Democracy's Right: Book 02 - Democracy's Might

by Christopher Nuttall

  “All targets destroyed, sir,” the tactical officer reported. She’d been a member of Cordova’s crew from the start, someone who hadn't made any bones about being irritated by Patrick’s presence. He’d only been a mutineer for a year, if that. “The supply dump is scrambling gunboats.”

  Cordova made a show of stroking his beard. “No need to fight them,” he said, “even though we came looking for a fight. Power up the drive, then jump us out to the first waypoint.”

  Patrick braced himself as he heard the dull whine of the flicker drive powering up. Moments later, his stomach clenched violently and he had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting onto the deck. The compensators weren't properly tuned, he thought, although no one seemed to care enough to fix them. They seemed to regard it as a feature of the ship and her eccentric commander.

  “Jump complete, sir,” the helmsman reported.

  Patrick glanced down at his console. “All ships report a successful disengagement,” he reported. Officially, his title was Fleet Coordinator, even though Cordova commanded a large squadron at best. Unofficially, he was charged with keeping an eye on Cordova and his crews. Reputations tended to be tarnished along the Beyond. It was quite possible that Cordova, as well as being an exile, was a pirate. “Missile expenditures ...”

  “Bureaucratic nonsense,” Cordova said, dismissively. He winked at Patrick. “Don't worry about that, son. The commanders can handle their own missile expenditures.”

  Patrick flushed. Cordova knew perfectly well why Patrick had been assigned to his crew and didn't hesitate to tease him, rather than act offended. Patrick suspected that Cordova was not entirely sane any longer, although there was no way to prove it. Quite a few of the Rim’s inhabitants were unstable, particularly after being forced to run for their lives from the Empire’s expanding borders. And Cordova, the Imperial Navy CO who’d gone into exile rather than scorch a planet, could never go home again.

  Unless we win, Patrick thought, as he forced himself to relax. Then we can all go home.

  “Splendid shooting, all of you,” Cordova added, addressing the entire crew. “Our targets didn't have a hope.”

  He was right, of course. The Imperial Navy had been caught completely by surprise, allowing the raiders to fire their missiles at very close range. In future, they’d be harder to surprise, once word of the attack got out. But every ship they detailed to convoy escort and planetary defence was one that couldn't be assigned to blunt the rebel advance,

  “Take us to the RV point, then reload our magazines and resume our flight towards Earth,” Cordova ordered. “We don't want to get there after they realise we’re coming.”

  He grinned toothily at Patrick, then stood and strode off the bridge, his long frock coat billowing around him. Patrick couldn't help feeling a twinge of admiration, realising just how Cordova had managed to retain the loyalty of most of his crew despite spending so long in the Beyond. But then, the crewmen couldn't go home either. Some of them, from what he’d heard, had found new lives in the Beyond, but others had remained on the cruiser, hoping for a chance for victory.

  And they would have remained endlessly flying through space if Admiral Walker hadn't started a rebellion, Patrick thought. His stomach clenched for a second time as Random Numbers flickered again, jumping to the RV point. The freighters that made up the fleet train were already waiting for them. Without us, they would still be in the Beyond.

  “Stand down from alert,” the XO ordered, once they had verified the presence of the freighters and exchanged ID codes. Their standards had been tighter than the Imperial Navy’s even before the rebellion had begun, Patrick had heard. But then, the Imperial Navy could afford to make mistakes while the Beyonders didn't dare take too many risks. “Alpha crew; take some downtime. Beta crew will supervise the transfers.”

  Patrick nodded, then stood as his replacement arrived at his console. There was a brief consultation - shift changes on Random Numbers were slightly less chaotic than they were on regular starships – and then he left the bridge, passing through the hatch and walking down towards the mess. The cooks, he’d been relieved to discover, were actually quite good, better than the ones on his previous starship. But then, they actually got to control what supplies they received from the logistics officers. Imperial Navy cooks had to make do with what they had.

