by David Weber
"Warmasters, I understand what you're saying. From the bottom of my heart, I understand it! But how can we liberate a subjugated population on a world like this?" Macomb's usual persona returned with a bark of scornful laughter. "When Admiral Antonov first discovered Harnah, there was a lot of talk about some kind of gene-engineered bioweapon that would wipe out the Bugs without harming the native life forms. Typical! As far back as the twentieth century, we humans got into the habit of expecting a high-tech 'silver bullet' for every dilemma. But it came a cropper in the end."
There was much nodding of heads, and the various nonhuman equivalents thereof. In retrospect, the failure of the bioweapons research was no surprise. Galactic society was far less advanced in that area than a twentieth-century Terran would have expected. The reason was simple: fear. The kind of fear that had assumed the stature of a full-blown cultural taboo. Everyone knew that tailored microorganisms could mutate beyond their creators' control faster than you could say "Frankenstein." Humans knew it in their forebrains, from theoretical studies and computer models. Orions knew it in their guts . . . from what had actually happened to their original homeworld.
"So," Macomb continued, "if we want to selectively exterminate the Bugs on a planet like Harnah while sparing the natives, we're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: put our Marines down into the mud. Now, the only time we've gone toe-to-toe against the Bugs on the ground was during Admiral Murakuma's counteroffensive in the Romulus Chain. I've talked to General Raphael Mondesi, who commanded the landing force-he's at Alpha Centauri now, in a staff billet. So I have some conception of what it's like."
Macomb hesitated, and sought for the words that would give these people a glimpse of the hell Mondesi had evoked for him. In the end, he knew, no one who hadn't seen it for himself could possibly grasp the full implications, but he went ahead and tried anyway.
"It's not like fighting a normal enemy, one whose spirit you can break by hurting him enough," he said. "It's more like fighting a force of nature-like a hurricane or a tidal wave, but one with a brain. One that can think and plan and adjust its responses in the face of resistance. One made up of millions of units that individually just don't care whether they live or die! And it's not just the warriors. They can use the workers to screen their warriors' assaults-to soak up our fire until they can get across any kill zone we could set up. And on a planet like Harnah, there are billions of them. Billions! Do you have any idea what that means? Any idea of the losses our Marines would take?"
There was a dead silence as everyone in the room tried to see through the eyes of those Marines-necessarily limited in numbers, for even the Grand Alliance's spacelift capacity was finite. It would be like staring up at a towering tsunami of malignant, insensate protoplasm.
"The position is, undeniably, a difficult one, First Fang," Rikka said into the silence at last. "We fully grasp the implications of what we're insisting on-the sacrifices we're asking of your personnel. And we are prepared to make you an offer as an earnest of our commitment."
"An . . . offer?"
"Yes First Fang. I make it in my capacity as ambassador. But Warmaster Garadden has asked to speak for me-as, I believe, is fitting."
Garadden stood up again.
"Our proposal is this," she said. "If the other members of the Grand Alliance will pledge to refrain from bombarding Demon-occupied planets with subjugated native populations on their surfaces, the Star Union will pledge in return to furnish a minimum of fifty percent of the ground-assault forces necessary to take any such planets."
At first, Ynaathar wondered if the translator software had rendered the Telikan's words correctly.
"Ah, Warmaster, did I understand you to say-?"
"You did, First Fang. I refer not to a ceiling, but a minimum of half the total landing force for the entire Alliance for every planet like Harnah."
Sommers stared up at Garadden. Clearly, this was news to her.
"But . . . but the Star Union Ground Wing is far smaller than either the Federation's Marine Corps or the Khanate's Atmospheric Combat Command-much less both of them!" she protested, her expression horrified. "And it consists overwhelmingly of racial Telikans, drawn from the small refugee population base. Garadden, were you listening to Admiral Macomb? Do you realize we're probably talking about millions of casualties?"
"Yes," Garadden replied simply. Her muzzle wrinkled in her race's smile. "You see, we take our convictions in this matter very seriously."
Silence fell yet again. A different sort of silence, this time.
