to sail, to pit their brains and muscles against nature. There was a stiff breeze today, allowing the sailing craft to fly over the surface of the water. They weren’t good swimmers, having muscular bodies without much buoyancy. Most wore floatation devices, the more daring among them not. A storm was forming over the horizon. When it rushed in the lake would be filled with every boat capable of putting out. Maurids were like that, and the challenge called to them.

“It is good to see you again, my friend,” said Kressrras, his childhood companion and coleader in the resistance.

The other Maurid sniffed the air, taking in the scent of his friend. Mrrarraras did the same, his mind filling with memories of adventures with his friend, hunting through the forest, pursuing females in a gathering place in the cities. Sense of smell was an important mode of interacting with the world for the carnivores, more so than sight, and memories were held tight with the nuances of scent.

“I wish the big bastards had allowed us to plant this world the way we wanted,” said Striped Wolf, showing teeth as he looked at the forest rising up the hillside to the stark mountains.

The Maurid homeworld was a riot of reds and oranges, all with a distinctive scent that awakened the genetic memories of the race. Maurids had terraformed several worlds before contact with the Ca’cadasans. The big aliens had been horrified, and they had sterilized those worlds, leaving only the original homeworld with life from the time of the creation of the species. Now the species was restricted to worlds with their own natural life forms, though the Cacas had made sure that they were biologically compatible with the intelligent forms they planted there.

Not that either of the males believed in the creation any more. Like most of their species they had embraced the science that had brought them the stars. Times had been good, and the Maurids had been poised to expand across their arm of the Galaxy, before the Ca’cadasans had found them. From there they had gone into a thousand years of slavery after a very short war that had humiliated the proud creatures.

“How much longer?” asked his friend in a low voice. Collaborators were extremely rare, but not completely unheard of, though if found they did not last long.

Striped Wolf didn’t have to ask his friend what he meant. He looked back to the sky for a moment, the sky that the enemy controlled, then back over at his friend as they loped along on four feet.

“The humans are progressing quickly into the Empire. Unfortunately, they still have many light years to go. It will probably be years before they liberate this world, more years before they actually reach the homeworld.”

“The young hotheads want to do something,” replied his friend, eyes narrowing. “They want a general uprising against the masters.” The last word was spit in anger, and several sharp eared Maurids nearby turned to look at them, then moved on quickly. “The masters,” reiterated the other Maurid in a low voice. “They are hungry for revenge.”

“And they will get death if they rise up against the big bastards without the humans taking out their fleet. You must hold them in check, or the masters will start to treat us like the other slaves, and we won’t have the freedom of action we need to continue to operate against them.”

It hadn’t taken the Ca’cadasans long to realize that their new slave race was not suited to most of the tasks they put their servants to. They were not good to eat. That didn’t mean they weren’t edible, but they tasted foul to most other carnivores. They were quick to anger and slow to scare, and with their natural weapons they were not safe to be around. But they were good at what they had evolved for. Hunting. Which made them the perfect overseers of other species, and the best at security and surveillance. The Maurids had thereafter received special treatment from the masters, given their own worlds and allowed to form their traditional societies, as long as they worked for the benefit of the Empire. The Cacada were good enough warriors, their size and strength making them more than most aliens wanted to handle. But the Maurids were much quicker, with a much more sensitive sensorium, and did a better job of tracking down those slaves who tried to escape the attention of the masters by fleeing into the wilderness of the worlds they worked. It was a task that shamed the proud aliens, but they did what they could to serve their species.

It was as good a life as any of the subservient species of the Empire could hope for. A place to live, food, even security. The one thing it was lacking was the one thing that Maurids valued above everything else. Freedom. The freedom to do what they wanted, to go where they would. Security had never been a primary concern to the adventure seeking carnivores. They chaffed under the dominion of the aliens, but without a fleet there was no way they could fight the Cacas and gain their freedom. Until the humans had come along.

At first it looked like the masters would roll over another species, though in this case they had sworn to kill every one of the enemy, something rare for the religious aliens. At first they had done just what they wanted to with the humans, and the Maurids had been called in to track down the refugees on newly conquered worlds. They had become a new terror to a new species, and the humans had come to hate them. But the humans were fighters, if nothing else, and the Maurids didn’t always get their own way in battle. It was not unheard of for human civilians to kill a party of Maurids, ambushing them. And some of their warriors had been able to take on small groups of Maurids in close combat, something that surprised the people that considered themselves the ultimate hunters.

And then the unheard of had happened. The humans started to win battles. First a couple of small contests here and there, and then larger ones. Then had come the major shock as the humans had defeated a Ca’cadasan conquest fleet. After that the Council had realized that this might be the chance they were looking for. If the humans could possibly win this war and defeat the masters, then the race might be free. Or would they just be trading servitude to one species for another.

“Do you still feel the same about the humans?” asked his friend, who had never had the chance to meet any of them. “Are they still the avatars of freedom you thought them to be?”

Mrrarraras thought for a moment as they walked down the street. He nodded to other Maurids that he knew, ignored those that he didn’t, and used the time his friend gave him to visualize some of the contacts he had made with the human Empire. The Phlistarans, huge six limbed aliens that made the masters look small. The fierce Gryphons, honor bound warriors who were the best pilots he had ever seen. Even some of the humans, normally soft and weak. Some were as strong as Maurids, and he recalled the one they called Hunter, who was said to have killed a trio of Maurids in hand to hand combat.

“They have their alien races,” he told his friend, showing his teeth in a smile. “Many of them, serving in their military alongside the dominant race.”

“Then what is the difference between them and the masters? If they use their other species to serve as beam fodder, same as the Ca’cadasans?”

“The difference is that the human Empire treats all of their aliens the same as they do themselves. I spoke to an admiral who was of another species, and heard of many officers in their fleet and army who were not humans. The aliens are full citizens, able to vote in their elections of counselors, engage in what business they would wish, and go where they want.”

“And can an alien become Emperor? Will we be able to aspire to that position?”

Striped Wolf barked a laugh, then looked up as more contrails crossed the upper atmosphere, eyes narrowing as he wondered what that was about. There was always a lot of traffic to and from the surface, but so far he had seen dozens of craft that were not on the usual air corridors. He looked back over at his friend.

“I don’t think even the humans are that egalitarian, my friend. But why should they be, when they founded their empire and hold it together. And they make up over eighty percent of their population, after all.”

“So the other species do not take part in the government?” asked the other Maurid in an angry growl.

“Not as Emperor, no,” said Striped Wolf with another barking laugh. “I do believe that a third of the Emperor’s Council are non-humans. There are also many of them in their Parliament, their law making body. And I have met several who are lords of the realm, on equal footing with the human nobles.”

“Wait. You mean that the Emperor does not make their laws?”

“No. He has a lot of power, especially in wartime. But the bodies of the Parliament actually make the laws, and depend on the Emperor to enforce them.”

“And you think we’ll be happy in this Empire of theirs?”

“There is no telling if we’ll even be included in their Empire. Some of their allies are worried that the human empire might grow too mighty. Talk was, they might allow the species of our empire the freedom to form their own nations.”

The other Maurid stopped in his tracks, staring open mouthed at the leader of their movement.

“By the Gods of the Ancestors,” said Kressrras, using the ancient oath. “We might have a Maurid nation, one of our own.”

“We might, though I would vote for joining our fortunes with those of the humans myself. I fancy becoming one of their dukes, and letting the rest of you bow down to me.”

The other Maurid laughed. Maurids might obey their leaders, but they never abased themselves to them. The Ca’cadasans now, maybe. But even then it was more likely that one would refuse and face execution. Even more likely that they would fight a hopeless battle against the masters.

“Welcome,” greeted one of the waiting group, standing just outside the drinking house. The female sniffed the air, taking in the scent of the pair and verifying their identities. “Come in. The brothers and sisters await.”

The drinking hall was packed with Maurids, all stopping what they were doing and sniffing the air as the trio entered. Identities verified, the majority of the beings in the house went back to their conversations and drinks. They looked like the customers of any other drinking house on a Maurid world, but Striped Wolf had recognized the scent of all within the chamber. All were known to him, and all were members of the resistance, providing cover as well as security for the meeting he was here to attend.

He had heard of beings in the human Empire that could duplicate any form, given time. They had given the humans fits until they had figured out how to spot them. He wasn’t sure if they could pass for Maurids, who used their sense of smell to identify each other with great precision. And as far as he knew, the Cacas didn’t have such allies. Still, something to think of in the future.

Strassafa, the female, as large and strong as any male, led them into the rear room, where the council waited. Twenty males and females sat around a table, speaking and sipping from their cups. All looked up as the trio entered, several calling out Mrrarraras’ name in greeting.

“What news of the humans?” asked the male who was in charge of this region’s resistance.

He had a scowl on his face, and Striped Wolf knew him to be one of the fire eaters of the movement, ready to rise up and slaughter the masters. It wasn’t yet time, and he hoped this firebrand would listen to reason.

“They continue to roll up the masters on both fronts,” he told the assemblage, taking an offered seat. “It looks like there is still a hard fight ahead, but they will be here.”

“But when?” asked the local leader, Hressassa by name. “How long will we have to chafe under the occupation of the big bastards. My claws and teeth hunger for their blood. My young warriors hunger for the lives of our enemies. I would see them fall before long.”

“Patience. The humans are moving as fast as is tactically feasible. They want to aid us, but not at the cost of unnecessary casualties.”

“I don’t believe they truly want to help us,” hissed Hressassa, glaring at Mrrarraras in challenge. “They use us, just as the masters do. They will let us spill our blood on their behalf, and then rule us in the master’s stead when they run to victory on our backs.”

“I have worked with the humans. I have planned with them, plotted with them. I will vouch for their honor, and that of their leader.”

“You will, but I know them not,” said Hressassa, his wiry fur bristling. “How do I know they are not just letting us run the risk of feeding them information, which they will use to become the new masters.”

“You doubt me?” growled Mrrarraras, starting to stand as the claws in his hands extended. He had not come here to fight, but it was looking like he was about to get into one. Unless someone stepped in and stopped it. He looked around and saw nothing in the faces of the others that told him that the fight would be stopped.

“Watch the viewer,” came an excited voice from the doorway as another female looked in.

The viewer came to life, and breathes were sucked in as the members of the council watched the procession of armored Ca’cadasan warriors marching across a landing field that most recognized as belonging to the capital. Scores of shuttles sat on the tarmac, hundreds of warriors forming up from each pair of spacecraft, then marching off. The shuttles on the ground lifted back into the air, more jockeying into position to land and disgorge their own cargos.

Mecha walked off some of the larger shuttles. Whatever was going on, it was not just a change of garrisons. Striped Wolf had a bad feeling about this, and was wondering if he would be able to get off the planet and back to the humans. Without a wormhole here that might not be possible.

“They’re landing at the local field as well,” shouted the female who had reported to them that there was news on the vid.

“Are you ready to fight, boy?” asked Hressassa, glaring over at Mrrarraras.

“I guess I had better be, since they’ve brought the fight to us,” said Striped Wolf. “But I need to advise caution. We don’t need to meet them in open combat in the field.”

“I should have realized that a sniveling sneak like you would feel that way,” said the regional leader with a sneer. He ignored Mrrarraras and looked over the other Maurids in the chamber. “My people. We must arm ourselves and strike back, before these creatures take what little freedom we have.”

Half the people in the room ran out in the fast paced gait of their kind. The rest stayed in place, shouting and arguing about what they should do.

“We need to lay low until we know what is going on,” said Mrrarraras, staring at the vid for a moment before looking at the people who remained.

“Will you stay with us and fight?” shouted one of the remaining females.  “Or will you run back to the humans with your tail between your legs?”

“I will stay,” said Striped Wolf, shoving his rising anger back down. With a challenge like that he now had to stay, when the best decision would have been to get off world, if possible, and back to his position as an intelligence agent to the human Empire. He was a Maurid warrior after all, and his courage had been called into question. So what else could he do? There was still the human stealth craft sitting on the edge of the system, his means of entry into Ca’cadasan space. He would be able to get information to the humans through their wormhole. With luck, he might be able to get that portal  moved to the planet to supply the fight when it really kicked off.

“I still caution patience,” he told the others. “At least let’s see what is going on before we start a revolution going that we can’t win.”

Several hours later, when the Ca’cadasans started rounding up civilians for execution, Mrrarraras realized the time for patience had passed.

*     *     *

“It’s looking like our botched intelligence hand off is coming back to bite us, your Majesty,” said Vice Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov, looking at her leader where he sat at the head of the table, his wife by his side.

Sean winced as he heard those words. The operation had been botched because he had ordered a priority hand off. If he had left well enough alone, and waited several days for the next scheduled transmission, it never would have happened. Instead, the incoming message to the station had been intercepted, and the outgoing Maurid ship had been caught near its destination. It had still transmitted its information to the stealth ship sitting in Caca space, and that data had come back to the Empire. But the conduit had been ruptured, and no further information would be coming that way from their capital system.

“Are we still getting intelligence from our friends?” asked Jennifer, putting a hand on her husband’s arm and giving it a squeeze.

“Of course, your Majesty,” said Sergiov with a short bow to the other woman. “The only problem is, we are not getting timely information from their seat of power. Or, I should say, not as much. The stealth ship is still out there monitoring their coms. The Cacas have been expending a lot of energy looking for it, but so far haven’t come close to finding it.”

“Thank God for small miracles,” said Sondra McCullom. She, Sergiov and Admiral Chan were the only flag rank officers present beside Rear Admiral Mary Innocent, Sean’s personal intelligence liaison. Len and Taelis didn’t need to know this information, at least not yet, so they had been excluded.

Sean looked over at his CNO, trying to glare, ending up giving a sheepish look that mirrored his embarrassment. The intelligence people had warned him about what might happen, but he had decided in his infinite wisdom to ignore them.

“Cut to the chase, Kat. Just what the hell are the Cacas doing?”

“Well, our stealth ship intercepted this broadcast from the Caca homeworld news service,” said the head spook. “The power they put into the cast was suspicious to start with, as if the Cacas knew we would be listening and wanted to make sure we got it.”

The video screen lit up, showing the visage of a Caca male. While Sean knew what several of them looked like, he still had trouble telling the aliens apart. Part of the genetic heritage of most species was the ability to tell those who were like them apart, while not having a clue on how to differentiate the facial features of aliens.

“Who is that?” asked the Empress, eyes narrowing. “He seems really young.”

“That, your Majesty, is their Emperor,” said Sergiov, nodding to the screen. “Jresstratta V. We don’t have much footage on him, which made us think that this cast was important.”

The young male started speaking, a low gravelly voice that still sounded to Sean’s ear to be a higher pitch than most Cacas he had heard. The translation came across in a smooth human male voice.

“Our trusted servants, the Maurids, have betrayed us. They have spat upon our trust and the hospitality we have shown them, raising them above all of our other servants. We have found that they have been passing vital information to our enemies. We have not been losing battles because of any skill of the hated humans, but because we have been sold out.”

“Hah,” snorted Sondra, shaking her head. “It helped, but the Fleet has handed them their asses through the courage of our people and the genius of our engineers.”

Sean held up a hand to silence the woman. While he didn’t disagree with her, stating that fact at this time, when the Caca Emperor was about to tell them his intentions, was not needed.

“These traitors must pay. While I don’t assume that the entire species is guilty, there are many that are. Unfortunately, these traitors have not stepped forward to accept the punishment for their sins. So, by imperial decree, a portion of the Maurid population will be called upon to pay for the trespasses of their brethren. Once the price has been paid, it is hoped that the rest of the Maurid population will police themselves, so that this exercise will not be necessary in the future.”

“What the hell is he going to do?” asked Jennifer, gripping Sean’s forearm tightly.

Sean shook his head, never taking his eyes off the screen. Imbedding the image of his enemy in his mind. One day, in the near future, I will pull your palace down around your ears, you young fool.

“This world, Kallfer, will pay the price. I have decreed that the population is to be exterminated, a million a day, until all one billion of the Maurid inhabitants are dead. So I have decreed, and so it will be.”

“The transmission repeated over twenty times,” said Ekaterina, looking over at the Emperor with a frown. “It looks like they really wanted us to intercept it.”

“So, what do you think it going on?” asked Sean, looking at all the faces in the room.

“They want us to do something,” said McCullom, nodding toward the still image of the Caca Emperor. “Why else go to such pains to make sure we got this transmission.”

“Where is this planet?”

“Right here,” said Sergiov, pulling up a holo star map. The system appeared on the holo, the symbol for a G class yellow star under the dot. The system zoomed in, showing a representation of the planets around it. Five rocky worlds, one green with life. A trio of gas giants with multiple moons further out. One asteroid belt between the fourth and the last rocky world. The view zoomed back out, showing the location of the system, about eighty light years from the front lines.

“How many Maurid planets are there?” asked Jennifer. Sean wasn’t sure where she was going with that question, but he trusted her instincts.

“As far as we can tell, there are just over a dozen planets that the Cacas have designated as Maurid worlds. Only one of them is the actual Maurid home world, a planet that is sacred to the species due to it being the location of their evolution.”

“Then why that world?” asked the Empress, brows knit in thought. “Why the planet that is closest to us, unless they expect us to do something about it?”

“I think you are right, my dear,” said Sean, smiling at his wife. “It’s within reach of our fleet, if we ignore the other worlds on the way. Like they want to set up a battle. Or a trap.”

“Kill two birds?” asked Sondra, her eyes widening. “Take care of disciplining their rebelling subjects, and take out a battle force at the same time?”

“Why not,” said Sergiov, nodding toward the CNO. “It makes sense. They’re hoping that we will rush in there to prevent collateral damage, then take out our fleet.”

Sean sat silent for a moment, thinking. The smart thing to do would be to leave the planet to the mercies of the Cacas. He would have to send enough of a force in to win a major battle, just in case they had something big waiting for him. And that would make too alluring a target for the enemy to pass up with their sub-supernova weapon.

“There’s something else that just came in,” said Sergiov.

Sean felt a sinking sensation. The other shoe was about to drop, and what he wanted more than anything was to tell her to shut up. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, so he nodded her way.

“Striped Wolf is on that planet. He came in through the portal on the stealth ship was had stationed there for com purposes. Picked up by a ship of his people’s and dropped off on the planet.”

“What the hell is he doing out there?” growled the Emperor, shocked by this news.

“He’s a free being, your Majesty,” said Sergiov, raising an eyebrow. “He works for us on a voluntary basis, with primary loyalty to his own people.”

“And his reason for visiting his people?” asked Jennifer, again getting to the heart of the matter.

“The Maurid people really don’t trust us, dear,” said Sean. “They aren’t a trusting lot, and it comes hard to them. Sure, we’re their best hope for the freedom they desire, but most of them probably think we’re just going to use them without a care for their welfare.”

“That’s essentially it, your Majesty,” said a nodding Sergiov.

“But we aren’t, are we?”

“No, Jennifer. We aren’t. Not as long as I’m in charge.”

“I do believe that Striped Wolf was visiting his cell on that planet in order to make face to face contact, your Majesty,” said Sergiov. “He told his handler something about his needing to talk with his people, so that they didn’t think he was parroting words under duress.”

“So it needed to be done, if we expected the cooperation of his people in the Caca Empire,” said Sean, nodding. “But he picked a hell of a time for a home visit.”

“I suggest that we get him off planet and back here,” said Sondra, a worried expression on her face. “It’s not like we’re responsible for what they do to one of their planets. We can use this for propaganda purposes with our own people and allies. We still win.”

Sean simply sat in his seat, shaking his head, and Sondra sighed since she knew what that meant.

“I can’t do that, Sondra. The Caca Emperor has issued a challenge, and if we don’t pick up the gauntlet, the Maurids will never trust us again. Plus, I can’t just stand by and watch those bastards slaughter a billion allies.”

“You realize it’s a trap?” asked Ekaterina, staring at the Emperor.

“I do, Kat. And I want you,” he said, pointing a finger at McCullom, “to come up with a plan to get into that system and stop the Cacas from killing it.”

“And how the hell are we going to do that, your Majesty? You know they’re not going to make it easy to find their projector ships. We’ve shown that we can kill them if we spot them.”

“That’s why you’re my CNO, Admiral. I have complete faith in you and your staff to come up with something. Go ahead and bring Len and Duke Taelis in on this. They now have need to know. I want you to come up with something that gets us in there, saves the Maurids, kills the Cacas, and lets everyone go home happy.”

The CNO gave the Emperor a disbelieving look.

“Go ahead and get your staff together. I want to have some more words with Ekaterina.”

McCullom stood and walked out of the room, and the Emperor could tell that it was all she could do to not storm away. Her professionalism served her well, and she retreated with dignity.

“She didn’t seem very happy,” said Jennifer, a slight smile on her face.

“She’ll get over it,” said Sean with a return smile. “She’ll be so pissed off, she’ll come up with something amazing to spite me.” I hope.

“Do you always play us like that, your Majesty?” asked Ekaterina, closing her eyes and sighing.

“Of course. How else do you think I can keep you lazy peasants on task.” He shook his head, and his face assumed a serious mien. “Now, what can we do to get Striped Wolf and his people some arms? I’m sure those fierce carnivores don’t want to simply walk to their deaths without taking some of their masters with them.”

*     *     *

“For some fool reason the Emperor thought you might be the best man to coordinate this,” said Walther Preacher Model, looking out of the holo.

“What’s the mission, General?” asked Brigadier General Cornelius Walborski. Getting a mission should have been exciting to the terminally bored Ranger officer. The problem was, he was no longer on the front lines, and staff work just didn’t get him going. What he wanted was a chance to kill Cacas, plain and simple, and he couldn’t do that from a desk.

“We need volunteers to go into a very dangerous situation and support natives. Specifically, slaves of the Cacas.”

“But, I was already doing that, Preacher. So something else must be going on. Spill it, sir.”

Walther looked at him for a moment, a sour look on his face. “I, don’t have the need to know in this case, my Lord.”

Cornelius frowned at the use of the noble honorific by his friend and superior. He hadn’t even wanted the title, but the Emperor had insisted. Preacher held the rank of knight, well below his title of count for social purposes.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you have total clearance for this either, son. All I know is you need to get volunteers who will be read into the mission after they sign on.”

Cornelius sucked in a breath. That was against the regulations of the Imperial Army. How in the hell could someone give their consent to participate in a mission when they didn’t know what the mission was. It sounded duplicitous, like they were trying to sucker people into a suicide mission. That there would be plenty of volunteers was a given. Rangers were like that. Tell them that a mission was important, and that they might not come back, and they would form a line around the block to sign up.

“One other thing I can tell you is that it involves Maurids. Is that a problem?”

“No, sir. I’ve found that I like the sly bastards. Will the Maurids be supporting my people?”

“More like your people will be supporting them. You will be organizing guerilla bands on a Maurid majority planet to resist the operations of the Cacas. And that is all I can tell you. I’m sending over the file now. If you have questions you will have to address them to someone higher up. I wasn’t cleared for this file.”

“They don’t trust you, Preacher?” asked Cornelius, disbelief creeping into his voice.

“Need to know. I’m sure if my input was necessary for the success of the mission, I would be getting everything. Obviously it isn’t, though yours is. I’m still not sure how much they’re going to tell you, and I don’t want to know.”

Of course you don’t, thought Walborski, pursing his lips to stop from smiling. Model was a curious as anyone else. But like most of the high ranking officers that the brigadier knew, they were invested enough in their careers to hold their curiosity in check.

“You can, of course, call on anyone you need for support in this mission, as long as they are not given need to know information they’re not cleared for.”

So, I get to ask for whatever I want, but I can’t tell the people I ask anything about why we need it. Great. So they won’t be able to brainstorm suggestions.

“I’ll leave you with it, then. Good luck. Knowing you, the mission will meet with a successful conclusion.”

The holo died, leaving a small icon hanging in the air, blinking. Cornelius reached an index finger and touched the icon, allowing it to scan his fingerprint and DNA.

“Walborski, Cornelius, code alpha alpha bravo four one four three.” He opened his eyes and let the light from the holo read his retina. Sometimes he wondered why they had to have such redundancy in verifying identity. Then he recalled the shape shifters, and wondered why they didn’t have some additional levels. Probably because they couldn’t think of any.

A light started blinking on his flat comp, laying activated on his desk. The files had been downloaded and were no longer on the system, now only on his personal comp and the central server at Fleet and Imperial Army HQs.

Cornelius looked over the file header and the first article, swearing under his breath as the salient facts hit him in the face like a wet towel.

The bastards, he thought, shaking his head. He knew he really shouldn’t have been surprised by anything the large aliens did. But mass executions of civilians? Still, it seemed like a waste of time and resources when they could have killed them in larger groups from space. There had to be some reason they were doing it that way, but he couldn’t think of any.

The next file showed a series of Imperial weapons that had been modified for the Maurid body. Different stocks, modified handgrips and triggers. Set up to allow the aliens to comfortably use them. A production schedule showed that a couple of dedicated fabers had been assigned to turn out five thousand infantry weapons a day. Add to that thirty thousand grenades and a couple of hundred small rocket launchers, and in a couple of weeks he could supply quite a force of guerillas. He looked over the inventory of weapons already on hand and whistled. He already had enough to equip three brigades of irregulars.

But what kind of training will they need? he thought. It wouldn’t do to just hand weapons over to people who had no tactical training. That was asking to turn them into meat puppets only good for absorbing fire. Not his preferred operation plan. Of course, being Maurids, he was sure there would be enough trained citizens on hand. Maybe not at first, but once word got around, there would be plenty of shadow warriors.

The mission brief in the next file called for two companies of Rangers, operating in platoon detachments, to operate with six Maurid brigades, scattered across the populated areas of the planet. It specified that the mission was extremely hazardous, and the odds were against any of the people returning. What it didn’t say was what was so dangerous about it specifically. Any operation against the Cacas was extremely dangerous, of course. Walborski had been the only survivor from his company on Azure, but that had been an extreme case. He had a feeling that there was some risk here beside combat, something that made the Rangers’ return unlikely.

The insertion would be by wormhole. There was a stealth ship in the outer system that had already unshipped its wormhole and sent in insystem by shooting plasma from the hole as a rocket. It would be on the planet in two days, at which time the Maurid resistance would be contacted and they would find a home for it.

Maybe I need to contact Striped Wolf about this, he thought, thinking of the Maurid he had worked with in the past. The spy hadn’t told him what his exact function was in the alliance, but he had seemed to be high enough up to have the ear of the admiral in charge of intelligence, Ekaterina Sergiov. If anyone knew the details of the planet, Kallfer, it would be that Maurid.

When Cornelius queried for that being on the net he was surprised that the Maurid wasn’t available. The file on his flat comp opened on its own, showing another file, this one labeled Contacts, the list of Maurids he could call on during the operation. On the top of that list was Striped Wolf. Cornelius rubbed his forehead, wondering how the Maurid had gotten to that planet. However it had happened, the point was the being was in trouble if he was in that place. Though it didn’t have anything to do with the mission, the knowledge that someone he knew was on the firing line made it personal.

Now, what the hell makes this mission so dangerous? It wasn’t specified in the orders, so it was obviously not in his need to know. But his curiosity was about to kill him. He still had the password given him by Sean that allowed him into most systems. It was a risk, and might hamper his career, but he really didn’t care about that when he was about to send people into harm’s way. He connected to the Fleet intelligence net, inputted the password, and asked his question. And looked on in shocked disbelief as he read.

Chapter Twelve

Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. Isaiah Berlin

JUNE 8TH, 1004. PLANET KALLFER, CA’CADASAN SPACE.

The Caca squad moved down the street, grabbing every Maurid they came across and locking them in restraining bracelets. With forward limbs locked together, the Maurids could only move in a bipedal fashion, not their most efficient means of locomotion. The line grew behind the squad, until there were over a hundred of the Maurids, including many children and elders. On most worlds the slaves would have disappeared from the streets, afraid of getting caught up in the sweep. This wasn’t most worlds, and the Maurids were not most species. People were boiling out of nearby houses, shouting at the Cacas.

A dozen of the Cacas were in full armor, helmets and gloves covering parts normally exposed. It was not powered armor, that usually reserved for elite assault troops and marines. The body armor was strapped on, boots, gloves and helms not sealed to the body. Normally that was enough against easily cowed slaves. The leader of the squad must have been an administrator, as he made due with a breastplate and a helm without a visor. Today would be a learning experience for the male, if he lived.

Rocks pelted the Cacas, banging off of helmets. One stone hit the administrator in the face, smashing teeth and making blood flow to the cobbles of the street. The squad fired into the ringing crowd, blasting through dozens of beings as a red mist formed over the rioters The Cacas swept their beams, going after maximum kills, expecting the crowd to break under the assault.

Instead the Maurids attacked, swarming in as a mass, too many for the dozen beams to handle. The smaller quadrupeds were strong for their size, and much faster than the clumsy Cacas. The administrator went down under the claws of one fast moving male, his throat ripped out by razor talons. Another male struggled with a pair that swarmed over his shoulders. He was able to get a hand on one, grabbing fur and pulling the attacker away. The other knocked off his helmet, following that move with a thrust of the claws that took out an eye. The Caca reached up with a scream to cover its destroyed orb. Bad move, since it left the other open to the next slash.

The Cacas were all down in moments, the last with his back against a wall, trying to sweep his weapon in a path that would clear away his attackers. His face exploded into steam as the invisible beam of a laser hit. The great body slumped against the wall and slid down. In moments the prisoners were all freed by Maurids with tools, then hustled away.

“Time to move,” said Mrrarraras, the Maurid known to the humans as Striped Wolf. He lowered the old laser rifle, a relic from an older era, and looked over at his compatriots. Those males carried even older firearms, really not a match for the armor of the enemy.

The sound of shuttles came to their sensitive ears. A pair wheeled through the sky, looking for targets. But the streets were now empty, the quick and decisive Maurids not waiting to be spotted. That didn’t stop the Cacas from responding. Particle beams lanced from the shuttles to the ground. A house exploded outwards, followed by another. A pair of missiles streaked into the city, both striking one of the few tall buildings in the neighborhood.

Mrrarraras growled, handling his laser, trying to decide whether to shoot at the attacking ship or continue running. With another growl he pulled the rifle down. All it would do was alert the Cacas to his presence, and then he would die. More importantly, they would lose one of their only effective weapons.

The trio went down into the sewers, something the fastidious Maurids had built in the early days of the colony. They were wide enough for two Maurids to run down at the same time, and there were many branches that had nothing to do with moving waste, with hidden hatches leading up. After running several miles, to the edge of the city, they pulled down a hidden ladder and scrambled up into the house above.

“We have word from the regional outlands,” said an excited female, hurrying up to Mrrarraras as he moved up from the hatch. “Something about a floating mirror that expanded in front of them. Signals are coming out in some unknown code.”

“Yes,” hissed Striped Wolf.

“Is it the humans?” asked one of his compatriots.

“I think so. But I have to see it myself.” He looked over at the female. “Where is it?”

“About thirty kilometers to the east,” said the female.

“Quite a run,” said one of the other males.

“Maybe for an overweight city dweller,” laughed Striped Wolf. “I’m thinking I can cover that in three or four hours. Who wants to come with me?”

Unfortunately, there were no aircars they could use, at least not without the risk of being shot down. The Cacas had forbidden all transport on the surface that wasn’t operated by their troops. In fact, all travel was forbidden. That didn’t stop the Maurids from running through the forests. They couldn’t traverse extremely long distances, but anything under five hundred kilometers was doable.

Five hours later Mrrarraras and his partners stumbled into a cave, its entrance hidden under the boughs of large trees. The first thing Striped Wolf noticed were the modern looking rifles in the hands of the dozen Maurids who guarded the entrance. Obviously something had come through the portal. He found out moments later, when he entered the cave, that something very interesting indeed had come through. There was a squad of humans in the cave, quick moving soldiers in their active camouflage, like people he had seen before in human space. One turned his way, a questioning look on his face as he handled a long tube with pop up sights on the top.

“I am Mrrarraras,” he told the human in Terranglo. “Code name, Striped Wolf.”

“Then you are the one we were supposed to make contact with,” said the human with a smile. “I’m Lt. Grollis. And I’ve been sent with some toys for you and your people to play with, sir.”

“Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s a portable anti-air missile, then yes, sir. It is.”

The image of the Caca shuttles firing down on the city passed before his eyes, along with his imagining one of them going down in flames.

*     *     *

“The weapons have arrived on Kallfer, your Majesty,” said Brigadier General Cornelius Walborski, looking out of the holo at his liege lord.

“What are we sending?” asked Sean, recalling that he had ordered their disbursement to Maurid rebels, but not what exactly they were sending through the wormhole they had established on the surface. A couple of companies of Rangers had gone with them, in order to teach the Maurids how the human weapons worked.

The image of a particle beam rifle appeared, the proportions wrong to the view of the human leader. They had been altered to fit the physiogamy of the aliens. The Maurids would be able to aim and fire these weapons as if they were their own, and the fifty thousand so far delivered were enough to give their resistance movements some teeth, if not sufficient to take on the Caca occupation force on the surface head to head.

“Wish you were with your people, General?” asked the Emperor, switching the view back to that of his old friend. Cornelius was another one that the Emperor was not willing to risk on this operation. He had been a personal friend since their days back on Sestius. The young man had saved his life on occasion, and was a thrice decorated Imperial Medal of Heroism recipient, the first in the history of the Empire.

“You know I do, your Majesty.”

“We will be recalling the Rangers prior to our ships getting into position. That should prevent the enemy from triggering the, uh, trap, before your people are safe.”

