First Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Yes, My Lord,” the alien said. His race had been spread throughout the Association by the Cats, although they had never developed spaceflight on their own or built an empire like the Funks – or humanity. There were enclaves in a hundred different Galactic powers, giving them unprecedented access to information and technology. Some of them had made common cause with humanity right from the start, even though they preferred to work indirectly. The Funks didn't treat the enclaves on their worlds particularly well. “And I wouldn't object to information on your operations either.”

  Joshua snorted. There were limits to how far he trusted any information broker. One of them had probably sold Shadow out for a large infusion of cash. Why would the Funks bother with torture when a few thousand credits would loosen lips? Even in the midst of a growing economic crisis, the Funks could easily scrape up enough galactic currency to make someone rich for life.

  “Maybe later,” he said. The encounter suit he wore concealed everything human about him, but someone with access to information from Shadow could probably guess at his race. This asteroid was even less civilised than the previous asteroid, if such a thing were possible. If they realised just who and what he was, they’d sell him out to the Funks before a Funk battlecruiser turned up with orders to blow the asteroid into a cloud of debris. “Here.”

  He passed a loaded credit chip over to the information broker and retreated out of the doorway, into the asteroid’s massive cavern. It was a crude piece of work, generating gravity by rotation rather than using a standard gravity generator, inhabited by criminals, drifters and rebels with nowhere else to go. He’d been careful to bring along a small army of bodyguards just to ensure his own safety, although no one could be relied upon completely. The Funks had put a massive price on his head...

  ...And so had Earth. Joshua had known that that would happen, sooner or later, but it still hurt. He knew that the Federation Council had had little choice. One thing that annoyed all of the major galactic powers was piracy – and Joshua had become the greatest pirate in the galaxy’s recent history. It didn't matter to them that it had been a military tactic aimed at keeping the Hegemony off-balance, at crippling the Hegemony’s economy, not when the effects of Joshua’s activities had spread far beyond the Hegemony’s stars. Admiral Sampson had told him, right at the start, that he might be declared rogue, that Earth would disown him and put a price on his head. It was funny how much it still hurt, when the bad feeling he’d created by going to the stars and building his own commercial empire had washed off him like water off a duck’s back.

  He smiled, rather bitterly. Who had it been who’d said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel?

  The asteroid was poorer than Shadow had been – and almost certainly known to the Funks, even if they hadn't destroyed it – but it had been able to supply some of the weapons and equipment he needed. He’d worried about the risk of exposing himself to detection – someone with a brain might put together his different purchases and realise that he was supporting an entire fleet, not to mention a rebel army – yet there had been little choice. His plans had been too far advanced when Shadow had been destroyed and pulling back now might have been disastrous for the rebels. Some of the Gobble cells wouldn't get the word in time and launch their uprisings without support from his fleet. It would be a nasty shock for the Funks, but they’d still control the orbitals and they’d be able to bombard the rebels into submission.

  Shaking his head, he allowed the bodyguards to lead him back to Blackbeard. It was only a few hours to the nearest interstellar communications array, and then they would be free to advance on Tauscher. One way or another, the Hegemony’s supreme self-confidence wouldn’t survive the war. Who knew? Maybe it would shock them into becoming a civilised race.

  * * *

  “You do realise that they disowned us?”

  “Of course,” Joshua said. He’d been the only person mentioned by name, but then he was one of the few humans – at least prior to the war – with a reputation that had spread beyond the Nine Stars. The remainder of his human personnel would probably be able to return home and slip back into civilian life – or go to the Federation Navy, if they chose to remain in service – but he’d never be able to go home. At least the people who worked for him would be safe. He’d passed ownership of the company to one of his subordinates, creating the impression that she’d managed to launch a coup and take over against his will. It would probably serve as a plausible motive for turning pirate. “But does that really mean that we don’t have any obligations to Earth?”

