A Learning Experience 2: Hard Lessons (34 page)

Because we saw ourselves as invincible
, she thought, coldly.  What would happen to the Tokomak Empire, which was dependent on its vast fleet of warships, if someone produced a relatively cheap weapon that could smash a battleship without breaking a sweat? 
And black hole missiles would have altered the balance of power against us
.

“Continue firing,” she ordered.  “And take us right towards them.  We have to close the range.”

She tapped her console, issuing updates.  There were ways to deal with the black hole missiles that didn't involve panic, as long as they were used carefully.  Her crews might be shocked, but at least they weren't coming apart.  She silently thanked her foresight in ordering endless drills, then turned her attention to the battle.  Sooner or later, the humans would run out of tricks.  All she had to do was hold her fleet together until then.  And then she could jump back into FTL and continue the advance on Earth.

***

Yolanda gritted her teeth as the Tokomak advanced, clearly trying to either force the humans into a close-range engagement or escape the artificial gravity wells.  Either one would offer them a chance to turn the battle around, even though they were taking a beating.  The endless stream of updates, processed and analysed by the AIs, suggested that a number of Tokomak ships had actually lost their FTL drives.  If so, they could remain in place and harass the human ships while their compatriots attacked Sol. 

Freedom
shuddered as an antimatter missile detonated far too close to her shields.  Yolanda altered course randomly, as Commander Gregory picked off another two missiles that would have otherwise have posed a threat.  Thankfully, the combination of ECM and sensor decoys was making it harder for the Tokomak to target their weapons, or the humans would be in considerably more trouble.  Even so, the losses were starting to mount ... and they were running out of stolen missiles.

“Orders from the flag,” Commander Gregory said.  “We are to advance and harass the enemy.”

“Take us into the fire,” Captain Singh ordered.  “Random course changes, remember.”

Yolanda smiled, then plunged her mind back into the computer datanet until the ship was practically an extension of her own body. 
Freedom
seemed to brace herself, like a man waiting to bungee jump off a cliff, and then lunged forward at her command, weapons flaring with deadly light.  She twisted her flight path and lanced between two lumbering battleships, Commander Gregory launching torpedoes with wild abandon.  One of the battleships exploded, the other stumbled to one side, but kept firing.  Yolanda threw
Freedom
into a madcap series of evasive manoeuvres, then yanked the ship to one side as the enemy fire suddenly sharpened up.  Either they'd replaced the gunnery crews or they’d allowed their electronic servants to take over targeting ... it hardly mattered.  She whooped – not out loud, she hoped – and spun the ship close to her next target, dodging blast after blast of incoming fire.  The enemy ship was even hurling long-range missiles towards
Freedom
, at alarmingly short range.

“Keep us as close to them as possible,” Captain Singh ordered.  “But not too close.”

Yolanda frowned. 
Lightning
had already died, simply from accidentally ramming one of the giant battleships, destroying both ships in a single blast.  The Tokomak could keep trading battleships for cruisers and still come out ahead, even if ...
Freedom
shook violently as a phased energy beam struck her shields, sending her spinning through space.  Yolanda regained control and swung the ship into a different series of patterns, before the enemy could capitalise on their success and hammer her shields into nothingness.

“Aye, sir,” she said.

Commander Gregory kept firing, beams of energy raking the hulls of additional battleships as they lumbered onwards, trying to ignore the deadly gnats shooting at them.  It wasn't a bad tactic, Yolanda had to admit; they couldn't hope to catch the human cruisers if they tried, so they were attempting to escape the gravity field.  And the humans had to close in and enter weapons range if they wanted to kill the aliens ...

“New targets,” Captain Singh said.  “Alter course and engage.”

Yolanda fought to control the ship.  It was easier said than done, particularly as the Tokomak were altering their formation to allow more of their ships a shot at the gnats.  They were actually making it harder for her to enter close range ... she swung
Freedom
around, then powered her way right towards the enemy formation.  There would be a moment, she was sure, when they wouldn't dare fire on her because of the risk of hitting other ships.

You shouldn't have devised such a tight formation
, she thought, as she flew past the enemy vessels. 
It's not tight enough to stop me and too tight to let you fight back effectively ...

“Approaching new targets now, sir,” she said.  Alerts flared up in front of her mind.  “They’re locking weapons on us.”

“Launch the Marines as soon as we reach the closest point of approach,” Captain Singh ordered.  “And then pull us away from them.”

Martin
, Yolanda thought.  She had never wanted to pray, not since realising that the mercy and tolerance of her stepmother’s religion wasn't extended to mixed-race children. 
Please God, let him come through this alive
.

And then she dragged her attention back to the battle.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Scotland Yard today refused to disclose murder rates for London for the third year running, citing ethnic and religious concerns.  However, Tory Buckminster, the exiled leader of the British National Party, claimed that the murder rates were produced by ethnic cleansing, carried out by immigrant communities against outsiders.  The victims, according to sources within the Metropolitan Police, tend to bear out this assertion.

