Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. (32 page)

“And no one has
tried to talk him out of this madness and see reason?”

“We’ve tried,
but all he does now is tell us how we are doomed.”

“Do you have his
general location?”

“No, but we have
the frequency he has been broadcasting on.  Will that help?”

“I think it
will, First Councilman.  I surely think it will.”

*     *     *

Zzarr stood outside
the tent that now housed the broadcast equipment that was linked into the
national media net, looking up to the sky and wondering when the hells the God
was going to make his appearance.  After all, paradise was here, wasn’t it? 
Though he had to admit he felt no healthier, no younger, things that were
supposed to go along with paradise.  Or did that need the coming of the God to
happen.  Which again brought forth the question of where that God was.

He looked around
at his camp, seeing all of the people still going about their business, putting
up more tents from the supplies that were continuing to come from below,
waiting for the air transports to come and take them back to the capital.  Not
that many of his military were actually doing anything like put aircraft in the
air, since they had more important things to do, like wait for their savior to
come down from heaven.

The first he
knew that something other than his own people, or the God, were coming to him
was when a trio of the human shuttles came over the ridgeline on their nearly
silent propulsion.  He recognized them for the assault vehicles used to deliver
their ground combat troops.  But even recognizing them didn’t mean he believed
they were there.

They can’t be
,
was the thought that kept running through his mind. 
What the hell would
humans, or their machines, be doing here?  This is our judgment, not theirs.
 
The thought then hit him that maybe these humans were here to suffer for the
sins of the rest.  Until the shuttles started on their way down the side of the
ridge.

“Zzarr,” yelled
a translated human voice over the speakers of all the shuttles.  “You are
hereby notified that you, and all who stand with you, and under arrest for the
violations of the laws of the New Terran Empire, as well as those of the
civilized nations of the planet Klassek.  These include mass murder and the
deployment of weapons of mass destruction both against the militaries of the
Empire, the Nation of Tsarzor, and associated nations, as well as civilians
caught in the line of fire.”

Hatches popped
on the bottoms of all the shuttles, and immediately the armored forms of
Marines fell into the air, catching themselves on their grabber units and
propelling themselves down the valley.  Rocket pods extruded from the bodies of
the shuttles, whose laser rings now glowed with power.

“They come for
the Leader,” yelled one of the military commanders in the camp.  “Stop them.”

The hundred or
so soldiers on the ground opened fire, their military discipline overruling
their common sense.  All they had were personal weapons, rifles, pistols, a
couple of light machine guns.  Nothing that could hurt the Marines or their
shuttles.  Bullets sparked off of hard alloys, and the Imperials returned fire
with lasers and particle beams.

The fight was
really over before it began, the energy weapons destroying their targets,
killing three quarters of the Honish troops before the remainder dropped their
weapons and tried frantically to surrender.

“Zzarr, Leader
of Honish,” intoned the speakers on a Marine’s armor as the suit stopped in
front of the elder.  “You are under arrest.”

Hard alloy
gauntlets grabbed him, then secured him with plastic restraints.

“You can’t be
here,” shouted Zzarr, struggling against the restraints that had no yield in them. 
“This is our time, and that of our God.”

“You God appears
to be a no show,” said the Marine, who the Leader thought had the rank of a
company commander on his helmet.  “Don’t worry, though.  We’ve got a  good
selection of our own.  Maybe you can pick up a new one while we have you locked
up awaiting trial.”

Chapter Twenty-six

And one day the machines will
come back.  The giant ground combat robots, the self-aware ships, the things
which murdered billions of humans.  Some say they are already here, in the
darkness, waiting to snag unwary children who leave their homes at night.

Bedtime story told in the New
Terran Empire.

FEBRUARY 10
^TH
, 1002. 
D+217.

“The
Crean
is
reporting hyper resonances at the far edge of their sensor range, ma’am,”
reported the Captain of the battle cruiser
Francis Drake
, Commodore
Natasha Khrushchev’s flagship.

The ship in
question was the Exploration Command destroyer
Tom Crean
, named after an
Irish born Antarctic explorer from Old Earth.  It was the tail end of their
rear scouting party, consisting of the destroyer and two sister ships,
Xuanzang
and
Yuri Gagarin
, as well as the light cruiser
Gjoa
, all Command
vessels.  The forward screen consisted of light cruisers
Roebuck
and
Jeannette
,
along with the Command destroyers
Benedict Allen, Martin Forbisher
and
Bill
Anders
, along with the Fleet destroyer
James Stewart
.  Which left
the two battle cruisers,
Drake
and
Endurance,
both Command ships,
the Fleet heavy cruiser
New Potsdam,
and the light cruiser
Greenville
,
also a Fleet vessel.  Flanking the convoy to either side were the Fleet
destroyers
Mihn Quan
and
Todrick McDermit
.

