Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (16 page)

“I don’t see it that way,” said the Countess. 
“This is a matter of the Empire.”

“So, what do you plan to do about it?” asked
the Duke, giving her a look of pity.

“I don’t know,” said the Countess.  “I just
don’t know.”

“Just give it up, Zhee,” said the Duke.  “Don’t
let your feelings about the Emperor destroy you.”

I can’t give this up
, thought the Countess,
shaking her head. 
Even if it destroys me, I will win this fight.

Chapter
Ten

War can only be
abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to
take up the gun.

Mao
Zedong

FENRI SPACE.  DECEMBER
2
^ND
, 1001.

This might be it
, thought Baggett,
looking at the attacking force that was heading in to try and take his last
defensive positions.  The information had come over the com just an hour
before.  The hyper signature of a large New Terran Empire force had been received
by Corps HQ, which still had scanners that detected such, even from the surface
of a planet.  Of course, the Fenri had picked it up too, and were trying to
take out the human ground forces before a rescue mission could reach the
planet.

Which means they’re throwing everything at us,
regardless of the cost.

Baggett could almost cry as he thought of what
was left of his division, the unit he had inherited due to the death of its
original commander, moving up from brigade command.  Now it was only slightly
larger than his original brigade had been at full strength, and over half of
his soldiers were wounded.  Wounded, in the case of most them, was not enough
to keep them from fighting.  Every suit was needed, no matter how off of
optimal specs it was.

“All artillery,” he ordered over the com,
preparing himself to move to the final position held by his reduced
headquarters company.  “Unleash final protective fires.”

He knew that command was dooming his few
remaining artillery pieces.  But they were all almost out of ammunition anyway,
not really enough to even warrant a shoot and scoot.  And they were out of the
territory to move.  Everything outside of his perimeter was enemy held land,
Indian territory, as they used to say in the ancient writings on war.

The score or so of assorted artillery tracks
put shells and missiles into the air, firing what they had left at their
maximum rate of fire.  The ground around the division erupted into gouts of
dirt and fire, among them the battle suited bodies of hundreds of Fenri.  As
soon as the last round left the vehicles the crews evacuated them, moving with
their light armored suits as fast as possible.

For some that was fast enough.  For others, not
so much, as fire rained down from the sky, kinetics targeted onto the now empty
vehicles.  Some of the crew in their light suits had made it far enough away to
get to cover.  Many didn’t, and were lifted into the air by the blast waves, to
be crushed against the ground, wrecked vehicles or the rubble of the structures
that had once been habitations.

The Fenri continued on, through the fire that
had taken some of the spark out of their attack.  And into the crossed
defensive fire of the heavy infantry, particle beams cutting through their
armor as easily as through flesh.

A couple of kinetics came down, striking into
the human positions, some of their force going into the advancing Fenri.  That
barrage stopped, quickly, when as many Fenri were killed as humans.

“Close with them,” yelled Baggett over the com,
almost sure that this would be the last command he would be able to give.  He
sighted with his own rifle, trying to get a clear sight picture through the
obscuring haze, finally developing enough of a target to fire.  The rest of the
headquarters company crouched beside him and added their firepower to the mix,
while the majority of the troopers moved close and fired into the approaching
enemy point blank.

This was a knife fight, close up and personal. 
Men and Fenri were dying in each other’s arms, plunging monomolecular blades
through armor, firing point blank into bodies that were running toward them. 
The humans had the advantage in this kind of fight, with their larger, stronger
suits.  Which didn’t mean they weren’t taking horrendous losses of their own.

“Fall back,” yelled Baggett, a command he
really didn’t want to give.  To fall back meant they would give up any
semblance of a tactical position.  Instead, they would be fighting in small
groups, often as individuals, in the ruins of the city.  Until they ran out of
power, protons or ammo. 
If we can get out of this at all
, he thought,
looking down on the swirling melee, and seeing another wave of enemy running
toward it.

*    
*     *

Lt. Jay Cummings gritted his teeth as two of
the tanks of his reduced company fell off the com.  The flat screen viewer
showed the turret of one spinning through the air, the glowing point of impact
showing on the side through each revolution.  The other vehicle still had its
turret, though jets of flame were shooting through every top hatch on the
tank.  The rear compartment was completely smashed, from above, the sign of a
kinetic strike.

“Forward,” he yelled over the com to his
remaining three tanks.  He could barely control his voice as he gave the
command, one that would put his own precious hide in extreme danger.  In fact,
he doubted this was a maneuver he would come back from.  But if he didn’t move,
the division would get rolled up by the next wave of Fenri.

The thousand ton tank moved forward, its bottom
barely ten centimeters above the ground, all weapons ready.  Well, all but the
left side defensive turret and half of the right side turret laser cross.  But
all the major weapons systems were fully operational.

The tank rose up the small slope, exposing its
turret to the mass of Fenri running across the flattened ruins.  Many of the
aliens turned toward the tank and its two mates, trying to bring their weapons
to bear, while the rest continued to run forward.

“All weapons, fire as they come to bear,”
ordered the LT, taking control of the right side defensive turret himself,
leaving the other weapons to the well trained crew of his vehicle.  The small
turret rose into position in an instant, spitting out hundreds of twelve
millimeter rounds each second.  The spray hit a concentration of armored Fenri,
the high velocity rounds punching through the armor with most of the hits,
ripping apart the little furred aliens within.  A couple got off shots with
particle beam weapons.  One hit Cummings’ tank, to bounce from the electromag
field.

The main gun barked, sending a hundred
kilograms of superplatinum and steel/carbon alloys at three hundred kilometers
a second into another group of Fenri.  The round splattered all of the aliens
in its path, the shockwave stunning those within ten meters of its passage,
damaging the suits with its wall of compressed air.  The twin particle beams on
either side of the gun sent out bursts of red fury, tearing into those stunned
and disorganized Fenri who had been to either side of the main gun trajectory. 
They swung with the turret, ceasing fire for a moment as the main gun spoke
again.

