The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We wait,” he said. It wasn’t particularly heroic, but his objective was to preserve the fleet base ... not to grind down the human fleet. He could wait patiently, under the shield, for the empress to return with her fleet. “Order the warships to hold position.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” the aide said. He broke off, suddenly. “Admiral, something’s happening!”

  ***

  Hameeda silently counted down the last few seconds as the LinkShip started to shake violently. She was brushing against N-Gann’s gravity shadow, a problem made worse by the presence of the N-Gann Ring and its forcefield. Most gravity shadows were easy to predict and avoid, even when one was trying to drop out of FTL as close to the planet as possible, but N-Gann’s was dangerously unpredictable. The mission was far riskier than she’d realised when she’d received her orders.

  A moment longer, she told herself, as the shaking grew worse. The LinkShip couldn’t plunge through the planet itself - that would be certain death - but it could come out of FTL within the gravity shadow, if she was careful. A moment longer ...

  The LinkShip crashed back into normal space. Alarms howled at the back of her mind, but she ignored them as she opened her awareness as wide as she could. The enemy forcefield was a clear and present danger, above her. She laughed out loud as she realised she’d made it. She’d come out of FTL underneath the field. The LinkShip veered from side to side as she gunned the drives, hastily deploying a whole string of ECM drones. There was no hope of remaining undetected. Her return to normal space had been so violent that they had to have seen her.

  But they couldn’t have expected me, she thought, as she roared towards her targets. No normal starship could survive a jump into a planet’s gravity shadow.

  Her awareness filled with enemy ships and installations. A giant battlestation, its weapons already turning to target her, and a command node on the N-Gann Ring itself. Her sensors picked out the shield generators, noting how they worked together to keep the forcefield active. The Tokomak were masters of redundancy, often taking it to an extreme, but this time they’d outdone themselves. There were so many shield generators along the Ring that, for the first time, she doubted her success. She had to take out hundreds of them in order to make an impact. Fortunately, there was a simpler option.

  The enemy opened fire. Hameeda grinned, throwing the LinkShip into a series of evasive manoeuvres as space filled with phaser beams, plasma fire and short-range countermissiles that tended to be sucked towards the drones. She selected her targets a moment later and fired, unleashing the hammers that had been fitted to her hull. The LinkShip seemed to move more freely, as soon as the hammers were gone. She knew it was an illusion - it wasn’t as if they were flying through an atmosphere - but it couldn’t be denied.

  Target the other shield generators, she ordered, swooping along the ring and triggering burst after burst of phaser fire. The enemy would find it harder to target her, unless they wanted to risk damaging the ring themselves. It was probably designed to soak up a great deal of damage, like the previous ring, but there were limits. Don’t give them a chance to lock onto us.

  The first hammer struck home, smashing an orbital battlestation into a cloud of debris that expanded outwards in all directions. Two more struck the main shield generators on the ring itself, smashing through the outer hulls and tearing through the interior. Hameeda had a weird mental image of a donut with a single bite taken out of it, a moment of whimsy that nearly got her killed. The enemy were firing desperately now as their forcefield flickered and started to fail. A fourth hammer slammed into the main power generators and destroyed them. The entire ring seemed to convulse under the force of the impact.

  Ignore the gunboats, she ordered, as she kept targeting the shield generators. The ring was too big to be destroyed easily, even by a hammer missile, but the damage was mounting up rapidly. Her analysis subroutines insisted that the enemy power network was failing, suggesting that it was only a matter of time until the forcefield collapsed completely. Take out as many shield generators as possible.

  A second enemy battlestation died. Hameeda barely noted its passing, although her subroutines suggested that the enemy had been unwilling or unable to unleash any anti-hammer countermeasures. They’d be reluctant to deploy antimatter warheads in orbit, even though N-Gann was nowhere near the galaxy’s premiere vacation spot. She concentrated on the shield generators, sweeping along the ring as fast as she dared. The enemy were definitely panicking now. Their forcefield was dying ...

  ... And then it snapped out of existence. The planet was defenceless.

  Hameeda laughed - the mission had been a complete success - and then threw the LinkShip into FTL. There was no point in remaining so close to the enemy defences any longer, not when the mission had been completed. The remainder of the operation was in Admiral Stuart’s hands. The impregnable world was suddenly very pregnable. Admiral Stuart’s plan had definitely been a complete success ...

  ... And, as far as she was concerned, the LinkShip had been a complete success too.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Impossible,” Admiral Valadon breathed.

  He was too stunned to care that his staff could hear him, although he was dimly aware that they were just as shocked. Everyone had known that the planetary shield was utterly impregnable. He could have held N-Gann against a fleet large enough to daunt even the Tokomak. And yet, the humans had somehow jumped below the shield and taken out the entire network of shield generators. The generators that hadn’t been destroyed directly had been crippled when the power network surged or simply deprived of power.

