She shook her head, then allowed her gaze to drift towards lights orbiting the planet. It was hard to see much at this distance, at least with the naked eye, but she knew what they were; giant orbital industrial nodes, space habitats and shipyards, some of them owned by her family. Few human minds could truly comprehend the sheer scale of industry surrounding the planet – and yet it was smaller than Earth's legendary asteroid belt. But Earth was gone now, the Sol System devastated by the Breakaway Wars. Tyre might be the single greatest industrial node remaining in human space.
Unless the Theocracy has a larger industrial base of its own, she thought, morbidly. No one knew anything about the internal layout of Theocratic space, at least nothing more detailed than it had been prior to the Breakaway Wars. Most of the worlds within their sphere had been stage-one colonies, barely capable of supporting themselves, but a handful had funded their own settlement and produced small industrial bases of their own. How far had they progressed, she asked herself, under Theocratic rule? There was no way to know.
She shook her head as they flew away from the planet, the twinkling lights blurring into the ever-present stars, then turned her attention to the files her father had given her. Much of the data was, as she’d expected, drawn from naval databases, but some came from independent civilian analysts. Naval officers tended to scorn; Kat, who had seen some of the analysts who worked for her father, knew better. Civilians often had a different – and sometimes illuminating – way of looking at the universe. It was, at the very least, an alternate point of view.
The first file tabulated shipping losses along the border. Kat worked her way through it and slowly realized that her father had, if anything, underestimated the situation. The losses were tiny in absolute terms, but they were steadily gnawing away at the Commonwealth’s merchant marine. It would be years before the big corporations were undermined fatally by their losses, yet the smaller companies and the independents were in big trouble. She was astonished that the problem hadn’t made the mainstream media, no matter what the bigger corporations said. But then, it would be a brave editor who went against the will of his ultimate superior.
If the losses are made public, insurance rates will soar, Kat thought. She could see why her father and the other CEOs wanted the matter to remain quiet. But sooner or later, someone is going to notice anyway. Or are we compensating the colonies for destroyed ships out of our own pockets?
The next file detailed other problems along the border. It wasn't easy to mine large tracts of hyperspace – energy storms and gravity waves ensured the mines wouldn't stay in place for very long – but the Theocracy had been doing it, showing an astonishing persistence and a great deal of paranoia. Kat couldn't help agreeing with the analyst’s conclusion; no one, not even the most bloody-minded state in human history, would expend so much resources on mining hyperspace unless they had something to hide.
Or perhaps they don’t want us to spread ideas about freedom into their space, Kat thought, remembering a handful of refugees she’d met during border patrol. They’d stolen a starship and made it out of the Theocracy, placing their lives in the Commonwealth’s hands rather than stay one moment longer under oppressive rule. Their stories had been horrifying. The Theocracy gave lip service to the idea of religious freedom, but those who didn't accept the True Faith suffered all kinds of legal penalties. It was, apparently, incentive to convert.
The third file consisted of a detailed political briefing, written by yet another independent analyst. Kat felt her eyes glazing over as she tried to follow the jargon – it seemed that jargon changed every year, depending on who was sitting in the Houses of Parliament – and eventually skipped to the executive summery. Kat had to read through it twice to understand what her father had been trying to tell her. The Commonwealth was enduring a political deadlock; the War Hawks demanding preparations for war, perhaps even a first strike, while the Doves were skeptical of any real threat from the Theocracy. After all, the Commonwealth was much larger than any other state the Theocracy had overwhelmed.
“Captain,” the pilot said, “we’re entering final approach now.”
Kat nodded, returned the datachip to her uniform pocket, then scrambled forward into the empty co-pilot’s chair. Outside, a cluster of lights were slowly coming into view, a mobile spacedock surrounding a starship. She leaned forward, her breath catching in her throat, as HMS Lightning took shape and form. Her command, she told herself, forgetting her anger at her father for pulling strings on her behalf. Lightning was her command.
The vessel was longer than Kat had expected, she noted, although she’d reviewed the files on the Uncanny-class heavy cruisers when she’d received the first notification. Lightning resembled a flattened cone, her white hull bristling with shield generators, missile tubes, weapons mounts and sensor blisters. Her name was prominently blazed on her hull, drawing Kat’s attention to the drives at the rear of the ship. If the files were to be believed, Lightning enjoyed a higher realspace velocity than anything larger than a destroyer or frigate.
But she still won’t have a hope of outrunning a gunboat swarm, she thought. A gunboat was tiny, able to outrace almost anything. And they were hard to hit. Or a missile.
The thought was chilling. No one had fought a real conflict since the Breakaway Wars – and that hadn't really included formal fleet actions. Who knew how well doctrine would hold up when the Navy was tested in a real fight? Like it or not, she knew, there would be a steep learning curve as soon as the war began. If the war began ...
She shook her head. She knew that was wishful thinking.
“Take us in,” she ordered, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. “Put us down as quickly as possible.”
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A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6) Page 45