A Learning Experience

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Sol System

“They’re approaching the minefield,” Mongo said. “But they’re also sweeping space very carefully.”

Steve gritted his teeth. The Hordesmen had been fooled once — and it was clear that they didn’t want to be fooled again. Their advance was odd — it seemed to be a cross between a reckless charge and a careful approach to the enemy — but there was a strong possibility they’d pick up the minefield before they entered attack range and the mines went active.

“Contact the fleet,” he ordered. “We will prepare to advance and engage the enemy.”

He ran through the odds quickly in his head. Eleven Horde starships were gone and four more were significantly damaged, but that still left ten warships in reasonably good condition. He had three warships and a handful of modified freighters. The odds were not good. He could delay the Horde, perhaps distract them from going after the mines, but he couldn’t stop them. Only the minefield could do that, he knew.

We should have asked Friend for a war fleet, he thought. But that would have compromised our independence too badly.

“We will advance on my command,” he said, grimly. If they could keep the enemy from looking for threats, they might just be able to pull off a victory. “I say again, we will advance on my command.”

“Stay in formation, damn you,” Yss!Yaa roared at one of his subordinate commanders. “We need to stay in formation!”

He cursed again as it became clear that it was a futile effort. His subordinates wanted blood, human blood, and they all wanted the honour of landing the first blows against Earth. His formation was a formation in name only, now that several of his officers had recovered from their shock and were advancing rapidly towards Earth. And, despite the best he could do, he couldn’t keep them focused on the possibility of another trap.

“The human world is coming into range,” his weapons officer reported. “Human defences might be insufficient to stop our missiles.”

“Good,” Yss!Yaa said. “Open fire.”

“They’ve started to launch missiles,” Mongo reported. He sounded puzzled. “Missiles?”

Steve shared his puzzlement. The Galactics rarely used missiles, knowing that any halfway capable point defence network could simply swat them out of space. Even antimatter warheads wouldn’t cause much damage unless they impacted directly against a target’s shields. It was unusually stupid, even for the Horde. They didn’t gain anything by giving the human ships free targets…

His blood ran cold as the truth sank in. “They’re firing on Earth,” he whispered. Unlike a starship, a planet couldn’t dodge… and Earth’s defences were puny compared to any Galactic world. The best he’d been able to set up was a handful of point defence weapons and sensor networks, enough to take down any human missile launch, but nowhere near enough to tackle a swarm of Galactic-level missiles. “They want to kill us all!”

Kevin swore out loud. “We have to stop them!”

Steve gritted his teeth. The missiles would pass through the outer edge of the fleet’s engagement envelope, but only for a few seconds. In hindsight, the missile trajectories were obvious clues as to their targets. It was vaguely possible, he knew, that the Horde might be shooting at the planet’s orbital industries, but a miss would be absolutely disastrous in any case. The missile would fly onwards and strike the planet…

But if they altered course to engage the missiles, they’d run the risk of being unable to cover the minefield. And they’d lose their best chance to stop the enemy dead in their tracks.

“Continue on our current course,” he ordered, harshly.

Mongo looked up, sharply. “Steve…”

“We don’t have a choice,” Steve snapped. He hated himself for saying the words, but he didn’t have a choice. The entire world would hate him… yet they’d be alive to hate him. It was better than a dead or enslaved world. “If we don’t stop them, here and now, we lose everything.”

Yss!Yaa watched, dispassionately, as the missiles passed through the human engagement envelope — five of them being picked off before they made it out again — and roared towards the human world. Whatever the odder structures in orbit actually were, he noted, relatively few of them had any kind of point defence. Seven more missiles were picked off; three more were redirected by their smart warheads to take out the automated orbital weapons platforms and clear the way for the second salvo. The remaining missiles plunged into the planetary atmosphere and sought targets. Seconds later, nuclear detonations flashed into existence for long seconds before fading away, leaving devastation in their wake.

“Twelve human cities have been destroyed,” the weapons officer reported. “Should I fire a second salvo?”

“No,” Yss!Yaa said. They were getting far too close to infringing the convention against genocide as it was. The Galactics might cheerfully ignore any law that couldn’t be enforced effectively, but almost every power would assist in hunting down the Horde, if they were publically charged with genocide. “Concentrate on the human warships.”

He smiled. On the display, the human ships were growing closer. He wouldn’t underestimate them again, he vowed, but he couldn’t see how they could hope to match his firepower, no matter what they stuffed into a freighter hull. This time, he told himself, it would be different.

“New York is gone,” Kevin said, flatly. “Manchester, England; Paris, France; Warsaw, Poland; Moscow, Russia…”

Steve barely heard him. The devastation was simply impossible to imagine, the death rate even more so. New York alone had over eight million people. Between all eleven targets — one missile seemed to have plunged into the water, triggering tidal waves across East Asia — there might well be a hundred million dead. But it was beyond his ability to grasp. The aliens had slaughtered so many humans that they might as well be nothing more than statistics.

