Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“Record a message,” he ordered. The communications officer nodded. “Attention, defenders of Piccadilly. This is Admiral Colin Walker of the Popular Front to Reform the Empire. I intend to destroy this system’s orbital facilities. I will give you ten minutes to abandon them and then I will open fire.”

The superdreadnaught shook as a missile from one of the automated platforms managed to slip through the point defence and explode against the ship’s shields. “There will be no further warnings,” Colin added. “The countdown will begin upon the transmission of this message.”

He looked over towards the communications officer. “Transmit the message on all bands,” he ordered, tartly. “We may as well give them fair warning.”

Colin, Hester and Daria had discussed the issue in some detail. Hester had pointed out that the Roosevelt Family’s workers were certainly compliant in the crimes the Family had committed, but Daria had countered by pointing out that they hadn’t been offered a choice. Colin had settled the argument by reasoning that the orbital facilities could not be rebuilt quickly — certainly without a new Annual Fleet — and destroying them would limit the world’s ability to take part in the war. By the time the facilities were rebuilt, he hoped, they would have won or lost — and if they lost, it didn’t really matter what happened on Piccadilly.

Besides, he added in his own mind, unlike Stacy or Percival himself, he felt no rage for the workers. They had never committed crimes against him personally; their sole crime, if it could be called a crime, was being part of the system.

“The message has been transmitted,” the communications officer said. “No response.”

Colin shrugged. He hadn’t expected one. “Monitor the orbital facilities closely,” he ordered, as the superdreadnaught shook again. “Let me know if they seem reluctant to evacuate.”

He smiled as he studied the display. Percival would probably not have hesitated to use human shields and would have seen any concern for the workers as a sign of weakness. He doubted that the Roosevelt Family’s representative on the planet’s surface would be that stupid, if only because it would be a good way to lose all of the Family’s clients at once. A trained and experienced workforce wasn’t something to just throw away; besides, Colin had no intention of slaughtering helpless workers. If it could be avoided, that was.

The other two stations, as he had expected, weren’t firing — but then, there was little point in firing. Colin’s ships were shielded by the planet itself. The remaining warships in the system were attempting to reform into a new formation, although several of them were missing, probably having flickered out to warn other systems of just what had gone wrong. Colin glanced down at his terminal, watching the counter ticking towards zero. His worst-case estimate was that it would take at least thirty minutes for Percival to dispatch reinforcements into the system… and that relied upon him having forces on hand, ready to go.

He ran through a tactical check. His ships had been hit, but none badly — although that would change if they tried to go up against the remaining fortresses. There was no point in trying to take the system; the only thing they could do was wreak havoc and then take their leave. He checked that the tactical staff were handling the running battle and pulled up the sensor records. No matter how he worked it, there seemed to be nothing special about the planet, certainly nothing that explained the trillions of credits the Roosevelt Family had spent on it.

Colin tapped a switch, transferring the records into a secure datachip he could give to Daria — perhaps she could shed some light on it — and turned back to his task. The enemy warships seemed to be heading away from the planet’s gravity well, and then they halted, as if they were waiting for Colin to give chase. He saw no reason to indulge them. His superdreadnaughts couldn’t catch the lighter units in normal space and they’d just flicker out if he got too close anyway. It looked… odd.

“Launch an additional flight of probes,” he ordered. “I want to know if they move even a single cloaked ship close to us.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said. There was no longer any need to use stealthed probes. “Launching probes… now.”

“ Incoming fire ,” the deputy tactical officer said. “The stations are firing on us!”

“Relay the control signals through the warships,” Bart ordered. It was a far from conventional idea, yet it seemed to be the only way to drive the rebels away from Piccadilly. Their countdown was proceeding, marking the fact that his world had only two minutes before years of investment were destroyed, blown to flaming atoms by rebel starships. “I want them to focus the missiles onto their targets.”

“Do as he says,” General Roosevelt added. He’d come into the command station, relieving Commander Falcon. The fortresses had raised objections when a lowly Specialist had asked them to start routing their commands through the starships. “This isn’t the time for a argument over procedure.”

Bart smiled. The starships and orbital fortresses had one thing in common; they both had to control missiles they launched, in order to direct them towards their targets. A rogue missile became a danger to both sides in a battle. A superdreadnaught could control vast numbers of missiles at once — using command missiles to ensure a degree of tactical flexibility — but a cruiser or a destroyer had vastly more limited capabilities. Bart had pointed out that the stations might not be able to launch their missiles directly at their targets, but they could send them around the planet, handing over control to the warships in observation positions. It had taken some reprogramming to make it possible — the Empire wasn’t keen on making it possible for outside forces to take control of its missiles — yet they’d done it.

The system wasn’t as efficient as it would have been if the stations had been in direct control of their weapons. The smaller ships kept losing control of individual missiles, even though they were routing their commands though slaved command missiles and attempting to switch from missile to missile before they lost them permanently. Even so, it had been a nasty surprise for the rebels, all the more so because they were being fired on from all sides at once. Bart had redeployed the ships to allow them to control multiple missiles, even ones circling around the planet from the other side.

It was risky, he admitted; a shipkiller hitting the planet would be disastrous. There were good reasons why the Empire disliked missile duals anywhere near a planet’s gravity well. Yet, if it worked, it would drive the rebels away and it had been his idea. He was the one who would be rewarded.

“They can probably swat them off indefinitely,” the Commander said. He was pacing, doubtless worried about the effects on his career. “We cannot hope to overwhelm their defences at this range.”

“That’s not an issue,” the General countered. “All that matters is to keep them off balance until reinforcements arrive.”

Colin swallowed a curse as the missiles roared into his point defence network and started to die under his fire. At first, he’d thought that the Empire had slipped a pair of battlecruiser squadrons into orbit under cloak and opened fire, but it hadn’t taken long to realise what was actually happening. Some clever bastard on the planet’s surface had managed to get the warships working to steer missiles fired from the station!

“Clever,” he said, as the last of the first salvo of missiles died. The attacks were growing in power now as more ships were added to the command network. The attacks were even coming in from odd directions, as if they were fighting in a two-dimensional environment. If he sent his ships after the control ships, they’d simply flicker away, leaving his ships at the mercy of the fortresses. He checked the timer and smiled to himself. The defenders had run out of time. “Did they get everyone off the orbital facilities?”