Democracy 1: Democracy's Right (50 page)

Penny said something that she would never have dared say in front of Percival.  “Is that such a bad thing?”

Dave didn’t explode, or hit her.  He just smiled.  “Look at it this way,” he said.  “The Empire, as bad as it is, is the only thing holding the edifice together.  If the Empire breaks apart, trillions of people will lose everything – and that assumes that we don’t drop down all the way into civil war.  There will be a colossal disaster right across human space.  Billions will die.”

Penny sighed.  “You don’t understand,” she said, tiredly.  She remembered accessing – in private – the message the Popular Front had uploaded into the ICN.  “The civil war is already here.”

***

The days on the small starship – it turned out that it was called the
Hatta Mari
, for reasons Dave refused to discuss – slowly started to blur together.  Dave was amusing company and Penny did find herself with enough time to catch up on her reading.  She also found herself joining him for evening viewing, where he showed her some of his collection of forbidden entertainments, some of which made her laugh.  The Empire’s Public Entertainment Division simply didn’t amuse her like the forbidden shows.  Dave was careful not to tell her where he’d obtained the recordings, although Penny found herself suspecting that he had some pretty extreme connections of his own.  He certainly didn’t seem to be worried about her tattling on him to his superiors.

“It feels like a holiday,” she said, one evening.  Her time sense was also starting to blur; the ship was making several jumps, followed by a pause to allow the drive to cool down and recharge.  Nothing short of a courier boat could have matched the small starship’s pace and yet, Earth was still thousands of light years away.  One day, she was sure, the researchers would find a way to flicker instantly anywhere…but probably not under the Empire.  The Thousand Families discouraged technological advancement.  “Is that what you had in mind?”

Dave smiled.  “I wanted you to relax your mind,” he said.  “You’re too stressed to be of much good to my patrons, so I wanted you to relax.”

Penny smiled back.  It was odd how relaxed she felt in his company.  “And I'm sure that you had no ulterior motives,” she said, wryly.  Dave chuckled.  “How do you think we will fight the war?”

Dave shook his head.  “I think that for us the war is over,” he said, deadpan.  It had been a catchphrase on one of his entertainment shows.  “It all hangs on the Thousand Families and Earth now.  If we don’t convince them…”

Penny made up her mind and reached for him, pulling him towards her for a kiss.  Dave turned and kissed her back, his mouth exploring hers, even though there was a sort of curious dispassion in his act.  Percival had wanted her to submit; Brent-Cochrane had wanted to mark his territory…but Dave’s reactions were different.  And, somehow, having chosen to have sex with him herself made all the difference to her.  She made love to him with all the passion and fury that she could muster.

Afterwards, she lay back in his arms and knew that he was right.  For the moment, for her at least, the war was over.

Chapter Fifty

“The war is not over,” Admiral Quintana insisted.  The short portly CO of Sector 99 bristled with firm determination.  “The loss of Camelot only pins them to one location.”

Brent-Cochrane couldn't disagree with the logic.  Admiral Quintana’s sector fleet had paused long enough to stop at one of the relay stations – a precaution Brent-Cochrane had suggested – and discovered to their horror that Camelot had fallen.  It was impossible to believe that the rebels possessed nearly ninety superdreadnaughts – it would have required capturing and crewing the squadrons from the seven nearest sectors – yet how had they produced such a massive missile salvo?  He wanted to hate Percival for throwing away his ships, but how could anyone have anticipated such a meatgrinder?

Admiral Quintana carried on, ignoring his subordinate’s concerns.  “The rebels will have to maintain their fleet at Camelot or we will just walk in and repossess the system,” he said.  He’d been saying it again and again since they’d found out about the Battle of Camelot, as if he was desperately trying to convince Brent-Cochrane – or himself – of the truth of his words.  “We will go in, prepared for such a huge salvo, and retake the system.”

Brent-Cochrane chuckled darkly.  “And how does one prepare for such a large salvo?”

“We get the hell out of its way,” Admiral Quintana said, dryly.  Brent-Cochrane laughed, more to himself than to anyone else.  The only realistic defence against such an attack was not to be there when the missiles started to home in on one’s position.  Percival’s superdreadnaughts hadn't had their flicker drives spun up and ready, probably concerned about wear and tear on the generators.  It would be just like Percival to thank a victorious officer by demoting him for not taking care of his ships.  “We jump into the system here” – his finger stabbed at the display – “and advance in normal space.  The rebels will have plenty of time to see us coming, but we’ll use the time to keep our drives humming, ready to spin up and jump us some distance from their target.  And then we will see how many salvos they can fire.”

