The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  But if we do surrender, he asked himself, what then?

  If the humans kept their word, he thought, they might have some problems. They couldn’t hope to transport all the prisoners from N-Gann to another world, even assuming they had a place to put prisoners in the first place. Whatever POW camps they’d set up on Apsidal were lost to them now. And the Empress would return, soon enough, with her fleet. It was quite possible that the humans would see their prisoners liberated when they were chased from the system. The workers could go back to work immediately.

  But what if they didn’t keep their word?

  It was a chilling thought. Everyone knew, the humans most of all, that this was a war of extermination. Sure, the Empress might keep a few humans alive - for their imaginations as much as their skills - but the majority of the human race would be wiped out. Why should they not slaughter prisoners? It wasn’t as if they had any motive to treat their prisoners well when they had no reason to expect anything better from their enemies. In hindsight, it might have been a mistake to treat the younger races as inferiors. They might not be amongst the elder races, but didn’t they deserve a little respect?

  But it’s too late now to offer them the respect they deserve, he thought. It was an insight he wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t been soundly beaten by overwhelming force. We have alienated too many of the younger races to expect mercy.

  “Contact the humans,” he ordered, quietly. “Inform them that we wish to discuss the terms of our surrender.”

  His staff recoiled in shock. He didn’t blame them. The thought of surrendering to an upstart race was horrific. And yet, they had no choice. They had to surrender. Their surrender might serve a greater purpose than dying in futile combat.

  “Aye, Admiral,” his aide said. “I’ll make contact now.”

  A human face appeared in the display. It - he couldn’t tell if the human was male or female -- was strikingly ugly, even by their standards. The black mass on its head was unthinkably awful to the bald Tokomak. And the lack of open respect was shocking. This was a being who had no regard for the Galactics. He found it hard to grasp, even as he understood it. The human and its entire race had been sentenced to death.

  “I greet you,” he said. There was a procedure for talking to equals. He’d use it, although he had a feeling the humans wouldn’t realise how they were being honoured. “In the name of ...”

  “My terms are quite simple,” the human said, cutting him off. Admiral Valadon recoiled in shock. He had never - never - been interrupted by someone from a younger race, not even once. “You will stand down your weapons and defensive systems at once. The freighters in orbit will shut down their drives and wait to be boarded. Your forces will return to their barracks and wait for transfer to POW camps. You will make no attempt to destroy your industrial facilities, wipe your computers cores or do anything else that will render the facilities unusable. My people will secure the ring, the industrial nodes and your surviving orbital defences. Any resistance will be met with deadly force.”

  There was a pause. Admiral Valadon was too stunned to speak.

  “If you accept and honour these terms, you have our word that you and your people will be treated according to the Galactic Conventions,” the human continued. Left unmentioned was the simple fact that hardly anyone took the Conventions seriously, even the Tokomak who’d written them. “You will be treated well and returned to your people, either as part of a prisoner exchange or simply handed back once hostilities are over. Those of you who cause trouble, however, will be summarily dealt with. There will be no further warnings.”

  Admiral Valadon felt as if he’d been punched in the belly. His race had ruled the galaxy for so long that everyone deferred to them. To be contradicted by one of the lesser races was bad enough, but to be dictated to ... it was worse. And yet, he knew his position was hopeless. If he fought, he died. He would die for nothing.

  “We accept your terms,” he said, ignoring his staff’s shock. There was no time to explain his reasoning. They’d just have to accept it. He wondered, morbidly, if one of them would try to remove him from command and keep fighting. The wretched precedent had been set. “You may land your troops whenever you wish.”

  He closed the channel, then looked at his staff. “Dispatch a final courier boat to Apsidal, then stand down all weapons and defences,” he ordered, quietly. It didn’t look as if they were going to mutiny, but it was well to make it clear that the surrender was not the end of everything. “This is a shameful day” - and I will be blamed for it, he added silently - “but the Empress will avenge us.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” his aide said. He didn’t sound convinced - in fact, he was pushing the limits when it came to speaking to an elder - but at least he was obeying orders. “I’m sure she will.”

  Yes, Admiral Valadon thought. His career might be over, even if the humans kept their word, but the war was far from over. She’ll be back here sooner than the humans think.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “So far, Admiral, they have offered no resistance,” Colonel Jenison said. She was a tall woman, her body so muscular that Hoshiko found her a little unnerving. The skinhead haircut didn’t help. “We have secured the orbital defences and the industrial nodes without problems.”

  “Very good,” Hoshiko said. In one sense, it was a very small victory. She’d destroyed more tonnage during the battle at Apsidal, which she’d lost. But, in another, it would shake the very foundations of the galaxy. Her analysts hadn’t been able to locate another example of a Tokomak naval base being captured. Their enemies would take note. “And the warehouses?”

