Christopher Nuttall: Democracy's Right

Colin’s lips twitched. If the game was easy, he reminded himself, anyone could play.

“We can take the ships, of course,” Anderson said. Colin nodded. Taking the Observation Squadron wouldn’t be hard, not with the Marines and most of the senior crew on his side. “The real problem is taking the superdreadnaughts. If something goes wrong…”

“We lose,” Colin agreed. The Imperial Navy suffered quite a few mutinies each year, with starship crews taking their ships and vanishing out somewhere beyond the Rim. The Empire would not be significantly concerned if the entire Observation Squadron went rogue, for the largest combat unit in the squadron was a battlecruiser. Colin knew that he could cause havoc within the sector with the Observation Squadron, but it wouldn’t be a threat to the entire Empire. For that, he needed superdreadnaughts — and no mutiny had ever succeeded onboard a superdreadnaught. “The timing will be tight, but we will not lose.”

“And then we have to capture the Annual Fleet,” Daria reminded him. “If we can do that, we become a major threat to the entire Empire.”

Colin nodded. There was no shortage of rebels in and outside the Empire, but without a proper military they couldn’t hope to overthrow the Thousand Families or even fight them to a standstill. Back when he’d been stranded on the patrol base, he’d realised that as long as the Empire held most of the industrial nodes and shipyards in human space, it was effectively unbeatable. It stretched across thousands of light years and had trillions of humans caught within its rule. Even so, its main weakness was its ponderous nature. It would take time for the Empire to deploy massive reinforcements to Sector 117, reinforcements that would arrive too late — if Colin took a squadron of superdreadnaughts.

“This is it,” he said, softly. It had taken two years to build up the conspiracy, two years of knowing that a single mistake would bring Imperial Intelligence down on his head. “This is the best chance we will have for years, if at all. If we don’t move now, we may as well admit that we’re never going to move at all.”

There was a long pause. They had all — the Imperial Navy and Marine officers, at least — sworn to uphold the Empire. It had taken time for their faith in the Empire to be badly shaken and destroyed, lifting the scales from their eyes and showing them the true nature of the beast they served. Colin remembered the naive young officer he had been and winced. There had been a time when he had been proud to wear the blue uniform of the Imperial Navy, back when the universe had been full of promise. Now… now he knew that he had worked to keep worlds under an iron hand.

“The factions out past the Rim won’t wait,” Mariko said, slowly. Daria’s aide spoke softly, but with genuine conviction. Where Daria was bold and brash, Mariko seemed to fade into the background, barely noticed by anyone. She was small, with classical oriental features, yet there was nothing wrong with her mind. Colin privately admired her, although he would have been hard pressed to say what he admired about her. “They had great hopes for Jackson’s Folly.”

“True,” Frandsen agreed. “I suggest that we move now. If we allow Jackson’s Folly to be invaded and occupied, we become just as guilty as those we used to serve. We can take the ships, Commander. You only have to give the word.”

“Yes,” Anderson agreed. “We have to jump now or never.”

Colin nodded. “Commodore Roosevelt said that she would be here in a week,” he said. He knew better than to rely on that statement. The vagaries of the Flicker Drive and schedule creep made all such statements estimates at best. “If we move in one day from now…”

He listened to their comments, drawing up the final version of the operations plan, and then they scattered, heading back to their ships. Colin left last, finishing his beer and walking back out onto the streets. Unlike most spacer bars he’d visited, the beer tasted better than something that had come out of the wrong end of a horse. It would be a shame to lose Jackson’s Folly. The worlds had so much potential.

Colin shook his head as he walked back to the small apartment. They didn’t dare ask anyone on the planet for help, even for the smallest detail. If the Empire suspected that Jackson’s Folly was involved in Colin’s rebellion, their response would be swift and brutal. The planet would be scorched, killing all seven billion humans on the surface. It could not be allowed.

He pushed the thought out of his head. They would have to operate alone, but they could do it. Besides… what did they have to lose?

“Another emergency drill, Commander?”

“Yes, sir,” Colin said, calmly. He’d run emergency drills at least twice a week ever since Shadow and the remainder of the Observation Squadron had taken up position near Jackson’s Folly. The battlecruiser and its attendant ships hadn’t had a properly drilled crew when Colin had taken up his position and fixing it had been his first priority. After all, they were orbiting a world that had good reason to hate the Empire and might just be considering launching a pre-emptive strike against the Observation Squadron. Later, it had become an excellent way to spot and recruit talent for the conspiracy. “It keeps the crew on their toes.”

Captain-Commodore Thomas Howell nodded, already bored with the conversation. In a rational universe, Howell would have made an excellent scholar or perhaps a gardener, rather than the commander of eighteen starships orbiting a hostile world. He was in his late seventies — thanks to regeneration treatments, he looked around fifty — with short white hair and a perpetual impression of being distracted by some weightier thought. He was a client of Commodore Roosevelt, who had pulled strings with Admiral Percival to ensure that Howell was placed in command of the Observation Squadron. Perversely, as Howell had orders to avoid causing any incidents until Commodore Roosevelt and her superdreadnaughts arrived, it made Colin’s life easier. He could afford to rotate a third of the crew down to the surface at any one time.

The Imperial Navy’s design philosophy was based around over-engineering. Shadow had a crew of over two thousand officers and crewmen, but Colin could have fought the ship with only a five hundred-strong crew onboard, thanks to the heavy redundancies built into the battlecruiser. The Imperial Navy tended to dislike automated systems — artificial intelligence was banned in the Empire — yet even the most reactionary commander couldn’t avoid using at least a limited degree of AI. No human mind could hope to handle a missile duel between starships, juggling both offense and defence along with manoeuvre and damage control. The crew’s electronic servants had to be trusted to handle the defence.

“Excellent, Commander,” Howell said, finally. “And has there been any update from Sector Command?”

The honest answer to that was yes, but Colin wasn’t supposed to know about the private message Commodore Roosevelt had forwarded to Howell. It had been included in the standard data dump from Camelot — Sector 117’s Imperial Navy base — yet it had been flagged for Howell personally and should have simply been dumped into his terminal. Colin had subverted some of the crew working in the communications section and had them copy every private message received by Howell into a storage node for his later inspection. It had provided an unusual window into the operations behind the scenes, including how the Roosevelt Family intended to share out the booty from Jackson’s Folly.

“No, sir,” Colin said. There was no way to know if Howell had already seen the private message or if he just hadn’t checked his terminal yet. “We are merely waiting for the next update from Admiral Percival.”