Democracy’s Might

(Colin’s War, Book 2)

Prologue

The Great Eye of Jupiter glared down on the Rocky Road as the modified freighter flickered into the system, several million kilometres from the gas giant.  The starship had come in as gently as possible, as gently as any freighter would, but Morgan Eichwurzel was still retching when the first query came in from the automated sensor stations surrounding Jupiter’s kingdom.  The freighter was old enough to require several refits and the new drive hadn’t been properly tuned.

“They’re challenging us,” Yvonne said, from her console.  She didn’t look any better than Morgan felt.  “I’m transmitting the reply now.”

Morgan nodded, trying to keep the tension from showing on his face.  The Geeks swore blind that they had cracked the codes that would allow the freighter into one of the most heavily-defended and secure areas in the Empire, but by now the news of the Rebellion would have reached Earth.  The Thousand Families might have been venal and corrupt, but they were far from stupid…and it was quite possible that they had changed the codes.  They couldn’t wait outside the gravity shadow either, not unless they wanted to raise suspicions; they had to plunge into the system and pray.

Jupiter’s family of satellites and captured asteroids were among the most heavily-populated areas of the Solar System, humanity’s birthplace, but few stayed for long, even indentured workers.  The sheer…presence of the gas giant and it’s single all-seeing eye had an effect on humans, who felt insignificant and powerless compared to the ancient god, even as they mined it for vast resources.  Ahead of the ship, cloud-mining tubes hung down into the upper reaches of the gas giant, while smaller ships buzzed around, transported goods and resources down to the inhabited satellites.

“We’re clear,” Yvonne added.  “The outer sentries accepted our codes.”

“Good,” Morgan said, flatly.  “Take us in.”

Jupiter, as one of the largest bodies in the Solar System, had a truly magnificent gravity shadow, stretching out to well beyond the orbit of its moons.  It provided the inhabitants with a sense of security, knowing that pirates and raiders couldn’t just flicker in and wreck havoc, but they’d have to fight their way through the detachment of Home Fleet that was permanently stationed on guard.  No one knew, according to the intelligence briefings, just how combat-capable Home Fleet actually was, but the light codes on the display looked hellishly impressive.  A single destroyer or squadron of gunboats would suffice to blow Morgan’s ship out of space, if they every suspected the assassin’s presence.  The superdreadnaughts and battlecruisers were just overkill.

The intelligence briefings had even suggested why.  Years ago, before Morgan had been born, the then-commander of Home Fleet had used it to place herself on the Imperial Throne.  Home Fleet was not trusted by the Thousand Families.  They preferred to have large parts of its combat elements stationed at Jupiter, rather than in orbit around Earth, although anyone conversant with military or shipping realities could have told them that it was a wasted precaution.  The starships could flicker out and be at Earth within seconds, well ahead of any possible warning.

“There’s the target,” Yvonne said, her voice hushed.  The display was still updating as more and more of Jupiter’s industrial production facilities – it was the largest in the entire Empire – were revealed, but the prime target was easy to spot.  It didn’t look very impressive, like a mixture of tubes tied together, but anyone with experience in space would have understood at once.  It was a shipyard…and not just any shipyard.  It was the prime construction node for the entire Imperial Navy.  “Captain?”

“We proceed,” Morgan said, harshly.  He sent a single command into the computer.  “I’m bringing the tactical systems online now.”

The display flickered and updated again.  The Geeks swore blind that their improved tactical system was the equal, if not the superior, of anything in the Imperial Navy, but it had never been tested.  He watched, dispassionately, as targeting coordinates were logged and uploaded into the missiles waiting in the bays, armed and waiting for instant action.  If their cover was blown, or a suspicious officer insisted on an armed inspection, they would fire at once and hope.

His thoughts were elsewhere.  Yvonne and himself were the last survivors of what had once been a profitable, if small, shipping line, before the Families had gotten involved.  They’d harassed the owners into selling up, or leaving the business, or even signing up with the shipping line…but they’d made a run for the Rim.  There, they had found new allies…and, finally, hope that the Empire could be beaten.  Morgan had volunteered gladly for the mission, knowing that the odds were against them, and Yvonne had followed him.  All they had was each other.

“All targets are locked,” Yvonne said, breaking into his thoughts.  They were still millions of kilometres from the prime target, but by now they were inside the engagement envelope.  “Do you want to engage?”

“Not yet,” Morgan said, his hands working the console.  The shorter the range when they fired, the harder it would be for the defences to intercept the missiles before they struck home.  The Imperial Navy hadn’t skimped on the defences surrounding their construction yard.  The passive sensors were far from precise – active sensors would have blown their cover – but they showed an awesome number of automated weapons platforms.  “Stand by…”

The freighter drifted closer.  It had to look natural.  Altering course towards the shipyard would have been far too revealing.  By his calculations, they would be in the best position for their final run in seven minutes…and then let the Imperial Navy try to stop them.  They would have launched all their missiles before they even raged into energy range and were blown apart for their pains.

Yvonne gave him a sharp glance.  “I never regretted anything, you know.”

She knew, Morgan realised.  It had been foolish of him to try to keep the fact that it was a suicide mission from her.  He’d once been a believer and, even now, suicide didn’t sit well with him, but it was important that he strike a significant blow for the rebellion.  He’d hoped that, maybe, she would be spared the hellfire he’d face for killing himself, but that wouldn’t happen.

“No,” he said.  They were very close to their target now.  “I know.”

He triggered the tactical system in one step.  The entire process was automatic from then on, launching the first missiles into space and blasting them out towards their targets.  The Imperial Navy pickets responded at once, but it was way too late to do more than trigger their own automatics…and their drives and weapons were cold.  They were still rushing to battle stations when the missiles raced through their engagement envelope and fell on their targets.

“Get us out of here,” he snapped, keying a new sequence into the helm console.  The freighter, it’s mass suddenly reduced by a few million tons, started to alter course, but it was too late.  A destroyer, desperate to avenge the destruction of the shipyard, was already bearing down on them.  There was no point in surrender.  Even if they accepted, they’d only be given to the mind techs and made to betray the rebellion.  “I’m sorry…”

The destroyer blew the freighter into dust.

Chapter One

Tiberius, Lord Cicero, was almost as young as he looked, something unusual among the Thousand Families.  A blonde-haired young man, with classic good looks engineered into his genetic structure by an overbearing mother, Tiberius could have passed for any video star.  Instead, the early deaths of his father, along with his two older brothers, had thrust him into Headship.  As the sole survivor from the core family group, Tiberius had had no choice, but to become the leader of the Cicero Family…and, through that, leader of the Cicero Clan.  

The report on his desk didn’t make comforting reading.  The Family owned the Jupiter Shipyard.  The devastation caused by the suicide attack had been terrifying enough, but the implications of what it meant for the Empire were worse.  Only three Clans had had the right to build and maintain superdreadnaught-level shipyards, and one of them had just been devastated.  The Empire hadn’t built more than a handful of superdreadnaughts in the land decade, but they’d always believed that they would have the time to build more if they were needed, until now.  One of the three facilities that would have constructed more had just been destroyed.

That alone wouldn’t have been a disaster.  The weakest Family – and Tiberius’s Family was the most powerful in the Empire – was insanely wealthy by the standards of anyone outside the Families.  They would take a minor hit from the damage, but rebuilding – and even improving – the facility wouldn’t have been a problem, given enough time.  They might have had to suffer the gloating asides of the other families, who might try to use it against them, but their existence was hardly threatened.  The Families stood together.  They wouldn’t allow one of their own to go under.

The real problem was much worse.

He looked around the office and sighed.  His father had had a surprising amount of taste, for a man who had once claimed that he was known for his appetites, and it was furnished in the finest wooden furniture, including a handful of items that would have been banned to anyone of lower status.  Tiberius had found the office intimidating on the few occasions he had been allowed into the great man’s presence and had tried to avoid the honour, only to find himself lord and master of the estate and all it survived.  For a thousand kilometres around, his word was absolute law, while his voice carried weight in the highest of councils.  It was no wonder that his father had created a room where he felt comfortable.  The responsibilities he held were enough to turn a man to drink.

“My Lord?”  The maid entered from the side door.  “The Council has signalled that they are ready to meet.”

Tiberius nodded.  The maid – a pretty young girl, at least in appearance – had been altered to serve him personally, not the Family.  He’d bought out her contract, along with a dozen other young women trained and conditioned to serve their owners, and rarely regretted it.  In the field of politics, where a single word in the wrong place could be taken as an excuse to start bloody mayhem, it was relaxing to have a handful of people who literally couldn’t harbour plots against him.  It didn’t matter who they’d once been, really.  Once the mind techs had gotten their hands on them, they’d been altered to serve their master.  His father had once told him that his nanny, a lovely older woman, had been a convicted serial killer…and he’d had nightmares for months.  It was usually better not to know where they came from.

“Thank you,” he said, allowing his eyes to trace her body.  He’d had her before, in many places.  It wasn’t uncommon for young men to find themselves a companion who, unlike the girls of the High City, literally couldn’t say no.  Family marriages were arranged for the most cold-blooded of reasons.  A companion was a far safer consort.  Tiberius was unusual because he was a Family Head…and yet unmarried.  “I shall be there directly.”

He relaxed into the sinfully comfortable chair and closed his eyes, accessing his communications implant.  Technically, they were illegal, used only by Marines and the Geeks, but the Thousand Families had never worried overmuch about legalities.  It gave them an unsuspected advantage over the commoners below them, who sometimes hated their lords and masters, and as such it was necessary.  He had never expected to have to need one, not when he stood only third-in-line to the Headship, but he’d had to have one implanted after his father died.  

The implant fed the images directly to his brain.  He was standing in a white room, waiting while the others gathered around the table, taking his seat.  The first time he’d used the secure communications link, there had been an eerie dreamlike sense surrounding the entire experience, but now he understood the system better, it felt almost as if he were there.  The Heads would rarely assemble in one place, if only because of their paranoia, but the interior of their heads were secure.  The mind techs had seen to that.

They assembled, one by one, exchanging the short nods that formality demanded between formal equals.  There might have been a Thousand Families in the Empire, and one hundred Clans, composed of united families, but ten of them stood out above the rest.  They controlled, between them, sixty percent of the Empire and, as long as they remained united, what they said went.  They had founded the Empire, back in the days of Emperor Angus, and since then they had remained in control.  Faces and titles changed – at one point, there had been a fad for exaggerated titles – but the overall power balance remained the same.  They had thought that it would last forever.

There was no formal chairman.  The role was passed among the various Family Heads.  Tiberius knew that he hadn’t been in line for that job, this time, but Lord Roosevelt had passed it on to him, under pressure from the other Families.  The Roosevelt Family and Clan had been, perhaps unfairly, blamed for the crisis by all the people who mattered, even if – publicly – the blame would be dropped on someone who would be less capable of extracting revenge at a later date.  Roosevelt might forgive private rebukes and snide asides, but they wouldn’t forgive public humiliation.

He tapped once on the table.  It felt solid.  “This meeting is now called to order,” he said, calmly.  It was just as possible that someone had organised his nomination as chairman in order to embarrass him as well.  “As you know, the situation that began with the destruction of the Jupiter Shipyards, particularly the 1st Naval Construction Yard, has become immeasurably graver.  We face what may be the first real threat to our existence since the Dathi War.”

His words hung in the air, defying anyone to challenge them.  “I call upon Grand Admiral Joseph Porter to brief us,” he said.  “Is there any dissent?”

There was none.  The Family Heads wouldn’t waste their time chatting about nothing, or catching up on old news, not when there was a real threat.  Not all of them had simply walked into their positions, unlike Tiberius himself; they’d had to struggle to secure and hold their titles.  They were all veterans of political infighting on a scale that had to be seen to be believed and Tiberius knew, looking at them, that they were all wondering how weak the new Cicero was going to be.

Grand Admiral Joseph Porter materialised at the end of the room.  His face, too handsome to be real, was held in a carefully blank expression, while his uniform glittered with medals, mostly unearned.  Porter had never commanded a ship in space, let alone a squadron or a full fleet, even though he was a skilled politician with ties to a hundred Families.  He’d been selected for the post of Chief of Naval Operations – effectively the Imperial Navy’s uniformed head – because he wasn't considered a danger, not like the former Empress.  An ambitious person in his position could make real trouble.

“My Lords and Ladies,” he said, with a sweeping bow.  “Thank you for summoning me to your august presence.”

Tiberius nodded.  “We require a full briefing on events in Sector 117,” he said.  Porter had been involved, from the start, with analysing the data and interrogating the handful of survivors who’d made it back to Earth.  “What exactly is going on?”

A holographic star chart materialised, floating just above the centre of the table.  It looked impressive, even to Tiberius’s very civilian eyes, but parts of the Empire were shaded a dull red, for rebellious sectors.  He hadn’t seen the map looking quite so grim in any period since the War, centuries before he was born.  The Empire was vast and powerful beyond imagination and it had never been successfully challenged.

“Mutiny and rebellion,” Porter said.  If the words bothered him, they didn’t show it.  “We interrogated, quite heavily, the handful of people who returned to Earth.  We also studied and analysed the message that was transmitted through the ICN.  We believe, now, that we have a clear picture of what happened.”

He paused.  “The Macore Observation Squadron apparently mutinied against its commanding officers,” he began.  “This was led by a Commander Colin Harper and was successful.  Harper then lurked in Macore orbit and was, somehow, able to take the superdreadnaught squadron that was ordered to suppress Macore and bring it into the Empire.  Having captured those ships, Harper vanished into the Rim and launched a series of raids against the Empire, including the capture of the Annual Fleet and, eventually, taking Harmony as well.”

All eyes turned, briefly, to Lord Roosevelt, before returning to Porter.  “It is hard to say, with any real certainty, just what is happening in the sector now,” Porter continued.  “While in theory we could get a message from there in a month, the damage to the ICN and the chaos spreading across certain unreconciled sectors has crippled our communications.  In practice, we are at least two to three months out of date, which leaves us with the grim thought that the situation might have already gotten worse.  What we do know is as follows.

“Admiral Quentin, the commanding officer of Sector 96, attempted to engage and crush the rebels before they could get any further.  He lost the ensuring battle above Harmony – we’re still analysing the battle records – and was apparently killed, along with most of his command staff.  Rebellion spread, not only into Sector 96, but into dozens of other sectors as well.  We have reports of starship crews mutinying against their commanding officers, other starships having to fire on their fellows to stop them from deserting, fortress crews bombarding the planets they were meant to defend…in short, we can no longer swear to the loyalty of at least thirty sectors.  It is quite possible, by now, that the various sectors next to Sector 117 have already joined the rebellion.”

He paused.  “The good news, as of a month ago, is that we still hold Morrison,” he concluded.  “The fleet base there was apparently able to resist and suppress a mutiny that might have turned the base over to the rebels and despite some confused fighting, the legitimate authorities remained in control.  Had we lost Morrison, we would have been in a far worse position for fighting back and, indeed, we might not be in any position to actually win.”

Tiberius shivered.  Morrison stood roughly halfway between Earth and Sector 117, a base intended to secure one flank of expansion, back when the Empire had been a lot smaller.  It possessed not only massive shipyards and repair facilities, but hordes of trained manpower and fearsome defences.  Its loss would have been catastrophic under any circumstances, particularly as the unstated reason for Morrison’s continued development was to keep a sharp eye on the first-rank worlds, the independents.  They might not have liked the Empire, but they had had little choice, but to tolerate it…until now. 

“Overall, we believe that something like thirty percent of the forces within the threatened sectors might have gone over to the rebels,” Porter said.  “It’s impossible to know for sure – some ships were gutted by the fighting, or blown out of space by loyal units – but we may still retain control of upwards of fifty percent of the units, with a strong preponderance in heavy ships.  Our forces, however, are low on morale and determination.  The exact battle lines are still being formed, but we need to take steps, quickly, to beat the rebels before they come for us.”

There was a long silence.  “How were so many ships lost?”  Lady Madeline Hohenzollern demanded, finally.  “Why were they not loyal to us?”

“It is not easy to secure a ship, even a superdreadnaught, against an internal threat,” Porter said.  Tiberius silently gave him credit for not flinching.  Lady Hohenzollern was a very…determined lady.  “When senior officers add their weight and experience to the mutiny, success is almost assured.  The attempts to use SDs on security duty only provoked worse violence and hatred.”

“They should have all been conditioned,” Lady Hohenzollern snapped.  “Why was that not done?”

“It is simply not possible to condition a person sufficiently to assure their permanent loyalty and yet maintain their initiative and ability to react,” Porter said.  “If we had conditioned everyone who joined the Navy, we would have a Navy that was unable to handle anything that wasn't covered by instructions.  It simply wasn't possible.”

Lady Hohenzollern snorted.  Tiberius kept his face blank with an effort.  Most of the Thousand Families understood that the commoners didn’t love them, but Lady Hohenzollern believed, implicitly, that they did…and, furthermore, that they acknowledged her right to rule.  She didn’t see the Thousand Families as people who were determined to remain on top, but people who had a right to remain on top and, therefore, had a slightly blinkered view of the universe.  Rebellious crewmen simply didn’t exist in her world.

“And you,” Lady Hohenzollern continued.  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Lord Roosevelt eyed her unpleasantly.  “What would you have us say?”  He asked, dryly, in a tone of supreme superiority.  “We did not realise that Percival would be such a blunderer, or that…”

“Funny,” Lord Edison injected.  “I always thought that that was why he’d been given Sector 117.”

“We were not responsible for the Navy’s deployment problems,” Lord Roosevelt said, ignoring Lord Edison.  “We had no reason to expect that Macore’s integration into the Empire would lead to such problems.”

The argument went on, and on.  Tiberius watched in private amusement, seeing old grudges dug up from years ago, even centuries ago, as they argued.  Lord Roosevelt was furiously defending his own actions, while passing the blame onto Percival, who was hardly there to defend himself.  Porter tried to stay out of the argument – Tiberius didn’t blame him; any of the Families could have had him removed with a single word – but was forced to defend the Navy from time to time.  It was getting the Empire nowhere.

He took a breath and tapped the table again.  “This is getting us nowhere,” he said, daring any of them to deny that he was right.  “If our news is two months old, perhaps even longer, we’re already behind the times.  We do not have time to waste bickering and scrabbling over what was said at a Family Wedding, two hundred and fifty years ago.”

The silence grew and lengthened.  “We need to act,” he continued.  “Home Fleet has remained loyal.  I propose that we dispatch it at once to put down the rebellion and scorch rebellious worlds.”

“Home Fleet is the primary defence force of Earth,” Lord Mecklinbourgh said, finally.  He was forgetting how the Empress had used it to make herself ruler of the Empire.  “I cannot agree to sending it away from Earth.  One attack took out the Jupiter Shipyards.  A second attack might take out Earth itself.”

Tiberius smiled to himself as the argument ran around the table.  He would have been surprised if they had agreed to dispatch all of Home Fleet, but by placing the card on the table, they might agree to dispatch a handful of squadrons to the war zone.  Morrison would have to be held, and then used as a base for further advancement, or the war would be within shouting distance of being lost – already.

We put too much faith in our people, he thought.  The sheer distances between Earth and the Rim Sectors ensured that officers like Percival had vast powers, because there was literally no time to get instructions from Earth, but the delay meant that any real problem would have plenty of time to get out of control.  In a sense, that was exactly what had happened, although there was a ray of hope.  The others didn’t know it, unless his security was worse than he had thought, but Tiberius had a trick up his sleeve.

“It is agreed, then,” he said, finally.  “Three superdreadnaught squadrons, plus escorts, will be cut loose from Home Fleet.  That force will reinforce Morrison and prevent the rebels from moving any further towards the core worlds.”

Lady Hohenzollern nodded.  “And what if the first-rankers decide to talk to the rebels?”

“Scorch them,” Lord Mecklinbourgh snapped.

Porter ignored the byplay.  “My Lord, who is to command the fleet?”

Tiberius smiled.  Twenty-seven superdreadnaughts were a powerful force.  It would be hard enough to select a commanding officer in times of peace, let alone now.  That was enough firepower to conquer a sector, or wreck havoc in the core worlds.  It needed the right person and, alas, the right person for the Families was unlikely to be the right person for actually winning victories.

Unless…

“It needs a perfect commanding officer,” he said.  “I think I know just the person.”

Chapter Two

Centuries ago, back when the Federation had formed from the remains of the national governments, it had worried that the Earth was overpopulated and on the verge of a complete ecological collapse.  The Dathi War had only provided impetus to the Federation’s desire to spread the human race as far as possible and, during the chaos of the Second and Third Expansion Periods, the population of Earth had been sharply reduced.  The incentives to leave the planet and colonise new worlds, without the Federation’s harsh regime, proved tempting to many…and, as the Empire replaced the Federation, emigration became mandatory.  Cities and other signs of human habitation were abandoned and left to decay, while the Thousand Families built their mansions around the world.  They – and their servants – were the only ones allowed to set foot on Earth.

Tiberius reflected on that particular piece of history as the aircar floated down towards the mountains, in what had once been called Norway.  His Family had built their mansion down in the south of Europe, well away from the High City itself, but it was only a short flight from the mansion to Norway.  It had been a long time since he’d visited, as part of a educational trip, but it was still spectacular.  It was almost a shame that he didn’t have time to stay and enjoy it properly.

He glanced down at his personal communicator as the aircar started to descend towards a mountain peak…and the carefully-hidden dwelling within the woods.  He’d called ahead, of course, but there had been little in the reply to suggest that he was actually welcome.  His father’s old friend and comrade had once been a friend, insofar as they could have been friends with such an age difference between them, but it had been a long time since they’d spoken in person.  Tiberius didn’t know why they’d had a falling out, or why his father had never spoken to him again, but somehow he knew it would be bad.  He hadn’t even managed to access that part of his father’s private logs.

The landing pad was neatly concealed within a clearing, but the aircar found it without difficulty, allowing Tiberius to step out and breathe the fresh air.  It was fresh and clean, smelling vaguely of uncontrolled plant and animal life, blending in perfectly with the trees and the bright blue lake.  The small hut looked timeless in its simplicity, built of wood far from any civilisation, but somehow he was sure that he was being watched.  There were probably sensors and other security systems positioned around the cabin.  It was what he would have done.

He stepped up to the door and pushed, stepping into the hut.  It was a single large room, with a bed in one end and a lit fire in the other, warming the surrounding area.  The man himself was seated by the fire, gazing into it thoughtfully, before coming to his feet to greet Tiberius with a handshake, calm blue eyes studying him thoughtfully.  He looked older and shorter than Tiberius remembered, but his handshake was firm and his eyes were bright.  It had been too long since they’d seen one another.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Joshua Wachter, Family Russell, said.  His voice was older than Tiberius remembered, but it had the same note of calm confidence that had been reassuring when he’d been younger.  “Can I get you anything?”

Tiberius glanced around.  It was a far cry from the mansions, let alone the High City itself.  “You live here?”

“It suits me,” Joshua said, as he poured them both a drink.  “I don’t need a massive mansion to gratify my ego, or a unique weirdly-shaped building that I can brag about.  I have a bed, a warm fire and access to the planetary communications network.  What more do I need?”

He paused, with a sudden wink.  “I’m pretty sure that there are actually some others living around here,” he added.  “One day I may even go to talk to them.”

Tiberius blinked.  “Others?”

“People who got missed when the Federation ordered everyone onto ships and off-world,” Joshua said.  “It’s not that easy to track down people who know the area and don’t use any high-tech toys.  Earth’s a big planet, after all, and as long as they stayed away from us…”

Tiberius frowned.  Officially, Earth’s population was around five million, mainly the Families and their servants.  The concept of other humans, ones operating without controls or supervision, was oddly disturbing.  He hadn’t thought about his own security when he’d boarded a private aircar and flown to Norway, but perhaps he should have cared.  The Families didn’t use blunt methods of assassination, but what about others, feral humans?

“I shouldn’t worry about it too much,” Joshua said.  He passed Tiberius a glass of a red liquid.  Tiberius sniffed it suspiciously and put it down.  “What can I do for you?”

“I assume that you’ve been following the…problems we’re having out in Sector 117,” Tiberius said, slowly.  “Do you know what’s been going on?”

“I may live in a primitive manner, but I do have connections,” Joshua said.  His voice darkened for a long moment.  “I still have friends and allies.  Yes, I know what’s going on.”

“A rebellion,” Tiberius said, slowly.  He knew that he was still disconcerted, but he had to push on.  “The entire Empire is at risk.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Tiberius said.

Joshua laughed.  “How are they all taking it?”  He asked.  “What’s the consensus in the High City?”

“They want it stopped, yesterday if possible,” Tiberius said.  He wasn't in the mood for games.  “They don’t even know why this is happening.”

“Do you?”  Joshua asked.  “You’re the Head of your Clan, one of the ten most powerful people in the Empire.  You’re the one who will be making decisions about how the future of the Empire will become.  Do you even know why the rebellion is happening?”

Tiberius gazed back at him.  “Do you?”

“Imagine yourself a competent person, one aware of your own value,” Joshua said, slowly.  He turned to gaze back into the fire.  “You know that you could accomplish anything, even rise to the top, if you had a fair shot at it.  You’re devoted to the Empire, because you want to reach a high position, but then…you discover that the system is rigged against you.  You struggle and strive and, because you’re good, you do well, but it’s never enough.  You’ll never reach a high position…

“And it gets worse.  You watch others rising effortlessly ahead of you because of an accident of birth.  Some of them are good, but others are incompetents, promoted to the level their birth will allow them…and given command over you.  You’re not stupid and you know that the system is rigged…and that, given the chance, you could rise much higher.  But again, you’ll never reach a high position…

“You don’t have any freedom, any initiative of your own.  You have to carry out plans exactly as specified and you get the blame if they go wrong.  If you alter the plans and come out ahead, the credit will be stolen by your superior, who is your inferior in everything, but birth.  No matter what you do, there will always be some idiot above you, taking the credit and passing down the blame.  You’ll never reach a high position…”

He looked up, right into Tiberius’s eyes.  “And that breeds a powerful resentment,” he concluded, slowly.  “Some may end up prostituting themselves to their superiors for power and advancement.  Some may end up vanishing into the Rim, or being disappeared if Imperial Intelligence learns of their discontents.  Some may manage to secure command of smaller vessels, knowing that they won’t be able to rise higher…and some will rebel.  Why should they not?  What do they have to lose?”

Tiberius stared at him.  “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said.  “You are on my side?”

Joshua laughed.  “I was born to the Russell as a bastard child,” he said, dryly.  “That got me into the Academy and I was good at it.  My birth might not have been perfect, but it got me to Commodore, and then Admiral, before anyone called a halt and dug up some charges to have me discharged.  Your father might have tried to offer me some assistance, but…it wasn't enough.”

“There was a rumour that you were involved with the Empress…”

“Never mind the fact that I was five years old at the time she was disposed,” Joshua said.  He winked at Tiberius.  “I might be older than the stars to a young man like you, but I’m not that old.  My crime was wondering if people should be selected on the grounds of merit, not birth, and I refused to take a certain someone because of their birth.  It ended badly.”

He looked back into the fire.  “What do you want, Tiberius?”

“I want to preserve the Empire,” Tiberius said, flatly.  “The status quo has served us well for a long time.  The rebels cannot be allowed to destroy it.”

“Of course not,” Joshua said.  “You might have to work for a living.”

He laughed at Tiberius’s expression.  “Oh, you might have risen high in the Imperial Navy, if you had joined up,” he said.  “You have a certain level of intelligence unusual for such a senior personage.  How many others in the Thousand Families have half the brains you do?”

Tiberius nodded slowly.  There were some who were smart…and hundreds of others who allowed the power of their positions to go to their heads.  They happily abused their positions, or played games with the junior Families, or simply took what they wanted, without thought or concern for others.  It was easy to see Joshua’s point, but how could they maintain the system if they’d allowed commoners to rise to high positions?  The Empress might not have been a commoner, but she’d shown them the dangers all too clearly.  

“But you’re right,” Joshua added.  “The Empire has to be preserved.  Humanity’s fundamental lack of unity almost killed us once.  We can’t take that risk again, but in doing so…we ensured that there would be an endless series of rebellions.  The law of unintended consequences strikes again.”

He shrugged.  “If I were in your shoes, I’d start thinking about what sort of peace terms we could offer the rebels,” he said.  “What do you think the Families would offer them?”

“I doubt I could talk them into offering much, beyond a quick death,” Tiberius admitted.  “Roosevelt, which has taken the biggest hit so far, is demanding fire and bloody vengeance.  Rothschild, Ngyuen and Edison all have interests in threatened sectors and want to see them secured.  The only Family that might consider a peace agreement is Bernadotte…and only then because their interests are mainly on the other side of the Empire.

“And as for the junior families…”

“No peace for them, then,” Joshua said.  “You do realise that if we don’t meet the underlying causes of the rebellion, we’re more likely to merely trigger off a second one, even if we beat this one?”

“If we can beat it, we might be able to make concessions,” Tiberius explained.  “At the moment, opinion is firmly on the side of beating the rebels down and exterminating them.  I can’t go against them now, not openly, or we’ll have a second civil war within the first.  It could end badly.”

Joshua nodded.  The Families normally controlled the Imperial Navy though the CNO and the Naval Staff, but hundreds of young aristocrats and their clients had been making careers within the Navy…and some were even competent.  The Navy was supposed to be a force that served all of the Families equally, but now…now, they might be becoming politicised.  The last time that had happened…they’d ended up with an Empress.

“Yeah, I suppose it could,” Joshua agreed.  He walked over to the window and peered down the valley towards the lake.  Tiberius followed him after a long moment.  “There’s little wrong with your political skills, young man, so tell me…what do you want from me?”

Tiberius hesitated.  He wasn't surprised that Joshua had realised that the trip had an ulterior motive.  Joshua had once been the rising star of the Imperial Navy and, even now, maintained his connections within the Navy.  He would be as well-informed as any of the Thousand Families…and had the experience and understanding to make sense of the reports.  He had to know, in ways no Clan Head could understand, how bad the entire situation actually was.  He might even suspect why Tiberius had come to him.

“I talked the Families into dispatching an element of Home Fleet to reinforce Morrison,” he said.  “They weren't keen on the idea, but we don’t have any other reserve until we know the exact status of the Empire.”

“You may never know,” Joshua said.  “Earth is really too far from the front lines.  By the time you get an update from the other side of the Empire, you may discover the rebel fleet here, dropping antimatter bombs on the planet.  I don’t think that that would be a pleasant experience, somehow.”

He paused, thinking about it.  “I can’t fault the decision, but how much of Home Fleet are you going to send?”  He asked.  “Home Fleet represents the largest concentration of firepower in the entire Empire.  If it was used decisively, it could crush the rebellion – or at least its fleet – fairly quickly.  If you commit it squadron by squadron, you run the risk of each section being defeated in detail and being crushed.”

“Three squadrons of superdreadnaughts,” Tiberius explained.  “They wouldn’t agree to cut the margins any further.  This may be the most heavily defended world in the Empire, and the Solar System is armed to the teeth, but they’re scared.  They think that if we sent Home Fleet off to Morrison, let alone Harmony, the rebel fleet would pass them in transit and hit us here.”

“Depends, I suppose,” Joshua said.  “I wouldn’t take any risks like that and I don’t know any fleet commander who would, but the rebels are desperate, aren’t they?  I trust that you have taken steps to make a second raid on the Jupiter Shipyards impossible?”

“What’s left of them,” Tiberius said, sourly.  The other Clans had had a field day with that little disaster.  Roosevelt had even managed to table a motion that some other Clan or combination of Clans should handle the rebuilding effort, something that suggested that Roosevelt had learned nothing from the war.  “We altered the codes and passed on a warning, but God knows what will happen next.”

He leaned forward.  “I have a request,” he said.  “I want you to take command of the Main Strike Fleet.”

Joshua went very still.  “You do realise that it’s been thirty years since I stood on a command deck?”

“There aren’t many others who could handle it in the Families,” Tiberius said.  “The handful of others who might have qualified aren’t here, or have too many links to other Families or Clans, so I nominated you for the role.  Unlike many of the others, you actually understand the political dimension to all this…and how we can use it to change the Empire, after the rebels are beaten.  If we can find a political solution to the war…”

He shrugged.  “Wars are expensive,” he added.  “I’d sooner try and find a compromise that we could all live with.”

“Best of luck,” Joshua said.  “How do you intend to handle Roosevelt’s demands for compensation for their destroyed or occupied territories?”

“Carefully,” Tiberius admitted.  It would be a problem, although perhaps it could be handled…if the chaos hadn’t spread too far.  Roosevelt’s failure had placed the Clan in a weak position, but that wouldn’t count for much if they managed to convince the others that Tiberius was playing games, or trying to take advantage of the chaos.  They’d all be trying to take advantage of it…but doing it publicly was a no-no.  The last thing commoners needed to see was the Thousand Families at each other’s throats.  “Will you accept the nomination?”

“Yes,” Joshua said, slowly.  “I have missed being on a starship.”

He picked up a datapad and skimmed through it.  “This…Captain Quick, Percival’s aide,” he said.  “What’s going to happen to her?”

“I don’t know,” Tiberius said.  “She’s currently being held on the Moon, until her precise degree of responsibility is confirmed…”

“And Roosevelt and Percival’s patrons can dump the blame onto her,” Joshua said.  “I want her with my ship.  She’s the only person we have who’s seen the rebels in action.  She’s not going to be mind-wiped and turned into a dumb bimbo because someone is trying to shift the blame.”

“I can do that,” Tiberius said.  “Anything else?”

“I see that Captain Cordova has returned to haunt us,” Joshua added, thoughtfully.  “That’s going to be a problem.  A rebel leader with Family connections could be real trouble.”

Tiberius laughed.  “Don’t worry about him,” he said.  “He’s someone we can handle easily, if we have to deal with him.”

“We do?”  Joshua asked.  “He’s not an idiot, and they know he’s got Family connections, so…”

“Two little details,” Tiberius said, enjoying the chance to score one off his mentor.  “The first one…well, guess which Family he comes from?”

Joshua lifted an eyebrow.  Tiberius smirked.  “He’s a Cicero.”

“Now, that I didn’t expect,” Joshua said.  “How come no one ever heard of that?”

“Oh, he’s not from the main line, not like me,” Tiberius explained.  “He would have been about fiftieth in line to the Headship, but he’s still a Cicero.  And even that pales next to the second detail, which would turn his friends and allies against him and leave him completely isolated…”

“And that is?”

“A surprise, for now,” Tiberius said.  He felt a wave of cold calculation rising up from within him.  It had surprised even him when he’d located it in the Family archives, but once he’d realised the possibilities, he’d kept it firmly to himself.  Information was power.  “If we need a weapon or a lever to use against one of the rebellion’s greatest heroes, then we have one that will utterly destroy his life.”

Chapter Three

“Two minutes to docking, Captain.”

Captain Penelope Quick, known as Penny to her friends and relatives, blew her nose as the shuttle headed in to dock with the General Clive.  She didn’t want to face her new commanding officer, whoever he or she was, looking as if she had just been crying, which in fact she had.  The effects from Imperial Intelligence’s brutal interrogation of her wouldn’t fade instantly, even though they’d offered to wipe them from her mind, and she sometimes found herself shaking, or worse, for no apparent reason.  The memory of cold icy fingers probing through her mind alone was enough to bring on a fit.

Percival, her lover and patron, was dead.  She had seen that particular footage hundreds of times now, first with Brigadier Alfred Gorham on his yacht, and then with Imperial Intelligence, trying to convince them that Percival had been to blame.  It wasn't as if she had any other choices.  People like Percival, or Stacy Roosevelt, had friends and allies at the highest level.  Penny’s only defence was her brain, but even that hadn’t been left to her, not after Imperial Intelligence had gone through it with a fine-toothed comb.  The mind techs had had their fun, breaking her down, piece by piece, and every time she had gone under their machines, she had wondered if she would still be her when she recovered.  She’d even wondered if they would wipe her mind and consign her to slavery, or worse…but instead, they’d simply allowed her to transfer to a new ship.  It didn’t make sense.

She was relieved, enough, at having survived Farside Penal Colony.  She’d been told, years ago, that the colony was actually older than the Empire, used as a dumping ground for prisoners back during the days of the Federation…or even before that.  It hadn’t made much sense to her – there seemed to be little point in shipping prisoners to a dead world – but now Imperial Intelligence used it for their most significant captives.  No one, as far as she knew, had ever escaped…and few were allowed out intact.  She’d been allowed to leave…but she still didn’t know why.  It was almost as if someone had pulled a few strings on her behalf.

The shuttle shook slightly as it docked with the superdreadnaught.  Normally, they would have flown right into the shuttlebay, but time seemed to be important.  Penny wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.  Percival would have delayed and frittered away the precious hours or days, while her new commander seemed to be made of sterner stuff, deciding that as soon as she was onboard, the entire squadron would flicker out for the war zone.  Her experience of senior officers had rarely been a positive one.  The only one she’d met who’d been halfway decent, Admiral Quinton, had died at the Second Battle of Harmony.  There were times she wished that she’d died back at the First Battle.  It would have saved her from the mind techs if she’d died alongside Percival.

“Hatch opening now,” the pilot said, through the intercom.  His voice softened slightly.  He knew some of what she’d been through – or at least guessed it.  His pity was almost more than she could stand.  “Good luck.”

Penny gathered her travel bag – really just a carryall containing a change of clothes and a handful of other items – checked her personal communicator as it linked into the superdreadnaught’s internal communications system, and then stepped through the hatch.  The slightly musty tinge in the air struck her at once – the General Clive had been technically in the reserves when the call to arms had come – but she did her best to ignore it.  The man standing at the hatch, waiting for her, commanded her attention.

“Captain Quick, reporting,” she said, and snapped him a salute.  Only two ranks had the right to wear so much gold braid and, by long custom, Admirals went out on their own.  It was intended to prevent command clashes, but personally she suspected having a peer looking over their shoulders might be good for a handful of Admirals.  She located the Imperial Navy colours and saluted them as well.  “Permission to come onboard?”

Her new commanding officer smiled.  “Permission granted,” he said.  His voice was firm and surprisingly gentle, everything that Percival had not been, at least to her.  “Welcome onboard, Captain Quick.  I am Admiral Joshua Wachter.  You may have heard of me.”

His handshake, too, was firm.  “We have a great deal to get through and not much time,” he added, “so I would appreciate it if you would join me in my quarters, where we will have a working lunch.”

Penny nodded.  It would be a rare junior officer who would turn down an invitation to dinner from her ultimate superior.  He nodded and beckoned her to follow him through the corridors of the starship.  Penny watched him as he walked, noting how he seemed confident without being overbearing, or arrogant.  He was handsome enough, in a mature manner, rather than the supremely handsome features many men engineered into their bodies, something that testified to his personality.  He had no need to resort to artificial enhancement to overcome his insecurities.

It had been a long time since she had been onboard a superdreadnaught, but there were some things that were never forgotten.  She wondered, as they rode in the intership car, where she’d heard of him.  The name Joshua Wachter rang a bell in the corners of her mind, but she’d met so many people in her life – and she was sure that she’d never actually met him before – that he was completely unfamiliar.  On the other hand, he'd already proved that he was nothing like Percival.

“Take a seat, any seat,” he said, as they entered his quarters.  The Imperial Navy saw fit to give its Admirals palatial accommodation and, even though Penny detested it on general principles, she had to admit that the quarters looked nice.  She doubted that Joshua had chosen the artworks himself – they would be copies, of course – but they matched the decorations fairly well.  “Like I said, we have a lot to talk about.”

He sat down opposite her and smiled thinly.  “It probably won’t surprise you to know that I had a…history with Admiral Percival myself,” he said.  That explained where she’d heard the name.  Percival had mentioned him once.  “It wasn't exactly a pleasant time in my life – or his, I hope – and we were glad to be rid of each other.  I know him well enough to know that he was just as incompetent and unpleasant as your reports painted him and I do not believe that you bear any of the blame for his mistakes.”

Penny almost fainted from pure relief.  She’d known that the Thousand Families had started the search for a scapegoat and fully expected that she would end up playing that role, even with Imperial Intelligence’s testimony.  It was impossible for anyone to lie, or to even hide information, while under the supervision of the mind techs and so they’d had an accurate record of everything she’d seen and done, but they hadn’t wanted to believe it.  Even those who had wanted to believe it, or at least accept that it must be the truth, had still needed someone to take the blame.

“That leaves us with a major problem, however,” Joshua continued.  “I suspect that we – as in you, me and this fleet – will end up having to fight and defeat the rebels, who have already showed themselves to be disgustingly inventive.  Therefore…”

He smiled at her and she smiled back.  “I need a full report from you,” he concluded.  “Tell me, in your own words, just what happened out there.”

***
“…And so I was brought back here by Brigadier Alfred Gorham,” Penny concluded, nearly an hour later.  She’d run through the entire story, from the first mutinies to the final disastrous battle over Harmony, with only a handful of interruptions.  Joshua, it seemed, was actually capable of listening quietly and only requesting clarification when necessary.  “I wasn't there for the Second Battle of Harmony and I can only tell you what I saw on the records.”

“That’s understandable,” Joshua said, thoughtfully.  “It seems to me that the rebels have introduced us to two new weapons, the arsenal ship and the shield-buster missile.  Neither of them are supreme on the battlefield, and neither of them are particularly new, but as a sudden surprise, they were devastating.”

Penny blinked.  “New?”

Joshua’s eyes glinted with sudden anger.  “I started poking and prodding at the research teams after studying the battle records and they admitted that they’d had theories that would have led to a shield-busting missile, but they’d never pushed them into production because of political pressure from further up the food chain.  They were able to tell me that the missiles would have shortcomings, but…well, that’s not exactly news.  We could tell that much just from the battle records.”

He scowled.  “Apparently, the missiles can’t be used from anything, but point-blank range, which at least explains the use of gunboats to fire the damned things,” he said, slowly.  “Of course, they didn’t think of the bleeding obvious, did they?  The Geeks and Nerds will be as aware of that little problem as we are…and they will be working on ways to extend the effect.  I wouldn’t be too surprised to discover, one day, that we’re being bombarded with missiles that can break through our shields at long range.”

“We already had the concept?”  Penny asked.  The very idea astonished her.  She had assumed that the Geeks – or the Nerds – had come up with something completely new and unique.  “Why didn’t they produce it?”

Joshua gave her a cynical smile.  “Because, my dear, they were a research team attached to a small and very junior Family and the more senior Families insisted that the entire project be frozen and no workable hardware developed,” he said.  “Those Families had the contracts for producing heavy cruisers, battlecruisers and superdreadnaughts and stood to lose a hell of a lot of money if someone actually cracked those problems.  It wasn't even a problem as long as no one else actually came up with the idea, was it?”

“But someone did,” Penny said.

“I’ve managed to get a fire lit under the research teams, but I don’t know when they will provide any usable hardware,” Joshua said, softly.  “More practically, there is little point at the moment in duplicating the arsenal ships, while with a little care we can avoid being caught and destroyed by them.  The design might be capable of spitting out thousands of missiles at once, but once they’re done, they’re done.  If Admiral Quinton and his staff can figure out one way of beating them, so can we.”

He leaned forward and passed her a datapad.  “This represents Imperial Intelligence’s best guesses on just what the rebels have,” he concluded.  “Naturally, it will be somewhat out of date, so we may discover that when we reach Morrison, the rebels will have already taken the world.  Our main priority will be to block further rebel advances and then retake the fallen sectors.”

Penny felt her stomach clench as the superdreadnaught flickered out of the solar system.  It had been too long since she’d been onboard a flickering ship and the effect was worse than ever before.  Imperial Intelligence might have damaged her permanently with their tests and interrogations, or maybe the drive wasn't tuned properly.

“Shipyards,” she said, trying to focus on something – anything – else.  The last thing she wanted was to break down in front of her new commanding officer.  The Academy was meant to break people of their weaknesses.  “How many shipyards do the rebels have?”

“Assuming that they took all of the industrial nodes intact, they might have as many as fourteen Class-III Shipyards and sixty Class-II Shipyards,” Joshua said, grimly.  “As you may be aware, there are currently only two working Class-I Shipyards in the Empire, at least until we get the third back up and running.  The rebel attack on Jupiter not only took out the shipyard itself, but far too many of the trained workforce, therefore crippling any attempt to bring the yard back online.  Overall, it’s going to be at least a year before that yard is running again in any kind of capacity.”

Penny looked at him.  “That’s…not good,” she said.  She’d been brought up to believe that the solar system’s defences were impregnable.  In a full-scale fleet action, she might have been right.  A sneak attack changed all the rules.  “And rebel Class-I Shipyards?”

“In theory, none,” Joshua said.  He smiled thinly, inviting her to share his view of the universe.  “How many would you like to bet they have somewhere along the Rim?”

He spoke on before she could answer.  “They have to build superdreadnaughts of their own, sooner rather than later,” he said.  “It takes about six months to build a superdreadnaught from scratch, but they could cut down on that if they already had some of the components stockpiled for later use.  The Geeks and Nerds would be just the type of people to come up with a new design for a superdreadnaught as well, although it’s normally amusing as hell when amateurs start to design starships.  If they choose not to go that way, they could always simply duplicate our designs and avoid any need to rebuild their shipyards at all.

“Overall, it seems to depend what sort of assumptions we feed into the simulators,” he concluded.  “If they were building and deploying superdreadnaughts right from the start, even before Macore was invaded, they wouldn’t have needed to steal the superdreadnaughts under Commodore Roosevelt, would they?  Logically, they didn’t start until then, which suggests that they had to set up the yards using components from the Annual Fleet.  Best case, they’re still working on the yards; worst case, they’re launching their first home-built superdreadnaughts now.”

Penny considered it as the Admiral’s steward started to bring in the food.  It had been a long time since she had eaten properly and, despite the pain in her chest, felt her appetite rising as she breathed in the smell.  It was definitely a working dinner, a strange mixture of fried noodles and spicy meats, and it was a consideration Percival had never showed her.  He’d been more inclined to stuff himself while she watched, or to insist on eating off her.

“Eat as much as you want,” Joshua said.  He nodded towards the Steward.  Penny noticed him properly for the first time.  He was a young, earnest-looking man, wearing his first uniform.  It was always easy to tell a first-timer.  “Luke always tells me off if I don’t eat enough, so you’ll have to help me.”

“Thank you,” Penny said.  It was a new meal to her, but it was surprisingly tasty.  “Sir…what will my role be on this ship?”

Joshua didn’t answer her directly.  “I don’t know what will happen when we reach Morrison,” he said.  “Ideally, we will rally the remains of the Sector Fleets around Morrison and use them as our striking arm, but that depends on what we find there.  I have gone through the reports from Morrison with care and there are a number of rather worrying…discrepancies.  We may discover that this Main Strike Fleet is the only intact fighting unit left in the sector, the remainder having gone over to the rebels, or been scattered by mutinies, or blown out of space to prevent them from deserting.  My plans, unlike a certain pain in our butts, are not set in stone.”

He smiled.  “I want you to be on my staff for several reasons,” he added.  “I need someone who has fought the rebels directly and you’re the only one who was on hand.  I need someone to serve as a check on my own grand ideas and you can do that as well.  I need experienced officers - you’d be surprised by how few there actually are - and, best of all, I get to put a thumb in Percival’s eye.

“I don’t know what will happen at Morrison,” he concluded.  “I might end up giving you a command of your own, or a promotion, or I might need you to remain with me.”

Penny took another bite.  It really was surprisingly good food.  “Is there nothing else?”

“I may need you to help drill this ship,” Joshua said.  His voice had started to become icy again, annoyed at the universe and the incompetents who’d let Home Fleet degrade.  “I had to steal parts from a dozen other superdreadnaughts just to bring this ship up to spec.  Home Fleet has apparently become weaker than I had thought over the years since the Empress was disposed.  Given time, we can fix most of the problems, but I’d prefer to avoid taking this ship into combat until we solved all of them.  Once that’s completed, we’re going to be working on simulations of the forthcoming conflict.”

He leaned forward slightly.  “I’m not Percival,” he said, softly.  The compassion in his voice almost made it worse.  “I don’t want your…services.  I will want – and demand – one hundred percent effort from you in making this fleet work, but I don’t want you personally.”

Penny flushed.  The worst part about having gone through a full Imperial Intelligence interrogation was that they knew everything about her, from what she liked for breakfast to what Percival had made her do to keep her position, no matter how embarrassing or private it had been.  The thought of having her new commanding officer reading the file was humiliating, but somehow Joshua was reassuring, even if he was demanding one hundred percent from her.  The idea of working for a person who actually cared what she thought was…different.

“Thank you,” she said.  They both knew what for.  “I’ll serve to the best of my ability.”

Chapter Four

“It’s done.”

Colin Harper, Admiral of the Shadow Fleet and Military Commander of the Freedom Alliance, nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the viewscreen, which was displaying an image of the view outside Command Fortress Two.  The fortress didn’t have to spin in space, but the images flickered from sensor to sensor, showing the vast and growing activity around Harmony.  The system had been a major industrial node when Percival had owned it and built it up into his personal fiefdom.  Now, with the rebels firmly in control of Sector 117, and much of the surrounding space, it was rapidly becoming the centre of a new political structure.

“Good,” he said.  “Are you sure that it cannot be traced back to us?”

Vincent Anderson, formerly Security Officer of the battlecruiser Lightning and now the Chief Security Officer of the entire rebellion, nodded once.  He was a thin man, with vague, almost unfinished features, almost like a classical bureaucrat.  Very few people took him for a Security Officer without the uniform, and the skull insignia he had once worn on his shoulders, something he cultivated.  The vast majority of the Freedom Alliance wasn't meant to know who he was, or what he did.  It was hard to be a good security officer and intelligence agent when everyone knew who you were.

“The shuttle was rigged by one of the techs,” he said, simply.  Colin hadn’t wanted to know the details, but knew that he should hear them directly from Anderson, if only as a kind of penance.  “When Coydt took it over a certain limit, the stabiliser overloaded and the shuttle’s engines exploded.  The investigation, if one is to be held, will reveal that the shuttle was barely maintained in the last couple of months and, even if murder is suspected, will not be blamed on us.”

“Good,” Colin said.  “And the tech?”

“Already withdrawn,” Anderson assured him.  “There won’t be any leaks from that sector.”

Colin nodded, still watching the view outside the fortress.  The message he’d loaded into the Imperial Communications Network had spread rapidly across the entire Empire, certainly far in advance of any attempt to wipe it from the nodes before it could spread further, and it had triggered off an entire wave of mutinies.  Some had failed and had been put down brutally, others had succeeded and brought their starships to the rebel fleet…and a handful had been destroyed by loyalist units before they could escape.  By his most conservative estimate, upwards of fifty percent of the entire pre-rebellion Imperial Navy had either been destroyed, or come over to the rebellion.  Young officers wanting advancement, or rid of unpleasant superiors, or even cells of independence-minded activists…they’d all come to the rebellion.

And so had Commodore Coydt.  The commander of a battlecruiser squadron, Coydt believed – had believed – that he was being held down by jealous superiors, a common complaint in the Imperial Navy.  Colin himself and most of his fellow rebels shared it and had used it as their justification for their own mutinies.  Coydt, however, had had the connections to reach Commodore, but had been so unpleasant, even to the families, that there was little hope of any further advancement.  Even Percival himself had refused to grant Coydt promotion, something that had surprised Colin when he’d read the personnel files.  He would have thought that they were kindred spirits.

Coydt himself, of course, hadn’t seen it that way…and had pre-emptied a mutiny from his unfortunate subordinates by mutinying himself, bringing his fleet to the rebels.  It hadn’t taken long for Colin to realise that Coydt had actually deserved worse than simply having his chances of further promotion quashed, but it had opened up a whole new can of worms.  The Shadow Fleet generally operated on the theory that the new Captain would remain in command – unless they were desperately needed elsewhere – but Coydt was so unpopular with his own crews that a second set of mutinies had become almost certain.  

Perhaps I should have had him moved somewhere harmless, Colin thought, bitterly.  It wasn't as if the Freedom Alliance wasn't short of places that could be used as a dumping ground for unwanted officers, but Coydt had been determined to remain in command of his squadron.  The problem had appeared unsolvable; he couldn’t remove Coydt from command and, sooner or later, someone would put a fragmentation grenade in his quarters and damage the Shadow Fleet’s chain of command.  The only solution left had been to have Coydt assassinated.

“Good,” he said, again, turning back to Anderson.  The Security Officer had once admitted that he followed Colin because it gave him a chance to actually advance himself, although along different lines.  It had been something of a surprise.  Colin hadn’t really believed that security personnel were actually human, although Anderson had proved his loyalty by not betraying the rebellion before it had even started.  “And Captain Chisholm?”

“I imagine that he will be happy to take a post somewhere out of the way,” Anderson said.  “He was Coydt’s man through and through, but the others are largely untainted and should have a fair chance at becoming good officers.  As for the lower decks…well, they’ll have their own chance to rise under new commanders.”

Colin smiled.  It hadn’t surprised him how many mutinies had come from the lower decks, from the junior officers or even from the crewmen below them, but not all of them had succeeded.  They had opinions and feelings too…and they had been completely at the mercy of their superiors, which had been horrendously abused far too often.  Loyalist ships, he was starting to realise, were ships that had had a good commanding officer and a good team of subordinates, and there were more of them than he found comfortable.  So far, the Empire had barely managed more than a series of ineffective counterattacks, but that would change.  For all the success of the rebellion, it was still largely concentrated along the Rim.

“We’ll find out,” he said.  One thing the Shadow Fleet was desperately short of was trained manpower.  There might have been thousands of ex-servicemen and experienced freighter crewmen coming in to serve with them, but they really needed millions of trained personnel…and, despite the training programs, they were still desperately short.  He’d organised basic training courses for thousands upon thousands of volunteers from liberated worlds, but he was painfully aware that the courses were of poor quality, even with the best people he could find designing and running them.

Anderson bowed and exited.  Colin watched him go, concealing his smile.  Anderson had said, once, that Security Officers were rarely allowed any discretion.  If they suspected something, they were required to haul the suspect in for questioning, which started at rigorous and went downhill from there.  It did little, but provoke discontent and hatred – Security Officers had to have a good and loyal staff, or they tended to die on the job – and it did nothing for morale.  He’d hated the system for years, or so he’d claimed, and when he’d stumbled across Colin’s conspiracy…he’d done nothing.

It had been nearly a year ago, now, when the conspiracy had seized control of the Macore Observation Squadron and then the superdreadnaught squadron that had been intended to occupy the system and turn Macore into yet another world to be bled white.  Colin had commanded the newly-renamed Shadow Fleet on a campaign against Admiral Percival, the former commanding officer of Sector 117, and, somewhere along the line, the bitter officer who’d sought revenge had become a revolutionary.  He’d wanted, originally, to reform the Imperial Navy, where incompetents with Family connections were promoted ahead of commoners, but now…now, he’d provided the core of the Freedom Alliance with a plan for the future.

He'd seen, for the first time, the true horror of the Empire…and had been unable to turn away.  The thousands of colonies bled white and systematically raped to serve the Families.  The aliens, crushed, demonised and brutalised by an uncaring system.  The freebooters and their families, forced into unfair labour contracts or out of the space they loved and worked.  The slaves, engineered workers, who spent their entire lives in factory complexes and never saw the sky.  And, strangest of all, the junior members of the Thousand Families, who were slowly being forced out by the senior Families.  The Empire had to go.

It had been the enigmatic Captain Cordova, himself a former member of the Families, who’d introduced him to history.  It was a banned subject in the Empire – it wouldn’t do to have the commoners suspecting that there might have been a world without the Families at one time – but the old files still existed, out along the Rim.  It was one thing to overthrow the Empire, but another to replace it…and yet, that was what Colin had to do.  He’d drawn up the first outline for the post-Empire universe back when they’d still been skirmishing with Percival, rather than moving in on undefended worlds and liberating them for the Freedom Alliance, and now it was being put into practice.  It might not have been a perfect system – Colin doubted that perfect systems existed outside bad fiction – but it was slowly coming to work.

And, perhaps, it would embrace all of the Empire’s discontents.  The Geeks and Nerds, explorers into advanced and forbidden technology, had already proved their work by creating new weapons for the Shadow Fleet.  The freebooters and rebels out along the Rim had been pulled into one cohesive whole.  The independents on Macore and her daughter worlds, the only ones with real experience at making a democracy work, had started to pull the Freedom Alliance together.  And, finally, officers and crewmen who’d been held back by the system had risen up against it.  Colin knew that the odds of ultimate success weren’t high – the Empire still had hundreds of ships and billions of men – but for the first time in centuries, there was a real challenge to Imperial authority.  It might fail, but the Empire would never be the same.

A chime at the door announced two visitors, Daria and Blondel Dupre.  Daria was a redheaded woman with an apparent age of twenty-five and an actual age of well over fifty and the leader of the Freebooter League.  Her past was a mystery to all, but herself.  She had been Colin’s prime contact with the colonies and societies out on the Rim.  Blondel Dupre looked almost as old as she was, her face lined and marked by the stresses of mounting a major underground insurgency against the Empire, but her eyes were bright and firm.  Macore didn’t go in for the same degree of cosmetic body alterations as the Empire’s upper classes did, but she could have removed the scars without anyone thinking less of her.  Blondel had once been striking, handsome rather than pretty, but now she looked old.

Colin smiled at them both as they took their seats.  He’d asked the pair of them to serve on a triumvirate, just to help him get things done.  It hadn’t been easy to make the transition from fleet commander to rebel leader, even though there had been little choice, but his skills were all based around commanding officers in uniform.  Blondel, on the other hand, had real experience at making democracy work, while Daria had proved herself time and time again to the freebooters.  They wouldn’t have accepted a fleet officer, or a democrat, not in a world were strength was all.  Between them, they ruled the Freedom Alliance and tried to keep the irrelevant chatter to a minimum.  The war wasn't over yet.

“Thank you for coming,” Colin said.  Truthfully, he would have preferred to hold the meeting on his flagship, the superdreadnaught General Montgomery, but there was little choice.  Harmony had become the administrative centre of the rebellion almost by default, even though no one in their right mind would want to actually live on the planet, and that meant using the fortress.  It helped that Percival had outfitted both of his command fortresses for civilian duties, but it wasn’t something to make a fleet officer comfortable.  “Do either of you have any doubts about the news from the front?”

He scowled as he brought up the holographic star chart.  The biggest problem in coordinating a war against the Empire was the time delay.  It took starships weeks, if not months, to reach one side of the Freedom Alliance’s territory…let alone the inner worlds of the Empire.  The ships and men he had deployed in advance of the main body of his force, the Shadow Fleet, might no longer exist…and he wouldn’t know about it until much later, if at all.  It was quite possible that some Imperial commander had had an attack of brains to the head and successfully ambushed and annihilated an entire squadron.  They weren't all dullards…and besides, Colin himself had proved that the technique worked.

“Very little,” Daria said, the two women having shared a glance to decide who should talk first.  Colin suspected that, when Public Information caught up with the news of the rebellion, he would discover that he was bedding both of them.  Public Information, the Empire’s state-owned news service, could be relied upon to be entertaining, if not accurate.  “They appear to be toughening their defences and forming up new forces.”

Colin nodded.  The months following the Second Battle of Harmony had been…inconclusive.  The Shadow Fleet had counterattacked in record time and captured Yanasaxon, Admiral Quinton’s headquarters, as well as liberating hundreds of other worlds.  They’d been held down by the presence of heavy orbital weapons platforms and, once raiding battlecruisers and heavy cruisers had blown them into vapour, the populations had risen in revolt.  It gave the rebels a heady sense of their own success, but at the same time…not all of the worlds added much to their fighting power.  Planetary defences, skilfully handled, could delay the fall of a system, but not forever.  It might have looked good, but he knew how weak the entire Freedom Alliance actually was…

It was impossible, everyone agreed, to intercept a starship in flicker-space.  The Empire could, quite easily, raid the liberated worlds, just as they’d tried to raid Patrick’s Asteroid.  He wouldn’t have been surprised if some cold-blooded Imperial commander hadn’t made the decision to launch weapons of mass destruction on a planet, calculating that the mere existence of the threat would be enough to force Colin to detach forces for rear-area security.  Worse, the mighty claws of the Shadow Fleet had failed to destroy all of their targets.  By his most optimistic estimate, the Empire would have managed to reorganise their own forces by now…and pull isolated vulnerable units back from guard duty.  His plan had been to trap as many as they could, but now the rewards were falling.

“We’ll have to move onwards now,” Colin agreed, looking up at the map.  The Empire’s inner core of worlds – the Core Worlds and their associated sectors – would be far more difficult than Harmony or any other target along the Rim.  “We can’t let them have time to build up their own forces.”

Blondel scowled.  “Convincing the Congress about that will be difficult,” she said, dryly.  The Freedom Alliance had summoned representatives from every liberated world to discuss the future, but the entire process hadn’t been quick or clean.  Some worlds had liberated themselves and wanted nothing more to do with the Freedom Alliance, while others had several different groups vying for power and control…and many of them seemed to believe that the war was already over.  “Some of them are already talking about going to the Empire and offering a truce.”

Daria snorted.  “Why don’t they just cut their throats?”  She asked.  “It would be a great deal quicker and cleaner than surrendering to the bastards.”

Blondel scowled.  “You don’t think the Empire will see reason?”

“They’re not the type of people to give up just because they’ve had a reverse,” Daria said.  “They must know that the only way to actually win and preserve their power is to crush us.  Any talks about a truce will be held to win time, nothing more.  Even if they came to an agreement, they couldn’t be trusted to keep it.  Just ask the first-rankers.”

“True,” Colin agreed.  “They might agree to a truce, they might even mean to keep it for a while, but eventually they’d break it.”

“I wasn't disagreeing with you,” Blondel said, patiently.  She was calm and composed where Daria, or Colin himself, would be wiping the blood off the floor.  She know how to compromise, something that neither of the other two had learned.  “You should know by now that not everyone sees the universe the way you do.  I’m sure that the first-rankers went through the same process.”

Colin nodded.  The first-rank worlds had been too strong to be easily taken when the Empire was being formed, so they’d been offered limited autonomy as part of the Empire.  The agreement had held surprisingly well, but as the room for expansion lessened, the Families had started to intrude on the first-rank worlds, which had been carefully disarmed by the Imperial Navy.  They possessed nothing larger than a battleship, at least in theory, and no one doubted that, sooner or later, the Empire would gobble them up.

“We don’t have time to argue about it,” Colin said, holding up a hand.  “We have to move now to take advantage of their weakness, before it will be too late.  Blondel, can you hold the fort back here while I move forward to Yanasaxon?”

“It helps that they’re all still feeling their way through the new rules.”  Blondel said, grimly.  “Do you have to leave Harmony?”

“There are too many idiots who will send their people into danger without sharing it themselves,” Colin said.  “If my people go into danger, I will be there right beside them.  That’s what wins loyalty and respect.”

Chapter Five

Kathy, no longer Lady Tyler by her own choice, followed Captain Jason Cordova into the meeting room, unable to conceal her own smile.  Cordova had refused, point-blank, to take any other title, even though he was the commanding officer of the Volunteer Fleet…and the brief discussion had been, according to him, a shouting match.  It was hard to tell if he were being serious or not – the man could switch from being a responsible commanding officer to a teenaged male loon within seconds – but her version of events made her smile.

“I told them that if I had to be a Captain commanding Admirals and Grand Admirals and Supreme Omnipotent Warlords, I would be such a mighty personage,” he had said.  It wasn't unknown to have mercenary bands and rebel groups with such pompous titles, but Colin had discouraged them from the Shadow Fleet and Cordova, for once, had agreed with him.  “I’m a Captain and a Captain I shall stay.”

The meeting room was surprisingly luxurious, at least to her eyes, and dominated by the hologram floating over the table.  It was hard for anyone to really comprehend the size and power of the Empire from the image, or from the bare facts, but Kathy knew better than most just how dangerous the entire situation actually was.  The Empire might have taken a series of body blows, but none of them had actually destroyed the Empire’s ability to fight back…and somehow she doubted that the aristocrats in the High City would back down and surrender.  She knew them well enough – she’d grown up with them – to know that they simply wouldn’t be able to imagine them coexisting with the rebels on any grounds, but their complete superiority.  They certainly wouldn’t hesitate to let loose the dogs of war and scorch a thousand worlds if it meant the maintenance of their supremacy.  Why should they?  No one had ever successfully challenged them before…

But the Freedom Alliance was different.  Kathy had spent enough time in their company, since she’d been kidnapped from her own asteroid mining company, to know that they had advantages normally lacking in any rebel force.  They already controlled a force of superdreadnaughts, backed up by escorts, and they had a plan to topple the entire Empire.  They weren’t going to do as other worlds had and just rest on their laurels, but take the campaign right into the heart of the Empire…and, with all the mutinies, they might just succeed.  Kathy knew, without false modesty, that she was an organisational genius…and even she would have been defeated by the chaos spreading through the Empire.  It was even possible that Home Fleet itself would switch sides.  If that happened, victory would be easy.