Brent-Cochrane frowned.  It wasn't bad logic, as logic went; indeed, if the massive salvos were a one-shot weapon, it should work quite well.  The rebels might have added additional external racks to their superdreadnaughts, or perhaps they’d loaded missile pods onto freighters and smaller ships.  No one had managed to get the missile pod concept to work, but if anyone could, the Geeks could do it.  Missile pods were always fouled by the drive field, yet...his mind tossed and turned the possibility around for a few seconds, before dismissing it.  Someone with more experience of starships and weapons design would have to consider it.

He shook his head.  “And if the rebels do happen to have eighty superdreadnaughts?”

“We back off fast and scream for help,” Admiral Quintana said, shortly.  Admitting defeat would be hard, but Brent-Cochrane knew that he had no connections to the Roosevelt Family.  Whatever interest they had in Sector 117, it wouldn't affect Admiral Quintana’s calculations – and he wouldn't care about wreaking havoc in the sector, if necessary.  The Imperial Navy could turn the tables and keep the rebels from forming a government until a massive fleet of superdreadnaughts was assembled and sent to spank those who had believed the rebels and their promises.  “I doubt that it will come to that.”

“I hope you’re right,” Brent-Cochrane agreed.  Watching sixteen superdreadnaughts get blown to plasma had shaken him more than he cared to admit.  His own ship had been destroyed, along with commanders and crews he’d hand-picked for his own reasons.  His scheming looked petty now, as if he’d been fiddling while the entire Empire burned around him.  If it cost his career to end the rebellion now, it was worth it.  “I really hope you’re right.”

“Chin up, young man,” Admiral Quintana said.  He was known to be pushing a hundred, although his career had seemingly stalled after deciding he liked being an Admiral and refusing to climb any higher.  Or perhaps it was an act and there was some reason why Admiral Quintana wasn't being offered further promotion.  The man had more connections than Brent-Cochrane had, certainly more than Percival had boasted.  “The rebels will probably see us coming and flicker out, allowing us to take back the system and chase them back to the Beyond.”

Brent-Cochrane shrugged.  He doubted it.  Whatever the rebels had done at Camelot, it hadn't been the act of cowards.  What they’d done had to be a trick of some kind, although he was damned if he knew how they’d done it.  If Percival had seen through it, if he’d had the nerve to avoid surrender...if it had been Percival who had surrendered.  Brent-Cochrane’s opinion of his former commander wasn't kind, yet he doubted that Percival would have surrendered, even on terms.  Being a treacherous and small-minded man himself, he always thought of others as sharing the same unpleasant attributes.

But then...Admiral Quintana commanded no less than
three
squadrons of superdreadnaughts, twenty-seven ships, with over a hundred smaller ships backing them up.  Whatever tricks the rebels had up their sleeves, it wouldn't be enough to save them.  Given time, Admiral Quintana could certainly crack Camelot’s defences and punch through to the world below, and then the rebels on the surface would have no choice, but to surrender or die.  There was no way the rebels could win.

He rubbed the back of his head as Admiral Quintana turned to the helmsman.  “Jon” – he seemed to address all of his subordinates by their first names, a paternalistic conceit that Brent-Cochrane found annoying as hell – “how long until we can make the final jump.”

“Twenty-seven minutes, Admiral,” Jon said.  “The drive is currently powered down and is repowering now.”

“Good,” Admiral Quintana said.  He leaned back in his command chair, projecting an easy confidence and a slightly fussy image.  Brent-Cochrane wasn't too impressed, although unlike Percival Admiral Quintana did at least have a working brain.  But then...he’d been nothing more than an Administrator for the past ten years.  Was he really up to commanding a fleet in combat?  “Give me a countdown to the jump.”

***

It was a curious law within the Imperial Navy that the larger the starship, the less open space it seemed to have for the crew.  The mass of the superdreadnaught
Admiral Wilmslow
housed literally thousands of tubes, nooks and crannies, all known to the men and women who served on her lower decks.  There, they could use them to snatch a quick rest, set up an illicit still – drunkenness was one of the problems on the lower decks – or any one of a hundred dubious undertakings.  No inspection team could find most of the hidden places without a map, alerting those who used them to pack up and hide.  The smarter commanding officers tolerated such behaviour as long as it didn't threaten the safety of the ship.  Few argued; a crewman who showed up for duty drunk would be publically flogged for putting the entire crew in danger.

Senior Crewman Stanford Stoutjespyk opened a hidden compartment within the crossroads – the place where several tubes met, allowing the crawlers to stretch before climbing back into the tubes – and produced a counter-surveillance device.  It would have upset Imperial Intelligence and the starship’s Security Officer to know that he had it, but Stanford had obtained it on the black market and kept it hidden within the massive ship.  Nothing short of dismantling the entire vessel would have located it, or so he told himself.  If he'd been caught, he would have been unceremoniously discharged from the service, at least in normal times.  With a rebellion flaring out in the nearby sector, the chances were good that he would be charged with plotting mutiny and ejected from the nearest airlock.

