Democracy's Light

Chapter Thirty-Two

Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter’s obituary took up nearly two pages of one of the more respectable — insofar that respectable could be used when there hadn’t been a free press for more than nine months in the Empire — newssheets, and various pages of the less respectable ones, which had turned from compiling the real lives of the Thousand Families to honour the death of a great man. His early service to the Empire was recounted in fulsome detail, his great achievements lauded to the skies, and his untimely death mourned in a hundred different ways. Hundreds of pages included personal tributes, including a touching one from Tiberius Cicero, Colin and even some of Joshua’s bitterest political enemies. It would be easy to believe that an Emperor had died.

Penny looked up into Joshua’s eyes as the small transport prepared to return to normal space. “The reports of your death, it seems, have been very much exaggerated,” she said, dryly. She had been surprised when Daria had insisted that Joshua ‘die’ in a faked shuttle accident — with enough force-grown tissue from them both to make the accident very convincing — but it made a certain kind of sense. Joshua, no more than any other mortal, couldn’t be in two places at once. “How does it feel to know that everyone believes that you are dead?”

Joshua shrugged, his eyes studying the barren bulkhead as if it was a distraction from more pressing matters. “It has much to recommend it,” he said, solemnly. She would have bet a great deal that he was thinking about his past… and how he’d come to fake his own death, just to ensure that he was free to serve the Empress. “We could just go onwards, out to the Rim, and hide from the universe.”

Penny stared at him. She’d served with Joshua, and under Joshua, ever since she had returned from Sector 117 to report on the growing rebellion… and the loss of Harmony to Colin’s forces. Joshua was that rarity, an Imperial Navy Admiral with a genuine sense of honour and tactics, and she’d blossomed under his tutelage. They’d fought at Morrison together, the first Imperial Navy unit to give the rebels a bloody nose, before effectively betraying the Empire and preventing the mass slaughter of the Gauls. They’d somehow managed to come out of the entire rebellion as heroes, despite having fought on the wrong side, and Penny was surprised that Joshua had just given that up, even for the Empress. They had slipped all the way over the line to outright treason.

She couldn’t say that she was really loyal to the Empire. She’d conceded, long ago, that if Colin had invited her to join his conspiracy, she would have accepted and attempted to knife Percival in the back. It wouldn’t have bothered her. Whatever loyalty she’d had before she’d been invited to join his personal staff — with some very personal duties — had faded away in long unpleasant nights and planning sessions where her advice was frequently ignored. The only thing that had kept her in service after her return to Earth had been Joshua… and his undoubted loyalty to the Empire, if not the Thousand Families. If Joshua had made himself Emperor, she would have followed him gladly, but instead…

Her gaze switched to the viewport. It was blanked out, preventing them from staring out into flicker-space, which was normally deeply disturbing to the human mind. Most people saw nothing, not even lights or strange energies, but there was nevertheless a very real sense of… something lurking out beyond the horizon. Human imagination had filled the weird dimension with ghouls and monsters, creatures that ate entire starships for dinner, but no one had ever proved their existence. It was just one of the tales spacers told when they were all alone in the dark.

She looked back at Joshua. “Do you want to leave?”

Joshua sighed. “I want to keep the Empire strong and stable and we need her to do that,” he said, finally. She knew who he meant. “We need to keep the Imperial Navy strong and we need to prevent the first-rank worlds from gaining the power to tear the Empire apart. We even need to stop Admiral Wilhelm before he takes Earth and burns out the core of the Empire.”

Penny frowned. She had wondered, in her darkest thoughts, if Daria was pulling Admiral Wilhelm’s strings as well. A war situation could be exploited with ease by anyone ruthless enough to do so, and Daria certainly didn’t lack for either courage or cunning. It was how she had survived so long. Penny remembered discussing the mysterious Daria, back when she had worked for Percival, but none of them had gotten near the truth. As far as they knew, the Empress had died somewhere in the vastness of interstellar space, even if no one had ever discovered a body.

She leaned forward. “Do you think that Admiral Wilhelm is working for her?”

“I doubt it,” Joshua said, after a moment. He sounded as if he had been distracted from some greater thought. “I knew him when he was a mere Commodore. I’m surprised that the Hohenzollern Clan decided to have him promoted. He always was an ambitious little bastard, with a wife who was as good as scheming as anyone else I have ever met. Sending her to Earth was a stroke of genius, on so many levels.”

He shook his head. “Why should he cooperate with her when he could claim the prize for himself?”

“I see,” Penny said. She didn’t understand all of the role Daria had assigned to Joshua — she had the oddest feeling that she was merely placing pieces in position for later use — but she could guess at the eventual plan. Joshua’s competence as a fleet commander was not in doubt. If Daria had been telling the truth, she even had a fleet for him to command. “What happens if he wins?”

“The Empire falls apart,” Joshua said, flatly. He gave her a tight bitter smile. “That cannot be allowed.”