"As far as the Grand Alliance as a whole is concerned," Ynaathar said at last, "this will of course have to be ratified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But pending their decision-as to which I have little doubt-I undertake on my own initiative to abide by the agreement you have proposed. In other words, there will be no bombardment of Harnah by Eighth Fleet." He looked around the very subdued conference room, letting his gaze linger pointedly on Shiiarnaow. "Is there any further discussion?"
There was none.
"Good," said Ynaathar with finality, "for we must turn to other matters. In particular, I fear the unanticipated lack of opposition in this system may have disturbing implications. Indeed, it may invalidate some of the basic assumptions behind our entire joint operation with Seventh Fleet."
* * *
The Fleet waited.
There was very little else it could do, for the united strength of the New Enemies and the Old had effectively completed the destruction of all those thousands of warships which had been laboriously built up after the Old Enemies' long ago disappearance. Now the combined Enemies stood poised to smash the last link between the remaining Systems Which Must Be Defended, and the Fleet lacked the strength to drive those Enemies back. It could only await their attack and hope that the division between the Enemy forces and their points of contact would create a lapse of coordination which would permit the Fleet's surviving united strength to fall upon one of them and crush it in isolation.
It was in the fading hope of such an opportunity that the Fleet had chosen not to resist the Enemies' intrusion into the most recent system to fall. The decision had not been an easy one. With the loss of two Systems Which Must Be Defended and their supporting satellite systems, every productive population center had become critically important to the Fleet's continued operations, yet there had never really been any other possible choice, for that system could be dispensed with. That in which the Mobile Force which had once defended it now stood could not. Nor could the one in which the only other Mobile Force the Fleet retained now waited to face its allotted share of the Enemies' warships.
In a way the Fleet had never contemplated, those systems, too, had become Systems Which Must Be Defended. They simply could not be lost, for if they were, they would take with them any hope of coordinated action between the old Systems Which Must Be Defended. And at least they were directly linked, without any intervening warp junctions to separate them, which provided at least the possibility of rapidly reinforcing one Mobile Force with the other to achieve the sort of crushing superiority which had eluded the Fleet for so long. That superiority would give the Fleet victory, if it could be achieved. If it couldn't be, the only possible outcome was defeat, and if the Fleet lost here, then any hope of ultimate victory-or survival-would be equally lost.
Which would be most unfortunate, indeed.
* * *
"You know," Raymond Prescott remarked, gazing somberly into the glowing display before him, "this is more your sort of operation than mine, in a lot of ways."
"Indeed?" Zhaarnak walked over to stand beside him, letting his own eyes rest on the glittering icons and light-strings of warp lines stretching from Pesthouse to Centauri.
"Of course it is," Prescott said with a small, tight smile. "If there's one thing we humans pound into our midshipmen in their tactical courses, it's the KISS principle!"
"Aye, yes!" Zhaarnak purred a chuckle. " 'Keep It Simple, Stupid.' " His Orion ac
cent mangled the Standard English indescribably. "What a delightfully Human concept! Although," he sobered considerably, "one which has certainly demonstrated its soundness under certain circumstances."
"That it has, brother," Prescott said in the Tongue of Tongues. "On the other hand, your own traditions have their place, as well, much as some admirals I know would like to deny it. Still, this sort of complicated coordination of operations is something the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee's instincts are far more comfortable with."
"Truth," Zhaarnak agreed. "Yet whether we are more 'comfortable' with it or not, there are times when there is no other road to victory. Just as your Fang Aaahnnderrssson taught us in the Wars of Shame that there are times when your own warriors' ways are the only road. Which," he added quietly, "does not make me one bit less . . . anxious than you, brother."
Prescott nodded soberly. He was well aware that Zhaarnak wouldn't have made that admission so freely to any other human, but there was only too much justification for any anxiety his vilkshatha brother might feel.
On the scale of the display, the glittering icons representing Seventh and Eighth Fleets were mere centimeters apart in the Anderson One System and Pesthouse, respectively. Only the crimson stars of Harnah, Anderson Three, and Anderson Four separated them. A mere three warp transits, and the two fleets-with over seven hundred and twenty starships, thousands of fighters, and hundreds of gunboats between them-would join forces and, in the process, secure total control of the Anderson Chain. Only three.
