Democracy's Might

Chapter Thirty

There was little significant about Wolf 359. It was a red dwarf star, nearly eight light years from Earth, surrounded by a medium-sized asteroid field and a couple of rogue comets. The sheer uselessness of the system, at least when it came to housing large numbers of humans, had contributed to the Sandakan Corporation’s decision — back before the Thousand Families had been established — to build its primary industrial facility in the system. It might force them to ship their products to other star systems, but it was theirs. Even after the Thousand Families had taken control of the human race, Wolf 359 was still their private fiefdom.

“Impressive,” Cordova muttered, his tone — for once — serious. “Anyone would think they were worried about being attacked.”

“Anyone would be quite right,” Commander Patrick Jones pointed out, dryly. “An attack here would be disastrous.”

The Sandakan Family was one of the most powerful of the Thousand Families, but they had invested almost solely in starship production rather than spreading out their portfolio. It was why they continuously pressed for greater shipping contracts for their shipping lines, he suspected, and why they were so nervous about damage to Wolf 359. Indeed, their investment was so concentrated that it made him wonder if they too weren’t suffering from a cash shortage. It was quite possible that Roosevelt wasn’t the only one of the Thousand Families in danger of bankruptcy.

But Wolf 359 was very secure. A hundred shipyard structures, including a giant Class-III shipyard, hung in orbit around the red star, surrounded by over two hundred industrial nodes and a hundred heavily-armed fortresses. And they were backed up by dozens of starships, including a superdreadnaught squadron that seemed more active than any of the squadrons they’d observed on their way from Jackson’s Folly to Wolf 359. A direct attack against the shipyard would be futile.

“It would put them at death’s door,” Cordova agreed. It was odd how he seemed to understand the Thousand Families, although most Imperial Navy officers had at least a passing familiarity with how the system worked. “Let’s see if we can open it for them, shall we?”

He grinned at his own joke — as if it wasn’t from a well-known piece of public entertainment — and then turned to face his crew. “Have you reprogrammed the flicker drive?”

“Aye, sir,” the engineer said. “And installed the replacement systems. But it will be risky…”

“I know,” Cordova said. “But remember, risk is our business.”

Patrick winced. There was one obvious weakness to the whole structure, one that Cordova had gleefully pointed out as soon as they’d started looking at the reports from the stealthed drones. Indeed, it was so obvious that Patrick had racked his brains trying to understand how it could be a trap. But it seemed that the Sandakan Family had never considered just how crazy some of their enemies could be. The system had never been threatened, not even during the First Interstellar War. They’d grown lax… and careless.

Cordova stood and moved over to his command chair. “Power up the drives,” he ordered. “We jump in ten minutes.”

Patrick took his seat and braced himself. The Imperial Navy would have recoiled in horror from what Cordova had in mind. Even the most idiotic Admiral would have had second thoughts. But Cordova had seen the possibilities and started to outline his plan before Patrick could think of any proper objections. And his crew were just going along with it…

He shook his head in disbelief as the drives started to power up. Whatever happened, they were going to make history. He just hoped that they survived the experience.

“The gunboats sent a message, sir,” Lieutenant Lester reported. “They found nothing.”

Commodore Amir Sandakan nodded, sourly. Wolf 359 was never visited, save by the family’s starships and the occasional smuggler who thought he could slip into the shipyard and make a few new contacts. Normally, they were chased away quickly by the security patrols, if they didn’t think better of it after looking at the brooding fortresses. Besides, the Sandakan Family paid the best rates in the Empire. There were few discontented workers in the massive complex and those who were openly discontented tended to leave quickly.

“Tell them to return,” he ordered. The brief detection of a flicker pulse might have been nothing more than a glitch… or a starship, jumping out instead of jumping in. Maybe someone had tried to sneak into the system, then withdrawn as covertly as they had arrived. “We can run a tracking exercise on them as they come.”

“Understood, sir,” Lester said.

Amir turned and looked up at the massive display. There had been no way to avoid realising that Wolf 359 had been slowing down for years, ever since the Empire had stopped producing new superdreadnaughts. Indeed, demand for smaller starships and commercial starships had been falling too. The more he’d looked at the figures, the more he’d started to realise that the family was on the verge of serious problems. It took a major investment to keep Wolf 359 operating and that investment might no longer be forthcoming…

But Jupiter is gone, he thought, wryly. And the rebels might ensure we get more contracts.

Alarms sounded, cutting into his thoughts. “Commodore,” Lester said, panic evident in her voice, “enemy contacts! Right on top of us!”

Amir stared in disbelief. Someone had flickered right into the shipyard!

“Red alert,” he ordered, numbly. New icons had appeared on the display, right in the centre of the complex. The giant explosion that had blown one industrial node to hell suggested that one of the enemy starships had interpenetrated, flickering into space already occupied by the node. That almost never happened, at least outside simulations. “Order the starships to intercept the intruders.”

But he knew that it was already too late.

“Mother’s Milk is gone,” the tactical officer reported. “Everyone else made it.”