  “They’re crammed with supplies,” Major Harkin said. “We have more missiles and suchlike than we can hope to use. However ...”

  “Most of them are outdated,” Hoshiko finished. “And not all of them will fit in our tubes.”

  “No, Admiral,” Harkin confirmed. “We designed our tubes to fire a number of different missiles, but there are limits. Some of the larger enemy missiles would force us to retool our systems completely to fire them, which would render them useless when we link up with the fleet train and try to stock up on our missiles. The tubes would have to be retooled again.”

  “I think we can cope with that,” Hoshiko said, dryly. “Did we happen to capture any external tubes?”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Harkin said. “They have an immense stockpile of missile pods. Most of them are outdated, but they can still be used.”

  “They’ll have to be used,” Hoshiko said. She allowed herself a tight smile. The victory had opened up a whole set of options, now she was sitting atop the enemy supply line. “And the freighters?”

  “A handful of crewmen sabotaged their ships,” Harkin said. “They’re currently in uncomfortable accommodations. The remainder of the freighters are intact, but their cargoes are not all useful. We captured quite a bit of farming equipment.”

  “It might come in handy, if we have to flee to another world,” Hoshiko said. “Very well, Major. You can proceed with Plan David.”

  “Understood, Admiral,” Harkin said. “I have complete call on the fleet’s engineering crews?”

  “All of them,” Hoshiko confirmed. The captains would shout bloody murder - she would have shouted bloody murder when she’d been a captain - but she’d overrule them. Her most optimistic projections insisted that they had less than three weeks before the enemy fleet arrived, with blood in its eye. “Get those ships and pods up and running, whatever it takes.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Harkin said. He hesitated, then leaned forward. “I could move faster if I pressed some of the aliens into service ...”

  “Dangerous,” Colonel Jenison warned. “What happens if one of them manages to trigger a warhead?”

  Hoshiko made a face. On one hand, using alien labour would speed things up; on the other, it would create an unacceptable security risk. They didn’t dare take the chance.

  “No,” she said, flatly. “Stick with human labour.
”

  “As you wish, Admiral,” Harkin said. “That said, we may not be able to get everything ready before the show starts.”

  “Or even evacuate the ring completely,” Colonel Jenison added. “Admiral, there are a lot of people on the ring.”

  “I know,” Hoshiko said. “Do what you can.”

  She dismissed them both, then returned to studying the reports from the survey teams. They had captured a great prize, with enough supplies to keep the fleet going for years, although she knew they wouldn’t be allowed to keep it for long. The enemy CINC would have to double back and chase Hoshiko and her ships away from N-Gann before it was too late. They couldn’t allow her to block their supply lines indefinitely. Her lips twitched at the thought. Perhaps, if the Tokomak had been less dependent on their supply lines, they could have stabbed at Sol anyway.

  Unless they already set out, she thought, grimly. It was the nightmare scenario. The enemy fleet might have already set out for Sol, unaware that she’d closed their supply lines behind them. They might never realise that something had changed until it was too late. She’d run the simulations over and over again, telling herself that the enemy needed those supply lines, but there was no way to be sure. They might just trade N-Gann for Sol.

  Her intercom bleeped. “Admiral,” Yolanda said. “Analyst Robin Craig has requested a meeting.”

  Hoshiko’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Robin Craig was an xenospecialist, specialising in the Tokomak. She’d been one of the team assigned to study the captured battlestations and, if they were inclined to cooperate, interrogate the prisoners. What did she want? Hoshiko was tempted to deny the request, to tell Robin that she should go through proper channels, but it might be something important. And besides, it would keep her mind off fretting about the future.

  “Send her in,” she ordered. “I’ll give her twenty minutes.”

  She looked up as Robin Craig entered the suite. The young woman looked young, barely old enough to drive an aircar or fly a spacecraft. Hoshiko resisted the urge to make a snide remark about youngsters who didn’t think about how they presented themselves to others. Sure, a young woman could lock her apparent age at eighteen, but a hint of maturity was often useful in ensuring that one was taken seriously. Robin looked more like a teenager who refused to grow up rather than a naval officer in her own right.

  But then, there are lots of weirdoes in intelligence, she thought. And anyone who tries to think like an alien is bound to be a little insane.

  “Admiral,” Robin said. She sounded over-excited. “I was conducting an interrogation and ...”

  “Calm down,” Hoshiko said, amused. “And then start from the beginning.”

  Robin flushed bright red, but managed to start again. “I had the chance to speak to some of the senior officers on the station ... ah, the alien officers,” she said. “They were quite informative about some details. I don’t think they realised how much I could learn from their words.”

  “I see,” Hoshiko said, resisting the urge to ask how much she could learn from Robin’s words. “And what did they tell you?”

  “There was a coup,” Robin said. “Ah ... the commander of the fleet that attacked Earth overthrew the government and took power. She’s now their de facto monarch, dictator in all but name.”

