First Strike (16 page)

“We saw the same in the sandbox,” he added. “The nutcases who’d throw themselves on our guns were often the worst of the population. They could only thrive in chaos – not that any of them really did, of course. The ones who slap women for showing some skin are the poorly-educated men who have little hope of rising out of poverty, never realising that it is themselves that keep them back. And the whole bloody cycle goes on for year after year.”

He shook his head. “If nothing else, we can do one thing,” he concluded. “We can take those bastards out of the gene pool.”

* * *

“The Federation Council extends its congratulations on your victory, Admiral,” Admiral Sun Ji Gouming said. The Chinese admiral had become the Deputy CNO through political compromise, but he was a fighter and Tobias trusted him implicitly. If the US had ever had to fight China over Taiwan, he sometimes wondered what would have happened if Admiral Sun had been commanding the PLAN. “National populations have experienced mixed reactions, but the news of Terra Nova gave public moral one hell of a boost. We may see fear later on, once the delight wears off…”

He shrugged. China was less sensitive to what its civilians thought than America. “The Council has also accepted your proposal to push on and complete the reduction of Garston before the Hegemony can reinforce the world. If you detach the gunboats for raiding missions, you should be able to add to the enemy’s confusion. I’m afraid that neither of our two intelligence services have been able to report much on what the Hegemony is doing – reports are always at least several days out of date before they reach us. From what we do know, the Hegemony has no intention of throwing in the towel just yet. Their Ambassador has been projecting high confidence to the Commune – she hasn't even attempted to rally support, as far as we can tell. But it’s early days yet.

“Complicating matters is the presence of a Hegemony heavy cruiser and a light cruiser in the Heavenly Gate System,” he continued. “ONI fucked up – we didn't know about their existence until the Canary Ambassador quietly passed the information to Ambassador Li. We’re not sure what the Canaries will do; technically, any Galactic neutral should intern the ships until the end of the war, but the Hegemony will probably start pressuring them to be a little more accommodating soon if they’re not already doing so. I don’t think the Funks are particularly welcome guests…”

Tobias snorted. The Canaries had populated their solar system by the time the Association stumbled across them, meeting the Cats from a stronger position. But unlike the feline explorers, the Canaries had a religious taboo against leaving their system and very few had ever journeyed more than a light-year from their star. They were tough, with an understanding of their technology that the Hegemony lacked, but not strong enough to stop the Hegemony invading their system if the Funks were prepared to soak up the losses. Tobias could easily believe that the Canaries wanted the Hegemony ships gone, or destroyed, yet they couldn't do it openly.

“The Council wants your thoughts on the matter soonest, before you head off to Garston,” Admiral Sun concluded. “Just remember to keep reading Sun Tzu and apply it to the war - you won’t go wrong.”

He laughed, just before the recorded message came to an end. Tobias replayed it, listening carefully, and then read through the attached documents. The Canaries had always been friendly to the human race, but then they’d been friendly to everyone who visited their system. And they had no ambitions to become a major galactic power.

Picking up his terminal, he began to issue orders. He had an operation to plan.

“I think we have a contact,” Karla said. “It’s definitely a Hegemony convoy.”

Joshua smiled, coldly. The Hegemony didn't control this sector of space very well, although not even the Association possessed a fleet large enough to patrol quantum space. With so many raiders on the loose, it was no surprise that the Hegemony preferred to use convoys rather than sending ships out on their own. The chances of any given ship being detected and intercepted were low, but losing even one ship could be irritating. Besides, even though the Hegemony was rich and powerful, replacing a lost ship was expensive.

“Good,” he said. They’d been waiting for five days for a suitable target. Two other ships had passed near their position, but they’d both belonged to other powers. Attacking them wouldn't have harmed the Hegemony and possibly expanded the war. “How many ships?”

Karla frowned down at her console. Sensor readings were untrustworthy in quantum space, even at relatively close range. The convoy might be little more than a mirage, or it might be a fleet of warships heading to the front. Even with the best equipment money could buy, they still needed to slip closer to their targets before they could be sure they weren't flying into a trap.

“At least five ships,” she said, after a moment. She’d developed a knack for reading sensors in quantum space, better than anyone else Joshua had met. It was still dangerous to take anything for granted. “Four of them are freighters, judging from their mass; the fifth is a destroyer, or possibly a light cruiser. It keeps altering position so I can’t get a solid look at their emissions.”

“Alert the other ships,” he ordered. “Prepare to attack.”

The borders between major galactic powers were infested with pirates, rebels and independent settlers, but very few of them would have dared to attack a warship. It would have been unprofitable even if they’d won the fight. The Hegemony’s decision to send along only a single escort hadn't been a bad one, assuming that they would be facing common pirates or raiders. What pirate would dare to pick a fight with a warship, even if he outmassed his target?