  “They sent us out here to do their dirty work,” Kang grunted. He’d spent most of the last month working with the Gobble rebels, helping them learn how to use their new weapons. “And if they catch us, they’ll put us in front of a wall and shoot us out of hand.”

  “We knew the risks when we took the job,” Joshua said, flatly. He had his own doubts, but he’d never had much sympathy for people who signed contracts without reading the small print first. At least Admiral Sampson hadn't lied to him. “Those superdreadnoughts have to be going to the war front.”

  Tracking Hegemony starships wasn't easy – the only way to locate them without maintaining a permanent recon post in a system was to track their transmissions – but it was clear that a number of starships were moving toward the war front. The Hegemony had clearly decided that taking the risk of thinning the defences on their other borders was preferable to admitting defeat and asking for reasonable terms from the human race. From a human point of view, the incredibly wealthy and greedy Hegemony wouldn't be giving up anything more than a couple of rebellious planets by conceding human independence, but it would be a colossal loss of face for the Empress. The kind of mindset that would take the risk of the war suddenly turning into a four-against-one conflict rather than merely accepting reasonable terms was alien to him, although some humans had shown a similar desire to keep fighting against all logic and reason. Hitler and Napoleon, for example, had both kept fighting even when they could have won a liveable peace.

  Karla snorted. “Don’t you think that ONI will already know about them?”

  “I don’t know,” Joshua said. He’d often shared information with ONI before he’d become a pirate, but he didn't know just how widespread humanity’s intelligence network in the Hegemony actually was. Certainly ONI had concentrated on spreading the net as widely as possible, yet… just how many assets could they have hundreds of light years from Earth? And besides, he’d never been particularly impressed with human intelligence services even before First Contact. It was too easy for analysts back home to assume they knew everything when they were only looking at a small part of the puzzle. “I do know that if they don’t know about the newcomers the Federation Navy is going to be in for a nasty surprise.”

  “Assuming that they challenge the Federation Navy,” Kang said. He grinned, unpleasantly. “First rule of combat; fight where your opponent is weak, not where he is strong. Why send fifteen superdreadnoughts against a force that has already destroyed or captured ten of them when there are nine vulnerable targets behind the lines?”

  Joshua blanched. “You mean Earth?”

  “But Earth has to be heavily defended,” Karla countered. “Surely the Federation Navy has reserves there...”

  “Maybe,” Joshua said. He wasn't so sure. The Federation Navy kept its exact strength secret, but Joshua had had plenty of experience with constructing, purchasing and maintaining starships. Mentor had brought some mobile fabricators to Earth to assist in human development and expansion, but those – and the additional ones Earth had acquired since – had limits. Building the fleet that had retaken Terra Nova and given the Funks a bloody nose might have only been possible by skimping on planetary defences. Earth’s population might have been much more armed than it had been before First Contact, yet no amount of weapons in private hands could defeat a force holding the high orbitals. “But we have to warn them. Even if they already know...”
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br />   “But that would allow them to locate us,” Kang said. “And they would know that you were alive.”

  Joshua shrugged. “I doubt anyone believes that I died on Shadow,” he said. The Funks had proclaimed his death, but they hadn't managed to produce a body. Deep-space combat rarely produced bodies, so the Funk claims wouldn't be disbelieved on that ground, but Joshua had been quick to contact the rebels. They’d know better – and so would any skilled information broker. “Besides, we’ll use one of the spammer hack workarounds we took from Earth. They won’t be able to locate us in time.”

  He stood up. “Take the helm,” he ordered. “We have work to do.”

  “Yes, boss,” Kang said. “Do you intend to let Earth know about Tauscher?”

  “It would only upset them,” Joshua replied. “Besides, someone might intercept the signal and let the cat out of the bag too early. We’ll just warn them about the superdreadnoughts and nothing else.”

