O’Conner didn't try to mislead him. “I’m afraid I cannot discuss that, Commander,” he said. “It isn't a matter I can answer now.”
Colin frowned, peering at him over his fingertips. “Do you have an implanted mental block, or are you just being loyal to the Family?”
“The latter,” O’Conner said. “Sadly, mental blocks are not as helpful as they would seem to suggest, not when the subject needs to talk openly. I hate to insult your intelligence, Commander, but I'm afraid there is no way you can get me to talk.”
Colin snorted. “I hate to insult your intelligence, but I’m sure that you know there are plenty of ways that information can be extracted from an unwilling donor,” he reminded him, dryly. “I assume that you have an implant providing some protection from torture? How long do you think it would protect you once the Geeks take it apart?”
O’Conner smiled, drolly. “What makes you think I know anything?”
“You’re in a high position within a Family-run sector, without being a member of the Family’s inner core,” Colin countered. “The only reason I can think of for that is that you’re intended to avoid attracting attention, which would inevitably follow any senior Family member wherever he went.”
He grinned. “And I guess that that explains Stacy,” he added. The older man’s face twitched at her name. “She was meant to distract attention from you. What do you think she would tell us if we asked her?”
O’Conner grinned back. “And how much do you think someone like Stacy actually knows? Would you trust her with your deepest secrets?”
“Touché,” Colin said. “What do you know?”
“I want to make a deal,” O’Conner said, flatly. “You give me and my family – my wife and children – a safe place to live. In exchange, I will tell you what you want to know.”
Colin didn't hesitate. “Very well,” he said. “What is the Roosevelt Family doing in this sector?”
“Plotting a war,” O’Conner said. He laughed at Colin’s expression. “Did you think that you were the only one who noticed that the Empire was in deep trouble?”
“Explain,” Colin ordered, tartly.
“The Empire has been stagnant for years,” O’Conner said. “There is little in the way of expansion, or technological advancement – even the new colonies, planted by the Thousand Families, rapidly turn into just more stagnant worlds. The Thousand Families are having problems maintaining what they have and the booty is running out. When it is all gone...the Thousand Families will turn on one another. The Roosevelt Family’s private predictions suggest that civil war will break out within the next two hundred years.”
Colin shivered. He had thought of the Thousand Families as a single monolith, even after recruiting one of them to his banner. He had never considered that there might be cracks in the edifice, not when the only thing keeping the Empire together was the united power of the Families. Parliament was a joke and there was no Emperor. And the Imperial Navy’s officers, by and large, owed their position to their patrons. The Imperial Navy would come apart at the seams as the clients sought to seize fleets, squadrons and even individual starships for their patrons. The result would be absolute chaos.
“If we’d had longer, we would have been producing an entire fleet in this sector,” O’Conner confirmed. “An entire sector, loyal to the Roosevelt Family; do you have any idea how hard it was to keep the other Families and their clients out of the sector? The discovery of Jackson’s Folly almost torpedoed the whole scheme.”
Colin smiled, although there was little humour in his mind. “That must have been irritating,” he said. “Does Percival know anything about this?”
“No,” O’Conner said. He leaned forward. “As a gesture of good faith, I’ll tell you something else you need to know and then” – he rattled his chains meaningfully – “you can find me some better accommodation. Admiral Percival sent for help.”
He smiled at Colin’s expression. “He requested everything that Sector 99 could dispatch,” he added. “There are three entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts coming here. I think you’d better start preparing to meet them.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Although she suspected that she wasn't somewhere most citizens of the Empire would be pleased to be, Penny took her time with her shower and ablations. Her body hurt from being stunned – and probably drugged to keep her under – and she wanted time to think. She allowed the warm water to wash down her body, wiping away the stain of being touched by Percival and his goons, all the while trying to work out where she was now. Her thoughts kept running in circles until she finally dismissed it; there was no way that she could deduce anything from what little she’d seen.
Stepping out of the shower compartment, she was amused to discover a neatly-folded pile of clothes, all in her size. There was a standard Imperial Navy shipsuit – without rank markings, she noted with wry amusement – and a standard pair of undergarments. It occurred to her, as she started to pull them on, that unseen watchers were probably enjoying the sight, but she’d lost most of her body modesty back at the Academy. Besides, if she was in the hands of Imperial Intelligence or one of the other security forces, body modesty would soon be the least of her worries. No one was interrogating her or threatening to try her with treason and blow her out an airlock.
