The rebels hadn't had it all their own way either. Several of Cordova’s ships had been picked off when they’d run into a squadron of Imperial Navy heavy cruisers, who had chased them until the raiders could power up their flicker drives and escape. One of Khursheda’s cruisers had been destroyed by an Imperial Navy battlecruiser during a duel over a resource-rich system on the way back home from Camelot. If the war became a war of attrition, Colin knew, the Empire had far more ships and men to spend on such a process. His fleet would be ground away.
“We need to hit Greenland,” he said, reluctantly. Greenland was actually another Roosevelt system, with similar levels of defences to the last world they’d hit – and, this time, they wouldn't allow a squadron of superdreadnaughts into firing range without ironclad proof of identity. His ships would have to duel with at least one fully-alert orbital battlestation and while his superdreadnaughts would have superior firepower, Colin knew that he was going to get hurt. “It's the only other target that will force Percival to disperse his forces still wider.”
“Perhaps it is the logical target,” Hester said, in her harsh voice, “but it is not the target we need to hit.”
Colin looked up, surprised. When he’d allied himself with Hester and helped her to form the Popular Front, they had agreed that he – Colin – would have supreme authority over the military. There were no others along the Rim – with the possible exception of Cordova – who had his military training or experience, although he did have to admit that the Rim had thousands of ships and crews experienced in hit and run attacks. If there had been a major disaster, he would have expected some complaints over how he ran the military, but they’d won every major battle so far.
“We have links with Jackson’s Folly,” Hester pointed out. Colin frowned, somehow unsurprised. He’d carefully refrained from looking at any of the data collected by his observation ships in the system – apart from using it to track the Imperial Navy starships – hoping to avoid a sense of guilt, a sense that everything that Jackson’s Folly was enduring was because of him. He knew better, he’d read Stacy’s files...yet he couldn't help the guilt. It was not logical, but it was true – and very human. “They’re suffering down there.”
Colin frowned, feeling the guilt clawing at his heart. Perhaps Hester saw it in him, because she chose to push harder. “The Blackshirts are destroying every hope and dream the planet ever had,” she said. Colin understood, suddenly, how Jackson’s Folly had gotten its hands on some of the Empire’s technology. They’d had links with the Rim! “We need to help them or there won’t be anything left when we finally defeat the Empire and liberate their worlds.”
“That may be tricky,” Colin admitted. He had nothing against helping Jackson’s Folly, but it would be a dangerous operation, all the more so because the Empire might have left one of Percival’s superdreadnaught squadrons in the system. An equal fight was all very well, but Colin would have preferred to cheat. Besides, if his superdreadnaughts were lost, the Empire would have won. “Let’s see.”
He tapped his console and brought up the latest from Jackson’s Folly. The timestamp under the display warned that the latest reports had been a week old by the time they’d been transferred to the asteroid and then inserted into the superdreadnaught’s datanet. Colin mentally edited that to nine days, as they’d spent two days refitting the ships, repairing minor damage and giving the crew a few hours of liberty on the asteroid.
The enemy superdreadnaughts were gone, but Jackson’s Folly was enveloped by over thirty starships, including two battlecruiser squadrons. The other ships were either monitors – positioned in low orbit to provide fire support to the troops on the ground – or destroyers, prowling the system for enemy starships. The latest reports suggested that Jackson’s Folly had a number of ships hidden in the asteroid belt, which emerged from time to time to pick off vulnerable Imperial Navy starships. The world had done a good job of preparing an insurgency to greet the Imperial Navy and the Blackshirts, but Hester was right. Without some outside help, the Follies were doomed. Stacy Roosevelt and her twisted kin would wind up inheriting a desert, a desert called peace.
“We could hit the orbiting ships,” Hester said. “It would buy the Follies some time to regroup before the Imperial Navy returns to the system to chase us out.”
“And what happens then?” Colin asked, seriously. “The Follies will just suffer worse...”
