The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  She dismissed the freighters and turned her attention to the gravity point. Losing one of the fortresses was a serious matter, particularly as her remaining fortresses were also taking a beating. In theory, they had enough firepower to hold the line; in practice, she wasn’t so sure. It might be time to order her ships to advance and blow the battleships off the gravity point. If nothing else, it would give her ships a breathing space. Her crews would probably kill for a chance to rest. The battle hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, but it felt as if they’d been fighting for days.

  “Signal the fleet,” she ordered. “The battleline will prepare to advance to engage the enemy.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said, as another wave of red icons popped into existence. “The fleet is responding now.”

  The enemy CO must be feeling the heat, Hoshiko thought. Two of the newcomers interpenetrated and died, but the remainder - all destroyers - hurried forward to take up positions between the battleships and their enemies. How many of his people can he throw into the fire before they throw him into the fire?

  “The fleet is ready,” Yolanda said. “Admiral?”

  “The battleline will advance to Point Horn” - Hoshiko tapped a place on her console, marking it on the display - “and engage the enemy.”

  Defiant quivered under her feet, as if she was eager to come to grips with her foe. Hoshiko sat back on her chair, watching grimly as the fleet slowly advanced. The sheer volume of firepower they could put out would blow the enemy battleships to vapour, allowing her to regain undisputed control of the gravity point and putting the enemy advance back for hours. Days, perhaps. The enemy CO had spent her ships like water. It was hard to believe that even the Tokomak had an unlimited supply of ships, no matter who was crewing them. The Tokomak had built their fleet up over centuries. How quickly could they replace what they’d lost?

  We don't have a hope of out-producing them, Hoshiko reminded herself. She’d seen too many facts and figures to doubt it. Even if the Tokomak never improved their weapons, let alone anything else, they’d still have an edge. Humanity could only win by outthinking them, by coming up with completely new concepts. They don’t seem to have come up with anything genuinely new for centuries.

  She braced herself as the fleet slowly advanced on the gravity point, allowing the range to close before opening fire. The enemy battleships must have seen them coming, but they continued to pound on the fortresses rather than the fleet. Hoshiko suspected that was a mistake on their part, although she understood the logic. The fortresses would have to be destroyed if the enemy wanted to take the system, but humanity’s starships were far more important in the long run. A dozen fortresses could easily be left to wither on the vine once Sol and the Solar Navy had been destroyed. It was surprisingly short-term thinking for the Tokomak.

  A human might become so fixated on the short-term that he would ignore the long-term, she thought. Hitler had become so focused on Stalingrad that it had cost him the war. Would a Tokomak feel the same way? Or would he be aware that this system, as important as it is, isn't the be-all and end-all of existence?

  “Prepare to fire,” she ordered, putting her thoughts aside. Her hand came down on the console. “Fire!”

  Defiant shuddered as she unleashed a full broadside. The other ships followed suit, pumping thousands of missiles towards their target. An enemy battleship popped into existence on the gravity point, its crew no doubt utterly stunned to see the wave of destruction advancing towards them. Hoshiko fought down a very unprofessional urge to giggle. The enemy ship would barely have time to get a salvo of missiles off before it was smashed to dust.

  “Two of the enemy battleships jumped out,” Yolanda reported. “The remainder are powering up their drives. And their gunboats are charging the missile swarm.”

  Too late, Hoshiko thought, vindictively. The enemy ships didn’t seem to have made any serious preparations to retreat - absently, she wondered if the ships that had escaped had better commanders - until it was far too late. You won’t escape me now.

  She watched, feeling cold hatred flourishing in her heart, as the tidal wave of missiles burst through the gunboat formation and fell on their targets. The Tokomak fought desperately, their point defence datanets weaving their ships together into a single entity that didn’t waste so much as a single plasma bolt, but it wasn't enough. Antimatter explosions peppered their formation; knocking down their shields, exploding against their hulls and vaporising their ships. The entire enemy formation died within seconds.

  “Hold the fleet here,” Hoshiko ordered, as silence fell over the battlefield. The remaining enemy gunboats were charging her ships, but none of them had a hope of hurting her. Her ships picked them off, one by one, as they entered engagement range. “Order the minelayers to return to their work.”

  She stared at the silent gravity point, wondering when the next enemy ship would make the jump. It wouldn’t be long, she was sure. The Tokomak knew better than to give their enemy a chance to rest and recuperate, even if they were feeling the pressure themselves. And they shouldn't be feeling any real pressure. Their ships were sitting on the far side of a gravity point, completely safe. They knew they were safe.

  And I need to teach them that that isn’t true, she thought. The Tokomak would need to keep their fleet close to the gravity point. They’d be within range of her assault pods. That might weaken their will to continue the war.

  She looked at Yolanda. “Order the fleet to prepare to deploy assault pods,” she said. “And contact the LinkShip. I’ll require her to scout the gravity point.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said. She paused. “It will take two minutes to flush the assault pods into space.”

