Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

Gaunt smiled, showing her teeth. “Wait and see.”

“Jump completed, sir.”

Colin nodded, grimly. It had taken longer than he’d expected to repair his fleet, something that had left him feeling increasingly antsy as the days wore on. His most optimistic calculations suggested that it would take at least two months for the Morrison Fleet to repair its own damage, but it was quite likely that Admiral Wachter wouldn’t wait to go on the offensive. He, as much as Colin himself, understood the value of keeping the enemy off balance

“Take us towards the planet,” he ordered. “But do not take us into the gravity shadow.”

Tabard had been settled in the same year as Morrison itself, but it had never really taken off into a fully-developed world. The files suggested that the system’s lack of a gas giant had muted investment, even though there were gas giants only a handful of light years away. By now, there were only a handful of facilities in the system, all belonging to minor families or the planetary government. Oddly, Tabard’s sheer lack of importance ensured that the planet had a degree of independence others would never be able to enjoy.

Unless one happens to renounce technology altogether , Colin thought, as the squadron shook itself down into formation. Then you would have nothing the Empire wanted, apart from a potential dumping ground for criminals.

He looked down at the reports from his ships, grimly. Seven weeks of intensive work had repaired most of the damage, but some of the ships really needed some time in a proper shipyard. The engineers had warned him that they couldn’t be overstressed or their makeshift repairs would collapse, something that Colin had found darkly amusing. People didn’t go to wars to relax and nor did their starships. The best he could do was keep the damaged ships in the rear.

“Picking up a courier boat,” the sensor officer reported. “She jumped out; destination unknown.”

Probably Morrison , Colin thought. Admiral Wachter would know that Colin and a dozen rebel starships were attacking the system within moments, assuming that all went according to plan. If he took the bait… Tabard was barely four light years from Morrison. His response force could be on the way within minutes. And if the enemy didn’t take the bait, Colin could at least wreck the system’s facilities in the course of testing his repaired ships.

“Transmit the standard warning,” he ordered. “Tell them to evacuate their facilities or die on them.”

The planet came closer in the display, barely defended and utterly vulnerable to anything larger than a destroyer. Colin wasn’t surprised — and a little relieved — to see the orbital installations hastily launching lifepods, most of them rapidly dropping out of orbit and heading down towards the surface. The system CO had probably taken one look at the nine superdreadnaughts on his display and crapped himself. Maybe he’d be executed for not even firing a shot at the rebels, but at least he’d preserved his people’s lives.

Alarms shrilled as new icons flickered into the system. “Contact, sir,” the tactical officer said. “Two squadrons of superdreadnaughts and escorts; I say again, two squadrons of superdreadnaughts and escorts.”

“Good,” Colin said. He glanced at the status display — the flicker drives were powered up, ready to jump — then smiled. “Alter course towards them.”

He didn’t expect to win — he didn’t even intend to stay in the system long enough to fire a second barrage — but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was giving the enemy a fright… and accomplishing the second half of the plan.

“Send a signal to Seeker ,” he added. “She is to follow her special instructions, then rejoin the fleet later.”

The spy had worked hard over the past seven weeks, much to her private annoyance. Her conditioning kept pushing her to sabotage the ship, forcing her to believe that she could get away with it without being detected. Maybe, on an Imperial Navy starship, it would have been right, but the rebels were far better trained than the average naval crew. They checked and rechecked everything, catching even the tiniest of mistakes. There was no way that outright sabotage could have gone unnoticed. Besides, the best she could do was blow up the superdreadnaught. The rebels would still have the rest of their fleet.

She had tried to distract the conditioning, which nagged at her relentlessly, by gathering data on the rebel fleet. The damage control officers were allowed to access all kinds of information, even material that would have been denied to them under normal circumstances. She’d taken it, stored it in her datapad and told herself that she was doing good. But, now the Imperial Navy had met them at Tabard, she had to send them the data. There was no way her conditioning would allow her to delay a moment longer.

Obeying the orders from her supervisor, she clambered into the tubes and crawled towards the access point. There were few crewmen who really liked the tubes; she’d worked hard to develop a reputation as someone who could navigate them with ease. It ensured that her supervisor often sent her out on her own, without a partner who would notice her activities and alert the Marines. The rebels, thankfully, believed in allocating people to the sections where they could do the most good. Ironically, it should have worked in their favour, but now it worked against them.

She reached the access point, spliced in the datapad and went to work.

Colin smiled to himself as a message blinked up in his personal display. The spy had gone to work, precisely as anticipated, and was trying to upload information to the enemy. Hopefully, the spy hadn’t noticed that most of the information the newcomers had been allowed to access was fake and badly understated, but it wouldn’t matter. The important thing was that they now knew where they could find the spy.

“Get him,” he muttered. “Hurry.”

He turned his attention back to the display. The enemy fleet wasn’t slowing; instead, it was actually picking up speed, as if the CO was determined to play a mad game of chicken. Or, perhaps, force his way into energy range. Colin grinned to himself, then checked the tactical display. They would be in medium range in two minutes. And then they would see…

Sidney had no problems navigating the tubes. As a native of an asteroid settlement, he was perfectly aware that sometimes he just had to crawl through tubes, even if the tubes were so thin that it seemed they were closing in on him. He clutched his stunner in one hand as he came out of the tube and turned to see a young woman fiddling with a datapad. She let out a gasp as she saw him, then grabbed for the pistol at her belt. Whatever she was, Sidney realised, she’d had some good training. She had the pistol out of her holster before he zapped her with the stunner. She let out a little gasping sound and crumpled to the metal deck.

He keyed his throatmike as he stepped forward, keeping the stunner pointed at her head. “I found her,” he said, as he knelt down beside her. They’d been warned to take no chances, so he pulled her hands behind her back and secured them, then tied her ankles together. “Just one person, Sergeant.”

“Understood,” the Sergeant said. “Are you sure she’s out of it?”

Sidney checked the girl’s vital signs. “Yes,” he said, shortly. “She’s definitely stunned.”

“Good,” the Sergeant said. “The others are on their way now. Once they’re with you, help them carry her to the brig. Leave her modifications alone. The engineers will deal with them.”