Original Work The Fires of Freedom

Chapter Sixteen

The fundamental downside of building a structure as large as a Ring that wrapped around an entire planet, a megastructure that most races couldn’t even begin to imagine, was that it was impossible to monitor the interior completely. There were sections that had fallen into disuse, and sections that were pretty much lower-class slums, mainly for alien immigrant workers who had fallen on hard times, the latter so large that they were practically cities in their own right. It was dangerous to take the surveillance network too lightly, Riley knew, or the advanced programs the Tichck used to monitor it, but it was nowhere near powerful and capable enough to peer into every last nook and cranny. There were entire sections of the Ring that were outside the reach of the surveillance network.

He kept his face under tight control as they made their way into one of the more isolated sections on the Ring, a network of corridors, apartments and warehouses that had been left unfinished before being taken over by the poor and dispossessed and turned into a shantytown. Riley had seen some horrors in his time, from cities torn apart by civil war to once-proud communities ruined by politicians who didn’t have to live in the cities and therefore didn’t have to deal with the downsides of their combination of idealism, ignorance and stupidity, but the section surrounding them managed to be worse. There was no way out, even for the smartest and most capable. They were little better than animals, as far as the Tichck were concerned, and they had no hope of bettering themselves. He told himself, firmly, that that meant they had nothing to lose. They might come in handy when the war reached the system.

His lips twisted. They had no direct contact with Commodore Yasser, and if the local news networks had told him it was raining he wouldn’t have bothered to pack an umbrella, but it was clear something was happening. They had tracked starships being withdrawn from the defence force and dispatched to an unknown destination, supply depots being opened and their contents transferred to freighters … whatever was happening, the Tichck were preparing for war. And that meant they had to hurry.

The air shifted as they reached the end of one section and entered the next, the stench of too many people in two close proximity refusing to fade as they passed through what might have once been an airlock, but had been locked open long ago. Riley hoped to hell the engineers knew what they were doing, and that they had teams on standby to seal any hull breaches that might occur. The Ring was immense, and it would take time for the entire atmosphere to leak into space, but if the breach wasn’t sealed in a hurry there would be no stopping it. He supposed it explained why the Solar Union had never considered building a Ring of its own. Quite apart from the social implications, it was just too great a risk.

“It looks a little better here,” Charles said. He kept one hand near his pouch, where his weapons were stowed. They’d changed into basic maintenance suits that made them look like workers, outfits that bound members of a dozen races into one role, service to the Tichck. “But it still feels dangerous.”

Riley nodded, curtly. They weren’t at the very bottom of local society, just right next to it. He knew humans who had grown up in places very comparable to the alien environment, people who knew they were one step above the bottom and dreaded falling the rest of the way to the very bottom. Some were smart enough to build lives for themselves, some took advantage of the open offer to migrate and fled to the Solar Union; some remained trapped, unwilling to risk doing anything that might disrupt their precarious balancing act. They tended to be amongst the most fearful of the working class, even though they were often working class themselves …

And if Sarah is wrong, we might be in some trouble, he thought. It had taken her nearly a week of careful analysis to pick out a prospective rebel leader, and there was no way to be entirely sure they’d found the right person. The codes they’d been given might have been compromised by now … he’d hoped the fleet would find a way to get one of their informers to the system, but her hadn’t counted on it. It won’t be easy to extract ourselves from the nightmare.

He tensed as he spotted a handful of Subdo, loitering around in a manner that made his skin prickle. Guards. Not very obvious guards, but guards nonetheless. Their outfits were baggy, bulging in all the wrong places; he wondered, absently, what kind of weapons they were carrying. Energy weapons would probably show up on sensors, if the security forces did a sweep. Projectile weapons? There had been Subdo on Belos, during the first insurgency, and they would have seen the modified AK-47s the Belosi had used, after the Firelighters had hacked the stolen fabbers and used them to churn out hundreds of thousands of weapons. If the Subdo were careful, they could easily make such weapons for themselves.

The guards made no move to block their way as they walked past, but Riley couldn’t help feeling eyes on the back of his neck. It would be a great deal harder to get out, if they were wrong … the sheer presence of the guards was clear proof they had stumbled into something, even if he wasn’t sure what. Sarah’s conclusions could be misleading, not through incompetence but simply through downloading too much data for effective analysis. He put the thought outside as he stopped in front of a door, marked with an alien script, and tapped once. The door hissed open a second later.

“Welcome,” a calm voice said. The Subdo inside looked surprisingly like a middle-ranking official, an impression that failed to fade even as Riley took in the alien features. He appeared completely harmless, the kind of grey official who was nothing more than a cog in the giant machine, following orders from his superiors and never aspiring to be anything more. His file certainly backed up that impression. If Riley hadn’t seen the analysis, he would have looked right past the alien official. “What can I do for you?”

Riley took a datapad from his belt, pressed his thumb against a hidden scanner to unlock the secure datastore, then held it out. The Subdo took it, his eyes narrowing as he saw the codes on display. His form seemed to shift a moment later, conveying an impression of extreme danger all the more remarkable for how subtle it was. Riley was honestly impressed. The most dangerous person he’d met in his pre-Contact days had looked completely harmless, an academic who might faint at the sight of blood, until he’d gone into action. He wondered, suddenly, what sort of implants lay beneath the alien’s skin. There were no visible weapons, but that was meaningless in a universe where an entire arsenal could be implanted and then concealed under skin grafts and rejuvenation scars.

The Subdo cocked his head. “How did you find me?”

“We have our ways,” Riley said.

“Details?”

Riley glanced at Sarah, who shrugged. “We downloaded the files from the bureaucratic network and went through them,” she said. “It took us a while to pick out a pattern. Messages seemingly originating from one point and going to another, without ever quite reaching their destinations. Orders being inserted into the networks with no apparent source, or a source that didn’t appear to know they were there. Subtle changes to shipping manifests, slight additions to orders and some careful subtractions: files appearing out of nowhere, insisting they have been there all along; travel permissions and expense submissions that appear to be completely legal, yet – again – have no discernible source. It was clear there were a handful of officials with their own agenda, and your file was suspiciously clean.”

She paused. “You had several chances to be promoted,” she added. “And for some reason you chose to stay where you were.”

The Subdo smiled, although it was hard to tell if the expression was genuine. “And you don’t think I’m just a criminal?”

“You didn’t appear to be making much money out of the affair, if any,” Sarah said. “And the pattern was too scattershot to be a smuggling ring.”

“I see.” The Subdo studied them for a long moment. “You may call me Ash.”

Riley nodded. “Call me Riley,” he said. There was no point in trying to hide their names. The fewer lies they told, the better. “We learnt your contact details from an agent who was sent to Belos, as part of the attacking fleet.”

“A fleet that was defeated,” Ash said, curtly. “Or so we were told.”

“I was there,” Sarah said. “It was defeated.”

Ash said nothing for a long moment. “And who do you represent?”

“Our associates wish to undermine the Tichck and defeat them,” Riley said. He doubted Ash would buy any sealed packages, but it was worth a try. “They want to offer you support …”

“Who do you represent?” Ash’s voice showed no trace of emotion, but his hands moved in a pattern that suggested he was agitated. “We want to know who we’re dealing with.”

Riley understood. “We work for the Vesparians,” he said, simply. “And we have orders to make contact with you, to provide the support you need to free yourselves.”

“I see,” Ash said. “And why should we expect you to treat us any better than the masters?”

That, Riley had to admit, was a good question. The Vesparians were unlikely to offer the Subdo many concessions, if only because they were a second-rate race that served others rather than building a power base of their own. Their homeworld was under alien occupation and had been so for thousands of years, ensuring they had little awareness of what their lives had been like before they’d been contacted, or even any hope that one day the worm would turn. They were far more aware of how to use GalTech than the Belosi had ever been, before the first mission to Belos, but they were also far too aware of the disparity between them and the Tichck. If their planned uprising failed, they would be in deep shit. The Tichck wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter millions to teach the rest how to behave.

“In the short term, we want you to tie down the local defenders and provide support when we invade the system,” Riley said. “With open conflict threatening to break out on the border, we intend to wait until the Tichck redeploy and then hammer our way up the gravity point chain to this system. In the long term, we would be happier having you as allies and friends, as trading partners, than anything else. The cost of imposing our own control over this system would far outweigh the profits, and keeping the gravity points open would be difficult without allies controlling the settlements and the industrial nodes.”

“You want us to supply your war effort,” Ash said, flatly. “You do realise we don’t control the fabbers? Or the orbital fortresses?”

“I bet you could take control,” Riley said. There were Subdo everywhere. They could take control of the system’s infrastructure fairly quickly, if the Tichck didn’t react in time to stop them. The real problem would be the fortresses on the gravity points, but Riley could think of a couple of ways to deal with them even if the fleet didn’t arrive in time. “And with our support, you could take and hold the entire system.”

“It would depend,” Ash said. “How quickly could they react?”

“They are already sending reinforcements to the border,” Riley said. A guess, in a manner of speaking, but a good one. “How quickly can they turn those ships around? And how can they do it without weakening their borders?”

Ash said nothing for a long cold moment. Riley felt a twinge of sympathy, mingled with unease. A rebel movement always had to go on the offensive eventually, for fear of recruits drifting away as they adapted to the new reality, and no human rebel group had had to keep the flame alive for hundreds of years. The idea there were people plotting to restore the Alexandrian Empire was as foolish as the belief the Jews secretly ruled the world from behind the scenes; ancient conspiracies made good fiction, but were absurd in real life. And yet, Ash’s group really was an ancient conspiracy. They might never have a better chance to win.

Or at least secure some freedom for themselves, he thought. Can they afford to pass up the chance?

He knew they might be rejected, knew they might have to fight their way out before it was too late. Ash was old and smart, but some of his recruits would be young and hot-headed. Riley knew the type. He’d fought and killed far too many of them in the war on terror, young fools convinced they would go to heaven if they died in battle while their masters, older and wiser and far more calculating, remained behind in relative safety. Ash couldn’t afford to have the Firelighters speak to the youth, if he rejected their offer. And getting out would be damn near impossible.

“We want clear title to the system and all that is in it,” Ash said, finally. “Will your masters honour that?”

“Yes,” Riley said. It didn’t matter what the Vesparians thought. It was humanity, and the Belosi, who would liberate the system. “We have already made a similar agreement with the Belosi. The only catch is that we want you to evacuate the alien population, if they don’t want to live under your rule. There are other places they can go.”

Ash’s hands made an odd motion. It took Riley a moment to recognise it was agreement.

“I must discuss the matter with others,” Ash said, finally. If he was daunted at the prospect of evacuating millions of aliens, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he thought most would want to stay, or perhaps he intended to renegotiate the deal after the war was over. He wouldn’t be the first rebel leader who agreed to whatever it took to get foreign aide, then went back on the deal afterwards. “Please wait here. I shall be back shortly.”

Riley nodded, and looked around the apartment. It was bland and boring, with hardly any decoration … the kind of place, he reflected, that was more of a place to sleep than one to live. There was no room for a wife and children … he didn’t know if the Subdo have anything resembling a nuclear family, when the universe was full of all kinds of weird and wonderful arrangements, but he couldn’t help feeling it was sad. He’d stayed in cheap hotels that had had more life and individuality. Perhaps it was deliberate. There would be pick-ups in the room, if he was any judge, and keeping to a boring routine was the simplest way to lull his watchers into a state of security. But then, he had talked openly … perhaps the pick-ups were already subverted. The Subdo certainly had the technical knowledge to do it. And the command codes too.

He leaned against the wall as Ash left, trying to project an air of calm. He didn’t feel it. There were too many things that could go wrong, if Ash’s comrades argued against dealing with them or it turned out his group had been penetrated after all. Riley knew there were terrorists who had been granted amnesty, their crimes forgiven as long as they put their skills and knowledge to work undermining their former allies; it was easy to imagine Ash being detected long ago and offered a flat choice between working for the security forces or being summarily executed. And being executed, perhaps. There were quite a few terrorists whose lives had ended under mysterious circumstances, once they had outlived their usefulness. It wasn’t as if anyone cared about their lives. The world was a cleaner place without them.

Charles paced the room, eyes flickering from side to side. Sarah stood still, her mind clearly elsewhere. Their extraction plan was desperate and it might not work, if push came to shove. He wished he’d been able to leave her somewhere she could yank them out, in a heartbeat, but he needed her with them. If they’d been able to summon another team in time … Commodore Yasser had sent a request back to the nearest naval base, yet there was no way they could count on reinforcements. Riley knew better.

Sarah indicated the wall, with a vague gesture. “They fucked with the pick-up,” she said, echoing his earlier thoughts. “As near as I can tell, it isn’t linked to anywhere in particular.”

Riley allowed himself a smile. You didn’t need to subvert a senior officer to gain an alarming amount of access, just a junior in the right place. He could easily imagine the records getting switched, so the pick-up that was supposed to be monitoring the apartment was playing a boring record instead … without the risk of analysis software realising it was being played a recording on an endless loop. It was proof, he was sure, that Ash was a rebel. A smuggler or a simple criminal would have used his talents in a different way.

Wait, he told himself. It could take quite some time for the rebels to reach a decision. Wait and see what happens.

The door opened. Ash returned, alone.

“We have agreed to work with you,” Ash said, bluntly. His manner changed again as he sat down. “What sort of support can you offer us?”

Riley smiled, and started to explain.

 

Chapter Seventeen

“If the reports are accurate,” Commander Denham said, “both the Tichck and the Vesparians are rushing reinforcements into the sector.”

Elton nodded, slowly. Yanking a Tichck convoy out of FTL had been a gamble – the technology wasn’t exactly new, but humanity was the only race to have deployed such a tactic in combat – and yet it had paid off. The escorts had been caught completely by surprise and forced to surrender, not even getting a single shot off for the honour of the flag before dropping shields and begging for mercy. Anywhere else, such an outcome would require an enemy so incompetent that they’d be asking to defect, rather than be returned to face the fury of their justifiably angry superiors. Here … his lips twitched. The Tichck hadn’t expected to run into trouble five light years from the nearest star. They’d have to change their procedures if they didn’t want it to happen again.

If they ever work out what happened, he mused. Denham and his team had come up with a dozen plans for exploiting the sudden windfall, from loading the freighters with nuclear warheads and sending them to their destinations to adding the warships to their growing fleet, but Elton was reluctant to show his hand so openly so quickly. They may assume the convoy was jumped as it passed through a friendly system.

“Give me a full download as quickly as possible,” he said. The updates would be already outdated, as was common in interstellar warfare. It would be tricky, too, to determine if the information was genuine or outright misinformation, designed to lull him into a false sense of security. It would require precognition to know he’d jump the convoy and take all the ships intact, but passing out disinformation to every outpost and ship flying through the sector wouldn’t be difficult. “And inform me when the freighters are unloaded.”

“Aye, sir,” Denham said. “The senior crews are already transferred to the prison barge.”

Elton gave him a sharp look. “Don’t assume the junior crew are incapable of causing trouble,” he said. “You know how ambitious they are.”

Denham nodded. “We do have them under heavy guard.”

“Let us hope so,” Elton said. “But we have to prepare for the worst.”

He sighed, inwardly. Humanity had its issues with working together, and there was no denying that humans were perfectly capable of bickering with each other as well as fighting an outside foe, but the Tichck made humans look perfectly reasonable. Each and every Tichck was competing to rise in the ranks, through winning glory or at least the credit to burying a knife in their superior’s back, sometimes literally. Elton didn’t know how they had managed to build a civilisation, let alone clamber into interstellar space, if they scrabbled with each other so much, but he had to admit they’d done it. Perhaps their constant competition worked in their favour. A high-ranking Tichck who lost his drive wouldn’t last long before his subordinates tore him down.

Commander Thornton stepped into the CIC. “Commodore, a courier boat just arrived from Belos,” he said. “The refugees have been transferred to their new homes. Basic training cycles are already underway.”

“Good,” Elton said. “Any problems?”

“Nothing major,” Thornton assured him. “The Leander don’t have any spacefaring knowledge, of course, and an asteroid settlement has its dangers for the unwary, but they learn quick. There’s no reason to believe they cannot make good spacers, and later allies. The Belosi have already welcomed them as friends and fellow victims, although they are reluctant to let the newcomers settle on Belos itself.”

Elton nodded in understanding. The Belosi already had a large population of off-worlders, one that would have to be integrated or evacuated. It had been easy enough to evacuate anyone belonging to the major powers, but the lesser races would pose a major problem. No one would want to take them, at least not in the short term. Some would probably be moved to Parnassus once the war was over, others transferred to asteroid settlements … he hoped, prayed, they’d have enough time to work out a permanent solution before the Belosi ran out of patience. The end of the war – the last war – had been marked by a series of bloody slaughters, as local races – free of the Tokomak’s oversight – massacred the off-worlders who had been dropped on their homeworld. The Galactic Alliance had tried to stop it, but old hatred ran very deep indeed. He didn’t want anything of the sort to happen on his watch. Quite apart from any moral concerns, it would cause no end of problems in the future.

“If they are lucky, they can return to their homeworld after the war,” he said, feeling a twinge of guilt. They had been careful not to return, after abandoning the alien world. There was no way to know what was happening, or how the Tichck had reacted to the attack. They could have left the locals alone, or they could have blasted a few dozen cities to put them back in their place. “If not, at least their race will go on.”

“Yes, sir,” Thornton said. “Our medics are already working on ways to expand their numbers without hitting genetic bottlenecks. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Elton said. “Was there any tactical update from Belos?”

“The Tichck have made no attempt to force their way back into Parnassus, sir,” Thornton told him. “The report is two weeks out of date, but intelligence suspects the Tichck have put Belos on the backburner for now. Our sources in the other neighbouring systems haven’t reported any further attempts to sneak around the gravity points and attack from an unexpected direction, not after the drubbing we gave them last time. That said, the system overlords have been fortifying their sides of the gravity points, which could be an attempt to free up mobile units for offensive operations or a way to give the finger to the Tichck.”

“Or both,” Elton said, dryly. Their sources in the nearby systems, sources cultivated by the Tichck, could hardly be considered reliable. A handful had already vanished, assuming their cover had been blown and going on the run before their homeworld’s security forces caught up with them. The remainder weren’t entirely trustworthy. They were traitors, and no traitor could ever be trusted completely. “They may not know themselves.”

He closed his eyes, visualising the gravity point chains. The Tichck had insisted their neighbours did nothing to fortify their gravity points, a demand that couldn’t have failed to make their neighbours very paranoid indeed. It had been couched in the terms of free trade, a laughable joke where the Tichck were concerned, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t another motive. The Tichck had had deployment plans for moving fleet units to Belos, then declaring war in all directions. It hadn’t taken him long to authorise their release to their targets, after the analysts had recovered the plans from Tichck datacores. Giving them proof the Tichck had plotted war against them might make them think twice before letting the Tichck fly through their systems again.

Or they might believe the plans are nothing more than disinformation, he thought. Most starship crews had strict orders to destroy their datacores before they surrendered, rendering their vessels effectively useless in the short term. The fact the Tichck hadn’t was odd, to say the least. They’ll certainly know we have reason to keep them from helping the Tichck.

“I imagine they’ll want to keep their options open as long as possible,” he said, opening his eyes. “If the Tichck come close to winning the war, they’ll want to jump in on their side while they still have something to offer.”

He sighed, inwardly. It was never easy to judge the right moment to switch sides. It had to be done when you had still something to offer, something to encourage their new allies to accept you, and also when your former allies and new enemies were in no position to take bloody revenge. The chaos that had followed Italy’s surrender and attempt to switch sides in 1943 was a grim reminder of just how much could go wrong, even if the Italians had had little choice. If the Nazis had somehow won the war after that, they’d have taken a horrific revenge. People spoke about morality, and right and wrong, but from a geopolitical point of view the wrong side to be on was always the one that lost. And no one wanted to be on the losing side.

“We shall see,” he said. “Any rumours of war?”

“A great many hysterical reports, including a number of claims that Vesperian starships were sighted deep in Tichck space and vice versa,” Thornton said. “The vast majority are unconfirmed, sir, and we have no way to confirm them. The official statements are bland to the point of uselessness, although it is clear that both sides are gearing up for war. Our sources tell us the Vesparians have already made approaches to two other races.”

He nodded to the holographic starchart. “We know they made contact with the Ryloth and the Harkins,” he said. “There’s also an unconfirmed report they sent a representative to Jimmuly too.”

Elton smirked. “I suppose it would be terribly mean of us to make sure the Tichck know about it?”

“They probably already do,” Thornton said. “We’re using their sources.”

He paused. “There’s no suggestion, so far, that they’re interested in approaching the Belosi. Or any of the bigger powers.”

Elton nodded, studying the starchart. The three races the Vesparians had contacted were smaller powers, on the far side of Tichck space … insofar as the combination of gravity point chains and FTL drives gave the term any meaning. They weren’t exactly powerless, and the Vesparians would be glad of their support if war broke out, but they were too weak to pose a major threat to the Vesparians after the war. Elton wondered, idly, if the Vesparians assumed the Tichck would attack the minor powers first, or if it was just one of a list of possible early moves. It was the kind of cold-blooded planning that had always chilled him to the bone, yet was common in the strategic planning departments. You couldn’t go very wrong if someone else weakened the enemy before you moved in for the kill, no matter who they were. Your allies could easily become enemies after the war, and weakening them always worked in your favour.

Unless they realise what you’re doing and stab you in the back first, Elton thought. The Galactic Alliance was an attempt to put such tricks behind them, although he doubted it would work in the long term. Everyone is out for themselves, and will always put their own interests first.

“We’ll see how things go,” he said. It would be ironic if the Vesparians did wind up allying with the Belosi, but he wasn’t convinced they’d make the attempt. They still thought of the Belosi as a primitive race, dependent on support from another Great Power, rather than a threat in their own right. “Get the complete report to me as soon as possible.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton watched him go, then turned his attention to the main display. A handful of prospective targets were clearly displayed, small icons beside them noting what little the spooks knew of their defences and the possible dangers in trying to trail their coats through enemy space. It was deeply frustrating, in some ways, that his fleet was so limited, and reluctant to risk any major encounters. There were targets that would almost certainly spark a war, if they were hit …

He put the thought out of his head as he scanned the readiness data, then the crew morale reports. The Solar Navy trained its crews for long-term deployments, and everyone knew months could pass between one bout of shore leave and the next, but there were limits. There had been no hope of taking shore leave on Belos itself, and they hadn’t passed through any systems that would agree to play host for them; he doubted, somehow, that VR sims and onboard entertainment would scratch the itch, the desperate need to escape the starship even for a few short hours. It was a minor miracle they hadn’t had any discipline issues lately, although that might change if the crew didn’t get a chance to blow off steam. He shook his head in tired amusement. Crew morale might be unglamorous, compared to combat tactics and formation flying, but it was still a vitally important part of naval service. It could not be neglected.

And me prowling the ship might not be good for morale, he thought, as he left the compartment to walk around his flagship. It was good for junior officers and crew to feel seen by their superiors, and to believe their superiors knew what was actually going on, but not all felt that way. Elton had served under officers who struck a perfect balance between taking too little notice and too much, and others who micromanaged to an insane degree, and he much preferred the former. If they think I’m breathing down their necks …

The thought haunted him as he swept through the decks, speaking briefly to the analysis teams before heading down to engineering to check on the ship’s drives. It was all too easy to lose oneself in tasks one could handle, when there were so many issues completely out of your control, and that way madness lay. Or at least a severely weakened military force. Elton had no idea if there was any truth behind the story of the bored officer who sent his superiors flypaper reports, or if it was someone’s idea of a joke, but it illustrated an important point. To get bogged down in the weeds was to lose track of what was really important.

And to keep junior officers from developing the skills they need to become seniors, he reminded himself. If they don’t make minor decisions for themselves, they won’t be prepared for the major decisions.

His communicator pinged. “Sir, this is Hansen in Tracking,” a voice said. The speaker sounded young, nervous about disturbing his superior. “James Bond has just returned from Pardeu.”

Elton winced, inwardly. It was unlikely any of the Galactics had so much as heard of James Bond, from the original novels and movies to the indie productions developed with modern computing power, but it still irked him to take the risk. James Bond had never been popular with non-human audiences, unlike comedies such as Independence Day, yet all it would take was one human film aficionado in the wrong place for the deception to be revealed. Sure, there was no direct link between the spy ship and his fleet, and there were thousands of humans plying the spacelanes, but … he shook his head. There was no point in crying over spilt milk.

“Download her report, then transfer it to my console,” he ordered. The spies hadn’t returned early, which meant they’d completed both halves of their mission and withdrawn without detection. Hopefully. There was no reason to think anyone in Pardeu intended to cause trouble, or to take sides, but it was well to be careful. “And then signal the fleet to prepare to depart.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton turned and walked back to the CIC, keying his console to bring up the report. The Pardeu System didn’t appear anything like heavily defended enough to stand off a major raid, and both sides of the lone gravity point were barely fortified. It was a minor miracle the locals enjoyed any independence at all – whatever else could be said about the Tokomak, they enforced Galactic Law with grim determination – and Elton suspected that would change, as the galaxy came to realise the laws were no longer being enforced. He read the report a second time, just to be sure he wasn’t missing something. It was possible the locals had some kind of weapons system that gave them an edge over their stronger neighbours. Possible, but unlikely.

A low hum echoed through the flagship as her drives came online. Elton studied the proposed deployment plan for a long moment, carefully assessing their chances. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry out the mission in the face of almost any opposition, at least not without opening fire on neutral starships and fortifications. Elton wanted to avoid it, if possible. The truth would come out, one day, and Earth didn’t need more enemies. It was going to be bad enough coping with everything they’d already done.

“Commodore,” Patel said. “What do you want to do with the captured ships?”

“Dispatch the freighters to the RV point,” Elton said. It would take several weeks to prepare the captured warships for military duty, even if he could afford to crew them. But there were other possibilities. A number had already occurred to him. “The warships will accompany us.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said.

Elton took his chair and sat back, forcing himself to wait as his fleet prepared for departure. He’d been antsy about staying in one location for too long, even though he knew the odds of them being detected were astronomically low. Given time, the enemy could deploy scouts in a bid to track them down. The odds would still be in his favour, but not as much as he would have preferred. And humanity had come up with a way to evade FTL sensors. There was no reason their enemies couldn’t do the same.

Patel turned to face him. “Sir, the fleet is ready to depart.”

“Good.” Elton saw no reason to make a speech. “Are the IFF codes uploaded to the datanodes and prepped? The pre-recorded messages ready to go?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take us into FTL,” Elton said. He leaned back in his chair, trying to project an impression of calm nonchalance. “And prepare for engagement.”

 

Chapter Eighteen

The Pardeu System had been incredibly lucky, although not all of its inhabitants would have agreed it was luck. Their binary system played host to a single gravity point, connected to another system with a lone gravity point, and there was no way to reach their homeworld from the outside without FTL stardrives. They had escaped the original wars that had wracked the first interstellar community through having no contract whatsoever with any other race, yet – when they had been contacted by the Tokomak – they had been advanced enough to keep invaders from storming their system and laying claim to the gravity points. Their independence was minimal – everyone knew that their system could be taken, if someone was willing to soak up the losses – but nonetheless real. They were both powerful enough to be taken seriously and yet also galactic small fry. There was no reason to think that would change.

Their lone gravity point was located quite some distance from their primary star, close enough to the barycentre between the two stars to make their scientists wonder if the gravity point was opened by the interaction of the two gravity wells, and yet so distant from the rest of the system that it was difficult for reinforcements to arrive in time if anything went wrong. The system planners had been told in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t fortify the gravity point and even after the Tokomak had been broken their neighbouring powers had threatened all kinds of punishments if they tried. The Pardeu Defence Force had compromised by setting up a custom’s station that could have passed for an orbital fortress, deploying a sizable number of automated weapons platforms and stockpiling missiles and mines close enough to the gravity point to be deployed in a hurry yet far enough to escape notice. Their homeworld, by contrast, was heavily defended. The Pardeu knew they would never match a major power, but if they could make their attackers bleed they might weaken them enough to let someone else crush them.

Captain Anh-Ahan stood on her command deck and watched, thoughtfully, as a handful of freighters popped out of the gravity point, paid their tolls and dropped into FTL without bothering to pause for some R&R. There were a number of hospitality stations only a short distance from the gravity point, offering everything a spacer might need from repair crews to hotel beds and entertainments. It bothered her that the government chose to turn a blind eye to pleasures that ranged from the simple to the perverse, if not downright alien, even though she understood the logic. The system needed as many friends and allies as possible, and if that meant tolerating a certain degree of misbehaviour – as well as interstellar investment – that was what they would do. It galled her to know the system’s independence rested on such compromises, and she feared the long-term effects even if the system did maintain its independence, but there was little choice. She had no illusions. If the Galactics wanted Pardeu badly enough, they could take it. She would fight to the death, of course, but the outcome wouldn’t change one iota.

