Democracy's Might

Chapter Nine

Morrison had a long and illustrious history, Penny knew. It had been a naval base before there had actually been an Imperial Navy, then a staging post during the Great Interstellar War. Later, it had served as a base for the Empire’s absorption of all known human colony worlds, only to become less important as the borders were pushed further and further away. Even so, it was still an immense facility. Morrison itself was surrounded by asteroid settlements, shipyards and industrial nodes, while the gas giant had a dozen cloudscoops and other facilities in orbit. She couldn’t help feeling impressed at the sheer level of activity in the system.

Admiral Wachter seemed less impressed as the fleet headed towards the massive orbital fortress that served as System Command. And, as she watched, Penny understood why. The squadron should have been challenged at once, the moment they flickered into the system. No challenge had been forthcoming, nor had the defences gone to full alert. The Admiral snorted in disapproval, then keyed into the system and started to read his way through the full reports. He looked up five minutes later.

“Dispatch inspection teams to the fortresses, the reserves and a random number of starships,” he ordered. “Concentrate on the heavier ships, but pick them at random.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said, gratified that her voice remained steady. A month in transit had given her time to recover, although she still had panic attacks from time to time. The Admiral expected her to think, but he didn’t expect her to stress herself out too much. “I’ll send the teams at once.”

“Then call a full gathering of senior officers — captains and higher — to take place on my ship, five hours from now,” Wachter added. “Inform them that attendance is mandatory. Anyone who doesn’t attend can save time by handing in their resignation.”

Penny surprised herself by giggling. “They’re not going to believe it,” she pointed out. It was hard to fire a senior officer, particularly one with high-ranking patrons. “They might be defiant…”

“Good,” Wachter said. He swung his console over so she could see what he saw. “Just looking from the outside is enough to tell me that someone has been quite hellishly incompetent. Quite a few people, in fact. If the rebels attacked the system, now, I’d expect the defenders to lose.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the display. “Heads are going to roll,” he added. “And I mean that literally.”

Penny nodded, then started to organise the gathering. As she had expected, it wasn’t easy to convince everyone to attend. Most of Morrison’s higher ranks had been there long enough to think themselves immovable, while their juniors were too intimidated or apathetic to care what their seniors did. She wasn’t too surprised. Morrison might once have been a great naval base, but it had been thousands of light years behind the border for too long. By the time the meeting was meant to take place, she was having wistful thoughts about a rebel attack.

“Wear your dress uniform,” Wachter ordered, as they prepared for the gathering. “And take your service pistol with you.”

Penny had been astonished to discover just how many senior officers there were attached to Morrison. There were over five hundred captains, commodores and admirals in the system, half of whom seemed to be redundant. Only two hundred captains even commanded a starship. As several of those ships were listed as being part of the reserve, it was quite likely that they were only in nominal command. It hadn’t stopped them from collecting the salaries attached to the positions.

The compartment was normally used for fleet-level briefings, where over a hundred officers might gather to hear their commander speak. It was the largest compartment on the superdreadnaught, yet cramming so many officer inside was impossible. Penny had finally been forced to separate the lower-ranking officers from their commanders, assigning them to smaller compartments. The whole briefing was going to be broadcast to the entire system anyway — Wachter had insisted — but the attendees hadn’t been told about it. They might have used it as an excuse not to attend in person.

Wachter strode into the compartment and stepped onto the podium, glaring down at the assembled officers. Penny followed him into the compartment, then stood at the edge of the room, beside an armed and armoured Marine. There was an entire company of Marines on alert, just in case the officers decided to get rowdy. Wachter had insisted, despite Penny’s doubts that the officers would offer violence. Unlike Percival, he hadn’t snapped at her for offering her opinion.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” Wachter said, “I am Admiral Joshua Wachter, your new commanding officer. I assume that some of you, at least, have had the sense to access my file once you heard I was taking command. Those of you will know that I have no patience for idiots, I don’t suffer fools gladly and I am absolute death on corruption. This base is supposed to be the linchpin of Earth’s defences, the final barrier between an outside threat and the Core Worlds. And this base is in terrible condition.”

He tapped off points on his fingers, one by one. “Starships in the reserve have been cannibalised, allowed to decay or simply sold off, existing only on paper. Orbital defences have been allowed to weaken to nothingness. Starship maintenance cycles have been abandoned. Spare parts have been sold off to civilian interests while military crews have been forced to scrounge for enough replacements to keep their starships at a barely functional level. High-ranking officers are paid for doing nothing, as far as I can see, while junior officers and crewmen have been deprived of their pay for weeks or months. And quite a few experienced crewmen have been booted out of the navy, even though we desperately need their skills.”

There was a long pause. “Would any of you care to dispute that assessment?”

Penny rather doubted that anyone would. She was right.

