Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Space Opera; War; Fiction; Military; Science Fiction
Description: Time Strike The New Terran Empire is still trying to recover from the Ca’cadasan strike that left over three hundred million dead and ripped the heart out of the ship production of Central Docks. The Donut, the huge station in orbit around the Supersystem black hole, was almost destroyed in that strike, and its defenses have been strengthened considerably. That Caca strike didn’t do all they had wanted, but it had hurt the Empire’s war making capabilities. The Ca’cadasans are at it again, with a two-pronged attack on the Empire. Sean has to decide, and quickly, how his fleet is to counter this
Publisher: Catbrother Publishing

Exodus: Empires at War:

Book 12:

Time Strike
by

Doug Dandridge

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to all the self-published authors out there who forged the path that led to my success.  Thanks you for making the opportunity available.

Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

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Copyright © 2017 Doug Dandridge

All rights reserved.

Please respect the hard work of this author.  If you found this book for free on a pirate site, please visit Amazon and buy a copy of your own.  I feel that I charge a reasonable price for this work.

For more information on the Exodus Universe, visit http://dougdandridge.net for maps, sketches and other details of this work.

The Story So Far is now located at the back of the book, on the recommendation of many fans.

Books by Doug Dandridge

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Science Fiction

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4: the Long Fall.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:

Exodus: Empires at War Book 8: Soldiers

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Beast of the Frontier.

Exodus: Machine Wars: Book 1: Supernova.

Exodus: Machine Wars: Book 2: Bolthole.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above.

The Deep Dark Well Series

The Deep Dark Well

To Well and Back

Deeper and Darker

Theocracy

Others

The Shadows of the Multiverse

Diamonds in the Sand

The Scorpion

Afterlife

We Are Death, Come for You

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:

Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

Others

The Hunger

Daemon

Aura

Marathon

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Cast of Characters

The Capital

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

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

Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom:  Chief of Naval Operations.

Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov:  Chief of Imperial Combined Intelligence Service.

Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri:  Army Chief of Staff.

Field Marshal Betty Parker:  Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps

Tomas Gijardo:  Business Analyst and citizen living in Capitulum.

Nick Stumpfield:  Leader of the Temporal Realignment Faction.

Lucille Yu:  Director of the Donut.

Count Nicholas Stumpfield: Leader of Temporal Realignment Faction.

Achieng Okoye:  Assassin in the employ of Stumpfield.

Dr. Kenji Guatarrez:  Time Travel Researcher.

Prime Minister Countess Haruko Kawasaki.

The Fleet

Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda:  Admiral in command of Hyper VII battle force.

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

Vice Admiral Jefferson Muldoon:  Commander, Retribution Squadron.

Commander Xavier Jackson: Captive of the Ancients.

Captain Wilma Snyder:  Warp fighter wing commander.

Captain Anvi Patel:  Warp fighter wing commander.

Captain Natatuk Igua:  Warp fighter wing commander.

Rear Admiral Natasha Sung:  Commander of Special Exploration Force.

Lt. Commander Timothy Bonaventure: Sung’s com officer.

Imperial Army

Cornelius Walborski:  The Count.  Ranger Colonel and three time holder of the Imperial Medal of Heroism.

Colonel General Samuel Baggett:  Imperial Army Commander, Fenri Front.

The Republic

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

Ca’cadasans

Jresstratta IV:  Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire

Others

Klorasof:  Ancient.

Sgornar:  Guerilla, Fenri Front.

Prologue

CA’CADASAN HOME SYSTEM, APRIL 7TH, 1003.

“The fleet will be in position to strike within the month, my Supreme Lord,” said the Great Admiral that was the current commander of the battle force on the primary front.

The Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire, Jresstratta IV, gave a head motion of acknowledgement over the wormhole com holo.  It was four months since the attack against the home system of the humans, as well as the battle for the wormhole generating station.  While great damage had been done to the home system, and the generating station had also taken a beating, the strikes had not met with the hoped for measure of success.  The human capital system was still there, and the great generating station was still a going concern.  Just as bad, the offensive at the frontier, after some quick initial gains, had been repulsed when the human Empire’s allies had rallied back to the cause.

Now we have twice the fleet in place that we had in that operation, thought the Emperor.  And they had more of their own wormholes, making sure that each task group had at least one.  They still didn’t have enough wormholes to start producing the weapons the humans used through their portals, like the powerful particle beams or missile preacceleration systems.  They could send masses of missiles through the wormholes from a free space launch, but that didn’t give them the flexibility the humans had with theirs.

There will be seven more wormhole generating moons in five months, thought the Emperor, showing his canines in a display of displeasure that had the Great Admiral on the other end showing some fear that he might have done something to offend his Supreme Lord.  Males had died for less.  But the Emperor was thinking about the discrepancies in wormhole production.  His Empire was producing twenty a week, and the new production facilities would raise that to twenty-seven each seven days.  While the humans were still producing thirty a day, two hundred and ten a week, almost eight times as many.  Plus they were many years of wormhole production ahead of the Ca’cacdasan Empire.  It seemed to Jresstratta that no matter what they did they would never catch up to the humans.

“Have I displeased you, my Supreme Lord,” stammered the Great Admiral, earning grudging respect from the Emperor.

“No, Great Admiral.  Just something I was thinking of.   Make sure you make good use of the intertialess fighters.  They cost use greatly in resources, and we need to get a good return on them.”  He was sure those would come as a surprise to the humans, when the weapon they thought of as theirs was used against them.  But the humans and their allies seemed to adjust quickly to new developments, and he was sure they would do the same to the fact that the Ca’cadasans now had the same technology as themselves.  So his people needed to hit hard with the fighters while they were a surprise, and not give the humans time to adjust to them before they shot their bolt, so to speak.

“We will ream them, Supreme Lord,” said the great admiral with a look of determination on his face.

And that is always what we think, thought the Emperor.  And we always seem to fail.  He wouldn’t say that to his great admiral, since he needed that male to be at his best, which included being confident in his force.  And this time they were striking at different targets than before, bypassing the space of New Moscow altogether.  There was not much of interest there, with the exception of a lot of defenses and a lot of ships.  No, this time they would come through Fenri space, brushing aside the Imperial fleet investing that Empire, then striking into human space, taking out the human force in Lashara.  He hoped this would suck in most of the Imperial units, while the second force that was still in the process of moving into place would attack the New Terran Republic, giving them a tough choice for deployment.  If they could take out one of the smaller but still major human fleets in the other front, then knock one of the alliance members out of the war, the entire thing could be turned around.  And then the final hammer blow would fall.

“Do not fail me, Great Admiral,” said the Emperor in a cautioning tone.  “Crush the enemy in front of you, the get your force out of there before they trap you.  I will need you to attack again after we crush the Republic.”

The Emperor cut the transmission before the admiral could answer.  He already knew what the male would say, and it wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome.  His military leaders had been promising great achievements throughout the war, and had been found wanting.

Jresstratta looked at the great holo that hung in the throne room, displaying his Empire and the fronts they were fighting on.  The Second Front, that of Klavarta, had stabilized, despite the enemy finding a new ally to aid them in the fight.  That front could wait.  It was not the primary concern.  Once the humans were reeling, their allies fallen, their core worlds under attack, he could concentrate again on the foe across the Empire.  Am I just engaging in wishful thinking? thought the Emperor.  He considered that he might be, but that was the way he had to think.  Any other way of thinking, in himself or others, was defeatism, and he could not tolerate that in any male, himself included.

*     *     *

CAPITULUM, JEWEL.

Sean Ogden Lee Romanov looked out of the window of his aircar at his capital city.   Those buildings that could be repaired were in the process of having their internal supports reinstalled.  Those that were ruins had been dropped into the most compact piles of rubble possible.  Some had been removed, some were in the process, and many more were waiting their turn.

Sean cursed in his thoughts as he looked at the scars the Ca’cadasan attack had left on his city.  What he couldn’t see at the moment were the hundreds of millions of dead that were the cost of that attack.  He couldn’t see them, but he knew about them.  Everyone agreed that he would not have been able to do anything about it, everyone but himself.  He took the blame for every one of those deaths, especially his son and heir, Augustine.  Jennifer had said she forgave him for that one small life that had been lost.  He didn’t believe her.

“The Hexagon should be repaired in another month,” said Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the highest ranking officer in the Fleet.

Sean nodded without saying a word.  He still felt some anger himself.  Most directed at the Cacas, but the members of his Fleet were also the recipients of some of that anger. After all, they had been responsible for the defense of this system, and had let the enemy through.  He knew that was not fair.  But the Emperor didn’t really feel like being fair right now.

“How go the preparations?” he asked.  He didn’t need to fill in any details.  Sondra knew what he was talking about.

“The ships will be boosting up today, your Majesty.  We expect them to be on target in about six months.”

And then we’ll see how you bastards feel having it done to you, thought Sean, a scowl on his face.  His Fleet staff had cautioned against this plan.  They could lose hundreds of ships, possibly thousands, for little return.  And it was almost a certainty that they would lose the fifty wormholes that were going along.  He didn’t care.  The people volunteered for the transfer, and the ships that would go through the portal would do as they were ordered, just as in any military operation.  And the enemy would learn that one didn’t strike at the capital of his empire, unless they wanted the favor returned.

He had no way of knowing what the capital world of the Ca’cadasan Empire looked like, but he could imagine piles of rubble strewn through their primary city.  He had thought of doing what they had attempted to do to his world with a wormhole weapon.  Jennifer had talked him out of that obscenity.  But they would still suffer.

He looked down on the scar that had been an underground shelter that had taken a direct hit by a kinetic, collapsing the tough armored capsule.  The idea had been that the same kind of central capsule that defended the crews of heavy warships would protect civilians during planetary attacks.  They worked against nukes and antimatter warheads that didn’t penetrate the ground.  Against kinetics, they were worse than useless.  But then again, a kinetic had to hit one directly, and that didn’t always happen.  Now if they had set off their wormhole squared weapon, every shelter on the facing hemisphere would have been crunched up with the top ten kilometers of crust.

“Intelligence is warning that they will soon launch another attack on us, your Majesty,” said a concerned McCullom.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before they were back,” said Sean with a faraway look in his eyes.  “Their Empire is too vast, and I doubt they have even fully mobilized their military for this war.”

It reminded Sean of what he had read about the Second World War on Earth.  The Soviets had commanded vast forces against the Germans, but had also occupied a vast territory.  They not only had to garrison the western part of their country against the possibility of a German attack, they also maintained a large force in the east against the Japanese.  The Cacas also ran a slave empire, and needed to garrison most of the worlds of their demesne.  That included naval units to give their garrisons orbital fire support when needed.  Now they were moving the units they could to central assembly areas and sending them to the fronts.  It was fortunate for the humans that the Cacas hadn’t been able to concentrate their fleet quickly, or they would have rolled over humanity and their allies.  And now the innovative humans were deploying new tech while at the same time they were reaching peak production.

“We could use those ships you lent the Bolthole front, your Majesty,” said Sondra, looking nervous as she spoke the words.   Everyone knew that Sean wanted that mess cleaned up, but it wasn’t a primary front.

Sean just shook his head and continued to stare out the window, silent.

*     *     *

DONUT SYSTEM.

“This system had changed since last we were here,” said the Ancient known as Klorasoft, waving his two forward most tentacles toward the large holo representation of the black hole system.  “Your people have fortified it beyond what they had before,” said the large alien, swiveling on his locomotion cilia and moving toward the one human in the chamber.  “What can you tell us of these defenses, Xavier Jackson?”

“I’ve told you that I will not divulge information that may hurt my people,” said the ebony skinned man who had once been the executive office on an Imperial battle cruiser, until the Ancients had plucked him out of normal space after he had survived catastrophic translation from hyper.

“Even if it may aid them in the long run,” pleaded the alien.

Jackson stared at the alien.  He wasn’t sure being rolled over by an enemy that was determined to destroy them would be in the long-term interest of the human race.  The aliens, of course, were worried about the time line, and what might happen to the entire galaxy if that time line was interfered with.   They had caused a number of disasters with their own tampering, and essentially took their own race out.  What the humans could do was potentially much worse.  But Jackson could not aid them in destroying the Donut, which was the most important asset the Empire had.

“We are worried about these arrays here, here and here,” said Klorasoft, pointing to three enormous sensor systems set up equidistant from the huge station.  Each was hundreds of kilometers in extent, though they had the appearance of a spider web like latticework.  They were obviously multispectrum sensors, but Jackson suspected that gravitons were one of the forms of radiation they were designed to detect.  Graviton emissions were sometimes hard to read within the swirling gravity waves of the black hole, and a larger array would be more efficient in picking them up.  The alien ship was smaller than a light cruiser, though much more powerful, and its engines gave off less in the way of gravitons than any Imperial vessel, both in hyper and normal space.  Less didn’t mean none, and though their detection range in VII was less than that of an Imperial ship in IV, they could still be detected if they strayed close enough to a sensor platform.  Same in normal space.  This ship could boost at fifty gravities and still be almost undetectable.  The imperative word there was almost.  Get close enough and they would be detected.  Give the opponent a powerful enough detection platform and they would be found.

“We will move in at five gravities,” said Klorasoft, glancing once more at the human.  “If we are destroyed, then so are you.”

As if that matters, thought Jackson.  His life was important to him.  Of course it was.  But he had taken an oath of service, pledging to lay that life on the line in defense of his Empire and its people.  So if his death was called for in that defense, he would die.

He could tell the alien was agitated from the motion of its tentacles.  The several hundred thousand ton ship had the firepower of twenty of the fifteen million ton human battleships.  Unfortunately for them, there was a lot more firepower in this system.  A hundred capital ships, hundreds of cruisers and destroyers, and the unknown defenses of the station.  They might not be concentrated enough to bring all that firepower onto a single target, but if they could be given enough warning they could get the tonnage in place to destroy even the ship of the Ancients.

“It will take us over seven hundred and sixty hours to come within range of the station,” said Klorasoft, still looking at Jackson.

So, thirty-two days, thought the Commander, running the numbers quickly in his mind.  He returned the gaze of the alien, wondering if they would reject their own principles and probe his mind for the information they wanted.

“You may return to your quarters,” said the frustrated alien.

Jackson blew out a breath, relieved for a moment.  But the tension of the situation still rode on his shoulders.  Thirty-two days.  The time he had to prevent the alien ship from destroying the most important asset in his Empire.

Chapter One

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time. Thomas Carlyle

IMPERIAL TRAINING SYSTEM, SECTOR II, APRIL 18TH, 1003.

“Ready for warp, sir,” said the pilot, looking back from his station.

Commander Natatuk Igua nodded as he looked at the engineering status on the holo near his command chair.  Everything was green, and he nodded his head again in satisfaction before looking around the small bridge.  Besides the pilot and himself there were three other crew in the chamber.  To his left sat the com tech, a Klassekian, the only species of use for communications on a ship like this.  To his right was the sensor operator, a lieutenant jg, an officer in that position since this was the squadron command ship.  Next to the pilot was the weapon’s tech, a chief petty officer, who controlled the release of every weapon on the ship.  The engineer and her assistant were in the stern of the ship, monitoring all of the power and propulsion systems of the vessel.

The fifty meter long, eight thousand ton ship was the newest addition to the Imperial arsenal.  It was a true Alcubierre drive ship, capable of warping space, and the next development from the inertialess fighters already in service.  Unlike those ships, it could go from a standing stop to above the speed of light in less than a second.  Not really the speed of light, since the ship didn’t actually travel at all.  The space around it compressed and expanded, and the ship appeared to move faster than light.  Maximum pseudospeed for this iteration was twenty light, and it could warp at that speed for a maximum of two hours.  The circular ring around the center of the ship was the heart of the drive, what moved it in warp.  An octet of powerful grabber units could propel it through normal space at eight hundred gravities, slightly faster than a ten thousand ton attack ship.

“Order all units to go into warp in six seconds,” ordered the commander.  “Five, four, three, two, one, zero.”

As he said the last word the pilot moved the warp lever forward slowly, and the ship seemed to rocket forward at incredible acceleration.  Moments later it had passed light speed as far as the outside universe was concerned.  Seconds later it passed twice light speed, then continued up the scale until it was at ten times light speed.

“How are the other units doing?” asked Igua.

“The other eleven ships are with us,” said the sensor officer.  The holo over her station showed the vector arrows of the twelve ships in the squadron, including their own.

Unlike the inertialess fighters, these attack craft could be tracked at all times by the graviton emissions of their warp drive.  They could also track other vessels while in warp, since they were not cut off from the universe like the smaller fighters.  So they could track enemy vessels and change their vectors in no time.  And could be tracked across their attack profile.  Whether the enemy could do anything about it was another question.  One that this test might give them an answer to.

“Time to target, seven point three minutes,” called out the pilot after the sensor officer sent the data over to his station.

“Weapons are all green,” called out the CPO in charge of the offensive systems.

“All ships reporting all green,” said the com tech, her four eyes, two primary, two motion, trying to track on the commander.

Igua thought everything was going well, which made him suspicious.   Twelve experimental ships?  Something had to go wrong.  He could only hope that whatever went wrong didn’t cost lives.  But when things went wrong with new stuff, it often led to the loss of life.  He sat in his seat, keeping silent, since there was really nothing he could say that would make a difference.

Preliminary tests had shown that the design worked.  Based on that, thousands of these ships had been made or were in the process of being produced.  Crews were being trained, weapons produced and deployed.  In normal times the ships would have gone through years of testing before approval.  These were not normal times.  It was war.

“Eagle one zero is reporting fluctuations in warp field, sir,” said the com tech.  “They’re down to six point four light, and dropping.”

“Order them to leave warp,” said Igua.  If this had been a real attack he might have ordered them to continue on.  It wasn’t, and it was not worth their lives to push a still untested technology to the limit.  Eagle one zero lost way, until it was sitting still in space.  The eleven remaining ships forged on without a problem.  Until.

“Leaving warp in five, four, three, two, one.”

The Alcubierre drive flipped off in an instant, the ring containing the negative matter, much less than an inertialess fighter would carry, slowing down from its swift rotation to a complete stop.  The target was straight ahead.  A moment later the target had picked them up on normal space sensors and it fired on three of the craft.

“Crap,” yelled out the sensor officer as all of those ships registered hits.  They were low powered and would not damage any of the craft, but they simulated full power blasts that would have blown each of those ships out of space.

“Firing now,” called out the weapons tech, his fingers flying across his control panel.  Four missiles dropped from each of the still intact ships and engaged their grabber units, streaking off at twenty-five thousand gravities.  They could only maintain that boost for twenty seconds, and they didn’t even need that long.  Thirty two missiles streaked in at the platform, twenty-three were blown out of space, and the rest generated simulated kinetic hits on the target that would have blown it out of space if they had been real.  Warshots would have carried five hundred megaton warheads.

“Changing vector,” said the pilot, while all eight of the craft angled to port and boosted.  “Entering warp,” was the next verbalization, and all eight of the craft jumped back up into the space warping drive, spinning up to ten times the speed of light in less than ten seconds.

“Good run people,” said Igua, his words going out on the com as well.  It was unfortunate that they had lost a third of their force.  But in reality no one had been hurt, and they were still working out the best tactics for this system.  They would never get to the point where there weren’t losses, but if they could minimize them and still take out a twenty-five million ton superbattleship, it would be worth it.

“Eagle one zero is reporting that they are unable to get back into warp,” called out the com tech.   “Normal space drive still working.”

“Order them back to base at their best normal space speed,” said Igua.  Eleven of his squadron would be back at the launch station in less than ten minutes, while the damaged ship would take several hours to make it there.  That was just their bad luck.  It was fortunate for them that this was just a training exercise, or the luck could have been much worse.

*     *     *

Grand Fleet Admiral the Duke Taelis Mgonda sat in his command chair and studied the strategic plot of the Fenri Empire.  This war was all but won, hundreds of major industrial systems had been liberated, their slave populations freed, while other systems of lesser importance had been left to whither on the vine.  As far as they could tell, the remaining Fenri fleet consisted of a few task groups, less than five hundred ships, scattered across space as they fought a naval guerilla war of hit and run.  The problem was whenever they hit, even if they won, they lost ships, and the Imperial Fleet was able to absorb its losses, while the Fenri were not.   Not that the Fleet was losing many actions.

And soon I’ll be back to the main front, thought the Admiral with a smile.  It was all well and good that the Emperor had trusted him to win this campaign, but the disparity in forces after the first couple of major victories had assured that even the worst tactician could have won the fight.  The Cacas were a different story.  Even if they weren’t the brightest star in the heavens, they had the power to make a fight out of it.  In fact, human commanders had to be good, very good, in order to win most of the actions.

“Report coming in from task force three twenty-one, sir,” said one of the com officers, looking back from his station.  “They think they have trapped the Fenri Emperor.”

“Thank God,” shouted the admiral, getting up from his chair and walking over to the station.   “The sooner we get that son of a bitch the faster this thing will be over.”

The fleeing Emperor of the Fenri had been the rallying point for his forces.  As long as he was loose, they refused to surrender.  One of the reasons the Empire had been avoiding the lesser worlds was the willingness of Fenri soldiers to fight to the last, knowing that their Emperor was still with them.  If they could capture him, and show the image of him in captivity, they could get many of those worlds to surrender.  Not all, because with modern tech not everyone would believe that the image of the being was really the Emperor.  But maybe enough.

“Task group twenty-three is reporting they are starting back to the Empire,” said another com officer.  “Entering hyper at this moment,”

Mgonda grunted in reply.  He really didn’t like losing ships from his command, and twenty-three was a powerful task group.  A fleet carrier, nine battleships, four battle cruisers, eight heavy cruisers, fifteen light cruisers and twenty-nine destroyers, as well as a number of support ships, it was a strong search and destroy force.  But ships were needed elsewhere, and Mgonda couldn’t support a decision to keep hold of that force.  In fact, three more forces of almost equal strength were going through the wormhole portal in another system.  Twenty-three had a dozen wormholes, which couldn’t travel through a wormhole portal, so they were going by way of hyperspace, the long way around, and carrying some additional wormholes that had been deployed with the forces going through the gates.

*     *     *

“Starting vector change onto approach course,” called out the helmsman.

Vice Admiral Jefferson Muldoon nodded as he looked at the plot, set on a wide angle of this region of the galaxy.  The four ships in his command had been boosting for just over three weeks, ninety light years a day in hyper VII, two thousand and seventy light years from the launch point of the Supersystem, itself a hundred and seventy-three light years above the midline of the Galactic disk.  Now they were starting to change their vectors so they could move along above the disc, through an area of space hoped to be sparsely patrolled.  They would cruise for five months along that path, to cover a distance of over thirteen thousand light years, before they turned in again and shot for the heart of the Ca’cadasan Empire.

Then we’ll see how you bastards like someone bringing death and destruction to your capital, thought the admiral.  If everything went as planned, they would be able to approach within a few hundred light years of the enemy capital before they were spotted.  That would be the point where they would use some new technologies to forge through, then bring the attack fleet through the wormhole gate.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” he told the bridge crew as he got up from his seat.  His quarters were not far from the bridge, only thirty meters along the long corridor that ran the four kilometer length of the twenty-eight million ton ship.

The vessel, named Retribution, was a variation of the explorer class that had made contact with the Klavarta on the other side of the Ca’cadasan Empire.  The ships had been built for low acceleration and high speed over a long distance, but were not warships in any regard.  The four ships of the Retribution class had been planned to be utilized in the exploration of the Galaxy, much like the ships already on the way to the galactic center and the Greater Magellanic cloud.  These had been upgraded with additional grabber units, heavier electromag shields, and more laser and close in weapons systems.  They still weren’t battleships, but they did have a much heavier sting than the original ships.

The vessel also had a dozen wormhole weapons systems on board.  They would be moved to other vessels when they came through, but they had to be transported through hyperspace until the other ships came through the portals.  If the four Retributions were destroyed, the Empire would lose over fifty wormholes, a heavy price, but one that was affordable given how many they produced.

The next five months would be boring in the extreme.  There was unlikely to be anything patrolling that far above the Galactic disk, unless the Cacas had a significant number of colonies out among the sparse stars at that distance.  The Empire had some colony worlds up there where stars were likely to be fifty light years or more from their nearest neighbors, and even farther from other inhabitable worlds.  That didn’t mean the Cacas would not patrol those sparse areas, but they couldn’t have much coverage up there, and the Imperial ships would avoid any stars, staying well out of hyper VII detection range.  His problem would be in keeping the crews alert during this time.  There would have to be constant drills, exercises, everything to keep the minds of the crews working at peak efficiency.  Because when they flipped back down and headed toward the Galactic disk, they would have to be working at that efficiency to work their way around the patrols that were sure to be there.  Those times were sure to be exciting, hopefully not exciting enough to lead to the death and destruction of his command.

*     *     *

SPACE OUTSIDE FENRI EMPIRE, MAY 3rd, 1003.

“What the hell is that,” called out the sensor chief on the HIMS Geofrey Smythe as the graviton emissions of scores of ships sounded over the speakers.  More were entering the range of the sensors every second, ships traveling through hyper VII.  Big ships mostly, above twenty million tons, with some in the four million ton range.  And all giving off the resonances of Ca’cadasan vessels.

“What is it, Chief?” called out the duty officer, Lieutenant JG Walthers.  “Oh, shit,” exclaimed the officer as the contacts appeared on the bridge holo.

“I think what we have, sir, is a major Caca force moving into Fenri space.”

“Captain to the bridge,” called out the duty officer.  “Repeat, captain to the bridge.  Red alert.”

The klaxons went off all over the ship.  Chief Petty Officer Jao could only hear it on the com.  Her sensor compartment was isolated from any of the normal sounds on the ship, giving her the ability to concentrate on the emission signals being picked up by the sensitive resonance chamber.  She tuned out the com and got back to the job of listening to the incoming signals, trying to determine the classes of all the ships.  There were too many to get a good read on all at once, but by working the system she was able to isolate signals and get an accurate take on each and every one.

Shit.  More and more of the objects were entering the field.  There were already hundreds of them, with no end in sight.  And they were a mere destroyer, hyper VI, two hundred thousand tons.  She wouldn’t last a second against any of the ships she had picked up so far.  A couple of four hundred thousand ton scouts came into range, and she revised that estimate.  Smythe could probably last a couple of minutes with one of those ships, only they wouldn’t get the chance to take on one by itself.

Fortunately, the destroyer was sitting in normal space, undetectable by ships in hyper, and pretty damned hard to pick up even in normal space.  They hadn’t received a Klassekian com tech yet.  Even though there were a lot of them in the service, there were still not enough, and nobody had really thought that the Cacas would be coming through here.  So when they sent out a grav pulse that would go up the line until it reached the nearest ship with instantaneous com capability, everyone would know where they were.   The only thing that would protect them was the fact that the Cacas were coming in at point eight light, and would not be able to jump down from hyper until they could slow to point three.  They couldn’t even launch missiles down at their current speed, so the destroyer should be safe enough.

The graviton pulse was clear to her ears when it went out.  In fact, her system was set to attenuate the signal because it could fry some of her equipment, as well as injuring her ears, if it came through full strength.  But that also degraded her long-range scans, and the mass of Caca ships became a blur while the signal was going out.  She could still tell there were a shitload there, and more entering range every moment, but beyond that, nothing.

“The signal has gone out, Chief.  You should have better listening now.  Any change?”

“Just more of them, Captain.  This seems to be a major force, battle fleet size at least.”

“Understood.  We’ll be transmitting in another couple of minutes, so get me all the information you can.”

Jao nodded, then acknowledged the order verbally, all the while watching the oncoming Caca force, happy that they weren’t decelerating.

*     *     *

“I have an idea,” said Sean, looking over at Jennifer, who was playing with Glenn, the happy baby squealing as he sat on her lap.

“About what?” asked his wife, turning her eyes toward him.  The joy that had been in them blew out like a candle in a wind as soon as they lit on him.

“A way to get our dead back.  A way to get our son back.”

“And how are you going to do that?” asked his wife, her tone indicating how tired she was of any kind of conversation with her husband.

“I was contacted by someone recently who hinted that they could go back in time.  We could stop the Cacas from hitting the system.  And we could get Augustine back.”

The shocked look on Jennifer’s face made him wonder if he had said too much.  Then the shock turned to elation as what he had said hit home.  Before she could open her mouth that elation had shifted into fear and disbelief.

“Is that even possible?  Won’t they try to stop you?  What about the dangers?”

“Give me a second, honey,” said Sean with a smile.  “I think it is possible.  I’ve been looking up the science behind it.”

“And what have you learned?” asked his wife, picking up Glenn and laying him on his back on the couch so she could gesture with her hands.

“Give me a second, dear.  Let me get to your other questions first.  Yes, it seems possible.  As far as the dangers, no one knows.  There seems to be a lot of theory, and very little fact.  A lot of conjecture.  I guess it depends on what you want to believe.”

“What you want to believe,” shrilled Jennifer.  “Are you delusional.  I was trained as a scientist,” said the physician who was his wife.  “Things don’t work out because of what you believe.  What are the facts?”

“I’m still trying to find that out.  If it looks safe enough, I don’t see why we can’t do it.”

“But only if it’s safe enough,” said Jennifer, pointing a finger at her husband’s chest.  “And only if people who know what they are talking about sign off on it.”

“Don’t you want your son back?  Don’t you want our city to be whole again?”

“Of course I do,” said Jennifer, tears coming to her eyes.  “But they are gone.  Can we bring them back without consequence?  Or will the Universe slap us down for our effrontery?”

“Now that sounds like superstition,” said Sean with a smile.  “The Universe is a physical entity, not a thinking creature.”

“And what the scientists say about the impossible supernovas in near space?  What about that?”

“What about that?” growled Sean, standing up and throwing his hands in the air.  “Conjecture, assumption.  We don’t know how in the hell those stars blew up.”  He stalked over and stood looking down at his wife.  “Don’t you want your son back?”

“More than anything,” said Jennifer in a quiet voice.  She looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks.  “More than anything.  Don’t you realize that.  But I don’t want to pin my hopes on something that might destroy us.”

“You’ll see,” said Sean, storming out of the room.  He rushed into his office down the hall, then ordered full security procedures over his implant.  I’ll find out, he thought, setting up the contact.  She’ll know, if anyone would.

*    *     *

“Yes, your Majesty,” said Dr. Lucille Yu, the director of the Donut.  She looked in surprise as she noted that all the conference functions on her com were down.

“This conversation is to be considered top secret, Dr. Yu.  Nothing we talk about is to be discussed with anyone else, understand.  Not anyone, not even that Secret Service agent you are sleeping with.”

“What?”

“Dr. Yu.  Who you sleep with is not any of my business, much less anyone else’s.  But I must make sure that you understand that what we talk about is to go no further.  I am declaring this an official secret, and only you and I are cleared for this.  That is why none of your recording or surveillance systems are active.  So, are we in agreement?  If we aren’t, I will stop here.”

“You’ve sparked my curiosity, your Majesty.  So yes, I agree.”

“What do you know about time travel?”

“Time travel?” asked a confused Yu.  This was not what she had expected, not at all.

“Yes, time travel.  So, is it possible?”

“Theoretically, yes.  Though according to the theories I have seen, it would take a magnitude greater power than opening a wormhole.”

The Emperor whistled.  “That much.  But we have that kind of power.”

“Yes,” agreed Lucille, picking up her coffee cup and finding it empty.  No help for it.  She would have to wait.  “What we don’t have is the means to use that power.  Theory points to the ability to move a wormhole back in time, but we have no clue how to do it.”

“And if someone did?”

“If someone did it would no longer be theory.  But I would be cautious in letting them do it.  Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.”

Sean frowned, and Lucille could tell that he really wasn’t listening to her cautionary warnings.  It was important that he realize how risky such an action would be.  She wasn’t sure why he was thinking of such an action, or if he even knew how to do it.  But…

“Do you know Kenji Guatarrez?”

“I remember the man, though I wouldn’t really say that I know him.  Something about using wormholes to go back in time.  I remember his lecture, but he never told us how he intended to do it.  Fleet intelligence had appeared by then and took him into custody.  I thought it was because the Imperial government was concerned that he might actually try to pull it off.”

“Whoever took him into custody, Doctor, it was not my people.  We don’t know what happened to him.  But you don’t know if he was onto something, or just another crank?”

“No, your Majesty, though I would tend to go with the last option.”

“And what would be the consequence of going back in time and changing the past?”

“How much of the past?  This is not something you are considering?”

“No, no.  Just curiosity.”

Then why swear me to secrecy, thought the scientist.  Something just didn’t ring true, and a shiver went up her spine.  “Consequences could be disastrous, your Majesty.  Time is not something to play with.  Change time far enough back and millions of people, maybe billions, of those alive today would cease to exist.  Just think.  If someone was conceived seconds later in the new timeline, the person here today would have never been.  Instead there would be a new person.  And then there are the warnings from the ancients about tampering with time.  It was said that they did it, and many of their stars went supernova.  Stars that were not massive enough to do so, but did anyway.”

“The Universe punishing them?  Come on, Lucille.  Surely you don’t believe that the Universe is conscious, and punishes those who go against its wishes.”

“No, sir.  What I am saying is that we don’t know what happened.  Only that something did, something that goes against all of our theories of stellar evolution.  It gives us something to think about.  If it were me, I wouldn’t do anything to tamper with the time stream.  No matter what you think you might gain.”

“Thank you, Lucille.  You have given me something to think about.”

“Satisfied your curiosity, your Majesty?”  Yu was now more sure than ever that this had nothing to do with simple curiosity, and hoped that the Emperor would think long and hard before he started any kind of project that had to do with time travel.

“Quite.  And thank you, Lucille.  Remember.  Not a word to anyone else.”

The holo died, leaving Yu alone with her thoughts.  She didn’t think she would be getting any sleep tonight, not with thoughts of the most powerful man in the empire thinking of time travel.  And she couldn’t talk to anyone, not even Jimmy, her lover and confidant.  It was something she would have to carry alone, while worrying that someone else would make the right decision.

“Get to work,” she said under her breath, pulling up the reports on the repairs to the station that would be going on for the next couple of years.  The only way she could think of to get the worry off her mind was to keep busy.  She wondered if there was enough work in the empire to get something like this off her mind.

*     *     *

“I want to discuss your proposal,” said Sean to the mystery man who had contacted him about time travel.  He wasn’t sure how the man had gotten through to him, but he had, which indicated a level of resourcefulness that could prove advantageous.

“Would you like to meet, your Majesty?”

“I would, but would you trust me to play fair if you approach me?”

“I’m guessing that’s the only way this is going to happen, since I doubt you will come by yourself to meet with us.”

Sean smiled.  He had almost expected the man to ask just that.  And of course he would refuse.  He wasn’t about to let someone take him captive and use him as a hostage.

“I’m taking a chance here, but I guess it’s the only way we’re going to get anywhere.”

The man’s face appeared on the holo.  Sean thought he recognized the face, but couldn’t place it.

“I am the Count Nicholas Stumpfield, my Lord.  But you can call me Nick.  And I propose that we meet in your office, tomorrow.”

“You will trust me not to take you?”

“If you give your word not to, then I will trust you.  Besides, even though I lead this project, I am not the scientific brains behind it.  Without that brain trust, I would be useless to you.”

“Very well.  I will set an appointment for you tomorrow morning.  Don’t bring anything with you that might make my security nervous.”

The man smiled and the holo died.  Sean sat there thinking for a moment.  He would listen to what the man had to say.  If it was something of interest, something that might turn back the clock and save hundreds of millions of people, he would consider it.  He was still thinking that way, consideration, not even realizing that he had already made up his mind.

Chapter Two

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. Charles Darwin

IMPERIAL PALACE, JEWEL.  MAY 6TH, 1003.

“Count,” said Sean in greeting, standing up from his seat and holding out a hand to the slightly bowing noble.

“Not afraid I might have something on my hand, your Majesty?” said Stumpfield, grasping the offered member.

“If you can get something past the nanites my security detail have used on you, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be safe no matter what.”

“We have no reason to wish you harm, your Majesty.  You are the man we need to make both of our plans come to fruition.”

“And what do you think my plan is, Count?” asked Sean, gesturing to a seat.  “Would you like something to drink?”

“Not at the moment, your Majesty.  But as to plans.  I think you want to undo the damage the Cacas did to your capital.  And I want to stop the Cacas, once and for all.”

“With time travel?” asked the Emperor, placing his hands on the table and leaning forward.  “You realize the risks?  Or at least the predicted risks.”

“We have already gone back in time and retrieved someone who wouldn’t exist right now if we hadn’t.  So I don’t think the risks are as feared.  Our expert, Dr. Guatarrez, seems to think it’s safe enough.  After all, if the Universe didn’t want us to go back in time, it shouldn’t have arranged such an easy method to do so.”

“And when can I meet this person, this life you saved from the past?  Is it someone I know?”

“You know him alright, your Majesty,” said the man with a wide smile.  “In fact, he’s a very close relative of yours.  Very close.”

Sean felt a shiver run up his spine.  Could it be? he thought.  He tried to keep his excitement under control lest he be crushed with disappointment.

“Do you hear what I’m saying, your Majesty.  We went back and retrieved your son before he could be killed by the Cacas.  We have Augustine.”

“Where is he?  What do you want for him?” gasped the Emperor, reaching out across the table.

“We’re not kidnappers, Sean,” said the count in a soft voice.  “I couldn’t bring him with me, since I couldn’t predict how your security would respond.  But give the word and I will have him brought here.”

“Do it.  Now.  Then you can tell me what you propose to do with this method of going back through time, and what you need me to do.”

*     *     *

“I have a surprise for you, honey,” said Sean, standing outside the nursery.

Inside he could hear his wife moving around, and Glenn cooing.

“I’m a little busy right now,” said Jennifer in the angry tone that seemed to mirror her prevalent mood.

“Not too busy for this,” said Sean, looking down at his first-born son, laying in his arms.  The baby was squirming, but had yet to make a sound.  The child was fine as far as the medical staff could tell.  Healthy, sound.  It was Augustine, down to his recorded quantum resonances.  And months younger than he should have been, proof, with the lack of any kind of cryo scaring, that he had been brought forward in time.

“What now,” whined Jennifer, walking toward the door.

The baby heard his mother and suddenly wanted her.  He started wailing, and Jennifer was there in an instant, staring at the child, her mouth moving without a sound.

“It’s him.  It’s a miracle, baby.  But we have our child back.”

Jennifer reached out for the child, her hands shaking, and Sean put his heir in the arms of his mother.  Jennifer stood there rocking the baby, tears streaming down her cheeks.  Sean enfolded both of them in a hug.  It would take some getting used to, but he thought things would work out alright for them from here on out.  Now if only things would work out for the rest of the empire.

“Your Majesty,” came a priority call over his implant.  “We need you to see this.”

*     *     *

FENRI SPACE.  MAY 7TH, 1003.

“So, what’s the total count?” asked Grand High Admiral Mgonda, looking at the sector plot that showed all of his task groups, along with the three oncoming arrows of the enemy fleets.  One was coming in from a direct line to the Ca’cadasan Empire, the other three hundred light years to Galactic west, and the third three hundred light years further to the west.  All three outnumbered his forces considerably, and when they combined in any of several possible pincer movements, any of his forces in the area would be overwhelmed.

“We estimate over ten thousand ships in each force, sir,” said his intelligence officer.  “In their normal proportions of one to one to two.”

Mgonda nodded.  As long as they had been fighting the Cacas, their initial forces had always consisted of one quarter superbattleships, one quarter super cruisers, and two of their large scout ships.  To a human, to any of the other peoples of the Perseus arm, this seemed an unbalanced mix.  Human forces always had twice as many cruisers as capital ships at a minimum, and five or six times the escorts to the large warships.  It made sense in any known naval establishment, since no one could ever have enough capital ships to cover all the duties of the fleet.  Battle, patrol, escort.  The Cacas didn’t think that way.  Their fleets were made for battle only, with enough scouts and covers to go along with their capital ship heavy fleet.

So they had at least seven thousand of their superbattleships, while he had less than a thousand of all kinds of capital ships.  He was also light on wormholes, the one thing that could tip the balance.

Why in the hell did Sean have to recall so much of my fleet?  He knew the answer to that as well.  The Fleet needed the ships in other places, and the Fenri campaign was all but over.  Except now it wasn’t, not really, since the Cacas were going to roll in here, take the systems, fortify them, and go forging on into sector III, which was not the most heavily fortified region of the Empire.  It could have been worse, since that was the sector that also faced Lasharan space, so there were some old fortified systems there.  Enough?  Probably not.  And none of them between the incoming Cacas and the core worlds.  It was up to him to fight a battle that would slow them down enough for reinforcements to flow into sector III.  New Terran Empire forces, Elysium ships, Margravi and Klassak vessels.

“We’re receiving a message from the Admiralty, sir,” said one of the com officers.  “Grand High Admiral McCullom.”

“Put her on the holo near my chair,” ordered the admiral.  “Sondra,” he said as her face appeared in the air to the side of his command chair.

“Taelis,” said the frazzled looking CNO.  “I have more bad news for you.”

“Wonderful.  Just what I wanted to hear.”

“There are three more Caca fleets, of equal or greater size to the ones hitting your region, coming in at the Republic.  President Graham is screaming for reinforcements.  I don’t have to tell you that her fleet will not be able to stop them by themselves.  I also don’t need to tell you that we can’t afford to lose the industrial systems of her nation again.  Most of our fleet in sector IV will be going there, along with all of the Crakista forces we can assemble.  Which means..”

“I’m the odd man out,” said Mgonda, his shoulders slumping.

“We’ll still get you what we can,” said Sondra, trying to smile, and failing.  “All of our allies on that side of the Empire, as well as what we can spare from the central reserve.  I’m afraid you’re going to have to wage war against overwhelming odds until we can get you more.  But that’s why we have a tactical genius like yourself there at the spear point.”

And I would rather have a force that because of its size was overwhelming as well, than have to depend on tricks.  But that was not the hand he had been dealt here.  “I’ll do my best, Sondra.  Please assure his Majesty of that.  But I cannot guarantee a victory here.”

“No one ever can,” replied the CNO.  “But I know you will do your best, as will your people.  In the best tradition of the Fleet.”

The holo died, and the admiral was left to sit there with his own thoughts for a moment.  He thought about what assets he did have, ships and wormholes, and how he could use them to fight a winning battle.  He saw some possibilities, though nothing concrete.  But that was why he had a staff.

“Send out orders to all staff officers,” he said, looking over at the senior com officer.  “Meeting in conference room A in thirty minutes.  And I want everyone to bring any ideas they might have, no matter how silly or insane they think they are, with them.  Any flag officers that are within com connection to us are also invited to attend.”

The admiral came to his feet and walked toward the flag bridge hatch.  He expected they would be working all hours from here on, and it might help to get a shower and a change of clothes while he still could.

*     *     *

“We need reinforcements, and we need them now,” said President Julia Graham over the com holo.  “Dammit, Sean.  A good portion of my fleet is in New Moscow.  Your people told me we didn’t have anything to worry about when you moved my ships.”

“And so they told me as well, Madame President,” said Sean, taking another sip of coffee.  He had only been in bed for a couple of hours when he had been awoken by the latest crisis within a crisis.  He had already dealt with the revelation of the second invasion, shooting off orders, hopefully covering everything.  Then it was to bed, tired from the flood of emotions the day had hit him with.

At least this one was worth getting up for, he thought with a slight smile on his face.  Not that there was anything at all funny about this attack in force on two fronts.  But he had become used to being awoke for any little thing on all of the fronts.  And he was really tired, his brain flooded with the biological detritus of overwork.  “They’re still your ships, and you can have them back on your command.”

“So we bring them back by portal,” said Graham, her eyes wide.  She shrugged her shoulders and held her hands out.  “And what about their wormholes?  It kind of helps to have those wormholes, and the weapons they lead to.  Without them my fleet is only half as effective as it could be.  And we’re still outnumbered.”

“You still have your Crakista force, and they will be sending everything they can your way.”

“And what about all of those ships you have holed away for your offensive?”

For my offensive now, thought Sean, holding back a grimace.  When they had formulated the offensive that was meant to smash the center of the Caca line and start the thrust into their space, Graham had been completely onboard.   Everyone had been.  But now that the Cacas had sprung a surprise on them, it was Sean’s plan.  Of course it was.

“There is still a threat in the center,” replied the Emperor.  “My intelligence analysts don’t think this is their entire force.  Most of it, yes, but maybe a quarter of it is still off the screen.  Maybe more.  We have to be ready for them if they come at us through the center.”  And that would be the way he would bet if he had been in their shoes.

Why worry about it?  If I let those time travel people have their way, we could go back and strike their capital with a wormhole bomb before they even discover us.  He shook his head at that thought.  It was tempting, though if he understood the theory correctly, it would take years to set up that strike, while the attack ships went back in time in the other dimension.  He could still lose most of his empire.  And then again, what difference would that make, since after the strike everything would be set right again.  Or would it?

It was enough to drive a sane man crazy, thinking of all the repercussions.  People grew up with causality, knowing that effect flowed from cause.  No way around it.  When things happened they were set in stone, and there was no way around that.  But there was, and regretting what happened was not the final recourse.  Then there were the possibilities, the repercussions of changing the time stream.  Legend said that the Ancients were done in by meddling with the timeline.  Was that true, or simply legend, the stories and lies that followed any now extinct culture that left little in the way of records behind?

“If you wait to see if a possibly illusionary force is real, my nation will be destroyed by those genocidal sons-of-bitchs.   You lose my people and all our industry.  Is that what you want, Sean?  Because that is what you’re going to get.  I think that’s what the empire has always wanted, ever since we gained our independence from you monarchist assholes.”

Sean stared at the woman.  He wasn’t angry at her rant, and at the things she had accused him of, the names she had called the people of the empire.  No, he was more concerned that she was losing it in a stressful situation, at a time when all leaders needed to remain calm.

“Look, Julia.  I understand you’re frightened.  I would be too in your situation.  But I need you, we need you, to stay calm and fight your battle to the best of your ability.  We will get more ships to you.  I guarantee it.  But you have to hold on to what you have until we can get there.”

“Okay, your Majesty.  We’ll do our part.  Now you better damned well do yours, or you will end up fighting this war without us.”

The holo blanked, leaving Sean alone with his own thoughts.  He pulled up a holographic map of the front, shaking his head.  He thought they would win this fight.  He still had the ships and the wormholes, and they were about to unleash some new tech on the Cacas that would take them by surprise.  He thought they would win, but the death and destruction to his people and his empire would be incalculable.  They might even lose core worlds before this campaign was over.

Sean looked at the map for another couple of seconds, then killed the holo.  He had almost come up with a decision, but he needed to talk with his wife about this.  He needed counsel, but he didn’t need his thoughts spread to far among his staff.  Jennifer was someone he trusted, and she had good common sense.  She also knew about the possibility of the time strike, at least a little bit.  If anyone could tell him that what he was thinking about was the wrong way to go, it would be her.

“I’ll be in my private quarters,” he told his detail over the com before walking out of the office.  “Only disturb me if it’s something that will shake the Galaxy to its foundations.  Otherwise, I’ll be back in the loop in an hour.”

*     *     *

DONUT SPACE.  MAY 8TH, 1003.

“The nexus is approaching,” said one of the Ancients in the ship’s control room.

Jackson sat in the seat they had placed in the chamber for him, looking at their tactical plot, which displayed a hell of a lot more information than any he had ever seen aboard an Imperial ship.  It gave every vector arrow along with exact tonnage figures.  Even objects that weren’t moving were pinpointed, though Jackson wasn’t sure how, since many of them weren’t giving off any kind of emission.

“And many of their ships are evacuating through their wormhole gates,” said another.

Something is going on.  Has to be the Cacas, and ships that were here to defend the Donut are needed elsewhere.

“Now is the time to move forward, before it is too late,” said Klorasoft.

Jackson was not sure what position his Ancient friend occupied in the command structure.  He was not the commander of the vessel, but when he spoke his fellows listened.

“We can get there in eighty-seven hours,” said one of the Ancients manning a control board.  “With absolute certainty that we will be detected.  Or, we can arrive at our original schedule with very little chance of detection.”

“And the nexus will occur at just about that time.  Do we dare take that chance?”

“From the method we have determined they are using,” said Klorasoft, “it will not really matter if they have started or not.  The other end of the wormhole will only have moved a couple of hours into the past, at most, and the end anchored in our time will still be on the target.”

The target.  That term sent chills up the back of the human.  They were talking about the most important asset in the Empire, one with tens of millions of people aboard.  And they were planning to blast it out of space.  Maybe they wouldn’t destroy the whole thing, but if they cut it in pieces, some of those parts would fall into the black hole, which would kill those people just as much as if they had been blown out into space, their bodies shredded.  Or even worse.

Jackson had a talk with a minister one time who had warned about playing around near event horizons.  The man had believed that the entire person was sucked into the hole, body and soul, and that the soul was then doomed to never be united with God.  He wasn’t sure how much of that he believed, since the preacher had no proof to back up his theory.  But then he had no proof of heaven and hell, or God.  And Jackson still believed in those.

“We must close to less than ten light seconds on the structure to be sure of a kill,” said the Ancient who was the ship commander, and one of their highest ranked council members as well.  “Anything further and we cannot guarantee enough force to separate the halves.”

“What kind of weapons do you use?” asked Jackson, looking over at the only Ancient he felt even halfway comfortable with.

“We use lasers, but it has been determined that it would take too long to cut through the entire ring,” said that being, Klorasoft, swiveling his body so he was facing toward Jackson.  “So we will use conversion beams.”

And what in the hell are those? thought the human, though he had a general idea.  Total conversion was a dream of the engineers, and had been for centuries.  Unfortunately, it was still nothing but a dream, and it didn’t look like it would become reality anytime soon.  If the Ancients had it, and why wouldn’t they, it was something that Jackson would love to get off this ship.

Who am I kidding.  The commander wanted to shake his head, but stopped in the middle of the first motion.  It wouldn’t do for the Ancients to know what he was thinking.  That might raise their suspicions.  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he was going to do something, no matter the cost.  Jackson did not want to die, but he couldn’t just stand by while these beings destroyed the most important asset in the empire.

“Take us in on the most stealthy profile possible,” said the Ancient who commanded.  “We must be successful.  This is our last chance to save the timeline.”

*     *     *

Sean once again sat at the head of the long table, in a room he had become very familiar with.  To his right sat his chief of naval operations, Sondra McCullom, to his left his chief of combined intelligence, Ekaterina Sergiov.  Sitting to Sergiov’s left was Rear Admiral Mary Innocent, Sean’s personal intelligence officer.  Also in the room were Field Marshal Betty Parker, the commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps, and Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Imperial Army Chief of Staff.  The two ground pounders looked out of place at the meeting, and so they were, since what the military brain trust had come to discuss was the largest space offensive the Empire had ever faced.

Attending by distance were the two best battle commanders in the Fleet, Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda and Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski.  Both were represented by near perfect holograms occupying their seats, only detectable from the real thing by the slight shimmer, and the fact that solid objects would pass through them.  The duke was actually on his flagship on the Fenri front, while Len was at his headquarters base at the central front.  The director of Fleet R&D, Admiral Chuntao Chan, was also attending by holo.  It was hoped she would be able to pull something out of her ass that would change the tactical situation.  Since Sean knew everything her department was working on, he doubted there would be any new revelations, but her active mind might be able to find something.

Over the table was a holo of the Empire and surroundings, including the Fenri Empire, the Republic of New Terra, and the Kingdom of New Moscow.  Angry arrows poked into the Fenri Empire and the Republic, a trio in each.  Neither had penetrated very far.  At their current rate of advance it would take over two weeks to plow through the Republic, a little over a month to get through the former Fenri space.  If they went full bore they could probably cut a third off of that time, but fleets couldn’t move through space like that.  They had to scout ahead, making sure there was nothing laying a trap for them, protectimg their supply convoys.  One big battle could drain the missile magazines on an entire fleet, and then they would need colliers to bring up new loads.

“What do we know about their supply lines?” asked Sean, looking over at Sergiov.

“As far as we can tell, your Majesty, they are keeping their supply ships right up and tucked in tight behind their front-line units.  It’s going to be hard to hit them, unless we can get them to separate.  And even then, they will have scouts all over the place.  I don’t know if it will be possible to sneak anything in behind them.”

“Admiral Chan?”

“I can think of some possibilities, your Majesty,” said the tiny woman.  “Not surety in any sense, but we might be able to get some ships in behind them.”

Sean nodded as he looked at the total front, which stretched over five thousand light years from end to end.  The Fenri Empire was about two thousand light years wide, and the enemy would have to penetrate over two thousand light years of space before they reached his empire.  The Republic was about a thousand light years in width, and had a thickness of just under a thousand light years.  There wasn’t as much distance there, but it was heavily fortified and industrialized, and would take more than a quick fly through to take.  And then there was his part of the front, much farther back from the open space around New Moscow, but still covering about fifteen hundred light years.

“Ekaterina.  Any word from your infiltrators on whether the Cacas have any more ships to throw into the attack?”

Of course they had more ships, a lot more of them.  But they also had a very large empire, and it took time to gather everything.  That was if they could afford to take all of the ships they had covering their very large, heavily populated slave nation off of their regular patrols and pacification duties.

“They probably have a third fleet out there, your Majesty,” said the intelligence officer.  “Sonia says that the contact has been informed that there will be a third attack somewhere along the front.  But Striped Wolf doesn’t know where or when it will happen.”

Striped Wolf was a Maurid operative, a member of a very strong, very intelligent slave race used by the Cacas for assault and infiltration, as well as intelligence.  The Maurids had been given a great deal of freedom in the Ca’cadasan hierarchy, which made them wish for real freedom all the more.  And they saw humans as the best chance to gain that freedom.  Sonia Rupert had once been in charge of Sean’s protection detail, but had transferred over to local intelligence after an incident in which the Emperor had put himself at risk against her advice.  The Maurid operative had just happened to approach her first, so now she was the contact person with their underground.  The main problem with that source of intelligence was it was so damned far from the halls of power where the decisions were made, and often couldn’t deliver useful information until it was almost too late.

“I’m betting they come up the middle, your Majesty,” said Admiral Lenkowski, staring at the holo.  Or his image seemed to, though he was actually looking at a duplicate in his location.  “They’ll wait until we pull forces away from our center to reinforce the flanks, then come bursting into our space.”

“I agree,” said Duke Taelis, taking his pipe out of his mouth, smoke flowing at his words and disappearing as it left the visual field of his projected image.  “Not saying that they won’t reinforce the most successful flank, but to my way of thinking it would be the smarter play to hit us where we aren’t, then come rolling into our industrial core before we can react.”

As he spoke the holo lit up, showing what he thought the Cacas would do.   To Sean it looked like the smart strategy, at least against someone who couldn’t move ships around as fast as his Fleet could.  But could they move them fast enough, even with the wormholes?

“Okay.  So what if we move the bulk of our forces to one of the flanks, then overwhelm the Cacas at that point, before shifting them back to the other flank?  How many days would you need to defeat one of their fleets?”

Lenkowski looked over at Mgonda for a moment.  The other admiral nodded, and Len looked back at his Emperor.  “It would probably take a couple of weeks of maneuver to beat them, sir.  Maybe three.  And that only if we have overwhelming force.”

Sean looked at the holo and sent a command through his implant to show where the Cacas would be in three weeks if not stopped.  The forces pushing through the Republic had cut all the way through and were in Sector V.  The invading fleet in Fenri was still only halfway through that Empire, and well away from Sectors III and IV, where they would eventually emerge.

“We need to stop them in the Republic first, or else we might lose it.”

“Kind of a shitty thing to do to the Fenri slaves, your Majesty,” said Len, putting down his holographic cup of coffee.

“Yes, it is,” said Sean with a grimace, reaching for his own very solid cup.  “We promised them liberation when we moved in, but dammit, the people of the Republic are related to us.  And they are a vital ally in this fight.  I can’t lose them.  Len, I want you in the Republic as fast as you can hop through the wormhole network.  We’ll funnel as many ships to you as we can, but you’ll have to make do with the wormholes you have there, for now.”

“And who will be in overall command?” drawled Len, his eyes narrowing.  “Julia has her own people, and so do the Crakista who will be fighting with us.”

“You will have overall command.  If Julia or the lizards balk at that I’ll have to talk some sense into them.  We’ll also give you as many of the inertialess fighters and the new warp ships as we can.  They can go through the wormholes without a problem.  If we can get you more wormholes, we will, but you know the problem we have where they are concerned.”

Len nodded.  Everyone knew what problems they had moving wormholes.  A wormhole would only go through a wormhole with catastrophic consequences.  Sometimes those consequences were desired, but most often they were not.

“Can you stop them here?  And here?”  The holo lit up with two industrialized star systems that were in the paths of the Caca spearheads.

“I don’t think so, your Majesty.  What I would like to do is to set a trap for them, here and here.”  The two star systems the cagy fleet commander picked were about forty-five light years further in.  “If we could get three or four gates set up there before they arrive, I think I can arrange a surprise they won’t forget.”

“Why so many?” asked McCullom, leaning forward in her seat.  “You can gate a lot of ships through one.”

“Not in the time I will have,” answered Len.  “At most I can get twelve hundred vessels through one in the allotted time.  I need a lot more ships than that.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” said Sean, looking over at McCullom.  “Get on the com to Graham as soon as we are done here.  We’re going to have to borrow most of her wormholes.  Then get the gate assemblies ready to go.

“But before you go, how are we set on ships we can send forward?”

“Not as well as I would like, your Majesty,” said the CNO.  “The Caca attack on Jewel took out a lot of new construction, and put a lot more ships into the docks.  We could really use those ships right about now.”

And if I let those people do a time strike, I could stop that from ever happening, thought Sean, wondering if he should go ahead and let them do it.  And save some hundreds of millions of his citizens at the same time.

“We have some stealth/attack we can move forward,” said Sondra, looking at a flatcomp lying on the tabletop.  “Of course, they’re VI ships, and we can’t move them through a wormhole.”

“We can piggyback them on hyper VII ships,” put in Admiral Chan, pulling up some figures on her own flatcomp.  “We have twenty-seven of the ships in Fenri space.”

Sean shot McCullom a questioning look.

“We had them stationed in systems where we thought the Fenri might come snooping around, but not in any strength,” said the CNO.  “We ended up taking out a dozen or so ships they were able to sneak up on.”

“And we can move them to systems in the way of the Cacas,” said Chan.

Sean sat there in silence for a moment, his staff recognizing that their leader was thinking and giving him the space to do so.  He thought of everything his Fleet had, on all fronts, including the Klavarta and Bolthole sectors.  The assets tallied, he made his decision.

“Get a message to Beata out at Bolthole.  I want her to get everything she can spare back through the gates to us.”

“She’ll not like that,” said McCullom, shaking her head.

“She doesn’t have to like it.  She just has to do it.  And also get all of the alliance fleets moving.  I wanted to give them a bit of a break before we started our own offensive going, but we’ll have to forget that for now.”

“What about me, your Majesty?” asked Duke Taelis, blowing more virtual smoke as he talked.

Sean frowned as he watched that smoke.  He had never liked the smoking habit, even though nanotech made it completely harmless.  Sean shook his head, clearing his mind.  He was very tired, but didn’t have time for it at the moment.  With a thought his implant stimulated his mind, bringing him back to full alertness.  Later he would pay for it, but that was later.

“You, Duke Taelis, will stage a running battle against the Cacas in Fenri space.  I don’t want you to take a stand, or do anything that will lose ships without hurting the Cacas much more.  I want you at your most brilliant, hit and run.  Disrupt.  And make sure that the Fenri worlds are hotbeds of insurrection when the bastards and their Fenri allies come back.”

The Emperor turned to the grand marshal, the senior army commander in the empire.  “And that’s where you come in Mishori.  I want every special ops formation you can get your hands on out on the Fenri front.  You too Betty.  Every Ranger, Force Recon, and Naval Commando unit we have is to seed those planets with guerillas and the weapons they will need.  Our people will be trainers and observers, though I expect they will have to eventually fight.”

“And not many will make it back,” said the grand marshal.  “Unless we can get them relief in short order.”