The transport’s lights flickered once, warning them to brace themselves, before it returned to normal space. The display cleared and revealed a starscrape, with stars blazing endlessly in the darkness of space. When Penny had been younger, she’d been surprised to discover that stars didn’t twinkle in space, but the effect was caused by the light filtering through the atmosphere before it reached the surface. The transport tilted slightly, compensating for its arrival vector, before altering course and heading towards a set of running lights, blazing out in the distance.

Penny leaned forward as the transport moved closer to the massive bulk. It took on shape and form slowly, illuminated only by running lights and the occasional twinkle of maintenance drones, but it was easy to make out the shape of a General-class superdreadnaught. No one would ever give the designer of the starship class an award for good design, not when the idea had been to design an intimating ship rather than one that was aesthetically pleasing, but it did have a certain haughty grandeur.

“Four squadrons,” Joshua said, his voice unreadable. “There are four squadrons of superdreadnaughts here, enough to tip the balance against Admiral Wilhelm, if they were deployed with the Imperial Navy.”

Penny looked back at him. He had keyed the terminal and brought up a near-space display, using the handful of tuned-down IFF beacons to locate the different starships, waiting patiently near a space station that someone — and it was easy to guess who — had established, years ago. The level of forward planning was astonishing, let alone the sheer brazen nerve in stealing so much from Home Fleet, although she could see how it had been done. Corruption was so epidemic in the Imperial Navy that Daria, who’d commanded Home Fleet before making herself Empress, could have stolen enough war material to outfit a much larger fleet. She remembered, bitterly, just how badly Admiral D’Ammassa had stripped the Morrison Sector Fleet, just to earn himself billions of credits, and shivered. Joshua’s appointment as the Imperial Navy’s supreme commander, his reward for serving the Empress, would lead to the eradication of corruption.

“Four squadrons and over a hundred smaller ships,” Joshua said, thoughtfully. His voice had darkened significantly. “Where did they all come from?”

Penny knew part of the answer to that question. Four squadrons from Home Fleet had deserted during the final stages of the Battle of Earth, vanishing into flicker-space and ensuring a rebel victory. No one knew what had happened to them, until now. Daria’s command of Home Fleet had evidently had a far more lasting effect than Imperial Intelligence had ever understood… or did she command Imperial Intelligence as well? Just how far did her influence stretch?

“Perhaps she had them built at one of the many yards and quietly diverted,” Penny said, finally. It was the only explanation that made sense. There might be only three Type-I shipyards in the Empire, but there were hundreds of Type-II and Type-III shipyards, some of which even built starships for pirate crews, knowingly or otherwise. A creative accountant could hide the expenditure with ease. After all, the Empire rarely bothered to run more than a handful of audits, unless they wanted to ruin the shipyard in question. “Did she make the crews stay here with their ships?”

The transport slid towards the lead superdreadnaught, which read out as the General Monck, and docked neatly at once of the external hatches, rather than attempting to slip into the shuttlebay. Joshua stood up and adjusted his uniform, before opening the hatch and leading the way down to the transport’s airlock. When they stepped through the airlock, they were met by a full party of Household Troops standing at rest — and an old friend.

“Present arms,” Captain Anne Cotman said, as the Household Troops stood to attention. The motions, Penny noted, were different from more regular Marine performance, but it was clearly heartfelt. The presence of the Household Troops explained a great deal. They were only deployed on Imperial Navy starships under very rare circumstances. Joshua, as far as Penny knew, had been the only Admiral to have a brigade of Household Troops under his command for nearly a hundred years.

Joshua smiled as he saluted. “Permission to come onboard, Captain?”

“Granted,” Anne replied, as she returned his salute. She was wearing a uniform that Penny didn’t recognise at first, before finally placing it. A uniform of the Imperial Guard, outlawed for fifty years. Merely wearing it was a direct challenge to established authority. “We’ve been waiting for you, sir.”

She dismissed the Household Troops and led them through the superdreadnaught’s endlessly corridors, up to Officers Country. Penny used the time to inspect the superdreadnaught’s general condition and was pleased to see that it was as fresh and new as if it had just sailed out of the shipyard… and the dull background thrumming of the drives was pleasantly muted. A louder, more unpleasant noise generally meant that something was on the verge of going spectacularly wrong. She spotted a handful of familiar faces from the Morrison Sector Fleet as they entered Officer Country, men and women who’d served under Joshua at Morrison and respected him, and smiled. No wonder Daria had been able to keep them here for so long. They trusted Joshua…

It dawned on her, suddenly, that unless Joshua had known about the plot for far longer than seemed possible, Daria had been running a considerable risk. If Joshua hadn’t been available to command her little fleet, what would have happened to the crew? They might have been convinced to follow someone else, although Penny couldn’t think of anyone with the same degree of prestige and experience, or perhaps Daria had had a more final solution in mind. It was something to remember at the back of her thoughts.

