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

by Christopher Nuttall

  “No noticeable improvements to their seeker heads,” the tactical officer commented. There was no point in trying to control the point defence directly. No human mind could hope to handle it in time to make a difference. It required electronic reflexes to pick off all of the missiles. “Their ECM doesn't seem to have been improved either.”

  Colin nodded. The Geeks and Nerds might be the most inventive people in the galaxy, but the Empire wasn't entirely devoid of innovative thinkers. And, if they did come up with something new for their warheads, they had the industrial facilities to put them into mass production at terrifying speed. Even now, despite all the damage the rebels had inflicted, the Empire still maintained a colossal production advantage. A long war would almost certainly be a lost war.

  Unless the Geeks come up with a game-breaker, he thought. But it was hard to imagine what that might be. And manage to produce it in sufficient quantities to make a difference.

  The superdreadnaught shuddered once as a missile expended itself against the ship’s shields, without inflicting any damage. Colin allowed himself a moment of relief, then watched as his missiles closed in on the enemy fleet. The enemy CO had been lucky or very good, he realised a moment later, as the ships flickered out of the system. They’d got in, launched their missiles and jumped out again without losses. Colin nodded in silent respect, then turned his attention to the gunboats. They had closed to energy range, launching a small handful of missiles towards their targets. One by one, they were picked off by the point defence.

  “Repeat our demand for them to abandon the orbital facilities,” Colin ordered. “And inform them that they have five minutes to comply.”

  “Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Colin thought rapidly as the timer started to count down. The enemy attack seemed pointless, but it would cost him a great deal of effort to recover the missiles – perhaps more, if they couldn't recover them before enemy reinforcements arrived. By Colin’s most pessimistic calculations, it was still unlikely that the enemy commander would send superdreadnaughts away from Morrison, but the battlecruiser ambush had been a nasty shock. It suggested that the enemy CO was willing and able to gamble with his ships.

  It is the only way to win, Colin told himself. They can't win a war without fighting.

  But it was out of character for any of the senior officers he’d met. They’d all preferred bludgeons to rapiers, the application of overwhelming force instead of subtle tactics. After all, losing an expensive starship could mean being blamed for the loss, even if it had been necessary. And yet ... whoever had taken command at Morrison had shown himself willing to risk losses – heavy losses – if it slowed the rebels down. It was worrying.

  “Sir,” the tactical officer said, “request permission to start deploying recovery teams.”

  “Granted,” Colin said. He glanced at the timer. There were two minutes left before the time he'd given the enemy ran out. “And open fire on the platforms as soon as the timer reaches zero.”

  The system CO had evidently had enough of heroics. Instead of trying to fight, the platforms were swiftly evacuated and left abandoned. There weren't even any point defences to provide cover, as pitiful as it would have been. Colin’s missiles slammed into their hulls, vaporising them one by one. Debris tumbled through space and dropped into the atmosphere of the planet below. Colin wondered, absently, if any of the pieces would hit the facilities on the ground.

  Billions of credits worth of investment, he thought. It was pitiful compared to the sheer size of the Empire, but every little loss would mount up. Eventually, the Empire would be literally unable to pay its defenders, let alone meet its other obligations. By then, it would just fragment, no matter what happened to the rebellion. All smashed to rubble.

  “All platforms destroyed, sir,” the tactical officer reported.

  Colin sat back in his command chair and watched, grimly, as the missiles were recovered and towed to ammunition ships. The enemy could have planned it that way, intending to catch his forces in the act of recovering their missiles. If they turned up with enough force, he would have to bug out, leaving some of his people behind to be killed – or taken prisoner. But, as the seconds slipped away, nothing materialised. The enemy CO didn't seem to care enough about Parallax to send superdreadnaughts, even with the prospect of catching Colin with his pants down.

  There have to be limits to his freedom of operation, Colin told himself. The Thousand Families wouldn't have given him complete authority ...

  But who the hell was he facing?

  “Admiral,” the tactical officer said. “The missile crews have recovered the last of the missiles.”

  “Jump us out as soon as everyone is back onboard,” Colin ordered. “And then set course for the final RV point.”

  He forced himself to consider his overall plan. By now, the recon ships would be probing Morrison, studying the defences. It would, he hoped, give him an idea how to tackle the Morrison Fleet. Perhaps they would even pick up something that would identify their mystery opponent.

  We’ll meet up at the RV point, he thought. And then we plan our offensive.

  He looked down at the console, thinking hard. Few historical battles, even during the height of the First Interstellar War, could be considered decisive. No matter the winners or losers, the wars had been fought out on such a scale that no battle had truly settled the issue. But now ... if the rebels suffered major losses at Morrison it could be disastrous. Unlike the Dathi, they were in no shape to replace their losses and wouldn't be for years to come.

  Whatever happens at Morrison, he told himself, once again, will decide the fate of the war.

  ***

  “All ships have checked in, Commodore,” the communications officer said. “No major damage, certainly nothing inflicted by the enemy. Fury suffered a drive node glitch that will need replacing, but her drive field remained intact.”