She took a seat and sat next to Cordova, pushing his hand away when he tried to touch her under the table.  She wasn't sure about her own feelings regarding him, although he was good in bed and had never even tried to force himself on her, but she had the uneasy sense that the wit, loon and occasionally obnoxious personality was little more than a mask, concealing…what?  It would have to be pretty damned unusual to be weirder than his normal personality.

The Geek, Salgak, sat opposite her, implants whirring their defiance as he slowly settled onto the seat.  Kathy had grown to like him in the time they’d spent together, working on developing the captured industrial nodes and factories into a real shipbuilding force, but she couldn’t look at the Geek without feeling queasy.  Salgak might have been a handsome man once, but he’d had implants inserted all over his face, marring his skin.  One eye had been completely replaced by an implant that seemed to spin independently.  He wasn't even the worst of the Geeks, or their rivals and sometimes enemies the Nerds; she’d seen one who had completely stripped himself of everything, including sexual identity.  The sight hadn’t been improved by his permanent nakedness.  He might have been a genius, but he was also on the verge of outright insanity.

“This meeting will come to order,” Colin Harper said.  His voice was, as always, calm and composed.  He might have started a rebellion that would challenge the very heart of Imperial power, but he hadn’t allowed it to go to his head.  “First, I must confirm the unfortunate demise of Commodore Coydt and his replacement by Captain Manning, who has been promoted to fill that slot.”

There was a brief burst of conversation.  Kathy hadn’t been directly involved, but from what Cordova had said when he’d visited her – and her bed – the former Commodore had deserved a horrible death.  Many of the former Imperial Navy officers knew each other, at least by reputation, and tended to share their impressions freely.  Just by being what he was, Coydt might have brought the rebellion to its knees.

“Second, I must commend the individuals who have been working on our industrial plant,” Colin continued.  Kathy felt a brief flush of pride as all eyes turned to her for a second.  “Please could we have a status report on production levels?”

Kathy felt herself flushing again.  She hated public speaking.  It didn’t help that far too many people saw her as the personification of the Thousand Families, even though she had thrown her title away and climbed into bed – literally – with the rebels.  Cordova had had years along the Rim, building up a reputation, while all she had were the former miners from her asteroid mining project.  They might testify in her favour, but everyone else viewed her with a little suspicion.  She might have been secretly working to sabotage the rebellion.

“The vast majority of the industrial plant we captured has been restored to full working order,” Kathy said.  “The main industrial nodes here and the Roosevelt worlds had been working to churn out new light units, while we have started assembly work for additional Class-I shipyards, capable of building superdreadnaughts.  The main problem lies in bottlenecks in production, but we’re capable of building additional facilities for reducing the bottlenecks, given sufficient time.

“At the moment, production levels are actually able to meet and exceed the Shadow Fleet’s demands for weapons and spare parts,” she continued.  It hadn’t surprised her to discover that Percival, or perhaps one of his supply officers, had skimped on the spare parts that were supposed to be in storage.  The records had claimed that Harmony Base met the Imperial Navy’s specifications in all particulars, but someone had clearly been cheating.  “Overall, we should be able to continue to expand production and outfit the supply dumps further into the Empire without significant problems.”

She paused.  “Production of orbital weapons platforms and other defences has had to take a secondary priority to starships and their equipment, but we have been able to deploy several thousand missile racks to threatened systems to provide them with additional firepower, some of them equipped with shield-busting systems.  As production of weapons and ammunition is actually well ahead of other requirements, I have switched some production to improving the defences surrounding other worlds.”

Colin nodded.  “And manpower?”

Kathy winced.  Manpower was the weakest point everywhere.  “We have hundreds of thousands working on the production programs,” she said, refusing to even think about the political problems.  “There were some issues with Macore-trained workers, who lacked experience with Empire-grade plants, but we sorted them out fairly quickly.  Training programs are training new workers as fast as I dare, but many of the newcomers are going to lack the understanding that is so critical to actually improving the plants.  The only good news is that discipline has radically improved and slackers are being taken care of by their fellows.”

“Good,” Colin said.  “Salgek?”

The Geek’s voice held a faint mechanical air as he spoke.  “There is little that I wish to touch upon that has not been touched upon by Lady Kathy,” he said.  A flicker from his laser communicator touched the processor and ordered it to change to a new image.  “The main remaining issue is the construction of new superdreadnaughts.  The improved version of the General-class superdreadnaught is now in production and the first units will fly out of the assembly lines within two months.”

“Excellent,” Colin said, as if it were new to him.  He would, Kathy was sure, have been watching superdreadnaught production like a hawk.  “How does this compare with the Empire’s production rates?”

“It is impossible to know if the strikes on the three Class-I shipyards were successful,” Salgak said.  “Assuming complete success, we will be the only people producing superdreadnaughts for at least nine months, but assuming complete failure, the Empire will be able to produce five superdreadnaughts for every one of ours, at least until we expand production facilities.”

The image altered at his command.  “Accordingly, we have completed the design for a Freedom-class superdreadnaught, which has incorporated all the lessons from the recent superdreadnaught-on-superdreadnaught battles in this sector,” he added.  “The missile throw weight is thirty percent higher than the standard General-class design, although to compensate it mounts fewer energy weapons than a comparable Imperial ship.  The point defence, however, has been expanded radically and while I would not like to say that a single ship could survive a wave of missiles from an arsenal ship, a squadron certainly should be able to ward off such an attack and come through intact.

“It’s impossible to say when the Empire will improve their own designs,” he concluded.  “We had planning underway since before the First Battle of Harmony and simply updated them to incorporate all the modifications before we started construction of the lead ship.  They may end up simply making minor improvements to their point defence networks, including the deployment of standard point defence escorts…”

“That’ll endear them to their crews,” someone said from the rear of the room.

“…And other minor improvements.”

Colin cleared his throat and all eyes focused on him.  “So far, we’ve had it fairly easy,” he said.  There were some chuckles.  No one would have described the Battle of Harmony, either battle, as easy.  Percival might have been a fool, but he’d had some pretty competent assistants.  “Once we defeated Admiral Quentin, we were able to snatch up hundreds of star systems that had barely any mobile units committed to their defence, while hundreds of starships came over to us.  Bases and repair yards fell into our hands with barely a fight.”

The image altered on his command.  “That’s about to change,” he continued.  “I understand that there is an argument for proceeding around the sectors on the verge of the Rim and liberating them all, but that won’t help us when the Empire gathers its forces and returns to assault us.  By taking Harmony, we ensured that the greatest advantage of the Shadow Fleet, our secrecy, was terminated.  The Empire now has a list of targets where we have to defend and Imperial Doctrine, as written in the days of the Dathi War, admits of only one course of action.  They will come after those worlds with everything they have.”

Kathy nodded slowly.  The colonies on the outskirts of the Empire might have been important one day, but at the moment, only a handful could be really considered a net gain to the rebel forces.  The inner worlds were another matter.  They’d been settled for hundreds of years, had considerable industrial power on their own…and some of them were even civilised.  They hadn’t suffered the legal asset-stripping and rape that the outer worlds and colonies had suffered and many of them would be loyal to the Empire, or at least to the Family that controlled them.  The first-rank worlds wouldn’t want to break their precious neutrality, while the Core Worlds held the most powerful concentration of industrial might in the known galaxy.  Given time, the Empire would rebuild the Imperial Navy and grind the rebel planets into dust.

“That leaves us with only one course of action,” Colin said.  The image altered again, showing the slice of the Empire facing them, insofar as that had any meaning in the days of flicker drives.  “We must go on the offensive and press the attack into the inner worlds, if not the Core itself.  That presents us with a whole series of new difficulties.”

He tapped the display and a chart appeared, showing building times.  “We have, at the moment, a margin of superiority over the Imperial Navy,” he added.  “Their units have been scattered, or caught hopelessly out of place, or have come over to us.  That will not last.  If they deploy Home Fleet to…say, Chalker or Morrison, they will equalise the situation in a day.  In three to four months, they could concentrate the remaining elements of the Imperial Fleet and advance against us.  I imagine that they won’t bother with the small fry; they’ll just advance and punch out our bases, one by one.

“And if that happens, we are doomed.

“We must take advantage of our temporary superiority and move, now, to defeat them,” he concluded.  “Any other course of action plays into their hands.”

He paused, awaiting comment.  “I have little in the way of military experience,” Bethann Rosie admitted, “but it seems to me as if you would be spreading your fleet very thin.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Colin agreed.  “It’s simply not possible for us, or them, to patrol borders.  The Shadow Fleet, properly concentrated, represents the single most powerful force in existence, short of Home Fleet itself.  Used properly, it becomes a decisive weapon.  It has to be taken and used before the Imperial Navy concentrates and their shipyards start filling in the holes in their battle lines.  If we let this opportunity slip by, we won’t get a second one.”

“There remains the issue of protecting the worlds that have signed up to the Freedom Alliance,” Bethann added.  “As you yourself admitted, we cannot prevent the Empire from raiding us at will, once they gather themselves to do so.  If they were willing to invade Macore, what’s to stop them doing the same – or a scorching – to any other world that they choose?  Why not keep elements of the fleet back to protect those worlds?”

Kathy watched Colin’s face carefully.  He didn’t look happy, although there was still the same dispassionate note of calm.  “The problem with a starship, any starship, as the Imperial Navy has just been taught, is that it can only be in one place at a time,” Colin said, tightly.  “If the entire Imperial Navy was concentrated here, they would crush us, at the expense of risking chaos in other sectors.  They will need time to concentrate against us and that gives us our opening.

“But the more space we claim,” he continued, “gives us the same problem.  A superdreadnaught here, on guard duty, will not be part of the battle line.  We need them, frankly, to break through enemy defences further towards the Core.  Worse, a scattered fleet is only as strong as its strongest segment and by splitting up the fleet, we risk allowing the enemy to defeat us, segment by segment.  It could shorten the war.”

The way he said it sent a chill down Kathy’s spine.  “I understand,” Colin concluded, “that we have a duty to protect the worlds we liberated.  Unfortunately, we cannot protect them and mount an invasion of the inner worlds…and without the latter, we will be unable to handle the former.  The best defence we can offer is to take out the remainder of the nodal forces and threaten the Core itself.  That will force their leaders to focus on their own defence.”

He glanced around the table.  “Daria?”

Daria smiled from her seat.  “Our logistics have been vastly improved by the arrival of thousands of freighters,” she said.  Kathy didn’t like Daria much – and there was that feeling that she’d seen her somewhere before – but there was no denying her efficiency.  Even Cordova spoke well of her.  “The crews were mainly former independents who were forced into debt bondage and have been happy to join us and help support the Shadow Fleet, if their needs were met.  Several hundred of them will be deployed to help build up the supply dumps towards the Core, which we will use to support our advance.  Overall, logistics are not something we need to be particularly concerned about, although we may have an upswing in piracy as law and order continues to break down.”

Kathy smiled and saw others do likewise.  Pirates had been a constant problem since the human race had started to rise into space and had been hunted and killed mercilessly by the Imperial Navy.  Some of them had been refugees from occupied homeworlds, others had been renegade portions of the Imperial Navy…and some had been sociopathic bastards.  She’d been warned of the dangers before her Family had sent her out to the Rim…and she knew she’d been lucky that it had been Cordova who’d picked her up.  Others wouldn’t have been so merciful.

But it was hard to deny that the Volunteer Fleet had plenty of ex-pirates in its ranks.

Colin had issued a simple order; no atrocities.  Daria and Cordova had enforced that mercilessly, using the traits that had earned them respect, if not liking, along the Rim, but some pirates would always be pirates.  The irony alone would be enough to give Public Information a field day…and, for once, they wouldn’t even be lying.

“I can speak to the various asteroid leaders,” Cordova said, into the silence.  “They can be warned to have no dealings with them if they raid our shipping, or else.”

“Thank you,” Colin said.  He looked around the room.  “We’ve taken the first step and we won.  Now we have no choice, but to take the second step.  I want to see the senior fleet officers in my quarters in fifteen minutes.”

He smiled, coldly.  “We have a campaign to plan.”

Chapter Six

This must be what Patronage feels like from the other side, Colin thought wryly, as the Shadow Fleet’s command staff assembled in his quarters.  He’d thought that superdreadnaught admirals had fine quarters – while their crewmen had to do with tiny cabins and shared bunkrooms – but the Command Fortress outdid the superdreadnaughts by far.  The meeting room was large enough to hold a football match and decorated in a style Colin had learned to loathe.  Percival’s designated successor had probably had taste at one point, but he’d showed none of it in his interior designs.  Colin could see the logic of allowing senior officers the freedom to choose their own quarter designs, but he felt that the Command Fortress had overdone it a little.

He glanced around the massive room as Cindi refilled glasses and mugs.  Some commanding officers would have preferred to hold the meeting sitting around a table, but Colin had decided that, on the eve of their departure, something less formal was called for.  He’d asked Cindi, who had once been his former commanding officer’s personal slave, to host, while he worked on his own plans.  The small group of officers and men facing him were competent and able people.  They would study his plans carefully and dissect them for any potential flaws before it was too late.

It reminded him of a similar meeting, almost a year ago, when they’d all been Commanders, if not lower ranks.  They’d met, then, to plot in secret and to plan to overthrow the Empire, but now…now, their own success threatened them.  They’d all been inexperienced in fleet command and combined operations before the mutiny and now, when they were suddenly in command of a fleet, they had to learn on the job.  Worse, they knew that they were able…and, if their own aspirations weren't met, it was quite possible that some of them would turn on him.  It was one thing to take a post they knew they could handle, but quite another to prohibit further advancement…

He cleared his throat and was gratified when all eyes turned to him.  “Thank you all for coming,” he said, noting that it would be a rare officer who declined the invitation.  The temptations of power were almost overwhelming, not least the temptation to promote sycophants into positions of power, the very charge that he had levelled against Percival.  “We have a great deal to get through and not much time.  This table represents our current division of forces.”

The chart appeared, hanging in midair.  “Overall, we should have ninety superdreadnaughts in active service within the next few days,” he said.  The sheer number of mutinies that had succeeded, or in several cases left the ship a useless wreck, had surprised even him.  “Our fleet organisation table is improving steadily, but as we don’t have enough experience in manoeuvring such a large fleet, we may have to continue drilling even as we probe towards Morrison.  The only piece of good news from that is that our opponents will be equally ignorant, at least in practice.”

There was a great deal of sage nodding.  The Empire had parcelled out its superdreadnaughts in squadrons of nine ships, sending them out to provide a firebreak for any potential trouble.  It would have worked, too, if it hadn’t been for Colin’s carefully-planned series of mutinies and boarding actions.  Very few Admirals had commanded more than a couple of superdreadnaught squadrons in action.  The sheer time it would take to concentrate a sizeable force in blocking positions would give the rebels an advantage…

But there was a major disadvantage as well.  The defences of Harmony and later Yanasaxon had been badly handled.  The defences of the Core Worlds would be in the hands of far more experienced personnel, determined to defend their homeworlds and bleed the rebel fleet white.  The data on Earth’s defences alone – and he suspected that some details would have been carefully removed from anything Percival would have had access to – had been worrying.  Breaking through them would be a costly exercise even if Home Fleet were out of the picture.

And that led neatly to another problem.  Armchair strategists often asked why fleets didn’t just flicker out to their targets and ignore all the bases in-between.  The answer was fairly simple.  If he took the Shadow Fleet to Earth, an enemy commander at Morrison, or somewhere closer, might use the time to strike at the heart of the rebellion.  They would have to advance on Earth, taking out the bases one by one as they advanced, unless the Families saw sense and surrendered.  He doubted, somehow, that they would give up so easily.  Once they got over their panic and started calculating the odds, they would probably conclude that they were in their favour.  He wasn't sure that they’d be wrong.

“Overall, our first objective is to isolate and then take out Morrison,” he said, as the display focused in on the planet.  The war, fought out over thousands of light years, would make the Dathi War look simple and easy to understand.  Most of the planets in their path were effectively useless, as far as supplying the war effort was concerned.  “We don’t have accurate information on what the current status of Morrison actually is, but I suspect that they will have been straining everything to have the planet reinforced and all units from the nearby sectors concentrated there.”

“And then they can use it as a base to counterattack,” Commodore Arun Prabhu said, thoughtfully.  The Brahman sipped a cup of coffee as he spoke.  “I had the pleasure of meeting Admiral D'Ammassa once, back when I was a lowly Lieutenant.  Rumour had it that he was corrupt and vernal enough for five men and that the rest of his toadies were even worse.  There was talk of an investigation, but it never got anywhere.  Too many friends in the High City.”

Colin nodded thoughtfully.  The main reason for the Empire maintaining such a large facility at Morrison, well within the Empire’s borders, was to keep a sharp and watchful eye on the first-rank worlds, ensuring that they didn’t become a threat to the Empire.  The original deal might have been negotiated in good faith, but now the Families were finally starting to reach into the first-rank worlds…and when push came to shove a single superdreadnaught squadron could take any of them out within hours.  It wouldn’t be long before they were brought firmly into the Empire and, like any of the later colonies, taxed into submission.  There were times when he felt that the Empire had become a black hole, sucking in all that was good and noble, and producing only rubbish.

“I never met him myself,” Colin said.  “What did they say about his competence?”

“Never commanded a fleet action in his life,” Prabhu said, dryly.  “He might be a tactical genius, but I suspect his real skills come from kissing the right asses.”  He paused.  “The real question is how long they’re going to leave him out there.”

Colin lifted an eyebrow.  “He’s not the type of person you want commanding a firebase in face of the enemy advance,” Prabhu commented.  “In their place, I’d have him removed and replaced with someone more competent, as quickly as possible.”

“That’s something we’re going to have to watch for,” Colin agreed.  He studied the star chart for a long moment.  “We’re going to bypass most of the worlds in the approach vector.  They won’t add anything to our fighting power, so the most we’ll do for them is taking out any pickets to ensure that they cannot report our advance.  If they rebel against the Imperial forces, well and good, but we cannot afford to get bogged down.  We strike directly for Morrison and isolate it.”

He keyed the display and it altered.  “In order to do that, we have to take out Orland, Gaza and Candleford,” he continued.   “Quite apart from the support facilities based there, they serve as the permanent homeports for various elements of the Sector Fleet…and in a pinch, Admiral D'Ammassa or his successor could continue operations from them.  I imagine that they’re dusting off the contingency plans by now.  We might wish to secure Miami as well, but as that’s a first-rank world of long standing, going after it might provoke trouble from the first-rank worlds.”

“Does it matter?”  Commodore Thomas Pearson asked.  “They don’t have anything like the kind of firepower needed to interfere with us?”

“In the short time, you’d be absolutely correct,” Colin agreed.  “They’re deliberately kept weak by the Empire.  However, in the longer term, alienating them would give us new enemies…and we’re going to need them to help stabilise the Empire.  I suspect that some of them will want to help us, if indirectly, and as long as we don’t give them cause, they won’t want to fight us.”

He paused.  “I don’t want to tie your hands,” he added.  “If their ships do engage yours, treat them as hostile and blow them into plasma.  The safety of your ships and crews come first.”

The display altered again.  “Thomas, I’m giving you a second superdreadnaught squadron to back you up here,” he said, tapping the display.  “If you can take the system without revealing it’s existence, do so.  If not…well, take the system first and we’ll worry about the rest later.  Clifford, I want you striking into their rear area; start here, at Darien, and then pick your targets at random…”

He spoke on, slowly issuing particular orders.  He’d solved the problem of organising the ships carefully, mainly by assigning them to new squadrons, which had simply been numbered in order of formation.  The Empire, which referred to squadrons by type of ships, would be confused; the 1st and 2nd Squadron consisted of superdreadnaughts, while the 3rd consisted of battlecruisers…and the 4th of superdreadnaughts again.  It had also allowed him a chance to ensure that his people got the top slots, the men and women who’d been with him from the beginning and he could trust, but sooner or later he was going to have to permit others to rise.  The irony was not lost on him.

“Jason, I want you stabbing into the heart of the Empire,” he concluded.  There was a lot to be said for the Volunteer Fleet, but it couldn’t go toe-to-toe with the Imperial Navy.  “Raid convoys, launch hit and run attacks on their installations, but again, stay away from the first-rank worlds unless they start something.  We don’t need more enemies.”

Cordova doffed his hat in a formal manner that had been outdated since the Third Emperor.  “We already have plenty of the bastards,” he agreed, sardonically.  “You do know that most of them will suspect that we’re up to no good?”

Colin laughed.  “We’re mutineers and worse, as far as the Imperial Navy is concerned,” he said.  “How much worse could it get?”

Cordova shrugged.  He hadn’t been an instant hit with Colin’s core group, even though he had a spectacular reputation.  They’d wondered just why a member of the Families would choose to go into exile, or if there was something more sinister behind it than the accepted story.  The man was just too good to be true.  He might have had a combat record longer than some of them had been alive, but he wasn't trusted.  The Volunteer Fleet might have followed him, but Colin would have been surprised to discover that they trusted him completely.  Trust could be expensive along the Rim.

“We could all end up on a penal world,” Cordova suggested, finally. “That would be pretty much the worst they could do to us.”

Colin tapped the table.  “I don’t have to tell any of you how important this is, or how vital it is that we take Morrison before the Empire has a chance to fortify it beyond it’s already heavy fortifications,” he said.  He looked around the table.  “If we knock out Morrison, we can…influence the first-rank worlds, but they’re not the only ones there.  The worlds in that sector are largely…happy under the Empire’s yoke, protected from the worst of the exploitation by the Families that control them, and they might be frightened of us.  They will be scared.  They may refuse to have anything to do with us.  They might lash out in a panic.”

He held, briefly, Cordova’s eyes, gauging his reaction.  Accidents happened in war and some of them could be tragic, like a multi-megaton shipkiller coming down on an inhabited world.  Harmony had soaked up a handful of such missiles from the First Battle of Harmony, when Percival’s command fortress had been destroyed, but no one would have noticed, or cared.  An inhabited world with a proper biosphere was a different matter…but accidents happened.  A deliberate strike was something else altogether.

“I have said this before and I’ll say it again,” he concluded.  “I will not tolerate any atrocities committed by forces under my command.  If they start something, then we will finish it and we will do whatever we have to do to finish it, but we will not start anything.  If they join us, well and good.  If they decide to remain out of the fighting, we will permit them to do so to the best of our ability.  If there’s anyone who has a problem with that, I will accept their resignations now.

“Public Information is going to turn us into the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, starships full of thousands of Attila the Huns, but we are not going to act like them.  We will use the minimum necessary force to take our objectives and safeguard our own forces, but nothing more.  Rumour spreads faster than Public Information’s nonsense and we are not going to lose the chance to convince them that we’re the good guys.  Understand?”

There was a brief round of nods.  “Good,” Colin said.  “Now, I believe that we have a meal waiting for us in the dining room, so we’d better eat it before the cooks get annoyed with us, or we’ll have reconstructed meals for the next month.”

He smiled at their reactions.  They’d all had to eat more reconstructed food than was good for them, even as part of the Shadow Fleet.  The Empire insisted that all colony worlds learned to feed themselves as quickly as possible – shipping grain or other food products across space was rarely economic – and the Imperial Navy was quite happy to extort food from colonies, but it was quite normal for junior officers to only eat processed food.  It helped remind them of their status.

In many ways, Colin thought, as he led the way into the dining room, the Empire can be quite petty.

***
“You laid it on a bit thick back there,” David Houston said, afterwards.  The pleasant sense of having filled every nook and cranny with food had made Colin mellow a little.  “Everyone knows that we mustn’t fire on civilians or we will suffer badly.”

Colin shrugged, absently.  David had decided to remain as his Flag Captain for the moment, but had ended up doing most of the duties of a Commodore, even though he had declined the offered promotion.  The Imperial Fleet tended to give Commodores entire squadrons, rather than a position under an Admiral, but David had been happy to remain on his ship.  Colin felt vaguely guilty about that, even though he knew that David had chosen it freely, but there was little choice.  They needed to use their experienced officers as ruthlessly as possible.

“We could win this war in an afternoon if we could convince the Families that surrender is their best option,” Colin said.  He’d made deals with several Family members, Kathy Tyler among them, to use their skills for the rebellion.  The others might have people with skills they’d need, just to keep some semblance of a united human race alive.  “The best way we can do that is to convince them that they’re not going to be killed on sight.”

“And piss off billions of people,” David said, dryly.  “Have you forgotten the Prime Minister’s objections so quickly?”

“No,” Colin said.  “Can you justify continuing the war just to bring the remains of the Families down?”

He scowled at the memory.  He’d given a pair of particularly bad Imperial officers, an SD General and a Family Manger, amnesty to spare Macore further suffering.  He’d thought that it had been a reasonable decision, but Blondel Dupre had disagreed, loudly.  She'd practically accused him of taking bribes, or selling out, and had been reluctant to take the post of Prime Minister when he’d created it.

“Point,” David agreed.  He smiled into his glass.  “You’ll be pleased to hear that the main exercises went perfectly, once we started running through the main plans.”

Colin nodded.  The other reason for keeping David as his Flag Captain, Commodore of the 1st Squadron in all, but name, had been because he didn’t have time to handle everything.  He’d barely started creating a staff to handle all the rear-area work, let alone command the squadron and ensure that it was ready for battle.  David should have been promoted, but…

“Good,” he said, yawning.  “I’ll review the exercise in the morning, but are there any points that you feel should be brought to my attention?”

“We’re in trouble if they deploy their own arsenal ships,” David said, flatly.  “We’ve beefed up point defence as far as we can, and rigged up additional control circuits, but if they manage to overload them…”

Colin didn’t have to imagine it.  He’d seen what the arsenal ships had done to the defenders of Harmony.  Two entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts, the toughest ships in the known universe, crushed and broken like flies.  Naval warfare had changed that day.

“All the more reason to push ahead now,” he said.  “It won’t be long until they put someone competent in charge…and then, God help us all.”

Chapter Seven

“Prepare for emergence,” Joshua ordered, as the superdreadnaught flickered towards Morrison.  The system was extremely well charted, having been settled for over a thousand years, but he’d ordered that they emerged outside any of the designated emergence zones.  “Now!”

Penny caught herself as the superdreadnaught returned to normal space.  The trip had been, in so many ways, the best time of her life and she was almost sorry that it was over.  Working for, and with, someone who actually cared what she thought, or had the intelligence to use her advice properly, was something new.  Joshua, she was convinced, would have been CNO, if not Home Fleet’s commander, in a rational navy.  Whatever had happened to get him moved to the reserves, and it was one thing he refused to discuss, had ruined his career.

“Emergence complete,” the helmsman said.  “The remainder of the fleet is arriving in loose formation.”

It wasn’t possible, as every good tactician knew, to have a fleet fly through flicker-space in perfect formation.  It was unlikely in the extreme that two starships, each one tiny on the scale of the universe, would actually try to flicker into the same location, but the notorious inaccuracy of the drive ruined any hope of formation flying.  Very few commanding officers would risk flickering into enemy range, knowing that their ships would be disorientated for vital seconds, but they would come out as close as possible to their targets.  It cut down on sublight travel time.

“Good,” Joshua said.  “Transmit our authorisation code to System Command and let me know the minute we get a response.”

Penny watched the displays thoughtfully.  Joshua had told her to watch for anything that looked odd, or out of place, but it took her a moment to realise what was missing.  A large fleet, composed of superdreadnaughts, had flickered out into the local system…and System Command hadn’t sounded the alert.  The fortresses orbiting the planet ahead hadn’t gone to battle stations, the starships supporting them hadn’t brought up their drives…

Sloppy, she thought.  Morrison should have known for at least four months that it was on the front lines, insofar as they existed in space warfare, but the defenders didn’t seem to be on alert.  They might have known that there were superdreadnaughts in the incoming fleet, but they didn’t know which superdreadnaughts…and the rebels had been known to play the false flag trick before.  If they had managed to sneak a superdreadnaught squadron into point-blank range of Pollack’s command fortress, might they not try again?

“I have a challenge from System Command,” the communications officer said finally.  “They’re demanding our secondary codes before they clear us to approach.”

“Really,” Joshua said.  His voice was as calm as always, but his eyes were as hard as flint.  “Transmit the secondary codes and inform Admiral D'Ammassa that I wish to see him onboard my flagship in…two hours.”

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer said.  If he was pleased at the promised trouble in Joshua’s voice, he didn’t show it.  “Signal transmitted.”

Joshua smiled without humour.  “Move us into parking orbits,” he said, to the helmsman.  “Clear us a slot with System Command.”  He turned back to the communications officer.  “I want full updates and readiness reports from every unit in this system, from the largest fortress to the smallest gunboat.  Nothing is to be left out.”

“Admiral D'Ammassa is going to throw a fit,” Penny said, from her position.  She rather suspected that Admiral D'Ammassa was in for a nasty shock, but the man had more patrons than anyone else she’d met, including Percival.  “Is it even legal to demand the updates personally?”

“I don’t care what Admiral D'Ammassa wants or says,” Joshua said, tightly.  “If he stands on his rights, instead of his duties, I will squash him like a bug.”

He keyed his console.  “Engineer Alonzo?  I have a special task for you…”

Morrison hadn’t been an inhabitable planet when it had been discovered and had been generally ignored by the Federation, but the Empire had found a use for it.  The Imperial Navy had claimed the entire system for themselves, like Harmony, and had brought in a team of planetary engineers to create a stable biosphere.  Unlike Harmony, the world had taken a positive interest in blossoming to life and, a thousand years later, had a thriving population of nearly a billion people.  The transients might not have stayed for long, but thousands of Navy personnel had retired to the planet and started to raise their families there.  It was one of the most loyal worlds in the Empire and the rewards had been awesome.

The defences were, in theory, impregnable, but Penny had seen two different sets of impregnable defences broken by the rebels and knew that there was no such thing.  A hundred fortresses, each one armed to the teeth, orbited the planet, while others surrounded industrial nodes and Family-owned facilities. Morrison had had a large role in preparing the Annual Fleet and supplied several sectors with advanced technology that they were forbidden from making themselves.  It should have been the richest and best-defended world for light years.  Instead…

Joshua went through all the reports carefully, with an attention to detail that surprised her, and a more disturbing picture began to emerge.  Percival might have been indolent, but he’d commanded a base and Sector Fleet that was used regularly, if only on patrol.  Morrison’s various commanding officers – and, she saw now, they ran through a nearly unbroken linage – hadn’t had to worry about rebels, or even pirates, and they’d run the entire sector down.  She had thought that she was used to corruption, but this was something new, something almost terrifying.

An hour later, Admiral D'Ammassa was piped onboard General Clive.  Penny wasn’t impressed.  He looked as if he couldn’t even be bothered using cosmetic treatments to rid himself of his paunch, let alone the crude and ugly face.  His uniform was carefully tailored to show hundreds of ribbons and a handful of actual medals, but even the most capable outfitter couldn’t disguise the clashing colours.  He didn’t look happy to see Joshua, even when he should have been thanking God for all the help he could get…and in fact he looked distinctly scared.

“What is the meaning of this?”  He demanded, as soon as he was shown into the Admiral’s office, along with three of his cronies.  One of them, as far as Penny had been able to determine, wasn't even on the Navy List for the sector.  “You’re overstretching your authority just by…”

“Shut up,” Joshua said, in a surprisingly pleasant voice.  “I transmitted my credentials to you when we arrived, including my command authority, directly granted by the CNO and Parliament itself.  Do you dispute their authority?”

Admiral D'Ammassa flinched.  Everyone knew – well, everyone who was anyone knew – that Parliament had no authority and never had had, but a command slip from them meant that almost all of the Thousand Families had signed off on Joshua’s authority.  He might have had his patrons, but Joshua had the support of the entire political system; they’d have to back him, or end up looking weak and indecisive.

“I don’t mean to cast them into disrepute,” he said, finally.  “I mean to say that there are proper lines of communication and clear chains of command.  My Commodores are not used to having to supply additional reports, not when they’re included in the annual reports I sent back to Earth.”

“Yes,” Joshua said, very slowly.  “I read that report very carefully.  I read it…and noted all the things it didn’t say, all the little discrepancies that didn’t quite add up.”  His eyes hardened.  “It’s fairly standard for any fleet base to have little discrepancies from time to time, but you…you had so many that I was forced to take a much closer look than I would normally have done.”

He leaned forward, his eyes hard and cold.  “Tell me something,” he said.  “What is the current status of the 14th Superdreadnaught Squadron?”

“It’s on station, assigned to the orbital guard forces,” Admiral D'Ammassa said, somehow unable to look away.  “They’re good ships…”

“Interesting,” Joshua said.  He tapped one of the chips on his desk thoughtfully.  “I used to command a superdreadnaught squadron myself and I know that they always use up more supplies than predicted, despite what regulations say.  There are hundreds of components that fail on a regular basis and have to be replaced, while there are even some basic improvements added to the hull…but your ships took only what regulations said they should take.”

“My Commodore is very efficient,” Admiral D'Ammassa protested.  “I didn’t come here to hear you casting aspirations on my people.”

“Too efficient,” Joshua said.  He smiled suddenly.  “If you had the ships in mothballs, they would still have gobbled up supplies, particularly when you reactivated them for the war.  The only superdreadnaught that uses regulation supplies is a destroyed superdreadnaught.  Your Commodore is either a genius or fiddling somewhere.”

He leaned forward again.  “And so I took the liberty of sending a competent engineer to examine the flagship of that squadron,” he concluded.  “Would you like to know what he said?  He said that the flagship wouldn’t be suited for active service without a year of repairs and refitting – a year, when it takes six months to build a new ship!  There was no time to examine the other ships in the squadron, but I’d bet good money that they’re in the same state, if not worse…

“Do you have something you want to explain to me?”

Admiral D'Ammassa said nothing.

“Let me guess what happened, then,” Joshua said.  “The 14th Superdreadnaught Squadron wasn’t going to be used for anything more important than waving the flag and looking intimidating.  You, or someone on your team, decided that you could get yourself some money by selling off superdreadnaught components to outside interests, and so you didn’t even bother to do routine maintenance.  There are components on a superdreadnaught that have to be replaced every week…and they’ve been left there for months!  How many other ships are in the same condition, or worse?”

“I don’t think you understand,” Admiral D'Ammassa said, after a desperate pause.  “I had to use…”

“You are relieved,” Joshua said.  “Sergeant, if you would…?”

Penny had barely noticed the burly Household Trooper in the corner of the room.  He moved forward, before anyone else could act, and neatly removed Admiral D'Ammassa’s laser pistol from its holster.  The Admiral looked as if he would have liked to protest, but one look into the Sergeant’s eyes convinced him that it would have been futile, and perhaps painful.

“You can’t relieve me,” Admiral D'Ammassa protested.  “I have friends…”

“You are relieved and you will be placed in solitary confinement until a Captain’s Board can be convened to judge you on charges of gross corruption, abuse of authority and high treason.  Do you have anything you wish to say before you are removed?”

Admiral D'Ammassa’s mouth worked soundlessly.  “You can’t,” he said, finally.  “Everyone does it, everyone!  I did nothing new…”

“No, you didn’t,” Joshua agreed.  His voice hardened again.  “You were just the poor bastard, charged with defending an entire sector, who thought it would be more rewarding to sell off vital components to fund your retirement.  You could have skimmed quite nicely without damaging your own fleet, couldn’t you?  As it is, I’m not sure that we could hold Morrison if the rebels came at us; I’d bet that the orbital defences are in the same state as those poor superdreadnaughts.”

He looked up at the Sergeant.  “Take him away,” he said.  “He is to speak to no one, particularly no one from the base.”

“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said.  He helped Admiral D'Ammassa to his feet.  “Come along.”

The door hissed closed behind them.  “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

Penny listened as Admiral D'Ammassa’s cronies fell over themselves to talk, desperately, and try to clear their own names.  She doubted that they could talk themselves out of charges, although if they had been following orders, legally they would be in the clear.  Admiral D'Ammassa had been right about one thing; everyone did do it.  Percival simply hadn’t had the opportunities for looting his own fleet that Admiral D'Ammassa had had.

“Good,” Joshua said, finally.  He favoured them all with a icy smile.  “You will return to the Command Fortress and prepare an accurate report on the state of the defences.  If there are any further discrepancies, I will not hesitate to add you to my bag and have you shot, pour encourager les autres.  Understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

“At least you know how to stand to attention,” Joshua said.  He held up a hand as they turned to leave.  “There is one thing you need to know about me.  I give a second chance, but not a third.  If you can’t handle your duties, come to me and I will relieve you and send you somewhere harmless.  If you let me down, having accepted the responsibility, I won’t give you a third chance.  Don’t fuck up.”

They left the room as fast as dignity would allow them.

Penny looked over at Joshua.  “Can you actually convene a Captain’s Board?”

Joshua laughed.  A Captain’s Board was a holdover from the Federation, a regulation that called for Captains to stand in judgement of any Admiral accused of a serious offence, from corruption to desertion in the face of the enemy.  It hadn’t been used for hundreds of years, not when senior officers had patrons who could be relied upon to protect their interests and avenge the verdict, but it was still on the books.  Joshua would be quite within his legal rights to call such a Board, but it wouldn’t please any of the Families.

“He’s not going to talk to anyone,” Joshua said.  “By the time that merry bunch of cowards and crooks manages to get a message back to Earth, I’ll have formed the Board and passed judgement.  I doubt that anyone will be keen to help him avoid a high treason charge, not when he was probably supplying the rebels with enough components to build an entire fleet of superdreadnaughts.  Reading between the lines on his supply reports, it was fairly obvious that something fishy was going on.”

He laughed again.  “That’s why officers should never be allowed to reach high positions without at least some experience at actually doing the job,” he added.  “I wouldn’t have made that mistake, and neither would anyone else who had actually handled a superdreadnaught’s logistics.”

“You don’t know that he was supplying the rebels,” Penny pointed out, worried.  She didn’t want to lose him to a political faction fight.  “He might have been selling them to the first-rank worlds instead.”

“Yeah, he might,” Joshua agreed.  He winked at her, inviting her to share the joke.  “Of course, who else would want superdreadnaught components?  They sound so intimidating, but really, you could slot most of them into any ship.  I bet you dinner at the finest restaurant on the planet below that most of them went to commercial interests, maybe even the shipping lines.”

“No bet,” Penny said, after a moment’s thought.  Joshua was probably right.  “Are you going to have others relieved or transferred?”

“I don’t know yet,” Joshua admitted.  Percival would have felt the urge to be bombastic.  “If they’re able to handle the job without being corrupt or incompetent, they can continue to hold their positions, provided that they behave.  I’ve given them an easy out – and if they want to be relieved, I can arrange that – but if they don’t take it and then betray me, I won’t be gentle.”

His eyes glittered.  “The bad news is that the 14th Superdreadnaught Squadron’s condition might be typical of the entire Sector Fleet,” he said, changing the subject.  “It’s hard to trust his reports, but while I imagine that the smaller ships are as good as any, the capital ships are likely to be in an equally bad condition.  Instead of near-parity with the rebels, we might be starting from a severe disadvantage.”  He paused.  “At least until new reinforcements get here.”

Penny winced.  The rebels had beaten Admiral Percival and Admiral Quentin when they both held what should have been decisive advantages.  She didn’t want to face them when they held the firepower advantage.

“I told the Cicero that I wanted as much of my old command team as I could, but they got scattered after I was…retired,” Joshua continued.  “Some of them will be coming here, but others will probably refuse to return to duty, even for me.  They’d be out of date as well…”

He broke off.  “But that’s a problem for another day, my dear,” he said.  “I'm about to work you to death, I'm afraid.”

“Oh dear,” Penny said.

“I need you to make an inspection of all the capital ships in the system,” Joshua ordered.  “Take the engineers with you and allow them their heads, while you talk to the Captains; I want your impressions of them and your recommendations.  If we have to relieve a few of them to encourage the others, we will, but I don’t want to relieve the wrong people.”

“Only the expendable ones,” Penny said.

“Exactly,” Joshua said.  “If we can cut away enough of the fat, maybe the meat will taste better.”  He frowned.  “Some of them will flourish under a better commander, some of them will have been merely wasting oxygen for years…and all of Admiral D'Ammassa’s reports can’t be trusted.

“And that still leaves the other problem.  The mutinies came from junior officers and crewmen…so how many here are planning a mutiny?”

Penny blanched.  “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she admitted.  At least she could admit that to him without risking a torrent of abuse.  “Do you think…?”

“I have no idea,” Joshua said, easily.  “Focuses the mind, doesn’t it?”

Chapter Eight

The trial, conviction and execution of Admiral D'Ammassa lasted barely a day.

Captain Anne Cotman, Joshua’s Flag Captain, spoke for the prosecution, carefully detailing everything they’d found on their brief trawl through Admiral D'Ammassa’s databases, building up a case.  One by one, each of his crimes was exposed to scrutiny by the carefully-picked Captain’s Board.  Admiral D'Ammassa, speaking in his own defence, couldn’t muster a coherent explanation or even a defence, beyond the fact that ‘everyone’ did it.  The verdict had been a foregone conclusion right from the start; eight out of nine Captains voted for conviction.  That meant an automatic death sentence.

Penny had expected an explosion from Joshua at one of his Captains voting against conviction, but when one failed to materialise, she’d realised that the entire process had been rigged.  The nine Captains had voted in secret and no one knew who had voted for what, so how could Admiral D'Ammassa’s patrons take revenge?  There had been more than enough information to convict him, but Joshua had ensured that his officers would be free to act.  He’d confirmed the sentence and it had been carried out promptly.  Admiral D'Ammassa had been given the famed last meal, taken into an airlock, and unceremoniously ejected into space.

The memory hung in the air as the senior officers of Morrison gathered in the vast auditorium.  They knew that Joshua’s staff had been digging mercilessly into the base’s records and comparing them to what they found and there wasn't a one of them who wasn't tainted, if only by the failure to report the corruption to someone higher up the food chain.   Penny was pretty sure that she knew what they were thinking.  An Admiral who had executed as powerful and well-connected a personage as Admiral D'Ammassa wouldn’t hesitate to add any of them to the bag.  They probably noticed the presence of a platoon of Household Troops and read sinister motives into their technically illegal presence.

Penny couldn’t blame them for that.  Household Troops, soldiers who had sworn loyalty to a particular Family, were rare off-Earth…and even on Earth, they were rare.  Each Family was allowed a maximum of one thousand troopers to protect themselves, a limit that had been established in the wake of the Second Emperor’s successful use of his Household Troops to dominate the planet.  They were supposed to be the elite, pampered and nurtured by their Family…and completely loyal to them.  Joshua had brought two hundred of them on his flagship and the thought of what they might do was enough to worry officers who should have known better.

She stepped forward at Joshua’s nod and raised her voice.  “Attention on deck!”

The room snapped to attention.  It was large enough to hold almost a thousand men and women, and it was almost completely filled to bursting.  The amplifying fields surrounding the podium would ensure that the speaker could be heard all over the room.  Joshua stepped forward, his face carefully composed, and took the stand.

“At ease,” he said.  The command ran around the room.  “You may be seated.”

He waited long enough for everyone to sit down.  “For those of you who don’t know me, I am Admiral Joshua Wachter, Commanding Officer of the Main Strike Fleet and Morrison Sector Fleet Base,” he said.  A brief rustle ran around the room.  The last person to hold the latter title had been Admiral D'Ammassa…and everyone had seen the images of his body floating in space, before it had been tipped into the planet’s atmosphere.  “I have been appointed by Parliament to take command of this sector and use it to stop the rebel advance.  If anyone wishes to dispute my authority to do that, I can only refer you to Parliament…and remind you that disobedience of orders under fire is a serious offence.”

It was more than just serious, Penny knew.  It was an automatic death sentence.  “I had Admiral D'Ammassa investigated by Security Officers and discovered that he had endangered the Empire,” Joshua continued, naming the old charge for traitors.  “Once the Captain’s Board confirmed that the charges were valid, I confirmed their decision and had the Admiral executed.  Some of you may feel that I exceeded my authority in doing so.  Frankly, as you all know, Admiral D'Ammassa ran this base into the ground and we have to repair the damage, while fending off the rebels.  That leaves us with a series of serious problems.

“The first one, however, is the elephant in the room,” he continued.  “The rebels are not aliens on a genocide-crusade to wipe out humanity.  The rebels are as human as we are.  They’re friends, comrades and former allies, often former crewmen of the Imperial Navy.  Some of you, most of you, will have had doubts over fighting them, or maybe you might have considered joining them.  I don’t blame you for having had those thoughts.”

The silence in the room could have been cut with a knife.  “The Empire is not always a comfortable place,” Joshua acknowledged, “but it represents something far more vital – the fundamental unity and safety of the human race.  Collectively, we are all-powerful, rulers of all we survey.  Individually, we are nothing, just worlds floating all alone in the night.  The Dathi War taught us that the only thing between us and annihilation is the unity of the human race.  We have enemies, hundreds of them, and the only thing that stops them from destroying us is the Empire.  It has enforced the peace for centuries.

“I choose to stand and defend it, to serve the ideal of the Empire.  I don’t know what choice you would prefer to make, but I won’t go into battle with reluctant or mutinous officers behind me.  If you want to stand down, you can do so, now.  If you choose to come with me and stand in defence of the Empire, I will not accept any later decision to change your mind.  I will count that as a treason and mutiny and act accordingly.

“And another point; the rebels are human,” he concluded.  “There are those who will demand the highest of punishments for them.  The death toll is already well over a million lives.  They have wrecked countless others.  When we win the war, we will see to it that the guilty are punished, but those who have been misled into rebellion will be treated gently.  I will not tolerate any atrocities by forces under my command.  I want that clearly understood, now.  We are going to restore the Empire.  We are not going to blacken its name.”

There was a long pause.  “Make your choices well,” he said.  “It won’t be long, one way or the other, before the rebels come here.  We have to be ready to meet them.”

***
Admiral D'Ammassa’s private office had been exactly as Penny had expected; vast, luxurious and tasteless.  It seemed to be a common theme among those who merely stole their money, rather than earning it or inheriting it, although she’d spent enough time with Percival to know that fashions in the High City changed every week.  The vast majority of the Families younger members enjoyed changing to follow the whims of the secret grand masters of fashion, but the cost was staggering.  Some of the dresses, Percival had once told her, barely covered anything…and cost as much as a light cruiser.  Percival himself had owned a wardrobe that had cost enough to buy a fleet of superdreadnaughts.

“Only a handful of mutinies occurred here and they were rapidly crushed,” Commodore Tom Bristol was explaining, carefully.  The tall, fairly handsome man had been desperate to prove himself to Joshua, although the condition of his fortresses was appalling.  Admiral D'Ammassa hadn’t looted them as badly as he’d looted some of his superdreadnaughts – it was his ass on the line if something happened in orbit – but they were still in a dreadful state.  “The survivors were interrogated and then executed on Admiral D'Ammassa’s orders.”

Joshua scowled.  “And, having taught them that they’d damn well better succeed next time, what else did that achieve?”

“It taught them to do as they were told,” Bristol said.  “The Admiral was very determined to maintain order.”

“The best thing we could do with the 14th Superdreadnaught Squadron, at the moment, is hand it over to the rebels and watch them wasting their time trying to repair it,” Joshua said, calmly, but with an undertone of pure ice.  “If the Admiral had spent as much time on maintaining his ships and personnel as he had looting Morrison’s defence establishment, we wouldn’t have been in this mess.  If he had had the intelligence to loot intelligently, he wouldn’t even have been considered a bad officer, would he?”

He leaned forward.  “I expect to see rapid improvements in the quality of the fortresses within a month,” he added.  “I also want regular and unplanned drills to take place and the officers who perform well, regardless of their Family connections or lack of them, to be pushed forward.”

Bristol stared at him.  “Sir, with all due respect…”

“We can no longer coddle incompetents whose only claim to any rights is a famous name,” Joshua said, sharply.  “If there are competent Family members in your fortresses, you can promote them.  If not, promote non-Family members.  Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Bristol said, reluctantly.  Penny could almost sympathise with him, but only up to a point.  There would be Families looking over his shoulder, expecting him to look after their sons and daughters and promoting them into slots as they opened, but Joshua was right.  It could no longer be allowed.  “With your permission, I will start at once.”

“Of course,” Joshua said.  He smiled at Penny and nodded at the next person in line.  “Major Damiani, what can you tell us about the rebels and their current holdings?”

Major Jeremy Damiani looked vaguely oriental, although not to the genetic engineered level of worlds like Edo and Heavenly Grace, and had an air of brisk competence that Penny found rather reassuring.  Damiani worked directly for Imperial Intelligence, rather than anyone in the Imperial Navy, although apparently he hadn’t bothered to report on the state of Morrison’s defences.  Penny would have blamed him for that, although without the rebellion, she had to admit that the reports would have probably been filed and ignored.  The exact state of readiness in a major fleet base so far from the Rim wouldn’t have been a big issue…until it had blown up in their face.

It made her wonder, grimly, what the true state of affairs was elsewhere.  What if other bases were as badly off as Morrison, or worse?  The starships that Joshua believed would be funnelled through to the front lines might never materialise…or they might have already fallen into the hands of the rebels.  The entire Empire might be disintegrating and they wouldn’t even know about it until the news reached Morrison.  It was so easy to become paranoid about what was outside their sector…

“The ICN has taken a heavy beating from mutinies,” Damiani began.  “It is hard to say with any certainty just what happened, but it looks very likely that several hundred courier boats and their crews have deserted to join the rebels, or simply vanished in space.  Overall, we believe that the closest rebel-held world is still seven hundred light years away, but outwards towards Yanasaxon, the worlds are restless.  Several dozen are effectively ruled by their home-grown rebels and others are in a state of upheaval.”

He paused.  Joshua didn’t comment.  “I don’t have exact figures, but I believe that something like fifty to sixty percent of the starships assigned to this part of the galaxy have either gone over to the rebels or been destroyed.  The remainder of the Sector Fleet was ordered by Admiral D'Ammassa to concentrate here, but various elements never made it back here, or were caught and destroyed by loyalist forces.  Overall…”

“Hold on,” Joshua said, holding up a hand.  “Are you telling me that no one is picketing likely lines that the rebels might use to advance against us?”

“Yes, sir,” Damiani said.  “Admiral D'Ammassa believed that concentration was important…”

“Fucking idiot,” Joshua swore.  Penny, who’d never heard him swear before, blinked in surprise.  The rebels needed to punch out at least some of the systems between Morrison and Yanasaxon, but without the ICN, it would be hard to tell which systems had been hit, even with the pickets.  “Penny, make a note.  I want destroyer squadrons detached for picket duty along the likely approach roads.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said, sharing his frustration.  The Imperial Fleet had literally thousands of smaller ships, but they’d been the easiest for the rebels to capture and turn against the Empire.  There were always too many tasks for them to do, from escorting the capital ships and boosting their point defence to running anti-piracy patrols, and there were never enough, even without the rebellion.  A single destroyer would be easy prey for the rebels…and, if parcelled out in penny packets, would spread his ships too far apart.  “If one of them remains in stealth at all times…”

“Yes, see to that as well,” Joshua ordered.  “Carry on, Major.”

“It’s impossible to tell how far advanced the rebels are with their own preparations,” Damiani admitted.  Penny gave him points for courage and honesty, although Damiani had to know that Joshua knew just how hard his task actually was…and wouldn’t appreciate him making it sound harder than it was.  “We don’t have any sources currently active in the Shadow Fleet and while we do have sources on some of the occupied worlds, most of them have been firmly cut off from us.  The freebooters and the handful of independent shipping lines are working for the rebels and so we don’t even have sources from the Rim.”

“Another series of mistakes comes back to haunt us,” Joshua observed, grimly.  “If we had treated them fairly, they wouldn’t have turned on us so quickly.”

“I asked the Admiral for permission to detach destroyers and intelligence pickets, even gunboats, for survey duty, but he refused,” Damiani concluded.  He could have been telling the truth, or he might have been trying to make himself look good.  “The blunt truth is that Sector 117 and Sector 96 – and all of the nearby sectors – are effectively uncharted territory.  It could take months before we have a clear idea of what’s going on…”

“And by then it would be out of date,” Joshua said.  He studied the display thoughtfully, stroking his chin with one finger.  “But they’re not superhuman, even if they did somehow take a squadron of superdreadnaughts from under the nose of their commander.  They have to obey the same basic laws as we do…and so they have to come here.  Punch us out, punch out Orland, Gaza and Candleford…and then hammer onwards into the Core Worlds.  They can’t leave us in their back.  We’d smash their homeworlds and facilities.”

Penny followed his gaze to the fleet display.  In theory, it should have been a fair match for the rebel Shadow Fleet, but in practice it would take weeks, at least, before most of the starships were in condition for actual combat.  Now that Admiral D'Ammassa had been removed, crewmen were actually working on fixing the problems, but how long would it take to get the entire base back into fighting trim?

Joshua looked back at her.  “We’re going to have to go on the offensive as soon as possible,” he said.  “We’ll cut loose a squadron or two of battlecruisers and send them after the shipyards we know about in Sector 117.  The entire war is going to look like a series of crazy see-saws, but we have to knock them off balance while we work on rebuilding this fleet.”

He glanced down at the datapad.  “At least a handful of officers here had their heads screwed on properly,” he added.  “This one has an idea for countering the arsenal ships and their sheer weight of firepower.  If we can cut down on that advantage, we might even be able to delay them long enough to bring up extra firepower…and tear holes in their own unity.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  She hesitated for a moment.  “What do you intend to do about the crew problems?”

“Relieve any commander who abuses them,” Joshua said, flatly.  Penny winced, again.  That wasn't going to improve Joshua’s standing back home.  “If the crewmen were actually happy, or at least content, they wouldn’t have mutinied, would they?”

He turned his gaze back to the display.  “Orland, Gaza and Candleford,” he repeated.  “They have to punch them out…so, which first?  Gaza has the most capable industry, so taking it intact would help them, but Orland has the fleet maintenance facilities, while Candleford includes one of the Academy buildings.  If they took that, they would certainly put a dent in our morale…so, which one would you go after?”

“Gaza,” Penny said, without hesitation.  She’d given the matter some thought.  “The Academy might be useful from a propaganda point of view, but neither that nor the industries would add anything to their strength in the short term.  The fleet maintenance facilities, on the other hand, are very useful to us and, if they captured them, useful to them as well.  The only other alternative is to strike here first, but that would give them the greatest chance of a catastrophic defeat.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?”  Joshua agreed.  He grinned at her.  “Of course, it doesn’t answer the most important question of all.  Does the rebel commander see things in the same light?  What is he thinking, wherever he is?

“I only wish I didn’t feel like I was sitting on a target,” he added, thoughtfully.  “I didn’t realise how bad Morrison was before I came here…and if the rest of the Imperial Navy is in a worse state…”

He didn’t bother to finish the sentence.

Chapter Nine

Paradise Rest was a pleasure planet.  Everyone knew that.  Terraformed to the specifications of one man, a Family scion who had had a theory about the innermost nature of the human race, it was unique in the Empire.  There were other resort worlds, including some that were truly remarkable, but Paradise Rest was the only world that had been entirely devoted to pleasure.  The beaches were fantastic, the landscaping a perfect blend of plants and animals and the cost astronomical.  Even for the insanely wealthy Thousand Families, it had been a staggering price and the person responsible had been quietly retired to his own world.

It was also the most exclusive planet in the galaxy.  Family aristocrats, successful businessmen, even a handful of Imperial Navy and Civil Service personnel were allowed to land, few others apart from the vast staff were permitted onto the planet.  The mere idea of being one of a handful of guests on an entire world was attractive enough, but Paradise Rest went one step further.  Discreet and professional staff could cater for every fantasy, from mountain climbing with gorillas to weird and wonderful sexual combinations, as long as the money held out.  The waiting list was longer than some planetary budgets, but there were no shortage of newcomers.  The planet, the relieved owners had noted, might even pay for itself in a few hundred years.

There was little in the system worth taking.  The planet itself was protected by tough defences to deter any pirate ship, which were backed up by a private squadron of light cruisers, while the remainder of the system was almost totally undeveloped.  There was no gas giant to mine and only a handful of asteroids, hardly worth the effort of developing a sustained industrial facility.  Pirates might want to hold some of the wealthier guests for ransom, but it would only work if they could get away with their lives and the defenders were known to have itchy trigger fingers.  They tended to stay away…

…Which is why the defenders were so badly unprepared when the rebels arrived.

***
Commodore Katy Garland, who had been a mere Commander back before there had been a Shadow Fleet, or even more than a plan forming in the heads of a handful of very able junior officers, braced herself as the battlecruiser Havoc smashed back into normal space, a few light-minutes from Paradise Rest.  Havoc led the lead ships of the 5th Squadron into the system, weapons and probes already coming to alert, watching for any possible ambushes.  Paradise Rest wasn't likely to cause the battlecruisers any problems, but the defenders had to be eliminated and any guests removed from the planet.

“The fleet has completed emergence,” the sensor officer reported.  “No hostiles detected as yet.”

Katy nodded, watching the display as the probes sped away from her ships, sacrificing themselves to ensure that the squadron would have ample warning of any actual threat.  Paradise Rest wasn't, technically speaking, a world protected by the Imperial Navy and data on the defences was scarce, something rare for any world not owned directly by a Family.  Legally, no one was sure if a Family owned Paradise Rest or not, but it hardly mattered.  In so many ways, Paradise Rest was symbolic of all the problems of the Empire, all the little inequalities that kept the system going.  Katy would never have been allowed to visit when she had been a mere Commander, even if she’d taken up with a very senior officer.  The snobs who ran the planet wouldn’t even look at any applications unless they came from someone with enough credit to buy a planet for themselves.

Of course, that rather assumes that no one is going to blow their way into the planet, she thought, with a certain amount of wry amusement.  The Shadow Fleet’s desperate need for experienced officers and men had left her in command, effectively, of four battlecruiser squadrons, while also commanding Havoc herself.  She didn’t mind that – part of her would miss it when enough officers were ready to give her ship a proper Captain – but it meant that her remaining squadrons were inexperienced.  She’d ordered them to remain beyond detection range, ready to come charging in if she ran into trouble, but she doubted that there would be real trouble.  Paradise Rest might legally have any number of defences, from massive fortresses larger than they’d faced at Harmony, to a handful of orbital weapons platforms, but they shouldn’t have been allowed more than a handful of mobile units.  The Thousand Families had learned to be leery about anyone else developing a vast amount of firepower, although that hadn’t saved them when the Empress had used Home Fleet to place herself on the throne.

“I have two squadrons of light cruisers,” the sensor officer said, suddenly, breaking into her thoughts.  “They read out as modified Swift-class, but there’s something odd about their power curves.”

Katy brought the sensor readings up on her private display and studied them.  It was yet another problem caused by her crew’s inexperience.  The sensor officer would have been worked to death learning how to use his systems, but he wouldn’t be prepared for anything out of the ordinary.  The readings might have made perfect sense to a properly-trained officer, but for someone knew…

“It looks like they overpowered the drives,” she said, coming to his rescue.  She’d been a junior officer herself once.  Colin had warned them that the Shadow Fleet would not be operating on the Imperial Navy’s standard procedure for promotion; the competent would be promoted upwards.  There was little point in squashing him.  “It looks as if they’ve added additional drive units to their ship.”

She smiled to herself at his expression.  He was so young!  “Captain,” he said, “could they have taken out the flicker drive and replaced it with additional power cores?”

“Possible, but unlikely,” Katy said, enjoying herself.  Her old Captain, whom she’d burned down personally, wouldn’t have bothered to explain himself.  “If they’d done that, they’d risk being caught badly out of place.”

There were other issues as well, of course.  A sublight ship still took hours to cross a solar system, even a small one, while a flicker drive ship could be across it in seconds.  If there was an emergency in the outer solar system, the cruisers wouldn’t be able to respond to it for hours, if the designers had taken out the flicker drives.  In their place, watching nine battlecruisers bearing down on them, she would have cut her losses and fled for Morrison.  They seemed to be preparing to make a stand.

She called up the orbital display and studied it thoughtfully.  The probes had been wiped out, as she’d expected, picked off by automatic platforms and two of the cruisers, but they’d given her an insight into the defences.  They would have deterred any pirate ship – a pirate had to make profit, so suicide attacks were out of the question – but her ships could blow through them, perhaps without having a single ship damaged.  Eighteen overpowered light cruisers might, if they were very lucky and perhaps suicidal, be able to take down a single battlecruiser, but not nine of them.

“Have we received any signal from the defenders?”

“Nothing, Captain,” the communications officer said.  He, at least, had a fairly simple job.  It wouldn’t be long before he was probably moved over to tactical or sensors, if she were lucky enough to keep him at all.  “They’re not even chatting to each other on open channels.”

“Lasers,” Katy said, without much concern.  Her own ships were using similar systems.  Laser communication beams had the great advantage that intercepting them was almost impossible.  “Open communications.”

“Channel open,” the communications officer said.

“This is Commodore Kady Garland of the Shadow Fleet,” Katy said, choosing each word carefully.  The Imperial Navy had tended to look down on privately-owned armed ships, in the rare circumstances when they had to deal with them, but that didn’t make them stupid.  The Family might have splashed out on the most powerful and capable ships in existence…although unless they had some wonder weapon, they weren't going to be able to defeat her ships.  “You are ordered to stand down your shields, drives and weapons and surrender your ships.  If you comply, we will treat you under the Moscow Accords and repatriate you to the Empire as soon as possible.”

The silence grew and lengthened.  The Moscow Accords predated the Federation, let alone the Empire, and she’d actually had to look Moscow up to discover that it had once been a city on Earth, rather than a planet on the other side of the Core Worlds.  Colin had resurrected the Moscow Accords to justify treating the Empire Loyalists as prisoners of war, rather than allowing the rebellious worlds to take their fury out on them, but no one knew if the Empire would return the favour.  The Moscow Accords were very clear on that subject.

There was no reply.  “I repeat, I can destroy your ships with ease,” she said.  If they drove for the edge of the gravity shadow now, they might just make it, but the last few steps would be under fire all the way.  “Surrender now.  There will be no further warnings.”

“I’m picking up targeting sensors,” the sensor officer said, suddenly.  “They mean to make a fight of it!”

Katy shook her head slowly.  She could guess at the thought processes going on over there.  The commander of the small flotilla was more afraid of his superiors, the people who paid his wages, than he was of her and her ships, even though he could have joined the rebellion.  Paradise Rest might have been useless, as far as the rebels were concerned, but if he fled instead of defending it, they wouldn’t thank him for it.

You’ll get your crews killed for nothing, you stupid bastard, she thought, angrily.  The red edge of missile engagement range was closing rapidly.  It wouldn’t be long before she would have to open fire…and, perhaps, if she targeted the automated platforms first, the rest would see sense and surrender.  You can’t even touch me!

“Missile separation,” the tactical officer said.   “I have seventy missiles on approach vector.  Enemy squadron is coming out after it.”

Katy nodded.  If they had to fight, coming out bunched up was their best option, although it still meant certain death.  They’d be able to cover one another and combine their point defence, but she could overwhelm it with sheer weight of fire.  A pair of battlecruiser mounted more launchers than the entire enemy fleet combined.

“Havoc, Fury and Jim Jaspers will concentrate on the enemy ships,” she ordered, calmly.  There was still time to think and plan.  The enemy missiles wouldn’t reach her point defence range for minutes.  “The remainder of the fleet will concentrate on the automated defences.”  She clicked a single switch mounted on her command chair, unlocking the main offensive weapons.  “Open fire.”

Havoc shuddered as it launched the first spread of missiles towards the enemy ships, staggering the weight of fire slightly to allow for maximum effectiveness.  Battle computers steered them towards the enemy ships, focusing them on breaking through their combined point defence and allocating each missile a specific target.  If they took out their required targets, they might even be reallocated a different target before they burned through their power cores and self-destructed.

“Incoming missiles,” the tactical officer announced, calmly.  The enemy fleet had certainly drilled, Katy realised; they’d already launched their second barrage towards her ships.  It might have worked if they’d been able to combine their volleys, but light cruisers didn’t have the crews or systems to coordinate such a weight of fire.  “Point defence going active…now!”

The ship shivered again, very slightly, as the point defence missiles started to rake great swathes of enemy missiles from space.  One by one, they died in brief flickers of light, vanishing from the display as they were killed.  The icon surrounding Havoc flashed once, warning that the tactical computers had realised that the flagship was the prime target, as the missiles converged on her ship.  Her remaining battlecruisers, their weapons switching over to covering Havoc as they downgraded their own threat rating, added to the point defence weight of fire.  Only one missile survived to slam home against her shields.

“No damage,” the tactical officer reported.  The battlecruiser, used to soaking up dozens of missiles at once, had barely even shuddered under the impact.  “They’re coordinating their second barrage against us as well…”

The display flashed, drawing Katy’s attention back to it.  The battlecruisers had struck back with overwhelming force, the sheer weight of fire blasting five of the enemy cruisers out of space before the second and third barrages arrived.  The missile seeker heads were already redeploying their missiles as the enemy command network fell apart – they had to have killed the flagship through sheer luck – and taking advantage of the confusion.  Three minutes after entering her squadron’s missile range, all but one of the cruisers had been wiped out of space.  The sole survivor, damaged and leaking plasma from a dozen gaping wounds, signalled surrender, but exploded before she could dispatch her Marines to board it.

