Koban: When Empires Collide Read online

  “Sire, they say they just came from Home Den after conducting an attack on our space facilities after we left, and then followed us here. We do know our home system was attacked, and then the enemy left quickly. They say that while we traveled below the disk of the galaxy, they came here directly, to have time to prepare the first ambush while we paused to reorganize. How would they know all that if they were not the ones who attacked Home Den, and be ready for our arrival here?”

  “Let me hear the translation from the start.”

  He listened to the recording, and the Federation speaker finished by saying they would wait a short time for a reply. He was reluctant to talk to them, and was inclined to restart an attack, but the final words of the speaker forced him to reconsider.

  It had said, “Your home world is still unprotected. Only ten of us went there to talk. Many more of us will return if you fail to listen now. We will not be talking when we arrive there.”

  Thisster opened the same radio channel, and had his words in Slithan translated into the despised trumpeting of the Thandol. “You will not prevent us from laying waste to the planet of the Prada. Unless you and they surrender, and accept the rule of the Thandol Emperor.”

  The answer was prompt, and sharp. “We wanted to help you overthrow the Thandol, and fight along with you to weaken them. We offered this chance to the Ragnar, and are offering this to the Thack Delos. The Ragnar have not joined us, but they have not refused either. We have destroyed most of two fleets of the Thandol, in surprise attacks, both of which were larger than yours, or that of the Ragnar.

  “If you refuse to halt your attack here, the ships you see watching you will depart for Home Den, and you will need to explain why you left your pack mates undefended in their dens. Alpha pack will remain dominant at home if you stay here. Go home, and the Superior Predators may become the new Alpha pack. Stalkers of Sibalt losses here proved their unworthiness to lead. Decide now.”

  He grew enraged at this threat, yet it sparked his interest in elevating his pack, and the desire to protect his home den was strong. But they had challenged his leadership here, and his rage was winning. “We will eat your hearts, if you have them. We will defeat you, and kill your mates in their dens on that world you guard.”

  “That is what we thought you would say. There are new forces waiting there for you, including larger warships than you can possibly defeat, but the ships out here with me will now Jump to attack your home world, which you left helpless and undefended. Goodbye.”

  And without another word, or any warning, the ships gathered nearby, nearly half the size of his own fleet, winked out of this Universe.

  He turned to his Sensors Officer. “Look at their tachyon wake. What direction?”

  It was an agonizing moment as the data came in. “Sire, their track is in the direction of the Empire. It could be deception, and they may turn back.”

  Another sensor technician suddenly had important information to relay. “Sire. The ships near the Prada world have switched off their stealth. They must have done that well before their representative here first spoke to us, because of the time delay of light to reach us. We now can see them, and there are many more ships showing around the target world, including some with great size and mass, which we did not detect earlier. They have received reinforcements, and there are nearly as many of them there as we have in our reduced fleet. The smaller fleet that was watching us is still moving directly towards the Empire.” The last remark reflected the technician’s concern for their home system.

  Hormones surged, and a biological switch was thrown, and a new imperative replaced Thisster’s desire to attack his enemy here. The rage remained, but was refocused on the need to defend his den from another pack. An alien pack.

  Because the radio exchange had been open for all to hear, many ship commanders had already experienced the same hormonal shift as had Thisster, and they badly wanted to race home, to defend their unguarded pack mates and dens, from a clear and present danger. He met no resistance when he called for a return home, particularly from the cowed Alpha pack, who had lost so much today. They certainly did not want to risk additional losses at home.

  In a disorganized Jump, some ships rotated into their Jumps before the flagship AI issued the command override, to send them home in a coordinated formation. With only three tachyon transmitters and receivers available to the fleet, and no waypoints pre-established to communicate part way home, the ships of the fleet would be out of communication for the three days required to return to Den Home via the most direct path. The assault on One Land had ended.

  ****

  Mirikami sighed with relief. “Well, the water loaded Migration ships looked impressive, I guess. Huge and massive, along with turning stealth off for everyone, and the arrival of shuttles and patrol boats. It looked like we’d received reinforcements, and the Torki ships look gigantic and threatening from a distance.”

  “Tet, are you going to let Carson’s clanship taskforce, with Carol’s Scout squadron attached, travel all the way to Den Home?” Thad’s question revealed his worry that Mirikami was using a quarter of the Kobani fleet simply as a lure.

  “Yes. They’re going all the way to Den Home, but not just to ensure the Finth ships keep following them. I ordered them to immediately conduct fast ground attacks on spaceports, on Finth shipping, military production, ground forces, that big six-sided government building, and any other military targets that Carol’s squadron sighted, but didn’t have time to attack. They should beat the Finth Fleet’s arrival by nearly an hour.

  “Simply leading the Finth ships home, without conducting any sort of attack, won’t make an impression that will last. If there’s no second attack, they’ll consider us weak and afraid of them. I want to force the Finth to worry about home defense.

  “I don’t want Carson or Carol to reengage their main fleet. The clanships are low on missiles anyway. They’ll attack Den Home and New Den for no more than an hour, then, before the fleet arrives home, Carson will take his taskforce to Den 3, and Carol will Jump her squadron to Den 4. The Finth are damn well going to suffer consequences for doing the Thandol’s fighting for them. We’ll force them to permanently assign more of their fleet as protection for their four planets, which means those are ships they can’t use for attacks on us.”