Sean looked into the eyes of the man and nodded.  He felt like shit ordering good men and women in to situations where their survival was balanced on a razor blade.  That was his job, and he had to think of the Empire, and the Republic, and all of the other star nations that were part of his alliance.  People would die, no matter what.  He had to hope that less would die because of good decisions on his part and the part of his subordinate commanders.  And more and more the option of going back in time and giving the Cacas a good old fashioned smiting appealed to him.

Chapter Three

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch. John F. Kennedy

“Good news, Julia.  I am sending you every ship we can get there, less what we need for defending our own space.”

“That’s wonderful news, Sean.  We sure could use them.”

Sean smiled as he heard the way she greeted him.  The Republic didn’t believe in nobility, and she would go out of her way before she would call him anything as non-egalitarian as your majesty.

“I will be sending Lenkowski along as overall commander.”

“Not Mgonda?”

“I feel that Len is just as good at the job of commanding fleets as the Duke.  And Mgonda is already in place on the other front.”

“I understand.  I will work with my commanders in slotting him and his ships into our force structure.”

“You don’t understand, Madame President.  Len will be in overall command of the battlespace.”

There was silence for a moment as the face of Graham stared at him from out of the holo.   “It’s our space,” she finally blurted out.  “I’m not sure my commanders will like this.  No, this is not acceptable.”

“I’m afraid this is non-negotiable, Madame President.  We will be providing most of the ships and crews for the battle to save your space.  Parliament will demand that there be an Imperial commander.  Now, we can send the ships and the commander, and have him operate as a command independent of your own.  But I think you will see all kinds of problems in that arrangement.”

Before Graham could answer the holo split and another face appeared in the air to the side.  A reptilian face, though the owner was not quite a reptile, but was closer to old Earth dinosaurs.

“It makes logical sense that Admiral Lenkowski command this fight,” said the Crakista officer, her designation appearing under her profile.  “Not only will they be contributing most of the ships and crews, they are also providing all of us with wormholes.  My ships and people will fight under his command.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” said Sean, nodding toward the female Crakista.  “And I assure you that Len will look after your ships and people like they were his own.”

“Very well,” said Graham, turning a glare toward the Crakista for a moment before turning the same look toward Sean.  “We will do it your way.  And how soon can we expect these ships?”

“Not as soon as you would want, Julia.  But as fast as we can get them there.  What we will not do is commit them in dribs and drabs.  That only invites defeat in detail.  You will lose some systems before we are ready to strike.”

Graham looked like she wanted to argue, but the logical Crakista was the first to speak.  Sean could imagine what their conversation would be like when he was off the com.

“Again, it is logical, and what I would ask you to do if the Empire didn’t intervene.  In fact, my government would veto any deployments that put our people at undue risk for little gain.  I would recommend you accept the Emperor’s conditions.”

Again Julia was silent for a few moments, thinking, before she nodded and looked at Sean.  “Very well.  Lenkowski will have overall command.  I will talk with my naval staff and make sure that the proper liaison officers are in place.”

The com holo died, or at least the portion that had brought Graham’s image to the conference.  The Crakista continued to look out at the Emperor with her stone like expression.

“You have something to say to me, Admiral?”

“We have studied your commanding officers, Emperor.  I must say that Lenkowski is an intelligent and audacious commander.  We also feel that Mgonda is the better of the two, though not by a wide margin.  Why are you assigning Lenkowski here, and leaving Mgonda in Fenri space?”

“Good question, Admiral.  The fact is, Mgonda has the more difficult battle to fight.   His fight will require more flexibility.  And Lenkowski is just as good in a stand-up fight, which your battle appears to be shaping up to be.  And what can Len expect for reinforcements from your people?”

“My people will be reinforcing our force by fifty percent.  That is all we can afford at this time.”

And how many ships are you holding in your own space? thought Sean.  Not that he blamed them.  They didn’t know for certain where those other Caca ships were.  They could appear out of nowhere, to attack any part of the alliance.  He doubted they would be attacking Crakista or Elysium space, but they couldn’t rule that out.

“I will let Sondra and Len know you have reinforcements coming.  And I am sure Len will have great need of your counsel.”

“The supreme commander can do with me and mine as he will.  It would not be logical for the being in overall command to do otherwise.”

The holo died.  Sean shook his head.  He would never understand the Crakista.  They had been long time enemies of the empire, but they had been quick to join the alliance when they saw the need.  They were said to be without emotions, but the way they treated the other species in their empire belied that.  He had given them all that they had asked for, including wormholes.  All he could hope was that after this war it didn’t come back to bite him in the ass.

*     *     *

FENRI SPACE:  MAY 13TH, 1003.

“There is no one here, my Lord,” said the sensor officer.  “We are detecting nothing.”

“And this was supposed to be one of their most important systems in this space,” replied the chief of staff, looking up from his station.

“Then they have pulled out without a fight,” growled the high admiral in charge of this force.   “Cowards.”

While they would still achieve their mission by taking the system without a fight, that was not all they wanted to do.  They needed to destroy human ships as well as orbital installations and industrial plants.  If they spent their time chasing an enemy that kept running, luring them off their path, what would they accomplish?  And an enemy they hadn’t chased down could always come in behind them.  Even if they never fired a weapon, they still needed antimatter to run the reactors so they could boost.  And even more to run the hyperdrive arrays.  An enemy that was striking their supply line would keep them from resupply.

This was the third marked system they had come to that was empty.  Each time they had jumped down through hyper, costing even more fuel, to find the system unoccupied.  Yet they had to check out these systems.  And if they started sending smaller forces in to recon them first, they were likely to run into ambushes a small force couldn’t contend with.

“Why in all the hells haven’t they tried to fight us?” growled the tactical officer.

Because they’re smarter than we are, thought the high admiral.  Most Cacada would still not admit that they weren’t the absolute masters of the universe, the strongest, the most intelligent.  The high admiral was at the upper end of the intelligence scale for his species, so he knew how stupid the average male could be.  And he had a better idea of how his people stacked up against other species, including the much too clever humans.

“We’re picking something up on the sensors,” called out the sensor officer.  “I’ve never seen a reading like this before.”

“Their impossible fighters?” asked the chief of staff.

“Doesn’t look like them, my Lord” said the sensor officer.  “Though there are some similarities to their resonances.  Small objects, moving very fast.”

The high admiral looked at the plot that was showing thirty-six objects heading straight for his force.  They still couldn’t track the inertialess fighters worth a damn.  They could tell they were out there on a general heading.  They could definitely tell when they were close enough to waste fire on with the chance of a hit.  But these things were pretty easy to track, even though they were moving.

“Twenty times light speed?” blurted the high admiral as the velocity figures filled in under the vector arrows.  Of course those were only estimates, but still.

“I can’t tell you what they are, my Lord.  But they are heading straight for us, and they will be here in about seven minutes.”

*     *     *

“Any changes in the targets?” asked Captain Wilma Snyder, the commander of the truncated wing that was moving into the attack.

“No, ma’am.  They’re coming in fat and sassy.  Not that there’s much else they could do.”

Snyder nodded.  The enemy ships had jumped down before hitting the barrier at point three light, their maximum translation speed.  They had started to accelerate as soon as they were through.  There really was no quick way back into hyper, where the warp attack craft would not be able to hunt them, not that the Cacas knew that fact.  It would take them several hours to slow to a stop before they could start accelerating back out, which would take several more hours.

“We’ll be in range in six minutes, forty-three seconds,” continued the wing tactical officer.  “Launch at that time?”

“Very good,” said Snyder, leaning back in her chair.  She was trying to look as cool and calm as she could, and was not sure how she was doing.   This was a first ever strike by the warp attack craft.  Theoretically, they should come as a lethal shock to the Cacas.  Theory was fine, but this was where they found out if they were as good as advertised.

“I want us to go to the port after launch.  All ships will come out of warp at three light minutes from the Cacas, then spin and go back into a second attack.”

Her ships each had four missiles, also using warp technology.  They carried lasers as well, a last resort.  The captain didn’t want to get into that kind of a knife fight with capital ships.  Her craft would be in normal space, trading beams with ships that outmassed them by over three thousand times.  Her lasers might not even make it through their screens, while theirs would vaporize her craft in moments.

She looked at the plot, willing it to expand to cover the entire system and beyond.  The carrier was out at ten light hours beyond the barrier to spinward.  The craft could reach it in warp in about forty minutes, rearm, and be on their way back in.  Snyder smiled as she thought of some of the other weapons on the boards for her babies.  She wouldn’t have them, but sometime further into the campaign the Cacas might meet their acquaintance, and she hoped they enjoyed the meeting.

“Launch in fifteen seconds,” called out the tactical officer, as the command went out over the com to the other thirty-five craft.

There was a one second delay between the time her ship fired and the last got off its missile.  Thirty-six weapons jumped from the launching craft, erecting their own warp bubbles and then streaking off on their prearranged tracks.  Warp field penetrated warp field.  As soon as the missiles were out into normal space they dropped their fields for a couple of seconds to see their targets, then went back into warp on tracks that would hit their designated targets.  The launching ships meanwhile turned in space and lit out to the front and side of the enemy force.  Unlike craft in normal space there was no accel or decel to deal with.  Changing vectors meant they were now moving at warp in that direction.

The missiles took off, going from a standing start to twenty times light speed in an instant.  The weapons were all right on target.  Each hit the side of their targets, their warp fields blasting through electromag screens and into twenty meters of armor before the missiles broke up, their warheads going off and flashing into the interiors of the ships.  When the flares died down they left behind twelve spreading clouds of plasma and twenty-three still intact but seriously crippled ships.

*     *     *

“By all the Gods, what happened?” shouted out the tactical officer as the enemy craft went streaking by, while a dozen ships faded from the plot.

“That’s what you’re supposed to be telling me,” growled the high admiral.

The tactical officer pulled up the sensor records with frantic movements and scanned them.  He looked up at the high admiral, who was now standing over his station.

“They came by at much faster than light.  We don’t have any visual records of them, but the graviton tracking shows that they launched something that passed through their warp fields, then dropped into normal space for a few seconds.  We have visuals on them from that time, though by the time we had recorded them they were already gone.”

A holo appeared over the station, showing one of the missiles.  It was stubbier than what most would think of as a missile, and had a strange looking ring around the middle attached to the body by three short pylons.  Less than two seconds after it appeared its image blurred, then was gone.

“I think it acquired its target in that time span, then warped into its attack.”

Another holo appeared, this one with the time stamp of one of the supercruisers, looking back at one of the capital ships.  The electromag screen blurred in the same instant that the armored hull distorted.  A thirty meter wide hole appeared in the ship, and the video blanked as a heavy warhead flared.  When the flash was gone the battleship appeared again, an area hundreds of meters to every side of the impact point melted.

“It was a warp missile, coming in at faster than light and blasting through all defenses before detonating.”

“Very interesting,” growled the admiral.  “And what, in your estimation, can we do to stop it?”

“I don’t know, my Lord.  Maybe put up a mass of close in weapons fire on their approach.  I don’t…”

“They’re coming back, my Lord,” called out the sensor officer.

“How?” asked the confused admiral.  Didn’t they need to decelerate, or something, like everything else he knew of?

*     *     *

Wilma Snyder had been a Fleet officer for over thirty T-years.  In all of that time, she had always had to deal with the fact of inertia.  Even the so called inertialess fighters had to deal with inertia, both in and out of their misnamed warp bubbles.  They had to deal with acceleration and deceleration prior to entering the bubble, and to a lesser degree while changing velocity within them.  The Alcubierre drive, on the other hand, moved space around the ship, not the ship through space.  When they turned off the drive they came to a stop.  When turned on they immediately moved the ship up to the multiple of light they had been set for.  There were some limitations, such as one ship could not follow directly behind another, and enough matter getting in the way of the space warp could have disastrous consequences, including the destruction of the vessel.  Small bits of matter were not a problem, as the warp would simply tear them apart and scatter them to the side.

“Coming into launch range,” called out the tactical officer.  “Preparing to launch missiles.”

Again, at the proper moment, with authorization by the organic controllers, the ships dropped their missiles at just the right time.  Once again they penetrated the warp field of their launching vessels, their own fields protecting them.  They dropped out of warp for a couple of seconds to orient to their targets, then went back into warp.

This time they were not quite so lucky.  Two missiles intersected each other and blew back into space as their warp fields fell.  One more ran into a counter missile, more from bad luck than from any capability of the counter, and that was too much matter for the field.  The detonating counter turned the reentering missile into plasma.  And in two cases a pair of missiles targeted the same ship, scouts that could have been taken out by one missile.  Thirty-one targets were hit, still a better percentage that with any other missiles.  Nine were blasted out of space, while twenty-two more took severe damage.

The attack craft stage two more attacks, disaster finally striking on the last.  Snyder turned in horror as the com tech shouted out, eyes wide, stammering that her sibling had died.  One of the craft was spreading out into space.  No one saw what it had hit, only that the Cacas were throwing out everything they had into the path of the attack.

“Return to carrier,” came the call from the commodore in charge of this operation.  “We’re through here.”

There were still enemy ships in the system, but right now they had nothing to strike them with.  The Cacas had lost over forty ships, including seventeen of their superbattleships, and not a vessel in their force had gone without significant damage.  The Imperial force had lost one warp attack craft, a more than satisfactory exchange, though the Cacas were sure to develop methods to counteract this kind of efficiency.  But now it was time to return to the carrier.  The warp craft were extremely fast within a system, but compared to hyperdrive ships outside of a gravity well they were almost standing still.  The carrier could get to the next target star, twenty-one light years away, in days, and it was important to leave without the enemy detecting them.  The warp attack craft would take over two years to make the same trip, and would be out of fuel well before they reached a tenth of the way.

*     *     *

“How are the little angels doing?” asked Sean, walking into the nursery.  He noted the many sensors along the walls, including a number of microdrones that floated like insects through the air.

“If you think they’re angels, you need to spend more time around them,” said Jennifer with a tired smile.

“You don’t have to spend so much time with them, you know.”  Sean bent to kiss his wife, then put a hand on his eldest son, his heir, the one she now had in her arms.

Or is he the oldest?  Augustine was physiologically more than a month younger than his brother, Glenn, but he was still the first born, and therefore the heir.  He looked over at Glenn, sleeping in the crib next to the empty one Augustine used.  That baby was noticeably larger.  It was fortunate that the people who had retrieved Augustine through time had not waited longer.  There would be very little difference when they were school age, even less when they reached adolescence.  By the time they were adults no one would ever be able to tell which was the older.  They would simply be twins, one to eventually become Emperor, one the spare.  If there was still an Empire him to rule.

“I almost don’t want to let either of them out of my sight, ever again,” said Jennifer, breaking the kiss and putting her lips to the baby’s forehead.

“You know you can’t do that.  You can’t live your life like that, and you can’t smother them.”

“I know.  But it’s just so hard to have lost one, only to have him returned to me.  I don’t want to have to face that again.”  Jennifer lay the baby down in his crib, the normally fussy child down for the count.  She looked up at Sean.  “I heard that the Cacas are running through the Republic again.  Will they ever stop?  Will we be able to stop them?  And when will we be able to strike at their capital, and not have to worry anymore about their trying to wipe us out?”

“There might be a way to accomplish that very thing,” said Sean, looking up, realizing that Jennifer was on edge, almost manic.  She needed calming, and he thought he knew what might work, as well as help him gain some more insight into how he should decide.

“Surveillance off,” he ordered, and every sensor in the room went offline.  The secret service didn’t like when he did this, but it was his prerogative, and there was nothing they could do to override his lockout.

“There may be a way, but it’s risky.”

“Risky to who?” asked Jennifer, a troubled look on her face.

“To all of us.  You know what I told you about the way those people were able to retrieve Augustine from the past.  That’s not the only thing they can do.  They might be able to save more of our people, a lot more.  And possibly give the Cacas a case of terminal aggravation.”

Chapter Four

People don't slip. Time catches up with them. Nat King Cole

CAPITULUM.  MAY 14TH, 1003.

“So that’s our recommendation, your Majesty,” said Count Stumpfield, looking the Emperor in the eye from across the desk.

They were still meeting in Sean’s office.  His people might want to know who this man was their leader was meeting with, and so far he had put them off with talk of state secrets.  Eventually someone outside his inner circle would figure out who the man was, but not why the Emperor was meeting him with such a total lockdown on surveillance.

“This it still too much to take in sometimes, Count.  And we still haven’t figured out how to explain the return of Augustine to the empire.”

“Wait until we have accomplished the time strike, your Majesty.  By that time, the timeline will have changed, and there will be no need to say anything.”

“But that means we have to keep Jennifer, who refuses to leave the child, out of the public eye.  She’s a popular figure, you know.”

Stumpfield looked frustrated.  Sean could understand that.  He had too much on his mind at the moment, and couldn’t give his full attention to the seemingly impossible proposal.  We’ll just have to figure something out.

“We have a wormhole on its way into the past right now, your Majesty.  We have to launch at the proper moment.”

“And if you don’t, then we use another wormhole, or bring that one into our dimension and let it progress forward again.  I don’t see the problem, Count.  I think I still have time to make up my mind.”

“That you do, your Majesty.  But think about this too.  What if they strike the capital again?”  The count raised his hand to stop Sean from speaking for the moment.  “Oh, I know.  We don’t think they can do it again.  But we didn’t think they could do it the first time.  If those launch systems are destroyed?  Hell, if the capital is destroyed, we may lose our chance.”

Sean checked the time on his implant and surged to his feet.

“I’m sorry, Count.  I have a meeting with some of the Lords.  I will get back to you, soon.”

“Please do,” said the man, his tone betraying his frustration.

I’m in charge here, thought Sean as he saw the man out of his office.  But was he really?  They had the wormhole, and there had to be a plan b for striking on their own.

*     *     *

“We still have a few dissenters in the Lords, your Majesty,” said the Prime Minister, Countess Haruko Kawasaki.  Next to her, across from the Emperor and his aide, sat the Baron Emile von Hausser Schmidt, the leader of the Lords.

Thank God both of you made it through, thought Sean, looking from one to the other of his two staunchest supporters among the nobles.  Of course the Prime Minister would be numbered among his allies, since she had been appointed by his decree.  It had just worked out well for him that when the last leader of the Lords, a confirmed enemy, had fallen, the Baron had garnered enough support to step into his place.

“I wouldn’t think that many,” said Sean, frowning.  He didn’t like to think it a good thing that subjects had died, even if they did stand in his way of managing the war effort.  It was a good thing that some were no longer in their seats.  Almost half of the Lords had remained in the capital city during the holiday.  They had either been at their estates or working in the Parliamentary offices when the attack had come.  Most of those in their manors had survived, only an unlucky few being on the receiving end of falling debris.  Of those in their offices, all had died when the House of Lords had been destroyed by kinetics.

The relatives who had taken the places of their deceased leaders for the most part had a different viewpoint of the war.  They hated the Cacas who had killed fathers, siblings or cousins with a white hot passion.  And many of those who survived, having seen the ravaged city, had moved toward Sean’s point of view.  That some had not was to be expected, since seeing the city at the very heart of the empire smashed would bring thoughts that the same might happen to their homeworlds to the fore.  But the ones who disagreed were now part of a very small minority.

“Not many, your Majesty,” agreed Schmidt.  “But a very vocal bunch nonetheless.  And they try to gather more to their point of view.”

“Makes you wish you could round them up and stick them in a cell, yes, your Majesty?” said a smiling Prime Minister.

“The thought had crossed my mind.  But, since I don’t want to go into the history books as a despot, a thought I force myself to ignore.  And what are the main complaints of the vocal minority?”

“The biggest one is that you are continuing to weaken the defenses of the inner empire, as well as the frontier sectors not in contact with the enemy.  They cite the risks from other nations on our borders, as well as pirates, and of course the unknown threats that might come out of the darkness.  They name the Machines as an example.”

“And don’t they understand that the only nations on our borders we have to fear are the ones we are already at war with,” said Sean, shaking his head.

Lashara was all but out of the war, their border systems occupied, their capital taken.  There was a token force of allies in their space, ensuring that no fleets of auxiliaries formed.  Fenri had been a minor issue, and Mgonda had been there with a good portion of his fleet, trying to clean up that mess before the Cacas had stuck again.  It had almost been over there, and Fenri would have never again been a problem.  It could still be that way if they pushed the Cacas back out.  Crakista and Elysium might be threats in the future.  At the moment they were allies, friends who had removed most of their border pickets in order to bolster the combined fleets.  They still had ships stationed on their other frontiers, but not many on their borders with his Empire.  The Republic was not even an issue, and probably never would be since the Empire had saved their asses from the Cacas.  Pirates could be a problem, but he really didn’t need capital ships to patrol for criminal scum.  Frigates, backed up by some few squadrons of destroyers, could handle that problem.  And if they were more of a problem than otherwise, the war was still more important than their raids.  A pirate or two might take a merchant ship or a liner.  They would not strike an inhabited world, unless they grew a bigger set than they were known to possess.

“They don’t trust Crakista or Elysium.  One common complaint is we have armed them with our best technology, then allowed them into our midst, like wolves among the flocks.  The Cacas have already shown what can happen when a powerful enemy gets into the core worlds.”

“And if I can undo what they had done?” asked Sean under his breath.  He had been thinking a lot recently about the possibilities of time travel.  It seemed possible, though he still didn’t really trust the man who said he performed the miracle.  Feeling their attention, he looked up to see that both of the nobles were staring wide eyed at him.

“I hope you are not thinking about time travel, your Majesty?” asked Schmidt.

“Of course not,” said Sean, cursing himself silently for a fool for even saying such quietly.  If enough people thought he might do that, he would face opposition that made the present look like nothing.  “What I can do is defeat their present offensive, then visit the same on them.”

“And how goes the operation to strike at their home world?” asked Haruko, one of the few people in the Parliament, along with Schmidt, who had been read into that operation.

“Still on a heading for the outside of the galactic disc, and from there five months from turnover to head back in,” said the monarch, still cursing himself for his slip.  “The greatest danger to the mission will come when they reenter the disc and head for their target.  The only way we can think of getting them there is to travel in hyper V or less, at a low enough velocity that they can decel back down in time to jump and escape notice.”  And if they get caught, the people in those ships might die for nothing.  Or they might be able to bring across a battle force that could destroy the Caca force that discovered them, and keep moving toward the capital.  Not what they wanted, since sneaking into the capital system would leave the Cacas open to the surprise he wanted to bring, but a massive strike that destroyed their home fleet might serve as well.

“It would be nice if that would end the war,” put in Schmidt.

“We can’t count on that, my Lord,” replied the prime minister.

“She’s right, you know,” agreed the monarch, picking up his empty coffee cup and considering sending for the steward to refill it.  That could wait, he decided, since they would have to stop their conversation on top secret matters.  “We wouldn’t give up if they took out our capital.  Hell, even if they took out the Donut we would fight on.  We would have no choice.”

“But they would have a choice, your Majesty,” said Schmidt.  “After all, they attacked us, not us them.”

“They might not see it that way, Baron,” said the prime minister.  “They think we started that war, two thousand years ago.  They could still see us as the ultimate menace to their species.”

“And how could they have seen that in the first place, Countess?  They were a massive empire, even at that time hundreds, if not thousands of systems.  We had what, eight colonies, none much over a million people?  They had hyperdrive, while we were restricted to subspace.  How could they justify wiping us out?”  The baron’s face had turned red from passion while his voice rose.

“Calm yourself, my Lord,” commanded Sean, making eye contact with the noble.  “I’m not totally sure why they got blood in their eyes as far as we were concerned.  From what their prisoners have told us, we killed the heir to their empire after surrendering one of our colonies.  I don’t think that would be enough to drive us to genocide, but them?”  Sean shook his head.  He really wasn’t sure why they were even having this conversation.  When they hit the Cacas in the past, things would change, and none of this would happen in the same way it had now.

That thought gave Sean a pause.  What would be the effect on the him now when they changed the past?  He was sure he would still exist, as would his wife and children.  And over three hundred million who had died would still be alive.  But what would be the effect of that?  Would he have reason to even consider the time strike?  There would be no reason for him to contemplate such action, and if he didn’t. it wouldn’t happen.  Would it?  This was the definition of a paradox.  Would time loop, and everyone get caught in back and forth changes that went on forever?

The Emperor shook his head.  These were the kind of thoughts that would drive a man mad.  He had to depend on the opinion of the experts, and they seemed to think there would not be a paradox.  But how did they know?  It had never been done to such an extent.  His son had been saved and brought into the future, but that was one small life that really had no impact on the timeline.  He might eventually, but what could an infant do to influence this war.

“Are you well, your Majesty?” asked the prime minister, putting a hand on Sean’s forearm.  “You look like you were elsewhere.”

“I’m sorry, Countess.  That’s exactly where I was.  I have so much on my mind right now, it’s hard to concentrate on any one thing.”  The Emperor stood, bowing to the nobles.  “I’m calling an end to this meeting.  But I’m willing to meet tomorrow if need be.”

Sean saw the looks they gave him.  The meeting was almost over anyway, and they had to be wondering what was wrong with him.  Well, they could wonder all they wanted.  He was in charge here, and he would call and dismiss meetings as he willed.

“I have a surprise for the Cacas,” said the Emperor as he got up from his seat.  “A surprise for everyone.”

Sean stormed out of the conference room, feeling the stares against his back.  I need to keep my damned mouth shut.  He was the man in charge, but if too many people thought he was about to do something that most thought forbidden, they would stop him.  And he was not willing to let that happen.

*     *      *

“Dammit, Colonel.  I have my orders.”

Cornelius Walborski gave the two armored troopers a look that would freeze the marrow in most men’s bones.  If these two felt any fear, they did not show it.  Of course, being decked out in almost a ton of armor each was something sure to raise the confidence of the wearer.  All of Walborski’s strength and speed would do nothing against these men, while the sonic stunners they wore attached to their forearms would even put an augmented human down.

“And I guess those orders came from the general in charge of the operation,” said Cornelius, trying to think of a way he could pull some of his connections out to remain.

More men walked by, carrying heavy boxes of weapons and equipment.  These were the men he had led here for the unconventional mission they were on.  Not to be front line fighters, but to lead and advise the native guerillas.  Cornelius was sure that they would also be involved in combat.  There was no way around it, when they would be fighting on an invaded world where the enemy held the high ground of space.  They would fight and die, or be captured and die.  Either way, they would die, unless they happened to get back to this cavern system and the wormhole it sheltered.   He knew his people, and he knew they wouldn’t abandon the people they had been sent to help.  Just as he wouldn’t abandon them.

“The orders came down from the very top, sir.  The Emperor himself.”

“Shit,” hissed Walborski under his breath.  If Sean himself had ordered him off the planet, there was no ploy that would keep him here.

“But my men,” he said anyway, hoping it might get him somewhere.

They weren’t only his men.  There were two more regiments of Rangers on the planet, as well as naval commandos and Marine Force Recon.  Between them they were leading over a million insurgents, former Fenri slaves who were equipped with light infantry weapons, with some crew served mixed in.  His eyes followed a Fleet commando who was carrying a small box over his shoulder, covered in warning tags, including one that made most people steer clear.  A pocket nuke, small enough to fit in a briefcase, though with explosive power in the multimegaton range.  It was totally harmless in its secure and padded case, but most people would still want to avoid proximity.

“The Emperor feels that you are too valuable to waste here,” said one of the men, a captain in the military police by his suit insignia.  “We also have a message from someone called, Preacher.  He said, quote, tell that dumbass farmer to get his butt through the wormhole, before I have to come and kick it through, unquote.”

The Preacher, Major General Walther Jodel, was one of the few men that Cornelius actually looked up to.  He had met the man on Sestius IV, where Jodel had been an actual minister and a retired colonel.  The war had led to his being called back to active duty, and being placed in command of all Sector IV special ops.  If Preacher told him to jump, he wouldn’t even ask how high.  He would just jump to the best of his ability.

“Look, Colonel.  We’re not getting anywhere standing here arguing.  The damned Cacas are about to land and we need to get the hell out of here.”

“Afraid, Captain?”

“I resent that, Colonel.  You might be the most courageous soldier in the Imperial Army, but with all due respect, you have no right to question the courage of myself of my people.  Now, are you going to go with us, or do I have to force you along.”

Cornelius glared at the captain.  He thought about ordering his men to put these two in their place.  That thought was still in his head when he dismissed it.  The other officer didn’t deserve that, and though Cornelius would have liked to have stayed and killed more Cacas, he had been ordered to leave.

“Let’s go then, Captain,” said Cornelius, flashing a smile of reconciliation.  And at the next stop I will find a way to stay.

*     *      *

The Ca’cadasan ships went into close orbit around the world, the once capital of the Fenri Empire, and one they planned to install the government of their allies back on.  They had a suitable male of the species to sit on the throne, and they had a million Fenri soldiers to lend him credibility.  The Fenri had told them that the planet, with a large Fenri population, would be ideal, though the numerous other species, the slaves, actually made up a majority of the population.  Being a slave empire themselves, the Ca’cadasans thought they knew what to expect from a cowed populace seeing their masters return.

The first shuttles set down in front of cheering crowds of Fenri, the small, furry mammalians showing sharp teeth in smiling faces.  Other visages stared out, long snouts, flat faces, covered with scales or fur or hard plates.  Those faces didn’t smile and laugh.  They stared their anger and hatred at the masters who were returning.

The Fenri soldiers marched from the shuttles, striding forward in their powered armor, heading through the crowd toward the center of the city and the palace complex.  The crowd followed, joining with the other Fenri gathered on the slidewalks along the way.  The other species seemed to fade away.  None of the Fenri thought anything of it.  Slaves were known to be subservient and beneath notice, and so none of the superior species thought about them at all.

After the troops had secured the palace complex and the route there, the male who had been chosen to be the sitting emperor came along in an armored groundcar.  The vehicle was proof against small arms fire, the most that was expected of any possible resistance.  What was not expected was that the resistance would have nukes, or that they would use them in the city.

*     *     *

“We have a problem on the surface, my Lord,” said the officer who was in charge of watching events unfolding on the planet.

“What is it?” growled the low admiral, stepping away from the plot of his fleet in deployment through the system.   He was satisfied with his deployments, though not really all that happy with his total force structure.  If the humans had left a large number of ships lying hidden somewhere, his command was gone.

The low admiral stopped in shock as he looked at the holo showing the rising mushroom cloud over the Fenri capital.

“It just went off along the route from the landing field to the palace,” said the officer.  “I’m not sure how many casualties, but it has to be in the tens of thousands, possibly over a hundred k.  We lost several hundred males, while most of the Fenri honor force was destroyed.”

The soldier leaned over his board for a moment, listening.  “We have reports of numerous attacks within the city, and in several other cities.”

“Can we hit them with some kinetic strikes?” asked another of the officers.

The low admiral turned a look of murderous rage on that male.  They were here to reconstitute the Fenri empire, at least for the time being.  Later they would go ahead and absorb it into the Ca’cadasan Empire, but for now they wanted the cooperation of another fighting species.  Striking cities filled with their people was not a strategy formulated to get them on the empire’s side.

“If we land troops in the cities, we will get mired down in a blood bath,” said the same officer, who this time had a point to make.

“Land our troops at the airfields and at strategic points around the cities.  The Fenri troops will go into the urban areas.  It is their land, after all, and they should be honored to liberate it.”

*     *     *

Captain Jiang Wen used his augmented eyes to get a good look at the Fenri patrol moving down the center of the street.  All of the aliens were geared in their smallish battle armor suits, particle beam rifles in their hands.  There were some heavy weapons suits among them, though not in the proportion of a human heavy infantry unit.

Wen was an observer, which meant he was supposed to avoid combat, if possible.  The only problem was that it was not really possible to avoid combat in this situation, unless he wanted to watch the people he had trained die because he didn’t join in, and that was not going to happen.

None of the former slaves had anything that would be considered high tech by most militaries, though they were heavily armed with the best chemically powered weapons that Imperial tech could build, which made them very advanced indeed by their standards.  Wen carried a rifle of the same make that the guerillas were using, though theirs were configured for a variety of alien physiognomies.   Its magazine carried forty rounds of ultra-high velocity ten millimeter ammo with micro-shape charged warheads.  It also featured an underslung thirty millimeter grenade launcher with a six round attached drum.  Some of the aliens were equipped with rocket launchers, not as effective as hyper velocity weapons, but still deadly.  And none of the equipment gave off the electronic signal clutter of lasers and particle beams, or even the slight emissions of magrail weapons.

There would be no active electronic broadcast communications on this strike, at least as far as the front-line fighters were concerned.  Many had earbuds that would pick up transmissions, including the one the captain wore.  There were communications nodes that were scattered about, microdrones that would grab the ultralow power signals sent toward them and boost them.  They might be tracked down, but the enemy would only find burned out drones that had self-destructed.

“Taking the shot,” came a communication over the earbud.  Web looked that way, knowing who was going to take the shot.  One of his people, an expert sniper who almost never missed.  A man who would take that one shot, then back away and go into hiding.

A crack sounded out, faint in the distance.  The captain focused his eyes and on the street in time to see the flash of a small explosion on the armored helmet of a tank commander.  The round itself didn’t have the power to penetrate that being’s armor.  The micro shape charge in the round could, sending a tiny sliver of supermetal through the hard armor and into the head of the Fenri underneath.  The sliver blasted through the skull and into the brain below, the kinetic energy instantly pureeing the organ.  The Fenri slumped in his hatch, while thousands of eyes turned his way.

At that moment hundreds of other shots rang out.  Many missed, hurried attempts by beings not well trained in weapons use.  But there were also many hits.  Most bounced from armor that was too tough for them to penetrate.  Some hit the weak points and blasted through to kill or injure.  Other rounds, these of much heavier caliber, hit and punched through.  Several rockets flew out to explode among groups of Fenri.  Few were killed, but there was much damage to the high-tech suits they were wearing.

The firing went on for about ten seconds, until the volume of return fire started to beat down on the rebels.

“Falling back,” came the voice through earbud.

Wen fell back himself, pulling his body into the building, then getting up and running down the steps to the basement levels.  The steps weren’t made for his long legs, and he took them three at a time, going down the fifty floors in a few minutes and jumping to the floor of the basement.  Ducking his head to avoid bumping the low ceiling, he then ran and slid into the passage leading to the sewers underneath the city.  There were thousands of guerillas taking the same path to different areas of the underground.  They would not wait for the enemy to start tracking them down.  They would surface again within minutes, hitting the flanks of the Fenri troops.  And this would go on and on until the Fenri fed more troops into the city.  When the guerrillas would strike again, where the Fenri and the Cacas were not.

*      *      *

The Quasit was a cold-blooded creature, not showing up on the landing field infrared scans.  That was the reason he had been chosen for this mission.  He hadn’t been forced into it, like he had been all of his life when he had been a slave to the Fenri.  He knew he was unlikely to survive this mission, and he was okay with that.  His family had been promised protection by the revolutionary committee, and that was all he needed.

Twelve shuttles had already landed at this field, and the large armored forms of Ca’cadasans were moving toward the ground transports that had been gathered for them.  Another shuttle was coming in to one of the few open spaces in the already crowded field.  That was the target, and the being knew it had to move.

The large reptilian creature, blending in with the workers at the field, rose up to his full five meter height, one hand reaching for and grabbing the rocket launcher that was on the ground and raising it like a toy to his shoulder.  The other workers scattered for cover, into the open access holes that led to the sewers.  One of the Cacas noticed him and yelled something out.  In seconds a trio of particle beams hit the being, ripping holes in his tough hide and vaporizing the tender flesh below.

The Quasit roared his agony, but continued to aim the rocket launcher until he was sure he had it aligned with the target.  A reflexive squeeze of the trigger and the rocket flew from the tube, igniting as soon as it was ten meters away so that the engine wouldn’t harm the being using it.  Not that it mattered, as a particle beam had already entered the head of the Quasit, and it was falling backwards, its tail folding up underneath it.

The missile accelerated to the target, striking the nose of the shuttle, then detonating with megatons of force.  The heat wave proceeded the blast by a millisecond, and every armored Caca on the field died in an instant as thermal energy beyond the capabilities of their armor suits to deal with flooded them.  Metal melted on the shuttles, just before the blast wave lifted and threw them from the field.  The mushroom cloud rose over the area, letting the invaders know that another of their forces had been destroyed.

Chapter Five

Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.' Stephen Hawking

FENRI SPACE.  MAY 15th, 1003.

“The antimatter transport is coming out of hyper,” said the sensor officer of the Caca superbattleship, the flag of the force that had been left at the barrier.

The captain grunted as he looked at the plot that showed the large tanker and its six escorts approaching the barrier at the proper jump speed.  As far as they could tell there were no enemy ships within range.  In fact, it was felt that there were no enemy ships within light years of this system, they having fled before the Ca’cadasan fleet days before.  But since antimatter was a precious and necessary substance for fleet operations, it was also thought better to be safe than sorry.

“Tanker will be translating in five thousand kilometers to port.”

The captain gave a head motion of acknowledgement.  That was an acceptable distance, since the incoming convoy knew exactly where the battleship and its four accompanying cruisers were sitting, thanks to the graviton pulses they were all sending out.

The seven holes opened between the dimensions, and the nine-million-ton tanker and her escorts came through on time and on station.  The cruisers began to move, to take up station around the convoy so they would be well protected, again, just in case.

“Missile launch,” yelled out the tactical officer in a panicked tone.  “We have missile launch.”

“Where?” yelled out the captain, the last thing he would ever say.

The missile came streaking in at point nine-five light, to strike the tanker dead center, its gigaton class warhead going off as an afterthought to the kinetic energy released, as a forethought to the massive blast of hundreds of thousands of tons of antimatter breaching.   The blast wave obliterated the tanker and its escorts, then reached out to totally destroy the superbattleship and the four cruisers.  The brilliant flare would be seen in the system two hours later.

*     *      *

Captain Melvin Sedgewick nodded his head with a smile on his face.

“Wormhole reconfiguring to heat sink,” shouted out his executive officer, who was back in engineering supervising that process.

The stealth/attack ship had been waiting for just the moment that something worth shooting at would arrive.  They had lain in stealth, engines powered down, drifting from two million kilometers’ distance.  As soon as the tanker was in normal space the ship had fired, releasing a preaccelerated missile through its wormhole that had coasted for twenty seconds before powering up.  The Cacas hadn’t had a chance to react, and so the Stingray had accountted for not just the vital tanker, but a superbattleship, four cruisers and six escorts as well.

“Orders, sir,” asked the helm officer.

“As soon as we’re sending our heat through the wormhole power up the reactors.  Then move us away at slow speed until we’re ten light minutes from here.”

“And then, sir?” asked the exec.

“And then we wait for more targets of opportunity.  Maybe we can kill something else before the fleet returns and spoils all the fun.”

*     *     *

ONE THOUSAND LIGHT YEARS OUTSIDE OF KLAVARTA SPACE.

“I think this is a dead end, ma’am,” said Lt. Commander Timothy Bonaventure, the force com officer.  There were nods around the flag bridge of the Count Gregor Samnovich, the lead ship of the group.

Rear Admiral Natasha Sung found herself agreeing with her officers.  They had come this way on the advice of the Slarna, a hyper VI spacefaring race that she still hoped would sign on with the alliance.  The Slarna had said that this space belonged to the Ancients of this region, a people they called the Wise Ones.  Samnovich, a sixteen million ton hyper VII battleship, was sitting just outside the system, along with a light cruiser and two destroyers.  The two battle cruisers, three light cruisers and four destroyers that made up the rest of her command were divided into three more scouting groups.  In the past that would have meant they were out of com range, and she would not know if they had found anything, or even if they still existed.  With Klassekian com techs she was in constant com with them, while her own wormhole gave her the comfort of contact with home base.  That contact didn’t mean just com, but also the ability to add significantly to her firepower if need be.

The viewer was showing the signal that had just come in from the probe they had launched fifteen hours before.  The probe, in the body of a two hundred ton capital ship missile, had gone into orbit around the inhabited planet, then launched a quartet of atmospheric drones to scout out the surface while it looked on from orbit.  The picture it was showing was not one to inspire confidence that they had found what they were looking for.

Right now they were looking at what appeared to be a nomad village, aborigines of a basic biped variety, covered in scraggly fur.  Females were smoking meat on a rack by a fire, while males rode in on scrawny looking long legged beasts and naked children played in the dirt.  One of the males threw something he had been holding into the middle of the camp, and the view zoomed in to show the severed head of another native.

Sung shook her head as the view switched to another camp, this one obviously in the midst of a plague.  Sick looking natives lay about, while those still hale enough hauled bodies to a fire to burn.

“Civilization here,” said Bonaventure as the viewer switched.

Sung felt slightly hopeful until she had digested the view.  It showed what looked like step pyramids, the square between two of them filled with indigenes.  A group was at the top of the pyramid, smoke rising from a hole in the center.  As they watched in horror an intelligent being was forced to lay on a stone altar while another in a feathered robe cut open its chest and threw a piece of organ meat into a brazier.  The body was pulled from the altar and thrown into the smoking hole, while another was led up to the stone sacrificial platform.

“This can’t be a planet in the zone of an ancient race,” said Sung with finality.  In minutes she had seen suffering on a grand scale.  War, plague, the killing of thinking beings in ceremonies of religious savagery.  The Empire wouldn’t let a species like this suffer.  They would have reformers and educators backed up by troops on the surface in a heartbeat.  In a couple of generations disease and war would be a memory on a world like this.  Some would complain that they were stomping on the natural development of the species, but by the way of thinking in the Empire, suffering was to be alleviated, and thinking beings were to be uplifted.  There were still planets with aborigines who refused advancement, but they were monitored and prevented from making war on each other, while nanites wiped out disease.

“I agree, ma’am,” said Thaddeus Sims, the captain of the battleship, his holo hanging in the air, the control bridge showing in the background.  “After all the tales that the Ancients in our region raised everyone up to space faring status, this just doesn’t make sense.”

Sung thought for a moment.  Of course the Ancients hadn’t lifted every species into space, since there had still been aboriginal races on planets in the region when humanity arrived.  They had raised those that had reached a level of technology where they could understand advanced tech with some education.  Obviously this species was not at that point, but why let them continue with barbaric religious practices, when a convenient visit by a holographic god could convince them to change their ways.

Suddenly, without warning, a ship appeared on the plot, just fading into existence less than a light second away.  That was very good stealth, though not much better than what the Empire had for specific ships, such as the stealth/attack.  But no one had picked it up, and Sung had to wonder if it had been there the whole time, watching them.

The ship was not all that large, slightly smaller than a light cruiser, and seemed to be all planes and angles.  The surface of the vessel shimmered.  And Sung looked at one of the sensor consoles and saw that they were still having trouble getting a good fix on the ship.  Readings were off the chart, then went down to nothing, almost like the craft was breathing, or beating like a heart.

“We’re receiving a signal, ma’am.  Directed at this ship.”

“Put it on the viewer.  And start working on a lexicon.”

The viewer switched from the planet to the bridge of a ship.  Or so they guessed, since it looked like no bridge they had ever seen.  Fog drifted through the air, if that was fog and it was air, while lights flashed here and there.  A nonsymmetrical object was in the middle of the viewer, grey and brown, with strange lumps here and there.  No face, no body, nothing that looked like any kind of sensory organs.  But Natasha felt like it was looking at her.

“What do you in our space?” came a voice over the com, perfect Terranglo, unaccented.

“I think we are looking for you, if you are the masters of this space.”

“And why are you looking for us?  And why,” the voice changed intonation to that of barely controlled anger, “are you near to the planet?  It is under our protection.”

“We sent that probe to get a closer look at the world, to see if it might be one of yours.  If it offends you, we will recall it.”

“No need.  It is gone.  As are the drones it has released.”

Sung stared at the alien, wondering what it meant.  The planet was almost two light hours away.  They would not know if anything happened to the probe for almost two hours.  How did the aliens know what happened to it?  How could they have done anything to it, unless they had instantaneous com.

“We are in your space to solicit your aid against our enemy.  The Ca’cadasans have expanded to take up a good portion of this galaxy, and there seems to be no end to their ambitions.  They will eventually come here if they are not stopped.”

“If they come here they will be stopped,” said the cold voice.

“Will you not help us to stop them before they overrun my people?”

“The fate of your people is their own.  We will not interfere with it.  We do not interfere unless someone interferes with us.  The advanced people in your sector constantly interfered, and see what happened to them.  That will not happen to us.”

The viewer went blank, and the com officer looked up at the admiral and shook his head.

“We could take that ship, ma’am,” said Commander Tucker.  “We outmass them by a factor of twenty.”

“And I doubt if they are as helpless as their size implies, Tac,” said Sung.  “We aren’t here to start a war.”

“Just giving you an opinion, ma’am.  If we could capture that ship, we could gain their tech and reverse engineer it.  It would give us a big advantage over the Cacas.”

“And when the rest of their fleet comes after us, what then?” asked Bonaventure, glaring at the other officer.

“We’ve seen no fleet.  Only this one ship.  I’m betting that there are no more ships.  They’re like the Ancients in our own space, all but gone.”

“I’m not willing to bet that way, Commander,” said Sung, holding up a finger before the officer could argue.  “That is my decision.  When you are in command, maybe you will decide otherwise.”  And Sung hoped that day would never come, either because the officer wouldn’t rise to that rank, or he would gain some wisdom.

“Ma’am,” called out one of the com techs, looking over at the admiral.  “We’re getting reports of a ship approaching in hyper.”

“Which dimension?”

“Hyper VIII, ma’am,” said the wide eyed tech.

“That’s impossible,” said Commander Tucker, the force tactical officer, frantically checking his own board, then looking up with the same wide eyed look as the com officer.  “Hyper VIII.  And they’re approaching, quickly.”

The flag bridge crew monitored the oncoming ship as it came on at point nine light in the other dimension, jumping down into VII, then VI.  Much further past the barrier than the Imperial ship was capable of, and continuing on at point nine light.  The com boards were all lit, captains and crews shouting what seemed to be unbelievable figures.  The vessel kept on coming, finally translating into normal space still moving at point nine light.  Then it did the next unbelievable thing and decelerated down to a complete stop in minutes.

“Still want to fight them, Tac?” asked Sung with a cold smile.  The sensors were showing that this ship dwarfed her battleship.  It had the same basic configuration as the other ship they had been facing, but it spanned ten kilometers in each axis, and had to mass over a hundred million tons.

The viewer came on without the com officer touching his board, showing the same kind of lumpy looking thing that had been on before.  Sung didn’t know if it was the same alien.

“Humans.  We wish for you to leave our space at your best speed.  You are not to return.”

“But…”

“We will not aid you.  As said before, your fate is your own.  You will tell your Emperor that he will have to win his war with his own resources.  You are not to return to our space, on the cost of your lives.”

Sung looked down at the deck.  There was nothing else to do.  These all-powerful aliens had turned them down.  And she doubted they would worry about the Cacas if they showed up at their doorstep.

“One last thing,” she said, looking into the viewer.  “If I may.”

“One question only.”

“Why do you let these primitive people in your space suffer so, when you could so easily alleviate so much of it?”

“The fate of these people is their own to forge.  It is ours to keep them free of outside interference until they are capable of dealing with star spanning species.  We know the advanced race in your region did interfere, and see where it got them.”

The viewer went dead again, and Natasha was sure that they would not answer another call.

“Set course for Klavarta space,” she ordered, walking toward the hatch leading out of the flag bridge.  “And get headquarters on the com.  I’ll take it in my cabin.”

Chapter Six

Time travel offends our sense of cause and effect - but maybe the universe doesn't insist on cause and effect. Edward M. Lerner

“I understand, Sondra,” said Sean, taking the com call in his temporary office in the mountain retreat.  “Tell Sung to keep looking for possible allies.  We need to keep that front going.”

If one of the two fronts did collapse, the other would soon feel the full weight of the Ca’cadasan Empire.  It was hard enough fighting them when they had to focus in two directions, against only a portion of the Cacas’ might.  Fighting the whole thing was frightening, especially now that they had wormholes, and could shift forces across the vast expanse of theirs in days versus months.

At the moment what he still thought of the Klavarta front was quiet.  There was some probing along the front, a small battle here and there, but nothing of consequence.  The Nation of New Earth was still trying to recover from the last major fight.  They were building ships and training crews as fast as they could, but the estimates for another major offensive on that front were from eight months to a year.  It was unknown when the Cacas would be ready for another offensive, since they didn’t have a way to look far behind their lines.  It was thought that since they were hitting the Empire and the Republic so hard at this time, they wouldn’t have enough left for an offensive on the second front.

We just don’t know, he thought, shaking his head.  They did have some intelligence behind his front, limited, since the Maurids had come over to his side, secretly of course.  They didn’t have the same resource over on the second front.  Mostly that was because the genocidal tendencies of the former management of the Klavarta.  They had killed everything that wasn’t either pure human or their genetically modified population that were the actual majority.  To most of the slave races of the Ca’cadasan Empire they were monsters, just like they were to all of the other species around them, which was making it difficult to recruit any of those aliens to his side.

Sean was a student of history, and the second big war of twentieth century Earth was one of his favorite eras.  He recalled how the Soviet Union was able to move and mass huge forces at many times during that war, much to the surprise of their opponent, Nazi Germany, who in their arrogance thought they had a handle on the Soviets.  He didn’t want his own intelligence apparatus to make the same mistake.

With a thought Sean pulled up a holographic map of his front.  His office was fifteen meters on a side, but the holo seemed to stretch out much further, one of the advantages of holographic projection.  He could have achieved the same effect in a closet.

First he zoomed in on the left wing, where the Cacas were pushing into the New Terran Republic, his human ally.  One of the flanks of that push, three red arrows that had already grabbed a couple of score of inhabited stars, was now in danger of being smashed by combined Republic and Crakista forces, able to concentrate while they left the other advances to his force, when it got there.  Two of its arrows ended at systems that had a battle graphic, the blue color of friendly forces showing victories for his side.  The third arrow, the center of that push, had closed on a star system about forty light years further in from the other groups.  There was a red icon there, indicating an ongoing battle.  He didn’t doubt he would win there as well.  The question was, how many ships and people would he lose in that fight.

The right flank of that wing was a very different story.  The three arrows had all penetrated into the Republic about equally, though a fourth, smaller arrow had branched off and pushed ahead.  Various smaller fleet organizations were shown on the holo, the skirmishing forces whose job was to slow down the incursions until Lenkowski could get to the front.  He focused in on the fourth and smallest arrow, heading for an industrial system a hundred light years in advance of the rest of the assault.  Figures beneath the arrow showed an arrival time of less than a day, and another arrow, this one blue, showed a smaller force heading for the same star, arrival time, four hours after the enemy.  Everything was set into motion on that wing, and there really wasn’t anything he could do to change the situation.  That system would live or die due to the timing and the efforts of the force they had been able to scrape together.  There were some powerful assets in that small force, and there was a good chance they would win, but no guarantees.

The middle of the front was the real concern, with its three arrows pointing into the heart of the Republic, the industrial and population base of the kingdom.  There was currently nothing in their way, and the only reason he could think of for them not having pushed further was not wanting to lose the flank security of the other advances.

With a thought he looked back at the other side, the Fenri front, Mgonda’s responsibility.  Again there were three wings, with three penetrations each.  There were dozens of smaller arrows, probes here and there, as well as scores of blue arrows, each indicating small allied forces that were fighting a battle of maneuver, trying to again slow down the Cacas until the Fleet could concentrate on them as well.  That wasn’t a front of major battles, but one of raid and counter-raid.

Many systems were marked as points of resistance, where the former slave populations, reinforced with Imperial troops, would fight the Cacas and Fenri when they came.  Those were forlorn hopes, suicide missions.  Sean hated that he had to sign off on those types of actions.  It was bad enough that he had to commit his own soldiers, who had families in the Empire, hopes and dreams for the future, and a very slim chance of making it out.  But the people they had freed from their masters, who had gained a view of a future where they and their children were no longer owned, were now being asked to put their lives on the line for the benefit of the Empire.  That they were all volunteers who looked forward to killing their former masters and their Caca allies didn’t make him feel any better.  And that didn’t even consider the collateral damage that would take the lives of millions who hadn’t volunteered.

You will get your turn, he thought, turning his attention to the center of the front, where absolutely nothing was happening.  There was still a force in being there, mostly screening units, with a number of back up task groups.  The tripwire line was still in place outside the Empire.  It had picked up a number of Caca incursions, including the last invasion, but it wasn’t dense enough to cover the entire one million five hundred thousand square light years of the front.  And with wormholes, the Cacas only needed to sneak one ship through to pull a fleet into Imperial space.  There were millions of stars in that extra-Imperial space, and there was no saying that they would even need a star to locate their assembly point.  His own forces had assembled in deep space before this, and the Cacas were very good at imitation.

That area kept pulling at him.  That front, where he was going to launch his own offensive in a couple of months, was now the point of weakness.  The enemy had struck at the flanks, and pulled his forces away.  It was one of the oldest strategies in warfare.  Make the enemy concentrate on where you want him to, and then hit him at the weak point that develops in the lines.

But would they strike there?  He moved and rotated the holo, looking at all the possibilities.  There were so many places the enemy could come into the Empire.  Through Lashara?  Over the top or bottom?  He was doing the same thing in sending an incursion force over the galactic disk toward the heart of the Caca empire.  But he still thought, at least for the time being, the Cacas would continue to operate along the galactic disk.  As for entering near other powers, they had tried that near Crakista space and had been smacked down for their efforts.

So, what can we move up in that region to backstop if they have another fleet?  The Empire and its allies had a lot of ships.  Maybe not as many as the Cacas, but still over a hundred thousand vessels.  The only problem was they had a lot of commitments as well.

The war with the Cacas on this front, the aid to the Klavarta, the ships needed out in the Bolthole sector, the Lasharans.  And there were the ships that had been destroyed or badly damaged by the Caca strike on Jewel.  That equaled several hundred capital ships that could be in service by this time and weren’t.  That got him to thinking once again about the time strike, and what it could do for his empire.

Sean checked the time and decided that he needed a break.  Time to check up on the wife and children.  They were only a short walk away, in the living quarters of the retreat.  And he might just be able to snag a snack and a drink before he returned to work.

Jennifer was with the children.  In fact she was always with the children these days, and Sean was wondering it that was healthy.  She had no adult company other than himself.  She was feeding Augustine his bottle, something he had suggested she let the nurses do, while Glenn lay in his crib.  Glenn had been taking in solid food of late, but Augustine was behind him developmentally, all because of the difference the time transfer had caused.  Not for the first time he was thankful that Stumpfield had been monitoring that time and had brought his son back to him.  He owed the man a debt of gratitude, but could he really trust him?

Jennifer put the baby over her shoulder and burped him, then settled back on the couch and rocked him in her arms.  Glenn started to fuss a bit in his crib, wanting some attention.  He was not normally a fussy baby, so Jennifer must have been ignoring him for some time.

“Oh, my sweet baby,” said Jennifer quietly to Augustine, looking down on him.  “I’m never going to leave you alone again.  Nothing will ever happen to my sweet child.”

Glenn started crying, and Jennifer continued to talk to her other baby, ignoring the one in the crib.  Sean walked over to the crib and picked his son up, noting that the tab on the diaper had changed color, indicating that he was wet.  Since the diapers were capable of absorbing at least one bladder release and keeping the baby dry, this must have been his second elimination.

“Honey.  Glenn is past due for changing.”

“Will you take care of him,” she said, not looking up at her husband.  “Augustine needs me more.”

“You have two children, you know,” said Sean, sending a message to his implant to summon a nurse.  “You need to give Glenn some of your attention.”

“But I lost Augustine,” she said, looking up at him with tear misted eyes.  “I can’t stand to lose him again.”

“You’re not going to lose him if you set him down in the retreat,” said an exasperated Sean, picking up Glenn, then handing him over to one of the newly arrived nurses.  The other stood there, not sure what to do.  “Let the nurse take care of him.  We need to talk.”

“I will not let you take him from me,” she shouted, getting up from the couch and running from the room with the baby in her arms.

“Send for our physician,” said Sean, looking at the nurse.  “The Empress is tired, and needs a rest.”

And we need to do something before she has a complete breakdown, he thought, waiting for the doctor.  Losing Augustine had affected her terribly, but Sean thought she would eventually get over it.  Getting him back, and the thought of losing him again, seemed to have pushed her past the brink.  If only it hadn’t have happened, he thought.  Then he thought again about the project to strike the Cacas before they actually took his son away from him.

*     *     *

FENRI SPACE.  MAY 19TH, 1003.

“We’re about to enter the system, sir,” reported the liaison officer over the com.

“What’s it look like, son?” asked Colonel General Samuel Baggett of the commander.  He really didn’t like deploying his army this close to the advancing Cacas.  Not that he was afraid of fighting them on the surface of the worlds they would try to reconquer for their Fenri allies.  No, what he didn’t like was the possibility that his troop transports might run into enemy warships and get blown out of space.  While they were a mighty force when deployed to a surface, aboard ship they were helpless, their armor and weapons useless.

“Scouts are reporting the system is clear, sir.  It should be smooth sailing to the planet.”

Baggett nodded.  Only one of his corps was entering this system.  The other four were deploying to nine other systems, all considered important to the Fenri, and therefore to their Caca allies.  I wish we had wormholes on all those worlds, he thought for the hundredth time.  Then they could have deployed without ships, been guaranteed supply, and would have had the possibility of evacuation if needed.  As it was, they would have to hold out against an enemy that would have total control of space, with no chance of resupply, and no chance of survival of the Fleet didn’t relieve them in time.

His force was carrying a wormhole, all that could be spared, so he would have the means of getting supplies for the corps he was deploying with.  Every division had some Klassekians assigned, so all of them would have com links with his headquarters, and higher.  He hoped that would make a difference, but if the Fleet couldn’t fight its way back to them, he didn’t see that it would.

He knew it was necessary that they slow down the Cacas, and his army was a resource to be used to achieve that goal.  Their survival, while important to himself, was not a primary concern to the Empire.  The military didn’t like to throw away people, but they were more than willing to sacrifice a reasonable number of them against the chance to beat a Caca fleet.

Once through the barrier and into normal space it was a thirty-nine-hour journey to the orbit of the habitable planet.  There had been some discussion as to whether to send the troops in by shuttles or to take the transports all the way.  Shuttles would have taken an extra day and a half, and would not have been able to carry all of their equipment, but if the transports got caught in the system they were most likely lost.  Baggett had demanded that the transports take them all the way in.  He didn’t want to get caught on the planet with only his infantry, the most the shuttles could carry in one load.

So the two assault ships and nine transports went in on a least time profile to the planet, along with a dozen escorts.  The rest of the group stayed out beyond the barrier, ready to come in or run as the situation called for.  The transports were not as speedy as warships, only capable of a little over four hundred gravities.  The assault ships could boost as fast as battleships, but couldn’t accelerate along with destroyers.

They spent the day in transit. Baggett went through a couple of meals and a sleep break.  An old hand, once light infantry, then medium before making the move to the heavies, he was the consummate infantryman, and knew that he would need all the rest he could get before the Cacas got here.

“Are we ready to go?” he asked his chief of staff, Major General Hung Chee.

“Our shuttles are flight prepped,” said the small man, his head sticking out of the large suit of heavy armor.  “Tanks are locked into reentry systems, aircraft all checked out.”

“Good.  We should be in orbit in eight hours.  I want us…”

“Alert,” came a call over the com as klaxons went off.  “Alert.  Caca force detected in hyper.”

“Is our covering force large enough to stop them?” asked Baggett, on the com with the liaison officer immediately.

“We’re picking up five of their battleships, sir, along with the usual mix of smaller ships,” reported the commander.  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop that force.”

Baggett stared at the holo for a moment.  The covering force had two battleships, four light cruisers and a sextet of destroyers, not nearly enough to fight off that task group.  They had one heavy cruiser, two lights and nine destroyers alongside.  They might have made a little bit of difference if they had been back by the main force, or they might not.

“They’ll be in normal space in four hours,” continued the liaison.

Which means we’ll still be four hours from orbit by the time they’re in the system, and they’ll looking right at us, as we were two hours before, thought the general.  And they could get missiles into his ships before they got into orbit, if the enemy fired on them as soon as they were in the system, and if they entered at point three light.  He would have bet on that last, since that was what the Cacas almost always did.

For a moment he was wondering if he should go ahead and launch his shuttles and aircraft.  They could get to the planet from here, though they would have to coast most of the way and decel on approach.  The tanks wouldn’t have a chance, and over half of his infantry would still be aboard the transports.

