The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  She smiled, grimly, as Mokpo appeared on the display. It was a thoroughly ugly world, its only real assets - the orbital industrials - smashed by the human fleet. A series of messages from the planetary government popped up in front of her, but she ignored them. They were too independent for her tastes. It was time they learned - it was time everyone learned - that rebellion would be severely punished.

  “Contact the planetary government,” she ordered, curtly. “Demand that they send us a list of places controlled by the rebels.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” the aide said. There was a pause. “Ah ... Your Excellency ... they want to talk to you in person.”

  “Repeat our demand,” Neola said. She wasn’t going to waste her time with a planetary government that couldn't keep control of its own territory. Apsidal’s government, at least, had the excuse of being invaded. “And inform them that, if they fail to answer, our bombardment will be indiscriminate.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” the aide said. “They’re sending the details now. And they want to lodge a formal protest.”

  “Do they now,” Neola said. That planetary government would have to go. It wasn’t as if she had any need to coddle them. “Show me the targets.”

  The display changed, showing a handful of red spots on the planetary map. There were more than Neola had feared, even though she’d read the reports. Clearly, the planetary government was incompetent beyond belief. Why hadn’t they crushed the rebels with overwhelming force? It was obvious the humans weren’t going to intervene. They could have knocked out the planetary government by now if they’d wanted.

  “Target the rebel positions with KEWs,” she ordered, as the squadrons slipped into orbit. “I want maximum punishment. No one within the affected areas is to walk out alive.”

  The aide hesitated. “Your Excellency ...”

  Neola felt her temper rise. “Yes?”

  “Your Excellency, the affected areas are amongst some of the most productive sectors of the planet,” the aide said. “We will be killing their workforce ...”

  “Yes,” Neola said. She supposed it was a good thought, if one couldn't think beyond one’s nose. “And their workforce has risen up against them. They cannot be put back to work.”

  She snorted at the thought. Generations of servants from a hundred different races had never questioned their place in galactic society. They’d been raised from the mud and brought to the stars and all they had to do, in exchange, was serve their masters. But these servants had dared to challenge their masters instead. They could not be allowed to live. And their deaths would serve as an example to anyone else who dared challenge the natural order.

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” the aide said. At least he had enough sense not to question her further. “The weapons have been targeted.”

  “Then fire,” Neola ordered.

  The superdreadnaught shivered, gently, as she unleashed a spread of KEWs. They appeared on the display a second later, falling down through the planet’s atmosphere like a stream of shooting stars. But the rebels would have no warning, no chance to escape or take cover, before they were wiped off the planet. The icons vanished one by one, strike reports blinking up in their place ... it was easy to forget, at times, that each icon represented a thunderous impact. The icons were bloodless, nothing more than images in a holographic display, but hundreds of thousands of rebels had simply been smashed flat by the blasts. The property damage would be immense. Mokpo would need years to repair everything it had lost because of the war. By then, the planetary government would have put its house in order.

  And if it hasn’t managed to convince the servants to obey orders and remain loyal, I’ll put a governor in instead, she thought. The planet will remain under our control.

  She looked up at the aide. “Detach one squadron of destroyers to provide fire support to loyalist forces as they reoccupy the rebel territories,” she said. She doubted there would be any real resistance, now the bombardment had smashed the rebels flat, but it was well to be careful. “And inform the planetary government that I expect them to keep their planet under firm control in future.”

  Her lips curved into a sneer. “The remainder of the flag squadrons are to proceed to the gravity point,” she added. “And when we’re ready to move, we will move.”

  ***

  “Those ... those murdering bastards!”

  “Quiet,” Lieutenant Quinn Davao hissed. She understood Lieutenant Brock’s feelings all too well - she shared them - but there was no time to allow their emotions to get in the way of professionalism. “Do we ... do we have a count on how many KEWs were fired?”

  And how many people were murdered, she added silently, as Brock bent over his console, his expression dark and thunderous. There were only two of them in the tiny picket and, right now, it felt as if their ship was too small for comfort. How many people did the bastards just kill?

  “They fired over two thousand mid-sized KEWs,” Brock said, finally.

  His voice was calmer now, although Quinn could hear the anger behind it. Brock’s family had spent the last fifty years working with aliens and he had long since abandoned any concept of humanity being different - or superior - to its neighbours. Aliens were people, as far as he was concerned. She had the feeling he’d join the Inclusionists when he left the navy, if he ever did. They made such a good team that the navy would do everything in its power to keep them.

  “Shit,” Quinn said.

  “It’s hard to be sure, but I’d say they killed upwards of two billion,” Brock added. “The direct death toll is going to be huge, Quinn, and the indirect death toll might be larger still. Just firing so many KEWs into the atmosphere alone will be shitty ...”