  “Order the fleet to prepare to engage,” he managed, as he struggled to reassess the situation and come up with a plan. None of his contingency plans had included losing the shield and two of his battlestations. The ring itself was in serious danger. “And send an update to Apsidal. Inform them ... inform them that we are on the verge of losing the system.”

  He gritted his teeth in bitter frustration. The planetary defences were tough, even without the forcefield, but they weren’t tough enough. There was no way he could keep the enemy fleet from devastating the planet’s orbital industries. He snapped out orders, telling the industrial workers to evacuate their locations at once, even though he knew it was futile. The humans would bombard the planet as a matter of course. There was no longer any safe space on the planet’s surface. And the conscripts might start getting restless.

  The Empress is going to retire me for this, he thought, glumly. It wasn’t fair. He’d done everything right and he’d still lost. Who could have predicted that the humans would find a way to jump under the shield? It should have been impossible. I’ll spend the rest of my days in a retirement home.

  “Admiral,” his aide said. “The human fleet is moving to engage the defence force.”

  Admiral Valadon barely cared. His remaining life expectancy was over seven hundred years. And he was going to spend the rest of them in a prison. A nice prison, perhaps, but still a prison.

  “Admiral?”

  “Order the fleet to engage the enemy,” Admiral Valadon said, sharply. He knew his duty, damn it. He’d keep going until the battle was over. “And keep evacuating the orbital stations.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  ***

  “The LinkShip succeeded, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “The planetary shield is down.”

  “I saw,” Hoshiko said. “Order the fleet to engage the enemy.”

  She studied the cluster of red icons on the display, wondering if the enemy fleet would turn and run. It would be the smart choice, even though it wouldn’t be particularly brave. Maybe they’d fire a shot or two for the honour of the flag before dropping into FTL and running to link up with the main fleet. It wasn’t as if they had a chance against her. She outnumbered and outgunned the enemy ships. And they had to know it.

  “We will open fire at Point Alpha,” she ordered, tapping commands into her console. “And if they decide to run, let the
m go.”

  The enemy fleet did not appear to be commanded by a tactical mastermind, she decided as the two fleets converged. They formed into a simple blocking formation, drawing a line in space and daring her to cross. Hoshiko snorted, torn between relief, suspicion and a hint of pity for the alien crews. Either they had something really nasty up their sleeves, which seemed unlikely, or their commanding officer was going to get them killed for nothing. It didn’t even look as though they were preparing to jump out and run. She wouldn’t have blamed a CO for retreating in the face of overwhelming firepower.

  “They’re targeting us, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “They’ve locked on.”

  Hoshiko shrugged. She wasn’t trying to hide. She would have been more surprised if the Tokomak hadn’t managed to lock their weapons on her hulls. Still, she couldn’t help a flicker of disapproval as the display sparkled with red icons. The Tokomak had fired too early, if they wanted to defeat her fleet. She had all the time in the world to configure her point defence to wipe out the missile swarm.

  “Hold fire,” she ordered, calmly. “We will fire at Point Alpha.”

  She tensed, despite herself, as the enemy missiles roared into engagement range. They looked to be unmodified, the kind of missiles the Tokomak had considered perfectly adequate until they’d gone to war with the Solar Union. She was surprised N-Gann didn’t have more modern weapons, although it made a certain kind of sense. The enemy fleet would probably have absorbed most of the new production, leaving nothing for the rearguard. And besides, refitting the ships and fortresses to fire modern missiles would have been a pain in the butt. Perhaps they’d just earmarked it as something to do later and simply ran out of time.

  Or maybe they didn’t realise that we would strike at N-Gann, Hoshiko thought. The Tokomak wouldn't have been wrong. It had never been part of her plan, at least not originally. And when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the gravity point, it was too late for them to upgrade their weapons and defences.

  Her lips thinned as the enemy missiles evaporated against her defences. Her point defence crews, from the humans on the command decks to the RIs that handled the actual work, had plenty of experience dealing with more modern weapons. The Tokomak simply didn't have the weight of numbers to make up for their weaknesses. In their place, she would have retreated into FTL or sought to combine her firepower with the planet’s defences. Instead, they looked reluctant to do anything that could be taken as an admission of failure ...

  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time, she thought as she watched the enemy unleash another salvo of missiles, then the Tokomak are definitely insane.

  “Admiral,” Yolanda said. “We have reached Point Alpha.”

  “Fire,” Hoshiko ordered, quietly.

  Defiant shuddered as she opened fire. Hoshiko tensed, telling herself - again and again - that she wouldn’t need to expend more missiles. The enemy fleet was small, too small to be a serious threat unless it linked up with the remainder of their fleet. And yet, it could soak up enough of her missiles to cripple her. She had no idea what she’d do if her fleet was effectively unarmed. Try to sneak back to Earth? It would take months, if not years, and by then Sol might have been swept clean of life. What would she do then?

