One of Zargoth’s largest cities was back up and running. Other cities were posting guards at all critical failure points and a few saboteurs had been apprehended.
Kris had used her influence to get her military interrogators dirtside fast to have a talk with these Iteeche before the local constabulary began their kinetic counseling. Given a choice to talking versus screaming, several had become quite good conversationalists.
A few claimed to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some stories checked out and the humans managed to cut most of them loose with a detective tail to see where they went.
Some of the talkers turned out to be liars. When upon verification, their information was shown to smell of untruth, they were turned over to the Iteeche police. That didn’t work out very well for them.
The humans began to fill a media archive of those who talked, those who lied, and those who didn’t talk. They began showing these videos to Iteeche waiting to be interrogated.
It was a great warm-up gig.
Once they had seen these videos of Iteeche being interrogated, then being fed by humans, or tortured by big Iteeche cops, the number of Iteeche talking grew exponentially.
Marines, both Iteeche and human, got to bash down a pleasing number of doors in a manner that was not pleasant, for either the doors or those behind them.
That sweep increased the number of Iteeche to talk with, which lead to more visits, and the conversations soon began to involve a better quality of Iteeche as the take went up the clan hierarchy.
By noon the next day, several hundred senior clan officials were making full and complete apologies to the Emperor, with snakes involved. They were doing it on live media for all to see.
There were no further failures of city infrastructure.
Kris ended up shaking her head. “They could have just applied to their clans for transfer off planet. Why did they have to take us on?”
Jack shrugged. “I guess they thought they could. Remember, Kris, the Iteeche are of two minds where we’re concerned. They half-hate us, and half-fear us. Half want to believe that they won that war, yet some feel like they lost it. Some of them think we humans are three feet tall, and others think we’re ten.”
“And all of those feelings are bouncing around in the exact same skull,” Kris said, ruefully.
“Yep. But are we humans any different?”
Kris remembered the Iteeche War vets she’d known over the years. Grampas Ray and Trouble had definite respect for their former enemies. However, among the average vet, they felt like they had both beat the Iteeche and almost been annihilated by them. They were sure the Iteeche were ten feet tall . . . and stupid.
That was a very strange combination on both sides.
Kris’s problem was not how the Iteeche and humans felt about each other. No. She needed to make a radical change in the way this war was being fought.
Before she was given command of the Iteeche Combined Fleets, the rebels were well on their way to winning. Indeed, if she hadn’t succeeded in winning the Battle of the Imperial Guard System, it would have ended with the young Emperor dead and the Imperial Capital planet gassed, leaving it empty for the winners to come in and give away to their followers.
Kris didn’t much care for the way the Iteeche played this game of power. However, it was her job to see that the rebels lost, and the loyal side won. Maybe she couldn’t prevent a bloodbath, but what she had just observed through Megan’s experience in Sunset City was that just because you won, didn’t mean the opposition was willing to give it up.
She needed to talk to the Iteeche she trusted. Tonight, she’d laid on a supper for her and Jack with Ron and Admiral Coth. It was time to decide on her next move. Those two were the only Iteeche she really trusted.
Dinner began with a soup. For Kris and Jack, it was a seafood chowder. For Ron and Coth, the soup was waterier. Of course, they had little fish and crab-like things swimming around in the bowl. Instead of a spoon, they used thin silver spears.
“So, Ron, do you think we have fully pacified Zargoth?” Kris asked as she filled her spoon.
He raised a small wiggling fish, bit its head off, chewed it slowly, then added the rest of the fish and chewed some more while he thought. That gave Kris time to enjoy her first taste of chowder.
“This is a very different situation from any that our history books tell us,” the Imperial counselor said. “The planet is not half in ruins. A quarter of the population is not dead or wounded, homeless or starving. In your own strange way, you have left a lot of people alive and going about their business as if nothing had happened. There is nothing in our books that would allow me to counsel the Emperor or you on what to expect next.”
“I have driven you entirely off the map,” Kris observed.
“I was just as unsure of my surroundings when you had me on your ship on the other side of the galaxy,” the big Iteeche counselor agreed.
That drew smiles from the humans and a bark of laughter from the Iteeche admiral.
“So, is my admiral often in strange waters?” Coth said.
“Often, and I suspect that she has called us here to talk about going even deeper into uncharted water. No?” Ron said, eyeing Kris.
“I admit that I am looking for a way to strike a blow for the young Emperor that might bring the bloodshed of this war to a halt sooner rather than later.”
“How so, my Admiral?” Coth asked, holding a small squirming crab on a skewer just short of his beak.
“The situation below on this planet bothers me,” Kris admitted. “I have proven that I can beat an enemy fleet, even if the odds are four to one. However, what does it mean if I cannot convert my victory in space into possession of the factories in orbit and on the ground? Especially, shall we say, if I am to seize a major production hub with many mines and smelters scattered among an asteroid belt.”
“In our history,” Jack said, “we have often called this winning the hearts and minds of the people.”
