Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Admiral Wachter is issuing orders for the new squadrons to form up at Jupiter,” Colin said. “Once you get there, make a quick analysis and decide how quickly you can flicker out.”

“I’m going to run through at least one combat drill first,” Katy said, firmly. The Shadow Fleet had had a higher rating for drilling than the old Imperial Navy — the new one, which Colin and Joshua had been founding, took drilling very seriously — but the crew might well be untested. “Once that’s completed, I’ll let you know when we can depart.”

“Of course,” Colin said. He stuck out a hand. “May God go with you.”

The only title that Major Vincent Anderson had allowed himself was Security Officer, a title that had a rather dark history within the Imperial Navy. An old-style Security Officer was required to watch the crew of their starship for any signs of disloyalty, subversion or dissatisfaction, and, once they had confirmed a possible suspect, to carry out a rigorous interrogation. The crewman, once they had been though the interrogation, would probably be blacklisted for life, even if they had been innocent. It hadn’t been a career that Anderson had enjoyed and, when he’d realised the scope of Colin’s conspiracy against the Empire, he had chosen to join it rather than expose it. It was something that would have earned him a death sentence, if he’d been caught deliberately failing in his duty, but as he’d remarked to Colin at the time, the Empire would have been hard-pressed to decide on which charge they were actually going to shoot him.

And, much to his private surprise, the rebellion had won.

Anderson had refused promotion, choosing to remain as Colin’s spymaster and security expert. Colin, he’d decided long ago, was the key figure of the rebellion and the Provisional Government. Without his authority and status, the Provisional Government would fall apart, leaving the old order poised to recover its power and position. He’d ensured that the High City was packed with his spies and surveillance devices, using them to identify several plotters against the Provisional Government, and he’d adopted a pro-active attitude towards them. It was astonishing how incompetent some of the would-be bombers had been. They’d managed to blow themselves up with their own explosives.

But the High City was a security nightmare. There hadn’t been an overall security network since the Empress had been disposed, forcing him to work hard to establish a blanket network, one he knew had far too many holes. Even the smallest and least-influential of the Thousand Families had a security staff, who swept their apartments daily for bugs, while the more powerful ones had their own intelligence networks. The nightmare haunted him daily. While he tracked down incompetents, or people who talked too much at the wrong places, what might the competent ones be doing?

He tapped on the door and waited until it opened, allowing him to step into Colin’s apartment. Someone like Colin could have had almost any apartment in the city just for the asking, but he’d chosen a small office near the Parliament Building, which at least had the virtue of being easy to guard. The Marines had put everyone, including Anderson, who wanted to enter through a proper security check, ensuring that no obvious threat could get through and threaten Colin. Anderson wasn’t reassured. Someone who really wanted to get rid of Colin could smuggle a fusion bomb into the city, or, for that matter, an antimatter bomb onto the planet. He didn’t even want to think about how many of Colin’s enemies might have access to shipkiller missiles…

“Vincent,” Colin called, from his chair. He looked, Anderson noted, as if he hadn’t been sleeping again. Anderson didn’t blame him for that. Sleepless nights seemed to be the price for running the Empire. “Any major problems on the horizon?”

Anderson shrugged. The Empire was vast , utterly mind-bogglingly vast. He followed politics as closely as anyone else, these days, and he knew just how many possible problems were looming in the future, just under the surface of everyday politics. The real danger, he had already decided, came from the independence movements close to Earth, starting with Mars. The workers there were already talking about a unilateral declaration of independence…

“Far too many,” he said. There were so many possible threats that it was hard to tell which ones were truly serious. “The easiest problem today was we caught another bureaucrat with his hands in the till.”

Colin scowled. There was a joke, in the Empire, that the Moon was the planet of bureaucrats. There were, quite literally, millions of bureaucrats on the Moon, charged with actually keeping the Empire running, as inefficient as it was. They might not all be corrupt, but too many of them accepted bribes, or simply stole money from the departmental accounts, just to keep their own livelihoods going. The Empire had once had so much money that they could skim all they liked, but now… now, losing almost anything would be a major problem.

“I take it we have proof?” He asked, finally. “We have images of him taking money?”

“Enough to move to a public trial,” Anderson assured him. The Empire had no right to remain silent. Once arrested, the criminal would have his mind read to confirm or disprove his guilt. “I can have him arrested tomorrow and then hold a very public trial, before shooting him down to a penal world on a one-way trip.”

“Another one,” Colin said. “Why do I feel like the person who was charged with cleaning out a stable?”

“It’s been going on for years,” Anderson reminded him. “Once this poor bastard is dealt with, we can keep an eye on his friends and see how many of them continue to steal. I’d like to deal with them all, but…”

“Then we’d have to run the place ourselves,” Colin said, wryly. The bureaucrats were vitally important to running the Empire, at least until the new order was up and running properly, and they couldn’t all be dumped on a penal world. Anderson could only hope that they didn’t know that. In five years, or perhaps ten, there would be enough newcomers to change the culture permanently. “Is that the most serious problem?”

“Hardly,” Anderson said, and ran through a list of possible problems. “There was one curious little datum that I picked up last week…”

Colin leaned forward. “And that is…?”

“Two people have been spending time together,” Anderson said. “Daria and Lord Tiberius Cicero have been meeting, fairly regularly, over the last few weeks.”

Colin lifted an eyebrow. “Do you know why?”

“I can’t get a bug into the Cicero Residence in the High City,” Anderson admitted. The failure gnawed at him, even though he had learned, rapidly, just how experienced the Thousand Families were at security matters. They had had no choice. Their rivals had seen to that. “All I can tell you is that the shortest time they spent together in private was two hours and the longest time was nine hours. Just what they were discussing…”

“I see,” Colin said, finally. Anderson realised, suddenly, that he hadn’t known until now. It would be nice to believe that it was something innocent, but somehow he had difficulty believing that it was friendship, or even romance. Tiberius, after all, had an engagement now, to a girl called Alicia. “They might have been discussing the shipping crisis.”

“Perhaps,” Anderson said. He had to admit that it was a likely story. The Cicero Clan had been hit badly by the sudden shortage of shippers — after they’d decided to revert to being freelance and join the Freebooters League. “I still don’t like it. They could be discussing anything.”