“We’ll wait to launch,” he said, doubting he was making the best decision as he said it.  If they hit a transport or an assault ship, everyone aboard was gone.  But they could also hit the slower moving shuttles and his atmospheric craft.  The longer he waited, the better chance they had of getting away, being closer to the planet.

The corps command team gathered in a conference room, sweating as they watched a holo plot over the table.  It seemed to take forever, not just four hours.  But when the enemy entered normal space it still seemed sudden, and they were still the predicted four hours from the second planet in orbit around the K class star.

“They’re launching,” called out Major General Chee.

The icon appeared on the plot, and it only took a few seconds to see what the target was.  All of the missiles were heading into the system, and his ships were the only conceivable thing they could be shooting at.  Three hundred missiles were on the plot, maybe not enough to take all of them out, not with the escorts.  If they were lucky none of the transports would be hit, and any hits generated would be on one or more of the escorts.

Baggett shook his head at that thought.  It was cold blooded.  The heavy cruiser had almost a thousand people aboard, the lights just under seven hundred.  Even the destroyers had a little over three hundred crew.  They weren’t his service, but they were Imperial military.  The assault ships also had almost a thousand crew, the transports over four hundred.  And they were carrying between four and six thousand of his people and their equipment each.  Those were people he knew, people he would count on when he tried to hold the planet against a superior force.  And dammit, he cared more about them than the Fleet pukes who were transporting them.

“Second volley off, sir,” said Chee, grabbing his attention back to the plot, where another swarm of icons was leaving the enemy formation.  “They’re targeting the outer force this time.”

Hundreds of icons headed toward that small force, joined by hundreds more as the Cacas cycled another launch.  The Imperial force fired back, a much smaller swarm, then continued cycling weapons until they had to be all but dry.  The escorts with his transports started firing as well.

“Our force is releasing their assets into the system,” said the commander over the com.

Those would be a flight of warp fighters and a single stealth/attack ship.  They would move silently away in normal space, then deploy.  The stealth/attack would keep tabs on the system, and hit targets of opportunity.  The warp fighters would hang in space, unmoving, until something presented itself that was worth their attention.  They could resupply with missiles from the stealth/attack.  Of course it had been intended to release the fighters on the way out into the asteroid belt, the perfect place to hide.  But things had changed, and now they needed to get them away before the enemy spotted them.  The stealth ship was with the outer force, and it would hang out there.

“When will their missiles hit us?” asked Baggett, unable to take his eyes off the plot.  He was not a spacer, and he wanted ground under his feet.

“Missiles will hit eighteen minutes before we make orbit, sir.”

“Release the shuttles and atmospheric craft when we are thirty minutes from orbit.”

The liaison officer looked off the holo for a moment, probably looking at some figures, then back with a tight smile on his face.  “They should get to the planet ten minutes before the transports.”

That made sense to the general.  They would also be decelerating, but at many fewer gravities than the spaceships.  And they would use first the gravitational pull of the planet and then the atmosphere itself to slow.  And whatever transports made it into orbit could be unloaded by the shuttles coming back up for them.

“We should get you on one of those shuttles, sir,” said Chee, looking into the commanding officer’s eyes.

“I will stay aboard, and take the same risks as my people.”

“Hell, General.  Everyone knows you have courage.  Everyone knows you care about your people.  But you need to get your ass off this ship and onto a shuttle.  If anyone can hold that planet, you can.”

“And we have a corps commander who…”

“Is not in the same league as you, sir.  Nothing against Lt. General Hampton, but she is still new to her command, and her rank.  I thought that was the reason you chose to deploy with this corps.”

He’s right, thought Baggett.  He really didn’t want to admit it, and he also didn’t really want to be aboard a ship when the missiles came in.  But he also wanted to share the dangers with his people.  But you’re not a damned platoon leader anymore, Samuel, he thought.  Chee was correct.  He needed to land on the planet with whatever they got off.

“Okay.  Reserve a place for me on a shuttle.  And have everyone prepared for a combat drop.  I want a turnaround on those shuttles in record time.”

When the time came Baggett walked to the shuttle bay of the assault ship, only his head free of this battle armor.  Some of his staff was with him, others, volunteers, would remain behind.  What he needed on the planet were fighters, more so than support.  The shuttle was a standard assault model such as those used by the Imperial Marines.  It could carry thirty-six soldiers in their heavy armor, as well as ten tons of equipment.  Each assault ship had a complement of fifty shuttles, enough to carry eighteen hundred heavy troopers, a little over a third of their boarded soldiers.  The transports each had thirty, able to carry a quarter of their complement.  Add in the shuttles from the escorts, and the heavy lift shuttles that had been loaded with troops instead of equipment, and they would be able to land about seventeen thousand soldiers, a little less than a third of their total.

“We’re boosting now,” called out the pilot seconds after the shuttle lifted from the deck.  The ship pushed ahead at a low acceleration, four hundred shuttles and two hundred and eighty-four atmospheric craft trying to move out without collisions.  Safety protocols prevented collisions, though there was much cursing over the com as ships stopped in place to allow others through.  In a couple of minutes it was all sorted out, and the craft started decelerating toward the planet for all they were worth.

The missiles came in when the shuttles were well away.  The escorts interposed themselves between the weapons and their charges.  The Fleet took pride in guarding the ships that couldn’t protect themselves.  The heavy cruiser and one destroyer survived the onslaught that saw them firing everything they had at the enemy weapons.  The assault ships and transports were armed, mostly with defensive weapons, and they took out most of what made it through the escorts.  Two transports took hits, both of them turning into balls of expanding plasma that took their crews and passengers into the next world.  Some few survived, blown out of the ships in their suits, kept alive by the safeguards within their armor.

Baggett watched in horror as the two ships disappeared off the plot projected on his HUD.  He next sighed in relief as he saw that nine of his precious ships were still there.  And there were no more missiles showing, unless they had a wormhole and were sending in some preaccelerated missiles.  Since the Cacas were still short of sufficient wormholes, he doubted they had any with this small a force.

He zoomed the plot out to the outer system, where the survivors of that battle, one battleship and a couple of destroyers, were jumping into hyper.  The Cacas had lost a supercruiser and three escorts.  The battleships might have some damage, but he couldn’t tell it from this view.

The shuttle was roaring into the atmosphere, the sound clear through the hull of the craft.  It banked a couple of times, then straightened out.

“We’re close to your landing zone, sir.  Preparing to eject you and head back for more.”

“Go ahead,” said Baggett, the last word barely leaving his mouth before the hull opened beneath him and he was forcibly ejected into the air.  Then he was looking down at the ground, his suit starting to slow him down.  And waiting on the ground were a number of aliens, former slaves here to greet his troops.  He would arm a couple of hundred thousand of them and use them as guerillas.  Most would die, but they were volunteers, and using them might save some of his own people.  Cold, but the only way he could think about it.

He looked up as shuttles pushed through the air at hypersonic speed, heading back into space.  The atmospheric craft were coming in, slowing to a hover before landing.  Within an hour they would have the entire corps down, less their losses.  They would have a day and a half to dig in and prepare before the Cacas attained orbit.  And then their battle would begin.

Chapter Seven

'Closed timelike curve' is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past. Kip Thorne

“Where is Colonel Walborski?” asked Colonel General Walther Preacher Jodle, watching the last people to come across the wormhole portal.

“We couldn’t find the colonel,” answered a senior NCO, looking down at the floor so he wouldn’t make eye contact with the general.

“The hell you say.  Your one job was to watch that boy, and make sure he didn’t do something stupid.”

“I’m sorry, sir.  He’s the quietest, trickiest bastard I’ve ever laid eyes on.  I.  There’s no excuse, sir.”

And I would make sure he was court martialed if he makes it off that planet, if he weren’t the best we had, thought Walther.  At one point in his career he was thought to be the best there was.  And he thought that Cornelius, at the top of his game, was much better than he had ever been.  Or, depending on how he does, we could just promote him again and stick him behind a desk, thought Preacher with a smile.

Walborski was a friend of the Emperor, as well as the only three time recipient of the Imperial Medal of Heroism in the history of the Empire.  The Empire needed heroes, not scapegoats.  But he had disobeyed a direct order to come back from that world after he deployed the Rangers.  We’ll just have to see how he does, thought the general.  If he rates more medals, we’ll just make sure that he doesn’t leave Jewel until the war is well in hand.  Walborski would hate that, but it was nothing less than what he deserved for going off on his own.

*     *     *

Colonel the Count Cornelius Walborski looked once again at the bright orb of the F9 class star overhead.  He wasn’t worried about being tracked, since he had no active electronics on his person, and he had deactivated his implant as soon as he had left the insertion cave.  In a few more minutes he would be across the grassy area and into the dense forest.

The straps of the bulky backpack were cutting into his shoulders, despite the padding.  It was packed with more than a normal man could carry, and was almost too much for his own augmented musculature to handle.  He had rations for thirty days, high density nutrition bars that each packed the calories of a day’s worth of full meals.  He had six thousand rounds of ammunition for the weapons he carried, as well as a score of grenades and ten kilos of explosives.

The sling over his neck carried a chemical propellant rifle that could fire standard or armor piercing rounds at from five hundred to five thousand meters per second.  The holster at his side carried a chemical pistol in the same caliber as the rifle, though using much less propellant.  A couple of long monomolecular blades stuck out of sheaths on calf and forearm.  And attached to the pack were the ultimate man-portable Ranger weapons, two of the small nuclear missiles, each with a yield of ten megatons.

A sound from the forest caught the Ranger’s attention.  He had learned all he could about this planet while he was here supervising the deployment of special ops forces in conjunction with the arming of the guerillas who would be fighting the Cacas.  But he had not learned enough.  Not really.  Any living world had millions of organisms, tens of thousands of higher animals, many of which were dangerous.  Even, as he had seen on other worlds, killer vegetation.  He was sure he would recognize some of the dangerous forms, but some could look like cuddly mammals or beautiful foliage, and be no less deadly.  That was why he must needs meet with some of the guerillas before too long.

What the hell did they expect me to do? he thought as he started into the bush.  All those people they killed on Jewel.  My wife.  Devera, the love of his life, had been injured when the Cacas attacked Capitulum, the largest city of the Planet Jewel and the capital of the Empire.  He wanted to punish the Cacas, and not by leading other soldiers to do the fighting.  He wanted to kill the bastards himself.  With the warheads, from rifle range, with his hands if necessary.

Something moved to his right, rustling the foliage.  His rifle was up in a moment, tracking in on the sound.  He relaxed when the alien came into sight, a spider form with ten limbs and a sextet of eyes on its head.  It wasn’t really a spider.  It had an endoskeleton and lungs much like his own.  The straps and pouches across its body showed that it was at least associated with intelligent creatures, while the rifle, configured for its physiology, showed that it was a tool user itself.

It spoke in a screeching sound, translated from the box held in place by straps near the junction of head and body.  “Welcome, Colonel.”

“Thank you.  Are the troops ready?”

“As you asked.  And the squad of your men are also ready.”

“They don’t know I am coming?”

“As per your instructions,” said the creature, as another, different sentient being stepped up beside him.  This one looked like some kind of hexapodal marsupial, also carrying a weapon that had been configured to its own peculiar physiology.

Those guys will be surprised to see me, he thought with a smile.  The twelve Rangers would lead a group of six hundred guerillas out here in the bush, sniping at the Cacas in hit and run raids.  They had weapons, they had ammo, and they had a half dozen caches of more weapons and ammo for the long fight.

He had given up command of a regiment of troops, to assume command of a squad of his own and a battalion of irregulars.  And he was looking forward to it like nothing since he had become an officer.

*     *     *

“Enemy force heading straight into the ambush, sir,” came the call of a com officer sitting several hundred light years from his recipient.

“How many do you have?” asked Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda.  His flagship was sitting outside a rally system, one with a gathering of logistics ships refilling the missile magazines and antimatter stores of ships that had already expended some in combat.  His own ship was taking on antimatter, crew pulling containment vessels from the tanker and maneuvering them into the chambers that fed the engines.  Thick hatches, heavier that the armor they sealed to, were open.  In an emergency those hatches could be blown off the ship, the containment vessel rocketed out at a thousand gravities by its built-in grabber units.  It didn’t always save the ship, but it had in over a thousand occurrences, enough to guarantee that the system would continue to be in use until something better came along.

“We’re counting two hundred and fifty-one moving through hyper VII, sir.  Fifty-four battleships, sixty-four cruisers, the rest scouts.”

The Cacas were operating a little differently on this front that they were in the Republic.  They had, at first, moved in nine large formation, the same as on the other front.  But after weeks of hit and run attacks on their force, and no large stand up battles, they had broken those formations up.  There were still nine major groups, one in each flank larger than the others.  But they were also cutting lose smaller formations, about two hundred ships each, letting them cover more systems while still presenting enough power to fight off the hit and run tactics the humans seemed determined to continue.

That’s the only way we can slow them down and keep hurting them, thought Mgonda.   He didn’t have enough ships for a stand-up fight, not even against the smallest of their larger formations, the kind of battle that Lenkowski would be fighting.  One fight like that would see his force destroyed.  All he could do was hurt them, bleed them, take out some ships here and there while his ground forces fortified planets the Fenri would want back, and making the Cacas and their allies fight for them as well.

“Preparing to fire,” called out the com officer.

Mgonda watched the plot that was being transmitted over the wormhole.   The marker of the transmitting ship was there, sitting in normal space, seen by him, not by the enemy.  And the icons of the enemy ships were heading toward them, moving at point nine light in the upper dimension.  The transmitting ship was a ways back, for good reason.

“Firing.”

A thousand missiles appeared on the plot, fired in normal space, then jumping up to VII.  They were only four light seconds away from the enemy in hyper VII when they appeared, with a closing speed near light.  The enemy had little time to react.  They still took out over half the incoming missiles with lasers and close in weapons.  And one hundred and thirty-seven of their ships flashed into plasma and fell out of hyper.

At the same moment the missiles were launched the two wormhole capable hyper VII battle cruisers of the force jumped up to the same dimension as the enemy and released streams of preaccelerated missiles.  The weapons engaged their hyperfields an instant after leaving the wormholes and flew toward the enemy.  Twelve seconds after launch the missiles hit and the battle cruisers dropped back into normal space.

Thirty-one battleships, eighteen cruisers and fifty scouts continued on.  They were moving too fast to drop into normal space.  It would be many hours before they were down to translation speed.  Even missiles they launched would have to decelerate down, and by that time the human force would be gone.

A moment later the visage of the rear admiral in charge of the human task group appeared on the holo, a smile stretching her face.

“Good job, Admiral,” said Mgonda, his own smile matching hers.  Another hundred plus enemy ships had been removed from their order of battle, at no loss to his own.  It wasn’t often these days that he got to smile.

*     *     *

“Mgonda has hurt the enemy, your Majesty,” said McCullom over the com, a smile on her face.  “His ambushes have caught them off guard, and they have slowed their advance.”

“Will that do them any good?” asked Sean, rubbing his eyes.

“Probably not.  They’ll still be going too fast to drop back into normal space, and that space is just too vast for them to scout it sufficiently.”

“I’ll still bet the Duke will be happy to get enough ships for a stand up fight,” laughed Sean.  That wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

“Most of the ground troops are in place and setting up the resistance,” continued Sondra.  “Baggett’s corps got caught in space before they could deploy, and they lost two transports, but the rest made it down.”

Sean stared at the holo for a moment.  He had been second guessing the decision to deploy Imperial Army troops and special ops since he had proposed it.  It was a risk, and he doubted many of those troopers would make it back.  But they were assets, to be used as needed, and their sacrifice might slow down the Cacas, who were expecting easy conquest of systems as they passed.  But Baggett was known to him.  The general had been with him when he took the throne.

“Baggett made it, sir.  He has set up a command post on the planet and is expecting to contest the Caca landing when they get there.”

“Thank God,” blurted Sean.  That didn’t mean that the general would make it back, though his chances were slightly better than his front-line troops.  Unless the man decided to lead a close in attack himself, something he wouldn’t put past the soldier, who was really much too young for his rank.

“We also have news about Colonel Walborski,” said the woman, now frowning.  “I wanted Mishori to tell you, but he said since I was briefing you anyway…”

“Did something happen to Cornelius?” asked Sean, a sinking feeling in his stomach.  Walborski was acknowledged to be the greatest combat soldier of his generation, and while the loss of one man would have little effect on the army, it would be bad for morale for the Ranger to be lost.

“He stayed behind, your Majesty.  In a clear violation of his orders.”

Sean sighed with relief.  Yes, he wanted the man back.  But he could also understand that the Ranger wanted to fight, and he was another who might have been advanced too fast.  He would take care of Cornelius if he came back, and he would bet the man would make it.  Something that the colonel wouldn’t like, but which wouldn’t reduce him in rank or embarrass the army.

“Lenkowski should be going into action within the hour, your Majesty.”

“Send the feed to my office.”  He wouldn’t interfere with the admiral’s decisions, but he would watch closely.  As long as the technology existed for him to watch the battle in real time, he would be a fool not to use it.  “And meet with me in the Hexagon five hours from now.  We need to talk about future deployments.”

The admiral nodded and the com faded, leaving Sean alone with his thoughts.  Over a thousand ships that we would have now if not for the Caca strike on the home system, he thought.  Those ships would help, especially with the fleet already stretched to the limit.  Enough?  Maybe not, but he would prefer having those ships than not.  The time strike was looking better and better all the time.

Chapter Eight

Time abides long enough for those who make use of it. Leonardo da Vinci

REPUBLIC SPACE.  MAY 20TH, 1003.

“Another empty system,” cursed the Ca’cadasan high admiral, pacing the bridge of his flagship.

He had led a force of over four thousand ships to this system, which intelligence had said was a major military and industrial base of this nation.  He had already been to two other systems on the way in, decelerating down to jump speed and entering the gravity well for nothing.  Just wasted time as they clawed their way out and accelerated back in hyper.

“When will these damned humans fight?”

“We are picking up signals from inside the system, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.  “Two hundred and thirteen ships accelerating away, toward their primary.  Mixed military and civilian craft.  They appear to be making a break for the hyper barrier.”

And we can catch them if they have commercial craft slowing them down, he thought.  “Order task group five to make a run around the system to cut them off.  The rest of the fleet will move in and give chase.”

“Do we need to take the entire fleet in, my Lord?” asked his chief of staff.

“These humans are tricky, and they may be laying a trap for us by the habitable planet.  I would have my entire force there to meet them.”  And surely they can’t have gathered enough of a force here to achieve a victory, he thought.  It was more than likely they would have enough ships to hurt him, possibly destroying more than they lost.  But if he had his entire fleet, any attempt at an ambush would lead to their destruction.

“Move the fleet into the system,” the high admiral ordered after a moment’s more thought.

*     *     *

“The last ships are coming through, Admiral.”

Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski nodded as he sat back in his command chair on the flag bridge of the super heavy battleship Anastacia Romanov, his preferred flagship.  It had been one of the first ships through the wormhole gate, and had then been mated to one of wormholes that had come to this point in hyper.  He wished to use this particular ship, named after the late empress and his former lover, for the entire battle, though he realized that might not be possible.

Zoomed in on the main viewer, several hundred thousand kilometers away, were a trio of wormhole gates.  They had been moved here by warships, then inflated using the transited frame method to become squares two kilometers on a side.  Ships had been exiting all of the gates for the past twenty-three hours, giving him a fleet of over eight thousand ships.  He could wish for more wormholes, since he only had thirty-one for use as weapons in the coming battle.  Still, he had over two thousand capital ships, seventeen wings of inertialess fighters, and even three wings of the new warp fighters.  From what he understood the warp fighters had entered service, successfully, over on the Fenri front just days before.  He was sure that the Cacas here would not be ready for them.  At least that was what he was hoping.

“What is the report from in the system?” he asked his chief of staff.

“The Crakista commander says that the enemy fleet is coming into the system in force, just as you predicted.  Estimated four hours until they are deep enough for us to move.”

That was a big part of the plan.  Once the Cacas had boosted into the system for four hours at their maximum acceleration, they would not be able to escape the system before his fleet could engage them.  The one worry was that they might fire on the decoy ships before he could engage, in which case they would probably overwhelm those vessels, and force the crews to abandon.  He hoped that didn’t happen, but it was a small price to pay for taking out the larger Caca force.  Especially if he didn’t lose any decoy ship crews in the process.

And he had some new weapons to show the Cacas.  One had been used before, but none of those Cacas had seen the finished weapon, and none had survived the battle, so it should come as a surprise to these.  Hopefully one they really wouldn’t like.

Len took one last look at the tactical holo.  The ships were moving, putting out gravitons, and could be tracked from the range of a half light hour.  They were moving too slowly to be putting out enough for tracking beyond that point.  As he watched, the ships moved into their formations, far enough away so that when they jumped into V they would still be sufficient safe distance from each other.  They formed into four groups, three battle formations and the carrier force to the rear.  The center most force was made up of Imperial ships, and was the largest at over four thousand.  The one to port was Crakista, comprising over two thousand ships, while the starboard group, just under two thousand, was Republic.  All were fresh and ready to enter battle, morale good.  But this was just the first of many battles these ships and crews would go through in the next couple of weeks, and he wondered how their morale would be after half of them were gone.

I may not have to worry about that myself, thought Len, pulling on his pipe.  After all, there was no guarantee he or his flagship would make it through the gauntlet he was planning on putting them through.  It might be another admiral leading the fleet by that time, since the Romanov was one of his heavier combat units, and was sure to be in the thick of things.

*     *     *

The Crakista commander of the decoy force didn’t really feel comfortable with his mission.  It was logical that they would be used to pull the enemy into normal space, where some of the Imperial weapons had to be to function.  It was also logical that they would abandon their ships before the enemy missiles struck them.  But he didn’t like the idea of leaving behind perfectly functional, if not the most modern, warships.  It offended his sensibilities, and those of his ordinarily frugal species.

The specially prepared shuttles should do the job.  They were fast and stealthy, and should get the truncated crews of the ships to safety before the missile storm reached them.  Still, abandoning working ships during combat was something that did not sit comfortably with the officer.  Looking around the bridge at the other members of his crew, mostly fellow Crakista, with a few humans among them, and one Klassekian, he had to think that it was a good idea to get them out of the target zone.  He would have stayed himself, just to make sure that everything went as planned and the deception worked up to the last moment, but he had orders to evacuate, and Crakista officers didn’t disobey orders, unless they were the unlawful variety.

“Fleet is jumping, sir,” said one of the bridge crew, manning a com board.  “ETA to normal space, three hours.”

“Best time for enemy fleet to get out of the system?” he asked, already very sure of the answer, but wanting to run the figures past his tactical people.

“It will take them over two hours to slow to a stop and start accelerating out, which should take another five hours.  If they try to accelerate away, they can get out on another vector in nine point five hours.”

And missiles and fighters will reach them well before they can get away, thought the force commander.  He watched the tactical plot as it lit up with eight thousand objects jumping into hyper V.  The Cacas would see this too, and it was up to his people to make sure Admiral Lenkowski knew what they were doing.

*     *     *

“We’re picking up a great number of ships jumping into hyper V from normal space,” called out the sensor officer.

“How many?  On what heading?”

“It will take a minute to get a fix on the number and heading, my Lord.”

The high admiral growled, but kept his words to himself.  Analyzing the data coming across the sensors would take the time it took.  The data was still being gathered, and whatever it was, it wouldn’t be attacking them for quite some time.

“Preliminary estimate, eight thousand vessels, my Lord.   Twenty-one hundred capital ships, the rest a mix of their cruisers and escorts.”

That gave him a number, twice his own strength, though not quite double his capital ships.  But that didn’t give him the whole picture.  He had no way of telling how many of their wormholes they carried, how many of their inertialess fighters.   That last thought brought a predatory grin to his face.  They had a surprise for the humans as well.  He only had three wormholes with his force, all that could be spared from the limited quantity his people had been able to produce.  But he had something else, over a thousand of them.

“Accelerating into the system through hyper V.  Best estimate is that they will stair step in, arrival in normal space in three hours.  They will be at point three light at that time, coasting into the system.”

The admiral sat back in his chair, taking a moment to think.  He would be engaged in a battle no matter what in just about three hours.  The enemy would fire on him, and he would fire back.  That was a given.  How he would maneuver, how they would respond, that would settle the issue.

“What is our best path out of the system that will avoid close contact?”

The tactical officer stared at the admiral for a moment, and he knew what the male was thinking.  In the past, Ca’cadasan forces would always engage, moving into close combat.  That was the arrogance of his people, and it had hurt them.  He would maneuver as if there was more out there, ships he had yet to be shown.  Then he could still escape.  And he could still bring them under missile fire while he maneuvered, while he was unleashing his secret weapon on them.

“This course, my Lord,” said the helm officer, as a curving line appeared on the tactical plot, showing them changing vector until they exited the system about sixty degrees to spinward of the enemy entry.  “And this is the course the enemy will probably take to try to catch us.”

The human’s probable course also appeared on the holo.  They could be within twenty light minutes by the time the Ca’cadasans reached the hyper barrier.

“Show me the straight through the system path.”

A new line appeared, showing them passing by the planet within ten light minutes, continuing past the star, then boosting out.  They would still have to decelerate before they could jump, and the humans could continue boosting until they were right behind them.

“We will follow the first course and angle out,” decided the high admiral.  “Fire a spread of missiles at the enemy force within the system, and target some on the planet.”

Again he got a look from the tactical officer that showed his disapproval, a slight expression that got past the mask that most Cacada wore around their superiors.  It was against their religion to destroy life bearing planets.  But in this case they might not be able to approach closer to take out settlements and industrial plants.  The Emperor had decreed that this enemy must be defeated, at all costs, even against the religious traditions of the race.

“And launch the advanced fighters.  I want them to hit the enemy as soon as they enter normal space.”

At that the tactical officer returned the predatory grin of his commander.  Moments later the fighters appeared on the plot, scores, then hundreds, then a thousand.  At two thousand tons they were larger than their human counterparts, and they had a higher top end pseudospeed as well, two and a half times light speed.  They were an untested weapon, and had evidenced some problems in training, as they were still wildly inaccurate, and once they were in their negative matter bubbles they were cut off from the Universe, and had no way of telling if the enemy had adjusted their course.  Still, they were a promising weapon, and since the humans had used theirs so well, it was hoped the Ca’cadasans could do at least as well with their own.

The ship shook slightly as it released missiles, and the fighters disappeared from the plot as they raised their negative matter bubbles and sped off.  Two thousand missiles now filled the plot, moving at eight thousand gravities acceleration toward the smaller enemy force and the planet they were near.

*     *     *

“Preparing to jump to normal space,” called out the fleet navigation officer.

Lenkowski grimaced again.  At one time he had been an easy translator, but over the years it had become more difficult, to the point where now he often felt like he was about to vomit as they moved from dimension to dimension.

The lights dimmed for a second, and the view of red tinted space with the black dots of gravity wells disappeared from the viewer, to be replaced by the familiar dark of space interspersed with millions of bright pinpoints.

Within seconds the enemy fleet was located and the human fleet adjusted their vectors slightly, boosting at five hundred gravities.  The carrier force, twenty fleet carriers and eighteen of the lighter version, along with their three hundred escorts, started to decelerate, at the same time launching their fighters.  It took several minutes to get all three thousand of the inertialess fighters into space, but as soon as they formed up they raised their negative matter fields and started off, heading toward the enemy fleet.  Unlike their Caca counterparts, they were not completely cut off from the universe, thanks to their Klassekian com techs who could maintain contact with their siblings no matter what.

“We’ve calculated the Caca course based on their acceleration and vector changes, sir,” said the fleet tactical officer.

“Figure a firing solution and start sending wormhole missiles at the predicted interception point.”

“There’s a flight of missiles heading for the decoy fleet and the planet, sir,” reported one of the tactical techs.  “Two thousand missiles.”

Lenkowski swore under his breath.  They had thought the enemy would fire on the planet this time, but the admiral had been hoping they would be wrong.  It was not much of a world, small oceans with simple multicellular life and desert landmasses that had yet to be colonized by the sealife.  It was not a great loss, not as if a fertile world was in the crosshairs.  But its life was still its own, distinctive, and soon to be extinct.  He could order the warp fighters to intercept, but he needed them to destroy enemy ships.  That was the mission here.  To kill as many Cacas as possible, so they wouldn’t have to fight them again somewhere else.

The admiral leaned back in his chair.  He had done all he could for the moment.  Now it was waiting time.  The boring time.  Most of the crew had jobs to keep them busy.  He could only wait, until the moment of terror was again here.

*     *     *

“My Lord.  You need to see this.”

The high admiral stood up and walked over to the tactical station, where a smaller version of the tactical plot was displayed over the board.  Some objects were highlight on that plot, a swarm of dots that were almost on top of each other.  And they were moving quickly along the plot.  Too quickly.

“What by all the Gods are those?”

“I don’t know, my Lord.  We are picking them up on graviton emission, which is heavy for such small objects.  And their apparent speed is over ten times that of light.”

The high admiral felt a shiver run down his spine.  A moment before he had been celebrating how he was going to surprise the humans, and here they were, pulling something new out of the hat.  He didn’t know what they were, but with that speed they had to be dangerous.

“Is there anything we can do about them?” he asked the tactical officer, not able to think of anything himself.

“Not until they come within range of our weapons.  I don’t think we will be able to engage them at long range with missiles.”

The high admiral had to agree.  Anything moving that fast could outrun anything they could send at it.  The question now was how maneuverable they were, and how long it took them to accelerate up to their present speed?  And was that as fast as they could go, or were they only showing a bit of their capabilities?  The high admiral doubted they had any more reserve speed.  At least he prayed that they didn’t, or this could become a very short fight.

*     *     *

Captain Jarkko Kulmala was in love with his new ship.  Actually in love with all of the vessels in his augmented wing, one hundred and seventy warp fighters, twelve of the fourteen ship squadrons, along with his two ship command section.  They were one of two wings in this battle, now flying together, though they would soon separate.  Unlike the inertialess fighters, they could see the universe outside of their warp bubble.  They could mark the movements of their enemies.  And now was the time.

“Change vector to designated attack course, now.”

The vector arrows changed on the tactical plot, showing his wing now moving at a right angle to the other one.  The fighter itself was not moving, it was warping space around it.  So it could change directions in a heartbeat, a shift that would have crushed the crew of any conventional spaceship.

“Range to enemy, forty-one light minutes,” called out the navigator.  “ETA, four minutes, eight seconds.”

*     *     *

“Enemy craft have changed vectors, my Lord.  They are coming directly at us.  ETA, four minutes.”

“How did they do that?” exclaimed the high admiral, storming over to the tactical station.  He looked at the line that showed the course of the enemy craft and their vector change, a ninety degree angle with no loss of speed.  “That’s impossible.”  But not if they’re doing it, he thought.  They had originally called the inertialess fighters impossible, until it became apparent that not only were they possible, they were real.  As these appeared to be real, unless they were some kind of trick meant to panic his people.

We’ll find out in three minutes, he thought.  Either the enemy ships would prove to be an illusion, a trick.  Or they would turn out to be painfully real.

*     *     *

“Firing, now,” called out the weapons chief, the man who had control of the missiles.

The wing was spread out so they wouldn’t waste missiles, sending too many into too few targets.  The enemy force was large enough that there shouldn’t have been any misses, but it didn’t always work that way.

Every ship dropped two of their four missiles.  The weapons dropped from their bays on the fighters, riding within the warp field while they erected their own field, then moved through the field of the launching vessel.  They moved for a couple of seconds, then dropped out of warp to get a look at the targets.  A quick look gave each a target lock, after which they went back into warp and sped toward their victims.  Moments later they struck, as the fighters flew over the enemy fleet, moving too fast for any defensive weapons to target them.  The fighters flew on for a minute, getting ten light minutes away, then cutting their warp drives.  A quick turn in space while their sensors got a hard fix on the enemy and they raised their warp fields again, twisting space as they moved it, making it collapse and moving them closer to the enemy at the pseudospeed of ten lights.  They would strike again in one minute, and then move off to reload at their actual full speed, twenty lights, so they could come back and hit them again.

*     *      *

“They’re…”

Before the tactical officer could say another word they had already hit.  The objects had appeared on the plot for about a second, then disappeared, to turn into graviton producing streaks that covered light seconds in almost no time.  Then they were gone again, along with the over a hundred Ca’cadasan warships which disappeared from the plot.  Distress signals came from several score more as they lost acceleration and started to fall behind.

The tactical officer looked back from his station in shock, the same shock the high admiral felt.  At least now he knew they were real, and that they carried a heavy sting.

“Ships that were destroyed were cruisers and escorts, my Lord.  All of the battleships survived their hits, though most sustained severe damage.”

The high admiral thought about that.  If the objects had been carrying momentum they would have blasted every ship they hit out of existence.  But physics said that they couldn’t be carrying that much kinetic energy, more energy than was in the universe if one were to believe the scientists.  So they were moving faster than light by some other means.  But they still hit with enough force, enough power in their warheads, to kill ships.

“They’ve turned around and are coming back, my Lord,” shouted the tactical officer.

“How?  Don’t they have to decelerate?”

Obviously not, as the plot showed the fighters dropping off for several seconds, then heading back their way at the same speed they had been carrying when they stopped.  They came in on another attack, again each launching two missiles that performed the same.  And the high admiral’s fleet lost another hundred warships, while more started to fall behind.  This time one of the enemy craft disappeared, exploding in space just above the fleet, a victim to some piece of ejecta that had flown off one of the Ca’cadasan ships during the first attack.

The craft next seemed to bank ninety degrees at ten times light speed and sped off at twenty times c, heading for the hyper barrier ahead of the Ca’cadasan fleet.

The high admiral stared at the plot in disbelief.  One hundred and seventy craft, small by all indications, had taken out over two hundred of his ships, while damaging almost a hundred more.  Those damaged ships were not able to accelerate along with the rest of his force, and were not changing vectors at the same rate.  If he left them behind they were probably doomed, but if he slowed for them he might be dooming the rest of the fleet.  Especially with whatever those fighters were possibly returning.  And there was still the other wing of them, moving ahead of his force, but sure to change vectors at any moment and come at him.

“We’re picking up signals consistent with their inertialess fighters, my Lord.  Estimating several thousand.”

Which meant there were a lot of them out there as well, thousands.  They could track them after a fashion, at least knowing that they were there and their general whereabouts.  The closer they got the better the fix, though it would never be what a tactical officer would call solid.  They could hurt them when they dropped down to launch, but they would also hurt his fleet.

And I wonder how you will like it when our fighters do the same thing to you? thought the admiral.  He frowned a moment later.  He had no way of knowing if his fighters would make an accurate strike, while obviously the humans knew what they could do.

*     *     *

“First warp fighter strike has gone in.  Estimating over two hundred of their ships destroyed, almost a hundred damaged.  One fighter lost due to debris collision.”

Lenkowski nodded.  So far the warp fighters had proven very hard to kill, though from what he understood, a number had been taken out on their first ever attack on the Fenri front.  But even in that case the return had been more than worth the cost.  He didn’t doubt that these Cacas would figure out how to hurt them as well, but the pounding they would give the enemy would be worth the cost.

“Sir.  First warp fighter wing is reporting tracks of inertialess fighters on a general heading toward us.”

“And don’t tell me.  They aren’t ours.”

“No, sir.  Slightly different resonances.”

The inertialess fighters had at first appeared to be an unstoppable weapon, especially when paired with Klassekian com techs.  They couldn’t be tracked, and were only vulnerable when they dropped their negative matter field just before they launched missiles.   Then they could be punished by walls of fire.  Eventually the Cacas had learned how to track them.  Each fighter gave off a faint hint of gravitons that at first seemed to disappear into the background.  Once one knew they were there, they could be detected.  They were still impossible to get a firm fix on from a distance, but the closer they got, the closer the track.  He had to believe that the Cacas hadn’t solved the communications problem, since they couldn’t have enough wormholes to give every one of their craft one, and they weren’t thought to have any aliens in their empire with the abilities of the Klassekians, else they would have already deployed them.

“Change our vector a bit, navigator.  No use making an intercept easy for them.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Second warp fighter wing reporting they are about to change vector and attack.  Countdown, sixty seconds.”

That was what Len was waiting for.  His job here was to kill as many Caca ships as possible, while losing as few of his as he could.   He could bring more firepower against them in the normal space of the system.  Since most of his ships were hyper VI, if he had to chase them in hyper the advantage would swing their way, and his chasing force was likely to find themselves becoming the prey.  The more he could damage inside the system, the less would be able to escape them.

“First wave of wormhole launched missiles will be crossing their path in thirty-four minutes, sir.”

“Estimated intercept on ship launched missiles?”

“At present time, three hours and forty-three minutes.  Thirty-seven minutes before they hit the barrier.”

“Order all ships to fire eight volleys of missiles.”

“Think that will be enough, sir?” asked the fleet tactical officer, running the numbers.  “I estimate that a swarm of that magnitude will destroy or damage half of their ships, but will leave an equal number to get away.”

“That’s enough for now, tactical,” said Len, seeing from the man’s expression that he was wondering.  There was method to his madness, and he preferred to surprise the tactical officer when the time came.

Minutes later came the response he thought would be coming.

“Enemy launching missiles, sir.  They are targeting us with all of them.”

“Very good, tactical.  Now we wait.”

Chapter Nine

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo

“I believe they are using some kind of warp drive,” said the second ranking male in the fleet.  “They are not really traveling faster than light, but are compressing and expanding space on a narrow path ahead of and behind them.  We have known of this technology for thousands of years.”

“Then why haven’t we developed it?” asked the high admiral.

“We did, my Lord.  Back in the dark days when we were first rising to strike at the race that had enslaved us.  It gave us a great advantage over their slower than light craft.  But it was expensive in both exotic matter and energy, much more so than the subspace drive we eventually developed.  And much less effective for travel between systems than even the lower dimensions of hyper.”

“So this is something we could develop again in minimum time.”

“Assuredly, Admiral.  We could have craft like these in months.”

“Make sure all of this information is getting to command,” ordered the admiral, looking at his com officer.  His ship had a wormhole, and everything they did, saw or heard would eventually get back to higher command.  But it didn’t hurt to make sure this essential information made it back first, before something could happen to ship or wormhole.

“What can we do about them?  How can we hurt them?”  He really didn’t think there was any way to stop them, at least not with what they had.  But it caused his hackles to rise that he couldn’t at least hurt them while they were eviscerating his command.

“Their warp field will shred any smaller bits of matter that enter them,” said the assistant commander.  “When they hit something large enough, like one of our ships, they encounter too much matter for the field to shred, and it collapses.  But not before they blast through the hull and armor.  What we need to do is put enough matter in front of them to make them try to avoid it.  But at the closure rate they possess, that might be easier said than done.”

“My Lord.  The other warp fighter wing is coming at us.  ETA, forty-one seconds.”

“Prepare to fire counters to intercept.  And all ships are to fire all missile tubes facing when they are five seconds from intercept.  All ships are to close up as best as they can before they strike.”

The tactical and com officers both gave head motions of acknowledgement and went to their tasks.  The high admiral watched the objects on the plot coming closer, wondering if his improvised defense would do any good, or if they would again fly over his formation with impunity.

*     *     *

“Admiral.  Second warp fighter wing has struck and flown through.  They report losing nine of their ships to enemy fire.”

Len cursed under his breath, something he had been doing a lot of lately.  He knew the enemy would figure out something.  Even a species as slow as the Cacas had their exceptional thinkers, and unfortunately they seemed to have one in charge here.

“How many enemy ships did they take out?”

“They killed seventy-one enemy ships, including seven battleships this time.  They damaged another forty-one.”

Len almost cursed again, reminding himself that not everything was going to go his way.  Killing battleships meant that multiple missiles had hit each ship.  That was the only way they could account for killing one of those big bastards.  While a clear kill was a plus, he would have rather have had twenty-eight or so battleships damaged and falling behind where they were still easy kills.

“The wing commander is reporting that they will try something different this time, just to change it up.  She also reports that the enemy did close up on that attack, and as far as they can tell, they are closing up their formation even more.”

“Yes,” shouted Len, slapping his hand on the arm of his chair.   Closing up the formation really didn’t do any good for the warp fighters, but it would help significantly for the next thing coming.

He watched the plot as the fighters headed for the enemy, then turned at the last second and shot to the rear.  Two more shifts in three seconds and they were closing on the Cacas from behind.  More icons blinked on the plot, some disappearing, others losing acceleration.  And three more fighters were gone.  It had worked.  Maybe not as much as they could have hoped, but it had worked.

And what will they have in place the next time we fight them? he thought.  He liked playing with the new toys, but it had been planned that the first the Cacas would see of them was when the Fleet was pushing into their space.  Now the enemy would know some more of what they had, and would develop countermeasures for it.  The old game was played, invent, deploy, then get ready for the countermove.  It was a constant fight to stay ahead of the enemy.  He knew about some of the new weapons and equipment on the board, not ready for deployment, maybe four months or so from that point.  And with that they would jump ahead again.

At least they’ll never catch us in wormhole production, he thought, remember what Director Yu had told the Admiralty.  It would take at least a decade for the Cacas to come up with the manufacturing planets to match the Donut.  And they would still be so far behind in inventory that they would never catch up.

“First warp fighter wing is reporting that they are approaching the carriers,” called out one of the com techs.

They would mate with the carriers, be rearmed, and would be heading back into the system within ten minutes.  Or at least that’s how long it had taken in training.  They could only hope it would take about the same time in the real deal.

“First wave of inertialess fighters are coming into range.  Strike in one minute, thirty-one seconds.”

Now this would be something to see.  The inertialess fighters could still only do point two light, and they still had to decel down to their entry speed before they could drop their bubble.  They were old new, compared to the new warp fighters.  Still, the Empire could produce eight of them for every warp fighter, and they were about to show the Cacas a new wrinkle.

“Sir, we’re picking up the background signals of the Caca inertialess fighters.  They’re close, and starting to decel.  They’ll be within striking range in eighteen minutes.”

“That fast?” exclaimed Len.  They had launched their fighters well after he had launched his, and that meant they had a higher top speed.  An improvement on what the Empire had, something to be expected at times.  The enemy was always trying to compete at every level, technology, strategy, production, and sometimes they would win one of the fights.  Now to see if they had solved the problem of finding a target that wasn’t where you expected it to be.  Something his own inertialess fighters had solved, thanks to the singular beings they carried aboard.

*     *     *

“Enemy inertialess fighters on approach,” shouted out the tactical officer.  “Something’s wrong, my Lord.  The distance resonances are changing too fast.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think they are decelerating, my Lord.  The resonances match a velocity still well above light speed.”

“What the hell can they be thinking?”  It was known that it was a disaster for craft to come out of the negative matter bubble at a higher velocity than they went in.  And since they had to be going slower than light when they went in, any warp drop above light speed would result in the maximum inertial rebound possible.  Due to the effects of the quantum foam that made up the universe, the highest the rebound could possibly be was just below light speed, enough that all the matter of the ship would convert to energy, just as if it were made of antimatter.

“It could be a suicide attack, my Lord,” answered the tactical officer.  “I know humans don’t usually engage in those, but we have records of them doing so when they fled their home system.”

The high admiral didn’t think so.  He had seen the videos from that event.  Those were desperate times, and the only way the human refugee ship could get away was if some of their warships rammed the Ca’cadasan pursuit vessels.  No, there was something else going on here, and he was sure he was not going to like it.

“When you think they are close enough,” he told the tactical officer, “all ships will put out all the defensive fire they can.”

The male gave a head motion of acknowledgement and went back to staring at his board.  Inertialess fighters didn’t warp space.  Very small objects that hit their negative matter bubbles would disappear, taking an equal amount of the negative matter with them.  Larger objects would penetrate the bubble and most likely strike the ship within.  So the tactic was to put up as much fire as possible.  The area was large, the targets small, and the chances of a hit to any one remote.  But some might still be hit, and that was better than nothing.

At what he thought was the proper moment the tactical officer shouted the command for all ships to fire.  Every weapon aboard came to life; lasers, particle beams, offensive and counter missiles, even close in magrail projectile weapons, filling space with obstacles to run into.  Moments after launch the missiles detonated, spreading plasma and particles through space, the only way they could possibly get a hit on one of the fast-moving fighters.

And then it happened.   An enormous blast ripped through space, well away from any of the ships, far from the fleet, and registering in the four pentaton range, the equivalent of four thousand of the one gigaton shipkiller warheads most missiles carried.

More explosions rippled through space in less than a second, two thousand of them.  Over a thousand detonated where they did little harm other than sending heat and radiation out in a globe around them.  Some did minor damage to closer ships, others nothing at all.  But almost a thousand detonated within the close packed mass of the fleet.

Normally the ships would have been twenty kilometers apart or further.  Now they were within ten kilometers of each other, and the four pentaton blasts went off among them.  Over five hundred ships came apart, too close to the detonations to survive the flash of heat, even if there wasn’t much in the way of concussive effect.  Two thousand more took damage serious enough to reduce their acceleration significantly.  In one strike, the Caca fleet was crippled.  And another wave was coming in behind the first.

*     *     *

Again the fleet was gathered by the wormhole gates, moving one through each every thirty seconds.  Len watched the egress of his force from the space, back to the rally system, where they would enter more gates to go to the next system where battle would be joined.

The new weapon systems had won the fight.  A few of the enemy ships had escaped the system and made it to hyper VII.  He had sent enough of his VII ships after them to keep a watch to make sure they didn’t get up to any mischief.

He hadn’t gotten off without loss.  The decoy fleet had been a total loss, although all of the crews had gotten away.  The habitable planet had taken three hits, and now its surface was a hellish landscape of magma and spewing volcanoes.  It would return to habitable state in a score of years, though the only samples of the life that had spawned there were in Republic cryo-storage.

The Caca inertialess fighters had missed the mark, the first time.  But they kept trying, and he had lost some ships to them.  He had lost more to the Caca missile storm, though not as many as he had feared.  Over seven thousand ships, fully capable, only needing missile resupply, had made it through, and they would form the nucleus of his next force, fighting an even larger Caca fleet in another system.  And after that?  Another fight.  And another, until this invasion force was defeated and the Republic secure.

Taking a last look at the viewer he wondered how his friend Mgonda was doing on the Fenri front.

*     *     *

“We are looking over the data from the battle lost on the flank,” said the chief of staff, walking up to the great admiral of the bridge of the flagship.

“And?”

“They hit us with a couple of new weapons.  One was those new warp ships of theirs.”

“And how are they different than the other impossible ships they use?”

“The inertialess fighters don’t really warp space, my Lord,” spoke up the tactical officer from his station.  “They cut themselves off from our universe in a field that’s similar to warp, but not exactly the same.  Then they accelerate at an incredible rate.  Just like the ones we now have.”

“Very good, youngling,” said the chief of staff with a sneer.  “Now, if you will let your betters speak.”  The chief of staff turned a quick glare toward the tactical officer, then bowed to his superior.  “He is correct on that aspect.  The warp ships they used against us use a very different means of propulsion.  They don’t actually move.”

“Then how in the hell do they get from A to B so fast?” growled the great admiral.

“They warp the space before them, shortening it to the front, then lengthening it behind, in a narrow corridor.  Like a bead running down a cord.  And as far as we can tell, they are not cut off from the universe like the inertialess fighters.  They can track and be tracked.”

“For all the good it did us,” said the admiral with a grimace.

“They can be killed, if we put enough out there to hit them.  The problem is, the warp field acts like a singularity for just a moment, crushing and then ripping the mass apart.  But anything large enough will still get enough matter through to cause considerable damage.  If they hit a planet or a ship, they are gone.  If they hit a missile, that’s all for them.”

“So, all we have to do is lure them into hitting a planet?” scoffed the admiral.  “And what about their weapons?”

“They seem to use the same drive as the ships.  They turn off their drives for a moment, lock onto a target, then go back into warp.  Since they get there in less than a second, it’s hard for them to miss.  They don’t carry momentum, which is a good thing, my Lord.  First of all, it would violate the laws of physics, since nothing can carry that much momentum, not multiple times the speed of light.  So they don’t do as much damage as a ship killer missile.  Still, the warp field disrupts enough of the armor of the warship that the warhead goes off deep inside the ship.  With a scout, they actually blow up inside the vessel.  A battleship?  They might get through the armor, or they might not.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any ships to look at to see if my conjecture is accurate.”

The great admiral stood there making a head motion of denial.  He thought it more unfortunate that they didn’t have the ships, not that they didn’t have something to study.  He thought his chief of staff thought too much like a researcher, which was not a compliment in Ca’cadasan society, since those males were the ones with above average intelligence and below average physicality, not fit to be warriors.

“The good news is we will be able to duplicate these ships in the near future, so the humans will have to deal with their own invention in our hands.”

“And that does me no good during this offensive, you dolt,” roared the admiral, advancing on the male, then stopping himself before he could strike out in anger.  He needed this male, whose insight was greater than anyone else’s in his command.  He stood there for a moment shaking, noting through his rage that the male didn’t seem to be afraid.  Another instance of his insight and intuition.  The great admiral looked away.  His anger should be directed at the insufferable humans, who, though brave enough, didn’t fight like warriors.  Instead of pitting their power against an enemy, they tried to outthink their foe.  And they were very good at that.

“What about their other weapon?  Those impossibly powerful warheads?”

The great admiral almost laughed at himself.  So many times they called the human weapons impossible.  But if they worked, they were not impossible.  The humans had a knack of looking at things that were very difficult and making them work.

“Those are not new tech, not really,” said the other male.  “We know about inertial rebound from our own tests of the fighters.  What goes into the field must come out of the field with the same inertial energy.  If they come out with more, we get an enormous rebound of energy, and the ship is destroyed.”

“And if they come out with less?”

“Not as spectacular, my Lord.  Not to the common observer, but to those on the ship, just as deadly.  All of the vibrational energy of the matter stops, dead, and it falls apart.”

“But not a very good weapon.”

“No, my Lord.  Really just a very expensive method of suicide.  But these new missiles take advantage of that inertial rebound by going into transit with their fighters at a very low velocity, then coming out at a very high velocity.  Essentially, I believe the matter is converted to energy, much like a matter/antimatter explosion.  But we’re talking a hundred tons of conversion here, making it more powerful than our quark warheads, and much smaller.  But also not very accurate.”

“Which they really don’t have to be with that much power,” said the great admiral, thinking about what a disaster it would be if they ever solved the accuracy problem.  “And from what I heard, our inertialess fighters didn’t do well either.”

“No, my Lord, they didn’t.  They couldn’t find the targets.  If we had some of the instantaneous communications assets the humans have we might be able to rectify that.”

And those resources are a species from we know not where, thought the admiral.  They had no idea how that species worked the miracle they did.  And until they had some to study, they would never have any idea.  The problem was capturing any of the enemy.  The opponent didn’t like to surrender to the Ca’cadasans, and the admiral didn’t blame them for that.  If he were in their place, he wouldn’t want to surrender either.

*     *     *

“I understand that the warp fighters performed to expectations, Admiral,” said the young man looking out of the holo.

“If I had ten thousand of them I could kick the Cacas out of the Republic in a day,” said Lenkowski, talking around the stem of his pipe.  “As it was, we still have to kill most of them the old-fashioned way, which let them kill entirely too many of my people.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to be that way for the entire war, Admiral.”

“They can’t stop the damned fighters,” said Len, his voice rising.  “So why don’t we build a hundred thousand of the damned things and kill their fleets?”

“Calm yourself, Admiral.  You know as well as I do that the warp effect is useless in hyperspace.  There’s nothing to prevent them from translating in and sending waves of missiles against our planets.  They might not be willing to do that now, but if we give them no other choice of tactics, they might resort to that.  And eventually they’re going to have warp fighters as well.  It’s really old technology, and Chan said she would have been surprised if they didn’t have something like it in their past.”

“And when they start making them, we’re in the shit,” growled Len.  Why did things have to change so much?  Wouldn’t it be better if they were still fighting the war his grandfather had?

“Oh, we have a way of stopping them,” said the Emperor.  “And this is to not leave this com, Admiral.  Understood?”

“Understood.”  Len prepared himself for the bad news he knew was coming.  Nothing ever came without a price, after all.

“We do know of a defense against the warp ships.  It’s big and expensive, and only large warships will be able to carry it, unless someone comes up with a way to miniaturize it.  Which won’t happen in the near future.”

“So, when they develop warp fighter, we have a way to stop them,” said Len, nodding.  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Except then they will know that we have a way to stop warp fighters, and the missiles they fire.  And from there they will be able to develop a method of their own.”

“Making our fighters useless,” grunted Len, knocking his pipe on the ashtray on his desk.

“Not useless.  We’ll have to figure out new tactics for them, and they will always be useful for scouting.  But they will no longer be the wonder weapon, and we will be back to slugging it out, heavy ship to heavy ship.”

That wouldn’t be so bad, thought Len.  The big ships would always be the way to bet.  At least for this war.

*     *     *

“We need to get you and Glenn out into the public eye,” said Sean, sitting on the couch and watching his wife fuss over Augustine.  “It’s been too long since the people have seen you.  There has been talk that something might have happened to you and both the children.”  And not just the one that we now have back, thought the Emperor.  And that was a problem.  Everyone knew that Augustine had been killed in the attack.  They had held a funeral for the baby, with an empty casket of course.  Now he was back, and noticeably smaller than his brother.  If he were seen the speculation would fly.  That he had survived and was put in cryo would be the one least likely to hurt the Imperial family.  Thoughts of cloning would be a disaster, since that tech had been outlawed in the Empire for almost a thousand years.  Guesses at time travel would be worse.  Eventually they would come up with something, though cryo looked like the best bet.

In the meantime, the Empress and the heir had not been seen for many months.  There was talk that something had happened to them.  Pictures and vids had not been enough, since those could easily be faked.  No, Jennifer had to appear in public, where people could see her up close, talk to her, even brush up against her within the limits of security.

“And not Augustine?” she asked with a frown.

“You know that he can’t be seen in public.  Not yet.”

“And when will you be able to show him in public,” spat the woman, holding her baby close.  “I will not let you take me away from my baby.”

“And if we had him in the aircar, with a nurse?” asked Sean, standing and walking to stand over his wife.

“I will not be separated from my baby,” screamed Jennifer, glaring at her husband.

And when we sedate you, what then? he thought.  In her present state his wife could be a danger to herself and her children.  But sedating her wouldn’t help in giving the people reassurance that everything was okay with the Empress and heir.  A doped up automaton would be noticeable to the keen observers sure to be present.

Sean threw up his hands and stormed from the room, attempting to keep his temper under control.  It would do no good to get into a shouting match with an unstable woman.  But another idea was forming in his mind.

Making his way into his office, he fell into a comfortable chair and went over the options.  First he needed to do something about Jennifer, who obviously was not stable.  He had never thought that the self-assured physician he had fallen in love with would ever lose it the way she had.  But then he wasn’t a mother, and though he loved his children, he would never bond with them the way their momma would.  The shock of losing one of her children, working through the grief at his loss and coming to terms with it, then finding out that he had been saved.  He wondered if they could just let it slide, and keep her out of the public eye.  After all, if they went ahead with the time strike, as he was coming to call it, none of this would ever happen.  Or would it?  That was the part that was still driving him crazy.  Crazy enough that he still wasn’t sure he would authorize it.  So he still had to do something.

“Get me Sergiov,” he ordered over the secure com.

Moments later the face of his director of combined intelligence appeared in a holo in front of the chair.

“Your Majesty.  What can I do for you at this late hour?”

“Sorry if I woke you, Director.  But I had something on my mind and it wouldn’t wait.”

“I’m yours to command, your Majesty.  You can interrupt me at any time.”

And I wonder if that would be true if you were in bed with a lover? thought Sean with a smile.  Not that he would do such on purpose, but it was always a possibility.

“I need you to do something for me, Ekaterina.  Or should I say I need your people on the shape shifter project to do something for the Empire.”

*     *     *

“I really don’t like this, Director,” said Captain Ishuhi Rykio, the ex-police lieutenant and recalled Fleet intelligence officer who had found himself working with the shapeshifters known as Yugalyth.  Not a post he really wanted, but it was wartime, he had been recalled, and he really didn’t have a choice.

“I don’t like it either, Captain.  I can think of all kinds of things that can go wrong if we let those things out wearing the shapes of such well known and powerful people.  But I didn’t think of it, I didn’t order it, and we are stuck with it.”

Ishuhi nodded.  The man was the monarch, and as far as the military was concerned, what he said went.  Not that they would wipe out a planet full of Imperial citizens, no matter what he said, but just about anything short of it.

“And they can do it, of course?”

“The queen will do what we tell her.  And the copies she creates will do what she tells them.  But remember, Director.  These are intelligent creatures, and they have a survival instinct just like any other living being.  I can’t guarantee that they will do everything we want.  And there is always the possibility that they will escape.”

“Which is why you will stick close to the operatives.  If they do anything that makes you think they will go off the reservation, you are to terminate with extreme prejudice.”

“But hopefully not out in public,” said Rykio with a tight smile.

“If you let anyone see you kill them, you might as well turn the pistol on yourself, Captain.”

The intelligence officer let out a short barking laugh.  All humor left his thoughts as he saw the look on his superior’s face.

“I’ll make sure they don’t escape containment, Director.”

“Be sure that you do.  If this works, you might get a promotion out of it.”

And if it doesn’t, I might just have to get used to being in a cell, if they don’t put me in the ground.

Chapter Ten

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done. Bruce Lee

JEWEL SYSTEM.  MAY 26TH, 1003.

“Admiral Lenkowski has smashed the left wing of the enemy’s coreward thrust, Madam President,” said Sean, watching a fast motion replay of the battle.  Everything had gone as predicted.  Better than predicted, if the truth be told.  His force had taken some losses, but the enemy fleet had been all but wiped out.  That was three out of the nine thrusts no longer there.

“That’s all well and good, your Majesty.  But the other six axes of advance are still, well, advancing, into my republic.”

“Fifth Fleet is on the way,” said Sean, trying to calm the leader of his ally.  “It will be setting up in front of the center element and slowing them down for Lenkowski.  As soon as he has taken care of the right wing he will assemble to strike the center.”

“And meanwhile the other Caca fleet advancing into my kingdom has its own way.”

“That’s what the rest of your fleet is for, Madam President.  They need to slow that force down.  Lenkowski is fighting a campaign to destroy the Caca invasion without gutting his fleet.  His fleet will be needed to reinforce Mgonda on the other front.”

The president gave him a look of frustration from out of the holo.  He couldn’t blame her.  It was her stars that were being invaded after all, by an enemy that wanted to kill all humans.  But it did him no good to feed his units into the battle piecemeal just to slow them down.  She would have to hold on the other flank until he got sufficient ships, and most importantly, sufficient wormholes there to take on their fleet.  He suspected that after they found out their other fleet had been destroyed the Cacas would concentrate into one formation.  That was as planned.  If they were concentrated they couldn’t hit multiple systems at once.  Oh, they could still send ships out to strike at nearby systems, and his raiders could pick off those small groups at their leisure.   No, the major battle of this front would be on that axis of approach, and the Republic would live or die according to the result of that battle.

“I will not evacuate my seat this time,” growled the president, her eyes glaring at Sean.  “They can kill me, but I will not run this time.”

Sean nodded.  Until recently he would not have been able to understand.  Now, after seeing the destruction of his capital city, he could well understand her feelings.  She had fled, along with her government, to a far-off world at the edge of the Republic.  And her capital had been taken and most of the people killed, many during the bombardment and landing, many more as they were rounded up and processed to become rations for the Cacas.  That planet was still in the process of recovery, a process that could take a century or more.

“It would be better for your people if you protected yourself, Madam President.  It would hurt the alliance if you are not there to lead them, which will hurt the overall war effort, and may have a great impact on the fate of the human species.”

“I’m not a great war leader, Sean.  If I’m gone, someone with a lot more stomach for this war will take my place.  That can only be good for the alliance.”

“I disagree.  Your people trust you.  You have seen them through one invasion of their territory.  They need to see you leading them through this one.  I know you can’t lead a fleet.  But you can lead the government behind that fleet.  And that is what you must do.”

“I, will try,” she stammered.  “That’s all I can do.  And what can I do right now?”

