First Strike (39 page)

She'd ordered her two sons to the shelters and taken up a position just outside Wells City, along the road leading to the spaceport. The last update she’d had from the Government had warned that shuttles were landing there, brushing aside the militia units that attempted to delay them. Her worthless ex-husband was probably among the dead; oddly, despite her feelings for the man who had given her children and little else, she found herself hoping that he’d died well. The radio had gone silent soon afterwards, suggesting that the Funks had taken out the transmitter. A handful of plumes of smoke in the distance suggested the worst.

The faint sound of vehicles caught her attention, coming down the long road to the spaceport. No-one drove on Colchester Island, except the police and the emergency services. Fuel was incredibly expensive on Clarke, limiting the kind of vehicles they could use. Besides, Colchester was a relatively small island. Anywhere she wanted to go was within walking or bicycle distance. No, the oncoming vehicles had to belong to the Funks. She peered down the scope on her rifle as they came into view, heavy vehicles without any of the elegance that some of the Galactics insisted on working into everything they produced. They bristled with weapons and lizard-like troopers, who looked around nervously with flickering red eyes. Some of them wore combat armor; others wore nothing more than protective breastplates and helmets. They seemed ready for anything.

Jeanette took aim at the nearest unarmored Funk and pulled the trigger. The hunting rifle jerked in her arms, but she had the satisfaction of seeing the Funk staggering backwards and stumbling into two of his comrades. She was already moving as the vehicle’s turret moved with stunning speed, bringing a pair of heavy machine guns to bear on her position. Jeanette dived into the stream as a fusillade of shots tore through where she’d been hiding, leaving a dusty mess hovering in the air. She started to crawl down the stream, praying that they wouldn't dismount and check to be sure they'd caught her; a second later, she heard a shot and felt something crack into her left leg. The pain was so agonising that she couldn't help screaming, even as she realised dimly that she’d been shot. Her leg seemed to refuse to work properly and she found herself twisting over and over again, only to see a pair of green legs appear beside her. She looked up into the bright red eyes of a Funk, pointing a gun at her head. Jeanette tried to reach for her rifle, but it was gone. She couldn't even think of where it might be.

The Funk pulled the trigger – and her entire world went black.

* * *

Carolyn Jonson had been hiding in the shelters, with a number of other refugees, when the doors were flung open and they came face-to-face with the Funks. Carolyn had never considered herself a xenophobe – her settlement application would probably have been rejected if she’d disliked aliens – but the Funks looked horrific in the bright sunlight. Their hissing voices, speaking barely intelligible Galactic Three, ordered the humans out of the shelter. Those who tried to move slowly found themselves being helped along by rifle butts and heavy shoving. The Funks were stronger than they looked.

Wells had never been a pretty city, but now it looked like a war zone. Buildings had been shattered, casually destroyed as if they had been struck by an angry god. A handful of vehicles were nothing more than burning wrecks. And there were a dozen dead bodies within easy view of the children. Carolyn felt tears welling up behind her eyes and started to sob. She wasn't alone.

The Funk leaned forward. “Your world is ours now,” the alien hissed. “Resistance is futile.”
 

“It’s confirmed, then?”

“I’m afraid so,” Admiral Sun said. “Clarke has definitely fallen to the Hegemony.”

Tobias cursed. The Funks had finally managed to start launching counterattacks – and he couldn't hope to stop them all. Apart from Earth itself, the defences of humanity’s worlds were minimal; Hammerfall alone had had more defences than all of the Nine Stars combined. It was a reminder of humanity’s greatest weakness; the Hegemony could afford to lose hundreds of smaller ships without making a serious dent in its combat power, while each lost human ship weakened the Federation Navy.

“I took the decision to send one of the scouts to Clarke,” Sun continued. “The Hegemony landed at least two divisions of ground troops and remains in possession of the high orbitals. We were unable to make contact with our forces on the ground, which could mean that they were observing radio silence…”

“Or that they’ve been destroyed,” Tobias said, tightly. “Did they capture any data on Clarke itself?”

“We don’t know,” Sun admitted. “The Governor and his staff were under strict orders to destroy all of the data in the files if the planet was invaded, but too many people knew something about the planet’s actual value for us to be completely certain that the Funks don’t know anything. Someone might try to bargain with the bastards if they feel that the Federation can’t liberate them.”

“And they’d have something to bargain with,” Tobias mused. The Funks enslaved those they captured, but slaves who had something to bargain with could press for better treatment or even a fast track to citizenship. And if the Funks suspected Clarke’s true value… they’d definitely be willing to deal. “I assume that the Council had something to say about it?”

“They met in emergency session only an hour ago,” Sun confirmed. “So far, the news hasn't leaked out on Earth, but it won’t be long before the Funks start crowing about their great victory to anyone who will listen. The general public will realise that there’s a Funk battlecruiser only nine light years from Earth and start to panic.”