“I checked the accounts too,” Wachter added. “Credits have been assigned to procuring pleasure slaves and prostitutes, while starships and orbital fortresses have been deprived of their discretionary funds. Vast sums of money seem to have vanished without trace. Tell me something, if you would be so kind. Just why did you think you could get away with it for so long?”

His voice dripped sarcasm. “Oh, I can guess,” he mocked. “You believed that your patrons would protect you. Perhaps you were giving them a cut of the proceeds. Perhaps you thought that you were satisfying their desires. And perhaps you thought Morrison would never have to go back on a war footing. Well, you were wrong!

“Rebels have taken Sector 117. By now, they will have taken several more sectors — and they will be advancing towards us. They will have no choice. And, if the situation in this system continues, they will overrun the planet and its defences with ease, before advancing onwards to Earth. It will not happen. I will not let it happen.”

His voice hardened. “A third of you have already been marked down as hopelessly, stupidly corrupt. I say stupidly because you didn’t even show the intelligence of a parasite, one smart enough to know it would die when its host died. This isn’t favour-trading, this isn’t simply skimming some money off the top of a contract, this is outright treason! And you will be removed from your positions, stripped of your ranks and dumped on a penal colony. Your patrons will not lift a single finger to save you.”

Penny watched as the Marines flowed through the room, hunting for the people on the list and removing them. There was little resistance, not when the Marines wore light combat armour and carried stunners. The officers who had been spared were staring at Wachter with a strange mixture of emotions on their faces; fear, awe, even a certain amount of respect. But Penny knew that it wasn’t over yet.

Wachter waited until the last officer was removed, then he smiled coldly at the remaining officers. “Doesn’t the room seem smaller without them in it?”

His smile grew wider, but still lacked warmth. “If I had the time, I would sack all of you,” he added. “You did nothing to stop your peers from stealing money, abusing personnel and generally ensuring that Morrison wasted away. A few more decades of such treatment and the rebels wouldn’t have to bother attacking the system. As it is, I will expect one hundred percent commitment from each of you to refurbishing the starships and defences before the rebels attack. If I catch you skimming, slacking or being generally obnoxious, I will put you out the airlock personally. Do you understand me?”

Penny concealed her amusement with an effort. The officers looked thoroughly cowed, although she doubted that would last long. They were probably already composing the notes they intended to send to their patrons, protesting that Wachter was severely overstepping his authority. Penny suspected they would be astonished when they discovered that, if anything, Wachter had the power to purge them all and spit on their remains. No doubt the patronage networks would respond, eventually, but by then the rebels would either have been defeated… or it wouldn’t matter in any case.

“Now,” Wachter said. “We have seven squadrons of superdreadnaughts here. Only three of them, according to my teams, can be considered combat-worthy. The others will need some heavy refurbishment before they can even be considered more than scrap metal, let alone moving targets. The squadron commanding officers were among those removed. Let’s see if their replacements can do a better job.”

Penny suspected that no one on Morrison had ever expected an inspection by a neutral inspector, let alone someone like Admiral Wachter. The Admiral seemed a human dynamo of energy, moving from ship to ship and inspecting them personally, promoting, demoting or even sacking officers on the spot. After two bullying rings were uncovered, large numbers of ordinary crewmen were switched around or added to the holding pens, where they were forced to wait with their former superiors. The Admiral, perhaps wisely, had banned all out-system communications for at least a week.

But it was an immensely difficult task. Each hour brought new problems for the Admiral to solve, ranging from personnel discipline to a colossal shortage of spare parts. The Admiral exploded with rage when he discovered that the industrial facilities had been working flat-out to produce spares, but none of the production had ever been sent to the fleet. Instead, they had been sold to civilians — or pirates. There were enough starships that existed only on paper for Penny to suspect that some of them had simply been sold to pirates. Their so-called commanding officers had simply pocketed the funds intended to keep them going.

“I want you to work with the intelligence crews,” Wachter told her, a week after their arrival at Morrison. “We’re closer to the rebels now; we should start collecting better intelligence.”

Penny was privately relieved. She had never been a very confrontational person before the Mind Techs had gone to work on her; now, she could barely endure raised voices when confronting a single person. Even hearing the Admiral chew out one of his new subordinates made her cringe inwardly, though she knew she wasn’t the target. On the other hand, with someone praising her work and generally looking out for her, she found herself enjoying her career again. She couldn’t help wondering, no matter how treacherous the thought was, if that freedom was what the rebels enjoyed.

There was no shortage of intelligence flowing into Morrison, but the intelligence officers had been either incompetent or focused on internal security. She wasn’t surprised at that either; the crews stationed at Morrison had been so badly treated by their seniors that there were regular threats of mutiny and Marines had had to be deployed numerous times just to quieten them down. Admiral Wachter hadn’t shuffled the crews just to break up bullying rings; he’d also hoped to prevent any planned mutiny from taking place. If the reports from Camelot were accurate, the force that should have defeated the rebels and reclaimed the planet had mutinied against its commanders.

