Their Last Full Measure

by Christopher Nuttall

  Which means we have to take the system the old-fashioned way, she thought. Or, at least, to lay waste to its industrial base.

  She glanced at Yolanda. “Send the surrender demand,” she ordered. “We’ll see if they reply.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  Hoshiko waited as the fleet closed on the enemy shipyards. They were staggeringly huge, each and every slip filled with starships in varying stages of construction. Other structures - free-floating structures - held position near starships that were clearly being pulled out of long-term storage and readied for dispatch to the front. Her smile grew colder as she spotted the immense reserve fleet, hundreds of starships that were dead and cold and little more than sitting ducks. She’d destroy them without a second thought, if the locals refused to surrender unconditionally. There was no way she could take the risk of leaving them intact. They were just too dangerous.

  And if they don’t surrender soon, she mused, we’ll enter engagement range.

  She watched the massive defences as they girded themselves for battle. There were fewer starships than she’d expected - they must have been redeployed to the front - but there were dozens of orbital fortresses and literally thousands of automated weapons platforms. No minefields, unsurprisingly. There was little point in trying to mine space when the enemy could simply move around them or blow them away from a safe distance. But enough firepower to protect the planets and the shipyards ... she gritted her teeth. She didn’t have time to take the facilities intact. She wanted - she needed - to destroy them.

  “Weapons range in ten seconds,” Yolanda said. “Request permission to deploy targeting probes.”

  “Do so,” Hoshiko ordered. “And fire as soon as we enter range.”

  The last few seconds ticked down. Defiant opened fire, the remainder of the fleet following suit a second later. The enemy defences fired at the same moment, clearly calculating that Hoshiko would sooner impale herself on their missiles than risk a jump into FTL so close to the planet itself. She allowed herself a cold smile as her ships fired a second barrage, then a third. They’d have just enough time, if they were lucky, to fire a fourth before it was time to run.

  “Launch stealth missiles,” she ordered. The enemy missiles were growing closer, the red icons on the display blurring into a single mass, a hammer aimed at her ships. “And jump as soon as the enemy missiles enter engagement range.”

  “Aye, Admiral.” Yolanda counted down the seconds. “FTL in five, four, three ...”

  Hoshiko felt Defiant scream in protest as her stardrive came online, catapulting her backwards at FTL speeds. The gravity field twitched, making her head spin; behind her, she heard someone throwing up violently. She tried to ignore it as the ship crashed back out of FTL, only a few million kilometres from the planet. But, as far as the enemy missiles were concerned, they were far out of range. They might as well be on the other side of the galaxy.

  You should have set up gravity wells to trap us, she thought, coldly. There was no technological reason why ships couldn’t use FTL so close to a planet’s gravity well. It was simply law and custom, something she’d chosen to ignore. Instead, you fired your missiles for nothing.

  “Yorktown and Ladysmith have been destroyed,” Yolanda reported. “Preliminary analysis suggests they collided as they came out of FTL. A number of other ships are reporting varying levels of damage to their drives, plus crewmen rendered useless by the mass jump ...”

  “Reorganise the fleet,” Hoshiko ordered, when Yolanda had finished. “And close the range again.”

  She smiled as she assessed the damage. The enemy had used their ECM to its fullest extent, but they hadn’t realised just how badly they’d been exposed by Admiral Webster’s targeting drones. Thousands of her missiles had been swatted out of space, but the remainder had all found their targets and they’d all carried antimatter warheads. A dozen fortresses had been blown out of space, while seven more were badly damaged. The enemy starships were altering position, trying to plug the hole in their defences, but it was too late. The stealth missiles had slipped through the gap and slammed into a handful of targets, smashing them effortlessly. It looked as though the shipyard was on the verge of total destruction.

  “Alpha units, target the remaining fortresses and enemy starships,” Hoshiko ordered. “Beta units, target the reserve ships.”

  She watched, grimly, as a line of enemy gunboats lunged towards her ships, shooting plasma bursts and tiny missiles as they came into range. There was nothing wrong with their bravery, she noted, but they were designed more to intimidate freighters than take on warships. There was a reason the starfighter concept had never got off the ground, despite Admiral Glass and his science-fiction writers trying their level best to make it work. The gunboats were just too large to make difficult targets and too slow to make good missiles. They fought desperately, a handful even ramming her ships, but one by one they were picked off with casual ease. They would have been better employed, part of her mind noted, as mobile point defence platforms. But that would have meant floating around and waiting to be hit.

  Perhaps they should have crammed their gunboats with antimatter before they threw them at us, she mused. It would have been much more effective.

  The enemy fire grew more desperate as her ships directed their missiles towards the free-floating reserve fleet. They had no drive fields or shields to protect their hulls, not even point defence weapons ... they were ruthlessly blown out of space, destroyed one by one to keep them from ever becoming a threat. She hoped, despite herself, that they’d killed the workforce as well as the ships themselves. The Tokomak had hundreds of thousands of ships in reserve. They could redirect the crews to other ships if they weren’t dead already.

