Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“I have the bridge,” the XO responded, already heading over to the command chair.

Angelika took a moment to check the ship’s status before heading for the hatch and out into Officer Country, barely managing to conceal the yawn that threatened to burst out and overwhelm her. The Blackshirt on duty outside her cabin snapped to attention, one hand almost cracking against his helmet, but she ignored him. The Blackshirts had been making themselves unpopular since they’d been brought onboard to replace the Marines, yet they’d been behaving themselves since she’d introduced one of them to the joys of breathing hard vacuum. No one raped one of her crew and got away with it.

She took a look at her bed, wondering if she could get away with thirty minutes of sleep, but she shook her head. She was too tired to risk it, not when she had to speak to her subordinates. Being late for that would certainly cause some of them to wonder if she was going soft. Shaking her head, she undid her tunic and headed over to the shower, knowing that her steward would pick up the dirty uniform and put it in the wash. The warm water felt heavenly after so long on the bridge. She swallowed another yawn and tried to put Jackson’s Folly out of her mind.

“I think they’re serious about keeping this system,” Markus said, as the freighter advanced into the inner system. The freighter-gunboat combination seemed to work, so Admiral Walker had ordered them to do it again, only in a far more dangerous system. Markus didn’t really care about the danger; even the Imperial Navy would hesitate before firing on an obviously harmless freighter, at least one thousands of kilometres from the planet’s surface. “Take a look at that!”

The Geeks had modified both freighters, but they’d had a great deal more time to work on the Sidonie and it showed. They’d rigged a sensor suite that was far better than anything the Imperial Navy had deployed to its starships, even the recon cruisers that were used to plot out targets before the Imperial Navy flickered in and destroyed them. The Survey Service itself didn’t have such excellent gear. Even operating on passive mode, the sensors were still sucking in awesome amounts of data and filing it into the gunboat’s secure storage module.

Jackson’s Folly was not just occupied; the Empire was already attempting to exploit it. Starships hung in orbit around the world itself, striking regularly down at the surface, while others prowled the asteroid belts. The cloudscoops at the gas giant were ringed by a squadron of destroyers while freighters were unloading orbital weapons platforms, as if they feared an attack. Markus wasn’t sure if they knew or suspected that the rebels were on their way — he had no time for the Popular Front nonsense — but it hardly mattered. All that mattered was that the last reports had been out of date. There were over sixty starships in the system, which suggested that whoever was in command had screamed for additional help and actually received it.

“I’ve found their manufacturing craft,” Carola reported, from where she was going through the data. The Geeks had programmed in the best analysis algorithms that Markus had ever seen, but in the absence of true AI it was impossible to rely completely upon them. “There’s only one of them, unless there’s another on the far side of the system.”

“Could be,” Markus agreed. The Sidonie had deployed massive and stealthy sensor platforms, allowing it to soak up data at an astonishing rate. An active manufacturing ship wasn’t easy to hide. The Empire might have intended to hide an additional ship in the system, but that would — naturally — limit its utility. “Or maybe the reports are true and the locals scored some spectacular successes.”

The hour ticked by slowly as more information flowed into the gunboat’s systems. The deployment patterns of Imperial Navy starships, the use of freighters and heavy convoy escorts even over small distances, the regular use of KEWs against planetary targets… even transmissions, broadcast using standard encryption protocols. The Imperial Navy had realised that the mutiny meant that the mutineers — and the Popular Front — had access to their coding systems, but the Blackshirts hadn’t made the same deduction, or perhaps they just didn’t care. Markus watched some of their transmissions, signals showing burned out buildings, local inhabitants hanging from the nearest tree and shuddered. No one wanted to fall into the hands of the Blackshirts. He shut the signals off in disgust. The intelligence crew would want to look at them — and the propaganda department would want to use them to illustrate the horror of the Empire — but he didn’t want to look at them again. It was just another reminder that, before the mutiny, he had been fighting for a monstrous regime. He would never wipe away the shame, or cleanse his hands of blood.

It would have been nice to make contact with the locals and promise support, maybe collect some information from them, but they’d been specifically ordered not to attempt anything of the sort. The Imperial Navy didn’t seem to be paying attention to a damaged bulk freighter that was limping towards Jackson’s Folly — perhaps assuming that they could deal with her long before she reached the planet — yet that could change, if the Imperial Navy felt that it had a reason to look. The stealthed platforms and probes they’d launched, if they were detected, would mark the Sidonie out as an espionage ship. His lips twitched. Besides, there was no hope — as far as the enemy knew — of escape. The bulk freighter design took hours to power up its flicker drive.

Ninety-nine percent of combat operations, he’d been told when he’d started to train at the Academy, was nothing, but solid boredom. The life of a gunboat crew was normally anything but… yet now, he was bored. It was, by any standard, the most successful recon mission of his life… and yet, it wasn’t exciting. He hadn’t jumped into the system and weaved a random evasive course while using his sensors to plot out targets, leaving enemy pursuit in the dust when he triggered his flicker drive and jumped out again. Markus looked over at Carola and smiled to himself. They’d known that when they qualified as a gunboat crew — and as husband and wife — that they might die together. It had been considered better than one of them living to mourn the other.

“The monitor is flickering back to the world,” Carola said, suddenly. They’d noted the arrival of a monitor in the asteroid belt, something that had puzzled him until they’d realised that it was visiting the fabrication ship for resupply. How many KEWs had they dropped? He’d never heard of a monitor shooting itself dry before, even during the most intensive combat operations. And there were no less than six monitors — perhaps more — in orbit around Jackson’s Folly. How much fighting was there on the planetary surface?

The thought made him wince. The human race had largely abandoned armies since it had climbed into space, for no organised army could survive when the enemy controlled the high orbitals. The First Interstellar War had been fought out in space, with worlds bombarded with everything from asteroids to radioactive bombs and biological weapons. Even the Blackshirts were more of an occupation force than a real army, while the Marines were a precision unit. Just how bad was it down on the surface? He shook his head. The Blackshirts, he knew, deserved little sympathy. They deserved death, or worse.

“I think we’ve pushed our luck far enough,” he said, finally. The Sidonie was on the verge of crossing the security line surrounding the planet. The Imperial Navy would definitely send a ship to investigate their arrival now. “Shall we go?”