Democracy's Right

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Let me do the talking,” Brent-Cochrane said, as the shuttle slowly drifted into the massive orbital fortress’s hanger bay. Penny gave him a single raised eyebrow, which made him smile. The way he was dressed, Percival might well have a heart attack on the spot, or find it hard to restrain homicidal impulses. “You stay quiet and pretend to be a good little aide.”

Penny shrugged. Brent-Cochrane had worn the standard dark blue dress uniform of a Commodore, but instead of wearing the blue cap, he’d donned a shining white cap with gold braid. Traditionally, only the supreme commander of a particular formation — a mere squadron, even of superdreadnaughts, wouldn’t be enough — would wear such a cap and wearing one to a meeting with the Sector Command was both an unsubtle insult and a subtle message to Percival’s supporters. Percival would see it as a challenge to his authority, yet he could do little about it, not with the level of connections enjoyed by his younger subordinate. He would have to grin and bear it, although part of Penny hoped that he would suffer a heart attack and die.

The shuttle gently touched down and the hatch opened, allowing the air from the fortress to flow into their craft. Brent-Cochrane’s personal bodyguard stood up and headed out of the hatch, making a circuit of the craft before he would allow any of Brent-Cochrane’s staff to follow him into the hanger bay. That, too, was another subtle insult to Percival, an implication that Brent-Cochrane didn’t trust his superior to organise his own security. Percival, an expert at the backstabbing and intrigue that made up the innermost circles of the Imperial Navy, would have no difficulty in understanding the message, although he would still find himself powerless to respond.

“Clear,” the bodyguard said, finally. If there was any doubt in his voice, Penny couldn’t hear it. “There’s a reception party waiting for you.”

The small party stood to attention as the Empire’s Anthem started to blare out, played through the speakers. Brent-Cochrane stepped from the shuttle, every inch the visiting monarch, and strutted to the far end of the line. The welcoming party was commanded, Penny saw with an inner flicker of doubt, by a mere Lieutenant. That, too, was an insult, one calculated to annoy the impulsive Commodore. Brent-Cochrane showed no visible reaction, even to her; he accepted the young officer’s salute and returned it with his own.

“Lieutenant,” he said, calmly and with perfect poise. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted, My Lord,” the Lieutenant said. He looked relieved; Penny knew how he felt. There were cases of visiting officers being offended by their reception party and demanding immediate punishment, or breaking careers effortlessly because they felt that their pride had been slighted. “Welcome onboard.”

Brent-Cochrane smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Would you care to escort us to the Admiral’s quarters?”

The Lieutenant bowed and nodded, dismissing the welcoming party with a wave of his hand and turning to lead the two of them out of the hanger bay. Brent-Cochrane dismissed most of his party — he’d given them orders to mingle with the station’s crew, but remain on call — and allowed Penny to precede him as they walked though the station. The station was so massive that even Percival hadn’t been tempted to try to decorate it all in his own favoured style — the cost would have been shockingly high, even to someone with far more exalted connections — but she saw some of his paintings and artworks scattered around, announcing his control over the station. She wondered, sometimes, what the lower decks thought of their supreme commander’s taste in artwork, although no one gave a damn about their opinions — least of all Percival. The lower decks were there to do the dirty work and then remain out of sight, out of mind. The Imperial Navy only tolerated a few Mustangs — officers from the lower decks — every year.

Penny considered as she walked, contemplating the two men in her life. Percival was a sadist and a sexual pervert, yet in his way he was simple and easy to understand. The longer she spent in Brent-Cochrane’s company, the harder she found it to understand him. He was intelligent, capable, competent and — unlike Percival — interested in her for her brain, rather than her body. After their first coupling, he had never touched her again. It struck her as odd.

Or perhaps it wasn’t so odd, she reflected. Men liked playing their dominance games and Brent-Cochrane was playing one, not with her, but with Percival. Sleeping with Percival’s woman might be nothing more than yet another attempt to beat Percival, even though Percival would never find out about it. Brent-Cochrane might have a grand scheme to dislodge Percival from his position, yet in his mind, he already had. Or perhaps he trusted in his patrons and his undoubted ability to control his ships. He was simply too valuable for Percival to dispose of him.

Penny’s lips tightened as she fought to get back into the old ways of thought, adding an extra sway to her hips and tightening her jacket. The courier boat had found the squadron four days ago, ordering Brent-Cochrane to abandon his position and bring the squadron to Camelot with all possible speed. That, she was sure, meant bad news… or perhaps Percival had his own plan to get rid of his uppity subordinate before things went badly wrong for him. Or perhaps he was just missing Penny in his bed… no, that couldn’t be the answer. He could have ordered any of the young female officers into his bed and no one would have cared — well, no one who mattered. The Imperial Navy wouldn’t have cared in the slightest as such abuses of power were common, even winked at by senior officers.