Her eyes narrowed as she spotted a handful of Tichck starships – warships, by their gravimetric emissions – passing the system, heading further along the border. The rumours of war had been growing stronger by the day, increasingly harsh diplomatic notes being exchanged as the Tichck accused the Vesparians of arming their former slaves and storming colonies and the Vesparians accursed the Tichck of raiding their worlds. Pardeu was officially neutral in interstellar affairs, if only because they dared not wind up on the wrong side of a full-scale conflict, but she couldn’t help feeling it was a pity both sides couldn’t lose. A long drawn-out series of engagements would weaken both powers, leaving them less free to bully Pardeu. Who knew? Perhaps they could build an interstellar empire of their own.

She shook her head in bitter frustration. They were neutral, but only as long as stronger powers allowed them to be. They had to bend to keep from breaking, or being broken, and the compromises they’d made extracted a price from her soul. They had been unable to grant political asylum to runaway slaves, unable to keep their own people from being harassed outside the system, unable – even – to demand the respect that should have been offered to a self-spacefaring race. The Pardeu were immensely well off, compared to the Belosi or even the Subdo, but that meant they only had much further to fall. And that meant …

An alarm bleeped. She looked up, sucking in her breath as the Tichck fleet altered course … heading straight for the gravity point and ramping up their speed to the point they’d be on top of her in less than ten minutes. They’d pay a high price for overclocking their drives, she noted as she tapped her console, sounding a general alert, but she doubted it would come in time to save her crews. The bastards had planned it well, using the secondary star’s gravity well to mask their approach from the homeworld’s sensors. Timed it well too. Even if the homeworld dispatched reinforcements at once, and they might be reluctant to try, they’d have at least ten minutes to complete the destruction of the gravity point defences. And who knew what would happen then?

“Bring the defences to full alert, then dispatch a courier boat to Pardeu,” she ordered. It was unlikely the homeworld had missed the oncoming enemy fleet now it was emerging from the gravity shadow, but she had to be sure. “Signal the gravity point – all ships are to drop into FTL and scatter. Quickly!”

She eyed her console as the defences came to life, enough firepower to deter a pirate or scavenger raid … but not enough, not near enough, to stand off a proper battle fleet. No doubt the Tichck would bitch and moan about the undeclared weapons built into her station, suspiciously improper ways for folks to kill their would-be enslavers. They might even play on their outrage to justify seizing the rest of the system, although she doubted they’d get away with it for long. If at all … not that it mattered, she supposed. Once the planetary defences were gone, Pardeu would be a prize for the last one standing. Their independence would come to an end and that would be that. She felt shame burning through her and told herself, grimly, that it was almost a good thing she wouldn’t live to see it. The weak often felt ashamed.

The seconds ticked by remorselessly. She felt a twinge of pride in her personnel as they tended to their work, mingled with a grim awareness it wouldn’t be enough. The incoming fleet was more than powerful enough to tear through defences like paper, strong enough to take two or three times the losses and still emerge victorious. She wasn’t convinced they’d take any losses. The defence force had standard weapons, while the Tichck had been innovating freely. They’d probably have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves.

She sucked in her breath as the display updated, the Tichck dropping into realspace. They’d messed it up slightly, she noted, unless they had some reason to show their hand so early. Perhaps they figured there was no point in trying to hide, or to drop out too close to the station. Why let her have a free shot at their hulls if they didn’t have to? She had strict orders only to fire if fired upon, but anything that popped out of FTL so close could reasonably be assumed to be hostile. It was unlikely the Galactics would side with the Tichck on that. The precedent could easily be turned against them.

“IFF codes confirmed,” an operator said. Her posture was nervous, but her voice was firm. “Tichck Navy, at least seventy capital ships. Weapons and active sensors online, sweeping our positions. They’re flying in close formation …”

“And our sensors are hardly first-rank,” Anh-Ahan finished. Another humiliation forced upon them, another rule intended to soften them up for eventual conquest. “Deploy sensor drones, establish laser datalinks to the automatic weapons platforms; prepare to fire on my command.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“They’re hailing us,” another operator said. “Broadcasting on all frequencies.”

Anh-Ahan gritted her teeth. They didn’t just intend to humiliate her and then beat the crap out of her, but to make it clear to everyone watching that she had been humiliated and beaten. The entire galaxy was going to watch her race being degraded and humiliated, forced to grovel in front of their enemies and beg for a mercy they knew wouldn’t come. They were going to be thrashed so soundly that no one would ever come to their aid, as if they would …

“Put it through,” she ordered.

An image appeared in front of her, a Tichck wearing enough medals and command badges to make her roll her eyes. The Tichck had a love for the signs and symbols of high rank, showing off their power and postion to remind their enemies that they were people of consequence. It suggested a certain basic insecurity to her, although that struck her as odd. The Tichck really were a superpower. The fleet in front of her – the count now suggested eighty capital ships – was a tiny fraction of their available forces.

The voice was flat, atonal. The enemy officer was speaking his own language and relying on his computers to translate, rather than speak any of the common tongues. She couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate insult, a moment of cultural superiority, or a cunning ploy to lay the groundwork to snatch everything he could and blame it on a misunderstanding caused by a glitched translator. It was rare for any translation to be truly perfect, not when even the best systems couldn’t account for cultural issues and unspoken understandings.

“I am Admiral Ruthann, Tichck Navy,” the Tichck said. There was no feeling at all in the atonal voice, but his posture suggested he was having a gloat and not even trying to hide it. “This is a war emergency situation. We require passage through the gravity point. You will clear us to pass through or we will assume that you have chosen to side with our enemies and react accordingly. You have five standard minutes to decide.”

The image vanished, replaced by a display of the enemy fleet advancing in battle formation. Smaller holograms appeared beneath the main display, showing tactical projections for the coming battle … all bad. Anh-Ahan didn’t need her staff, or her outdated tactical datacores, to tell her that. The enemy fleet had more than enough power to smash through the defences, even if the commander was a total incompetent. The disparity was so great that nothing less than deliberate treason would give her a victory.

A timer appeared, showing the countdown to the deadline. There was no time to send another message to the homeworld, no time to ask for orders. The Tichck were breaking several interstellar agreements in forcing their way through, but the enforcers were gone and no doubt their admiral would cite the emergency situation as justification for blowing her defences away and passing through the gravity point no matter what she did. She felt torn between the urge to stand up to the bullies and a grim awareness that trying would get her and her crews killed for nothing. If the enemy had a capable commander, they could wipe out most of the defenders from a distance, without losing a single ship. The fact they were closing the range so aggressively suggested she wasn’t facing an experienced officer, but … it hardly mattered. She could kill a dozen enemy ships or more and her homeworld would still be screwed.

If she let them though, her career would be over. Someone would have to take the blame and that someone would be her. If she stood and fought, she’d be killed and so would the rest of her crews. She would get them all killed, for nothing …

She wanted to believe they were bluffing. But the Tichck weren’t known for allowing lesser races to bar their way. And they considered her race lesser.

“Give them permission to pass through the gravity point,” she ordered. The words felt sour in her throat. It reminded her of mating season, when the impulse to mate overrode common sense, but that was biology, instincts so deeply worked into her species that there was little logic in feeling ashamed. This was bending the knee to an enemy fleet, conceding passage at gunpoint … setting a precedent that would likely come back to bite her. And her entire race. “And then copy all our sensor records to a courier boat, send them to Pardeu.”

She sensed the ripple of discontent running around the chamber. She didn’t blame them. This was far worse than mating season, far worse than … than anything. Being captured and brainwashed, subverted into becoming an unwitting spy or sabotager, would have been preferable. Better to be forced into submission and servitude instead of making the choice herself. But what other choice was there?

“Add a note, she added, after a moment. “The decision to allow them passage was made by me and me alone. I did not consult with any other officers, nor did I allow any special pleading to affect my judgement. I made the decision alone, and I will face the consequences alone.”

She forced herself to squat back and wait. The formal phasing was somewhat repetitive, but … whatever the consequences, they would fall on her rather than her crew. She wondered, numbly, what sort of consequences she’d face. Demotion? Dishonourable discharge? Or something worse …? It had been a long time since they’d carried out a formal execution, but perhaps they’d bring the tradition back for her. It hadn’t been her fault. She knew she’d made the right choice. But someone would have to pay.

Her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her. The weak always feel ashamed …

***

“Transit completed, sir,” Patel said. He didn’t look up from his console as the display reset, hastily noting the fleet’s locations and re-establishing the datalink. There was no enemy fleet in position to greet them with a salvo of missiles, but that could change at any moment. “The entire fleet has passed through the gravity point.”

Elton nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt. They had bullied their way through, no doubt about it, and done it while pretending to be the Tichck. The Solar Navy wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, if there was no other choice, but at least they would try to pay for safe passage first. It was hard not to feel ashamed of what they’d done, even though there had been little choice. Coming on so strong had been consistent with Tichck arrogance, as well as making it harder for the defenders to choose to resist. He had still felt unsure of their reaction. If they’d opened fire … he drew the line at returning it. Fleeing into FTL wouldn’t be a complete disaster - the sensor records insisting he was flying a fleet of Tichck starships – but it would certainly raise eyebrows. It would be very out of character for them.

He studied the display for a long moment. The system on the far side had never been given a name, just a catalogue number. There was little of real value within the system; no rocky planets, no gas giants, nothing save a handful of small asteroids and a comet circling the bright white star. He studied the comet’s trail for a long moment, wondering if there were any hidden settlements lurking behind the comet itself. It was a common trick, if one wanted to hide in plain sight. There were dozens of similar settlements scattered across Sol.

And nothing beyond a few beacons orbiting the gravity point itself, he thought. The drones had passed through the gravity point with the rest of the fleet, but the ECM fields had fluctuated when they made transit. He hoped there was no one keeping an eye on the gravity point from a safe distance. Passive sensors were nowhere near as capable as their active counterparts, but they did have the great advantage of being effectively undetectable. We should have convinced anyone watching that a large fleet passed through the gravity point.

“Set course for our next destination,” he ordered. There was no point in fretting now. Word of their transit would already be spreading, and it would be grossly inconvenient if it reached their target before them. Unlikely, but not impossible. The Vesparians would have far too many ways to throw a spanner in the works if they knew he was coming. If nothing else, reinforcements on the way would make it difficult for him to complete the mission without inflicting hundreds of casualties. “Best possible speed.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton leaned back in his chair as the fleet dropped into FTL, heading straight for their target world. Five days in transit … he ran through the calculations again and again, checking the conclusions even though he knew the die was cast, then forced himself to relax. They’d be there soon enough and he needed to be well-rested, along with the rest of the crew. It was bad enough that they needed to keep running regular shifts in FTL. There was no inherent reason they couldn’t be yanked out of FTL by the enemy, just as they’d done themselves. The technology was hardly new.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” he said, standing. There was nothing he could do, nothing that would make a difference, until they reached their target. He might as well catch up with his reports or get some sleep, the former almost guaranteeing the latter. “Inform me if anything changes.”

“Aye, sir.”

 

Chapter Nineteen

There has got to be an easier way to do this, Sarah thought.

She and Riley clung to the shuttle as it disengaged from the Ring and started its descent towards the surface, the gravity field shifting oddly as the tiny craft fell into the gravity well. It wasn’t uncommon for expensive or rare goods to be flown by shuttle, rather than simply teleported to their destination, but it still bothered her that the only way to get down without being detected involved riding on a shuttle’s hull. There was no logical reason why the shuttle crew should notice their presence – she’d hacked the onboard datacore to make sure they didn’t realise they’d picked up a little extra weight – yet she knew they were dangerously exposed. If they were spotted …

She turned her head slightly and looked up, feeling a twinge of awe as she took in the sheer scale of the Ring. Her head hurt as she fought to put it into perspective, tried to wrap her head around the immense megastructure … a structure so large it defied comprehension. She turned back and saw a band of shadow crossing the planet, a region trapped in perpetual darkness. It reminded her of books where eclipses plunged entire worlds into shadow, the credulous natives convinced the travelling explorers were gods because they had blacked out the sun. She wondered, suddenly, if there were races that believed the Galactics genuinely were gods. The Aztecs hadn’t thought the Spanish were gods – that was a myth that had taken hold after the Conquest – but the gap between a pre-spaceflight race and the galactic community was immense. Who knew? Maybe the Galactics had told primitive races they were gods.

But it would be out of character for them to care, Sarah thought. The Galactics veered from friendly to openly hostile, but even the friendly races tended to have one hell of a superiority complex. They’d pay as little heed to the opinions of a primitive race as she would to advice from a REMF. Why would they, as long as the primitives did what they were told?

The flight grew bumpy as the shuttle dropped further, the planet’s atmosphere growing stronger. It was surprisingly pure, lacking many of the base components of an industrial society. Sarah knew why – the vast majority of the planet’s industrial base was on the Ring – but it still struck her as odd. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Sakrknda had been discovered long after the Galactics had mastered fusion power, fabbers, and a hundred other technological marvels that did their work without polluting the surrounding atmosphere. There was no reason to expect burning hydrocarbons or radioactive dust. She shrugged and turned her head, spotting the planet’s lone megacity in the distance. The darkness was almost a physical force.

She smiled grimly, then forced herself to watch as the shuttle levelled out and flew towards its destination. The mission briefing had been surprisingly specific, noting their target’s mansion and the handful of surrounding buildings, from apartments for his clients to barracks for his servants. There was no easy way to get down without being detected – a teleport signal would be easy to spot – but if they rode the shuttle … she glanced at Riley, who nodded back and then rolled over the side. Sarah followed, bracing herself for the fall. The ground looked green and fresh, blue rivers – a little too blue – flowing to the distant seas, but if they fucked up the timing there would be no second chance. She would have preferred to risk a parachute, yet there’d be too great a risk of being detected. The mission was already difficult. It would be impossible if the enemy were alerted.

The ground came up with terrifying speed. Sarah triggered the antigravity pod at the last possible second, cancelling their fall long enough to shed the velocity before she dropped the rest of the way. The impact was still jarring, but she was alive. She rolled over and stood, drawing her rifle as Riley ploughed into the ground beside her. There were no threats, but she got under cover as quickly as possible anyway. The rebels were unsure just what sort of optical sensors orbited the planet and the stealth suits had their limits, particularly if someone was already suspicious. Sarah had been told that an alert enemy reduced the chances of mission success by half. She suspected that was being generous.

“We made it,” Riley said, as he scrambled to his feet and joined her. The low-power signal was barely detectable outside a metre or two and using it was a calculated risk, but there was little choice. “I told you this plan would work.”

Sarah nodded, curtly. She would have preferred a more cautious approach, perhaps making their way down to the megacity and then striking out from there, but time wasn’t on their side. The rebels had made one ask and if they didn’t get what they wanted … they wanted, they needed, some proof that the team had more to offer than just honeyed words. Sarah didn’t blame them, as irritating as it was. They were even more exposed than the team itself, and had a great deal more to lose.

She checked their position carefully, noting to her satisfaction they’d landed very close to their planned arrival coordinate, then looked around. The forest was teeming with animal life, which suggested there were no enemy patrols nearby. She spotted a big creature that looked like an eight-legged fox, the sight making her wonder if the local gentry put on silly outfits and went hunting. The Tichck were immensely competitive, after all, and hunting wild game was just another form of competition. Sarah had never seen the point herself. She had hunted for food herself, and she had never had any qualms about catching and cooking small animals, but hunting for fun was just sadistic.

Riley made a show of taking her arm. “A romantic walk in the countryside,” he said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Sarah knew she was being teased. “I am not explaining to the Commodore that we got caught because we stopped to fuck,” she said, dryly. She knew it would never happen. If they were caught, they’d either detonate their suicide implants or wind up in a black prison as alien scientists fought to extract their implants before it was too late. “You can do the talking.”

“Spoilsport,” Riley said, without heat. He switched to full professionalism without missing a beat. “That way, I think. We should be there an hour before nightfall.”

Sarah nodded as they slipped into movement, picking their way through an alien forest. It was disconcertingly familiar, reminding her of Belos … a shudder ran down her spine as she considered the implications. The Tichck had been terraforming Belos, altering the world to suit themselves … in a manner that would drive the Belosi to extinction. They had already been suffering as their world changed around them, but … she cursed under her breath. It would be a long hard road to halt the decline, let alone reverse it, before it was too late. The Tichck might get the last laugh after all. She promised herself it wouldn’t happen as they picked their way through the foliage, alien plants surrounding them, but she knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep. Terraforming a dead planet was one thing, reversing the impact of a terraforming process on a live world was quite another. The best they could hope for, she feared, was a stable ecology.

And if the introduction of rabbits to Australia had been meant as an act of biological warfare, Sarah reminded herself, it would have been the greatest atrocity in the history of mankind.

It took longer than they’d planned to reach the outer edge of the compound, although they were experienced enough to plan accordingly. Sarah held up a passive scanner and carried out a sweep, then risked peering through the foliage to check out their target. The mansion was remarkably alien, a strange jumble of shapes that looked like something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare, but she couldn’t help seeing the similarities to aristocratic mansions from the pre-bellum South. She could easily imagine the Tichck sipping mint juleps, or whatever they drank, as their alien labour did all the work. And to think they could have done it with machines instead.

Riley knelt beside her. “Can you hack the security system?”

Sarah took a moment to check. The Tichck didn’t seem to be worried about attack, not without reason. The only large alien community on the surface was in the megacity, a hundred miles away. She breathed a sigh of relief as she slipped into the system and inspected it thoughtfully, noticing the pick-ups and sensors scattered over the compound. The vast majority were in the smaller apartments and the barracks. Their master, she noted, was either surprisingly paranoid or a voyeur. She guessed it was the latter. A paranoid man would have put together a far more effective security system.

“Yes,” she said, reminding herself not to get cocky. There could easily be an internal security system that wasn’t connected to the datanet, or dog-analogues on patrol that could sniff them out … stealth suits or no. “But we have to be careful.”

She kept an eye on the estate as the sun dropped beneath the horizon, casting the whole estate into an eerie semi-darkness. The Ring was clearly visible against the night sky, a band of lights that blurred together into a single entity. It was hard to believe that anyone could have made such a structure, and yet … she shook her head as she slipped her mind into the security network again. It looked as if everyone, including their target, was well on their way to bed.

“Ready,” she said. “Shall we?”

“Let me go first,” Riley said. “You come afterwards.”

Sarah nodded, watching grimly as he stood and made his way onto the estate. The stealth suit was damn near impossible to spot with the naked eye, even though she knew where to look. If it wasn’t for her augments, she wouldn’t be able to see him at all. She kept a wary eye out for guards and dog-analogues as she stood herself, her implants carefully monitoring the security network. If the alarm sounded, they would have no choice but to flee.

And we have already put too much faith in our allies, she thought. Ash had supplied her with enough information on the target to plan the mission right down to the last detail. Some SF operatives would be delighted, but Sarah had served long enough to know that there was such a thing as too much detail. It made it easier to be blindsided by something that wasn’t included in the datapacket. If they got one detail wrong …

She put the thought aside as they slipped up to the door, the sheer alienness of the mansion threatening to overwhelm them as they checked for traps. The door had a surprisingly sophisticated lock and it took Sarah several moments to unlock it without setting off any alarms inside the mansion. She poked her head inside, breathing an inner sigh of relief as she noted the lack of any active security system. Their target wasn’t as paranoid as he should be. Didn’t he know he had enemies.

Riley took point, inching up the stairs so quietly Sarah couldn’t make out any sound. The suits absorbed a great deal, but there were limits. She followed him, looking around with interest. The décor was both strikingly alien and yet gaudy, in a manner that suggested the owner prioritised showing off his wealth rather than his good taste. Her lips twisted in dark amusement. She knew a great deal about the Tichck, but she was no xenospecialist. For all she knew, the display that made her eyes hurt was what they considered good taste. They weren’t human and pretending otherwise would be misleading at best, dangerous at worst.

She froze as Riley stopped at the top of the stairs. A young Tichck stumbled past them, his posture betraying no hint he knew they were there. Sarah braced herself – it wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to kill an innocent to hide their presence – and then relaxed as the alien walked into a bedroom and closed the door behind him. It was hard to tell how old he’d been, as the Tichck tended to be surprisingly slight even as they reached adulthood, but she was fairly sure he was a child, perhaps a young teenager. And he wasn’t their target.

Riley started moving again, making almost no sound as he strode towards the master bedroom and paused by the door. Sarah was almost relieved to pick up the internal security system and start inching her probes into it, rather than finding no trace of anything suspicious. The inner network was far more complex, forcing her to carefully deactivate chunks of the system and refocus others … thankfully, there were already exceptions woven into the network to allow family, servants and mistresses to enter. If the latter existed … the Tichck, unlike humans, tended to look down on wealthy men who courted far younger women. They thought it was a sign of weakness, rather than virility.

She pushed the door open, just wide enough for Riley to slip into the room, then followed. The alien bedchamber looked like a nest, their target curled up like a child. She felt a pang of guilt as Riley took the nerve jammer from his belt, darted across to the alien and pressed the device against the alien’s forehead. The alien jerked, then lay still. Sarah sucked in her breath. It wasn’t her first assassination, but … the target hadn’t had a chance to wake up before it was too late.

And you know who and what he was, she told herself, sharply. The alien was a senior official in what the Tichck Consortium called Livestock Resources, a department that had all the vices of a Human Resources jobsworth and none of the virtues. They were far colder … Sarah had known some right idiots who’d gone into Human Resources – those that could, did; those that couldn’t, tried to waste everyone’s time – but Livestock Resources officials made Catbert appear sweet and kindly. Killing him makes the world a better place.

Riley nodded to her. Sarah checked the security systems one final time, then led the way back outside, carefully undoing her hacking as they left. The Tichck’s death would appear perfectly natural – older Tichck often died without warning, no matter how carefully they took care of themselves – and there should be no reason to arouse suspicion, certainly nothing they could use to make a case in a court of law. She doubted it would matter, if the autopsy showed even the slightest reason for concern. They’d certainly interrogate anyone who benefited from the bastard’s death …

Such as his immediate subordinate, who has been compromised for years, Sarah said. Ash had been very convincing, although Sarah couldn’t imagine what sort of blackmail could be so effective. Perhaps the rebels had visual recordings of him cheating on his wife with a harem of younger women. And if he gets the top job, the rebels will be able to manipulate him to suit themselves.

She kept the thought to themselves as they extracted themselves, heading out into the forest without triggering any alarms. The dead alien hadn’t been anything like as paranoid as she’d feared, either through overwhelming self-belief or a touching faith in the planet’s security services. She was mildly surprised he hadn’t been more worried about his own people – the Tichck were known to at least try to assassinate their superiors on occasion – although sheer distance had probably given him an illusion of safety. Her lips twisted. She had known a terrorist commander who had thought the same, thinking he could never be found just because he was a few hundred miles from the rest of his gang. It hadn’t saved his life.

“We’ll find somewhere to hole up for the next two days, then get to the megacity,” Riley said, as they slowed their pace. “Did you download anything interesting from their datacores?”

“I didn’t take the chance,” Sarah said. It wasn’t easy to circumvent the hardwired functions of GalTech. They might not be able to keep her from accessing secure databases, but they could sure as hell note that someone had tried to gain access, even if she didn’t make it in. The combination of an illicit hack and a death would be suspicious, and there was no point in taking the risk. “I doubt he had much on the datacores anyway.”

“Pity,” Riley said. “A shame we didn’t have time to search the room.”

Sarah nodded, although time had been pressing. The high-ranking Tichck often kept a private datacore, one completely isolated from the main network, normally for storing sensitive data and blackmail material. If they’d been able to find it … no. The missing datacore would be noted, as their target’s family would have known it existed, and its absence would be far too revealing.

“We can try to snatch a few later, during the uprising,” she said. “And see what they say then.”

Riley nodded, although they both knew the early success didn’t mean the rest of the mission was going to be easy. The more rebels involved, the greater the chance that someone would leak their presence and provoke an all-out search for them. It would be utterly disastrous. Even if they managed to hide or escape, which would hardly be impossible, the mission would have failed beyond all hope of repair.

“Yeah,” he said, as they found a good place to rest. Once they were back in the megacity, it would be easy to teleport back to the Ring. “We’ll see.”

 

Chapter Twenty

“We’ll be at our arrival point in five minutes, Commodore,” Patel said. “All ships report ready for action.”

Elton nodded, curtly. “Drive baffle status?”

“Up and running,” Patel confirmed. “They shouldn’t have any advance warning.”

Elton wasn’t so sure. Modifying a warship’s stardrive to resemble a freighter, at least beyond minimum range, was an old trick, but it put a great deal of wear and tear on the drives and most space navies knew to watch for the telltale signs someone was trying to be clever. It was difficult to believe they could get close to their target, or what the enemy would think their target, without being rumbled. Elton had timed the operation as best as he could, and yet there was a very real possibly the enemy would realise what they were doing and take countermeasures. The timer would start the moment they dropped back into realspace, but in truth it might well have started already.

They can’t predict our endpoint, not precisely, he reminded himself. We’re heading towards the planet for a reason.

He leaned back in his chair, projecting an air of calm as the last seconds ticked away. The enemy might have worked out what was coming their way, and if they had any sense they’d be concentrating their defence forces around the planet itself. Well and good, except the planet wasn’t his target. Elton didn’t want to get into a shooting match with the Vesparians, if it could be avoided, and forcing them to keep their distance would hopefully render it impossible for them to engage his ships. Not, he supposed, that it mattered. If the truth ever came out, it could easily lead to war. It was just another reason to cut the Galactics down as much as possible before it was too late.

We didn’t create the tension in the region, he told himself. We just made it worse.

The battlecruiser shuddered as she returned to realspace, light-hours from the system’s primary world. The mining settlement wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, but a combination of rare and easily accessible ores and a strategic position had encouraged the Vesparians to lay claim to the system before their rivals got their first. The Tichck had actually tried to force them to abandon or even concede the system, using every dirty trick in the book – and a few they’d made up – to undermine their claim to have reached and settled the system first. The Vesparians had no doubt the Tichck wanted the system for themselves. Hopefully, it would help convince them that their enemies were trying a smash and grab.

“No enemy warships within sensor range,” Patel reported. “But the outpost’s defences are going online.”

Elton shrugged. “Deploy probes,” he ordered. “And prepare to engage.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And transmit the message on my mark,” Elton added. “Make sure they hear it.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton leaned back in his chair and forced himself to study the display. The asteroid colony looked crude and unfinished, compared to the cantons that made up the vast majority of the Solar Union, but the Vesparians had never intended to settle the asteroids permanently. That was for scavenger races, or humans; the Galactics would never dream of lowering themselves to turn asteroid mining camps into permanent homes. The miners would make their fortunes, then retire to the planet or leave the system altogether. The Vesperian miners, at least. The non-Vesparians would be lucky if they were allowed to retire at all. It made him wonder just how much of an underground economy pervaded the system, miners working together to resist their masters and plot rebellion. If things had been different, he would have been to help them …

He put the thought aside as the message started to transmit. Admiral Ruthann had commanded the fleet that had attacked Belos, before surrendering and going into a POW camp. His name wouldn’t mean anything to the Vesparians, probably, but the Tichck – when they heard about the attack – would smell a rat, hopefully assuming the Vesparians were using the captured admiral’s name to trick them. It would cause all sorts of problems in the court of galactic opinion, when the various races put two and two together. They would wonder if the admiral had had orders to seize their systems if he had the opportunity, or even if he’d had other motives for demanding transit. The black propaganda the fleet had been spreading would only make it worse. Or so he hoped.

“The signal is repeating,” Patel said. “No response.”

Elton nodded. The miners were civilian. Their defence platforms were hopelessly outdated. They were effectively defenceless, but it was hard to predict what they’d do. A human asteroid miner would be looking for a way to screw him, perhaps finding an innovative tactic to strike his ships or simply blowing up the mining equipment and stored ore before they could be captured … not that Elton would mind if they did the latter. He didn’t have time to plunder, even if he’d wanted to. The enemy defences orbiting the world would know the fleet had dropped out of FTL. How would they react?

It’s a neat little trap, he told himself. If they come after us, we can slip past them and threaten the planet itself; if they don’t, we can blow away hundreds of mining camps and withdraw without losses.

