First Strike (37 page)

“No sign of any unfriendly patrols,” Karla reported, as they emerged through the gate. For some reason of their own, the Cats had installed it at the very edge of the system, rather than close enough to the planet to make commercial shipping economical. It was almost as if they’d been trying to hide the gate, but any race with even the faintest awareness of tachyons could have detected its presence unless they shut it down completely and allowed it to drift off the network. According to the data they’d downloaded from the Association Almanac, the system was completely uninhabited. It was a mystery that Joshua would have liked to solve, one day. But that would have to wait until the end of the war. “You can spam the network at will.”

Joshua chuckled. He'd prepared the message in flight. All he needed to do was upload it to the quantum gate, pay the small fee for transmission, and then depart long before the message reached Earth. The access code he’d added to the message would get it through most of Earth’s spam filters completely undetected.

“Spamming now,” he said, tapping his console. There was a slight pause while the message uploaded and was then scanned for viruses by the automated gate security protocols. It was harder to transmit viruses through the network than spam messages, but that didn't stop some of the Galactics from trying. There were tales of entire civilizations brought to a sudden halt by a single carefully designed computer virus. Joshua had never placed much credence in them, but it
 
was
 
theoretically possible. It was a pity no one had worked out how to do it to the Hegemony, at least not without humanity getting clear blame. “Message away.”

He smiled as Karla brought
 
Blackbeard
 
around and reopened the quantum gate, taking them back through the vortex into quantum space. Even if the Funks
 
were
 
patrolling the unnamed system, they wouldn’t have a hope of intercepting them in time. The cruiser raced away from the system, using the energy storms to hide her trail. It wouldn’t be long until they met up with the rebel fleet and then headed to Tauscher. Joshua had never planned on a direct confrontation with the Hegemony until he'd realised that he had an opportunity, and yet… now he was committed, he had doubts. A failure could destroy his entire fleet.

But if he succeeded...at least one world would accept him after he’d been declared rogue.

“Rebel fleet coming into view now,” Karla said. Joshua stood up and crossed over to the main display screen. The rebel fleet, five hundred starships from a hundred different worlds, was waiting for him. Some were crewed by pirates who expected loot, unaware of Joshua’s real plans; others were crewed by rebels willing to fight and die for liberation from the Hegemony. It was an impressive sight, larger – in numbers – than the entire Federation Navy. But a single superdreadnought could trash them without working up a sweat. They’d have problems dealing with a squadron of heavy cruisers. There was a
 
lot
 
of room for the entire plan to go horribly wrong.

“Inform them that it’s time to move,” Joshua said. The pirates hadn't been told the objective either, just that they’d have an excellent chance to loot if they joined up and followed orders. There was plenty of wealth in the Tauscher System, enough to satisfy the survivors. And some of them would probably run when they discovered just where they were going. They wouldn't get anything from the mission. “Our target is waiting for us. Let’s go.”
 

“Transition in three… two… one… zero!”

Joshua braced himself as
 
Blackbeard
 
exploded out of the quantum gate, weapons primed and ready. The Funks had only stationed a handful of automated weapons platforms near the gate – they were functionally illegal, after all – and they were picked off before they had a chance to open fire. A small customs station floating next to the massive gate was eliminated rapidly with its occupants still screaming for help from the ships guarding the planet. Behind
 
Blackbeard
, the remainder of the fleet rapidly followed her into normal space.

“All targets destroyed,” Karla said, as the fleet started to shake down into something resembling a formation. “Picking up seventeen Type-5 orbital weapons platforms and twenty-two starships, led by a light cruiser squadron. Other ships in the system appear to be freighters, but some results are inconclusive.”

“Keep an eye on them,” Joshua ordered. Now that they were in action, he felt his doubts drain away. Some of the ships picked up moving to and from the asteroid belts might be warships, but they were too far away to be immediately dangerous. “Hack the gate – take out their interstellar communications node.”

“Done,” Karla said. The Funks could still transmit messages begging for help, but it would take weeks for them to reach anywhere with a Hegemony Navy Base. They’d never bothered to give the system a communications array that could bypass the quantum gate if necessary, something that was going to cost them dearly. “Enemy fleet is forming up into a defensive formation.”

Joshua smiled, even though he knew that the coming battle was going to hurt. The Hegemony had seen fit to take advantage of the Gobbles, using them to create a space-based infrastructure that was superior to what Earth had built in fifteen years. But they hadn't realised, perhaps because of their own inability to understand everything they’d inherited from the Cats, just how much the Gobbles would learn from their servitude. The defences of the Gobble homeworld looked tough until one considered how much of it was built and maintained by the teddybear-like aliens.

“Inform our friend that he can begin transmitting,” he ordered. Some of the captured freighters had been pressed into service as troop transports, housing rebels from across the Hegemony. They’d form the first elements of an army that would seek to bring down the Funks and replace them with something a little more friendly. “And prepare to engage the Funks.”