He broke off as a thought occurred to him. Stacy Roosevelt wasn't foolish enough to gainsay orders from her Family, not now, not when she would be completely dependent on them. Her family had ordered her to take the world intact, which meant that she couldn't order the world scorched. And, without her permission, Percival would never dare to order a scorching on his own. It would utterly destroy his career. An officer with a stronger connection to the ideal of the Imperial Navy might order the scorching anyway, destroying a threat to the Empire along with his career, but Percival didn't have that sort of moral courage. Colin’s lips twitched. Immoral courage would probably be a better term for it.
“We hit; get in, get out and then give them the time they need to regroup,” he said, slowly. He didn't want to get sucked into a maelstrom. “We cannot make a long commitment to Jackson’s Folly, not when it would pin us to one world.”
“We could do more,” Khursheda pointed out. “We could enter orbit and drop KEWs on any Blackshirt positions. We could destroy most of the occupation force. The Empire would have to fall back until they could round up more Blackshirts to replace the ones we killed...”
“And then they would have to pin down a squadron of their own superdreadnaughts to prevent us from doing it again,” Cordova added. “Or perhaps they would abandon the invasion until they got reinforcements.”
“There will still be a quite considerable workforce of trained workers – workers trained in starship construction and maintenance – on the surface,” Salgak said, in his mechanical voice. Colin smiled inwardly. Even the Geeks liked the idea! Or, at least, were willing to come up with ideas to justify the plan. “We could offer to take them with us to our own construction yards and use them to expand our own workforce. It would improve our own capabilities and help to eventually liberate their worlds.”
Colin kept his face expressionless as he thought. He couldn't deny that they had a point, that Jackson’s Folly did need help – and that it would provide an opportunity for a cheap victory against the Empire. The downside was that it would force the Empire to rush in reinforcements and rule the planet with a harsher hand, regardless of anything resembling common decency. Or, perhaps, he might be wrong and Stacy Roosevelt would permit Percival to scorch the world and settle for merely occupying the daughter colonies.
He didn't want to be responsible for mass slaughter. He’d worked hard to avoid leaving any signs that Jackson’s Folly was in any way responsible for his mutiny and rebellion. And yet, the Empire had invaded anyway. What was the use of the rebellion, the value of the Popular Front, if they failed to respond to a world that needed help? Colin knew that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of worlds needed help, yet he could do nothing to help them. Jackson’s Folly, on the other hand, could be helped...
“Very well,” he said. Besides, a smart commander knew not to go against the advice of all of his subordinates, at least not very often. “We will recon the system first, and then jump in and open fire. We won't stay in the system for longer than a day at most. Commodore Ismoilzoda?”
“Yes, sir,” Khursheda said.
“You will prepare a fleet of fast personnel transports, ones that can carry as many people as possible, equipped with a fleet of shuttles,” Colin ordered. “I want those ships to accompany us to Jackson’s Folly. We will use them to take out as many trained workers and their families as are willing to go and can be stuffed into the ships. Don’t hesitate to push the life support to the limit. They won’t want to go without their families.”
“Yes, sir,” Khursheda said. “How soon do you want the shi
ps?”
“As soon as possible,” Colin said. At least Jackson’s Folly was some distance from Camelot. They should be able to get in and out quite nicely without any warning reaching Percival, at least until it was far too late. “And then we will assemble the fleet and liberate the system, if only for a few weeks.”
***
By its very nature, Sanctuary Asteroid played host to inhabitants and guests from all over the Beyond. The coordinates had been spread so widely that far too many people knew about its location, including Imperial Intelligence. The spooks hadn't bothered to pass the information on to the Imperial Navy, knowing that destroying a single asteroid wouldn't do more than scatter the inhabitants and destroy whatever links it had to the rest of the Beyond. Far better, they had reasoned, to use the asteroid as a base for their own operations, ferreting out the far more interesting – and dangerous – colonies deeper into the Beyond.
