First Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  He broke off as an alarm sounded. “Admiral, a new quantum gate is forming, right on top of us,” Lucas snapped. Tobias swore out loud as the shape of the enemy trap became clear. “I'm reading another nine battlecruisers and seventeen destroyers, closing rapidly on attack vector. They’re broadcasting a demand for surrender.”

  “Alert all ships,” Tobias ordered, ignoring the surrender demand. They’d been suckered, all right. The Hegemony had kept the other half of the assault fleet in quantum space until the human ships were in the right position. And he’d flown right into the trap! “Prepare to engage the enemy.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Force Two closing to engagement range,” Lucas said. “Enemy ships are locking targeting sensors on us.”

  “Deploy ECM countermeasures,” Tobias ordered. He would have preferred to keep those surprises for the next attack on a Hegemony system, but there was no other choice. Even if they wiped out the entire attack force, they’d still take heavy losses. “And then bring the fleet around. Take us right at Force Two.”

  The Funks had planned their trap well, even though there were some aspects they'd have had to leave to chance. Hide a fleet in quantum space, dangle bait in front of the human defenders...and wait until the humans walked right into the trap. They’d even had the unexpected bonus that Tobias had left a third of his fleet in orbit, rather than bringing it all out to challenge the cloaked ships. There was no way they could have counted on that, which suggested that they felt that they had enough firepower to defeat all three cruiser squadrons. The only alternative to an engagement was to run – and that would mean leaving Garston undefended, ready for the Funks to move back in and launch reprisals against the non-Funk population.

  Humanity’s ECM drones spread out ahead of the fleet. Each one was capable of creating a dozen sensor ghosts, a variant on the tactic that had made the missile cloud so effective. The Funks would be unable to tell the difference between real or ghost ships at long range, but they presumably had locked their sensors on the real ships. Using countermeasures, the locks broke, rendering it far harder for them to work out which ships were real. It still wouldn't be enough, if only because the ghost ships couldn't engage the enemy. The Funks would just fire on any ship that fired on their formation.

  The distance between the two forces closed rapidly. Behind the Federation Navy, Force One abandoned its casual approach to Garston and brought its drives to full power, intent on helping Force Two to crush the human fleet. Once they combined their ships, they would presumably advance on Garston and force Tobias to engage them or surrender the planet. The gunboats twisted around, ready to slash down into Force Two. There would be so many targets that the point defences would have problems tracking the gunboats. But there were still only twelve of them...

  “Force Two entering phase cannon range,” Lucas reported. Humanity’s slight range advantage might just even the odds. “All ships report ready to engage the enemy.”

  “Fire at will,” Tobias ordered.

  Nimitz opened fire, brilliant beams of energy lancing out towards the enemy ships and striking their shields, just before the rotating modulation hit on the right frequency and slashed directly into the target’s hull. The enemy ship twisted at once, rotating its own shield frequency in hopes of avoiding serious damage, but it was too late to stop the phase cannon from digging deep into her hull. She rolled out of the enemy formation, trailing plasma as her crew fought to save their ship. An antimatter torpedo from one of Nimitz’s consorts finished her off before her crew could escape.

  The enemy fleet opened fire seconds later, bombarding the entire human fleet with phase cannon fire. They seemed to be scattering their fire, something that made no sense until Tobias realised that it was a way to separate the sensor ghosts out from the real ships. Nimitz rocked as a phase cannon burst stuck her hull, just before she unleashed a spread of torpedoes towards an enemy battlecruiser. Compressed antimatter flared out in the darkness of space and the enemy ship lost her shields. A moment later, she vaporised as a torpedo exploded against her unprotected hull.

  Tobias smiled darkly as the range continued to narrow. The Funks had largely separated out the sensor ghosts now, but they were still drawing fire as skilled ECM crews projected the ghosts forward, ahead of the advancing ships. Several human ships had taken damage, yet they were all still moving, their weapons digging into enemy hulls. The Funks opened fire with antimatter torpedoes of their own, only to discover that humanity had learned how to deploy their phase cannon as point defence weapons. Only a handful of torpedoes survived to strike home.

