Democracy's Light

Chapter Eleven

“I don’t want any formalities,” Goscinny said, as the shuttle landed neatly in the Jefferson’s shuttlebay. “I just want to remain a mere passenger.”

“A passenger with thirty aides, assistants and gofers,” Admiral Katy Garland said dryly. “And, I might add, three whole squadrons of superdreadnaughts to escort him to his new workplace. How many members of the Thousand Families had such an escort?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Goscinny said, realising that he was being teased. “I don’t want to start a habit of enjoying such accommodations.”

Katy nodded. The old Imperial Navy had been fond, very fond, of grand formalities when hosting senior dignities, from entire greeting parties to celebrations and astonishing luxuries, at least for the guest. The ordinary crewmen wouldn’t see any change in their treatment even if they were convoying a Clan Head. The new Imperial Navy, as designed and shaped by Colin and his inner circle, was much less keen on such formalities, regarding them as a waste of effort. Katy privately suspected that some officers regretted their passing, but she wasn’t one of them. The idea of treating a guest onboard her starship so well was almost insulting.

“Nor should you,” she said, finally. “I prevailed upon Captain Chalker to leave out most of the formalities, just so you could be introduced to the starship gradually.” She smiled. “Besides, everyone is very busy at the moment and they don’t have time to down tools and welcome us onboard.”

“I know,” Goscinny said. The pressure to move, from the arrival of the Victorious and its Ambassador, had only been growing stronger. Katy had barely had time to carry out a few minor exercises and she wasn’t confident in the gunnery capability of half her ships. There should have been months, at least, to work the fleet up properly and turn it into a well-drilled weapon, but events, as always, had dictated their own pace. “How confident are you of success if we had to fight it out with Cottbus?”

Katy left the question unanswered as they boarded the massive superdreadnaught, exchanged greetings with the Captain and two of his officers — somehow, she wasn’t surprised that Captain Toby Chalker had found time to greet her personally, even through it was far from her first time onboard — and allowed the Captain to show Goscinny to his cabin. The Independence-class superdreadnaughts didn’t leave as much room for passengers as the more standard General-class ships, but they still managed to create enough room for Goscinny and his aides. The ship itself felt distinctly undermanned, but that was the result of the automation the Geeks had built into the ship. It was something that worried her. The Jefferson might have twice the effective firepower of a General-class superdreadnaught, but if she were ever to be seriously damaged, she would find herself in much more trouble. The Damage Control departments had suffered heavily.

“So,” Goscinny said, as they settled down into his cabin. She declined an offer of brandy and accepted, instead, a mug of coffee. The warm liquid felt wonderful after so long preparing the fleet. “You never answered my question.”

“I couldn’t answer your question,” Katy said, slowly. “I don’t know the exact situation and just what we will be facing. Assuming that we face everything that was listed as being part of the Cottbus Sector Fleet — and given that that listing comes from a year ago, it won’t be accurate — we should be able to defeat them in a stand-up battle. The advantages of this ship and the experienced crews scattered through our units should give us a decisive advantage.”

She paused. “I wouldn’t want to recommend that we do anything hasty,” she added. “I want to gather as much intelligence as possible before making any moves, which will allow us to target them more effectively. I find it hard to believe that they won’t have arsenal ships, for example, or even modified gunboats and destroyers. The concepts were introduced over a year ago and there was nothing wrong with the sensor data the Empire collected. Hell, they hit us with arsenal ships at Morrison.”

The memory of the damaged and trapped Havoc, exposed to merciless fire, rose unbidden in her mind and she shivered. She had wondered, deep inside, if she had lost her nerve then, after she’d been defeated and taken prisoner. If it hadn’t been for a honest Imperial Navy Admiral, a concept that still surprised her, she would have been handed over to the SDs… and whatever was left of her after their interrogation would have been shot for mutiny. She still had nightmares about being a helpless prisoner…

“I see,” Goscinny said. If he followed her thoughts, he showed no sign of it. “And would you support military action if I recommended it?”

Katy smiled. Colin had instituted one major change for the mission; she, not Goscinny, was the final arbiter of military action. If she believed that the mission was impossible, or if circumstances changed radically, she had the authority to refuse to take her ships into harm’s way, although if Admiral Wilhelm did intend to start something, there would be no way that she could avoid engagement. She’d probably be second-guessed by everyone, after the fact, but it would be a worthwhile price to pay for keeping her ships and crews safe. Her only worry was that she might use it as an excuse to remain out of the firing line.

“It depends on what we find,” she said. “Now, I have a question for you. Why exactly aren’t we going straight to Cottbus, bashing down the door and demanding answers about the destruction of our ships?”

Goscinny considered, stroking his chin absently. “Because we don’t know exactly what is going on out there,” he said, finally. “We don’t know just what he’s doing…”

“Bullshit,” Katy said. “We know that he created a deliberate ambush and blew eight of our ships away, without provocation of any kind. The shooting, Mr Ambassador, has already started.”

