The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  Whatever else you can say for the Tokomak, she reminded herself once again, they simply don’t think small.

  A convoy of freighters was rising slowly up towards her. She moved the LinkShip out of the way, watching as the freighters set course for Winglet and jumped into FTL. N-Gann’s authorised emergence and departure zones seemed to be quite some distance from the planet, although she supposed that wasn’t a surprise. Anything that dropped out of hyperspace too close to the gravity shadow risked crashing into the planet - or, worse, it might be an enemy ship on a suicide run. It wasn’t as if they were heading towards a gravity point.

  They’ll see the fleet coming, she thought, as she swept the planet one final time. And what will they do then?

  She shrugged. Admiral Stuart was counting on the fleet being detected. Hameeda wasn't sure how she felt about that, but she knew the fleet couldn’t remain undetected whatever happened. Hopefully, the enemy would take the bait and not realise where the real threat lay ... hopefully. The Tokomak had shown too great a capacity for innovation over the last few weeks for anyone’s peace of mind. She carefully glided the LinkShip away from the planet, then surveyed the remainder of the system with her passive sensors. The Tokomak had expanded the defences around the gravity point, but not the gas giant. It made her wonder precisely what they had in mind.

  They’re probably worried about a stab in the back, she thought. There were two major species within jumping range of N-Gann. Both of them were supposed to be Tokomak loyalists, but their loyalty couldn’t be taken for granted. Who knew what they’d do if the empire looked weak? They have to consider the worst even as they prepare for their drive on Earth.

  The LinkShip fell back into FTL and rocketed away from N-Gann. Hameeda sat back in her chair, waiting until she was sure she was clear to remove her helmet. The automated systems might be able to cope with a gravity well in her path, if the enemy had managed to get a sniff of her presence and sound the alarm, but she didn’t want to put them to the test. Instead, she waited until she was beyond the system limits. It was only a few minutes to get out of range.

  A shame the rest of the fleet can’t move so quickly, she thought. We’d be on top of them before they had a chance to get ready.

  She kept a wary eye on her sensors as the timer ticked down to zero. In theory, Admiral Stuart’s fleet should be well outside sensor range. In practice ... it wouldn't be that hard for the Tokomak to set up a network of pickets watching for intruders to ensure that the defenders got some early warning. There was simply no way to know. A scoutship might have already seen Admiral Stuart and rushed to N-Gann with a warning. And if that happened, N-Gann would have already started preparing to meet the offensive.

  The LinkShip returned to normal space. Her awareness was suddenly full of starships, alarm bells ringing in her head until her sensors confirmed that they were friendly. Admiral Stuart’s fleet looked powerful, to the naked eye, but her sensors could pick out their weaknesses. They’d been in a major engagement and they simply hadn’t had anything like enough time to make more than basic repairs. She suspected that some of the officers had fudged their readiness reports a little. Being sent out of the combat zone was bad enough, but having to leave when one was on the wrong side of a defended gravity point was worse.

  Admiral Stuart’s image appeared in front of her. “Captain.”

  “Admiral,” Hameeda said. “I’m transmitting the data to you now.”

  “Very good,” Admiral Stuart said. She sounded distracted by a far greater thought. “And are you ready to carry out your part of the operation?”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Hameeda couldn’t help a thrill of excitement. This was real flying, the kind of precision operations the LinkShips had been designed to do. “I am ready.”

  “Then prepare to depart,” Admiral Stuart said. “We will be leaving in thirty minutes.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  ***

  Hoshiko ignored the babbling from her intelligence staff as she surveyed the raw data, concentrating on the defences around N-Gann itself. The Tokomak had, arguably, overdone it, although by conventional standards the planet was effectively impregnable. Hoshiko could wreak havoc on the cloudscoops and anything else outside the planetary defence shield, but there was no way she could touch N-Gann itself. And yet, she had an ace up her sleeve. It was one she knew the Tokomak would never anticipate.

  “They can shield the whole planet,” Yolanda breathed.

  “We knew that,” Hoshiko reminded her, dryly. “And that gives us an edge.”

  She keyed her intercom, opening a channel to the fleet. “All hands, this is Admiral Stuart,” she said. She wished, suddenly, that she’d taken the time to write a better speech. Or crib one from someone with more time on their hands. “I don’t think I need to tell you what is at stake, here. The survival of our entire civilisation depends on us. If we fail to stop them, our parents, our siblings, our people will die. Their defence rests in our hands. And we will not let them down.

  “They gave us a battering. Yes, they did. There’s no point in trying to hide from the truth. But today, we give them a battering. Today, we show them that this war will be long, hard and ultimately a disaster for their tottering empire. Today, we show them what humans can do.”

  She closed the channel. “Signal the fleet,” she ordered, quietly. “Prepare to jump.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Admiral Valadon was having a good war.