  “Understood,” Hoshiko said. There was no point in urging everyone to hurry. Her crews would move as fast as they could. “It will take the enemy some time to decide what to do anyway.”

  She forced herself to think. What would she do? She’d want to call off the assault altogether, but she doubted the Tokomak considered it an option. They needed to smash their way into Apsidal to reach Earth, unless they wanted to dispatch a fleet on a five-year mission through FTL. There were probably ways to cut the journey time down, she thought, but it would still be a major commitment. They’d be putting a vast number of ships out of commission for years. And that would weaken them at the worst possible moment. They might reason that their only real hope was to continue the offensive, whatever the cost ...

  An alarm howled. She looked up at the display and stared in horror. Red icons. Dozens - no, hundreds - materialising behind the fleet. Her mouth fell open in shock. They couldn't be real. They just couldn’t be real. The Tokomak could not have put a fleet in position to attack her from the rear.

  But they had.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  For a long moment, Hameeda’s mind simply refused to accept what she was seeing.

  It was impossible. There was no way the Tokomak could have slipped so many ships into position to attack the fleet from the rear without someone noticing. Their stealth technology was nowhere near good enough to avoid fluctuations as they crept through a gravity point. And yet, her sensors were not having flights of fancy. The Tokomak had somehow put an entire fleet in a place that allowed them to pin the humans against the gravity point. They’d turned the entire battlefield upside down.

  The freighters, she thought numbly, as her awareness expanded sharply. The enemy ships were belching missiles, aimed directly at the human fleet. Alerts flashed up as her sensors picked up a handful of hammers amongst the swarm. They literally towed the ships into attack position and we never even saw them coming.

  She dismissed the thought for the inevitable post-battle assessment and recrimination session, assuming it ever happened, and turned her attention to survival. Her subroutines raced through a number of simulations at terrifying speed, adjusting the odds as her sensors picked up the first wave of graviton pulses. The Tokomak had no intention of allowing the human
ships to move away from the gravity point, slip into FTL and run for their lives. No, they were trapping the human ships in space and setting them up for a pounding. And there was barely any time to retreat.

  Shit, she thought. Whatever happened, the human ships were going to take a beating. The trap had been turned on its head. What do we do now?

  ***

  A long time ago, when she’d been a little girl, Hoshiko’s father had told her that she spent too much time plotting what she’d do to her opponents - on the gaming board, in the VR world, on the playing fields - and not enough time contemplating what they could and would do to her. Aggression was a useful skill, if handled properly, but it wasn’t invincible. An enemy who refused to allow himself to be bullied into making mistakes - or herself assuming she was unstoppable simply because she’d moved first - would be able to take advantage of the inevitable problems with her strategy and turn it against her.

  And now the Tokomak - the Tokomak - had done it to her.

  She ignored the startled panic over the communications channels, the alarm running through the CIC, as she forced herself to think. The enemy had clearly outthought her. They’d either had a plan to mass a fleet near Apsidal or hastily put one together when they’d realised a large human fleet was on its way. Probably the latter, she suspected. The timing had been good, but far from perfect. They could have drawn ships from a dozen minor fleet bases and combined them into a major force.

  Think, she told herself. There’s always a way out.

  But she couldn’t see it. The enemy were deploying gravity-well generators of their own - a human trick they’d copied - and her fleet was effectively trapped in normal space. She could turn and run, abandoning the fortresses, but she’d still be trapped in a missile duel with an enemy fleet that was perfectly capable of doing immense damage before she finally outran it and escaped. Or she could charge the enemy fleet, knowing that it would hurt her badly and perhaps even cost humanity its chance to win the war. Or ... nothing else came to mind. It was only a matter of time before the alien fleet resumed its attack through the gravity point, catching her on both sides ...

  ... The gravity point.

  Her mind raced. What if they went through the gravity point? They’d lose the fortresses and probably quite a number of ships, depending on what they encountered on the far side, but the main body of the fleet might survive. And then ... they’d be cut off from Sol, yet they might just manage to break back through the gravity point and retake Apsidal. It was a desperate plan, the sort of scheme that would probably have gotten her kicked out of the academy, but she couldn't think of anything better. She had to preserve her fleet.

  “Prepare the assault pods for immediate launch,” she ordered, sharply. “And then inform Commodore Yu that he needs to prepare the Omega Contingency. And then ...”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll tell him myself,” she added. There was a very good chance that Yu and most of his crews wouldn’t survive the next few hours. She owed it to herself to speak to him personally. “Tell the LinkShip to execute the assault pod scenario on my command.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  Hoshiko nodded. There was no denying the fact that her plan had failed spectacularly. Her fleet - and the landing force on Apsidal - was going to pay a major price for her failure. But if she could preserve the warships, she might just be able to turn the situation on its head once again. Might.

  “Tell the remainder of the fleet train to launch a courier boat back to Sol, then go dark,” Hoshiko added. “If they don’t hear from us in a month, they are to return to Sol by the fastest possible route.”

  “Aye, Admiral.” Yolanda looked pale, but composed. “Commodore Yu is on the line for you.”

