Their Last Full Measure

by Christopher Nuttall

  The secret is blown, she thought. And ...

  “Admiral, the remaining fortresses are signalling surrender,” Yolanda said. “They’re ...”

  Hoshiko felt a surge of anger. She was tempted, very tempted, to just keep firing until every last enemy fortress was dead. They’d put a major crimp in her plans, even if they hadn’t known it at the time. But ... she knew she couldn’t afford to waste missiles killing the fortresses if it could be avoided. Her supply lines were so weak, they were practically non-existent.

  You knew things would go wrong, she reminded herself. And you expected to lose the advantage of surprise a great deal earlier.

  She turned to Yolanda. “Order them to stand down,” she said. “General Romford and his men can secure the fortresses, then transfer the survivors to the nearest planet. The remainder of the fleet is to secure the gravity point itself.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “What about the rest of the system?”

  “Broadcast a demand for surrender,” Hoshiko ordered. She doubted the Tokomak would surrender in a hurry, at least until she threatened the planets themselves, but it didn’t matter. She’d settled for holding the gravity points and leaving the rest of the system to take care of itself. “And then inform them they’ll be getting the prisoners.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  It wouldn’t be a problem, Hoshiko was sure. The planetary governments would have no trouble taking care of a few thousand additional mouths. They’d be surprised the prisoners hadn’t been transferred to a POW camp, but she didn’t have time. The rest of the POWs could be dropped on the planets too. It wasn’t as if she needed them. If she won the war, they could go home; if she lost, she’d have worse problems. She doubted the Tokomak would bargain for the POWs as their fleets closed on Earth.

  She sat back in her chair, telling herself she’d won. The enemy had lost far more than herself ... she sighed, knowing she’d lost the advantage of surprise. The enemy knew she was coming now. Word would spread with all the speed of bad news ... very unwelcome when it arrived, but still important. The enemy would start preparing for her ...

  Now it’s a race, she thought, numbly. And one we might lose.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hameeda watched, from a distance, as assault pods slipped through yet another gravity point and unleashed their missiles on the enemy defences. The Tokomak were definitely alert now - they’d laid thousands of mines on a gravity point that had been undefended only a few short months ago and backed them up with a dozen fortresses - but it wasn’t enough to do more than slow Admiral Teller for a few short minutes. Hell, she reflected, he’d slow himself more than anyone else. The only innovation was a cluster of fortresses positioned some distance from the gravity point, just outside assault pod missile range. It would have been a more serious threat if they hadn’t been outside their own range too.

  She frowned as a cluster of enemy warships dropped out of FTL and linked up with the fortresses, daring their human enemies to either come to them - at which point they’d have to tangle with the fortresses - or risk exposing their backs when they moved to secure the planet and the other gravity points. Someone on the other side was guilty of thinking, she noted sourly. They didn’t have the firepower to recover the gravity point and they knew it, but they hadn’t let themselves be daunted either. Who knew? They might delay Admiral Teller long enough for the relief fleet to arrive.

  Her neural net provided a handful of possible scenarios, each one worse than the last. If the Tokomak had dispatched a relief fleet the moment Admiral Teller had punched his way out of N-Gann, the fleet might be bearing down on them already. If they’d only just realised the humans were on their way, it would be several more weeks before their fleet arrived ... giving Admiral Teller the chance to meet them halfway. A chill ran down her spine as an alert flashed, warning her that a cluster of starships was heading towards the gravity point. The only thing that kept her from sending an alert to Admiral Teller was the simple fact that the formation looked too old and too small to be a massive enemy fleet. It was much more likely it was a particularly unfortunate convoy.

  She sent the alert anyway, then continued to monitor the enemy positions as Admiral Teller secured the gravity point. He was taking his time, although - for once - she supposed it worked in his favour. He certainly didn’t want the enemy to recapture the gravity point, putting them in a position they could use to force him into a disadvantageous environment. It was better to make sure he held the position, even if it cost him. She watched the convoy as it inched closer, wondering if the enemy warships would try to warn it away. The poor bastards were flying straight into a war zone.

  I guess they never heard the alert, she mused, as the seconds ticked down to zero. I wonder if they’ll be able to reverse course and get out in time ...

  She blinked as the convoy dropped out of FTL, far too close to the enemy fortresses for comfort. It wasn’t a convoy. It was ... she stared in disbelief, silently counting the number of outdated warships towed by freighters and flown by ... flown by whom? The Tokomak seemed equally surprised, hastily retargeting their weapons. The ships weren’t friendly, not to them. But ... Hameeda brought up her own tactical sensors as the newcomers fired, aiming at the fortresses. Their missiles were primitive, but there were a lot of them. She launched her hammers, despite the expense. A chance to take out the enemy fortresses could not be missed.

