He keyed his terminal, bringing up the holographic starchart. There were four more transits between his fleet and the Twins ... and, beyond the Twins, Gateway. It was unlikely the enemy would let them get any closer to Tokomak Prime before intercepting them, if only to ensure the decisive battle wasn’t fought at Tokomak Prime itself. Indeed, he wanted to be intercepted. It would give Admiral Stuart a clear shot at Tokomak Prime.
“And there are supposed to be rebels on the Twins,” he mused. He knew what the marines were meant to do, but he knew better than to count on it. “And ...”
He shook his head. The LinkShip would have to recon as far corewards as Gateway. If she could make contact with the rebels, so much the better ... he sighed. He hated being dependent on something outside his control. But it couldn’t be helped. A series of revolutions on alien worlds would help his fleet, even if it got millions of people killed.
And what will become of us, he asked himself, if we ignore the cost of our war?
It was an unpleasant thought, but ... he told himself, firmly, that it wasn’t his fault. The Tokomak had ruled the known galaxy for centuries. They’d been stagnating when humanity had been experimenting with fire and inventing the wheel. The hatred had been building up on a galactic scale long before humanity had realised it wasn’t alone in the universe. And there would have been an explosion, sooner or later, even without the war. The Tokomak had made their bed for themselves, long before he’d been born. It wasn’t his fault.
And yet he knew that he’d think otherwise, deep inside, for the rest of his days.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Perhaps I should have invested in that sexbot, Hameeda thought as she followed the fleeing freighter through the gravity point. It would have provided a very welcome distraction.
The universe dimmed, then settled back into normality. She opened her sensors as wide as she could, assessing the defences on the far side. The Tokomak didn’t seem to value the system very much, as far as she could tell. They were laying a small minefield, backed with automated weapons platforms, but little else. The handful of warships holding station near the gravity point looked ready to flee at any moment.
Which makes a certain kind of sense, Hameeda thought, as she steered away from the enemy freighter. She’d followed it through the gravity point to make certain any watching eyes would miss her transit, despite the risk. The LinkShip wouldn’t survive if she accidentally interpenetrated with the freighter. There isn’t much in the system worth fighting for.
She paused long enough to study the torrent of incoming data. The Tokomak were already pushing mines onto the gravity point itself, hoping to cripple or destroy any starships unlucky enough to interpenetrate when they made transit. They assumed, probably correctly, that the next ships to come through the gravity point would be hostile. They couldn’t stop a determined offense, led by a wave of assault pods, but they could tie up the attackers and force them to expend vast amounts of firepower breaking into the system. Or maybe Admiral Teller would just cram a freighter full of antimatter and send it in first. The blast would clear the gravity point and blind sensors for thousands of kilometres around.
The system itself was largely worthless, she decided. There were a handful of colonies on the rocky worlds, but none of them looked particularly large. One of the worlds appeared to be undergoing a very slow terraforming process, as if they’d started work and then decided to abandon the project to random chance a few years later. The others were airless wastelands, with little to recommend them. She glanced at the sensor readings, then decided not to bother investigating them more closely. The follow-up units could do that when the system fell.
She slipped into FTL and raced towards the gravity point, dropping out when she reached the edge of detection range. There were five warships holding station on the point, constantly shifting position in hopes of making it harder for any watching eyes to target them. Hameeda watched them for a moment, deciding there was no pattern to their movements. They were surrounded by a network of sensor platforms, filling space with active sensor pulses. It looked as if they were determined not to have anyone sneak up on them and shove a missile through their shields.
Smart, she thought. Admiral Teller couldn’t get a cloaked ship through that.
She felt a flicker of alarm as a sixth enemy warship materialised on the gravity point. It glided forwards and took a place amongst the defenders, allowing one of the other ships to move back and jump out of the system. Hameeda nodded in cold understanding. There would be a rota, with the defenders on the other side assuming that something had gone wrong when a starship missed its jump. Clever, she admitted. The enemy would have some warning before the human fleet attacked ... she glided forward and jumped through the gravity point, bracing herself for anything from sensor sweeps to incoming fire. But there was nothing ...
A flicker of fear ran through her as she saw how much firepower the enemy had assembled on the gravity point. Twelve fortresses, five of them attached to tugs designed to tow them away from the gravity point when the shit hit the fan, backed up by a minefield so vast she honestly thought she could walk right across it. There were only a handful of actual warships, she noted, but ... they were hardly necessary. Admiral Teller could take the system, if he was prepared to pay the price. And it would weaken him for the decisive battle.
She glided away from the point, her passive sensors picking up messages from all over the system. It was a mess. Half the asteroid settlements had declared independence, while there were reports of fighting on the planetary surface ... she wished she had time to survey the entire system to determine just how much actual truth was in the reports. But she didn’t. Instead, she set course for the next gravity point and jumped through. The defences in the third system were even bigger.