“Hold position,” he said. The countdown was being broadcast over the entire system. The miners would know precisely how long they had to wait before his fleet opened fire, and hopefully evacuate the mining camps before it was too late. Perhaps that would puzzle the enemy’s analysts, just a little – the Tichck weren’t known for showing mercy, even to their peers – but he didn’t want a slaughter if it could be avoided. “We can wait …”

He frowned, feeling the seconds ticking past. The longer he gave the enemy, the more chance they’d come up with something clever or desperate and throw it at him. They would be burning with rage, after listening to the fake message. Elton through the xenospecialists had overdone it, when they’d crafted a signal dripping with arrogance and entitlement, but it was perfectly in character for the Tichck. They could do whatever they liked, when they liked, and anyone who shot back at them, or even refused to cooperate, wasn’t playing fair. Elton had known too many humans who had the same attitude, from schoolyard bullies to terrorist masterminds. They did more harm to civilisation than just about anyone else.

“They’re bringing their active sensors online,” Patel reported. “They’ll have firing solutions shortly.”

“If they don’t already,” Elton said. The fleet wasn’t trying to hide. Any weapons officer worthy of the name would be able to track their positions and open fire, although the asteroid mining stations didn’t have anything like enough firepower to scratch his hulls. “Hold position, fire when the countdown reaches zero.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

“I want options!”

Junior Manager Larkrise tried not to make a rude gesture as the Senior Manager demanded the impossible. Again. It was bad enough that he knew he would never be promoted again, for the crime of being born a Subdo instead of a Vesperian, but having to take orders from a man who knew next to nothing about mining was much worse. The moron seemed to believe the mining camp was a military installation, or an industrial-grade fabber that could be programmed to churn out anything a colony might need. It was impossible to explain to him that lucky strikes couldn’t be predicted, that the difference between a successful mining tour and a failure was a matter of sheer dumb luck. And now the mining colony was under the guns of an alien fleet. A Tichck fleet.

He kept his face under tight control as he let his eyes wander around the command centre. It was a joke, compared to the installations he’d seen elsewhere, and half the equipment crammed into the chamber was almost hilariously outdated, but the nearspace display was sharp enough to show the enemy fleet, close enough to blow the colony away without warning and far enough to avoid anything the colony might launch back at them. The two junior operators were clearly nervous, their eyes flickering between the two managers as though they expected them to come to blows at any moment. Larkrise didn’t blame them. The tension was so thick he could cut it with a knife.

“There are none,” he said, finally. It irked him to make the admittance, yet there was no point in pretending otherwise. The mining colony had grown over the years, from a simple rocky base to a home for hundreds of miners and their families, but the defences hadn’t grown with it. The weapons platforms couldn’t hope to stand off anything more dangerous than a pirate fleet. “The only hope is the planetary defence force, and they’re not going to leave the planet without orders.”

He watched his superior clacking his beat and sighed, inwardly. They were nearly three light-hours from the planetary defence force. They’d sent a distress signal, of course, but it would still take at least three hours for the fleet to respond, if they bothered to respond at all. The Manager might believe himself to be important, and the mining camp to be the key to the system; Larkrise knew better. The Manager had been sent into de facto exile, put in command of the asteroid camp to ensure he couldn’t cause trouble elsewhere, and the camp itself could easily be rebuilt. He had a nasty feeling the corporation wouldn’t be too unhappy if the mining camp was destroyed. The miners had been demanding more rights recently, and if the Tichck blew them away …

“I want options,” the Manager repeated.

“We evacuate, now,” Larkrise said. His blood had boiled when he’d listened to the Tichck broadcast, their arrogance almost a weapon in its own right, but no one made a living as a miner without learning how to keep their temper under control. “They have us under their guns. They could kill us very quickly, if they wished. We’re lucky they’re letting us go.”

The Manager swung around. “I will not abandon the settlement!”

Larkrise gritted his teeth. Any sane corporate manager would realise the asteroid colony was indefensible. There was nothing to be gained by firing their weapons platforms at a fleet that outgunned them so badly. They might as well try spitting in the enemy’s face. But the corporation couldn’t be counted upon to take a sensible view of the matter. The higher-ranking the manager, the less he understood of how the universe truly worked. They’d probably blame his manager for not doing the impossible. If they wanted to get rid of him …

“Prepare to fire,” the Manager snapped, turning away. “I want those ships destroyed before they have a chance to fire!”

Larkrise hit him, hard. The Manager tottered, then collapsed into a heap. The operators stared at him, shocked beyond words. The Galactics were untouchable. Everyone knew it. They wouldn’t hesitate to punish any lesser race for daring to lay a finger on them, imposing a degree of collective punishments that would teach them one hell of a lesson and put them firmly back in their place. And yet …

He took the GalTech key from around the Manager’s neck and pressed it into the console. The idiot had never bothered to hide his command codes, yet another reason why his superiors had exiled him somewhere he could do no harm. Larkrise had noted and memorised them a long time ago. He tapped a handful of commands into the system, ordering the evacuation to begin and then purging the main datacores. There was little of interest within the system, he thought, but it was impossible to be sure. Besides, it was standard procedure.

“Get to the lifeboats,” he ordered, shortly. “I’ll deal with him.”

The operators nodded and hurried out. They’d keep their mouths shut, if only because they’d be punished for not intervening. Larkrise kicked the Manager in the head, just to be sure he was going to be out for the foreseeable future, then tapped one final command into the consoles. The weapons platforms would do what they could, when the enemy opened fire. And Larkrise would tell his superiors that the Manager had remained behind to coordinate the defence.

They’ll believe it, because they will want to believe it, he told himself. The Vesparians had one hell of a superiority complex, just like the other Galactics. They would want to believe their manager had stood and fought, even though it was futile. And all the evidence will be nothing more than atoms, drifting uselessly in space.

He took one last look at the chamber, then turned and hurried away. The lifepods were already disengaging, a handful already heading into open space. The remainder would be launched shortly, moments before the enemy deadline. He had to run to get a space. On paper, there were enough lifepods for everyone; in practice, it was hard to be sure. The corporation had never expected a serious attack, certainly not one on such a scale. Idiots. Hadn’t they heard the news? There were rumours of war everywhere.

The lifeboat was on the verge of launching when he arrived. He scrambled through the hatch, breathing a sigh of relief as he realised the crew and their families had taken the warning seriously. Emergency drills had been deemed unnecessary by the Manager, who considered them a waste of money and time, but anyone who lived on an asteroid knew what to do if the shit hit the fan. He felt a shiver run through the lifeboat as it launched, the last one to leave. The deadline was now …

And our fool of a boss is about to die, he thought, with a flash of vindictive glee. Serve the bastard right.

***

“Sir,” Patel said. “The enemy weapons platforms are going online.”

Elton was unimpressed. Unless the Vesparians had some weapons system he’d never heard of – not impossible, but they were hardly likely to deploy it to an asteroid in the middle of nowhere – the weapons platforms weren’t going to be able to stop him. They were outdated to the point of uselessness, their sensors so primitive he doubted he needed a cloaking device or a masking field to escape detection. Their active sensors were sweeping space aggressively, but …

“We’ll go with Fire Plan Delta,” he said. “Engage at will.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton nodded as the railguns opened fire. The tiny pellets seemed harmless at first sight, but even a spitball could be deadly if it was hurled at a respectable faction of the speed of light. There was no point in aiming them at an enemy fleet, not when it was impossible to predict precisely where the starships would be at any given moment; the enemy weapons platforms, on the other hand, were completely immobile. They didn’t even have enough sensors to track the pellets and shoot them down before it was too late. A handful were hit and vaporised; the remainder swept onwards and smashed the platforms, one by one. Elton hadn’t lost a single ship.

“Kill the mining camp,” he ordered, quietly. The lifeboats were clear now, heading away from his fleet as fast as possible. They didn’t have a hope of getting away, not if he wanted to run them down … he dismissed that thought at once, telling himself it would be a step too far. The Galactics wouldn’t think twice about slaughtering millions of beings they considered lesser, but the human race had to be better. “And then prepare to move to the next target.”

The display updated. The mining camp shattered, the two nuclear blasts obliterating the warrens the miners had dug into the asteroid. Elton felt a pang of guilt, realising the asteroid had been a home as well as a mining station. There were hundreds just like it, orbiting Sol. He put the thought aside as an alarm echoed through the CIC, a harbinger of impending disaster. The enemy fleet had departed the primary world and was heading his way in FTL. They’d be on top of him within minutes.

He took a breath. “How many ships are they aiming at us?”

“At least twenty,” Patel said. “I think the upper limit is thirty, but they could be towing extra ships themselves or …”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elton said. He wondered, idly, just what the enemy were thinking. They hadn’t had anything like enough time to get a distress signal from the asteroid. Perhaps there had been a courier boat nearby, fast enough to drop into FTL and get to the planet before his fleet started scanning for enemy vessels. Or perhaps the enemy had simply decided they needed to react anyway. “Signal the fleet. Stage Two is about to begin. All ships are to prepare to drop into FTL on my mark.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton nodded, the minutes becoming seconds as the enemy fleet roared towards him. Who was in charge, he asked himself, and just what were they thinking? They hadn’t brought anything like enough ships to challenge him in a straight battle, although it might work in their favour anyway because a ship-to-ship engagement was the last thing he wanted. Or they might have copied his trick and arranged for their battleships to tow other battleships. It was hard to be sure how many vessels they could tow, but it didn’t matter. He intended to show them his heels instead of putting up a fight.

“Two minutes, sir,” Patel said.

“Signal the fleet,” Elton ordered. The timing wasn’t perfect, but he’d been a naval officer too long to expect it. He’d settle for decent timing. The enemy would need several minutes to work out what he’d done, just long enough to complete stage two. “Mark!”

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Admiral Jolanah stood on his command deck and thought dark thoughts about corporate managers, political commissioners, and idiots who thought that living on a luxury starship somehow made them qualified to direct naval operations.

His fleet had had no trouble realising the system was about to be attacked, once they’d noted the incoming fleet and worked out that few, if any, civilian ships would fly in such a close-knit formation. He’d ordered an immediate re-concentration, gathering his fleet around the planet in preparation for an engagement, only to be caught by surprise when the enemy dropped out of FTL near an asteroid mining complex instead. There hadn’t been any reason to target that complex out of the hundreds of others orbiting the star, so he’d concluded the enemy was trying to lure him out of position before attacking the planet itself. It made a certain amount of sense. The enemy would see him coming, but he wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing until he reached the mining complex and by then it would be too late. The enemy would have more than enough time to devastate the planet before his fleet could stop them.

He’d wanted to sit tight. But he’d been overruled.

He clacked his beak in annoyance. Some corporate idiot, someone whose egg had probably been shat out of the wrong hole, had gotten onto his superiors and demanded action. At once. He had tried to argue, only to be told he had a flat choice between following orders and being relieved of duty. Jolanah had no doubt they’d do it too. The corporations owned the planet and they wouldn’t hesitate to demand his head, if they felt he’d let the enemy run riot. But what else could they do? He wasn’t sure how many enemy ships were in the system, and challenging them to a fight could easily end badly. And if the war was already underway.

His beady eyes lingered on the holographic display, flickering over dozens of possible target stars. The enemy could be launching an all-out invasion of Vesperian space, trying to snatch as many planets and gravity points as possible before the defenders had a chance to respond and counterattack. There hadn’t been any full-scale wars for centuries, at least until the humans had beaten the Tokomak, but every navy worthy of the name had carried out hundreds of exercises, trying to determine the course of a potential war. Jolanah had seen simulations, from light border skirmishes to all-out wars to the knife, and they’d all had something in common. The first side to strike, to gamble everything on a major thrust into enemy territory, tended to win. He knew the navy was demanding permission to strike first, knowing the longer they waited the greater the chance the enemy would attack themselves. His superiors were resisting the demands, yet …

The battleship lurched as she dropped back into realspace, a safe distance from the mining colony. The corporate officials would complain he hadn’t dropped out of FTL right on top of the enemy, but that was suicide if the enemy was alert, ready to open fire without warning. They might even have had enough time to lay a minefield, if they’d worked out where his ships were likely to appear. There was no point in taking chances. Jolanah would settle for driving the enemy out of the system, then returning to the planet to make his report.

“No enemy contacts,” the sensor officer reported. “The asteroid is gone …”

“Bring the gravimetric sensors online, quickly,” Jolanah snapped. The asteroid was nothing more than an expanding cloud of rubble, a handful of lifeboats heading away as quickly as possible. If the enemy weren’t in range … they’d dropped into FTL and run, but in which direction? The lifeboats didn’t carry gravimetric sensors themselves, or he would have signalled and asked for an urgent update. Instead … “And cycle the drives now!”

He cursed under his breath as the sensor sphere kept expanding. The enemy ships were nowhere in sight. And that meant …

The display updated, again. The enemy ships were nearing the planet. Jolanah felt a flash of vindication, mingled with a grim awareness his fleet was light-hours out of position. It hadn’t been his fault, and he’d made sure to record all messages ordering him to leave orbit, but his superiors wouldn’t be pleased. If the corporate officials were dead and gone, he might be left with the blame anyway.

“Reverse course,” he ordered. It was pretty much his worst nightmare. The fleet had hopped out of position, and the enemy had hopped right past them. “Take us into FTL as quickly as possible.”

But he knew, as the drives cycled rapidly, that it wouldn’t be quick enough.

***

Elton allowed himself a moment of relief as the fleet dropped out of FTL near the enemy planet and started to catalogue possible targets. The planet was strikingly like Mars, but there was no atmosphere and the Vesparians hadn’t bothered to terraform the surface into something liveable. They hadn’t even bothered to give the planet a name! Oddly, it reminded him of the Solar Union’s settlements on Mars; a cluster of large cities and bases, so widely separated that each was considered a nation in its own right. The Vesparians didn’t seem so inclined to turn the planet into a permanent home. There was something oddly temporary about their settlements, even though the planet had been settled for centuries. It suggested they had no intention of holding the system permanently.

“Bring the active sensors online, sweep the high orbitals,” he ordered. The enemy fleet was nowhere to be seen, which suggested they had reached the wrecked asteroid mining colony and dropped out of FTL. Had they had time to realise what he’d done before it was too late? It was hard to be sure, but any CO worthy of the rank would guess – even if he didn’t know – and reverse course at once. Better to be embarrassed than bear the brunt of his superior’s unhappiness at the outcome. “And then start broadcasting the signal.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton studied the enemy high orbitals for a long moment. The defences were weaker than he’d expected for a system of such economic importance, although he supposed there was little of value in the system beyond the mining camps themselves. The ore was shipped out, rather than being refined and fed into local fabbers … there didn’t seem to be any fabbers, at least within sensor range. Perhaps the enemy had been smart enough to shut them down before it was too late, hoping that turning them into chunks of dead metal would make it impossible to separate them from the metal stockpiles orbiting the planet. It wasn’t as if he had time to search the high orbitals and inspect each asteroid before it was too late. The three orbital defence stations, and a swarm of automated weapons platforms, would normally be enough to deter any pirates.

“The enemy has not responded,” Patel said. “They are locking their targeting sensors on us.”

Elton wasn’t surprised. The message he’d sent had noted the system belonged to him now, and demanded a huge ransom … or else. There was no way the Vesparians would bend the knee, even if there was little choice. They wouldn’t risk setting a precedent that would suggest they could be pushed around … he tapped commands into his console, warning the fleet to keep its distance from the planet. As long as they stayed out of range …

An alarm sounded. “Sir, the enemy fleet has reversed course.”

“Good.” Elton allowed himself a tight smile. He didn’t want to loot the planet and the arrival of the defence fleet was a good excuse for not doing so. They wouldn’t think there was anything odd in him beating a retreat, rather than risking being trapped against the planet by a mobile enemy force. “Alter course, as planned.”

He studied the display for a long moment. The enemy would expect him to be hammering the planetary defences, trying to take them out before their fleet arrived. He’d have little choice, if he wanted to fight a conventional engagement; the enemy fleet would try to drive him into the teeth of the planet’s defences, forcing him to either retreat or fight a battle on two fronts at once. He had no intention of even trying, and yet … he wondered, coldly, just what the enemy commander was thinking. Had he worked out what Elton was really trying to do? Or was he too desperate to save the planet to think two or three steps ahead? If Elton started shooting at the orbiting stations, he’d do a hell of a lot of damage. Not much, when set against the sheer size of the enemy empire, but …

The display narrowed, showing probable enemy emergence points. There was no way to be entirely sure, of course, but … it didn’t matter.

“Launch drones,” Elton ordered, calmly. “And then prepare to jump to FTL.”

“Aye, sir.”

The seconds ticked down to zero. Elton sucked in his breath as the enemy fleet snapped into existence, weapons and sensors already online, the latter sweeping space for targets. Elton snapped a command and the drones went live, creating an impression of a wave of missiles roaring towards the enemy ships. It wouldn’t take them long to see through the outer deception – he’d be surprised if it lasted more than a minute or two – but would they see the inner layer? The decoys were clearly of Tichck manufacture, so advanced their designers never sold them to their allies. Elton’s crews had taken them from the real Admiral Ruthann’s fleet.

His lips twisted. They’re perfectly genuine decoys …

“The enemy fleet is adjusting position,” Patel snapped. “They’re preparing to engage.”

“Jump us into FTL as soon as they return fire,” Elton said. Just how sharp was the enemy commander? Good enough to realise the range was too wide, or desperate enough to take the risk of firing anyway? “We’ll let them take their shot.”

***

Admiral Jolanah had hoped he’d catch the enemy wrecking havoc on the high orbitals, their ships too close to the planet’s gravity well to escape easily, but instead the enemy fleet had been slipping away from the planet when he’d arrived. He’d wondered, for a brief second, if the enemy had already devastated the planet, yet there was no sign of missing orbital stations or planetary bombardments. It was almost as if the enemy had just intended to scare the defenders without risking an actual engagement …

Alarms howled. Jolanah cursed as the enemy missiles flared up on the display, hundreds – no, thousands – of icons racing towards his ships. The enemy had timed it well, the cold part of his mind noted; there was no time to cycle his drives and escape, not in time. He snapped orders, directing the fleet to pull together to stand off the attack. They were going to take one hell of a beating, no matter what they did. The datanet was already picking out targets and drawing up firing patterns, but … it wasn't going to be enough. The enemy had fired more than enough missiles to overwhelm his defences, sacrificing hundreds to ensure dozens slammed against his shields and into his hulls.

“Return fire,” he snapped. The range was longer than he would have preferred, but the enemy could not be allowed to fire a second or third salvo without impediment. The first salvo was going to pay merry hell with his point defences, weakening them before the next salvo arrived. “And recycle our drives …”

The enemy fleet vanished into FTL. Jolanah clacked his beak in annoyance, his gravimetric sensors showing the enemy running for their lives. No, simply relocating themselves before it was too late. He’d have to suggest otherwise when the time came, trying to ensure he got some credit for a successful defence, but … he glared at the wave of incoming missiles. There was no way to escape the simple fact he’d been mousetrapped. His career was over.

Alarms howled, again, as the enemy missiles vanished. Jolanah gaped, honestly surprised. No one would waste cloaking devices on expendable missiles and even if they did, it would be pointless to deploy them under such circumstances. His point defence had barely started shooting and it was unlikely, if not impossible, they’d already wiped out all the enemy missiles. He’d braced himself to lose a handful of ships, no matter what he did. The enemy had had more than enough time to pick their targets before they opened fire.

“Decoys,” the sensor operator said. “They were decoys.”

Jolanah muttered a curse under his breath. The enemy fleet was still high-tailing it out of the system, on a least-time course for the nearest Tichck-held star, and that meant … what? Had they merely intended to give him a fright? Force him to waste a salvo of missiles? Or … or what? It made no sense.

“Dispatch recovery crews, try to capture some of those decoys,” he ordered. The technology was frighteningly advanced, a grim reminder the Tokomak hadn’t so much as reached the limits of technological development as they’d merely forbidden any further research and development. The humans had ignored their rules and gained a decisive advantage … the Tichck, it seemed, were doing the same. “Remind the crews to be careful. The decoys will be rigged to make recovery difficult without the right codes.”

He turned away, studying the display. The enemy offensive seemed singularly pointless. Hitting a lone mining colony was worse than useless, which suggested it had been a feint to draw his ships out of position. Hitting the planet itself … except they hadn’t taken advantage of their brief superiority to devastate the orbital facilities. The demand for ransom, for the planet to pay them to go away, was more a pirate trick than something he’d expect from a galactic superpower … the fake attack on his ships, by contrast, had clearly been intended to embarrass him. If they’d fired real missiles, he’d have lost a sizable chunk of his fleet. Instead, he’d wound up looking a fool.

Perhaps they wanted to remind us that they can strike deep into our territory, he thought. It didn’t seem quite right, somehow. The nature of FTL travel had been understood for centuries. The idea the Tichck couldn’t strike so deep was absurd. Or perhaps they’re trying to intimidate us.

“Contact the nearest courier boat,” he ordered, finally. The whole affair would have to be referred to his superiors as quickly as possible. His report would probably land him in hot water, no matter how much he tried to blame the whole affair on the corporate managers, but his duty to his people trumped his desire for advancement. “Copy our sensor records to the secure datacore, then order them to set course for the nearest gravity point at once. We’ll send a second once we’ve taken apart the enemy decoys.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

“The fleet can stand down now,” Elton ordered, once they were well clear of the enemy system and altering course to ensure no one could follow them. “We’ll proceed along our planned course.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said. He sounded cheerful. The mission had been completed with minimal, perhaps no, loss of life. The fleet certainly hadn’t taken any losses, and they’d given the locals more than enough time to evacuate. “How many decoys do you think they’ll capture?”

Elton shrugged. The Tichck had done their best to make certain no one could access the decoys, at least not without the right codes, without destroying them in the process. It hadn’t been easy to rig a handful to be slightly easier to disarm without triggering the self-destruct, without making it so easy the Vesparians would be suspicious. The engineers insisted their careful modifications were more than enough, but it was impossible to be sure. Not that it mattered, he reminded himself. There shouldn’t be any reason for anyone else to have such decoys. They weren’t sold onwards for a reason.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. The feint should alarm the Vesparians and force them to consider a first strike. Their angry messages to the Tichck would alarm them in turn, forcing them to consider attacking first. “Even if they don’t recover a single decoy, they should have a clear idea of just who attacked them.”

His lips twisted. The raid had been effective enough, but it had also been cover for a more covert operation. An intelligence freighter had docked long enough to sell a datacore to a local information broker, relaying a combination of real and faked evidence. Elton doubted the broker would hesitate to pass what he’d learnt to the local authorities, not when it included a bunch of Tichck contingency plans. They were genuine, for a certain value of the word. The suggestion the Tichck were on the verge of putting one into operation was not.

Although it could be, he reflected. He’d studied conflict theory. The more one side thought the other was preparing to attack, the more likely they’d be to attack first themselves. In theory, the diplomats could smooth over almost anything; in practice, even with the best will in the world, it would be hard to convince one side to trust the other. The Tichck had spent enough time bullying their neighbours that almost no one would believe anything they had to say. At some point, the avalanche will start and it will be too late for the pebbles to vote.

His mood darkened. Were they doing the right thing?

The Tichck had to be stopped. The Vesparians had to be stopped. And yet, the price …

They could have let the Belosi go, he told himself, firmly. Or even dealt with them as equals. Instead …

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Galactics had never quite reconciled themselves to the Tokomak dominating the known universe, although they were honest enough to admit it had probably worked out in their favour. They had been equals at one point, and it was hard to believe a mere technological edge – even one as world-changing as stardrive – was enough to elevate a single race to a position of supreme power. It had been galling, even though the Tokomak hadn’t abused their power over their former peers. They hadn’t wanted empire so much as they wanted everyone to listen to them, to respect them, to obey them. They’d held to themselves the power to declare war, and worked to keep their former peers from fighting each other. And, often, they had imposed solutions to squelch conflicts and backed them up with so much firepower resistance was futile.

It was ironic, Chairperson Harpeth reflected sourly, that he would almost have been glad to have the Tokomak poking their long noses into the growing crisis, even if they ruled against his people. The reports had just kept coming in, from enemy fleets being sighted in vulnerable border star systems to intelligence assessments suggesting the Vesparians were planning to attack at any moment. He’d had warning signals sent from a dozen star nations and information brokers, a drumbeat that drove his paranoia into overdrive. It was impossible to forget that they were permanently behind the times, that the war might have already started and that they wouldn’t know anything about it for days, even weeks, afterwards. The planning staff had put together a number of scenarios, ranging from a series of border clashes to an all-out invasion. If the Vesparians seized a number of vital gravity points in their opening moves, they could cut the Consortium in half and by the time the homeworld heard the news it would almost certainly be too late. It made the council all the more concerned, and willing to authorise a first strike.

He put a calm expression on his face as he waited for the Vesperian Ambassador. The whole concept of ambassadors was hardly new, but diplomacy without the Tokomak keeping the conflict from passing the point of no return was strange, almost alien. He’d heard of a dozen conflicts that had finally exploded, after the Tokomak had been forced to withdraw to their home systems, and they’d been incredibly destructive even though they didn’t involve any major powers. If the Vesparians attacked – or vice versa – the outcome would be far worse. The most optimistic simulation suggested dozens of worlds would be attacked and hammered, hundreds of starships and fortresses destroyed; the pessimistic simulations suggested destruction on an unprecedented scale. He wondered, as an update popped up in his terminal, if the ambassador had arrived to deliver a declaration of war. If they’d timed it right, their attack fleets would already be launching the first blows.

The door hissed open, revealing an avian alien. The Vesparians had always struck Chairperson Harpeth as vaguely silly, although he wasn’t fool enough to think their appearances defined them. They were a self-spacefaring race, unlike their Belosi puppets, and no race that had invented space travel without assistance could be taken lightly. The Belosi were mindless primitives, unable to comprehend even a tiny fraction of GalTech; they couldn’t have escaped their homeworld, let alone returned to steal it from its rightful owners, without help. He had to admit the Vesparians had done well. By holding Belos, they had badly weakened Chairperson Harpeth’s position and done it without expending more than a tiny fraction of their resources.

Clever, he admitted, sourly. And it forces us into a very dangerous position.

He keyed his console. Two Subdo entered, one carrying a chair designed for a Vesperian and the other a plate of drinks, which he placed on the desk before withdrawing to the rear of the chamber. Chairperson Harpeth wished the Tokomak servants had been allowed to remain in his service, but they’d been advised to leave by their homeworld and he hadn’t dared try to stop them. The last thing he needed, right now, was more enemies. And the Tokomak still commanded a great deal of respect.

“You are welcome,” he said, in careful Galactic One. He would have preferred to speak his own tongue, but it was better to avoid any chance of misunderstandings. “Would you care for further refreshment?”

The Vesperian – his name was something that couldn’t be pronounced without a bird-like beak – looked back at him evenly. It was difficult, almost impossible, to read any emotions on his feathered face. The Consortium had never been particularly interested in studying aliens, even races that were disturbingly close to peer powers, and it struck Harpeth suddenly that that might put him at a disadvantage. It was hard to imagine aliens being able to read him, but …

“Please forgive my rudeness, but there are matters we must discuss bluntly,” the Ambassador said. “We cannot allow any misunderstandings, either in word or emotion.”

“I understand,” Harpeth said. “You may speak freely.”

The Ambassador’s clawed hands twitched, then pulled a datachip from a pouch and held it out. “Twelve standard days ago, one of your fleets – under the command of an Admiral Ruthann – transgressed against the Pardeu System, demanding access to the gravity point at gunpoint. That fleet then proceeded directly to TCN-37-3, destroyed a lone asteroid mining colony and then attempted to extract a sizable payment from the settlements on the planet. The formal justification offered was a raid by our forces on one of your worlds, an attack that either did not take place or was not carried out by our ships. Fortunately, our defence force was able to engage the invaders and drive them from the system.”

Harpeth said nothing for a long moment. No attacks on Vesperian territory had been authorised, although he was painfully aware that a combination of vaguely-written orders, defensive imperatives and his race’s all-consuming ambition could easily have driven an admiral to cross the border and harass enemy worlds. Going through a neutral gravity point was a step too far … or was it? The Pardeu System was nowhere near strong enough to defend itself, if any of its neighbours were prepared to soak up the cost of taking it. Running the gravity point was risky, but …

He spoke with cold clarity. “No such operations have been authorised,” he said. It was hard to be sure one hadn’t taken place. Perversely, the gravity point chains might allow the Vesparians to get word to their ambassador before his military commanders managed to get a report back to the council. “We do not know who attacked your settlement, but we do know it was not us.”

Or at least not an official operation, his thoughts added silently. If someone decided to gamble …

The Vesperian clacked his beak. “Regardless, this is merely the latest and the most dangerous of a series of provocations,” he said. “Your starships have been observed buzzing our territory, or moving into jump-off positions along the border. You have harassed our starships passing through your space and sometimes denied them passage, without cause. Your agents have been trying to secure gravity point access for your ships and deny it to ours. A number of convoys have vanished in interstellar space, or barely escaped raiders that were clearly more than simple pirate ships. You have even accused us of supporting your rebellious vassals and giving them enough firepower to challenge your fleets, trying to turn galactic opinion against us, while we have uncovered rebel cells in our territory that have clearly received weapons and supplies, and promises of support, from you.

