Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

Commander Patrick Jones nodded, watching in disbelief as the freighters tried to scatter. If they’d been destroyers or gunboats, they might have made it. But they couldn’t hope to get out of missile range before it was too late. The second wave of missiles was already closing in rapidly, aiming to destroy rather than cripple. Patrick knew that the raiding squadron would need the supplies, but they didn’t want to risk tangling with a fully-alert military force.

He winced as several freighters dropped their puny shields, signalling their surrender. Firing in surrendering vessels was not considered approvable behaviour, but there was no alternative. Several other freighter crews had taken to the lifepods, abandoning their ships. It might keep them alive, he decided, as the second wave of missiles struck home. The remaining freighters disintegrated in balls of radioactive plasma, taking the enemy supplies with them.

“All targets destroyed, sir,” the tactical officer reported. She’d been a member of Cordova’s crew from the start, someone who hadn’t made any bones about being irritated by Patrick’s presence. He’d only been a mutineer for a year, if that. “The supply dump is scrambling gunboats.”

Cordova made a show of stroking his beard. “No need to fight them,” he said, “even though we came looking for a fight. Power up the drive, then jump us out to the first waypoint.”

Patrick braced himself as he heard the dull whine of the flicker drive powering up. Moments later, his stomach clenched violently and he had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting onto the deck. The compensators weren’t properly tuned, he thought, although no one seemed to care enough to fix them. They seemed to regard it as a feature of the ship and her eccentric commander.

“Jump complete, sir,” the helmsman reported.

Patrick glanced down at his console. “All ships report a successful disengagement,” he reported. Officially, his title was Fleet Coordinator, even though Cordova commanded a large squadron at best. Unofficially, he was charged with keeping an eye on Cordova and his crews. Reputations tended to be tarnished along the Beyond. It was quite possible that Cordova, as well as being an exile, was a pirate. “Missile expenditures…”

“Bureaucratic nonsense,” Cordova said, dismissively. He winked at Patrick. “Don’t worry about that, son. The commanders can handle their own missile expenditures.”

Patrick flushed. Cordova knew perfectly well why Patrick had been assigned to his crew and didn’t hesitate to tease him, rather than act offended. Patrick suspected that Cordova was not entirely sane any longer, although there was no way to prove it. Quite a few of the Rim’s inhabitants were unstable, particularly after being forced to run for their lives from the Empire’s expanding borders. And Cordova, the Imperial Navy CO who’d gone into exile rather than scorch a planet, could never go home again.

Unless we win , Patrick thought, as he forced himself to relax. Then we can all go home .

“Splendid shooting, all of you,” Cordova added, addressing the entire crew. “Our targets didn’t have a hope.”

He was right, of course. The Imperial Navy had been caught completely by surprise, allowing the raiders to fire their missiles at very close range. In future, they’d be harder to surprise, once word of the attack got out. But every ship they detailed to convoy escort and planetary defence was one that couldn’t be assigned to blunt the rebel advance,

“Take us to the RV point, then reload our magazines and resume our flight towards Earth,” Cordova ordered. “We don’t want to get there after they realise we’re coming.”

He grinned toothily at Patrick, then stood and strode off the bridge, his long frock coat billowing around him. Patrick couldn’t help feeling a twinge of admiration, realising just how Cordova had managed to retain the loyalty of most of his crew despite spending so long in the Beyond. But then, the crewmen couldn’t go home either. Some of them, from what he’d heard, had found new lives in the Beyond, but others had remained on the cruiser, hoping for a chance for victory.

And they would have remained endlessly flying through space if Admiral Walker hadn’t started a rebellion , Patrick thought. His stomach clenched for a second time as Random Numbers flickered again, jumping to the RV point. The freighters that made up the fleet train were already waiting for them. Without us, they would still be in the Beyond .

“Stand down from alert,” the XO ordered, once they had verified the presence of the freighters and exchanged ID codes. Their standards had been tighter than the Imperial Navy’s even before the rebellion had begun, Patrick had heard. But then, the Imperial Navy could afford to make mistakes while the Beyonders didn’t dare take too many risks. “Alpha crew; take some downtime. Beta crew will supervise the transfers.”

Patrick nodded, then stood as his replacement arrived at his console. There was a brief consultation — shift changes on Random Numbers were slightly less chaotic than they were on regular starships — and then he left the bridge, passing through the hatch and walking down towards the mess. The cooks, he’d been relieved to discover, were actually quite good, better than the ones on his previous starship. But then, they actually got to control what supplies they received from the logistics officers. Imperial Navy cooks had to make do with what they had.

He took a tray of food and sat down at a table, noting without surprise just how isolated he was from the rest of the crew. They might not suspect the secret part of his mission, but they resented his presence, Cordova didn’t take on many new crewmen and he forced those he did to prove themselves before trusting them with responsibility, let alone authority. Patrick, on the other hand, had never had to prove himself. His sole qualification for being a rebel was being caught up in the first set of mutinies, then agreeing to stay with Colin Walker once he had taken control of the ships.

It still astonished him to see how disciplined Cordova’s crew actually was . They’d been in exile for over twenty years, long enough to lose all cohesion… and yet they hadn’t, somehow. They wore makeshift uniforms — like their commander, there was a certain amount of individuality in each uniform — and they comported themselves like proper crewmen, not pirates or even independent shippers. Even the newcomers, the ones Cordova had recruited from the Rim, fitted in nicely. The ship was in excellent condition, no one urinated in the corridors and there was no bullying or molestation of younger crewmen. Patrick had been on Imperial Navy starships with less discipline.

He must have been a great commander , Patrick thought, as he finished his tray. The Imperial Navy must have been sorry to lose him .

Or maybe not, he added, in the privacy of his own mind. The qualities that made for a good commanding officer weren’t ones that the Imperial Navy always found reassuring. Perhaps they’d felt Cordova had had a personality cult even before he’d deserted the Imperial Navy or perhaps they’d suspected his loyalty. But they wouldn’t have assigned a scorching mission to a starship commander they didn’t trust. Even hardened sadists were known to balk at wiping an entire planet’s population out of existence. The Imperial Navy usually assigned such tasks to officers who had been properly conditioned beforehand, the ones who would obey orders without question, let alone doubts or scruples.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped.

“The Captain wishes to see you in his office,” Maze informed him. “You will come with me now.”