Democracy's Light

Chapter Two

“Red Team, this is Red Leader,” a voice said. “Follow me in and watch out for barnacles.”

The starfighters altered course and flashed towards the old superdreadnaught, which was turning ponderously to face them. It had been in such a degraded condition that it hadn’t been allowed to serve with Home Fleet at the Battle of Earth and, when Shadow Fleet technicians had had a careful look at it, had decided that it was beyond recovery. The hulk had been cannibalised of everything useful and then dispatched to the firing range as a target.

“All right, entering point defence range from my mark,” Red Leader continued, his voice changing slightly as he took his flight into harm’s way. “On my command, scatter and engage evasive tactics.”

Space lit up as the superdreadnaught started to open fire, its point defence, optimised for tracking incoming missiles, lashing out towards the starfighters, which responded by running through a series of random evasive manoeuvres, dodging the fire with ease. From his vantage point, Colin Harper watched as the face of naval warfare in the year 4015 changed yet again. A superdreadnaught was normally capable of defending itself against any serious assault, although the salvos the arsenal ships had deployed during the rebellion had dwarfed anything that the pre-rebellion Empire had imagined, and could hope to take out half of the attacking missiles before they slammed home against its shields, but now…

The starfighters weren’t acting like missiles, but more like completely random elements, dancing ever-closer to the massive ship while avoiding everything it fired at them. The superdreadnaught just couldn’t compete as the starfighters slipped into energy range, avoiding the massive blasts from its fission cannons with ease. Weapons that could blast a destroyer or cruiser into free-floating atoms, or severely maul a fellow superdreadnaught could have vaporised a starfighter, if they had been allowed to catch it within its beam. The starfighters laughed at the defences and pressed closer, selecting their targets with ease.

“Entering engagement range now,” Red Leader said, his voice growing in confidence as the starfighters came closer. “Firing missiles… now!”

The starfighter seemed to jerk on the display as it unleashed the two missiles slung below its stubby wings, firing them both towards the superdreadnaught, joined within seconds by missiles from the remaining eleven starfighters. The superdreadnaught ignored the starfighters now, desperately trying to take out the missiles before they could strike the shield, but it was too late. One by one, the missiles reached the shield… and slipped through. Before the superdreadnaught could react, the first one struck home, slamming into the hull and detonating in a blast of thermonuclear fire.

“They didn’t take it out,” Colin said, perversely disappointed. No superdreadnaught had been damaged so easily during the fighting, even during the final moments of the Battle of Harmony, but somehow it was still intact. It was glowing in a dozen places, signs of fires and internal devastation, but it was still manoeuvring. It was, he supposed, a testament to the Empire’s policy of armouring superdreadnaughts past all rhyme and reason. “Can it still flicker?”

“I suspect so,” Commodore David Houston said. Colin had given him command of the 1^st Experimental Squadron, suspecting that he would need someone with experience of using the new weapons, after the Battle of Earth. His former Flag Captain had taken to the role like a duck to water. “The ship is completely automated, of course, so no damage control teams, but the download suggests that the damage was mainly centred to the starboard drive nodes and shield generators.”

“But it can no longer project starboard shields,” Salgak rasped. The Geek wore a standard cowl, half-hiding his face, but it failed to hide the cyborg implants that tore and mutilated at his flesh. He might have been handsome once — Colin would not have cared to swear to it, or anything else regarding the Geeks — but he had given it up to seek union with computers and other devices. The Empire had regarded them as a dangerous menace and, even now, few people could look on them without feeling repulsed. Most implants, the handful that had been legal, were hidden beneath the skin, but the Geeks gloried in their difference from the human norm. “A second strike, even without the shield-busting missiles, would complete the destruction of the ship.”

David nodded in agreement. “Any rational Captain, assuming that he survived, would be trying to surrender or flicker out,” he said. It was, Colin knew, a moot point. The remains of the superdreadnaught’s flicker drive had been pulled out to help repair two others that had been captured at Gaul. The computers running the ship couldn’t have flickered out if their lives depended on it. “Should we send in the second flight?”

“Why not?” Salgak rasped. “Let us complete the destruction of an ugly ship.”

Colin didn’t, quite, roll his eyes. The Geeks produced the most remarkable ships in the Empire, including the powerful Independence-class superdreadnaughts that had fought at Earth, but they had their own sense of aesthetics. The Empire, by contrast, tended towards the brute force approach. There was little subtle in a General-class superdreadnaught and they wanted the universe to know it. There was little point in modelling the starfighters as if they had to fly through atmospheres using old-style jet engines, rather than simply using drive fields, but they’d insisted and, as they were doing the construction work, had won the argument. The starfighters, he had to admit, looked rather spectacular.

