Their Last Full Measure
(A Learning Experience, Book VI)
Book One: A Learning Experience
Book Two: Hard Lessons
Book Three: The Black Sheep
Book Four: The Long Road Home
Book Five: The Long-Range War
Book Six: Their Last Full Measure
Christopher G. Nuttall
Cover By Tan Ho Sim
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Cover Blurb
Humanity has won a great victory, shattering the alien fleet that would have destroyed the Solar Union and exterminated the human race. But the war is not yet over. The Tokomak still have a huge fleet and an immense industrial base, large enough to crush the human race once and for all if they have time to bring it into action. The war may still be lost.
There is only one way to win. Admiral Hoshiko Stuart and her fleet must take the war deep into enemy territory, to the very heart of the Tokomak Empire. But with the Tokomak gathering their forces and rallying their allies for one final battle, the outcome still hangs in the balance ...
... And whoever wins will dominate the galaxy for thousands of years to come.
A Very Brief Recap
In the very near future, a handful of military veterans in the USA were abducted by an alien starship. Unluckily for their would-be captors - the Horde, a race of interstellar scavengers - the humans rapidly managed to break free and gain control of the starship. Steve Stuart, a rancher who had been growing more and more disillusioned with the government, saw opportunity - the starship could serve as the base for a new civilisation, the Solar Union.
Despite some small problems with planet-bound governments, the Solarians - as they would eventually be called - started to both recruit settlers for the new state and distribute alien-grade technology on Earth. After defeating a series of Horde ships that attempted to recapture their starship and attack Earth, the Solar Union was firmly in place.
This was, of course, unknown to the rest of the galaxy. To them, Earth wasn't even a microstate. This suited the Solarians just fine. Humans could and did travel beyond the solar system - as traders, mercenaries or even simple explorers - but no one wanted to attract the Galactics to Earth. The Solarians were already making improvements to GalTech that could not fail to alarm the major alien powers, particularly the Tokomak, the undisputed masters of the known galaxy.
Fifty years after Contact, the veil of secrecy fell. Humanity’s involvement in a series of brushfire wars at the edge of known space could no longer be hidden, nor could elements of advanced technology. In response, the Tokomak dispatched a massive fleet to Sol with the intention of blasting Earth to cinders. Unknown to the Tokomak, the Solar Navy had just enough advanced technology to stand off the alien fleet and smash it. The follow-up attacks shattered the Tokomak grip on the nearby sectors, freeing hundreds of planets from their influence. Humanity had suddenly become a major regional power. A number of naval bases were rapidly established, both to extend human influence and protect human trade.
This had unfortunate effects on Earth. The expansion of the Solar Union - and its willingness to insist that anyone who wanted to emigrate, could - accidentally accelerated the social decline pervading civilisation. Europe, America and many other countries fell into civil war, something that caused considerable concern in orbit. One faction within the Solar Union wanted to intervene, others - feeling no loyalty to Earth - believed it was better to let Earthers handle their own affairs.
Captain-Commodore Hoshiko Sashimi Stuart - the granddaughter of Steve Stuart - accidentally stepped into a political minefield when she insisted that Earth should be left alone. Her family’s political enemies were quick to use it against them. Accordingly, she was placed in command of a cruiser squadron and dispatched to the Martina Sector, where she would be well out of the public eye. However, she quickly discovered that the Druavroks - a powerful alien race - were bent on a campaign of genocide against their neighbours, including a number of human settlers. Allying herself with other threatened races, Hoshiko led a campaign that broke the Druavroks and laid the groundwork for a human-led federation - a Grand Alliance.
Unfortunately for humanity - and everyone else - the Tokomak had other ideas. Neola, the Tokomak who had commanded the fleet that died at Earth, managed to take control of the Tokomak Empire and prepare her people for a far more serious war. Her first step, after ensuring that the immense fleets were brought back online, was to attempt to lure a human starship - Odyssey - into a trap. Although humanity fell for what was presented, to them, as an olive branch from one of the oldest known races, the crew of Odyssey were able to escape and find their way back to the nearest safe port. In their wake, however, an ultimatum was sent. Humanity could surrender, or be mercilessly hunted down and exterminated.
This could not be borne.
Realising that the Tokomak would have to take their ships through a gravity point bottleneck at Apsidal, the Solar Union sent a massive fleet under Admiral Stuart to occupy the system and stand off the enemy forces. Unfortunately, Empress Neola followed the same line of reasoning and deployed her own fleet to pin the human ships against the gravity point. She was not, however, able to plan for the combination of advanced technology and sheer nerve, which allowed her human opponents to counter her and do immense damage to her fleet. Cutting her losses, Neola fled home ... only to discover that she had been unseated, that half the known galaxy was on the verge of outright rebellion and, for the first time in a hundred thousand years, the Tokomak faced a devastating defeat…
Prologue
It would have made Empress Neola laugh, if it wasn’t so ... ironic.
