First Strike!

Chris, First story of yours that I have read. Great work!

We really do have some of the most talented monkeys on our tree.

 

Another very good story.

 

Chapter Sixteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“I think we have a contact,” Karla said. “It’s definitely a Hegemony convoy.”



Joshua smiled, coldly. The Hegemony didn't control this sector of space very well, although noteven the Association possessed a fleet large enough to patrol quantum space. With so many raiders on the loose, it was nosurprise that the Hegemony preferred to use convoys rather than sending shipsout on their own. The chances ofany given ship being detected andintercepted were low, but losing even one ship could be irritating. Besides, even though the Hegemony was richand powerful, replacing a lost ship was expensive.



“Good,” he said. They’dbeen waiting for five days for a suitable target. Two other ships had passed near theirposition, but they’d both belonged to other powers. Attacking them wouldn't have harmed theHegemony and possibly expanded the war. “Howmany ships?”



Karla frowned down at her console. Sensor readings were untrustworthy in quantumspace, even at relatively close range. The convoy might be little more than a mirage, or it might be a fleet ofwarships heading to the war. Even withthe best equipment money could buy, they still needed to slip closer to theirtargets before they could be sure they weren't flying into a trap.



“At least five ships,” she said, after a moment. She’d developed a knack for reading sensorsin quantum space, better than anyone else Joshua had met. It was still dangerous to take anything forgranted. “Four of them are freighters,judging from their mass; the fifth is a destroyer, or possibly a lightcruiser. It keeps altering position so Ican’t get a solid look at their emissions.”



“Alert the other ships,” he ordered. “Prepare to attack.”



The borders between major galactic powers were infestedwith pirates, rebels and independent settlers, but very few of them would havedared to attack a warship. It would havebeen unprofitable even if they’d won the fight. The Hegemony’s decision to send along only a single escort hadn't been abad one, assuming that they would be facing common pirates or raiders. What pirate would dare to pick a fight with awarship, even if he outmassed his target?



But Joshua had brought along six warships to his first operation, each one more powerful thanthe Hegemony escort ship. They’d destroythe ship and capture or destroy its charges – and when the Hegemony worked outwhat had happened, they'd know that they needed to send additional starships toescort their convoys, drawing reinforcements away from the war front. Joshua had spent the time between Earth andtheir current base researching the Hegemony’s economy and their operationsalong the borderlands, concluding that many of the lesser clans within theHegemony were heavily involved in trade between the Hegemony and itsneighbours. They would put pressure on theEmpress to react strongly to the pirates, even if there was a war on. Some of them couldn'tafford more than a few losses before they collapsed.



He tapped his console and Blackbeard slipped forward, heading towards her target. The other ships hung back, watching as theHegemony destroyer finally realised that they were there and turned to face theoncoming ship. Energy weapons andshields weren't always reliable in quantum space either – few militaries wouldhave chosen to fight a battle there if it could be avoided – which meant thatthey would be throwing torpedoes at each other. Joshua smiled darkly as the ship’s ECM – ironically, bought from theHegemony – went to work, creating ghostly sensor reflections around his ship. If they were really lucky, the Hegemony clans might start blaming each other forthe raiders. It wouldn't be the firsttime one clan had started attacking another to clear the way for their ownexpansion.



“Enemy vessel is locking on,” Karla said. “They’re countering our ECM.”



“Open fire,” Joshua said, quietly. That shouldn't have been a surprise; if theHegemony had built the ECM systems, they would have at least some idea of howto counter them. “Take the bastard out.”



Blackbeard shudderedas she unleashed a full spread of antimatter torpedoes. Their target did the same, but some of hertorpedoes rushed after the sensor illusions rather than Blackbeard herself. Joshuatook a moment to note that torpedo sensors seemed to be less capable of penetratingECM than the sensors mounted on enemy starships, before the first set oftorpedoes impacted on the enemy ship. Four direct hits knocked down her shields; the fifth struck her nakedhull. The crew never stood achance. Their ship vaporised in ablinding flash of light, agitating the unstable folds of hyperspace around her.



One torpedo struck Blackbeard,shaking the light cruiser without inflicting any major damage. Joshua allowed himself a brief moment ofrelief, before triggering the message he’d recorded earlier, ordering the four freightersto surrender or die. Regular pirates sawno profit in destroying freighters either, but he didn't particularly care ifthey surrendered or had to be destroyed. Either way, the Hegemony would take a loss. He waited as the recording played out – he’daltered his voice so that he sounded like a Funk female – and smiled as theships signalled their surrender. Theirclans might ransom them, after all, if they were taken prisoner rather thanbeing forced to walk out of the airlock. Or there might be a chance to escape when they reached the pirate base.



“Send in the troops,” he ordered, as his small fleet tookup positions around the freighters. “RemindKang that I want the crews alive, if possible. No need to kill them when they can be interrogated.”



“Of course,” Karla said, dryly. “And Kang is so good at leaving people alive.”



Joshua shrugged. Ideally, the crew would never realise that their captors werehuman. They’d purchased armoured combatsuits designed for several different races, ones that revealed little of theirprecise proportions, but it was difficult to be certain of anything when thesuits still had to be humanoid. Kang hadbeen booted out of the Federation Marines for excessive violence, which hadamused the hell out of Joshua when he’d first heard it. He’d thought that was how people got in.



“Prisoners can be interrogated,” he said, sternly. It would be too dangerous to try to ransomthem back to their clans, although they couldbe sold on to others who might try to ransom them. Galactic law forbade the slave trade, butslavery was alive and well along the borderlands. “And who knows what they might have to tellus?”

***​

“Quite a valuable cargo,” Kang said, an hour later. The freighter crews had been searched andthen locked in their own holds while the boarders took control of theirships. “High-tech tools, severalindustrial modules and a ton of colony equipment. Their manifests record their destination asHegemony-III, which suggests that they were working directly for one of the majorclans.”



Joshua nodded, thoughtfully. Hegemony-III was a major shipbuilding centre,only a dozen light years from the dry world that had given birth to theFunks. Humanity’s research had suggestedthat the Funks had problems duplicating some of the more fiddly Association technology,but the items they’d captured was the first real proof anyone had found. Their raid would have caused problems for theHegemony even if they’d had to blow the ships and withdraw without ever knowingwhat they’d destroyed.



But if he recalled correctly, Hegemony-III was owned andoperated by a clan that had ambitions to replace the Empress with one of theirown. Given enough time, they might justhave succeeded...particularly if they’d managed to put together a small fleetof their own. They’d have to suspect that one of their rivalshad organised the intercept, even if they’d thought that their security wasairtight. And their paranoia would dothe rest.



“Good,” he said, finally. Much of the cargo would be easy to sell onwards, pulling in thousands ofcredits to finance their private war. The fences would demand a share in the proceeds, of course, but it wouldstill be worthwhile. He wanted to selloff the cargo and return to operations as soon as possible. “Did we find anyone interesting among thecrew?”



“Most of them are low-status males,” Kang said. “Even the females are lowly. None of them even tried to fight.”



“Freighter crews,” Karla said. “Sheep, the lot of them.”



Joshua snorted. He’dspent long enough trading with the Galactics to know that the Hegemony freightercrews were among the worst in the galaxy. It wasn't entirely their fault; the Hegemony treated warship crews likekings, while freighter crews were regarded as the worst of the worst. Their commanders were females who werepolitical failures, too insignificant to be taken seriously by their queens, oroffered the choice between serving as a freighter commander or jail. The quality of personnel rarely rose above mediocre.



It wasn't the only problem either. Where he’d been careful to give his freightercommanders a wide degree of latitude in how they commanded their ships, theHegemony gave their commanders almost none. They were expected to follow orders and nothing else, even when it was obviousthat their orders had been written by someone with no real appreciation of thesituation, hundreds of light years away. Their maintenance was poor, leaving them to push their equipment untilit finally failed; it didn't take much imagination to realise that their fleettrain was likely to have all kinds of problems as they finally started torespond to the war. Or so Joshuahoped. Admiral Sampson had beenconfident, but Joshua knew too much about the crushing power of the HegemonyNavy to feel sanguine about the war’s outcome.



But there’s anotherreason for us, he thought, inwardly. If Earth loses the war, if most ofhumanity is exterminated, at least we can seek revenge.



“We’ll drop them off on one of the isolated worlds,” hesaid, shaking his head. The clansprobably wouldn't pay ransom for any of their crews, even though their cargohad been important to their clan’s long-term plans. They could have sold the crews into slavery,but he had his limits. Maybe the crewscould find work on one of the other rogue ships. It wouldn’t be the first time freighter crewshad turned pirate – and given what they had been carrying, it might be a safer careerchoice than going home to report to their queens. “Leave the boarders on the ships – we’ll takethem directly to Shadow and offload their cargo there.”



“Got you,” Kang said. He was a big man, a descendent of Korean immigrants to the UnitedStates. His record had suggested a manwho was a perfect soldier, except for outright racism against the Galactics –and the Funks in particular. But it washard to blame him when his sister had been killed during the occupation of TerraNova. “And if they give us trouble?”



Joshua didn't hesitate. “Kill them.”

***​

The Shadow System had been dismissed as worthlesshundreds of years before humanity had even dreamed that the lights in the skywere just like the sun. It had been ared giant in the final stages of expansion before collapsing back in on itself –and, to humans and even the Galactics, appeared unchanged over the years sinceit had been surveyed by the Association. There were Galactics, Joshua knew, who worshipped the stars themselves,believing them to be gods. It was easyto understand why when a dying system lived longer than some intelligentraces. Only the Cats, with theirimmortality, could really watch over the millennia as the star slowly died.



Maybe that explained a great deal about them, he thought,as Blackbeard and her freighters coastedin towards the pirate base. Few raceslived longer than a hundred years naturally, even with the very best of medicalcare; to the Cats, humanity and the Funks had to look like swarming insects,living and dying so rapidly as to be almost unnoticeable. And compared to what the Cats had done, theyounger races had created almost nothing. No wonder they didn't seem to realise that their races they’d helpedrise to the stars might one day pose a deadly threat to their existence.



Shadow itself was a mass of asteroids, the remains of aPluto-sized planet had had shattered aeons ago. It had been inhabited for hundreds of years, first by refugees from the Associationand then by pirates, smugglers and black marketers. Any of the Galactics – even Earth – could havetaken the asteroid out, but it was simply too useful as a place to meet awayfrom the eyes of law and order. Even theHegemony had been known to send envoys to the asteroid, establishing links withraces that might be able to trade them technology for raw materials or militarysupport. Joshua had once heard that morediplomacy took place on Shadow than on Centre. It was easy to believe when one considered just how many starshipsroutinely visited the system.



There was no formal procedure for docking at Shadow. The docks were operated by several privatecompanies – formed by pirates who had retired from piracy to spend theirill-gotten gains, according to ONI – who charged a small fee in exchange fordocking rights and access to the small tanks of HE3. Shadow possessed no gas giant and so all ofthe fuel had to be brought in from another system, or smuggled in from one ofthe major galactic powers. Joshua hadworked as a freighter commander long enough to understand just how tightly thegalactic economy was bound in to HE3. Earth had had similar problems with oil, before First Contact, but thengas giants were plentiful. No powercould use a near-monopoly to give them a stranglehold on galactic politics.



Leaving most of the crew onboard to guard the ships,Joshua took Karla and boarded the asteroid. Like most multiracial structures, it looked larger than necessary to thehuman eye, a giant’s house simplified almost to the point of insult. No experienced spacer would complain, even ifmost races found the asteroid slightly disconcerting. Most races would have no problems visiting oreven living within the asteroid. The fewthat did could hire representatives or send remote-controlled machines in theirplace.



Each of the asteroid’s giant chambers held a place forvisiting crewmen to get drunk and spend all of their booty on the variousfacilities. Joshua rolled his eyes whenhe saw the virtual brothel, boasting about having sexual programs from all overthe galaxy, with a long line of clients awaiting their turn in the booths. It was cleaner than regular brothels, andthey didn't have problems supplying precisely what the client wanted, but itstill struck him as silly. There werepeople who became addicted to VR simulations and never wanted to leave andreturn to the mundane world. On Shadow,there were no precautions to prevent someone from remaining so long in VR thatthey lost their mind.



“Look,” Karla said. “Funks!”



Joshua followed her gaze and saw a pair of Funk females headingaway from them. Both of them wore darktunics rather than the golden scales that represented the Funk aristocracy, norwere they escorted by small armies of males, showing off their power to theirfellows. They were either politicalrefugees or travelling incognito. Itwould be interesting to find out what they were doing on Shadow, but one of thefew rules the asteroid’s operators did enforce was privacy. The Funks would be left alone as long as theydidn’t pose a threat to other patrons.



“Ignore them,” he said, as they reached a particularbooth. The way in was blocked by a solidhull-metal door, forcing him to press his hand against the scanner for a DNAreading. There was a long pause, justbefore the door slid open, revealing a darkened chamber illuminated by a faintlight in the distance. He steppedinside, followed by Karla, and the door hissed closed behind them. “I have come.”



Water moved in the distance, revealing a wall oftransparent metal keeping them from being drowned. The alien – no one could pronounce what theycalled themselves – lived in a giant fish tank, breathing water as naturally ashumans breathed air. It – Joshua didn't wantto even think about the details oftheir sex lives – reassembled a giant crab, complete with sharp claws and unpleasant-lookingtentacles. The Association had given them the stars, buttheir limitations meant that they rarely participated in galacticpolitics. He had no idea why one of themhad come literally thousands of light years to live on Shadow, but there was nobetter fence in the galaxy. Perhaps itsrace had started to spread themselves across the galaxy, hoping to ensure theirlong-term survival. Most races did thesame when they realised how easily they could be exterminated if they remainedon one single planet, orbiting a single star.



“I have reviewed your message,” the alien said. The voice was completely atonal, betrayingnot a hint of emotion – if they felt emotion. No one knew for sure. “You haveobtained valuable goods.”



There was a pause. Joshua waited. The water-bornaliens had their own sense of time, regarding most of the land-dwellers ashasty mayflies. He’d once asked aroundand discovered that this particular crab was over two hundred years old, unlessanother of its kind had replaced it when the first one had died. No one cared enough to ask.



“I am prepared to deal for them,” the alien said,finally. Unlike most of its kind, itliked bargaining. Maybe that was why ithad travelled so far to find a place it was happy. Joshua wouldn't have wanted to be separated fromthe entire human race, but the crabs took a different view. “My first offer is twenty thousand credits,in cash or kind.”



Joshua smiled and got down to haggling.

 

Chapter Seventeen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“The scouts have returned, Admiral,” Commander SoorayaQadir reported. “The only new Hegemonyships are a trio of light cruisers. They’rerunning an eccentric patrol pattern around the planet.”



Tobias frowned. The Galactics had had thousands of years to dream up tactics for theirmilitaries, but the pattern the Hegemony ships were following made littlesense, unless they were hunting for cloaked ships. But any cloaked ship with passive sensorscould have carried out its work far away enough from the planet to remain safe,no matter how determinedly the Funks searched. Unless...



He smiled as it suddenly clicked in his mind. “They think that our quantum drives are muchmore precise than their own,” he said. “Wecame out of quantum space right on top of the fleet defending Terra Nova. Maybe they think we did it deliberately.”



“We did,” Sooraya reminded him.



“Yes, but we could only do that because their fleet wasin a fixed position,” Tobias said. “Weknew exactly where it was when we jumped in, but if they haven’t realised thatwe surveyed the system first...”



He tapped his console. “It’s either an attempt to prevent us hitting them before they see uscoming, or a first attempt at building an anti-gunboat doctrine,” headded. “Either way, it won’t save themfrom us. Alert the fleet. We jump into the system in five minutes;endpoint” – he tapped a position on the display – “here.”



Sooraya started speaking into her headset, leaving Tobiasalone with his thoughts. Deploying thegunboats had been a risk, giving the Funks – and the rest of the Galactics – a lookat them before they could be deployed in overwhelming force. But there had been little choice. By the time there were enough gunboats totear apart the entire Hegemony Navy, Earth would have been occupied foryears. If they’d had more ships, orenough time to develop weapons far superior to anything the Hegemonypossessed...



And if wishes werehorses, beggars would ride, he reminded himself, firmly. Youknew the risks when you devised the operational plan. It’s a little late to complain now.



“All ships report ready, Captain,” Sooraya reported. The gunboats had had to use the quantum gate,which might have been why the Hegemony had towed a number of OWPs to the gateand positioned them to block Formidable ifshe returned to the system, but his cruisers weren't so limited. “Quantum drives are online and ready to takeus out into normal space.”



Tobias took one final look at the last images recorded bythe scouts. Most of the vast numbers of freightersobserved by the gunboats had departed, but a number remained; ONI reported thatsome of them had been ordered to observe the battle and report back to theirowners. It was difficult to trace publicopinion among the Galactics, particularly among the races that had less opengovernments than humanity, but their military forces would be very alarmed bythe Battle of Terra Nova. Fiveinvincible superdreadnaughts had been destroyed or captured by a handful ofmere cruisers. And with thesuperdreadnaught as the former yardstick for measuring galactic power...



“Take us out,” he ordered, quietly. He’d already issued orders to his crews,reminding them to make damn certain they were shooting at the Hegemony beforeopening fire. There were too many neutralships in the system for his peace of mind, even if most of them were in orbitaround the planet, away from the Hegemony ships. “We’ll aim right at the quantum gate andengage the OWPs as soon as they come into range.”



He smiled at the thought. Charging transit fees was considered bad form among the Galactics, butplacing actual defences near the quantum gate was almost taboo. There was too great a chance of the automateddefences accidentally engaging friendly or neutral ships before they realised theirmistake, if only because a hostile ship could engage the defences before thedefences decided that they were allowed to open fire. Most planetary systems placed their quantum gateswell away from anywhere that needed defended, giving their militaries time toreact if the **** hit the fan. TheHegemony was not going to make itselfpopular by putting hair-trigger defences in the midst of a vital system.



The display altered rapidly as the fleet slid back intonormal space. Irritatingly, they’demerged some distance from the Hegemony starships, which gave them some time toreact to the new threat. Tobias wouldn'thave been too surprised if the Hegemony cruisers simply opened up gates of theirown and jumped out; even without the advanced weapons, his ships overmatchedtheir squadron. Instead, they seemed tobe playing a cagey game, watching and stalking his ships outside weapons range.



“At least they won’t be trying to support the OWPs,” hesaid. The recorded message was alreadygoing out over the system, warning the Galactics that they were in the midst ofa war zone – and that humanity intended to take the planet. Tobias had already planned the occupation,ensuring that the Galactic shipping lines would still be able to use the planet– and reducing transit fees by more than half. “The fleet will advance to clear the gate.”



Galactic OWPs weren't that heavily armed,individually. Each of them mountedantimatter torpedo launchers and phase cannons, but they were almostdefenceless compared to orbital fortresses and superdreadnaughts. Few Galactics would consider striking aninhabited planet deliberately – it would have alienated the entire galaxy –leaving the platforms more intended to deal with pirates and rogue starshipsrather than attacking fleets. OtherHegemony worlds were more heavily defended, but Garston had always beensomething of an oddity. Besides, thegunboats had already obliterated the system’s main defence.



“Enemy platforms opening fire,” Sooraya reported. “They are combining their fire against Perry and Jellicoe. Their commandersare deploying countermeasures now...”



“The remainder of the squadron is to move to cover them,”Tobias ordered. Concentrating fireagainst his ships was a smart move, another reminder that the Hegemony’scommanders weren't stupid. Unlike astandard ship, his ships could lose one aspect of their shields without losingthem all, but the enemy could shoot through the holes and burn into theirhulls. “All ships are to continue firing.”