“I know what’s going on, Sean,” said Cornelius, looking down. “I may not have had the need to know according to your intelligence people, but I did according to my sense of duty.”

“Then you know what could happen there,” said Sean, not mentioning the punishment he should have been dispensing to his friend. He had too much respect for the Ranger to punish him for finding out information he should have been privy to in the first place, though he did remind himself to change that backdoor code he had given the man. Or maybe not.

Cornelius nodded, but said nothing, and Sean was certain he knew what the man was thinking. Plans were all well and good, but when the shit hit it, oft times the plans went out the window.

“I hope we can save them, your Majesty,” said Cornelius in a low voice.

“The Maurids? I thought you didn’t like them.”

“After Azure I really didn’t. But having worked with them against the Cacas? They’re good soldiers, good operators. I would have them on my side on a mission any day.”

Strange how yesterday’s enemies become today’s friends, thought the Emperor, nodding to his friend and terminating the feed. He turned his attention back to another screen, something else that needed his input. Or not.

“I’m glad he’s not in danger,” said Jennifer, smiling. “And I’m sure Devra and Rebecca are even more so.”

“He’s done enough for the Empire,” said Sean, thinking of Cornelius’ wife, who he had given away at their wedding, just as the Ranger had served as best man at his. The wife and adopted daughter, and the toddler son of the Ranger’s first marriage, were safe on Jewel. Though Jewel had not always been safe, not in this war.

Yes, he thought, the young man had put his life on the line enough for many wars. But if he were honest, he would sacrifice Cornelius in an instant if he thought it would save the Empire. And that bothered him, that an Emperor couldn’t afford to let friendship stand in the way of strategic decisions.

*     *     *

“What are we looking at, General?” asked Jresstratta, watching the vid of an assault shuttle falling out of the sky, trailing smoke from one of its engines.

“This is one of our shuttles, on a gunship mission, going down over Kallfer,” said General Fresstas, the Chief of Staff of the Ca’cadasan Imperial Army. “Shot down by the Maurid resistance.”

“I didn’t think the civilians had those kind of weapons. How are they getting them? Stealing them from the army?”

“They are now getting them from the humans,” said the general. “Somehow they are getting rifles and heavier weapons to the surface of the world.”

“They’ve gotten one of their wormholes to the surface,” growled the Emperor. “How in all the hells did they do that? Did we see any of their ships around?”

“We know they are able to get their stealth ships in and out of almost anyplace,” said the Fleet Chief of Staff. “Well, this is a positive development,” he continued with a smile.

“Positive development,” screamed the general, holding up all four fists. “They are killing my people. And you call that a positive development?”

“It means the humans know what’s going on,” said the admiral in a patient voice. “They’re starting to intervene. And we have indications that their scout ships are starting to sweep in that direction.”

“And you’re sure the humans will come to the aid of this people?” asked the general, hissing out a breath. “Remember, this Emperor of theirs is cold hearted enough to be a Cacada. He let two of his own systems die instead of committing an overmatched fleet to battle. What if he doesn’t send a fleet to Kallfer?”

“If he doesn’t come, we still win,” said the admiral with a satisfied smile. “If he lets down the Maurids, the rest of them will not trust him. But I’m thinking he will come. The balance of power is no longer in our favor, so he would have no fear in committing a fleet.”

“The rest of the Maurids won’t jump in on our side if the humans don’t come, will they?” asked the Emperor. “Could that be possible?”

“No. I’m afraid that they are a lost cause,” said the admiral. “Better if we just exterminate most of them. Leave just enough around on a remote planet to preserve their genome.”

“I could agree with that,” said Jresstratta. “And I assume that we are taking care of any that are in, uh, sensitive positions.”

“We have removed any in security positions,” said the Chief of the Secret Police, frowning. “Unfortunately, most of them have simply faded away. It should not have been possible for them to disappear like that with so little notice.”

“Which means that they had planned for this in advance,” growled the general.

“You think?” said the Chief with a derisive laugh. “No wonder you have risen to command of the most useless part of our military.”

The general snatched at his belt, to the hilt of his dagger. The Emperor’s guard nearest the male pulled his pistol from its holster and took aim at the general, just in case he was threatening the Emperor.

“Take you hand off that knife hilt, General,” yelled the Emperor. “And put that damned pistol back in its holster, you idiot,” he screamed at the guard. “This is a meeting of my staff, not a brawl in a local brothel.”

The admonished males looked down at the floor as they returned their weapons to their sheaths. The Emperor gave them one last glare, fighting the temptation to order some more executions. Unfortunately, loyal people of high rank were becoming scarce, and he couldn’t afford to lose any more of them.

“Continue the search,” he ordered the Chief of the Secret Police. “They have damned themselves by their own actions. Having an escape plan in place proves their guilt, as far as I’m concerned. Pursue them to the edges of the Empire if need be. And, once we have won this war, pursue them beyond our borders.”

The doubtful looks on the faces of all the males in the room told the Emperor they did not believe this war was winnable. Again the urge struck him to order one or more dragged from the room and put to death. Again holding the urge down.

“So,” said Jresstratta, looking over at his Fleet Commander, “are we doing everything we can to lure them into our trap?”

“There really isn’t much we need to do,” said the admiral. “As long as they know what we’re going to do to their precious allies, they will do the rest.”

“Any way they might find a way to rescue the Maurids without falling into the trap?” asked the Emperor. The damned humans always seemed to find a way to turn the Ca’cadasan plans against the originators. It was maddening how often the damned creatures came out on top. Some said it was because the aliens were smarter than the Cacada. That couldn’t be so, since Cacada were the smartest creatures in the Universe. All of the ancient tomes said so, and they couldn’t be lying.

“If they try to rescue them in any possible way, they will be destroyed,” said the admiral with a smug smile. “This time they will have no way of spotting our projectors until it is too late. Even a missile launch from the vicinity Kallfer would not reach them in time, and the enemy ships will not be able to boost to safety before the photon wave strikes.”

“And if they send ships in to take out everything in orbit around the star?”

“We will see them coming, of course.”

Jresstratta felt that they were missing something, but not being fully trained in military strategy and tactics, it eluded him. Something was there though, sitting at the back of his mind. Whatever it was, there was a good chance the humans would see it. And then they would find a way out of the bind the Cacas were trying to place them in. The admiral said they couldn’t lose, but if the humans ended up saving the Maurids, that would have to be considered a win for them.

*     *     *

JUNE 15TH, 1004. PLANETS KALLFER AND JEWEL.

“They are definitely moving everything of importance off the surface of the planet, Admiral,” said the alien on the holo. Its lips were not moving in sync with the words, and it was obvious that it was speaking some alien tongue, translated into English.

Ekaterina would have preferred to speak with Striped Wolf, a Maurid she knew and trusted, and one who had a command of Terranglo better than most of the aliens born in the Empire. That Maurid was out leading the resistance cell in his locality on Kallfer, and would not leave that mission for something as unimportant as liaising with his allies.

“What about the facilities in orbit?”

“We think they are doing the same up there, taking the machinery out and leaving the empty structures in orbit. They might be adding something, but we have no way of knowing, since we have no one in orbit.”

“Have the Maurid crews coming back down said anything,” asked Sergiov, her stomach fluttering as she saw an expression flash across the alien face. Even on another species it was hard to miss the look of rage.

“They are not coming back down. The bastards have spaced all of our people. Why bother using shuttles that could be bringing more of their troops to the surface on people they are planning on killing anyway. This way they get rid of our people quickly and easily.”

“I’m, sorry. We are doing everything we can do to get to you.”

“I know,” said the alien, whose code name was Dark Shadow. “And we realize that the masters are setting a trap for you. We don’t expect you to thrust your heads into a trap. It will do the war effort no good for you to just die alongside us.”

The tones and inflections of the alien were not coming through the translation program. With some more input, over time, those would start to be added in. But right now it was just asking for confusion to include it. Still, the chief spy of the Empire could read the face of the alien. It was something she was good at, a skill that had served her well when she had been a mere agent on the frontier. The alien was afraid, something that he would be ashamed of if he knew the outsider he was speaking to could read him so easily. Ekaterina was enough of a diplomat to make no reference to that feeling in her reply.

“We will be there. I wish we could be there sooner, but believe that we will be coming. And we will find a way to defeat those slow thinking big bastards without sacrificing your people or your world.”

“Striped Wolf believes in you, and since he is my brother, I also believe. They will not rush the killing of us. They have to be sure that there is bait in the trap to lure you in.”

“And how goes the fight against the Cacas on your world?”

“Thanks to what you are providing, we have been able to strike back. We are still losing ten for every one of theirs. But that is acceptable, as long as we are able to strike back. Nothing raises the spirits like the death of a hated foe.”

“Glad to be of service,” said Sergiov, not sure how she felt about the loss ratio. It wasn’t something that would make her feel good, but then, she wasn’t a Maurid, and historically guerilla campaigns were very one sided in exchange ratios. “And please keep us informed of any new developments.”

The holo died, leaving the spy alone with her own thoughts. She hated what the Cacas were doing, and really did wish that she could bring the Maurids immediate aid. But rushing in like a bunch of headstrong fools was not the smartest decision the humans could make. So far they had beaten the Cacas by outthinking them, and planning strategy based on emotions was not the way to win.

“Get me the Emperor,” she said into the com net, waiting the few moments it took to make a connection, hoping that he wasn’t involved in priority business. Almost wishing that he was.

“Your Majesty. I have news from Kallfer. And I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

*     *     *

The shuttle swung in the air overhead, moving at three times the speed of sound at altitude. Particle beams stabbed down, and four Maurid guerillas converted to partial charred bodies as superheated red tinted steam rose over the corpses. The shuttle turned again, searching for the targets it had been sent to kill. The Maurids that had hit a ground patrol through the dense forest that had run into an ambush.

Striped Wolf sighted in on the shuttle with the launcher, the small pop up holo sight blinking as it optically locked onto the target. The heat sensor chimed in a moment later, followed by the notification that the other nearby launchers were also ready. They were in the hands of other Maurids, swinging through their firing arcs by their control. But the control of the shot was in his hands.

The Maurid pushed the firing stud and the rocket was propelled out of the tube by electromagnetic acceleration, flying out to a safe distance before engaging its powerful grabbers. Accelerating at several thousand gravities, it streaked toward the gunship, its three companions moving on parallel courses.

The gunship was well protected with defensive lasers. If there had only been one rocket the shuttle would have come through with no problem, the weapon blasted out of existence. Even a pair wouldn’t have made it through the defense. With four, and less than a second to engage, it only took out two, the other pair slamming into the hull at hyper velocity and their warheads exploding in jets of penetrating fury. A secondary explosion ripped through the shuttle, which turned over onto its back, then sped nose first into the forest. A ball of rising fire marked the impact point.

“Let’s move,” said Striped Wolf, collapsing his empty launcher and starting off into the woods. The tube could be rearmed, or a new tube attached the the aiming and firing system. At the moment it was useless, and soon there would be more shuttles in the air. These would have to be more cautious, though, lest they suffer the same fate as the last. That had been the point of the ambush of the shuttle. Downing one really didn’t matter. Making the others cautious did.

The group, sixty-two warriors, males and females, made their way through the forest, under the canopies of dense trees. It might not have been a true Maurid world. The vegetation was the wrong color, the sounds of avian and land dwellers wrong, the scents off. Since Mrrarraras had lived most of his life on this planet, everything seemed natural to his hunter’s senses. He hadn’t been back here for years, not since the masters had assigned him to an intelligence assignment in the human Empire. Having visited the real homeworld he knew what it was supposed to be like, but that was the alien world to him, not this one.

Here the trees soared to the sky, hundreds of meters into the air, with thick canopies trapping the sunlight before it reached the ground. The low light vision of the Maurids was perfectly adapted to these conditions, their sharp ears brought in every sound, their sensitive noses every familiar scent. This was their world as much as the original homeworld, and the Cacas were going to kill it. To the Maurids that was a greater crime than killing them off. If the Cacas had wiped out the entire population of the world it would have been a crime. Wiping out a planet that the people saw as their hunting grounds was a sin beyond description.

The party only had one goal after the downing of the shuttle, and that was to make it home to the safety of the cave. Unfortunately, they couldn’t ignore the sounds of a Caca squad stumbling through the forest.

“If they were smart, they would stay in the cities and force us to come to them,” whispered one of the other Maurids, using tones that blended in with the sounds of the forest, the whistles and clicks of the hunting language.

“Good thing they think with their pride, and not the poor brains in those thick skulls,” replied Mrrarraras, looking off in the distance to try and catch a glimpse of the invaders, who he estimated were a couple of hundred meters off.

The Cacas had some tech helping them to search for the Maurids. The Maurids knew that, and took precautions of their own. Their coats had been anointed with the sap of a tree that covered their scent. They stayed behind the mass of vegetation that kept their heat signature covered. They could hear the low whine of drones in the air, while they moved with complete silence into position for the perfect ambush.

The lead Caca was talking into the air, probably speaking with the rest of the company. Mrrarraras pegged him as the first target. He whispered in the hunting language, sending his people hand signals, assigning them targets. He wanted to take out the drones in the first volley, preventing them from sending information back to their company headquarters. Then they would concentrate on the troopers. They might still get a signal away. It was a risk, but they weren’t out in the forest to play it safe.

The Maurid known as Striped Wolf let out a roar that sounded like one of the large jungle cats hereabouts, then pulled the trigger on his rifle. The buzzing noise of a horde of angry insects filled the air, joined in a microsecond with a score of others, singing a cacophony of sound. The head of the lead Caca was hit, and the beam quickly burned through the hard alloy of the helm and into the skull beneath. Four drones fell out of the air as wrecks with large holes through their bodies. Another five of the Cacas went down, and the rest, the surviving six, ducked down low and tried to get to cover.

The Cacas were large, almost three meters tall, some more. Their size and strength were good for intimidating the helpless. What they weren’t good at was going low and moving silently. The big males flopped on the ground and made noise like a herd of large herbivores. They were easy to target, a little more difficult to kill, and the Maurids took down the squad in seconds.

“Move,” called out Mrrarraras in the hunting language. The disciplined hunters moved immediately, leaving their pair of dead where they lay after gathering up their weapons. While they would have preferred to bring them along and burn them in honor, the living were more important than the dead, and they all wanted to stay among the living.

Less than a minute after they had faded into the forest, clinging to a low rift that led parallel to their preferred path, a half dozen new drones were weaving through the woods. The devices came upon the site of the ambush and went from body to body, sending their information back. They then spread out, looking for the ambushers, who were already well away.

“A good day’s work,” said one of the other warriors, looking down her snout at one of those who had stayed back at the cave, the look of a conqueror at one that was less than.

“We need to get into the city and hit them there,” said another, looking over at Mrrarraras.

“We are killing them out here,” replied the leader, shaking his head in the way of his people. “As long as we are killing them, we are doing what needs to be done.”

“While they continue to kill our people in the city, and we avoid it because of the fear of death. That is not our way.”

“Look,” said Mrrarraras, grabbing that male by an arm and jerking him up to look at him face to face, snouts touching. “We aren’t going to drive them off our world. Maybe if we had a couple of months to work with, but we don’t have that time. All we are doing here is making them pay blood price for killing us. But it isn’t going to end with us. Unless the humans come in here and take out their system killing devices we are all dead.”

“And will they come?” asked the female who had first spoken. “Will they come to rescue my children, or will I have gone through ten months of pregnancy and carried those twins just to see them die?”

“They will come,” said Mrrarraras, giving a head nod that mimicked the humans. He received some confused looks from those who didn’t know what the gesture meant. “Their Emperor is a honorable being, and he has given the order for his fleet to come to our rescue.”

“So you say,” growled the male who had advocated fighting in the city. “But I don’t know this human, and I have no reason to trust him. And therefore I have no reason to fight the masters in a lost cause.”

“You would be a coward,” yelled the female, moving toward the male with extended claws.

“Stop it,” growled Mrrarraras. “We don’t need to fight among ourselves.”

That was one of the weaknesses of the species, one which Striped Wolf, who had the most exposure to other races of anyone in this cell, recognized. Maurids were quick to anger, and when they were enraged they thought with their glands.

“What if I got one of their senior people here to talk with us? To fight with us?”

“Their Emperor? I would listen to that being, once he proved he was my equal.”

And wouldn’t that be wonderful, thought Mrrarraras, imagining the body of the human Emperor lying on the floor of the cave. The humans would declare war on the Maurid people, and there would be no aid for the race. When the humans won the war there would be no place for the Maurid species to hide from the enraged subjects of the Emperor.

“I will see what I can do,” said Mrrarraras, turning to walk down the tunnel that led into the large complex.

The leader moved through groups of his people who were working or relaxing, preparing themselves for more missions. There were a few humans scattered among them, unusual specimens who moved with a grace and speed unlike the majority of their species. He knew they were genetically engineered, a retroactive process that changed their genome in their adult stage. That didn’t lessen their contribution to the war effort as stealth warriors. And from what he understood, the process they went through was painful in the extreme. They were all volunteers, who gave up decades of a long lifespan to become what their Empire needed them to be. He considered them the equals to the heroes of his people.

He turned into a side tunnel, activating the door lock with his DNA and walking into a large chamber filled with machinery. The door was more to keep the electronic signatures in than anyone out. But there was also reason to keep the casual observer out. Humans sat at several stations, in conversations with people back home.  A four by four meter wide mirror sat on the back wall of the room, while containers were stacked up to the side of the cleared path leading out of the portal. As he watched the mirror rippled, and a pair of humans in powered armor walked through, carrying more containers of weapons to swell the cache. When enough were gathered they would be transferred up to one of the entry caverns, and when night fell they would go by caravan to other cells.

“I need to talk to someone in your headquarters,” said Mrrarraras, moving to stand beside one of the human techs, one who was not a Ranger.

“Of course, sir,” said the woman, recognition in her eyes. “You can sit, or stand, over there.”

Striped Wolf nodded and moved to the indicated spot. He fit his body into the human chair, which, while not made for his body, still served its purpose to place him in the proper orientation to communicate with person on the other end with his face at the same level.

The holo, connected to the wormhole, came to life, and Mrrarraras’ eyes widened as someone he had not expected to speak to appeared.

“Hunter,” he whispered in Terranglo. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“I was getting ready to check up on our operation on your planet,” said the human, a small smile on his face. “Luck? Karma? So, what’s going on?”

“We have a problem here, General. And I’m hoping that someone might be able to help me light a fire under the asses of my people.”

“Would it help if I came there?”

“I’m sure it would,” said Mrrarraras, smiling. Wouldn’t this warrior be a wake up call to the doubters.

*     *     *

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to let you through this portal, General,” said the NCO in powered armor that was in charge of the detail guarding this side of the wormhole.

The wormhole itself was four by four meters, same as on the other end. Containers of weapons were stacked up in the room, while soldiers in powered armor suits carried more in through the wide doors of the loading bay. The workers were in the armor in order to take advantage of their strength. They were unarmed, which couldn’t be said of the guards, who carried stunners in hand while the butts of particle beam rifles thrust over their shoulders.

“I’m just going on a diplomatic mission to the Maurids, Sergeant,” said Cornelius in his best persuasive voice. “That is a part of my job description, you know.”

“I think you’re trying to pull something, General. And I think the Grand Marshal will have my ass if you go through that portal and anything happens to you.”

“Look. I will give you orders in writing requiring that you let me through, detailing my reasons for going. That should be enough to satisfy the Grand Marshal.”

“I don’t know…”

“Look, Sergeant. This is an emergency. I need to meet with the senior members of the Maurid resistance, or there will be hell to pay. I don’t have time to go through all the channels.”

“You must have a good reason, sir,” said the NCO, looking at Cornelius’ dress uniform, with the three Imperial Medals of Heroism prominently displayed. “And I really don’t see you going into combat in your dress uniform. Okay. You can go through. But make sure that you bring your ass back. They’ll crucify me if you go and get yourself killed.”

“Thanks, Sergeant. I promise I’ll be a good boy. And I’ll be right back.”

The general felt bad about lying to the sergeant. There was no other way through, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary. If they didn’t let him through he would have to force his way into the portal. Not the easiest thing to do with soldiers in powered armor. He thought he would still be able to make it, but was happy that it looked like that wouldn’t be necessary.

Cornelius stepped through the portal before the NCO changed his mind. He had sent his combat equipment ahead with some of his men. They weren’t about to stop one of their own from putting his ass on the line.

As always the transit was disorienting. It felt like being stretched across the universe, being nowhere and everywhere for an infinite time. The period of time it actually took was so short that it was almost impossible to measure, something along a couple of ticks of the Plank time. Still, his vision was blurred and his hearing stunted as he stepped out, taking a few seconds to come back to normal. If it had been a combat insertion right into battle, something the Empire tried to avoid if possible, the distorted sensorium could have been a disaster.

The several humans and one Maurid in the chamber all looked at him. He knew that the humans all knew what he was going through. Not so the Maurids, who seemed to have a different experience than humans.

“Hunter,” said the Maurid, from his markings the one known as Striped Wolf to the Empire. “It is good to see you again.”

“Mrrarraras,” said Walborski, not stumbling over the name he had practiced many times in the hope that he would not insult the leader of the Maurids in the Empire. “I’m happy to be here.” He bumped fists with the alien in the manner of the Rangers, then smiled at the other warrior’s toothy grin.

“I am having problems with some of my people trusting your Empire,” said the Maurid, leading the way to the door.

“But not you?”

“No. Not after operating alongside your military. I have seen that you do what you say, and if you don’t, it’s not from lack of effort. Your Emperor is an honorable being, unlike our own.”

Cornelius nodded. He had to agree with that. Sean could be a cold bastard when needed. He was in it to win for the human race. But he would not do so by betraying allies. If possible, he would move stars to do what he said. What he wouldn’t do was sacrifice human lives for no purpose, which sometimes ran at odds with promises to other species. Sometimes even with promises to his own subjects. While a cold bastard he could also be compassionate and caring. He would do what was needed to keep the Maurids in the fight, his greatest allies so far in Ca’cadasan space.

“So, what can we do to instill that sense of trust in you untrusting people?” asked the Ranger, walking through the hatch, already open as men in combat armor carried cases of weapons out and down the corridor to the transshipment point. Cornelius stepped agilely out of the way of two of the humans who were having trouble changing their own momentum while carrying the heavy cases.

“Watch it,” yelled one of the armored figures, turning its head to look over at the unarmored human. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t realize it was an officer.”

“And you were correct to yell at my fool ass,” said Walborski with a smile. “You have too much to do to worry about some idiot getting in your way from lack of attention.”

The man raised his visor and smiled, then motioned for his partner to move on with the four cases they were carrying.

“We appreciate the weapons you have brought us,” said Striped Wolf, watching the armored humans walk on.

“Anything else you can use?”

“More anti-air weapons would be nice. Maybe some more mortars. But what we need most are shore batteries that can strike at their ships in orbit.”

The general shook his head. That was something they couldn’t supply. Shore batteries were large mobile weapons, needing portals expanded to a much greater degree, sure to be spotted as soon as they deployed. That would lead the Cacas back to the portal, and they would be sure to strike it. The other weapons could be delivered in greater numbers, though there were many more particle beam rifles in the pipeline than any of the heavy weapons.

“Are you getting hit by a lot of ships from orbit?”

“Not really. We’re guessing it’s because many of them are hulks, meant to lure your own fleet in.”

That was the general’s guess as well. The Cacas weren’t about to sacrifice an intact force to lure the humans in to their destruction. What they were deploying were ships that had been badly damaged, stripped of most of their machinery. Also some mockups that had never been warships, but were made up to look like them. They had some real warships in orbit supporting their ground forces, along with a few more further out that would lend authenticity to the enemy movements.

“We are here,” said Mrrarraras, stepping up to a curtain that closed off a chamber from the tunnel.

The chamber was large, though the crowding within made it seem much smaller. Almost two hundred Maurids waited in the chamber, laying on their bellies much as Terran dogs would, or on two legs and leaning against one of the walls. All turned to stare as the human entered with their leader. Most had looks of curiosity, though some had open stares of hostility. All were wearing the leather straps their kind used to hold objects of need, not having a use for clothes in most cases. Some had the greater web gear of a warrior about to go out on a mission, longer bladed weapons, grenades and pouches hanging from them.

“Is this the human you told us about?” asked one of the larger males in the room, standing among several other males and a pair of females.

Cornelius had worked long and hard on learning to tell the Maurids apart by gender, since they weren’t quite as dimorphic as humans. The females were a bit more slender, with six teats underneath their bodies when in four footed stance. Their snouts were also slightly more narrow, though that wasn’t a universal.

“This is General Cornelius Walborski,” said Striped Wolf, using his own language. “The Hunter. And he I have talked about on occasion.”

Cornelius could understand their language, having hypno learned it. Which didn’t mean he could speak it with perfect pronounciation, but maybe well enough for most to understand.

“He looks like just another of his soft skinned kind,” said the large Maurid who had asked about him initially. “I don’t believe he could take one of us in hand to hand combat, much less three.”

“These are medals given to him by his Emperor,” said Mrrarraras, pointing to the awards on the general’s uniform. “He had distinguished himself in combat against the masters, displaying suicidal heroism against them on three occasions. On the first he fought a team of our trackers, taking them out with only a bladed weapon.”

“That is not really hand to hand,” argued the male, extending his claws, looking and studying them for a moment.

“Our people also had bladed weapons, Jajjasra,” said Mrrarraras, pointing an extended claw at his subordinate. “It was an equal fight.”

“Were you there?” asked one of the females, glaring at the leader for a moment before turning a baleful gaze on the human. “I believe that I could rip him apart in hand to hand.”

“It seems that they want to challenge you,” said Mrrarraras in Terranglo. “I did not ask you here to fight them, so you can of course refuse.”

And then they will think me a coward, thought Walborski, shaking his head. And with me all humans. This is one I can’t let pass.

“I will fight him,” said Cornelius, feeling a thrill pass up his spine. It wasn’t just anticipation of action. There was a little bit of fear mixed in. He had seen what these creatures could do when they set their claws to it, and a very real possibility existed that he would be badly injured in a fight with one. Especially fighting in his dress uniform. “Could I call for my fighting uniform, so I can move.”

Mrrarraras said something to the challenger, received a reply, and looked back at Cornelius. “Jajjasra agreed, saying that of course he couldn’t expect such a soft creature to fight naked.”

Another insult. Cornelius fought down his anger. He was going to fight smart, and not let his emotions rule him. Just as he had been taught.

The suit came and Cornelius changed into it, pulling off his uniform and sliding into the combat rig. He changed in front of the Maurids, feeling no embarrassment exposing himself to the aliens. Several pointed at his genitals and gave out barking laughs. I’ll have you know that I have very good equipment by human standards, he thought, smiling in return. Walborski left his web gear on the floor, so the aliens wouldn’t think that he was trying to conceal some weapons. He stepped back, closed his eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths.

“Is it afraid to fight?” asked Jajjasra, putting as much scorn as he could into the words.

“To first blood?” asked Cornelius, waiting for Mrrarraras to translate.

“The challenge is to the death,” replied the leader, without bothering to translate.

“Outstanding,” said Cornelius with a smile, stepping back into a fighting stance. He wondered for a moment how the sergeant would feel if he fell here, breaking his word? How would his family feel? How would the Emperor feel?

“You need to record my words before we start,” he said to Mrrarraras. “I want Sean to know that I did this of my own free will, so he won’t hold it against an ally.”

“Your Emperor would feel so deeply about your death?” asked Mrrarraras, giving him a strange look.

“We’re blood brothers,” said Cornelius, nodding. “I was best man at his wedding, and I’m the Godfather of his children.”

“We must stop this,” shouted Mrrarraras in Terranglo, then in Maurid.

“I knew it,” said Jajjasra, growling, scorn in his words. “It was all a setup, to make the human seem mighty in the hopes that we would back down.”

“I’m not backing down,” said Cornelius, gesturing for the Maurid to come forward.

“Then attack me human.”

So that’s the way it’s going to be, thought the general, who would have preferred to fight defensively at first to take the measure of his opponent. But the Maurid was making no move to come forward, waiting for him to make the first attack.

Cornelius ran forward with short quick steps. Several of the Maurids gasped out in surprise, seeing something actually moving faster across the ground than they could. Jajjasra ran at him with a war howl, moving one hand back as he reared up on his hind legs and started to bring his claws forward. The Ranger leapt into the air and turned a somersault over the claw, bringing a foot down in a heavy strike on the shoulder of his opponent.

All Rangers learned basic hand to hand techniques during their training. They were encouraged to continue their studies after graduating from Ranger school. Many did not, since their primary means of dealing death was with the projectile weapons they were issued. Cornelius had taken it the heart, and had risen to black belt in one of the Chinese origin forms, Kung Fu. It emphasized very fast and fluid hand motions along with some quick but devastating kicks. Especially devastating when delivered by the legs of an augmented human.

Jajjastra staggered under the weight of the kick, but was able to get a claw up to strike at the leg before it could be withdrawn. The claw slashed through the clothing, tough as it was, but only caused superficial damage to the flesh underneath. The actual physical force behind the blow caused more trouble, sending the human into a spin to hit the floor.

The Maurids all howled with excitement. It seemed they all liked a good fight, no matter that the death of their guest might cause them uncounted trouble in the future. Jajjastra took a moment to let the adoration sink in, a mistake.

Cornelius kicked himself to his feet and moved toward the distracted Maurid. Not distracted long, as he turned quickly an brought a claw around in a slash. With a quick step the Ranger moved back out of range, then in with another, hitting the extended arm with a double fist strike. The Maurid tried to attack with its other claw, but its struck arm, numb from the double hit, got in the way, and Cornelius launched a flurry of short hard blows into its ribs. Jajjastra grunted, then got his feet back underneath himself and swung a series of fast slashes at the Ranger.

Cornelius stepped forward and threw blocks into all of the slashes, hitting the creature’s forearms with strikes that not only kept the attack from hitting him, but added muscle damage to the forelimbs of the Maurid. He threw in a backhand to the snout, which was as sensitive as it appeared, and forced his opponent back.

Jajjastra roared in anger and ran in, attempting to bullrush the human and knock him off his feet. Cornelius dropped down on spreading legs, set himself, and launched a side kick into the knee of his opponent. He felt the satisfying impact of hard foot hitting mobile knee, along with what felt like a crack. He hadn’t been sure that a strike to the joint would be as effective against the Maurid as it would be to a human. That he had been correct was gratifying, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

“Give up?” he asked Jajjastra, nodding toward the knee, which was now bent back at an unnatural angle, meaning not the dogleg if normally was.

“To the death,” yelled the Maurid, trying to rush in and stumbling.

Cornelius hit the Maurid in the head with a flurry of roundhouse blows. It was an attack he didn’t want to extend, since that kind of blow left him open, but they delivered great power to the brain case of the creature. The Maurid skull was thicker than that of a human, and would have been much stronger than that of an unaugmented person. The Ranger had carbon fibers weaved into all of his bones by nanotech, making his skeleton much stronger. He finished with an uppercut to under the jaw that rocked Jajjastra back, then stepped away and waited for the Maurid’s next move.

“I will kill you,” screeched the Maurid, trying to run forward and half falling on his injured leg, He dropped to all fours, giving himself three useful limbs and looked up at the human. Blood dripped from his mouth from the uppercut, while one eye was barely opened.

“Don’t play with him,” called out Mrrarraras in Terranglo.

Cornelius knew his friend was correct. He had the measure of this creature, but one error on his part and Jajjastra’s claws could still rip out his throat. The Ranger stepped forward again, his feet sliding close to the ground. He delivered a straight jab to the nose, then spun in a one eighty to deliver a backhand to the side of his opponent’s skull. That rocked Jajjastra back, and the Maurid stumbled and was almost on his side, righting himself at the last moment.

“One thing your leader forgot to tell you,” said Cornelius as he grabbed the head of his opponent in a double grip. “I killed one of your masters, the same way I’m about to kill you.”

Cornelius twisted with all the strength of his arms, at the same time throwing his body into a spin. There was a moment’s resistance, then a crack as the spinal column snapped. The body of the Maurid went immediately limp, the brain no longer able to communicate with the rest of the body. Cornelius released his grip and let the Maurid fall in a limp mass to the floor, where he lay, his rib cage rising and falling as he continued to breath.

So their breathing is controlled by some system lower than their brain, thought the Ranger, watching the rise and fall. He still needed to kill this one. Not only was it cruel to leave it lying there in distress, but the contest had been to the death, and it wasn’t technically dead. The Ranger again took a step forward, then leapt as high as he could into the air, going up to the point where his hunched body almost hit the ceiling, five meters above. He came down with all of his weight on the ribs, feeling them crack. A rib must have penetrated into the thoracic regions, as blood spurted from the Maurid’s mouth. The breathing continued for some seconds, labored. Slowly it stopped, and the eyes of the Maurid popped open in the stare of death.

Mrrarraras started speaking in a loud voice to his people, and the general could only pick out some of the words. Conqueror, bane, trust. The gist of it seemed to be that the puny human had killed the mighty warrior with his bare hands, proving himself a man of his word. Cornelius wasn’t sure he bought into the reasoning, but if that was what it took for these people to work with him, who was he to argue.

“We will send for your medics,” said Mrrarraras, coming up to him and looking down on the dead Maurid.

