Date: 2019-09-22 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Beata Bednarczyk has taken care of the Machines, the mistake from the Empire's past. She was to be rewarded with a promotion and assignment to the main front, fighting alongside the senior commanders of the fleet. She received the promotion, but assignments have a way of changing. Things have changed on the Second Front, the war of the genetically engineered humans and the Cacas. The Klavarta, as they are called, have held their own against the Cacas, even pushing into the imperial space of the big aliens. They have been preparing for another push. The commander of the New Terran Empire forces
Publisher: Catbrother Publishing

Exodus:

Empires at War:

Book 15:

All Quiet On The Second Front?

by

Doug Dandridge

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to all of my fans and readers who have stuck by me while I dealt with serious illness. You are the best, and there will be better times ahead.

Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

Follow my Blog at http://dougdandridge.com

Follow me at @BrotherofCats

Copyright © 2019 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 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.

Prologue

“This is the best you can come up with, Supreme Admiral,” growled the young Emperor, Jresstratta V. He looked with disapproval at the holo star map the naval officer had projected in the center of the meeting chamber. “I want to punish the humans on this front. They are the greater threat.”

“And that is because they are stronger than the other kingdom,” pleaded the Supreme Admiral, who knew that his very life was in the balance, and the wrong words could tilt it to a fall. He forced the expression on his face to stay neutral, showing neither fear nor exasperation, either of which could set the undisciplined young male off.

The Supreme Admiral took a quick glance around the chamber. Before the human attack this kind of meeting would have taken place in a traditional stone chamber, sturdy enough, but not proof against the weapons that had brought the palace down on that horrible day. Now it was a similar sized compartment of the toughest alloys the Empire could produce. That brought some comfort to the admiral, though he knew that modern weapons could blast through that alloy just as fast. It had taken slaves, operating heavy machinery, a month to clear the rubble, two more to reconstruct the palace. A small revolt had added to the time, and the bodies of the slaves, rotting away on x shaped platforms or slid down to the bottom of impaling poles, still scented the air outside, though the environmental systems inside kept the stench at bay.

None of the officers of the Ca’cadasan military relished meeting with their new Emperor, who had only held the seat for a couple of weeks. Many heads had already rolled in that time, as the strong willed and angry young monarch had asserted his will, no matter the answer. It was hinted that he was thinking about instituting similar means of execution for Cacada as was mandated for slaves. A horrifying thought. A Cacada failing might face death, but not the ignominy of that kind of end. And he had now demanded a plan to attack the humans and drive them out of his Empire.

The problem was the humans were too powerful on this front. The Ca’cadasans still had more ships, but the humans had caught up to and surpassed them in technology. With their wormholes, produced in almost unlimited numbers, along with their new warp fighters, they were more than a match for any number of the big alien’s ships. They also had allies. Both the avians on one side of their Empire, and the reptilians on the other. The Ca’cadasan fleet had been fighting hard to keep them out of the Empire, and failing. It had been a hard struggle, and the humans still had several thousand light years to go before they reached the capital. Unfortunately, the slaves that the Empire depended on were jumping onto the side of the humans. As soon as a human fleet entered a Ca’cadasan system, all of the slaves, no longer fearing the retribution of their masters, rose up in revolt.

Worst of all, the humans had carried out a strike on the capital system, ravaging it, destroying almost all of its space-based industry. That they hadn’t destroyed the home world of the race when they had the capability, and had it their sights, was something the average Ca’cadasan couldn’t understand. The Supreme Admiral knew why they did it. They wanted to show the people of the Ca’cadasan Empire, dominant species and slaves alike, that they would settle for surrender, and not the extermination of the population. While the admiral couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to kill his entire species, since that was what they had planned for the humans, he thought it a good strategy. Not only would the slaves fight harder against their masters, but the Ca’cadasan soldiers and spacers might not struggle quite as hard.

This Emperor would not surrender. Not only was he prideful, though without the accomplishments to earn that pride, but he knew that he would not survive his surrender. His line had caused too much damage to the humans, billions of death, and they would want their revenge. Maybe not against the Ca’cadasan people as a whole, but certainly from the military and civilian leaders who had prosecuted that war.

The Empire was still involved in a two-front war. The Klavarta, as those genenged human products called themselves, were not as powerful as the New Terran Empire. They had the same tech, more or less, and great numbers of ships, but nowhere near the total military power of their senior ally. And they were slightly further from the capital, not having driven as far inward. They also now had allies, when before they had been universally hated in their space. That was thanks to the humans of the New Terran Empire, who had proven to be masterful diplomats in smoothing over the impression made by the Nation of New Earth, as the rejuvenated star nation was called. The allies weren’t as powerful as the nations bordering the human empire, but they were contributing ships. And every ship added was turning the equations further against the Ca'cadasans.

“We are spread too thin, Supreme Lord,” said the admiral, bowing once again to show his subservience. “We need to beat the enemy back on one front, so that we can concentrate on the other. And our best chance is against the Klavarta and their allies. We can shift more of our forces to that area and overwhelm them. Smash their industry, destroy their fleets, kill enough of them that it will take decades to recover. After that we can shift our forces back to this front and launch an offensive against the human empire.”

The Emperor now stared at the plot with interest, obviously thinking about the possibilities. Before the Ca’cadasans had their own wormhole gates such a plan would have been impossible. It took months to get to that front from the capital, months more to come back. Now they could send massive fleets through the wormhole gates they had established to that front. It would still take weeks to transit all of them through and back. Still, it was doable.

“Make your plans,” said the Emperor, giving a head motion of acceptance. “How soon can you go?”

“A couple of weeks. Possibly a month.”

“Make it a couple of weeks,” ordered the Emperor in his petulant voice. “As soon as you have your forces in place, go on the offensive. Hammer those vermin, blast them back into the pre-space age, then bring the fleet back here to destroy our primary enemy.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And Admiral. Make sure you have enough left on the primary front to stop the humans from pushing further into the Empire.”

The Supreme Admiral looked at the Emperor with disbelief. They couldn’t stop the New Terran Empire fleets from pushing into the Empire with what they already had on this front. The admiral doubted that the reduced fleet could do as much, and if he didn’t transfer enough of it the plan was stillborn before it started.

I’ll just have to transfer what’s needed, then try to gain forgiveness after I crush the Klavarta, he thought. A dangerous plan, but if he was to win this war, or even push the humans to a settled peace, it was a risk he had to take. Otherwise, his fate was sealed.

*         *         *

“The next batch of wormholes should be reaching you in another month,” said the Emperor Sean Lee Ogden Romanov, looking at the face of the woman on the com holo.

The wormholes had changed long distance communications forever. Prior to their development, the best that could be done was sending signals by hyper relays that took days to cross the Empire. Now he could talk with the people of the Nation of New Earth, more than nine thousand light years away in a straight line, as if they were in the same room as he.

They could also move ships both ways almost instantaneously. Unfortunately, they could not do the same with the wormholes that had become such a vital tech in the war. A wormhole going through a wormhole was a good way to set off a monstrous explosion, and nothing more. New Earth was now making their own wormholes, a couple a week, using the same method the Cacas were using to a much larger extent. The Empire was producing thirty a day, still not as many as they would have liked, but then their wormhole production facility, the massive Donut, had taken just over a century to construct. It was unlikely that anyone else would have one before five or six decades, no matter how quickly they worked on it.

“We could use them,” said Thallia Thrann, the Vice President of the Nation of New Earth, and the primary liaison with the New Terran Empire. “We lost too many in the last offensive. Among other things.”

Sean closed his eyes for a moment as he thought about what she had said. His admiral on that front, in control of all the assets the Empire had lent the Nation, had been killed in the last offensive. The Imperial forces had been fighting under the commander of the Nation fleet, but Sean had insisted that his people fight under one of his own. Well, not the fault of the Klavarta, since they hadn’t ordered the human force to strike at the flank of the Ca’cadasans as they had. However, the highest-ranking Imperial admiral on that front was a three-star, a vice admiral, and much too low of rank to command all Empire forces in that region. Admiral Mikal Stuynovich didn’t have the experience for promotion, and frankly Sean wasn’t sure he was the right man for the job.

He opened his eyes and looked at Thrann, one of the minority of non-altered humans in that nation. She looked the same as any of Sean’s human subjects, though her line hadn’t gone through the genetic improvement project that all of Sean’s people had centuries prior. They were the same as the humans who had fled Earth. Not quite as strong, or as smart, as his people. Thrann herself was on the far side of the bell curve for her people, making her as bright as the upper five percent of Sean's people. More importantly, she knew her people, both standard human and Klavarta.

The President of the Nation, Manstara Alizar Klanarat, was an Alpha line of the Klavarta, engineered to be the perfect spaceship crewman, a pilot. The Alpha line was slightly taller than normal humans, with nictating membranes in their eyes and gills on their necks, allowing them to survive in an oxygenated liquid environment so they could pilot ships at g forces beyond their inertial compensators. Alphas lived to fifty or so years, maybe a little longer if lucky, after a growth stage of twelve years. That made them longer lived than any of the other engineered lines. Still, not long enough in the eyes of the Empire's humans, who could live to beyond three hundred years with good fortune. The geneticists of the Empire were working on that problem, and the next generation of children were assured double the life span of their parents.

Thallia herself was about forty, and was already showing signs of age that wouldn’t appear in Imperial humans until they passed two hundred years. If she was lucky she would live to a hundred and twenty, and the Empire was also working on improving that line to the same extent as their own. The next generation would have the same normal augmentation as the humans of the Empire, and the same lifespan.

“I will have a new admiral on her way there within the next couple of days,” said Sean, smiling. “Actually a couple of them, along with more ships. I think you’ll like them.” I hope, he thought. The one he was sending was not his best diplomatic officer, and could screw the pooch big time if she was not careful, but she was very good in combat. At the moment that seemed much more important.

“And of course you will want most of your arriving wormholes given to that officer’s force,” said Thallia with a grimace.

“About half of them,” said Sean, nodding. That was still a sore point between the two groups of humans. “However, they will still be in close support of your fleet, and my people know how to use them much better.”

Thrann looked like she wanted to argue with that, but Sean could tell that she thought it over first and saw that he was correct. She might not like the fact that the Imperials knew their own tech better than her people, but they were still in the process of catching up. In another decade they would have the engineers and scientists in place to match those of the humans, but not yet.

“I look forward to meeting this officer. And I hope that he will do all that you expect.”

“She,” said Sean with a smile. “They are both female, and I think you will find them hell on wheels against your enemy.”

Chapter One

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. George S. Patton

“They’re ready for us to transit through, ma’am,” called out the com officer, looking over at the seat of his admiral in the center of the flag bridge.

A liner had just come through from the other side, filled with Klavarta who had come into the Empire to be educated in Imperial science and engineering. There were currently millions of them in the Empire, attending colleges and technical schools. Even some tens of thousands serving with the Fleet, getting firsthand experience. Trying to catch up through accelerated training.

“Take us through, Captain Gerasy,” Grand Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk ordered the commander of the superheavy battleship Romulus.

The twenty-eight million ton hyper VII behemoth was among the most powerful warships in the Imperial Fleet. The only thing the flagship lacked that her sisters had was a wormhole. Beata was hoping that would be rectified in the near future, not just because it gave her a powerful weapon, but because of the command and control capabilities it imbued her flagship with. She looked over at the bank of Klassekian com techs along one side of the bridge who would give her links to many of her other ships. Still, they couldn't do everything a wormhole could do, like high speed data transmission over tens of thousands of links. But they were the next best thing, and better when it came to providing instantaneous com links to all of the escorts and fighters of the fleet.

In fact, they were bringing over a thousand sibling groups with them into Nation of New Earth space. The aliens had volunteered readily when they learned about the struggle of the Klavarta against the Cacas. And it wasn’t like they were slaveholders, like the Gorgansha they had refused to serve with.

“See you on the other side, Admiral,” said Admiral Mara Montgomery over the com.

“It’s a date,” said a smiling grand fleet admiral.

It wasn’t the command she had been promised, leading a battlegroup on the flank of Duke Taelis Mgonda’s fleet. Things had changed, and the Emperor had needed a commander he could trust, and had sweetened the deal with a promotion for the fleet admiral. Beata had asked for Mara, and the newly promoted four star had been given to her without protest.

The battleship, named for the mythical first king of Rome, thrust its nose into the mirrored surface of the wormhole. To the people onboard it felt like they were in transit for an indeterminate but almost endless time. It was the one thing that humans hated about wormhole travel. Not just humans, as every species that went through the gate told of similar experiences. Some worse, some not as bad. Even though the actual measure time was in the nanoseconds.

And then they were nine thousand light years from their point of origin, from the Central Black Hole of the Supersystem to the new capital system of the Nation of New Earth.

“My God,” exclaimed one of the flag bridge crew, watching the scene that appeared on the viewer.

They had all expected a frontier world, a couple of hundred million intelligent beings, a small but growing presence in the orbitals. Instead they were facing the night side of an Earth-like planet, filled with the masses of lights that bespoke enormous cities. There were thousands of objects in orbit, from defense sats to enormous industrial platforms. Ships were coming and going from orbit, liners and freighters, while warships hung in further orbits.

“It looks like they have been busy since their home-world was destroyed,” said Captain Gerasy.

“Obviously,” said Beata, looking over the industrial might of a powerful star nation.

“We’re receiving a com request from the planet, ma’am,” called out the senior com officer, Commander Cecilia Xang. “They’re saying it’s from their president.”

Here we go, thought Beata, frowning. She had never got along with politicians. Hell, she barely got along with Sean, the man she had sworn her oaths to. And this was the closest thing to Sean in this space.

“Admiral Bednarczyk,” said the strange looking alien who appeared on the viewer.

No, not really strange, thought the admiral. Klavarta were engineered humans, and despite their skin color and their eyes, they were proportioned almost exactly like the humans Beata was familiar with. Convergent evolution wouldn’t do that. Even the almost human Malticons were proportioned somewhat different in their torso to limb length.

“Mr. President,” said the admiral, bowing her head.

“I have heard much about you, Admiral,” said the Klavarta President, Manstara Klanarat, laughing. “Some of it good.”

“I hope my Emperor hasn’t given you a false impression of my abilities, Mr. President.”

The president laughed again. “You are actually a better politician than he led me to expect. No worries. I was a fleet commander before I was voted into the position of president. I couldn’t stand the people put over me either. Of course, those people were right bastards, unlike your ruler. So feel at ease to speak your mind with me. And I’ll promise not to throw you into my deepest dungeon.”

Beata found herself laughing. She liked this being. Or should I think of him as a man, she thought. She thought she could work with him. Now, if only his own fleet commanders were so agreeable.

“We have a reception for you and your senior officers in the Presidential Palace tonight, Admiral,” continued the president. “It will give you a chance to meet the senior members of my government, as well as some of my ranking fleet officers.”

Great, just what I didn’t want, thought Beata, forcing herself to smile, realizing that this being would be able to read her and other Imperial humans as well as any member of the Empire. The admiral did not like formal diplomatic events. She felt like she was out of her element, liable to say something stupid that would harm her standing with the important civilians. The military people wouldn’t be that much of a problem, she hoped.

“What time?” she asked, keeping the smile in place.

“Eight PM capital city time zone,” said the president, a more natural smile on his face. “Six hours from now. That should give you enough time to see to your fleet and get everyone situated.” The president let out a deep laugh. “Don’t worry, Admiral. I don’t really have a dungeon. As much as I demanded one, the council wouldn’t let me have it.”

Beata found herself laughing despite her trepidation at having to attend a diplomatic function. She was beginning to really like this Alpha Klavarta who was the counterpart of her Emperor. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said, only half lying.

“First Division, First Battleship Squadron coming through the wormhole ma’am,” called out one of the com officers.

The president must have realized that she had more important things to do at the moment than stroke his ego, and terminated his end of the conversation.

The admiral pulled up a holo that showed the view of the wormhole, in time to see a standard hyper VII battleship come through. The Emperor had given her a powerful force. Nowhere near the strength of what Lenkowski or Mgonda commanded on the main front. A little more powerful than what she had had under her command in the Bolthole Sector. Of course she would also have the Imperial ships already on this front, more than she was bringing. And the Klavarta ships and those of their allies in support. They wouldn’t be under her command, and would only do as she asked if she was diplomatic with her request. Supposedly she was under the command of their senior admiral, but her orders from the Emperor gave her great latitude in how she interpreted the orders of that being.

Half of her already resident command was in the system, along with three of the four senior commanders. Enough for her figure out what kind of people she had working for her out here at the very least. She would have to figure out the others in time.

“We will have a holo conference as soon as all my major commanders are in the system,” she told  Commander Xang. “In one hour.”

*         *         *

“Welcome to the Klavarta Front, Great Admiral,” said the male on the holo, wearing the uniform and rank insignia of a senior staff officer.

Great Admiral Mrastaran Hlrata suppressed the nausea he felt from coming through the wormhole, grabbing onto the arm of his command chair aboard the battleship Claw of Dragar, named for one of the most terrifying beasts of Ca’cadasan legend. Ca’cadasans didn’t respond well to wormhole transit, just as they didn’t to hyper translations. It was a weakness in the species that had caused them innumerable problems in the past, when they had translated into the middle of a battle. As far as they knew, most species had problems with both forms of travel, but the Ca’cadasans were the outliers who suffered the most.

“And who are you?” croaked the Great Admiral, not liking the idea of showing weakness in front of an unknown officer.

He kept fighting back the nausea. It would be worth it to take command on this front. It removed him from direct supervision by the young shit of an Emperor and his functionaries. If only the father were still alive things might have been different. That Emperor had actually listened to his officers, and thought about problems before acting. This one only reacted, mostly with rage, and the military was in disarray because of that.

“I am Admiral Trostara,” said the other Ca’cadasan, bowing his head. “At your pleasure, I will be your chief of staff.”

“We will see.” If this officer was competent he would remain in his position. If not, he would be sent through the wormhole back to the capital. “And where is Great Admiral Tonnasar?”

The other great admiral had been the front commander, but would now be under the command of Mrastaran. That admiral might not be amenable to that change in his status, even if it were ordered by the Emperor. There might be a challenge, a fight, and one of them would be dead. If Tonnasar won, he would probably be executed on orders of the Supreme Admiral. That wouldn’t matter to the other admiral if he was enraged.

“Great Admiral Tonnasar is with one of the task groups at the front,” said the Chief of Staff, bowing his head again.

Mrastaran felt mixed feelings of relief and rage. How dare that other male not be here to greet his new commander. But his not being here meant there would be no challenge this day.

Of course the other admiral would not be his intellectual equal. Very few Ca'cadasans were. His intellect had kept him alive through the struggle to move up the ranks. Avoiding fights when possible, choosing the correct weapons and setting when not. If not for his family background and status he would have become a scientist or a scholar. Unfortunately, being so close to the line of ascension, but not close enough to be important enough to live, had set his fate. The military, the fleet. Still, he had been able to indulge in his love of scholarship, and had become one of the most thoughtful commanders in the Ca'cadasan Empire. Not that his thoughtfulness had prevented the disasters brought on by superiors.

“The rest of my reinforcing fleet will be coming through behind me,” said the great admiral, forcing his wandering mind back to the here and now. “Make sure that they are given placement around the planet.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And I would meet with my senior commanders. Do you have an adequate space on the planet?”

“We do, my Lord. Accommodations I am sure you will find satisfactory.”

The great admiral gave a head motion of acceptance. He would enjoy spending some days with a world underfoot. But his primary quarters would remain on this ship, where he could attend to business.

“I would have a feast this evening,” announced the great admiral, who was not above living the good life. “What delicacies do you have?”

“The native intelligences are not only hard-working slaves,” said the grinning chief of staff. “They are delicious as well when prepared by our chefs.”

“Then we shall sample them,” said the great admiral, hoping that his stomach would settle by the time he reached the surface. He still didn’t like the idea of eating sentient beings, but it was tradition, and he wasn’t about to try and change the habits of his people at this juncture.

Fifteen thousand warships would be coming through the wormhole. One every half minute for the next five days. He would wait until all of the ships had come through, gathering the vessels that were already here, and then plan his campaign. But first he would sample the local fare, which was sure to consist of more than cooked sentient.

*         *         *

Beata sat strapped into the seat of the shuttle as it worked its way through the stratosphere at high Mach. The admiral loved space travel. She was an easy translator, wormhole and hyperdrive, though the time distortion of the wormhole variety still bothered her. What she didn’t like was riding shuttles into atmosphere. The turbulence made her feel like a disaster was imminent, even though with modern inertial compensators crashes were all but unheard of. Since it was part of her job, something she had to do at times, she gritted her teeth and di it, though she preferred to use her position to avoid shuttle travel.

“It will be okay, ma’am,” said Admiral Mara Montgomery, sitting in the seat next to hers. The other admiral patted Bednarczyk’s hand, a calm expression on her face.

“You know, Mara. I can hate you sometimes.”

Montgomery was the most fearless person she had ever known. Beata was no coward herself. One couldn’t stand on the command deck of a ship in the middle of a battle, giving out the orders that would mean life or death to so many others, yourself included, and not be courageous. But the slight bucking of a shuttle with inertial compensators pushing through the air of a planet was enough to make her heart skip a beat.

“We’re leveling out, Admiral,” came the voice of the pilot over the cabin intercom. “We’ll be touching down at the palace in seven minutes.”

“Thank God,” said Beata, closing her eyes and taking a calming breath.

“The Goddess protects those who call upon her,” said Montgomery with a smile.

Beata frowned for a moment. She had been raised a Lutheran, still one of the major Christian denominations in the Empire, if not the most popular. The admiral had not been practicing for years, and wasn’t sure how much she believed. Still, the comfort of occasional prayers had aided her in the past. She knew that her subordinate was a practicing Pagan. She didn’t know how far Mara’s belief went. Hell, she could be a practicing witch from all she knew, and she wouldn’t care as long as the scout force commander kept giving her results.

The grand fleet admiral let herself relax now that they were essentially in an aircraft, and not an orbit to surface craft. That anxiety under control, now she could concentrate on her rising nervousness about the coming social and political meetup she was heading to. In order to calm herself she went over her order of battle in her mind.

Bednarczyk had brought along her one superheavy battleship as her flag, as well as fifteen squadrons of battleships, sixty of the sixteen million-ton warships. Along with that were fourteen squadrons of battle cruisers and three hundred and fifty cruisers and destroyers. Twelve fleet carriers accompanied the force, with over twelve hundred of the newest warp fighters. Added to that were assault ships, missiles colliers, antimatter tankers and many fast freighters. It was a mighty force, but not enough on its own to handle what the Cacas were likely to throw at this region.

She would have the one hundred battleships already in the region, along with five carriers and over three hundred smaller vessels. That didn’t include the tens of thousands of Klavarta ships that wouldn’t be under her direct command.

“We’re setting down, ma’am,” called out the pilot.

Since the shuttle used grabbers, the whine of engines was missing as the ship hovered, then lowered itself to the hard surface of the landing pad. It set down with a slight thump. There was none of the tilting that might have occurred if it had set down on uneven ground and the hydraulics adjusted. The pad was perfectly even, and the space set aside for the shuttle was triple what was needed.

“Well, let’s meet our hosts,” said Beata, trying to keep her tone calm as she got ready to face the people she would be working for. No, not working for, she thought, shaking her head. That will always be Sean.

The local star was on the horizon to the west and the pad was lit with a hundred strong spotlights. There were other shuttles nearby, a pair of Imperial craft, along with a half dozen of what had to be local make. Imperial shuttles looked like what they were, craft intended to drop troops from space onto the surface of a planet. The locals looked more like luxury aircraft, with the fine lines and swept wings of cruising craft.

There were soldiers standing around the edges of the field, both Klavarta and Imperials. The Imperials were in battle armor, and looked no different than any other soldiers or Marines the admiral had seen in a long career. The Klavarta looked? Well, awesome was one term that came to mind. Frightening was another. Two and a half meters tall, with jutting jaws full of teeth and clawed hands, their exposed skin, what wasn’t covered by their strap on armor, looked to be some kind of bony plate. They had been genetically engineered to be warriors, strong, fast and deadly. They were powerful enough without modern weapons and armor, though a Marine in battle armor would be more than a match for any number of them so equipped. With particle beams and armor they could stand their own against any enemy.

A smaller form, shorter and squatter than Alphas, were busy servicing the shuttles. Those had to be the Engineers, the form created to take care of the workings of ships. From what Beata understood, the forms were now free to choose their own life paths. However, forms engineered for one kind of job were better than the competition they would face from the other forms, and the groups still seemed to segregate themselves based on their form.

“Admiral Bednarczyk,” said an approaching being, an Alpha in a black uniform. Unfamiliar rank insignia were on the male’s shoulders, though from the weight of those boards he must have been some kind of senior officer.

“I’m Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk,” replied Beata, returning the salute that the being rendered by slamming his right fist into left shoulder with the traditional Imperial version, right hand to brow. “And this is Admiral Montgomery, my scout force commander.”

“I am Captain Lokar Thrandos,” said the Alpha. “If it please the Admiral, I will be your liaison with the Nation of New Earth fleet.”

“I’m sure you will do fine, Captain. And have you come to lead us to the reception?”

The Alpha smiled and gestured toward the palace standing on the edge of the field, then turned and led the way.

The palace was the most utilitarian building designated as such that Beata had ever seen. Climbing twenty stories into the air, it was a block, glassed sides reflecting the setting sun. No towers, turrets, ornamentation of any kind. The entrance was large, glass doors slid open to the side, a pair of Warriors standing watch.

It made sense that these people would construct a utilitarian style building in the middle of war. They needed something that did the job, without taking away too many of the resources needed for war. It was more important to construct quarters for workers and the factories they needed to produce what the nation needed. Still, the capital building had to be large enough for its functions, and luxurious enough for the people looking up at it to take heart at the strength of their nation. Even if that was just a front.

“We will be meeting in the formal gardens,” said Thrandos, pointing toward a path leading to the side and around the building.

“Does the President live here?”

“For now,” answered the officer. “A new, more substantial residence is being constructed several kilometers from here. The president really didn’t want it, but the Council insisted on something befitting the dignity of the office.”

The sound of voices came to the trio as they walked around the side of the building. The tones of music, some laughter. The scene before them was more like a garden party than a formal meeting of military commanders with the civil authority of the nation. People in uniform and formal clothing much like the Imperial style on Jewel. Drinks in hand, crystal goblets, while liveried servants prowled the gardens with trays of delicacies.

“Admiral,” called out a familiar voice, one she had heard through the wormhole com. “Admiral Bednarczyk. Welcome to New Terra.”

“Wasn’t that the name of the world we destroyed with the wormhole weapon,” whispered Mara.

That indeed was the name of the world the Empire had destroyed, along with the Ca’cadasan conquest fleet in close proximity. The Ca’cadasans had already killed most of the people on the planet, those that hadn’t already escaped. So a ship with a wormhole aboard had come through the wormhole gate that had been established in orbit. The tremendous explosion had scoured the surface of the world, and destroyed most of the Caca fleet in the process.

“We liked the name,” said Manstara Klanarat, the President. “So we decided to recycle it.” The president turned to the tall, muscular human woman who had approached with him. “And may I introduce my Vice President, Thallia Thrann.”

Beata was starting to wonder if she were the shortest woman on the planet as she looked up into the face of Thrann. The full human native, with fine features and long brunette hair, was attractive enough, a friendly smile on her face.

“I will be your contact with our government, Admiral,” said the second in command of the Nation, holding out a strong hand. “In case you run into any problems with our military people.”

Bednarczyk took the hand and felt a strong grip, but not the application of enough power to hurt. She could tell immediately that she would like this woman, but promised herself that she would bring her in to intervene in the local chain of command as little as possible. It was best to not ruffle the feathers of the people she had to work with.

Beata looked out over the garden, a large open space with many trees and flowering shrubs, fountains splashing into pools. Hundreds of beings walked, stood and talked among the paths. The majority of the beings were Alphas, with a large number of standard humans intermingling with them. There were several warriors, these not dressed for combat, instead wearing the ornate red uniforms of their Marines. Something else the New Earthers had adopted. A couple of Gryphons, a Phlistaran, and a few aliens she didn't recognize circulated among the crowd. Most of those were citizens of her Empire, the others she guessed the new allies of the formerly xenophobic Nation.

“A formal dinner will be waiting for us in the dining room,” said Thallia, nodding toward the palace building. “But for now we have some time for informal dialogue.”

Beata spent the next hour meeting and talking with a number of people, human and alien. If not for the implant that all Imperial humans carried she wouldn't have remembered half their names. As it was, she met with many of the flag rank officers she would be working with or commanding. Some were Imperial officers, while most were from the Nation of New Earth, along with a few allied commanders.

The admiral was imagining that the dining room would be a massive affair, with numerous tables. Instead, they were ushered into a small room with one long table, about thirty places set. Only flag officers and senior members of the government were present, and Beata found herself seated between the president and a high ranking admiral in the Nation's fleet, another Alpha.

“We are still not sure how we want to use your force, Admiral,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Jrasstra Klanarat in a haughty tone, setting his wine glass on the table while the Beta servants bustled around clearing the plates away.

Beata found herself staring at the servant, who looked like an Alpha sans the gills, standing about a half meter shorter than the dominant subspecies. She wondered if they had been created as a slave race by the original rulers of this star nation, the psychopathic clones of the people who had come here from Earth. From what she understood the subspecies were also the primary workers in Klavarta industry, from the sweeping of floors to the designing of new factories. So, not a slave species after all.

“How do you mean?” asked the admiral, coming back to the matter at hand and looking over at the other officer, trying to figure out where the man was coming from.

“Well, the Imperial forces have been a boon in support of our fleet at the front,” said the other admiral, placing his hands on the table. “But now, with you here, we might run into problems with the chain of command. I'm sure you can see that.”

What she could see was that this insecure male was afraid he might lose his position as the supreme commander of this front. Beata didn't want supreme command, as long as she had operational control of a fleet. This male seemed to be wedded to the position of supreme commander, and was not about to put up with any challenge.

“I'm thinking that we might want to keep you and your people back from the front, ready to respond to the actions of the Cacas. You have a powerful force, and bringing them in at the right time could cause extreme problems for the enemy.”

While you destroy the weakened Caca fleet, a weakness that was brought about by the actions of the Imperial Fleet on the other front, and we sit back and watch, thought Beata, frowning. She and her fleet hadn't come here to sit in the wings while someone else garnered all the glory. Of course she knew that combat was not all glory. In fact, most of the combat she had experienced had been bouts of terror interspersed with long periods of boredom. Blood, death, the guilt of sentencing people to death from her decisions. That was her experience with combat.

Still, she was good at what she did, and didn't want to find herself and her force sitting out the war on this front, while someone else of lesser capabilities wasted lives. Also, if the Cacas were so weak that the Klavarta fleet could defeat them easily, there was really no reason for her and her ships to be here. They could be back in Imperial space, supporting one of the other grand fleet admirals on their drive toward the Caca capital. Of course, the New Earth government had asked for her and her ships, so it didn't look like they were yet in a position to kick in the Caca defense and roll over them.

“Where would you want me to deploy, Admiral Klanarat?” Not for the first time she was wondering if the admiral was a relative of the president, and had gotten his position due to nepotism. She didn't understand the relationships among these people, and whether that name meant a familial relation, or just the designation of a certain genetic line.

“I'm thinking maybe here in the capital,” said the Alpha, glancing at her sideways. “I would like to take most of your combat power and distribute it among my battle groups. What remains would make a good reserve that could speed to whatever area had the greatest need through the wormhole gates.”

Beata felt a flash of anger as she listened to the self-important ass who was trying to take everything away from her that she had brought to this space. If he intended for her to use the wormhole gates to get to the trouble spots, that would mean he expected her to relinquish all of her wormholes. And he expected for Imperial citizens to fight and die under him while their own designated commander watched. Not something she was willing to put up with.

“My Emperor sent me here to fight the Cacas,” she said in a low voice, her eyes boring into those of the Klavarta. “His intent was that I could add weight to your next offensive so that it might forge into Caca space. Not that I wait here in the capital system and sit on my hands.”

“Now see here, Admiral Bednarczyk,” growled the other admiral, returning her glare. “I am in supreme command of this region, and you have been subordinated to me. So you will do as I say, or I will have you sent back to your Empire.”

“Admiral,” said the President, raising a warning finger. “Sean sent Admiral Bednarczyk out here to command the ships he gave her. If she goes back, so do her ships.”

“Can't we keep them?” asked the Klavarta admiral in a petulant voice.

“What. Steal them from our ally. I think we need all of the good will we can garner from those people. So no,” said the President, shrugging his shoulders. “Admiral Bednarczyk is in complete command of all the Imperial forces in our space. It is up to her to dispense her ships or not to your groups. And I will say here and now that I expect her to lead a force at the front, if that is her wish.”

“So she has a totally independent command in our space?” asked Admiral Klanarat, grimacing. “That kind of a split command could lead to disaster.”

“Me and my force are at your beck and call, Admiral,” said Beata, giving the Alpha a slight head bow. “Yours is the overall strategy. Give us a mission, and we will do it to the best of our ability, under my command.”

“And the support we are used to having?” asked Klanarat, eyes narrowing. “What about that?”

“We will give support to all of your battle groups with our wormhole equipped ships,” replied Beata, planting both hands on the table. “And half of the newly arriving wormholes will go to your fleet.”

Beata wasn't sure that she was completely on board with that decision, but it had been made above her pay-grade. She would still have the seventy-nine wormholes already assigned to her, with thirty more coming her way. The Klavarta had one hundred and ninety-three already in their inventory, with thirty more coming from the Empire, and four or five a week being produced locally. It wasn't in the same ballpark as the fleets of Lenkowski or Mgonda, who could call on many hundreds of wormholes each, plus the other hundreds involved in the wormhole transport network.

The Alpha admiral still looked like he didn't like it, but after what his president had said he didn't have much choice.

“What do you think about taking on the Cacas, Admiral Bednarczyk?” asked another of the alien officers, this one an admiral from the allied Slarna. “This will be your first time combating them, yes?”

“What?” gasped Admiral Klanarat, turning a stare toward the human female. “I thought the Emperor was sending us a battle tested commander. Not someone who has risen through the ranks through staff work.”

Beata felt her anger rising, and she was just about to fire an insult at the Alpha when Montgomery spoke.

“Why you little pipsqueak of a creature,” said Mara, her mostly hidden accent coming to the fore with her rage. “We've been fighting for our lives and the lives of billions against the murder Machines. If you've never heard of them, be glad. They would have kept you up at night shitting your britches in terror.”

“Why....” Klanarat looked like he was about to have a stroke. Obviously he was not used to being talked to in that manner. Especially not in front of his own leader.

“That's enough, Mara,” ordered Beata, chuckling inside that Montgomery had said what she had wanted to.

“That's insubordination,” yelled Admiral Klanarat, pointing a long finger as the scout force commander. “I want her relieved of command and sent back to your Empire in disgrace.”

“Not going to happen,” said Beata, getting to her feet and looking down at the Alpha, the only position from which that would have been possible. “We are a team, and where she goes, so do I.”

Klanarat started to stand.

“Sit down, Admiral,” roared the president.

The Alpha admiral stared at his president in shock. Beata still didn't know the relationship between the admiral and the president, but the leader of the Nation of New Earth was obviously not about to play favorites with his senior officer.

Admiral Klanarat dropped back into his seat, his eyes still wide. If Beata had to guess, she would think the admiral was not used to being dressed down by his boss in public.

Too bad, she thought, trying to hold in a smile and failing.

“And I expect you to work closely with my grand fleet admiral, Admiral Bednarczyk,” said the president, pointing a finger her way.

Beata was sure that this leader would not hesitate to demand her recall to the Empire if she turned out to be too much of a gadfly. That would be the end of her career. She would be beached, on pension, and not allowed to join in the war that she had waited all her life for. That was something she couldn't let happen. She resolved to watch her tongue, not the easiest thing for her to do.

“Now,” said the president, looking around the table, “I would like to get back to the subject of this meeting, which was to make sure all of my officers were familiar with each other. Or at least all that are readily available in the capital.”

“We will have a meeting tomorrow by holo conference,” said Admiral Klanarat, the frown on his face now appearing to be a permanent fixture. “I expect everyone to attend, at eleven o'clock local time. Don't be late.” He said that last while glaring at Beata, like he was sure she would be late just to spite him.

“We will be there,” she said, sending a message through her implant to her com chief, making sure that officer knew about the meeting and would know the codes and relays for the conference.

“Now, I am tired,” said Admiral Klanarat, looking over at the president. “If you will excuse me, Mr. President?”

“Of course,” said the president, nodding.

When Admiral Klanarat was on his feet most of the officers on his staff got up to follow. As soon as the admiral and his staff had left the room the president let out a sigh.

“I'm sorry about that, Admiral. He may be an insufferable bore, but he is very good at his job. He had no problem getting along with your predecessor. But, then, she was of much lower rank than you are.” The president shook his head. “I wonder why Sean wanted to send someone of your rank. It makes everything much more difficult.”

“I promise that I will follow the orders of the admiral,” said Beata, crossing her legs as she sat back.  As long as he doesn't order me to do something stupid that will doom my command, she thought.

The president gave her a sidelong glance, and Beata was sure that the Alpha knew exactly why Sean had sent someone of her rank out here. The Emperor was happy to support his ally, but was worried that the people he sent out here might be misused by the Klavarta. So yes, she would follow the orders of the other admiral, unless he ordered something that would put her fleet at undue risk while preserving his to her detriment.

We'll see, she thought as she picked up her refilled wine glass, nodding to the Beta servant. Admiral Klanarat fleeing the party had put a damper on the evening, but the drink was good, and the more she could get to know the man who was the power in this nation, the better.

The official meeting was over, but the night was not through, and Beata was determined to let strong drink take away her cares about the chain of command. After more hours of good food, good drink, the assembly began to break up. As Beata and Mara headed back to their shuttle, determined to spend the night on their ships so they could see to their planning in the morning, an Alpha stepped in their way.

“Ma'am. If I may have a moment of your time?” asked the female Alpha who had been assigned as her liaison to the Klavarta supreme commander.

“If you're here to tell me that I ruffled the feathers of your admiral, I already know that, Captain,” said Beata. “I'm not much for apologizing, so he'll just have to get over it on his own.”

“No ma'am. I would suggest no such thing. The admiral is pretty much universally unliked by the majority of the people serving under him. His competence is doubted across the board. Too many people think he rose to his current position due to his relationship to the president.”

“Should you be telling us this, Captain?” asked Mara, tall enough to look the Klavarta Alpha in the eye. “Wouldn't the admiral see this as disloyalty.”

“I am loyal to the Nation of New Earth, and am in this position because the President placed me here, with orders to see to it that you were made welcome. I interpret that to mean that I must cue you in on the politics of the situation.”

“I'm sure this situation is tearing you apart,” said Beata with a snort.

“Actually, it is. I was taught to be loyal to those placed above me. Now I find myself in a situation where I have multiple superiors, all demanding my loyalty. So I must make a choice based on my own code of honor. And do what is right for my people.”

“So, you will be my backdoor into the machinations of Grand Admiral Klanarat?” asked Beata, not sure that she liked that idea. Someone willing to betray a superior didn't have a code of honor as far as she was concerned.

“No, ma'am. I won't betray confidences. I won't give you information that the admiral wouldn't want you to know. But I will let you know why things are shaking out the way they are. I feel that my duty as your liaison is to keep feelings in check on both sides, so we can accomplish the mission we are all here for.”

“Sounds well-reasoned. I won't ask you to do anything that causes a crisis of conscience. However, I expect you, as my liaison officer, to be aboard my flagship in the morning. Eight sharp. Uh, that's...”

“Nine thirty-eight local time, ma'am,” said Mara.

Always on top of things, my friend. Where would I be without you?

“Good enough. Nine thirty-eight local time. I want your input on the commanders I will be working with. Strengths, weaknesses, best means to deploy them.”

“As long as I don't betray confidences,” said the Alpha once again, shaking her head. “But I guess everything you will be asking for is in their personnel files,” she continued, smiling. “I will be glad to help you formulate the best battle plan possible.”

If we even get a chance to fight, and that jackass of an admiral doesn't keep us waiting in the wings while he gets too many of his own people killed.

Chapter Two

Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker. Frank Herbert

“We will be moving across the frontier in three battle groups,” said Great Admiral Mrastaran Hlrata, using a laser pointer to indicate the area in question.

The region in question was two thousand lights years in width, over a thousand in height. The ends of the frontier actually extended past the linear dimensions of the Nation of New Earth. That star nation was not nearly the size of the New Terran Empire, fronting the other side of the Ca'cadasan Empire. Still, it was over eighteen hundred light years from the frontier to the capital world of that nation. A formidable distance that would take over a month at hyper VII to traverse.

Actually, twelve hundred of that eighteen hundred light years of depth had belonged to the Ca'cadasan Emperor prior to the series of offensives and counter-offensives that had rocked this border of the Empire. For several years the two powers had fought back and forth, but the general trend had been the loss of territory for the big sophonts.

Well, this time we take it back, thought the great admiral, growling low in his throat. He didn't expect to take it all back in an instant. The great admiral would be satisfied it they could penetrate five hundred light years into that expanse and consolidate it. Another offensive would push further in, and then another. If they could keep up the momentum before the humans and their genenged servants pushed back.

“I will be with the center force,” said Mrastaran, the laser dot touching the system in the center of the frontier, just twelve light years back. He would have a full half of the ships in the offensive, though not that high a percentage of the ground troops. His mission would be to smash everything in his way. Some of the people on the planets ahead of him had been Ca'cadasan subjects, but were fully cooperating with the humans. Therefore, they would receive no mercy. Extermination was what they deserved.

The admiral gave a head motion of negation at that thought. He was an adherent of the old religion, something that brought him much discomfort from his more profane peers. The intelligent officer knew that most of the dogma of the religion was unscientific crap. Still, he had found comfort in it earlier in life, and was not about to abandon the church. He just ignored those portions of dogma which served no purpose. One part that did serve a purpose as far as he was concerned was the sanctity of living planets and the genetic lines they gave rise to. So no, the disloyal sophonts would be punished, but none would need fear for the species survival from units under his command. No matter what orders came from above.

“Great Admiral  Tonnasar will lead the left wing,” he continued, looking over at the holo image of the high ranking admiral in question.

Mrastaran had been mildly surprised that the other male hadn't challenged him. He thought his own combat plan would have worked, but there was never a guarantee in one on one close fighting. The message he knew the other male had received from the Emperor might have had something to do with that. Mrastaran knew that the Emperor's staff was tired of so many capable males dying in challenges that had nothing to do with victory in a modern space war. Too many intelligent males had died through the ages because some hulking warrior had challenged them to a fight to the death. Mrastaran had listened to one of their scientists theorize that the intelligence of the species had decreased over the ages because of all the deaths of the superior minds of males in challenges. He agreed with their reasoning.

Mrastaran wasn't afraid of the challenge. He was the unusual male who had both intelligence and had trained himself in close weapon combat. His physical prowess was above average, and his skill with a blade was without peer. Which didn't mean he couldn't die to some lucky warrior. That would be a waste. The great admiral knew that he was among the more intelligent males in the Empire, and his loss would hurt the war effort, when his position would be taken by some idiot who couldn't fight a single ship, much less a fleet.

The left wing would have a quarter of the fleet, enough ships to win a major combat against most other forces. Not enough to beat the enemy fleet by itself.

“Great Admiral Lokastar will lead the right wing,” said the fleet commander as he moved the pointer and looked over at the third ranking admiral, actually present in the chamber. Lokastar was not the most intimidating of males, standing just over two and a quarter meters. He was also one of the more intelligent ones, from a noble family that had left him a lot of money. That had allowed him to buy the protection he had needed, making sure anyone who challenged him met a quick end before the actual combat. Not exactly according to tradition, but the Empire wasn't about to challenge him for that decision.

The right wing also had a quarter of the fleet, including almost a third of the ground troops, since his area had the greater number of target planets within it.

“We will move as a unit,” he told the other admirals, moving the pointer, his central force moving with it into enemy territory. He did the same with each of the other two forces. “We will stay within twenty light years of each other, with wormhole gates open as soon as we enter a system. That way we can reinforce each other.”

“Why not spread out more?” asked Tonnasar, a confused look on his face.

“Because the humans have shown a proclivity for defeating out forces in detail,” said Admiral Lokastar, making a head motion of agreement. “If we keep our forces together, we can meet them in a decisive battle. Or possibly defeat them in detail, using their own tactics against them.”

“Admiral Lokastar knows the way of it,” said Mrastaran, showing a predatory smile. “Even though our numbers are comparable, the humans have the superior weapons with their numbers of wormholes.”

At least they don't have as many on this front as they have on the other, thought the fleet commander. That gave him a chance for victory.

“If we can rally our ships in one system to fight one small force, totally destroy them, then move on to the next, we should be able to take out the mass of their fleet. After that we can run into Klavarta space and strike at their industrial heart. When we take out those systems, the war is won.”

He really wasn't sure that would work. They would surely meet him in space with large forces, and not allow him to just roll up systems and small defense forces. He had planned for that, hoping that the Klavarta would try to defeat him in detail. Then he would use his own wormholes to consolidate and strike in a way the enemy had never seen from their foe.

“They have new allies,” said Tonnasar, his holo face grimacing. “The humans from the other Empire were able to work diplomatic miracles and bring more of them on board.”

Mrastaran grimaced himself. He hadn't been told to expect any forces other than those of the Klavarta and the Imperials that had been lent to them. After all, the Xenophobia of the Klavarta had alienated them from most of the other species in the region.

“They're really nothing,” said Lokastar, a hungry smile on his face. “Just prey, really. Hyper VI ships, and weapons no better than the humans had a century ago.”

“They might be somewhat better than that by now,” said Tonnasar, an intelligent comment that took Mrastaran by surprise. “The humans have a tendency to give their tech to people willing to fight on their side. They put future problems in the future, where they belong.”

“No matter,” growled the fleet commander, balling up his four fists. “My strategy will still work. We will crush the humans, both types. We will remove this star nation from the playing board, and the humans on the other side of the Empire will face the full might of our military. In the name of the Emperor.”

He still wasn't sure that the humans on the other side of the Empire were able to be defeated. At least not under the current leadership, with their penchant for rash decisions that amounted to nothing but great losses for little return. Perhaps, if he were in charge, he could turn the situation on that front around. Or maybe not. The war might already be lost on that front, which meant overall defeat for the species. That didn't mean that he wouldn't do his all to win for the Empire, no matter how hopeless.

Stop it, he thought, closing his eyes and grimacing. You are going to convince yourself that the humans are supermen. They're just other beings, with no other destiny beyond their fight for survival, just like us.

The other admirals gave the Ca'cadasan victory salute, lower arms crossing over their chests while their upper arms reached into the air.

“And remember,” he said in a low tone, looking from face to face. “Both of you are to contact me and let me know your intentions before you do anything. Understand?”

Lokastar gave a head motion of agreement, while Tonnasar glared at Mrastaran for a moment before giving the same sideways nod. Mrastaran looked over at the second admiral, wondering if he would have any problems with him. Ca'cadasans could be a headstrong people, and it wouldn't surprise him if the other great admiral did something stupid in a quest for individual glory. Well, he would have people close to that male, ready to put a beam through his head if need be. No matter what, the glory would belong to one Mrastaran Hlrata. Victory to the Empire, he thought, no matter how undeserving the new Emperor was of such victory. Well, he wasn't fighting for that little shit, now was he?

*     *     *

“The scouts are approaching the frontier, Great Admiral,” said the com officer on the flag bridge, looking back at his commander.