“Internal explosion,” the sensor officer said.  “Our missiles were turned away from her as soon as she started to surrender.”

Katy nodded.  The ship had been too badly damaged to survive.  Once it had been hit that badly, anything could have gone wrong, probably a reactor power surge.  The light cruisers were tough and capable combatants against pirate ships, but they were hopelessly out of place in a wall of battle.  They had never stood a chance.

What a waste, she thought.  It hadn’t been a glorious victory.  It had been more like smashing helpless targets.  They could have escaped, but instead…

She cleared her throat.  “Status of the automated defences?”

“Being wiped out, one by one,” the tactical officer said.  The layers of automated defences were powerful, but her ships could pick them off, carefully.  They didn’t pose a threat to a single battlecruiser, let alone nine of them.  The Thousand Families had probably made the exact same calculation when they’d allowed them to be built in the first place.  “The planet is asking for terms.”

Katy wanted, very much, to meet the man who’d sent the cruisers into a hopeless battle.  “My terms are very simple,” she said.  “They are to deactivate the remaining weapons platforms and surrender their control complex to my people.  They are to surrender all security staff into my custody, pending their reparation to the Empire under the Moscow Accords, and provide me with a complete list of every guest on the planet below us.  If they do not comply with my terms, I will do what I feel necessary to convince them to change their minds.”

She was, she had to admit privately, bluffing slightly.  Colin had pointed out, when he’d ordered her to take out Paradise Rest, that it was unlikely that they would catch anyone really important – such as the Roosevelt or the Hohenzollern – at the pleasure planet, but taking out the cruisers before they could be used against the rebels was definitely worthwhile.  The staff on the planet below were partly composed of pleasure slaves and liberating them would make good propaganda, but they’d literally been bred to serve.  The Geeks and Nerds had promised results, but undoing the engineered learning disabilities and submissive tendencies would be the work of centuries, if they had the time.

And, from a purely personal point of view, she didn’t want to bombard a defenceless planet.

“They’re responding,” the communications officer said.  “They’re asking for guarantees.”

“Like what?”  Katy asked, sardonically.  “I could promise anything and everything and break it as soon as they surrender, if I even wait that long.”  She shook her head.  “Tell them to surrender or we start breaking things.”

There was a long pause.  “They’re powering down the automated platforms now,” the tactical officer said.  It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  They’d punched enough of a hole in the defences to be able to bombard the planet at will.

“They’re surrendering,” the communications officer added.  “They’ve agreed to the terms.”

Katy keyed her console.  “Major Vane, you are cleared to depart,” she said.  “Good luck.”

The Marine Landing Craft blasted away from the battlecruiser, heading down towards the planet.  They wouldn’t stay there, but they’d be there long enough to wreck everything and pick up anyone worth taking prisoner, before she picked them back up and departed.  Paradise Rest wasn't worth the effort of tying down her ships to defend it.  Once the Empire realised that it had been taken, they’d do everything in their power to recover it, just to avoid embarrassment.  The wealthy and well-connected who’d visited would be really determined to extract revenge.  The ones who hadn’t visited would probably be even more determined.  She’d ruined their chance to show off their conspicuous consumption.

She skimmed through the brief list of guests without much concern.  There wasn't anyone particularly important on the list, apart from a pair of Family Heirs who’d run off to have fun together, before the pressures of their lives drove them apart.  A handful of the guests and several hundred of the staff demanded to be taken off the world, convinced that a force of pirates were just waiting to descend on it with fire and sword, and she agreed.  The handful of remaining defence staff were left behind to face the music.

“Overall, a pretty successful raid,” she concluded, when the Marines returned to her ships.  It had been easy, almost trouble-free, and extremely embarrassing to the Empire.  Strategically, it wasn't even a pinprick, but they’d see it as a kick in the nuts.  Paradise Rest was important to them, even if it contributed nothing to their strength.  “Time to leave, I think.”

She was still smiling when the squadron flickered out to the next target.

Chapter Ten

“Admiral Wachter will have to go!”

“I can’t spare that man, he fights,” Tiberius said.  The quote slipped past Lady Madeline Hohenzollern, who might have had access to history files denied to commoners, but had clearly never bothered to study them.  Tiberius had had his own people digging through the files.  “What’s he done that’s managed to annoy you?”

Madeline eyed him balefully.  “He had Admiral D'Ammassa, a client of mine, shot,” she snapped.  The outrage in her voice was honest.  As long as Admiral D'Ammassa had kept his part of the patron-client relationship, she would uphold her own.  Her failure to protect him from the consequences of his own stupidity would make it harder for her to attract more clients in the future.  “I demand that you add your voice to the calls for recall…”

Tiberius sighed, just loudly enough to annoy her.  “First, he wasn't shot, but blown out an airlock,” he said, just to be pedantic.  Unlike Madeline, he had read the report carefully and noted the symbolism.  Execution by space was reserved for traitors and cowards.  “Second – and this is the important part – he placed the entire Empire in jeopardy.  When someone acts in such a manner, they have to be punished, publicly enough to keep other fingers out of the till.”

“And your man decided to execute him,” Madeline said, angrily.  “Your father would have been among the voices calling for his execution himself.”

As Joshua and his father had been old friends, Tiberius rather doubted it, but kept that to himself.  He’d picked Joshua and pushed him forward because he knew that Joshua had the moral courage to do what was right, a confidence that – his spies informed him – hadn’t been misplaced.  There was literally no one else who could be trusted to command the defences…and not try to use them to place themselves on the throne.  Joshua, unlike all of the other would-be supreme rulers, didn’t have the support of a certain percentage of the Families.  His rule would be the shortest one on record.

He mentally totted up the points.  Tiberius himself had selected Joshua and abandoning him would make him look weak and indecisive…and the vultures would start to gather.  Roosevelt and several other Families would want to keep him just to be sure that they’d recover their properties before they expired and their Heirs took their places, while the Russell Family, not the least important of Families, would support him because he was one of their bastards.  Joshua himself wouldn’t want their support, but how could they refuse to give it, even if they choked on the irony?

“My father would have focused his attention on defending the Empire, which requires constant maintenance from us to keep it working,” he said, tiredly.  There was only so much talking to Madeline that anyone could stand.  Her Family, as she never tired of informing people, had been one of the founding families of the Empire, mentioned in even one-volume histories of the Empire.  They combined a certain genius and political savvy with a slightly warped view of the universe.  Madeline might not view reality in the same way as others, but she was a past master at keeping the rest of her Family in line.  “I imagine that your father would have felt the same way.”

Madeline stared at him, and then visibly gathered herself.  “You are young, Tiberius, and yet unformed,” she said.  She might not have meant to talk down to him – he was her social equal, after all – but the condescending tone in her voice was so thick it could be cut with a knife.  “You do not have the perspective to realise that the Families and the Empire are one and nothing can separate them, short only of the destruction of the Empire itself.  The rights and priorities of the Families must be upheld, or we would have anarchy and the commoners would turn on us.”

At that moment, Tiberius would have welcomed an uprising, just as a distraction.  It was literally impossible to squash Madeline.  She might have known, intellectually, that he was a social equal, but she remembered him when he’d been a baby and it was impossible for her to take him seriously.  Other Families might realise that he was the Cicero, like it or not, but Madeline came from a Clan of equal power.  He had nothing she wanted…and vice versa.

“I read the reports very carefully,” he said.  “I read the ones from the Admiral himself, I read the ones from his staff and I read the ones from my…agents within the Main Strike Fleet.”  The reminder that he had agents everywhere wasn't lost on her.  “They all agreed that the forces based at Morrison were in a terrible state and, instead of launching an offensive, Joshua would have to spend weeks, at best, repairing all the damage.  If the rebels hit Morrison now, defending it would be…difficult.”

“And how do you know that he’s telling the truth?”

Tiberius scowled.  He had no military experience of his own.  It was rare for a Heir to be risked in such a fashion, even one who wasn't the first in line to the Headship.  The junior members of the Family had some experience, but most of them hadn’t made a real career out of the Imperial Navy, not when they’d had the high life back home.  The handful that had made a real career weren’t trusted completely.  The combination of fleet experience and connections within the Families could be devastating.

“I have independent agents within his staff,” he said.  Clearly she required a stronger explanation.  If we lose Morrison, where do we make our stand?”

Madeline shrugged.  “The universe has always bent to our will,” she said.  “We exist because we have to exist, because the commoners cannot understand where their own best interests lie.  This rebellion, too, will fade.  I demand that you remove him at once.”

“No,” Tiberius said.  Madeline might believe that the commoners knew their place, but both he and Joshua knew better.  Joshua’s offer to allow anyone who wanted to leave to leave had completely passed her by, even though it was far more significant than executing an officer who’d stripped his sector clean.  “We need him in that position.”

Madeline’s image fizzled out without even bothering to say goodbye.  Tiberius chuckled as his personal processor reported that she’d withdrawn from contact, sending her mind back to her own estate, on the other side of the planet.  It was rare for the leaders to meet in person, something he privately regretted, although not in her case.  An hour in her actual physical company and he would have been issuing orders for the Household Troops to shoot her and damn the consequences.

“Idiot,” he muttered, as one of the maids entered with a knock.  “What is it, Mary?”

The maid bowed, a movement that exposed her cleavage.  “The Honourable Lady Gwendolyn Cicero and Lord Pompey Cicero have arrived as you ordered, Master,” she said, in her breathy voice.  He’d had it – and her – tailored to meet his personal specifications.  “They are currently waiting for you in the library.”

“Good,” Tiberius said, coming to his feet.  The maid straightened up, but kept her eyes lowered.  She’d been bred for servitude and rarely had an independent thought in her mind.  If Madeline and the others like her had had their way, the entire human race would be like her, unable to conceive of a life, but serving their masters.  It was typical of Madeline’s thinking.  If the commoners wouldn’t behave, then manufacture new commoners who would.  “Mary, what would you do if I freed you?”

Mary’s blanch was real.  “I would die, master,” she said, shocked.  “I am bound to your service.”

Tiberius shivered.  She was telling the truth.  She had never been outside the estate in her entire existence, ever since she had been force-grown from pre-prepared stock, and would probably never be allowed out.  There was something about the entire concept that he found rather creepy.  If she had no orders, she would quite happily sit and wait for orders, even if she had to starve to death.  She couldn’t even think except in the most basic terms.  She certainly couldn’t think of rebelling.

And perhaps if I knew I would end up like that, I would rebel, Tiberius thought, as he left the study, Mary trailing behind him like a frightened calf.  The library was only a short distance from the study, but he walked slowly, thinking hard.  His father had had a hand in designing the Family’s personal slaves…and God alone knew what he might have inserted into their DNA.  He’d left so many files behind that Tiberius was still digging through them – it wasn't a job that could be trusted to anyone else – and he hadn’t come across any references to the slaves, apart from a note that thousands of them had been bred and sold to other Families.

Lady Gwendolyn Cicero and Lord Pompey Cicero came to their feet as Tiberius stepped into the library.  Pompey was young, almost as old as Tiberius himself, although he came from one of the lesser branches of the Family.  They’d been friends, back when they’d been children, before their differing positions had taken them in different directions.  Pompey had become a security expert, a commander of the Household Troops, while Tiberius had become his ultimate boss.

Gwendolyn – she refused to allow anyone to call her Gwen – was different.  Like Pompey, she came from a lesser branch of the Family, but unlike Pompey she was haughty enough to ignore it.  A blond bombshell, permanently glowing with sexuality, she had a razor-sharp mind and burning personal ambition.  Tiberius had had a crush on her when he’d been younger, before he’d realised just how far she was prepared to go to advance herself.  Madeline would have loved her, if they’d been social equals; the two women had a great deal in common and loved to dominate.  Gwendolyn owned a stable of male pleasure slaves and had had so many affairs with others that Tiberius had lost count.  She was probably the most dangerous person in the room and, if she had been his sister, he would probably have suffered an accident.

“My Lord,” they both said together.  Gwendolyn nodded curtly, while Pompey gave him the formal bow.  “We have come as you requested.”

Tiberius bowed in return.  “You are welcome,” he said, silently noting that Gwendolyn hadn’t meant a word of her submission.  “Please, take a seat.  We have much to discuss.”

The Library was large enough to hold millions of books and it did, including thousands that had been firmly banned by the Thousand Families.  When he’d been younger, Tiberius had loved reading some of them, although the history books had been heavy going.  He’d once read a book on communism, because communists were the enemy, but he hadn’t been able to make head or tail of it.  It sounded as if communist as a concept worked fine, but as a practical idea it failed, badly.  Human nature just wasn't communist.

“I assume that both of you have been following the news of the war,” he said, by way of introduction.  Having asked them both to sit down, he had told them that the meeting would be informal.  “I have a great deal of confidence in Admiral Joshua Wachter, but the situation is…rather unstable.”

“You mean there is a possibility that we could lose,” Gwendolyn said, tartly.  She never missed a trick or a chance to challenge him.  It was no secret that she thought that she should have been the Cicero instead.  “That would be something new and different for all of us.  The rebels won’t want to keep us around, will they?”

“They would probably feel the urge to throw you out of a cannon,” Tiberius agreed.  “I have been having simulations run of the war.  Depending on the exact assumptions fed into the system, we could face a war of up to fifty years before we recovered all of the rebel worlds…and that’s the best case outcome.  The worst…well, the worst is that the rebels break through at Morrison, punch out Home Fleet and dictate terms to us from the high orbitals.  If we lose Earth, we lose the core of our Empire.”

“It wouldn’t be a complete disaster,” Pompey said.  He’d probably been running simulations as well.  “We would still have many of the factory worlds and naval bases.”

“It hardly matters,” Gwendolyn said, angrily.  “If Earth falls, all the groups that hate us will rise up at once and try to bring us down.  The rebels would win the war without having to exert themselves any further.  Even if we won the war, the resulting economic chaos would wreck large chunks of the Empire.  Roosevelt might go under and I could name two more Clans that might follow it.”

Tiberius concealed a smile.  Roosevelt had taken a heavy hit, thanks to the rebels, and was suddenly very exposed.  The smaller Families that had joined up with the Roosevelt Family, forming the Roosevelt Clan, might be considering jumping ship, or at the very least making a grab for control themselves.  It was quite possible that the Roosevelt Clan would fragment completely and if that happened, the Roosevelt Family would be broken as a political force.

But Roosevelt wasn’t the only Family that would go down.  Cicero had investments in shipyards all over the Empire and quite a few of them had been taken, or destroyed, by the rebels.  Tiberius had calculated, grimly, that his Family would get hurt, and others would be hurt if the rebels kept moving.  Even if all the rebels dropped dead tomorrow, they would still have left a legacy of chaos that would be impossible to fix quickly.  The Families had scrabbled for centuries over a rapidly-declining pie, their own actions ensuring that the pie wouldn’t get any bigger…and now, faced with complete disaster, they would be getting desperate.  By the time the dust settled, Tiberius thought, there might no longer be a Thousand Families.

“We have to prepare, of course, for all possibilities,” he said.  “If Morrison holds, well and good.  If not, we have to consider the possibility of life in a very different Empire.”

“You mean selling out to the rebels,” Gwendolyn said.  “Do you think that they will be willing to talk to us?  I dread to imagine what Society would say if they discovered that you were forging links with them…”

“They won’t say anything because they won’t find out,” Tiberius said, holding her eyes.  They were just too perfect to be natural.  Her face lacked even the slightest imperfection.  “You two are the only others who know about it.  Even if you told them, on the grounds that it was treason, you would never be trusted again.  Your life in the social whirl would come to an end.”

He smiled at her expression.  He couldn’t have annoyed her more if he had announced that he was going to use her as a bargaining chip in a crucial marriage arrangement.  Gwendolyn had never married – the malicious part of his mind whispered that that was because no one could stand her – and had resisted all attempts to sell her off into another Family, where she would be the lowest rung on the totem pole.

“The official part of your mission, on the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, will be to make contact with the rebel leadership and see what links you can forge,” he said, calmly.  “Gwendolyn will be the official ambassador from the Cicero Clan, representing me personally, while Pompey will be your assistant, aide, and security observer.  You’re not going there to be spies, but if you should happen to note anything useful, do so.

“The unofficial part of your mission will be a little different,” he continued.  This was the important part.  “You will make contact with one of the leaders of the rebellion, Captain Jason Cordova, and you will give him a message from me.”

Gwendolyn’s eyes went very wide.  Tiberius had wondered if she had known Cordova personally, back before he had deserted the Empire and had been disowned by his Family, as they were contemporaries.  She might not have made the connection between him and one of the Cicero Family, but she should have known.  Even then, she had been formidable.  The black sheep of the Cicero Clan couldn’t vanish without someone like her noticing.

“He won’t come back to us,” Gwendolyn said.  Her face hardened into an expression Tiberius recognised as one she used when she wanted to bargain.  “I knew him.  He’s too stubborn to just abandon the rebels and his crew and come back to us.”

Tiberius smiled.  He’d had a minor bet with himself that Gwendolyn wouldn’t know the full story, or she would have understood at once.  His father had successfully kept that a secret, which meant that it was a unique bargaining chip.  No one else, not even the rest of the Clan, would be able to use it.

“Here is the message,” Tiberius said.  He stood up and picked a piece of expensive artwork off the shelf, passing it to her with a slight feeling of relief.  He understood why his father had collected it – it was rare, irreplaceable and forbidden – but it gave him the creeps.  There would never be any more like it, ever.  “You will give it to him with my regards.”

Gwendolyn eyed him suspiciously.  “A piece of ugly eeetee artwork is a message?”

“Yes,” Tiberius said, simply.  He wasn’t too surprised at Gwendolyn’s astonishment.  She’d probably expected a written message of threats and promises, not something that was forbidden even to most of their class.  It was also something that she, lacking the key, would be unable to betray.  He would never have trusted her with a written message.  “He will not fail to understand.”

Chapter Eleven

The main problem with operating a fleet at such a long range from any bases was that starships needed a proper line of support to actually function perfectly.  A gunboat, the smallest flicker-capable starship in existence, required dozens of components replaced every so often and the problems headed upwards from there.  A superdreadnaught was supposed to spend half of its entire service in a shipyard, being refitted and prepared for future deployments.  The Empire had solved the problem by building a vast chain of bases throughout the Empire to support the Imperial Navy, but that wasn't an option for the rebels.  Daria and the Geeks, however, had come up with a better one.

The asteroid drifted on its lonely course, light-years from any star system.  The odds against anyone finding such an asteroid were astronomical, so Colin suspected that some corrupt asteroid-mining syndicate had actually knocked it into interstellar space centuries ago and then mounted drive field projectors on it, moving it faster than any asteroid would have moved naturally.  The Freebooter League had taken it over and developed it as a base for their own operations, one that wasn't subject to taxes and Imperial harassment from the Empire, and had then handed it over to Colin for the Shadow Fleet.  Daria had been certain that Imperial Intelligence didn’t have the slightest idea of where it was – and even if they suspected its existence, locating it would be a nightmare – but Colin had been feeling paranoid.  The Shadow Fleet was deployed and ready to fight on a moment’s notice.

His gaze alighted upon the fleet train and he smiled.  The ships were the largest he’d ever seen, much larger than a superdreadnaught, but they were useless for anything, but bulk shipping.  Normally, they were just too large to be economical – and sitting ducks if they got caught by a gunboat armed with a popgun – but the Geeks had rebuilt them as maintenance ships.   Three of them, given enough time and supplies, could produce any component the Shadow Fleet could require, while three more were packed to bursting with supplies.  The remainder of the freighters, all freebooters and former independents that had taken the opportunity to desert the Empire, would serve as a massive fleet train, keeping the remainder of the fleet going as long as their needs were met.  The Empire had worked hard to bring all of the independents under their control, but now…now, they were working to dispose the Empire.

A political problem, he thought, shaking his head.  Daria had remained head of the Freebooter League and effective representative of the Rim.  The only ones who could have challenged her were Cordova and Salgak and neither of them wanted the job.  The independents, however, wanted to join the league, while the liberated worlds wanted them to help rebuild their economies after the Empire’s mismanagement of their factories.  It wasn't the only political problem caused by the sudden withdrawal of the Empire from Sector 117, but it was, he suspected, a forerunner of things to come.  What would happen if the Rim and the liberated worlds had a major disagreement?

They knew, of course, that the Empire wasn't beaten, but as weeks and months rolled on without a counterattack, they started to forget.  It seemed to be a common theme in human history, but without the Empire, some of the Rim-dwellers started to remember old grudges, while the liberated worlds remembered pirate raids.  It didn’t help that while the Empire had regarded asteroid habitats as subsets of a star system, the Rim believed that all habitats were independent, creating a democratic problem.  Worse, Macore and its daughter worlds were doing well out of the post-Empire universe, while other worlds, who had started in worse condition, were not doing so well and crying foul.  Blondel Dupre did not have an easy job.

No wonder none of the Emperors held power for long, Colin thought, as he watched the freighters unloading their supplies.  They couldn’t even begin to come to grips with the sheer size of the Empire, so they made mistakes…

He smiled as the remainder of his command staff started to enter the briefing room.  They’d staggered their arrival times to confuse any observers, more out of basic paranoia than any fear that they could be observed, while keeping most of their ships firmly out of sight.  That was unconventional – a drive failure could have left them stranded in interstellar space, had they moved on their own – but it would keep the Empire guessing about just how much force was bearing down on them.  If everything had gone to plan, the most the Empire had seen were seventy ships…and the largest of them a battlecruiser.  The enemy commander, if they had organised a new commanding officer, would probably suspect the presence of the superdreadnaughts, but where were they?

“Welcome to nowhere,” he said, as the hatches sealed.  It was almost a relief to be dealing with a strictly military issue again, rather than the political compromises of getting the Freedom Alliance up and running as a new government.  They needed unity, or the Empire would destroy them, one by one, but there were times when he felt that the newly-liberated worlds would have rather had the Empire back than cooperate with each other.  “I trust that everyone had a pleasant trip?”

There were some smiles.  He listened, carefully, as several officers outlined their brief skirmishes with Imperial starships…and the cruisers covering Paradise Rest.  The whole idea of wasting ships like that was enough to make Colin sick – the ships and their crews had never stood a chance – but it would make good propaganda for the ICN.  Unless the Empire decided to shut it down, Salgak had assured him that they could use it to spread propaganda right across the Empire.  The handful of other minor engagements had been short, sharp, and in most cases indecisive.

“My cruisers managed to blow out the drives of a destroyer, which was trapped when the remainder of its squadron fled,” Commodore Clifford Trout said, at the end.  “They were as surprised as we were – we flickered in almost on top of them – and we exchanged a few barrages before they flickered out and ran.  It’s going to look like a perfect ambush, but in reality it was a complete accident.”

Colin smiled.  If the Empire got the impression that the rebels had somehow managed to make the notoriously inaccurate flicker drive more precise, their morale would take another dive.  Clearer heads would deduce that the ships had been from the Imperial Navy and wouldn’t have carried any new drive, even if one existed, but would they be the ones making the decisions?  If not…what would they do?

“The ship surrendered as soon as it had covered the retreat, and I accepted the surrender,” Trout continued.  “We left her drifting in interstellar space – she was really too damaged to take with us, but she didn’t deserve to be scuttled – but interrogated the Captain and her crew.”  His face twisted in distaste.  “Now, that Captain really was too good to be on their side.  His crew had nothing, but good things to say about him.”

Colin smiled.  “We were on their side a couple of years ago,” he reminded him.  “I doubt that they would accept that we were always rebels.”

Trout scowled.  “We had them interrogated under the Moscow Protocols,” he said.  “We didn’t use any force or compulsion, but they were quite happy to tell us more than they should, particularly after we’d searched their ship.  They weren't a squadron assigned to randomly patrol that star system, sir, but picket ships covering the approaches to Morrison.”

Colin looked up at the display automatically, thinking hard.  He wouldn’t have been surprised if the Imperial Navy had pickets out, watching for his ships, but it was disconcerting to discover Admiral D'Ammassa showing such initiative and imagination.  The ships he’d allowed the loyalists to see might have only been a small fraction of his firepower, but it wouldn’t take a genius to deduce that he wouldn’t have been raiding in the direction of the Core Worlds for the fun of it.  The only logical reason for such a move was a direct invasion of the Core Worlds…and Earth.

“I see,” he said.  It also wouldn’t take a genius to work out their lines of advance.  Interstellar warfare hadn’t changed much since the days of the Dathi War, although the weapons and ships had gotten deadlier, and they had to know that he would be coming after Morrison.  “What else did you find out?”

“There’s a new commander at Morrison,” Trout said, grimly.  “An Admiral Wachter.  According to them, this newcomer had Admiral D'Ammassa blown into space, before taking over the remainder of the Sector Fleet and sending the destroyers out on picket duty.  They didn’t know much else about him, but if he actually did blow Admiral D'Ammassa into space…”

Colin nodded slowly.  Admiral D'Ammassa had had connections that made Percival look like…well, Colin.  He should have been left in place until the rebellion reached Morrison, unless some kindly soul assassinated him and did the Empire a vast favour.  If the newcomer had actually executed him…it had worrying implications, not least the fact that he had even greater connections.  Worse, he was practical enough to have Admiral D'Ammassa relieved of command…and underlined it by throwing him into space.  That alone made him dangerous.

“There are limits to what we can get from them,” Trout concluded.  “Frankly, sir, they were sent out barely three days after Admiral Wachter took command, so they might not know anything more…interesting.”

“True,” Colin agreed.

The Moscow Accords had been written to ensure that uniformed prisoners had certain rights, provided they behaved.  It was, technically, illegal to use any form of torture, including a mind-probe, on them, although if they offered any problems they forfeited all of their protections.  While they could be interrogated, they couldn’t actually be forced to talk, something that bothered hell out of him.  Captives might possess information he needed, desperately, but was it right to obtain it by force, or even truth drugs?

He keyed a request into her terminal and was surprised when the request was denied.  Admiral Wachter, it seemed, had a closed file…and even the overrides they’d inserted into the computers refused to access it.  It actually seemed likely that there was no file beyond a handful of details to ensure identification, which meant that whatever had happened had been covered up.  Admiral Wachter – the birth date suggested that he was at least twice as old as Colin – had appeared out of nowhere, and then vanished.

“I heard of him once,” Katy Garland offered.  “I believe that he was offered a post at the Academy once and turned it down.  It might not be the same person, but…”

Colin followed her logic.  The Academy was the training ground for all of the young officers…and instructors had to have a pure-perfect record, both military and political, before they were even considered for any of the posts.  They were regarded as the most prestigious posts outside the various fleets, but offered few opportunities for looting, although some of the less scruples instructors could claim patronage from the young gentlemen they taught.  Far too many officers had graduated without even a rudimentary knowledge of basic safety in space.  If Admiral Wachter had been offered a place, he had to have a high social rank…and if he’d turned it down, he had to have preferred being out in space.

“There might be more than one Wachter in the fleet,” Colin agreed.  If Admiral Wachter wasn't still in command of a fleet, something had happened…and it had been important enough to cover up.  What?  The birth date suggested it might have been during the reign of the Empress, but he would have been a child at the time.  They couldn’t be connected, could they?  “It doesn’t alter our problem, does it?”

The display focused in on Morrison and the handful of surrounding stars and bases.  “I dispatched recon destroyers to Orland, Gaza and Candleford,” he explained.  “They all have fairly heavy forces picketing them, with a squadron of heavy cruisers at Orland and Gaza, and two squadrons of superdreadnaughts at Candleford.  We could punch out all three, but see this…”

He tapped the display, focusing in on Candleford.  The superdreadnaughts were maintaining a loose patrol formation around the planet, well away from the orbital defences…and outside the gravity shadow.

“That’s an anti-arsenal ship trick, or I’m a fool,” Trout said.  “If we attack them with arsenal ships, we end up wasting our missiles.”

“Perhaps not,” Colin said.  The fleet had thirty such ships with them – they were easy enough to build, just refitted freighters – but once they were fired, they were useless until they could reload.  “If we fire on them, the missiles could be retargeted on the fortresses below and used to shatter them.”

There was a brief burst of chatter as tactics were discussed and ideas tossed out into the open for all to see.  Colin had learned to encourage such discussions – officers tended to refuse to offer their own ideas when it became clear that their commander had his own ideas – and they could be very useful.  The consensus opinion seemed to be that a chance to wipe out two squadrons of superdreadnaughts was worth a little risk, although any ship that lost it’s drives could expect to be trapped within the enemy system.

“Ideally, we need to take the facilities intact,” Trout said.

“That would pin us down there or force us to abandon them back to the enemy,” Commodore Arun Prabhu said, annoyed.  “We should simply get in there and reduce them all to radioactive rubble.  We can’t take and hold them unless Morrison is taken and knocked out, along with whatever ships have been sent to reinforce them.”

Commodore Simon Horvat had a different point.  “Admiral, have you sent recon ships to Morrison?”

“They haven’t returned yet,” Colin said.  He’d sent a squadron of destroyers – the Shadow Fleet lacked any purpose-built intelligence-gathering ships – but they hadn’t returned.  It was still too early to declare them overdue, but if there was someone competent running the defences at Morrison, they might have been pinned down and destroyed before they could flicker out.  It was far too easy to spoof them if all they did was lurk at the edge of the system.  “Once they do, we should have a good idea of what our new friend has to play with.”

He altered the display slightly.  “We can’t go after Morrison yet, not without accurate information, so we will go after Candleford,” he said.  “Simon, Katy, I want you to take your battlecruisers to Orland and Gaza and hit them.  Punch them out if you can, but if not do what damage you can and then fall back.  The largest ship they have there is a heavy cruiser and it offers us a chance to hurt them and embarrass them.  Don’t bother with occupying the world, just take out the defences and any industrial facilities they have.”

“Yes, sir,” Katy said.  “I’ll hold the other squadrons in reserve unless they’re required and only go in with two squadrons.  If they decide to stand and fight, we’ll make mincemeat of them and if they run, they won’t have seen everything.”

Colin nodded.  “We may as well try to confuse them,” he agreed.  “We’ll take five of the superdreadnaught squadrons to Candleford, along with half of the arsenal ships and the other escorts.  The remainder will wait here and prepare for operations.  Arun, if the recon ships suggest an opportunity to hit Morrison, take it.  If not, wait for us to return.”

“Understood,” Prabhu rumbled.  “Give them a good thumping from me.”

“We will,” Colin assured him.  “Dismissed!”

***
“You don’t seem too happy,” David observed, afterwards.  “Are you having doubts?”

Colin eyed him suspiciously.  “Are you developing telepathy now?”

“All Flag Captains develop it so they can turn their Admiral’s clumsy and imprecise orders into crisp firm orders, positively dripping with military prose,” David said, dryly.  “We can turn a command from nonsense into something that can actually be implemented.”

“One would hope so,” Colin said.  He scowled.  David wouldn’t go away until they’d had a proper chat.  It was almost worse than being a child again.  “Have you ever met this Admiral Joshua Wachter?”

David shook his head.  “I haven’t heard of him,” Colin said.  “I knew Percival and I thought I’d know how he would react…and he still managed to burn my fingers at Macore.”

“That wasn't Percival’s idea,” David said.  “We interrogated enough of his people to know that it was his Flag Captain’s idea.”

“A surprise only to someone who didn’t know the bastard,” Colin said, more harshly than he’d intended.  “So I kill Percival and Admiral Quentin almost undoes the entire rebellion at Second Harmony.  I barely knew him.  What if this Admiral Wachter is a better tactician than I am?”

“If he shot someone with Admiral D'Ammassa’s patrons, he probably won’t hold his position for much longer,” David said, practically.  “If he isn’t removed, then he probably has even more patronage than his predecessor, which normally doesn’t indicate a tactical genius.  If not…well, he’s going to be some years out of date, so he won’t even have the experience at facing arsenal ships, will he?”

He grinned.  “And if that’s the case, we should get in at least one good hit before he adapts,” he added.  “You never know.  It might even prove fatal to him.”

Chapter Twelve

The wave of missiles raced towards the superdreadnaughts.

“Bring point defence to full alert,” Joshua ordered, calmly.  His inner voice betrayed none of the tension Penny was sure he was feeling.  The first time they’d run the drill, the result had been the complete annihilation of the defending force, with barely scratches on their opponents.  “Engage at will.”

The superdreadnaught started to fire as the missiles entered it’s point defence envelope, joined by the other superdreadnaughts and the escorting ships, including a handful of destroyers that had been rigged up with extra point defence.  Decoys and jammers ducked and weaved, trying to lure missiles from their targets and waste their firepower on expendable units, while the formidable energy weapons swept hundreds of missiles out of space.  Nine thousand missiles had been launched into the teeth of the formation, only two hundred survived to smash into the shields, spread out over the formation.

“General Rogers suffered major damage and is withdrawing,” Penny said.  The calm, almost sterile images on the display contrasted oddly with the reality behind them, a broken ship, burning in the night.  “No other major damage to the capital ships.”

“Good,” Joshua said.  He’d planned the engagement to use the smaller ships as expendable units, not something that would normally endear them to their crews, but they had to preserve the superdreadnaughts.  It helped that standard rebel firing patterns were to concentrate on the larger ships and, if they remained true to form, the only danger for the smaller ships would be stray missiles searching for new targets.  “Prepare to meet the second wave.”

The enemy fleet belched a second wave of missiles, and then a third.  Penny winced at the weight of fire, watching as the enemy combined their two salvos, creating a single massive punch bearing down on the Imperial Navy starships.  The point defence engaged as soon as they entered range, scything them down by the hundred, but dozens survived to hit home.  One by one, starships vanished in great tearing explosions, or fled into flicker-space and safety.  The remainder of the fleet’s datanet, linking them all into one defensive network, held – barely.

“Not too bad,” Joshua said, dispassionately.  Seventeen additional superdreadnaughts had been destroyed, along with almost a hundred escorts.  The remainder had all soaked up some damage in the exchange.  “This exercise is terminated.  Contact the other ships and tell them to stand down.”

The display flickered and returned to the standard holding pattern, showing their position, holding station just outside Morrison’s gravity shadow.  The defences around the world, already powerful enough to deter anything short of a pair of superdreadnaught squadrons, were being expanded as rapidly as possible, safeguarding Joshua’s rear.  It wasn't enough for him, Penny had rapidly learned, to hold the line, but he wanted to seek new ways to hit the rebels before they could come for him.

Joshua looked over at her.  “Contact the other ships and tell the Captains that I will be expecting full reports, along with suggestions for improvements,” he said.  He favoured her with one of his rare open smiles.  “There’s less room for that now, isn’t there?”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said, smiling back.  The change in the fleet was remarkable.  The first exercise might have been a disaster – Joshua had remarked, acidly, that a squadron of battlecruisers could have taken out the entire fleet – but the crews had improved rapidly.  The handful of incompetent officers who couldn’t or wouldn’t improve, including a Captain who had steered his superdreadnaught into another, had been removed and executed.  If the simulation had been a live drill, several thousand men would have been wiped out, for nothing.  The executions had been surprisingly good for morale.

The squadrons might have been a little shambolic at first, but they were coming along rapidly, developing into a proper fleet.  Penny had been nervously expecting Joshua to be relieved at any moment, but whoever was fighting his corner on Earth was clearly doing a good job, or perhaps they were a little scared of him.  The Main Strike Fleet, combined with the Morrison Sector Fleet, would have been a match for Home Fleet, even if Home Fleet were actually in good condition.  Joshua had suggested, sardonically, that ever since the Empress, Home Fleet had been allowed to degrade.  The thought of a fleet commanded by someone with no reason to love them was probably causing some sleepless nights on Earth.

She skimmed through the reports quickly and efficiently.  It had been adamantly opposed at first, until the Captains and Commodores had realised that Joshua didn’t want hourly reports, but simple post-action reports, along with suggestions that could be incorporated into the entire squadron.  He hadn’t even stolen the credit for all of the ideas, although some of them came from uncertain parentage, which put him ahead of most of the senior officers in the Empire.  A handful of officers continued to fear him, and not without reason, but as long as they performed their duty, she suspected that Joshua would ignore them.  There was little point, he’d said once, in purging a good officer because said officer didn’t like him.

When she reported to Joshua in his quarters, she found him surprisingly pensive, studying one of the holographic star charts.  Her first Captain had been a poser, intent on looking as if he were thinking and planning whenever someone joined him in his private quarters, but Joshua actually was given to thinking about the future.  Penny might not have had a coherent idea of what to do next, once they had restored the fleet, but Joshua seemed to believe that having at least a vague idea of what he wanted to do was worthwhile.  He formed plans in his head and waited to use them.

“Have a seat,” he said, absently.  She couldn’t help, but notice that he was studying Sector 117, a map she’d become intimately familiar with over the last year.  It contained Imperial Intelligence’s best guesses at rebel dispositions, although she knew all-too-well that there was no way to be sure how accurate they were.  There were certainly targets, such as Pollack and Harmony itself, that the rebels would have to cover, but how much would they commit to the rear area?  “Your analysis?”

“Imperial Intelligence isn’t sure and is lying to you if they’re claiming that that is accurate,” Penny said, choosing a comfortable armchair.  “The rebels could be anywhere.”

“Closer, perhaps, than I like to think,” Joshua said, his lips twitching into a smile.  He tapped a remote control and the display altered to show Morrison and the surrounding stars.  “There have been seven attacks on Imperial forces over the last two weeks, all definitely rebel forces, all extremely well-chosen to inflict maximum damage for minimum risk.  Paradise Rest was actually hit first, but due to the idiot in command losing all of his ships on a suicide run, we didn’t know about it until an ICN courier boat broke regulations and came directly here to report to me.”

Penny frowned.  “Why Paradise Rest?”

“That, my dear, is the question,” Joshua said.  He lifted an eyebrow.  “Why Paradise Rest?”

“There’s nothing there worth taking,” Penny said.  “The only industry there is the pleasure one, with guests…who did they take?”

“A handful of minor Family brats,” Joshua said, smoothly.  “If they’d been taken by pirates, I’d expect to see a ransom demand any day now, but the rebels might return them to us, or try to convert them.  There wasn't anyone who we should be charging out, all guns blazing, to rescue.  So, why Paradise Rest?”

“They destroyed the defences, I suppose,” Penny said.  “They might have considered that worthwhile.”

“And maybe it was,” Joshua said.  “I think there’s a powerful rebel force, perhaps within days of us, coming here.”

He altered the display again.  “If you plot out the attacks, they’re moving out from rebel territory and towards us,” he said.  “But they’re not here already, which suggests…what?  If they just wanted to raid, perhaps it would make sense then, but why raid such…useless worlds?”

Penny blinked.  “How could they get such a fleet past the pickets?”

“They don’t have to go within sensor range of a picket,” Joshua pointed out, dryly.  Penny flushed.  Space was vast and a starship, even a superdreadnaught, was tiny on the scale of the desert between stars.  “Still, they’re taking care to obliterate the pickets as they pass…and I’d bet you good money that the pickets we haven’t heard from have already been attacked.”  He steepled his fingers thoughtfully.  “Any thoughts on their next target?”

“Here,” Penny said.  “Can we hold them off?”

“It’s possible,” Joshua agreed.  His gaze strayed to the near-orbit display.  “How are the engineers coming along with the arsenal ships?”

Penny checked her terminal quickly.  Joshua had insisted, for reasons of morale if nothing else, that the Empire build a handful of its own arsenal ships.  Seventeen bulk freighters had been requisitioned and refurbishing work had already begun, but it wasn't an easy task.  The rebels, it seemed, accepted the one-shot policy, but the engineers were sure that they could build in extra capability, if they were allowed to tone down the first missile barrage.

“They’re saying at least two to three more weeks,” she said.  “They’re having problems building in all the launchers.  The rebels had plenty of time to perfect the design and we’re still playing catch-up.”

“It’s not a particularly hard task,” Joshua said.  “If they’d shown up a month ago, I’d have ordered a retreat and preserved what firepower I could, but now…now, we could take them on and win.”  He nodded towards the display.  “They have to come here and punch us out, and so…”

He shrugged as he took his own seat.  “Never mind that for the moment,” he said, changing the subject.  “What do you think of the exercise?”

“It might work after all,” Penny said, remembering watching helplessly as thousands of missiles roared down on two superdreadnaught squadrons, back at Harmony.  Joshua’s new doctrine wouldn’t be perfect – the only perfect solution was not to be there when the missiles entered terminal attack range – but it would allow them to survive the first assault.  “It’s certainly a great deal better than before…”

“True,” Joshua said.  His voice mellowed for a second.  “A superdreadnaught Captain who can claim, with a straight face, that the reason there hadn’t been a mutiny was because his ship could barely flicker in and out deserves a quick execution.  One who rammed another and set a new lower standard for incompetence deserved everything he got.  This whole mess might turn into a real fleet after all.”

“I wouldn’t go so far, so quickly,” Penny said, but she was smiling.  “If we can all move in the right direction when you give the order, then we can declare ourselves pleased with the result.”

Joshua nodded.  “There have been some demands from the High City that I…mellow out,” he said, dryly.  Where Percival had ardently courted each and every possible patron, Joshua seemed almost unconcerned.  “Apparently, they see competence as being a reflection of how they serve their patrons, rather than how they serve their own people.”

“That’s hardly new,” Penny said, with more bitterness than she intended.  He gave her an almost-apologetic look.  “How do you intend to respond?”

“I don’t,” Joshua said.  He looked back up at the display.  “Some of the Captains here will have gone whining to their patrons, just because I have actually been forcing them to work and refurbish their ships.  I imagine that they’ll have been reading all kinds of horror stories about me, starting with the first execution and going downhill from there.  It probably won’t make any difference anyway.  They knew I was going to shake things up when I was offered the job.”

Penny kept her face still.  Joshua had been friendly, and professional, and more than merely competent, but he had rarely opened up to her.  The insight into his mind was priceless…but it worried her.  If Joshua were to be removed, what would happen to the war?  What would happen to her?

“Oh, some of them will complain and complain, but they can’t remove me,” Joshua said, with real amusement.  He winked at her.  “How could they do that?”

“They could drum up some charges against you,” Penny said, nervously.  Not even Percival had brought her into the heart of the High City and the shadowy politics that dominated the government of the Empire.  “They could even claim…”

“You don’t have any experience with the inner levels of government,” Joshua said.  “Think about it.  They sent me out with a letter from Parliament, and that meant that all of the Clans, the ones who really matter, signed off on it.  How could they recall me without looking weak and indecisive?  Worse, the Cicero put the whole weight of his Clan behind it, so how can he back down?  It would be taken as a sign of weakness and then there’d be blood in the water.”

Penny laughed, suddenly.  “Answer me a question,” she said.  “Just how important was Percival, really?”

“About as important as the man who cleans the toilets, as far as the real cores of power and influence were concerned,” Joshua said.  Penny giggled.  She hated it when she giggled, even though Percival had thought it was charming, perhaps because it made her sound like a brainless bimbo.  “What?  Did he convince you that he was the Heir to one of the Clans?”

Penny couldn’t stop giggling.  “He was always bragging about how important she was,” she said, between gasps.  “And, all that time…”

“They sent him out there to prepare the sector for proper exploitation,” Joshua said.  “He wouldn’t have reaped any of the real rewards, although I dare say they’d have offered him something if he’d done a good job, but nothing really important.  And, you know what?  I bet you he thought it was his idea!”

“He did,” Penny said.  “He kept saying about how it was going to be his ticket to the highest league.”

Joshua laughed.  Penny took her courage in both hands and asked a question.  “Sir, why did you take early retirement?”

“That’s a long story,” Joshua said.  He’d said nothing for so long that she’d started to wonder if she had overstepped, badly.  “There was a slight disagreement of opinion about something…”

He paused.  “Do you know what the worst mistake you can make if you’re a Family scion?”  He asked.  “The worst mistake is actually caring about the post they give you.  I was given a role, not unlike Percival, in their power games, but I decided to make a proper job of it.  I did well, too well, and one day they offered me the Academy or early retirement.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Penny protested.

Joshua snorted.  “Who said it had to make sense?”

He turned back to the display, his eyes hooded.  “They gave me a fleet and I turned out to be good at actually running it,” he said.  “I gave my patronage to officers who were actually good at their jobs, not Family brats who should have been brought up better, or men who kissed my arse in public and told lies about me behind my back.  I had the finest squadron in the Imperial Navy and the finest men in the fleet, including Jason Cordova – yes, that Jason.”

Penny put it together, carefully.  “Did you know Percival as well?”

“Oh, all of the Families know each other,” Joshua said, casually.  His voice didn’t fool her.  He’d known Percival better than most.  “I got the blame for Cordova’s decision as well, even though I’d left active duty by that time, and they weren't too keen on seeing me after that. I just went somewhere I could be alone after Julius died.  His son called me back to service.”

He tapped the display once.  “Exam time,” he said, with a grin, banishing his depressed mood.  “Watch this recording very carefully.  I will want your opinions afterwards.”

Penny nodded.  She wasn't sure if Joshua was telling the truth or not, although several months in his company had convinced her that he really did live up to his reputation, but she put it out of her mind as the recording began.  A handful of tiny destroyers, Manticore-class by the look of them, were fleeing a pair of heavy cruisers.  They remained in formation…and then, they should have flickered out.  Instead, they scattered, splitting up and running for their lives.  The cruisers, suddenly unable to follow their opponents, chose a pair of destroyers and went after them.  The remainder vanished into the safety of flicker-space.

The recording ended.  “Thoughts?”

“One of the recent battles?”  Penny hazarded.  She couldn’t imagine anything other than a recon raid that had gone spectacularly wrong.  Most destroyers wouldn’t challenge a pair of heavy cruisers unless there was no choice.  “Where was this recorded?”

“The Solar System,” Joshua said.  His voice held nothing, but amused warmth.  He wasn't about to have her shot for missing something.  Percival would have mocked her for days.  “I don’t blame you for not seeing the obvious.  I didn’t when I watched the recording for the first time.  Tell me, what do you see?”

He ran the recording again.  Penny took the clue he'd given her and ran with it.  The rebels might have sent a suicide mission into the Solar System, but they were hardly in a position to send destroyers into the system, unless they weren't connected with the Shadow Fleet, but mutinying starships trying to escape.  It was possible that elements of Home Fleet had mutinied, but if Home Fleet were in the same condition as Morrison’s Sector Fleet, the mutinies wouldn’t have gotten very far.  Puzzled, she watched the recording a third time, and then a fourth…

“My God,” she said.  Joshua had been right.  It was obvious, so obvious that she hadn’t seen it at first.  “That’s…that’s not possible.”

“You’re quite right,” Joshua agreed.  “It’s not possible.”

And he smiled.

Chapter Thirteen

Commodore Rosalyn Simpson sat back on her command deck and sipped a mug of coffee thoughtfully.  Normally, she wouldn’t have allowed coffee or any other kind of drink on the command deck, but it had been a long day and she thought she was owed a small treat.  The superdreadnaught squadron had been drilling endlessly all week, matching itself against its companion squadron, and she was starting to feel like a real officer again.  The pleasure of beating Commodore Yung in the exercises made everything worthwhile.

She smiled as she studied the display, again.  Candleford was one of the busiest planets in the sector, despite the general chaos caused by the rebellion, and freighters and ore miners filled the system.  Unlike many other worlds, Candleford had almost total control of its own system and had avoided being sucked dry by Empire-wide corporations, although when she’d read the terms of the agreement, she’d wondered if someone was playing a joke.  Candleford was the only planet in the Empire to be completely dominated by women.  Men were not welcome.

They’d even tried to convert her to their philosophy.  According to the original founders, back in the days of the Federation, men had been the cause of all evil, and so they’d decided to set up a world where there would be no men, ever.  The original settlers had had their genes altered to the point where they would never have a male child, while cloned sperm provided all that was necessary for procreation.  The Empire had been vastly amused when Candleford was rediscovered, but as the women were very industrious and hardly a threat to anyone, they’d effectively given Candleford first-rank status and set up a fleet base in orbit.  Rosalyn – by long-standing agreement, the CO of the squadron was always a female – had found the world boring, almost as boring as the male-dominated worlds.  She had been amused to discover, on her frequent visits to the planet, that she was even asked what men were like…and she liked men, damn it.  How could she possibly give up that to retire to a world that she found sedate and boring?

Maybe when I’m ninety, she thought, as she put the cup down and pulled up the results of the exercise.  Nine superdreadnaughts and escorts having a go at the planetary defences, covered by nine additional superdreadnaughts, should have been a fairly even match, but she’d outsmarted Commodore Yung and managed to threaten the planet and the orbiting facilities anyway.  Yung was a good officer, but he was cautious to a fault…and he’d confessed to her that he found the planet unnatural.  Rosalyn didn’t blame him for that – she found the planet unnatural – but it made no difference.  Their orders were to defend it and the orbiting facilities.

“We shouldn’t have gone at them so hard,” she muttered to herself, as she studied the results.  Simulated damage was always more predicable than actual damage, but superdreadnaughts were fairly evenly matched, until she’d brought her energy-armed ships into energy range.  She’d crippled his forces, then, but at the cost of five of her own ships.  The ideal was to have superior numbers, she recalled, not to risk everything on a death-or-glory ride into the fire…and the Admiral would probably have a few things to say about it to her.

A chime echoed in the compartment.  “Commodore, we have a flicker signature, ten light-minutes from the planet,” the sensor officer said.  “It reads out as small, perhaps a destroyer…”

Rosalyn frowned.  There shouldn’t have been any destroyers in the system apart from her escorts.  Candleford didn’t have anything larger than a gunboat, one of the reasons the Empire had been so unconcerned about it, and Morrison wouldn’t have sent a destroyer to convoy information to her.  They’d have used a courier boat.  The only people who might have used a destroyer would be the rebels.

“Show me,” she ordered.  An icon appeared on the display.  The destroyer was picking up speed, coming in for a look at the planet, manoeuvring wildly to avoid being intercepted.  There was little point in trying until they got a lot closer, but somehow she doubted that the destroyer would bother coming so close.  The sensors wouldn’t pick them up at this range, but she was sure they were already launching probes towards Candleford.  It was what she would do.

She ran her hand through her long hair.  “Order the defences to go to Black Status,” she ordered.  There were disadvantages as well as advantages for the destroyer, coming out so far from the planet, and if she acted quickly, she could convince them that half of the defences weren't there.  By now, the ship would probably have an accurate count of her entire force, but she could prevent them learning much about the planet’s defences.  They’d been building them up ever since they’d first heard about the rebellion and, by now, they added considerably to her firepower.  “Contact Captain Piece.  I want him and his squadron ready to flicker out at a moment’s notice.”

The display altered again as the enemy destroyer altered course.  “Do we have an ID on that ship yet?”

“It’s the Roland,” the sensor officer said. “The last record assigns it to Sector 97, as part of the Yanasaxon escort flotilla.  I can only assume that the rebels captured it at some point.”

“Or the crew mutinied and took the ship to the rebels,” Rosalyn agreed.  The irony of the situation was that both sides would have access to the other’s records.  They would know everything about the ships…although she rather suspected the rebels didn’t know just how much Morrison’s defences had been allowed to degrade.  If they'd known, they would have punched everything out before Admiral Wachter had even started rebuilding the fleet.  “I wonder who’s in command of it now.”

Her own squadron had only suffered a handful of mutinies, of which only one had been successful, on the battlecruiser Sudden Strike.  The ship had vanished in the confusion and no one knew what had happened to it, although she had a sneaking suspicion that she was about to see it pointed back at her.  The only reason for running a recon patrol through the system, particularly such an obvious one, was to obtain intelligence before launching an attack.  The rebels probably had a massive fleet lurking just out of sensor range.  She’d pushed sensor pickets out to the edge of her system, but they could wait a light year or two away and be on her within minutes.  The speed of the flicker drive made such tactical tricks almost irrelevant.

The icon flickered and vanished.  “They’re gone,” the sensor officer said.  Rosalyn looked over at the display.  Had they really been watching the enemy destroyer for thirty standard minutes?  It felt like nothing.  “I can give you an exit vector if you like.”

“I doubt it matters,” Rosalyn said.  The entire squadron had gone to alert as soon as the destroyer had appeared, but now…all they could do was wait.  “Signal the duty courier boat.  I want it to fly directly to Morrison, report on what’s happened, and request reinforcements ASAP.”

Her lips tightened slightly.  There was a detail about the Morrison Sector’s stellar layout that might have been lost on the rebels.  The four most important worlds in the sector were actually quite close to one another.  Starships could make it from Morrison to Candleford within hours.  If she could hold out that long, they might even have a chance at trapping and crushing elements of the rebel fleet.  

“And bring up the second and third duty boats,” she added.  “Someone will have to inform the Admiral when the rebels arrive.”

***
The interstellar void was cold and almost completely deserted, apart from the Shadow Fleet, lurking well beyond any hope of detection.  Colin paced his own command deck, waiting grimly for the recon destroyer to return, knowing that if it didn’t return, he would have to take the fleet in blind.  Five squadrons of superdreadnaughts, plus escorts, were a formidable force, but if the defenders had set an ambush, they might fly right into it.  Spacers disliked the void – there were even some who claimed to have met strange alien creatures in the vast gulf between stars – but it would have to be tolerated.  Even those born along the Rim disliked the void.  It spoke to every deep, dark fear within the human soul.

The display updated sharply.  “The destroyer has returned,” the sensor officer said.  “There is no sign of any pursuit.”

“Good,” Colin said, watching as the destroyer banked and settled into formation.  It would have taken more luck than any one person had for an enemy ship to track the destroyer through flicker-space, but it had happened, sometimes.  Imperial Intelligence had been practicing the technique for years, although Anderson had admitted that it worked only once in a hundred times.  “Order them to transmit the sensor data at once.”

He skimmed through it as the display updated.  There were two enemy squadrons of superdreadnaughts, lurking just outside the gravity shadow, and forty-one escorts.  It looked like a perfect target, although he knew that it would be costly, even with the arsenal ships.  Superdreadnaughts didn’t go down easily and, by now, they would have had plenty of opportunity to perfect their own arsenal ship counter-tactics.  They might even have arsenal ships of their own.  There were plenty of freighters in orbit around the planet and any of them could have been an arsenal ship.  The only way to tell the difference would be through a short-range radar map of their hulls, which would reveal the missile hatches, and by then it would be too late.

“Update the Shadow Fleet,” he ordered, feeling excitement building within him.  The chance to match himself against another Imperial commander was worth the risk, even if they had little choice, but to abandon Candleford after taking it.  If they could wipe out two squadrons of superdreadnaughts in one go, it might even be decisive.  How many superdreadnaughts could Admiral Wachter have?  “We flicker in two minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” the sensor officer said.  Around them, the General Montgomery was coming to life, weapons and shields charging up.  He might have been imaging things, but Colin felt as if the superdreadnaught was as eager for action as he was.  There was a brutal simplicity about combat that was missing from politics.

Colin keyed his console.  “David, how are we standing?”

“Your fleet is fully at your command,” David said, through the intercom.  His place was on the bridge.  If something happened to the bridge, Colin would have to command the ship as well as the entire fleet.  “All ships have linked into the combat data network and are ready to move.”

“Good,” Colin said.  “The 7th Squadron is to remain behind.  If we need them, we’ll shout.”

“Yes, sir,” David said.  That had been part of the original plan, although Colin hadn’t been sure if it would be needed.  “They’re acknowledging.”

“Understood,” Colin said.  One hand poised over a control, and then came down hard.  “Flicker!”

***
Commodore Yung was a small portly man whose main claim to success came through having been born well, to one of the lesser Families.  Rosalyn had cordially disliked him on sight, because he was a solid and competent officer, but also one who was inclined to use his birth to try to put people in their place.  Admiral Wachter had put her in command of their joint squadrons, but Yung felt the urge to argue with her at every moment.

“We don’t know that the rebels are on their way,” Yung said, firmly.  He eyed her with all the belligerence of a small hostile toad.  “There have been contacts before, all of which led to nothing, and yet you place the entire fleet on alert.”

“There have been no contacts as close and…open as that destroyer,” Rosalyn said, patiently.  There was little point in shouting at Yung.  He barely noticed what anyone said to him unless they were of higher rank or higher social birth.  “They tipped their hand then and they wouldn’t do that unless they had a strong reason.”

“They might be trying to lure Admiral Wachter out of place for an attack on Morrison,” Yung suggested.  His face darkened slightly.  “Did that occur to you?”

“It will doubtless occur to the Admiral,” Rosalyn said, tiredly.  “Our duty is to defend this planet and the orbiting installations.  If the rebels come, they will not find us wanting, no matter what happens.”  She fixed him with a look.  “Or are you going to disobey orders and stand down your squadron?”

“Being at battle stations for so long will have a serious effect on the equipment,” Yung protested.  Rosalyn had to nod.  He had a point there, although rebel missiles would probably have a more serious effect.  In fairness to Yung, his squadron had never degraded to the point of the 14th Superdreadnaught Squadron.  “What if…”

He broke off as alert tones sounded in both their compartments.  “Commodore, we have a major flicker signature,” the sensor officer said.  “They’re closing in on the planet from vector…”

“Never mind,” Rosalyn said, using her console to dim the alarm.  At least her worst fear hadn’t materialised.  “Launch probes towards them and warn the planetary defences, then send the courier boat to Morrison.”  She turned back to Yung.  “They’re here.”

“Yes,” Yung said.  “I rather wish you’d been wrong.”

Rosalyn nodded slowly.  She had seriously considered saying ‘I told you so,’ but it would probably have gone right past him.  She turned back to the display as the first reports came in, suggesting that there were at least thirty superdreadnaughts in the electronic haze, as well as over a hundred escorts.  The rebels were using their ECM offensively, jamming up and confusing her own sensors, hiding their true strength within the distortion.  It wouldn’t last when she got her own probes out there, parsing out the real ships from the decoys, but it would make early engagement difficult.

“I know,” she admitted, instead.  “I wish I’d been wrong too.”

She closed the communications channel and took her seat.  They could flee – they were just outside the gravity shadow – but that would mean abandoning the planet completely.  The rebels would make short work of the defences without her mobile units covering them, but combined…combined, they would have the firepower to make the rebels pay a price for their victory.

“All units,” she said, and her voice was as hard as iron.  “We will go with Tango-Three.  Implement on my mark.”

The probes were reporting back now.  There were around thirty-six superdreadnaughts – four squadrons – approaching her ships, giving the rebels the desired two-to-one advantage.  In a sheer battering match, they would have the advantage, although she would still have hurt them badly.  The presence of the arsenal ships only added to their firepower – tactical wasn’t sure if they were arsenal ships, but Rosalyn was certain they couldn’t be anything else – and, in a straight fight, they would take her out.

But I’m not going to give you a straight fight, she thought, almost gleefully.  There was nothing subtle about the rebel tactics – they were coming right at her like a sledgehammer – and they were completely predicable.  Trap her against the planet or force her to run.  Either way, they won.

“Execute Tango-Three,” she ordered, calmly.  

***
The probes were reporting back now, rapidly building up a picture of the system.  Colin had never visited Candleford before, but it was the talk of the wardroom on almost every starship, ranging from speculations about the inhabitants sex lives to how badly they would take it if the Midshipmen ‘accidentally’ crash-landed on their world.  Wardroom boasting bore about as much resemblance to reality as Public Information’s latest claims of a dramatic improvement in the Empire’s quality of light, he suspected, and he knew better than to take any planet lightly.  Candleford had enough space industry to build formidable defences if they decided to do so.

“There are thousands of weapons platforms in orbit,” the sensor officer reported.  “I think they must be expecting the entire fleet.”

Colin shrugged.  The enemy fleet was withdrawing, of all things, right into the gravity shadow.  He would have understood them running for their lives, or trying to face him out away from the gravity shadow, but they’d trapped themselves.  Anyone who’d studied the First Battle of Harmony would have known better than to lurk anywhere inside a gravity well when there were arsenal ships around, but the enemy commander had done just that.  Either Admiral Wachter hadn’t cleared out an incompetent…or someone was trying to pull a fast one.

The enemy fleet had learned a few lessons, he noted.  There was no way that they could pick out a flagship, not with their distributed communications.  Knocking down their datanet wouldn’t be easy, but he’d brought along enough arsenal ships to overwhelm it completely and shatter the ships it protected.  It just didn’t make sense.

“Three minutes to engagement range,” the sensor officer reported.

“Missiles targeted and locked,” the tactical officer added.  There was a note of heavy satisfaction in his voice.  “They can’t escape now, sir.”

They have to know that, Colin thought, thinking fast.  “Prepare to fire,” he ordered.  The display flickered once as tactical sensors made the final sweeps.  The final minutes passed slowly as the rebel fleet brushed the edge of the gravity shadow themselves.  “Fire!”

“Firing,” the tactical officer said.  The superdreadnaught shook as it unleashed its first salvo of missiles.  “Missiles away.”

Colin looked up at the display.  Forty thousand missiles, the largest salvo in recorded history, were raging towards the enemy fleet.  They couldn’t escape…

“Admiral, the enemy have opened fire,” the tactical officer snapped.  A moment too late, Colin saw what the enemy had in mind.  There was one cool commander over there.  He – or she – had risked everything for a clear shot at his ships.  “I count twenty thousand missiles, heading right for us.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Captain, a courier boat has just arrived.”

Penny took the datapad and read it quickly.  “Hell,” she muttered, and keyed her communicator.  “Admiral, we have a problem.”

Joshua’s voice was calm, as always.  “What’s happening now?”

“The rebels are attacking Candleford in strength,” Penny said, grimly.  “At least three squadrons of superdreadnaughts and a dozen arsenal ships, plus escorts.  That's more than Commodore Simpson can handle alone.”

“It is, isn’t it?”  Joshua agreed.  She heard him tapping keys to bring up a tactical display.  “That rebel force is a little heavy for a feint, isn’t it?”

Penny hadn’t thought of that.  No one was entirely sure how many superdreadnaughts the rebels actually had, but Joshua was right.  Three squadrons, perhaps more, were a serious commitment by any measure.  If they wanted to lure away units of the Main Strike Fleet, they wouldn’t have sent so many ships…

“Unless they wanted to make it really convincing,” she said.  “If they hit Candleford, they’ll punch through eventually, even with Commodore Simpson’s planned surprises for them.”

“I know,” Joshua said.  “Order Commodore Rogers and Commodore Chang to take their squadrons to reinforce Commodore Simpson.  If the enemy has punched out the defenders by then, they have permission to retreat rather than throw good money after bad.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  “I’ll issue the orders at once.”

***
Rosalyn flinched as the sheer volume of missiles roared down on her ships.  She’d seen the records, watched and analysed them with her staff, and read the intelligence appreciations, but none of them had conveyed the feeling of facing so many missiles. Her point defence crews had been drilled endlessly, along with the platforms defending the planet itself, but she wasn't convinced that there was enough defensive firepower to save more than a handful of her ships.

“Deploy decoys and point defence platforms,” she ordered, tightly.  They couldn’t pick her flagship out of the fleet – she hoped – but they might know that her ship had served as the flagship.  She’d built in as much redundancy as she could, assuming that she might be targeted and killed at once, but no one knew just how well it would work in practice.  That impossible wall of missiles made a mockery out of all her precautions.

Her own plan had been quite simple.  She had hoped that she would have a few arsenal ships of her own by the time the rebels attacked, and she had had the industries turning out missiles, thousands of missiles.  She hadn’t been sent any arsenal ships, but she’d parked the missiles in orbit, wired into her command network and almost completely powered down.  They were almost impossible to detect, short of a full-power radar scan, and the enemy hadn’t had a single word of warning.  The missiles had been activated, fed targeting data from her ships through laser communicators, and then hurled into the teeth of the enemy formation.  Her force was going to get royally mauled, she knew, but the rebels were going to get hurt too.

“Enemy missiles closing into engagement range,” the tactical officer said, very calmly.  Rosalyn silently promised him a commendation when the fighting was over, if they survived.  The combination of point defence weapons and platforms was a formidable one, backed up by the decoys, but there were just so many missiles.  “Engaging…now.”

The superdreadnaught started to spit out burst after burst of point defence fire, raking the incoming wall of missiles.  The remainder of the formation opened fire at the same instance, combining their firepower into one single weapon, guided by computers that thought and reacted faster than any human could hope to match.  Laser clusters, pulsars and even heavy energy weapons normally used for knife-range fighting burned thousands of missiles from space, but thousands more survived to rage onwards towards her.

“Decoys going active…now,” the tactical officer said, his face now shining with sweat.  He was only issuing orders to the computers.  He couldn’t handle the point defence on his own.  No human, not even a cyber-enhanced Geek, could have handled such a battle.  “Effectiveness…sixty percent and falling.”

