Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

He shook his head. “We should have the firepower to convince them to back down and surrender,” he added. “If they don’t, we can take out the shipyard with ballistic missiles.”

“That could be an expensive waste of effort,” Cordova pointed out. “They might notice the missiles.”

“We can destroy the facilities and then pull out, leaving the fortifications to wither on the vine,” Colin countered. “Your girlfriend will be upset, but we will have to live with it.”

Cordova stroked his beard. “She’s already going to kill me for Wolf 359,” he said. “Are you intent on getting us both killed?”

Colin had to laugh. “We launch the operation one hour from now,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Cordova boomed. “They will regret the day they ever heard of us.”

“I think they already do,” Daria said, tartly.

Colin smiled, then waited for them to leave the compartment and leave him alone. It was strange not having to plan an operation down to the tiniest detail, strange and wonderful at the same time. The Imperial Navy’s smarter officers knew better than to assume their subordinates could be trusted to carry out their orders, so they planned everything and punished each and every deviation from the plan. Colin, on the other hand, knew and trusted his subordinates. Besides, he knew from long experience that the time it took to send a signal back to the command ship and receive new instructions could be lethal.

And the Imperial Navy could never have launched an operation at one hour’s notice.

He allowed his smile to widen. The Empire would never be the same again.

“The post-battle analysis indicates that the point defence network at Morrison was badly compromised,” the analyst droned. “This created a cascading failure that knocked out individual nodes of the network, which resulted in the entire network eventually losing the capability to regenerate itself without shutting the whole system down and restarting it. The rebels took advantage of the collapse to disable or destroy the Morrison Fleet.”

Tiberius sighed inwardly as the analyst droned on. It was rare for someone so junior to be summoned to face the Families Council, which suggested that Grand Admiral Porter and Admiral Foster feared for their jobs. Not that he blamed them for that , he had to admit. The Families Council had been in an evil mood ever since news of Morrison had leaked out several hours ago. There was already panic in the streets and dire threats from various family gatherings.

“Fine,” he said, hitting the table hard enough to make them all jump. The analyst stared at him and started to splutter. “Let us ignore the precise technical details. Can Home Fleet be protected against a similar attack?”

“We can reprogram the network to work around a successful jamming effort,” the analyst assured him. “However, they will still be able to jam individual sections for brief periods of time. We would need to redesign the system completely to prevent the jamming from affecting it at all.”

“Good, see to it,” Tiberius said. He looked over at the other Family Heads, who seemed shocked at his sudden interruption. “The precise details don’t matter. What does matter is that we are on the verge of losing the war.”

He smiled at their shock, then pressed on. “The rebels are coming to Earth,” he added. “They may already be on their way. We need to consider ways to preserve what we can.”

Lord Rothschild leaned forward. “I admit that the war situation has taken a turn not necessarily to our advantage,” he said. “But the rebels seem to want everything . How can we surrender on such terms?”

“Then we try to offer them different terms,” Tiberius said. “We still have something to bargain with…”

The alarms sounded. “Or perhaps we might just have run out of time,” he said, instead. “The rebels are here.”

Commander Patrick Jones had never visited Earth before the mutinies, but he had to admit that he was impressed by the sheer volume of activity within the system. Earth, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were surrounded by a formidable network of orbital fortifications, industrial production nodes and asteroid settlements, while thousands of interstellar and interplanetary ships plied their trade between the asteroid belt and the planets. There was no shortage of targets for hit-and-run raids, even though there had been no piracy in the system for hundreds of years. But then, the Imperial Navy had long since driven pirates out of the system. It had been considered safe.

“Take us towards Earth,” Cordova ordered. “Then, once they have a solid lock, take us back again. Let them get a good look at us.”

Patrick shook his head in astonishment. Cordova was deliberately baiting Home Fleet, a formation with seven squadrons of superdreadnaughts under its flag. On impulse, he brought up the live feed from the drones Cordova had launched towards Home Fleet and examined their reports. Home Fleet seemed to be powering up, but very slowly. If they hadn’t been positioned within Luna’s gravity shadow, he would have seriously considered proposing a raid like the one they had launched against Wolf 359.

“Taking their time,” Cordova agreed. “But I doubt they will chase us.”

He looked over at the communications officer. “Transmit the recorded message,” he ordered, shortly. “I want the entire system to hear our manifesto.”

“Four squadrons of superdreadnaughts and thirty-seven smaller craft,” Admiral Porter reported. “Admiral Foster has taken direct command of Home Fleet. He’s powering up now.”

Too slow , Tiberius said. He studied the reports from the massive sensor networks orbiting Earth. The rebels seemed to be taunting the defenders, rather than going in and taking them out… there was a crude overconfidence about their actions that bothered him. Did they really believe that the Imperial Navy would leave them alone?

“Order Home Fleet to go after the bastards,” Lord Bernadotte ordered, tartly. “I want the rebels thrown out of our system.”

Admiral Porter hesitated, listening to someone else through his earpiece. “We cannot hope to intercept them,” he said, finally. “They’ve already had time to recharge their flicker drives, so they can and will just jump out as soon as they see us coming. We cannot get at them until they choose to come into missile range.”

“We can’t leave them there,” Lord Rothschild insisted. “They’re mocking us!”

“And proving that Sol isn’t secure,” Lord Edison added.

Tiberius rolled his eyes. Trust them to think about the political aspects of the situation first . But they were right, he had to admit. Right now, there were countless underground groups watching as the rebels casually violated the Sol System without punishment. Home Fleet might be the most powerful formation left in the Empire, but it was useless if it wasn’t intimidating to the Empire’s enemies. Besides, they didn’t dare bombard Earth into submission. Too much of their workforce and their families lived on the homeworld.

“Admiral Foster intends to dispatch several battlecruiser squadrons to intercept the rebels,” Admiral Porter said. “He also proposes the recall of the squadrons from Terra Nova.”

“But that will leave Terra Nova uncovered,” Lord Bernadotte snapped. “We cannot risk our last Class-III shipyard!”

“But Earth itself is under threat,” Lord Rothschild countered. “If we lose Earth, we lose everything!”

“The rebels aren’t even trying to break down the defences,” Lord Bernadotte insisted. “For all we know, this is a feint. They want us to pull ships from Terra Nova.”