Jellicoe flippedover and evaded a spread of antimatter torpedoes, which flamed out before theycould lock onto a second target. Momentslater, the torpedoes detonated as their confinement chambers lost power,seconds before their launcher was obliterated by a phase cannon burst from Cunningham. The remaining OWPs started to fire wildly astheir command and control systems broke down, before they were swiftly wipedout by the human ships. Tobias smiled inrelief as the fleet spun around and headed away from the quantum gate. No ships lost; only one mildly damaged.



“The Hegemony ships are starting to draw away from us,” Soorayareported. “They must be redlining theirengines just to pull that kind of speed.”



“Looks that way,” Tobias agreed. Human engineers were sure there was a way toreduce the time necessary for a superdreadnaught-sized ship to reach cruisingspeed, but so far none of their experiments had produced anything workable. Ironically, without heavy ships of their ownin the system, the Hegemony would be able to pull a faster rate of accelerationthan their enemies. “Are they just tryingto make a good show for their superiors...or are they stalling?”



“Stalling?” Soorayaasked. “What for?”



“I don’t want to wait around and find out,” Tobiassaid. Without a gunboat element of theirown, the First Strike Fleet would only be able to overrun the Hegemony shipsafter a long chase – assuming, of course, that the Hegemony cruisers didn't jumpinto quantum space and escape after forcing Tobias to waste time chasing themdown. Chasing them was pointless at bestand, if they were trying to lure Tobias into a trap, deadly. “Order the fleet to reverse course and takeus back to the planet. I want Marinesready to deploy to the orbital installations and the surface if necessary.”



Intelligence swore blind that the five superdreadnaughtsat Terra Nova had been the only heavy combat element available to the Hegemonyfor a hundred light years – but they’d missed the ships at Heavenly Gate andthey might well have missed others. Tobias knew better than to take anything intelligence said for granted,no matter how closely it agreed with what he wanted to see. It was quite possible that something nastierthan a trio of light cruisers was waiting in quantum space or even normal spacefor their chance to take his ships by surprise. Or perhaps they were just stalling before they had to return home. The Hegemony wouldn't be kind to anyone whoreturned reporting defeat, no matter how badly outmatched they’d been.



Or maybe they’re gatheringintelligence, he thought, sourly. The distance between the two squadrons was widening now that the humanships had reversed course. Absently, hewondered if the Hegemony ships would dance closer now that they could do sosafely. He considered using the new ECMdrones and cloaking devices to ambush the enemy ships if they risked comingcloser, but it wasn't worth it for three minor cruisers. Giving the other Galactics warning of what theFederation had developed over the last fifteen years would give them a chanceto pass the information on to the Hegemony. Even with a bloody nose, the Hegemony was still intimidating – and really,all they’d need was a considerable bribe. A few million credits would be a small price to pay for accurate sensordata.



“A number of freighters are spinning up their drives,” Soorayareported, flatly. “Some of them aresignalling and requesting permission to leave through the gate; several othershave started to head out into the outer system.”



Tobias shrugged. There might be nowhere for the freighters to go without a quantum drive,but their commanders would probably be glad merely to get away from thefighting. Freighters had no business inthe line of battle, even the few that carried weapons to deter pirates fromtrying to raid them. In theory, theships were supposed to remain in orbit until his Marines had had a chance tointercept them, but few freighter commanders would want to take the risk ofhaving his ship confiscated. Besides, itwasn't as if they could do any harm.



“Let them go,” he ordered. “The gate is unlocked?”



“Not yet,” Sooraya said. “The Marines would have to board the station and capture the controlsystem.”



“Detail a Marine unit to capture the station intact,”Tobias ordered. “Broadcast a generalmessage to the fleeing freighters; inform them that they have permission toleave and that we will unlock the quantum gate as soon as it is in our hands.”



“Yes, sir,” Sooraya said. “The Marines are on their way now.”



Garston had been settled for hundreds of years. Even though it was a minor system even to theHegemony, the system had hundreds of mining and processing nodes scatteredthroughout the asteroid belt, with dozens of orbital industrial productionnodes floating around the planet itself. The Funks weren't the only power to have invested in the system, eventhough they owned it formally; they couldn't afford to simply destroy otherinvestments without risking serious repercussions. Earth would make use of the Funk industry ifit were captured intact – the deport on the moon had already been targeted by acouple of Marines – but the remaining industry would have to be rented, or leftalone. Besides, even if Earth loweredthe fees and taxes, the system would be a nice source of Galactic currency forEarth’s war effort.



The Hegemony cruisers continued to hold position,watching from well outside weapons range. Tobias kept glancing at the three red icons, unsure what – if anything –they had in mind. Intelligence hadalready noted tachyon-burst transmissions from the massive arrays in orbit aroundGarston, no doubt sending updates to the Hegemony Empress. By now, it was certain that she knew what hadhappened, even by the most optimistic modal of galactic communications. And then the Hegemony would start plottingits counterstroke.



“The Marines report that they have secured the weaponsdump,” Sooraya said. “They haven't beenable to draw more than a handful of files from their computers yet, but whatthey have found suggests that the Funks pulled the antimatter torpedo launchersand weapons from the dump and transported them out-system. The antimatter generators have been destroyed.”



“Smart thinking,” Tobias noted. The Hegemony could have destroyed the entiredump, but instead they’d chosen to pull out the most important weapons andabandon the rest. Maybe it was atrap...but the Marines would have known to search the base carefully. Even so... “Tell the Marines to check again for unpleasant surprises and then findus a manifest. If there’s anything wecan use, I want to use it.”



The Hegemony could trade space for time indefinitely. Tobias knew that Earth couldn't afford thesame luxury. The further the fleetadvanced into Hegemony space, the harder it would be to keep maintaining andoperating the systems, even if the Hegemony didn't start slipping raiders inbehind their lines to take out the fleet train. If they could capture and use Hegemony supplies, they’d make it easierto advance further before they ran into something so hard they had tostop. The Hegemony had to know thattoo. A human commander, left to his owndevices, might accept the loss of unimportant systems, knowing that they couldbe recovered once the counteroffensive began. But his political masters might have different ideas.



And any show of weakness from the Empress would encouragethe lesser clans to start thinking about overthrowing her...



“Admiral,” Sooraya said, “the Marines have secured mostof the orbital stations. There was noresistance, even from the males. They’reready to start unlocking the quantum gate now.”



“Tell them to proceed,” Tobias said, grimly. He would have preferred the enemy to attack,even if they brought two superdreadnaught squadrons to the party. Instead, the enemy seemed to be waiting. But waiting for what? If intelligence was right, there was nothingto wait for...



The hour passed slowly until the quantum gate was finallyunlocked and opened to traffic. Hewatched a long line of freighters slowly making their way out of the system,some of them no doubt carrying important Funks who had paid heavily for passageaway from the human ships. Some of thetransmissions they’d intercepted from the planet below spoke of civil unrest,even of frantic males turning on females. The Funks were far from the only inhabitants of the system. Some of their client races would turn ontheir masters as soon as they realised that there was a chance forfreedom. Or maybe the Funks would startlashing out at the others as soon as they realised they were about to losetheir grip on the planet.



“Admiral,” Sooraya said, sharply, “two of the Funkstarships just jumped out. The thirdapparently cloaked and vanished. We can'ttrack it at this range.”



Tobias frowned, although in truth he’d expected it forsome time. Leaving a picket in the system to watch thehuman ships was sound tactical doctrine, one of the aspects of Galactic thoughtthat humanity agreed with wholeheartedly. The Hegemony ship would probably be able to evade capture or destructionas long as she was careful, transmitting burst messages back to her highcommand. No doubt the other ships wouldserve as pickets elsewhere, heading back towards their next major system.



“Understood,” he said. “Remind all ships to be on their guard. We have to assume that the Funks will attempt to attack our ships ifthey feel that they have an advantage.”



He hesitated, and then keyed his console, opening up alink to Brigadier Jones. “I want to tryto prevent the rioting from destroying too many lives and properties,” he said,shortly. “Can your Marines go down thereand protect the population?”



“We can protect some of the larger cities, but noteasily,” Jones said, after a moment. “Wedon’t have the manpower to cover the entire planet and...Admiral, there will be civilian casualties. Stunners designed to work on humans won’twork so well on other races.”



Tobias winced. TheMarines had never been intended to serve as a peacekeeping force; rather, they’dbeen designed to serve as the tip of Earth’s spear. Once they got national forces in place, they’dhave some reinforcements, but the latest from Earth warned that the nationalpopulations were reacting strongly against deploying such units away from theirhomelands. Everyone wanted Earthdefended first.



And a single...incidentcould provide the Funks with a political windfall. They’d already picked up transmissions fromGalactic reporters, who’d suddenly found themselves watching the greatest storyfor the last thousand years. Trying tosave the planet’s population could be disastrous; not trying to save the planet’spopulation could be worse. At least theycould try...



“Prepare your men for deployment,” he ordered,finally. Half of the Marines had beenscattered out over the orbital platforms. They’d have to be recalled once they transferred the prisoners to aharmless freighter. At least even theFunks wouldn't try to argue with a man in powered combat armour. “And warn them to be careful.”



It was an unnecessary order and he knew it. The Hegemony had been keen to keep itsclients and outside visitors disarmed, but it didn't take more than a little ingenuityto come up with makeshift weapons. Funktroops stationed on the planet itself might be going a little crazy if theyfelt they’d been abandoned by the Empress and her navy. He could be sending the outnumbered Marinesinto a death trap.



But there was little choice.



“And send some of the reporters down with them,” headded. “We might at least try to getgood press out of the incident.”

 

Thanks Chris,another great story.

 

Chapter Eighteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



The Hegemony’s cities were strange to human eyes, eventhough they had been constructed from modern materials. They reassembled giant ant hills constructedfrom mud, joined by roads that looked out of place compared to thebuildings. Behind them, on the outskirtsof the city, were buildings that had clearly been built to a different set of aesthetics. Towering spires rose up to greet thesunlight, outlined by pillars of smoke rising up towards the sky. The live feed from the advance drones left noroom for doubt; the remainder of the population was rising up against theFunks.



Conrad winced as the shuttles screamed down towards thecentre of the city. It had an unpronounceablename – hiss, squeak, hiss, as far as he could tell – and so the Marines hadnicknamed it the Mud Palace, but there was no mistaking its role. Nor was there any mistaking the crowds layingsiege to the building and threatening to break inside and lynch the remainingFunks. The aristocrats who had ruled theplanet for so long had fled, but the junior bureaucrats had remained. And if they didn't save them from their ownvictims...



Some of the Marines had wondered out loud why they werebothering to risk their lives saving Funks. Conrad had reprimanded them, pointing out that even if some Funks wereevil little shits, the remainder of the species was hardly indictable for theircrimes. Besides, there was the questionof perception. If humanity acted to saveits enemies, it should make for some good press among the Galactics. Maybe the Funks would see humanity as a honourableenemy, rather than a race they could pick on whenever they felt evil. Privately, Conrad doubted it, but it wasn't hischoice. The Admiral had made his ordersquite clear.



“Prepare for drop,” he ordered. Coming in so close to the city was a deadlyrisk – all it would take was a single HVM and the shuttle and its Marines wouldbe scattered over several miles, in pieces – but there had been no otherchoice. Intelligence had provided mapsof the city, yet getting from the outskirts to the Mud Palace would have takentoo long even if no one put any obstacles in their way. The drone feed showed barricades beingconstructed by rebels within the city itself, while large columns of farmers andsettlers from the countryside were advancing towards the home of theirtormentors. “On my mark...”



He’d found himself effectively promoted in the wake ofthe battle on Terra Nova, as a result of so many officers being killed in the fighting. Typically, the actual rank and increased pay hadn't caught up with him, although it wasn'tas if he had anything to spend it on while serving with the fleet. There had been little time for shore leave onTerra Nova, but they had managed a few hours in the city before departing – andno one had expected them to pay for anything. Some of the younger Marines had enjoyed themselves so thoroughly thatConrad had had to chew them out for straggling back to the spaceport late. If they’d had to leave ahead of time, he’dwarned them, they would have been left behind and declared AWOL.



“Now,” he ordered. The shunt caught him and propelled him through the hatch, falling downtowards the planet below. His datanetcame active as the remainder of his unit spilled out behind him, alreadyfalling into formation. The alien citywas far larger to his naked eyes than it had seemed on the drone feed, a fairlycommon problem. Military maps were verydetailed, but they were never quite the same as the terrain. He’d seen plenty of senior officers throwingfits because the map said that their subordinates should be advancing farquicker than they actually were, if only because the map hadn't mentioned thatthe terrain was covered in mud.



The antigravity field slowed his fall as the Marines fellaround the Mud Palace. It was surroundedby a great teeming mass of intelligent life, some humanoid and others so alienthat it was surprising to see them in person. One was nothing more than a mass of tentacles mated to a shell and apair of large, almost cartoonish eyes. He’d seen one of those aliens before, but it took him a moment toremember that it had been in a post-First Contact remake of Star Trek. The movie had bombed, if he recalledcorrectly. Spock looked much lessimpressive when compared to genuine aliens.



He touched down and raised his rifle, ready foranything. The last report they’d hadfrom the ground was that the Hegemony soldiers had been ordered to return tobarracks, but not all of them had obeyed orders. They were supposed to be utterly faithful totheir queens, the females who ran their lives, yet when passions ran high thefemales tended to lose control of their men. His lips twitched into a smile as they advanced towards the gates, despitethe danger. The Funks were more humanthan they would have liked to admit.



The gateway was barred by a glittering force field,sparking and crackling as the mass of aliens pressed against it. Some of them would have been injured as thepressure on the field slowly increased, but that didn't seem to stop them. Judging from the brief reports flickering acrossthe datanet, any Funk outside their own districts would be lucky to livethrough the day without being murdered by the rest of the population. Indeed, two of the Funk districts appeared tobe having their own civil war. Thelesser clans would have been outraged at how quickly the planet had been lost,along with their vest investments. It wouldn'tbe long before their outrage manifested in plots against the Empress.



A set of Funks were watching the crowd nervously, barelyheeding the Marines sidling up behind them. Conrad couldn't blame them for being worried; they carried no weapons,as ordered by the human occupation authority, and the crowd would certainlytear them limb from limb if they got their hands on them. He’d never been on the ground during a riot,but some of the older Royal Marines had been in Iraq or Afghanistan and theirstories had been horrific. Some of theircomrades had died because of restrictive ROE that prohibited firing back evenwhen there was a clear and present threat to their lives. At least Conrad’s orders were a littlelooser.



One of the Funks turned to look at the Marines. She seemed almost glad to see them, which hadto be a first. They’d been warned, timeand time again, that human body language didn't always match the Galactics, butConrad was sure of it. Her hissingvoice, according to his suit’s analysis program, was definitely relieved. Someone else would be taking responsibilityfor the safety of the Mud Palace.



“Go inside,” Conrad ordered. The second detachment of Marines was alreadyinside, securing the building and its people. They’d probably lost their chance to capture the Mud Palace’s filesbefore the Funks destroyed them, but intelligence’s computer experts would takea look at them and see what they could pull out of the systems. Some of the Funks probably had computerskills to match any human hacker, yet they might not have been allowed to rigthe systems to completely wipe everything. Or so ONI had suggested. “We’llprovide protection from the crowd.”



Beyond the walls, he could see flames rising up in thedistance. The rebels had torched a numberof buildings, including one with a title that translated as HumanResources. It took Conrad a moment torealise that it was the Funk’s version of a labour exchange, a place whereunemployed Funks – or aliens – were ordered to work on specific projects, nomatter how unsuited they were to the job. On Terra Nova, the Funks had tried to push humans into working as slaves– here, it seemed that they did the same to every other race. No doubt someone could get some good propagandaout of that, once the city had quietened down a little. Maybe the Galactics would be outraged at howthe Funks had treated other life forms than humanity.



The force field started to glow brighter, a sure signthat it was on the verge of collapse. Conrad barked orders and the Marines advanced, weapons at theready. A quick check through the combatdatabase revealed that there were no less than nineteen different racesrepresented in the crowd, ranging from aliens so fragile that a stun burstwould kill them to aliens tough enough to be able to tear apart an unarmouredhuman. Conrad cursed under his breath asthe Funk guards fled back towards the building, knowing that there would definitelybe casualties. None of the crowd seemedto be carrying anything more dangerous than neural whips – designed by theFunks for use on reluctant slaves – which meant that the Marines themselveswere probably in no danger. The realproblem would be avoiding mass slaughter if the crowd pushed over them.



He checked the datanet as the force field started tofail. Other Marine units had landed inthe city, securing defence posts and military buildings, but there were noneclose enough to aid him if the **** hit the fan. The shuttles were broadcasting warnings overthe planetary communications network, urging everyone to remain in their homesand stay off the streets, yet as far as he could tell no one was actuallylistening. Officially, the city hadupwards of five million aliens living within its borders and they all seemed tobe gathered outside the gates. TheHegemony would probably have started using their version of sleepy gas and tohell with the consequences, but humanity didn't have that option. Too many civilians would die.



“The force field is going,” one of the Marines said. Conrad barely knew him; he’d been transferredover from another company to make up the shortfall. The Federation Marines hadn't been designedfor rapid expansion and there were almost no reserves, something that would haveto rectified in the future. Sergeants wereoften asked to put forward their view on what had worked – and what hadn't – inpost-combat reviews and he was already planning a scathing attack on thepolitical leaders who had forbidden the Marines more than 10’000 soldiers atany one time. “Here they come...”



The force field gave one final crackle and failed. There was a roar of triumph from the crowd asit lunged forward, smashing through the gate as through it were built ofnothing more formidable than paper. Conrad cursed again and started to broadcast the recorded message, eventhough he knew it would be useless. Evenif the people at the front of the crowd had thought better of it and wanted tobreak free, the ones behind them would keep pressing them onwards. The training they’d had for mob situationshad been limited, but the instructors had warned them that many injuries occurredwhen someone fell to the ground and was trampled under the crowd’s feet beforethey could get back up. Some of thealiens in the mob were child-sized, small enough that their larger fellowsmight knock them down without even noticing. Conrad shivered as the mob closed in. People were about to die.



“Link arms,” he ordered. The Marines braced themselves, taking up positions that would allow themto halt the mob without – he hoped – using their augmented strength. He caught a glimpse of an alien mouth, greenand disgusting, before the aliens slammed into the Marines. The pressure was great enough to push theline back before they could compensate, pushing back as gently as theycould. Conrad forced himself to watch asthe aliens pressed against his suit, a multitude of different hands tearingaway at the metal. They couldn't get in,he kept reminding himself, but it was no reassurance. It was impossible to escape a sense of claustrophobiaas hands clawed at his suit.



“Disengage the close interface,” one of the Marinessuggested. Conrad nodded inagreement. The interface with the suitallowed the Marines to wear their armour as if it were part of them, but itworked too well for mobsituations. Even the most focused Marinefound it hard to escape the conviction that the crowd was tearing at hisunprotected skin. It would be dangerousto go into combat without it, but they could reengage at any moment. “They can’t get to you without it.”



He was wrong, Conrad suspected. The crowd, balked at the gate, was trying to scrambleover the wall. It was covered in wireand sharp metal prongs that would tear away at unprotected flesh, but so wasthe fence around Marine bases and that didn'tstop Marines sneaking out for a night on the town. The crowd pressure would force them onwardsunless they were stopped, yet how could they stop them without resorting tolive weapons? Two of the shuttles madepasses over the crowd at terrifyingly low height, but most of the crowd wasn't discouraged. Anyone at the rear who wanted to break freeand go home could have done it by now. The remainder wanted revenge on the Funks – and God help the humans whowere trying to save them.



“We’re going to lose this unless we use live weapons,” hesaid, into the datanet. He glancedbackwards, at the Mud Palace. God aloneknew how many Funks lived there. “Ithink we need to start flying their targets out of the mob’s reach.”



An explosion, billowing up in the distance, underlinedhis words. “And I suggest that youhurry,” he added. Parts of the wall werestarting to crumble. Once they fell, theMarines would have no choice, but to disengage and retreat back to the Mud Palace,if they could without hurting the crowd. A Marine who’d been knocked down would have to wait until the crowddispersed before he could escape. “We don’thave much time left.”