It was the missiles that made them deadly, however, and they were another Geek invention. The shield-buster missiles simply couldn’t be fired from standard range, which meant that they had to be deployed from very close to the target ship, too close for any hope of survival. The Second Battle of Harmony had featured gunboats, flickering into extremely-close range to launch the missiles, but the concept hadn’t been a success. The entire gunboat force had been wiped out. They were too large to dodge easily and too small to be heavily shielded… although that, too, was a moot point so close to a superdreadnaught’s fission beams. The starfighters, on the other hand…

He watched, grimly, as Blue Squadron leapt to the attack, closing in rapidly on the stricken superdreadnaught. The target ship’s point defence had been badly weakened by the first strikes and it couldn’t turn fast enough to prevent them from heading right towards the damaged sectors. The starfighters were tiny, small enough to accelerate to their full speed almost instantly… and no lumbering superdreadnaught could match them. One by one, they unleashed their warheads, exploding deep within the superdreadnaught’s hull… and the superdreadnaught blew apart in a blinding flash.

“Direct hit,” someone carolled over the communication channels. “Scratch one flattop!”

“Target destroyed,” Salgak said, dispassionately. “All starfighters are returning to base.”

Colin frowned. “Scratch one flattop?”

David had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “No one has used starfighters or anything like them for centuries,” he said. “The concept simply wasn’t workable before now. We had to look back to the pre-spaceflight days for anything remotely comparable and… well, the pilots fell in love with some of the old movie characters.”

“I see,” Colin said. Truthfully, he found it more amusing than annoying. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

“There have been thousands of applicants to be pilots,” David said, as they watched the starfighters returning to their base ship. “We started with people who had had experience with small craft — shuttle pilots and the like — but not all of them made the transition successfully. Marine landing craft pilots and assault shuttle pilots did the best, although we still had a series of accidents until we got a proper simulator set up on the Ark Royal — that’s the refitted bulk freighter we’ve been using as a carrier.”

He shrugged. “Overall, the concept is definitely workable,” he concluded. “We can start mass production as soon as the shipyards are ready.”

“Which will not be for months,” Salgak rasped, looking up at them. A thin communications laser shone out of his implants and linked into the vessels computers. “We underestimated the Empire’s ability to screw up their facilities… and, of course, the suicide attack on the Jupiter shipyards didn’t help. Hundreds of facilities will have to be refitted before they can produce either Independence-class superdreadnaughts or starfighters.”

“We’re going to need Generals and Admirals,” David said, grimly. They’d clearly had the debate before. The Imperial Navy had been hammered hard during the rebellion and was barely a shadow of its former self. “We need every ship we can get up and running as soon as possible, so never mind perfection…”

Colin scowled. The first thing he’d done, once he’d installed his people in Earth’s orbital defences — and therefore ensuring that he could keep a grip on the planet itself — had been to start attempting to track down and account for every Imperial Navy starship that had been in commission when he’d started the rebellion. He hadn’t expected a quick result, but the early research had suggested that a depressing number of starships had been destroyed, or had gone renegade, or had simply never existed at all. Corruption had been the lifeblood of the Imperial Navy and it was quite possible — more than merely possible — that several hundred starships, including a number of superdreadnaughts, had been nothing more than entries on the fleet register, while their commanding officers had pocketed the funds allocated for their construction. He’d already had a number of officers removed and arrested for such antics, but he had a nasty feeling that he had barely scratched the surface.

And the rebellion had severely damaged the Empire. Piracy was on the upsurge everywhere, but back in Sector 117, where it had all started. Daria, the Freebooter Queen, as they called her, had brought pirates back into the warm, or had ruthlessly exterminated pirates who had refused to play ball, but her reach had had limits. The confusion that still spread through the Empire meant that the pirates were having a field day raiding at will, while the Imperial Navy could barely provide enough protection. Hell, some of the raiders were former Imperial Navy personnel. David was right, really; they needed more ships, even if they weren’t the most modern starships in existence.

“An argument for another time, perhaps,” he said, diplomatically. “Salgak, how many starfighters can you produce within a few months?”

“Maybe a thousand, assuming that we don’t get any more yards here,” Salgak said, after a moment’s thought. “The difficult part will be deploying them anywhere where they will be needed.”

“Here, perhaps,” Colin said, absently. The downside of running the Empire, he had come to discover, was that it was hard to trust his subordinates. He trusted everyone who had served in the Shadow Fleet, but there were Admirals in the Imperial Navy who were far from trustworthy. Ironically, he’d come to realise that if he pushed them too hard, they’d rebel against the Provisional Government. If they managed to get organised as a unit, they’d have enough firepower to retake Earth… and commit the Empire to a second round of civil war. “If we can cut loose a few squadrons of cruisers and destroyers from here, we might be able to make a dent in piracy.”

“Perhaps,” Salgak agreed. The Geek bowed formally. “If you’ll excuse me…”

He departed, his heavy tread echoing in their heads before the bulkhead hatch closed behind him. “Interesting person,” David said, dryly. “There are times when I could almost see the virtue of joining them.”