The two fleets closed with remarkable speed as the first signs of rebellion broke out on the orbital stations. Some of the defences lost power, or became bloody slaughterhouses as the Gobbles turned on their former masters; others began to fire on enemy-controlled installations on the planetary surface. The Hegemony would have real problems sorting out friendly from rebel stations, assuming they even tried. If they’d allowed the Gobbles on their starships, the entire battle might have ended there and then. Joshua half-suspected that the Funks would pull out of the system before the defences started firing on them, but instead they picked up speed and aimed right for the rebel fleet. Some of the pirate ships turned and ran when they realised what they were facing, despite the chaos breaking out in high orbit. Others stayed loyal, despite the risk. Looting an entire planet would be worth the possibility of death or capture.

“Enemy ships are locking on,” Karla reported. They had one advantage over their enemies, even though they were badly outnumbered. The Funks were presumably much more experienced in operating as a formation. “They are preparing to fire.”

“Fire at will,” Joshua ordered. Phase cannon opened fire, followed by volleys of antimatter torpedoes. They weren't as powerful as the improved versions devised by human engineers, but there were enough of them to make up for any deficiencies. The Funks returned fire savagely, switching their targeting over a dozen starships as they pumped out their own antimatter torpedoes.
 
Blackbeard
 
lurched violently as a torpedo exploded on her forward shield, followed by a tearing scream as phase cannon burned into her hull. Joshua cursed as the entire ship shuddered, just before their tormentor was blown away by two of the other ships. “Damage report!”

“Major damage to forward hull,” the engineer reported. “They’ve taken out a couple of our drive nodes and all of our forward weapons. We’re looking at around two weeks to replace them and repair the hull.”

“Keep firing,” Joshua ordered. The Funks were passing right through his formation, trying to take out as many ships as they could before they had to retreat. Joshua would have preferred a clean kill, wiping the entire enemy force out, but the Funks didn't want to oblige him. Why should they throw themselves away for no return? It might have been different if they'd had ships nearby that could retake the planet quickly… but if the information broker was right, the closest reinforcements were several weeks away. “See if you can get a link to the rebels in orbit.”

The last of the Funk starships escaped the formation, fired a final volley of torpedoes and then opened a quantum gate and vanished. They probably hadn't gone far – the Funks would need someone to remain in the system and watch the rebels – but for the moment they were no longer an issue. Joshua barked orders as
 
Blackbeard
 
caught up with the remainder of the formation and headed right towards Tauscher. The planet’s orbital space seemed to have dissolved into chaos. Automated platforms were firing on most of the manned platforms, while some of the other platforms had shut down completely. Joshua whispered a prayer for the unfortunate souls on the dead platforms, even if they were Funks. No spacer wanted to die slowly as the atmosphere turned to poison, rendering the platforms completely uninhabitable.

“Nineteen ships destroyed outright, twenty-seven damaged,” Karla reported. “And seven fled for fear of losing their lives, the cowardly fuckers. You want to shoot them if they show their faces around here again?”

“If they do,” Joshua said. The range to the planet’s orbital space was dropping sharply. They had to know who was friendly by the time they reached orbit. “Can you raise someone – anyone?”

“Nothing,” Karla said. “The orbital datanets appear to have been completely scrambled. It’s possible that they’ve uploaded subversion software to disable platforms that weren’t likely to fall to the rebels. Even if they can still fight, they won't be doing so cohesively.”

Joshua winced. “Hold our position outside their effective range,” he ordered. “If anyone tries to fire on us, assume that they’re hostile and mark them down for later attention.”

He tapped his console, opening a link to Xinchub. Whatever cuteness the alien had once had was lost in the sheer number of weapons he carried as he prepared to head down to the planet. The Funks had never bothered to design battlesuits for their clients and even the hidden colonies hadn’t been able to produce a workable version in time, leaving the Gobbles at a disadvantage when facing their masters. It didn't seem to bother them.

“We need to sort out the friendly platforms from the hostiles,” he said. “Can you get through to your allies?”

“I’m trying,” Xinchub said. “The Funks are trying to jam radio transmissions from the planetary surface. What little I’m picking up suggests that all-out war has broken out and both sides are being slaughtered.”

Joshua shuddered. Even humanity couldn't match the Gobbles when it came to sheer unthinking hatred for the Funks. And the Funks had a major population down on the surface, treating the natives in ways that would have made the worst of South Africa’s apartheid racists blanch. Black men had been human too, however reluctant their enemies were to acknowledge it, but there was no such tie between the Gobbles and the Funks. Even without weapons, the Gobbles were likely to slaughter their masters and bathe in their blood.

