Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“I don’t know,” Colin said, forcing his mind to focus on the possibilities. Who else wanted to take over the government? It would be easier to come up with a list of people who didn’t want to take over the government. Had Admiral Wilhelm’s long reach reached all the way to Earth? Had Carola somehow planned the entire affair from her prison cell? “If…”

He broke off as Frandsen’s helmet buzzed. “Boss, we found Gwendolyn Cicero,” one of the Marines said. “She’s wounded, but otherwise unhurt.” Colin snorted inwardly at the comment. “She’s insisting on speaking to you personally.”

“Bring her here,” Frandsen ordered. “Colin, do you want to speak to her?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Colin said, savagely. “I want to know just what her role in all of this is.”

The door opened and two Marines escorted Gwendolyn into the room. Colin studied her as dispassionately as he could, noting the bleeding cut on her forehead and her limp. She had worn a flowing green dress, perfectly cut to show off her curves to best advantage, but now it was torn and coated with blood. Her hands were secured behind her back with a plastic tie, but her eyes were defiant as she walked between the two men.

“Colin, sir,” she said. Her voice lacked some of its earlier bite. Colin hadn’t talked to her more than a few times, but he remembered her as being confident and determined, as well as utterly ruthless. She looked broken and beaten now. “I want to trade information for a pardon.”

Colin scowled at her. “What kind of information?”

“I know who planned this… massacre,” Gwendolyn said, some of the old haughty tone returning to her voice. “I can give you that name in exchange for a pardon.”

Colin saw red. “You are in no position to bargain,” he said, remembering the pain as Cordova’s sword had struck his hidden armour. “Tell me the truth and you won’t have to go through a full interrogation.”

“There are other ways to get information out of unwilling donors,” Frandsen added. There was a cold tone Colin had never heard before in his voice. Marines were used to horror — they were often the first respondents to any disaster — but the death and destruction of Clan Cicero was horrifying by even their standards. “I can take her outside and start hurting her until she tells us what she knows.”

Gwendolyn wilted, perhaps understanding that there was no longer anywhere to run.

“Daria,” she said, simply. “She planned to kill us all.”

Colin’s eyes went wide. “You’re lying,” he protested, unwilling to believe it. Daria had been a comrade since before the first mutinies, the person who had introduced them to the Geeks, the Nerds and so many others. She had been a part of the Provisional Government and… and if Colin and so many others had died, she would have been the only person left of any statue. “Why?”

“Don’t you get it?” Gwendolyn said. She broke down into a bitter laugh. “She’s the missing Empress. She always has been. And now she’s clearing the path to the throne.”

She collapsed into helpless laughter.

Colin stared at her, stunned.

Being on the massive orbital fortress was just like coming home. Charlie had anticipated that there would be all kinds of changes, as there had been at Earth, or on the starships of the Shadow Fleet, but instead the routines were almost the same. The enlisted men and women, which included both himself and Sasha, were assigned to a maintenance pool, with orders to do as they were told and otherwise be seen, but never heard. The Empire had never invested much in educating the enlisted men and women and, when not on duty, they tended to do as they pleased.

Admiral Wilhelm, it seemed, had decided against democratising his fleet. It made sense from one position — there had been starships that had tried to join the Shadow Fleet that had had to vote on going into battle or not — but it was also a weakness. Charlie would have bet good money that the fortress actually had a lower efficiency rating than the Shadow Fleet’s starships, where ideas and contributions from the lower ranks and enlisted men were actively encouraged. They certainly wouldn’t have moved enlisted men around from fortress to fortress, breaking up friendships before they could form and preventing the men from developing any loyalty to their fortress. It might have prevented conspiracies from developing — although it had proved surprisingly unsuccessful at that — but it also hampered the planet’s defences.

Midshipman Quinn had performed his task perfectly. Enlisted men and women were normally housed in the barracks on a first-come, first-served basis, but he had ensured that all of the conspirators were sleeping in the same place. It made sharing information, once the handful of bugs had been located and neutralised, much easier, while they could plan their next step in some comfort. Charlie had been relieved to discover that Quinn was genuinely liked and respected by most of the enlisted men, rather than acting like a tyrant or a boy afraid of his own shadow. That was a rarity in the pre-revolution Imperial Navy, but the Midshipmen and women who listened to the enlisted men tended to go further in the fleet before they hit the glass ceiling. It was amazing just how much the enlisted men picked up in their long careers.

The other advantage of being enlisted men and women was that very few senior officers really paid attention to them. “We kept an eye on the armoury as you instructed,” one of the enlisted men said. Charlie hadn’t been introduced to him and had refrained from accessing his file in the computer databanks. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell, if everything fell apart. “There are two guards, both reprogrammed SD Troopers, and of course there’s the computer locks.”

Charlie dismissed the second concern at once. The Empire’s persistent refusal to develop any form of AI ensured that their computers were stupid enough to accept anyone whose details were on the authorised list. Quinn, or himself for that matter, would have no difficulty accessing the armoury once the guards were removed, allowing them to take over the fortress. The fortress had been carefully studied and, like a starship, most of its monstrous bulk was irrelevant to its operations. Once they’d taken the command centre, the power generators and the life support systems, the remainder of the crew could surrender or die. With the armoury, the only source of weapons on the fortress, in rebel hands, they wouldn’t be able to offer resistance. If all of the fortresses fell at once, if the plan worked perfectly, Cottbus would have the choice between surrender or being bombarded into submission. If the plan didn’t work perfectly, the resulting chaos would still weaken Admiral Wilhelm’s rear area.

“Good,” Quinn said. He shared a long look with Sasha. “I think it’s time to go now.”

He led the way as the small group headed down through the corridors, looking for the entire world as if they were just another bunch of enlisted men, carrying the standard toolboxes of their trade. It was amazing how many components on a fortress failed on a regular basis and few of the enlisted men knew how to repair them, if repair was even possible. The vast majority of failed or defective components would have to be replaced. It was, in fact, the main task of the enlisted men. They had access to almost everywhere on the station and hardly anyone would even think to question them.

Sloppy , he thought, tiredly. It was a security weakness that Colin, and hundreds of others, had taken ruthless advantage of to launch his mutiny. It was a weakness that was inherent in the way the Empire did business, but Admiral Wilhelm, for all his bombast and tactical competency, couldn’t change it. The culture the Imperial Navy had encouraged, to strengthen their own position, meant that that couldn’t even question their own preconceptions. Enlisted men were harmless, stupid and barely competent. Everyone knew that…