Once she was dressed, she stepped up to the hatch and – somewhat to her surprise – it opened. Her first glimpse of the passage outside confirmed her suspicions that she was on a small craft, perhaps a shape barely larger than a gunboat. There were some luxury yachts, pleasure craft owned by high-ranking officers and aristocrats, which had roughly the same dimensions. The craft wouldn’t be very large, certainly not more than one or two decks, with most of the rear made up of engine. Judging from the drive noise she could hear in the background, the tiny ship had been outfitted with a military-grade drive. Very few, whatever their rank or station, would have been permitted such a drive for their own private craft. She walked down the corridor and up to the bridge hatch, which hissed open as she approached. The interior of the bridge barely deserved that name. It was small, compact, and designed for a tiny crew. A single person, with the right knowledge and training, could operate the entire ship.
“Well, come on in,” a voice said. She saw a chair spinning around, revealing the man she’d seen when she’d woken up. He might have been the only person she’d seen, but it didn’t mean that he was the only person on the ship. A small craft could carry upwards of thirty people, depending on interior design. “How are you feeling now?”
“Refreshed,” Penny said, shortly. She took the chair he waved her to and checked the nearest display. It wasn’t showing a standard Imperial Navy display, but it was easy to understand. She was gratified that her early deduction of the size of the starship was accurate. “What am I doing here?”
The man leaned back in his chair and Penny took the opportunity to study him. He was unusually tall, with a long lanky body and a pair of hands that were always in motion. His face, striking rather than handsome, was topped by an unruly mob of brown hair. She couldn’t tell for sure, but he appeared to have some kind of combat training, although she couldn’t identify the discipline. He wore nothing apart from a single unmarked shipsuit and a standard-issue wristcom.
“The short answer is that you’re here because your testimony will be required,” the man said. He paused, anticipating her next question. “You may call me Dave, if you wish.”
Penny frowned, stroking her chin. At least Dave seemed to be more pleasant company than Percival. “You’re Imperial Intelligence,” she guessed, finally. “You were sent here to keep an eye on Percival.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Dave said. She was certain that his name wasn't Dave, but if he’d gone through the full Imperial Intelligence program, he probably didn’t recall what his name actually was, or where he had been born, or anything else that gave him a tie outside of Imperial Intelligence. “I had orders to keep an eye on the Roos
evelt Family and their clients in this sector.”
Penny found herself giggling for the first time in far too long. “You poor bastard,” she said. “You had to control Stacy Roosevelt!”
Dave chuckled back. “No, I merely had to keep an eye on them,” he said. “When the rebellion began, I started to observe more closely and decided that the situation was likely to grow out of hand. When the rebel fleet attacked Camelot, I resolved to secure a living witness and jump out of the system before Percival could surrender or die.”
“Oh,” Penny said. She decided she might as well ask. “Did Percival surrender then?”
“Someone did,” Dave confirmed. “The last I heard before I started flying back towards Earth was that the fortresses were surrendering and that Marines were landing on the stations. Percival may have surrendered or someone with more than two brain cells to rub together might have removed him and surrendered in his place. And no, I don’t know if he is still alive. The leader of the rebellion has a bloody great grudge against him.”
Penny shrugged. There would be time, later, to consider her feelings…but for the moment, all she really felt was relief. Percival had dominated her life for years, yet now it was over, leaving nothing apart from fading memories. The time she’d spent serving him – in all possible senses – might have been wasted, but it could have been much worse. Or perhaps, if events had been a little different, she would have gone over to the rebellion.
“But that doesn’t matter,” Dave continued, unaware of her inner thoughts. “As nice as it would be to drag Admiral Percival before the Thousand Families in chains, it isn’t an option that is open to us at the moment. Our priority is to alert Earth to the scale of the danger.”
Penny looked up, sharply. “We’re on our way to alert Earth?”
“Of course,” Dave said. He grinned at her expression. “This ship may be small, but she has a military-grade drive and top-of-the-line computers. We can make it all the way to Earth without stopping along the way. I admit the food and drink facilities are not all that they could be, but that shouldn’t a problem for you. They’re better than military-issue food processors.”
“All the way to Earth,” Penny repeated, numbly. It took a starship around six months to make the trip from Camelot to Earth, although a small fast design with a military-grade drive might be able to shave a month off the journey. She wouldn’t have wanted to risk it. Burning out a flicker drive would leave a craft stranded in interstellar space, beyond any hope of rescue. “Why do you want me there?”
“So you can testify about the rebellion,” Dave said, patiently. He gave her what looked like a half-hearted apologetic look. “I should warn you that the computers on this ship are programmed to work only with me or another officer with Omega-level clearance. I don’t know what will happen to you at the far end, but if you behave yourself on the trip, I will…”
Penny snorted. “Put in a good word for me?”
“Something like that,” Dave agreed. “You do realise that most of the people who might want to blame you for this disaster are either dead or in rebel custody? You have a good chance at coming out of this smelling like a rose.”
Penny stared at him and then burst out laughing. “You have to be joking,” she said, trying to hold down a choking fit. “Do you know what Imperial Intelligence will do to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Dave said. “Did I say that I worked for Imperial Intelligence?”