Rosalyn scowled.  The rebels were at least as familiar with Imperial Navy technology as her own people and they knew how to fool it.  They had tuned their missile seeker heads to prevent them from being fooled by phantom superdreadnaughts and other tricks, no matter how tempting, and their success rate was far too high.  The wave of missiles was breaking through the inner defence range now…

“All hands, brace for impact,” her Flag Captain snapped, over the intercom.  The entire ship would hear him and brace themselves as best as they could.  “I repeat, brace for impact…”

The superdreadnaught rang like a bell as four missiles slammed into the shields, followed by a dozen more, knocking down a section of the shield and damaging the hull below.  The ship hadn’t been specifically targeted, she realised, even as red damage icons flared into life on the main display, or they would have been pounded harder.  They’d taken some damage to the forward hull, but they were still able to manoeuvre and fire missiles back at the enemy.

Other ships hadn’t been so lucky.  Commodore Yung’s flagship was simply gone, wiped out in a sheet of fire.  She hadn’t even seen it go.  Others had been destroyed, or severely damaged, and one would have to be blown apart by its own crew to prevent it from falling towards the planet.  The superdreadnaught’s hull would survive re-entry and come down like a massive asteroid.  The results would be catastrophic for the planet…

Her own words came back to mock her.  “And tell me, if you have no men, what happens if the tech fails and you can give birth no more?”

She forced her attention back to the display.  She'd started with eighteen superdreadnaughts.  She now had nine, with two more in no condition for anything, but a parley.  They’d lost shields and most of their weapons, the handful of remaining crew trying desperately to abandon their ships before the enemy delivered the killing blow.  The rebels might not be barbarians, not if their offer to honour the Moscow Accords had been genuine, but they would have problems saving men and women from the mangled wreck of a superdreadnaught.  The air was leaking out already, which suggested that the emergency systems were failing.  The ships were probably beyond any repair yard.

“Continue firing,” she ordered.  They could still fight, and, now that the arsenal ships had shot their bolt, on more even terms.  “Helm, keep moving us around the planet.”

She paused.  “And bring the remaining planetary defences online.”

***
Crafty bastards, Colin thought, as the wave of missiles raced towards his ships.  They had to have left them powered down in orbit, the only way they could have hidden them from the probes.  They’d done a good job too.  One way or another, the Shadow Fleet was going to get brutally hurt.  The enemy fleet might be destroyed, although he doubted it, but that actually worked in the Empire’s favour.  They had shipyards, unless all of the suicide attacks succeeded, that could replace their losses.  The Shadow Fleet’s capability to regenerate itself was far more limited.

“Signal the arsenal ships,” he ordered, calmly.  There was little point in exposing them to hostile fire.  “They are to withdraw at once and flicker out to the first waypoint as soon as they are clear of the gravity shadow.  We’ll meet them there.”

He smiled as the wave of missiles closed in on his superdreadnaughts.  Admiral Percival’s squadrons had made the mistake of firing on the arsenal ships after they had revealed their capabilities – and, in doing so, had shot themselves dry – and wasted too many of their missiles.  The enemy commander – he wondered, briefly, who it was – hadn’t made that mistake, but had fired directly on the superdreadnaughts.  It would actually hurt the Shadow Fleet badly.

“You are cleared to open fire as soon as they enter range,” he said.  “Tactical, keep firing on the enemy ships until they are destroyed.”

The point defence opened fire as one.  The Shadow Fleet had practiced anti-arsenal ship tactics religiously, ever since they had developed the weapons themselves, and Colin had enforced it regularly.  A squadron of superdreadnaughts alone could put out awesome firepower, but a squadron of arsenal ships could – and had – destroy an entire fleet in a single salvo.  It wouldn’t be long before the Empire duplicated the design and, by then, Colin intended to be ready.

The Knife-class destroyers took point.  They’d started life as fairly-standard Alpha-class units, but the Geeks and Nerds had reengineered them, turning them into massive point defence platforms.  They had almost nothing in the way of offensive capability – and they would certainly have to run from a standard destroyer – but they were capable of covering the fleet from walls of missiles.  Their fire rate was actually greater than the superdreadnaughts and missile after missile died under their fire.  Others swept into the fire of the superdreadnaughts and the other units and were wiped out as well, leaving only a relative handful to rage down on the lead squadron, locking onto their targets.  Five superdreadnaughts staggered, hit time and time again, and two blew up.  There were no survivors.

“The damaged ships are to retreat to the first waypoint,” Colin ordered, flatly.  He ignored the protests from Captains who believed that their ships could still fight.  “The remainder of the fleet is to continue to engage the enemy ships.”

The battle settled down to more regular lines as the damaged ships limped away from the fight.  The enemy ships were badly outnumbered now, but they were still moving, forcing him to take his ships within range of the planetary defences.  If it had been Harmony, or Morrison itself, he would never have dared take his ships so close, but as it was, he had no choice, but to keep hacking his way through them.  None of them individually, posed a threat to his ships, but collectively they were formidable.  They made closing with the enemy almost impossible.

“Open a channel to the asteroids,” he ordered, and waited for the communications officer’s nod.  “This is Admiral Colin Harper of the Shadow Fleet. I am in a position to destroy your facilities and I intend to do so.  You have ten minutes to abandon them completely.  Anyone remaining on the facilities will be killed when the bombardment begins.  There will be no further warnings.”

He closed the channel without waiting for a reply.  He'd considered trying to take the facilities, but there was no way that the Empire would allow them to keep them, even if they had to risk exposing Morrison.  It would have tied his fleet down, defending a single target, while allowing the enemy a chance to crush them.  There had been those who had suggested slaughtering the workforce as well, on the grounds that the Empire might simply move them to another star system and put them to work, but he’d refused that on the grounds that the workers hadn’t done anything to deserve death.

After all, he thought, we all worked for the Empire once.

“Admiral, the planet is attempting to contact us,” the communications officer said.  His face twisted into a thin smile.  “They sound a little worried.  I think they’re on the verge of surrender.”

“Ignore them,” Colin said.  There was little point in accepting a surrender that he couldn’t enforce.  The superdreadnaught shuddered as it launched another wave of missiles.  By his calculations, the enemy ships would have to break for the edge of the gravity shadow and safety within seven minutes, or they’d run out of automated defences to throw at them.  He could have increased speed and run them down, but there would have been little point.  “Sensors, are they abandoning the stations?”

“I think so,” the sensor officer said.  The display kept updating as Colin focused it in on the industries.  “They’re spewing out lifepods and shuttles at an awesome rate.  Most of the lifepods are heading down towards the planet.  I don’t think they think it’s safe up here.”

“How right they are,” Colin said, dryly.  A lone missile slipped through the defences and struck the General Montgomery.  The impact was barely noticed.  “Still, remind all ships; the man who shoots a lifepod purposely will wish that he had never been born.”

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer said.  He paused before carrying out his orders.  “Do you wish me to inform the lifepods of this policy?”

Colin shook his head.  “The more that land on the planet, the less chance of accidentally killing them,” he said.  He glanced at the timer.  Had it really been five minutes since he had issued his warning?  It felt like bare seconds.  “Tactical, prepare a bombardment pattern for the asteroids and shipyards.”

“Already done, sir,” the tactical officer said.  “One sweep around the planet and we’re done.  There are apparently no defences on the planet itself.”

“Good,” Colin said.  That wasn't uncommon.  Apart from a handful of worlds like Harmony, which would only have been improved by several multi-megaton detonations, no one in their right mind would station defences on a planet’s surface.  They tended to draw fire…and explosions that were barely noticed in space would be utterly devastating on the surface of a planet.  The last time anyone had stationed defences on an inhabited world had been back during the Dathi War, over a thousand years ago.  “Open fire as soon as the countdown runs out.”

***
Rosalyn caught hold her command chair as another missile penetrated the remains of her point defence and struck her ship.  The bombardment had lessened as she’d led the rebels on a tour of the planetary defences, forcing them to divert their attention, but she was running out of time.  The desperate messages from the planet below, begging her to turn on her foes or to surrender to save the industries, hadn’t improved her temper.  The rebels had no choice, but to destroy the industries.  They sure as hell couldn’t save them!

She ran the vectors through her head again.  She'd stalled long enough, in hopes that reinforcements would arrive in time, but if she continued on her current course, the rebels would eventually catch her and beat her down.  They were already disengaging some of their units, with orders to head around the planet and come out in front of her, which would force her to engage one force at close range with another behind her.  The choice was simple enough; surrender, flight, or death.  She didn’t want to surrender…

“Take us out,” she ordered.  A ship with the mass of a superdreadnaught couldn’t alter course easily, but her crews were experienced in manoeuvring their vast ships.  The real problem was that two of her superdreadnaughts had been damaged enough to lose some of their drive nodes, restricting them to slower speeds.  If she kept the fleet together, the rebels would have a chance to engage her, while if she left them behind, they would certainly be destroyed.  “Hold formation as long as possible…”

She’d bled the rebels, but was it enough?  Admiral Wachter wasn't his predecessor and he wouldn’t blame her for something that was outside of her control, but there would be plenty of people who’d say that she shouldn’t have engaged the rebels at all.  They might even be right, even if she’d hurt them worse than anyone else had, for it had cost her half of her entire force, and her second-in-command.  The buck stopped with her.  

As long as we’re on the defensive, she thought, bitterly, they can hit us where and when they like.
***
“Admiral, that's the end of the countdown,” the tactical officer said.  Colin, who had been watching the limping movements of the enemy ships, nodded absently.  “Do you still wish me to open fire?”

“Yes,” Colin said, grimly.  There was no longer any time to delay, not with the Imperial starships trying to escape.  “Sweep the skies clear.  Hit that superdreadnaught as well.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.  The superdreadnaught shivered as it launched a handful of missiles, and then another, and then another, targeted on the individual orbiting industrial platforms.  There was hardly any point defence to interdict and, one by one, they vanished in massive explosions.  The asteroids took more of a pointing, but once the warheads started to explode inside the rocky caverns, they shattered, sending thousands of tiny chunks of rock down into the atmosphere.  The superdreadnaught, falling helplessly towards the planet, was blown apart by a final salvo.  The remains of the ship, perhaps with crewmen trapped in sealed compartments, unable to escape, would burn up in the planet’s atmosphere.  It was a haunting and dangerous sight.

Silence fell on the bridge, each lost in their own thoughts.  They had destroyed the hopes and aspirations of an entire planet, just in passing, to prevent the enemy from using it.  The wreckage floating in low orbit alone would be dangerous, at least until it could all be cleared away by the Empire or one of the native ships, and while the Empire would probably agree to help rebuild, it would come at a price.  The world would become the plaything of the Families, like so many others.  Candleford’s unique nature would be gone forever.  

“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, breaking the silence, “we’re closing in on the enemy fleet.”

Colin nodded.  “Take us in,” he ordered.  There was no longer any point in remaining at the planet.  They’d wipe out the remainder of the ships, if they didn’t flee in time, and then flicker out, back to the base.  “Let’s put an end to this.”

A new alarm rang on the bridge.  “Admiral, we have multiple flicker signatures, all coming in from Morrison,” the sensor officer said, sharply.  “They read out as eighteen superdreadnaughts and escorts, on intercept vector!”

Chapter Fifteen

Under the pre-rebellion regulations, Commodore Rogers was uncomfortably aware that he and his old friend Commodore Chang should have been relieved of command and face a court-martial for recklessly endangering their ships.  He'd not only brought them out of flicker-space at a speed that had had offices and crew vomiting on the deck, but dangerously close to Candleford’s gravity shadow.  A single error might have doomed two entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts, without anyone having the slightest idea what had happened to them.  As it was, he wouldn’t have risked it if there had been any other choice.

“Report,” he snapped, knowing that his entire crew were still feeling the effects.  He hadn’t felt this bad since he’d drunk several cases of beer on a bet.  The remainder of the crew wouldn’t be feeling any better.  “Launch probes; find the rebel forces!”

If the rebels had been waiting for them, or if they had come out too close to them, his ships were in no condition to defend themselves.  It was with a feeling of relief that he realised that the rebels were within the gravity shadow, chasing what had to be the remains of the defending squadron…and, if he moved fast enough, trapped.

“Get a link to Commodore Simpson or whoever is in command over there,” he snapped.  At their range, it was impossible to get a clear idea of who was in charge, if anyone was.  The rebels were chasing down the survivors of the defending fleet mercilessly…and the defending fleet wasn't moving fast enough to escape, or even hold the range open.  They had to have taken serious damage.  Commodore Simpson was known for being innovative and cunning, but even she wouldn’t have risked a close-range battle with a superior force unless she had no choice.  “I want a rundown on what’s happened and their current status.”

The display updated as the probes came in.  Candleford’s vast industries were gone.  It might not have been as developed as Morrison, or any of the Family Worlds, but it had had a respectable industry and had made a contribution to the Imperial Navy.  That was gone now, falling down to the planet in streaks of light, burning up in its atmosphere.  The crude jokes and whispers about the women-only planet would be barbed now…and Public Information would turn it into a Cause.  It hardly mattered to Rogers.  The more he thought about it, the more he realised that he had a chance to hurt the rebels badly.

“Helm, take us after them, least-time intercept course,” he ordered.  They’d come out of flicker-space carrying their previous velocity with them and they’d already moved into the gravity shadow.  The crews might not be able to stand a reverse and then an attempt to use flicker-space to get around the planet, even if they had time to carry out the manoeuvres before the rebels made good their escape.  “Communications…tell Commodore Simpson we’re coming.”

***
Colin’s force had taken the precaution of dropping stealthed sensor platforms outside the gravity shadow before they'd entered it, but one by one, they were falling silent as the newcomers picked them off.  They’d already reported on the strength of the enemy fleet, however, and Colin found himself torn.  If they risked an engagement with the newcomer fleet, they would still have the firepower advantage, but if the old and new fleets combined, the odds would be even.  If it had been Percival in command, Colin wouldn’t have hesitated to risk the engagement, but with an unknown who’d already proved to be a sneaky commander, he was more reluctant.

He ran through the vectors in his head.  The newcomers were already angling in to intercept his force, but they’d still have to cut across the planet, unless they had allies outside the gravity shadow.  It was possible that someone with more theoretical than practical knowledge would try that, but interstellar warfare generally ran by the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Grand multi-coordinated manoeuvres generally went spectacularly wrong.  That had been the first lesson they'd hammered into the young tactical students back at the Academy.  Absent a reliable means of instant FTL communications, coordination was impossible.  Most space warfare, he'd complained at the time, was as basic as taking everything you had and setting out to thump the enemy.  The rebellion hadn’t changed that.

“Helm, increased speed and close the range with the first force, designate Empire-One,” he ordered.  The display updated to match his words.  “Designate the second force Empire-Two.”

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said.  The superdreadnaught’s background hum altered slightly as it picked up speed.  “Energy weapons range in seven minutes.”

Colin nodded.  “All ships,” he ordered, “open fire.”

The superdreadnaught rocked as it unleashed a salvo of missiles, followed rapidly by a second.  Empire-One would be pounded into scrap by the time the superdreadnaughts closed to energy range, by which time Empire-Two would be just entering missile range of the Shadow Fleet…and they’d be scraping across the gravity shadow.  Unless Empire-One could pick up speed, they’d be committed to a missile and energy engagement…and they were badly outnumbered.  They didn’t stand a chance.

“Empire-One has opened fire,” the tactical officer said.  “Missiles concentrated on Admiral Jones, General Sun Tzu and General Zhukov.”

“Sneaky,” Colin said, thoughtfully.  The enemy commander had evidently decided to cripple or destroy a handful of his ships at the cost of his own.  He would have offered to surrender in their place, but with Empire-Two bearing down on the rebels from the rear, perhaps they'd calculated that it represented the best use of their ships.  A rebel ship that lost its drives was trapped.  He grinned suddenly.  “Do we have any ID on their flagship yet?”

“No, sir,” the tactical officer said.  “They might have lost both of their Commodores, but in that case someone else has taken command.”

“In that case, general signal to all ships,” Colin said.  “Take your partners and dance.”

The range closed steadily as the superdreadnaughts on both sides went to rapid-fire, pouring out the missiles into the teeth of the enemy defences.  A single damaged Imperial superdreadnaught, already wounded, lost its drives completely and fell out of formation, before a handful of missiles finished it off.  The damage mounted steadily, but the Shadow Fleet’s advantage in point defence told, allowing them to stay ahead of Empire-Two.  Empire-One was taking a battering, losing shields and suffering damage as missile after missile broke through the defences, but it refused to lose its formation.  A superdreadnaught exploded in a vast sheet of fire, followed rapidly by two of the heavy cruisers, but still they wouldn’t break and scatter.  Their commander had to be holding them together through sheer nerve.

“Two minutes to energy range,” the helmsman said, as the superdreadnaught rocked again, taking coordinated fire from two of the enemy ships.  They didn’t seem to have worked out that they were targeting the flagship, or they would have had all their ships pour on the fire, but the damage was steadily mounting upwards.  A superdreadnaught was designed to take an astonishing amount of damage and keep fighting, but Colin knew that it was all-too-possible to destroy one, if only by pounding it to death.  The Geeks had built the arsenal ships to give the rebellion a shortcut to victory.  “Do you want to move into energy range?”

Colin ran through the vectors again.  They could sit on the edge of energy range indefinitely…and he would have done so, except for Empire-Two.  He’d be committed to close-range engagement of Empire-One, while Empire-Two came into missile range itself.  The commanding officer of Empire-Two had shown more guts and bravery than Percival or even Captain Stoutjespyk had ever shown.  If Colin had been under his command, there might never have been a rebellion at all.

No, he thought, coldly.  There would have been a rebellion.  That was inevitable.  All I did was give it a fighting chance…

“Yes,” he said, flatly.  “Take us into the fire.”

***
Another missile slammed through a gap in the shields and detonated against the superdreadnaught’s hull, sending Commodore Rosalyn Simpson to the deck.  The superdreadnaught was dying, piece by piece, entire sections and decks ravaged by nuclear fire.  The rebels had improved their warheads to the point where they caused much worse damage to a superdreadnaught’s unprotected hull than standard Empire missiles, even the most powerful of them.  The Empire had believed in knocking down shields, but the rebels had developed different tactics…and they were killing her ships.

She coughed, hard, to get the dust out of her throat.  “Report!”

“They’re closing to energy range, Commodore,” the replacement sensor officer said.  The former sensor officer had been killed when a power surge in his console had caused it to explode.  The rogue power surges would do more damage than the missile hits.  “They’ve knocked out half of our energy weapons.”

Rosalyn grimaced.  Her ships were on a death ride to nowhere.   “Bring up what you can,” she said, running her eyes down the damage reports from the other ships.  She had only six superdreadnaughts left and ten smaller ships, all of which were heavily damaged.  She was rather surprised that the formation hadn’t collapsed minutes ago.  It felt as if they had been running for their entire lives.  “I want all fire targeted on a single enemy ship.”

“Yes, Commodore,” the tactical officer said.  The display flickered again.  The superdreadnaught was armed with heavy fission beams, but they consumed far too much energy, even from the vast superdreadnaught power reserves.  She couldn’t remember, off-hand, if there had ever been an energy-range engagement between superdreadnaughts.  The closest she could remember had been back during the Dathi War.  “They’re coming into engagement range now.”

“Fire,” Rosalyn snarled.

The lights dimmed rapidly as power was diverted to the massive energy cannons.  The weapons slashed into the targeted ship, inducing instant fission in the target’s hull, once they broke through the shields.  The enemy superdreadnaught staggered under the assault, diverting all of its power to maintaining the shields, even as the shield generators began to overload.  The shields failed and nightmarish beams of force struck deep into the target’s hull, ripping the ship apart…

It exploded soundlessly in the vacuum of space.

“Hit,” the tactical officer said, his voice tired and broken.  “Moving to target two…”

The superdreadnaught shook again…and the light failed, completely, followed by the gravity.  A moment later, Rosalyn had the impression of red fire…and then nothing, nothing at all.

***
Colin watched the enemy superdreadnaught blow apart on the display.  There was a reason why there were so few energy weapon duels between superdreadnaughts, the weapons were just too destructive.  A largely-undamaged rebel superdreadnaught had been ripped apart within seconds…

But it was the end of Empire-One.  The handful of surviving ships died quickly, after inflicting two more losses on the Shadow Fleet, both heavy cruisers.  The damage was still mounting rapidly, but as the final enemy ship died, the fleet sailed onwards into silence.  Empire-Two was still trying to catch up, but they’d only have time for a brief exchange of fire before the Shadow Fleet could flicker out.  The battle might have been far more brutal and bloody than he'd expected, but they’d won.

The Empire will probably have Public Information call this a defeat for us, he thought, wryly, looking back at the planet.  There was still no point in trying to occupy Candleford.  The world no longer had anything anyone wanted.  He’d made a mental promise that the Freedom Alliance would do what they could to assist the inhabitants to rebuild, after the war, but what had happened here – and, with Empire-Two still bearing down on them, had yet to finish – suggested that it was going to be a long war.  Without Percival’s incompetence, the war might last for years.

He looked up at Empire-Two’s icon and frowned.  A commander who was willing to keep giving chase, even after watching the death of Empire-One, was either a very cool customer or a fool.  Eighteen intact superdreadnaughts might even be a match for his forces, even though he still had the numbers advantage; too many of his ships had been damaged.  The opportunity to crush them existed…but would it be worth the cost?

It wasn't something he could ask anyone, even David.  The decision had to be his alone.

“Keep us on course, but ramp up the drives,” he ordered.  “I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

The tactical officer laughed.  “I’d say,” he said.  “Anyone would think that they weren't pleased to see us.”

***
“Maintain course,” Commodore Rogers ordered, watching as the rebel forces continued to make their escape.  He'd launched nearly a hundred drones and probes after them and the clearest possible sign that the rebels were damaged was that most of them were still reporting back.  Normally, they'd be picked off by point defence weapons, like any common missile, but they were still active.  The rebel sensors had to have been degraded by the fighting.

He studied the updates thoughtfully, calculating odds in his head.  The problem was that he didn’t know how badly damaged the rebel superdreadnaughts actually were.  If he could destroy them, or even eighteen for eighteen, it would be worthwhile…except for the fact that he was on one of his ships.  A handful of them were trailing plasma, a symptom of a larger internal problem, but their drives were still working.  He dared not assume that their weapons were equally degraded.  Chasing them was one thing, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to catch them.  Even damaged, they could still beat hell out of his force…

In fact, he reasoned, the smartest thing to do would be to break off the chase.  There was no way that he could bring them down by long-range missile fire unless they chose to let him.  He could harass them, but if they turned to face him, they could wipe out his entire force.  Two additional squadrons of superdreadnaughts would be lost, but even though he would take a bite out of the enemy, would it really be worthwhile?

“Commodore, we are entering the outermost edge of missile range now,” the tactical officer said.  “Do I have your permission to open fire?”

Commodore Rogers sighed.  They had to try.  “Open fire,” he said.  Admiral Wachter would understand breaking off, but his Family and Patrons would not.  They'd lost too much of their investments already to tolerate anything that even remotely smacked of cowardice.  “Hit them as hard as you can.”

The superdreadnaught quivered as it unleashed its first barrage fired in anger, ever.

***
“Empire-two has opened fire,” the tactical officer said, as new red icons shimmered into existence.  “Deploys and point defence have gone to standby-alert.”

Colin nodded.  The problem with firing at such long range was that the missile drives might start to burn out before they even entered terminal attack range.  Empire-Two’s commander had had little choice, however, but to throw good money after bad.  By the time they got into a closer range, Colin and the Shadow Fleet would be out of the gravity shadow and light years away from them…

And there was another issue.  They – Empire-Two – were heading towards any missiles Colin might choose to fire back.  His missiles wouldn’t burn out, although they might miss and never have a hope of recovering their targets.  Colin would have held his fire, himself, but now there was little point.

“Return fire at will,” he said, calmly.  The missiles raging towards them were already showing signs of burning out.  The enemy commander was merely throwing good money after bad.  “Engage with point defence as soon as they enter range.”

He smiled as the missiles started to burn out, losing their drive field and falling behind.  It was vaguely possible that one of the enemy ships might hit one, although he couldn’t recall a single incident where it had happened, outside of a carefully-staged and rigged exercise.  Empire-Two would be lucky to score a single hit, although his own missiles were in a similar position.  A missile that was spoofed by a decoy had hardly any chance of re-acquiring its target.

The weight of missiles started to slack off and died altogether.  “They have creased fire,” the tactical officer said, thoughtfully.  “They didn’t score a single hit.”

***
“Hold fire,” Commodore Rogers said, angrily.  The rebels hadn’t suffered a single hit…and, he saw now, probably wouldn’t unless he closed the range, and that was impossible in the time left to them.  “I said, hold your fire.”

He ignored Commodore Chang’s protests and cursed, not for the first time, the idiosyncrasies of the gravity shadows.  The rebel fleet was going to escape and there was nothing he could do to stop it.  It had blown through a system, punched out the local defence force, and now was retreating…

We can’t put a superdreadnaught fleet in every system, he thought, grimly.  We don’t have that many superdreadnaughts!  As long as they choose their targets carefully, how can we even stop them from ripping the Empire apart?

“Stand down,” he ordered, bitterly.  “Take us back to the planet.”

***
“Empire-Two is breaking off,” the sensor officer reported.  “They’re slowing and altering course.”

“Good,” Colin said.  They were starting to cross the edge of the gravity shadow.  He tensed, half-expecting an ambush, but nothing materialised out of the darkness.  “Helm, take us back to the first waypoint as soon as we are in the clear.”

“Yes, sir,” the helmsman said.  There was a long pause.  “We’re in clear space, sir.”

The fleet flickered out of the Candleford System.  “Stand down from battle stations,” Colin said, feeling the tension sliding out of his body.  The battle felt as if it had lasted for years.  “I want a full report on our status and that of the fleet as soon as we reach the first waypoint.”

“Aye, sir,” David said.  “Do you think they got lucky or that was a planned ambush?”

Colin considered it.  “A planned ambush would have had more firepower,” he said, finally.  “I think they just got lucky.  I hope they just got lucky.”

Chapter Sixteen

The final images of the battle slowly faded away.

“Well,” Joshua said.  “What did you think of that?”

Penny considered it thoughtfully.  “At best, a draw in their favour,” she said.  “At worst, an outright rebel victory.”

Joshua surprised her by laughing.  “Well put,” he said.  “In a day, they’ve effectively knocked out Orland, Gaza and Candleford.  The best we can say is that we drove them away from Candleford and they might have chosen to leave rather than fight it out with Commodore Rogers.  Public Information, of course, will call this a stunning victory, but we cannot allow ourselves that delusion.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  Public Information had dispatched a large news team to Morrison with strict instructions to ensure that the war was presented in a proper light.  Penny had watched a handful of their broadcasts, dispatched through the ICN to every world in the sector, and had been vastly amused.  Any actual resemblance to the truth was due solely to the laxity of the producer.  The images they’d shown of Joshua had had muscles on their muscles.  “On the other hand…”

Joshua lifted an eyebrow.  “Commodore Simpson did manage to hurt them, sir, and they’re operating at the end of a long supply chain,” Penny continued.  “They’re going to have to send the damaged superdreadnaughts back to Harmony for repairs – they’re too badly damaged to be taken into a modern battlefield – and that’s going to weaken them.  They might decide they couldn’t take Morrison for a while…”

“That’s not something we can count on,” Joshua said.  “One particular point about the three battles is that they took out all of the secondary targets.  They’ve isolated us, to some degree, and unless we abandon Morrison willingly, they have to come for us.  The interesting and important point is that the new anti-arsenal ship tactics worked.”

Penny pulled up the images and studied them in silence.  Everyone knew that the more ships added to a command datanet, the more point defence that could be shared among the fleet.  Sheer numbers could be decisive…and the rebels had built the arsenal ships to go around it and produce a heavier throw weight in the opening round.  The Main Strike Fleet, however, would be the largest force the rebels had faced and Joshua had had them drilling endlessly, every day.  Now that Morrison was under new management, the orbital defences and the shipyards were drilling as well…and thousands of missiles were being emplaced in orbit.  If the rebels held off for a few more weeks, they’d even have arsenal ships of their own.

“They still took a pounding,” she said, finally.  “Maybe Commodore Simpson should have abandoned the system.”

“Perhaps,” Joshua said.  “If she had survived the battle, I suspect that someone back on Earth would have raised the exact same point.  From a cold-blooded point of view, we found out how effective the new defences are in real life, rather than simulations, and that is going to cost the rebels.  Now that we have real data to work with…”

He shrugged.  “My official report to Earth” – he meant, Penny knew, the Thousand Families – “will commend her and recommend a posthumous promotion to Admiral, which will at least ensure that her family is well cared for…and, if any of her relatives go into the Navy, give them a boost.  They may not confirm it, but even the mention in her files will help.”

Penny smiled.  Percival would probably have spent hours blaming the unfortunate Commodore for having been trapped – or, rather, for having trapped herself – instead of recognising the impossible position.  Joshua probably wouldn’t have had her shot, or thrown out an airlock, for leaving Candleford to the mercy of the rebels, but Penny wouldn’t have wanted to be the person making that call.  The accusation of being a coward would stick for a long time.

Joshua stood up in one smooth motion.  “And now we go to share our opinions with the rest of the command staff,” he said, dryly.  “They’re not going to be pleased with some of my decisions.”

***
The superdreadnaught’s main briefing room had been expanded to cope with officers from both the Main Strike Fleet and the Morrison Sector Fleet, which was slowly becoming amalgamated into one unit.  Public Information was trumpeting the news of an offensive against the rebels, based on vague second-hand comments from sources on Morrison, but Joshua had made it clear to Penny that he had no intention of going on the offensive while the rebels still had a powerful fleet in the sector.  He’d allowed Public Information to continue spreading disinformation because it would confuse the rebels, maybe even force them to pull their ships back to meet the offensive.

Penny stood, with the other officers, when Joshua entered.  He’d taken the time to put on his dress uniform, something that surprised her, before she realised that he was probably sending a message.  This meeting was going to be important.  He wore a standard dress uniform with a handful of service badges, rather than the elaborately-tailored uniform that Percival had worn, and hadn’t worn his medals.  That too, she suspected, was some kind of message.

“At ease,” he said.  “You may be seated.”

He took his own place at the head of the table.  “By now, you will have assimilated everything that happened over the last few days,” he said.  He’d made his reputation as a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly and everyone would have at least accessed the basic report.  Joshua believed in spreading information as far as possible, something Percival would have opposed on general principles, in order to ensure that they could make intelligent comments.  “The effective loss of the three secondary worlds means that the next rebel offensive will probably be targeted here.  We do not, yet, have a projected time of arrival for the rebels, but I think we must assume that they could be here within the week.  When that happens, we will put Operation Shadow into operation and deploy the new weapons.

“We’re practiced it several times and you all know your roles,” he continued.  “If any of you have any doubts or questions, I want to hear them after this meeting.  However, the battles over the last month have raised an interesting point; the rebels have offered to abide by the Moscow Accords.”

Penny frowned.  It had taken a legal officer a day to locate a copy of the Moscow Accords in the archives and only the Empire’s determination to ensure that fleet commanders received copies of all relevant data, no matter how outdated, had ensured that they had any context.  The Moscow Accords had been created back in the dawn of the space age, before the Federation, to hopefully migrate the horrors of war.  They hadn’t been as successful as anyone had hoped, but they had had some effect.

“The rebels would, technically, count as insurgents under the Moscow Accords,” Major Jeremy Damiani rumbled.  “We would be quite within our rights to interrogate them, followed by a rapid execution.”

“The Accords were not designed for the Empire,” Joshua agreed, holding up one hand.  “The designers never anticipated a single power controlling all of human space, or a rebellion that might pose a significant threat to that power, and as such they were not included.  We could stretch a point and call them rebellious provinces, but even that assumes the presence of outside powers…and there are none.

“I am ruling that the rebels will be treated as legitimate combatants,” he continued.  “Yes, this will not please the folks back home, but there are strong reasons for it.  The rebels might consider surrendering if they know they’ll be treated fairly well, rather than being sucked dry and then killed.  Secondarily, as they move further into the Inner Worlds, they will capture more of our own people, the loyalists.  As reciprocity is a fundamental component of the Accords, if we abuse their prisoners, they will be legally within their rights to abuse ours.  I do not see that as a good thing.”

His eyes moved around the compartment.  “There will be no debate on this matter,” he concluded, firmly.  “The decision was mine to make and I have made it.  If it bothers you too much, I will happily note your objections in my log.”

There was a long pause.  Penny knew just what he was doing.  He was isolating them from all possibility of sharing the blame, legally.  The Roosevelt Clan would be furious when they heard that Joshua had extended some rights to the rebels, including the ones who had caused a massive financial crisis, and would be screaming for his head and that of anyone who’d helped him come up with the idea.  They wouldn’t care about practicalities, or the morale of Imperial Navy officers and men, but only about revenge.  No Clan had come so close to a complete collapse for hundreds of years.  

And, legally, Joshua was within his rights to issue a blanket command.  The authority of a fleet commander was vast, not least because it would be weeks before they heard anything from Earth.  They might not agree with his commands, although Penny suspected that some of them would understand, at least, but they couldn’t legally oppose them.  The worst that could happen would be some of them sending a blistering set of dispatches back to Earth…and it would be at least six weeks before they heard anything back.  Even if Earth countermanded the order at once, it would still remain in force…and continue to apply to any prisoners taken when the law had been in force.  To do otherwise would cast doubt on the boundless authority of a fleet commander.

“I think that I am in full agreement with you,” Damiani said, finally.  “If you wish…”

“There’s no need,” Joshua said, calmly.  He glanced around the table.  “Commodore Qadir, I have a special mission for you.”

Commodore Sooraya Qadir, the commanding officer of the 65th Battlecruiser Squadron, looked up, surprised.  Penny shared her astonishment.  The battlecruisers had been largely kept at Morison, rather than being sent out to raid or even to picket likely lines of approach, and she had probably reluctantly accepted that they wouldn’t play a significant role in the war.  Battlecruisers weren’t capable of standing in the line of battle and everyone knew that.  The rebels might use them to raid, but the Imperial Navy hadn’t had the time to plan raiding missions.

Joshua tapped the display.  “This is, as far as we know, the limits of rebel-controlled space,” he said.  “There may be other worlds that have fallen to insurgencies, or been taken by rebel ships, but for the moment we will focus on ones we know about.  You are to enter the systems, raid them with the intention of causing as much damage as possible, and then flicker out.  I’m not expecting you to defeat the rebellion all on your own, so don’t hesitate to withdraw if you run into a superior force.  Keep the rebels as confused as possible about how strong you actually are, so deploy drones and sensor decoys to convince them that you have an entire fleet operating in their rear.  Plan your own missions and raids.

“I’m assigning you some of the freighters here to serve as a fleet train, along with two destroyer squadrons,” he added.  “Once your supplies run out, you can make your way back here, but take extreme caution – the rebels might have occupied Morrison by then.  One exception; do not go after Harmony itself.”

“Yes, sir,” Sooraya said.  Penny almost envied her.  An independent command was the highest point in any officer’s career.  Sooraya wasn't a bad choice, either; she was a fanatical Empire loyalist and a competent officer to boot.  “How should I apply the Moscow Accords?”

“Carefully,” Joshua said.  His face twisted into a sour smile.  It wasn't the best guidelines anyone had ever given a subordinate, one who would be operating far from his base.  “My legal officers will give you the briefing, but in general, do unto them as they have done unto us and give them time to evacuate, if possible.  Do not put your ships in danger, however.”

He turned back to face the table.  “I have posthumously promoted Commodore Simpson to Admiral in recognition of her efforts,” he said.  “Commodore Rogers, I have commended you for your actions, although someone more cynical than I might point out that you wasted two hundred missiles.”  He held up a hand before Rogers could protest.  “No, you did the best you could at the time, which will be rewarded.”

The display altered, clicking back to an image of the Morrison System.  “We may not have much time,” Joshua concluded, simply.  “This afternoon, we will run through a rehearsal of Operation Shadow and it’s variants.  I have every faith that the fleet will rise to the challenge and defeat the rebels when they arrived.”

Penny saw the wave of emotion washing around the compartment.  They’d known that the Sector Fleet had been degraded, and the units drawn from Home Fleet hadn’t been much better, but Joshua had pushed them into becoming a real unit.  The degraded superdreadnaughts were well on their way to being repaired, while drills and endless simulations had helped their morale.  The broken and demoralised fleet was becoming a dangerous fighting machine again.

“Dismissed!”

***
“Any thoughts yourself?”

Penny shrugged.  They were back in Joshua’s quarters, watching the Battle of Candleford again.  It seemed to her that she spent more time in Joshua’s quarters than she had in Percival’s, even through Percival had been her…she grimaced.  She could never apply the title lover to a man who’d used her and would, one day, have discarded her.  Joshua was an infinitively more interesting person.  If he’d remained an officer, she’d decided a long time ago, his patronage would have been far preferable to anyone else’s patronage.

“I’m surprised you didn’t send out raiding squadrons earlier,” Penny said.  “I know it was suggested, so why did you delay?”

Joshua shrugged.  “The priority was to get Morrison back into working order,” he said, watching as the rebels overwhelmed Commodore Simpson again.  Penny wasn’t sure what insight he hoped to draw from it, apart from the fact that the rebels were clearly sensitive to losses.  They could have gone after Commodore Rogers if they'd wanted to add nine more superdreadnaughts to their hulls.  “If the rebels had hit the base back before we got to work, we would have lost, even with me in command.  That would have been…bad and there was no point in making the situation worse by attacking their worlds.”

He turned back to face her.  “And now we’re on a safer footing, we can consider trying to knock them off balance instead,” he continued.  “Has it occurred to you that this war has a political dimension?”  Penny shook her head.  “The rebels might have been taking worlds off us, but that means that they have to protect them from the vile evil soul-crushing forces of doom…that’s us, by the way.”

Penny snorted.  Joshua’s sense of humour manifested itself at the oddest times.  “If we manage to confuse them about how many ships we have operating in their territory, we might force them to bring units back to protect their rear areas,” he continued.  “Politically, if they want the support of their new friends, they won’t have a choice, which pins them down.  I’d prefer to blow hell out of Harmony and Yanasaxon, but I can’t cut loose enough forces to do that.  As long as Commodore Qadir is careful about where she hits, and how many decoys she deploys, they’re going to get really confused…and frightened.  It’s easy to talk about waging war, but it’s much harder when the wolf is at the door, and hungry.”

He soured.  “Of course, there’s a reason why sensor ghosts don’t hold up for long…”

Penny nodded, grimly.  It was possible to create sensor ghosts to convince the enemy that there was a much larger force bearing down on him than there actually was, but the illusions never fooled anyone for long.  They didn’t launch missiles, laser and radar pulses went right through them and they had no flicker-signature.  An alert enemy might be able to separate the real ships from the illusions and concentrate their fire on the real ones.

“But, more practically, it will give us a boost,” Joshua concluded.  “We need to hit back and, despite Public Information’s promises, we’re not ready to launch a major offensive.”

“Why did you even allow them to say as much as they did?”

“It would gladden my heart to watch the rebels react to their statements and promises of dire retribution,” Joshua said, dryly.  Penny had to laugh at the image.  “No one believes them anyway and I doubt that anyone has done so for years.  Even so, the rebels will have to take some precautions, which will be all for the good.  Finally…when we do go on the offensive, by then they should be automatically discarding rumours of a grand march back to Macore.  We might take them by surprise.”

His terminal chimed.  “Yes?”  He asked.  “I gave orders that we were not to be disturbed…”

“The destroyer Harry Wilkinson just reported back from its picketing position, sir,” Anne said.  If she was worried by the irritation in his tone, no trace of it appeared in her voice.  “They saw the entire Shadow Fleet at ISRD-85678.”

Joshua tapped his terminal, bringing up the details.  “I see,” he said.  “Take no action.”

Penny looked over his shoulder.  “Sir, with all due respect, that could be their base,” she said.  “Shouldn’t we mount an offensive, now?  We could get sixty superdreadnaughts out there…”

“It’s not,” Joshua said, almost sadly.  Penny realised, suddenly, just what the rebels were doing there.  “They’re not there for repair work.  They’re there to bury their dead and say goodbye.”

Chapter Seventeen

The dull red light of ISRD-85678 flickered against the Shadow Fleet.

Colin watched from the observation blister as the ships settled down into formation.  It was a risk coming so close to a star – he was fairly certain that the Empire would have picketed it – but it was a necessary one.  He'd taken the precaution of remaining well outside the gravity shadow, and of not bringing the entire fleet, but it was still dangerous.  They had to bury their dead.

The Imperial Navy had always buried its bodies, assuming that there were bodies, in the nearest star.  Colin had been taught, back at the Academy, that the founder of the Imperial Navy had been disowned by his relatives and so there had been no choice, but to bury him in the nearest star.  He hadn’t believed the story at the time – the Imperial Navy was full of little traditions that were justified later – but now, now he wondered if it were true.  Returning the bodies of rebels to their homeworlds would be difficult, even if the Empire were to be destroyed, and besides, it was considered bad luck to keep bodies onboard starships.

It was a rare ceremony, because bodies were rare.  A destroyed superdreadnaught would vaporise all three thousand crewmembers in a split second.  The damaged ships, however, still had bodies, nine hundred of them.  They had to be expelled towards the nearest star, according to tradition, in what was supposed to be a time for reflection.  Colin had ordered that the fleet remain on alert, in case the Empire decided to engage them, but almost every crewmember would be watching the funeral.  It could be their turn next.

He keyed a single command into his terminal.  The bodies had been distributed around the fleet, placed into airlocks, and now expelled into space.  Tractor beams pushed them slowly away from the starship, on a course towards the dull red star, which would eventually pull them into its fiery embrace.  Their atoms would add to the light shining out into interstellar space, keeping some tiny part of them alive, or so the tradition ran.  Colin wasn’t sure if he believed it or not, but it was comforting.  He wouldn’t have wanted to be buried in the ground, where worms and insects would devour him.

“Unto the light of a star, we commend the bodies of our brothers and sisters, comrades in arms,” he said, knowing that everyone would hear his words.  The original funeral speech included lines about loyalty and service to the Empire, but he’d pruned them out.  They would have been a sick joke.  “They lived with us, worked with us, served with us and loved with us.  When the call came, they were not found wanting; they gave their lives so that others could live.  We honour them and love them and commend them to eternal rest until the day we are all called for judgement before the Lord of All Things.

“We stand here, illuminated by the light of a star, to bid our friends goodbye.”

The haunting tune started to play as the bodies fell further away from the ships.  No one knew how old the tune was, or who had originally written it, but the Imperial Navy had used it for centuries.  It was always played by a live band, formed from members of the crew, a tradition that not even Percival would deny.  One by one, the bodies moved faster and faster, heading downwards towards the star.  The tune came to an end and Colin wiped a tear from his eye.  It was an emotional moment for everyone, even those who had never seen such a ceremony before.  

“Flicker,” he ordered, quietly.  “Take us out of here.”

A moment later, they were gone from the star.

***
“At best, that was a draw,” Colin said, when the command staff assembled, two hours later.  Tradition demanded a formal wake for the dead and the Captains were required to preside over the ceremony.  Colin’s own pain wouldn’t fade so easily.  He'd made mistakes in the battle and they'd cost lives.  The sight of mangled bodies, snuffed out in an instant by ravening forces intent on completely destroying their ships, would haunt him for a long time.  “We certainly destroyed two superdreadnaught squadrons and all of the orbital industry, but we lost nine of our own, either destroyed outright or too badly damaged to take into battle.”

The irony was almost palatable.  Once, a damaged superdreadnaught would still have been the most dangerous ship in space, even with half of its weapons and sensors knocked out.  Now, with arsenal ships involved, they were sitting ducks, barely suitable to draw fire from the active ships.  They’d been damaged too badly for anything, but being returned back to Harmony, where they could be repaired.  It would take months, at least, to bring them back to full status…and by then, the Empire might strike back.  The thought of losing them to a raid on the shipyards was infuriating.  In his enemy’s shoes, he would already be organising raids…and they might have departed already.  

“The remainder of the fleet took a battering as well,” he added.  “We’re going to be spending at least two weeks repairing them before we advance on Morrison, and unfortunately that’s going to be a very predicable move.  The enemy commander is going to know that we don’t have a choice, unless we intend to shoot hell out of the first-rank worlds in the sector, which won’t exactly win us friends and influence people.  Thoughts?”

“They reacted like lightning,” Commodore Clifford Trout said.  He sounded impressed.  “They must have had barely any warning, but they dispatched two entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts at, literally, a second’s notice.  I’m not sure that we could perform as well, even though we have been cutting out the fat ruthlessly, and they did.  I don’t like the implications of an opponent who is prepared to treat superdreadnaughts as expendable battlecruisers.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Commodore Kady Garland said.  As the commander of a battlecruiser squadron, she wouldn’t want to hear that her ships – and her- were expendable.  “I wouldn’t have dared treat my battlecruisers like that.  They came in so close to the gravity shadow…”

“It worked for them,” Commodore Arun Prabhu said, sourly.  He looked over at Colin, almost challengingly.  “You should have called the 7th Squadron in as soon as the newcomers arrived.  They could have hammered Empire-Two to a pulp.”

“They would either have prolonged the chase or been beaten to a pulp themselves,” Colin said.  He'd thought of that as a possibility, but it wouldn’t have worked.  Empire-Two would have turned and engaged, eighteen superdreadnaughts to nine, and even if Colin had turned at once as well would have ripped hell out of the 7th Squadron.  “Perhaps not showing them to the Empire was for the best.  They won’t know that they exist.”

He looked around the table.  “Does anyone have any alternative to going after Morrison?”

“We could make contact with the first-rank worlds,” Commodore Simon Horvat suggested.  “They might be willing to assist us.  There are independence movements on many of those worlds and if we chose our target carefully, they might be able to help us…”

“But what can they do for us?”  Arun asked coldly.  He held up a hand before Horvat could express his opinion.  “Simon, I know that they do want to be rid of the Empire, but how can they assist us?  Their entire combined defence forces wouldn’t be enough to crack Morrison…and it would leave their worlds at the mercy of the Empire, which isn’t exactly…noted for mercy.  They’d refuse, at best, to have anything to do with us; at worst, they’d call up the Imperial Fleet and set an ambush.  The results would be disastrous.”

Colin nodded slowly.  “We don’t want to expose them to the Empire,” he agreed.  He’d made the same decision about Macore, although that hadn’t prevented Admiral Percival from ordering an invasion anyway.  “If we can’t give them a clear sign that we can win…”

“We blew hell out of all three secondary worlds,” Trout pointed out.  The recordings had shown two completely successful missions…and Candleford.  The ICN would carry the recordings, much against its will, once Colin had edited them and inserted them into the network.  “That’s something that no one has ever done before.”

“But not something that actually weakens the Empire significantly,” Arun said.  “If they keep Morrison, then just by being there, they block us from getting to Earth and victory.  If we can’t burn out the core of the Empire, my friends, the Empire will out-build us and crush us.  You’ve seen the projections.  Unless we get very lucky, in two years the Empire will have a three-to-one advantage, at least, in all categories and more on the way.  In five years…they’ll brush us aside and recover all of the liberated worlds.”

“That does assume that they can pay for them,” Katy said.  She flushed as they all looked at her.  “I had to spend a year in the payroll department once, if you must know,  and I picked up a little about economics.  If the Empire decides to pay for such a vast military build-up, their budgets will suffer elsewhere.  We’ve already damaged the financial structure of the Empire by inflicting catastrophic losses on the Roosevelt Clan, so would the others choose to throw good money after bad?”

Colin wished, suddenly, that Kathy were with them.  She would have known the personalities at the top of the Empire, the ones who would actually be making the decisions…and she might even know how well the Empire could handle the strain.  The Geeks and Nerds had merely considered building superdreadnaughts as an industrial project, rather than as a financial problem, but then…they didn’t have to worry about paying workers, let alone suppliers.  They made everything themselves.

“It doesn’t matter,” Arun said, firmly.  He spoke with all the assurance of one of his caste.  It had, literally, been engineered into him.  “If they had a choice, perhaps they would refuse to pay, but now…it’s us or them.  If they spend their last credit on the superdreadnaught that bombards Macore into submission…then that will be money well spent.  They won’t care how much they have to spend as long as their lifestyles and special rights are upheld.”

He shrugged.  “And even if they don’t, they’re bound to be moving ships forward as fast as they can,” he added.  “The odds aren’t going to get any better, unless the Geeks pull something out of their sleeves to even the odds.  They’ve done that before.”

All eyes turned to Colin.  “They were talking about a handful of projects, but nothing particularly world-shaking,” he admitted.  It wasn't something he wanted to talk about.  One of their ideas promised to change the face of warfare…if it were ever deployed and they worked the bugs out of the system.  “For the next few months, what we have now is all we will have.”

He keyed his terminal.  “And so…Morrison,” he concluded.  He smiled dryly as he brought up the latest sensor records from the planet.  “This operation will require considerably more care.  Suggestions?”

***
“Overall, replacement of the damaged hull components will be completed within a week,” David said, afterwards.  They both stood, sipping coffee, watching the maintenance bugs moving around the superdreadnaught.  Very few crewmen liked working outside so far from any star, where the darkness of space seemed clawing and unforgiving, but there was no choice.  “It shouldn’t take more than a day after that to drill the crew on the new compartments.”

“Good,” Colin said, grimly.  The Empire’s greatest invention, in his opinion, was the vast array of multifunctional components that could be fitted in almost any ship.  A superdreadnaught, if damaged badly enough to make repairs impossible, could be cannibalised to repair dozens of smaller ships.  The components had been rendered as simple as possible to accommodate the crews, who were rarely taught anything beyond automated diagnostics and quick replacement.  They might not know how a component worked, but they knew how to replace it if it failed.  It was, in his view, a significant weakness in the entire fleet.

In the future, if the rebels won the war, it was something he intended to change.  If knowledge were to be taken out of the hands of an elite, who guarded their privilege carefully, and shared among the entire population, who knew what might happen?  The Geeks and Nerds shared information constantly…and they produced all kinds of interesting surprises.  Colin had seen one of their shared labs, the Wacky Workbench, and had been impressed.  If they had a few more years, they might change the entire galaxy.  A whole new era was being born there, unless the Empire aborted it, but it didn’t seem that they’d be able to use any of it for the war.

“You’re still determined to go after Morrison, then?”  David asked.  “It’s going to be a hard battle.”

“I know,” Colin said.  He scowled.  He had the nasty feeling that he was being pushed into attacking Morrison by the inescapable facts of galactic geography…and that his opponent would know that as well as he did.  There were few real surprises in space warfare.  The Academy had all kinds of horror stories about officers who’d tried to be smart, only to discover that there was a good reason why no one had tried the idea before.  “There’s just no other choice.”

He scowled, his thoughts elsewhere.  Admiral Joshua Wachter had put out a call for freighters to help service his forces and a handful of freebooters had volunteered, taking their ships into the system.  They’d carried out covert recon flights that had confirmed that Morrison was being built up as fast as possible, from six squadrons of superdreadnaughts – almost twice the firepower that had been placed at Percival’s disposal – to hundreds of smaller units.  Three-dozen fortresses circled the planet, thousands of missiles, mines and automated platforms backed them up…and, perhaps, it wouldn’t be long before Admiral Wachter had arsenal ships of his own.  If Morrison wasn't the best-defended world, outside Earth, in the entire Empire, Colin didn’t want to find any world with tougher defences.

“We’re going to have to break through in a straight-line attack,” he said, bitterly.  He had an additional squadron of superdreadnaughts, one more than Admiral Wachter, but the fortresses and automated platforms would more than make up for any weaknesses on his side.  All he had to do was wait in orbit, under the gravity shadow, and Colin would have to come for him.  Worst of all, the sheer firepower assembled to defend the planet would almost neglect the arsenal ships; they’d have to reload several times before they could make an impact on the defences.  The more platforms in orbit, the more point defence to cover the Imperial Navy starships.  “He doesn’t have to do anything.”

David lifted an eyebrow.  “He’s got everything he needs to defend in the gravity shadow,” Colin explained.  “We could shoot up the remainder of the system, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere and he knows it. As long as that force sits there, we have to take it out…and we can’t isolate it and destroy it…”

“And if we did destroy it in a direct clash, we’d be weakened badly too,” David agreed.  “It sounds like we need a new weapon.”

Colin snorted and took another sip of his coffee.  “Do you have one?”  He asked.  “I doubt that we can deploy the gunboat-shield-buster combination here.  They know that trick now.  The Geeks were promising us new missiles that might make a difference, but until we get them we’re stuck.”  He scowled darkly.  “And we can’t even play for time.  The longer he builds up his force, the harder the fight when we finally go in and take the world off him.”

“I’ve got nothing,” David said.  He changed the subject rather quickly.  “How did the simulations go?”

“Badly,” Colin admitted.  “We take the world, but we take major losses ourselves, mainly in superdreadnaughts.  The point-defence destroyers do well – hell, they did do well – but the sheer weight of enemy firepower is staggering.”

“You kinda wish you hadn’t introduced the arsenal ship concept?”

Colin laughed.  “The thought has crossed my mind,” he admitted.  “Of course, without it, we would still be playing tag with Admiral Percival and his goons.”

“So stop complaining,” David said, dryly.  “You’ve got the finest ship, the finest fleet and the finest crewmen in the galaxy – and, dare I say, the finest Flag Captain as well.”

“You’ve been spending too long with Cordova,” Colin said, gazing off into the darkness of interstellar space.  There were weird little stories of strange encounters out in the darkness, but he'd never seen anything so far from a star, nor had he met anyone who had.  “There’s only room for one such ego in this fleet.”

David laughed.  “Like I said, you’ve also got the finest bunch of cutthroats and mercenaries in the galaxy,” he added.  His voice became light and teasing.  “What do you have to worry about?”

“If something happens back at Harmony, or Macore, or even Yanasaxon, we won’t know about it for weeks,” Colin said.  “They won’t know anything about what happens here either.  They could be doing anything back there and we wouldn’t know a thing.”

“Daria and Cordova will keep them in line,” David said.  Colin nodded slowly.  He hadn’t yet met a pirate who would defy either of them.  Daria’s solution was quite simple; she’d closed off most of the Rim colonies to any pirates who kept on as if nothing had changed.  A handful that had continued to raid had been caught and boiled alive.  “Your job is just to crack Morrison’s defences and kick this Admiral Wachter in the ass.”

“Ah,” Colin said.  “I get the easy job.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Is there really nothing you can do to make the trip faster?”

Lord Pompey Cicero rolled his eyes.  The Hercules Grytpype-Thynne was one of the fastest ships in space.  It had been designed as a custom-made luxury yacht, with military-grade shields and drives, and was almost as fast as a courier boat.  It couldn’t hope to outfight a destroyer, but with a head start, it could probably outrun it.  The handful of weapons it carried would have made most pirates, who wanted to remain alive to savour their wealth, think twice.  It couldn’t, however, do the impossible.  The trip between Earth and Harmony still took time.

“Unless we fall into a twist in the space-time continuum which magically transports us to Harmony, then no, we have to wait out the remaining time,” he said, icily.  Tiberius had forbidden either of them from taking personal servants or even friends along with them and it grated on her.  Pompey would have been happy to abandon her and her friends to their own deck, but that wasn't possible.  She just didn’t have the mindset for contemplative thinking while waiting for the trip to end.  “There isn’t much time left.”

Lady Gwendolyn Cicero scowled at him.  It didn’t mar her almost-inhumanly perfect face.  Her mother had had her when the fashion had been for blonde and beautiful girls and had engineered her daughter to the point where she was almost a caricature.  Gwendolyn could have had herself re-engineered at any point, but where some of the more air-headed girls would change their faces and bodies every month, she had stuck with the original appearance and developed her mind instead.  If she had come from the first line of Cicero’s, Tiberius’s position would have been far weaker…and, even now, Pompey wouldn’t have sworn that he was safe.

Gwendolyn wasn't stupid enough to plot with any other Family, or Clan; no one would ever trust her again.  She was, however, ambitious and reluctant to accept any barriers in her path, even the fact that her line was slightly inferior to the main line.  She could be trusted not to screw up the peace mission, if peace mission it was, but she might also use it against Tiberius later.  Pompey, who liked and respected the Clan’s leader, wasn't sure what – if anything – he could do about that.  Gwendolyn had friends and experience…and quite a few of the other clansmen thought that she would make a better Cicero.  Perhaps that had been the real reason why she’d been trusted with the mission.  It got her away from the High City.

And it even explained his presence.  Pompey, who had been born when there had been a fashion for Roman names, had gone into the Family’s security branch fairly early in his life, rather than the Imperial Navy or Imperial Intelligence.  It had been a fascinating education in so many ways, but it had also taught him the oldest lesson of all – information is power.  The reason Pompey had been sent out to Harmony, he knew, was that his observations might be useful.  Imperial Intelligence, so far, had failed spectacularly.  It wasn't entirely fair – Pompey, given enough time, could have unseated Tiberius – to blame them, but the Empire always needed to place the blame.  He wouldn’t be doing any overt spying, but if something happened to pass him by…

“This is boring,” Gwendolyn said.  She even stamped her foot on the deck.  “Why didn’t we go on one of the big liners?  We could have had one diverted just for us!”

“The liners are slower than this ship,” Pompey said, patiently.  “It would have had to be sent well out of its way because no one was interested in forming a passenger line out to Harmony, which is – was – restricted space in any case.  And, as you know full well, diverting one would have alerted everyone that we were up to something.”

“There would have been company,” Gwendolyn said.  “This ship is completely empty, apart from you, and you spend all your time here reading.  Why aren’t you on the bridge?”

Pompey shrugged.  “If someone has managed to find a way of attacking us while we’re in flicker-space, where all sensors are deaf and dumb, we’re dead anyway,” he said, flatly.  “There could be an entire universe out there or we could be wrapped in our own little pocket, but as no one has ever been able to see out of flicker-space, no one actually knows.”  He grinned suddenly.  “Did you know there’s even a rumour that the flicker-drive was actually invented by aliens and we merely stole it?”

Gwendolyn shook her head.  “Nonsense,” she said.  “If that were true, why would they have let us get away with it?”

“I have no idea,” Pompey said.  “The Dathi, of course, invented it for themselves, or maybe they stole it off someone too.  All I know is that those records are very carefully sealed in a library on Pluto and no one lower than a Clan Head can look at them.  Interesting, isn’t it?”

“And why do they insist on using paper, of all things, when they could use electronic records?”

Pompey laughed.  He’d asked the same question himself.  “Have you ever tried to hack a piece of paper?”

Gwendolyn scowled at him.  “Gwen, I could hack into your personal computer from over here and copy everything in your files into mine,” Pompey said, knowing that it would make her paranoid.  She could have anything from classified files to pornographic images.  He’d once spent a week hacking into the Lombardi’s classified files, only to discover that they all consisted of pornographic videos.  He still hadn’t decided if the Lombardi had been really clever or really stupid.  “If you have a paper diary in your cabin, how could I read it without going in there and copying it physically?”

He tapped the table sharply.  “But in any case, we’re stuck on this ship until we reach Harmony,” he concluded.  “Go have a swim or something.”

Gwendolyn stalked out angrily.  Pompey allowed himself a chuckle and went back to his book.  The starship had five decks, two entertainment rooms, one reasonable-sized swimming pool, enough library files to keep him busy for years and ten cabins, ranging from large to king-sized.  Gwendolyn had taken one of them at once, set up her astonishing collection of clothes in the massive wardrobes, and then realised that there was little to do on the starship.  Her normal diversions of sex and scandal were denied to her and she couldn’t even carry out her mission until they reached Harmony.

Pompey himself had decided to spend the time reading and learning about the sector.  He’d been warned not to trust most of the files, but they gave a brief introduction to the area…and warned that it wasn't going to be easy.  The worlds in Sector 97, and Sector 117, were either third-rank colonies, settled by the Families, or former independents that had been brought into the Empire.  It might have been wiser to offer Macore first-rank status, rather than throw it to Roosevelt, but no one had cared enough to intervene.  Roosevelt had made the investments in the area and there had been a series of trade-offs…which had finally been sealed by the decision that Macore was responsible for its founders’ debt.  He doubted, somehow, that he was going to find many friends in the area.  The rebels, at the very least, would want independence…and that wasn't something the Empire could give them and remain intact.

He skimmed through the instructions again.  Tiberius had been surprisingly loose when he’d written them, admitting that the situation might have changed and that they might have to operate on their own without referring anything back to Earth, but some details were clear.  They could offer to negotiate a truce, perhaps even permanent first-rank status for some of the worlds, but not for all of them.  Pollack and the other worlds that Roosevelt had developed couldn’t be surrendered.  If nothing else, they were a dagger aimed at the Empire’s heart…

And there’s no reason why they should give up so much, he thought, grimly.  Back in the early days of the Empire, plenty of deals had been cut, even inviting others to join the Thousand Families.  They'd all been looser then, but now…the pie was shrinking and the Families were condensing into Clans and there was no room for newcomers.  He wouldn’t have been surprised to know that Tiberius, or one of the other heads, was seriously considering an attempt at seizing the throne.  It might be the only way to safeguard the Family.  Cicero had been one of the Founding Families, back at the end of the Dathi War, but it had never produced an Emperor.

Of course, he thought wryly, there hadn’t been many Emperors.

Purely out of interest, he’d studied their careers.  Angus had been the leader of the Founding Families and had used that position to make himself the Emperor.  It hadn’t lasted.  The other Founding Families had eventually assassinated him.  Emperor Alexis had tried to build up a consensus behind his regime, but it hadn’t lasted; the sheer size of the then-Empire had defeated him.  Emperor John had been the simplest, in a way; one day, he’d moved his Household Troops into strategic positions and taken command of Earth, daring anyone to stop him.  It had taken ten years to unseat him and destroy his forces.  It had led to the strict limit on Household Troops allowed on Earth.

And finally, the Empress Janice, who’d used Home Fleet to rule before vanishing into the ether, barely in time to save her life.  There were even rumours that she was waiting somewhere, lurking in the shadows, waiting to reclaim her throne.  Pompey had, at Tiberius’s request, tried to find out who was spreading the rumours, but had found nothing.  It was odd enough to worry him.  Normally, it was easy to track the spread of a new rumour, but whoever was spreading it had hidden themselves well.  

The intercom buzzed.  “Come and join me for a while,” Gwendolyn ordered, imperiously.  They might have been from different Family lines, but she still considered herself superior to him.  “You might enjoy the chance to get wet once in a while.”

Pompey sighed and stood up, putting the datapad to one side as he walked through the ship’s corridors – no intership cars for such a tiny ship – to the swimming pool.  He’d been astonished when he’d seen it, wondering how they could have it inside a starship, but it hardly mattered when he saw her.  Gwendolyn had removed her outfit and sat, perched on the edge of the pool, naked.

“Come on,” she said, teasing him.  “Last one to the far side buys the drinks.”

Pompey found himself flush.  How had she known he’d once had a crush on her?

“Tell you what,” she said, choosing to misinterpret his expression, “you come swim with me for a bit, and then we can study together, all right?”

***
The remaining weeks went past slowly, although Pompey was almost starting to enjoy himself.  When Gwendolyn used her brain, she could be formidably perceptive, as befitted someone who had been a social queen.  If she had dominated, she had done so through her personality and the occasional piece of character assassination.  If she had been in the first line, he was slowly coming to realise, she would have made a grab for the throne long ago.  She just didn’t have it in her to be second best.

It was going to be a weakness, he predicted, although she didn’t believe him.  She had no conception of what life was like on the fringes of the Empire.  She didn’t understand the commoners and believed, because all she’d really met of them were brain-altered slaves, that they were reasonable people.  She didn’t know that her boy-toys, or pleasure slaves, had once had lives of their own, those that hadn’t been grown in a cloning tube.  The merest Family member of the merest Family had a lifestyle where almost anything he or she wanted was theirs for the asking, while the commoners, if they were lucky, barely had enough to eat.  The Empire might have abolished starvation, in theory, but some Families manipulated the food supply to keep the commoners under control.

And that bred anger and rage.  Until Colin Harper had casually – and Pompey wanted to shoot the Security Officer on that ship personally – taken two entire squadrons from the inside, the rebels hadn’t had much to fight with, but that hadn’t ended the fighting.  The SD troopers had found themselves victims of terror attacks, while Imperial personnel had been hunted, even killed, by their own people.  He doubted that, now the rebellion had teeth, it was going to roll over so easily…

“It is possible that they might win,” Tiberius had said.  “It is possible that they will blow through Morrison and take out Home Fleet, and in that case the war is lost.  If that happens, our priority becomes to save what we can of the Family, even if it means making a deal with them.  Do you understand me?”

“I think so,” Pompey had said.

He looked back up at the display as the timer started to count down the final seconds.  The trip had been uneventful, although he’d been worried every time they passed a waypoint in rebel space.  They might have been intercepted by a patrolling ship, one that might have opened fire before they could escape, even through it was statistically unlikely.  Gwendolyn had been all for coming out right on the edge of Harmony’s gravity shadow, but Pompey had decided to stick with the standard designated arrival zones.  The rebels might have changed them, but even so, it would at least show willing.  If they came out too close to the planet, they might be taken as hostile and fired upon.

