Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (40 page)

He cycled through all fifteen of the systems
his fleet was hitting, every place they knew the Cacas had a strong presence. 
Sean had studied a lot of old Earth history.  To him, this was like being in
the mid twenty to late twenty-first century, when naval wars across the globe
were still pretty common.  And an Admiral might have control of ships across
millions of square kilometers of ocean.  That had been the effect of radio,
followed by satellites, on the way they made war.  And wormholes were having
the same effect.  Prior to wormholes, it was more like warfare from the days of
sail.  Fleets were sent into battle, the results not known for weeks, sometimes
months.  Emperors sat in fear for their navy when they went to war.

I could have stayed in the palace and gotten
the same information I’m getting now
, thought Sean with a smile. 
But it
wouldn’t be the same.  This way I’m actually in the battle, even if I am
hanging back with the rear echelon.

In three the attacks had already finished.  The
Cacas had been swept away by the stronger Imperial forces.  Casualties were
still high, but the systems had been freed, washed clean with human blood.  Six
still in various stages of battle.  Four were going the human way, but two were
not.  The human forces were fighting hard, but it didn’t look like they were
going to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat that were clamping down on
them.

He shook his head.  There was nothing he could
do in any of those fights, no miraculous commands that could turn the tide. 
Right now he had to concentrate on this fight, even though he had pledged that
he wouldn’t try to micromanage.  But he still intended to exert overall control
of the fight.

And here we go
, he thought, watching
as the inertialess fighters started to pull away from the carriers.  This fight
was in its early stages, but as far as he was concerned, they were committed to
this battle.  The Counterstrike was on, and this next couple days would either
see them kick the Cacas out of the Empire, or prove they couldn’t.

Chapter
Twenty-five

You must not fight too
often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Napoleon Bonaparte

CONUNDRUM SPACE. 
JANUARY 8
^TH
, 1002.

“We’re picking up some anomalous signals from
outside the system,” reported the Fleet’s senior Sensor Officer over the holo.

“What kind of anomalous signals?” asked Great
Admiral M’tinisasitow, glancing over at the system holo that showed only his
own forces. 
And we can’t even track ships reliably in real time, due to
that damned hyper turbulence.  When, by all the Gods, will it finally stop?

“We really don’t know, my Lord.  They match
nothing I have ever seen, or anything in the data banks.  I surmise they could
be human ships, jumping down through hyper dimensions, or into normal space. 
Unfortunately, the turbulence is too severe for us to hear through it.   But,
as we are expecting them to strike, I think this could be a sign of it.”

“I agree,” said the Great Admiral.  “Good
work.  And keep listening for any other signs.” 
Not that he’s likely to
hear much.  That was probably their ships dropping down into normal space, and
we’ll have the Gods’ own time trying to track them by grabber emissions.

“All ships are to go to maximum readiness
status,” he said next, tapping into the general com system that would go all
over the ship, including his com specialists.  “I believe the humans are on the
outer edges of the system.  All ships, ready all weapons and raise cold plasma
fields to maximum.  Active scans to cover all possible approach lanes.”

He stopped talking and the com link severed. 
His voice continued to speak in the background, as it would on all of the ships
for the next several minutes, so that every warrior would get the message.

He looked back at the system tactical holo,
highlighting what he thought were the most likely avenues of approach for the
humans.  He had done this very thing almost a week before, when the hyper
distortion first manifested itself.  And he had arranged for some surprises to
be placed well out of the system near those avenues of approach. 
This hyper
phenomenon is something the humans hope to use to surprise us.  But it works both
ways, and we can use it to surprise them as well.  Probably not enough to win
the battle, but maybe enough to shock them into making mistakes.

*    
*     *

GRILYON BASE SYSTEM.

The
Grilyon
Admiral raised a drinking horn into the air and shouted out a toast in his own
language.  The thousand males and females in the great hall echoed his toast,
which played back in Teranglo in Commodore Sung’s portable translator.  All of
the males and females were robust, muscular, and equal in every way in the Grilyon
society.  All were warriors, a people who reveled in combat.  In fact, she had
seen blood drawn a dozen times this evening.  But merely blood, shed with their
own claws.  She had not seen anyone seriously injured.

To them it is sport
, she thought, shaking
her head, then taking a bite of the roasted meat on the plate before her. 
The
entire society seems to be made up of people who love to fight.

