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.The installations around Hammerfall had already been destroyed, leaving only the cloudscoops and a handful of asteroid miners.Destroying them might have irritated the other Galactics, though Hammerfall rarely supplied fuel to anyone else.It was nowhere near as connected to the galactic trade lanes as Garston.“I’m picking up a response,” Sooraya said.“The current commander of the fortresses is prepared to surrender if his personnel are repatriated to the Hegemony.”Tobias blinked.“His?”“Apparently so,” Sooraya said.“Intelligence doesn't have a file on him, but there are a number of male senior officers in the Hegemony Navy – just not very many of them.”“Interesting,” Tobias mused.And also dangerous, he admitted, privately.The Hegemony females were worse than the human patriarchs who thought that women should be left barefoot and pregnant while slaving over a kitchen stove.Even now, there were parts of Earth where women were very much second-class citizens.Their men claimed that women were supposed to be under men, unsuited for the rough and tumble of political life, or even controlling their own destinies.The Hegemony females actually had some measure of proof for their claims.Any Funk male who rose to become a senior officer had to be far better at his job than a female officer.At least the Funks didn't have any tradition of officers sleeping their ways to important posts.He shrugged.“Tell him that we will return his personnel to the Hegemony once the war is over,” he said.“Until then, they will be well-treated in a POW camp on Terra Nova or Earth – any of them who wish to defect will be welcome to do so.”“Yes, sir,” Sooraya said.“Should we add a warning against murdering their own crewmen?”Tobias nodded.Some high-ranking Funk POWs had murdered subordinate officers, for no reason that made sense to the human mind.Tobias was inclined to wonder if they’d been fearful that their subordinates would pay off a few private scores now that they had been reduced to equality, but at least two of the murders hadn't even made that much sense.The sociologists had finally suggested that the Funks had wanted to kill the weak.Tobias had privately given orders that all such murders were to be prevented.One way or another, they would make the human race look bad.A long moment passed as messages raced to and from the planet.“He’s accepted your terms,” Sooraya said.“They don't want to lower their shields, however, until they receive assurances that we've disarmed the mines.”“Unsurprising,” Tobias said.“We’ll get around to them once we’ve finished securing the system.They can keep their shields up until then.”He tapped his console, assigning a handful of starships to take up defensive positions.The Funks had used the defence of Hammerfall for propaganda, even though the system had been rendered effectively useless.Now that humanity had taken the system, the Empress would be under immense pressure to launch a counterattack as soon as possible.ONI had been tracking enemy transmissions and noted that several more squadrons were being deployed to face the human advance, forming a defensive line that would combine with the fixed defences to stall the human fleet well before it reached Hegemony Prime.It was a pity that the deep-strike concept remained a concept for the moment, but there was little hope for developing it until thousands of additional missiles were produced.The last report had warned of delays in missile production facilities.Still, Hammerfall’s capture would look good, at least on paper.The Funks themselves would probably know better, but the Galactics – and human public opinion – was unlikely to see anything other than another world falling to the human advance.Once again, a fleet numerically superior to its opponents had been defeated, even if it hadn't been as crushing a victory as the Battle of Terra Nova.They’d even captured another half-wrecked superdreadnought.Given enough time, the raw material of the hull would be broken down and turned into new weapons and starships for the Federation Navy.“Organise the reporters so that they can inspect the captured fortresses,” he ordered.PR reared its ugly head once again.At least most of the reporters from Earth were sensible – and those that weren’t had their reports heavily censored before they were transmitted home.The Galactics were less sensible, but they didn't have the sources human reporters could develop.One particularly enterprising reporter had apparently seduced both a missile tech and a Russian soldier on Garston.“And then see if we've captured a tachyon beam array.If so, I’ll use it to report to Earth.”He allowed himself a grim smile as the fleet stood down from battlestations [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]