“My body will take care of it,” said Cornelius, looking down and seeing the slow drip of blood from his calf. It was already starting to heal, his augmented systems handling the injury. “But I will take a drink. And then we can talk about what we are going to do about the Cacas on your world while we wait for the Fleet.”

Chapter Thirteen

Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand. Frederick the Great

JUNE 28th, 1004, KALLFER SYSTEM.

There it is, thought Admiral Mei Lei, looking at the distant yellow dot on the viewer. She shuddered as she thought about what the dot represented to her and her crews.

Jean de Arc sat about three light years out from the star Kallfer. They had curved around the star in Caca space, coming in from the direction of the enemy homeworld, and had translated out of hyper well out of detection range. There was no way of telling if something was lying doggo that had sent a message to the Cacas in the system. If there had been something, it hadn’t transmitted by grav wave, since that would have been detected. Possibly they had a ship with a wormhole aboard, but the Ca’cadasan Empire had a dearth of the portals. One reason they had approached from an unexpected vector. With luck the enemy didn’t realize they were here.

Still, everything they saw at three light years was that much time out of date.

Her flagship had only taken superficial damage in the last battle. Some missing grabber alloy, armor partially penetrated near the bow. Engineering had been able to make full repairs on the way here, reinforcing the sections that had been damaged by enemy beam fire, replacing sections of two of the grabbers. It might have been better to send the ship back to Imperial space for time in a dock, but ships were still scarce, and the admiral preferred using the ship she was familiar with. Besides, if everything went as planned, she wouldn’t be engaged in much combat. And if everything went to shit, it wouldn’t matter if she was in a fully capable super heavy battleship. Everything in the inner system was dead.

“We’re almost in range, Admiral,” said the voice of the lt. commander in charge of the pair of Alcubierre fighters that had sped toward the system at twenty times light speed.

Both fighters had Klassekian com techs that tapped them into the network. One of the fighters also had a wormhole, giving them high density data transmission. They had been released from a destroyer that had worked its way inward in hyper II, making detection from beyond a couple of light months unlikely. Dropping out at three light months, it had released the two fighters that had spun up their engines and rushed in. It had been almost a five day trip, slowing at the end to two light to make their detection unlikely. But now they were about to drop from their drive at a light week from the target.

“We’re waiting,” said Mei, closing her eyes and shaking her head as she realized how impatient that made her sound. Of course she was impatient. But as the commanding officer she shouldn’t let her subordinates know that.

The information they would get would still be a week out of date, but from the intelligence they had, the Cacas had been working on this trap for almost a month. So they should see some signs of what they were doing. In a couple of days they would move the scout force in itself, two days before the arrival of the battle force.

Mei had to wait about an hour before the visuals came in. They were transferred over the wormhole to Fleet headquarters first, so they would also be looking at them. Trained analysts would be looking them over, but the admiral preferred to get her own look as well. She had been in scout force for her entire career, and felt her analysis was as good as anyone’s.

“Here you go, Admiral.”

The first images were of the star from a distance. Not much to see, though the icons of boosting ships filled in to show the ongoing activity. Those tracks were in real time, since gravitons travelled through all the dimensions of hyper as well as normal space.

There was a lot of activity, but most of it was extremely faint, only localized by long timescale scans. That was suspicious, since in Mei’s experience warships were always driven like bats out of the hells. And much of that activity was near to the graviton source of the habitable planet. Why were ships maneuvering that close to the planet? They should either be floating in a standard orbit, or moving in or out of those orbits on the way to something else. It looked very suspicious to her mind.

It’s like they don’t expect us to come in unless they have sufficient bait, she thought. That might be true. If the Fleet thought there were only a couple of dozen warships in the system, they would only send in twice the tonnage, what they would consider the minimum amount to assure a victory. But if they were trying to lure in enough to make sure there was a large force, one that would make exploding the star worthwhile, then they would have to make it look like there were more ships than a small group could take on.

If it had been her, she would have sent in a small force to take out what she was sure the enemy had, while the strike force went after projector ships. But it wasn’t her call, and command had thought it better to give the Cacas what they thought they wanted coming at them. Otherwise, they might just detonate the star before the Fleet could stop the process, and a billion Maurids would die.

Well, we’re all volunteers, she thought. That wouldn’t be any comfort to the families. Mei only had to worry about her cat, who was on the ship and would go into the afterlife with her. She had the estate that came with her patent of nobility, but she had rarely visited it, much less actually sat in residence. She didn’t know those people and they really didn’t know her. And her birth family, while it might go through the motions of mourning, also didn’t really know her anymore.

That wasn’t true for most of the crews in her force. They had families. Parents, siblings, wives and children. People who would miss them. Yet, even knowing what the mission was about, and the risk they were taking, they still signed on. Less than two hundred people hadn’t signed on, and the Fleet hadn’t even bothered to replace them. That was ominous in itself. Like they thought they were going to lose those people anyway, so why add more casualties to the total?

The vid zoomed in, showing a view of the planet as it had appeared a week ago, further back in its orbital path. The ship’s computer started looking at everything of interest, zooming over hundreds of objects in a second, then presenting a menu for the humans to choose from, ordered in the priority its algorithms had decided upon. Human analysts were already pouring over it back at Fleet, and soon the people on the flag bridge were also going through the images.

Within a minute objects were being assigned to the flagship as the analysts found them of interest. Mei pulled a couple up, giving a slight humph as she looked over the first one. An orbital station with the look of a factory. In close proximity were a pair of commercial ships, with shuttles in space going between station and vessels. It looked like they were taking off all of the guts of the station. What they didn’t appear to be doing was taking apart the structure of the station, something they would do if they were moving it in toto. They were leaving the structure behind as bait, while taking what was still useful to their war effort, removing it from the system.

There were also the traces of ships leaving the system, both in normal space and in hyper once past the barrier. All outgoing, and all with the signatures of commercial hyperdrives. With no visible escorts. It appeared that the Ca’cadasan Empire didn’t have the ships to spare at the moment. Mei thought that the Fleet would soon be vectoring ships onto their courses, preying on those commercial vessels and making sure that the cargoes they were carrying profited the Cacas no more.

“Admiral,” said the CNO, her head appearing in a holo to the right of Mei’s command chair. “We’ve looked over what you’ve sent. You move up in two days and start into the system after two days of surveillance. The battle force will come in behind you twenty-four hours later.”

“And we release the inner strike force?”

“As soon as you enter normal space. Cut them loose at a point one five light. Are they ready?”

Mei laughed. “Suttler has kept them ready. I thought his people might start abandoning ship with all the drills he’s been running.”

“He’s good at what he does,” said McCullom, shaking her head. “I wasn’t for someone with his rank leading the strike, but he insisted, and the Emperor agreed. Now I’m thinking that it was a good idea. He’s a taskmaster, but very good at his job.”

Mei nodded, happy that she was in a part of the fleet where rank wouldn’t remove her from the front lines. Yet. If she ever rose to full admiral she might have to start thinking about how she was going to enjoy sitting on her ass in a staff position. She wasn’t battle fleet, and the positions in scout force for full admirals were very limited. She didn’t think that Mara Montgomery was going to go into retirement anytime soon. At least not until the war was over, and she doubted even that would force the woman into retirement.

“We’ll be ready, ma’am,” she finally told the CNO after a moment’s thought.

“I’m sure you will be. Just, be careful.”

The holo died, leaving Mei alone with her thoughts again. Why are we all worrying so much about this mission, she thought, huffing out a breath. Every time they met the Cacas in battle there was a chance they wouldn’t go home. Mei herself had been in over a dozen major battles, many of which she was sure were going to be her last. The very first encounter with the Cacas had almost been her last, in not just one but in many different circumstances. Getting out of the Sestius system with the newly elevated Emperor and all the adventures along the way. That time she had been trapped in hyper in a damaged ship that was about to run out of power and drop catastrophically. There couldn’t possibly be a more stressful situation. But this one was playing on all their nerves. Possibly because they had too much time to think about it. And the sheer magnitude of someone blowing up a star to get them. Not really blowing it up, she thought, but close enough.

“We need to get this thing kicked off,” she said under her breath, walking over to the central plot and looking at everything they knew about this area. Unfortunately, they had to sit here until it was time to move. Looking around at the people on the flag bridge she could see the tension in all of them. They were all busy, working their analyses on the data coming in. But it was not the right kind of task to take their minds off their mortality.

With a smile she thought up of a good way to take everyone’s mind off of their mortality. With a good long battle drill, wargaming the situation ahead.

*     *     *

“We’re seventy-three hours from translation, sir,” said the flag captain, his holo popping up to the side of the admiral’s machine.

“Any particular reason for reminding me of this hour,” said Admiral Conrad Alvera, the commander of the battle force that was the Empire’s primary bait on this mission. The admiral was working through his tension in his private gym, just off his main cabin. He had been working out for over an hour, pumping iron, then doing cardio on a stationary bike. A workout enthusiast since prior to his entering the Academy, an athlete on both the football field and the soccer pitch, he always tried to get in an hour every day. Not always possible when entering a combat situation that might go on for days.

The flag captain stared at the admiral for a moment, a confused look on his face. The officer shook his head, smiling sheepishly. “I, uh, just thought you might want to know, sir.”

“It’s getting to all of us, Wally,” said the admiral after a short laugh. “Don’t worry. When have I ever failed in this war?”

The look on his flag captain’s face said that there was always a first time.

True enough, thought the admiral, a feeling of disappointment in his heart. His part in this mission was not much. Just get the attention of the Cacas by driving in, looking like he was going to strike at the ships in orbit. Everything else depended on the actions of others. He knew that the people chosen for those other roles were good at their jobs, but he didn’t like having his fate in the hands of anyone other than himself. Unfortunately, that was part of being a warrior, from the the lowliest spacer up to the person just below the CNO. Still didn’t mean that he liked it.

“Don’t worry, Captain Garrison. We’re going to make it through this thing. You have my word on this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you don’t have to give me an hourly report on our arrival time. Okay.”

The flag captain nodded sheepishly, then the holo died, leaving the admiral alone. He started back with a furious peddling on the bike, setting it to a mountain road in a one point five gravity field. He pushed it for another hour, then went to his cabin to clean up, sending an order through his implant for food to be delivered by his steward by the time he got out of the shower. After the food had been delivered, simple fare that was filling, he sat at the table looking at the holo of the Kallfer system slowly rotating in the air. Trying to find a way to bring his command out of the system if the mission hit the crapper. Hours later he still hadn’t found a way, which meant he still had to depend on others to get him out.

The admiral yawned, looking at the time and just realizing that he had been sitting at the table for four hours. Too long. He did a quick look at the tactical plot, wondering why he was bothering. If anything appeared, like a massive Caca battle fleet heading on an intercept, bound to destroy his smaller force, he would be alerted to its presence. Not that he expected such a fleet to materialize. Everyone seemed sure that the Cacas were setting a trap for his force, so why would they send in a fleet for a slugging match that was sure to lose them a lot of ships, when the destruction of the human force was assured. At least as far as the Cacas were concerned, having no knowledge of the human plan.

He shouldn’t have been concerned that the enemy might have something else, something unexpected, waiting. He couldn’t help himself. Some admirals might have gained their rank by taking chances. Alvera had gained his by cautiously making smart decisions. It was not smart to rush in without taking a second look, sometimes a third. This plan was not smart or cautious according to his way of thinking. But orders were orders, and he was not about to gain a reputation for cowardess. He was cautious, but he wasn’t a coward.

Still, before he turned in he made one last contact to the flag bridge, making sure that the scouts he had ordered out to the flanks and ahead were still there. With relief he saw that they were still in place, transmitting their sensor readings back to his ship. Nothing to report, and he began to beat himself in his mind for being such a worrier.

“Admiral,” came a call over the intercom. “The scout force to our port is reporting they are picking up hyper resonnances. They appear to be merchant ships, on a heading away from our target system.”

“No warships?”

“There don’t appear to be any, sir. Should we order the scouts to go after them?”

“No,” said the admiral after thinking for several moments. “We have a priority mission, and I intend for us to get the entire battle force there, intact. Send a report up to fleet. We’ll leave it to them to vector some raiders in on those merchies.”

Caution, he thought as he lay back in his bed and commanded the lights off through his implant. Some of the other admirals might laugh at him for not engaging a target of opportunity. He really didn’t care. His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was that he was doing what he thought best, and so far what he thought best had led to victories with the fewest losses of any officer in his position. That the system ahead might end that record, along with his life, haunted his dreams that night.

*     *     *

“It looks like a definite trap is being set for us in that system, your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom over the holo com. “We have verification that they have been pulling out all of their industrial machinery. There’s only one problem with the whole setup.”

“And what might that be, Admiral?” asked Sean, leaning forward in his seat. He had been working on other matters while waiting for reports to come in. As much as he wished he could turn his entire attention to the coming battle, one that, while not the largest of the war, was of vital importance. If they failed, they lost a billion beings of an allied race, along with the possibility that those creatures would no longer trust humans.

Unfortunately, he was not only the war leader of the New Terran Empire, first among equals in the alliance. He was also the head of state and responsible for all the executive functions of his government. Add to that the bargaining he had to do with Parliament on a constant basis, and he had enough to keep him up late most nights doing paperwork. Affixing his electronic signature on the document before him, an appeal to Parliament for an increase in funding for negative matter production, he turned off his system and turned his attention fully to his CNO, who had waited patiently for her monarch to look back at her.

“We can’t find their projector ships. There are several places where they might be hiding them, but we can verify that they are not in orbit around the star. At least not at what we have determined to be the optimal distance from the photosphere.”

“Shit. You think this might not be the setup we thought it was going to be. Maybe they’ll just satisfy themselves with bombarding Kallfer to lifelessness from space.”

“We can only hope not,” said McCullom, eyes narrowing. “All I recommend at the moment is going ahead with the attack, and hoping that we can find their ships before they get too far into the process. They have to come out into the open, don’t they?”

“I would think so,” replied Sean. He couldn’t think of any way they could stealth ships that large, that close to the star. True, Duchess Mei had done that with her battle cruisers, but even then she had problems with the heat of the star giving her away, when she had powered down almost everything aboard her ship. The projectors ships would have to be running their reactors full out, and once they started up their hyperdrive projectors they would stand out like purposeful beacons.

Another chime came through on the com network, and Sean took an instant to see who was waiting. He wasn’t surprised to see that Countess Haruko Kawasaki, the Prime Minister, and the Baron Emile von Hausser Schmidt, Leader of the House of Lords, were waiting on him. It was a priority com, but so was his conversation with Sondra, and he couldn’t imaging anything they had to say that was more important than the matter at hand. He sent an acknowledgment of receipt, along with the notice that he would be with them momentarily.

“Okay. We’ll go ahead with the attack and hope everything goes as we expect. But I want our force prepared for a standard fleet engagement, just in case.”

“Very well. It will be done as you command, your Majesty.”

Meaning that if anything went wrong with the mission, it would be on the Emperor’s shoulders. The CNO had given her information and recommendations, and the decision was now someone else’s. The CNO had given advice to continue the mission as planned, but it was only advice.

“Countess. Baron,” said Sean, connecting to the other com channel. “What’s so important?”

The pair looked out at him through a single view, showing that they were in the same room. The countess was the leader of Sean’s government, taking on all the varied tasks he didn’t have time for during wartime. The Baron was the Leader of the Lords, once a member of the opposition party before being convinced to sign on with Sean’s faction, bringing many of his party with him. The pair worked closely together, and sometimes the Emperor wondered just how close they were. He had his suspicions, but frankly thought it none of his business, and not something to concern Imperial Intelligence with just to satisfy his curiosity.

Of course the pair had no idea that the Fleet was about to kick off a major and risky operation. Parliament had the right to be informed about the overall prosecution of the war, especially when it came to funding and manpower. They didn’t have the right to know about battle plans, not even their oversight committees.

“There are demonstrations taking place outside of the Lords, your Majesty,” said von Hausser, taking point for this conversation. “Not riots, but enough to make the Lords anxious when coming and going.”

“What kind of demonstrations?” asked the Emperor, eyes narrowing. He had his suspicions before the vid of the huge square in front of the Parliament building appeared in the air beside the holo of the two nobles.

The Parliament building itself was still undergoing repairs. The inside was finished, the halls of the Lords were occupied, but the ornamental stonework on the outside was still in the process of installation. Originally it had been planned to wait until the war was over to finished the ornamentation of the building, but the Lords had insisted that their dignity demanded the structure be restored to its pre-attack glory. A kilometer across the large square was the Cathedral of the Reformed Catholic Church, the seat of the faith. It too was under repair. The grand chapel was open for services, but the stonework still needed to be placed on the exterior. The Church, at least, had been reasonable enough to not demand immediate repairs.

The square itself, a public gathering place for the city center, where people brought lunches and sat watching other people, or simply enjoyed the day, was packed with as many people as could fit in the square kilometer and a half space. Many were just standing there and watching the commotion. A large group were directly in front of Parliament, waving holographic signs while a couple of people were yelling out their spiel to the crowd.

The signs were waving in the sky, taking up a ten meter by five space. Smaller signs were waving in the crowd, most of these the old fashioned kind, a board attached to a slender post. A couple of holographic billboards were also present, quickly flashing their sequence of messages.

Police stood along the outskirts of the gathering, standard cops in strap on armor, stun pistols holstered. SWAT would be on call if things got out of hand, and in minutes there could be a hundred police in heavy powered armor descending on the crowd. So far there had been no call for them. Freedom of assembly was guaranteed in the Empire, as long as it was peaceful, and this space had been apportioned as one of those set aside for assemblages such as these. They were rarely used for such, but many of the citizens of the capital city were aware of its purpose.

Sean focused on one of the signs, eyes widening as he read one of the messages before it flashed to another. Bring our Sons and Daughters Home, Alive, it proclaimed. An instant later the sign was proclaiming End The War. Start The Peace Process.

Sean snorted a laugh. There would be no peace process with the Cacas until the Imperial Fleet sat in orbit over their home world. He wasn’t sure why these people thought different, but then there were always well meaning fools who didn’t let reality intrude on their dreams.

Some chanting came over the audio of the com channel. Not very loud, and it seemed like less than ten percent of the people gathered were there for the cause. The great majority was just there to observe.

“I’m guessing the Caca Emperor doesn’t have to put up with this,” said the Prime Minister. “One thing we can envy him for.”

“Though I, for one, would not want that kind of totalitarian regime on our space,” said von Hausser.

If only you knew, thought Sean, struggling to keep the smile off of his face. Maybe before the current troubles Jresstratta wouldn’t have had to worry about protests. And any that had dared would have been hustled off the streets and into prison, those who weren’t simply shot down where they stood.

“What do you want me to do about this?” asked Sean, holding out open hands in an indication of his helplessness to do anything.

“The Lords are nervous,” said von Hausser, almost spitting out the word for his colleagues. “Some are afraid that the mob, their word, might storm the building and ransack their offices. Maybe even cause bodily harm to them.”

“They seem peaceable enough, for the moment,” said the Emperor, shaking his head. “They are within their rights, though I think they are ill informed. And not that large an assemblage. I’m not willing to set the police or Imperial Security on them. If they actually start to riot, destroying property and threatening people, I will come down on them.”

“Perhaps we could request some of the Capital Police to reinforce the Parliament Guard,” suggested the countess. “If they were a presence before the entrance, I’m sure they would dissuade any foolishness.”

“I will see to it. But remember, if they are targeting Parliament, I’m sure they will protest the rest of the government as well.” He didn’t have any concerns for his own safety, or those of his family. The palace, even though it was still a year away from the completion of its rebuild, had a fully functional security system, including a full brigade of Marines, the currently assigned close guard force. Anyone trying to get on the grounds, unless they had a full division of infantry along with them, would be quickly subdued.

“We’ll keep an eye on this,” said Sean, meaning that he would pass the word onto security and forget about it, so he could concentrate on more important matters. “And I’ll get with Sergiov and see if we can use some public service announcements to educate the people as to the reality of our situation.”

That meant that he would pass the word to his intelligence chief, who would pass the order onto some subordinates, so she could concentrate on what was important.

“Thank you, your Majesty,” said the Prime Minister. “We know you have other things on your mind, but we have to consider the security of the Lords. Any help you can give will be appreciated.”

Which meant, the Emperor knew, that members of the Lords would be more amenable to signing off on what Sean wanted if he made them feel safe.

The com faded, leaving Sean to think about everything that was going on, home and abroad. He took a moment to send out the orders to his subordinates, then got back to thinking about the things that were important to the war effort. As long as the protestors did nothing to sabotage that effort, they could demonstrate as much as they wanted. And if they did overstep those bounds? For a moment he wished he had the power of the Caca Emperor. He dismissed that thought immediately. No one should have that kind of power, and what was currently happening in the enemy camp was proof of that.

Chapter Fourteen

Revolution did not necessarily involve sanguinary strife. It was not a cult of bomb and pistol. They may sometimes be mere means for its achievement. Bhagat Singh

JUNE 30TH, 1004. JEWEL AND KALLFER.

“Are your people ready to go, Admiral?” asked Sean, looking into the face of Admiral Len Lenkowski on the holo.

“We’re ready, your Majesty,” said the six star admiral, doubt creeping into his voice. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea though.”

Sean nodded. He wasn’t so sure about this either. But this might be the only way to save over a billion allies from immediate death. That he wasn’t entering the system with his people weighed on his mind, as he was sure it was weighing on that of the senior admiral. The Empress would have his balls if he tried to enter this death trap, and he would bust his admiral if he tried the same.

The mission had been explained to all of the crews involved, and every single one of them had been given the opportunity to back out, no questions asked. Very few had taken him up on it, a couple of thousand out of the more than a million. Those were now in isolation until the mission was completed. The one who had signed on were good people, trusting in his judgement, which made it more difficult to give the final order. If he didn’t give it a million more Maurids would die this day, followed by the same number every day until there were no more left on the planet in question. Or he could go in and rescue them, in which case the Cacas would detonate the star and kill all of the Maurids, and his people along with them. At least that was the enemy plan. He had other plans, and the lives of his people depended on his working, while those of the Cacas didn’t.

Sean took one more look at the world they were attempting to save. Kallfer was a beautiful globe from space, as were most living planets. Two large continents and five smaller ones, the surface equally divided between land and water. There were several huge lakes on one of the continents, while large river networks traversed the land. Most of the land areas were the green of vegetation; forests, jungles, grasslands. There were the browns of very small deserts in some inland areas, and the silver gray of large cities.

It was the home of over a billion sentients, almost all of them Maurids. Not a Maurid world, which would have displayed a predominance of orange and reds among the vegetation, it was still compatible with their biology. They were the majority population on the world, a billion of them. Along with less than a hundred million other subservient sentients, and what was thought to be a hundred thousand Caca soldiers. Those soldiers were rounding up and killing Maurids on a daily basis. From the intelligence they had received from the Maurids the population was not just going passively to their deaths. That wasn’t in their species. But with superiority in the air and space it was still a one sided fight.

Sean thought about it for another moment, hesitating. I should have just given the order and taken my hands off, he thought. But since it was his orders that were sending his people into harm’s way, his responsibility, he was determined to be there on the sidelines.

“It’s okay,” said Jennifer, sitting in the chair next to his, her eyes moving back and forth between his face and the holo of the alien world. “Your people have done everything they could to make this plan go. All you can do is give the command and back off. All either of us can do is to watch and cheer the men and women on.”

She’s right, he thought, looking at his wife with new appreciation. And no matter how this turns out, she loves me.

“It’s a go, Admiral,” he said, looking into the eyes of Lenkowski.

There was still doubt on the face of his admiral, but also relief that the mission was about to start.

“The first units will be going in twenty-seven minutes, your Majesty. At that point we are committed.”

“Understood. Let’s get this done.”

*     *     *

“We’re letting you go in one minute, Admiral,” said the voice of the battle cruiser commander that had provided the ride to this point.

“Very well,” said Rear Admiral Bryce Suttler, sitting the commander’s chair in the stealth/attack ship Grampus.

It was not the original ship to bear that name. In fact, it was the second to carry the honorable name since he had commanded one at the beginning of the war. It was slightly larger than that ship, but much more capable of fulfilling its mission. He looked at the faces of his bridge crew, noting the stress and anxiety etched on each. All were volunteers. All knew how important their part of the mission was. All were aware that if they failed, a million of their fleet mates would die, along with a billion sentients and an entire world.

“We’re detached, sir,” called out the helmsman, a hint of relief in his voice.

The ship was now heading into the system on its own at point one five light, on a course that would take them close to the star in twenty-six hours. If all went well the enemy would never know they were coming, until it was too late. If it didn’t go according to plan they would die when the star was sent into a sub-supernova state, along with everything else in the inner system, and much of that further out.

“Any sign of the enemy projector ships?”

“No, sir,” called out the exec, Commander Willis, from CIC. “But we really didn’t expect to see them until they actually deployed. And command didn’t think that would happen until we were well into the system.”

Suttler knew that. He wasn’t really expecting an answer, but didn’t feel like sitting there saying nothing. Bantering would make the crew think he was not as worried as he was. At least that was the theory.

Well, Bryce, you didn’t have to come on this one, he thought, looking at the viewer, trying to will the enemy ships to appear. Not that there weren’t a lot of Caca ships on the plot, all around the habitable planet. Multiple hundreds of them, just under a thousand, enough to complicate the situation and call for the deployment of a large Imperial force to take care of them.

Command had not wanted him to deploy on this one. He was, after all, the commander of all stealth/attack ships in this sector, and had no business actually going into battle. He had insisted, since as he understood it his people were going to be at extreme risk. They had still turned him down, until he had contacted the Emperor directly. Sean had remembered Suttler’s part in springing him from the Caca trap he had been caught in on the initiation of hostilities with this enemy. Going over the head of command might cost him in the future, when promotions were handed out. He really didn’t care. Moving out of ship command had not been in his plans in the first place. At least when he was a squadron commander he could still ride a ship into battle, commanding the one he actually occupied, since the small ships didn’t have the accommodations for a separate flag bridge.

“Keep the situation reports flowing back to the fleet,” he next ordered, another that he really hadn’t had to give. And another that he felt compelled to verbalize, just to make him feel like he was doing something. In a little over twenty hours the real mission would begin, as far as his squadron was concerned.

“I’ll be in my day cabin,” he reported, getting up from his chair and heading off the bridge. He doubted he would be able to get any sleep, and food was far from his mind. But if his people thought he was able to relax, they might be able to do so as well.

*     *     *

“We have a major translation at the hyper barrier to the Kallfer system, Supreme Lord,” said the messenger, appearing at the throne chamber.

Jresstratta looked up from the report he had been reading on a holo screen open in the air to his left. More boring reading, not at all what he had been expecting when ascending to the throne. He had thought it would be one continuous party, with drinking and sex with an endless stream of concubines, mostly those collected by his father. There had been some indulgence, but not as much as he had expected. Instead it was one report after the other, as he fired off decisions to subordinates who seemed eager to carry out his will. My will is a willing female, he thought, thankfully turning off the report of more disobedience in the fleet and turning his attention to the messenger.

“I will be down in a moment,” he told the male, making a dismissive gesture to see him off.

The Emperor could have watched the unfolding drama from the throne room, making his advisors stand while he sat. But the facilities were better for all in the war room, and the advisors could  actually work while he observed. He thought it important that they saw him as a participant in this action, not just an observer, and being with them in their command and control room would help to cement their loyalty. Or so the theory ran.

It was a fairly long walk into the war room, eight levels down and a hundred meters to the north. It was a large chamber, one hundred by eighty meters, crowded with working warriors monitoring a great number of holos. The staff sat on a raised dais at the far end of the chamber, a large projection above the table showing the target system.

“It is about to begin, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief of Staff, Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse, as Jressstratta ascended the steps to the dais. “Over a thousand enemy ships have translated and are about to cross the barrier into the system.”

“And when will we be able to spring the trap?” asked the Emperor, rubbing both pairs of hands together in anticipation.

“Not for many hours yet. They have to get near to the orbit of the habitable planet before we have sure kills.”

“And they might get wind of something and head back out?” asked the Emperor, wishing he could force the humans to do what he wanted. Unfortunately, war didn’t work that way.

“When they reach this point here, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief of Staff, “they will begin to decelerate to a stop near to the planet. At that point they are committed, and there will be no escape.”

“Yes,” said the Emperor, a smile on his face. “This will show the humans our might.”

“It won’t stop them for long, Supreme Lord,” said General Hafftralas, bowing his head.

“As long as it gives us some time,” said the Emperor, plans and counterplans swirling through his young mind. He was, after all, the Emperor, the son of conquerors. Surely they would be able to come up with something given time.

“Send for something to eat and drink,” the Emperor ordered one of the servitors standing near. He would be the first Ca’cadasan Emperor to actually watch an unfolding battle across the light years in real time. The young male planned to enjoy it.

*     *     *

Vice Admiral Mei Lei sat her flag command chair, staring at the plot, trying to determine where the enemy might have additional forces hidden in the system. It was her job to ferret them out. She doubted that they had any other than what was already on the plot, since the enemy plan wasn’t to trap them in the system for a battle, but to merely lure them in to be killed by the stellar event. Still, she had her part to play, convincing the enemy that the human forces were not sticking their heads into a known trap.

“I really don’t like this, ma’am,” said the captain of the battle cruiser flagship, looking out of a holo. Behind him his crew manned all their stations, sitting tense as they monitored the ship and the system around it.

“What’s not to like,” she answered with a head shake. “We’re bait, plain and simple. Just like those poor bastards in proximity to the planet.” And the poor slaves on the planet, there to entice us into the trap. She looked at the plot for a few moments more, making her decision while her flagship boosted toward the planet.

“Send the first group to this area of the asteroid belt,” she ordered, pointing at that spot on the plot and illuminating the cluster of rocks. “Second group will head to these out here. Third group to this gas giant and its moons.”

“Why bother, ma’am?” asked her flag captain. “We know where the enemy are, and they have no reason to put ships there if they plan to destroy us by detonating the star.”

“And that is just the kind of lazy thinking that loses battles, Captain,” said Mei, her glare pinning him in place. “We will send ships there because that is what we do, and we want the enemy to think we are advancing as normal. Besides, if they have ships there, waiting for us in a standard ambush, we need to know.”

The captain nodded his head, looking admonished. She hoped that he learned from this experience, something to think about if he ever rose to flag rank himself. And besides, there was another reason to send those ships out there, something she wasn’t about to admit to anyone.

Her commands would actually send all of those ships to places where they might just survive the event if it were triggered. Something she had to think about. That it also performed a vital scouting function was a plus. Her own force would head straight in, scouting the path for the main fleet, and putting them right in the path of the fury of the star when it was detonated.

“Connect me with Commodore von Rittersdorf,” she ordered a moment later. He would be the senior officer out there in the belt, and she wanted to have some words with him before other things took her mind off of them.

“Duchess,” said the handsome young man on the holo. “And what can I do for you this fine day?”

Mei snorted a laugh. The daughter of commoners, she still felt strange being called by the title the Emperor had bestowed upon her. Maurice was the younger son of a count, and had been raised in the nobility, though he never had a chance to gain his father’s title, having six siblings ahead of him in the succession. She wondered how those siblings felt now that the baby of the family socially outranked all of them, and dear old dad as well. He had been elevated to duke for his part in saving the then as yet uncrowned new emperor. And, by the way, saving one hyper VII battle cruiser that happened to be under the command of then Captain Mei Lei.

“Duke Maurice. I just wanted to reiterate how important your mission is. The bastards might have something hidden out there, waiting to ambush us. Which, if they do, means you will be hit with overwhelming force when you stick your nose in their nest.”

“We both know that is unlikely in this scenario, Admiral. But don’t worry. I’ll be as cautious as always.”

Mei had to laugh at that pronouncement from one of the most audacious destroyer commanders it had ever been her pleasure to command.

“And I want you to remain out there with your command. Don’t even think about trying to rejoin the main scout force. I want you to remain out there, near enough to a major asteroid.”

“But, why?”

“Don’t question this order, Commodore. Just do it. Understood?”

Mei terminated the connection before any other questions could arise. The young duke might not survive this war. There were no guarantees that any of them would. But she was determined that he wouldn’t die in this trap. She knew it was unfair to everyone else to play favorites this way, and she tried to avoid that practice. Unfortunately, she was still human, and sometimes needed to act like one.

“Any sign of their projector ships?” she asked some moments later when nothing better to ask entered her mind.

“No, ma’am. Of course, Admiral Suttler’s ships are the most likely to spot them first.”

Of course they are, thought the scout force commander. If she had had her way, those would be the only ships heading in. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the call that the Emperor and his staff had made. If they didn’t spring the trap then the Cacas would continue to kill the aliens on that planet, rounding them up and slaughtering a million a day. They could have killed more, in a more efficient manner. That wasn’t the point, as they wanted the humans to come, and a dead population was not bait.

She couldn’t have cared less for the Maurids, despite the help they were giving her Empire. From what she understood they were a nasty piece of work, who had committed numerous atrocities in the name of the Caca Emperor. She shook her head. It was doubtful that these particular Maurids had anything to do with those incidents. These were workers and families, not security agents. And that was a living world they were on, one whose distinctive genome would be lost to the universe if that planet were sterilized.

“Send to all ships,” she finally said, looking up from the small screen she had been studying. “Stay alert. It looks like the enemy is sitting in front of us, and that may be all they have. But it doesn’t pay to assume anything. All units are to act as if this is a standard enemy system defense we are heading into.”

Actually that might be true, though she didn’t think the enemy would waste any more ships than they had to in order to bait the trap. If there was a trap.

