First Strike (47 page)

The flight back to Earth was uneventful, giving Tobias a chance to catch up on the paperwork he’d been neglecting while he’d been off fighting the war. He – and Admiral Sun – had cut as much paperwork as possible out of the system, but nothing seemed to stop the relentless march of bureaucracy. There were promotions to approve, a court-martial judgment to consider, budget requests to put before the Federation Council… no shortage of things that claimed to be urgent. And there was the inquiry on why First Strike Fleet had been unable to save the Earth Defence Fleet from destruction.

And
 
then
 
there was the endless political struggle over the destroyed cities.

The Federation Council had been buffeted by the war. Earth had been delighted with the defeat of the Hegemony – and the worst case projections suggested that the Hegemony wouldn't become a threat again for at least five years – but people were asking questions of their leaders, questions that had no easy answers. Why had it taken so long to save so few people from the ruins? Why had governments failed to supply help quickly enough to save so many lives? Why had the Hegemony even succeeded in hitting Earth in the first place?

Sampson knew the answer, even though it was one that the population would hate. Any large scale disaster was difficult to handle; it took time to get organised and get emergency supplies to the disaster zone. The plans drawn up before the Battle of Earth had warned of the dangers, but there had been nothing they could do to prevent those plans falling apart as soon as missiles hit the cities. The only blessing was that it could have been far worse. They could have used antimatter warheads to destroy the entire planet.

But it wasn't the Federation Navy that was taking the fire. Tobias knew that he should be relieved, yet it worried him. The Federation Navy had matured in the war, becoming a truly global force – and it enjoyed a surprising amount of autonomy from the Federation Council, allowing it to act almost independently. Who knew
 
what
 
it might become in the future?

He shook his head. Maybe he shouldn't worry. Humanity had upset too many Galactic preconceptions about the universe to risk disunity now. Most of the galaxy wasn’t just inhabited, it was
 
taken
. The only way for the younger powers to expand would be at the expense of their neighbours. And while Earth had a lead in technology, there was no reason why the Galactics couldn't catch up quickly. It was possible that some of them had already enjoyed more advanced technology, even if they had kept it to themselves. What would happen when the Association finally collapsed?

The future didn't bode well at all.

He grinned. But at least the human race would be taken seriously in future. Perhaps the deaths had been worth it, if the human race would survive. Only time would tell.

His age pressed down on him like a leaden weight.

Mentor stood in his quarters and studied the report from his agent. It was hard, so hard, to remember why he cared, but he held himself together somehow. He was over five thousand years old, older than human civilization, older than anyone from any of the younger races. And he was heir to a society that traced its recorded history back over two
 
million
 
years.

He felt as if he seen everything, done everything. The mental weariness seeping into his thoughts made it hard to think, memories of worlds and peoples long gone blurring into the present day. There were machines to store his memories, to save him the task of remembering everything, but none of them were perfect. A mind that had once been smarter than any human was decaying under the sheer weight of life experience. How long would it be, Mentor wondered, before his mind finally collapsed? Even he didn’t know how many of his kind had fallen to the disease affecting his society, tearing them apart from the inside.

The disease was called immortality.

It had been a mistake. He knew that now. There were limits to flesh and blood that even genetic engineering and nanotech tinkering couldn't overcome. The birth rate had slowed, and finally stopped...and then the immortals had begun to die. They’d simply given up and allowed their minds to decay into nothing, or committed suicide, or died in stupid accidents that reflected an unconscious death wish. The entire race had stagnated so long ago that none of them could even remember the joy of discovering something new. And now…

From a population that had once numbered in the trillions, only a handful were left.

The Association his people had created didn't know what was happening to its founders, but Mentor knew that some of them were beginning to suspect that the Association was a hollow shell. How long would it be until the Commune crumbled and the Galactics realised the truth? Not long, he was sure. And then?

His people had made mistakes. Some out of pride, some out of honest intentions – and some out of a desire to keep their position as the supreme power in the galaxy. Those mistakes had shaped the Association, warping it into something its founders no longer recognised. What would happen when the last of his people were gone? Would the Association splinter into war, or would the new leaders establish their own stranglehold over the galaxy?

