Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“The senior crews who served at Morrison were scattered after the end of the war,” Anne said, as she poured them tea and handed Joshua a china cup. Penny accepted one herself and sipped it gratefully. “I was offered a cruiser command, but then I was approached by your representative and asked if I would like to continue to serve you…”

“Yes, my representative,” Joshua said, calmly. Penny, who knew him better than most, caught the ice hidden behind his words. Joshua was annoyed… and amused. “Tell me about the status of these ships, then.”

Anne smiled as she sipped her own tea. “There’s not much to tell,” she said. She paused, thoughtfully, before continuing. “We had the original crews of these ships and several hundred engineers from the Jupiter Yards, so we started refitting them as we did at Morrison, back before the end of the war. It wasn’t an easy process, but to be fair to Admiral Porter, he did make some inroads on the most urgent problems.”

“There are superdreadnaughts being refitted at Jupiter that should have fought in the battle for Earth,” Joshua rumbled, before taking another sip of his tea. Penny, who’d heard his frequent rants on the subject hundreds of times, nodded in agreement. After the Empress Janice — after Daria — Home Fleet had been run down. It had cost the Empire dearly. “If they had been in any condition to fight without a refit — indeed, practically a rebuild — the battle might have gone the other way.”

“Yes, sir,” Anne agreed. “The first few months were pretty manic, but we finally managed to complete the refit and modernisation scheme for these ships. I can fairly say that they should be a match for anything in the Shadow Fleet, with the possible exception of the Independence- class ships, and have the latest weapons. Of course, there is absolutely no chance of our base being discovered out here, even only two light years from Earth.”

And bare seconds from the planet at FTL speeds , Penny thought. Anne was right, of course. Even the most sensitive sensor network wouldn’t be able to detect the base, until any emissions reached passive sensors orbiting at the edge of the Solar System, and that would be at least a year off, assuming that they weren’t lost in the background roar of the universe. One way or another, the struggle for the future of the Empire would be decided by then. The tri-cornered war would have been resolved.

“Excellent,” Joshua said, as she finished. He wasn’t a man for praise. Penny knew that he only praised people who had done an excellent job. “You have done very well indeed.”

Anne glowed with pleasure. “Thank you, sir,” she said. She smiled brightly enough to make Penny smiled back at her. “Can I ask when we move?”

Joshua lifted an eyebrow. “What did my representative tell you?”

“That when you arrived, we would be going on alert and on an hour’s notice to move,” Anne said. She hadn’t realised — yet — that Joshua had sent no representative. “Now that you’ve arrived, I would like time to run through drills so that you are familiar with your fleet and…”

Joshua held up a hand. “It’s quite all right,” he said, calmly. There were Admirals who would have bitten Anne’s head off and blighted her career for daring to show any trace of independent thinking. Joshua accepted it and welcomed it. His power and position were not at stake. In his Empire, Anne would already be a Commodore by now. “We should have enough time to run some exercises before we flicker out.”

Penny considered it as she finished her tea. It was easy to see what Daria was planning, now. Home Fleet — the Shadow Fleet — represented the core of Colin’s power, a level of firepower that was literally unbeatable by anything that his enemies on Earth could present. As long as he controlled Earth’s low orbitals, his position was effectively impregnable. His death might mean chaos, or it might place someone else in his position, with every incentive to wipe the Earth clean. Joshua’s fleet would do more than just give Daria some teeth. Properly used, under an experienced commander, it would counter the Shadow Fleet. The game was far from unwinnable.

The datapad in her hand accessed the starship’s command network and automatically downloaded a complete status report. Anne wouldn’t have tolerated any false reporting, not after she’d learned so much from Joshua, and she was relieved to know that it didn’t look as if she had misrepresented the situation. The General Monck was in excellent shape, with all of its thousands of components showing up as green. They were completely ready for a fight. She skimmed the training schedule and had to smile. The crew might even be on the verge of being over-trained. Anne was doing an excellent job.

She looked up at Anne and wondered what was going through her head. She’d known Anne back at Morrison, back when she’d been Joshua’s Flag Captain, but where did she think they were going? Did she think that Joshua intended to make himself Emperor, or did she know the truth? The confusion suited no one, but Daria herself… and the fleet had hundreds of her people onboard. Who knew how it would all play out?

“Thank you,” Joshua said, finally. “Can you please show us to our cabins? Once we get settled in, I’ll want a full tour of the starship and then a meeting with the fleet’s Captains. We have much to discuss.”

“Of course,” Anne said. She leaned forward so that she could speak quietly. “We’re all behind you, you know.”

“Are you?” Joshua asked. “That’s good to know.”

“Did he really die in that shuttle?”

It was the first time that Colin had been able to discuss the matter with Anderson privately since Kathy and Cordova had dropped their little bombshell. If Tiberius — and God knew who else — was keeping an eye on him, a meeting with his Head of Security — to say nothing of the man commanding his Marine close-protection detail — would send up red flags. The war situation was worsening, he didn’t know for sure who he could trust, and one of his closest advisors had died in a freak shuttle accident.

“It is impossible to tell,” Major Vincent Anderson admitted, from his seat. A tall man with faintly anonymous features, Anderson looked anything, but confident. The loss of Joshua Wachter would have been worrying under any circumstances, but combined with the news about Tiberius it was alarming. “There was actually very little left of the shuttle after the accident.”

He verged into technical detail that would have confused someone without Imperial Navy experience. The shuttle’s drive field had destabilised rapidly within seconds, shearing through the hull and ripping the craft to shreds, killing everyone onboard long before any alarm could be raised. It had still been in Earth’s gravity field and the fluctuations, encouraged by the presence of Earth, had reduced the shuttle to fragments. If it had happened in orbit, the debris could have been recovered and analysed, but instead the pieces had fallen down towards the planet, burning up in the atmosphere. The little that investigators had found proved nothing.

General Neil Frandsen snorted. “We know that he boarded the shuttle,” he said, flatly, lighting one of his trademark cigars. The brand had once been reserved for the exclusive use of the Thousand Families, but after the Fall of Earth it had become available to the general public, including Frandsen himself. He had confided in Colin that he actually found the cigars rather bland and tasteless, but he kept smoking them anyway, just to remind the Thousand Families who had won the war. “We also know that he didn’t land anywhere else between leaving the spaceport and his final moments in the atmosphere. Does it not follow, then, that he is certainly dead?”