Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

That was physically impossible, but Penny decided that it would be better not to point that out to her enraged superior and lover. Brent-Cochrane didn’t have the same scruples, yet even he kept his mouth shut, watching and waiting to see which way Percival jumped. Being so close to him was like being close to a caged animal, one that could turn on her and rend her to pieces at any moment. The whole compartment seemed to be charged with negative energy.

“The rebels accessed the ICN,” Percival said, when he had calmed down enough to speak straight. “They managed to get a message into the buffers here — in this system — and upload it into the courier boats. They will have told all the other malcontents and dissidents and ungrateful populations about their rebellion and invited them to join up! The rebellion will spread far and wide.”

Penny kept her face composed, although she risked a glance at Brent-Cochrane and saw the — barely-hidden — look of cold calculation on his face. Percival’s real motive for keeping the news of the rebellion concealed had never been to avoid giving encouragement to the other rebels out there, but to save himself from the vengeance of an angry Empire. If he had managed to beat the rebels before the news got out, he would look like a hero, rather than the moron who managed to lose nine superdreadnaughts to a rebel commander with a grudge against him personally. The Empire would want his head and his connections, even if they risked defending him, would be unable to save his head from the chopping block.

“So the message is out and spreading,” Brent-Cochrane said, once Percival had finished explaining. Penny had to admire the tactic, even though it made her life much more dangerous. The message would be forever moving in advance of any message ordering the ICN to wipe it from the local nodes. Worse, even if they did manage to quarantine a few systems and prevent them from getting the message, it would still slip in through other starships in transit. “That may not be such a bad thing.”

Percival glared at him. Penny had a good idea that she knew what was going through his mind, but he wouldn’t explode in front of Brent-Cochrane, not when his subordinate would gleefully take it to his superiors.

“It is a disaster,” Percival said, flatly. “It is a disaster so great that I had the entire crew of the ICN station executed for dereliction of duty.” His voice became strident, hectoring. “We cannot allow any leeway when it comes to punishing traitors against the Empire!”

“That seems a little harsh,” Brent-Cochrane observed, mildly. “Do you want them to make a habit of opening sealed packets from Imperial Intelligence?”

“They failed ,” Percival snapped. He clearly wasn’t open to rational thought. Someone had to pay the price for the embarrassment and humiliation the Empire had suffered, even if he had to drum up charges and execute them quickly before anyone else could intervene. “The entire Empire knows now!”

His face darkened before anyone else could speak. “And the rebels hit Piccadilly,” he added. “The Roosevelt Family is not happy.”

Penny felt an insane urge bubbling up within her and she indulged it. “I hardly see how we can be blamed for that,” she said. Piccadilly had been high on the list of possible targets she’d drawn up, although Stacy Roosevelt’s insistence that Greenland be protected had prevented her from having any pickets near the other Roosevelt world. Besides, it was the Roosevelt Family, not the Imperial Navy, that was responsible for defending Piccadilly. “ We were not guarding that world.”

“The problem,” Percival said with an air of patience that fooled no one, “is that the rebels have managed to strike at the heart of the Roosevelt Family’s investments in this sector, which are vital for the continued economic growth of the Empire. Combined with their message, it sends a… disagreeable signal to the remainder of the Empire. The effects could be disastrous.”

“The rebels have to be stopped,” Brent-Cochrane said, with an air of artful nonchalance. “I fail to see why losing a single world is such a problem. There are thousands of other worlds in the Empire.”

Penny thought she knew. The Roosevelt Family had invested heavily in Sector 117, it was why they had so much influence, even to put Percival in as their choice for Sector Commander. And their senior representative in the Imperial Navy, Stacy Roosevelt, had been jumped ahead of more qualified officers and ordered to capture Jackson’s Folly and its daughter colonies — intact, with its industrial base undamaged.

Her eyes opened in wonder. Could it be, she asked herself, that the Roosevelt Family was overextended? The Thousand Families prided themselves on their long-term view, investing early in new sectors, planets and industries to maintain their position, yet the Roosevelt Family had definitely been going well over the standard pattern. They’d even forced most of the other Families out of the sector, keeping it all to themselves… why? To make themselves even more immensely rich than they already were?

Or perhaps because it was their last desperate gamble, one last shot to avert disaster. The Empire’s economy had been slowly freezing up for centuries, a result of the deadening effects of patronage and bureaucracy. If the Roosevelt Family was in serious trouble… who knew what might happen to the Empire as a whole? Families had come and gone before, yet the Roosevelt Family was colossal, with interests everywhere. Could it be that they were weaker than anyone dared think?

And, she asked herself, what would happen if the rebels kept destroying their investment?

They’d be able to carry on for some years, using their connections and the sheer unlikelihood of the situation to hide the truth, but eventually it would come out… and what would happen then? She thought about the hundreds of worlds that belonged, directly or indirectly, to the Roosevelt Family, with the trillions of humans and aliens inhabiting them. What would happen to those helpless lives? Or, for that matter, what would happen to the remainder of the Empire? Would the fall of one Family lead to the fall of others? Or would the remainder of the Families congratulate themselves on having avoided such a fate, pat the Roosevelt Family’s head and buy up all their assets? Somehow, she doubted that the Families could work together to save the Empire. They’d be saving it from themselves.

“It is not a complete disaster,” Brent-Cochrane said. His voice was calm, very composed, yet Penny could hear an underlying note of delight. Percival wouldn’t survive the loss of his patrons, not with all the enemies he’d made over the years. “We do have new options, ones that we lacked before.”

Percival glowered at him. “And what would those be?”

“We don’t have to worry about preventing the news from spreading,” Brent-Cochrane said. “So we contact the Sector Commander of Sector 99 — he’s my Uncle, unless he’s been promoted by now — and ask him to send reinforcements. Even a single additional squadron of superdreadnaughts would be a bonus for us… and he has three squadrons under his command. We ask him to deploy them here and we make further attacks prohibitively expensive for the rebels.”

Percival’s lips moved, but he said nothing. Penny could almost read his thoughts; calling in help, even from the nearest sector, would take time… and certainly reinforce the suggestion that Percival was grossly incompetent and also partly responsible for the mutiny. Coming to think of it, she wondered, what would happen if Sector 99’s Sector Commander turned up and tried to take command? He might be able to dislodge Percival… and if he really was related to Brent-Cochrane, he might place Percival’s subordinate in his place.