And then we’d reach the Twins, she mused, as she disconnected from the neural net. And the defences there are awesome.
She caught some sleep as the LinkShip headed to the next gravity point, then woke up in time to inspect the defences before transiting. The gravity point wasn’t as heavily defended - hundreds of freighters were coming and going at all hours - but she was still wary enough to lurk under cloak and monitor the situation for an hour before jumping through the gravity point. The defences were staggering, backed up by three squadrons of warships. She couldn’t help wondering just how many starships the Tokomak thought were coming in their direction. A million? It was a grim reminder of just how much firepower the Tokomak had built up over the years. She wondered, suddenly, if they’d always intended to fortify the gravity points, sooner or later. It might explain why they’d built so many fortresses to defend worlds that had been in no real danger.
Unless they also wanted to deter rebellions, she thought, although she wasn’t so sure. The Tokomak didn’t need million-ton fortresses to deter rebels from coming into the open. A handful of automated weapons platforms would be more than enough, if the rebels had no space-based firepower of their own. But I suppose the rebels did manage to put together a fleet.
She laughed as the truth dawned on her. The Tokomak had told the entire galaxy that they were invincible. They even believed it themselves! And they didn’t dare lose, not even once. A single defeat would be the end of their reputation for being invincible ... she had to smile, despite the seriousness of the situation. They could lose a thousand warships in an afternoon without materially affecting the balance of power, but if they lost just one ship everyone would start to wonder if they could be beaten. She felt her smile grow wider as she contemplated the thought. If losing one ship would be enough to shake them, how about all the ships they’d lost since the war began?
Her sensors continued to update as she glided away from the gravity point, drawing in information from both sides of the binary system. The Twins were huge, unbearably huge. There was enough industry in the system to keep an entire sector supplied and yet ... it was small, compared to Tokomak Prime. Seven gravity points were clearly visible, each on
e linked to a different sector of the empire. No wonder the Tokomak were so keen to keep control of the system. If they lost the Twins, they’d lose contact with a sizable percentage of the known galaxy.
And that means they’d be willing to pay any price to recover it, she thought, as she sent the signal. They dare not leave us in control for any longer than strictly necessary.
Ice trickled down her back as she waited, feeling dangerously exposed. The microburst was, in theory, impossible to detect without human-grade equipment, but she had her doubts. And besides, there was so much electronic noise in the system that it was quite possible the burst signal would be lost in the haze. It wouldn’t be the end of the universe if she didn’t make contact with the deep-cover operatives, but ... she had orders to at least try before she sneaked through to Gateway. The enemy fleet had to be fairly close by now. Admiral Teller might wind up facing a far greater threat than he’d anticipated when the time came to fight his way into the Twins.
Unless they’ve worked out what we’re doing, she mused. And they’ve decided to ignore us while they deal with the other threat.
She smiled as she picked up a response, a coded message giving her a set of coordinates. She altered course, remaining firmly under cloak as she headed to the RV point. The location was inhabited, but seemingly off the beaten track. It looked like a handful of asteroids that had been mined out, without ever being formally converted to settlements or simply melted down completely. She tensed as she circled the settlement, watching for enemy warships. There were thousands of places that were effectively off the books, if Piece had been telling the truth, but it was hard to tell if they were really secret. Someone would have known the asteroids had been mined out, wouldn’t they?
And there are limits to how far anyone could fiddle the paperwork and the records, she thought. The Tokomak were obsessive bureaucrats. There couldn’t be a single incident without it being logged and investigated, even something as insignificant as an additional screw being placed in the repair kits before they were sent out. And if they start looking for discrepancies in the files, they might just start finding them.
A lone freighter drifted near the settlement, seemingly dead. She pinged it lightly and received a reply. Her sensors swept over the ship as she drifted closer, picking out the teleport beacon. She had an odd flash of déjà vu as she teleported the single human off the ship and straight into a stasis chamber. It couldn’t be ... could it?
She put the LinkShip on automatic, ready to drop into FTL and run if hostile warships showed up, then walked down to the stasis chambers. Piece floated in a beam of blue light, utterly unmoving. Hameeda felt a hot flush of anticipation, mingled with embarrassment and the grim understanding that she had a job to do. She didn’t have long. She’d have to be on her way to Gateway before the Tokomak realised that Admiral Teller was resuming his advance.
The stasis field snapped out of existence. The tractor fields caught Piece and held him while he steadied himself. His face spread into a broad smile when he saw her, clearly remembering the nights they’d spent together during their first voyage to N-Gann. Hameeda was tempted to drag him into her bedchamber at once, but duty came first. She had no intention of trying to explain her failure to her superiors.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said, as the tractor field released him. “If you’ll come with me ...?”