  Admiral Sampson had given him a copy of a limited edition dictionary to serve as the base for a simple substitution cipher. It had amused hell out of Joshua when he’d discovered that even the most advanced Galactics hadn't been able to eliminate spam email, despite having far more control over the tachyon-burst network than any of Earth’s pre-Contact computer authorities. No one would think twice about a message that tried to sell Admiral Sampson pornography, but Sampson would know what it meant. Fifteen superdreadnoughts were heading for humanity’s lines, perhaps even heading for Earth. He would have time to prepare a reception committee.

  The asteroid had no quantum gate to use as a transmitter, so Blackbeard made the flight through quantum space to the nearest gate in the sector. It had originally been built by the Cats, unlike most of the later gates in the Hegemony, and was over five thousand years old, far older than anything built by humanity. The gates built by the younger races didn't have the same elegance as the Cat-built gates – and they wore out far quicker than the original gates. It was quite possible to imagine the slow decay of the network until the association finally collapsed into rubble, leaving countless stranded civilizations in its wake. How long would it be until someone rebuilt a galaxy-spanning power?

  “No sign of any unfriendly patrols,” Karla reported, as they emerged through the gate. For some reason of their own, the Cats had installed it at the very edge of the system, rather than close enough to the planet to make commercial shipping economical. It was almost as if they’d been trying to hide the gate, but any race with even the faintest awareness of tachyons could have detected its presence unless they shut it down completely and allowed it to drift off the network. According to the data they’d downloaded from the Association Almanac, the system was completely uninhabited. It was a mystery that Joshua would have liked to solve, one day. But that would have to wait until the end of the war. “You can spam the network at will.”

  Joshua chuckled. He'd prepared the message in flight. All he needed to do was upload it to the quantum gate, pay the small fee for transmission, and then depart long before the message reached Earth. The access code he’d added to the message would get it through most of Earth’s spam filters completely undetected.

  “Spamming now,” he said, tapping his console. There was a slight pause while the message uploaded and was then scanned for viruses by the automated gate security protocols. It was harder to transmit viruses through the network than spam messages, but that didn't stop some of the Galactics from trying. There were tales of entire civilizations brought to a sudden halt by a single carefully designed computer virus. Joshua had never placed much credence in them, but it was theoretically possible. It was a pity no one had worked out how to do it to the Hegemony, at least not without humanity getting clear blame. “Message away.”

  He smiled as Karla brought Blackbeard around and reopened the quantum gate, taking them back through the vortex into quantum space. Even if the Funks were patrolling the unnamed system, they wouldn’t have a hope of intercepting them in time. The cruiser raced away from the system, using the energy storms to hide her trail. It wouldn’t be long until they met up with the rebel fleet and then headed to Tauscher. Joshua had never planned on a direct confrontation with the Hegemony until he'd realised that he had an opportunity, and yet… now he was committed, he had doubts. A failure could destroy his entire fleet.

  But if he succeeded...at least one world would accept him after he’d been declared rogue.

  “Rebel fleet coming into view now,” Karla said. Joshua stood up and crossed over to the main display screen. The rebel fleet, five hundred starships from a hundred different worlds, was waiting for him. Some were crewed by pirates who expected loot, unaware of Joshua’s real plans; others were crewed by rebels willing to fight and die for liberation from the Hegemony. It was an impressive sight, larger – in numbers – than the entire Federation Navy. But a single superdreadnought could trash them without working up a sweat. They’d have problems dealing with a squadron of heavy cruisers. There was a lot of room for the entire plan to go horribly wrong.

  “Inform them that it’s time to move,” Joshua said. The pirates hadn't been told the objective either, just that they’d have an excellent chance to loot if they joined up and followed orders. There was plenty of wealth in the Tauscher System, enough to satisfy the survivors. And some of them would probably run when they discovered just where they were going. They wouldn't get anything from the mission. “Our target is waiting for us. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Transition in three… two… one… zero!”