  “Yeah,” Quinn agreed. Blowing so much dust into the atmosphere would play merry hell with the weather. She didn't think there would be enough dust to trigger a genuine nuclear winter, but she might be wrong. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  She keyed her console, sending a report to the watching destroyer. It looked as if they wouldn’t be able to get a report back to Apsidal, not since the enemy had secured the gravity point, but who knew? She’d heard rumours that there was a way to get a cloaked ship through a gravity point. Perhaps the rumours were actually true. But then, she’d also heard rumours about a plan to build a real-life Death Star.

  “I know,” Brock said. He pounded his console with his meaty fist, then turned his attention to monitoring the passive sensors. “They wanted to send a message. I’d say they succeeded.”

  “It isn’t over yet,” Quinn reminded him. “And we will make them pay for what they’ve done.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Hoshiko had seen the interior of the LinkShip before, when she’d visited via holographic projection, but there was something different about seeing it in person. It was ... odd, a strange cross between a bona fide warship and a luxury liner. The design made sense, she supposed, even though it grated on her sensibilities. Captain Hameeda would be living on her ship for the rest of her life.

  “Welcome onboard, Admiral,” Hameeda said, as Hoshiko stepped into the bridge. “Thank you for coming in person.”

  “You’re welcome,” Hoshiko said. “I must confess I was fascinated with the concept behind your ship.”

  She gave the bridge a quick glance - apart from the command chair, with the neural helmet, it was practically an empty chamber - and then focused on Hameeda. The LinkShip pilot looked better than the last time - she certainly didn't look quite so worn down - but she also looked ... sloppy, as if she’d forgotten how to dress. Hoshiko remembered the First Midshipman, on her middy cruise, and smiled. Midshipman Hedrick would have blown a fuse if she’d dressed so poorly. Hoshiko would have been doing press-ups for the rest of her projected lifespan.

  “It does seem to be working as planned, now I’ve worked out the teething problems,” Hameeda said. She stood beside her chair, one hand resting on the chair’s shoulder. “But I don’t think that was wha
t you came to discuss.”

  “No,” Hoshiko said. “I didn’t like your report.”

  A flicker of ... something passed across Hameeda’s face. “I don’t like it either, Admiral,” she said. “The Tokomak produced a hammer out of the past.”

  “It was certainly something we should have anticipated,” Hoshiko agreed, sourly. There would be hard words exchanged at the Admiralty when the news got home. “That said, we can cope with it. Any further antimatter explosions will take out the mines, but little else.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Hameeda said. “My simulations agree on that point.”

  “And we believed that the mines wouldn't be that effective in any case,” Hoshiko continued, wondering just who she was trying to convince. She’d always expected to lose Mokpo, but losing it so quickly had been a nasty surprise. Thankfully, no one else had seen the enemy attack coming either. “Do you think you can return to Mokpo?”

  Hameeda’s tinted face seemed to darken. “... Perhaps,” she said, after a moment. “But the enemy will certainly throw a comprehensive sensor web around the gravity point. We could take a leaf out of their book and send a freighter, crammed with antimatter, through the gravity point first ...”

  “We don’t have enough antimatter,” Hoshiko said. She’d already considered something similar. “Apsidal simply cannot produce it in sufficient quantities.”

  “That’s ... unfortunate,” Hameeda said. “I could try, Admiral, but the odds of success are quite low. These days, the merest gravitational flicker is enough to alert the enemy.”

  “As they may know we have a way of sneaking through gravity points,” Hoshiko said. It was a frustrating thought. “Do you have any alternatives?”

  “Nothing, save for travelling to Mokpo in FTL,” Hameeda said. “But that would take months.”

  “Yes,” Hoshiko said. She looked at the blank bulkheads, wishing for a display. Hameeda didn’t need one, of course. Her neural link provided her with all the information she could possibly require. “And by the time you got back, the situation will have resolved itself.”

  She sighed, suddenly all-too-aware of how her ancestors must have felt when they’d grappled with the fog of war. The enemy fleet was on the other side of the gravity point, plotting its offensive ... and while she knew the offensive would come, she didn't know when it would come. Her best estimates were nothing more than estimates. Hell, in their shoes, she might ram a suicidal freighter though the gravity point every few days before beginning the main offensive. Or simply launch raid after raid to keep the defenders on edge. Her crews were highly-trained, and their bodies had been enhanced, but they couldn’t stay alert forever. A smart enemy might delay the real offensive long enough to wear down her crews.

  And we can’t take the offensive ourselves, she thought. We don’t have enough assault pods to justify expending them in futile raids.

  “We’ll just have to wait, Admiral,” Hameeda said. She waved a hand towards the hatch. “Can I offer you some coffee? Or tea? I have genuine tea from Earth.”

  Hoshiko raised her eyebrows. “Did they give you real imported tea?”

  “I had to purchase it myself,” Hameeda said. She walked towards the hatch, which opened as she approached. “They gave me tea from the habitats, Admiral, but it doesn’t have quite the same taste.”

  “My grandmother said the same,” Hoshiko remembered. “She would always import food from Japan, and later from the Edo Cluster, rather than use a food processor or cook with home-grown ingredients. She insisted that the latter just didn’t have the same taste.”