  A message blinked up in front of her. The newcomers were begging for help ...? She forwarded the message to Admiral Teller as she watched the battle, noting how the newcomers were taking a pounding despite outnumbering the Tokomak. Their missiles and ECM were good, but they didn’t come up to Tokomak standards. They lost four ships for every one the Tokomak lost. They even resorted to ramming the fortresses and starships to even the odds. Thankfully, Admiral Teller managed to come to their aid before it was too late.

  Well, Hameeda thought. Who the hell are you?

  She watched, numbly, as Admiral Teller reorganised his fleet. One squadron raced to the next gravity point, while two more headed to the planets themselves. The radio messages suggested the planets had risen in revolt, savage fighting breaking out on and around the ring. She hoped that meant the Tokomak were going to lose control quickly, but ... they might fight to the death if they thought they couldn’t surrender. Or that they’d be executed when they went home if they did.

  They can stay with us, she told herself, as she received orders to recon the planets. They don’t have to go home.

  But she suspected, deep inside, that it wouldn’t be enough for the prisoners.

  ***

  Admiral Colin Teller knew, without false modesty, that he was no diplomat. The fleet didn’t have many diplomats and almost all of them had been left behind on N-Gann, where they were helping the provisional government become more than just provisional. There hadn’t seemed any real need to bring diplomats, not when they were on the cusp of total victory or total defeat. It had been a surprise when the Tokomak had started to surrender. And it was even more of a surprise to know there was a rebel fleet capable of putting up a pretty good fight.

  Although they would have been slaughtered, if we hadn’t come to their aid, he thought, mordantly. He’d watched the battle, then studied the analyst reports. The rebels had fought with a desperation that awed him, but they’d come far too close to being trashed. Only their willingness to use suicide tactics had saved them from a quick and completely one-sided defeat. They gambled everything on our help.

  He studied the two aliens as they were escorted into his ready room. One was a humanoid octopus, looking faintly uncomfortable in the dry human air; the other was wrapped from head to toe in a shapeless black garment that made it impossible to tell anything about his race beyond the simple fact he was humanoid too. Colin would have been more worried about just what had boarded his ship if the bioscanner hadn’t assured him that he wasn’t facing a Tokomak. Besides, the Tokomak were hardly likely
to sacrifice thousands of lives just to make a false flag operation look particularly convincing. It would have been strikingly out of character, with no real guarantee of success.

  “Lord Admiral,” the octopus said. “We thank you for liberating our star system.”

  “You’re welcome,” Colin said. The system hadn’t been liberated yet, not completely. There were still Tokomak holdouts on the ring, bombarding rebel positions as they prepared themselves for a final assault. The planet itself wouldn’t be free until they were talked into surrender or simply destroyed. “We do have to press on, however. The war won’t end until ...”

  “We quite understand,” the octopus said. “But we must ask what you intend to do after the war.”

  Colin frowned. “It depends on how the war ends,” he said. “It is our intention to fight our way to Tokomak Prime and end the war if the Tokomak refuse to discuss peace earlier. It is hard to make any promises prior to actually ending the war ...”

  “We quite understand,” the octopus said, again. “What are your intentions towards our worlds?”

  We need a diplomat up here, Colin thought. In hindsight, this development was obvious.

  He silently promised himself that he’d have a sharp discussion with the analysts afterwards. They’d known there were thousands of starships and entire communities, some of them consisting of entire races, that existed off the books. It wasn’t that unlikely that they could build up fleets of their own, even though they were no match for the Tokomak in a straight fight. They were the Rebel Alliance, matched against the Galactic Empire. It was a shame no space wizards with laser swords were coming to their aid.

  “We have no intentions towards your worlds,” Colin said. “Right now, we want - we need - to win the war. The Tokomak will take a horrible revenge if we lose. Afterwards, our sole interest will be in maintaining free navigation and trade.”

  He wondered, grimly, if that was actually true. The Tokomak were a huge problem, but their successor states might - in time - become an even worse problem. They’d be innovating, something the Tokomak had forgotten how to do; they’d be eventually fighting and feuding amongst themselves, setting off an endless series of wars that might consume Earth. He could easily see some people back home arguing that humanity should take control of galactic society, all for the greater good. It was impossible, of course. There just weren’t enough humans to even try.

  The octopus made a set of odd gestures. “And how do we know that is true?”

  We could have left you to die, Colin thought. Your deaths would have soaked up missiles that would otherwise have been aimed at us.

  He tried not to let that thought show on his face as he marshalled his thoughts. “I am not a diplomat,” he said, with the private thought that neither were they. “I have certain powers, when it comes to making arrangements with other political factions, but they are always subject to confirmation by my superiors. I could promise you everything you wanted, or nothing, yet there would be no guarantee my superiors would honour the agreement. They wouldn’t have to confirm it.

  “That said, I don’t believe we have any particular interest in your worlds. We’re a space-dwelling society. We have little interest in anything larger than a moon. We see no point in fighting over worlds we don’t want, let alone imposing our values on other civilisations. Our only real interest is the gravity points themselves, which we use for free trade.