The lasers on the side of the turret fired as
well, sending out gigawatt beams of one second duration, incinerating the
occupants of battle armored suits with each strike.

One of the tanks took a hit, then another, the
hypervelocity missiles tearing through the side of the turret.  The tanked
rocked almost over before coming back upright.  The only function it was now
capable of, screening the side of the company command tank.

Weapons came back at Cummings’ tank, a half
dozen hypervelocity missiles, four of them hitting the dirt in front of and to
the side of the exposed turret.  Two were hits, both to the front of the
turret, where the armor was the thickest.  Both bounced away, one taking out
the right side particle beam projector.

Cummings wanted to order the driver to
retreat.  Everything in him called for that decision.  The only one that could
possibly save his life, even if the odds really weren’t that good if he called it
anyway.  But to pull back meant letting that mass of Fenri get through to the
division.

“Continue firing,” he yelled into the com,
wondering if anyone would reject the order, knowing that to stay in this
position meant death.

The main gun kept up its fire, a round a
second, blasting them out until it no longer had penetrators, then sending out
high explosive antimatter.  The particle beam fired until the system melted
under its self-generated heat.  Both laser crosses died, and the tank started
taking multiple hits to its turret and hull.  But it continued fighting.  The
other tank died, and Cummings knew it couldn’t be long.  But the tactical holo
showed that the second wave of the enemy attack was broken, with heavy
casualties.  He allowed himself a smile at that thought.

His last smile, as five hyper velocity missiles
came in on a high arc, plunging down at thousands of gravities into the thinner
top armor of the tank.  The heavy armored vehicle exploded with the overload of
kinetic energy, followed by the explosive power of the warheads.  The crew was
killed instantly, their deaths not even registering on their senses.  And with
it, the last armored punch of the division died as well.

*    
*     *

Baggett led the headquarters company, what was
left of it, into the close assault he hoped might allow the rest of the
division to extract back into the ruins.  His heart swelled with pride as his
men and women followed him in, no hesitation shown.

Baggett ran full speed into a cluster of Fenri,
all of whom were trying to bring their weapons around to target his suit.  He
slammed into the first Fenri, using the mass of his suit to bowl the smaller
alien over.  Swinging a fist, he hit another alien in the head with enough
force to crack the helmet.  With a swish pairs of monomolecular blades sprang
from his forearms, protruding twenty centimeters past his fists.  He swung one
set of blades into the helmet of the Fenri he had just hit, then speared
another through the chest with the other blades.

A Fenri slammed into his back, and something
penetrated his suit, causing a sharp pain to his left shoulder.  Baggett
pivoted around, his right hand grabbing the arm of the Fenri and throwing him
to the ground, where he stomped down with a left boot on the creature’s helmed
head, crushing it.

The General grabbed his rifle from where it
swung on its carbon fiber strap and raising it toward the enemy, pulling the
trigger and sending a sustained blast that he swept like a sword through the
aliens, dropping eight of them to the ground with slashed suits spurting smoke
and steam.

People starting cheering on the division com
circuit, in clear violation of regulations.  His people were well trained, so
he was sure something must be going on to spark the lapse.  Baggett looked past
the Fenri who were running away, to see a mass of the little aliens lying in
heaps on the ground about seven hundred meters away.  He looked to the side, to
see the burning forms of three King Tyrannosaurs, and knew immediately what had
saved his division from overrun.  
You people are heroes, and your families
will receive your medals, if we ever get out of here.  God bless and keep you
,
he said in silent prayer for those crews. 
May you get a hero’s welcome in
heaven, for no greater love does man have, than to lay down his life for his
brother.

“All troops,” he called out over the com,
breaking over the voices of all the others clogging the circuit.  “Move into
the rubble and take up positions.  Dig in people,” he said, looking at the
retreating Fenri, and knowing that his people would soon be under kinetic
bombardment.  “Prepare to make those bastards pay for every inch they take.”

*    
*     *

“Translation into normal space in twenty
minutes,” called out the Fleet Navigation Officer.

Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski sat in his
command chair and looked at the tactical holo that showed them what they knew
about the system.  Which, all things considered, was quite a bit, considering
that the wormhole equipped probes had just gone in over an hour before.  The probes,
of course, would have been picked up when they entered the system, but a quick
boost at high gravity, followed by a complete shutdown of all drive systems,
had made them all but impossible to detect.

And they’re coming out to meet us, just like we
figured
,
thought the commander of Operation
Surigoa
.  The enemy fleet outnumbered
his own, even with the losses they had inflicted to the pickets on the way in. 
In fact, both the fleet waiting at the hyper barrier, and that starting out
from the planet that was the focus of the operation, outnumbered his entire
force by themselves. 
Hopefully, they won’t be ready for everything we’re
bringing to the table, though.

The picket certainly hadn’t been.  His advanced
force, including a dozen ships with wormhole launchers, had taken out the
several hundred ships the enemy had managed to get in front of them with the
loss of one battleship and a pair of destroyers.  And the enemy, who didn’t
have any kind of com system that would transmit from hyper to the space within
a system, at least not at range, would have no idea what had happened to that
force.

“Force alpha is dropping out of hyper, now,”
called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.

Len looked to the plot and saw that those ships
had indeed translated for enough out to have avoided early contact with the
enemy outer fleet.  As soon as they were in normal space they started
launching.  Hundreds of missile icons appeared on the plot, all travelling at
point nine c, fired from the acceleration stations outside the
Donut
. 
It would take them some twenty minutes to reach the alien fleet, and they would
be coming in at point nine five light, optimum attack velocity.