No wonder we rarely react when we are told so many thousands have died, the morbid part of his mind whispered. We simply can’t grasp it.

“Enemy ships coming into range,” Mongo reported. “They’re locking weapons on us.”

“Fire at will,” Steve ordered.

The Hordesmen kept coming towards the small human fleet, firing as they came. Steve watched, dispassionately, as bursts of energy flared through the void, some slamming into his shields while others pulsed onwards and faded into the darkness. The Horde, it seemed, was showing off, while the human ships were more careful with their fire. One Horde ship exploded as she was caught in a crossfire, another rolled over and came to a halt as she took major damage. But the remainder of the Horde ships were closing in.

“Slip into evasive pattern delta,” Steve ordered. Most of the Horde ships were smaller than Shadow Warrior, but that didn’t make them ineffective. Instead, they were firing savagely and weakening his defences. “And inch us back towards the minefields…”

The display bleeped, a low mournful sound. “Vincent Hastings is gone, sir,” Kevin reported. His voice was very calm, too calm. They’d named the Q-ship after their dead friend, but they’d known she wasn’t a real warship. The only advantage she had was sheer mass and it wasn’t enough to keep the Horde from killing her. “I don’t see any lifepods.”

“If there were, the Horde would get them,” Steve muttered. “Continue firing!”

The Horde pressed closer, as if each of them were eager to put an end to the human fleet personally. They were, Steve realised grimly; they all wanted the glory that came from taking out the human ships. And it was working in his favour; from time to time, one of the ships would deliberately block another’s path, just to try to prevent them from scoring a decisive blow. He smirked as he imagined the enemy commander’s feelings, then concentrated on the battle. They needed to keep inching backwards…

“The minefield is active,” Kevin reported. “A few more minutes and we will be ready to give them such a blow…”

“Let us hope so,” Steve muttered.

Yss!Yaa watched, powerless to affect events, as his ships danced around the human vessels, firing madly into their shields. It was insane! They should have been able to overwhelm the humans with ease, but they simply weren’t cooperating! At least one starship had been lost through another starship nudging it away… right into human sights. It was absolute madness… and yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to call a halt. His people were angry; they wanted blood. Worst of all, he knew, he wouldn’t even be able to penalise the idiots after the battle, because they would look like victors!

I wonder if the humans have these problems, he thought, savagely. He clacked a claw against the side of his throne as a human starship slammed several pulses of energy into his ship’s shields. Unlike his people, the humans seemed to have mastered rotating their shield generators to provide additional protection, damn them. And if they don’t, why not?

But he knew the answer, even if it wasn’t something he could admit outside his own head. Everyone who might push for change had a strong incentive to keep matters precisely as they were… and everyone who didn’t had no real power to force change, not even him. He might be their leader, but there were limits to his power.

“The enemy is retreating,” the weapons officer said. “They’re trying to pull back.”

Yss!Yaa sighed. “Then take us after them,” he ordered. “Let us put an end to this.”

Steve watched grimly as the alien ships gave chase, pushing forward recklessly to try to claim the kills for themselves. They’d stealthed the minefield as best as they could, using a mixture of human and alien technology, but he had few illusions about just how long the cover would work if the aliens started to really hunt for them.

“The mines are active,” Kevin reported. “I’m supplying them with targeting data directly.”

“Good,” Steve said. If the mines had started to use active sensors of their own, the Horde would have known they were there at once. But by broadcasting targeting data from the starships, the mines could remain passive. “Do they have total lock?”

“Yes,” Kevin said, after a moment. “They’re locked on all remaining Horde starships.”

Steve sucked in a breath. “Fire,” he ordered.

“Energy spike,” the sensor officer snapped. “All around us!”

Yss!Yaa opened his mouth to shout orders, but it was already too late.

The mines were simple enough. Nuclear bombs had been taken from Earth and converted into bomb-pumped lasers, each one capable of stabbing out one single blast of ravenous energy. Unlike a conventional nuclear blast, which would have largely been deflected by a starship’s shields, the needle-like laser struck the force fields and burned right through them.

“Mines detonated,” Mongo said. “Steve, I think we got them.”

Steve nodded. Only two Horde warships were left, both heavily damaged. One of them seemed to have enough motive power to start crawling towards the planet, the other seemed to be completely stranded. Given that it was leaking atmosphere from a dozen hull breaches, it was quite possible that the crew was already dead.

Because they don’t bother with spacesuits or even light protective gear, he thought, shaking his head at the sheer unfairness of the universe. How had a bunch of primitives barely entering their Iron Age been allowed to obtain interstellar starships? But then, they’d never understood the ships they operated or how to actually produce more technology to replace what they’d bought, begged or stolen from the Galactics.

