First Strike (25 page)

* * *

“They seem to have believed our lies,” Abdul Raman commented. There were only two crewmen on the entire freighter, both volunteers. “They think we’re escaping from a far more formidable foe.”

He smiled. Ever since his brother and his family had been murdered on Terra Nova by the Funks, he’d wanted revenge. His native Iran hadn’t been able to pay its way onto the Federation Council, but it had been able to supply a handful of Revolutionary Guardsmen who were determined to seek martyrdom in the name of God. It seemed likely that the Iranian Government had sent them in the hope that they wouldn't come back, yet Abdul found it hard to care. Whatever guilt he had felt in preparing to kill his fellow humans faded when he was facing an alien foe, an enemy of the entire human race. The Funks would crush Iran with the same uncompromising brutality they would use against the rest of the planet, if they were given half a chance. It was up to the Federation Navy to ensure that the Funks could never range in on Earth.

It felt strange to be working with the Americans, and the British, and the Russians, all of whom had been declared enemies of Iran at one time or another, but there was no choice. God had created the human race and ordered his believers to do whatever it took to defend it – and the Galactics posed a deadly threat. Even the ones that weren't openly hostile might have disastrous effects on Earth. What was humanity if alien ideas subverted everything that God had given the human race? And what could one make of aliens who had never been sent their own prophets?

He felt calm, and perfectly in control, as the target came into view. The alien fortress was massive, larger than anything humanity had ever produced, a blocky cubical mass of structures right out of an American science-fiction program. It was surrounded by some of the most powerful shields in the galaxy, capable of standing off a squadron of superdreadnoughts long enough for reinforcements to arrive, and defended with hundreds of emplaced weapons. Abdul checked that the liar – the computer-generated representation of an aristocratic Funk – was still talking, convincing the Funks that the freighter was too important to be destroyed. He would have been surprised if the lie had been believed right up until the end of the mission, but it hardly mattered. They were already close enough to the fortress to do some damage.

He smiled as the Funks started broadcasting orders to the freighter, ordering them to deactivate their drives and hold position. They suspected something, all right. He ignored the orders as weapons started to lock onto the freighter’s hull; instead, he tapped a particular command sequence into the ship’s computers. The freighter drive powered up and sent them lunging forward, while all remaining power was routed to the shield generators. No one could miss the freighter – it was nowhere near as nimble as a gunboat – but if the Funks still believed the lies…

They opened fire, but it was already too late. The freighter slammed right into the fortress’s shields, destroying the containment fields separating the antimatter in her holds from the matter surrounding them. Abdul had a fraction of a moment to realise that they’d succeeded, a microsecond before the freighter and the fortress were wiped from existence in a brilliant white flash.
 

“
Recon
 
has transited from Hammerfall, Admiral,” Commander Sooraya Qadir reported. “The enemy command and control center has been destroyed.”

Tobias nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. The whole idea of using suicide attacks didn't sit well with him, even if there had been no other way to cripple the enemy before the battle began. If Mentor hadn't come to Earth, it was quite possible that he and the men he’d sent to launch the suicide attack would have been trying to kill each other in another now-pointless human scrabble. At least alien contact had brought some semblance of peace to Earth along humans, if only because there were greater threats out there than their fellow humans.

“Good,” he said. “And
 
Formidable
?”

“She has returned to quantum space and reports that she is rearming the gunboats and will be ready to support the offensive in ten minutes,” Sooraya said. “Do we delay long enough for her to join us?”

“No,” Tobias said. The Funks were believed to have their own chain of command, with a designated replacement for any commander killed or rendered incommunicado. “Order the fleet to advance into the Hammerfall system.”

Space twisted around
 
Nimitz
 
as the First Strike Fleet made transit, emerging into the Hammerfall system. Quantum space was oddly distorted around Hammerfall, although no one had been able to come up with a theory that explained it to anyone’s satisfaction. Their best guess from humanity’s scientists was that the gravimetric distortion caused by the presence of two stars in such close proximity had somehow created a permanent impression on quantum space, perhaps an impression that extruded back naturally into normal space and accounted for the periodic gravity surges that tipped debris in toward the stars. If the Cats knew why it happened, they’d kept the knowledge to themselves.

“Launch recon probes,” he ordered. They hadn't been able to risk coming in close to Hammerfall, certainly nowhere near as close as they’d come to Terra Nova. “Can you confirm the destruction of their command and control center?”

“Destruction confirmed,” Sooraya reported, after a moment. “The entire station seems to have been vaporised.”