  Lucky for her, Sahrye thought. If the battlecruiser had suffered a drive failure in the midst of combat, the results would have been disastrous. She would have been overwhelmed and blown to atoms before her flicker drive could have yanked her out of the battle. Even so, they’d given the rebels a nasty fright and confirmed – as if they hadn't already known – that the rebels were moving towards Morrison.

  “All ships preformed well,” she said. They’d had luck on their side too, as well as good judgement and intensive training. Once they realised that they'd pulled off a victory, of sorts, crew morale would skyrocket. “Set course for Morrison. More sedately, this time.”

  The helmsman blinked in surprise. “Commodore?”

  “Set course for Morrison,” Sahrye repeated, calmly. She wasn't used to repeating herself, but she understood the man’s surprise. Their orders were to harass the rebels, not to make one attack and then fall back. “I want to get there before the rebels.”

  She contemplated vectors in her mind. It was a week to Morrison, assuming that the flicker drives held out. Irritatingly, the drive itself provided instant transport – or as close to instant as made no difference – but recharging the drive took time, while making several jumps in a row put a strain on the system. And, if they happened to need to replace the drive motivator nodes in transit, the time it took to reach their destination would increase rather steeply.

  The rebels would probably take it gently, she told herself. They couldn't afford to lose starships, not now. Morrison was armed to the teeth and, thanks to the Admiral, the Morrison Fleet was slowly recovering from years of neglect. The rebels would have to assume that the fleet was in tip-top condition ...

  They’ll go after Morrison with everything they can bring to bear against the world, she told herself. We have to be there to help.

  “Course set,” the helmsman said. “All ships report ready to jump.”

  Sahrye rubbed her chest, feeling ghostly pains in her body. The report from sickbay stated that forty-two crewmen had been overwhelmed by flicker shock. It was rare to see so ma
ny cases on one ship, but few of them had actually taken part in a combat jump, certainly not one of such violence. But it had paid off for the squadron. They’d surprised the enemy and achieved their objective, then withdrawn without loss. Compared to the beatings the rebels had handed out, time and time again, she’d won a major victory.

  “Take us back to Morrison,” she ordered, quietly.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “You appear to have not made many improvements,” Admiral Wachter commented. “Dare I ask what you actually did?”

  Penny watched with some amusement as Captain Solomon cringed under the Admiral’s cold gaze. The superdreadnaught General Sugiyama had been inspected two weeks ago, whereupon it had been discovered that the ship was in a pitiful state. Admiral Wachter had angrily berated Captain Solomon, reminded him of his combat record, then told him that he had two weeks to fix the damage. The inspection tour had revealed that hardly anything had actually been done.

  “Let me help,” Wachter said, when the Captain said nothing. “You should have replaced the entire tactical system – but you haven’t. You should have checked the missiles you have in storage and replaced them if they were found to have decayed – but you haven't. You should have resorted your crew, removed the worst of the bullies and appointed new supervisors – but you haven’t. Why, exactly, did you decide to leave your shop in the same crappy state it was when I first had it inspected?”

  The Captain swallowed, then stood upright. “I have patrons ...”

  Wachter lifted a single eyebrow. “And your patrons told you to delay matters?”

  “They said I had to do it,” Captain Solomon insisted. “I don’t know why ...”

  “I can guess,” Wachter said. He met the Captain’s eyes. “Let's consider this, shall we? The rebels cannot be more than a month away – and they’re probably quite a bit closer. We have to get as many superdreadnaughts as possible into fighting trim before they arrive. And then your patrons give you orders to delay the repair work? What do you think they have in mind?”

  He pressed on before the Captain could answer. “It doesn't matter what they have in mind,” he said. “I think they’re committing treason by trying to slow down the repair work. If the rebels smash the fleet here, it will be years before we can take the offensive even if Home Fleet successfully defends Earth. And you, Captain, were considered expendable. They knew I wouldn't leave you in command.”

  Penny kept her face expressionless. She knew what it was like to be a client – and to be caught between common sense and orders from one’s superiors. But Admiral Wachter was right. They needed every last superdreadnaught ready for action as soon as possible – and orders to delay matters simply made no sense. And yet ... Captain Solomon had known that defying his patrons would have cost him his career, if they were feeling forgiving. Patrons could never risk showing weakness, for fear that their other clients would desert them,

  “You are relieved of command,” Wachter said, addressing Solomon. He nodded to the four Marines he'd brought with him. “These gentlemen will escort you to the holding camp on Morrison, where you can write me a full explanation of what you were ordered to do and just why you thought you should do it. Maybe, just maybe, I can find you a post less challenging, one where your patrons will leave you alone.”

  He watched as the Marines hauled the protesting Solomon off his bridge, then looked around for the ship’s XO. “Commander Hastings?”

  The younger man stood up, eying the Admiral nervously. Penny hastily scanned his file and winced, inwardly. Hastings was far too young for his rank. A quick check revealed that he was a lower scion of a lower family. Somehow, she wasn't surprised, although she knew it could be a bad omen. Percival had come from similar origins and he’d grown into an utterly incompetent monster.