  “John Paul Jones is taking heavy fire,” Lucas reported. “Her captain is requesting permission to disengage…”

  “Granted,” Tobias snapped. It was too late. The cruiser had been broadsided by a pair of enemy battlecruisers, her shields failing before she could escape. A brace of antimatter torpedoes finished her off and she vanished in a ball of fire. “Order Farragut and Cochrane to watch for survivors as they blaze through that part of the enemy formation.”

  Nimitz rotated in space, spinning alongside the hull of one of the enemy battlecruisers. They were far too close to risk unleashing antimatter torpedoes, but her phase cannon dug deeply into the enemy hull. A direct hit blew through one of the battlecruiser’s fusion plants and a chain reaction of explosions tore her apart. Two of her consorts attempted to use her death agonies as cover to bring their own weapons to bear on the imprudent human ship, but Nimitz turned and showed them her heels, launching a spread of torpedoes to cover her retreat. Open space beckoned in front of the human ships and they raced for it, two cruisers trailing plasma as they escaped Force Two’s wrath.

  “Order the 3rd Cruiser Squadron to leave orbit and reinforce us,” Tobias ordered. Between reinforcements and the damage they’d inflicted on Force Two, the odds would be a great deal more even. If he’d been in the enemy’s shoes, he would have seriously considered taking advantage of the brief pause to open a quantum gate and escape, knowing that he’d already dented the myth of human invincibility. “Togo and Surcouf are to break contact and jump out to Point Shiloh.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lucas said. Point Shiloh, one light year away from Garston, was where the fleet train was waiting, a handful of ships loaded with supplies and repair workers. The mobile shipyard and fabricator wasn't exactly a new idea, but the Federation Navy had taken the risk of constructing mobile units rather than a handful of heavily-defended shipyards like most of the Galactics. Earth had only had fifteen years to produce a space-capable industry and a number of corners had had to be cut. “Force One and Force Two are uniting now.”

  Tobias nodded. He’d expected as much, but unless the enemy chose to withdraw he would have to engage them again. There were hundreds of thousands of human soldiers on the planet, mostly national rather than Federation units. Abandoning them could bring down the entire edifice. In hindsight, they’d badly underestimated the Funks – and their ability to bounce back from losing more tonnage than the entire Federation Navy.

  And a single defeat could mean the end of the war.

  “General Chekov is attempting to raise you, sir,” Lucas said. Chekov was the overall commander on the ground, now that the Federation Marines had been relieved by national units. “The message is marked urgent.”

  Tobias scowled. The Funks were sorting out their formation, slipping Force One’s ships forward to replace the losses inflicted on Force Two. Their datanets were presumably as capable as those belonging to the other Galactics; slotting the other ships into their holes wouldn't take longer than a few minutes. If they’d attacked then… but they couldn’t, not until his fleet was concentrated.

  “Pass him to me,” he said, picking up his earpiece. “And order the fleet to prepare to move on my command.”

  “Admiral,” Chekov’s voice said. Like most officers cleared to work with the Federation, his English was perfect, although with a faint Russian accent. “I understand that we have visitors.”r />
  “Yes,” Sampson said, tightly. Multinational operations had always been a headache even before Mentor had arrived and turned Earth upside down. At least Chekov had a reputation for being competent, commanding the Russian forces that had assisted in disarming and occupying North Korea after the Second Korean War. Some of the horror stories about multinational forces from before First Contact had been chilling. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

  “I have ordered my forces to go dark,” Chekov said. “If you have to withdraw from the system, we’ll give the bastards a welcome they’ll never forget.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Sampson said. He understood what Chekov was trying to say – and he was grateful – but the Funks would simply bombard the planet into submission from high orbit, once they drove away the Federation Navy. Chekov would be forced into surrender once his forces were targeted from well outside their own range. It was possible that the Galactics would respond harshly, particularly after so many horror stories about how the Funks had treated the other races had been transmitted onto the news networks, but Tobias knew that they couldn't take it for granted. “If we have to leave…”

  He shook his head. “Thank you,” he said. “Earth will not forget.”