Brent-Cochrane had been furious, although his fury hadn’t been as raging hot as Percival’s had been, when she’d been slapped or beaten by her superior. She could understand his position, for they’d been working on training the squadron, only to discover that most of the commanding officers were unsuited for their position. The Empire rarely gave superdreadnaughts to officers with imagination — they might have the imagination to use them in rebellion against the Empire — and Brent-Cochrane’s subordinates had the collective intelligence of a dead fish. She smiled at the thought; perhaps it was a little harsh. The collective intelligence of a dying scorpion, doomed, but still able to kill with its sting. If something happened to him, his subordinates would fight on, with all the intelligence and competence of a newly-minted cadet entering the Academy.

The Lieutenant paused outside the Admiral’s outer hatch and pressed his thumbprint against the scanner, opening the hatch and allowing them access. He stood aside, waving them through — it seemed that junior officers were still not allowed into the Admiral’s quarters — and closed the hatch behind them. Four Blackshirts, carrying stun batons and sensor needles, stepped forward and ran the needles over their bodies, looking for hidden surprises. Penny concealed her own surprise. Percival had to be feeling paranoid… or perhaps he was making another subtle insult, implying that he didn’t trust Brent-Cochrane not to harm him. Penny almost snorted at the thought. Brent-Cochrane’s plans for harming his superior officer, at least as far as she knew, didn’t include his physical murder.

“They’re clean,” the first Blackshirt reported. He was a burly man, with piggish eyes; indeed, Penny wondered if the training process had included shots of Gorilla DNA. His voice, a thick guttural sound, was an unmistakable mark, the results of the drugs that had been shot into the recruits when they entered the training camps. They ensured both obedience to lawful authority and unquestioning brutality to everyone else. “No bombs, no guns; only a single dress sword.”

“Then show them in,” an impatient voice snapped. Penny felt her heart skip a beat as Percival’s voice echoed through the compartment. “Now, if you please.”

Penny allowed Brent-Cochrane to precede her into Percival’s inner compartment, taking the additional few seconds to gather her thoughts. Percival had altered the décor slightly, moving the submissive blonde woman to a new place on the wall and replacing it with… she leaned forward, unable to believe her eyes. The new picture was one of a man being unceremoniously strangled by the hangman’s noose. She fought down the urge to vomit, trying to understand why Percival had placed it in such prominence, or why he would want to sleep under it. Or why, for that matter, he would expect her to sleep under it.

“They failed in their duty,” Percival said, without bothering with formalities. That might have been intended as yet another insult, but she suspected, from the angry tone of helpless fury in his voice, that it was simply an oversight. “They failed in their duty and, because of them, the whole Empire knows about the rebellion.”

That was physically impossible, but Penny decided that it would be better not to point that out to her enraged superior and lover. Brent-Cochrane didn’t have the same scruples, yet even he kept his mouth shut, watching and waiting to see which way Percival jumped. Being so close to him was like being close to a caged animal, one that could turn on her and rend her to pieces at any moment. The whole compartment seemed to be charged with negative energy.

“The rebels accessed the ICN,” Percival said, when he had calmed down enough to speak straight. “They managed to get a message into the buffers here — in this system — and upload it into the courier boats. They will have told all the other malcontents and dissidents and ungrateful populations about their rebellion and invited them to join up! The rebellion will spread far and wide.”

Penny kept her face composed, although she risked a glance at Brent-Cochrane and saw the — barely-hidden — look of cold calculation on his face. Percival’s real motive for keeping the news of the rebellion concealed had never been to avoid giving encouragement to the other rebels out there, but to save himself from the vengeance of an angry Empire. If he had managed to beat the rebels before the news got out, he would look like a hero, rather than the moron who managed to lose nine superdreadnaughts to a rebel commander with a grudge against him personally. The Empire would want his head and his connections, even if they risked defending him, would be unable to save his head from the chopping block.

“So the message is out and spreading,” Brent-Cochrane said, once Percival had finished explaining. Penny had to admire the tactic, even though it made her life much more dangerous. The message would be forever moving in advance of any message ordering the ICN to wipe it from the local nodes. Worse, even if they did manage to quarantine a few systems and prevent them from getting the message, it would still slip in through other starships in transit. “That may not be such a bad thing.”

Percival glared at him. Penny had a good idea that she knew what was going through his mind, but he wouldn’t explode in front of Brent-Cochrane, not when his subordinate would gleefully take it to his superiors.

“It is a disaster,” Percival said, flatly. “It is a disaster so great that I had the entire crew of the ICN station executed for dereliction of duty.” His voice became strident, hectoring. “We cannot allow any leeway when it comes to punishing traitors against the Empire!”

“That seems a little harsh,” Brent-Cochrane observed, mildly. “Do you want them to make a habit of opening sealed packets from Imperial Intelligence?”

“They failed,” Percival snapped. He clearly wasn’t open to rational thought. Someone had to pay the price for the embarrassment and humiliation the Empire had suffered, even if he had to drum up charges and execute them quickly before anyone else could intervene. “The entire Empire knows now!”

His face darkened before anyone else could speak. “And the rebels hit Piccadilly,” he added. “The Roosevelt Family is not happy.”