The crowd howled in rage as the first shuttle came in andhovered above the roof of the Mud Palace, using tractor beams to pick up theFunks and a handful of their collaborators. Conrad checked the datanet, which reported that there were over twohundred Funks in the Mud Palace, including some children. Humans brought their children with them on assignmenttoo, although he was surprised that the Funks had brought male children awayfrom their clans. Perhaps the Funks onthe planet had ambitions to form a clan of their own. What little he’d heard about the clan systemsuggested that it was possible, but the other clans wouldn’t be too happy aboutit.



His suit shook as the first rock crashed down on his helmet. The crowd was pushing harder, throwing rocksand bottles towards the Marines. Onebottle was filled with petrol and set on fire, exploding just behind the Marineline. It wasn't enough to break througharmour that could stand off bullets and even missiles, but it was dangerous tothe crowd. Conrad detailed a pair ofMarines to stamp out the fire, even though it would suggest that they wereintimidated by the flames. The irony didn'tescape him; they were working to protect a crowd that was trying to killthem. If they hadn't been wearingarmour, they would have had to resort to live weapons by now.



“We need some ****ing riot foam,” a Marine with a German accentsaid. “Something that will get them awayfrom us before it’s too late.”



“Half of the bastards are allergic to riot foam,” LieutenantPiebald said, over the datanet. “Wemight as well spray them with nerve gas. And there are some races that think that nerve gas is a great afternoontipple.”



“We have shuttles picking up water from the lake,” asenior Marine injected. “They’ll drenchthe crowds, maybe give them some incentive to disperse.”



Another shuttle took off from the Mud Palace as the wallsfinally collapsed. “Too late,” Conradsaid, grimly. “All Marines...back, now!”



Augmented legs threw him back towards the Palace. He was sickeningly aware of what had happenedto the aliens pressing against him, but there had been no other choice. The mob howled in victory and lungedforwards, charging right at the fragmented Marine line. Conrad snapped a second set of orders and theMarines leapt upwards, landing on the side of the Mud Palace and scrambling uptowards the roof. The datanet claimedthat all of the Funks had finally been evacuated, removed before the mob couldget its hands on them. Conrad hoped thatthey were right as the shuttles came back for the Marines. At least most of the other buildings they’dneeded to secure were secure. The restof the rioting would have to be left to burn itself out, unless dropping waterwas enough to disperse the crowd.



The tractor beam caught him and whisked him up towardsthe shuttle, just as the mob broke out onto the roof. Another Marine was less lucky and was shovedover the edge by the mob, his antigravity systems saving him before he hit theground. Some of the crowd were pushedover by their own people, falling down the side of the building and hitting theground before anyone could save them. The remainder were busy looting the Mud Palace, looking for the vasttaxes the Funks had collected from those unfortunate enough to live on theirworld.



“Well,” he said, as he was finally pulled into theshuttle, “that could have gone better.”



“Maybe,” the Captain agreed, “but at least we got theFunks out.”



Conrad shrugged. Marines were taught to be aggressive and a retreat, no matter how necessary,didn't sit well with him. But orderswere orders. And besides, they wouldhave accomplished nothing if they’d remained at the palace.



And it should definitely get them some good press.

 

...

 

Chapter Nineteen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“Blimey,” Lieutenant Piers said. “Just look at all the industry in thissystem.”



Markus nodded in agreement as the first squadron ofgunboats spread out from Formidable. Heavenly Gate had been home to a spacefaringrace years before the birth of Jesus Christ and every world in the system wasinhabited. Massive cloudscoops orbitedthe gas giants, while worlds that had once been like Mars or Venus had beenterraformed into something more habitable. They’d even started a long-term project to convert a gas giant into asecond sun, although the report had suggested that even the Canaries werehaving problems devising a way to do it without causing problems for the restof the system. Even the Association hadthought better of trying to create new suns.



But it might have made sense for the Canaries. They were an avian race, unique in that theycould still fly after evolving into intelligence, giving them their own slanton the universe. Much of their theologywas not shared with infidels, even the Cats, but from what they had allowed therest of the galaxy to find out was that they couldn't leave the light fromtheir star, which was called – roughly translated – the Light of God. They’d been the second race to make a theoreticalbreakthrough into quantum space, but unlike the Cats they’d never set out tocolonise the rest of the galaxy. Maybeit was better for humanity that they hadn't wanted to spread their wings alittle, because they would certainly have discovered Earth long before theAssociation – and who knew how they would have reacted to the human race?



Instead, they’d settled their solar system and thoroughlydeveloped their limited real estate. Massive orbital fortresses defended their planets, backed up by a fleetof starships that were none the less dangerous for lacking quantum drives. Indeed, where Association-designed starshipshad to include space for FTL drives, the Canaries had used that space to carryextra weapons and shield generators. Heavenly Gate could probably be taken by the Hegemony, or someone elsewho wanted it badly enough, but the cost would be staggeringly high. One estimate from ONI had suggested thatupwards of three-fourths of the Hegemony Navy would be required to take thesystem. And the Canaries themselveswould fight like mad demons to repel any offensive into the Light of God. No one even remotely rational would try totake the system. They’d have toexterminate most of the population to win, destroying the infrastructure thatmade the system so valuable in the process.



Which raises the obviousquestion, Markus thought, as the small force powered towards the fifthworld in the system. Place of Meetingswas another multiracial planet, although the Canaries were solidly incontrol. They didn't understand howother races could leave their own Lights of God, but they were happy to welcomeanyone who came in peace. What the hell are we doing here?



The briefing had made that clear. There were two Hegemony capital ships in thesystem, visiting Place of Meetings for an unknown reason. Intelligence had put forward several possibletheories, from wanting to trade with the Canaries to trying to intimidate theminto supporting Hegemony proposals in the Commune, but it didn't reallymatter. All that mattered was interceptingthose ships before they could leave Heavenly Gate and throw themselves intohuman shipping lanes. A single heavycruiser in the right place could have a disproportionate impact on the war.



“Grumbles, remain on alert,” he ordered. There hadn’t been any time to get replacementgunboats and crews, which meant that they were still short severalgunboats. “They might try something, butdo not fire on anything unless itbelongs to the Funks.”



Galactic law didn't have much to say about interstellar warfare– the Cats, who had established most of it, had tried to avoid even thinking about war – but there were someprotocols agreed by most of the Galactics. Neutral races had certain obligations if they wanted to remain neutral,including not assisting either combatant in any way. The Canaries, at least in theory, should haveno choice, but to either expel the Hegemony ships or intern them and theircrews. But in practice...? No one was quite sure which way they wouldjump.



Captain Walsh was already broadcasting to theGalactics. The Canaries were in chargeof their system – no one doubted that – but there were other starships in orbitaround Place of Meetings, including some from the other major Galacticpowers. Markus suspected that theintelligence officer had deliberately understated the diplomatic nightmare thatcould result if they ****ed up, perhaps by firing on the wrong ship. The Canaries had no real alliances with anyof the other Galactic powers, but just about everyone thought well ofthem. And if they decided to refuse to cooperate,all hell could break loose.



The minutes ticked away as the Canaries debated what todo. There was a small community ofhumans on Place of Meetings, including a handful who apparently worked for ONIas well as the network of human traders who visited the system. Each terse update make Markus more concerned,particularly when the Hegemony commander started urging the other Galactics toescort his ships out of the system if they refused to restrain the imprudent humans. But few of the Galactics were willing tointervene openly on the Hegemony’s side, not when the Hegemony was known to be extremelyaggressive and expansionist. Some ofthem would view a bloody nose for the Hegemony as a good thing.



Eagle and Ivan Squadrons remained on the carrier, waitingfor the order to launch. They’d scramblewell before the Funks could reach a safe distance from the planet to open a quantumgate – and they had orders to follow the Funks into quantum space ifpossible. In their place, Markus suspectedthat he would go right for Formidable,trusting to his ship’s armour to protect them long enough to take out the onlyway home for the gunboats. If thathappened, the gunboats would have no choice, but to surrender to the Canariesand accept internment.



The datanet crackled. “All right,” Captain Walsh said, “the Canaries have insisted that theHegemony ships either disembark their crews or leave their system. I think that they’re preparing to leavenow. Stand by.”



Markus frowned. Hehadn't expected the Hegemony ships to surrender, but would they be escorted bythe other Galactics? If so...



The datanet updated again. Both of the Hegemony ships were docked at a stationthat was over a thousand years old, slowly powering up their drives andpreparing to make a run for open space. A handful of cruisers belonging to the Canaries were advancing towardsthe station, ready to intervene if fighting spread into orbit. They had to be more worried than they wantedto admit, but Markus would worry about starships unleashing antimattertorpedoes in orbit too. And then therewas the risk that the Hegemony would assume that the Canaries had deliberatelywarned the human race that the ships were there and take revenge at some futuredate. Raiding the system would be fairlyeasy, if not exactly risk-free.



Captain Walsh spoke again. “Ivan Squadron, launch to support Grumble,”he ordered. “Eagle Squadron will remainin reserve.”



“Oh, they’re going to hate that,” Carola commented. Markus chuckled. Fighter jet pilots had been hot dogs eversince fighters had been invented, an attitude that had transferred into thegunboat pilots. “Unless someone elsedecides to intervene...”



Both of the Hegemony ships had disconnected from thestation and were moving past the other Galactic starships, blinking theirrunning lights in salute. Markus caughthimself tapping on the console in irritation as they waited, wondering justwhat the Funks were doing. Delaying theirdestruction as long as possible, or...hoping that the gunboat life supportwould run out before the Canaries started enforcing their orders withforce. Gunboats were a new concept forthe Galactics, but they didn't need to know how to built them to calculate arough estimate for how long their life support could endure.



A display appeared in front of them and he studied itthoughtfully. Most starships with aheavy cruiser mass needed to be some distance from the planet before they openeda gateway into quantum space. The Association’ssafety regulations were overcautious – humanity wasn't the only race to realisethat it was possible to shave a few hundred kilometres off the safety linewithout risking serious consequences – but the Funks would still need to leavethe protective cover of the Canary forts before they could escape, even if theyattempted to leave at the minimum safe distance from Place of Meetings. There would be at least seven minutes betweenthe forts and a safe distance, allowing the gunboats their chance to interceptthe enemy ships. Captain Walsh wasalready broadcasting an offer to accept surrender, but if the Funks had beenunwilling to be interned they were unlikely to surrender to humanity.



“Here we go,” he said, as the Grumbles formed up on hisposition. Both of the Hegemony shipswere advancing past the forts, a pair of ugly blunt instruments studded withsensors and weapons blisters. The Associationhad termed a particular class of superdreadnaughts the Blunt Instrument-class, showing a wry sense of humour that wassurprisingly human. Markus doubted thatthe Funks got the joke. “All Grumbles,your target is the heavy cruiser; Ivans, concentrate on the light cruiser.”



“These buggers have point defence,” Carola added, amoment later. The Association haddesigned the light cruiser to provide additional protection for superdreadnaughts,replacing torpedo launchers with additional phase cannons and particle beamgenerators. Markus suspected that similarships would be pressed into the anti-gunboat role until the Hegemony produced adedicated design or constructed gunboats of its own. Estimates of how long it would take rangedfrom one year to never. “Watch yourself.”



“Go,” Markus ordered.



The gunboats slipped forward, instantly accelerating tonear-maximum speed. The distance betweenthe two forces closed rapidly, pushing the Hegemony ships into opening fire assoon as the gunboats came into range. Itwas unlikely that they’d actually score any hits at such a range, but it forcedthe gunboats to break formation and evade long before they’d planned to slipinto attack formation. Someone hadstudied the records from their first operation and drawn sensible conclusions, Markusnoted, sourly. By now, the entire galaxywould be aware of the war – and of some of the new weapons humanity haddeployed. And not all of them were aspoor as the Hegemony at developing their own technology.



“They’re firing as soon as they get a lock,” Carola observed,as the gunboats corkscrewed through space. “Not standard practice, but clever given what they’re facing. One hit and we’re screwed...”



A spread of white antimatter torpedoes launched from theheavy cruiser. Markus evadeddesperately, seconds before the first torpedo exploded between two of hisgunboats, wiping them both from existence. That hadn't been anticipated,an oversight that would cost his squadron dear. But what sort of madman would consider using antiship torpedoes againstgunboats? Someone on the other side wasclever, or desperate. The expense ofreplacing the torpedoes would be worthwhile if they managed to get out of thesystem intact.



“Closing into attack range,” he grunted. The enemy was shifting fire now, attemptingto force the gunboats to separate and fly individual attack runs. It was a clever tactic too, he notedabsently, although it wouldn't be as useful as they expected. The human weapons designers had improved uponthe original implosion bolt to the point where even a single hit would do somedamage. “Fire at will.”



The gunboats engaged, launching a spread of implosionbolts towards their targets while evading the increasingly desperate fire fromthe heavy cruiser. One of the gunboatswas hit, either through luck or skill, but the remainder kept firing, pouringimplosion bolts into the ship’s hull. Nosignificant damage was done to the drives, but several of the weapons blisterswere disabled, limiting their ability to hurt the gunboats as they swoopedaround and came back in for a second run. Information flickering between the gunboats noted which enemy weaponshad been taken out and how it could be used to reduce the losses on the nextattack run. The Hegemony ship wastwisting, trying to allow the rest of its weapons to engage the gunboats, butthere was no way it could move fast enough to bring its weapons to bear. Ivan Squadron had disabled the light cruiser,which kept firing with a fanatical determination even though the crew had toknow that they weren't going to leave the system alive. Markus could have respected their courageunder other circumstances, but right now they were just in the way.



Another spread of antimatter torpedoes were launched, butthis time the gunboats were ready and accelerated away before they couldexplode. The heavy cruiser staggered asimplosion bolts cut deeply into her hull, yet somehow she kept going. Her comrade wasn't so lucky; lessheavily-armoured, she exploded when implosion bolts cut through into her driverooms and her fusion plants blew. One ofthe Ivans was caught in the explosion; the others swooped around and fell uponthe heavy cruiser.



“Shit,” Carola said.



Markus yanked the gunboat around as emergency iconsflared up on the display. They werestill some distance from the minimum safe distance, but the Funks were tryingto open a quantum gate! They had to beinsane – but then, they knew they were doomed if they remained in thesystem. The odds of dying when theyopened the gate were higher than the odds of surviving the battle. He led the Grumbles towards the ship’s drives,but it was too late. Space tore open andthe quantum gate manifested, spilling out gravity waves that bounced thegunboats as if they were floating on a sea. Markus saw the gate with his naked eyes and knew instantly thatsomething was badly wrong. Gates were normallyspinning discs of light, shimmering into existence in front of thestarships. This one was a spittingfunnel of energy, ethereal tentacles reaching out for the heavy cruiser. Markus could almost have sworn that it was aliving creature, just before the Funks started moving towards the vortex. They hadto be insane. Nothing could enterthat vortex and make it safely into quantum space. Sheets of energy were flashing through space,just waiting for them.



He couldn't take his eyes off the sight, part of himpraying that the Funks would succeed in entering quantum space. All differences were forgotten. For a moment, it looked as though they would succeed,but then the energy feedback grew too powerful. Brilliant lightning seemed to flare along the hull of the heavy cruiser,just before her hull split open and she vanished in an eye-tearing ball oflight. The entire universe seemed tohang in the balance...and then the distorted gate vanished, as if it had neverbeen. His sensors couldn't even detect atrace of debris from the heavy cruiser.



“All ships,” he said. His voice was weak and he had to swallow hard before continuing. “All ships, return to the barn. It’s time to go home.”



Behind them, a handful of Canary ships watched carefullyas the gunboats retreated. They’dprobably take what had happened to the Funks as proof that their religion wasthe one true faith. He couldn't understandhow anyone could refuse to leave their solar system, if only because one daytheir star would die. The Canaries wouldhave to choose between changing their religion or dying when their worlds were swallowedby an expanding red giant. But that wasmillions of years in the future. Perhapsthey would discover how to keep their star burning long before then.



Formidable wasalready heading towards the quantum gate when the gunboats docked, their crewsglad to be alive. Nine gunboats had beenlost; there would be a number of empty bunks in Pilot Country tonight. They’d have to scratch one of the squadronsunless reinforcements were rushed forward from Earth. He doubted they could do that again unlessthey got some extra support. TheHegemony had already made progress towards tactics that would allow them toconfront the gunboats on more even terms.

***​

That night, they performed a brief service for the deadgunboat pilots before heading to their bunks. There was little space for private cabins on Formidable, although even if there had been space the military wasunlikely to have used it for their comfort. They could have crammed a few more missiles or gunboat supplies into anempty hold.



One thing had arrived before they left the system; themail. Markus had plenty of family backon Earth and most of them had written to him, although typically most of themessages were several days late when they arrived. The military censored letters going from thecrew to their families, but – in theory – the civilians shouldn't need to becensored. They didn't know anything morethan Earth’s news services had been telling them – and that was heavily controlled.



He skimmed through the message from his sister as Carola readher own messages. Earth seemed to havetaken the news about the war in stride, although there had been some panic andmassed peace demonstrations in major world capitals. Markus rolled his eyes as his sisterrecounted how a number of her girlfriends had been in the middle of a protestin Stockholm and ended up spending the night in jail. Some of the girls were hot, but theircombined brainpower had been drained away by a school that seemed to specialisein turning brains into mush. Quite whatthey thought the Hegemony would do if it ruled Earth was beyond him. Terra Nova’s experience offered some clues.



“Idiots,” he said, dryly, as he prepared for bed. “Stupid idiots.”

 

Chapter Twenty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the humanintrusion into the Light of God,” the Canary intoned. “It has long been our determination to remainaloof from the power struggles among those who have not embraced their ownLights of God...”



Ambassador Li Shan allowed herself a tired smile as theCanary – an atheist, apparently – kept speaking. She’d been nervous as soon as she’d realisedthat the Commune was due to call an emergency session on the issue of theHuman-Hegemony War, if only because the Funks were calling in debts from thelast few hundred years, but the Canary didn't seem inclined to offer more thana token protest. It wasn't toosurprising – he’d been the one to tip her off about the two ships in the firstplace – and yet she’d been all-too-aware of the sheer level of diplomaticarm-twisting from the Hegemony. TheCanaries were better able than most to resist that sort of pressure, but theyliterally had all their eggs in one basket. Who knew what sort of pressure the Hegemonycould bring to bear against them?



The Association had envisaged the Commune as a form ofUnited Nations, a forum where different races could meet and discuss theirissues openly, without needing to resort to violence. But few of the major powers were prepared toallow the Commune to dictate to them, while all of the races had veto powerwhich they could use to derail anything they didn't like. The result had been inevitable from the start;the Commune was nothing more than a talking shop. But that didn't stop hundreds of races fromusing the chamber to cut deals of their own.



Shan had hoped that pressure to stop the war would growslowly until the Hegemony was preventedfrom retaliating against Earth. She hadno idea how long Earth’s tech advantage would last against the Hegemony’soverwhelming force; ideally, Earth would be able to keep the Hegemonyoff-balance until the other Galactics intervened to stop the fighting. But it didn't seem too likely that anyoutsiders would become directly involved. The motives were different for each race – and some wereincomprehensible – yet the results were the same. No one would attempt to stop the war.



The Canary finished speaking and sat down, while theAmbassador from the Kockoo stood up. Several of the other Ambassadors looked irritated, not even bothering totry to hide it. The Kockoo were an oldrace, old enough to be on a par with the Cats – or they would have been, ifthey’d developed spaceflight before the Cats stumbled across their system. Their sense of entitlement was larger than anentire fleet of superdreadnaughts, as was their tendency to filibuster untilthey got what they wanted out of any political dealing. They were widely disliked, which didn't seemto bother them. Shan’s few meetings withtheir Ambassador had suggested that they were simply too arrogant to care.