“Here we go,” he said, as the timer reached zero.  Space lit up in front of them for a long second…and then the sheer alienness of flicker-space was replaced by a starfield, and a brown-green world hanging in front of them.  “I’m transmitting the standard signal now.”

Gwendolyn took her seat beside him, staring out into the vastness of space.  “There’s nothing out there, but the planet,” she said.  “Are you sure that you brought us to the right place?”

“They could be right on top of us before we saw them with our own eyes,” Pompey said, dryly.  He looked down at the display.  A blinking red icon was making its way towards them.  “That was quick, Gwen; there’s a destroyer on intercept course.”

He checked the feed from the passive sensors.  Harmony didn’t seem to have gone to full alert, although that might be an illusion, one created by not using their own active sensors.  They might be rushing to battle stations now, bringing their shields and weapons up, fearing that the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne was merely the forerunner of an attack.  He hadn’t realised, before, just how close to a small destroyer the starship looked, particularly to someone inclined to the reconnaissance-by-fire approach.

Gwendolyn sounded, for the first time in his experience, scared.  “Now what?”

“We wait,” Pompey said.  “We’re telling them who we are…”

“This is the Freedom Alliance destroyer John Mathews,” a cold voice said.  It was atonal enough to have been produced by a machine.  A quick search through the database revealed several hundred John Mathews, including four destroyers.  “You will stand down your shields, weapons and drives and prepare to be boarded.  Any resistance will result in the utter destruction of your vessel.”

Pompey keyed the console.  “Understood,” he said.  He opened the hatches and waited patiently for the Marine shuttle to dock with the starship.  “Gwen, don’t say anything.”

Gwendolyn glared at him.  “You didn’t tell me they’d search us.”

“It would only have upset you,” Pompey said, as the shuttle locked onto the starship.  Any attempt to flicker out now would bring the Marines with them.  “Like I said, don’t say anything.  Let me do the talking.”

The Marines were on the bridge within a minute of docking, wearing standard shipboard combat armour.  Two of them remained with Pompey and Gwendolyn, while the others searched the search with increasing thoroughness.  Pompey, who hadn’t brought much with him, wasn't concerned, but Gwendolyn was growing angrier and angrier as they tore through her cabin.  She would have been even less amused if she had known how easy it was to smuggle something really dangerous around in a perfume bottle, even ones that cost a billion credits a shot.

“You appear to be clear,” the Marine Sergeant said, finally.  Pompey had had enough of a passing acquaintance with Marines to read the private relief in his voice.  Boarding a ship was dangerous enough at the best of times, but active resistance and suicide charges, both common features of pirate ships, made it worse.  “I have orders to convey you both to the surface.  Your ship, of course, will be left in a holding orbit…”

“No,” Pompey said, calmly.  “We are Ambassadors and the ship is our Embassy.  If you intend to honour your own statements about following the Accords, you have to leave the ship with us.  We only permitted you to search it to establish that it posed no threat to us.”

There was a long pause.  Pompey would have bet half his share of the Family’s fortune that the Sergeant was asking for orders from someone senior, passing the buck up the chain.  The rebels didn’t have much experience in diplomacy, but Macore had had it before the Invasion.  It was possible that they would accept his explanation.

“It will have to be searched again once it docks,” the Marine said, finally.  “Once docked, you may use it as a base if you wish.”

Pompey knew when to compromise.  “That will be suitable,” he said.  He waved a hand at the helm console.  “All yours.”

He shared a brief glance with Gwendolyn.  That had been the easy part.  It was about to get harder.

Chapter Nineteen

Penny wouldn’t have believed that the tempo of activity at Morrison could have increased, but after the brief savage encounters with the rebels, Joshua forced the entire base into increasing their efforts.  The orbital defences were strengthened and the starships were organised into new units, endlessly drilled in the new tactics.  Operation Shadow, Joshua’s master-plan to shatter the rebel fleet, was rehearsed constantly, although Joshua refused to allow them to rehearse the final steps.  After all, as he pointed out, the system might be under covert observation.

It wasn’t something that could be proved or disproved easily.  Morrison was a major shipping hub as well as a Naval Base and starships came and went regularly.  It was even used as a waypoint by thousands of starships, who paused briefly to recharge their drives before flickering onwards, and any of those brief transient contacts might have been a rebel spy ship.  Imperial Intelligence operated dozens of craft designed for covert surveillance of a targeted system and some of them might even have fallen into rebel hands.  The service wasn't being that helpful, despite Major Jeremy Damiani’s best efforts.  They were even reluctant to share their observations with the Imperial Navy officers guarding the base.  When the rebel fleet finally arrived, it was something of an anticlimax.

Joshua had decided that he would be commanding from the General Clive.  That wasn't usual for an Admiral defending a planetary base – Percival had commanded from his command fortress – but by now Penny was used to his eccentricities.  It helped morale, she felt, for the youngest and least crewman to know that his risks were shared by the Admiral commanding his force.  Joshua’s life might be snuffed out by a lucky series of rebel hits, even if he’d taken precautions to ensure that his command flagship was not easily identified, and his crews responded to that.  Penny herself responded to his willingness to commit his life to his ships.

There had been a time when that had been more common – and indeed, when superdreadnaughts went on the offensive, it still was – but the arsenal ships had changed the basic equation.  Instead of being the most powerful and almost invincible ship in space, a superdreadnaught was vulnerable, as vulnerable as any other starship when targeted by the enemy.  General Clive would attract missile fire and it might be destroyed.  The thought, to her, was almost unbearable.

Joshua was waiting for her when she came onto the flag deck, careful not to run.  She didn’t understand how he did it.  A commanding officer, they’d been taught, should always look confident and never run to their duty stations, but somehow he was always ahead of her or anyone else.  Perhaps it was practice, or perhaps he had already been on the command deck when the rebels arrived, or maybe some of the whispers were true.  They were whispering, on the lower decks, that Joshua was a genius…and maybe they were telling the truth.  He’d certainly made an impact.

“Our friends have arrived,” he said, by way of introduction.  He’d wiped out most of the meaningless formality that had surrounded any Admiral.  There had been a time when the entire staff would have had to rise to their feet and salute him, but he’d abolished that, regarding it as needless.  “They came out in the outer solar system and they’re heading towards us, slowly.”

Penny lifted an eyebrow.  It was fairly common – indeed, almost universal – for a starship to emerge some distance from the planet, but it was unusual to come out so far from the target world.  The rebels could have flickered into the system and given the Imperial Navy much less time to react, but instead…it was almost as if they wanted the Imperial Navy to see them coming.  Back when they’d arrived, under the previous commander – Penny wouldn’t even think his name – it might even have intimidated him into surrender, but Joshua had done one thing beyond price.  He had made the Imperial Navy’s crewmen confident.  

He had, in private, lectured Commodore Rogers on the subject of risking his ships needlessly, but in public he’d allowed his commendation to stand.  The navy he’d rebuilt knew that it wouldn’t be penalised for taking the initiative, or even for abandoning orders that had been proven to be worthless, and they would die for him.  Too many officers and men were going to die in the coming hours, on both sides, but perhaps their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.  The rebel tide would break against Morrison.

“They’re not playing too many games,” Joshua observed, thoughtfully.  “Seven entire superdreadnaught squadrons and nearly two hundred escorts, bunched so tightly together that it’s hard to tell just how many there are there.  Do you suppose that that’s their entire force, or do you think that they have more ships lurking in reserve?”

Penny considered it.  There were more superdreadnaughts unaccounted for, lost to mutiny somewhere along the edge of the Empire, but if she had been the one in the rebel command chair, she wouldn’t have played games with a target like Morrison.  She would have massed everything she had and sought, at least, to wipe out Joshua’s mobile forces.  Once they were destroyed, Morrison would be much less dangerous to them and they could allow it to wither on the vine.  Logically, the rebels didn’t have those ships, or they were too badly damaged to be allowed to join the line of battle, but it might not have mattered.  Some of those escorts would be arsenal ships.

“I doubt it,” she said, and explained her reasoning.  “I notice that they didn’t bring all their battlecruisers along.”

“Battlecruisers have no place in the wall of battle,” Joshua said.  He raised his voice as he spoke to the tactical officer.  “Launch probes towards their position.  If they’re going to come in slowly, we may as well take advantage of the opportunity.”

He turned back to Penny.  “They may have been using them to raid behind our lines, maybe even pushing some as far Core-wards as Earth.  That wouldn’t be a bad tactic if it worked and they actually destroyed a few targets before Home Fleet blew them to plasma, because it would prevent them from rushing Home Fleet forward to add to my strength and let me go after their bases.”

And put too much firepower under your command, Penny thought.  Working with Joshua had been an education in so many ways.  The Thousand Families might have suspected that he was building a personal fiefdom out at Morrison, with a fleet that was loyal to him, and therefore counted on Home Fleet to counter Joshua if he made a grab for the throne.

She pushed those grim thoughts aside.  “Do you still intend to proceed with Shadow?”

“I think that we don’t have a choice,” Joshua said.  He smiled at her as the first reports from the probes came in.  At that range, ECM could only hide so much from probing analysts who understood the technology the rebels were using.  A precise list of starships ran through the display, with notes about the state of their drives and links to the databases in the computers.  “The other option is to remain with Fortress and that gives them the chance to dominate the system.”

Penny frowned.  She’d made her own doubts clear when they’d simulated the entire battle.  Operation Fortress called for the superdreadnaughts to remain with the orbiting fortresses, linked into their command network, and driving the rebels away from the planet.  It would have led, at best, to a stalemate…a maddening stalemate, from the rebel point of view.  They would have to tie down their entire force laying siege to the system, or else accept that they wouldn’t be able to take the planet, forcing them to leave it in their rear.

Joshua reached over and squeezed her hand.  It was such a surprising gesture that she felt herself flushing.  “Have faith,” he said.  “The rebels won’t expect our little surprise.  How could they?”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  Joshua was right.  If she hadn’t had inside information, she wouldn’t have suspected the trap until she’d blundered right into it.  The irony was truly amusing.  The rebels were doing everything right…and they were going to walk right into the trap anyway.  “When do you want to proceed?”

Joshua smiled and let go of her hand.  “Ten minutes, I think,” he said, examining the display.  “We wouldn’t want them to get cold feet too early and break off the attack, would we?”

***
Colin felt his stomach clench when the superdreadnaught materialised within the Morrison system.  He disliked coming into a hostile system at the best of times, but Morrison was going to be far more of a challenge than anything else they’d faced, even when Admiral Quinton had attacked Harmony.  The latest intelligence update had claimed that Admiral Wachter had at least six superdreadnaught squadrons at Morrison, with – perhaps – others nearby.  It was quite possible that he had as many as nine, depending on how many he’d been able to pry out of Home Fleet, and some of them might be lurking in ambush.

And, even if he behaved himself and played by the script, it still wasn't going to be easy.  The defensive position was a strong one.  All Joshua had to do was fall back into the gravity shadow and dare Colin to come after him.  That would have exposed his ships to the crippling fire of the fortresses, as well as the superdreadnaughts, and more than evened the odds.  It would have been disastrous…and so Colin had brought along a surprise.  He’d brought enough arsenal ships to shoot through the massed point defence of the enemy fleet, but even then it would be chancy.  They’d have to break off and reload several times, unless he actually came up to fight, and that would give Colin the chance to crush his mobile forces without the fortresses interfering.  They’d simulated the battle repeatedly, but it was going to be one battle where both sides knew all the moves.  There would be a certain ponderous inevitability about it.

“Report,” he said, as the tactical display started to fill up with icons, glowing green, red or yellow.  Yellow meant harmless facilities in space and he couldn’t help, but notice that there were a lot of them.  Morrison had been settled for over a thousand years and it showed.  By now, it would have entire civilisations out among its asteroid belts, unless the Empire had broken them.  “Launch probes.  Locate the enemy forces.”

He’d come out so far from Morrison to allow Admiral Wachter to take a good look at his ships.  The logical response to seeing so many starships bearing down on his world would be to summon all of his forces back to defend it, or, alternatively, to flee and leave Colin to smash the world’s fortifications at leisure.  Colin had simulated that, as well, but he doubted that Admiral Wachter would do anything as stupid – even Percival hadn’t abandoned Harmony.  The loss of Morrison would ensure that there would be little hope of mounting a successful counterattack into Sector 97, let alone Sector 117, and ensure that the war lasted longer, even if the mobile forces survived.  No, the logical course of action was to pull back and dare Colin to attack the planet...

“They’re flickering in ships from all over the system,” the tactical officer said, as the display updated.  Isolated destroyers and cruisers, sitting ducks if Colin caught them on their own, were running back to the planet.  Freighters, by contrast, were running out of the system, unwilling to remain anywhere where missiles might start flying at any moment.  Most insurance companies – owned by the Families, of course – wouldn’t pay claims on starships that were destroyed by military action.  “I think we caught them with their pants down.”

Colin nodded.  “Do they have anything comparable to our Knife-class ships?”

“Nothing that we can detect, but we won’t know until we have observed them in action,” the tactical officer said, grudgingly.  “They’re dissolving into a mass of sensor pulses and I can’t tell if anything has more sensors than it should and…”

“And it wouldn’t matter anyway,” Colin agreed.  The point defence destroyers might well keep their own sensors offline and draw a feed from the command network.  He was fairly sure that the Empire would have started building them, or something similar, when they’d heard about the arsenal ships.  Even the massed point defence of a superdreadnaught squadron melted away when the arsenal ships got involved.  He would have had his destroyers assigned as point defence units anyway…and, evidently, Admiral Wachter didn’t disagree.  “Do they have any arsenal ships?”

“I’m uncertain,” the tactical officer admitted.  “They seem to have some freighters down in orbit, but at this range…they could be arsenal ships, or just units from a fleet train, or maybe even commercial ships trying to hide.”

Colin scowled.  The Empire hadn’t had a formidable fleet train back before the rebellion, because they’d never needed one.  They had always had bases wherever they needed to operate, like Harmony or Yanasaxon…or Morrison.  Now, with the rebellion having cut them off from sectors they’d once controlled completely, they’d need a fleet train to support attacks into the rebel sectors.  If Admiral Wachter was building one up already, they might intend to go on the offensive sooner than Colin expected…

And, of course, if they were arsenal ships, they might add additional firepower to the Imperial Navy starships.  He dismissed the thought of them being commercial ships.  No merchant skipper in his or her right mind would stick around when two massive fleets were about to collide.  They’d be driving for the gravity shadow’s edge and flickering out…and he’d certainly given them plenty of time to escape.  The odds, in fact, suggested that they were arsenal ships.

“Designate them as arsenal ships and keep a careful eye on them,” he ordered.  The planet’s automated platforms were already wiping the probes out of existence, but enough survived to provide up-to-date data.  “In fact…”

He broke off.  “What the hell?”

***
 Joshua smiled, finally, as the rebel fleet continued to advance.  “All ships,” he said, “advance to designated position.”

The superdreadnaught shivered slightly as the drive fields started to push it out of orbit, heading out towards the rebel fleet.  The remainder of the force fell into formation, with the General Clive falling behind slightly, alternating its position with the remainder of its squadron, hiding its nature from the enemy.  The escorts fell into an outlying pattern, prepared to stand off anything up to and including a massive arsenal ship barrage.  Any observers would be hopelessly confused…

Of course, Penny reflected, they’d be hopelessly confused for more than just the obvious reason…

“Now on course,” the helmsman said.  “We have twenty-seven minutes to missile range at current course and speed.”

“No need to hurry,” Joshua said, as calmly as if he were ordering dinner.  If he were feeling any tension, it didn’t show in his voice.  “We want the rebels to have a good hard look at us.”

“They’re going to conclude that you’ve gone mad,” Penny said.  She shook her head in awe.  It was the most audacious battle plan since the early counterattacks against the Dathi.  “No one in their right mind would try anything like this.”

“No, I imagine that they wouldn’t,” Joshua agreed.  “Still, there is method in my madness, if not madness in my method.”  He paused and winked at her.  “And, of course, we’re giving them what we want on a platter.  They can either take up the challenge, or flicker out and run.  Either way, we win.”

Penny said nothing.

***
“They have broken orbit,” the tactical officer said.  The surprise in his voice was clear.  “They are currently on a least-time engagement vector.”

Colin frowned, puzzled.  Something wasn’t right, but what?  In his experience, anyone who did anything completely unexpected was either very stupid or very clever.  Admiral Wachter wasn’t known for being stupid, therefore he was doing something clever, but what?  He was offering Colin a chance to crush his entire fleet on a plate.

He brought up the sensor readings and studied them grimly.  It was hard to be certain, under the circumstances, but it looked as if there weren't any new classes of superdreadnaughts, no surprises, among the enemy fleet.  He’d wondered if some new class might explain his confidence, although no one had done anything, but theoretical work on replacing the General and Admiral-class ships, as far as he knew.  It was vaguely possible that they had something new posing as one of the older ships, but if that was the case it was a very good disguise.  A creeping feeling ran down the back of his neck, screaming at him to run, but why?  He couldn’t even place the feeling.

“Re-designate targeting priorities,” he ordered, softly.  His tone left little room for arguing.  “The arsenal ships are to go to secondary readiness and are not to fire unless fired upon.”

The tactical officer passed the message along.  Colin ignored the protests from the commanders.  The easiest solution to an arsenal ship was simply not to be there when it opened fire…and, outside a gravity shadow, it was easy to do just that.  Admiral Quentin had simply flickered out of the way, back at Second Harmony, and there was no reason why Admiral Wachter couldn’t do the same…and perhaps that was the point.  If the arsenal ships were expended, they would face the rebels on almost even terms.  

But there was still the quiet nagging doubt.

“Lock missiles on target,” he added.  If Admiral Wachter wanted a slugging match, away from his fortresses and any chance of a real victory, Colin would oblige.  “Fire as soon as they enter range.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said.  “Fifteen minutes to engagement range.”

Chapter Twenty

“Admiral, the rebels have opened fire.”

“You don’t say,” Joshua murmured.  The rebel superdreadnaughts had opened fire, launching a full spread of missiles into the teeth of the Imperial Fleet.  “Return fire, Fire Plan Delta.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.  The superdreadnaught started to shudder as it launched the first spread of missiles back towards the enemy ships.  “Missiles away, sir; inbound missiles will enter engagement range in seven minutes.”

Joshua looked over at Penny.  “Notice that the arsenal ships were kept out of the first salvo,” he said.  “At the moment, that was a wise choice, although they will have their drives up and ready to flicker out if – when – we target them.  We’re not going to, of course; we want the big boys.”

Penny followed his reasoning.  The rebels would probably be happy to trade blows with the Imperial Navy starships…and yes, they were slowing to hold the range open, but they wouldn’t waste their arsenal ships on targets that could just flicker away, rather than trade blow-for-blow.  Joshua had lured them into a position where they would be tempted to cooperate with him, knowing that the odds were in their favour, rather than flickering out across the system.  Both sides still knew the rules.

The superdreadnaught twitched as it unleashed a second salvo of missiles, and then a third.  One advantage of firing at such extreme range was that they could launch three, perhaps more, rounds before the enemy missiles roared down on them.  She braced herself as the enemy missiles lashed into the teeth of her formation…and the point defence went to rapid-fire.

“Point defence engaging,” the tactical officer said.  “The majority of missiles seem to be concentrated on the 19th Squadron.”

“Understood,” Joshua said, his voice still calm, almost dispassionate.  “Prioritise their defence through the network and cover them.”

Penny watched the shifting icons as the smaller ships moved into play.  The Imperial Navy might not have duplicated the rebel point defence destroyers yet, although Joshua had ordered the shipyards to come up with a working design in record time, but the standard destroyers still mounted enough point defence to make a difference.  They were too small to be targeted by such waves of missiles, ignored in favour of a bigger target, and so they swept hundreds of missiles out of existence.  Thousands more were picked off by the point defence mounted on the superdreadnaughts, leaving only mere hundreds raging into terminal attack range.

She forced herself to watch as the missiles lunged towards their targets.  She’d never been under such fire before, not even when she’d been under Percival’s command.  The handful of anti-piracy operations she’d been on had been nothing like the titanic clash between superdreadnaught squadrons…and she had never been in any real danger.  Until Jason Cordova, and the mysterious Daria, had united the pirate fleets, they’d never posed any significant threat to a prepared Imperial Navy starship.  It was shameful, but she was relieved to realise that the General Clive hadn’t been targeted, even though it meant that others would be at risk.

“Major damage to the General Hawking and the Admiral Sampson,” the tactical officer said.  “The Admiral…”

He broke off as a brief flash marked the death of a superdreadnaught.  “The Admiral Sampson has been destroyed, sir,” he reported, his voice harsh with emotion.  “Four other ships have taken moderate damage.”

“And they’re firing on us again,” Joshua said, almost languidly.  His calm was dominating the entire bridge.  He pulled up the feed from the damaged superdreadnaughts and skimmed it, frowning.  “Order the General Hawking to retreat from the battle and head to the fallback position.”  He held up a hand.  “No argument.  I know Captain Koslov was keen to be in the fight, but there’s no point in wasting a good superdreadnaught.”

Penny smiled as the superdreadnaught flickered out and vanished, its place in the front line taken by another superdreadnaught.  The Captain wouldn’t be happy – he’d been looking forward to showing what he could do – but there was little choice.  Even with the desperate need for superdreadnaughts, a damaged superdreadnaught was just a missile magnet.  The other damaged ships, at least, could still function…and the crew of the Admiral Sampson had been blotted from existence in a split-second.

“Move up the reserve superdreadnaughts into the firing line,” Joshua added.  In one sense, the term was nonsense; all superdreadnaughts were adding their firepower to the fleet.   In another, the reserve superdreadnaughts – including the General Clive – weren’t so easy to hit.  Missiles aimed at them would be passing through the point defence walls of the first-rank superdreadnaughts.  “Let’s see how they cope with this.”

The superdreadnaught moved forward, closing in on the rebel fleet.

***
“They’re flattening out their formation,” the tactical officer said, as the superdreadnaught rocked under the impact of a pair of missiles.  They’d sneaked through the point defence and impacted against the shields.  If there had been a dozen more of them, they would have been worrying…but as it was, their effects could be neglected quickly.  The General Montgomery remained undamaged.  “They’re attempting to close the range.”

“Hold us back,” Colin ordered, calmly.  He had no intention of fighting an energy weapons duel.  No one had seen one – until Candleford – and that engagement would have taught both sides a great deal.  “Keep the range open and pound them.”

The enemy formation was spreading out into a giant net, heading right for them, allowing each enemy superdreadnaught to fire on them without reprieve.  It was a standard formation for walls of battle, although nothing on this scale had been seen for a long time, and it made it impossible to tell who was in command on the other side.  The rebel point defence, superior to the Imperial Navy’s point defence, would ensure that the Imperials took the worst of the engagement, hence the attempt to close the range.  It was odd.  In their place, Colin wouldn’t have come out at all and, if he had made such a stupid mistake, he wouldn’t have compounded it by allowing the arsenal ships to continue to survive.  In a way, it was frustrating; the arsenal ships could have ended the fighting in a single barrage, but the enemy wouldn’t hang around to be slaughtered.

Colin had taken advantage of his superiority in numbers to issue specific orders.  A handful of superdreadnaughts were concentrating their fire on the smaller Imperial ships, degrading their combined point defence network.  As long as both sides maintained such a network, it was going to be hard to fight the battle out to a finish…and they weren't even trapped against a planet.  Colin himself had earned a reputation for devious thinking, insofar as it existed under the laws of space warfare as humanity understood them, but he had the nasty feeling that he’d been outthought.  No one who had been through the Academy would have done anything so stupid, unless they had a trick up their sleeves.

But what?

“Flatten out our own formation and keep the range open,” he said, sharply.  Some tacticians would prefer to allow the range to close, but Colin knew better.  The enemy energy weapons would change the parameters of the battle in an instant.  It would turn a rebel victory into a bloody draw.  He considered, briefly, bringing up the arsenal ships, but the Imperial ships would simply flicker out.  “Stand by…”

“All hands, brace for impact,” David’s voice snapped suddenly, over the intercom.  “All hands, brace…”

A wave of missiles lunged towards the General Montgomery, either through malevolent chance or deliberate targeting of the command vessel.  Colin gripped his command chair as the point defence went to rapid fire, drawing on the vast power reserves of the superdreadnaught to scythe as many of the missiles out of space as possible, while decoys and sensor ghosts sought to mislead and divert missiles from their target.  Hundreds were destroyed, or spoofed into losing their lock on the superdreadnaught, but thirty got through and smashed into the shields.  The superdreadnaught buckled, like a wounded horse, before steadying, with new red icons on the display.

“Minor damage, hull sector rho-delta-4763,” the engineer reported, grimly.  “We lost the primary mounts for that sector, as well as seven pulsars.  No other significant damage.”

Colin allowed himself a moment of relief.  The Empire had concentrated its weapons production on missiles intended to knock down shields, rather than dig into superdreadnaught-grade hulls, on the entirely logical premise that the Empire was the only galactic power with superdreadnaughts.  It had proved an issue when Colin had first taken the Shadow Fleet up against another superdreadnaught formation and so the Geeks had invented a form of shaped-charge warhead that directed the considerable energy of a nuclear blast into the hull.  The Empire had seen them in action, but so far they hadn’t bothered to duplicate them.  It was an oversight that Colin found inexplicable, but perhaps they had decided that standard warheads were more efficient.  It would be interesting to compare notes with his opponent, later, if they survived.  

“Analysis,” the tactical officer snapped.  “I think we’ve located the enemy flagship.”

Colin pulled up the results on his display.  A command network could be programmed to hide the identity of the coordinating unit – normally, but not always, the flagship – but there were always signs if the watchers knew what to look for.  There would always be slightly more priority given to defending the command ship than any other ship, even if it wasn't the flagship, and in a missile duel, sometimes those patterns could be picked out.  It looked as if the analysis computers had finally picked out just such a pattern.

“I see,” he said.  The superdreadnaught looked no different to any other General-class design.  “How high is the confidence rating?”

“It’s either the command ship or a close backup,” the tactical officer said.  The anticipation in his voice was almost palatable.  It could be the decisive blow of the battle, although with so many enemy superdreadnaughts, there would definitely be a second-in-command.  “I request permission to engage.”

“Noted,” Colin said.  They’d damaged enough of the enemy escort ships to weaken their point defence.  “My compliments to Commodore Halstad and I’d be delighted if he’d put that ship out of its misery.”

“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.  “I’m signalling him now.”

Colin leaned back in his chair.  The Shadow Fleet was soaking up damage, and two superdreadnaughts were on the verge of having to be sent back to the base, but so far they had been giving better than they’d got.  The improved point defence had seen to that.  The enemy commander had to be wondering if he should disengage…but there was still that quiet nagging doubt.

Something wasn't right.

***
“They are launching a major spread at Commodore Rogers and the General Napoleon,” the tactical officer said.  “I think they’re devoting at least five superdreadnaughts to killing one of our ships.”

Penny exchanged a quick glance with Joshua.  “They must have located one part of the command network,” she said.  Joshua had rigged the command network so that anyone performing a pattern analysis would be slightly misdirected, but the General Napoleon was still one of those nodes.  A blatantly obvious fake would have just been ignored.

“Duly noted,” Joshua said.  He glanced at the chronometer above his chair.  “It’s not yet time for Shadow.”

Penny felt the shock rippling around the deck.  They were taking a beating, they all knew it.  Their escorts had been ripped away or had been forced to fall back, unable to survive in such a missile-heavy environment…and thank God he’d sent Commodore Sooraya Qadir away before the rebels attacked.  The rebels were pounding them mercilessly and it wouldn’t be long before the General Clive ran out of luck.  Once it was targeted, they would be rapidly pounded into scrap…

But because they trusted Joshua, they obeyed.

“Signal Commodore Rogers,” Joshua ordered.  If he had noticed the thoughts running through the compartment he gave no sign.  His eyes followed the display as he issued orders.  “Order him to fall back and move his other ships up to increase the point defence levels.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said.  He paused as a blossom of light flared up in the rebel fleet.  “We got one, sir!”

“How lucky for us,” Joshua said dryly.  He smiled, as if at a private joke.  The rebel point defence system was good, but how far had it even been tested?  “That leaves us with only…sixty-two to go.”

***
We should run, Commodore Rogers thought grimly, as the wall of missiles flashed towards his ship.  He’d volunteered for the nodal defence duty after returning from Candleford and watching the rebels escaping, mocking him with their reluctance to return fire, even though Joshua had torn him a new asshole in private.  The lecture had been sharp, cold and very pointed, although he suspected that Joshua hadn’t been too angry.  He had the legal right to execute any of his subordinates, after all, and Rogers was still in command of his ship.  

“Brace for impact,” he ordered, tartly.  The missiles were already entering terminal attack range, despite having been worn down by the other superdreadnaughts.  “Brace for…”

The first wave of missiles stuck home.  The superdreadnaught’s shields struggled to remain intact as blast after blast detonated on the shield, sending power surges back through the generators, which struggled to compensate for the assault.  A generator failed, then another, causing a massive section of the shields to collapse.  A handful of missiles raged through the gap, smashing into the hull and burning into the delicate interior of the ship.  Rogers gripped his command chair tightly as the secondary effects shook the entire ship, sending consoles exploding all over the bridge.  The lights flickered and fell down to emergency levels and, slowly, the gravity started to fade.

He found himself floating in the air, blacking in and out, helplessly drifting.  His bridge had been reduced to a nightmarish mangled mess, barely lit by fires and flickers of emergency lighting.  He knew he should be trying to find the shortest route to an escape pod, but they were deep within the bowels of his ship and he didn’t know how badly damaged the access routes were.  He keyed his communicator, worn on his wrist, only to discover that the entire network was down.  A dull shaking spread through the ship and he closed his eyes, knowing what was to come.

There was a long roll of thunder, a flash of fire…and then silence.

***
“The General Napoleon has been destroyed,” the tactical officer reported, grimly.  There was no hint of condemnation in his voice.  “They hit her with over two hundred missiles…”

“Understood,” Joshua said, watching the chronometer.  It was counting down to zero.  “Penny, what do you think?”

“I think it’s time to move,” Penny said, grimly.  Joshua had almost waited too long.  “If we don’t go with Shadow now, we have to fall back on the planet…”

“As they know we must,” Joshua agreed.  He looked over at the communications officer.  “Signal the Steven and tell them to execute Shadow-One.”

Penny watched as the Steven flickered out.  It was impossible to send signals faster than light, but at such ranges, a destroyer could carry a message right across the system within seconds.  Its mere arrival at the designated waypoint would be a signal to the lurking ships.

She looked up at Joshua.  “Sir…?”

“Deploy the Shadow drones,” Joshua ordered.  She could almost taste his anticipation.  He’d planned the most daring manoeuvre that Penny, or anyone else, had ever seen and he couldn’t wait to try it out.  “Bring them online as soon as Shadow-One arrives.”

“Understood,” Penny said.  He’d allowed her the honour of controlling his little surprise.  “The drones are ready and online.”

The display pinged.  “Admiral,” the tactical officer said, “Shadow-One has arrived.”

Joshua smiled.  Whatever else happened, Penny knew, the rebel self-confidence would not survive this battle.  She keyed the command sequence into the console and watched as the drones came online, playing their part in the little deception.  

“Execute,” Joshua ordered.  “Shadow-One is cleared to fire at will.”

***
“I have nine new flicker-signatures, bearing…”

Colin’s eyes snapped to the display.  He’d considered the possibility of an ambush, but it wasn’t easy to work an ambush in interplanetary space, even without the fleet being on full alert because of the battle.  If someone new was jumping into the fight, maybe additional superdreadnaughts and other capital ships, then maybe there was more method in Admiral Wachter’s madness than he had supposed.

“Identify,” he snapped.  The newcomers were well within missile range, already close enough to open fire, but they didn’t look large enough to be superdreadnaughts.  Nothing smaller could survive in the wall of battle, let alone have a decisive effect on the fighting, could it?  “What are they?”

“They read out as bulk freighters,” the tactical officer said.  They shared the same thought.  No one in their right mind would fly bulk freighters into a combat zone, unless they had had them outfitted for military purposes.  “Dear God, they’re arsenal ships!”

The arsenal ships paused long enough to take their bearings and then, before Colin could order a strike against them, opened fire.  He’d seen such missile barrages before – he’d ordered them used against Imperial Navy starships before – but he’d never faced anything like it.  Forty thousand missiles were bearing down on his ships…

“Spin up the drives,” he ordered.  There was a time to avoid further contact and this was it.  They’d flicker across the system, regroup, and come back in again.  The missiles would be completely wasted.  “Flicker us out of here…”

Alarms sounded.  “Sir, the safety interlocks are cutting in,” the helmsman said, sharply.  His voice was right on the edge of panic.  “They’re registering us as being near a gravity shadow!”

Colin stared at the display.  That was impossible.  There wasn't anything large enough to generate a gravity shadow anywhere near them.  Somehow, they’d been locked out of flicker-space…

…And the missiles were still closing in.

Chapter Twenty-One

Colin pushed his shock to the back of his mind.  Whatever had happened – and he knew it was impossible – he had to respond to the threat.  The Shadow Fleet had practiced anti-missile tactics ever since there had been a Shadow Fleet, but they’d never faced such an attack for real.  It dawned on him, suddenly, that his opponent must have wanted to damage his point defence before bringing in the heavy hammer…and he’d succeeded.  Colin cursed his complacency as he issued the right orders, knowing that it might be futile.

“Flush our own arsenal ships,” he snapped.  There was no longer any point in trying to take out the Imperial Navy’s arsenal ships.  They’d shot their missiles and were now retreating from the battlezone for reloading somewhere else.  “Hit their superdreadnaughts as hard as we can.”

The arsenal ships fired, launching their own wave of missiles towards the enemy superdreadnaughts.  Colin thought – hoped – that whatever they’d done to lock the rebel fleet out of flicker-space would affect them as well…and it was even remotely possible that a handful of missiles would collide.  It might, in a tiny way, help stem the tide of death raging towards his ships.

Something was nagging at the back of his mind, but what?

“Bring up all the point defence platforms,” he said, savagely.  He’d made a series of mistakes and underestimated his enemy, but he still knew how to fight.  “If we can stem this tide of missiles, then we still have a chance.”

An implacable wall of missiles closed in on his ships.

***
“That’s not possible,” someone breathed, very quietly.  “That just isn’t possible.”

It wasn't.

Penny knew, from what little Joshua had told her, that the Imperial Navy had been researching ways to lock starships out of flicker-space for years, but had never had any success.  It was fairly easy to generate a gravity field onboard a starship, as well as limited antigravity fields to make construction work and heavy transport easier, but it was impossible to generate one powerful enough to actually create a gravity-shadow.  The math was quite simple.  Generating such a field would require the combined power of well over a billion superdreadnaughts – enough ships to generate a gravity-shadow in their own right – and projectors large enough to pass for a small moon.  The only way, it seemed, to trap someone was to lure them into a natural gravity shadow.  The Empire had, briefly, experimented with creating it’s own gravity singularities and black holes, but after a series of disasters had abandoned the project.

Joshua’s plan, in hindsight, had been brilliant.  The rebellion was effectively a civil war and both sides knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other’s equipment.  Hell, they used the same equipment.  The Corps of Engineers might tell tall tales of how they’d spliced together human and Dathi technology to create something stronger than the sum of its parts, but it wasn't an easy task…while using rebel technology was easy.  It was exactly the same as Imperial technology.  Joshua had reasoned that it might be possible to create a low-level field that would look like a gravity shadow – really, a shadow of a shadow – and convince the safety interlocks to prevent the starship from flickering out.  No one in their right mind would want to tamper with them if it could be avoided…and, as long as the rebels were distracted by something more important, they wouldn’t have time to think about it.  If they realised that they were being conned…

She watched the tidal wave of missiles closing in on the rebel ships and felt cold glee.

“Muster our own point defence,” Joshua ordered, calmly.  It was the part of the plan that Penny didn’t like.  In order to convince the rebels that they were really trapped, the Imperial Navy starships had to remain in the combat zone as well, which meant that they were going to take a hammering.  The rebels had fired from further away, but even so, they were still going to get badly hurt.  Joshua had been surprisingly dismissive of the concept when she’d raised her concerns.  If the Shadow Fleet were destroyed…the rebellion would come to an end.  “Prepare for impact.”

She looked over at him, watching him watching the display, cold eyes burning…and wondered just what he was thinking.  The battle had already been the single greatest battle in history, ever since the war, and yet…it wasn't over yet.  The winner might be determined as the one who had a handful of starships left…and that suited the Empire perfectly.  Let the rebels try to out-build the vast industrial complexes in the Core.  The Empire would arise from the ashes, stronger than ever under its new warlord…and crush them to powder.  

The rebel fleet point defence was starting to spit defiance at the missiles.  It wouldn’t be enough to save them.  Penny watched mighty starships burning in the night and smiled.  The battle was already won.

***
“Brace for impact,” David snapped, over the intercom.  It was the second time he’d issued that message, but this time there were hundreds of missiles bearing down on the General Montgomery, enough to destroy her if they all made impact.  Colin felt the first cold touches of despair, tempered only by the thought that he was overlooking something, but what?  “All decks, brace for impact…”

Colin had had barely any time to issue orders, but he’d managed to spread out the escorting starships to provide the superdreadnaughts with additional cover.  Paradoxically, the starships were actually more capable of covering each other, if they had been targeted.  The tidal wave of missiles weren't interested in small fry like battlecruisers and destroyers, not when they could burn the heart out of the Shadow Fleet.  The updating projections confirmed it.  The Imperials were going for a knock-out blow against his ships.

The first missiles entered point defence range and hundreds were wiped out of existence.  The drills, practiced time and time again, had paid off; the fleet was holding up well under the strain of the attack, but it wasn’t going to be enough.  Superdreadnaughts added their fire to the point defence command network as the missiles entered their range, picking them off with pulsars or wiping great swathes of them from space with their powerful fission beams, but there were always more missiles to take the places of those that had been destroyed.  Colin braced himself…

The first missile slipped through the point defence network and struck home.  Nine more followed it, knocking down the recovered shield again, sending waves of fury cascading through the ship’s hull.  Colin clung on for dear life as the ship shuddered under the pounding, almost as if it were trying to tear itself apart, before the pounding ended.  They might well have revealed that they were the command ship – under that attack, the command network had prioritised protecting his ship – to watching analysts, but it might not have mattered.  It was going to take months, at least, before the General Montgomery was back in fighting trim…and that assumed that they could escape.  If they had truly been locked out of flicker-space.

He pushed aside the thought and studied the updates.  Twelve superdreadnaughts were simply gone, little more than expanding balls of plasma, and nineteen more were badly damaged.  Two of them were trailing plasma, which almost certainly meant major internal damage, and one of them wasn't even automatically updating the data network. That meant that they had lost communications, at best…and at worst it meant that there was no one left alive on that ships.  Dying alone on a crippled ship was an old nightmare, one from the darkest depths of the human imagination, that haunted almost all spacers.  It had haunted Colin back at the Academy.

And I led them all to destruction, he thought, bitterly.  There would be no need for a funeral ceremony for those crewmen, those who had died in fire.  They’d become one with space, forever…and there would be no bodies to recover.  They’d hit the Imperial Navy ships almost as badly, but they’d had longer to prepare…and, he saw now, they’d kept most of their point defence in reserve.  They'd known it was coming and carefully waited until the best moment to strike.  Admiral Joshua Wachter, whoever he was, had nerves of steel.  Colin wasn't sure that he would have accepted a missile duel with a superior opponent, placing his own life on the line with countless others, just to bait a trap.

“Bring us about,” he ordered, and his voice was that of a stranger.  The starship might have been damaged, but she could still fight.  Most of his ships had taken at least some damage, but they still had weapons and power…while those that didn’t would have to be covered, at least until they managed to take out the gravity generator…

The thought crystallised in his head.  The Geeks and Nerds had worked so many miracles that he’d wondered just how far advanced they were, and they’d shown him almost everything, including some experiments the Empire would have disproved of and sent starships to stop.  Hell, some of them had been Imperial scientists who’d decided that they would probably be executed if they stayed in the Empire, for the crime of playing with forbidden knowledge.  They’d taken him on a tour of one of their facilities, so secret that no one knew it’s location, and they'd shown him wonders.

“We believe that one day we will be able to generate singularities at will,” Lowcutie had said, in his buzzing voice.  The very concept had been beyond him.  The Geeks tried to shape energy in the fabric of space, using it to…the technobabble had been impossible for him to follow.  He’d grasped the problem though; they just couldn’t concentrate enough power in one area to even begin to start.  “What could we not achieve if we could create our own singularity?”

The thought refused to fade.  He couldn’t believe that the Empire had made such a breakthrough.  Their scientists were discouraged from playing with the very concept…and, if they could generate gravity fields at will, they’d have been tossing planets around.  They wouldn’t have been able to resist playing with it and using it to finally track down and eradicate all the pirate bands.  He knew the people who ran the Empire.  They wouldn’t have been able to resist…

Which meant…what if the gravity field wasn't real?

He looked down at the display, cursing himself for not having thought of it earlier, and pulled up a topographical modal of local space.  The sensors should have reported any large mass close to them, even something as tiny as a quantum black hole, and nothing was there, not even a gravity field.  Hell, the more he thought about it, the more he cursed himself.  A gravity-field generator on such a scale would have wrecked the starship carrying it.

The superdreadnaught shuddered as it went to rapid fire.  He’d launched the Shadow Fleet directly into the teeth of the enemy formation, which had been battered almost as badly as his own by the arsenal ships, on the grounds that they might take out the generator and escape.  The Imperial starships had evidently decided to accept the challenge, which meant…it proved that it was a trick.  A good one, but still a trick…

“Signal to all ships,” he said, watching the damage mounting up with alarming speed.  The Empire’s starships were giving almost as good as they were getting now.  “Disengage the safety interlocks and prepare to flicker out.”

David’s face appeared in the main display.  “Sir, I…”

“It’s a trick,” Colin said.  He would have explained his reasoning, but there wasn't time.  “We only think we’re trapped.  Bring up the drives and prepare to flicker out to the first waypoint.”

The superdreadnaught rocked again under another impact.  “Flickering,” David said, slowly.  “I hope you’re right about this…”

The starship vanished from the universe.  A moment later, almost all of the Shadow Fleet followed it.

***
Penny bit down a curse as the first superdreadnaught vanished, followed rapidly by the remaining ships, apart from a handful that had lost their drives and couldn’t run.  She allowed herself the brief thought that the shadow field might interfere with their flight, but the models had been fairly clear.  It wasn't real and anyone brave enough to ignore the safety precautions and jump out would escape.  It had served its purpose.

She looked over at Joshua, expecting a burst of high-ranking rage, and was surprised to see him smiling.  Percival would have been throwing a fit, or issuing impossible orders, but Joshua was smiling.  He had, after all, told her that the trick wouldn’t work for long…and the rebels had been desperate.  Perhaps his forces, too, had been desperate.  If they had closed to energy range, the best outcome would be mutual annihilation.

“We knew it wouldn’t last,” he said, almost as if he were reading her thoughts.  He turned back to the display and allowed his smile to grow.  “One destroyer, two light cruisers and a battlecruiser trapped here, along with the wreckage of a superdreadnaught.”  He keyed his console.  “Major Osborn, prepare your Marines for a boarding action.”

Penny lifted an eyebrow.  “You think they’ll let us take them alive?”

“We can, but try,” Joshua said.  He stood up and looked around the compartment.  “Disengage the shadow drones and prepare to recover them.  The trick won’t work twice, not here, but perhaps we can make use of it elsewhere.  Transmit a demand for surrender to the damaged ships and tell them that we will treat them under the Moscow Accords if they surrender.  If not…destroy them.  I’m not going to risk lives by trying to take ships that are trapped.”

He smiled.  “Stand down from battle stations,” he ordered.  He met Penny’s eyes and winked.  “And, all of you, well done.”

Joshua left the bridge.  Behind him, the crew burst into cheers.

***
It had been the final hit that had done it, although – ironically – it didn’t show up as significant damage.  Havoc had been badly damaged, but until the final hit, it could still have flickered out.  She shouldn’t have been targeted, but a stray salvo of missiles had lost their lock on a superdreadnaught and locked onto the battlecruiser instead.  The final salvo had knocked out the flicker drive.  The engineers had restored the shields, bare milliseconds too late.

Commodore Katy Garland grimaced as she took in the damage to her beautiful ship.  The battlecruiser had been hurt badly, but she could still fight…if she were engaged by a destroyer.  Anything heavier would probably finish the job the rogue missiles had started.  The sensors had been battered badly, but they were still clear enough to report that the remaining enemy ships were keeping a close eye on her, while the only friendly ships nearby were equally damaged.  If the enemy decided to finish her off, it wouldn’t be longer than a few seconds before their weapons tore away her shields and destroyed her ship.

“Engineering?”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” her Second Engineer said.  Her Chief Engineer had been killed in the final hit, along with half of his compartment.  It had taken some weeks for everyone to accept that they called her Captain, rather than Commodore, even though it was technically an insulting demotion.  “Given a few hours, I could get everything working again, but the flicker-drive.  The remains of the drive are completely fused.”

Katy looked back at the display.  They wouldn’t have minutes, let alone hours.  “I see,” she said.  Even if they had the compartments for a new flicker-drive, fitting it in and calibrating it was a task for a yard.  They couldn’t do it alone.  “Do what you can to bring up as many weapons as possible…”

She turned her head back to the internal display.  The damage control teams were working to clear the passageways and move all of her injured personnel to sickbay, but the medics would be completely overwhelmed.  A battlecruiser had seven hundred crewmembers and nearly three hundred had been injured or killed outright.  In theory, she could run the ship with as few as twenty crew, but that rather assumed that the ship was intact, with all its automatics working properly.  Havoc needed, desperately, the attention of a yard before she could go anywhere.  It wasn't going to work and she knew it.

“Captain,” the communications officer said, suddenly.  “We’re being hailed.”

Katy nodded.  “Put it through,” she ordered.  “Let’s here what they have to say.”

The voice was surprisingly friendly, rather than cold, almost atonal voice of the normal surrender demands.  “This is Captain Anne Cotman of the General Clive,” she said.  Katy couldn’t remember having heard of a Captain Cotman in her career, although the Imperial Navy wasn't short of Captains.  “I have been authorised to request your surrender.  If you surrender without further ado, we will treat you and your crews under the Moscow Accords.  If you resist, or refuse this offer, we will destroy your ships.”

Katy looked back at the display.  Nine superdreadnaughts, all barely damaged, remained nearby, any one of them packing enough firepower to complete Havoc’s destruction.  The mention of the Moscow Accords was encouraging, but the Empire might not keep its word, or Admiral Wachter might be overruled by someone higher up the food chain.  The Thousand Families wouldn’t care if hundreds or thousands of their servants were mistreated by the rebels, not if they could extract information from their captives.  

But if we fight now, we die, for nothing, she thought.  Where there’s life, there’s hope.

“Drop the shields,” she ordered, slowly.  There was no other choice.  Colin and his remaining ships might rescue them, one day. “Purge the computer banks” – before they think of ordering us to leave them intact as part of the surrender terms, she thought coldly – “and inform them that we surrender.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Commodore Katy Garland tried hard not to feel like a prisoner as the two guards escorted her through the passages of the superdreadnaught.  The presence of the Household Troops – Cicero, according to their rank badges – had been the first surprise; she’d been expecting SDs, or loyalists Marines.  They’d been firm, but fair, taking custody of the Prisoners of War and treating them fairly gently.  Katy had anticipated everything from immediate execution to heavy beatings and interrogation, but the Household Troops had merely escorted them onto a refurbished bulk freighter, for the moment.  They’d even been provided with food, drink and medical care.

Katy herself, once she’d been allowed to see that her people were being treated well, had been separated from the rest of the POWs and escorted onto a shuttle, which had transported her towards a superdreadnaught.  Her guards acted almost as an escort, rather than treating her as a prisoner, something that surprised her.  The exact status of the superior officer under the Moscow Accords was slightly vague.  They hadn’t even bound her, although she had no illusions about what they would do if she tried to escape, or to harm the superdreadnaught.  They reached  Officer Country and escorted her through the passageways, before finally pausing outside a hatch, no different from the rest.

Her lead escort pressed the buzzer.  “Captain Garland, as requested,” he said.  Katy realised with a moment of shock just who they were taking her to meet.  The hatch hissed open smoothly, revealing a massive office…and an officer sitting behind a desk.  He rose to his feet to greet her, holding out a hand, and Katy took it automatically.  She had known who he was before even seeing his uniform.

Admiral Joshua Wachter favoured her with a smile.  “A pleasure to meet you,” he said, in an accent that reminded her uncomfortably of her first commanding officer, a drunkard from the Families.  He’d managed to get himself killed the year after Katy had been promoted onto a different ship, although he’d taken the entire crew with him.  “I fear it couldn’t be under better circumstances, but you know how it is.”

He waved her to a seat and took a chair facing her, rather than returning to his desk.  Katy took the time to study him and his companion – a blonde-haired women wearing a Captain’s uniform – and was reluctantly impressed.  It was easy to tell that the woman was falling in love with her Admiral, although she might not have known it herself…and she did have to admit that Admiral Wachter cut an impressive figure.  He was shorter than she’d imagined, with a developed mature look rather than the regained youth of his fellows, but she saw intelligence dancing behind his eyes.

And he beat the Shadow Fleet, she thought, feeling numb.  They had barely had time to make a count, but at least two superdreadnaught squadrons had been devastated, along with hundreds of smaller ships.  No one had taken losses like that, with the possible exception of First Harmony, for centuries…and it meant doom.  If the Empire pushed it’s new advantage, it might be in a position to crush the rebellion within months.

“Of course,” she murmured.  She would have preferred to meet him as a younger officer, rather than the tyrants she’d had over her.  “Thank you for treating my crews properly.”

She’d purged the starship’s computer banks before the ship was boarded, rendering her almost completely useless, unless the Empire managed to fit a new computer network into the ship.  By her rough calculation, it would take at least six months to do so, even in a fully-equipped shipyard, and it would be quicker to build a new battlecruiser.  The Household Troops hadn’t commented on that, when they’d boarded the starship, but it worried her.  They might claim that by wiping the computers, they’d forfeited their protection.

“The crews will be treated as well as we can,” Joshua assured her, his voice soft and earnest.  She had to remind herself that he had overseen the butchering of her magnificent ship.  “I’ll have them moved down to Morrison within the next few hours and placed on one of the larger uninhabited islands, supplied with everything they need.  I doubt, personally, that they know anything worth extracting from them, do they?”

Katy said nothing.  “But in any case, attempting to extract information from them would be illegal,” Joshua continued.  “In the long term, they may be sent back to your people – repatriated – or they may be held until the end of hostilities…”

He shrugged.  “There is a certain legal problem with this particular situation,” he said.  “You, all of you, are not opponents in the standard sense, but rebels and traitors.  You chose to rebel against the Empire and stole some of our starships to begin your fight.  There is a case to be made that you are not legal combatants and unworthy, even, of a penal world.  Some of my officers and…superiors wanted to charge you with treason and hand out a significant punishment.”

Katy held his eyes.  It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.  “If you choose to mistreat us, or any other prisoners, I cannot stop you,” she said, calmly.  “I should point out, however, that if you do, my side will feel compelled to respond in kind.”

“I have ruled, invoking my legal authority, that your people are covered under the Moscow Accords,” Joshua said.  He winked at her with a sudden smile.  “It is not something that will please everyone – and any of you who are responsible for war crimes will not be protected – but for the moment, my ruling stands.  I wanted you to know that.”

“Thank you,” Katy said.  She didn’t bother to try to hide the relief in her tone.  “What are you going to do with me?”

“I don’t know, yet,” Joshua said.  “I may need you to convey a message back to your people.”  He grimaced.  “While Macore is a legitimate government, it’s going to be a little harder to accept that your government is a legal authority in its own right.  That’s not something I can rule on…even though I have limited authority to handle negotiations if necessary.  If that happens, you will be given the message and placed onto a courier boat.”

He leaned back in his chair.  “And that concludes my official business,” he said, almost casually.  “Why did you rebel?”

Katy shrugged.  She had nothing more to lose.  Slowly, she spilled out the entire story, from her career as a junior midshipwoman to being denied a promotion by an officer she had refused to sleep with, and then being exiled to the edge of the Rim by a superior who had told her, to her face, that she would never be promoted again.  She’d only made Commander because he had no one else to put in that slot…and she’d expected to be demoted once the Macore Observation Squadron was broken up.  Colin’s offer had been eagerly accepted.  It had been the only chance for a future.

“Interesting,” Joshua said.  She’d expected a screaming fit, as her former Captain had done before she’d shot him, but he seemed calm.  “I expected as much, of course, but it is nice to have confirmation.”

Katy eyed him suspiciously.  “Why don’t you join us?”

Joshua seemed genuinely taken aback by the question.  “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a competent commanding officer with a loyal fleet, only a month away from Earth,” Katy said.  “You must know that they’ll be suspicious of you back on Earth.  They might even decide to get rid of you now you’ve done all the heavy lifting and given us a bloody nose.  Your days are numbered.”

“Are they?”

“They won’t risk a second Empress,” Katy pointed out.  “You have a fleet that might have been battered, but is still probably capable of punching out Home Fleet.”

“They wouldn’t get an Empress with me anyway,” Joshua said, wryly.  “Tell me something.  Have you thought about what might happen if you win?”

Katy frowned.  “The Thousand Families get destroyed, the Imperial Navy dumps the entire damned patronage system, millions of people held in bondage get freed…I don’t see a downside there.”

“The Empire is all that holds the human race together,” Joshua said, slowly.  “You may have very real grievances against the Empire, but without it all we would have is chaos.  I would change parts of it, if I could, to ensure that competent officers like yourself weren't held back by the system, but even doing that would mean the destruction of the system and chaos.  It’s a delicate balancing act.”

“It’s a nightmare,” Katy said, flatly.  “It creates thousands of intelligent people with a grudge against the system and the understanding necessary to really damage it and bring it down.  Why shouldn’t they rebel if they have nowhere to go that isn’t occupied by Family bastards who never earned their positions?”

“Bastards like me?”  Joshua asked.  Katy flushed angrily, but refused to back down.  “I understand your position, and I am not unsympathetic, but the alternative to the Empire is chaos.  That cannot be allowed.”

He looked up at her escort.  “Please escort Captain Garland to her quarters,” he said, before turning back to Katy.  “I took the liberty of offering you guest quarters on this ship, provided you behave yourself.”

“I would rather be with my people,” Katy said, stiffly.

“That’s not an option,” Joshua said.  He stood up and surprised her by shaking hands again.  “Thank you for your time.”

Katy followed the escorting guards out into the passageway, thinking hard.  Joshua – Admiral Wachter – had offered them his guarantee, but would it last?  There were plenty of Family members who would hate him and seek to overrule his decree.  If they chose to do so, they could do what they liked to her people – they wouldn’t care if the rebels mistreated their prisoners.  What would happen when – if – Joshua were removed?

And why did he want to keep her on his flagship anyway?

***
“Interesting little conversation, that,” Joshua said, as the hatch closed.  He signalled his steward and ordered dinner for two.  “What did you think of her?”

Penny frowned.  “Why did you insist on keeping her on your ship?”

“I wanted to keep her close to me,” Joshua said.  “I wouldn’t put it past…some people to try to play around with the prisoners and we need her alive.  If not as a messenger, then as a possible source of information, should she choose to volunteer it.  The SDs would interrogate her and break her, if I allowed them to play with her, and I can’t afford that.”

He smiled at her.  “We won,” he said, almost gently.  “Enjoy it.”

Penny laughed.  They’d had three superdreadnaught squadrons wiped out and dozens of other ships badly damaged, but they’d held Morrison and inflicted the first significant defeat on the Shadow Fleet.  They might not have successful struck back at the rebel base, wherever it was, but they’d ensured that the rebels wouldn’t be able to take Morrison in a hurry, or move past their position to attack Earth.  It was, by any standards, the greatest victory in the war.

“Is she right?”

“About what?”  Joshua asked, thoughtfully.  “I read her file before she was brought here.  Her former commander evidently didn’t like her; she was actually promoted over his objections.  Her second and third commanders might have agreed with that sentiment, eventually; her third commander actually rated her as not suited for an independent command.  If she hadn’t rebelled, she would never have had a ship of her own…and Paradise Rest would never have been raided.”

Penny had to nod, reluctantly.  Any report that didn’t actually suggest that the person in question was a resurrected military hero, in tone if not in words, was one that would hang like a millstone around a career.  Katy’s personal file had probably been written to sound normal, on the surface, but anyone reading it with an experienced eye would have seen the time bombs written into her dossier.  Penny doubted that Katy had been that bad a midshipwoman; the odds were that she had refused some officer and it had blighted her career.  Promotion was hard in the Imperial Fleet, but demotion was terrifyingly easy.

“That wasn't what I meant, though,” she said.  She didn’t want to ask the question, but there was no choice.  It would have been so much easier if Joshua had been Percival.  “Was she right about you being…suspected by the Families?”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed.  “I’d advise you to leave that to me,” he said.  His voice grew sharper.  “You have your duties…”

It felt like a slap in the face, but Penny ignored it.  “I’m your aide,” she said.  “I have to know about anything that might affect your ability to command your forces.  Joshua – Admiral – was she right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Joshua said, absently, as if it didn’t concern him at all.  “There are always people who will be…suspicious of people who do well through their own efforts, instead of aspiring to a comfortable sinecure determined by their birth.  They might well try to turn on me.”

Penny stared at him.  “Admiral…you just won the greatest battle in the history of the Imperial Navy,” she protested.  The very concept seemed impossible.  “You took a demoralised Sector Fleet and rebuilt it into a war-winning weapon.  You developed a cunning plan to expose the rebels to the full might of our arsenal ships.  You have plans and tactics to take the war back to Harmony, Macore and beyond.  They can’t get rid of you!”

Joshua smiled.  “You’ll find that competence is lighter than a feather, while reliability is heavier than a mountain,” he said, dryly.  Penny, who recognised the quote, flushed angrily.  Joshua was reliable, damn it!  He could have taken the fleet to Earth and made himself Emperor if he’d wanted to claim the throne.  Didn’t they recognise that back on Earth?  “I’m as disposable as you, perhaps more so.”

He leaned forward slightly.  “Back when the rebels had just taken Harmony – well, just after the Thousand Families learned about the embarrassing balls-up – Earth was in a panic,” he said.  “It only got worse when Admiral Quentin managed to have his squadrons shot out from under him, costing us Sector 97 and spreading rebellion far and wide.  Anyone with a plan could do anything, including bringing me back to command the principle fleet…knowing that by doing so, they risked me turning on them.

“But that’s changed now.  I gave the rebels a bloody nose.  That gives us time to prepare our retaliation and start pushing the rebels past…and suddenly I’m disposable.  Interesting little problem, isn’t it?”

Penny fell silent as the Steward brought in their meal.  Joshua was fond of business dinners and she had to admit that she was developing a taste for expensive food.  It was his only real vice…and the conversation could be fascinating.  She would have quite happily listened to him reciting battleship statistics.  He’d had a degree of insight into the High City and how the Government really worked that she’d never even known she lacked.  When he was willing to just talk, he was a mine of interesting information.  

“And if they do decide to get rid of you, what are you going to do about it?”  She asked finally.  “You can’t just let them purge you.”

“I suppose not,” Joshua said.  “I have been very attached to my life.  Indeed, we have never been separated.”  Penny managed a smile at the weak joke.  “If they decide to purge me, then we will see, won’t we?”

Penny said nothing as she tasted the fine meat stew.  Back when she’d been with Percival, she’d considered going over to the rebels herself, if only there’d been an opportunity.  Instead, she’d found herself transported back to Earth, where she’d discovered that some officers were competent, brave and true…and now she was contemplating trying to push one of those officers into rebellion.  They couldn’t purge him…

She hadn’t given the idea of a post-Empire galaxy much thought – the Empire had seemed pretty much invincible to her, even though Percival had allowed the situation to get so far out of control – but now she did…and she wondered if Joshua might be right.  The idea of chaos spreading everywhere, as it was even now, was horrifying; it was possible that what the Empire really needed was a strong man on the throne.  The Thousand Families would quite happily keep fiddling while their Empire burned to the ground around them, leaving nothing, but endless night.

The private reports had been for Joshua alone, but he’d allowed her to view them…and she knew that the Empire was on the brink.  There were strikes, mutinies and outright rebellion all across the Empire.  None of them, so far, had matched Colin’s rebellion for sheer terrifying efficiency, but given time, they might pose a serious threat.  They already threatened a handful of sectors, tying down ships and men that were desperately needed by Joshua, just to stem the rebel tide.  A few more squadrons of superdreadnaughts would have allowed Joshua to reach Harmony, but they would never be sent…

“Eat up,” Joshua said, softly.  Penny blushed as she realised that her thoughts had been thousands of light-years away.  Damn it, she was too old to be acting like a schoolgirl.  “We have much work to do later.”

Penny bowed her head.  “How long do you think it will be before we can go on the offensive?”

“Around three months,” Joshua said.  His voice darkened as he thought about the possible opportunities that were being allowed to pass by.  “Unless they send us some more superdreadnaughts, the only thing we can do is raid their planets until we repair our remaining ships and take the offensive ourselves.”

He didn’t, Penny noted, specify who they would be attacking.  

Chapter Twenty-Three

“This is getting us nowhere.”

Sitting behind Gwendolyn, Pompey had to agree.  The discussions with the rebel Prime Minister, who represented a Provisional Government that represented all of the liberated worlds, were definitely going nowhere.  Gwendolyn had offered what she viewed as considerable concessions, but after three hours of repeating the same discussion over and over again, he was tired of it.

“You must recognise that the Empire rests upon foundations,” Gwendolyn said.  “While we are prepared to offer some concessions to you, and even recognise your autonomy, we are unable to offer you independence.”

The rebel Prime Minister - Blondel Dupre - eyed her suspiciously.  She was tall and blonde, like Gwendolyn, but there the resemblance ended.  Where Gwendolyn was willowy and perfectly-designed, Blondel had a scarred face and hard eyes.  An hour in a beauty parlour would have transformed her into a vision of loveliness, but anyone who looked into her eyes would know the truth.  Blondel had had a hard life and blamed it, not unreasonably, on people like Gwendolyn.

It didn’t help that Tiberius hadn’t given them much to use as bargaining chips.  If the rebels won the war, the Family and the Clan had to be on the winning side, just to ensure that the victorious rebels didn’t start a purge at once, as history suggested they would.  If the rebels lost, the Family wanted to be in a position to profit from the victory, ideally by snatching all of Roosevelt’s former concessions.  It wasn’t an easy balancing act.  Gwendolyn might have been willing to make deals that might come back to haunt the Family, but if she went too far, Tiberius would declare them both rogue.

“Our independence is a natural right,” Blondel said, firmly.  “Our ancestors came from Earth, yes, but they travelled far from their homeworld to ensure that they could build something new, free of the shackles of the past…”

“Leaving a heavy debt behind them,” Gwendolyn countered.  “They harmed, deliberately, interests on Earth.  The debt has to be settled.”

“Even if that were true, and I do not agree to accept it as truth, does it excuse the brutal invasion of my world?”

Gwendolyn frowned.  “The Clan would be happy to accept first-rank status for Macore and perhaps a few other worlds,” she said.  “If offered promptly, it would be possible to get it through Parliament.  However…”

“We cannot trust the Empire to keep its word, as I have told you on several occasions,” Blondel said.  She stood up in one smooth motion.  “I believe that we should recess for the day and meet again tomorrow, unless the situation changes.”

She swept out of the room.  Pompey watched her go – Macore, it seemed, had had little use for diplomats – and then allowed Gwendolyn to lead him back to their ship.  The asteroid habitat floating high above Harmony had been used for growing some natural produce for Percival and his cronies, but the rebels had taken it over when they’d taken Harmony.  Pompey had hoped that they would be allowed to dock at the command fortress, but the rebels weren't that trusting.  The destruction of the orbiting habitat would be a far lesser issue than the loss of the command fortress.

The Marines had searched their ship carefully when they’d finally been allowed to dock, but once they’d finished the search, they had been scrupulous about treating it as an embassy and leaving it inviolate.  Pompey had swept the ship for bugs every day, just out of habit, but he hadn’t found anything from the rebels.  He had located a handful of surveillance equipment when he’d run the first test, back on Earth, but that could hardly be blamed on the rebels.  If they had contacts and a network on Earth…well, the war was within shouting distance of being lost.

“Bitch,” Gwendolyn snapped, as the airlock snapped closed.  “Who does she think she is?”

“She thinks she speaks for hundreds of worlds and she’s right,” Pompey said.  He wasn't in the mood for one of Gwendolyn’s patented tantrums.  It would have been easier if he’d never seen her in a calculating mood.  “It’s not as if we have much to offer her, is it?”