  Sarge pointed out something he thought Mirikami had overlooked. “The Thandol and Finth won’t see Carol’s Scout squadron entering the Empire, if they’re spread out enough. But, they’re certainly going to see the clanships. Their travel monitors will probably be able to project where they’re headed. What if there’s a fleet of Smashers waiting for them?”

  “I discussed that with Carson and Carol. The Thandol probably won’t risk sending a fleet to defend the Finth for two reasons. The main reason is that the Finth were once betrayed and attacked by a Thandol Emperor, when he sent their entire fleet away for an attack, like this one. The Thandol know they never recovered the full trust of the Finth, and seeing a Thandol fleet approaching their home system before our ships arrive will trigger that old distrust.

  “I asked Maggi to Mind Tap the Thandol prisoners about their relationship with the Finth, and they think that history would likely lead the High Command to let the Finth handle their own problem, at least initially.

  “The second reason, is that we hurt the Thandol at Rogue 2, and the PU hit the ships they moved away from Rogue 1 to that new base. They probably think that was us. They had to pull thousands of spacecraft from normal Empire security and patrol duty of their own citizens, just to replace ships in fleets they had planned to send against us. They won’t want to trade very many of their own ships trying to reduce our yet unknown strength. Wearing us down is what they want the security forces to do.

  “For those reasons, I don’t think they’ll intervene immediately, unless the Finth swallow their pride and ask for their help. We only need to periodically attack each of the Finth worlds with a few Scouts to keep much of their fleet
at home. A handful of Scouts may be able to tie up half the Finth Fleet.”

  As a chronic complainer, Sarge rolled out a different gripe when his last one seemed addressed. “If the PU would shit, or get off the pot, we’d have their help in drawing Empire pressure away from us. If we hadn’t given them fifty Scouts, we could be hitting the Empire harder, or defending another of our planets. They conduct one lousy raid and then sit on their asses? Where are they?”

  Chapter 7: PU, a Nicer Smell

  “We need to get in this damn fight!” Bledso was exasperated. Her five decades in the navy made her long to go with the fleet. Assuming the fleet ever went anywhere. The “new toys” appealed to her greatly.

  President Strickland smiled at her VP’s impatience. “Adriana, you are still new to politics. Issues, like giving me authorization to mobilize and use our armed forces takes time and lots of debate. At least until both houses have talked the issues to death, or some dire emergency forces their hand to vote for what they know is required.”

  “Marlene, you know the Empire will deliver the dire circumstances sooner rather than later, and with the Federation stretched to the limit to protect their own planets, we can’t count on them coming to our aid again.”

  “Tanner’s World, as an independent Rim world that rejected joining the PU, wasn’t exactly our obligation to defend, even if we were preparing to defend them from a Thandol invasion. The Ragnar jumped the gun on the Thandol, and caught us with our pants down. The Federation wasn’t under direct threat of major attacks then, and I’m grateful they were available to drive off the Ragnar. It blackened the eyes of those LOR naysayers that opposed our preparing to defend ourselves, because they claim the Empire is a problem the Federation brought upon themselves, and doesn’t involve us.”

  “Yes, Mam. Then, thanks to your use of executive discretion after the attack on Tanner’s, you sent our new Scouts to teach the Empire the harshest lesson yet. Thanks to the gift from the Federation, our people clobbered the hell out of one of the Thandol fleets. That surprise strike, which the Emperor thinks came from some Federation base, unfortunately caused him to order all their security forces against them at the same time.

  “That’s on us. We owe them. Tell that story to the public. Everyone’s already cheering the Kobani for defending Tanner’s. They’ll cheer you for making the Empire pay an additional price for attacking Human Space.

  “You don’t think the LOR will accuse me of overstepping my executive authority on that raid?”

  “I just suggested that you should tell them, via a public statement, that it was retaliation for the Tanner’s attack by the Empire. The Ragnar aren’t an independent force. The emperor controls them. Most of the voting public will be on your side, just as they cheered the Federation’s victory at Tanner’s. The LOR will be reluctant to alienate those voters.

  “Besides, publicly showing them the images of the catastrophe those nine small Scouts delivered to the Thandol will boost navy morale, and garner pride in the public for what they accomplished.”

  “I’d have to acknowledge that we lost half the squadron in the process.”

  “Emphasize in your statement that wars always result in unavoidable losses and casualties. However, eleven small Scouts, and forty-one lost heroes, measured against the nearly four thousand Thandol ships, multiple repair and maintenance docks, several orbital stations, and the lives of many thousands of their military forfeited, for daring to attack Human Space. A damned high price for them.”

  “I suppose I’d better take your advice. It’s partly why I wanted you as a running mate, for your military background. The Thandol must now be aware we exist, and where more of our worlds are, even if they’re confused about who governs each of them.”

