Today we would be going up against the Starfleet incursion in the system. Starfleet had taken over the local relay station and one of the two space-based autofactories, then contacted New Home to negotiate an agreement. From other negotiations with Starfleet, we had a pretty good idea of what they wanted: agreement in principle that humans and replicants should go their separate ways, agreement that there would be no contact with pre-industrial species, and agreement that interaction with post-industrial species would be kept to a minimum to avoid cultural contamination. In the face of it, the deal points didn't sound like much. In return nor nothing except a bunch of signatures, essentially, Starfleet would hand back control of the equipment. Except that no matter how you phrased it, was still extortion. Humans and never taken extortion well at best, and New Home society came nowhere near to ‘at best’. They hadn't even bothered to respond.
“Three minutes,” Miller's voice said from midair. Hobart nodded in satisfaction, still at parade rest. As I watched, the little icons crawled across the graphic as the military units approached their targets.
“You have one hour to reacquire the space station, Claude,” he said to me. This wasn't news to either of us, it was just Hobart making what he no doubt thought of this conversation. “Nuclear device will be put in place immediately, pending results.”
“Understood, commander. I doubt you'll need the nuke. My understanding is that failure on our part will result in a self-destruct.”
Hobart smiled, but didn't reply. The assaults were timed so that we would intercept the autofactory and space station at the same moment. We wanted Starfleet's attention to be divided. Not that it would make a ton of difference, but every little bit helped.
“No sign of Resistance yet,” Miller said.
“Odd,” Hobart frowned. “They’ve had control of the autofactory for two days now. Shouldn’t they have able to construct a least a few of your busters by now?”
“Yes, commander, and they should've launched-”
“Bogeys detected,” Miller interjected.
“That's more like it,” Hobart tapped his emblem. “Details, please.”
“Busters, from the look of it. 20, straight attack vector, no subtlety.”
Hobart gave me a perplexed look. “You gents tend to be tricky as a rule, but that sounds like the maximum they could've built in the available time. Any chance there’s a fake of some kind?”
“I don't see how, commander. You're right about the numbers, this looks more like a last-ditch effort or a simple act of defiance. I'd have waited longer to get our forces closer together.”
“Amateurs,” Hobart muttered.
Miller's voice supplied updates every few seconds in a flat unemotional tone.
“Units engaging. First wave enemy casualties 50%. Second wave engaging. Second wave through, only two enemy units still extant. Deploying spikes. Field is now clear.”
Well, that was it. Unless Starfleet had a Kree battleship up their sleeve, we had a clear path to the target. “Last chance, commander. We might still save the autofactory.”
He shook his head. “Not worth it. Too much risk of buried malware. Even your Skippies couldn't guarantee a total cleansing. We’ll rebuild.
And the fact that it was the autofactory technically owned by the Bobiverse was undoubtedly a factor. I wondered if they’d have been so quick to write it off if it had been the New Home-owned equipment.
At that moment a harsh buzzer sound shattered the silence and Miller's voice announced, “Space station detonation, not our action. Appears to be a self-destruct.”
“Crap,” I said. I turned to the commander “We’ll examine the logs, and maybe we'll learn enough to avoid this next time. Your backup ready?”
He shook his head. “24 hours from go-live. We didn't feel we can wait. We have individual small SCUT units with the necessary range, as I'm sure you do, but not enough to maintain full connectivity. We’re essentially isolated from the rest of the UFS for a day.” Hobart gave a humorless perfunctory smile. “No big deal from a practical point of view, but you know the big heads will have a collective fit. Can't block commerce, and all at tripe.”
“Yep.” I rolled my eyes. “That's okay commander, I think we’re already at max doghouse. This won't add anything.”
Commander Hobart gave me a nod, then turned away and began giving orders to Miller. I took that as my cue and headed for the exit.
I normally kept this Manny at the New Home capital, a convenient location for interacting with the government or catching transit if I needed to go into town. However, knowing how this engagement might end, I decided to plan for getting the Manny off planet. Howard warned me that the very human tendency to want a scapegoat was making life uncomfortable for in-system Bobs everywhere.
My assets, those that were liquid, anyway, had already been transferred via intersystem banking, in transactions that couldn't be unwound. My physical assets were already heading out to the Oort by various paths. Once I reached my base there, I could work out my next step.
As soon as I stepped out of the building, one of my cargo drones landed in front of me. Without breaking stride, I loaded myself in and ordered the drone to take off. I figured I had half an hour at the most before the government - the big heads, as local slang called them - confiscated or nationalized or whatever euphemism you used for grabbed - my assets.
It was funny, but ever since the war of independence on Poseidon, there had been an unspoken agreement in the Bobiverse to not publish or