“While we deplore the act of invading Heavenly Gate toforce the surrender or destruction of the two Hegemony starships, we are forcedto reluctantly conclude that it was legal,” the Kockoo said. Her voice was sweet, trickling honey, butthere was something about it that grated on Shan’s mind. “However, we refuse to accept that violencewas in fact the answer. There were legalavenues for the human race to seek redress before resorting to war. In choosing to refrain from following thoseangles, it is clear that the human race is nothing more than a grievouslysavage half-barbarian race using technology obtained from the most advancedrace in the universe.”



She half-bowed towards the Speaker, the sole Cat in thechamber, and then continued speaking. “Thelaws of war, laid down by our great founders, insist that combatants must issuea declaration of war prior to launching any offences against enemy-held territory,”she continued. Shan wondered absentlywhat sort of deal the Hegemony had made to get the Kockoo to intervene, beforedeciding that it was unlikely that they’d made any kind of deal. They were arrogant enough to believe thatthey needed to intervene without being bribed. “In choosing to launch a sneak attack on the Hegemony, the human raceviolated that rule. I propose thecreation of an independent committee that will investigate all breaches ofgalactic law and recommend action on the part of this great Commune.”



Shan was careful to keep her face impassive as the Kockoosat down. She couldn't tell if thethreat was serious or just a political power play. It would be just like the Kockoo to fiddlewhile Centre burned down around them. Theirsanctimonious attitude made them few friends and far too many enemies, butthere were quite a few Galactics who had been disturbed by the weapons humanityhad used in the war. They wanted time toconsider how to duplicate them for themselves. It was a pity that the Federation had embargoed weapons technology fromEarth, or she could have made a thousand deals for support from otherGalactics. But technology was Earth’sace in the hole and it could not be surrendered.



Another Ambassador, the masked and gowned representative fromthe Shimmering Harmony, rose to bow to the Speaker. No one knew what the Shimmering Harmony lookedlike, for they always concealed their bodies from all other intelligentraces. Their homeworld was situated inthe midst of a powerful and semi-permanent energy storm within quantum space,making it tricky for anyone to approach without a very skilful navigator. The other races had legends about them, butno one actually knew anything beyond the fact that their Ambassador was clearlyhumanoid. Exactly why they’d decided tojoin the Association was another mystery.



There was no shortage of legends about them, tales ofexplorers who had visited their homeworld and seen wonders beyond imagination,but none of them had ever been verified. A number of Galactics believed that the Shimmering Harmony was reallynothing more than another humanoid race, concealing itself out of fear that themore active races would overwhelm them if their true nature wasdiscovered. Others suspected that theShimmering Harmony were much more than they seemed. They didn't participate in cultural exchanges,they didn't make war upon their neighbours...for one of them to speakpublically was very rare. Just seeingtheir Ambassador speak would make the other Galactics interested in the war.



“It is clear that the Hegemony was slowly preparing thehuman race for eventual servitude,” the Ambassador said. Even the voice was flat, atonal, as if it hadbeen produced by a primitive computer. “Theywere given little choice, but to fight.”



He – if the Ambassador was a he – sat down, saying nothing else.



There was a long pause before the Hegemony Ambassador, GreatLady Vanla, rose to her feet. “It istrue that we have been attempting to obtain settlement rights for Sector 666,which includes the human homeworld,” she said. “However, it was never our intention to enslave them. Why, the client races within the Hegemonyhave the same rights and duties as other client races across theAssociation. We would never stoop to enslaving any race.”



“And yet refugees from your client races frequently seekasylum in our space,” another Ambassador said, before Great Lady Vanla had satdown. It was a serious breach ofprotocol to speak before the last speaker had finished. “You use them as expendable labour, inviolation of the rights granted to all client races by the AssociationCharter. We can hardly fault the humansfor wanting to escape the fate of your other slave races.”



He smiled, savagely. “Indeed, is it not accurate that you were censured by the Commune on noless than three occasions for mistreatment of your clients? Your protests ring hollow when much testimonywas produced by the refugees.”



“Who were paid to lie before the Commune,” Great LadyVanla snapped. She didn't bother torise, an unsubtle insult. “You broughtthem after preparing them with lies to blacken our name.”



Shan watched with some amusement as the Ambassadorsshouted at each other. The Cats haddesigned the building so that the merest whisper could be heard at the otherside of the chamber. In one sense, theAmbassador was quite right; the Funks hadbeen censured for the mistreatment of their client races. But the Galactics hadn't done anything beyondissuing a reprimand, allowing the Funks to just carry on without needing toworry about Galactic opinion. Even theHegemony would have backed down if it had faced the entire galaxy, but therehad been no prospect of such an alliance against them. How very...human.



The debate could last for hours, or even days. Many of the Ambassadors had spent years atCentre, some of them under instructions not to bother coming home. They had far more experience with navigatingthe complex web of favours, obligations and outright bribery that steered theCommune from one issue to the next . Shanhad never been sure if the Galactics realised just how badly they’d emasculatedthe Commune, and hence the Association, but it worked in their favour. No single power could bring them toheel.



Shaking her head, she settled down to wait. It would all be over sooner or later, andthen she could get back to some real politicking.

***​

The Tarn had always reminded Shan of hamsters, albeit hamstersthat walked like humans and had hands that were surprisingly dexterous. Earth’s hamsters were harmless, but the Tarnhad been at the top of their food chain for centuries before they’d started toclimb into space and discovered the Association. They’d been lucky enough to expand into afairly undeveloped region of space, allowing them to claim almost a hundredstars before they’d bumped into the Hegemony. The Hegemony could probably have taken them if they’d had secureborders, but diverting enough of their navy to invade the Tarn would weakenthem significantly against two other races. Even so, brushfire wars were common and the Tarn had a vested interestin anything that made the Hegemony weaker. Some of them had been quite willing to trade with humanity ever sinceMentor had offered humanity the stars.



Shan hadn’t been too surprised when Warf – it was asclose as humans could come to pronouncing the Ambassador’s name – had invitedher for a private meeting in the Commune Chambers. The Hegemony had been watching Earth’s Embassysince the declaration of war and no doubt taking careful note of who visitedShan. Shan had her own people watchingthe Hegemony Embassy as well. But insidethe Commune Chambers it was much harder to spy on the others, although that didn'tstop people from trying. Humanity’scounter-surveillance equipment was staying ahead, so far. Shan reminded herself firmly that there wasno real proof that they were that advanced. Some of the Galactics kept their technology to themselves.



Warf’s meeting room looked rather more informal than anythinga human would have considered acceptable. There were cushions, a small pile of foodstuffs positioned on the floorbetween them and several jugs of water. The Tarn sealed agreements through sexual intercourse, at least amongthemselves, although they’d changed that policy since discovering the existenceof other intelligent life. It didn't stopsome humans speculating on just what human traders did to win favour from theTarn. Some people, in Shan’s opinion,had too much time on their hands.



“It should be noted that Warf is speaking off the record,”Warf said. His voice was surprisinglyhuman. “Those who rule the nest willdisown Warf if necessary.”



“I understand,” Shan said. The Tarn always referred to themselves in thethird person, but they didn't seem to mind when other races spoke in firstperson. Just one of the many racialtraits that the Association had catalogued thousands of years ago. “You may speak freely.”



“Warf is very impressed by the scale of your victory andthe recovery of your lost colony,” Warf said. “But Warf is worried that you will be unable to continue fighting andwinning the war. Warf thinks that theHegemony is still powerful and that you have barely dented it. Is Warf wrong?”



“Warf is not wrong,” Shan said. She always got confused when she tried tospeak like a Tarn, but Warf seemed to appreciate it. “But we have many other tricks to show theHegemony in the coming weeks and months. We will be victorious.”



“Warf is gratified to hear that you have so muchconfidence,” Warf said, “but Warf fears that the Hegemony will prove too muchfor you. Warf wishes to deal on behalfof his people.”



Shan leaned forward, scenting the deal. “Warf’s people are inferior to the Hegemonyin numbers of ships,” Warf said. “A warwould be destructive for Warf’s people. Warfwishes access to your weapons for his people’s navy. You may name your price.”



It was tempting to string Warf alone, but the Tarn hadlong memories. “Our weapons are not forsale,” she said, finally. “However, wehave much else to offer you.”



“Warf feels that this is a matter of survival,” Warfsaid. “Should you lose to the Hegemony,your people will be enslaved or exterminated. Your technological progress will be added to the Hegemony’s fleet,making it deadly enough to defeat Warf’s people before others canintervene. The Hegemony will make itselfmaster of the galaxy. This isintolerable to Warf’s people.”



“Then join the war,” Shan suggested. “Invade their space from your borders as wepush on towards their homeworld. Wecould crush them between two angles of attack.”



“Warf feels that your people cannot sustain such a longoffensive,” Warf said. “The Hegemony hasnot yet started to redeploy units towards the war front. Warf believes that your forces will rapidlyrun into much heavier defences as you press onwards. Should you fail to cripple their industrialbase, they will out-build you and crush your tiny fleet by sheer weight ofnumbers. Warf feels that you cannotafford to bargain.”



“I have no room to negotiate over selling our weapons,”Shan admitted, even though she agreed with Warf. The real question would be how quickly theTarn could copy humanity’s weapons and outfit their ships with them. And if the Hegemony realised what washappening, they might launch a pre-emptive attack on the Tarn. “I would have to communicate with mysuperiors.”



“Warf is prepared to offer an alternate bargain,” Warfsaid. “Warf’s people will move reinforcementsto the border between Warf’s people and the Hegemony. In exchange, Warf’s people will require anundertaking to ship both technical data and samples of Earth’s weaponry to Warf’speople if Earth falls to the Hegemony. Warf’speople will also offer human refugees a place to settle, ensuring that yourrace will not be exterminated when the Hegemony ranges in on your homeworld.”



“If,” Shan said, quietly. “We do not intend to lose.”



She tossed the idea over and over in her head. On one hand, the Hegemony would have to worrythat the Tarn planned to jump them and keep forces deployed along at least oneother border. That would limit theforces they could redeploy to meet the human offensive. On the other hand, the Hegemony might decide tocall Warf’s bluff and pull ships away from the border anyway, trading space fortime. They’d certainly realise that ifEarth’s weapons got into the hands of their enemies, the Hegemony wasdoomed. Whatever it took to prevent thatwas worth the cost.



And yet...there was another possibility. What if the Tarn attacked the Hegemony andthen demanded Earth’s weapons? Earthwould be in a difficult position; they’d need the Tarn, and yet sharing Earth’sweapons would be the quickest way to ensure that they’d be duplicated. And it was possible that some of the Tarnwere working for the Hegemony. Therewere certainly Funks working for Earth.



“There are other possibilities,” Warf added. “Warf’s people have a considerable number ofolder starships produced by the Association that are unsuitable for theiruse. Warf’s people would offer them toEarth, should you accept our bargain. There are also weapons and supplies that we could give you, along withintelligence from recon flights along the borders. You would not lose out if you bargained with Warf’speople.”



“I would have to check with Earth, but I believe thatthey would definitely accept the second offer,” Shan said. It was a shame that the Tarn weren't one ofthe races that specialised in offering loans to developing planets, but maybethey had influence Shan could borrow. Earth needed loans to finance the war effort. A single defeat could pull the purse stringstight. “I would certainly recommend tothe Federation Council that your bargain be accepted.”



“Warf is gratified to hear it,” Warf informed her. “Perhaps you could inform Warf of theirdecision soonest? Warf has much to doand so little time.”



“I will contact you as soon as we have a definite answer,”Shan said. She had a lot to pass on tothe Federation Council, starting with the fact they’d effectively gotten awaywith attacking the Hegemony ships at Heavenly Gate. “I think you for your time.”



“Warf is unworthy of your thanks,” Warf said. “Warf is honoured to offer you the comfort ofWarf’s humble home.”



Shan exchanged bows and walked out of the chamber,heading down towards the walkways that led back to the Embassies. It wouldn't take long to walk back to Earth’sEmbassy, where she could have a drink and contact Earth. Despite the stimulants she’d taken, she stillfelt tired. Some of the Galacticssomehow managed to spend weeks in theCommune when the more significant proposals were debated. She had no idea how they managed it.



A handful of reporters were waiting outside, holding upscanners to record her image. Shemanaged a confident smile as she passed them and met up with herbodyguards. It was important to stay onthe right side of the press. God knew thatthey would help shape Galactic opinion.



And who knew? Perhaps humanity’s plucky little underdog performance would win itfriends and allies. And maybe the horsewould learn to sing.

 

Oooop's!!You double posted chapter 19 Chris
Still a good story.Thank You for your efforts.
Matt

 

Cool. But how?

Chris

 

great read once as always Chris

 

Chapter Twenty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“The entire city is supposed to be in lockdown,” Barbiesaid, “but we just don’t have the manpower to even begin to police it.”



Adrienne barely heard her. The alien city was strange to her eyes, yetthere was something about it that was almost appealing. The Funks might have refused to change their buildingstyle since they’d been introduced to space by the Hegemony, if only becausethey had been determined to remember their past, but they’d had to co-existwith a number of other races on Gaston. Their city was a strange blend of styles and proportions, large enoughfor humanity and almost every other humanoid race. The market street was a melting pot ofcultures from all over the galaxy.



Most of the civilians were in their homes, keeping offthe streets, but Adrienne had heard reports that a great many scores were beingpaid off by races that had had to live under the Funks. The alien ghettos had become hostileterritory for the Funks, while raiding parties had set out to burn Funkneighbourhoods when the human occupiers weren't looking. There were even rumours that the Funksplanned an insurgency, knowing that they had little other choice, but tofight. Even if humanity didn't intend toextract revenge for how they’d treated Terra Nova, their neighbours wanted toensure that the Funks could never grind them down again.



Armed and armoured Marines patrolled the streets ingroups of five, watching for trouble and trying to dampen it down when it brokeout. According to one of the Marines she’dtaken care to cultivate as a source, the humans were caught in the middle – andunder attack from all sides. Thedetention camps outside the city, established for the Funk leadership, had hadto be expanded rapidly to hold rioters and insurgents...and were alreadyreaching capacity. No one really graspedhow large a planet was until they had to provide ground troops to keep it undercontrol – and there were only seven thousand Marines with the fleet. It was barely enough to keep Gaston Cityunder limited control; the remainder of the planet had to fend for itself, oncethe Marines had secured the planetary defence centres. Some of the reports from outside the citywere horrifying.



She looked over at a small group of aliens and smiledinwardly. They were very far from human,but she fancied that she would have recognised them as reporters, if onlybecause of the questions they kept throwing at their human minders. Some of them were clearly hostile to thehuman race, others seemed more inclined to be friendly – or simply didn't likethe Hegemony. Adrienne chafed under therestrictions imposed by the military on what she could and could not report,but at least she had some access. TheGalactic reporters received almost none, which didn't stop them sending storiesback home that bore only a vague resemblance to the facts. One reporter had filed a story claiming thathumanity had over a thousand invincible superdreadnaughts in orbit. Another had seen the plans for the Death Starand reported it as if humanity had actually built it. Adrienne was fairly sure that most of theGalactics wouldn't believe the more exaggerated reports, but rumour seemed tospread rapidly across the Association. The Funks would have some trouble sorting out truth from humandisinformation – or stories the reporters had made up out of whole cloth.



The reporters were doing interviews with a handful ofcommunity leaders who had emerged out of the shadows to plead their case to thegalaxy. Some of them had been appointedby the Funks, others had formed a shadow government, hoping they’d have achance to declare independence and make their own bids for galactic power. Most of them were expressing their gratitudeto the human race, although some of them were complaining that humanity wasn't sharingany of the tolls from Gaston’s quantum gate. Adrienne suspected that that issue would be sorted out after the war;for the moment, the tolls gave humanity a nifty additional source of galacticcurrency. There was no way that Earthwould let go of Gaston until the end of the war.



Others were worried about the consequences of humanstarships leaving Gaston behind, unoccupied. The Hegemony hadn't been beaten; all things considered, it had barelybeen scratched. They might come back andreoccupy the planet, or the Funks on the ground might launch their own pogromagainst everyone else. Some of them wereappealing to their own races to send peacekeeping forces to Gaston, even thoughothers were nervous about inviting other powers to intervene. Their ancestors had left their homeworlds toescape their governments centuries ago. It was strange to realise that Gaston had been settled longer than thehuman race had known how to work metal for tools. Gaston was effectively a world with its ownculture, even under the Funks. Humanity’soccupation wouldn't change that in a hurry.



“We had to put guards on the Funk neighbourhoods,” Barbiesaid, quietly. “The others wanted alittle payback for decades of mistreatment. It feels strange to help Funks, but we can't afford a massacre – or acivil war in our rear.”



Adrienne smiled, although there was little humour in theexpression. The Marines had expressedtheir own doubts about the mission, pointing out that the Funks had been Earth’stormentors for the last ten years and attempting to save them from the consequencesof their own misbehaviour went against the grain. God knew that not all of the Funks weredisarmed, or grateful for humanity’s protection. The Marines patrolling the Funkneighbourhoods were exposed to fire from both sides.



The first national contingents had already arrived atTerra Nova, freeing up a couple of thousand Marines to rejoin the fleet, but itwould be weeks – if not months – before national contingents could arrive onGaston, assuming they were even sent. Adriennehad heard from Ward, who’d noted that resistance against sending any troopsoutside the Nine Stars was growing stronger. Politicians were hearing from their constituents, who were adamantly opposedto sending soldiers to keep the Funks on Gaston from being slaughtered. Even if they did...



She ran through a brief calculation in her head. Ever since First Contact, when humanity hadrealised that there were hostileraces out there, most Americans had bought guns and had some form ofparamilitary training. A handful ofpromising political careers had been destroyed when some politicians hadn't realisedthat trying to deny citizens firearms when there was a very real threat ofinvasion was a sure way to lose votes. And yet...even assuming that every single American was a trained soldier,which they weren’t, there wouldn't be enough manpower to hold down an entireplanet. She doubted that the otherpowers could provide enough men to make up the difference.



And if it’s badhere, she asked herself, what happenswhen we take a world occupied solely by Funks?



Once the briefing was over – the Galactic reporters hadinsisted on asking all kinds of questions, ranging from the sensible to thenear-insane – the reporters were taken on a brief tour of the city. The cityscape seemed to vary wildly fromneighbourhood to neighbourhood, even if most of the buildings followed the Funksense of aesthetics. One building was identifiedas a Temple of Ra, belonging to a cult that had managed to win a multiracial congregation. Maybe it wasn't surprising that the templewas located in the most peaceful part of the city, even the occupation. Some humans had also converted to the Templeof Ra, while others had set out to convert the alien infidels to humanreligions. They hadn't had great success. The Galactics were unlikely to be seriouslyinterested in upstart humanity’s native religions.



There were more people on the streets, despite thelockdown. The sight reminded her ofJeddah in the early years of the multinational occupation, with differenttribes and religious factions keeping their distance from one another whilepouring scorn and hatred on the occupation force that was trying to keep themfrom killing each other. Religiousgenocide wasn't unique to humanity, but that hadn't stopped some of theGalactics from accusing humanity of being a dangerously savage child-race. Some of the Hegemony’s counter-propagandaasserted that humanity intended to exterminate all of the Galactics once theywere in a position of power. The thoughtof one world setting out to destroy the entire galaxy was laughable, but theBattle of Terra Nova had concentrated a few minds. Five superdreadnaughts had been destroyed orcaptured for minimal losses.



Most of the aliens were humanoid, surprisingly close tohumanity. One of her sources hadsuggested that Gaston City was renowned for interracial sex, even though theFunks reacted harshly against the very concept. Where cross-species fertilisation was impossible, all kinds of optionsopened up for the broadminded. Otheraliens were so alien that it was hard to believe that they had anything incommon with humanity. She caught sightof a floating orb, studded with eyestalks, and shook her head in disbelief. Beauty was quite definitely in the eyes ofthe beholder.