“Speak to your people.  Speak to your military.  Let them know what’s at stake, and how much you believe in them.  Then rally whatever forces you can get your hands on to throw in front of that second axis.  I wouldn’t think it a bad idea if you went aboard your flagship, only don’t lead from the front.”

“I will think about what you said.”   The president seemed to have taken some strength from what he had told her.

It had taken time from Sean, a commodity he didn’t have a lot of, but the results seemed to be worth the couple of minutes he had spent.  The holo went blank, and Sean thought about what he had to do next.  He looked out the smart window in his office, set to give him a view of Capitulum, his seat of power.  He shook his head again as he looked at the devastation.  Rubble was being removed, in some cases new foundations were being laid.  It would still take decades for the city to be returned to a pre-attack state.  Parliament must be rebuilt, the Reformed Catholic cathedral, the zoological and botanical gardens, the libraries and museums.  New habitats were already going up at the zoo.  The newly appointed members of the Lords could meet in many places, even on other worlds, and there was plenty of living space on the planet and worlds close by, but the animal exhibits, living creatures, needed someplace to stay.  Many had been moved to other zoos around the planet.  But some required special habitats, and those were under construction.  It wasn’t their fault they had been moved from their worlds into a war zone.

The bastards, he thought once again, for maybe the thousandth time.  If only they had been prepared.  If only.  He thought again about what the crazy count had told him.  Nicholas Stumpfield.  About traveling into the past and changing it so this didn’t happen.  So his beautiful city was still in one piece, and three hundred million citizens were still alive.  He had proven the technique worked, by returning Augustine, the heir all had thought dead, to him.  And if one life could be saved, why not three hundred million?

One life doesn’t do that much to disrupt the timeline.  Will a million?  A hundred million?  He knew the legends, that the Ancients had done something to disrupt the timeline, and had paid for it.  But was that true?  They had evidence that something had happened to some of the stars in the region, but were they linked to that disruption?  Or was it something else?  Augustine had been rescued, the child who was fated to become emperor one day if he survived, and there had been no noticeable consequences.   Were there any at all?

“You have a com from the Elysiun High Lord, your Majesty,” came the call on the com.

Wonder what he wants?  Normally the Elysium leader spoke to the Empire through Sean’s ambassador, Archduke Horatio Alexanderopolis.  The ambassador could speak Brakakak, the language of the dominant species of that empire, and could most assuredly say their name for their own empire, unpronounceable by humans.  “Put the High Lord on.”

The avian face of the leader of the Elysium empire appeared on the holo.  He was not an absolute monarch like Sean, but only the first among equals of their ruling Council of Five.  But he was still the voice of the empire.

“Your Majesty,” said Grarakakak in lightly accented Terranglo.   “We have started sending our Fourth Fleet into your space through the wormhole gate.  But I wanted to make sure that they had the support of your wormholes on that front.”

That had been one of the sticking points in the alliance from the start.  The other nations hadn’t liked the idea of the New Terran Empire having a monopoly on wormholes, even though they were the only power that had the means to create them.  That had changed when Elysium and Crakista had shown their resolve to leave the alliance if they were not given a cut of the wealth.  And they were.  They still didn’t have near the number of wormholes that the empire had, or even the Republic, but they had gotten enough to keep them happy.  And Elysium and Crakista both were in the process of building factory worlds, based on supermetal production facilities, to start cranking out their own.  Like the Cacas, they would have a difficult time ever catching the humans, as long as the Donut was intact, but even being in the game had made a big difference to their support.  Now they were building inertialess fighters, and would probably soon ask for the new Alcubierre variety as well.  It would make a future war against them much more difficult, but Sean had to worry about this war first.  His son might have to worry about one against the now allies.

“We are moving them as fast as we can to the Republic, High Lord,” he told the alien.  “Unfortunately, we can’t move them through wormholes, not like ships.”

“Which is why we can’t move as many of the ones we have as we would like,” agreed Grarakakak.  “We have gotten used to having them in our fleet, if only for com purposes.”

“We can give you Klassekian com techs to take up some of that slack, High Lord.  In fact, I believe we can put at least one on every one of your ships.”  That was still a sticking point with the inertialess fighters.  They were deadly ships, when they could find their targets.  And Klassekian techs made it possible for them to accept vector changes while on the move.  The allies would not get them for their fighters, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to supply them to warships.

“That would help immensely, your Majesty.  If you’re sure they wouldn’t mind?”

“They volunteered for service in my military, which means they are subject to the same orders as any other personnel.  And I have no fear of them serving on your ships, or those of the Crakista.  Neither of you are barbarians, after all.”

“And about those new warp fighters, and the new weapons they carry?”

Here it comes, thought Sean.  He knew it would soon be there, the request for something else that would allow the Elysium fleet to keep up with the humans.  And if he gave it to them, he would have to do the same with the Crakista.  It was an old problem with alliances, when one partner was so much more advanced than the others.  People didn’t like seeing their own sons and daughters being slaughtered in job lots because their tech wasn’t as good as someone else they were supporting.  He couldn’t blame them, but again it could hurt in the future.  And Parliament might not like the idea.

The hell with the Lords.  Half the members of that house were newly installed after the attack, and most of them were relative neophytes when it came to government.  If he couldn’t roll measures through them with ease, he needed to abdicate in favor of someone competent.

The point was they needed the ships the other nations brought to the table.  Even the lesser allies of the Klashak Concordium and Margravi Hegemony were important for the ships they could field, older Imperial vessels in most cases, though they were building some higher tech versions of their own at this point.  The Elysium and Crakista ships were also slightly behind those of the empire, smaller, with slower acceleration, hyper VI capable at best.  But they now deployed the newest Imperial electronics suites, and carried magazines full of their versions of the latest dual purpose missiles.  One of their battleships still couldn’t beat one of his under most circumstances, but three of theirs would give two of his a good run for their money.

“You will have them,” he told the shocked looking High Lord.  “As soon as we are through here I will tell my tech people to get with yours and the Crakista and work out a tech exchange.”

“That was too easy,” said the Brakakak.

Sean wished it was his ambassador who was dealing with the leader.  Not because he had any dislike for the beautiful creatures.  But Alexanderopolis could read their facial expressions and body language, while he didn’t have a clue.  Same with the Crakista, though there he didn’t have a resident expert like the archduke to interpret.

“High Lord.  You have been our friends for decades, our greatest trading partners.  I want to keep you on our side, during this war, and long afterward.”  And if we ever get into a war, I have to depend on our industrial might to bury you.  And as he had said, the Brakakak and the other species of that empire were not barbarians, with the possible exception of the Knockermen who had recently revolted, bringing civil war to that nation.  Thei empire wouldn’t destroy whole worlds or wipe out populations.  And neither would his people if fighting them.

“And the wormholes?”

“We don’t have enough on that front, yet, for any of our forces.  But I will make sure you get a fair share of them.  And the Klassekian com techs.”

“That is good, your Majesty.  The Council will be happy to hear that you are so reasonable.  And I am sure that Admiral Lenkowski will not use our ships as shock troops.”

“We haven’t done that in the past, High Lord.  We will not do so in the future.  Any risks your ships take will be the same as taken by ours.  On that you have my word.”

The High Lord looked at him from out of the holo for some moments, silent, and Sean wasn’t sure what was going on behind that unreadable face.  “I am happy that your son was returned to you, even if the circumstances of his return were somewhat, questionable.”

Sean felt a shiver run up his spine.  How in the hell did he know that we have Augustine back?  That information was top secret, with only the Secret Service and some few of the palace staff in the know.  But then, this being he was talking to had what was widely acknowledged as the best intelligence service in known space.  Still, there was a leak somewhere, and it needed to be plugged.  All of these thoughts went through Sean’s quick mind in an instant, while he thought of a response.  He didn’t think lying would help.  At least lying about actually having Augustine back.

“Questionable?  I have my son back.”

“But what else have you caused?” said the High Lord.  “There are consequences for such actions.  You may have gotten away with it this time, but I caution you to not try another episode.  It will not hurt my nation, but it may end yours.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, High Lord.  Augustine was recovered, in bad shape, but still recoverable.  A stint in cryo and a mass of cellular surgery and we have him back.”

The High Lord gave what Sean could only think of as a questioning expression.  He’s not buying it.  But did it really matter if he bought it or not.  He was sure the High Lord would do nothing to discredit him and his government, since that was sure to be devastating for the alliance, and the war effort.

“What you say,” said the other being.  “I will not dispute your narrative, but again caution you.”

The holo died, and Sean had to admire the other being.  He had asked for what he had wanted, then made the one point he had wanted to make, ending the conversation before the Emperor could come up with another lie.

As he said, it isn’t his nation, thought Sean, scowling.  He didn’t lose three hundred million citizens.  He didn’t lose ten billion more during this damned war.  Sean still wasn’t sure if he would allow the time strike, but now his stubborn nature was causing him to lean even more than way.

*     *     *

“Why can’t we just do the strike on our own?” asked Achieng Okoye, the woman Kenji thought of as the Disapprover because of the constant expression on her flat face.  She was the most terrifying person he had ever met, a former assassin for some covert operation who had signed on with the count.

“Because, my dear,” said Nick Stumpfield, probably the only man alive who could take that tone with the woman and have no concern for his own safety, “we need one of their launch tubes.  If we just stole a missile and fired it through, it would have to accelerate toward the target, giving itself away the entire time.”

“And what could they do?  They’re just a merchant ship.”

“They appear to be a merchant ship,” said the count, his voice level, as if explaining something to a child.  “But make no mistake.  They were a warship, with a complete electronics and defensive armament suite.  It would be long odds to get a hit with a single missile.  And we can’t afford to miss.  If we launch a preaccerelated missile at them, they will only have seconds to react to a target that will at most appear as a fleeting image on their sensors.”

“So we need the Emperor?”

“So we need the Emperor,” said Stumpfield with a nod.  “And if we don’t get him on board, we’ll have to do it your way.  Which may lead to having to try and try again until we achieve the desired result.  And with the Cacas on the offensive, I’m not sure how many tries we’re going to get.”

“Or the Empire could win this battle,” said Kenji, cringing slightly as the assassin looked over at him with a deeper frown.

“You just worry about your part in this operation, Doctor,” said Stumpfield, pointing a finger his way.  “And leave the strategic decisions to myself and those I trust.”

Guatarrez gulped and nodded, all he could do, while reminding himself that he was still a prisoner of these people, and lived or died at their whim.

*      *      *

The Ca’cadasans thought they had the system secured.  They had landed on the habitable planet and put the Fenri back into power.  They had left a picket force that should have been able to handle any raiders, and started using the system as a depot for their invading force.  Now it was crawling with missile colliers and antimatter tankers, enough to keep the entire fleet supplied through several battles.  They had even brought one of their massive mobile bases in to repair ships and give crews a secure place to rest and relax.   Everything was placed a light hour within the system, protecting them against anything popping out of hyper.  The commander of the system felt good about this base, though he was sure to enforce discipline upon the security forces so they didn’t get complacent.

The hyper VII fleet carrier and its six escorts crept in through hyper III, then came back into normal space two light weeks from the hyper barrier, well out of the detection range of their jump.  The six squadrons of warp fighters were launched as soon as the hangar doors had opened.

Captain Wilma Snyder watched as the eighty-four ships engaged their Alcubierre drives and sped into the system by warping space, a pseudospeed of twenty lights.  They were not picked up until they reached two light hours out from the barrier, three from their targets.  They covered that distance in nine minutes, well before anything outside their approach corridor could react.

Snyder used the time to locate targets and hand them off to her squadrons.  Her eighty-four ships carried three hundred and thirty-six of the very expensive warp drive missiles.  Each cost as much as twenty standard capital ship killers, and no one wanted to waste them.  But ships cost a hell of a lot more, and Wilma wasn’t too worried about some misses.

At nine minutes and five seconds most of the craft fired, and almost a hundred support ships, without the heavy protection of warships and carrying volatile loads, exploded into waves of plasma.  Some of the closer escorts took major hits from those blasts as well and joined them as new clouds.

“All squadrons.  Head onto attack vectors.  Take them out, ladies and gentlemen.”

One squadron veered off and went after the mobile base, firing well out of range of the defensive weaponry of the massive structure.  Twenty-eight missiles sped toward the base in warp, nine blown out of space as they ran into a mass of close in weapons fire, enough of a swarm to get some matter through the warp field.  Nineteen hit, and the station reeled under the strikes.  When the fighters flew past the base was still there, but it was a wreck, all of its repairs bays open to space or sealed behind blast doors.

“Run wild my little birds,” said Snyder under her breath as she watched graviton sources fall off the plot one after the other.  All the ships in the system were now under way, most times a good plan, now not so much, as they pinpointed their positions to small craft that could run them down without a problem.  She knew that not every graviton source falling off meant a kill, but even badly damaged ships were a plus.

The fighters spent another twenty minutes running wild through the system, hitting everything they could, leaving ruin in their wake.  This was a new kind of war, and the Cacas didn’t know what to do about it.  Ships started launching missiles at the fighters, not a useful response, but not unexpected either.  The warships had to do something, and firing let them think that they were, even though the craft they were firing at could outrun the missiles without even trying.

At the end of the attack period eighty-three fighters headed back out, one of their fellows taken out in an accidental impact.  In just over seventeen minutes they were back at the carrier, almost out of energy, brought aboard, while the three battleships of the escort took on the four outer system cruisers that had tracked the fighters.  The force jumped into III and started to move away, while the fighters were rearmed and fueled, ready for the next mission.

“How did you do?” asked Commodore Lo, the overall force commander.

“We might have done a little better,” said the smiling Snyder, her expression showing that it couldn’t have been much better.  “Until the Cacas figure out what we’re doing, I think we’re going to be a terror to their logistics.  When do we get to do it again?”

*     *      *

The high admiral was already angry, to the point where his subordinates were afraid to approach him.  Yet another system where he had expected to fight, and had only run into a few vessels laying in ambush and then running.  The only thing he had found to fight were a swarm of inertialess fighters that had launched missiles of impossible power into his mass of warships, killing several hundred.  The weapons hadn’t been very accurate, but then again, they hadn’t needed to be, since they were so destructive.

Every time we think something is impossible, the bedamned humans come up with it, thought the raging admiral.

“We need to refuel our scout ships, my Lord.”

The high admiral gave a head motion of acknowledgement.  Many of the scouts had gone twice the distance of the capital ships, darting around, looking at systems where the enemy might be hiding.  Some had found nothing.  Some had not come back, and other squadrons had returned some ships to report on others being destroyed.  Ships sent back to those systems had found nothing.  It was maddening, and it was using up a lot of antimatter.  The great admiral in charge of the front had ordered that support ships were to be kept at least ten light years back.  The high admiral didn’t like the decision, and could do nothing about it.

“Order the tankers forward,” he told the subordinate.  Now that he needed fuel he could give that order.

“I will send the order,” said the subordinate, turning and walking from the chamber.

The high admiral went back to looking at the map of the region.  He would again advance on a wide front, his force split into five battle groups.  He didn’t see why not, since the enemy weren’t placing any major forces in his way.  The way it looked, they were concentrating on the other front.  Bad news for the forces heading into the other human kingdom.  Good news for himself and his career.  If he could meet and destroy a major human force, he might see great admiral coming his way.  But the damned creatures weren’t sending a major force his way.  Not more than a squadron at a time, except where they were ambushing his scouts.

The male who had been sent to give the message to one of the couriers to take to the supply train came running back into the chamber.

“My Lord.  A courier has just come in from the supply train.  It was almost totally destroyed.”

“What?  How?  What the hell happened?”

The subordinate looked confused at having so many questions thrown at him at the same time.  The high admiral stopped himself from yelling at the male, realizing it would only make it worse, and it would take more time to get the information.

“They say that the enemy came in faster than light ships and shot up the logistics force.  It was almost a total loss.”

“Inertialess fighters?”

“No, my Lord.  The new ones.  They came from out of the system and were on the fleet before they could do anything.”

The high admiral was about to take his anger out and strike the male.  But that was not the way to encourage people to deliver bad news.  And bad news couldn’t wait.

“Send a request to the great admiral.  We need tankers up with us, now.  And give him the locations we will be at when they get here.”

The male gave a head motion and ran out of the chamber, anxious to be away from the male who could order his death for anything or nothing.

*     *     *

The stealth attack ship Grampus had waited for days outside the system, a hole in space.  Many ships had come into normal space within attack range, but none were the type that were on its target list.

The captain had watched as fat superbattleships jumped into normal space within attack range.  She watched as cruisers and scouts came in.  Those ships were not worth giving her position away, though she would have taken a chance against one of the capital ships if she had permission.

“Ma’am.  We have something coming in that you might be interested in.”

“Show me,” said Commander Stella Koslowski, the captain of the Grampus.

The plot narrowed, focusing on their area.  The other ships faded away as the sensor officer phased out their signals, showing one vessel stairstepping down through hyper.

“It appears to be in the eight million ton range, ma’am.  Resonances match one of their missile colliers.”

Koslowski whistled.  Tankers were the priority target, but a missile supply ship was nothing to sneeze at.   The Caca ships would eventually need to have their magazines refilled, and fewer ships to carry those refills could only help the empire.

“Prepare to take a shot,” ordered Koslowski, mentally ordering in the fill of other ships on the plot.  There were a cruiser and two scouts escorting the collier, and nothing else within five light minutes of the entry point.  Of course there isn’t, thought the commander.  The Cacas hadn’t picked up anything in the area for days, so there couldn’t be anything there.

There would still be a lot of danger when they fired.  The ships along with it would immediately start the search.  Not for the first time she wished she had one of the new twin wormhole stealth/attacks.  Some of those would be entering this campaign, later, since they had to be brought up by hyper VII ships.  Unfortunately, Grampus had to use its lone wormhole as a heat sink in order to not show up on their passive scanners.  But they still had a surprise for the Cacas.

All they could do was wait while the enemy supply ship made its way through hyper.  Everyone was anxious.  Koslowski could smell the nervous sweat on the bridge, everyone in their armor with faceplates up.  She could smell her own fear.  It was normal, and something no stealth crewman loved, but it was a part of the job.

“Enemy ships are at point three light.  Entry predicted in five seconds.”

“Missiles ready.”

Koslowski kept her mouth shut.  There was really nothing she could add to the situation.  Everyone knew their jobs and were ready to execute.

“Ships jumping, now.”

The cruiser was through a half second before the collier, which came through a half second before the scouts.  It was a perfect jump, one to be proud of.  Except.

“Missiles locked onto target.  Firing.”

The twin missiles accelerated through the tubes and into space.  Normally it would take weapons launched from this kind of vessel ten to fifteen seconds to reach the target.  That was normally enough.  This time they were far enough back that it would have taken thirty-one seconds, too long for slow targets to last against ships with the missile defenses of the escorts.

These missiles went into warp as soon as they have left the tubes, covering the less than a light second in a twentieth of a second.  Both were right on target.  Against a tanker those hits would have resulted in an immediate catastrophic detonation, probably taking out all of the escorts as well.  The two blasts flew out of the collier, which pitched away for a moment, but didn’t go up.

“Prepare to fire again,” ordered the commander.

She hated giving that order, since a second shot would triple the chances the enemy would locate them.  A second later she cheered as the collier went up in a bright flare, warheads aboard breaching containment.  The bright flare expanded again as the rest of the warheads detonated.  Enough large fragments survived the first blast and were accelerated out, one hitting the nose of one of the following escorts in a devastating strike that almost stopped the scout in its tracks.  Of course no one knew what was happening aboard, but it looked like enough of a momentum change to cause devastation on the interior of that ship.  As it started drifting to the side, still moving with enough forward momentum to move into the system, it appeared they were out of the battle.

“Get us out of here, helm.  Slowly.”

The helmsman nodded and started to back off at ten gravities, too little to be detected with their heavily stealthed grabbers.  The surviving warships started into a search pattern, both going off in directions that wouldn’t take them any nearer to the Grampus.

The crew sweated out the next couple of hours, until it was obvious that the Cacas didn’t have a clue as to where they were.  After that it again became a waiting game, hoping they weren’t found while they tried to get another target.  No matter what happened, some Cacas ships would not be getting resupplies of long range weapons.

Chapter Eleven

Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. Dion Boucicault

FENRI SPACE.  JUNE 3RD, 1003.

Cornelius sat close to the fire, trying to absorb its warmth.  While the days on this area of the planet were warm, as befitted the season, the nights were damned cold.  Most of the guerillas sitting around the fire with him carried fur or feathers of one type or another.  A reptilian form to his right, covered in fine scales, leaned even closer to the fire.  The glow of the flames danced on the walls of the cavern, giving the small chamber a feeling of warmth besides that put out by the fire.

Walborski wasn’t sure how long this cave would be useable.  The Fenri lackeys of the Cacas were looking for them and the hundreds of other guerilla bands in the wilderness of this world.  Scores more guerilla bands fought within the cities.  Those had an easier time fading into the populace of multiple species of slaves.  But they also had to be on constant guard.  At least the bands operating in the hinterlands could relax every once in a while.  But despite the forest, they had trouble blending in when it hit the fan.

“Sorry that you came here?” asked the ten-limbed being that was folded up on the floor on the other side of the fire.

“Not really, Sgornar,” replied the Ranger.  “I have staunch warriors, and lots of Cacas to kill.”

“But you may not make it out of here.  You have told us of your family.  Don’t you want to see them again?”

Yes, many of the aliens had told them of their families.  Many had family structures much different than humanity.  The reptilian being came from a group family, where the five or more males protected the more than ten females and their children.  He still wasn’t sure what kind of family Sgornar had, only that he talked about hundreds of children.  Of course, none of them were totally free to have the kind of families their species had developed over the generations of their cultures and biological imperatives.  Their own desires meant nothing to their masters.  They were selected and bred like cattle, and assigned the tasks their masters decreed.   It was no wonder they were willing to give their lives to prevent the bastard Fenri from taking over, and from what Cornelius knew, the Cacas were no better.

“Of course I want to see them,” said the young man, the faces of his family in his mind’s eye.  Devera, Cornelius Junior, and his adopted daughter, Rebecca.  They were his life.  Or were they?  He sure couldn’t wait to leave them behind so he could return to duty.  He looked up into the multiple eyes of the being.  “My Emperor needed me here, so here I am.”  He knew that was true, though Sean truly didn’t want him to be here at all.

“Tomorrow we hit their landing field,” said Cornelius, getting back to business.  The Fenri had established an atmospheric craft field in a valley fifteen kilometers from this cave.  They had a number of ground support craft based there, and a battalion of their infantry.  As a plus there were some Caca advisors there as well.  The Ranger looked over at the remaining missile he had brought along with him.  Its sister had been used a hundred kilometers from here, and over a thousand Fenri had joined their ancestors at that time.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” asked Sgornar, who was the designated leader of this group, Cornelius being a mere advisor.

“I’m better at this than any of you,” replied Cornelius, holding up a hand as the being made to speak.  “I know.  Many of you are more familiar with this forest.  But none of you can move like me.  I have the best chance of getting close, and then getting away.”

The creature stared at him for a moment, then his eyes blinked rapidly, its version of a nod.

“So I will sneak up on them.  It will probably take all day, since I don’t want to get caught before I can launch.”  He really didn’t want to get caught at all.  He wanted to kill the enemies of his empire.  He did not want to die for his empire.  He would leave that to those enemies.  But he had to take a risk to do more than kill a couple at a time.

The next morning they were ready to move.  All were outfitted in what clothing they had.  That was a deficit they were having trouble compensating for, especially with the cold nights.  What they did have were plenty of weapons, though mostly of the kind special ops used, not much power, but also not easily tracked.  Cornelius was wearing a ghillie suit he had constructed himself, over a thermal garment that kept most of his body heat in.  That could be a problem later in the day, but he didn’t want infrared scanners picking him up.

At five kilometers from the base he bid farewell to the rest of the group.  They would wait here, forming an ambush to hit any Fenri that might come out of the base on patrols.  And they would be the final redoubt if he had to retreat.  Of course, if he didn’t take out the base and they were able to launch the ground support craft, it could become final in quite another way.

Walborski made his way through the forest, covering three kilometers in as many hours, taking his time to move silently.  It was still an unfamiliar environment, though the former slaves turned guerillas had taught him much in the last couple of weeks.  He knew the poisonous plants to avoid, at least in this region.  And he also knew to avoid anything that he couldn’t identify.

At one point he had to lay low for over an hour as a Fenri patrol moved through, then took a break less than fifty meters from where he was laying.  He thought he could kill the six Fenri before they could get away, but they still might get word to the base through their coms.  That was something he couldn’t afford.

It was getting dark when he finally reached the point where he could see the base down in the valley.  He checked the mechanical watch on his wrist.  He had some time before the rest of the group initiated their part of the attack.  He set up the launcher, extending the supports and making sure it was aimed where he wanted it.

Within seconds of the moment, not bad when using mechanical timers, a dozen mortar rounds came in on the base.  Every one was blasted out of the sky by the laser defenses.  Another dozen came in with the same result, these followed by indirect fire weapons coming out from the base.  It was like an ant nest down there as soldiers, some without armor, came out of their bunkers to repel the attack.

Cornelius was set behind his launcher, hoping that his people had gotten away from their tubes before the enemy had fired.  Here came the third launch, this from different tubes, this with different ammunition.  The rounds exploded and filled the air with radar reflecting particles while they let out bursts of electronic static.  That was the signal.

The Ranger took one last look, then engaged the weapon, letting the warhead have a look at the target.  He got down behind the cover he had picked beforehand, an earthen berm with large trees growing from it, their roots sure to help anchor the mass.  With a squeeze of the remote trigger the missile was off, flying low and fast, barely missing some trees as it wove through the jungle before hitting the clearing and gaining altitude, three hundred meters over the base in an instant.  A laser still tracked it, and given another microsecond it would have generated a hit.  It wasn’t given that microsecond.

Twenty megatons of fusion power detonated in the air, sending heat and blast in a globe around the point of detonation.  Enough was vectored downward in a hurricane of fury.  Hundreds of Fenri were out in the open, running for emplacements to fight off the expected attack that would follow the mortar barrage.  A few were in powered armor suits, the heavy variety favored by the little predators’ infantry.  They were tossed around by the blast while the armor protected them from heat and radiation.  Those soldiers were the only survivors out in the open.  The rest were burned to vapor and smoking husks, before the blast tore their remains apart.

Most of the buildings of the base were prefabs, made of modern materials, sturdy enough, but nowhere near as tough as permanent structures and bunkers.  They came apart in the blast, sending pieces flying in the hurricane winds.  Many of those pieces were complete or partial bodies.  The score or so ground attack and transport vehicles fared no better.  Those with any kind of combustibles aboard went up in balls of fire that were immediately snuffed out by the winds.  The others were simply picked up and bashed against the ground, over and over, until they were little more than battered hulks missing wings, cockpits crushed.

Cornelius lay under cover while the roar of the blast sounded and the hot wind flew overhead.  His earplugs protected his hearing, but the rumble permeated his body, going on and on  as the fireball rose from the ground.  Trees fell around him, animals shrieked and ran, or died.  A large tree fell onto the berm, the earthen mass protecting the Ranger from being crushed.  It seemed to go on forever, but it was only minutes before it was over.

The Ranger looked over the trunk of the tree to see what was left of the base.  Much of it was now a crater, while everything around the crater was smoking ruin.  There might be some enemy alive in bunkers deep under the ground, but they were not his problem.  Eventually they might get back to the surface, but the toys they had used to hit the guerillas from above were gone.  Taking one last look, he turned and loped through the forest of fallen trees, avoiding the many fires the warhead had set.  He would meet up with his people and plan their next op.  That one would not include nukes, since they had fired their last one at this base.

*     *     *

“The Fenri are pushing from the west again, sir,” came the call over the com.

Baggett nodded, then remembered that he wasn’t on a video com.  “Are the troops ready?”

“We are, sir.  First brigade is in place and ready to light them up.”

Normally that would mean a couple of thousand suited troops were in position.  Now it meant just a little over a thousand.  All of his units had taken heavy losses.  That they had inflicted heavier losses on their enemies, despite those forces holding the orbitals, didn’t seem to mean much at the moment.  He could be reinforced through the wormhole they had brought with them.  The same could be said of one of his other corps, though not the others.  The question now was whether command deemed it prudent to keep feeding troops into the meatgrinders, or to pull them out.  He hated the idea of leaving after losing so many people, but his vote was to leave while he still had some to pull out.  Unfortunately, the military was not a democracy.

Baggett looked around his command bunker at the men and women who were manning the com consoles.  All were in the skinsuits heavy troopers normally wore under their armor, tight fitting garments that gave some protection against heat and blast, and very little against a direct strike.  The armor suits, the latest model, were lined up against on wall.  If they needed them here they were in real trouble.  The headquarters staff could still fight, and their armor was as good as any in the corps, but the bunker was protection enough in most circumstances.  If the enemy knew where they were, kinetics could take them out in a moment.  That thought sparked another.

“How’s the jamming holding up?”

“Seems to be tight, sir.  We just sprayed another five tons of the microdrones into the air over the cities.”

Baggett nodded.  This operation involved the best electronic warfare and heat masking tech that had ever been deployed.  Not just the large jamming units that made the surface of the planet a nightmare landscape of false images and heat sources.  This time they were employing trillions of microdrones, each less than a tenth a gram, blanketing the air and obscuring almost all sensor probes from orbit.  The ships up there could still fire, but they couldn’t be sure what they were aiming at.

“We’re getting the take from one of the company commanders, sir.”

“Put it up.”

The holo over the plotting table came to life, showing the view from a captain.  Or maybe a lieutenant, since many companies were now being led by lower ranking officers.  In fact, many companies were now about the size of platoons.  The view was clear, coming from the cameras on the suit, then over the fiber network they had established for com.  Depending on wireless was asking to be hit.

And here came the Fenri.  Their heavy suits made them look the size of humans, while the Imperial armor made their wearers look like ogres.  Despite their size they still carried thick armor, and heavy weapons.  He thought his troopers were a two to one match for them.  But sometimes the fight was three to one or more.  The little aliens moved forward slowly, most hugging the ground, moving from cover to cover, though some were floating in the air to provide observation for the rest.  Part of a building collapsed, and one of the mecha used by the Cacas in place of real tanks walked through the rubble, followed by several more.

“So, we have Cacas in the house,” said the smiling operations’ officer.

Baggett smiled as well.  They were happy to kill Fenri, but the big bastards were the real prize.  More of the mecha appeared, until there were a small company of things walking along with the Fenri.  The enemy was out in the open, revealed.  His own troops were under cover and concealment, the stealth features of their suits making it all but impossible to detect.  The Fenri had stealth built into their suits as well, blurring them to vision.  But they were moving, and once an Imperial targeting system locked on to them, they stayed locked.

“Fire,” came the command over the com, and fire they did.  Hundreds of troopers opened up with particle beams while quick firing mortars launched to their rear.  A hypervelocity cannon on a heavy tank cracked as its round went out at hundreds of times the speed of sound.   A Caca mecha came apart in flying pieces as the round struck.  Several more followed a second later as more tanks and shoulder fired hyper-v missiles took them on.  Hundreds of glowing particle beams flew through the dust and smoke, and scores of Fenri fell with holes through their armor.

Armor was tough, and a split second strike by a suit carried particle beam would not penetrate, though it would damage the armor and devices mounted on it.  A hit of two seconds or more was enough to burn through and vaporize the flesh beneath.  Heavy particle beams, crew served weapons, would do the job in much less than a second.  And several heavy pulse lasers sent their deadly beams out to tear through armor and alien with a single strike, while they put out a score of pulsing beams a second.

It was a slaughter for the first ten seconds or so.  Hundreds of Fenri went down, killed or injured, or stuck in suits that no longer functioned.  Mortar rounds came down, not doing much when they didn’t get a direct hit.  Their seeker heads were set to attempt such a hit, but enemy countermeasures spun up quickly and defeated most of the attempts.  They still did a job, throwing up debris and in some cases armored troopers, promoting fear and panic among the soldiers they exploded near.  The mortars stopped firing seconds into the fight, each letting loose twenty or more rounds.  After which the suit they were attached to moved quickly away, just before enemy artillery tracked their trajectories and struck back.

The Fenri were good soldiers, and ignoring their losses they sought cover and starting firing back.  Even though his men had good cover, they still started falling off the plot, and incoming artillery added to the carnage.  But the humans and their alien compatriots stood their ground, and a couple minutes into the fight the Fenri were the ones who gave way.  It looked like a complete victory, until the ground attack craft came screaming in, filling the area with their own hyper-v missiles and beam fire.  The Imperials went for deeper cover in their bunkers.  Most made it, some didn’t.

As soon as the ground attack craft had swept by over a score of troopers popped up from cover, launching hyper-v missiles at the fighters.  Half the suits were the specialist heavy weapons variety, with pop up launchers that sent a half dozen missiles each after the craft.  The rest were standard suits whose wearers deployed handheld quadruple launchers.  Within a second all of the missiles were off.  Three of the infantry were hit by the powerful rearward lasers carried by the craft, blasting through armor and killing the wearers.  Most of the missiles were taken out by the same lasers, set to pulse as fast as possible, striking one missile, then another with the next pulse.  Most of the missiles were destroyed, six were not, and three of the attack craft were hit, two coming apart in the air while the third arced down toward the ground to strike the rubble.

Baggett hated losing people, but he would take an exchange of three infantry for three attack craft any day.  As a bonus, those craft were of Caca design, which meant the big aliens would be the pilots, as they were not compatible with Fenri physiology.  The thought of killing the big aliens was enough to bring a smile to his face.

“The enemy is pulling back, sir,” called out one of his tactical staff.  “Should I stand down the boys and girls?”

“Wait one, Colonel.  Let’s make sure they aren’t trying to pull something.”  The enemy had not always tried to fool the humans.  Many times they bulled ahead with requisite stubbornness to be slaughtered by the defenders.  But they had on occasion pulled some tricks, and his corps had paid the price for being caught off guard.  It wouldn’t hurt his people to stay at one hundred percent alert status until they were sure the enemy had pulled out of range.

*     *     *

“That is the sixth one, my Lord,” said the tactical officer, pointing a lower right index finger at the holographic plot of the city below.  Six small areas glowed where they had plotted the location of the enemy jammers that were making it almost impossible for the ships in orbit to provide accurate fire support.  As long as their sensors were jammed, with so many false electronic and heat signatures, anything they dropped would have a greater chance of hitting their own forces.  Whenever they located one of the jammers they took it out, but the others continued working, while the humans brought up another unit to take the place of the one just destroyed.

“Is that all of them?”

“We think so, my Lord.  Shall I set up a fire plan to take them out?”

“First contact the ground commander.  I want him ready to move as soon as we shoot.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

The Caca pod commander smiled as he thought of what they were about to do.  He was sure the humans would have more jammers in place in minutes after these were taken out.  But the Fenri ground forces, with the cover of his cruisers, could do a lot of damage in those minutes.

*     *     *

“I want your battalion to prepare for a charge on their rear areas as soon as they launch their next attack, Colonel.”

The huge being hovering over him nodded.  Baggett always felt uncomfortable around Phlistarans.  Not that they were any threat to him, loyal members of the empire that they were.  But their mere size made them so intimidating.  Add to that the maw filled with sharp teeth, and they could be terrifying to their enemies.  Because the battalion commander was still in his battle armor, a mass of alloy four times more massive than a standard human suit, it was easy to feel uneasy around them.  He would have asked the lt. colonel to take his armor off for the meeting, but the specialized suits his people wore were more difficult to don and doff than those of any other Imperial species.

“If it works, you should be able to run roughshod over their artillery and logistics bases before they can react.”

“We’ll give them hell, General.”

“Make sure you hit them hard, then get your people out of there.  You’re about my only heavy assault force, and I don’t want to lose any more of you than can be helped.”

The corps still had just under forty tanks, and they wouldn’t be getting any more, since the wormhole was not large enough to pass the five hundred to one thousand ton vehicles.  And tanks, while tough, were also big, easy to hit targets.  The Phlistarans were the next best thing to heavy assault vehicles.  Their suits massed over four tons, with a ton of sentient inside, and carried twice the armor protection of a standard heavy suit.  And three times the weaponry.  But they also made bigger targets, and as fast as they could move, they couldn’t outrun a beam weapon.

“Get back to your unit and get your people ready.”

The big alien saluted, raised his helmet over his head, and turned to trot off, moving like a large, ungainly horse.  Baggett watched him go for a moment, wishing that he could have just contacted the colonel for a holo conference, but the hard line to his area had been cut, and the enemy was jamming all com frequencies.  Add to that the idea that sending a wireless signal, even in a burst, was asking to be hit from above, and he had no choice but to order the officer here where he could talk to him in person, and both could look at the holo chart of the battlefield.

The bunker shook with some kind of powerful if distant impact.  The rumblings seemed to go on longer than could be accounted for by a single kinetic.

“Sir,” yelled one of the techs in a panicked shout.  “The Cacas just took out all of our jammers with kinetics.”

“How in the hell did they…?”

He wasn’t able to finish the sentence as more impacts bounced the bunker.  The Cacas had taken out their jammers, all but the microdrones still in flight, and those by themselves were not enough to stop them from getting a good look.

“Everyone into your armor, now,” he ordered.

Most of the people moved, getting to where their suits were standing, open and waiting.  Each trooper got in and closed it up, giving them the best protection they could get.  Some people were slow to move, sticking by their consoles, trying to get more information.  It was a commendable decision, and a very stupid one.  One young woman paid the price as part of the rock ceiling came down to crush her at her station.

“Get your asses into your armor,” yelled Baggett, grabbing one tech by the shoulder and pulling the man out of the chair, pushing him toward the suits.

“And get your ass in yours, sir,” said the sergeant major, stomping up in his suit.  Another tremor shook the bunker, and another piece of ceiling came down.  Baggett was directly underneath, and only had a fraction of a second to realize he was dead.  The sergeant major stepped in and pushed the falling block of masonry away before it could strike.

“Thanks, Top.”

“Get your ass in your suit, sir.  We can’t afford to lose you.”

Baggett nodded and ran to his suit, stepping back into it and ordering it to close with his implant.  He could imagine other people it would hurt more to lose at the moment.  But the sergeant major was correct.  Getting himself killed because of stupidity wouldn’t help anyone.  The suit closed up around him, the nanites in the alloy sealing him in, obliterating the seams and making it a solid piece of armor.  It also meant that if he lost power he was in trouble, since he wouldn’t be able to open the suit again until someone got energy to him.  That was the tradeoff.

“We’re being hit all along the front, sir,” said one of the techs, linked into the tactical system through her suit.  “The little bastards are coming in under the covering fire of the big sons of bitches up above.”

“We need to get more jammers online,” he ordered, and was gratified to see that his people got right on it.  No panic here, despite almost getting crushed.

And the smart bastards waited till they had all of our jammers plotted before they fired, he thought.  Next time he would have the backups ready to come online if they took out the primaries.  If there was a next time.

*     *     *

“We have a formation coming within range, sir.  What do you want us to do?”

Commodore Bryce Suttler stared at the plot that appeared beside the image of the ship captain he was talking with.  He had been promoted out of commanding one of the stealth ships, though at the moment he wished he was in the place of the young woman commanding the Grampus.  His odds of surviving this war might have gone down considerably, but then again, he wouldn’t feel the guilt that was about to hit him in the face.

The plot showed eleven ships on a least time profile for the planet.  Three troop transports, a quartet of freighters, and four escorts, including one of the Caca supercruisers.  There was no way that Grampus could take them all out.  No one could be that lucky.  But the mission called for the ship to take out as many as possible.  It had been waiting in place for some time for just this opportunity.  In the cold calculations of war the cost of that ship and crew would be worth less than half of that convoy.

“I want you to take as many of them out as you can, Commander.  One launch, then get your ass out of there.”

The commander turned away from the holo for a moment, shouting out orders.  Suttler could imagine what was going on in that ship.  Everything they could do without was being powered down.  The center of their stealth capability, the wormhole that syphoned their heat off to the sink back at the Donut, would start moving up the conduit leading to the front of the ship, where it would become the opening of the launch system.  The other end would also be in motion, transferring from the heat sink to one of the launch tubes in the new structure that had been created just for this kind of attack.  The new heat sink in the ship, a twenty meter wide globe containing a hunk of ice at near absolute zero, would now channel the heat of the craft.  It was a working solution, but only for thirty minutes or less.  After that the ship would be radiating heat energy, still not much, but enough for sensitive instruments to detect.  Enough to doom them.

It would have been nice if they had enough warp missiles to do the job.  Unfortunately, Grampus was out, and the missiles were in short supply.  There were none available from depot, and the ones that would be available in a couple of days were of no use right now.  So it was back to preaccelerated missiles, still deadly, but requiring the one wormhole the ship possessed.

“Target will enter range in eleven minutes,” said the commander, turning back to the man in charge of her squadron.  “Do you want us to try to get one of them with a laser hit, too.”

The ship only carried one offensive laser weapon, a forward mount that could generate enough energy to burn through the electromag screen and armor of a cruiser class ship.  It wouldn’t be enough to destroy one without a lot of luck.

“Don’t bother.  Just get your missiles off and slide away like a shadow.”

The young lady smiled.  She had a pretty face, fine features and freckles on her nose.  Stella Koslowski he recalled, pulling up her file on his implant.  From New Croatia, a developing world, parents still alive, two older brothers, making her the baby of the family.  He knew from her record that she had graduated near the top of her class at the academy she had attended.  It might not have been Peal Island, but the academy on New Detroit had turned out its share of legends.  If she survived she might join their ranks.  Joined the stealth service because it offered quick advancement, mostly because of the casualty rate.  Suttler kept the expression from his face, the sorrow and guilt he felt about what he had ordered her to do.  But without people willing to obey those orders and do that duty, this war was lost.  And she had volunteered for this duty.

Her face disappeared from the holo, leaving the tactical plot hanging alone in space.  The ships came closer, the supercruiser leading, the three scouts forming a triangle around the middle.  The three freighters were toward the center, the more capable troop transports around them.  The missiles would be programed for individual targets.  Every one would receive at least two, a few three.  The stealth/attack ship would be sending the targeting programs through the wormhole, making sure each one knew what to look for.  They would have less than two seconds transit time.  Under the old attack system the ship would attack from less than one hundred thousand kilometers, since anything they launched would have to accelerate into the attack, and wouldn’t have much time to do it.  These missiles would be coming out at point nine-five light, letting the ship launch from two light seconds distance.

Suttler held his breath as the last seconds ticked off before the attack.  At the exact moment thirty more icons appeared, the missiles coming out carrying point nine-five light, their grabbers going to full power to get them onto their designated targets.  Some of the escorts got off a shot, and a couple of missiles dropped from the plot before they connected.  But four freighters, three troop transports and two of the scouts dropped off the plot as well.

“We’ve been hit,” called out the voice of the commander over the com.  “The cruiser put a beam right through our engineering spaces.  We..”

The com died in midword.

“Get them back,” shouted Suttler, feeling the dread that came with knowing someone you had just been talking to was gone.

“The wormhole shut down on this end, sir.”

Suttler knew what that meant.  When one end of a wormhole was destroyed, the other end ceased to exist as well.  Which meant that the stealth/attack ship was gone, and its crew with it.

They had taken out an important convoy, stopping reinforcements from getting to the planet.  If they were lucky those ships had carried Cacas on them and not Fenri.  At least the ship crews were sure to be the big aliens.  He wondered if that would make the young commander’s parents feel any better when they got the news.

Chapter Twelve

Don't time travel into the past, roaming through the nuances as if they can change. Don't bookmark pages you've already read. James Altucher

DONUT SPACE.  JUNE 6TH, 1003.

“We have more ships coming in through one of the wormhole gates,” reported one of the Ancients on the bridge.

“Bring in the human,” said the commander, watching the unusual looking ship coming through the gate.

Jackson walked onto the bridge, wondering what they wanted from him this time.  The Ancient vessel was still making its way toward the station, keeping down the acceleration to make sure it couldn’t be detected.  Their stealth technology was thousands of years ahead of the Empire’s, their weapons and defensive tech must be the same level, but Jackson could see that the Ancients were not warriors.  They were too cautious.  But with only some thousands of them still extant, and few ships, they really couldn’t afford to take many chances.

“Human, what species owns that vessel?”

Jackson studied the ship for a moment.  He hadn’t seen many of them, but they were very distinctive in their appearance.  I wonder where they are going? he thought.  There were ships coming out of one gate and heading toward another.  He had to guess that the gate they were coming out of had to lead to the Elysium capital world.  He had no idea where the other gate led, but if he had to guess, he would say it led to a rallying point near an active front.

“What is going on at the front?” he asked, not really interested in answering their question, but very much so in what his people were facing.

“Tell us what those ships are and we will tell you,” said the commander, his eyes stalks zeroing in on Jackson.

“I thought you knew everything about this region of space.”

“Will you answer us, or will you be returned to your quarters?”

Jackson really didn’t want to help them, even in such a little way.  But he was dying to get any information about the war, and the Ancients always kept their word.

“Those are ships from the Elysium Empire.  They are allies with my people.”

“We thought so, but wanted to be sure.  We lifted their people into space thousands of years ago.  And it looks like they are not in this system to stay, but are on their way to elsewhere.”

Jackson stared at the alien, waiting for his return on the bargain.

“The beings you know as Ca’cadasans are attacking your empire yet again.  They are pushing ships into both the human nation known as the Republic, and the empire of the Fenri.”  The Ancient was silent for a moment, regarding him for a reaction.  “You younger races are so foolish.  Life is short enough, with nothing after, and you waste it killing each other.”

The Ancient commander turned away, ignoring the human.  Jackson felt the end of a tentacle on his shoulder and turned to look into the eyes of Klorasoft, hovering just inches from his face.

“It is time to go, Xavier Jackson.  There is nothing you can do here.”

Jackson nodded.  Nothing he could do, yet.  His eyes rested on the emergency tool locker, set into the hull.  The time might come, and he had to be ready for it.  But that time was not now.

*     *     *

Lenkowski watched as his ships gathered again at the wormhole gates.  It had been a much harder fight than the last one, and he had lost more ships.  The Cacas had still gotten the worst of it, since the allied fleet had outnumbered them badly, and had the new tech.  But this Caca admiral was very good at handling his fleet, and he had pulled some surprises out of his hat.  And Len had to admit that he hadn’t fought his best battle either.  That was a fact of life, every commander had his day, but when he had a bad day, people died who wouldn’t otherwise.

“We’re transferring the wormholes over now, sir,” came the call over the com.  “We should be ready to transit in fifteen.”

“Thank you,” replied the admiral, watching the viewer as another ship, this one a twenty million ton superbattleship, went through the wormhole.  Nine years ago that had been the newest class of capital ship, what was eventually going to replace the standard fifteen million ton vessel.  Now the super heavy battleship, like the Anastacia Romanov, his flag, were the ships of the future.  The superbattleship was a dead end.  The shipyards would finish the ones still under construction, but no more would be laid down.

He would have over three hundred wormholes waiting for him before the next battle, over twice as many as he had for this fight.  All of the wormholes from the first battle had been moved into place, plus more had arrived on hyper VII ships.  This would be the first fight he would actually have a significant number of wormhole weapons, which was good since he would have fewer ships than this last battle.  They could make a big difference.

The one thing Lenkowski hated more than translating through hyper was the gut wrenching feel of going through a wormhole.  The feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, the sense of time passing so slow that it took hours to go through, when measurements showed it was really milliseconds.

The Romanov came out of the wormhole at the sedate speed of three hundred meters per second, taking nine seconds to finish the transit.  The tactical plot immediately filled in, showing over a thousand ships already waiting in this space, just inside the hyper V limit of the target star.  And thousands more would follow him through.  Other wings would come in at other gates on other points of the compass, and the carrier force, much larger this time, would enter at yet another point, ready to release their waves of fighters as soon as they closed with the system.

He was going with the same opening strategy as before, with some changes, including the multiple attack points.  While all of his forces might be at greater risk because of their separation,  he was depending on some tech advantages to make up for that.  And the decoy force was much larger, over two thousand ships, sitting in the system, and they were prepared to defend a planet that had much more human life on it than any of the previous worlds in this campaign.  There were other defenses there as well, systems the enemy wouldn’t see until they were put into use.

“Enemy fleet is moving toward the system,” came a voice from the com.  “Approaching on two axes.  ETA, four hours, thirty-one minutes.”

Len activated the holo in the chamber, looking at the masses of Caca ships moving in.  They were not yet detectable from the system, but the scouts were out there to keep track of them.  Sure enough, they were coming in along two lines of approach, about forty degrees apart.  If he had been the Caca commander, not knowing what he was heading into, he would have kept his force together.  That made him wonder what the Caca commander, who would be the senior on this line of advance into the Republic, was thinking.

He checked his own deployments once again, cognizant of the fact that he might have to change his own plan in motion.  Well, that’s why they called them the enemy.  Their plans would always conflict with his.  In fact, they would do their best to make sure his plan didn’t succeed, while theirs did.  Neither would get exactly what they wanted, but the winning side would get more of theirs than the loser.

“Shit,” he cursed in a loud voice.  Not all of his ships would get here in time to move with the rest.  That was the first change the enemy had thrown at him.  It was difficult to run everything on a perfect time table across interstellar distances, and being off a couple of hours was not too bad.  He could wait another couple of hours and go when they were all in place, but that would put a lot of pressure on the defenders in the system, maybe too much.  No, it would be better to go on time, and use the late comers as an emergency reserve.

“Admiral.  We have the President on the com.”

“Put her on.”  Graham with a pep talk?  That wasn’t like her, so he was expecting trouble.

“Admiral Lenkowski.  We have another problem.”

*     *      *

“How in the hell did they slip forces like those through the lines?” growled Sean, glaring at his CNO.

“Your Majesty,” said Sondra McCullom, looking very uncomfortable.  “We really have no excuse.  Remember though, you have tens of thousands of ships maneuvering through a front of almost two million square light years, about two billion cubic light years.  There was always a chance of something like this happening, and it happened.”

Sean looked at the plot that showed a good portion of his empire, the outer section of sector III and part of IV, as well as most of the Republic.  The main force was still in Republic space, far enough out that they weren’t threatening any major systems, yet.  Another arrow showed one of the two forces that had seemed to come out of nowhere.  It was closing in on a major industrial planet of the Republic.  As far as they could tell, that was several hundred ships, not a main effort, but enough to threaten a system with few defenses.  And the nearest wormhole gate was twenty light years away.  If they got hyper VII ships there, it would still take over a day to climb out of the gravity well, then about a day to accelerate and decelerate through VII to the target system.  The enemy would already be well into the system by that time.  If they fired on the planet from a distance it would become a cinder.  If they didn’t, there was a chance.

The second arrow was smaller, but much more worrisome to Sean, being that it was less than a day from his empire, in Fenri space and heading into Sector II.  And on a heading toward the system that housed the Other Universe Project.  He didn’t know if that was on purpose or just an accident.  The project hadn’t accomplished what his father had envisioned when he authorized it, but some of the new dimension spanning technologies had come out of the project.  And he had very little that could get there before the enemy.  The question was whether he should order the people there to destroy the physical facilities, or hope that the Cacas just missed the planetoid it was on altogether.  There was a planet being terraformed in the system, in fact almost ready for settlers.  It might capture the Caca’s attention.  Or it might not.

We’ll send them a warning, and leave it up to the people on the spot to decide, thought Sean.  Maybe they could come up with something.  In the meantime, he had some bad news to give to Len.

*     *     *

“Time to move,” said Lenkowski, talking with the com people.  “Make sure all units move in the proper order.”

His force would start the move, and the enemy would see them coming through hyper.  Three thousand ships, a mighty force, but one the enemy was sure to think they could take, even with the force within the system.  The others were a little closer to the system, and they would start off at a time that would bring them back to normal space an hour after his.  Everything was going according to his revised plan, except for the carrier force.  He only had half the warp fighters he had counted on.  The Emperor had pulled four of his hyper VII carriers and their embarked warp fighters away from him to support an effort to rescue the threatened the Republic world on the other side of this front.  He would have gone after that force after this battle was over, but plans changed, especially when he was not the ultimate commander.

“Jumping,” called out the captain of the Romanov, and the translation nausea struck.

Within ten seconds three thousand ships were in hyper V and accelerating inward at five hundred gravities.  They would be accelerating the entire way, hitting about point two nine light by the time they jumped back to normal space.  As soon as they were heading into the system in normal space all of his wormhole launchers would be firing, putting out streams of missiles at point nine-five light, coasting without power toward the enemy fleet.  He had fifty wormholes in his force, and forty-five of them were linked with launch systems that carried ten accelerator tubes each.  They could put out thirteen hundred and fifty missiles every thirty seconds, over thirteen thousand in five minutes, after which they would have to wait over an hour for the next loads of weapons to be accelerated up to launch speed.

His other groups also had wormholes, thirty each, while the inner force had twenty-five.  Those would be used for launching different weapons, which hopefully would surprise the Caca commander.

*     *     *

“My Lord.  The enemy fleet is moving in.”

The high admiral looked at the plot that showed the mass of icons that was the enemy force his subordinate had reported on.  The numbers below indicated about three thousand ships.  With the force waiting for him in the inner system that was a total of five thousand.  While his own group consisted of five thousand ships as well, with the second group bringing his numbers up almost nine thousand vessels.  Like most Caca forces, a quarter of his ships were superbattleships, giving him an even greater preponderance of capital ships verses the enemy.  He did not intend to underestimate this enemy though.  The humans had proven themselves too capable in the past.

“Prepare to launch our inertialess fighters.  I want them to meet the enemy soon after they enter normal space.”  He had a little under a thousand of the craft, and he intended to use them while the enemy was still not aware they were in space.  And he had one other thing.  Five wormholes.

“Send a request back to base.  I want as many missiles as they can send through the holes, timed to reach their ends about the time the humans jump down to normal.”

His people still didn’t have the launch facilities that the humans used.  Some were under construction, about thirty of them, with eight tubes each.  For now they had to launch missiles through open space and let them build up velocity on their own, then speed through the gates to appear on his end.  They lost much of their internal energy stores, though, since they had to boost up to between point eight and point nine light, but they really didn’t need all that much to change vectors at the end of their attack.  And they came out in much greater swarms than the enemy’s.  Each wormhole would send a hundred missiles through at a time, and they could be staggered out so succeeding waves could transit every minute.  That was five hundred a cycle, and they could keep it up as long as the ships on the other end had missiles in their magazines.  And they were just as stealthy in their approach as the human weapons.  They had used wormhole launched weapons before, but never in this quantity, and he expected that the humans would receive a shock when they hit.

“What about the ships around the planet?”

“They have arrayed themselves in a defense before the planet, my Lord.  It seems that they wish to intercept anything we throw at them.”

“Then let’s start throwing it.  All ships are to fire two volleys at the planet.  That should keep them too busy to do anything about us.”

The subordinate gave a head motion of acknowledgment and turned to relay the order.  Two volleys from the entire force would equal about two hundred and fifty thousand weapons.  Enough to take out a good portion of that defending force, if not all of them.  And his ships carried many times that amount of missiles, with even more on the other force.

“Inertialess fighters are ready to launch, my Lord,” reported the lower ranking male twenty minutes later.

“Then launch them.  I want them to blood the enemy as soon as they enter normal space.”  Moments later a little less than a thousand new icons appeared on the plot, acceleration figures showing fourteen hundred gravities, better than the human made craft.  They accelerated for about an hour and a half, then raised their negative matter fields and were cut off from the universe.  Now they would go up to twenty thousand gravities, getting up to two and a half lights while heading out toward the enemy.  Of course they would need to decelerate to attack, but if timed correctly they would hit about the time the humans were just getting into the system, before they could be tracked and before the humans could react to them.

Ten minutes after the fighters had disappeared warning klaxons went off.

“What is the emergency?” demanded the great admiral.

“We are picking up three other enemy forces closing in on the system.”

The high admiral looked at the plot, which was now populating with the other forces.  Two of them were about two thousand ships each, the third was the smallest at about four hundred vessels.  If he had to guess, the smallest formation would be their carriers.  The Ca’cadasans didn’t use that kind of ship.  They carried all of their fighters in their warships, but command was wondering if such a ship as the humans used might be worth it.

And all of my advanced fighters are already off, he thought with a grimace.  There was no way he could send them after new targets.  Once they were off, they were committed.  The only way he could communicate with them now would be to send a coded grav pulse or radio transmission and hope they got it in the seconds they were back in normal space.  Until they developed some kind of instantaneous com that worked through the warp bubbles they had no control over the fighters once they were off.  And the research and development people had little hope of developing anything like that anytime in the near future.

“All ships, prepare to fire another volley at the planet,” ordered the high admiral.  He would give the enemy even more to concentrate on in that direction.  And if they didn’t go for stopping the attack on their world, they would lose it, and all of the humans and industry on it.

Chapter Thirteen

Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time. Arnold H. Glasow

“All forces are in normal space and are accelerating into the system, admiral” called out the fleet com officer.

“We have missiles heading for the planet, sir.  ETA, seven hours.”

“Order all inertialess and warp fighters to concentrate on those missiles,” ordered Lenkowski.  That took a vital portion of his order of battle out of play, but he couldn’t allow the planet to be destroyed.  The enemy knew that, of course, and were counting on this move from him.

“All wormhole equipped ships are to launch continuous fire on the enemy fleet.  Everything they have, for as long as they have it.”

“What about our conventional missiles?” asked the tactical officer after he had transmitted the admiral’s orders.

“Let’s start the fight off with four volleys from every ship,” ordered the admiral.  “That ought to get their attention.”

The wormhole launched missiles would get there well before their other weapons, coming out of the darkness at point nine-five light, covering the distance in a little over an hour.  A half an hour later the streams from the other forces would start hitting.  Hopefully they would hurt the enemy fleet, and hurt it badly.  It was a great advantage they still had over the Cacas.

“Sir, we’re picking up inertialess fighters in the area.”

“Ours?” asked Lenkowski, feeling a faintness in his stomach.

“No, sir.  Not ours.”

*     *      *

“Gates are ready, my Lord,” reported the tactical officer.  “First wave should be coming through in ten minutes.”

The high admiral looked at the plot that was now filled with clusters of objects.  The missile storm heading for the planet, the missiles heading in from the enemy groups, and now the disconcerting signals of the new warp fighters, streaking in at twenty times the speed of light, their final target still unclear.  And then there were invisible missiles from the other side, the ones he knew they were putting into space as fast as they could.  And soon he would have a surprise for them as well.

“First wave coming through, my Lord.”

Out in space, through each of the five expanded gates, a hundred missiles came.  Of course they didn’t appear on the plot.  They were not boosting, not giving out any signals.  They had built up to speed in another system, the one the gates linked to.  Traveling at point eight light, the best they could get them to before they reached the gates, they were traveling invisibly toward the main enemy fleet.  The five hundred missiles would fly silently toward the enemy fleet until they were within engagement range, then accelerate ahead at fifteen thousand gravities.

A minute later five hundred more missiles were on the way.  A minute later a further five hundred, and on, until there were twenty thousand missiles in transit.  There was a five minute break at this point, and the gates were realigned to aim at one of the other human forces.  Ten minutes later five thousand missiles were on their way toward the force.  After that there were no more missiles ready, at least for the next couple of hours, the time it would take the next launch to accelerate toward the gates.  The gates on the fleet side were quickly collapsed down to small portals to make them smaller targets, hopefully not noticed by the enemy.

“Start launching standard missiles at the enemy.  Three volleys toward the main force, one each toward the others.”

“And the fourth force?”

The high admiral looked at the plot.  He would have loved to destroy the carriers as well, but they were beyond the hyper barrier, and could jump well before anything got to them.  “If they’re still there after we finish the rest of their forces, we will see if they like our new surprise as well.”

*      *      *

The ships guarding the planet prepared for the onslaught.  With the exception of twelve battleships, all of the vessels were new antimissile cruisers and destroyers.  All had been overloaded with counter missiles, every cargo hold, every hangar.  And they had ten wormholes, all now hooked in to launch tubes at the other end.