Mrastaran grinned as he watched the mass of scouts moving through hyper VII, tracked through their graviton emissions. Every few minutes one of the scouts would grav pulse, sending information back to the next layer, the supercruisers lined up in relays back to the main fleet. Of course the scouts were giving themselves away from a greater distance than would be the case if they simply boosted in through hyper without pulsing. But then they wouldn't be accomplishing the main part of their mission, which had little to do with scouting, and everything to do with giving the enemy an appreciation of what was coming into their space.

The great admiral really didn't care if the enemy saw his force coming. It would have been wonderful if he had as many wormholes as the enemy, and would have been able to communicate instantaneously without giving the enemy undue notice. And if they had the new aliens the humans had somehow discovered, all of their communications problems would have been solved.

Since he didn't have either of those options he had decided to use his disadvantage to his benefit. The line of scouts was spread out much further than the area of operations for the battle groups. The enemy would have to respond to all the scouts, thinking that this was going to be a wide front offensive. The great admiral was thinking that they would spread themselves out to handle all the possible battle forces that might appear behind the front. And if they did, they would have presented fat targets for his three battle fleets to hit.

Showing them what they expect to see, thought the great admiral with a snort that attracted the attention of all the officers on the bridge. It was a human saying, used by many commanders in many of their numerous wars. And the people in the next war, and the next after that, fell for it again and again. So why wouldn't these Klavarta, who had never seen this tactic prior to this moment?

The scouts were the four hundred thousand ton equivalents of the human destroyers. They had much more powerful light amp weapons, especially the newer ones that were built with laser rings like those of the human ships. They weren't much more powerful in their missile batteries, even though they had more weapons in their magazines. The human missiles had a higher rate of acceleration than their Ca'cadasan equivalents, making them much better weapons. Faster and harder hitting.

It had made sense at one time to make the Ca'cadasan scouts so large. They had similar sized crews to the ships of the humans, but carried an individual mass over twice that of the smaller sophonts. Unfortunately, the larger Ca'cadasan scout ships couldn't cover as much space as twice their number of human ships. If Mrastaran had his way they would go on a crash ship design and building program to make more of the scouts, while still concentrating on the larger capital ships that were needed to actually win the battle after the smaller ships fixed the enemy.

“We have ships ahead grav pulsing,” said one of the com techs, reading the grav pulses from some of the scouts. “The small Klavarta version of scout/escorts.”

Mrastaran gave a predator’s grin. The Klavarta scouts were larger than they had been at the beginning of the war. They still massed barely more than one hundred and twenty thousand tons. They were mainly missile ships, able to boost in with numbers and release swarms of missiles, then swerve away. In close combat they were next to useless, not able to take many hits before being blown out of space.

I hope those captains remember their orders, thought Mrastaran, looked at the plot that was filling in with enemy ships as the data came back through grav pulse, relayed from ship to ship. It was a clunky method compared to what the humans used, but it was working. And in a way it was enough to confuse the Klavarta who were monitoring them. And any captain who didn't follow his orders to the letter would pay dearly. Not their families, such as some vindictive commanders would insist on. That wasn't his way. But those who failed him would pay.

The scouts were moving at point three two light in hyper VII, not letting them move as fast as possible. But it gave them the advantage of being able to fire missiles with the minimum of deceleration before they jumped into another dimension, hyper or normal space.

“Scouts are engaging,” called out the com tech, reading the take on the grav pulses. “We have hits. The enemy is returning fire.”

That was to be expected, as were a number of hits. But the Ca'cadasan force had their momentum added to the missiles, less the little bit of decel, while the Klavarta were disadvantaged in many respects. Standing still in space, mostly, or moving away, and their missiles didn't have the momentum of their launching ships to add to their initial velocity. They could use the momentum of the invading force against them, of course, but if they were moving away they lost most of that velocity.

“We're getting enemy ships falling off the plot,” called out a sensor tech, eyes wide as he looked back at his admiral. “Now some of ours,” he said in a lowered voice.

To be expected, thought the admiral, giving the male a slight smile meant to calm his nerves. It wasn't the male's fault if what he had to report was bad news, and maybe not even that.

“What's the ratio?” asked the great admiral, scratching on a horn, cursing himself at a reveal of anxiety that too many of the species couldn't suppress.

“Six to one, so far,” said the tech.

The great admiral had to think about that ratio for a moment. Four to one would still be a victory for his side, four hundred and eighty thousand tons versus a mere four hundred thousand. Six to one gave him a tonnage advantage of seven hundred and twenty thousand to four hundred thousand. A victory, but not what he thought was optimum. The enemy would have about fifty percent more tonnage in this battle than he had. The exchange that would benefit him would come when they joined battle with a major enemy force. Or so he hoped.

“We're starting to run into larger Klavarta groups,” said the com tech. “A half dozen ships or more, some in cruiser class.”

That was also to be expected. The frontier force was backstopped by larger strike groups, common Klavarta tactics. And further back would be groups of heavier ships. He would run through all of them, getting the reaction he wanted from the enemy. Eventually the large battle groups would appear, and then he would get the favorable exchange rate he was looking for.

“Move our cruisers forward,” ordered the great admiral.

Behind his wall of scouts were a smaller force of supercruisers. At four million tons each, they were more than twice the tonnage and firepower of the Imperial heavy cruisers. The Klavarta cruisers were even smaller, the light variety pushing the scales at five hundred thousand tons, the heavy type hitting one point two million. Neither was a match for the supercruiser, but in large numbers they were still dangerous craft.

The supercruisers were deployed in groups of four, sixteen million tons of warships, the same as one New Terran battleship. Now they accelerated forward, taking about an hour to come up with the scouts, decel, and start sending their own missiles into the fray.

Now we wait and see how they react, thought the great admiral, laughing low in his throat.

*     *     *

“What the hell are they up to?” asked Vice Admiral Isola Klavaras, the commander of battle group Delta Seven, a mostly Klavarta force that was backing up the central sector of the frontier.

When the main battle fleet moved up to start the next offensive Klavaras' force would be subsumed into a much larger fleet and command would no longer be hers. On a quiet front what she had was large enough to challenge any probe the Cacas might mount. The front had suddenly, without warning, turned into anything but quiet, and the mass of ships heading her way had to be hiding a huge number of sledgehammers that were prepared to smash New Earth systems.

Klavaras had twelve of the Klavarta version of battleships, the newer type at sixteen million tons, though she still had some ten million tonners. She had one fleet carrier with one hundred and fifty normal space fighters, as well as thirty-one heavy and light cruisers and sixty-two scouts. It was a large enough force to take on any conceivable probe, a scout force. But not anything larger.

“We're getting a message from Admiral Klanarat,” called out the Klassekian com tech, sitting at the end of the bank of com stations.

The Alpha still wasn't used to the new aliens. Of course, she had been raised in the old xenophobic culture of the Klavarta nations, as taught by the clones who had run the government for over a thousand years. She no longer ascribed to that xenophobia, but it was hard to get rid of the deep feelings she had been raised with. It was difficult thinking of any aliens as her equal, though from all the measures she had read the Klassekians were as good as human, and better in many respects. She dismissed those thoughts, which she no longer had time for with everything else going on.

“Admiral.”

“What do you think is going on out there?” asked the Alpha who was the supreme naval commander on this front.

“I think the Cacas are moving at us on a wide front,” said the vice admiral, looking at her plot. “They are probably going to hit everything they can and do the most damage possible. From there, I'm not sure. They could either continue to push in, or fall back and try to tempt us to come after them.”

“I agree,” said the supreme commander, nodding. “I need you to hit whatever comes through their front as hard as you can. I will be ordering every force along the front to do the same. I want them hit hard before they can attack our holdings out there. The main fleet will be moving up behind you, splitting to support whatever attacks are running into too much to handle.”

And if I'm one of the forces who runs into too much to handle? thought the admiral, a shiver running up her spine. That was a possibility. But if the Cacas were attacking on a wide front, spread out where they couldn't support one another, the odds were against that.

“We'll be moving into the attack within four hours,” said Klavaras, checking the clock over the tactical plot, then nodding to her superior officer.

And maybe then we'll find out just what this is all about.

*     *     *

“You will defend us from the masters, yes?” pleaded the young female native of the ex-Caca world of Pleisia.

The sophont looked very much like some of the marsupials that had come from ancient Earth and had been transplanted to terraformed worlds. Large hopping legs, long arms, a snouted face. The fur was solid black, the eyes a shade of sky blue, and the baby the female carried was on her back in a carrier, and not in the pouch the life-form didn't have.

“We will not let your former masters harm you,” said Captain Xferd Canara, a warrior of the Klavarta people.

The Klavarta warrior towered over the native, and his fierce expression, along with his sharp claws and teeth, were not something to engender calm in the general population. Fortunately, the actions of the warriors with the natives had been above reproach, and they had come to be regarded as protectors.

Some protectors we will be if the Cacas come back into this system in force, thought the warrior officer, watching as the female hopped away, sleeping baby on her back. There were two divisions of warriors on the surface, over forty thousand men, and soldiers of the engineer line had been swiftly installing defenses against bombardment from space and landings. Not that anyone expected that to help against a battle fleet that could stand off out of range of the defensive weapons and pound the planet to ruble.

“How goes your sweep, Captain?” asked a voice over the com bud in the officer's ear.

Canara looked back at the squad that was following some distance behind. The twelve warriors, males and females both, wore strap on armor and carried particle beam rifles, trying to look as non-threatening as possible, and not succeeding very well. They weren't built to look non-threatening. Still, the people went about their business, walking, talking and shopping.

Life hadn't changed all that much since the Cacas had been ejected from the system. Most of the Cacas had left, but some had been left behind due to the lack of space lift, and the former slaves had attacked them at every opportunity. Since the Cacas were armed, and the natives weren't, that had resulted in a slaughter. Still, numbers had counted for something, and many of the Cacas had been pulled down and killed. The Nation had come in and rounded up all the surviving Cacas they could, hoping to gain intelligence from them. And warriors had been patrolling the streets of the larger cities since landing, making sure that the Pleisians didn't rise up in an unthinking rage that only caused them harm.

“So far, quiet,” said the officer to his controller, a warrant sitting in a comfortable room in a building near the spaceport. “There is a lot of tension. The people are worried that their masters are coming back, and that we will evacuate and leave them to their fate.”

The captain couldn't really blame them. A shuttle rose from the spaceport, kilometers away, taking Nation personnel to the ships that would remove them from the system. Supposedly just to be safe, but it was never a good sign when the technicians were evacuated before an action. Warriors were valuable, but warriors grew into their roles instinctively, while techs took years of training.

“Be careful out there, sir,” said the warrant.

The warrior huffed out a breath, then smiled. There was no indication that his people would be evacuated, since they could cause problems for the Cacas that returned. Killing them in ambushes. Destroying their installations. That wouldn't help the Plesians, of course. They would again be caught between the major powers, helpless to do anything but hide and hope they didn't die.

*     *     *

Vice Admiral Isola Klavaras stared at the plot on her flag bridge, her eyes adjusting to the liquid that filled the chamber. Alphas were made to take advantage of the fact that riding in a liquid medium allowed living creatures to handle thirty or more additional gravities. All of the Alphas and Engineers aboard the ship were able to survive and work in the oxygen enriched liquid. Warriors and others were forced to wear breathing masks, but everyone aboard the ships could handle the extra gee load.

Klavaras took a deep breath of the liquid, feeling the pressure of the fluid pulled into her lungs so she could continue to feed her body. The gills on her neck flared at the same time, taking in even more oxygen. There would be some discomfort when the liquid was evacuated from the chamber and she had to cough up the fluid to start breathing air again. All part of the job.

The plot was showing the battle that was about to develop. Her cruiser and destroyer screen had brushed aside the scouts of the Cacas and were now dueling with the cruisers of the enemy. None of her light ships had wormholes, but a good number of them had the aliens brought in by the Empire. She looked over at one of the Klassekian com techs on her bridge. That being was wearing a tight-fitting breathing mask, and looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“Are we picking up any of the larger Caca ships?” she asked her sensor officer, who was on a com to the sensor chief. That being was sitting in a special isolated chamber, listening to the resonances thrumming through the dimensions of hyper. While not as accurate as the main sensors that would show where the enemy was, the ears and brain of a skilled operator could still garner information beyond the range of the standard sensors. Maybe not as useful as the information developed by the main sensors, any data in place of the lack of such was of use.

“The chief says that there echoes from beyond standard sensor range that he believes are capital ships. A lot of capital ships.”

“Is he sure?” asked the admiral, again dealing with a shiver of fear that she must suppress, in order to spread calm among the bridge crew that she didn't feel herself.

“Of course not, ma'am,” said the sensor officer, a slight grin stretching a face that looked on the verge of panic.

The admiral stared at the officer for a moment, wishing he could give her more. When more was not forthcoming she looked back at the plot. If there really were capital ships out there, a lot of them, they should be appearing on the plot at any moment. What she did about it before they appeared could be the difference between living and dying out here in deep space.

“Shit,” gasped one of the bridge officers as a couple of points appeared on the plot, mass and acceleration figures below them.

The admiral felt like cursing herself, but such would show how shocked she was. Part of her job was to display calm in front of her people, But watching the couple turn into a dozen, then two dozen, and on, until over two hundred of the massive battleships were on the plot, moving her way, was enough to break through any facade of calm.

“All ships. Come to ninety degrees to port. Emergency boost. Everyone, prepare to fire a spread of missiles at the enemy.”

The admiral was hoping they might be able to open up the distance from the enemy while hitting them with missiles. As soon as the thousands of enemy missiles appeared on the plot she knew that her hopes were dashed.

“Emergency decel. All ships prepare to drop out of hyper as soon as able.”

If they could get into normal space and hide, they might just make it through this. And maybe strike the Cacas from behind, hitting their supply train. But first they needed to survive, as unlikely as that seemed.

*     *     *

“We are rolling them up all along the front, Great Admiral,” reported the chief of staff with a predatory growl. “We will be hitting the first systems within fourteen hours.”

Mrastaran gave a head motion of acknowledgment, wondering how close to reality the plot was. With so many ships spread across fifty thousand square light years of space, this was merely an approximation of what was reality. Ships could be light years out of place, or already engaged in battles he had no idea were occurring.

“Order the forces to start congregating according to the plan,” ordered the great admiral. The chief of staff gave an acknowledgment and turned to talk to the com officer and techs. The orders would go out, and soon the ships in the small battlegroups would form into the three large attack forces, while the scouts and cruisers continued their broad sweep into the space of the enemy. As soon as more enemy battlegroups moved up, hopefully in a spread intended to protect most of the worlds they had taken from the Ca'cadasan Empire, it would be time for his move. And he would hit them with his large forces, defeat them in detail, and leave them with too little to consolidate into anything that could challenge his battle fleet. As long as they saw what they were expecting to see, a Ca'cadasan forces rushing in to take as many systems as possible, leaving themselves vulnerable. He couldn't care less about those systems in the short run. His target was their fleet; what they had out here, and what they would bring up to counterattack with the intent of taking out his scattered, assumed, force.

Everything was looking good. Of course, the great admiral was wise enough to know that nothing was guaranteed. But with some luck he would achieve a great victory here. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure if getting the attention of this young Emperor was something to be desired, even with a positive result.

Chapter Three

There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people. Heinz Guderian

“And I expect you to give up half of your wormholes, Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk.,” said the Alpha whose holo image sat in the conference room chair, a slight smile on his face.

“Half my wormholes?” exclaimed Beata, her face flushing with rage. “Those wormholes were given to my force by my Empire. They go with the ships they deployed with.”

Unfortunately, the only wormholes she had were the ones that were aboard the ships that were already on this front. Wormholes from the Empire had to come through hyperspace, using VII class ships that moved the seventh month trip from one nation to the other. They had to swing wide of the Ca'cadasan Empire, adding an additional month to the voyage. Another eighty were on the way, but still had a month of travel time. The Nation of New Earth was now making their own, a couple a weeks with large generating facilities that were much like the supermetal plants in the Empire, or what it was assumed the Cacas used.

“Well, they can stay with your ships,” said Admiral Klanarat, his smile widening as he pulled his rank and position over her. “But then those ships will have to be deployed to my own battle-groups in support.”

This is not what I was expecting, thought Beata, grimacing. She had expected that she would have a command on this front that was hers to do with as she pleased, more or less. With the ships assigned to her by her Emperor, hers to command in the name of her Empire. Sure, the other admiral would assign her missions, but they would be under her direct control. What she hadn't expected was being placed under this insufferable Alpha admiral who seemed determined to tie her hands.

“And what about when the new wormholes arrive?” she asked, sure that the answer would be one she didn't like. “Will I get to make up my losses from those?”

“We'll see,” said the smirking Alpha. “Remember, Admiral. This is our nation, our front. You and your people are merely guests here.”

Guests who are here to shed our blood to defend you, thought Beata, holding her anger in check before her mouth got her in trouble. She was sure that she had enough credit with Sean to call in some favors, but how many? The Emperor hadn't sent her here to cause a diplomatic incident. But dammit, if this asshole was going to demand everything she had, why was she even out here. Any officer could sit behind the lines and watch her ships taken.

She was about to mention her fleet carriers, a dozen ten million-ton vessels that carried a hundred and eight warp fighters each. But the other admiral hadn't mentioned them, so she decided that it might be best to not remind him.

“I expect those ships, or the wormholes without them, by the end of the week, in place and ready for the offensive.”

That was something else Beata had a problem with. The Klavarta wanted to launch an offensive into Caca space within two weeks. She would barely be able to get her force to the front in time for the kickoff, which meant she wouldn't be a major participant in the first phase. In her opinion, the Klavarta high command was foolish in pushing the jump off date so far ahead. But again, it wasn't up to her. She had given her opinion, it had been rejected, and there was nothing else to say about it.

“Did you hear me, Admiral?” roared the Alpha, his voice rising to a high pitch in his anger.

“I heard you.” And that was all she was going to give him. She expected Klanarat to order her to acknowledge his command, but instead he looked off the holo, his brow furrowing. He was speaking to someone, his lips moving, but the sound was off, and Beata was not very good at reading mouth motions, especially on the unfamiliar faces of the genetically altered Klavarta.

“We have a situation, Admiral,” said Klanarat, his eyes narrowed.

That was a term that Beata hated, since it never had a good meaning. Like, we have a situation, more reinforcements have come through.

“The Cacas have launched an offensive all along our front with their Empire,” said Klanarat, frowning, then grimacing. “Along a wide front. We don't know what's coming at us, yet. But we can assume it's going to be everything they have out here.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Beata, linking in with all of her battle-group commanders through her implant, running it through the ships com system.

“Start moving your fleet toward the front,” said the other admiral, his voice calming, taking on a commanding tone. “Aim everything you have toward this system here. Pleisia. It should take you thirteen days at your best speed. By then we'll know what we're facing, and how to use your ships.”

“And where will you be?” asked Beata, hoping she wouldn't have to host the Alpha on any of her ships.

“I'm taking the gate to the front with my flagship,” said the other admiral, brow furrowed with concern. “I want to be up there so I can exercise command and control. I will be in touch.”

The Klavarta admiral disappeared, seeming to teleport from his seat at the conference room table.

“Get me all of my group commanders,” ordered Beata into the air. “In my conference room. Fifteen minutes.”

The Klavarta admiral might be satisfied to send his force into the unknown half-cocked. She preferred to have as much information as possible, and as much planning as she could do with that data.

*     *     *

“What do you plan to do?” asked the president of the Nation of New Earth of his supreme naval commander. The chief executive sounded anxious, though his trained face wouldn't betray those feelings, except to someone who knew him well. Like the admiral, his second cousin.

“I have ordered our forces at the frontier to fall back before the Cacas,” replied Admiral Klanarat, feeling confident that he would soon have the situation in hand. After all, the Cacas weren't known for their strategic brilliance. “I will move up with my main force, with the Imperials in support, and defeat the Caca force in detail.”

“You won't give the Imperial admiral a major role in your counter-offensive?” asked the president, brow furrowing.

“I think not. I don't think it's a good idea endangering her or her ships.” And no use sharing the glory with her, when we can get the job done ourselves. That was the real reason for keeping her in the wings. The Imperials had a swaggering arrogance due to the way they had come back from near defeat on their front to a position of closing victory. Maybe that swagger was deserved, but it still grated on the Klavarta.

Still, the admiral had reason to feel confident. His people, with much smaller ships and swarming tactics, without the tech advantages and allies they now possessed, had fought the Cacas to a standstill for twenty-five years. True, they had lost a little bit of ground each of those years, but had been able to rally enough to gain some back and keep the big aliens off balance. And when it had come to small fleet actions, and ground combat, the Klavarta had been able to use their genetically engineered traits to their best advantages. They had been winning fight after fight after the humans from the Empire had made contact and brought war winning weapons into the mix. So, yes, he thought his fleet would easily take on and destroy the Cacas.

The enemy was not the most intelligent of species. How they had gained ascendancy in their region of space in the first place was a mystery to the people of the Nation. The intelligence from the New Terran Empire was that they had been the only ones with space tech in their region of the Perseus arm when they had started on the path of Empire. That seemed to make sense. Now that they were facing intelligent, powerful enemies things had changed for them. The fact that the enemy did very little to change their tactics from offensive to offensive helped. As someone on old Earth had once said, they came at us in the same old way, which made it easy to take them out in detail.

“Plus, the Imperials can't keep up with our maneuvers,” said the admiral with a smile. That was true. Klavarta ships, though larger than they had been, still carried a greater weight of grabber units and the inertial compensators that came with them. Add to that the thirty additional gravities that the Alphas and Engineers could handle in the liquid environment, and they could pull sixty more gravities than the ships of any other power in the war.

That meant they would outrun the Imperial ships assigned to their formations. Since the main reason for existence of those ships, especially those equipped with wormholes, was fire support, and they could provide that from light minutes behind, there was no reason for them to lead the charge.

“I still wish you would keep them in the loop,” said the president, waving a finger in the air. “The Cacas wouldn't be coming over the frontier unless they thought they had enough of a force to win.”

Admiral Klanarat huffed and shook his head. “The big beasts are too stupid to come up with a winning strategy. I guarantee I will have them with their nonexistent tails between their big bowed legs within a week of engagement with our main fleet.”

“Keep the Imperial commander in the loop, Admiral,” ordered the president, still waving that finger. “I know you think you don't need her, and maybe you don't. But do it for me and my old heart. I will sleep so much better knowing that you have powerful backup.”

The admiral thought about refusing, especially since the president had framed it as a request. But he knew that if he refused that request, it would come back as an order, and he would find his hands tied. Agreeing to the request gave him some wiggle room.

“Very well. Now, Mr. President. I need to see to my dispositions.”

The president nodded and signed off. Being the chief executive, it was the Alpha's prerogative to end the communication, not his subordinate, but the president was intelligent enough to give his people room to breathe.

Klanarat looked over what he had available at the front, and what he would be bringing from the core worlds of the nation. There were over two thousand of the ten million-ton battleships at the front, and he would be bringing six thousand more. Twenty-five thousand smaller vessels, cruisers and destroyers, what had been needed to screen the front and patrol the space out there so that Caca ships wouldn't sneak through. It had seemed like enough when the Cacas had been on the defensive after the last Klavarta offensive. The Klavarta fleet had been mauled, with over half the remaining ships in need of major repairs, not available until now. He would be bringing fifty thousand light ships, fifteen thousand cruisers and thirty-five thousand destroyers.

There were also the light carriers, over two hundred of them carrying ten thousand fighters, standard space and warp. The admiral really wasn't sure what to do with them. They had been built to copy the Imperials, but Klanarat didn't think they were of much use, since he liked to fight his battles in hyper, where the fighters couldn't operate. The same went for the Imperial fleet carriers, which was the reason he was willing to leave with them with the human admiral.

“We will split into three battle groups,” he told his chief of staff, another Alpha, Captain Signa Jakaris. “I want forty percent of our warships with the central group, where I will be. Thirty percent on each of the two wings. Once we develop the deployments of the enemy we will split into what we need.”

“What about the Imperial ships?” asked the lower ranking Alpha, a female, her face showing her concern for the battle they were about to go into.

“I will have sixty percent of the human wormholes with us,” he said after a moment's thought. “Half still on their ships, half on mine. The ones on mine will maneuver with the main forces, while the human vessels will hang back in fire support.”

“Any other planning we need to do, sir?” asked the chief of staff.

“I can't think of anything I want to do, no,” said the admiral. He had always been a seat of the pants commander, and didn't believe in intricate plans. Things always went wrong, and plans needed to be made on the spot. “But go ahead and have the staff draw up the normal contingencies. You know, like what we're going to do if they try to congregate and make a run for it back to their space.”

“Any for if they push in further than we think?” asked the captain, raising an eyebrow.

“Why?” asked Klanarat, his voice rising slightly in exasperation. “We've already shown these big bastards that they can't beat us,” said the admiral after a laugh. “And we're going to show them again. And this time they won't dare stick their ugly snouts into our space again.”

The chief of staff didn't look like she was very happy with the admiral's logic, but as long as she did what he asked, she could think what she liked. He would go get something to eat, then some sleep, while the fleet made its way out to the barrier and started its jumps into hyper.

Alphas were very easy translators, it having been engineered into them. At most they felt slight nausea for a couple of seconds during any translation. It could be another advantage if they could use it against an enemy, being totally battle ready when coming into normal space. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it could be beautiful.

*     *     *

Grand Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk looked at her dispositions on a holo over the desk in her main cabin. Her flagship, the Romulus, twenty-eight million tons of battleship, thrummed with power. Most times it was unnoticeable to the crew, since the inertial compensators did their job of taking care the majority of the bumps and vibrations. However, someone really paying attention to the vibrations in a quiet chamber could tell.

“That bastard,” she said under her breath, looking at the ships that still had wormholes and were under her command. There were thirty-eight of them, meaning that forty-one of her battleships had gone to support the Klavarta fleet. That left her with less than half the portals she had commanded on the other end of the Perseus arm when she fought the Machines. And four times the number of capital ships.

It was still a powerful force, with one hundred and eighty-three standard hyper VII battleships to go along with her one superheavy ship. She had one hundred and fifty-two battle cruisers, most assigned to Mara's scout group, and over nine hundred cruisers and destroyers. Added to that were all the various support ships that carried her resupply and mobile repair facilities.

And the eight fleet carriers, giving her a total of eight hundred and sixty-four warp fighters. Those fighters would be useless to her in hyper, but they could be a game changer in a battle within a system. She was surprised that Klanarat didn't demand a few of those ships as well. Happy, but still surprised.

There was also the squadron of stealth/attack ships she had in her order of battle. Twelve of the four hundred thousand ton ships that were made to sneak in and kill. They were all hyper VI, unable to keep up with a VII battle fleet. That was not their purpose. Unfortunately, she didn't have the wormholes to waste on them, not when she needed as many launch platforms as possible. What she had done was to assign eight of the vessels to Mara's command, one stealth to one wormhole equipped battle cruiser, locked onto the hull so they could take advantage of the hyper VII capabilities of the capital ships. They could also take advantage of the wormholes if needed. If a stealth ship needed to be deployed, the wormhole could be transferred over to it from the carrying battle cruiser. Four of the ships were also attached to battleships in her main group. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it might give the stealth ship some utility.

Some of the allied species would also be deployed with her force. There were four other star nations, the Slarna, the Kelliras, the Genras and the Lasar. All were very different, and used very unique types of ship, all hyper VI. Their missile tech had been updated, so they could engage in normal space duels with some success. The Klavarta admiral didn't want them along for the ride with the rest of their fleet, due to their lack of hyper VII tech. Klavarta still had some of their old ships, hyper VI and very small. Those had been relegated to system defense, and weren't up to boosting with a battle fleet.

At the moment she was planning to deploy as one battle fleet and one scout force. Klanarat wanted her to wait in the wings, ready to come in when and where needed. Of course, the other admiral had seemed to think that her fleet wouldn't be needed at all. Personally, she thought he was an overconfident fool who was about to get slapped in the face by reality. Unfortunately, that slap might knock down his entire nation. If that happened, her force might be the only thing between the Cacas and the core worlds of the Nation of New Earth.

They might not be enough to stop the Ca'cadasan battle fleet by themselves. No matter what happened, she was determined to do her best to make the big bastards regret pushing their snouts in her face.

Chapter Four

It is sometimes tougher to fight my superiors than the French. Heinz Guderian

“We have overrun all of their first layer of worlds, my Lord,” reported the chief of staff, moving a laser pointer around the plot.

That plot still wasn't completely accurate. With their limitations in com capability it couldn't be. A couple of the cruisers at the front had wormholes, the few that could be spared from the battle fleets. There were some systems that were assumed to be under Ca'cadasan control where that might still be in doubt. And some that were blinking orange, still contested according to the plot, that had since fallen. But overall the situation was looking very good.

“What about Great Admiral Tonnasar?” asked Mrastaran, face scrunched up in concentration.

The reports from the left flank, where that great admiral was in charge, had been mixed at best. He had rolled over two Klavarta battle groups, but a third one had given him fits in a running battle. Mrastaran had his suspicions that the other admiral hadn't used his best judgment, preferring to use the mass of his fleet as a blunt instrument. Mrastaran wanted his commanders to use their forces as rapiers, making the critical thrust at the right time. The Ca'cadasan had the advantage in number of ships at the front. Which meant, of course, for the moment. It could change at any time.

Mrastaran was sure that the Klavarta and their allies would be moving more ships up to the battle space as fast as possible. Which meant he had to conserve his ships and continue with the plan he had envisioned.

“The great admiral's last report was that he was closing with another Klavarta battle group,” replied the chief of staff.

“Show me.”

The information they had came up on the holo. Tonnasar had three times the tonnage as the alien fleet he was pursuing. He should have been able to crush them, envelop them, shred them. Great Admiral Lokastar wasn't having any problems with the three forces he had rolled over. Maybe Tonnasar had run into an enemy commander of superior tactical ability. Or maybe he was just an idiot.

“We are about to enter missile range of the Klavarta force we are vectoring toward,” called out the tactical officer on the bridge.

“Put it on the plot.”

The overall plot changed from the entire front to the much smaller local region, showing everything out to five light years. The graviton resonances of his own fleet were showing in the center of the plot. Twenty thousand ships, four fifths of his entire battle group. The rest was scattered around the region in thousand ship packets, sweeping and searching for enemy groups. If what they found was small enough to take out with little trouble they would drive in for the kill. If it looked to be something that would put up a fight they vectored away and tried to lead them into a trap.

And right on top of his main fleet was a mass of enemy ships, probably over six thousand of them. He outnumbered them by four to one. In tonnage the figure was more like ten to one or more.

The great admiral zoomed his vision in, using his implant to do it with a thought. Other males looking at the plot would see it at the zoom they wanted, unless their leader wanted to do an override so they could see what he did.

“We have incoming missiles,” called out the tactical officer.

The zoomed plot show the Ca'cadasan fleet, still at the center, covering one light minute of hyper VII space, equivalent to almost thirty light days in the normal universe. The enemy force was almost on top of them, seven hyper VII light minutes, and in a much wider spread. And the graviton signatures of missiles in hyper were inching away from that enemy, heading toward his force. Boosting at ten thousand gravities toward his fleet.

“Make sure our screens are in front of us,” ordered the great admiral, wanting to make sure everything went as he wanted, at least on his side.

He saw that those ships, scouts, were already on the move to their missile interception positions, but it didn't hurt to make sure they all knew what they were supposed to be doing. Their job was to take the mass out of the enemy missile wave, even if it meant intercepting them with their own hulls. Better a four hundred thousand ton hull was hit than a twenty-five million ton warship, comprising sixty-two and a half times the resources. The supercruisers behind them would add their counters to the mix, as would the superbattleships even further back.

The counters, smaller versions of the hyper capable offensive missiles, would be fired at anything out to fifteen light minutes. Adding in the velocity of the launching ship, they would pile on the acceleration at fifteen thousand gravities. When they ran out of power there would be no coasting, since the hyperdrive arrays would also be out of energy, and the counters would fall back into normal space, most by a catastrophic translation that would scatter them in small pieces across that area.

As the enemy missiles entered attack range of the scouts they would also come under the fire of lasers from every layer of ships. In normal space lasers had a one light minute maximum range. The beams, even with the best of grav lensing, would spread too much to be effective at much more than twice that range. Worse, the targets would be moving on unpredictable vectors. The greater the distance, the more that movement could be, and lasers might blast coherent light beams hundreds of meters off target. There was the additional problem in hyperspace of photons falling out, half over the first fifteen light seconds, half again over the next, and so one, so that by the time the beam reached one light minute it would be at one sixteenth of its initial power. Maybe strong enough to take out a missile with a direct hit. Not enough if it was a glancing strike on a sweep.

The last defense would come from the close in weapons, something the Ca'cadasans had copied from the humans. Forty millimeter shells projected from their magnetic accelerator barrels, moving at point four light, they would exist for about a second in hyper before they fell out. A small percent might make it another second, giving them an effective range of one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers, a max of twice that. The supercruisers might be able to add some of their close in weapons fire to the scout screen, but the superbattleships had no hope.

“Releasing our missiles, now,” called out the tactical officer, as a swarm of vector arrows appeared leaving the fleet.

The missiles from the staggered capital ships left first, in a mass that would put them at the same arc of space at the same time. The cruisers and scouts fired the same pattern, so that a massive wave of missiles moved out in one wave that would hit the enemy at nearly the same moment. The ships turned in space, bringing first their bow tubes to bear, then the opposite side, and finally the stern. After which they repeated the process with the next wave.

The Klavarta ships would have very good defenses on a ton for ton basis. Being out massed as they were, it was still not an equal fight, and a much smaller percentage of their weapons got through to the enemy than those of the foe made it through to attack range of them. The first wave took out almost ten percent of the enemy force, with a hit rate of one point two percent. The second, dealing with fewer defensive platforms, knocked eighteen percent of the remainder out of hyper.

The Klavarta missiles ran into a much denser mass of defensive fire, and only twelve percent of their weapons got through to attack range. Less than two percent of the Ca'cadasan fleet fell off the plot.

In this kind of combat, one which no spacer really liked, major damage could and did result in the shutdown of the hyperdrive, or enough of it that it was no longer possible to stay in the dimension they were in. Translation from VII to VI was not as bad as one all the way down to normal space, but it still wasn't good news. About ten percent of damaged ships dropped to VI and stayed there. lacking the hyper capacity to move back to VII. The rest found themselves dropping again, and again, until in one arbitrary dimension the ships came apart and their remains fell into normal space.

The exchange went on for some minutes, both side losing ships, the Klavarta many more than the Ca'cadasans. Finally, when the enemy was down to less than twenty percent remaining their nerve broke. Or someone in command realized that the fight was not winnable. They started boosting off on different vectors, trying to escape. All were moving too fast for a hyper translation, but not fast enough to get out of range of the weapons that were still coming in to kill them. Suddenly, it was over, as the last fifty odd Klavarta ships converted to plasma.

“Enemy force has been completely destroyed,” announced the tactical officer, triumph in his voice.

“Our losses?” asked Mrastaran. Looking at the plot he realized that they had lost ships. Some areas of the formation looked to be slightly sparser than before. It was also apparent that they had not lost very many of their capital ships.

“We lost two hundred and seventy-four scouts. Forty-nine cruisers. And one battleship.”

The great admiral looked at his officer in surprise. They had destroyed over six thousand enemy ships, at the cost of three hundred and twenty-four of his own. A ratio of eighteen to one. The tonnage discrepancy was not quite as great, though it was still very one sided.

“How many wormhole launched weapons did we detect?”

That was something that couldn't be calculated in ship losses. Wormholes launchers were more important than any of the ships that carried them, giving those vessels a distinct advantage in missile warfare.  Missiles were more effective at range, converting time into velocity. Missiles leaving a wormhole launcher, such as the ones all of the allied forces deployed, spat out a missile already traveling at the maximum travel velocity. So a weapon fired from a light second away was just as deadly as one launched from light hours distance.

“We didn't detect any, my Lord. Every weapon was traveling at predicted velocity for a magnetic accelerator from a ship moving at their speed.”

In a way that was good news, since he would have lost more ships if wormholes had been involved. It also meant he hadn't taken any away from the enemy, which was very bad news indeed. The worst thing that could happen to his fleet was to get into a missile duel with a great number of wormhole equipped ships. That was how Ca'cadasan fleets on the other front had gotten their guts ripped out. He was hoping they could take those launchers out a few at a time, before they could be massed against him.

“We will be outside of the Pretali system in nine hours,” called out the navigation officer. “Orders?”

“Send orders to Group Seven to proceed into that system. They are to clear it of all Klavarta ships, then land and take possession of the planet. The rest of the fleet will bypass that system and continue in. All vessels to follow the flagship.”

The com officer acknowledged and started to send off the orders, while the helm began to input orders into his control station. Mrastaran wondered sometimes if the human method, where large group commanders had a separate control chamber for commanding their force, while a ship's captain commanded the vessel, might have been better. It gave the admiral in charge more time to consider the big picture. Still, he liked being in control of the ship he rode in, even if it did sometimes strain his capabilities.

“Great Admiral Tonnasar is reporting the enemy force is routed,” called out the com officer.

“Not destroyed,” growled Mrastaran, growling low in his throat.

Routed meant that some of the enemy force had gotten away. Maybe a large portion of it. The incompetence of that officer was sending Mrastaran into a rage. The only reason he could think that the officer had risen to such high rank was because of his physical prowess. His ability to challenge others to personal combat and win. And maybe some of his family connections to the Imperial line. Otherwise, the male was a complete disaster, and Mrastaran was tempted to order his flagship crew to throw the male out an airlock. Only that would cause him more problems than it was worth.

“Send the figures over to my station,” he ordered, glaring at the com officer as if it were the male's fault.

Mrastaran scowled as he looked at the figures. Tonnasar had lost twice as much in his combat as he or Lokastar. And he hadn't even been able to finish the job. Fully a third of the enemy fleet had been able to get away, using their acceleration advantage to change vectors. A competent commander would have found a way to block them. Tonnasar hadn't.

“Send a signal to Tonnasar's flagship by wormhole,” ordered the great admiral. Tonnasar's flagship, like the other two, had a wormhole, connected to the capital system of the Empire, and allowing all the command vessels to communicate instantaneously, as well as send spreads of missiles through once they expanded the portal into a gate.

“I want the complete recordings of that battle sent to me,” Mrastaran told the com officer. “On my command. And I really don't care if Tonnasar doesn't want them coming to me. I will have them.”

He would look over those records, including the take from the bridge of Tonnasar's flagship during the battle. And he would discover just what had gone wrong. Sure, they had won several great victories, as well as numerous small ones, since thrusting in the Nation of New Earth. Still, he was limited by what ships he had, and was unlikely to get more. So every ship counted. And an incompetent male who wasted ships and crew was something he could not tolerate.

*     *     *

“We haven't even been able to slow them down, sir,” said Vice Admiral Janic, the Alpha in charge of the central sector of the front. The Alpha's nostrils flared, showing his anger at the result.

Admiral Klanarat nodded as he looked at the other Alpha over the wormhole com. There had been six wormholes deployed at the front, mostly for com and data transfer purposes. And hundreds of the Klassekians the Empire had sent them. The Klassekians were a godsend, giving the Nation unprecedented com capability. Still, their organic minds were limited when it came to data transmission, whereas the wormholes weren't. They could send unlimited bandwidth through the portals, important when the analysts were clamoring for all the information they could get.

“What are they doing differently?” asked the Alpha fleet leader, sitting in the command chair of his flag bridge. The bridge was dry, for the time being, since they were not accelerating, and any changes in vector would require only small boost times.

“They are deployed in a manner I have never seen, sir. We close with what looks like manageable forces, something we should be able to defeat. And then we find ourselves hammered by a superior force we can't handle.”

“Shit,” growled Klanarat. “Well, try your best to delay them, but avoid any fights you can't win.” The admiral checked the data feed from the ship's computers for a moment. “We'll be there in four days.”

“We might have lost the entire frontier sector by then,” replied the vice admiral.

“Then we will have lost it. We can take it back, and destroy their fleet,” said Klanarat, scowling. “Just delay them and preserve as much of your fleet as possible.”

He didn't like that. Not at all. There were worlds, scores of them, that had been under the domination of the Cacas for centuries. Their people had never known freedom, until New Earth had come in and liberated them. Not the liberation of the old regime, that had only taken alien worlds to exterminate the aliens.

The admiral had been involved in some of those past slaughters, even though his conscience had told him it was wrong. But the masters, the clones of the original leaders who had brought them to this space to escape the Cacas, were thought of as Gods, to be obeyed without hesitation. The Nation had a lot to make up for, and removing intelligent lifeforms from the domination of beings that used them for slave labor, that used them for food, went a long way in performing that penance. Letting the Cacas have those people back was a betrayal, but if they didn't have the forces in place to stop them, there was nothing they could do but slow the tide and prepare the counter-offensive.

Why couldn't they have waited another month, thought Klanarat, burying his face in his hands for a moment. The reason there had been so little at the front was the New Earth fleet was preparing for a major offensive. A lot of ships needed repairs, even more required upgrades to keep them up to date. And then there was the new construction, needing shakedowns and training. In three more weeks ninety percent of the fleet would have been marshaling at that front, preparing to attack. They would have been able to hit this enemy offensive with a counter strike that would have sent them reeling back into their own space, the New Earth fleet hot on their heels.

Unfortunately, the enemy had taken advantage of the New Earth deployments. Whether by luck, or because they had intelligence telling them when to attack? That was something that Naval Intelligence needed to find out. If coincidence, there was nothing they could do about it but fight on and beat this offensive. But if there was an intelligence leak, it needed to be found and sealed, fast.

“Get me New Earth Naval Intelligence on the com. Now.”

He assumed they would have had the same thoughts as he had. Assumptions were something he couldn't afford, that his nation couldn't afford.

“Admiral Klanarat,” answered the red-haired human on the other side of the com link. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Chapter Five

It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for. William F. Buckley, Jr.

“Admiral Sergiov on the com for you, ma'am,” came the call from the bridge over the intercom.

“Put her through,” ordered Bednarczyk, putting her flat comp on the desk and rubbing her eyes.

“You look like you could use some more sleep, Admiral,” said Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov, head of Combined Intelligence for the New Terran Empire.

Beata was about to tell the woman that how much sleep her superior officer got was none of her business, but bit it back just in time. Though only a four star, Sergiov held responsibilities far above that rank. She was in charge of not only all military intelligence, but also the civilian branches, including her old fiefdom of the Imperial Intelligence Agency. And she had the ear of the Emperor. Not a woman that any smart officer wanted to piss off.

“What can I do for you, Admiral Sergiov?” asked Beata after stifling a yawn.

“We have suspicions that someone out there in the New Earth fleet is giving information to the Cacas. We're not sure who, or what they have been sending, but we have reason to believe it's someone high in the New Earth military establishment.”

“Wonderful,” growled Beata, letting out a huff. “Why in the hell would anyone among the Klavarta want to cooperate with the Cacas. Don't they realize what the damned big bastards want to do with them?”

The Ca'cadasans had made no secret of the fact that they wanted to exterminate the human species. All of the species, both the enhanced humans of the Empire and the engineered versions of the Nation. To them all humans were tainted with the sins of the originals from Earth and its colonies. One of those colonies had killed a Ca'cadasan Empire heir after giving their surrender, and the Caca Emperor of that time had ordered the extermination of everything human, including the genetic lines of their home-world.

“I'm not sure what any single individual Klavarta might gain,” said Sergiov, shrugging her shoulders. “What we hypothesize is that some of the Klavarta were actually less than welcoming of our interference in their government under the clones. Some thought of them as gods, and even though we took them out, they still harbor the belief that they will return, once we are ejected from their nation. So, the sooner that happens, the better, as far as they are concerned”

“Insanity,” blurted Bednarczyk, shaking her head. “Don't they realize the Cacas will use them, then kill them?”

“They think they can control that situation,” said Sergiov. The intelligence chief was silent for a moment, obviously thinking. “We're dealing with fanatics. So who is to say what they're thinking, or if we can reason with them?”

“What do you want me to do about it out here?”

“The Klavarta intelligence agencies are already working on trying to locate the leaks. That's not something we can get involved with. Not without stepping on the toes people we don't want to infuriate. What you can do is make sure that all of your coms are only to people who have already been cleared by their government.”

“How do I know I can trust them?” asked Beata, her head beginning to hurt from thinking of all the implications.

“You really don't,” said Sergiov, closing her eyes for a moment. “At least until we get a list of the people Klavarta intelligence has cleared. So be very careful what you transmit over the net. Even what you tell the Klavarta in face to face discussions.”

Will I ever be able to trust anyone out here again, thought the admiral, clenching her fists, a sinking feeling in her chest. She was not a spy, had no inclination to think like one, and really wanted nothing to do with them. She was a spacer, a soldier, someone the people above her pointed at the enemy they wanted destroyed and let her loose. Plain and simple.

“We will get you information as soon as we have it,” said Sergiov, opening her eyes and looking right into those of the other admiral. “You are to tell no one in your command about this. The only orders you are to give is to restrict data over coms. I know you don't like this, Admiral. But it comes down from Sean himself.”

“Understood,” said Beata, not liking that order a bit. There were people under her command that she trusted with her life. If she couldn't trust them with this, then how could she ask them to trust her and her commands. I might have to tell Mara, as soon as I can get her in the same room. If that ever happened.

“Until I have more for you, Admiral.”

Beata nodded her acknowledgment, the protocol being that she, as the ranking officer, decided when to cut the transmission. Sergiov nodded back, then disappeared from the holo, leaving Beata with her thoughts and her headache.

*     *     *

“We have an unknown ship in the system appearing on our sensors, Great Admiral,” reported the scout that had been sent into the Oort cloud of the system in question.

This scout was equipped with a wormhole, at least temporarily, so that it could communicate in real time with Mrastaran's flagship. The mission was that important.

“It's sending a coded transmission, my Lord.”

The code appeared on a viewer on the bridge of the flagship, and Mrastaran grinned in satisfaction as he recognized the header. “That's the one. Close with them and take in all the information they have. Afterwards, you are to let them go.”

“Let them go, my Lord?” asked the surprised ship commander, a shocked expression on his face.

“Yes, you young fool,” growled the great admiral, already not in the best of moods. “You are not to harm them. They are important to the mission. If anything happens to them you will pay with your life.”

That was why he had given the scout the wormhole for the moment, so he could be in direct communication with the captain of that ship. Because Ca'cadasan commanders tended to shoot first and wonder why they were being punished later. He wasn't sure what would happen to his intelligence source if that ship was destroyed. It might not harbor the leader of that faction in the New Earth command. Or it might, and then that source would be gone.

“They are sending across a transmission, my Lord. It's coming through in a burst.” The scout commander looked away for a moment, barking a command at his com officer. “We are not able to read it. The encryption is beyond us.”

“You are not meant to read it, Sub-Commander,” growled the exasperated great admiral. “Now, send it over to my ship as soon as you can. Then get out of that system and let them be about their business.”

“We're receiving the data stream, my Lord,” said the flagship's com officer a moment later.

“Put it through decryption and send it to my station,” ordered Mrastaran, waiting for the holo to come up by his chair. “And keep your eyes off of it.”

It was a longer wait than he was comfortable with, but he kept his anger in check, hoping that the information was worth the trouble. The holo finally came up, showing a list of ship strengths and deployments for the enemy. Mrastaran leaned forward, looking over the list, grunting in satisfaction. The list was much as he had expected, but it was good to see that his predictions had been correct.

We have destroyed over half of their frontier force, he thought, looking at the numbers and subtracting what he knew they had destroyed. It had taken days, long periods of time filled with anxiety that the enemy might divine his intentions. Space battles across a wide front took time to develop, and really this one was still in the process of developing, hopefully the way he wanted it.

The enemy had a powerful force coming up, enough to challenge his and possibly win, if they were deployed properly. Fortunately for his plans, it was looking like they were not going to be deployed properly. It looked like they were going to send individual forces in that were intended to destroy his spread forces in detail. Only his forces wouldn't be deployed as they thought, and he would start by rolling up their flank forces, then take them out in line.