“Even though a single battlecruiser would be cut to pieces if it tried to break through Earth’s defences,” Tobias said. But there was no proof that it
 
was
 
just a lone battlecruiser. The Funks were devious and it would have been easy for them to hide an entire fleet in quantum space, or simply under cloak a few parsecs from the planet. They’d be well beyond any risk of detection as long as they were careful. It was possible that Clarke was nothing more than the bait in a trap.

“The Federation Council wishes you to dispatch a cruiser squadron to liberate Clarke,” Sun informed him. “We cannot allow the Funks to remain in control of human territory for any longer than strictly necessary.”

Tobias winced. “I understand their point,” he said, “but do they understand that Clarke is meaningless in a strategic sense?”

“I think they understand that losing Clarke and forty thousand human colonists is a PR disaster,” Sun said, dryly. “Even if Clarke was hardly a net gain to us, it still makes us look weak; we have to push back as hard as we can. They’re quite insistent on that point, Admiral. I’ve never seen the Federation Council so united.”

“Fear is a great motivator,” Tobias agreed, dryly. The Russian and Chinese permanent members didn't have to worry about public opinion, but the remainder of the permanent members definitely did. Even after the great victories at Terra Nova, Garston and Hammerfall, there had been a sizable minority that wanted peace at any price. That minority would be taking the opportunity to press its case upon ears that were suddenly willing to listen. “I’ll have to consider our options carefully.”

“I think that this isn't a time to resist our political masters,” Sun warned him. “They’re united, Admiral. The absolute last thing we need right now is your relief and a power struggle over who gets to nominate the next CNO.”

Tobias nodded sourly. Sun would have made an ideal replacement for himself, when his term as CNO expired, but the political leaders wouldn't see it that way. The Chinese would want him because he was Chinese; the Russians would oppose him on the same grounds. America wouldn't be too keen on the idea; the Japanese would be utterly opposed. Given the weighted voting system, it was a hell of a lot easier to veto candidates than have one selected and confirmed by the full council. Tobias had had to fight hard over the years to prevent his political lords and masters putting forward candidates for high positions purely based on nationality and political connections. He hadn't won all of the battles. The best he’d been able to do was make sure that some of the less reliable or competent officers were shunted off to meaningless posts and makeshift work. And he still worried about the recent crop of potential commanding officers.

But strategically, Clarke was meaningless – unless the Hegemony
 
did
 
know that the planet wasn't as worthless as everyone thought. And yet that didn't make sense. Tobias knew just how extensively the Hegemony had tried to penetrate Earth – and how ONI and Federation Intelligence had worked to counter them – and if they’d realised that Clarke might be a valuable possession, they would surely have bullied humanity into surrendering the world before the Federation Navy was ready to start the war. Why wait until now to move in? No, that made no sense. The Funks had gotten lucky and were in a stronger position than they knew.

“And if we offered to trade Garston for Clarke, they’d be bound to smell a rat,” he commented. “I don’t suppose there’s been any word from Ambassador Li?”

“Nothing new,” Sun confirmed. “They keep going over and over the same issues in the secret peace talks. She thinks that they’re stalling, hoping that we’ll surrender our gains and let the Empress claim a victory of sorts. The sociologists agree with her, although I wouldn't trust those bastards to guess my weight.” He smiled. “And the news from the Gobbles doesn't help one little bit.”

Tobias smiled. Humanity knew little about the Gobbles, one of the Hegemony’s two client races, but all of a sudden they’d become very important. Their homeworld had risen up against the Hegemony...and, according to some reports, they’d been aided by the dreaded human pirate king. In the short run, the plan to send a completely deniable agent to the sector to wreak havoc had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; in the long term, everything would depend on how well the Gobbles could defend themselves when the Hegemony returned to their system.

But according to ONI – and some of humanity’s alien allies – the Hegemony had suffered a colossal political earthquake. Two clans had collapsed, leaving their people at the mercy of their enemies. Their creditors were already moving in and enslaving lesser clansmen to ensure that they got at least some of their money back. The projections varied from analyst to analyst, but they all agreed that the shockwaves had only just begun. How long would it be until the Hegemony collapsed into civil war? Some reports claimed that martial law had already been declared on Hegemony Prime. It might not bode well for
 
Formidable
 
and her mission.

“I’ll ensure that starships are sent to deal with the enemy force on Clarke,” he reluctantly said. At best, they’d mop up the enemy ground troops quickly, assuming the enemy battlecruiser was alone or pulled out before the cruisers arrived. The alternative was that an isolated human force would fly right into a trap. “I suppose they’re not going to release any of the ships covering Earth?”

“Not a one,” Sun agreed. “They won’t even release the damaged ships we purchased from shady used-starship dealers. God knows that most of them aren't fit for combat anyway. We need more cruisers, Admiral.”