  Strickland was referring to reports from AI controlled navy monitor ships. They were watching for high level travel in Tachyon Space, using old navy patrol boats equipped with Federation provided instant tachyon wave communication units. Multiple boats had detected numerous tachyon wave traces of mystery ships, coming from the direction of the Empire. These were presumed to be Empire scouts, investigating Human Space. The craft had probed up to the boundary of the Hub worlds. The Empire clearly knew where many populated and highly developed worlds were located.

  “I’ll make that announcement when I make the State of the Union speech to the Joint session of Parliament. I have two weeks to work on that speech, and I’d like you to work with me on talking points. Let’s tie in the progress the navy is making with modifications of our heavy and medium cruisers. Perhaps Foxworthy can send some of them to Earth, for a demonstration of their new stealth. We can land ten of them quietly on Normal Space drives, over on the mall, fully stealthed. Then reveal them to Tri-Vid cameras during my speech.

  “I don’t suppose we can show off their increased performance with Kobani crews, now that we’ve removed the gel filled coffins we kept the old crews inside. Increased acceleration capability isn’t obvious watching ships maneuver overhead in orbit. Having them glow at sunset, like Mirikami showed off his clanships, would make them visible on orbit, but we don’t have four or five thousand ships ready yet. It wouldn’t be as impressive as his demonstration.”

  “Nor would copying his dramatic presentation have the same impact a second time. I suppose you could publicly tear the heart out of Senator Slagart on the capitol steps.”

  They both laughed for minutes after that crude remark, recalling the famous and dramatic fight between Mirikami and Telour, the Krall war leader. That fight had been recorded for posterity by dozens of Tri-Vid cameras, and rebroadcast several times a year. Usually, whenever Mirikami’s name came up, which was nearly every time the Galactic Federation was in the news. Slagart was Strickland’s staunchest opposition critic in the LOR. Her equivalent of a Krall warlord nemesis, without bloodshed thus far.

  Still smiling at the lurid joke, the president said, “I don’t think the LOR opposition would fall apart as fast as the Krall war effort did, but the Majority Leader isn’t that loved by her own party lately. They’ll probably lose three seats in the Senate and their majority of one. It’s a tossup if they can hold enough seats in the House to keep a majority there. If we get control of both houses, it would be the first that DEW had held all the reins of power since before the first Krall attacks.”

  Although a neophyte in politics, Bledso still understood the implications of DEW controlling the budget again. The military would get more of the new technology ships and weapons the Federation had made it possible to build. “We’ll know in four months, after the elections. Our having new ships, equipped with gravity projectors, will keep the Empire on their heels if they persist in trying to annex us.”

  Strickland was feeling optimistic. “Even without both houses, we have momentum on our side. I’d like you to contact Admiral Foxworthy, and ask her to send ten heavy cruisers just before my speech. Landing them the night before my address, with the mall cordoned off, they can sit there unseen until I announce our new naval capability. I’ll have my press secretary arrange for strategically located cameras to pan over them as they uncloak, one after another. The big wall screen in the chamber, behind you and the House Speaker, can show the Mall view to the assembly and the entire Hub, as the cruisers dramatically start appearing.”

  “That will make for a good show, but I hope you credit the Federation for sharing their technology with us. That removes the best argument the LOR had against them. Their military superiority. We’ll soon have as many Kobani converts in our military ranks as they have, and by opening Federation planets to settlement from Human Space, our populations are going to become as intertwined as our common interests. They insist that worlds in their space be ruled by Federation laws, allowing alien citizens to live on them if they wish, but colonists from here can hold dual citizenship, and travel freely between the Federation and the Planetary Union.”

  “Their alien citizens and their experience with advanced technology, still give the Federation
an edge when developing new innovations. President MacDougal just signed our negotiated trade agreement proposal, where their companies retain exclusive patent rights on their technology, but agree to produce and sell to us, or in many cases, license manufacturing rights to Hub and Rim world companies to produce the lower end small ticket items, which will reach the homes of average citizens. That’s smart, because they can’t produce as many tachyon powered toasters, Tri-Vid sets, and ovens, as our trillion people will want to buy, and they will still earn a portion of every sale.”

  Strickland said, “MacDougal says that with their currently low population, they will be sharing that taxed revenue with their citizens. Which will include every immigrant to a new colony that becomes a Federation citizen.”

  She added a prediction. “I believe we’re going to see a steady stream of our poorest citizens moving there. At least until the populations starts to equalize, in a few hundred years. They have thousands of planets in their huge volume, so Human Space will probably become the old country, to their people.”

  “Marlene, that will only happen if we avoid becoming vassals of the Thandol. Our shiny new ships, and our vibrant new Kobani service members have to join the fight soon.”

  “You can stop the sales pitch to me, dear. I bought into the concept before Tanner’s was hit. Now help me with a first draft of my speech. I have Foxworthy assembling an upgraded fleet, but I need to convince parliament to grant me approval to deploy it against the Empire. Unless they attack us first, of course. We don’t want to wait for that.”

  ****

  Three weeks later, Foxworthy told her her aide. “Please remind Bledso’s staff that I requested my ten ships returned after the publicity stunt. It’s been a week, and the members of the two houses have had enough time to visit them, talk to the crews, and take demonstration flights. The ships were only supposed to help the president make her point.