She had been challenged a couple of times
herself tonight, but the Admiral had stepped in each time and defused the
situation, explaining that the humans were guests that did not understand their
ways.  Most of her crews had been left in the ships that orbited this class M
world.  She had foreseen that there might be problems with these cantankerous
creatures.  So she had only come down with her other captains, some of the
anthropologists, and a few of her Marines.

She looked up to see another of the aliens
staring at her, a behavior that normally presaged a challenge.  She glanced
over at the Grilyon leader to see him studying her intently. 
He wants to
get our measure
, she thought. 
To know if we can fight with honor.  But
I wouldn’t stand a chance against their weakest female.

“Perhaps I should accept their challenge,” said
Major Saul Briggs, the overall commander of her Marine detachment.

She looked over at the man, who appeared to be
as tough as any human she had ever seen. 
He ought to be
, she thought of
the former Force Recon trooper.  Very few of her people were augmented.  He was
one of the few.

“I would prefer we not get in a fight with
these people,” she told the Major.

“And that might be just what we need to do,”
said Dr. Hau Quon, the chief anthropologist of the squadron.  “After all, these
people come from a society which holds martial prowess in high regard.  And so
far we have not proven that we have any.”

That’s nothing less than the truth
, thought the
Commodore.  When the Gilyons had found them, they were running from what looked
like a lesser force. 
They have no reason to believe we aren’t weaklings. 
And why would they want to ally themselves with weaklings? 
“We’re
explorers, Dr. Hau.  Not warriors.”

“And we’re still members of his Majesty’s
Fleet,” said Briggs, fingering the Star of David he wore around his neck.  “On
a mission to forge alliances.  And these guys look like they would make some
damned good allies.”

Sung had to admit that the Major was correct. 
The Grilyons were individually a strong people, even if they didn’t control
that large a fleet.  And they were not bullies.  Not really, despite their
genetic predilection for combat.  They weren’t conquerors.  Weaker species they
left alone.

“I would challenge our new friends,” said the
male who had been staring at the Commodore.  “I would test their courage and
their spirit.  What say you, humans?”

Sung looked over at Briggs.  “Do you think you
can take him?  Or at least put up a good enough fight to gain their respect?”

“Hell yes, ma’am,” said the Major, looking at
the large Grilyon, who was a strong looking warrior even among their fit looking
people.

“My Chief of Ground Warriors accepts your
challenge with great honor, Warrior,” she told the male.

Everyone at the tables stood up and hurried
toward the fighting ring.  Not every match had gotten this kind of attention,
but this was something every one of the thousands in the hall had been waiting
for.  The big male Grilyon stood on one side, taking off his weapons’ belt,
then his upper fur and scale coat.  He was barefooted, as were all of his
people when not wearing full, high tech combat gear.

Briggs sat down and pulled off his boots, then
stood up and took off his shirt.  Sung had to admit that the Major was a fine
specimen, with muscles rolling under his tight skin.  He did a couple of
stretches, amazing her with his flexibility. 
And I’m not sure why I’m
surprised.  He’s a fighter, and leader of fighters.  It’s his business to stay
in fighting trim.
  Her eyes moved between the human and the alien, and she
wondered again about the wisdom of letting the Major fight.

“To first blood,” called out the leader of the
aliens, raising his hand in the air.  The Grilyon warrior moved a couple of
meters into the ring, and Briggs followed his example.  The leader dropped his
hand, and the grinning alien warrior charged forward.

Sung was sure she had never seen anything move
so fast from a standing start.  The warrior covered ten meters in a second and
bound into the air, claws on his feet extended, hands gripped into striking
fists.   Aimed right at the Major, who moved out of the way in a blur that made
the alien seem downright slow in comparison.

The Grilyon hit the ground with a frustrated
growl, then swung a backhand at the human.  Briggs caught the swing on a double
forearm block, his feet sliding in the dirt from the force of the blow.  The
alien jabbed with his other hand, catching Briggs in the chest and driving the
air from his lungs.  The hand that had struck first came back, opening into
striking claws, and came down at the Major’s face.

Again Briggs was not there, sliding to the
right and hitting the Grilyon in the back with a flurry of punches, so fast
they looked like a blur to the spectators.  There was the sound of intaken
breath, and cheers for the Major.  The warrior grunted from the strikes, that
weren’t enough to take him down.