  He took a tray of food and sat down at a table, noting without surprise just how isolated he was from the rest of the crew. They might not suspect the secret part of his mission, but they resented his presence, Cordova didn't take on many new crewmen and he forced those he did to prove themselves before trusting them with responsibility, let alone authority. Patrick, on the other hand, had never had to prove himself. His sole qualification for being a rebel was being caught up in the first set of mutinies, then agreeing to stay with Colin Walker once he had taken control of the ships.

  It still astonished him to see how disciplined Cordova’s crew actually was. They’d been in exile for over twenty years, long enough to lose all cohesion ... and yet they hadn't, somehow. They wore makeshift uniforms – like their commander, there was a certain amount of individuality in each uniform – and they comported themselves like proper crewmen, not pirates or even independent shippers. Even the newcomers, the ones Cordova had recruited from the Rim, fitted in nicely. The ship was in excellent condition, no one urinated in the corridors and there was no bullying or molestation of younger crewmen. Patrick had been on Imperial Navy starships with less discipline.

  He must have been a great commander, Patrick thought, as he finished his tray. The Imperial Navy must have been sorry to lose him.

  Or maybe not, he added, in the privacy of his own mind. The qualities that made for a good commanding officer weren't ones that the Imperial Navy always found reassuring. Perhaps they'd felt Cordova had had a personality cult even before he'd deserted the Imperial Navy or perhaps they'd suspected his loyalty. But they wouldn't have assigned a scorching mission to a starship commander they didn't trust. Even hardened sadists were known to balk at wiping an entire planet’s population out of existence. The Imperial Navy usually assigned such tasks to officers who had been properly conditioned beforehand, the ones who would obey orders without question, let alone doubts or scruples.

  A hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped.

  “The Captain wishes to see you in his office,” Maze informed him. “You will come with me now.”

  Patrick nodded. Maze was a towering black woman, her skin pieced with countless pieces of jewellery. There was no mistaking her sheer strength or her loyalty to her commanding officer, even though Patrick would have bet good money that she hadn't been an Imperial Navy officer before Cordova deserted the Navy. Her attitude certainly suggested otherwise.

  He stood and allowed Maze to lead him through the ship’s corridors and into Officer Country. Unlike an Imperial Navy starship, the hatch connecting Officer Country to the rest of the ship was unguarded. It wasn't even locked, despite being closed. Patrick wasn't sure quite what to make of it. Was Cordova showing that he trusted his crew or was he making an entirely different statement?

  Maze opened the hatch to Cordova’s cabin, without bothering to knock. Cordova was seated at his desk, examining a holographic star chart. He glanced up as they entered, then pointed to a seat. Patrick took the seat, then waited. Maze slipped out of the room as quietly as she’d entered, leaving them alone.

  Patrick couldn't help looking around the cabin. Cordova didn't seem to be much of a packrat, unlike some Imperial Navy officers he’d known; the bulkheads were largely bare, save for a single photograph placed against one section. It showed a dozen men and women standing together, smiling at the camera. Patrick wondered if they were part of Cordova’s graduation class at the academy, but they were all wearing civilian clothes. Remarkably fine civilian clothes.

  “The attack was a great success,” Cordova said. In private, he didn't seem so inclined to project his personality as far as he could. Patrick could
n't help wondering just how much of that personality was actually real. For all he knew, Imperial Navy officers were quite different in private. “We smashed the ships without losses.”

  “Yes, sir,” Patrick said. He still disliked the thought of blasting unarmed and surrendering freighters, but there had been no time to take prisoners. “It was a glorious victory.”

  Cordova eyed him sardonically, then nodded. “We will be moving further towards Earth within the hour,” he added. “The real question is where we go from there. Contact will have to be made with the underground. And then ...”

  He looked up at the star chart. “Where do we go from there?”

  Patrick listened as Cordova outlined possibilities. “Earth itself is a possibility; we’d definitely panic the Thousand Bastards if we attacked within the Sol System. God knows it hasn't happened for hundreds of years, even during the First Interstellar War. But that would also encourage them to see to their defences. Colin would not forgive us.”

  He shrugged. “Wolf 359 is another possibility,” he added. “Or Terra Nova. But both of them carry their own risks.”

