Democracy's Light

Chapter Eighteen

Andy Gillingham lay on the bed, a strange half-smile on his face.

Charlie watched dispassionately as Sandra lay next to him, wearing only a pair of thin panties, and murmured questions in his ear. The drug she’d hit him with, apart from merely bringing a sex-starved man face-to-face with her perfect body, had been artfully designed. Gillingham would remember nothing of the conversation, or even of the interrogation, remembering only a romantic meeting with a fellow traveller. His mind would add details itself, from how much she enjoyed his attentions to how many times they’d done it in the bed, and he wouldn’t be inclined to question them. It would have drawn his conquest into question.

The drug itself was fast-acting and very hard to detect. It had sent him into a light trance, one that he would take hours to come out of, even without being prodded. It would leave his system fairly quickly and would be completely gone within a few hours, although he would remain entranced for much longer. Imperial Intelligence had taught Sandra how to use her body and sexuality to best advantage and Charlie knew just how good she was. Gillingham would never know what had hit him.

He was also incapable of hearing anyone, but Sandra. A squad of armed Marines could have burst into the room, shouting orders and firing their weapons right next to his ears, and he wouldn’t have heard a thing. Charlie could chat with Sasha all he wanted and Gillingham wouldn’t know; he wouldn’t even be aware of their presence. Sandra was his entire universe now, as long as he remained in trance, and he would have a perfect explanation for missing time. In the past, taking someone out of the loop for more than a few hours would have raised eyebrows, but now anyone suspicious would discover that Gillingham had merely found a partner for the night.

“A stroke of luck, perhaps,” Sasha said, beckoning Charlie away from the bed to the other side of the room. Charlie came without reluctance. Somehow, knowing what was going on robbed the scene of all of its emotional value. Gillingham would be devastated if he knew how little Sandra cared for his opinion, or even his body. She’d once lured a pair of Imperial Navy officers with dubious loyalties into her bed, engaged in a long and happy session of pillow talk with them, and then calmly reported them to Imperial Intelligence as possible subversives. The two men had never connected her with their arrest, quick trial and sentence to a prison world. “What do you think?”

Charlie frowned. Gillingham would never know that Sandra had picked him out of a crowd and called him effortlessly to her — come hither, his mind whispered — but it was quite possible that they’d had too much luck. If someone suspected their presence, why not take the opportunity to slip them a ringer? Imperial Intelligence didn’t have a monopoly on willingness to use dubious means when necessary and whatever counter-intelligence Admiral Wilhelm possessed would be looking out for spies. It didn’t seem likely, however. If he were normal, Gillingham couldn’t have hidden anything from Sandra and the kind of brain-surgery required to alter his responses to the point where he could hide something — anything — would have been obvious right from the start.

But it was still a worrying coincidence.

“I think we’ve gotten lucky,” he said, finally, after outlining all of his reservations. The same problems would have occurred to Sasha. She was, in many ways, far more experienced than he was at such matters. “The odds against it, however…”

“It gets worse,” Sasha said. She tapped the side of her head meaningfully. “I checked Andy Gillingham against the database of citizens — Cottbus citizens, that is — and he doesn’t show up. That shouldn’t happen, not for someone who has clearly worked in a shipyard — he talks the talk too good for that to be a lie — and its worrying.”

Charlie felt his eyes go wide. The Empire tried to register everyone, no exceptions, who lived within the Empire. It rarely worked out perfectly in practice — there were uncounted trillions of humans within the Empire — but everyone who worked directly for a shipyard, a Type-I shipyard at that, should have been registered. Sasha hadn’t been able to carry all the names and details around in her head, but they’d pulled a copy from the Imperial Intelligence base on Hawthorn and Gillingham’s name should have been there. If it wasn’t…

“I suspect he’s genuine all right, but that he’s not from here,” Sasha said. “If he was brought in from outside the sector, he won’t be on our lists.” She raised her voice. “Sandra, ask him where he comes from.”

There was a brief moment when Sandra whispered sweet nothings in his ear and listened, carefully, to his murmured responses. “Tao’s World,” she said, finally. Charlie swore. He couldn’t remember, offhand, who Tao had been and if he’d named the world personally, but he knew where it was. Sector 77, right on the other side of Cottbus from Earth… and now almost certainly an ally of Admiral Wilhelm. The calculations about relative fleet strengths had just been proven invalid. He might have upwards of twice as many ships as had been predicted… and that meant that Cottbus should have been far more heavily defended.

He listened as Sandra, following his thoughts, asked more probing questions. The story that emerged was growing worrying. Gillingham had been summoned to Cottbus to assist with the redevelopment of the shipyard… from his previous position at Tao’s World. That made a depressing kind of sense. The shipyards and starships on the outskirts of the Empire tended to be in better shape than the ships further in towards the Core Worlds. If the stories about Morrison were true, the starships there hadn’t been able to operate until their new commanding officer had executed the previous commanding officer and started a massive refitting program. Admiral Wilhelm hadn’t missed a trick.

