Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

“Crewman Third Class Natasha Rosina,” Anderson’s voice said. “One of our newcomers, definitely. And she would have been in position to betray the asteroid too.”

“Understood,” Colin said. “Take care of her. I’ll see you once the battle is over.”

He closed the channel, just as the enemy ships came into range. “Lock weapons on target,” he ordered. “Fire!”

The five arsenal ships that had been pretending to be superdreadnaughts fired as one, launching over ten thousand missiles towards the enemy ships. Colin’s actual superdreadnaughts fired a moment later, adding their own weight of fire to the barrage. The enemy ships seemed to flinch as the missiles roared towards them, then returned fire. Colin allowed himself a tight smile, then gave the order. The entire fleet flickered out without further ado.

“Jump complete, sir,” the helmsman said. “We escaped without losses.”

Colin smirked. The enemy fleet had probably powered up its flicker drives too, assuming that Admiral Wachter had overridden the beancounters who whined about wear and tear on expensive machinery. In peacetime, they would have had a point. Keeping a flicker drive powered up shortened its lifespan by at least half. But now, with massive missile swarms an ever-present threat, such whining should go out the airlock.

“ Seeker will join us later,” he said. The destroyer’s orders had been to cloak, then observe the result of the missile barrage. Colin would have preferred to believe that the enemy squadron was utterly destroyed, but he knew better than to count on it. “Stand down from battlestations; take us back to the rest of the fleet.”

He stood. “XO, you have the bridge,” he added. “Contact me as soon as we reach the fleet.”

There were five armoured Marines on duty outside the brig compartment, with two more inside. The ship’s doctor was examining a naked figure lying on a bed inside the first cell, with yet another Marine and Anderson standing next to her. Both of the men looked concerned — and irked. The girl had spied on them for months and they’d only noticed through sheer luck.

“She’s basically normal, physically,” the doctor said. “No implants that I can detect, a limited amount of gene-splicing… nothing really dangerous. The only significant point is a modified gene for null-gravity environments, one that isn’t catalogued in the database. It might just have come from the Beyond.”

“Or it might have been devised by Imperial Intelligence,” Anderson rumbled. “Something to prove her credentials.”

“Perhaps,” Colin said. “And no one suspected anything?”

“Her supervisor gave her a glowing report,” Anderson said. “She was liked by everyone, it seems. And she had a partner, one Crewman Rogers. He refused to believe the truth when I told him.”

Colin winced, feeling a moment of sympathy for the young man. It wasn’t easy to form a relationship with a girl, not on an Imperial Navy starship. Below decks, life could be very hard for the women. They were not only outnumbered significantly by the men, they were often chased by their superior officers too. And the very worst ships had the female crewmen forced into prostitution… it was one of the things everyone knew happened, but did nothing to stop. Colin had won the loyalty of Shadow’s crew by taking a stand against such gangs.

“No need to harass him,” Colin said. “Check him out with a lie detector, then let him go.”

“We know how she accessed the datanet now,” Anderson said, changing the subject. “If she refuses to cooperate, we can duplicate it for ourselves.”

The spy let out a gasp, her entire body jerking against the restraints. Colin watched, grimly, as the doctor placed an injector against her neck and shot something into her bloodstream, explaining that it was a mild sedative. It was quite possible, Colin knew, that the spy had been conditioned to commit suicide as soon as she was captured. The sedative, combined with the restraints, might make it impossible.

Her eyes jerked open. “I…”

“Relax,” the doctor said. “You’re safe.”

Anderson grunted, unpleasantly. The doctor shot him a sharp look. There would be time for an intensive interrogation later, but for the moment they had to prevent any suicidal programming from activating. If the spy didn’t believe herself to be in real danger… she jerked again, her hands straining against the restraints. Colin shook his head, but refused to turn away. There was no way the spy could believe she was not in danger.

The girl convulsed, then went limp. Alarms sounded as her entire body sagged. The doctor swore, then pushed another injector against her neck. But it was already too late.

“The command to commit suicide was too strong,” the doctor said. There was a bitter tone in her voice. “The moment she realised she was caught, her conditioning ordered her to die.”

Anderson scowled. “There was nothing you could do to save her?”

“I could have kept her permanently sedated or stuffed her into a stasis tube,” the doctor snapped, tartly. “But I doubt I could have kept her awake and alive. You would probably need direct brain linkage to pull anything out of her and we don’t have the equipment. And if we did, I wouldn’t. It would be grossly immoral.”

“Imperial Intelligence does it all the time,” Anderson said.

“I rest my case,” the doctor countered. She looked over at Colin. “I’ll give her an autopsy, but I don’t think I’ll uncover anything particularly significant. There was nothing special about her, merely her brain and her forced obedience to orders.”

Colin leaned forward. The girl looked so innocent, in death. “You’re sure she was forced?”

“She was quite definitely conditioned,” the doctor said. She shrugged, expressively. “But apart from that… we’ll probably never know. She could have been captured, turned into a spy and sent back to the Beyond or she could have volunteered for the job. If she’d changed her mind later…”

Colin shivered. Conditioning would have ensured she couldn’t have changed sides, no matter what she discovered about the Empire. She might have wanted to join the rebels, only to be held in place by her mental bondage. In the long run, it would have killed her. But until then she would have served the Empire faithfully.

His wristcom buzzed. “Admiral,” the XO said, “we have returned to the fleet.”

“Good,” Colin said. There was no time to waste. “Start reloading the arsenal ships and our missile tubes.”

He closed the channel, then looked over at Anderson. “What do you want to do with her reputation?”

“Tell everyone that she was forced into servitude,” Anderson said, shortly. “Too many people liked her, really. We tell them that she was conditioned and they’ll accept her as a martyr. Hell, we can turn her into another propaganda story.”

Colin hesitated. He didn’t like the thought of using a young woman’s death for propaganda, even though they would never know just why she’d served the Empire. But then, at least they would get something out of the whole affair apart from the awareness that they’d caught one spy. Who knew how many others there were?

“Make sure you secure the datanet thoroughly,” he warned. “If someone else tries to use those backdoors, I want to know about it.”

“Understood,” Anderson said. He took one last look at the body, then stepped backwards. “With your permission, sir, I will start spreading the word.”

Colin nodded, then turned and walked out of the brig.

“ Seeker rejoined the fleet thirty minutes after our arrival,” Colin said, an hour later. “She reported that we took out three enemy superdreadnaughts and damaged two more.”