Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) Read Online Free Page A

large structures with smoke pouring from the stacks.
    “That matches up
with what we got from the Republic,” said Xavier Patton, the Exec.
    “Yes,” said the
Captain in a flat voice.  “It does.”  Death camps, with food
processing centers nearby.   The Ca’cadasans were turning human beings
into rations, processing them and storing them for future use.
    “How many do you
estimate are on the planet, Xavier?” she asked, her eyes glued to the image of
the largest camp they had found, one that must have had ten million or more
within its fences.
    “Seven hundred
million,” answered the Exec in a hushed voice.  “Maybe eight
hundred.  And they have to be processing them at a couple of hundred
thousand a day.”
    And this is
what command sent us here to find out , she thought, looking over at her Com
Officer, who was busy making sure that all of their information was getting
back to headquarters through the wormhole.
    There had been
rumors of people being rounded up, and not just slaughtered and eaten in place. 
Which made sense, since the Ca’cadasans couldn’t have eaten that much meat, and
most would have gone to waste from spoilage.  It made her wonder how many
other planets might have the same activity on them.  In the Republic the
Cacas had set up camps on every major world they had taken.  They hadn’t
followed the same pattern in the Empire, where the casualty rates among the
planet dwellers had been much higher, and there were fewer survivors to bother
with.
    Now we just have
to hope that command can do something about this.  I don’t know what, but
they don’t pay me to consider those possibilities. No, they paid her to
sneak into enemy held systems and view atrocities like this first hand. 
This would be one system she would be glad to leave, though she had suspicions
that command would keep her here as an observer to whatever they had in mind
for the last humans of the Kingdom of New Moscow.

Chapter One
     
    The only thing necessary for the
triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
    Edmund Burke.
     
    CAPITULUM, JEWEL, JANUARY 30 TH ,
1002.
     
    “Attention,”
yelled out the Command Senior Master Chief of the Fleet, watching as the men
and women in the chamber, all of whom outranked him, surged to their
feet.  “Emperor on deck.”
    The Emperor Sean
Ogden Lee Romanov, Sean the First, came through the door behind the most senior
enlisted man in the Imperial Fleet.  Resplendent in his naval uniform, the
eight stars of a supreme commander on each shoulder board, he looked over the room
for an instant, recognizing all of the faces standing around the table. 
They included two officers of service leading rank, Grand High Admiral Sondra
McCullom of the Navy, and Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri of the Army, both with
seven stars on their collars.  Standing to the side of McCullom was Field
Marshal Betty Parker , a five star, theCommandant of the Imperial
Marine Corps.  Across the table from them stood a pair of Grand High
Admirals, six star rank, his senior fleet commanders, Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel
Len Lenkowskiand Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda .  
Next to Len was Senior Marshal Beatrice Sanginawa, the newly appointed Imperial
Army commander of Sector IV.  Down the table was Lord T’lisha, the
Phlistaran Head of Intelligence, right next to Ekaterina Sergiov, the Chief of
the Imperial Intelligence Agency.
    The last person
at the table was the lowest ranking.  Lt. General Walther Preacher Jodel
was the Chief of Special Ops in Sector IV, in command of the joint force of
Army Rangers, Marine Force Recon and Fleet Commandos that operated against the
Cacas.
    All of the faces
looking back at him showed their shock, the same disbelief he felt.  Eight
hundred million of them , he thought as he waved everyone back to their
seats and took his own.  Men, women, probably tens of millions of
children.  Maybe more than that on other planets.  There can’t be too
many more than