“Open fire,” Cordova ordered. “Blast everything in range with energy weapons, reserve the external racks for the defenders.”

Patrick shook his head. They’d jumped into a crowded region of space and survived the experience, only losing one ship. And now, with the shipyard facilities at point-blank range, they could be ripped apart with ease. Random Numbers opened fire with her energy weapons, punching through the weak shields and setting off a chain of fission explosions that started to rip the structure apart. The shipyard was designed to be taken apart and reassembled quickly; it couldn’t even hope to stand up to such a barrage. He caught a brief glimpse of a half-constructed light cruiser blown into flaming debris, before it was gone.

“Enemy gunboats closing in,” the tactical officer said. “Enemy superdreadnaughts are on their way.”

“Keep our distance from the superdreadnaughts, if possible,” Cordova ordered. Their immediate targets had been wiped out, leaving them to advance towards the secondary set of targets. “Lock missiles on the asteroids, then fire at my command.”

Patrick gave him a sharp glance. Launching missiles at the asteroids meant that Cordova had given up on the idea of engaging the defenders, although they couldn’t hope to win a running battle. But, in the long term, taking out the shipyard was much more important than taking out nine superdreadnaughts and their escorts. The superdreadnaughts couldn’t be replaced quickly if the Empire had to rebuild the shipyard first.

“Missiles locked, sir,” the tactical officer said.

“Fire,” Cordova ordered.

Patrick felt a dull glow of triumph as the missiles screamed towards their targets. The giant asteroids and industrial nodes had no point defence, even though the gunboats altered course rapidly and gave chase in hopes of overrunning the missiles before they struck home. One by one, the asteroids shattered, scattering their contents out into space. He felt a moment’s pity for the inhabitants, many of them skilled workers, but he knew they were too dangerous to leave alive. It would take the Empire years to rebuild the workforce, assuming they bothered to try. Ignorant workers, the Empire believed, were happy workers. But they were also much less effective.

“Incoming fire,” the tactical officer snapped. “The fortresses have a lock on us.”

“Deploy ECM drones,” Cordova ordered. The enemy CO had evidently forgotten any concerns he had about firing shipkillers into the heart of the structure. But then, most of the shipyard was already gone. “And keep powering up the drive.”

“Two minutes, sir,” the helmsman reported. “Taking evasive action…”

Patrick braced himself as the fortresses went to rapid fire. If the enemy overwhelmed them before the flicker drive powered up, they were dead. But the enemy had already lost the shipyard, to all intents and purposes. It would take years for them to rebuild, assuming they could afford it…

Amir watched helplessly as his worst nightmare developed in front of him. The shipyards were fragile structures; one by one, they were ripped apart by the demon-spawned enemy fleet. Beyond them, the asteroids were tougher, but not tough enough to stand up to shipkiller missiles. The workforce that kept the shipyard going was being slaughtered, right in front of his eyes. And there was nothing he could do to stop the slaughter.

“Sir,” Lester said, “we have clear locks on their hulls…”

“Keep firing,” Amir ordered. But he knew it would be futile. Even if the entire enemy fleet was wiped out, it wouldn’t make up for the destruction they’d inflicted. The shipyard would need years to replace. “And order the gunboats to close to minimum range.”

Random Numbers shuddered, violently, as a missile struck home.

“Dashing Dave is gone,” Patrick snapped, looking down at his console. “Thunderbird is losing shields, rapidly.”

“Flicker drive powered up,” the helmsman reported.

“Get us out of here,” Cordova snapped.

Patrick braced himself. A second later, the universe flickered and faded away to nothingness… and then reformed in front of him. The pain struck him a second later, a blow so powerful he was convinced his heart was about to fail. He slumped in his chair, stunned by the force… and he wasn’t the only one. Red alarms were sounding, but it was so hard to care. Helplessly, he slid into darkness…

“They’re gone, sir,” Lester reported. “They all jumped out.”

“They must have disengaged all of the safety interlocks,” Amir muttered. He knew more than a little about interstellar drives; the rebels had to have modified their systems extensively to allow them to jump twice in such quick succession. Chances were that one or more of the ships wouldn’t make it through the jump intact. “Tell the defenders to stand down, then report in to me.”

He watched, in numb horror, as the final toll scrolled up on his display. All, but one of the shipyards had been blasted to smouldering rubble. Nine of the ten asteroids had been destroyed, taking their inhabitants with them. Hundreds of thousands of workers and their families were dead. And over seventy percent of the industrial nodes had been wiped out, shattering their ability to repair the damage without calling for help from Earth. All in all, he realised, the rebels had scored a stunning victory.

We got lazy, he thought. Back when the shipyard had been established, the flicker drive hadn’t been anything like so accurate. No one had really realised just how vulnerable the shipyard was to a determined or suicidal attacker. Hell, the family had worked hard to keep the system as isolated as possible. But now the illusion of security had been torn aside and the shipyard was in ruins.

“Prepare a courier boat,” he ordered. The Sandakan, the Family Head, would have to be informed as soon as possible. God alone knew what he’d do. The more he thought about it, the more Amir realised that the attack had been utterly disastrous. If the family couldn’t meet its obligations, it would very rapidly start to follow the Roosevelt Family into collapse — and ruin. “And prepare a complete report on the damage.”