With a roar the warrior spun on his heel and
jumped forward, right into a left legged side kick into his stomach that drove
the breath from the creature.  As it staggered back Briggs slid forward,
launching another flurry of blows, punches, backhands, chops, striking the
alien about the head and shoulders.  Sung knew her Marine didn’t know the soft
spots of this creature, and was trying to defeat him with sheer number and
strength of blows.

The male reached out for the Major with a
clawed hand, trying to grab the Marine’s shoulder.  Briggs dropped lower to the
ground in a crouch, under the claw, and pummeled the ribs of the Grilyon male
with a series of short sharp blows.  The thudding of the fists on bone sounded
across the ring, and many of the spectators sucked in another breath at the
display of martial prowess.

Briggs stepped back, looking over at Sung.  The
male stood there, trying to catch his breath, and she was fairly sure that the
Grilyon had a broken rib or two, or whatever passed for them in his species.

“When will you call this fight?” she asked the
Admiral, looking over at his predator’s face.

“It ends at first blood,” he said, grinning. 
“Not before.”

And now she saw the fatal flaw in this
challenge, as far as her man was concerned.  The Grilyons were made to draw
blood.  And Briggs had nothing on him that would penetrate that leathery hide. 
Maybe he can just take a superficial hit
, she thought, wondering how she
could get that idea to the Major.  It was obvious to all that Briggs was
punishing the alien, and could probably kill him, given time.  And that was
another result that the Commodore did not want to think about.  The Grilyons
saw fighting as an enjoyable pastime, but she wasn’t sure how they would react
to one of their own being killed by an outsider.

Briggs ducked under another blow, then blocked
a second, then threw a wheel kick into the warrior’s face.  The alien’s head
snapped back, and blood spurted from his mouth.

“First blood,” yelled the alien leader,
stepping into the ring and laying a hand on Briggs’ shoulder.  “You are the
victor, human.”

The large warrior wiped the blood from his
mouth with the side of a hand, then stepped forward to put his other hand on
the Marine’s opposite shoulder.  “You fought well, human.   I would be proud to
fight beside you, and call you brother.”

“As would all of us,” echoed the leader,
looking around the pit to see head motions of agreement.  He looked over at the
Commodore.  “We will fight beside your people, Natasha Sung.  Against the
honorless vermin you now battle.”

Sung looked over at her smiling Marine Major,
now arm in arm with the warrior he had just battled, lifting a mug of their
strong ale into the air. 
Not the way I would have gone about forging an
alliance.  But hell, whatever works.

*    
*     *

MASSADARA.  JANUARY 8
^TH
,
1002.

“How are things going at your end, Baggett?”
asked the Planetary Commander from his HQ.  The com was coming through a couple
of thousand kilometers of fiber optic cable, allowing them to talk without
giving their positions away to the ships in orbit.  Most of which were moving
out of orbit to deal with the threat that was now striking at their force in
the outer system.

“We’re ready to go, sir,” replied the commander
of the First Heavy Infantry Division, his massive suit leaning against one of
the holo projectors that would soon be employed to mask the surface of the
planet.  The fifty ton unit was currently powered down, waiting for its chance
to project a holographic image into the sky that would obscure the visual observation
of the surface.  There were four hundred of the units in his area of
operations, along with several hundred jammer sets that would mask the
electronic signatures of every Imperial unit as soon as they powered up.

“In fact, the boys and girls are chomping at
the bit, General.”  He looked over at the King Tyrannosaur tank that sat under
its high tech passive cammo covering, making it look like a small hill under
the canopy of tall needle leaf trees.  The tank was also powered down, the crew
aboard, ready to get her up and running in seconds when the order was given. 
And
they know exactly where to strike
, he thought, pulling up the tactical map
of the area, and the large force of Cacas who had recently landed and were
frantically setting up defenses.  More of their shuttles were landing every
minute, ferrying the troops down from the almost helpless troop transports
still in orbit, at least giving the soldiers a fighting chance, and not just
making them targets of warships they couldn’t fight.

“Almost,” said the planetary commander.

The clock inside the heads of both men’s
implants ticked off the seconds.  Until, right as Baggett’s hit zero, the voice
of the commander spoke.  “Roll them out, Baggett.”