  Joshua braced himself as Blackbeard exploded out of the quantum gate, weapons primed and ready. The Funks had only stationed a handful of automated weapons platforms near the gate – they were functionally illegal, after all – and they were picked off before they had a chance to open fire. A small customs station floating next to the massive gate was eliminated rapidly with its occupants still screaming for help from the ships guarding the planet. Behind Blackbeard, the remainder of the fleet rapidly followed her into normal space.

  “All targets destroyed,” Karla said, as the fleet started to shake down into something resembling a formation. “Picking up seventeen Type-5 orbital weapons platforms and twenty-two starships, led by a light cruiser squadron. Other ships in the system appear to be freighters, but some results are inconclusive.”

  “Keep an eye on them,” Joshua ordered. Now that they were in action, he felt his doubts drain away. Some of the ships picked up moving to and from the asteroid belts might be warships, but they were too far away to be immediately dangerous. “Hack the gate – take out their interstellar communications node.”

  “Done,” Karla said. The Funks could still transmit messages begging for help, but it would take weeks for them to reach anywhere with a Hegemony Navy Base. They’d never bothered to give the system a communications array that could bypass the quantum gate if necessary, something that was going to cost them dearly. “Enemy fleet is forming up into a defensive formation.”

  Joshua smiled, even though he knew that the coming battle was going to hurt. The Hegemony had seen fit to take advantage of the Gobbles, using them to create a space-based infrastructure that was superior to what Earth had built in fifteen years. But they hadn't realised, perhaps because of their own inability to understand everything they’d inherited from the Cats, just how much the Gobbles would learn from their servitude. The defences of the Gobble homeworld looked tough until one considered how much of it was built and maintained by the teddybear-like aliens.

  “Inform our friend that he can begin transmitting,” he ordered. Some of the captured freighters had been pressed into service as troop transports, housing rebels from across the Hegemony. They’d form the first elements of an army that would seek to bring down the Funks and replace them with something a little more friendly. “And prepare to engage the Funks.”

  The two fleets closed with remarkable speed as the first signs of rebellion broke out on the orbital station
s. Some of the defences lost power, or became bloody slaughterhouses as the Gobbles turned on their former masters; others began to fire on enemy-controlled installations on the planetary surface. The Hegemony would have real problems sorting out friendly from rebel stations, assuming they even tried. If they’d allowed the Gobbles on their starships, the entire battle might have ended there and then. Joshua half-suspected that the Funks would pull out of the system before the defences started firing on them, but instead they picked up speed and aimed right for the rebel fleet. Some of the pirate ships turned and ran when they realised what they were facing, despite the chaos breaking out in high orbit. Others stayed loyal, despite the risk. Looting an entire planet would be worth the possibility of death or capture.

  “Enemy ships are locking on,” Karla reported. They had one advantage over their enemies, even though they were badly outnumbered. The Funks were presumably much more experienced in operating as a formation. “They are preparing to fire.”

  “Fire at will,” Joshua ordered. Phase cannon opened fire, followed by volleys of antimatter torpedoes. They weren't as powerful as the improved versions devised by human engineers, but there were enough of them to make up for any deficiencies. The Funks returned fire savagely, switching their targeting over a dozen starships as they pumped out their own antimatter torpedoes. Blackbeard lurched violently as a torpedo exploded on her forward shield, followed by a tearing scream as phase cannon burned into her hull. Joshua cursed as the entire ship shuddered, just before their tormentor was blown away by two of the other ships. “Damage report!”

  “Major damage to forward hull,” the engineer reported. “They’ve taken out a couple of our drive nodes and all of our forward weapons. We’re looking at around two weeks to replace them and repair the hull.”

  “Keep firing,” Joshua ordered. The Funks were passing right through his formation, trying to take out as many ships as they could before they had to retreat. Joshua would have preferred a clean kill, wiping the entire enemy force out, but the Funks didn't want to oblige him. Why should they throw themselves away for no return? It might have been different if they'd had ships nearby that could retake the planet quickly… but if the information broker was right, the closest reinforcements were several weeks away. “See if you can get a link to the rebels in orbit.”