And they're leaving their allies from the Empire behind, thought the admiral, letting out a breath in disbelief. The fleet from the New Terran Empire, while not possessing a lot of ships compared with the Klavarta, was made up of more powerful vessels on the whole. That was a fleet that could cause him a lot of trouble if they were in support range of the Klavarta, and it was looking like they wouldn't be. At the time he was hitting the Klavarta flank the Imperials would be still be three or more days away. By the time they got to him he would be busy running through the enemy center after destroying both the flanks. The Imperial fleet would get there with too little too late.

Next he pulled up the wormhole deployments. Most of the portals would be with the initial Klavarta fleet. That was good and bad. When he destroyed the Klavarta fleet most of those portals would be gone. He knew that the Nation of New Earth had very little production capacity compared to the New Terran Empire. Two a week at most. His own empire was now up to twenty a week, nowhere near what the human empire was making, estimated by intelligence at twenty-five to thirty a day. There were more coming on an end run around the Ca'cadasan Empire from the human empire. If he had more information about their current location and timetable he might be able to place a force in their way. Right now that wasn't possible, but he had a good idea of when they were going to get to his area of operations. Too late to do the Klavarta any good.

The Imperial fleet was strong in warships, though nowhere near what they would be facing. They were also weak in wormholes. If they had come up with and joined with the Klavarta they might have made a real difference. Since they wouldn't join up in time, they wouldn't make that difference. The other allies really weren't worth worrying about. Old tech, small ships, they would fall like scurrying prey before the might of his fleet.

He looked over the data on the commanders. Great Admiral Klanarat was a known. He had led the Klavarta fleet on its last series of battles against the Ca'cadasan fleet. He was a good enough commander, if somewhat conservative. Tactically sound, but tending to fall into predictable patterns. The great admiral was happy to see that the Alpha was going to be his primary opponent. In fact, his entire strategy was based on the Klavarta using the tactics that had won them so many battles in the past.

Mrastaran looked over the profiles of the Klavarta sub-admirals, the ones who had been involved in combat with the Ca'cadasans in the past, as well as some who had yet to make their way onto the radar. Most were competent, if not brilliant, and those who were of above average ability were noted with their deployments. He would have to make sure that those commands were hit with extreme force, so they would have little effect on the overall battle.

The human commander was more of an unknown. The Ca'cadasan fleet had never faced this Admiral Beata Bednarczyk. She had an uninspiring record, mostly against pirates within and on the borders of her Empire. She had been pulled from obscurity to fight the war machines, whatever the hell those were, outside of the Empire. The great admiral had no idea what any of that meant. But he figured that the war machines couldn't be a very competent opponent. She had beat them, though her command had been shot to hell in the process. He doubted that she would be much of a factor in the battle. And, according to his own prejudices, she was a female, which meant she couldn't be as intelligent as a male. Ca'cadasan females were about as intelligent as a very smart hunting animal. Even though intellectually the great admiral knew the humans were different, deep down he still couldn't take a female leader seriously.

The other human commander. Admiral Mara Montgomery, while also a female, had a long combat history against the Ca'cadasans. The female had led scout forces that had performed well in several campaigns. Even brilliant at times. That would be one to watch. Of course, if he avoided her until he had taken out the majority of the force facing him she would be nothing more than a nuisance.

He closed the files after forwarding them to his staff analysis team and sat back in his chair, thinking about what he had learned. After a few moments he decided that he had a very good chance of defeating the enemy with minimal loss to himself. When he had defeated their fleet the way would be open to their core worlds. It was looking like this campaign might be the last on this front. Mission accomplished. Of course, the admiral knew he was counting his victories before they happened. That was a mistake made by too many Ca'cadasan officers in the past, and being aware of his thinking made it less likely to bite him in his big ass.

*     *     *

Six hours later, after a good meal and a rest break, Mrastaran was at it again, sitting in his office with the holo map of the area seeming to stretch into infinity. It was a disconcerting image, one that made many Ca'cadasans ill. He enjoyed the view, which made him feel like the master of time and space.

The enemy was starting to separate, just as he had predicted, taking the best paths to take out the ships where they supposed his formations would be. Only they wouldn't be there, and the enemy wouldn't find that out until it was much too late.

“Send orders to all formations and commands,” he said into the air, connecting with the com officer on the bridge. “Proceed according to plan. All ships are to time their courses to optimize consolidation before striking.”

That was an order the commanders would already be aware of, but it never hurt to make sure they were reminded. As a species, Ca'cadasans tended to act and react at a moment’s notice, without really thinking about the consequences. Any untoward movement before everyone was ready could tip off the enemy. He didn't think they would be able to get away, but anything that might make the victory less than complete was unacceptable.

Now all he could do was wait. He had gotten sufficient rest, and doubted he would be able to sleep again until this battle was over. The same with eating. He knew from experience that the coming fight would cause too much anxiety, something he would be careful not to show, but would still feel.

All I can do is wait for the seconds to tick by. Of course, relativity would make time in the rest of the slow-moving universe pass faster. Not fast enough for him.

*     *     *

The Grand Fleet Admiral looked over the current dispositions at the front as he made his final plans. As far as his scouts could tell, the enemy was split into eight major formations, as well as a dozen smaller groups that were peeling off and taking out systems as the main fleet passed. He would hit three of their major formations with his own, routing them, hopefully totally destroying them, before he settled on the second part of his strategy.

He was sure that the first part of the battle would be a slaughter, but what the enemy did after that would determine how quickly he could get the whole thing over with. If the five remaining formations stayed separate, he could again take out three, then close in on the final two and destroy them. After that he would split his forces and go after all the smaller groups. Then would come the liberation of the systems the Cacas had taken back. So simple, against a simple minded enemy. He smiled at the thought.

Perhaps we can push deep into their Empire before they can bring up reinforcements, he thought, his smile widening. He imagined the glory that would be his if he outdid the humans of the Empire on the other front. A thousand light years, two? Why not all the way, reaching the enemy capital system and taking out their government while the rest of their fleet was looking the other way.

That might be a little more than we can bite off in one chunk, thought the admiral, shrugging his shoulders. It wouldn't do to push in so far that he had outrun his supply line. Wormholes would help. A lot. Maybe enough where resupply would not be a problem after all. But protecting his extended flanks would still be a major bitch, and inviting the enemy to push in from the sides and mop up the systems he would take away from them was not something he wanted to risk. No, he would take care of the business ahead of him, figure out what he had left, and wait for the president to give him his orders.

“I want us to split into the three unit configuration in one hour,” he told his chief of staff, Captain Signa Jakaris. He looked over the dispositions again. “No. In two hours. The three groups will proceed along these three vectors until they make contact with their targets and destroy them.”

“They won't be in mutual support range,” said Signa, frowning. “Sir,” she added quickly as the admiral sent her a disapproving look.

“We will overwhelm the groups and then move on to the others,” said Klanarat, his frown turning into a smile as he went over his own brilliant plan in his mind. “There will be no need for mutual support.”

“And the Imperials?”

“They can stay back and watch our thunder,” said the admiral after huffing out a scoff. “They can move into the systems and retake them from the Cacas. That should be enough to keep them busy.”

There were about two dozen inhabited systems that the Cacas had already overrun. And a few that were still resisting. They wouldn't last long, not against an enemy that controlled space. They might be able to continue the resistance when the Cacas landed, but not for long. Even Klavarta warriors couldn't resist long against orbital bombardment. Another half dozen systems would be entered before the Klavarta fleet went into action. There were thousands of other systems out here. Most of those were useless. Red dwarves, giant stars, places where habitable planets were rare. Resource poor for the most part, but they could still hide fleets, bases, depots. The enemy would have to scout them, and Klanarat would have to order them scouted by his side when he got to them.

“Make sure the battle group commanders know where they're going,” he told Jakaris.

“And their orders?”

“Why, annihilate the enemy, of course. They are to destroy every Caca ship that they sight. No prisoners.”

The Imperials might not like those kind of orders. They believed in letting people surrender when possible. Klanarat could care less about prisoners, since the ranking Cacas wouldn't let themselves be taken, and the low ranks wouldn't know shit. Besides, it was too dangerous trying to board ships that might self-destruct and take valuable warriors with them.

Klanarat walked off the flag bridge, already going over in his mind how he would receive the honors that would be his. Probably back at the capital, where the president could hand out his medals and hold a victory feast. He was destined for the history books, and children across the nation would know his name. He didn't think about the enemy or how they might react to subvert his plan. They were already doomed as far as he was concerned.

Chapter Six

We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters. Robert E. Lee

“Admiral Sandakar's fleet is picking up the enemy,” called out the com officer, looking back at his commander.

“What is he picking up?” asked Klanarat, staring at the plot.

He had a good idea what was waiting for him in the various locations the enemy fleet was deployed. With his wormholes, and more importantly, his Klassekian com techs, he was getting good picture of what was out there. It looked like the enemy had maintained their eight battle groups, as well as all their smaller scouting groups. They had fallen right into his trap, and now was the time to spring it on them. Within the next couple of hours forty percent of their fleet would be gone, and his battle groups would be headed for three of the others. And there was no possible way the enemy could congregate their forces in time.

“We're picking up the enemy force that's our target ahead,” called out the flag sensor officer. “Ship numbers confirm the fleet strength we predicted, sir. More or less.”

“Not a very accurate report, Commander,” said the admiral in a low voice, glaring at the officer. “I expect more exactness from you.”

“I'm having trouble getting an accurate count on them, Sir,” said the apologetic officer. “There's some interference like I've never seen.”

“Are you sure you're picking up their fleet?” asked a worried Klanarat, leaning forward in his chair.

“The resonances match Caca ships. I'm just having trouble picking out the individual signals.”

“We're getting a hail from the Imperial admiral, Sir,” called out the com officer.

What in the hell does she want now? thought Klanarat, considering sending her away without answering the com. Thinking that wouldn't be a good idea, since his behavior might get back to the president, he made a hand motion at his com officer.

“Admiral,” said the Grand Fleet Admiral from the Empire he had been saddled with. “We're monitoring your take. I advise you wait until we come up to support you.”

“And how long will that take?” asked Klanarat, pretty sure what the answer would be.

“Eighteen hours. Possibly twenty-four.”

“Admiral. We have the enemy ahead and will bring them to action in three hours. If I wait they might flee, and join up with other battle groups of theirs. Therefore, I reject your advice and am proceeding with my attack.”

He had over forty percent of his entire force in his local battlegroup, outnumbering this enemy by almost two to one in tonnage, with many more wormhole launchers than they could possibly have deployed. With his acceleration advantage there was no way they could run away, as long as he continued in. There was no way he was going to pass up this target.

“Admiral,” continued the human admiral, her brows furrowing in concern. “We are looking over your sensor readings, and I have a funny feeling about them.”

“Can you be more specific?” Klanarat didn't have time for an officer with cold feet trying to change his plan at the last minute.

“I can't,” said Bednarczyk, shrugging her shoulders. “But I do know that these canny bastards are capable of pulling tricks, just like we are. I wouldn't trust those returns.”

“Understood. And I disagree.” The admiral shook his head. “I have my strategy plotted out, and I think we're about to hit them with a knockout blow. Now, I have things to do.”

Klanarat waved his hand at his com officer, instructing that Alpha to terminate the connection. The last he saw of Bednarczyk was a look of protest on her face.

“Prepare for liquid injection,” ordered Klanarat. “To all ships. In one hour. All non-Alphas are to have breathing masks in place at that time.”

That would be two hours before contact, but he wanted to be ready for increase acceleration well before his fleet was launching missiles at the enemy and taking their return fire. Just in case.

*     *     *

“That stupid asshole,” screamed Beata, looking into the face of Admiral Mara Montgomery on the holo.

Beata had retreated to her day cabin, getting away from the people she didn't want to overhear her rant. She shouldn't be ranting to Mara either, since the other woman was a subordinate. She was also Beata's oldest friend, and someone she had ranted to many times in the past.

“Maybe it's just a sensor glitch,” said Mara, trying to sound like she might believe it and failing miserably.

“Across three battle groups,” growled Beata, putting her hands on her hips as she stood in the center of the cabin. “Unlikely as hell, and you know it.”

“Just bringing up the possibilities,” said the lower ranking admiral, shrugging her shoulders. “I don't believe it either, but since there is nothing we can do about it, we might as well hope for the best.”

Beata scowled. Even if they went to emergency accel with everyone in the acceleration tubes, they wouldn't get there any faster. They were already up to point nine two light in VII, the fastest they could go without particle radiation sleeting through their electromagnetic shields and hull.

“What are we going to do if Admiral Klanarat does stick his neck into a trap?” asked the scout force commander.

“I'm not sure,” admitted Beata. “I guess we'll have to wait until we see what's left after the fire dies down.” She still couldn't believe that the Klavarta admiral was wedded to a plan that had so many risks. And with sensor readings that pointed to the possibility that he was being led into the noose.

I hope I'm wrong, thought Beata. Not that she liked to be wrong, but it would be better for all concerned if she was in this case.

*     *     *

“They're doing just like you predicted, Great Admiral,” said the chief of staff, bowing his head toward the supreme commander of the fleet.

“Dangle the proper bait, and of course they will jump at it,” said Mrastaran with a laugh. They see what they want to see, just as those human commanders in the past said.

Hanging in the air, in a holo globe, was the special ship he was using to spoof the enemy. A fifty thousand ton ship, almost totally unarmed, with a minimal crew of thirty males. It could only accelerate at four hundred gravities, though it had many oversized grabbers and a huge hyperdrive array relative to the volume of the ship. They had one purpose, and one only. To put out the maximum graviton footprint, to make the enemy think that each of them was a superbattleship. There were still some problems with the concept, and the signals didn't always match up exactly to the resonances of the real capital ships. Still, they put out a signal that an enemy that was looking for such would be sure to latch onto as confirmation of what they expected.

“Is everything ready for the transfer?” Mrastaran asked.

His fleet was ready for the first fight. As soon as they had defeated that enemy force they needed to move everything to the secondary battle position. As quickly as possible. They would be in normal space and jumping into hyper for the engagement, so they wouldn't be able to use their wormhole gates for missile launches. Still, with the numerical advantage it shouldn't make much of a difference.

“It looks like they're going in for the kill, my Lord,” said the chief of staff.

Signals were flying back and forth by grav pulse, relayed through scores of ships. A clunky method compared to what the humans were using, but hopefully it was getting the job done.

“Yes,” said Mrastaran, watching as the three Klavarta commands moved across the plot. At this range, two of those commands were really just blobs of diffused gravitons. Actually they were just reported coordinates. The one moving toward him was more distinct, since they were being picked up by the sensors of the ships of his battle group.

Two of those human commands were going to be surprised when they found nothing but a few ships vectoring away while the decoy vessels fell into normal space. They might drop ships out of hyper to go looking for the Ca'cadasan fleet that wasn't there. If so, good. That would fix them in place for his next move. One, the right flank, would immediately receive a different surprise.

“They're almost to us, my Lord.”

“Send out the signal. We will jump into VII at my command.”

*     *     *

“This is damned peculiar, sir,” said Admiral Vikon Landa, the commander of the right flank. “We're almost on top of them. We should be getting a better read on them by now.”

“Same here, Vikon,” said Klanarat, staring at his own plot. “I'm not sure what's going on.” The admiral was starting to wonder if the Cacas were trying to trap him. Or could they be trying to get his forces out of place so they could run around his flanks and get into the core of his nation. He didn't think that would help them. He would catch them, well before they got to any of the core worlds. Or he might send most of his ships through wormhole gates. He...

“Shit,” called out Landa.

“What's going on,” yelled out Klanarat, turning back to the holo of his right flank force commander.

“We have ships transiting into hyper VII ahead of us. Thousands of them. I... My God.”

Klanarat looked over at the take appearing on another holo, showing not only thousands of ships appearing in hyper VII to the front, but the same occurring to the rear.

“They're opening fire. Missiles coming in from both sides.”

“Get the hell out of there,” screamed Klanarat, his heart skipping a beat.

“We're going too fast to change dimensions,” replied the other admiral, his voice on the edge of panic. “They've got us boxed in.”

The supreme commander watched in horror as hundreds of thousands of missiles appeared on the plot of that flank force. Missiles started moving out in return, aiming for the enemy. There were some streams of fast-moving weapons from wormhole launchers, the most deadly weapon the Klavarta possessed.

Caca ships, moving at very low velocities, dropped out of hyper VII and down to VI before the missile waves got to them, at the last minute. Seconds later they were back in hyper VII and firing their next wave of missiles. The Klavarta were not able to do the same. They were furiously decelerating, trying to kill enough velocity so that they too could change dimensions. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen for several hours, and with Klavarta ships starting to fall off the plot from missile hits, there might not be anything left to translate down.

*     *     *

Beata looked at the take from the Klavarta right flank in horror as the outnumbered allied ships were pounded by the Cacas. The enemy were going at point one to two light at most, but the Klavarta were running right into the largest group of Cacas at high speed, so the missiles were closing with the combined velocity of the forces. There were more Caca ships to the flanks and slightly ahead, sending in missiles that were barely making it into the Klavarta formation. Barely was good enough, and they were generating hits. The force behind them was much smaller, and what it was firing was having a difficult time catching up. They didn't need to. All they needed to do was make sure the enemy knew there was something behind them.

She clenched her fists, raging internally that she couldn't get there in time to add her fire to the defense. Even if she was, the outcome would still not be in doubt, given the numbers of enemy ships. She started thinking of how she was going to rendezvous with Admiral Klanarat so they could launch some kind of counterattack.

“Start working on a plan that has us falling back behind the enemy,” she ordered her chief of staff, Captain Sigurd Janssen. “I want us able to hit and run, while we allow the evacuation of the planets back there.”

“We aren't going to come to the aid of the Klavarta?” asked the horrified staff officer.

“We will if we can. But if this continues on into the crapper, I want something to fall back on.”

And it was definitely looking like the crapper was about to be filled.

*     *     *

“There's, nothing here, sir,” reported the flag sensor officer, looking over all the takes coming in from every ship in the battle group. Some were coming in through wormhole coms from those relatively few ships that had them. Many from Klassekian com techs, the rest through lascom and even grav pulse. The signals weren't all arriving at the flagship in a timely manner, but the flag sensor officer was still able to put together an understandable composite.

“How in the hell is that possible?” asked Klanarat, his eyes widening as he looked at the empty plot of local space. “There weren't that many hyper translations ahead of us.”

In fact, from their readings, less than five million tons of vessels had dropped out of hyper. When the graviton emissions had indicated several billion tons of warships ahead.

They set us up, he thought, grimacing. The bastards suckered us in. And while we thought we knew where they were, they took advantage of our arrogance to kill one of my battle groups.

“Can we drop some ships down to normal space to have a look? To see what they have?” Klanarat already knew the answer to that, but was hoping that he had made some simple error.

“No, sir,” answered the flag navigator, shaking her head. “The fastest ship we have would take over three hours to get down to translation velocity.”

“Admiral Pillas is reporting the same thing we're seeing,” called out the com officer. “Nothing ahead. And not enough translation signal to account for the ships they thought were there.”

“How is Admiral Landa doing?” asked Klanarat, concerned about his one battle group that had actually contacted an enemy.

“We've lost contact with Admiral Landa's flagship,” called out the com officer.

“Try to reestablish a connection,” yelled Klanarat, storming over to the officer's station,

“The wormhole on that ship with connection back to the capital has collapsed, sir,” said the terrified officer, looking up at his admiral. “We're trying to get through by use of their Klassekian backup, but command is reporting that the sibling has gone into a catatonic reaction.”

Which means the one aboard Landa's ship is dead, thought the Alpha, his mouth falling open in shock.

“Do we have connections with any of the other ships?”

“Still three in that force,” said the officer, punching in commands on his board. “Connecting to Rear Admiral Jronas. She seems to be the ranking officer in that force.”

A rear admiral was the ranking officer in a battle group that had been led by a five-star fleet admiral, and had two full admirals and four vices in its command structure. If they had lost that many of their commanders then things were really bad. Or else the Cacas had been inordinately lucky in their targeting. Klanarat doubted if the second was the reason.

“Admiral Klanarat,” came the voice of the rear admiral as a holo came to life with her face. From the look of her she was scared half to death. “We have lost most of our screening force. The enemy is hitting us hard. I....”

The holo filled with static for a moment, an indication that something had hit the ship. Since it came back up that meant it hadn't been a direct hit. Still, something had hit them, and hard.

“We have hull breaches all over the forward part of my ship. We....”

The holo blanked out, and this time it seemed like a good bet that it wouldn't come back up.

“We just lost her wormhole, sir.”

Which means we just lost her ship, and the admiral with it, thought Klanarat, a numb feeling almost shutting down his brain.

The last com link with that battle force was lost fifteen minutes later.

*     *     *

“We have some enemy ships breaking away, my Lord.”

“What kind of ships? And how many?” Mrastaran wanted a complete victory here before he moved on the other flank of the enemy. Anything less was unacceptable. However, he needed to move, and quickly, if he was going to accomplish that mission.

“We have twenty-seven graviton sources, my Lord. All in the cruiser to scout range. And they are sliding out of our missile range, now.”

“Send some cruisers after them,” ordered the great admiral, wondering why he was even bothering. The Klavarta ships could out-accelerate anything he had that was manned and hyper capable. “Order the rest of the fleet to execute plan Beta.”

The ships that were in hyper changed vectors enough to get to the rendezvous point. They started to drop down into normal space, adjusting their vectors on the way. When they were in normal space they oriented themselves to one of the five wormhole gates set up for the next part of the mission. Fifteen minutes later the first of the vessels, all superbattleships, started through the gate, one every thirty seconds. It was a well practiced maneuver. The great admiral had insisted on practice sessions until they could do it without a hitch. Every minute ten of the twenty-five million ton ships went from the Klavarrta right flank to the left. In fifteen minutes that was one hundred and fifty of them. In an hour six hundred and forty. That doubled the capital ship strength of the force already in place, giving them twelve hundred superbattleships to go along with their five thousand escort and support ships.

As soon as those ships were through the rest of the fleet went through another set of gates and started the build-up at the center of the front, and the last act of the destruction of the Klavarta fleet.

It was a tactic that the New Terran Empire and their allies had used against the Ca'cadasan Empire in several campaigns. Very effectively. The Ca'cadasan Empire couldn't emulate everything the humans did, but this was one that was in their game plan. It might work on the main front as well. But only if it worked here in this test of concept.

“We're ready to go through, Great Admiral,” said the navigation officer, glancing over at the helmsman. “We're next in the queue.”

Mrastaran gave a head motion of acknowledgment. There wasn't anything he could do about it, since there were ships stacked up behind the flag, all moving at a relatively high velocity. If his ship slowed they would most likely be hit from behind. The only reason the officer had given his commander a heads up was to inform the luminary that he was about to become violently ill. Moments later he was vomiting on the deck after the translation occurred. Mrastaran was in an ill mood for some minutes, until he saw the plot that showed the enemy left flank sailing right into his engagement window.

Chapter Seven

But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility. Erwin Rommel

“Admiral Pillas is reporting that Caca ships are translating in hyperspace ahead of him,” called out the com officer.

“How many?” asked Klanarat, a sick feeling hitting him right in the gut. He wasn't sure where all of these ships were coming from. He had been sure he had a good handle on what he was facing. Now that was in serious doubt. They had located and fixed eight relatively large battle groups, none of a size to challenge any of his three larger formations. A massive group had seemed to come out of nowhere and hit his right flank, taking it out. So the Cacas had tricked him and concentrated their entire fleet on that flank? So where in the hell was this second force coming from?

“The Imperial admiral is on the com, sir,” called out one of the techs working the com station.

God, but he didn't want to talk with that infuriating woman right now. But if he didn't, there might be hell to pay later.

“Put her through.”

“Admiral,” said Beata Bednarczyk as her image appeared on the holo. “I think the Cacas are gating their ships from one flank to another.”

“They've never done that before, have they?” asked Klanarat, the idea striking him as possible, but not very palatable. That would mean the Cacas had stolen a march on his own fleet. That someone over there was actually thinking. That could spell serious trouble.

“Not that we know of,” agreed Bednarczyk, shaking her head. “But we have done it to them on the other front. Many times. I don't see why they couldn't imitate the idea. They're not all idiots, you know. Even if we wished that they were.”

“Wouldn't they assume we might do the same to them?” asked Klanarat, still trying to reason his way out of the unfolding situation.

“Not when you're traveling at above translation speed,” said the woman, a serious look on her face as she shook her head.

Klanarat looked over at the readings on his fleet. His ships were moving at point nine light in hyper VII, just below the maximum safe rate. If they went above the maximum safe rate they would be taking radiation damage as the particles of hyperspace, themselves more energetic than normal matter, sleeted through his electromagnetic field and hull armor. At that speed they would not be able to drop out of hyper. Not until they dropped down to point three light, a velocity that would take many hours to reach at maximum deceleration. His force was already decelerating, something he had ordered so they would be able to react faster to the situation around them. Now it looked like it wouldn't be enough.

The other problem was they couldn't erect a wormhole gate in hyper. They would have to assemble the gate in hyper, even if it was self-erecting. And they would have to have the gate contained in a hyperfield. They would need an expanding hyperfield apparatus that was outside of a ship, something they didn't have, as the hyperfield generators and projectors, as well as the power supply, were integral parts of the vessel. So at the moment they were helpless to do anything but decelerate and try to change their vector.

“Dammit.” Klanarat felt like he had been used by the Cacas. They had taken advantage of his own mindset, showing him what he expected, then hitting him with the unexpected. He would lose most of his fleet. He would be disgraced.

“I order you to bring your fleet up and support that flank.”

“But....”

“You have your orders, Admiral. Now carry them out.”

Klanarat dismissed the com and looked over at his com officer. “I want a fleet order sent out. All ships are to decel at maximum and change vector ninety degrees to port.”

“All crew,” came a call over the intercom. “Liquid injection in one minute. Repeat, liquid injection in one minute.”

The Alphas and Engineers in the crew need do nothing, since they were made for this. The rest would be putting on breathing masks. At the one minute mark the clear oxygenated liquid started rising from the floor, swiftly flooding until the entire flag bridge was filled. Everyone on the flag bridge filled their lungs with the liquid and started their gills working. All except the Klassekian com techs, three of them, wearing their specially made helmets so they could talk normally while performing their function.

The ship started moving up the deceleration scale until it was thirty gravities over the capacity of the inertial compensators, while all of the crew remained comfortable within the protective liquid. What wasn't comfortable were the feelings of the grand fleet admiral who stood in that liquid on the bridge. He couldn't do anything about his second flank force. All he could do now was save his central force, and that by making sure the enemy wasn't in position to hit it with the same kind of numbers.

It's going into the crapper, he thought as he pulled the oxygenated liquid into his lungs. The plan had been for his three major forces to hit the largest of their eight in passing, then turning around and going after the others, which would have fewer ships than the initial three. Those formations would either have panicked and started back for Caca space, continued on to their targets, or consolidated so they could present a united front to his fleet. Neither tactic would have helped them. He would have caught them and he would have mauled them. He hadn't planned on them tricking him.

The admiral huffed, the flow of liquid tickling his lips and nostrils. Of course no one planned on being tricked, which was why it was and had always been a viable tactic. All he could do was react, not the best way to win a battle, and hope things started to turn his way. Looking at the plot, he didn't see how that was possible.

*     *     *

Beata clenched her fists as she looked at the repeater plot from the right flank, her rage growing as she thought about the thoughtless orders the Klavarta admiral had given her. There was no way she could get to that flank force. Not for two days at the best speed she could manage. Why in the hell had he even bothered to issue such an order. To cover his ass? Oh yes, I ordered her to reinforce that flank, but she was tardy in her movements. Like any kind of inquest into this travesty of a campaign, looking at the plots, would find the evidence to support Klanarat.

She felt like crying out as she saw Klavarta ships fall off the plot. In hyper all ships gave out graviton emissions as their arrays kept them in a space that naturally tried to eject them. When those emissions faded it meant the hyperdrive array was no longer working and they were no longer in hyper. The ejection was normally violent, and ninety-five percent of the time the ship came through in pieces. Anything from clouds of plasma to large pieces of hull. Spacers rarely survived the transition. In the five percent of the time when the ship survived it wasn't in the best of shape. So every ship leaving the plot represented a kill for the enemy.

That bastard, she thought as she watched three more ships die. She hadn't liked his battle plan from the start. If it had been her she would have sent her scout force ahead by five or six hours, coming in from the flank and following it up with her main fleet, concentrated. That way she could roll up each of the enemy battle groups, and still have a large enough force to take the Cacas on if they happened to be concentrated as well.

“We have some initial plans for you to look over, ma'am,” said Captain Clarence Yamagata, her staff planning officer.

“What do you have?” she asked, turning away from the plot. There was nothing there that would help her at all. If anything happened of interest, one of her analysts would find it and let her know about it.

“We think our best option is to fall back on this system,” said the captain. “Pleisia. A former Ca'cadasan world that used to be one of their major naval bases on the front. It would make an enticing target for the Cacas, a target of prestige.”

“Any other advantages?” asked the admiral as she looked over a holographic representation of the system. Five rocky worlds in orbit around an F9 star. A half dozen gas giants, hundreds of moons, three complete asteroid belts. No wonder the Cacas had used it as a base system. It had all the resources they would need to build the infrastructure a fleet required.

“We have orbital infrastructure, space docks, stations,” continued the staff officer. “Even a couple of large forts. Mines all over the system, even a couple of hundred antimatter sats in orbit around the star. There is are some defenses on the surface of the planet. Two divisions of Klavarta warriors.”

Beata looked at the captain with wide eyes as she thought of fifty thousand of those scary looking bastards tackling the Cacas in ground combat. She wasn't sure how they would go about it, but with imagination and daring they might be able to do it. The system looked like a good place to kick the asses of the big aliens. Except they would have to deal with orbital bombardment.

“How soon till we can get to it?”

“Two days?” said Yamagata, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe a little more. And the Cacas can't get there for at least four days, giving us two days of prep time.”

Beata wasn't sure that would be enough time. But trying to assemble her force, along with whatever else she could gather across this front, any further back would give up too much of New Earth space to the aliens.

She needed to meet the Cacas in normal space. She might be able to fight a good battle in hyper, but she wouldn't be able to use all of her resources. Such as her warp fighters. She could also get some wormhole gates set up near the planet. She wasn't sure how Grand Fleet Admiral Klanarat would feel about this. In some ways she really didn't give a damn. Technically she was under him. Also, technically, she was still working for her Emperor, and her fleet was on loan to New Earth. Sean would expect her to do her best to salvage the situation, no matter the intentions of the Klavarta.

“Send out orders to all of our commands,” she said, looking over at her com officer. “All ships are to head for the Pleisia system at best speed. And get me Admiral Montgomery on the com.”

“Ma'am,” said the four-star admiral, appearing on a holo within seconds. Mara had a wormhole on her ship, so she was in constant high bandwidth connection to her commander.

“I want you to cover my flank on the way to the target system.”

“And if Admiral Klanarat orders me to move up to support his fleet?”

“Then you are to have com problems,” said Beata, a slight smile on her lips. “Understood?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Mara, her own smile growing wider. “No problems with me.”

“Then get moving.”

Beata turned away as the holo faded. She was trying to save this front, where everything was already going to hell. If Admiral Klanarat had a lick of sense he would follow her lead in this and bring what he had left into Pleisia. She doubted he had that much sense. He was more likely to try and fight a running battle with a weakened fleet in hyper, where Beata couldn't use her warp fighters. Where he couldn't use his own.

Well, the hell with him, she thought. She would do her best to rescue his nation from the situation his lack of tactical sense had landed them in, whether he liked it or not.

*     *     *

“Their central force has scattered, my Lord,” reported the chief of staff, his face appearing on a holo by the great admiral's command chair.

Mrastaran already knew that. He could see it himself on the plot, where a Klavarta force was attacking his overwhelming fleet. Less than a hundred of their smallish battleships, along with about three hundred smaller ships. It was obvious that they were trying to slow him down and were willing to make the sacrifice to do it. Other Klavarta forces, some as large as this one, were being tracked by his scouts. He had some forces moving in to take them under fire. He wasn't sure if those attacks would be successful, and he was thinking about waving some of them off.

“Their admiral had a brain after all,” growled the great admiral, disappointed that he wasn't about to crush the largest part of the enemy fleet.

He was hoping that the enemy commander would have kept forging ahead with his central force, unsure what to do, while the Ca’cadasans gathered their forces through the wormholes to gobble them up. But they had started changing vectors as soon as he started the attack on the second flank force. If they had started at the time he had attacked the first flank force they would be home free. Instead, they still had about thirty percent of their remaining force in the targeting cursor of his fleet.

“Firing,” called out his tactical officer, who was controlling the fire of this part of the fleet.

The ship shook slightly as it accelerated several score missiles through the launch tubes. Missiles appeared on the plot coming at the Ca'cadasans as they returned fire. The disparity in missile weight was telling, with the Ca'cadasans putting out ten times the number of weapons.

The battle was short lived. The Klavarta didn't have the defensive firepower to survive more than two volleys, and what was left was a bunch of drifting wreckage fallen into normal space. And a few crippled vessels limping along. There were no calls for surrender. These people knew the Ca'cadasans too well to even bother with such a forlorn hope.

The Ca'cadasans didn't get off unscathed of course. Their defensive fire knocked most of the Klavarta missiles out of space, but as always, some got through. A lucky hit on a hyperdrive array dropped a twenty-five million ton ship into normal space, a total loss with all hands. Some other ships took serious damage, and a supercruiser took a direct hit, converting to plasma that immediately disappeared from hyper.

“Send out orders to the fleet,” said Mrastaran, looking over at his com officer. “I want everyone to congregate at this system, here.”

The great admiral pointed at a close system that had an inhabited planet, though the data said it was rich in resources, the sophonts who lived there were reportedly useless. Still, it had orbitals that could be used in the short term, and a rich asteroid belt that could fuel the small factories aboard each of his battleships.

“Once we are gathered we will forge into Klavarta space and sweep everything from in front of us. The target is this system.” The star in question started to blink on the plot, three days away at best speed. Pleisia.

*     *     *

“The reactors are about to breach, sir. We need to get you out of here.”

Klanarat wasn't sure he wanted to survive this debacle. He had lost over seventy percent of his fleet, which amounted to almost half of his nation's navy in total. How could he face the president and tell him that the plan had failed, and because of Klanarat's judgment the fleet was crippled.

But I don't want to die, thought the admiral, getting up from his command chair and following the young lieutenant off the flag bridge. The bridge was a wreck, screens black, holo projectors dead, even some ruptured bulkheads. Several of the bridge crew were laying at odd angles, obviously dead. Others were moaning on the deck, coughing up the liquid in their lungs as they tried to draw in air. Medics were working on the people that could still be saved. If the reactors breached their efforts would be for naught, but duty kept them at their jobs.

“Come along, sir,” said the young officer, his voice rising in alarm.

He doesn't want to die either, thought the admiral, trying to hurry up through the shock that was trying to slow him down.

Of course no one wanted to die. The ship had survived the improbable, a catastrophic translation from hyper into normal space. None of the other ships in his force, one of the unfortunate groups that had been caught by the Caca main force, had survived. Those other ships were expanding clouds of plasma. They had been within tens to hundreds of kilometers of the flagship when they had been hit hard enough to drop their hyperfields. Now they were fields of plasma tens to hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, in some cases millions.

It didn't seem fair to be one of the improbable survivors of that kind of translation, only to be facing destruction from an oncoming reactor breach. The result would be the same. The ship would be plasma.

“Can you get me to a hyper capable pinnace?” he asked as he stepped over some debris that had fallen from the ceiling onto the deck.

“No, sir,” said the lieutenant, shaking his head. “Those ships were destroyed when we got hit. All we have are some transfer shuttles in hangar three.”

“Transfer shuttles,” hissed the admiral, coughing a moment later as he breathed in some of the thickening smoke in the corridor. A transfer shuttle would strand him in this space. At most it could get up to one tenth light, which meant it would take from decades to centuries to get anywhere.

“It's better than the escape pods, sir,” said the officer, whose name tag said he was one Gresater.

The young male continued to hurry along the corridor, stopping at one of the lift banks and pushing the button to call the car. Nothing happened, and Klanarat started to feel his near panic ramp up.

“Here, sir.” The officer pushed the doors open of another lift, already gaped.

At that moment the artificial gravity died, and the admiral found himself floating above the deck. He started cursing before he remembered to engage the magnetic soles of his boots.

“We're in luck, sir.”

“In luck?”

“We can go down to the hangar level through this shaft.”

That was luck, since Klanarat didn't think he was in any shape to climb down a shaft in a gravity field.

After some minutes of struggle they were down and the hatch to the hangar was just ahead. There was a crush of crew waiting to get into the hangar and get off the ship.

Why aren't these people using the escape pods, he thought. He knew the answer to that as soon as the thought ran through his head. The outer layer of the ship had to have taken severe damage, many of those pods wouldn't have survived, and people would be trying to get off the ship by any means possible.

“Reactor breach imminent,” came a computer voice over the intercom. “Reactor breach imminent.”

At the same time the lights went dark and air started rushing toward some new hull breach. The panic increased as crew started to fight to get into the hangar.

“Move out of the way,” shouted the lieutenant, playing a stunner over the people in front.

Many dropped to the deck as the sonic hit them in the central nervous system.  Gresater pushed crew out of the way, and Klanarat wormed his way through the gap. There were several transfer shuttles still on the deck. As they entered the hangar one left the deck, turned, and flew out through the cold plasma field that was still holding in the atmosphere. A moment later that field fell and the air rushed out, pulling several people out with it.

Klanarat ordered his faceplate down through his implant before all of the air was gone, squatting down so he would provide the least amount of wind resistance. Crew were still trying to get to the last two shuttles, and it was looking like there wouldn't be room for them all.

“Come on, sir,” yelled Gresater, pulling the admiral along. “We've got to get on.”

The shuttle was only half full, but the lieutenant hit the panel that shut the hatch before anyone else could get aboard.

“Get us out of here,” yelled the lieutenant.

“Belay that order,” shouted the admiral. “Get that hatch open. We'll take everyone we can aboard before we leave.”

“But, Admiral.”

Klanarat wondered what he was trying to prove. The fewer people aboard, the longer they could last on the emergency supplies. But he wasn't about to run out on the people he was responsible for if he could get any more of them out. He still had that much honor at least.

“Get on board,” he shouted out as the hatch slid open. “Get on board, now.”

Crew started to push aboard, until there were no more seats left. And still they came, until there was standing room only. Finally someone pushed the pad that closed the hatch before more could get on board. It was cruel, but the shuttle's life support could only handle so much. It might already be over that limit, but Klanarat was happy to take as many as he could, for now. In a couple of days he might regret the decision, but for now it was important to get as many off the doomed ship as possible.

“Everyone hang on,” called out the pilot.

The shuttle lifted, moved out into space at the limit of its inertial compensators, then rocketed off well over that limit. Everyone not in a seat was thrown around, most often on top of someone in an acceleration chair.

The people around Klanarat fended off the people who would have crushed him, still showing their respect for their leader. He pulled up a holo in the front of his seat, looking back at the flagship. It looked very rough, with many noticeable pieces of hull missing. Then, suddenly, it disappeared in a flash of brilliant fire.

“What do you want us to do, Admiral?” asked the pilot.

“I really don't know,” he said, thinking of the possibilities and coming up with nothing. Unless something came along with hyper capabilities they were screwed. And if it was the Cacas that showed up, they might have wished that they had stayed aboard the flagship and died with it.

*      *      *

“We're picking up a faint graviton emission, Lord.”

Sub-commander Carvanus still had trouble with people calling him Lord. Even though he was the younger son of a noble family in the Empire, until he had assumed command of the scout ship he had been forced to call common born assholes Lord. Even though he still had to call superiors by that appellation, he had earned his rank through merit.

“What do you think it is?” he asked the sensor officer, a young male with the lowest rank a Cacada could have and still be considered an officer.

“I'm thinking a small shuttle,” said the male in an anxious voice. It was also his first assignment, and everyone in the fleet knew that failure could lead to severe punishment.

“Calm down, Lrastar,” said the sub-commander, putting a hand on the shoulder of the younger male. “This isn't a battleship, and you are here for training as much as anything. So, tell me why it's there?”

“Probably one of their ships survived the catastrophic translation, Lord. And that is a ship that bailed from the vessel that had been carrying it.” The male looked over at the helm for a moment, then back at his commanding officer. “Should we drop down into normal space and capture some prisoners.”

“For what purpose,” said the grinning sub-commander, patting the younger male on the shoulder once again. “Those people will be low ranking ratings, scrambling to get off a ship that was about to explode. What use are they to us?”

“Food,” said Lrastar, a hungry smile on his face.

“Our orders are to scout along the flank of the fleet. I'm not about to waste time getting down to translation velocity just so we can capture some useless drones.

“Helm,” he ordered, turning to that male. “Proceed to our rendezvous point.”

Chapter Eight

An ethical man doesn't need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible. Joseph Brodsky

“We've lost all contact with Grand Fleet Admiral Klanarat,” said the President of the Nation of New Earth over the holo com. “We still have some links to the other groups in his command, but he suddenly dropped off the net. And no one has any idea what happened to him.”

The Cacas took him off the board, thought Beata, trying to keep that thought off of her expression. While she didn't like the idea that any officer had died, even though literally millions had in that ill-advised battle, his being missing in action made things much simpler for her. Or did it?

“What are your plans, Admiral?” asked the president, his eyes narrowing.

“I'm hoping to break the Cacas when they assault Pleisia.”

“And can you be sure they will attack that system?” asked the president, an eyebrow rising.

“Nothing is a sure thing, Mr. President,” she said, trying to appear confident. “I think it's a good plan. If it doesn't work, I'll come up with something else.”

“Very well,” said the president after huffing out a breath. “Since you are currently the highest-ranking commander in this theater, you are in charge. I will order all of my commanders to obey your orders without reservation.”

Beata sucked in a calming breath and let it out slowly. This was what she had been hoping for the entire time, but definitely not expecting. She hadn't liked the situation from the start, being placed under another officer of equal rank. She understood why that officer was in charge, since this theater was his nation’s. His home. But the problems that kind of rank structure brought with it were almost insurmountable.

“Thank you, Mr. President. Now, if there isn't anything else, I need to get onto sending out orders and getting everything I can here.”

“Are you already at Pleisia?” asked the president, looking off holo for a moment, as if checking out the plot.

“We'll be there within the next eight hours, sir. And then we will start arranging our greeting for the big bastards.”

“We'll be gathering everything we can at the capital system, in case you don't succeed. And I'll send you whatever we can spare.”

Beata thought that was a reasonable precaution. The capital system was over ten days from Pleisia at best speed. The closest core world was five days. If she could stop the Cacas in the Pleisia system all the better. If not, maybe they could damage them enough that the next force sent against them could handle them.

“Good luck, Admiral,” said President Klanarat, his tone sincere.

The holo faded, leaving Beata alone with her own thoughts. She didn't have enough of a force to beat the Cacas in an open battle in hyper. She still had over eighty percent of the Imperial ships that had been deployed out here, those that she had met and those that she had brought along. It was still a powerful force. Unfortunately, she only had forty-five percent of the wormholes that had been assigned to her. The rest had either been aboard Klavarta ships or aboard Imperial vessels assigned to Admiral Klanarat's fleet. There were still some ships out there that had survived the battle, on the other side of the Caca fleet. And no way they would get to Pleisia in time to join in the battle.

The wormholes being convoyed out from the Empire would reach the capital in another eight days, then it was twelve days to get to Pleisia. Twenty days, and they wouldn't get to her in time to do any good. Thirteen more of the homemade version were on the way up, to arrive in six days. The problem with those were they were not connected to the Empire. New Earth had built some accelerator tubes, not quite as efficient as those around the Donut. They wouldn't give her the kind of fire support she was used to receiving from the Empire.

We beat the Machines, even outnumbered, she thought, trying to find the silver lining to her situation. The only problem with that thought was the situation was not the same. The Machines hadn't been as advanced as the Cacas. And the Cacas, though not the smartest creatures in the Galaxy, still possessed organic brains, gifting them with imagination. A quality the Machines hadn't possessed.

“I want a conference with all group commanders that are within range of Pleisia,” she told her com officer. “One hour.”

*     *     *

“Congratulation on a wonderful victory, Great Admiral,” said the adolescent Ca'cadasan male on the other end of the wormhole transmission, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“Thank you, Supreme Lord,” said Mrastaran, down on a knee, bending before the male he had sworn his oaths to. That all officers in the Ca'cadasan military had sworn their oaths to, even if many did not feel that this being was worthy of that kind of loyalty. Still, the Ca'cadasan Empire ran on loyalty to the Emperor. No matter how worthy or not that Emperor was.

“Now, what are your plans from this point?” asked the young male.

Mrastaran wondered if the young fool would understand the strategy the admiral was about to espouse. Unlike most Emperors, this Jressrata had never served in the military. He had been too young at the time of his father's death. Most heirs served in the fleet. Oh, they served in carefully protected positions that would give them a feel for what it was like to be in the military, without putting them at risk. However, that had not been the case here, and the youngest Emperor in Ca'cadasan history had no idea of how the military ran. The only thing he knew was that he could give commands and they would be carried out, without a second thought.

“I will drive toward a system they have to defend and push past it. This will isolate part of their force, while I continue on to the capital.”

“Pleisia?” asked the Emperor, his eyes narrowing. “Our fleet base, our most prosperous colony in that region. The point from which we had launched our greatest penetration into Klavarta space?”

Mrastaran tried to fight the feeling of helplessness that was gnawing at the edge of his consciousness. He knew the order that was coming, and he wanted to refuse. To do that would seal his doom. The young fool would order his immediate execution, and there would be many males aboard his fleet who would be more than willing to carry out that order. It would advance all the senior officers.

“I want you to take that system back, Great Admiral. To the exclusion of all other objectives. Is that understood?”

“But, Supreme Lord. That could allow their forces further in their nation to prepare for us. Let me carry out my plan and I will bring them to their knees.”

“Pleisia,” growled the Emperor, glaring out of the holo. “That system was once our crown jewel on that frontier. I want it back, now.”

“But...”

“Now,” screamed the Emperor.

The holo died, leaving Mrastaran to contemplate how close he had come to dying in those moments. Those orders had been heard by everyone on the flag bridge. He could no longer sweep around the system, daring the humans to come out and challenge him in hyper, where he would have the advantages. Now he would have to enter the system and take it. Playing into the advantages of a fortified system with a mobile force in support.

“Send out the orders,” he said to the com officer, storming over to stand above that male. “All ships are to gather at a point one light year out from the Pleisia system. Then we will assault and take the system.”

I still have the numbers, he thought, growling low in his throat. I can take that system, and then move in on their capital. But what an opportunity wasted.

*     *      *

The President of the Nation of New Earth waited for the com to go through, thinking of what had come to pass over the last twenty-four hours. He had never really liked the idea of his distant cousin assuming command of the entire New Earth fleet. The Alpha had been known within the fleet as arrogant and uncompromising. Unfortunately, he had a spotless record, and was considered a master of tactics. The president had known the admiral when he was a subordinate of his in the fleet, and had always held reservations about him. The senior officers of the fleet had disagreed, and Admiral Klanarat had been voted to his status. The president had then had the choice of letting him run the fleet, or dismissing him from the service.

He couldn't do that, despite his feelings about his cousin, who had been known in the family as not the brightest bulb in the cabinet. Now he was regretting the decision to let his distant relation lead the battle fleet. Leading it into a disaster.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. President,” said the standard human who ran fleet procurement and construction, Valle Klein.