  In truth, he’d expected to be relieved of his command as soon as he’d realised just who had overthrown the government back home. He had, after all, been one of the officers who’d denied Viceroy Neola’s request for accelerated promotion, something that he’d been sure would come back to bite him now Viceroy Neola was Empress Neola. And he was easily five hundred years older than her. He might not have been one of the ruling circle, with the power to promote or demote at will, but she had no reason to think he was reliable either.

  And yet, she’d left him in his post.

  It wasn’t entirely a blessing, he had to admit. He’d had to prepare N-Gann to receive a fleet an order of magnitude larger than any that had been deployed for nearly a thousand years, then support the fleet as it moved up the chain towards Apsidal - and Earth. His logistics staff had been working triple shifts, shuttling supplies from the nearest systems to the ring’s giant warehouses and then either transferring them to the navel warships or loading them onto freighters for transport to Apsidal. It was an incredibly complex task, one that had been harder than anyone - perhaps including the empress - had anticipated. They’d come closer to failing than he cared to admit. But they’d succeeded.

  He stood on his command deck, studying the latest series of reports from the front. The fleet had conquered Apsidal, but the human invaders - and their allies - were refusing to surrender and submit to Tokomak rule. Instead, they were fighting back with a savagery unseen since the early wars around the gravity points. Admiral Valadon had been ordered to keep running supplies - and troops - up the chain to the occupied world, while simultaneously assisting the fleet in turning Apsidal into a forward base and preparing for the drive on Earth. It was a major headache, he had to admit, but they were winning. They had all the time in the universe.

  His aide hurried up to him. “Admiral, the latest set of conscript barracks are ready.”

  “Very good,” Admiral Valadon said. He contemplated the details for a long moment, then shrugged. “Have the next set of conscripts detailed to those barracks for basic training.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  “And keep them under tight security,” Admiral Valadon added. “We don’t want them trying to escape.”

  He snorted at the thought. The servant races had been getting uppity recently, as rumours of vast defeats and embarrassing setbacks made their way from world to world. None of the rumour-mongers seemed to care that losing a few hundred ships would barely scratch the surface of the vast reserves the Tokomak could deploy, or that those f
ew hundred ships had weakened an enemy fleet that simply couldn’t afford losses. No, they were spreading discontent and causing trouble. It was quite likely that some of the conscripts, plucked from their world to serve their masters, were already infected. Some of them might even do something stupid.

  At least we’ll weed the idiots out, Admiral Valadon thought, with a flicker of cold amusement. A group of escaped convicts could hide for years, on a normal world, but N-Gann’s atmosphere was poisonous to humanoid life. No known race could live on the surface without protection. Anyone who goes out the airlock without a suit will be dead very quickly.

  He sobered as he contemplated the problems facing the armed forces. It normally wasn’t necessary to invade a world, to put boots on the ground, in order to control it. A single orbital bombardment platform was normally enough to convince the locals to behave. But the Apsidal Ring wasn’t the only place that would need to be occupied in order to put it to use. The Tokomak would need to conscript, train and deploy millions of soldiers in order to control the rebellious worlds. Earth itself would be a nightmare, unless the empress pressed ahead with her stated goal of destroying the entire planet. Admiral Valadon wasn’t so sure that was a good idea - humans had been a useful race, in the past, and they might be useful again once they had been beaten into submission - but he knew better than to challenge the empress openly. She could have him sent to the retirement world with a wave of her hand.

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Empress Neola hadn’t killed the gerontocrats. Instead, she’d sent them to luxury retirement worlds where their every whims were met, save one. They had no power outside the planetary atmosphere, no ability to steer the course of the entire galaxy ... they were utterly irrelevant. He’d wondered, when he’d heard about the coup, why the empress simply hadn’t killed them, but he knew now. They were utterly powerless, as powerless as she had been when she’d been a young officer, staring defeat and disaster in the face. Admiral Valadon would sooner die than embrace helplessness. It would keep him loyal in a manner ...

  “Admiral,” the tracking officer said. “Long-range sensors are picking up a multitude of ships heading towards N-Gann.”

  Admiral Valadon gave him a sharp look. “A convoy?”

  “No, Admiral,” the tracking officer said. “Our computers call it an enemy fleet.”

  “Show me,” Admiral Valadon said, striding over to the console. “Put them on the main display.”

  His eyes narrowed as the display updated. The incoming ships were clearly visible, flying in close formation to make it difficult for his sensors to tease out just how many ships were about to land on his head. And yet, by gravimetric emissions, there couldn’t be more than five hundred ships at the most. It was consistent with the reports from Apsidal. The enemy fleet had fled to Mokpo, then jumped into FTL. No one had expected the humans to head for N-Gann, of all places, but it was well within their capabilities. Judging by the timing, they’d headed straight for N-Gann.

  “Bring the orbital defences to combat readiness, then prepare to activate the shield,” he ordered. The enemy fleet was coming in fast. They’d be dropping out of FTL in barely thirty minutes, assuming they were heading for N-Gann itself. A fleet that size could cause real trouble if it decided to ravage the remainder of the system instead. “Order the freighters to get under the planetary shield or head out to a safe distance.”

