Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“Go,” she shouted, at a young man who had started to drag her away. The Blackshirts would be on them before they got more than a few meters towards the hatch. “Get out of here!”

He dropped her and ran. Molly felt dazed, the effect — she realised — of a sedative working its way through her body. Her suit was trying to save her, even though there was no hope of either safety or liberty. She heard the sound of running feet and realised, dully, that she was surrounded by Blackshirts. She pulled her hand out of the armoured glove and flipped up a hidden compartment within her arm. They had all been told that it was there, yet she had never dared even consider touching it before. Arms pulled at her helmet, disconnecting it from the suit and exposing her bare head to their gaze.

Molly saw five men in dark armour staring down at her. She knew what happened to women who were captured by the Blackshirts, even some men if they were unlucky. The Blackshirts were carefully conditioned to encourage them to commit the most awful of acts on a whim. They would pull her out of her suit and… it might have been the drugs, but she had never felt so calm in her life. Her finger caressed the switch, the suicide button, as she wondered if there was enough explosive in the suit to take them all with her.

“Fuck you,” she said, and pushed the button. Her world exploded around her.

“The bitch committed suicide!”

Thomas smiled at the indignation in the corporal’s voice. “Never mind,” he said, wryly. “There will be other women later.”

He grinned as he forwarded new orders to the assault party. Slowly, but steadily, the entire asteroid was opening up in front of them. It wouldn’t be long now.

“It won’t be long now,” Neil said, to Hester. His Marines were falling back as the Blackshirts advanced, using their numbers to make up for what they lacked in tactical flexibility. It was growing harder to command his forces as the Blackshirt jamming hacked away at his control systems. “They’re nearly here.”

“We can hold this place long enough to detonate the bomb,” Hester said, in her hissing voice. The latest report from the Random Numbers showed yet another flight of assault shuttles landing at the spaceport, carrying another unit of Blackshirts into the fray. There had to be thousands on the asteroid now. “There may still be hope.”

Neil looked at her and shook his head. “We can’t hold out much longer,” he said. Sanctuary wasn’t designed like a typical asteroid, which meant that the Blackshirts would have to work at finding the command centre. It wouldn’t take them as long as Hester seemed to think. The process of elimination alone would cut entire swathes of the asteroid out of their calculations. “I think we’d better get ready.”

Hester smiled a strange smile. It looked odd when half of her face was badly scarred. “Maybe,” she said. “If they come close to the command centre, Neil, we will begin the detonation sequence.”

“The rebels are retreating into their inner core,” the coordination officer said. He was currently linked into the Blackshirt command system, listening to the orders the Blackshirt commander was issuing to his men. “We’re winning.”

Angelika smiled to herself. A few more hours and the asteroid would be hers. Once her people controlled it, the prisoners would be transported onto her ships and secured, while an elite team from Imperial Intelligence searched the remains of the asteroid thoroughly. The Blackshirts were already taking prisoners as the defenders collapsed, sending them back to the rear in chains. Her fingers keyed her console and she brought up an image of seven rebels, chained to their seats, being transported to her ships. They wouldn’t be able to do anything, even kill themselves, before her interrogators had sucked their minds dry.

“Good,” she said. With the fighting having moved into the heart of the asteroid, she’d pulled her battlecruisers back, just in case the superdreadnaughts decided to return. She’d feared running into them, but the odds were that they were off causing havoc somewhere else. That was bad news for whoever they hit — Admiral Percival would be looking for more scapegoats — yet they’d lost their base and much of their support in the Beyond. How long would the rebellion be able to go on without their base? “Have the prisoners transported to the interrogation cubes at once.”

A new alarm flashed up on her console. “Captain, we have nine contacts, superdreadnaught-sized,” her tactical officer said. Angelika felt her blood run cold. Was she going to be cheated of her victory by the rebel superdreadnaughts? “They’re…”

He relaxed suddenly. “They’re heavy freighters, Captain,” he said, in relief. Angelika smiled, despite herself. That had been a close shave. She’d been within seconds of ordering an emergency flicker somewhere else, anywhere else. Even her contacts and patrons wouldn’t have been able to save her once the post-battle analysis suggested that she’d fled from nine heavy freighters. Even if the rebels had loaded as many weapons and shields as they could into freighter hulls, they wouldn’t be able to stand up to her ships. Heavy freighters — the design, she saw, was a common one throughout the Empire — moved through space like wallowing pigs. They were certainly as ugly as pigs. “I am picking up no IFF signals.”

“Rebels,” Angelika said, with heavy satisfaction. She was tempted to open fire and expunge her shame in their blood, but if she could take their computers intact, they might lead her to more rebel bases. The odds were good that Commander Walker had established a supply dump somewhere in the Beyond and if it could be located, his superdreadnaughts would run out of weapons and spares pretty soon. “Order them to surrender and prepare to be boarded.”

“Aye, Admiral,” the communications officer said. There was a long pause. “There’s no response.”

“They’re trying to run,” the tactical officer said. Angelika snorted. The rebel ships had come out of flicker at high speed and were trying desperately to cancel their speed and turn around before it took them right into her waiting arms. Even if they’d installed military-grade drives on those hulks, they would still be unable to turn around and escape before she caught them. “I think they’re unable to dampen down their drive field without burning out the crystals and wrecking their drive nodes.”

“Terrible,” Angelika said, dryly. The rebel freighters were coming into range now, unable to evade her weapons. “Launch an assault shuttle to each of those ships and board them. Take the crews prisoner and they can be interrogated along with the rebels.”

“Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer said. He paused. “Captain, I have some weird readings, I… Jesus Christ !”

Angelika stared in horror, unable to believe her eyes. The freighters had opened fire, not with the popguns normally issued to commercial ships, but with missiles — thousands of missiles. No superdreadnaught could have unleashed such a barrage, even with external racks; there were over three thousand missiles coming from each freighter. Twenty-seven thousand missiles were bearing down on her ships — nothing, maybe not even an entire fleet of superdreadnaughts could survive such an attack. Her point defence wouldn’t even stop a handful of them before the rest broke through and destroyed her ships. Her great triumph had just collapsed in front of her.

Training reasserted itself. There was only one way out. “Jump out,” she ordered. The flicker drive had been held idling, just in case the superdreadnaughts arrived and attempted to redress the balance. “Jump us out of here…”