*     *     *

“And how go the executions, General?” asked the Emperor, looking at the face of the male on the holo. They had deployed two wormholes to the system, with a third in the observation force sitting in normal space a couple of light weeks beyond the barrier. While Jressratta didn’t like the idea of sacrificing any of the precious wormholes, never in sufficient supply for his side, not like those of the damned humans, he liked the idea of being in the loop even more.

“The bastards are fighting back, Supreme Lord,” said the senior officer on Kallfer, the fur on his face matted with sweat. “These aren’t just your ordinary slaves. They are all warriors by tradition, and they fight like such. I’m sure all of my people will be glad when this is over.”

Maybe not as glad as you think, fool, thought the Emperor. Ground troops were cheap, and if the sacrifice of these could lure more of the enemy’s expensive warships, hopefully with a number of wormholes, into the kill zone, he would spend their lives without any qualms.

“Show me an execution, General. I want to see one for myself.” He was starting to feel the tension of the wait, and thought that maybe the spectacle of traitors being killed might help relieve some of it.

With a grunt the image of the officer left the holo, replaced by a large square surrounded by low buildings of alien design. Hundreds of partial bodies lay along the side of the square. Another hundred Maurids were lined up against a wall showing the scorch marks of particle beam fire. About half were adults, the rest children, cowering at the feet of their parents. The adults snarled at their captors, and if they hadn’t had all of their limbs restrained, the Emperor was sure they would be charging the Ca’cadasans, attacking before they allowed themselves and their offspring to be slaughtered.

“These were the ones we were able to capture, Supreme Lord,” said the ground force commander. “We have to kill three for every one we capture. And we only get those we can stun before they close with us.”

The Emperor grunted. He knew the Maurids were not like their other slaves. The beings were not cowed like the others. That was an unfortunate result of the way the Empire had treated them. He thought it would have been better if they had been treated the same as the rest, their spirits broken. He didn’t consider that they might have fought back before they allowed that to happen, and the Empire might have been deprived of its best intelligence agents. Of course, it had still ended up that way, and it had hurt the Empire in ways they still couldn’t calculate.

The Caca soldiers stood in a line on the holos, drawing their rifles to an upper shoulder and aiming, awaiting the command. The Emperor leaned forward in his chair, anticipating the slaughter, the revenge on the traitorous creatures. The restraints fell away from the Maurids at the command sent from the firing squad commander. Restraints were in short supply, and they would be needed again.

The buzzing sound of particle beams filled the air, and the Emperor felt his excitement peak. But the beams didn’t come from the weapons of the soldiers, as angry red lines touched a dozen of the members of the firing squad. Red steam erupted and the males fell to the ground, the rest crouching and trying to find cover. The Emperor stared in shock as the guerillas struck before his sight.

The victims of the firing squad charged, even the young ones flying across the ground with frightening speed. Most of the Ca’cadasans were in battle armor, and the attacks on them accomplished nothing, though it allowed some of those waiting their turn for execution to get away, the few with the ability disabling the restraints from the others. The Ca’cadasans not in armor were something else entirely, and they went down under a flurry of razor sharp claws. Blood spurted, and more than a dozen of the males died under the claws of those they were about to murder.

More particle beams came in, striking at those in armor, dropping several to the ground. A full blown firefight erupted, the Maurids hidden and under cover while the Cacas tried their best to maneuver to safety.

“Burn down their neighborhoods, General,” ordered the flustered Emperor. He had been looking forward to seeing his enemies killed, and instead had been treated to a view of effective resistance. “I want the million a day killed, but if you happen to get more of them, so be it. Hit them from the air and from space.”

At the moment he didn’t care that everyone in the system was doomed anyway. In his rage he wanted as many slaughtered before the event as possible. That would cause more suffering among the Maurid people of the planet, until it was suddenly ended by the photon storm.

The holo died, and the Emperor turned an angry glare to his staff. “Who disconnected the com. I wasn’t finished with the general.”

“We thought you might rather have a look at the enemy force coming into the system, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief of Staff, gesturing to a larger holo over the center of the table.

“Yes,” said the easily distractible Emperor, turning his attention to the view of a thousand or more human warships, sailing into his trap. Lured by their sense of obligation to an ally. And about to pay the price for that sense.

“It looks as if they are split into several forces,” narrated the Chief of Staff, pointing to the formations. “This would be their scout force, splitting off smaller packets to check out the other bodies of the system, while the central force moves straight in toward the planet.”

“Why would they be sending other forces out to the asteroids and gas giants?” asked the confused Emperor, the military genius.

“They have to make sure that we’re not setting up a conventional trap,” explained one of the other admirals. “Supreme Lord,” he added hastily as the Emperor turned a venomous glance his way.

“And why aren’t they bombarding from a distance?”

“They don’t want to hit the planet, Supreme Lord. Our ships are all too close. If they send in the kind of missile storms we’re used to seeing, the odds are that one or more will miss a target and plow into the planet at relativistic speeds.”

“They are all fools, aren’t they?” said the Emperor, now in a celebratory mood in anticipation of seeing the enemy fleet destroyed. Forgotten completely was the spectacle of his troops slaughtered by the guerillas. “They’re like children who can’t deal with the reality of the universe.”

“Yes, Supreme Lord,” said a couple of the staff in unison. The high ranking officers all shot glances to each other, avoiding the eyes of their ruler. They all had the same thought. If the humans were such fools, why was the Empire having so many problems fighting them?

Chapter Fifteen

I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

JULY 1ST, 1004. KALLFER.

“Damn, but I wish we could just go ahead and hit them from a distance and stay out of this system,” said Admiral Conrad Alvera, the overall commander of the force now forging into the system, looking at the supreme battle force commander on the com holo.

“Me too, Admiral,” said Len, nodding. “Unfortunately, they’re crowding too close to the planet for that to work. Any storm we send in dense enough to take them out will hit that world, doing the Caca’s job for them.”

Alvera held his tongue. He realized how the Emperor felt about this mission, and revealing how he really felt about the Maurids would do little to endear himself to his monarch. And it might affect his chances of promotion, not the most important thing on his mind at the moment. Still, it was best to not burn any bridges through an inopportune comment.

Admiral Alvera glanced over at the plot, taking in his force as it boosted into the system. The line of no return was obvious on the plot, the point where they were committed to going into the system at least as far as the living world. He wished he had a line that showed him how far in they would have to be for their assured destruction, mainly so he could avoid that mark. Unfortunately, he had no orders to avoid that. And he thought a visible line on the plot would just increase the tension among his people as they watched the fleet creep toward it and beyond.

His force consisted of a hundred and fifty battleships, including one superbattleship, the flagship, but none of the newest class of super heavy ships. Two hundred and ninety-two cruisers and five hundred and sixty-six destroyers rounded out the force. Just over a thousand ships, fully crewed, loaded with weapons, many with wormholes. If the Caca fleet around the planet had been at full capability it would be a close battle, but no one expected that force to be fully manned. If they were, Alvera might find himself in a fight he couldn’t win. He was counting on the several hundred Alcubierre fighters limpeted to the hulls of his ships to redress the situation if it came to that. That and the eighty wormholes he carried with him, all able to send out streams of ultra-fast moving missiles. And if worst came to worst the fighters could make a run out of the system at faster than light, staying ahead of the raging wave of star fury, saving their crews. He couldn’t say the same for his other ships or crews. They wouldn’t be able to get up to faster than light, and the photon wave would overtake them within minutes of the stellar event.

There were other ships in his force as well. Seventy freighters were along, their grabbers set to duplicate that of a much smaller destroyer. A score of transports accompanied the battle force. The transports and logistics ships were empty of their normal cargo and troops, and were operating with minimal crew. Still, it wouldn’t be much comfort to those crews that only the minimal personnel had been sacrificed for the chance of saving some aliens that most wouldn’t give a good damn about.

And, of course, the sixty-four ships of Admiral Mei’s scout force. All of the warships had full crews, including complete Marine contingents. Otherwise they might not be combat effective, and losing them to missiles would mean much the same to those who died.

“Maybe you should get some rest, Admiral,” said the flag captain, standing to the side of his commander’s chair.

“I could pretend,” said Alvera, “but we both know that I won’t be sleeping until this thing is over.”

“We have some movement from the enemy fleet, sir,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.

“What do you think they’re up to, Tac?”

The tac officer was silent for some moments, studying the holo and thinking. “As far as I can tell, nothing, sir. It appears to be random movements among their vessels, some moving out of orbit, others moving in. Just putting out grabber emissions. Maybe to keep our interest on the way in.”

That made as much sense as anything else the Cacas were doing. The Cacas were not the most subtle of creatures at the best of times, and this trap had all the hallmarks of a clumsy effort. Despite that it was serving its purpose, drawing the humans in.

“Admiral Alvera,” came a familiar voice as another com holo came to life in the air.

What the hell does he want now, thought the admiral, resenting the backseat command he had to put up with. “Your Majesty.”

“Intelligence is warning that the Cacas might have some major weapons in orbit to use against the planet.”

Of course they do, thought the admiral, wondering why he was being bothered with information like that. They would have gigaton warheads for their missiles, if nothing else. Of course, if the Emperor wanted to tell him something, he had no choice but to listen.

“We’re thinking they might try to bombard the planet if they fail to set off the star. Be prepared to take out those ships from close in if it comes to that.”

“Of course,” said the admiral, nodding, still wondering why the young idiot was bothering him with things he already knew. It might not be possible to stop the enemy from bombarding the planet, no matter what he did. He’s terrified this is going to fail, thought the admiral. If it did, the admiral and all of his people wouldn’t have to worry about it, while the Emperor would bear the burden of his decision for the rest of his life.

Duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather, thought the admiral, one of his favorite quotes from his history lessons at the academy. The unknown Japanese officer who had first said that had struck a cord with the then young ensign. Duty meant worry, for self and others, while death meant the cessation of all concerns. Still, all things considered, he would rather have the weight of the mountain on him that the feather lightness of death. That the Emperor would have that mountain on him was about the only recompense he might gain on this mission.

“The enemy are releasing missiles, sir,” called out the tactical officer, looking back. “Estimating over a thousand, on a heading for the lead scout force.”

“Well, we expected it,” said the admiral, hoping that Mei would have enough defensive firepower to ward her force.

*      *      *

“Why are we firing at them?” asked the Emperor, leaning forward in his chair.

“We have to make them think we are going to defend the system, Supreme Lord,” answered the Chief of Staff. “Otherwise, they might smell a trap and vector out.”

The Emperor gave a head motion of acknowledgment, though he still wasn’t sure of the reasoning. The ships in orbit around and near the planet were not fully functional warships. Even the real warships had given up about half of their grabber capacity and electromagnetic projectors, as well as every particle beam weapon. They carried at most three full volleys of weapons. The majority of the ships were the commercial variety that had been made up to look like warships with added plating of thin metal. As long as they only maneuvered close to the planet and didn’t push it, the deception should work. And as long as the enemy didn’t hit them with a missile storm. Both of those events would show that this was a paper fleet, a sacrificial offering to lure in the human ships without offering too much of the Ca’cadasan fleet for destruction. There was only one fully functional super battleship in the lineup, taking on the task of simulating the com traffic of a fleet. The other three superbattleships, seven supercruisers and dozen or so scouts were at about fifty percent capacity, with half of their normal crews.

As backup there were some hundred missile pods in orbital defense sats, some limpeted to hulls, others in orbit. Cheap and effective for planetary defense, they were too vulnerable to handle an attack, and would have to be used before they came under enemy fire. Still, they gave the Ca’cadasan fleet over five thousand more capital ship missiles, hopefully enough to make the humans think they were facing an actual fleet.

“Too bad the humans aren’t sending in more ships,” said Jresstratta, staring at the plot, ignoring the people around him.

“We would have needed an even larger deception force to lure in more, Supreme Lord,” said one of the other admirals. “We wouldn’t have been able to spring the trap for some additional weeks.”

“And the second part of this exercise was to show the rest of the Empire, the slaves, their fate if they betrayed us,” said General Hafftralas, bowing his head. “It was most important to get that message across quickly, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was,” growled the Emperor. “Don’t patronize me, General. I am not a child. But it’s even more important to hurt the humans. To let them know that they can’t operate in our space without the risk of total destruction.”

“It will cause them pause, Supreme Lord,” said Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse, the chief of staff. “But it will not stop them. I fear they will eventually resort to long range bombardment to take out our systems, no matter the cost to planets.”

“Then why in all the hells did we resort to this?” screamed the Emperor, pointing at the holo.

“It was the best we could come up with at this time,” said the Chief of Staff in a reasonable tone. “We can only do so much.”

“You can do what I ask of you,” yelled Jresstratta, slamming two fists onto the table. “I am the Emperor, and you are sworn to follow my orders. And I order you to stop the humans.”

“Perhaps this plan will aid in that effort,” said one of the junior admirals, trying to calm the Emperor.

The Emperor stared at the male for a moment, until the admiral looked away. Still, Jresstratta smiled. After all, the trap had not yet been sprung, the losses hadn’t been totaled up, and the humans might take the lesson that he wanted to impart from this event. If they could be slowed, the enormous industrial might of the Ca’cadasan Empire might still come into play and defeat the humans. They were converting everything they could to military production, churning out more shipyards, anti-matter sats, even a few more wormhole production facilities. In another year they would double their shipbuilding capacity. If they could halt the humans on both fronts, eventually they could build up a reserve and counter-attack, recapturing the initiative and driving the enemy back into human space.

By the Gods, I will go down in our histories as the Emperor who saved the Empire. The greatest of all time. While his mind traversed flights of fancy, thoughts of failure left him, and he watched the unfolding battle from the viewpoint of his fantasy world.

*     *     *

“We have incoming missiles,” called out the scout force tactical officer. “Counting one thousand and fifteen weapons, boosting at eight thousand gravities.”

So, they’re using their older weapons here, thought Mei, thinking that further proof that this was a setup.

The Cacas had started the war with missiles that could accelerate at eight thousand gravities, while the human weapons could only pull five thousand. Soon the human forces were fielding weapons that could accel at ten thousand gravities, and shortly thereafter further increased their boost over a short course to fifteen. The Cacas were now following suit, though they still had a number of the older missiles in their inventory. But in a real fight it would be expected that most of the missiles fired at the humans would be the newer variety. That they weren’t was proof that the Cacas weren’t wasting resources on this fight that they didn’t have to. Didn’t it?

“Launch fighters. Let’s get some missile defense out in front of us.”

The battle cruisers each carried a squadron of sixteen normal space fighters, each with eight short range interceptor missiles. The fighters were obsolete as attack birds, only useful for close in defense of their launching ships. Theoretically they could take out half this missile swarm, leaving only five hundred for the defenses of the ships to handle. If the enemy didn’t launch another volley. If intelligence was correct about what they were facing, there would be no more volleys coming their way. If not, they would be facing another, and maybe another after that, and she would be losing ships in icreasing numbers.

“Should we return fire, ma’am?”

“No. We can’t risk a hit to the planet.”

“We could target these out here,” replied the officer, highlighting a group of ships to the north of the planet. “Any misses will just continue on into space. No danger to the planet at all.” The tracks of the proposed missiles appeared on the plot, leading the motion of the planet’s orbit to arrive at the enemy ships as they moved into the target space. The misses continued on, into the system.

“If those ships are what intelligence thinks they are, then we will have to notice something is wrong,” said Mei, her tone indicating that she was using this as a teaching moment. “They’ll have to wonder why we are still coming in, when it obvious we don’t need this kind of force to take out what they have. So, no, we will not fire on those ships. Yet.”

“As you wish, ma’am,” said the disappointed tactical officer. He looked up a moment later. “They’re firing another volley.”

“At us?” asked an alarmed admiral, looking over at the main plot.

“They appear to be heading our general direction,” said the officer, inputting information on his board and looking over the results. “High confidence they are targeting the battle force. Seventy-eight percent.”

Which meant there was still a twenty-two percent chance that they would target the scout force. The probabilities would firm up in time, but it would still make for a tense fifteen or twenty minutes until they did.

“We ride it out, Tac. Anything else would violate the battle plan, and it isn’t time to make changes.”

The officer again didn’t look happy, but nodded his acceptance and went back to work on his board, running situations, going over every possibility so he could input the solution in if needed.

At least he can stay busy, thought the admiral, whose only job now was to look confident as they continued to stick their heads into the mouth of the beast.

*     *     *

JULY 2ND, 1004.

“Still no sign of the enemy projection ships?” asked Suttler, staring at the plot as if his concentration would cause them to appear.

“No sir.”

“I want a projection of where they will most likely be when our force crosses the line of no return,” ordered the admiral, looking at his tactical officer. “Then track back to where they must be to get there in the appointed time.”

If they were hidden someplace nearby that might work. Since they didn’t know the absolute maximum range of the projectors, they had no way of knowing where the enemy had to be. There were a couple of dozen close in antimatter production sats, and one small rocky planet, all about the same distance from the star. But still no sign of anything leaving any of those objects and moving into position.

Suttler wondered for a moment why there were any sats in orbit at all. He checked the information on past events and found that they always left some, the rest having been disassembled and taken out of the system. He guessed that they wanted it to appear like the system was still up and running, which made sense, though they always left too few to actually make it look right. The ones they left were stripped of every bit of equipment they had. The linear accelerators used to flip the charge of the particles and separate out the volatile substance. Computer controls, crystal matrix battery backups. Everything but the structure and the photovoltaic cells on the long wings. The sats still in orbit didn’t look like the ones that Suttler was used to seeing in the Empire, which didn’t surprise him. Looking closely, he had to admit that they looked like functional antimatter sats. So he turned his attention to trying to locate something else.

They have to know that if they moved too soon, they might scare us off. But they also can’t just ramp everything up and head full bore to their positions, can they? If they do that they might draw our fire, and we could possibly destroy all or most of them before they could get into position. So where it the hell are they?

Admiral Mei had spotted some heading into position in the last system she had been in, by the star they had intended to detonate. That had allowed her to find them, fix them, and target them, sneaking in for the kill. The Cacas had to be aware of what she did, and that would entice them to make an effort to hide their ships. That, and the realization that they couldn’t show their hand to early and expect the humans to forge in.

His ships would be in position to engage in twelve hours. If he knew where the targets were at that time he could take them in passing, the stealth/attack ships making minimal corrections to their courses. If he didn’t know where they were, and only acquired them on close approach, there was the possibility that his ships might have to boost at a rate that would light them up on every sensor in the system. It was preferred, at least with these kind of vessels, to make the attack from hiding, and not to get into a slugging match. He didn’t know if the vessels he was coming after were fully armed, but if they were, a slugging match was the last thing he wanted.

Hell, even it they’re just armed with some defensive lasers, I don’t want to get into that kind of a fight, thought the admiral, who had killed his share of ships from stealth during this war. Just give me a fat dumb target here at the end.

“Command is asking if we have acquired targets yet,” said the com officer. “They’re sounding pretty insistent.”

“Tell them not yet. But when we do, they’ll be the first to know.”

The enemy had to bring those ships online at some point, or their trap would fail. Wouldn’t it? The problem would come when he had to change vectors, boost beyond what they could cover up with stealth, and give themselves away to the enemy. At that point it would no longer be a sneak attack, and they might find themselves in a knife fight. Not what he wanted. He definitely preferred the blade from the dark, a nice peaceful assassination.

*     *     *

“Admiral Suttler is reporting no targets in sight,” called out one of the com officers from the floor of the war room.

“Damn,” growled Sondra McCullom, looking out over the floor from the high rankers’ station up on the north wall. “We need to locate those ships.”

“Maybe they aren’t there,” said the Empress, her holo image sitting next to that of the Emperor in the virtual conference.

“Not a chance, your Majesty,” said Len, also attending by virtual avatar. “If this wasn’t a trap they wouldn’t be making such clumsy attempts at trying to sucker us in.”

So why aren’t we seeing them? thought the CNO, shaking her head. She couldn’t think of any way of hiding them so close to a star. They couldn’t sit down in the photosphere for long, not with the heat they would be absorbing, unable to radiate away. If sitting further out they still would absorb a lot of heat, and the backdrop of the star would make some of them easier to spot. Could they be hiding on the one planet? If so, they needed to move quickly to get into position. So far there had been no indication of anything moving. And if they waited and spotted Suttler’s force, would they even bother moving? They had to, or the entire setup would be a waste, Caca ships killed for little return.

“Missiles arriving at the Scout Force. Admiral Mei reporting that four hundred and twenty are entering their long range defense envelop. Starting to engage.”

The CNO looked over at the image of the Emperor. The man was grasping the hand of his wife, his face a study of concentrated concern. He knows a lot of these people, she thought. Not that he wouldn’t still be concerned over a bunch of people he didn’t know personally. He was that kind of leader. But knowing some of the primary actors and their histories made it seem much more real.

“Where is the point of no return?” asked Sean, his image leaning forward.

“Admiral Mei has already reached it,” said one of the staffers, manning a station in the smaller chamber. “Her detached commands will not be passing it, but her primary command has just pushed through.”

“We doubt the Cacas will set off their trap just to catch her smaller force, your Majesty,” McCollum reminded her liege lord. “At the moment the battle force isn’t in the basket, and it would be a waste to set it off.”

“Wouldn’t it still kill all of those slaves on the planet?” asked the Empress, squeezing her husband’s hand even tighter.

They could kill all of them for all I care, thought the CNO, stopping herself in the middle of a headshake. Not that she didn’t care about the aliens. Even if they weren’t allies, or potential ones at least, they were still thinking beings. But it was her ships and crews that were being put to risk. And it would be her logistics ships that would have to support this system and the more than a billion sentients there until they could get it on its feet again. More strain on the system that was already struggling to support a huge fleet far from home.

“We’re not going to let that happen,” said the Emperor, shooting a glance at his CNO.

McCullom nodded back. She had to agree with the man who gave the orders. She could disagree with certain decisions, but not with ones that had already been hashed out and finalized. Not if she wanted to keep her job.

“General Walborski is reporting that the resistance is hitting the Caca fort closest to their wormhole gate,” called out a woman in the uniform of an Imperial Army com officer. She looked back with a smile on her face. “They caught them completely flat footed.”

“That’s their garrison controlling the landing field,” said Sean, looking at his wife. “With that in hand, it will be much more difficult for them to service their aircraft.”

That was all well and good if they wanted to keep the Caca army from killing more of the natives. If they didn’t stop the stellar event none of this would matter, and they would be lucky to get the two companies of Rangers that had gone over for support back through the wormhole.

“The General reports that he hasn’t had such a good time since Azure,” said the com officer with a slight smile that quickly turned into a frown as she looked back at the Emperor.

“And why in the hell is he having such a good time?” asked Sean, his voice rising. “Just where in the hell is Walborski now?”

“He’s on the planet, your Majesty,” said the stammering com officer.

“What? That little bastard disobeyed a direct Imperial order that he not enter a combat zone,” hissed the Emperor.

His face reddened with rage, and McCullom wasn’t sure that she had ever seen her monarch this angry. The Empress leaned over and whispered something in his ear as she rubbed a hand over his closest shoulder.

“He will pay for this, if he survives. He better hope a Caca kills his ass.”

McCullom cringed a little. She didn’t know what was coming Walborski’s way, but she was very happy that she wasn’t in his shoes.

Sean suddenly started to laugh, a deep booming that came from the gut and was a sign of true humor. “He’s a force of nature, and far be it from me to try and control him. Maybe I should just bust him down to private and let him lose on the Cacas. Their worst fear.”

“Don’t your dare turn him back into a commoner,” said the Empress, turning a scowl on her husband. “Devra is just getting used to being called countess.”

“Oh, I won’t take away his patent of nobility. But it might do him good to serve as a common soldier while still holding the title of count.”

The Empress laughed, a musical sound that the CNO envied, her own sounding like the bray of a donkey. There were a few other chuckles in the room as the mood lightened for a moment.

The mood in the chamber immediately sobered as more reports came in.

“You think he’ll make it off that planet?” asked the Empress, a different level of concern in her voice.

“Hell, what difference will it make? I don’t think a mere exploding star can kill that stupid bastard.” The Emperor looked back at McCullm, shrugging his shoulders.

She knew what she would do to a combat commander who was so good at his job and insisted on going into battle. She would supply him with whatever he needed and let him go. Of course, in this case there was the little matter of disobeying a direct order from the Emperor. Then again, that was Sean’s concern, and no one elses.

“The missile storm has reached scout force,” said one of the com techs on the main floor, his voice coming out of the audio in the chamber. “Hits reported to two destroyers and a light cruiser. Lost with all hands. More reporting near misses. Some damage to the flagship. They survived,” continued the voice with some relief.

McCullom frowned. Losing a cruiser and a couple of tin cans, while the rest of the force survived, was not a bad outcome. Still, any losses were of concern, and not just because they were subtractions from her overall order of battle.

“Any more reports from Suttler?” asked the CNO, pulling up the holo of the com officer responsible for contact.

“No, ma’am. Should I ask for a progress report?” asked the talking head in the holo.

“No. Not yet.” McCullom killed that link and pulled up another. The leader of one of the analysis sections appeared. “Okay, Meg. I want you and your team to look over all of the data being sent in by Suttler’s ships. I need you to find those projection ships, and find them now.”

“We’ll do our best ma’am,” said the commander in charge of that brain trust.

“Do better. And if you find them I’ll see every one of your people promoted. You might just get one yourself.”

McCullom cut the link, knowing that she had put the mission in the best hands she could. And thankful that the wormhole net gave her advantages that no other Chief of Naval Operations had ever enjoyed. Like the ability to take data from a front line battle and feed it to specialized analyst sections who could look it over, then get the information back to her units in an instant.

“Think they can find those ships, when Bryce and his people can’t?” asked Sean, brow furrowing.

“It doesn’t matter to me who finds it,” said Sondra, shaking her head. “But adding another set of brains to the equation can’t hurt.” And the incentive was there for those brains to wrack themselves to come up with a solution.

*     *     *

That’s another one, thought the man known in the Rangers as The Hunter, firing his particle beam and blasting a hole through a Caca helmet. He liked the weapon he was using, a particle beam rifle similar to that used by the heavy infantry. It was really too much weapon for a light soldier. For the physically augmented Rangers it was no problem, and had the capability to blast through the armor of the heavy Caca infantry almost instantly.

I better enjoy it now, he thought, listening while keeping under cover, setting up his next kill. He wasn’t sure what Sean would do, though he doubted the friend he had served as best man and who was godfather to his newest child would throw him in a dungeon under the Imperial Palace. Since there wasn’t such a dungeon, that wasn’t possible, but some other possibilities came to mind. Possibly a public prison, one with an actual view of the ocean, but not something dank and dark.

He knew he had screwed up. There was no way he could deploy himself to the battle lines and the Emperor not find out. But what else was he supposed to do? It killed him inside to send others into a fight while he sat light years away in safety. There was a difference between being a company, or even battalion commander, and sending troops into battle from an office. You shared their hardships, and could join in the fight when needed. But becoming a REMF, a rear echelon mother, was not something he relished.

Around him were a hundred and eighty Rangers and almost a thousand Maurids. The Rangers were all augmented, faster and quicker than just about anything else on the battlefield. The Maurids were almost as good with just their natural abilities. All moved almost too fast for the eye to follow, and fired from good positions with sure kills.

The Caca soldiers were not very good, and that was being kind. The general had fought against their first line troops, and while they had never been as good as the men on his side, they had at least been competent. These were definitely second line troops. Possibly specialists at some other military trade, probaby the techs who serviced the aircraft that lay scattered about the field. But not infantry.

Cornelius timed his move to coincide with the rush of a trio of Maurids. The aliens were not armored, and any hit to their bodies with a particle beam was fatal. While the Cacas had to be hit in specific areas. That, or the beam had to maintain contact for over a second. One of the Maurids went down, his head converted to red steam, while the other pair snapped off shots that must have been misses. The general calculated the angle on the Caca from the beam, waited until he fired again, this a miss on a Maurid, then scooted his head and shoulders around the side of a barrier and lined up the shot. The easy stroke of a trigger and the angry red beam linked barrel with Caca head, burning through the light faceplate and incinerating the face beyond.

One of the Maurids raised a thumb up in a very human gesture. Walborski returned one of his own, glad to have the aliens on his side. He had started this war hating the aliens, in service to the Cacas, when the only contact he had with them had been as belligerents. Since then he had seen the other side of them, and had come to like and respect them. He felt bad using these as basic meat shields to soak up enemy fire, but the Maurids seemed okay with that. They could tell they were in the presence of a superior warrior, one whose best use was to kill, not to absorb fire. And they were more than happy to set up those kills.

Something exploded in the near distance, a loud crump, while a fireball rose into the sky. His Rangers were at work, setting charges on the aircraft they could get to. The craft were of no use to his people. Humans and Maurids couldn’t pilot them, made as they were for the larger forms of Cacas. Destroyed, they were no threat to his side, and the way they were taking them out there was no way the enemy would every get them back into service.

One of the Maurids waved to him, then gestured to a pair of his compatriots. Walborski nodded, then readied himself. The three Maurids moved, almost blurs, coming out into the open and firing. One of the blurs went down, stopping in place and falling back with a large hole through its torso. Cornelius triangulated the beam, rose up over the barrier, and fired, taking down yet another Caca trooper.

He dropped back down before the Cacas could return fire and looked over at the Maurids. The two were still there, and another, this one unarmed, came back up to take the weapon of their compatriot who had just been killed. It reminded the general of battles in Earth’s past that he had read about, particularly the second great war of the twentieth century, when forces didn’t always have enough weapons to go around.

His people had initially brought along fifty thousand particle beam rifles, with spare proton packs and batteries, but he had over a million he could have armed. Thousands more weapons were coming through every day, but they needed to be moved and distributed, not always an easy task with the Cacas controlling the air and orbitals. The aircraft, what were left, were now patrolling with caution, and not doing as much as they could. The bombardment platforms in orbit were something the rebels couldn’t do anything about.

The fight went on for some time, what seemed like an hour but only taking minutes, as the warriors pushed through the defenses a layer at a time. The Cacas might not have been the most skilled at ground warfare, but no one could doubt their courage. They fought hard. They died hard. The most important thing to Cornelius was that they died, and the rebels and their allies pushed through to get to the command and control center.

The whole while the Hunter kept looking up to the sky, something crouching in the back of his mind screaming at him that death was coming from that star. He cursed himself for a fool. He would not see it coming. It would engulf this world without warning, and he would vanish as his body boiled away, along with that of every other living creature on the surface. Those on the night side would live a little longer. But within minutes the heat wave would be working its way around the circumference of the globe, an hour and everything on that side would also be dead.

There was nothing to do but keep on forging ahead, and leave the fight in space to the Fleet. That was always the way it was with the ground pounders. They lived and died according to the performance of the Fleet, no matter what they did. But they might live if they won on the ground, while they were surely dead if they didn’t win.

*     *     *

“How much longer?” whined the Emperor, looking over the plot that seemed to be made up of unchanging glacial movements, ships crawling across the view.

“Patience, Supreme Lord. The enemy is still moving into our basket.”

“And you guarantee that the people aboard the projection platforms will do their jobs?”

“I give you my word that they will,” said the Chief of Staff.

“On your life, Supreme Admiral,” said the murderous youngster with a smile on his face.

The chamber was silent for some moments, no one wanting to catch the attention of their monarch. That personage zoomed the view in on one of the platforms, sitting in plain sight near the star. The idea had been reworked so they didn’t need the number of crew that the ships had. And supposedly they had gotten more non-believers to crew them, on the promise of riches and advancement for their family. Not enough, and there were still some believers on those ships, a concern that had to be watched closely. There were very few non-believers who would actually volunteer for a suicide mission, but they did exist. Now, if only they would engage the hyperdrive generators when needed, all would go as planned.

“Any indication that the humans know where our devices are?” asked Jressratta, rubbing his lower hands together.

“Not a sign,” said another of the many admirals or generals in the chamber. “No grabber emissions. They have nothing in the neighborhood, and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late.”

“Very good,” said the Emperor, staring at the image of the platform. “But can’t we hurry this up. I would like to eat an actual meal this day.”

“Battles don’t always advance according to a timetable, Supreme Lord,” cautioned the Chief of Staff in a calming voice. “Remember, the enemy has his own plans, and is not interested in furthering ours.”

“I know that, you fool,” roared the Emperor, slamming two fists down on the table and knocking over a couple of mugs of strong drink. “I am not a child. I have trained in strategy and tactics, so there is nothing you can teach me.”

All of the males looked away from the young fool who knew next to nothing about the military and how things worked. All wished that the father was still alive and in charge. The elder Jresstratta would actually haved listened to his advisors, and would make decisions based on thought, not impulsive emotion. They would still probably be losing under the direction of the father, who was already losing at the time of his death. But there would still be a chance under Jresstratta IVs informed leadership.

“I will be back in a couple of hours,” said the Emperor, getting up from his throne like chair. “Make sure the final act doesn’t kick off before I get back.”

The senior staff exchanged knowing looks as the young male walked out of the chamber. They really didn’t care where he was going, only that he was leaving their presence. As far as all of them were concerned, he could stay away, but no one would voice that opinion. They couldn’t be that lucky, of course.

*     *     *

“We’re down to point zero five light, sir,” called out the helm.

“Very good,” said Suttler, looking back over the plot. All of his ships were represented on that plot. They weren’t the real plots. Every ship was pulling only a couple of gravities, and weren’t giving off enough gravitons for even their sisters to pick up. They were representations of the best predicted positions by inertial navigation. They really didn’t have to be that accurate, since the ships were far enough from each other that collisions were basically impossible. The positions of everything else was also well plotted, so they were safe enough on that front.