“It is our belief that you are either trying to intimidate us or preparing to invade our territory.”

The words hung in the air. Harpeth kept his face under tight control. It wasn’t uncommon for starships to encounter each other in interstellar space, or systems that had yet to be formally claimed by one power or the other, but the rest of the statements were just absurd. Perhaps … a gnawing doubt flowered within him, a grim awareness there were military officers who sought glory in war. They had authority to keep an eye on the border systems, orders to run spying missions through enemy territory to determine if the enemy was preparing to attack …

“It is the official position of the Consortium that while the borders are regretful, we have no intention of challenging your suzerainty over the stars on the far side,” Harpeth said, finally. He dared not commit himself more firmly, not when he wasn’t entirely sure what was really going on. He wouldn’t be unknowingly lying, but the consequences would be worse than a sudden loss of power and prestige if the Vesparians caught him in what they thought was a lie. “And we have no intention of either trying to overawe you, or invade your territory.”

The Ambassador said nothing for a long moment, then spoke with cold determination. “My government has authorised me to issue a formal ultimatum,” he said. “You are to immediately halt all operations on our side of the border. You are to pull back your fleets to the inner worlds, and remove any bases and depots that can be used to support a push into our territory. You will remove all restrictions on our civilian vessels moving through your territory and, as a gesture of good faith, you will refrain from charging any fees on starships passing through your gravity points. Most importantly of all, you will stop anything that might reasonably be defined as a provocation.”

Harpeth felt a hot flash of anger. “You have no right to demand anything of us in our space.”

“It is our belief you are preparing to invade our territory,” the Ambassador said. “My government asks you to do the bare minimum to prove you have no hostile intentions. If you refuse to do as we ask, we will take steps.”

He stood and left the room, the door hissing closed behind him. Harpeth stared, genuinely shocked. There hadn’t been any threat of major conflict for centuries … but now the Tokomak were gone. He eyed his untouched drink – the Ambassador hadn’t touched his either – and then tapped his console, calling an urgent council meeting and forwarding the recording of the brief discussion to the councillors. Some would say he should have been firmer, others would suggest he hadn’t been firm enough … it didn’t matter. Leaving the Subdo to clear up, he headed for the elevator that would take him down to the bunker. There was no time to lose.

And the war might have already started, he thought. The Ambassador might be as behind the times as himself. There might even be a second message, a declaration of war, wringing its way to him. We simply don’t know for sure.

The councillors were already assembled, when he strode into the chamber. The recording was playing … he tapped his terminal, sending a copy to the intelligence department. There weren’t many xenospecialists on his world, but they could probably contact an alien … if the alien could be trusted. Some couldn’t, no matter how much money you offered them. They just didn’t stay bribed.

“You saw the discussion,” he said, taking his seat and slotting the Vesperian datachip into an isolated projector. “Their accusations are completely without foundation.”

He watched, coldly, as the entire incident played itself out. The mystery ships, the broadcast … easily faked, he considered, particularly as none of the locals had met the admiral in person. The decoys were harder to explain, except … he felt his eyes narrow as he realised the truth. The fleet that had been sent to reclaim Belos had been provided with decoys, and if they’d then fallen into enemy hands …

“Admiral Ruthann was in command of the fleet we dispatched to Belos,” Chairman Tomah pointed out. His thoughts were clearly going in the same direction. “Either he was captured and reprogrammed, or his likeness is merely being used to convince neutral powers we really did attack their system.”

“There were a number of complaints about his attitude,” Chairman Domoh agreed. “And that was the real Ruthann, not …”

He waved a hand at the frozen recording. “What do the analysts have to say?”

“They haven’t had time to study the recordings,” Harpeth said. He removed the datachip and summoned a Subdo to take it to the analysts. “We know the recording isn’t real, but proving so will be difficult.”

“Not least given Ruthann’s earlier conduct,” Domoh said. “Was he a traitor?”

Harpeth frowned as a buzz of angry chatter ran around the room. It was possible, he conceded after a moment, but unlikely. His people weren’t above committing treason if they thought the prize was worth the risk, yet … what would Ruthann get out of surrendering rather easily and then openly assisting the Vesparians? He wished, not for the first time, that they had a better idea of what had happened in Belos. If the admiral had fought hard, or if he’d simply given up, or …

“We are getting away from the point,” he said. There would be time to deal with Ruthann later, if he was still alive. “The Vesparians have given us an ultimatum. We need to decide if we are going to comply.”

“If we pull our fleets back,” Tomah pointed out, “our border systems will be open to them. They will be able to capture both stars and a number of gravity points, opening up lines of attack into our territory while closing down possible routes into their territory. We will have to recapture those systems regardless of the cost, while they will have the freedom they need to prepare to advance further into our territory.”

Domoh frowned. “Can the fortresses not stand off an enemy attack themselves?”

“We know they gave the Belosi missile pods,” Tomah said. He spoke with quiet authority. He’d started his career in the navy. “There are immense problems in defending a stationary target against a mobile force under any circumstances, but the combination of missile pods and the freedom to choose the time and place of the first attacks will give them a decisive edge. Worse, they can deploy missile pods to defend the gravity points too, after seizing them. We may find the odds tipping rapidly and decisively against us.”

He keyed his terminal, bringing up a starchart. “If they concentrate on the three primary systems within the borderlands, they will cut off a number of systems that they can then leave alone, if we withdraw our fleets. They won’t pose any threat to them. Instead, they can thrust deeper into our territory, towards the homeworld, or even open up corridors that lead directly to Belos and other possible allies. If we agree to their terms, we will lose the war.”

“We spent trillions on those fortresses,” Domoh protested.

“We designed them well before missile pods were introduced,” Tomah reminded him. “There are upgraded designs, but the decision was made to concentrate on starships rather than defences.”

Harpeth tapped the table. “There is no point in worrying about it now. If you are correct” – he nodded to Tomah – “we cannot afford to accept their demands.”

“No,” Tomah agreed. “And there is a second problem. The slightest hint of weakness will come back to bite us, very quickly. We know the Vesparians are talking to some of the minor powers. They’re no threat on their own, but if they get organised as a unit and ally with the Vesparians they could tip the balance of power against us. They don’t like us very much.”

Domoh snorted, rudely.

“And they claim we forced our way through the Pardeu System,” Tomah reminded him. “They may have already convinced the locals to let them use their system as a base.”

“So we reinforce the borders, rather than pulling the ships back,” Harpeth said. “We also give our officers very clear orders to hold the line, but not to cross it.”

“If we deny them permission to send scoutships into Vesperian space, they may be caught by surprise by an enemy attack,” Tomah reminded him. “We need to maintain some degree of awareness of their movements.”

Harpeth couldn’t deny it. “But they are to keep their distance at all times,” he said, firmly. “We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated, but we must do everything in our power to avoid a war.”

“Or we could strike first,” Tomah said. “We have the ships in place to storm the borders and throw them all the way back to their homeworld.”

“And then we get attacked in the rear,” Domoh countered. “We have too many enemies on all sides.”

Harpeth tended to agree. The Belosi were nothing without their backers, but even if they were withdrawn the Belosi would still be able to cause a great deal of trouble, at least until their ships started failing for lack of proper maintenance. They wouldn’t be the only ones either. The Tichck had too many enemies on their borders, all bracing themselves to attack once the war started in earnest. Their allies wouldn’t stay loyal, if they thought the Tichck would lose. Who wanted to stay on the losing team?

He stared down at his hands as the meeting came to an end. His race was known for being acquisitive and aggressive and, in hindsight, it might cost them dear. They had relied on the Tokomak to keep conflicts from spreading out of control, but now the Tokomak were gone and there was no one who could take their place. Save perhaps the humans … no, that was absurd. The humans were too young, to naive, to rule the galaxy. They were certainly far too kind to their inferiors …

A thought ran through his mind. Could the humans have aided the Belosi?

No, he told himself, a moment later. The evidence against the Vesparians was damning. And besides, the humans were a very long way away. They certainly hadn’t been major galactic players during the first revolt, while the Vesparians had been involved for years.

And besides, the humans have no cause, he told himself. The Vesparians have hated us for centuries.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

“We just received a message from Tichck Prime,” Ash said. “The Vesparians have issued an ultimatum to the Tichck.”

Riley frowned as he studied the message. Events were moving quicker than he’d anticipated. The Vesperian ultimatum was so blunt, so demanding, that he couldn’t help wondering if they wanted a war. Their position was defensible, but the one thing every diplomat learnt – sometimes to the detriment of their country – was never to back the enemy into a corner, forcing them to surrender or come out shooting. The Vesparians had done just that, pushing the Tichck into a postion that would force them to declare themselves. Somehow, Riley doubted they’d roll over and surrender. The moment they showed a hint of weakness, a reluctance to defend their lines, their enemies would strike. They had to defend themselves.

He looked up. “Are we sure this message is genuine?”

“We have agents in their government,” Ash said. He hadn’t said much about how their intelligence gathering network was organised, but Riley could guess. There were so many Subdo doing the grunt work that they had eyes and ears everywhere, collecting intelligence and forwarding it to the resistance. “From what we have heard, they intend to dispatch reinforcements to draw the line.”

Riley reread the message. The Tichck were doing precisely the right thing, if only because conceding so many gravity points was asking for trouble, but he couldn’t help wondering if it was a little too perfect. Their ships were heading a long way out of position, leaving them helpless to intervene when the rebellion exploded into life, capturing most of the system before the enemy could fire a shot. He disliked plans that had too many moving parts, particularly plans in which the various prongs couldn’t communicate with each other. The Tichck had lost the Battle of Belos because they’d tried to be clever. He had the nasty feeling they were repeating the same mistake.

“Let us hope so,” he said, finally. “How soon can you be ready to move?”

Ash said nothing for a long moment. “The fleet units stationed here have been informed they will be redeployed in ten days,” he said. “They’re the real problem facing us – we don’t have many agents on the starships, and those we do are nowhere near enough to cripple or destroy the enemy fleet. I suggest we wait for at least ten days, let them move their fleet away without impediment, and then strike afterwards.”

He leaned forward. “I prefer to wait for the war,” he added. “We don’t want to find ourselves isolated like the Belos, not when the Tichck can attack us at any moment.”

You mean, you don’t trust us not to abandon you, Riley translated silently. He didn’t blame Ash for being a little paranoid. The Vesparians could easily afford to pull back, make a handful of border concessions and end the war, leaving the Subdo rebels – and the rest of their race – at the mercy of the Tichck, a race that rarely showed anything resembling mercy. There were billions of Subdo within Tichck space, all certain to be targeted if the Tichck thought the Subdo were now their mortal enemies. You want us committed before the shooting really starts.

He sighed inwardly. It had never been easy, in the later years of the War on Terror, to find allies. The United States had a reputation for getting going when the going got tough, a reputation that was difficult to deny. Riley had known dozens of tribal leaders and religious types who would have preferred to deal with the United States, rather than Islamic State or the Taliban or one of Iran’s network of proxy forces, but they’d been afraid to commit themselves out of fear a change in Washington would mean they’d be abandoned to face their enemies alone. It didn’t help that Washington had been reluctant to provide the weapons they needed to defend themselves, fearing what their allies would do with them. Riley ground his teeth in silent frustration. He loved his country, his old country, but he hated the government. It had lost track of what was important long ago, and it had been heading towards collapse a long time before the Solar Union had come into existence. The nasty part of his mind whispered it deserved its fate.

You don’t need to worry about the past, he told himself, firmly. The Solar Union believed the past should be put firmly in the past, all the old hatreds and resentment left behind where they belonged, and he agreed. Just look to the future.

“I understand,” he said, calmly. He would have done the same himself, if their positions had been reversed. “I think we can wait for the war.”

The thought nagged at his mind as they resumed their planning session. There were umpteen million Subdo within the system, many in places that could be exploited when the shooting started, but the more they brought into the secret the greater the chance of a leak. Riley had seen terrorist operations foiled because one of the terrorists had bragged to the wrong person, or commando deployments cancelled or coming to grief because someone had said the wrong thing at the wrong time. All it would take was one whisper at the wrong time … he sighed inwardly, all too aware there were limits to how far they could manipulate their assets. The Tichck they’d gotten into a high position, by assassinating his predecessor, might change sides if he realised what they really had in mind, as unlikely as it seemed. Riley knew one idiot in the State Department who had let himself be blackmailed by the Chinese, after being caught in a compromising position, and had redeemed himself – sort of – by going to the FBI, admitting the truth, and allowing himself to be used to transmit false information to his handlers. If their asset did the same …

He put the thought aside and forced himself to keep going. The Subdo had done an admirable job of plotting a coup, but their lack of experience told against them. Riley offered a handful of words of advice, showing them how to concentrate their assets to target and overwhelm the most important objectives first, then sat back and let them do the rest for themselves. There was no point in seizing the megacity on the planet below, he pointed out, if they failed to take the orbital defences and the gravity point fortresses. The former could be mopped up later, if the orbital installations were taken; if the latter remained in enemy hands, they’d do the mopping up instead. Riley had no doubt the Tichck would be merciless, once they realised what was going on. They’d underestimated the Belosi until it was far too late. They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Ash left, to tend to his work. Riley shrugged and walked down the corridor to the training ground. It had perplexed him, at first, how the rebels could operate so openly, before he’d realised the combination of the sheer size of the Ring and allies in high places ensured the rebel base was effectively isolated from the rest of the megastructure. It was a tiny space, practically a rounding error, and as long as the rebels were careful they would remain undetected. Riley wished they could get the base a little closer to their targets, but he knew better than to try. The slightest mistake could break the operation wide open before it was too late, forcing him to extract himself and his team in a tearing hurry. He’d done that before, back in the old days. He didn’t want to do it again.

Charles nodded to him, as he stepped into the chamber. “We have the weapons teams practicing constantly,” he said. “I think they’ll be ready when the time comes.”

Riley nodded. The Galactics used energy weapons that were brutally efficient, but also very easy to detect. He suspected it was a security precaution as much as anything else, allowing them to trace weapons fire from quite some distance and limit the number of weapons in enemy hands. It was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain fabber plans for projectile weapons, and indeed quite a few races believed they simply didn’t exist. Riley had had no hesitation in providing the plans to the Subdo. Projectile weapons had their limits, but they had the great advantage of being much harder to detect.

His lips twitched as he studied the rebels. They looked a rag-tag bunch, wearing a combination of outfits that marked them as everything from maintenance and cleaning staff to librarians and personal servants, but there was a grim determination in their eyes that suggested the Tichck were in for a shock. Riley couldn’t imagine growing up in a universe where his race determined his value, where his race’s failure to develop space travel before they were discovered condemned them to permanent servitude; it was a grim reminder, he reflected sourly, of just how lucky the human race had been to escape the same fate. Decades – centuries – of having their dreams ground out of existence, while watching others rocket ahead, had left their mark. There was no hint of mercy in their eyes, no suggestion the Tichck would ever be allowed to forget the uprising no matter the outcome. Riley grimaced, inwardly. He understood the urge to take revenge on one’s tormentors, to loot and burn and rape and kill to show them precisely what it felt like, but it was storing up trouble for the future. If you launched a war of extermination and then lost …

He sighed. There was nothing he could do about it, not now. The rebels knew they’d be brutally murdered, if they lost, and countless innocents who had nothing to do with the rebellion would be slaughtered too. All he could do was hopefully steer them in the right direction, giving them a chance to seize the system … perhaps he could point out the value of hostages, or the importance of not giving other races an excuse to intervene. The universe had changed a great deal since the first mission to Belos, in which the uprising had given other races a chance to undermine the Tichck hold on the system, but the prospect of outside intervention couldn’t be dismissed. Not completely. Hell, if the Tichck blundered badly, the Vesparians might make it to Sakrknda. Wouldn’t that put the cat amongst the pigeons?

They’d have to blunder beyond the nightmares of incompetence, he told himself. If they fucked up that badly, it would be the end of the war.

He put the thought aside and started to work. Time was no longer on their side. And if they weren’t ready by the time the balloon went up …

***

“It is always a pleasure to meet another human, particularly one as good-looking as yourself,” Hamish McNeal said. He’d introduced himself as a mercenary captain and, as far as Sarah could tell, he genuinely was. “Would you like to go to bed?”

Sarah tried not to roll her eyes. There wasn’t a permanent human community on the Ring, the handful of humans passing through preferring to stay in hotels or hostels rather than set up an enclave of their own. A couple of long-term residents acted as social secretaries, ensuring visiting humans could meet their fellow humans and share dinner – perhaps something more – before going back into interstellar space. Sarah had been reluctant to risk any sort of connection with the handful of resident humans, but the chance to meet up with a mercenary had been too good to miss. It was just a shame he was a real mercenary.

“I’ve drunk too much,” she said. The augmentations in her body were designed to filter out the alcohol before it hit her bloodstream, but she had no intention of revealing that her implants were far superior to his. “But not enough for that line to actually work.”

McNeal mock-pouted. “What line would work, then?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’ve drunk far too much,” she said. “I’d better get back to the hostel before it’s too late.”

“Good luck,” McNeal said. He didn’t bother trying to convince her to change her mind. She wasn’t sure if it was simple human decency or something more sinister. The local authorities wouldn’t bother trying to figure out what had happened, if he was accused of something criminal. They’d merely deport him on the first starship going somewhere – anywhere – else. “Give me a call when you change your mind.”

Sarah did roll her eyes, this time, as he turned away. It wasn’t uncommon for humans who lived on alien structures, without many other humans around, to hook up with any other humans who happened to be passing through, often without bothering to ask any questions or develop a real relationship. McNeal had lost interest in her the moment he’d realised he wasn’t going to be getting laid, something she couldn’t help finding a little insulting even through it worked in her favour. She’d asked him dozens of subtle questions and noted his answers. It was a shame he wasn’t working for the Solar Union. In the old days, any human serving offworld as a mercenary was almost certainly a covert intelligence assert.

Not that we would have the codes to get him to work with us in any case, she thought. There might be other long-term assets on the Ring, or somewhere within the system, but she didn’t have any way to contact them. What we don’t know we can’t tell.

She put the thought aside as she stood and left the tiny café behind, walking through the bazaar as though she didn’t have a care in the world. The multispecies enclave had grown up over the last few centuries, a combination of smaller enclaves merging together and a surprisingly large population explosion. It struck her as odd that the government couldn’t register everyone on the Ring, from birth to death, but it was a very large megastructure and anyone who appeared on the census could expect to be taxed. The Tichck didn’t offer anything in exchange for the tax, not even protection. Why would they expect people to register when they didn’t get anything in return?

The thought made her smile as she reached the hostel. It was nothing more than a very grimy room in a building that looked like an oversized shack, but it had the great advantage of being right on top of a datanet trunk. The Tichck didn’t rely on wireless systems to transmit secure data from one end of the Ring to the other, a security precaution that struck her as eminently sensible and rather hard to counter. She slipped into her room, passing an untended desk, and sat down on a mattress, pressing a sensor against the wall and reaching out to the datanet trunk. The system was secure, at least on paper, but any wired system could be hacked if you could get access to the trunk itself. Her lips twisted as the sensor went to work, slowly accessing the constant datastream passing through the network. The Tichck would have been wiser to rely on a primitive system, one no better than the pre-Contact internet broadband she’d used decades ago. But then, it wouldn’t have been able to move data fast enough to be effective.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the datalink was established. The boffins insisted the quantum tunnelling effect worked perfectly, but they weren’t the ones who had to use it on deployment, nor the ones who would have to make a run for it if the enemy detected the intrusion and sent security forces to grab her. She would have preferred a mechanical probe, but cutting through the bulkhead to access the trunk would be instantly noticeable even if she didn’t damage the trunk and set off every alarm in the network. Instead … she sucked in her breath as a sudden torrent of information poured into her implants. Much would be worse than useless, she feared, but there would be some gems amongst the crap. Perhaps …

The datalink wasn’t strong enough to let her mind roam the network freely. Instead, she probed the edges of the network, feeling oddly nostalgic as she searched out databases and charted security flags. The system was hardwired to monitor itself, ensuring that any intrusion – no matter what codes they used – was flagged up at once, or at least noted for later analysis. It looked as if they were more than a little suspicious of their own people, even the ones who had a perfectly reasonable right to access secure databases. She couldn’t tell if it was a sensible concern or simple paranoia, but she had to admit it was a neat little precaution, and quite unlike the Galactics. But then, they might have worked out just what had happened on Belos, or felt pushed into improving their security anyway. They knew humanity had advanced – and dozens of other races weren’t far behind.

We’re going to need more codes, she thought, crossly. She was sure she could have slipped around the alert flags if she’d been able to gain complete access, but she couldn’t without setting off other alarms. It was a neat little Catch-22. And getting them will be difficult.

She sighed inwardly and started to look for open datanodes. It wasn’t easy. The tools she’d normally be able to use were denied to her. But … she smiled, suddenly, as she realised just how much she could access. When the shit hit the fan, she could make sure it would spread as quickly as possible.

Maybe, she thought. She wasn’t sure how long she could stay in the hostel, not without drawing attention. It wouldn’t be easy to find other access points either, not when most data trunks were buried within the superstructure. But as long as they don’t realise what we can do, we can still turn it against them.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

“The intelligence ships have returned to the fleet,” Patel reported. “The updated sensor records are being transferred now.”

Elton nodded. “Put them through to my console,” he ordered. “And alert the fleet to prepare to depart in ten minutes.”

“Aye, sir.”

The holographic display flickered and changed, revealing an Earth-like world surrounded by a cloud of orbital fortresses. Talien was more than just a Tichck world on the border, according to the files, and if anything the files had understated the case. The system was a gravity point nexus, with one gravity point leading back to their core systems and two more heading out into neutral territory, and the largest fleet base in the region. It would be a challenging target for Admiral Stuart’s Main Strike Fleet, even though two-thirds of the system’s starships had been redeployed to reinforce the border elsewhere. Elton didn’t fancy his chances if he took his fleet and launched a frontal attack, not when the enemy were clearly on the alert. Thankfully, he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

He looked up. “Did the spooks manage to access the local news services?”

“No, sir,” Patel said. “There’s a total blackout. What little they were able to gather from ship-to-ship communications is that the war is about to break out, or it already has. Most independent shippers are already leaving the region, and those that remain are being paid through the nose for their services.”

Elton looked back at the display. The fleet was dangerously out of touch, no matter how many courier boats and intelligence scouts he had buzzing around, trying to gather news and get it back to him before it became hopelessly outdated. It was possible the war had already begun, although he doubted it. The Vesparians would be unlikely to leave the enemy fleet base alone for long … if at all. If he’d been planning a first strike, the fleet base would be at the top of the target list.

“Hopefully, they’ll have the wit to flee when we arrive,” he said. Flying cargo through a warzone was profitable, but also incredibly risky. One side might mistake a freighter for a camouflaged warship and blow it away without asking questions, the other might seize the freighter and keep it as war booty. “Do we have a solid target lock?”

“Yes, sir,” Patel said. “We have the targets locked in our databases.”

“Then signal the fleet to depart on schedule,” Elton ordered. He had no intention of tangling with the local defences, but as long as they thought he did … he should have enough time to give the enemy one hell of a bloody nose. The hell of it was that they might not even realise what he’d done until it was far too late. “We’ll proceed as planned.”

He sat back in his chair and watched the timer appear, steadily counting down towards zero hour. They’d lurked quite some distance from the system, if only because he had a nasty feeling the enemy would be watching for a fleet clearly making preparations to attack, but they were nowhere near far enough for his peace of mind. They hadn’t risked attacking such a large target until now, a target so powerful the slightest mistake could easily lead to disaster. It would either be a brilliant operation, one carried out so carefully the enemy might not realise the true target until it was too late, or a complete failure. And if they were lucky, the strike might start a war.

And that’s something you never thought you’d want, he thought, grimly. They had been committed for weeks now, but still … he shook his head, telling himself there was no choice. The war would happen anyway, with or without their involvement. If this goes wrong …

“Commodore,” Patel said. “The freighters are hooked up. The fleet will jump into FTL in two minutes.”

“Good,” Elton said. They might just catch the enemy by surprise, although he’d planned on the assumption they wouldn’t. The Tichck knew to be suspicious of an entire convoy of freighters heading towards their system, after the previous raids. “Do the freighters have their special orders?”

“Yes, sir,” Patel said. “They’re ready to go.”

***

Admiral Ya-Sin paced his office like a caged tiger, cursing his superiors under his breath.

Their orders were insane. He was supposed to repel any attack on the naval base, and by extension the rest of the border stars, but he was also supposed to refrain from any hostile moves and allow the Vesparians to fire the first shots. It was absurd. The Vesparians would have all the time they needed to move their fleets into attack position, and he wasn’t even allowed to launch a first strike of his own. He knew from his spies that the bird-like aliens were already gathering their ships, preparing themselves to strike, and his orders kept him pinned down, waiting to be hit. His ships and crews were ready, as ready as they’d ever be, and yet basic naval doctrine insisted that taking the offensive was smarter than letting the enemy pick the time and place of the first engagement. Hell, dispersing some of his fleets along the border was just asking to have them wiped out piecemeal, the enemy bringing massively superior force to bear against his units to ensure they didn’t take many losses themselves. It really was insane.

He glowered at the holographic starchart, wishing the councillors who’d written his orders were on the frontlines themselves. He might have had a little more respect for them if they’d been pinned down too, held motionless by their own orders … but of course they were hundreds of light years away. They might as well be on the other side of the universe, so far removed from actual risk they didn’t understand the danger of ordering his forces to wait, to absorb the first blow. If the enemy struck first, with overwhelming power … he might be able to hold the planet itself, perhaps even the naval base, but not the gravity point. And that would isolate countless starships from the homeworld.

The display updated. More trading starships were leaving the system, despite the combination of money and threats that should have kept them firmly in place. The traders knew what was coming, even if the homeworld didn’t, and they had no intention of remain in place any longer than strictly necessary. Ya-Sin didn’t blame them. If the shooting started, one side or the other would blow them away the moment they mistook their freighters for military starships or intelligence vessels. He suspected a number of the freighters that had passed through the system actually were spies, although the council had forbidden him from searching newcomers thoroughly or even barring them permission to enter orbit. It was incredibly frustrating. Any naval officer worthy of the name would understand the importance of having up to date information, or as near to it as possible, and if the Vesparians really were planning an attack …

He ground his teeth as more messages popped up in front of him. Local politicians, complaining about his fleet deployments; local industrialists and merchants, demanding he somehow conjure more trading starships out of nothing; local armchair admirals, insisting he should launch an immediate strike on the nearest enemy fleet base. The fact he wanted to do it himself – it was always better to be on the offensive, rather than standing on the defensive – didn’t make it any easier to take. Even in the midst of a crisis, there were people trying to take advantage. If the offensive worked, the armchair admirals would claim the credit; if it failed, or was never launched, somehow he knew he’d get the blame. And even if he followed the council’s orders, he’d still get the blame if it ended badly.

An alarm bleeped. “Sir, we have at least nineteen freighters heading towards Point One,” the operator said. “They’re moving in convoy.”

Ya-Sin felt ice trickling down his back as the display updated, again. No convoys were scheduled certainly none from that direction. The freighters were flying so close together that their gravimetric readings were blurring together, hinting they were either towing warships or disguised as warships themselves. He’d seen the simulations. Nineteen freighters could tow an entire battle fleet, if the enemy didn’t mind taking a few risks. And if they were burning straight for Point One, it suggested they intended to seize the gravity point and force him to either mount a frontal attack himself or concede defeat. It might just work.

“Bring the defences to full alert,” he ordered. “Dispatch a courier boat – no, two – to Point One. They are to alert the defences, then one is to pass through the gravity point and alert the homeworld. All traffic through the point is to be suspended, and the defences on the far side are to prepare to repel attack.”

He cursed the Tokomak under his breath as alarms howled through the giant orbital battlestation. If they’d allowed the Galactics to fortify the gravity points from the start, they wouldn’t have needed to draw down the planetary defences to secure the gravity point. And worse … his own leaders had insisted he had to let the enemy fire the first shot. If the Vesparians timed it well, it might be the last.

“Deploy the fleet, Plan Seven,” he added, after a moment. His staff had put together some contingency plans. They weren’t perfect, but they were better than waiting around and giving the enemy a free shot at his hulls. They had twenty minutes to get into position. He had no intention of wasting them. “And then prepare to engage.”