  “My mother did that too,” Hameeda said. She glanced back, a faint smile on her face, as they entered the kitchen. It was impossible to think of the luxury compartment as a galley. “I could never tell the difference myself and ...”

  Her voice tailed off. Hoshiko understood. The Solar Union had always discouraged looking back at Earth, even though it was far from illegal. But then, most of the original settlers - and the ones who’d formed the government - had been determined to put Earth and its ramshackle decline into chaos behind them. There was no room for regrets, they’d said; an immigrant could only be loyal to his new home. Hoshiko had always thought that a little hypocritical, even though she had no love for those who wanted to look back to Earth. The founders hadn’t hesitated to set up cantons based on earthly societies.

  But a person can leave a canton, if he finds it oppressive, she thought. She had no idea why anyone would want to remain in a canton that shunned advanced technology, or expected men and women to follow clearly-defined gender roles, but at least the inhabitants had made the choice to stay. Earth didn’t let anyone leave their past behind.

  Hameeda made tea with casual skill. Hoshiko watched, silently admiring her devotion to producing the perfect cup of tea. Most people took their tea or coffee from food processors, rather than bothering to make it themselves. It was one of the reasons, she supposed, that real teashops and restaurants did a roaring trade. People wanted home-cooked food, but simply didn't have the time to make it themselves. Or the skills, perhaps. Hoshiko’s grandmother had tried to teach her, but Hoshiko hadn’t wanted to learn. It had all seemed so ... irrelevant.

  She took the cup Hameeda gave her and had a sip. “Perfect,” she said, sincerely. “It’s good.”

  Hameeda gave her a small smile. “My mother would be pleased,” she said. “She always told me that the secret to being a good cook lay in attention to detail.”

  “My grandmother said the same,” Hoshiko said. “That, and getting the right ingredients.”

  She wondered, suddenly, if Mariko Stuart had been a little homesick. She’d spent most of her life in America - and then the Solar Union - rather than her native Japan. But then, her memories of her home country would have been more than a little rose-tinted. Hoshiko was much younger and even she had trouble remembering that her childhood hadn’t always been idyllic. The family asteroid had had its dangers as well as its pleasures.

  They sat for a long moment in companionable silence, sipping their drinks. Hoshiko was enjoying the chance to relax, even though she knew the alert sirens might start howling at any moment. She couldn't stay for long. Her most pessimistic estimates indicated that it might be nothing more than a matter of hours before the enemy attack began. It was coming, she knew with a grim certainty that defied all contradiction. The Tokomak could no more leave her entrenched than they could abandon their jihad against the human race.

  “I feel I could do more, now,” Hameeda said, as she put her empty cup down on the table. “I think I understand what this ship can do.”

  “I’m not going to throw you away,” Hoshiko said, firmly. The LinkShip was tough, but not tough enough to take on an entire enemy fleet. “And we’re still trying to decide how to use you for more than scouting and spying missions.”

  Hameeda smiled. “I sent your staff a list of possible options.”

  “Half of which are insanely dangerous,” Hoshiko said. “We will find you something to do, don’t worry.”

  She smiled at Hameeda’s crestfallen expression. She understood the urge to get out and prove oneself - it was why she’d climbed up the tallest tree on the asteroid when she’d been five years old - but she also had no intention of wasting an irreplaceable asset. The last she’d heard, the NGW program had decided to wait for Hameeda’s full report before deciding if they wanted to produce a fleet of LinkShips. The cynic in her wondered if the real problem was the high cost of the program or the prospect of one or more of the pilots going mad.

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Hameeda said. She picked up the teapot. “More tea?”

  “No, thank you,” Hoshiko said. She stood. “I really should be getting back to my ship.”

  Hameeda smiled, rather wanly. “You’re welcome anytime, Admiral.”

  Hoshiko kept her face carefully blank. She was Hameeda’s superior officer, not her friend ... and yet, Hameeda seemed to be hinting that she was desperate for company. Perhaps
it would be best if she assigned a commando team to the LinkShip for a few weeks ... one of the planned missions, after all, involved inserting commandos onto an enemy world. It would give Hameeda some company without suggesting that she was being indulged - or monitored.

  Although she’d be a fool to assume that she wasn’t being monitored, Hoshiko reminded herself. The project director’s briefing notes had stated that practically everything on the LinkShip was being recorded for later study, just to allow the psychologists a chance to assess the impact of a permanent neural link on a human pilot. I wonder what everyone will make of the files.

  She shook her head in irritation. Privacy was rare on a starship, certainly on a warship, but it still galled her to think that Hameeda would have no privacy. Even prisoners had more privacy. Hameeda had signed up for the program, in full knowledge of what would happen if she was accepted, but still ... it was an unpleasant thought. Perhaps she’d suggest that the monitors be taken out, eventually. Or Hameeda might fly away from the Solar Union, preventing the monitors from ever uploading their files to the datanet ...