The tracks of the stealth ships were diverging, all pushing gently into individual courses. About half were well ahead of the others, a gap that had been growing throughout the voyage. Some would swing around the star and start back out, needing time to decel and come back in. They still couldn’t push their grabbers too hard, so it would take time to come back.. And if they still hadn’t located the targets by that time and had to swing around again? They would be forced into orbits of the star that avoided collisions with anything in orbit with them. Hopefully they would still be in attack positions when the time came and the targeting became clear. Unfortunately, there would be some times when there were too many ships in some regions and none in others. It would be so much easier if they could just lock onto the targets on the first pass and get it over with.

Hell, it takes an hour for them to stir up the star enough for it to blast off, doesn’t it? he thought. Of course that was for the full out event. If it was interrupted early what would happen? Would the star settle down after shedding some prominences? Or would it still eject matter, and if so how much?

It was maddening. He had been on missions where the target wasn’t visible at first, but those came with no time constraints. Or there were time limits, and the targets were clear, like the strike they had done on the Caca battle station in Imperial space. And the more time that went by, the greater the chance his command would be spotted. There were no ships nearby, at least none they were aware of. But they could launch from a distance and send enough missiles in to take out some of his ships even without a clear target.

“Any sign of our targets,” he asked, sending the question back to his exec, in the combat information center and spending all of his time going over passive returns.

“No, sir. And I have something troubling to report.”

“Give it.”

“We’re absorbing a lot of radiation from the star. It’s starting to radiate from our hulls, and much more and we will be spotted.”

“Can’t we pull the heat away through our wormhole?”

“You would think so, sir. Unfortunately, the cooling system is configured to pull heat from our reactors and the grabbers, and that is why the superconductor fluid runs concentrate on those areas. The runs to the hull are sparse, and I think the engineers never envisioned a situation where one of this class would have to operate so close to a star.”

“Great. So, what do we do about it?”

“Nothing, sir. We’ll just have to live with the heat radiation. There’s no way to reroute the superconducting fluid without a lot of work. More than we have time for.”

“Contact Fleet and let them know about our new difficulty. Make sure they know we’re confident we can continue the mission.” He wasn’t completely sure about that last, but what else could he tell them? Suttler looked at the plot, zooming out and picking up the Fleet groups moving into the system.

Of course they would continue the mission. They had no choice, unless they wanted to order the incoming ships to push their grabbers at max and try to vector out of the system. A quick thought showed their most likely vectors, along with their entry into what they thought was the globe of total destruction. There was no way they would get out before the enemy detonated the outer shell of the star.

“And keep trying to find those targets.”

“Still nothing but those antimatter sats, sir. Unless they’ve got some stealth technology we haven’t heard of, they’re not here yet.”

Unless they’re hanging out inside that rocky world, thought Bryce, zooming in on the planet and staring at the surface, hoping to find an opening that would show where the enemy ships would come out. The planet was small but dense, with a third of a standard gravity on the surface. A warship could definitely be sitting underneath that surface, lying in a cradle, ready to lift on grabbers and move out into an orbit of the star. Suttler ran a program, looking at how fast the ships could move into their proper position at five hundred gravities. He came up with twenty odd minutes, but there was also no telling if they couldn’t push the ships harder than five hundred gravities. With inertia tubes, fluid filled containers that would allow crew to handle thirty additional gravities, they could cut a couple of minutes off of that. Without crew they could get up to seven or even eight hundred gravities, getting the deployment down to less than ten minutes.

I could head toward that planet, using its bulk to shade us from the star, and wait. That was tempting, if he was correct. They could just wait there and blast the Caca ships out of space as soon as they appeared. Unless they appeared someplace else, and the Imperial ships were out of position. They still might be able to engage most of the targets, but not all of them. Crap, this was starting to hurt his mind.

The admiral knew his capabilities and limitations. He was a better than average stealth/attack ship commander, a decent tactician, but working puzzles had never been his forte’. Maybe they should have sent someone else to command this squadron, he thought, doubting that he was going to make this work.

If he fought the enemy ships and didn’t have stealth to his advantage, what were his chances against twelve Caca capital ships. Not good was all he could think. He checked the internal sensors and saw that they would be easily discovered within an hour. Then it would be his fragile ships against the heavily armored vessels that would have been his prey.

Dammit, he thought, slamming his hand into the arm of his command chair. That’s no way for a flag rnnk commander to think. There was still time, and he wasn’t the only one looking at the problem. He had the striking power to take out the enemy ships, if used properly. And if the enemy acted in time to give him a chance.

Chapter Sixteen

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. Frederick Douglass

“I’m almost out of protons, General,” called out one of the nearer Rangers.

“More should be coming up,” called back Cornelius, ducking under a shot that seared his eyebrows.

He hoped that was true. His people, few of them that there were, needed to stay in the fight. The Maurids who had been trained soldiers were good, if not quite as good as the Rangers. Unfortunately, many of them weren’t trained soldiers. Most of those on the planet had been rounded up in the first sweep by the Cacas, who had records on all the residents. Those they didn’t get had run as soon as the roundup had started. A couple of hundred of those who weren’t skilled in combat were drafted into service in support. That was all very good in theory, but it seemed to be breaking down.

“I think they’re falling back,” called out another Ranger, rising up and firing over the obstacle he was covering behind, then falling back minus a head.

Cornelius cursed. It was all well and good to fight according to the rules of close combat, never looking over objects, only around the sides. Sometimes the terrain didn’t allow for that, and people had to take the shots they could get. He had lost several men who had looked over instead of around, and he had seen many more Maurids go down after making that mistake.

“Ammo coming up,” called out a Maurid in heavily accented Terranglo. The being crawled up and started handed out the proton packs and batteries, slapping them into every hand reaching out for one, then moving on.

“I wonder if he understood what he was saying?” asked a Ranger sergeant, Xi by name.

There was no telling. Some of the Maurids had been taught just enough Terranglo to let the humans know what they wanted, or what they were bringing. The general really didn’t care, as long as they kept bringing up what was needed.

To his right a pair of Maurids went down while they were shifting positions. More fire came in, and the general started to think that the Cacas were not falling back after all. He looked around the side of the partial wall that was his current cover, then took a couple of quick shots before sliding back.

“Are we really accomplishing anything here, General,” asked the Ranger sergeant who had questioned the linguistic faculties of the Maurids. “I mean, if the star blows, we’re just wasting our time, aren’t we?”

Cornelius looked up at the sky and the bright point of light up there. He wasn’t sure if it had gotten brighter. In fact, he wasn’t sure what the star would look like just before the photon storm arrived to strip the flesh from his bones, just before it ashed the bones as well.

“If it blows, we’re going to die,” said Walborski, looking into the Xi’s eyes. “If it doesn’t blow, we’ll need to kill all of these Cacas. So let’s just hope the Fleet does its job, and we get to do the job on these bastards.”

“And it doesn’t scare you that the star might blow up any second?”

“Hell yes it scares me, but no more than the possibility that I might have my head blown off in this fight. It’s all the same. Dead is dead. So I’ll live and fight while I’m able.”

Cornelius looked up again, wondering if the star was bearing down on them with more heat. He had lied slightly when he had told Sergeant Xi that it didn’t matter to him. There was something he could do about his being killed by the Cacas. There was nothing he could do about the star, or about the actions the Fleet was taking to stop it from going off. Still, he thought it better to kill Cacas while he could, on the hope that Kallfer wasn’t going to go sub-supernova and kill them all.

*     *     *

“There’s another one of them, Lord,” said the sensor officer, looking over at the low admiral, Phlirassaa, commanding the projection force.

“What is that so far. Ten?”

“Yes. I’m betting there are some more of them, lord” said the lower ranking male. “Should we fire?”

“No. I think not. Not yet. We’ll wait until more of them appear. But target them, passive only, and be prepared to fire when the time comes.”

The other male gave a head motion of acknowledgement and went back to working his sensors. The rest of the bridge crew, who had been watching the exchange, went back to doing what they had been tasked to do, working their stations.

The chamber seemed hot to the low admiral. It always seemed hot, which made sense since they were so close to the star. The huge darkside radiators struggled to keep the inside temperature down, not always successfully. Everyone in earshot was working quietly, all anxious to get the mission over with.

Well, soon, thought the admiral, looking at the plot hanging in the middle of the unusual ship. He really didn’t like the idea of dying any more than the rest of them. His loyalty to the empire, as well as the promised reward to his family had led him to this point, were of paramount importance. And he wasn’t about to back down without fulfilling his oaths.

And they haven’t seemed to have spotted us yet, he thought with some disbelief. Of course they were looking for superbattleships, and were expecting what they were looking for. Not something that looked like an object with an entirely different purpose, like the vessels in his command.

At least his people were volunteers, unlike the poor males in the army and fleet units further out. Some of those were, the other admiral for one, but many had been ordered here to fill a role in the deception, and had no idea what was about to happen. That was unfortunate, and dishonorable of the high command, and nothing he could do anything about. He paced the deck of the bridge, lower hands behind his back, upper swinging at his side, listening to the conversation between the crew as they fired information back and forth. The reactors were ready to ramp up, the hyperdrive projectors checked and rechecked. When the time came they would be ready.

And we don’t even have a name, thought the admiral, snorting. That was also against tradition, but then everything about these vessels was against the traditions of the fleet and the species. Males could be ordered into situations where they were unlikely to survive. Until recently, and that word unlikely had been dropped from some mission briefs, replaced with simply not to survive. So the dozen great ships waited for their ride with death.

“We have some more traitors, my Lord,” came a call over the com, a holo opening up in the air beside the admiral, showing the face of his security chief.

“What were they doing?”

“Plotting to sabotage the hyperdrive projectors when the time came,” said the other male, the holo panning to show a trio of males on their knees.

The admiral shook his head in the way of his people when they were saddened. They had tried to weed out males that might obey the Church before they performed their duty to the Empire. Having smaller crews than were needed on true warships had helped. Projection Ship Number Fifty-three only had a couple of hundred males aboard, versus the more than four thousand for a real battleship, and everyone had been questioned before their assignment to the vessel. Still, some Church provocateurs had obviously slipped aboard each of the vessels, and constant monitoring had exposed many of them. All of them? The admiral thought not, though he truly hoped that there weren’t that many of them still active.

He wasn’t sure how many might have been caught aboard the other ships as the time for firing came. They wouldn’t risk com for such information that might be traced. Hopefully not as many as on Fifty-three. If there had been more he wouldn’t have been surprised. If there were they would have to make do without them. The ship could function with a crew as small as a dozen, though then they ran the risk that any major malfunctions or damage couldn’t be repaired in time.

“What do you want us to do with them, my Lord?”

“Give them a burial in space,” replied the low admiral.

The males were hustled to their feet and led away. They had a date with an airlock.

“The Gods will punish you, Admiral,” yelled out one of the saboteurs, turning an angry face toward the camera. “The Gods will have their revenge on our people for this abomination.”

The admiral shuddered. While not a devout follower of the Church, he still carried some of the beliefs instilled in him since childhood. He didn’t like the idea that he was going to commit one of the greatest sins of his religion. He also didn’t like the idea of disobedience to his emperor. He had made his choice, and had to hope that those who thought the religion a sham were correct. He knew the empire was real, and that it was in trouble. About the Gods he was not so sure.

*     *     *

“They caught three of our fellows,” whispered one of the engineering techs, looking over at the sub-officer who was the leader of his section.

“And we’ll be caught if we don’t watch out,” said the senior, looking around as if he would spot any of the nanite surveillance devices. So far this area of the ship had remained clear of them, thanks to the strong magnetic fields of the superconductor coils that fed power into the hyperdrive.

“Soon we won’t have to worry about that,” said the tech, also looking around.

That is true, thought the sub-officer, what would be called an engineering chief petty officer on a human vessel. The officers might be in charge of the working of the vessel, but he and his fellow chiefs were the real heart of any Ca’cadasan ship. Nothing worked without them. And the chief was hoping that this one wouldn’t work when the time came.

“We do the work of the Gods,” said the chief, holding up a hand and making the sign of the God of Life, Philastees, one of the most powerful in the pantheon. “But we don’t do their work by failing before the time comes. So hold your tongue out there. Let’s go.”

The pair walked from the alcove where they had been talking, carrying their tool kits as they moved, playing the part of males who had been performing maintenance. Heads turned their way, and the chief forced himself not to meet the eyes of those who were in his flock. They never knew who was watching, and looks could give away the game before it was time to act.

Engineering was a hive of activity. Systems that normally worked to perfection on most warships tended to develop glitches on these jury rigged monstrosities. Add to that the constant heat and radiation of a close star, and keeping everything running was a true nightmare.

“We need some people to look at the laser power runs,” called out an officer.

“What’s going on?” asked one of the engineering crew.

The sub-officer had to wonder that as well. They had thought that the heavy weapons systems installed on the ship were more of an afterthought than anything. What need for them on a ship that would be destroyed well before any enemy got close enough for lasers to be of use? Much less missile launch tubes.

“All you need to know is that we need people to look those runs over,” said the officer, pointing at the crewman who had spoken. “Grab four other males and get your sorry ass to those runs.”

When the male hesitated, the officer put his hand on the butt of his pistol, a threatening gesture. On most ships everyone aboard would be armed while approaching a combat situation, at least with sidearms, in order to defend the ship if a boarding action occurred. Not these. Only the officers carried sidearms, and there were no marines aboard.

“Move.”

The male in question started to move as if his feet were on a red hot deck, calling over some of his friends and walking quickly out of the chamber.

“Try to avoid attracting attention,” said the sub-officer to his compatriot, talking out of the side of his mouth. The other male looked straight ahead, not acknowledging his companion at all, and the sub-officer almost nodded in approval, stopping himself at the last minute. They needed to stick here, in the main reactor chamber, where they could do the most good, or was that harm, and not be sidetracked to the vicinity of some secondary system.

*     *     *

“Suttler is having problems locating the Caca ships,” said McCullom, looking out of the holo. She was still in the huge war room under the Octagon, the headquarters of the Imperial Military. Her uniform was slightly rumpled, as if she had been sleeping in it. With modern materials it took a lot of time in the uniform to make it look like that, an indication of how long she had been on duty.

“What kind of problems?” asked Sean, sitting at his desk in the palace. It had gotten to the point where Jennifer had been exhausted, and he thought it best to put her to bed. His office was now configured with dozens of open holos in the air, including two large maps, one of the battlefront, another of the Kallfer system. The holos made the thirty by thirty meter office seem to stretch into infinity, a sometimes disorienting effect for someone who worked long hours in the room.

“He can’t spot them. As if they’re not there. And he doesn’t think they’re using any kind of stealth, since his own systems are starting to degrade.”

“Degrade?”

“The heat of the star is being absorbed into his hulls, your Majesty. And reradiated back out. They might be able to hide from something looking at them with the sun in the background, but from any other angle they are starting to stick out. Anything there will be able to target them, if not now, then soon.”

Shit. The whole purpose of sending those ships in was that they could hide and take the enemy by surprise.

“Could we have been wrong about the trap?” he asked his CNO, wondering how she would take the question that seemed to call the competence of her people into question.

“It’s possible, your Majesty,” she said slowly, almost as if she didn’t want to admit that, but too honest not to. “All of the indications were that this was the setup we thought it would be. I still think there’s something going on here. Maybe a standard ambush, and we just haven’t seen it yet. But not a sub-supernova.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I think we need to get our fleet out of there as soon as possible, before they spring their ambush. It might still be too late, but it gives those crews the best chance.”

Sean sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. This one was on him. He had made the decision for this operation to go forward, based on the best information his people could give him. Now they were giving him a different take on the situation. The information they now had was that they had been wrong. But was it enough information? Not really, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much time for a decision.

The Emperor pulled up a holo that showed the take of the environs of the star. He had already seen everything there. No surprises, with the exception of the lack of the ships needed to cause the stellar event. Nothing there, except for the one rocky planet, a real hellhole with lakes of magma facing the star and a half frozen surface on the dark side. It kept one face eternally to the star, so there was little change to either hemisphere over time. And, of course, the couple of dozen anti-matter sats, stretching out twenty kilometers from end to end with a large central area housing the guts of the processing station. They looked different than the sats the Empire used. That made sense, since these were alien constructs. Did they look different from other Caca sats? Maybe. But why did that matter?

They’ve got to be there, thought Sean, staring at the space and zooming out. So where in the hell are they? It’s got to be the planet, right?

He pulled up the vid that showed the output from Suttler’s analysis of the Caca ships moving out from the planet. That was still a possibility, but why were they waiting. For Suttler’s ship to move further out of range before coming back in? Possibly. But they wouldn’t have even known they were there until recently. And now they might know those ships were there, and would be able to blast them out of space as they moved to their operating zones.

“Your Majesty. What do you want to do?”

“I think we will continue with the mission as planned for now,” he said, closing his eyes again and shaking his head.

“Your Majesty?”

“It’s my decision, Sondra. And my responsibility. I know what’s at stake here. And part of that is the safety and existence of the Maurids in that system.”

“And our people?”

“They’re important. But they signed on for this mission, and it’s my decision that we will finish it.”

“And what do we do in the meantime? If they spring a standard ambush on us, we’re screwed as well.”

“Open a wormhole gate just out of the system. Then get Len and his battlefleet in there.”

“That will set some of our other operations back,” argued the CNO.

“We’ll catch up with them later. We can’t have everything, Sondra. So we pull Len’s main force off of their other operations, at least the ones that haven’t kicked off yet, and send them to Kallfer.”

“I’ll get on it, your Majesty.”

Sean sat back again, his eyes locked on the holo of Kallfer. He didn’t hear the entry into his office. He never felt a need to be alert here, in his own home, with all the security he had.

“Trouble?”

“I thought you were knocked out for the evening,” he said, his eyes shifting to his wife, standing in the doorway. She really is beautiful, he thought. Of course love made anyone’s woman beautiful, but Jennifer had always been a very good looking female. Red hair, blue eyes set against fair slightly freckled skin, she was still lithe and lean even after birthing twins.

She really doesn’t deserve this, he thought. That was a strange thought, since there were literally millions of women who would trade places with her in an instant. The wife of the most powerful man in human space. That made them the most powerful woman in human space, right? Not really. But she still had a lot of power, much more than the average citizen, and complete access to all the information the Empire had control of. With that came the stress of sometimes knowing things that were too much to handle. Except for the one break, she had held up as well as could be expected.

“I was worried,” she said, walking into the room, right through one of the holos and up to her husband. With a smile she climbed onto his lap, putting her arms around his neck and snuggling close.

“We’ve got it under control,” said Sean after breathing in the scent of her hair.

“Liar. I’ve seen too much of this war, and the one thing I’ve got to say is that we are never in control. We can try to exert what little we have, give it our best effort, but mostly its out of our hands.”

Jennifer shifted, moving her face close to that of her husband and pressing her lips to his. What started as a shallow brushing of lips developed into a deep kiss.

Sean wanted it to go on forever. He was wishing that he could just step away from his responsibilities and go make love to his wife. But the Universe was not that kind.

“Your Majesty. Excuse me. We’ve had another development in Kallfer.”

Damn that woman, he thought with an internal laugh. He couldn’t step away, not if he was honest about it. If anyone else knew exactly what it was like to be Emperor, there would be no takers. Or, he thought, correcting that, the only people who would take the job are the ones we wouldn’t want in the position.

*     *     *

“We’re starting to vector away, ma’am,” called out the flag captain.

“About time,” growled Mei, switching her views from the far and near plots.

They had been under fire for the last hour. Not as much as would be expected when approaching a force like the one on the plot. Still, missiles had been vectoring in at a constant trickle, ramping up the tension on the bridge and not allowing it to drop back. There had been very little damage to any of her ships, but the possibility of a hit was something that people couldn’t ignore.

“Not what one would expect from a force of over a thousand ships,” said the tactical officer. “I’m estimating that they have at most twenty fully operational warships over there. And probably some orbital defense stations to thicken the missile storms.”

Mei nodded in agreement. While it was not the job of her force to get in close and duel head to head with heavy warships, she was almost tempted to do so. That her orders told her not to helped to make it an easy decision. Scout forces were not there to get into heavy combat. They were there to draw fire from a distance, to find and fix enemy forces so the main battle fleet could target them. Maybe to get in some hits themselves and weaken the enemy for the follow-up combat force, but never to fight the battle by themselves, unless the enemy was something they could easily overwhelm. Even then, a good scout force commander tread with caution. Mei considered herself a good scout force commander, and she wasn’t about to chance that there were more ships in that mass than they were calculating.

“How many do we have that have gone through a hard boost?” she asked her tactical officer.

There had been hundreds of traces of different grabber sources. Most had looked like small merchant ships, several like larger commercial vessels. Very few had looked like what they would expect from warships maneuvering violently to try and generate misses from incoming missiles.

“Fifteen distinct sources so far, ma’am.”

So, they can’t have more than twenty fully functioning warships. What the hell are the rest? Her best guess would have been hulks with small reactors and minimal grabbers, empty otherwise. Or small commercial vessels that had been covered with thin metallic mockups.

“We have a launch, ma’am,” called out the tactical officer, his voice rising in excitement. Or was that fear.

Mei turned to see a plot alive with missiles, hundreds of them, all heading her way.

*     *     *

“That should get their attention,” said the smiling male, looking back at his admiral.

The admiral smiled back, one of the few times in the last week he had felt anything that elicited that kind of reaction. Almost no one in his command knew what was really going on. He hadn’t liked that decision, but it hadn’t been his to make, and he was loyal enough to always follow orders. The admiral knew that this was a suicide mission, and he was okay with that. His family would be well taken care of, his sons advanced in position. To those who hadn’t volunteered for this kind of mission they were just going to their deaths with no reward and no choice.

“We still have another volley there?”

“Almost two of them, my Lord.”

“Target their main force and loose it. All of it.”

The tactical officer gave him a quick look of confusion. The male didn’t know why they were sitting there in one of the few functional warships in what was essentially a junkyard. It made no sense. If they were trying to scare the humans off, it had failed. The enemy was on the way in, with a force that could be overwhelming even if all the Ca’cadasan ships had actually been what they appeared to be.

“Missiles away,” said the tactical officer, sending several thousand more off in a staggered launch that simulated warships firing.

Many of the defensive sats had been attached to the hulls of a hundred ships, all hulks that really had no more firepower with the exception of some close in weapons systems. It helped with the illusion that this was actually a battle force.

“What are we trying to do, my Lord?” asked the executive officer, appearing on the side holo. “I keep trying to figure this out, and it make no sense.”

“Just do your job, exec. People higher than us have determined that this is what we need to do. So we do it.”

“Yes, my Lord,” said the exec.

Grassafa didn’t think the male had accepted the old ‘it’s orders, and we follow orders,’ explanation. He could go on questioning in his mind, as long as he didn’t question it out loud. If he did, he would have to be removed from his position.

It shouldn’t be long, thought the admiral, looking at the plot and filling in the line of no return in his mind. Once the stellar event was triggered it would take just over eight minutes for the photon storm to reach them. At that point the admiral would order the electromag shields dropped, letting the wave burn through quickly. It would be a mercy to everyone.

The scout force was starting to change its vector, but it wouldn’t get them to safety in time. And the battle force was still driving straight in, obviously afraid to mass launch at a force in close proximity to a planet they were determined to save. One missile hit could really mess up the planet, killing a continent sized land mass and sending quadrillions of tons of ejecta into the atmosphere. A strike in the ocean would generate kilometer high waves. Ten hits would kill the world, not even microbes surviving. So it made sense that they weren’t firing on his force. They were driving in to get into knife fight range, where they could hammer the enemy without the risk of hitting the living world.

A doomed world, thought the admiral, fighting off a slight shake. He had been raised to believe in the Gods and their commandments. And killing a living world was among the worst infractions in which a mortal could engage. But was he at fault if he didn’t initiate the action? His brain kept telling him no, he wasn’t. He was just the distraction. His hearts were another matter. They were screaming at him, telling him that he shouldn’t be involved in this. That he was facing an eternity of torment in the hell he no longer believed in, in his mind. The gut feeling, programmed in as a child, was still working on him, roiling his stomach.

I won’t have much longer to wait, he thought, looking at the plot again, doing the math in his head. In another couple of hours he would stand before his Gods, if they truly existed. What would he tell them? That he had obeyed his Emperor, their representative in the Universe. Or that he had followed his conscience and rebelled against that secular authority, following the edicts of the Church. He wasn’t sure how he would respond, only sure that if they did indeed exist, he would have that chance very soon.

*     *     *

“We have the gate open at this end, your Majesty. As soon as the other end is open we’ll start sending the first ships across.”

“Hold them outside the system when they get there, Admiral,” said Sean, still not sure that he was doing the right thing, but unwilling to take the chance. However, he was also unwilling to send more ships into a system that still might blow up in his face.

“We were just about ready to go into the three systems on our mission log,” said Len, his expression showing what he thought of the changing orders.

“I’m sorry, Len. The situation is shifting in Kallfer, and I don’t want us getting reamed because I don’t have the ships on hand.”

The admiral continued to glare out of the holo, and Sean knew what he was thinking. His two battle fleet commanders had advocated for having more ships involved in that mission, and cutting back on other operations until it was over. Sean and McCullom had agreed that with proper allocation of resources they could still forge ahead with every other operation they had planned. Since moving ahead and not suspending missions would shorten the war, that had been a major selling point of the whole deal.

Now they were shifting ships from Len back to the Supersystem net, then transiting to yet another gate ring, taking more time, until the delays added up. Someone had advocated moving ships from the home fleets, which would have cut down on some time, but Sean was unwilling to uncover the Donut or any of the major industrial systems for even a moment. The Cacas now had the tech to move a force by wormhole, attack a system, then set up their projector ships and blast all life around that star. Or simply set up a wormhole bomb over the habitable planet. Or hit them with relativity missiles and kill it that way. Either way, the forces to defend the inner Empire were in place, and he didn’t want to move them. Especially if all of this maneuvering at Kallfer was intended to make the Empire uncover something vital. Unlikely, but then an attack on the Donut and Jewel had been considered unlikely, until they had happened. To the Donut multiple times. That was the prime strategic industrial node in the Empire, something they couldn’t lose.

“We’ll get those ships back to you as soon as possible, Len. Most likely, they’ll just have to sit there for a couple of days and then come back to you.”

That sounded good in theory. The ships went through, they sat there, then they came back. The problem was, with only the one gate open, it would take up to thirty seconds to safely transit each ship through the gate. With a thousand ships that was almost nine hours. They could send them through faster, and had in fact often done that during a combat transit. It was a risk the Emperor didn’t want to take. Two ships colliding, such as one coming through and for some reason having to decel to avoid hitting something, then having another ship coming through and running up their ass, could cause thousands of casualties. If the threat was confirmed he might have pushed them. Since it wasn’t, he decided to play it safe.

“Very well, your Majesty. My staff will work out new timetables while we wait.”

Meaning I am causing you even more work that probably isn’t necessary, thought Sean, gritting his teeth. He didn’t like causing aggravation to his people, but he was he final arbitrator, and this was his decision. He could have taken the ships from Mgonda, but those would have to go through more than two transfers, going to a waypoint behind his more extended front, then back to the black hole system to transfer across an even greater distance than Len’s would to get to the proper wormhole.

Sean stared at the space where the holo had been for a moment, again second guessing himself. That was the problem with being a thinker. Always introspective, considering his own thoughts, it was easy to backtrack on decisions. He had to work hard to stay the course. It had been easy to stay the course with Kallfer, since the force there really couldn’t disengage before the enemy brought the hammer down. Now he would have to force himself to stick to the reinforcement plan.

“We have a report coming in from General Walborski,” came a call from his liaison officer. “The Cacas are starting an orbital bombardment of the planet.”

The Emperor shook his head, again gritting his teeth. Now the Cacas were increasing the immediate consequences of not relieving the planet. And he had been reminded once again that his friend was in a combat zone against orders. That was another problem, one that would just have to wait. It might sort itself out. Unfortunately, the most likely way for that to happen was for Cornelius to be killed, which was not the optimal solution as far as Sean was concerned.

*     *     *

“Everyone. Get under cover.” As the words were leaving his mouth Walborski was following his own advice, running hell bent for leather for the entrance of the sewers, the only shelter within reach.

Objects were dropping from the sky, trailing fire and smoke. They weren’t very large as far as kinetics went. They would penetrate deep in a very small area, and the surface blast would only be in the tens of kilotons. Nothing for people in heavy or powered armor. He and his people had no armor, and a close blast would kill them in an instant.

Fortunately most of the civilians in the urban areas had gotten out, running into the forest, most getting into the mountains and the cover they offered. That left only the fighters and the beings supporting them in the target zones, and the armored Cacas.

A bright flash came from the north, intolerably intense, as the heat of the impact reached out. Cornelius dove through the entrance, the pain of the burns on his face already stinging. The ground rumbled from the strike a second later, transmitted through the rock of the crust.

“Why in the hell are they dropping kinetics on us?” yelled out the young sergeant, Xi, now sharing the dark with the general. “Aren’t they going to kill everything in this system anyway? This doesn’t make sense.”

“I think they’re trying to get the attention of our people,” said Cornelius, holding his hand to his face and feeling the damage. Not as much as he feared, and the nanites in his system would already be going to work repairing it. He was fortunate that it wasn’t a nuke, since the EMP could have shorted out the nanites. He had reserves in his system in shielded containers, but it was better to not tap into those, in case he had greater need later.

The ground rumbled again a couple of times and dust fell from the ceiling. The underground chamber connecting to the sewer was sturdy, and nothing had hit close enough to collapse it. That probably wasn’t true for everyone. Some might need digging out, while others might be beyond help. And there was still a battle to fight.

“It looks like they’ve stopped. At least for now. Let’s get back up there and see what we can do.”

The air was clouded with dust, making it hard to breath and obscuring their vision. Parts of the city were on fire, and many of the larger buildings had totally collapsed, with partial collapse of some of the smaller structures. To Cornelius’ view the Cacas had accomplished little beside making the city a defensive haven. The number of obstacles and barriers had multiplied. The Cacas would have more trouble manuering, as would his side, but they were hit and run guerillas, so the advantage would still be theirs. And the sewers were still their friends’.

The Cacas weren’t long in coming back. Aircraft swooped down and disgorged troops, then took up station as gunships. A couple of shootdowns with anti-air missiles and they abandoned that tactic, the aircraft going low and landing. Soon the two sides were reengaged, and the enemy was taking casualties at an even greater rate than before.

The trouble that the Cacas were facing, as far as the general could see, was that they had little experience in putting down guerilla forces. Their slaves were mostly cowed, and those that weren’t didn’t have great support from the population. A couple of kinetic strikes, some boots on the ground, and they won. Humans had fought for centuries against the Lasharans, fanatical guerilla fighters, so they had developed working theories of insurgent and counter-insurgent warfare. Still, the Cacas had the firepower, if not the tactics, and they were making it an expensive proposition for the Maurids to keep them at bay.

“We have gas here, General,” called a voice over the net, followed by a deep hacking cough, then silence.

“Shit,” cursed the sergeant, pulling his mask from the small belt pouch it resided in.

Cornelius followed suit, wondering what they were going to do for their allies. He saw several over the next minute who had their versions of gas masks, long snouted afairs suited to their faces. He saw some who lacked any kind of protection, only still up because this area hadn’t been hit.

“I’m back,” said the officer who had warned them about the gas, speaking over the encrypted net through the network of micro-drones they were constantly deploying as relays. “It seems to be an incapacitating gas, with the Maurids as primary targets. It didn’t put me down, but I still feel kind of woozy.”

“Then stay under cover until your head clears,” said Cornelius, thankful that it hadn’t been some kind of terrible nerve agent. His people might still have survived, since their nanites could take apart the agent as soon as it hit the blood. Or they might not, depending on the density and lethality of the gas.

“Have we spotted the gas vectors?”

“I think I have, General,” replied the lower ranking officer. “Some kind of mid-sized drone.”

“Then let’s go hunting.”

Chapter Seventeen

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. Blaise Pascal

“It’s time,” said Phlirassaa, the low admiral in charge of the projection force, looking around the bridge.

The enemy force was deep enough into the system that they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of the photon storm. Some might still be able to shelter behind other bodies where they were, but the great majority couldn’t. And the ships that had been sent to attack them were now over forty light seconds away with almost no momentum as they slowed and changed their vector to come back in. They were also all visible, radiating enough heat to be easily picked up.

“Start targeting those enemy ships. Send a signal for every vessel to start engaging anything they can reach, starting with the closest. And start rotating into position.”

The commands went out and the twelve stations in equidistant orbits around the star started to move. All started the rotation that would point their long axis at the star, while some started to shift to the north or south. The other twenty-eight sats also started to move. Those were little more than some grabber units attacked to empty frames, batteries charged from solar power, and a basic computer system. Those were decoys, making it unclear as to which were the real threat until they actually started generating hyper waves. Their grabbers would start pulsing when the real projectors started sending out their hyperwaves, maybe drawing some fire to themselves if anything was coming in from a distance.

As the satellites rotated toward their terminal positions they started ejecting covers on the exterior. Now these were flying up under their thrusters, revealing the weapons mounts underneath. As soon as the covers were out of the way they opened fire. The targets were within range of the lasers, though still capable of maneuvering out of the way at their distance. Unfortunately for those targets, they were all on predictable courses, taking time to react, making the first shots land.