  She watched, grimly, as the enemy formation struggled to beat off her offensive. Their point defence was better than she’d expected, although there didn’t seem to be any significant improvements in hardware. That was a good thing, she supposed, even though it showed that the Tokomak were taking training seriously once again. She wondered how their new government had managed to convince its military to run unscripted exercises. The Tokomak planners had always known what both sides would do, right down to how many missiles would be fired and who’d actually win. There would have been no surprises to really test their mettle. But now ...

  Not enough, she thought, vindictively. Her missiles were slipping through the enemy defences and slamming into their shields. Nowhere near enough training to save their lives.

  The enemy formation came apart, a handful of ships jumping into FTL while their comrades - suddenly thrown back on their own resources - struggled to survive. They didn’t stand a chance. One by one, they died; Hoshiko considered, briefly, asking them to surrender, but she didn’t dare risk introducing random factors. Given time, who knew what they’d do?

  “The enemy fleet has been destroyed, save for a handful of runaways,” Yolanda reported, shortly. “They’re heading out of the system at speed.”

  “Smart,” Hoshiko muttered. She wondered, absently, just what sort of reception awaited the runaway ships. Would their commanders be rewarded for recognising the hopelessness of their position? Or would they be put in front of a court-martial and shot for desertion in the face of the enemy? “Bring the fleet around. We will advance on the planet as soon as we are ready.”

  She checked the reports and nodded to herself, silently relieved that they hadn’t expended too many missiles during the brief engagement. The fleet could still take - or devastate - the planet, then ... well, it depended. She had a whole string of contingency plans, ranging from detailed operational outlines her staff had put together to vague concepts that might - might - prove feasible if the stars were right. But it depended on the outcome of this engagement. If she fired too many missiles, or lost too many ships, the whole gamble might prove utterly disastrous.

  “The fleet’s reporting, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “We are ready to advance.”

  “Then advance,” Hoshiko ordered. “And signal the planet. Inform them that we will accept surrender, if they refrain from damaging the planetary infrastructure.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  Hoshiko settled back into her chair and waited. The Tokomak rarely bothered to accept surrenders, except in very rare circumstances. And they had such a superiority complex that it was quite possible they’d sooner die than surrender to a race that hadn’t even been in space for a hundred years. And that, of course, assumed that they trusted their human captors to keep the terms of their surrender. There were factions on Earth that Hoshiko would sooner die fighting, even if the battle was hopeless, then let them take her alive. The Tokomak might feel the same way too.

  “No response, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  “Repeat the signal,” Hoshiko ordered. “And target their battlestations with hammers.”

  She heard a gasp running through the chamber. It was dangerous to use hammers so close to a planetary surface, even a world as inhospitable as N-Gann. Normally, Hoshiko would have held back from using such weapons, but now she had no choice. She didn’t dare get into a missile duel with the orbital fortresses. They were too heavily armed and defended for her to destroy without massive losses. And even if their weapons were outdated, there were an awful lot of them.

  “Repeating now,” Yolanda said.

  Hoshiko asked herself, grimly, just what she’d do if she was on the other side. She might surrender, knowing that she would be assured of good treatment, but ... that would mean allowing a sizable industrial base to fall into enemy hands. And yet, the Tokomak fleet wasn’t that far away. They could dispatch most of their ships back to N-Gann to crush the human fleet before she had a chance to put the industrial base to good use. It was quite possible they’d calculate that surrender was actually their best option. She would either have to destroy the industrial facilities, thus rendering them useless to her as well as the enemy, or allow herself to be pinned down.

  And they’d destroy me if I let myself be pinned to a single world, Hoshiko thought. In a conventional war, without the planetary shield, N-Gann was indefensible. And yet, I need supplies from the planetary industries.

  “Still no response, Admiral,” Yolanda said.

  Hoshiko gritted her teeth. “Take us into attack range,” she ordered. A full-scale engagement would destroy most of the orbital nodes she wanted to capture, even if she didn’t intend to
do it. It was frustrating, but there might be no choice. She couldn’t leave N-Gann in her rear if she couldn’t convince it to surrender. “Prepare to engage.”

  ***

  “The humans are demanding our surrender, again,” the aide said. “Admiral?”

  Admiral Valadon forced himself to think. N-Gann was doomed. Either the humans occupied the planet - or at least the high orbitals - or they devastated the system from end to end. And his career was doomed with it. There was no way to escape blame for the debacle. The Empress would want a scapegoat and he’d be perfect for the role.

  He cursed under his breath. The thought of surrender was anathema. There were dark rumours that some of the ships that had attacked Earth had surrendered, although officially the stories had been denied time and time again. No Tokomak ship had surrendered for nearly a thousand years. He couldn’t remember the last time a planet had surrendered. It might have been far more than a mere thousand years ago.