“True enough,” Goscinny said, dispassionately. Katy, who couldn’t have taken the deaths of any of her crewmen so lightly, scowled at him. “The problem is rather more complex. The Empire is in a very delicate state. If we push too hard against Cottbus, we might discover that various other worlds will take it as a sign that we intend to be worse than the Empire and rebel, against us, the rebels. In fact…”

He spoke for nearly twenty minutes, leaving Katy feeling more confused than ever. “Are you telling me,” she said, finally, “that we don’t dare go after him because the rest of the Empire might rebel?”

“A crude, but accurate summation,” Goscinny said. “Cottbus’s declaration of independence puts us in a worrying legal position. If we move too quickly, we may find that we have only forced others…”

“They fired on us,” Katy snapped. “We need to demand answers.”

“And we will,” Goscinny said. “I intend to push that forward as hard as possible. If Cottbus truly wishes to be regarded as an independent state, as they claim to do, they have committed an act of war and there will be retribution. If they still want to be part of the Empire, then they have to play the game by our rules, including acceptance of Parliament as the supreme authority within the Empire.”

He shrugged. “The official position of Parliament is that the Empire is the supreme authority over humanity and that Cottbus, as a human-settled sector, is under its control,” he concluded. “Unofficially, I have powers to negotiate a degree of autonomy for Cottbus, if there are satisfactory answers to our questions and even grant amnesty to any ex-Imperials living there. Does that answer your question?”

“Partly,” Katy said. “It leads, however, to another point. Why did they destroy the cruisers?”

Goscinny blinked. “Their official explanation…”

“Is obvious tripe,” Katy said, not without a certain degree of relish. “Do you have a background in space warfare?” Goscinny shook his head. “Take it from me, then. They could not have engaged the cruisers successfully without luring them into a gravity shadow — which they did, apart from one which remained outside the gravity shadow and escaped when the shooting started. Why do that and risk provoking our wrath? Why even open fire when it was almost certain that one of the ships would escape anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Goscinny said. His voice was suspiciously even. “Why do you think they launched such an attack?”

Katy smiled. “The cruisers saw something they weren’t meant to see,” she said. “They saw something that Admiral Wilhelm, or whoever is really in charge in that sector, didn’t want us to see. They saw something so important that Admiral Wilhelm risked starting a second round of civil war by destroying our ships, just to prevent the word from getting out. The only question is what did the ships see?”

“Good point,” Goscinny said, finally. “Have you informed Colin?”

“Yes,” Katy said. She’d done more than that. She’d studied and analysed the records from the surviving cruiser carefully, looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. The only detail she had seen that was odd was that Admiral Wilhelm’s force looked to be in remarkably good shape for a sector fleet that hadn’t seen real combat for centuries. The Morrison Sector Fleet had degraded so much, according to Joshua, that it wouldn’t have been able to put up a real resistance before he arrived.

She smiled again as she stood up. “He told us to be careful.”

The hatch opened, allowing her to step back out into the starship’s corridors. Impulsively, she touched one of the bulkheads with her bare hands, feeling the thrumming power beating through the hull as the power plants came up to full readiness, charging the flicker drive for the flight to the first waypoint. The ship had only been commissioned for two months and it still had the indefinably new smell, but the two thousand crewers were pushing it away as they worked to get their ship ready for deployment.

She walked down the corridors, nodding absently to crewmen who saluted her as she passed, pausing long enough to check some of their work before moving onwards. The Captain would normally handle the inspection tour, although Katy intended to accompany him from time to time, and she had to be careful not to stand on his feet. The Imperial Navy had had plenty of Admirals who had made Captains passengers on their own ships, but the Shadow Fleet had tried to avoid it. It didn’t make for potential future flag officers.

The secure compartment had a pair of armed Marines in light body armour standing outside, their faces hidden behind blank masks that would provide protection against almost all handheld weapons available to the crew. The Imperial Navy had rarely permitted its crews to carry and handle weapons, but the Shadow Fleet had taken a different view and the new Imperial Navy had copied that particular example. Katy wasn’t sure she liked the concept, although she had to admit that it was slightly hypocritical, but it was generally a welcome change.

“You may enter,” one of the Marines said, after checking her ID implants. If they hadn’t confirmed her identity, they would have stunned her first and worried about asking questions later. Every superdreadnaught had a secure compartment, accessible only by a select group of people, and they tended to hold important and classified items, although she’d heard of a Captain who used his to store his collection of wine bottles. “Please remember to follow standard…”

Katy stepped into the airlock before he could finish. It sealed itself shut before the second airlock opened, revealing a small compartment with a handful of bunk beds, a pair of computer terminals and a set of battle armour. The two women and one man sitting on the bunks stood up as she entered, snapping into loose salutes, and Katy returned them, studying them with interest. It was the first time she had knowingly seen Imperial Intelligence’s covert operatives.

