Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

A new alarm blared. “Incoming ships,” the tactical officer said. Joshua whirled to face the main display as new red icons flickered into existence. Their commander hadn’t run the insane risk of flickering in so close to the gravity shadow, but they were still close enough to block his fleet from retreat. “Source… sir, they’re the first-rank ships!”

Jason Cordova hadn’t told Colin what he had in mind. It would only have upset him.

He’d taken command of the Random Numbers again, after the massacre and his own official clearing of all charges relating to the attempted murder of Colin, but he knew better than Colin that there would be no peace. If — when, as Tiberius would have told Daria the truth — the truth about the Dathi came out, he would still be the most hated man in the entire Empire. Colin might believe that he could ensure that there would be no official punishment for Cordova, but Cordova knew that that wasn’t the issue at hand. The court of public opinion, the same court that had opposed any relaxation on the rules surrounding aliens, would condemn him and anyone associated with him. He couldn’t — he wouldn’t — allow that to happen to Kathy. She deserved much better than him.

“That’s the main body of the Empress’s fleet,” his tactical officer said. Cordova had stripped the Random Numbers of anything other than a skeleton and volunteer crew, not least because he didn’t expect to be coming back and he’d dragged his crew into enough tight spots. Colin and the others desperately preparing for the attack hadn’t noticed. They hadn’t had enough experienced personnel to question while some personnel were available, even if they had had time to wonder. “I still cannot identify which ship is hers.”

Cordova smiled. The Empress — he refused to think of her as Daria any longer — might have been smart enough to assemble an entire secret fleet, but she had a weakness. Like him, she had been brought up as an Imperial Navy officer. Like him, she had a soft spot for any ship she had personally commanded… and the General Cromwell , a superdreadnaught holding position towards the rear of the Empress’s formation, had once been under her commander. He’d known the moment he’d studied a list of the four superdreadnaught squadrons that had vanished during the Battle of Earth. Her ship, her crew… maybe even a commanding officer who’d served on the ship during her era. It wasn’t impossible for an officer, with the right connections, to serve on the same ship for his or her entire career… and Daria had had links right into the heart of the Thousand Families. It would have passed unnoticed in the Imperial Navy. Everyone did it.

“There,” he said, confidently. The General Cromwell , Janice’s old command, and unless he’d misread her completely, her current command ship. There was no way to confirm it, short of hacking into the communications network between the enemy ships, but he was sure that he was right. It wasn’t even something Colin would have thought of. He’d always stolen his command ships from the Empire. “Helm, set course for that ship.”

He’d cloaked the Random Numbers as soon as it had left the gravity shadow and circled around to lurk in hiding and it was unlikely in the extreme that they had been detected, although the haze of sensor distortion caused by so many detonating warheads and dying ships was proving a problem for the cloaking device. He’d sneaked up on superdreadnaught before, back while he’d been hiding out along the Rim, but now it was serious. It wasn’t a game anymore.

“Course set,” the helmsman said. “It’s been a pleasure, sir.”

Cordova nodded and settled back into his command chair. “Engage.”

“Those ships aren’t going to be a threat to us,” Daria snapped. Joshua was proving something of a disappointment to her. The arrival of ships from the first-rank worlds changed nothing. They had no superdreadnaughts, no fighters and the largest ship they had was a battleship. They weren’t going to be able to stop her from regaining her throne. She’d come too far and burned too many bridges to turn away now. “Hold your ground and they’ll break over us.”

“They have enough missile launchers to complete our destruction,” Joshua countered, angrily. Daria spotted the blonde girl behind him and knew, with a certainty that transcended rational thought, that it was her who’d tried to talk Joshua out of continuing the engagement. She wouldn’t survive once Daria had returned to her throne. She would make a pile of her enemies skulls and use them for unsightly purposes. “We’re trapped, Your Majesty. We cannot even break off from the engagement. The most we can do is destroy Earth and that would result in our destruction.”

“I will not surrender,” Daria snapped. “This is still hope…”

“Incoming,” the tactical officer screamed. Daria spun around to stare at the tactical display. The hazy icon of a cloaked ship was closing in on the General Cromwell . “They’re going to ram us!”

“Engage it,” Daria snapped. “Take it out!”

“It’s too late,” the tactical officer said. “It’s too close…”

The Random Numbers rammed the General Cromwell amidships. At such speeds, the mass of a light cruiser could be deadly, but Cordova had added a final bitter jest. Having decided to commit suicide and take Daria with him, he had loaded as much antimatter as he could beg, borrow or steal from the Jupiter Shipyards, choosing to ignore the risks of storing it on a starship. Even if Daria did manage to destroy them before they could ram, the explosion would still be lethal to her ship, but as it was it didn’t matter. The resulting explosion blotted both ships out of existence.

“Holy shit,” someone breathed.

Colin couldn’t disagree. The final moments of the Random Numbers had only been seen by a drone, launched by the first-rank starships, but the antimatter blast had been seen everywhere. It was going to cause problems on Earth, he realised, grimly. So much radiation and other effects would harm the entire planet. The Empire’s ban on antimatter outside certain highly secure research labs hadn’t been purely to deprive everyone of a useful, if desperate, weapon.

And the fighting seemed to have paused.

“Raise the enemy flagship,” he ordered, tiredly. After that, he suspected that whoever was in command would be feeling reasonable. The blast would have blown our sensors and fucked up tactical systems all over their remaining fleet. They might have killed the starfighter carrier — Colin hadn’t allowed himself any time to grieve for David Houston and the remains of his crew — but their position was hopeless. They had to know it. “Tell them… that we will accept their surrender.”

Joshua’s face was expressionless as the signal came in. The General Monck hadn’t been badly touched by the antimatter blast, but dozens of other ships had been crippled. The communications network was completely off-line, along with dozens of other vital systems… and they couldn’t be re-established in time.

“Sir?” Penny asked, grimly. Daria’s death in that terrifying moment when matter met antimatter and complete annihilation resulted had left Joshua in undisputed command of the fleet. It had become a poisoned chalice. “Sir, what do we do?”

Joshua pulled himself to his feet. “Anne, signal the fleet,” he ordered, in a tone that could not be challenged or disputed. “Inform them that I am ordering a full and unconditional surrender. They are to accept that and obey all orders from the victors.” He smiled bleakly, as if there was no humour left in his soul. “I dare say that they will treat us under the Moscow Accords if we surrender promptly.”