Democracy's Light

Chapter Four

The High City, Colin had realised when he’d first set eyes upon it, had been created by someone without any sense of taste or aesthetics. It was a curious mixture of styles, ranging from Ancient Greek and Roman styles to more modern styles, some of them looking like purely imaginary spacecraft, half-buried in the ground. It was huge and yet barely populated, covering over a hundred square miles of ground, inhabited only by the Thousand Families and their servants. The servants, of course, didn’t get to live in the mansions. They had to sleep in the barracks surrounding the city.

It was traditional for all weapons and defensive precautions to be kept out of the High City, but Colin had appointed a Marine Regiment to handle the security precautions, suspecting that the more standard Household Troops or Family security personnel would have divided loyalties if he kept them in the High City. It’s population had swelled over the last few months, from representatives from the outer sectors and reporters from the first-rank worlds coming to see the High City for the first time, to Colin’s people running the government and it had created a whole new security nightmare. No one knew, yet, who had murdered Lord Roosevelt — although Colin wasn’t going to waste time mourning him — and the members of the Provisional Government were very definitely targets. Colin himself had been the target of over a hundred assassination attempts, while Cordova and Kathy had each been targeted on multiple occasions. The handful of captured assassins had been executed, pour encorager les autres, but they hadn’t talked. Someone with access to really high tech and a complete lack of scruples had made tracing them back to their backers impossible. It was, Colin had decided, rather worrying.

It was also traditional for shuttle over-flights to be banned, on the grounds that it upset the high-ranking and influential citizens of the High City, but Colin had overturned that particular rule, on the grounds that he and his people needed to travel around the Solar System as quickly as possible. It hadn’t made them any more popular, he reflected, as the shuttle settled down towards the Parliament building. The odds were that not a few Family Dowagers were seriously considering installing antiaircraft weapons on their lawns.

No one had taken Parliament seriously for centuries. According to unbiased history accounts, or at least as close to unbiased accounts as possible in the Empire, the original Families had struck a deal with the first-rank worlds, under the rule of Emperor Angus, that Parliament would serve as a check on their ambitions. Angus might have genuinely intended it to serve as a democratic block on their abuse of power, but he’d been assassinated and Parliament had become little more than a talking shop. The MPs had learned to keep their heads down, accept the vast bribes that came with their positions, and never think of thinking for themselves at all. The handful that seemed to actually believe all the high-minded propaganda Public Information pumped out about how Parliament made all the real decisions were quickly disposed of by Imperial Intelligence, or turned into puppets, just to keep the rest voting as their patrons ordered them to vote. The Battle of Earth had led, inevitably, to the collapse of Parliament. Colin and Kathy had swept them all out of office, sent the most corrupt and unpleasant to penal worlds, and sent out a call for honest and fair elections that would create a new Parliament. This time, with Colin and his people in control of the planetary defences, Parliament would have real teeth.

Their building was a short brown oblong, standing out from the remainder of the High City by how dingy and used it looked. It was an appearance he suspected to have been deliberately designed to make the point as clearly as possible. There should have been, in theory, two thousand MPs within the building, but there were barely five hundred elected under the new rules, each one trying to feel out their place in the grand scheme of things. The Empire, outside the first-rank worlds and Macore, had had very little experience with democracy and it showed.

The shuttle came down on the lawn in front of the Parliament Building and a team of armed Marines surrounded it. Colin had been embarrassed, at first, to have such a reception, but he’d changed his mind after the first assassination attempt. As he disembarked from the shuttle, the lead Marine ran a scanner over his body, checking his identity against the central database and ensuring that he wasn’t carrying anything dangerous, beyond the pistol he wore on his belt. In an Empire where an unsuspecting dupe could carry a bomb, or worse, into the heart of power, such precautions were necessary, even if Colin himself hated them. He would have hated, he had to admit, being dead more. The Marines escorted him into the building and into the general conference room.

“Welcome back,” Daria said, as he entered. “I was starting to wonder if you wouldn’t make it.”

Colin smiled tiredly. Daria somehow managed to keep looking as young and pretty as ever, despite being something over fifty years old — her real age was a mystery, even to him — while he had a sneaking suspicion he looked rather like a tired and haggard man. She could have passed for twenty-one, her body growing into womanhood, but her eyes showed her real age. She was one of the sharpest people he’d met, with a brain like a razor. She had, somehow, managed to forge the Freebooters into a legitimate political force. He had to admire her for that, if nothing else.

He glanced around the remainder of the table and smiled, tiredly. The room hadn’t been decorated in the classic Imperial style, for which he was silently grateful. It was bare and functional, but little else. He’d had new terminals, computers and security systems installed, but his only other concession to comfort had been a small drinks cabinet. He had intended the room to be functional and businesslike. It was almost a shame that he couldn’t start pushing matters onto Parliament, but they weren’t ready. He could barely keep the Empire together himself.

