Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

“Right now, your shipyard is the only one capable of replacing the lost superdreadnaughts,” Lord Rothschild pointed out. “Failing to protect it could be disastrous.”

And it has nothing to do with the fact you want a lever over your rival , Tiberius thought, coldly. Taking the shipyards into general ownership would please you, wouldn’t it ?

“My Household Troops will not be caught on the hop,” Lord Bernadotte said. “It was damn careless of the Sandakan to leave such a flaw in the yard’s security.”

“But not one he was responsible for,” Tiberius muttered.

Lord Bernadotte glared at him. “And you think I am responsible for the poor decisions of my ancestors?”

Tiberius resisted the urge to point out that was exactly what he had tried to imply about the Sandakan, but held his peace.

“We cannot afford to lose your shipyard,” Lord Rothschild said, softly. “You will maintain full control of the installation. We will merely provide security.”

“That can be handled later,” Tiberius said. “We must now consider the long-term course of the war — and the future of the Empire.”

He took a breath, then pressed on. “The Sandakan Family is unable to meet its debts,” he said, flatly. All of his analysts agreed on that point, although they weren’t certain just how long it would be before the final collapse. Like most of the Thousand Families, the Sandakan Family had assets that were off the books. “When it goes down, it will seriously damage the rest of us.”

There were nods of agreement. Even if the families worked together, they were all going to take a blow. And the families were simply not good at working together.

“We cannot afford another blow like that,” Tiberius continued. “I think we should seriously consider coming to terms with the rebels.”

“Out of the question,” Lord Bernadotte thundered. “This is the worst possible moment for considering peace with the rebels.”

Tiberius met his eyes. “We won a victory at Morrison,” he said. “The rebels were knocked out of the system, in complete and total disarray. But we lost Wolf 359, which threatens our ability to replace our losses as well as our entire economic edifice. What happens if we take another blow like that? What happens if we have to keep paying for the war effort while we are unable to pay debts and meet our obligations?

“We might win the war and lose the Empire.

“This is our moment to offer peace terms,” he added. “Let the rebels have Sector 117. Let them have their other conquests. Let them take the underground members from Earth and the rest of the Core Worlds. We will reconfigure our economy, recover from the war and replace our losses. By then, the war can be restarted with impunity.”

“You would be forcing us all to accept massive losses,” Lord Rothschild said, thoughtfully. “None of the rebel conquests would be returned to us.”

“Better to lose part of the Empire than all of it,” Tiberius insisted. “Right now, the rebels are just as shocked as we are. But once they run the calculations for themselves, they will know that we are actually in a very weak position. And then they will resume the war.”

“You’re young,” Lord Bernadotte said.

“And what,” Tiberius asked sharply, “does my youth have to do with anything?”

“The young are idealistic, just like the fools who believed that the Empress would reform the system and — just incidentally, give them power and position,” Lord Bernadotte hissed. “You do not realises, young man , that we cannot let our grip on power slack. Do you really imagine, in your ivory tower, that the population loves us? What do you think would happen if we allowed another interstellar power to exist?

“I’ll tell you what will happen,” he added. “We will be out-produced. The Geeks and Nerds will push the limits of technology as far as they will go. It won’t be long before our economy is completely up-ended by their research, while we struggle to repair the damage from the war. And the mere existence of a different political system will give our population ideas, won’t it? No matter what we do, they will be discontented. They will revolt.”

He looked around the table, as if he were pleading with them to understand. “We stand at the top of a very shaky power structure,” he said. “We are, in effect, riding a tiger. But if we try to get off, the tiger will eat us.”

“And if we try to stay on,” Tiberius said, “we may be knocked off anyway.”

Lord Bernadotte ignored him. “For the past thousand years, we have controlled the Empire to suit ourselves,” he said. “We have rewritten the laws as necessary. We have absorbed, assimilated or destroyed competition. Anyone who looked like posing a threat to our dominance was simply pushed out of business. But how well would we do if we no longer controlled everything? Would we be able to compete?”

He was right, Tiberius knew. But would they be able to stay in control?

“The best we could hope for,” Lord Bernadotte concluded, “is a gradual loss of power and eventual collapse. What else would there be for us?”

“Perhaps we could reconfigure ourselves to survive, even in a universe of free competition,” Tiberius suggested.

“And are you,” Lord Bernadotte asked, “willing to take that chance?”

He met Tiberius’s eyes. “Are you willing to risk everything your ancestors built up, knowing that it could all be lost?”

“I believe that it is already at stake,” Tiberius said, stiffly. “Even if all the rebels dropped dead tomorrow, we would still be struggling for years to rebuild. And well…”

He paused for effect. “And there is the other fact that seems to have been overlooked.”

Lord Bernadotte grimaced. “And that is…?”

“Wolf 359 is just under eight light years from Earth,” Tiberius said, quietly. “The rebels could be probing the Sol System right now.”

“Home Fleet stands by to repel any offensive,” Admiral Foster said, quickly. “We have drilled and exercised endlessly…”

“Thank you,” Tiberius said, cutting him off. He’d read the reports from his clients and few of them had been anything like so optimistic. “What is to stop the rebels mounting another raid, this time aimed at Earth? And what will it do to the underground’s morale if they see the rebels raiding the Sol System?”

He looked down at the table. The underground had been quieter since the security forces had raided a dozen hidden bases, but they’d definitely been infiltrating the orbital defences. A dozen would-be operatives had been caught, leaving Tiberius wondering just how many they’d missed. It was alarmingly possible that Home Fleet was already infiltrated too.

“We should vote,” Lord Bernadotte said. “Tiberius has made his case — and I have discussed the issues with coming to any kind of agreement with the rebels. All those in favour of sending a mission to discuss peace?”

Tiberius stuck up his hand, but he was alone. Even the doves were unwilling to commit themselves to discussing peace.

“The matter is now closed,” Lord Bernadotte commented. He shot Tiberius a snide glance. By custom, once the vote had been taken, the matter could not be opened again, at least unless the situation changed remarkably. “We must now consider the issue of Admiral Wachter and the POWs. I do not believe that we can dispute that Admiral Wachter overstepped his authority in making any promises to the rebels.”

Tiberius sighed. Admiral Wachter had sent dispatches… but so had the Imperial Intelligence officers and the spies within the Morrison Fleet. The latter two all agreed that Admiral Wachter had ensured that little reliable information could be extracted from the prisoners, regardless of their origins. They’d been forced to restrict themselves to gentle methods of extracting information, something that they found uncomfortable.