He turned and strode through the hatch, onto the command deck. The red icons were glowing brightly on the holographic display, pulsing in unison as they neared their target. Very few freighters would risk flying so close together, no matter where they were going. Even if they were flying in convoy, they wouldn’t take the risk unless they were desperate. It crossed his mind to wonder if they were panicking over nothing, but … no. Everyone knew a war could break out at any moment. They wouldn’t do anything that looked hostile, not unless they wanted to die. The hell of it, he reflected, was that their deaths would give him an excuse to take the gloves off and strike the first blow.

Come on, then, he thought, as the seconds ticked away. I’m ready for you.

***

“Ten minutes until the gravity point, five minutes until we reach emergence point,” Patel reported. “The enemy will have seen us by now.”

“Unless they’re asleep at the switch,” Elton agreed, dryly. There were cases in which a sensor operator had missed the first signs of an incoming attack, at least until it was too late, but most had taken place in peacetime. The Tichck knew a war could break out at any moment. If their sensor officers hadn’t spotted the incoming fleet, and drawn the correct conclusion, Elton would eat his hat. “Prepare to engage as planned.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton leaned back in his chair, wishing they had a way to scan their arrival coordinate for unpleasant surprises. The Tichck had to be assuming he was barrelling towards the gravity point, intent on securing it, but there were several different ways they could react and he had no way to know which one they’d pick. Were they deploying their fleet to reinforce the gravity point or holding their fleet back, ready to engage his rear as he challenged the point’s fixed defences? Or did they have something else in mind …

The display blanked and rebooted as the fleet dropped back into realspace, well short of their apparent destination. Elton allowed himself a moment of relief – they’d picked the arrival coordinate at random, but it had to be somewhere along their course and that meant the enemy might have had time to set an ambush – and then snapped commands, ordering his ships to deploy captured drones. He had no idea if the Tichck kept accurate records of just which drones had been loaded onto Admiral Ruthann’s fleet before it was dispatched – God knew the Solar Navy had lost track of what had gone where, in the final stages of the Tokomak War – but if they did, and if they recovered a handful of drones, they’d suspect the worst.

“Commodore, the enemy fleet is smaller than we expected,” Patel said, quietly. “A number of ships we noted bare hours ago are missing.”

Elton frowned. “Dispatched? Or cloaked?”

“Unknown, sir,” Patel said. “There’s so much haze around the planet that it’s hard to get a clear view. They could be holding station near the fortresses.”

“Or they could be trying to sneak up on us,” Elton said. “Deploy a second ring of drones, then recycle the drives. We may need to retreat in a hurry.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And prepare to bring the mass drivers online,” Elton added. “We’ll only have one chance to make this work.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton frowned, studying the display. The planet was heavily defended, although not to the same degree as Tokomak Prime. There were so many orbiting defences that they were blurring together, a problem made worse by the enemy’s ECM. Elton doubted the enemy fleet was holding position in orbit, not when it meant they could be trapped against the planet, but it was difficult to prove it wasn’t. The expanding shell of sensor drones suggested the fleet was alone in interplanetary space, yet the further the drones rocketed away from the fleet the greater the chance they’d be able to sneak a cloaked ship or two through the defences. A lone ship could cause serious problems, if she got into firing postion and engaged from point-blank range; a handful could destroy the entire fleet.

His eyes narrowed. A handful of enemy ships were clearly visible, on the gravity point. The others were missing … he checked the gravimetric sensors, just to be sure, but there was no sign they’d been launched towards the nearest Vesperian system. And that meant …

“Sir,” Patel said. “The mass drivers are powered up. Targeting data is uploaded, the weapons are ready to fire.”

“Take them online,” Elton ordered. It was time to strike their blow, to do something the enemy couldn’t ignore, then get out. “Deploy a third wave of ECM drones, then begin firing.”

He sucked in his breath. Mass drivers were disturbingly primitive, hardly ever used in combat. A starship could easily dodge a ballistic projectile, if she knew she was under attack, and most ships tried to randomise their exact location, even within a squadron, if they thought they might be fired on without warning. An orbital station, on the other hand, couldn’t be moved so easily. And the combination of mass drivers and ECM should deny them any warning until it was far too late.

“Fifty seconds to impact,” Patel reported. He sounded pleased. “Telemetry suggests a series of clean hits.”

“Don’t count your chickens,” Elton cautioned. There was another reason mass drives were rarely used, and that was that if they missed their target there was a very good chance they’d strike the planet instead. He’d done everything he could to avoid a dreadful accident and yet … the risk was terrifyingly high. “Signal the fleet. We will withdraw as soon as we confirm the results.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

Ya-Sin had gotten his first surprise when the Vesparians dropped out of FTL, nearly midway between the planet and the gravity point. The enemy fleet had either mistimed their arrival or they were up to something, because they were so badly out of place they’d messed up their chance to seize either of the possible targets before the rest of the defences managed to react and counterattack. His second surprise had come moments later, when the enemy fleet had held position rather than dropping back into FTL or advancing to attack in realspace. It was suspect …

He scowled at the display. Perhaps it was a provocation, to lure him into firing first. He wasn’t entirely unaware of the political and diplomatic aspects of the current crisis, or how badly the war could go if too many enemies – and even some of their allies – attacked at the same time. If they were blamed for starting the war … he ground his teeth as the enemy fleet waited, too far to be engaged without committing himself and yet too close for him to pretend to ignore it. They were sweeping space with ECM drones, making their presence very clear … did they see what he had in mind? Or … or what?

Alarms howled. A supply depot had been destroyed. No, two. No … nearly all. He swore out loud as he realised what the enemy had done. They’d used their fleet to distract him while they slipped spies or unpowered missiles into the orbitals, targeting the supply depots instead of his ships or fortresses. In the short term, it wouldn’t matter, but if war broke out … no, war had broken out. The enemy had launched the first strike. And he was going to run short of supplies very quickly.

“Admiral,” the operator said, nervously. “The enemy fleet is preparing to withdraw.”

“Good.” Ya-Sin bared his teeth. The stunt required decent timing and a certain degree of enemy cooperation, and the enemy – thankfully – appeared to be behaving as predicted. “Order the courier boat to bring her drives up, as planned. If this works … we shall see.”

He allowed himself a grim smile. The enemy had struck the first blow, and now he could fire back. And if they thought they could withdraw unimpeded …

“Admiral,” the operator said. The display updated rapidly, the enemy ships vanishing. “The enemy fleet has jumped into FTL.”

Ya-Sin braced himself. If the plan worked …

It did.

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

MacArthur rang like a bell.

Elton swore out loud as the gravity field flickered, the emergency compensators howling as they struggled to compensate for the sudden return to real space. Alarms howled, red icons blinking up on the ship’s status display as reports of damage rocketed through the system, some vanishing as secondary monitoring systems noted they were false alarms and others blossoming rapidly as it became clear they were all too real. He staggered as the gravity field twisted painfully, gritting his teeth as an invisible force punched him in the stomach. He’d made transit through a dangerously unstable gravity point, a twist in space-time so dangerous most Galactics avoided it like the plague, and that hadn’t been anything like so bad. He heard someone throwing up behind him as the deck settled down, a wave of seasickness threatening to do the same to him. It was …

“Report,” he managed. The enemy had hit them with something, but what? “What did they do?”

Patel sounded as if he were having trouble breathing. “They yanked us out of FTL, sir,” he said. The display was updating rapidly, showing an enemy fleet right in front of them. “They generated a gravity well of their own and …”

Elton could guess the rest, even as he cursed his own mistake. The enemy commander had noted their earlier patterns and set an ambush, assuming – correctly – that Elton would retreat towards the nearest Vesperian naval base. They’d moved a fleet in behind him and generated a gravity well as soon as his fleet dropped into FTL, ensuring there’d be no warning before the fleet smashed straight into the gravity well and fell back into realspace. It would have been clever if it wasn’t so dangerous. His fleet was now trapped, forced to fight precisely the kind of engagement he intended to avoid. There was one force in front of him and they’d be another behind him shortly, if it wasn’t already on the way. The gravimetric sensors were offline.

“Get the datalink up and running, and get me a damage report,” he snapped. The enemy were holding the range open, something that puzzled him, although that would change shortly. Perhaps they hadn’t been sure just where the fleet would crash out of FTL. It was difficult to predict, and some warships had actually managed to escape the trap even though they’d taken heavy damage in the process. “And deploy a shell of sensor drones around the fleet; dispatch a swarm towards the enemy ships.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel reported. There was a brief cause. “Centurion, Borolo and Abrams have lost their stardrives. Queen Victoria and Gerald Ford are down to one drive node each. The remainder of the fleet has lost at least two or three nodes apiece. We may be in some trouble.”

“You don’t say.” Elton forced himself to think. He’d fucked up and there was no way he was going to extract himself from the situation cheaply, not after just how badly his fleet had been hammered. “Evacuate Centurion, Borolo and Abrams: their crews are to be teleported to the nearest vessel capable of entering FTL; their self-destructs are to be brought online, ready to destroy the ships on my command. We can’t let them fall into enemy hands.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said.

The display updated again, red icons appearing behind the fleet. Elton scowled as he mentally ran through their options. They’d be shot to pieces if they stayed where they were, while if they tried to evade in any direction they’d remain trapped in realspace while the enemy wore down their defences and took them apart one by one. They were rapidly running out of options … surrender wasn’t even a remote possibility. He shuddered, helplessly. It could end very badly.

“Sir,” Patel said. “We’re having problems extracting the crew from Centurion. Her internal datanet is down, and her current CO is twelfth in the chain of command …”

Elton sucked in his breath. Just how badly had Centurion been hit? If the eleven higher-ranking officers were dead, or at the very least out of contact, the ship had to have been reduced to a dead hulk. His imagination suggested there’d be crewmen trapped all over the ship, unable to escape sealed compartments or even contact recovery crews to ask for rescue. The internal datanet was supposed to keep track of her crew, but if it was down … fuck. The self-destruct was probably down too.

He rubbed his forehead. “The recovery drones have five minutes to get teleport locks on as many crewmen as possible,” he ordered. The moment the enemy started shooting, teleporting would become impossible. “The fleet will destroy the remains of the ship to ensure she doesn’t fall into enemy hands.”

“But, sir …”

“That’s an order,” Elton snapped. He understood Patel’s feelings, and he hated the idea of killing his own crew, but there was no choice. A handful of human mercenaries being caught was one thing, an entire Solar Navy battlecruiser was quite another. “The remaining fleet is to form up on the flag and prepare to advance.”

He gritted his teeth as more data flowed into the display. Enemy Force One was holding position; Enemy Force Two was starting to advance, closing the range as quickly as possible. They might not even have five minutes before they were forced to abandon the recovery effort and blow Centurion to atoms. He checked the live report and cursed under his breath. The stricken ship had been hit so badly there was little hope of checking every compartment before it was too late. He cursed himself for his oversight, wondering if he’d live long enough to face a court-martial. It was starting to look very unlikely.

“Destroy Centurion,” he ordered. There was only one option left. “And then the fleet will advance towards Force One. Deploy the remaining ECM drones, then prepare to flush our missile pods at the enemy gravity well generators.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said. He worked his console for a long moment. “The fleet is ready to advance.”

“Program Borolo and Abrams to ram the enemy battleships,” Elton added. It was unlikely they’d succeed, but there was little else they could do with the ships save triggering the self-destruct. If nothing else, it would give the enemy some trouble before they could close the trap. “Recycle the drives and prepare to jump, the moment we take out the generators.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton heard the doubt in his subordinate’s voice and winced inwardly. It was a terrible plan, but there was little alternative. They had to close the range, they had to take down the gravity generators. It was their only hope of escape before Force Two completed the trap and destroyed his entire force. The war might start anyway, if the Tichck assumed they’d wiped out a Vesperian fleet, but he wouldn’t live to see it. The Firelighters would be on their own.

He took a breath. “The fleet will advance to engage the enemy.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

Ya-Sin allowed himself a cold smile as the enemy fleet finally started to move. He’d had to take a calculated risk in transferring himself to a battleship, then setting off in hot pursuit without accidently running into his own trap, but it seemed the timing had paid off near-perfectly. The enemy fleet was trying to engage his blocking force, yet …

“Increase speed,” he ordered. His fleet had formed up the moment they’d dropped out of FTL – and now the gloves were finally off. “Take us into missile range.”

“Aye, sir.”

The display updated again, showing the enemy fleet launching a salvo of missiles. Ya-Sin sucked in his breath, even though none of the weapons were going anywhere near his flagship. The trap might work against his ships now, keeping them in realspace as surely as the enemy fleet itself … they wouldn’t be able to escape the enemy barrage if it proved too strong for them. He snapped orders, feeling his heart tighten as he realised the enemy were targeting the gravity generators. If they were taken out … no one was quite sure how long it would take for the effect to fade, but …

“We are entering missile range,” the operator said. “The range is long …”

“Fire,” Ya-Sin ordered. The range was long, and the enemy fleet was heading away from his missiles, but they were still trapped in realspace. He didn’t expect many missiles to reach their targets, yet the few that got through the enemy point defence and struck their hulls would weaken their defences, leaving the ships easier targets for the next salvo of missiles. “And continue firing until we run dry.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

***

“Commodore, Force Two has opened fire,” Patel reported. “Force One is adjusting its formation to cover the gravity wells.”

“Redeploy our ECM to compensate,” Elton ordered, stiffly. The fleet was moving closer to the enemy ships, but they couldn’t just blow past them and make a run for clear space. They had to take out the gravity wells or they’d be trapped for the rest of their lives. “And reprogram the missiles to feint as the range closes.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton gritted his teeth, watching grimly as enemy missiles closed on his fleet from both sides. There was a better than even chance they’d outrun most of Force Two’s missiles, or at least outlast them, but the range between Force One and his fleet was narrowing all the time. The enemy didn’t seem intent on trying to keep the range open, something that bothered him more than he cared to admit. Did they have something else up their sleeves, or were they intent on letting him expend his ships on Force One, weakening him to the point Force Two could finish the job? The hell of it was that he had to close the range, even if he suspected a trap. It was their only way out.

He forced himself to watch as the enemy missiles entered point defence range, hundreds vanishing from the display but dozens more surviving to near their targets and switch to sprint mode for the final seconds of their existence. The damage started to mount rapidly, a handful of ships taking heavy damage and one battlecruiser blowing up so quickly there was no time for the crew to even attempt an evacuation. Elton guessed she’d been badly damaged by the sudden crash back into realspace and her crew hadn’t been able to make repairs, leaving her vulnerable to a direct hit. There was no time to worry about it. Force Two’s missiles were coming up from behind them. A number were burning out, as he’d expected, but some made it all the way to their targets.

“Sir, the enemy fleet is forming a wall of battle to shield the gravity generators,” Patel reported, grimly. “If they hold us off.”

Elton nodded, curtly. “Bring up the missile pods,” he ordered. The equation had changed. Again. “Fire on my command,”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said. A dull rumble ran through the ship as a missile slammed into the shields. “Missiles ready.”

“Fire.”

The battlecruiser lurched, again, as she unleashed her remaining missiles, the rest of the fleet firing a second later. Elton knew they were gambling everything now, that if they failed to take out Force One’s battleships they would be trapped, unable to escape. The ECM came online a second later, ramped up as high as it would go. It was crude, yet effective. The enemy sensors would be partly blinded, at least until they managed to isolate the frequencies and tune it out. And it was too late …

He breathed a sigh of relief as the enemy fleet shattered, the battleships ripped to shreds by missile fire. It was overkill, massive overkill, but there had been no way to predict just how many missiles they’d need to take the fleet down as quickly as possible. A regular engagement would be over by now, with one side dropping into FTL and running for its life and the other shaking its fist uselessly at the vanishing ships. He didn’t allow himself to hesitate. They were running out of time.

“Target the gravity well ships with energy weapons, open fire,” he snapped. The range had closed to the bare minimum now. “Take them down!”

“Aye, sir.”

***

Ya-Sin shook his head in disbelief. The enemy had bolted missile pods to their hulls … or something. He cursed his own mistake a moment later. He’d calculated he’d have time to bring reinforcements up before the blocking force was destroyed, and if the enemy did almost anything else it would work out much better for him, but he’d underestimated his enemy. They had punched their way through the blocking force and were now killing the gravity wells, ensuring they could retreat into FTL. A near-perfect trap and they’d escaped!

A surge of anger ran through him. The Vesparians had taken out his supply depots, ensuring they couldn’t keep the fleet supplied as long as they’d planned. They could have lost every ship in their attacking force and still come out ahead … he had to admit, even as he planned his countermeasures, that it was a neat little trick. No doubt they’d thought the council would choose to ignore the strike, rather than authorise a counterattack. But his orders were clear. If the Vesparians attacked, he had full authority to strike back.

The gravity waves faded away. The enemy fleet vanished a second later, its retreat clearly visible on his sensors. He opened his mouth to order a persiut, then stopped himself. That was what the enemy wanted him to do. There would be unfriendly eyes somewhere within the system, perhaps on a freighter or a cloaked spy, and those eyes would be reporting back to the enemy leadership. He would go haring off after a badly battered fleet, while the enemy spurred the rest of their forces into action and attacked the border. And he had very little time to react.

“Assemble the remainder of the fleet,” he ordered. The Vesperian Naval Base was five days away. If the enemy spy was heading there, he might be able to smash their fleet before it could be launched. If their fleet was lurking closer, he’d still tear up their base and shatter their logistics beyond easy repair. It wasn’t much of a plan, but there were few alternatives. “Dispatch two more courier boats to the homeworld, inform them that we have been attacked and are now counterattacking, then assign two-thirds of the remaining couriers to alerting the border stars to prepare to meet an enemy offensive.”

The words hung in the air, a grim portent. No one had fought a full-scale interstellar war for centuries, not until the humans had fought and won their war with the Tokomak. He had seen the projections, knew just how much the war would cost even if they won. A brief burst of hostilities would be bad enough, even if the diplomats managed to sort out the mess before it was too late to keep the war from spreading. An all-out war would be a great deal worse. He didn’t know how it would end.

“Inform all ships,” he added, after a moment. “We are at war.”

***

“We’re clear, sir,” Patel said.

Elton nodded, grimly. “Alter course as soon as we are outside their sensor range, then alter course again as planned,” he said. It was hard to be sure what the enemy would do, but if they had the slightest idea that his fleet wasn't Vesperian the operation might have failed spectacularly. Had they found any bodies? Had they recovered anything – anything at all – that might prove the Vesparians weren’t involved? He feared he wouldn’t know until it was far too late. “We’ll stop at the RV point and wait, before heading back to join the fleet train.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton nodded. Twelve starships gone, seventeen badly damaged … very few of the remainder had escaped untouched, despite everything they’d done to escape the enemy fleet. They’d need at least a week, perhaps two, to make even basic repairs … hell, they really needed a shipyard. The Belosi had a very good fleet train and his repair crews were very capable, but there were limits to what could be done without proper faculties. They might have to send a number of ships all the way back to the nearest Solar Navy base, if they couldn’t get the repairs they needed done earlier.

And they trapped us, he thought. He kicked himself, mentally. He’d never even considered the possibility and he damn well should have, given that he’d used the technique himself. The Tichck needed proof the Vesparians were attacking them and that meant they needed to take one of his ships intact, which would be utterly disastrous. Trapping the fleet in realspace and pounding it to scrap was, in hindsight, perfectly predicable. We got very lucky.

He tried not to brood as the fleet raced away from the enemy system. They’d done a lot of damage, and hurt the Tichck badly enough to put their paranoia into overdrive, but would it be enough. He wasn’t sure they could keep up the tempo with so many damaged ships, and that meant it would be harder to keep fanning the flames of interstellar war. If the tensions had a chance to cool down, the two sides might start wondering if someone else was trying to get them to fight ...

“Sir,” Patel said. “We did a long-range gravimetric scan when we adjusted our course. There was no sign of pursuit, but we tracked at least fifty enemy ships leaving their system on a least-time course for the Ta-Conk System. They may adjust course themselves …”

“Or they may not,” Elton finished. If the Tichck were going on the offensive, it meant … he sucked in his breath. They had succeeded, leaving him torn between relief, fear, and guilt. “The war has begun.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Six

“System Command just popped a general alert, Captain,” Lucy Goldman said. “They’re ordering all ships to head for open space and scatter.”

Captain Samra Wiseman sucked in her breath. Their passage through the Ta-Conk System had been largely unremarkable, save for a brief dispute with an information broker who had raised doubts about the material she’d tried to sell him. Given that much of the datapacket was outright misinformation, carefully put together to appear plausible to the uninformed, she hadn’t tried to press the issue. There were no laws covering the sale of misinformation to information brokers – they lived in a grey area, with clients who pretended they didn’t exist while making use of their services – but it wouldn’t help the cause if she got a reputation for supplying bad information. It wouldn’t take long for word to spread, and the reminder of the community to reject her. An information broker lived or died by the reliability of his sources. They wouldn’t take chances if they thought she couldn’t be trusted.

“Prepare to disengage,” she ordered. Galactic Trader Beowulf was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a warship, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be fired upon if she got into the middle of a shooting war. The Ring was likely to attract at least some fire, even though most races would think twice about striking a target that might shatter and dump millions of tons of junk into a planet’s atmosphere. “Do we have anything on gravimetric sensors?”

“No, Captain,” Lucy said. “But everyone appears to be heading for open space.”

“Then we’ll go too,” Samra said. She felt a low shudder running through her ship as the drives came online. “Are we cleared to depart?”

“I think they just told everyone to go,” Lucy said. “There doesn’t appear to be anyone trying to govern the exodus.”

“Ouch,” Michal Forbes said. The helmsman glanced up from his console. “Do you think their insurance will cover it if one trader rams another?”

Samra scowled. Normally, the odds of two ships colliding accidentally were astronomically low. It simply didn’t happen, unless one helmsman deliberately wanted to ram his ship into another. But now, with so many starships cutting free of the Ring and diving into open space, passing through the same relatively small region … it might happen. Might. She considered the question briefly, then shrugged. Right now, they had other problems. The planetary authorities wouldn’t order everyone to run unless they thought all hell was going to break loose.

Lucy swore. “They’re ordering everyone away from Points One and Two,” she said. “I think they’re planning to bring in reinforcements.”

“Good thinking on their part,” Forbes put in. A dull clunk ran through the freighter as she disengaged, the gravity field wobbling slightly as Forbes lifted her away from the Ring. “If they think the system is about to be attacked …”

“It is,” Lucy said. Her voice was suddenly very cold. “I’m picking up at least seventy warships inbound. They’re not even trying to hide.”

“Show me,” Samra ordered.

She leaned forward as the main display updated. The incoming fleet was tiny, compared to the massive formations that had waged titanic combat during the Human-Tokomak War, but it was still large enough to do a great deal of damage. Seventy warships … or more. Possibly a great deal more. If the enemy ships – the ships she could see – were towing two or three more warships apiece, there might be over two hundred warships bearing down on the system. And they were on a least-time course from the nearest Tichck naval base. It didn’t look good. A lone warship, even a squadron, was one thing; seventy plus meant an incoming attack. Sure, the Tichck might be trying to send the ships through the gravity point, but the odds of that were roughly on par with her winning the Galactic Lottery. And given that she hadn’t bothered to buy a ticket …

Taxes on stupid people, she thought. No one in their right mind would believe the visitors are friendly.

“We’re being signalled,” Lucy said. “People want off, and they’re willing to pay.”

“Ignore them,” Samra said. There would be no preserving their cover if she took on guests, even if she’d been inclined to reverse course and pick them up. Judging by the nearspace display, she wasn’t alone. It didn’t look as if anyone wanted to return to the Ring, no matter how much money was being offered. It could cost them their lives. “They’ll be safer on the Ring than in open space.”

“Unless someone declared total war,” Forbes pointed out, cheerfully. “You want to lurk in interplanetary space or run?”

“Keep us heading out,” Samra ordered. They could be fairly sure of remaining undetected, as long as they were well clear of the planet and the gravity points, but they might be ordered out of the system at any moment. Or simply fired upon. The defenders might figure out they were a spy ship – correct – and assume they were working for the Tichck, rather than someone else. There was little room for ambiguity in the midst of a battle, or even the usual niceties like despatching a boarding party. “And keep the stardrive powered up, ready to run.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Samra nodded, then forced herself to relax as her ship joined the throng fleeing the high orbitals and making a run for interplanetary space. The defenders appeared to have the exodus under control, although only to be point of directing the running ships to use certain spacelanes. It didn’t look as if anyone was trying to organise an evacuation, though it would be pointless. There were so many people on the Ring that it was impossible to get them all, or even a small percentage, out before it was too late. Besides, they might be safer on the Ring than anywhere else. The enemy wouldn’t risk deploying heavy weapons against the megastructure unless they wanted a planetary disaster.

But we can’t rule it out, she reminded herself. The old laws of war are gone.

“Captain, we are free of the high orbitals,” Forbes reported. “Do we keep running?”

“Step down the drives, time it to make it look we dropped into FTL,” Samra ordered. The other ships were bringing their own stardrives online, jumping into FTL and fleeing in all directions. A handful seemed less inclined to run … other spies? Or simply traders who didn’t want to abandon the goods waiting for them on the Ring? There was no way to know. It worked in her favour. If there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of starships lurking in interplanetary space, the defenders would be unable to pick her ship out from the crowd. “And then hold position here.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“The incoming fleet is altering course,” Lucy said. “Current projections indicate they’ll drop out of FTL on top of Point One.”

“Keep an eye on them,” Samra ordered. It made sense. Anyone who wanted to take the system would want to seize the gravity point first, making it impossible for the Vesparians to bring in more reinforcements. If the attackers took up positions before it was too late, they could blow away each and every incoming ship individually as it made transit. “A shame we don’t have any drones.”

“We could repurpose the shuttle,” Forbes suggested. “Send her in on a ballistic trajectory …”

“It wouldn’t be worth the cost,” Samra said. The shuttle’s sensors were civilian-grade. The only way to get usable data would be to send the shuttle so close to the defenders that it would likely be mistaken for a weapon and blown away. “We’ll just have to see what we can detect at this distance.”

She sighed inwardly. Her ship’s sensors were a little too good, although not openly mil-grade. It was a risk – if they ran into a particularly careful inspector, they might have a few difficult questions to answer – but one they had to take. Sol needed good intelligence and ships like hers could easily make the difference between a battle, or a war, lost or won. She checked her ship’s status as the timer bleeped red, counting down the last ten minutes before the incoming fleet dropped out of FTL. She reminded herself, sharply, not to take the countdown for granted. The enemy ships could easily drop out of FTL early.

But they must know they’ve been detected, she told herself. There was no way the enemy could have sabotaged every last gravimetric sensor in the system. They might be able to subvert the giant sensor arrays orbiting the planet and the gravity point, but every starship and orbital fortress carried gravimetric sensors of their own. Their approach couldn’t be more obvious if it was accompanied by a marching band, sending up flares and fireworks to mark their path. Or are they trying to get us to look in the wrong direction?

She shook her head. It wasn’t her problem. She had nothing to do with the system’s defenders. Her task was to watch and record, then make her escape before whoever won the coming engagement came looking for her. And then …

The display sparkled with red light. “Contact,” Lucy reported. “At least two hundred warships; I say again, two hundred warships. Tichck IFFs, active tactical sensors!”

Samra leaned forward. The Tichck hadn’t come out of FTL right on top of the gravity point, but it hardly mattered. They were close enough to give the defenders a very hard time, far away enough to keep the defenders from adjusting their positions to compensate. If they’d come in blind, Samra reflected, they’d done a very good job. Or … had they somehow figured out how to get realtime data as they neared the system? She didn’t think it was possible, but the Galactics had been using GalTech for centuries. They might have a trick or two up their sleeves.

“They’re broadcasting a demand for surrender,” Lucy said. “No response.”

“The range is too close,” Forbes said. “The defenders won’t have any time to respond.”

“They planned it that way,” Samra said. The Tichck were racing towards the Vesperian positions, a threat that was about as subtle as a punch in the face. The Vesparians would have bare seconds, if that, to decide what to do. “They’re looking for a fight.”

She leaned forward. The Vesparians would be within their rights to open fire without warning and she was surprised they hadn’t. The Tichck were just too close. No one in their right might would just charge a gravity point, certainly not with such a large fleet, unless they had very hostile intentions. They could have dropped out of FTL well clear of the defences, then negotiated passage through the gravity point. The fact they were using active sensors, sweeping the gravity point so thoroughly they could probably see every last automated weapons platform and stealthed mine, was just the icing on the cake. The Vesparians had to know the newcomers were hostile.

And there’s no point in worrying about Galactic opinion when you have hundreds of ships bearing down on you, she mused. Everyone knew Galactic Law was a slippery thing, all the more so now, but letting the enemy get so close was asking for trouble. If the bad guys take the gravity point …

“Missile separation,” Lucy said. The display sparkled with red icons. “Multiple missile separation!”

