Opening Moves (64 page)

Toklamakun, Dominion Occupation Authority Orbital Command Post

Early September, 2797 C.E.

A few months ago the orbit of Toklamakun had been the marshaling yard for the Dominion's great offensive. Today, little was left of the euphoria that had held them all in its grip. Today, the space around the dry, dust-covered world was the largest scrapyard in the galaxy. All of the Navy's ten mobile dockyards were present and working day and night, as were the fixed installations the Dominion had established shortly after its conquest of the world below. Even now the Makani, in their work camps, busily exploited what little was left of the planet's natural resources in return for the illusion of their race's continued survival, measured in a ratio of two kilocalories per day per living – and working! – Makani.

Corr'tane didn't really care for the natives unless he used them for his experiments. What he did care about were the hundreds of wrecks and barely flightworthy ships crowding the space around the large command post. He felt as if the first months of combat had almost entirely bled them off the numerical advantage the Navy had been able to amass during the past ten years. He had seen that coming almost from the first day of combat, and in turn had ordered his own forces to salvage every halfway useful hulk after their engagements, regardless of its original owners. The Navy soon would need more ships than the yards at home could supply, and victory didn't care if it was achieved in a vessel that had been built in the Dominion, the Clanholds or the Érenni Republics.

Most other strategoi had scoffed at the idea. Come to think of it, they had scoffed at a lot of things he had had to say after their failed campaign against Akvô. He hadn't made new friends in that meeting; that much he was certain of. But that was the price one had to pay for shattering illusions. Like the one that this was going to be a short war.

He stared out of the wide panorama viewport, lost in thought. Tens of thousands of tugs and repair drones were buzzing around between the wounded ships. Like skyscrapers in space, the mobile dockyards towered over all of them, visible even from a hundred kilometers and more away. Encompassing almost twenty cubic kilometers and massing thirty million tons they were the largest artificial constructs in known space ever to be moved between systems. They shared nothing with the predatory aesthetics of the warships that crowded around them.

Swirling the old, amber brandy in his glass in one hand, the other hand balled into a fist behind his back, Corr'tane's eyes followed the battered hulk of a cruiser as half a dozen tugs pulled it past the station and towards one of the yards. The damage to it didn't give him much hope that more than a handful of the crew had survived its last encounter with the enemy. His face tightened. So much waste...

Turning from the view of the wreckage outside, his eyes pierced the twilight of the large suite he called his own. Captain Pryatan sat in a cushioned leather armchair, a glass of brandy in her hand, too. She studied him curiously.

The two of them got along rather well, Corr'tane had realized. She was intelligent, dutiful, capable, and an independent thinker; a quality he had found to be lacking in too many of her – and his – peers as of late. That she was easy on the eyes was something that only gradually found its way into his focus. He took a sip of the golden liquid. It burned down the back of his throat with sweet intensity, and he momentarily closed his eyes to savor the feeling.

“Isn't it a mystery? Life?”

“
Sir?” Pryatan tilted her head.

“
The people who made this drink for their own kind evolved on a world close to three hundred light-years away from our own home. Their sun is different from ours. They are herbivores, accustomed to a life by and in the sea. Their bodies have two stomachs; their whole physiology is different from ours. And still, we omnivores who evolved on sunbaked plains over a quite different period of time, can enjoy their neatly distilled drinks, their food even.” He raised his glass. “Life always finds a way, it seems. You know, when I was younger I put all my efforts into unlocking ways to enhance our people's lifespans. I looked for ways to eliminate diseases, to help people.”

Corr'tane stared out at the husks of ships in which thousands had perished. Strangely enough, they symbolized his greatest triumphs, as they had been there when he had unleashed his creations into enemy biospheres. He had twisted his efforts and desires to serve different needs, and he enjoyed the intellectual challenges. “Strange, given what I've been doing these past ten years, don't you think? But to master death one needs to find an appreciation for life and its mysteries first.”

Pryatan remained silent and he took another sip of Érenni brandy, closing his eyes again. When he finally exhaled and opened his eyes again his shoulders sagged.

“
What a mess,” he sighed wearily, feeling the burden and fatigue of the past months. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy. It's one of the basic tenets of military planning. Or rather, should've been. What a mess,” he repeated, looking over his shoulder at the floating scrapyard. “The biggest offensive in history, the most important task ever to be started for our people, and we've already almost bungled it.”

“
Sir?” Pryatan's eyebrows rose in surprise. “We stand deep inside the Clanholds' territories and have almost eliminated the Republics as a nation. With all due respect, sir: that doesn't look like a botched operation to me.”

Corr'tane gave her a tired but appreciative smile. “True, but there are degrees of failure. Our overconfidence has cost us dearly. Too many of our commanders have started to believe the legends of superiority and invincibility our own propaganda has fed our people during the past decade. And you can see the results of that all around us here,” he pointed towards the view port. “Three and a half million dead and twenty-five hundred vessels lost or out of action in the span of five months aren't the signs of a well-executed campaign. Even had we been as successful as our far too optimistic designs had suggested, these kinds of losses should have given us pause. But the reality is worse: even now, with the war still in flux, nobody seems to care!” he scoffed. “Apparently the only way for this to change is to wait until the idiots have all killed themselves in their own little glorious charges, something I couldn't care less about if it wasn't for the thousands of good men and women they'll take with them. Fighters acting as living missile interceptors, headlong attacks into nigh impenetrable defenses; the incompetence is stunning!” He was getting angrier with every sentence and he knew it. It all brought up the memories of his stubborn, stupid sister again!