  “Wolf 359 is a Class-III shipyard,” Patrick pointed out. “If it could be taken intact ...”

  “I doubt it,” Cordova said. “And even if we did, we couldn't hold it. But destroying the facility might be worthwhile.”

  They talked for nearly an hour, discussing possibilities. In the end, they agreed that Wolf 359 would be an acceptable target, although it would need to be planned carefully. The shipyards were heavily defended even before the rebellion began.

  “I meant to ask,” Patrick said, as Cordova poured them both a glass of rotgut. “Why did you spare the planet?”

  Cordova gave him a sharp glance, as if Patrick had just touched a nerve.

  “Because they didn't deserve to die,” he said, finally. “Because they were sentenced to death, just for existing. And because they didn't deserve to die.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “You need to wake up,” Gaunt snapped. “This base may have been compromised.”

  Adeeba snapped awake. Thankfully, she’d slept in her clothes. One hand picked up her pistol from where she’d placed it beside her mattress, the other grabbed for her emergency pack and slung it over her shoulder. Frandsen, unsurprisingly, was already awake. The Marine managed to look disgustingly alert, despite the hour.

  “Joy,” Adeeba muttered. A glance at her watch told her that it was three in the morning. “What happened?”

  “Someone probably got caught,” Gaunt said. She turned and strode towards the door. “The imps would have made them talk, then killed them. If that person had an inkling of this base’s location ...”

  Adeeba could fill in the rest. The imps had taken longer than she’d expected to realise that there was a coordinated sabotage campaign underway on Earth. but once they’d cottoned on they’d started to tighten security and start hunting for underground bases. Security forces had been sweeping the lower levels, while new procedures had forced underground agents to go silent in the hopes of evading detection. Earth was the one world where the imps couldn't risk excessive brutality, but they seemed mad enough not to care.

  Gaunt led them out the door and down a long concrete corridor. Adeeba felt her ears pop as the air pressure changed suddenly, then winced as they reached a solid wall. Gaunt snorted at her and pressed her hand against a certain place. There was a clicking noise and the wall moved out of their way, allowing them to step through into the next section. Inside, there was a long metallic pipe heading into the darkness.

  “Take these,” Gaunt said, opening a hidden compartment and producing a handful of night-vision goggles. “Do you know how to swim?”

  Adeeba blinked in surprise. “Swim?”

  “We need to swim further on,” Gaunt said. The ground shook, suddenly. “And if you don't know, I suggest you get ready to learn.”

  “I can swim,” Adeeba said. She’d learned at the academy, along with a number of other skills she'd deemed useless in space. “But why ...?”

  “Officially, this complex ends here,” Gaunt said. “Unofficially, there's a link between this one and the next. But only if you can swim.”

  The ground shook, again. “And they’re on their way,” she added. “Some of our people are going to sell their lives dearly. I just wish I was with them now.”

  ***

  The lower levels of the city had always given Lieutenant Jackson Robertson the creeps. It was impossible to tell that humans had once lived there, not when the area was damp, smelly and largely abandoned. Sure, there were people who eked out an existence in the lower levels, but he couldn't understand how they could bear to live like that. But their presence provided cover for the underground ...

  “Sweep carefully,” he ordered, as the Blackshirts led the way into the complex. The charts they’d downloaded before commencing the raid were inaccurate, they’d already discovered the hard way. Someone had been changing the interior of the complex, redesigning it to suit themselves. “And watch out for traps.”

  He cursed under his breath as the Blackshirts moved further down the corridor, poking through metal doors and inspecting the hidden rooms. Blackshirts were brave, no one doubted that, but they were also hard to control once they got the scent of blood. Jackson would have preferred more disciplined troopers; his superiors had told him, when he’d asked, that there were none available. He would just have to hope that the Blackshirts obeyed orders during the raid and took prisoners, rather than slaughtering everyone they encountered who wasn't wearing a uniform.

  The rooms looked to have been abandoned a long time ago, he realised. Anything that might have been decomposable had already decomposed. It didn't look as if anyone had been down in the complex for decades, perhaps hundreds of years. But the sniffers were reporting the presence of human DNA traces, suggesting that the rebels might have established a base further down ...