Samra shuddered. The Tichck had fired first, unleashing a massive spread of missiles towards the defending fortresses. There were so many missiles that they’d either bolted missile pods to their hulls or somehow managed to figure out a way to cram more launchers into a standard battleship design. She keyed her console, making a note to contemplate the problem later. The analysts would go through the recordings, trying to determine what the Tichck had done. Right now, it didn’t matter. The Vesparians were returning fire …

The Tichck ships vanished. Samra blinked, then realised what they’d done. They’d jumped back into FTL briefly, neatly evading the missiles before they could reach their targets. She supposed that explained why they’d dropped out of FTL so far from the gravity point; they’d wanted a moment to recycle their drives before the shooting started in earnest. They’d done well too … the tidal wave of missiles they’d unleashed would do horrendous damage, to fortresses and automated platforms that couldn’t evade the oncoming swarm. She cursed under her breath. There was little to differentiate the Tichck and the Vesparians – they were both Galactics, with all the entitlement and hypocrisy of the breed – but if she had to choose a winner she’d choose the Vesparians. And yet, the Tichck had struck first and struck hard.

“The Vesperian point defence is unpractised,” Lucy said, quietly. “Their emergency drills aren’t up to stuff.”

“Guess so.” Samra shook her head. No amount of emergency drills could substitute for real experience. “They’re going to take a pounding.”

She studied the sensor feed for a long moment. The Vesparians were firing constantly, blowing hundreds of missiles into atoms, but there were hundreds more racing towards their targets. Some were ECM decoys, disrupting enemy sensors and making it harder – if not impossible – for the defenders to isolate their targets and blow them away. Others appeared to have multiple warheads … she grimaced as she saw the latter come to life, each one launching a handful of smaller missiles towards their targets. She’d thought that was a purely human invention. The Tichck must have seen the design in use, and reacted appropriately by designing their own. They didn’t appear to have many – not all the missiles were launching smaller missiles – but they’d have enough. They wouldn’t be using the missiles in combat if they hadn’t tested them extensively.

The gravity point seemed to light up, just for a second, as the missiles struck home. Samra gritted her teeth as icons flashed and vanished, trying not to remind herself that each and every icon that disappeared from her display represented a giant orbital fortress, with hundreds of crew, being blown to atoms. Even a damaged icon represented a structure that had been hit hard and was now bleeding air, the crew fighting desperately to patch up the damage before it was too late and the enemy, scenting weakness, hammered them into scrap. The Tichck were firing again, their missiles racing towards the gravity point. Their targeting was much better, she noted coldly, but they were also deploying some pretty big missiles. They were easily five or six times bigger than they should be …

“What the hell are those?”

“Special weapons of some kind?” Forbes didn’t look up from his console. “Or …”

“Missile pods,” Lucy interrupted. “They’re missile pods!”

Samra shook her head. The range was already narrowing sharply. The Tichck didn’t need missile pods to hit the fortresses, and … if they’d had the pods, why not fire them as part of the first barrage? Admiral Webster had come up with a concept for towed missile pods, if she recalled correctly, but any ship that tried to tow missile pods through FTL was asking for trouble. Missile pods weren’t starships with crews that could react to the slightest gravity flux, or even crash their ship out of FTL if the only other option was a collision … had the Tichck solved that problem? It didn’t look like it. The things they were deploying looked more like oversized missiles than missile pods …

“Shit.” She saw it, a moment too late. “They’re hitting targets on the other side of the gravity point!”

She felt a flicker of reluctant admiration. The oversized missiles weren’t aimed at any of the remaining fortresses. The defenders were likely to ignore them long enough for the missile pods to get onto the gravity point itself and make transit, launching their deadly cargo as soon as they rematerialised on the far side. There’d be no way to do any targeting in advance, unless the Tichck really had cracked the enigma of FTL communication, but it didn’t matter. Any formations lining up to advance through the gravity point would be disrupted, forced to defend themselves … buying time for the Tichck to secure the gravity point. It looked as though they were going to succeed.

More icons vanished. She tried not to think about how many people had died in the last few moments, on both sides of the bouncing baby war. The Tichck were drawing closer to the gravity point as the defending fire slacked off, deploying sensor platforms and scattershot missiles to locate and destroy the remaining weapons platforms and mines. Samra wasn’t sure why they were bothering – mines were notoriously unreliable, to the point they might go after Vesperian ships as easily as Tichck – but it hardly mattered. They were winning, and unless the Vesparians found a way to turn it around in the next few minutes …

“The Tichck are deploying a blocking force,” Lucy said, puzzled. “Where are their reinforcements?”

Samra nodded, slowly. Standard tactical doctrine was to rush reinforcements to any captured gravity point as quickly as possible, and the easiest way to do that was to have the fleet train lurking just outside detection range, but her sensors didn’t show any freighters rushing towards the system. It looked as if the Tichck had launched the attack without planning how they were going to hold the system afterwards … she frowned. It made no sense, unless the Tichck had panicked. And that meant …

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. The Tichck were dispatching squadrons to the planets, demanding surrender. A handful of freighters were already running, dropping into FTL before they could be intercepted. The remainder would be on their way soon enough. The planet’s defences were tough, but there was no such thing as an impregnable target. “Whatever they’re playing at, their enemies won’t let them hold the system for long.”

And that means this isn’t just a minor skirmish, she added, in the privacy of her own mind. This is the first battle in an all-out war.

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

There was little, from the sheer pleasure of wielding power to the enjoyment of the rewards power brought in its wake, that could dispel the tension in the air. Chairperson Harpeth knew, without false modesty, that he was the most powerful person on his homeworld, and one of the most powerful people in the known galaxy, and yet even he couldn’t help feeling both righteous anger and a dull fear as he waited for the Vesperian Ambassador. They had gone too far this time, and there would be war, but … he schooled his face into a blank mask, trying to show no trace of his feelings as the Subdo buzzed around him. No matter the outcome, no matter who won the war, the cost would be staggering. And yet, the cost of backing down would be even worse.

His stomach heaved as he contemplated the sheer enormity of the crisis. No, it wasn’t a crisis any longer. It was war. The Vesparians had gone too far, and his people had retaliated … his eyes lingered on the holographic starchart, forcing him to wonder how much of the information in front of him was already outdated. The navy had put its contingency plans into operation, yet … how many had succeeded? How many had failed? For all he knew, the display was completely misleading. The Vesparians wouldn’t have started the war unless they thought they could win and the only way they could win was to unite his enemies against him. Harpeth had no illusions. The Tichck were feared rather than loved, and if that fear was gone …

He had an uneasy sense, just for a moment, of a skyscraper tumbling over, knocking into another skyscraper and sending that one tumbling over, setting off an endless chain of falling buildings until the entire city was rubble. The plan to weaken their foes, to take covert control of some of their enemies and neutralise others, had failed. He had to give the Vesparians credit. They’d armed and trained the Belosi, giving themselves a deniable army that they’d used to embarrass the Tichck in front of their enemies, making them look weak. It had worked brilliantly. Harpeth was all too aware that the smaller powers had drawn precisely the right lesson from the disaster, the lesson the Vesparians had wanted them to learn. And that meant … he gritted his teeth. They had been pushed into a corner. They had to fight and win. Quickly.

His intercom bleeped. “Chairperson,” his security officer said. “The Ambassador is clean.”

“Show him in,” Harpeth ordered. Galactic protocol forbade conducting any kind of deep-scan on an ambassador. It was considered monumentally rude, although there was also a more practical purpose. Ordering the security staff to break protocol was a message in its own right. It was also a necessary precaution. If the Vesparians really wanted to cause chaos, all they had to do was equip their ambassador with a bomb and detonate it the moment he walked into the chamber. “And then stay on the alert.”

He took a long breath as the door hissed open, revealing the Vesperian Ambassador. His feathers looked ruffled, his beak set in a position that suggested he was coldly furious. A deep scan was clear proof his hosts didn’t trust him to honour interstellar protocol – he would have been less outraged if they’d insisted on inspecting each and every one of his cavities – and the fact the security guards were waiting outside was even worse. Harpeth indicated the seat – he’d been very tempted to replace the custom-designed chair with something the alien would find uncomfortable – and waited for the ambassador to sit down. The Vesperian stalked across the room in a manner that, if he’d been Tichck, would have been a clear warning he was angry. It was dangerous to assume they shared the same body language, but a skilled ambassador could manipulate his movements to convey a blunt warning.

“Chairperson,” the Ambassador said. Speaking first was another breach of protocol, although under the circumstances it hardly mattered. “I really must protest …”

Harpeth cut him off. “Ten days ago, a fleet of starships – Vesperian starships – entered the Talien System and launched an attack, targeting the supply depots and other vital installations orbiting the planet. The defending fleet attempted to intercept the attackers, through clever tactics and preplanning, but they were unable to force the enemy ships to surrender. However, a considerable amount of evidence was recovered from the battlefield, all pointing back to your people. Given your earlier ultimatum, the conclusion is unmistakable. You carried out a blatant act of war.”

The Ambassador hesitated for a long moment. “My government has not communicated with me,” he said, finally. “I am unaware of any such events …”

That, Harpeth reflected, might be true. The Vesparians might not have informed their ambassador if they were planning to strike, for fear the message might be intercepted, and it was unlikely he’d have heard the news through other channels, certainly not before word reached Tichck Prime and he was summoned to explain himself. The Ambassador was flying blind, unsure of his footing, uncertain what his government actually wanted. It was a nightmarish problem. If he said the wrong thing, he would be lucky if he was only disowned.

“Regardless, my government cannot allow such an event to go unchallenged,” Harpeth said. “It is our belief that the attack was merely the latest in a coordinated series of provocations, intended to weaken our position before the inevitable attack. We cannot allow this to go unanswered.”

He paused. “This is a formal declaration of war.”

The Ambassador started, his clawed hands flexing. He looked shocked.

He spoke, finally. “Chairperson, I do not pretend to know what is going on. But a declaration of war is final and …”

“Yes,” Harpeth agreed. “It is.”

He kept his face blank. The Ambassador was either unaware of what was going on or a practiced liar. Or both. It didn’t matter. The Navy had its orders. The retaliatory strikes were already going in, fleets crossing the border and attacking dozens of targets, some nothing more than diversions and others keystones for plans to take the war all the way to the Vesperian homeworld. If the Vesparians had expected the Tichck to roll over and let them do as they pleased, they were about to be disillusioned. Had already been disillusioned. The time delay meant the retaliatory strikes would have already reached their targets.

Harpeth picked up a datachip and held it out. “In line with Galactic Protocol, a courier boat will be placed at your disposal, allowing you passage though our lines so you can deliver our messaged as quickly as possible. Your staff will be permitted one day to close down the embassy, then we will provide transport to a neutral system. They can make their way home from there.”

“Chairperson …”

“A state of war now exists between our two powers,” Harpeth said, flatly. “On the chip, you will find both a copy of the declaration and a statement of our terms for ending the war. There will be no further discussion.”

He paused, then lowered his voice. “If your government comes to realise what it has done, and that it has unleashed forces it cannot control, we may be able to quench the fire before it spreads too far,” he added. He didn’t pretend to understand what the Vesparians were doing, although it struck him as unlikely they’d have provoked a war without a clear idea of how they were going to win it. “No one has fought a war on such a scale, not until recently. If they think better of it …”

The Ambassador took the datachip. “I will communicate your message to my government,” he said, stiffly. “Their response will be relayed through neutral channels.”

He stood and stalked out of the chamber. Harpeth watched him go, his thoughts elsewhere. The war was already well underway, no matter what they said or did. An attack, a retaliation, another attack … the cycle of violence would carry on, escalating with every engagement, until one side was finally exhausted. The Tokomak had stepped in before, fifty years ago, to keep the war of words from escalating into a shooting war, but now … he wondered, suddenly, if that was why the Vesparians were trying to provoke a war. They didn’t realise the cost, if they were used to the Tokomak using their sheer power to keep wars from spreading. In the old days, they might have been able to snatch a few star systems and then sue for peace; now, the war would go on and on until one side was destroyed and the other so badly weakened it couldn’t stand up to a threat from a lesser power. It was chilling. The galaxy had shifted. None of the old certainties still held true. And if the Vesparians hadn’t figured it out …

His intercom bleeped. “Sir, the Ambassador is on his way back to the embassy.”

“Make sure he has transport to the courier boat,” Harpeth ordered. The news wasn’t public, not yet, but they couldn’t keep a lid on it forever. The embassy would be surrounded by a mob, the moment the news got out, and that would be embarrassing. The guards would have to fire on their own people or let the embassy be stormed. “And ensure he doesn’t go anywhere else.”

He stood and made his way back to the bunker. The rest of the council had already gathered, watching simulations of the war … disturbingly optimistic simulations. The navy had prepared for war as best as it could, prepositioning warships and stockpiling supplies, but the Vesparians had been able to choose when and where hostilities would break out. They’d already destroyed a number of supply depots … for all he knew, they’d taken out more. Many more. There were dozens of star systems that weren’t on gravity point chains, systems that could have been raided or conquered or even left alone; he wouldn’t know what had happened, not in any useful sense, until a recon ship flew through the system or a courier boat arrived to report an attack. The retaliatory strikes might have worked perfectly, as planned, or the Vesparians might have defeated his forces …

His lips quirked. They might have simply swapped one set of star systems for another.

“I delivered the declaration of war,” he said, without preamble. “The Ambassador denied all knowledge of his government’s plans, naturally.”

“He was lying, of course,” Chairman Tomah said.

“We may never know,” Harpeth said. “It would be unwise of them to give their ambassador any warning, if they feared the message might be intercepted.”

He let the words hang in the air, then nodded to the display. “Those deployments are ten days out of date,” he reminded them. “Do we have any updates?”

It was a rhetorical question. No one took the bait.

“The Vesparians may have been surprised by the scale of our retaliation,” he said. “However, we must assume they have planned the war carefully.”

He took a long breath. It was impossible to be sure. Full-scale interstellar war had been theoretical for thousands of years – and the Human-Tokomak War, as interesting as it had been for tactical analysts, had been fought in a very different way. The humans had tried to open up a narrow bridgehead, carving themselves a route that led right to Tokomak Prime; the Vesparians would be attacking across a broad front, trying to seize as many systems as possible before the inevitable counterattack. If they hadn’t already attacked Talien – again – he would be astonished. Or … he wondered if they were attacking via Longmont instead. They wouldn’t need to take Talien if they could cut the naval base off instead. They’d get most of the advantages with none of the disadvantages. And his forces would have to either reclaim Longmont, whatever the price, or accept inevitable defeat.

“There is no way we can control events from here,” he added. “We must rely on our admirals on the spot to handle the war, at least on a tactical level, while we set overall strategic policy.”

He paused. “We must also accept a basic reality, and that is that we do not have the resources to fight a war on multiple fronts.”

“But …” Tomah caught himself. “We cannot afford to allow ourselves to concede defeat anywhere!”

“No,” Harpeth agreed. “But we have to accept facts.”

He nodded to the display. “The Vesparians have done well. They manipulated the Belosi and encouraged them to rise against their rightful masters, then armed and trained the exiled Belosi before allowing them to return to invade our systems. Again. Their victories have not only made us look weak, convincing lesser powers we can be beaten; they have forced us to redeploy ships from the border, weakening our defences and giving them a chance to invade our stars. They are the most serious threat we have faced in our long history.”

It was hard to keep from feeling a flicker of admiration, and envy. It was easy to come up with elaborate multigenerational plans that worked perfectly on paper, harder to actually make those plans become a reality. He’d lost track of the number of times some eager young space cadet had come up with a concept that was tempting, yet fundamentally absurd. And yet, the Vesparians had made it work. He would have been more impressed if he wasn’t sure the jaws of the plan were closing in, grinding his people into nothingness. There would be time to admire their genius later. They had to escape the trap first.

And besides, he reflected, none of my peers would ever understand.

“We need to redeploy our forces,” he said. “The Belosi are a minor threat. They are powerless without their backers, and their backers now have a full-scale war on their hands. Our fixed defences can slow them down, if they are fool enough to risk advancing further into our territory …”

“Or the Vesparians choose to expend them, as a distraction,” Domoh put in.

Harpeth couldn’t disagree. The Vesparians might not be quite as ruthlessly exploitive as his people, but it was a distinction without a difference as far as the rest of the universe was concerned. They had their own flock of client races, from primitives who had been invaded before they even mastered fire to their own population of Subdo and other servitor races, and they wouldn’t hesitate to fight the war to the last Belosi or Subdo if they thought they could get away with it. They probably would. The Belosi were primitives, unaware of the realities of interstellar warfare. They wouldn’t understand what they were being asked – ordered – to do until it was too late.

“They will still be slowed down by our defences,” he said. “We’ll redeploy the majority of the blocking fleet to the homeworld, where it can be reinforced and then sent out to secure the gravity point chains to enemy space. If we manage to seize most of our targets” – one way or the other, the issue would already have been decided, even if they wouldn’t know the outcome for days – “we can then dictate terms from a position of superiority or continue the war until they are completely defeated.”

“They cannot be allowed to get away with their acts of aggression,” Domoh pointed out. “We must crush them into the dirt, reduce them to servitors …”

The council muttered in agreement. Harpeth kept his thoughts to himself. They didn’t have the resources to fight a total war, not without weakening their fleets so badly the rest of their neighbours would jump on them the moment they realised how weak they’d become. They could win one war, only to be crushed themselves in the second. And besides … Galactic opinion would be outraged if the Vesparians were reduced to a servitor race. They weren’t Belosi or Subdo or some other minor race that no one gave much of a damn about, certainly not enough to lift a finger to save them from the just chastisement they deserved. Destroying the Vesparians – and reducing such a race to slavery would be little better than destroying them – would horrify the rest of the galaxy. They’d unite against the Tichck, if only to keep the Tichck from doing the same to them.

“First, we must win,” he said, instead. “Everything else is secondary.”

He allowed his eyes to wander the chamber. “Does anyone have any objections to my proposed strategy?”

“We should strike deep into their space,” Tomah said. “Or even blast one of their worlds.”

“And then unite the galaxy against us,” Harpeth warned him. The galaxy wouldn’t care if a primitive race was erased from existence – it was their fault for being primitive – but slaughtering vast numbers of Vesparians was something very different. The old laws of war might no longer be enforced, yet that didn’t mean they should break them just because. “We should at least try to respect the laws of war.”

“They launched a sneak attack on our territory!” Domoh seemed unconvinced. “We should pay them back in kind.”

“That is true,” Harpeth said. “The problem will be convincing the rest of the galaxy that that is true. They will have some trick arranged, a simple miscommunication designed to make it look as though they intended to declare war before launching the first strike. We’ve done similar moves ourselves. Right now, our priority is to secure our lines of communication, capitalise on our victories, reverse our defences and put ourselves in a strong position. The rest can wait.”

He stood. “And if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to the other ambassadors,” he added. His staff were already arranging the meetings. “The more powers we can convince to stay out of the war, the better.”

 

I apologise for the delay. My entire family caught a bug that put us down for several days.

Chris

 

Feel better soon!

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“The Tichck have secured the Ta-Conk System,” Commander Gower said, as she indicated the holographic sensor display. The footage of the battle had been collected from the spy ship’s sensors and spliced together into a holographic presentation. “They successfully stormed Gravity Point One, then deployed ships to lay claim to the remaining gravity points and the high orbitals. The planet itself put up a brief resistance, for the honour of the flag, then surrendered on terms. So far, the Tichck seem to be respecting the laws of war.”

Elton said nothing for a long moment. The engagement had been a grim reminder the Tichck were capable of being flexible, as well as cunning and innovative. The fleet had been very lucky to have escaped, without leaving behind evidence that would be far too revealing. As it was … the operation had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The war they’d been trying to provoke had begun. And that meant …

He felt a flicker of guilt, tempered only by the grim awareness the war would have come sooner or later anyway. The Tichck had been pressing against their neighbours for decades, building up influence networks they could use to manipulate their governments, and the defeat of the Tokomak had given them a chance to use those shadowy networks to build an empire of their own. The Vesparians, in truth, weren’t much better. They’d been working to build up their empire too. It was a choice between Hitler and Stalin, as far as the other powers were concerned, and even if you felt one dictator was better than the other – morally speaking – it didn’t mean the dictator was actually a nice guy. Sure, it was easy to say that being ruled by Stalin was preferable to being ruled by Hitler – particularly if you didn’t have to worry about being ruled by either – but that didn’t mean it would be an enjoyable experience.

And are you thinking that because it is true, he asked himself, or because you are trying to convince yourself you shouldn’t feel guilty.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. The tensions that led to the First World War had had nothing to do with the assassin who had fired the fatal shot, killing Franz Ferdinand and triggering a series of events that had led rapidly and inevitably to global conflict, but that didn’t mean the shooter had been innocent. He might not have understood the consequences, and how many international agreements would play out, yet … he had fired the shot. Elton didn’t have the excuse of ignorance, nor could he plead that he had only intended to kill the Archduke. He had set out to trigger a war.

He looked up at the starchart, all too aware it was painfully out of date. The fleet was holding position in the interstellar wastelands, the warships undergoing hasty repairs while the spy ships hurried around collecting what intelligence they could, but there was nothing they could do about the time delay. Ta-Conk might have already been liberated by the Vesparians, their counter-offensive launched before he knew the Tichck had attacked the system, or … the Tichck might have launched a further offensive of their own. The stars on either side of the border might have swapped owners two or three times by now … he had the sudden mental image of the Vesparians seizing Talien while the Tichck seized Ta-Conk, forcing both sides to come to a halt while they negotiated for a swap. That would be amusing, from a safe distance. Wars tended to have their absurd sides, as they spread out of control …

“Our intelligence suggests an attack on the Nel-Lah System was beaten off,” Commander Gower continued. “The Vesparians insist they defeated a major Tichck fleet, but I suspect – reading between the lines – that they really drove off nothing more than a raiding force. The system simply isn’t important enough to demand a major fleet commitment, even if both sides didn’t have more important worlds to attack or defend.”

“No,” Elton agreed. Fighting for Nel-Lah was like fighting for an isolated island in the middle of nowhere. If the Tichck won, they could demand the system as part of the peace settlement; if they lost, they’d have a great many other problems to worry about. “It’s worthless.”

He paused. “Do you think the attack took place at all?”

“It’s hard to say,” Gower admitted. “We have no sources within the system, not even a starship making a fly-through. The information came from official bulletins issued by the local authorities, and it could easily be made up of whole cloth. There’d certainly be no easy way to verify the report, not for the folks on the ground. It could be a story spread to keep up local morale and combat defeatism.”

Elton made a face. The Galactics hadn’t seen much in the way of interstellar warfare for thousands of years. Most conflicts had been resolved by the Tokomak, using a combination of gunboat diplomacy and brute force; the handful of outliers had been relatively minor affairs, too unimportant to justify direct intervention. The idea of a major war had been largely unthinkable until the Solar Union had bested the Tokomak, and even then … he shook his head. The Galactics had fallen into the habit of thinking wars were short and sharp, a handful of skirmishes against peer powers or invasions of primitive star systems. Both sides would be expecting a quick victory and both were likely to be disappointed, at least at first. The Tichck were too great a power to go down in a hurry, even if they lost the opening moves. The Vesparians were just the same.

But if the plan works, we’ll be undermining one power so badly it is likely to lose the war, he mused. And who knows what the victor will do?

He put the thought aside. “Do you think they can call a halt?”

Gower took a moment to consider her answer. “I don’t believe so, sir,” she said. “In the near term, it will take weeks – at best – for both sides to determine the results of their first set of offenses and decide what to do next. By the time they learn, events will already have moved on. In the long term, the Vesparians need to recover Ta-Conk, while the Tichck will be determined to keep it. If they do, they’ll have access to a gravity point chain leading deeper into Vesperian territory. They won’t give it up in a hurry.”

Elton nodded as he contemplated the possibilities. The Tichck would have reported their victory already, he was sure, and reinforcements would be on their way soon. The Vesparians would do some damage to isolated stars and planets along the border, but if the Tichck played it smart they’d ignore the loss of a handful of unimportant systems and concentrate on Ta-Conk. He dared not assume they wouldn’t, not after his fleet’s narrow escape. And that meant … the system was likely to become a black hole for both sides, sucking up starships and fortifications they couldn’t afford to lose. He wished he knew more about their deployments. How many ships could the Vesparians rush forward? How many ships could the Tichck deploy? The war had changed everything.

Both sides might have planned to open the war with a smash and grab, he thought. Did the Vesparians get knocked off balance by the first offensive, or …

He frowned. “How long do you think the shooting will continue?”

Gower looked pained. It wasn’t a fair question. Elton couldn’t bring himself to care.

“It’s impossible to say,” she said, finally. “The Tichck believe they were attacked without due cause. The Vesparians believe the same – and in their case, they’re actually right. This isn’t an isolated clash between two ships in a minor system, one where the issue of blame can be minimised or swept under the rug. Neither side trusts the other, which will make disengagement tricky even with the best will in the world. The sheer difficulties of communicating over interstellar distances ensures that there will be more clashes and skirmishes, and whichever side calls a halt will do so at incredible risk. There hasn’t been anything like this since the Tokomak developed FTL stardrive, sir, and even then conflict was only possible through the gravity points.”

She looked up at the holographic display. “My best-case projection is that the shooting will continue for at least a year or two. The two powers are just too large for any single victory to be decisive, although if the Tichck continue to hold Ta-Conk and defeat any counterattacks they may be able to hammer their way to Vesperian Prime in two or three years. They certainly know more about mounting gravity point assaults, after what we did to them. That said, the cost will be staggering. It’ll take them years to recover even if they win the war.”

“If.” Elton knew just how chancy wars could be. The slightest miscalculation could set off a series of disaster dominos, leading rapidly and inevitably to defeat. It was funny, in hindsight, how such a cascading line of catastrophes was easy to see, even though it was impossible to spot beforehand. But then, there was always a certain perception of inevitability about how events went, afterwards. “And so we have a window of opportunity.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elton leaned back in his chair, studying the reports. The repair crews had worked like mad, reloading his missile tubes and patching up the hulls … he’d feared, despite himself, that the Tichck might have tracked them down. The enemy CO had pulled off one nasty surprise and it was quite possible he’d do another, even though the odds were massively against it. The fleet was as ready as it would ever be, at least without a shipyard. There was no time to go back to the nearest naval base, not if they wanted to capitalise on their work. They had to get moving, and quickly.

He keyed his console. “Alert all ships,” he ordered. “We depart for Point Asimov in two hours, after the ceremony.”

“Aye, sir,” Patel said.

Elton closed the channel. “Compile the remaining intelligence reports, then leave a beacon here for any remaining intelligence ships,” he ordered. “Their reports will be out of date when they catch up with us, but … it can’t be helped. As long as the two sides are fighting it out, our window of opportunity remains open.”

“Yes, sir,” Gower said. “I …”

Elton sighed, inwardly, as she hesitated. It was hard, sometimes, to remember being a junior officer, and how hard it could be to disagree with your superior on even the tiniest matter. The Solar Navy was better than most about it, a result of the Admiralty constantly moving flag officers in and out of fleet postings, but it was still difficult. It only took one annoyed admiral to fuck up a career beyond all hope of repair.

“Go on. Spit it out.”

Gower looked uneasy. “There’s a very real prospect of the Tichck’s other neighbours joining the war, when word reaches them,” she said. “They may force the Tichck to redeploy their fleets back towards the border. And Belos.”

“And Sakrknda,” Elton said. The possibility was faint, but impossible to ignore. If it looked like the Tichck were winning, would their neighbours refrain from attacking them or would they stab the Tichck in the back? Elton could easily imagine one or all of the nearby powers panicking over the thought of a Tichck victory and attacking them, and if that happened … “How badly would that change the overall situation?”

“It would depend, but the Tichck would be well-advised to secure their borders as much as possible,” Gower said. “If they can keep the smaller powers tangled up in a network of fortresses and other fixed defences, they can deal with them after the Vesparians are beaten.”

“And if the Vesparians win the war, the Tichck will have other things to worry about,” Elton added. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

“I don’t think so,” Gower said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Then we’ll keep it in mind, but proceed anyway.” Elton said. “You have your orders. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elton looked down at the report as Gower left, the hatch hissing closed behind her. The war was underway … he studied the potential outlines thoughtfully, noting just how many possible ways the war could go. The Tichck and the Vesparians would have spent much longer drawing up contingency plans, if he was any judge; they’d had years to work out every possible enemy move and devise countermeasures. His lips twisted in dark amusement. The problem with plans, his instructors had pointed out long ago, was that the enemy had plans of his own – and when those plans collided, as they would, they would come apart at the seams. Victory would go to the side that adapted first, that worked out how to take advantage of the ever-changing situation … and, perhaps, the one that had the bigger fleets.

