Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

He smiled, inviting her to share the joke. “If not, it isn’t as if we can be blamed, is it?”

“No,” Penny agreed. With his connections, scapegoating him would be difficult, particularly if he was clearly only doing as he’d been told. “We were only following orders.”

The Piccadilly System was one of the choicest pieces of real estate in Sector 117. With one habitable world and two more that could be made habitable by some intensive terraforming, it would one day boast a population in the billions. The two large gas giants and three asteroid belts orbiting further away from the primary provided raw material and fuel for a growing space-based industry, all under the control of the Roosevelt Family. The Family had claimed the world for their own, shipped in a few million settlers who had signed very long-term contracts with the Roosevelt Family and its clients — and just started to build, Fifty years after the system had been settled, it was one of the jewels in the Roosevelt’s Family’s crown.

Colin reflected on that as the General Montgomery and the other superdreadnaughts flickered into existence, a handful of light seconds from the planet itself. On the face of it, there were good reasons for the Roosevelt Family to take a strong interest in the star system, yet his instincts were telling him that there was something more to it that the files — both the official files and the secure files they’d captured from Stacy Roosevelt — were saying. The Roosevelt Family seemed to have poured a disproportionate amount of resources into the system.

“We have emerged, sir,” the helmsman reported. Colin smiled to himself. The display had lit up, showing the system, which proved that they had arrived, yet doctrine demanded that the fleet officers point out the obvious. It wasn’t that bad an idea — it ensured that officers always knew what they needed to know — yet he had always disliked it. “All drives are cycling down now, as per orders.”

“Hold them at two minutes,” Colin ordered. The superdreadnaught had built up a vast charge of power to jump ten light years into the system and it would take time to build up another charge to jump them out. The drives would become overstressed if he held them at two minutes for too long, but it would last long enough to allow them to flicker out quicker if they ran into something they couldn’t handle. “Tactical; I need a system display.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said. He worked his console as the main display continued to update. At least the Roosevelt Family didn’t look as if they were trying to hide anything; the hundreds of asteroid mining ships were easy to pick up, at least as long as they were emitting IFF beacons. Colin doubted they’d keep identifying themselves once they realised that enemy ships were loose in their system. “No enemy ships within combat range.”

“Good,” Colin said. He settled back into the command chair, feeling the tension levels rising on the bridge. He’d brought them into the system some distance from the planet, which should prevent the local defenders from panicking and opening fire, yet if the next part of the plan went wrong, they’d have a clear shot at his ships. “Communications… transmit the modified IFF signal to System Command.”

“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said. She tapped her own console, transmitting the pre-recorded message. Colin had worked hard on it and he was proud of it, although it was far from perfect. Unless Admiral Percival was a greater fool than even Colin believed, his first step when he learned about the mutiny should have been to order all the IFF codes and clearances changed. “Signal sent.”

Colin smiled to himself. He’d calculated that the defenders of Piccadilly would probably know the other superdreadnaught squadron commanders by name, so he’d cloaked his squadron in the guise of a squadron from Sector 99, a sector on the route inwards towards the Core Worlds and Earth. The chances were good that whoever was in command of the system wouldn’t actually know the person Colin was impersonating, although now he was heading towards the system’s defences the idea was suddenly starting to seem rather less clever. If the enemy commander had balls as well as good connections — and realised that something was badly wrong — he would keep his nerve, welcome Colin’s fleet to the system, and open fire with everything he had the moment Colin entered weapons range.

It had taken several days of research to pull the entire message together, days in which he’d learned more about how the Roosevelt Family operated than he’d expected. Indeed, he had seriously considered copying the data files and then sending them to the Roosevelt Family, if only to taunt them with the depth of Stacy’s failure. He’d refrained after Daria had pointed out that Stacy would probably seek to conceal the loss of her secret files and could be relied upon not to alert her superiors. Colin doubted that Stacy could get in worse trouble, but he’d accepted Daria’s suggestion. Who knew — maybe Stacy would conceal it successfully.

He contemplated the vision of the planet, growing on his private terminal, and frowned inwardly. There was nothing to suggest an explanation for why the Roosevelt Family considered it so important, yet there were plenty of signs of their interest. The planet was orbited by three Capital-class orbital defence stations, each one with the mass of a superdreadnaught — and no need to use some of that mass on drives and shields. Colin would not have cared to bet on the superdreadnaught against a single fortress, although the superdreadnaught would be able to pick the time and place of the engagement — and the orbital fortress was a sitting duck. Each of the fortresses bristled with missile launchers and energy weapons — and, if those were not enough, was surrounded by smaller automated platforms. The Roosevelt Family might have no clear reason for such largess, yet they had no reason to doubt their own security. His lips twitched. Perhaps the real explanation was that certain senior members of the Family wanted a place to live, away from the rest of the Empire. Stanger things had happened.

The defences had one flaw, however; one that Colin had noticed the moment he brought up and studied the first images of the defences. Actually, they had two, but the second one was one Colin dared not count upon, certainly not for anything vital. Unlike a fleet of superdreadnaughts, the Fortresses were in fixed locations and couldn’t move, unless they happened to have a fleet of tugs in the general area. If Colin’s plan worked, he could bring his fleet into engagement range of one of the fortresses, while the others wouldn’t be able to engage him because of the mass of the planet in the way. Unlike Earth, which had a double layer of orbital fortresses, Piccadilly had only three. Under normal circumstances, they would have more than sufficed to take care of any trouble.

“We have received a response from System Command,” the communications officer said. “They are welcoming us to Piccadilly and are inviting you, specifically, to dine with the Planetary Governor once you make orbit.”

Colin chuckled to himself, sharing a grin with his Flag Captain. The signal they’d sent had purported to be from Commodore Reginald Kennedy, a man whose entire family was a Roosevelt Client. Indeed, they’d been clients of the Roosevelt Family for so long that they’d actually developed patronage networks of their own, which were in turn networks that could be used and exploited by the Roosevelt Family. If Colin was any judge, the Roosevelt Family might refuse to see the Kennedy Family socially, but they’d be quite happy to work with their clients otherwise. And Commodore Kennedy was a known factor.