But Joshua had brought along
 
six
 
warships to his first operation, each one more powerful than the Hegemony escort ship. They’d destroy the ship and capture or destroy its charges – and when the Hegemony worked out what had happened, they'd know that they needed to send additional starships to escort their convoys, drawing reinforcements away from the war front. Joshua had spent the time between Earth and their current base researching the enemy’s economy and their operations along the borderlands, concluding that many of the lesser clans within the Hegemony were heavily involved in trade with the Hegemony’s neighbours. They would put pressure on the Empress to react strongly to the pirates, even if there
 
was
 
a war on. Some of them couldn't afford more than a few losses before they collapsed.

He tapped his console and
 
Blackbeard
 
slipped forward, heading towards her target. The other ships hung back, watching as the Hegemony destroyer finally realised that they were there and turned to face the oncoming ship. Energy weapons and shields weren't always reliable in quantum space either – few militaries would have chosen to fight a battle there if it could be avoided – which meant that they would be throwing torpedoes at each other. Joshua smiled darkly as the ship’s ECM – ironically, bought from the Hegemony – went to work, creating ghostly sensor reflections around his ship. If they were
 
really
 
lucky, the Hegemony clans might start blaming each other for the raiders. It wouldn't be the first time one clan had started attacking another to clear the way for their own expansion.

“Enemy vessel is locking on,” Karla said. “They’re countering our ECM.”

“Open fire,” Joshua said, quietly. That shouldn't have been a surprise; if the Hegemony had built the ECM systems, they would have at least some idea of how to counter them. “Take the bastard out.”

Blackbeard
 
shuddered as she unleashed a full spread of antimatter torpedoes. Their target did the same, but some of her torpedoes rushed after the sensor illusions rather than
 
Blackbeard
 
herself. Joshua took a moment to note that torpedo sensors seemed to be less capable of penetrating ECM than the sensors mounted on enemy starships, before the first set of torpedoes impacted on the enemy ship. Four direct hits knocked down her shields; the fifth struck her naked hull. The crew never stood a chance. Their ship vaporised in a blinding flash of light, agitating the unstable folds of hyperspace around her.

One torpedo struck
 
Blackbeard
, shaking the light cruiser without inflicting any major damage. Joshua allowed himself a brief moment of relief, before triggering the message he’d recorded earlier, ordering the four freighters to surrender or die. Regular pirates saw no profit in destroying freighters either, but he didn't particularly care if they surrendered or had to be destroyed. Either way, the Hegemony would take a loss. He waited as the recording played out – he’d altered his voice so that he sounded like a Funk female – and smiled as the ships signalled their surrender. Their clans might ransom them, after all, if they were taken prisoner rather than being forced to walk out of the airlock. Or there might be a chance to escape when they reached the pirate base.

“Send in the troops,” he ordered, as his small fleet took up positions around the freighters. “Remind Kang that I want the crews alive, if possible. No need to kill them when they can be interrogated.”

“Of course,” Karla said, dryly. “And Kang is so good at leaving people alive.”

Joshua shrugged. Ideally, the crew would never realise that their captors were human. They’d purchased armored combat suits designed for several different races, ones that revealed little of their precise proportions, but it was difficult to be certain of anything when the suits still had to be humanoid. Kang had been booted out of the Federation Marines for excessive violence, which had amused the hell out of Joshua when he’d first heard it. He’d thought that was how people got
 
in
.

“Prisoners can be interrogated,” he said, sternly. It would be too dangerous to try to ransom them back to their clans, although they
 
could
 
be sold on to others who might try to ransom them. Galactic law forbade the slave trade, but it was coming back along the borderlands. “And who knows what they might have to tell us?”

* * *

“Quite a valuable cargo,” Kang said, an hour later. The freighter crews had been searched and then locked in their own holds while the boarders took control of their ships. “High-tech tools, several industrial modules and a ton of colony equipment. Their manifests record their destination as Hegemony-III, which suggests that they were working directly for one of the major clans.”

Joshua nodded, thoughtfully. Hegemony-III was a major shipbuilding center, only a dozen light years from the dry world that had given birth to the Funks. Humanity’s research had suggested that the Funks had problems duplicating some of the more fiddly Association technology, but the items they’d captured was the first real proof anyone had found. Their raid would have caused problems for the Hegemony even if they’d had to blow the ships and withdraw without ever knowing what they’d destroyed.

But if he recalled correctly, Hegemony-III was owned and operated by a clan that had ambitions to replace the Empress with one of their own. Given enough time, they might just have succeeded… particularly if they’d managed to put together a small fleet of their own. They’d
 
have
 
to suspect that one of their rivals had organised the intercept, even if they’d thought that their security was airtight. And their paranoia would do the rest.