Penny blinked. “Are you saying that you’re not working for Imperial Intelligence?”
“I had training from them and little else,” Dave said. He pursed his lips, thinking carefully. “Think of me…as one of the Household Troops. I work specifically for a single Family in the ongoing struggle for supremacy. My…employers were concerned about the Roosevelt Family’s obsessive interest in this sector and dispatched me to keep an eye on them. And you know the rest.”
He shrugged. “This ship doesn’t have a stasis pod and I don’t trust the medical computers far enough to risk sedating you for that long,” he added. “You can behave yourself and have the freedom of the ship or I can lock you into one of the cabins and leave you there until we reach Earth. Should you somehow manage to kill me…well; the ship will still take you to Earth. Have fun explaining my mangled remains.”
Penny pretended to consider it. Assuming he was telling the truth, escape would be impossible even if she did kill or incapacitate her jailor. She wasn't a computer expert and even if she had been, reprogramming a starship while in transit was a good way to commit suicide. And besides, if he was telling the truth about working for a different Family, perhaps she could make the contacts to save herself from carrying the can for Percival’s defeat.
The thought of going to Earth as a very junior officer, with neither connections nor patron, was terrifying, yet there seemed to be no choice. And the thought of killing Dave seemed impossible. If she tried to kill him – and she was sure now that he had some commando-level training, something she lacked – he would simply imprison her in a tiny cabin for six months. She’d been in superdreadnaughts and cruisers with tiny cabins and compartments for the low-ranking officers, yet she’d never been permanently confined to such a small space. It would drive her mad. And besides, perhaps Dave would be pretty good company. He could hardly be worse than Percival.
“I understand,” she said, finally. “Just tell me one thing. Am I a prisoner?”
Dave did her the honour of considering the question seriously. “I do not believe that you are a prisoner,” he said finally, “but honesty compels me to admit that I cannot release you, or drop you off somewhere apart from Earth.” He grinned at her and Penny found herself wondering why she’d thought he wasn't particularly handsome. “If you want, consider yourself to be on parole, with me as your supervising officer. I don’t think you’ll get lost on this ship.”
Penny chuckled, feeling the tension slowly starting to drain out of her. It would get worse, she knew, once they reached Earth, but for the moment she was safe. A starship, even a small commercial-issue design, would have an extensive library of entertainment and she could catch up with all the news she’d missed, or the reading Percival had never left her with time to do.
“I shall,” she said, with a wicked smile of her own. Despite her worries she was more than a little fascinated by his job. She had known that there was conflict – subtle rather than violent – between the different Families, yet she had seen little of it. “What Family do you work for?”
“One of the greatest,” Dave said. He refused to be drawn any further, reminding her that what she didn’t know she couldn’t tell. Penny wanted to be offended by his remarks, but he was right – and besides, she didn’t want to make him clam up any further. “Do you want to know the real nightmare?”
“Of course,” Penny said. Her grandma had once told her to make sure that she learned everything she could, because information was the weapon of the weak. Her grandma, the matriarch of her family, had been a font of good advice, even if she had called Penny a whore and worse after she had found out what she was doing for Percival. The Quick family had been commoners, poor compared to even the lowest member of the Thousand Families, but they prided themselves upon honesty and decency. “What can scare the Thousand Families?”
“Opening a planet for settlement, at least the kind of settlement that might pay off its debts, costs a vast amount of money,” Dave said. “It’s growing harder and harder for anyone, even the greatest of the Families, to concentrate that level of wealth for a single purpose. The Empire just sucks up money, from servicing debts to paying for the Civil Service and the Imperial Navy. Few can afford to make the investments needed to create new sources of wealth and even when they do create new sources the money is drained away into the Civil Service. The Empire is bleeding itself dry.”
Penny remembered her own speculations about the Roosevelt Family and felt her blood run cold. If the Roosevelt Family held the entire sector, they – and they alone �
�� would be able to tap it for resources. Sector 117 would feed the Family and nourish it, provided that the Family lasted long enough for the wealth to start flowing. No wonder Stacy Roosevelt had been so keen to terminate the rebellion – and Jackson’s Folly – so quickly. The longer they delayed, the greater the chance of someone else sticking a wedge into the sector and using it to share in the loot.
“So what,” Dave asked, “happens when the money runs out?”
His face twitched into a humourless smile. “The Thousand Families will start fighting over a shrinking pool of resources,” he answered his own question. “And then all hell will truly break loose. That’s why we have to terminate this rebellion as quickly as possible. The loss of Sector 117 is no great threat to the Empire, but it will make the edifice shiver and start to collapse. And then the whole Empire will collapse into debris?”
Penny said something that she would never have dared say in front of Percival. “Is that such a bad thing?”
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