First Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

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

  “Oh, they’re going to hate that,” Carola commented. Markus chuckled. Fighter jet pilots had been hot dogs ever since fighters had been invented, an attitude that had transferred into the gunboat pilots. “Unless someone else decides to intervene…”

  Both of the Hegemony ships had disconnected from the station and were moving past the other Galactic starships, blinking their running lights in salute. Markus caught himself tapping on the console in irritation as they waited, wondering just what the Funks were doing. Delaying their destruction as long as possible, or… hoping that the gunboat life support would run out before the Canaries started enforcing their orders with force. Gunboats were a new concept for the Galactics, but they didn't need their blueprints to calculate a rough estimate for how long their life support could endure.

  A display appeared in front of them and he studied it thoughtfully. Most starships with a heavy cruiser mass needed to be some distance from the planet before they opened a gateway into quantum space. The Association’s safety regulations were overcautious – humanity hadn’t been the first the first race to realise that it was possible to shave a few ten-thousand kilometres off the safety line without risking serious consequences – but the Funks would still need to leave the protective cover of the Canary forts before they could escape, even if they attempted to leave at the minimum safe distance from Place of Meetings. There would be at least seven minutes between the forts and a safe distance, allowing the gunboats their chance to intercept the enemy ships. Captain Walsh was already broadcasting an offer to accept surrender, but if the Funks had been unwilling to be interned, they weren’t likely to surrender.

  “Here we go,” he said, as the Grumbles formed up on his position. Both of the Hegemony ships were advancing past the forts, a pair of ugly blunt instruments studded with sensors and weapons blisters. The Association had termed a particular class of superdreadnoughts the Blunt Instrument-class, showing a wry sense of humour that was surprisingly human. Markus doubted that the 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, a moment later. The Association had designed the light cruiser to provide additional protection for superdreadnoughts, replacing torpedo launchers with additional phase cannon and particle beam generators. Markus suspected that similar ships would be pressed into the anti-gunboat role until the Hegemony produced a dedicated design or constructed gunboats of its own. Estimates of how long that would take ranged from a year to never. “Watch yourself.”

  “Go,” Markus ordered.

  The gunboats slipped forward, instantly accelerating to near-maximum speed. The distance between the two forces closed rapidly, pushing the Hegemony ships into opening fire as soon as the gunboats came into range. It was unlikely that they’d actually score any hits at such a range, but it forced the gunboats to break formation and evade long before they’d planned to slip into attack formation. Someone had studied the records from their first operation and drawn sensible conclusions, Markus noted sourly. By now, the entire galaxy would be aware of the war – and of some of the new weapons humanity had deployed. And not all of them were as poor 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 the heavy cruiser. Markus evaded desperately, seconds before the first torpedo exploded between two of his gunboats, 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 against gunboats? Someone on the other side was clever, or desperate. The expense of replacing the torpedoes would be worthwhile if they managed to get out of the system intact.

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

  The gunboats engaged, launching a spread of implosion bolts towards their targets while evading the increasingly desperate fire from the heavy cruiser. One of the gunboats was hit, either through luck or skill, but the remainder kept firing, pouring implosion bolts into the ship’s hull. No significant damage was done to the drives, but several of the weapons blisters were disabled, limiting the cruiser’s ability to hurt the gunboats as they swooped around and came back in for a second run.

  Information flickering between the gunboats noted which enemy weapons had been taken out and how it could be used to reduce the losses on the next attack run. The Hegemony ship was twisting, trying to allow the rest of its weapons to engage the gunboats, but there 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 to know that they weren't going to leave the system alive. Markus could have respected their courage under other circumstances, but right now they were just in the way.

  Another spread of antimatter torpedoes were launched, but this time the gunboats were ready and accelerated away before they could explode. The heavy cruiser staggered as implosion bolts cut deeply into her hull, yet somehow she kept going. Her comrade wasn't so lucky; less heavily-armored, she exploded when implosion bolts cut through into her drive rooms and her fusion plants blew. One of the Ivans was caught in the explosion; the others swooped around and fell upon the heavy cruiser.

  “Shit,” Carola said.

  Markus yanked the gunboat around as emergency icons flared up on the display. The Funks were still far from the minimum safe distance, but they were trying to open a quantum gate! They had to be insane – but then, they knew they were doomed if they remained in the system. The odds of dying when they opened the gate were higher than the odds of surviving the battle. Markus led the Grumbles towards the ship’s drive section, but it was too late. Space tore open and the quantum gate manifested, spilling out gravity waves that bounced the gunboats as if they were floating on a sea. He saw the gate with his naked eyes and knew instantly that something was badly wrong. Gates were normally spinning discs of light, shimmering into existence in front of the starships. This one was a spitting funnel of energy, ethereal tentacles reaching out for the heavy cruiser. Markus could almost have sworn that it was a living creature, just before the Funks started moving towards the vortex. They had to be insane. Nothing could enter that 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 him praying 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 of light. The entire universe seemed to hang in the balance… and then the distorted gate vanished, as if it had never been. His sensors couldn't even detect a trace 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 carefully as the gunboats retreated. They’d probably take what had happened to the Funks as proof that their religion was the one true faith. He couldn't understand how anyone could refuse to leave their solar system, if only because one day th
eir star would die. The Canaries would have to choose between changing their religion or dying when their worlds were swallowed by an expanding red giant. But that was millions of years in the future. Perhaps they would discover how to keep their star burning long before then.