And as for the numbers of starships…

“Hellfire,” Sasha muttered. “Sandra, put him into a deeper trance. We need to talk.”

They moved to a secondary room, even though there was little point. Gillingham wouldn’t have heard or remembered anything, at least in theory, once Sandra had put him into a deeper trance, but none of them had lasted long by taking foolish chances. Sandra didn’t bother to dress, but she picked up a glass of water and drank it noisily, just to cool herself down. Seducing the innocent, Charlie decided, was obviously thirsty work.

“The logic is inescapable,” Sasha said, once the door was closed and Charlie had run a sweep for bugs. They hadn’t found one since they’d moved into the small hotel complex, but some of the places they’d stayed had been virtual auditoriums. It was quite common for landlords to watch their patrons carefully, just in case of recording blackmail material, or just out of simple voyeuristic interest. “Admiral Wilhelm has the support, according to Andy there, of three other sectors. That is not good.”

As understatement, Charlie thought, it took the limit. “Yes,” he said, flatly. He knew more about starships and space warfare techniques, at least in theory, than the others, but he was far from an expert. “If he has the combined sector fleets, he out-masses Admiral Garland by at least three-to-one. The result will not be pretty.”

“The 2^nd fleet includes a lot of the new technology,” Sandra pointed out. The exact details might have been classified, but they knew the basics, everyone did. Admiral Wilhelm would certainly have sensor records from the Battle of Earth. “Won’t that even the odds?”

Charlie shook his head. “Against three times her strength with absolutely no warning of what she’s facing?”

“True,” Sasha said. She glanced down at her timepiece. “That leaves us with an interesting problem. Admiral Garland will have already departed her base and we have no idea where she intends to use as her final waypoint. If we intend to warn her, we must do so here, which will almost certainly reveal our own presence.”

“I hate to be cold-blooded about this,” Sandra said, “but there are three of us and over thirty thousand men and women on her ships. Our lives are nothing compared to that — or, for that matter, starships that cannot be replaced quickly.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. A woman who could casually seduce someone, drug him for interrogation and then walk around almost naked was always cold-blooded. He wouldn’t have slept with Sandra, despite her beauty and extensive array of sexual skills, even if he were offered all the wealth in the Empire. She used her beauty as she used everything else — as a weapon.

“I know,” Sasha said. “If we warn the Admiral directly, we will reveal our presence, so we don’t want to do that. Remaining here may offer us a chance to take a shot at Admiral Wilhelm directly.”

Sandra scowled. “Assassination is not within our orders,” she said, firmly, crossing her arms under her breasts. “If we go beyond the scope…”

“What choice do we have?” Sasha asked, reasonably. “If Admiral Wilhelm is far more powerful than he seems, then he will tear hell out of the Empire, even if he loses in the end. We should take up a position within his power structure and take the first shot at him we get. This is our duty.”

“I am not disputing that,” Charlie said, holding up a hand. “However, that still leaves us with the problem of warning the fleet. That was covered directly in our orders.”

He ran through the possibilities. A direct radio transmission would betray their presence. A laser communications beam was undetectable, but using it would require knowing where the fleet was going to emerge and remaining in orbit for a long period, neither of which they had. The Neddy Seagoon might be able to leave the system, but she wouldn’t be allowed to float in orbit, not when she could land. Even trying to remain in orbit would set off all kinds of signals at System Command.

Sasha stroked her chin. “Sandra, could you slip a post-hypnotic suggestion into your lover?”

Sandra frowned. “Maybe,” she said, reluctantly. “You want him to organise an emergency signal to the fleet?” Sasha nodded. “I can try, but I don’t know if it will take.”

Charlie nodded. The public view of Imperial Intelligence was that it could condition someone to do anything, from going into sexual slavery to acting as an unwitting spy among their former friends and allies. It was even true, to some degree, but it required a long period of conditioning and access to drugs and technology that they didn’t possess… and, under the right sort of analysis, it was instantly noticeable. A post-hypnotic command, given to a man under the influence of various drugs, might work… or it might simply be dismissed as another mad influence.

“Unless someone comes up with an alternative, we have no choice,” Sasha said. Charlie scowled. The best alternate plan he could think of was to insert a command into the orbital communications network, but they didn’t have a webhead with them and anything lesser would probably be noticed. “You can implant the command and then bring him out of his trance slowly. The rest of us will start looking for a way into Admiral Wilhelm’s stronghold.”

Andy Gillingham struggled back to awareness, surfacing from a bed of pleasure and joy reluctantly, not wanting to wake up. He felt wonderfully refreshed and relaxed, as if he had been sleeping for a week, and reached out with a hand. It touched what was indisputably a female breast and his eyes snapped open. There was a girl in bed with him!