The ships started to fire with their wormholes.  A stream of thirty missiles, traveling at well under the speed of most  preaccelerated weapons, point three light, left each of the wormholes, three hundred weapons.  Twenty seconds out each missile came apart into ten counters, until there were three thousand missile killing counter weapons in space.  Thirty seconds later another three hundred weapons were in space.  They went through the entire cycle, ten tubes each, until there were thirty thousand counter missiles flying silently through space, set to activate when the enemy weapons entered a range of twenty light seconds.  Not near enough to do the job, but enough to whittle down a lot of missiles before they actually got into engagement range of the missile defense ships.

*      *      *

Captain Anvi Patel did not like this kind of mission.  Not because she thought it a waste of the capabilities of her brand new eight thousand ton ship, though it had been made to attack other ships.  Not because they lacked sufficient training for this kind of mission, though their training had been sparse.  No, she hated it because it was so frigging dangerous.  This space was full of objects that were on the plot.  And there were probably thousands of other things that weren’t on the plot, including inertialess fighters.  They wouldn’t know if those fifteen hundred ton objects were even moving into their paths, and there were sure to be some out there.

“Take us into the stream,” Patel ordered her pilot.  “Keep her under point three light.”  She looked over at the com tech.  “And make sure the rest of the ships know the plan.”

Of course they knew the plan.  But the captain still worried about her people, and they were about to enter into extreme danger.  The ships were well spread out, so they wouldn’t run into each other when they had to make radical course changes.  That was still a risk when objects could seemingly come out of nowhere.

“Approaching the stream,” called out the pilot, pushing the stick down a bit to make a minor course change.

Patel grabbed the arms of her charge, trying to stay calm in front of her crew, and failing.  This was like cruising through a minefield, where any wrong move could be their last.  She would have preferred to just shoot her missiles, but they only had the four, and it was thought they could take care of a lot more of the attacking missiles in this manner.

“Approaching first missile.”

The warp fighter was still in warp, even though it was shifting space at a pseudospeed much less that of light.  They could actually move as slowly as a twentieth light, or as fast as twenty times c.  And the space warping field still reached out in front of them, and behind.  Not the same distance as when they were at maximum, in fact much less than a light second.  Matter entering that field was still stressed by the compression and expansion of space.  If it was massive enough it could shrug off that effect.  If not?

The pilot swept the warp field over the missile for a fraction of a second, then changed his course until he was moving at an angle to the missile, staying far enough away.  The momentary stresses of the warp field were enough to breach containment in the warhead, and the missile detonated, filling space with heat and radiation.  Another nearby missile’s hull flared, two of its grabbers melted, and it flew off course.

The pilot stopped the fighter for a moment outside of the stream, looking for the next target and making sure nothing else would get in their way.  Finding one, he pushed forward at point three light and destroyed another missile.

“Good job,” said Patel, trying to smile at the man, then stopping herself, hoping that she didn’t distract him.  Every pilot in her wing were the top of their craft, or they wouldn’t have been assigned to the warp ships.  Still, all it took was one error and they were dead.

“All fighters reporting successful intercepts thus far,” called out the com tech.  Then she turned with a shocked expression on her face.  “My sister just went out of link.”

Which meant we lost the fighter her sibling was on, thought Patel, closing her eyes.  “How did it happen?”

The pilot went back to moving toward another target.  The captain knew he had heard the com tech, and knew that one ship hadn’t made it.  But he showed no hesitation, maneuvering the ship into position and picking off another missile.

“That’s four so far,” reported the pilot.  “Going for number five.”

And so it went, for over an hour, her one hundred and six ships, after the loss of four of their fellows, taking out over three thousand weapons.  A veritable drop in the bucket.  Still, it was over three thousand missiles the planet didn’t have to worry about.

“We’re getting an order to clear out and head for our primary target,” said the com tech.  “Inertialess fighters are coming in to hit them.  We are to hit their fleet, then come back and take out more of their missiles.”

“Send that order out to the other ships, quickly,” ordered Patel.  The last place she wanted to be was in this space when the inertial rebound weapons came in.

Minutes later the inertialess craft launched their weapons.  Four wings, over a hundred craft each, they launched toward the center of the first missile wave.  It was a hard target to miss, even with such inaccurate weapons.  Still, almost a hundred weapons did miss, completely.  But fifteen hundred flew into the wave, most toward the center, some to the outskirts.  When the pentaton blasts cleared, the wave of two hundred and fifty thousand missiles was reduced by a hundred thousand.  Still not enough, but a significant reduction.  And four more wings were on the way.

*     *     *

“The shelters are almost full, ma’am.”

“And how many people are there left outside?” asked the planetary governor, Trish Vanderhoof.

The shelters were something that most civilized planets had installed starting five hundred years in the past.  The most modern in the Empire were battleship central capsules, able to hold tens of thousands of refugees in relative comfort behind ten meters of armor, buried under a kilometer or more of soil.  There were many older shelters.  Since there were never enough, old ones were refurbished and kept in service.  The Republic also used shelters, and though of a different design, they were just as effective, which meant effective against some threats and not others.  Explosions on the surface wouldn’t penetrate the soil and rock overhead, and the armor was a last barrier that kept everyone safe inside.  Kinetic penetrators were another thing entirely.  A near miss wouldn’t do much to a shelter, though it would devastate the surface.  Some hits wouldn’t do much more, depending on their mass and speed.  Heavy, fast moving penetrators would go through twenty kilometers of soil and armor like they weren’t even there, and anyone inside the shelter would be instantly killed by the energy release.  A major kinetic bombardment would kill a lot of people, though some would probably still survive as their shelters were missed.

A relativistic missile was the third class of bombardment, and here the odds of survival depended on were the weapons fell.  Anything that caused a large crater and an eruption of magma would destroy every shelter within range.  Shelters outside that range stood a chance of surviving, depending on distance.  One missile hitting a planet would leave a significant number of survivors.  More, less.  With nowhere else to go, the shelters were the only chance of survival.  And there were never enough of them, even packing more people in than was safe.

Vanderhoof looked at a holo that showed the access of one of those shelters, people waiting for their chance to survive.  Some were guaranteed access.  Others were first come, first serve.  The elite, of course, had their own shelters, many built under the massive granite and basalt of mountains.  She was looking at some of the common citizens waiting for their chance.  Men and women.  Families.  New Britania only had two billion citizens, with enough room for more, so there were many children waiting as well.  Everyone looked nervous, some were crying, men and women.  If they couldn’t get into a shelter they would have to seek refuge in a basement or sewer.  And their chances there were not good.  Not good at all.

“Send out a decree.  All private shelters are to take in as many refugees as possible.  As are government shelters, including my own.”

“Madame Governor.  If we pack people into your shelter, we will reduce your comfort level, if not your chances of survival.”

“Comfort is not a concern,” said Vanderhoof, glaring at her assistant.  “And the chances are remote for our survival if many of those missiles get through.  So, if the odds are remote, but still there, we need to make sure as many of our citizens survive as possible.”

She looked over at the tactical plot, sent to her courtesy of the military.  There were fewer missiles in the first wave, but it was still a massive swarm.  And they would be here in another three hours.

*     *     *

“You could evacuate to one of the ships, Commodore.  We can fight this battle.”

Commodore Ivan Stendanko shook his head as he looked into the eyes of the captain who was the station commander.  In a manner the young woman was correct.  The massive fortress would fight this battle just as well without him, and would live or die the same when the missile swarm arrived.  He could take command of the battleship group that had a much better chance of survival.  But, dammit, this was his post as orbital defense commander.

“I will stay here, Becca.  And no telling me what a loss it will be if I am killed.  I really don’t matter.  And all the communications for the defense run through here.”

He looked around the control room, buried in the center of the massive one hundred million ton structure.  They were in as protected an area as it was possible to be off the planet, but it would still be destroyed if a couple of missiles hit the station.  Everyone here knew it.  Of course they had known that a day like this might come, but Stendanko wondered if any of them had actually believed it.  Believe it or not, the day had arrived, and he could smell the fear that was in the air.  He was sure that some of that fear scent was his.  He was a brave enough officer, and had fought ships before, but he had never faced a situation quite like this.

“Everything is up and running, sir,” said a man wearing a commander’s uniform, the tactical officer for the station, and the one who would direct the overall battle to save the planet.  “We’ll give a good account of ourselves when they get here.”

The commodore nodded, not sure what to say.  The plot was showing everything they had in orbit, all tasked to be on this side of the planet when the missiles arrived.  They would be retasked, whatever had survived, to face the second wave when it came roaring in.

They were the only fort in orbit.  There were three space docks and several score orbital factories, which had all been moved to orbits that would intersect incoming missiles.  That was a waste of a hell of a lot of money, but compared to the world they were nothing.  Over two hundred defense platforms, mounting powerful particle beams and counter missile batteries, were also in the same kind of orbit.  There were even several thousand pieces of ore in a farther orbit, launched by the freighters that were even now loading up on shuttles full of refugees.  Everything they could think of to get between the missiles and the planet.  It was really a forlorn hope, but they had to try everything, no matter how foolish it might seem.

“ETA of missiles, one hour, fifteen minutes,” called out one of the tac techs manning a weapons board.  He looked up excitedly.  “The fighters have reduced them considerably, sir.  Halved them, it looks like.”

Only a hundred and twenty thousand odd missiles still on the way, thought the commodore, again not saying a word.  What could he say, that wouldn’t destroy what little morale they had.

*     *     *

“The fleet is taking hits from missiles, my Lord,” reported the tactical officer.  “Coming in at point nine-five light.  We’re only picking them up at nine second’s travel time.”

“Order all ships along that perimeter to fire lasers on wide angle beams,” ordered the high admiral.  “We’ll try to take as many of them out of space as possible with heat overload.  And change the vector of the fleet.”

He looked at the plot.  The other, smaller force in his fleet was also moving inward, but so far had reported no attacks.  At least not yet.

“Sir.  The admiral in charge of second force is reporting that they are picking up the signals of inertialess fighters in their vicinity.  And they have over a hundred of the warp fighters on approach.”

The enemy was hitting the second force, with fighters, while they sent all of their wormhole missiles his way.  At least that was how it looked, though that might change at any moment.  The second force had a couple of wormholes, and he was in real time communication with them.  An advantage only the enemy had enjoyed until recently.

“We’re detonating some of their missiles, my Lord,” called out the tactical officer.  “Some are getting through, and we’re still losing ships.”

The high admiral looked at the screen that was showing their losses.  So far only scouts, with the exception of a couple of cruisers.  That’s what the scouts were there for, to absorb fire before it got to the capital ships.  “Send more of the scouts to that flank.  I want as many of those missiles stopped as possible.”

“The admiral is reporting that they are taking missile fire from the inertialess fighters.  Massive explosions through the force.  The….”  The tactical officer looked up at the great admiral.  “I’ve lost the feed from the admiral.”

The com officer started to work on his board, finally looking up.  “I have the second in command of the force.  A low admiral.  He reports that the admiral’s ship is gone.”

“Order them to….”  The high admiral stopped in the middle of the order.  Should he order them to disperse.  That would make it harder for the enemy to target those ships with those powerful craft launched missiles.  It would also make them more vulnerable to the missiles heading for them on the plot.  And there was no guarantee that the humans hadn’t launched more wormhole missiles at that force.  “Order them to double the distance between ships,” he finally ordered, knowing that it was a half measure.  And as such it might come back to bite him.  But he couldn’t think what else to do.

*     *     *

“Enemy inertialess fighters are now back into normal space,” called out the fleet tactical officer.

Lenkowski smiled as he looked at the plot, showing about a thousand two thousand ton craft boosting at over fifteen hundred gravities, trying to align themselves with his fleet.   They still had a vector out of the system at point seven light, and they would not be able to close with the human fleet no matter what they did.  Not for hours, unless they went back into their warp bubble.  And then they wouldn’t be able to locate the human ships if they changed vector again.

“They’re firing,” said the tactical officer.  Missiles appeared on the plot, accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities, adding a hundred and forty-six kilometers a second to their new vector.  They were pointed slightly toward the fleet, mostly to the direction the fighters had come from.  And the curving vector arrows showed that they would come nowhere near the fleet until they had killed all of their outward momentum, then added enough inward to catch the human ships.

“We don’t have to worry about them for a while,” said the captain in command of the ship.

“But they’re still there, and they will be back,” said Lenkowski, pointing to the plot.  “Fire some missiles at them.  Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

They didn’t have that kind of luck.  The Caca craft raised their negative matter screens and hightailed it out of there, going into acceleration that the missiles couldn’t match, even if they had been able to track them.  The admiral was sure he knew what they would do.  Once they were out of the area and safe they would decelerate back down to entry speed, then decelerate some more until they were on a heading back into the system.  Then they would locate his force and come back for it.

I wonder how many missiles they have.  His fighters all carried four launchable weapons, and the Cacas had fired two each, a normal attack pattern.  He would bet that they had four, but they could have as many as eight.  There was just no way of knowing until they fired all of their missiles and switched to another weapon system, much as his fighters would.  For now they were no longer a worry.  When they entered normal space again, and then left it to go back into warp, he would change vectors yet again.  And hopefully they would miss again, and keep missing.

“Some of their ships are falling off the plot, sir,” announced the chief tactical officer of the fleet.  “Our wormhole missiles must be getting to them.”  Almost four hundred ships fell off the plot as the missiles came out of the silence of space and went active, coming in at point nine-five light, enough speed to take out any ship with the kinetic energy alone.  Thirteen hundred and fifty weapons, they had achieved a hit rate of almost thirty percent, very good in any case.  The next waves probably wouldn’t achieve that kind of a hit rate, but should still whittle them down with each wave.

Thirty seconds later the second wave hit, but only a few ships fell off this time.

“Something is wrong, sir.  We should have gotten a much better kill ratio, even if their defensive systems are all active.  They can’t have hit that many of them.”

Lenkowski had to agree.  When the missiles went active they would be evading all the way into their targets.  Objects travelling that fast, with almost all of their energy still aboard and capable of shifting at over ten thousand gravities, would be very hard targets to hit.  The lasers of an integrated defense would, or course, hit some of them, up to two thirds in all probability.  But that left over four hundred that should have still been able to seek out targets, and at least a third of those would hit.  So there was something else going on.

“They must be firing continuous wide spreads of lasers, sir,” said the tactical officer, looking up from his board.  “I had read where the Machines were defending like that against our wormhole launched missiles in the Bolthole sector.”

Len nodded.  He had read those reports as well.  He doubted the counter used by the humans in that sector would work here.  They had fired missiles without warheads, figuring that the kinetic release would be enough.  He didn’t think it would work in this case.  They had been firing at slow moving objects over a hundred kilometers in width.  Here they were firing at much smaller, much more nimble ships.  But it might be worth a try when they had fired the missiles already accelerating in the tubes.  He wouldn’t dare ask them to abort those runs, which would take time to decelerate them down to a stop, then replace them and accelerate again.  But possibly the next run.  This battle wasn’t going to be over soon.  There would be a lot of fire and counter fire, and the side that still had working ships would be the winner.

“We have missiles coming in from the direction of the enemy fleet, sir.  Range, ten light seconds.  Velocity, point eight light.”

Lenkowski looked over at the plot, a feeling of panic in his chest.  They launched wormhole missiles as well, he thought as the objects closed with his fleet.  Five hundred of them, not the mass of his launches, or the velocity.  So they were still using a much more primitive launch system, which didn’t mean it wouldn’t be effective.

All of the ships in the fleet that could range on them opened fire, laser and particle beams, close in projectile weapons when they got within a light second.  Counters were useless.  They were too close to activate and acquire a target.  The defenses picked off almost half the incoming missiles.  The rest acquired targets and went in for the kill, over two hundred getting hits.  One hundred and eighty-four ships went off the plot as they turned into expanding clouds of plasma.  A score more were badly damaged.

“All ships,” yelled out Len, looking at the com officer, getting her attention so she could relay the order.  “Wide angle lasers on the point of approach, particle beams to hit targets as they acquire.  All close in weapons to fire as soon as missiles appear on the plot.”

They could fire the lasers pretty much indefinitely, as long as they had energy and some time to cool them down.  Particle beams depended on protons or antiprotons, also in large supply aboard every ship, though not unlimited.  Close in weapons required ammunition, and it could run out very quickly in a battle.  Ships now carried more of the magrail machine cannon, but ammunition allotment per gun had not gone up.

The next wave of missiles came onto the plot seconds after bright pinpoints in the dark indicated that some had fallen to lasers.  More exploded as they got closer, the heat overload breaching warheads.  But not enough, and more than four hundred still were on the plot when the particle beams started to fire.

Particle beams were a smidgeon slower than lasers, but were much more powerful.  A hit would burn through the missile in an instant, which was normally longer than they actually made contact.  Still, they knocked out over fifty, and the close in weapons came online to kill a hundred more.  Again, almost two hundred ships were hit or suffered close misses.  Sixty-two were killed, the others damaged, most heavily.

“Shift fleet to port at maximum acceleration,” ordered Lenkowski, falling back in his chair and hitting the self-linking restraints.  Like everyone aboard every ship he was in battle armor, the last chance of survival in a battle if the hull was penetrated or objects exploded within it.  The links grabbed ahold of his suit and pulled him close, just before the ship went into maximum acceleration along the ordered vector.

The gee forces pulled the admiral against the side of his suit.  He had not ordered maximum safe acceleration, and the ship went twelve gravities over the limit of the inertial compensators.  There was a slight chance of complete failure, in which case everyone aboard the afflicted ship would be mashed to jelly inside their suits.

The second wave came in after the fleet had shifted over three hundred kilometers.  Not enough.  Not nearly enough, though the wide beam lasers did knock out well over half of them.  He still lost fifteen ships, with a few more damaged.  The fleet shifted another three hundred kilometers by the time the next wave arrived, and this time even more missiles were taken out, though they still lost a half dozen ships.  The fourth wave arrived with most of the missiles not in line with the targets.  Some were able to shift by boosting to full power, making them easier targets to track.  Some couldn’t pull enough vector change and completely missed.

The fifth wave was the last.  By that time the crews had suffered through five minutes of too many gravities.  Only their better than average physiologies and their suits kept them conscious, and even so, their vision was blurred, their brains functioning at half efficiency.  The fifth wave mostly missed, though they still lost a pair of destroyers.

“That didn’t work as well as I had hoped,” said Lenkowski, working a kink out of his neck after they had taken off the excess gees.

“If we had started earlier it might have, Admiral,” said the tactical officer.

“Make sure we keep varying our vector, navigator.  They might bring another one in on us.”

It seemed they were only able to fire five waves before they ran out of weapons.  Since he didn’t know what kind of launch mechanism they were using, he could assume that was all that would come in with the next waves, but not when they would come.

“Next waves of wormhole launches are ready, sir.”

Lenkowski looked over at a readout hanging in a holo screen in the air.  He hadn’t lost any wormholes, and was still at full capability there.  Now he had almost fourteen thousand of the preaccelerated missiles ready to go.

“Fire half the tubes to their port, set to curve their vectors in toward the enemy fleet.  We’ll see if we can avoid their laser fire.  Fire the other tubes to starboard using the opposite curve.”

That might work, avoiding their fire and possibly hitting them if they moved in either direction.

“The enemy is firing another mass of conventional missiles, sir.  On a heading straight for us.”

“Return fire.  Match them missile for missile.”

Len looked at the plot with concern.  He still thought he had this battle, but he had been planning on limiting his losses.  He would have another series of battles to fight after this one, and even though he would be heavily reinforced, he would still prefer to have as much of his fleet intact after this fight as possible.  And, despite his advanced fighters and the weapons aboard the intertialess birds, this looked like it was going to be a heavy weight slugfest, with victory going to whoever could hit the hardest.

*     *     *

“May the Gods curse them,” screamed the high admiral at the top of his lungs.  A moment before he had still possessed five wormholes.  Now he had two.  What the hell possessed those damned fighters to launch into my command ships?  They had come in on a vector that took them into the center of his formation, launching into his largest vessels and taking out over two hundred of them, including three of the wormhole bearers.  Over three hundred of the craft had flown through his formation.  Four had collided with some of his ships, their warp field ripping apart matter and destroying two scouts, while damaging a cruiser and a capital ship.  Seven more had fallen to lucky hits by counters or close in weapons.  It was not a fair return to his mind, and more ships had been damaged by the shifting warp fields of the maneuvering fighters.

His command was now packed together for mutual defense, despite the danger of the weapons launched from the inertialess fighters.  Right now the warp ships were the concern, and the tighter his fleet was packed, the more chance they had of killing some on the next pass.

“We’re picking up inertialess ships, my Lord.  They’re close.  Very close.”

The high admiral cursed again.  They could tell that they were close from the resonances that rebounded through hyperspace, and when they were close enough they could get a general bearing.  What they couldn’t do was tell exactly where they were.

“Order dispersal,” yelled the high admiral, hoping he was in time.  “Fire all close in weapons on the predicted bearing.”

Suddenly the pentaton explosives started flaring inside the fleet.  Ships started falling off the plot by the dozens with each blast.  They were so close that no blast hit less than three ships.

The high admiral watched in horror as his fleet was gutted by the attack.  He had made a mistake.  The warp fighters had panicked him, and he had shifted into just the type of formation that the inertialess craft and their powerful new weapons could take advantage of.  His last thought was that he had failed.  His fleet would die in this system.  He, of course, never saw the blast that went off two hundred meters from the port side of his ship, turning it into a mass of plasma as it fell apart and antimatter breached.

Moments later the wormhole launched missiles of the two smaller human forces arrived. At just the right moment to cause maximum damage, taking advantage of the total confusion in the Ca’cadasan ranks.  The battle would continue for another day, with maneuver and counter-maneuver.  But for all intents and purposes the Empire had won the fight, though the dying would continue for longer than that last day of battle.

*      *     *

Commodore Ivan Stendanko watched helplessly as the remaining missiles of the first wave came slashing through the defenses.  Almost eight thousand weapons, the remains of the quarter of million missiles in the original launch, closed with the ships and defensive platforms in front of the planet.  Counter missiles, lasers and close in weapons slashed them from space by the hundreds.  Some crashed into the debris that was placed as a barrier, others hit orbiting factories, and two of the space docks went up in blasts of fury.  And when it was over the planet had survived.  All seemed well, except that the second wave was only thirty seconds behind, and there were still twenty thousand in that group.

The defenders fought hard to prevent strikes to the planet.  Every ship, every defensive platform went up in plasma as they performed their last duty, planned or not, and interposed themselves between planet and missiles.  The commodore watched as every object in orbit was destroyed.  He never saw the hits to the planet, a mercy, as the fortress was hit by eleven missiles within less than a second.  It died, and kept those almost a dozen missiles from hitting the planet.  It didn’t prevent the twenty-three that made it through from hitting the world at relativistic speeds.

Four missiles hit the smallish southern continent.  Waves of fire swept over the four million square kilometers of woods and grasslands, wiping out every living thing down to the microbes.  Seventy-nine million people were sheltered, many in the strong battleship capsules, millions more in makeshift structures.  It didn’t matter, as the huge craters gouged out millions of cubic kilometers, and seismic waves took out every other structure, surface and sub, on the continent.  Magma flew high into the sky at the four impact points, and molten rock would flow for years across the landscape.

Three missiles hit the west coast of the largest continent in the northern hemisphere.  Another seven million square kilometers were obliterated, another three hundred million people were killed.  Another huge area became a moonscape of molten rock.  The rest of the weapons came down in the great ocean separating eastern and western continents.  They blasted through water and crust with equal ease, generating seismic waves ten kilometers in height that moved out from the impact areas at many times the speed of sound.  As on the land, magma spewed up to the edge of the atmosphere, while columns of superheated steam rose along the sides, keeping the ocean from returning.

Almost four hundred million died, but due to good fortune, over sixteen hundred million survived.  The planet was dead, but most of the population had survived, and the world would live again, thanks to the biological samples that had been gathered of all the life forms of the body.

*     *     *

The losses had been heavier than hoped.  Lenkowski looked at the final figures as his ship prepared to go back through the gate to the next rally point.  The Caca fleet had been totally destroyed.  There had been some few ships who had surrendered.  They had found that not all of the big aliens were so willing to die in a battle that had already been lost.

They had accomplished their mission, partially.  They had destroyed the enemy fleet but had not saved the planet.  On the other hand most of the human population of that planet had survived, and would continue to survive as food and supplies were brought in for them.  The left wing of the Cacas had been defeated utterly, but the final section, the body, was still forging ahead.  And now it was time to confront that body and destroy it as well.

Len looked over the reinforcements that would be awaiting him.  His fleet would be brought back up to greater strength than it had entered this battle with.  He would have Crakista and Elysium fleets added to his force, and over five hundred wormholes.  And more of the fighters.

We’re going to leave you behind, old girl, thought the admiral as he patted the arm of his command chair.  It was still a new ship, less than two years in service.  And the new fighter and their tactics had already rendered it all but obsolete.  And when the Cacas got more of the inertialess fighters, and developed the tactics to use them effectively?  When they started building their own warp fighters.  Then battles within systems would change forever.

You’ll still be useful in hyper, thought the admiral, thinking that the super heavy battleship might not be so obsolete after all.  Inertialess and warp fighters were useless in hyper, at least so far.  They couldn’t keep up, so even if they carried missiles capable of jumping dimensions, they would rarely get a chance to fire.

“Meeting in one hour,” said the admiral into the com before he got up from his chair and headed for the hatch.  He didn’t have time to think of what might be in the years to come.  He had a battle to fight, and this time he needed to use his wits to take all the advantages away from the enemy.

Chapter Fourteen

If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of. Bruce Lee

“There seems to be nothing here but a small system defense force, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.

The force commander, a male who would be looking at admiral’s rank sometime in the future, if he survived, gave a head motion of acknowledgement.  He hadn’t been looking forward to ranging ahead of the rest of the fleet with such a small force.  True, he had forty battleships, fifty-one cruisers and a hundred and seven scouts, a total of one hundred and ninety-eight warships, but this campaign was seeing thousands of ships meeting in single star systems to battle it out to the death.  His force was much too small to survive against a major force.  But the great admiral had decided that something needed to be done to confuse the enemy, and possibly take out a major system before they could reinforce it.  And it looked like the great admiral had made a wise decision.

“Force near the planet seems to consist of a single of their large cruisers, three of the smaller class, and nine escorts.  We are also picking up a trio of forts in orbit around the world.”

The forts were not a concern.  They had limited mobility, and a volley of missiles would take them out.  They were an idea whose time had come and gone, and it seemed stupid that both sides still used them.  The defense force was pathetic in its weakness, and would be brushed aside without a concern.  But the whole setup set off alarms in the commander.  There might be more ships in this system, lying doggo, powered down and waiting.  The safest thing to do would be to fire missiles from out here and just blast the planet.  But the commander was a true believer in the ecological religion that had arose when alien invaders almost rendered the homeworld lifeless, and it was against that religion to kill living worlds.  The Emperor had issued a special dispensation against worlds with mostly human ecosystems, so called terraformed planets, which were already seen as blasphemy by most Ca’cadasans.  He wasn’t sure if this was one of those.

“Set us onto a least time course to the planet.  We will see what they have there, then pound their cities and installations into dust from space.  Leave a scout group out here to observe and report back.”  He didn’t have to add that the group would jump out if the rest of his force was destroyed, to report that he had failed in his mission.

Eight scouts remained behind, decelerating so they could get back beyond the barrier, while the remaining one hundred and ninety ships of the force accelerated inward.  It would take them about thirty-seven hours to come to a rest near the planet orbiting the K class star.

*     *     *

“You will defend us,” shouted Governor Johannes Paulus into the com.

Captain Searcy McTavish wasn’t sure if the man was shouting a question or an order.  Either way, she had her orders, and they weren’t to get her command blown out of space for no positive result.  Then again, if this enemy took them under fire from range they wouldn’t survive the missile storm.  Not even her own ship, the heavy cruiser New Lancaster, her largest unit.  And next to nothing compared to two score twenty-five million ton monsters heading her way.

We’re going to die anyway, she thought.  Might as well die trying to save some of the civilians.  There was a chance that the Cacas wouldn’t fire on the world, and they might be able to get some licks in when they closed.  If they bugged out they would present a target the enemy wouldn’t fail to engage, and then they would be dead for sure.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know if anything was coming to their aid.  She didn’t have one of the scarce wormholes, not even a single one of the aliens the Empire had discovered that would have allowed them instantaneous com back to headquarters.

“We will try to defend your world as long as we can, Governor,” she said to the frightened face in the holo.  “I would suggest that you get everyone you can into your shelters, and prepare your defenses.”

She didn’t think that would do much.  If the Cacas didn’t hit them with missiles, they would come in and pound them from close in with kinetics.   They might just do both, since the shelters could survive a planetary missile strike, if it didn’t come down on top of them.  But the best shelter made couldn’t take multiple heavy kinetic hits.  And then the Cacas would land to make sure every human was dead.  The system should have had a larger defense force, though even the one that had been here until recently wouldn’t have stood up to this group.  And the wormhole gate that was supposed to have been installed here had found other duties, so there would not be any reinforcements through it, or any evacuation.

“We’ll do what we can, but you know we’re dead if you don’t stop them.  I don’t want to be slaughtered like a steer and processed into rations for the bastards.”

“Understood,” said McTavish, nodding.  She terminated the connection, not wanting to stare at yet another terrified face when she could see the same thing in the mirror.  She stared at the space where the holo had projected for a moment, thinking about the short fight to come.  She didn’t want to be here.  Her husband was a civilian, and he was looking after their three children, on a world on the border with the Empire.  About as safe as could be at the moment.  Those billions of people on the surface were not as safe as could be.  Mothers and fathers would be telling their children that everything would be alright, as they led them into the shelters that would become their tombs.

“Order all ships to form a defensive screen between the Cacas and the planet,” she told her com officer, seeing the fear on that man’s face.  She could smell the type of sweat that came from terrified men and women.  They knew they were going to die, even if they took an equal mass of enemy ships with them, the best-case scenario.  Taking the bastards with them sounded all well and good in the entertainment vids, or novels.  It didn’t sound quite so inspiring when they were actually facing a situation like it in real life.

“All commanders acknowledge,” said the com officer, his voice hushed.

“I think we have some time before we’re actually in combat,” McTavish said to the bridge crew.  “Send first shift to meals and rest.”

She wondered how many would be able to eat, how many to sleep?  She doubted there would be many, and she wouldn’t be one of those fortunate enough to sleep.

*     *     *

“Preparing to jump to normal space, Captain,” came the voice over the com.

“We’re ready to go whenever you give us the word,” said the wing commander, Captain Kinsey Landruff, sitting in the cockpit of her warp fighter.

Her wing was hangered on two fleet carriers, hyper VII warships in the ten million ton range.  Not heavily armed or armored, their entire purpose was to take smaller combat craft between the stars.   In this case they would be dropping into normal space just inside the hyper III barrier, while they were in hyper II.  Since the carriers were moving at point three light so they could jump all the way in, the fighters could actually cover the distance faster in normal space at a pseudospeed of twenty lights, well above the hyperspace equivalent speed of eleven point six c.

“Making final jump, now,” called out the bridge.

The translation nausea hit, then left, and immediately the hangar doors opened ahead of the warp craft, leaving their egress open to space.

“Take her out,” the captain ordered the pilot, who eased the ship into the void, eighteen light hours out from the planet they had come to save.

The ships to either side slid out at the same time, moving until they had some separation from the carrier, then spreading out.  The rest of the wing was egressing through other hatches, or coming out behind them, until all four of the squadrons plus her command wing were out and moving toward the target world.  Another four squadrons came out of the other carrier, and soon one hundred and fourteen of the advanced attack craft were in space.  Landruff wished she had more, but this was all command was willing to give her for this mission.  Still, they were something the Cacas didn’t know how to deal with, yet, so it should be enough.

“All ships.  Go to the heading on your navigation consoles at warp twenty.  Repeat.  Ordered heading at warp twenty.  We will decide on our attack profile when we arrive.  Landruff out.

“Take her up to twenty, Mac,” she ordered the pilot.  “Let’s let the Cacas know that they are not alone.”

In seconds all of the ships were moving into the system with warp drives at full.  The ships were spread out so that no one was in danger of entering the warp field of another.  Early tests had shown that it was not a good idea, since one or both ships often came apart from the stress.

The Cacas would not be able to track them until they reached about four light hours range.  They would cover the eighteen light hours in fifty-four minutes, the last four in twelve.  They could commit to battle or not at the end of that span, while the Cacas had no choice, since it would take them at least a couple of hours to stop before they could head back out to the barrier.

*     *      *

“My Lord.  We are picking up human ships moving in hyper VII on a heading for the system.”

“Well, what are they?” asked the commander, impatient that the male was, to his mind, withholding information.

“Estimating two capital ships, six of their cruiser class and ten escorts.”

The commander felt himself relaxing.  That was not enough of a force to threaten his.  If they came into the system he would blow them apart, even if they happened to have some of their wormhole weapons aboard.  Unless it was just the scout group for a larger force.

He followed the force through the dimensions until they had almost reached the hyper III barrier, then jumped into normal space.

“Why, by all the Gods, would they jump into normal space that far out?” he asked his tactical officer.

“I don’t know, my Lord.  Unless they wanted to get a look at the system before they came on.”

“Fourteen hours out?” asked the commander with a huff.  “They can’t be that stupid.  Even if they have wormholes, it would still take about fifteen hours to get their missiles in.”

“It makes no sense, my Lord.  I cannot guess their purpose.”

The force continued inward, accelerating at five hundred and twenty-five gravities.  They would start decelerating just before the halfway point, taking into account the velocity they had already brought into the system.  Forty-five minutes after picking up the translations of the Imperial force into normal space they found out why those ships had dropped out that far from the star.

“There are one hundred and fourteen of them, my Lord.  Estimating that they are traveling at twenty times light speed.”

That fast, thought the commander, a sense of panic coming over him.  Of course they really weren’t going that fast, but the effect of the warp was as if they were.  He had been briefed about these things, the newest technological trick the humans had come up with.  He had been assured that his side would have the same ships, eventually.  Eventually didn’t help on this campaign.

“When will they get here?”

“ETA, nine minutes.”

The commander tried to think of a defense they could use against these things.  The only one he could think of was to avoid them.  Unless.

“Fire a volley of missiles at the point where they will arrive at in eight and a half minutes,” ordered the commander.

“The closest we can come to that point is six seconds from contact, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.

“Then do that.  Immediately.”

He could only hope that a couple of thousand missiles exploding in front of them might do something.  If not destroy them, at least make them turn away.  The commander knew how unlikely that was.  The humans were not cowards.  Even if he got lucky and blotted half of their attack formation away, the rest would still attack.

“Prepare close in weapons, counters, everything we have.  I want them intersecting those things at closest approach.”

The tactical officer looked at him with a disbelieving expression.

“Just do it,” yelled the commander, turning to walk back to his chair and throw himself in it.  “And send a message to the force we left in the outer system.”  At least if they kill us, word will still get back to the fleet.

*     *     *

“I’m not sure what these things, are, ma’am,” said the tactical officer as they picked up the incoming objects.  “Whatever they are, they are flat out moving.”

“Faster than light?” asked McTavish, shaking her head.  “That’s impossible.”

“The inertialess fighters do it,” said the helmsman.

“Not that fast,” replied the tactical officer.  “And we can’t track inertialess fighters.  Not like this.”

“Whatever it is, it seems to be scaring the shit out of the Cacas,” said the captain, watching as missile icons appeared on the plot, heading back toward the approaching objects.  Or, in reality, decelerating so that the ships were leaving them behind.  “If they’re our relief, I don’t care if faeries are pushing them through space.”

There were nods around the bridge.  It was obvious that the objects were not of Caca origin.  And if they took out the Caca force, it didn’t matter what they were.

*     *     *

“Send a signal to Lt. Chu.  He is to lead his flight out to those other ships and destroy them.  I don’t want the Caca command to have any idea what happened here.”

The Klassekian com tech nodded at the captain and started sending the order.  Moments later a flight of four ships stopped dead in space, rotated around, and warped back up to twenty lights on a heading for the Caca ships about forty light minutes away.  They were still not back to the barrier, but would get there in about thirty-five minutes.  Unfortunately for them, the fighters would reach them in two.

“The enemy has launched missiles, ma’am,” said Ensign McCallister, the pilot.

“Take us on a course around them.  Let’s come in from the side and hit them in the flank.”

One hundred and ten craft stopped dead in space after disengaging their warp, light minutes away from the missiles.  A couple of turns in space, reengaging warp after each turn, and they were coming in on the flank of the Caca force.  At a light minute range they dropped their missiles, two from each craft.  The weapons dropped out of warp, got a look at the targets, then went back into faster than light, speeding into the enemy in three seconds.  Two hundred and twenty missiles entered the close in defense range, negotiating the mass of fire the ships were putting out.  Normal missiles would have lost over half their number.  The warp missiles only lost a half dozen of theirs.  In an instant most of the Caca cruisers and scouts were hit, many going up in clouds of plasma, some still limping ahead.  All of the forty capital ships took at least one hit, and two exploded.  All were damaged.

“Come about for second missile run,” ordered the captain.  “Let’s take out the garbage.”

At the end of the second run there were only seventeen badly damaged superbattleships left in the force.  McTavish was thinking about going back to rearm missiles to hit them again, when the Republic force by the planet fired three volleys of missiles.  She ordered her wing to head for the planet, where she could talk with that commander and let that person know they were no longer in danger.

*     *     *

“We have a report from the fronts, Supreme Lord,” said the bowing male, the supreme admiral of the Ca’cadasan fleet.

The Supreme Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire, Jresstratta IV, gave a head nod to the male to straighten.  He noted that the male seemed nervous, not a good sign.

“What has gone wrong?”

“Supreme Lord, the fleet that has invaded Fenri space has fallen behind the time table, but are still forging ahead, and should be in human space within another month.”

The Emperor stared open mouthed at his subordinate.  The time table called for that force to have pushed into the human empire within a month.  They had been there three weeks, and now command was estimating it would still be a month before they broke out into human space.

“I thought their force in that region was weak, since they had sent so many ships to the other flank.”

“They are fighting a battle of maneuver against us, Supreme Lord.  Something they are very good at.  They are raiding our supply lines, destroying tankers and resupply ships.”

And something we are not very good at, he means, thought the Emperor.  That was something they needed to get better at if they were going to win this fight.

“They are also arming the former Fenri slaves, who will go to any lengths to kill their former masters, or anyone helping their former masters, such as ourselves.”

The Emperor thought about that for a second as well.  If the humans ever invaded Ca’cadasan space, they could expect the same from their slaves.

“And their new fighters have come as a shock.”

“What new fighters?” asked the Emperor.  This was the first he had heard about any new ships of any kind.

“They have deployed fighter/attack craft that use the old space warping technology we left so many millennia ago.  They have found, as have we, that they do very well within star systems, where their slow interstellar speed still makes them extremely fast.”

“And why did we get rid of this tech if it’s so useful?”

“When we developed travel through hyperspace, it was deemed obsolete.  A ship in hyper III can attain a pseudospeed of one hundred and forty-one times the speed of light, while the space warping drive could only get up to a hundred times at most.”

“But the humans have found a use for them,” growled the Emperor.  “Do they have to come out of warp to attack?  How effective have our defenses been against them when they have?”

The officer looked distinctly uncomfortable as he looked at the Emperor.  “They do not have to come out to attack.  They drop warp capable missiles that run straight and true to the target.  The warp field bursts through screens and armor like it isn’t there, and the warhead explodes under the armor.”

“Wonderful.  Then we need to develop these ships as well.  See to it.”  The Emperor stared at him for a moment longer, waiting for the admiral to speak.  When he didn’t the Emperor’s glance turned into a glare.  “What else is going wrong?  Have our own inertialess fighters performed as expected?”

“Yes and no, Supreme Lord.  They have consistently achieved the estimated speed, but they have trouble finding their targets.  The humans can tell they are there and move before they come out of their bubble.  And we have no way of redirecting them.”

“The humans used them successfully before they found these creatures that could communicate through quantum connections.”  As far as the Emperor was concerned, it could have been magic.  All he knew was that the enemy had such beings, and he did not.

“That was before we were able to partially track them, Supreme Lord.  When we didn’t know they were there, we didn’t feel the need to move at random when we weren’t about to get hit with missiles.  When we were able to tell they were there, and knew what they could do, evasive maneuvers became a normal procedure, and they had trouble hitting our forces.  With their instantaneous com they can change their vectors onto our forces and hit them regardless.  They also have a new weapon for those fighters, one that uses the inertial rebound effect to produce an extremely powerful blast.  It’s not very accurate though,” said the admiral in a rushed voice, trying to get some good news into the conversation.

“So what happens when they do hit, Supreme Admiral?”

“Devastation.  Destruction.  As powerful a weapon as we have ever seen outside of the wormhole bombs.”

“I am considering ordering the offensive called off, and the ships to retreat,” said the Emperor, giving a head shake of negation.

“Please, Supreme Lord,” pleaded the admiral, going down to a knee.  “Do not dishonor us so.”

More of our arrogant honor, thought the Emperor, hissing out a breath.  For a time it had served the species well.  They had never backed down from a challenge, never retreated from a threat.  That had cost them in this war.  Cost them entire fleets they couldn’t afford to lose.  On face value, looking at the entire force of the Ca’cadasan military, it would seem that they could afford to lose this one as well.  Appearances were deceiving, and the fleet was bleeding to death in this war.  They needed their military to defend all of their borders, to keep the trillions of slaves under control.  And losing tens of thousands of ships at a time was not a formula for success.

“You have two weeks to make this offensive work,” he told the admiral, backing off from his first inclination of ordering them back at once.  “If it looks like the objectives are not to be met, we will retreat.  Understood?”

The admiral looked at him for a moment with a strange look on his face.  The male had been a warrior for thousands of years, rising up through the ranks, from junior officer to ship commander, to command of larger and larger formations.  And in all that time the Ca’cadasans had ruled everything they could grab, with no power strong enough to stop them.  Some leaders had reconciled themselves to the new reality.  That they were not unbeatable, and sometimes running was the best tactic.  The admiral had not come to that conclusion.  And he was probably also worrying about the price of failure.  Traditionally that meant death.  This male was too intelligent, too competent, to waste in such a manner.  He might not lead the fleet after failure, but he would still hold a position on some planning group or other.

“I, understand, Supreme Lord,” said the male, keeping his eyes lowered.  After a couple of moments the male got to his feet and backed out of the chamber, playing the part of the chastised male perfectly.

The Emperor gave a head motion of negation.  He had stressed upon his high-ranking staff that they were not to bow and scrape around him, and he wondered at the significance of the supreme admiral’s obeisance to him.  Of course the male had to be afraid that he would be executed if his plan failed.  That must be it, thought Jresstratta, putting it out of his mind.

Now he had other things to think about, like developing his own warp fighters, and the pentaton weapons the humans were using from their inertialess fighters.  And his son was due to see him this afternoon.

That was another thing about this war that bothered the Emperor.  He had not had time for his only son, his heir, when the child was at such an impressionable age.

The young Jresstratta came into his father’s study at the appointed time.  He was getting big, not yet an adult, but almost of adult size.  The child had a perpetual scowl on his face, and the Emperor felt his heart go out to his son.  He should be playing with other children, having some fun before the weight of being the adult heir to the throne weighed on him.  If the Emperor had more time he would have spent some with his son, but that was not fated to be.

“How go your studies, my son?” he asked, seeing the scowl deepen.

“It is all useless,” said the young heir.  “Philosophies of beings who have been dead thousands of years, art and drama.  The math and science is somewhat interesting, but even they are boring to a warrior.”

“They are things that an emperor needs to know, my son.”

“What an emperor needs to know is how to smash his enemies.  Like these humans that grandfather decreed exterminated.  An emperor must know how to bring a heavy foot down on them, and to enforce discipline on his males, that they might fight and kill without fear.”

Jresstratta stared at the face of his son for a moment.  The boy would not assume the mantel of Emperor for at least a thousand years, and he would not be going to war in that time.  The empire needed a live heir, not a memory.  In times past heirs had been sent out with the fleet.  Times in which the danger was slight, and they could get some seasoning.  In the war of extermination that was going on at this time the heir could not be risked so.

“I want to command our males, father.  I chaff under these interminable lessons that seem to have no purpose.”

“We are a warrior race, boy,” said Jresstratta, losing a little of his patience at the petulant child.  “But that is not the whole of our culture.  We have art, music, sciences.”

“All of which our slave races do better than we do,” said the young male.  “Our primary skill is war.  And I wish to be a leader of warriors.”

The child turned on his heel and stormed from the chamber without asking permission.  Jresstratta thought of sending some of his guards after the young male, to bring him back for discipline.  But he felt too weary.  He would leave it up to the young male’s teachers to correct him.  Right now he had other things to think about.

*     *     *

Sean sat at his desk, thinking.  Or, if he was really honest, racking himself over the coals for all of his decisions.  They were decisions that had needed to be made.  And every one had cost lives.  Could he have done better?  Assuredly.  Could anyone else have?  Maybe.  Even probably.  He thought his father could have done a better job.  If the bastards who had him killed hadn’t hit the mark.

Maybe we could go back and save him and mother as well.  He thought about how grand it would be to save his brothers and their wives too.  There was so much they could do, if the time strike went forward without consequence.  That was the problem.  Could they guarantee no consequences?  They said they could, but he didn’t know them.  So how could he be sure they were competent and trustworthy enough for him to believe them.

I have to make a decision, he thought.  While he vacillated, millions were dying every week, sometimes every day.  Something had to be done.

“Get me Count Stumpfield,” he said into the air, alerting the private com system that he was in need of its services.  He had made up his mind, for good or ill.  Now they would go through with it, and damn the consequences.

*     *     *

“Sean has agreed to go ahead with the time strike,” said Count Nick Stumpfield, looking around the table.  “And if all goes well with this one, the other should be in the near future.”

Dr. Kenji Guatarrez stared at the man, still wondering how he had gotten himself caught up in this insanity.  Changing the timeline had consequences.  All of his math had indicated such.  And whenever they broached the subject, he was told that they had rescued the heir without any damned consequences.  That might have been a good point, if not for the fact that the heir would have survived if they hadn’t gone back and saved him.  He was alive and well in the rescue bubble, and would have been found by the Imperial Marines moments after he was rescued.  So it really hadn’t been much of a disruption to the timeline after all.

They already had a second wormhole working its way back for the proposed time strike, since the hole they used to retrieve the heir was still travelling into the past.  They had a plan for that one as well, to deliver a wormhole bomb into the center of the emerging Caca fleet in the Cimmeria/Aquilonia system, and save seven billion more lives, including those of the count’s family.

So if they don’t do enough damage to the time-stream by saving three hundred million, they’ll go ahead and try again with twenty times that number.  And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing he could do about it.  He was their prisoner, though they called him a collaborator.

“We have people on board the Donut,” said Thomas Sparkman, one of the count’s primary associates.  Sparkman had training in hyperspace physics, a doctorate he had gotten thanks to the Fleet that he had served as an engineering officer.  The way he talked, the Fleet was one big cluster, and something he was happy to be free of.  Most of the people Kenji had spoken to who had been in the Imperial military had nothing but respect for it, like it or not.  But not this man.  “We just need to find out which launch system the other end of the hole will be attached to, and we can get a few of our people transferred over.”

Guatarrez was sure that the people transferred over would be there in case they needed to do something to the crew of that launch platform, which could only mean that they were prepared to go ahead with the strike even if the Emperor tried to shut them down prior to the launch.  And he was sure that they would stop at nothing to make sure that launch went as planned, no matter how many lives it cost.

“We have the codes to lock out the station systems in whatever control chamber we are in,” said Achieng Okoye.  She was a small woman, originally from New Osaka, and as deadly as a scorpion.  Okoye had been an operative with the Imperial Intelligence Agency, until she had a falling out with its director.  She was augmented, and as far as Guatarrez could see, had nothing in the way of a conscience.  He wondered if it had been removed.  “Once we are in the room, we will be able to keep them from interfering.”

“You know the Emperor is augmented as well, Achieng?”

“In his case it’s genetic augmentation from birth,” said the woman, nodding.  “As good as anything the military and intelligence has.  But he will suspect nothing.  The injection will knock him out as fast as any other human, if we have to use it.  He will make a good hostage if we need one.”

“Are you people crazy?” shouted Guatarrez, standing up from his chair and staring at each of the primary conspirators in turn.  “You are talking about kidnapping the Emperor.”

“And that little bastard was responsible for the death of my world,” roared Stumpfield, spittle flying from his lips as his eyes assumed a wild look.  “I will use him to get my world back, but if it comes to killing him to do so, I will enjoy every minute of it.  Now sit your little ass down.  You will do as we say, unless you want to go back to your cell.”

Kenji stared at the count open mouthed, then sat back in his chair as fast as he could.  He did not want to go back to the cell.  He especially did not want Okoye to work on him some more.  He had thought he would not agree to work with these people when they first took him into their custody.  She had, made him, see the light.  Now he could deny them nothing.

Guatarrez had thought himself a patriot, someone who wouldn’t do anything to harm the empire.  He had an intellectual interest in time travel, and an idea about observing the past.  There was never any intention to actually change the time line, something his calculations had told him could lead to disaster.  There was no way he would ever go against his principles and harm the empire or the human species.  But he hadn’t figured on someone like Okoye, who had learned interrogation in the harsh school of multispecies espionage and sabotage.

“This is just in time,” said Stumpfield.  “The other end of the wormhole will be at the point of decision in less than a week.”

Which was perfect timing, as far as their plans were concerned.  If they didn’t launch on time they would have to dance around in time, moving the wormhole back and forth between dimensions, and then there was always the chance it might collapse.  They would be going ahead with their plan, and there seemed to be no way he could stop them.

Chapter Fifteen

Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out. Stephen Hawking

“They’ve stopped in this system, Admiral.  They’ve been there for almost five days, without any forward movement.”

Lenkowski looked at the plot, trying to figure out what the Cacas were about.  The entire flank had gathered, all three wings, into one massive force.  That made it harder for them to overrun multiple systems, but also presented a united front against the allied forces.  His main force had just arrived, ready to maneuver against the enemy to his advantage.  But they weren’t maneuvering as well, which made his plan useless.

“What are we going to do, sir?” asked Admiral Sheila Tonga, his scout force commander.  “We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“No, Sheila.  We cannot.”  The longer the enemy kept them waiting for a move, the further their offensive through Fenri space would advance.  They couldn’t just sit here in a staring contest while the Fleet was waiting for his ships on Mgonda’s front.  But their entire center gathered in a system was a problem.  Being in the system was the problem.  The defender had the advantage of knowing where everything was in the system, something Lenkowski had used to his advantage in past battles.  They could lie hidden while powered down, waiting to strike when they were ready.  They could set up their own wormholes as gates and bring across more ships and missiles.

“We attack in three days,” said Lenkowski with finality, pointing to the system on the plot.  “I want you to aggressively scout that system.  Drop warp fighters and stealth/attack ships in the outer reaches.  I want as much intelligence as we can gather before we go in, but I don’t want you to risk your ships for little gain.  Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”  The admiral saluted, then the holo died.

Lenkowski sat back in his seat, looking over his order of battle.  It had taken time, and he had taken losses along the way, but now he had gathered the greatest single force in human history.  There were seventy-one of the super heavy battleships, the sisters of Romanov, two thirds of all that were now in service.  Add to them over two hundred of the twenty million ton superbattleships and three thousand standard battleships, VI and VII, and he had the mightiest heavy capital ship force ever gathered.   There were almost four thousand battle cruisers and twenty-two thousand smaller vessels.  Almost the entire Republic fleet was also available, over ten thousand ships.  Crakista and Elysium had both contributed over eight thousand ships each, bringing his total to over fifty-five thousand warships, as well as ten thousand support vessels.

He had fifteen thousand of the old standard fighters, all but obsolete at this point in the war.  They still had a sting, and could also be used to capture the attention of the enemy.  The four thousand inertialess fighters and fifteen hundred warp ships were the strength of his fighter force.  He had enough warp missiles to rearm their carrying vessels with four reloads, but only enough inertia weapons to equip half of his inertialess craft at the start.  More would be available in a couple of weeks.  By then this battle would be over, one way or the other.  And he had over a thousand wormholes, his greatest force multipliers.  He would have even more when it was time to shift to Fenri space, but they were either there or on the way, and would do nothing in this fight.

We would have been able to roll up both of their flank forces with ease, he thought, looking over his order of battle.  Then hit their main force.  They wouldn’t have stood a chance, and we would have sustained minimal casualties.  But now he would have to slug it out with a heavy enemy force, and though he still thought he would win, he was sure to sustain massive losses.

And I don’t even know what they have there.  At least as many ships as were in their other wings?  I would think so.  Which means we’re going to get hammered taking them out.

“I want a staff meeting to convene in one hour,” the admiral said into the com.  If my brain trust can’t come up with something, we’re going to be sending a lot of sympathy messages home.

*     *     *

The great admiral paced his command deck with impatience.  He had set his trap, but the humans had so far refused to stick their snouts into it.  He had over twenty-five thousand warships in the system, his original force plus massive reinforcement from the home worlds, along with several thousand support vessels.  The planet below was free of human infestation, though it was still a living world.  It now swarmed with Cacada males, warriors, and millions of slaves who were fortifying the world to withstand an invasion.  Win or lose here, he was going to make this system expensive for the humans.

Five wormhole gates were established close to the planet.  On the other side were millions of missiles, sitting in space a light hour from the gates, ready to start accelerating on command.  In three hours they could be through the gate in staggered waves, pushing ahead at point eight light.  The space around the system was planted with hundreds of thousands of mines.  He had two thousand of the new inertialess fighters ready to go.  I wish we had some of those warp fighters, but command is saying six months on the outside for deployment, he thought.

Still, this was shaping up to be the largest single system space battle in the history of his Empire.  So far this offensive had been a failure in that he had not achieved any of his objectives, one of which was to rise in the hierarchy of the Empire’s military.  Being as this had always been seen as a decoy mission, to lure most of the enemy forces away from the true offensive, it had worked.  And the great admiral could still count on his sons to achieve rank and prestige if he could gut this enemy force, win or lose.

“We have another translation into normal space, my Lord.  Sixteen light hours outside the system toward the Empire.”

Another one, thought the great admiral, standing and pacing the deck.  “Do we have anything out there to kill them.”

“No, my Lord.  And they are coming through with groups of their scout capitals.  Anything we have on picket would be destroyed for no return.”

The great admiral gave a head motion of acknowledgement.  Up to a couple of years ago the Ca’cadasans were always on attack mode.  Any Ca’cadasan ship would take aggressive action at any time an enemy presented itself.  But that had led to losses with no gain, and the Ca’cadasan military was changing its culture.  They had once called the humans cowards for retreating from untenable situations, but the humans had proven over and over that they could be brave, when they needed to be, and cautious when it was to their benefit.

“So they are getting a view of what we had sixteen hours before,” said the great admiral.  They were still laying mines, but most of the defenses were already in place.  Most had been hidden well before the scouts started showing up, so the humans shouldn’t be able to spot them before they came in force.  If they come in, thought the great admiral, having his doubts.  It might be the smart play to keep them bottled up here, waiting for smaller Ca’cadasan units to leave so they could swallow them up.  But then again, they would not be able to use their new warp fighters in hyper.  Or at least he hoped not.

*     *     *

“And that’s what we have so far, sir,” said Admiral Tonga.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a system with that much Caca firepower in it.  And I have a feeling that they’re not letting us see all of it.”

“I don’t think so either, Sheila.  Unfortunately, we’re going to have to stick our noses in to find out what else they have.  But we may have a way of tripping some of their hidden assets before they’re ready to show them.”  At least I hope so, he thought.

“We go in three days.  We’ll launch our hidden assets today, if possible.  All units will start moving to their assembly points tomorrow, and into the system on their paths of approach the day after.”   And may God have mercy on all of us.  Because win or lose, he was likely to be looking at the greatest loss of human life in any single battle, ever.

“Sir,” said Commander Terrance McGurty, one of his bright young tactical wizards, raising a hand.  “I have an idea.”

Many fleet commanders would not have accepted advice from such a junior officer.  The officer would have made his suggestion to his superiors, and it would have worked its way up the chain of command until it was presented by someone of flag rank.  Lenkowski was not one of those fleet commanders.  He had called his tactical people to this meeting so he could get the input of all of them.  He knew McGurty by reputation.  The man was probably the brightest in his command, and the sooner the man achieved flag rank the better.  He nodded at the officer, ignoring the glares some of the senior staff gave the commander, which the young man dutifully ignored.

“It strikes me, sir, that since ninety percent of all systems are oriented to the galactic plain of the ecliptic, traditionally most forces come in on that orientation.  Also, if they know where the primary world of the system is, they come in from hyper on the least distance straight line approach to the planet.”

“That’s so we have the least time and distance to travel to the planet,” growled a commodore who was in charge of an analyst section.  “I’m not sure why anyone would try any other approach.”

Lenkowski looked at the commodore, with a hand motion ordering him to shut up.  Coming in above the plain of the ecliptic was also a strategy that had been used from time to time.  He thought the young man might have something else in mind.

“I believe the Cacas will think the same, sir,” continued McGurty, motioning with a hand and pulling up a holo schematic of the system.  “They can sometimes pull a surprise, sir.  But as we all know, they’re not the brightest stars in the galaxy.   Even the space in the system is vast, and they can’t cover all of it with mines, if they are using them.”

“I would if I were them,” said Len, nodding again.

“And they are most likely to put them here,” said the commander, highlighting areas of space leading in from the most direct approach to the planet from hyper.  “We can’t be sure how far out they will put them, but a good bet is they will be where their ships aren’t.  Now, since the planet is moving, I’m guessing they will cover this swath to adjust for our arrival.  They could have hundreds of thousands of mines out there.”

Len nodded again.  It was what he would do if he had the resources and was in a defensive position.  Mines were actually small satellites that mounted a sensor suit and contained one or more missiles.  When something entered their range they went active, targeted the enemy, then released the missile.  One in ten might get a hit, but ten thousand of them could theoretically kill a thousand ships.  A hundred thousand could rip the heart out of his fleet.

“So, what are you suggesting, Commander?”

“I think we could vary our approach, and basically take their assets out of the picture.”  The chamber erupted in speech and some yelling.  Someone was calling the young man an idiot.  Many more were supportive of his idea.  McGurty smiled at Lenkowski.  “And about those wormholes of theirs.”

*     *     *

JUNE 9th, 1003.

The task group entered normal space twenty-two light hours out, just beyond the hyper V barrier, about two light hours above the ecliptic.  All hyper VII vessels, the group was made up of fifteen battle cruisers and twenty-five destroyers, and they appeared to the Cacas to be just another scout group, somewhat larger than most.  They entered at point three light and coasted forward.

Moments after entering they released the cargo that had been attached to their hulls.  Six hundred warp fighters, they coasted forward at point three light, propulsion and sensor systems powered down.  The enemy would be lucky to spot them with active sensors if they got within fifteen light minutes, and they happened to be sending pulses right at them.  Their only job for the next couple of days was to coast inward, getting as close as they could to their targets before they activated their systems.

The scout group started to decelerate fifteen minutes after releasing the fighters, changing their vectors to skirt along the hyper barrier.  An hour later they were making the jump to hyper and accelerating again.

An hour later another scout group jumped into normal space fourteen light hours above the ecliptic.  These released three hundred inertialess fighters, also coasting forward at point three light.  All through the day other scout groups jumped in and out, releasing their cargoes, until two thousand inertialess fighters and twelve hundred of the warp birds were on their way into the system.  The first act of the play had been set in motion, and the Cacas were not even aware of it.

*     *     *

“Why in the hell don’t they attack?” growled the great admiral, pacing the command deck of his flagship.  Everything was ready for the great decisive battle.  The enemy had been dancing around the system for days now, so he was sure they knew what he had, or at least thought they did.  When they came into the system he would hit them with more than they bargained for.  Or at least that was his plan.

“They have to attack, my Lord,” said his chief of staff.  “They cannot wait forever outside this system while our other fleet rampages along the other flank.”

And if they do that, we still win, thought the great admiral.  If it tied up so much of their military force, the other prong of the attack would continue to move forward.  And when the offensive in the center kicked off, they would overwhelm what the humans were able to amass on that front.

If they actually have that much of a force outside this system, he thought, anxiously.  His best bet might be to attack out of this system, fanning out and overrunning as many worlds of this smaller human empire as possible.  Maybe meet them in hyper, where their new fighters wouldn’t be effective, or so he hoped.

