Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

There were two people on the command deck, both absurdly young and unmarked compared to someone who had spent all his life in the Beyond. One of them was a young man, with a slightly unfinished face and a weak chin; the other was a dark-haired girl with violet eyes and an expression that suggested she wasn’t as confident as she pretended. The Marines searched them both, then secured their hands and put them in the corner to wait while the techs took control of the station. Sidney angled to stay on the command deck, but the Sergeant detailed him and his men to join the teams searching the station from top to bottom. Twenty minutes later, it was declared secure.

“Escort the prisoners to the shuttles,” the Sergeant ordered, once Sidney returned to the command deck. “And well done.”

Sidney nodded, although he had his doubts. They’d faced no opposition, no one inclined to actually fight. The next time they boarded a station or a starship, someone might fight back. And then they would really be tested.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Ira had been nervous even before the Marines entered the compartment and searched them both, gently but firmly. After their hands had been bound, he’d worried more… until they were escorted down and into the shuttles, along with the rest of the crew. No one seemed hurt, although several of the younger crewmen looked worried. They’d all heard the rumours.

“You need to make up your minds soon,” the rebel who greeted them said, once they’d been transferred to another starship. “If you want to join us, you would be welcome. If you want to go back to the Empire, or go to an internment camp, it can be arranged. But you will have to make up your minds before we depart, or we’ll assume the camp.”

“I’ve already decided,” Bianca said. “I’d like to join you.”

Ira hesitated, then made up his mind.

“All forty of the fortress crew joined up,” Sergeant O’Neil said. “I guess they were unhappy about being abandoned and left to die.”

“Smart of them,” Colin said. He would have been astonished if any of them wanted to return to the Empire. They’d be blamed for not stopping an unstoppable foe. “And the people on the ground?”

“There’s a lot of complaints about the uplift,” Colonel Yamato reported, through the intercom. He didn’t sound very happy with his lot. Securing a planet — even just the cities — took several divisions; Yamato had a regiment at best, none of which were well-trained. “The locals think we should just let the administrators be killed.”

Colin wasn’t surprised. There were only a handful of worlds were the administrators were popular — and most of them were places so poor that there was little for the Empire to take. If the fortress hadn’t been there, the administrators would have been lynched already. But he’d made the deal and he intended to stick to it.

“Tell the locals that we need to interrogate the bastards,” he said. It was true enough, although Colin would have been astonished if the administrators had known anything of more than fleeting interest. They’d been isolated ever since the System CO had fled, taking his only destroyer with him. “And then have them shipped to the camp.”

“Yes, sir,” Yamato said. “I…”

He broke off as Colin’s console chimed. “Sir, this is Sanderson,” the tactical officer said. “We just picked up a flicker burst — an exit burst.”

Colin’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of burst?”

“A corvette, I think,” Sanderson said. “She must have been lying doggo all this time, even before we arrived, just watching and waiting. And then she just jumped out.”

“Taking tactical information with her,” Colin said. The corvette would have been close enough to get an accurate count on how many ships were in his formation, although he’d been careful not to bring his entire fleet to Fairfax. “Interesting…”

He shook his head. There was little they could do about it, not now. Besides, their course towards Morrison was alarmingly predicable in any case. The enemy would just have their suspicions confirmed. Colin had tried to think of alternatives, but they all involved giving the enemy more time to prepare.

“Remind everyone to be careful what they say in clear,” he ordered. Someone had clearly been thinking hard, which suggested an unwelcome level of competence. Were there any battle formations within range? “And then inform the fleet that we will be departing to the first waypoint in two hours. We don’t want to stay here any longer than strictly necessary.”

He closed the channel, then stared down at the display, not really seeing it. Just who was in command of the Empire’s forces — and how far were they prepared to go to win?

“This is really quite unacceptable,” Lord Rothschild protested. “To see our networks destroyed in such a manner is worse than unacceptable. It is lethal .”

There was a dully mummer of agreement from some of the Family Heads. Tiberius couldn’t help noticing that ones who agreed were the ones who held planets and property thousands of light years from the rebellion. They were all at risk, he knew, but the ones closer to the rebellion were more at risk than others. Not, in the end, that it would matter. If the Empire’s economy crashed, everyone would suffer. They wouldn’t even be able to pay their Household Troops, let alone their small armies of servants.

Someone had defied Admiral Wachter’s communications blackout in the Morrison System and sent back a full report on the purge. Hundreds of senior officers had been removed, then effectively imprisoned on Morrison itself, rather than being sent back to face their superiors — and patrons — on Earth. In his own way, Admiral Wachter was making a statement to his subordinates; those who were responsible for the disgraceful state of a once-proud naval base were finally facing justice. But it was also a poke in the eye to their patrons, many of whom sat on the very highest council in the Empire.

Tiberius sighed as the discussion raged around him. On one hand, he could see Wachter’s point; Morrison was a disgrace and the people responsible had to be punished, rather than entrusted with further responsibilities. But on the other hand, wiping out large chunks of the patronage network — several patronage networks — would alienate the Family Heads and rouse their suspicions that Wachter intended to turn against them. It certainly wouldn’t encourage them to get on with choosing a supreme commander for Home Fleet. Seven weeks of debate and outright arguing had produced nothing, apart from vague generalities about each individual squadron preparing itself for battle

Not for the first time, he cursed Lord Roosevelt under his breath. His departure from the council — and the council’s failure to nominate a replacement — ensured that they would remain deadlocked. Tiberius couldn’t help thinking that simply appointing someone to the post should have been easy, particularly with the rebels breathing down their necks. Instead, the arguments had dragged on… and on… and on.

“This is your fault, Tiberius,” Lord Rothschild snapped. “We might have empowered a monster.”

Tiberius sighed and gathered himself. What was the point of being a Family Head if he couldn’t speak bluntly from time to time?

“We operate the patronage network to ensure that none of us can control enough firepower to overwhelm the others,” he said, bluntly. “In doing so, we picked clients who would place our interests first, rather than the interests of the Imperial Navy or the Empire as a whole. Many of those clients developed smaller networks of their own, which we did not oppose because, in the end, those networks were ours. We chose to overlook the simple fact that those networks also caused decay within the system.”