The middle-aged woman looked like the strain of her position was getting to her, and he had to hope she could hold up through the next couple of years at least. She wasn't a warrior, but she held a position as important as any strategist or combat commander. She ran the shipbuilding industry of New Earth, giving the fleet the muscle it needed.

“We need as many ships out of the slips as you can give me in the next two weeks.”

The eyes of Klein widened, and she let out a whistle. The president knew he was asking a lot, but he had to ask it.

“The next flight of battleships will be ready in two months,” said the Director of Procurement. “Every slip is full, and my technicians are working overtime. We don't have the workers to ramp up production even more.”

“Then concentrate on what you can get finished in two weeks. Shift personnel from some ships to get more production on others. Send your parts to the ones you can finish the fastest.”

“Well, we have two hundred battleships in this flight,” said Klein, her brows furrowed in thought. “I might be able to get forty of them out of their slips and ready for working up in less than a week. But they're not really going to be ready for combat. It takes time to crew them and make sure those people can work as a team.”

“Let me worry about crewing those ships, Ms. Klein,” said the president in a firm voice. “Just get me those ships. Pull people off of all of the other ships we have building if you have to.”

“That will disturb the ship balance,” complained the director.

“I want our best heavy ships ready to fight off an invasion of our core systems,” siad Klanarat, his voice rising. “That's all that matters right now. So please, no arguments. Just give me what I want.”

“Yes, sir. We'll do our best.”

The president dismissed the holo, sitting back in his chair and thinking about what else he might do. He could call up all of his allies and see what else they could get him. Probably not much, but every ship would help. The main difficulty there was distance. The Slarna, their closest ally in distance, was still seven weeks at best speed from their frontier to the New Earth capital. Add on another month from their central systems, where most of their ships would be, and it was the next best thing to three months. By the time they got here the Cacas would have likely destroyed the core worlds of New Earth. And if that happened the war on this front was the next best thing to over.

The other allies, with smaller fleets, were ever further away. If they had established a wormhole gate network like the Terran Empire had they could shift ships around at will. There were some gates, giving them a modicum of coverage, but most of what they made were used for combat. The only other ally they had easy access to was the New Terran Empire. And they had already gotten about all that could be expected from them.

Maybe not, thought the president. After all, the Empire depended on this front siphoning ships from the Caca fleet. If the front collapsed, the Cacas would be able to shift almost all of their fleet to confront the Imperials. So I might be able to get something from them, he thought.

*     *     *

“Do you think you can beat this Caca admiral and his force?” asked Sean, leaning forward in his chair, his face in perspective closing on the holo.

“I, really don't know, your Majesty,” admitted Bednarczyk. She didn't want to admit that, but the numbers didn't lie. She was outnumbered and outgunned. If she could pull a miracle out of her ass she might beat him. But how many more miracles could her anus produce. She had gotten several against the Machines, but any commander could only expect so much good fortune.

“I appreciate your honesty, Beata,” said Sean, a slight smile playing across his face. “I want you to do your best to defend that system and do major damage to the Cacas. I also want you to retreat and save your force for another day if you think things are going south. Understood?”

“Yes, your Majesty. Don't worry. If I think I'm about to lose my ass, I'm outa here.”

“Good,” said Sean, his smile widening. “If you can maintain a fleet in being you can still accomplish something.”

Beata felt a flash of anger that this man, who had only served as an assistant weapons officer on board a battleship before he ascended the throne, would lecture her on tactics. However, it was his right to do so, wrong or not. And in this case he was right.

“I'm sorry, Admiral, if I am stating the obvious,” said Sean, as if he could read her face. Not unlikely, since the admiral was not known for her diplomatic skills. “I should know better, but I've become somewhat of a control freak since I landed this job.”

Of course you have, thought Beata, nodding. An Emperor had to be a control freak, since every decision ended up on his desk. That Sean recognized it and apologized for it was something in his favor. He was a very likable young man, who had done a very good job of running an empire at war, despite not being prepared for the position.

“I will, of course, give you all the aid I can,” said the Monarch, leaning back in his seat. “I can't send you many ships, and of course you know why I can't give you more wormholes. What I can do is assign as many wormhole launchers as feasible. I'm sure you can use them.”

“Yes, sir. All you can give me.”

“Okay,” said the Emperor, steepling his fingers. “Then I want you to set up one of your wormholes as a gate nearest the inhabited planet. We have a surplus of system defense weapons, and I think you can probably find a use for them. We'll ship them to you as soon as the gate is established. I'm guessing that ground combat units are not are the top of your list.”

“No, sir.” And I don't think lending me Hunter this time will be all that helpful.

“Maybe some mobile shore batteries” said the monarch, leaning his head into a hand propped on a chair arm. “Say a couple of brigades. They might not do you any good, but if you can lure some Caca ships within range, they might come as a surprise.”

“How about mines?”

“Yes. It might take a day to get any to you, but I think we can round up a couple or ten thousand of them. How does that sound?”

“That sounds like a plan, your Majesty.”

“Good. Now, Jennifer has told me that she enjoyed your visit to the palace for your promotion ceremony. She wanted to know when you could come for a longer visit.”

That surprised Beata. She had tried to be on her best behavior with the Empress, who she had found to be a delightful woman. And a physician. Beata had thought about medicine before she went to the academy, and being able to talk about something that interested her had been a plus.

“What I'm saying, Admiral, is that Jennifer expects for you to survive this campaign. So don't you dare disappoint her. Clear?”

“Very clear, your Majesty.”

“Good. And be sure to com if you can think of anything else we can do. Sean out.”

Bednarczyk leaned back in her own comfortable chair, closing her eyes while reminding herself that she couldn't sleep. She still had five minutes before her meeting, enough time for a little thought about the man she had just spoken to. She could still remember when she hadn't liked him, thinking he was a jumped-up little popinjay who didn't deserve his position. Then Sean had given her a chance at command, one she thought would never come her way. Since then she had worked closely with him, and found that he possessed many traits of an effective leader. Intelligent enough to formulate good plans, and not afraid to admit when he didn't know something and needed the input of someone else.

*     *     *

“Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” said Beata, looking around the conference room at the seated figures, almost all of them holos. Are they all bi-gendered species? she thought in almost a moment of panic.

Most of the participants in the chamber were humans, standard or Klavarta. They knew many of them, if not all. Rear Admiral Natasha Sung, in charge of charting the space to the outside of New Earth, was someone she hadn't met, though Beata knew of her. She wished she had the other admiral's ships now, though they wouldn't have added that much tonnage. She had a wormhole, though, and that would have been welcome.

There were Slarna, hexapodal aliens that lay on their seats on their bellies, much like Phlistarans. Triple jointed legs, three equidistant claws on each hand. The face was triangular, with three eyes, two across from each other, one centered above, and reminded the admiral of the Gorgansha. The mouth was made up of a set of mandibles. It had on an outfit of shimmering cloth, rank symbols on the shoulders.

Slarna warships were smaller and less advanced than those of New Earth or the Empire. Four million ton battleships with turreted weapons. They had incorporated what Imperial tech could be shoehorned in, and the next generation of ships would feature eight million ton battleships. Unfortunately, they would be keeping their turreted weapons. None of their ships, only capable of hyper VI, had been with the main fleet, fortunately for them, and had been left at the Pleisia system.

The only other alien in the chamber was the Vice Admiral in charge of the Gernas, one of the stranger alien species Beata had ever seen. Beata wasn't even sure how to pronounce the name of the admiral. They looked like rocks, or potatoes, gray lumps with a single optical organ taking up most of their dorsal aspect. A quartet of tentacles appeared and disappeared from the body. The locomotion appendages were underneath, and Beata still wasn't sure how many of them there were. Only that they were short and moved very fast, though the creatures weren't the fastest of beings. In fact, she wasn't sure how they had survived, unless their planet's evolution had resulted in all animal life following the same pattern.

Gernas were heavy planet dwellers, their home world boasting a gravity field of over two gees. They were able to handle much greater acceleration pressures than most, and were expert ship handlers. They used hyper VII ships, though their capital ships were also smaller than those of the main participants of the alliance. Eight million tons, the same as an Imperial battle cruiser, they carried a similar weight of beam weapons but a lower count of launch tubes.

And of course they were ordered to attend this meeting, thought the admiral, keeping a smile on her face. Still, it was good to be polite to allies who could technically bail at any time.

“We have a huge fleet of Ca'cadasans heading for us,” said Beata, pulling up the local plot of the region, the blinking icon of the star in question centered. A fleet icon in green was almost touching the system, while one in red was near the edge of the plot. “ETA, four days.”

There were other icons on that plot. Another green one that was moving out as if to meet the enemy. Several others in transit from one place to another. And a small icon already within the system.

“The ships that are insystem will be receiving my orders within the hour,” she said, looking from the Slarna commander to that of the Gernas, to the Klavarta system lead. “You are to prep the system for defense. We will be preparing a defense in depth, and you will be placing the assets we need to channel them where we want them to go.

“Admiral Montgomery will be gathering up what Klavarta assets she can find, then will be shadowing the Caca fleet. She will be hitting the Caca fleet and running away, over and over again. Best case is she slows them down and buys us some more time. A couple of more days would be nice. Worst case, she takes out some of their ships and erodes their combat power by a small but significant extent. Worst worse case, she gets her command shot to hell. Try to avoid the last scenario at all costs, Mara.”

Mara barked a short laugh while all the other officers stared at her in curiosity. She had just been given a mission likely to see her end, yet she could laugh about it. Beata wondered if the aliens thought the scout force commander insane. That didn't matter to her, as long as the aliens followed Mara's orders to the letter when they met up with her.

Beata turned back to the plot. “Everyone else? I want you to get here at best speed. If you arrive before the Cacas we will want you to enter the system and add to the defense. It the Cacas have arrived before you get here, hang around out of their detection range. Your orders will be to pick off any smaller Caca groups on approach to the system. Any that head around for other targets are also fair game. What you are not to do is tangle with anything you can't handle.

She turned away from the plot to look over all of the commanders seated, virtual or otherwise, in the chamber. The Slarna commander, Admiral Connandra, gave her a strange three eyed look.

“I would rather my fleet be deployed outside the system,” said that being, his image distorting slightly while he was talking. The Slarna had no wormholes assigned to them. What they did have were several score Klassekians, who gave them the faster than light com capability.

“No insult intended, Admiral,” said Mara, her image the crystal clear of wormhole transmission, looking over at the Slarna officer. “Your ships can't get into VII, which means that while you can hit, you can't run. So it is best that you fight in an environment where hyper dimension access is irrelevant.”

“I...”

“Admiral Montgomery is correct, Admiral Connandra,” said Beata, her brows narrowing. “I am not denigrating on the courage of your warriors, but your ships will not be able to keep up with the Cacas, much less escape them.”

“They will be in hyper VII,” argued the Slarna admiral. “If we approach slowly we can send missiles up at them. If you give us the weapons.”

“That won't work when they are close to the planet,” said the scout force commander. “When they are starting their approach, they will be able to drop swarms of missiles on top of you.” Mara looked over at her superior, who gave her a head nod.

“Admiral Connandra,” said Beata in a firm voice. “You either fight the way I want you to or you can evacuate the system. If I can't depend on you doing what I need, then I don't want you.”

The Slarna admiral glared at her, all three eyes burning with an angry light that sent a shiver up the admiral's spine. This was not a species she would want angry at her, if they had access to her outside of her own environment.

“And I will be talking with your civilian leadership about your actions if you decide to evacuate.” Beata really didn't want to bring that up. Threatening subordinates was not the best action to take if one wanted to increase their loyalty. But she didn't feel confident that this one and his force would fight as part of her team. She was almost about to interject that his actions could endanger the tech transfers his people were getting from New Earth and the Empire, then decided that might be too hard a push.

“We will stay in the system and fight at your command,” said Connandra, his head making a strange circular motion that indicated some kind of response, though Beata didn't know what.

I need to study the reports on these people, she thought, nodding her own head in return.

“Okay. Then if no one has any questions, let's be about it.”

The holos faded in sequence as commanders terminated their connections, until only Mara was still in the room.

“That could have gone better,” said the scout force commander, grimacing.

“Yes, it could have,” admitted Beata, frowning. “Unfortunately, I have what I have, and there's nothing I can do about it. We just have to make do and hope things work out in our favor.”

Just once the admiral wished she had the overwhelming force, and an enemy who was panicking over it.

Chapter Nine

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. B. C. Forbes

“So, what can we do for her?” asked Sean, looking face to face at the people who led his Fleet. And the Nation of New Earth by way of helping our officer.

Maybe someday we'll all meet again in person, thought the monarch. Wormhole communication was wonderful, giving him the ability to meet with people without having to travel the hundreds or thousands of light years to do so. But there was still something to be said for being in the same room, breathing the same air. Something that brought people closer together.

“We really don't have anything to give her, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, shaking her head. “We keep dipping into the strategic basket, your Majesty. It's about time we came up empty.”

“I agree with Sondra,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Len Lenkowski, looking over at his superior for a moment before focusing back on his monarch. “It seems like every time we're in the planning stage for something, we find squadrons of ships stripped from our order of battle. We're the spear point, your Majesty, and the spear is getting mighty thin. If you need ships, why can't you get them from home fleet, or the core world defense groups?”

“You know why, Len,” said Grand Fleet Admiral the Duke Taelis Mgonda, frowning. “Parliament has a shit fit whenever we take ships away from protecting their cowardly hides. Even if just temporarily.”

Sean agreed with the duke, who was also a seated member of the Lords. Though in his case a younger sister voted his proxy. Fortunately, that sibling was also a conservative and Monarchist, so there was little disagreement between the siblings

“I wish I could say you were wrong, my Lord,” agreed Sean. “Unfortunately, most of the members of Parliament are too concerned for their constituents to let go of any of the ships that we need.”

Everyone knew that most of the Lords couldn't have cared less about the people they represented. Unlike the Commons and the Scholars, they didn't have to stand for election. What they worried about was their own hides, their own property. If those assets coincided with the safety and welfare of the people, that was all well and good. Not all nobles were such arrogant narcissists. People like Duke Mgonda, or Duke Alexandropolis, the Ambassador to Elysium, dedicated themselves to service. The military, or the diplomatic corps. Even some of those who stayed behind and worked in Parliament were dedicated to service. Trying to get the rest to go along with them was like herding cats.

“Most of those ships are going to waste,” agreed Lenkowski with a frown. Len could have been a duke himself. He had been offered the position, taking the place of a no longer extant family, but for some reason had refused it. The six-star admiral had preferred to remain a commoner, even though a patent of nobility would make his life after the service so much easier. Maybe because he had no thought of a life after the Fleet. “We could definitely use them, even if it's just for occupation duty.”

Sean had to agree, to a point. The Cacas were unlikely to strike at any of the core worlds, the long inhabited systems that were the economic muscle of the Empire. They were too busy trying to defend their own space. And frankly, if a major strike came in, none of the core worlds had enough of a defensive fleet to handle them. They would be punched out, though the Caca fleet that did the punching would never return home.

The Supersystem, the eight stars in orbit around the central black hole, was a different matter. Fully one tenth of the industry of the core resided in those systems, and three of them were homes to the three houses of Parliament. Jewel was the most vital, being the seat of the Lords as well as the home of the Emperor and his family. But more important than all of them was the central black hole, and the massive station built around it, the Donut.

The Donut had taken almost a century to construct, at the cost of a considerable percent of the total GDP of the Empire. It produced thirty or so wormholes a day, tapping the rotational energy of the massive black hole it spun around. The most important installation in the Empire, it had been envisioned as the seat of businesses and corporations, allowing people and ships to move instantaneously from system to system. It still fulfilled some of that promise, but basically it had become a military installation. The Cacas had tried to take it out, twice, and the Empire was taking no chances on its security. It had the largest system defense fleet in the Empire.

It also was the home to the missile acceleration tubes and massive particle accelerators that gave the fleets at the front such a great advantage over their enemies. That, and the many ship gates that had been erected in floating rings in the space of the system. Unfortunately, those gates made the Central System the most logical point to pull ships from if they were needed. And they had often been needed. Fortunately, most of those ships had been able to return, but it made the Emperor anxious whenever he had to partially uncover it for any period of time.

“We could give her the two hundred or so fast attack craft we have working up insystem,” said McCullom. “They really don't do us much good on the offensive into Caca space, but they're still pretty effective for system defense.”

“Okay. Cut those loose and send them on their way,” said Sean, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the side of his face with a hand, a thinking gesture. “When you said working up, what did you mean, Sondra?”

“They're about halfway through their training, your Majesty. Not really ready, but available.”

Sean grimaced. That always seemed to be the case when they needed emergency reinforcements. Most often the only thing available were those who weren't quite ready. Still, in wartime people didn't always have the luxury of being fully prepared to fight, but they still had to.

“Any warships?” Sean looked first at McCullom, then at his two fleet commanders.

“I would prefer to not part with any of my toys, your Majesty,” said Len. “We've just got everyone slotted into the command structure, and with another offensive kicking off in a week.”

“I know it’s important that we keep the pressure on the Cacas,” said Sean, closing his eyes for a moment, wondering who he was going to rob this time. He opened his eyes and looked over his commanders. “But it’s also important that New Earth doesn't fall. If they do, we will have the full attention of the Cacas.”

“I think we can still handle them, your Majesty,” replied Len. Mgonda and McCullom nodded in agreement.

“Be that as it may, I would prefer to not let one of our allies get slaughtered and the Cacas end up sending everything our way. So, Sondra.”

McCullom's eyes widened, as if Sean were a snake about to strike.

“What do you have working up in the Supersystem?”

*     *     *

Captain Canara has received his orders, and knew that him and his people were destined to stay on the planet Pleisia. The orders didn't come with an explanation for the continued deployment. That wasn't for him to know, unless his superiors decided that a mere company commander needed to know.

A large shuttle was currently landing at the field, hovering on its grabbers as it lowered itself to the tarmac. Three of the large craft were already down, two of them disgorging their cargoes. Canara had never seen vehicles quite like the ones that were rolling off that pair of shuttles. They were even larger than the massive tanks the Imperials had given to the Klavarta army, and which were now being built under license. They had a domed turret on top, and a very long barrel that extended as soon as they were out of the cargo compartment.

“What in the hell are those, Colonel?” he asked his battalion commander, standing next to him at the edge of the field.

“I've heard them called mobile shore batteries, Captain,” said the superior officer, another warrior. “How they work, I don't know. But it's said they can shoot down ships in orbit.”

Canara couldn't figure out how they would do that. They looked much like oversized mobile artillery, with large long-range guns. There might be some beam weapons on them as well, those domes on the hull looked suspiciously like lasers, but nothing powerful enough to kill a warship.

“You know that the Cacas are coming, Captain. And we have been ordered to stay here, to hold the surface.”

“And what about their fleet, sir?” said the captain, staring at the next gun that was rolling off its carrier. “They can't expect us to stand while we're bombardment from the sky?”

“They can expect that, Captain,” growled the officer, who didn't seem too enthused about the idea himself. “And all we can do is try our best. But we will have Imperial ships and some of our own contesting the system with them. So, concentrate on your part of the battle, and let the spacers deal with their part.”

For the next hour Canara watched as shuttles continued to land, disgorging cargo. Not all of it was massive guns. There were also large cargo crates that could have contained anything. Later he got to find out what some of that cargo was.

“Your job will be to fight from within your cities,” the senior sergeant told the gathered native males through a translator. “We will be in support, but it is important that you hit them wherever they go.”

The sergeant was holding a particle beam rifle that had been made to match the physiognomy of the Pleisians. The Pleisians had already donned the web gear and the strap on armor that had been provided to them, and were now about to get their first lesson with modern firearms.

The poor bastards, thought Canara, looking into alien facial expressions that had to denote pure terror. They had all volunteered, but many had to be second guessing that decision about now.

Klavarta warriors were made for battle. They had the genetic heritage that made them some of the fiercest fighters in the known Galaxy. However, they still had to train to become soldiers. Most went through a solid year of training just to become a qualified infantryman. Officers like Canara had to undergo another two years of training. And they were asking the natives to go into combat with at most three or four days of familiarization. Many would freeze up in combat. Most would die. But if they could kill some Cacas command thought it was worth the effort. Even better, if the Cacas were busy killing them, the Klavarta warriors could kill the big aliens while they were so occupied.

“Is it true the masters are returning?” asked a female who was herding several young through the marketplace later in the day.

“I'm afraid so,” said the captain to the female, who spoke surprisingly good Terranglo. “But we will be fighting to keep them away from you.”

“Can you win?” The female seemed on the verge of tears, while the children with her looked terrified.

“We will try. We will repel them, or die trying.” Canara laid a hand that was made to shred flesh gently on her shoulder. “Do you have a place you can go? Shelter?”

Like many of his people he had been raised to believe that all aliens were inferior, useful for nothing other than death. The Imperials had come in and toppled the government, and now the young were taught that non-humans had just as much right to live as they did. And those who were already adult? They lived with a burden of guilt, and most would do whatever was in their power to make it up to the aliens they had tormented.

The Pleisians had only been under Klavarta control for a decade, and still over half of them had been killed off while the others were worked to the edge of death. The Cacas had taken the world over twenty years ago, and the big aliens had been more caring toward their slaves. They still killed and ate many of them, and worked many others to death, but the Pleisians weren't in danger of extinction under them. The Klavarta had taken it back just before the humans came, and were just about ready to start the extermination again, when their new government had forbidden such actions. And since then the Klavarta had tried to make it up to the natives.

And now, because we're here, they're about to undergo another slaughter, thought the captain, letting out a deep breath. It might have been better if they hadn't come back, and even more so if they just left now and let the Cacas have the place. Unfortunately, that wasn't up to an infantry company commander to decide.

*     *     *

“We're picking up a large group of Caca ships ahead, ma'am,” called out the flag sensor officer, Commander James Johnson, his fingers playing over his board as he sent the information to the plot.

“So I see,” said Admiral Mara Montgomery, the commander of Scout Force. “Just where we expected them to be.”

The admiral looked over at her chief of staff, standing to the side of the plot and studying it. Captain Michael Goruptal was an officer on the fast track to commodore, just off command of a battleship on the main front. His entire job was to study the tactical situation and come up with suggestions. Mara didn't have to take them, but it was part of her job to hear him out. And she had to admit that so far he had proven to be very good at his job.

“I would go with plan Omega,” said the captain, pulling up the light codes that showed the indicated maneuver. “The scout force would split into two groups, one jumping into hyper to send out a couple of volleys, then dropping back down and hiding, while the second group then jumps to hyper and makes their attack.”

Mara liked that plan, which would give her heavily outnumbered force a hard strike at the enemy. After which they would be out of the target basket of the Cacas before the aliens could react effectively, unless she decided on the second part of Omega.

“Do it,” she ordered, looking over at her com officer. “Send to the rest of the force.”

The com officer nodded, then looked over to the Klassekian com techs sitting on either side of his station. Every ship with a wormhole, all nine of them, would receive the order by instantaneous com. Those close enough would get their signal through lascom, while the rest would receive theirs through the alien com techs.

“On my command, pulse the signal,” ordered Mara, turning all of her concentration on the plot.

It was looking like the enemy fleet would pass very close, less than ten light seconds in hyper VII. Group A was just about even with them, the closest approach occurring in eighteen seconds. Group B was slightly further ahead, and would be even twenty-five seconds later.

“Go,” called out Mara, the thrill of an approaching fight running through her. She was thought of as fearless within the Fleet, which really wasn't true. The admiral had the ability to sublimate her terror of battle into a show of excited enthusiasm that fooled everyone but those she was closest to. At the moment she looked like an excited child about to receive a present, and not an experienced officer who was about to put her precious hide on the firing line.

Group A, forty battle cruisers, five with wormholes, jumped into hyper VII from normal space, relatively stationary, just a bit ahead of the enemy. The Cacas were coasting along at point nine light, near to their maximum cruising speed. Their sensors were alert to anything transiting hyper, and anything close enough that was moving on grabbers. The only way they could have detected something sitting in normal space was to drop ships out at close intervals and scan with active sensors. Unfortunately, those ships would have be traveling at point three light, much slower than the force they would be tasked to guard, and removing them from the order of battle until they could catch up. Since they couldn't go much faster than the ships that moved ahead they would take days to catch the force. So there were none of those ships.

Five streams of missiles reached out at point nine-five light, moving in from a forward angle. Forty battle cruisers, seventy light cruisers and a hundred and ten destroyers fired off all of their internal tubes, spinning in space to bring all of their launchers to bear. The wormhole equipped ships fired two volleys, within thirty-one seconds, while the other vessels were able to get off three complete volleys. The weapons were moving in at a forward angle, adding the speed of the Caca ships to their closing velocity. Computers could act fast enough to attempt engagement, but the organic minds that controlled them were not able to overcome their shock in time.

*     *     *

“My Lord,” called out a panicked sensor officer, looking back at the admiral, then over at the tactical officer. “We have over two hundred enemy ships jumping into hyper ahead and to the flank.” The officer's eyes widened. “They're firing.”

Great Admiral Mrastaran jumped out of his chair, staring at the plot that showed the enemy ships in the position the officer had specified. As he watched shoals of missiles appeared, five close groups traveling at very high speed, thousands more at not anywhere near the velocity, but accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities.

“Engage them,” ordered Mrastaran, realizing that any ship that wasn't already firing counters was commanded by an idiot. A thought in the back of his mind told him to keep track of those fools after this engagement and replace them, if they and their ships survived.

“Lock on missiles and fire,” he shouted, storming over to the plot. “Prepare for light amp weapon engagement when they are within range.”

Masses of counters appeared on the plot, heading out to the waves of missiles heading in. Too late to engage the wormhole launched weapons, which had less than ten seconds' flight time. Ca'cadasan ships fell off the plot, converted to plasma or ripped apart as they fell out of hyper. Others showed reduced graviton emissions from damage, though not enough to eject them in a catastrophic translation.

The missiles the Ca'cadasans fired closed on the enemy, who translated out of hyper and dodged down to VI. A light cruiser didn't translate in time, its plasma remains falling out of hyper. That wasn't enough to give the admiral any satisfaction.

“Keep hitting them,” screamed the great admiral.

“We can't, my Lord. Our velocity is too high to translate missiles down.”

“More ships translating up,” called out the sensor officer.

It was another group, slightly smaller than the last, a little more ahead. Once again a mass of missiles appeared on the plot, four large, fast moving streams along with thousands of slower weapons accelerating at their best rate. Again some Ca'cadasan ships were hit, and again the great majority of the enemy fell down to hyper VI. A couple of ships fell off in the sudden manner that indicated an abnormal translation. Those were dead.

“Do you want us to have ships decelerate and pursue?”

“No, I....”

“Ships translating up from behind, my Lord. Five of them.”

That would be their wormhole equipped ships, the only ones capable of sending missiles that could actually catch the Ca'cadasan fleet. At point zero five light closing they wouldn't do much. But with luck they might generate a hit or two. And the worst part was anything the Ca'cadasans sent back at them would have to decelerate to get rid of the velocity they were carrying from their launching ships, Making it a one-sided proposition. Fifteen seconds later four more ships moved up, firing their own streams. After a couple of minutes all nine ships again translated down, and the entire force took off at five hundred and twenty-five gravities, heading away. Thirty minutes later a translation wave hit, the enemy fleet jumping back up into hyper VII and accelerating away.

We won't have to worry about that force again, at least until we get to Pleisia, thought the great admiral. It would take them over a day to accelerate up to the Ca'cadasan force's velocity. Of course, in two days he would be decelerating so he could translate down into normal space within the system. If not for the orders of the Emperor he might be able to bypass the system, and avoid combat with the New Terran units altogether, driving toward the Klavarta capital. That was no longer possible, and his force might pay an enormous price for that decision.

*     *     *

“We did the best we could, Admiral. Unfortunately, the physics of the engagement were against us.”

“You did what you could, Mara,” said Beata, looking at the plot. Her fleet was just a little over an hour from reaching normal space in the Pleisia system. Six more minutes from translation down to I, then a short trip in the lowest dimension of hyper. “They know you're out there, and you caused some damage to their fleet. They have to watch out for you.”

“We can't catch them, ma'am,” complained the scout force commander, glaring out of the holo. “Not until they're just about into the system. Do you want us to attempt an attack on them before they get there?”

“No,” said Beata, her stomach clenching at the thought of another translation coming up. The last couple had hit hard, and the next two promised to be worse. It would have been easier to simply translate from VII to normal space, but the time savings were worth it in a strategic sense. “Be ready to come in on my signal. You'll be a lot more useful to me setting up in firing position just outside the barrier.”

“And if they leave something out there to prevent that?”

“Then you can hammer them,” said Beata, a tight smile on her face. “Hit and run.”

A wide smile graced the face of the attractive redhead. “I will be happy to, ma'am.”

Chapter Ten

In my own life, I'm pretty good at choosing between good and bad. It's the choices between good and good I find the most difficult to make. Ally Condie

“Let's get a good look at our battle ground,” ordered Beata as soon as she had the translation nausea under control. Like most humans she was finding her tolerance for translation was going down with age. Fortunately, she could make sure everyone in her command knew what her wishes were before those translations so she could take care of the serious business of being sick.

“Real time plot coming up, now,” said her chief of staff, Captain Janssen.

The image of the system appeared in the holo tank at the center of the flag bridge. The bright F class star was a tiny dot in the center of the true scale representation. Arrows pointed to the objects in orbit, too small to be seen at the present scale. With a thought she zoomed in on Pleisia, the one habitable world in the system, though by far not the only body. Still, with almost four billion sentient beings living there, it was the object of most interest to her.

It was also her biggest problem. Any defense she conducted in this system put that world at risk. Missiles would be flying around at high relativistic speeds, and all it would take was one hit to kill hundreds of millions of people. Beata had to keep reminding herself of that. She knew nothing about that species, their culture, biology, they racial hopes and dreams. She had to force herself to not think of them as mere numbers on a ledger. Lose this many, and it's a victory. This many, and it's a defeat. They deserved better than that. Their world was lovely, as were most worlds that could be inhabited by oxygen breathing life forms. If she had her way it would continue to be lovely long after this battle was over.

“What are these objects in orbit?” she asked zooming in closer. A couple of large constructs appeared on the holo that opened up inside the plot.

“They look like space docks, ma'am. Possibly with habitats.”

That's right, she thought, recalling one of the endless number of holos she had viewed on the way here. Pleisia was being prepared as a forward fleet base for the next offensive, someplace ships could go back to for emergency repairs without having to travel the extra light years to their core worlds. If the system fell all of the resources already in place would be lost. Not enough to destroy the Nation of New Earth, but the loss might slow down the next offensive. If there even was one.

“What can we do with them?” she asked, staring at the station on the holo. “Besides evacuating everyone aboard?”

“We could turn them into weapon platforms,” said Janssen with a shrug. “Unfortunately, they won't have the protection of forts. Now over here,” he continued, as the holo switched views to another large construct, this one much more squat and massive looking. “We have an actual fort, put into place by the Klavarta. And again, unfortunately, it's not complete. It is armored, and has most of its electromagnetic projectors installed. What it's lacking is offensive weapons.”

“Put as many strap on launchers as it can handle on it,” ordered the admiral, looking at its orientation. “And make sure it’s in an orbital position to the side of the planet. I don't want misses plowing into the world.”

“Yes, ma'am,” agreed Janssen. “And might I suggest we do something with this large moon. It's going to be in a perfect blocking position at the time the Cacas attack.”

Beata zoomed in on that body, looking at the numbers that were coming up underneath. Over four thousand kilometers in diameter, larger than the historic moon of the ancient Earth. Similar gravity, out at three hundred and twenty thousand kilometers, it would orbit once every twenty-six days. And it could take as many hits from relativistic weapons as the Cacas could throw.

“Load it up with offensive launchers. I want it to become an indestructible launch platform.”

“They can still take out the installations we put there,” cautioned Janssen, staring at the image. “We don't have time to fortify emplacements. Everything we place is going to be out in the open.”

“Then we'll launch everything we have before they can get anything to it. And place a couple of thousand box launchers with counters, spread out on the surface.”

“What about the asteroid belts?”

Beata thought for a moment before answering, looking over the manifest of the resources her force carried, as well as what was already in the system.

“I want whatever launchers we have left placed on as many of them on the approach lanes as we can use. No counters. The crews can evacuate those rocks as soon as they fire.”

“Very good, ma'am.”

“Now, let's talk about the deployment of our mobile forces.” Beata still wasn't confident about her ability to hold this system. Hurting the Cacas? Making them regret they had ever stuck their noses in this system. Now that was something she was confident of.

*     *     *

It was a twenty-one hour trip from the barrier to the planet in a maximum accel/decel profile. Beata took what rest she could, knowing that she might not have the time during the battle. By the time they reached the proximity of the planet the Cacas would be on track to arrive in thirty-seven hours. A total of fifty-eight hours, a seeming eternity that would pass much too soon.

Not all of her fleet would accompany her all the way in. Over half broke off to head for other positions within the system, joining up with the allied forces that were also moving into place.

“Do you think the Slarna will be of use in this fight?” she asked her chief of staff, looking at the plot. Always looking at the plot, as if there was something hidden there that would present itself at any moment. Something that would allow her to win this battle.

“I think they will hold out as long as they aren't in danger of annihilation,” said Janssen, grimacing. “The second they think the battle lost; they'll be heading out as fast as they can. For all the good it will do them.”

Beata wished she could disagree with her chief of staff, but she didn't. The Slarna had struck the admiral as opportunists. They had allied with a people they didn't like in order to take advantage of the tech they might gain. If they could be of service in the meantime, good. Because it might give them some more advantages.

Of course the Klavarta would fight to the end. This was now their territory, and their war. She was still trying to think of normal space advantages she might be able to use them for. Their ships had compensators as good as anything the Empire had. Their battleships could boost at almost five hundred and fifty gravities. Their genetic advantages and their use of fluid filled chambers gave them another thirty gravities above the limit of their compensators, and of course they could strap themselves in to couches and add another five.

Five hundred and eighty-five gravities, thought the admiral in wonder. That was enough for some ferocious maneuvering, if only they could find a way to use that advantage. She was thinking they could, but it hadn't come to her yet. Perhaps they would figure it out themselves.

And then there were the Gernas. They also could handle more gravity than most, even without the use of fluid tanks. Their ships could pull five hundred and thirty gravities with their compensators, and their bodies could handle twenty gravities before they broke down and went unconscious. Of course that meant strapped into acceleration couches. Still, five hundred and fifty gravities was nothing to sneer at. She still wasn't sure if she wanted them in the system or in hyper outside of it. Right now they were stationed near the barrier, waiting for her orders.

And then there was Mara, and the thirty percent of the Klavarta fleet that had survived their abortive counterattack. She had about five thousand Klavarta ships already gathered up, with thousands more heading her way. Several thousand were being left at the former frontier to give warning about any Caca reinforcements coming up.

*     *     *

“The bastards are coming up on our rear, Great Admiral,” reported the com officer.

Mrastaran grunted his reply. He had been expecting the enemy force to catch up with him once he started on his deceleration profile toward the target system. He had left some ships behind, deceling earlier, so they could keep track of that enemy. As soon as they picked the pursuing vessels up they grav pulsed a signal, then took off on full accel to get out of the way. Still, he had lost some ships, vessels that hadn't reported with a follow up grav pulse. He hated those loses, but he needed to know where the enemy was.

“Last transmission reported enemy numbers at over five thousand.”

Mrastaran sat up straight in his chair. The New Terrans who had attacked him earlier had possessed a couple of hundred ships. Possibly three hundred. They must be the remnants of the Klavarta, he thought, wondering how many more they would have following him before he got to the system. While he was sure he could handle that remaining Klavarta force, as well as the Imperials he knew were with them, it still left a very large fleet from New Terra unaccounted for.

Could they be ahead, he wondered. If so, he would bring them to battle very soon. He thought he had enough to take them out as well, though he couldn't guess what he might have left to drive into Klavarta space after.

“Admiral Trostara,” he asked of his chief of staff. “Start working on plans for a long stay in Pleisia. We might have to fortify the system and wait for reinforcements to come up.”

“I thought the plan was to continue on to the Klavarta capital,” said the confused officer.

“That is still the plan, but it's contingent on what we have to fight in the system.” Because that idiot of an Emperor insists that we waste out time and resources to take a system which is meaningless, he thought but couldn't say.

“If we take heavy loses and have to wait for reinforcements, I want a plan in place. Someplace where we can establish a wormhole gate that the enemy will have difficulty taking out.”

“I'll work on the plan,” agreed Trostara. What else could he say. His lord and master had ordered it.

Now, if only I could come up with a way to get rid of my tail, he thought. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of one. They seemed to know where he was heading, so they would have a good guess on his deceleration profile. Probably to come in behind him on the same profile. Unless they decided to do a fly by attack and continue on around the system. That was a threat, but by the time they achieved that profile he would be able to send waves of missiles at them. It was an attack he could survive, but he didn't want to take those loses.

I wonder what they'll have waiting for me in that system, he thought, frowning. He knew there would be something. The rest of the Imperial force? More of the Klavarta? Maybe some other allies? Whatever it was, he would bring the full weight of his force down on them. Then turn on the ships that were following him. The glory would still be his.

*     *     *

“We should have some more ships to you within twenty-four hours,” said the President of the Nation of New Earth over the com. “I'm afraid the crews will be a mix of mostly untrained and reservists brought out of retirement. But that is the best we can do at the moment.”

Beata nodded as she looked at the list of what was coming her way on another holo. Forty of the smallish Klavarta battleships, ten million tons each. They wouldn't be very efficient warships, but they would suffice as launching platforms. Also on the list were several hundred of the first batch of Klavarta warp fighters. The Empire and the Nation were sharing all technologies with each other. It was up to the individual powers to decide how they wanted to deploy the tech, and the Klavarta had decided to invest in the faster than light fighters.

A couple of months from now the Klavarta would be launching the first batch of real battleships, sixteen million ton hyper VII. Almost exact copies of the front-line ships of the Empire, they would have some improvements intended for Alpha use, including the liquid injection systems for their increased gravity tolerance.

In the same time period the Slarna would also be launching improved vessels, copies of Imperial battle cruisers with hyper VII drives. As would the Gernas. Beata hoped that those allies wouldn't someday become enemies. Well, the same dynamic was ongoing at the main front. Elysium and Crakista were allies, today, and the technology sharing was a two-way street there as well. One day the Empire might find itself fighting one of those powers, and then those exchanges could come back to bite them. However, they needed the allies right now, and the allies needed the best equipment they could get, so the future would have to worry about itself.

She still wasn't sure what she would be getting from the Empire, but was hoping for a hundred squadrons of battleships and a score of fleet carriers. That was doubtful, but receiving no news was worrisome. She would resent it if the Empire shortchanged her, but there was nothing she could do about it. She wasn't tapped into the grand strategy on that front. Need to know, of course. Just like the fleet commanders on that front wouldn't be totally informed about her situation.

“Mara. Report,” said Beata into the air, connecting the com to her scout force commander.

“We're not within sensor range of the enemy, but they still seem to be on a profile that will put them on your doorstep on schedule.”

“Keep after them. But don't let yourself be drawn into a trap.”

“You know me better than that, Admiral,” said the smiling scout force commander. “I'll be the epitome of cautious.”

Beata found herself smiling now. Mara could be cautious, but a perusal of any dictionary would have a picture of the other admiral over the word audacious. That she could also be careful was what made her such a good scout commander.

“I'm getting another com,” said Beata as a chime sounded in the air. “But stay on. You'll probably want to hear this as well.” She disconnected from the scout force commander and turning to look at another being, his image slightly blurry in the way of visual data transmitted by the Klassekian com techs.

“Report.”

“We're picking up the enemy ships coming into our detection range,” reported the Klavarta commander of one of their scout ships, lying dead in normal space directly in the path of the Cacas. “They're decelerating on a profile consistent with arriving in Pleisia space, just outside the VII barrier at a velocity that will allow them to translate down into the system.”

“You hear that. Mara?” asked Beata, feeling the thrill of knowing she had been proven correct running through her. Or was that terror?

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We have an entire chain of Klavarta scouts lined along their path. I'll want them to form up with you as you decelerate toward us.”

“Not leave them in place?” asked Mara, her brow furrowing.

“You think I should?”

“They're not going to do me that much good, Admiral. Another, what, twenty or so smallish scout ships. We might want to leave them as pickets, to let us know if something else is coming. In fact,” said Mara, her eyes narrowing, “we might want to string them out even further.”

“Okay. Done. Captain Hralta,” she said to the Klavarta Alpha. “As soon as you are able, spread your ships out. You're our early warning system.”

“I would rather fight the Cacas, ma'am,” protested the Alpha.

“I know you would. But you provide better service by continuing to scout.”

She dismissed that holo, filled with static from the many Klassekians it was transferred through.

“Hurt them, Mara. I don't expect you to defeat them, but hurt them. Everything they leave outside the system. If you can pick it off, do so. And I don't expect prisoners. Don't let them draw you into anything you can't handle. Now, I need to make sure I give them something they can't handle on this end.”

Mara's holo disappeared, leaving her once again with her own thoughts. What can I do to even the odds further? she thought, pulling up the holo of the system once again. She studied the system for the thousandth time, looking for anything that might give her an advantage. Beata knew she wasn't the most brilliant admiral who had ever served the Empire. She was also sure that she wasn't the least able. Maybe Lenkowski or Mgonda could do better, but she doubted there was another flag officer in the Fleet that came closer to matching them.

Great thought, Beata. Now you just have to go about proving it.

*     *     *

“I really don't trust these damned things,” complained Ensign Kallaris Plisias, looking at the viewer at the image as the fast attack craft approached the mirrored surface of the wormhole gate. The rest of his flight was around him, three more of the ten thousand ton small craft. He was the junior officer of this group, which made his assignment to the fragile craft even worse, in his opinion, as he had less control over his own fate.

The craft were small, fragile, but very fast in normal space. Lacking hyper capability, that was the only place they could operate. These New Earth built craft could pull six hundred gravities with their inertial compensators. Add on another thirty due to the liquid environment the Alphas and Engineers would be riding in, and they had blazing fast acceleration. Their reason for being were the four, one-hundred-ton capital ship missiles that were their offensive armament. Capable of accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities over a short run, they would start out with the velocity imparted on them by their launching ships.

Not really fast, thought the officer. They couldn't move at any higher velocity than the capital ships they were built to attack. At point nine light and above the normal slow-moving particles of space became fast moving packets of energy, radiation. Capable of penetrating any electromagnetic field, and all but the thickest of armor. A thickness the little ships couldn't handle. They could out accelerate the larger ships, though even smaller fighters could outdo them. What they were was quick and fragile. They could outrun some missiles if the distance and vectors were to their advantage. And they could move quickly through and out of the engagement basket of light amp weapons. Of course, a hit that a larger ship wouldn't even notice would leave a spreading cloud of plasma in space where the attack craft had been.

Quick attack craft would be more fitting, thought Plisias, shaking his head. He would still have been happier aboard a multi-million-ton warship, but the officer assignment bureau hadn't asked his permission to be given this command.

“Well, sir,” replied Warrant Officer Janaris, the helm of the Charlie five, their particular fast attack craft. “It's what we have, so we better come up with a plan to use it.”

There was a plan, but the ensign didn't like it worth a damn. They were to swoop in, using their maneuverability and speed to avoid enemy fire, and launch. Hopefully taking out a single enemy ship. The idea of maneuvering such a fragile craft into the face of that much firepower was terrifying. Sure, the exchange of a dozen or so fast attack craft for millions of tons of warship was considered a bargain. But not to a young Alpha just out of officer's training, who had his whole life ahead of him. Not if he was one of those who were on the harsh side of the exchange.

“Get ready,” said Janaris, just before the craft plunged into the wormhole.

Plisias had never been through a wormhole. He had been told that his genetic line was able to handle the physical aspects of the translation better than most. No one had mentioned the mental.

The trip seemed to go on forever, day after day trapped in his mind, visions of death and destruction coming close to ripping his sanity from him. And then it was over, leaving him in shock in his command chair.

“How long?”

“According to our timer, much less than a second,” said Janaris in a hushed voice.

I don't want to go through that again, thought the ensign, shaking his head. Of course, if he could get out of this looming battle alive, he would ride through the gates of hell to return home.

*     *     *

“Keep digging in,” ordered Captain Canara, looking over his company as they dug in on the heights overlooking the landing field.

The men were using everything from power excavators to handheld entrenching tools to dig the foundations of the fortifications they would fight from should the Cacas try to use the field. The engineers would be along later to install the bunkers, which the troops would then cover and camouflage. They might allow the men to live a few more minutes once battle was joined, if it was. There was always the possibility that nothing would come down here, and all of this work would have been for nothing. Still, it was better to expend sweat in vain than blood for real.

The shuttles continued to land, one every couple of minutes. Men in heavy exoskeletons walked up and removed pallets of equipment, while vehicles rolled off the shuttles they had ridden down on. Hover trucks filled with materials mostly, though there were also some heavily armored vehicles with the barrels or tubes of weapons protruding from the superstructure or turrets.

“You ready for us to start putting in the bunkers,” said a shorter Klavarta who looked much like an Alpha. The being wore powered armor, in his case to aid him in heavy lifting more than anything.

“Almost,” replied Canara, looking down from his well over two meter height.

Like all of his people he eschewed powered armor. Klavarata warriors were almost three times stronger than the other classes of their people, and twice as fast. They were the equivalent of human special warriors, the Rangers and Naval Commandos, only the entire Klavarta army was made up of this sub-species. They wore a light strap-on armor that enhanced their own naturally hardened skin. There were openings in the armor for their spikes and claws. It allowed them to move at blinding speed across the battlefield, striking down their enemies before they could react. They were not, however, invulnerable, and with the Cacas controlling space, the two divisions of Klavarta warrior infantry could expect heavy casualties before they even had a chance to fire on the landing troops. If they landed troops, and didn't just bombard the planet into rubble beneath them.

“What are those?” asked Lieutenant Jrising, one of his platoon leaders, pointing over at a bunch of missile bodies being removed one by one from a cargo compartment of a heavy lift shuttle.

“Counter missiles? Anti-aircraft weapons? I'm not sure,” said the captain. The one thing he was sure they weren't were offensive weapons, ship killers. No one was insane enough to put weapons with one gigaton antimatter warheads on an inhabited planet. Or at least he hoped not.

If they were what he thought, command was determined to prevent as many surface strikes as possible. Though to his mind a hundred megaton warhead going off in the air overhead was almost as bad, especially for the lightly protected civilians.

Chapter Eleven

There are heroes in evil as well as in good. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“The scouts are about to make the final jump, my Lord,” said the com officer, looking back at Mrastaran. He was reading a last second grav pulse from the lead scout, the only way they could transmit information at the moment.

I wonder if they're going to try to pull an ambush, thought the admiral. The humans had used that tactic so often in the past, it was almost their standard play when they were anticipating an invasion. It allowed them to get in a couple of devastating volleys before the Cacas could react, and had resulted in some instant wins in the past for the humans.

They had started backing away from that tactic when the Ca'cadasans had come in expecting it, which didn't mean they wouldn't try it again if they thought their enemies had dropped their guard. Because of that, three hundred scout ships had built up some separation over the last day, and were now approaching the hyper I barrier, while the rest of the fleet was still on approach to V. That would give the main fleet some time to maneuver if needed. In fact, they could jump out at one of the other barriers, or even before, and start lobbing missiles into the system.

“They're jumping now,” called out the sensor officer, picking up their translation graviton wave.

Mrastaran gripped the arms of his chair with his lower hands while he crossed the upper pair over his chest. He was trying to act nonchalant, composed, and failing miserably. He was about to face the humans from their New Terran Empire, a force which had become the boogie man for the Ca'cadasans. Even though he outnumbered them, he couldn't be sure they wouldn't pull something out the Ca'cadasans hadn't seen before, whether a tactic or some new tech. Frankly, it terrified him. And that made him feel ashamed.

