Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

She allowed her voice to harden. “We were lured into a trap” — it was clear in hindsight — “and we were hammered,” she snapped. “It’s not the end of the war. We took losses and defeats in the last war and we still won. We can win this war… and we will win this war. Defeat would mean that all of our struggles had been futile.”

One hand thumped the table, hard. “We will proceed to Hawthorn and prepare there to meet the coming offensive,” she said, her voice challenging them to dissent. She would have squashed any disagreement firmly. “Admiral Wilhelm will come for Hawthorn and we will hammer him before we break off and act as a pain in his rear. He won’t be able to relax or concentrate on the drive on Earth while we’re in his rear… and, by doing so, we will ensure that we will win the war.”

Her voice lowered. “We are going to work as hard as we can, and perhaps a little harder, to get these ships back into fighting trim, but we are going to do it,” she said, coldly. “We are going to bring these ships back to life and we will fight, standing between the Empire and the threat of a military rule. He expects us to break. He expects us to keep running until we’re back out on the Rim. He expects us to surrender… and he’s dead wrong.

“I expect that each and every one of you will put forward one hundred percent effort to repair these ships and prepare for the next round,” she concluded. “We took a beating and morale is in the crapper, but we’ve not lost yet. If you slack, or you allow others to slack, you will find me the worst fucking nightmare in your life.” Her voice hardened. “And you can bet on that, understand?”

It was two days before the damaged superdreadnaughts were ready for their return to Earth, but the time had not been wasted. The superdreadnaughts hadn’t been entirely cannibalised, but the engineers had stripped out almost all of the spare parts and emergency supplies, along with most of the remaining missiles. The Battle of Cottbus hadn’t lasted that long, not now she’d had a chance to calculate it properly, but it still surprised her. It felt as if they’d fought for days before they’d retreated.

“They’re ready to flicker out,” the communications officer informed her, when she took her place on the Flag Deck. The crew looked as exhausted as Katy felt, although she had ordered rigid sleep periods for the entire crew, but they didn’t look beaten any more. They had her to thank for that. Katy had been a ruthless, if understanding, taskmaster over the past two days and the fleet had some of its morale back. They were going to need it. “Captain Patel wishes you good luck and asks if you wouldn’t reconsider.”

Katy surprised herself by laughing. Captain Patel was an analyst in his spare time and she’d had him studying the sensor records of the battle, matching the IFF signals from the enemy ships to the Imperial Navy database. The picture he’d built up hadn’t been a comforting one. There had definitely been ships from at least four different Sector Fleets in the line of battle, too many to be a simple coincidence or merely a case of the records being out of times. Admiral Wilhelm wasn’t alone. He had allies.

“Tell him that he’s going to be needed at Earth,” Katy said firmly. Captain Patel wouldn’t have a comfortable flight. His superdreadnaughts were stuffed to bursting with wounded, while the medics had transferred all of the stasis tubes to his care. “Clear him to depart now, if you please…”

Nineteen icons vanished from the display. “They have flickered out,” the tactical officer remarked, calmly. The display stabilised, showing the remaining starships and the maintenance bugs buzzing around them. “Local space is clear.”

“Good,” Katy said. She would have been astonished if Admiral Wilhelm had managed to track them down, or even if they encountered a rogue starship. “Set course for Hawthorn. It’s time to get back into the battle zone.”

Kathy had given Jason Cordova permission to enter her small apartment at any time, the only person she’d given such permission to in her entire life. It didn’t surprise her that, when she arrived home from her office and a short trip to the Jupiter Shipyards, Cordova was waiting for her. He’d done it before, sometimes sneaking up to surprise her and at other times just waiting for her, but this was different. He looked… tired and worn.

“Jason,” she said, in honest surprise. She’d never seen him lose his composure completely. The brash pirate persona he’d pulled around him like a shield, a person who could be loving and tender one moment and boorish and crude the next, seemed to have faded away. He still wore his pirate outfit, as outrageous and clashing as ever, but for the first time since she’d met him, he wore it like a costume, not his natural clothes. He looked like a man wearing his father’s uniform. “Jason, are you all right?”

He looked up at her. His beard slipped slightly, revealing bloodshot eyes. She’d known that the bushy beard was a fake, of course, but she’d never seen it come off without his permission. Underneath, his chin was as smooth and hairless as his own, the result of a tiny change in his genetic code. She’d read somewhere that men who had such changes choose to wear false beards later in life, for reasons lost somewhere in the innermost recesses of the male psyche, but Cordova had never struck her as the kind of person to care about such matters. He’d worn his beard because absolutely no one would recognise him without it. He had walked through the High City wearing the grey tasteless garb of a Family accountant and no one had batted an eyelid.

“No,” he said, finally. He sounded as if he had been crying, although there was no evidence on his face to suggest tears. She could barely process what she was seeing. Jason Cordova had taken on a battlecruiser squadron with a light cruiser and escaped unscathed, laughing and joking all the way, but now he looked almost scared. Something maternal, buried deep inside her, awoke and she reached out to enfold him in her arms. He felt like a man whose heart was racing madly, almost as if he were scared . She doubted that their bedroom gymnastics had had that much effect against him. Holding him was like holding a mouse or a hamster. “Kathy, I…”

He broke off with an effort. “Kathy, the world turned upside down.”

Kathy stared at him, unable to understand. If something had happened, she would have been informed at once, as part of the innermost section of the Provisional Government. It was still too early to hear anything from Cottbus, or from Admiral Garland; the last courier boat had informed them that she intended to proceed to Cottbus and carry out her orders. There had been no great disaster, no fleet engagement in Earth’s orbit, so why was Cordova so… wound up?

“Here,” she said, standing up and pulling him into the living room. She didn’t drink often herself — and she’d been amused to discover that Cordova had decidedly plebeian tastes — but she did have a bottle of fine brandy her father had given to her, back when he’d been trying to worm his way back into her good graces. She poured a healthy portion into a crystal cup and passed it to him, watching with some alarm as he swigged it down like cheap rotgut. She’d only tasted the asteroid-produced booze once, but she’d had the impression that it had taken the lining off her teeth. “Now, what’s happened…?”

“I’m not the person you thought I was,” Cordova said. He took the bottle from her and poured himself a second glass, tossing it down in bare seconds. Kathy frowned and removed the bottle from his sight, silently calculating how much he had drunk. It was possible that he’d drunk much more before she’d arrived home, either from her stash or from a local bar, and his implants weren’t kicking in. “Kathy, everything has changed, again.”