Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

O’Conner looked up as Colin opened the hatch and stepped into the brig. He moved with a delicacy that suggested that his body’s coordination was wearing out, no matter how healthy he looked. His white hair seemed to shine in the light; his blue eyes were alarmingly perceptive. Someone who had lived so long, Colin knew, would have developed remarkable skills for reading a person, or a situation. Again, he wondered why O’Conner had been sent out to serve the Roosevelt Family. It didn’t quite add up.

“The famous Commander Walker,” O’Conner said. His voice was far more accented than Percival’s duller tones. “I trust you will understand if I don’t get up?”

He rattled his chains to illustrate his point. “Of course,” Colin said, as he took the interrogator’s chair. O’Conner seemed to exude charm, which might explain why he’d been given the job — whatever the job had truly been. “I trust that you will understand if I get right to the point? What were you building for the Roosevelt Family in this sector?”

O’Conner didn’t try to mislead him. “I’m afraid I cannot discuss that, Commander,” he said. “It isn’t a matter I can answer now.”

Colin frowned, peering at him over his fingertips. “Do you have an implanted mental block, or are you just being loyal to the Family?”

“The latter,” O’Conner said. “Sadly, mental blocks are not as helpful as they would seem to suggest, not when the subject needs to talk openly. I hate to insult your intelligence, Commander, but I’m afraid there is no way you can get me to talk.”

Colin snorted. “I hate to insult your intelligence, but I’m sure that you know there are plenty of ways that information can be extracted from an unwilling donor,” he reminded him, dryly. “I assume that you have an implant providing some protection from torture? How long do you think it would protect you once the Geeks take it apart?”

O’Conner smiled, drolly. “What makes you think I know anything?”

“You’re in a high position within a Family-run sector, without being a member of the Family’s inner core,” Colin countered. “The only reason I can think of for that is that you’re intended to avoid attracting attention, which would inevitably follow any senior Family member wherever he went.”

He grinned. “And I guess that that explains Stacy,” he added. The older man’s face twitched at her name. “She was meant to distract attention from you . What do you think she would tell us if we asked her?”

O’Conner grinned back. “And how much do you think someone like Stacy actually knows ? Would you trust her with your deepest secrets?”

“Touché,” Colin said. “What do you know?”

“I want to make a deal,” O’Conner said, flatly. “You give me and my family — my wife and children — a safe place to live. In exchange, I will tell you what you want to know.”

Colin didn’t hesitate. “Very well,” he said. “What is the Roosevelt Family doing in this sector?”

“Plotting a war,” O’Conner said. He laughed at Colin’s expression. “Did you think that you were the only one who noticed that the Empire was in deep trouble?”

“Explain,” Colin ordered, tartly.

“The Empire has been stagnant for years,” O’Conner said. “There is little in the way of expansion, or technological advancement — even the new colonies, planted by the Thousand Families, rapidly turn into just more stagnant worlds. The Thousand Families are having problems maintaining what they have and the booty is running out. When it is all gone… the Thousand Families will turn on one another. The Roosevelt Family’s private predictions suggest that civil war will break out within the next two hundred years.”

Colin shivered. He had thought of the Thousand Families as a single monolith, even after recruiting one of them to his banner. He had never considered that there might be cracks in the edifice, not when the only thing keeping the Empire together was the united power of the Families. Parliament was a joke and there was no Emperor. And the Imperial Navy’s officers, by and large, owed their position to their patrons. The Imperial Navy would come apart at the seams as the clients sought to seize fleets, squadrons and even individual starships for their patrons. The result would be absolute chaos.

“If we’d had longer, we would have been producing an entire fleet in this sector,” O’Conner confirmed. “An entire sector, loyal to the Roosevelt Family; do you have any idea how hard it was to keep the other Families and their clients out of the sector? The discovery of Jackson’s Folly almost torpedoed the whole scheme.”

Colin smiled, although there was little humour in his mind. “That must have been irritating,” he said. “Does Percival know anything about this?”

“No,” O’Conner said. He leaned forward. “As a gesture of good faith, I’ll tell you something else you need to know and then” — he rattled his chains meaningfully — “you can find me some better accommodation. Admiral Percival sent for help.”

He smiled at Colin’s expression. “He requested everything that Sector 99 could dispatch,” he added. “There are three entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts coming here. I think you’d better start preparing to meet them.”

Although she suspected that she wasn’t somewhere most citizens of the Empire would be pleased to be, Penny took her time with her shower and ablations. Her body hurt from being stunned — and probably drugged to keep her under — and she wanted time to think. She allowed the warm water to wash down her body, wiping away the stain of being touched by Percival and his goons, all the while trying to work out where she was now. Her thoughts kept running in circles until she finally dismissed it; there was no way that she could deduce anything from what little she’d seen.

Stepping out of the shower compartment, she was amused to discover a neatly-folded pile of clothes, all in her size. There was a standard Imperial Navy shipsuit — without rank markings, she noted with wry amusement — and a standard pair of undergarments. It occurred to her, as she started to pull them on, that unseen watchers were probably enjoying the sight, but she’d lost most of her body modesty back at the Academy. Besides, if she was in the hands of Imperial Intelligence or one of the other security forces, body modesty would soon be the least of her worries. No one was interrogating her or threatening to try her with treason and blow her out an airlock.

Once she was dressed, she stepped up to the hatch and — somewhat to her surprise — it opened. Her first glimpse of the passage outside confirmed her suspicions that she was on a small craft, perhaps a shape barely larger than a gunboat. There were some luxury yachts, pleasure craft owned by high-ranking officers and aristocrats, which had roughly the same dimensions. The craft wouldn’t be very large, certainly not more than one or two decks, with most of the rear made up of engine. Judging from the drive noise she could hear in the background, the tiny ship had been outfitted with a military-grade drive. Very few, whatever their rank or station, would have been permitted such a drive for their own private craft. She walked down the corridor and up to the bridge hatch, which hissed open as she approached. The interior of the bridge barely deserved that name. It was small, compact, and designed for a tiny crew. A single person, with the right knowledge and training, could operate the entire ship.

“Well, come on in,” a voice said. She saw a chair spinning around, revealing the man she’d seen when she’d woken up. He might have been the only person she’d seen, but it didn’t mean that he was the only person on the ship. A small craft could carry upwards of thirty people, depending on interior design. “How are you feeling now?”