“It’s good to see you again, Anne,” Joshua said, as soon as the hatch hissed closed. The Commander of a superdreadnaught was given almost palatial quarters, although Penny was pleased to see that Anne hadn’t filled hers with souvenirs and knickknacks. Percival’s quarters had been a tribute to his wealth and complete lack of anything reassembling taste, while Joshua had preferred nothing beyond a standard wall for his medals and awards. “How did you end up here?”

“The senior crews who served at Morrison were scattered after the end of the war,” Anne said, as she poured them tea and handed Joshua a china cup. Penny accepted one herself and sipped it gratefully. “I was offered a cruiser command, but then I was approached by your representative and asked if I would like to continue to serve you…”

“Yes, my representative,” Joshua said, calmly. Penny, who knew him better than most, caught the ice hidden behind his words. Joshua was annoyed… and amused. “Tell me about the status of these ships, then.”

Anne smiled as she sipped her own tea. “There’s not much to tell,” she said. She paused, thoughtfully, before continuing. “We had the original crews of these ships and several hundred engineers from the Jupiter Yards, so we started refitting them as we did at Morrison, back before the end of the war. It wasn’t an easy process, but to be fair to Admiral Porter, he did make some inroads on the most urgent problems.”

“There are superdreadnaughts being refitted at Jupiter that should have fought in the battle for Earth,” Joshua rumbled, before taking another sip of his tea. Penny, who’d heard his frequent rants on the subject hundreds of times, nodded in agreement. After the Empress Janice — after Daria — Home Fleet had been run down. It had cost the Empire dearly. “If they had been in any condition to fight without a refit — indeed, practically a rebuild — the battle might have gone the other way.”

“Yes, sir,” Anne agreed. “The first few months were pretty manic, but we finally managed to complete the refit and modernisation scheme for these ships. I can fairly say that they should be a match for anything in the Shadow Fleet, with the possible exception of the Independence-class ships, and have the latest weapons. Of course, there is absolutely no chance of our base being discovered out here, even only two light years from Earth.”

And bare seconds from the planet at FTL speeds, Penny thought. Anne was right, of course. Even the most sensitive sensor network wouldn’t be able to detect the base, until any emissions reached passive sensors orbiting at the edge of the Solar System, and that would be at least a year off, assuming that they weren’t lost in the background roar of the universe. One way or another, the struggle for the future of the Empire would be decided by then. The tri-cornered war would have been resolved.

“Excellent,” Joshua said, as she finished. He wasn’t a man for praise. Penny knew that he only praised people who had done an excellent job. “You have done very well indeed.”

Anne glowed with pleasure. “Thank you, sir,” she said. She smiled brightly enough to make Penny smiled back at her. “Can I ask when we move?”

Joshua lifted an eyebrow. “What did my representative tell you?”

“That when you arrived, we would be going on alert and on an hour’s notice to move,” Anne said. She hadn’t realised — yet — that Joshua had sent no representative. “Now that you’ve arrived, I would like time to run through drills so that you are familiar with your fleet and…”

Joshua held up a hand. “It’s quite all right,” he said, calmly. There were Admirals who would have bitten Anne’s head off and blighted her career for daring to show any trace of independent thinking. Joshua accepted it and welcomed it. His power and position were not at stake. In his Empire, Anne would already be a Commodore by now. “We should have enough time to run some exercises before we flicker out.”

Penny considered it as she finished her tea. It was easy to see what Daria was planning, now. Home Fleet — the Shadow Fleet — represented the core of Colin’s power, a level of firepower that was literally unbeatable by anything that his enemies on Earth could present. As long as he controlled Earth’s low orbitals, his position was effectively impregnable. His death might mean chaos, or it might place someone else in his position, with every incentive to wipe the Earth clean. Joshua’s fleet would do more than just give Daria some teeth. Properly used, under an experienced commander, it would counter the Shadow Fleet. The game was far from unwinnable.

The datapad in her hand accessed the starship’s command network and automatically downloaded a complete status report. Anne wouldn’t have tolerated any false reporting, not after she’d learned so much from Joshua, and she was relieved to know that it didn’t look as if she had misrepresented the situation. The General Monck was in excellent shape, with all of its thousands of components showing up as green. They were completely ready for a fight. She skimmed the training schedule and had to smile. The crew might even be on the verge of being over-trained. Anne was doing an excellent job.

She looked up at Anne and wondered what was going through her head. She’d known Anne back at Morrison, back when she’d been Joshua’s Flag Captain, but where did she think they were going? Did she think that Joshua intended to make himself Emperor, or did she know the truth? The confusion suited no one, but Daria herself… and the fleet had hundreds of her people onboard. Who knew how it would all play out?

“Thank you,” Joshua said, finally. “Can you please show us to our cabins? Once we get settled in, I’ll want a full tour of the starship and then a meeting with the fleet’s Captains. We have much to discuss.”

“Of course,” Anne said. She leaned forward so that she could speak quietly. “We’re all behind you, you know.”

“Are you?” Joshua asked. “That’s good to know.”