The Command
ships had better sensor suites, while the Fleet ships carried a heavier missile
load, both offensive and defensive.  None of the ships carried the same load of
hyper capable missiles, or the dual purpose weapons just entering service, as
the vessels in Sector IV, where the war was raging.  Those weapons were still
in short supply, and were going to where they were needed most.

Khrushchev would
have wished for more of those new weapons, just as she would have wanted more
ships to guard this convoy.  Unfortunately, that was true of any force
commander. More was always better.

“What else are
they giving us?” asked the Commodore, looking at the tactical plot, which
showed the trailing squadron twenty light minutes back from the body of the
convoy.  Meaning com was only possible through grav pulse, as anything
transmitted through the electromagnetic spectrums would have fallen back to
normal space well before reaching target.

“They think it
was a translation of fourteen vessels into hyper VI, just on the edge of
detection range.  Identification, unknown.  Type and mass, unknown.  Vector,
unknown, but presumed to be in our general direction.”

And they are
unlikely to catch us
, thought the Commodore, wondering who
they
could
be way out here in the middle of nowhere.  The convoy was moving through hyper
VI at point nine light, the greatest safe velocity possible for the freighters
and liners, with their much less robust particle fields.  They were
approximately one hundred and three point two hours away from deceleration, and
would take just a little over a day to get down to point two c outside the
hyper VI barrier to the system, from whence they would start their stair step
of translations.  Because of the time dilation of relativistic effects, which
worked in hyperspace as well, they were only forty five hours from translation
according to the clocks kept on the ships.

Twelve hours
later the hope that the unknowns were out of the picture was shattered.

“Report from
Gjoa
,
Commodore,” reported the Flag Com Officer, who was now monitoring the same
channels as the flagship’s communications section.  “They’re picking up
fourteen sources coming up from astern at point nine-six light.  Still
accelerating at an estimated twelve hundred gravities.”

“My God,”
blurted the Commodore, looking back at the tactical holo, seeing the fourteen
red arrows that had appeared.  The acceleration meant they were either small
ships, since the Empire had vessels that could reach near to those levels of
pseudogravitation, but none that were capable of hyper.  Or that they had
massive inertial compensators, which the humans had found to eventually reach
diminishing returns.  Or they could handle much higher gravity loads than other
living creatures. 
If they are living creatures
, thought the Commodore,
a chill running down her spine.

Their velocity
was just as alarming.  The human ships could at most pull point nine five
light, due to the sleet of deadly particles such velocities engendered.  The
merchant ships among them could pull point nine c, still higher than most ships
of their type, since they had been configured to go from point a to b at near
military speeds.  So again, these beings either had much better shielding,
something humans were still trying to develop, with little success.  Or they
weren’t as bothered by particle radiation as any known organic form.

“Any
identification of class?” she asked, hoping that she might get the information
to fill in the gaps.

“Preliminary
estimates put them between one and three million tons, ma’am.”

Which means
they are not small couriers or attack craft.  More like heavy cruisers.

“Orders, ma’am?”
asked the
Drake’s
Captain, who was also the convoy’s lead ship’s
commander.

“I don’t want
those ships within missile range of the convoy.” 
Even though we don’t know
what their range is, or if they even have hyper capable missiles.  But I have
to assume they do.
 “
Gjoa
is to warn them off by all means possible. 
They are not to fire until fired upon, or until the unknowns are fifteen
minutes within a destroyer missile’s maximum range of the convoy.”  She
suspected that their range would be greater than even her own cruisers, but she
wanted her destroyers to be able to fire if needed.  “When the unknowns enter
that range, I want our ships to fire a warning shot, followed by fire for
effect if they do not respond to that shot.”

“They’re kind of
outnumbered and out massed back there, ma’am,” said the Captain.

“
Endurance,
Greenville
and the
two flanking destroyers will drop back to support
them,” she ordered.

“Not the
Drake
,
ma’am?”

Khrushchev
thought for a moment, then shook her head.  “I don’t want to strip the convoy
of all of its close in missile protection, so I want us and
New Potsdam
to remain in support of the fragiles.”

That still
gives them the advantage in mass, but not quite of the same magnitude
,
she
thought. 
I could pull back the forward screen, and then drop
Drake
and
New Potsdam
back with the rear screen, which would probably give us the
mass advantage.
  She thought about that for a moment, then dismissed it,
not knowing what waited ahead.  The wait to find out did not take long.

“
Roebuck
is reporting twelve contacts ahead, accelerating at twelve hundred gravities on
a vector that will bring them into contact with the forward screen in
forty-nine minutes.  CIC is designating original force as
Bogey One
, new
contact as
Bogey Two
.”

In that instant
the entire equation was changed.  Now she couldn’t pull back the forward
screen, and couldn’t afford to reinforce the force to the rear.  Doctrine
called for trying to defeat the unknown forces in detail, but doing so would
leave the merchantmen and liners open to attack from the other force.

And we still
don’t know what they are
, she thought, staring at the tactical that was
showing a situation she was very uncomfortable with. 
Pirates?  Probably not
in those numbers.  And pirates are more likely to attack an easier target than
we present.