“Yes, sir,” Lester said.

He’d failed, Amir knew. Twenty years of experience with the Imperial Navy’s Fortress Command, fifteen more with the Sandakan Household Troops… and he’d failed, completely. And his failure hadn’t cost the family a starship, or a single industrial node, but everything they owned. Somehow, he was sure that the other investments wouldn’t be enough to make up the losses. The entire family was on the edge of absolute ruin.

Cold logic told him that the flaw in the defences had been there since the start, that there was little that could be done about it save for moving the entire shipyard to another star system. But somehow cold logic didn’t reassure him. If he’d thought about it, he could have installed additional weapons, even mounting them on the shipyard structures themselves. He knew just how badly he’d failed the family…

“The courier boat is ready,” Lester said.

“Send them the complete report, then tell them to nominate my replacement,” Amir ordered, tartly. “You have the deck.”

He stepped through the hatch, into his cabin. It was a nice suite, he had to admit; it housed himself, his wife and his two children quite comfortably. But their lives would be blighted too, even though they had nothing to do with his mistakes. The Sandakan Family had no tolerance for failure, even among their own kin. They’d be lucky if they weren’t told to spend the rest of their lives on a world that, no matter how comfortable, was very definitely a prison.

Pouring himself a glass of wine, he sat down at his desk and studied the pictures he’d hung on the walls. His wife was gorgeous, thanks to the most elaborate cosmetic surgery money could buy, while his twin girls were the cutest little girls in the universe. Maybe they were at the stage where they were dreadfully embarrassed when their father called them cute, but they were cute. Amir looked at their long dark hair, framing their dark faces, and felt a pang of guilt. They were his daughters and he had failed them.

He opened the desk drawer and removed the pistol. It had been a present from his crew when he’d left Fortress Command, something he valued because no one could have forced them to offer him something so practical. Normally, sycophants would produce a plaque or something that required minimal effort. A working pistol would require hours of paperwork, particularly a chemical weapon instead of a plasma blaster.

Placing the weapon on the table, he scribbled three notes. One for his XO, who would have to assume command; one for his wife, to apologise for his failure; one to the Family Head, accepting full responsibility for the disaster. By now, for all he knew, word had already reached Earth. Humanity’s homeworld was only eight light years away, after all.

He hesitated, then reached for the pistol. Quite calmly, he put the weapon to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Patrick slowly fought his way back to full awareness. His chest hurt, as did his head, pounding away as if someone was firing cannons inside his skull. But, as he opened his eyes, the pain slowly started to fade away. He was lying on a bed in sickbay, a concerned-looking doctor staring down at him. Behind the doctor, Cordova was waiting.

“Captain,” he croaked. “I…”

“A bad case of jump shock,” the doctor said, briskly. She looked over at Cordova. “He really needs to take it easy for a day or two, as do the other victims.”

“I know,” Cordova said. “We’re going to have to wait here for a few days in any case, at least until we repair the drive and replace the damaged components. The crew can recuperate in peace.”

Patrick forced himself to sit up. “The crew?”

“A third of the crew has jump shock,” the doctor said, sharply. She gave him an assessing look. “I’m not too surprised, really. Making such a jump could easily have killed everyone on the ship.”

“It was that or die,” Cordova said. “But we made it out.”

Patrick nodded. “How many ships?”

“We lost seven,” Cordova admitted, reluctantly. “But we wiped out most of the shipyard and probably wrecked the Sandakan Family. Not a bad rate of exchange, I feel.”

“Perhaps.” Patrick agreed. Seven ships, a fifth of the raiding fleet. But, right now, the Empire would have real trouble rebuilding its superdreadnaught squadrons. They only had one Class-III shipyard left, in the Terra Nova System. “Terra Nova?”

“It’s too obvious,” Cordova said. Clearly, he’d been having similar thoughts. “And they will guard it thoroughly as soon as they hear about Wolf 359.”

“And it would be harder to attack in any case,” Patrick said. The Terra Nova Shipyard, like the Jupiter Shipyard, orbited a gas giant. They couldn’t launch a flicker attack and hope to survive. Unless they used smaller shuttles… “Captain…”

“Get some rest,” Cordova ordered. He gave Patrick a brilliant smile. “We’re safe now. We can take a day or two to recuperate…”

“Do it in your own cabin,” the doctor ordered. She marched over and made irritated gestures at them. “I need the bed.”

Cordova nodded, then helped Patrick to his feet. “Get some rest, then join me for our next planning session,” he ordered. “Or talk someone into bed, if you like. We do have plenty of time to think about planning our next course of action.”

He snickered, then winked. “And just think! These are the problems of victory. How do you think they’re feeling?”

Patrick had to smile. By now, word would definitely have reached Earth. The Thousand Families would be near panic. Who knew how they’d react? How could they react?

Maybe they will negotiate, he thought. It didn’t seem very likely. Or maybe they will resort to desperate measures.