  Formidable was already heading towards the quantum gate when the gunboats docked, their crews glad to be alive. Nine gunboats had been lost; there would be a number of empty bunks in Pilot Country tonight. They’d have to scratch one of the squadrons unless reinforcements were rushed forward from Earth. He doubted they could do that again unless they got some extra support. The Hegemony had already made progress towards tactics that would allow them to confront the gunboats on more even terms.

  * * *

  That night, they performed a brief service for the dead gunboat pilots before heading to their bunks. There was little space for private cabins on Formidable, although even if that space had existed the military was unlikely to have used it for crew comfort when a few more missiles could have been carried instead.

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

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

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

  Chapter Twenty

  “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the human intrusion into the Light of God,” the Canary intoned. “It has long been our determination to remain aloof from the power struggles among those who have not embraced their own Lights of God…”

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

  The Association had envisaged the Commune as a form of United Nations, a forum where different races could meet and discuss their issues openly, without needing to resort to violence. But few of the major powers were prepared to allow the Commune to dictate to them, while every race had veto power 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 from using the chamber to cut deals of their own.

  Shan had hoped that pressure to stop the war would grow slowly until the Hegemony was prevented from retaliating against Earth. She had no idea how long Earth’s tech advantage would last against the Hegemony’s overwhelming force; ideally, Earth would be able to keep the Hegemony off-balance until the other Galactics intervened to stop the fighting. But it didn't seem too likely that any outsiders would become directly involved. The motives were different for each race – and some were incomprehensible – yet the results were the same. No one would attempt to stop the war.

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

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

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

  Shan was careful to keep her face impassive as the Kockoo sat down. She couldn't tell if the threat was serious or just a political power play. It would be just like the Kockoo to fiddle while Center burned down around them. Their sanctimonious attitude made them few friends and far too many enemies, but there were quite a few Galactics who had been disturbed by the weapons humanity had used in the war. They wanted time to consider how to duplicate them for themselves. It was a pity that the Federation had embargoed weapons technology from Earth, or she could have made a thousand deals for support from other Galactics. But that technology was Earth’s ace in the hole and it could not be surrendered.

  Another Ambassador, the masked and gowned representative from the Shimmering Harmony, rose to bow to the Speaker. No one knew what the Shimmering Harmony looked like, for they always concealed their bodies from other intelligent races. Their homeworld was situated in the 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, but no one actually knew anything beyond the fact that their Ambassador was clearly humanoid. Exactly why they’d decided to join the Association was another mystery.

  There was no shortage of legends about them, tales of explorers 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 really nothing more than another humanoid race, concealing itself out of fear that the more active races would overwhelm them if their true nature was discovered. Others suspected that the Shimmering 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 speak publicly was very rare. Just seeing their Ambassador speak
would make the other Galactics interested in the war.

  “It is clear that the Hegemony was slowly preparing the human race for eventual servitude,” the Ambassador said. Even the voice was flat, atonal, as if it had been produced by a primitive computer. “They were 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, Great Lady Vanla, rose to her feet. “It is true 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 Hegemony have the same rights and duties as other client races across the Association. We would never stoop to enslaving any race.”

  “And yet refugees from your client races frequently seek asylum in our space,” another Ambassador put in. It was a serious breach of protocol to speak before the last speaker had finished. “You use them as expendable labour, in violation of the rights granted to all client races by the Association Charter. We can hardly fault the humans for 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 no less than three occasions for mistreatment of your clients? Your protests ring hollow when much testimony was produced by the refugees.”

  “Who were paid to lie before the Commune,” Great Lady Vanla snapped. She didn't bother to rise, an equally unsubtle insult. “You brought them after preparing them with lies to blacken our name.”

  Shan watched with some amusement as the Ambassadors shouted at each other. The Cats had designed the building so that the merest whisper could be heard at the other side of the chamber. In one sense, the Ambassador was quite right; the Funks had been censured for the mistreatment of their client races. But the Galactics hadn't done anything beyond issuing a reprimand, allowing the Funks to just carry on without needing to worry further about Galactic opinion. Even the Hegemony would have backed down if it had faced the entire galaxy, but there had been no prospect of such an alliance against them. How very… human.