The reporters insisted on stopping often to interviewmore people, but many simply refused to talk and hurried onwards. One friendly alien was happy to lecture thereporters on why they should convert to the one true faith, yet despite some ofthe reporters listening patiently he refused to be drawn on currentaffairs. Adrienne rolled her eyes as theGalactics stalked off in frustration. How could anyone claim to have the one true faith when Earth alone hadproduced hundreds of different religions? The Cats had never developed a religion of their own – some of them regardedthat as a sign they were superior to the younger races, who needed the comfortof belief in something greater than themselves – but they’d cataloguedliterally millions of religions as they’d shaped interstellar society. Some human researchers claimed that religionsthat shared similar messages actually worshipped the same god, if known bydifferent names, and that comparing the different messages would allow them tobuild a picture of their true faith. Sofar, as far as Adrienne knew, their research had been inconclusive. Some religions were incomprehensible to humanminds. Others had more in common with polytheisticreligions than the monotheistic religions that dominated Earth.



They reached one of the Funk neighbourhoods and streetactivity dropped away to almost nothing. The handful of Funks in the street slipped away from the reporters,hiding in the shadows before they could be seen and interviewed. Adrienne was aware of unblinking red eyeswatching them from windows, even though when she looked around she could seenothing. A patrol of Marines werewalking down the middle of the street, looking hugely intimidating in theircombat armour. Their suits had been setto display images, rather than automatically camouflaging themselves to matchthe local environment. One Marine lookedalarmingly like a creature from Greek mythology. Others looked as if they were tribal warriorsmarching out to war.



“Most of them are hiding,” Barbie whispered. Even she seemed subdued by theirsurroundings. “They don’t think that wewill protect them if the entire city rises up and comes baying for theirblood. I’m not even sure that we havethe manpower to protect them if the **** hits the fan.”



Adrienne shivered. Humanity had gotten some good press from saving the Funks from beinglynched, but the Hegemony had been spreading stories of human-organised massacresand outright terror strikes mounted against helpless civilians. There was little truth in the stories – and fewof them were placed in context – yet some of the Galactics believed them,either because they trusted the Hegemony or because they disliked the upstarthuman race. A race rebelling against thedivision of their space by the Commune set an unfortunate precedent for theGalactics. Some of them were likely tohope that the Hegemony won, rapidly and cheaply. The latter, at least, wasn't going tohappen. Adrienne had heard rumours thatcovert operations teams were already preparing humanity’s revenge if Earthshould happen to be destroyed. Taking awell-defended planet wasn’t easy, but destroying one was simplicityitself. The Galactics would be horrifiedif humanity destroyed a life-bearing world, yet if humanity lost the war it waslikely that the human race would be beyond caring.



The damage caused by the fighting drew the attention ofthe reporters, who bombarded their minders with questions. One large city block had been destroyed by a KEWafter the Funks had turned it into a firing position to launch HVMs at theoncoming shuttle, killing the missile crews and a number of civilians. Some of the Funks had promptly claimed thatover a thousand civilians had been killed in the attack, although few of thereporters believed their statements. Even the dumbest reporter could look at the damage and wonder how athousand people could have fitted into the city block. The bodies had been removed and buried by theMarines, once they’d filmed and catalogued the entire site for futureinspection. No one had attempted toclaim the bodies for proper treatment, in line with the Funk customs.



Other buildings had been attacked by angry mobs, some ofthem composed of lesser Funks angry at their superiors. The Funks seemed to jump on any sign ofweakness, perhaps driven by their belief that only the toughest deserved tolead. Their Empress, if some of thereports were accurate, had little compunction about ordering mass punishment ifshe felt that her position was threatened. The Funks did seem to lack the sadism that had infected many humandespots, but the ruthlessness of their leaders would have made Stalin blanch. But it was the only way to keep in power.



“And so the tour goes on,” Barbie muttered. “Do you still want to visit another city?”



Ward had insisted that she did, but Adrienne wasn't sosure. Many of the other cities weredangerous, perhaps more dangerous than human cities in the middle of a warzone. Some of the Galactic reporterswere trusting in their media credentials to protect them, others – more careful– were demanding Marine escorts as they roamed the streets. So far, the Marines were stalling. They didn't want to expose Marines toinsurgent attack and yet they knew that they had to keep on the right side ofthe Galactic media. If there was a rightside...



“Only if escorted,” she said, finally. The Federation had a policy against payingransom to recover its people. Instead,it’s considerable resources were deployed to extract revenge. It had worked on Earth – the Federation hadcrushed piracy with savage force – but it might be harder on Gaston. “I’m very attached to my life.”



Barbie smiled. “Soam I,” she said. “I wouldn't want to goanywhere on this planet without an armed escort.”

***​

“So we’re not going to be able to move onwards for atleast a weeks,” Tobias said, slowly. Ideally,he would have preferred to move onwards at once, but they had to attend toGarston and ensure that the fleet train had resupplied his fleet. At least they had been joined by a newcruiser, Cochrane, bringing his fleetup to its full complement of cruisers. In theory, each of humanity’s cruisers was equal to a superdreadnaught,although Tobias suspected that the real picture wasn't that rosy. Superdreadnaughts possessed formidablefirepower to deploy against any opponent. “And then we press onwards to Hammerfall.”



“It is their sector capital for this region,” CommanderSooraya Qadir agreed. “ONI claims thatthey have at least one squadron of superdreadnaughts based there, along with ahundred smaller ships. We could attemptto outflank it, but as long as those ships were in our rear...”



“They’d be a clear threat,” Tobias said. After the terrifying risk of sending thegunboats to Heavenly Gate, hitting Hammerfall seemed comparatively mild. They were already at war with the Hegemony, afterall. “We couldn't afford to risk themheading to Earth.”



He studied the star chart for a long moment. ONI had been trying to monitor the progressof Hegemony reinforcements ever since the war had begun, but it was difficultto track starships by monitoring their transmissions. Human intelligence specialists were among thebest in the universe, capable of decrypting Hegemony transmissions atastonishing speed, yet it was often surprisingly difficult to pull useful intelligenceout of them. The Hegemony hadn’t managedto get organised in the wake of the Battle of Terra Nova – they were stillworried about their flanks – but it wouldn't be long before Hammerfall was heavilyreinforced. If he waited too long, theirposition might be impregnable.



And the last thing he needed was heavy losses.



“Order the recon ships to start monitoring the system,”he ordered. Humanity had been usingcivilian ships, right up until the moment that the Hegemony had ordered allcivilian ships out of their military-dominated systems. Maybe they’d realised that the humans wereusing some of them to spy, or maybe they were trying to convince the otherGalactics to intervene. The reports fromCentre claimed that the Hegemony wasn't seriously looking for help – they stillbelieved they could take humanity on their own – but they might have changedtheir minds. It wouldn't be the firsttime ONI had managed to get something wrong...



He looked back at the display. By any standard, Hammerfall was heavilydefended, yet he’d been considering possible ways to take it long before thewar had begun. There was an Achilles heel in theirdefences. All they had to do was survivelong enough to use it.



“And then contact Formidable,”he added. Pulling her in was a risk, butit was necessary. “I want her to rendezvouswith us at Point Alpha. We’re going toneed the gunboats for this operation.”e

 

<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">Chapter Twenty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
Kauirik had been a mistake, one of the rare worlds wherethe terraforming process had gone badly wrong. The atmosphere was still breathable, but the planet was hot and coveredin vegetation that had adapted itself to the new environment. After attempting to fix the problem, the originalterraforming team had given up and abandoned the settlement rights to the firstrace that wanted to claim it. TheHegemony had annexed the world two hundred years ago, after realising that itcould support a colony. Most of theHegemony’s dissidents had been expelled to Kauirik if they'd been too importantor well-connected to be simply executed.

There were few defences and no starships in orbit around Kauirik,which rendered it impotent in the war, hardly worth the attention of the humanfleet. Lady Dalsha had gambled on that,after hiring a civilian ship to take her from Gaston before the human commanderthought better of simply letting her go. It would have taken too long to reach the homeworld to report in person,at least before the humans struck Hammerfall or bypassed it in their drivetowards the Empress. And besides, itmight be safer for her personally not to be near the Empress when she read herreport.

The Association had never been able to perfect thetachyon-burst transmissions that made up the backbone of the interstellar communicationsnetwork. It was difficult, and extremelypower-intensive, to hold a two-way conversation over several light-years,leaving most races and corporations dependent upon recorded and compressedmessages. The Great Lady overseeing theplanet had agreed to let her use the communications node for a two-way message,even if it would drain her planet’s power reserves. Lady Dalsha had told her enough to make hercertain that the last thing she wanted was to get involved with the war – or theprocess of breaking the news to the Empress. She was unlikely to prove forgiving to the person who had lost fivesuperdreadnaughts.

Even with her clan roots, calling the Empress directly wasnever easy and she had to wade through a series of functionaries who wanted toknow why she was calling. Informationwas power in the Empress’s Court and entire careers had been made or brokenbecause someone had gotten a crucial piece of intelligence before theirrivals. Lady Dalsha patiently insistedthat she had to talk to the Empress personally, ploughing her way through functionaryafter functionary. At least none of themquite had the nerve to cut her off. TheEmpress would have heard about Terra Nova by now, even if the Hegemony didn't haveany sensor records from the battle. Noone wanted the blame for preventing the sole known survivor access to theEmpress.

Eventually, the Empress’s face materialised in front ofher. The image was unstable, flickeringapart into bursts of static before reforming, but the voice channel was stableand the line should be fairly secure. Nothing was guaranteed in a universe where most of the Galactics wagedsubtle war against one another, and yet there was no other choice. She hadto make her report to the Empress.

Protocol dictated a full prostration before the Empress,but the Empress held up one clawed hand before she could even begin theritual. The protocols were a part ofsociety, a reminder that the Empress – as supreme mistress of the Hegemony –held the power of life and death over her subjects, but this Empress was knownfor disdaining them. Lady Dalshaprivately admired her willingness to avoid protocol, if only because an Empresswho started to believe that she really wasall-powerful would likely be assassinated sooner rather than later.

“We have heard disturbing reports,” the Empresssaid. “The humans have declared war uponour Hegemony. They have claimed thatthey have smashed your squadron. Wecharge you now to speak truly. Whathappened at the human colony world?”

Lady Dalsha took a breath and started to explain, runningthrough the entire battle from the first arrival of the impossible starships toher decision to surrender. The Empress’sred eyes watched Lady Dalsha, showing no sign of visible emotion as the entirestory spilled out, followed finally by the human occupation of Garston and herrelease to catch a starship to the nearest colony world. Her brief description of the human weaponsattracted the Empress’s attention, even though the Empress didn't quite seem tobelieve her. But who would have thoughtthat the human race could advance so far, so fast?

But maybe it did make sense, she considered. The Cats had served as the source of most technologyfor the Galactics, but they’d been stagnating for thousands of years, contentwith what they’d had. Most of the otherGalactics had concentrated on building up their own numbers rather than theirresearch and development institutions, particularly those who believed that theCats had taken technology as far as it could go. No genuinely new breakthrough had appeared inthe Association for longer than the Hegemony had been in space. Unless, of course, the Cats had somethingthey hadn't shared with anyone else.

It was a common belief among those Galactics who stillhad faith in the founding race, who felt that the Cats would act if thegalactic balance of power was seriously threatened. There was no disputing the fact that the Catshad been in space longer than anyone else and that they understood their owntechnology; it was possible that theyhad some super-weapons they’d held in reserve for the day the younger racesrose up against their vision of order. But Lady Dalsha doubted it. Norace with the ability to strange the Hegemony in its cradle would have allowedthem to grow so powerful. Even now, theCats could have stopped the Hegemony in its tracks, if they had been able tosummon the will to accept the casualties.

And yet...maybe that was what Mentor had had in mind,when he’d equipped the humans with modern technology. Earth wouldn’t have been any more than a footnoteif Mentor hadn't contacted the planet, nothing more than a slight pause whilethe Hegemony crushed all resistance and established a loyal government. His gamble had worked out perfectly, fromthat point of view. The Hegemony wouldhave to crush humanity, or be crushed in turn, leaving whoever won the warbadly weakened. It might have beenexactly what he’d had in mind.

“This is most disquieting,” the Empress said,finally. “Weapons that can shoot though shields, super-charged antimatterweapons, rotating shields...do you have any sensor records to support your statements?”

“No,” Lady Dalsha admitted. The humans had been cooperative, but not that cooperative. “My ships were captured by the humans andtheir sensor records were wiped.”

It was an open question how long it would take for thehumans to repair the superdreadnaughts and press them into service. A Hegemony repair crew would take months, atleast, to get the two ships ready to travel to a shipyard, and years tocomplete repairs. How long would thehumans take? But then they might noteven bother trying to repair the two ships. A contest between superdreadnaughts was one that the human race wouldlose.

She watched the Empress mulling over possiblethoughts. One thing was clear; therecould be no peace, not until the human race was crushed. The Empress could not afford to showweakness, not if the tale of the battle had grown in the telling. By now, the Galactics were probably mutteringthat a single human destroyer took on an entire fleet of superdreadnaughts and wiped them all out. It didn't matter than anyone with a gram ofsense would realise that it was an exaggerated story. All that mattered was that it would weakenthe Hegemony.

And yet...the Hegemony’s position was not good. Three powers, two of them as expansionist asthe Hegemony, bordered its space. Eventhe third, the Tarn, were too powerful to be crushed in a quick and brutalcampaign. Pulling ships away from theborders would be asking for trouble, yet not redeploying their forces wouldmean that the humans would keep chopping away at the Hegemony until the entirestate collapsed into civil war. It couldnot be allowed, but how could it be prevented. They’d badly underestimated the human race and the entire Hegemony wasgoing to pay the price.

“I cannot afford to lose you, not now,” the Empress saidfinally. Lady Dalsha almost sagged withrelief. Death didn’t bother her, notwhen compared to the possible punishments for losing an entire squadron of superdreadnaughts. “The new human weapons can be countered, oneassumes. Or they would have flown afleet of invincible starships to homeworld and demanded surrender.”

“There is no such thing as an invincible starship,” LadyDalsha said, grimly. The Galactics hadbelieved that the only thing that could stop a superdreadnaught was anothersuperdreadnaught, at least until the human race had proved them wrong. “We can take out the human ships, if werefuse to panic. They can be beaten.”

“I am ordering you to Hammerfall,” the Empress said. “I cannot give you command of the fleet there– too many scales will start to itch – but I can instruct the Great Lady incommand to listen to your suggestions. Thehumans must deal with Hammerfall before they head further into the Hegemony, sowe will meet them there.”

One pair of clawed hands clicked together. “Unfortunately, raiders along the bordershave been growing more active over the last two standard weeks,” sheadded. “Pulling small units away fromthe borderlands will only encourage them to continue their attacks. However, I have issued orders for the borderfleets to release two squadrons of superdreadnaughts, which will be dispatchedforward to reinforce Hammerfall. A numberof other ships will be dispatched as they become available.”

The Empress’s mouth lolled open in a long smile. “Do you have any recommendations for furtheroperations?”

Lady Dalsha considered. Reinforcing Hammerfall was sensible – and if the humans took the planetbefore the reinforcements arrived, the forces rushing towards it should be sufficientto retake the planet before the human fleet moved onwards. If they weren't...they might have to startpulling ships away from the borders anyway, no matter what happened with theother powers. The Hegemony would losebadly if the humans actually managed to win their war...

...But the Hegemony was far larger than the mere ninestars belonging to humanity.

“The humans cannot have built a colossal fleet,” shesaid. Hegemony intelligence had clearlymade the mistake of believing everything the humans had told them – in fact,the human turncoats had probably been telling the spymasters what the humanswanted them to know, or to believe. It wasn'tso easy to operate on Earth, where aliens would be noticed by the generalpopulation, leaving them dependent upon human traitors. And if those traitors had actually beendouble agents...

She scratched the side of her face as she spoke. “We can afford to trade space for time; theycannot,” she said. “If we can force themonto the defensive, we win. I proposethat we send a fleet from Hammerfall directly to Earth. The humans will be forced to fight for theirown homeworld, the world that holds most of their population. Given overwhelming force, we could crush themand take their planet for our own.”

The Empress considered. “But assaulting a defended world isn't easy,” she pointed out,finally. “The humans might have built really scary defences around Earth.”

“I don’t think they would have had the resources,” LadyDalsha said. “Earth had access to moderntechnology, but they would have needed years just to build up any kind ofspace-based industry. Mentor didn't providethem with more than a little help from the Association – they certainly never receivedany of the development packages the Association used to offer tonewly-discovered races. They would havehad to choose between building starships and planetary defences and we knowthey built starships. And even if theyhave built something new, I don't think that it will make Earth impregnable.

“We mass our forces at Hammerfall and then advancedirectly on Earth,” she added. “Threesquadrons of superdreadnaughts – more, if we can pull them from the borders –and as many smaller ships as we can scrape up. The humans may take another couple of worlds, but they will lose theirhomeworld while taking worlds that mean little to us. And then we can wipe out their remainingcolonies and leave their fleet paralysed, without the supplies it will need tokeep functioning.”

She spoke on before the Empress could say anything. “We know that it is a general rule that forevery week on active service, a starship needs at least a day in ashipyard. The human ships can't be soadvanced that they can afford to operate for years without maintenance. We can wear them down and eventually forcethem to surrender – or destroy them. Andthat will be the end of the human threat.”

“It sounds possible,” the Empress mused. “I will have to run it past my naval staff...”

“It must remain a secret,” Lady Dalsha insisted. “The humans had very good intelligence onTerra Nova – and I assume they must have their own spies within the Hegemony.” She would have been more surprised if thehumans hadn't, if only because of the constant infighting between the clans strugglingfor supreme power. Someone would behappy to slip information to humanity on the grounds that more human victorieswould weaken the Empress. “If they knowwhat’s coming, they might be able to prepare for it.”

“And blunt the force of our blow,” the Empressagreed. “Very well. It will be as you say.”

There was a pause. “You will report to Hammerfall,” she added. “I will communicate with you there, once thepreliminary planning is underway. And ifyour advice helps to defend the planet, you will command the fleet that goes toEarth.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Lady Dalsha said. “I...”

The Empress’s image fizzled out and disappeared, a suresign of dismissal. Lady Dalsha bowed herhead to the screen and then headed for the hatch. The freighter that had transported her to Kauirikwas still in orbit, ready to take her onwards. And at least Hammerfall wasn't the homeworld. She might be able to redeem herself...

...Assuming, of course, that the humans didn't have moretricks up their sleeves.

***​

Blackbird coastedin towards the system primary, all drives and active sensors stepped down tothe bare minimum. No one, not even humanstarships with the most capable sensors in the galaxy, would have been able todetect her except at very close range. She would never be able to stand in the line of battle – a singledestroyer could have obliterated her with a lucky shot – but she hadn't beendesigned as a blunt instrument. Hermission was reconnaissance alone.

Compared to a regular starship, she was tiny, aninvisible ghost crossing the stars. Acloaking device would have produced turbulence, a distortion that might betracked by a good or lucky sensor officer, but Blackbird produced nothing. Her hull was crammed with passive sensors, leaving little room for thetwo intelligence operatives who served as her crew. They worked, ate and slept in a cabin barelylarge enough to swing a cat.

“I have at least five superdreadnaughts,” CommanderConnie Craig said. The power emissions ofsuperdreadnaughts stood out, even among a swarm of smaller starships patrollingorbital space above Hammerfall. “Maybeanother two – or maybe they’re ECM drones.”

“We should get a better look as we get closer,” LieutenantBruno Lombardi agreed. Like Connie, hewas an intelligence officer rather than a line officer, although the distinctionbetween them blurred where Blackbirdand her sisters were concerned. “Butthey’ve established a tachyon net around the planet itself. I think they must be worried about spies likeus.”