But no, the Emperor himself had ordered him to hold here, on the assumption that the humans and their allies would amass the necessary force to bring him to battle and destroy his force.

Two million mines, millions of wormhole launched missiles.  How can we fail, if the damnable creatures actually attack us?

“We’re picking up ships incoming in hyper, my Lord,” called out the chief tactical officer for the fleet.  “On predicted approach.”

That’s different, thought the great admiral, who had been watching their scout forces pop up in all kinds of unexpected positions outside the system over the past couple of days.  There had seemed to be no real pattern to their entries.  Along the plain of the ecliptic, above and below it, on all angles of approach to the star.  It made him wonder if they were going to try something unusual.  Maybe something that bypassed his mines.  But they would not be able to bypass his wormhole launched missiles, since the gates could be turned to cover any approach on this side of the star.

“How many ships?”

“Two thousand so far, with more appearing each minute.  It looks like a major force, my Lord.”

And so it begins, thought the great admiral.

*     *     *

“We are moving toward the system through hyper, Admiral Lenkowski,” said the reptilian female on the holo.  “Estimated time of jump to normal space, six hours.”

“Good work, Admiral,” said Lenkowski to the alien commander.  All of her people’s forces were in that approach, as well as a good portion of the Elysium fleet.  Fourteen thousand ships, sure to get the attention of the enemy.  He only hoped the Cacas didn’t have a major force out there waiting for them.  There was no indication of such, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something lying hidden in that space.  The disposition of the known Caca forces argued against it.  They seemed to be setting up an ambush further in.  But if he was mistaken, the allies could end up taking heavy losses, something the Emperor had ordered him to avoid.

His own force, the heart of his fleet, made up of most of his Terran Empire combat units, were still ten hours from reaching the hyper barrier.  Only they had been in normal space for over forty hours, coasting ahead at point five light.  They had entered normal space just outside of detection range, then boosted up to their present velocity, out of the range of grabber detection.  It helped that they were coming in on the other side of the star, using its interference to hide them from the sensor arrays the enemy had placed near the planet.  Of course there were ships on this side as well, watching, but their sensors were not in the class of the system arrays the Cacas had brought in.

“Other groups are on approach, sir,” called Commander McGurty.  Since this plan was for the main part his, Len had thought he would let the young man be in charge of fleet tactical.  “The enemy should be picking them up at any time.”

Two of those forces were carrier groups, coming in at right angles to the planet on either side.  They would launch the rest of the inertialess fighters and the nine hundred remaining warp ships.  And the ten thousand standard fighters that were carried on hulls for this mission.  The third and fourth forces were battle groups, one each coming in from above and below the plain of the ecliptic.  The admiral wasn’t really sure what those forces would accomplish other than grabbing enemy attention.  They would be in position to hit the enemy on attacks of opportunity, depending on how they reacted to the knowledge that they had been tricked.

*     *     *

“We are estimating twenty-five thousand ships, my Lord.  Coming in on three axes of approach, with the largest along the closest path to the planet.”

“Then where are the rest of them?” asked the great admiral.  “Those are not enough ships.  There must be more.”

“That is a very large force, my Lord.  Larger than those that took out the wings.”

“And that was in many separate battles,” growled the admiral, pacing the deck.  “They would have to know we have at least the same force as the wings.  And they would send in enough ships to take care of it.”

“We have many more ships than the wings, my Lord.”

“And they have been scouting us for five days.  They would have to realize we have many more ships.  Even if we only had twenty thousand, this is still not a large enough force to take us on.”

“But they don’t know about our mines, my Lord.  And they must not have accounted for how many wormhole launched missiles we can send at them.”

“I want a hundred thousand of missiles launched through the wormholes as soon as that first force enters normal space,” the great admiral ordered.

“Do you want us to start accelerating them now, my Lord.”

The great admiral thought about that for a moment.  It would take over three hours to accelerate them up to attack speed, sending them through the gates and into this space.  If something happened and the target didn’t come out where they expected, decelerating and possibly jumping back into hyper, those missiles would be sent out into the void with no targets.  They could send orders to decelerate them, but there would be no way they could come back into the system to be reused.

“Wait until they enter normal space and are on the way into the system.  I want to be sure they have committed their force to the system before we fire.”

At the time it had seemed like the smart decision.

*     *     *

“It’s time, ma’am,” said the pilot, looking back from his station.

Captain Anvi Patel had been paying attention to the time herself, and was about to give the order, but the pilot had beaten her to it.  Her wing was on a direct right angle to the planet that was the target, two light hours away, still coasting along at point three light.  All one hundred and three of the craft in her wing were already pointing down toward their target.  Visual sensors had identified the targets, five of them, sitting out in the open.  There were defensive ships clustered around them, enough to defend them from conventional missiles, unless they were coming in overwhelming force.

“Engage,” she ordered, and the pilot went back to his board while the com tech sent the command to the rest of the ships.

All of the ships in her wing engaged their Alcubierre drives within seconds of each other.  The ring around the middle of the fighter started to spin up, until the negative matter within was spun to a significant fraction of light speed.  Grabber units engaged at the same time, sending out waves of gravitons on an interference pattern fore and aft.  The negative matter sent out waves of antigravitons in the same patterns, blending with the gravity waves.  Space in front of the ship on a narrow path compressed out to half a light second, while the space behind expanded by the same ratio.  The ship, now enclosed in a warp bubble, slid through the disruption in space at a pseudospeed of twenty light.  The craft were spaced far enough to each side that they didn’t run into each other’s warp tunnels, something that would result in disaster for at least one of them, if not both.

As soon as the warp drive was engaged the point three light vector was gone, the momentum absorbed in the warp field.  If they were to stop they would be at a dead halt in space, until they boosted along another vector with their grabbers, or engaged warp once again.  They were now almost invulnerable, but they were currently on the tracking sensors of every ship in the system.

The timer over the main viewer showing five and a half minutes to the target.  Hopefully too little time for the enemy to react effectively.  They would soon find out.

*     *     *

“The warp fighter wings have engaged, sir,” said the com officer.  “Inertialess fighters are also boosting at this time.”

“So now they know some of what we have snuck into the system,” said Lenkowski.  “Let’s just hope they accomplish what they were sent in to do.”

“We will be in detection range of enemy pickets in fourteen minutes, sir,” said McGurty.  “Of course, that’s just an estimate.”

Which means they might not pick us up for another thirty minutes, thought Len.  Or they could make us in less than five.  Does it really make that much difference?

“Let me know when the warp fighters finish their strike,” said Len.  If they took out their targets he would feel better about boosting.  Not that it made any difference, since he would be in detection range of the Caca pickets whether the fighters took out their targets or not.

*     *     *

Klaxons went off as warning lights flashed on the bridge.

“What is it?” yelled out the great admiral, jumping to his feet.

“We’re picking up the warp signatures of those new fighters, my Lord.  We’re trying to get a fix on them right now.  We’re also picking up the signals of inertialess fighters.  We can’t tell where they are.  Only that they are within the system.”

And they snuck them in right under our snouts, the bastards, thought the great admiral.  He wasn’t as worried about the warp fighters as the inertialess ones.  The warp fighters were more dangerous, but the new inertia rebound weapons of the older craft were more of a threat to his fleet.

“Send the orders out to battle groups to disperse,” he told his com officer.  He would present them with the most dispersed targets possible.  The weapons were devastating, though very inaccurate, but a lucky hit could take out many ships if they were close enough.  And when the standard missiles came in he would want his ships closer together, where their weapons could cover each other against the incoming weapons.  It would be a dance of maneuver, and if done properly it would really aid him in this battle.  If not, it could be a disaster.

“The fighters are coming in from above the ecliptic, my Lord,” shouted out the panicked tactical officer.  “Speed, twenty lights.  ETA, five minutes.”

The great admiral stared at the male for a moment, his mind trying to work out what they were going for.  His ship?  They had no idea where his ship was among the thousands in the system.  The planet?  Not unless they wanted to slam some relativistic missiles into the world, and that was not something the humans did.  Not to a world that had belonged to them, and they had to hope would be theirs again in the future.  So what?

“The wormholes,” he shouted, looking around the bridge.  “Get those wormhole gates collapsed.  We must get them hidden in ships.  Order our guard vessels to interpose themselves between those fighters and the wormholes.”

“It will take fifteen minutes or more to collapse the gates, my Lord,” cried out the tactical officer.  “And we can’t get very many ships up there in time.”

“Stop them,” yelled the great admiral, swinging four fists down on top of the tactical station.  “Stop them now.  That’s an order.  On your life.”

Fear flashed across the face of the tactical officer, who had no idea how he could fulfill an impossible order.  The attention of the great admiral left him in an instant, the huge male stalking toward the plot to stare at the icons coming down from above.  He clenched and unclenched his fists.  The gates were his most important asset, and the enemy was coming down on them at a speed none of his vessels or missiles could match.

It wasn’t fair that the enemy had ships like that, and he didn’t.  He had been told that his side would have them operational in six months.  But he had four minutes before they ripped the heart out of his plan.

“Order ships to fire everything they have in their path,” he shouted out.  It might not be enough, but it was all he could do.

*     *     *

“Thirty seconds to contact,” called out the pilot.  “Weapons have target configuration and are ready to launch.”

Patel sat in her seat and didn’t say a word.  None needed to be said.  All crews would fire their weapons when the time came.

“We have missile launches from the enemy ships.”

Of course we have, thought the captain.  They were going to put everything they could in front of her wing and try to take them out.  A momentary touch of particle beams or lasers would mean nothing, they wouldn’t get through the warp field.  Close in weapon projectiles would be torn apart by the field.  The same didn’t hold true for counter missiles, and the warheads going off within the field would take out a fighter.  That was the risk, and one they had known about going in.

“Firing now,” called out the pilot.

One hundred and one ships dropped a missile each, the warp weapons engaging their own fields on minimum, only extending them a meter before and behind, then sliding out of the launching vessels’ warp field in a flash.  A warp field could protect an object from a warp field, as long as it wasn’t speared by the compression/expansion tunnel, otherwise they would be torn apart by the gravitational overload.  As soon as they were away from the launching vessels they dropped their fields for a moment, got a look at the target, locked it in, and raised their fields again, and streaked off at twenty lights for the huge objects ahead.

Each wormhole gate was ten kilometers in width, held in place by a ring fifty meters in thickness.  Large targets with very small areas where they could actually sustain damage.  The rest of the gate was the wormhole.  Anything entering that would soon be in other space, and in the form of particles, since an active warp field going through the wormhole would be stressed to the point of collapse, and whatever was inside would collapse with it.

Each wormhole had twenty missiles targeting it, the farthest from the launch twenty-one.   One wormhole was hit by three missiles on the frame.  Each hit cut through the frame, destroying a hundred meters to each side.  Without a constant and consistent ring of negative matter to hold it open the wormhole collapsed, flashing inward at near light speed to disappear, along with the remainder of the frame.  With no opening on one side the connection was gone, and the other opening thousands of light years away disappeared.

Three other wormholes each took one hit, with the same result.  One wormhole survived, for now.

The wing flew through the space in an instant at twenty lights.  One warp fighter hit a counter missile.  The warp field disintegrated the weapon, but the antimatter warhead blew through and vaporized the fighter.  Another fighter hit a cruiser amidships.  The damage to the warship was severe.  That to the fighter was absolute.

And then they were through, with four of their targets destroyed for the loss of two ships.  The warp missiles that did not contact a target flew on.  They were set to fly for one minute, drop their fields, then acquire whatever targets presented themselves.

*     *     *

The great admiral watched in disbelief as four of his five wormholes disappeared.  They hadn’t even known that the enemy had these weapons when the offensive kicked off.  And now they had all but taken away his ace in the hole.

“We still have the one, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.  “We can still get missiles across it.”

A fifth of what they planned.  Not the best of starts to his planned defensive battle.  And the plot was showing another wing of warp fighters, coming in two minutes behind the first.  He didn’t need a seer to tell him what their target would be.  That last wormhole was on borrowed time.

“Order all ships to fire along the approach path of the next group of warp craft.  Everything they have, including full spreads of counters.  And launch every fighter we have that can get there in a minute.  I want them to form a wall.”

This time, when the fighters came through and annihilated his last gate, eight of them were destroyed.  It was not enough.

*     *     *

“They’ve taken down all the wormholes,” said McGurty, a smile on his freckled face, blue eyes shining.

“At least all we know of,” imparted another officer.

“The Cacas didn’t have that many wormholes to start with, and they have other groups of this offensive to support,” said McGurty, glaring at the other officer.

“We will find out in due time,” said Lenkowski.  “Have the standard fighters reached the area of the presumed minefields.”

“They will be entering the area in the next ten minutes, sir.”

Len nodded, looking at the plot.  The fighters were coasting in, of course, not giving off gravitons, powered down and producing very little heat.  At their size they were just about undetectable, and the sensor platform would have to be very close.  It was a dangerous mission, nonetheless.  The fighters had been thought to be near obsolescence as a military concept at the beginning of the war.  They had still been effective in the early stages, striking with these kinds of stealth tactics.  They hadn’t done too well against Caca fighters, which were smaller and more maneuverable.  There had been debate about retiring them, and then the inertialess fighters had burst on the scene, followed by the warp variety.  Which left hundreds of thousands of the older fighters still in service without a real mission.

They were small and fragile, and once they were detected they were easy to kill.  They could still carry a sting, and a group could take out a capital ship with some luck.  Capital ships still carried a squadron or half of one, since they could perform recon duties as well as many larger ships, and they widened the area of any search.  Many of the best pilots had been transferred to the new classes of fighters, leaving average and below to man the old class.  If the Empire had its way, the new classes would be all that were deployed with the Fleet.  Unfortunately, the new classes, and their weapons, required negative matter.  Which was also needed in wormholes.  It was a strategic resource in short supply.  More industrial plants were in the building stage, but they weren’t here yet.  And the old-style fighters were.  Twenty thousand of them spread across a wide cone, looking for mines.  There was only one Klassekian com tech per squadron, but the other fifteen ships of each were close enough for tight beam communications.

“We’ve been made, sir,” called out one of the com officers manning the long communications station on the flag bridge.  The officers were all human, the techs mostly Klassekians.  There were members of their species undergoing officer training, most former members of their own military.  In a year there would be Klassekian com officers aboard Imperial ships.

“What do you have?” asked the admiral.

“Two scout ships, four hundred thousand tons each.  Moving to port at a forty-five degree angle at five hundred and thirty gravities.  They’re grav pulsing as well.  We’re picking up return pulses, or relays, thirty-three light minutes to port.”

They would of course have to relay the signal around the star, since it would absorb any grav waves that tried to pass through it.  Either way, the enemy would now know that something was here.

“Wormhole launch on those scouts.  And launch on the relay ships as well,” said Lenkowski.  “We might as well have some of our pickets go to active sensors.  Not all of them.  Let’s keep them guessing.”

The orders went out, and a hundred scouts started pulsing their active sensors, sending out radar and lidar on a wide beam.  They started getting back hints of returns, enough to send the results to the massive computer systems aboard each vessel.  Hints that showed the most promise resulted in narrow beam sensors.  And over a score of Caca ships showed up on the plot.  To immediately be engaged by missiles.

“Order all ships that have sent out sensor pulses to start boosting to port,” said Len.   He pointed out a couple of squadrons on the plot, a battleship squadron, one of battlecruisers, a group of heavy cruisers, and another of lights.  “And these as well.  All are to boost at full on this course for one half hour.”

That would give the ships further out something to look at while the rest of his force continued to coast in.  They wouldn’t be coasting much longer as it was.  The plan called for them to start boosting and changing their vector in forty-one minutes.  The course would take them around the star at seventy light seconds’ distance, twenty-one million kilometers, using the gravity of the body to help curve them around it.  They would come around and into the view of the planet moving at point four light, heading directly toward the enemy.  It was the reverse of the tactic the Emperor had used to escape the Cacas at Sestius.  They wouldn’t be going quite so close to the star, but they would still pick up a bit of heat on the passage.

*     *     *

“Our pickets are picking up ships on the other side of the star, my Lord,” said the com officer.

“How many?” growled the great admiral, turning away from the plot to walk over to the male’s station.

“About forty, my Lord.  Mostly their small scout class and cruisers, though they have some capital ships.”

“A feint, my Lord,” said the chief of staff, looking at the plot that was now showing the enemy ships, or at least the ships according to the information transmitted by the pickets.

“And what are they feinting for?” asked the great admiral, looking over at the old male.  “What are they trying to cover up?  We can see their other forces coming at us.”

“Grav pulse com coming in, my Lord.  Something is taking out our mines.”

“What?” growled the great admiral, turning to stare at the com officer.

“We, we don’t know, my Lord.  They are reporting that there is nothing on their scans.  Only flashes of laser energy and exploding mines.”

“They are clearing the mines with small stealthy ships,” said the tactical officer.  “That can be the only answer.”

“There are not enough ships coming from that vector,” said the chief of staff.  “That cannot be their main thrust.”

The great admiral stared at the plot, tuning out the conversations going on around him.  No one knew.  It was all just conjecture at this point.  One thing he could be sure of was that wormhole launched missiles were on the way in from every force on his plot, with the exception of the small group maneuvering on the other side of the star.  It looked like the humans were using a complicated plan, one to insure that the Ca’cadasans couldn’t maintain their balance.  The humans were tricksters.   You could never be sure what they were up to until they actually showed their hand.

“Ships in the outer picket are dropping off the plot, my Lord.  Coms are coming in from ships that saw them explode.”

“They’re taking out the pickets with wormhole launches,” said the tactical officer.

“How soon can we expect wormhole missiles to hit any of our deployed forces?” asked the great admiral, his stress rising until his head ached.

“The force in the asteroid belt could be receiving fire in less than forty minutes, if they know where they are,” reported the tactical officer.

“Assume that they do.  Order that force to consolidate for missile defense.”

“And what about their inertialess fighters?” asked the officer.

“We will worry about them when they appear,” growled the great admiral.  They were out there.  Everyone knew it, from the signals they were putting out through all of the dimensions.  But they didn’t know where they were with any certainty.

“Are our inertialess fighters ready?”

“On your command.”

The admiral still wasn’t sure what use they were, since he couldn’t contact them to change vectors like the enemy could theirs.  But he had them, and he needed to use them.

“Launch them at the largest enemy force.  Vector each wing in to hit them across any conceivable move.”  He wouldn’t get all of them onto the enemy force.  But if he tried to send them all at them on their current position, he might not get any of them there.  At least this way he had a chance of getting some onto the target, and the others could still be vectored to later targets after they came out of their field to check the situation.

“And start generating firing solutions on all of their forces.  I want missile launches on them all as soon as possible.”  He thought it about time that he got them reacting to some of his moves, instead of merely dancing to theirs.

*     *      *

“Enemy ships have opened fire on all of our forces that they can see,” announced the com officer.  “And they’re all starting to move.”

“Where are they moving to?” asked Len.

“It looks like they are congregating for missile defense, sir.”

Len smiled.  That was what he would have done as well before the advent of the new inertial rebound missiles.  It was still the smart move against normal missile attacks, and might even eventually work against warp missiles.  But it was the wrong move against the rebound weapons.

“Vector inertialess fighters onto every formation they can get to.  Warp fighters are released to attack targets of opportunity.”

“We’re almost at the point where we need to initiate our own boost, sir.”

“Hit it when the time comes.  Then initiate slingshot on schedule.”

*      *      *

“We’re losing ships on the other side of the star, my Lord.”

“How many of them.  Who is killing them?”

“As far as we can tell, it’s that force we are tracking.  Though it seems a lot of launches, a lot of wormholes for a force that size.”

The great admiral looked at the plot, focusing on those icons that were on a vector to the flank of the star.  There weren’t that many of them, really only a weak task force.  But fifty ships had disappeared in the last couple of minutes.  Unless every single one of those ships had a wormhole, and that would not seem possible.   It could be real, but he doubted it.

“They have a larger force coasting in,” he finally said.  “That small task force is a decoy.”

“We cannot be sure, my Lord.”

“No,” growled the great admiral, raising a pair of left hands to cut off any reply.  “We cannot be sure.  But I feel it in my bones.  The rest of their fleet.  That is where we will find it.”  The great admiral pointed a pair of right index fingers at the plot, a little way from the icons that were already there.  “That is where we will find them.”

“And what do we do about them, my Lord?” asked the chief of staff.

That was the question, and one the great admiral had no answer to.

“More of our mines are going off, my Lord.  We think they are losing some small ships as well, but since they aren’t boosting, we really don’t know.”

We really don’t know much, thought the male.  They knew where some of the enemy forces were, at least half of them, and were launching on them.  And those forces were firing back.  There were surely wormhole launched missiles heading for his main forces, and already hitting some of his that were further out.  There were enemy inertialess fighters out there, as well as their new warp fighters.  The warp fighters were all boosting, so he had a good idea where they were and where they were heading, but wasn’t sure what they could do about it, if anything.

“We fight this battle in front of us, and worry about what we haven’t seen when it comes into view,” he ordered.

“Group six is being hit by their inertialess fighters, my Lord,” called out one of the com techs on the intercom.  “They’re reporting massive blasts, massive losses.”

The plot zoomed in on that force, moving out among the asteroid belt.  It had been firing on the enemy for fifteen minutes, and boosting to try and change its position after wormhole launched missiles had struck.  They were in close formation, so they could put up a wall of laser fire to kill the missiles.  And a number of the inertialess fighters had launched some of their new, ultra-powerful weapons into them, taking out several hundred of the thousand-ship force.

He had planned to bleed the enemy, to hit them over and over again as they fought their way inward.  And they were avoiding everything he had put into place and were ripping his force apart.  The male stared at the plot, wondering what he could do, then came to a decision, one wired into his genes.  To move along the primary course of his people, the one they had followed for ten thousand years.  To attack with everything he had, until either the enemy force, or his, was destroyed.

*     *     *

“Crakista force has just been hit by enemy inertialess fighters, sir,” called out the com officer.   “One wing only.  The others all missed the target.”

Len looked quickly at the plot, zooming in on the right wing of the force that was plowing straight ahead at the enemy.  There were twenty red blotches showing where ships had been destroyed, and about sixty others blinking, indicating damage.  The enemy fighters had already blown through and went back into their bubbles, off the plot.

“They’ve lost four battleships and some cruisers.  The rest were destroyers,” continued the com officer.  “Sixteen battleships damaged.  And they report that the enemy is starting to boost all of their forces their way.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” asked Len, getting up and walking to the plot, which was in the process of repopulating.  “They’re abandoning all of their defenses in orbit around the planet.”

They didn’t have a perfect handle on what the Cacas had at the planet.  They had identified some assets, but had to assume there were more.  Particle and laser beam sats, missile batteries, waves of fighters.  The fighters could go with their fleet, the sats couldn’t.

“It’s the way they used to fight,” replied the tactical officer.  “Before they started getting smart.  Maybe their admiral can’t think of a way to win, so like a wild animal he attacks.”

Len thought about that for a moment.  The Caca admiral had to have a suspicion that he wasn’t going to win this battle in the first place.  But he had expected to destroy a good portion of Lenkowski’s fleet in this fight, and possibly get some of his ships out through the wormholes.  That was no longer possible.

“Starting boost in thirty seconds,” called out the navigator.

And now they will know what is coming for them from around the star, he thought.  It would take them one hour to circumnavigate the central body, and they would keep most of their velocity as they came around.  The enemy would have been moving for that hour, and would be up to about point zero six light.  They would have the catch-up speed, and everything they launched would too.

“Boosting,” called out the navigator, and every ship in the fleet started changing its vector at four hundred and eighty gravities, the most some of the older battleships could make.  At their velocity there wouldn’t be a lot of effective curving from the star, but it would be enough.

“Order the Crakista and Elysium fleets to keep firing at the forces closest to them, and to start deceling.  I want them back across the barrier before the main Caca force gets to them.  Tell their commanders that we’ll take care of the Cacas coming out from the planet.”

The com officer nodded, then got to work on his board, sending out the orders.

Len wanted to destroy this Caca force, and he would have a better chance of doing that if he threw the allied force right into the teeth of the enemy.  But Sean had cautioned him to not throw away too many allied lives.  Not to keep them out of the action, not to keep them in a safe place.  But also not to let them take casualties disproportionate to his own.  They were volunteers in this war, and getting a lot of them killed might not go over well in their homes.

*     *     *

“My lord.  We’re getting signals from the ships that still have over watch on the other side of the star.  The enemy force is boosting.  It looks like they are going to curve around the star and come up on us from behind.”

“How many?” asked the great admiral.

“They’re indicating over twenty thousand, my Lord.”

That’s their main force, thought the great admiral.  They had gotten their main force into the system, just over an hour away from popping around the star and bringing his own fleet under fire, without him knowing it.  There were no minefields on that side, not enough ships, and none of his inertialess fighters.  So they had penetrated deep into the system, and nothing he had could touch them for the next hour.

“What should we do, my Lord?” asked the chief of staff.

The great admiral stared at the other male for a moment.  That male was old, he had already achieved all he would.  His sons were well along in their careers.  He would not be blamed for a historic defeat.

“We can decel and get back to the planet in a couple of hours, my Lord,” said the tactical officer.

And what difference will it make?  “No.  We continue to move out.  We will try to blast through the force waiting out there and get what we can into hyper.”

*     *     *

This was not going to be good.  The enemy had not done what he had expected them to do, not unexpected in its own right.  He would still ream them.  Very few, if any, of their ships would make it out of the system.  He would still lose the same number of vessels, within a couple of percentage points.  The only real problem would be who those ships would belong to.

Sean didn’t want me to get the allies chewed up too badly, he thought with a grimace as he studied the plot.  Well, your Majesty, I’m sorry I failed you this time.  The ships in the enemy’s way were mostly Crakista and Elysium vessels, with a smattering of Republic craft.  They were going to take the brunt of the enemy fire.  And he was sure there would be some in their governments who would blame him, who would say that he had put them on the chopping block to save Imperial lives.

“The enemy is launching another volley at the outer force,” called out the fleet tactical officer.  “That makes ten so far since they started moving.”

And the outer force was firing everything they had, and trying to maneuver back beyond the barrier so they could jump to hyper.  Two problems with that.  The enemy had five times their tubes.  And they would not reach space where they could jump before the missiles got there.  They would take heavy losses.  The Elysium commander had already screamed his panic through the wormhole com.  The Crakista commander was of course outwardly calm, but after dealing with the creatures for some time, he could recognize the anxiety of an officer who was about to see most of her, the people she was responsible for, killed.

“We have firing solutions on the enemy force,” called out the tactical officer.

“Give them everything we’ve got.”

“Even the standard missiles, sir?”

Len knew what the man was asking.  The standard missiles, launched from shipboard tubes, would not reach their targets in time to make much difference.  But they would still give the enemy something to think about.

“Everything,” said the admiral, fixing the other officer’s eyes with his glare.

“Aye, sir.”

The young man really hadn’t deserved that show of anger toward him, but Len was frustrated, and he would be on edge until this battle was over.  Over a hundred wormholes launched their missiles, a stream of more than three thousand traveling at point nine-five light, untraceable until they were very close to the targets.  Thirty seconds later the next streams flew out.  In five minutes there were more than thirty thousand weapons travelling at the enemy.  In the meantime the fleet had launched hundreds of thousands of the standard missiles that would have to accelerate up to attack speed, giving away their locations the entire way.

“Fighters are going in,” reported the com officer.

Those would strike well before any launched missiles.  And though the enemy would know they were coming, there was very little they could do about it.  Five thousand inertialess fighters would go in first, almost half of them carrying the new inertial rebound weapons.  Five minutes later the warp version would attack.  The hope was that they would take out a considerable number of enemy ships.  The reality could go either way.

“Republic outer fleet is reporting a strike by enemy intertialess fighters, sir,” called out a second com officer.  “Several thousand of them.  The admiral is reporting the loss of over two hundred ships, with almost a thousand damaged, including his flag.”

It had to happen eventually, thought Len.  The enemy had been missing in past fights, unable to find the ships that had moved while they were in their bubbles.  This time they had gotten lucky, and the Republic was paying the price.

“We will have new missiles ready to go in fifteen, sir.”

Which meant the other ends of their wormholes were in the process of being moved to new launch tubes, where the missiles were already up to speed.  It would take over an hour for the weapons in the tubes they had just used to get up to launch velocity.  Which meant it would be forty-five minutes before they had more missiles ready after the next launch.

“Yes,” cried out the tactical officer, pumping a fist in the air.

Len looked over to the plot, to see gaps in the enemy fleet appear as rebound weapons went off in close proximity to ships.   It was a lot of ships, at least a couple of thousand, but too many of the rebound weapons had gone off on the perimeter, or missed entirely.  If he had more of those weapons they might be able to take out thousands more of the ships.  But he had no more for this battle.

The warp ships went in next.   Their weapons were not as powerful, though they were a hell of a lot more accurate, and over a thousand more ships were hit, some killed, most damaged to the extent where they would not be able to keep up with the fleet.

“Track their ships.  I want to know as soon as possible if their commander decides to hold back his force to protect them.”  Knowing the Cacas he would bet against it, and several minutes later he knew he would have won his bet.

*     *     *

“We lost over four hundred ships on that last strike, my Lord.  One hundred and thirty-four vaporized, the rest damaged, most critically.”

The great admiral growled deep in his throat.  Only the first wave of wormhole launched weapons had come in with warheads.  His fleet had put out wide beams of laser energy after that first strike.  It was a tactic that had worked in the past, putting enough heat into the missiles to breach their antimatter.  The only problem was the next waves were without warheads.  They would absorb quite a bit of laser energy, sometimes sufficient to render the missile body all but molten, but not enough to destroy the crystal matrix batteries or render the gabber units, which only needed to work for a couple of seconds, inoperable.

A two-hundred-ton missile striking at point nine-five light carried enough kinetic energy to more than make up for the lack of a one gigaton antimatter warhead.  If they hit a twenty-five million ton superbattleship dead center they created a twenty-five-million-ton cloud of plasma.  Striking the bow and stern would take off a good portion of the ship.  Even a glancing blow along the hyperdrive array would cause significant damage to twenty percent or more of the ship.

Thirty seconds later the next wave came in, missiles going active in the last ten seconds, pulling fifteen thousand gravities as they attempted to adjust vectors onto targets.  Some were hit by concentrated laser fire, others by close in projectile weapons.  Some of those still did damage as they broke apart and those pieces hit the vessels.  One missile hit as a spreading molten blob that still burned through armor to turn into expanding plasma within the ship, filling fifty percent of the internal spaces and incinerating everything in its path.  Moments later antimatter breached and the ship turned into expanding plasma itself.

“Our first wave has reached their outer force, my Lord.”

The great admiral watched the plot that was centered on that force, all of its vessels trying to boost out of the system.  Hundreds of icons faded, hits that took out ships.  More lost some of their boost.  Ten seconds later the next wave struck, taking out more ships.

“What do we have left?”

“Four volleys, my Lord.”

“Then launch them at the main enemy force.”  It was apparent that he was not going to get his force out of here.  That had always been a risk.  The other part of his mission had been to cause as many casualties as possible to the enemy force.  He wouldn’t take as many of them with him as he had planned.  But he would maybe take enough out that they wouldn’t have the forces left to stop the center attack.  Which should be coming in several weeks.  He wouldn’t be there to see that victory, but he hoped his death would at least make it possible.

*     *     *

“I am truly sorry, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski to the man in the com holo.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Admiral.  We knew going into that battle that it was going to be a bloodbath.”

“But, all of the allied ships?”

“I have been in contact with both the Elysium and Crakista governments, Len,” said Sean in a calm voice.  “And while they are not happy about their losses, there were no recriminations.  They know that you would not have put their forces at any more risk than your own.”

Len had stared in horror at the losses that the battle had caused.  He had lost over ten thousand ships, more than ten million crew.  Ten million families in four star nations had lost people.  The Cacas had lost many more ships, and probably many more of their male warriors.  For some reason loss ratios did not seem to matter.  He really didn’t care that he had sent more of the enemy to their hell than he had lost.

The Crakista fleet had lost over forty percent of their ships and crews.  Elysium had lost even a higher percentage of the ships they had contributed to his fleet.  The Republic hadn’t lost as many, but they had been harder hit than the Imperial fleet, which had still lost over a thousand ships.  He didn’t know everyone who had been lost, but he had known many of the task force and group commanders who were no longer with them, and many of the captains of his own empire’s ships.  They had known what they were getting themselves into when they had joined up, which still didn’t make it any easier that they had gone toward the guns at his command.

“Are you okay, Admiral?”

“I’m, not sure, your Majesty.”

“We still need you, Len.  You and your fleet.  We have another incursion to fight, and possibly another one after that.  We’re gathering more ships over at Mgonda’s front.  I won’t need you or all of your fleet there.  But intelligence thinks there is another Caca force out there that will be striking, probably in our center, and probably very soon.  I’m going to need your fleet there, ready to fight.”

“I will be there, your Majesty.”  He would follow orders, and try to do whatever his Empire needed of him.  But he wasn’t sure if his heart would be in it.

Chapter Sixteen

Sometimes I wish that I could go into a time machine right now and just look at my self and say, 'Calm down. Things are gonna be fine. Things are gonna be all great. Just relax.' Tristan Wilds

IMPERIAL CENTER.

“Good job, Admiral.  Now you can take a break,” said Sean, looking out of the holo at Lenkowski.

It was the day after the battle, and Len had gotten some rest.  Not enough, and his sleep had been haunted by dreams of dying people.  Many of the crew had not gotten that rest, as there were ships to move through wormhole gates, and the priorities of the fleet came first.

But not all of my people can take a break, can they, your Majesty? thought the frowning officer.  Some of his ships and crews had been through five major battles in the last three weeks. Not all of those were going through the wormholes to Mgonda’s front, but many were.  They had won those battles, a shot in the arm for morale.  But they had taken heavy losses.  Many had been at sensor stations or looking at plots while friendly ships disappeared.  Some had been aboard ships that had been damaged in battle, maybe seeing a crewmate blow apart or crushed.  Millions of crew, all with their own traumas, without the time to process them before they were sent back into battle.

He wanted to shout that at the Emperor.  But from the strained look on Sean’s face, it looked like the young man was dealing with all he could handle, and he didn’t want to add to it.  Len could ask to go along with his redeployed ships, but that Front was Mgonda’s.  The other admiral had also been fighting his own kind of war, a delaying action, hit and run.  His ships and crews would also be worn down, as would be their commander.  They deserved to go on the offensive under the commander they had been fighting for.  And Lenkowski would organize the center for the offensive they were sure was going to fall there.

“Twelfth fleet will be arriving on your positions in the next couple of days,” continued Sean.  “Hopefully nothing will come through before then.”

“If they do, we’ll just have to fight a delaying action and see what opportunities they give us, your Majesty.”  The arriving fleet, along with the ships already in place and the one third of his original force he was bringing with him would give him a much stronger force than he had wielded in the Republic.  Along with them would come another three thousand Crakista ships, most new construction, and fifty wormholes of their own.  There were already three hundred wormholes on the front, and the fleet would be bringing another three hundred with them, including those given to the Crakista.

“Too bad we can’t send wormholes through wormholes, huh,” said Sean, as if reading his thoughts.  “We keep experimenting.  And just when we think we might have the answer, the next trial shows that the last was just a fluke.”

Len had left almost five hundred wormholes behind in the Republic.  Not that they would go to waste.  The Republic fleet that had remained behind would put them to good use.  But he would put them to better use if the Cacas stuck their noses into the empire at this point.

“At least we can move ships from place to place as fast as we want,” continued Sean.

That was not really true.  They could send a ship from place to place instantaneously.  One at a time.  It took time to queue the ships up and move them through.  It would take almost two days to move the ships he was sending to Mgonda through the wormhole gates.  The ones he had kept would not finish reaching him until tomorrow.  And then there were the repair and replenishment ships that would be coming through from the center of the Empire.  Some of his ships were barely battleworthy, and most were low on antimatter and almost dry on missiles.  Until those deficits were corrected they were little more than targets.

“And how are you doing, your Majesty?”

“Why do you ask?” replied Sean, a strange look in his eye.   “It’s not as if I have anything to worry me, with men like you and the Duke running the war.”

“And I know that’s a lie, sir.  Remember, I was the CNO before this mess kicked off.  I know what goes into keeping a fleet running, and all the political bull that goes into that.  And that was during peacetime.  Plus, all the personal garbage that must be coming at you because you are at the top.”

Sean put his face in his hand and rubbed his forehead.  When he looked back up Len could see the exhaustion in his monarch’s face.  The boy is really getting hammered.  I hope it isn’t affecting his decision making.  That would be a disaster.  There was no one in the empire who had the power of this one young man.  If he went completely off the wall and started making crazy decisions, mad demands, the rest of the government would move in and depose him, putting a relative in his place as regent until the heir came of age.  And it would take months, if not years, before everything settled back into the efficient government machine that was currently churning away.  And in the middle of a war like this, they couldn’t afford that.

“I’ll make it, Admiral.  Sure, the pressure is something I couldn’t imagine as a serving officer.  But you and your people are also under a lot of pressure.”  Sean looked off the holo for a moment and nodded, then back at his admiral.  “And it won’t do us any good to get into a contest as to who is under more stress.  We both have what we have, and we have to deal with it, correct.  The Empire depends on us.   And now, I need to go.  Admiral, again I have to tell you how much we appreciate what you have accomplished.  Now get ready to do it again.”

The holo died, leaving Len a moment for his own thoughts.  He had seen the signs of impending breakdown in other people.  Hell, he had seen the signs in himself, and still wasn’t sure how he had avoided his last one.  And the boy looked like he was about to break.  And until he did, there was nothing he could do about it.

I need to talk with Taelis, he thought, sending an order through his implant into the com system.  He wasn’t sure what good it would do, but it would make him feel better.

“Duke Taelis acknowledges your contact,” came the voice of a com officer over the link.  “He is speaking with the Emperor right now, and will contact you as soon as he is free.”

Good, thought Len.  Taelis would hopefully see for himself what was going on.  Then they could talk about…what?  A coup?  That would take more than two admirals, no matter how senior.  He shivered at that thought.  This was something he had never thought he might get involved in, and he still wasn’t sure if he could go through with it if it became necessary.  But if he and the senior officers didn’t, who would?  And if they didn’t, and Sean did break down, what would happen to the empire, and the human species?

*     *     *

Sean sat behind his desk in his temporary office, face in his hands.  He wondered why he was putting up with the stress.  After all, he was going to go ahead with the time strike, and none of this would ever have happened.  So it made no sense to keep pushing himself over something that didn’t matter.  If it works, he thought, looking up and taking in his office, similar to the one he had occupied at the palace, the one that would be his again in another couple of months, when the personal wing of the structure was repaired.  If the time strike works.  One of the conjectures about time travel was that everything that could go wrong would, and no matter how hard they tried the past would remain inviolate.

Then how did they get my son back? he thought, rubbing a hand through his hair.  They had altered the past, with no consequences.  But that had been one little change.  What they were proposing was a big one.  And if it didn’t work, the problems facing the Empire now would still be here, and ignoring them now would snowball into even greater problems.

The Emperor put his face back in his hands, shaking his head slowly from side to side.  Something soft and warm bumped its head against his hands, and he looked up to see a small silky creature looking back at him with big blue eyes.  The cat meowed, a plaintive request for attention.

“I almost forgot about you, Killer,” he said in a soft voice, reaching out and stroking the silky fur.  Killer had been a present to him from the Duchess Lei, the woman who had saved him from certain death.  A pure-bred Himalayan, like all modern cats genetically superior to the originals who had shared home and hearth with humanity for thousands of years, he would live to forty standard years or more.  By luck, or miracle, he had survived the strike on the palace, and had been relocated here with all the other survivors of the disaster.

The cat purred deep in its body, pushing his head back into the pleasuring hand.  Sean looked at the cat, all of his stress melting away for the moment, wishing he could be the cat for a day, an hour.  The beast cared nothing for the complexities of the war.  He cared about food, a warm place to lay, and attention.  Sean lost himself in the moment, wishing it wouldn’t end.

“Priority com for you, your Majesty,” came the call over his office com.   “Admiral McCullom.”

“Sorry, little buddy,” said Sean, trying to shoo the cat away.  “Time for work.”

Killer meowed, stepped forward, and landed in the Emperor’s lap, settling in.  Sean put a hand on the animal and started kneading its fur.  The cat wouldn’t distract him all that much.

“What can I do for you, Sondra.”

*     *     *

“I want our forces moving before another day goes by,” said Mgonda, looking from face to face of the members of his staff.  “I know,” he said, raising a hand to hold off the comments.  “The bulk of our reinforcements won’t be here by then, but we already know where we want to hit them to get them moving where we want.  We will hit them where they are weak, and let the rest of their forces react into our trap.”

Taelis could see the understanding on the faces of most of his people.  There was still some confusion, and he would have to make sure that those passing on the orders would be confident in what they were telling those below them.

He had spent the last month fencing with this enemy, using his rapier against their two-handed sword.  Now he had been given the hammer, and he was anxious to use it.  The enemy was going to pay for what they had done in the former Fenri empire.  He guaranteed it.  He would beat them, destroy them, and send them running back into their own space.  And then he would follow with one of the fleets that had been designated for future offensive operations.

If we have the ships, and if I’m still around, thought the duke with a smile.  He had come from a military family.  His father had been an admiral, and so had his grandfather, great grandfather, and even the great great.  All had been storied fleet officers.  The great great had won the patent of nobility for his action against the Elysium fleet, a quick and dirty war that never should have started.  He had won that patent and the duchy posthumously.  Taelis’ father had also died in action, so the current duke knew the risk.  Tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, and all any man or woman could do was their best, to their last breath.

Taelis was different from Lenkwoski.  They had been friends since they were both junior officers.  Len had been two years ahead of him on Peal Island.  He knew that Len was a good commander, and had also always looked forward to testing himself in fleet command.  But he didn’t relish being in combat, of sending others to die.  Moganda got a true rush from battle, he was a warrior born.  He wasn’t sure how much of that was due to genetics, though his family liked to say it was because they were descended from the warriors of old Africa.  While some of those genes might have passed through the millennia, there had been too much mixing and matching for him to lend much credence to that theory.  But no matter the source, Taelis had always felt drawn to conflict.  While he had led everything from a weapons section on a single ship to a battle group, he had thought he was going to miss out on the ultimate command, fleet.  This war had given him his chance, leading one wing of the fleet, a battle fleet in its own right.  But this was the largest force he would have ever led.

He had over forty thousand ships in his force.  Twenty-five thousand Imperial ships, plus thousands from the four non-human allies.  The Republic would not contribute to this operation, they were still busy cleaning up their own space.  It was hoped they would have ships in the third and last defensive fleet, if the conjecture of intelligence was correct and there was a third enemy force out there waiting to strike.

His force had almost a thousand wormholes.  On paper that looked fantastic.  The problem was, he wouldn’t be able to employ them all in any single action, and some were employed in specialty devices and operations such as gates on planets and heat sinks in stealth platforms.  At most he would be able to employ four hundred in any one action, since they couldn’t put them through the gates.  And there weren’t enough large weapons, preacceleration tubes and particle beam accelerators to service them all. That should still be enough, he thought.  The enemy couldn’t have that many of the portals themselves.  At most a couple of dozen in their entire sector force.  And so far they hadn’t demonstrated any weapons systems such as the empire employed.  From the reports of the actions in the Republic, they had used a makeshift system of sending missiles through in waves after accelerating them through space on the other side of the gate.  That system had worked well enough for the humans in the past, before they had their own preacceleration tubes.  The problem was they had to fire at a predetermined time, since the missiles had to start accelerating many hours before coming through the gate.  The current human system could fire on command, at any time during the battle when targets presented themselves.

Still, it was another complication, and evidence that the enemy was learning.  They were catching up with the humans in many respects, or they would have if the humans were standing still.  The thousands of new warp fighters he would command showed that such was not the case.   They would no longer come as a surprise to the enemy, but they probably wouldn’t need the advantage of surprise.  There seemed to be little the enemy could do about them, their only limitation being their numbers.

The staff meeting convened in the flag conference room aboard Taelis’ ship right on time.  Thanks to the ancient miracle of holography, the room seemed to stretch to three times its actual length, and the living simulations of scores of flag officers and primary assistants were seated in the virtual space.  Taelis still felt a thrill when the space and the people appeared like magic.  Only a short time before he would have had to send all the orders out by courier, and the replies would not get back in time to alter the plan.  And any objections or suggestions the people on the spot had would be mere footnotes in history.  Now they could voice objections and suggestions in time for them to have an effect, if the commander in chief thought they had merit.

A holo of the Fenri front hung in the air over the table, all the major systems glowing brighter than the minors.  Systems the enemy had already taken were red, those still in allied hands were green, while bright yellow marked those where battle was still going on the ground.  Arrows marked the paths of the Caca forces.  Like the battle in the Republic, there were three wide arrows tens of light years wide, with smaller tendrils within.  The center was the widest, with the most tendrils denoting subformations.  And all were now over three quarters of the way through the space of the defunct empire, all pointed toward the territory of Mgonda’s empire.  If not for the efforts of his forces they would have already penetrated into friendly space.

All those beings, thought Taelis, looking closely at the holo, individual stars zooming into his vision as he concentrated on them.  One ballooned into his sight, facts and figures filling in around the planetary system now revealed.  Those figures included population stats, broken down into separate species, and the numbers of Imperial troops versus Caca/Fenri forces engaged in battle.  There were scores of planets where conventional troops under his command still fought, and hundreds where guerilla forces and some unconventional Imperial soldiers battled.  He didn’t like the idea that his people were fighting under the guns of the enemy fleet.  He liked it even less that the former slave species were fighting for their freedom, and dying so that the enemy was distracted.

That’s all they were at the moment, a distraction.  They had been given a taste of freedom by the Empire, self-determination, and were now fighting and dying to keep it.  The great powers had agreed that they would be given that freedom.  Sean had wanted to offer them inclusion into his empire, but the other powers had balked at that possibility.  The Crakista and the multiple peoples of Elysium all thought the human empire was large enough.  So a deal had been worked out between the great powers to reform the former Fenri empire as a confederation, under the control of the former slave species.  The Fenri would also have a place, as just one of many species.  The tasks of the supervising powers would include making sure the Fenri weren’t slaughtered by the other races in an orgy of revenge.  And the bastards weren’t making that task any easier by returning to try and enslave the newly freed species once again.  Of course, the armed freed beings were making that task difficult, and costly, but many millions, if not billions, of those sentient creatures were dying before they could fulfill the promise of their freedom.

“Today we plan our advance,” said Mgonda, calling the meeting to order.  Speech stopped immediately, officers ending their conversations to look at their commander.  They would be allowed to speak when the time came for remarks.  For now, the spotlight was on their commander.

“Admiral Lenkowski was very successful at striking the flanks of the enemy formations in the Republic, one at a time.”  He looked at several of the flag officers who had been in that fleet, nodding.  “He then went after the center.  We will do it a little differently here.”

A hand went up, and several officers sent scowls at the officer who was wearing a different uniform from their own.  Taelis gave the officer, an Imperial Army Senior Field Marshal, wearing the same number of stars as he did, a glare for a moment.  Maeklos Kardisian was new to the front.  The last commander had resigned her commission in protest over so many of her troops being left on their own behind the lines instead of being evacuated, as was custom.  Junior officers couldn’t just resign in wartime.  For flag officers, a resignation indicated either an unwillingness or inability to follow the plan, and they were given their walking papers and replaced immediately in most cases.  The Fleet was considered the senior service, with admirals always giving orders to generals of equal or lesser rank.  It was not unheard of for an admiral of one lower rank to command higher ranked generals.  Kardisian was new to the command, but had come in making it clear he wanted his people rescued.

“Yes, Field Marshal?”

“I would like to remind the Admiral that there are millions of Imperial ground troops, and also some Marines and commandos under fleet command, still fighting behind the lines.  They look up at skies that are not under friendly control, at an enemy who can drop kinetics on them at any time, and can reinforce their attacks at any point on the globes.”

“We do understand that, Field Marshal,” said Mgonda with a tight smile.  “Which is why you will be happy to note that we will be taking on the central force right from the start.  Where over half of our ground forces are gathered.  I wish we could relieve them all, but that’s not about to happen.  Not if we want to win this battle.  Sorry.”

Mgonda nodded to the field marshal.  The man nodded back, expressing his understanding, if not agreement.  The mission of his fleet was to destroy the Caca force, and to send what few survivors there were running back into their space to spread the tale of a massive defeat against the fearsome humans.  The ground troops had their own mission, to delay the enemy by whatever means possible, including their own deaths.

“We will strike this largest force in the center first, while we have our entire fleet.”

“The entire fleet, sir?” asked one of the flag officers, the leader of his scout force.

“Not the whole force, Jana.  I’m letting you and your hyper VII ships cut loose and roam.  Find out where they are weakest, then hit them, and run before anything strong enough to take you on comes up.  Concentrate on their supply lines.  I don’t want them getting any of the commodities they need to prosecute the battle.”

The golden skinned woman smiled.  That was a mission any scout force commander could embrace.  He was sure she would do her best.  His only hope was that she would not get too audacious.

“In what system will we wait for them?” asked one of the battle group commanders.

“We will hit them in hyper, before they get to a system,” said Mgonda, holding up a hand as people started shouting questions.  All of the Caca ships were hyper VII, while only a third of his were.  And some of those VIIs would be going off with Jana Nakama to look for trouble on the fringes.  “I will be taking all of our hyper VII super heavy and regular battleships with me, with all of our available wormholes, any not needed to be sent the flanks in readiness for the later operations.  We will fire at maximum range, as many as we can get off before the accelerators are empty.”

There were nods and smiles at that.  The preacceleration tubes were still their ace in the hole.  They would not be connected to any of the powerful particle beam accelerators back on the Donut.  Those weapons would be useless in hyper unless they were within five or fewer light seconds from the target.  Even at one light second a good portion of the protons or antiprotons would fall out of hyper.

I sometimes wonder why we even bothered with the things, thought the admiral.  Sure, they were great for close in work, but there had not been a lot of that in this war.  Then again, they didn’t take up near as many resources as a thousand kilometer long launch tube, being only ten kilometer diameter accelerator rings.  If he had to use them in the first engagement he was in trouble, since he had no intention of letting the enemy come close, or even getting a good shot at him.

“After we hit them we will run for this system, where the rest of the fleet will be waiting.  I want to engage them as soon as they come out of hyper.  I know.  That might give them a chance of getting some of their fleet back into hyper.  Some of their fleet, while the rest will be expanding plasma.  I can live with that.  We will then plan the next engagement.  And as soon as we have destroyed the central force, we will go after the next largest, working our way down until we are able to split our fleet and go after the other formations with still overwhelming superiority.”

“What about our train,” asked another officer.  The woman looked over at the field marshal.  “The army troops will be in need of immediate medical attention, many of them.”

“They will stay in safety.  Any worlds we come to that need immediate aid will have it, through the wormhole gates we are bringing with us.”

Mgonda thought for a moment before speaking again, letting his officers murmur to those they were in the same rooms with, while virtual images tried to get across messages with facial expressions and hand movements.  There was a plan to bring hyper VI vessels into VII through the gates.  They really didn’t have the power to open a portal into the higher dimension, but they did possess the means of staying there.  But if the gate they had translated through was destroyed they risked being stuck in VII until they ran out of energy, and dropped out catastrophically.  Still, it was something that Plans had thought up as a way to equalize the battlefield in hyper VII.  And something the admiral might consider in the future.

“We move at six am standard time tomorrow,” he said finally.  “I know we won’t have all of our ships here yet, but I feel comfortable with eighty percent.  The latecomers will be available to fill in our ranks after we take losses.”

That brought some more shocked expressions.  Losses before a battle were always expected, but never discussed.  It was considered bad luck, and Mgonda, who didn’t believe in luck, or any other superstitious or supernatural constructs, didn’t care.  It was a fact he was going to lose ships, probably thousands of them, possibly his own, and his own ass onboard it.  Might as well come to terms with the facts, as far as he was concerned.

“Everyone make your plans, but make sure that you get some rest as well.  We might not be getting much of it over the next couple of weeks.  I’ll be on my bridge two hours before kickoff time if any of you need to get in touch with me.  May the Gods of War smile upon us, and curse our enemies.”  He didn’t believe any of that either, but sometimes it was helpful to play along with those who had some kind of spiritual belief.

*     *      *

“What in the hell are these things?” asked Baggett, looking down at the body on the table.  Whatever it was, it was huge.  The Cacas, with their three meter height and bulk, were huge to humans, and these creatures dwarfed their masters.  The one on the table was almost four meters in length while prone, and had to mass almost a ton.  Whatever helmet it had been wearing was gone, as was a good portion of its face.  What skin was left was gray and leathery.  Most of the body was covered by a thick skinsuit, enough protection to stop lasers for some seconds, and maybe a quick burst of particle beam.  Over the skinsuit were panels of strap on armor plate, four centimeters thick.

“That doesn’t look like powered armor,” remarked the general.

“No, sir,” answered the intelligence officer.  “It’s strap on.  Tough enough, but it doesn’t give the thing the advantages of enhanced strength.  From what the soldiers have reported, it didn’t need any enhancement.”  The officer looked over at the lt. colonel who had come in with creature.

“I had never seen anything like it, sir.  A company of these things overran the battalion next to mine.  We took them out from range after the last life sign disappeared.  They were already on the way toward our position, and if they didn’t have powered armor, they still moved faster than anything that size has a right too.  Some of them blurred, sir.  Goddamn me is they didn’t blur with speed, and they carried weapons that would have dropped one of our special weapons suits into the dirt trying to carry it.”

Baggett walked up to the creature, his nose wrinkling with the odor of strange burnt flesh.  The skin suit appeared to be loose on the creature.  Normally they were skin tight on all the species that used them.  The armor plates appeared to be overly large as well.

“It seems to have shrunk after it died, General,” said the lt. colonel, pointing to an arm joint.  “It filled its suit to capacity, and then some.  But as soon as it died, it changed.  And it didn’t die easily.”

“And you said the company of them took out a battalion?”

“One of our reduced battalions, sir.  Maybe three hundred people.  But their company was short as well.  Some special weapons suits took down a pair of their assault shuttles, and they hit hard when they came down.  Not even these things could handle that kind of punishment.  But enough were dropped intact to take out the other battalion.”

“Good thing you let them have it with indirect fire, Colonel.”

“You know it, sir.  If they drop a division of these things, we’re in trouble.”

Baggett shook his head as he looked the creature over from top to bottom.  Whatever it was, it was a biologically superior form in many ways.  He couldn’t tell if it was an intellectually superior being, but he doubted it.  Evolution normally didn’t work that way, though there was no saying that this creature had evolved its current physical abilities.  It could have been engineered this way.

“Send orders out to all units to be on the lookout for these things,” Baggett said to his aide.  “All troops are to avoid contact and bring them under fire with heavy weapons, if possible.”

“And if not possible?” asked the infantry battalion commander.

Then we’re screwed, thought the general.  If they took his people out on a two for one basis in close combat, and there were enough of them, his force would dissolve away like ice in a nuclear blast.

“You’ll be getting some more replacements today, Colonel,” said Baggett, moving toward the door, his stomach turning from the stench of the creature.  Not enough.  There’s never enough.  Hopefully, some of his original soldiers would still be here when they were relieved.

*     *      *

“I think it’s a go for a quick action,” said Stumpfield, the leader of the group.  “I just got off the com with the Emperor, and he wants to meet us tomorrow to discuss deployment.”

“Which deployment?” asked Okoye.  They had several plans they had broached with the Emperor, as well as a couple of more they hadn’t mentioned.

“He didn’t say.  But since he controls the means of striking, that will be up to him.”  Stmpfield said it in a way that made the others think he did not approve of Sean having that much of a say in the matter.  But unless they could come up with launching tubes of their own, they needed someone who had them.

“There is still much risk in any of the plans,” said Doctor Kenji Guitarez.  He almost wilted under the glares turned his way.  He had been an outsider, brought in because of his research into the reverse time dimension.  The scientist had been warning them the whole way that there was great risk to any of their plans.  Even if the legends of the Ancients were just stories told to frighten children, there were very real and quantifiable dangers.  If they went back and hit the Cacas before they could strike at the empire, people who had died in the conflict wouldn’t, they would be back, alive.  While seemingly a good thing, there was no telling what the actions of so many people previously erased from the timeline would cause in the ripples of time.  And would it end the threat of the Cacas?  Maybe, but probably not.  “And the Ca’cadasans could still find us in the future.  In fact, they would be greatly motivated to find us, more motivated than before.”

“If we can convince the Emperor to let us go far enough back, we could end the threat once and for all,” said Stumpfield, clenching a fist in the air.

That sent a shiver down Kenji’s spine.  If they struck far enough back, they could end the Ca’cadasan Empire before they ever really got established.   That would not only change the timelines of thousands of species, including the Cacas themselves, but humanity would never have had to flee Earth.  Trillions upon trillions of people who had been born would never exist.  Was that something they wanted?  And if the legend of the Ancients was true, there was no way humanity would survive such a change.  They would be wiped from the timeline as if they had never been, as that would be the only way to keep so much change, so much damage, from occurring.

“What if the Emperor won’t go for that much of a change?” asked the scientist.

“He doesn’t have to go for it.  In fact, if we can keep the damned wormhole going back for a couple of thousand years, we can wipe the damn things out for good.”

“And who will we get to do this in the future?” asked one of the subordinates.

“Why, us, of course.  We still have cryo, and I could use a three or four thousand year nap.  We might have to remove ourselves from the Empire if the Cacas do end up still overrunning us, but with three thousand years of tech advancement, we probably wouldn’t even need that big a fleet to send back.”

“And then we are no more?”

“And then we are no more,” agreed Stumpfield with a nod.  “No one in the new timeline will realize that we were the heroes, but I’m okay with that.  I’m sure God will rescue our souls, and those of the others we snuff out.  That’s enough for me.”  The count lowered his head, as if in prayer.

Guitarez stared at the leader in horror.  He had known the man was mad, but until this moment hadn’t realized he was a religious fanatic as well.  The scientist was an atheist, and didn’t believe for a moment that anything existed after death, or erasure from existence.  Many people in the empire were still religious, over half in fact.  But in almost every case it was a comfortable religion that had found its peace with the scientific reality of the Universe.  But this madman believed in a god that would save them from themselves, even if they went and totally screwed up the universe.

I can’t let this happen, thought the scientist.  He wouldn’t let them destroy so much for so many.  The humans would win the war with the Cacas the old fashioned way, or they would lose, and become as so many failed species had before them.  But he wouldn’t let them cause so much damage to the universe.  Especially if the tale of the Ancients was true, and they faced a multitude of exploding stars in their future.

*     *     *

“And GNN has learned tonight that the presumably dead heir, Augustine, is not dead,” said the woman over the netwaves.  “Sources close to the Imperial family have stated that agents were able to go back into the past and retrieve the heir before he was killed.  They point to the fact that there were no repercussions from the operation, and that this opens up the possibility of other operations.”

Sean sat in shock on the living room couch, staring at the anchor who was well known across the Empire.  And everyone will believe her, of course, unless we do some damage control, he thought.  He looked over at Jennifer, who was also watching the screen.  Her continence showed the lack of alertness the drugs had brought.  But they calmed her, and let the nurses take care of the children, like they were meant to.

“Get me Sergiov,” he ordered into the com system.  “Are you seeing this?” he asked in an angry tone as soon as her face appeared on the holo.

“I am, your Majesty.  I’m not sure where she got the information, but it is accurate.  Isn’t it?”

“You’re my spymaster, so you should already know.  I want to make sure the leak didn’t come from your people.”

“I can’t guarantee that, your Majesty.  I’ll have my staff start an investigation, but the greater question is, are you really allowing people to do this?  You know the risks.”

“Tend to your duties, Director, and I will lead the Empire.  Unless you would rather I tap someone else for your position.”

Shock flashed across the woman’s face, followed by anger.  “If you want to relieve me for stating the obvious, your Majesty, go right on ahead.  I have not leaked any secrets.  We have done everything you asked, including letting a Yugalyth loose to impersonate the Empress and your son.  And that was because of this, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.  The Empress refused to leave Augustine once he was returned to her, and we couldn’t risk people seeing him until we were ready.”