A civilian, looking at that display, would see instantly that only a tiny step remained, that only the tiniest gap lay between those forces. And, although the astrophysicists' best guess was that Harnah and Anderson Four lay something like a hundred and three light-years from one another in real-space terms, the civilian would have been correct, for light-years meant nothing to the starships which plied the crazy quilt of the warp lines.
Or not usually, at any rate.
But this time wasn't usual, for between Pesthouse and Anderson One lay not simply three star systems, but two massive Bug fleets, each dedicated to smashing any intruder foolish enough to come within its reach. And because those sullen Bug warships waited there, the light-years between Pesthouse and Anderson One meant a very great deal, indeed, for any message from Eighth Fleet must be relayed by the ICN from Anderson One, back to Centauri, through a score of additional star systems and starless nexi to L-169, and thence down the length of the Prescott Chain, through Home Hive One, to Pesthouse. Even with light-speed transmission relays across every one of the intervening star systems, that message would take literally weeks to reach its destination. The "shortcut" across Zephrain helped a little, but not enough to make any real difference, and that made the coordination of the step across that "tiny gap" physically impossible.
Unfortunately, Zhaarnak's observation that no other approach was possible was damnably acute. Those three star systems had to be taken, at whatever risk or cost, and so the strategists had no choice but to coordinate on the macro scale what could not be coordinated on the micro scale. Which was, of course, the reason for Zhaarnak's-and Prescott's-anxiety. According to the plan painstakingly worked out and communicated over the weeks between Centauri and Pesthouse, Seventh Fleet was to time its attack on Anderson Five to commence on March 11, 2369, Terran Standard Reckoning, exactly five days after Eighth Fleet began its assault on Harnah . . . and there was absolutely no way to confirm that First Fang Ynaathar's attack had actually begun on schedule.
Prescott drew a deep breath and chided himself-again-for his doubts. Of course there was no way to confirm it, yet there was no real need to, either. If one thing in the universe was certain, it was that Eighth Fleet had begun its attack on time. Ynaathar's proximity to Centauri assured him of completely secure support down a far shorter supply line than the long stretch of systems which lay behind Seventh Fleet. It was possible, even probable, that there'd been last-minute changes to his projected order of battle, additions and subtractions alike from the list of forces which he'd forwarded to Prescott, but the ships, personnel, and munitions for his attack had been assembled, and Ynaathar and every one of his flag officers was only too well aware of how critical it was to distract the Bugs. Given the enemy's interior position, the Alliance had no choice but to force him to split his attention between two separate threats at opposite ends of the section of the Anderson Chain he still controlled, and Eighth Fleet knew it.
Just as Prescott and Zhaarnak knew that their own attack on Anderson Four must begin on schedule to provide the counterbalancing diversion Ynaathar would require to reduce the odds against him. And at least Seventh Fleet was once again at full strength and ready for the challenge it faced.
The human allowed his eyes to move from the warp links to the endless lists of task forces, task groups, squadrons, strikegroups, and battle divisions which filled the data display, spelling out the sheer, ponderous might of the force he commanded. Sixty monitors, forty-six superdreadnoughts, twenty-five assault carriers, thirty-one fleet carriers, thirty-one battlecruisers, twenty-one light carriers, and twenty light cruisers, all supported by more than forty-four hundred fighters, and over seven hundred and fifty gunboats. The stupendous firepower under his control was, as he and Zhaarnak had demonstrated only too grimly-sufficient to sterilize entire planets, yet Eighth Fleet was even more powerful. It had only half as many monitors as Seventh Fleet, but four times the superdreadnoughts and battlecruisers as compensation, and its more numerous assault and fleet carriers, coupled with the proximity of Centauri, more than balanced the twenty-one CVLs of Vice Admiral al-Sahla's TG 72.4.
Surely that crushing mass of destruction had to be enough, properly handled, to smash even the soulless, uncaring ranks of death which were a Bug fleet!