Not that having the bigger fleet saved the Tokomak, he reminded himself. Their numbers weren’t great enough to overcome our technical superiority.

The intercom bleeped. “Commodore,” Patel said. “The ceremony will start in five minutes.”

So get your ass down to the shuttlebay, Elton added, wryly. He knew what Patel meant, even though he would never say it out loud. You owe it to the dead to be there.

“Thank you for reminding me,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

He felt another twinge of guilt as he stood and made his way to the shuttlebay. The battle had cost over two hundred lives, including some who had likely died at his own hand. He’d had no choice – he knew there had been no other option – and yet it felt wrong, as if he’d murdered his crewmen with his bare hands. The deaths wouldn’t even be officially acknowledged, not completely. The official reports would state the ships and crews were lost somewhere along the border, on patrols so far into disputed space that no one would ever have reason to question the cover story, but … he felt sick at heart, all too aware he was perpetrating a lie. The path to hell was paved with good intentions … he shuddered, inwardly, as he recalled the chaos that had swept over the democratic world, before the Solar Union had saved the best and brightest before it was too late. The idiots who had hacked down the tree of liberty had thought they were doing the right thing too. But in the end the tree had come crashing down on their heads.

Man is not a rational animal, he reminded himself. He is a rationalising animal.

He scowled inwardly as he took his place, silently cursing the sheer lack of time. There should be more than a handful of officers in the shuttlebay, attending in person even though they knew holographic attendance was almost as good. They should be wearing their dress uniforms, showing the crew they cared; hell, the crew should be in attendance, mourning their diseased peers and girding themselves for the challenge to come. Instead … he couldn’t help thinking it was a tawdry display, a show of contempt for men and women who had given their all on a deployment that would never be openly admitted. They deserved much better and yet …

We have no choice, he told himself. Somehow, it wasn’t remotely comforting. The operation has to remain classified for the rest of time.

Sure, his own thoughts countered. And how many official secrets have remained secret indefinitely?

Elton told that part of him to shut up as he stepped up to the podium. A handful of coffins stood in front of him, draped in the Solar flag. They were empty. The majority of the bodies had been put into stasis or launched into the nearest star, in line with their last wishes … no, only a small minority of the bodies hadn’t been blown to atoms during the battle. He wondered if, against all odds, a body had survived, blown clear of the wreckage and left to drift in the interplanetary void until it was discovered by a passing freighter. What would the crew make of it? Would they draw the right conclusion, or would they assume the dead human had been on a trading vessel that had been hijacked by pirates? Or something else … he let out a long breath. They had done everything they could, but they would never be wholly sure.

“We are gathered here today to bid farewell to our comrades,” he said. The words felt as tawdry as the rest of the ceremony. If there was no time to do it properly, they should wait until they had time. Naval regulations called for the ceremony to take place as quickly as possible, once all the urgent repairs had been carried out, but they could have waited a little longer. “They gave their all to defend the human race, paying the ultimate price …”

He gritted his teeth as he stumbled through the rest of the words. They had started a war. Their cause was just, their motives pure, and yet they had started a war. He understood that sometimes they had to get their hands dirty, and that sometimes they had to do terrible things in the name of a greater good, and yet … it didn’t sit well with him. He hoped it never would.

That’s the problem with falling into this cloak and dagger bullshit, he told himself, sharply. You lose the ability to run a sanity check on your own thinking. And that means you can talk yourself into carrying out all sorts of atrocities, because no one is calling you out for it.

“They gave their lives for us,” he finished. “And we will make sure their sacrifice is not wasted.”

But he knew, as the ceremony broke up, that it might already be too late.

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“We just received a message from Tichck Prime,” Ash said. “The war has begun.”

Riley took the datachip the Subdo held out and slotted it into a reader. It wasn’t entirely a surprise – the rumours had swept across the system days ago, stories of sneak attacks and titanic battles involving so many starships they rivalled the final battle of the Tokomak War – and yet, he couldn’t help a thrill of excitement as he studied the report. The Tichck hadn’t just declared war on the Vesparians, they’d expelled the ambassador and his staff in a manner that made it clear there would be no early peace. Wars that started with sneak attacks tended to be merciless, and in this case both sides thought they’d been attacked first. His lips twisted in dark amusement. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair of galactic superpowers.

We might have lit the fire, he told himself, as he scanned the next set of reports. But we sure as hell didn’t pile up the kindling and douse it in gasoline.

He allowed himself a tight little smile. The Tichck had put the Belosi conflict on the backburner, as he’d hoped, and were redeploying their ships and troops to face the Vesparians. A number of orbital guard ships had already been recalled, while the remainder had been put on notice that they might be ordered to head to the border at any moment. The fleet blocking any further advance from Belos had also been recalled, something that bothered him in a manner he couldn’t quite articulate. They had to be confident the Belosi wouldn’t take advantage of the chaos to force their way further up the gravity point chain.

But they think the Belosi cannot tie their shoelaces without help, he thought, grimly. They probably don’t expect them to do anything more complicated than sitting on their rears and waiting to be attacked.

He tried not to roll his eyes. It had been bad enough fifty years ago, when the Tichck had justified their absolute control over the Belosi though caricatures that would have horrified a Nazi or Jim Crow propagandist, but it was far worse now. The Tichck had responded to the uprising and liberation of Belos by loudly decrying the unknown galactic power that had lured the Belosi into a path of sin, promising that the groomers would be severely punished when they were finally caught and identified. The Belosi would be punished too, they’d added, in a manner that sent shudders down Riley’s spine. He’d met an asshole of a father who had enjoyed spanking his daughters a little too much … the Tichck had the same disgusting vibes, the same sickening self-justification the father had used to justify himself. Riley hoped the man had enjoyed the rest of his miserable life, after he’d been beaten savagely and left permanently crippled by a mysterious man. His family had abandoned him on the spot. Riley didn’t blame them.

“Assuming the reports are accurate” – he trusted the Subdo, but he was all too aware the spies could have been caught and turned by enemy counter-intelligence operatives – “we finally have our window of opportunity.”

Ash nodded, his face shifting. Riley knew he was nervous. There was always a desire, amongst the oppressed, to fight their oppressors … but there was also a fear, a grim awareness that failure would make their lives even worse. Riley knew how poorly things had worked out in Afghanistan for some tribes that had switch sides a little too soon, or simply assumed the Taliban would let bygones be bygones, and he would be surprised if the underground wasn’t thinking the same thing. If they got it wrong, if their uprising failed, the Tichck would take a horrible revenge. The Subdo would be so badly hammered they would never be able to raise their heads again.

“So,” Ash said, finally. “Can we do it?”

Riley took a moment to consider his answer. The Subdo had no experience in plotting an insurgency, let alone a coup. They had near-complete access to their enemy’s systems and yet … capitalising on that advantage would be difficult. They’d only have one chance and if they fucked it up … Riley knew the Tichck looked down on the Belosi, and assumed the primitive slaves didn’t have thoughts of their own, but that hadn’t kept them from locking down the Belosi in the megacities when the first uprising had started. The moment the Tichck realised the Subdo were a threat, they’d crack down hard. And if they maintained control of the orbital defences.

“We have to take over the orbital fortresses, and the fortresses covering the gravity point,” he mused. There was a long list of secondary targets – he’d made full use of their access to work out a list of everything from police stations and corporate headquarters to military barracks and storage depots – but none were remotely as important as the orbital defences. “The Ring itself is essentially a secondary concern.”

“If they win, they’ll destroy the Ring,” Ash pointed out.

Riley doubted it. The Ring was a megastructure. If the Tichck blew it away, they’d be sentencing the entire planet to death. They were as ruthless as any human despot – perhaps more so – and he doubted they’d feel too many qualms about genocide on a planetary scale, but it would be unlike them to destroy something they owned. The planet was the private domain of a number of wealthy and powerful Tichck, and those Tichck would be furious if it was destroyed without due cause. His lips quirked in dark amusement. The insurgency on Belos had bankrupted a surprisingly large number of Tichck, even though they’d recovered the planet and held it for another fifty years. It was going to be a great deal worse if they lost Sakrknda. They wouldn’t resort to any sort of mass destruction if it could be avoided.

“They’d kill a sizable number of Galactics if they did,” he said, instead. He’d have to make sure the aristocratic Tichck were taken into custody quickly, once the balloon went up, rather than letting them be brutally murdered by their servants. He understood the appeal, really he did, but the Tichck would serve better as hostages and shields than martyrs for the enemy cause. “They won’t want to take the risk, not if there is any other choice.”

He met Ash’s eyes. “There won’t be a better chance,” he said. “Do you want to move now? Or do you want to wait and see who wins?”

Ash looked back at him, evenly. The Subdo weren’t ignorant. They knew about the towering civilisation surrounding them, even though that civilisation regarded them as little better than trained monkeys. They understood how the galaxy really worked, on a level the Belosi couldn’t hope to match, and they understood the importance of switching sides at the right moment. If they timed it right, they’d be able to go to the Vesparians at the moment they still had something to offer, yet the Tichck wouldn’t be able to take a bloody revenge before it was too late. Riley could practically see the thoughts going through the alien’s head. If they moved too soon, they would be naked and exposed; if they moved too late, they wouldn’t have anything to offer. And if all they did was weaken the system’s defences, to the point neither they nor the Tichck could hold the system, the Vesparians wouldn’t need to dicker at all. They'd just waltz in and take over.

“We will prepare to move,” Ash said, finally. “When will you be able to provide fleet support?”

“A fleet is on the way,” Riley said. He hoped that was true. They had planned it out, as best they could, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they got the message from Commodore Yasser. It was all too easy to imagine a hundred different things going wrong, from the fleet being trapped and blown away to a catastrophic drive failure at the worst possible moment. “Once it arrives, we will be able to provide fleet support.”

And admit we have nothing to do with the Vesparians, he added, silently. The concept of hiding the truth was hardly a new one, but the Subdo were experienced enough to guess what they weren’t being told. Once the shooting starts, it will be too late.

He put the thought aside as they started to work through the list of possible targets. Riley would have preferred to keep the operation as small as possible, with only a handful of people involved, but that wasn’t going to happen. They had to seize the fortresses, the command centres and as many starships as possible, then run down a long list of second-order targets that had to be captured before the enemy had a chance to rally and counterattack. The communications network could be taken down briefly, isolating the enemy positions, but they needed the network themselves. Riley thought the Tichck wouldn’t risk destroying the datanodes themselves, yet … if they had a sharp commander, they might do just that. The core data centres would have to be taken down too.

His lips twisted. Once, years ago, he’d read a book describing a perfect invasion … one where so many advance teams had done their duty, without being intercepted, that it was clear the writer had never served in the military. They had even more targets to take out, targets that were controlled by a race that knew it was in the middle of a war. Sakrknda was a long way from one set of front lines, true, but the Belosi were only a handful of transits away. Riley would be surprised if even half if the planned strikes came off as intended, no matter how little the Tichck thought of the Subdo. There were just too many things that could go wrong.

As long as we get control of the fortresses, everything else is gravy, he told himself firmly. And even if a handful cannot be overwhelmed …

He put the thought aside as they went through the planned uprising. The Tichck were looking for modern weapons, which ensured they’d miss the primitive arsenal the Subdo had sneaked through the defences. There were a whole host of tricks from Old Earth that would give them a very hard time, although not all would be effective. Projectile weapons were too primitive for the sensors to note, unless they were specially reprogrammed, but gas would trigger all kinds of alarms even if the precise mix was unknown. There was no point in trying to be too clever, he told himself. They had to keep it as simple as possible.

“We can make it work,” Ash said. The alien sounded both determined and worried. Riley didn’t blame him. The Firelighters could vanish, if the shit hit the fan and destroyed it, leaving the Subdo to face the wrath of their masters. “If we have time to get everyone in place.”

“We can do it,” Riley assured him. “As long as nothing happens to put them on alert, we should have no trouble.”

He signed inwardly, reminding himself not to tempt fate. Rebel movements were rarely composed of trained soldiers, or even coldly rational thinkers who knew better than to let their emotions interfere with their judgement. They were the youngsters who had nothing to lose, or the wounded who had lost friends and family to their oppressors … Ash, for all his clear cunning and determination, was hardly a typical Subdo. Riley could easily imagine a Tichck giving a Subdo a lashing, purely because he was in a bad mode, and the Subdo drawing a gun and opening fire. Or worse … he had lost track of the number of operations, for America and the Solar Union, that had gone wrong because someone had jumped the gun. Or because they couldn’t handle waiting any longer. Or even because someone on the other side did something horrible and the rebels moved to intervene …

It was hard to blame them, sometimes. But that didn’t make it any easier to take.

And there is never any guarantee of success, he thought coldly. The Solar Union, thankfully, was a little more aware of the realities of the universe than the former United States government, but even Solar politicians had a tendency to assume that everything could be carefully planned, worked out so perfectly there was no room for anything to go wrong. This could easily end in complete disaster.

***

“Admiral,” the operator said. “We have made transit into Sakrknda.”

Admiral Veetacore scowled as the fleet passed through the defences, the security sweeps painfully slow even though there was a war on. A bigger war … she had sat on the gravity point for weeks, cursing the Belosi every time they launched a wave of missile pods through the twist in space-time, waiting for the reinforcements she knew, now, were never going to come. The Belosi were a formidable opponent, far more than her superiors cared to admit, but they didn’t have the firepower to force the gravity point and march all the way to Tichck Prime. The Vesparians, on the other hand, were truly dangerous. They had so many ships they really could win the war.

“Set course for Point One,” she ordered. “Wait until they clear us to proceed, then move out.”

She scowled as she noted the laxity, mentally composing a report to her superiors. Sakrknda was far behind the lines, and heavily defended to boot, but they’d thought the same of Belos and look what had happened there. The defenders needed to sharpen up quickly, before someone – anyone – attacked the system. Veetacore had no illusions about just how many neighbouring powers were sharpening their knives, as word spread of the newborn war. The odds of one or more joining the conflict, or at least using it to extract concessions, were already high … and they’d keep rising as more bad news flooded the newscasts. Veetacore was too experienced a naval officer to believe the taller stories – the Tichck could not have lost a million ships in a single engagement, for the very simple reason they didn’t have a million ships – but she was also an experienced political operator and she knew shit tended to stick because people wanted it to. The neighbouring powers hated her people. They wouldn’t bother to waste much, if any, time fact-checking. Why should they? They wanted to believe the Tichck were losing the war.

Her eyes narrowed as the fleet glided into motion, heading through the defences and out into clear space. She had family on Sakrknda, family she hadn’t seen for years … she was almost tempted to order a layover, long enough to give her crews some leave and, just incidentally, see her family before she returned to the war. She was honest enough to concede, at least to herself, that she might not survive her next engagement. If she died without seeing them … she dismissed the thought a moment later. Her career might not survive, if she acted in such a selfish manner, even though everyone knew everyone did it. Everyone of power and influence, at least …

The starship shuddered as she dropped into FTL. Veetacore downloaded the latest set of updates, all heavily encrypted to the point that even the Tokomak were unable to decipher them quickly enough to matter, and scanned them quickly. The news was a mixture of good and bad. Ta-Conk had been taken and, so far, held – she reminded herself the message was weeks out of date – but the invasion had been costly and the battle to keep the system costlier still. A number of other border systems had switched hands several times, no doubt to the confusion of the locals who had welcomed one side, then the other, then the first again … Veetacore snorted in dark amusement. The locals would be in some trouble, no matter who won the war. The Tichck would punish anyone who wasn’t loyal and the Vesparians, of course, felt pretty much the same way.

She frowned. The final update spoke confidently about a glorious march to Vesperian Prime, but it was written in such a manner she was sure the sender had never served in the military. She could read between the lines, and that told a very different story. If her fleet was being summoned home, and other fleets were being concentrated, and industrial nodes put on alert to churn out everything from missiles and missile pods to new starships and assault shuttles, it was clear the Consortium was gearing up for a long war. She wondered, grimly, just how many of their stockpiled weapons and supplies had already been expanded. If she’d learnt one thing over the last year, it was that combat was always more expensive than predicted … and the Vesperian War was being fought on a far larger scale. The expenditure had to be colossal.

Another shudder ran through the ship as she dropped out of FTL and glided towards the gravity point, her fleet joining the endless stream of warships, freighters and courier boats heading elsewhere as quickly as possible. Other transports were entering the system, some clearly conveying the families of the wealthy and powerful … she felt a frisson of anger at how they were being moved out of the line of fire, while so many others remained in danger. It didn’t speak of high confidence, not in any real sense. The Consortium pretended otherwise, but it was clearly fighting for its life.

We will win, she promised herself. The Vesparians were powerful, but they had provoked a great power. Their stunt with the Belosi had been good, yet not good enough. She freely conceded it had been costly, and they had paid for their lessons in blood … but they had learnt them. The Vesparians had no idea what was coming their way. And after we beat them, we will reshape the galaxy to suit ourselves.

Moments later, her ship passed through the gravity point, leaving Sakrknda behind.

 

Chapter Thirty

Elton tried not to irritate his crew by prowling the decks like a tiger that wanted to escape the bars and was just waiting for a chance to dart past the zookeepers and out into the open air, but he had the nasty feeling he’d failed. Their flight path was taking them dangerously close to a number of enemy systems, all of which would have the sensors to detect his fleet’s passage even if they didn’t have the time to do anything about it, and he was uneasily aware that they might realise what he was doing and send a warning up the gravity point chain before his fleet could arrive at Sakrknda. They were already out of touch with current events – and the one time he risked sending an intelligence ship into an enemy system brought back nothing beyond obvious propaganda – and that meant they might be flying straight into a trap. Or worse. He’d gone through the whole plan time and time again, testing his assumptions as carefully as possible, and yet he knew it was impossible to predict how alien mentalities might react. Hell, he had enough trouble with his fellow humans. Most people were predictable, but some were just insane.

There was no distraction, not for him. He couldn’t lose himself in a book, or a VR sim set in an utterly unrealistic world, not when he knew what was coming. He kept the duty crews on alert – the risk of being yanked out of FTL was small, but not zero – and ran the rest through endless drills, trying to practice for every possible outcome. They would hate him soon, if they didn’t already, but they were far from human space, far from any help … at least, any that would arrive quickly enough to help. The long-term plans had called for a more open deployment, when the Solar Navy could spare enough ships to be sure of holding Belos and preventing a wider war, but God alone knew when that would happen. It would be a tangled web, to be sure, and he had the nasty feeling the game would be up when the Tichck and Vesparians compared notes … perhaps they could blame everything on rogue Tokomak. Their gerontocracy had kept a number of capable and cunning youngsters down, at least until it was too late to save their society from a losing war. No doubt some would want to rebuild their power base, and it was hardly as if they didn’t have access to their own ships. They could certainly provide all the support the Belosi would need to reclaim their homeworld, and they were arrogant enough to try.

He made a note of it for later consideration and resumed his work, desperately trying to distract himself as the fleet neared its destination. Sakrknda was an important system and the Tichck had gone out of their way to ensure nothing bad happened to it, which probably meant they had outriders near the system just waiting for an incoming fleet. Elton had given orders for the fleet to drop out of FRL quite some distance from the system, although he had no idea if they’d be far enough to remain safe. The Tichck had proven themselves capable of duplicating at least some of humanity’s innovations. If they had LinkShips too …

They would have used them to spy, then smash the fleet before we could redeploy, he told himself. They don’t have LinkShips. Not yet.

A low quiver ran through the battlecruiser as she dropped out of FTL. Elton took a breath, his eyes flickering to the nearspace display. An ambush was statistically impossible, to say the least, but he dared not write the possibility off completely. The Tichck had surprised him once … he shook his head, feeling a flicker of irritation. It was one thing to underestimate the enemy and get his fleet hammered, it was quite another to start overestimating him instead. The Tichck were not gods, and they lacked godly omniscience. And they had too many other problems to worry about tying up a fleet for weeks, waiting for an incoming attack that might never materialise.

The intercom bleeped. “Sir, we have arrived at Point Asimov,” Patel said. “Local space is clear.”

“Good,” Elton said. “Contact Galactic Trader Beowulf. Inform her she is cleared to proceed.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Keep the fleet at Yellow Alert,” Elton added. It was unlikely they’d have to rush into the system, without an hour or two of warning, but he knew better than to take the risk of neglecting important precautions. “Run through the maintenance and repair cycles as quickly as possible, then keep us on two-hour alert. If anything changes, I want to be ready to move.”

“Aye, sir.”

Elton closed the channel, then keyed his terminal to bring up the starchart. The fleet was holding position in the trackless wastes of interstellar space, close enough to Sakrknda to rush in when the shit hit the fan and far enough to avoid detection … he hoped. The gravimetric sensors hadn’t revealed anything that might be watching them, let alone signalling home, yet … he shook his head. The enemy were powerful, but they didn’t have unlimited ships. The Tichck wouldn’t waste time defending the jewel in their crown when the crown itself was on the verge of being lost.

“We wait and see what they’re doing,” he mused. “And then we strike.”

***

Captain Samra Wiseman kept her face under tight control as Galactic Trader Beowulf slipped closer to Sakrknda, aiming directly for the planet and the megastructure surrounding it. The inky darkness of FTL blinded her, making it impossible to tell what might be waiting for her ship, but … she told herself, firmly, that their cover hadn’t been broken. She didn’t know if the Tichck in one system had reported the presence of her ship to another, giving them a chance to wonder if her ship’s arrival before an attack was a coincidence or something more sinister, but they’d taken the precaution of changing their IFF codes anyway. On paper, there was nothing connecting them to an identical vessel that had called in at Ta-Conk; in practice, she wasn’t so sure. They had done what they could to change the markings on their hull, but she was painfully aware it wasn’t enough.

She let out a breath as the freighter shuddered out of FTL. The display lit up like a Christmas tree, noting the presence of everything from a small fleet of warships to a cluster of giant orbital fortresses holding station above the Ring. She frowned as she counted the warships – fewer than she’d expected – then the freighters coming and going at a surprisingly high rate. The Ring had giant fabrication nodes, she reminded herself, and they’d probably been switched completely to war production. Humanity had discovered how easy it was to burn through an entire stockpile of surprised, in the last five years, and the Tichck had probably learnt the same lesson. The real challenge would be getting the war materials to where they were needed. It didn’t look as though they were organising convoys. They could be massively inconvenient, and she knew merchant skippers of all races hated them, but better to arrive late than not at all. Perhaps the Tichck had yet to realise that penalising traders for being late, because they had to wait for a military escort, was dangerously counterproductive. It was the sort of thing they’d do.

And so did many of the old governments on Earth, she reminded herself. They don’t have a monopoly on bureaucratic assholes.

“Captain,” Lucy said. “I have access to their datanet.”

“Send the signal,” Samra ordered. The advance team was supposed to be monitoring the datanet, using a set of very specific coding headers. She hoped to hell it had gone according to plan. The one time it hadn’t, the ship had come very close to being caught by alien security forces. “And then contact System Command, for permission to dock.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lucy said. There was a long chilling pause. “System Command has assigned us an airlock.”

“Helm, take us there,” Samra said. She hadn’t expected a reply from the team – the message was more to alert them to their arrival than to demand an immediate response – but it still bothered her. “Lucy, see if you can scare up some buyers.”

“Will do.” Lucy frowned. “They’re ordering us to wait for inspection, before we open the hatches.”

“That could take some time,” Forbes pointed out. “There are a lot of ships coming in to land.”

Samra frowned. Had they been rumbled? It wasn’t impossible. The Tichck might have noted something about her ship, something they’d missed … or they might just be trying to inspect as many vessels as possible now there was a full-scale war on. The Vesparians might be trying to send their own agents to Sakrknda, and that would be ironic, or one of the nearer powers might be doing the same. Her hand dropped to the panic button – a system that would flash-wake the stardrive, giving them a chance to get away at the cost of seriously damaging the drive – before she caught herself. There was no reason to assume the worst. The Tichck were probably inspecting as many incoming ships as possible.

“We’ll see,” she said. “Take us in to dock.”

The airlock remained firmly closed for nearly an hour, before the inspection team arrived. Samra spent the time studying messages spreading through the local datanet, mostly rumours of war and angry complaints about the new inspection regime. It was funny, she reflected, that conspiracy theories were a universal constant. There was a story about the Belosi secretly being an advanced race all along, and the Vesparians their slaves, and another that insisted the Belosi simply didn’t exist, that their existence had been made up to justify seizing their system. Quite why the Tichck would need to bother was not explained; the theorist seemed to have a habit of blocking anyone who pointed out the holes in his logic. Samra couldn’t help rolling her eyes. They were thousands of light-years from Sol and yet some things were very familiar.

The inspection team turned out to be Subdo, wearing uniforms that looked faintly comical and carrying weapons that definitely were not. Samra was surprised they were allowed to carry genuinely deadly weapons – most servitor races were limited to nerve jammers or other non-lethal devices – and she wondered if they were fakes, but there was no way to find out without doing something that would tear their cover into a thousand little pieces. The Subdo inspected their IDs, searched the entire ship in a manner that suggested they were going through the motions, then waved scanners over the entire crew. Samra resisted the urge to ask if they were going to buy her dinner afterwards. In her experience, inspection crews rarely had anything resembling a sense of humour.

“You have a cargo of plasma capacitors,” the inspector boss – at least, he acted like he was in charge – said. He eyed the datapad she’d given him as if it had somehow personally offended him. “You picked them up at Ozelaser, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Samra said. Plasma capacitors were hardly illegal, nor were they easy to trace. The inspectors would have to send a message to Ozelaser to check her backstory and that would take time they didn’t have. Unless they were already suspicious … she doubted it. They’d be waking up in a cell, wondering what had hit them, if the inspection team had any reason to doubt their cover story. “They were a cheap consignment …”

The inspector cut her off. “And why did you bring them here?”

“There aren’t many places I could have taken them where I’d be assured of a profit,” Samra said, truthfully. “And most of the ones within range were in the middle of a war zone.”

The inspector returned her datapad. “The military authorities will make you an offer of seventy thousand credits for your cargo,” he said. “If you accept, your docking fees will be waived and your crew will be given vouchers for a week’s entertainment on the Ring.”

Samra made a show of looking worried. Seventy thousand credits would leave her with very little profit. “And if I refuse?”

“Your cargo will be seized,” the inspector informed her. She had the sudden mental impression of a gangster laying down the law, although the alien didn’t look much like a human criminal. “There is a war on.”

“Then I accept your kind offer,” Samra said. She kept her voice flat, although she doubted the alien would be able to recognise human sarcasm. “When will the goods be collected?”

“You will be informed,” the inspector said. “You are cleared to enter the Ring. Your docking fees will be waived for one standard week.”

And you had better be gone by then, or else, Samra finished, as the inspector led his team out of the ship. Not that we have any intention of sticking around.

“Charming,” Forbes commented, after the airlock was closed and they did a quick sweep for bugs. “I thought they only screwed people legally.”

“It is legal, in a war zone,” Samra said, dryly. Galactic Law was a little vague on the matter, and there would probably be consequences if the Tichck tried the same trick on someone from a major power, but a smart lawyer could make a case that it was perfectly legal. They’d paid for the capacitors, after all, and they hadn’t really underpaid. “And they probably think they have little choice.”

She grabbed her coat and headed for the airlock. “Remain onboard,” she said. “If they arrive, give them the capacitors. If I don’t return or contact you within five hours, disengage and run. Don’t try to find me.”

“Don’t get lost in a VR brothel,” Forbes advised, dryly. “Or try a harmless electro-jolt.”

Samra shuddered in disgust. The Solar Union was a firm believer that people had the right to do whatever they liked, as long as it didn’t harm anyone else, but there were times when she thought there should be limits. She’d seen people who used implants to trigger their pleasure receptors, bathing in a sensation that made orgasms feel like nothing, and they looked like … like the addicts they were. The whole concept came from the Galactics – it was a universal pleasure, available everywhere – and it was one she felt should have been rejected. It was just too addictive.

She put the thought aside as she stepped through the airlock and walked through the security screening process. The guards didn’t seem to be very alert, and she could envisage a dozen ways to get contraband past them, but there were an awful lot of them. Subdo, mainly … she couldn’t tell if someone was being paranoid or if they genuinely thought that putting so many armed guards on duty would keep the Ring safe. She knew the importance of maintaining a show of strength – the more you looked ready to fight, the less chance of you actually being challenged – but there were limits. If someone pulled the trigger, the guards would be more dangerous to their peers than anyone trying to board the megastructure.

The interior of the Ring was depressingly familiar, although there was something in the air – a tension – that bothered her. The crews on shore leave were whooping it up, doing everything in their power to forget there was a war on. Sakrknda was quite some distance from Parnassus – and further still from the Vesperian border – but it didn’t feel that way. She kept walking, making her way to a specific bar. It was hard not to feel relieved when she saw it. The franchise was universal, and you could normally rely on finding one practically anywhere, but it wouldn’t be the first time something had gone wrong because they’d assumed something that turned out not to be true. She ordered a drink and sat down, noting the lack of humans. It was a relief. If there had been a mistake …

“Get your coat, love,” a voice said. “You’ve pulled.”

