Democracy's Might

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, “their point defence network has collapsed.”

Colin allowed himself a tight smile. The Geeks had been right; they’d told him that the network could be brought down, with the right modifications to the ECM drones. Right now, every starship orbiting Morrison had been forced to rely on its own defences, rather than fighting as part of a group. They were terrifyingly exposed to his fire.

“Take us into missile range,” he ordered. “Then fire at will.”

Penny watched in horror as the enemy launched a second barrage of missiles. The point defence network had collapsed completely, forcing the techs to shut it down and then reboot the system, knowing all the while that the enemy were pressing their advantage. It would take too long to reboot the system completely, but they had no choice. Without it, they were doomed.

“Recall the gunboats, order them to provide targeting solutions,” Wachter ordered. But she knew it was just a stopgap at best. As long as the network was down, their ability to operate as a unified force was non-existent. “And then order the orbital facilities to open fire, even at extreme range.”

Penny nodded. The enemy arsenal ships, having fired their missiles, were retreating back towards the edge of the gravity shadow while the superdreadnaughts were firing a third barrage. Admiral Wachter’s ships had returned fire, naturally, but the enemy point defence network was up and running. They’d be able to hold themselves together far longer than the Morrison Fleet.

“And warn all hands to brace for impact,” Wachter ordered. “This is going to be bad.”

He was right, Penny saw, as the first wave of missiles crashed down on the superdreadnaughts. Without the network, various ships went after the same targets while other missiles were left alone to slam into vulnerable superdreadnaughts. Shields flickered, then failed, leaving the ships defenceless. One by one, the superdreadnaughts began to take heavy damage. Beyond them, even the orbital fortifications came under fire.

She gritted her teeth as the enemy fired yet another barrage. Half of the defending cruisers and destroyers were already gone and most of the remainder had taken damage. The Morrison Fleet, once so capable, had been smashed. Wachter gave her a sidelong look, then shrugged. He knew when the battle was lost.

“Hold fire,” he ordered. “Contact the rebels and offer them our surrender.”

Penny braced herself. It was possible that the rebels weren’t in the mood to take prisoners — or that they wouldn’t simply get the message until it was too late. Messages could be lost easily in the chaos of a battle, everyone knew. And then there were the Blackshirts from Earth. Would they tamely accept an order to surrender?

“The rebels are holding fire,” the tactical officer said.

“Picking up a message,” the communications officer added. “They’re ordering us to drop our remaining shields and shut down our drives.”

“Make it so,” Wachter ordered. “I…”

The security officer swore. “Admiral, the Marines report that some of the Blackshirts have turned on them,” he said. “They’re advancing towards the bridge and CIC.”

“Seal the compartment,” Wachter ordered. “Alert the Marines on the orbital fortifications. They are not to allow them to fall into anyone’s hands.”

Penny unbuttoned her holster. She’d spent enough time practicing at the firing range to qualify for a marksman badge, although she hadn’t bothered to actually apply. It would have appeared in her file and warned potential enemies that she could actually hit her target. A quick check revealed that someone had taken down the internal security system. The Blackshirts and their allies might just make it to the bridge after all.

“Contact the rebels,” Wachter ordered. Somehow, he still managed to sound calm. “Inform them of our situation and request assistance.”

Penny stared at him. “You think they’ll help?”

“If they want the planet’s facilities, they’ll help,” Wachter said. He nodded towards the status board. Several orbital fortresses had dropped out entirely, suggesting that the Blackshirts had taken control. “They won’t have any choice.”

“Director Smyth is broadcasting on all channels,” the communications officer said, suddenly. “He’s accusing you of treason and ordering all loyal officers to take you into custody and resume the battle.”

Penny shook her head in disbelief. She had little regard for Imperial Intelligence’s intelligence, but they had to realise the battle was lost. If they hadn’t been in the gravity shadow, they could have flickered out and rebooted the network at leisure, yet they were definitely trapped. And now, with shields and drives gone, they would be sitting ducks if they tried to resume the fight. The rebels would blow them away within seconds.

“Admiral,” she said, very quietly, “shouldn’t we neutralise the ships? And the orbital facilities?”

Wachter hesitated, considering it. “Only if we lose control to the Blackshirts,” he said. “And only then.”

Penny lifted her eyebrows. “Sir,” she said, “that will put more superdreadnaughts in rebel hands…”

“All badly damaged,” Wachter reminded her. “One way or another, the war will be over by the time the rebels can put the superdreadnaughts back into service.”

“I don’t understand,” Penny said, but she knew that was a lie. If the rebels won, there was no point in destroying starships and facilities out of spite. The Empire would still need to rebuild, even if the Thousand Families were gone. And Wachter was loyal to the Empire. “I…”

She leaned forward. “It’s been a honour, sir,” she added. “And thank you.”

Wachter nodded in silent understanding.

Together, they prepared themselves for the worst.

“They’re asking for help,” the communications officer said, surprised. “Half of the fortresses seem to be in a state of mutiny.”

