First Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  But there would be little difference, he reminded himself, dryly. We are massively outgunned by the Hegemony.

  “There have also been political consequences on Center,” Sun added. “Some of the negotiations for loans and starship purchases have stalled. The Hegemony is still proclaiming its faith in total victory and you can bet your life that they won’t pick up our tab if they win. Not all of the Galactics are badly spooked, but even the ones who are still willing to deal want collateral for any loans. And we don't have much to offer them. A couple of the bastards want us to sign Garston over to them. The Federation Council is divided on the question – if we accept, we lose all revenue from the system, but if the Hegemony takes it back...”

  “We lose it anyway,” Tobias agreed. “And simply denying it to the Hegemony doesn't really impact upon their ability to fund the war.”

  “Not so much as the Traders Alliance has,” Sun said. “I’ve had teams of sociologists studying the question ever since they laid down the embargo on the Hegemony. Some believe that the Traders Alliance can afford to keep up the embargo for several years, others think that a few months would be enough to convince it to rethink its policy. It’s really just a gigantic trade union and a union that conspicuously fails to look after the interests of its members is doomed. There are really too many factors for them to make a precise estimate.”

  “There always are,” Tobias said. He had limited faith in sociologists, let alone the headshrinkers that infested the personnel departments of the Federation Navy. Most of them were purely civilian and never had any real understanding of the military mindset, doing more harm than good. “As always, perception is so much more important than reality.”

  He shrugged. “I believe that it is time to move ahead with Operation Doolittle,” he said. “It carries risks of its own, but we need to re-establish the myth of human invincibility as quickly as possible. I’d also like to take First Strike Fleet forwards and deal with the remaining starships at Hammerfall. Recon missions have confirmed that the enemy ships came from that system.”

  “Despite the mines we laid in orbit,” Sun said. “I understood that you opposed invading and occupying Hammerfall.”

  “Taking it would be pointless, once we reduced the defences and its ability to support a fleet,” Tobias said. “Unlike Garston, there are no interstellar shipping lanes that rely on the planet as a base. The Funks would simply destroy everything in orbit before they left, leaving us without any gains to show for our losses. But if we take out the starships, we should throw them back on the defensive.”

  “And hope it’s enough to unseat their Empress,” Sun agreed. “We have been picking up reports of… social unrest on a dozen Hegemony worlds. The Empress appears to be firmly in control, but discontent is spreading. I think that our policy of raiding worlds connected to the major clans is starting to pay dividends.”

  “Let’s hope that it pays off in a big way soon,” Tobias said. “It was clear from their attempt to negotiate with Ambassador Li that they weren't serious about talking peace.”

  “Some of the diplomats wanted to accept the offer,” Sun said, dryly. “The US State Department was very vocal on the subject. You’d think they’d have learned a few lessons from pretty much their entire existence, but…” He shrugged. “The President is made of sterner stuff, luckily for us. America was one of the major investors in Terra Nova, after all, and lost thousands of colonists to the Funks. But in the long term, public opinion may swing against the war. The Hegemony has been crowing to everyone who will listen about Third Garston.”

  “And elections are coming up in Britain and France,” Tobias said. “At least the Hegemony didn't make their offer publicly.”

  “Some of the details leaked out,” Sun admitted. “Probably from the State Department. The Funks would probably be forced to deny that they’d ever considered talking peace if challenged – the Empress’s position would become untenable. I’ve been pressing for strong action to be taken against the leakers, but you know how hard it is to punish anyone for leaking information to the press in Washington. It may even have cost us our chance to end this war while we’re ahead and the bastard reporters don’t give a damn.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll keep you informed of developments,” he said. “There is a more serious matter that needs to be addressed. The Hegemony has filed a formal complaint against Earth in the Commune.”

  Tobias blinked. “Another one?”

  “This one may be far more serious,” Sun said. “According to the case they’ve filed, they have evidence to prove that human agents were behind the massive upsurge in piracy in their rear areas over the last few months.”

  “Unfortunately, there have been human pirates ever since we entered the interstellar community,” Tobias said. He kept his voice under firm control. “And there are the Funk raiders who raid pretty much everyone they can, even the Cats. Are the Funks blamed for their actions?”

  “You know that they are not,” Sun said. It had been a sore point for years. The raiders were officially independent agents, but they had links to some of the Hegemony clans. Some of their operations had weakened local governments to the point where they’d been forced to accept an offer of ‘protection’ from the Hegemony. “But the Funks have managed to identify one of the humans. It’s Captain Joshua Wachter, the CEO of Stellar Trading. That’s a little more serious than a handful of ex-mercenaries who will be arrested the moment they return to human space.”

  Tobias nodded slowly, his mind racing. In truth, he’d expected a security leak the moment he’d heard that Wachter was recruiting pirates and rebels to his cause. But only Wachter – and Tobias himself – knew that Earth had provided the first starships and seed money to the pirates. Tobias had been careful, very careful. No one else had enough of the pieces to draw a link between their work for the CNO and the pirate raiders. Even the endless paperwork was deliberately misleading. The starships he’d given to the pirates had been listed as destroyed in gunboat training exercises. There should be nothing to prove that Earth was directly involved with the pirates.