“The people are like these wack,” Ron said, holding up a tiny speared fish. “They go where their clan chiefs tell them to go.”
“Was that how it went yesterday, at Sunset City? Where were the clan chiefs when Megan was using the trained technicians to make the roads roll?”
“Are you saying that we should respect the workers and their supervisors?”
“Yes,” Kris said.
“The clans will never go for that.”
“And if the clans find that they are not needed anymore?” Kris asked.
Ron put down his silver spear. “If the clans think that you would send them into the deep black chasm, they would do everything they could to put you down there first.”
Kris really wished Ron had not adopted the recent Iteeche court style of a high collar. She very much would like to know what Ron’s vestigial gills were showing. Was this a thoughtful discussion, or was he seeing death ahead for someone?
“Thank you for that advice,” Kris said. “I will keep those words close to my heart.”
“I hope so,” Ron said, picking up his spear and stabbing viciously at a crab. He crunched down hard on it.
Kris decided on a different tack.
“Good Admiral,” she said, “is it known among the common admirals and ship commanders, both here and among the rebels that we humans have ways of making long jumps? That we can appear where no jump exists?”
“Yes, my Admiral, that is known to most every Iteeche who commands a warship, and many clan lords that command them. It is very frustrating that we cannot discover the secret of this way of vanishing and reappearing. I know that my ship followed one of your ships into a vacant bit of space, and before I knew it I was hundreds of light years from where I started. I neither saw the jump as I went into it, nor did I see it after it spit me out. How do you do that?”
“Regretfully, I cannot tell you that,” Kris said. “However, if our battle fleet were to appear deep in rebel territory, it is likely the rebels woul
d be surprised, but not shocked.”
“Yes, the local commander would not like the surprise of your arrival. No doubt, he would curse his luck and fate, but still, he would prepare to fight you.”
Kris mulled that over for a short time as she finished up her chowder.
The second course was a white fish. For the Iteeche, it was fresh from being filleted. For the humans, it was baked and served in a Béarnaise sauce.
Both took a moment to sample their fish and praise the cook. The third class petty officer serving the course said she’d be sure to pass their words along.
After a few bites, Kris was ready to return to her planning session.
“Good Admiral, have you gathered the information I asked for?”
“I have. Your Nelly now has it,” he said, stripping flesh from the raw fish’s backbone and swallowing it down. “Your cook has done something special to this fish,” he said.
“We call it marinade. It lets a delicate flavor seep into meat or almost anything,” Jack said.
“Nelly, what can you show us?” Kris asked.
“Here are the ten most powerful and productive planets in the rebellion,” Nelly said, and a star map appeared above their heads. Most of the stars were just white ghosts. Ten stars, however, were large and flashing red.
“Where are we?” Kris asked.
A gold star appeared.
“So tell me, Nelly, if we used the fastest combinations of jumps, any jump available, how many jumps would it take to get to each of those planets from here?”
Numbers of four and five appeared in white beside the stars. One had a six.
“Tell me, how many of those stars we’d be passing through have Iteeche colonies that might notice a fleet of three thousand ships zipping through at high speeds and acceleration?”
Ones or twos appeared in red beside the blinking white stars. The one exception was the one that took six jumps. It was the one farthest away, and deepest in enemy territory.
“Hmm,” Kris said. “Thank you, Nelly. Tell me, Admiral Coth, how is our training program going?”
“Hold it, Kris,” Ron interjected, “what do you intend to do with this?”
“As of right now, nothing. I certainly can’t do anything if my fleet isn’t battle ready, now can I, Admiral Coth?”
“I don’t know what you would do, from any moment to the next, My Admiral,” the Iteeche officer said, then barked a laugh. “No one does, eh, Jack?”
“I never do,” Jack admitted.
Ron did not look like a happy Iteeche. “Do you intend to go off and lead this fleet out to battle without telling us a single word? I know our fleet is known to leak, both the loyalist and the rebel side, but Kris, don’t you trust us at the table?”
“I trust everyone at this table,” Kris said, then glanced down at her plate, “except for the fish. I assure you, Ron, I will play my cards very close to my chest this next move, but this fleet will not sail without you and my Good Admiral knowing where we are bound for.”
Ron seemed only half mollified. “I should hope that I would be in your counsel when you are deciding the future of this fleet.”
“I would expect so, as well, Ron. I may fear that this Navy leaks to the rebels like a waterfall, but I trust those of us at this table. I will need the help of everyone at this table to pull off our next strike.”
Kris paused for a moment. “I’m assuming that we all agree that we do not need to keep the fleet in orbit around this planet. Am I right?”
Kris was surprised that she did not get a quick reaction from her two Iteeche.
“So I am not, huh?”
Ron and Admiral Coth exchanged looks. For once, the Imperial counselor waited for the admiral to move into the void.
“That is not as easy a call as it might appear to you, my human admiral,” Coth finally said.
“How so?”