“Tell me about it,” Tobias agreed, tiredly. Humanity had strained every muscle to build the Federation Navy, yet there had only been twenty-five cruisers at the start of the war. Ten more were under construction in the Luna Yard, but the most optimistic estimate said that they wouldn’t be completed and worked up for battle for another six months. By then, Earth’s economy would probably have collapsed even if the Hegemony was still hanging on. God alone knew what would happen to the market once the news of Clarke’s fall got out to the media. “I’ll update you once I decide which ships to send.”

He closed the channel and tapped his console, bringing up the fleet’s order of battle. The new squadron of cruisers from Earth – which had arrived just prior to news of Clarke – made up the holes in his force, but their crews weren't anything like as experienced as the veterans from the original squadrons. Tobias had ordered extensive training and exercises while the repair crews worked on the damaged ships and salvaged what they could from the remains of Hammerfall’s once-proud facilities. The irony would have been funny if it hadn't been so irritating; the Galactics used standardized equipment, but some human technology was incompatible with items that any other race could plug into their own ships and expect to work perfectly.

A message blipped up on his screen and he frowned. His galactic mail account was known to only a handful of people, which didn't stop him from receiving his fair share of spam messages from across the galaxy. Quite why a spammer would think that he would be interested in sexual treatments devised for a race that had five different sexes was beyond him; it made less sense than sending him messages that offered to improve the size of his breasts. At least they went to the right race, if not the right sex. Some of the messages were clearly useless, but one of them was from an address he recognised.

He opened it and read it, and then reached for the dictionary. The code was a simple one, but almost unbreakable without an understanding of English and a copy of the book used to encode the message. Earth’s vast spectrum of languages had puzzled the Cats when they’d first discovered Earth; they’d unified their languages into Galactic One by the time they’d left their solar system and started poking through quantum space. The insurgents on Terra Nova had used languages as code at first, but the Funks had eventually started programming their translators to decrypt them automatically. They had had their own multiple language problem, although in their case a unified language had been forced on them by the First Empress.

Joshua Wachter had learned something, something so important that he’d decided to take the risk of communicating with the Federation Navy. Tobias had no intention of actually enforcing the Federation Council’s orders regarding the pirate king, but it would cause a great deal of political embarrassment if the media realised that Wachter had had a direct line to the CNO. It wouldn't take a conspiracy theorist to realise that the CNO might have been quietly backing him ever since he’d left Earth. Tobias read through the message twice, feeling ice congealing within his chest. There were fifteen enemy superdreadnoughts that had left their sector and were – presumably – on their way to the war.

Tobias calmed his mind with as much mental discipline as he could muster and tapped a key, bringing up the star chart. Every spacer knew how to estimate transit times – and every spacer knew that the estimates were rarely completely accurate. The enemy ships might have been in transit for up to a week prior to Wachter discovering that they were gone; hell, the discovery might have been what tempted him to liberate the Gobbles in the first place. And that meant...

Where were they going? Hammerfall made little sense any longer, not now the system had been rendered totally worthless. The Funks could plan on crushing the Federation Navy, but they had to know that Tobias wouldn't fight for Hammerfall against superior forces, no matter how important the media claimed the planet to be. They couldn't hope to catch Tobias if he chose to avoid engagement...

…Unless they went to Earth. He wanted to avoid even considering the possibility, but the Federation Navy had extensively gamed Earth-Hegemony scenarios ever since the occupation of Terra Nova. They’d
 
known
 
that the Hegemony was far larger than Earth’s paltry Nine Stars. The best option for the Funks to win outright was to fight a delaying action, concentrate their naval forces and then attack Earth directly. If they were lucky, the main body of the Federation Navy would be light-years from the planet when they attacked – and even if they weren't lucky, they would have a chance to force the Federation Navy to fight on unfavourable terms. Speed meant nothing when the enemy was advancing on a target the Federation Navy
 
had
 
to defend.

And if the Funks took that objective… game over.

There was Bolthole, of course, but no one knew better than Tobias that Bolthole was a gamble with no guarantee of success. Past the Rim, past the space explored by the Association, it was far harder to navigate in quantum space. The Bolthole ship might find a habitable world several thousand light years from Earth and establish a colony that would become a new homeworld for the human race, or it might run into hostile aliens and be destroyed. ONI had collected all the information it could on the space beyond the Rim, but most of it boiled down to ‘here there be dragons.’ Anyone who knew anything concrete wasn't talking.

The Funks were certainly watching Hammerfall. Their ships had been detected making brief transmissions to their superiors before they vanished back into cloak. A star system was an immense place to hide, particularly if they were only monitoring drive signatures with passive sensors; there was little hope that the Federation Navy would track them down and destroy the spies. And that meant that the Funks would know if the Federation Navy withdrew from the system. Or would they?