Connie nodded. Astarship that passed through the net would be instantly detectable, allowingSystem Command to vector destroyers and assault shuttles to intercept theintruder. System Command itself was acolossal fortress, a space station large enough to daunt even the humanimagination, bristling with weapons, sensor blisters and repair yards for theHegemony Navy. It said something aboutthe Hegemony’s resources that they could build something out of what was,effectively, pocket change. But then,Hammerfall was their major naval base in the sector. There were no pesky civilian ships to get inthe way of defending the base.

The hours ticked by slowly as Blackbird made her closest approach to the planet. They’d be well clear of the tachyon net,Connie noted with some relief; Blackbird wouldn'thave had a hope in hell of escape if she’d been detected. A larger ship might have escaped, but Blackbird’s drives were too weak to giveher a fighting chance. And her crews wereunder orders to destroy the ship – and themselves – if the Hegemony caughtthem. They couldn't risk her fallinginto enemy hands.

“Definitely five superdreadnaughts,” Lombardi said. He hesitated. “I count roughly seventy lighter vessels, mainly destroyers. They’re probably consolidating the otherunits in this sector at Hammerfall. They’regoing to outgun Admiral Sampson when he arrives.”

“Hell, that’s always been true,” Connie pointed out. But human quality had provided a counter to Galacticquantity, at least so far. “I think theAdmiral will be pleased to know what we have found. We’ve verified the location of a squadron ofsuperdreadnaughts.”

ONI did its best to track the Hegemony’s ships, but itwas difficult, particularly for the smaller vessels. Most of the Hegemony’s superdreadnaughts werealong their borders, or pinned down defending their homeworld, leaving only asmall force to block humanity’s advance. But then, five more superdreadnaughts would be quite sufficient to blocka similar fleet from any other spacefaring power.

“And then we can get out of here,” she added. “Maybe the Admiral will send us back forringside seats when the fleet hits Hammerfall.”

 

ChapterTwenty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“So,” Karla said, “how does it feel to be a pirate king?”



Joshua snorted. One rule that was a constant in both the business world and the pirate world– which were closer related than most people would have preferred to believe –was that success bred success. The loosenetwork of pirates, fences, rebels and rogue colonies had fallen in love withthe Clunkers, a love affair that would continue precisely as long as the stolengoods and money kept rolling in. Joshuahad used their growing reputation to convince dozens of other pirates to jointhem, using the newcomers to crew ships he’d captured or bought on the blackmarket. He’d known long before he’d beensummoned home that there was a blackmarket, but he’d never realised its extent. There was a whole secret economy operating out beyond explored space.



“Strange,” he said. He’d spent years worrying about his crews, travelling through regionswhere piracy was epidemic. Now he wasplanning and organising pirate attacks against Hegemony shipping, with enoughships to ensure that even escorting vessels were badly outgunned. A few more weeks and the Hegemony would haveto start assigning heavier escort squadrons or abandon some of their mostprofitable shipping lanes. Not that theywere going to have much profits in the very near future. Galactic insurance rates were rising sharply. “If only I was sure that they would obey orders.”



He had no doubt about the Clunkers, even if he had taken most of their personnel out ofa penal colony. They knew the score aswell as he did. But the other pirates wantedprofit first, rather than waging war against the Hegemony, and even the rebelsneeded funds. The desire for loot drovethem and they had a nasty habit of abandoning the chase to capture disabled freightersand take their cargo.



In one sense, it didn't really matter – and it was sureto confuse the Hegemony. But in anothersense, it risked expanding the war or convincing other powers to start sending theirown escort units through Hegemony-controlled space. The Hegemony wouldn't like it, but if theyhad a shortage of their own lighter units, they might accept it without morethan token protests. And that risked expanding the war. As far as Joshua knew, no one had realisedthat the Clunkers were exclusively human – and the pirates they had recruitedcertainly weren't – but sooner or later someone would put all the pieces together. Who benefited from the Hegemony’s woes? Humanity wasn't the only suspect, yet theywere the only ones who had gone to war.



Karla snorted. “Youdon’t trust them?”



“I trust them about as far as I can pick up this ship andthrow it,” Joshua countered. TheHegemony had its own agents in the black market. Chances were that they were already trying tolocate Joshua’s base. He’d pulled a fastone by using a freighter converted into a mobile shipyard as his prime base, whichshould be effectively impossible to detect, but there were limits to how longthey could operate without proper refitting. “But if the worst should occur, they are expendable.”



And so are we,he thought, silently.



The Clunker Fleet had made an impact, largely throughcoordinating its operations and careful planning, neither of which werehallmarks of pirate society. But theHegemony wouldn't simply give up. They’dset traps, hoping to snare his ships in an ambush, using overwhelming power todestroy the small squadron. And whenthat happened, the alliance of pirates he’d pulled together would melt awaylike snow under the first rays of sun. He’ddone his best to prepare fallback positions, but he had no illusions abouttheir effectiveness. They couldn't riska major defeat.



“But many a king on a first class throne, if he wants to call his crownhis own,

“Must manage somehow to get through, more dirty work than ever I do.”



Karla smiled. “Whatwas that?”



“Gilbert and Sullivan,” Joshua said. “They wrote an opera about pirates...”



The console chimed as the enemy ships came into view,slipping through quantum space under heavy escort. Joshua had taken up a position that shouldallow his ships to observe the newcomers without being seen themselves, just incase the Hegemony had prepared some unpleasant surprises for his men. Sensors rapidly picked up a pair of lightcruisers, flanked by four destroyers, escorting five heavy freighters and oneship of unknown configuration. Itreassembled a freighter in basic design, but it didn't match anything in ONI’srecords.



“It might be a Q-ship,” Karla said, after a moment. The Galactics generally disdained Q-ships,pointing out that a warship pretending to be a convincing freighter would haveall of the disadvantages of being a freighter and none of the advantages ofactually being a freighter. But if there was one area where they madesense, it was in hunting pirates. Most piratesdidn't want to blow away cargos they could sell on the black market. “Or maybeit’s just a kind of freighter we haven’t seen before. They do have more than one design.”



“Maybe,” Joshua agreed. They could back off and letthe convoy go on its way, but the pirates would complain – loudly – that they hadn'tbeen paid for their services. Given thattheir job was to steal from the rich and keep for themselves, it would be alittle hypocritical, yet somehow he doubted that that would stop them. And disgruntled pirates might sell them outto the Hegemony. “Signal the fleet. We advance in a body on my mark.”



Standard tactics for evading interception in quantum spacewere to scatter, every starship heading away on a different vector. Against the average pirate ship, whichoperated on her own or in pairs, it wasn't a bad tactic. The storms of quantum space would cover the freightersthat got away while the pirates were hunting down and disabling theircomrades. But that was why Joshua hadworked so hard to build a coalition, no matter the disadvantages involved inworking with such untrustworthy allies. Not a single freighter would escape the fleet.



“Mark,” he ordered. “Take us in, now.”



Blackbeard lancedforward, weapons at the ready. TheHegemony ships altered course, the escorts forming a line to face the pirates whilethe freighters headed away from the battle. That too wasn't bad tactics, but it suggested that the mystery ship wasmerely another freighter...unless the Funks were trying to be subtle. They weren't known for being anything, butbrutally direct – and yet some of them were crafty enough to match the besthumanity could offer. It might still bea trap.



Any pirate force would be a hodgepodge of technology,drives and weapons systems from all over the galaxy. Few rogue colonies had the industrial base toproduce their own starships – and they would be careful about selling theirwares to pirates, knowing that the Hegemony or another of the Galactics mightsend a superdreadnaught squadron to extract revenge. The Hegemony ships would have good reason tobelieve that they had the advantage over the pirate fleet, even though theywere badly outnumbered. Under normalcircumstances, Joshua knew, their confidence would be fully justified. But these weren’t normal circumstances.



“Fire,” he ordered.



Blackbird launcheda spread of antimatter torpedoes towards her target, the first of the lightcruisers. The other ships opened fireseconds later, presenting the Funks with an impossible tactical problem, evenas they started to return fire. Joshuahalf-expected them to make an emergency transit back into normal space, whichwould have allowed them to evade the torpedoes, but it was already toolate. Both light cruisers were blownapart, their death throes exciting quantum space and threatening the creationof new energy storms. One of thedestroyers staggered out of position, spinning helplessly through space. The other two kept firing, concentrating onthe pirate ships. It represented theirbest chance to damage the fleet before they were destroyed.



“Serial Peacemaker tookfour hits and is seriously damaged,” Karla reported. “Her Captain is requesting permission tobreak off the engagement.”



“Granted,” Joshua said, tightly. Their second salvo was already away. The galactic news service had been ravingabout new weapons from Earth over the last few weeks, but none of the Clunkershad anything that could be traced directly back to Earth. It hardly mattered, not in thisengagement. The last two escorts died, leavingthe path to the convoy open. “Detailships to hunt down the freighters and remind them that we need prisoners.”



“Of course,” Karla agreed. “Do you think they’ll listen?”



Joshua shrugged. He’d been very clear that all booty was to be shared equally between pirateships, hopefully dissuading the pirates from breaking off and chasing prizesthey considered to be more important than maintaining formation. But the pirates were a suspicious anddistrusting lot. Some of them probablythought that Joshua intended to abandon them, sooner or later, and take all theloot for himself. But that wasn't a badthing. They wouldn't suspect his realmotives.



Blackbeard slowlyoverhauled the mystery vessel, watching suspiciously for any sign that the freighterwas a disguised warship. Nothingsuggested itself, apart from the fact that the crew were trying to evade Joshuarather than surrendering in the hopes that they would be well-treated. Maybe it was a rational thing to do – the piratesdidn't have a good reputation for treating prisoners – but all they were doingwas annoying him. It took nearly thirtyminutes to chase them down enough to launch the assault shuttles, which lockedonto the freighter hull without incident. Joshua was still watching carefully when Kang reported in from thecaptured vessel.



“Boss, I think you're going to need to see this,” hesaid. “It’s a prison ship.”

***​

It was nearly an hour after the engagement when Joshuaboarded the captured freighter, after he’d seen to the Serial Peacemaker and reassured the pirates that they would receivetheir fair share of any booty from the mystery craft. The other freighters hadn't been greatprizes, but there would be enough loot to pay their operating costs and rewardtheir allies. They’d spend most of whatthey’d earned on a hidden asteroid and then set out again to earn more money,once the whores, gamblers and hustlers had cleaned them out. Some things were universal among humanoidraces.



The Galactics generally didn't bother with prisonships. Attitudes to crime and punishmentvaried from race to race, with some races having strict laws and others takinga milder view of rape and murder than a human would have foundcomprehensible. No one knew how the Catspunished their offenders – if there were Catoffenders – but the younger races tended to establish penal colonies onlifeless balls of rock and leave the offenders there to rot, if they weren't simplyexecuted out of hand. A handful of racesused personality reconstruction techniques to prevent further offending, whilethe Hegemony tended towards inventive punishments for female offenders. Males were assumed to be naturally roguewithout female supervision, an attitude that many human females would haveunderstood.



He boarded the ship through a secured airlock and steppedinto the bridge. It looked remarkablysmall for such a large ship, but a glance at the status panel revealed that itwas completely separate from the rest of the ship. Layers of hull metal, tough enough to requirephase cannons or molecular disintegrators to penetrate, protected the crew fromthe prisoners, who were expected to fend for themselves while they were beingtransported from world to world. They didn'tneed to worry about restraints. Therewas no way the prisoners could do more than kill each other.



“Odd,” he said. “Whywere they being transported in the first place? They can't be that short of trained labour, can they?”



Kang nodded towards one of the screens. “That's the live feed from the hold,” hesaid. “Those aren't Funks, boss.”



Joshua narrowed his eyes. He hadn't seen even a fraction of the hundreds of races in theAssociation, or hidden out beyond the borderlands, but he’d studied extensivelyand he recognised the race. The Gobbles –the closest any human could come to pronouncing their name – had been even moreprimitive than Earth when they’d been discovered by the Association, and thenthey’d been unlucky enough to be overrun by the Hegemony before they even knewthat there was an entire civilisation living among the stars. Their resistance had been pitiful – Alexanderthe Great wouldn't have had a prayer against modern technology, no matter hismilitary genius – and the Funks had rapidly turned them into a slave race.



Aliens were rarely ‘cute,’ but the Gobbles camesurprisingly close. They reassembledteddy bears as much as anything else, although teddy bears with sharp teeth andhumanoid hands that gave them a remarkable talent for industrial machinery. Primitive didn't equal stupid and the Gobbleshad managed to carve out a niche for themselves among the Funks, although neveras anything other than slaves. Theirtreatment was a chilling reminder of the bestthat humanity could hope for if they lost the war.



“Curious,” Joshua said, slowly. “Why would they bother to transport themanywhere?”



One of the other former criminals – a computer tech witha habit of exploring outside permitted areas of military datanets – looked upfrom one of the consoles. “Security onthis thing is rubbish,” he said, by way of explanation. “Those teddies have been convicted of treasonagainst the Hegemony and were being taken to the Empress. I don’t think that she’s going to give them abig hug.”



“Assuming any of them survive the trip,” Kang putin. “They’ve been left to rot in theirown filth. I’d bet good money that theywere intended to die along the way.”



“But if they wanted them to die,” the computer tech said,“why didn't they simply shoot them.”



“Plausible deniability,” Kang said. He leered. “When I was in the teams, there were all sorts of silly tricks meant togive political weaklings the ability to swear blind that they never gave explicitorders to the operatives. Need answersout of a suspect quickly? Give a verbalorder to torture him and then send a memo – too late – forbidding torture. Want to blow up a village where you know aterrorist leader is hiding? Use thewrong equipment to create the impression that the village is empty and thereare no civilians to be hurt...”



“I don’t think the Funks have that much subtlety in them,”Joshua said. He shrugged. “Find the most senior of the prisoners, givehim a chance to clean up, and then bring him to me on Blackbeard. I’ll talk to himin the secure hold, so he doesn't see the rest of the ship until we havedecided what to do with him.”



He shrugged. “Younever know,” he added. “We might justhave met our first ally.”

***​

In person, there was little that was cute about the Gobble. Thesharp teeth, more intimidating in person than in the video feed, and the burnmarks on his fur created the impression of a battered teddy bear, but there wasan iron look in his eye that suggested that it wouldn't go down without afight. Joshua was wearing full poweredarmour, concealing his face, and yet it was impossible not to feel his skincrawling when he looked at the Gobble’s teeth. Part of his racial memory remembered the days when humans had had tofear bears.



“I thank you for the rescue,” the Gobble said. He spoke Galactic Three, without a trace ofthe hiss the Funks produced from their oddly-shaped mouths. “I fear that the” – he spoke a word that didn'ttranslate, even though the suit’s database – “will be very unhappy to lose me.”



“I’m glad to hear it,” Joshua said. Poking a stick in bright red eyes was whythey were out here, so far from Earth. “Wouldyou like to tell me why they were transporting you to their world?”



“My people have sought our freedom for countless years,”the Gobble said. “I, Xinchub, was theleader of the Tausennigan Ob'enn, the resistance to those who have occupied ourworld. They left us our religion and sowe used it as the only tool we had to build a resistance network, but theystumbled across us and arrested and executed many. I was scheduled to be executed in front ofthe Empress herself.”



Joshua smiled. “Andthe rest of the prisoners?”



“Some known to me, who tried to fight,” Xinchubsaid. “Others picked up at random, orthrough false information. Many will nowfight if given the chance to return to our homeworld. Tauscher will be liberated if we have to alllay down our lives in the struggle.”



“I see,” Joshua said, slowly. Inside, he was thinking rapidly. No revolt could succeed as long as the Funks maintainedtheir control over the planet’s orbitals. They could simply bombard any rebel-held territory into submission, nomatter how discontented the Gobbles were with their lot. And yet...intelligence on Tauscher waslimited, but it did suggest that a major nexus of manufacturing had grownaround the planet. The Gobbles did havetalents and the Funks were happy to exploit them. “Do you wish to carry on the fight?”



“Of course,” Xinchub said. “We swore solemn oaths before our gods thatwe would be victorious or die. I willnot betray those oaths.”



“Then I think we can help each other,” Joshua said. “We’re going to somewhere safe, where we canthink and plan. And then we may be able to save your world.”



Afterwards, he found himself considering just what he haddone. Raiding Funk shipping was onething, but actually moving in on one of their world...? His orders hadn't covered that eventuality. But then, no one knew he was out here apartfrom his crews and the Admiral.



And the Gobbles, if necessary, were expendable.

 

ChapterTwenty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



No one knew much about the race that had originally livedon Hammerfall. That there had been a race was beyond dispute, forthe Cats had noted the remains of cities created by a race that had barelylearned to use steam power before it died out. They’d had the supreme ill-luck to evolve in a binary system that wasteeming with debris, where the gravitational surges between the star starsroutinely tipped asteroids in and out of the system. Eventually, their luck had run out and anasteroid had slammed directly into their world. They’d been dead for hundreds of years when the Cats had stumbled acrosstheir world.



Hammerfall still wasn't particularly well developed, butthe Hegemony had seen value in turning it into a major naval base. At first, it had seemed like a pointlessexercise in pleasing some of the clans, but now it would be worth its weight inwhatever precious substance one cared to name. The human advance would have togo through Hammerfall or risk leaving a major fleet in their rear. And this time they would confront a Hegemonyforce that understood their tricks and was ready for them. Their advance would come to a halt and thenthe counteroffensive could begin.



“And so they let you go,” Great Lady Marsha said. Her clan and Lady Dalsha’s had been enemiesfor hundreds of years, even though no one remembered the original dispute thathad led to a bitter vendetta. “They musthave known that you were no threat. Howwise they were.”



Lady Dalsha managed to contain her temper. A failure had no friends or family, for fearthat it might rub off. Her clan had alreadydisowned her, leaving her isolated from the complex network of alliances and enmitiesthat made up the heart of the Hegemony. Insome ways, it gave her a freedom others would envy; in others, it made hersupremely vulnerable, unprotected against assassins or slavers – or anyone whowanted private revenge. Marsha hadn't evenagreed to see her in person, exiling her to a fortress on the other side ofHammerfall. It was a very blunt gestureof contempt.



“Had I faced the entire known human fleet,” she said,patiently, “I would have crushed them all with minimal losses...”



“But you didn't,” Marsha sneered. “You allowed yourself to be defeated by apuny force with nothing heavier than a cruiser. Three superdreadnaughts destroyed – and two surrendered. No wonder they let you go. You are so much more valuable to them with usthan you would be as a prisoner. Didthey think that you would be placed in command of the next fleet theyencountered?”



Lady Dalsha cursed inwardly. That wasn'tgoing to happen. Technically, she still hadher rank, but every female with an ear for the political realities would knowthat she had no practical authority. Herrank was worthless in anything more than name. She’d certainly never be allowed to command a starship, let alone anentire fleet. Besides, she’d beendisowned. Why would anyone give her astarship when there were hundreds of well-connected females awaiting theirchance?



“A few new tricks and you panicked,” Marsha added. “They should have released your sensor crewsinstead. The males could at least havetold us something useful.”



“I did what I could,” Lady Dalsha replied, tiring of theendless stream of insults from Marsha. Like her, before Terra Nova, she had every confidence in her fleet – andnot without reason. The Hegemony wasstill straining every sinew to reinforce Hammerfall, but Marsha commanded overa hundred starships, enough to destroy an entire sector if necessary. But just as the First Empress had been badlyoutmatched by the weapons possessed by the Cats, Hammerfall might be facinghuman weapons a quantum leap ahead of the superdreadnaughts in orbit. “And you would be well advised to listen tome.”