Before the current war the Ca'cadasan Empire had an unbroken string of victories stretching back for seven thousand years. They had gone into the war with the humans, on both fronts, confident, secure in the knowledge that these would be easy victories. The human nation on this front first, who through the reckless courage of their genetically engineered warriors had fought the Ca'cadasans to a standstill for decades. Still, the altered humans hadn't been able to push the conquerors out of their hard-fought gains.

Then the Ca'cadasans had met the humans on the other front. They were also improved, in a different way. Not in specific genetic lines, they were still overall stronger, faster and smarter than the people the Ca'cadasans had chased away from their home system. At first the Ca'cadasans had earned easy victories against those humans, overrunning world after world and slaughtering the inhabitants. The New Terran wormhole technology had kept them in the war, then shifted the balance, until they had at first ejected the Ca'cadasans from their space, then invaded. The Ca'cadasans still liked to act like they were superior to any other intelligence species. It was a lie. They had met their match, and were well on the way to defeat, unless something changed drastically.

If Mrastaran won this campaign and knocked the Klavarta out of the war that might be the drastic change his Empire needed. If not, if he lost here, or even fought to a draw, it could spell the end to the seven thousand year reign of his people across a large expanse of this Galaxy. He would either be remembered as the admiral who had saved the Empire, or the one who had lost it.

“Grav pulse from scout leader,” called out the com officer. “Nothing contesting their emergence, so far.”

Those ships would have come out in a wide spread, giving them the best sensor coverage of the system, but also putting them too far apart for optimal mutual defensive fire. But if nothing was coming at them? Mrastaran knew better than to assume that the enemy had decided to not contest this system. Or had they? Maybe they had decided that it wasn't worth the cost, and were preparing to bring his fleet to action in some other place. But they wouldn't know where that other place would be, and if the humans had hit him in hyperspace they would be giving up one of their most effective weapons, the warp fighters.

They've got to be there, he thought, looking over at the com officer, waiting for the next report. That report would, of course, be sparse, as befitted grav pulse.

“Scouts are reporting that they are picking up graviton emissions in the system.” The officer went silent, reading the next part of the message while his admiral fretted over the delay. “Not enough to indicate a fleet. A system defense force? Possibly.”

“Was that part of the transmission, or are you asking a question?”

“A..question?”

“Just give me the damned information,” growled the great admiral, glaring at his subordinate. “When I want conjecture, I'll ask for it.”

The com officer looked away, shaking slightly. The admiral couldn't blame him, since a commander had the power of immediate life or death over all of his subordinates. Not that Mrastaran was such a bastard that he would have a junior officer killed for untoward curiosity.

“Order one of the supercruisers to drop into normal space and get a read on that system. Fifteen seconds, then they are to translate back up and lascom us with the information.”

The fleet would not be to the V barrier by that time, and the lascom would catch them before they jumped.

The translation signal of the selected supercruiser came onto the sensors. The admiral counted off the time until sixteen seconds went by. He was about to ask for a grav pulse to the ship when it translated back up into hyper V. Seven seconds later the lascom reached them, the high bandwidth signal feeding all of the ship's sensor readings into the flagship.

“Hitting hyper IV translation,” called out the helmsman, a second before the lights dimmed and the translation nausea hit.

Only four more translations to go, thought the admiral as he fought to keep the contents of his stomach in.

*     *     *

“The only thing that's come in so far admiral,” said the com officer, who was parsing the transmissions from all of the scouts in the outer region of the system. Since everything was coming in from Klassekians, there was no way the Cacas could trace them back to their sources, ships that were sitting cold in space.

Nothing else was moving, with the exception of some small frigate style ships and a couple of dozen civilian vessels. Some of her commanders had requested that the admiral shut down all traffic within the system, presenting a dead plot to the enemy. Beata thought it would be more enticing for the enemy to see something in the system. After all, there was an inhabited planet here, as well as thousands of installations on moons, asteroids, or in orbit. It wasn't like they were going to fool the enemy into thinking there was no defense. But if they only accounted for the fixed defenses they knew had to be there; it gave her more of a chance of pulling off her surprise.

If only it works, she thought. There were no guarantees. The Machines were probably easier to fool, lacking as they did the Gestalt of an organic mind. The Cacas might see clues that would sail right past an AI and make a connection. She couldn't think of anything they might see, which didn't mean it wasn't there, and wouldn't appear at the worst possible moment.

“Are any of them near the minefields?”

“They came in on a wide dispersion, but the closest are more than ten light seconds from the closest flanking weapons.”

Beata did the calculations in her mind. The mines, really mobile weapons platforms, were as stealthy as human science could make them. A sensor platform would have to be closer than a light second to pick them up on passive, and even that was iffy. They were powered down, with only their own passive sensors and grav pulse receivers online, putting out a minimum of heat. At six light seconds a powerful active sensor sweep would pick them up. That still might happen at ten light seconds, though the odds were against it.

She had ten thousand mines out there, though not all in position to make a kill. But most were. They were not all the same, unlike minefields in the past. About a third of them were Terran Empire made, holding one capital ship missile that could kill an enemy with a hit. Unfortunately, they didn't generate a whole lot of hits, maybe one in a hundred if they were lucky. She could have expected maybe a dozen kills with the weapons she had, enough to gall the enemy, but not enough to accomplish much more.

The two other types of mines were the product of Klavarta research and development, untested in combat. Still, she was curious to see how they did. One carried ten counter sized missiles with twenty megaton warheads. Not enough to kill a ship, but a near miss could still cause some damage, while a hit could really hurt. The other type was the one she had really high hopes for. A fusion device would trigger a gamma ray laser in the terrawatt range, for a less than one second burst. The mine would have locked onto a target, its computer brain powerful enough to lead it, and send the beam directly into the enemy ship. Not enough to destroy it without a lot of luck. A hit could do some damage, maybe a lot, crippling the ship in question. Multiple hits could put it out of action.

It wasn't the only minefield she had deployed, but it would be the most important for a couple of reasons. It was most likely to cause critical hits. And it would make the enemy think, making him move cautiously about the system. She also had all of her warp fighters deployed out there, light minutes away from the predicted emergence point and powered down. And a couple of hundred fast attack craft. Not all she had, but the majority of them.

There was one other surprise waiting out there, something the scouts couldn't detect, and that hopefully would stay off their sensors even after it fired. It was the risk of one of her precious irreplaceable wormholes, but she thought it a worthwhile gamble.

“We have a translation out near the V barrier, ma'am.”

That set off alarm bells in the mind of the admiral. Had they sniffed out something and their commander had ordered his fleet to come out at that distance. From there they could take the entire system under fire, taking on fat unmoving targets, while whatever she sent out could be avoided by translation into hyper.

“It's only one supercruiser, ma'am. I think it popped out to get a look at the system. And..it's popped back into hyper. The rest of the enemy fleet is coming in on their same profile.”

Beata let out a breath she had been holding in while waiting for the bad news.

“The scouts are boosting in at three hundred gravities, ma'am. On a heading for the Pleisia planet.”

Walking right into my trap, thought the admiral, hoping that she got maximum return for her investment of lives and equipment. She would have preferred that all of the targets were battleships, but she would take what she could get.

*     *     *

Not every one of the hastily deployed fast attack craft had a Klassekian com tech aboard. There weren't enough of them to go around, when every one of the more effective warp fighters needed one to navigate, and it was more important to keep the major warships in the com loop.

So we get to sit and wait, and not know what the hell is going on, thought Ensign Kallaris Plislas, looking at the holo plot with anxious eyes.

The plot was set to their passive sensors, picking up graviton emissions, including those of the four hundred thousand ton Caca scout ships that were so near. Each of those two hundred odd vessels were forty times more massive than his ten thousand ton fast attack craft. Any one of them could swat him out of space with minimal effort, like an insect. Of course, this insect had a sting, but stings didn't always do the things that carried them any good.

“Don't worry, sir,” said Warrant Officer Janaris, occupying the pilot’s seat. “We're going to do fine.”

But does that mean we kill an enemy warship, then die ourselves, thought the young Alpha. That wasn't the kind of fine he was hoping for.

Five people occupied the small bridge. Himself, the warrant/helmsman, and the weapons, sensor and com techs. There were three more people in the engineering section, giving him a total crew of eight. He didn't know how the people in engineering were feeling, but he could smell the fear on the bridge.

“The enemy is ten minutes to translation to normal space, sir,” said the sensor tech, a young female who had even less experience than her officer.

“Go ahead and start fluid injection,” ordered Plislas, looking at his helmsman, who was also the second in command of the vessel.

Janaris nodded his head and started the process. In seconds the clear liquid started to bubble up from the ports in the floor. It was body temperature, and therefore comfortable. Not really water, it carried a high concentration of oxygen. Enough for the lungs and gills to process enough life-giving oxygen for the Alphas to function at full efficiency.

“Estimated emergence in five minutes.”

Now there was no smell of fear, since the liquid masked it. It did leave an acrid taste, though, and the officer was proud at least that he wasn't the only one half frightened to death.

*     *     *

“Five minutes to final translation, my Lord,” called out the helmsman.

Great Admiral Mrastaran stared at a plot that showed nothing except for his own force. There were some ships still behind, some at the edge of sensor range. Some more ships had translated into normal space out there, setting up a sensor net to warm the Ca'cadasans of anything coming in behind them. Not that a warning would stop such an attack, but preparation was a good thing.

Should I have come out at the hyper II barrier? he thought, having his doubts. Or the III? He thought his plan good, and the scouts, which had been blasting away to the front and all sides with active sensors, had not sent back a warning. However, the humans, of both types, were tricky, and there was no telling what surprise they had waiting for him.

Why they call it a surprise, thought the admiral with slight chuckle. Just that the humans were better at coming up with them than his people.

Mrastaran was considered smart among his people. There were some scientists who were brighter, maybe a couple of officers who were still too young to rise to flag rank. But on the bell curve of intelligence among the Ca'cadasans he was on the far left. Which he knew would put him in the top five percent of humans. That meant there were billions of them smarter than he was. The only thing he had over the vast majority of them was experience. They lived to two or three hundred years if not struck down, while Mrastaran was well over two thousand years old. Having survived the internecine warfare that was Ca'cadasan politics, civilian and military, his mind was quick and cautious. Maybe quick and cautious enough to win this campaign.

“I want cold plasma in the electromagnetic fields as soon as we're in normal space,” he ordered.

The electromagnetic fields were the only shields that the warships on both sides carried. Millennia of research into something better had resulted in a big nothing. Electromagnetic force could blunt the power of light amp weapons, bending and attenuating the beams. Sometimes enough to turn something that could blast right through a hull into an impact that would at most vaporize some of the armor. It might also deflect some particles from a missile blast. Against a direct hit? It did nothing.

Cold plasma, a gas at extremely low temperature, was ejected into the magnetic field and held in place. The plasma would intercept some of the heat from lasers or particle beams, keeping it from reaching the hull. Until the cold plasma was superheated, at which time it would be shuttled to the back of the field and ejected out into space. To be replaced by a new shell of the substance. And while it worked just as well in hyper or normal space, due to its being erected within the hyperfield, it couldn't pass through a translation. Which meant…

“Translation,” called out the helm, and the nausea hit. For the next ten seconds, twenty for some, the males aboard the ships were helpless. Automatic systems would try to cover for them, firing defensive weapons, injecting cold plasma into the fields. Most times that was enough.

*     *     *

“The Caca fleet is translating in ten light seconds from the hyper I barrier, ma'am.”

Beata looked at the plot, alive with the graviton signals of massive craft opening holes between the dimensions and sliding through. Of course the entire fleet wasn't coming through at once. It was too big, too massive. Thousands of four hundred thousand ton scouts came through first, entering normal space and spreading out. Within a minute the four million ton supercruisers were coming, also spreading as soon as they hit normal space. All of the ships were coasting, not boosting at all, falling off the plot as their graviton emissions ceased.

Except in this case there were ships within twenty light seconds of the fleet, their com techs transmitting the information back so that the admiral didn't lose contact, no matter what. There was a real time delay because of their distance from their targets, but in this kind of warfare that wasn't enough to worry about.

The superbattleships, twenty-five million tons of warship, only out massed by Beata's flagship, came through next, thousands of them. Scouts and supercruisers were still transiting around them, the entire enemy fleet coming into the system. Or as much of it as made no difference.

“We have over seven thousand of their battleships, about the same number of their cruisers, and a little less than twice that of scouts.”

Beata looked over at the com officer with an expression of horror on her face. Of course they didn't have exact numbers, the interference of graviton emissions was too great. But even the estimation was too much. She had known the fleet coming at her was massive. After all, if had destroyed over fifty thousand Klavarta ships in the initial battle. But knowing what was heading toward you intellectually, and actually seeing it appear in front of you, ready to go close in and crush everything she had? That was different. This fleet was on the order of the ones that had forged into the Empire in the early days of the war. Maybe a little larger. If the Cacas had spread out so she could defeat them in detail that would mean one thing. But this commander was too canny for that.

“They're within range of the mines, ma'am.”

Might as well get to this, she thought. “Send the signal. All assets in position are to attack.”

Now she just had to wait and see how her first attack went. And how the enemy reacted to it.

Chapter Twelve

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats. Theodore Roosevelt

“We have graviton emissions to both flanks,” shouted out the sensor officer, still reeling from translation nausea, unable to think. “Hundreds of small craft.”

Mrastaram could hear the words, understand them, feel the flush of fear through his illness, but couldn't get his brain to work fast enough to fire off orders.

“Missiles in space,” shouted out the sensor officer, as easy a translator as existed in the Ca'cadasan species but still hit hard. “Missiles in space.”

And then they started arriving. The flagship, sitting in the middle of the fleet, was in no danger. The same could not be said for the flagship of Great Admiral Lokastar, sitting behind a thin screen of scouts on the right flank.

*     *     *

The Klavarta mines fired first, as specified in the tasking order. Tens of thousands of counter style missiles, smaller that the ship mounted variety at ten tons each, carrying fifty megaton fusion warheads, streaked out at twenty thousand gravities from their launching platform. All of the Caca ships had at least someone still cognizant on their bridges. Within seconds every ships started to boost, trying to move out of the kill zone. And highlighting themselves to the passive sensors of the missiles and the remaining platforms.

That was when the gamma ray laser platforms opened up. They only had one shot, each platform aiming for the nearest target, then detonating their built-in fusion warhead. The power of that warhead flowed into the laser rod, which converted to plasma as it pulsed a multi-terrawatt beam of coherent gamma radiation. Some of that was intercepted by the electromagnetic cold plasma fields of the target, but eighty percent made it through as a compact beam, slamming through the armor of the ships and deep into their guts. There were some misses, about five percent. The rest hit something. Damage klaxons went off on over a thousand ships, many of them hit with multiple shots. Some scouts exploded into plasma as their antimatter stores were breached. Supercruisers went off course as grabber units were shredded while others continued to pull. Even a couple of score superbattleships were hit. The latter ships were too massive to be killed by any kind of known light amp weapon, but some still suffered enough damage to reduce their combat capabilities by a half or more.

As soon as all of the laser mines flashed out of existence the mines of the Terran Empire fired, releasing one hundred ton capital ship missiles, carrying their one gigaton warheads at fifteen thousand gravities. More than seventy percent were tracked and destroyed by defensive fire that detonated their warheads too far from targets to do much damage. Against an enemy that hadn't been hit it would have been more, maybe a total loss. Two thousand warheads came in, over a hundred detonating right on target. Scouts and supercruisers shattered, even a couple of superbattleships tumbled through space. There were collisions that caused more damage, and thousands of powerful detonations that sent heat and radiation into nearby hulls.

Before the last missile volley had hit home the more than a thousand fast attack craft boosted forward at maximum acceleration, then beyond, their Alpha crews able to handle the extra in their liquid environments. At the same time the eight wings of warp fighters pulled up and over the fleet at twenty lights, turning their noses in, closing, then firing all of their carried missiles.

*     *     *

“Here we go,” shouted Ensign Kallaris Plisias in what he had to hope would be a commanding tone. It came out to his ears as a squeak.

Warrant Janaris pushed the throttle lever forward and the captain of the small ship found himself pushed back into his chair. They were going in very hot, five gravities above the ability of the liquid to protect them from gee forces. It hurt his spine, and he immediately had problems filling his lungs, though his gills still functioned properly.

All around FAC Charlie Five were almost five hundred other fast attack craft, all boosting at the same rate, heading in toward the mass of Caca warships that filled the plot. The numbers were frightening. The enemy fleet outnumbered them by twenty to one or more. The ensign couldn't even comprehend the differential in mass and firepower.

Counter missiles and laser fire started reaching out for the attackers. It wasn't well coordinated, but with that mass of ships firing at the mass of craft incoming, it didn't have to be to achieve hits.

“That was too close,” said the warrant officer as the small ship shook. Other fast attack craft disappeared from the plot, not that many, but enough to remind Plisias of his own mortality. The ship shook again, while the timer ticked down.

“Fire,” shouted the ensign when the clock in his implant struck zero. The ship shook again as it released its four capital ship missiles, which took off at fifteen thousand gravities and headed into the mass of ships ahead.

“Break,” ordered Plisias, gripping the arms of his chair hard. The small ship pulled upward, boosting at six hundred and thirty-five gravities, its momentum still carrying it toward the enemy fleet. Craft were still falling off the plot around it, now the victims of revenge fire. They had nothing else they could hit the enemy with, and that didn't matter to the Cacas. They were determined to kill as many of the insects that had stung them as possible.

That was when something else came along to take the minds of the Cacas off of the fast attack craft.

“How many did we lose?” asked the ensign of his sensor officer as they kept pushing away from the enemy, their momentum curing them up and over the hostile force.

“We have three hundred and fifty-eight craft still with us,” said the sensor officer in a quavering voice.

They had lost over a hundred and thirty-two ships, along with over a thousand of their fellow spacers. Plisias raised a hand off the chair arm when the distance had opened enough that he felt safe. The hand shook with the tension he was feeling. Terror, he thought, being honest with himself. But he had survived his first combat mission. The next thought was whether that would make the next one easier, or more difficult.

*     *     *

“We have warp fighters coming in from above and below,” called out the tactical officer, his voice barely under control. “Over eight hundred of them.”

Mrastaran was still in shock from the punches he had received. Gut punches, not enough to knock him out of the fight, but definitely sufficient to send him reeling. First a mass of missiles like nothing they had ever seen, then some kind of weapon beyond anything he had ever heard of. He still couldn't figure out how in the hell they had fired such powerful lasers from that close without his detecting the firing vessels. Then, while his fleet was still trying to figure out what they were being hit with, the standard capital ship missiles. He knew what those were. Mines. And he wouldn't have been surprised if those surprising lasers had also come from mines, but how they had crammed such powerful weapons into something like that? He couldn't guess how.

The fast attack craft were something he should have expected. If they had come in by themselves their attack would have been almost as effective. But on the tail end of their other hits their attack had been devastating. He had hit them back, hard, but that didn't make up for the fact that they had taken out several hundred more ships. Such a small revenge for so hard a hit. And now warp fighters. The enemy was hitting them with everything but the asset he was looking for. He still had no idea where their warships were.

“Admiral Lokastar's ship was hit by an enemy missile, my Lord. Lost with all hands.”

Another shock that he didn't have time for. He would have to worry about who was going to take over that flank after they were through with this current situation.

“Prepare all warp lances. And get our pilots to the warp fighters.”

The warp lances were effective weapons against the faster than light fighters, if they got within range. His own warp fighters were not as good as those the humans employed, but they could still run interference, and maybe absorb some of the missiles that would have been targeting his fleet. Problem was, less than half his ships had warp lances, and they weren't all in the optimal position to employ them. And his pilots, many still suffering from translation nausea, had to make their way to their craft and launch. The enemy warp fighter attack would be over before they could get into space, and there was no way they would be able to close with them in a stern chase.

And where in the hell is their fleet? he thought as he showed his teeth in a predator's challenge.

“They're launching missiles and turning away,” shouted out a frustrated tactical office.

Smart, he thought. Well before most of the warp fighters entered range of the nearest warp lances. Two of the fighters fell off the plot. The rest raced away ahead of everything the Caca fleet could send after them. And over thirty-two hundred of their missiles came in at just over twenty light, their compression fields sweeping through the outgoing fire, their beams destroying counter missiles and projectiles alike. Lasers hit, most of them unable to penetrate the warp bubbles around the missiles. Some were blasted out of space when enough lasers struck, many more fell to warp lances. The rest flew through the formation of ships, hitting whatever was on their flight path, their compression fields burning through armor and hull before the fifty megaton warheads detonated within their targets.

“We lost five more battleships and over a hundred and fifteen smaller vessels,” called out the tactical officer in a shocked tone.

They had hurt him. What they hadn't done was hurt him enough. The fleet was still heading in, now boosting with the grabber power they had used to try and avoid the enemy weapons. They were no longer suffering from translation sickness, and all weapons were manned and ready.

“Order half of our scouts to fan out ahead and look for enemy mines,” ordered Mrastaran to his com officer. “All are to pulse active sensors all the way in. And I want them spread out far enough that they don't make a good target.”

“Yes, my Lord,” replied that officer, working his board.

“And work out targeting solutions to all prospective targets in the system, including that inhabited planet.” He didn't want to hit it. That went against his philosophy and religious background. He intended to kill anything in orbit or nearby, and if he hit it by accident? Well, he could live with that.

*     *     *

“Targeting analysis coming in, Admiral,” called out the chief of staff, standing near the com boards. “As well as our own casualty reports,” continued Janssen, his voice dropping.

“Give me the bad news,” said Beata, looking at the plot that was showing the enemy fleet still on the way in. A wave of scouts was boosting away, spreading out, the obvious tactic to protect against future ambushes.

“We took out almost three hundred of their ships. Complete losses. With probably double that number damaged.”

Beata nodded. Three hundred ships killed was a good start. The six hundred odd damaged could mean anything from ready for the shipyards to able to be repaired on the way in.

“And our loses?”

“All of the mines of course,” said the smiling chief of staff. That smile soon morphed into a frown. “With the addition of about three hundred fast attack craft and only five warp fighters. The remaining fighters are on their way back to their carriers for rearming.”

“And the fast attack craft?” she asked with a sinking feeling. Those craft had destroyed many times their mass, but they were still her people. Or at least the Alphas who had been assigned to her. It was not easy to lose people. At least they had killed a sentient enemy who would also suffer emotional pain for their losses. Unlike the Machines who had no feelings, and couldn't feel fear or loss.

“They are vectoring away to head for their resupply ships,” said Captain Janssen, the frown leaving his face.

The supply ships, fast freighters, were stationed around the periphery of the system, ready to resupply whatever ships of war needed it. They carried the dual-purpose capital ship missiles that could be launched from warship accel tubes or the side launchers of FACs. If they didn't get resupply missions and it seemed like nothing was coming their way, they could set the missiles into space and have them take off on their own. They definitely wouldn't be wasted.

“Order all wormhole launchers to take the enemy fleet under fire. I think we can assume that even if they split up further in, enough will be left to make the launches worthwhile. Keep launching until we're out of missiles.”

That probably wouldn't happen. Unlike on the Machine front, she had what amounted to unlimited missiles on this campaign. She might have to wait until launchers were reloaded and missiles accelerated up, but it wouldn't be a long wait.

“Any other launches?”

Beata knew why her chief of staff was asking about launches. Missiles were most effective at long range, building up the speed necessary to make the targeting solutions of defensive weapons problematic. They were also more effective when coming at the enemy in masses, too many for the defenses to handle. But she did not want to give away the positions of her ship concentrations too early. It was also difficult to get all the missiles on target at the same time. And the enemy could see them coming, and make course adjustments accordingly. Sometimes that even worked.

“Let's launch from the asteroids and gas giant moons. Let's say half from each platform. That should put a hundred thousand in space, yes.”

“About that many,” agreed Janssen, pointing and clicking on platforms and queuing the orders for the com people to send out. “Do you want to approve that launch?”

“Yes. Go ahead. I...”

“We have missile launches from the Caca fleet, ma'am,” called out the flag sensor officer, looking at the take from every platform.

“Targets?”

“To early to confirm, but it's looking like they're targeting everything they can see in the system, ma'am.”

“I'm betting they’re trying to get us to fire, so our fleet will be easy to locate,” said Janssen.

“Agreed. Fire from the platforms,” Beata said, then thought for a moment. “Any luck in locating their command ships.”

“We have five likely battleships,” said the sensor officer, looking over the takes.

“Our two stealth attack can target a pair of them immediately, ma'am,” said Janssen, pulling in a close up of the enemy fleet. “I recommend these two, here and here.”

“Accepted,” said Beata after a moment's thought. “Engage. Then send them two more targets.”

“Sending.”

*     *     *

Two light minutes above the main body of the Caca fleet sat a pair of Imperial stealth/attack craft. Both were equipped with one of the defending force’s precious wormholes each. The wormholes were pulling all of the heat from the mostly powered down warships, feeding it into a heat sink in the Donut, the huge space station around the black hole. Or they had been. Now they were configured as launchers, attached to accelerator tubes back at the Donut. They would start to heat up, over several hours, but until then they would be putting out minimal infrared. Otherwise, their hulls would absorb almost any radiation that hit them, making them all but invisible to any kind of active sensors.

The ships were moving slightly on grabbers that were putting out almost nothing in the way of gravitons. Aligning them onto their targets, a pair of superbattleships that were moving deeper within the formation.

“Fire,” called out the senior commander. Both ships released a stream of thirty capital ship missiles at point nine five light. Flight time to the edge of the enemy fleet, two minutes and six seconds. To the target ships another couple of seconds.

Not all of the missiles made it through the maze of ships in the way. Three scouts, a pair of cruisers and a superbattleship went up in plasma from direct hits. The Cacas tried to intercept in the few seconds they had after recognizing the threat, and got a total of seven missiles in that short basket. Actually very good, all things considered, but not good enough. The two target ships were both hit, converting to plasma interspersed with bits and pieces of hard alloys. Many ships in close proximity were struck with varying degrees of damage. Normally not much, sometimes enough to reduce their capabilities a bit. A half dozen missiles continued on, to take out one more supercruiser and damage some other ships with near explosions.

The stealth/attack shifted slightly and brought their launchers in line with the next two targets. A moment later they launched again, after the obligatory thirty second wait for the next accelerator tube to move into position back at the Donut.

*      *      *

“We're picking up missiles on close approach,” called out the tactical officer, his subdued whine indicating his anxiety. “Coming in from above.”

“Target them,” ordered Mrastaran, his stomach clenching on him as he thought about his own ship becoming a cloud of plasma, his own molecules scattered among them. The great admiral could not blame the younger officer for being on the edge of panic. He felt like screaming out in rage and terror himself. It would do no good, and much harm, though, so he restrained himself.

“Our ships are already firing, my Lord,” growled back the tactical officer, his upper lip quivering.

Of course they are, thought the great admiral, feeling like a fool. Every ship that was in danger of being targeted was putting out everything they could. Even ships that weren't being targeted were firing, adding to the mix. Not just to save their fellows, but to strengthen their own chances of making it through this volley. After all, there was no telling when a missile might veer off to take another target, or get knocked off course to end up in some hull they hadn't even been targeting.

The danger of fratricide would come when the missiles penetrated the perimeter and ships started firing on arcs that might hit other vessels of the fleet. Not much danger of that, since the target ships were sure to be on that perimeter, and almost everything that wasn't taken out would be targeting one of those ships.

Only they didn't target the perimeter ships. A couple were taken out by missiles that couldn't change vectors enough in time. Some were hit with defensive fire. And the unimaginable happened as counters and laser fire from some of the ships hit others. The counters hadn't built up enough velocity to carry much kinetic energy, and their warheads were too small to destroy even a scout. But they did cause damage. Same with the lasers. It took less than a second from the perimeter to the targets, a fraction of a second more for the misses to either acquire another target or get blasted out of space.

“We lost two group command ships,” shouted out the com officer. “Gone, with all crew.”

How in the hell did they target those ships? thought Mrastaran, a shiver of fear running up his spines.

“Shut down all coms from this ship,” he ordered, figuring that they were tapping into his com somehow. Stealthed platforms picking up transmissions and triangulating to the targets maybe. “Feed our communications by lascoms into the nearest scout. Then order them to transmit to the fleet.”

It would be rough on the scout if the enemy located it and set it up for an attack. Sad, but its job was to protect the larger ship. If that meant taking a missile to save it, so be it. The scout selected was a light second behind, and twenty thousand kilometers up, so anything targeting it was unlikely to hit the flagship.

“Order all group commanders and above to do the same,” he said after a second's hesitation. If the enemy was going for head shots, as seemed obvious, he needed to put other vessels to blocking.

The enemy might still hit his fleet from whatever platforms they were using, but they wouldn't get his command and control ships. Except through the old-fashioned way, luck. Good for them, bad for the Ca'cadasans.

“We have another volley coming in,” called out the sensor officer.

They've probably already targeted what they wanted to hit, he thought, realizing that he had taken the precautions too late, just hoping that his ship hadn't been one of those they had locked onto.

“We have hits on two more command ships,” called out the com officer.

“I want scout squadrons sent along the vectors of those missile streams,” yelled out Mrastaran, looking over at his com people. “Find those stealth ships and take them out.”

That's what had to be there, the damned stealth ships of the Terrans. Those had been a thorn in the side of the Ca'cadasan fleet since the beginning of the war. Almost impossible to find at any distance, they could be located if closed with. Given luck. Too much depended on damned luck, something Mrastaran hated about battle. It had always been that way, and probably always would be.

“And send a command for the fleet to go into a spread,” he ordered as he watched the two squadrons of scouts heading out on their hunt. He wanted those stealth ships. The humans could only have so many wormholes out here. According to the intelligence reports he had received, less than fifty. And there were at least two of them on those ships.

*     *     *

“Order the stealth/attack ships to shut down and covert their wormholes to heat sinks,” ordered Beata, looking at the zoomed in plot, which was showing the graviton traces of the Caca scouts heading out for their area of operation.

They had reported hits on the Caca fleet, including what appeared to be a quartet of command and control ships, superbattleship flagships that were controlling battle groups. Maybe even some of the super group commanders. With luck the fleet commander, though Beata wouldn't allow herself to grasp that hope.

They had just released a third volley, aiming at ships that had been transmitting on multiple bands minutes before. There was some chance they would hit the command and control ships. There was also a chance that the missiles would acquire other targets, not as important, but any Caca ship that was killed was a small victory.

“We have scout ships on approach,” called out a voice over the com.

Beata was sure it was one of the stealth ship commanders, and the woman's voice was filled with tension. If they were made there was no way they could escape. A dozen scouts would outgun each of them. They had the advantage of the enemy having to overcome their initial velocity. Still, the scouts would eventually get to them, in less than a couple of hours, and if the stealth ships tried to run they would be picked up in a split second. Missiles would soon follow. But Beata had thought out this scenario through all of its possibilities. She wasn't one to depend on luck when action could tip the scales.

“Do we have warp fighters rearmed?”

“Yes, ma'am. All of them have been resupplied with missiles and are ready to warp.”

The gave her over eight hundred of the craft. She was sure the Caca warp fighters would sally this time, but unless they were in overwhelming numbers she wouldn't be too concerned about them. Caca fighters could only make a pseudospeed of ten lights, half of what the human craft could do. Their warp missiles could move a little bit faster than the fighters, but were still not capable of catching human craft from behind.

“Send them in against the Cacas. Make sure a couple of squadrons each sweep up those scouts.” Beata thought about it for a moment. “Have them turn and launch anything they have left when those scout ships are gone.”

“They're going to pick up our carriers, ma'am,” said Janssen, a concerned expression on his face. “If they haven't already.”

“Bound to happen eventually,” said the admiral. She didn't like the idea of the enemy knowing where her fighter launch platforms were either. But they could move, slowly, and cover up behind the moons and asteroids they were near. “Keep a squadron back with each carrier, for close support.”

The only thing that could hit the carriers quickly were the Caca warp fighters. She had eight carriers, so that was ninety-six fighters she would hold back. Still, those ships were important to her. There were other places around the system with stockpiles of warp missiles, but the carriers were still the first and best option, since they could change locations at will.

“We've got tracks on their launches now, ma'am,” called out the fleet tactical officer. “Heading for the locations of the carriers?” The tactical officer had an expression of doubt on his face, as though he wasn't sure he believed his own words.

The missile tracks appeared on the plot, curving away from the Caca fleet. Dashed lines linked them to their predicted targets. They might not be the real targets, especially in the moon systems of gas giants or in the clusters of asteroids. The missile could acquire one of many targets when they closed. It was the best estimation by the computers of the ship, looked over by the analysts.

“They're targeting everything in the system,” said Janssen in a hushed voice.

Yes, they are, thought Beata. None of the swarms would be overwhelming to her fleet, if her fleet had been the target, and had been in one mass. That wasn't the case, and most of the targets would not be able to defend themselves. Most of the targets were also not really worth anything. But enough were that she would be forced to defend them, giving away the positions of some of her units.

“Send new orders to the warp fighters. All not on the carrier protection patrols are to go after missiles once they flush their weapons at the Caca fleet.” Beata looked over at her chief of staff. “Calculate the best interceptions to protect the most important targets.”

She was committing the warp fighter crews to many hours of constant, nerve wracking action. Missile interception was a dangerous business. One mistake and they were gone. She just hoped the sacrifices would pay off.

Chapter Thirteen

Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail. Graydon Carter

“Here we go again,” said Captain Michael Lauren under his breath, looking around the small bridge of his fighter.

The wing commander had hoped to be transferred to a training command after the pure terror of the Machine front. Or at least with one of the major fleets on one of the main fronts. Instead, here he was on another side campaign, fighting a numerically superior enemy on a front that was not receiving the resources it needed. It was like the Empire was trying to kill him off. They hadn't succeeded on the Machine front, so this was another attempt. Or so it seemed to him.

“Make sure everyone knows to stay out of range of the warp lances,” he told his Klassekian com tech.  “I don't want some fool driving in closer because he thinks he can get a better shot.”

That little bit of range, the difference between coming under fire from a weapon that could drop them from warp, and staying out of its basket, wouldn't make much difference for hit percentages. However, some commanders would risk all, their ship and their crew, to get in another hit. Lauren needed all the ships in his wing through what promised to be a long battle, and didn't want to see stupidity take fighters from his order of battle.

“We have warp signatures ahead,” called out the sensor tech, monitoring the only things she could in a warp environment. Graviton emissions and warp signatures. They were blind to the rest of the Universe, all the various radiations that sensors used to build a coherent picture.

Lauren looked at the blobs on the plot, straight ahead, leaving the Caca fleet. He took a second to look around the bridge at the people on his crew. They were all new to him, assigned after he had returned from the Machine front. They had undergone training together to form a coherent team, though Michael had spent less crew time than the other fighter commanders due to his duties as a wing commander. This would be their first time in combat together, and he would not really know how they would perform until they were called upon to act.

“We have six hundred enemy fighters ahead. Estimated velocity, ten lights.”

If that was their limit his ships were twice as fast. Could he assume that was their limit? And they outnumbered his attack wave, his and the two other wings, two to one. There were two other groups incoming, and he waited to see if the enemy was going to vector fighters their way as well. So far, nothing.

“All ships are to lock onto an enemy fighter and fire one, I repeat, one missile. All others are to go into the Caca fleet. We will then break to the left and up and head for these missile swarms.”

If everything worked as planned they would take out a couple of hundred enemy warp fighters, then hit from fifty to a hundred enemy ships, inflicting various degrees of damage. After that they would outrun the remaining enemy fighters and go about their hunt and kill of Caca missiles. Without losing any of his own fighters.

Yeah, right, thought the wing commander. And then you wake up.

“Firing missile,” called out the pilot, Lieutenant SG Xing.

The plot filled with the icons of warp missiles outbound. With nothing coming from the enemy. Just before the Terran missiles got to target, the enemy flushed all of their missiles. They only carried two to a ship. Still, twelve hundred weapons on the way in to the three wings was daunting.

“All ships. Break up and to the right. Full warp.”

Lauren could see the Klassekian com tech, one Ferdara, going to work at his board. In normal space, with normal fighters, the signal would have reached all of his birds in less than a second. It was much more complicated here. The tech transmitted back to their carrier, as well as to his siblings. Other Klassekians transmitted the message they read on their boards, out to their siblings on other fighters, or other carriers. Some fighters got the message immediately, others had to go through four or five layers of com techs, receiving their transmission up to ten seconds later. If it had been a set piece it would have been one thing. Improvisation often led to disaster with the com lags.

The ships of three wings broke up and right. Each wing moved as a well-trained whole. But the wings had not practiced this maneuver together, and their paths crossed. Though relatively close, there was still enough distance to make a direct collision unlikely. Unfortunately, the compression and expansion beams of the warp drives reached out light seconds, and it was inevitable that some of the beams would cross the warp bubbles of a few of their fellows.

Eleven ships were thrown out of warp, compression beams collapsing the field. Nine dropped out with no structural damage and some electronics shredded. A few of those ships could be repaired in place, the others only after being returned to a carrier or dock where technicians could replace the damaged parts. Two of the fighters flew apart under the stress, MAM reactors breaching and scattering two small clouds of plasma through the area.

“All ships. Align for best shot at the fleet and give them all your remaining missiles.”

Lauren looked at the plot, which showed the disordered formation of the Caca fighters. Over a hundred of them had fallen off, destroyed by missiles. Many of the others had committed the same fratricide that the Imperial fighters had just gone through, their frantic maneuvering running their warp drive beams into the bubbles of others. What had been six hundred fighters was now a mere four hundred.

The wings fired their missiles, taking the best shots they could, then turning and running at full speed for their assigned missile swarms. Behind them another thirty odd Caca warships were gone, with many more damaged.

The Caca pilots were game at least, turning their fighters into pursuit. They fell behind immediately, as did any missiles they fired. The human fighters were home free, for now, ready to pursue their next mission.

*     *     *

Great Admiral Mrastaran growled in anger as he watched more casualty figures come up on a side holo. More ships, destroyed or damaged. Two hundred of his precious warp fighters gone. And the enemy had lost at most fifteen birds. Even that figure was suspect, but it couldn't have been many more.

“They appear to have gone on multiple headings, my Lord. Each toward one of our missile streams.”

Mrastaran didn't have to ask why they were chasing his missiles. They would catch them, and with their capabilities they would blow many of them out of space. The missiles had some limited self-defense capability, mostly there to try and take out counter missiles. They weren't very good at that either, and against the fighters, which would obviously not approach from the front, they wouldn't do anything.

“Any sign of enemy capital ship missiles?”

“No, my Lord,” said the chief of staff, Admiral Trostara, grunting as he gave a head motion of negation. “But if they have anything out there firing at us, we should be seeing sign of them at any time.”

“All ships in the fleet are to boost up ten degrees, to port fifteen degrees for twenty minutes at full normal thrust,” ordered the Great Admiral, looking into the eyes of his subordinate admiral. “Let's make them show themselves.”

The orders started going out, and a minute later all of the ships made the course corrections and started boosting at five hundred and twenty gravities. Anything heading their way would soon have to make course corrections to adjust their vectors. Which would give them away by their graviton emissions.

“We have missile streams revealing themselves,” called Admiral Trostara less than five minutes later. “Closest is just over seven minutes contact time. Furthest is thirty-three minutes.”

“Keep track of all of them,” ordered Mrastaran. “And see if you can backtrack them to their origin points.”

If he could find out where their fleet was hidden he could hammer them over and over with overwhelming missile swarms. Until then, or until he got to the inhabited planet, all he could do was shoot at everything and hope to spark a reaction.

*     *     *

“The enemy fleet is changing vectors, ma'am,” reported Captain Janssen, looking over from the plot. “We're going to have to change the headings of our wormhole launched missiles if we're going to achieve hits.”

“Where are the stealth ships?” asked Beata, looking over a plot that was full of too many ships and missiles to easily make sense of.

Why couldn't we be facing a complete idiot? she thought. Too many Imperial commanders had faced opponents who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper box. But no, not this one. He reacted well and made good decisions. That wouldn't protect his fleet from all harm, but it could win him this battle.

“Up here, about six light minutes from the enemy fleet.”

“And how long would it take them to get ships to that point?”

“About twelve hours,” said the chief of staff, running the numbers. “They're up to point three seven light now, and it's going to take them six hours to come to a stop in the direction they're heading, then head back. They won't be a threat to our ships. However, these scouts over here might be able to vector onto them in five hours.”

“So they're safe for the moment,” said Beata, looking at the plot as she zoomed it out. “If Mara comes out here, how long to get her wormhole launched weapons into the Caca fleet.”

“Twenty light hours, so let's say just over twenty-one hours.”

Shit, thought Beata. That was too long. Nothing they fired at would be where they wanted it to be when they reached it.

“Get me Mara on the com.”

Montgomery came up on the holo almost immediately, just what her superior officer would have expected. With the battle for a contested system going on she would have to be dragged off her bridge, and no one aboard her flagship had the rank to force her to do anything.

“Ma'am?”

“Can you fight your way into the perimeter of the system?” asked Beata, coming up with a plan to use those ships and their wormholes.

“We might be able to take on the force they left out here, but it's going to be iffy. Might I suggest that we find a way around them. Perhaps over the top.”

“Show me what you're suggesting.”

Beata didn't really like the timescale involved, but she couldn't think of anything better. She needed to get Mara and her wormholes into the fight, without losing many of them to the three thousand Caca ships still outside the system. The admiral could order Mara to hit and run those ships until she had weakened them enough to take out, but that would also take time she didn't have

“Go ahead,” said Beata after studying the projected maneuver for a quick couple of seconds. “And as soon as you have a shot at anything Caca within the system, take it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Beata noticed Captain Janssen hovering in the background with a face that said he had something important to tell her.

“I'll be back in contact in a couple of hours, Mara. Com if something important happens.” With a thought Beata dismissed her scout force commander, the subordinate she had the most faith in, and turned to the chief of staff.

“We have more special assets coming through the gate behind the planet, ma'am. Where do you want us to deploy them?”

Beata smiled at the thought of what came up on the holo beside her. Not something that would defeat the Caca force, but it sure could cause them some problems. Chan, you fucking genius, she thought.

*     *     *

The wormhole gate that reached back to the Supersystem sat in a far orbit behind the planet, out of sight of the incoming Cacas. They had to know there was a gate somewhere in the system, and they might even have a good idea where it was. The point was, they didn't know where it was, and they couldn't target it. Nor did they know what was coming through it.

And that was lots of fleet fast freighters, some of them boosting for points in the system at high acceleration, then coasting before they came within sight. Hundreds of shuttles moved equipment from ships down to the surface, or with strap on thrusters to the moon or orbital platforms.

Most of what was coming across were the conventional weapons of the military. Colliers full of missiles, offensive and counters. Hundreds of thousands of the mines, many transshipped from the Klavarta home system through the second gate out in the moon system of one of the gas giants.

And in one specific freighter came the newest invention from Admiral Chuntoa Chan's research and development think tank. It might not be a war winning weapon, and was actually a copy of something the Machines had used against Admiral Bednarczyk in that war. It was more of a nuisance weapon, but one that could really disrupt the operations of the Cacas.

“It took some work to make sure this would be effective against the Cacas,” said Chan, a four-star admiral who was more scientist than military officer, and one of the most brilliant people in the Empire.

And also one of the most celebrated scientists in the Empire. Not because of her own developments, though she had come up with some wonderful tech. No, because she was absolutely brilliant in leading teams of other gifted people, picking the projects they would work on, combining discoveries.

“How many of the big bastards did you make shit in their pants,” said Beata with a laugh. She hadn't always been the greatest fan of the research maven, but she had appreciated what she had provided in the past. Including the war winning weapon that had saved the billions of lives that the Machines were on the verge of snuffing out. Including the life of one Beata Bednarczyk and every living being under her command.

“A few,” said the other admiral, smiling. “I can guarantee that if you get these things within range of the Cacas, they will react.”

“And getting them within range?”

“I can't do everything for you, Admiral Bednarczyk,” said Chan in a sarcastic tone. “You're the tactical genius here, not I. I'm sure you can come up with some imaginative ways to get the devices into their formations.”

Beata appreciated that the genius scientist knew her own weaknesses and wouldn't try to tell those with tactical experience how to do their jobs. Too many brilliant people seemed to think that their native intelligence made them experts at everything. In a time when no one mind could possibly have knowledge of every field that was nonsense.

“Thank you, Admiral,” said Beata, turning her attention to the plot, and the formations that were on there that hadn't shown themselves to the Cacas, yet. And one particular formation, the Gernas battle group near the planet.

Right near the planet, in the correct place to pick up the weapons. With their high accel potential, they could boost to a position ahead of the Cacas and release the weapons in their path. After that they could go about ferrying mines into position.

“Send an order to this Gernas battle group to rendezvous with this freighter here and pick up assets,” she told Janssen, pointing to the target formation on the plot. “And I want these freighters over here. They are to fire their missiles in passing the Caca fleet, then rendezvous with these freighters to rearm with missiles, then limpet all the mines they can carry to their hulls.”

“Anything else, ma'am?” asked Janssen, scrolling through a list of what they still had on the board.

“I think it's about time we brought the Slarna into the fight,” said Beata, smiling. “They wanted to attack the Cacas, so let them have their wish.”

She looked over the plot, seeing the four formations of Slarna scattered about the system, two in the asteroid near the projected path of the Cacas, one each in the moon fields of two of the gas giants.

“Project their earliest attack on the main Caca fleet from their current positions,” Beata ordered the computer.

Lines populated the plot, time stamps underneath.

“Calculate the best position for all Slarna forces to hit them at the same time, as well as boost and launch times.”

The lines shifted, the time stamps changed, and Beata grunted as she saw the results. The Cacas would be almost a light hour closer to Pleisia by the time the Slarna could execute that attack. Still forty light minutes out. By that time the Gernas would be putting the new weapons in the path of the Cacas, and launching missiles to cover their other activities. The fast attack craft would have already launched some minutes before and would be pulling decel across the path of the Cacas as they released mines.

This strategy wouldn't win the battle for her. What it would do was gall the Cacas, make them react instead of act, until she was ready to hit them with everything she had.

*     *     *

“We're picking up the signals from another Klavarta battle group, ma'am.”

“How many does that make?” asked Admiral Mara Montgomery, walking the flag bridge of her battle cruiser.

She had been gathering up stragglers all the way to the Pleisia system. Mostly Klavarta, though there had been a smattering of the human ships that had supported them directly. Even a few of the Slarna who had been with the frontier command. There were still ships on that frontier, though she had sent scouts out to order those to come and add to her force. They were useless out there. Yes, they might be able to warn of follow on forces, but the destroyers she had sent to take their places, equipped with Klassekian com techs, could handle that, while she needed all the firepower she could get.

“That's the seventh one thus far,” answered her chief of staff, Captain Michael Goruptal. “Here's our order of battle, so far.”

Mara's command, which was now much more than a scout force, was moving to a position, out of range of Caca sensors, to make a plunge into the system from above. By moving at low acceleration through hyper II they were putting out a signal that could only be picked up at sixty or so normal space light hours. They might still trip a sensor of some Caca warship lying at wait, but the only way those ships could communicate with their fleet was by sending out a grav pulse, something the human force would pick up easily.

It would still take her command more than a day, closer to two, to move into position in the II dimension at low boost. Admiral Bednarczyk seemed to think that was fast enough, but Mara still worried that she would not get there in time to actually influence the battle.

The order of battle on the holo showed all of her human ships at the top. Seventy-two battle cruisers, one hundred and forty-one light cruisers, two hundred and thirty-six destroyers. Also including three battleships, two with wormholes, that had been in support of the Klavarta fleet. That gave her a total of eleven wormholes that could be used to launch missile streams. She was expecting some more Imperial ships to come in from the dark, but had no way of knowing when.