  Perhaps we shouldn’t have let her escape, Hoshiko thought. She shook her head. The enemy commander had thought fast and escaped before she could be killed. No one had anticipated her somehow taking control of her government, not least her former masters themselves. We created a rod for our back there.

  “I see,” she said, again. “What does this mean for us?”

  “The Tokomak are gearing up for full-scale war,” Robin said. “They’re bringing the reserve online, they’re training up new spacers, they’re even conscripting the junior races into their war effort. One of my ... subjects insisted that they were even offering political concessions to the Galactics, in exchange for their support. We may be facing a far bigger threat than we’d assumed.”

  “Duly noted,” Hoshiko said, dryly. At some point, it hardly mattered. The threat was already overwhelmingly large. The Tokomak alone were a deadly threat. If the tech balance ever equalised, the human race was screwed. “Did they have anything useful to say?”

  “Apparently, some of the middle and lower races are restless,” Robin said. “But, so far, that restlessness has not materialised in any useful way.”

  “See if you can think of a way of turning it into something useful,” Hoshiko said. A thought struck her. “How many members of the subject species do we have on N-Gann?”

  “Millions,” Robin said. “Some are guest-workers, some are conscripts, some are outright slaves ... a handful own their own freighters, but the remainder are pretty much contract workers of one form or another. I believe they’re restless, Admiral. I just don’t know if any of them can do anything useful.”

  “Unfortunately true,” Hoshiko agreed. There was no point in trying to set up an insurgency on N-Gann. The planet’s environment made it impossible. Any invading force merely needed to puncture the domes to win. “Still, it might be interesting to consider what we can do with them.”

  “They could go home,” Robin suggested. “And tell their people what happened here.”

  “Maybe,” Hoshiko said. It wasn’t as if they were short of freighters. She could put a few of them aside for prospective subversives. But the odds of the whole effort amounting to anything were very low. “Or maybe they’d just be rounded up and fed into the death chambers.”

  She dismissed the thought with a shrug. Her staff would have to consider the matter, then put forward proposals. Hoshiko had no qualms about supporting an insurgency, particularly one that would tie down enemy forces, but she knew it would be hard for an insurgency to gain any real traction. The Tokomak would simply smash the insurgents from orbit if they showed themselves too openly. No, any widespread rebellion was doomed. She doubted they’d even slow the Tokomak down for more than a few days.

  “Yes, Admiral,” Robin said. “It might be possible to make inroads into the Tokomak themselves. A handful of officers have expressed interest in defecting.”

  Hoshiko’s eyes narrowed. The Tokomak wouldn’t do that, she thought, unless they genuinely believed there was no hope of rescue - or victory. And yet, the Tokomak had been absolute masters of the universe for so long that she doubted their faith in themselves would be shaken so quickly. They were probably already coming up with rationalisations for their defeat, starting with her superior numbers and firepower. Their population, back home, would probably not even notice. What was the loss of a few dozen ships and a single naval base when there were hundreds of thousands of ships and hundreds of naval bases?

  Ah, but this one is in the right position, she thought, wryly. They cannot let us keep it.

  “See what you can do with them,” she ordered. She would make sure that any defector was thoroughly checked, of course, but ... who knew what they could do with a defector’s willing cooperation? Someone who might even be able to speak to his fellows ... had they merely captured a Tokyo Rose? Or someone a great deal more influential? “And send me a full report on their current government.”

  She watched Robin walk through the hatch, then considered what she’d been told. It had been a long time since she’d taken History and Moral Philosophy, but her tutors had made it clear that many of the advantages of a dictatorship simply didn’t last very long. A dictator could cut through the red tape and remove worthless bureaucrats, giving the impression of efficiency, yet no one mind - human or alien - could hope to keep track of all the details necessary to keep society functioning. And the devil was in the details.

  And that assumes that the dictator is not in it for his own personal glory, she reminded herself, dryly. When he is, he puts his own safety and security ahead of his people.

  It was tempting to believe that the Tokomak government would simply collapse under the harsh weight of reality. S
he certainly wanted to believe it. Human history suggested that the dictatorship, however disguised, could not last forever. And the Empress had set a precedent that every ambitious officer on Tokomak Prime could hardly fail to note. But there was no way she could count on it. Or have any idea when it would happen. The government merely had to last long enough to win the war and crush the human race. After that ... it didn’t matter. Humanity would be dead.

  She spent the next few hours touring her flagship, listening to an endless series of reports and updates on the frantic defence planning. She would have liked to go over to the enemy base herself, or even set foot on the ring, but she knew her security team would have had fits. If the last update from Apsidal was to be believed - and she didn’t think the Tokomak had had time to fake anything - the human forces were still fighting hard. There was no reason any surviving enemy forces on the ring couldn’t do the same. She was a little surprised by how quickly they’d surrendered.