Of course it was, he told himself flatly, and his eyes hardened as he remembered his brother and all the men and women-human and nonhuman alike-who had died under his command since the Battle of Alowan to reach this moment. He no longer quailed under the weight of his blood debt to those thousands upon thousands of warriors and the billions of civilians who'd died under the monstrous tsunami of the Bugs' ravenous omnivoracity. It was a burden he'd been given no choice but to learn to bear, just as Ivan Antonov had learned, but Raymond Prescott knew the great secret Antonov had tried so fiercely and with so much success to hide.
Whatever one might learn to bear, one could never learn to forget. That much he understood perfectly when he looked into Vanessa Murakuma's eyes and saw the shadows and darkness no one else seemed to recognize. And those memories and that debt, and the cold, savage hatred for Andrew's death, came to him now as he inhaled once more and then turned to look into the slit-pupiled, alien eyes of the being who had become not just his comrade in arms but the brother Andrew had never known . . . and who shared Raymond Prescott's determination to avenge his death.
"You should return to your ship, brother," he said quietly in the Tongue of Tongues, his expression calm, almost serene. "We will begin the attack in three standard hours."
"May our claws strike deep," Zhaarnak replied, equally quietly, and Prescott nodded and laid a hand briefly on the Orion's broad, powerful shoulder.
"May our claws strike deep," he agreed.
* * *
It had worked.
The decision against opposing the attack of the New Enemies who had been joined by the Old had exposed the approaches to no less than two Systems Which Must Be Defended to potential attack, but it had also disordered the Enemies' battle plan. It was obvious that the two Enemy fleets had intended to attack in close coordination, staggering their assaults just enough to draw the Fleet into committing against the first threat before the second revealed itself. But the Fleet's withdrawal had caught the Enemies off-balance, instead.
Half of the Mobile Force which had been withdrawn before the first Enemy thrust stood in place, prepared to delay any thrust on his part. But the other half sped to join the other Mobile Force as it fell back before
the second Enemy attack. The joint forces of two Systems Which Must Be Defended raced to rendezvous and throw themselves upon the second Enemy force, the one which had already slain two other Systems Which Must Be Defended, and for the first time in far too long, the Fleet knew that victory lay within its reach. Three hundred and fifty warships, headed by sixty-three monitors and ninety-six superdreadnoughts, reached out to wrap their tentacle clusters about a mere hundred and eighty Enemy ships and crush the life from them, and the unsuspecting Enemy continued blindly towards them.
* * *
Raymond Prescott stared at the plot and tried not to be sick.
The master holo sphere was set to system scale, and Anderson Four's primary was a yellow dot at the center of a system Prescott remembered only too well. Just over five light-hours from it, at nine o'clock, was Warp Point Three, through which Seventh Fleet had entered the system from Pesthouse, blowing away the defenses with minimal loss and proceeding across the system toward Warp Point One, which led onward along the Anderson Chain. That was a long haul, for their destination was four and a half light-hours from the primary on an almost diametrically opposite heading of two o'clock. Warp Point Three, whose terminus was still unknown, lay on a bearing of eight o'clock, at 5.6 light-hours.
But Prescott had eyes for none of that, much less for the system's lifeless planets. Like everyone around him on Riva y Silva's flag bridge, he could only stare at the swarming red "hostile" icons that his wide-ranging recon fighters had revealed.
The Bug deep space force in this system, pulling back ahead of Seventh Fleet, was bad enough: thirty monitors, sixty-six superdreadnoughts, ninety-six battlecruisers, and seventy-eight light cruisers. But he and Zhaarnak, though expecting a stiff fight, had pressed on into the system, confident of their ability to take that force. Until the new Bug forces had appeared, bearing down from Warp Point One. A detailed force breakdown was impossible as yet, but at least thirty-five monitors, forty-five superdreadnoughts, and sixty-five battlecruisers had streamed in from Anderson Three, where they were supposed to be fully engaged in the defense of Harnah. Nor was that the end of Warp Point One's capacity to spew forth death, for an estimated five hundred oncoming gunboats had now been detected behind that daunting array of capital ships.