“Admiral,” the leader said. Her nametag read SASHA. Her voice was flat, almost emotionless. “Welcome to our lair.”

Katy smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, taking a moment to study Sasha and her comrades. Sasha herself was tall, blonde and looked more like a Freebooter than an Imperial Intelligence officer. Sandra was shorter, with an oriental face and long dark hair, while Charlie was tall and good-looking, in a bland way. He had the kind of face that a person could pass on the streets and instantly forget. The two girls would be remembered more for their appearances than anything more important. “I trust that you have been briefed on the mission?”

“We were told to report to you and follow your general orders,” Sasha said. Her voice didn’t change tone one iota. “The choice of exact method for carrying out your orders are to lie with us.”

“I would not expect you to follow my precise instructions,” Katy agreed. “How much do you know about the Cottbus Sector?”

Charlie tilted his head. “Twenty-three major star systems, nineteen minor star systems, fifty-two stars without any legal outpost or station above stage three,” he said, as if he were reading it off a datapad. “The largest population within the sector is on Cottbus itself; four billion on-planet, two billion off-planet. The smallest population is on…”

“All right, all right,” Sasha said. She winked at Katy, as if she wasn’t even aware of the difference in rank. “Give Charlie a question and he’ll spend all day answering it.”

“Forty major industrial nodes, including seven major shipyards,” Charlie continued. “The largest shipyard is at Cottbus itself and is classed as a Type-I…”

“Thank you,” Katy said, firmly. “As you may know, Ambassador Goscinny is going to be making open overtures to Cottbus in hopes of establishing exactly what is going on with them. Your task is to provide verification and attempt to discover just what is actually going on. I want intelligence on just how many worlds follow Admiral Wilhelm, how many ships he actually has and just what he’s building in that shipyard.”

Sasha smiled. “Is that all?”

Katy lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure that you can find that out without compromising yourselves?”

“It shouldn’t be that difficult, at least in the beginning,” Sasha assured her. “I take it that we’ll be operating at Cottbus itself first?”

“It’s the one target that Admiral Wilhelm has to defend,” Katy said. “How do you plan to get into the system?”

“No offence,” Sandra said, speaking for the first time, “but what you don’t know, you can’t be made to tell. We have some methods and technologies on our parasite ship that are so highly classified that I’m surprised that they allowed us to bring them along with you. We literally cannot discuss such things with anyone, but our immediate superiors.”

Katy paused, considering. Sandra’s voice was like liquid sex. She could have made a recital of annual missile usage statistics sound like an invitation to bed. If Katy had been more interested in the female sex, the effect would have been more dramatic, but even so, it pushed at her mind. And yet… she’d heard rumours, whispers, that Imperial Intelligence used mental techniques on its spies, techniques that would keep them loyal and burn their minds out if they were captured. She looked at the three agents, taking in their calm expressions, and knew that at least some of the rumours were true.

“I understand,” she said, finally.

“We will formulate a plan of campaign,” Sasha said. “Once we know how we intend to proceed, we will inform you of the bare bones of the plan and if you can assist us. The plan may require modification once we take a look at the ground, but until then…”

She shrugged. “We won’t fail you, Admiral,” she added. “We have never failed before.”

“Understood,” Katy said. She had heard that Imperial Intelligence agents were weird, but rumour didn’t come close to the reality. “Are you all right here, in this compartment?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie said. “We’ve been in much more cramped spots than this. It’s just a shame we can’t tell you about them.”

Katy consulted her timepiece. “We flicker out in an hour,” she said. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get away from them. “If you need me, call my communicator directly.”

She left the compartment, accepted the salutes of the Marines, and started walking back towards the Flag Bridge, thinking hard. Colin — and Anderson, who had been a part of the conspiracy from the start — had told her that the Imperial Intelligence agents were strange, but expendable. She was used to going into battle with a starship wrapped around her, but they would be going into Cottbus with nothing, but their own wits to protect them. She didn’t envy them in the slightest. If something went wrong, they would literally have no option, but suicide.

Her desktop processor had hundreds of reports on the state of the fleet and she skimmed through them, trusting her Captains to handle their tasks without much in the way of supervision. They might have been largely raw, but they’d had the best training the Shadow Fleet could provide, spiced up by a handful of veteran spacers. They’d worked overtime to identify and deal with any potential problems and, for once, they had all the supplies they needed and a fully-functional fleet train. Her 2^nd Fleet wasn’t the most powerful fleet that Colin and the rebels had mounted, but it was perhaps the most capable. They should be able to handle anything.

She just wished she felt confident. Had she really been so confident when she’d raided Paradise Rest and a dozen other worlds? What would happen when she faced combat again?

An hour later, the fleet flickered out and started on the long trip to Hawthorne.