Gwendolyn shrugged.  The discussions had been so…vague because they had orders to stall for time, while making contact with a handful of people.  Pompey was surprised to discover that the rebels hadn’t banned them from meeting other people, rather than just their Prime Minster, and an interesting group of people had made their way to the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne.  Some had been from Macore, a planet that made little sense to Pompey, while others had been from Democrat or Socialist groups.  The latter had denounced them as bloodsuckers on one hand and tried to make deals on the other, although they didn’t have much to offer.  The people Pompey would have preferred to talk to were not often present on the asteroid.

“Fine,” she said, angrily.  She pulled off her jacket and threw it at him.  “I’m going for a swim to wash the lies and shit off me.  Let me know if anyone calls for us.”

Pompey watched her storm out and then carefully put her jacket down on the chair, before heading down to his own cabin to refresh himself.  The rebels could have provided better quarters if they'd asked, but Pompey had been determined to remain on the starship, if only because it was completely secure.  He was undressing when the communicator buzzed.

“Yes?”  He asked, clicking it over to sound only.  It wasn't generally considered polite to answer a video call in a state of undress.  “What can I do for you?”

The voice was warm and almost overburdened with self-confidence.  “I believe that you wanted to speak to me?”

“We are interested in speaking to all of the leaders of your…movement,” Pompey said.  The first day of negotiations had been spent arguing about terminology.  The rebels didn’t like being called rebels, while the Empire’s representatives could hardly accept their claim to be an independent state.  “I would be happy, Captain Cordova, to host you for dinner on our yacht.”

Cordova’s voice, he noted, didn’t show the slightest trace of surprise that Pompey knew who he was.  Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to him that he wouldn’t be recognised on sight, or even by voice.  The accent was brusque, yet warm…and with just the faintest hint of the High City.  If it hadn’t been pointed out, Pompey realised, he would never have heard it, even slightly.

“I would prefer to host you onboard my ship, but I understand that diplomacy demands that I come to you,” Cordova said.  Pompey had to admire the man’s calm.  If he knew who they were, and which Clan they represented, he had to wonder if they knew about him.  He chose to view it as a hopeful sign.  Cordova obviously didn’t want to run the risk of witnesses.  “I shall be there in…three hours?”

Pompey checked his chronometer quickly.  “That would be suitable,” he said, wryly.  Technically, he should probably have haggled, but Gwendolyn would need that long to get read, anyway.  “I look forward to dining with you.”

The time passed slowly.  As he had expected, Gwendolyn burst into a frenzy of activity, finally settling on a black dress that contrasted sharply with her hair, cut open to reveal her legs and a certain amount of cleavage.  It suited her.  Pompey himself decided to wear the same dark suit, despite Gwendolyn’s protests, and barely styled his hair.  She offered to put him through her beauty machine, but he declined.  He didn’t think that long hair and eyelashes would suit him.

When the hatch buzzed, Pompey opened the airlock at once.  Cordova wore a garish outfit, a mixture of colours that clashed with one another, a sword at the waist and a massive ginger beard.  He took off a tri-cornered hat – it had a feather in it, naturally – and bowed to Gwendolyn, a sweeping formal bow.  Pompey wondered, as they exchanged polite nothings, if Cordova was simply duplicating the repeated fashion crisis of the High City, or if there was something more sinister going on.  His outfit would have made one hell of a disguise.

“I claim no leadership of anything, but my ship,” he informed them, as they sat down around the table.  His voice was astonishingly charismatic.  If Pompey had met him as a serving officer, he would have followed Cordova anywhere.  His entire crew had gone into exile with him.  “Why do you two believe that peace is possible?”

Gwendolyn shrugged as the automated table began serving the food.  The Hercules Grytpype-Thynne didn’t have a chef and cooking staff onboard, but the food processors were the most advanced and capable that money could buy.  It wasn't the delicate creations of the Cicero’s Head Chef, but it would suffice.

“The peace of the grave, of an Empire torn apart by civil war, benefits no one,” Gwendolyn said, as they began to eat.  She’d complained bitterly about the food at first, but said nothing now that they had company.  “How many billions would die if the Empire fell apart?”

Cordova shrugged.  “The Empire rests on the blood, toil and sweat of uncounted trillions,” he said.  “The handful of refugees on the Rim are, but a tiny fragment of those blighted by the Empire.”

Blondel had used the exact same word, Pompey recalled.  “And do you have no loyalties to your past?”

“I don’t know you,” Cordova said, in a surprisingly pleasant tone.  “You’re young enough to have been born after I departed.  My Family is dead to me now.”  He paused.  There was no bitterness in his tone, merely a dispassionate lack of concern.  He might as well have been talking about the weather.  “They certainly ensured that I was struck from all of the official lists, didn’t they?”

Gwendolyn smiled.  “Once born into a Family, it will never let you go,” she said, calmly.  “You may have walked away from them, and they might have disowned you, but you’re still one of them.”

“Of us, you mean,” Cordova agreed.  “I did wonder, when I saw your names, if you intended to try to convince me to…assist you, perhaps as a person with a foot in both camps.  I’m not interested.”

“You were born a Cicero,” Gwendolyn said.  “The Family Head who had you stricken from the Rolls is dead.  There’s a new Cicero now, one who is willing to let bygones be bygones and hold out a hand of friendship towards one of the Family.”

Cordova stroked his beard.  “Really?”  He asked.  “Doesn’t that just drive you mad?”

Pompey bit down a smile.  He’d wondered, when he’d studied the dates, if Gwendolyn had ever known Cordova…and apparently she had.  Or, alternatively, a man with Cordova’s intelligence and understanding of the Cicero Family wouldn’t have had any trouble working out that Gwendolyn thought that she should have been the Cicero.  Gwendolyn had seemed surprised when she’d been told the truth, but maybe…maybe she simply hadn’t realised what had become of him.

“My position is not at risk,” Gwendolyn said, frostily.  Cordova’s grin became a laugh, one with more than a hint of madness.  He almost threw back his head and laughed.  “You are, however, a rebel leader of influence, one in a position to moderate between the two sides and find a compromise that…”

“A good compromise makes everyone mad,” Cordova said.  He took a final bite of the roast beef and smiled.  “You seem to be under the impression – and if you are, I assume that the Cicero is as well – that you can bribe your way out of this little difficulty.  The Families have had it their way for so long, they can’t even conceive of any actual opposition.  Resistance is futile and all that jazz…

“It’s not going to work this time.  You have no idea what a legacy of hatred and rage you have sowed across the galaxy.  It rages from the planets where slaves are bred and designed to remain slaves forever, to the worlds that groan under ever-increasing taxes, to the millions of independent shippers forced out of civilised sectors…and even to the heart of the Imperial Navy itself.”  His voice became mocking.  “Your Empire is built on sand, my dearly sexy lady, and the tide is coming in.”

Gwendolyn flushed, her cheeks blazing red.  “And tell me,” she snapped, “does that bother you in the slightest?”

Cordova laughed at her.  “You’re very pretty,” he said, “and I could look at your legs all day, but you don’t have any real understanding, do you?  That’s probably why they gave you the job.

“The truth is, and I’m so sorry if this disappoints you, that I cut my ties to my Family a long time ago.  They abandoned me when I needed them, so why should I care about them now?  Everyone I knew either grew away from me or died in the years between my little…desertion and the rebellion.  Even if I had stayed with the Family, they’d have taken my ship eventually, with my crew regarded as suspect for having served under me.”

He leaned forward, close enough that his beard was almost bruising Gwendolyn’s face.  “Why should I even care what you want?”  He asked.  “What are you going to do?  Tell them I came from the Thousand Families?  It’s the worst-kept secret in the Empire, up to and including the rumours about the Empress’s personal harem of pleasure slaves.  They know all about me already.  Go about shouting that from the rooftops and you won’t find a single person who will be surprised.

“Go on, I dare you.”

“If the worst-kept secret in the Empire is useless, then what about one of the best-kept secrets?”  Gwendolyn asked, calmly.  Her voice was perfectly controlled.  If she was bothered by his proximity, she didn’t show it.  “I was told to give you this.”

She stood up and walked around the table, putting some extra sway into her hips, as she picked up a wrapped package from a side table.  “Happy Birthday, Captain Cordova.”

Cordova didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply, instead simply taking the package and examining it thoughtfully, before starting to open it.  “I don’t think that you would try to blow me up on your own ship,” he said, as he uncovered the box underneath.  He started to open it carefully.  “I think…”

He saw the artwork.  “What the…?”

“Hell?”  Gwendolyn guessed, a note of triumph in her voice.  Even if she didn’t know what it meant – and Pompey had his doubts on that score – it had clearly had an effect on Cordova.  He knew what it meant.  “Do you know, then, what that is?”

Cordova’s mask, for just a second, slipped.  Pompey saw, lurking beneath the smile, a cold calculating mind, tinged with madness and suppressed rage.  He almost drew his concealed pistol, convinced that there was going to be blood on the walls, and only long training kept him still.  Gwendolyn dropped her eyes, unable to meet Cordova’s gaze…and then the mask was firmly back in place.

“Do you know what it is?”  He asked, almost normally.  “I don’t think you do, do you?”

“No,” Pompey said, quickly.  Anyone who could pull a mental mask on so quickly was a very dangerous man.  For the first time in far too long, he was beginning to feel out of his depth.  There hadn’t been any directories of alien artwork on the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne.  It had been something he had overlooked at the time – there were few conishisioners of alien artwork in the Empire and most of them tended to keep it firmly to themselves – but now he was starting to suspect that it had been deliberate.  “The mere presence of that…ugly thing was supposed to be the message.”

“I could kill you both right now,” Cordova said, softly.  His hand dropped to his sword.  “It would be easy.”

It would be, Pompey knew.  He was trained, but in the time it would take him to draw his pistol, Cordova could have his head off with a single swipe from his sword, before he turned on Gwendolyn.  Perhaps he would pause long enough to ravish her, as another slap in the face to his old Family, before rigging the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne to explode and destroy all of the evidence…or maybe he would glory in it.  There were doubtless plenty of rebels who would cheer him on…

He met Gwendolyn’s eyes and almost winced.  She was frightened, but she was trying desperately not to show it.  He’d never seen her scared before; the girl who had grown into a sharp-tongued woman who dominated the social scene, reduced to a nervous wreck.  She wouldn’t be any use if it came down to a fight…

“But then, the message wasn't trusted to you, which is interesting,” Cordova continued, thoughtfully.  “The Cicero didn’t trust you with the message, did he?”

He snorted.  “He understood the implications, all of the implications, and you weren’t trusted with the news,” he added.  He laughed, suddenly.  “Did he give you both red shirts as well?”

The private joke was lost on Gwendolyn.  “I believe that we understand each other,” she said, pushing her fear away.  She stood up and fixed him with her gaze.  “If you refuse to cooperate with your old Family, your own flesh and blood, then you know what will happen.”

Cordova laughed.  “You don’t,” he said.  He looked at her just long enough to make her uncomfortable.  Pompey watched, carefully, knowing that Cordova was in a stronger position than it seemed.  He could still kill them and vanish into the Rim.  Tiberius would avenge them, he hoped, but they’d still be dead.  “What do you want?  Or didn’t your master bother to tell you what you were supposed to blackmail me into doing?”

“At first, merely information,” Gwendolyn said.  “After that…well, we’ll see.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I made a mistake, Colin thought, the oldest military mistake of all.  I thought that my opponent was stupid.  I knew he was good…and I still underestimated him.

It wasn't easy to face up to the truth, but there was no choice.  He’d grown complacent.  He’d worked under commanders like Admiral Percival, who’d obtained his post through his birth and undisputed mastership of patronage, and he’d believed that all higher commanders were that that.  He’d seen Joshua’s actions and had believed – had been predisposed to believe – that they were those of an idiot.  He hadn’t thought through the implications of the enemy knowing their ships as well as they did – after all, it had never happened before.  The Empire’s new commander had turned the rebel advantage on its head.

I should have seen it, he thought, angrily.  He’d taken his ships to Pollack, posing as one of Admiral Percival’s squadrons, and blown hell out of their command fortress before escaping, leaving only ruins in his wake.  The Shadow Fleet had taken care to change their IFF codes, just to prevent the Empire from using the same trick on them, but instead they’d found a new trick.  It hadn’t even occurred to him to consider what might happen if the safety interlocks had been fooled, or how they could be fooled…and, at first, he hadn’t even questioned them.  If they hadn’t been under attack, he would never have risked flickering out in a gravity shadow.  Captains who tried to do that were rarely seen again.

The post-battle analysis had been clear enough.  In hindsight, the trap was obvious.  A tiny gravity field, perfectly tuned, had been enough to convince the safety interlocks that they were within a much larger gravity shadow and force them to override the commands from the bridge.  If they hadn’t been fighting for their lives, they might have noticed, eventually, given time to work on it.  He had noticed…but it hadn’t prevented Joshua from bringing up his arsenal ships and ravaging his formation.

He stared down at the datapad, barely seeing the words.  Three squadrons of superdreadnaughts utterly destroyed.  Forty-seven smaller ships, including five battlecruisers, destroyed, with a handful more missing, presumed destroyed…or captured.  Katy Garland, one of his old friends and part of his original committee, dead or in the hands of the Empire.  And, worst of all, Morrison had stood firm against their offensive.

It was hard to knowledge, but he faced it squarely.  He had never failed to take a target before.  Public Information might brag of the rebels fleeing from dozens of worlds and failed attacks, including hundreds that only existed in their imagination, but this time it was real.  Perhaps the population of the Empire, irony of ironies, would fail to believe – after all, they were always lied to and knew it – but the Freedom Alliance would know the truth.  The Shadow Fleet, for the first time, had been forced to retreat from a world it had intended to take.

No mutiny or series of mutinies had manifested.  If there were rebels on Morrison, they had either been rounded up or were keeping their heads down.  Perhaps there were entire divisions of SD troopers watching the population, or perhaps their Admiral had managed to convince them to serve the Empire…but in the end, it hardly mattered.  He caught sight of his own reflection in the datapad and shivered.  He felt as if he had the Mark of Cain tattooed across his forehead.

I led them there to die, he thought.  No one had taken losses like that since the Dathi War, since the final hellish battles to break into their home systems and systematically eradicate them from existence.  There had been mass deaths before, when planets had been scorched or suffered natural disasters, but Colin had never lost so many ships and men.  It was his first real defeat and he knew it.

I didn’t anticipate them finding someone who could fight, he recalled, remembering the grand plan to topple the Empire.  He’d become, somewhat to his own surprise, a social revolutionary as well as a military leader, but the original plan had been sound.  Indeed, if some of the reports were to be believed, the Empire was having difficulty rerouting heavy units into the sector, not that it mattered.  The forces at Morrison had taken a beating as well, but when they were reinforced – and they would be reinforced after the victory – they’d come out, looking for blood.  They’d go for Yanasaxon…or perhaps, with their own rear secure, they’d go for Harmony.  The fighting would take years, but the outcome would be a foregone conclusion.  My fault, all mine…

The possible consequences didn’t bear thinking about.  The Empire could now cut loose all the forces they required to hit the rebels in the rear, devastating the fleet train and practically undefended planets.  It wouldn’t take more than a few dozen heavy cruisers in the right – or rather the wrong – places to make an impact, and if he deployed his own units to cover all the possible targets, further offensives would be impossible.  The Freedom Alliance would be screaming for help and support, yet by giving it…he would be condemning them to certain defeat.  Joshua had put them in a neat spot…and the hell of it was that Colin was certain that it had been planned that way.

He looked down at the datapad again and flicked to another page.  Seventeen superdreadnaughts damaged, two of them definitely requiring a quick return to Harmony, while three others were borderline.  The other twelve could be repaired by their own crews, given time, but they would need the attention of a shipyard soon enough.  The fleet train was magnificent, and spare parts weren't a problem, but they simply lacked the experienced personnel.  The Shadow Fleet had been crippled.

The irony was that if all of his ships had been intact, he could probably have launched a second – successful – attack.  Morrison’s fleet had been battered as well, and the trick wouldn’t work twice, but they weren't that battered.  The next time, Joshua would probably do the conventional thing and dare Colin to punch through the orbital defences, unless he had another trick up his sleeve.  Colin contemplated the matter thoughtfully, trying to imagine a different trick, but failed.  God alone knew what Joshua would think of next.

And he might have prisoners, he thought, and winced.  He didn’t want to think about what could happen to them in the Empire’s custody.  It was hard to imagine that the Empire would honour the Moscow Accords, although they did have a habit of extending respect and care to those who fought against it in defence of their worlds.  Macore’s armed forces might have been broken and their personnel scattered, but they wouldn’t have been killed.  They hadn’t been rebels, after all, and the Empire might just shoot every rebel it caught.  That wouldn’t encourage anyone to surrender.

“Damn you,” he muttered, staring down at the datapad.  “What are we going to do now?”

It was hard, so hard, to think of anything hopeful.  He felt trapped in a morass, something that would hold him down until he died, or until the Empire came for them all and broke him out of his mental paralysis.  His faith in his own abilities had taken a savage beating – he’d never lost before, not really – and the Empire would move quickly to capitalise on its success.  It was what he would do.  They'd uncover a handful of sectors, mass their forces, and drive right on Harmony.  The rebellion might be extinguished within the year.

He looked up at the display, seeing the twinkling icons representing stars, and hurled his datapad right through the shimmering field.  It crashed into the far bulkhead, falling down onto the carpeted deck, and lay there, waiting for him.  He scowled, and then laughed; he couldn’t even throw it hard enough to break it.  Somehow, it made him feel better, even though he knew that nothing had changed.  The rebellion would have to have a second go at Morrison…and this time, it would be a disaster.

The door buzzed once.  “Come in,” Colin called, as the door hissed open.  David stepped into the room, wearing his Shadow Fleet uniform.  Colin and the triumvirate had slipped the task of designing a uniform onto delegates who might otherwise have interfered in important decisions and the results had been surprisingly good.  Where the Imperial Navy officers wore black, the Shadow Fleet crewmen wore blue.  The grapevine said that all the nice girls did indeed love a man wearing a Shadow Fleet uniform.  “What’s the current repair status?”

“We got luckier than we deserved to be,” David said, tartly.  “If a single warhead had exploded a little further into the ship…well, we’d all be playing harps by now.  It almost went off near one of the missile storage bays and if it had shattered that…”

“We were lucky,” Colin agreed.  A warhead could not, in theory, detonate without the right keying sequence, but odd things happened in the heat of battle.  If even one of the ship’s own warheads had exploded inside the ship, the results would have been disastrous.  “And the rest of the crew?”

“We located two hundred and seven bodies,” David said, flatly.  “We’re going to have to take them to a star and bury them, sir.”

“I know,” Colin said.  He didn’t feel like another ceremony, not after…he pushed the thought aside.  David was right.  It had to be done.  They owed it to the dead.  “They’re not going to like this back at Harmony.”

“They can’t blame you for the defeat,” David said, seriously.  He leaned forward, offering what help he could.  “It wasn't your fault.  Who in their right mind would have imagined a device intended to con us into thinking we were locked out of flicker-space?”

“I should have done,” Colin said, grimly.  “I knew the strengths and weaknesses of our ships…and I should have realised that they knew the same, maybe better.  I watched for exploitable flaws in the point defence and ECM and completely missed the danger of someone…”

He shook his head.  “I should have known,” he concluded.  “I wouldn’t blame them for throwing the book at me.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of giving up,” David said, sharply.  “Admiral – Colin – you made this possible.  The clearest possible sign that you’re doing the right thing is how many people have rallied to your banner.  One little defeat doesn’t automatically concede the war.  They know as well as I do that you’re the only one who can hold the Shadow Fleet together, the only man who actually did what he promised to do.”

Colin scowled.  He hadn’t been happy watching his life become a legend while he was still alive, and the thought of trading on it was…unpleasant.  He’d convinced the Rim colonies that victory was possible, when he’d captured the entire Annual Fleet, but they’d lionised him in response.  No one, not even Cordova, let alone one of the other original mutineers, could take his plan.  A single assassin might bring the entire Shadow Fleet to a halt.

“They didn’t rise up in our favour at Morrison,” he said, unwilling to abandon his gloom.  “We had hoped…”

“People don’t mutiny unless there is some chance of victory,” David said.  “I bet you that the SDs and the Security Officers had those ships and fortifications locked down tight.  I studied all the stories of the original mutiny and it’s clear that without Anderson, you would never have gotten as far as you did.  There might have been hundreds of mutinies, but none of them succeeded.  If they thought they were doomed to fail…”

Colin nodded as he trailed off.  He’d planned his own course carefully, knowing that escape and final victory were possible, but if he had thought otherwise, he would never have made his stand.  Morrison had been inhabited for over a thousand years and had a massive indigenous population, as well as the retired and active Navy Personnel…which raised another concern.  What would happen if they were all called back into service.  David was right, they might want to mutiny…but they wouldn’t risk their lives unless it was a sure thing.  It wasn't something that could be counted upon.

“I know,” he said.  He stood up.  “May I have your permission to tour your ship, Captain?”

David bowed.  It was customary for an Admiral to ask permission before inspecting a ship – although Colin had never heard of anyone actually refusing to allow the inspection, for obvious reasons – and it was one of the Imperial Navy traditions that Colin intended to keep.  He hadn’t toured the General Montgomery properly since he’d taken possession of her, back when she’d been Stacy Roosevelt’s flagship – he wondered, briefly, how she was coping back on Earth – and he regretted it.  In a very real sense, he would never command a single ship again.  Either they won the war…or the Empire would kill him.

The corridors and passageways looked the worse for wear as they walked through the damaged sections, peering out through the rents and examining the damage.  Suited repairmen worked on a dozen exposed sections, removing and replacing damaged components, while bemoaning the absence of new battle armour.  That needed a shipyard to repair – battle armour was produced by a complex procedure that required awesome amounts of power – and it would leave parts of the hull vulnerable.  They’d spliced in additional shield generators to compensate, but he was painfully aware that there were limits to how much the generators could handle.  A single explosion in the wrong place would undo all the repair work.

“Give us a month and we’ll have her as good as new,” the Chief Engineer assured them, waving one hand at the bustling repairmen.  “These lads might be new to spacer’s work, but they know almost as much as they think they do and they’re good workers.  The tricky part is repairing some of the damaged missile tubes, Admiral, but we have the support ships manufacturing the intact components now.  Overall, they should be fine once we get them all slotted into the ship.”

Colin smiled and nodded and said all the right things, before allowing David to lead him through a different part of the ship.  The sickbay staff had been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of injured crewmen and there was little point in transferring them to the other ships; they’d been just as badly hit.  The corridors outside the sickbay had been filled with stretchers and injured people, while the overworked and harassed doctors and nurses struggled to save as many as they could.  Colin saw a man who’d lost an arm, a woman – barely out of her teens – who’d been horrifically scared, and knew that they were the lucky ones.  The handful of men who’d been too close to a shield generator when it exploded would be lucky if they ever woke up.

“We had to get seventy people into the stasis tubes,” David said, softly.  There was no condemnation in his voice.  Colin would almost have welcomed a screaming fit, even though it would have been terrible for discipline.  “We ended up using the stasis fields that we normally used to hold a certain class of warhead for the injured, but there’s just so many of them.  We could heal them all, given enough time and resources, but some of them are going to die before the medical staff can get to them.”

Colin said nothing.  The Empire had the science to cure almost anything that wasn't instantly fatal, but it hadn’t always shared that with its subjects.  An Imperial Navy crewman who was seriously injured might not be healed beyond the bare necessities, or might even be abandoned by his commanding officer, who had to account for every expense.  There were worlds where ancient diseases, beaten long ago, were making a comeback…and there were those who suspected that the Empire encouraged it, merely to reduce the number of commoners.  A member of the Thousand Families might live for three hundred years; a commoner, even one in the best position outside the Families, might not live past a hundred and fifty.  

He’d sworn that the benefits of proper medical care would be available to all of his crewmen, and those who had been forced to hide along the Rim, but the disaster scene made a mockery of his promises.  Starships were rarely so badly damaged, yet allowed to retreat, and crewmen normally died in seconds.  This was torment and suffering, prolonged yet preventable…if he’d had the staff.  

I should have ordered extra stasis tubes, he thought, bitterly.  They could have suspended all of the injured in a timeless field, held inviolate until they could be brought to a planetary medical centre, but only a handful could be stored.  The remainder…would have to take their chances.  He walked among them, careful to avoid the medical staff, and spoke to some of the injured, trying to reassure them.  It was obvious, to many of them, that he was lying.  There was little hope.

“I shouldn’t leave,” he said, when they returned to his cabin.  He didn’t want to leave his ship and face the music, but there was no choice.  “I was going to take a battlecruiser, but now…I should stay here.”

“Someone has to tell the rest of the Alliance the news,” David said, firmly.  He looked around the cabin and picked up the datapad.  “If they hear it from someone else, they’ll panic.  Once you talk to them, they’ll understand that this is only a temporary setback.  Bring up the reserves, repair these ships…and then go after Morrison again.”

Colin nodded once.  “You’re right, again,” he said.  “And if we fail…?”

“We won’t fail,” David said.  “Next time, we’ll be prepared.  How many more tricks can one man have?  And besides…if we’re really lucky, they’ll shoot him for the dread crime of being too competent.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ah, to be in the High City in spring, when the stupidity is in bloom, Tiberius thought, wondering if he could get away with sending an electronic substitute to the meeting.  It probably wouldn’t pass muster for long, but it would be time enough to attend to any one of the million and one matters he had to attend to, rather than wasting his time attending a meeting where – he knew – absolutely nothing would be decided.  The ten most powerful Clans in the Empire, the Kings and Queens of an Empire that regarded all such entities as dangerous to the status quo, were ripping each other apart.  If the conflict became public knowledge…

Then maybe it would end, Tiberius said, yawning.  The sophisticated computer programs monitoring the entire conference would edit it out, as they edited out some other unfortunate details.  Rumour had it, probably untruthfully, that Lord Edison had once attended such a meeting while sleeping with his latest conquest, a serious breech of etiquette if it were actually true.  Tiberius suspected that it probably wasn't, although you never knew with any of the Committee.  They might be doing anything behind their electronic masks.

The subject, of course, was Joshua.  Tiberius’s nominee for the commanding officer of the Main Strike Fleet, and hence the Morrison Sector Fleet as well, had done something no other commander had done.  He’d won a victory against the rebels and given them a bloody nose.  The courier boats had flickered out almost as soon as the dust settled to convoy the news back to Earth, reporting the destruction of a sizable percentage of the rebel line of battle…and Joshua’s decision to grant the rebels rights under the Moscow Accords.  It was that that was the cause of all the trouble, according to the increasingly agitated Lord Roosevelt, but Tiberius knew the truth.  They were concerned because Joshua now wielded almost as much power as the Empress had done…and she’d used her power to put herself on the throne.  What would Joshua do with the power of a loyal fleet and the precedent of a victory?

“We have long had a habit of allowing some concessions to the men and women who served the worlds that were deluded into believing that they could resist the Empire,” Lord Roosevelt was saying, for the third time.  The arguments had gone round and round, which meant that no one was prepared to budge.  It wouldn’t be long before they started considering backroom deals that would assure support.  “If they survived their defiance, we allowed them to live on penal worlds, rather than simply executing them all outright.  We did not treat them as traitors.”

He was right, Tiberius supposed.  The defenders of any rediscovered isolated world were normally sent to one of the pleasanter penal worlds, although ‘pleasant’ was something of a joke.  No penal world was actually perfectly habitable, or one of the Families would have claimed it, but they would have a chance to build a world of their own, rather than told that they could live or die…and the Empire wouldn’t care.  The looters, rapists, murderers and worse that were dropped on the less pleasant penal worlds rarely survived their first year.  The Empire didn’t care.  There were always more where they came from.  The only concession the Empire made was to render them all sterile.

“But the rebels are rebels, who mutinied against their legitimate commanding officers and launched a rebellion against the Empire,” Lord Roosevelt continued.  “They launched a rebellion against us!  It will take years to repair all the damage and restore the masses to a state of…submission, aware of their place in the great scheme of things, even if the rebels all died tomorrow.  They do not deserve mercy for what they have done!”

His voice grew louder.  Every defeat the Empire suffered in Sector 117, and to a large extent the surrounding sectors as well, cost Roosevelt more of its assets.  Tiberius knew – he didn’t think that Lord Roosevelt knew that he knew – that Roosevelt was barely staying afloat, held up by loans from other Clans.  Lord Roosevelt was perhaps, even, on the verge of losing his Headship.  He had no choice, but to press for the harshest possible measures, which meant – in a paradox that made Tiberius smile – Roosevelt would get its assets back in ruins, if at all.

“And now this man, this…Admiral, that we sent out to take command offers them mercy,” he thundered.  “How dare he offer them anything of the kind?  Does he not know – was he not made aware – of our policy towards all rebels and traitors?  We should now, as a body, order him to surrender them at once to Imperial Intelligence and the SDs, who know how to deal with traitors!  Let him stick to his own sphere and win the war, while we handle the punishment of the rabble personally.”

Lord Edison smiled.  “You are proposing, then, that we go there in person?”

“They should not be granted mercy for their crimes,” Lord Roosevelt snapped.  Never a thick-skimmed personality at the best of times, the growing volley of jibes from other Heads had weakened his skin, along with his position.  “We should bring them here, to Luna, and see what they know, before we expel them out the nearest airlock.”

Lady Madeline Hohenzollern smiled her poisonous smile.  “Perhaps, as the person responsible for choosing him, the Cicero would like to offer a comment?”

Tiberius flushed, grateful that they couldn’t see that.  The rational course of action was to disown Joshua, and in doing so, seal his fate, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that.  Joshua had been a friend, a favoured uncle almost, long before he had left the High City to reside alone.  He might have doubted Joshua’s wisdom in offering limited clemency to the rebels – if that was indeed what he had done – but he wasn't going to abandon him.

“I read the report carefully,” he said, knowing that few of the others would have done so.  They would probably have had one of their staff brief them.  “The first point is that he has not granted them mercy, merely recognition under the Moscow Accords, which are still part of Imperial Law…”

“Only because no one has invoked them for hundreds of years,” Lord Roosevelt sneered.  “This…Wachter seems to delight in bringing back old customs.  First he has an Admiral executed and now the Moscow Accords.  What next?  Parliament as a free and independent check on our power?”

A rustle ran through the electronic room.  They all knew that Parliament was little more than a glorified rubber stamp, but it just wasn't done to expose it, or to discuss it so freely.  Tiberius hadn’t really understood the reluctance – after all, the Thousand Families had gelded the Parliament before it even sat for the first time – but perhaps it was purely psychological.  The Families didn’t want to think about it.

“The Moscow Accords were not, to be fair, intended to deal with a rebellion,” Tiberius conceded.  “Regardless, by invoking them, Admiral Wachter has placed us in an interesting position.  If we countermand the decision, we are going to risk the rebels taking action against our own prisoners – and us.  The Moscow Accords came into existence in a time of great unrest and upheaval and apply to all.  By using them, the rebels have bound their own hands – if we honour them as well.

“Secondly, the rebel ships surrendered because Admiral Wachter offered them his personal word that they would be treated as legitimate POWs – and not, as it were, rebels,” he continued, choosing his words carefully.  “If we countermand him, now, we will cast doubt on the authority that we – yes, we – issued him.

“Finally, if we take the prisoners and allow Imperial Intelligence to pick their brains, the rebels will be legally allowed to do the same to their own prisoners,” he concluded.  “I submit that that is not in our interests.”

Lord Roosevelt glared at him.  “And you know what our interests are?”

“I am the Cicero,” Tiberius reminded him.  “Your interests are mine.  Our priority is to end the rebellion as quickly as possible.  If it includes agreeing to treat the rebels as legitimate combatants and yes, keeping them in good conditions, then that is exactly what we should do.”  He allowed his voice to harden.  “I can imagine nothing more likely to force them to fight harder than the certain knowledge that if they fall into our hands, they die in screaming agony.”

He smiled at them all.  “This is what happens to most of Imperial Intelligence’s prisoners, isn’t it?”

“They’re deviants,” Lady Hohenzollern snapped.  Tiberius wondered, not for the first time, if she ever noticed the contradictions in her pronouncements.  She spoke often of The People, and their Duty to The People, but she knew nothing of the reality behind the Empire.  “Their punishment is good for the soul and purifies them so that they may rise to civilisation.”

There was a long pause.  Tiberius used it to think frantically.  He might have successfully diverted them from having Joshua’s decision countermanded at once, but they’d want something in exchange.  Lord Roosevelt would remain in implacable opposition, but the others…what would they want from him?

“I believe that we could accept the issue for the moment,” Lord Bolivar said, finally.  His holdings were largely on the other side of the Empire, barely touched by the mutinies, although he had been loudly insisting on keeping some of the superdreadnaught squadrons in the sector, just to prevent further trouble.  “It leads, however, to a second issue.”

He smiled coldly.  “We should order Admiral Wachter to launch an immediate offensive towards the heartland of rebel power,” he said.  A display flickered into existence at the centre of the projected room.  “If Yanasaxon and Harmony can be recovered, the remaining rebel worlds can be recovered, one by one, before we drive into the Rim to obliterate the renegades there.  The war could be within shouting distance of being won…

“And then we wouldn’t need to worry about the Moscow Accords, would we?”

Tiberius listened to the brief exchange of chatter without commenting, trying to gage who was on what side.  A month ago, they’d been panicking, convinced that the rebels were at the very gates of Earth, but now…now, they thought that the matter was settled and all that remained was the mopping up.  Lord Roosevelt and Lady Hohenzollern, of course, were on the side of an immediate offensive, but the others were being cagier.  They hadn’t reached their current positions without knowing when to keep their mouths shut and wait for someone else to commit themselves.

“This whole affair needs to be brought to an end as quickly as possible,” Lady Ngyuen said, finally.  She was a tall black woman, her skin engineered to be as dark as the night, with interests all across the Empire.  Tiberius was surprised at her stance and wondered, quickly, what kind of deals might have been made behind the scenes.  “Admiral Porter, could such an offensive succeed?”

Tiberius scowled inwardly.  Admiral Porter would give what advice he thought would keep his position secure, not real and useful advice…and any resemblance to reality would be purely coincidental.  Tiberius had read Joshua’s report carefully enough to satisfy himself, but the others either hadn’t read it or didn’t believe it.  Worse, it could be a political ploy.  If they hit Joshua with an impossible demand, one that he couldn’t satisfy…they’d have an excuse to get rid of him.

“I have analysed the information on rebel fleet numbers,” Porter said, slowly.  Tiberius could almost hear his brain ticking over as he tried to decide what he should say.  “It is possible that the rebel fleet was effectively destroyed.”

“Come on,” Lord Bolivar said, crossly.  “Four squadrons of superdreadnaughts escaped the firestorm at Morrison.  That does not sound destroyed to me.”

“No, My Lord,” Porter agreed.  “However, it is clear from the sensor data that most of those ships were badly damaged…and it is almost certain that the squadrons were scattered.  Some of those ships will require time in a shipyard before they can be returned to the front lines.  The nearest such facilities are at Yanasaxon and they will be overwhelmed by so many starships requiring assistance.”

He smiled, thinly.  “Morrison is strongly held,” he added.  “The Main Strike Fleet could be deployed, now, in an offensive role.”

“That seems to be clear enough,” Lord Roosevelt said.  “We should launch an offensive, now.”

Tiberius held up a hand.  “There are other considerations,” he said.  “The Main Strike Fleet was badly damaged itself in the fighting.  Admiral Wachter has requested reinforcements and, now that we have given the rebels a bloody nose, we can afford to free up additional battle squadrons.”

“Out of the question,” Lord Bolivar said, firmly.  “Do you know how many sectors might explode into rebellion if those superdreadnaughts are withdrawn?”

“They can be held down with battlecruisers and even cruisers,” Tiberius snapped back.  “We don’t need the superdreadnaughts to keep them in line!”

“There are other considerations, as you well know,” Lady Ngyuen said.  “If Admiral Porter believes that an advance is possible, then it is possible.”

“Do you even believe that?”  Tiberius asked her, angrily.  “If Admiral Wachter believes it can’t be done, shouldn’t we listen to him?”

The discussion broke down into a bitter argument.  Tiberius could understand their point – and their paranoia.  Joshua, deliberately or otherwise, had excluded most of the spies from his meetings…and had relieved a number of their clients.  Admiral D'Ammassa and a handful of others had been executed…and that worried them.  The people who were meant to keep an eye on troublesome commanders – and that very definitely included Joshua – were being blinded…at the worst possible moment.

“Perhaps I could propose a compromise,” Lady Mecklinbourgh said, finally.  She was old enough to be respected, even by the other Heads, who weren't known for respecting anyone.  “I propose that we send the reinforcements, but place someone else in command.  Admiral Allmanritter, perhaps.”

“One of your clients,” Lord Roosevelt said.  “Does he have the capability to actually work side-by-side with Admiral Wachter?”

“If there are problems, they won’t come from him,” Lady Mecklinbourgh assured them.  “I propose that we give him the 2nd Main Strike Fleet, using units drawn from…”

“Not from Home Fleet,” Lord Edison injected.  “We have stripped Home Fleet of too many units already.  We have to guarantee our own safety, if nothing else.”

Lord Rothschild smiled.  “Perhaps we should offer Admiral Wachter the post of Jupiter Defence Commander,” he said.  “It could hardly be argued that it was a demotion, but it would put him out of the way, wouldn’t it?”

Tiberius frowned.  The post of Jupiter Defence Commander sounded impressive, but in reality all of the serious business was handled by Home Fleet and the CNO.  It was a meaningless post and Joshua would hate it.  It would prevent him from trying to place himself on the throne, but it would also ensure that he wouldn’t be able to continue the war against the rebels.  For all the bombast, Tiberius was uneasily aware that the rebels weren't beaten yet.  They might have more tricks up their sleeves.

Lord Edison seemed to agree.  “I propose that we consider it and meet again in a day,” he said.  “It seems an appropriate moment for a break, doesn’t it?”

Tiberius frowned as the simulation ended and he crashed back into his own body, sitting in his office.  He hadn’t expected so much bile, which in hindsight was naive of him, but he hadn’t allowed for how scared the Heads had become…of Joshua.  The rebels had taken a bloody nose, but now…now they had someone else to fear.  It wouldn’t be easy to remove Joshua, unless he cooperated, and that terrified them.  A skilled commander, a loyal fleet and subordinates…

Why, it was almost like the Empress all over again.

***
“Young pup,” Lord Roosevelt growled, as he disconnected from the simulation and returned to his own body.  It was easy to hate the Cicero, even though he was young for his role; after all, the Cicero Family had made its mark in shipbuilding.  They would always have a market for their products, while Roosevelt and the other Clans that dealt in land suffered under the fickle winds of fortune.  Three years ago, he had known that Roosevelt was on the verge of reaching new heights, but now…now, Roosevelt was on the verge of collapse.

The mere thought sent trickles of fear down his spine.  A Clan – a combination of Families – had never collapsed before.  No one knew what would happen.  Indeed, part of the reason why other Clans were extending Roosevelt credit was because they were scared, not without reason, of the possible consequences.  Lord Roosevelt had run simulations of the possible result, but even the most optimistic had been depressing.  The Clan was on the verge of total collapse…and it might take the Empire with it.

“Hamya,” he bellowed, angrily. “Get in here at once!”

The maid entered the room, her eyes lowered and dropped to one knee in front of him.  He’d bought her and a dozen others from the Cicero Clan – the young hypocrite – and had had them reprogrammed to his personal specifications.  They had no choice, but to do as he told them to do, whatever he wanted.  They were far safer than any of the Family women, but they were boring.

“Massage my neck, now,” he ordered, sharply.  The pleasure slave stood up as he swung his chair around, allowing her to touch his neck.  She'd been trained in all the pleasurable arts and her touch was magic.  He smiled as she started to work out some of the kinks, thinking of all the things they could do together, after he’d had a bath to wash the politics off his skin…

He was still smiling when she snapped his neck like a twig.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Homestead was a nowhere world, a colony that had barely begun life when the rebellion began and the Freedom Alliance came into being.  The colonists, mainly debt peons who’d been shipped out as involuntary settlers rather than willing colonists, had been delighted at the chance to overthrow their masters and join the rebels, but Homestead had little to offer the war.  A handful of former Imperial Navy crewmen and soldiers left to join the Shadow Fleet, but the remainder of the colony was untouched by the war.  There was little reason to attack the world.

The nine battlecruisers roared out of flicker-space, shields and weapons already snapping into combat status, while launching probes towards the planet.  On the bridge of the flagship, Dark Shadow, Commodore Sooraya Qadir watched dispassionately as the display began to fill up.  There was little on the planet itself that was worth the effort of destroying, but the orbital lanes were a different matter.  Homestead was perfectly placed to serve as a shipping hub and, without the taxes and tithes of the Empire, business was booming.

“Take us in,” she ordered, as she examined the sensor readings.  As she had hoped, and expected, there was nothing in orbit that could pose a challenge, let alone a threat, to her battlecruisers.  The rebels hadn’t stationed a superdreadnaught squadron on guard duty, or even a flight of battlecruisers, merely a pair of cruisers and a dozen older ships that looked to have come from the Rim.  “Lock weapons on targets of convenience and prepare to fire.”

Sooraya wasn't blind to the faults of the Empire, but those who rebelled were incapable, for all sorts of reasons, for seeing the good it had done.  She had grown up on New Kabul – so named because no one had ever been able to get two sides to agree on a name – and, as a female child, had known that her destiny was marriage to someone and endless submission to his will.  Her father would choose her husband and he would dominate her life, while if she ever tried to strike out on her own…well, there were the punishment rituals for those who got uppity.  The Federation had tried to solve the ‘Afghanistan Problem’ by dumping everyone they caught on a far-off world…and the Empire had solved the civil war by dropping rocks on the heads of anyone stupid enough to want to fight.

And they’d enforced their own rules, if only to remind the inhabitants who was in charge.  They took male and female candidates for the Imperial Navy and, when she’d turned fourteen and her wedding date already set, Sooraya had slipped out of the house and enlisted.  She’d never seen her father again and sometimes wondered, in the darkness of space, what had become of them.  He’d probably assumed that she’d been kidnapped and raped, before being killed…and after all, she was only a girl.  If it hadn’t been for the Empire, she would probably have been dead by now, or trapped in a loveless marriage.  The rebels might have had a point about how corrupt the Thousand Families were, or how hard it was for anyone to progress without connections, but they had no idea how lucky they were.  Sooraya thanked God five times a day that she’d been able to escape the prison of her life.

She’d worked so hard to pass the exams that she’d been granted a place at the famed Academy and her career had been assured.  She hadn’t expected command of a squadron – she didn’t have any patrons who might have arranged for her to be promoted – but the previous commander had run afoul of Joshua and had been sent back to Earth in disgrace.  Sooraya suspected that the rebels would be cursing that decision soon enough.  Her previous commander had either been working for them outright or he’d been an idiot.

“Weapons locked on target,” the tactical officer said, dispassionately.  He wouldn’t have been bothered by the sudden appearance of a superdreadnaught.  Judging from the limited defences around Homestead, barely enough to deter a pirate raid, the rebels had considered it a safe rear area.  The automated platforms wouldn’t last a minute when she started shooting.  “Two of the older ships are attempting to leave the gravity shadow and escape.”

Sooraya watched their vectors on the display and couldn’t find fault with his conclusions.  She’d read the intelligence reports on the Volunteer Fleet carefully – Imperial Intelligence still maintained some contacts out along the Rim – and had been impressed with the discipline they’d shown, although she wasn't surprised that some of them were running.  It was one thing to engage an equal opponent, or a weaker one, and to match ship against ship, but engaging a vastly superior battlecruiser squadron was suicide.  She was more surprised that the others continued to close in on her ships, buying time for the freighters to escape…if they could.

“Open channels,” she ordered.  The communications officer nodded once.  “Attention, this is the Imperial Navy.  You are ordered to deactivate your drives, shields and weapons, or we will open fire.  There will be no further warning.”

She looked over at the communications officer.  At such range, it would be bare seconds before the enemy heard the message, and less than a minute before any reply reached her ship.  Three minutes ticked slowly past, but no reply was received, and the Volunteer Fleet kept moving towards their targets.  The tactical display was even picking up targeting sensors now, although that was a surprise.  Her battlecruisers weren't even trying to hide.

They want to make a fight of it, she thought, wryly.  They were just entering her missile range now, but they were holding their fire.  The only way they could damage her ships, unless one of them was an arsenal ship in disguise, was to close to energy range and hammer away at her hull.  None of the observed ships were large enough to serve as arsenal ships, but they seemed confident…or perhaps they were trying to bluff her.  If she had fled, the rebels would have taken heart.

“Open fire when we cross the two-minute mark,” she ordered calmly, and settled back in her command chair.  The Empire had taken an illiterate girl from one of the world worlds in human-settled space and turned her into a starship commander.  She wouldn’t betray it, even if she never rose any higher…and under Joshua, competence was actually rewarded.  If he had wanted to place himself on the throne, Sooraya would have followed him with a song on her lips.  “There’s no need for any further messages.”

The battlecruiser shuddered as she launched her first spread of missiles, targeted on the lead rebel ship.  Sooraya watched, calculating, as the missiles raced towards their targets, forming up into a cone formation that bore down on the unhappy target.  The rebel ships opened fire a second later, their broadsides pitifully weak compared to her ships, but all focused on Dark Shadow.  The irony of her ship’s name was not lost on her.

“We have seventy missiles inbound,” the tactical officer said, calmly.  Sooraya nodded.  If Dark Shadow had been alone, that might even have done some damage.  Even the bravery of fools was still bravery, although if Sooraya had been that outclassed, she liked to think that she would have beaten a retreat.  Joshua had ordered her to avoid anything that might actually seriously damage her ships.  They were light years from the nearest friendly repair yard.  If they were damaged in rebel space, they would almost certainly have no choice, but to surrender.  “The point defence network is online and ready to engage.”

“Fire at will,” Sooraya ordered.

The tactical officer cracked one of his rare jokes.  “Who’s Will?”

Sooraya gave him a reproving look – the joke hadn’t been funny the first time it had been invented, back long before the Empire – and turned her attention to the display.  The rebel ships had, she was surprised to see, a semi-working point defence network, although they didn’t have the mounted weapons to take full advantage of it.  They were also facing vastly more missiles, forcing them to cover each ship individually, rather than linking together and combining all of their firepower.  Her missiles started to slam home, swatting down shields and blasting through hulls…and, when they were done, all, but three of the rebel ships had been destroyed.

Dark Shadow’s point defence went to rapid fire as the missiles roared in towards her, joined seconds later by the remainder of the squadron.  She tensed, expecting a missile to break through the defences and strike her ship, but instead the last missile was burned out of space mere kilometres from her hull.  Her ship hadn’t even been touched!

“Nicely done,” she said.  The three remaining rebel starships were still bearing in on her flagship.  “Target the remaining ships and take them out.”

The battlecruiser shivered again as she fired a second spread of missiles.  Ironically, the rebel point defence hadn’t been significantly degraded past its prior performance, although that was because it had been forced to cover too many ships.  The Imperial Navy would have covered the flagship first, but the rebels seemed to be more democratic about it.  In this case, it had cost them…just as it had cost the people of her world.  There were times when protecting the flag was all-important.

“Targets destroyed,” the tactical officer said, calmly.

“I'm picking up a transmission from the planet,” the communications officer injected.  “I think they want to discuss surrender terms.”

“Ignore it,” Sooraya said.  She would have loved to occupy the planet, but by now the rebels would have managed to get a message out of the system, bringing reinforcements to Homestead.  They’d have to trap her first and that wasn't going to be easy, as long as she was careful.  Staying at one place would ensure her destruction.  “Stand by to record.”

The communications officer nodded.  “This is the Imperial Navy,” Sooraya said, pushing as much grim resolve into her voice as she could.  “Your orbital installations are within my missile envelope and I intend to destroy them.  I will give you ten minutes to evacuate them down to the planet, then I will sweep orbital space clear of anything manmade, along with anyone remaining on the platforms.  There will be no further warnings.”

She looked up at the display.  “Tactical, plot us a course to engage the fleeing ships,” she ordered.  One of them would be outside the gravity shadow by the time they could overhaul it – there was no point in wasting time chasing it – but the others and the commercial ships would still be vulnerable.  They were all legitimate targets and she intended to destroy them all.  “Engage!”

The squadron separated as the ships spread out, picking off freighters with dispassionate glee.  Sooraya watched the deployment absently, glancing from time to time at the main display as the orbital facilities, such as they were, were evacuated.  Roosevelt had once had grand plans for Homestead – the inhabitants, of course, would never see any of the money – and they’d started an investment program, but it had come to a halt with the rebellion.  They’d barely managed to construct a handful of facilities; they certainly hadn’t brought any asteroids into orbit.  That was almost a relief.  Homestead’s planetary defence system was barely capable of handling a disaster if the asteroid were to be nudged out of orbit.

She glanced down at the timer and smiled thinly.  “All units, target the orbital facilities and open fire,” she ordered.  A spread of missiles were launched within seconds.  She watched dispassionately as they spread down towards the orbital platforms, which attempted to defend themselves valiantly, but a handful made it through to destroy them.  One by one, they were blown into chunks of debris, which fell down towards the planet’s atmosphere.  None of them were large enough to impact on the ground.

The Mosssque, she thought, remembering a lecture back at the Academy.  Like humanity, the Mosssque had gone through a period of tension amid threats of nuclear war, but unlike humanity they’d taken the war into space and built hundreds of orbital defences.  When war had finally come, the wreckage of the combined defences had effectively locked them out of space for hundreds of years…and the Empire had arrived before they’d had a chance to escape the trap.  The technology on Homestead, assuming they had a shuttle or two hidden down on the surface, would suffice to regain access to space, but it was still impressive.  They were going to be cursing her name.

“The orbital facilities have been destroyed,” the tactical officer said, finally.  “The squadron is requesting orders.”

“I think its time to take our leave,” Sooraya said.  “Set course for the asteroids.”

The battlecruisers rose up slowly, leaving the planet behind as they slipped out of the gravity shadow and into flicker-space.  Sooraya felt her chest clench, again, as they burst in and out of flicker-space, the entire trip barely taking seconds before they arrived at their target.  Homestead had only a tiny asteroid belt, orbiting out past the fifth planet, but it was inhabited.  The entire mining project was a waste of money, according to the records, until Homestead developed the sort of industries that could make use of it, but Roosevelt had been insistent.  It made her wonder what secret deals had been made between the Clans.

“The habitat is dead ahead,” the tactical officer said.  Sooraya nodded.  It wasn't easy to recognise an asteroid habitat with passive sensors, but it was radiating energy into the night.  It wasn't trying to hide, not like the black colonies out along the Rim, which used every trick in the book to pass unnoticed.  She’d even heard rumours of asteroid miners accidentally damaging black colonies they hadn’t realised were there, although that seemed a little unlikely.  “They are attempting to lock weapons on us.”

Sooraya didn’t hesitate.  “Open fire,” she ordered.  The asteroid opened fire at the same instant, launching a spread of missiles from an automated deployed missile pod.  Her point defence crews swatted them down before they could reach her ships, while the single spread of missiles she’d launched slammed into the asteroid and shattered the rocky mantle covering the habitations.  The asteroid was too large to be destroyed by a single spread of missiles, but with its integrity broken, its spin tore it apart.

Rebels and traitors, Sooraya thought, angrily.  The asteroid’s death was slow, but inevitable.  It spun to generate gravity, rather than using a gravity generator, and when she’d punched through it’s mantle, the spin started to tear it apart.  Air, water and people fell out through the rents into the unforgiving cold of space, while a handful lucky enough to have spacesuits nearby knew that their doom had only been delayed.  They would run out of air long before any help could reach them.  She almost felt sorry for them, but they had chosen to take up arms against the Empire…

“Take us out of here,” she ordered, as the silence on the bridge grew louder.  She didn’t want her crews thinking about what they’d just done.  Space was the most unforgiving environment humanity knew and they’d condemned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to certain death in the cold.  It was one thing to kill enemy personnel who had their own starships and were trying to kill her, but helpless civilians…?

It had to be done, she reminded herself, as the squadron flickered out to the first waypoint.  She’d picked it at random, the only way to ensure that the rebels didn’t anticipate her movements and set a trap, and left her freighters and destroyers there.  She’d sent three of the destroyers to scout out likely targets, but if the rebels detected them, they’d move forces into a position to intercept her.  Indeed, she was seriously considering not going after any of the scouted systems at all.  The enemy wouldn’t even be able to use her scouts to bait a trap.

“Stand down from battle stations,” she ordered, as they returned to normal space.  If the rebels had some way of locating them in interstellar space…well, they’d be dead.  There was little point in maintaining a watch somewhere so far from the nearest star.  Even the entire Imperial Fleet was tiny on such a scale.  “I want a full report on missile consumption and then suggestions as to how we can make our stocks last longer.”

She considered it carefully.  It would only be three days before news of their raid reached Harmony.  The rebels would know about her then and they would have to either allow her to blow hell through the undefended systems or redeploy to face her.  Unlike their squadrons, back before Harmony had fallen, she couldn’t count on the Rim as a source of support, but she’d brought enough missiles and other supplies along to keep her going for a while.  The rebels didn’t have the ICN, so how long would it be until their worlds all knew about the Empire’s raiding ships?

It would drive them mad with frustration, she decided.  She couldn’t be caught until she attacked a system, and they wouldn’t know what system she was going to attack in advance, so they would have to guard all systems and spread their units so thin that any counterattack from Morrison would have a much easier time of it.  Joshua would be launching an attack soon, if the rebels hadn’t blown him out of Morrison…and even if they had, she would prevent them from reaching Earth.  They wouldn’t know what had hit them.

“Signal to all hands,” she ordered, thoughtfully.  “Well done.  The counterattack has begun…and soon enough we will recover all that they stole.”

And, she thought, in the privacy of her own head, if I play a major role in the counterattack, they will give me what I want in exchange. 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“There’s an Imperial envoy here?”

Colin had returned to Harmony only thirty minutes ago, but the other two members of the triumvirate had hauled him in at once for an emergency meeting.  He’d suspected that they’d heard something about the defeat – nothing seemed to move faster in the Empire than bad news – but instead it was about the envoy.

Daria nodded once.  “They arrived two weeks ago,” she said.  Colin did a mental calculation in his head and realised that they had to have been dispatched before the Battle of Morrison.  “They claim to come with a mandate from the Cicero Family and have spoken to almost everyone who is everyone in the Freedom Alliance.  Their door is always open and, I fear, too many of their former subjects have gone to pay them homage.”

Blondel glared at her.  “I cannot prevent representatives from talking to the Imperial Ambassadors,” she said.  “Once they hear about the defeat at Morrison, some of them will be looking for a way out of the war.”

“I reviewed the recordings of your official meetings with the envoys,” Daria said, calmly.  “They spoke to you for hours and said not one thing of any substance.  Where the Rim could have an entire treaty lined up by now, they said nothing beyond vague promises.  How much authority do they even have?”

It was, Colin decided, a very important question.  The Cicero Family was one of the most important and powerful in the Empire, but they wouldn’t be negotiating for anyone, but themselves.  Even if Parliament – which meant the Families – authorised negotiations, Colin wasn't sure how far they could go.  Roosevelt wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than mass slaughter of the rebels, while the other Clans would be less interested…but would also want to make sure that nothing like it ever happened again.  It wasn't as if the rebels could depart en masse for the Rim.

“That’s something they have been vague about,” Blondel admitted, icily.  She came from a tradition where envoys and ambassadors had precisely designated lines of authority and knew their limits.  The Empire, by contrast, was quite capable of ‘renegotiating’ agreements to suit it afterwards.  The Freedom Alliance might get a very handsome offer from the Empire, only to discover, a year afterwards, that they had been conned.  “If they speak only for Cicero…”

“They might have been set up by their superiors,” Colin said, wishing that he knew more about the internal politics of the Families.  “If the Empire actually wins the war, ten gets you twenty that they will be disowned by their Family and treated as pariahs for making any agreements.  Or, perhaps, it’s an attempt to get on our good side…”

“We have a good side?”  Daria asked, wryly.  She smiled, drawing all attention to herself.  “That’s not the question, Colin; the question is simple.  Can we still win the war?”

Colin scowled.  “We left Morrison’s fleet as badly battered as our own,” he said.  “A smart Admiral would not be launching any offensives until he had been reinforced, or at least had time to lick his wounds.  They’d have to go gunning for Yanasaxon anyway, just to get some bases, unless they’ve built up a new fleet train…”

“They may not need to worry,” Blondel said.  She looked down at the table.  “We all know that this war has a political dimension, between worlds like Macore that were invaded and crushed by the Empire, and worlds like Pollack that were merely slave factories, and worlds like Amish that were hardly touched at all.  Macore is willing to make nearly any sacrifice to win the war and remove the Empire permanently, but can the same be said of the others?”

“You mean they would prefer to have the Empire’s boot on their back then continue the war,” Daria said, dryly.  “That’s not an option for the Rim, I fear.”

“No,” Blondel agreed.  “Of course, that asks a second question; who exactly have we allied with to win the war?  Former pirates, smugglers, renegades and – no offence, Colin – traitors.”

“None taken,” Colin said, kindly.

“There are worlds out there that are feeling naked already,” Blondel said.  “When the news of the defeat leaks out into the communications network, such as it is, they will fear for their own safety.  It’s one thing to be under a few dozen heavy fortresses, backed up by a pair of superdreadnaught squadrons, but another to be without any defences at all…and that is the state of most of our worlds…”

“And there is another point,” she continued, remorselessly.  “Sector 117 was largely dependent on Pollack and other sources for some vital supplies.  Those supplies have now been diverted to the war effort.  We’re setting up other shipyards and production plants as fast as we can, but we can’t put them in undefended systems – we might as well blow them up ourselves.  That leaves us with dozens of worlds and billions of people wondering if the war is being fought for them, or for the new junta at Harmony.”

Colin stared at her.  “They can’t have forgotten the Empire so quickly,” he protested.  “They’re still out there…”

“I know,” Blondel said.  “The point is that they’re starting to wonder how much actual…authority they have, or if we’re running the entire show.”

Daria shrugged.  “Not to be rude about this,” she said, “but how much can those worlds contribute?”

“They think that we’re depriving them of the right to contribute in a meaningful manner,” Blondel said.  “Oh, we’ve recruited thousands upon thousands of crewmen, soldiers and workers from their worlds, but that’s nothing physical.  They want solid proof that we are committed to our ideals…”

“And that’s exactly what we can’t give them,” Colin said, flatly.  He looked up at the display, showing the Freedom Alliance-controlled sectors.  “I understand your point, but almost all of our worlds are vulnerable to attack from the Empire.  We could build a new production plant at one of the undefended worlds, only to see it blown up when the Empire finally launches counterattacks into our space.  We don’t have the ships and resources to defend all of the vulnerable worlds, because if we lose Yanasaxon, Harmony, Pollack and a handful of others…game over.  We’re screwed.”

“I understand that,” Blondel said.  “I might never have served in the military, but I understand basic logistics.  The problem is that the great masses of people…don’t.”

She sighed.  “You’ve been out with the fleet, raiding the Empire,” she said.  “I’ve been trying to handle the delegates and…well, it’s not easy.  Now that resistance has firmed up along the front lines, it’s harder to get more of our people into positions where they can take over from the inside.  As long as the Empire remains in control of the high orbitals, we can’t risk launching an insurgency on any of those worlds.

“But the Socialists and Democrats don’t understand that.  They want to move at once to a genuine People’s War, never mind the fact it won’t win us the war.  Worse, those of them who think the war is over want to start arguing about issues in the constitution…I’ve managed to keep most of the useful idiots away from the leavers of power, such as they are, but…”

She tapped the table sharply.  “The bottom line is that the Freedom Alliance is in danger of splintering,” she said.  “There’s a faction that wants to continue the war, there’s a faction that wants to seek a peace agreement with the Empire and dozens of other little factions that want to be in charge.  You’re lucky you didn’t get some of the Socialist cadres they wanted to send out to…educate your crewmen in historical inevitability and the dictatorship of the people.”

Colin rolled his eyes.  “I doubt that they would get very far,” he said.  “You can’t run a starship on democratic principles.  There has to be unity of command and a duly-appointed commander.”

“I'm not arguing,” Blondel said.  “I expect, however, that the argument will be pushed forward as strongly as possible at the Committee meeting tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Colin said.  In the absence of a representative government, the day-to-day running of the Freedom Alliance had remained in the hands of the Committee, now numbering twenty-one members.  Considerable power had been devolved back to the individual planets, forcing them to stand on their own feet or suffer, but Blondel had a point.  Some of them would want change, change in how the Freedom Alliance was run.  “I'm not looking forward to it.”

He stood up.  “I think I'm going to take a break,” he said.  It would have been nice to take a proper holiday – he remembered Paradise Rest with a smile, although his tastes were very different – but he couldn’t leave the Shadow Fleet for so long.  “We’ll convene again later today and decide on a united strategy for tomorrow.”

Daria followed him as he left the meeting room.  “Salgak wants to talk to you,” she said, as they walked back to his cabin.  “It seems he has something he wants to show off.”

“I see,” Colin said.  The Geeks had performed miracles before, perhaps they would again.  He doubted, however, that they would come up with a silver bullet.  Miracle weapons rarely worked as well in the field as they promised.  “I’ll talk to him tomorrow, all right?”

“Of course,” Daria said.  She gave him one of her menacingly erotic smiles.  “Have a good night’s sleep and a proper breakfast and you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Yes, mother,” Colin said, as she laughed.  “Goodnight.”

He didn’t go to sleep as soon as he was alone.  Instead, he keyed his communicator and summoned Anderson to his office, while skimming through some of the reports that had built up in his absence.  He’d once sworn to rid the Shadow Fleet of paperwork, but the reality was that the paperwork was all that kept the fleet going, even though most of it barely required a glance.  The legacy of the Imperial Navy was like a millstone around their collective neck, sometimes.

Anderson hadn’t changed, he was relieved to discover, although he looked as tired as Colin felt.  “Welcome back,” he said, seriously.  “Just how bad was it?”

“Bad,” Colin said, flatly.  It wasn't something he wanted to discuss until he’d decided on a replacement plan for Morrison.  Admiral Wachter had to be knocked out of commission before he mounted a counter-offensive and started driving the rebels back.  “Tell me about the envoys.”

Anderson didn’t look surprised at the question, but then…it was something that Colin definitely needed to know about.  “There are two of them,” he said.  “Lady Gwendolyn Cicero and Lord Pompey Cicero, both registered against the Family Gene Bank.  I had both of them covertly checked out and they’re both the real thing, representatives from the Families.”

Colin nodded thoughtfully.  It was thoroughly illegal, with an automatic sentence to a penal world, to pose as a member of the Families.  Anyone claiming to represent the Families would be checked against the DNA records and any fakes would be swiftly detected and arrested.  It wasn't unknown for people to pose as Family members for brief periods, but never long enough to be checked against the register.  No one – at least no one in the Empire – could alter DNA to the point where it would fool a medical scanner.

“Their ship – registered, by the way, to the Cicero Family – was searched twice when they arrived,” Anderson continued.  “The searchers were through – I went along, wearing a Marine uniform – and found nothing of particular interest.  There were a handful of basic weapons, a set of extremely high grade computers and little else, apart from some borderline illegal drugs.  The Prime Minister forbade further searches of their ship – it serves as an embassy as far as she is concerned – but overall, I don’t believe that they managed to obtain anything dangerous on the asteroid habitat.”

“No real weapons,” Colin said, thoughtfully.  “That’s…interesting.”

“It suggests that their mission doesn’t enjoy the complete sanction of the Families,” Anderson said.  “Their ship is armed, but barely enough to deter a gunboat, while they could have probably travelled on a battlecruiser if they had felt the need.  It wouldn’t have been any slower than the pleasure boat.  It could be that they are regarded as expendable.”

Colin had already come to that conclusion.  “I know,” he said.  He peered at the display for a long moment.  “What have they been doing since they arrived?”

Anderson took control of the display and projected an image of a tall blonde girl, hauntingly beautiful, and a stockier younger man.  She looked as if she was barely out of her teens, while he was aiming for the more mature look, but Colin knew that appearances could be deceiving.  The Families had access to the most advanced and sophisticated cosmetic devices in the Empire.

“Lady Gwendolyn Cicero is their Ambassador,” Anderson said.  “She met with the Prime Minister for several days after she arrived and…well, the talks got nowhere.  They were all openly recorded and transcribed, but no one actually said anything of real importance.  She has an entry in Who’s Who and is listed as the current leader of the Second Tier of the Cicero Family, whatever that means, as well as a list of qualifications.  There was hardly anything in the Imperial Intelligence database about her.