Samra rolled her eyes as she looked up. “Does that line work on anyone?”

“Only the ones I want,” Riley said, with a shit-eating grin that threatened to become a leer. “I have a room, if you want to go up and fuck like the dog.”

“Sure,” Samra said, promising herself she’d strangle whoever had devised the sign and countersign when she got back to the fleet. “I can’t wait to be bent over and fucked up the arse.”

Riley dropped the act the moment they were alone. “The room is clean,” he said. “You can talk freely.”

“I think I’ll catch something just by looking around,” Samra said. The tiny room was designed for more than just humans. She didn’t want to think how many couples, from dozens of different races, had used it for a brief tryst and a shower before fleeing back to interstellar space. “You couldn’t find a cleaner room?”

“You know what I mean,” Riley said. He sat on the bed, in a manner that suggested he deserved a medal for bravery and foolishness. “No bugs.”

He cleared his throat, somehow seeming to loom even though he was sitting. “The fleet is waiting?”

“Yes,” Samra said, and ran through a brief outline she’d been told to commit to memory. “We’re ready. Are you?”

“Nearly,” Riley said. He held out a pair of datachips. “Intelligence updates, and a brief outline of what is going to happen when the balloon goes up. Make sure these don’t fall into enemy hands.”

Samra nodded, as she hid them in her pouch. Galactic civilian-grade encryption programs were almost pathetically easy to break, even if one didn’t use the backdoors their governments had forced their coders to include, and the security officers would be suspicious if they found something they couldn’t decrypt. It was a shame they had no time to devise a better cover story, perhaps something involving a corporation, but …

“The countdown has begun,” Riley said. “And then we will see.”

 

They should be wearing their dress uniforms, showing the crew they cared; hell, the crew should be in attendance, mourning their diseased peers

Deceased. Not diseased.

 

Chapter Thirty-One

Sarah felt, almost despite herself, as if she were crawling through the belly of a massive metal beast.

The maintenance section was immense, a tangled mixture of metal structures and deflective machinery that chilled her to the bone. The air stank of burning ozone and hydrocarbons, a hint all was not right with even the working machinery. She saw something move in the shadows and reached for her weapon, before realising it was a rat-analogue with an unpronounceable name. It made her smile, despite everything. The Galactics were advanced, and they’d been spacefaring longer than humanity had known fire, but even they hadn’t been able to stop the spread of small rodents, insects, and diseases. It wasn’t really funny. Her instructors had once noted that the introduction of rabbits to Australia would have been the most successful act of ecological warfare on record, if it had been intentional, and the Galactics had the same problem on a far greater scale. Who knew how many biospheres had been disrupted by accidental ecological colonisation? And how many worlds had been ruined quite deliberately?

She shuddered, despite herself. She’d seen the projections. There was very little time to save Belos – and, no matter how hard they tried, it might not be enough. The planet was changing, growing hostile to its indigenous species. The spacefaring Belosi might wind up being the last survivors of a doomed race.

The thought haunted her as she followed her guide through the maze, feeling uncomfortably like a small animal trapped inside a car. A handful of chambers clearly played host to the homeless and outcast, others were so suspiciously empty that she kept her hand near her weapon. There was an entire subculture of the poor and dispossessed, from spacers who had been kicked off one ship in a manner that made it impossible to get another posting to runaway servants and slaves, who thought begging in the gutters was preferable to serving their masters one moment longer. She had seen much the same on Earth, decades ago, and yet seeing it here was almost worse. The Solar Union had solved hunger and thirst, ensuring everyone had enough to eat … why hadn’t the Galactics done the same? Perhaps they needed someone to feel superior to, or …

Or perhaps their activists are no better than our own, she thought, darkly. It wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest. Ignorant rich kids of all ages, students without any real life experience … the idea they could do anything to create positive change was just absurd, even without grifters, criminals and petty tyrants grafting themselves to the movement and looting it while cloaking themselves in a façade of buzzwords carefully crafted to ensure that, no matter what they did, they would have the moral high ground. It was astonishing what people would overlook, or forgive, if it was for a good cause. You can no more expect a college student to solve poverty than you can ask them to snap their fingers and perform a magic spell.

She dismissed the thought as they clambered through a series of small tunnels and ladders, deep within the bowels of the Ring, and into a giant chamber. The scale made her head hurt, made her wonder – absurdly – if passage through the tunnels had shrunk her to the size of a mouse. The largest known intelligent species stood about two metres high, but the chamber seemed designed for a giant. She shook her head a moment later, her eyes wandering up to note the datanet trunk overhead. It looked as if someone had installed all the wiring and pipes in the ceiling, without bothering to seal it up again. They’d pay for that oversight today.

“Keep a look out,” she said, as she tapped her antigravity pulsar. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She felt herself wobble unpleasantly as she rose into the air, the oddly-shaped gravity fields – natural and artificial – running through the Ring meddling with her sense of balance. There was no other way to get up, not without a crane and some scaffolding and she didn’t have time … even if she could get her hands on it without triggering alarms. She had done what she could to determine what would and what wouldn’t trigger red flags – it was funny that she could easily obtain the gear to produce chlorine gas, but not modern blasters or even some computer technology – but it was impossible to tell just what would convince the algorithms to sound the alarm. The Galactics didn’t care for AIs, and their computers were designed to preclude the possibility of self-awareness, yet even dumb machines could be programmed to spot worrying patterns and flag them up for their biological superiors. Sarah was a brilliant chess player – she could have been a pro, if she hadn’t been in a far more interesting line of work – and yet a computer could still beat her ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Just because a machine couldn’t think didn’t mean it was useless.

The datanet trunk was suspiciously clean, with only a slight layer of dust. Sarah eyed it warily, her eyes flickering around the upper chamber and half-hidden compartments. She was alone and yet … she cursed under her breath as she landed on top of the trunk, pressing her hand against the outer covering. There weren’t many places they could access the network without being spotted immediately, but she couldn’t help feeling dangerously exposed. There were places in the warrens that were literally knee-deep in dust. Why was there so little dust her?

Perhaps they have maintenance robots make a sweep every so often, she thought. They’d heard tales of robots doing just that, cleaning out homeless enclaves as if the inhabitants were nothing more than trash to be shoved in the nearest bin. Or perhaps something isn’t quite right.

She tensed, hesitating on the brink of calling the whole mission off. Her instincts were screaming and yet … there was no obvious reason to be alarmed. Where else could they go? There weren’t many places within range and going back to one of the ones she’d used earlier was asking for trouble. Perhaps she could arrive transport to somewhere on the other side of the Ring … no, it might be noticed. The risk was just too high. She gritted her teeth and activated her implants, hastily generating an electron-tunnel that would allow her to interface with the datanet trunk. It opened up inside her mind, a vast ocean of raw data, operational commands, and everything from alien movies to outright porn. She wasn’t surprised. Some things were universal.

Her mind raced, her implants running through a series of pre-planned motions. A handful of datanodes were accessed, hacking programs uploaded and placed on standby; several pieces of data were wiped from the net, or carefully rewritten to create backdoors. The underground had done astonishingly well at obtaining the right access codes – and they’d also collected a great deal of data through simple observation – but there were some things that needed a master hacker. Her lips thinned as she downloaded a number of personnel datafiles, her mind flashing back to the first deployment to Belos. Hacking the military datacores would probably set off alarms, even if she did have the right codes, but she could make some very good guesses about their contingency planning from their personnel files. It was just a shame she didn’t have an AI to help analyse the output. No human mind, even hers, could keep up …

The guide shouted, his voice suddenly cut off. Sarah yanked her mind out of the datanet and rolled over, her implants switching automatically to combat mode as she fought to mentally steady herself. Her head felt as if she’d been slapped several times, the sudden disorientation threatening to send her plunging to her death. Alerts flashed up in front of her eyes … there were security troops below, milling under the datanet trunk? Could they see her? Did they know she was there? She held herself still, triggering a series of minor genetic enhancements. Her thoughts sharpened, the disorientation fading. She would pay for it later – there was a reason battle drugs were rarely used in combat, no matter what the manufacturers claimed – but right now there was no choice. Her senses expanded, picking up a dozen or more aliens below. Not Subdo. Or Tichck. She didn’t recognise the scent.

A drone whizzed past her, whining loudly. Sarah ducked as it shot a stinger pulse at her, then jumped to her feet and ran along the datanet trunk. A stinger? It wouldn’t kill her directly, unless they zapped her a few hundred times, but if she fell off the trunk she’d fall to her death. The drone came after her, spitting pulses of light that would give her a painful shock if they made contact. She triggered her implants, reaching out to hack the drone’s command signal … she realised, too late, that it was operating autonomously. She would have to destroy it manually and … new alerts flared up, an instant before she saw the aliens teleporting in on top of her. No, not aliens. They were human. Human mercenaries.

She cursed and jumped off the trunk, grabbing for the antigravity pack to slow her fall. The lower level spun below her … she thought she saw a safe place she could land, only to have a pair of mercenaries run in at once. She triggered the emergency alert, hoping and praying the enemy hadn’t managed to lock down the entire section, and forced herself to think. Her enhancements made her a formidable fighter, but they were well ahead of anything available legally. The mercenaries would know there was something wrong the moment they saw her fighting. Would they be loyal enough to the Solar Union not to rat her out? Or would they realise she was far more than just a passing spacer … not, she supposed, that that cover story would hold up now. They’d caught her trying to hack a datanet trunk. It wasn’t a harmless little prank like luring a drunkard into a hotel room and stealing everything he owned …

“Get on the ground,” a man shouted. He ran towards her, his gun pointed straight at her head. “Get down and …”

His comrade pointed a silver device at her. Sarah barely had a second to realise it was a suppressor field before he pulled the trigger, blasting her with a flash of green-blue light. Her legs buckled … if she hadn’t been on the ground already, she would probably have collapsed into a puddle. If her implants had been civilian … she gritted her teeth, telling herself it wasn’t over. They probably thought she was a mercenary herself, working for the Vesparians. Or the Belosi. As long as they didn’t realise what she really was …

They were taking her seriously anyway, she noted. Heavy cuffs and shackles, designed to imprison a cyborg … none of the silly games she knew from customs officials and other morons drunk on their power and authority. They checked her carefully, searching her without groping her, and then hauled her to her feet. Sarah gritted her teeth, trying to project the image of a dainty little flower. If they thought her harmless …

Riley will have got the message, she told herself. The mission came first, always, but she knew he’d do what he could to recover her before it was too late. And he’ll know what to do.

***

“What?”

“They caught Sarah,” Charles said. “Her guide is dead, or …”

Riley cursed under his breath. They needed Sarah. They’d inserted a number of time bombs into the enemy datanet, along with a few other surprises, but …

Be honest, he told himself. Is that all you’re worried about?

He cursed, again. There was a reason emotional attachments were frowned upon. Being loyal to one’s team was one thing, and he was honest enough to admit that loyalty had gotten him in trouble a few times in his long career, but actually fucking them … he told himself not to dismiss what they’d been doing so crudely. It was hard not to have feelings for Sarah, not after they’d worked together for so long. And that meant … fuck.

“Who caught her?” Riley forced himself to think. “And how?”

“Mercenaries,” Charles said, a hint of contempt in his voice. They’d both come out of a professional military and had little time for hired soldiers, even though a surprising number of Solar Marines had spent a term or two fighting for alien masters. It had been the easiest way to gain combat experience, back in the days the Solar Union could not afford to attract attention from the galactic overlords. “The bastards put out a call, and I guess those assholes signed up.”

“Fuck,” Riley said. The Tichck had hired every passing mercenary and spacer they could. He had considered signing up himself in hopes of getting close to their targets, although a quick check had revealed the Tichck intended to use the poor bastards as cannon fodder. “Do they know who and what she is?”

Charles made a face. “They’d have to cut her open, to be sure, but …”

His voice trailed off. Riley understood. Sarah’s implants were designed to be deceptive, and if she’d been caught in a civilian area the pretence would probably have gone unquestioned, but they’d caught her in a restricted area. Sort of … maybe no one would have cared, much, if the Tichck hadn’t been at war. As it was … they already knew there was something odd about her. If they cut her open …

If they cut her open, they’ll trigger her suicide protocol, he thought. And that will be far too revealing.

“We need to move, now,” he said.

He thought fast. Time wasn’t on their side. Sarah wouldn’t talk – her implants wouldn’t let her, no matter what her captors tried – but her mere presence was all too revealing. He dared not assume the enemy CO was a REMF more interested in pleasuring himself than doing his job, not in the middle of a shooting war. The bastard lost nothing by declaring a security alert and changing all his procedures and protocols at short notice, even if no invasion force materialised. A careful check would reveal evidence that someone had been planning something and that would be disastrous. The enemy would nip the plot in the bud.

“I’ll speak to Ash, then Captain Wiseman,” he said. “You see if you can figure out where they’ve taken her. And then we’ll get her out.”

Charles nodded, without showing any hint of disagreement. Riley had expected it. Sarah had been a teammate for decades, and she’d saved their lives time and time again. They owed it to her to get her out, preferably before her captors could figure out the truth. And if their superiors objected ... fuck them. Riley could save his teammate and carry out the mission.

Ash was in his chamber, his face grim. “They know about us?”

Riley hesitated. In truth, he didn’t know. Sarah had been caught … had she been betrayed, or had she made a mistake, or had it been simple bad luck? There was no way to find out.

“They might,” Riley said. “We have to move, now.”

“We’re not quite ready,” Ash protested. “If we move …”

Riley allowed an edge to slip into his tone. “They caught one of our operatives,” he said. “They know something is up. If we give them time to start checking for other problems, they will uncover our tampering and expose our agents. Once they know what you’ve been planning … how do you think they’ll react?”

Ash glowered. He didn’t need to answer. The Tichck would react with uncompromising brutality. They’d evacuate their sections of the Ring, then open the airlocks and vent the entire atmosphere into space. It would kill millions, but the revolt would be over before it could truly begin. The remaining Subdo in Tichck space would be wiped out, even if they’d had nothing to do with the revolt. The Galactics had done it before. They would do it again.

If we give them the chance, Riley told himself. We mustn’t.

“I …” Ash paused. Riley understood, all too well. Millions of lives were at stake. If they gambled and lost, they’d lose everything. But if they won … “Very well. We move.”

Riley nodded. “Your people will know freedom.”

And he hoped, as he sent the first set of orders, that he wasn’t lying.

***

“Get in touch with System Command, ask for permission to depart,” Samra ordered, striding onto her bridge. The message had been carefully written to confuse everyone who didn’t know the code, but to her the meaning was very clear. The balloon was about to go up. The fleet had to be placed on alert. “Get the drives online. We’re leaving even if they don’t give us permission.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lucy said. “You think they’ll make a fuss?”

“Probably.” Samra knew it would be tight. The locals would be reluctant to fire weapons so close to the Ring, but they’d have bare seconds to get into FTL – the moment they were clear of the megastructure – before they were blown away. “One way or the other, we won’t be back.”

“You can say that again,” Forbes put in. “Drives online, ready to leave.”

“We are cleared to depart,” Lucy said. “They’re bidding us farewell.”

“And probably hoping we’ll bring them some more crap they can steal,” Forbes said, dryly. He had been a merchant trader before joining Solar Intelligence, and he felt the loss of their cargo keenly even though it wasn’t as if they had to worry about operating expenses. “Next time, you want to find them something that’ll explode the moment they run power through it?”

“I doubt they’ll want to see us again,” Samra said, as they undocked. “All hell is about to break loose.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Two

Senior Cleaner, Third Class, Soyjam kept his face carefully blank as he stepped aside to allow a trio of Tichck officers to pass, one kicking over his bucket and spilling water on the deck. Their laughter echoed down the corridor as they headed into the distance, revelling in the casual cruelty they were allowed to indulge without consequence. He was just a Subdo, one of a hundred million interchangeable cogs in an interstellar machine that existed solely to exploit everyone who couldn’t stand up to it, and there was no point in complaining about the way he was treated. He was painfully aware there were hundreds of workers who could replace him, at a moment’s notice, and if he were fired it would be the end of his life. The Tichck had long memories. Anyone who offended them would be lucky if they were only left to rot in the undercity warrens, the nightmarish homes of the poor and downcast.

He pushed his cart further down the corridor as more officers ran past him, pretending to be in a hurry. There might be a war on, but the nearest enemy outpost was several transits away and the young and ambitious were taking full advantage to demonstrate their determination to fight without the risk of actually being sent to the war. Soyjam was entirely sure a number of his tormentors had arranged their postings to ensure they wouldn’t have to fight a peer power, although it was hard to be sure. The Tichck insisted they had no peer powers.

His lips twisted into a dark smile. His skin was dry, rendering him permanently uncomfortable in an environment designed for his masters, and it had been too long since mating season, but there were advantages in being just a mere cleaner. His masters paid him no heed, except when they wanted to torment him. He spent his days pushing his trolley around, swabbing the decks and dusting the tubes and a hundred other mindless tasks that would have been better left to robotic servants, gaining an intimate knowledge of the fortress’s interior her engineering crews would have been hard-pressed to match. They would be shocked if they ever realised how much he knew, and how much more he’d come to understand in brief – furtive – meetings with the resistance’s agents. Or what he intended to do to them.

Another officer bumped into him, sending him sprawling. There was no apology, of course, not even a perfunctory and insincere muttering that could be anything from an expression of sympathy to a taunt. The officer hurried onwards, straight into an express elevator that would take him up to the command centre. Soyjam’s mood, already foul, darkened as he picked himself up and made his way to the maintenance elevator. It was dark and smelly, a reminder to know his place. His lips twisted as he pushed his cart inside. He was about to give them a lesson they would never forget.

A flicker of nervousness shot through him as the doors hissed closed. His people had been unlucky, perhaps not as unlucky as the Belosi but unlucky just the same. They had known enough to be more than just grubby little primitives, fit only for brute manual labour, and yet not enough to protect themselves. They weren’t allowed much, if anything, if their own; it was rare, although not completely unknown, for them to fly starships without another race’s supervision. They were cleaners and workers and security guards … no matter how intelligent he was, and how capable, he knew he would never get anything better. It wasn’t fair and yet … a shiver ran through his body, his spine flexing as he reached into his cart. One way or the other, the galaxy would never look at the Subdo the same way again.

The gun was in pieces, literally. He allowed himself a smirk as he slotted them together, then inserted the ammunition. It had been almost laughably easy to get the components through the security scanners, the last time he’d visited the Ring, and practice assembling them until he could do it in his sleep. The ammunition was a little harder, and he was uneasily aware it was very limited, but the datachips he’d been given would hack the fabbers, programming them to fabricate more ammunition for the strike team. His smirk grew wider as he replaced the gun in the cart, then schooled his face into a blank mask. He dared not let himself be caught now. The rest of the team would be moving into position, ready to strike at the appointed time. He could practically feel the seconds ticking away.

He stepped out of the elevator and looked around the command centre. The fortress’s CO was lounging on his throne, an elevated seat that allowed him to peer into the command pits without his subordinates – all Tichck – being aware they were being watched, at least until it was too late. Soyjam would have almost pitied them, if they hadn’t made a habit of taking their bad mood out on everyone they could bully safely, from their own juniors to the small army of non-Tichck who did the jobs the Tichck were too proud to do. A giant holographic display dominated the chamber, showing an endless stream of starships coming and going; it would have shocked and appalled the Tichck, he reflected, if they realised he knew how to read the display. It hadn’t been easy to get access to their training sims, but the underground had done it.

His eyes flickered to the security officer, sitting in an isolated bubble of his own. The little alien paid him no heed, his face turned away as he surveyed a young officer who didn’t seem to be aware he was being watched. A possible weak link? A traitor? A defeatist? Or someone whose reach exceeded his grasp? Or perhaps it was something sexual. It would hardly be out of character for a security officer to prey on his subordinates. Why not? The Tichck preyed on everyone who couldn’t resist. He felt the last seconds tick away and reached into the cart, his fingers tightening around the gun. It was time.

He brought the weapon out in one smooth motion and fired, putting the first shot through the security officer’s head. The sudden explosion of blood and bone surprised him – he’d been told the bullets had been designed to inflict horrific damage, taking out any implants as well as the officer’s brain and killing him instantly - but there was no time to reflect on what he’d done. The shot had been so loud he was sure it had been heard two or three decks below … he swung around and shot the CO through the head, then lowered the gun and started picking off the rest of the command staff. One tried to run for the elevators and got shot in the back, another had the wit to dive for a communications panel … the remainder just stared, their bulberous eyes opening even wider in the last moments before he gunned them down. The idea a Subdo could prove dangerous …

Soyjam chuckled, despite himself, as the last officer died. His people would be doomed if the plan failed, although they were scattered over dozens of planets and star nations, but even if they died they’d teach their so-called masters a lesson they would never forget. He checked the dead bodies to make sure they were truly dead – a couple were badly wounded; he killed them with his bare hands – and then slotted the datachips into the CO’s throne. The rest of the strike teams were already seizing the vital sections, using the fortress’s internal damage control airlocks to isolate the Tichck officers and crew and keep them from coordinating any sort of response. He tapped a command into the system, activating an automated lockdown command. The Tichck wouldn’t know what was going on, not until it was too late. If they followed orders, they would go back to their cabins and wait. They could be rounded up at leisure.

He sat in the throne and studied the display, revelling in the sense of finally declaring himself. It was forbidden for anyone, even another Tichck, to sit on the throne. The idea of a Subdo perched on his seat would drive the CO into apoplexy, if he had lived long enough to see it. His one surviving eye did look as if he’d been hit over the head with a shovel, although it was hard to be sure. Soyjam had been told the special bullets inflicted enough damage to ensure instant death, and the CO had been shot in the head, but … he hoped the alien had known, in his last few seconds, who had killed him. It would make up for the years of grovelling, of being kicked and pushed around and being treated as a fifth-rate worker, just because his distant ancestors hadn’t known spaceflight when their superiors arrived. His hand darted over the panel, promising himself the Tichck would never forget this day. If the rest of the strike teams had succeeded …

And even if they didn’t, he thought, their entire system will shaken so badly it will never recover.

***

The alarms howled, dragging Port Admiral Hammana out of a desperately-needed sleep.

He cursed as he staggered out of his sleeping nest, one hand slamming the terminal on his desk as he bellowed for his attendant to bring him a stimulant. The duty officer had better have a damn good reason for disturbing him, after a long day of training simulations and an evening spent tackling paperwork instead of relaxing or even getting some rest before the next set of orders arrived from the homeworld. Half his command had been stripped from him, officers and crews who’d thought they’d found a safe posting being sent to the war, and the other half was being reshuffled so heavily it was hard to say who should be at which posting. The chaos wasn’t unexpected – official bulletins stated the war was going well, rumour suggested otherwise – but the constant changes were making it hard for him to secure his positions and batten down the hatches. His superiors were issuing orders to individual officers, something that was technically against protocol, and some of those orders were contradictory or simply impossible. He couldn’t count on anything remaining fixed from day to day, and that meant …

His attendant, his face set in his race’s expression of perpetual stupidity, appeared with a stimulant and a breakfast bowl. Hammana snarled at the wretched slave as he hammered the terminal again, waiting for the duty officer to respond. The idiot should have been waiting at the console, ready for his call. Hammana was an admiral, the senior officer in the entire system. He should not have been woken for anything other than a major system-wide emergency. His officers knew it. Why weren’t his immediate subordinates doing their jobs?

A face appeared on the terminal, a young commander. Hammana blinked, feeling unease start to penetrate his daze. The youngster was so far down the chain of command that there was no way he should be in charge, not unless there had been a disaster on an impossible scale. And that meant …

“Admiral,” the commander said. Hammana couldn’t remember his name. The young man sounded as though he was panicking, desperately seeking a superior who could take the responsibility before it was too late. “Admiral, we have reports of shootings and bombings all across the Ring, and we’ve lost contact with all but two of the fortresses and …”

Hammana held up a hand, even as he fought to keep his face under tight control. Trouble on the Ring? It seemed impossible, but … he swore under his breath. They’d hired hundreds of thousands of mercenaries to bolster their numbers, aliens who would go to war and soak up enemy fire while they mustered their fleets, called out the reserves, and took the fight deep into Vesperian space. Had the Vesparians gotten to the mercenaries first? They were supposed to be under guard – no one in their right mind would trust mercenaries completely, they could easily be bribed into switching sides – but if they’d planned it carefully ... his heart clenched. There were no mercenaries on the fortresses, yet … what the hell was going on?

“I’m on my way,” he said. The odds were good the command network had been compromised, rather than the fortresses themselves. That would be an easier way to sow confusion, giving the mercenaries time to finish seizing the Ring and then declaring a stalemate, or to find a way to get onto the fortresses themselves. “I want you to …”

There was a flash of light on the terminal, an explosion, and then nothing. Hammana stared in complete disbelief. The command centre was the hardest target on the Ring, heavily guarded and carefully shielded … very few even knew where it was. And yet a bomb had gone off inside the centre? Horror ran through him. If …

Something moved, behind him. It was too late.

There was a brief moment of awareness, a sudden realisation he had been stabbed in the back by his loyal attendant, and then …

His awareness just drifted away.

***

It was annoying beyond words, Doloaia had always thought, that her father had accepted a posting to Sakrknda when she was just old enough to start making a name and a career for herself. The daughter of a senior corporate executive would have an edge when she reached adulthood and entered society, but it wasn’t in her people’s nature to respect someone – anyone – who had inherited their wealth, certainly not someone who hadn’t done anything with it. Other races pointed and laughed, and made snide remarks about self-made men who had built their corporations from their father’s millions, but it was how her people rolled. There was nothing wrong in being born with an edge, yet having that edge and doing nothing with it was unforgivable.

She sighed inwardly as she allowed her eyes to wander around the mansion’s hall. The crowd were amongst the richest and most powerful on the planet, but compared to the wealthy aristocracy of the homeworld they were practically trapped in poverty. There were none amongst them with any real ambition, not the fire that might take them straight to the top nor the willingness to work with others to accomplish a shared goal. Doloaia didn’t understand why her father was so comfortable with them, nor why he wasn’t trying to get back to the homeworld as quickly as possible. There was a war on. The opportunities for advancement were staggering.

And no one here is worthy of a moment of my time, she thought. She was old enough to start forming a family of her own, a cluster of adults bound together to raise children and build a small fiefdom of their own, but there was no point, not as long as she remained trapped on Sakrknda. Why can’t we go home?

A loud BANG echoed through the chamber. She looked up, nearly dropping her drink as she saw the line of Subdo coming down the stairs. They were carrying guns … guns? The weapons were inelegant, brutally blunt, and yet … they were carrying guns? The maidservants and the other household staff weren’t allowed to carry weapons … was she even looking at her staff? It was hard to tell. Without their uniforms, the Subdo all looked alike. There was no point in learning to tell the difference. It was just … pointless.

Her father stepped forward. “What is the meaning of this …?”

The first Subdo pointed the gun at her father’s temple. “You are our prisoners,” he said, pitching his voice so it could be heard throughout the hall. It sounded wrong … it took Doloaia a moment to realise it no longer sounded deferential, no longer conveyed the impression that the speaker was hers to treat as she pleased. “If you behave, your lives will be spared; you will be returned to your homeworld as quickly as possible, once the war is over. If you cause trouble, you will be shot.”

A rustle of pure disbelief ran through the chamber. Doloaia felt as if she had been punched in the gut. She had spent her entire life surrounded by Subdo, orbited by a halo of servants who were … who were just part of the furniture. There had been no reason to worry about them, no reason to consider them anything more than the pets she’d raised from birth to death. A wave of horror ran through her as she realised just how many Subdo had passed through her life, how many had been close to her as she bathed and slept and … just how interchangeable they’d been, how much she’d depended on their uniforms to tell them apart. Had her loyal servants been killed and replaced? Or … she didn’t want to consider the other possibility. The terrorists holding them captive might be her servants.

“This is absurd,” an older Tichck said. He was as dull as ditchwater, yet he had the nerve to stand up and look the terrorists in the eye. The authority in his voice was almost palpable. His tone made her want to obey, surely it would affect a natural servant from a servitor race. “Go back to you …”

The Subdo shot him. His body stumbled backwards, then crumpled to the floor. Doloaia froze, horribly. The idea of a Subdo so much as brushing against her was unthinkable, let alone striking her, but … she felt her legs buckle. The world had turned upside down. She offered no resistance as she was herded underground, into a makeshift prison cell. The entire universe had gone wrong …

And, deep inside, she feared nothing would ever be the same again.