“We have had something of a development,” he said, finally. “I will allow Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter to brief you.”

That was another compromise, one that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter had been about the only senior officer who’d fought on the other side to come out of it with an intact, and even enhanced, reputation. Given nothing, but his own ingenuity, Joshua had given the Shadow Fleet a bloody nose and its first significant defeat. If the Thousand Families had backed him to the hilt, instead of sticking a metaphorical knife in his back, the war would have gone the other way. Colin still had nightmares about the moment when his ships had been — apparently — locked out of flicker-space with a wall of missiles bearing down on their positions.

And politics had dictated that Joshua be given a place in the Provisional Government.

“We received a dispatch boat from Hawthorn four hours ago,” Joshua said, in his dry voice. He could be inspirational or businesslike, as he chose. “The ship was dispatched as soon as the Caidin returned to Hawthorn, reporting that Cottbus is apparently in rebellion against the Empire.”

Colin winced. Cottbus was the third major industrial hub in the Empire… and the only one outside the Inner Worlds. The Hohenzollern Family had developed it in conjunction with several other Clans in hopes of breaking the Cicero stranglehold on starship construction, including superdreadnaughts. Cottbus had one of the three Type-I Shipyards… and the ability, he presumed, to expand the shipyards to produce more superdreadnaughts. The world hadn’t been a dynamo of research and development — very few worlds, under the Empire, had carried out advanced research and development — but it should have had promise. It was one of the reasons why he had devoted so much effort to securing it.

“The report is fairly simple,” Joshua continued. “The cruisers were ordered to dock at the command fortress, but the CO decided to leave one of the cruisers out of the gravity shadow, just in case of trouble. The command fortress opened fire as soon as the cruisers entered close engagement range and all eight were destroyed. The Caidin was very lucky to evade a pair of battlecruisers, but it flickered out and was able to return to Hawthorn. It downloaded a full report to us, but unfortunately we have very little data beyond the basic sensor data.”

He paused. “The evidence strongly suggests that Cottbus intends to be in rebellion against the Empire,” he concluded. “The sensors suggested that the fleet elements seen within the system were all refitted and ready for battle. I suspect that we must consider the entire sector, perhaps including the surrounding sectors, to be under hostile control.”

Colin scowled as the strategic display appeared in front of them, showing known and suspected dispositions for the Imperial Navy. Cottbus was far enough from Earth to have some degree of effective independence — the Hohenzollern Family or Clan could have been up to anything there, up to and including building superdreadnaughts for placing one of their own people on the throne — and it would be weeks, at least, before they could get a major fleet out to Hawthorn, let alone launch a probing attack on Cottbus itself. In a very real sense, they now faced the same problem the Empire had faced when he’d started the rebellion… and the Empire had lost. It was a bad precedent.

“That leads us to a simple question,” Lord Tiberius Cicero said. “Who is behind this… sudden burst of rebelliousness?”

“Unknown as yet,” Joshua replied, evenly. Colin’s scowl deepened. He had had little choice, but to co-opt the Cicero for the Council, although it was something else that worried him. Joshua was an experienced naval officer who was loyal to the Empire as a force for the benefit of humanity. The Cicero was the Head of his Family and someone who stood to lose, literally, everything if the reform process went too far. He didn’t trust Tiberius, even though he admired the bravery of a man who’d travelled alone to the enemy’s flagship to talk peace, but without him, he dreaded to think what sort of economic chaos would be unleashed. The entire mess was quite bad enough already.

“There are several Admirals in that sector, almost directly opposite Macore and Morrison, who will have suspected that they were on the shit list,” Cordova said, from his position. Cordova was someone else who couldn’t be trusted completely, although there had been no sign of any treachery on his part. If nothing else, no one else would have him. “They’re not really wrong, either. I suspect that several of them have managed to get together as a unit and start preparing a counter-attack against us.”

“And given enough time,” Kathy added, from her position, “they can use Cottbus to build up their own forces and wreck huge damage on our positions.”

“So we don’t give them the time,” Daria said, flatly. Her green eyes went very cold and hard. “They think that we can’t deal with them in time. We have to move, now, to prevent them from counter-attacking.”

The argument went backwards and forwards for several minutes, while Colin listened carefully, keeping his own counsel. Daria was right, in a sense, but the Imperial Navy was overstretched. It was hard enough maintaining enough superdreadnaughts to cover all of the critical targets, while there were never enough smaller craft to provide convoy escorts and protection for interstellar freight. Hundreds of worlds were in a serious state, knocked back hundreds of years in development, and he couldn’t help them all. He could barely keep the economy going.