She’d seen what the human weapons had done to hersquadron, but they’d been careful to deny her any sensor data that would backup her claims. The Hegemony had alwaysbeen weak in basic research, a weakness that had seemed insignificant when theentire galaxy had restricted itself to weapons developed by the Cats thousandsof years ago. But now...the Hegemony’slong list of enemies would be hearing reports of human super-weapons andpushing their own research programs forward as fast as they could. How long would it be before the Tarn developedtheir own version of human weapons, giving them a colossal advantage over theHegemony? Or any one of a dozen races –or all of them? The Hegemony might finditself in the same position as the mounted warriors who had tried to fight theCats, only to be scythed down by plasma cannons.



And she knew, all too well, that none of the Hegemony’sneighbours liked them.



The Empress was firmly in control, for the moment, but noone could stop rumours flying through the Hegemony faster than any quantum drive. Some of the lesser clans were seeing theirchance to unseat the Empress and reshape the balance of power, while the clientraces were considering the odds of their own drive for freedom – or revenge. The humans might not be able to defeat theHegemony alone – unless they had a true super-weapon, something so powerfulthat it could destroy a starship in a single shot – but civil war would make itimpossible for the Hegemony to continue the war. And there were already rumblings ofdiscontent among the masses.



“You are a failure,” Marsha informed her. “My fleet will not suffer the same defeat asyour own. I will crush the humans,obtain samples of their weapons, and then launch an offensive of my own,directed at Garston and Terra Nova. Andyou will watch as the better officer wins her war.”



Lady Dalsha raised one clawed hand in a gesture ofsubmission. There was no point incontinuing the argument, not when Marsha was clearly already determined tocarry out her operational plan. At leastthe Empress’s orders bound her firmly to Hammerfall until the human fleet hadbeen defeated. Their worst nightmare hadbeen the humans slipping in and devastating the base while the fleet was tryingto recover Garston. Losing that worldhad been bad enough, but losing Hammerfall would put the war effort back by atleast two years.



She just hoped that Marsha was right and that she didhave enough firepower – and forewarning – to defeat the human fleet. But who knew what other tricks the humans haddeveloped, holding them in reserve until they were needed? She couldn't even begin to imagine what theymight have produced...



...And it was that weakness, more than anything else,that would cripple the Hegemony.

***​

“Seems like a strange set of orders,” Markus commented,as the gunboats raced through quantum space. Ahead of them, a single bulk freighter struggled to escape. “I thought we were meant to be linking upwith the others and raiding enemy planets.”



“Orders are orders,” Carola reminded him. Gunboats couldoperate in quantum space, but their inability to jump in and out of thedimension was a serious weakness. Energydischarges that might cripple a starship would utterly vaporise a gunboat. “The brass was pretty damn clear that theywanted this done by their best pilots.”



Markus nodded, sourly. Humanity possessed no more than three gunboat carriers, three more thananyone else, but a deeply limited force when compared to the vast fleetsdeployed by the Galactics. The othertwo had been deployed on raiding missions, hammering away at the other worldsin the sector, hoping to create an impression of human invincibility. Apart from Hammerfall itself, most of theother worlds had limited defences, none of which could stand up to a flight ofgunboats. The attacks were pinprickscompared to the sheer size of the Hegemony, but it should make the Funks alittle concerned about the security of their people – and the clanterritories. Even an absolute ruler likethe Empress had to worry about public opinion, particularly among the mostpowerful clans. Their discontent couldswiftly turn lethal.



But Grumble Squadron had been given a set of orders that didn'tquite make sense. They were to intercepta bulk freighter and harass her all the way to Hammerfall, but not to press the offensive and destroyher. Formidablewas just behind them, ready to pick up the gunboats when the bulk freighter finallyescaped, yet he was aware that they were flying right into the teeth of themost heavily defended planet in the sector. Formidable was almostdefenceless compared to a heavy cruiser, let alone the superdreadnaughts thatwere supposed to be guarding Hammerfall. None of the gunboats had challenged a superdreadnaught yet and, despitesimulations suggesting that they would be just as effective against the biggestships in the galaxy, the pilots were nervous. The Hegemony had already started adapting its tactics to take out the gunboats.



An alert sounded as quantum space twisted in front ofthem. Markus felt his stomach twist – asif he was on a roller coaster – before the blackness of normal space rose upand swallowed them. The gunboat seemedto slide down a long funnel before spinning out into normal space, tossedaround by gravimetric fluctuations that barely hindered a modern starship. Behind them, the quantum gate started to shutdown. Formidable would have to enter normal space using her own drives.



“I think they’ve seen us,” Carola said. “I make five light cruisers rushing us – and agoodly swarm of assault shuttles.”



“Clever,” Markus admitted, grudgingly. The Hegemony, by the most pessimisticestimate, would take at least a year to produce its own gunboats, but pressing assaultshuttles into service gave them a chance to even the odds. Assault shuttles weren't designed solely forspace – they landed Marines on planetary surfaces – yet they were more manoeuvrablethan anything else in the Hegemony Navy. They’d take heavy losses as they tried to dogfight the gunboats, butthey’d inflict losses in return. “Andthe freighter?”



“Running towards the fortresses as fast as its littlelegs can carry it, screaming for help,” Carola reported. “I think the Funks are desperate to save her.”



Markus nodded and threw the gunboat into a tight turn,followed by the rest of the squadron. Tothe Funks, it would look like an attack vector determined to obliterate the freighterbefore it could reach safety – and as he watched, the Funks did the one thingthey could to salvage the situation. Their assault shuttles went to full power and raced ahead of the lightcruisers, roaring towards the human gunboats. Markus fired a stream of implosion bolts towards the freighter, takingcare to look as if he was panicking, and then led the gunboats right towardsthe assault shuttles. He’d expected theFunks to have outfitted them with something more dangerous than laser packs orplasma cannons, but it didn't look as if they’d had time to rig up phasecannons or their own implosion bolt launchers. Or maybe they simply hadn’t thought of it. Assault shuttles were armed to supportMarines on the ground, not dogfight with enemy craft.



“Open fire,” he ordered, tightly. Brilliant bursts of plasma shot ahead of hisgunboat, firing with a rapidity that the Hegemony couldn't match. Admittedly, the plasma containment fields hadto be completely replaced after every mission – and there was a small chancethey could explode, destroying the gunboat – but it made it much harder for theassault shuttles to close to effective range. Their pilots kept evading frantically, yet it was clear that they hadn'tbeen given much time to practice operating in vacuum. Several assault shuttles were picked offbefore they even started to fire back. “AllGrumbles, prepare for charge.”



He swung the gunboat around and gunned the drives. The gunboats leapt forward, charging right atthe assault shuttles – and the light cruisers beyond. No human mind could takeadvantage of the brief opportunities to fire on the assault shuttles, but thecomputers had authority to take the shots as they opened and a dozen shuttlesdied as they scattered. There wasnormally no such thing as a collision risk in open space, yet they’d be passingso close to the shuttles that they’d be able to see them with the nakedeye. Markus caught sight of a flash oflight as another assault shuttle died, before the gunboats closed in rapidly onthe light cruisers. Their point defencehad improved, he noted, as they swung into attack formation, shifting randomlyto confuse their sensors. A gunboat diedjust before it could open fire on the enemy ship. The remainder started to bombard the cruiserwith implosion bolts as the assault shuttles reversed course and came screamingback towards their heavier consorts. Itwas too late to save the targeted cruiser. An implosion bolt sliced through her power plant and it blew, taking theentire ship with it. There was no signof any lifepods.



“I think we've done enough here,” he said, as theshuttles closed in. “On my mark, enterpanic formation...mark!”



The gunboats swung away, as if they were fleeing interror. Markus doubted that the Funkswould be fooled, if only because the tales they told one another of war ontheir dry world had included plenty of feigned retreats to lure the enemy intoa trap, but they would keep watching the gunboats until they linked up with Formidable and escaped into quantum space. The Funks had to know that they wouldn't beable to overrun the gunboats, so why would they bother trying? Anything that looked like a trap would raisetheir hackles.



He glanced back at Hammerfall. It was nowhere near as industrialised asHeavenly Gate, but his sensors could pick up hundreds of starships and orbital fortressesorbiting the world. And the freighter they’dchased into normal space was heading right towards the largest fortress,without a care in the world. Markus watchedher for a long moment, wondering exactly what their superiors hadn't botheredto tell them, before returning his attention to the escape. A handful of assault shuttles were givingchase, but the remainder were hanging back. They definitely suspected something, all right. He felt a moment of pity for the crews whohad been ordered to advance, and then shook his head. They would kill him and the rest of thesquadron, if they were given the chance.

***​

“They seem to have believed our lies,” Abdul Raman commented. There were only two crewmen on the entire freighter,both volunteers. “They think we’reescaping from a far more formidable foe.”



He smiled. Eversince his brother and his family had been murdered on Terra Nova by the Funks,he’d wanted revenge. His native Iran hadn’tbeen able to pay its way onto the Federation Council, but it had been able tosupply a handful of Revolutionary Guardsmen who were determined to seek martyrdomin the name of God. It seemed likelythat the Iranian Government had sent them in the hope that they wouldn't comeback, yet Abdul found it hard to care. Whatever guilt he had felt in preparing to kill his fellow humans fadedwhen he was facing an alien foe, an enemy of the entire human race. The Funks would crush Iran with the same uncompromisingbrutality they would use against the rest of the planet, if they were givenhalf a chance. It was up to theFederation Navy to ensure that the Funks could never range in on Earth.



It felt strange to be working with the Americans, and theBritish, and the Russians, all of whom had been declared enemies of Iran at onetime or another, but there was no choice. God had created the human race and ordered his believers to do whateverit took to defend it – and the Galactics posed a deadly threat. Even the ones that weren't openly hostilemight have disastrous effects on Earth. What was humanity if alien ideas subverted everything that God had giventhe human race? And what could one makeof aliens who had never been sent their own prophets?



He felt calm, and perfectly in control, as the targetcame into view. The alien fortress wasmassive, larger than anything humanity had ever produced, a blocky cubical mass of structures right out of an American science-fictionprogram. It was surrounded by some ofthe most powerful shields in the galaxy, capable of standing off a squadron ofsuperdreadnaughts long enough for reinforcements to arrive, and defended withhundreds of emplaced weapons. Abdulchecked that the liar – the computer-generated representation of an aristocraticFunk – was still talking, convincing the Funks that the freighter was tooimportant to be destroyed. He would havebeen surprised if the lie had been believed right up until the end of themission, but it hardly mattered. Theywere already close enough to the fortress to do some damage.



He smiled as the Funks started broadcasting orders to thefreighter, ordering them to deactivate their drives and hold position. They suspected something, all right. He ignored the orders as weapons started tolock onto the freighter’s hull; instead, he tapped a particular commandsequence into the ship’s computers. The freighterdrive powered up and sent them lunging forward, while all remaining power wasrouted to the shield generators. No onecould miss the freighter – it was nowhere near as nimble as a gunboat – but ifthe Funks still believed the lies...



They opened fire, but it was already too late. The freighter slammed right into the fortress’sshields, destroying the containment fields separating the antimatter in herholds from the matter surrounding them. Abdul had a moment to realise that they’d succeeded, a microsecond beforethe freighter and the fortress were wiped from existence in a brilliant whiteflash.

 

ChapterTwenty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“Recon hastransited from Hammerfall, Admiral,” Commander Sooraya Qadir reported. “The enemy command and control centre hasbeen destroyed.”



Tobias nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. The whole idea of using suicide attacks didn'tsit well with him, even if there had been no other way to cripple the enemybefore the battle began. If Mentor hadn'tcome to Earth, it was quite possible that he and the men he’d sent to launchthe suicide attack would have been trying to kill each other in anotherpointless human scrabble. At least aliencontact had brought some semblance of peace to Earth along humans, if onlybecause there were greater threats out there than their fellow humans.



“Good,” he said. “AndFormidable?”



“She has returned to quantum space and reports that sheis rearming the gunboats and will be ready to support the offensive in ten minutes,”Sooraya said. “Do we delay long enoughfor her to join us?”



“No,” Tobias said. The Funks presumably had their own chain of command, with someonedesignated as the replacement commander if their superior was killed orrendered unable to communicate with the rest of the defence force. “Order the fleet to advance into theHammerfall system.”



Space twisted around Nimitzas the First Strike Fleet made transit, emerging into the Hammerfall system. Quantum space was oddly distorted aroundHammerfall, although no one had been able to come up with a theory thatexplained it to anyone’s satisfaction. Their best guess from humanity’s scientists was that the gravimetricdistortion caused by the presence of two stars in such close proximity had somehowcreated a permanent impression on quantum space, perhaps an impression thatextruded back naturally into normal space and accounted for the periodic gravitysurges that tipped debris in towards the stars. If the Cats knew why it happened, they’d kept the knowledge to themselves.



“Launch recon probes,” he ordered. They hadn't been able to risk coming in closeto Hammerfall, certainly nowhere near as close as they’d come to TerraNova. “Can you confirm the destructionof their command and control centre?”



“Destruction confirmed,” Sooraya reported, after amoment. “The entire station seems tohave been vaporised.”



And if there hadbeen a major population on Hammerfall, we wouldn't have dared use such a tactic,Sampson thought, coldly. The Trojan Horse had carried enoughcompressed antimatter to knock a planet out of orbit, if it had detonated onthe surface. When the containment fieldsfailed, the blast would have been powerful enough to bathe the planet inradiation – as well as disabling or destroying many of the Hegemony’s automateddefences. But much of their fleet hadclearly survived...



“I’m reading at least five superdreadnaughts andfifty-seven cruisers of varying types,” Sooraya reported, as the probes startedto send their reports back to the fleet. Recon probes were designed to be expendable; after all, the enemy wouldn'thave much difficulty detecting them and vectoring light cruisers or destroyersin to pick them off. “They do not appearto be significantly damaged, but there their formation appears to be very confused. We may have killed the second-in-command aswell as the supreme commander.”



“Perhaps,” Tobias agreed. It would be nice to believe that that was true, but he doubted it. Standard doctrine – and there had been nosign that the Funks disagreed – called for placing the second-in-command on adifferent fortress, preferably one well clear of the command and controlcentre. But the Funks had just losttheir acknowledged commander. It wasquite possible that the various squadron commanders were arguing over whoshould take supreme command, yet even Funks had to be aware that there was anenemy fleet bearing down on them. Surelythat took priority. “Or maybe they’retrying to lure us in closer.”



He shrugged. Thistime, the Funks had a powerful network of fortresses to support their fleet. It was quite possible that whoever was incommand – if someone had managed to establish their superiority – was intent onholding the ships back where they could be covered by the fortresses. They would have to concede the rest of thesystem, allowing Tobias to raid their asteroid and gas giant mining facilitiesat will, but as long as the fleet remained in his rear, Hammerfall wasdangerous. The fortresses were aheadache, yet he could leave them to wither on the vine; the starships were adeadly threat to the entire Federation. They had to be destroyed.



And he had another trick up his sleeve.



“Order Task Force 1.4 to enter the system,” he said. “I want them to be ready to deploy on mycommand.”

***​

Lady Dalsha had watched in disbelief as Great Lady Marshaand her entire command fortresses vanished in a sheet of white light. She’d scented trouble as soon as the humangunboats had broken off the attack, for she’d seen the sensor feeds from their attackon Garston. They’d killed an entirebattlecruiser for minimal losses; why had they been unable to kill a freighter,even one that claimed to have been part of a convoy that had been interceptedand destroyed. And even though it hadhad the correct codes to approach, it shouldn't have been allowed to approach thecommand fortress until it had been checked by a security team. If Marsha had listened...



But Marsha hadn't listenedand Marsha was dead. The humans mightnot have realised it, but the blast had completely scrambled the datanets thatheld the fleet together. If they’d beenable to press the offensive at once, they might have cut the fleet to ribbons aseach ship suddenly found itself fighting alone. Even as the command and control network was re-established, Lady Marsha’sformer subordinates were arguing over who should take command. None of them had been marked as a clear successor,if only to prevent them from attempting to assassinate their superior. A tactic for dividing one’s subordinates –and therefore preventing them from uniting against their superior – had madeperfect sense on the homeworld, or even in peacetime since the Hegemony hadbeen founded. But in wartime, it waslikely to be devastating.



The appearance of the human fleet was no surprise, notafter they’d killed Marsha and destroyed the defenders’ unity. They had to know that their fleet was badlyoutgunned, even though it had weapons that were individually superior toHammerfall’s defenders. Their bestchance at a victory would come by pressing the offensive before the defendersmanaged to rally behind a new supreme commander, yet they seemed oddlyhesitant. It was an article of faithamong the Hegemony that no other race was as brave and determined as themselves– certainly, no other race had managed to build something like the Hegemony –but Lady Dalsha had to admit that the humans were just as determined as any of theHegemony’s warriors. Even starting thewar on their own terms, despite the imbalance of power between them and their enemies,suggested a ruthless determination to succeed. So why, she asked herself, weren't they advancing on Hammerfall?



She watched the arguments between the differentcommanders, wishing that she could take command herself. But none of them would have followed her;they’d probably have executed her if they’d been face to face. Arguments over command back before the Catshad discovered their homeworld tended to result in blood on the sand; here, itwas just possible that the different fortresses and starships would start shooting at each other. Only the certainty that the Empress wouldpunish them harshly for starting a civil war kept the commanders under somekind of control.



Angrily, she pushed caution to the winds. If there was one advantage to her outcaststatus, it was that she could speak the truth without fear of repercussions forher clan. “This is no time to bickerover who’s in command,” she said, sharply. “The humans have come to destroy the fleet. We can scrabble over who is rewarded for thevictory after we win.”



The human fleet was growing stronger as new ships arrivedfrom quantum space. Many of thelong-range sensors had been crippled by the antimatter blast, but enough hadremained to allow her to deduce that the newcomers appeared to be nothing moredangerous than freighters – although if they were all crammed with antimatter,the concept of freighters being harmless would need to be revised. The humans were led by males, she recalled;no wonder they were willing to resort to suicide tactics, as long as theydestroyed their enemies in the process. Males had no sense of self-preservation.



But it would bebetter to think of their males as females, she told herself. The Hegemony had been blinded by thediscovery that human females had been treated as second-class citizens for muchof human history. If the females were soweak as to allow the males to treat them like that, surely the males must beweaker than the Hegemony Queens. But ifthe balance of power between the sexes was reversed for humanity...



They'd underestimated their foe all along. Males were competitive, to the point wherewinning the overall campaign didn't matter as long as they won the battle. The Hegemony had found it hard to focus male energieson long-term projects. Males justcharged at their targets, without bothering to wonder if a flanking offensivemight have worked better than hitting the enemy at their strongest point. But if the humans had succeeded in directingmale energies into research and development, it might have explained their suddendevelopment of new and dangerous weapons.



Blasphemy! It was hard to grasp the concept withoutfeeling the revulsion that would be felt by any right-thinking being, but herautomatic faith in the Hegemony’s superiority had been destroyed by the defeatat Terra Nova. What if...the humans were naturally superior to theHegemony? Mere possession of advanced technologydidn’t grant superiority – the Cats had been weak, decaying from within longbefore they’d encountered the First Empress – but the traits that did grant superiority existed withinhumanity. Determination, ruthlessnessand a clear thrust towards domination...



She could never share the insight with anyone else. They wouldn't believe her, even if the Battleof Hammerfall turned into a disaster. Orthey would believe her and societywould crumble. What was the Hegemony ifit wasn't superior, destined to replace the Cats as the master race of thegalaxy?



The humans might not have known it, she thought, but they’dstarted a process that could easily tear the Hegemony apart.

***​

Task Force 1.4 slipped out of quantum space and advancedon Hammerfall. On the bridge of Lightning Lass, Captain Ivan Ankundinovwatched as his squadron started to spread out, while their escorts headedtowards Admiral Sampson’s fleet. None ofthe modified freighters were designed to enter the line of battle, even thoughthey were armed to the teeth. As long asthe Funks stayed in orbit around their planet, Ivan had little compunctionabout drawing closer to their targets than their orders specified. The closer they were when they sprang theirsurprise, the better.