*     *     *

“Shit,” called out the tactical officer.

Suttler turned to look at the officer, taking his eyes off of the antimatter production satellites that had been rotating. It had finally become clear, and the admiral cursed himself for a fool for not seeing it sooner. They hadn’t placed superbattleships in orbit, or even hid them out someplace where they could move into position quickly. No, they had rebuilt some of the satellites with parts gleaned from their warships, then put them there, hidden in plain sight.

“We’ve just been hit with a laser, sir. Burn through in port bow cooling room. Casualties reported.”

“Raise the electromagnetic fields, tac. Helm. Start evasives.”

“Already have sir,” said the tactical officer, at the same time as the helmsman replied, “aye, sir.”

“Those are capital ship lasers, sir,” reported the tac officer in a shaky voice. “I’m picking up heavy electromagnetic fields coming up. And sir. There are massive graviton resonances coming from twelve of those objects. Pulse emissions from the others. I think those are decoys.”

“Should I signal the force to retire?” asked the com officer, looking with wide eyes back at her commander.

“Hell no,” shouted Suttler, the anger at being hoodwinked dueling with the fear that he might fail his Emperor and Empire, and by the way losing his life. “There are our targets, the ones we came to destroy, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

He studied the plot for a mere second, wincing at two of his ships blinked and disappeared from the plot. All of the others were now strong graviton traces as they went from barely pushing their drives to going to full military power, moving and evading with everything they had. Grampus was doing the same, her compensators now radiating tremendous heat as she rid the ship of the effects of inertia.

“Target that near ship and hit it with a particle beam,” he ordered his tac officer. “Then work out a solution for a missile launch.”

The officer nodded and went to work. The particle beams on the stealth/attack ship were as powerful as those on any battleship. They could also channel a beam from the Donut through the wormhole, but at the moment it was set up to attach to an accelerator launch tube. It would take ten minutes or longer to transfer it to the particle beam, time they might not have.

“We have missile launch,” called out the sensor tech. “Twenty missiles, counter class, heading for us.”

The plot was now alive with the icons of missiles. Each of the twelve platforms they had identified as their targets had fired twenty, all accelerating at ten thousand gravities. Ten seconds after the first launch there was another, followed by a third. It seemed a little like overkill, but the enemy ships would never have to fire again after they took out Suttler’s force. The only good news was these were the less capable counter-missiles, designed to hit incoming missiles and destroying them with twenty megaton warheads. They could maneuver like nothing else in space, but anything that hit them, even once, totally destroyed the small weapon.

The Grampus started pulsing lasers from it rings, taking the counters under fire one after the other. The ship shook as it released its own counters, set for proximy kills. Half of the first wave dropped off the plot immediately. That left fifty weapons coming toward them, more than enough to do the job without a whole lot of skill, or luck

“Send a signal to command,” said Suttler, eyes wide. “We have identified the enemy, and are engaging,” he said, his voice rising to a shout. “For the Empire.”

*     *     *

“Admiral Suttler is reporting that they have identified the enemy platforms.”

Platforms. Not ships, thought Sean, pulling up the latest tactical feed from the stealth/attack force.

“Shit.” What he saw were objects that had been there all along. The anti-matter satellites. Hidden in plain sight. And no one had noticed them, except in passing.

“Are they able to engage?”

“They are engaging, your Majesty,” said McCullom, her image appearing in a holo. “The problem now is they are no longer in stealth, and the platforms appear to have the same defensive firepower as battleships.”

The Empire was struck wordless for a moment. Stealth ships had no business going head to head with battleships. But if they were there they might not have a choice. And they also might not be enough.

“Can we get a launch from any of our other forces in on those ships? Platforms? Whatever the hell they are. In time to stop them.”

“No, sir. The closest launch would come from Admiral Mei’s scout force, and it would reach in one hour and twenty minutes at best.”

“Have them launch anyway. We can’t see the future, and they might get there in time if something else interferes with the event.”

“Sounds good to me, your Majesty,” said McCullom with a look that told her monarch that she had been about to order that anyway.

If they could get them in there in time, they might take out the platforms before they could complete the action. Which brought another thought. When would that action reach the point of no return. He pulled up the data they had, mostly second hand reports with a few long range observations. Besides that there was the theory, poorly developed. Which didn’t give any indication as to what would happen if the action was interrupted in the late stages. Or even in the mid stages. If it was stopped at the point where there were only major flares rising above the star would it settle down? Or at that point would it keep building on itself? They didn’t know, though they might find out in an hour or so. At the cost of too many lives.

“Any words for Admiral Suttler?”

“No, Sondra. The man knows what he needs to do, and there’s nothing I can say that would help. Just make sure that he’s tapped into our data feed. I don’t want him to fail for lack of information.”

No, he would fail, if he did, because no one in higher command, the Emperor included, had seen the obvious, staring them right in the face.

*     *     *

“Missiles away, ma’am,” called out the tactical officer, voice pitching high from excitement and fear. The tension was so thick in the air that it would deflect a particle beam, and it would only get worse by the moment.

Ninety capital ship missiles had appeared briefly on the plot before disppearing, moving at point nine five light, the maximum velocity for a wormhole launch. Thirty seconds later and ninety more wormhole launched capital ship missiles were away, followed by one more launch, until two hundred and seventy weapons were in space. All they had been ordered to release. If they took out even half of the enemy platforms it was thought that the event couldn’t propagate further. If it had been up to her she would have launched another volley, maybe two.

How in the hell did we miss it? thought Mei, mentally beating herself. The Cacas had pulled one over on the Empire. That hadn’t happened very often, but when it did, it was always something epic. Well, this was epic alright. Looking back in hindsight, it would have been better for Suttler to go in and just fire up everything in sight. If something else appeared he could have engaged them with another launch, and there would have been no possible unseen threats.

“We’re ready to launch, ma’am,” called out another voice, coming over the com speaker system. “Any last minute orders.”

“Just do whatever you can, Captain Snyder” said Mei, looking up at the ceiling of the room as if that would reveal the owner of the voice. “And be careful.”

She wasn’t sure she would have ordered the deployment of the Alcubiere drive fighters, or warp fighters as they were known. They didn’t perform to the top specifications around gravity wells or in particle dense space. As near to that star as they would be going there was both. Their warp bubbles would be weakened by the well, reducing them to only a bit above light speed. Possibly below it. And the particle soup, bound to thinken as flares reached the star, would be pounding on those bubbles. But this one wasn’t her call, and the crews had seemed to be quick enough to get on board with the mission. Command was throwing everything they could at the problem and hoping something would  work. They weren’t panicking, yet, but that might be the next reaction when nothing worked.

Just keep the Fleet alive, she thought, as she watched the ships engage their drives on the plot and speed off. Interupt those bastards at the very least, and give us time to come with something else.

“We’re picking up strong hyper emissions near the star, ma’am,” said the sensor officer, near panic in her voice showing that she understood the ramifications of that fact.

A representation of the star appeared in the central holo, taking the place of the system plot. Twelve point sources, stationed equidistant from the star. And one stronger source, right at the core, the combination of the transmissions from the ships. Normally those ships would be moving toward the portals they were generating, which in a gravity well would not be stable enough to transit. The platforms were stationary, and no one was trying to transit. But the space in the core was suddenly a very strange place, its fabric stretched and compressed, the nuclear furnace moving with it. Strengthening the reactions, then damping them for an instant before strengthening them again. The reactions would continue to strengthen, until pressure reached the point where an enormous blast worked its way out of the star and blew off the outer layer. A nova increased ten thousand fold, enough to fry everything in the system that wasn’t shielded, and anything even with a shield that was still in the range of destruction. Something like both of the human forces still driving in.

*     *     *

“Admiral. The platforms near the star have engaged, whatever that means,” said the com officer, looking back at Low Admiral Grassafa with an expression of confusion.

Well, I’m not about to enlighten him. Like most of the crew, the com officer had no idea what was really going on here. While he trusted his crews, more or less, he didn’t want to risk a revolt from males who found out they had been sent uninformed on a suicide mission. Most likely they would simply accept the fact, conditioned as they were to obedience. He wasn’t willing to bet on it, though, not with stories coming back of rebellion on the home world.

“They’re also reporting that they are under attack from human ships. So far they are fighting them off.”

“How in the hell did that happen?” roared the admiral, stalking over to the com station. Possibilities were already swirling through his mind. The most likely was that a squadron of their stealth ships had cruised by on a ballistic trajectory. None of his ships would have been able to pick them up, unless they were right on top of them, and the humans would have done everythihng they could to prevent that from happening.

“Order our warp fighters to vector toward the star and assist,” he ordered, looking into the eyes of the com officer.

That male still looked confused, but there was also a glimmer of fear there, as if the officer was starting to figure it out. But he got to his board and started to send the signals, first to the fighter squadron, ordering them into action, then to the platforms, letting them know that help was coming.

“We just picked up some graviton emissions from minor course changes from several hundred missiles, my Lord,” called out the tactical officer. “We have enemy missiles on the way, heading toward the star.”

That was also new tech, just developed by some of the alien slave scientists. An increase in sensitivity of the graviton detection systems, and the use of several ships to form a long baseline sensor net. They needed to be pointed in the proper direction, of course, easy in this case since the enemy scout force was plain for everyone to see. They were still hard to detect unless all of the variables were just so, and the admiral hadn’t been sure it would work. He was pleasantly surprised that it was so.

“Launch time on target. Let’s put up a barrier for them to run through. And get our warp fighters out there for intercept.”

The tac officer gave a head motion of agreement, then got to work, giving the com officer a nod as that male also got to work. The barrier of submunitions they would lay might not stop all the missiles, but it would greatly degrade that missile wave. The warp fighters could then intercept those that got through, coming out of warp in positions where they would get a quick particle beam shot and blow a missile out of space. Then going back into warp and honing in on the next weapon. Now, if nothing else happened, he thought the situation well in hand.

Why am I doing so much to make this plan work? he thought, sinking back in his chair, feeling the fatigue that conflicting strong emotions were bringing on. He had his orders, but his orders asked him to commit what amounted to a crime, both against the Gods and the people of this system.

“We have human warp fighters spinning up their drives, my Lord,” said the sensor officer. “Give me a second to determine their vector.”

“We know where they’re going,” said the admiral. Unlike his people, the humans knew what was going on, and were sending what they had to stop it. “Order the warp fighters to vector in on those fighters after they hit the missiles.”

“The enemy fighters will be past them before they can finish the missile intercept, my Lord.”

The admiral sat and thought for a moment, his face held in his two upper hands. Too much was going on at once. If he had a real battle force he would have more options. But he had what he had.

“Order the warp fighters to hit the enemy fighters first. Then go after the missiles.” He looked over at the tac officer, who was already running numbers on his board. “Possible?”

“Barely, my Lord. And we don’t know how many fighters we’ll have left after the intercept.”

Which means possibly none of them. The humans fighters were better than his, and even outnumbering them two to one he would only have the one pass to hit them before they were past and his craft wouldn’t be able to catch them from behind.

“Send out the orders,” he said, shaking his head in the comfort of his hands.

Maybe we’ll fail, he mused, almost a hopeful thought. Would the Gods forgive him if the action he was attempted was a failure. Or would they look at intentions, and judge him from those? Not a comforting thought.

*     *     *

“Okay. Everyone stay in tight and follow my lead.”

Captain Wilma Snyder was already having doubts about this run. She was a veteran warp fighter pilot, which meant she had been in them for almost a year. That was longer than ninety-nine percent of her people, most of whom had only just come out of training, with possibly a mission or two under their belts. Most often not that much.

She didn’t doubt them and their lack of experience that much, since every one of the twenty-four ships under her command, much fewer than the wing she was used to commanding, had an experienced officer in charge. What she doubted was the environment they were about to operate in.

Warp fighters, using Alcubierre drive to actually shorten the space in front of the ship while simultaneously lengthening it behind, depended on space that was as still and calm as possible. Space that was roiling, changing its own length and breadth from moment to moment, made the normally smooth ride quite bumpy. To the point where the ride could abruptly end with the ship ejected out into normal space with damage to its systems. That could be caused by gravity wells, with the interference increasing geometrically with the strength of the field. Asteroids, even the larger, were so minor that it almost took a collision to have an effect. Moons could cause problems out to a thousand kilometers, depending on their mass. Rocky planets, several thousand kilometers. Gas giants could roil space out to tens of thousands of kilometers. Stars were a major problem. A G class like the one in this system could affect space out to several million kilometers, making that region unnavigable, with varying effects out to ten million kilometers or more.

Just as bad was the particle density that close to a star. In the outer system, even close to a planet, particle density was very sparse. Particles hitting the bubble were ripped into their constituent particles and thrown back into space. But it wasn’t a one way interaction, and energy was drained from the warp field, proportional to the force required to rip the particle apart and move it at relativistic velocities. Not a problem with the density of particles in outer system space. Near a star, where particle density was high, it could become a major problem. And if the star was ejecting flares? It could quickly turn into a disaster.

No choice, thought Wilma as she watched the pilot push them up to twenty lights, their limit. An entire battle force was at risk of destruction, and command didn’t have time to worry about the safety of twenty-four small craft and under three hundred people.

“The admiral is reporting a missile launch from the enemy,” said the Klassekian com tech, her four eyes looking over at the captain. “They appear to be on a course to intercept our missiles.”

“Most probably to put up a submunition barrier between the missiles and the star,” said the pilot, Lt. SG Ramirez, who was also the acting tactical officer since he had control of the weapons.

“So a change of mission?”

“Yes, ma’am. We are to hit those missiles in passing, taking out as many as possible, then continue on a heading to the primary target.”

Wonderful, thought the captain, her tension level rising to the point where she started to feel slightly faint. Intercepting missiles was not that risky, but it would delay them, while the platforms near the star continued to do their business and increase the particle density around them.

“Change course, Lieutenant,” she ordered, tasking a glance at the plot. “Let’s take care of things in order.”

Hopefully this detour wouldn’t cause too many problems. From what she had learned in battle, it was sure to cause as many problems as possible.

*     *     *

“Can’t we get one damned hit?” yelled Suttler, watching as another stream of wormhole missiles missed the target by a wide margin. “And what the hell is wrong with our aim?” As he said this last he glared at his tactical officer.

“The only thing I can figure is that the particle density is degrading the sensor heads,” shouted that officer back, anger and embarrassment in his tone. “Maybe when we get closer.”

The admiral shook his head. Outside their ship was still as near a vacuum as humankind could have produced in the prespace era. Near a vacuum was the thing. Each particle that hit a relativistic missile did a little bit of damage, and they were sweeping through billions of particles while traversing over a million kilometers of space. The seeker heads, the sensors of the missiles, were degraded to the point where they were no longer functional before they were halfway to the target, and they continued in on purely ballistic courses. While the particle field pushed them off course in random directions.

Grampus shook from a laser hit, this one striking to the port side. They were capital ship lasers, blasting through the electromagnetic fields and vaporizing tons of metals, armor and hull.

“Helm?”

“I’m trying, sir,” said the chief, his fingers dancing over his board, sending the ship into random maneuvers and trying to give the enemy as difficult a target as possible.

He was succeeding, mostly. Grampus had only taken three hits so far, all on the outer reaches of the ship, all minor. Two stealth/attack ships had dropped off the plot, no longer generating gravitons, their grabbers offline. The admiral didn’t know if that meant they were drifting in space, or had turned into spreading clouds of plasma. Since there had been no distinctive flares of antimatter blasts, it appeared that they were still there. What had happened to the crews was an unknown. And with the blasts of missiles in space around them, it was possible that they might have missed the antimatter breaches that went along with total destruction. Whatever happened they were off the com net, never a good sign.

“Yes,” called out the tac officer as the last stream approached the target platform. “Crap.” His tone changed as the four missiles that were on target exploded, hit by lasers or close in weapons systems that put out scores of exploding rounds each second.

“That might have put some heat into them,” said officer with a sheepish look.

“What we need, Tac, is something that put the entire blast into them. Try some shots with our onboard weapons. And configure the wormhole to transit a particle beam.”

The officer nodded and went to work. The ship shook slightly as two missiles were accelerated through their tubes. They left the ship at point two light, the velocity of the ship combined with what had been imparted to them by the magnetic accelerator tubes. Just over a fifth of what the wormhole launched weapons carried, they would hit with less than point two five light velocity. The hope of the admiral was that they would get through with minimal damage to their sensor heads. That might have worked, but…

“Crap again,” yelled the tac officer part way through their run, when both missiles converted to bright points of light, well short of their target.

At least when they’re firing at our missiles, they aren’t shooting at us, thought Suttler. He looked over at the tac officer again. He had to admit that the man was doing as good a job as possible. Suttler didn’t think he could do better himself, or he would be over there punching in the commands. If only we could get some laser hits and take out some of the defensive weaponry. Unfortunately, every laser on the ship was currently targeting missiles.

“Porpoise is reporting a near hit,” called out the com tech.

Suttler glanced at the Klassekian. He wasn’t really familiar with the aliens, but this one seemed to be holding up as well as any of the crew. Surprising for a being that had grown up in a society where only the elite few ever made it into space.

“Damage.”

“Minimal,” replied the tech, getting the point of his question immediately.

We need more than minimal returns, he thought.

A large prominence rose from the star, curving up, reaching a million kilometers out before curving back in to fall back into the surface. Those were about to become a real threat as more of them rose higher and higher. When the star blew it wouldn’t matter how good they were at dodging the slow moving plasma. They would fry, instantly.

The admiral looked over at a holo he had brought up as soon as they had detected the hyperdrives coming online. Twelve point sources,  and a larger source in the center of the star. Roiling the plasma at the point where fusion was occurring, ramping it up. Soon it would reach the point where the gravity of the star wasn’t enough to hold everything together. It would, burp, was the only word he could think of, and the pressure wave would rise quickly, until it hit the outer layer of the star, where the pressure was the least. The force of the event would release the photon storm that was the destructive power of the star, heat and radiation moving out in a globe at the speed of light. That would burn everything this close to the star into plasma. That plasma would almost immediately be pushed out by the material component of the blast. Superhot plasma moving at much less than light speed, still destructive enough to finish off whatever the photon storm left.

The point at the center of the star was growing in power. The admiral had no idea as to the timing of this event. They had figured from the few they had observed that it took about an hour from the time the projectors flipped on until the blast. What they didn’t know was what would happen if the hyperdrives were flipped off short of critical mass. Would the star just settle down, or would it still trigger, just with a shorter, less violent event?

The ship shook again, a little less than the last time. There was more cursing, a few shouts on the edge of panic, then everyone got back to work. Suttler pulled up another holo, this one showing the one scan they had of a sub-supernova in progress. The current one looked like it was going along at a much faster clip, which meant they probably had less time than he had thought.

Maybe the missiles Admiral Mei fired will get here and do the job, he thought, snorting at the thought. Little chance of that. Those missiles would hit the ever thickening particle field going at point nine-five light, and moving a greater distance their sensors would degrade even faster than those on the weapons he had fired. If the warp ships got here in time they might have better luck. Of they might not. The only thing he had any control over, little as it was, were the ships in his command.

“Sure you don’t want to back off for a moment,” came the voice of the exec into his private com circuit.

“Hell, no. If they set off the star we’re dead. If we’re going to die, it might as well be trying to stop them from killing us, and everyone else.”

“Hit,” called out the tac officer in triumph.

Suttler looked up to see the close up view of the platform, hoping to see it breaking up. It wasn’t, but one section near the rear of the ship was gone. If it had been a wormhole launched missile that still might have shattered the platform. As it was, the warhead hadn’t been enough to do that. That told of the toughness of the platforms, which in no way were like the antimatter sats they mimicked.

“Figure out how you did that and do it again,” shouted Suttler. “And how long till we have the particle beam?”

“Three minutes,” called out the officer.

“As soon as its online, fire them up.”

“Gladly, sir,” replied the officer, fingers flying over his board as he programed the next attack run.

The ship bucked again, two more missiles on the way. That left fourteen missiles aboard. Suttler wasn’t sure they would be here to fire off all of them.

Chapter Eighteen

You can't build a revolution with no education. Jomo Kenyatta did this in Africa, and because the people were not educated, he became as much an oppressor as the people he overthrew. Fred Hampton

Captain Wilma Snyder watched as the pilot maneuvered the ship into what was hoped to be the optimal position. It was a really tricky maneuver, getting set up just right to take a shot. The ship would be standing still in space, relatively, as soon as the drive was cut off. They wouldn’t be able to close with the missile, though they could swing their nose with thrusters. So coming out at the right place and time was paramount.

The ship turned off the drive, a process that took several seconds, then stopped dead in space. The sensors started gathering information, feeding it into the computers. In less than a second they knew. The transition had been perfect, more or less, and they were sitting almost two light seconds straight ahead of the missile. Even better would have been directly behind, since the thing was coming right at them. They had three seconds to fire and get out of the way. Fortunately, the solution came through within a second, and the pilot opened up with the nose mounted particle beam. A gram of protons, accelerated up to over ninety-nine percent of light speed, slammed into the nose of the missile and blasted through, all the way to the warhead, which detonated as soon as the antimatter touched the matter of the casing.

With a flip of the joystick the pilot turned the ship, hit the drive, and moved out of the way at two hundred gravities. A moment later the warp drive spun up, and they were again moving at faster than light, heading for the next target.

We won’t get them all, thought the captain, listening to the report from the com tech. Eighteen of her ships had made a hit, which meant six had not. Eighteen out of four hundred meant they still had too many missiles to take out. Even at their best they might get half of them, most probably less at a seventy-five percent success rate.

“We’re picking up warp drive signatures on approach,” called out the sensor tech.

“How many?” She didn’t have to ask whose, since command hadn’t informed them of any reinforcements coming her way.

“It looks like fifty, ma’am.”

“Outstanding,” growled Wilma, clenching a fist. Make that much less than half the missiles, she thought.

*     *     *

Low Admiral Grassafa watched the holo closely as the event worked its way to critical mass. He caught several of the bridge crew looking back with curious expressions. They had no idea what was going on. The admiral cursed himself for a fool, worrying about how the crew had been led into this blindly. In a short period of time it wouldn’t matter. They would all be going into the afterlife. The crew, by not knowing, would be blameless, and ascend to paradise. At least that was his hope.

“We have a hundred and fifty-two missiles getting to the target zone,” said the tac officer, looking at the plot that was tracking them by graviton emissions. “They should be releasing in a moment.”

That was something they wouldn’t be able to track in real time, though the signals from the missiles should come in within minutes.

“Enemy missiles should be approaching our barrier,” called out the tac officer. “In one to three minutes.”

It was looking like they had timed it just right. Of course, now it was looking like this was an exercise that had no meaning. The star would detonate well before the human missiles got there. They would burn up like insects in a flame as they bore in. In the end it really didn’t matter, since those weapons they had launched were doomed to be destroyed with the system as well.

“And it looks like our warp fighters are about to make contact, my Lord.”

That was something they could track in real time from the disruptions in space time caused by the warping of space. The track was showing twenty-four human craft, moving at twenty lights and turning toward the Ca’cadasan ships. His spacecraft were moving at just over ten lights. If it had been a chase his ships would never have been able to catch the humans, or get away. The humans, unfortunately for them, were trying to protect their missiles, and had to think that the Ca’cadasan ships were there to destroy them. So they were committed to a dogfight. How it would play out would be of interest to command, and all of the data, at least that which could be picked up from this distance, was going back by the one wormhole in the system.

The admiral sat on the edge of his seat, curious. He might be about to die, but he would relish this last bit of entertainment.

*      *     *

“What are you doing?”

The sub-officer stiffened, stopping his motion of raising the heavy tool overhead. The circuit board that was his target sat there, doing its job of controlling the power run to the hyperdrive generator.

“Just making some repairs, my Lord.”

“With that tool? What are you going to do? Hit it until it starts to work.”

The sub-officer turned slowly, getting a look at the male who had caught him before he could commit the sabotage. That male was aiming a particle beam pistol at him, a disapproving look on his face.

“Move away from that assembly,” said the officer, waving the pistol.

“I think not.”

“You think not? Are you mad? I will blow your head off if you don’t move, you mutinous vermin.”

“And if you shoot me, you are likely to hit the power run. Not a good mix, fast moving protons and delicate equipment.”

“If you won’t move, then I will have to,” said the officer, stepping to the side.

The sub-officer could see what the officer planned immediately. He would line up the sabatour so he could get a shot that would burn into a bulkhead if any made it through his body. He prepared himself to charge, an action that would probably lead to his death. The sub-officer thought he had no other choice.

There was a movement behind the officer, then the smack of a heavy object hitting a thick skull. The eyes of the officer rolled up and his body pitched forward. The sub-officer dropped his tool and picked up the particle beam pistol, checking the setting and making sure it was at max.

“Thanks,” he told his friend. “Now step back, and I’ll make sure that this abomination of a mechanism never works again.”

He raised the pistol and aimed it at the circuit board. With a pull of the trigger the angry red beam connected with the board, which went up in a shower of sparks as much of it converted to plasma. The sub-officer took another step to the side and aimed directly at the power run. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when he did this, and with a look he sent his partner further away.

The beam hit the run, and the sub-officer played it over the conduit. Electric bolts arced, reaching out to slam into other electronics, causing them to short as well. With a small explosion the run disintegrated.

“Let’s get over to the other. One more, and this ship won’t be doing anything to this star.”

The other male gave a head motion of agreement and followed on the heels of the sub-officer. They only had to gun down one officer on the way.

*     *     *

“One of the platforms just went offline, my Lord.”

“What happened,” yelled Low Admiral Phlirassaa, anger and panic rising in him.

“We don’t know, my Lord. The graviton beam halved, then stopped entirely. Wait. Another platform has stopped producing.”

The admiral looked over at the plot, which was now showing only ten platforms sending their beams into the core. The alignment was no longer optimal as well.

“Order the remaining platforms to reorient,” he ordered, sending the new alignments over to the com officer.

“What if the other platforms come back online?”

The admiral doubted that would happen. Something bad had happened to those platforms, and surely it would take longer than a half an hour to fix it.

“Sending,” said the com officer. “Receiving acknowledgements. All will….”

The bridge shook violently, the deck rumbled underneath. The sternward bulkhead pealed away as a blast of superheated flame came bursting through, instantly turning everyone in the chamber to plasma.

*     *     *

“Yes,” yelled the tac officer as he played the particle beam over the platform he was targeting. He had control of the ship for the moment, aiming the bow at the target, the only way to fire this kind of weapon.

Several kilograms of antimatter per second came flying through the portal, accelerated up to one hundred thousandth less than light speed, impossible velocity for any ship mounted weapon. The accelerator back on the Donut was one hundred kilometers in length, formed into a bent toroid that moved the charged particles around and around until they built up to their ultimate velocity. A thousand times larger than any particle accelerator that would fit on the biggest warship, it was the ultimate beam weapon in this war.

The kinetic energy was devastating, cutting through the hull and armor of the platform like that hard alloy was mere gas. The antimatter, less a tiny bit that had blasted through the particles in the way, released almost ninety megatons of explosive power per second. Not as much as a missile warhead, but after the first second all of the explosive power was detonated within the platform. In five seconds it was a wreck, spinning through space on a loop that would smack into the star in minutes. There might still be some Cacas alive on the platform, but they were no longer a concern.

“Good job, tac. Now find another one.”

“It’s going to take a few minutes to get into firing position.”

“Then get moving.”

“And two of them just went offline on their own,” called out the sensor officer.

“Why?”

“Unknown, sir. But they are definitely not projecting gravitons.”

It really didn’t matter why, though it might later, if they started up again. Another platform stopped projecting, this one from missile hits, one of the attack ships getting lucky.

So we have eight working, and they aren’t on an even pattern, thought the admiral with a smile. They might just win this thing. Even better, though less likely, they might make it home. As that thought went through his mind another of his ships fell off the plot, and he realized that the fight was not going all his way.

*     *     *

“We’re getting a graviton signal from one of the platforms, my Lord,” stated the com officer, looking confused for a moment. “I’m not sure what this means.”

“Well, tell me what it says, fool.” Low Admiral Grassafa was feeling irritable. There were indications that things were not going well in the neighborhood near the star. Only eight of the platforms were working. They had received signals from two of them that their power runs were down, with no explanation, along with repair estimates of many hours.

“Firefight in engineering,” said the com officer.

“What else?”

“That was all, my Lord. It repeated once and then stopped. Should I send a reply.”

The low admiral thought about that for a moment, then slowly gave a head nod of negation. What could he order? If it was a mutiny, something he had feared since the start of this mission, what could he do about it out here. Anything he sent to help wouldn’t arrive on time. Anything he sent that left the proximity of the planet would be snapped up by the human fleet. That fleet was coming closer by the moment, and there was no way he could defeat it. If the star detonated that would not be a concern, for anyone. If it didn’t go up the humans would win here. He had been ordered to prevent them from getting what they wanted, and he looked at the globe of the planet in a holo, dreading that decision, not sure if he could do it.

That’s insane, he thought. If the mission went as planned that world would be destroyed anyhow, so why did he feel guilty about bombarding it? Because the destruction of the system was on the leaders who had set up the situation? The projector platforms were not really under his command. If he ordered the bombardment of the planet with the force under him, it was on him.

As he looked over at the holo that showed the graviton waves of the projector force, another ship went offline, its hyperdrive and the field it was projecting going dark. He slammed a fist on his chair, attracting the attention of the entire bridge crew, the expressions on their faces showing that they still didn’t understand what was going on, but realizing that it wasn’t going according to plan.

Theoretically, six of the platforms spaced out properly could cause the detonation. It would just take longer. Hells, two could do it, if given a standard day to accomplish it. The reason so many vessels were used was to prevent the incoming force from having the time to interfere.

Since there was nothing he could do about the situation, the low admiral did something he hadn’t done in decades. He closed his eyes and said the mantra that would put him into a trance, prepared to pray to the Gods in a much deeper way. He asked forgiveness, he asked guidance. He spent two minutes in the trance, until his shouted name brought him out.

“My Lord. The human warp fighters have broken away from the dogfight and are heading in.”

“How many?” The low admiral had a rush of confusing emotions. He almost wanted them to succeed. That was a traitorous thought. Traitorous to the Emperor, but was it really to the empire? After all, the Empire was not just its leader. It was the people. It was the Gods. And the Gods had to be angered. And from what he had heard, the people back on the home world definitely were.

“Is there any way we can stop them?” he found himself asking, almost out of reflex.

“No, my Lord,” replied the tactical officer with regret. And another platform fell off the plot, leaving six.

*     *     *

“Is it my imagination, or is the sun brighter and hotter, sir?” asked the sergeant.

Cornelius looked up at the sky, trying to determine if the NCO was correct. The fighting had died down, both sides just too worn out to continue without a rest. The Maurids, despite their bloodlust, were grateful for the rest. The humans, while not wanting to admit that they were at the edge of their limits, were also.

“I think it is, Sergeant Xi. Want to ask me what that means?”

“What does it mean, sir?”

“I don’t have a clue. I have my suspicions, and none of them are good.”

Xi shook his head, looking out into the air with a blank stare. “I don’t mind dying in a fight, sir. But I damned sure don’t want to die in such a useless one. If that star blows, then all the bleeding and dying we have done here mean nothing.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” said Cornelius, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He opened them and looked out over the ruined city. “But I’m not ready to give up on our people yet. The damned thing hasn’t exploded, yet. Or it hadn’t as of eight minutes ago. So I’m going to go on as if the Fleet was successful. How about you?”

“Sounds good to me, sir,” said the NCO after a moment’s hesitation. “What’s the next step?”

“We clear the bastards out of this city. Once they’re gone, we can let the natives start the clean up and getting their lives back together. We should have Marines on the ground in the next eight hours if everything goes well. Then we turn it over to them and go home.”

Cornelius looked back at the star, shielding his sensitive eyes from the eye hurting brightness. I’m sorry, Devra, he thought, his spirits falling. I’m sorry, Rebecca, Junior, and Sprout. I didn’t mean to come out here and die. But then, who does?

The general wished he had someone to talk over his regrets with. Unfortunately, he was the senior officer on the surface, and the rule was that complaints and concerns went up the chain of command, never down.

“We have more proton packs for you, human,” said a Maurid female, running up on all fours with a quartet of adolescents behind her. All had packs strapped on their bodies. All were panting from their run.

“Thank you,” said Cornelius through the translation device hanging around his neck, accepting a pair of proton packs and a couple of batteries, then passing one of each to his partner. “We appreciate what you are doing.”

“And we appreciate what you are doing for us. I pray that it will turn out well for all of us, and that my children will grow up in freedom.”

The Maurid gave a nod and started off, her almost grown progeny on her heels. Cornelius watched them run off, picking their way through the rubble.

On most worlds a mother and her boys would not be out during the fighting. They would be covering, waiting for it to be over so they could come out. Not the Maurids. When it was time to fight, everyone fought. They were an admirable race as far as the general was concerned. He thought it funny how much he had hated them only a year ago, when the only contact he had had with them was fighting for his life against them on Azure. Now they were allies. Even more than that, friends.

He still hated the Cacas, and thought he always would. But would that change in the future, when they had beaten the big bastards? When they were forced to work with them to rebuild all of the ruined worlds?

Well, there would time enough for that in the future, if there was one for the people on this world. Now was the time to kill as many of the bastards as possible. If the star exploded and killed all of them, at least he would go to his reward knowing that he had sent some on ahead of him to pave the way.