The spy felt a sense of relief as she finally returned to the asteroid. Sanctuary hadn't been used as the meeting place for the Popular Front, even though it was fairly public, and the spy had been nervous about her presence. If someone had thought to ask the right questions, or check her luggage before she left, it might have aroused suspicions. The Rim couldn't afford anything reassembling due process; if they’d been suspicious, they would have put her out the airlock first and ask questions later. But Sanctuary was far more cosmopolitan and crowded; the spy could afford to get lost in the crowd. In her official capacity, as a senior officer for one of the rebel outfits, he went into a single shop and requested a private meeting. The shop, a cover business for Imperial Intelligence, honoured his request. There was a brief exchange of signs and countersigns and then the spy got to work.
“This is the headquarters of the Popular Front,” she said, passing over the datachip. She’d secured the data and encrypted it using a new encryption system, one directly from Imperial Intelligence. It should be impossible for anyone to decrypt it without the right code, although the Geeks would probably be able to do it if they had a reason to look. “I suggest you pass the information onwards.”
The shop’s owner – a man with thirty years of experience in Imperial Intelligence – nodded. “Of course,” he said, in agreement. He made the chip vanish with the ease of long practice. “We cannot charter a ship for it specifically, but there should be another ship coming in soon and they can take the information onwards.”
The spy nodded. The rebel group she worked for would have been horrified to discover that most of their supplies came directly from Imperial Intelligence. They would have been even more horrified when they realised that Imperial Intelligence could have destroyed them at any time. The spy sometimes wished that things were different, but Imperial Intelligence had done something to her head, back when he’d been inserted into the Rim. She could not be disloyal. Even the mere thought of disloyalty was painful. Obedience was all that she could do.
And even if something happened to her, afterwards, the information would reach the Empire.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Captain, the Bombardment is reporting that it is running short of KEW projectiles,” the communications officer reported. “They are requesting permission to reload from the Fabricator.”
Captain-Commodore Angelika McDonald sighed. It was rare to need more than a handful of KEWs on any given world; indeed, most worlds, even the ones with memories of independence in living memory, didn't risk putting up a serious fight. The Empire sometimes ran out of patience with rebellious worlds and scorched them down to bedrock, before dropping terraforming packages onto the remains of the worlds and shipping in new colonists. Jackson’s Folly, on the other hand, seemed to be populated by madmen and women; they just kept fighting, even though their cause was hopeless. The Blackshirts had gone to war with their drug-fuelled barbarity and rage...and were losing. If they hadn't been able to call in fire support from orbit, they would have been destroyed by now and in this war no one took prisoners.
Jackson’s Folly had plenty of time to prepare for the Empire and even through their overt preparations had failed the covert preparations were working far too well. Fabricator was the third manufacturing ship to operate within the system’s asteroid belt, melting down asteroids and converting them into KEW projectiles. The last two had been lost to treacherous tricks by the defenders, methods of war – her lips twitched in amusement – that were not included in tactical handbooks. If she lost that ship, her supply of KEWs would be cut off until a new manufacturing ship arrived in the system; she had requested a replacement in advance, but Admiral Percival – it seemed – was refusing to deploy any additional ships out to the system. He didn't understand the problems she was facing.
She spun her chair around until she could see the live feed from the Blackshirt command garrison, down on the surface. General Branford was holding forth, decreeing the mass slaughter of civilian hostages and the use of lethal chemical weapons, before urging his troops upwards and onwards for the glory of the Empire. Branford the Butcher, some called him, although never in his hearing; a man who had broken an alien race to the Empire’s will. His supporters, and there were many, had never concealed the fact that he’d done it by slaughtering three-fourths of the alien race and demonstrating his willingness to complete the task and adding a third exterminated race to humanity’s reputation. Angelika wondered, despite herself, if Branford hadn't been given secret orders to exterminate the planet’s population, without making it obvious just what he was doing. He was certainly killing enough of them in reprisal raids. Even his fellow Blackshirts, drug-addled through they might be, had started to question his tactics. Her lips twisted into a droll smile. Branford might end up being the only person dismissed from the Blackshirts for excessive violence. The joke, never spoken where a senior officer might hear, was that that was how a person got in.