On the face of
it, piracy did not seem like a viable tactic for the accumulation of fortune. 
It still occurred, especially out on the fringes, or beyond the borders of the
major powers.  One capture could set the rogues up for life, and they could
rely on the thought that some pirate somewhere made that capture every couple
of months, so why not them.  Or, more likely, they could find a technologically
backward system to extort/exploit.  But this didn’t feel like an attack by
pirates, since most of that ilk weren’t of the proper personality type to get
along in large groups.

“Change of
orders,” she said to the holo of the Captain of the
Drake,
glancing over
at her Com Officer to make sure he was also getting her words to transmit to
the entire squadron.  “All ships are to accelerate up to point nine three
light.”  She knew that would cause some problems with the particle shielding of
the non-warships, and the people aboard would probably sustain some cellular
damage.  That could be repaired, while being blown apart by a missile launched
by a hostile ship could not.

“Rear force is
to remain in place at their current distance, increasing acceleration to match
that of the convoy.”

“They’re going
to be overwhelmed, ma’am,” said
Drake’s
commander, Captain
Timofeyavich..

“They’ll just
have to do the best they can,” she replied, not liking the probable effects of
that command on those ships and crews, and not really sure what else she could
order.  “Meanwhile,
Drake, Endurance
and the destroyers will boost ahead
and join with the forward screen.  We will blast our way through those ships
and make a way for the convoy.”

“We still aren’t
sure about their motivations, ma’am,” said the Captain, no disapproval in his
tone, just playing devil’s advocate.

“I cannot risk
the convoy.  There are one hundred and ninety-five thousand of an endangered
sentient species aboard, not to mention twenty-five thousand precious skilled
workers for
Bolthole
.”  She thought about those other people for a
moment, some of whom had families along with them.  The great majority were
humans, with a smattering of Phlistarans, Gryphons, Malticons, and some
others.  All of them citizens of the Empire, and her responsibility at the
moment.

I wish there
was a real combat fleet commander in charge here
, she thought while she
continued to stare at the holo.  Not that she doubted her own abilities, in her
chosen path.  She had earned her position as a flag officer because of her
ability as an explorer.  Not because of a record of vanquishing enemies in
overwhelming numbers.

“And
New
Potsdam
?”

“Get me the
Captain of
New Potsdam
on the com?” ordered the Commodore, and a moment
later she was looking at the face of Captain Stone Mason.  She was sure that
the Captain’s name had caused him considerable teasing as a child, but he had
grown into the name, and was known to be as steady a combat commander as there
was.

“I have a very
specific task for your ship, Stone.  She is to stay close to the convoy. 
You’re their last line of defense, and I don’t want you to leave them uncovered
for any reason.  Understood?”

“
New Potsdam
can
add quite a bit of firepower to your force ma’am,” said the other officer in a
gravelly voice that fit his name.  “She carries a larger hyper capable missile
load than one of your battle cruisers.”

And I would feel
so much better about my chances with her at my side
, thought the Commodore,
shaking her head.  “If we don’t clear that force ahead, and stop the one
behind, you are the only thing that’s going to get these people through.  That
is your one responsibility.  Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then I’ll leave
you to it, Captain.”

The holo died,
and the Commodore looked to her Com Officer once again.   “Send out the order. 
Execute.”

The Commodore
looked back at the holo, where the numbers below the green vector arrows
started to change.  Every commercial vessel in the convoy, every freighter,
liner and transport, went from coasting at point nine light to boosting ahead
at two hundred and fifty gravities, the maximum of the least capable vessel. 
New
Potsdam
boosted along with them, holding steady at the center of the
formation, where she could best respond to threats from any direction.  The
ships in the rear screen boosted at the same rate of acceleration, maintaining
their distance from the convoy.  The front screen continued to coast, waiting
for their reinforcements.  While the two battle cruisers, the light cruiser and
the destroyer pair accelerated ahead at over five hundred gravities, heading
for their rendezvous with the front screen.

Warning klaxons
went off over
Drake,
crew donned their battle armor, weapons were
brought up to full power, or loaded into tubes, depending on their nature.  The
unknown ships continued on their original course, at their original
accelerations, as if the Imperial ships had not changed their posture at all.

“
Gjoa
is
continuing to cast warnings to
Bogey One
,” called out the voice of the
Com Officer.  “There is no response from
Bogey One.  Bogey One
will be
at the designated range in two minutes, thirty-three seconds.”

“Condition of
Bogey
Two
?” asked the Commodore, linking into CIC, who had the best take on the
tactical situation, and trying to get comfortable in her battle armor,
something she had always had trouble with.

“
Bogey Two
still
accelerating on closing vector with forward screen at twelve hundred
gravities.  They will be in engagement range in four minutes and fifty-three
seconds.”

“And when will
we be in range?” she asked, knowing that her own capital missiles had about
five more minutes of boost and hyper duration than those of the lighter ships.