*     *     *

“There are only six left, your Majesty.”

“Is that too few to blow the star?” asked Sean, looking at the plot that showed the graviton sources around the raging sun. There were only six major graviton producing sources, not quite aligned around the star in a even pattern. There were other sources, which had to be some of Suttler’s ships maneuvering for attacks. Not many of them, and Emperor had to fear that the others had been destroyed. But those were weak sources compared to those of the platforms. And then there was the most powerful point, in the center of the star, where the six graviton beams of the hyperdrive generators intersected.

“The theorists think they can still set it off,” said McCullom, letting out a deep breath. “Actually, only two could do it, but it would take too long. Twelve lets them go from initiation to detonation in less than an hour.”

“So we have to take out five more?”

“Probably fewer than that, sir. If we can get them to four, I believe we can get enough missiles in to take out the rest.”

So it looks like the warp fighters are going to decide this, he thought, zooming in on them. They had just broken off dogfighting with the enemy fighters. They had outclassed those other ships, but they had also been outnumbered. None of the Caca craft were still generating warp fields. Some of them might have survived, but as long as they weren’t operational that didn’t matter. What did matter was that nine human ships were still moving in warp, heading inward.

“Why are they only going at ten lights?” asked the Emperor, frowning as he saw the numbers populate under the icons.

“The friction of space, your Majesty,” said McCullom, as if that explained everything. When she saw the blank look on her Emperor’s face she went on. “Gravity wells interfere with warp drives, just like they do with hyperdrives, though not to the same extent. That and the particle density. Ten is all they can do at this point, and it will go down the closer they get to the star.”

“Can they get there in time, Sondra?”

“I, don’t know,” said the CNO, shaking her head. “We won’t know till this thing plays out.”

Sean didn’t like that answer. When he was a younger man he would have been angered at a response like that. Now he realized that sometimes there was no good answer, and he would just have to take it as it was offered.

The plan had seemed so easy at the start, foolproof. The friction of battle changed things, sometimes in little ways, sometimes in large. And this one was going to hell quickly. The main difference in this one was that if one part of the plan failed, all the rest of the parts were doomed.

*     *     *

Grampus sat dead in space, without power. She was lucky that she was still capable of surporting the lives of the crew aboard. Suttler didn’t feel all that lucky, since there were still targets she could go after. If she didn’t kill those targets then she was dead anyway.

“There’s only five of them left, sir,” said the tactical officer, trying to cheer up his commanding officer. “And engineering should have power for us within the hour.”

“That’s great news, tac,” said Suttler in a derisive tone. But will we still be here when the lights get switched back on?

Their last victim lay a couple of thousand kilometers away, dead in space, with no hope of getting the lights back on. Grampus had put a trio of missiles into her, the last three onboard. They hadn’t carried enough kinetic energy to make them hard kills, but three of the one gigaton warheads had done the job, distributing their fury over the entire length of the platform. It was still there, tumbling in space, on a course that would splash it into the star in a couple of days.

Suttler stared at the plot, picking out the few ships in his command that were still capable of motion. Three of them, all barely boosting, with not enough power to get over more than a couple of gravities. And none were close enough to attack any of the remaining platforms.

All those others, he thought, sighing. He had never lost this many ships in an action. The point of the stealth/attack ships was to sneak in, get kills, and not take damage. That had been the plan here as well, but when they couldn’t locate the targets, and the heat of the star had revealed them, it had turned into the kind of fight they hadn’t been made for. And they had failed.

*     *     *

“What in all the hells is happening?” asked Jressratta, glaring at his staff before turning a baleful gaze back on the plot. “How did they kill so many of the platforms?”

None of the staff answered. They didn’t have an answer. The truth was, brave beings had gone into battle and did their best to make their own plans move forward, and in the process counter the plans of the Empire.

“We have reports of mutinies aboard some of the platform, Supreme Lord,” said one of the lower ranking of the staff, he who had been chosen to be the bearer of bad news.

“What?” screamed the Emperor, turning on that male and stepping forward.

The sight would have been ludicrous if it had not been so serious. The still not fully grown Emperor stepping angrily toward a warrior who towered over him, standing a half meter taller, massing fifty percent more. The smaller male had tradition on his side. As the crowned ruler of the realm he held the power here, and everyone knew it.

“We, have reports of mutinies on the platforms, Supreme Lord,” said the male, forcing himself to meet the eyes of the Emperor. “True believers of the faith who thought what they were doing was a sin against the Gods.”

“And how in the hell did these fools figure out what was going on?” screamed Jressratta, jabbing a pair of index fingers into the chest of the male.

“People, find out things aboard a ship, Supreme Lord,” said the male after swallowing in fear.

The rest of the males looked at each other. The young Emperor had never served aboard a ship, a lack that would never be made right. He didn’t realize that information on a warship spread faster than a plague released in a city. What one rating learned, all knew before the day had passed. Besides, ratings weren’t dumb, no matter the opinion of aristocratic officers. The sub-officers especially knew their jobs, even if the people under them didn’t. And they could look at equipment and how it was used and figure out what the mission was about.

“We need to stop that,” yelled the Emperor. “What good is it to forbid the information to the lower deck scum, and then let them in on it anyway?”

“It was classified secret, Supreme Lord. The problem is that the technicians have to be trained on the equipment they are using. They aren’t completely stupid. They figure things out.”

Jressratta turned and stomped away, and the male he had been confronting huffed out a breath.

“We still have enough ships to detonate the star, Supreme Majesty,” said the Chief of Staff, pointing to the holo that showed how the event was proceeding. “It will happen.”

“And what about those,” growled the Emperor, pointing at and zooming in the view of the human warp fighters.

“They will have to drop out of warp before they reach our platforms. And then they will be easy targets for our platform defenses.”

“They had better be,” screamed the young male, stomping his feet as he walked around the main holo. “I will have heads if this doesn’t work. And we will have to purge the fleet of the religious.”

The high ranking males all exchanged worried looks. Sixty percent of the personnel in the fleet were believers. Maybe more. A purge like that would cripple the force. And probably lead to almost universal mutiny.

“It will work, Supreme Lord,” said the Chief of Staff, holding his hands behind his back for luck.

“It had better,” growled the Emperor, and his glare let the admiral know where one of the fallen heads would come from.

Chapter Nineteen

A rebellion is not a revolution. It may ultimately lead to that end. Bhagat Singh

“How fast are we going?” asked Captain Wilma Snyder, not believing what her eyes were telling her.

“The instruments aren’t lying, ma’am,” said the pilot. “We’re barely pulling one third light.”

“That’s insane,” said the sensor tech.

“It is what it is,” said Wilma, looking at the plot. She had never liked the truism, but what else was there to say. She really didn’t like the vulnerability that the lack of speed brought. “Now get me on a target.”

The pilot nodded and turned them in space. A huge prominence rose above the star and they barely missed it. One of their nearer compatriots wasn’t so lucky, and hit the mass of plasma dead center. It was too much for the warp field to handle, and pieces of it came out as gas, churning ahead at high velocity as it dispersed.

The flares were becoming worse, plasma arcs large enough to swallow whole planets. Some were starting to break away from the now more energetic star, flying off into space to continue outward. Any that hit the magnetic field of a tectonically active world would fry the unshielded electronics while producing spectacular auroras. To the crews of the warp fighters they were just more hazards, plain and simple.

“That looks like a likely kill,” said the officer as the view of a platform appeared on the viewer. A massive flare engulphed it, to rise further above and leave the large station untouched.

“That was a neat trick,” said Wilma, staring in shock at the station. “Why can’t we do that?”

“They probably have an electromagnetic field twice as powerful as a battleship’s,” said the sensor tech.

Even that wouldn’t be enough to protect it when the outer layer of the star blew off. The photon storm that preceded that would have already killed the platforms, but anything left would be propelled into the system with the rest of the plasma.

“Get us into position and give them our missiles,” ordered the captain.

The pilot nodded and started working his control board, juking the ship around as he bore in on the target. For its part the platform started firing at them with everything it had. Most were misses, a few were hits, but the warp field, still up and functioning, shrugged most of them off, breaking the coherent amplified light into particles in millions of wavelengths and scattering them to the surrounding space.

“Missiles away,” shouted the pilot.

The four missiles they carried deployed their own warp fields a second after they dropped away, then sped at the platform. Hampered as they were by the space, they were still able to race ahead of the fighter. One was hit on the way in by a counter weapon, going up in a flare of antimatter as fifty tons of missile overloaded a small portion of the warp field. The other three hit, their warp compression fields digging into the armor of the ship, tunneling through to allow the warheads to detonate within the hull.

Three radiant blooms of white fire appeared on the platform, destroying large parts the station, but not enough to shut it down.

“Dammit,” yelled the pilot. “We need capital ship warheads. Now we have nothing left to hit them with.”

“Yes we do,” said Wilma in a soft voice. “Configure the wormhole to weapons mode.”

The sensor tech drew in a quick breath, knowing what that meant. The com tech sent the signal back to the Donut, requesting that their wormhole be attached to the nearest available weapons system.

Wilma’s main regret was that none of the other remaining fighters, seven of them, carried a wormhole. Hers had one due to being the command bird. The others had their onboard weapons and nothing else. Another exploded as it was hit by a counter, going up in a flare a thousand kilometers to port.

“Command says they can give us a particle beam in three minutes. Missiles in ten.”

Wilma didn’t think they had ten minutes. “Give us the particle beam. Then line us up on the target and let’s kill this thing.”

*     *     *

“Another one just went offline, your Majesty. We’re down to four.”

“Which one of our ships got it?”

“None, as far as I can tell,” said McCullom, her brows knit in thought. “Another mutiny? Maybe our friends in their Empire were right.”

And will they still be our friends if we fail to save this planet, thought Sean. Only a minority of the Maurid people had actually signed on board as double agents for the Empire. That it included almost all of them that were actually working for the Cacas as spies and security didn’t mean anything to the common Maurid. If one of their worlds was killed, how would those beings feel about their newly revealed alliance and its cost to them? Would support dry up? Or even possibly turn in favor of the Cacas, even if they were ultimately responsible.

“So we need four more mutinies,” said Sean, looking at his CNO. “Unlikely, wouldn’t you say?”

“We still have some assets on the attack,” said McCullom.

Sean nodded, recognizing that the battle was not over. But would it be enough?

*     *     *

“I’m going to have to hold her steady while I’m firing,” shouted the pilot as the ship bucked again from a laser strike on the warp field.

“Understood. Your primary concern is to kill that thing.”

The pilot nodded, reached over to his board and pushed a couple of panels at the same time, setting the program into action. The warp drive winked off, giving the particle beam a clear shot at the target without the interference of the forward compression field, but also making them a vulnerable target. The grabbers came on line and ramped up to several hundred gravities in a few seconds. And the particle beam feeding through the wormhole opened up, serving two kilograms of antimatter a second out at just slightly below light speed, giving it the kinetic energy of multiple tons of fast moving material. It provided thrust that almost completely counterbalanced the pull of the grabbers, holding them almost stationary in space, barely moving forward at a couple of kilometers a second.

The beam hit the platform several seconds after leaving the ship, slamming into the armor, simultaneously blasting through and exploding as matter and antimatter combined, releasing torrents of fast moving particles. The explosion started at one end of the platform and worked its way across, sending fire and radiation sleeting through the structure under the armor.

The fighter was hit with a pair of powerful lasers, burning through its weak electromagnetic field and vaporizing tons of alloy. The small craft went into a spin, the only thing that saved it, and the particle beam winked out as the wormhole inside the fighter collapsed.

“Did we kill it?” shouted the disoriented captain as the ship spun through space, its compensators barely keeping them alive but not completely damping the motion.

“I, can’t tell,” said the pilot.

“We’re not being hit by lasers,” said the sensor tech after coughing up the contents of her stomach that splattered around the cockpit. She went back to hacking as the stomach acid burned her esophagus.

That they weren’t still under fire was a good sign, but not definitive. The platform might have just stopped firing at them, or its lasers might have gone offline for one reason or another. Wilma forced a hand over the control pad of her chair and pulled up a holo of the platform, rendered by the fighter’s computer into a steady view. The platform was in the process of breaking up, brilliant flares of fire breaking through the hull. Suddenly, with a great flash, the center of the platform converted to plasma.

The pilot cheered as he looked back, his fingers still working his board as he tried to steady them out. In a few seconds he had taken the spin off, and the fighter was moving straight through space, on a trajectory that had them falling through the void away from the star.

“Can we attack another one?” asked the captain, hoping against the evidence otherwise that they still had some offensive capabilities.

“The grabbers are barely functioning, ma’am,” said the pilot, shaking his head. “The wormhole has collapsed, and we have no missiles. The peashooters of a lasers we have wouldn’t burn through their armor in less than minutes. So no, ma’am. We’re out of the fight.”

Wilma gritted her teeth, then nodded in acceptance. At least they had killed one of the platforms, probably all that could be expected of their single small craft.

*     *     *

“We have power, sir,” said the engineer over the holo com.

“How much?”

“Enough to move us at two hundred gravities. Some energy for the electromag field. Lasers.”

“And we still have the particle beam?” asked the admiral, hoping against hope.

“No, sir. We had some shorts on the ring. Some of the negative matter got through the weakened electromagnetic field and cancelled out parts of the frame. Unfortunately, by the time one of my ratings got to it the damned thing had already collapsed.”

“Shit.” Suttler frantically tried to come up with something, anything, to take out at least one more of the platforms. There was one solution that he really didn’t want to consider, but no matter what he looked at, that was the only one that he could come up with.

“Helm. What kind of closing velocity can you give me on that platform there?” He pointed to one of the three extant platforms, sitting a couple of hundred thousand kilometers to their port.

“I can get us there at a couple of thousand kilometers a second,” said the chief, looking back at his commander.

“I’m not sure we have enough laser power to take that thing out,” said the tac officer, shrugging his shoulders.

“That’s not what I’m thinking about,” said Suttler, looking into the eyes of the other officer and seeing dawning recognition.

“That’s suicide, sir,” said the wide eyed officer. He was representative of the feelings of the crew, willing to put their lives on the line in a near suicidal attack, but quailing at actual suicide.

“And if we don’t stop the Cacas, the star is going to kill us all anyway. So, either we sacrifice ourselves, and possibly save the rest of the system. And we die. Or we sit here doing nothing, the system gets fried, and we die. It really seems like an easy decision, doesn’t it?”

The questioning looks on the faces turned his way told him that it was not an easy decision for most of them. People would put themselves at risk of death to fulfill a mission. Humans were courageous in that way. But committing an act of suicide, purposefully doing something that would definitely kill them? That was something else. Maybe if he had a crew of Lasharans. Those fanatics would cheerfully go to their deaths if they thought it would garner the approval of their hellish god.

“Look, we can’t hurt them any other way. So we will do the only thing I can think of that will assure at least serious damage to their platform.”

“Sir…”

“It’s my decision,” said Suttler, starting to get angry at the way this discussion was going. Wondering why they were even having a discussion. He was in command, and this ship would do what he wanted. As would the crew. “Can anyone come up with something else?”

“I think I can, sir,” said the engineer. “It’s going to leave us pretty much helpless in the end, but we’ll still be alive, possibly, if it works. And I for one would rather have that possibility, slim as it might be.”

The engineer quickly outlined his proposal, and the admiral flipped the information over to the helm to run a fast simulation.

“It’s workable,” said the chief. “And it still leaves the possibility for your committing to a ramming run on the first pass if that’s what it takes.”

“Okay,” said Bryce after a moment’s thought, all he had time for. “Let’s do it.”

The helm chief smiled and turned back to his board, programing in the maneuver. Things would be moving too fast at the end for a mere organic to control. He looked back at the admiral and gave a head nod.

“Engage.”

*     *     *

“We have another platform dropping off, my Lord. No com for explanation.”

The low admiral didn’t need a com. Another crew, or at least enough of them, mutinying. He looked over at the plot that only he could see, showing the two remaining platforms by their graviton emissions, and the conjunction of them in the center of the star. The platforms were only ninety degrees of arc from each other, versus the one eighty that would be optimal for two of them. And would two be enough to keep the reaction propogating? Had it already reached the point of no return?

He didn’t have the answers, and from what he had read in the technical reports neither did the alien scientists who had come up with it. All tests had been with twelve projection devices, and all had proceeded until the star had exploded its outer layer. They had no data on what happened with early shutdown. There were three possibilities he could think of. The star continued on until it reached the sub-supernova stage. It continued to violently flare, for months, maybe years, but didn’t detonate. Or it settled down relatively quickly, and was back to normal within days.

“Should we order them to shift?” asked the Chief of Staff, the only other male on his vessel who actually knew what was going on.

“No,” said the admiral, giving a head motion of negation.

“They will not be producing the most efficient effect the way they are set, my Lord.”

The low admiral just stared at the other officer, a non-believer who was a true believer in the Empire and the power of the Emperor. He noted the looks of the other bridge officers. Some were showing recognition of what was going on. All showed fear in their expressions, even those who hadn’t completely figured it out. The admiral felt like he had betrayed his people. But if he did what he felt like doing in his heart, he would betray the Emperor he had sworn allegiance to. And if he continued to destroy this system he was betraying the Gods he wasn’t sure he believed in. Believed or not, he had been raised to respect them, and wondered if turning his back on them had doomed him.

“My Lord,” said the Chief of Staff in a loud tone. “I insist that we order those ships to shift.”

“If you are so insistent, then send the command yourself,” said the admiral, crossing both pairs of arms over his chest. “I will not.”

The Chief of Staff sent him an angry look and stormed over to the com station, yelling for that male to start sending the message. The com officer looked back at his admiral for confirmation, and didn’t get it. The Chief of Staff growled low in his throat, then walked from the bridge with clenched fists. The admiral was sure he knew where the male was going. He could get a com link back to the fleet headquarters in the home system, and the admiral was expecting that he would receive an order to execute his superior officer and take charge. Knowing that, the admiral still could not force himself to give the command to ensure the destruction of the system.

*     *     *

“If we have the time to vector out of the system, I would like to do it, your Majesty.”

Sean looked at the face of the commander of the battle force, Admiral Conrad Alvera, responsible for over a thousand ships and their crews. Cautious Conrad, he was called in the fleet, and of course he wanted to save his ships and people. Sean couldn’t fault him for that. The Emperor still didn’t want to back off. If the force pulled out of the system they would give the Cacas more time to devastate the planet they were orbiting. But if they were still in the system and the star blew, most likely the majority of those ships would be destroyed.

“I’m not sure, Admiral. What I am sure of is that if we fail to save that world, we are likely to lose an ally.”

“But if we lose the fleet, and the planet is destroyed anyway, what have we accomplished? I’m sorry, your Majesty, but I think this is a loss. Better to cut our own losses and have the ships and people for further operations.”

Including yourself, thought Sean, trying to detect the fear in the officer. It was there. It would be strange if it wasn’t. Not enough to panic the officer, and the Emperor was sure that if he gave the man a command it would be carried out. Still, the admiral had jumped over the heads of his own superiors to talk with him, a move that might cost him greatly in the future. The admiral had figured that his people were worth it, and had gone ahead.

“How fast can you change vectors and get out of there, Admiral?”

“My navigation officer thinks we can get to safety in eighteen hours. That’s killing most of our velocity into the system and angling out.”

“You realize that if the star is going to blow, it will be well before eighteen hours.”

“Still, your Majesty, we improve our chances. And Admiral Mei will need even more time.”

And I owe Mei for my life, he thought. The woman, then commander of a battle cruiser, one of the first hyper VII in the fleet, had picked him up off the battleship Sergiov and transported him out of the system, saving his life. He did owe her, and was that any reason to give a command during a battle? He wished he had been there in the man’s shoes, even with the risk. In that moment he gained some insight into his friend, Walborski’s, motivations. It was too difficult to send other people into battle to take risks, while sitting safely in the rear. His friend was a man of action, not a staff officer.

“Go ahead and start your vector change, Admiral. But if the situation changes we will send you back in.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” said the relieved looking officer.

*     *     *

“We’re receiving orders from command to start vectoring out of the system,” called out the com officer, looking back at his admiral.

About time, thought Mei, staring at the plot that showed two active projector ships still stirring up the star. She wasn’t sure what was about to happen with so few of them still in action, but she was imagining the worst. She thought command must be imagining that as well, since they were giving the order. The question was, did she have the time.

“Order all ships to start changing their vectors,” she told the com officer.

The young woman nodded, face set with fear, but turned and started talking into the mic at her station.

“And order Duke von Rittersdorf and the other scout squadron commanders to seek what cover they can.”

She was very thankful that she had ordered those forces out into the asteroid belt. It had been a utilitarian decision, of course, but it had the effect of putting some more of her people in a position to survive. They could shelter behind some of the larger asteroids out there if they had to, and coincidentally saving the life of her favorite subordinate. She knew as a commander that she shouldn’t be thinking that way, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Status of our missiles?” she asked the tac officer. She didn’t hold out much hope of them doing anything, but it was her only hope. The reports coming back from the battle indicated that the ultra-high velocity missiles weren’t doing well in that space, and she didn’t expect the ones she had sent in to do any better.

“Unknown, ma’am. They should be arriving within fifteen minutes, and then we’ll know.”

If the missiles started pulling grabbers and shifting their trajectories it would mean they were still able to track. If not, it would indicate their sensors were out, and they were not able to track. They would continue on until they hit the largest target in the area, the star.

“Transmission coming in from Commodore von Rittersdorf,” said the com officer.

“Put him on my side holo.”

The face of the young commodore appeared on the holo, his concern evident.

“Duke Maurice,” she said in greeting.

“Are you going to be able to get out of there, Duchess?” asked the other officer.

“I, don’t think so. It was worth the shot, but I think that luck was against us this time.”

“I…”

“Just keep your ships safe. If something happens to me, you are now the commander of the scout force, at least what remains of it.”

“Your people are in my prayers, Duchess,” said the commodore. The holo blanked, and Mei said her own prayer. What else was there to say to each other. Her and the commodore went back a long ways, to the beginning of this war, when his then destroyer had saved her and her ship. She was happy that he had a chance.

“How much time will we have when the star blows?” she asked her tac officer.

“About nine minutes, ma’am.”

Mei nodded, thinking about what she would do with those last nine minutes. It would give her time to get to her cabin. Satin wouldn’t know what was going on, but she didn’t want him to die alone.

*     *     *

The ship shook from another hit, the defensive laser penetrating the electromagnetic screen and vaporizing armor. Stealth/attack ships weren’t intended for this kind of assault. The screens were slightly weaker than those of a destroyer, the armor not much more. Warning klaxons went off across the ship as the red of damage lit schematics all over the vessel.

Just hold together for another couple of seconds, thought Suttler, wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead. He would prefer they hold together even longer, but he would take existing long enough to pull off the attack.

“Reactors are full of antimatter,” called out the engineer. “We’re on battery power.”

The space around them was thick with superheated plasma, if anything just above a perfect vacuum could be called thick. Prominences were ripping from the star, many now continuing out into space. One hit the platform, splashing from its strong electromag screen. The Grampus shook as it took the less dense fringe of the flare.

It reminded the admiral of stories he had read of hell. And they were riding right on the edge of infernal realms. The ship was on a ride of doom, heading directly toward the enemy platform on a collision course.

As much as the plasma was causing turbulence, and possibly damaging sensitive systems, it was actually an aid to their attack. Lasers were having trouble tracking through the fog, and several blasts were intercepted before they reached their target.

At the proper moment the ship boosted down, diving underneath the platform. The computer went through its evolution as programmed, much faster than any organic could perform. Things happened within a microsecond.

Just before they passed under the ship the emergency doors over the reactors blew off, heading up into space to the facing side of the platform. The twin reactors boosted out, their grabbers sending them away at thousands of gravities. It was the failsafe device built into all human made warships. It didn’t always work, but when it did, breaching reactors were separated from the troubled vessel in time to save them. Or in this case, in time to hit a target.

The reactors were filled to the brim with antimatter, as much as the magnetic fields within could hold. Tons of the volatile substance. Many times more than a ship killer missile warhead. The twin vesicles ruptured as soon as they hit the Caca platform, releasing the almost unimaginable power of tons of antimatter combining with the same amount of matter in the annihilating reaction that powered interstellar civilizations.

Grampus continued on, accelerating on the crystal matrix batteries at two hundred gravities, draining energy quickly. It moved away from the platform and angled up, changing its vector to run away from the star. Behind it the platform broke apart, the center disintegrating, the ends, short and long, propelled away by the enormous blast.

“That leaves one,” said the tactical officer.

“And hopefully someone else to take care of it,” said the admiral. Grampus was speeding away from the star. It didn’t have the reserve battery power to change its course to an attack vector. It had no more weapons. It couldn’t do anything even if the crew had wanted it to

Suttler pulled up the holo showing the graviton emission track of the star, now only showing one platform, and an asymmetrical blob in the center that was causing very little in the way of disruption. In the rear view the star was still a roiling mass of violent plasma, prominences rising. For several minutes the spectacle continued, while the last Caca platform switched off. Several flares fell back into the star, then more. It took some time, and plasma was still flying out into space, but it soon became obvious that the star was not going to blow.

“We did it, sir,” said the helmsman.

“Well, we certainly did our part,” agreed the admiral, nodding. “Now, we have to hope the fleet can do its.”

Chapter Twenty

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

July 3rd, 1004.

“Their ships are no longer generating hyperwaves into the star, ma’am.”

“Very good, tac,” said Mei Lei, glancing at the plot. “Order the force to here,” she said, pointing to a spot on the plot that would give them a good angle of attack on the enemy fleet without placing the planet in the line of fire.

“We’ll reach that point in thirty-three minutes, ma’am. But we’ll pass through it in less than a minute when we get there.”

The admiral nodded. That would do. She could get off two volleys of wormhole missiles in that time, then work her way back. She wouldn’t be able to destroy the enemy force in that one window, but she would definitely get their attention.

“How are the missiles we fired at the star doing?”

“Still making their way in, as far as we know” said the tac officer. “No sign of vector changes. Do you want to send to destruct signal?”

“Why ever would I want to do that?” asked the admiral, a smirk on her face.

“The only Caca platforms still there have stopped stirring up the star. They’re no longer a threat.”

“They are no longer a threat when they give their formal surrender and abandon ship, Tac. Until then, fuck them.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the officer in a tone that showed his approval.

Mei put her hands behind her back and walked over to stand by the central holo, looking at the enemy force near the planet. She expected them to start bombarding it at any moment. They would probably hit it with enough kinetics that the planet as a life bearing body would be doomed. The human force would still be able to land wormholes on the planet and evacuate the surviving population. Best case estimate was they would be able to save two or three  hundred million, out of a billion. Still a better outcome than if the star blew.

“Is that star now stable?” she asked as the thought hit her.

“No way of telling, ma’am,” replied her science officer, speaking from the combat information center where she was monitoring the sensor feeds. “Theory is that it will back itself off, but no one has ever seen this before in real life.”

“Maybe we should continue trying to get out of here, ma’am,” said her tac officer.

“No,” she said immediately. “We’re going to save as many of those people as we can. So we keep on going.”

The planet was now five light minutes away. She wouldn’t see evidence of bombardment for five minutes after it started. She cursed the time delay of space. Wormholes had removed some of the distance generated uncertainty of combat, but not all. All she could hope was that the Cacas actually developed some compassion for aliens. She snorted at that thought. When would the damned demon creatures ever act as if they weren’t the only important things in the universe.

*     *     *

“You are to start bombarding the planet, Admiral,” said the higher ranking Ca’cadasan on the other end of the wormhole. “Leave nothing standing. You are to kill all of the Maurids that you can.”

“What about our people still down there?”

“They were dead as soon as they were sent down there,” said the Supreme Admiral who was the Emperor’s chief of staff.

Low Admiral Grassafa stared at the other male, one whom had been merely one rank above him until recently, when that worthy had been promoted ahead of his peers. He gave a head motion of negation at the words out of the other male’s mouth. Those Ca’cadasan warriors were still alive down there, no matter what this idiot said. And he was not about to murder them. He was also not about to murder the Maurid civilians if he could help it.

“What should we do, my Lord?” asked the tac officer, confusion on his face. “What in the hells was happening here?”

“The Emperor had ordered that we turn that star into a higher level nova, killing everything in the system,” said the admiral. “Including us. And now that we have failed in that mission, they want us to render the planet below us uninhabitable.”

“By the Gods, no,” blurted the sensor officer. “That’s blasphemy.”

“I will not order the bombardment of the planet,” growled the admiral. It was one thing to launch kinetics at valid military targets, even to hit cities if necessary. But killing the entire world? He had gone along with the attack that would have caused the star to sub-supernova since it removed responsibility from his shoulders. At least he had rationalized it that way. He would not go along with this, since it put responsibility clearly on him and no one else.

“Admiral,” said another voice, as the image of the Emperor appeared in the holo. “Have you gone mad? This order comes from your Emperor. You will immediately start your bombardment of that planet, and you will not stop until it is rendered uninhabitable. Is that clear?”

“That is clear, Supreme Lord. But I will not comply. We will fight the humans when they get here, and will die like Ca’cadasan warriors, with honor. But I will not kill a living planet. I hope I have made myself clear.”

The Emperor glared out of the holo, rage suffusing his face. He was trembling with his emotion, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. Finally, he pointed a pair of index fingers at the admiral and let out a primal scream.

“Kill that offal. Whoever takes his head will gain a promotion.”

“I’m sorry, admiral,” said a familiar voice from behind. “I understand how you feel, but we have sworn oaths to the Emperor, and must obey him.”

The admiral turned slowly to see his flag captain standing in the middle of the bridge, particle beam pistol in his hand, aimed directly at Grassafa’s head.

“Not you!” He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, since this male was the most likely to carry out the Emperor’s order.

“I’m sorry. But the Emperor is still our commander in chief, and we are obligated to obey him.”

“Even if it means disobeying the edicts of the Gods?”

“You weren’t worrying about the Gods when you came here, were you? Was it because the attack wasn’t in your hands, and you could rationalize that it was someone elses responsibility. Now that it is yours, you are too cowardly to carry out your orders.”

“Then go ahead and kill me,” growled the admiral, clenching his fists, considering reaching for his own pistol. He knew what would happen when he made the first move toward that weapon, but he didn’t want to go down without at least making the effort to defend himself like a Ca’cadasan warrior. “Then you can order the bombardment of the planet, and watch as the humans slaughter you and this fleet.”

The bridge crew were trying to take in the entire spectacle of the two ranking males on the ship facing each other down. There were looks of confusion still on some faces. But dawning recognition was appearing on some. The realization that they had been led to this battle as sacrificial beasts, and not as proud Ca’cadasan warriors. Every one of them would have put his life on the line for Emperor and Empire. If they had been given the information, as tradition demanded. They had been lied to, and put in a situation where there was no chance of survival. No chance of actually offering battle to their enemies. That plan had failed, and now they were being asked to kill a planet. An action that helped no one, advanced no strategy that benefited the Empire.

One of the crew, the com officer, got quietly to his feet behind the flag captain, pulling his ceremonial dagger in an overhand grip in his upper right hand. He padded forward one step and brought the dagger overhead, then down, straight into the back of the flag captain’s neck. It was an instant kill, skillfully dealt, slicing through the spine and into the nerve bundle that controlled autonomic functions. The eyes of the senior officer rolled up in his head, the pistol dropped from nerveless fingers, and his body folded up as all of its muscles went slack.

“I’m, I’m sorry, my Lord,” said the com officer, the blade still in his hand, dripping blood and spinal fluid. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did right.”

“Kill him,” shrieked the Emperor over the com holo.

“Kill that,” ordered the admiral, pointing at the holo.

The com officer moved immediately to his station and hit a panel, killing the holo, removing the spectacle of the Emperor out of control.

“Connect me to the rest of the fleet.”

“You’re on, my Lord.”

“Warriors of the fleet. We have been given an order that goes against the edicts of the Gods. Not only that, but our supreme commander led us here not to do battle with the enemy, but to serve as bait for a trap that not only would have killed us, but everything in this system. I knew this, and acted against our traditions civil and religious as well. I am guilty. But I refuse to continue with these actions.”

The admiral took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. He had never been known as a speechmaker, but it was important that he say the words that would end the madness.

“I’m not sure I have the right to give you orders. You must go with what your hearts tell you. But my hearts are telling me that we must stop. We haven’t the force to fight the humans. We will only go to our destruction without causing them more than the slightest harm. The only action possible is to kill the planet beneath us, something that goes against the edicts of the Gods. Remember, if you are a believer, like most of you are. You will face the Gods this day if you kill that world, as I can guarantee that the humans will make sure that none survive in this fleet. Think of how you want those Gods to judge you. My ship will not participate. I suggest that the rest of you do the same.”

The admiral turned away from the holo camera, walking back to his chair and falling into it. He was feeling sick to his stomach. He had turned his back on his Empire. After this day he could not return, and there was the possibility that his own family would suffer. His sons had been killed earlier in the war, so there were no close relatives to face retribution. There were cousins, and long lines of relations of varying distance. The Emperor could still strike at those relatives, and given his predilection for retribution, he surely would.

“Feast of Storms is dropping kinetics on the planet,” called out the sensor officer. “No other ships are joining in.”

*     *     *

“Command is reporting they believe the stellar event has been shut down,” came the voice over the com.

“Thank God,” said Sergeant Xi, a smile on his face. “So we only have to deal with the Cacas down here, and the ships they have up there. Cake.”