  There was a click, loud enough to be heard over the communications network, then a colossal explosion. The three Blackshirts who had taken point were blown backwards, their armoured bodies tossed out of the passageway like ragdolls. Their successors opened fire, raking the burning corridor with bursts of plasma fire. As far as Jackson could tell, there was nothing there now the IED had detonated, but they were trained and conditioned to respond to any provocation with maximum force. It helped deter future attacks, their conditioners had claimed. Jackson had his doubts.

  “Cease fire,” he snapped, angrily. He didn't manage to keep the anger out of his voice. “Hold your fucking fire!”

  The Blackshirts slowly stopped firing. Their shots had left the corridor scorched and pitted, but otherwise undamaged. Jackson muttered another curse under his breath, then detailed the Blackshirts to start advancing forward again, carefully. The first IED probably wouldn’t be the last and, unlike operating in the open, the corridors ensured that the Blackshirts would follow a predicable course. It would be easy for the underground to mine all the approaches to the complex.

  A second explosion blasted out ahead of him as the Blackshirts stumbled over another IED. This time, no one was hurt. Jackson let out a sigh of relief as they broke into the complex and looked around. It seemed deserted, but closer inspection revealed that someone had definitely been in the complex not too long ago. There was almost no dust on the floor. In fact, he decided, the signs suggested that there had been quite a few people in the complex.

  “This seems to have been an operating base,” he said, keying his radio. If something happened to the advance teams, their commanders would know that a rebel base had been uncovered. By now, every exit route should have been firmly secured. Either the rebels had abandoned the base ... or they were frantically preparing to make a last stand. “So far, all we have encountered is traps, but there might be live rebels further down.”

  “Understood,” his CO said. “If you can take some rebels alive, Jackson, there will be a promotion in it for you.”

  Jack
son nodded, then directed the Blackshirts to fan out. It was time to search the entire complex piece by piece. And if they found the rebels ... they’d give them a nasty surprise.

  ***

  Adeeba gritted her teeth as they came out of the pipe and found themselves looking at a vast reservoir. Once, she recalled, the city’s water supply would have been drawn from this huge tank of water, then pumped up through a network of pipes and then recycled after use. Now, the tank had been walled over and forgotten by the city’s officials. The only source of illumination was a faint glow from high overhead. She caught a glimpse of something moving under the water and wondered, suddenly, if entirely new forms of life had had time to evolve. Or if the rebels, trying to ensure a secure food supply, had introduced fish into the tank.

  “Here,” Gaunt said, passing her a breathing mask. “Stick your shoes in the bag, then put the mask on and get ready to swim.”

  Frandsen scowled. “Where are we going?”

  Gaunt gave him a brilliant grin, her teeth shining in the semi-darkness. “There’s a passageway under the water,” she informed him. “We can use it to get out.”

  She checked Adeeba’s mask, then smiled. “You have two hours worth of air in the mask,” she added. “If we don't get out by then, they’ll never find our bodies.”

  Frandsen gave her a reassuring look as Gaunt turned and jumped into the water. There was a loud splash – deafeningly loud in the silent compartment – and then Gaunt surfaced, waving at them to follow her. Adeeba hesitated, standing on the edge of the water, then felt a push on her back. She tilted and plummeted into the water. It was cold, cold enough to make her shiver; her clothes suddenly felt very heavy. Frandsen joined her a moment later, then nodded to Gaunt. The underground fighter dived under the water and vanished.

  Adeeba took a breath, even though she knew the mask should take care of her, then followed. It was hard to see Gaunt in the gloom; tiny fish swam nearby, confusing her. Dark shapes appeared as she swam deeper, some of them unrecognisable and others familiar enough for her imagination to fill in the details. She couldn't help shivering again as Gaunt led her towards a pipe, then dived right inside. Adeeba hesitated – she was no claustrophobe, but the pipe seemed too small for anything human – and then followed Gaunt, trying not to think about where she was.