  “They’re bringing more and more fire to bear on us,” Yolanda warned. “The remaining fortresses are holding their own.”

  Hoshiko scowled. She’d hoped to avoid using hammers. They would be impossible to replace, at least until the fleet linked up with Admiral Teller ... if the fleet ever did link up with Admiral Teller. She weighed the situation for a moment, then reluctantly gave the order to fire the hammers. They had to win as quickly as possible, in hopes of forcing the Tokomak into a hasty reaction. Ideally, their fleet would be in transit to Crux while she was attacking Tokomak Prime.

  She watched, resting her hands on her lap, as four fortresses exploded into plasma. A fifth took a glancing blow and survived, although it was clearly damaged beyond repair. Lifepods exploded in all directions, a handful of surviving gunboats moving to pick them up before they could be mistaken for mines or weapons and blown out of space. Hoshiko tapped her console, ordering her ships to ignore the gunboats as long as they were engaged in SAR duties. There was no need to commit mass slaughter, particularly if there was nothing to be gained by doing it.

  And what will this war make us, she asked herself, if there comes a time when we must commit slaughter for tactical advantage?

  She put the thought aside as her fleet punched its way into the shipyard, its weapons rapidly tearing through the remaining defences and into the shipyards themselves. They tried to avoid targeting the fabricators and the dorms, but everything else was fair game. Her lips hardened as she saw a giant battleship, her sides open to space, explode into plasma as a missile strike consumed the construction yard. Alien shuttles flew everywhere, trying to evacuate the complex or distract her missiles from tearing it apart. She cursed the defenders under her breath as one of the shuttles strayed into a missile’s path and exploded, wiped out before the pilot knew what had happened to him. The bastards had to know they’d lost the battle ... why the hell didn’t they just surrender?

  They’re forcing me to expend my missiles, she thought, numbly. And they’re succeeding.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment as the last of the construction ships exploded, taking three half-built cruisers with it. The tactic might work, damn it. She’d brought her fleet train along, but she knew all too well that
she only had enough supplies left for one final full-sized battle. She could devastate Crux and lose the battle at Tokomak Prime, the battle she had to win. And that meant ...

  “Recall the fleet.” Hoshiko opened her eyes. “Pull back to overwatch position and hold there. Transmit another demand for planetary surrender, then prime the marines to capture the remaining fabricators. If they refuse to surrender ... we’ll do what we see fit.”

  She studied the ring for a long moment, wondering if she dared open fire on it. The giant megastructure would do immense damage if it exploded, pieces of debris falling on the planet below. The impacts would probably render the entire planet uninhabitable. She considered, briefly, trying to take out the orbital towers and shoving the ring into open space, but it would be dangerously unpredictable. The damage would be beyond calculation if things went wrong. She tapped her console, trying to work out the risks, then decided it was pointless. It was the sort of procedure that should only be carried out in peacetime, not when the missiles were flying and it would be all too easy for something to go wrong.

  “There’s been no response,” Yolanda reported. “They’ve sent out a fleet of courier boats, all heading to Tokomak Prime, but ... no response to us.”

  “Keep disengaging the fleet,” Hoshiko ordered. She’d destroyed a sizable chunk of the Tokomak’s infrastructure. Surely - now - they’d realise they weren’t going to be able to resume business as usual once the war came to an end. The remainder of the system was at her mercy. It wouldn’t take that long to hunt down the remaining fabricators and destroy them. The mining stations were useless without an industrial base to supply. “And keep repeating the demand for surrender.”

  She shrugged. She’d smashed the shipyards and a sizeable chunk of the system’s infrastructure. She could hit the ring - or the planet itself - at any moment. And they had to know it. She considered, briefly, targeting power stations or other important positions on the planet herself, then dismissed the thought. It would make millions of people miserable, for nothing. Tokomak Prime wouldn’t surrender, at least until she managed to hold a knife to their throats. There was nothing to be gained by bombarding an innocent civilian population.

  “Call the fleet train,” she ordered. “They are to begin reloading the fleet.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “Captain Hawkins proposes obliterating the asteroid settlements.”

  “Tell him to hold his fire,” Hoshiko ordered. She understood the younger man’s frustration - the Tokomak were surviving because of human scruples, not because they’d fought the invaders to a standstill - but there was no point in expending any more weapons. They’d dealt a mighty blow to their enemies. There was no point in pushing matters to the point where they turned victory into defeat. “And I want his ships ready to depart as planned.”

  She leaned back in her chair. By any standards, she’d won a great victory. She’d smashed a sizable chunk of one of the largest industrial bases known to exist and rendered the remainder useless, at least for the moment. And she’d carried the war - finally - into territory that was indisputably Tokomak. The Tokomak couldn’t make excuses any longer; they couldn’t tell themselves they hadn’t lost anything important. They knew her fleet was far too close to their homeworld for their peace of mind.

