Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 by Dandridge Doug

Author:Dandridge, Doug [Dandridge, Doug]
Format: azw, azw3, mobi, epub
Published: 2012-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse. Isaac Asimov

“We have translations,” came the voice over the com circuit.

Captain Laura Montenegro sat up in her chair and pushed away from the desk where she had been working on requisitions. She was the manning the system commander slot for the Sestius System while Commodore Chung was out touring the asteroid processing facility which had opened for operation last week. Which put him over forty-five light minutes away from the base and basically unable to command the planetary defense system.

“Montenegro here,” she said over her com link as she ran from her office toward the lift. “What do you have?”

“Multiple translations from Hyper VII,” answered the tactical officer. “Don’t know where they came from, but we didn’t pick them up until they came into n-space.”

Damn, she thought, running into a waiting lift. The doors closed behind her and the lift started up. They did have to come in while the main sensor array was being replaced. Normally they should have picked up the incoming ships hours before they entered n-space. The outer system buoys were due to be emplaced next week. There were no hyper capable ships in system to use their own sensors. And the station’s was out as a new and improved system was being put in. Of course old, unimproved and working would have been better than new, improved and not functioning.

And all of the nonhyper defense ships are out in the outer system to provide early warning, she thought with a grimace. It was very likely that their light speed com transmissions were on their way into the inner system right now. Maybe to arrive any minute. But as they didn’t have hyperdrives they lacked the ability to send gravity wave code transmissions, which made them pretty damned worthless.

The Captain came out of the lift at a run, down the corridor seventy meters to the command center. The Marine sentry saluted as she hit the door panel with her open palm, keying the entry with her prints and genetic code.

“What do we have?” she shouted as she ran into the control room. A trio of officers and a half dozen enlisted personnel sat their stations, while the holo tank blazed with red dots in the outer system. They knew better than to jump to attention in the midst of an emergency.

“We have translation of ten vessels massing between destroyers and light cruisers,” said the duty officer, a dark skinned Lt. Commander rising from the command seat to make way for her. She nodded her thanks as she sank into the chair and he stood near.

“Do we know whose vessels, Lt. Commander Mauhana?” she asked, looking at the system schematic. The red dots were almost on top of the last reported position of their one system defense destroyer. The three corvettes were scattered along the perimeter of the system.

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