  Admiral Valadon hesitated, considering his next move. The humans could do a great deal of damage, true, but there was no way they could take the system. And most of the damage they could do would be very limited. He could have new cloudscoops built from scratch long before the sudden shortage of HE3 began to bite. His giant orbital industries would not be seriously threatened. He didn’t have to scream for help.

  But he knew his duty. “Send a courier boat to Apsidal,” he added. By the time it reached Apsidal, the engagement would probably be over ... unless, of course, the humans decided to lay siege to the system. “Inform them that we are about to come under attack.”

  He smiled, coldly. The humans couldn’t crack his defences. And, if they decided to lay siege to his planet, the main fleet would return and catch their fleet between two fires. It could shorten the war ...

  ... And that, he knew, was an outcome that would definitely please Empress Neola.

  ***

  “Twenty minutes to arrival, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “All ships report that they are at full combat readiness.”

  “With a certain degree of fudging,” Hoshiko said, dryly.

  Her lips quirked. There were readiness reports that seemed to have been written with a civilian eye in mind, as if the commanding officers who’d written them didn’t seem to believe that their readers would notice the tactical omissions, skewed viewpoints and outright lies. Normally, she would have called up the commanding officers in question for the express purpose of ripping their heads off, both for trying to misrepresent the truth and for taking damaged ships into combat. But now, when she was risking everything on a desperate gamble, she needed every ship she could field. A handful of ships, even damaged ships, might make the difference between success and failure.

  She sat in her command chair, concentrating on projecting calm composure to the rest of the compartment. Her staff knew the odds, they knew just how much could go wrong ... they knew that, if the plan failed, the fleet would have no choice but to turn and flee. And yet, they were handling their duties with a calmness Hoshiko had to admire. They’d seen the elephant. Combat was no longer a mystery. They thought they could handle anything.

  It had been easier, she thought, in the Martina Sector. There, she’d known that a defeat - even the total destruction of her squadron - would not have materially affected the balance of power. The Solar Union would have mourned her loss - she was morbidly sure that the analysts, armchair admirals and historians would have taken to their keyboards to condemn her in no uncertain terms - but it wouldn’t have died with her. Now, losing the fleet could prove disastrous. She’d allowed herself to be outthought and outfought. She didn’t dare let that happen again.

  “Five minutes to arrival,” Yolanda said. “Admiral?”

  “Deploy as planned,” Hoshiko said. She knew the importance of being flexible, but there was no point in changing things now. She’d adjust her plans if they jumped into N-Gann and discovered that the enemy had rushed their fleet back from Apsidal, yet she wouldn’t know she needed to make adjustments until she saw the fleet. “And prepare to engage the enemy.”

  The timer ticked down to zero. Hoshiko braced herself as the display blanked, then rapidly started to fill with green, blue and red icons. N-Gann was directly in front of them, wrapped in a haze that signified a full-scale planetary shield. She couldn’t help a flicker of admiration for the alien engineers, even though the planet-sized forcefield was an attacker’s worst nightmare. N-Gann had more than enough power plants and shield generators, lining the ring - to make it impossible to batter down the shield. Her fleet could expend every missile it carried, from antimatter warheads to kinetic projectiles, and the field would remain intact. It was no surprise that the Tokomak felt confident in their rear-area security. N-Gann was practically impregnable.

  Maybe we should have built a Death Star after all, she thought. She smiled, despite the situation. It isn’t as if the Tokomak have starfighter pilots who are strong in the Force.

  “Admiral, their warships are holding position above the shield,” Yolanda reported. “They’re recalling their freighters through the shield or sending them into deep space.”

  Hoshiko nodded. The enemy was opening gaps in the shield, very brief gaps, just long enough to allow freighters to make it down to the ring. It was an impressive display of control, she admitted sourly. They’d emplaced more than enough shield generators to allow them to manipulate the forcefield in any way they pleased. They might even be able to expand it to the point where they could swat her ships, if she was fool enough to take them so close to the planet. Human
ity could duplicate the trick, but there was no point. It would take decades to fortify Earth to the point where it could support its own planetary shield.

  And this is a relatively minor fleet base, she thought, feeling cold. What’s it going to be like if we have to hit one of their main worlds?

  “Let them get a good look at us,” she ordered, quietly. “Can you confirm the location of their main shield generators and command posts?”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Yolanda said. The display focused on the planetary ring. “I believe I’ve spotted the main locations.”

  Hoshiko’s eyes narrowed. “Forward the data to the LinkShip, then hold us here,” she ordered. “And order the LinkShip to jump.”

  ***

  “They’re remaining out of range,” the aide reported.

  Admiral Valadon nodded, curtly. The human fleet was impressive, particularly for a race that had only been in space for sixty years, but it didn’t have the firepower to crack the planetary shield. Unless, of course, it had some weapons system the revoltingly ingenious humans had invented and carefully kept under wraps until they needed it ... he shook his head, irritated at the mere thought. They would have deployed any superweapons during the Battle of Apsidal.