  * * *

  “Here they come,” Markus said. “On my mark...engage!”

  The gunboats slipped out of their holding formation and raced towards the enemy rear. Unsurprisingly, the Funks had continued their drive on Garston, knowing that the humans would have to either engage them or surrender the planet when they got into orbit. Markus had positioned Grumble Squadron outside the Funk engagement range and waited. Now all twelve gunboats, supported by the most advanced ECM systems in the galaxy, closed in on their targets from the rear. It was the closest thing they had to a weak spot that could be exploited.

  A handful of Funk destroyers turned to intercept them as the gunboats closed in on their targets, spitting point defence fire towards the human ships. It wasn't a bad tactic, Markus had to admit, but it didn't quite take account of gunboat speed and manoeuvrability. The gunboats lanced through the destroyers, holding their fire, and left them behind in their wake. Markus would have preferred to remain behind and engage them, wiping them out one by one, but there was no time to clear the way properly. Their targets were the big battlecruisers before they could engage the human cruisers.

  The Funks refused to be distracted by the gunboats, either because they knew there were fewer gunboats in the attacking force than it seemed, or because they intended to absorb the damage inflicted by the gunboats and keep going. Without either gunboats or assault shuttles of their own, there was really little other choice. Markus braced himself as they slid into engagement range, and then led his squadron mates towards the enemy battlecruiser. He touched the trigger and sprayed a handful of implosion bolts towards the big drive structure at the rear of the ship. There were fewer point defence blisters surrounding their target, making it easier to hit.

  There was an explosion and the Funk starship fell out of formation as her drives failed. Markus wanted to finish her off, but there was no time; instead, they had to cripple as many of the other battlecruisers as possible. The destroyers had caught up with them and were attempting to shield their larger companions, knowing that even if they served as targets for the gunboats they could still distract them from their mission. Markus cursed aloud as one of the maggots – the new pilots – slammed right into a destroyer’s shields, vanishing in a ball of flame that barely scratched the ship’s defences. A mistake at the wrong time could cost a pilot everything.

  Another Funk battlecruiser loomed up in front of him and he led his gunboats towards her, firing implosion bolts that dug deep into the ship’s hull. The sheer volume of point defence fire was impressive, suggesting that the Funks had outfitted their ships with extra weapons from Hammerfall. There had certainly been enough cripples from the last battle to serve as a convenient source of spare parts.

  Tiny explosions blossomed along the target’s hull as the gunboats raced towards her drives. A destroyer appeared out of nowhere, targeting the gunboats and picking off two of them before they could evade. Markus swallowed a curse as the remaining gunboats flipped over and drove away from the new threat, their weapons automatically tracking and picking away at their target. The battlecruiser would have time to engage before the remains of Grumble Squadron could reform and fall on her again. At least the maggots had more than proven themselves, those who had survived. Only six Grumbles remained to take the offensive once more.

  They have to know we were bluffing now, he thought. We’d have launched every gunboat we had at them, if we’d had the gunboats to launch.

  * * *

  Tobias braced himself as Nimitz lanced towards the enemy formation, ready to open fire as soon as she came into range. This time, he intended to try a variant on an old Galactic tactic, one he wouldn't have dared try against superdreadnoughts. The fleet advanced and came to a halt, relative to the enemy fleet, as soon as it entered weapons range. Humanity’s phase cannon could harm the enemy ships from outside their own range, at least in theory. It was time to find out if that was actually true.