“Yeah, cake,” said Cornelius, thinking it was anything but. He thought the Maurids on the planet would eventually beat the Caca infantry, given time. There was nothing they could do about the force in close proximity to the planet. That was the job of the Fleet. And he could think of no way the human force could get here in time to prevent them from bombarding the planet into a uninhabitable state.

On the far side of the huge city, something flashed, and a fiery mushroom cloud started to rise into the air. A moment later the ground rumbled, and stonework fell from the smashed buildings nearby.

“Well, now it starts,” said the general, looking up into the sky. Something flashed up there, followed by another, until a whole series of bright flashes worked above the atmosphere. “Maybe not.”

“What’s going on, General?”

“I’m not sure,” said Cornelius with a slight smile. “But it looks like the start of a civil war.”

*     *     *

The admiral watched as the supercruiser fired a brace of kinetic weapons at the surface. The fast moving weapons hit seconds after launch, streaking through the atmosphere to strike with bright flashes.

“Well, I shouldn’t have expected everyone to go along with me,” he said under his breath.

“My Lord,” yelled out the tactical officer.

The admiral looked up to see the viewer centered on the supercruiser that had just launched the kinetics. Part of the hull glowed, and alloy puffed out as it converted to gas. The viewer split to show one of the few superbattleships in orbit, its hull taking a couple of hits. Its much more powerful beams continued to strike the cruiser, which started to tumble as the outgassing provided random thrust to the hull.

The uneven fight lasted for several minutes, the cruiser handing out damage to the battleship, and receiving five times as much to its smaller hull. At that time the cruiser powered down, the sign of surrender, and that fight was over.

“We have incoming missiles, my Lord. We’re picking up the fluctuations as they adjust their courses onto us.”

Wormhole launches, thought the admiral, seeing the projected track on the plot. The humans were firing at an angle that left the planet out of the target basket. Fortunately, the only ships in that bullseye were merchant ships made to look like warships, with minimal or no crews. And a couple of scout ships there to add their electronic suites to the mix.

Seventy-one ships blinked on the plot and disappeared, taken out. Even a near miss, a gigaton warhead going off several hundred meters away, was enough to take out the fakes. There weren’t many of those near misses, since the targets didn’t have the electronic warfare suites or maneuvering capabilities of real warships.

“There has to be more volleys coming in, my Lord,” said the tactical officer. “Fortunately, most of our real warships are still too close to the planet.”

“Order all of the crews out there to abandon ship. The scout vessels are to make way to close orbit at best speed.”

“Their main fleet will be here in five hours. What defensive formation do you want, my Lord.”

The admiral was grateful that his people were still looking for him for command. And he was about to give one that might cause more of them to second guess their own decisions.

“Send an order to the fleet. All ships are to stand down. We are going to surrender to the humans.”

“No, my Lord,” blurted the tactical officer. Because of his position, he was among the most belligerent males among an aggressive species.

“What would you suggest?” asked the admiral, looking into the pain filled eyes of the officer. “We don’t have enough launch platforms left to seriously threaten that human force. And when they close they will destroy all of us, for little return.”

“I, have no suggestions, my Lord,” said the male, his eyes toward the deck.

“Then send a com to the humans,” the admiral ordered his communications officer, sitting his station a few meters from the officer he had struck down. “Offer our surrender, unconditionally. And ask them what we should do to prevent any, misunderstandings.”

*     *     *

“We’ve received a signal from the commander of the Caca fleet, your Majesty. Offering his unconditional surrender and that of all the ships under his command. However, he also states that he can’t guarantee that every vessel will go along with it.” Admiral Alvera was smiling, the look of a man who knew he wasn’t about to die this day.

“What do you suggest, Admiral?” asked Sean, looking into the face of a relieved flag officer. The star was already settling down, obviously not about to blow off a measureable percentage of its plasma and kill everything in the system. And the enemy they had expected to bring to close battle had not only stopped bombarding the planet, but was now offering to give up without a fight.

That last part of the message was troubling. If not all of the enemy ships were guaranteed to surrender, there was the risk of a surprise strike on some of the human vessels. If possible Sean wanted to end this thing with no more loss of life, but he would rather kill all of the Cacas than lose one more of his people.

“We could ask them to abandon ship and remain in their shuttles and life pods until we can pick them up. Then, any ship that is still powered up, or that powers up as we approach, we can hit with a missile and take it out.”

“I would prefer that you take as many prisoners as possible,” said the Emperor, nodding. “We’re going to have to learn how to work with these people if we are going to successfully conclude this war.”

There was still no guarantee that they were going to win. But it was looking more and more like they would, but the Cacas still had a lot of military power. Having some on their people on his side, just to get their message across to the enemy, would go a long way to making sure the war ended without the nastiness of continued fighting against every small force that decided to make a stand across the enormity of Ca’cadasan space.

“We’ll try our best, your Majesty. What do you want to do about their soldiers on the planet.”

“If you can get their surrender, send your Marines down to take charge of them. If they are still resisting, hit them from orbit, send in air support, and crush them with your troops.”

“And if the Maurids demand we turn the Cacas over to them?”

“We will hold onto them for the moment, Admiral. And you will empanel a tribunal to look into individual cases, assign guilt to those found so, and punish them according to our laws. The Maurids need to know that we operate according to our own code, and that they will have to adjust their behavior accordingly.”

“Okay. I’ll try. I’m not sure how the natives are going to react, and I don’t want to have to order Marines to fire on them.”

“Try to avoid that at all costs, Admiral. But if you must to maintain order, then that is what we will have to do. Stunners only, of course. Now, get to it. I’m going to talk with our people on the surface and get their take.”

The holo faded, leaving the Emperor alone with his thoughts for a moment. There was one more matter to take care of. Small in the grand scheme of things, but important to him. And to some others that were close to him as well.

*     *     *

“We will, of course, agree to their terms,” said the admiral. “Send the order to all ships. Abandon after powering down all systems.”

“Shouldn’t we scuttle our ships, Admiral?” asked the tactical officer, looking into the senior officer’s eyes. “To keep the enemy from gathering secrets.”

“Purge the memory banks if you must. But really, do you think the enemy is actually going to get significant intelligence from these old ships. When they have already captured hundreds of them in their sweep into the Empire.”

“Agreed,” said the tactical officer after a moment’s thought. That male turned back to his board, pulling up the ship’s computer system and pointing to large files on the data structure. He punched in a code, then made a head motion to his admiral, who punched in his code at his seat, setting the program in motion that would wipe that data from the system, permanently.

“Send information to their admiral designating the transponder code of my shuttle,” the admiral ordered the com officer. “I’m sure they’ll want to take custody of me as soon as possible. Everyone else, to your designated escape pods.”

The admiral pulled up another holo, connecting to the ship’s chief engineer. “Power everything down but the emergency systems, Engineer. Then get your people off.”

The officer gave a head motion of acceptance, though his expression betrayed how he felt about the whole idea.

As long as he obeys, thought the admiral. Nobody had to be happy about this. Tradition stated that Ca’cadasan warriors didn’t surrender. That tradition had been violated several times in this war. And they had been lied to and deceived by their Emperor and his appointed heads of the military. The wind had been punched out of them, they were cowed, and there was very little dissent.

Minutes later the admiral’s shuttle, filled with evacuating crew, left the hangar to join the general exodus from all the ships. Shuttles, pinnaces, escape pods, all gathered and moved away from the battleship as per the instructions from the humans. Then it was a waiting game, and the admiral hoped the humans would act with honor, now that all of his people were sitting helplessly in the fragile defenseless containers. If they didn’t, and decided to kill all of the Ca’cadasans, there was nothing he could do about it.

*     *     *

“Get him back,” screamed the Emperor, pounding his fists on the table. “Get him back, right now.”

“The wormhole has collapsed on the other end, Supreme Lord,” said high ranking com officer that handled communications during meetings.

“Then reopen it.”

“That is not possible, Supreme Lord,” said the stammering com officer. The male was frightened. A quick way to die was to say no to this young male, even when saying yes was physically impossible.

“I want that admiral executed,” yelled the Emperor, turning his attention away from the com officer, to that male’s obvious relief. “Immediately.”

“Supreme Lord,” said the Chief of Staff for the Fleet, keeping his tone low and patient. “The humans have won that battle. There is no way we can access that officer.”

“You told me that we would destroy that human force, Supreme Admiral,” growled the young male, pointing a pair of index fingers at the officer. “Why didn’t that happen?”

“I told you that we had a good chance of success, Supreme Lord,” said Kelgarasse after gulping down his rising panic. “There are no guarantees in war. The enemy has their own plans, which run counter to ours.”

The Emperor looked like he was about to fall over with rage. The admiral was sure that if the young fool was able to, he would have ordered the execution of all the humans who had thwarted his plans. That would only have been possible if the Ca’cadasan fleet had been able to invade and take the human Empire. Unfortunately for him, the humans were the invaders here.

The other high rankers in the chamber looked on, some with barely hidden smirks on their faces. His fall would only aid in their rise, and the Supreme Admiral looked hopelessly for people to come to his defense. And seeing none.

“I want the order going out for the arrest and immediate execution of that admiral,” said the Emperor, looking at every face in the room. “Yes, I know we can’t get our hands on him now, but one day he may again fall into our hands, when we have beaten the humans. Then, I want my order to be carried out.”

There were motions of acknowledgment around the table, officers agreeing to save their lives, with no belief that the order would ever be carried out.

“Now,” he said, looking over at the Chief of the Secret Police. “I want you to track down any family members the admiral may have had. They are to be executed, in the most painful means possible.”

“He had no immediate family, Supreme Lord.”

“Then go after his cousins.. Nephews. Any relation to the smallest degree.”

The Chief gave a head motion of acceptance, if not agreement. The rest of the room appeared to be decidedly uncomfortable. It was tradition that the line of a failure was to be wiped out, in order to prevent that genotype from propagating. Successes were encouraged to have many offspring, while failures were not to pass on their predilection to fail to future generations. It was not tradition to wipe out the rest of the extended family not in the direct line of the failing officer. With the current mood of the Emperor, no one felt like disagreeing with him.

“When can we set up the next ambush?” asked the Emperor, his thoughts already moving on to the next chance to hurt the humans.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to try this again, Supreme Lord,” said the admiral. “There is no guarantee that the humans are going to fall for it again.”

“If we set it up in another Maurid system, I’m sure they will respond,” said General Fresstas, the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Army. “They seem to feel obligated to save their allies.”

“What about the Maurid home world?” asked the Emperor, a thoughtful expression on his face. “The damned filthy beasts seem to revere that planet. If we threatened it, all of those in human hands are sure to squawk to their new masters, demanding that they intervene. And from what we know of those weak creatures, they will comply.”

The other males look at their leader with doubtful expressions. None of them would call the humans weak. That they thought along different paths than Ca’cadasans was a given. That their form of government was anathema to that of the Ca’cadasan Empire was also a given.

“See to it, Admiral. And I want you,” he continued, looking over at the Chief, “to start a program of extermination on any world where the Maurids have a considerable population. I want those vermin purged from my Empire.”

“You want us to exterminate the species?” asked the Chief, a shocked expression on his face.

“Keep a couple of thousand of them around if you must,” growled the Emperor. “But they are to be kept in the tightest of confinement. Much like we did with the humans we kept after destroying their home world.”

The chief gave a head motion of acceptance, seemingly in agreement, though his expression still showed doubt.

“You all have your orders,” yelled the Emperor, stalking from the room. “Now get to it,” he screamed over his shoulder as he stomped down the hall away from the chamber.

“What the hell are we going to do?” asked one of the lower ranking admirals.

“What we are told to do, if we want to keep our heads on our shoulders,” said the Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse. “I wonder what the hell he is going to do next.”

“Probably plan his victory parade on the human home world, along with his speech.”

The males all laughed at that, the deep from the gut roar of Ca’cadasans in good humor. They weren’t feeling all that jovial at the moment, but anything to release the tension was welcome.

*     *     *

JULY 5TH, 1004. KALLFER.

General Cornelius Walborski stood at the edge of the landing field, watching the large assault shuttle set down on the tarmac. As soon as it touched down the rear hatch swung open and a double line of Marines in heavy battle armor shuffled out pealing off and forming a perimeter further out. Fifty in all, a complete platoon, they secured the area, while more shuttles came in to disgorge their loads.

“General,” said a Marine with captain’s bars on his helmet, rendering a salute. “We are here to secure this area and take charge of the Caca prisoners.”

“They’re not prisoners yet, Captain. We’ve accepted the surrender of a few, but most are refusing to lay down their weapons.”

“We’ll see about that, sir. Do we have your permission to root them out of their redoubts?”

“You do indeed. But my men, and our Maurid allies, have already bled enough.”

“Understood. Then when my colonel gets down here to take charge, we’ll move on the Cacas.”

Cornelius nodded, then looked back at the men he had led into combat. He had started with a full company, a hundred and eighty-four men, plus himself. There were thirty-two still on their feet, with another fourteen wounded who were already on their way to the wormhole portal. One hundred and thirty-eight of them would never breath again. Many of their bodies would never be recovered, blasted into nothing by weapons too powerful for mere physical forms to stand up to.

“You have a com request coming in from the flagship, General,” said the captain, holding out a small globe to the Ranger.

“I’ll talk with the admiral,” he said, taking the globe and activating it. The holo appeared over the top of the device, and Cornelius opened his mouth to speak, stopping as he caught the angry glare of his friend and monarch.

*     *     *

JULY 10TH, 1004.

“Thank you for coming, Emperor Sean,” said the Maurid known to the humans as Striped Wolf, looking at the image of the human in the holo. “If not for you and your brave warriors, this world would have been stripped of life, a billion of my people dead.”

“I am happy we could be of service,” said Sean, bowing his head slightly to the creature who was not a subject of his, but an honored ally. “What was the butchers bill for your folk?”

“We’re estimating about forty million, between the executions and the fighting. Remember this, Emperor Sean. While we mourn all, those who died in the fighting will be remembered as having died well. Those executed will not be. That is why I must ask you a favor, if it is in your power to grant it.”

“Name it, and if it’s possible, it will be done.”

“We need weapons on the other worlds that we occupy. If we have the means to fight, we will not allow the masters, I mean former masters, to round us up for execution. We can fight and kill unarmored Cacas with our natural weapons. Those in armor are another thing altogether.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” said Sean, nodding. “You realize that it won’t be easy to supply all of the worlds. We will have to smuggle ships close to those systems and get a wormhole down to the surface.”

“I don’t expect miracles, sir. But every weapon you can get to us will be appreciated. And time is of the essence, of course.”

“We’ll do what we can. Now, I have to ask you to do something for us.”

“I can guess what you are going to ask,” said Striped Wolf, growling low in his throat.

He looked over at the huge stockade that the humans had constructed to hold many of the Cacas awaiting transport off the planet to a place where the entire population didn’t want to rip their entrails out. Tens of thousands of those Maurids stood outside the stockade, at the hundred meter line that marked the deadline. A hundred Imperial Marines, including a dozen of the enormous Phlistarans, there for intimidation purposes, stood in front of the fence, weapons held easily in their gauntleted hands. A couple of hundred Maurids had learned what it meant to cross that line. Stunners didn’t kill, but they left the lean quadruped aliens with terrific headaches for quite some time, and the indignity of being dragged away to the short term lockup nearby was enough to dissuade most of them from trying to approach the stockade.

“My people want their vengeance, Emperor Sean. I can talk until my lower jaw falls off from overuse, and they will never relinquish their fierce need for violent closure.”

“You know the laws of my people,” said Sean, shaking his head. “Those Cacas are prisoners of war, and will be treated as such until we have sorted out their roles in the occupation. The leaders will be held in the station we are constructing above your world, and will be brought back down to the planet for trial. Those found guilty of atrocities will be publicly executed in front of witnesses from your people.”

“Using your methods,” spit the Maurid, his eyes narrowing. “We have our own way of treating with criminals.”

“And when you capture criminals that are not prisoners of war you are welcome to continue punishing them according to your traditions. But my forces will act according to our laws, and torture is not something I will condone. Understand?”

“And if we decide that you are not the people we want to ally with?” said the Maurid, the eyes above his narrow snout narrowing.

“That is your choice,” said the Emperor, his own eyes narrowing. “There will be no repercussions, but there will also be little in the way of aid. Not until we have finished the war and have the extra resources to give you.”

“That sounds a little like blackmail, Emperor Sean.” The Maurid looked out over the city, a ruin that would need a lot of work to rebuild. Until then, his people would be sheltering in whatever was available. And until they got their ranches and food production facilities back on line, hunger would live in the bellies of the people. They needed what the humans had to give. And basically the humans didn’t really need what the Maurids were able to provide now that they had completed their break with the Ca’cadasan Empire.

“Take it how you want, Striped Wolf. My Empire will act according to my will, and the will of Parliament. That does not mean that we will withhold food, and we will get your food production facilities up and running as soon as possible. But other facilities will have to wait, and that includes your housing.”

The Maurid, who had dealt with Cacas all of his life, including their Emperor old and new, realized that he was up against a will just as relentless as theirs. Only it was a will both just and compassionate.

“It will be as you say, Emperor Sean.”

The Maurid took another look toward the stockade, then to the field, where a line of Cacas was being marched out to waiting shuttles. This time his attention was on the Imperial Marines, in their heavy battle armor, more than a match one on one with a disarmed Caca.

“I would like to discuss one other thing, Emperor Sean. I would like to see my people integrated into your military structure. We can provide many land warriors. Most likely scouts.”

“We can do that. And we will also need a list of your people willing to serve on the fortress and dock we are building in orbit. This is your world, and I think it best if you have a hand in defending it.”

“Thank you.”

As he watched, a dozen Maurids ran at full speed toward the stockade. They all took three or four strides past the deadline, then fell over on their sides. Striped Wolf shook his head in the human manner. His people were as hard headed as they came.

“And I would like to organize our own police force,” he said, looking at the Emperor, who was also watching the scene through the holo. “I think a line of our own would be an asset in preventing more of that from happening.”

“I’ll get with our Fleet personnel and see about setting you up with equipment made for your people. It will be up to you to make sure that they don’t abuse that privilege. Now, I have to go. I’m not a dictator, like the leader of your former masters. It might seem like I have ultimate power, but fortunately, or unfortunately at times, that is not true. Be well, my friend. And enjoy your freedom.”

Such as it is, thought the Maurid as the holo faded. He hadn’t gotten everything he wanted, and he could already hear the dissenting opinions of some of the planetary leaders. Still, the humans had given them much, and he trusted them to keep their word, unlike the big bastards who had been the masters. Unfortunately, there were still almost ten billion of his people living  under the thumb of the Ca’cadasan Empire. They had to be saved from their masters, then freed to help the Maurid people achieve their own destiny.

The humans would help, but the onus of the effort would fall to his own. It was time to organize a guerilla organization that could go through the wormholes the humans would deploy to Maurid worlds. They would be disadvantaged against an opponent that controlled space, and the humans would not be able to help on worlds that sat on the other side of the Caca home world. Still, they would be able to strike back at the masters, and as he had told the human Emperor, death as a warrior, in pursuit of achieving the goals of the race, was something to be sought.

Epilogue

JULY 25TH, 1004. JEWEL.

“And we can produce generating platforms like these within the month,” said Admiral Chuntoa Chan, looking at the Emperor with a slight smile. “We can do to the Cacas what they wanted to do to us.” The admiral sat back, crossing her hands over her chest with a smug look on her face, sure that she had delivered good news to her monarch. She recoiled as she saw the expression on his face.

“Are you fucking mad, Admiral?” yelled Sean, leaning forward and pointing a finger at her. “You want to reproduce that abomination, and burden us with the same sins our enemies have committed.”

“It’s a weapon, your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom, coming to the defense of an officer she was known to dislike. “Don’t we have an obligation to procure any weapons that might help us to win this war and save the lives of our citizens.”

“And would you suggest that we do more research into time travel? We might be able to save every life that has been lost. Hell, we could even go back and blast the Cacas into the stone age before they ever discovered Earth. And you, and me, and every other being that has existed since the beginning of our Empire would cease to exist. That would be a good thing, right?”

“No, sir. It wouldn’t. But this is…”

“This is criminal. And we don’t need it. The only use of this thing is to kill systems. We have to take the system first before we can deploy it. So why in the hell would we ever want to use it?”

“Because our enemy has it?” asked McCullom, confusion and the shame of being dressed down by her monarch in her expression.

“Not a good enough reason. And not what I want for the Fleet.”

“What do you want, your Majesty?” asked Chan, a slight note of frustration in her tone.

“I want us to be able to spot those projector units as soon as they move. Then I want to be able to kill them at a distance.”

They had learned much from the operation. Stealth/attack were only useful that close in if they could make a quick kill. If the attack was delayed the ships lost their stealth, their main combat advantage. They had also discovered that warp fighters couldn’t go over light speed within the dense particle field around the star while also dealing with the deep gravity well. And wormhole launched missiles were a nonstarter, both those fired from a distance and those released close up. They were going too fast to handle the dense particle field and lost all of their sensor capability. Sean was willing to let them kill the platforms that had gone dark. Maybe they had surrendered, but he had not been willing to take that chance. Fortunately for the Cacas every one of the missiles had missed, flying into the star.

“We did kill them, your Majesty,” said McCullom, looking off the holo for a moment. “And with very light losses, all things considered.”

“The stealth/attack squadron lost twenty-one ships out of twenty-four, an eighty-seven percent casualty rate. The three ships that survived were all badly damaged. And the warp fighter squadrons faired even worse. And don’t even start on our long range missile fire. It was useless. The only bright point was our major ship actions, and that was mainly thanks to the Cacas having so few real warships in the system. It wasn’t a satisfactory conclusion. So we need to look at our tech, and more importantly, our tactics when dealing with those things. Because we could have lost everything we committed to that system just as easily as we won.”

“I can think of some programming changes we can make that will let the missiles close at the proper velocity, your Majesty,” said Chan, pulling up a holo at her end that appeared over the table, showing missile attack profiles at different velocities. “Maybe even install some electromagnetic fields.”

“That’s great. Work on that. And try to come up with some other things. I want to be able to fix and kill those platforms before they can initiate the event. I want to be able to do that without putting our own people into the basket of their trap. And I want to lose no more planets full of intelligent beings to that bastard of an Emperor.”

“From what our prisoners told us, I doubt he will be able to get too many of his males to acquiesce to participation in an attack like that,” said Ekaterina Sergiov, looking straight into the eyes of the monarch. For her part, she had been right on target with her intelligence analyses. With the exception of how the Cacas had hidden their assets near the star, and frankly her sources had no way of knowing how the enemy had changed their tactics.

“But there are other ways of manning the platforms,” said Sean, annunciating each word. “Robotic systems for one.”

“And we’ve seen how that can work out,” said McCullom with a sigh. There were nods all about the table, all thinking of the Machines their forces were fighting out in far space against monstrosities of their own making.

“Which isn’t to say that they won’t use them,” said Chan, gaining the attention of all. “If the AIs don’t have access to the drives, or if the drives are disabled, then they won’t be able to leave the proximity of the star. They would only be capable of following their instructions, or not. And if enough of them follow orders, the star goes up.”

“Good point, Admiral,” said Sean. “So, we need to find a way to kill them without deploying ships to the system. If we can’t do that, I need a way to fix the enemy at the earliest opportunity so we can send in a squadron of stealth ships too take them out. Which means we need to know where they are well before they activate their hyperdrives.”

“A tall order, your Majesty,” said McCullom, looking around to see the agreement on the faces of the others around the table.

“And the kind of order I expect the talent in this room to find a way to obey. It might not be easy, but then, if it was easy we could have anyone doing our jobs.”

“On the positive side, your Majesty, our friends are very happy with us,” said Sergiov with a smile. “That was a good call. Even the most loyal of their leaders can now see the Ca’cadasan Empire for what they really are. Slavers with no care for those they enslave, even the ones that have served them with their best efforts.”

“A billion of them,” said McCullom in a soft voice, shaking her head. “What can we do with them in our landing forces?”

“More like twenty or thirty million of them,” said Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, speaking for the first time. “We can’t expect the entire population to sign on as soldiers.”

“Still more than we had,” said the CNO, giving the Grand Marshal a quick glare for spoiling her flight of fancy.

“Unfortunately, we have no more Maurids placed in positions in their command structure,” said Sergiov, glancing at the two service leaders before fixing her gaze on the Emperor. “That intelligence pipeline has more or less dried up.”

“More or less?” asked McCullom, her eyes narrowing in thought.

“Quite a few of them have faded into the woodwork,” said the intelligence chief. “They’re very stealthy creatures, and they thought ahead to the day when they might break with their masters. When they feel the time is right, they will strike. But the pipeline we had into the Caca high command is gone.”

“We still have our signal intelligence into their system, correct?” asked Sean.

“Correct, your Majesty,” said Sergiov. “The stealth ship is lying low. The last report was there was a lot of signal traffic in their home fleet. Electromagnetic and grav. Unfortunately, they have changed their codes, so we aren’t sure what the hell they’re saying.”

“Any chance of decryption?”

“There’s always a chance, your Majesty. However, decryption is always a hit or miss proposition. We’re not always sure if what we get is accurate, or just wishful thinking. We need another source to verify, and that is what we’re missing.”

Sean looked at her for a moment, then nodded in acknowledgment. He might not have liked hearing it, but he had to accept that his people were doing all they could to get information. The other side would do everything they could to prevent that information from getting to their enemy’s command structure.

“Okay. I think that does it for now. We’ll meet again in two days to discuss our options for the next stage of the offensive. I think…”

Sean stopped in midsentence when he realized that three of his people had stopped paying attention to him. He felt a short flash of anger as Sergiov, McCullom and Yamakuri all stared off into space, until he realized that they were receiving information over their implants.

“I think you need to see this, your Majesty,” said Sergiov, the first to come out of the trance.

The main holo switched views from the overall look at the front to a single system. It took the Emperor a moment to recognize the system, but when he did his eyes widened. There was a mass of ships, a large blob at this level, around one of the inner planets. And an even larger mass out near where the hyper barrier would be, over a thousand contacts, with scores more appearing every couple of seconds.

“What are we looking at?”

“We’re still trying to come up with an answer, your Majesty,” said Sergiov, a slight smile on her face. “But we think this might be the beginning of a civil war. Or a revolution.”

Sean leaned forward, zooming in on the mass near the planet. The contacts separated, and now he could see that many of the ships were maneuvering. He could tell little else, since the information was restricted to graviton emissions. When a hundred new icons appeared, small but pushing out a lot of gravitons, he realized that he was looking at ships in combat with each other.

“Our asset in the system is reporting a lot of com traffic, from planet to planet, from naval force to naval force. Some of it the clear using their standard grav pulse code. One from the incoming fleet to the home world.”

“Any idea what they’re saying?”

“We’re here,” said Sergiov, her smile growing.

*     *     *

CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM.

“Where are all of my people?” growled the Emperor, standing up from his throne and sending a glare toward his advisors.

The palace seemed to be devoid of life. Normally there were scurrying servants and slaves everywhere, running their errands, or maybe just trying to look busy. The guards were still in place, at least they holding to their oaths of duty. Many of the administrators who ran the government from the palace were also still at their posts, but many weren’t.

“I asked, where are my people?” asked Jresstratta, jumping from his throne and running down the steps, striding across the huge chamber and taking a turn toward a door at the midline of the room. He flew through the door, down the long corridor, then through the opening that led to one of the many balconies on the side of the palace.

The balcony was abnormally quiet as well, even the guards missing. The Emperor stared in disbelief, then ran to the edge of the balcony, looking out over his city. Normally busy at this time of the night, full with Ca’cadasans on their way to and from their nightly revels at taverns and houses, the streets were empty. It was still hours before the curfew, and no reason for people to not be about.

“Where are all my people?”

“I, don’t know, your Majesty,” said Supreme Admiral Kelgarasse, the Naval Chief of Staff, his own eyes wide.

“Where is Pellishar?” asked a now panicking Jressratta, running up to the admiral and grabbing his uniform front with all four hands. “Where is my chief of the secret police?”

“I have not seen him for many hours, your Majesty,” stammered the male, looking around as if he would spot the missing secret policeman hiding in the few spaces in the shadows of the platform.

“Supreme Lord,” yelled a male in the livery of Palace communications, running onto the balcony, his eyes wide. “There is a fleet entering the system.”

“Whose fleet?”

“One of ours. Several thousand ships. We have no idea why they are here.”

“What are they doing here, Supreme Admiral? What in the hells are you doing?”

“I have no idea, your Majesty,” said the male, taking a step back as soon as the monarch released the front of his tunic.

“It’s your fleet. Why don’t you know why it’s here?”

“They sent one grav wave signal, Supreme Lord,” said the com officer.

“Well, what in the hell did they say, you idiot?” growled the youngest male on the balcony.

“We’re here,” said the lower ranking male.

“That’s all. What in the hell does that mean?”

“Your Majesty. Look,” yelled one of the palace guard who had followed the group out onto the balcony. He pointed up at the sky, where lights and flashes were appearing outside of the atmosphere.

The Emperor looked up, mouth open in shock. Bright pinpoints of flashes worked their way across the heavens, then a flurry near bursts. Something flashing with hits moved quickly across the heavens, while something to the south flared as it fell into the atmosphere.

“That’s a battle,” yelled Jressratta, pointing up. “But who’s fighting.”

“Those are all our ships,” said the deflated Naval Chief of Staff. “It’s a revolt.”

“Why weren’t your people tracking that incoming force, Supreme Admiral?” yelled the Emperor, taking a step in his direction and raising both upper arms, hands curled into fists.

“I, don’t know. Unless the people on the outer system tracking stations have gone over to the side of the rebellion.”

“I will have their heads. I will have all of their heads. Order all of those fools killed, and their heads gathered. I will put them on pikes, every couple of meters, from here to Jaffara,” he said, naming a city a hundred kilometers to the east.

All of the other males on the balcony stared at their monarch, who to them had seemed to have lost his mind. It was all well and good to give orders, but it was looking like these would not be carried out anytime soon.

“We need to get you out of here, your Majesty,” said General Fresstas, the male in charge of the Ca’cadasan Army.

“And where are your people, General? Where are your soldiers when your Emperor needs them?”

“I sent out an order to the local garrison, and have received no response,” said the male, letting out a breath. “I don’t think they are on our side.”

“I will have them all killed,” yelled Jressratta, stomping along the floor of the balcony, waving all four fists in the air. Throwing a tantrum, as if that would change the facts of what was happening.

“I think we have more immediate problems, Supreme Lord,” shouted the general, walking to the edge of the balcony and pointing to the east, toward the city of Jaffara.

A long line of lights could be seen along the road leading to that city, the closest a mere few kilometers from the palace, already in the city. The line stretched into the distance along the road, to the horizon.

“What is that? What are those lights?”

“I think they are every portable light source those people could gather,” said the general, closing his eyes for a moment. “And every citizen they could gather to carry them.” He opened his eyes and looked over at the Emperor. “We need to get you out of here, Supreme Lord.”

“Where would I go?” whined the child Emperor, starting to quiver with fear. He was no longer the supreme ruler of the Empire, every life his to end as he wished, his every whim to be obeyed. Now he was again an adolescent Ca’cadasan, one who had gone through none of the trials that had been included in the upbringing of Emperor’s past. Including an education in the Ca’cadasan fleet as a junior officer. “The bunker?”

“That would just become a death trap,” said the general. “We must get you someplace where they won’t look, until we can gather the loyalists to our side.”

“Loyalists,” gasped the Supreme Admiral, looking on in disbelief. “This young fool has alienated the populace and the military with his orders and actions. He has killed us all.”

The Emperor was not paying attention to them, his eyes locked on the landing field to the north, where a line of shuttles was coming in to roost. He didn’t think those shuttles were filled with troops come to save him.

“Arguing isn’t going to help,” growled the general, glaring at the naval commander. “The rebels aren’t going to give us any more consideration than the Emperor. Or do you think they are going to forgive us for the deaths of so many of our own?”

“They might,” said the Supreme Admiral, gesturing to one of the elite guards, who gave head motions to his compatriots.

That warrior brought his rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The sound of loud buzzing continued for minutes as the angry red light of the beams lit the balcony.

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 and a half year period as a self-published author, Doug has sold well over two hundred and fifty thousand eBooks, paperbacks and audio books.  He has amassed over 6,000 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. His first traditionally published series, Kinship War, should be out in 2019, and he had written a novel, When Eagles Dare, in Chris Kenndy and Mark Wandrey’s Four Horsemen series. 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 four 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.

Theocracy Book 2: With the aid of Watcher, Patrick O’brien and his partners, including some new alien allies, quest across multiple worlds in a search for the control center that could save his world.

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: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation: The Caca offensive has been turned back, and now it’s the time for the Empire to get some payback. But desperation will often breed deadly reactions, and this time is no different.

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 Book 5: Angels & Demons: Kurt is back with the Army of the Alliance, marching on the capital of the Elf Half-lich who is the enemy of everything good on the world. The Evil Emperor has little in the way of military power, but he had powerful other worldly allies. Can Kurt and his friends summon aid from their own Gods, or will the Army of the Alliance be crushed so near to their goal.

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.

Apocalypse: Fiction River: A number of tales in which the world ends, from the whimsical to the horrifying.

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Table of Contents

- Exodus:  Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion. by Doug Dandridge

- Dedication
- Books by Doug Dandridge
- Cast of Characters
- 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
- Epilogue
- About the Author
- Books by Doug Dandridge