Free First Strike by Christopher Nuttall Page A

military-grade sensors to pinpoint the locations of the Hegemony’s starships and then meet us in quantum space, allowing us to target our exit with pinpoint precision. We will engage the enemy as soon as we leave quantum space.
    “Our objective is the complete destruction of that Hegemony force and the liberation of Terra Nova,” he continued. “Once the fleet has cleared orbital space of enemy ships, the Marines will be landed to liberate the planet and round up the Hegemony population. Their client races will be permitted to remain under human rule, if they wish, but the Funks themselves will be removed from the planet. However” – his gaze swept around the holographic faces – “I want to make it clear that there are to be no atrocities. The population is to be rounded up with the minimum necessary force consistent with the safety of our troops. We do not need something the Hegemony can use as a propaganda tool against us.
    “Assault Force Two will concentrate on the Hegemony base at Garston. As that base doesn't have any major combatants, the overall objective will be to either capture or destroy the orbital installations, preventing them from being used against us. Depending on the outcome at Terra Nova, we may move cruisers forward to Garston and then strike deeper into the Hegemony’s space. Garston itself is useless to us; we won’t bother invading and occupying the world once we’ve smashed their military bases from orbit.”
    “I figure that we could use a whole new habitable world,” Captain Zeke drawled.
    “It has a population of nearly ten million intelligent beings, mainly Funks,” Brigadier Jones pointed out. “Do you propose to evict them all, or merely keep them as slaves? Or maybe we should push them all into death camps and commit genocide?”
    “They took one of our worlds,” Zeke said, sharply. “Why shouldn’t we...?”
    “Because we are a small power and we don’t want to either force the Hegemony to rally around their Empress and do what it takes to defeat us, or for other powers to start viewing us as a danger and join the war against us,” Tobias said. “Garston will be immaterial to the war once we've taken out the base and occupied the cloudscoop and we will not waste manpower occupying it.”
    He looked over at Jones’s face. “National units on Earth will be called up as soon as they receive a burst transmission reporting our success,” he continued. “They will relieve the Marines for further duties, allowing us to head further into Hegemony space if necessary and land on their military colonies.”
    There was a long pause. “Are there any points that need to be raised before I transmit the operations plan to you?”
    “I must say that I find the idea of starting a war to be distasteful,” Captain Garibaldi said. “Even if we’re not about to bite off more than we can chew, we… we don’t start wars.”
    “The war started the moment they bullied us into giving up Terra Nova,” Zeke said, flatly. “All we've had since then is an uneasy truce, one that could have been terminated at any point they desired. How long will it be before they stop extorting HE3 from us and start demanding political control instead?”
    “Not long,” Tobias said. “You’ll find the background brief included in the operational plan, but the short version of the story is that they’re pretty much on the verge of claiming political control over Earth. War is coming whatever we do – we strike now or we risk being crushed by superior force.”
    “I understand that many of you have doubts,” he added. “Those doubts will also exist on Earth when the population realises that the war is underway. This is a gamble, one that might backfire and cost us everything we’ve worked for over the past fifteen years, ever since we realised that the greater universe was not going to ignore us. But I have faith that each and every one of you will do their utmost to ensure that we win this