“And when would you have been ready?”  The woman stared at him out of the holo, her expression now one of disbelief.  “You couldn’t hide it forever, unless you put one of your children away in isolation.”

“We were going to go with the story of his being in cryo, and then resurrected at a later date.”

“That might have worked, before this,” said Sergiov.  “Now, no matter how much we deny it, some will refuse to believe what you say.”

“We’ll take care of it, somehow,” said Sean, thinking that this would all go away once they changed the timeline.

“Good luck.  And you can have my resignation, if you desire.”

“No, dammit.  But find that leak.  I want them brought up on charges, whoever they are.”  Sean checked the time on his implant.  It was almost time to go, if he wanted to get to the Donut on schedule.  He killed the com, then stared into blank space for some moments, the thoughts running through his head faster than he could process.

“Gather my detail,” he said into the com.  “And get me Stumpfield.”

They would get this thing underway, and no one would ever know what they had done in the new timeline.  It was a disaster that someone had to discover what they had already done, but the timing couldn’t have been better.

*      *      *

Ekaterina Sergiov was also staring at the space once occupied by a holo.  She couldn’t believe what was happening.  The man who was responsible for the safety of the Empire was playing with forces that could destroy it.  And she wasn’t sure what to do about it.

“I need to speak with the Prime Minister,” she finally said into the air.

“The Prime Minister is in a meeting, not to be disturbed,” came back the message over the automated system.

“This is an emergency,” she shouted.

“The Prime Minister will be informed of the urgency of the situation after the meeting is over.”

“Shit.”  Of course she wouldn’t be able to get through to the Prime Minister if she had cut herself off.  Emergency coms were to go to the Emperor.  No one else was in the loop for that purpose, which was a failure in planning as far as she was concerned.

“Meeting with my staff in ten minutes,” she said when nothing else came to her.  She would be waking people up in the middle of the night, something she hated to do.  But they had a looming disaster on their hands, and something needed to be done.  Only she didn’t know what it was.

Chapter Seventeen

The most useful form of time travel would be to go back a year or two and rectify the mistakes we made. Matt Lucas

CAPITULUM.  JUNE 12TH, 1003.

Samantha Ogden Lee was a cousin in the Imperial line, not in a direct path of succession.  Several dozen people would have to die for her to ascend the throne, and that was not her wish or desire.  Everyone knew that all of the close line had the gift to various degrees.  Sean was said to have it to an extent unseen in generations.  She had it as well, not to his level, but powerful enough, though she was careful to keep her ability hidden.  She knew that many people thought the prophetic dreams were the visitation of demons, the more superstitious of them, and those would treat her as someone possessed.

There was nothing supernatural about the gift, at least not according to the scientists who had studied it through the ages.   They still didn’t really understand it, only that the source came from the still spooky environs of quantum physics.  All she knew about it was that she wished she didn’t have even a smidgeon of it.

She felt the dread within her sleep as her dream changed, taking on the familiar aspect.  The unreal of the dream state took on a clarity that seemed all too real.  A scene of people standing on the roof of a building.  Around it stretched a city that showed the destruction of the strike the Cacas had visited upon it.  She could tell it was Capitulum.  And from the damage she could tell it was either in the recent past or the near future.  From the scaffolding surrounding some of the buildings, and the work robots restoring the surfaces of damaged buildings that hadn’t fallen in the attack, she guessed the near future.  Very near, in fact, since there was still so much work to be done.

Then her attention was captured by the people on the rooftop, which she recognized as the landing platform of the office building the Fleet was using as their headquarters for the time being, until the massive damage to the Hexagon could be repaired.  Most of the people were in uniform, though there were civilians intermixed with the spacers, and everyone had their attention turned to the sky.

Samantha’s dream self looked up with them, to the bright disk of the G class primary that Jewel orbited.  At first, she couldn’t tell what was going on.  It took almost a minute to determine what was causing their attention to focus on the star.  The disk of the star had visibly shrunk as she watched.  It was a slow process, until she remembered how large it actually was, and how distant.  Then the magnitude of the problem became apparent.

“It’s getting brighter,” yelled out one of the bystanders.  It did seem to be, and that could only mean one thing.  The star was compressing inward, and that was increasing the rate of fusion in the center.  If it kept up?

The heavens flared, blindingly bright, and everyone cried out as they tried to cover their eyes, too late.  All were permanently blinded, except for Samantha, who was not really there.  Their burned-out eyes could eventually be restored, but they would not be given that time.  Clothing and skin smoked, then flared into vapor.  The entire city followed suit, buildings made of materials that should not have been flammable burning away in seconds.

Samantha’s view shifted out, to see the seas boiling, the exposed rocks left behind by the ashed forests glowing, then flowing.

Her view shifted further out, until she was looking down on the world, and the far disks of New Terra and Ariel, both glowing from the brilliant reflected light of the exploding star.  Moments later the shock wave hit, and all three worlds flared even brighter, then turned into exploding fragments of rocks, some the size of continents.  Those huge structures came apart in seconds, until the three worlds were gone, their glowing particles propelled outward from the explosion.

What the hell happened? thought Samantha.  She knew what had happened.  The star, a G class that couldn’t possibly supernova, had just done so.  She just didn’t know why it had happened.  An instant later she was sitting up in bed, sweat falling off her face, soaking her bedclothes, her breath coming in gasps.

The enormity of the dream struck her, some of the images fading away, others etched within her mind.  The star had gone supernova, against all the laws of physics.  A moment later the legends were assaulting her mind.  How the ancients had messed with the time stream, and had brought disaster to living systems.

Sean needs to know about this, she thought.  Someone was going to do something in the Empire that would lead to a disaster that would dwarf anything the Cacas had done.  And Sean needed to know.  At that moment she wished again that she was the regent, a position no longer needed now that Jennifer was functioning fully as the empress.  But with the loss of the position, she had also lost her access to top levels of Imperial secrets.  She had been happy to be relieved of those duties, and had hoped that she might take up a position in Fleet intelligence.  Now she wished she still had her access so she could see what might be going on.

“Get me the Emperor,” she said to the apartment com system.  “Utmost urgency.”

She waited impatiently as the com system queried the Imperial government net for a minute.  It normally didn’t take that long, and she wondered if Sean was engaged in private business, maybe with the Empress.  He would be pissed, because if he was in range of the com net, her code words would get her through to him.  Well, he could go ahead and be pissed.  This was too damned important.  Whatever was going to happen might not occur for weeks to months, or it might happen this day.  She had a feeling it was going to be a lot sooner than a week.

“The Emperor is not available at this time,” said the voice of the com system.

“Shit.”

“I did not understand that reference,” replied the literal system.

“Get the Empress.  Utmost urgency.”

“What is it, Sam?” answered the voice of Jennifer, her voice heavy with sleep, almost sounding drugged.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Jennifer.  But I had a dream.  One of the kind that haunts our family.”

“I didn’t know you got those, too.”

“Unfortunately, yes.  Or maybe fortunately in this case.  Something really bad is going to happen, and soon.  I need to talk to Sean.”

“Sean is out at the Donut, Sam.  Something to do with hitting the Cacas before they hit us.”

“You mean before their next attack comes at us,” said the confused Samantha.  The Cacas were already in the middle of an offensive against the Empire, one that was not going all their own way.

“No.  The attack they pulled on us several months ago.  The one that almost killed my child.”

By the Gods, no, screamed the thoughts in Samantha’s head.  “He must not do that.  Don’t you see.  That’s what triggers the supernovas.”

“What supernovas?”

“We need to get through to Sean.  Right now.  If we wait it will be too late.”

*      *     *

“Welcome aboard the Donut, your Majesty,” said Lucille Yu, bowing as the monarch walked out of the wormhole portal.  The portion of the security detail that preceded him from the gate set up around the room, with more coming out behind him.  They stepped away from the portal, and Sean reached out a hand to shake that of his wormhole production facility director.

“What is he doing here?” she blurted out as Kenji Guatarrez stepped out of the portal behind the Emperor, some other people she didn’t recognize with him.

“We will be docking a wormhole with one of the missile preacceleration units, Director,” said Sean.  “We need to be ready to fire in one hour.”

“Fire at what?” asked Lucille, her eyes widening.

“We’re going to turn back the clock on the Caca attack on Jewel,” said one of the men with Guatarrez.

“You have to be kidding me,” cried Lucille.  She looked over at the Emperor, a look of horror on her face.  “Your Majesty.  You cannot tamper with the time line.  Everything in the legends tells us that leads to disaster.”

“Legends,” scoffed the tall man who stuck close to Guatarrez.  “Nothing but fairy tales, your Majesty.  Today we change history, and for the better.”

“We will be going to the control center, Director,” said Sean in a tone that brooked no discussion.

“We must be ready to take the shot on time, your Majesty,” said the tall man.  “If we miss it, we will have to send another wormhole back.”

“Does the Empress know you are doing this?” asked Lucille, grasping at straws to stop the madness.

“Not that I have to ask Jennifer’s approval, but yes, she agreed with me.  We have to stop the Cacas from hurting us so badly.  Those who died deserve this effort, that they might live again.”

“And if this works, we should be able to go back even farther into the past and set more wrongs to rights.”  The tall man had a strange look in his eyes.  Lucille would have called it madness if she had any experience in medicine.

“You’re going to destroy us,” said Lucille, moving toward the Emperor, her hands out to grasp his jacket.  Secret service agents were on her before she could touch the Imperial presence, pulling her away, locking her hands behind her back.  “You’re crazy.  All of you are crazy.  You can’t tamper with the timeline.”

“I think the Director is unwell, your Majesty.  Once we have proven our theories, I’m sure she will see the light.”

“Agreed,” said Sean, looking over at the two agents who held the director.  “Take Director Yu to a secure location.”  He stepped to Lucille and put a hand on her shoulder.  “You will understand, Director.  This is something I must do.”

“You don’t understand, your Majesty.  If you try to change the timeline you will precipitate a disaster.  You know the legends.  How the stars that couldn’t possibly go supernova did.  How the empire of the Ancients ended.”

“Legends,” scoffed the tall man.  “Fairy tales made up to frighten the childlike races around us.  But humankind is better than they are.  We will be the masters of time and space.”

“Take her to her quarters, but be gentle with her,” said Sean.  He looked over at one of the other Donut personnel.   “Take us to the central control room.  We will set everything into motion there.”

Lucille let the agents march her along to the lift that would take them to her quarters.  She didn’t even try to struggle against the man and woman who were augmented, with many times the strength of a normal human.  They let go of her after they pushed her through the door of her quarters.

“You will be locked in here, Director, until his Majesty calls for you.  We have cut off all outgoing communications, so don’t bother trying to call out.  We will be outside the door if you need anything.”

The door closed with a final click.  A frustrated director stared at it for a moment, then flung herself onto her couch.  She couldn’t believe what was happening.  The Emperor’s new friends couldn’t be right about the lack of consequences for tampering with the timeline.  They just couldn’t.

“Override com block,” she said.  “Code word singularity.”

The com system unlocked on her command with the code that Jimmy had installed for her.  As soon as it connected she said the next code word.  “Jimmy.”

“What’s happening, Lucille?” asked Jimmy, the director of Donut security and Lucille’s lover.  “Why did you have to contact me through the secure network we set up?”

“The Emperor has lost it, Jimmy.  That quack Guatarrez has convinced him that changing the time line is a good idea.”

“How in the hell is he going to go back in time?  That’s just crazy, Lucille.”

“There was a paper I read once about a possible dimension in which time runs the reverse of here.  Something out of the Other Universe Project.  It didn’t say what the time correspondence would be.  One to one, ten to one.  I just don’t know.  But those crazy fools have talked Sean into doing it.”

“You saw the news, didn’t you, Lucille?  They brought back the heir?  Nothing disastrous seemed to come from that.”

Lucille had seen the news, and had talked with Sergiov about it was well.  The evidence of the escape pod was inconclusive, but some thought the damage to the armored sphere had been done by particle beams that had not been fired from Caca fighters.  It looked like a setup, and the return of the heir had not altered the remains of the sphere in any manner.

“I think the heir would have been found anyway, if they hadn’t have interfered.  Now they’re trying to change the timelines for hundreds of millions.  Maybe billions.  And that could spell disaster.  We need to move on this, Jimmy.  Right now.”

“You don’t really think the legends are true?  About the Universe acting to protect the timeline?  That’s insane.”

Lucille had to stop and think about that for a moment.  She was a scientist.  She really didn’t believe in the mystical concept of a conscious universe.  But she also recalled some of the dimensions they had opened at The Other Universe Project.  One especially, which had scared the hell out of everyone.  That space had been alive, and hungry.  If that wasn’t proof that some things were beyond their understanding, she didn’t know what else was.

“I don’t know, Jimmy.  Maybe there is a purely physical explanation for multiple dwarf stars going supernova within years of each other, if not months.  But either way, something happened back then, in the same time period that the Ancients disappeared.  It might be coincidence, but I’m not willing to take that chance.”

“I don’t know what we can do, Lucille.  This is the Emperor.  What he says goes.  Anything we do to stop him will be considered treason.  We could go to prison, or possibly even face the death penalty.  Are you sure you want to try to stop him?”

“Jimmy, I would risk my life to save this station.  Why wouldn’t I risk it to save the human species.  If he does this, and the consequences are as I fear, the strength of the empire will be gone, and the Cacas will roll over us without a problem.  So please, lover.  Please.  This is something we have to do, no matter the cost.”

The floor underneath her shook a bit.  Lucille wasn’t sure what would cause that, since the alarms weren’t going off to indicate an attack.  She tapped into the station system.  “That was a damned gravity pulse from the black hole.”

“It hasn’t done that before, has it?”

“No, Jimmy.  It has not.  As far as I can tell from the readings, this is a new phenomenon.  And what do you think might have caused it?”

“I be right up.  This might get messy.  I won’t kill any people from the Agency, and we can’t use force on the Emperor.  Which means you better have a damned good speech in mind.”

The com went dead, and the station shook again with another slight tremor.  Lucille thought that they would be getting stronger as the locus for the time strike approached.  How strong?  Maybe strong enough to destroy the station, and send a couple score stars into supernova.

*     *     *

“The nexus is approaching,” said one of the Ancients, sitting at one of the multi-configurable bridge stations.  “It will arrive in less than an hour, and this appears to be the heart of it.”

The holo zoomed in on a large object in space.  Large, in that it was several thousand kilometers in length, if only one in width.  Jackson recognized it as one of the missile preacceleration tubes that were used to build the velocity of offensive weapons up to near light speed before sending them to another location through the wormhole.  But compared to the station itself it was miniscule.  Still a large target, and one that Jackson hoped would be beyond the capabilities of this one ship to take out.  But since they had come here planning to destroy the station, he was sure they would be able to destroy the launch tube.

“So you won’t have to destroy the station after all?” he asked hopefully.  Every alien eye on the bridge turned his way, large bodies rotating in place to bring him in view.

“We cannot allow this to happen again,” said Klorasoft, his tentacles waving in excitement.  “The station must be destroyed, to remove the temptation from your people.”

“And we lose our war, and get wiped out.”

“Better that we lose your species than the timeline of the galaxy cracks open,” said another of the aliens.

Not to my way of thinking, thought Jackson, not saying a word, though he wanted to scream at the Ancients.

“We could still use you to talk to your people,” said Klorasoft.  “The station must be destroyed, but there is no reason that all of the people aboard have to die with it.  Talk to them.  Convince them that they must leave.”

Jackson again remained silent.  There was no way he was going to talk his people into surrendering.  The Ancients might think they had the upper hand here, but this human was not about to bet against his people.

“We have time,” said Klorasoft.  “We will destroy the launch facility when we are within range.  In, thirty-three minutes we will be within range and will fire on the facility.  Minutes later we will be within range of the station, and we will destroy it at that time.”

“We are picking up gravitational waves,” called out another watch stander.  “Still weak, but they are growing with each repetition.”

“And soon they will sweep out from this point as the gravitational constant changes with the temporal disruptions,” said Klorasoft, looking at Jackson.  “When they increase to a certain point stars will start to collapse under their own gravity, and then the rebound supernovas will occur, just as happened to us.”

“And when will they reach that point?” asked Jackson, not liking the sound of rebound supernovas.

“That is unknown, but will occur when the timeline is sufficiently disrupted.  Which is why we can’t allow that to happen.”

Jackson continued to stare at the alien, not sure what he was going to do.  He had thought about sabotaging the spacecraft before it destroyed the station.  He wasn’t sure how he was going to do that, only that he would have to make the effort.  But if a score of close stars were going to go supernova, killing possibly a hundred billion people and a good portion of the industrial capacity of the empire?  It might be worth letting them take out the station.  But without the station could they win the war against the Cacas?

*     *     *

“Twenty-eight minutes until the conjunction occurs,” said Nick Stumpfield, the person Lucille thought of as the tall man.  He was a count of the realm as well, and had used his rank to gain the first audience with the Emperor, who had listened with hope to his speech on changing the past.

Sean stared at the screen with total concentration.  The wormhole was still in the other dimension, and would be for another twenty-six minutes, at which time it would transit back into their reality.  Two minutes after in forward time, though almost four months in the past, the Caca freighter, their wormhole equipped q-ship, would enter the system.  Intelligence had pinpointed where and when that would be.  Accurate information, developed too late to be of use.  Only now it would be of use, and that ship would be blasted from space before it could drive into the system and reach the double world of Jewel/New Terra.   Moments after that destruction a message would be sent into the system warning of the other Caca freighter that was already deep within the central black hole system.  It would be targeted, and it would either surrender or be destroyed.  Hundreds of millions would be saved, hundreds of ships would still be in existence, and history would be changed.

Sean still had problems wrapping his head around it.  Would he even remember what had happened?  And if he didn’t remember, who would set this entire chain of events in motion?  It was enough to drive one crazy.  Guatarrez had stated that the closed loop wouldn’t develop, that theoretically the people who had set the event in motion would still remember, and the loop would be closed.  But no one knew for sure, and a closed loop would be a disaster of the first magnitude.  Sean could be trapped in that loop, forever replaying the same actions.  And it will be worth it if we can stop this attack.  And if everything works, and there is no loop, maybe we can go back and save the Cimmerian system and all the billions who lived there.

The floor of the station shook, the third time it had done that in as many minutes.

“What is that?” asked Sean, looking over at Guatarrez.

“Theoretically there is some turbulence involved in changing time,” said Stumpfield.  “Nothing to be concerned about.”

Sean continued to look at Guatarrez, and noted from the expression on the man’s face that he didn’t agree with his partner.  The Emperor tapped into the station databanks through his implant, bypassing all restrictions with his code.  He thought the term temporal turbulence, and was not surprised when nothing came back.  No one had done any research on this aspect of time change, so Stumpfield didn’t know what he was talking about.  In fact, it appeared he was lying out his ass, making it up as he went along.

Maybe Yu was right, he thought.

“Twenty-five minutes till conjunction.  Missile is up to firing velocity.”

And if we don’t fire at the right moment, all of those people are doomed.  But they had already been doomed, they were dead at this moment, and had been for months.

I need to talk with Doctor Yu about this, thought the Emperor.

“I must step out for a moment,” he told the other people in the room, looking over at his chief of detail.  “I’ll be right back.”

Stumpfield looked a little confused at first.  There was nothing he could do about the movements of the Emperor, but Sean knew he had to wonder why the monarch would leave before the show.

*     *     *

“We’re receiving a com from the Search and Rescue Net, ma’am.  Something is going on with the star.”

“What the hell,” said Sondra McCullom, looking up from the paperwork she was signing on her flatcomp.  The stuff never seemed to end.  She didn’t remember there being this much paperwork, still called that even though paper was seldom involved, when she had been Home Fleet commander.  She didn’t even read half the stuff, just putting her electronic initials by those of a subordinate who had read it, or so she hoped.  “What the hell can be going on with the star?”

A holo formed over her desk, showing a real-time image of the G class star that was Jewel’s primary.  Several large prominences rose from the surface, larger than normal, and she thought there was something else strange about them, though she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“The Solar Observatory is stating that activity on the surface is much more energetic that normal.  And observations of the globe make it appear that it is shrinking.”

“Do they know why?”

“No, ma’am.  They expect that it will be a short-lived phenomenon.  But they also can’t explain why the gravity of the body is increasing.”

“What?”  Sondra closed out her flatcomp and leaned forward, staring at the image of the star.  That made no sense to her.  Steller objects didn’t increase their gravitational pull.

“Any effects outside of solar flare activity?”

“Some of the antimatter production sats are getting pulled toward lower orbits, but so far they have been able to counterbalance the pull.”

The sats had their own small fusion units that used the plasma from the star for fuel.  They could move each sat to safety if something happened.  But if the gravitation gradient increased beyond a certain point, trillions of imperials of hardware would go spiraling into the star.  Which would be the least of their worries.

“What happens if the gravity continues to increase?” she asked, already thinking of planets falling out of orbit, climates changing.  What if this was some kind of weapon?  She couldn’t imagine that kind of power, which was well beyond what her high-energy civilization could achieve.

“Contact Admiral Chan,” she finally ordered.   “Get her and her people looking into this.  And keep me apprised.”

The holo died, leaving the CNO alone with her thoughts for a moment.  There was nothing she could do about whatever was happening.  That would have to come from the science brains.  But she could contact the Empress and get her and her children moving.  There might be a need to organize fleets to move people.  And the Emperor needed to know.

“I have Admiral Chan on the com, ma’am.  She says that it’s vital that she talk to you.”

Chan’s face appeared on the holo, and Sondra could tell by the expression that the news was not going to be good.

“I can’t say with certainty, Admiral, but according to my hurried calculations, we could be facing a disaster.”

“Give it to me in the clear, Admiral.”

“Supernova, Admiral.  The gravitational constant is changing around the star.  It will probably start changing on the planets as well, and it could reach uncomfortable levels.  But the star is the most dangerous manifestation of this phenomenon.  It could explode.”

“When?”

“I have no idea, Admiral.  I suspect we will know when it happens.  And I believe that when it does go, we won’t have time to act.”

*      *      *

Lucille heard the noise beyond her door as a confusing babble and some sharp cracks.  Every chamber in the station was made of the best materials, all but vibration proof.  To hear anything through those walls and doors took heavy vibration.

Her door opened and Jimmy stood in the opening.  There was blood on his face and a scorch mark on his jacket.  Bodies lay on the floor behind him, while battle suited Marines stood over them.

“Are they dead?” asked a stunned Lucille, staring at the unmoving forms.

“I couldn’t kill brother and sister agents,” said Jimmy, a lopsided grin on his face.  “Unfortunately, they didn’t feel the same, so I got a beam grazing my skull.”

Lucille was on him in a second, her hands probing at his scalp, feeling for the wound.  “Did you stun them?”

“Tranq rounds,” said the agent.  “Sonics don’t always work on augmented.  And neither did my glib tongue.”

“We need to get to the Emperor,” said Lucille, her eyes widening as the deck shook.

“What is that?” asked the agent, looking around.  “I thought it might be a malfunction of the grabber system.”

“Gravity waves, from the black hole,” said Lucille.  “Whatever they are doing is affecting the big bitch.”

“That much power?”

“More than we can imagine,” replied Lucille, thinking of what kind of energies had to be released to affect a sixty solar mass point gravity source.  “It will grow worse as we approach the event.”

“And when we hit the event?”

“It will spike, and we will be in a world of hurt.  Now, there’s no time to lose.  We need to get to the Emperor and stop this madness.”

Chapter Eighteen

The time is always right to do what is right. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Kenji Guatarrez was worried.  He had searched for the way to send probes back in time, not to change the timeline, but to observe, to see what had really happened to the Ancients.  Like everyone in the Empire he had heard of the legends of the Ancients, how they had ended after tampering with the timeline.  The legend hadn’t said how they had ended, but the evidence of stars that were too small to go into supernova doing just that, and within a short period of time, was a good probability.  From the spread of the nebulae it was thought that they all went off within decades of each other, if not years, if not sooner.

There were many theories about why over a score of stars went supernova.  A conscious Universe, one that struck back at those who tried to get a do over.  The hand of God reaching down to punish those who would mess with fate.  Fate, rejecting the changes.  He had done the math, and everything seemed to point to there being horrific consequences to trying to change time.

Another wave of whatever energy it was went through the station.  It was only a twinge at the moment, but Guatarrez was sure that it would build until it felt like it would tear them apart.  He thought of them as temporal waves, for lack of a better term.  They were ripping apart the fabric of spacetime, and altering the very laws of physics around their point of radiation.  And from what they were seeing from the black hole, one of the basic laws that was changing was the gravitational constant.  The law that set the effects of mass on gravity, and made everything in the Universe move like clockwork.  Except with the changes would come disaster.  Living worlds would go into new orbits that would not support their life.  And stars which could not explode now would.

“We must not do this,” said Guatarrez, looking at Stumpfield.  “Can’t you feel it.  We are dooming the heart of the empire.”

“I would run all of us through the gates of hell to get back at those bastards,” yelled Stumpfield, clenching his fists and glaring at the scientist.  “Especially that bastard on the throne, and all the people here who stood by while my home was destroyed.”

Guatarrez could tell that the man had lost it.  He had lost it long ago, when his planet, Cimmeria, had been destroyed by the Cacas, taking everything he loved away from him.  The count had maintained a semblance of sanity, one that had fooled everyone.   But the man had been on the edge of a breakdown the moment he had gotten the news that his family was gone.

“You must stop this madness.”

Stumpfield ignored him, continuing to stare at the holo that showed the view of the other end of the wormhole, in a space filled with stars that looked much like their own.  Except that time was going in reverse of their own.  There it would seem normal, time advancing, as it was advancing for the wormhole in that dimension.  But every second it remained there it was moving one second backward in their time.

“Nothing will happen to us, except the Cacas will not triumph, and all of those people will be alive.  And then we can send the wormhole back several years and save my planet.  Billions saved.  And after that we will go back to the home world of the Cacas, before they even knew we were still here, and destroy that world.”

Guatarrez stared at the madman who had shouted out conflicting goals.  Saving the empire, destroying the Emperor.  And if he didn’t destroy the Supersystem with this madness, he would later when he saved those seven billion souls from his home system.  Or when he took the billions of lives in the Ca’cadasan home system.  It had to stop, and it had to stop now, lest this first strike bring disaster, and there not be time for any other actions to prevent it.

“I will tell Sean when he comes back,” threatened the scientist.  “He will not stand for this.”

Stumpfield nodded to the woman who had accompanied him, and she moved like a striking snake.  Achieng Okoye was a trained assassin, an ex-Imperial Intelligence Operative, and her left hand went unerringly into the throat of the scientist while her left jobbed out with the implement she held.  Guatarrez felt a quick prick on his neck, then the world went black.

*     *      *

“Your Majesty,” said the voice of Sondra McCullom over the com, directly into his brain through his implant.  “We are experiencing numerous anomalies across the Supersystem.  Every star is increasing its gravity, though Jewel’s primary is evidencing the most changes.  And we have no idea what’s causing it.”

Sean knew.  At that moment he was sure that what they were trying to do to time was the cause.  And if they went through with it, the entire Supersystem would go up in a blaze of exploding stars.  Not the station, though.  No, it would be pulled into the black hole.  And that would be the end of the Empire.  Sixty billion would die, and the Cacas would come through the weakened fleet to destroy the rest.

“Director Yu,” sent Sean over the com.  If anyone knew what was going on, it would be her.  And he needed to talk with her.  He kept waiting for an answer, and stomped a foot when he didn’t receive one.

“Where is Director Yu?” he asked through his implant.

“She has escaped from her quarters, your Majesty.  Some of her people rendered ours unconscious and took her away.”

“I need to talk with her, now.  You are not to do anything to harm her or those with her.  Just let her know that I need to talk with her.”

Sean turned and signaled to his security detail, then headed back toward the control room.  The Marines waiting outside stood aside at his approach, and he walked toward the door, then stopped when it didn’t open.

“What’s wrong with this door?” he asked after sending a command through his implant did nothing.  Everything on the station should have responded to his signal, but this door did not, which meant something was going on.

“It won’t respond to any signals, your Majesty,” said one of the Marines, pushing the manual controls to the door.

“We need to get through this door, now,” yelled Sean, fear and anger rising to the front of his brain and battling for dominance.

“Don’t do that, Sean,” said a voice from the speaker over the door.  It took a second to recognize the voice as that of Count Stumpfield.  “Any attempt to breach the door will result in our dropping the wormhole back into our time stream and firing the missile.”

“And what the hell will that do if the target isn’t in the system yet?” asked Sean, his eyes narrowing.

“We will aim the missile at Jewel.  It will come in undetected until too late, and kill the planet.”

“We could warn the planet,” said the chief of the security detail.  “If they know it is coming they will be able to locate it and stop it.”

Sean shook his head.  The agent was trying to help, but he didn’t really understand what was going on, not having been briefed on exactly what was happening here.  No message they could send would reach the world months in the past.  Only one sent through this wormhole would get there, and at the moment Stumpfield controlled it.

“Get me Director Yu, now.  And figure out how to get through this door.”

“But they threatened to…”

“Not to do it, yet.  But we need to know how to get through if we need to.  So figure it out.”

*     *     *

“Do you not see, Xavier Jackson?” said Klorasoft, tentacles pointing at the tactical holo.  “They are approaching the nexus of the change in the timeline.  Too many lives will go on that wouldn’t have otherwise.  The stars are becoming unstable, their gravities shifting.  If this happens, the stars in orbit around this black hole will render their worlds lifeless.  And you will lose, just as we lost all those millennia ago.”

“I agree that you need to stop the launch, but you don’t need to destroy the station.”

“When we fire on the missile launcher they will know that we are here,” said Klorasoft, his tentacles waving his agitation.  “We will only have minutes to close with the station, get within range of our beam, and destroy it as well.  And they will be firing on us the entire way.  So, no, we cannot afford to let this chance pass.  Or your foolish race will try again, and disaster will again strike.”

“But this ship?”

“Is more powerful than anything that you have, yes.  More powerful than your entire force?  Probably not.  And then there are these.”

The holo showed a large object, as long as a battleship, though easily twice the width.

“We think these are laser weapons, more powerful than the broadside of fifty of your capital ships.  And we can guess that there are more of them aboard the station.  Plus, your wormhole launched missiles.  We can probably hold out for some time against your weapons, but even our graviton screens will eventually fall.”

“I cannot ask my people to not fight,” said Jackson, his spine stiffening.  He liked these people.  They were normally very kind, ethical, and more than helpful.  But he was not going to help them hurt his Empire.

“Then we will begin the attack on the launcher, and follow with that attack on the station.  I am sorry that it has come to this, but it is necessary.”

The captain barked out some orders in their own tongue, and the Ancients on the bridge tensed.  The holo changed, zooming in on the missile launcher, with markers showing when they would be within range.  Jackson stared at the holo, then looked around the bridge, his gaze landing on several objects that might come into use in the near future.  He thought his odds slight, but that had never stopped a Fleet officer before.

*     *     *

“We’re picking up unknown graviton emissions, sir.”

“Show me,” ordered Admiral Winfield Sung, turning in his command chair.  The military control room, the bridge as the military called it, was tapped into all the sensor systems and weapons controls of the great station.

“It’s near this missile launch tube, within four light seconds.”

Sung did the math in his mind, coming up with one million two hundred thousand kilometers.  Almost point blank range for a laser shot.  But the return itself was faint, and hard to localize.

“Can you get a firmer return?”

“We’re trying, sir.  There’s a lot of graviton interference out there.  We’re trying to get the closest warship to give us a better look.”

Sung nodded.  Graviton emissions were difficult to read in the best of times, which these weren’t.  Gravitons couldn’t be captured, they could fly through a light year of solid substance without slowing down.  The sensors aboard ships, sitting in special vacuum chambers, registered gravitons as they flew through.  It didn’t take many to register, a good thing, since most signals were attenuated by the inverse square law.  And most gravitons had resonances imparted by their sources, distinctive resonances.  The sensors converted the signals to sounds, almost like music, and a specially trained and talented organic could pick out the distinctive tones and interpret them.  From there it was an easy step to get direction.  Some likened it to old Earth ocean sonar operators, listening for the engine sounds of enemy ships, trying to pull them from the noises of a living sea.

“Any idea what it might be?”

“All the chief can say is it’s like nothing she had ever heard before.”  The officer leaned over his board for a moment, obviously listening to something.  “And, it’s gone.  But Damocles is on the way to the area.  She might be able to develop the contact.”

Sung sat in his chair, chewing on his lower lip.  He didn’t know what was out there, and his chair shook under him once again, reminding him that he had another problem on his hands that he didn’t have a clue about.  Somedays, even an admiral could wish he were still a duty officer, and that everything didn’t fall on his shoulders.

*     *     *

“So what the hell is going on, Dr. Yu?” asked Sean, barely controlling his rage.  He wasn’t angry at her, though he didn’t like the idea of her and her security chief taking down his agents.  He was angry at Stumpfield and Guatarrez for leading him to this place.  Oh yes, he was angry at them, but that wasn’t even a fraction of the rage he felt.  Most of it was directed at himself, for allowing his feelings to follow such a fool’s hope, to lead his people to disaster.  But now was not the time for self-recriminations.

“As far as I can tell, your Majesty, the action your friends are taking is disrupting the time stream.  If they complete their plan, we will have a disaster on our hands.”

“But we haven’t done anything yet,” pleaded Sean.  “We only have the two ends of the wormhole existing in different times.  One isn’t even in our Universe.  So what the hell is doing this?”

“I’m not an expert on this, your Majesty.  I…”

“Oh, stop with all the honorific ass kissing, Lucille.  Just tell me what you know.  As far as I can tell, you are the only expert we have outside of that control room, and I wouldn’t trust any of them if they told me space was a vacuum.  So, tell me what you think.”

“You have a wormhole anchored in different parts of the time stream.  The one here is affecting the black hole with its disruptions.  The one in the past is just across a dimensional barrier from Jewel near the time when a momentous event occur, and three hundred million lives were cut from the time stream.  So they are also experiencing disruptions.  And the disruptions radiate out from there, encompassing all the stars of the Supersystem.”

“But you don’t think anything irreversible will occur if the Caca ship is not taken out?”

“I don’t think so, since the timeline will have been untouched except for us observing the events.”

The station shook again, stronger than before, but still not enough to threaten its destruction.  Sean thought that if the Caca ships were destroyed, and the timeline altered, the gravity of the black hole would tear them apart and suck in the pieces.  He knew from the legends that the Ancients had a station around the hole, and that it was gone without a trace.  Had the same thing happened to it, and if so, why had the stars around it survived?

“The fact is, your…  I mean, we just don’t know what will happen if we stop the interference from happening.  But I think we can guess what will happen if it does, so the best course of action is to stop it.”

“How much time till they shoot?”

“In six minutes the other end of the wormhole will have passed the time in which the Caca ship entered the system,” said Lucille, looking at a small holo over her board.  “They will then have to move it into our dimension in order to be in the same time frame.  They could shoot then, or they could wait for up to two days to strike.”

“And what happens if they wait?” asked Sean, his eyes narrowing.  “Do the fluctuations of the natural laws continue, getting worse by the moment?”

“And again, we don’t know,” said Lucille, obviously biting off the your majesty at the end.

“Your Majesty,” said a voice over the com, just before the holo of Admiral Sung came up on a holo.   “We are tracking an unknown object near the missile acceleration tube of interest.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No, sir.  We think it’s a ship of some sort, but we’re having a difficult time getting a firm fix on it.  One of our destroyers is heading there to check it out.”

“Admiral.  Can you turn off the wormholes in the acceleration tube?”

“I think we can, your Majesty.  But it might cause some unintended consequences.  The missile will go through the launch wormhole before it’s time.”

“And that would be perfect,” said Yu, nodding.  “It will shoot out into the negative time dimension and it will no longer be a problem.”

“We’ll get to working on that, your Majesty,” said the admiral, and the holo died.

“If we can stop them, I’m almost positive everything will go back to normal.  But you have to understand, your Majesty.  I mean, Sean.  Now that we know how it’s done, the temptation will be there to do it again.  But this time with more safeguards, if that’s even possible.  I would recommend that this never be attempted in the future.”

Sean nodded.  He could already see the possibilities, putting the entry wormhole in a system far from any inhabited worlds, then moving the exit hole to a Caca planet.  In that case the damage would have to occur to unused real estate and Caca territory.  Would that be a workable strategy?  Or would something else happen, just as bad.  She was right.  They must never do this again, if it wasn’t too late to stop it from happening now.

“You Majesty,” came the call from Admiral Sung.  “Bad news.  We transmitted the code to close those wormholes, to no effect.  They’re still open, and we don’t know why.”

“Can you contact the crew aboard?”

There were always people aboard any structure that might be used as a weapon, even if said installation was fully automated.  An organic must authorize any action that might cause harm to anything else, machine or organic.  A crewmember would have to touch the approval panel.  Which meant Stumpfield would have to have someone aboard to do so, and they could have taken down the rest of the crew.

“We have been trying, your Majesty.  And so far, no one has answered.”

“We have to stop that launch, Admiral.  I am ordering you to destroy that launch tube, with whatever it takes.”

“If we still have people aboard, sir?”

“Then they will become collateral damage, if they are even still alive.  But the missile must not launch, or we stand to lose a lot more people.”

“I don’t understand, your Majesty.”

“We don’t have time to explain it now, Admiral.  Talk to me or Dr. Yu afterwards.  Just do what I’m ordering.”  Sean checked the time, and found that it was now only three minutes till the predicted launch time.

“We hadn’t planned on firing on any of our own structures, sir.  It might take a few minutes to move the platforms to take the launch tube into their firing arcs.  We’re charging them as we speak, so as soon as they have the angle, we can fire.”

Sean stopped himself from cursing.  He realized that most beam weapons were not kept at full readiness unless there was a perceived need.  And here there hadn’t been.  There hadn’t been a perceived need for the kind of security in place now before the Caca strike in the Supersystem either.  Sean made a determination at that moment to make some changes.  If they lived past this event, that was.

“Can the Damocles destroy the launch tube?” he asked the admiral.

“She could, but any missile she fired would take minutes to get there, and her lasers aren’t powerful enough,” replied the admiral, setting off more cursing from the monarch.

“We still have time,” said Yu, reaching across the table and laying a hand on Sean’s forearm.  “If we can knock it out before the shot, everything will be fine.”

Sean looked in the director’s eyes and could tell that she wasn’t sure about what she was saying.  It was only a hope.  At that moment the station shook, and this time it was much stronger than before.

“Director Yu,” came a call over the station com.  “That last shock tore some of the inward facing from the station.  The material is on a fast course into the black hole.”

“How the hell could that happen?” blurted Sean.    He wasn’t an expert on the station, but he knew it was a sturdy construction, and that pieces shouldn’t be falling off of it unless the pull reached many times what it was.

“We’re still a patchwork of repairs after a couple of attacks,” said Yu, shaking her head.  “We still have patches on the hull from the first Caca attack, when they brought the warheads aboard.”

“But the supports are still strong enough?” asked Sean, wondering if he might die as his father, mother and brothers did, crushed out of existence below the event horizon of a black hole.

Chapter Nineteen

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics. Brian Greene

“Initiating the drop of the wormhole into our dimension,” said one of the techs who had come aboard with Stumpfield and his people.

The man sat at one of the consoles that had been configured to control their wormhole.  Stumpfield was glad that he had thought ahead.  He had known that he couldn’t trust the damned monarch who had lost the count’s home system and the billions who lived there.  It had taken months, but with inside connections he had been able to get his people into what were not considered vital positions by most.  Electricians aboard the station, crew aboard the missile launcher.  It had all worked out, and in a little over a minute they would be firing the shot that would kill the Caca ship, save three hundred million people, and prove the concept.  Then they could work on the next stage, saving Cimmeria and its sister planet, Aquilonia.

“Wormhole moving into our dimension, now.”

The other end of the wormhole was on a specially constructed spaceship that could go not only through the dimensions of hyper, but also a number of other dimensional barriers.  It was unmanned, controlled over the wormhole.  Now it ripped apart the dimensional barrier and returned to their space, and its positive timestream.  The station shook once again, to the point where several of the people standing in the chamber fell to the deck.

“We’re getting an image.”

A holo came to life in the center of the chamber, showing a star field, while a second holo projected a tactical view.

“Where is it?” yelled Stumpfield, walking around the holos, trying to get a view that would show him the enemy.

“It’s not there yet,” said the tech.  “Wait.  I’m picking up a hyper translation from the area it should be coming through.”  The man played with the controls for a moment.  “There it is.  Sending coordinates and resonance patterns to the missile.  Firing.”

I’ve won, thought the count as the command went out.

*     *     *

“Admiral.  The instability of the star has increased by eight-four percent in the last couple of seconds.  Antimatter production sats are being pulled out of orbit toward it, and there’s nothing we can do.”

McCullom sat in her office chair, silent.  She didn’t know what to say.  They could try evacuating the system.  Anything within an hour of the hyper limit could most likely get away.  A number of people could go through wormhole gates, but not enough.  Ninety-nine percent of the population of this system would die soon after the star went completely off the deep end and exploded.  And this time she didn’t feel like deserting them.

“Admiral?”

“Order everything that can get away to do so.”  She knew that many vessels that didn’t have a chance of getting out would still try.  That was human survival instinct, no matter how hopeless it was.

“Should we prepare a ship for you, ma’am?  We can get it through the ship gates at Central Docks before the shock wave gets here.”

“Get as many out as you can, but I will stay, thank you.”  Something nagged at her for a moment.  “Where is the Emperor?  And are we evacuating the Empress and the heirs.”

“The Emperor in on the Donut, ma’am.  Her security detail is getting the Empress and heirs aboard shuttles now.”

And pray to God that they get her out in time, thought the CNO.  Now where do I want to be when the star blows?

*     *     *

“Fire,” yelled out Admiral Sung as soon as the targeting holo showed the missile launch tube entering the firing arc.

The first of the laser projectors released a blast of photons from a light second away.  Grav lenses that could keep the beam together for almost a light minute focused the beam on the structure, striking the forward end of the launch platform.  A second later another laser platform fired, this time targeting the center.  Both quickly ate through the thin armor hide of the launch tube.  Not quickly enough it would seem, and Sung was about to order a missile battery to shoot when the launch tube blew into two pieces along its center point.

*     *     *

“Fire,” said the commanding officer of the Ancients.

The vessel was within twenty thousand kilometers of the target, and Jackson was wondering at the lack of range of the weapon.  A bright purple beam linked the ship with the missile launcher in an instant.  An instant later the center of the missile launcher flashed, an unbearably bright explosion as a hundred kilograms of matter converted to energy.  Four gigatons of explosive force, four times that of a shipkiller warhead, ripped through the structure.  A moment later a second beam struck, then a third, and the structure came apart.

“The humans were already firing on it,” said another of the crew, pointing to a screen.  “They were firing lasers at the structure.  If given enough time they would have destroyed it.”

“So, they thought better of it,” said Jackson.  “That must mean something.”

“It means that they are not total fools, but still not to be trusted,” said Klorasoft.

“Move us closer to the station,” ordered the commander.  “It is time to finish this.”

*     *     *

“What happened?” yelled Stumpfield as both of the holos disappeared.  “Did we get off the shot?”

“Maybe,” said the tech, looking around and shrugging his shoulders.  “I don’t think so.”

“We had to have got the shot off,” yelled Stumpfield, spittle flying from his lips.  “We had to.  We can’t fail like this.  We can’t.”

A sound came from the door, and Stumpfield turned to see a glowing point appear on the hatch.  A moment later metal sparks flew out as the cutting laser penetrated the alloy of the hatch, then started to work its way up.  It was obvious that those outside were no longer afraid of what Stumpfield and his people could do, and were going to round them up.

“I won’t let them take us,” screamed Stumpfield, pulling a pistol from underneath his coat, aiming it at the tech, and putting a hyper velocity round through the man’s head.  He turned and shot another of this people, then gasped out as he tried to turn and get Achieng Okoye, the most dangerous of his people, in his sights.

Okoye had already started moving when the count pulled the pistol, and she was in his face before he could complete his turn.  A poke of her stiffened fingers to his throat and he could no longer breath.  A second strike to his temple with her augmented strength and his lifeless body was dropping to the floor.

The woman walked to the door and disengaged the lock, letting those trying to get in through.  She put her hands up over her head and let them restrain her.  Yes, she was here for the mission, but the mission was over, a failure, and she saw no need to die when she didn’t need to.

*      *      *

Sean watched as the missile launch tube was blown into pieces, hundreds of thousands of small among four large.  He waited a moment, wondering if they had gotten to it in time.

“Gravity from the hole is going down,” said Lucille, a note of triumph in her voice.  “We got to it in time.”  She looked up and into the eyes of the monarch.  “I hope.”

Sean stared at the holo showing the tumbling pieces of a multi-trillion Imperial structure that had been one of the most powerful weapons of his empire.  An expensive lesson.  But less expensive than losing eight core systems and this station.

“Good job, Admiral,” Sean said over the com to the control bridge.

“We’re not sure we were the ones who got it, your Majesty.”

“What do you mean, Admiral?  If we didn’t destroy it, what did?”

“We’re still not sure, your Majesty.  We’re trying to track it now, and one of our destroyers is closing on it.  We’re hoping she’ll be able to develop the target.”

The target, thought Sean.  They were thinking of it as hostile, even though it had just saved their asses.  The monarch approved of that way of thinking.  They couldn’t afford to make a mistake if something that powerful was creeping around without letting them know who they were.

“We’re getting a com from the Damocles, sir,” said a voice in the background.  “They’re still having problems getting a firm fix on the intruder.  The captain says they are closing, and asks permission to fire a wide spread.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Permission granted, Admiral.  Whatever it is, I don’t want it getting close to this station.”

“Yes, sir.  Damocles.  You have permission to fire.”

And I hope we’re not firing on a friend, thought Sean, staring at the tactical plot which had come up to replace the image of the destroyed launcher.

*     *     *

“That’s the best I can do, sir,” said the tactical officer.

“Then fire a wide spread.  Let’s see if we can get them to come out into the open.”

Damocles was turned broadside to the target, allowing all of her laser rings and particle beams to bear.  All fired at the same time, at a target that was less than ten thousand kilometers away.  The beams flashed through the target area at the speed of light, or, in the case of the particle beams, as near to it as made no difference.  All but one flew through nothing, but that laser beam hit something, photons splashing back into space to be detected by the sensors of the destroyer.

“We’ve got a fix,” yelled out the tactical officer.

“Hit them with everything you’ve got,” responded the captain.  “Prepare to fire missiles.”

Damocles got off another set of beam shots, but before she could get off her missiles she became the target.

*     *     *

“We are being fired upon,” called out one of the Ancients in a burst of sound.

Jackson could understand enough of their language to get the gist, and was cheering inside that the Imperial Fleet had got enough of a fix on the ship to fire.

“Return fire,” called out the commander.  “Damage?”

“Minor scarring on the hull,” said another crew member.

“Firing, now.”

If Jackson had thought the Ancient ship only carried the one beam weapon of limited range, he was soon disabused of that notion as a pair of powerful laser beams speared the destroyer.  They blasted through with the strength of battleship rings, burning all the way into the ship in less than a second.  A sphere of brilliant scintillating light flew in after the beams, striking the bow of the vessel and converting a hundred meters of hull into dust which flew away into the vacuum.

The destroyer didn’t give up, even mortally wounded, and it continued to fire into the Ancient vessel with all the beam weapons that were still functioning.  The alien laser swept through, ripping a meter-wide swath through the ship, until it hit engineering and breeching antimatter put an end to the destroyer.

“They know we are here,” said the commander.  “Raise shields and prepare to boost at full speed toward the station.  The time for stealth is over.”

The shields came up just in time, as a pentawatt class laser struck the ship, followed a second later by another one.  The Ancient vessel shook from the transfer energy, but there was no burn through.

“The gravitic shield has held,” said the Ancient who was acting as their tactical officer.

What the hell is a gravitic shield? thought Jackson.  Whatever it was, it sounded much more effective than the electromagnetic shields that were used on Imperial ships, and just about any alien vessels known.

“We have more ships firing on us,” reported the tactical officer.  “And more moving into place.”

“Fire on them until we are within range of the station.  Then turn all weapons on it.”

Jackson knew his time had come.  He had to do something, and now was the time.  He might fail, he might die, but he had to try.  While the Ancients all had their attention on the battle he moved toward a locker he had noted when he had first come on the bridge.  He had seen one of the Ancients pull it open, and it appeared to have no lock.  Now he could only hope that was true.

*     *     *

“They destroyed the Damocles, your Majesty.  But we can see them now.  I’m going to hit them with everything we have.”

Sean leaned forward in his chair as a half dozen holos popped into life over the table.  One showed the alien ship, with estimated scale markings below it.  It was like nothing he had ever seen.  It was shaped like a dodecahedron, and looked to mass about a couple of thousand tons, though that was only an estimate.  It had destroyed a two hundred thousand ton destroyer in seconds, and had blasted apart the larger structure of a missile launcher, so it held more power than its size would indicate.  Immediately after it appeared, it blurred behind some kind of screen that didn’t look like the electromagnetic cold plasma variety the humans used.

“We’re hitting it with pentawatt lasers from two of the orbiting batteries, sir,” said one of the crew on the control bridge.  “No affect so far.”

That raised the hackles on Sean’s neck.  Those batteries, housing lasers that had once been used to create industrial micro-black holes, could tear through a battleship, shields and armor, in a second.  But they weren’t going through whatever those shields were.

“These people are much more advanced than we are,” said Director Yu.

Sean glared at her for a moment.  It was obvious that these people were as far ahead of the humans as the humans were ahead of the first orbiting missions of their home world.  And then the alien ship fired, a beam slicing into one of the orbiting batteries, going through its own shielding and armor as if it were air.  A pair of scintillating globes shot from the ship heading for the other battery, and the holo slowed the image down for a second to give the viewers a good picture, before following them into the laser emplacement.  Two one hundred yard bites were taken out of the weapon, waves of dust flying from the areas of impact.

“What the hell is that?”

“I’m guessing some kind of molecular bond suppression weapon,” said Lucille, leaning forward herself.  “It must sever the bonds between atoms in molecules, turning what they hit into molecular dust.”

The first laser battery was sliced open, cut into two uneven pieces that floated apart.  The weapon itself was no longer functional, and that battery was out of the fight.  The beam then took the other platform under fire, and within seconds it too was out of service.

“We have a heavy cruiser and two destroyers closing, your Majesty.  They will pass by at point zero five light and fire in passing.”

“What else do you have, Admiral?  I don’t want that thing getting close to the station.”  He was thinking about that first beam that had destroyed the missile platform.  It hadn’t gently turned molecules into atoms.  No, it had caused an explosion that had ripped apart a massive structure.  Since they hadn’t used it since he had to figure it had a limited range, and he didn’t want them getting within said range.

“We’re getting the targeting solutions for missiles now,” said Sung.

It took more than just aiming the missiles and letting them loose.  Those on the station would be coming from tubes that were rotating along with the structure at a very fast rate.  The solution had to send them into the target in a way that took advantage of their rotational velocity.

“The cruiser is launching,” said Sung, looking off the holo for a moment.

The cruiser was moving toward the alien at point zero five light, at just under a light second and already firing its lasers and particle beams.  The missiles accelerated out of its forward tubes, moving at point zero eight light and accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities.  The flight time for the eight missiles would be just under eleven seconds.  Before they had covered a third of that distance lasers speared out from the alien craft and detonated all of the missiles in less than a second.  They then targeted the cruiser, slicing through its heavy armor as if it were light weight plastic.  A pair of the glowing balls flew at it as well, moving at one tenth of the speed of light.

The cruiser switched its lasers onto one of the balls, following it in.  After four seconds of contact the ball exploded outward, disappearing.  The other hit the bow of the cruiser and vaporized a hundred meters in.  The lasers continued to eat into the cruiser, burning through the length until they hit the engineering section and the cruiser went up in a blast of plasma.

“Missiles firing, now.”

There was no shudder from the station such as occurred on most ships.  The station was just too massive for such a small object, no matter the acceleration out of the tubes, to register.  A hundred missiles were on the way in seconds, all the tubes on one quarter of the station, using the rotation to throw the missiles into the side of the enemy craft.  Flight time was just over thirteen seconds, and the enemy lasers blasted all but two of them from space.  The two that hit detonated with gigaton blasts that did nothing to penetrate the enemy screens.

Everything that could bear fired on the enemy.  Missiles, lasers, particle beams, everything but the close in weapons that really couldn’t reach the targets due to their slow velocity and the sideward velocity that was imparted by the station.

Now the station shook, slightly, as the lasers of the enemy started tearing across the outer skin.  Several of the globes struck as well, digging balls out of the station that were almost unnoticeable unless one happened to be where they hit.  It was turning into a slugging match, and almost everything the station was throwing at it was being deflected or blown out of space, while the alien vessel came closer.

Sean turned to see Lucille looking at a holo and talking.  She turned back to him with a tight smile on her face.

“I’m sending something their way.  With your permission, of course.”

Sean nodded, wondering what she was doing, but turned back to the tactical holo, his attention captured by what he knew was coming.

Another hundred missiles went for the alien, and again were almost all blown out of space, only a trio making it through.  There were more launches, more interceptions.  As the enemy drew closer they had less time for their own tracking, and a few more missiles made it through.

“Alberta is in range and ready to launch,” came a voice over the com.

Sean checked out the ship they were talking about.  A close in system defense monitor, no hyperdrive capability, but able to accelerate at five hundred and fifty gravities.  Eight million tons, armored and armed like a battleship.  And carrying, at the moment, two wormholes, configured to launch missiles.

“Tell her to fire as soon as she has a lock,” ordered the admiral.

The enemy ship was now within fifty thousand kilometers of the station, moving at four thousand kilometers a second.  It had fired on the missile launcher at six thousand kilometers, so that was the predicted range.  It would probably take more than one shot to blast through a section of the station, but they also had their lasers and those disintegrator globes.

“Enemy ship is losing acceleration,” called out one of the tactical crew.  “There appears to be a weakening on their shields over the mid port area.”

“That was my gift to our friends,” said Lucille with a smile.  “A couple of kilograms of antimatter inside their ship, courtesy of quantum teleportation.”

Sean smiled back.  He had forgotten about that tech, the ability to teleport substances close range.  Only about half of the teleported substance made it to the target.  The rest was spread through space, courtesy of the weirdness of quantum physics.  Molecules might end up ten feet from the teleporter unit, or across the universe.  There was always the danger that a significant amount might end up where they didn’t want it to be, but that was rare.

“Alberta is firing.”

Out in space, five light seconds out, the monitor released two streams of wormhole launched missiles within a microsecond of each other.  Sixty missiles were in space in an instant, traveling at point nine-five light and accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities.  Part of that acceleration was evasive maneuvers, and not even the technologically advanced alien could get all of them.  Hopefully not even most of them.  And the Emperor stared as they moved on the plot, travel time less than six seconds.

*     *     *

“What was that,” squealed the Ancient commander as the ship shook and the light dimmed for a second.

“Something exploded in our engineering section,” called out one of the crew.  “They don’t know what it was, but there is a lot of residual neutron radiation.

“Are defenses still at full strength?”

“All weapons are operational, but shield strength has been reduced to seventy-five percent.  And it is not an even reduction.”

The ship was coming in at the station so that it would barely pass over it.  They would fire all weapons in passing, ripping through the structure with lasers, releasing disintegrator globes as fast as they could fire them, and shooting off all eight of the matter conversion beams.  That should be enough to cut through the station.  And once the ring was cut, it was just a matter of it unraveling and falling into the black hole.  Actually, only about half of it would fall in.  The other half would tear away and fall out of the system.  But it would be destroyed, of no use to the humans, and never to be used again to make wormholes.

“What are you doing?” yelled Klorasoft, just before the weapons control station sparked as something cut through the metal and plastic of the control board.

“I’m stopping you from destroying my Empire,” yelled out Xavier Jackson as he swung the beam of the emergency cutting laser into another station, taking off two tentacles of the Ancient manning that post.

“We have missiles on approach,” yelled out another Ancient.  “Sixty objects, velocity point nine-six light.  Impact in two seconds.”

The commander turned to stare at the human.  If their firing systems had been up they might have been able to take out thirty of those weapons, maybe more.  With systems damaged they would be lucky to get ten.

“You’ve doomed all of us,” said the commander to the smiling human, who still held the laser and obviously meant to keep using it.

The missiles hit so fast that in was like one impact.  Sixty gigatons of antimatter warheads, over a hundred gigatons of kinetic energy.  Enough to blast sixty battleships into plasma.  The shields still almost held, failing at the last minute and allowing a couple of gigatons of force in to hit the hull.  The hull was a tough alloy, with an outer layer of almost nuclear density.  The blast still punched through, and the after third of the ship was turned into an inferno that melted machinery and Ancients both.

Klorasoft grabbed Jackson as he fell, then carried him over to a hatch set on the side of the bulkhead.

“Are you going to kill me?” asked Jackson, looking into the eyes of the alien he had thought of as a friend.

“No,” said Klorasoft, throwing him through the opening to land in a padded chamber.  “Warn them of their folly.”

The hatch slammed closed and the chamber seemed to press him against the padding for some seconds.  And then he was drifting weightless in the capsule, and knew that he had been ejected so that he might live.  And warn his people.

*     *     *

“Enemy ship is without power, sir,” called out one of the control bridge crew.

“Can we capture it?” asked Sean, anxious to get that tech for his military.  With shields and weapons like that, not to mention their stealth technology, they could rout the Cacas in a year.

“No, your Majesty.  They are flying over the top of the station as we speak.”

Sean looked at the tactical holo, following the ship as it sped by the fifty kilometer thickness of the station like it was a mathematical line of no thickness.  The black hole was over seven million kilometers from the inside skin of the station, and the enemy ship was already moving toward it at point one light, accelerating all the time.  He watched in fascination as it fell inward, hoping they might get their ship working so he could meet and talk with these beings.  They had tried to destroy his station, and with it his empire, but he thought he understood their motivations.  They had been trying to stop the humans from making the same mistake they had, and he promised himself his people would not make that error again.

He watched for the time it took the Ancient ship to fly over the black hole, no more than a hundred kilometers above the event horizon.  Its trajectory was altered as it was pulled into a curved orbit just above the horizon, to begin the fall into the gravity well from which there was no escape.  The Emperor only hoped that tidal forces had already killed the aliens, so they would not have to suffer the time dilated eternity of their end.

Chapter Twenty

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Rabindranath Tagore

“They’re here,” came the call over the intercom.

Dr. Rafael Rodrigue sent an acknowledge code over his implant, then headed toward the central control room.  Being chief of the entire project was a new position for him.  He had spent five years as the chief of portal one, one of the two units that explored the other spaces from which the Other Universe Project got its name.

Five years of staring into strange spaces, some not meant for the human mind to contemplate, had changed him, and not for the better.  But he had hung on, hoping to get the Directorship, and it had finally come his way.  Only to have this happen.

“We’re picking up two hundred ships moving through hyper, Director.  They are on a heading straight for us.”

Rodrigue cursed.  He had hoped the bastards would come in without knowing where the project was located.  They were, after all, a small planetoid, sitting out near the hyper barrier in the cold of space.  They had powered everything down, presenting a cold image, or so it was hoped.  Fool’s hope, thought the director.  The planetoid should have been about the ambient temperature of space around it, but instead was sixty-two degrees above that temp due to their extended activity.  It was cooling down again now that the fusion plants were off line.  About a degree every couple of hours.  Not enough.

The people on the planetoid had hoped the Cacas would come in and head straight for the planet that was being terraformed in the life zone.  That they weren’t showed that they had some intelligence about this system, things they shouldn’t have known.

The Director really didn’t see what they would be looking for on the planetoid.  They had opened over fifteen hundred dimensions, most of them dead ends.  Some were early universes where the matter hadn’t shifted far enough from the start point, and stars were in the early stages of forming, much less galaxies.  Others were dead, having gone through all of their hydrogen, or at least as much of it as made no difference.  Some of those were still expanding, doomed to spread forever as cold lifeless places.  Others were collapsing, so they would eventually, in tens of billions of years, become living universes again.  Some were made up of negative matter, others of antimatter.  The major problem with those was that the deposits that would make exploitation worthwhile were light years from the portal, and no crew would hazard a ship in that space.