Mentor didn't know, but he feared for the future. It was why he had gone to Earth. Maybe, just maybe, the human race could kickstart a process that would reinvigorate the Association. Or maybe they'd just start a series of wars that would depopulate most of the galaxy. Even Mentor, with access to a science of psychohistory that was far beyond anything Earth had even imagined, couldn't say for sure. There were just too many variables.

And he didn't know if he would live long enough to see the outcome of his final gamble. He didn't know if his people’s pride and arrogance – their legacy to the younger races - had doomed the galaxy. He could just be trying to stop a supernova with nothing more than his furry hands...

But he had to try.

It was all he had left.

The End

The key to understanding the Mer’fuk Hegemony is to bear in mind that the Hegemony represents an attempt to graft primitive traits from a pre-steam world onto a modern technology-using culture. Much of the Hegemony is actually governed by rules and customs that no longer really need apply, although the Funks – as humans came to call them – are reluctant to alter them without a pressing need. The ones in charge feel that it works for them, as it supports their dominance; the ones at the bottom of the heap are unable to make their feelings heard.

Hegemony Prime – the exact name for their homeworld cannot be translated into any of the Galactic languages, although humans have often referred to it as Squeak Hiss Squeak – is a hot dry world, situated roughly seven light minutes from the system primary. (Earth, by contrast, is eight light minutes from Sol.) Most of the planet’s water reserves are underground, forcing plants and animals to dig deep to receive their sustenance; natural oasis-like locations are among the most desirable real estate on the planet. Unlike Earth, which has water covering three-fourths of its surface, Hegemony Prime has only two oceans, each roughly the size of Australia.

The Funks evolved, therefore, from creatures that reassembled a cross between crocodiles and lizards. Their early evolutionary history was dominated by a constant search for water and food, a process hampered by the fact that large-scale farming and herding was almost impossible on their world. Very few permanent settlements were ever founded and the vast majority of the Funk population lived and died as nomadic tribesmen. Fighting between different clans was epidemic, but limited. A fight to the death might result in mutual destruction.

Also steering their development was the imbalanced birth rate between the sexes. Male births outnumbered female births by roughly four to one, resulting in a situation that could have easily led to female enslavement. Unlike humanity, however, Funk females were quick to see the benefits of cooperation – and Funks males had considerable difficulties seeing past the very short term. Their earliest forms of government were effectively directed by the females, a trait enhanced by the simple fact that males were more expendable than females. Females did the planning; males did the fighting.

The females do not have a mating season. Like humans, they are capable of mating at almost any time and females have little difficulty finding a willing mate. When impregnated, a Funk female gestates the eggs in her womb and then lays them after six months, where they are cared for by the clan females until they hatch. Each female may lay up to five eggs at any one time, although the more eggs laid in each brood the greater the chance of losing one or more of the children. (Modern medical technology gave the Funks a population boost when it was first introduced, as they would typically breed more children than they needed on the grounds that not all of them would survive birth.) Once hatched, males and females are separated until maturity, allowing them to be raised properly by the clan elders. The Funks do not have even a
 
concept
 
of bastardry.

Physically, a mature Funk stands little taller than the average human, with green-brown scales and bright red eyes. Their eyesight is generally better than unenhanced humans, allowing them to see into the infrared; their hearing somewhat weaker. Both male and females have claws which emerge from their hands if necessary, a legacy of their harsh evolution. They can move with astonishing speed for short periods of time, if forced to fight directly, but rapidly run out of energy. Although they are physically weaker than the average human, a maddened Funk male is extremely difficult to handle in hand-to-hand combat. Provoking a Funk male into a murderous range, if done at a safe distance, is a workable tactic as the madness rapidly wears off, leaving the Funk exhausted and vulnerable. Funk females rarely lose their self-control.

Funk warfare, as evolved on their homeworld, is an endless quest for resources and dominance, rather than extermination. They have no tradition of total war. Instead, there is a long period of jostling and bullying, followed by a demonstration of supremacy that should convince the weaker side to submit. The leaders of the losing side are generally adopted into the winning side, along with their people, who start out as slaves, but biologically integrate very quickly into the winners. One tradition involves sending back captured enemy leaders to attempt to convince their fellows to surrender – and as a gesture of contempt. This does not always work out as well as it should, at least according to their rules. There is, for example, no prohibition on the captured and returned leaders returning to the war.

