Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

“The courier boat is ready,” Lester said.

“Send them the complete report, then tell them to nominate my replacement,” Amir ordered, tartly. “You have the deck.”

He stepped through the hatch, into his cabin. It was a nice suite, he had to admit; it housed himself, his wife and his two children quite comfortably. But their lives would be blighted too, even though they had nothing to do with his mistakes. The Sandakan Family had no tolerance for failure, even among their own kin. They’d be lucky if they weren’t told to spend the rest of their lives on a world that, no matter how comfortable, was very definitely a prison.

Pouring himself a glass of wine, he sat down at his desk and studied the pictures he’d hung on the walls. His wife was gorgeous, thanks to the most elaborate cosmetic surgery money could buy, while his twin girls were the cutest little girls in the universe. Maybe they were at the stage where they were dreadfully embarrassed when their father called them cute, but they were cute. Amir looked at their long dark hair, framing their dark faces, and felt a pang of guilt. They were his daughters and he had failed them.

He opened the desk drawer and removed the pistol. It had been a present from his crew when he’d left Fortress Command, something he valued because no one could have forced them to offer him something so practical. Normally, sycophants would produce a plaque or something that required minimal effort. A working pistol would require hours of paperwork, particularly a chemical weapon instead of a plasma blaster.

Placing the weapon on the table, he scribbled three notes. One for his XO, who would have to assume command; one for his wife, to apologise for his failure; one to the Family Head, accepting full responsibility for the disaster. By now, for all he knew, word had already reached Earth. Humanity’s homeworld was only eight light years away, after all.

He hesitated, then reached for the pistol. Quite calmly, he put the weapon to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Patrick slowly fought his way back to full awareness. His chest hurt, as did his head, pounding away as if someone was firing cannons inside his skull. But, as he opened his eyes, the pain slowly started to fade away. He was lying on a bed in sickbay, a concerned-looking doctor staring down at him. Behind the doctor, Cordova was waiting.

“Captain,” he croaked. “I…”

“A bad case of jump shock,” the doctor said, briskly. She looked over at Cordova. “He really needs to take it easy for a day or two, as do the other victims.”

“I know,” Cordova said. “We’re going to have to wait here for a few days in any case, at least until we repair the drive and replace the damaged components. The crew can recuperate in peace.”

Patrick forced himself to sit up. “The crew?”

“A third of the crew has jump shock,” the doctor said, sharply. She gave him an assessing look. “I’m not too surprised, really. Making such a jump could easily have killed everyone on the ship.”

“It was that or die,” Cordova said. “But we made it out.”

Patrick nodded. “How many ships?”

“We lost seven,” Cordova admitted, reluctantly. “But we wiped out most of the shipyard and probably wrecked the Sandakan Family. Not a bad rate of exchange, I feel.”

“Perhaps.” Patrick agreed. Seven ships, a fifth of the raiding fleet. But, right now, the Empire would have real trouble rebuilding its superdreadnaught squadrons. They only had one Class-III shipyard left, in the Terra Nova System. “Terra Nova?”

“It’s too obvious,” Cordova said. Clearly, he’d been having similar thoughts. “And they will guard it thoroughly as soon as they hear about Wolf 359.”

“And it would be harder to attack in any case,” Patrick said. The Terra Nova Shipyard, like the Jupiter Shipyard, orbited a gas giant. They couldn’t launch a flicker attack and hope to survive. Unless they used smaller shuttles… “Captain…”

“Get some rest,” Cordova ordered. He gave Patrick a brilliant smile. “We’re safe now. We can take a day or two to recuperate…”

“Do it in your own cabin,” the doctor ordered. She marched over and made irritated gestures at them. “I need the bed.”

Cordova nodded, then helped Patrick to his feet. “Get some rest, then join me for our next planning session,” he ordered. “Or talk someone into bed, if you like. We do have plenty of time to think about planning our next course of action.”

He snickered, then winked. “And just think! These are the problems of victory. How do you think they’re feeling?”

Patrick had to smile. By now, word would definitely have reached Earth. The Thousand Families would be near panic. Who knew how they’d react? How could they react?

Maybe they will negotiate , he thought. It didn’t seem very likely. Or maybe they will resort to desperate measures .

Whiplash , Tiberius thought. We have whiplash .

Admiral Wachter’s courier boats had broken all speed records to get news of the Battle of Morrison back to Earth. But, a day after the news from Morrison had arrived, word had arrived from Wolf 359. The giant shipyard and industrial production facility had effectively been destroyed. Countless facilities were gone and the workforce was dead.

The effect had been immediate. Confidence in the Sandakan Family had collapsed, particularly after the Family Head moved to secure the family’s remaining investments. Right now, they were on the slippery slope towards bankruptcy and the remaining families were rapidly calculating how best to take advantage of the situation — or avoid being dragged down with the Sandakan Family. And Tiberius knew that their collapse would hurt his family. There were outstanding debts and contracts that would never be honoured.

He watched with grim amusement as the Families Council convened. The Sandakan had, naturally, been told that his presence was no longer welcome. Surprisingly, he had tried to fight, to insist on his rights, even though his family was struggling for survival. It had taken Tiberius several minutes to realise that the council vote could be farmed out to the highest bidder, even though that was technically against the rules. But then, rules were what the Thousand Families said they were.

Grand Admiral Porter was the first to speak.

“The latest report from Wolf 359 states that over eighty-five percent of the total productive facility has been lost,” he said, in a droning voice that tried to minimise the effects of the blow. “Long-term effects will hamper our ability to rebuild our fleets and resupply the Imperial Navy with anything larger than a destroyer or light cruiser. Even our missile production facilities have been impacted. Shortages can be expected for several months to come before we can reconfigure other industrial nodes…”

Tiberius listened, carefully, as the Admiral droned on. Nothing he said was new , precisely, but he’d hoped that there would be encouragement. Instead, the news was almost worse than he had feared. At best, their plans to take the offensive against the rebels would have to be put off for several years, despite the victory at Morrison. And at worst… the rebels might just have scored a war-winning blow.

“I trust,” Lord Rothschild said, “that steps have been taken to secure Terra Nova?”

“I have ordered the dispatch of an additional superdreadnaught squadron from Home Fleet,” Admiral Porter said. “My analysts are already considering additional security measures for the system.”

“Such matters are my family’s responsibility,” Lord Bernadotte snapped. “By long custom…”