Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Order the other arsenal ships to take out the remaining two fortresses,” she ordered, calmly. There was no need to force them to volunteer for a suicide mission. Now that the gloves were off, they could use the arsenal ships to their best advantage without worrying about the cost. The fortresses wouldn’t be able to stand off the missiles while trying to kill the empty ships. “Keep us on course for the main industrial node.”

The display updated as the superdreadnaughts, their true nature now exposed to the enemy, slid through space, diving into the gravity shadow at an thoroughly insane speed. She’d been tempted to issue the same warning as she’d issued to the other worlds she’d hit, telling them to evacuate their industrial stations before it was too late and she destroyed them, but Schubert was different. It was just too close to Cottbus to waste time. They had enough time, by her most pessimistic calculation, to close with the orbital defences, destroy them and the industrial facilities, and beat a retreat. They could not wait for the facilities to be abandoned.

“Incoming fire,” the tactical officer said, grimly. The display lit up as the orbital missile pods opened fire, unleashing a swarm of missiles towards her ships, which reacted to the threat as they’d been trained. Someone on the other side had clearly realised that if the missile pods weren’t expended, now, they would lose them without having a chance to hit something worthwhile. Any halfway decent industrial node could turn out hundreds of missiles; Schubert, clearly, had been doing just that. “Point defence is engaging now.”

Katy nodded, clutching the sides of her command chair as the red icons started to wink out, one by one. Schubert’s defenders were in a state of shock and, as long as she kept pounding on them, they wouldn’t have a chance to recover. They still commanded awesome levels of orbital firepower, but they just didn’t have time to coordinate it into a single unit. They could have beaten her off, or forced her to accept intolerable losses, but they just didn’t have the time.

The superdreadnaught rumbled as it unleashed another swarm of missiles, sending death racing through space towards the industrial facilities. Schubert had been a wealthy world once, if not quite up to first-rank status, and it had actually built a major orbital industry. That industry was dying now, blown apart by her missiles and reduced to flaming embers, floating down towards the planet. The defenders fought as best as they could, trying to save as much as possible, but they didn’t have a chance.

“Signal from the planet, Admiral,” the communications officer said. Her voice was almost beseeching, but Katy couldn’t understand why. “They want to discuss terms of surrender.”

Katy clenched her teeth. The Shadow Fleet had always given quarter when it was requested, but she couldn’t accept a surrender, on any terms. How could she? She couldn’t garrison the planet, nor could she wait for them to abandon their orbital facilities. By now, a destroyer or a courier boat could be halfway to Cottbus, warning them that her fleet was in the area… and they would have a clear shot at destroying it. They couldn’t afford to be caught in the gravity shadow, not now…

“Ignore it,” she ordered, and pretended not to see the looks of shock on some of their faces. Their innocence had died back at Cottbus, when the 2 ndfleet had been ambushed and reduced to a third of its strength. “Continue the attack.”

Charlie looked around the small room as their escorts closed the door behind him. It was a fairly basic storeroom, with a handful of chairs and a table placed in the centre, which suggested it was one of the hundreds of unofficial clubs for junior officers. The practice was fairly common, all over the Empire, and he’d even heard that it was encouraged, if only because of tradition. A junior officer was too lowly to club with the officers and too high-ranking to club with the enlisted men. Creating a club for themselves was regarded as a sign of something, although Charlie could never remember what. Knowing the pre-revolution Imperial Navy, it might just have been a willingness to stay out of the senior officers collective hair.

The handful of young officers in the club seemed to agree with that assessment. They were all around eighteen to thirty, all apparently Midshipmen. They wore civilian clothes in a colourfully garish display, for all the world as if they were carefree young men and women, but it was hard to disguise what they were. They hadn’t yet learned to hide their military training from an experienced eye. Peter, it seemed, had done them proud.

“We cannot trust them,” a woman said. She looked barely out of her teens, her voice suggesting an origin somewhere in the outer sectors. “We don’t even know who they are.”

Charlie kept his face blank as Sasha spoke calmly into the silence. Being so exposed worried him, but there was little choice; besides, no one in the room would be safe if they were discovered. They had to make use of whatever rebel structure existed on Cottbus, hiding from Admiral Wilhelm and Imperial Intelligence alike, if they wanted to end the war quickly. If that meant taking a risk…

“We’re from Earth,” Sasha said, calmly. “I admit that we cannot prove that easily to you, but yes, we represent the Provisional Government.”

“The same Provisional Government whose fleet just got its ass convincingly kicked at Wakanda,” someone said, from the back of the room. Charlie had seen him, barely, with his enhanced eyes. A more baseline human might have missed him completely. “The same Provisional Government whose ships were forced to retreat from this world. Why should we ally ourselves with you when you could betray us at any moment?”

“The fleet was lured into an ambush set by your commanding officer,” Sasha replied, her voice still calm. They could have cut their way out of the meeting, using the weapons implants buried under their skin, but that would have cost them the chance to make contact with the rebels. “Do you want to serve permanently under him, or do you want a chance to rise in a new system?”

Quinn smiled. “We received word about the rebellion nearly a year ago,” he said, flatly. “By the time we had anything set up to take advantage of it, the Admiral had made his move and locked up the aristocrats in their own cells.”

Charlie blinked. “The aristocrats?”

“The Hohenzollern and some other silly bitch,” the female doubter said. There was a note of dark amusement in her voice, somehow chilling when compared to her pretty face. “The Admiral used them and then dumped them in their own cells.”

Charlie nodded. That answered one question, at least. The reconstructed Imperial Intelligence had been trying to locate Lady Hohenzollern, and hundreds of other Family Members who’d fled Earth after its fall, but they’d found little trace of them. Had they all made their way to Cottbus, or the Rim, or somewhere else?

“And he clamped down hard,” Quinn agreed, unaware of Charlie’s thoughts. “He disrupted some of our cells and scattered others, sending some of the most important cell leaders to different star systems. He didn’t purge us, so I doubt that he knew what he was doing, but he disrupted us quite effectively.”

His voice was sour, bitterly amused. “We’re only just pulling back together again,” he said. “Why should we trust you to help us?”

“Because we’re the only ones who can,” Sasha said. “You can’t take the planet now, or you would have done so already. With our help, you could secure the orbital fortresses, the shipyard, and the other vital targets. That’s enough firepower to deter even four sector fleets.”