Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

An hour later, he stepped into the main shuttlebay and stared down at the massed ranks of crewmen. It was traditional to assemble the duty shift in the main shuttlebay if the starship’s commander needed to speak to them personally, while the remainder of the crew listened in through the datanet. A fourth of the crew should have been sleeping, or otherwise relaxing, but nothing had been normal for the past two days. The crew who had known about the conspiracy, or had been briefed in just after the ships had been taken, were relaxed, yet the remainder of the crew was nervous. Who knew what they were thinking or what they knew, other than the fact that the ship was operating on minimal levels and armed Marines had been posted at every access hatch. Colin knew that many of them had to be terrified.

He stood up on one of the smaller shuttles, suddenly realising his mind was blank. What should he tell them? He couldn’t think of words to say. He had planned a series of coordinated mutinies that had taken an entire squadron of starships, but he couldn’t think of the words to speak to the crew, the men and women who made the ships work. What could he tell them? Unlike Captain Howell, he didn’t even have legitimate authority on his side. He could just have lied to them, he knew, but sooner or later the lie would have come out, risking chaos. Colin focused his mind, pushing the uncertainty aside, and started to speak.

“I have taken command of the Observation Squadron,” he said, flatly. By now, that wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, he suspected. It had long been joked that rumours travelled right through solid bulkheads. Hell, the Marines might have been under strict orders to keep their mouths shut, but the briefed crewmen might have passed on some of the briefing to their friends and comrades. “I am taking these ships in a mutiny against the Empire.”

He continued to speak, explaining what the Empire had in mind for Jackson’s Folly and just what would have happened, if he hadn’t launched the mutiny against Captain-Commodore Howell. It helped that most of the crew had been enjoying their position above the threatened world, where they had access to remarkable — and cheap — facilities on shore leave. It also helped that many of the crewmen had been recruited from the lower classes of society and often felt as if their superiors didn’t care in the slightest what they thought. It was another security problem, Colin knew, but it wasn’t as if the Thousand Families could crew the entire Imperial Navy by themselves. Besides, Imperial Intelligence had seeded the crews with undercover agents, hoping to catch any plans for a mutiny. There would be some heads rolling back on Old Earth.

It was hard to gage reaction — no one became a crewman without some ability to hide what he was thinking or feeling — but he pressed on anyway. He told them that he couldn’t promise victory, or even survival, yet they had a chance to reshape — perhaps even topple — the entire Empire. They would even have a chance for proper advancement, without the rules and restrictions that prevented anyone from the lower decks rising to a higher position. The Imperial Navy wasn’t keen on officers from the lower orders, but Colin — while he’d been drilling the ship — had spotted dozens of crewmen who deserved higher ranks. The rebel fleet would definitely make the best use of its manpower. It couldn’t afford to blunder along through brute force and bloody-mindedness.

“If you don’t want to join us,” Colin concluded, “or if you fear the consequences of victory or defeat, you are welcome to leave the ship and be transferred to a freighter that will transport you back to Camelot. If you want to stay, you will be welcome. Please make your choices now.”

He watched as discussion broke out among the crew, blending together into a buzzing conversation. Many of the senior NCOs were intent on joining the mutiny — several of them had been involved right from the start, while others had learned to hate their superiors — although two of them seemed inclined to refuse to join the mutiny. The crew seemed divided as well, although the ones with longer periods of service seemed more inclined to support the mutiny than those who had only served for a few months. Several arguments and fights broke out, only to be broken up by the NCOs before the Marines could intervene. Colin winced inwardly. He had known that some on the lower decks settled their differences through force, in carefully-supervised fights, but he had never come face-to-face with it before. Admiral Percival had mentioned it once, almost in passing; his opinion hadn’t been kind.

Finally, much to his relief, most of the crew decided to join the mutiny. A handful seemed inclined to worry about threats to their families or friends back home, but only a handful decided to transfer to the freighter for transport back to Camelot. Colin felt a twinge of guilt as the Marines escorted them to the secondary shuttlebay for transfer, knowing that Imperial Intelligence would interrogate the loyalists until they were sucked dry of everything they knew about the mutiny and its leaders. He checked his wristcom and smiled as he realised that the other ships had roughly the same percentage of loyalists, although that didn’t mean that they’d removed all of the intelligence agents. If he’d been assigned to spy on the crew, and his identity had remained uncovered, he would have joined the mutiny as well. There would never be a better chance to infiltrate the crew and damage the rebellion from within.

“Thank you, all of you,” Colin said, once the final loyalists had been gently removed from the shuttlebay and escorted out. There was no need to use force; indeed, Colin understood what they were going through. He had wrestled enough with his own conscience over the rebellion, back when he’d been trapped on the patrol base, after Admiral Percival had betrayed him. Back then, the thought of betraying the Empire had been agony; it would have been easier to go after Percival instead, yet… the system itself, the one that allowed Percival to exist, was rotten. It had to be destroyed. “I hope that I will be worthy of your trust.”

“We’ve been drilling for the last five days,” Colonel Neil Frandsen assured Colin, three days after he’d spoken to the crew. It had been a hectic process. Once the loyalists had been removed, the lockdown had been terminated and the crew went back to work — with a greater will, Colin had noted, than they’d shown while Shadow had been an Imperial starship. “We’re ready for the mission.”

Colin nodded. The Observation Squadron’s largest ship wasn’t the battlecruisers, but HMS Carmichael , a Marine Transport Ship. Colonel Frandsen commanded a full Marine Regiment, intended for emergency deployment to the surface of Jackson’s Folly — if the Follies decided to do something stupid. It had apparently been easier to convince most of the Marines to go along with the Mutiny; Frandsen had paraded his men, explained what had happened and invited them to decide for themselves where their loyalties lay. It would never have worked for the Imperial Army, but the Marines were a law unto themselves. Only a handful of Marines had refused to follow their commanders and had been transferred to the freighter for transport back to Camelot.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. Without the Marines, the next part of the mutiny would be impossible. It would have been more convenient, he admitted to himself, if the superdreadnaughts had docked at one of the orbital stations, but not even Commodore Roosevelt would take such a risk. “Are you confident of success?”

“Nothing in war is certain,” Frandsen reminded him, “but we are primed and ready for the mission. Besides, they’re using Blackshirts for their internal security. They don’t trust their Marines.”