Memories returned; they’d met back at the bar, they’d gone up to her room… and they’d slept together. He was sure of it. Somehow, he’d picked up a wonderful girl and fucked her senseless! Her eyes opened and met his… and he felt himself falling into her dark ovals. She smiled at him, kissed his lips again, and climbed on top of him, pushing down and impaling herself on his penis. As she started to ride him, all of Gillingham’s questions faded away, replaced only with the certainty of her presence. He didn’t want to — he couldn’t — question here.

Afterwards, they lay in bed, nibbling from a tray of food that room service had forwarded to them. The poor assistant had seen everything when Sandra opened the door, but she’d merely taken the food from him, placed a small kiss on his cheek while his eyes still hadn’t reached her face, and closed the door firmly behind him.

“What’s the time?” He asked, finally. He hadn’t even wanted to look at his watch and he had a nasty suspicion that he’d overstayed his welcome. “How long have we been…?”

“Oh, enough to make me really sore and happy, lover,” Sandra said, calmly. She passed him his watch and smiled. “You really have the stamina of a horse.”

Somehow, that didn’t seem strange to him. He checked his watch and swore. He wasn’t overdue at the shipyard, but he would have to run. He leapt out of bed and ran into the shower. A moment later, Sandra joined him.

“Hey,” he protested, as she started to wash his hair. No one had washed his hair since he’d been a child. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning you,” Sandra said, practically. Her bare breasts pushed against his back as one hand reached down to stroke his penis. “Will I see you again later?”

They exchanged communications codes before parting. He couldn’t remember being as happy in his life. Somehow, she made him feel complete…

And he missed the look of contempt she shot his back completely.

The destroyer flickered into existence just outside the gravity shadow, already racing towards the planet fast enough to be dangerous. Targeting sensors locked onto the ship at once, sending orders through the network to prepare to engage when — if — it came within range, while communication beams demanded identification and explanations. The crew of the destroyer sent back a single signal, addressed to Admiral Wilhelm personally, and the targeting sensors snapped off. Having delivered its message, the destroyer slowed and settled down into a proper orbit. It had been a long flight.

Admiral Wilhelm was having breakfast when the message arrived on his terminal. He’d been expecting it long enough to abandon a half-eaten plate of bacon and eggs on the table and open the message instead, skimming it quickly. Admiral Garland — her name had been picked up from intercepted transmissions in the system — was finally on her way. The picketing destroyer had even managed to sneak close enough to get a fairly comprehensive list of ship types and names, although most of them were of unfamiliar design.

The Geeks at work, he thought, as he studied the images. They would have been incomprehensible to a layman — and he had to admit that he couldn’t have pulled as much from them as a fully-trained analysis team — but there was a surprising amount of detail. His analysts had estimated that the Independence-class superdreadnaughts had half again the firepower of a General-class superdreadnaught, but if they had managed to improve and perfect the fire control system, they might have twice as much firepower. There was no way to know, short of actually engaging them, but the Nerds had warned that the Geeks had made big steps forward in ECM and fire control systems.

He scowled. The real limit on warship size wasn’t anything to do with the flicker drive. With enough power, someone could push a planet through flicker-space, although in practice the gravity shadow would have made that impossible. The limit was how many missiles a starship could fire and control. An arsenal ship merely fired off a single mass of missiles, their dumb warhead mentalities focused on hitting one target, while using a handful of coordinating missiles to improve their targeting. The system was simple enough and easy to duplicate. The Geeks, however, had actually improved the targeting system for their superdreadnaughts… and that made them more deadly than ever. Even worse, if they had expanded the concept to the arsenal ships as well, they would have far more effective firepower than his entire fleet. The presence of the other Admirals, however, would tip the scales.

The data finished scrolling up the terminal and asked if he wanted to review it again. He shook his head and cancelled that request, choosing instead to forward the data to the other Admirals and the analysis section. It was a pity that they hadn’t been able to get any sensor records of the rebel fleet drilling — that would have allowed him to get a feel for how his opponent thought and acted — but they had enough. Judging from the records at the end, they could expect Admiral Garland within a day, perhaps longer. An entire fleet took longer to manhandle to a particular location than a single starship.

He keyed his communicator and smiled as the face of his tactical officer appeared on the display. “I’m forwarding you the data from the destroyer,” he said. “Use the laser links and warn Task Force 2 and Task Force 3 to remain firmly under cloak; I don’t want to see even a hint of their presence on my displays. Once that’s completed, I want you to study the records carefully and report to me in two hours to compare conclusions.”

The thrill of finally coming to blows with his opponent warmed him. “And send a classified signal to all ships,” he concluded. “I want them to prepare for action at a moment’s notice. Tell them not to worry about the expense, or the wear and tear on the equipment, not when the rebel fleet is finally on its way.”

He smiled. “We wouldn’t want to be inhospitable,” he said. He allowed, just briefly, his teeth to show. “We must prepare a proper welcome.”