-Solar News Network, Year 53

Neola watched, feeling cold anticipation burning through her mind, as the gravity field slowly started to fade out of existence.  They’d taken losses, heavy losses, but most of the fleet was still intact.  Irritatingly, the humans seemed to have devised a way to separate the FTL-capable ships from the stranded ships, but it hardly mattered.  She still had enough firepower to reduce Earth to rubble.

If I don’t have enough missiles left
, she thought, as another human starship died in fire,
I can simply bombard the planet with asteroids until the population is dead and gone
.

“The human ships are converging,” the Admiral warned.  “They’re closing in on our formation.”

“Order the crippled ships to cover us,” Neola ordered.  There was no point in ordering them to fall back, not now.  Recovering the ships and their crews would depend on victory – and nothing else.  “And continue firing until we reach the edge of the gravity field.”

She watched, with cold amusement, as another ex-Galactic warship died.  The stars themselves knew just how many hands the ship had passed through before the humans purchased – or captured, or stole – it, but they’d modified the ship extensively.  There was no way to avoid the simple fact that humans were supremely disruptive, even when limited to Galactic-level technology.  Whatever her personal thoughts on the matter, there was no alternative.  The humans had to go.

“Only two more generators to go,” another officer added.  “Their gravity field is fading fast.”

Neola nodded, impatiently.

“Your Excellency,” a third officer said.  “They’re launching ...
something
... at us.”

“Show me,” Neola ordered.  What now?  She was on the verge of escaping the trap, of heading to Earth with thirty battleships, all reasonably undamaged.  Had the humans produced something new?  “What are they?”

“I don’t know,” the officer admitted.  “They’re coming towards us on attack vector.”

***

Martin felt sick.  The giant alien starship looming over him was unimaginably large, so huge he couldn't even
begin
to grasp just how immense it was.  His implants provided statistics, informing him that the ships was five kilometres long, its hull studded with weapons and sensor blisters.  It was so huge that, the closer he got, the more it swallowed up the rest of the universe.  And they were supposed to
attack
it?

“Combat interlink online,” Lieutenant Robbins said.  “Prepare for shield disruption.”

Martin closed his eyes as energy flickered over his suit.  The shield disruptor, they’d been told, would work ... but only at very short range.  There was no point in fitting it to a missile, the designers had said, yet they hadn't had any problem fitting it to a Marine Combat Suit.  He opened his eyes again, just in time to see the enemy hull falling towards him at terrifying speed.  His suit automatically compensated, saving him from smashing himself into a pulp; he touched down on the enemy hull and looked around.  There was something oddly impressive about the decorations carved into the metal, even though hardly anyone would ever see them.  The Tokomak were clearly more than a little anal.

He smirked, then flinched as darkness suddenly descended over the hull.  When he looked up, all he saw was an inky omnipresent darkness, so dark it seemed to capture the eyes.  He cursed, then looked back down at the darkened hull.  The Tokomak had made it back into FTL, going somewhere ... he’d bet they were headed towards Earth.  It was the only thing they could do, after the damage they’d taken.  They
had
to win or their reputation would be forever destroyed.

“There’s a hatch over there,” Robbins called.  “Follow me.”

Martin obeyed, linking his mind into the rest of the suits.  There were fifty-seven heavily-armed Marines on the hull, ready to break into the ship and try to take control.  But there should have been two hundred ... he wanted to check to see if the remainder had been diverted, or if their shield disruptors had failed, but he forced himself not to look.  There was nothing to be gained from checking, not now.

He followed Robbins to the hatch, then watched as she blew it open.  The outer airlock wasn't that strong, he noted; the inner airlock was broken.  It should have sealed itself automatically, but instead it just hung open.  Atmosphere started to blow out of the hull moments later, rushing past the Marines and out into the nothingness of FTL.  Martin wondered, absently, just what would happen to the ship if it lost power suddenly, then followed Robbins into the hull.  According to the plans they’d recovered from the first ship, they were less than a kilometre from the command core.

“They’ll know we’re here,” Robbins said, as the remainder of the Marines flooded into the ship.  Captain Lockland either hadn't made it or had been diverted to another ship.  “We have no time to lose.”

Martin nodded, then found a convenient datanode.  The alien tech was standard, without any flourishes; he inserted a hacking node, then waited.  If they were lucky, they could assert control of the ship without having to fight their way through small armies of aliens ...

***

“The ship has been boarded!”

Neola would have been shocked, but she was too tired to feel real emotion.  No one had dared to board a Tokomak ship since ... she shook her head, unable to remember when – if – it had last happened.  Certainly, it hadn’t happened by force for thousands of years.  The treacherous officer who had surrendered at Hades had allowed his ship to be boarded, instead of losing control to a landing party. 

“Isolate that section,” she ordered.  She should have brought a small army with her, she saw now, as well as just the ships.  But it was hard enough to convince enough young Tokomak to join the Navy, let alone the groundpounders.  They simply didn't have the manpower to keep the ceremonial regiments up to strength.  “And then ... and then arm the crew.  Get them to keep the section sealed off.”

“Your Excellency,” the Admiral said.  “None of the crew have weapons training ...”

