Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

She shook her head as newer icons, red ones, blinked into life. Jackson’s Folly had worked hard to build up a defence since they’d first heard that the Empire was expanding towards them, but it hadn’t been enough. Thirty-one battleships were coming to life, escorted by over two hundred smaller ships and covered by orbital weapons platforms… yet she knew that they couldn’t stand against the Empire. Brent-Cochrane’s fleet fanned out into a formation that both protected the superdreadnaughts and uncovered them, allowing them to fire at will.

“Open a channel,” Brent-Cochrane ordered. He waited for the communication’s officer’s nod. “Attention, Jackson’s Folly. By determination of the Supreme Court of the Empire, you are heirs to the debt incurred by your founders, a debt of over two hundred trillion credits. You are ordered to pay this debt at once or your systems will be repossessed. You have five minutes from receipt of this message to respond.”

He drew a finger over his throat, severing the channel. It would take at least ninety seconds for the message to reach Jackson’s Folly, and then there was no way of knowing how long it would take them to respond. Penny wondered if Brent-Cochrane had any idea of the absurdity of his words, or if Jackson’s Folly had known the sheer size of the judgement against them. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, she knew; if they’d paid up, the Empire would just have looked for other demands until they’d found something that Jackson’s Folly literally could not give them. It wouldn’t have been hard.

“Commodore,” the tactical officer reported, “the enemy formation is forming up.”

Penny studied the display. Given their weakness in missile throw weights, the enemy ships had clearly decided to remain in orbit and coordinate with the planetary defence systems, rather than come out to fight. She couldn’t blame them, although it was a risky tactic; a shipkiller missile could slip through the orbital weapons platforms and crash into the planet, causing considerable devastation. She could hear some of the officers muttering about cowards who refused to fight, but what had they expected? Jackson’s Folly’s defenders to come out throw themselves on the Imperial Navy’s guns?

“No response, sir,” the communications officer said.

“Open a channel,” Brent-Cochrane ordered, sharply. He had clearly decided to forget diplomacy, or whatever passed for it in the Empire. “Attention; you are ordered to stand down your shields and weapons and prepare to be boarded. There will be no further warnings.”

The tactical display lit up sharply as new red strobes of light flickered into existence. “Commodore, we are picking up tactical sensors,” the tactical officer said. He sounded tense, almost worried. “We’re being scanned and pinned down.”

“Unsurprising,” Brent-Cochrane growled. “Do they have any surprises? Are they using any unexpected technology in their scans?”

“The scans are mil-grade, sir,” the tactical officer said. “I think they’re from a Mark-CI sensor node, probably from a decommissioned Imperial Navy vessel. It’s certainly more advanced than we were told to expect.”

Brent-Cochrane shrugged. “Even if they have equal weapons to us,” he said, as his fleet rumbled onwards towards its target, “it won’t make a difference.”

He looked up at the display. “Target weapons,” he ordered. In three minutes, they would be at extreme range. Penny could see how his mind was working. That deep in the gravity well, Jackson’s Folly’s defenders would be unable to flicker out and escape. The smaller ships might be able to escape — although they’d risk burning out their drives — but the battleships could be destroyed quickly and brutally. “Prepare to fire.”

Penny counted down the seconds as they moved towards a line on the display, the precise moment when they would be able to open fire. It seemed so slow on the display, even though they were moving through space at speeds an earlier generation would have found unimaginable. It was weird, when it was possible to cross light-years in a split second, yet she couldn’t blame the Commodore. Ambitious sadist though he might be, at least Brent-Cochrane had the sense to be careful when dealing with the unknown.

“Weapons locked on target,” the tactical officer said. “I am getting updated telemetry from the drones. The defenders are moving to enhance their position.”

“No need to give them the time,” Brent-Cochrane said. The starships had reached weapons range. “You are authorised to open fire.”

The superdreadnaught shook as it unleashed its first barrage of missiles. A moment later, the other superdreadnaughts followed suit, emptying their external racks into space. The missiles formed up, guided by their onboard computers, and roared towards the defences. The defenders started to return fire, a counter-attack that looked impressive until Penny saw the underlying data from the drones. Jackson’s Folly had missiles, all right, but they were both larger and slower than the Imperial Navy’s missiles. The mutineers hadn’t taken the time to transfer any of their stocks to the defenders.

She pushed the thought of oncoming death out of her mind. She’d studied the records downloaded to her just before they’d departed Camelot and it was clear, in hindsight, that something had been wrong with the Observation Squadron. They’d requested enough supplies from Camelot to allow them to function independently for at least five years, including both weapons and spare parts. That alone should have tipped off Imperial Intelligence, but Captain-Commodore Howell had signed off on the requests, his name alone ensuring that no one would take too close a look at them. The Roosevelt Family’s determination to secure Jackson’s Folly for their private use had, ironically, contributed to the mutiny’s success. It wasn’t something that she could suggest to Percival, not when he too was dependent on the Roosevelt Family for his patronage. He would be more likely to turn on her.

“Impact in twenty seconds,” the tactical officer said. “The enemy point defence is engaging our missiles.”

Penny watched, a helpless observer, as the defenders opened fire. It was immediately clear that their point defence was far better than the Empire had believed, but that it wasn’t anything like enough. She suspected — it would be impossible to prove it, at least immediately — that they had removed all the cut-outs the Empire had built into their datanets, allowing a far greater degree of coordination. Even if they hadn’t built additional starships, they might have had enough… if they’d had more point defence. As it was, the torrent of missiles simply overwhelmed the defenders and started to slam home. One by one, the starships of the Jackson’s Folly Defence Force were systematically destroyed.

Their own desperate attempt to strike back at the Empire failed almost at once. Their missiles ran into the combined point defence of eighty starships, bound together by the most sophisticated datanet that the Empire could produce. The missiles were scythed down, only a handful surviving to make it through the defences and slam against starship hulls. They might have had better luck if they had aimed at the smaller ships, but they’d concentrated on the superdreadnaughts and their shields could easily handle the impacts. Nuclear fire blossomed against the darkness of space and then faded away, leaving the shields unharmed. Nothing, not even a tiny erg of energy, leaked through the shields to scar the hull.

The main body of the defenders might have been destroyed, but many orbital weapons platforms were still intact, firing desperately towards the Imperial Navy starships — as if they could somehow ward them off. Brent-Cochrane ordered a second salvo fired, although this one was more restrained. Some of the orbital weapons platforms were mounted on asteroids and accidentally de-orbiting one would cause a disaster. The Roosevelt Family would not be happy. They’d certainly see to it that Brent-Cochrane was never given any other responsible command in his entire career. The irony wasn’t lost on Penny as one by one the remaining platforms were rapidly destroyed.