“There are many people who would take what you've just said for treason,” Pryatan cautioned. “Speaking ill of the courage of the men and women you're leading has never helped a strategos.”

“
I'm not doubting their courage. I'm doubting their
wits
. In a fight between a smart fighter and a bold fighter it'll be the smart fighter who comes out victorious nine out of ten times. We've wasted thousands of ships and millions of lives in needless frontal assaults exacerbated by lackluster intelligence. Just look at the numbers.” He walked over to a round, onyx table. When he placed a hand on it touchscreen controls appeared and he punched a combination of keys and the holographic display changed to a set of columns. “We entered this war with a fleet only rivaled in size by the Rasenni. By all means we should have been able to run right over the Érenni and the Tuathaan. And yet, we've almost squandered the advantage and the hard work of ten years. The only reason we're still dictating the pace of the conflict is that the universe doesn't revolve around us. The Rasenni are focused on themselves, the Ukhuri are focused on the Rasenni, and half the Pact hates the other half more than they fear us. Everybody else is either too far away or too minor to be of any concern.”

“
For now, that is,” Pryatan sensed what her superior was going to say.

“
For now,” Corr'tane nodded. “We have a window of opportunity here, and we'd better use it, quickly.”

He pushed a combination of buttons and the hologram changed to a two-dimensional map of the nearby space. Neutrals were represented in a light blue, while the Dominion's and its enemies' space was divided in green and red. The color-coding was near universal to all space-faring powers.

Republican space was almost completely covered in green, except for two searing red blobs, one at the center and one close to the Ukhuri-Érenni border.

“
The relative lull of the past couple of weeks has allowed our forces to mop up most of the smaller Republican holdings with comparative ease. Instead of exterminating them we've occupied most of these mining bases, outposts and research installations. They'll serve us more if they fuel our war effort and our economy, especially now that we've begun to call up reservists. But two zones of concern remain, like infected wounds on a limb.”

He zoomed in on Akvô and the second Érenni holdout.

“The home world is effectively sealed off by a siege fleet. Except for the battle station, most of the  planet's orbital infrastructure's in shambles, and the bombardment that got through their defenses must have killed close to a hundred million people. They aren't going to be a concern to us, given that we've trashed their shipyards. Unfortunately, they don't need the yards to rebuild their mine fields and defense satellites, so any attempt to neutralize Akvô will have to wait until we've dealt with more proactive opponents. But they'll be dealt with, in time.” He sighed. “The other one's a bigger concern.”

The display switched to a single star system with four planets. Pryatan leaned forward.

“Hiburan. A relatively cool G2 main sequence star and host to a midsize Republican colony on its second satellite. Two hundred million inhabitants, heavy industries and orbital infrastructure, and it's accessible only through two foldspace corridors, one of which comes from Ukhuri space.”

The female officer groaned quietly. “That means a full frontal assault unless the Ukhuri grant us access through their space.”

“Yes, and that's an unlikely proposition. There's a difference between doing business with us and letting one of our fleets roam through their territory. They'd never agree to that, and you can bet they've watching the border as intently as they can. And that means we've only got one route into Hiburan, and the Republicans have been busy mining that road for weeks now.”

Pryatan looked up skeptically. “They're mining foldspace, sir? Isn't that a bit like trying to haul water with a sieve?” The gravitational pull inside a foldspace corridor would mean that any minefield would begin to drift to its edges within days where its mines would be shredded by the immense friction apparent there.

“Usually I'd agree with you there, but it seems the defenders of Hiburan can throw more mines at the problem than foldspace can eat. And with the limitations on our sensors in there we've got no means to detect these mines until we're smack in the middle of them. If we tried to clear them it's more than likely that the Republican Navy would replenish their defenses faster than we could wear them down.”

Pryatan frowned, her face shadowed in thought for a few moments. “So we've got little means to get at them aside from a frontal assault likely to force horrendous losses on us. In the meantime they can rebuild their forces within the system and can buy what they can't build through the Ukhuri. How many ships have the Érenni been able to withdraw to Hiburan, sir?”

“Our best estimate is around two hundred. Which means we now have two enemy bastions that we need bottled up, rather than one. We planned for neither. Seems like no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” he chuckled mirthlessly.

Pryatan leaned back in her chair again and picked up her drink. “Then what are we going to do about it, sir?”

“Really nothing we can do about that particular situation right now, Captain.” Corr'tane ran a hand over his face and stifled a yawn. Between the intense battles, the setbacks, and his scientific work, these past few weeks had taken a toll on him. Reviewing the data streams he received from the science outposts on former enemy colonies the Dominion had attacked with pathogens developed by him and his staff was a time-consuming process. “At least not until we've dealt with our more resilient opponents.”

At the punch of a button the map changed to a display of the Dominon-Clanholds borders. Like a trident the Ashani advances had punched into enemy space.

“We've consolidated our positions at Báine and Dunnan Gal. Taking the two systems has driven wedges into the Clanholds' supply routes in these sectors, but the Armada is pushing back against our attacks on Ath Dairn. They've been calling up reserves and shifting forces for some time now. In fact, they've probably made better use of the time than we have,” he shook his head. “I expect the hammer will fall there, and soon. But then that's not our concern, Captain. A soon as 8
th
Fleet has been reconstituted from recalled reservists, mothballed ships, new constructions and the survivors of the Battle of Akvô, we've got a new objective.”

“
That being, sir?”

“
We divide, we conquer.” Corr'tane shrugged. “It is that simple.”

Captain Pryatan gave him a quizzical look. “That is your plan, Strategos? Just four words?”