“I imagine that was skipped too,” Neola scowled. 

She swore a silent oath to herself.  If she made it back alive, with Earth in radioactive ruins, she would make sure things changed.  There would be no more polishing the decks until they gleamed, no more carefully scripted exercises, no more scrapping of basic training while concentrating in ceremonials.  And if the Old Ones complained, she would force them to see just how badly out of touch they were with the galaxy.  They had to understand that the universe was changing and, even if the humans died, nothing would ever be the same again. 

“Then give them weapons and hope for the best,” she ordered.  “And shut down all, but essential systems.  We don't want them to subvert our computers.”

“That’s impossible,” the Admiral said, hotly.

Neola met his eyes, glaring him into submission.  “Would you bet your life on it?”

She pressed on before he could answer.  “Shut down all, but essential systems,” she repeated, angrily.  “They’ve shown us too many unpleasant surprises for us to take them lightly.”

Four hours to Earth
, she thought, as her subordinates scurried to do her bidding. 
Their fleet will give chase, of course, but unless their stardrives are faster we will get to Earth first.  And then we can bombard their world into submission ... or destroy it completely, leaving the rest of their race to die.

***

“No joy, Lieutenant,” Martin reported.  “Their system is secure.  The RI believes it will take at least seven hours to crack the locked datacores.”

He cursed under his breath.  BRUTE had far more processing power than a mere RI, along with the spark of intuition that came with being an intelligent entity in its own right.  But BRUTE was cut off from them by the FTL drive.  There was no way they could reconnect before the ship arrived at Earth.

“Then we take the ship by force,” Robbins said.

She started to issue orders, quickly and decisively.  The Marines abandoned the airlock – there was no point in leaving a rearguard, as they would either win or lose – and advanced forward into the ship.  No resistance greeted them, which made the Marines nervous.  Chatter slowed to a halt as they moved from compartment to compartment, scattering nanotech drones ahead of them.  The ship might feel hauntingly empty, but they were sure the enemy was waiting for them somewhere. 

Martin couldn't help thinking of the last time they’d boarded a Tokomak ship as he looked at the decor, but this ship’s commander was even more obsessive about decorating his vessel.  Strange pieces of artwork were scattered everywhere, in line with an aesthetic that was very definitely alien.  Some of the pieces were understandable, others might as well have been alien pornography for all he knew.  The paintings, hanging from the bulkheads or lying on the deck, shaken loose by the bombardment the ship had taken, were just as eerie.  He wondered if they had some deep meaning to the Tokomak, or if the ship’s commander was nothing more than a collector for the sake of collecting.  There was no way to know.

“The nanotech drones have run into killer clouds,” Corporal Henderson reported.  “We don’t have any sensor access past the next compartment.”

“Which means the enemy are probably setting up their ambush there,” Robbins said.  “Douglas, Williams, Patel; you’re on point.  Go right through them.”

Martin nodded, then slipped up the corridor.  The lights were flickering and flaring, although he wasn’t sure if the ship was losing power or if the aliens were trying to disconcert their unwanted guests.  Either made sense ... he glanced at the internal display, checking on the progress of the hack, but the RI hadn't managed to get any further into the system.  He sighed to himself, then hefted his assault rifle and selected the grenade launcher.  The killer cloud was right ahead of them ...

A chill ran down his spine as alerts flared up in front of his eyes.  Nanomachines were so tiny that they could slip between atoms; the thought of an entire cloud of invisible machines waiting to devour him was terrifying.  His suit was protected, as was his body, but he’d been warned more than once that no defence was perfect.  He wanted to close his eyes again; instead, he forced himself to walk forward.  The alerts faded moments later ... allowing his suit’s sensors to pick up the sound of heavy breathing directly ahead of them.  There were at least a dozen Tokomak waiting for them.

It wasn't a bad spot for an ambush, he realised, if a little amateurish.  The passageway was thin enough to force the Marines to walk one by one, straight into the teeth of enemy fire.  It would have worked too, he told himself, as he lifted the grenade launcher and fired four HE grenades into the ambush, bracing himself for the shock.  There was a colossal explosion as all four grenades detonated; he forced himself to run forward, weapon aimed and ready to engage any enemy targets.  Most of the Tokomak were dead or stunned; he killed the remainder, then moved on to secure the edge of the corridor.  A line of Tokomak appeared out of nowhere, carrying a handful of weapons, and charged right at him.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Williams said.  “They're not even
bothering
to think about their tactics!”

“Or they’re expending expendable crewmen to force us to waste ammunition,” Robbins said, coldly.  The remainder of the Marines came up behind Martin, then fanned out.  “We can’t use their weapons, remember?”

Martin nodded.  The Tokomak were remarkably careless with their starships, but much less so with their personal weapons.  It was a mystery why they were prepared to install ID software on their weapons, rather than their starships, yet in the end the reasons didn't matter.  All that mattered was that Robbins was right.  They couldn't count on using anything they captured from the ship’s crew.

“Then we press on,” Robbins said.  “And hurry.”