“Lord Pompey Cicero, on the other hand, stays firmly in the background,” he continued.  “There’s very little on him in Who’s Who, but Imperial Intelligence actually has a small record of him, implying that he served briefly with us – them.  I don’t know what he actually did, or why, but logic suggests that he went on to work for his Clan directly.  He’s the only assistant, aide and go-getter that Lady Gwendolyn Cicero has…”

“There’s only two of them?”  Colin asked.  Percival had had a private staff of his own, as had most of the others from the Families.  They didn’t like having to rough it with the rest of the commoners in the Imperial Navy.  “No aides, no pleasure slaves, no…”

“None,” Anderson confirmed.  “I suppose they might have hidden a person or two on the ship, but I don’t see how the Marines missed it.  They opened up and explored all the compartments carefully.  It wasn’t even built for smuggling.”

He shrugged.  “I’ve monitored their movements closely,” he added.  “They spend some time in the park every day, apparently just walking and relaxing.  Apart from that, and their inconclusive meetings with the Prime Minister, they’ve played host to almost everyone who is anyone on their ship.  They’ve had Representatives, Socialists, Democrats and even a particular member of the Shadow Fleet.”

It wasn't hard to guess who.  “Cordova,” Colin said.  Anderson nodded.  “Do you know why, or what they discussed?”

“I haven’t been able to get a bug inside their ship, so short of actually hauling Cordova in for a proper interrogation session…no,” Anderson admitted.  “I do know that he spent roughly two hours on the ship, but the Socialist Leader spent three hours, while the Democrat stayed for only half an hour.  Some of them chattered about it afterwards, but mostly they talked about…well, nothing.  I doubt that there’s any room for negotiation between them.”

He paused.  “There was one odd point, though,” he added, almost as if he didn’t want to think about it.  “Lady Gwendolyn Cicero actually visited Daria in person.”

Colin blinked.  “Daria?”

“Yes, on her own as well – Pompey wasn't invited along,” Anderson said.  “I don’t know what they discussed, again.  She visited Daria on one of the Freebooter league ships for nearly an hour, and then returned to her ship.  I mention this because only Daria and the Prime Minister have been honoured with a personal visit.  The remainder of the people they met had to go to their ship.”

“I see,” Colin said.  He studied their images for a further moment, trying to penetrate their minds.  What were they doing if they weren't serious about peace talks?  If they had gone to see Daria…but Daria was one of the triumvirate.  She had every right to be consulted.  “Have you picked up anything else about their activities?”

“Nothing in particular,” Anderson said.  “There’s a great deal of grumbling about how the ambassadors haven’t seen everyone…and a lot of suspicion about who is going to be first to sell out who.  It could be that their real purpose is to cause dissent and trouble, or maybe…well, they want to split the Freedom Alliance.  If they actually had something to bargain with…”

“Or they could be spying,” Colin said.  In his experience, most diplomatic missions were covers for spying missions, although the Empire rarely bothered with diplomacy.  “Have you considered that?”

“They don’t have any spying equipment as far as we can tell, beyond the basic counter-surveillance systems,” Anderson said.  “I suppose they could monitor ship movements with passive sensors, but they could do the same with a cloaked destroyer lurking in the outer system and we wouldn’t have the slightest idea it was there.  We even gave them an internal docking bay to prevent laser transmission, just in case.”

“Clever,” Colin said.  Anderson beamed.  “What the hell are they playing at?”

“I did have one thought,” Anderson said.  “I’m not an expert on the Thousand Families and what little information I do have access to, even here, is useless pap.  However, it did occur to me that we have access to an expert on the Thousand Families.”

“Cordova?”

“No,” Anderson said.  He looked embarrassed when Colin lifted an eyebrow.  “I’m not sure we could trust his answers.  Even if he thinks he’s telling the truth, and I don’t trust him, it was years since he was at the High City.  I was thinking of Lady Kathy.”

“Very clever,” Colin agreed.  He had forgotten her.  She had become one of the Freedom Alliance and her past had been almost forgotten.  “I’ll speak to her in the morning.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“How much do you know about the Thousand Families?”

Colin considered the question thoughtfully, and then turned to the speaker.  Kathy Tyler, once Lady Kathy of the Tyler Family, had blossomed since joining the rebellion.  She wasn’t conventionally pretty, even though he had to admit that she had a fantastic smile, but everyone loved her.  Anderson’s reports had made it clear that, far from abusing her position for her own gain, Kathy had worked hard to streamline production for the war effort.  She was probably the only member of the Thousand Families who had actually earned respect from those who lived out along the Rim.

And she was Cordova’s lover.  The Rim wouldn’t care about that, not when someone stood or fell on their own merits, but Colin wondered why they were attracted to each other.  Cordova had spent years along the Rim, cut off by his own choice from the Thousand Families and those he’d once called friends, even though he had had little choice.  They came from the same circles, shared the same upbringing…was it just two people brought together, or was it something more sinister?

“Pretend I don’t know anything,” Colin said.  He’d studied Percival’s position in considerable detail, ever since he had first realised what kind of person Percival was, but so much of the Thousand Families were hidden from view.  The scandal pages might comment, from time to time, on the doings of the Families, particularly the younger and less influential members, but it was hard to find reliable information.  The Families guarded their secrets well.  “Start at the beginning and go on from there.”

Kathy took a sip of her coffee while she considered it.  “All right,” she said, with a sudden laugh.  “I hope you’ve got several hours free.  This is the short version.”

She paused dramatically.  “The first thing you have to know is that there aren’t exactly a thousand of the Families,” she said.  “The last time I was anywhere near a position to know…well, there were a thousand and six semi-independent entities that might be regarded as part of the Thousand Families.  The exact definition of a Family is a little vague, but there is a hazy area where some of the most powerful commoners can make the jump into the Families.  Don’t think of them as common commoners; these are people who have parlayed patronage and great wealth into positions of power.  As far as you’re concerned, the justification for the rebellion remains intact.”

“And thank God for that,” Colin said, dryly.  He’d known that some commoners could rise high, but it involved toadying to the Thousand Families…and, as someone with ambitions and real competence, he would always have been a threat.  “Why are they just called the Thousand Families?”

Kathy shrugged.  “It’s a nice round number,” she said, dryly.  “When the Families came out into the open and took control of the Federation, they absorbed a considerable number of other ruling classes from across the Federation, so it’s hard to say exactly where the line is drawn.  The oldest Families can trace their heritage right back to the pre-space days, although no one is quite sure how much of it is actually true.  Far too much of our history has been wiped or altered to suit their version of the truth.

“Anyway…the Families all control vast amounts of assets,” she continued.  “Cicero, for example, owns over half the shipyards in the Empire and has a vast research and development section looking into ways to improve their products, although they have been prevented from developing a monopoly.  Roosevelt, as you know, prefers to invest in colonies and industrial production stations, such as Pollack.  Bernadotte and Rothschild made their main mark in banking, although like all the Families…”

She shook her head suddenly.  “All of these are generalisations,” she added, thoughtfully.  “There are stereotypes about each of the Families, normally only shared by the other Families, but there isn’t a single one that has a single line of investment.  The smallest and weakest Families, including” – she winced, slightly – “the Tyler Family, tend to be more focused on innovating and developing new technologies, new angles of investment…if they got in on the bottom layer, they would have surprisingly solid investments.”

Colin frowned.  “Is that what you were doing when we…ah, picked you up?”

“More or less,” Kathy said, in a very careful voice.  “My…Family had come up with a new mining process that cut down wastage by sixty percent, one that would render previously unworkable asteroid fields profitable.  If we had been able to deploy it, without interference from Roosevelt or anyone else, the Family would have become a lot stronger, relative to the other Families.  Roosevelt, of course, wouldn’t want us changing the balance of power, so…well, when Jason’s fleet arrived, I thought that they’d been hired to destroy the facilities.  You’d find quite a few new allies in the younger members of the Families, if you looked…”

“Maybe,” Colin said.  “Anyway…”

“Anyway, the real problem is that the Empire might have been growing larger, but the pie has been getting smaller,” Kathy said, flatly.  “There are limits to how far they could squeeze the inner worlds without risking their positions, while they had made deals with the first-rank worlds that prevented them from being too badly looted, although those deals are starting to fall apart.  They were astonished to discover Macore – they’d thought that they had absorbed all of the profitable worlds along the Rim, although they keep finding settlements in strange places – and so Roosevelt moved in to take over, hoping to make the pie larger.  It didn’t work.”

She paused.  “What you have to understand is that the Families have been banding together into Clans,” she continued.  “The Roosevelt Family is the core of the Roosevelt Clan, which includes seventeen other Families that wouldn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of surviving without the Clan.  As the larger Clans got larger, they started to squeeze out the smaller Families, pressing them into the Clans and absorbing their assets.  This…wasn’t popular.  The smaller Families resented their loss of power to the larger Families – make no mistake; Roosevelt runs the Roosevelt Clan – and the larger ones became more cutthroat.

“And then you came along.

“I don’t have any sources back at the High City – they probably think I’m dead or worse than dead – but my guess is that there’s already blood on the walls,” she said, with a faint smile.  “You not only embarrassed Roosevelt, and killed the person they probably intended to blame for the entire disaster, but you took almost all of their possessions in the sector.  I don’t know what’s going to happen – this is uncharted territory for the Families – but I think that Roosevelt is going to fall apart.  Smaller Families will make their bid for freedom, while the inner circle of the Family will be at daggers drawn over who is to blame and what to do about it.  That’s going to be our worst problem – there’s no way that Roosevelt can accept a truce with us, or any return to anything, but the pre-war status quo.  They are going to be permanent implacable foes.”

Colin nodded.  He had summarised as much.  “Assuming that they survive the economic shock,” he said.  Kathy nodded.  “And Cicero and the others?”

Kathy frowned, stroking her chin.  “I don’t know,” she admitted.  “The…Clans, Colin, are survivors.  It’s what they do.  They have survived over a thousand years of effectively absolute rule by crushing or co-opting every movement that might threaten their power.  They’re not going to like watching us change the face of the Empire, but if you beat them at Morrison and move on to occupy Earth, they’re probably going to try to deal with you.  It could be that Cicero is planning to jump ahead and deal with you directly, or…”

She paused.  “They may intend to slip a knife into Roosevelt’s back,” she suggested.  “You see, the Thousand Families – or at least the ten most important Families – keep the balance.  They didn’t compete so much as divide the pie up between them.  Over the past hundred years or so, the pie has been getting smaller, so the agreement between the Families is breaking down.  It’s quite possible that Roosevelt is going to be the first to fall apart, which means that Cicero might want to snatch up what they can.  If they manage to pick up some of the Roosevelt Clan, like the Families that want to break away…well, uncharted territory again.”

Colin smiled.  “They might tear themselves apart without any further threat from us,” he said.  “That would be…amusing.”

“Yep,” Kathy said.  “Their victory at Morrison, ironically, will make that tendency worse.  They might have believed, before, that they were on the verge of being crushed, but now…now they’re going to think that they don’t have to worry about you anymore.  Business as usual, then.”

Colin snorted.  “Do you know Admiral Wachter personally?”

Kathy shook her head.  “I never even heard of him before he showed up in your reports,” she said.  “I don’t have any insight into him, I’m afraid.”

“Pity,” Colin said.  “So, why have Cicero sent their Ambassadors here?”

“My best theory is that they want to put themselves in a position to survive your victory,” Kathy said, grimly.  “They’re going to be terrified of what you might do to them, if you win the war, and…well, they’re going to want to be on the winning side.”

Colin scowled.  “Why shouldn’t we destroy the Families completely?”

“They’re the dominant economic faction in the Empire, as well as it’s Lords and Masters,” Kathy said.  “Take them out and you plunge the Empire into darkness.  No one, not even the Empress, wanted to risk crippling them.  The potential for disaster was too great.”

“Of course,” Colin said.  “Have you spoken to the Ambassadors?”

“They haven’t sought me out,” Kathy said.  “I don’t know either of them personally, so…”

Colin smiled.  “Thanks,” he said.  “You’ve given me quite a bit to think about.”

“You’re welcome,” Kathy said, standing up.  “Drop me a note if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

***
I’m spending too long so far from the stars, Colin thought, as the courier boat dropped out of flicker-space.  They were barely half a light year from Harmony, but it would take at least four years to return to the star, without the flicker-drive.  It felt as empty and cold as the remainder of the interstellar desert, a remainder of how little the Empire actually controlled.  So far from a star, it was easy to believe in monsters lurking in the darkness.

If it bothered Salgak, the Geek didn’t show it, although a man who had mutilated himself with implants and direct links to all kinds of computers probably wasn’t scared of anything.  The Geeks remained out of sight because anyone who saw them would know what they were, but the rebels accepted them as perfectly normal.  The Geeks, too, were victims of the Empire.  They’d had a far more important reason to invite Colin out so far from the star – security.

“There,” Salgak said, as a starship started to come into view.  It was illuminated by its running lights, shining out in the darkness as if it were close to a star.  So far from any natural source of illumination, without the lights, it would be nearly invisible.  “We didn’t want anyone getting a close look at these babies until we’re ready to deploy them.”

Colin stepped up to the viewscreen and drank in the sight.  The starship was half again the size of a superdreadnaught, a long taped cylinder, studded with point defence weapons and missile hatches.  The drive section at the rear of the ship seemed larger than a standard superdreadnaught drive section, flaring out into the nodes that focused the drive field, forcing the starship through space.  It was painted a brilliant white, shining out in the darkness, marked with a single name.  Independence.

“It seemed apt,” Salgak said.  Colin, still staring at the superdreadnaught, barely heard him.  He'd known that the Geeks were working overtime to build superdreadnaughts, but this was beyond his wildest hopes.  “The design has been modified, several times, to meet new requirements, but overall we are very pleased with it.  It has a broadside that exceeds anything from a more standard superdreadnaught by fifty percent, while its energy weapons are actually more powerful than anything from an Empire ship.”

His implants whirred as the courier boat closed in on the ship.  “We designed it to meet and best a arsenal ship missile attack and we believe that it has a good chance of surviving such an assault,” Salgak continued.  “The point defence network, even without any other starships, is superior to anything else in the Empire, although it won’t be long before the Empire alters its own systems to match.  Indeed, they may have done so already.  Its armour and internal defences have been improved as well…”

Colin looked up at him.  “How many do you have?”

“We have nine more under construction at the moment,” Salgak said.  “In three months, we will have them completed and have twenty more under construction, unless we hit an unexpected bottleneck.  We’ve actually expanded the shipyards along the Rim to the point where they should soon be turning out hundreds of superdreadnaughts.  Once we finish the remaining General-class ships, we’re going to switch completely to Independence-class ships.”

His implants whirred again.  “Give us a year and we’ll be turning them out be the hundred,” he added.  “How does that sound?”

“We may not have a year,” Colin said.  “How many could you give me in four months?”

“Ten Independence, fifteen General,” Salgak said.  “There’s little point in scrapping the General-class ships now; they’re too close to being completed.  We built in considerable improvements…I read your report about the gravity shadow trick at Morrison; that won’t happen again.”

Colin smiled grimly.  “I don’t suppose you actually do have a way of locking something out of flicker-space?”

“Not really, no,” Salgak said.  “We keep testing the gravity shadow concept – we had a promising theory that might neglect the gravity-shadow issue altogether – but none of the test ships survived the experience.  Obviously, we got the sums wrong somewhere…”  He snorted.  “We should be able to generate a gravity field, but we don’t have anything like the level of power required to do anything of the sort.”

He shook his head as the ship drifted over the superdreadnaught’s hull and headed towards a second set of ships.  “We kept working on the arsenal ship concept,” he said.  “We actually managed to throw out some of the limitations and improve upon them.  The main problem with building longer-range missiles is that they take more power, which in turn means you need more power to use them, and so on, but this is different.”

“You also need larger missiles,” Colin said.  Refitting was a problem at the best of times, but refitting a superdreadnaught to fire larger missiles was a real pain.  He didn’t know any yard dogs who’d be happy doing that in a way.  “How can we fire them?”

Salgak smiled.  “These ships have been modified to fire them,” he said.  “We have also managed to develop a form of external racks that can be deployed on a starship, even something as small as a light cruiser.  It would take some hours to fix them onto a ship, but they could double or even triple your throw weight in the opening broadside.  The downside, of course, is that a single hit to the external racks would destroy them and possibly jam up the internal missile tubes.  There’s a good reason why the Empire looked at the concept and decided it wasn't a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Colin said.  “How many of those ships can you give us?”

“Twenty arsenal ships modified to fire the new missiles,” Salgak said, checking his computer link.  “We also have quite a few of the older arsenal ship designs ready for deployment.  Again, however, it wasn't something that we wanted to show to just anyone.”

Colin took his meaning.  The two ambassadors had eyes, after all, while he wouldn’t have put it past Admiral Wachter to have Harmony monitored by a cloaked starship.  Why not?  He had Morrison monitored by his converted freighters.  Secret weapons were only useful if they remained secret until they were deployed, which was why the arsenal ships had been kept to the rear until they’d had to be deployed to save Patrick’s Asteroid, before Harmony had fallen.  

“Admiral Wachter found a weakness in our ships,” he said, bitterly.  “Are there any other surprises waiting for us?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Salgak admitted.  “The trick, in hindsight, was quite simple and quite unreal.  It would be easy enough to alter the safety overrides so that they don’t make the same mistake twice.  People trust their computers too much, Admiral.  Would you like to know how many of the representatives at Harmony have the password ‘password’ for their most secret files?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Colin said, tightly.  “Are you reading their mail?”

Salgak shrugged.  “No,” he said.  “Do you think we should be reading their mail?”

Colin said nothing for a long moment.  “Take us back to the planet,” he said, finally.  It wasn’t something he wanted to think about.  Maybe Anderson would want to know that it could be done, but it made him feel dirty.  “We’ve work to be done there.”

The courier boat flickered back through flicker-space and emerged near Harmony.  “We have an emergency transmission,” Salgak said, sharply, as the ship linked back into the planetary network.  “The Empire has struck Homestead.”

Colin swore.  “Take us back to the command fortress as fast as you can,” he ordered.  Before, the raiders had been only a theory.  Now, they were a fact.  “The shit is about to hit the fan.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Who killed Lord Roosevelt?

The question echoed on the air, never spoken, as Tiberius made the rounds at the Costumed Ball.  He detested balls with a passion, loathing them and the social parasites who attended them, but his position as the Cicero wouldn’t allow him to avoid the most important of the social season – and the social season was never-ending.  He bowed to social madams who wanted their daughters to marry the Cicero, and therefore gain access to power and privilege almost beyond imagination, and exchanged nods with younger blades, eager to show off their skills.  They wanted Tiberius to make use of them, in exchange for rewards and patronage, but it was hard to tell what some of them wanted.  

He saw, standing at the other side of the room, Stacy Roosevelt.  Her captivity and brief spell under rebel occupation hadn’t dented her much, although Tiberius would have bet enough money to buy the Moon that she’d been scared out of her mind at the time.  She was regaling a horde of social butterflies with a tale of how she’d seduced her way through the rebel ranks, male and female alike, with frequent references to how the rebels had molested her.  Tiberius knew she was lying, even without any of the hints that Imperial Intelligence had picked up; he had a sneaking suspicion that the real reason the rebels had released Stacy was because they hoped she’d be given another starship command.  Lord Edison, in one of the brief conversations they’d had before hearing the news about Lord Roosevelt, had even suggested sending her out to Morrison.  Tiberius had scorched that idea as fast as he could.

And who killed Lord Roosevelt?

He couldn’t avoid the crowds entirely, no matter how much he might have wished to slip into the library or one of the restrooms and hide from them, but he was practiced enough not to let that show.  He listened with half an ear to the offers of service, requests for patronage and veiled threats, sometimes not so veiled, while considering the question of who killed Lord Roosevelt.  He couldn’t say that he had liked the Lord – he’d been a persistent pain who’d played a large role in fomenting the crisis – but he couldn’t tolerate anyone going around and killing Family Heads.  They might develop a taste for it.  Besides, it would give the commoners ideas above their stations.

The basic facts seemed to be clear, but Earth had no police force to follow up on the clues and identify the murderer.  Lord Roosevelt had been killed by a pleasure slave – a Cicero pleasure slave – and the generally accepted theory amongst those in the know was that Tiberius had ordered his death.  It certainly seemed plausible, Tiberius had to admit; they could have slipped a surprise into the pleasure slave’s brain, even though the Roosevelt Head of Security would have run all kinds of scans to catch any such trick.  There was just one minor problem with that theory.  Tiberius knew that it was nonsense.  He hadn’t ordered anyone’s death.

That left…who?  There were too many suspects.  It could have been a faction within the Roosevelt Family itself, or one of their subordinate Families, trying to make their displeasure known in the oldest possible way.  They wanted to break free of Roosevelt before the entire edifice came tumbling down and killing the Clan Head was one way to make sure of their freedom.  It could have been another Clan, trying to take advantage of faction fighting within Roosevelt, or even smear Tiberius himself.  The murderers might have avoided any temptation to spray-paint ‘YES, IT WAS A CICERO PLOT’ on the walls, but some of the arguments after the facts became clear had been harsh enough to cause Tiberius to doubt his own innocence.

The remainder of the pleasure slaves have probably been destroyed by now, he thought, sourly.  His father had been given the contract for producing them by the Empress herself, but now…now, they wouldn’t be trusted, ever again.  Roosevelt would have put theirs through all kinds of security checks, just in case Cicero had had any bright ideas, and they’d clearly passed.  Lord Roosevelt hadn’t had the faintest idea that he was under attack until it was far too late.  The pleasure slaves were a minor part of the Family’s business, but losing it would hurt…

And maybe it was even one of my Family, he thought, silently congratulating himself on his decision to send Gwendolyn to Harmony.  The Families had never been able to develop or induce any kind of psi power, despite all kinds of experiments, but he was starting to wonder if he was precognitive.  If he’d kept Gwendolyn around at the High City, or the Cicero Estate, she would have leapt on him.  There might have been no official sanctions for a Clan Head, but if she forced him to call a Family Council, he might be voted out of his position.  Had that been the objective all along?

“My dear Tiberius, how young you look, to be sure.”

The disagreeable voice made Tiberius’s hackles rise, but he kept his face blank, before carefully pasting a smile for her benefit.  Lady Divine was old enough to be his grandmother – it was said that she’d been old during the reign of the Empress – but looked young enough to be his sister.  She knew where most of the secrets were buried, which Family had cheated enough in the great game of intrigue, and very few people trusted her.  They also came to her parties and balls, just so that they could say they had.  Tiberius disliked her and knew that his father had had the same reaction.

“Thank you,” he said.  She hated it, but as a Clan Head, he was her social superior, which meant bowing and scraping from her.  Tiberius was old enough to be embarrassed by all the attention he received, but there were times when it was a positive pleasure.  He could have been rude to her and she wouldn’t have said anything, to his face.  “To what do I owe the pleasure…?”

She caught him by the hand and led him over to a corner.  There were no wallflowers waiting there; no one who wanted to be anyone in society would allow themselves to be seen as weak.  They’d have a good time even if it meant killing themselves in the process.  He glanced around, taking in the thousands of waiters and nude serving maids, before turning back to Lady Divine.  It wasn't safe to turn his back on her for long.  He always had the uncomfortable feeling that she was measuring his back for a stiletto.

“Merely a request for your time and favours, My Lord,” Lady Divine said, with a curtsey.  On her, it looked unnatural.  “My dear great-grandson is graduating from the Academy this month and is so looking forward to a chance to see real combat with the rebel scum before they are all defeated.  With your patronage, he would surely be forwarded post-haste to Morrison and given a chance to serve on the great Admiral Allmanritter’s command staff…”

Tiberius smiled to himself.  Admiral Jörg Allmanritter had been, finally, appointed commander of the 2nd Main Strike Fleet, composed of units that had been pulled in from across the Empire and massed at Earth, before being dispatched to Morrison.  He had a private suspicion that Joshua wouldn’t allow Admiral Allmanritter to maintain any serious authority once he arrived at Morrison; the man might have been a tactical genius when it came to knowing which way the political winds were blowing, but that didn’t automatically translate into war-winning skills.  Like Admiral Porter, he’d never actually commanded a fleet before…

“Of course,” he said, absently.  He considered the matter briefly, wishing that he knew Lady Divine’s relative better.  Lady Divine herself was from one of the lesser Families, although no one would have dared say that to her face…and yes, she might be able to do something for him in the future, but he just didn’t like her.  Her great-grandson might be actually capable or competent, but it was more likely that he would be another idiot promoted above his level.

“I have a better idea,” he said, after a pause long enough to convince her that he was giving the matter serious thought.  “I’ll have him posted directly to Morrison, under Admiral Wachter himself.  If he graduated from the Academy, he is bound to make a good impression on the Admiral and a positive report from him would take your great-grandson far.”

Lady Divine stared at him.  “But Admiral Wachter executes people,” she protested.  By ‘people,’ Tiberius knew, she meant aristocrats.  Commoners barely existed in her mental universe, although she had once thrown a party where everyone had had to dress up as a commoner.  It had been the most tasteless affair imaginable.  “He won’t be safe there.”

Tiberius pressed his advantage.  “But if he survives, think of the honour and glory,” he said, mischievously.   She didn’t have much she could offer him and she knew it.  “He might come home crowned with success, wearing a medal pinned to his uniform by Admiral Wachter himself…”

“I think that I have urgent business elsewhere,” Lady Divine said, and hurried off, without even bothering to curtsey.  Tiberius watched her go, not bothering to hide his smile, and turned back to his drink.  There would probably be someone else out there for her, willing to trade patronage for future favours, while Tiberius himself wouldn’t be involved.  He silently wished the young man luck.  With such a woman as his great-grandmother, controlling his entire Family with a rod of iron, he was going to need it.

The party had no formal ending, as was common in polite society.  Normally, the Clan Heads would make their appearance fairly early on – apart from those who decided they wanted to be fashionably late, just to remind everyone else of their place in society – and then depart, but Tiberius hung around for a little longer.  There had been a time, back when he'd been younger, without the shadow of his father’s position, when he’d enjoyed parties, but now…it was amazing how popular and respected he had become since he'd assumed his title.  Everyone wanted to be his friend.

He allowed Alicia Robinson to lead him onto the dance floor – the room itself was large enough to house thousands of people, while a band composed of alien musicians mangled the tune – and danced with her long enough to make his interest clear.  There was no doubt about how the evening would end – if he wanted her, he would have her – but she was pleasant company.  Unlike the other girls, she didn’t remind him that he had a duty to marry and produce heirs, although it couldn’t be far from her mind.  As his official consort, she would be one of the foremost ladies in society.

“Tell me something,” she said, as the dance ended.  “What did you say to Lady Divine?”

“I offered to give her what she wanted,” Tiberius said, and winked, before pulling her out of the dancehall and into one of the food courts.  Lady Divine had – of course – pulled out all the stops when it came to feeding her guests; there would be none of the vat-grown produce for the Lords and Masters of the Empire.  They’d have real meat and real vegetables, while using cosmetic surgery to remove any excess weight.  There’d been a fashion, a few years ago, for girls to be as thin as possible, but Tiberius was glad that Alicia hadn’t followed that idea.  “Shall we eat?”

He studied Alicia as she piled her plate with food.  She was tall, almost as tall as Tiberius himself, with long blonde hair and an ample bust.  She’d had her face altered slightly, to make it more symmetrical, but otherwise she was all natural, although her mother had probably engineered her slightly.  There was no way to know, short of delving into the gene banks and checking the records, and he wasn't that interested.

“I heard a rumour,” Alicia said, as they sat down in a private room, “that the Empress was coming back.”  She batted her eyelashes at him.  “Have you heard it?”

Tiberius frowned.  He had heard the rumours – and he still didn’t know who was spreading them – but he was inclined to dismiss it.  The Empress had vanished long before he’d been born, well over fifty years ago, and no one had seen hide or hair of her since.  There was a certain fascination about the entire affair – his father had made him study her career before he’d died – but he had to admit that it was more likely that she’d died years ago.  The only person ever to be Emperor – well, Empress – and survive their loss of power…but the Families might have found her and executed her secretly.  They certainly wouldn’t have entered that into the records.

“No,” he said, thoughtfully, nibbling a piece of curried meat.  Whatever else one could say about Lady Divine – and he could say a lot – she had excellent taste.  Her current chef was a wonder.  “Where did you hear that?”

“Jane and Tina were chatting about it at the last ball,” Alicia said.  Tiberius rolled his eyes.  Jane and Tina were known for being airheads.  If he hadn’t heard the rumour before, in other places, he would have assumed that they’d made it up for attention.  “Do you know anything about it?”

“Nothing past the obvious,” Tiberius said, dryly.  He smiled at her as she finished her plate.  “Would you care to accompany me back to my estate?”

Alicia pretended to think about it.  “Of course,” she said, finally.  “I would be honoured.”

Which, more or less, got the evening back onto its proper channel.

***
Tiberius actually had an entire floor of the mansion, which was at the heart of the estate, all to himself.  He had three bedrooms, one for company, one for sleeping alone and one for reasons he couldn’t really define, even to himself, with all of the imaginable luxuries available to one of his power and station.  Alicia made all the right noises when he gave her a brief tour of the floor, then gave herself up to him in the massive bed, sharing pleasure until they both fell asleep.  Tiberius woke first and, leaving her to sleep on, stepped out of the room and headed down to his office.

It would have been nice to pretend, at least to himself, that it was love, but he knew better.  His mother and father had traded, in the coldest of terms, for sharing their time and raising a family – and they might even have been fond of each other – but they hadn’t been in love.  His father had had scores of affairs with others, as well as the pleasure slaves, while his mother, more discreet, had a long-term affair with a lady-friend.  It wasn't uncommon among the Thousand Families, although it would have been a major scandal if she’d actually gotten pregnant, at least while she was married.

He reached his office, sat down in his sinfully-comfortable chair, and called up the report from the shipyard inspectors.  He’d issued orders, in a moment of paranoia, for everything to be checked, only to discover that there were rats in his walls.  They’d uncovered a handful of rebel cells, plotting to damage and destroy the shipyards, while Imperial Intelligence had found others in Home Fleet itself.  Worse, the effects of the war, and the sudden demands for higher production, were causing unrest at the worst possible time.  It wasn't something the Thousand Families wanted discussed, but somehow they would have to prevent a further series of mutinies, right at the heart of the Empire.  It worked out so well for the rebels that Imperial Intelligence had even wondered, seriously, if it had been a rebel faction behind Lord Roosevelt’s murder.

Tiberius knew better.  If the rebels – or, for that matter, Joshua – had had that sort of access, the entire war would have been lost by now.  Officially, the rebels would probably end up with the blame, but everyone who was anyone would know the truth.  It hadn’t been their work.  Whoever was behind the murder had done a fiendishly good job of damaging the limited trust between the Families.  They’d crippled the entire war effort.

Clever bastards, he thought.  The Ten Families that controlled the Empire, to all intents and purposes, had been seriously damaged.  It was that, more than anything else, that had convinced him that they hadn’t been responsible – they had too much to lose.  That left…what?  He had the distressing feeling that he was missing something obvious…but what?

He shook his head, accessed his desktop processor, and opened the latest report from Joshua.  As long as Morrison held, they could probably hold the Empire together…

Probably.

Chapter Thirty

Back when the Freedom Alliance had barely been a glimmer in his eye, and the rebellion a vague plan that he was slowly bringing to fruitarian, the Committee had consisted of a handful of discontented Imperial Navy officers.  When they’d seized the original Macore Observation Squadron and Stacy Roosevelt’s superdreadnaughts – it didn’t feel like only eighteen months ago – it had expanded, accepting Daria, Cordova and Salgak into its ranks.  Now, with the Freedom Alliance a growing concern, it had expanded again, with twenty-one members.

The secure conference room had once belonged to Percival.  Now, it held the committee, seated around a large table.  Percival’s habit of showing off his wealth and power had ensured that the room was decorated in a style that clashed with its function, but Colin had had most of the original artworks removed and stored for later disposal.  Some of the newly-elected representatives had condemned that decision, but they’d been removed by their constituencies, mainly for wasting their time.  Anderson had reported, grimly, that some of the elected representatives were already starting to abuse their positions.  There was a lesson, Colin felt, in there somewhere.

His gaze flickered around the room as the committee took their seats.  Blondel Dupre, of course, Prime Minister and Chairwoman.  Captain Jason Cordova and Kathy Tyler, the commander of the Volunteer Fleet and the chairwoman of industrial development, sitting together as lovers should.  Daria, who was sitting beside Salgak, representing the Rim and the Geeks.  Gustav Von Ribenburg, Kevin Sartin, Rolf Lommerde and Thomas Howell, representing the worlds that had joined the Freedom Alliance, while Alpha and Delta spoke for the Socialists and Democrats respectively.  Collectively, they controlled the Freedom Alliance, but individually…they had very different levels of power.

Perhaps I made a mistake, Colin thought, coldly.  He could have declared himself Emperor and run the Freedom Alliance, with everything devoted to the quest for ultimate victory, but he had chosen, instead, to back the committee and hold elections as early as possible.  It might not have been a mistake, in the long run, but in the short run it was a potential disaster.  They should have been offering particular responsibilities to individual representatives, but instead…it was hard to find volunteers.  Some of those who had volunteered had done it for the worst possible reasons.  Commodore Coydt had a great deal of company in hell.

It made Colin sick, sick at heart.  He’d killed, personally, over a hundred thousand men and women who’d merely been on the wrong side of the civil war, struck them down from ambush or in honest battle.  He’d issued orders that had led to the deaths of thousands of others, but that hadn’t bothered him as much as ordering the deaths of a handful of politicians who’d decided to loot.  It weakened the democracy he’d designed and was trying to build, while it made it much harder to test the representatives to find competent shoulders.  If it hadn’t been for Macore, a system where honest governance was a fact of life, it would have been much harder.

A bad system makes bad people, he remembered, grimly.  The Empire had wrecked havoc in the sector and – as above, so below – corruption and tyranny had spread.  In some ways, it was almost hopeful – the Empire would have real problems increasing their production of starships, missiles and spare parts – but it threatened to cripple the Freedom Alliance.  If he didn’t know better, he’d have wondered if the Empire had done it purposefully.  The Geeks and Nerds could produce starships quicker than the Empire because they were motivated, and every starship was a labour of love, but the Empire’s workers had no real motive to work.

Blondel tapped the table, calling the meeting to attention.  “The fifty-seventh meeting of the Freedom Alliance Provisional Government is now called to order,” she said, quite calmly.  If she was intimidated by the expressions running around the table, from Salgak’s half-mechanical grin to outright glares from some of the Socialists, she showed no sign of anything, but calm devotion.  “The issue at hand is the attack on Homestead.”

She nodded to Colin, who stood up.  The room remained silent.  By any measure, Colin was probably the most powerful person in the room, with the Shadow Fleet firmly loyal to him personally, rather than the Committee.  Anderson had told him, not without some grim amusement, that it was causing sleepless nights among some of the Committee.  They wondered if they’d gotten rid of one Empire to find themselves at the heart of another.

“The Imperial Navy attacked Homestead four days ago, local time,” Colin said, without preamble.  “They deployed nine battlecruisers, a full squadron, which advanced right into the gravity shadow and engaged the defending starships, destroying them all with negligible damage.  Unfortunately, not a single Imperial Navy ship was seriously damaged or destroyed in the fighting.”

He paused, grimly.  “Once they had disposed of the defenders, such as they were, they advanced against the planet’s orbital facilities and the freighters in orbit, destroying them all with long-range missiles,” he continued.  “The Imperial Navy commander issued a single warning and stuck to it, destroying the facilities when the time limit ran out.  I must report that several dozen people were unable to evacuate in time and died when the missiles impacted and destroyed the stations.”

A dull rumble of anger ran through the room.  Technically, the Imperial Navy had been quite within their rights to destroy the facilities – ten minutes should have been sufficient to evacuate such stations – but it would be viewed as a war crime.  The irony was almost painful.  He’d used similar tactics himself before the Battle of Harmony.  He wondered, absently, if Percival had ever held such a meeting.

“Once they had completed their mission of destruction, the starships flickered out to the nearby asteroid facilities and destroyed them without warning,” he said, allowing a hint of his own anger to enter his tone.  “Casualties were…total.  The stations were lost with all hands.  Nine hundred people were simply killed.”

This time, the anger was louder.  “They could have issued a warning, or fired merely to disable the mining facilities, but they chose to commit an act of cold-blooded murder,” Colin said, sharply.  “The enemy fleet flickered out a long time before any reinforcements could arrive at the system and give chase.  The consequences are clear.  At least one Imperial raiding squadron is loose in our rear.”

There was a long pause.  “This is disastrous,” Gustav Von Ribenburg said, finally.  “They could tear us apart from the inside.”

Colin shook his head.  “So far, they have only deployed one squadron of battlecruisers…”

“One that you know about,” Cordova said, flatly.  “They could have deployed a hundred Sector Fleets to Sector 117 and we wouldn’t know a thing about it until they came into sensor range and attacked.”

“They could have a hundred superdreadnaughts right next to us,” Von Ribenburg said, his voice breaking slightly.  “They could rip us to shreds.”

“No, they don’t,” Colin said.  “If they had a hundred superdreadnaughts, they’d have attacked Harmony and put an end to the Freedom Alliance’s unity.  Logically, the heaviest unit they have been able to deploy is a battlecruiser, perhaps three to four squadrons.  It’s a serious threat, but it’s not a disaster.”

“There is a second issue,” Cordova added.  Colin, who was starting to have doubts about what side Cordova thought he was on, listened carefully.  “They will have to have deployed a logistics chain out here for their ships.  The larger the fleet deployed out here, the larger the logistics chain they will require…and I bet you that their chain is already overstretched.  That will place some pretty firm limits on how much they can deploy to threaten our rear.”

“And pirates manage it all the time,” Kevin Sartin sneered.  “Why can’t the Imperial Navy do it for their ships?”

Cordova flushed angrily, but kept his peace.  “A pirate ship – and believe me, I have experience with pirate ships – is often on the verge of falling apart,” he said.  “They don’t bother with basic maintenance, normally because they don’t have the parts, and frankly they don’t often bother with hygiene as well.  If you have to go onto a pirate ship, it’s a good idea to take a breather along and your own flask of air.”

He smiled, as if at a vague memory, and continued.  “The pirates have the success they have because they have – had – access to bases along the Rim,” he said.  “Without that, they would not be able to keep their ships running…and the worst pirates are often sorted out by the Rim refusing to serve them.  Violence and intimidation can only go so far.  Indeed, one of the reasons for the shortage of pirates recently is the fact that the Rim has closed its doors to them.”

All eyes turned to Daria.  “The decree against dealing with pirates remains in force,” she said, almost regally.  The reminder of her power caused eyes to flicker all around the table.  “The Rim won’t deal with the Imperial Navy either.  It would be more likely to start a new war than accept Imperial money.”

“Indeed,” Cordova said.  His voice became more confident as he spoke.  They all knew his reputation.  “Logically, I would be surprised if they had more than two to three battlecruiser squadrons running in our space.  A painful nuisance, certainly, but hardly a disaster.”

Blondel held up a hand.  “You might be correct,” she said.  “The issue, however, remains open.  What are we going to do about it?”

“We have a duty to protect the citizens of the Freedom Alliance,” Rolf Lommerde said, slowly.  “Admiral, can you intercept the enemy squadrons?”

“Not without a great deal of luck or advance knowledge of their target,” Colin admitted.  “They will probably take the precaution of checking out any target system thoroughly before they commit themselves to an attack, so an ambush would be difficult.  The best course of action we can take is to continue the pressure on Morrison.”

He altered the display and exchanged a long look with Cordova.  “Morrison Navy Base remains the stumbling block in our path,” he confirmed.  “As long as it remains in enemy hands, we cannot advance to Earth and put an end to the war – on our terms.  We have to take it, quickly, and the only way we can do that is by acting now.”

Rolf Lommerde stared at him.  “Are you proposing abandoning the citizens of the Freedom Alliance?”

“No,” Colin said.  “A mass redeployment of the Shadow Fleet, however, would accomplish nothing, but fritter away our units.  We cannot afford to put a force capable of beating two to three squadrons of battlecruisers into every system, but the ones we must defend are heavily guarded against attack, at least on that scale.  If we can punch out Morrison, we can force them to abandon or pull back from Sector 117…”

“Into Sector 97,” someone said, from the rear of the room.

“In the meantime,” Colin said, ignoring the comment, “we will deploy units of the Volunteer Fleet, backed up by arsenal ships, to cover vulnerable systems.  The attack on Homestead, although bad, would have been wiped out if there had been a single arsenal ship present in the system.  If nothing else, we can force them to be a lot more careful about where they attack, and why.”

He paused.  “And, once we take Morrison, there will be nothing to stop us short of Home Fleet…and Earth.”

On that note, the meeting ended.

***
“Well, that went surprisingly well,” Blondel said, afterwards.  They’d moved into her quarters for a brief informal discussion before Colin left for the front.  “I was expecting more screaming and shouting.”

“Maybe they saw sense,” Colin said, although he doubted that.  The representatives would be feeling the heat from back home before too long, demanding that they pushed the Shadow Fleet into dispatching protection…and, just incidentally, abandoning any chance to actually win the war.  Democracy seemed to be a very short-sighted and selfish system.  “What do you think of it?”

“I’ve learned to trust your opinion in matters of military policy,” Blondel said.  She looked over at Daria, who was nursing a small glass of red wine.  “Are you sure that the Rim won’t provide support to the Imperial Navy?”

“The Rim has been fighting the Imperial Navy for longer that your planets were known to the Empire,” Daria said, expressionlessly.  She took a sip from her glass and smiled thinly.  “They won’t offer any help at all.  If the Imperial Navy knew where to go to even find help, they’d have wiped us out a long time ago.”

“They might have a secret base in the sector,” Kathy put in, from where she was sitting on Cordova’s knee.  They looked, Colin decided, surprisingly well-matched together.  “Why couldn’t they have established one years ago?”

“We found no trace of any secret base in Percival’s files,” Salgak said, his implants whirring away as he linked into the computers.  “The sealed files generally consisted of blackmail information and…what we would describe as a little black book.  It included references to several hundred sexual acts, including some believed to be only theoretically possible.  The most secret file relating to the Imperial Navy contained observations on the pre-war exercises, two years ago.”

“Percival would have known if they had established one, although it would be wise to check around and see if anyone was involved with establishing such a base,” Colin said.  He suspected that it would come to nothing – if anyone had established a secret base, it was probably Imperial Intelligence and their files weren't always available – but it had to be checked.  “Overall, though, we have to move – now.”

Cordova nodded, absently.  “I can have units of the Volunteer Fleet deployed with the arsenal ships within the week,” he said.  He nodded over at the display.  “By now, the battlecruisers could be halfway across liberated space, or heading out towards the Rim.  They could be anywhere within that expanding sphere.”

He sounded, Colin realised, like a man troubled by a distracting thought.  “It should be possible to at least take a crack at them,” he added, absently.  It wasn't like him to miss out on a discussion involving bloody mayhem.  “It would add additional muscle to our claims to offer protection.”

Colin frowned, but said nothing.

“Are you sure that you can take Morrison?”  Blondel asked.  Her voice was carefully under control.  “You attacked the world once before and…well, you had your fleet battered and had to retreat.”

Colin hesitated.  He wasn’t looking forward to a return to Morrison, but there was little choice.  Admiral Wachter was just too good to be allowed to remain unmolested for too long, not when he might be building up his own strength and preparing operations to start retaking worlds for the Empire.  Colin had worked it carefully – and Admiral Wachter would have problems retaking anything without risking leaving Morrison uncovered – but once the Empire pushed forward reinforcements, they would be able to mount a counteroffensive, maybe even come up with some new weapons of their own.

“Yes,” he said, flatly.  The new weapons would give Admiral Wachter a few nasty surprises.  Colin was quite looking forward to deploying them for the first time.  “Are you sure that you can prevent them from doing something stupid?”

He didn’t mean the Empire.  “I believe so,” Blondel said, simply.  “They’re going to start acting up again once the raiders hit again, but I suspect that they won’t be able to put forward any better choices.  Once the Democrats and Socialists start arguing, the rest won’t be able to get a word in edgeways.”

She frowned.  “We’re going to have to start devoting more resources to planetary defence,” she added, thoughtfully.  “That’s going to become an issue sooner rather than later…”

“We have actually overproduced our stocks of missiles,” Kathy injected, from her position.  “We could deploy a few hundred to each of the threatened systems, rigged up with a basic controlling system, and use them against the attackers when they arrive.”

“There’s no such thing as too many missiles,” Cordova said.  He smiled as Kathy elbowed him in the ribs.  “It might work, though, for defending a system.  The raiders can’t have any real shipyards short of Morrison itself.”

“Unless they’ve duplicated the fleet repair ships,” Colin said.  He stoked his chin as he considered the possibility.  “That would add to the time they could spend on deployment.”

“That is unlikely,” Salgak said.  “It took us months to design and build them once we saw the need…and we saw the need much earlier than the Empire.  It will take them at least a year to produce their own units.  It’s actually a more complex task than building a superdreadnaught.”

Colin nodded, trying to repress a yawn.  “We’ll start deploying the missiles at once,” he said, firmly.  “I have to take the ship back to the Shadow Fleet” – he exchanged a brief glance with Salgak; he hadn’t discussed the other new weapons with the other officers – “and start preparing to take on Morrison.  Is there any other business?”

Blondel shook her head.  “None,” she said.  Her voice, at least, was firm and confident.  “As long as we’re doing something, we should be able to survive the political storm.”

Colin said nothing.  The raiders had the advantage, like he had had months ago, of being able to pick and choose their targets almost at will.  Unless they got very lucky, they weren’t going to be able to smash them anytime soon…and the Committee would start to wonder if they would be better served by a different triumvirate.  The perception of weakness would prove fatal.  They might start talking to the Imperial Ambassadors, or perhaps Admiral Wachter would think of some way to take advantage of it…

And God alone knew what would happen then.  

Chapter Thirty-One

“Attention on deck!”

Penny straightened up as the shuttle’s hatch started to hiss open.  She hated wearing her dress uniform at the best of times – it was stiff, uncomfortable and pinched all the wrong places – but this wasn't the best of times.  Indeed, she had a sneaking suspicion that it was about to become the worst of times.  She looked over at Joshua, standing as calmly as anything in his dress uniform, almost as if he’d had it personally tailored for him, and wondered how he looked so calm.  In his place, her tension and uncertainty would have been very apparent.

The man who stepped out of the shuttle wore, like Joshua, an Admiral’s uniform, but there the resemblance ended.  Where Joshua wore the basic uniform, which was ornate enough to pass for a Dictator’s outfit on one of the less stable first-rank worlds, the newcomer wore one that had been personally designed for him, carrying enough braid to light up the entire shuttlebay.  Indeed, she wondered with a certain amount of malice, if they ever lost power, they could use him as a light source.  Her eyes skimmed the uniform, mentally editing out the braid and other meaningless decorations, and came up with a slight absence of serving ribbons.  Joshua wore three, signifying three major commands in his career, but the newcomer wore none.  The implications were not good.

“Present arms,” the Household Troop Sergeant bellowed.  “Attention!”

The troopers snapped to attention.  The newcomer seemed surprised to see them, but returned the salute, almost perfectly, before turning and saluting the colours.  He took a single step forward, facing Joshua, and snapped a third salute, which Joshua returned.  The newcomer looked nervous, but with the same veneer of certainty that Percival had worn, the conviction that the universe owed him success and favours.  She peered closer as the two Admirals saluted and saw, she thought, what looked like a resemblance.

“Admiral Jörg Allmanritter, commanding officer of the 2nd Main Strike Fleet, reporting,” the newcomer said, finally.  His voice had the same confident air of superiority that Percival had displayed.  Penny winced inwardly.  This wasn't going to be good.

“Welcome onboard,” Joshua said, ever inch the king.  He could have ordered the Household Troops to shoot the newcomer down and they would have obeyed, but instead he seemed almost welcoming.  “You and your ships will come in very useful.”

The Sergeant issued his final orders as the two Admirals, with Penny in tow, left the shuttlebay for Joshua’s quarters.  Penny was a little surprised, and not a little discomfited, to discover that Allmanritter hadn’t brought his own aide with him.  It suggested either that he was supremely confident in his own abilities, or that he didn’t want his aide anywhere near Joshua.  Judging from the lack of any command ribbons, Penny would have bet on the latter.  They wouldn’t have picked a competent officer to serve as the commander of the 2nd Main Strike Fleet, but someone whose political reliability was unquestioned.

She scowled at his back.  The weeks since the Battle of Morrison had been spent in frantic activity, motivated by fear of the rebels mounting a second attack…and respect for their commanding officer.  A single victory had turned the morale issue around completely and even the lower decks, where most of the grumbling normally occurred, were speaking of Joshua in respectful tones.  It helped that he demanded competence over everything else and saw to it that competent personnel, regardless of their social standing, were promoted.  It made him very popular and she hoped, against experience, that no one back on Earth had realised how popular he was becoming with his subordinates.  The last person to have such a devoted following had been the Empress.

Joshua opened the hatch to his quarters and invited Allmanritter inside with a flourish.  He’d had them redecorated slightly for Allmanritter’s benefit, removing most of the artworks and replacing them with tactical displays and simulators, almost creating a third bridge.  Penny doubted, as she poured them both a glass of wine, that Allmanritter picked up on the underlying message; we’re here to win the war.  She passed him his glass and was surprised by the look of hostility he bestowed upon her.

“Admiral, I must protest,” he said.  “I have vital dispatches from the High City and your…aide is not cleared to hear them.”

“Captain Quick is my second and most trusted advisor,” Joshua said, evenly.  “She will be involved with everything we do, from repairing the damaged ships to taking the war back to Harmony and the rebellion.  She has, as such, an absolute need to know, for which I have cleared her.  I draw your attention to the documents issued by Parliament when I took up this command, which gave me broad authority to issue such clearance, if required.”

Allmanritter’s face flushed.  “I am required to check,” he said, seriously.  Penny smiled inwardly, recognising the signs.  Allmanritter had definitely never held a command before and was acting almost as if he expected Joshua to steal his ships out from under him.  His commanding officers would probably prefer it.  “There have been…issues with security lately, even in the High City itself.”

He scowled and took a sip of his wine.  “The High City wishes to congratulate you on your victory and has held a number of balls in your honour,” he continued.  Joshua’s face barely twitched, but Penny could guess at his thoughts.  A squadron of superdreadnaughts would have been more useful.  “Your name is the toast on everyone’s lips and there are many who wish to serve with you, a number of whom have come out on my ships.”

Joshua shrugged.  “Indeed?”

“Indeed,” Allmanritter confirmed.  He didn’t understand.  “They do, however, wish you and I to take the offensive as soon as possible.  I was created as an equal and co-commander of the combined fleets, not as your subordinate.”

“Indeed?”  Joshua asked, again.  “And did you not refer them to the dangers of a split command?”

“They were not inclined to listen to reason,” Allmanritter said, after a long moment.  “They believe that the rebellion is broken and all that is required is a sharp thrust at Harmony to win the war.”

“Dear me,” Joshua said.  Only Penny heard the faint mockery in his tone.  “I do hope you told them that such an operation was out of the question.”

“I told them no such thing,” Allmanritter said, puffing himself up.  “I told them that I would lead the 2nd Main Strike Fleet to Harmony, with or without your assistance, and punch through the defences there.”

Joshua said nothing.  The 2nd Main Strike Fleet consisted of three squadrons of superdreadnaughts and their escorts.  Added to Joshua’s forces, it gave them five squadrons of superdreadnaughts, but that assumed that they remained together.  If they sent several units off on a separate mission, the odds were that the rebels would attack Morrison, or defeat both forces in detail.

“It is a minimum of a month from here to Harmony,” Joshua said, finally.  The coldness in his voice must have been apparent to Allmanritter, or anyone else.  “A month, during which the rebels could do anything else, including a second attack on Morrison.  They must know just how weak we were in the wake of their attack, even though we broke their fleet.  They will be straining everything they have to launch a second assault.”

He paused, nodding towards the display.  “Even assuming that they have stripped Harmony bare of mobile units, they will still have the orbiting fortresses and deployed automated weapons,” he continued, smoothly.  “You will have to break through the defences, taking heavy losses in the process, as the rebels will not be as quick to surrender as Admiral Percival’s successor was when the rebels punched out his ships and killed his commander.  A long siege of the system would only allow them time to bring in reinforcements from elsewhere, including newer weapons.”

Allmanritter interrupted, sharply.  “But we can win…”

“Any attempt to launch a deep-strike raid at Harmony would be costly and wasteful and therefore we will not launch one,” Joshua said, firmly.  “An attack on Yanasaxon, which is closer to us, might make more sense, but the rebels took the defences there intact.  Punching through them would be even harder.  You could raid, almost at random, as I dispatched battlecruisers to do, but you would rapidly exhaust your superdreadnaughts ability to operate in such a fashion.”

He took another sip of his wine.  “On the other hand, once we have massed enough ships and defences here, we will launch a more orderly and powerful thrust towards Yanasaxon and take the base,” he concluded.  “When we are ready to launch such an assault, I will launch it, but not before.  I will not waste ships and men trying to change what cannot be changed.”

“This is…treason,” Allmanritter spluttered.  “You cannot disobey such orders!”

“I have a broad mandate – as do you, if you even bothered to study what an Admiral should do – to rewrite orders if they are impossible to actually carry out,” Joshua said, coldly.  “The people back on Earth may be clever, but they lack the insight into what is actually happening on the front lines.  That’s why people like the late unlamented Admiral Percival and the former commander of this base were given such wide authority.  There was rarely any time to relay a request for orders to Earth.”

“I am your equal in authority,” Allmanritter said, firmly.  “If I decide to launch the attack, you cannot stop me.”

“In that case, I will deny you any support from the base,” Joshua said.  They locked eyes and Allmanritter was the first to back down.  “I intend to win the war and reunite the Empire, not send my own ships and men to an early grave.  If you wish to go, then go, go on your own.  You may even win.”

“I will accept your consul, for the moment,” Allmanritter said, finally.  Penny allowed herself a silent sigh of relief.  The last thing the Empire needed was two fleet commanders at each others’ throats.  “When do you intend to attack?”

Joshua shrugged.  “Somewhere out there, there is a rebel fleet, waiting for a chance at securing Morrison,” he said.  “I intend to meet and defeat it, again.  This time, it will be decisive.”

Allmanritter stared at him.  “And you haven’t launched a strike against that fleet?”

“There are several thousand cubic light years of space that could be used as a base, assuming that they are willing to avoid establishing a base in a star system,” Joshua said, sardonically.  “The only time we have seen them in a star system – and we have every star in the sector picketed by cloaked destroyers – was when they were burying their dead.  That means that they are somewhere within the void of interstellar space and we cannot hope to track them down.”

“You could have ships tracking them back to their base…”

“Which they can avoid by the simple expedient of establishing a single waypoint just outside their target system,” Joshua snapped, his patience clearly becoming strained.  “You appear to be under the impression that the rebels are…the normal run of Socialists and Democrats who launch uprisings and then flee when the going gets tough, leaving the Imperial Navy to crush the uprising and level crushing punishments on the survivors.  These rebels are trained and experienced Imperial Navy officers who should have been promoted into positions suited for them years ago.”

He stared at Allmanritter until the younger man lowered his eyes.  “They are dangerous, cunning and not to be underestimated,” he said, angrily.  “If you treat them as…idiots who will fold the moment your ships appear, the best that will happen is that they will kill you.  The worst is that they will take your fleet with you.”

“My crews won’t mutiny,” Allmanritter said, confidently.  “I brought an entire army of SD troopers with me, some of whom are going to take possession of your prisoners…”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They have come to take custody of the prisoners you seized,” Allmanritter said, confidently.  “They are rebels and traitors who will know things we need to know about the rebellion…and the SD interrogators will get it out of them, before we blow them out an airlock for treason.”

Penny had rarely seen Joshua genuinely angry.  He didn’t shout, or even raise his voice, but somehow it was still terrifying.  He’d been angry, but almost delighted at the same time, when he’d had Admiral D'Ammassa executed for his mismanagement of the base and gross corruption, because that had given him a chance to make an example of someone who had actually deserved it.  This was worse.

“I was informed that the High City had agreed to abide by my understanding of the Moscow Accords,” he said, very coldly.  Penny suspected that someone, back on Earth, had managed to knock away one of Joshua’s patrons.  Nothing else could explain it.  “The prisoners will be kept here and will be treated well.”

Allmanritter didn’t budge.  “I have my orders,” he said.  “You are to see to their transport to the Himmler, where they will be interrogated and sorted into categories…”

“No,” Joshua said, flatly.  He met Allmanritter’s eyes, but this time the younger man couldn’t look away.  “I gave my word as an Imperial Navy officer that the prisoners would be treated under the Moscow Accords and I meant every word of it.  They will remain on my base and they will not be handed over to the SDs.  If you wish to push this, I will make it a matter for the Field of Honour.”

“I’m just the messenger boy,” Allmanritter protested.  He was younger and probably quicker than Joshua, but he clearly didn’t fancy his chances.  Duels were rare in the Imperial Navy – a person who killed the wrong person, regardless of the reasons, would find their careers blighted permanently – but if Joshua wanted one, he’d have one.  He certainly wouldn’t have any difficulty finding a second.  “The orders came from the Thousand Families…”

“And will be ignored,” Joshua said.  “Report it, if you like, to the High City.  I will send a blistering dispatch back myself.  It won’t make any difference.  If they push this, I will send them back to the rebels myself.”

His voice lowered slightly.  “And consider this,” he added.  “What will happen when you fall into rebel hands?”

“They won’t dare to harm me,” Allmanritter said, angrily.  “Don’t you know…?”

He stopped.  “Yes, exactly,” Joshua said, dryly.  He smiled coldly.  “There’s an old joke, young man, and it goes something like this.  One day there was a moron of a governor who decided that all crimes, from spitting in the streets to high treason and mass murder were to be punished by death.  No exceptions.  One day, a few young men were late for work…

“And one of them says to his friends; what’s the penalty for being late?  Death.  What’s the penalty for rebellion?  Death.  Well…we’re already late.”

He leaned closer.  “And so they rebelled against the governor,” he concluded, choosing not to finish the story.  It was one of the thousands of incidents from Earth’s history that had been carefully removed from the Empire’s curriculum.  “Now tell me – if the rebels are faced with death anyway, what does it matter what they do?  Why should they not skin you alive and feed you to the dogs when they capture you?  Why should they not bombard a planet with antimatter missiles?  Why should they not kill all of the Thousand Families by bombarding Earth itself?  Why?”

Allmanritter had no answer.

“That’s why we are going to honour the Moscow Accords,” Joshua concluded.  “Now, I want you to return to your ship and ensure I get a full briefing on their condition before we consider taking the offensive.  When we defeat the rebels again, I want to be ready to take advantage of it, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Allmanritter said, grudgingly.  He finished his wine and stood up.  “I shall see to it that you get a full report.”

He departed without even insisting on a full escort.  “Oh dear,” Joshua remarked, as the hatch hissed closed behind him.  “Do you think I hurt his feelings?”

Penny, who had been remembering Percival, shivered.  “He’s going to send back a full report, Admiral,” she warned.  “His backers aren’t going to let that pass without some response.”

“I know,” Joshua said, thoughtfully.  “There are times when I wish the rebels would just hurry up and attack.  Space warfare is so much easier than political warfare.  Now that we turned back one assault fleet, they think we’ve won the war and can go back to fighting each other.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  She tried to push as much reassurance into her voice as she could.  “You handled the rebels, so you can handle Admiral Allmanritter as well.”

“I’m not allowed to take shots at Admiral Allmanritter,” Joshua said, wryly.  “The Imperial Navy Regulations can be a real problem sometimes.”

He laughed, and then sobered.  “But it’s time to start working on some contingency plans,” he said.  “I want the prisoners transferred to the command fortress, just in case the SDs decide to try to take advantage of them…”

Penny hesitated.  “Sir, under the Moscow Accords, that wouldn’t be legal,” she protested.  “That would be putting them back in the firing line.”

“They’re already in the firing line,” Joshua growled.  “Very well.  Have the Marines guard them, with strict orders not to let anyone in to see them without direct orders from me, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  She paused.  There was another consideration.  The SDs weren’t noted for accepting orders from fleet officers and then remaining out of the way.  “What should we do with them if they press the issue?”

“Just as I said,” Joshua said.  His voice darkened.  “We’ll send them back to the rebels.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Captain Danielle Weaver paced the deck of her battlecruiser, the Rampant Lion, and scowled.  Five months ago, she’d been the starship’s helmswoman, a junior officer with no hope of rising higher.  She hadn’t had the connections – or, for that matter, the body to attract a senior officer.  She’d been resigned to her position…and then the news of the rebellion had reached her squadron.  Desperate – and ambitious – men had met and, before the SD troopers could get dug into the ship, they’d risen against the Empire.  The starship might have been ravaged by desperate fighting – the SD troopers had fought like wild dogs – but in the end, the mutineers had prevailed.  The escape from their Naval Base and loyalist starships had been an adventure in itself, but they’d made it to Sector 117…where the Rampant Lion had lost its flicker drive,

The thought made her scowl.  The battlecruiser’s innards had been badly damaged by the fighting…and maybe the SD Blackshirts had known what they were doing after all.  An inch closer and that hand grenade would have locked them in normal space permanently – at least until a loyalist starship blew them out of space – but as it was, they’d managed to reach safety before the drive failed.  It had still taken a month, at sublight speed, to crawl into the Arian System…and there they were stuck.

They could have done more, she thought, resentfully, but it wasn’t true.  It was impossible to tow a starship through flicker-space, so convoying them to one of the rebel-held shipyards was impossible.  Repair ships had been dispatched, but carrying out the repairs in open space wasn't easy, so the Rampant Lion would be out of the fighting for months, at least.  The Shadow Fleet had raided her crew for experienced officers and men they could use elsewhere, while leaving Danielle in command of a stranded starship.  She might have been, officially, the defender of Arian, but if the system’s asteroids were raided, there was nothing she could do to defend them.

She turned back to the report and scowled again.  The irony was that the Rampant Lion was in almost perfect shape, apart from the flicker-drive itself.  They could fight, manoeuvre and do almost anything, but move faster than light.  The Shadow Fleet’s commander had designated her ship as a training command, one that could be spared – it wasn't as if they had a choice – for newcomers to the Imperial Navy.  If someone attacked Arian, the trainees were going to find themselves in the deep end.  They couldn’t even run if attacked with superior force.

On the other hand, they might not even bother to destroy us, if they know we’re stranded, she thought, sardonically.  There were times when she seriously considered putting in for a transfer, despite the fact that the training ship needed a commander, and if she hadn’t loved the Rampant Lion, she would have applied for a transfer.  The old battlecruiser had kept them alive and safe until they reached rebel-held space…and then it had failed.  She wouldn’t leave her first command so easily.

An alarm chimed.  “Red alert,” her first officer said, his voice echoing through the starship.  “All hands to battle stations.  This is not a drill.  I repeat, this is not a drill.”

Danielle was on her feet at once, one hand scooping up her jacket, the other opening the hatch to her quarters as she pulled it on.  Her first commanding officer had always run to the bridge when the ship had gone to battle stations and she’d picked up the habit from him, although it was far from reassuring to the crew.  She tried to look confident in front of the trainees – she had been slightly astonished to discover that most of them, recruited from rebel worlds rather than the Freebooters or other commercial shipping operations, almost worshipped her – but it wasn't easy.  Anyone with any appreciation of their ship’s status would know that they were effectively trapped.

“Captain on the bridge,” one of the trainees said, as soon as she entered.

“As you were,” Danielle said, curtly.  The only officer who continued to rise was the first officer, who’d been sitting in the command chair.  “Report!”

“Nine contacts, at least six of them battlecruisers, heading in towards Arian,” the first officer reported, as the main display updated.  They shared a brief look of concern – they knew how bad it was likely to become – before Danielle took the command chair.  “There have been no signals or IFF codes from any of them.”

“Enemy ships, then,” Danielle said.  The Shadow Fleet would have transmitted an identification signal as soon as they arrived, if only to prevent panic.  It was quite possible that it was some bastard’s idea of a drill, but it was far more likely that the advancing ships were raiders.  “Launch probes and challenge them.”

She was barely aware of the first officer leaving the bridge, heading for the secondary bridge, as she turned her attention back to the main display.  It was probably unnecessary in their case, if they really were Imperial Navy starships out there.  The secondary bridge probably wouldn’t be needed.  The ship would be destroyed long before it become active.  The enemy battlecruisers – they were now close enough to prove that there were nine battlecruisers in all, a full squadron – wouldn’t have much problem taking down the Rampant Lion.

“Dispatch a courier boat to Harmony with a report,” she ordered.  It was futile – nothing from Harmony could reach them in time to save the starship – but it would give her crew something to do.  “And them, take us out on an intercept vector.”

The helmsman nodded.  “Aye, Captain,” he said.  “Course laid in and moving…now.”