The clans – the largest social entity prior to their introduction to the galaxy – appear confusing to human eyes, a mixture of democracy and dictatorship. Clan leaders are females who have convinced a number of other females to work with them to secure their control, outvoting females who disagree with their policies. Sometimes these social strains become too much and clans fission into two or more smaller ones. This process partly accounts for the failure to develop a permanent civilization or super-clan prior to encountering the Galactics. The larger a clan, the greater the room for dissent and eventual fission.

Funk criminals are rare, at least partly due to their communal lives. Males are known for short-term ‘crimes’ that are laughed off by the females, considering them a mark of ‘boys will be boys.’ If more serious, males are gelded and declawed, before being thrown out into the desert to starve. Female crimes are regarded more seriously, with punishments that range from enslavement to gang-rape and death, as females are held to be more responsible.

Sexism is prevalent in Funk societies, although following Matriarchal traits rather than Patriarchal. Funk females regard males, essentially, as children, creatures who need firm and considerate guidance – and who are incapable of even considering their own good. (This is not incomparable to similar male-female trends on Earth, although reversed.) Outside the traditional roles of worker and warrior, males rarely attain any position of authority and the idea of positive discrimination would be a joke. There is a certain amount of truth in the female claims, although it is not clear how much of the male condition is biological and how much is cultural.

The Funks never developed the concept of religion, at least in the sense of human polytheist or monotheist traditions. They do have a tradition of venerating water as the literal source of life on their world, although they don’t pray to water as humans pray to God. It should be noted that this semi-atheism allowed them to take the concept of the Galactics in their stride when their world was first contacted, far better than humanity managed.

Originally, the Galactics regarded the Funks as a source of mercenaries for brushfire wars. The Funks were quite happen to deal, with a particular clan leader providing trained males – and females to supervise them – in exchange for Galactic technology. Using her gains, she was rapidly able to conquer and unite Hegemony Prime, in defiance of all previous traditions of warfare. Declaring herself the Empress of the Hegemony and her clan the High Clan, she reshaped the entire planet’s society, but failed to challenge the social underpinnings of Funk culture. The old fault lines between clans were still there, only buried.

The Funks proved themselves quite determined to copy Galactic technology and build an interstellar power base. A handful of worlds near Hegemony Prime were rapidly settled and developed, while starships were purchased and shipyards constructed in orbit around the planet. What they didn't do – and didn't realise, at least at first – was understand the basis of Galactic technology. It was impossible for them to improve upon what they copied from the Galactics, or even to realise that they
 
needed
 
to innovate for themselves. The Funks managed to be quite imaginative when it came to
 
applying
 
the technology, but never really understood what it actually did. The research and development infrastructure was almost non-existent.

They also viewed interstellar power politics through blinkered red eyes that were used to seeing stronger clans fall apart, leaving a power vacuum that could be filled by someone else. The Cats might be masters of the galaxy, but that wouldn’t last – and the Association’s failure to do more than weakly protest the Funk expansion into their sector was viewed as a sign of weakness. They became skilful at exploiting weaknesses within the Association Commune while never realising that other races simply didn't think like them. Perversely, the Funks paid a backwards tribute to the Galactics by believing that they were just like the Funks themselves. Racism, at least in the sense of believing that someone was permanently inferior, was never part of their culture. Ironically, this led to the Funks underestimating their enemies, particularly the human race.

Few of their social traits were really helpful in the modern galaxy. Most dangerous, perhaps, was their habit of keeping slaves. Funk slavery had had a safety valve in that Funk slaves were able to climb to freedom (and children born to slaves were not slaves themselves), but biological integration between aliens was obviously impossible. Both of their ‘client’ races (a race that has roughly 90% of its numbers under the control of a more powerful race) were trapped into permanent servitude. Revolts were not uncommon, as were savage reprisals.

By 2030, as humans reckon time, the Hegemony had swallowed up nearly three hundred star systems and two client races. However, three major powers now bordered their space – and were arming frantically on the assumption that one of them would be targeted by the Funks next. Further expansion would be much more difficult...and if the pace of conquest slowed, the social strains in the Hegemony might rip it apart. With that in mind, the Funks decided to target the human race. What could such a puny race do to threaten them?

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