Mike Resnick - Birthright

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'll have 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.

And finally it happened. Sirius was too vital to the Oligarchy, too close to the heart of things, to be lost. As the maneuvering and battling reached their sixth indecisive week, his scout ships reported that Oligarchic reinforcements were on the way, to the tune of at least three million vessels. Withdrawing as quickly as he could, he returned to the Spica system, a quarter of a million ships weaker than when he had left it.

For three more years he darted in and out of the main body of the Oligarchy, picking off a Navy fleet here, destroying a world there, replenishing his arms and his men. The Oligarchy, cold, aloof, uncaring, merely tolerated him. He waged some battles that would live long in the annals of warfare. Outnumbered by more than eight to one, he fought the Navy to a standoff in the Delphini system; with one flank demolished and another crippled, he led his forces to safety from an abortive raid on Balok XIV; and always, when the odds were equal, or nearly so, he emerged the unquestioned victor. When outworlders spoke of the Warlord, it meant Grath and no one else; and yet the Oligarchy paid him scant attention, and his deeds were considered so trivial in the scheme of things that they went unreported in the Deluros media. “Gentlemen,” he announced one night when his subordinates were gathered in his quarters, “behind me is a Tri-D chart of the galaxy. This"—and he pointed to a tiny spot on the Rim—"is where we began. And this"—he pointed to another—"is where we are now. What can be gleaned from that?” There was a momentary silence. Then a voice spoke out: “Well, we've come almost half of the way.” “Wrong!” snapped Grath. “We've done nothing. Nothing! What do we actually possess? A handful of worlds, no more than eight thousand of them, in a direct line of our military conquest. We have no spheres of influence, no buffer zones, no economic power. If you stood in the complex at Caliban and eliminated every system we own from the map, it could take years before anyone noticed the difference.

“This is no way to destroy the Oligarchy. Sure, we've cost them almost three million ships, but they've

probably replaced them tenfold by now. We've been going about it all wrong. It can't be done in a military campaign. No one man, no one group of men, can hope to conquer, step by step, what it's taken Man six millennia to assimilate. No wonder the Oligarchy doesn't bother with us; they expect us to die of old age long before we can pose a real threat to their security.” “Then what do you propose?”

“I suggest that we make a swift, sudden, all-or-nothing strike at the very heart of the Oligarchy—at Deluros. If we control Deluros, we control the Oligarchic empire. If not, then we're just a bunch of pirates, a little stronger and more successful than the others, but pirates nonetheless.” “That's a pretty tall order,” offered an aide. “What would you have us do? Hit Sirius again? If they protected it once they'll do so again, and they'll protect every planet, habitable or otherwise, between Sirius and Deluros. That will mean about one hundred and fifty thousand pitched battles before we get within striking distance.” “There is an alternative,” said another aide. “What?” asked Grath.

“Create our own empire, beginning on the Rim and assimilating as many worlds as we can, while always spreading toward the outskirts of the Oligarchy. In time, we'd be able to challenge them on far more even footing.”