They had even found two dimensions where time seemed to run in the opposite direction from their own.  One, in which a second in their universe equaled a reverse hour in the other, was full of killing hard radiation.  The other was traversable, but the one for one second transformation didn’t seem to be too useful.  But the Cacas must have thought the data from the project was worth it, or they wouldn’t be heading straight for the planetoid.

“They’ll be entering normal space in about four hours,” said the tech who was operating the sensor console.

“And the damned liner hasn’t arrived yet,” said another tech, telling Rafael something he already knew.  The liner/supply ship had not been due for another three weeks.    The cruiser being sent to help them wouldn’t have room for everyone, so they had been promised another liner as well.  But they wouldn’t be arriving for another twenty-three hours.  The crews terraforming the planet had enough lift to pick up everyone, but all of their ships with the exception of one courier were interplanetary only.  They were on the way to evacuate the planet to one of the asteroid belts, where they might be able to lay low and escape notice.  Might.

“How are we coming on unpacking the lasers?”

“We’ll have one free in about seven hours, sir,” said the chief engineer over the com.

Which is completely useless, thought Rodrigue.  It had been worth a try.  The multi-hundred pentawatt lasers could have destroyed a capital ship.  They wouldn’t have the kind of targeting that military lasers had, but a lucky hit might have killed at least one or two of the enemy ships.  Only there weren’t one or two of them coming, and they didn’t have seven hours.

“We’re totally screwed,” said Dr. Gamet, the director of portal two.  “Unless we can use something from the project to defend us.”

Rodrigue in his right mind wouldn’t have thought what he next did.  The idea was just too dangerous, and he wasn’t sure if they could do it anyway.  But it looked like their only chance.

“Fire up the fusion plants.  Start moving the portal two apparatus out of containment.  I want it in space within three hours.  Then I want it hooked up to all of our tugs.”

Gamet gave him a curious look.  “You’re thinking of opening a portal in front of them?  What the hell good will that do?  You expect them to just head into one on their own?”

“No, I don’t expect them to be stupid enough to run into something they’ve never seen before.  No, I want to put something out there that goes after them.”

“Not six oh one?”  Gamet’s eyes widened as he said the words.  Six oh one was the one universe they had never wanted to open again.  It contained a threat much worse than hard radiation  or incompatible matter.  They really had never figured out what was there, but whatever it was, it was deadly.

“But, if we let it out in our universe, there’s no telling…”

“We have no reason to believe it can go faster than light, at least not in our universe.  It won’t be a risk to our universe, not for thousands of years.  And by that time we’re sure to figure something out.  I think we’ll let whatever’s there out and let it play with the Cacas.”

“It will still be a threat to us,” said Gamet, pointing a finger in the director’s face.

“And the Cacas won’t.  They’ll kill us, except for those they’ll want to torture information out of, and take all of our data anyway.”  Rodrigue looked over at his chief tech.  “Prepare to purge the data banks, just in case.”

There were a lot of unbelieving looks coming his way, but people were moving, obeying his orders.  No one wanted to die, and even a slim chance was better than none.

*     *     *

The Caca force, one hundred and eight-three ships, translated from hyper just beyond the barrier.  They had entered normal space at a low velocity, just what was wanted for this mission.  The target was just ahead, five light minutes, an hour at current deceleration.

“They appear to have no fleet here, my Lord,” said the tactical officer of the flagship.  “We’re picking up graviton emissions from the inner asteroid belt.  And more from the habitable planet.”

“Is that what I think it is?” asked the task force commander.

“It appears to be world they are terraforming into a living planet,” said the sensor officer, distaste in his tone.

“Sacrilege,” spat the tactical officer.

“Detach a small group and send them toward the planet.  We will make sure, then destroy it.  The rest of the force is to come to a stop one hundred thousand kilometers from the target.  Then we will take what we came for.”

The ships continued in, decelerating the whole way, on the lookout for anything that might be a weapon and spotting nothing obvious.

“What is that?” asked the sensor officer as the viewer focused and zoomed on an object in space between them and the planetoid.  “It’s giving off the graviton emissions of a multi-billion ton object.”

Which meant it was giving off very faint emissions, like a massive natural object, and not those of something with grabber units.

“We’ll probably want a look at it, so don’t fire,” said the group commander.  “Make sure the force is spread out enough so we are not all in danger if it does turn out to be something to concern us.  And lock weapons on, but do not fire until I give the order.”

*      *      *

“They’re coming in, sir,” called out the tech operating the sensor panel.

The facility had a rump battalion of Marines as security, and they had some people who were used to running tactical sensors on assault shuttles, but the director preferred to have his own people handle this.  The four hundred and fifty odd Marines would be there to handle a landing by the Cacas, though he doubted they would last long in any case.

“Shall I open the portal?” asked Dr. Gamet, the man who was handling the actual opening to another dimension.

“Not yet, Dr. Gamet.  Patience.  We don’t want to give the game away too soon.”

The lasers on the planetoid were also manned and powered up.  The weapons had been emplaced with the intent of chasing off pirates.  They might just be able to take out a cruiser at best, with some lucky hits.  Against the force coming at them, not a chance.  They also had some missile batteries, with destroyer class weapons.  Again, not enough to take out anything much larger than a light cruiser.  They were the last resort weapons, maybe enough to make the Cacas fire everything they had at the planetoid and make sure they were all dead.  Rodrigue put his hand on the particle beam pistol by his side, his personal last resort, though he wasn’t sure if he would force the Cacas to kill him, or just do the job himself.

“Get ready,” he ordered as he looked at the view of the apparatus, now sitting over a light second from the planetoid, approximately three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers.  Twelve black holes were held in place by arms that were more massive than a dozen battleships each, connected in the middle.  Microwave dishes speckled one side, while twelve huge tugs prepared to boost in place to hold everything together.

Some had thought it a bad idea to have the portal rooms accessible from space through massive hatches.  Rodrigue had disagreed, though he had thought they would only be of use to get rid of the black holes in case of an emergency.  If released into space, they were small enough that they would radiate down to the size where they couldn’t hold together in a couple of weeks without a constant infusion of matter.

“Now,” shouted the director, pointing at Gamet.

The scientist nodded and pushed the engage key, setting the entire programmed process into motion.  The microwave projectors on the surface of the planetoid shot gigawatts of energy to the apparatus, while the arms, now powered, set the black holes to vibrating at a specific frequency as they pulled them apart.  Space began to rip open between the gravitational point sources, until a tear appeared, leading into the inky blackness of another universe.

*     *     *

The unnamed being had waited in this region of its space ever since the portal to the other dimension had opened years ago.  There was no more energy on its side of the dimensional barrier.  It was not a large universe, only a hundred light years in expanse.  It had never contained what beings in other universes would have called stars, only a couple of hundred brown dwarves.  Life of a sort had still evolved here, and had spread, until the Eater had come into being.  It was the culmination of evolution in this universe, the final stage, and it had eaten every other life form it could find, until it was the only life in its universe.  After that it had absorbed all energy from the stars, growing as it did, until all of its space was barren.  Then came uncounted eons of time, while it starved and ate its own substance, until it was a mere shadow of its former self.

When the portal had opened to the other universe, one full of energy, uncounted life forms on the other side, it had thought it had found salvation.  But the lifeforms of that universe had been able to push it back into its space and seal the portal.

Now that space was open again, real space, not the enclosed area it had seen before.  And here before it were a number of objects radiating energy, and full of lifeforms.  With that thought came action, and it used some more of its last reserves of stored energy to fly from the opening towards the food.

*     *     *

“What is that?” said the tactical officer, pointing a lower left hand index finger at the viewer.

The object they had been looking at, the strange huge thing with the twelve arms, was now opening like some kind of grotesque flower.  In the opening was an inky blackness, something that didn’t look like the black of space.  It just looked, wrong.

“We’re picking up unknown radiation from ahead,” said the sensor officer.

The Ca’cadasan commander felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked at it.  It made him feel a peril such as he had never imagined.  And then the blackness leapt from the opening like a predator, which the commander was sure it was.

“Open fire,” he yelled.  “Kill that damned thing.”

His people stared at him for a moment, many not knowing why he was yelling kill it.  Kill what, their eyes seemed to ask.

“Fire at that dark thing.  Order all ships to fire at that dark thing.”

The creature had by that time swung out a half a hundred dark tentacles that went through and into the bodies of that many vessels as if they were made of a gas.  Screams started coming in on the com, including from within the flagship.  By this time the Caca fleet was firing, lasers, particle beams, even a few missiles.  Lasers and particle beams tore through it, dissipating some of its substance.  Missiles flew through without effect.  And fifty Ca’cadasan warships died.

The rest of the warships fired, trying frantically to maneuver away from a creature that could move like a sea predator through space.  And then the first of the antimatter containment vessels breached aboard the dead ships, and bright flares of light blotted out areas of shadows.

*     *     *

“Close it,” yelled Rodrigue as he watched the Cacas fight it out with death incarnate.

Gamet hit the panel, and nothing happened.  More Caca ships were engulphed, more exploded, and the portal remained open.

“Close the damned thing.”

“I’m trying.  But it won’t close.”

The director wondered what he had done.  It had all seemed so logical when he had thought about releasing the creature into their universe, knowing that it would take years to get to another star, knowing that surely the fleet would be able to take care of it at that time.  But seeing it in action was quite another thing entirely.

The gate mechanism was hit by something that caused a bright flare, probably a Caca missile, and collapsed in on itself, all of the black holes joining into one mass that sucked in all the other matter of the gate.

The creature recoiled as if it had been cut in half, which it might well have been when the door to its home slammed shut.  It had enveloped the entire Caca force by now, and was still trying to feed on them.  When a space ship exploded from antimatter breach it appeared as it a section of the creature disappeared with it.  So it wasn’t getting its own way, and the weapons of the big aliens were hurting it.

Suddenly it was over.  The Caca force was gone, along with most of the creature.  What was left was no larger than a superbattleship, and much less massive.  It was having trouble keeping itself together, and would soon start looking for an energy source to help it grow back to size.

“All missile batteries.  Lock onto that thing and fire.”

“We’re not getting a target lock on it, sir,” called out the tech manning the defense board.  “It’s not solid enough.”

“Then fire everything you have into the center of it, set to go off when they reach that point.”

The batteries fired, all ten of them, each sending ten destroyer class missiles with two hundred megaton warheads into the thing.  They all went off within a millisecond of each other, a blinding flash that illuminated the thing.  When the flash cleared, the thing was gone.

*     *     *

The Eater felt its substance dissipate under the fury of antimatter fire.  What little consciousness remained fled, and all that remained was a tiny patch of the creature.  A tiny patch which followed its instincts and compressed down into a solid pellet no more than ten centimeters across.  And so the remnants were cocooned, to drift through space, until they neared an energy source that would awaken it and allow it to again grow.

Chapter-Twenty-one

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. Nathaniel Hawthorne

FENRI SPACE.  JUNE 19TH, 1003.

“They’re doing just what you thought they would, Admiral.”

“Of course,” said Mgonda.  “Don’t you know I can read their tiny little minds.”

The people in the staff room laughed.  Mgonda had hoped that the enemy would consolidate after he had destroyed all three fingers of their left wing.  He hadn’t been sure they would, but they had to react to his ability to take their forces under fire one at a time.  Which meant that the six fingers of the other two groups were starting to collapse onto their main wings.  Not all the ships were moving.  The enemy obviously didn’t have enough wormholes to communicate with all of their task forces, and some would be picked off before they could get word.  And the leftmost of their right wing was surely doomed, as twenty thousand of his ships closed in on the seven thousand vessels in that force.

Some of his people still looked distracted, and the news of the near disaster back home was all that many could talk about.  According to the news, a group of terrorists under the leadership of a renegade nobleman and a discredited scientist had tried to change time, after infiltrating the Donut.  Taelis knew the truth, or as much of it as anyone knew.  He hoped that those in the Capital could keep the young hothead under control, and not allow any more disastrous decisions to be made.

And what would you have done, Taelis, if you had been presented with the possibility of saving hundreds of millions of lives? he thought.  He was more than happy that such an opportunity had not been dropped into his lap.

“I still think it’s an unwarranted risk to put those VI ships out there like that,” complained one of his task group commanders, attending the meeting by wormhole com.  “In fact, Admiral, several of my captains are refusing to put their ships at risk transiting into VII.”

Mgonda glared at the officer.  Many people hadn’t liked the idea of moving hyper VI ships into hyper VII by wormhole.  The ships were not able to enter and leave the space on their own.  They had enough hyperdrive capability, if pushed to near the maximum, to stay in VII.  They could be transported there by wormhole gates, entering hyper VI and leaving into hyper VII through a specially constructed gate.  That type of gate was in short supply, and without them, those ships were doomed to eventually fall out of hyper in a catastrophic translation.

But he needed hyper VII ships to carry out his plans, and though he had many more than had been available at the beginning of the war, almost a third of his force, that still left two thirds of his fleet unable to chase down and get in front of the Caca forces.  His VI ships could launch missiles into the higher dimension, but only if they were in the proper alignment.  Otherwise, he was restricted to bringing them to battle within normal space, which took the cooperation of the enemy.  Right now it didn’t look they were going to cooperate.

“Those captains are disobeying orders?”

“That’s what they are doing, all right,” said another officer, turning her glare onto the other task group commander.

“All three of the officers are refusing, and threatening to resign their commissions before they allow their ships to go through the wormholes,” continued the first task group commander.

“They can resign their commissions,” growled Mgonda.  “After they have been tried for cowardice in the face of the enemy.  For now they are to be relieved of command and thrown in the brig.  And they will be aboard their ships when they translate into VII.”

That brought some murmuring from the officers present.  Mgonda slammed a hand down on the desk and glared at each officer in sequence as he swept the room.

“Make no mistake.  I will not tolerate failure to obey orders.  Fleet personnel are expected to go into combat at the risk of life and limb.  I wouldn’t tolerate a ship commander refusing orders to close with the enemy, even if the odds are against he and his ship coming back.  As far as I’m concerned, this is the same thing.

“Now.  Let’s get to business.  Half of the fleet will be in position to take out this finger of the right wing in this system, while we take this one in hyperspace before they reach the same system.  Which leaves this, the largest central formation.”

“And they are heading right for the same system?”

“Yes.  They are.  And I hope to be there to meet them.  I know there is the risk that they will be warned by the other Caca formations, since they are sure to have wormhole coms.  The question then is, will they try to evacuate by wormhole gate, or will they bring in more ships through the same gate, and present us with a more potent force?”

That was the question.  Intelligence thought there was another fleet out there.  They still thought it was going to strike the center of the frontier between the Republic and the Fenri Empire, an expanse of almost two thousand light years.  But what if they brought them here instead, building up enough of a force to defeat and destroy his fleet?  Then we will just have to fight another delaying action until Len and the rest of the fleet gets here.

*     *     *

“Enemy ships entering sensor range ahead,” called out one of the bridge officers.  “Straight ahead, and on a heading right for us.”

The high admiral grunted as he gave a head motion of acknowledgement.  The enemy would probably try to change their vector when they saw how big his force was.  They just didn’t have enough hyper VII ships to challenge him in this dimension, and he knew for a fact that a large number of those ships were closing in around the system he was on the way to reinforce.

“Three hundred ships so far, my Lord.  About a third of them capital class.”

The high admiral was not worried.  He had eight thousand ships, a quarter of them superbattleships.  At most they would send a thousand vessels at him, maybe two.  And he would blow them out of hyperspace with his weight of missiles, even if they had wormhole launchers.  Those missiles would still be dangerous, but they couldn’t sneak up on him like they could in normal space, since they had to maintain their own hyperfield once they left the launchers.

“Six hundred, my Lord,” said the tactical officer with a grin.

“We will have a good total this day,” said another of the officers.

And why are they not starting to change their vectors? thought the admiral.  They might not have detected his entire fleet, but surely they had picked up enough of it to know that they were outmatched.

“A thousand, my Lord.  With more coming.”

The high admiral stared at the plot, wondering how many ships they had.  They can’t have many more, can they?  They sure didn’t look like they were panicking at the sight of a superior force.  The ships kept appearing as they entered range.  Two thousand, then three, four, five.

“All ships, prepare to fire.”  It was too late to try and avoid the enemy force.  They were committed.  If they started to decel they would just slow their passing, lengthening the engagement.  And they were already going as fast as they could in this dimension.

“Fire.”

Eight thousand ships fired all their tubes, releasing over a hundred thousand weapons to fly through hyper VII at the enemy.  Moments later the enemy returned fire, two hundred thousand missiles appearing on the plot, many in the groups that denoted wormhole launch.  Thousands more entered every second along with their firing ships, and suddenly the high admiral realized that he had fallen into a trap.

More icons appeared on the plot, these smaller and more numerous than the offensive missiles, most moving in the same clusters as the wormhole launched weapons, boosting at full power to separate.  Some of the initial Ca’cadasan volley disappeared as the smaller icons detonated, filling space with plasma and radiation that formed a screen between the enemy fleet and his ships.  Nebulous clouds moved out from the front of the enemy fleet, the ancient plasma weapons of the humans, firing matter that would only last seconds in hyper, long enough to engulf some more of the wave.  Some still got through, and some of the enemy ships still died.  But not enough.

His ships got off thirteen more volleys, those that could, before the last one died.

*     *     *

“What do we have going on, Sondra?” asked Sean, picking up the anxiety of the woman from her body language.  He himself was still feeling some trepidation in interacting with subordinates who knew about his almost empire ending error.  The riot act had been read, and he was now on his best behavior, having no doubt that they would bring him down if he ever tried another stunt like that.

“The anticipated third Caca force is on the move, your Majesty.  And as we thought, they are coming through the center.”

“And Len is in place to take them on?”

“He is, your majesty.  The only problem is the disparity of forces.”

“What are we talking about, Sondra?” asked the Emperor, rubbing both sides of his nose as he felt the tension growing.  “We had predicted the same size as the others, right?  About thirty thousand ships.  Maybe a quarter more.”

“At least fifty thousand, your majesty.  Intelligence thinks they are throwing everything they could gather on this side of their empire at us.”

“That many?” gasped Sean as he pulled up the latest situation map of the front.  Mgonda was still engaged with the Cacas in the former Fenri empire.  There were still twenty thousand enemy ships on that front.  They had been retreating under the pressure of his force, but now the indications were they were once again advancing.  “They will slice right through Len’s force and into the heart of the empire.”

“It will still take them a week to get through the empty space of the front and into the empire, your majesty.  What we are recommending is for Mgonda to give up most of his force.  He was successful in delaying them before.  He should be able to do it again.”

“And send those ships to Len?  Will they be enough?”

“Maybe.  Probably not.  We still don’t know if this is all of their attacking force, your Majesty.  There could be another wave coming through.  I recommend that we send everything we have, Home Fleet, the closer sector fleets, everything our allies can give us.”

“And risk giving them another opening, another weak point.”

“It is a risk,” said Sondra, her eyes narrowing as her jaw clenched.

She’s scared out of her wits, thought the Emperor.  He was, too.  If they guessed wrong, this could be the final battle.  If they guessed right, they might gut the Caca fleet, which would leave Ca’cadasan space open to invasion.  If he had enough left to mount an invasion.

“Do it.  If anyone complains, do it anyway.  If some member of Parliament threatens action, let me know.  I will deal with them.  And you get to deal with Mgonda.”

Sondra groaned for a moment.  “That’s my job.  If you can just keep the Lords off my tail.”

“I will.  Now what about more of our fighters?  Can we get more of them into the action?”

“We already have all our trained crews deployed.”

“What about those in training?”

“They’re not ready, your Majesty.”  The CNO looked away for a moment, then back at her monarch.  “Sean.  Those crews are not ready.  We could send those in their last cycle, but even then they would take heavy casualties.  And any we send would not be available in the future, when we’re ready to attack their empire.”

“If we don’t destroy this fleet, we won’t be attacking their empire.  We will be open to an overwhelming force, coming right down our throats.  So put every crew that can fly without running into stray asteroids into the field.  I know it’s a shitty deal, but we need them, now.”

“Yes, sir.  I’ll get them moving.”

“Look at this as an opportunity, Sondra.  We have a chance to take out their entire fleet.  Or at least what they can afford to deploy for offensive operations.”  And if you believe that, I might have to find something else a little smarter to run my Fleet.

“I’ll start getting everything moving, sir.  Just don’t let those idiots in Parliament get in my way.”

*     *     *

“Dammit, Sondra.  I need those ships.”

“I know you do, Taelis.  But without them, Len will get crushed.  It isn’t what we wanted to do, your Grace.  But it is what we have to do.”

Mgonda shook his head, feeling his face burn with anger.  Of course she was right.  But he was on the verge of bringing the remainder of the enemy fleet into battle and destroying them.  If they got away from him now, they could retake every system he had liberated from them.  And all of those Imperial troops and rebels would again be under bombardment from orbit.

“Can you give me two days, Admiral.  In two days I could hit them hard enough to shatter this force, and then liberate the rest of former Fenri empire with what you leave me.”

“Shit, Taelis.  I’ll have to run that past the Emperor.  And I’m pretty sure I know what he is going to say.  In a week they will be into Sector IV.  A week later they could have overrun most of the sector.”

“Let my tactical staff look over the situation,” said Mgonda, a slight smile on his face.  “Maybe we can turn our delay into a surprise against them.”

“Make your plans, your Grace,” said Sondra, shaking her head.  “I’ll talk to Sean.  But I promise nothing.  Go ahead and make your plans for moving those ships back to Len as well.  I think that is the most likely result, no matter how you beg.”

“I don’t beg, Sondra,” said the laughing duke.  “I make reasoned requests.  And anyone with a lick of sense soon realizes I am right.”

*     *     *

“What do you think, Sondra?  Is his plan feasible?”

“It could work, your Majesty.  He’ll be working on the slimmest of margins, but if anyone can pull it off, Taelis can.  And Len will not be ready to strike for another hundred hours or so.  He has enough in place to make contact and shadow the enemy.  And enough to sting them.”

“But the decision is mine,” said Sean, frowning into the holo.

“Yes, sir.  The buck stops with you, as I think some old Earth leader once said.”

Harry Truman, thought Sean with a smile.  He had watched old documentaries on the man, who had made the hard decisions, and blamed the outcomes on no one but himself.  Quite a role model.  And at least they were still letting him make these kind of decisions, something to be grateful about, even if it was hard on him.

“Let Mgonda hold onto his toys for another forty-eight hours.  That gives him time for one massive strike.  If that doesn’t send the Cacas running, he’ll have to deal with the remainder of their fleet with what we leave him.”

“I was hoping you would make that decision, your Majesty.  Or at least part of me was.”

And I feel the same way, thought the Emperor.  On the one hand, delaying giving the forces to Len could lead to higher casualties on that front.  But on the other, if would be inhumane to force the former slaves to have to undergo another invasion by the Cacas and the Fenri, after they had already sacrificed so much to resist and delay.  Not to mention the Imperial forces that were still under siege.

“Keep me informed,” said Sean, looking into the face of his senior admiral.  And thanks for forgiving my slip into madness.

*     *     *

“We cannot win this offensive, Supreme Lord,” stated the analyst, keeping his eyes to the floor.

“Look at me while you are speaking,” hissed Jresstratta.  The male hesitated for a moment, then looked up, locking eyes with the Emperor.  We have to get rid of this fawning subservience, thought the monarch.  He wanted confident males to tell him the truth, not beings too afraid of his wrath to speak their minds.  “Now, why do you say we cannot win?”

“They have destroyed most of the fleet in Fenri space in the last ninety-six hours, Supreme Lord.  Their ships, of which they seem to have an endless supply, will soon be reinforcing their center.  And in that center they are also exacting a toll with their new weapons.  Add to that the new offensive predicted on the Klavarta front, and we are in a no-win situation.  We must pull back and prepare to defend our own space.”

“Never,” yelled the Supreme Admiral.

“You forget yourself, Supreme Admiral,” growled the Emperor, turning a glare toward the officer.  “I will listen to this officer’s counsel.  Then, it will be my decision to make, and no one else’s.”

“Forgive me, Supreme Lord.”

“According to my analysis, Supreme Lord, we will be able to ambush them along the way as they penetrate our space, using our major systems.  We can fortify, impede their progress, and then bring them to battle when we have more of the new weapons we are working on.”

More of the weapons the humans have surprised us with, thought the Emperor.  He wondered if they would ever catch the damned creatures, much less surpass them.  It was looking like a hopeless stern chase.

“That is not the way of a warrior race,” mumbled another male, closing his mouth when Jresstratta turned his glare that way.

“He is correct,” said the Supreme Admiral.  “Forgive me, Supreme Lord, but warriors attack.  They don’t fall back and defend.”

“And how has that worked for us, Supreme Admiral?” said the Emperor in a loud tone, barely controlling his anger.  “We have probed into their empire time after time, only to be pushed back with heavy losses.  If we had waited before we struck, and had enough of our fleet up at the front, we could have rolled over them with our first offensive.  Instead we did what we always do, but this time the opponent was not a weakling kingdom that we could crush in one hand.”

“They are weak creatures, Supreme Lord,” hissed the admiral.  “We are the strong.  And the strong do not retreat.”

“We retreat if I so order,” roared the Emperor, slamming all of his fists on the table.  “And I order a retreat.  Now carry out my wishes.”

The males vacated the room in a hurry, some turning hostile looks at the Emperor for a moment before leaving.  Jresstratta sat at the table for some time, thinking about the unheard of attitude of the high ranking officers.  Past Emperors would have had everyone who had raised a voice in dispute put to death.  He couldn’t afford to lose those males, not yet.  But if this kept up he might have to.

JUNE 22ND, 1003.  FENRI SPACE.

“Yes,” shouted Mgonda, pumping a fist in the air.  He knew that war was terrible, that on his orders hundreds of thousands of intelligent beings had just died.  But by the Gods, the rush of winning the ultimate contest was like nothing else he had ever experienced.

On the viewer, transmitted from one of his wormhole equipped ships, a Caca superbattleship exploded in a bright flash, glowing plasma speeding out from what had been twenty-five million tons of warship.  If they were correct, that had been the flagship of this particular wing of the Caca invasion, the last one he had to deal with.  And hopefully the last one that carried a wormhole.

“The other ships are starting to group together,” called out one of the flag bridge techs a couple of minutes later.

Of course they are, thought Mgonda.  They just lost the brains of their fleet, and whomever just took over has fallen back on doctrine and habit, just like I hoped he would.

It really had been pitifully easy to pick out the command ship of this ten thousand ship fleet, the last of any consequence in Fenri space.  It had been at the exact center of the force, with a strong screen of cruisers and scouts around it, unlike any other capital ship in the fleet.  That would have been a useful defense against missiles, even the wormhole launched variety that the duke’s fleet was sending their way by the thousands.  It had not been good enough to stop the wing of warp fighters that had come swooping in to hit it with twenty of their very effective missiles.

“Inertialess fighters will hit them in thirty-three seconds,” called out another voice on the deck.

Mgonda leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, composing himself.  When he opened them again the plot was showing hundreds of Caca ships disappearing, blown to plasma or damaged to the point where drives had failed.  The enemy had done just what he had wanted them to do.

“Enemy is continuing to boost toward the barrier, sir.  Leaving the wounded ducklings behind.”

And what else could they do?  To stay with the damaged ships was to invite destruction.  Not that many of these ships would make it back to their home stars.  He had another fleet waiting for them in normal space just outside the barrier, ready to attack.

And not a moment too soon, he thought, accessing his implant to read the time in Galactic standard.  It was almost time to start sending the rest of Len’s force his way.  He had promised the Emperor he would take care of business in two days.  That had been a slight exaggeration.  In two days he had hit their major force and destroyed it, then started dribbling ships back to the Central Front.  He had held on to what he needed as long as he could, finally retaining five thousand of those reinforcements.  That was the bad news for Len.  The good news?  Now he would send him even more ships than had been ordered.

“Get me the Emperor on the com,” he ordered, getting up from his seat.  “I’ll take it in my ready room.”

The holo was already hanging in the air.

“We beat their last large force, your Majesty,” he told the young man he had sworn allegiance to.

“Good job, Duke Taelis.  Of course, there will still be work to be done.”

Taelis nodded, trying to keep his inner feelings off his face.  This young monarch had almost destroyed the empire with his rash decision to attempt to change the timeline.  The other senior officers had convinced Taelis that they still needed him to run the empire.  He had agreed with them, barely.

“I’ll take care of it, your Majesty.  Don’t let it worry you.”

“I won’t, Duke Taelis.  I have complete trust in your abilities.”

The holo died.  Taelis wondered if Sean was having trouble facing the people who might blame him for the disaster he had almost caused.  Everyone in the know had sworn to keep the secret, all the blame falling on Count Stumpfield and his cabal.  But it was sure to get out, eventually.

We do need him, thought Mgonda, shaking his head.  And he had to admit that he had made some very good command decisions in the past.  Perhaps he would have learned something from all of this.  And they would be keeping a close eye on him in the future, so he wouldn’t be tempted again to tamper with the past.

*     *     *

“General.  They’re pulling out.”

“What?”  Baggett had been getting a little bit of sleep while he could, on a cot, his armored suit no more than a couple of meters away.  It had been a relief to get out of the armored monster, which smelled like a demon from the pits of hell had been wearing it for far too long.

“They’re shuttling the Cacas off the planet, sir,” explained the young officer.  “They’re firing on the Fenri who are trying to get into the landing field.”

“My God,” exclaimed Samuel, jumping out of his cot and starting for the nearest monitor board.  He stopped for a moment and looked back at his armor, then shook his head and went for the board.  He would take the chance that he wouldn’t need the protection.

Holos over the board showed scenes of panic at the nearest landing field.  Armored Cacas were seen boarding their large assault shuttles, while more of the big aliens manned the barricades to keep their allies out.  Some of the Fenri wore armor, and were brought under fire as soon as they were sighted by the Cacas.   The rest of the small aliens didn’t have a chance of getting past the Cacas, who shoved them back with savage cruelty.

Of course, they want to leave if their allies are going.  The people here are going to massacre them when their protectors are gone.

“We’re picking up ships boosting out of orbit, sir.”

“It’s over,” yelled out one of the techs, eliciting cheers.

“Calm down, people,” shouted Baggett, raising his hands.  “Let’s not jump to conclusions.  I want orders going out for everyone to stay alert and to remain under cover until we’re absolutely sure they’re leaving.”  And hope they don’t launch a last strike from space.  “And make damned sure that command knows about this.”

An hour later it was clear.  Everything in orbit was boosting toward the hyper limit.

*     *     *

Cornelius Walborski looked up at the bright orb of the daystar that illuminated this planet, wondering if he would ever see this particular stellar object again.  He took a breath of the air, savoring the scents of the world that had seemed strange when he had first arrived, and now smelled normal.

A shuttle drifted overhead, on a course for the clearing a kilometer away where the pickup was to be made.  The Ranger had thought about walking back to the cave that contained the wormhole, a hundred kilometers distant.  But he was tired, so tired, and the sooner he got home the better.  He couldn’t wait to see his family again.  If they don’t throw me in prison, he thought.

“Thank you, Colonel,” came a voice from behind him, under the canopy of the forest.

“And thank you, Sgornar,” he replied, turning to look at the large, eight limbed alien.  “I have never served with better soldiers.”

“The honor was ours, Colonel.”

“You have a lot of work ahead of you,” said Cornelius, walking up to the alien and looking up into its multiple eyes.

“It is work we will relish, building our world, and our lives.  As long as you don’t let the Cacas come back.”

“I can’t promise, my friend.  But you know how hard we will fight those bastards.  If anyone can stop them, we will.”

“Then you will,” said the alien, reaching a three digit member forward and resting it on the Ranger’s shoulder.  “Remember us.  And come back for a visit, if you can.”

Walborski nodded, the emotions rising to the point where he couldn’t speak.  He would miss these people he had lived and fought among for what seemed like an eternity.  The alien nodded, then turned and loped back into the forest.

Cornelius turned and started walking toward the pickup point and home.

Epilogue

JULY 9TH, 1003.

“Order all forces to pull back,” said the Emperor, looking into the eyes of his supreme admiral.  “This offensive is over.  We have already lost too much, and it looks like the enemy is ready for whatever we send at them.”

“That is not what a Ca’cadasan warrior should think, your Majesty,” said the supreme admiral with a disapproving expression on his face.  “In the history of our race, ever since we threw the invaders off of our world, we have never retreated.  Until this war.  It is an insult to all the generations of warriors who have gone before us.”

“Watch your tongue, Supreme Admiral,” growled the Emperor, stepping closer to the other male, his hairs rising.  “While I want you to speak truth about our tactical and strategic situations, I will not tolerate impertinence.”

“Impertinence?” screamed the other male, rising up to his full height, eyes wide, all fists clenched.

The Emperor felt a shiver of fear.  He was politically the most powerful male in the empire by an order of magnitude.  Traditionally the Emperor was also considered the premier warrior of the empire, which might have been true in the early days.  Jresstratta doubted that he could take this male, who had spent his entire life as a warrior, in a physical contest.

Guards, he sent over his implant.  The supreme admiral would pay for this effrontery.  He stood his ground, waiting for the guards to arrive.  And waited.

“They are not coming, your Majesty.  Or should I say, ex-majesty.”

“You are mad, Admiral.  The empire will not follow you.  Only someone in the Imperial line can assume the mantel of Emperor.”

Jresstratta turned and headed for his local desk, where he kept a particle beam pistol in a safe that would only open at his signal.

“The weapon is not there.  I made sure that it was removed before I arrived.  And as far as someone in the line, that we have.”

“A distant cousin?” barked the Emperor, following with a laugh he didn’t really feel.  “Someone no one has ever heard of.  Good luck, Admiral.  The military will depose you in an instant.  And then my son will take my place.”

“Speaking of that,” said the admiral with a cold smile.

One of the doors to the room opened and the heir came stalking through, the Emperor’s missing pistol in a lower hand.

“My son.  Your father has been threatened.  Hold this thing under threat of your weapon until I can summon the guard.”

The prince leveled the pistol at the Emperor, his hand steady.

“What is the meaning of this.”

“You have betrayed our people, father.  You have turned your back on the proud heritage of our military, which has never once retreated or surrendered since the days of the liberation of our homeworld.  Until your reign.”

“We were on a path to destruction,” pleaded the Emperor, staring at the deadly pistol that his son was holding.  “We needed to change our behavior, or the humans would destroy us.”

“Our way worked for tens of thousands of years, father.  I was taught that by the people you assigned to educate me.  The people you chose.  So it must be true.  And the only way to reverse our ill fortune is to go back to the old ways.  To attack, always attack.  Never to retreat.  So our warriors can retain their honor.”

“So, you will kill your own father,” growled the Emperor, staring into the young male’s eyes.  “Patricide, and regicide.  Both crimes punishable by death.  Even for one of the Imperial line.”

“Of course not, father.  I must not commit those crimes.  Admiral,” he said, looking over at the older male, then handing him the particle beam.

“You will die for this, Admiral.”

“Someone must die that the Empire might live,” said the male, taking the pistol and aiming it at the head of the Emperor.  “I will die knowing that I have fulfilled my oath to defend the empire.”

“And your oath to me?”

“One must be violated to fulfill the other,” said the admiral, shrugging both sets of shoulders.  “My life is the Empire’s, and I gladly give it to save what I love.”

“Wait,” hissed the Emperor, raising all four hands in a stop motion.  “We cannot win fighting the humans on both fronts if we don’t make the changes I have initiated.  We must continue to fight with intelligence, and not with pure savagery.  We…”

The admiral growled deep in his throat and squeezed the trigger of the pistol.  The deep red beam connected the barrel with the head of the Emperor in an instant, while the sounds of angry buzzing insects filled the room.  The head exploded in a mass of gore as the brain matter and blood turned into superheated steam.

“Your Majesty,” said the admiral, bowing to the young male and offering him the pistol.  “You must place me under arrest for the murder of the Emperor.”

“I will never forget your sacrifice, Admiral,” said the new Emperor.  “I hereby sentence you to death.”

The admiral bowed once more, just before the young male sent the particle beam into his head.

“My father is dead,” reported the new Emperor over the com to the palace guard.  “I have apprehended and executed his killer, and now claim the throne as the heir apparent.”

Within moments a contingent of the palace guard was in the room, their shocked faces taking in the scene.  It took them a moment, but they finally all dropped to a knee and bowed their heads to their new liege lord.

“Now, get my councilors to meet me in the conference room.  I have orders to give.”

*     *     *

“We’re picking up ships in hyper, ma’am.  On a general heading for our force.”

“How many?” asked Admiral Natasha Sung, pulling herself out of bed.  It was the third watch on the ship, and most stations were manned by backups.  Still, it would be hard for even a third teamer to miss a large number of vessels.

“Several hundred so far, ma’am.  With more appearing every second.”

“I’ll be heading for the flag bridge,” said Sung as she sealed her uniform, then started to pull on her boots.  “Get the captain and the first watch to their stations.”

The flag bridge crew turned as she entered, excited or anxious looks on their faces.

“The aliens are in VI, on approach,” said the woman filling the squadron sensor officer’s station.  “We’re receiving grav pulse signals from them that the computer is identifying as the code we gave to the Slarna.”

“Wonder what they want?” asked the admiral as she sat back in her chair.  The plot was now active, showing the icons of ships moving toward them in VI, hundreds of them, with scores more appearing every second.  She didn’t think they were any threat to her force, since she was in VII, and as far as they knew the Slarna were not capable of reaching that dimension.  As far as they knew.

“Signal coming across, Admiral.  It reads, ‘we received word from the ancients.  They recommended that we join your crusade.”

“Get the captain to the bridge,” Natasha ordered, sure that the man was already on the way, but wanting to make sure he was moving.  “Order the fleet to boost to match velocities with the Slarna so we can meet them in VII.  I think this calls for a face to face.”

And won’t the Emperor be happy to learn that this mission wasn’t a complete waste of time.  She took one more look at the plot, which was now populated with over a thousand objects, the harbinger of a mighty force that would be of great help on this front.

The End

The Story So Far

In 2254 the human species had spread to eight star systems after the discovery of the Subspace drive, allowing humankind to achieve pseudospeeds of over eleven times the speed of light.  That was the year the human species first encountered the long lived Ca’cadasans, three meter tall horned carnivores whose empire had been expanding for thousands of years.  That was the year the aliens attacked the Epsilon Iridani V colony.  When the heir to their imperial throne was killed after the colony had surrendered, the Emperor ordered the complete extermination of the human species.  After a short, sharp war, humanity had no other option than to try and flee the killer aliens.  The six Exodus ships were built, each capable of moving fifty thousand humans in cryostasis, along with all the knowledge of the human species.  One ship is known to have gotten away through subspace, a dimension through which the more advanced hyperspace faring Ca’cadasans are not prepared to follow.  Four generations of crew navigated the Exodus III over ten thousand light years in a thousand years, reestablishing humanity in a system of eight stars in orbit around a black hole, the Supersystem.  Once the home of an extinct species that had helped raise most of the intelligent races of the area to technical civilizations, it was also the perfect region for the newcomers.  Over the next thousand years the New Terran Empire fights, wins and expands in a number of wars, improving their technology at breakneck speed, becoming the dominant military power of the region.  Humanity also improves its genome, becoming stronger, faster and smarter, and seemed destined to rule the Perseus Arm, given time.

On the thousand year anniversary of the empire, Emperor Augustine I is having prophetic dreams, the gift and curse of his line.  He has seen the ancient enemy returning, finding the human species disunited in its three governments, and utterly destroying them.  Augustine has fought to expand the military, running into obstructionism from the Lords House of Parliament.  It is an uphill battle in the Constitutional Monarchy the Empire has become.  Meanwhile, the Donut, a century long engineering project, is nearing completion.  The enormous station, built as a ring around a black hole, and using the swirling gravitational energy to generate wormholes, has begun to make the many portals that will be used to eventually link the Empire.  And spies have infested the Empire, a race of shape shifters who make most security measures moot, adding sabotage and espionage to the problems facing the Emperor.

Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, the third son of the Emperor, is a serving naval officer on a battleship in a relatively quiet sector, with no thoughts of ever assuming the throne.  He was a mediocre officer, despite his superior intelligence.  With two brothers ahead of him in the succession, and a still young father, the throne seems like the least his worries.  By this time the Ca’cadasans have made contact with some of the enemies of the Empire, and sent the information back to their leaders.  The ancient enemy has been found, and can now be eliminated.  Ships begin to disappear in Sector IV, and sightings are made of vessels that fit no known description.  Many people refuse to believe these are the Ca’cadasans, and some think that Empire must have fallen in the near past.  The Emperor continues to try to rally support for increasing the size of the human military, while Parliament fights him on the economic effects of such a move, and alien powers protest that the humans are planning territorial expansion.

There is an attempted assassination attempt on Sean, and a successful attempt on the Emperor and his two older sons during a tour of the Donut.  The assassin is an officer of the Imperial Protection Detail, causing distrust to grow among the agencies charged with the security of the Empire.  The same day as the assassination, the Leader of the House of Lords is killed in his home.  Sean is now the heir to the Empire, and the man who must be seated as soon as possible on the throne, but he is almost a week’s one way com range from the capital.

The Ca’cadasans now attack, sending large fleets into several industrial or base systems, and smaller forces to many other stars.  The Massadara system, a major Imperial base, is one of the systems attacked.  Sean is serving on one of the battleships that happens to be in that system, and is aboard the vessel as it heads into combat with the enemy.  Word comes to the system that Sean is the uncrowned Emperor, and his ship, against his protests, is ordered out of combat.  His ship, the Sergiov, heads out of the system before the main battle begins, a small Ca’cadasan force on its heels.  The main battle is joined, and, though it inflicts casualties on the Ca’cadasan fleet that is only about a decade ahead in technology, it is defeated, and the system falls.

The Sergiov is battered by the enemy, and Sean is rescued from the ship by Captain Mei Lei and her hyper VII battle cruiser.  The battle cruiser fights its way out of the system with the help of Commander Bryce Suttler’s stealth/attack ship, and, along with Commander Maurice von Rittersdorf and his destroyer, starts on the voyage to get Sean back to the capital and the throne.  The Ca’cadasans track the two vessels, and Sean escapes on the destroyer while Mei sacrifices her ship in a battle with the Ca’cadasan supercruisers.  The battle cruiser Jean de Arc falls out of hyperspace in a catastrophic translation, a low survivability event, but nonetheless manages to survive and starts the long journey home.

Rear Admiral Mara Montgomery is dispatched with her scout force to locate Sean and get him back to the capital, while von Rittersdorf plays hide and seek against the Ca’cadasans, trying to get the unseated Emperor to safety.  Von Rittersdorf catches one of the much larger Ca’cadasan ships in a brilliant ambush which destroys the enemy ship, while causing severe damage to his own.  Montgomery’s task force enters the system, and she dispatches the other two supercruisers, then takes the Emperor aboard her flagship.  Von Rittersdorf begins the long journey home in his crippled ship with escorts.  Sean learns that one of the nearby systems is under siege and, against the protests of the Admiral, orders her to take her ships to break that siege and evacuate the colonists on the frontier world.  Meanwhile, the Leader of the House of Lords advances plans to put an Imperial Cousin on the throne while the true heir’s whereabouts is unknown.  The Ca’cadasans invade and take the kingdom of New Moscow, and make serious inroads into the New Terran Republic, the sister governments to the Empire.

On Sestius IV Brevet Brigadier General Samuel Baggett fights the landing of the Ca’cadasans with his mixed command.  Farmer and ex-hunter Cornelius Walborski deserts the militia to get his pregnant wife to safety.  Though bleeding the enemy, Baggett is forced to fall back into the wilderness before the enemy ground warriors.  Walborski’s son is born, but his wife is killed while they are running from the aliens.  The farmer goes mad, and stalks the jungle with the skills he had learned as an assistant hunt master, killing many aliens in the jungle.  He meets the legendary Preacher of special ops fame, now a retired Ranger and current minister on the planet.

Montgomery’s task force takes the system and the planet, and evacuates all those that want to leave, just before a larger enemy force enters the system and forces it to flee.  Sean meets Dr. Jennifer Conway, who has lost her own fiancé’ in the invasion, and falls in love with her.  The scout force fights a running battle back to Conundrum base, rescued at the last moment by the fleet of Duke Taelis Mgonda.  Von Rittersdorf makes it to safety, while Mei Lei and her crew are rescued from hyper by another battle cruiser.  The XO of the Jean de Arc, Xavier Jackson, falls out of hyper while trying to rescue some crew who could not get off the ship.  Surviving the translation, he is rescued by beings from legend, the Ancients that everyone assumes are extinct.

On the Donut it is discovered that an ancient race known as the Yugalyth, another creature from legend, capable of changing its very body form over a period of days and duplicating any creature, is at large.  A Yugalyth agent imitates Dr. Lucille Yu, the station Director, and attempts to destroy the huge construct.  Dr. Yu uses quantum teleportation, an experimental technique that only succeeds in moving about half the material being teleported to its target, to teleport negative matter to destroy the bomb the creature put on the station attitude control board.  The new enemy is discovered, one which originates in the realm of the Empire’s close ally, Elysium.

The Knockermen, a reptilian race in the Elysium Empire, revolt against the dominant Brakakak.  The Brakakak eventually curb the revolt, but are forced to commit their entire fleet to searching out the rebels and breaking the rebellion.  The leader of Elysium and his family are forced to take refuge with the Terrans during the battle of the capital.

Sean comes back to the Supersystem by the wormhole gates that are now being deployed through Imperial space.  Chief of Naval Operations Gabriel Lenkowski gathers a fleet that transports Sean to the capital planet, where, with a large force of Marines, he lands during the coronation ceremony and stops the Lords from crowning his cousin.  Sean is now Emperor, Commander and Chief of the Imperial Military, and, given his wartime powers, the most powerful Monarch in a century.  His companions go off to other commands; Mei Lei to a battle cruiser squadron, one equipped with new wormhole launched weapons; von Rittersdorf to lead a new destroyer squadron; and Baggett to command of a heavy infantry brigade.  Cornelius Walborski, on the recommendation of Preacher, joins the Imperial Army with hopes of being augmented and becoming a Ranger.

The Ca’cadasans hit Conundrum, the HQ of Sector IV, hours after Sean jumps through the wormhole from there.  They take the system, and land troops to complete the conquest of the planet.  Sean is forced to engage in a hit and run war against an enemy that is still more advanced, and more powerful, than his own fleet.  He orders his units to refuse combat when possible, and only to fight when they can inflict maximum damage on the enemy.  Q-ships, militarized merchant vessels with quantum teleporters capable of sending antimatter into the interior of an enemy ship, bait and destroy Ca’cadasan raiders.  The Lords go on the warpath against Sean, demanding that he commit his fleet to a major battle.  His prophetic dreams indicate that one of the core worlds, the heavily populated industrial planets at the heart of the Empire, is a target.  But the dream does not tell him when.

Wormhole gates are dropped in occupied systems, then maneuvered to planetfall, allowing ground forces to insert.  This is done on most of the occupied worlds, allowing the units to engage the aliens in Guerilla warfare.  Preacher leads a Ranger brigade against the Ca’cadasans on the surface of Conundrum, and the campaign forces the enemy off the planet.  The Lasharans, religious fanatics, are again attacking the frontiers of the Empire, and Baggett’s unit, as part of a heavy infantry corps, is sent to take their home planet and occupy their primary temple, breaking their will.

The Ca’cadasans strike at the Cimmeria system, utterly obliterating the two inhabited industrial worlds located there.  Sean retaliates by sending forces through wormholes to strike behind the main enemy fleet and destroy their bases.  The Fenri Empire, old enemies of the humans, sign an alliance with the Ca’cadasans, and the New Terran Empire launches a spoiling attack on those aliens.  The logical beings of the Crakista Empire, seeing the Ca’cadasans as the greater threat, join the human cause, ordering their military to offer all possible aid to the humans.  Things are beginning to look up until the Ca’cadasans launch yet another assault, almost overrunning all of Sector IV.

Sean and Jennifer become lovers, a fact taken advantage of by the Yugalyth agents, who kidnap her and threaten to kill her if Sean does not place himself in their hands.  Sean agrees, and has himself equipped with a pair of small wormholes that allow him to kill the kidnappers when they think they have him in their power.

Cornelius completes Ranger school, finds a new love himself, and is assigned to the planet Azure, one of the deadliest in the Empire.  He and his men stalk the Ca’cadasans through a jungle that is an enemy to both, and encounters a new client race of the Ca’cadasans, the supremely competent hunters called Maurids.  Cornelius saves and is saved by a young girl, Rebecca, and completes the mission his company couldn’t, destroying a Ca’cadasan headquarters.  He returns to the capital system again a hero, one of the few to win the Imperial Medal of Heroism twice.  He marries, and gains a new mom for his baby son, and his adopted daughter, Rebecca.

Sean, in need of a victory, plans an ambush for the Ca’cadasan fleet in the Congreeve system, a frontier world made up to look like an industrial developing planet.  The Cacas, using the Knockermen, send in a strike force to take out the Donut.  And the Empire sends in a strike against the Fenri Empire, the new ally of the Ca’cadasans.  Cornelius attends Officer Candidate School and is well on his way to becoming an officer, while the Opposition Party of the Lords continues to cause trouble for the Emperor, threatening a No Confidence Vote in Parliament.

The strike into Fenri space is a success, taking the heart out of their fleet and capturing several of their industrial planets, sending the small mammalians into a frenzy.  The Fenri still have some power in their fleet, and organize an offensive that kicks the NTE naval force out of their space, stranding Baggett and his soldiers on the surface of one of the planets.

The Ca’cadasan strike force makes it to Elysium space, commandeers a Brakakak light cruiser, and takes the station in orbit around that Empire’s capital world.  The Cacas jump through the wormhole to the Donut, bringing thousands of troops and four Quarkium devices, intending to destroy the station.  The Knockermen destroy the Brakakak station with the device that they were given by the huge aliens.  And Walborski, heading through the Donut on a short leave to see his wife and children, finds himself involved in another battle.

Sean lures the Ca’cadasan main fleet into battle, springing his ambush, and ravaging the enemy fleet.  They turn into a tougher opponent that he planned on, and some of the enemy fleet escapes to head back to their base, leaving the Imperial fleet with a lesser victory than wanted, and higher casualties than expected.

Cornelius organizes a team to keep the Cacas from exploding one of their devices on the Donut, and only one of the bombs is detonated.  The station, though damaged, survives.  Meanwhile, Baggett’s force in Fenri space resist the ground assault with heavy casualties, until relieved by the Fleet, and the Fenri are all but knocked out of the war.  Natasha Sung is meanwhile closing in on her goal, the aliens who are also fighting the enemy at the other side of their empire.

The alliance fleet reorganizes and prepares to attack the Cacas, while they are still reeling from their defeat.  Using the cover of a supernova explosion, which covers the resonances of ships transiting hyperspace, Sean launched a multi-winged assault on the remaining Ca’cadasan forces in the Empire.  The fleets strike without warning, bringing the Cacas to battle and all but annihilating their forces.  The Caca commander orders his remaining ships to get away as they can, then is incapacitated during the escape.  The Great Admiral’s second in command does the unthinkable and surrenders the remaining fleet.

The Emperor discovers that about a billion New Moscow citizens are being held in the former Kingdom of New Moscow, including over seven hundred million on the homeworld.  The Cacas are processing the humans for their protein, and Sean orders their rescue at all costs.   A combined New Terran Empire, New Terran Republic and Crakista fleet invades the space of New Moscow, intent on rescuing the prisoners.  The main concern is that the Cacas will kill their captives before the ground forces can rescue them.  Using their wormhole technology, the Empire is able to insert a heavy corps and numerous special ops teams, including a company led by Cornelius Walborski, to storm the camps and rescue the hundreds of millions of prisoners.

The prisoners are freed, and the Empire starts to evacuate them through wormholes, while a massive Caca fleet is tracked on the way to the system, due to arrive well before the main Imperial force.  The Fenri, with Ca’cadasan help, strike at the Imperial force invading their space, and inflict a significant defeat on them, sidetracking the invasion force and compelling the Imperials to go back on the defensive so they can regroup.

Commodore Natasha Sung reaches the space of the rumored power fighting the Ca’cadasans on the other side of their Empire.  She finds that the Klavarta, as they call themselves, are actually genetically engineered human warriors created by the survivors of the Exodus IV, thought to have been destroyed.  It is discovered that the original leaders of that mission still controlled the New Earth, as their nation was called.  They were clones, a process that allowed humans to live past their normal life span with artificially grown bodies with one fatal flaw.  They were all psychopaths, and these leaders had led their people in a campaign of genocide against many of their neighbors, making them hated in their own region.  Still, the Empire works to forge an alliance, though the Emperor has doubts that Parliament and the citizenry will approve that treaty.

The Fenri are pushed back by a new Imperial offensive, losing much of their space and their fleet.  What seems like a complete victory for the humans turns into a stalemate as the Fenri turn to a war of raids and ambushes.  The Cacas appear quiescent, as they gear up for another offensive against human kingdoms.

An assassin attempts to take out the Emperor and Empress, but hesitates in taking the shot, then is chased away by security.  Angel, an ex-Naval Commando, wonders why he is working for the kind of people that would kill the leader of their kingdom during wartime.  He decides he is fighting for the wrong people, and determines to take out the traitors who threaten the Empire

A Ca’cadasan fleet, working with intelligence giving them the location of the Klavarta homeworld, moves to strike, while the Empire plans their own strike to take out the cloned leadership of New Earth.  The Cacas strike, and the Empire is forced to advance their own operation, killing the clones while at the same time reinforcing the Klavarta with some of their own forces through wormhole gates.  The Cacas win the battle, but the Empire is able to evacuate most of the Klavarta and their pure human masters through the wormhole.  Sean then orders a wormhole equipped ship throughthe wormhole gate, causing an enormous explosion that destroys almost half the Ca’cadasan fleet. The Klavarta are reorganized as the leaders of their nation, and the Nation of New Earth is created to occupy the area formerly ruled by the clones, from there to continue the war of the second front.

The Cacas no longer operating near the New Terran Empire, emphasis shifts toward the Fenri Empire, on their heels and all but defeated.  They release a number of raider teams to attack the shipping and planets of the Empire, battleships and battle cruisers searching the transit lanes, far from the bulk of the Imperial Fleet.  It is up to the outmanned light ships of a quiet sector to track down these ships and destroy them.  After several hard fought battles they take down the raiders and foil the plans of the Fenri Emperor.

On the Second Front the Cacas begin another offensive, this time under a commander that has more intelligence than most.  The Klavarta and their allies from the Empire at first fall to the Cacas, then fall back into a planned retreat, eventually catching the invaders in a suboptimum deployment and turning the enemy advance into a retreat.

Trying to win the war with one stroke, the Ca’cadasans sneak a pair of wormhole equipped Q-ships though the lines and into the heart of the Empire.  At the appointed hour both ships attack, one the Jewel system, the other the Donut.  The commander of the ship in the Jewel system has second thoughts when he discovers the Cacas are going to send a wormhole through the wormhole his ship holds, destroying the three inhabited bodies of the Jewel/New Terra double planet, shutting down his wormhole before it can be activated.  The attack on Jewel still kills over three hundred million citizens, including, apparently, Augustine, Sean’s eldest son and heir.  The Caca attack is beaten back with heavy losses to the Imperial military, including hundreds of ships still under construction or just out of the docks.

The ship in the Black Hole System is discovered and attacked, stopped just before it can get within range of the space station.  Caca ships are brought across the wormhole, and a general battle ensues that causes great damage to the Donut.  Meanwhile the remaining Ancients, the advanced beings who had once ruled this sector of space, are planning their own strike of the station in order to prevent the humans from using time travel to win their war.

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 three year period as a self-published author, Doug has sold over two hundred thousand ebooks, paperbacks and audio books.  He has amassed over 4,000 reviews across his books on Amazon, with a 4.6 star average. He served in the US Army as an infantryman, as well as several years in the Florida National Guard in the same MOS.  Doug, who holds degrees from Florida State University and the University of Alabama, lives with his five cats in Tallahassee Florida.  He is a sports enthusiast and a self-proclaimed amateur military historian.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well Trilogy

The Deep Dark Well:  An Adventure 40,000 years in the making.  Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama.  She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future.  Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars.  Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back:  Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization.  But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own.  Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

Deeper and Darker:  Pandora Latham is on the warpath.  Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic Empire.  The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her cause.

Theocracy:   A young gunpowder era monk becomes the only hope for his doomed world as he is caught up in the game of empire between two more advanced cultures.

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1:  The introduction to the Exodus Universe.  Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home.  Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire.  Until the enemy appears once again at the gates.  And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2:  The saga continues.  The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic.  There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans.  And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  Sean is rescued, but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire.  But will his decision put the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4:  Sean is crowned Emperor, and attempts to organize the Empire for war against the Ca’cadasans.  But he finds that planning battles and winning battles are two different things. Defeat follows defeat.  Can anyone snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?  Or will the new Emperor fail before his reign even really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger:  Cornelius Walbroski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of the most deadly planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.  Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will  promising career end before it really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle:  Sean and the Empire need a victory before human morale goes completely into the black hole.  He develops a plan to bring the Ca’cadasans into battle in space of his choosing.  But the Cacas are not an easy opponent, and they have plans of their own, for the Donut.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:  The Empire has weathered the Ca’cadasan onslaught, and now it’s the time to strike back with an offensive of their own.  A victory could win the war.  But will it?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers:  The Cacas have been ejected from Imperial space, for the moment.  But millions of citizens of New Moscow are still held captive in death camps in their former empire, processed for rations for the large aliens.  Sean is determined to save as many as he can, and the Fleet and Army are prepared to carry out his directive; free the prisoners at all costs.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front:  The exploration mission sent around the edge of the Ca’cadasan Empire has found the other Empire at war with the large aliens.  They are not as expected, and Sean must order his military to perform actions that could vilify him in the eyes of his new allies.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy:  The Fenri, all but beaten, have not given up, and their new plan promises random death and destruction in the Empire.  The Cacas have launched a new offensive against the Klavarta, and their new commander is much more intelligent than the last.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy:  The Cacas have a plan to end the war by taking out the capital system and the Donut at the same time.  Only the bravery of the Imperial military can prevent a disaster from which the Empire can’t recover.

Exodus: 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.

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand:  When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened.  The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob.  There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love.  The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion:  The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist.  Kestral McMann had been in on the kill.  Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States.  McMann is the only man who can stop him.  But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age.

The Shadows of the Multiverse:  Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages.  It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension.  Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

Afterlife:  What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions?  And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want?  And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality?  What would you do?  Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You:  When aliens strike the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way.  They prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology?  The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race will satisfy their evil intent.  There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but can they be deployed in time?  Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1:  A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy.  The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality.  But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge.  The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2:  The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians.  And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function.  So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance.  Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods.  And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy.  But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions:  The human invaders are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and internal combustion engines.  But they still have knowledge of many other techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of the ancient world.  Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and his magical forces.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:  When the evil half lich Emperor sends his minions on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods, an artifact which can control the minds of millions, it is up to Kurt von Mannerheim to stop them.  Along with his fellow immortal, Jackie Smith, the human Physicist/Mage James Drake, the Ellala Ranger Fenris and the Grimakan Priest Garios, they must head to the frozen north to foil the plan, and ensure that the evil artifact never sees the light of day.

Refuge: Doppelganger: Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim.  The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology.  And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger:  Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life.  Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire.  When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her.  The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath.  But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon:  A Steampunk Fantasy.  The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years.  Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth.  But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp.  It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

Aura:  Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner.  Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage.  Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer.  While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras.  Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

Books with other Authors:

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:  Novellas by New York Times Bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, along with Prometheus Award Winner Dani and Eytan Kollin, Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, and Exodus Empires at War Author Doug Dandridge, make this a must have book for the military science fiction aficionado.

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Table of Contents

- Title
- Dedication
- Books by Doug Dandridge
- Cast of Characters
- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter-Twenty-one
- Epilogue
- The End
- The Story So Far
- About the Author
- Books by Doug Dandridge