He watched as his five guests came wriggling into the chamber.  Three of them had the thin lanky forms of young crewmen, while one of them was clearly older and not in the best of physical shape.  The fifth, a young woman who hid behind her friend, was not in any fit state to do her duty.  She should never have been discharged from sickbay.  Stanford’s eyes narrowed as he saw the scars on her face.  Her only crime had been to refuse to have sex with a Blackshirt, for which she had been soundly beaten and then raped.  It had been the incident that had pushed him into contemplating open mutiny.

Stanford had served in the Imperial Navy for over twenty years, rising to Senior Crewman and holding the position for just under seven years.  His job included the duty of taking care of the younger crew, including preventing bullying rings and harassment from growing out of hand, a task he took seriously.  The superdreadnaught had been a happy ship – well, as happy as a superdreadnaught ever got – until the mutiny in the nearby sector and the assignment of the Blackshirts to the ship.  He'd always gotten on well with the Marines, but the Blackshirts were lazy, undisciplined and uncomfortably paranoid.  The rape had merely been the final straw.

He’d picked his allies from crewmen and women he’d known for several years, men and women he trusted...even though there was a risk that there was an informer among them.  He couldn't see an Imperial Intelligence spy deciding to make himself unpopular among the crew, not when doing his job demanded having their confidence.  It was a risk, but one he knew had to be taken.  And if anyone was going to take it, it had to be him.

“Soon,” he said, making a show of checking his wristcom, “this ship and the fleet will jump into the Camelot System and proceed to crush the rebellion.  Do any of you feel that that is a good thing?”

There was no answer.  They’d all
known
that the Empire was all-powerful, that resistance was futile, until the rebel message had burst into the ICN and downloaded itself into every terminal in the starship’s home port.  Public Information had issued a statement claiming that the rebel message was a hoax, one intended to cause unrest among the civilian population, but Stanford didn't believe them.  They didn’t understand the grapevine and how information was passed from crewman to crewman; when their commanding officer had picked up the word from Camelot, the crew had heard it too.  The rebellion was real.

And that left them with a dilemma.

“I believe that if we defeat the rebels in the Camelot System, the rebellion will be scattered,” Stanford said.  “I think that we have the firepower to do that, even if the rebels have more ships than our dear lords and masters believe.  And if that happens, that will be the end of the rebellion and the end of our hopes for justice.”

He waved a hand towards the poor girl.  “We tolerate such crap because we have no choice,” he added, “except we have a choice
now
.  We have to act and seize this ship.”

“I agree with your point,” Senior Crewman Gonzalez said.  “That leaves us with one problem.”  He tapped his belt meaningfully.  “We have no weapons, no suits of armour...and no plan.  And even if we take this ship, what about the others in the fleet?”

Senior Crewman Akkad was looking directly at Stanford.  “You have a plan, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Stanford said.  He didn't dare tell them that he had risked his life and liberty and contacted friends on the other ships, spreading the word as far as he dared.  With one or more people on each ship plotting trouble, it should be possible to launch a mass mutiny without involving too many people at first.  The only sign he’d had that things were going according to plan was the fact that the Blackshirts hadn't already arrived to arrest him.  “I have a plan.”

He smiled to himself.  Ironically, if the superdreadnaught still carried its regulation two companies of Marines, it would have been impossible to take the ship.  The Marines were trained for fighting onboard starships and probably would have been able to nip the rebellion in the bud.  The Blackshirts, on the other hand, knew very little about operating on a superdreadnaught.  They’d secured all of the main hatches, rightly enough, but they hadn't given any thought to the connecting tubes and passageways.  The mutineers would have the freedom of the ship from the moment the mutiny began.

“I won’t say much more at the moment,” he added, checking his wristcom.  “We need to gather a group to take the weapons locker and then take the starship’s vital compartments...and then scream for help from the rebels.”

Stanford took a breath.  “I won't lie to you,” he said.  “The odds are very much against us.  The chances are good that we will all die, but at least we will be dying for something, dying so that others might live.  Our home planets might survive long enough to be free.”

The thought was enough to keep him going, he told himself.  His own homeworld had been settled by the Empire and swiftly turned into a clone of a thousand other worlds.  There had been nothing there for a young lad without connections and he’d joined the Imperial Navy in the hopes of seeing some action.  It hadn't worked out as he had planned, but if he survived the next few hours perhaps it wouldn’t all be in vain.  He’d seen enough to understand just why his homeworld hadn't been allowed to develop in its own way.  It was all about power.