Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Might

Not that it matters now , he thought. We’re about to win or lose the war.

He keyed his console. “All hands, this is the Admiral,” he said. “We are about to flicker to Earth, the homeworld of humanity — and the heart of the Empire. The battle we will fight will determine the fate of humanity for a thousand years. If we win, we can reform the Empire and end the colossal abuses of power that have destroyed trillions of lives. And even if we lose, we will ensure that the Empire’s colossal self-confidence will no longer survive. They will change or die.

“Think of your friends, your families, all of those who have suffered at the hands of the Empire,” he continued. “This is our best chance to end their suffering, once and for all, and build a new order. This day, win or lose, will be remembered. Let us give them something to recall.

“I expect each and every one of you to do your duty, one final time.”

He took a breath. Earth, the homeworld of humanity… he’d never really expected to enter the Sol System with a battle fleet, not until he’d started to plan the first mutiny. Even then, he’d known the odds were against him. But the Empire was a rotting corpse, already dead; he knew he had the opportunity to win.

And even if they didn’t win, they would be remembered . Others, one day in the future, would use the memory to encourage them to go for their enemy’s throats…

“Jump,” he ordered.

The argument had started the moment the courier boat had arrived from Terra Nova, reporting that the shipyard was under attack. Tiberius listened helplessly as most of the Family Heads shouted at each other, bickering even as time ran out. He knew , with a certainty that surprised him, that the rebels were on their way to Earth. Once they captured Terra Nova, they wouldn’t want to give the Empire any time to recover from the shock.

“Gentlemen,” Admiral Porter said. They ignored him. “Gentlemen, please…”

Tiberius followed his gaze. New red icons had flared into existence, alarmingly close to Earth. The rebel fleet had arrived. One by one, the Family Heads turned to stare, their argument dying out as they realised that retribution was finally on its way. Tiberius looked from face to face and wondered, absently, just how they had managed to keep power for so long. But as long as they’d controlled the biggest stick in the galaxy, they hadn’t needed to be subtle. Now, that stick had broken in their hand.

“They’re outnumbered,” Lord Bernadotte said, in the tones of a man desperately clutching at straws. “We can beat them.”

“I doubt it,” Tiberius said. Admiral Foster was no Admiral Wachter — and Home Fleet had been in a worse state than the Morrison Fleet, before Wachter had taken command. The rebels, by contrast, were battle-hardened and ready to fight. “We have to consider other options.”

“You mean surrender,” Lord Rothschild said. “Why would they accept our surrender?”

Tiberius forced his voice to remain calm. “We still control large parts of the economy,” he pointed out, smoothly. “If they refuse to accept our surrender on terms” — he knew what terms the rebels would demand, thanks to Gwendolyn — “we can cripple the economy and ensure that they inherit a wasteland. Not to mention force them to shoot their way past Home Fleet, if they refuse to deal with us.”

“They’d just agree, then go back on the deal,” Lord Bernadotte snapped. “Why should they honour any agreement with us?”

You would do that, Tiberius thought. If you thought you held the whip hand, you’d break whatever deals you made whenever it suited you.

“The rebels are trying to form a new government,” he said, instead. “If they break their word so blatantly, they will find it impossible to get anyone else to trust them.”

“None of the rebel factions will object to us being brutally slaughtered,” Lord Bernadotte pointed out, sharply. “Why would they care?”

“Because it sets a damn precedent,” Tiberius snapped back. “They may gloat at our misfortune, but what stops the rebels from doing it again and again?”

Lady Madeline’s image flickered out. Tiberius barely noticed.

Alarms sounded a moment later. Tiberius suddenly found his attention torn between the meeting and Sharon, who had burst into the conference room. She never did that; hell, it was the one room in the complex that was barred to her, unless it was an absolute emergency.

“My Lord,” she said, “the rebels are attacking the High City!”

Tiberius swore, then turned his attention to the other holograms. “We seem to be under attack,” he said. A glance at the live feed revealed that the High City wasn’t the only place under attack. The underground had been building up its forces and putting them in place. “I think our time has run out.”

There was a brief, silent consultation between the other Family Heads. “We take a vote,” Lord Rothschild said. “And then we abide by it.”

Tiberius waited, nervously, for the results. In the end, all of the remaining Heads decided to offer to surrender, on terms.

“You will speak to the rebels,” Lord Rothschild said. “Everyone else will withdraw to the security bunkers.”

“Not bad, for lads with only a few weeks of training,” Frandsen said. “They certainly never expected us.”

Adeeba nodded. There was one place in the universe where the Empire had to tread carefully — and that was Earth. And there was one place on Earth — the High City — where smashing an insurrection from orbit was completely out of the question. It still astonished her that the underground had managed to move a small regiment of men up to the walls, let alone deploy them without being detected. But they had done a remarkable job.

She glanced down at the terminal, shaking her head in awe. The underground leadership had admitted, finally, that they had a backdoor access route into the planetary defence network. If the imps wanted to shut them out, they would have to shut down the entire system, rendering themselves blind and mute. Instead, they would have to watch helplessly as the rebels took advantage of their system to coordinate their attacks. And the High City wasn’t the only place under attack.

“Let’s hope the bastards see sense,” she muttered. “Or that Colin gets here quickly.”

She winced at the thought. There were Household Troops in the High City itself, while there were regiments of loyalist Marines and Blackshirts in orbit. If Colin couldn’t get to them in time, the underground would do a great deal of damage, but would eventually — inevitably –be wiped out. But the aristocracy would have had a scare…

Sure , she thought. And they will make the population of Earth pay for it .

Colin couldn’t help being impressed by the sheer scale of activity in the Sol System, even though he knew that much of it belonged to the Thousand Families. Sol was still the most densely populated star system in the Empire; Earth, Mars and Venus all had populations that numbered in the billions. But most of the population was completely helpless to alter the course of the Empire.

“Home Fleet is deploying to meet us,” the tactical officer reported. “They’re not waiting in orbit.”

“Understandable,” Colin said. “The last thing they want is a missile to accidentally strike Earth.”

He studied Home Fleet as it advanced, pushing up and outwards to escape the gravity shadow. Their movements suggested that there had been some improvements, but despite their superiority in numbers Colin was confident of victory. The ships showed plenty of signs of ill-treatment, just like Morrison… and their CO had clearly not been as good a slave driver as Admiral Wachter. In fact, he’d opened the fleet up to a disastrous strike… if Colin had flickered in a little closer, he might have been able to obliterate the fleet in his first missile salvo.