  “You are promoted to Captain,” Wachter said, “and placed in command of this ship. I will assign you a competent XO and a cadre of maintenance crewmen within the day. You are ordered to get this ship up and running at acceptable levels within two weeks. Failure to do so will cost you your rank. Do you understand me?”

  Hastings nodded. He looked confident, although Penny couldn’t tell if he genuinely believed he could handle it or he was simply recklessly overconfident. She told herself it was probably the latter. Aristocrats were rarely placed in positions where they could fail.

  “I suggest you listen to the experienced newcomers,” Wachter added. “They do know what they’re talking about, Captain.”

  He turned and strode through the hatch, heading back down towards the shuttlebay. Penny saluted Captain Hastings quickly, then followed. The ship’s bulkheads were covered in fancy artwork, some of them downright erotic. Penny was no expert in art, but she had a feeling that most of them were original works – and that Captain Solomon had spent most of his ship’s discretionary budget on decoration. Percival had done the same, years ago.

  “They wanted to encourage more aristocrats to take up command posts,” Wachter commented, when she said that out loud. “There had to be some incentives beyond the prospect of having one’s body blown to atoms if war actually did break out. So they came up with the idea that officers could decorate their ships to suit themselves, at least as long as the ships were still combat-worthy. Somewhere along the line they forgot about keeping the ships ready to fight.”

  Penny nodded in understanding. No one in their right mind would have appointed Percival to command a squadron, let alone a whole sector, if they’d genuinely expected trouble. But then, there had been no reason to expect trouble, at least not in foresight. Hindsight, on the other hand, showed that the Empire had underestimated the ingenuity of some of its junior crewmen. And then there had been quite a few commanding officers on Morrison who had never left the pleasure dens, even to board the starships they nominally commanded.

  She followed him into the shuttle and took a seat. Unlike Percival, Wachter seemed content with a simple transport shuttle, one that might be used for moving crewmen from one ship to another. The pilot powered up the drives and took them out into space as Penny accessed the fleet-wide datanet through the shuttle’s systems and asked for an update. They would have been alerted at once if the rebels had attacked, but everything else had been put on hold.

  “Admiral,” she said, as a report blinked up in front of her, “a freighter arrived from Tyson.”

  Wachter frowned. “Tyson?”

  Penny scanned the report, then passed him the datapad. “The rebels attacked,” she said, shortly. “And most of our crewmen decided to come back here.”

  “And the rebels could be on their heels,” Wachter said, thoughtfully. He read the report, then called out to the pilot. “Take us to Station Nine.”

  “Aye, sir,” the pilot said. The shuttle hummed louder as it altered course. “Station Nine in twelve minutes.”

  Penny gave Wachter a puzzled look. “Station Nine?”

  “Imperial Intelligence has the returnees in its grubby hands,” Wachter said, grimly. “I want to get my hands on them before they do something stupid.”

  “... Shit,” Penny said.

  Only a handful of officers and crewmen had chosen to return to the Empire, even though the rebels were quite decent about returning those who wanted to return. Penny knew what had happened to most of the returnees, though; they’d been interrogated brutally, then shipped to the nearest penal world. Stacy Roosevelt had been the only real exception – and no one knew what had happened to her after the Fall of Camelot. But then, she'd been aristocracy. The others had had no such protections.

  “Call the Marines, too,” Wachter added. “Imperial Intelligence might try something stupid.”

  Penny felt her head throbbing in sympathy as they approached the colossal space station. As the sector capital, as well as a colossal naval base, Morrison rated a full Imperial Intelligence detachment, including a station that was nominally independent from the Imperial Navy. The Navy had never put pressure on the intelligence officers, at leas
t prior to Wachter’s arrival, if only because they had been seen as a separate organisation. Wachter, on the other hand, expected workable intelligence within a useful timeframe.

  She clenched her teeth together as the shuttle docked at the airlock. They hadn't been allowed access to the station’s shuttlebay, although she wasn't sure if the shuttlebay was occupied or if it were a calculated insult. But Wachter probably wouldn't care, she knew; he never seemed to pay much attention to formality, let alone the complex greeting rites for when one senior officer visited another. Her body started to tremble, but she held it under control by sheer force of will. She would not let her treatment at the hands of Imperial Intelligence render her useless, not now.

  Wachter stood up and led the way through the hatch. Penny followed him, mentally clenching and unclenching her hands. Outside, two men wearing civilian clothes waited for them. There was something odd about their outfits, but it took Penny several moments to understand what she was seeing. From a distance, or through civilian eyes, they looked almost military. And yet the outfits were still definitely civilian.

  “Take me to Director Smyth,” Wachter ordered. “Now.”

  The two men blinked in surprise. Imperial Intelligence had a lot of influence. They were probably more used to men genuflecting in front of them than barking orders. After a moment, one of them nodded and led the way down the long corridor. The other fell in behind them, bringing up the rear. Penny met his eyes for a moment and shivered, inwardly, at the coldness in his gaze. It was impossible to tell if he’d been conditioned or if he was really that cold, but the sight chilled her to the bone.