In respect to the Klavarta ships the news was much better. Seventy percent of Admiral Klanarat's fleet had been destroyed. Which left the thirty percent that had gotten away. Sixteen hundred and thirty-eight of their smallish battleships, which were still larger than Mara's battle cruisers at ten million tons. Eight thousand seven hundred odd light cruisers, all smaller than the human variety, though better armed than destroyers. And over ten thousand destroyers. Also thirty-one of their small carriers, along with eight hundred warp fighters. The Klavarta ships were all smaller than the Terran ships in the same class. Still, they were modern warships with weapons of equal tech to those of most Terran vessels. That counted for something.

Along with a couple of hundred Slarna ships, and a couple of dozen of the other species, that gave her a ship strength of over twenty thousand eight hundred vessels. Not enough to go head to head with the monster fleet the Cacas had. Still, enough to give weight to Admiral Bednarczyk's fleet in the main battle while striking from the flank.

“At most we can expect a thousand more ships, ma'am,” continued the chief of staff. “When will they come along?” Goruptal shrugged his shoulders.

It really doesn't matter, thought Mara, looking back over the plot that showed the Pleisia system, transmitted through the wormhole from the Romulus, Beata's flagship. Another thousand ships, most probably light units, wouldn't make that much difference.

Chapter Fourteen

Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats. Amos Bronson Alcott

FEBRUARY 2OTH, 1004. MAIN CA'CADASAN FRONT

“We're ready to kick off the offensive, on your command, your Majesty,” announced Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski, looking out of the holo at his monarch.

About time, thought Sean, trying to keep the look of frustration off his face. They had been preparing for what they hoped would be the last offensive for months, and something always seemed to get in the way. Ships needed here, ships needed there. And the current unpleasantness on the Klavarta front. He wanted to send Beata enough ships to get her out her problem, but there simply weren't any available. All had been assigned to units that were on the move. And Parliament had told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't to take any more ships from the core system defense fleets, especially Home Fleet.

He really couldn't blame the Lords. They still had the disaster in the Aquilonia/Cimmeria twin core system on their minds. That had been early in the war, when the Empire was struggling just to keep from being overrun. His experts had told him that there was no way he could beat that large of a Caca force, not with the then discrepancy in tech. Today it would be a different story, but today was not when it happened. People still cursed his name for letting that disaster happen, when if he had done anything else he wouldn't have had a fleet to fight on. So seven billion had died. They had tried to evacuate as many people as possible, but it took time to get people off a planet and onto ships, and there just weren't enough ships available. At this point in the war it wouldn't happen. With wormhole gates they could evacuate a far larger portion of the population. And with all of the other system fleets just a wormhole away, any Caca attack would think it had run into a meat grinder.

The problem with deploying ships to the front was they could not always disengage from combat to return to the Empire. So, from the point of view of the people trying to protect their own assets, they wanted a powerful enough force in place to stop another slaughter. He tried nibbling away at those forces, sometimes with success, but that well was running dry.

How many people have died under my short reign? he thought, closing his eyes and thinking of all the death and destruction that had occurred since he had taken the throne. Not entirely his fault, since he had not asked for the Cacas to invade his Empire. Still, all the orders that had gone out after he had been crowned had been his, and his alone. He could call up exact numbers if he wanted, even looking at the cause of death and the locations. What was the point? He would go down in history as the human ruler who had lost more people in a war than any other, by orders of magnitude. Looking on the bright side, as long as he won this war, and ninety percent of the human species was still around, it would be a successful effort. Maybe not to the people who died, or their relatives, but to the species as a whole. So far he had lost just over ten billion out of over nine hundred billion humans, with an additional hundred million or so alien citizens out of their hundred billion. Looked at that way, he had not done too badly, and the Cacas had lost at least a hundred million of their own, mostly warriors or war industry workers. Numbers didn't tell the whole story, and he still tossed and turned at night, wondering if he could had issued different orders that would have left more people alive. Maybe, but his military experts thought he had, in most circumstances, made the right call.

Now he was second guessing his decision to send Beata out to the other front. Not that he doubted her ability. She had been training with her force for over six months, her vision locked on to this very offensive that was about to start moving into Caca space. At the last moment he had decided to send her to the Nation of New Earth, to take the place of the deceased commander on the spot. It had seemed like a good choice, but he hadn't counted on the stupidity of the current Klavarta commander, who had taken his fleet into a trap, and left Beata as the only thing standing between the Cacas and the industrial heartland of New Earth.

They had the damned war well in hand, he thought, recalling the conversations he had with the leaders of that front, as well as his own now deceased commander. They had been hammering the Cacas, taking territory. Maybe not in job lots. But they had been liberating Caca controlled systems, several of them with native intelligent species. Many of them with transplanted Caca slaves. They had been destroying Caca ships. And most important to the Empire, they had been keeping Caca forces that might have been fighting his too busy to be redeployed.

Then the Klavarta had picked a new commander themselves, when the one before had died in combat. Something that seemed to occur with alarming regularity on that front. The new one had thought he could defeat the surprise Caca offensive which had rolled into New Earth space, and had stuck his neck right into a trap. Now he was missing in action, and Beata was the ranking officer on that front.

Of course, missing in action didn't mean the Alpha was dead. After his horrible decisions Sean could only hope that he was. He didn't trust that admiral to lead.

“Go ahead and roll, Admiral,” he told Lenkowski. “Raise hell and attract as much attention as you can.”

That was one hope he had for the other front. If they could kill numerous Cacas and break things on this front, the enemy might have to redeploy to salvage the situation. Not the most satisfactory of circumstances, but his forces were better able to handle the pressure than the Klavarta. Or Beata.

Once we stabilize that front, I might have to bring Bednarczyk back here and let her fight alongside my other admirals, he thought. If they could stabilize that front. And if Beata survived.

“We're pushing into Caca space in our sector,” said Duke Taelis Mgonda. “So far, nothing of interest.”

“You scouts haven't picked up any Caca ships.”

“A few, your Majesty,” said the six-star admiral in charge of half his forces on the main front. “We've picked up ships on headings into small systems, ones we have on our charts as minor stars with small scale industrial operations. But nothing else.”

Sean thought that over for a moment. They had expected for the Cacas to consolidate their forces, meet the Imperial fleet in some important systems and try to hammer them.

“Does Intelligence have any idea what's going on?” asked the duke.

“They're planning something,” said Len, coming back onto the com. “Some kind of trap.”

“Intelligence hasn't picked up any kind of tech they might ambush us with,” said Sean, shaking his head. “But be careful. Make sure you scout those systems out, thoroughly, before you move your battle groups into them.”

It wouldn't be prudent to discount the chance that the Cacas might pull a surprise. That was how most unforeseen military disasters had occurred through history, when one side believed they had the situation well in hand. And had gotten bitten in the ass.

“That puts the scouts at risk,” said Len, a tone of disapproval in his voice.

“That's what they're there for, my friend,” said Taelis. His own tone indicated that he didn't like the idea any more than his old friend did. But his words said that he accepted the idea. Scouts were there to make sure the main force didn't wander into something that would kill them. Sometimes they got killed to get that intelligence. Better a battle cruiser or two, maybe a half dozen smaller ships, than a battle group with a million or more spacers aboard.

*     *     *

PLEISIA SYSTEM.

“My Lord.” said the com officer, a surprised, no panicked, expression on his face. “We have a priority com coming through, from the capital system.”

Mrastaran gave his com officer a glare, wishing that he wasn't on one of the few ships in his command that had an actual wormhole aboard. Under the old scheme, pre-wormhole, he wouldn't have had to worry about some idiot in the chain of command getting in touch with him, with new orders that would change all of his plans. For the worse.

“Great Admiral,” said the voice of an immature Ca'cadasan male, as the image of the Emperor Jresstratta V popped up in a holo. “I would like a situation report.”

Mrastaran stopped a grimace in mid stride, hoping the monarch didn't catch it. This was one leader he couldn't afford to piss off, lest he lose his head.

“We are in the middle of a battle, Supreme Lord,” said Mrastaran, forcing his expression to remain neutral as he kept his voice level. What in the hell does this little worm think he is doing?

“The other humans, the Terrans and their allies, are pushing into my Empire,” screamed the young male. “I need you to destroy the humans in that system, to take it, so you can get your ships back here to add to our defense against the Terrans.”

“If we destroy the humans in this system, Supreme Lord,” counseled the great admiral, keeping his tone calm, though he felt like screaming back at the young upstart. “And then hie back to the other side of the Empire, we will be giving them the opportunity to not only take back this system, but to push back into the Empire and cause us great harm.”

“We have something for them, once you have that system in hand,” said the young male, his visage shining with glee. “Once we have it, and their attention focused that way, we will lay a trap. Something that will destroy the fleet they send to take it back. They will not have enough to push into my Empire, and the force we leave behind will be sufficient to hold them in check until we can defeat the larger force on the other frontier.”

“What weapon?” asked Mrastaran, his hackles rising.

“You will find out when you need to know,” said the Emperor, a cryptic smile on his young face. “Rest assured, it will be something the enemy will not expect. And it will destroy everything in that system.”

In that system, thought the admiral with another shiver as the words struck home. Not just the enemy fleet. The system. He wondered if that was a slip of speech, something that the young fool said that was not what he meant. Or did he mean them, even if he didn't realize what he had said. The admiral would guess the Emperor had something that would kill everything in the system, along with the enemy ships that would be plunging in to liberate it.

All of the intelligent beings in the system, every bit of life, he thought. That was the amount of force it would take to destroy a fleet of battleships. What kind of weapon was that? Something very terrible. An abomination. But there was nothing he could say that would change the mind of the headstrong young fool.

And when he used his ultimate weapon and killed this system? When he used it against the New Terran Empire and their allies. Their rage would be terrible, and they would attack with everything they had to rid the Galaxy of a monster that could kill systems.

“Take that system, Great Admiral,” said the smirking young male, obviously already sure of eventual victory. “That is all you need to worry about. We will take care of the rest.”

The holo faded, the Emperor dismissing his senior officer on this front as if he were of no importance. Mrastaran wasn't really important to the young male. His fleet really wasn't important, except as a means to secure a system to bait a trap. And to reinforce the main front, where the primary enemy was threatening his life and his throne.

If only I could find a way to put someone with more sense on the throne, thought the great admiral, closing his eyes and lowering his head. It was a treasonous thought. One that would see him executed, and every member of his family to the tenth relation. Fortunately, the Emperor could not read his thoughts, as long as he kept them to himself. Still, it was something to think about. The humans already pushed the Ca'cadasans out of many systems, though they had shown admirable restraint in dealing with the worlds they had captured. He didn't want to see it come down to so much hate that they decided to do to his people exactly what the Ca'cadasans would have done to theirs if his people had won this war.

*     *     *

FRONTIER SPACE.

Grand Fleet Admiral Klanarat was tired of sitting in the seat in the shuttle's main compartment, worrying about what might be going on with his nation. Unfortunately, there was little room for movement on the overcrowded shuttle. Add to that the strained life support system, and there really was a very good reason for keeping activity to a minimum. The only other solution would be to start chucking people out the airlock. As much as Klanarat wanted to live, he couldn't countenance such an action. He would gain the reputation of a monster, and he would not allow that to happen.

Now food. That was another problem. They had plenty of water, as long as no one drank too much too soon and outstripped the recycling capabilities of the system. But the only food they had were the iron rations that had been placed aboard the shuttle for emergencies. Enough for everyone to get a couple of bites, and those were already gone.

“I'm afraid we aren't going to last much longer, sir,” said the Alpha who was the pilot of the shuttle, and therefore the commander of the craft, his face appearing on a viewer on the back of the seat in front of the admiral. “The life support system wasn't made to handle this many people.”

Klanarat nodded as he looked over the crowded compartment. People were crowded two to a seat, many sitting in the laps of the one below them. It was standing room only in the aisle and toward the back. The shuttle had been made to hold at most forty seated passengers, and had near a hundred crammed aboard.

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, sir,” said the lieutenant/pilot in a hushed voice. “You are the ranking officer. So I think it best to leave it up to you to select those we need to space.”

“I, I can't do that,” stammered Klanarat, the sinking feeling in his stomach becoming his entire world.

That seemed very unfair of the Universe, letting these people get off the doomed ship, only to be thrown into space. And once they were gone, what then? He and the remaining spacers would still eventually starve to death. They were several light years from the nearest star system, and the most their power supplies would allow them to get to was a tenth light speed. So twenty years or more, and they would speed through the system with no way to stop. Or they could only burn half their energy and get there in forty years, able to decel down to insert into a planet. The point was, everyone would have starved to death before they reached that system. So nothing they did would make any difference in the long run.

“We're picking up hyper resonances, sir,” said the copilot, a warrant officer, in an excited voice. “Coming toward us in hyper VII.”

“Whose?” asked Klanarat, a sinking feeling returning to his stomach. Most likely it was a Caca ship, and they didn't want one of those rescuing them. The Cacas would simply capture them, easily, then interrogate those they wanted information from. That wasn't a pleasant thought, and Klanarat, much as he would try to resist, would give in. And then everyone would go into the stew pots of the carnivorous aliens as the Cacas, known for their predilection for eating intelligent life forms, would use the Klavarta for rations.

“It matches one of our own ships, sir,” called out the copilot. “Cruiser class.”

“Are you sure?” asked the admiral, feeling his own heart rise for a moment before sinking once again. If they were mistaken, and this was a Caca ship, better to let it pass and they all starve.

“Positive, sir.”

“Then send out a graviton pulse and get them here,” said Klanarat, his voice cracking with excitement. “Right now. I want us all off of this garbage can as soon as they can get to us.”

They still had to wait for six hours for the cruiser to decelerate, change vectors, get close and translate out of hyper. The shuttle landed in the hangar, the hatch opened, and Klanarat found himself staring at an honor guard of warriors, standing at attention in the armor they wore for space combat. Holding rifles at present arms.

“Grand Fleet Admiral Klanarat,” said an Alpha in the softsuit of an officer, captain insignia on his collar. “Welcome aboard the New Saito.”

“Thank you, Captain, uh?”

“Grasinnas, sir.”

“Thank you for rescuing us from a lingering death,” said the admiral, returning the salute, then shaking the hand of the other Alpha officer. “Now, are you in touch with the fleet?”

“I, am not, sir,” said Grasinnas, looking down at the deck. “We had one of the aliens the Empire lent us, but after the battle it just went crazy. We tried to treat it, but it refused to eat, and died.”

“You didn't try to keep it alive,” growled Klanarat, glaring at the other officer. I needed that com tech to put me in touch with the high command. I have to know what is going on with the fleet.

“We tried force feeding her,” said the captain, looking down again. “But she just faded from life, no matter what we did.”

We lost too many of their siblings, thought the admiral, closing his eyes. He had been warned about that weakness. The death of a sibling of any Klassekian would cause mental trauma to the rest of the siblings. The more who died, the greater the trauma to the survivors, until, when only one or two were left, they would go into a severe catatonic breakdown. Not always, since they were individuals with their own psychological strengths and weaknesses, but often enough. And one in that state would die. They were a fragile species in that way, but their powers of communication made them a worthwhile addition to any fleet.

“Do you know where the nearest ships are that might be in contact with the rest of the fleet?” asked the admiral.

“No, sir. Every ship we have encountered so far didn't have a Klassekian aboard, or else theirs died, like ours.”

Shit. Klanarat wasn't sure what he was going to do now. He needed to get in touch with command and get the fleet organized. The Cacas might have destroyed the force he led out here, though the presence of this cruiser showed that not all of them had been killed. Plus, the captain had mentioned other ships they had contacted. He could organize another force with what remained here and what was sent from the core systems. And the Terrans, he thought. They didn't have that large a force in the territory of New Earth, but what they had was very strong in weapons, especially wormholes. If he could get them organized in time, he might be able to hit the Cacas before they got to the core worlds. Hard enough to drive them away? Possibly,

“We are picking up more people from your flagship, admiral. Mostly lifepods.”

And those would have been able to support the single life they carried for far longer than the overcrowded shuttle. Might there be some Klassekians on one or more of those pods? After all, his ship carried a good dozen of the creatures, allowing him to link with other vessels of the fleet.

“And last we heard, the enemy fleet was heading for the Pleisia system,” said the captain, the hint of a frown on his face. “And the Terran admiral was organizing the defense of that system,” he continued, some excitement in his voice. “That is where our ships will be.”

Dammit. Klanarat wanted to be the one to beat the Cacas. If Bednarczyk staged a successful defense and beat the Cacas, she would get all the glory, and he would be remembered as the admiral who had fallen into the Ca'cadasan trap and lost his fleet. He couldn't allow that to happen. He had to beat them himself, which meant he had to get back into the com net.

“I want you to find me a ship with faster than light com capability,” ordered Klanarat, spearing the younger male with an intense stare. “I need to get in touch with command, as soon as possible.”

He would be the one who would win this campaign, if he had to kill every ship under his command.

*     *     *

“Launch every warp fighter we have,” growled Great Admiral Mrastaran.

The great admiral was watching the plot as what looked like well over a thousand Imperial warp fighters headed for his fleet. That was more than the humans had initially deployed on their first attacks. Had they been reinforced through the wormhole that he knew was somewhere in the system? Or had they been holding back some wings all the time, waiting to see how many fighters he had to deploy in response.

He had just over five hundred warp fighters left. Slower than the human variety and not as well armed. His fighters might take out a couple of hundred of them before they were all destroyed. With luck. He thought it would be fortunate if they took down a hundred of the better birds. Fifty would be more likely.

Another two hundred of the enemy appeared on the plot, along with several hundred of the very high acceleration fast attack craft. And, coming in from system north, above the disc, a couple of hundred ships of various sizes, the largest the size of the Ca'cadasan supercruisers. The boost numbers underneath were impressive, but not in the same class as the six hundred ships coming up from below. Those included some ships of similar mass to the human scout capital ships, their battle cruisers. Boosting at over six hundred and seventy gravities. The Ca'cadasans weren't getting heat returns back from their grabber units yet, something that would give an indication of how much they were boosting over the capacity of their inertial compensators.

“Fire missiles at both of those attacking forces, above and below,” ordered the great admiral. Neither of those forces would be enough to cause too much harm. More of a nuisance. Of course, not a nuisance to the ships that were hit. He would be able to judge their ability to maneuver from the results of his volleys. He suspected the force coming in from below would have the greater advantage.

“We have missiles on final approach,” called out the voice of the sensor officer, on the edge of panic. “Impact in twelve seconds.”

The great admiral turned to look at the plot with a tremor running through his body. They had timed this perfectly. From the position of the missiles on the plot they wouldn't be threatening his flagship. Also, with the tactic of using scouts as command relays still in place, they weren't painting targets on their hulls.

There were twenty-two bodies of missiles on the plot, two coming from behind and up, probably from their stealth ships. Eight were coming in from the asteroid belt, possibly the moons of a gas giant. Twelve were on a vector that indicated the habitable planet. Of course, any of them could have been launched from those positions, or anywhere in space from near those points to his fleet. Thirty seconds after the first volley had hit, another would be coming in, and another.

Is that all the human admiral has? he thought. On the other front they were in battles facing hundreds of those launchers. Or course there they would have the full production of their Empire sending them to the front by the hundreds each week. Here, they only had what the small Klavarta wormhole industry could provide them, and what could be sent on the six month or longer trip through hyperspace. His intelligence had told him that a convoy was on the way with more, but it was probably more than a month out. They wouldn't get to here in time to have any impact on this battle.

The defenses fired on the missiles; a display of firepower that would make any Caca commander proud. Ten thousand counters, thousands of lasers, to track and fire on six hundred and sixty missiles. But those missiles were traveling at point nine five light, with only ten seconds warning prior to contact. Still, they were able to take out over half the missiles before they could go into their final attack maneuvers. Not all that got through could actually acquire a target. Still, over forty Ca'cadasan ships were destroyed, others damaged.

“Throw out a far cordon of scouts between us and the launch points of those weapons,” ordered Mrastaran, looking over at his com people. “Thick enough to take them under fire while they're warning us of their approach.”

Despite all the scouts he had, it was still a massive volume of space they had to cover. Knowing where the missiles were originating from, or at least the vectors they were on, meant they could put large groups of scouts in their way and still maintain the heavy cordon around the fleet close in.

“Our first volleys will be approaching their targets in approximately ten minutes, my Lord.”

Mrastaran gave a head motion of acknowledgment as he chewed his lip with his sharp teeth. This would give him vital information, unless their commander decided to simply let him hit his targets to deny him that intelligence. He couldn't see her doing that. From what he had seen the humans were not willing to do that, unlike his own people. They were soft hearted, and would do their best to prevent collateral damage to the people under their protection.

“We're picking up massive graviton emissions from around those targets, my Lord,” called out the sensor officer. “Also, many of our missiles are falling off the plot short.”

That meant lots of counters were being fired, maybe as many as his fleet could put out. A lot of his weapons were being taken out. What he couldn't see were the lasers and other weapons that were being used to take out his missiles close in. He also couldn't see the effects of his weapons, since they weren't targeting ships that were boosting. Some would be hitting, something, and causing some damage. That wouldn't become apparent until the light reached the Ca'cadasan fleet in an hour or so.

“Launch missile volleys from all ships at the locations of those wormhole launchers.”

He might not hit them, or he might get very lucky and blow some of those ships out of space. He might even hit some of their missile streams in transit. What he was sure of was he would get the attention of the human admiral. Maybe he could spark a reaction from her that would help him to figure out just where the hell she was deployed.

It was frustrating. He was a third of the way to the main target, the inhabited planet, and still had little idea about her deployments. Even sending out the most powerful pulses of active sensors, radar and lidar, there was very little chance of detecting them if they were keeping system bodies between themselves and his ships. It took minimal grabber power to maintain station, or they might have actually been set down on some of the smaller asteroids.

Since he didn't know where his main opposition lay, he really couldn't decide what to do. Decelerate to a standstill next to the planet Pleisia? Go by slowly? Or fly by in high velocity and take everything under fire on the way by. Or possibly go ahead and split up his fleet and send detachments at everything of interest in the system? Since he wasn't sure where her force was deployed, and in what strength, that was inviting defeat in detail.

He would just have to stay patient, bide his time, and make his play as the information firmed up.

*     *     *

“Their missiles are about to hit, ma'am,” said Captain Sigurd Janssen, looking over from the plot.

“I guess we'll get a chance to see how well we've defended this space,” said Beata, trying to put a smile on her face and failing.

Romulus was sitting behind far out in space, near the hyper barrier. She almost wished that she could put all of her fleet in the way of the enemy weapons, but to do so would let the enemy know exactly where the main body of her fleet was. Well, it would, if her main body had actually been near the planet. Quite a bit of her fleet was, but not even half of it.

“You take chances with this planet,” said Captain Lokar Thrandos, the Klavarta liaison officer.

“We all take chances, Captain Thrandos,” Beata replied. “We only have one chance to win this thing.”

“I think we should engage with the rest of our wormholes, ma'am,” said Janssen, while Thrandos nodded his head in agreement.

Sixteen wormholes had yet to engage. Beata had thought long and hard about how she was going to open fire with those weapons. They were all she had, along with the eleven that Mara's force carried. It was tempting to use all of them to whittle away at the enemy fleet on the way in. However, she could see no conceivable way she could have killed enough of them to keep them from closing with her force. Those sixteen weapons would open up when she was ready, along with Mara's, and she was hoping it would come as such a shock that the enemy might recoil. It probably wouldn't stop them for good, but if it bought her more time it would serve.

“Counters firing now,” called out one of the officers, while the plot filled with the hazy mass of tens of thousands of the anti-missile weapons, more tens of thousands appearing every second.

“They're just about into the laser kill zones,” said Janssen, as some of the enemy missiles, fewer than any commander would expect, made it through.

Beata had done something that no naval commander had ever done. Not in the known history of warfare. The Emperor couldn't give her any wormholes, and warships were in short supply. What he could give her were weapons. He gave her in as many of the defensive weapons as he could ship from their storage facilities with as many freighters as he could get his hands on. Since the storage facilities were filled to capacity, and there were lots of freighters available, she had gotten millions of counters and hundreds of thousands of laser sats, and she had seeded them as thick as possible around the vital facilities of the system. Fifty percent had been placed around the planet, since it was the habitat of ninety-five percent of the intelligent life in the system.

Now we find out if this works, she thought, her nerves on edge as she watched the act play out.

*     *     *

“Get to the shelters, immediately. We are under attack from space. All citizens need to get their families and themselves to the shelters.”

Captain Xferd Canara looked up at the hovering drone that was broadcasting the warning to the populace, while sirens blared in the background. There were very few civilians still out. Most had taken cover, though the shelters were filled to overflowing, and many of the natives had to hide in the inadequate cover of basements and underground transportation lines. Not that the shelters would do much good if a ship killer hit the planet. The kinetic energy itself would collapse everything on a continent. The gigaton blast would also kill most life for a thousand kilometers in every direction.

Canara looked over at the entrance to his own shelter, the command bunker for his company. Most of his staff were in it, but he thought it pretty much useless. It would protect them from artillery and maybe some light orbital kinetics, but would do nothing to save them from a ship killer.

“All citizens, stand clear of the launch field,” came a final warning.

Canara looked over at the large open field to one side of the spaceport they had been set to protect. Thousands of large box launchers sat on that kilometers wide field, angled up. Scores of boxes opened and missiles popped out, accelerating up into the sky. At the edge of the officer's vision they went into high accel, disappearing as if they had teleported away.

Another score fired, then another, until the one launch site had released several hundred weapons, leaving thousands for later use.

The warrior looked up, into the night sky, to see the bright pinpoints of warheads breaching far out. Some moved closer, until one final blast that was a small disc appeared, and the miniature battle was over. For a minute, when it resumed with the next volley coming in.

*     *     *

There were over a hundred thousand laser heads in orbit around the planet, all now aligned on the night side, facing the incoming missile storm. Thousands had been mounted on existing platforms, docks, habitats, everything that could mount a mass of weapons. Many more were on specially developed weapons platforms that carried hundreds of short-range counter missiles as well as scores of lasers. And then there were the one-use versions, similar to the mines that had hit the Cacas prior. They were stationed further out, where the fusion blasts that unleashed the lasers would not have an effect on other objects in orbit.

These were made with a different focus though. Instead of a relatively thin beam, such as burned through the hulls of the Caca warships, these were more of a wide-angle projection made to send the most energy possible into the mass of approaching missiles. Burning off grabbers, turning seeker heads into vapor, rendering precision weapons imprecise, making them wander off target.

A few pieces of missiles made it through, parts of bodies, a small section of grabbers, flying through at high relativistic speeds. They hit the atmosphere as streaks of light, impacting, even with their tiny masses raising blasts in the low kiloton range, mushroom clouds rising into the atmosphere. A few small towns were flattened, but casualties were very light, the shelters good enough to protect against this kind of bombardment.

After that volley there were three more, the final one actually sending some larger fragments into the planet. Afterwards the shuttles and small carrier ships reseeded space with more laser sats, while reloads were manhandled into the counter box launchers.  Making ready for the next volley, at that moment ten minutes out from the launching ships and accelerating at eight thousand gravities.

Chapter Fifteen#stop#

Work together. Do not purge your allies because of purity. Greg Gutfeld

“We won't have missile damage assessments for almost an hour, my Lord,” reported the chief analyst of the Ca'cadasan fleet tactical section.

Mrastaran grunted. He already knew that, and having his people tell him what he had figured out on his own was aggravating. Of course, it was their job, and there was also the fear factor. Ca'cadasan's who didn't perform their duties perfectly risk execution, which made them go overboard at times.

The great admiral was one of the senior officers who had actually supported the policies of the last Emperor.  He didn't like the fact that every subordinate in the fleet feared for their lives with their every action. They were supposed to be warriors, brave, risking their lives with courage and conviction. The last Emperor had stopped the traditional demand that his advisors only tell him what he wanted, and that failure, no matter what the warrior was facing, meant they were subject to capital punishment.

The warriors of the people had responded well to that kind of treatment, though there were commanders, tradition bound fools, who balked. Mrastaran was not one of them. However, since that progressive Emperor had died under suspicious circumstances, and the young fool of a son had taken over, tradition was once again in force, and the morale of the fleet was dropping like an asteroid caught in the gravity field of a black hole.

If I were Emperor things would change again, thought Mrastaran, dismissing the dangerous thought as soon as it came. If any knew he was thinking of a coup he would be dead. And not swiftly, oh no. His demise would be slow and painful.

“My Lord,” called out the tactical officer, glancing over at the sensor officer for a moment before looking back at the admiral. “We have ships moving toward us.”

Mrastaran looked over at the plot, which was heavily overpopulated with vector arrows and figures. He could see one attacking force at first glance. “That one.”

The take he was looking at showed a couple of hundred medium sized warships, the largest massing eight million tons, and only about fifty of those. Coming in from below them on the system ecliptic. There were also some one million ton and many more four hundred thousand tons vessels. The acceleration figures are what caught his attention. Over six hundred and fifty gravities. He would expect that of fighters or fast attack craft, but not what appeared to be small capital ships.

Something new, he thought, staring at the vector arrows that were pointed to where his fleet would be when their vectors crossed. The resonances from the ships were also something new, nothing they had ever picked up before on their sensors. New allies of the Klavarta? From the space outside their nation, or from the other side of the Ca'cadasan Empire, where the New Terrans were set up. No matter, what was important was that it was something new and unexpected. Never good when facing the humans.

“That's one of them,” said the tactical officer, pointing to another track coming in from above them on the ecliptic. From the resonances these were something the Empire had already run into, in very small numbers. Slarna, he thought they were called. Very small warships, four million tons at most, over a thousand of them heading in at five hundred and fifty gravities. So their acceleration tech was at least as advanced as that of anyone else in this war, with the exception of the newcomers coming in from below.

“And here.”

Another track, this one of Klavarta ships, the fast attack craft that had hit them before. Two thousand of them this time. Coming in from the stern at six hundred and fifty gravities. The Klavarta, or at least their Alpha line, were designed to breath in an oxygenated liquid environment that allowed them to handle more gravities than their compensators could account for. Two thousand of them. building up enough velocity to catch up with his ships, though not until a couple of hours had passed.

“And here.”

Three thousand more fast attack craft, not boosting quite as ferociously as the Klavarta ships, leading him to believe these must be crewed by humans, the Terran variety. Or Klavarta who were holding down their acceleration to fool him. The human commander was using deception like an artist painting a scene she wanted him to focus on. These ships were coming in from the front. They were coming in straight on, the perfect firing solution to use the velocity of his own ships against them. Of course, it would also allow his own shots to close with them at maximum velocity, near light speed.

“Prepare to fire on all of them. I want them blown out of space. I...”

“We're picking up warp fighters, my Lord. Five hundred from astern. Another five hundred from forward and above.”

“How many warp fighters do we have left?” asked the great admiral, knowing that he couldn't have all that many after the human variety had ravaged them in passing.

“We have seventy-three fighters battle worthy, my Lord,” said the tactical officer, his expression one of a male wanting to give his commander good news, and unable to give him such. “We can always get more from the Capital yards once we have a wormhole gate in place.”

“Which does us no good at the moment,” growled the admiral, glaring at the officer, who turned his gaze away and tried to become as small as possible in his chair. Quite the challenge for the three-meter tall being.

Mrastaran had to consider for a moment if he wanted to launch those fighters. They might take out a dozen or so enemy if they were all sent at one of the formations, but they would surely all be destroyed. Or he could hold them, hoping to use them for some other purpose. He couldn't think what that would be, but something was sure to come up, and he preferred to keep his options open.

“Hold the fighters. But make sure their crews know they are to remain near to their ships; in case I want to launch them at a moment's notice.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“We have released volleys on all of the targets except the warp fighters,” exclaimed the tactical officer, wanting to deliver something the admiral might deem positive.

“Prepare to fire on them if they get too close.”

“Yes, my Lord. And I must inform the admiral that all attacking craft have launched.”

This is just wonderful, thought the admiral. Streams of wormhole launched missiles were still coming in at intervals. Not enough to overwhelm their defenses, and now that the weapons were on permanent alert status, most of the streams were being blown out of space as soon as they were detected. Still, they were doing some little bit of damage. And about one out of every four hundred were blowing one of his ships out of space. Most often a scout, less often a cruiser. Even a battleship at times. A nuisance, a small whittling away of his combat power. Not enough to stop him, he was sure. Still, it was aggravating. And wearing on the nerves.

“And still no sign of their warships?”

“No, sir. We should have a report on our missiles strikes on the planet/moon system in another thirty-three minutes. Information coming in on the nearest targets, now.”

The tactical officer looked over the information coming up on multiple holo screens. Multiple hits on the moons of the nearest gas giants.

One of the screens zoomed in and expanded, showing the surface of a moon, with the rubble of large installations scattered over the surface. Craters were everywhere. It looked as if all the installations on that moon were destroyed. It would be better to do a close reconnaissance, but he didn't have any ships near enough to the moon to do that.

“Very good. So our missiles are getting through. I expect we are doing the same to Pleisia.” If they were lucky they would only have hit ships and orbital facilities. The missiles fired at Pleisia had been programmed to avoid the inhabited planet, but that wouldn't stop one that had been damaged but not destroyed from a hit.

“My Lord,” said the tactical officer, brow furrowed in thought. “Do you want to come to a stop at the planet, or fly past it?”

“How much longer do I have to decided?” asked the admiral, who still wasn't sure. How could he be, when he didn't know where the enemy fleet was. If there was an enemy fleet, and not just a collection of small craft and planetary defense assets.

They have to be here, he thought, growling low in his throat. They must be.

*     *     *

“We're getting a report from the moons of Hypatis,” said Captain Janssen, looking over at his admiral, who was standing in front of the plot, watching the action.

The Slarna and Gernas forces were boosting toward the enemy, releasing missiles as they went. The warp fighters were speeding at twenty lights, on headings to close with the Cacas so they could launch their warp missiles from close in. And two thousand Klavarta fast attack craft were on a heading straight into the Caca fleet. They were still twenty light minutes away, at their closing velocity thirty-eight minutes out.

The fast attack craft approaching from the front would be launching in another ten minutes. Four missiles each, eight thousand weapons. That was not the most important part of their mission. Each FAS was also towing a twenty thousand ton container attached by cables to their sterns. Sixty million tons of cargo, consisting of twelve thousand of the laser mines developed by the Klavarta.

“Our fast attack craft are releasing their mines, now, ma'am.”

And those weapons would drift straight into the front of the Caca formation. It was the definition of a bloody nose.

“What about the moons? What kind of damage did they sustain?”

“Very little, ma'am,” said Janssen, smiling. “Our defenses held. The industrial facilities are still up and running, turning out fusion warheads for the campaign. And the holo-projectors are up and showing the Cacas what we want them to see.”

Beata smiled in return. She needed those facilities, at least in the short term. She also wanted to protect the ten million or so people who lived and worked out there. If the Cacas found out that they hadn't hit anything of importance they would just keep sending missiles at the moons until they broke through the defenses. Large holo projectors had been placed in orbit to show the Cacas what they wanted to see across a half light hour of distance. That wouldn't have worked if they had sent ships to check it out, but she had depended on their commander to not risk them when he had no idea where her fleet was.

“We're about to begin our stairstep into the system, Admiral,” reported Mara Montgomery over the wormhole com.

“Any sign of the Cacas coming after you?”

Montgomery's force was coming in above the plain of the ecliptic. The Cacas outside of the system were not in a position to stop her, though they might be able to come in after her. That would be inconvenient, if not a disaster, since she would be able to get off some full accelerator launches at the Cacas in the system before she had to turn her weapons on the enemy coming in behind her.

“We're estimating that they will come in behind us just over two hours after we enter normal space,” said Mara. “That's a worst-case scenario, and they haven't started to move yet.”

“Make sure you're well into the system before they get here,” ordered Beata. “When you engage those ships, I'll vector warp fighters in to support you.”

“Sure you can spare them?”

“Whether I can or not, I want that Caca force destroyed,” said Beata with a feral smile. “I want you to be free to maneuver out there, without having to look over your shoulder.”

“We'll be in normal space in four and a half hours,” said Mara, looking off holo and nodding. “My navigator reminded me that it will be exactly four hours, twenty-eight minutes,” she continued with a smile.

Beata laughed. Some officers, particular navigators and engineers, were sticklers for detail. The tactically minded were more likely to fudge it. “I have to go, Admiral Montgomery. My chief of staff is about to have a fit to gain my attention.”

“See you in a bit,” replied Mara, nodding.

“What was it that couldn't wait?” Bednarczyk asked Janssen, turning a cold stare on the man.

How she wished this nerve-wracking experience would end. While sitting in the rear, thinking her career over, she had wished for the thrill of battle. A situation where she could use her brains and courage to win a fight for her Empire, while garnering the glory a victorious commander was entitled to. To have her portrait hung at the Academy on Peal Island. Possibly a statue in some square of Capitulum. She had jumped at the chance to command against the Machines, even while the very thought of facing those things terrified her. Well, she had her chance, and now had new thoughts about the situation.

The dreams were the worst. Every night she watched as her ships died, thousands of men and women going to their deaths at her command. And here she was, in another battle, watching as an insurmountable force pushed into a system she was defending. The only difference was that these attackers would not go out of their way to slaughter the entire population of the system. Her and her people, yes. And they still might kill a considerable percent of the system population. More death. Glory was no longer in the forefront of her mind. The only thing important to her was to get this war over with. She realized she was good enough to lead a major command, and that it would be cowardly to not put herself into this kind of situation for the good of her people. But she definitely didn't have to like it.

“We have more ships coming through the gate, ma'am.”

That was important. Maybe it could have waited. After all, they wouldn't be used for some time. But anything that might lift her spirits, even a little bit, was worth paying attention to.

She watched the take as the first ship came through. A Klavarta battleship, transiting the large ring of the gate, the brilliant field of stars forming a backdrop. All ships out here were running slowly and without lights, stealthed down as much as possible. Using crystalline batteries, their MAM reactors cold. The ones coming through were barely pushing their grabbers, less than a gee, without running lights.

A second ship came through, then another, followed by another, one every minute.

“Ships are transiting the gate near the planet as well, ma'am.”

“Show me.”

The view on the holo switched to the gate sitting over the day side of Pleisia, away from the prying eyes of the Cacas. A smaller force was in the background, mostly consisting of destroyers and light cruisers, as well as some of the new missile equipped freighters that had been Sean's idea for planetary defense.

A destroyer came through, the newest production line of the Imperial Shipyards at Central Docks. A three hundred and twenty thousand ton ship, larger than any previous destroyer and almost in the same tonnage range as a Caca scout, the ship had been optimized for missile defense. It carried the standard four laser rings, though these had been ramped up with additional emitter units. They had no offensive missile tubes. Their purpose was not to strike at enemy fleets, but to protect the ships that did. Each had eighty counter tubes, fifty missiles in each loading queue, for a total of four thousand counters, a load of eighty thousand tons.

The ships also came through slowly, though running lights and reactor heat was not a problem where they were. One ship every thirty seconds, for a full thirty-one minutes, until a full sixty-two destroyers had come through. Not an overwhelming force, but hopefully enough to shore up the defense of the planet in a significant way.

Meanwhile, the Klavarta battleships kept coming through, until thirty-five had transited. They were smallish ships, only ten million tons, but they were still effective missile launching platforms. The crews were green, but they had enough training to man the systems and cycle missiles. That was all they would need to do in this fight. If the enemy came after them they would be heading back through the wormholes as fast as they could transit.

“Colliers coming through,” said Janssen, pulling up the take on the nearer gate.

The other colliers had already gone back, empty of their cargo. Each ship in the fleet had containers of offensive and counter missiles attached to their hulls. Loading mechs filled the hangar decks, while every fighter that had been carried was now in space. If Beata couldn't have more ships, more launch tubes, she would make sure she still had as many weapons as she could throw.

She looked back at the plot, showing the Caca fleet still forging in toward the planet. Beata was sure she knew what was going through the Caca admiral's mind. They thought she had to have her ships near the planet, probably hiding on the day side. He was partially correct.

“All of the wormhole equipped ships not out here are still firing?”

“Yes, ma'am. As fast they can cycle them.”

Thirty launch tubes on the other side of the wormhole gate, arranged in supercells, where the one wormhole could be moved quickly from one to the other. If thirty seconds could be called quickly. Twenty seconds to move the end of the hole, ten to make sure everything was lined up perfectly, and then the thirty preaccelerated missiles were launched. All of the twenty-two ships already firing were releasing the standard one hundred ton capital ship missile at point nine five light. They would burn through all thirty launch tubes in fifteen minutes, then wait fifteen minutes for the first tube to bring their missiles up to speed to start the process over again. At least that was how they would start out the process.

“Order all of our ships to fire their wormhole launchers. Estimated position of enemy fleet on arrival.”

The flagship shook moments later, a slight instantaneous tremor as the twenty-eight million ton ship released its first stream of missiles. Thirty objects came out of the tube as point nine five light. Ten seconds into launch the grabber units flared for an instant, pushing the two weapons in each package apart, then stabilizing their courses. At this distance, as less than a tenth of a gee, they were imperceptible to the Cacas. And where thirty of the one hundred ton objects had been, there were now sixty of the fifty ton missiles. They would pack nearly the same amount of kinetic impact, but half of a devastating hit was still devastating. And twice as many missiles doubled the chances of hits.

Thank you, you damned murder machines, thought Beata. It was an idea the Machines had used on that front, something they had picked up from another alien species they had exterminated. A search of their memory banks, in the few AIs sent back to Chan's facility had told the story of how a less advanced alien species had fought back against them with masses of low acceleration weapons that broke through even high-tech defenses. They were not going to the main front yet. Sean preferred to keep using weapons he was sure of. But he had allowed her to use them as a test bed.

Sixteen launchers cycled through sixty weapons each, nine hundred and sixty missiles flying silently through the night without a trace. At the end of the fifteen seconds there were twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred weapons on the way. Not enough to annihilate the Caca fleet, which would still put up a very effective counter fire against them. Hopefully enough to sting them badly. And fifteen minutes after the launch the second one would start in. And then the next. They would soon be able to find her force by the vectors of the missiles. She was hoping they would then fire back, in force.

*     *     *

“Enemy missiles will impact in twenty minutes, sir,” said the Slarna captain of the flagship Gift of the Leader.

Slarna Admiral Connandra stared at the plot in the center of the bridge, shivers of terror running up his nerve cords.

I am a Slarna warrior, he thought, taking some calming breaths. I am a Slarna warrior, I will not fear. He knew that last was shit. Of course he was afraid. What rational being would not fear going into battle against the monster ships of the Cacas in what amounted to an oversized cruiser.

The Slarna had never been menaced by the Cacas. In fact, they hadn't had any contact with the Klavarta before the New Terran admiral, Sung, had sailed into their space. The admiral had been sure that his leaders would have turned down the offer of an alliance with a people they knew to be xenophobes, against a threat that was still far away. The word of their region's ancients, the highly advanced beings who felt themselves above the struggles of lesser races, had carried the day, and so the Slarna had sent a considerable portion of their battle fleet to the aid of the Klavarta.

And now they had found out that the fleet they had taken so much pride in was nothing but a joke in this kind of war. They were fine in missile combat, especially when equipped with the long ranged fast accelerating technology of the humans. The humans had actually manufactured seventy-ton versions of their own weapons that would fit the launch tubes of the Slarna. Enough to fill the magazines of every Slarna ship many times over, while their alien allies got their own production up.

No, they were good enough missile platforms. In close in combat they had proven to be death traps. Slarna tactics called for sending in a missile swarm and closing to laser range. It worked well in their own small-scale wars. The small mass of their so called capital ships made for a distinct disadvantage in close in combat against the monsters the Cacas deployed.

Connandra couldn't stop himself from being afraid. Still, he could do his duty and follow the orders of the humans put over him.

“Begin cycling missiles at the enemy.”

“How many volleys?”

“All of them.”

“Then we turn away?” asked the captain, a worried expression on his face.

“No. Then we continue in until the other forces finish their attacks. We will not be the first to turn around and run.”

“Enemy missile impact in fifteen minutes,” called out the sensor officer.

“Prepare all missile defenses to fire,” called out Connandra, willing himself to stay calm in the face of the missile storm. “And as soon as the last offensive weapon has been fired, I want us on an evasive track, to here.” The admiral pointed at an object on the plot. “We will make it back there and we will rearm.”

The admiral still wasn't sure why they had come out here into this attack, when most of the other ships were still in firing positions. His force had been a decoy, a distraction, and that was something the proud Slarna really couldn't countenance. But as long as his own leaders told him he had to obey the Klavarta and whoever they put in charge, he would do so, at least for now. When this battle was over, if any of his people survived, he intended to take them all back to their own space, and let the humans handle this war by themselves. If his own civilian leadership didn't like that, they could find someone else to command the fleet.

*     *     *

“Order all launchers near the planet and in the outer system to fire,” ordered Beata.

The graviton emissions from the enemy fleet had shifted. They were no longer accelerating toward Pleisia, but had yet to reach the point where they would need to decel into orbit. She wasn't sure what was going through the mind of the Caca commander, but she needed to do something to goad the bull. Something to make him think she was in those positions. Make his main fleet continue on into her target basket. If he separated some ships out to go after the asteroid and gas giant positions, so much the better. Since none of her missiles would be coming directly from anything she wanted to protect, she was hoping he would fire his missiles at the soon to be empty places the weapons came from.

“Missiles from all attacking forces are hitting the enemy,” called out the tactical officer, looking back at the admiral.

“Missile launch from near Pleisia,” called out another officer.

There were over two hundred thousand launchers either sitting on the surface of the moon in orbit around the planet, or in a far path actually outside the moon's orbit. They were launching eight thousand at a time, the orbiting box launchers pushing the missiles out as they resisted the acceleration with small fusion drives. The boxes on the moon didn't need anything to resist the recoil, as the body they were braced against was enough. Beata could have ordered all the missiles released at once, but she wanted it to look like a fleet was launching, and firing all of them at once, with nothing following, wouldn't do that.

“Missiles launching from asteroids and gas giant moons.”

Those weapons appeared on the plot, accelerating at ten thousand gravities, the normal rate for a long-distance launch that would see them accelerating for many hours.

Beata stood back and looked at the waves of missiles heading out from the launch points. Seeing how they layered out, she thought they were a good approximation of what a launch from a small fleet of ships would look like.

“We're estimating that our attacking force launches took out approximately fifty of the Caca ships.” The tactical officer stared at his board for a moment, then turned suddenly. “The Cacas just launched massive missile waves at all of our launch points.”

So they wasted several million missiles, thought Beata with a smile. Those were fewer missiles they could fire at her real ships. Though if things went as planned, that really wouldn't matter. What did matter was that the surviving Caca ships would have fewer missiles in their magazines when the next act of the battle came.

“And they'll be entering the range of the mines to their front in thirty-eight seconds,” continued the tactical officer, a wide smile stretching his face.

That brought another answering smile to the face of the admiral. That would be another pin prick, but enough tiny wounds could bring about death just as readily as one mortal wound.

*     *     *

“Volley away,” called out the tactical officer.

The plot filled with the icons of missiles, so many of them that it was impossible to distinguish individual weapons without zooming in on small parts of the swarm. They were flying out at a dozen different targets, forty percent toward the launch point nearest Pleisia. Every ship in the fleet had launched a volley, missiles moving out through the fleet and then settling into their courses. The mass of them looked overwhelming, and the tactical officer looked back expectantly to see if his admiral would order another.

“Not yet,” said Mrastaran, giving a head motion of negation.

He only had the missiles that had been in his magazines on entering the system. If he could stop the fleet he could deploy a gate and launch missiles through it, once he set up a launching force back in the home system. He could bring missiles through to resupply, but only through the nine ships that had the portals. Then they would have to move them to other ships, not the easiest of procedures with vessels boosting at over five hundred gravities, an acceleration the transfer shuttles couldn't match.

