Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

General Grant shuddered badly as several missiles slammed home, but the point defence network held true, preventing most of the missiles from getting through. The superdreadnaught suffered minor damage. Colin checked with the ship’s captain and was relieved to discover that damage control teams were already on the way. One advantage the Rim-dweller had over most of the Imperial Navy crewmen was that they knew more about the technology than merely the basics, or how to replace it. Given time, the Rim would become a far stronger threat than the Empire had ever dared fear.

He settled back in his chair and watched as the superdreadnaughts launched their second salvo towards the retreating starships.

“All hands, brace for impact; I say again, all hands…”

Violence rocked sharply as two missiles crashed home against her rear shields, powerful energies breaking through the shields to lick and tear at the starship’s hull. Her point defence weapons rotated and added their own fire to the datanet trying to cover the retreating fleet, but the sheer volume of fire the superdreadnaughts could throw was breaking the network down by main force. Angelika smiled, darkly, as her ship shook again. The rebels were cheating.

“Captain, Fantastic and Glorious Godley have been destroyed,” the coordination officer reported, through a coughing fit. The air on the bridge was starting to smoke as power surges ran through the ship, caused by overloading shield generators. “ Vigilante has lost main drives and is stranded. The rebels will take her intact.”

“Not without a working drive,” Angelika snapped. The battlecruiser shook again, new red lights flaring up on the display. They had been exchanging fire for just over ten minutes and her fleet was being battered to pieces. Two of the smaller rebel cruisers had been destroyed and one of the superdreadnaughts was limping, suggesting that she had knocked out one of its drive nodes, but it was a poor exchange rate. It was far more likely that the rebels would simply destroy the crippled battlecruiser, unless they could find a tug to savage her and transport her back to their base. “Refocus the defence network and…”

Her ship rocked, violently. “Rear shields are down, Captain,” the tactical officer warned. Angelika swore under her breath. Without the rear shields, the enemy missiles could literally shoot through the hole and slam into the hull. The cadets at the Academy had a rude term for that, but somehow it seemed less funny now. “Our rear point defence array is offline and…”

“Bring up the flicker drive,” Angelika ordered. She’d risked overstressing the drive, knowing that when they needed to leave, they wouldn’t have time to power up the drive. “All ships are to jump out to the first waypoint on my command…”

She took one last look at the enemy superdreadnaughts, making their ponderous advance, and scowled. She hated to lose, even against vastly superior firepower. “Jump us out,” she ordered. “Now!”

The flicker drive engaged and they vanished from the Jackson’s Folly system.

“The enemy ships have jumped out,” the tactical officer reported. “They’re gone.”

Colin nodded. He wasn’t too surprised. “Secure from General Quarters,” he ordered. The damage report scrolled up in front of him. Apart from General Grant , which had lost two drive nodes, none of the superdreadnaughts were badly damaged. “Take us back to the planet at maximum speed.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.

Lightning flickered into the system, already moving at considerable speed. Khursheda heard the sound of retching behind her as the shock hit some of her crew — the drugs to counter flicker-shock were not always effective — and gave them what privacy she could by refusing to look at them. The secondary bridge crew would take over if any of her bridge crew were to be rendered ineffective by the shock.

“Jump complete, Commodore,” the helmsman said. “We have emerged at the targeted coordinates.”

Khursheda nodded. They’d planned their jump carefully, avoiding any large masses with their own gravitational field. Even now, centuries after it was developed, the flicker drive wasn’t understood perfectly, but the human race did know that large gravity masses interfered with precision. The small squadron had flickered from the main body of the fleet to its target, a handful of detected sources within the Jackson’s Folly asteroid belt.

“Sensors are picking up enemy ships,” the tactical officer said. “I confirm the presence of four destroyers and one manufacturing ship. The IFF signal identifies it as Fabricator .”

“Good hunting,” Khursheda said. She studied her display for a long moment, before looking up at the communications officer. There was no way that Fabricator could power up its drive and escape, but the destroyers could run any time they liked… if they abandoned the single most valuable ship in the system. “Demand their surrender.”

“Aye, Commodore,” the communications officer said. The dark-skinned woman worked her console for a few seconds. “They are not responding.”

“Lock weapons on target and go to active scans,” Khursheda ordered. The display sharpened as powerful sensors began probing space, hunting for targets. The manufacturing ship, twice the size of a superdreadnaught, was very clear on the display. The smaller destroyers, moving to cover the larger ship, were tiny. They couldn’t even stand up to one battlecruiser, let alone four of them. “Repeat our surrender demand. Remind them that we will take them alive and treat them decently if they surrender.”

There was a long pause. Khursheda found herself hoping that Admiral Walker was right, that others would wish to join the rebellion or perhaps to stand on the sidelines, without choosing a side. She knew that most of the Observation Squadron had joined the rebellion, as had the superdreadnaught crews, but Admiral Percival had time to prepare for a second round of mutinies. Placing Blackshirts on the various crews was absurd, at least from an efficiency point of view, but it would make any further mutinies impossible. Perhaps the reason why the manufacturing ship wasn’t surrendering was that there was a team of Blackshirts onboard, forbidding surrender by force of arms.

“They’re responding,” the communications officer said. As one, the four destroyers flickered out, vanishing somewhere in the vastness of interstellar space. Khursheda checked the readings from the sensors, but they were insufficient to determine where the destroyers might have gone. Somewhere within fifteen light years was the best the computers could do. The Imperial Navy’s researchers had promised that the ability to refine such projections was within reach, but no one, not even the Geeks, had cracked the underlying problem. “They’re offering to surrender in exchange for amnesty.”

Khursheda exchanged a puzzled glance with her XO. Why would they want Amnesty? It took her a second to realise that the crew of the manufacturing ship clearly feared that they would be blamed for whatever was going on down on Jackson’s Folly, or perhaps handed over to the locals for punishment. Admiral Walker would have done neither, Khursheda was sure. If he could resist the temptation to kill Stacy Roosevelt, he could probably resist the temptation to hurt men who had done nothing to him personally.

“Tell them that as long as they unlock the computers and refrain from causing any damage, we will leave them unharmed,” she promised. Perhaps the crew would be willing to join the rebellion. She keyed her console, linking her directly to the Marine shuttles waiting in the shuttlebay. “Major, you are cleared to launch; good luck.”