  “Open fire,” he ordered. Deadly beams lanced towards their target, splashing away from enemy shields. The rotating modulation trick wasn't so effective at long range, if only because the phase cannon beams tended to fade as the range opened. Rotating shields randomly wasn’t supposed to be possible for the Galactics, but once they realised what the humans could do it was certain that they’d attempt to discover a countermeasure to the human weapons. “Damage report?”

  “Minimal,” Lucas admitted. “We’re hurting their shields, but beam diffusion is too great to damage their hulls. We need to engage at closer range.”

  Tobias nodded. “Take us in,” he ordered. “Open fire with antimatter torpedoes as soon as we enter range.”

  Space became a boiling mass of energy as antimatter torpedoes slammed into their targets. Five more Hegemony battlecruisers vanished in the blaze, along with a pair of destroyers, but they didn't die alone. Perry died before any of her crew could escape, while Jellicoe staggered away, too badly damaged to even open a quantum gate and escape the battle. If the Hegemony had targeted her, they would have blown her apart before it was too late; instead, the battlecruisers started to angle away from the planet. Tobias watched in disbelief as the Funks turned and retreated, leaving their puzzled opponents in command of the battlefield. Moments later, they opened a quantum gate and vanished. The battle seemed to be over.

  “Maybe it’s a trap,” Lucas said, as puzzled as his superior. “Maybe they expect us to chase them into quantum space and run right into another formation of ships.”

  Tobias shook his head. The Galactics were reluctant to fight battles in quantum space, for fear that the disruptive storms would give the weaker side an advantage. It was a known fact that quantum space responded to weapons fire, although no-one had managed to come up with an explanation as to why. The Funks would hardly have risked a battle in quantum space if there was any alternative.

  “Curious,” he said. “I wonder...”

  “Sir, I’m picking up transmissions from Convoy-46,” Lucas said, suddenly. “They just entered the system. Her CO didn't even realise that there was a battle underway until they picked it up on their sensors.”

  Tobias started to laugh, despite himself. The Funks had detected the convoy too and had assumed that the freighters were more arsenal ships. It wasn't as if the missile cloud would be so useful against targets in clear space, where they could jump into quantum space and escape, but they couldn't have risked the total obliteration of their force without inflicting equal or greater losses on their foe.

  “Welcome her CO to the system and thank him for his timely arrival,” he said. “And then get the repair crews to work. I want all of the damaged ships repaired before we return to Hammerfall.”

  He settled down in his command chair. “And pass a message to all
ships,” he added. “Well done.”

  * * *

  An hour later, he found himself studying a report that didn't please him in the slightest. Two of the damaged ships could be returned to service within five days, but the remainder would require several weeks at the very least. Whatever they’d had in mind – retaking Garston or reconnaissance in force – they’d accomplished at least one of their goals. The Federation Navy would be unable to take the offensive and return to Hammerfall, unless he called up reinforcements from Earth. And doing that risked leaving humanity’s homeworld uncovered.

  The Hegemony could lose a dozen worlds like Hammerfall and keep going. Humanity couldn’t afford to lose Earth and the industry that had been painstakingly built up in the solar system over the last fifteen years. Presumably, the Funks knew that as well as he did. He was mildly surprised that they hadn't already tried to raid the system, even if they were spooked by the thought of what kind of defences humanity might have emplaced around Earth. Tobias was one of the very few who knew that humanity’s fixed defences were minimal, almost non-existent. There had been no time to construct fortresses when the Federation Navy needed starships.

  He shook his head. But there was no real choice. They had to call up the reserves and continue the advance, hammering away at the Hegemony. It couldn't be long before someone overthrew the Empress. Even if the war ended tomorrow, the clans would need years to rebuild all they’d lost. If the Hegemony recovered first, humanity was screwed, without lube.

  They’d just have to see what they could do to keep the Hegemony off-balance until they were ready to win the war.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “What do we have today?”

  “One bulk freighter, two general freighters and a pair of destroyers,” Karla said. “Traffic has been really slowing down lately.”