“The girls wouldn’t be so interested in you if you had a face marred by implants and… things that would poke her eye out when she tried to kiss you,” Colin replied, dryly. He had always been able to relax with David, even if he couldn’t relax around anyone else, particularly half of the Provisional Government. The rebellion had once been completely under his control, but now… now, it was so large that he couldn’t handle it all. He’d had to make compromises and some of them worried him badly. He looked back out towards the starfield and scowled. “How is the remainder of the Experimental Squadron coping?”

“Pretty well,” David said, slowly. “There was a lot of dissent about the starfighters at first, but when we started to run proper drills, most of that dried up and became enthusiastic support. The only real question is what we’re going to do with them?”

“Perhaps re-ignite the human race’s progress,” Colin said, after a moment. “The Empire effectively froze progress for centuries, but now we can encourage new businesses and research efforts that will expand the Empire’s tech base and, just incidentally, remove some of the Clans from the equation.” He shrugged. “And we might need them to go to war, David. There’s still the mystery of the four missing superdreadnaught squadrons.”

David nodded. Back during the Battle of Earth, four superdreadnaught squadrons had deserted Home Fleet and flickered out for parts unknown, without even a parting shot at the rebels. No one had been able to come up with a convincing explanation, but Colin suspected that their commanders intended to carve out an Empire for themselves, somewhere out along the Rim. They might even attempt to seize a sector and turn it into a springboard for retaking Earth. He’d nervously expected to hear news of them every day, but after six months, he was starting to wonder if they’d all flickered out well past the Rim. They could be anywhere.

“And how about you personally?” David asked, finally. “It’s been four months since I saw you. How are you coping with Government?”

Colin scowled. “Do you remember when I said that we shouldn’t scorch Earth?” David nodded. “I was wrong. The entire planet is driving me mad.”

David quirked an eyebrow at him. “It’s that bad?”

“It’s a nightmare,” Colin said. “I never realised just how bad it was… and I should have known. There are thousands of competing interests, over everything, and somehow I have to cajole, bribe or force them into marching in the same direction. Push one place, half a dozen others protest loudly, press for one policy, discover that the price of support is later support for something you know damn well shouldn’t be done.”

He sighed. “The Families want to keep as much of their power as possible, but many of their workers have unionised and are demanding better treatment, while the colonies and the first-rank worlds have seized much of their assets in payment for centuries of economic rape. The higher officers of the Imperial Navy hate my guts, not without reason, and think I intend to replace them all…”

“You do,” David pointed out. “How many of them are fit to kiss Admiral Percival’s ass?”

“There are times when I worry about you,” Colin said, wryly. “You’re right, I do intend to clean out as many as possible, but they all have patrons. Add in the fact that half of them have friends and allies in the outer sectors, some of them commanding some quite serious firepower… I’m surprised that no one has managed to organise them by now.”

“Someone might have done,” David pointed out. “Why did you agree to accept Admiral Wachter as CNO?”

“They wanted someone reassuring and I wanted him somewhere I could keep an eye on him,” Colin said. “I’m tired, I feel old… and I don’t dare take a long break for fear of something breaking. I used to play chess and basketball, but now I don’t even dare let myself do that. I’ve tied myself down to the High City and…”

He shook his head. “And I’m feeling sorry for myself,” he concluded. “When do you hope to have this carrier wing ready for deployment?”

“Give us a few weeks and we’ll have the force ready,” David said. “You do sound as if you need a break. Isn’t there somewhere on Earth you can go for a while, away from any responsibilities?”

“And when I got back, everything would be falling apart and we’d be fighting a second civil war,” Colin said, tiredly. “Give it a couple of years without any major disasters and I might be able to relax, secure in the knowledge that Parliament is in control of the Empire and all possible internal threats have been neutralised.”

“And that’s not going to happen,” David said. “There are always going to be problems.” He paused. “On the other hand… how many problems does Admiral Percival have?”

“None,” Colin said. “He’s dead.”

“And it suits him,” David said. “Now, the pilots are quite eager to meet you, so…”

Colin allowed him to lead him into the wardroom, where the pilots were waiting, and spent the next hour happily chatting to them, despite the differences in their ranks. The Shadow Fleet hadn’t encouraged the exaggerated deference of the Imperial Navy — there had been officers who had demanded a full prostration from their subordinates — and there was a certain air of informality, although there was still a barrier. Colin realised, numbly, that he had grown into his role… and the young pilots were still at the beginnings of their careers. To them, all of the new ways were nothing new.

“Perhaps, afterwards, I’ll obtain a survey ship and go exploring out beyond the Rim,” he said to David, who smiled. “That would be something wonderful.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of a courier boat. “Admiral, we have a message for you,” the communications officer said. Colin skimmed it quickly, cursing under his breath. It had been almost exactly what he had been dreading. “Your presence is required back on Earth.”

Colin scowled. “See what I mean?” He asked, dryly. There would be time to reprimand the communications officer later. It wasn’t generally a good idea to discuss messages in front of everyone, even if it wasn’t a surprise. “David, get the wing worked up as quickly as possible. I think they’re going to be needed.”

The pilots cheered.