“And what's wrong with having Deluros slumber on while we go for its throat?” asked one of his subcommanders.
“Because, ironic as it seems,” said Grath, “a slumbering Deluros is impregnable. The only way we can get within striking distance is to lure the Navy out from the core of the Oligarchy. If they fear us, if they mobilize the bulk of their forces, then we've got a chance. The trick is never to let them know our true size and strength, to make them nervous enough to seek us out but not smart enough to realize that we've got almost half a million ships.”
He paused, looking slowly about the table. “In order to accomplish this, we shall make a massive strike
upon Altair VII.”
“You certainly don't believe in easy objectives, do you?” said an aide. “There are a million easy objectives in this galaxy,” replied Grath, “and not one of them—or all of them put together, for that matter—would do us the slightest bit of good. The Oligarchy controls almost two million worlds; they control five-sixths of the galaxy's economy and they have a Navy of more than fifty million warships with an average crew of two hundred men per ship, not to mention billions of other soldiers and mercenaries on those planets that are under martial control. To make any kind of dent in the Oligarchy at all, we've got to hit something big, something vital. Do you think they really give a damn about what we do here on the Rim? We're so far away from the core of things that we don't even count as a minor irritant yet. We've wasted enough time seeking after loot; if we're ever to achieve empire, we're going to have to get on with it. Time is our greatest enemy. It's a big galaxy, big enough to take even our fastest ship more than a year to cross it unopposed. To cross it when we're outnumbered by more than a hundred to one, when we have precious little ability or opportunity to replace ships or men ... that, gentlemen, is the situation. We're going to have to do in a handful of years what is rightfully a task for generations. And we shall begin,” he concluded, “with Altair VII.” Altair VII was the political and economic center of an area almost 725 light-years across. It was the farthest from Deluros VIII of all the major Oligarchic worlds, and hence was the coordinating ruling body of tens of thousands of frontier worlds reaching out to the Rim. As such, it was considered to be of vital importance in the Oligarchy's scheme of things, and merited a fleet of almost 35,000 Navy ships for its protection (and its occasional forays against insubordinate frontier worlds). Altair VII held very little strategic value to any military force other than the Oligarchy itself. It was too far from Deluros VIII to make a useful base of operations, and it required three farming worlds to supply it with its needs. Its sole value lay in its complex and highly efficient bureaucracy. Almost six billion humans, practically all of them employed by the government in one form or another, worked in the huge, endless, glass-enclosed buildings, living out their lives amid file cabinets, computers, and fear of demotion or termination.
And yet power lay here too, the power to move unruly worlds into line, to expand Man's domination to a planet here or a system there; and, unstated but never forgotten, there was the greatest power of all—that of the Oligarchy.
The battle of the Altair system was brief, as space battles went in those days. Grath had made his plans well, feeding the coordinates of the star, its capital planet, and every ship of his own armada into scores of computers. Distances were established, times computed, the minute curvature of space accounted for, and eventually flight plans were programmed into every vessel. They did not all take off at once, nor at the same speed, nor even in the same direction. But each was programmed to reach the Altair system within seconds of all the others.
To the naked eye, the arrival of Grath's fleet would have seemed like magic: one instant the system was empty, the next it was alive with almost half a million ships braking to sub-light speeds. But the technology of spatial conflict had long since ceased to rely on the naked eye, and the Oligarchy's Navy was not totally unprepared.
A number of Garth's ships overshot the Altair system by light-years, some plunged into the sun, and a few crashed into the largest of the system's sixteen planets. But the bulk of the fleet arrived when and where they were supposed to, and after a brief flurry which saw relatively heavy casualties on both sides,
the battle settled down—as such battles usually do—to a series of manipulations, englobements,
three-dimensional phalanxes, and all the complex military formations that the most sophisticated computers and minds in the galaxy could conceive. It took almost three weeks, weeks of long and intricate maneuverings broken by short, unbelievably violent clashes. At the end of it, Altair VII, and indeed the entire Altair system, was Grath's. It had cost him twenty-one days and 46,000 ships. He spent the next few months regrouping his forces, reestablishing what meager supply lines he had created, and waiting for a reaction from the Oligarchy. There was none. “Our next target,” he announced one evening, “is Valleux II. It's a mining world specializing in platinum, and it's about a thousand light-years closer to the core than Altair. Also, I've decided to give up our Rim bases for good.”
“But why?” asked an aide. “We're almost impregnable here.” “Precisely,” said Grath. “It's possible they felt we had some grievance against Altair, but once we hit Valleux they'll know we mean business. Now, if I were commanding the Navy, my first thought would be to contain my enemy until I knew the size and strength of his forces and could mobilize against him; and the most obvious place to contain him would be on the farthest reaches of the Rim, where he feels least vulnerable. Also, if I knew his base, I could decimate him every time he returned from a strike. No, gentlemen, from this day forth, until we land on Deluros VIII itself, our only base will be our armada. And now,” he concluded, “I think it's about time to check with the computers and coordinate our attack on Valleux.”
The Navy forces protecting Valleux II were considerably smaller than those that had been in the Altair system, and the battle, though furious on both sides, didn't last as long. Counting the regrouping interim, Valleux II cost Grath 126 days and 12,450 ships. In rapid order his forces took Ballion X, Hesperite III, and Quantos IX. They cost him 152 days and 16,050 ships.
He made one last major strike, overrunning the entire Belore system, at the expense of 93 days and 22,430 ships.
And still there was no response from the Oligarchy. “And yet, why should there be?'’ he mused, half to himself, at a conference aboard his flagship. “What were their losses? Absolutely minimal, compared to what they possess. Even with Altair and Belore in our pocket, I'll bet we're still so unimportant that no one's even bothered to tell the seven Oligarchs about us yet. The galaxy's so damned big and we're so damned little...” He looked up.
“Gentlemen, none of us is getting any younger. We've proved ourselves in battle, and I now propose that we go after a target so important that they'llhave to react to it: the Spica mining worlds.” His subordinates were unhappy, as he knew they would be. Altair and Belore were one thing, but Spica
... It was protected by a fleet as large as their own, and was so deep into the Oligarchic empire that there
could be no clear, easy line of retreat in any direction. On the other hand, Spica VI was a ship-building world, and to continue the war (which, each acknowledged grimly, had not yet even been noticed, let alone joined, by the opposing side) they needed ships above all else. The Battle of Spica was the bloodiest ever fought in space, before or since. At long and weary last, Grath emerged with what the history books termed a victory. He knew better. It had cost him 495 days, and 360,450 ships. And it cost him more than that. He spent almost four years waiting while the huge plants on Spica VI rebuilt his fleet. In the meantime he returned to piracy, though his loot now consisted of weaponry and ships rather than credits and gemstones. His hair was streaked with gray now, the firm lines of his face more deeply emblazoned. Once again he held a conference of the various warlords, and once again found unity and the dream of Empire beyond them. His original master plan had called for a feint toward Earth while the main body of his forces attacked Sirius, but there was no need to feint. Earth was unguarded, sleeping sublimely as the business of the race to which it had given birth went on unbothered half a galaxy away. It was a totally bloodless coup, but it cost him 200 more days ... 150 to change the feint into a conquest, and 50 to reunite his armada for the attack on Sirius.