  “Wachter is not exactly Earth’s favourite son,” he said, mildly. There were still people in the Federation Navy who wanted to try him for treason, or kill him without bothering with a trial. It wasn't a particularly rational response, but rationality rarely overcame cold logic – or the fact that Wachter’s refusal to be bound to Earth had come in handy over the last decade. The money and intelligence he'd sent home had been very helpful. “I hardly think that we can be held accountable for his actions.”

  “The Funks don’t see it that way,” Sun said, “and this time they may manage to sway some of the uncommitted Galactics onto their side. You know how they feel about pirates, even ones who only raid the shipping belonging to evil bastards. God forbid that anything should disturb their precious status quo. The Federation Council feels that we need to make a statement disowning Wachter – and putting a price on his head.”

  Tobias had known that it might come to that. He’d picked Wachter, rather than a random agent from SpecOps, because there was a strong case for Wachter being independent of Earth. After he’d formed his own company, he'd been careful to incorporate on a galactic tax haven rather than on Earth, evading the heavy taxes levelled on all businesses that drew in Galactic Credits. He’d certainly paid more than he would have owed, over the years, but various governments didn't see it that way. It was their job to determine how much their people should pay in tax.

  Still, it pained him to cross that line. He'd known it might happen, he’d even warned Wachter of the danger, but still… it pained him. Betraying someone who had put their life on the line for Earth – at his personal request – didn't sit well with him. It happened, more often than anyone would care to admit, yet there were always consequences. Perhaps Wachter would tell all from a safe distance… no, Tobias knew better than that. Wachter had known the dangers from the first day he’d embarked on his career as a pirate king.
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  And Earth couldn’t afford the full weight of Galactic opinion swinging against her.

  “I have to agree,” he said, feeling each word taste like ashes in his mouth. “We can disown him at once. Putting a price on his head might even encourage some of his associates to turn him in to Earth.”

  “The Hegemony can probably outbid us,” Sun said, crossly. “But we have to try.”

  Tobias nodded. At least Stellar Trading wouldn't be immediately affected. The Canaries weren't threatened by pirates and were unlikely to allow the other Galactics to push them around; they’d probably stall on seizing Wachter’s assets for a few months, depending on who was doing the pushing. But in the long term… he hoped that Wachter had taken the chance to convert his holdings into untraceable currency and made provisions for his crews. The Hegemony wasn't likely to believe that Stellar Trading wasn't involved – an interstellar company would make an excellent front for a pirate operation – and they’d come down like a hammer on anyone who fell into their hands.

  “Keep me informed,” Tobias ordered. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an operation to plan.”

  “Of course, sir,” Sun said. “Good luck.”

  His image vanished from the display, leaving Tobias shaking his head sadly. As a young recruit, he’d long believed that military service was primarily about honour, about fighting beside your fellows and never letting them down. A proper team of sailors – or soldier – would discover new reserves of courage rather than panicking and fleeing for their lives, leaving their comrades in the lurch. But as he'd grown older, and risen to ranks where playing the political game was more important than military competence, even genius, he’d become more cynical. He sent men and women out to fight and die on Earth’s behest – and he’d known many of the dead personally – yet he’d never had to betray someone who trusted him.

  Years ago, Jackson Sampson – nine years older than his brother – had become a Navy SEAL and served in Afghanistan. He’d died in combat fighting the Taliban, fighting to the finish; it hadn't been until much later that Tobias had discovered that the only reason the SEALs had been ambushed and forced to fight their way out was that a uniformed politician, fearful of the bad press that came from deploying the promised air support so close to so-called civilian populations, had ordered the pilots to remain firmly on the ground. Four SEALs had died and two more had been badly wounded, just so that an officer could feel good about himself. He should have been shot for gross incompetence. Instead, he was firmly positioned working for a firm that produced military hardware for the Pentagon. Tobias had taken a small measure of revenge by ensuring that everything they provided for the Federation Navy was checked and rechecked, but it wasn't enough. He had wanted the man dead.

  And now, older and wiser, he understood how the officer had felt.

  He tapped his console, pushing the issue aside. “Commander Qadir, report to my office,” he ordered. “We have an operation to plan.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure that this is such a good idea?”

  The Russian general looked at Adrienne as if she were something he’d scraped off his shoes. It had taken every bit of Adrienne’s formidable persuasive abilities to convince the man to agree to be interviewed, and yet as soon as she’d arrived at the base he'd insisted on showing her the troops exercising on the training field. None of them were human. A dozen races were represented in their ranks, with a single glaring exception. There were no Funks at all.

  “Your nation found it extremely difficult to hold down a small country with only a handful of ethnic and racial divisions,” General Chekov said, finally. Adrienne had met dangerous men before, but the General was the first she’d met who might have been an outright sociopath. “I have been tasked to keep an entire planet under control and Earth has refused to forward me more troops. There is no choice, but to recruit local supporters, people who do not wish the Funks to return.”