“It’s good to see you too.” Piece sounded rough, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to speak properly. She guessed he’d spent most of the last few weeks speaking one or more of the galactic tongues. “I’m surprised you made it here.”
“The fortresses are growing stronger all the time,” Hameeda said. She led him into the galley and produced coffee for both of them. “Next time, I might not be so lucky.”
She sat down and took a sip of her drink. “Admiral Teller will be here in two weeks,” she said, softly. “I’ve been asked to ask ... can you move by then?”
“Yes.” There was no doubt in Piece’s voice. “The real difficulty will be holding the cells back until Tokomak One has been taken or destroyed.”
Hameeda nodded, curtly. She’d spotted the vast installation holding position over the planetary ring. It was immense, big enough to take a hammer without being instantly destroyed ... although she suspected the burst of intense radiation would kill anyone who wasn’t taken out by the blast itself. And it had had its shields and sensors at full power for as long as she’d been watching it. She hoped Piece had a plan to deal with the massive fortress. If he didn’t, the revolt would come to a sharp and thoroughly unpleasant end.
She put the question into words. “Can you take it out?”
“We think so,” Piece said. “And if the attack fails, we can draw back ... probably.”
Hameeda arced her eyebrows. “Probably?”
Piece met her eyes, evenly. “I don’t think you grasp just how much naked hatred has been repressed over the last few thousand years,” he said. “Just how much the resistance wants to take action, even if it means certain destruction. I’ve spent most of the last week trying to keep them from mounting attacks against civilian targets, everything from schools to hospitals and pleasure dens. If there are any real delays, I think the resistance leaders will lose control.”
“And there’s no way to guarantee when Admiral Teller will arrive,” Hameeda mused. “The defences back there” - she jabbed a finger towards the distant gravity point - “are really quite something.”
“So I’ve been told,” Piece said. He produced a datachip. “Copies of our intelligence findings, some more useful than others. They have eyes and ears everywhere. Hopefully, Admiral Teller can make some use of it.”
“Hopefully,” Hameeda echoed. “Is there anything we can count on?”
“No.” Piece shook his head. “There are plans to fuck around with their command and control networks, when the shit hits the fan, but you know how many redundancies they work into their systems. It’s quite possible they’ll simply reroute around the blockages and corrupt subsystems and take revenge later, once the battle is over. I have been told there are cells on some of the fortresses, but they may not be able to take direct action. The Tokomak don’t trust local labour these days. Rightly so.”
“I understand,” Hameeda said. “How are you coping, here?”
“I survive,” Piece said. “Martin and his team are training for war, of course. I have to deal with the planning and negotiate with the rebels ... do you realise they’re already arguing over who gets what, when the uprising is over and they’ve won? It wasn’t a problem before because victory looked a little unlikely, but now ... they’re on the verge of falling out.”
“And before they’ve actually won,” Hameeda said. “Are you sure they can be trusted? If one or more of them is working for the enemy ...”
“I can’t,” Piece said, flatly. “There’s no way we can vet them. And yes, you’re right. The Tokomak might have sneaked operatives into the resistance long ago and steered it away from doing anything drastic. But ... I don’t think so. They just don’t have that sort of mindset. And the cell network is designed for decentralised command. The Tokomak would probably be happier if the resistance was a single hierarchical organisation with top-down control. That would be easier to keep harmless and eventually destroy, when it became dangerous.”
Hameeda winced. “I don’t envy you.”
“As long as we stay in the shadows, we’re relatively safe.” Piece smiled at her. “Places like this settlement, and countless others, are ignored. There are whole shipping networks that exist without anyone paying official interest to them. I think there are actually some Tokomak who’ve been quietly encouraging the networks, for reasons of their own. They’re normally straight-shooters, by their own standards. But ... it stands to reason that there have to be some bad apples in the bunch.”
“Interesting,” Hameeda said. “You know they’ve actually started to surrender?”
Piece frowned. “That’s
odd. They normally fight to the last. Or retreat, if they can break contact.”
“Yeah.” Hameeda nodded. “They’ll surrender to us, but not to the rebels.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Piece mused. He stroked his chin. “The rebels want bloody revenge. We just want to put an end to the war before it kills us. I take it POWs aren’t being mistreated?”
“Not by any reasonable standard,” Hameeda said. She’d scanned the reports. Tokomak POWs were complaining about the lack of luxury accommodations, as if they’d expected every last comfort to be laid on. The only upside, she supposed, was that they weren’t trying to escape. Humans would be planning something, she was sure. “We’ve certainly kept them safe from their former subjects.”
“Good.” Piece shrugged and put his mug on the table. “We’ll have to work that into our broadcasts. Let them know they can surrender, once Admiral Teller arrives. And then hope enough of them believe it to allow us to take the system reasonably intact.”
He frowned. “We know they have plans to destroy the industrial base,” he said. “We have counter-plans to head them off, but they might not work.”
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