  “Put him through,” Hoshiko said. “And then start launching the assault pods.”

  ***

  Hameeda couldn't help feeling nervous as she approached the gravity point, trying not to think about the prospect of an enemy battleship materialising right on top of her. The LinkShip’s subroutines insisted that the odds were very low, but they were astronomically greater than they’d be anywhere else. She was mildly surprised the enemy hadn’t already resumed their attack through the gravity point. Had they screwed up the timing? Or were they too busy licking their wounds?

  They probably planned to catch us while their battleships held the gravity point, she thought, as she triggered her jump drive. The universe seemed to blink. Instead, we defeated one threat before the other could arrive.

  Mokpo appeared in front of her, the sheer bulk of the enemy fleet slamming into her awareness with all the subtly of a charging elephant. There were hundreds of superdreadnaughts and battleships, each one large enough to smash the LinkShip out of existence and never even notice what it had done. And they were slowly moving towards the gravity point, flanked by a swarm of destroyers and cruisers. Ice seemed to congeal around her heart. For the first time, she wondered if they might lose the battle.

  She concentrated on preparing targeting solutions, ready for the assault pods. Admiral Stuart wouldn't delay launching them, would she? But it still felt like hours before the wave of assault pods transited the gravity point. Hameeda ignored the flashes of energy as a dozen of them interpenetrated and died, focusing instead on providing targeting data to the pods before the gunboats could kill them.

  A moment later, the pods opened fire.

  ***

  Neola blinked in surprise. She’d started to think that something had gone very wrong with the timing, judging by the failure of the reserve fleet to make its appearance before her battleships were driven back through the gravity point or destroyed, but there was something desperate about the human tactic. They’d thrown hundreds of assault pods and thousands of missiles through the gravity point, as if ... as if they wanted to drive her back.

  Careful, she warned herself, as a tidal wave of missiles roared towards her ships. She didn’t dare fall into the trap of believing what she wanted to believe. They might be trying to drive us back instead.

  “Deploy the next wave of dual-jumpers,” she ordered, leaving point defence in the hands of her more capable subordinates. “I want to know what’s on the other side of the gravity point!”

  ***

  “The fortresses are engaging the alien fleet,” Yolanda reported. “But the fleet is continuing to fire on us.”

  “Unsurprising,” Hoshiko said. A missile crashed against Defiant’s shields, sending a shockwave through the entire ship. “They want to smash the fleet first.”

  The LinkShip popped back into existence on the display. “I’m getting a feed from her sensors,” Yolanda reported. “The assault pods deployed as planned.”

  “Then order the fleet to start jumping, as planned,” Hoshiko said. “And pray.”

  She gritted her teeth. Sending so many ships through a gravity point in a tight stream practically guaranteed at least one collision. She’d seen too many enemy ships interpenetrate to have any doubt about the results. And yet, she simply couldn’t see any alternative. The enemy fleet was inflicting considerable damage on her fleet. The only way to break out was to do something insane.

  They say a retreat under fire is the most dangerous manoeuvre in the tactical manual, she thought, as the first elements moved up to the gravity point and vanished. But what about a tactical retreat when you have to get your men through a rabbit hole, also while under fire?

  She pushed the thought aside and concentrated on her ships as they moved towards the gravity well. The enemy didn't seem to have realised what they were doing - there were so many ECM decoys going online that they were having trouble telling the real ships from the fakes - but it was only a matter of time. God alone knew what was happening on the far side, in Mokpo. If the enemy CO reacted quickly, he could slam the door closed and sentence her fleet to inevitable destruction.

  “Fortress Seven was struck by a hammer,” Yolanda reported. “Major damage, all sectors.”

  “Try to beam the crew
off,” Hoshiko ordered, although she suspected it would be completely futile. There was so much electromagnetic distortion in the combat zone that a teleporter matter stream was likely to be completely disrupted. The crews would be better off taking to the lifepods. She hoped the Tokomak would take prisoners. “And then ...”

  She cursed under her breath. There were so many automated weapons platforms and ECM buoys in the vicinity that it was quite possible that the lifepods would be mistaken for mines and blown out of space. The Tokomak wouldn't have to have a ‘take no prisoners’ policy to accidentally slaughter helpless victims. Merely being paranoid about human tricks would be more than enough.

  The ship shuddered, again. “They’re targeting us, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “I think they know we’re leaving.”

  “It looks that way,” Hoshiko agreed. “Let’s just hope we can keep the fleet together until we get through the gravity point.”

  ***

  Neola resisted the urge to unleash a string of blistering curses as her fleet reeled under the impact of enemy missiles. The - she couldn’t think of a word unpleasant enough to describe the confoundedly innovative race and their new weapons - had somehow targeted her ships, even though their assault pods should still have been scrambled by the jump through the gravity point. And her fleet had taken a beating. Dozens of ships had been destroyed, hundreds had been crippled ... she had plenty more, she knew, but her losses were becoming worrying. It was not to be borne.