“Order them to pull out of orbit and head to Fabricator,” she ordered, reluctantly. She had only five monitors at her disposal, all spaced around the world to provide complete coverage, and pulling one of them out of orbit – if only for a few hours – would put a crimp in her ability to provide fire support. Her warships carried KEWs, of course, and she would redeploy a group of heavy cruisers to provide additional support, yet they couldn't deploy as many as the monitors. Intensive use would mean shooting them dry. “Assign a destroyer group to escort them through the flicker and back.”
“Aye, Captain,” the communications officer said. Angelika nodded. The young man might have had good connections – explaining why he was serving on a starship’s bridge just after graduating from the Academy – but he was also fairly competent and she could trust him to deal with it. His birth was actually an advantage in dealing with officers who outranked him by several orders of magnitude, although he hadn't realised that – or that he could go much further. “The 44th Destroyer Flotilla is ready to escort the monitor.”
“Good,” Angelika said, returning her gaze to the main display. Jackson’s Folly was, at least on the surface, a fairly typical system, but it contained nasty traps for the Empire. There were a handful of raiding starships out there – including one that had destroyed one of her other manufacturing ships – and hundreds of hidden bases scattered through the asteroids. Her mining crews sometimes discovered enemy spacers waiting to kill them, or stumbled over abandoned installations, installations that didn't seem to be listed on any file they’d captured on the planet. The natives had clearly wiped all of the data, if they’d had it in the first place. “Once that is done, schedule me a conference call with the senior officers. I want to discuss matters with them.”
“Aye, Captain,” the young man said. He was too young to recognise a symbol of...maybe not entirely defeat, but certainly an admittance that things were not going according to plan. Normally, Angelika would have played host to the senior officers on her flagship – the battlecruiser Violence – but now she didn’t dare take a commanding officer away from his or her ship. The insurgents were prov
ing far more effective than anyone had dared fear. No one was quite sure what had happened to the light cruiser Rainbow, yet the insurgents had been boasting over their success over the planetary datanet, despite every attempt to shut it down. It wasn't more advanced than the Empire’s system – indeed, it was genuinely inferior – but it had been designed as a distributed system, rather than the centralised systems used by Imperial worlds.
Angelika leaned back in her command chair, rubbing her eyes and silently cursing Admiral Percival under her breath. The superdreadnaughts had intimidated the locals, all right; they’d overshadowed anything the rebels and insurgents could do to them. And yet...the Admiral had seen fit to withdraw the superdreadnaughts, judging that the smaller ships could handle the pacification of the system without the presence of their older cousins. Angelika had a nasty suspicion that she’d been set up to fail. Perhaps Admiral Percival, whose drunken advances she had refused one night, had deliberately planned to embarrass her in front of the Roosevelt Family. Or perhaps it was worse. Stacy Roosevelt, the silly girl who had somehow managed to lose nine intact superdreadnaughts to a mutiny, might have been looking for someone to distract attention from her failure.
She'd expected the conquest to be easy, until she’d run her eye down the list of prohibited targets. No one had ever heard of such a thing, not in the Empire; the whole reason for developing the monitors in the first place was to make it clear that there was nowhere to hide from the Empire’s wrath. And yet, she had a whole list of places that she couldn't drop a KEW, or she’d spend the rest of her life on an isolated asteroid settlement or mining colony. It made little sense to her, for what was the point of using monitors if there were safe areas, areas where the insurgents and rebels could congregate and plot their war against the Empire.
Democracy 1: Democracy's Right Page 28