Worse, because the positions were reversed, he had to worry about covering worlds that would not, normally, have been considered suitable targets. The first-rank worlds were scrambling to expand their defence forces as fast as possible, including their first-ever superdreadnaughts, but they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves for long, unless the Imperial Navy came to their aid. That was bad enough… but then there were the second-rank worlds, the third-rank worlds…

This isn’t going to be solved easily, he thought, grimly.

He tapped the table for attention. “So far, most of this is just speculation,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what happened at Cottbus and we won’t until we get some answers. Joshua, how many ships can Cottbus reasonably expect to have?”

Joshua looked up at Captain Penelope — Penny — Quick, his former Flag Captain and current aide. She’d been offered a command of her own in the wake of the Battle of Earth, but she’d chosen to stay with Joshua instead, working for him directly. It was an odd choice to outsiders, but Colin was fairly sure that she was in love with her superior, technically in breech of the new regulations. He hadn’t been able to determine if they were sleeping together, but if they were, he’d already decided to ignore it.

“Admiral Wilhelm was apparently assigned the standard three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, as well as upwards of two hundred smaller starships that were assigned to his sector,” she said, consulting her terminal. “One of the squadrons was supposed to have been dispatched to Earth in the wake of Second Morrison to reinforce Home Fleet, but apparently never arrived. Assuming that the two nearest sectors are also involved, they may have seven squadrons of superdreadnaughts and over a thousand escorts.”

She paused. “Only a handful of ships deserted from that sector and made it to the Shadow Fleet,” she added. “As far as I can tell, Admiral Wilhelm was allowed to turn it into a private fiefdom by the Hohenzollern Clan, who apparently patronised the Admiral and most of his senior officers. Imperial Intelligence apparently believed that the Admiral was definitely building up a force that was loyal and indeed devoted to him, but they were not allowed to take any action against him.”

“Friends in high places,” Joshua said. Colin could hear a trace of bitterness in his voice. Joshua had been sacked for being too competent for his post, while incompetents like Admiral Percival and Admiral D’Ammassa had been allowed to continue to hold their posts. Some had been merely incompetent. Others had been deeply corrupt. “The entire Hohenzollern Clan must have been behind him if he was that blatant about it.”

Colin nodded slowly. “Do you know him? Does anyone know him?”

“I served under him once as a Midshipman,” Cordova said, unexpectedly. “He was a Commodore at the time, very intent on pressing the flesh with as many members of the Thousand Families as possible. He did very well on exercises, but I doubt that he ever played an unplanned exercise or anything else along those lines.”

“He was supposed to be competent,” Joshua added. He shook his head slowly. “I looked up his records, but there was little beyond the standard fudge. They make him sound like the reincarnation of Admiral Carpathia.”

“In other words, a serious problem,” Colin said. His own records had been carefully written by Admiral Percival to blow his career out of the water and leave him stranded permanently as first officer of the battlecruiser Lightning. Percival, wherever his soul had ended up, had to be choking on that irony. Colin had seized control of the battlecruiser and used it to start the rebellion. Had it really only been two years ago? “It’s not something we can allow to pass.”

He silently canvassed opinion before moving on. “I suggest that we assemble a task force at once to head to Cottbus and demand explanations,” he said. “The commander will have authority to negotiate on our behalf, but only on terms acceptable to us, such as the planet and sector remaining within the Empire. If we have to, we’ll amnesty Wilhelm and his compatriots if they agree to surrender without further bloodshed.”

It didn’t sit well with him — he would have preferred to punish Wilhelm or whoever was in charge for destroying his ships and killing his people — but there was little choice. If Cottbus could be secured without further loss of life, he would accept that as the price for success.

“And if they don’t?” Daria asked. “What do we do then?”

“We cannot allow them to become a running sore,” Colin said. “We move in, fast and hard, and take the worlds back by force.”

He paused. “Is there any other business?”

“A detail, yes,” René Goscinny, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said. He’d been appointed as the first-rank worlds representative to the Provisional Government, a role he was uniquely suited to carrying out. He’d been Gaul’s foreign minister before the Battle of Gaul had broken, once and for all, the taboos surrounding the first-rank worlds. “Do I understand that you intend to proceed with the withdrawal from the alien homeworlds?”

Colin nodded. “There’s little point in keeping the garrisons on their surface, particularly now,” he said, firmly. Humanity had caused the extinction of two alien species, one deliberately, one accidentally — although there were still some dire suspicions — and he was determined that there wouldn’t be a third. They’d been held under the Empire’s iron boot for too long. “I believe that we can grant them autonomy without further ado.”

“It will not be popular,” Goscinny said, firmly. “I suggest that we leave it until…”

“Until when?” Colin asked. The racism within the Empire against non-human races had been a null-issue to him… until he’d come face-to-face with some of the consequences. He’d sworn to end it and he meant it. “It will never be popular, but it has to be done. The sooner, the better.”

Goscinny winced. “And no popular vote?”

Colin shrugged. “Does history record a case where the majority was actually right?”