She had rebelled, the first junior officer - by the standards of her people - to rebel in thousands of years. She had led an almost effortless coup against the old ones, the ancients too doddering and old to realise that someone could overthrow them ... only to discover, after the twin disasters of Apsidal and N-Gann, that someone had overthrown her in turn. They hadn’t stripped her of power, they hadn’t banished her to a retirement world nicely out of the way, but they had limited her power. The omnipotence she’d claimed was gone.
Although I was never quite omnipotent, she reflected, sourly. Sure, she’d been the absolute ruler of the Tokomak Empire, but ... there had been limits. The humans and their pathetic Galactic Alliance hadn’t surrendered, when faced with the prospect of clashing with the greatest military machine in the known galaxy. The universe didn’t bend to my will.
She studied the handful of faces around the table, knowing her position was weaker than before. Once, she could have snapped her long fingers and everyone would have leapt to obey. Now ... it was a popularity contest, where the soldiers and spacers decided for themselves who they’d follow, who they’d obey. Neola shuddered. She understood the importance of ensuring competence at the top - it was why she’d launched her coup - but soldiers and spacers shouldn’t decide for themselves which orders they’d follow. At best, there would be long delays as they tried to argue out the pros and cons of each set of orders: at worst, there would be absolute anarchy. It was no way to run a government, let alone a war. And she knew they simply didn’t have time to iron out the kinks before the humans set Tokomak Prime itself on fire.
And they know I lost the last campaign, she thought. They’re not inclined to listen to me.
A human would have gritted her teeth. Neola was too practiced to reveal her emotions that openly, but anger and despair gnawed at her gut. It wasn’t a complete disa
ster - she’d argued, time and time again - but hardly anyone believed her. Cold logic was no substitute for the shock of hundreds of thousands of lives, important lives, being expended on a gravity point assault. No one in the room cared one whit for the lesser races who served the Tokomak as sepoys, expendable cannon fodder, but the Tokomak spacers themselves? They were important. The Tokomak hadn’t suffered such losses in living memory. And, given there were Tokomak who were literally thousands of years old, that was a very long time indeed.
“We expect you to behave yourself, Empress,” Coordinator Hakav said. “And to listen to our advice.”
You could just have taken power for yourself, Neola thought, coldly. It spoke of either rectitude or moral cowardice. She didn’t care which. Instead, you content yourself with giving advice.
She wanted to laugh. Or cry. The youngsters often affected the manner of the old ... but they didn’t need to, not any longer. They were calling the shots. Now. And yet, they didn’t have the courage to overthrow her completely. They had to know she was dangerous. Neola had overthrown ancients who’d held their posts for longer than most of them had been alive, sheer longevity giving them a legitimacy the youngsters lacked. She’d kill them all if she got a chance and they had to know it. But they’d merely hampered her. That was a mistake.
Unless they don’t want to risk another round of infighting, she reminded herself. We could lose the war with the humans while scrabbling amongst ourselves.
She nodded, curtly, and directed their attention to the holographic display. “There is no point in lying to ourselves,” she said. Let them think of her as fettered, for the moment. She’d regain what she’d lost in time. “We are not our servants, who need reassurance. We can accept that the situation is grim. The humans have scored a major victory.”
“We have never lost a fleet base before,” Admiral Kyan said.
“No.” Neola conceded the point without rancour. “But we have many - many - fleet bases.”
She spoke calmly, hiding her irritation as much as she could. “The humans have successfully prevented us from launching a major invasion of their sector. Right now, our fleets would have to proceed through FTL, a journey that would take decades. The human outposts blocking the gravity point chains have to be dislodged before we could mount an invasion in a reasonable space of time. We will be required to launch a series of gravity point assaults before we could even think about bringing our muscle to bear on Earth.
“However, we have other problems. The loss of a major fleet base” - she nodded to the admiral - “has ... unsettled … our allies. Many of them are rethinking their stance in the light of new developments. Others are looking back to the days of their independence and wondering what, if anything, they can do while we’re distracted. And while we are still strong enough to take out our allies if there is no other choice, they could produce a distraction at the worst possible time. Right now, there is a human fleet within striking distance of the inner worlds. It may only be a matter of time before that fleet starts an advance to the core.”
She allowed her words to hang in the air. “To Tokomak Prime itself.”
There was a long, chilling pause. She smiled inwardly, despite the seriousness of the situation. They’d never really considered just how easily a strength could become a weakness, if the balance of power shifted even slightly. The Tokomak had banned their servants from fortifying the gravity points, both to ensure free navigation and to make it difficult for anyone to stop their fleets from teaching any rebellious systems a lesson. Now, with a major enemy fleet pressing against the inner worlds themselves, the gravity points were terrifyingly undefended. Neola had started a fortification program, hastily repurposing planetary defence platforms and constructing floating fortresses from scratch, but she was uncomfortably aware the program would take time. Time she didn’t have. The humans moved so quickly that they’d often managed to surprise even her.