And if there had been a major population on Hammerfall, we wouldn't have dared use such a tactic
, Sampson thought, coldly. The
 
Trojan Horse
 
had carried enough compressed antimatter to render a planet completely uninhabitable, if it had detonated on the surface. When the containment fields failed, the blast would have been powerful enough to bathe the planet in radiation – as well as disabling or destroying many of the Hegemony’s automated defences. But much of their fleet had clearly survived…

“I’m reading at least five superdreadnoughts and fifty-seven cruisers of varying types,” Sooraya reported as the probes started to send their reports back to the fleet. Recon probes were designed to be expendable; after all, the enemy wouldn't have much difficulty detecting them and vectoring light cruisers or destroyers in to pick them off. “They do not appear to be significantly damaged, but there their formation appears to be very confused. We may have killed the second-in-command as well as the supreme commander.”

“Perhaps,” Tobias agreed. It would be nice to believe that that was true, but he doubted it. Standard doctrine – and there had been no sign that the Funks disagreed – called for placing the second-in-command on a different fortress, preferably one well clear of the command and control center. But the Funks had just lost their acknowledged commander. It was quite possible that the various squadron commanders were arguing over who should take supreme command, yet even Funks had to be aware that there was an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Surely that took priority. “Or maybe they’re trying to lure us in closer.”

He shrugged. This time, the Funks had a powerful network of fortresses to support their fleet. It was quite possible that whoever was in command – if someone had managed to establish their superiority – was intent on holding the ships back where they could be covered by the fortresses. They would have to concede the rest of the system, allowing Tobias to raid their asteroid and gas giant mining facilities at will, but as long as the fleet remained in his rear, Hammerfall was dangerous. The fortresses were a headache, yet he could leave them to wither on the vine; the starships were a deadly threat to the entire Federation. They had to be destroyed.

And he had another trick up his sleeve.

“Order Task Force 1.4 to enter the system,” he said. “I want them to be ready to deploy on my command.”

* * *

Lady Dalsha had watched in disbelief as Great Lady Marsha and her entire command fortresses vanished in a sheet of white light. She’d scented trouble as soon as the human gunboats had broken off the attack, for she’d seen the sensor feeds from their attack on Garston. They’d killed an entire battlecruiser for minimal losses; why had they been unable to kill a freighter, even one that claimed to have been part of a convoy that had been intercepted and destroyed. And even though it had had the correct codes to approach, it shouldn't have been allowed to approach the command fortress until it had been checked by a security team. If Marsha had listened…

But Marsha
 
hadn't
 
listened and Marsha was dead. The humans might not have realised it, but the blast had completely scrambled the datanets that held the fleet together. If they’d been able to press the offensive at once, they might have cut the fleet to ribbons as each ship suddenly found itself fighting alone. Even as the command and control network was re-established, Lady Marsha’s former subordinates were arguing over who should take command. None of them had been marked as a clear successor, if only to prevent them from attempting to assassinate their superior. A tactic for dividing one’s subordinates – and therefore preventing them from uniting against their superior – had made perfect sense on the homeworld, or even in peacetime since the Hegemony had been founded. But in wartime, it was likely to be devastating.

The appearance of the human fleet was no surprise, not after they’d killed Marsha and destroyed the defenders’ unity. They had to know that their fleet was badly outgunned, even though it had weapons that were individually superior to Hammerfall’s defenders. Their best chance at a victory would come by pressing the offensive before the defenders managed to rally behind a new supreme commander, yet they seemed oddly hesitant. It was an article of faith among the Hegemony that no other race was as brave and determined as themselves – certainly, no other race had managed to build something like the Hegemony – but Lady Dalsha had to admit that the humans were just as determined as any of the Hegemony’s warriors. Even starting the war on their own terms, despite the imbalance of power between them and their enemies, suggested a ruthless determination to succeed. So why, she asked herself, weren't they advancing on Hammerfall?

She watched the arguments between the different commanders, wishing that she could take command herself. But none of them would have followed her; they’d probably have executed her if they’d been face to face. Arguments over command back before the Cats had discovered their homeworld tended to result in blood on the sand; here, it was just possible that the different fortresses and starships would start
 
shooting
 
at each other. Only the certainty that the Empress would punish them harshly for starting a civil war kept the commanders under some kind of control.

Angrily, she pushed caution to the winds. If there was one advantage to her outcast status, it was that she could speak the truth without fear of repercussions for her clan. “This is no time to bicker over who’s in command,” she said, sharply. “The humans have come to destroy the fleet. We can scrabble over who is rewarded for the victory
 
after
 
we win.”