  And once the rearming is complete, we’ll launch the final offensive, she told herself. One way or the other, we will make the war end.

  “Admiral, we’re picking up a signal,” Yolanda said. “It’s the planet.”

  Hoshiko straightened. “Put them through.”

  She kept her face impassive as an enemy face - a Tokomak face - materialised in front of her. It was a face that had haunted her nightmares for years, ever since the sheer power of their enemies had dawned on her. Disturbingly human, arrogant, aristocratic ... she told herself, firmly, that she was reading too much into an alien face. There were aliens that looked truly monstrous. The Tokomak might well be a strikingly ugly human.

  “You have profaned our space,” the Tokomak said. “And you will leave. Now.”

  Hoshiko had to fight to keep her face blank, although she had the feeling the Tokomak couldn’t read her expressions any more than she could read theirs. Less, perhaps. Their servants had had to learn to read their modes out of sheer desperation. The Tokomak had never needed to do the same themselves. It crossed her mind that, if the war ended on reasonably decent terms, the Tokomak would have to adapt or die. There’d be old alien matrons writing to the media about the uppitiness of their former slaves and complaining, bitterly, about the servant problem ...

  “I shall be blunt,” she said, throwing diplomacy to the wolves. “I control the system. I can force my way into the high orbitals at any moment I wish. If I choose, I can lay waste to what remains of the system, including the planet and its ring. Are we clear on that point?”

  The Tokomak looked as if she’d socked him in the face. “I ...”

  “And nothing can excuse your rudeness,” Hoshiko continued. The Tokomak were obsessed with good manners, amongst themselves at least. “I am Admiral Stuart” - she was tempted to give herself a whole string of titles, secure in the belief the Tokomak wouldn’t know she was lying - “commanding officer of this fleet. To whom do I have the honour of speaking?”

  “I ...” The Tokomak jerked - for a moment, Hoshiko thought he’d been shot - and then steadied himself. “I am Governor-General Ripen. I must request that you leave this system at once.”

  So now it’s a request, Hoshiko thought. Oh, how the mighty do fall.

  She allowed herself a cold smile. “No. I have taken this system and I have no intention of letting it go. Not yet. I will not touch the planet, Governor-General, as long as it doesn’t impede me in any way. Your ultimate fate will be decided by the peace talks after the war. I strongly suggest that you and your people stay out of my way.”

  The Governor-General looked even more astonished. She reminded herself that he wasn’t human, and his expressions might mean something altogether different, but ... she shrugged, inwardly. It didn’t matter. As long as he understood the situation, as long as he was prepared to refrain from doing anything stupid, he could do whatever he liked. Besides, he might just realise there was no guarantee Hoshiko would return from Tokomak Prime. The war didn’t have to end with a human victory.

  “If you make trouble for me, I will destroy the ring,” she stated, coldly. She wouldn’t give him terms to accept or reject. It would give him a chance to convince himself that she wasn’t in as strong a position as she was. She would just tell him how things would be. “And that will be the end.”

  She tapped her console, closing the channel. “Yolanda, alert me if they try to contact us, but do not open a channel,” she ordered. “Let them wait for us to go.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  Hoshiko nodded as she checked the reports. A couple of days to resupply ... she cursed under her breath. The timing was going to be a pain. She made a mental note to dispatch a recon mission, wishing - again - for a LinkShip. It would have made the next stage of the mission so much easier.

  But we’re on the verge of victory or defeat, she told herself. Next stop, Tokomak Prime.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Hameeda gritted her teeth as she transited the gravity point, nearly ramming a mine as she sneaked through the field and slipped into open space. The defenders had been busy, very busy. She tried not to shake as her onboard simulators calculated the odds of survival. It had been sheer goddamned luck she hadn’t stuck a mine when she’d jumped into the system. A few microns to one side or the other and she’d have been dead. She skimmed through the defences, heading straight for clear space on the other side of the fortresses. The defenders had built one hell of a strongpoint. They’d positioned half their fortresses at quite some distance from the gravity point, giving them a chance to snipe anyone coming through without being blown away by assault pods.

  Good thinking, Hameeda thought, sourly. She
frowned as more and more data flowed into her sensors, warning her of fighting across the entire system. It looked small-scale, but alarmingly persistent. But it won’t be enough to stop us.

  She uploaded the data to a pair of drones, then launched them both on ballistic trajectories. They were completely silent, almost invisible even to her sensors - and she had the advantage of knowing where they were going to be - but she wasn’t sure they were undetectable. The enemy was flooding the gravity point in sensor emissions, to the point she knew she’d been damn lucky not to be scanned, targeted and destroyed when she made transit. The mines alone might have put an end to her ... she told herself, firmly, to stop worrying. She’d just have to hope Admiral Glass and his fellows worked the bugs out of the recon probe concept before it was too late. The Tokomak would realise just what she could do, if they hadn’t already, and all hell would be out for noon.