Colin wasn’t too surprised. Whatever authority the Thousand Families had granted Admiral Wachter would come with caveats attached. It was probable that he didn’t have complete control over the planetary defences, which might well remain under someone else’s control… someone more known for loyalty than competence. And the Blackshirts rarely surrendered, knowing what their fate would be at rebel hands. Colin had liberated a dozen worlds controlled by the Blackshirts… and very few of them had survived long enough to be interned.

But it was a major problem. It seemed as though a civil war was breaking out on Morrison, which meant… what? If he inserted his Marines, who knew which side they were meant to be supporting? Or should he try to keep them out of the fight and wait for a victor to emerge? But the longer it took, the greater the chance the loyalists would manage to purge and reboot their systems and then he would have to punch his way through the rest of the defences.

He looked over at Anderson. “Thoughts?”

Anderson seemed surprised to be asked. “The Marines will have to be very careful,” he said, finally. “If the Blackshirts have the support of local security officers and embedded agents, it will be very hard to tell friend from foe.”

“They’re not our friends,” Colin commented, grimly. “They’re… surrendering, at best.”

He wondered, absently, just how far they could trust anyone who had served under Admiral Wachter. The most loyal rebels — as if that wasn’t a contradiction in terms — had been the victims of their commanding officers, not the trusted subordinates. Colin himself might not have rebelled if his ambitions had been permissible, within the system. But Admiral Wachter had worked hard to get the loyalty of his crewmen. How many of them could be trusted to join the Shadow Fleet?

Maybe we can get Admiral Wachter to join us, he thought. We might be lucky.

“Send the Marines,” he ordered. “I want them to concentrate on the superdreadnaughts, then the orbital fortresses. The planet can wait.”

“The Marines at the hatch are under attack,” the communications officer reported. She’d taken up the job of trying to coordinate the internal defence of the starship, while the tactical and security officers took up position to defend the CIC. “They can’t…”

A dull thump echoed through the hatch. Penny looked at Wachter, who held his pistol in one hand as if he knew how to use it. Not all of the officers had bothered to qualify, Penny had discovered to her alarm; pistol shooting wasn’t a skill naval officers were encouraged to develop. But there was no alternative. The hatch started to glow as the Blackshirts began to cut their way into the CIC. By Penny’s calculations, they would be through in five minutes at most.

“Take your mask,” she ordered. “Everyone who doesn’t have a weapon, move into the Admiral’s office.”

Wachter gave her an odd smile. “Were you a Marine in a previous life?”

“Just common sense,” Penny said. She wasn’t about to admit that she’d planned for a mutiny ever since hearing about the mutinies at Jackson’s Folly. Percival had made so many enemies that she was still surprised no one had risen up against him by the time Camelot had fallen to the rebels. “And they might be safer there.”

Wachter shook his head. Penny nodded, grimly. Anyone who had had contact with Admiral Wachter would be considered a suspect at best, an outright traitor at worst. And besides, Blackshirts were known for committing atrocities in the heat of combat. The Empire encouraged that trait, believing that terror helped keep people in line, even though it tended to result in destroyed targets and dead rebels. But then, the Empire wasn’t known for caring about enemy lives.

The hatch blew open; dark-clad figures stormed into the CIC. Penny opened fire at once, joined by Wachter and the other three officers with personal weapons. The Blackshirts toppled backwards — they hadn’t even bothered to don proper armour — but there were more of them behind the first group. One of them threw a gas grenade into the compartment, which exploded and released a cloud of yellow gas. Penny prayed that the mask would be sufficient to keep it out as she kept firing, driving the Blackshirts back. But there seemed to be no shortage of Blackshirts…

The internal security systems must have failed completely, she thought. Or perhaps they’d been subverted long ago.

She felt her weapon grow warm in her hand and shuddered. Plasma weapons had a nasty tendency to overheat and then explode with stunning force. But there was nothing else to use… and besides, it might just be cleaner to die in an explosion than what she would undergo if the Blackshirts took her into custody again. She’d barely survived one interrogation. She knew she was unlikely to survive a second.

“Keep firing,” Wachter said, quietly. “We’ll hold them back as long as we can.”

Sidney led the way out of the shuttle and into the enemy superdreadnaught, his suit’s systems already trying to access the ship’s internal security processors. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t respond; someone had either locked the systems or simply destroyed them. It didn’t matter, he decided, as his HUD showed the shortest path to the CIC. They had to get there before it was too late.

No one tried to block their path as they smashed their way through two sealed airlocks, not until they reached Officer Country. Four Blackshirts stood there, firing at a group of Imperial Navy Marines who seemed to be trying to counterattack. For a moment, the situation was so surreal that Sidney almost started laughing, before the Sergeant pushed his way forward and spoke briefly to the Imperial Navy Marines. The Marines fell back a moment later, allowing the other Marines to advance forward.

The Sergeant barked orders. Sidney launched a grenade towards the enemy position, then joined the charge as the grenade exploded, knocking the Blackshirts out of their post. The Marines smashed through them and charged up the corridor, ignoring the handful of bullets that pinged off their armour. Sidney guessed that the Blackshirts had had to organise their mutiny on the fly. They hadn’t bothered to find weapons capable of burning through powered combat armour.