Penny felt an insane urge bubbling up within her and she indulged it. “I hardly see how we can be blamed for that,” she said. Piccadilly had been high on the list of possible targets she’d drawn up, although Stacy Roosevelt’s insistence that Greenland be protected had prevented her from having any pickets near the other Roosevelt world. Besides, it was the Roosevelt Family, not the Imperial Navy, that was responsible for defending Piccadilly. “We were not guarding that world.”

“The problem,” Percival said with an air of patience that fooled no one, “is that the rebels have managed to strike at the heart of the Roosevelt Family’s investments in this sector, which are vital for the continued economic growth of the Empire. Combined with their message, it sends a… disagreeable signal to the remainder of the Empire. The effects could be disastrous.”

“The rebels have to be stopped,” Brent-Cochrane said, with an air of artful nonchalance. “I fail to see why losing a single world is such a problem. There are thousands of other worlds in the Empire.”

Penny thought she knew. The Roosevelt Family had invested heavily in Sector 117, it was why they had so much influence, even to put Percival in as their choice for Sector Commander. And their senior representative in the Imperial Navy, Stacy Roosevelt, had been jumped ahead of more qualified officers and ordered to capture Jackson’s Folly and its daughter colonies — intact, with its industrial base undamaged.

Her eyes opened in wonder. Could it be, she asked herself, that the Roosevelt Family was overextended? The Thousand Families prided themselves on their long-term view, investing early in new sectors, planets and industries to maintain their position, yet the Roosevelt Family had definitely been going well over the standard pattern. They’d even forced most of the other Families out of the sector, keeping it all to themselves… why? To make themselves even more immensely rich than they already were?

Or perhaps because it was their last desperate gamble, one last shot to avert disaster. The Empire’s economy had been slowly freezing up for centuries, a result of the deadening effects of patronage and bureaucracy. If the Roosevelt Family was in serious trouble… who knew what might happen to the Empire as a whole? Families had come and gone before, yet the Roosevelt Family was colossal, with interests everywhere. Could it be that they were weaker than anyone dared think?

And, she asked herself, what would happen if the rebels kept destroying their investment?

They’d be able to carry on for some years, using their connections and the sheer unlikelihood of the situation to hide the truth, but eventually it would come out… and what would happen then? She thought about the hundreds of worlds that belonged, directly or indirectly, to the Roosevelt Family, with the trillions of humans and aliens inhabiting them. What would happen to those helpless lives? Or, for that matter, what would happen to the remainder of the Empire? Would the fall of one Family lead to the fall of others? Or would the remainder of the Families congratulate themselves on having avoided such a fate, pat the Roosevelt Family’s head and buy up all their assets? Somehow, she doubted that the Families could work together to save the Empire. They’d be saving it from themselves.

“It is not a complete disaster,” Brent-Cochrane said. His voice was calm, very composed, yet Penny could hear an underlying note of delight. Percival wouldn’t survive the loss of his patrons, not with all the enemies he’d made over the years. “We do have new options, ones that we lacked before.”

Percival glowered at him. “And what would those be?”

“We don’t have to worry about preventing the news from spreading,” Brent-Cochrane said. “So we contact the Sector Commander of Sector 99 — he’s my Uncle, unless he’s been promoted by now — and ask him to send reinforcements. Even a single additional squadron of superdreadnaughts would be a bonus for us… and he has three squadrons under his command. We ask him to deploy them here and we make further attacks prohibitively expensive for the rebels.”

Percival’s lips moved, but he said nothing. Penny could almost read his thoughts; calling in help, even from the nearest sector, would take time… and certainly reinforce the suggestion that Percival was grossly incompetent and also partly responsible for the mutiny. Coming to think of it, she wondered, what would happen if Sector 99’s Sector Commander turned up and tried to take command? He might be able to dislodge Percival… and if he really was related to Brent-Cochrane, he might place Percival’s subordinate in his place.

And yet, now the message blackout had been broken, the news would be spreading and failing to ask for help would certainly count against him. And, Penny suspected, Brent-Cochrane would send a message of his own to his uncle, if he hadn’t already. Percival had to know that too, which meant that he was trapped. He had to ask for help and hope for the best. She could almost sense his frustration, boiling off him in waves. She hoped, with a burst of malice that was almost worthy of Percival himself, that it choked him.

“I will communicate with Sector 99,” Percival said. She smiled inwardly at his desperation. The message was racing relentlessly towards Earth. Six months — no, less than six months now — and the Thousand Families would know just how badly Percival had bungled the rebellion. A year from now, Percival might receive orders telling him to travel to Earth to be executed, or maybe — if his connections came through — a simple relief from command. “I want you to find the rebels.”

“We will return to our position and wait,” Brent-Cochrane said. “The rebels will eventually fall into our lap.”

“You will go,” Percival said. “Captain Quick will remain with me. I have much to discuss with her.”

Brent-Cochrane kept his opinion on that, if he had an opinion, to himself.

“Yes, sir,” Penny said. Inwardly, she was singing. She could endure any amount of discomfort if it meant she got to watch as Percival received his just deserts. “I’ll remain here.”