  “That said, there is a war on, a war we have to win. It is in your best interests to help us as much as possible, knowing that you too will bear the brunt of their anger if we lose. If you can’t help us, or if you won’t help us, I suggest you head back to the shadows and stay out of the way. The Tokomak might not notice that you helped us here.”

  “A valid point,” the octopus said. “And we will do all we can to ensure your victory.”

  He paused. “However, we intend to remove the Tokomak from our worlds afterwards.”

  The words hung in the air for a long moment. Colin shuddered. Repatriating millions of Tokomak would be difficult, if not impossible. It would take years to transport entire populations back to their homeworlds, back to the colony worlds that were unquestionably theirs ... he shuddered, wondering if the resistance intended to do more than just deport the Tokomak. The hatred the Tokomak had engendered was terrifying in scope. They might be unceremoniously exterminated if - when - they lost control for good.

  He struggled to choose his words. He understood, all too well, why the aliens would want a little revenge. They’d suffered so much, over the past few thousand years. But ... the Solar Union had been built on the principle of leaving the past in the past, where it belonged. No one who migrated to space got to keep and brood on old grudges. They had to let them go so they could walk into the future. And there was no guarantee the Tokomak would be crushed beyond all hope of recovery. A series of atrocities could set off another series of atrocities ... a cycle of hatred and destruction that wouldn’t end until large swathes of the galaxy were rendered uninhabitable. There would be death and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

  “We understand,” he said, finally. “However, we do not intend to allow helpless civilians to be slaughtered ...”

  “They are not civilians,” the octopus insisted. “They are oppressors!”

  “The ones who are guilty of war crimes, personally guilty, can be tried after the war,” Colin said. “But the ones who are largely innocent should not be made to suffer, even if you do want to send them home.”

  He groaned, inwardly. “If nothing else, we don’t want to give them incentive to repay your hatred in kind,” he added. “Your worlds are still vulnerable.”

  The octopus looked displeased, although it was hard to be sure. “We will take whatever decisions we see fit,” he insisted. “We want them off our worlds.”

  “And we can move them, after the war is over,” Colin said. “Until then, we have more important things to worry about.”

  He changed the subject, discussing precisely what the alien resistance could offer. It was more than he’d expected, although - in the absence of a human fleet - it was little more than a minor headache for the Tokomak. There were aliens represented throughout the system, all holding low positions the Tokomak didn’t want for themselves. Colin had to smile at just how much trouble a lowly clerk could cause, if he wanted to reroute or misfile paperwork or even refuse it on the grounds it hadn’t been filed in triplicate. The intelligence insights alone would be worth their weight in gold, if they could be trusted. He was grimly aware the Tokomak might have broken the cells long ago, putting their own agents in place to lure the rebels into a false sense of security. But, if so, it had bitten them rather sharply.

  “We do have a fleet,” the octopus said. “But our weapons are weak.”

  “We can provide more,” Colin assured him. They’d captured quite a few Tokomak stockpiles. Their missiles could be fitted onto the older warships in a hurry. “But we need to resume the offensive.”

  They exchanged a few more pleasantries before the alien rebels were escorted back to their ships. Colin watched them go, then rubbed his forehead as soon as the hatch was firmly closed. He really wasn’t a diplomat. He thought they respected him for making that clear, and explaining the limits of his power, but it was hard to be sure. If Steve Stuart had remained at N-Gann, Colin would have called him forward. Steve Stuart had enough authority and prestige to convince the Solar Union to accept whatever deal Colin made, unless it was grossly unfavourable to the human race. Perhaps even then ... Colin shook his head. Steve Stuart and Admiral Stuart were somewhere on the other side of the inner worlds, hacking their way towards the core. He wondered, idly, if the Tokomak had realised they were coming yet.

  He frowned as he checked the latest intelligence download. His staff had discovered reports of enemy fleets mobilising, and a stream of warnings to local commanders, but little hard data. There were alerts concerning his fleet, as expected ... nothing, as far as they could te
ll, about Admiral Stuart’s fleet. The Tokomak seemed more concerned about an ever-growing series of terrorist attacks, revolts and outright rebellions spreading through their empire, yet ... it looked as if they were cutting a number of worlds loose while they concentrated on the invaders. He silently admired their perception, even though it was a major problem. If they won the war, they could recover the lost worlds at leisure; if they lost, it wouldn’t matter what happened to the rebel worlds. And yet ...

  The orders to local garrisons were blunt. They were not to cede control to the rebels, whatever happened. They were to use whatever force was required to keep the rebellions under control, even if it meant destroying entire cities and depressurising entire sections of the planetary rings. The Tokomak might not be reinforcing quickly, if at all, but it might not matter. And then ... he shuddered to think of wave after wave of slaughter spreading across the empire. Millions of people, billions or trillions of people, were going to die. The hatred the Tokomak had earned was coming back to destroy them.