They crashed into the Blackshirts attacking the CIC and opened fire. There were no survivors.

Penny let out a sigh of relief as she carefully lowered her weapon to the deck, then stood upright, careful to keep her hands in view. The rebels might take her prisoner, but they wouldn’t treat her as badly as the Blackshirts would have done… assuming, of course, they didn’t know what had happened to their missing personnel, the ones who had become POWs. But even if they did decide to retaliate by butchering prisoners, it wouldn’t be as bad as being tortured first…

The rebel Marines were surprisingly gentle. One of them frisked her — she couldn’t help cringing away from his armoured hands, knowing that one mistake would break bones — and then cuffed her, before leaving her to sit on the deck. They were a little tougher with the other officers, then the crewmen who had hidden in the office. Penny found herself staring down at the deck, wondering what would happen now. The rebels had offered their prisoners choices in the past, but would they do that now?

It was nearly forty minutes before she was helped to her feet, then pushed gently towards the hatch. Outside, it looked like a warzone. Blackshirts, Marines and ordinary crewmen had fought savagely, often leaving their bodies on the blackened and scorched deck. Penny knew that the damage was mostly cosmetic, unlike some of the damage inflicted by enemy missiles, but she couldn’t help feeling bitter. They’d worked so hard to get General Clive up to marginally acceptable standards, during the flight from Earth, and now the ship had been damaged again.

In the shuttlebay, she wasn’t surprised when Wachter and herself were separated. There was a brief conversation between two of the rebel Marines, then they were helped into a shuttlecraft and firmly strapped down. The shuttle took off moments later, heading back into space. Penny tried to see if there was still fighting going on, but the naked eye revealed nothing. By now, surely the Blackshirts would have lost control of the fortresses…

She shook her head. One way or the other, it was no longer her concern.

A rebel officer met them as they were helped off the shuttle. “For the moment, we’ve assigned you guest quarters,” he said, “if you will give us your parole. If not…”

He left the statement unfinished, but Penny could guess. If they refused to agree not to cause harm to the rebels while they were on the ship, there were more unpleasant places they could be held. The brig, for example, or a refitted cargo hold. It certainly wouldn’t be very comfortable, even if the rebels didn’t go out of their way to make it unpleasant.

“We will give your our parole,” Wachter said. “And thank you.”

Penny said nothing as they were escorted through the ship’s corridors to a small cabin, probably once used by one of Stacy Roosevelt’s allies. It was large enough to house them both comfortably, even though it had clearly been stripped of anything valuable or dangerous. The rebel cut her hands free, warned them that Marines would be posted outside the door, then shoved them both into the room. Penny rubbed at her wrists as the hatch slammed closed, leaving them alone.

“Get some rest,” Wachter ordered. “I’ll have the sofa.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said. God alone knew what the rebels would want with them. They’d better catch up on their sleep while they could. “And sir…”

Wachter tapped his lips, silently indicating that they were probably being observed.

After a moment, Penny nodded and walked into the bedroom, leaving him alone.

It took longer than Colin had expected to secure Morrison, even though the Blackshirts had clearly lost whatever cohesion they’d had after the Imperial Intelligence structure had been overrun. In the end, however, the stations had been secured, the superdreadnaughts had been evacuated and the remaining starships had been moved to a safe distance. Given enough time, according to the engineers, they could all be pressed back into service. But not soon enough, they’d added, to make a real difference.

“We might need to jump out again, once the orbital fortifications are secure,” Colin commented to his XO. “They’ll certainly try to recover Morrison.”

The XO smiled. “With what?”

Colin had to admit he had a point. The Imperial Navy had concentrated its forces at Earth, Morrison and Terra Nova. Now, one of those fleets had been shattered and the other two were tied down. And they were close enough together that one of them could probably be lured out of place, with a little effort.

“True,” he agreed. He looked up at the display for a long moment. “Do we have an updated repair estimate?”

“Four days,” the XO said. They’d only taken minimal damage from the battle, thankfully. “And then we can resume the offensive.”

Colin nodded. By any standards, it had been the most one-sided battle since the end of the First Interstellar War — and yet the same trick wouldn’t work twice. Earth’s defenders would know to expect their point defence systems to be jammed and prime their systems to overcome it. Earth would be a far harder nut to crack.

“Good,” he said. “Once we return to the RV point, I want you to bring our two aristocratic guests back onboard. I want a few words with them.”

“Yes, sir,” the XO said.

“And have all of the prisoners moved to the planet’s surface,” Colin added. “We can’t afford to trust them, not now.”

He scowled. It had become clear, very quickly, that some of the rebel POWs had been abused. The files had been destroyed, though, and no one who had personal knowledge of the abuse victims had been captured. But Colin suspected that anyone who hadn’t been held on Morrison itself had been shipped back to Earth.

“And then I need a few words with the Admiral too,” he said. “I want to know which side he’s on.”