  Adrienne couldn't disagree with his assessment. Earth had undergone a major panic attack as soon as the news of Third Garston had reached home. Judging from some of the reports, large parts of the human race expected a massive fleet of invincible superdreadnoughts to jump into orbit and bombard Earth into radioactive debris. The fact that the assault had been beaten off didn't seem to matter too much. Pundits had been pointing out gleefully that the Hegemony’s total losses were tiny, compared to its entire navy. They’d been forced to keep silent about humanity’s losses, but it didn't take an expert to realise that every human loss had a greater effect than every Hegemony loss.

  “But the Funks themselves are not represented in your army,” she said. “How do you expect them to react to us arming and training the others?”

  “I do not expect them to react well to anything we will do,” Chekov said, slowly. “Their districts have become armed camps. Gangs of every race have been practicing ethnic cleansing on their neighbours, whenever they think they can get away with it. We simply do not have the manpower to stop them from paying off every petty dispute over the last hundred years.”

  Adrienne snorted. “But your army might turn on the Funks,” she pointed out. “Won’t that just make us look bad before the Galactics?”

  Chekov placed a hand on her shoulder, swinging her around to face him. “Let me put it as simply as I can,” he said. “When the Funks occupied Terra Nova and enslaved thousands of humans, the Galactics did nothing. The Funks claimed a fig leaf of legality and the Commune used it as an excuse to avoid confronting the Hegemony. When the Funks started to slowly increase the pressure on Earth, what did the Commune do? Nothing. The Association’s glory days are long over. Galactic opinion doesn't care what happens to us, so why should we care about what they think of us?”

  He snorted. “You Americans always expect war to be clean,” he added. “It should be a nice tidy affair, with only a few enemy killed and none of your own lost in combat. But war doesn't work out that way, does it? The Federation Council has ordered this world to be pacified. I do not have the manpower to convince everyone on this goddamned world to play nicely, so I am doing the only thing I can do to actually carry out my orders. And if the Funks don’t like it...

  “Tell me; when was the last time the Funks liked anything we did?”

  “I see your point,” Adrienne said. She could too, although she wasn't so inclined to dismiss Galactic opinion. It might have been difficult to restrain the Funks, but intervening against Earth would have to look a great deal easier. All the Galactics would have to do was threaten to call in their markers and demand immediate repayment of their loans. “But do you feel that the locals can be trusted?”

  “I have faith that none of them want the Funks to return and reassert control over this planet,” Chekov informed her. “That should keep them motivated to work with us – or to put up a fight, should the Funks return to Garston. The recent battle concentrated a few minds on the prospect of hanging.”

  Adrienne grinned. “And on the fact they were going to be hanged?”

  “But enough of this matter,” Chekov added, thawing a little. “I’m not at liberty to talk about our current deployments, but I would be happy to discuss the early stages of the occupation. We’ve actually managed to pacify a few additional cities. We may have to start moving the Funks and isolating them from everyone else…”

  “Maybe,” Adrienne said. “But how do you intend to do it fairly?”

  “We can’t,” Chekov admitted. “But since when were the Funks fair to everyone else?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Congratulations on your victory, Your Majesty.”

  “And thank you for your contribution,” the Empress said. She’d claimed personal credit for the plan that had bled the humans at Garston. “Your position has been secured, for the moment.”

  Lady Dalsha nodded, careful not to betray her relief. The Empress would need a scapegoat for the defeats the Hegemony had suffered so far and she knew that she was the prime candidate. Ironically, h
aving been disowned by her clan gave her a freedom shared by few others among the Hegemony. There was something to be said for living an independent life.

  “We have also crippled the human raiding operation,” the Empress added. Lady Dalsha wasn’t so sure – the humans understood basic security far better than most Galactics – but there was no point in contradicting the Empress directly. “One hopes that we will shortly be able to reassert our position against the human invaders and evict them from our space.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Lady Dalsha said. Personally, she was less confident. The Empress might have proclaimed Third Garston a glorious victory, but it had cost – badly. At least the force’s commander had had the sense to break off from Garston when human reinforcements had arrived. Intelligence hadn't been able to provide any definite figures for how many long-range missile pods the humans possessed, but no one wanted to find out the hard way that the humans had more than expected. Given enough time, someone would duplicate the human system, yet would it come in time to reshape the course of the war? “I have proposed two more plans for raiding human space.”

  “So I have seen,” the Empress said. “My advisors inform me that cutting loose so many squadrons will weaken Hammerfall and allow the humans to claim the system. To lose another world would be a grave defeat…?”

  She waited, inviting Lady Dalsha to have her say. The Empress’s position was not enviable, not now that the humans were raiding other worlds along the borders, worlds that belonged to powerful clans whose interests were threatened. They might all be publicly allying themselves with the Empress, but in private they would be considering other options. What was their loyalty to the Hegemony when they faced – at the very least – massive expenditures in rebuilding the installations the humans had destroyed? An unfavourable peace could only be tolerated if it happened over the Empress’ dead body.