It looked like he had pinpointed where their fleet was, but without the graviton traces of ships boosting he couldn't be sure. He wasn't sure why they were trying to hide their fleet after launches that could only come from large forces of ships. Or could they be coming from something else, and they were still hiding their ships in other locations? With tricky humans you could never be sure.

“Tactical Officer. What would you think of the proposal that the humans don't actually have a fleet in this system?”

“Why?” asked the tactical officer, a confused expression on his face. “We are looking at massive launches. I would equate that with ships.”

Of course you would, thought Mrastaran, realizing that most of his officers were not sharp enough to think of options other than what they saw with their own eyes. The admiral was confused himself. Things weren't adding up.

Just like that long-ago human admiral thought. Show them what they expect to see, while maneuvering behind the lines to set up something they don't expect. It was a strategy he had used against the Klavarta, so why wouldn't a human admiral from their empire also take that sage advice.

“We have ships in the front of the formation reporting laser strikes,” called out the com officer, his voice rising in panic. “We've lost ships. Damage reports coming in from many others.”

“How?” asked the tactical officer, confusion again dwelling on his face.

“Their mines,” shouted Mrastaran, storming over to the tactical station, immediately sure he was correct. “They deployed their mines ahead of us.” He looked around, seeing more confusion among his bridge crew. “How in the hells did they get them out there? We adjusted our vector on the way in.”

“Those fast attack craft,” said the tactical officer, the confusion leaving his face, though the shock of being punched remained. “They dropped them in their wake, and they floated into us with our combined closing speed.”

“How fast are those fast attack craft boosting at now?” asked the admiral, finding that group on the plot. After they had released their missiles they had boosted along another vector, still at six hundred gravities, the same as expected from Terran craft.

“Six hundred and fifty gravities, my Lord.”

Mrastaran cursed under his breath. If the commander was the human female, as he supposed, she had been playing him like a fool. Showing him what he expected to see, and using his reactions against him. I want her heart on a platter, he thought, clenching all four fists. He knew that was unlikely to happen. In a battle he would either destroy her ships, or she his. There would be no heart remaining to serve up to the victor.

Chapter Sixteen

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. Laurence J. Peter

Somehow the First Raptor had survived the battle, wormhole intact. The Klavarta battleship, ten million tons and armed with a wormhole launcher, also had a com link through the New Terran Empire Donut back to the New Earth capital. It also had escorts, two more battleships and thirty-one lesser vessels. Not a fleet, but the start of one.

“Get us to that ship, Captain Grasinnas,” ordered Klanarat, looking at the commander of the Klavarta cruiser New Saito.

“It's going to take more than twelve hours to close and match velocities with them,” said Grasinnas, looking away from the cold stare the admiral was giving him.

“Very well,” growled Admiral Klanarat through gritted teeth. There was nothing he could do about the laws of physics. “Have your com officer send a grav pulse to them. They are to tell command and the president that I am still alive, and will be ready to take charge of the fleet as soon as I am aboard First Raptor. And I want all the ships to send out pulses to attract every ship in the area.”

“It will take a couple of minutes to put all of that in motion, sir,” said the apologetic captain.

“Then get on it,” replied Klanarat in an aggravated tone.

Klanarat turned away and walked back to the plot, slightly ashamed at the way he had acted. He was soon satisfied to see that the battleships were already starting to change their vectors.

“The captain of First Raptor is stating his concern that we will attract the Cacas to our position,” stated the com officer.

“We are not here to cower and hide,” hissed Klanarat, stomping over to the com station, shame giving way to anger. “Tell that fool that I will sack him from his command if he doesn't follow my orders to the letter. He is to help me gather a fleet, or his successor will.”

It took almost a minute before the holos over the com station started to display the sine waves of graviton pulses. Every ship in the force was pulsing a come here signal. Within seconds return signals appeared. There were a lot ships out there, hiding, unwilling to give themselves away until they were sure friendlies were near.

There was a very real risk that the Cacas in the area. If there were any such beasts, would home in on the signals and come after them. The main Caca fleet was several hundred light years away, and whatever patrols they might have in the area would become less of a threat the larger his own force grew.

“Any message from the Raptor?” asked Klanarat, staring at the com officer, wanting some word from the capital.

“No, sir,” said the com officer, flinching under the stare of the admiral. “Nothing except the contact request pulses.”

Crap, thought Klanarat, grimacing. He had hoped that the president would have sent him an acknowledgment, letting him know what was going on, putting him back in touch with the fleet. Giving him at least a word of congratulations for surviving. But nothing? What did that mean?

I have to get in touch with the president, thought the worried supreme fleet commander. With command I could regain control of the entire fleet. I could still win this thing. That was his hope. Otherwise, he would be looking at an ignominious retirement, if his people even survived.

“We're getting replies from one hundred and forty-two ships, Admiral,” said the smiling com officer, happy to give his commander some good news. The smile left his face as he looked up at the admiral, whose expression showed he was not impressed.

*     *     *

“We're picking up more missiles, coming in very hot,” called out the tactical officer. “Impact in nine seconds.”

“Where in the hell are they coming from?” gasped Mrastaran, looking at the plot. The missiles in question were now on that plot, coming in from above the plain of the ecliptic. Almost a thousand of them. The vector arrows pointed right into the center of his force, but the mass readings of each individual missile was smaller than normal.

“From this general direction, Lord,” chimed in his chief of staff, looking up from a screen at the station he was occupying. “We can't tell from how far out, but definitely from up there.”

Mrastaran stared at the region in question. Not near to any object in the system, unless they were far enough out that they were near the Oort cloud ice balls. There had to be at least twenty wormholes out there. But how far out was there? If they were still within the barrier, he couldn't let them just fire on him without a return. That was bad for morale. But if they were outside the barrier he would be wasting missiles for no return.

“We have the force we've been tracking through hyper coming into normal space, my Lord,” called out another officer.  “Several thousand ships. The largest about a hundred of the Klavarta battleships.”

That didn't sound like all that powerful a force, but if they had wormholes, they could still help to pound him from the distance. Adding to the pinpricks of the fleet already in the system. And he still didn't know how powerful that main fleet was, if there even was one. It might just be a score of ships with wormholes, while the rest of the Terran ships were still out there forming up a larger fleet to hammer him after he took this system.

“I want scout forces sent out to all of the gas giant moon systems and the larger asteroids. Now.”

“At once, my Lord.” replied the chief of staff, rendering a pair of fists to the chest in salute.

Too much was going on, he was blind to most of the enemy dispositions, and he needed to know what was out in the system. If there weren't any enemy ships hanging out in the system he would have to rethink his strategy. It might not be worth going after the ships hanging out on the edges of the system if there weren't enough to be a real threat. He might consider calling in more ships to form into battle groups outside and have them come in on both those forces. In fact.

“Get me the commander of the outer force,” he ordered. They had a wormhole aboard, giving him the ability to talk with them in real time.

“Great Admiral Mrastaran,” answered Great Admiral Tonnasar, the male Mrastaran had left in command of all Ca'cadasan forces outside of the Pleisia system. He still didn't trust that male, and giving him a command outside of his thrust had seemed the best choice. The male had a fairly large command, as independent as Mrastaran could make it, and the supreme commander didn't have to worry about the other admiral screwing up his maneuvers on his immediate flank. Now he just had to worry about the idiot screwing up the maneuver he was about to order.

“How soon before you come into the system?” asked Mrastaran, staring into the face of the other male. “And are you still coming in after the human fleet that just entered the system.”

“We are just about to hit the VI barrier, Admiral,” said the other male in a growling voice on the edge of insubordination. “And yes, we are getting ready to follow the human scout force in. Do you have contradictory orders?”

“I want you to split your force,” said Mrastaran, wondering if this was a good decision, and realizing that it was the only choice he had if he wanted a look at the human wormhole launch area above the system. “Send a third of your force around the system and come in here.” The great admiral sent the map of the system and the vector to his subordinate admiral.

“That's taking a lot of my firepower away,” complained the other admiral, his eyes widening.

“I know,” said Mrastaran, feeling some compassion for the officer he had taken theater command from. “I also know I need to discover what is out there. So, you will split off a third of your force, jump them into the system, and start a search. The rest of your force will continue in and strike at the force you are following.”

“I obey,” said Tonnasar, giving the Ca'cadasan salute of two lower arms over his chest. The com died, the subordinate eschewing protocol and terminating the communication himself.

Of course you do, thought Mrastaran, feeling his face flush with anger. To not obey was to risk execution, and Tonnasar hadn't impressed the fleet commander as a male that would risk his life in disobedience. Not a true risk taker, since he had not challenged the great admiral when he had showed up to take command. And that suited Mrastaran fine.

*     *     *

“We're firing now,” reported Mara Montgomery over the com.

Her eleven wormholes were also firing the new missiles, sixty per launcher, six hundred and sixty per launch. The target was only a little over three and a half light hours away, just three point six eight hours travel time. The enemy of course knew where her ships were at, since she had just exited hyper, sending out a huge signal with information about the size of her command and their exact location.

She had also launched the sixty warp fighters her ships had carried, an extra present for the Cacas, that were sitting dead in space waiting for the ships she could see coming into stairstep approach for her. Also released were just over a hundred large cargo shuttles that had been piggybacked on her larger ships. Two hundred thousand tons each, made to carry supplies and equipment within a system, they immediately started seeding the area right on the barrier with mines, tens of thousands of them, mostly the new laser emitting type. The Cacas would find quite a number of surprises when they came into the system, none of them pleasant.

“We have launches from the enemy fleet, ma'am,” called out the force tactical officer. “It looks like several hundred thousand missiles heading toward us at ten thousand gravities.”

The Cacas had obviously improved their missile technology as well, getting them up to the same acceleration as New Terran missiles. That would get them to the human ships a little faster.

“ETA, fourteen hours.”

“So, we have time for a couple of meal breaks and a nice sleep before they get here,” said Mara, turning a smile toward the holo and her superior officer. She wasn't about to worry over weapons that wouldn't be there for over a half a day.

“Gives you time to cycle quite a few missiles their way,” agreed Beata with a nod. “But I think you might want to stay close to the barrier. Just in case you need to escape. Are you ready for the other visitors coming through?”

“I am,” announced Mara. “And it looks like quite a few of them have vectored off and will be coming around to your side.”

“We see them,” said Beata, a feral grin twisting her lips. “We outnumber that force, outmass them. I don't think they're going to be a problem.” Of course the Cacas had no way of knowing what she had with her.

Mara thought her commander right. The Cacas didn't know what they faced. Only a number of wormhole launchers, attached to a force of unknown size. That unknown number would surely be larger than they expected. Unfortunately, they knew exactly how many ships Mara had, but they didn't know the tricks she had up her sleeve.

“They already know where you are, Mara,” said Beata after a moment's more thought. “They know, generally, how many ships you have. No use hiding it now. Go ahead and give them all the standard missiles you can, before you have to shift fire.”

“Yes, ma'am,” replied Mara, a wide smile cracking her face. “Gladly.” She always enjoyed orders to kick the enemy in the teeth.

*     *     *

Beata had to admit that Mara was quick on the trigger. No sooner had the word gladly left her mouth than the images of her ships on the plot was totally obscured by the icons of missiles. She had over ten thousand ships, though most were light units. She still had her own seventy-two battle cruisers, a couple of battleships, and over sixteen hundred of the Klavarta small battle wagons. The battle cruisers and the Klavarta battleships all had about the same number of launchers. Forty-five to fifty. Capable of putting out a volley of over seventy-five thousand missiles. The smaller ships added another hundred thousand or so.

Beata could see them in her mind's eye. Ten thousand ships spinning in place, turning all of their launch tubes in turn. Sending just under two hundred thousand missiles out with each volley. The Cacas would be picking them up from their graviton emissions. It would take over fourteen hours for those missiles to get to them, but they would know they were coming. And they were too deep in the system to get away from most of them. They could shift vectors, try to get away, but the missiles would pick up their graviton emissions and seek, eventually catching them.

It looked like an overwhelming mass, though Beata knew against a fleet that size it was anything but. They would start cycling counters at maximum range, and if ten thousand got within laser range and lined up for the attack, she would be very fortunate. If they got a hundred hits it would be a miracle, but she would take every hit she could get. And eventually they would run out of counters, and only their lasers and close in projectile weapons would be available for defense. Then she would start getting more kills. She still didn't think she could destroy the Caca fleet. She couldn't get that lucky. But if she could take out a third of it without losing any of her force, she was betting she could win the next battle.

*     *     *

Great Admiral Mastaran stared at the plot that showed the massive barrage coming in from the force from south of the plain of the ecliptic. It was about what he expected, though it was still something to run chills up his spines.

It's less than three missiles for each of my ships, he thought, trying to calm himself. And they won't be here for fourteen hours.

Of course his fleet wouldn't be at this exact point by that time, but they would follow him. There was nowhere he could go they wouldn't follow him. Not even out of the system. It would take seven more hours to decel down to a stop, then twenty-eight hours to get back out to the barrier. If he kept accelerating and changed vectors, kept on, he might shave a couple of hours off of that. But no more.

Less than three missiles for each of my ships, he thought again, as the next wave came out from the southern force.  Of course their wormhole launches would arrive in less than two hours. No telling how many were there, but surely not that many.

“Do you want us to return fire, my Lord?” asked the tactical officer.

Mrastaran continued to stare at the plot, unsure what to do. Anything he fired at them would just be a waste of missiles. They were too close to the barrier, and could run out and duck into hyper. Besides, Tonnasar's force would be on them in less than an hour.

“My Lord?” asked the chief of staff, exasperation in his tone. “Do you want us to return fire?”

That would be the Ca'cadasan way of doing things, wouldn't it? Even if it did nothing. Well, he had the missiles to waste, at least one volley, and it would hurt morale to do nothing.

“All ships are to fire one volley at that human force. But one volley only.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Moments later over a million missiles were on their way. They were boosting in the general direction of the enemy force, while at the same time side boosting to get rid of their vector toward the planet.

“We have more launches from the vicinity of the planet, my Lord.” The tactical officer was silent for a moment, ignoring the unspoken question from his admiral. “And more from the gas giant moons and asteroid clusters.”

“And our earlier volley hasn't reached them yet?”

“No, my Lord. Still twenty-eight minutes away from the first impacts.”

*     *     *

“That was our last volley, ma'am,” called out the force tactical officer.

Really more of a fleet, thought Mara Montgomery. Her force had more ships than Bednarczyk's, if not as much mass. She watched as the one hundred and eighty thousand missiles of that last volley moved out. She had fired six of them. A million missiles. Against a smaller fleet that would be a hammer blow. Against the Cacas, it would amount to a couple of slashes with a knife.

“Turn the fleet and prepare for our visitors,” she ordered. The plot was showing the enemy force in hyper II, just about to the I barrier. That put them less forty minutes from normal space if they came out right at the barrier. Of course, there was no guarantee they would come out right at the barrier. That was a Caca tradition, but after all the times they had been ambushed the smarter ones might come in from further out. Still, they had to feel they had a comfortable margin of firepower superiority.  They might want to close with her as soon as possible, and that meant coming in at the barrier.

“Time on target for the wormhole launches. I want them at the barrier ten seconds after they translate.”

“What if they don't come out where we expect, ma'am?”

“The missiles will still be on track to hit them further out,” said Mara, smiling. “And I don't think they will be any more ready for them there.”

It would be better if they came out at the barrier, where the mines could engage them first. If not, she would be sending in the reserve warp fighters sitting on the thirty-one Klavarta small carriers.

“Go ahead and get the warp fighters off their carriers. But they aren't to engage their drives until I order it.”

She didn't think the Cacas coming in would be able to pick up their warp resonances while they were still in hyper. But the ones in the system could pick them up, and she suspected that they had a wormhole com in both forces. She wanted the Cacas to have no idea that she had those weapon platforms in her inventory until it was too late.

“Prepare our defense,” she ordered. They needed everything they had in the way of the fire on the enemy, while leaving open the lanes for the wormhole launches. Mara hated putting these other ships in the firing line, but she needed to protect her wormhole ships. And, truth be told, she needed to defend the best military mind in her force, herself.

“They haven't jumped into normal space yet, ma'am,” called out the tactical officer. “I think they're going for the barrier.”

We can only hope.

Her ships were sitting two light minutes from the barrier themselves. Just a bit over two minutes travel time for the wormhole missiles.

“Four minutes from the barrier.”

Mara started feeling the butterflies in her stomach that always came before trading fire with an enemy. No matter how well she planned, how the battlefield was set, her life could be ending in the next couple of minutes. Even if she survived some of the people under her were about to die. They might be people she had known for years. They might be Klavarta she didn't know at all. It wouldn't matter. They were under her command, and they would live or die according to her orders. It was a terrible responsibility, but it was what she signed up for.

“Two minutes.”

“Fire wormhole missiles in one minute, forty-five seconds,” she ordered, looking away from the plot for a moment.

It was looking like the enemy was going to come out exactly where she wanted. She wanted to launch all of her missiles at them, including those from her ships' internal launchers. Unfortunately, the enemy fleet in the system would see their launch, then the incoming force would know of it. It might not do them any good, but any warning might cause their commander to jump earlier.

“Firing, now,” called out the tactical officer.

The flagship shook slightly as it sent its first volley of wormhole launched missiles toward the jump point. Before they got there two more volleys had been fired, and the next was only seconds away.

The timing wasn't perfect, but it was close enough. The enemy force erupted from hyper over a period of seven seconds, spread into a line so that every ship could bring its weapons to bear. Moving out of their dimensional portals at point three light, straight for the force they had come to destroy.

And right into the laser mines that had been sown in their path. A hundred thousand fusion explosions sparked a hundred thousand powerful gamma ray bursts. None were powerful enough to destroy a warship on their own. Where they hit they punched through electromagnetic fields and armor like it didn't exist. Crew died, machinery turned to vapor, and hundreds of ships sustained critical damage. Over a hundred converted into plasma as their antimatter stores breached. The entire attack lasted less than a second, but sowed confusion among the still nauseated Cacas.

Eleven seconds later, before they could recover, the first volley of wormhole launched weapons were upon them. Six hundred and sixty of the fifty ton weapons, coming in against almost nothing in the way of defensive fire.

“All ships are to fire,” shouted Mara, knowing that her words were being heard on the bridge of every ship in her force.

Every ship in her force started the spin that would bring all their tubes to bear, spitting out offensive missiles, moving out at the fifteen thousand gravities they used for short range attacks. They wouldn't gain much velocity before they engaged, though the point three light closing speed that was added by the velocity of the Cacas helped. At the same time their counter tubes were launching, putting out a wave in anticipation of what they knew was coming.

The second volley of wormhole launched missiles fared much the same as the first, meeting little counter fire. The third was not as fortunate. The Cacas might have been confused, but once they got over their translation nausea there was no doubting their courage or their resolve. Ships started spitting out counter missiles, followed seconds later by their first massive launch of offensive weapons.

“We have missile launch from the enemy force, ma'am,” called out her tactical officer, no longer smiling. “Estimating three hundred thousand weapons in flight.”

Mara's eyes went wide. She should have expected that weight of attack, but for some reason she hadn't grasped it. That was sixty percent more than she was putting out, despite having hammered the enemy force.

“All warp fighters are to engage,” she ordered. “Fire our missile packs.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Many of her ships were carrying packs of offensive missiles, the one hundred ton variety. Not all of her vessels. Most of the Klavarta ships were without them. But enough to put another six hundred thousand missiles in space in one additional massive volley. Not carrying the initial velocity of the tube launched variety. But enough to add weight to her numbers.

“We have seventy enemy ships destroyed by the last volley,” shouted out the tactical officer, his voice rising in excitement. “Enemy will be in beam weapon range in one minute.”

Seventy ships from six hundred and sixty wormhole launched weapons was a good return. There were bound to be more ships damaged as well. That was good news. The bad news would come when they started trading lasers and particle beams with the enemy fleet. The Caca battleships were three times the mass of her battle cruisers, and she only had the three battleships of her own. The Klavarta battleships had sufficient mass to take some hits, though not that many, and lasers as powerful as her battle cruisers. Still it could be a close thing.

“Get off two more volleys of wormhole missiles, then get us some particle accelerators on the line.”

*     *     *

“Admiral Montgomery is engaging the enemy force, ma'am,” called out the com officer.

Beata nodded as she zoomed the plot in on the battle her favorite subordinate was waging. The plot was filled with the graviton traces of missiles, outgoing and incoming. It looked like Mara was about to get her mass launch in first, which would do nothing to stop the Caca missiles already in space. She held down the desire to contact Mara. The woman had other things on her mind at the moment, and didn't need any more distractions. Besides, what orders could Beata give that Mara hadn't already thought of.

“How is the strike they're launching against us coming?”

“They just translated down into IV and should be hitting normal space in one hour, twenty minutes.”

If they come in at the barrier, thought Beata. After what their fellows had run into they might just come out further from the I barrier. Possibly before the II barrier.

“How are we set for missiles?” she asked, looking over at her chief of staff.

“We're firing the first of the next queue toward the enemy.”

“Make sure we have a full queue ready for our outside visitors,” said Beata, turning back to look at the plot, hoping that Mara would come through this okay. By all her and Mara's calculations they should win. But battles weren't won on calculations or simulations, and so many things could change the course of the event. Just ask Admiral Horatio Nelson. He had won his big battle, but hadn't lived to enjoy his victory. While she was willing to give her life for the cause, she preferred being able to celebrate the victory afterwards.

Beata looked over at a holo coming through from her own area. Cargo shuttles were delivering their own loads of mines, though not right at the barrier. The admiral was sure the Cacas wouldn't fall for that one again. No, they would be coming out well before the barrier, and she would have no way of knowing exactly where. They might even emerge slightly above or below where she expected. Still, she had the mines, and any that didn't contact the enemy could be recovered for future use. So she was establishing four different minefields, sure that the Cacas would come in contact with at least one. They would be in normal space for some minutes, shooting at her fleet, but as they closed they would get hammered by a hundred thousand mines. And this force, only half the size of the one facing Mara, would find itself in combat with a much larger fleet of human ships.

*      *      *

“We are engaged with the enemy fleet, Admiral,” reported Admiral Tonnasar over the wormhole com. “They are hammering us. First with those damned mines of theirs, now with wormhole launched missiles. We have waves of standard ship missiles coming in at us, but we are responding. I will be in beam range in thirty seconds.”

Mrastaran was watching the damage reports coming up on another holo, the link projected through the wormhole com. Tonnasar's force had taken some serious damage. Still, it looked like they were going to win this fight. They still had more launchers, and in a beam fight they would surely get the better of it.

“We...”

“What happened?” demanded Mrastaran as the holo died.

“I'm not sure, my Lord,” stammered the com officer. He started working on his station. “Command back in the home system is saying that the wormhole has disconnected on their end.”

Did his ship get destroyed? thought the great admiral, on the verge of panicking. Not because he had lost Tonnasar, who would be easy to replace, but because of losing that wormhole connection between the forces. That he had been destroyed would be one assumption, though severe damage could also have knocked out the wormhole. Either way, he had lost touch with the commander of his outer system force. Now the only way he could watch the battle was through graviton emissions, which left a lot to be desired.

And in twenty minutes he would know what was waiting at the other launch point. He was hoping it was a large enough force that he could cripple the human fleet. But not so big that he lost that other force. He had no way of knowing until he faced them. Not a comfortable state of affairs, but the one he had.

Chapter Seventeen

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. Michel de Montaigne

Mara watched as her forward screen of ships disappeared under a massive wave of Caca missiles. Over a thousand ships, almost a million people, died. But they did their jobs, and the ships behind them survived with little to no damage.

“Enemy entering beam range, ma'am.”

Mara could see that. But it was the officer's job to give her the information, whether he thought she knew it or not.

The admiral's agile mind looked over the possible targets, her fingers pointing to ships on the plot and assigning them as targets. The data went out to her wormhole equipped ships in an instant, giving them their orders. Her own battle cruiser flagship, the Tannenburg, set its sights on the nearest Caca superbattleship to the immediate front.

Lasers and standard particle beams were already reaching between the fleets. At just under a light minute they weren't at their most powerful, but there were still ships enough to generate a large percentage of hits. Hull metal vaporized and puffed into space. Missiles in the way turned into bright pinpoints of light as a gigaton's worth of antimatter breached. It was as if new constellations of stars came into existence between the forces, burned bright for a second, then died, to be replaced by more groups.

“Fire.”

Eleven invisible beams joined the battle, leaping across space at just under the speed of light, as fast as any matter the human species had ever projected. In an atmosphere, if made of normal protons, it would have produced a beam of burning red. These beams were made of antiprotons, the heart of antimatter, and would have exploded in traveling through a normal atmosphere. There were some imperceptible sparkles as the beams hit the few particles they encountered in normal space. Otherwise they could only be seen on sensors, giving a tiny fraction of a second of warning as radar reflected from their material component.

Generated back at the Donut, particles spun around in magnetic accelerators tens of kilometers in diameter, reaching velocities unobtainable by the several hundred meter wide devices carried by capital ships. Tannenburg's beam blasted through the body of a missile and continued into the bow of a Caca Superbattleship, delivering three point five kilograms of antiprotons per second to the point of impact, a meter and a half wide circle. The kinetic energy of the beam was considerable, but nothing compared to the one hundred and fifty megatons of destructive force per second contained in the antimatter. It blasted through the ship, a hundred meters of vessel per second, destroying fifty to a hundred meters of the vitals of the battleship to all sides. In five seconds the superbattleship was a total wreck, no longer boosting, no longer projecting any kind of protective field. No longer in the fight. There would be survivors aboard, some few, unable to influence the fight any further.

The beam swung onto another target, hitting the port midsection of a second battleship, blasting through. This time into the MAM reactors of the vessel, rupturing containment on hundreds of tons of antimatter, releasing seven terratons of explosive power, turning most of the ship in to vapor and sending millions of pieces, from one gram to a thousand kilograms, rocketing away at considerable velocity, striking many ships in the fleet around the destroyed vessel. There would be no survivors aboard that ship.

Each ship could fire almost a minute's worth of antiprotons before the accelerators needed to recharge and accelerate a new load. A minute, maybe a little more, and the beams were ready to fire again. The beams were unstoppable, anything that got in their way was blown out of space in an instant.

“Honshu is gone ma'am,” called out the tactical officer. That battle cruiser had been carrying one of her wormholes, which meant that part of her firepower was gone.

And over three thousand people, thought Mara, a wave of guilt passing through her. The wormhole was more important than any of those people, but the people were still very important. Their families wouldn't care that a ship and wormhole were destroyed. They would care about sons and daughters, wives and husbands. People who would never return home.

Mara shook away the thought. She had already lost over a million people, and it was looking like there would be many more. The enemy force was taking a pounding, but so was she. It was a good thing the Cacas had split this force, or she would definitely be facing more than she could handle.

“I'm estimating that we've taken out almost half their force, ma'am,” said her chief of staff, Captain Goruptal. The man's only duty during the battle had been to keep track of what was going on by the numbers, and reporting them to his admiral.

“Where are my warp fighters?”

“Coming in now, ma'am. Just about to hit.”

The warp fighters had boosted faster than light away from her force and the Cacas, putting some distance between themselves and the warp lances of the enemy. They were already within range when launched from their carriers. Now they were over a light minute away, turning, and boosting back at twenty lights. At a distance of thirty light seconds, just out of range of the warp lances on the outer Caca ships, they released their missiles, over three thousand weapons coming in at more than twenty times the speed of light.

The missiles did enter the engagement range of the warp lances. They couldn't avoid it. They did, however, have very good evasion routines and were relatively small targets. Over a thousand of them were swept out of space, dropped out of warp to drift, except for the several hundred whose warheads had breached from the stress of being pushed into normal space.

Over two thousand of them made it into engagement range. More than a thousand were taken out by masses of counters and close in weapons. That worked to the advantage of the human scout force, since those were weapons that were not used to intercept other missiles, allowing more penetrations, more hits. The warp missiles, those that made it through, spread themselves out among about five hundred ships. Compression fields ate through cold plasma and hull armor alike, allowing the warheads to go off deep within the ships. Almost a hundred of those vessels were total losses. The other four hundred took severe damage, crippling their combat abilities.

The warp fighters moved out again, curving around to head back to their carriers. It would take at least ten minutes to rearm before they could make another strike. They could still influence the battle, but there would be a lot of fighting in that ten minutes, and the battle might already be decided by that point.

*     *     *

“We're being hit again,” said Admiral Trostara, Mrastaran's chief of staff. “Wormhole missiles coming on the plot.”

“What kind?” asked the fleet commander, turning on his CoS and pointing a pair of fingers.

“More of the smaller type,” said the chief of staff, shaking slightly. “The new ones. We're having problems tracking and taking them out.”

Which meant he was losing more ships to them. Fifty tons, a hundred tons. If they hit a ship it didn't really matter. A terraton of kinetic energy or five hundred gigatons. Both would totally destroy his largest ships. The difference was when they detonated close to a ship without hitting. The larger missiles did more damage, but the smaller warheads had the advantage of spreading the destructive wealth.

“Another group coming in.”

“So soon?” gasped the commander.

“We're getting them coming in from north and south, sir,” said the grimacing chief of staff.

These were the launches coming in before Tonnasar's force got to them. There would be multiple waves coming in, until they had been interrupted. If Tonnasar defeated them Mrastaran would no longer receive missiles from that force. And if Tonnasar's second force found they could take out the other force, the one to the north, all he had to do was find the main fleet.

If there even was one. No matter how many ships were out there, most of the wormhole launchers had to be there. The humans couldn't have that many, could they? If they had a considerable number more than he suspected he might still win this battle, and lose the campaign.

“Any reports from Tonnasar?” growled the anxious admiral.

“No, sir,” called out the chief of staff. “Nothing since his wormhole went down. A couple of graviton pulses from other ships, mostly asking for help. But nothing else.”

Mrastaran thought the other admiral was dead, along with his ship. That they were getting only a couple of graviton pulses, and none with situation reports, meant that the leadership of that force was unsteady. Maybe nonexistent. Not a very good state of affairs.

“We've just lost twenty-seven more ships, my Lord,” reported his tactical officer. “Two supercruisers. The rest scouts.”

The escorts were doing their job. Hard on them and their crews, but what he needed were battleships, and they ensured that he kept most of what he had.

“We just lost a pair of battleships, my Lord,” cried the tactical officer, almost as if he had read the admiral's mind.

Mrastaran turned and growled, wishing he could rip the head off of the reporting officer. Unlike many Ca'cadasan officers, he couldn't do that to a loyal male who was just doing his duty, no matter what his rage was telling him to do. But a pair of battleships, right after the screen had done so well? It was almost too much to handle.

They were also receiving wormhole launched missiles from other points around the system. He had no way of knowing how many ships were in those forces, or if there were only single wormhole equipped vessels. From the numbers of missiles coming in he thought it the latter. If they had more than a single wormhole they would be sending larger streams, wouldn't they? And if it was only a single vessel, or a capital ship with a few escorts, anything he sent against them would have an easy time of it. If he knew exactly where they were, and had good targeting solutions, neither of which was true.

“When will our ships reach the nearest gas giant moons?” he asked, looking back over at his chief of staff. At least they thought the enemy had something there, unless it had already been destroyed by his launch at them. Missiles were still coming in on that vector, which meant there were some kind of platforms there, or had been about an hour ago.

“Not for another hour, sir.”

Mrastaran didn't like that answer, but it was one he would have to live with. They were still firing missiles at those launch points, but it hadn't stopped the incoming. And he couldn't overrule the laws of physics. Ships he sent inward could carry the momentum they already had with them. But any heading out needed to kill their inward momentum. Which added to their flight time.

“How long until our second force comes in?”

“Twelve minutes, my Lord.”

Then we'll know what we're facing to the north, he thought. Was that the main enemy force, or just another small group set up with wormholes, a firing line to cause attrition to his fleet? If the former, his ships should be able to take them out. If the latter, then he would know what he needed to do.

“Warp fighters coming in from the stern, my Lord,” shouted out one officer.

“Fast attack ships coming in from forward,” called out another.

“Prepare to change vectors,” he ordered. He thought those FAS might be planting more mines to his front, and that was something he would try to avoid, if at all possible. He had fallen into the trap once, but not again.

*     *     *

“Admiral Montgomery. Report.” Beata hated to intrude on the thoughts of her subordinate in the middle of a battle, but she needed to know what was going on.

“The admiral told me to report for her, ma'am,” said Captain Michael Goruptal, her chief of staff, appearing on the holo.

“Status?”

“We believe we are winning,” said the officer, his swarthy face appearing on the com. He was sweating, and had developed a tick under one eye, a sure sign of stress “At least we still have ten of our wormholes. And our flagship is still in one piece. But the enemy is tougher than we thought.”

Then good thing they sent a third of their force toward me, thought Beata. She had no doubt that her fleet would take out those Cacas. She also had no doubt that she would be hurt, but not as much as Mara. That entire force, if consolidated, would surely have wiped Mara from the sky.

“We just took out the heart of their fleet,” said an exultant Goruptal, eyes wide as a smile started to play on his lips. “The Klavarta ships are swarming in to hit them harder.”

“Caca ships will be entering normal space near us in two minutes,” called out Captain Janssen.

“Keep me informed, Captain,” Beata told Mara's chief of staff. “I have problems of my own to deal with.”

From that last report it was looking good for Mara's force. But until they actually won that meant nothing. It was looking like the combination of laser mines, wormhole launched missiles and warp fighters had tipped the battle in their favor. Now she just had to finish it. Mara was good at that, and would undoubtedly kill the rest of the Cacas, unless something untoward happened. Beata dismissed that thought before it became reality. Not that she really believed such nonsense, but why take chances?

“Caca ships will be entering normal space within the next minute.”

It didn't actually take that long. The Caca ships came jumping into normal space twenty-one seconds before the barrier, a normal space distance of just over three light minutes. And three light seconds up from where they had been expected. Beata grunted in satisfaction. If she had set the mines in one massive field right in front of them they would have avoided them completely. Even though they had come out further than the barrier, their velocity of point three light meant that, even if they could jump back into hyper, they were too close to change vectors and avoid the barriers. They would catastrophically translate, and that would be the end of that. Which meant she could go ahead and hit them with everything she had.

She was five light minutes inside the barrier, close enough where she could still boost into hyper before anything from the inner system could reach them. It would take the missiles from the just translated force just over fifteen minutes, using the velocity imparted on them from their launching ships. Even though Beata's ships were barely moving, her launch would also use the momentum of the enemy fleet for a similar strike time after firing.

“Fire,” she called out, setting in motion the attack she had already preplotted.

The sixteen wormholes fired their nine hundred and sixty missiles at point nine five light. Those weapons would reach the enemy first by a wide margin, just over five minutes. The rest would take the same fifteen minutes the enemy launched missiles would. Those tube launched missiles started off just after the first volley of wormhole missiles, the ships turning in place to accelerate the weapons through their tubes. The box launchers had been released into space near the ships, releasing another three hundred thousand missiles in their single volley.

Seven hundred warp fighters came sweeping in from the flanks, releasing their twenty-eight hundred missiles into the enemy, hitting them immediately, disrupting the launches from a number of those ships.

“We're picking up graviton pulses from one of the enemy ships,” called out the flag sensor officer.

Well, now they have an idea about how many ships I have, thought Beata. But fortunately it also pointed her to the command ship of that force.

“Target that ship with our next wormhole launch,” she ordered, hoping to take the head off the snake.

Maybe they had another commander over there who could take over. But he probably wouldn't be as good as the male who was in charge. Or at least she hoped.

“Targeting. Firing.”

The fleet got off ten wormhole launches before the enemy missiles arrived. Nine thousand six hundred missiles, generating over five hundred hits. Most of those ships were gone, including the command ship. Then the enemy weapons started to arrive, at the very same time the larger mass of human missiles started to hit.

A moment later the enemy force was gone as if it had never been. Of course, not every ship had been destroyed, but those who survived were not combat worthy. They were drifting hulks, filled with panicked crew fighting to survive. She would give them that opportunity, and kill any ship that initiated any kind of offensive action.

“Order all missiles in transit to decel,” she ordered. “They are to veer off their targets.” There was no need to hit those lame ducks. Much as she liked killing Cacas, there came a time to end the killing in every fight, and for that force the time had come.

She could have ordered all of those missiles to self-destruct. She preferred to send out a decel and come back order. She might have to spend some time and effort collecting them for use again. Some would not be usable until their crystal matrix batteries were recharged. But she could probably still find a use for them, their warheads at least.

Now, how is Mara doing?

*      *      *

“We have a message about the enemy fleet, my Lord.”

“Show me.”

A holo appeared by Mrastaran's side. He looked over the list. One of those superbattleships of theirs, he thought, looking at the largest ship on the list. He no longer had the most powerful ships in the system. Still, they only had one of them. But the over two hundred standard battleships were still bad news. He didn't know how many wormholes they had, but the com estimated less than twenty. Almost a hundred of their smaller capital ships, a thousand or more smaller vessels. And possibly twenty of their fighter carriers.

“I can beat that fleet,” he said under his breath. The only problem was, could he get to them before they went into hyper? Probably not, but he still needed to do something. He still had one volley on the way, which probably wouldn't amount to anything against a prepared force that size.

“How is the other outer force doing?”

“Not, well, my Lord,” stammered the hesitant com officer. “They have been reduced to less than a quarter of their initial strength. While the humans still have two thirds of their initial force.”

So, they're going to lose, he thought, growling deep in his throat. All he had accomplished sending them in was finding out what he faced. Maybe that was enough, but he still didn't like wasting males just to get information.

“Missiles incoming.”

Another set of wormhole launches. They would continue to come in over the next couple of hours, even if their launch forces had been destroyed. And that was looking like it wasn't going to happen. Meaning they could fire on him as long as they were still in the system.

“Another massive launch from the north force, my Lord. Almost a million missiles.”

And a far larger launch than he would expect from a force that size. They weren't just firing their internal tubes. He wasn't sure how many strap on launchers they might have, or if they had the missiles sitting in space, launched without the assist of magnetic accelerators. It didn't really matter, since the fact that they could send out a massive launch like that was staring him in the face.

He hated to admit it, but his best option now was to continue on to the planet with his main fleet, while splitting off a smaller force to head out of the system and chase the enemy forces away. The only reason he wouldn't send his main fleet after them was it would be wasted effort. They would boost into hyper and away before he could close with them. A smaller force, going into hyper at a point of the ecliptic, could move around and force them to leave, while his main force continued to occupy the system as per the orders of the Emperor.

Mrastaran still didn't know why the Emperor wanted this system, but he had a bad feeling about it. A trap for the humans. If they sent in a large enough force to push him out, with enough wormholes, it wouldn't matter what kind of trap he tried to set. Would it? Unless it was something truly horrible.

*     *     *

“Mr. President. I am trying to gather another fleet and strike the Cacas from the rear.”

“That is all very well and good, Admiral Klanarat,” said the president of the Nation of New Earth, frowning. “Right now, the Terran Admiral Bednarczyk is fighting a battle for the Pleisia system. She is on the spot, and will therefore remain in command of that battle.”

“But...”

“No buts, Admiral. Admiral Bednarczyk is the commander on the spot. It is her battle to fight. When you finally get your fleet in support of them we will discuss command arrangements.”

Klanarat was taken aback. The president had not told him that he would take command when he joined the fleets. Only that they would then discuss the command arrangements. Which could mean anything, including the Imperial admiral retaining command.

What has that bitch been telling him? thought the enraged admiral. He had known from the start that she had wanted command of the entire force, something that was his by right of being the highest serving officer in the Klavarta fleet. Instead, that damned unaltered human female had tried to take it. And now she probably had it in her grasp.

I can go in there and kill the Cacas once they are entrenched in the system, he thought. If he had to kill all the aliens on Pleisia to do so he could sleep well. It wasn't like they were real people. Not like the Alphas of the Klavarta, or even the lesser peoples of original human extraction. It had made him sick when the chair-people of the government had been killed by the servants of that damned Emperor a quarter of the way across the Galaxy. After that they had all been forced to pretend that they had turned over a new leaf, buried their hatred of all aliens, and moved on.

Maybe some of the Klavarta had done exactly that. Maybe even most of them. But not Admiral Jrasstra Klanarat. He carried a deep abiding hate for all non-humans, even their so-called allies. Inferior beings, all of them.

“We have more ships coming into detection range, sir,” called out the staff sensor officer. “It looks like a large formation. Twenty-seven of our battleships, ninety-five cruisers and escorts. And, it looks like over a hundred allied ships are with them. Slarna and Gernas.”

Klanarat was happy to hear the that over a hundred ships of his nation were about to join his force. That was how he would grow a fleet. A drib here, a drab there, until he had a force the Cacas would have to respond to. He cared little for the alien ships, except that he could use them in battle as fodder to soak up enemy fire. If all of them died so that some of his ships would continue to fight, he applauded that outcome.

“As soon as they're in com range I want to talk with their commanders,” said Klanarat. “Keep searching for ships. And keep sending out com pulses.”

“There's still a chance that a Caca force might pick up our com pulses and come after us,” cautioned the com officer.

Klanarat looked over at the graphical representation of his growing order of battle. Including the ships joining up with them now he had eighty-one battleships and over three hundred smaller vessels.

“I'll take my chances that I have enough to defeat a Caca patrol,” he growled at the com officer. “Now, follow my orders and lead more ships to me.”

*     *     *

“That was the last of them, Admiral Bednarczyk,” said Mara Montgomery, a flat expression on her face.

Beata recognized that expression, and knew that her subordinate was crying inside. Of course she was too disciplined to let it out on her bridge.

“There are still some floating hulks,” continued Mara, “but nothing powered up and ready to fight.”

“And your losses?”

“I still have about two thirds of my total force. Most of my battle cruisers survived, but I'm down to eight wormholes. By the goddess, but they gave me a hard fight.”

“Then put those wormholes to use. Fire on their main fleet with everything you have.”

“What about that secondary force that's breaking for the hyper barrier.”

Several thousand ships, including a thousand of the superbattleships that were the terror of the Caca fleet, were heading out, changing their vectors. It didn't take a military genius to figure out what they were up to. They would get past the barrier, translate in hyper, and work their way around so they could come in and strike one of the human forces like a hammer. That done, they would do the same with the second force.

“We'll take care of them. They're closer to our firing line anyway.”

Not that the wormhole launches would do as much as hoped to that force. From their graviton emissions they were already making small adjustments in their courses as they went. Beata thought they would soon make some major adjustments, evasives to throw off the targeting of missiles they knew would be coming their way. The missiles would adjust to follow them, but they would then be tracked and would lose their element of surprise. Still, they needed to keep them under fire. Attrition was a slow way to destroy an enemy force, but it could still delete some of their combat capacity over time.

“What about your damaged ships?” asked Bednarczyk. She had some crippled ships herself. A few might be able to move into hyper and get away. Those that could only get to hyper IV or below might as well be considered total losses. She would have to order the ships to scuttle unless she could get them through a gate. Some might make it, but there were too many and the transit time would be prohibitive. Most of her damaged vessels could continue to fire missiles, but when it came time to leave they would also be scuttled.

“We're making sure all of our to be scuttled ships are empty of missiles. Either fired off, or transferred. I'm catching some flack from the Klavarta captains whose ships look like they're not going to make it.”

“What kind of flack?” asked Beata, knowing that she might be facing the same problem with the Klavarta in her immediate force.

“They don't want to leave their ships behind,” said Mara, an exasperated expression on her face. “Something about their warrior code and dying with their ships.”

“Shit. That is so stupid.” There had been the tradition of human captains going down with their ships on old Earth. That tradition had not followed them into space. The captain might be the last to leave the ship, but they still left. Ship commanders were valuable, probably more so than most of their highly trained crew. It was a waste to let them stay on a ship so they could set off a scuttling charge, when that could be done with a computer given the proper, verified instructions.

“If they refuse to leave, I want you to order their arrest,” growled Bednarczyk. “Remove them from their ships.”

“We might have some problems with that, ma'am. What am I supposed to do if they refuse to leave their ships?”

“How about if you send some crew over in combat armor to help them evacuate to your other ships,” said Beata, rubbing her brow. “At the last minute your people can disable the coms and haul the captains off their hulks.”

“Still might cause some problems,” said Mara, shaking her head. “But I'm willing to give it a try.”

“Enemy missiles will be in attack range in five hours, ma'am,” called out Beata's chief of staff. Janssen looked over at his board and some figures that were displaying on a few holos overhead. “We need to start boosting for the barrier in three and a half hours.”

“Let's start boosting in three hours,” said Bednarczyk after a moment's thought. “No use taking chances on something breaking at the last moment.

“So get your ships across the barrier in time.” she continued, turning back to Mara. “We'll start gating our ships in the system out soon as well.”

Her insystem fleet would not be able to escape across the barrier. If they started boosting for interstellar space they would be picked up and fired on. It was doubtful that any of those small groups of ships would make it. The problem was she had some valuable ships with scarce resources within the system. Thirty battleships and twenty-two wormholes, twenty aboard ships.

The admiral had planned for this. Most of those ships were close to one of the two insystem wormhole gates. Or at most a three-hour maximum boost. They should be able to outrun any missiles fired at them. The problem was the wormholes, which couldn't escape through those gates. Not unless they wanted to be the center of a stellar scale explosion.

Still, she had a plan, and if everything went according to that plan she would get her ships out and the wormholes would be safely hidden. It meant she would have twenty-two spyholes sitting in the system, undetectable, capable of being moved around through small jets of plasma. They could be expanded and used to fire missiles when the allied fleet returned.

The one thing she could not do was evacuate the civilians. She had never had the resources to do that. The resources were in place to evacuate the Klavarta warriors. Only those people refused to leave their posts, defending the civilian aliens. Nothing could get their commander to budge. Not even orders from the president. Well, they would just have to deal with the consequences of staying in a system controlled by the enemy. The planetary defense assets would be left in place, so the warriors would be able to cause some damage to the Cacas. What they would not be able to do was win.

Beata intended to lead a force back here, if she was allowed. There was no guarantee of that, and she still had a fight on her hands. She wouldn't defeat this fleet in this place, but anything she could do to weaken it before she fled the system might pay dividends in the near future, for whomever was leading the allied fleet.

“We have the Klavarta president on the com, ma'am.”

Wonder what he wants, she thought, thinking of some way she could avoid him. He might be on the com to order her to hold the system at all costs. In which case she would have to disobey. He might be able to get his own ships to engage in a suicide defense, but she was not going to allow her people to join them in death.

“Mr. President,” said Beata as the face of the Alpha came up on a com holo.

“Admiral. How goes the defense?”

“About as we had figured, President Klanarat,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I've hurt them, maybe even more than expected. And my losses were low, on the whole. But I didn't beat them.”

“We didn't expect you to,” said the president, an understanding expression on his face. “If our own commander hadn't allowed the enemy to defeat his force in detail, we might have had the ships to beat them.”

Beata nodded in understanding. Sometimes she forgot that the president had once been an admiral in his own fleet. He understood the military, especially his own. And he realized who had made the tactical mistakes at the beginning of this campaign.

“Admiral Klanarat has contacted me, Admiral Bednarczyk,” said the president, his eyes hardening.

Oh shit. The son of a bitch is alive. She didn't trust that Alpha's military decisions. He had done well enough when he commanded a major battle group under the last Klavarta commander, now deceased. But fleet command had exceeded his capacity. In military terms, he had risen to his level of incompetence.

“He is gathering up all the ships he can at the frontier. Everything that survived is starting to flock to his banner.”

And he is to take over as soon as he can bring those ships to battle, she thought, cringing.

