Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Impressive,” Sasha said, as the shipyard came into view. “It looks as if someone is preparing for war.”

“No shit,” Charlie agreed. He hadn’t seen a Type-I shipyard before and he was rather surprised that it had been built in orbit around an inhabited planet, rather than the gas giant further out like Jupiter, but he had to agree that it was an impressive sight. Hundreds of slips, each one with a starship in various stages of construction, orbited the planet, supervised by hundreds of industrial modules and nodes. Just from what little the passive sensors could pick up, Cottbus was constructing at least nine additional superdreadnaughts and seventeen battlecruisers, while there were no sign of any smaller ships. A handful of freighters, seemingly innocent, floated near the shipyard, each one surrounded by workers.

“Those are arsenal ships, or I’ll eat my hat,” Charlie whispered. There was something about the sight that ordered silence, although he knew — rationally — that there was no way that any of the locals could hear him. “I really don’t like the look of this.”

Sasha snorted. “If it’s surprising you,” she said, “then you’re in the wrong line of work. We knew that they’d probably be building as many warships as they could and now we have confirmation, so…”

Charlie scowled. He’d done enough work on various shipyards to have some experience at judging starship construction times. It took upwards of a year to construct a new superdreadnaught — although rumour had it that the Geeks had successfully halved the construction time — and if Cottbus had started work as soon as the news of the rebellion reached them, they might have an additional two squadrons of superdreadnaughts at their disposal. The passive sensors were far less capable than the active sensors — although bringing up the active sensors would have revealed their true nature to anyone watching — but it was clear enough that Cottbus had at least two squadrons of superdreadnaughts on guard duty. Maybe they weren’t expecting to launch an attack, but preparing to meet one when it came.

He said as much. “Insufficient data,” Sasha rebuked him, gently. “We’ll find out when we land on the planet.”

“True,” Charlie agreed. The blue orb of Cottbus was growing ever larger in the viewport. “Here we go…”

He took direct control of the starship as it plunged into the atmosphere, the drive field glowing red as it absorbed the heat of re-entry, and steered them down towards the spaceport. He wasn’t unduly surprised to discover that the main spaceport was in the centre of a desert — that was fairly standard when starships were involved — but he was surprised by the sheer volume of activity. Hundreds of starships and in-system craft buzzed around, rising up towards space or coming in to land, suggesting that the entire system was buzzing with industry. It was unusual to see so much activity and it worried him. Normally, System Command tried to keep starships from landing, but now they seemed to be encouraging it.

“We have a designated landing pad,” Sandra said, as the Traffic Control system updated them. Cottbus, at least, didn’t seem to insist on taking over the starship and landing it by remote control, although he’d seen several disasters caused by badly programmed traffic control systems. “Try not to break the china when you land.”

“Bitch,” Charlie said, without heat. It was hard to stay angry at Sandra for long. The designated landing pad, he noticed with growing concern, was a sealed hatch, the hanger doors already opening for them and closing over their heads as they landed. They wouldn’t be able to leave without paying the hanger fees. The ship touched the ground with nary a bump and he leaned back in his chair as he began the power-down sequence. “You can go pay the docking fees while I get everything shut down.”

An hour later, they sealed the ship and headed down the stairs into the main complex. Sandra had picked up a guide to the spaceport and Charlie scanned it while allowing Sasha to lead the way towards the Interstellar Market. It was a fairly typical spaceport, with hundreds of bars, whorehouses and markets to take money from arriving spacers, although they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the complex without special permission. Most spacers wouldn’t bother trying to leave, unless they wanted to see as many new planets as they could; they could get everything they wanted in the spaceport.

The Market itself was throbbing with activity, although mostly they were selling nothing particularly new or interesting. It was more interesting to note what they weren’t selling. There were no handheld weapons, or even ship-mounted weapons, while there were more than the standard number of alcoholic drinks and barely-legal drugs. A dozen recruiting booths were hard at work, inviting spacers to sign up with the Cottbus Defence Force and help remove the last remains of the Thousand Families from the Empire. Charlie picked up one of the brochures, hoping to discover the party line on events, but it wasn’t that informative, only promising that there would be a new dawn under Admiral Wilhelm. It was far from the democratic state that Carola Wilhelm had promised.

“Are you really surprised?” Sasha asked, when he pointed that out. “We knew that it wouldn’t be quite what it seemed.”

Charlie nodded and followed her through the crowd, keeping his eyes open and peeled. There were hundreds of spacers, but there were also hundreds of Imperial Navy crewmen, although their rank badges had been replaced with something new and different. He identified it, after a moment’s thought, as the old seal of Cottbus, back before the Empire had swallowed it up into its gaping maw, and shivered. If Admiral Wilhelm was resorting to such tricks to gain loyalty, and it seemed that he was, he had to be willing to tear the Empire apart.

Bastard , Charlie thought. It wasn’t normal to see Imperial Navy personnel in a civilian and commercial spaceport, including shipyard personnel, but it seemed that Admiral Wilhelm had decided to overturn that particular taboo. It didn’t seem logical, but perhaps it was intended as a reward, or maybe even a punishment. He paused to glance inside a bar as they passed it, ignoring the sounds of drinking and loud music, and saw hundreds of other personnel. They looked to be on leave.

But that doesn’t make any sense either , he thought, puzzled. If Cottbus was gearing up for war, and it certainly looked that way, why would they have some of their personnel on leave? It wasn’t as if they had a surplus of trained manpower, was it? No shipyard in the Empire had enough manpower…

“Ten thousand credits,” the dealer said, drawing Charlie’s attention back to Sasha. She had found a dealer in rare items and was haggling with him for the medical packages. Judging from some of the other items on his shelves, he was actually purchasing items for pirates, but Charlie found it hard to care. It wouldn’t be the first time they had walked into darkness to serve the Empire. “That’s the best I can do.”

“They’re worth about ten times that on the open market,” Sasha replied, firmly. “I can accept seventy thousand credits, but no less.”

The dealer drew himself up to his full height. “You’re trying to beggar me,” he said, angrily. “Thirty thousand credits or my children will starve.”

Sasha eyed his ample chest. “If that’s starvation, I’d hate to see gluttony,” she said wryly. “Fifty thousand credits, or my crew will lynch me and sell the packages somewhere else.”

“Fifty thousand — done,” the dealer agreed. He pulled out a datapad and passed her a copy of his shipping address. “You will send them here and then I will pay you.”