The human fleet was growing stronger as new ships arrived from quantum space. Many of the long-range sensors had been crippled by the antimatter blast, but enough had remained to allow her to deduce that the newcomers appeared to be nothing more dangerous than freighters – although if they were all crammed with antimatter, the concept of freighters being harmless would need to be revised. The humans were led by males, she recalled; no wonder they were willing to resort to suicide tactics, as long as they destroyed their enemies in the process. Males had no sense of self-preservation.

But it would be better to think of their males as females
, she told herself. The Hegemony had been blinded by the discovery that human females had been treated as second-class citizens for much of human history. If the females were so weak as to allow the males to treat them like that, surely the males must be weaker than the Hegemony Queens. But if the balance of power between the sexes was reversed for humanity...

They'd underestimated their foe all along. In the Hegemony, males were competitive, to the point where winning the overall campaign didn't matter as long as they won the battle. The Hegemony had found it hard to focus male energies on long-term projects. Males just charged at their targets, without bothering to wonder if a flanking offensive might have worked better than hitting the enemy at their strongest point. But if the humans had succeeded in directing male energies into research and development, it might have explained their sudden development of new and dangerous weapons.

Blasphemy
! It was hard to grasp the concept without feeling the revulsion that would be felt by any right-thinking being, but her automatic faith in the Hegemony’s superiority had been destroyed by the defeat at Terra Nova. What if… the humans
 
were
 
naturally superior to the Hegemony? Mere possession of advanced technology didn’t grant superiority – the Cats had been weak, decaying from within long before they’d encountered the First Empress – but the traits that
 
did
 
grant superiority existed within humanity. Determination, ruthlessness and a clear thrust towards domination…

She could never share the insight with anyone else. They wouldn't believe her, even if the Battle of Hammerfall turned into a disaster. Or they
 
would
 
believe her and society would crumble. What was the Hegemony if it wasn't superior, destined to replace the Cats as the master race of the galaxy?

The humans might not have known it, she thought, but they’d started a process that could easily tear the Hegemony apart.

* * *

Task Force 1.4 slipped out of quantum space and advanced on Hammerfall. On the bridge of
 
Lightning Lass
, Captain Ivan Ankundinov watched as his squadron started to spread out, while their escorts headed towards Admiral Sampson’s fleet. None of the modified freighters were designed to enter the line of battle, even though they were armed to the teeth. As long as the Funks stayed in orbit around their planet, Ivan had little compunction about drawing closer to their targets than their orders specified. The closer they were when they sprang their surprise, the better.

“Admiral Sampson has authorized us to proceed,” his communications officer reported. “The gunboats are advancing to cover us.”

Ivan grunted. The Hegemony starships might have been cowering near the fortresses, but their assault shuttles had other ideas. ONI hadn't been able to provide even a rough estimate of how many assault shuttles had been stockpiled on Hammerfall, or how quickly the Funks could press them into service; looking at the displays, Ivan counted over two hundred closing in on his ships. Freighters were simply too lumbering to be warships, even if their hulls were crammed with weapons and defences. The assault shuttles would tear them apart if they ever got into range.

The gunboats lanced into the advancing force and started to rip it apart. It was clear that Funk males rather than females were flying the ships, for they allowed themselves to be lured into dogfights rather than charging towards the freighters and forcing the gunboats to pick them all off one by one. Fighter jocks had been hotshots even while they’d been flying the first aircraft humanity had produced; gunboats might not have precisely been starfighters from
 
Star Wars
, but they were close enough to allow their pilots to show off. Only a handful of shuttles managed to make attack runs on the freighters and they were picked off by point defence. The sensor readings suggested that the assault shuttles were not as manoeuvrable as the gunboats, as if they’d been weighed down by their new weapons mix. Ivan’s worst nightmare – that the shuttles had been crammed with antimatter – failed to materialise. He wondered, absently, how long it would take the Funks to think of it. It was certainly well within their capabilities to produce vast amounts of antimatter on demand.

“We are entering optimal firing range,” the weapons officer reported. He was Chinese, barely old enough to remember the days when Russia and China had hated and feared one another, even though they had both been forced to work together against America and her allies. If someone had told Ivan, before First Contact, that he’d have a Chinese officer on his bridge, he would have laughed at them. “I request permission to proceed.”

“Granted,” Ivan said, as the helmsman brought the ship to a halt, relative to the planet. They were outside weapons range from Hammerfall, thankfully, but it wouldn't be long before the Funks realised what they were doing. And then they’d send in more gunboats or even capital ships. “Begin rolling pods.”