Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

He studied the images on the security monitors thoughtfully, stoking his chin as he moved from face to face. Most of the agents had been nonentities, crewmen and women who had done their jobs without fuss or bother, but a handful had been truly popular. One of them had been an older wiser hand for the younger crewmen to turn to if they needed help; another was effectively a whore, selling herself to crewmen who found themselves deprived of female company. She had been very popular; now, Colin wondered, how many crewmen were wondering just what they might have disclosed to her during pillow talk. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. The Imperial Navy permitted relationships between crewmen — there were regulations covering the matter, although they were routinely flouted by just about everyone — and many of them became intimate. Who outside the ship, on a planet’s surface or even an orbital habitat, could hope to understand the stresses of living on a starship?

“That leaves us with one question,” Anderson said. “What do you want us to do with them?”

Colin nodded. He couldn’t keep the agents on the ship, not when there might be other, undiscovered, agents onboard. They might attempt to liberate their comrades and recapture the ship. On the other hand, he couldn’t abandon them on Jackson’s Folly either, not when the Imperial Navy would be looking for someone to blame for the mutiny. It wouldn’t be hard for Public Information to make it sound as if Jackson’s Folly had organised the mutiny, even though it would have been suicide. And then, he hadn’t realised how many agents there actually were. No one had. There were times when he wondered if Imperial Intelligence knew how many agents they had on retainer.

“We’ll transfer them to the Garand ,” he said, finally. The bulk freighter had been captured by one of the destroyers three weeks ago, after its Captain had been identified as a man with an outstanding Imperial warrant on his head. Colin would have liked to intervene and free the crew, but it was too late. They’d been shipped off to Camelot to face trial, whereupon Admiral Percival’s assistant’s assistant would probably review the files and order them sentenced to the nearest penal world. “Once we take the superdreadnaughts, they can take the bulk freighter and head back to Camelot.”

Anderson frowned. “Do you think that that is a good idea?”

Colin blinked. “What other choice do we have?”

“We could kill them,” Anderson pointed out. “We could just open the shuttlebay to vacuum and expel them all into space. They’re just too dangerous to keep alive.”

“They don’t know anything that can be used against us,” Colin countered. He didn’t want to start his career with a massacre of helpless prisoners. There would be enough death in the future without making it worse. Besides, Public Information would have a field day with such an act, turning it into something comparable to a planetary scorching. “There’s no point in killing them outright.”

“It’s your decision,” Anderson said. “I just don’t like the concept of loose ends.”

Colin nodded. Security Officers tended towards the paranoid, particularly the ones who operated — almost alone — on starships. If they had a suspicious mind, they could blight a career — even that of a perfectly innocent crewman — just through insisting on a rigorous interrogation. Undergoing such a procedure wouldn’t look good on anyone’s file. He couldn’t blame Anderson for wanting to lop off the loose end, but he liked to think that he stood for something better. The thought wasn’t reassuring. How many other Imperial Navy ships had mutinied in the past, only to devolve into pirate ships and crews who made the Imperial Navy look harmless?

“No,” he said, finally. “Besides, we are going to want to take surrenders and if they think we’re going to kill them once they’re helpless, they’re not going to surrender to us.”

Leaving Anderson behind to supervise the transfer of the prisoners to the bulk freighter, Colin walked through the starship’s corridors, inspecting the ship — his ship now, for as long as he could keep it. Part of the crew remained in lockdown — another third of the crew was being brought up from the planet’s surface now, where they would be briefed — but those Colin trusted to do their jobs were working on the ship itself. Thankfully, there hadn’t been a firefight for control of the ship, yet Colin knew that they wouldn’t have time for basic maintenance once the superdreadnaughts arrived. His most trusted allies were already working on the message that, hopefully, would convince Commodore Roosevelt to accept that nothing had gone wrong. Others were securing the communications section, just in case. A single message from an undiscovered agent could ruin everything.

“We have switched out the magazines and loaded them for ship-to-ship combat,” the weapons officer assured him, as he checked the tactical section. Captain-Commodore Howell hadn’t been fond of actual weapons drills, something that Colin hadn’t understood until he’d read the man’s secret instructions from Commodore Roosevelt. Howell had been under orders to avoid causing any incidents between the Empire and Jackson’s Folly, at least until the superdreadnaughts had arrived and the Roosevelt Family could make its claim on the planet and the infrastructure the population had built up over the years. “If it comes down to a fight…”

Colin shook his head. The Observation Squadron was powerful, but it couldn’t take on even one superdreadnaught, let alone a full squadron of nine ships. If the plan failed, the only option would be to flicker out and hope that they could evade the Empire long enough to come up with a new plan. The superdreadnaughts had to be taken intact and functional. If Commodore Roosevelt managed to crash the computers, they would have to be abandoned.

“Load the internal tubes, but don’t bother with the external racks,” Colin ordered. It would look suspicious to any observer — as if the Observation Squadron was preparing for a fight — and they couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion. He might have held Commodore Roosevelt in absolute contempt — she hadn’t impressed him when they’d last met, back when he’d been Admiral Percival’s client — but he had no idea who might be advising her, or commanding her ships. “Did you manage to unlock the missile control systems?”

“Yes, sir,” the weapons officer said. “They’re ready to fire on your command.”

Colin nodded and continued walking, feeling the weight of the starship descending on his shoulders. He hadn’t been responsible before, even though he’d done most of the Captain’s work as well as that of the XO — even the paperwork, the paperwork the Captain was supposed to inspect and sign personally. The thought made him smile. Over the last few months, the Observation Squadron had ordered thousands of tons of additional supplies, all ordered under Captain-Commodore Howell’s name. He could operate the squadron for years, if necessary, without support from Camelot or another Imperial Navy base.

His smile faded away. He’d taken control of the ship and of the lives of the two thousand crewmembers on the vessel. They were all depending on him now, depending on him not to throw their lives away. He was the man responsible for everything. Colin looked down at the chunky ring on his finger and winced. It might have been his imagination, but it seemed to weigh more every time he looked at it. The weight of responsibility was settling in on him, pressing down on his mind.

He remembered the young officer he’d been, the intensely focused officer who had believed that he could climb to the top of the Imperial Navy through hard work and dedication. That young and naive officer would not have understood, but then — he wouldn’t have understood the mutiny either. That officer would have carried on serving the Empire, crushing entire worlds and populations under its iron heel, as long as the Empire rewarded his service. It was a bitter pill to swallow, yet he had to face it squarely. Once, there had been a time when he would have given his life for the Empire he had sworn to destroy.