It could happen here, Penny thought. And we’d lose the war.

She pushed the thought aside and turned to the intelligence. In hindsight, it was clear that the Thousand Families should have been tipped off before the Battle of Camelot. There were enough pieces of intelligence for someone to put the picture together, even though Percival had insisted on not reporting anything until the rebels were defeated. She gritted her teeth at the memory — if there was one thing good about the way she’d been treated, it was that she found it hard to think of the bastard — and started looking for anything that post-dated the battle. The rebels were definitely on the offensive.

But they had no choice, she knew. She’d gone over the figures time and time again. A long war suited the Empire, if only because it had a colossal production advantage. The rebels would know that too. They’d understand that their only chance for outright victory was to press the offensive as hard as possible.

And yet they managed to take out the Jupiter Shipyards, she thought. What happens if they take out the other two Class-III shipyards?

She shook her head, dismissing the thought. The Empire could still replace them and start constructing new superdreadnaughts far faster than the rebels. It didn’t change the balance of power, at least not in the short term. Or so she hoped.

“The intelligence is still outdated,” she said, when Wachter stepped into her office. He’d given her a suite next to his, one intended for a Vice Admiral. She found it hard to imagine that anyone would need such a large suite. Even Percival hadn’t brought along a small army of servants and pleasure slaves. “But it’s clear they are advancing towards Morrison.”

Wachter smirked, but there was no malice in it. “As anyone who could read a map could tell you.”

Penny nodded. “I’ve been considering options,” she said. She pointed to the star chart, indicating stars that were likely to be targeted specifically. “We could set small ambushes in these systems, trying to drain their forces.”

“Chancy,” Wachter said. “What would happen if we found ourselves out of place?”

It was a good question, Penny had to admit. And it was more insightful than anything Percival had ever said.

“We station two or three squadrons here, here and here,” she said, altering the map so it showed flicker range. “We also station courier boats in each of the potential targets. When the rebels arrive, the boats jump out and summon the battle squadrons.”

“We don’t have the superdreadnaughts to spare,” Wachter said, slowly. “I’d prefer not to deploy any of them until we have every last ship in good condition.”

Penny nodded in agreement. Some of the superdreadnaughts orbiting Morrison were in such bad condition that cockroaches and rats had taken up residence in the tubes. The entire ship had had to be decompressed, then carefully cleaned to remove all traces of their presence before repairs could begin. They’d even started to chew through sealed compartments and destroy valuable components. The Admiral was right. They didn’t dare risk sending out the superdreadnaughts until they had the entire formation in acceptable condition.

“Still, we can deploy battlecruisers, maybe even heavy cruisers,” Wachter said. “Get in, land a blow or two, then get out. At the very least, the rebels would have to cover their flanks.”

“We could also send ships up towards Jackson’s Folly and raid their rear,” Penny added. “It would be risky, because we would lose track of the ships, but it might be worthwhile.”

Wachter hesitated, studying the chart. “Goddamned Roosevelt Family,” he muttered, unpleasantly. “What were they thinking when they installed so many defences and industrial nodes?”

Penny hesitated, then gave the answer she’d deduced. “They wanted to fight a civil war.”

“It looks like they succeeded,” Wachter grunted. “And they’ve made life harder for the rest of us.”

He looked down at the chart. “I think we’d be better off withholding that until after we’ve given the rebels a bloody nose,” he added. “Organise a couple of heavy squadrons — nothing heavier than battlecruisers — for your ambush scheme. See if we can get in a couple of blows, then force them to shoot off their missiles. Even if they recover them it will still cost them time.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said. Being given general orders made her feel proud. She wasn’t being micromanaged, merely being told what he wanted accomplished and expected to work the rest out for herself. “Will you require me later this evening.”

Wachter hesitated. “I have ordered myself to watch the lashings,” he said. “I issued the orders. I can’t not watch.”

Penny shivered. Lashing was technically legal, but very rare. It was more common to dock a crewman’s pay, demote them a grade or simply reassign them. But several of the bullies had tried to reassert themselves, clearly not taking the Admiral’s warning seriously. Perhaps a public lashing would help them learn the error of their ways.

“You should lash the commanding officers too,” she said, remembering Percival. “They deserve it.”

Wachter nodded, then shook his head. A poor commander generally meant a poor crew, but commanders couldn’t be treated like ordinary crewmen. They were expected to maintain a certain dignity at all times. In Penny’s opinion, far too many of the commanders at Morrison didn’t deserve the title, but there was no helping it. There were only a handful of potential replacements.

“We’ll start formal exercises tomorrow,” Wachter added. “Hopefully, a few of the worst will prove themselves incompetent and give me a chance to remove them. You can command the opposing force.”

He smiled. “Just remember what I told you,” he concluded. “Make them work for their victory.”