“Admiral Sampson has authorised us to proceed,” hiscommunications officer reported. “Thegunboats are advancing to cover us.”



Ivan grunted. TheHegemony starships might have been cowering near the fortresses, but their assaultshuttles had other ideas. ONI hadn't beenable to provide even a rough estimate of how many assault shuttles had beenstockpiled on Hammerfall, or how quickly the Funks could press them intoservice; looking at the displays, Ivan counted over two hundred closing in onhis ships. Freighters were simply toolumbering to be warships, even if their hulls were crammed with weapons anddefences. The assault shuttles wouldtear them apart if they ever got into range.



The gunboats lanced into the advancing force and startedto rip it apart. It was clear that Funkmales rather than females were flying the ships, for they allowed themselves tobe lured into dogfights rather than charging towards the freighters and forcingthe gunboats to pick them all off one by one. Fighter jocks had been hotshots even while they’d been flying the firstaircraft humanity had produced; gunboats might not have precisely been starfightersfrom Star Wars, but they were close enoughto allow their pilots to show off. Onlya handful of shuttles managed to make attack runs on the freighters and theywere picked off by point defence. Thesensor readings suggested that the assault shuttles were not as manoeuvrable asthe gunboats, as if they’d been weighed down by their new weapons mix. Ivan’s worst nightmare – that the shuttleshad been crammed with antimatter – failed to materialise. He wondered, absently, how long it would takethe Funks to think of it. It wascertainly well within their capabilities to produce vast amounts of antimatteron demand.



“We are entering optimal firing range,” the weaponsofficer reported. He was Chinese, barelyold enough to remember the days when Russia and China had hated and feared oneanother, even though they had both been forced to work together against Americaand her allies. If someone had toldIvan, before First Contact, that he’d have a Chinese officer on his bridge, hewould have laughed at them. “I requestpermission to proceed.”



“Granted,” Ivan said, as the helmsman brought the ship toa halt, relative to the planet. Theywere outside weapons range from Hammerfall, thankfully, but it wouldn't be longbefore the Funks realised what they were doing. And then they’d send in more gunboats or even capital ships. “Begin rolling pods.”



Bulk freighters had been designed by the Cats as littlemore than massive holds, with drives, the bridge and crew quarters added assomething of an afterthought. Unlikesome of the freighters Mentor had brought with him to Earth, they wereincapable of landing on a planetary surface, requiring an orbital station and asmall fleet of shuttles to unload their cargo. Lightning Lass had had hercargo space crammed with missile pods, a concept that the Galactics hadabandoned as unworkable. Point defencecould take out torpedoes unless they were fired in vast quantities or at veryclose range; what did they have to fear from missiles that were launched so farout that there was plenty of time to track and destroy the missiles before theyentered attack range?



Each of the missile pods carried ten missiles, each oneseveral times the size of a standard Galactic torpedo. Ivan had watched as the concept was testedseveral light years from Earth and he’d noted that the missiles were actuallyeasier to detect than torpedoes. TheFunks, once they’d realised what was happening, would have good reason to beoverconfident, at least until the second surprise was unveiled. Their ships didn't have to fear missiles solarge that tracking them was easy. Theonly danger they’d see lay in the sheer volume of missiles that were about tobe launched at them.



It had been an open question if the Funks would realisewhat was happening before the missile pods were fully deployed. They showed no response, not even directingan additional flight of shuttles to attempt to take out the pods. But then they had good reason to feelunthreatened. Galactic torpedo drivesprovided an immense burst of speed, yet they didn't last long before burningout, limiting their range. Targetsflying a ballistic trajectory would be even easier to track than oversizedmissiles.



“All pods deployed,” the weapons officer reported.



“Bart Simpson reportsthat a couple of pods got snarled in the chutes,” the communications officerreported. “They’ve isolated the podsfrom the command network; the remainder are ready to fire at your command.”



They’d rehearsed the whole operation time and time again,but there had always been problems in deploying so many pods so quickly. The engineers claimed that the problems wouldeventually be ironed out, yet it would come too late to help his crewmen. They’d just have to hope that the absence oftwo missile pods out of hundreds wouldn't be decisive.



“Fire,” he ordered.

***​

It had taken several minutes for the battered sensornetwork to confirm that the humans were deploying missile pods. Lady Dalsha had watched without being quitecertain of what the humans were doing, although she was sure that there was anasty surprise waiting for the defenders. The human tactics made no sense when considered conventionally, whichsuggested that there was an unconventional tactic about to be deployed.



The missile launch had been detected at once, the sensorsreporting over ten thousand missilesbeing deployed from the pods. Each ofthe missiles was an obvious sensor target, to the point where she wondered ifthe humans had deliberately made them rather more detectable than they shouldhave been. Unless they’d made a colossalimprovement in drive technology, and they’d seen nothing to suggest it, themissiles would burn out long before they reached their targets. The whole tactic made no sense.



At least a new commanding officer had finally been ableto assert her authority. Her ordersechoed through the remains of the command network, organising the fortressesand starships to prepare to destroy the enemy missiles once they went ballisticand raced through their formation. Itwas possible that the humans were trying to bombard the planet – it wasn’t asif there was a population that could be exterminated – but it would have been apointless exercise in mass destruction. Even the Empress wouldn't engage in mass destruction for the sheer hellof it.



As predicted, the human missiles started to flare out,their drives dying into nothingness. There were no longer any active missile drives to track, but they couldn'tchange course – and their trajectories would be easily predicable. They’d be wiped out long before they reached attackrange, even if they were crammed full of antimatter...



And then new icons flickered into life on the display.



No!

 

<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">Chapter Twenty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com


Tobias watched the missiles deploy with heavysatisfaction. He’d had his doubts aboutthe whole concept – rumour had it that the design team had borrowed it from ascience-fiction book written in the days before humanity had discovered realaliens – and it had been impossible to test it under anything like realisticconditions, but they appeared to be performing perfectly. Each of the oversized missiles had beencarrying no less than five standard missiles, ready to be fired directly at theenemy. The Funks would see fifty thousand missiles bearing down ontheir positions, almost all of them targeted on the starships. A handful had been detailed to attack theindustrial nodes and shipyards in orbit around Hammerfall, although Tobias knewthat destroying them was very much a secondary objective. The starships were the main target.



But antimatter missiles weren't the only things that hadbeen fired towards the enemy. Some ofthem had had their warheads removed and replaced with ECM nodes that disruptedthe enemy’s best efforts to lock onto the missiles. They’d know that most of the missilescoming towards them were nothing more than sensor ghosts, but it would beincredibly difficult for them to isolate the real missiles from theillusions. Their defences would have totry and engage all of their sensorreturns, both illusions and real missiles. Even the most advanced datanet in the galaxy would be swamped.



The Funks opened fire desperately as the missiles closedinto attack range and went to full power, zeroing in on their targets. It looked as if someone had ordered the assaultshuttles to try to intercept the missiles, but they didn't have the time to getinto position before the missiles blew past them. Their only real hope was to pick off enoughof the ECM missiles so the illusionary missiles would just vanish, yet evenlocating them would be difficult. Thedesigners had spent years building in enough countermeasures to make it almostimpossible to isolate the real missiles. A tachyon net might be able to separate out the real missiles from theillusions, but the tachyon net had been shattered by the antimatter blast. They’d never be able to get another oneonline in time to save themselves.



Hundreds of missiles vanished as the Funks picked themoff, but thousands survived to strike home. There hadn't been enough space onboard the missiles to stock them withsignificant amounts of compressed antimatter, yet the warheads carried enoughto unsettle even a superdreadnaught – and the superdreadnaughts were the primetargets. Even when the Funks hit thecommand and control missiles, the remainder – suddenly finding themselves ontheir own – homed in on the closest available enemy target. The designers had warned that it was possiblethat some of the missiles would fling themselves on other missiles, but ithardly mattered. Task Force 1.4 hadfired enough missiles to swamp the defenders, even if a number were destroyedby their fellows.



No starship in the universe could survive hundreds ofmissiles striking home in quick succession. Four superdreadnaughts lost their shields, wallowed out of formation andwere destroyed in quick succession. Thefifth was only saved by a battlecruiser that physically imposed itself betweenthe superdreadnaught and certain destruction, vanishing in a blast of superhotplasma. Dozens of other ships died asmissile after missile slammed home, tearing the formation apart. The sole superdreadnaught survivor was accompaniedby nothing heavier than a light cruiser. All of the battlecruisers and heavy cruisers had been wiped from existence.



Other missiles, deprived of their original targets,slammed against the fortresses. Theywere tougher targets, but even they weren't designed to take such ahammering. One fortress was destroyed outright,another nudged towards the planetary gravity well...and several more were badlydamaged, if still trying to fight. They’dbeen so intent on saving the fleet that the missiles aimed at the shipyardsmanaged to home in and destroy their targets. One way or another, it would be years before the Funks managed torebuild the installations the missiles had destroyed. Hammerfall had only had one purpose – a purposeit could no longer carry out.



“Shame we can't do that again,” he commented. One secret that had been very closely heldwas just how many multi-missile missiles the human race had produced. He’d fired around 90% of the human racesentire stockpile at Hammerfall and it would be months before the freighters couldbe reloaded. But the Hegemony wouldn't knowthat. They’d be forced to deployhundreds of remote platforms to defend their starships and orbital fortresses,cursing the day they’d accepted the Cats military doctrine withoutquestion. It was true that hiding in aplanet’s gravity well, supported by one’s fortresses, would force the enemy tocome into range – until the human race had changed the rules. “Task Force 1.4 is to return to quantum spaceand inform Task Force 1.5 to deploy into the system when ready.”



He smiled as he settled back in his command chair. If the Funks had been shocked by the Battleof Terra Nova, they’d be terrified when they heard about the Battle ofHammerfall. It had been the mostone-sided victory in galactic history, superseding the Battle of TerraNova. Who knew? Maybe they would back down and offer humanityacceptable peace terms if they believed that they were totally outmatched. And if humanity no longer looked weak, theother Galactics might come out in support. A Tarn offensive would destabilise the Hegemony still further.



It was tempting to consider entering engagement range andtaking out the remaining starships, but that would bring them into range of thefortresses. Besides, there was littleneed to risk his ships. Task Force 1.5 hadits own surprise for the Funks. Theywere about to get another lesson in what human ingenuity could do when mixedwith Galactic technology.



“Broadcast a demand for surrender,” he ordered. It would be a bluff, but the Hegemony mightnot know that. “And then order TaskForce 1.5 to move to attack position.”

***​

The fleet had been crippled.



No, Lady Dalsha told herself firmly; it had beendestroyed. The sole survivingsuperdreadnaught was badly damaged, to the point where it would be cheaper tobuild a new superdreadnaught than carry out repairs. Most of the other starships had been badlydamaged, with destroyers and frigates being the only undamaged ships. The human missile cloud – she could think ofno other term – had devastated a fleet that had considered itself safe. It was only through the surprisingly limited destruction that she realisedthat most of the missiles had been illusionary. If there really had been fiftythousand missiles, the defenders would have been completely obliterated.



The command network, already badly damaged, had beendestroyed. Most of the officers who hadclaimed supreme command were dead. Someof the datanets were being re-established – the Cats had designed them to beresilient – but there was so much confusion that it was difficult to say howmany senior officers remained alive and in control. The entire defence force had been badlyshocked. They’d never run into anyonewho could give the Hegemony such a bloody nose, ever. Even the Cats, if they’d worked up the nerveto intervene, would have found it costly.



“Send a general signal to the entire fleet,” sheordered. “I am assuming command.”



It was a sign of how badly shocked they were that no onetried to argue, or to point out that a failure and an outcast had no place incommand of an entire defence force. Outcasts couldn't be trusted, even if they did sometimes serve a valuable role in society. Females thought to the long term, but anoutcast had no long term. Maybe someone would brush her scales withpoison or slice her throat with the traditional knife, yet she found it hard tocare. The important issue now was savingwhat she could.



The sensor network had been badly crippled, but it stillmanaged to detect a new force of human freighters manoeuvring themselves intoposition around the planet’s gravity well. They would have seemed laughable if another squadron of human freightershadn’t just crushed an entire fleet. Now...what did they intend tounleash upon Hammerfall? Some of hersubordinates were suggesting retreat, that the remaining starships shouldattempt to escape, leaving the rest of the planet’s defences to theirfate. The energy storms that pervadedthis part of quantum space might have seemed a safer alternative to facing thenext human surprise.



Ignoring them, she ran through some calculations in herhead. The humans had launched tenthousand of their missile-carrier missiles at Hammerfall. That much was fairly certain. Assuming that their pods were no bigger thanthe ones the Cats had experimented with, they could only stuff no more thanfifteen missiles into each pod, probably fewer. And that meant...she wasn't sure, but quantifying the threat seemed tocalm her mind. The human tactic had beendevastating, yet it hadn't been devastating enough. If they had had more freighters stuffed withmissile pods, they would have deployed them. And that suggested that they didn'thave any more missile pods in their fleet.



Unless they thoughtthat the first attack would be enough to destroy us, she thought. Theymight have held some pods in reserve.



She would never have been so unsure of herself beforeTerra Nova, but now she found herself questioning everything. The Hegemony had studied Galactic doctrine,yet it had never seriously questioned thetactical knowledge it had learned from the Cats. But it had all seemed to work perfectly, thebest tactics to use in every possible scenario worked out centuries before her peoplehad known that the lights in the night sky were other suns. And yet when the rules changed, so did therule book. They’d never considered thepossibility of someone developing new technology before it had been far toolate.



Because we wouldlose if someone did develop new surprises, she admitted, to herself. We toldourselves that it was unthinkable. Wewanted to believe it.



“The human freighters are holding position,” the sensor officerreported. “It is difficult to generate asensor focus on their ships. They may bedeploying missile pods.”



Unsurprising,she thought. It needed an intact sensornetwork to generate a sensor focus and the defence force’s sensors had beenshot to pieces. But missile pods wouldhave shown up, wouldn't they? Unless thehumans had some new surprise.



“Watch and wait,” she ordered. There was too much to do, starting withsorting out the command network and reforming battlegroups. “And pass a signal to the destroyers. If the humans start flushing missile pods atus, they are to advance and engage the missile-carriers before they can deploytheir parasite missiles.”



It was a sound tactic, she told herself firmly. She just hoped that it would be enough todeal with whatever else the humans had waiting for her.

***​

“We’re ready,” the military officer said. Captain Verity Lambert snorted inwardly athis spit and polish attitude. She mighthave been part of the Federation Naval Reserve – a formality that had allowedher to apply for a loan to purchase a starship – but she’d never consideredherself part of the military. Eventhough she detested the Funks with as much feeling as the rest of the humanrace, she didn't want to be anywhere near armed starships. TradeHard was unarmed, save for a pair of popguns that might – might – discourage pirates. “You may start deploying the dupes.”



“Of course,” Verity agreed, sweetly. She was in command of her ship and God helpanyone who tried to take her ship from her. It gave her a life less ordinary, even if it was several hundred yearsold and originally designed for a race of aliens that were smaller than theaverage teenager. “Mr. Thompson, begindeploying the dupes.”



The Cats had been in space for so long that they’dforgotten some of the technology they’d originally developed to challenge thehigh frontier, while the Funks had never had to go through the long process ofdeveloping steam, oil, nuclear and eventually antimatter power, let alone buildrockets and focused drive fields. They’dbeen given their Galactic technology, just like the human race, but they’d beenfar less well equipped to start understanding the technology, let aloneconsidering whole new applications that even the Cats hadn’t considered. Or so the briefers had confidentlyclaimed. Verity would have been happierif the briefers had accompanied the ramshackle squadron on its mission, preferablefixed to the hull with duct tape. Theymight just provide enough armour to save the ship for another fewnanoseconds.



Human researchers had been working on rail guns longbefore Mentor had arrived at Earth and instantly made much of their research outdated,but they hadn’t given up. Human technologymight not be able to produce starships, yet it could produce items that were so heavily stealthed that theGalactics would have had trouble detecting them, and rail guns that couldimpart enough velocity to direct them towards Hammerfall. With enough care, the mines would enterstable orbits around the planet until they hit something. And each of them carried enough antimatter toseriously disconcert a starship. It had certainlydiscomfited her when she’d heard what they were going to be carrying on hership. Mines were cheap, easy to produce,and extremely difficult to detect except at very close range.



“Launch sequence underway, Captain,” Thompsonreported. They might have been long-termlovers – people on small ships either got close or started hating each other – buton the bridge he was already professional. “We should have them all out within twenty minutes.”



“Twenty minutes too late,” Verity said. If the Funks rushed the freighters, they werelikely to wipe them out before the Navy could cover their escape. “Speed the process up if you can.”

***​

“They’re just waiting, doing nothing,” the sensor officerreported. “I cannot understand it.”



Lady Dalsha nodded, slowly. No one, not even the humans, would simplyposition freighters above the gravity well and wait. It was possible that they hoped to lure theremainder of the fleet away from the forts, but if that was the case she had nointention of taking the bait. Her fleetwas still too badly damaged to risk a fight with other starships, even if they’dbeen technological equals. Some of herships couldn't even generate shields. Thehumans would cut them apart with ease.



The human freighters started to slip back, heading forthe quantum gate. It was proof that theyhadn't built a quantum drive into their hulls, which at least suggested thatthe humans would have logistics problems in deploying further forward fromtheir bases. But there was still no explanationof their actions. Why had they justwaited? What had they done? Hours passed slowly and there was still noanswer.



It was possible, she knew, to produce a phase cannon thatfired invisible bursts of energy, but they’d still be detectable by activesensors. Maybe the humans had beentrying to lure them out, or...



“I have something,” the sensor officer snapped. “It just appeared...”

***​

“Active-1 has been triggered,” Sooraya reported. “They’ll see her for sure now.”



Tobias nodded. Ahandful of the mines had been directed right at the fortresses, instead of beingpushed into relatively stable orbits around the planet. Active-1 had even carried a beacon that wouldallow the Funks to get a good look at it, just before the antimattercontainment field collapsed and the mine vaporised. The Funks would now know that countlessstealth mines were floating in high orbit around Hammerfall, mines that wouldrender the entire planet virtually useless until they were swept andremoved. And yet...they’d never be ableto be sure that they’d destroyed themall. It was quite possible that anystarship that tried to leave the ship would hit a mine and be crippled. Hammerfall had effectively been neutralised.



And how long would it be, he asked himself silently,before the Funks found themselves forced to sweep every star system, just to be sure that there were no mines waitingfor unwary ships? Mining quantum spacewas technically illegal – it would certainly interfere with free navigation –but there was no law against mining normal space. But then, the logistics of mining open spacewere daunting. The only way to make itwork was to mine orbital space above a planet.



“Send a signal to the fleet,” he ordered. “We’ve done what we came here to do. It’s time to leave.”



A handful of ships had been dispatched to obliterate theFunk mining and industrial complexes outside Hammerfall itself. Destroying a cloudscoop would not winGalactic approval, but the Marines had rigged the scoop to blow unless thecorrect codes were entered, denying it to the Funks. They’d been careful to advertise what they’ddone, ensuring that the Funks wouldn't be able to blame the scoop’s destructionon Earth...



“All ships have reported in, Admiral,” Soorayaconfirmed. “They’re ready to depart.”



Tobias smiled. Hammerfall had been crippled, effectively put out of action for years,and all it had cost him was a handful of gunboats and thousands ofmissiles. They wouldn't be able to do itagain in a hurry, at least not until missile stockpiles had been replenished,but the Funks wouldn't know that. Thedisinformation they’d receive from Earth would suggest that there were millionsof missiles, just waiting to be deployed. Maybe they wouldn't believe it, but would they be able to take thechance that humanity was bluffing?



“Take us out of here,” he ordered. There was no point in pressing against theenemy starships, even though they would continue to pose a threat. Without shipyards and industrial nodes, theirability to pose a long-term threat would be limited. “It’s time to take our leave.”