And they’ve also managed to improve upon the technology they stole, she mused, sourly. The Tokomak had thought they’d taken technology as far as it could go. The humans had proved them wrong. In hindsight, it had been a convenient lie ... a lie that had been believed, eventually even by the people who’d propagated it in the first place. Neola knew she’d pulled off some tactical innovations - she’d caught the humans by surprise, once or twice - but her people were ill-prepared to engage in a technological arms race. Sooner or later, they’ll come up with something that renders our giant reserve fleet nothing more than scrap metal.
She shuddered again. The Tokomak had built literally millions of warships over thousands of years. They’d built so many ships they couldn’t hope to man them, even if they gave every last one of their race a uniform and assigned him to a ship. The fleet had been held in reserve, the largest hammer in the known galaxy. The cost of keeping it even marginally operable had been staggering, even to them. But now, the fleet was only of limited value. The programs to bring the ships out of mothballs, crew them and deploy them to the front might not be completed in time to keep the humans from developing a whole new weapons system. And then the reserve fleet might become worse than useless.
“Time is not on our side,” she said, calmly. She altered the display. “This is what I intend to do.”
She outlined her plan, grimly aware that it was really nothing more than a more urgent version of her previous plan. She’d assumed she could secure Apsidal and open the way to Earth without much ado, forcing the humans to stand in defence of their homeworld rather than raiding the inner worlds themselves. She’d assumed ... but those assumptions had died in fire, along with hundreds of thousands of Tokomak spacers. She hadn’t bothered to calculate how many of their subjects had died - no one had cared enough to ask - but she knew their deaths were in the millions. And yet, she needed to demand much more from their client races. They’d all have to stand in defence of civilisation itself.
And yet, they’re starting to wonder if we can be beaten, Neola thought. And that makes them unreliable.
She cursed the gerontocrats under her breath, savagely. The humans had an expression - Old Farts - that fitted them perfectly. They’d been so keen to make it clear that the Tokomak had never suffered even the slightest loss - not in recorded history, anyway - that losing even a single ship was a major disaster. And she’d lost thousands of ships. It was only a black eye - she had hundreds of thousands of ships coming online - but it looked bad. The public perception was that the Tokomak were losing. And the mere fact they had to consider public perception was itself a sign that things were going wrong ...
“This could be the end,” she warned. “The humans are at our gates. But we do have a preponderance of firepower and mobile units. If we can find the time to bring the rest of the fleet online - if - we can end this threat once and for all.”
“If,” Coordinator Hakav repeated.
“If,” Neola agreed. “The galaxy has changed beyond measure in the last few years. We can no longer allow ourselves the delusion that we are unbeatable. We cannot afford to keep believing our own lies. We must adapt when change sweeps over us. Or die.”
She let out a long breath. She was young, although by human standards she would be on the verge of death. And yet, even she had trouble grasping what might lie ahead. She’d been so used to the limits of everything from technology to politics, and to the concept of those limits being inflexible, that she had trouble imagining what might happen if they changed. The Tokomak saw themselves as the undisputed and unchallengeable masters of the known universe. It rarely occurred to them - it had rarely occurred to them - that their dominance was not a natural law. The universe didn’t guarantee them anything.
But it doesn’t guarantee the humans anything either, she reminded herself, firmly. They’re strong, but they’re not unbeatable. We can still reclaim the galaxy for ourselves.
Sure, her thoughts answered, as the discussion continued to rage. And what sort of galaxy will we pass down to our children?
&
nbsp; Chapter One
Hameeda’s eyes snapped open.
For a moment, wrapped in the darkness, she was unsure of where she was or what she was doing. She’d been dreaming ... she wasn’t sure what she’d been dreaming, but it had troubled her on a level she couldn’t express. There’d been shadows in her dreams ... she shook her head as the cabin lights came on, illuminating a chamber that was surprisingly large and luxurious for such a small warship. But then, she was trapped in the LinkShip until the day she died. The designers had known they’d better make it comfortable.
She rubbed her forehead and sat up, trying to recover the dream. It bugged her, more than she cared to admit. She’d rarely dreamed since joining the navy ... but then, she supposed, she’d often been too tired to do anything more than throw herself on her bunk at the end of her shift and sleep until the next shift began. Even now, with a small army of automatic helpers at her beck and call, she still got tired. Her body was in the peak of health, and would remain that way until she died, but she could still get mentally tired. And there was no one who could take her place.
Hameeda sighed, then reached out through her implants to touch the local processor. The LinkShip was surrounded by the featureless darkness of FTL, effectively alone within the folded universe. Her long-range sensors had picked up the occasional hint of other starships passing through FTL, but none of them had come close enough to exchange greetings. They might have been hundreds of light years away, given how gravity waves propagated within FTL. There was no way to be entirely certain of anything unless they came a great deal closer. A status display appeared in front of her and she studied it. She was definitely alone on the ship.
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