“This is the planetary system that the rebels used to launch their strike at the Imperial Capital planet. It is only two jumps from the honored presence of His Most Worshipful One. Many would think that it was foolish that we did not take this system before. Now that it has been used, many more would think we must guard it.”
Kris frowned. “Battlecruisers are meant to be a mobile striking force. Not a bunch of chained guard dogs.”
“I can see your point, but we still have many battleship admirals. For thousands of years, we have viewed our fleets under your theory of a fleet in being. So long as the fleet remains in being, it is a threat everywhere. If it is thrown away in battle, it is no longer in existence. In being, if you will, but a destroyed fleet can no longer threaten.”
“Has the Iteeche fleet become a carved stone lion growling on the doorstep of some library?”
“That does not translate very well for us, but I think I understand your meaning. How do you think that you humans engaged an Empire as large as us and did so much damage in the early days of the war? Most satraps held on tight to their fleets. Your first fight was between only your united people and a fraction of us. Even once we realized that we needed to hurl more of our fleet at you, so many held back, afraid that to lose ships to you would weaken them in the eyes of their neighbors.”
Admiral Coth shoved his plate away from him.
“Even now, there are hundreds, no thousands, of ships detached in dribs and drabs protecting this and that planet. Why do you think so huge an Empire as ours can only muster three thousand ships for your fleet? Maybe there will be five hundred more before we sail, but still.”
“It would seem to me,” Jack said, evenly, “that this is as much an opportunity as a problem. We have a saying, he who tries to be strong everywhere is strong nowhere. If your forces are deployed in dribs and drabs, then you risk defeat in detail from whomever can muster a mobile strike force.”
“And you have seen the rebels muster just such a strike force,” Coth said, “and you defeated it in the Imperial Guard System. However, getting that strike force together was a major success on their part. There is a reason why you had to fight outnumbered four to one. We could not gather as many ships as they.”
“But, let’s assume for a moment,” Kris said, letting her words roll slowly off her tongue. “What if we were to take this battle fleet and a million-soldier landing party and race around through jumps to surprise that most distant system? How many ships would the rebels have guarding that system?”
“Likely fewer than our three thousand,” Coth answered.
“So, we could sweep in, destroy, or better yet, capture their fleet. Once we controlled the space, it would be easy to capture their planet, maybe using similar methods to how we captured this planet. Finally, we land the landing party and occupy the system.”
“And then you die deep in hostile territory,” Ron spat. “It would be suicide.”
“I think not,” Kris said. “Not if we do it just right.”
“How so?” Coth asked.
“A long time ago on old earth,” Kris said, “there was a general. Sherman or something like that. He captured a city, a major supply center. He could have kept his army in supply there for however long he chose. Instead he burned the city.”
“Why do that?” Coth asked.
“Because he wanted to march a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty miles to the sea, burning everything as he went. He was kind of like one of your commanders invading and taking over a planet. He intended to feed his army off the land and destroy everything he passed through.”
“That sounds like a good way to wage war,” Ron said, wise Imperial counselor that he was.
“Actually, everyone told him he was crazy. You see, this was in the age of horse-drawn wagons. He could carry only enough food for a few days. It would take him ten or fifteen days to reach a port and reconnect with his supply line.”
“That is risky?” Coth said.
“Yes. You have to understand, not fifty years before, another general had tried just that move, and ended up having to retreat. Retreat t
hrough the same land he’d pillaged on the way in.”
“Could he not travel alongside his former path?” Ron asked.
“Yes, I suspect he thought he could when he started, but his enemy burned everything around his marching line. They left a scorched and denuded land, and his army starved.”
“And everyone expected this general’s army to starve as well,” Coth said, drawing the right conclusion.
“Precisely,” Kris said. “Everyone assumed the enemy would burn their crops, destroy their farms, actually, large plantations held by those of wealth and political power. Everyone assumed he was dooming himself.”
“But he didn’t?” Ron asked.
“No, he didn’t. It seemed he knew the wealthy plantation owners better than his naysayers. He fully expected that they would not burn their crops and homes. Rather, they would hope that their plantation would be missed, or be off the march of his army. Instead of burning their homes for the common good, they held their breath, hoping their own property might be saved from the ravages of war by pure luck.”
“And how do you think you could apply this to our distant target?” Ron asked.
“Let’s say that I can defeat the fleet there. Maybe even persuade them that it is better to surrender than to fight. Okay, now let’s say that I capture the planet without burning it down. Okay?”
“I do not see where you are going next.” Ron said.
“Let’s say that I take along junior clan leaders from the clans that are already present on our target, junior clan leaders from the same clans, but from the loyalist side.”
“Yes.” Ron said.
“Then let's say, for conversation’s sake, that I rig much of the production facilities and wealth of this planet with high explosives. That I leave a clear order that if anyone tries to retake the planet, they are to blow up everything of any worth. Reduce this productive and wealthy jewel in the clans’ crowns to nothing. Smoking wreckage.”
Kris paused to let that sink in, then eyed Ron. “Would you order an attack on that planetary system?”
“If it was in the hands of my clan brother?”
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