Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“They will already have taken precautions against other mutinies,” Anderson said, softly. “And if a planet dares to rebel, now, they will be crushed. Percival won’t allow any challenge to his authority to go unpunished.”

Colin nodded. “All we can do is give them hope,” he said, softly. “And that, really, is all they need. Once we defeat Admiral Percival and liberate the sector, we should have new allies, willing to join us in our war.”

“Which leads neatly to the final issue,” Daria said. “What about Jackson’s Folly?”

Colin winced. By his most optimistic calculations, Admiral Percival would have dispatched a second fleet to Jackson’s Folly by now, one that wouldn’t be met by a mutinous Observation Squadron. And then…

“There’s nothing we can do for them,” he admitted. He felt a twinge of guilt. The Empire might have decided Jackson’s Folly’s fate as soon as it had stumbled across the world and its daughter colonies, but he’d made their position a great deal worse. “They’re on their own.”

The buzzing of the intercom woke Penny from an uncomfortable sleep.

“Commander Quick to the Flag Bridge, please,” it said. “I say again, Commander Quick to the Flag Bridge, please.”

Penny scowled as she pulled herself out of bed and reached for her tunic. She wasn’t blind to the verbal demotion — there could only ever be one Captain on a starship, so anyone else holding the rank of Captain was normally granted a courtesy promotion to the next rank — or to what it said about Commodore Rupert Brent-Cochrane. Four days with him on the superdreadnaught had been rather fraught; Brent-Cochrane believed that he was going places and that Penny could, somehow, help him accomplish his aim. Penny had no idea why he believed that she could help — his connections were far superior to hers — but there had been several uncomfortable discussions and verbal fencing, all completely pointless.

She checked her appearance in the mirror, running a hand through her long blonde hair to ensure that it stayed in place. At least the bruises had faded away, thanks to a liberal application of quick-heal ointment and painkiller. Penny buttoned up her tunic — silently grateful that she wasn’t with Percival and that she could wear a more regular uniform — and checked the pistol she wore on her belt. Ever since the first reports of the mutiny, Percival had insisted that his staff carried weapons, even though the reports had made it clear that the mutiny had been led by senior officers, officers like her.

The thought made her smile, humourlessly, as she walked through the hatch and out into Officer Country. There was an entire platoon of Blackshirts deployed to protect the officers from their crew — the Marines had been removed from the ship, following the interrogation of the loyalists from Jackson’s Folly — and several more companies deployed to keep an eye on the crew. They were already making themselves unpopular. The drug treatments used to render the Blackshirts willing to commit the most horrific atrocities in the name of the Empire also damaged their sense of good behaviour, as if anyone who willingly joined the Blackshirts had any sense of decency in the first place. There had been nine rapes, four beatings — for no real reason Penny could see — and at least one murder. If the crew of the General Winston hadn’t been feeling mutinous before, Penny knew, it sure as hell was feeling mutinous now.

She passed another Blackshirt as she reached the Flag Bridge, holding up her indent for him to inspect before he waved her through, into the compartment. It was buzzing with life; Brent-Cochrane, whatever his other faults, was a fairly competent commander. Unlike Stacy Roosevelt, he had rather more than two brain cells to rub together, even though there were rumours of perversions in his private life that put even Percival in the shade. The Commodore nodded to her as she entered, but didn’t move away from the display. The superdreadnaught squadron was only two light years from Jackson’s Folly.

Penny found her seat and sat down, matching his studied rudeness with studied unconcern. The terminal she wore at her waist bleeped as she pulled it out of her belt, having finished running the search program while she was asleep. Percival hadn’t been very forthcoming about Commander Walker, but Penny had access to the secured files and had used her terminal to make enquires. Commander Walker had been royally screwed by Percival — not in the same sense, part of her mind joked, as she was royally screwed — and now he was out for revenge. It wasn’t unknown for senior officers to have ‘accidents’ at the hands of junior crewmen who felt slighted in some way, but she had to admit that Commander Walker had found a hell of a way to get back at his superior. Percival would be very lucky if his career survived the mutiny. He’d certainly never be trusted with such responsibility ever again.

It had occurred to her — she had carefully not mentioned it to Percival, although he would think of it himself soon enough — that the Empire could bring pressure to bear on the families of the mutineers. Her search program revealed that it wasn’t going to be that easy. According to Imperial Intelligence, Commander Walker’s family had died a long time ago and he hadn’t even been back to his homeworld for the funeral. That wasn’t uncommon — the sheer size of the Empire meant that the notification might not arrive until the funeral was over — yet Walker had never even applied for leave to go home. There were other, more promising, possibilities, but Penny suspected that they too would be useless. The rebels had to know that the Empire wouldn’t show them any mercy.

“Prepare for jump,” Brent-Cochrane said, bringing her back to reality. He’d pushed his ships to the limit rushing to Jackson’s Folly, as if he expected to find the mutineers still present in the system. He’d also brought along three squadrons of heavy cruisers, one squadron of battlecruisers and five squadrons of destroyers, enough to destroy the entire rebel fleet if they encountered it. Penny doubted that they would be that lucky, but at least Brent-Cochrane had considered the possibility. “On my mark… flicker !”

Penny’s chest heaved as the starship jumped two light years, appearing two light minutes from Jackson’s Folly. Brent-Cochrane had decided, given that there was no way to know just what was happening on Jackson’s Folly, that it would be wiser not to jump in right on top of the planet. The gravity well would certainly scatter his formation when they arrived, something that would be disastrous if the rebels were still present and on the ball. The display lit up, revealing the existence of the planets — as if someone could have stolen them , she mocked herself — but little else. They were too far from the planet to pick up starships orbiting it at once.

“Launch probes,” Brent-Cochrane ordered. A shell of sensor probes spun out around the starships, watching for signs of cloaked ships trying to sneak towards the formation. A second formation plunged ahead of the ships, heading down towards Jackson’s Folly. “Helm… you are cleared to take us in towards the planet.”

“Yes, sir,” the helmsman said. The remainder of the fleet would be slaved to his console, a heady sensation for such a young officer. Judging by his features, he was connected to the Thousand Families, marking time until he was promoted to a position more befitting his origins. Penny felt a harsh surge of jealousy. He would never have to whore himself for promotion. “The fleet is underway.”

The display updated rapidly as active sensors scoured space, hunting for targets. Penny had seen the records from the Observation Squadron, but she hadn’t really understood just how industrialised Jackson’s Folly was, even if its technology was less advanced than the Empire’s technology. Hundreds of asteroids were emitting into space, suggesting mining and settlement operations, while cloudscoops orbited the larger gas giant, sucking in the raw lifeblood of interstellar commerce. The planet itself was surrounded by dozens of industrial stations, while its two moons had their own installations. And then there were the thirteen daughter colonies in different star systems. For a planet which had only been effectively colonised for seven hundred years, the people of Jackson’s Folly had nothing to be ashamed of. If they’d had a few hundred more years… it might have been them, not the Empire, making decisions about their future.