Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

Worse, because the positions were reversed, he had to worry about covering worlds that would not, normally, have been considered suitable targets. The first-rank worlds were scrambling to expand their defence forces as fast as possible, including their first-ever superdreadnaughts, but they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves for long, unless the Imperial Navy came to their aid. That was bad enough… but then there were the second-rank worlds, the third-rank worlds…

This isn’t going to be solved easily , he thought, grimly.

He tapped the table for attention. “So far, most of this is just speculation,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what happened at Cottbus and we won’t until we get some answers. Joshua, how many ships can Cottbus reasonably expect to have?”

Joshua looked up at Captain Penelope — Penny — Quick, his former Flag Captain and current aide. She’d been offered a command of her own in the wake of the Battle of Earth, but she’d chosen to stay with Joshua instead, working for him directly. It was an odd choice to outsiders, but Colin was fairly sure that she was in love with her superior, technically in breech of the new regulations. He hadn’t been able to determine if they were sleeping together, but if they were, he’d already decided to ignore it.

“Admiral Wilhelm was apparently assigned the standard three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, as well as upwards of two hundred smaller starships that were assigned to his sector,” she said, consulting her terminal. “One of the squadrons was supposed to have been dispatched to Earth in the wake of Second Morrison to reinforce Home Fleet, but apparently never arrived. Assuming that the two nearest sectors are also involved, they may have seven squadrons of superdreadnaughts and over a thousand escorts.”

She paused. “Only a handful of ships deserted from that sector and made it to the Shadow Fleet,” she added. “As far as I can tell, Admiral Wilhelm was allowed to turn it into a private fiefdom by the Hohenzollern Clan, who apparently patronised the Admiral and most of his senior officers. Imperial Intelligence apparently believed that the Admiral was definitely building up a force that was loyal and indeed devoted to him, but they were not allowed to take any action against him.”

“Friends in high places,” Joshua said. Colin could hear a trace of bitterness in his voice. Joshua had been sacked for being too competent for his post, while incompetents like Admiral Percival and Admiral D’Ammassa had been allowed to continue to hold their posts. Some had been merely incompetent. Others had been deeply corrupt. “The entire Hohenzollern Clan must have been behind him if he was that blatant about it.”

Colin nodded slowly. “Do you know him? Does anyone know him?”

“I served under him once as a Midshipman,” Cordova said, unexpectedly. “He was a Commodore at the time, very intent on pressing the flesh with as many members of the Thousand Families as possible. He did very well on exercises, but I doubt that he ever played an unplanned exercise or anything else along those lines.”

“He was supposed to be competent,” Joshua added. He shook his head slowly. “I looked up his records, but there was little beyond the standard fudge. They make him sound like the reincarnation of Admiral Carpathia.”

“In other words, a serious problem,” Colin said. His own records had been carefully written by Admiral Percival to blow his career out of the water and leave him stranded permanently as first officer of the battlecruiser Lightning . Percival, wherever his soul had ended up, had to be choking on that irony. Colin had seized control of the battlecruiser and used it to start the rebellion. Had it really only been two years ago? “It’s not something we can allow to pass.”

He silently canvassed opinion before moving on. “I suggest that we assemble a task force at once to head to Cottbus and demand explanations,” he said. “The commander will have authority to negotiate on our behalf, but only on terms acceptable to us, such as the planet and sector remaining within the Empire. If we have to, we’ll amnesty Wilhelm and his compatriots if they agree to surrender without further bloodshed.”

It didn’t sit well with him — he would have preferred to punish Wilhelm or whoever was in charge for destroying his ships and killing his people — but there was little choice. If Cottbus could be secured without further loss of life, he would accept that as the price for success.

“And if they don’t?” Daria asked. “What do we do then?”

“We cannot allow them to become a running sore,” Colin said. “We move in, fast and hard, and take the worlds back by force.”

He paused. “Is there any other business?”

“A detail, yes,” René Goscinny, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said. He’d been appointed as the first-rank worlds representative to the Provisional Government, a role he was uniquely suited to carrying out. He’d been Gaul’s foreign minister before the Battle of Gaul had broken, once and for all, the taboos surrounding the first-rank worlds. “Do I understand that you intend to proceed with the withdrawal from the alien homeworlds?”

Colin nodded. “There’s little point in keeping the garrisons on their surface, particularly now,” he said, firmly. Humanity had caused the extinction of two alien species, one deliberately, one accidentally — although there were still some dire suspicions — and he was determined that there wouldn’t be a third. They’d been held under the Empire’s iron boot for too long. “I believe that we can grant them autonomy without further ado.”

“It will not be popular,” Goscinny said, firmly. “I suggest that we leave it until…”

“Until when?” Colin asked. The racism within the Empire against non-human races had been a null-issue to him… until he’d come face-to-face with some of the consequences. He’d sworn to end it and he meant it. “It will never be popular, but it has to be done. The sooner, the better.”

Goscinny winced. “And no popular vote?”

Colin shrugged. “Does history record a case where the majority was actually right?”

“And thank God that that’s over!”

Admiral Katy Garland looked up as Colin entered, watching as he pulled his uniform jacket off and draped it over a chair, before taking a position facing her. She’d been surprised to be called back to the High City so quickly — it had been weeks since she’d been assigned to escort convoys from Earth to several first-rank worlds — but truthfully she was surprised to have been promoted at all. She had been the senior officer of the Shadow Fleet to be taken prisoner at First Morrison.

“Bad night at the office?” She asked, dryly. She’d known Colin when he’d been a mere Commander and, even though he was now effectively the ruler of the Empire, she found it hard to scrape and bow. If she knew Colin, and she did, he would have hated such deference from an old friend.

“They’ve invented new ways to square the circle and make two plus two equal five,” Colin said, rolling his eyes. An orderly brought him a large mug of coffee — of a brand that, prior to the Fall of Earth, had only been available to the Thousand Families — and he sipped it gratefully. Katy, who’d tried every kind of coffee in the Empire, privately found it a little bitter. “Half of them think that they shouldn’t be paying taxes and tithes now and the other half want the first lot to pay more. Sorting out who owes what isn’t going to be easy and now…”

He shook his head. “That’s an issue for another time,” he said. “How determined are you to keep the Havoc ?”