“Start deploying combat teams,” he ordered. “I want those ships secured as quickly as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Mongo said.

Steve nodded, then looked over at Kevin. “Contact Edward,” he added. By now, the soldiers who should have gone to Ying would have assembled at their training base. “I want him to send five companies of space-trained soldiers to serve as reinforcements, just in case.”

“Understood,” Kevin said. “Sir… what about the homeships?”

“I would have expected them to run,” Steve commented. But all five homeships were still there, sitting in interplanetary space and waiting. “But we can secure them too.”

He looked down at his display as his subordinates got to work, silently counting the cost. Shadow Warrior hadn’t taken any major damage, but two of her shield generators were gone and three more probably needed urgent replacement. Enterprise had been badly damaged; looking at the reports, it was a minor miracle that the Hordesmen hadn’t managed to finish the job before they were defeated. Only Captain Perry had escaped almost completely. Steve wondered if the starship led a charmed life… or if the Hordesmen had wanted to recapture her rather than simply blow her out of space.

The other ships hadn’t done any better. Five q-ships had been destroyed, three more were completely beyond easy repair. And the older ships they’d turned into the ghost squadron had been destroyed, of course. But they’d taken more than their fair share of enemy spacers with them. All things considered, Steve told himself, they’d been very lucky.

But it wasn’t true for the civilians on Earth, he reminded himself, sharply. Eleven cities wiped out by long-range missiles, several coastlines pounded by tidal waves caused by the final missile. The death toll would be in the millions and rising fast as people died through lack of health care and other provisions. Handling such a global catastrophe would push even the most competent government to the limit.

“Deploy as many of the shuttles, surveillance gear and fabricators as can be spared to assist with the rescue operations,” Steve ordered. Mariko would kill him if he didn’t try to help — and besides, he certainly wanted to help. “Clear it with the local governments, then spread our assistance as far as possible.”

“There’ll be bitching if we don’t put New York first,” Kevin commented. He sounded calmer now, but there was still an undercurrent of rage in his voice. “Lots of us have emotional connections to the city.”

“But we have a global responsibility,” Steve said.

“Picking up a message from the boarding parties,” Mongo said, suddenly. “They need someone who can talk to the Horde women in their own tongue.”

Steve frowned. “Call Heinlein,” he said, finally. “Tell them to send our alien friend.”

Cn!lss had never really expected to set eyes on a woman of his kind, not after he’d effectively joined the human race. Even if he’d stayed with the Horde, it was unlikely that he would ever have been able to breed. The stupidest warrior was still strong enough to take any woman from him, no matter what he said or did. And besides, the women themselves were reluctant to breed with someone who wasn’t considered a hero.

But he held up his claws in greeting as the teleport dropped him onto the homeship bridge, where the bodies of the male crew lay where they’d fallen. Instead of running, the honour-bound idiots had killed themselves. In their place, a handful of women stood there, waiting for him. Their eyes never left his body as soon as he appeared. It was no expression of lust, he knew, but caution. They wanted to know what would happen to themselves and their children.

“The humans have agreed to take us all in and build a better way,” he said, once he’d introduced himself as the senior surviving Hordesman. Those who had been broken down by human psychologists had abandoned their former ranks, those who hadn’t had been isolated from their fellows and left to work their own way towards salvation. “You are more than welcome to join us.”

He took a breath, then went on. “Imagine an end to our wanderings,” he said. His words tumbled over one another as he struggled to get them out before they could do something stupid. “Imagine, instead, that we develop a world of our own. The humans are prepared to ally with us and work towards the future. This is not the end, but a beginning.”

There were other changes coming, he knew, if the women agreed to join the other outcasts in building a new world. The warrior culture would be eradicated. Instead, the Horde would start using its brains and become true members of galactic society. Some of the humans even talked about a grand alliance between different races, with all of them standing as equals before the universe. Long history said it was a pipe dream, but Cn!lss had hope. And besides, if the women joined as equals, the new society would be far more stable than anything else the Hordes had ever built.

He watched the women talk in low voices. They were in an odd position, according to the human sociologists who had attempted to understand the Hordes, both chattel and independent agents at the same time. Looking in from the outside, the women didn’t have much choice about who fathered their children, but they had absolute authority over their own affairs. There were no human-style families, save for the greatest of warriors. And even they lasted only a few years before breaking up.

The women had nowhere else to go. He hoped they understood that, because they would never be allowed to leave. And even if they did leave, where would they go? The other Hordes would only return them to their familiar status, without giving them any room to grow.

“We will join you,” the leader said, finally. “As long as our children are safe, we will join you.”

“Welcome,” Cn!lss said. He clacked his claws in the Pattern of Greeting Between Equals, then bowed his head. Few Hordesmen would offer such honour to their fellow warriors, let alone mere females. “And your children will be safe from both internal and external threats.”