“Keep trying to get through to them,” he said. He’d warned Xinchub that he didn't want a slaughter, let alone effective genocide, but it didn't look as if he was in control of the situation any longer. “I’ll…”

“I’ve got a laser link from one of the stations,” Karla interrupted. “They’re asking to speak to Xinchub.”

“Put them through to him,” Joshua ordered. There was a long pause as the two Gobbles chattered together in their high-pitched language, defeating the translation program he’d bought from Shadow. From what he’d picked up from the rebels, the Gobbles actually had a simpler version of their language they used to talk to the Galactics. They called it, roughly translated, the Stupid Speech. “What’s happening down there?”

“We have control of most of the platforms,” Xinchub said. “Tactical data is being uploaded now. The ground is still horrifically confused. We have to get down there as soon as possible.”

Joshua glanced at the data from the captured platforms. “It should be possible to get you and your men down to the surface without being intercepted by the remaining platforms,” he said. “I assume you wish to launch immediately?”

“Of course,” Xinchub said. “I’m going home!”

The fleet slowly advanced on the planet, targeting and picking off the remaining enemy-controlled platforms. Joshua watched dispassionately as they died, one by one, even though they claimed victims before they were finally destroyed. Some of the planet’s defences would have to be rebuilt quickly before the Funks gathered the forces to return and reclaim the planet, although he had been informed that the Funks had used their client world as a base for manufacturing missiles and other military equipment.

It had seemed a curious oversight on their part to put valuable production nodes near a rebellious planet until Joshua had looked into the history of the occupation. The Hegemony clans that had claimed the planet – and its inhabitants – hadn't had much of a presence anywhere outside the system, for internal political reasons that Joshua hadn't been able to follow. They’d regarded the Gobbles as their last chance to regain prominence – under the Empress, of course – and their lust for power had overridden their common sense. But then, the Gobbles
 
had
 
been under control until Joshua had destroyed or driven away the starships guarding their planet. Resistance would have been pointless.

Xinchub launched his shuttles as soon as he came into range, hurling thousands of heavily-armed rebels into the teeth of enemy positions. The Funks fought with a savagery born of desperation, pressing every last craft into military service and forcing civilians to join their defenders. Joshua watched helplessly as the captured orbital platforms turned on the planet they were supposed to defend, wiping out Funk fortifications and settlements with a ruthlessness that shocked him. In no more than two hours, hundreds of thousands – perhaps more – of Funks had been slaughtered. There was nowhere to hide for the former masters of the planet. The only survivors were the ones who lived far from any Gobble settlements.

Joshua redeployed his fleet and sent small detachments to claim the various colonies and industrial nodes scattered throughout the system. Most of them were run by Gobbles and they were quite willing to join the rebels; the remainder, mostly operated by Funks, refused to surrender until Joshua promised not to hand them over to the Gobbles. The penal ship he’d captured months ago would come in handy as a place to hold them until they could be returned to the Hegemony. None of them were any use as hostages. Finally, an uneasy peace covered the entire system. Joshua didn't want to
 
think
 
about how many Funks had died when their slaves had turned on them. The final death toll would probably be in the
 
millions
.

“It was necessary,” Xinchub said, when he returned to
 
Blackbeard
 
a day later. The Gobbles seemed to be firmly in control of most of the system’s infrastructure and they’d already started offering their services to repair the damaged ships. Others were starting work on restoring the disabled platforms, after Joshua had sent shuttles to pick up the Funks. “They needed to understand just how badly we hate them.”

Joshua found himself at a loss for words. Three Hegemony clans – relatively minor ones, true – had been almost exterminated by the uprising. Whatever their exact relationship with the rest of the clans, or the Empress, the Hegemony could hardly let that go past without retaliating. Even if they didn't blame humanity for the whole affair – and they probably would – they’d still want to punish the Gobbles. A single antimatter torpedo would render the entire planet uninhabitable. The debris falling into the planet’s atmosphere probably wouldn't help. God knew that the Funks had left large parts of the surface an ecological disaster area.

“I think they got the message,” he said, finally. He’d seen the images from the ground, the pictures of burning cities and slaughtered Funks, their bodies piled high so they could be cremated by orbital lasers. No Funk who remained alive on the planet’s surface could ever feel safe when their family had been brutally murdered. “How do you intend to explain it to the Galactics?”

“The Galactics have never done anything for us,” Xinchub snarled. “Why should we care about their opinion?”

It wasn't an attitude Joshua found hard to share. The Association
 
had
 
done nothing to protect humanity from the ravages of powerful neighbours, any more than they’d done anything to force the Hegemony to let the Gobbles develop in peace. There was something to be said for rubbing their noses in the trauma inflicted on slave races, and what happened when that trauma finally found an outlet, yet it would make it harder for the Gobbles to win allies from outside the Hegemony. And they would
 
need
 
those allies to stave off the Hegemony when the Funks came back, bent on extracting revenge.