“Good,” he said, finally. Much of the cargo would be easy to sell onwards, pulling in thousands of credits to finance their private war. The fences would demand a share in the proceeds, of course, but it would still be worthwhile. He wanted to sell off the cargo and return to operations as soon as possible. “Did we find anyone interesting among the crew?”

“Most of them are low-status males,” Kang said. “Even the females are lowly. None of them even tried to fight.”

“Freighter crews,” Karla said. “Sheep, the lot of them.”

Joshua snorted. He’d spent long enough trading with the Galactics to know that the Hegemony freighter crews were among the worst in the galaxy. It wasn't entirely their fault; the Hegemony treated warship crews like kings, while freighter crews were regarded as the worst of the worst. Their commanders were females who had been political failures, too insignificant to be taken seriously by their queens, or offered the choice between serving as a freighter commander or jail. The quality of personnel rarely rose above mediocre.

It wasn't the only problem either. Where he’d been careful to give his freighter commanders a wide degree of latitude in how they commanded their ships, the Hegemony gave their commanders almost none. They were expected to follow orders and nothing else, even when it was obvious that their orders had been written by someone with no real appreciation of the situation, hundreds of light years away. Their maintenance was poor, leaving them to push their equipment until it finally failed; it didn't take much imagination to realise that their fleet train was likely to have all kinds of problems as they finally started to respond to the war. Or so Joshua hoped. Admiral Sampson had been confident, but Joshua knew too much about the crushing power of the Hegemony Navy to feel sanguine about the war’s outcome.

But there’s another reason for us
, he thought, inwardly.
 
If Earth loses the war, if most of humanity is exterminated, at least we can seek revenge
.

“We’ll drop them off on one of the isolated worlds,” he said, shaking his head. The clans probably wouldn't pay ransom for any of their crews, even though their cargo had been important to their clan’s long-term plans. They could have sold the crews into slavery, but he had his limits. Maybe the crews could find work on one of the other rogue ships. It wouldn’t be the first time freighter crews had turned pirate – and given what they had been carrying, it might be a safer career choice than going home to report to their queens. “Leave the boarders on the ships – we’ll take them directly to Shadow and offload their cargo there.”

“Got you,” Kang said. He was a big man, a descendent of Korean immigrants to the United States. His record had suggested a man who was a perfect soldier, except for outright racism against the Galactics – and the Funks in particular. But it was hard to blame him when his sister had been killed during the occupation of Terra Nova. “And if they give us trouble?”

Joshua didn't hesitate. “Kill them.”

* * *

The Shadow system had been dismissed as worthless hundreds of years before humanity had even dreamed that the lights in the sky were just like the sun. It had been a red giant in the final stages of expansion before collapsing back in on itself – and, to humans and even the Galactics, appeared unchanged over the years since it had been surveyed by the Association. There were Galactics, Joshua knew, who worshipped the stars themselves, believing them to be gods. It was easy to understand why when a dying system lived longer than some intelligent races. Only the Cats, with their immortality, could really watch over the millennia as the star slowly died.

Maybe that explained a great deal about them, he thought, as
 
Blackbeard
 
and her freighters coasted in towards the pirate base. Few races lived longer than a hundred years naturally, even with the very best of medical care; to the Cats, humanity and the Funks had to look like swarming insects, living and dying so rapidly as to be almost unnoticeable. And compared to what the Cats had done, the younger races had created almost nothing. No wonder they didn't seem to realise that the races they’d helped rise to the stars might one day pose a deadly threat to their existence.

Shadow itself was a mass of asteroids, the remains of a Pluto-sized planet that had shattered aeons ago. It had been inhabited for hundreds of years, first by refugees from the Association and then by pirates, smugglers and black marketers. Any of the Galactics – even Earth – could have taken the asteroid out, but it was simply too useful as a place to meet away from the eyes of law and order. Even the Hegemony had been known to send envoys to the asteroid, establishing links with races that might be able to trade them technology for raw materials or military support. Joshua had once heard that more diplomacy took place on Shadow than on Center. It was easy to believe when one considered just how many starships routinely visited the system.

There was no formal procedure for docking at Shadow. The docks were operated by several private companies – formed by pirates who had retired from piracy to spend their ill-gotten gains, according to ONI – who charged a small fee in exchange for docking rights and access to the small tanks of HE3. Shadow possessed no gas giant and so all of the fuel had to be brought in from another system, smuggled in from one of the major galactic powers. Joshua had worked as a freighter commander long enough to understand just how tightly the galactic economy was bound in to HE3. Earth had had a similar dependence on oil, before First Contact, but the difference was that gas giants were so plentiful and readily-accessible as to be politically meaningless.