Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“I wish I could promise you a victory, but the truth is that we are far from the end of our war,” he added. He’d cribbed the next line from one of the banned history books he’d read while in the Beyond. “All we have done here is merely the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. The Imperial Navy is strong and the Thousand Families will feel sure that they are fighting for their own survival. There will be others who will believe that the Empire’s ultimate purpose justifies any amount of repression and who will fight us, not for evil reasons, but out of a deep concern for the future of the human race. There is no guarantee of victory.

“If you wish to join us, please make your intentions known to one of the Marines,” he concluded. “If you wish to remain with the Empire, you have a number of possibilities. We can repatriate you to the Empire or transport you to an isolated world in the Beyond that is capable of feeding and housing you until the war is over, one way or the other. We will not punish you for choosing to believe that the wording of your oaths is more important than the sentiment behind them. We all swore to uphold the Empire, yet who is the true enemy?

“Whatever choice you make, I guarantee you one thing. We will attempt to accommodate you as much as possible.”

He saluted them and turned, leaving the compartment before they saw just how much his choice of words had affected him. He’d dreamed great dreams, yet part of him had never quite believed that he would make it, that he would be caught and killed long before he reached his goal. And now his old tormentor was his prisoner and the sector was effectively in his hands. No other world in the sector could stand against him now. Given a few months, he could use the sector to add to his industrial resources, putting together a creditable challenge to the entire Empire.

But the Empire would know that as well, he knew. They’d send the Imperial Navy to reclaim or destroy the lost worlds. And the Popular Front would have to defend them. It was strange, but true; their strength was also their weakness. The rebellion had taken worlds now and had to fight to keep them, which would keep their forces tied down in their defence. The tactical situation had changed, but perhaps not improved.

“Let me know what they decide,” he said, to the Marine. He had three other visits to make. “I want to see Percival.”

Penny came back to awareness slowly, more aware of the dryness in her throat and the throbbing in her temples than she was of her surroundings. She could feel that she was lying on a bunk, with something wrapped around her wrist. A restraint, she wondered, before realising that it felt too light to be a restraint. Her eyes opened suddenly and she realised that she had been left in an unfamiliar compartment, one that seemed to throb with energy. She sat up and nearly collapsed as her head suddenly swam, a wave of dizziness passing through her skull. Memory returned and she realised that she had been stunned. Wherever she was, it wasn’t Percival’s station.

“Welcome back to the living,” a voice said. She looked up to see a man sitting by the side of her bunk, a man she didn’t recognise. He was a tall lanky fellow, with short untameable hair and long delicate hands. He couldn’t have been more different from Percival. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” Penny said. Her voice sounded thick in her own ears. “Where am I?”

“All in good time, my dear,” the man said. He reached out to touch the band around her wrist and she realised that it was a medical sensor. “You need a shower and a change and then we will talk.” He nodded towards a pile of clothes on a small table as he stood up. “I’ll leave you alone now, but you’re not stupid enough to believe that you are unobserved.”

Penny watched him go, before she managed to stand up and stagger towards the tiny bathroom. As promised, there was a small shower waiting for her. Undressing was a hassle, but her own curiosity pushed her onwards. Wherever the ship was taking her — and she was sure that she was on a starship — it had to be better than Camelot.

The Empire recognised no right to privacy, Colin knew; unless one happened to be very well-born, a person could be watched at any time by Imperial Intelligence, often for no other reason than because the officer in charge wanted to spy on a pretty girl. It was a power that was often abused, yet few cared enough to try to fix it. The station’s brig therefore included monitors that allowed him to watch the prisoners with no fear of them sensing his gaze.

Percival had been treated badly by his subordinates, according to the medic who had inspected him and treated his wounds. Quite apart from the blow that had knocked him out, it had been clear that he had been kicked several times, including one kick that had caved in a couple of ribs. The medic had fixed most of the damage easily, yet it would be a long time before Percival recovered. He sat on the bunk in the brig, his hands cuffed together and attached to the deck, his piggish eyes staring at nothing. He was no longer the proud confident figure the young Colin had admired, or the older arrogant asshole that had been so confident that Colin could be used and then thrown away, without any hope at all of extracting retribution.

Colin felt the pistol at his belt and scowled. No one would stop him if he wanted to walk into the brig, draw his pistol and shoot Percival through the head. He could shoot him, or beat him to death with his bare hands, or strangle him, or throw him out of an airlock… there were so many possibilities. No one would object if he wanted to spend the next few hours torturing his nemesis, inflicting horrific damage and then allowing the medics to heal Percival, before Colin tortured him again. He doubted that Percival had a single friend in the entire system. The fact that his own subordinates had turned on him at the end suggested that he had never changed, that he had never realised the need to cultivate respect and loyalty. The same uncaring attitude, that the lower orders existed only to be used and then thrown aside, that had led him to try to destroy Colin had led right to Percival’s final defeat. Let him squirm as he may, Colin knew; there was no way that the Empire would forgive him. The man who had lost control over an entire sector had no future.

His thoughts tormented him. How many times had he dreamed about killing Percival? When he’d been trapped on the patrol base, with few prospects for escape or advancement, he had plotted hundreds of ways to kill his tormentor. The dark vindictive fantasies had kept him going, from the moment when he had sworn bloody revenge until he had made his grab for the Observation Squadron. Captain-Commodore Howell had died at Colin’s hands, the first of so many, killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why should he not kill Percival? Who would object if he chose to execute him on the spot?

Percival had grown fat over the years, Colin saw, even though removing the fat would have been the work of a few minutes in sickbay. His weight was a message in itself; Percival didn’t care what anyone else thought of his physical beauty, even though he was prepared to toady to anyone who had a higher social rank than his own. Colin had interviewed Commander Redfield and a handful of others and they had all agreed that Percival had been bedding Captain Quick, a woman who had provided the brains and tactical acumen Percival so desperately needed. She had vanished, apparently on a gunboat that had been able to flicker out while inside the station. Colin couldn’t blame her for running, yet there were too many unanswered questions surrounding her. The Imperial Navy banned gunboats and assault shuttles from trying to flicker out while inside a station or a starship. It was too easy for the jump to damage or destroy the mothership. The gunboat’s computers should have automatically prevented the jump from taking place.