“I have talked this over with your Emperor,” said the president in a rush, as if he wanted to get it out before he was interrupted. “I can't sack my admiral without oversight from my senate.”

“So he will be in command when he gets here?” asked Beata, a feeling of dread coming over her. She didn't want her ships and crews serving under that officer. She didn't trust his decisions, and never would.

“He will be in command of the Klavarta contingent, just as his position calls for,” said the president, slowing down and enunciating every word so there would be no misunderstanding. “He will not be in overall command of the allied fleet. That will be your job.”

Beata felt shocked. This was something she hadn't expected. The Emperor must have put his foot down. The president and the Emperor talked about this, she thought. And Sean had probably insisted that his people serve under someone competent. Or he would withdraw them from the front, and the Klavarta could deal with the consequences. The New Terran Empire was the senior partner in the alliance, and what they said went. She guessed.

“How will Admiral Klanarat feel about that?” she asked, knowing how she would feel.

“He will accept it, or he will be invited to resign his commission,” said the president, showing his teeth in a feral smile. “I can't fire him, unless he starts disobeying orders. So either way, he serves under you, to your satisfaction, or he goes away.”

Beata still thought of a lot of problems that could occur. Admiral Klanarat might drag his feet, refusing to act with any kind of urgency. There were ways she could prevent that, like taking his ships and attaching as many of them as she could get away with to her Terran battle group commanders.

I can make this work, she thought, smiling for the first time since the president's holo had appeared.

“You have some thoughts?” asked the president.

“I can win this thing,” she said, thinking of the advantages coming her way. More ships, or course. And within a week she would have forty-six more wormholes reaching back to Imperial space, ready to link them to the accelerators in space around the Donut. “If you give me a chance.”

“You will have your chance, Admiral.”

“And does Admiral Klanarat know what's about to happen?”

“No,” said the president, shaking his head. “I think it's best that we allow him to act as if he's going to be in command. That way he will continue to do his best to gather all the forces he can. I'll let him know how things stand when he gets to you.”

The president looked off holo for a moment before turning his attention back to the Imperial admiral. “I hate to say it, but even with whatever force he gathers, and what we can send up from our core worlds, you are still going to be outnumbered.”

“That's okay,” said Beata, looking at the plot and studying the ongoing fight. “I know how to defeat an overwhelming force. If I have enough resources in hand.” And it was looking like she would have those resources.

Chapter Eighteen

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. Buddha

“We've launched all our missiles, sir,” reported the pilot of fast attack craft Charlie Five.

“Continue evasives,” called out Ensign Kallaris Plisias. He knew what his pilot wanted. It was the same thing that he wanted. To get his ship, one of the few surviving from his original squadron, the hell out of here. So they could do all of this again in the future. Insanity, plain and simple.

What in the hell are they waiting for? thought Plisias, glancing every couple of seconds at the Klassekian com tech, as if he could force the needed message to come through.

“We just lost another craft,” called out the sensor officer, her words distorted by the liquid that filled the cockpit.

Looking at the plot the ensign could see that there were now only three ships left from the original twelve ship squadrons. There were a dozen other squadrons nearby on the plot, none more than half strength.

We're fodder, thought the officer, wishing once again that he could have been assigned to a battleship. He wouldn't be in command of his own ship, but the larger ship would be far more difficult to kill. Plisias knew his type of ship had killed some Caca vessels, and damaged many more. Still, he didn't think dying for those prizes was beneficial for him as an independent being.

“Recall has been sounded,” said the voice of the com tech in his ear.

He looked back over at that being, her face covered with a mask, her lower jaws moving as she spoke into the mic underneath the breathing apparatus.

“Pilot. Get us back to the nearest gate as fast as you can.”

“You want me to continue evading, sir?” asked the rating, looking back over his shoulder with wide eyes.

“Damn right.” The ensign wanted to get to safety as soon as possible, but getting blown out of space was counterproductive to that goal.

The target started blinking on the plot, indicating the gate that was closest in time to them. There was one closer in absolute distance, but it would take more boost and time to get to it, decelerating from their current vector.

“A ship from Echo squadron was just hit,” called out the sensor tech. “One million kilometers to port.”

Plisias was no more religious than any other member of his species. At the moment he wished he had a deity he could pray to, existent or not.

*     *     *

“We're ordered back to the carrier, sir” said the Klassekian sitting in the com tech seat.

“Which one?” asked Captain Michael Lauren, looking over at the alien, then the plot. There was a carrier out by the asteroid cluster where one of the new gates was located. It had been taken off of the battleship that was using it to launch into the enemy fleet and converted to a gate.

“One of those with the main fleet,” replied the com tech. An icon out with Admiral Bednarczyk's force started blinking.

“We can be there in about ten minutes,” said the pilot, running the numbers in his head.

I wonder why they want us out there, thought Lauren, looking at his remaining order of battle on a holo screen hanging in the air beside his command chair. He had thought they would want him to rearm on the nearer carrier and head back on another strike, covering for the slower ships still trying to make it to the gates.

Well, orders were orders, and the command had to come from the admiral. Or someone who was under her, and he wasn't about to question it. Especially if they got his forty-four remaining fighters out of here before he lost more people. No guarantee of that, though. They might still rearm them out there, then send them back in. Because of their tech advantages, including not having to take off velocity before changing vectors, and being able to cover space at twenty times light, they could be used all the way up to the moment the fleet was ready to leave.

Of course, they would need to be aboard a hyper capable ship to go to another system, unless they went through a gate directly to another star. Or they were left here for some reason. That last was a chilling thought. Left behind and hiding out, waiting for the next campaign in the system. There were places they could hide, but Lauren would prefer to get the hell out of the system.

“Get us out there,” he told the pilot, then looked over at the com tech. “Make sure all the other fighters get the order.”

Moments later the fighter was back into warp, pointed toward the main fleet and eating up the space ahead, spitting it out behind.

*     *     *

“Orders coming through from the admiral, sir,” called out the Klassekian com tech on the bridge of the Slarna flagship.

I wonder what in the hell she wants now? thought Admiral Connandra, pacing back and forth on the flag bridge of his ship. He didn't have to ask which admiral the tech was talking about. Only one officer that he knew of in the system was known simply as the admiral.

“We are to head for the nearest gate for insertion to another system,” said the tech after a few moments of waiting for the officer to ask her what orders he had received.

About time, thought the Slarna senior officer. He had a little more than five hundred ships left in his command. He had no missiles. Those were long gone, and he had decided to stop playing moving target and decoy and had headed into an asteroid cluster to take cover. The human admiral had called on him to continue taking casualties so other ships, more useful to the humans, would be spared those missiles. Her prerogative, of course, as he considered it his to disobey.

And he would be damned if he would let the last ships and Slarna that had been entrusted to his command be destroyed just because a commander of another species had decided they were expendable. He might have to face angry leaders in his nation, but that was better than dying for no purpose, and letting the people under him never return home.

“Head for the nearest gate,” he ordered, looking at the plot. They were almost a light hour from the nearest Caca ship, a little more than that from the main fleet. The nearest vessels were heading in the general direction of his force, which meant their launches would start off with the momentum of those ships. The farther force was heading away, toward Pleisia, and anything they fired would have to decelerate for at least two hours before they could head back out. Still, the fifty-eight ships heading out, supposedly to check out the asteroid cluster he was hiding in, which was also hiding a human battleship with a wormhole, would be enough to really hurt his force as they struggled to the other gate. And he had no missiles to return fire.

“Wait,” Connandra ordered. “Get the human admiral on the com.”

The Klassekian com tech nodded, then closed her eyes and went into a trance like state, connecting with her sister. There was no need to use devices in that connection, as mind to mind they could communicate instantaneously across any distance. The sibling, of course, would connect to another through machinery, either lascom of wormhole, unless they had the next link sitting on the same ship. If the com went through many of them it would be degraded, somewhat. Still, it was better than having to wait for hours for a light speed transmission.

The human admiral made him wait. Maybe she had something of importance going on, but to him there was nothing more important than his ships and his people. He was starting to get impatient, about to demand that she contact him, when the Klassekian looked over and nodded. A holo appeared in the middle of the bridge, transferred through the mind of the alien who was in link with another of her kind. A blurry image of the human admiral in charge of the entire force appeared within that bubble, crackling with static.

“Admiral Connandra,” said Bednarczyk, nodding in his direction. “Why aren't you boosting for the nearest gate?”

“What is your intention for the Terran battleship occupying this cluster?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“It will continue to fire on the Cacas until they get close enough to endanger it,” said Bednarczyk, her eyes narrowing. “At that time it will move its wormhole out and erect a gate so it can escape from the system. We will reduce the gate and move it by plasma thruster.”

“And you will use it to spy on the Cacas?”

The human stared at him, refusing to answer, which made the anger already living in the mind of the Slarna officer rise, bubbling to the surface. “You don't trust us with your plans?”

“I don't have time to argue about how I run my command,” said the Terran admiral, her face flat and expressionless.

Connandra couldn't read human emotions perfectly, though he had studied them enough so he could gauge her responses. It was his responsibility to his people to know what in the hell the officer put over command was thinking, based on her responses.

“So, you must have something in mind. What is it, Admiral?”

“I think it is a bad idea for my ships to run to the next gate. We will be under fire the entire way, And we are running low on counters. Since we don't have one of your wonderful wormholes, we can't resupply until we get in close proximity to your ships, unless you let the battleship near us bring over a resupply.”

“That would take many hours, Admiral. And I want them to continue firing in that time frame.”

“So, you see my problem. I'm guessing you want us to draw enemy fire that won't menace your own ships. I was willing to put my ships in danger to attack our common enemy. I am not willing to do so just so your can have another decoy.”

The face of the human admiral showed an anger response. “I would never..”

“Of course you would, Admiral,” said Connandra, his eyes half closing. “I would do the same. My ships are not that valuable to you. Not now that we have launched all our missiles. But I have a responsibility to my own nation to bring as many of my ships back as possible.”

“So, you want to go home?”

“Not at all, human. We will continue to fight with you once we are rearmed. But I will not play the part of target. Understood?”

The human admiral was silent for some time, and the Slarna officer wondered if he had pushed too far. She wouldn't fire on him, but she might leave his ships in the system to die at the hands of the Cacas. Of course, that would mean that she was leaving behind the Klassekians onboard his ships as well, citizens of her Empire. That might not sit well with her leader.

“I'm assuming you want to stay under cover of the asteroids and ride the gate the battleship will erect out of the system. You realize it will have to put up the gate twenty minutes sooner than it would have, meaning twenty minutes less firing time, nine hundred fewer missiles.”

“And nine hundred missiles will defeat the Cacas?”

“Of course not. But there are other complications as well. Letting you use that gate will risk the wormhole. The Cacas might close to the point where they will pick up the gate, maybe even fire on it.”

“Then calculate what you need to do, Admiral. And I will do what I need to do. Connandra out.”

*     *     *

“Damn that Slarna bastard,” cursed Beata when the transmission ended.

She was furious with the other commander. She was also angry at herself. Because he had been right. She was going to use his ships as decoys, something the Cacas could fire at, missiles that would not be attacking her ships. It was a shitty way to treat an ally, though she had to admit that their capital ships were the least useful in her command. Still, no reason to sentence more of them to death by making them targets.

“Get me the captain of the Indefatigable,” she said, naming the battleship that was in that asteroid cluster, still sending streams of wormhole missiles into the Cacas.

“Captain Lee here, ma'am.” The image of the Asian man, she thought he was of Korean ethnicity, though it was hard to tell with all the genetic mixing that had gone on since the Empire was established, appeared crystal clear. It had come through a wormhole com with no degradation of the signal.

“Status?”

“We are continuing wormhole bombardment of the Caca main fleet. They have been returning fire, but our position in the asteroid cluster makes us a difficult target.”

Beata visualized their position. Asteroids in belt were normally widespread, many so distant from the others that they were undetectable by anything but active sensors. Most belts still had some clusters, areas where from tens to hundreds of rocks had happened to gather. The largest were the Trojan points of gas giants, which could have thousands of large rocks. The cluster the Indefatigable was sheltering in was not at a Trojan point, but still had several hundred rocks, from one to forty kilometers in diameter. A missile hit would shatter most of them, but it was a strike that wouldn't impact a ship. And the remains would still provide cover.

“After you finish this cycle you are to eject your wormhole and gate it.”

“We still have time for another couple of cycles, ma'am,” said Lee, his brow furrowing.

“Negative. You are to erect the gate and go through it. The Slarna vessels will follow you to your destination.”

“You sure, ma'am. I'm not sure they have authorization to enter the black hole system in proximity to the Donut.”

Sean and the officers of that installation had grown very protective of it since the multiple attacks, two attempts to destroy the massive structure in as many years. It was the most vital installation in the Empire. The Emperor would admit that it was more important than the capital planet and everyone on it, himself included. Even the close allies, the Brakakak and the Crakista, were watched closely by the Imperial defense fleet when they transited the gates, and none of their ships were allowed within a billion kilometers of the station. Of course they had people aboard, technicians and liaison personnel. But nothing that could launch a warhead at the structure, no matter how minor the strike would prove to be. And now five hundred ships of a nominal but not truly trusted ally were going to transit to the Donut, and well within a million kilometers of it, where the other end of the new gate would be erected.

“I will get them the required authorization. Just follow the order.”

Beata terminated the transmission, not wishing to engage in any further discussion. She turned her attention back to the plot. Everything was going according to plan. She would be out of the system within three hours, except for the twelve stealth ships that would take on wormholes and stay hidden in the local space. Indefatigable had one limpeted onto her hull that would be released and take on her wormhole after the gate was collapsed. The rest, those not attached to a stealth ship, would be maneuvered to points near the edge of the system, or in orbit around a gas giant moon, where they would escape detection while allowing continued surveillance of the system. Two would be near Pleisia, for close in surveillance.

She still had ships in danger. The fast attack craft, the Gernas, some few of her warships, all boosting to escape. She wasn't worried about the warp fighters. The Cacas had nothing that could catch them. If she was correct she would have destroyed almost a quarter of the Caca fleet, an exchange rate of over fifteen to one in tonnage. And she would be back.

*     *     *

“My Lord. The enemy ships all seem to be fleeing,” called out the chief sensor officer on the bridge.

“Show me,” growled Mrastaran, stalking over to the officer's station.

“We have many groups heading for the outer system, my Lord,” reported the male, highlighting those units on the plot. “Others heading for Pleisia, some for one or other of the gas giants or some places in the asteroid belt.”

“Why would they be heading to places where we will finally be able to bring them to battle?” asked the chief of staff, Admiral Trostara.”

“They will have erected wormhole gates at those points, and escape through them,” said Mrastaran, turning to looked at his chief of staff. When he saw confusion on the males face he huffed in exasperation. “They have wormholes all through the system. The ones near the barrier can leave with them. The ones further in cannot. They'll use them for gates, get everything out, then reduce them in size and move them into hiding.” Except for what they put on those damned stealth ships of theirs.

He could have his entire fleet spread out and search the system, but they could leave twenty of the damned sneaky ships here and he wouldn't be able to find them. While they spied on him, and maybe took some strategic shots at antimatter tankers and missile colliers. And if they left them behind, it meant they were planning to come back here. Well, the Emperor would like to hear that, since he wanted to set some kind of trap for the humans. If they never came back that trap would be useless.

“Fire on all of them while you can,” he ordered, looking over at his tactical officer. “Calculate where they are going and fire missiles at those spots as well.”

“Yes, my Lord.” The tactical officer froze in place for a moment. “We're picking up massive launches from eight different points, my Lord.”

“Where? Show me.”

“From both their northern and southern forces. From the vicinity of Pleisia, mostly from the region of their moon. One each from both of the closer gas giants. The others from spots along the asteroid belt.”

“Target them and fire on them.”

“All of them, my Lord,” said the chief of staff. “Need I remind you that anything we fire at those polar positions will only get there after those forces are long gone.”

Mrastaran growled in frustration. Of course those missiles would be wasted. He wanted to hit those ships so bad, and all the missiles he had already fired at them would coast into interstellar space with no targets. They might be able to signal most of them to decelerate, but none of them would have the battery power to come to a complete stop. Ships might be able to catch some of them, but he was sure to lose a high percentage of those weapons.

“Belay targeting those outer forces,” he growled, his anger rising. “Fire on those others.”

He probably wouldn't get anything with those launches either, unless, as he suspected, they had fixed missile launchers located at each spot. Anything mobile would be gone.

Mrastaran had gone into this battle knowing little about the human commander. He had learned much since coming into this system. She had fought a brilliant ambush and delaying action, costing him precious ships and crew at a much smaller loss to herself.

“We're being hit by those damned laser mines again, my Lord,” shouted an angry tactical officer. “About twenty thousand of the damned things. We just lost more than a hundred ships.”

“Send this order out, immediately,” screamed the great admiral. “The fleet is to change to these vectors, half to the north, the other half to the south. In one hour they are to shift back to the most immediate vectors back to Pleisia.”

There was no telling how many mines they had waiting on their path. But there was no way they could have them covering all possible approaches. Was there?

*     *     *

“The Emperor has given his permission for the Slarna to transit into the black hole system,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom over the wormhole com. “They are to immediately start boosting on the vector they emerge from. They are not to deviate from that vector for any reason. Any ship that changes vector before ordered will be fired upon by the defenses of the Donut and the home fleet.”

“Those prickly bastards are not going to like this one bit,” said Beata, grimacing.

“The gate will be set within three million kilometers of the Donut,” continued McCullom, her eyes hard. “We don't have time to move it further out, and it must be as stationary as we can make it. If they would prefer to stay in that system and deal with the Cacas they are welcome to it. They are not trusted allies. In fact, the Emperor also wants the Klavarta ships as far from the Donut as we can keep them.”

“He doesn't trust them?” asked a horrified Beata. These were their fellow humans, even those who had been genetically engineered into other forms. They had the same number of chromosomes, ninety-eight percent of the same genes.

“He trusts their government,” said McCullom, closing her eyes for a moment and slowly shaking her head. “He trusts President Klanarat, and Vice President Thrann. But he doesn't trust all of their officers, the xenophobic bastards. And I don't blame him one bit.”

“They've turned away from those practices,” said Beata, shaking her head, wondering if that was totally correct.

She had gotten the feeling from Admiral Klanarat that he didn't particularly like aliens. The admiral wasn't sure he liked humans that weren't of his genetic type.

“According to our intelligence sources within the Nation of New Earth, not all of them believe in the new ways. Many of them still think it is their mission to cleanse the Galaxy of anything that can't draw a genetic line from Earth.”

“Our intelligence sources? You mean Sergiov has spies within a government of an ally?”

It was something she hadn't really thought about. But from what she knew of Sean, a historian of old Earth, she shouldn't have been surprised. He oft quoted the Second Global War on old Earth. The United States and the Soviet Union were staunch allies during that war, and turned into deadly enemies as soon as it ended. A lesson for them all, nineteen hundred years later.

“Oh please, Admiral,” said a sneering McCullom. “Don't be naive. We have intelligence assets in the capitals of all of our allies. We need to know what's going on, even with our friends. Today's friend may be tomorrow's enemy, and we can't afford to get caught flat footed.”

Beata didn't like thinking of that. She preferred to believe that their allies were trustworthy friends, but from she had seen of the supreme commander of the Klavarta fleet, she didn't consider him worthy of her trust, nor was he a friend.

“There is still a lot of sympathy for the old regime,” continued McCullom, “the cloned bastards who set them on a path that made them enemies of every other species in their region. Just be careful, Admiral. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you have never been adept at playing the political game.”

“I never wanted to,” said Beata, feeling herself puff up with anger. “I am an officer in his Majesty's fleet, and that is all I want to be.”

Sondra laughed, and Beata felt her face heating up at the thought that her superior was laughing at her.

“Don't be offended, Beata,” said the CNO, her expression softening. “I never wanted to play the game either. Unfortunately, I was put into a position where it was learn to play the political game or fail to serve my Emperor. Something I wouldn't countenance. You may never have to be as good at it as most other grand fleet admirals, not as good as Duke Taelis, or Lenkowski. But you still have to learn to play the game. It's as important as knowing how to defeat and enemy in battle.”

“Point taken.”

“Don't get taken in by those people out there, Admiral. Trust in their president and vice, but be careful of everyone else. And make sure the Slarna know what they have to do if they're going to evacuate from the system to the Donut. I really don't want to see a blue on blue incident.”

It would be one of the shortest friendly fire incidents in the history of the Galaxy. The firepower based on and around the Donut was daunting. If she could have had that firepower in the Plesias system she would have made short work of the Cacas. But Sean was not about to uncover his most vital resource, not even a little bit. Mobile units might be moved, in small lots, but anything permanent was there to stay. They might be winning the war, overall, but taking out the Donut could still turn things around for the Cacas.

The com died, leaving Beata alone with her thoughts. Having a heart to heart with the Iron Woman herself, thought Bednarczyk with a snort. She wasn't looking forward to giving Admiral Connandra those instructions. Because she wasn't looking forward to it, she thought she better get it over with.

Chapter Nineteen

Some defeats are only installments to victory. Jacob Riis

Captain Xferd Canara looked up to the sky, trying to make out the objects he knew were up there. The bright star shining down on the day side of the planet made that impossible. If it had been the night side he would have been able to pick up the lights of the objects he knew were up there. The gate and most of the ships were always on the day side, away from the enemy. And most of those ships were going through that gate, to safety.

But not us, thought the captain, wishing that he wasn't honor bound to the code of his class. Klavarta warriors didn't surrender. They didn't leave their posts. They died where they stood. It was an honorable tradition, and one he was coming to regret.

“Why must we die for a bunch of filthy aliens,” growled a voice from the next bunker over. “When the Cacas get here they're just going to lick their boots.”

“I don't want to hear any more talk like that,” yelled Canara, jogging over to that bunker in a rage. “We are not those people anymore.”

“But, sir,” said another voice, this one subdued.

“I will not tolerate bigotry in my company,” growled the officer, pulling open the hatch to the bunker and staring in at the soldiers within. He knew both of them, since they were in his command. Not as well as the people who worked with him more closely. Squad leaders, platoon sergeant or LT.

“Why is the government leaving us on this rock, sir?” asked the older of the men. “I mean, we really aren't going to accomplish anything. All we'll do is contribute to the collateral damage.”

“I can't answer that, Warrior,” said the captain, who silently agreed with the soldier. “All I can say is we have been given orders, and warriors always obey orders. Now, I can't tell you what to think, but I can tell you what you can and can't say. And I don't want to hear any more bigotry. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer, who had wholeheartedly bought into the new policies of the government, walked back to his command bunker with his thoughts in turmoil. He had to wonder how many of his fellow Warriors, as well as the Alphas and Engineers, felt the way those soldiers did. After all, they had all been raised to believe that only their own species was truly intelligent, blessed to rule all of space and to not share it with lesser species. When the war with the Cacas had started, that mighty empire with so many alien subjects, the immortal rulers had decreed that all other intelligent species were enemies, and only one thing was to be done with them. Extermination. Which made them pariahs to the species who had the power to stand up to them. The humans from the New Terran Empire had changed all that after the rulers had died in the explosion that had taken out the capital planet, along with the invading Caca fleet. They had turned out to be not quite the immortal beings they had been presented as, which went a long way to knocking them off their pedestals.

Why are they setting us up to oppose a landing, thought the captain, turning his attention back to matters at hand, at the moment more important than any historical or sociological matters. If he had been in charge he would have scattered all of his people into the wilderness. Let them fight a guerrilla campaign. As it was, they were too exposed here in the cities. Even worse, the civilians were exposed for collateral damage. Of course, he wasn't in charge, and the people who were seemed to have no interest in his opinion.

*     *     *

“We're past the barrier, ma'am,” said the fleet navigation officer. “We can jump whenever you are ready.”

Beata looked over at the plot. The nearest enemy missiles were still four hours away. They could jump into hyper when they were minutes away and the Cacas wouldn't get a hit. And it surely would infuriate their commander when their enemy jumped out of normal space just ahead of those missiles.

“Enemy fleet still moving?” asked Beata, looking over the plot. “We haven't had any of their ships come to a stop anywhere?”

“No, ma'am. All are still boosting. Either accel or decel.”

That was a relief to the admiral. The Cacas did have wormholes. Not many of them, but they were capable of erecting gates. As far as intelligence knew, and they seemed to have some deep operatives in Caca space, though it was above Bednarczyk's pay grade to know anything about them, the big aliens hadn't built any accelerator units yet. What they could do was boost missiles in another system up to high relativistic speed and send them through a gate. Many thousands of them per minute, more than she could put out. Since they did all their boosting in another system, and none after entering the area of the target star, they would head to their targets without a trace. A couple of thousand of those things coming out of nowhere and hitting her ships would ruin a perfectly good operation for a lot of people. Since they couldn't deploy that gate while moving at high velocity it looked like she was safe from that threat.

The Cacas had a weakness with that deployment. Her missiles came out of the accelerators with a full battery load for boosting. The Caca missiles did not. They probably used over eighty percent of the energy stored in their crystal matrix power cells boosting up to high velocity in the other system. They still retained more than enough power for last minute course corrections. But not enough for a considerable vector change. Which was great if she moved to someplace where they no longer had the delta v to reach her. Not so good if she picked them up less than a minute from impact.

“How goes the rest of the evacuation?”

“Everything according to the timetable, ma'am,” said Janssen, her chief of staff, looking up from his station, where he was relentlessly going over all the data coming in.

“And the Slarna?”

“They are starting through the gate the Indefatigable left behind. The stealth/attack ship Grouper is waiting to mount the wormhole and hide in the system.

When all of her ships had gone, or the crews had been taken off of the ships to be scuttled, there would be twelve stealth/attack left behind for surveillance. They might be allowed to take a shot if a fat target appeared, with Beata's permission. But she wanted those ships and their wormholes in the system when she decided it was time to return.

“The only two gates still open are the one behind Pleisia and the one in orbit around the gas giant Larantia,” said Janssen, highlighting the points of interest on the plot. “Ships are still on vector for Larantia. A couple of our destroyers, a heavy cruiser, and what left of the Gernas battle group C. Fifty-three ships on a maximum decel for the gate.”

“And the fast attack craft?”

“All that are able to get away through a gate are heading for them. Which leaves just over three hundred of them on a vector out of the system.”

“Have we arranged for their pickup?” Beata didn't want to leave anything behind that couldn't hide with little chance of being picked up on sensors.

“The fleet carrier Montauk is on the way with a wormhole,” said Janssen. “They will set up at two light days out and power down.”

“Escorts?”

“Minimal,” said Janssen, shaking his head. “Three destroyers. I thought it best that we not put too many ships in a location where they might be picked up.”

“Try to get those fast attack craft out,” ordered Beata, pointing to the plot. “I'll need them later. But if it comes down to it, evacuate the crews and scuttle them. I want the people and that carrier out of there before the Cacas get too close.”

“Understood,” replied Janssen, walking over to the com station.

*     *     *

“We're being ordered to vector out of the system, sir,” said the com tech, her strange alien face looking over toward the commander's chair.

What the hell for, thought Ensign Kallaris Plisias, the commander of fast attack craft Charlie five. In three hours they could be at Larantia, through the gate and out of the system. The gate is not going to be open that much longer, so they're telling us to get the hell out on our own. He wasn't sure how that was going to work. They weren't hyper capable, and there were over three hundred craft in their group. It would take fifty ships to carry them all on their hulls without obscuring their own weapon mounts.

“We're being ordered to rendezvous with a fleet carrier at two light days out, sir,” said the Klassekain. “They will be laying low until we get there, then opening a gate to let us through.”

“What's our ETA to that location?” They could get up to point nine-two light before particle radiation started to penetrate their field and armor. It would take them nine hours to get up to that velocity on the required heading, then twenty-six hours to decelerate down to a complete stop.

“Ninety-one hours, sir.”

And we'll be looking over our shoulders the entire time, thought the ensign. With an enemy that would probably be throwing missiles at them most of the way.

“I don't like it,” said Plisias, shaking his head. “But we don't have any choice, do we? Start us on the way out. Make sure we stay with the other Charlie ships.”

Plisias knew that they would be coming back to fight over this system. He hoped that the next time they wouldn't be the ones running out.

*     *     *

Admiral Connandra had been staring at the forward viewer from the moment they had transited the wormhole in the center of the New Terran Empire. The object on the screen, taken by the stern cameras, was beyond belief. It was lit up with flashing strobes and millions of internal lights.

“Just how big is that thing?”

“We're estimating almost eight million kilometers in diameter, sir,” said the executive officer of the ship, monitoring the passive sensors. “Twenty-five million kilometers in circumference. How in the hell did anyone build something like that?”

“Slarna ships,” came a voice over the com, cold and unfeeling. “Maintain current course. Do not deviate.”

“That didn't sound very friendly,” said the exec, sitting at one of the sensor stations on the bridge.

“No,” replied the admiral, giving his species version of a head shake, a circular motion. “At least they aren't coming out and threatening to blow us out of space.”

Not that they needed a verbal threat. There were over a hundred warships arrayed in an elongated cylinder around his force. Only a dozen of them were battleships, but in case he had thoughts of challenging them with his fleet, all of his passive sensors were lit up with the targeting sensors of thousands of weapons. Most of those were mounted on the station that was turning in orbit around the black hole in the center. Targeting sensors were coming on and off as the station rotated. Other sensor readings were coming off very large structures in orbit around the station.

So much power, thought the admiral. The structure itself was unbelievable, something his own people couldn't build in a thousand years, and only then if they used the total industrial strength of their nation. This nation had built it in a hundred years, if they were to be believed, and with a fraction of their resources. They considered it their most vital resource, the source of their wormholes. It was no wonder they were so protective of it. Only the defense fleet, all Terran vessels, were allowed within a billion kilometers of it. So in a way, the Slarna were being honored to be allowed this close. If being targeted by so many weapons could make anyone feel anything but terror.

“Do you want me to give the active sensors a look at that station,” said the sensor officer, looking back at his commander.

“No,” shouted the admiral, glaring at the crewman. The humans might not be concerned with the energy of a sensor impacting their station. Or they might consider it an attack, and all of their weapons would blow his force out of space in an instant.

“The last of our ships are through, sir,” said the exec. “The human battleship is coming through right after.”

Connandra watched the zoomed take as the viewer showed the huge human ship coming through the mirrored surface of the portal. It continued out on the tail of the Slarna force, whether as an additional guard, or because they weren't allowed near the station either, he couldn't tell.

“What the hell are they so worried about?” asked the exec. “It would take a thousand ship killers to destroy that thing.”

Just being cautious, thought the admiral. He couldn't blame them. Sure, the thing could obviously take a lot of firepower, but it also had to be home to pentatons of delicate equipment, as well as millions of highly trained personnel. He had felt offended at being ordered into such a restrictive formation, being surrounded by so much firepower. Now, having seen what they were protecting, he was just happy that they had allowed him to escape the Pleisia system through the wormhole.

“Com coming through, sir.”

“Put it on.”

A human officer appeared on the holo. The admiral didn't have any idea who it was. Connandra still had trouble telling males and females of the human species apart. He did recognize the rank insignia on the collar though, and he bowed his head to the four-star officer that was his equal in rank.

“Admiral Connandra,” said the officer. The admiral thought it a male from the timber of the voice. “We request that as soon as you hit the one billion kilometer mark you decelerate to this ring of gates. We will be sending you through to the Central Docks region of our capital system. There we will rearm you, replenish your supplies, and make what repairs we can to your damaged warships.”

“Thank you, Admiral?”

“Conrad. Dimetri Conrad. I am the commander of the Donut defense fleet.”

“We appreciate your attention to my ships and people.”

“My pleasure. We will give any aid possible to our valiant allies.” The com blanked, leaving the Slarna admiral to his own thoughts.

“Make sure that we get all the passive readings on everything out here that we can,” he ordered the exec, who was also his chief of staff on the undersized capital ship. He was sure that some of that data would be valuable. If not to his own people, then to someone.

*     *     *

“Admiral Klanarat,” said the old Alpha on the com.

“Mr. President.” The admiral didn't like seeing the older members of his species. The genetically altered members of his species had a life expectancy of little more than sixty Earth years. Something to do with the augmentation process, though many suspected it was because the former immortal masters hadn't wanted servants who lived long enough to challenge them. The humans were engineering the next generations to live for a hundred and fifty years or longer. The admiral was not of that new generation, and at fifty-four he was looking mortality in the face. The president was even older, and probably had at most another two years.

“I have gathered up a respectable force, sir. A thousand battleships, three thousand smaller vessels, as well as a couple of hundred support vessels. And we are closing on another force of seven hundred ships. I should be able to reach Pleisia with five thousand ships. Adding what the Terrans have, and what you can send me from the core defense fleet, we should be able to challenge the Cacas.”

“Change of plans, Admiral,” said the president with a deep frown. “We are currently evacuating Pleisia.”

“What?” blurted the admiral, his face flushing with anger. “The Terran admiral couldn't hold the system?”

“No one could hold that system, Admiral. Not without the total strength of our fleet, which was not available to Admiral Bednarczyk.”

Meaning, in not that many words, that I lost too many ships to make resisting the Cacas possible, thought the still angry officer. “Where will Bednarczyk meet me. I'm anxious to get those ships integrated into my command so we can start to maneuver against our enemy.”

“Admiral Bednarczyk will send you instructions on where to rendezvous with her fleet, Admiral Klanarat. Until she decides where that is going to be, you are to continue on a vector that takes you to the capital.”

“Until she has decided?” Klanarat slammed a fist down on the arm of his bridge command chair. “It is my fleet. By what right does she decide anything?”

“Admiral,” said the stony-faced president. “Calm down. We have decided that Admiral Bednarczyk is more qualified to fight this kind of battle. So she will be in charge.”

“That's outrageous,” screamed the admiral, his anger rising and passing into rage. “I am the senior officer of the Klavarta fleet. It is mine to command by right of position.”

“You serve at my discretion, Admiral,” growled the president, his eyes narrowing as he stared out of the holo. “And at the discretion of the congress. Remember that. You will be serving under Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk. You will follow her orders to the letter. That doesn't mean you can't ask questions for clarification, or make suggestions. But digging in your heels and refusing to follow an order will be considered insubordination. Understood?”

The admiral sat staring straight ahead for some moments, unsure how to answer.

“I asked, is it understood?” asked the president, his tone dripping icicles.

“Why are you doing this to me?” asked the admiral, tears welling in his eyes. He had done his best to defeat the Cacas. His plan had been good. It should have worked. He hadn't expected the Cacas to oppose him with a commander who was actually good at his job.

And that was your mistake, Jrasstra, he thought. You thought yourself superior to any possible commander the enemy could throw at you.

“I'm not doing this to hurt you, Admiral,” said the president, his tone low, softening. “We need a commander in place that we can be confident of. Both our people and those of the New Terran Empire. Bednarczyk has just fought a brilliant campaign against the Cacas in Pleisia, hurting them badly while taking little in the way of losses herself. Emperor Sean and I both agreed that she needs to take command of the entire front.”

Klanarat didn't like the sound of that. In his opinion the Terrans already had too much influence on his nation. He was smart enough to realize that the president didn't want his opinion, and voicing it at the moment would not aid his cause. The admiral would just have to bide his time, and wait for the opportunity to take charge of the fleet and win the battle. He couldn't do anything overt, but by dragging his feet covertly he might be able to watch the Terran admiral fail, possibly getting killed. As long as the rest of the fleet survived, and he was in place to take charge, things could turn out in his favor.

“I understand, sir. I don't have to like it, but I will do my duty to my people.” Even if that means letting an ally down, he thought. His president might not agree, but he thought it vital that the Klavarta people become their own saviors. For the honor of their people.

*     *     *

“We will be ready to insert into orbit in three hours, my Lord,” said Admiral Trostara, Mrastaran's chief of staff.

“I want us to target everything in orbit around the planet, Trostara,” ordered the great admiral, staring at the bright globe on the holo.

There were still thousands of satellites in orbit, most with the look of defensive platforms. A couple of dozen larger platforms were also among them, what looked like habitats and docks. As far as they could tell there were no ships in those orbitals. If there were any offensive weapons on the platforms they hadn't revealed themselves. Given how many missiles had been fired at his fleet he doubted there could be very many. And what about the laser sats?

“Scan that space with all sensors on active. Any clusters of objects that show up are to be destroyed immediately. Everything else will be fired upon when the targeting basket doesn't include the planet.”

He wasn't sure what kind of trap the Emperor was planning for the enemy in this system. The admiral had his concerns, and it was something that as a philosophical follower of the old religion he wouldn't like. But he would be damned if he hit that planet with enough firepower to kill all life on the surface. If the religion actually had any resemblance to truth, his own soul would not burn in the hells of his people for actions that opposed the will of the Gods.

While not really sure if he myths of his people really held any weight in the real Universe, he was still wedded philosophically by the traditions he had been raised in. Maybe hell didn't exist, and only oblivion waited beyond this life. However, his conscience would torment him for the rest of his existence if he betrayed his principles, and wasn't that a hell of sorts?

He was sure that whatever wormhole gate had been here had already evacuated everything that was mobile and collapsed. It could be thrusting within light seconds of his fleet for any destination and they would never know. The sensors were sensitive, but a collapsed wormhole could be a ring a millimeter across, undetectable.

'We've picked up several clusters,” called out the sensor officer, looking over the takes from all the other ships.

“Show me.”

The plot had zoomed in on an area of a light minute out from the planet. There were nine regions a light second in extent that shimmered with returns, the indication of many small objects crowded into a relatively small area.

“Firing missiles now,” called out the tactical officer.

Ninety missiles appeared on the plot, ten moving toward each of the indicated clusters. A couple of each group were taken out by lasers, detonating in space, and obscuring the sensors of the other mines. Warheads went off in bright pinpoints among the mines, gigatons of explosive power causing very little damage in the vacuum, while the waves of radiation and heat knocked most of the mines out of action.

“Sensor sweeps are showing some few objects in five of the regions, my Lord.”

“Fire on all of them, again,” ordered Mrastaran. “All of the regions. I want to take no chances before we move through that space.”

Mrastaran turned to walk back to his chair, then looked back at his tactical officer. “And start taking out all those defensive platforms in orbit. Try to get them with lasers and particle beams if possible, but if you can get in a clear missile shot without endangering the surface, take it.”

“There is a priority com coming in, my Lord,” said the communications officer. “From the Emperor,” hissed the officer, his eyes wide.

“Put him on my side holo.”

“Report, Admiral,” said the adolescent ruler. “Have you taken the system yet?”

“We are just under three hours from orbit, Supreme Lord. We will bombard all surface defenses and land troops to take charge of the world.”

“Don't bother, Admiral,” said the smiling young male. “Once you have destroyed all of their space defenses you are to set up a wormhole gate and prepare to bring the special assets to that system.”

“If we are to establish a base here, don't you think it behooves us to secure the planet for our own use?” asked the great admiral, his own stomach feeling hollow at the thought of what the Emperor was proposing without so many words.

“That planet will be of no use to us, Admiral,” said the Emperor, his eyes narrowing. “Now follow my orders, without question.”

“Yes, Supreme Lord.”

The holo faded, leaving the bad feeling the admiral had been carrying around a growing concern.

“What was that about, sir?” asked the com officer, his worried face showing his own concern.

“I really don't know,” said Mrastaran, again wondering what the young fool had planned.

“New orders to the fleet,” the admiral told his chief of staff. “Once all space defenses have been taken out we will be erecting a gate at one light minute from the planet. I want the bulk of the fleet arrayed in defense around it. The rest will boost for destinations throughout the system. I want us to find anything they left behind before they can use it against us.”

Mrastaran knew that was a false hope where the enemy stealth craft were concerned. His main worry was that one would sneak in and put a missile into his wormhole gate, collapsing it for good. He had others, and could put up another gate. Unfortunately, unlike the humans, he didn't have an endless supply of the holes through space.

“Great news, my Lord,” called out one of the com officers, looking back at Mrastaran. “Admiral Tonassar survived the battle. His ship is a total wreck, but the admiral is alive.”

And the good news just keeps coming, thought the admiral, staring off into the air as he wondered what else could go wrong.

*     *     *

“Everything's out of the system that's coming out, ma'am,” reported Captain Janssen to his admiral.

Bednarczyk stood looking at a projected plot that was coming through from her dozen stealth ships, fed through their wormholes back to the Donut, then through to her flagship, the Romulus. The dozen views, visual and graviton, were being assembled into the composite plot she was studying.

The Cacas had spread out through the system and were searching and securing all points. They had erected two gate within a light minute of the planet, with a cordon of scout ships moving slowly around it. She was watching a near real time visual take of the larger ships, sitting dead in space, through the transmission of a stealth ship sitting two light minutes away. While she was tempted to order that ship to take a shot at one of the gates she held herself in check. The vessel was unlikely to survive once the stream was traced back to them, and she wanted to keep that intelligence resource, the closest she had to the inhabited planet, intact.

Her own fleet sat in a red dwarf system thirty-three light years from Pleisia. The system wasn't much to speak of. A red star about half of Sol's mass, one close in gas giant with a couple of moons, and two rocky worlds further out. No life that anyone had detected, very resource poor. There was an asteroid belt sitting between the gas giant and the first rocky world, and her fleet was orbiting the star within that far spread mass of rocks. She had three gates open, each in orbit around one of the larger rocks of the field.

“We have another force coming in, ma'am,” called out the sensor officer. “Klavarta. Eleven battleships and sixty-one smaller vessels.”

So, not Klanarat, yet, she thought. She wasn't expecting the Klavarta admiral for two more days. He hadn't contacted her directly, but had communicated through his Klassekian com tech. She was not looking forward to the face to face that would occur once he was in the system. However, she was looking forward to adding the ships he had gathered up to her command. She needed all the ships she could get to challenge the Cacas next time around.

Right now she still had Romulus, one of the most powerful ships in known space. Unfortunately she only had the one. Along with one hundred and fifty-eight standard hyper VII battleships, thirty-four battle cruisers, over six hundred smaller cruisers and almost a thousand destroyers. Eight fleet carriers, but less than five hundred warp fighters remaining between them. And of course her eighteen wormholes. Besides the twelve on the stealth ships, she had eight more in the system, ready and waiting for her. So far she had gathered another three thousand ships, Klavarta, Slarna and Gernas, to augment her fleet.

Mara was sitting ten light years away at another M class star, two gates open. She had forty-five battle cruisers, one hundred and five light cruisers and one hundred and thirty-eight destroyers. She still had nine wormholes, and over eight thousand allied ships.

From what she had heard, Klanarat was coming with another seven thousand ships, and three thousand were heading out from the core worlds, ETA four days. On paper it was a mighty fleet, but not enough to face off against what the Cacas had. If Klanarat hadn't gotten his fleet gutted they would have had enough force to handle them. And six days away was her ace in the hole, along with the carrier and twelve hyper VII battleships that had escorted them. Forty-two wormholes connecting back to the Donut, giving her launch capabilities equal to what she already had.

We might be able to pull it off, she thought, rubbing her forehead as she took her commander's chair. It would take some fancy maneuvering, and some massive waves of wormhole launched missiles. Fortunately, with the assets she still had in the system, the enemy wouldn't be able to ambush her on the way in. And if she used the gates she could establish to bring in some more combat power she could beat them. At a cost, but when had anyone ever said that this game would be easy.

“You have a priority com from the high command, ma'am.”

“Put it on my side holo.”

“Admiral,” said the young man looking out of the holo.

“Your Majesty,” said Beata, bowing her head as she started to rise from her chair.

“Remain seated, please,” said the Emperor. “I have to ask you a question. Do you think you can eject the Cacas from that system?”

“I, think so. No guarantees. But I think I can find a way to take them out, especially with them so deep in that system.”

“I'm about to tell you something so secret I hesitate to say it,” said Sean, closing his eyes for a moment. “It might change how you approach this. So, you might want to take the rest of this call in your ready room.”

Beata raised an eyebrow, then nodded and got out of her seat. As soon as she walked through the hatch of her ready room, her small chamber close to the flag bridge, the day cabin she used most of the time while on campaign, the com chirped.

The Emperor appeared on a holo as soon as she sat in the chair behind her desk. Great timing, she thought. He probably had some way of monitoring the ships, at least in part. She would know if he were tapping into her private coms, but he could find out when she entered or left the bridge by asking some of her people. Who would be brave enough to refuse the Emperor, after all?

“Good,” he said out of the holo, waving a hand to motion her back into her chair. “You may need to be sitting down for this.”

How bad could this be? she thought. She had watched the Machines destroy multiple worlds out on the frontier, unable to stop them. Eventually she had been able to stop them in their tracks, with some help from the technologists of the Empire. Then she had deposed a cruel ruler, preventing him from wiping out half of the population of his own capital world. What in the hell could disturb her after going through that?

“The Cacas are using a new weapon of mass destruction,” said Sean, a frown creasing his face.

“What kind of weapon of mass destruction?” asked an alarmed admiral. She knew about the wormhole bombs that had been used by both empires in the war. The Cacas had actually had one in place to destroy Jewel, the home world of the Empire. If not for the actions of the fleet and the defection of one of their human slaves it would have succeeded.

“It seems to be similar to what you used out in Machine space, Admiral. Something that stirs up the star and sends out a blast of plasma.”

“I can see how that would be a threat to electronics,” said Beata, wondering why a weapon like he was talking about would be of such concern. Possibly it could short out the electronics and computers onboard ships and planets. It would not harm the living creatures on the ships and planets who would be able to make repairs.

“This is a lot more powerful, Admiral. A true nova. Not up to the magnitude of a supernova. The star loses about five percent of its mass. Not enough to vaporize planets. But definitely enough to raise the temperature of planetary surfaces. Any ships in the system the weapon is deployed in will be killed.”

“They have used this weapon already?”

“Yes,” said the Emperor, closing his eyes. “They destroyed a small task group. Fortunately, we got the sensor take just before they went down. Since then we have observed one other. We are working on tactics to take out their suicide ships before they can complete the process, but who knows how that will work.”

“Should I stay out of the system?” asked an alarmed Beata, thinking of the losses she could incur in such a situation.

“No,” said Sean, opening his eyes and again shaking his head. “We need you to attack while not showing foreknowledge of this weapon. I'm sending you the information you will need to identify their projection ships. Use what you need to take them out, and safeguard the rest of your fleet. Rest assured that the Caca fleet will not be in the system. But also be aware that they will be close enough to come in and destroy whatever remains of the fleet they expect to be destroyed. You might be able to use that to your advantage.”

I don't see how, thought Beata, her thoughts in turmoil at what she was being asked to do. And the people she would be putting at risk.

“McCullom and her staff will be meeting with you by holo to work out some strategies and contingencies. Listen to them. Brainstorm. But I expect the plan to be yours. I have the utmost trust in your, Admiral. So get it done.”

The holo blanked, Sean taking advantage of his prerogative to end coms when he felt like it. And leaving Beata with a thousand unanswered questions. The biggest being, why me?

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, is now out, and he has written a novel, When Eagles Dare, in Chris Kennedy 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 Walborski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of the deadliest planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.  Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will a 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: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion. The Cacas have come up with a horrifying new weapon that destroys entire star systems. Meanwhile, the religious cast of the Ca’cadasan Empire revolt against their Emperor.

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?

The Monster: When a scientist test his new teleportation device on himself, he comes out the other side better than before. But something is missing, and the world has a new terror unleashed on it.

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.

Tales of the Lyon’s Den: Another anthology set in the Revelations Cycle Universe. Doug Dandridge, Mark Wandrey, Chris Kennedy and many others.

Those in Peril: (The Phases of Mars Book 1): Alternate History of Naval Warfare. Doug Dandridge, James Young, Chris Kennedy and many 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.

New Imagination Unlimited Newsletter

Sign up for my free Newsletter at Mailchimp, for insights into my writing, future projects, promotions and new releases.  The Newsletter will come out at least twice a month and will always contain something new.

Table of Contents

- 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