***
Commodore Sooraya Qadir had taken a calculated risk in circling around the enemy-held sector before coming in to the second target, but it looked as if it had paid off.  There was very little in the system - a single battlecruiser on defence duty, a handful of smaller commercial ships and a pair of asteroids in high orbit – but they were all worthwhile targets.  If they were all destroyed, the rebels would be hampered, although perhaps not as much as she hoped.  She wanted to go after Pollack, or Harmony itself, but both worlds had been defended heavily with fixed defences.

And it would be suicide to challenge them, she thought coldly, as the probes sped away from her ships.  The single battlecruiser on defence duty looked to be coming out to face them, rather than taking the opportunity to beat a retreat, which suggested troubling things about the determination of its commander.  If he or she was prepared to risk certain destruction, in exchange for crippling or destroying one of more of her ships, they had to have thought through some of the implications of her presence.  Absent a repair base – and there were none left in Imperial hands short of Morrison itself – Sooraya would have no choice, but to abandon any seriously damaged ships, or send them back to Morrison for repairs.  It would cripple her operational effectiveness.

“Prepare to engage,” she said, calmly.  They would have no choice, but to punch the enemy ship out of their way as quickly as possible.  She would have offered to accept a surrender, but they didn’t have space for prisoners, even a tiny handful of rebel officers.  “All ships, lock onto target…and fire!”

The battlecruiser shuddered as it unleashed its first broadside.  The enemy battlecruiser was picking up speed as well, coming right at them and firing as it came, missiles launching in a seemingly endless spread as they went to rapid fire.  They might even come into energy weapons range before they were destroyed, although she doubted they’d be in any state, by then, to use their own energy weapons.  It was still something to watch for; energy weapons would offer them their only chance to inflict really significant damage.

When two starships charged at each other, the closing speed was astonishing, even to experienced spacers.  Sooraya caught hold of her command chair and waited, calmly, while missiles raced towards their targets.

“Enemy missiles are entering point defence range,” the tactical officer said, suddenly.  The ranges were closing rapidly.  Both sides were already launching missiles in sprint mode.  It wouldn’t be long before they started to use their energy weapons.  “Point defence is engaging…now.”

***
Danielle grimaced as the Imperial Navy starships opened fire, all nine of them concentrating their fire on her ship.  It wasn't a surprise, but she’d half-hoped that a convincing display of determination to fight would convince them to back off – after all, where could they have their cripples repaired if they were deep within an enemy sector?  Instead, they were all firing at her, volley-firing their own missiles into a concentrated attack pattern that would break down her shields before she entered energy weapons range, unless…

She smiled grimly.  “Helm, pick one of the enemy battlecruisers and set a collision course, ramming speed,” she ordered.  “I’m proud of you all.”

It wasn't easy for one starship to ram another.  A single ship could avoid a determined suicide attacker with a little warning, but the Imperial Navy had already committed themselves to a dive into the gravity shadow and a knife-range engagement with her ship.  The point defence and the decoys confused them long enough for the helmsman to set their course, and then overstrain the drive.  It was dangerous, normally, for a starship to overstrain their drive – if nothing else, it brought the risk of the compensators failing rather drastically – but they were dead anyway when their shields finally failed.  The engineers diverted all the power to the shields they could, cutting everything, but the barest vestiges of life support, as the two starships converged.

The pounding on the shields grew louder as the enemy starships fired desperately, but it was too late.  Even as the shields finally failed, the helmsman made the final course adjustments…and two starships collided at a considerable percentage of the speed of light.  There were no survivors.

***
“Commodore, the Bare Hand has been destroyed,” the tactical officer reported.  “I didn’t even pick up an emergency signal from it before it…”

Sooraya nodded, tightly.  At that speed, they’d be lucky if they ever found a single atom of the ships, let alone survivors.  The energy released by the explosion had swamped her sensors and, for a handful of seconds, the starships were blind.  An enemy ship could have used it to mount a sneak attack, but when the sensors finally cleared, all they saw were the commercial ships beating a retreat.  They had too much sense to stick around after watching two starships die.  

“Open channels,” Sooraya ordered, forcing herself to keep the anger from her voice.  The people on the planet below might have been rebels, but they weren't to blame for the disaster.  It was easy, in hindsight, to see that she’d made a mistake.  She could have kept the range open and duelled with the battlecruiser, nine on one, until she’d worn it down and destroyed it.  It was her mistake and her commanding officer would not be happy.

“Channels open, Commodore,” the communications officer said.

“This is Commodore Sooraya Qadir of the Imperial Navy,” Sooraya said, keeping her voice calm.  The planet’s orbital defences couldn’t stop her from doing whatever she damn well pleased and they had to know it.  “You are ordered to evacuate your orbital facilities at once.  I intend to destroy them in ten minutes from my mark – mark.  Anyone still onboard the facilities when the countdown runs out will be killed when the facilities are destroyed.  There will be no further warnings.”

She shut down the channel before anyone on the surface could reply.  “Tactical, target and pick off all the automated platforms,” she ordered, firmly.  The battlecruiser shivered as it started to fire tiny shots, one by one, to pick off the unshielded units.  There was no point in wasting missiles on them.  “Keep a sharp eye…”

“Commodore, we’re picking up a signal from the planet,” the communications officer said.  “They’re saying…”

“Ignore it,” Sooraya ordered, tartly.

“They’re saying that it will take at least thirty minutes to evacuate the entire asteroid facilities,” the communications officer said.  He sounded more than a little nervous – ignoring his commander’s orders, for any reason, would not look good on his record – but he didn’t flinch.  “They’re offering to detonate the destruct charges themselves to destroy the asteroids, if we give them the extra time.”

Sooraya scowled.  She’d picked the timing to force them to evacuate in a panic, ensuring that they couldn’t use the time to pull anything apart from their people off the asteroid, but she liked to think that she wasn't a murderess.  If they were lying, then there was something important they wanted to preserve, but if they were telling the truth…

I could send Marines to ensure that they only pull people out of the asteroid, she thought, coldly.  It would force her to remain longer than she wanted to remain in the system and add the risk of having to abandon her people if the rebels showed up in force.  Her most pessimistic calculations claimed that it would be hours before they could respond, but coincidence and bad luck played a bigger role in warfare than anyone would freely admit.  For all she knew, the rebels were working up a whole new superdreadnaught squadron in the next system over…and the courier boat had been sent to fetch them.

But she liked to think that she wasn't a murderess.

“Raise them,” she said, flatly.  “Inform them that they have thirty minutes, after which they are to self-destruct all of their facilities.  Failure to trigger the self-destruct will result in a punitive bombardment of the surface.”

“Aye, Commodore,” the communications officer said.  He sounded relieved.  Sooraya couldn’t blame him for that.  “Message sent…and acknowledged.”

Sooraya glanced over at the helmsman.  “Take us to a holding position just outside the gravity shadow and hold us there,” she ordered, thoughtfully.  “Bring the flicker drive up and flicker us out if anything big and nasty turns up in the next half hour.”

“Yes, Commodore,” the helmsman said.  The background noise of the battlecruiser’s engines thrummed as the squadron started to pull away from the planet.  Sooraya leaned back in her command chair and forced herself to relax.  Once they were on the outskirts of the gravity shadow, there was nothing that could stop them from escaping, if the rebels had summoned help.  “We’re in position.”

The half hour felt like weeks as the minutes ticked by slowly.  Sooraya spent the time studying the missile expenditure reports from her ships.  The blunt truth was that they’d fired off too many missiles in the engagement and lost, along with a battlecruiser, thirty percent of their stocks.  They had supplies with the freighters, but once they’d rearmed their ships, that would be the end.  One or two more raids, and then they’d be done.  They’d be out of missiles completely.

I could send back one of the freighters to be rearmed, she thought.  It was unlikely in the extreme that they’d be able to obtain missiles off the rebels, although it was vaguely possible that she might be able to intercept a convoy and capture it’s cargo.  It wouldn’t be possible without advance information – which was how the rebels had captured the famed Annual Fleet – and she had very little information on rebel shipping movements.  She thought, briefly, about trying to obtain information from the planet, but the battlecruiser they’d destroyed had probably held the only people who might have been able to help her.

“Commodore, the time is almost up,” the tactical officer injected.  “They’ve creased moving people off the asteroids and…”

He broke off.  On the main display, the asteroids were shattering into clouds of rocky dust.  The original builders, who’d worked for the Tyler Family, would have rigged the asteroids to blow if there had been an accident and the asteroids had fallen out of orbit towards the planet.  It was a precaution that dated all the way back to Earth’s first steps into space; the fear of an asteroid impact had held development back for years.  It was hard for Sooraya to grasp, now, but humans had never been logical.

“The facilities have been destroyed,” the tactical officer confirmed.  The display updated to match his words.  The remains of the asteroids were already decaying and falling into the planet’s atmosphere.  “The rocky chunks and the dust won’t do their planet any good, but they won’t be building anything else here.”

“Good,” Sooraya said.  Perhaps she’d made the right call after all.  “Helm, take us out of here.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

The asteroid base was almost exactly as Colin remembered it, but it actually seemed more hopeful than it had in the wake of the defeat at Morrison.  It was a pleasure to get away from politics, even political structures that he’d created himself, and to return to the military, where issues were seen in refreshingly direct terms.  A missile couldn’t be argued with, a tactical or strategic fact could not be ignored…and, best of all, everyone knew their duties and carried them out.  He had to admit, having studied the histories that Cordova had recommended for him, that military rule was rarely a good thing for the human race, but perhaps, in the short term…

He’d thought about it, but only briefly.  It was hard enough to control the Shadow Fleet, where everyone knew their place and obeyed orders; they’d volunteered for the fleet.  It wouldn’t be so easy when it came to industry and convincing people to cooperate, rather than simply issuing orders…which explained a great deal about the current state of the Empire.  He’d gambled by establishing the Committee, but in the long term, he was sure that it would pay off.  

If we survive the short term, he thought, we can start thinking about the future.

He dismissed the thought as he took his seat and waited for his officers to be seated.  They’d waited at the base while Colin had returned to Harmony, working hard to repair the damaged ships, and they’d done a fantastic job.  Three reformed squadrons of superdreadnaughts now awaited Colin’s command, added to the squadron he’d brought from Harmony and the new arsenal ships.  The Geeks had surpassed themselves in sending forwards as much war-fighting material as possible, enough to allow him to take the offensive once again.  He could have gone after Morrison at once, but if he held off for two more months, he would be reinforced enough to ensure that the base fell.

“We have been promised considerable reinforcements, effectively four new squadrons of superdreadnaughts, within two months,” he said, once the meeting had been called to order.  I had a long discussion with the Geeks and they believe that supplying us with the new ships will not pose a significant problem, although they have cautioned us that the supplies of the newer missiles will be limited at first.  They have also sent along a briefing package for you – all highly classified, of course – covering the capabilities of the new weapons.  We might not have been given gravity generators and supernova bombs, but they should offer us a decisive advantage.”

He looked around the table, gauging their reactions.  “I don’t mean to hold the line, or merely isolate Morrison from further reinforcement,” he said, firmly.  He had to convince them of the truth of his words.  “I intend to take Morrison and then I intend to push on to Earth.  If we can take Morrison, or at least destroy the base’s facilities, the Thousand Families will be forced to pull their fleets back to Earth.  Victory is within our grasp.”

The display lit up on his command.  He’d studied the region of space surrounding Earth – the old Sector 001 – back when he’d worked for Percival.  It was littered with hangovers from the Dathi War, with some planets having enough defences to pass for Earth or even Morrison, had they had the mobile units to back them up.  The first-rank worlds were allowed complete liberty to build their own defences – it was very profitable for the Empire’s defence industries – as long as they didn’t build superdreadnaughts.  Some of them were powerful indeed…and growing more and more annoyed with the Empire.  Colin had heard from some of his sources, and Freebooter ships that travelled to the first-rank worlds; they would switch sides, if they saw a real chance at success.

He’d also seen the interesting detail about Sector 001.  It had been armed to a degree that, if it had been done in Sector 117, would have crippled his war against Percival, but it was surprisingly lacking in mobile units and fleet bases.  Earth itself was defended by Home Fleet, powerful enough to dominate the entire region of space, but none of the other worlds were defended by anything more powerful than a battleship.  The Empire was probably rushing all the firepower they could forward to reinforce Earth – at least, that was what Colin would have done – but they’d opened a window of opportunity.  If he could punch out Morrison, he would have a clear path to Earth, without any forces that could interfere with the Shadow Fleet.

“We are going to visit Basque, Hongcai and Gaul,” he said.  “We’re not going to raid them, but we are going to invite them, publicly, to join the Freedom Alliance.  This will, hopefully, force our friend at Morrison to redeploy his forces to prevent those worlds from either switching sides or being threatened.  I suspect, given the degree of Imperial penetration of those worlds, that there will be a great deal of screaming in the High City when they realise what we’re doing, even if Admiral Wachter knows better than to over-commit himself to any one world.  In the meantime, we will also be raiding the Empire’s convoys and forcing them to remember that we have a fleet present within the sector.

“And when we receive our reinforcements, we will attack,” he continued.  “There will be some who will say that we should move now…”

“We shouldn’t,” Commodore Arun Prabhu said, firmly.  “We just had word from our observing starships.  Morrison has received reinforcements from Earth.”

Colin pulled up the information on the display.  Ironically, if he had been facing Admiral Percival, he would have launched an attack on Morrison anyway, convinced that Percival’s incompetence would help him to win.  Admiral Wachter was a very different person.  He certainly wouldn’t fall for the trick of leaving his superdreadnaughts in a gravity shadow, vulnerable to the arsenal ships, not when he'd seen it happen twice before.  All he had to do was hold out for a few more months and the Empire would reinforce him to the point where even the new ships wouldn’t suffice to break through the defences.  Once that happened, Colin would have little choice, but to either risk everything on one throw of the dice, or fall back.  Either one could prove fatal.

“Three squadrons,” he said, thoughtfully.  That gave Admiral Wachter five squadrons, at least until he repaired the cripples and got them back on the front lines.  That was another reason to hurry the offensive – they might be able to capture the cripples intact – but it would have to wait until they were reinforced.  “Do we have any idea who’s commanding them?”

“No,” Arun said.  “There was apparently some kind of ceremony at Morrison when they arrived, but we don’t have anyone in a position to know just who’s in command of what.  I believe that Admiral Wachter is still in command of Morrison, so it would be logical to assume that he is the supreme commander, if not the tactical commander.”

Colin nodded.  He couldn’t argue with the logic.  Morrison had been too far from Macore for him to establish any networks there, prior to hostilities breaking out, while Admiral Wachter had apparently managed to prevent any further defections from his fleet.  Whatever else he was, he had to be good at managing his people, which meant that they would probably follow him anywhere.  A good fleet commander, one trusted and respected by his people, would be a dangerous opponent…to both sides.  The last person to hold such a position of power had been the Empress…

Is that what you want, Admiral?  Colin thought.  Perversely, it worried him that he didn’t even know what Admiral Wachter looked like.  The files on Harmony hadn’t been much more detailed than the files on the starships, although Percival’s private files had included the notation depressingly honest.  That wouldn’t be a bad trait in an Emperor.  Do you want to be Emperor of the Human Race?

“He’s a good commander and a sneaky bastard,” Colin said, calmly.  “He is not God.  We can beat him and we will beat him.  We have several new advantages coming our way…and he doesn’t have the slightest idea that they exist.  Once the new ships are here, we’re going to take Morrison off him and, if we can, capture him alive.”

He smiled.  Admiral Wachter had used his familiarity with Imperial Navy starships against him, tricking Colin just long enough to hammer his fleet with arsenal ships, but Colin had a few surprises of his own.  The new superdreadnaughts, designed by the Geeks to their own designs, would be a complete surprise to him, while Colin knew all of his ships as well as Admiral Wachter himself.  Perhaps there was a way to use that against him – again.

“And, once we take Morrison, Earth.”

He stood up and looked around the room.  They were older and wiser, now, than they’d been when they’d gone into Morrison before, but they hadn’t been broken.  The fleet’s morale had been repaired, slowly, and a few easy successes would give them renewed confidence, before they went directly for Morrison again.

“The 1st Squadron, with myself in command, will head for Gaul,” he said.  “They’re the most powerful first-rank world in the sector, so I will go there myself.  Ideally, we don’t want an actual fight, but we can expect any Imperial ships in the sector to put up a fight, unless they run.  I’ll take five of the arsenal ships with me, just in case, while the others will be distributed around the fleet.  The 2nd and 3rd Squadrons will have their own targets, while I want the 7th and 8th to run raids on Imperial worlds” – he indicated worlds on the display, one by one – “here, here and here.  The 9th, with the new improved cloaking device, is to lurk in Morrison itself and hit their convoys before they can flicker into the inner solar system.”

Commodore Samuel Weiberg smiled.  He’d been one of the renegades, like Cordova, who’d fled the Imperial Navy long ago, turning to a life along the Rim.  Colin had been delighted to get him for the Shadow Fleet.  He had forgotten more about battlecruisers and their use in warfare than most of the newcomers had ever known.  Colin had offered him a command and he’d accepted at once.

“Give us a couple of weeks and we’ll have them too paranoid to move far from their bases,” he said, grimly.  He frowned as he considered the tactical problem.  “Can we borrow a handful of other ships to disguise our entry?”

“Why not?”  Colin asked.  The memory of an Imperial Navy superdreadnaught squadron using the same technique at Macore still rankled.  The rebellion might have come to a screeching halt that day.  They’d discovered, after Harmony had fallen, that a Captain Penelope Quick, Percival’s aide, hatchet-woman and mistress, had come up with the idea, but she was presumed dead after Percival’s fortress had been destroyed.  Colin hadn’t been surprised.  The idea of Percival showing any initiative or tactical risk-taking had been rather unlikely.  “Remember, don’t let them ambush you in the system, just keep them panicking.”

“It should make their lives more interesting,” Weiberg promised.  It would do more than that, Colin knew; it would force them to risk their freighters closer to the planet and it’s gravity shadow.  Most freighters came out to check their bearings along the verge of the system and a patient pirate could wait for a tempting target.  “I’ll have an operations plan within the day.”

Colin turned back to the main display.  “We are going to keep them hopping as long as possible,” he said, calmly.  “I need not remind you that everything hangs on our success.  Dismissed!”

***
“You sound a great deal happier,” David observed, after the meeting had broken up and the various officers dispersed back to their own ships.  “Did you get laid or something?”

Colin tried to scowl at him.  The Imperial Navy had used – or rather abused – sex, allowing its officers and senior crewmen to use sex as a bargaining chip, like the unfortunate Captain Quick.  The Shadow Fleet was different.  Colin had ordered, and made it stick, that no one could have relations with anyone senior or junior in their own chain of command.  It was, he believed, the only way to prevent sexual relations being used to pervert the chain of command.  He didn’t care who or what wanted to have sex, but if it started to affect the well-being of his crews, he would stamp on it as hard as possible.

Of course, it also meant that he wouldn’t be having sex.  There were no other Admirals in the Shadow Fleet.  The downside hadn’t occurred to him when he'd drafted the regulation and, bad as illicit sex was for discipline, rewriting the regulation to grant himself an exception would be worse.

“No,” he said, firmly.  “I merely saw the new ships that the Geeks had been building along the Rim.  Why do you ask?”

“Oh, there are always rumours,” David said, mischievously.  “There’s a rumour that you’re having a threesome with Daria and the Prime Minister…”

Colin shook his head.  “Cheek,” he said.  It was fairly traditional in the Imperial Navy to have rude and insulting rumours spreading through the lower decks and most Captains normally ignored them, provided that they weren't bad for discipline.  Most rumours were exaggerated beyond all believability.  It wasn't physically possible to have sexual relations with a Masaja – and that had been one of the kindest rumours about Percival.  “Do I want to know about the others?”

David grinned.  There was something vaguely surreal about the conversation, even though David was perhaps the only person he could actually relax with, if not the only person he could trust.  The relationship between an Admiral and a Flag Captain was an old one; the former had to trust, the latter had to be his commander’s alter ego during combat.

“Probably not,” he said.  He allowed his face to slip into a grin.  “My spies do inform me that I’m having sex with Sonja, which was actually news to me and I’m pretty sure it was news to her as well…”

“Enough,” Colin said, shaking his head.  There was little point in dwelling on the rumours.  The best-loved Captains had never been able to prevent them, although he liked to think that they were merely a symptom of the generally bad command chain.  “What is the current status of the 1st Squadron?”

“Well, the Nerds on the repair ship came up with a basic technique for replacing some of the damaged battle armour, so we’re almost as good as we’ll ever be,” David said, dropping instantly into Flag Captain mode.  “We still need a yard at some point within the next few months, but overall we’re good to go.  We just need a week to repaint the hulls.  How do you intend to impress the Gauls when the ships look like they’ve been though a battle?”

“They have been though a battle,” Colin said, flatly.  It was only a few days to Gaul, the nearest first-rank world in the Sector, but it would be bare hours before Admiral Wachter could dispatch a reinforcement squadron, if he didn’t decide that it was a feint intended to draw ships away from Morrison.  “We don’t want to look as if we haven’t actually been fighting.”

David nodded.  “Do you think they’ll actually go for it?”

“I doubt it,” Colin said.  It wasn't something he could confess to anyone else.  “The first-rank worlds aren’t any match for the Empire and they know it.  They might dislike, or hate, the Empire, but they won’t join us outright.  They’d have to be out of their minds to try.  If Gaul did, I’d expect the Empire to respond with a punitive scorching, just to make the point clear.”

“Just like Macore,” David said.  Colin nodded.  Commodore Stacy Roosevelt, who was back on Earth and probably causing trouble for the Thousand Families, had been given orders to provoke an incident that Public Information could use for domestic consumption.  When that had failed – for the entirely understandable reason that Colin’s forces had boarded the superdreadnaughts and claimed them for the rebellion – Admiral Percival had charged Macore with aiding the rebellion, incorrectly, and ordered an invasion anyway.  “So, what can we expect from them?”

“Covert aid, I hope,” Colin said, “although that’s not the real point.  The real point is to force Admiral Wachter to keep one eye on the first-rank worlds.  If they all switched sides at once, they'd cause one hell of a problem for the Empire, perhaps enough to cause it to collapse.  They’re paranoid about any such possibility, with good reason, and we’re going to awaken the old nightmare for them.”

David frowned.  “And if they tell us to fuck off and take our rebellion with us?”

“They will, publicly,” Colin said.  He smiled, rather vaguely.  “Try not to be insulted.  It’s the smartest thing they could do.  The Empire probably won’t take them at their word, however, and they’re going to have to keep one eye on them.”

“Clever,” David agreed.  He studied the display for a long moment.  Colin could almost follow his thoughts.  There was little point in raiding most of the systems in the sector – they didn’t have much worth the effort of destroying them – and occupation was impossible until Morrison was taken.  The first-rank worlds, on the other hand, had enough industry to make them tempting targets.  “And if they are forced to station additional squadrons of superdreadnaughts in those systems?”

“Admiral Wachter won’t want to do that,” Colin said.  “It leads, rather neatly, to a more important question.  If they’re confident that they’ve won the war, as intelligence seems to believe, are they going to order him to cover them?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Emergence in twenty seconds, sir.”

Colin tensed as the countdown entered the final sequence.  They were jumping into the system blind, without even using a picket ship to locate any possible hazards, such as an Imperial Navy observation squadron.  Normally, the Imperial Navy wouldn’t have bothered to mount a serious picket in a first-rank system, but times were far from normal.  He doubted, however, that anything they’d placed at Gaul could match the firepower of nine superdreadnaughts and five arsenal ships.  

It was, he had to admit, a risk coming into the system, but it was a risk that had to be accepted.  The Empire, already nervous about their advance, would be driven to new heights of paranoia by direct rebel contacts with the first-rank worlds.  They’d probably demand that the systems were picketed by forces from Morrison, or free up additional ships from Home Fleet, weakening them further.  Even if they allowed the contact to pass – and that would be the wise thing to do – they’d still be paranoid.  He intended to play on that fear.  The first-rank worlds might not have matched the Imperial Navy for firepower, but with the Shadow Fleet, they might provide a serious threat.  It was the Empire’s worst nightmare…

And yet I’m the one putting them in danger, he thought, as the countdown reached zero.  He braced himself for the shock of transition back into normal space, retching with the rest of the compartment as the discordance raced through the ship, and looked up at the display. The passive sensors were already picking up hundreds of ships operating within the system, some of them clearly warships.  The only question was who owned and commanded those warships?

“Launch probes,” he ordered, as the sensor crew brought the active sensors on line.  It would reveal their position – a moot point since the flicker signature had already revealed their position – but it would also indicate that they weren't trying to hide.  “Get me a breakdown on forces within the system, now!”

He stared at the display, willing it to give up its secrets by force of will alone.  Gaul had a reputation as a nice place to live, one of the most prosperous of the first-rank world…which made it a prime target for asset looting.  There was no direct evidence in the files, but Colin would have bet good money that Gaul was being squeezed by the Thousand Families.  Their taxes and tithes would already have been raised, along with those of the rest of the first-rank worlds, and they’d be being pushed to make a larger contribution.  It was a breech of the agreement between the first-rank worlds and the Empire, but the Empire was strong enough not to have to care any longer.  Gaul’s future had been decided back on Earth.  They would be pulled into the Empire, eventually, and then stripped bare.  In the end, they’d be just another colony.

And what deals might your rulers have been offered?  Colin thought, staring at the blue-green globe on the display.  What might you have been offered to allow the looting to go ahead without protest…or are you too scared to protest?

“I have a single squadron of heavy cruisers, bearing away from us,” the sensor officer reported.  “I also have seven squadrons of battleships and nine squadrons of smaller ships, remaining in orbit around the planet.  Sensor records suggest that the latter ships are home-built models, not Imperial designs.”

Colin watched as the heavy cruisers raced away from the planet.  It suggested that they were an observation squadron, a combination of firepower and speed, but also that their commander was smart enough not to stick around to be annihilated.  He wouldn’t have stood a chance against a single superdreadnaught, let alone nine, and logically…

He smiled as the squadron flickered out, just as he had expected.  They’d be running to Morrison now, unless one or two had been left behind under cloak to picket the system and observe from a distance, and when they arrived they’d report to Admiral Wachter.  Colin suspected that he’d react at once, but it would be hours, at least, before any response could arrive.  By then, Colin hoped to have finished his work and vanished into the shadows.

“There appear to be no other Imperial Navy starships in the system,” the sensor officer said, grimly.  “There are hundreds of commercial ships leaving the system, however, and several courier boats have been dispatched.”

Colin nodded.  No one in their right mind wanted to be around when the missiles started flying, particularly not if they were in a ship that could easily be mistaken for an arsenal ship by someone inclined to the reconnaissance by fire approach.  He’d thought about broadcasting a demand that all commercial ships remain where they were, but it was a demand he would be completely unable to enforce, which would merely encourage them to run.  He couldn’t even copy Admiral Wachter’s trick with the safety interlocks.  It wouldn’t work on the commercial ships.  They’d see some of them flickering out and draw the right conclusion.

He looked back up at the display.  “Status of the defence force?”

“They’re forming up into a defensive formation, within the gravity shadow,” the sensor officer reported.  “They are not, however, taking offensive action.”

Inexperienced, Colin thought, watching their formation.  If he intended to take Gaul, he would have moved up quickly and used the arsenal ships to swat the defenders out of the way.  They should have been racing for the edge of the gravity shadow as quickly as possible, just to get room to manoeuvre.  It would have made the outcome far harder to predict.  He’d run simulations, wondering how the seventy battleships Gaul was reported to have would do against a single squadron of superdreadnaughts, and the conclusion had suggested mutual annihilation.  It hadn’t been a cheerful study.

“Good,” he said.  “Tactical, run passive targeting locks on them, but don’t light them up unless I give the word.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.

Colin sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers.  “Communications, open a channel,” he said.  “Tell the Gauls that I wish to speak with a senior representative of their planet.”

Gaul was, according to the records, a representative democracy.  There was a President and a Prime Minister, and below them, a Cabinet and a Parliament.  Unlike the Imperial Parliament, Gaul’s Parliament had real power, although it was moot in the case of the Empire.  If the Empire wanted something from Gaul, they’d take it…and Gauls weren’t allowed to join the Imperial Navy.  His best guess was that he’d talk to someone the Gauls wouldn’t hesitate to surrender to the Empire, if the Empire demanded it, someone completely expendable.  Years ago, he would have hated that thought, but now…now, it was just a fact of life.

I’ve come a long way, he thought, almost regretfully.  There were times when he didn’t recognise the hard-eyed man staring back at him from the mirror.  It was harder and harder to remember a time when he hadn’t been leading a rebellion, or plotting the destruction of the Empire, a time when he’d had hopes and ambitions of his own.

“We’re receiving a laser signal, relayed through one of the orbital platforms,” the communications officer said.

“Put it on the main screen,” Colin ordered.

The display reformatted itself into a two-dimensional screen, showing a man’s head and shoulders.  “Admiral Harper, I presume,” he said.  “I wish that I could welcome you to Gaul.”

Colin nodded regretfully.  The newcomer was dark-haired, with a face that suggested that he’d used cosmetic treatments to find an appearance he liked and then stuck with it, with grim dark eyes.  He didn’t sound happy to be talking to Colin, let alone anyone else, but Colin suspected he couldn’t really be blamed for it.  If he had been marked down as expendable, he was probably very aware that a single mistake could doom him and his family.  The Empire had a policy of collective punishment for such affairs.

“Thank you for speaking to me,” Colin said, calmly.  “I apologise for the sudden arrival, but you must understand that we wanted a peaceful visit.”

“As opposed to half the Imperial Navy waiting for you,” the man said.  “I am René Goscinny, Minister for Foreign Affairs, representing the Government of Gaul.  This conversation is heavily scrambled at our end and relayed through an orbital platform through lasers.  Officially, I never spoke to you at all.”

“Of course,” Colin said, calmly.  He’d expected as much.  “I understand that this is a somewhat delicate situation for you.”

“You would have made a diplomat, Admiral Harper,” Goscinny said.  He laughed, rather nervously.  “I must, however, speak bluntly now and discard the language of diplomacy.  We cannot risk any misunderstanding, oui?”

“I understand,” Colin said, relieved. Diplomacy wasn't his strong suit.  There were people back at Harmony who could have quite happily carried on a discussion with Goscinny for hours, saying much without actually saying anything, but Colin couldn’t have done anything like that.  “You may speak freely.”

Goscinny nodded slowly.  “It’s very simple,” he said.  “Why have you come to visit us?”

Colin smiled.  “As you are aware, we are fighting a war against the Empire,” he said.  The messages through the ICN would have ensured that Gaul knew what was going on, even if they didn’t have an intelligence service keeping an eye on what was going on in the rest of the sector, perhaps even on Earth itself.  “We would like to invite Gaul to join us in fighting the Empire.”

“We have considered the matter,” Goscinny said.  “We heard about your rebellion and we thought that…maybe you would succeed, but we never dared dream that you would come so far into the Empire.  Perhaps you would succeed after all, but you must understand that our first priority is Gaul, always.  We have a large and powerful defence force, but we are critically short of escorts and if the Empire puts a few squadrons of superdreadnaughts into the system, we’re going to lose.  We could not avoid engagement with their forces and…when they arrive, we will lose everything we have worked for.”

He met Colin’s eyes.  “We cannot – we will not – offer you direct support,” he said, firmly.  “That is not negotiable.  There are those in our commercial shipping establishments and even in the defence force itself who would like to join you, but we – the Government – cannot allow any hint of an open commitment to leak out.”

Colin smiled.  “If the Empire wins the war, they’re going to need cash to rebuild after the rebellion,” he said.  “Gaul will find itself looted and stripped bare to appease them.  Have they already made demands of your fleet?”

Goscinny said nothing, but Colin read the answer in his eyes.  The first-rank worlds might have been allowed to build up defence forces, but they were not allowed to operate them outside their own system – or systems, if they had had several stars before the Empire swallowed them up.  It was illegal for the Empire to request that some of the defence forces serve with the Imperial Navy, even as convoy escorts or other simple tasks, but the Imperial Navy was badly overstretched.  He would have been more surprised if they hadn’t been making demands.

“You are correct, of course,” Goscinny said, finally.  “We are very definitely caught between a rock and a hard place.  If we chose to join you, could you defend our world?”

Colin winced inwardly.  It would be possible, but it would require massing all of the Shadow Fleet at Gaul, which would mean that further offensive operations would be impossible.  Morrison would merely dispatch all five squadrons of superdreadnaughts, secure in the knowledge that there was nothing left to threaten the base, and challenge them in open battle.  If the Shadow Fleet retreated, Gaul would be naked and helpless at the Empire’s feet.

“No,” he admitted.  He could have lied, but he didn’t want to lie.  The Empire would probably have made a promise it had no intention of keeping, but Colin liked to think that the Freedom Alliance would do better.  Besides, they would have known it was a lie.  “We can probably come to your aid if you are attacked, but we cannot station a massive force in your system permanently.”

“I know,” Goscinny said.  He leaned forward.  “That’s our problem in a nutshell, Admiral.  We might want to get involved – and I tell you that unofficially, of course – but we can’t get involved without losing everything.  We won’t get involved, not openly, until you knock out Morrison.  Perhaps then…”

“Perhaps,” Colin agreed.  He could have threatened them, he could have pointed out that standing on the sidelines carried its own dangers, but that would have been a betrayal of the Freedom Alliance and all it claimed to stand for.  They might even have called in the Imperial Navy to get rid of him and prove their loyalty to the Empire.  It had been one of the dangers of using pirates in the war and why he'd been so firmly against anything that was even remotely like an atrocity.  They had plenty of enemies already without adding more to the list.

He smiled thinly.  “What are you willing to do to help us?”

“We went to some lengths to build up an intelligence network in the sector,” Goscinny said, flatly.  He didn’t go into details and Colin didn’t blame him.  Anderson had taught him that running an intelligence network depended on secrecy.  No one knew what leak would allow the enemy to put the entire puzzle together and uncover the spies.  “You may have full access to the take from the agents, including some on Morrison itself.”

Colin’s eyes went very wide.  The Shadow Fleet hadn’t been able to establish any networks in Morrison itself.  The system had been far beyond his reach before Harmony had fallen and, even now, it wasn't possible to establish any useful penetration of the system.  Imperial Intelligence, lashed by their new commanding officer, had done a good job of sealing off access.  What little they’d picked up had been useless, or worrying.  Admiral Wachter was regarded highly by his crewmen.

“Yes, including some information on the current status of their ships,” Goscinny pushed.  “It’s always going to be at least two weeks out of date, as we have to have it sent through the ICN, which carries its own risks, but it has to be done.”

Colin suspected that that was a lie, but allowed it to pass unchallenged.  The ICN was designed and run by the Imperial Navy and was used, partly, to ensure that Imperial Intelligence could read any message that might be interesting or incriminating.  They would probably have paid careful attention to any message leaving Morrison for Gaul, which would have exposed the spies.  It was far more likely that they were using freighter crews to convey the information.  It also wasn't a question he could ask.

“That would be very useful,” he said, calmly.  “What else can you offer us?”

“Perhaps some limited support,” Goscinny added.  “We do have one of the largest and most capable industrial systems outside the Empire or even Earth itself.  If you want to place an order with us for supplies, we can produce them for you, free of charge.”

Colin smiled.  Gaul had been settled back in the Federation’s time, funded completely by a national government on Earth, rather than the Federation itself.  As such, it had avoided the Federation – and later the Empire – slipping its hooks into its economy until it was far better developed than any of the Federation-funded colonies.  The Empire had eventually smothered Gaul to some degree, preventing it from competing in a free market, but it still had a major industrial base and commercial fleet.  Given time to breathe, it might even rival the Geeks or Nerds for innovative development.  

Indeed, he thought, once we destroy the Empire, it might grow to replace the Families.

“We primarily need missiles and spare parts for our ships,” he said, finally.  He hadn’t expected that offer, and it would be dangerous as hell for Gaul if the Empire realised that they were supplying the Shadow Fleet, but it would be accepted.  It was quite possible that they would even convince the Empire that they were producing them for the Imperial Navy.  “I can have a list of requirements sent to you if you would like.”

“Of course,” Goscinny said.  He smiled thinly.  “You do realise that, officially, we’re going to deny everything?”

“So you said,” Colin agreed.  “No one will hear anything about this until after the war.”

“Good luck, then,” Goscinny said.  He winked once before lowering his eyes, embarrassed.  “I’ll send a communications code packet to your ships at once.  Use it to contact us, preferably without bringing superdreadnaughts that anyone can count.  Goodbye.”

The image vanished from the display.  “Take us out of here,” Colin ordered, calmly.  They had already pushed their luck too far.  “We don’t want to be here when the rest of the Empire’s forces arrive.”

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said.  The starship’s background hum rose to a crescendo as the drive powered up.  “Flickering out…now!”

Colin smiled as he sat back in his command chair.  He hadn’t expected much from Gaul, but they’d given him two things he desperately needed, although it would be foolish to take them all on trust.  Who knew what was really going on down on the planet?  They might be as desperate to escape the Empire as Goscinny implied, or they might be working directly for the Empire and planning to ambush the Shadow Fleet.  Only time would tell.

“Take us directly to the first waypoint, then pass an update to the courier boat before we head onwards to the next waypoint,” he ordered.  “We have four more worlds to visit before we’re done.” 

Chapter Thirty-Five

The small convoy of freighters flickered into existence and stabilised rapidly.

“Perfect,” Commodore Samuel Weiberg said, calmly.  They’d been lurking along the edge of the Morrison System for a week before the ideal target presented itself.  It was fairly common for freighters, even ones supplying a major fleet base, to flicker into the edge of a system first, just to check that their navigation computers hadn’t made a terrible mistake and sent them crashing headlong into a gravity shadow.  Having emerged into normal space, they would have to wait until their drives recharged before they could flicker onwards to their destination.  “Helm, take us into missile range, carefully.”

The small convoy grew closer as the cloaked battlecruisers slipped closer.  He’d divided his squadron into three small groups, dispersed around the edge of the system, in order to ensure the greatest possible chance of success.  The minute a warning flashed out from one of the freighters, the Imperial Navy would know that they were there, but finding them would be difficult.  Even the Imperial Navy-standard cloaking device was extremely good and the Geeks had improved on it remarkably.  It had been lucky that they hadn’t given them to pirate bands or they would have been even harder to hunt down and destroy.  The irony wasn't lost on Weiberg, a former pirate chaser himself.

“Targets locked,” the tactical officer said.  “Five bulk freighters, nine limited freighters, nine destroyers and one light cruiser.”

Weiberg nodded.  The odds were that the escorts had been pulled together to fill a hole in the Imperial Navy’s convoy schedule, rather than having been trained for the mission.  There were never enough convoy escorts, no matter how many escorts were built by the Imperial Navy’s yards, even though there were thousands in the Imperial Navy.  Too many of them had deserted and come to join the rebellion when Colin’s message had spread through the ICN.  It was much easier to mutiny successfully in a smaller ship than a massive superdreadnaught.

“Ignore the warships,” he ordered, calmly.  On one hand, it would be better to eliminate them before they could be deployed against the Shadow Fleet, but they added very little to the enemy’s firepower.  They weren't even configured to serve as point defence ships.  The real danger was simple.  One or more of the bulk freighters could be an arsenal ship in disguise.  Even a Q-ship would be dangerous.  “Lock weapons on the freighters only.”

The tactical officer frowned, but nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he said.  “Missiles locked and loaded.”

“Fire,” Weiberg ordered calmly.  The battlecruiser rocked as it launched it’s first salvo right towards the targets.  “Helm, bring up the drives and take us in closer.  Tactical, bring up the shields and point defence.”

He smiled as the lights came up.  The greatest disadvantage of a cloaking device, even the improved models, was that it was impossible to raise shields while under cloak.  If the enemy had caught a sniff of their existence, they could have tracked them on passive sensors and fired a broadside directly into an unshielded hull, destroying the entire ship before it could escape.  Worse, the turbulence caused by the cloaked ship’s presence grew more detectable when the starship was moving, offering the convoy escorts a clean shot at their hulls, if they’d been on the ball.  Evidently, he thought, as the shields snapped into existence, they hadn’t expected an attack this close to Morrison.

The missiles raged towards the pitifully unprotected freighters, blowing right through the scattered and ineffective point defence that the escorts managed to raise, before slamming into the freighters’ shields.  The freighters weren't designed for the heat of battle and the missiles rapidly punched through and impacted with the hull, vaporising the freighters one by one.  The tactical officer was already firing a second broadside towards the escorts, forcing them to defend themselves, as space warped and twisted, revealing an entire battlecruiser squadron.

“Damn, they’re on the ball,” Weiberg remarked calmly, as the battlecruisers orientated themselves and opened fire.  A massive broadside of missiles roared towards his ships.  “Exit, stage left.”

He grinned at the joke as the three battlecruisers flickered out, leaving a destroyed convoy behind.  They'd destroyed the convoy…and they hadn’t even been hit once!

“Not too shabby,” he said, once they were safety away.  The battlecruisers would probably search around for other threats – they knew that trick by now as well – but by the time they realised there was nothing to find, the raiders would be well away.  “Take us to the first waypoint, and then prepare to return to the Morrison System.”

He smiled as he studied the display.  With a little bit of care – and a great deal of luck – they could slip back into the system without being noticed, and then find another target.  The Empire couldn’t cover all of the possible angles of attack, unless they committed the entire Imperial Fleet to it, and that was impossible…

The starship returned to normal space.  “Good,” he said, as they sighted the courier boat.  “Communications, new orders.  Update the courier boat before it leaves with the intelligence we gathered…and then we can go back to the system.”

He watched as the information was passed over to the courier boat.  They’d seeded the system with remote sensor platforms, using them to watch the activities of the Imperial Navy, and the information might come in useful for Colin.  If they were very lucky, they might even discover a window they could use to attack the planet and remove the threat, once and for all.

***
“How long are you going to tolerate this?”

Admiral Jörg Allmanritter was not, Penny decided, in a good mood.  It might have been something to do with discovering that Joshua had had the POWs under heavy guard, or the fact that the rebels were raiding along the verge of the Morrison System.  She wasn't sure why he was so concerned – it reflected badly on Joshua, not him – but he had clearly taken the precaution of contacting Joshua through the communications network, not in person.  It was faintly insulting, unless there was a chance of imminent combat, but Joshua didn’t even seem to have noticed.  She would have bet good money that that was really irritating Allmanritter.

“Tolerate what?”  Joshua asked, as if it were the least important matter in the world.  “Your attempts to remove the prisoners from my custody?  Your persistent attempts to usurp my authority?  Your fleet’s complete failure to master the simplest of manoeuvres?”

Allmanritter flushed, angrily.  The three squadrons of superdreadnaughts that made up the 2nd Main Strike Fleet had never worked together before and it showed.  He should have been drilling them, at least in simulations, ever since he’d been given command, but he clearly hadn’t bothered.  He hadn’t learned anything from Joshua’s endless drilling of his own forces, or even the rebel training methods – after all, no one had forced him to learn.  Joshua had insisted that he start training at once, but his command style would probably provoke a mutiny before too long.  Threatening his crews with relief, or execution, for failing to accomplish the impossible didn’t reflect well on him.

“There are rebels in my crew who are distracting them from their duties,” he protested, finally.  It was ironic, seeing that he'd been given the loyalist squadrons in the Empire, but he didn’t seem to notice.  “I cannot turn them into a functioning fleet…”

“This is war, Admiral,” Joshua snapped, cutting him off sharply.  “This is not an opportunity to enrich yourself or claim greater honours than you already had.  You did not inherit a perfectly-tuned squadron, let alone a perfectly-tuned and trained fleet; you inherited units that had never worked together before.  You then decided to start working at once on advanced manoeuvres that would tax an experienced squadron, not the basics they needed to learn and understand…hell, it’s a miracle that they can all move in the same direction when you command!”

He spoke over Allmanritter’s protests.  “And then…instead of working to fix the problems, you blame everything on the rebels,” he continued.  “You are undoing everything I have achieved here.  If you took your three squadrons up against a single rebel squadron, I would not bet on your ships to win a contest they should be able to win with ease.”

“But…”

Joshua cut him off again.  “You need to work on your basics first, or ask for relief,” he said, firmly.  “You made it impossible for us to respond to the rebel fleet at Gaul, which may mean more trouble in the future.”  He paused.  “Now, what shouldn’t I tolerate?”

“The rebels are raiding the edge of this system,” Allmanritter said, trying to recover lost ground.  Penny could have told him that it was a waste of time and effort, but she didn’t bother.  Allmanritter couldn’t have commanded a squadron under any circumstances.  It would be a great deal simpler just to have him thrown into space, the traditional punishment for treason, and replaced with someone more likely to actually win a battle.  “Why haven’t you cleared them out?”

Joshua smiled thinly.  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

Allmanritter didn’t sense the trap.  “You have hundreds of escorts and even battlecruisers here,” he said.  “You could deploy them to protect the incoming ships…”

“The rebels are using battlecruisers to raid the system,” Joshua cut him off, calmly.  “If I spread escorts around, the only thing I would get would be more destroyed escort ships.  I don’t think that anyone would thank me for that.  I have deployed battlecruisers to break up any raids and I have issued orders for freighters to come in much closer to the system before they emerge from flicker-space, but there is very little else I can do.”

Allmanritter stared at him.  “You’re just giving up?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Joshua said, icily.  “I am doing what I have to do to limit further attacks.  In the long run, the only thing that will stop them from continuing is defeating the rebels and the readiness of your ships is crucial to defeating him.”  He allowed a hint of threat to enter his voice.  “I want your ships ready by the end of the week.”

He cut the communications link before Allmanritter could respond.  “It was smart of him not to come here,” he said, tiredly.  “I might have lost patience with him and struck him down.”

Penny nodded slowly.  Losing Allmanritter would be the best thing for the 2nd Main Strike Fleet.  By now, she was sure, there would already be cells of mutineers plotting rebellion on the superdreadnaughts.  The SD troopers on his ships might prevent a mutiny from succeeding, but she wouldn’t have bet on Allmanritter surviving the rebellion.  They’d probably target him first, just to get rid of someone who would get them killed, if he led them into battle.

“Yes, sir,” she said.  “Can’t you ask your patrons to get rid of him?”

“Lord Roosevelt has been murdered,” Joshua said, almost dispassionately.  “My patron is one of the prime suspects.”

Penny stared at him.  She’d never met Lord Roosevelt, but he’d been one of Percival’s prime patrons, which didn’t recommend him to her.  The Roosevelt Clan had been the effective owners of Sector 117…and, thanks to the rebellion, had been in serious trouble, but she hadn’t heard anything else.  She certainly hadn’t heard that the Clan Head had been murdered.

“It was covered up, for all sorts of reasons,” Joshua said, when she asked him.  “I can’t see young Tiberius deciding to have a Clan Head murdered – that’s normally against the rules everyone agrees on at the High City – but that’s not going to cut much ice with the other Clan Heads.  The net result is that my patrons have been weakened, which means that Admiral Allmanritter’s position is effectively unchallengeable, unless the rebels kill him.  If they didn’t destroy his ships as well, I’d almost thank them for it.”

He ran a hand through his hair tiredly.  “The Empire is on the verge of fragmenting anyway,” he said, softly.  “The Roosevelt Clan is falling apart, now that Lord Roosevelt is dead, and the shockwaves are affecting the very foundation of the Empire.  It’s turning into a powder keg and it’ll only need one idiot to light the match and…boom.”

Penny closed her eyes.  “Civil war,” she said.  “Isn’t there a way it can be stopped?”

“We’ve already got the civil war,” Joshua said.  For a moment, the mask slipped, and she saw his age below the smile.  “The rebels might take one good look and wait for us to destroy ourselves before moving in and taking the remainder of the Empire.  The first-rank worlds will make their own bid for independence.  The colonies will see their chance to revolt against their oppressors.  The Imperial Navy will shatter along Clan lines, if it doesn’t go over to the rebels…and the Household Troops will wage war on Earth itself.  If someone manages to gain control of Home Fleet, or the orbital defences…”

He smiled, bitterly.  “How much would you like to bet that Allmanritter’s forces include the most rebellious squadrons in the Empire?”

“They were loyal,” Penny said.  She stopped.  “Ah…”

“Exactly,” Joshua agreed.  There was a new tone in his voice, one of pure anger.  “Who told you that they were loyal?”

He snorted.  “It doesn’t really matter now,” he added, more thoughtfully.  He laughed humourlessly.  “After nearly a month under his command, Penny, they will probably be on the verge of mutiny anyway.”

Penny took a breath.  “Have you considered trying to stop it?”

“I hoped that breaking the rebellion would stop it, or at least slow the process,” Joshua said.  “We’ve been on the verge of a civil war for a long time before Colin Harper led a squadron into open revolt.  I wonder if…”

He broke off as the console chimed.  “Admiral, this is Saint-Beth in communications,” a voice said.  She sounded nervous to be talking to the Admiral, even though Joshua had never blamed the bearer for their bad news.  “We had an update from Gaul.”

“I see,” Joshua said.  “What happened after the observation ships departed?”

There was a pause as the communications officer, unused to being asked to read the classified messages, skimmed it quickly.  “The rebels remained in the system for nearly an hour, without communicating with anyone, and then they departed,” she said, finally.  “There was nothing else in the message.”

“Unlikely,” Joshua said.  There was a quickly-hushed squeak of protest on the other side.  She probably thought that the Admiral had just accused her of lying.  “No, not the message.  Something else.  Something that they didn’t do.”

He closed the channel.  “Why would the rebels remain in a system for an hour without doing anything?”

Penny shrugged.  “Perhaps they just wanted to show off,” she said.  It wasn't a good answer and she knew it.  “Why didn’t they engage Gaul’s fleet?”

Joshua smiled.  “They wouldn’t,” he said, slowly.  “If they hoped to trap a detachment from Morrison, they should have remained there for at least fifteen hours…and that assumes that we managed to get the fleet off at once.  We’d have had to send the 2nd Main Strike Fleer and I’d be surprised if they got there within the day.  Why didn’t they wait that long?”

He paused.  “And, as you say, why didn’t they engage Gaul’s fleet?  Answer, well, my answer…because that would force all of the other first-rank worlds over to our side, so they wouldn’t want to do that unless it was unavoidable.  They could have destroyed the fleet, but it wasn’t doing anything they wanted to stop…”

Penny saw it in a flash of insight.  “They used lasers,” she said.  “They were talking to the Gauls through lasers and the observation ship saw nothing of it.  How could they have?”

Joshua smiled.  “Exactly,” he said.  He looked up at the sector display.  “Which leads us neatly to the second question.  What were they talking about with the Gauls for so long?”

“The only thing they’d want,” Penny said slowly, “would be Gaul to join the rebellion.”

“Exactly,” Joshua said.  He gave her one of his rare open smiles.  Allmanritter had never been graced with any such expression of approval.  “So, what agreement did Gaul make with them?”

Penny shook her head.  “I don’t know,” she said.  It could have been anything from threats to an offer of a place in the rebellion, to even a discussion about the weather.  Nothing would surprise her these days.  “Perhaps we should ask them…?”

“I’m not sure that we could trust their answer,” Joshua said, flatly.  Penny flushed.  Of course the Gauls would lie.  They wouldn’t want to be implicated in anything that might draw the wrath of the Empire.  “I’ll see if Major Damiani can make enquires with Imperial Intelligence’s planetary chief, but I wouldn’t offer money on discovering anything useful.  The Gauls will have had years to learn how to subvert Imperial Intelligence on their world.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they already have the Imperial Intelligence office working for them.”

He shrugged.  “And dealing with a first-rank world is always a political decision,” he continued.  “It’s not something I can handle without clearance from Earth, which means that there will be a delay before Earth gets back to us with any instructions…and Gaul has patrons of it’s own.  What do you think they’ll want us to do?”

Penny remembered Macore and shuddered.  “Invade,” she said.  The thought was gruesome.  “Can we do that?”

“I suspect they’ll give the job to Allmanritter,” Joshua said, tiredly.  He sounded, for the first time since she’d known him, beaten and defeated.  “If we’re lucky, he’ll botch it badly enough so that we can take a swipe at his neck.  If not…”

He shook his head.  “I’m tired, Penny, so tired,” he said.  He stood up, dismissing her.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

The way he said it almost broke her heart.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Commodore, I have twelve starships, flickering into normal space.”

“Show me,” Commodore Sooraya Qadir ordered.  The fleet had been lurking in the Garden System for two weeks, waiting for an opportunity to strike.  She could have punched out the handful of light cruisers orbiting the planet’s gravity shadow with ease, but it would have been pointless.  She was after bigger game.  “Freighters?”

“They appear so,” the sensor officer said.  The display lit up, tracking the newcomers as they raced towards the gravity shadow.  “Correction; nine bulk freighters and three heavy cruisers, apparently serving as an escort.  They’re reading out as rebel-controlled ships.”

Sooraya nodded.  After losing the battlecruiser at their last planetary target, she had resolved to be far more careful, but she needed to take the freighters intact.  That meant that she had to risk engaging them inside the gravity shadow, which meant in turn exposing herself to enemy fire.  The last two freighters they had attempted to capture had stalled long enough to recharge their drives and flicker out.  By now, according to her rough calculations, they would have informed the rest of the rebellion that the Imperial raiders had graduated to trying to capture starships.

“Good,” she said, thoughtfully.  “Helm, take us in on an intercept course, but watch for any attempt to close in on us while under cloak.”

“Aye, Commodore,” the helmsman said.  The battlecruiser thrummed slightly as she powered her way down towards the gravity shadow.  There was no sense that they had crossed it, but Sooraya felt a cold shiver as they passed into the shadow, trapping themselves in normal space.  Eight battlecruisers still gave her the firepower advantage, but she didn’t want to remain in the shadow for any longer than she absolutely had to.

“We could probably launch a few stealthed probes,” the tactical officer suggested.  “We don’t have a good read of what they have in planetary orbit.”

“I know,” Sooraya said, but she shook her head.  A stealthed probe could still be detected by active sensors, if they got unlucky, and that would almost certainly reveal the presence – at least – of a picket ship.  In their place, the first thing she would do would be to order the freighters back out of the system, before starting a search for any cloaked ships.  They might not uncover her presence directly, but if they searched the gravity shadow, they might force her to back off and wait for another opportunity to capture the freighters.  “Keep the probes in reserve for now.”

She watched coldly as the freighters grew closer.  There was little of elegance or charm in the design; they were merely huge boxy ships, barely even painted to give a striking impression.  There were literally millions of such ships within the Empire, carrying goods and supplies from star to star, mostly owned by the Family-owned shipping lines or the first-rank worlds.  The handful of independents had been slowly squeezed out of the business before the rebellion…and those that had remained in service, or unwillingly working for the shipping lines, had flown to join the rebels.  Sooraya admired the Empire, and would lay down her life for it, but it struck her as stupid.  No amount of independent shippers could really challenge the shipping lines.

The original designers had intended for the starships to be unloaded quickly when they arrived at their destination, mainly a low-orbit shipping hub.  The bulk freighters would never be able to land on a planet – they couldn’t even begin to land, let alone take off again afterwards – and it forced them into predicable patterns.  They had to dock at the low-orbit port…and she was waiting along their route.

“Lock weapons on target,” she said, watching as one of the heavy cruisers danced ahead of the others, sweeping with active sensors.  She wasn't sure if it meant that they had spotted anything, or if they were just being paranoid or running a drill, but it put a crimp into her plans.  If they caught a sniff of her ships, they’d raise shields and start scanning in earnest.  If they picked up the turbulence caused by the cloaking device…

“Weapons locked,” the tactical officer said.  At her command, the combined firepower of eight battlecruisers would be turned on the three heavy cruisers.  They wouldn’t be able to survive more than a few salvos at most.  The odds against a heavy cruiser beating a battlecruiser were astronomical.  “We are ready to fire.”

***
Captain Shahan Hassid, Shadow Fleet, watched dispassionately as Garden drew closer.  The planet hadn’t been heavily settled by the Roosevelt Clan, but they’d invested heavily in orbital industry, although no one was quite sure why.  It had been decided, back on Harmony, to ensure that Garden received a major upgrade of its defences, which meant that Hassid and his crew had been detached from the war front and assigned to guard the convoy.

He couldn’t really blame them for the decision, even though he would have preferred to be fighting along the front.  The Marble had been badly damaged when the crew rose in mutiny, after receiving Colin’s message, and the original crew – at least, those who had survived the mutiny – had been scattered and assigned to newer ships.  Hassid himself had been a lieutenant only five months ago, but when the Marble came out of the repair yards, he’d found himself promoted to Captain – after a bare two months as a Commander – and assigned to the Marble.  He'd thought, at first, that he was the victim of someone’s patronage, but when he’d realised just how green the crew actually was, it had become obvious that he’d been given a poisoned glass.  If he succeeded in melding them into a crew, he would have earned his command, and if he failed…well, a former lieutenant was easy to replace.

And perhaps I can make this work after all, he thought, dryly.  The Marble had only two hundred officers and men, as opposed to the six hundred a standard heavy cruiser should have had, but they were learning the ropes on the job.  The simulations of combat, ranging from individual combat from pirate vessels up to being part of a massed fleet of superdreadnaughts and battlecruisers, had allowed him to teach lessons he was sorely in need of himself.  It wasn’t easy, and he still felt like a fraud every time he pulled on the Captain’s uniform, but they were getting there.

“Captain,” the sensor officer said, “I think I have something.”

Hassid frowned.  The sensor officer, like everyone else, was very new at her job, but she was learning fast.  “You think you have something?”  He asked.  He’d ordered her to pretend that they were facing a cloaked ship or two, just to give her experience on the active sensors, maybe even tracking the light cruisers orbiting the gravity shadow.  “What do you have?”

“This,” she said.  Hassid frowned at the odd return.  Ahead of them, space was shimmering slightly, something that almost never occurred without a reason.  Space had more background noise than groundhogs understood, but this was oddly familiar to his eyes.  “It’s like…”

Hassid swore.  He’d placed it at the same time.  “All hands, this is the Captain,” he snapped, sharply.  The computers would pick up on his words and relay them through the decks.  “All hands to battle stations, I repeat, all hands to battle stations.”

He turned to the tactical officer.  “Raise shields and launch two full-spectrum sensor probes ahead of us,” he ordered.  “Communications, contact the other ships and…”

“Captain, they’re decloaking,” the sensor officer said.  “Now reading…my god!”

***
Sooraya stared in disbelief as the lead heavy cruiser snapped to battle stations.  Her Captain must have had the reactions of a cat!  Whatever he’d seen, he'd reacted at once, launching probes that would expose her presence to their targeting sensors.  If he got a shot off before the battlecruisers decloaked and opened fire…

“Decloak,” she ordered.  Fortunately, they’d already laid in their firing patterns.  “Tactical, open fire!”

The battlecruiser rolled as it unleashed its first salvo, followed rapidly by the other ships.  The enemy heavy cruiser might have been surprised, or not, but it hardly mattered.  Unless there was a superdreadnaught along, it was toast.

“Raise shields,” she continued.  “Helm, prepare to close the range.”

***
Only the fact that five of the enemy battlecruisers had targeted the other heavy cruisers saved Marble from a rapid and complete defeat.  Hassid stared at the display, feeling panic burbling up from his hindbrain, but he knew what to do.  The orders came naturally – he’d rehearsed them often enough – and he forced himself to remain calm.

“Tactical, open fire,” he said.  “Activate point defence and deploy decoys.”

He watched, gripping the hands of his command chair, as the missiles raced towards his ships.  The enemy didn’t seem to have adjusted their weapons to compensate for the improved decoys, but with such a weight of firepower, it hardly mattered.  A dozen decoys, each one pretending to be the Marble, lured forty missiles off course, but the remainder closed in unrelentingly on the real ship.  The point defence went active and he closed his eyes.  Some, almost all, of the missiles would get through to the hull.  It didn’t take a tactical genius to know what was going to happen next.

Their own missiles were vanishing, one by one, in the enemy’s point defence network.  If he’d fired as soon as the sensor officer picked up the contact, he might have managed to take out one of the battlecruisers, but it had rapidly become too late.  The other ships weren't even in position to fire, trying to get into firing position because escape was impossible, but it was too late.  A handful of missiles might break through the shields, but…

“Incoming,” the tactical officer said.

Hassid brought his hand hard down on his console.  “All hands, brace for impact,” he snapped.  “I repeat, brace for impact…”

The first missile slammed into the shield and the entire ship rocked.  It was far more present, far more real, than any of the simulations and he winced as damage rapidly mounted up on the display.  Five more missiles struck home in succession, hammering down the shields and burning into the hull.  He heard someone cry out as the ship rang like a bell, the lights fading as power was rapidly diverted elsewhere, but it was too late.  The ship heeled over and fell out of formation as the drive field failed.

I’m still alive?  He thought, dazed.  The feeling in his chest suggested that the gravity had also failed, and his bridge had turned into a nightmare, but he was still alive.  He suspected that he’d actually blacked out for a second.  It took everything he had to pull himself out of the chair, floating into the air, and examine the back-up display.  Somehow, miraculously, it was still working.

“Captain?”

Hassid looked over to see the sensor officer.  She was bleeding from a head wound, blood floating off into the air and spreading through the bridge, but she was alive.  He looked around – somehow, it hadn’t occurred to him that there might be survivors – and saw two others trying to come to grips with what had happened.  Two more bodies, clearly dead, floated in the air, mangled beyond easy recognition.

“Stay where you are,” Hassid said, turning to the display.  It was flickering madly, but he thumped it and it cleared.  The enemy battlecruisers were ignoring the remains of the Marble, proceeding towards the remainder of the convoy.  They just didn’t care enough to finish the job…or maybe they didn’t want to use missiles.  The ship might even be falling towards the planet’s gravity well.

He scowled.  “I think we have to abandon ship,” he said, and keyed his communicator.  It was dead.  The ship’s internal communications network had failed.  Given time, he could probably rig a bypass into the display system, but time was one thing they didn’t have.  “Find out how many others are still alive while I think.”

***
Poor bastards, Sooraya thought, as the mangled wreckage of the cruiser floated down towards the planet.  She should have put them out of their misery, if only to avoid causing a possible disaster when the remains of the ship struck the planet, but it would have cost an extra missile and she couldn’t waste them.  The orbital defences would probably be able to break up the hulk before it fell into the planet’s atmosphere, or maybe the light cruisers would nip in to blow it apart before it was too late.

“Keep pounding Cruiser Three,” she snapped.  Cruiser Two had been disabled and finally destroyed in an attempt to ram another of her battlecruisers, but Cruiser Three was putting up a real fight.  Her Captain clearly knew what he was going, ducking and weaving while concentrating all of his firepower on one ship – hers.  The battlecruiser rang like a bell as another missile sneaked through the point defence and struck home.  It wasn’t a serious threat – there was so much firepower arrayed against Cruiser Three that the outcome was inevitable – but as long as that cruiser was active, they couldn’t raid the freighters.  “Transmit our warning to the freighters.”

“Transmitted,” the communications officer said.  She hadn’t said very much for the recording, merely a promise that she wouldn’t harm the crews when she boarded their ships, and that she would even release them at once, but she didn’t expect resistance.  Bulk freighters were rarely armed and they carried nothing that could be used to harm a battlecruiser.  They couldn’t even ram her without her active cooperation!  “No response, but some of them are trying to manoeuvre out of the way.”

Good luck with that, Sooraya thought, coldly.  The other reason why bulk freighters fell so easily to pirates was that they were about as manoeuvrable as a brick.  They'd been committed to their course a long time before Sooraya had shown her hand and ambushed them.  If they hadn’t had an incredibly alert cruiser in the vanguard she would have killed all three of them before they even knew she was there.  The remaining light cruisers, well out of range, couldn’t do anything, but die bravely.

“Order two ships to move closer and prepare to dispatch boarding parties,” she ordered.  “Keep pounding…”

The display flickered once as a missile struck home.  The icon representing Cruiser Three winked once and vanished.  “Cruiser Three destroyed,” the tactical officer said.  “I think we hit their drives and they exploded…”

“Good work,” Sooraya said.  One of the freighters was turning towards them, followed by another.  “Communications, raise those two and…”

She understood, too late.

The arsenal ships opened fire at point-blank range.  Trapped within the gravity shadow, having awaited their chance to ensnare and hit all eight of the battlecruisers at once, they opened fire and launched over two thousand missiles towards her.  Sooraya stared in stunned disbelief, even though she’d seen the attack before, as the missiles raced into her point defence envelope.  A hundred, perhaps two hundred, fell to the point defence, leaving far too many to slam into her shields in a never-ending crescendo.  Sooraya and her squadron were literally wiped from the universe. 

***
The interior of the Marble wasn't in any better shape than the bridge.  Hassid and the five survivors made their way carefully through the passages, using breathers to block out the smell of burning plastic and dead bodies.  They found a handful of living crewmen, some badly injured, and helped them to join the small group, but Hassid knew that they’d be lucky to escape.  If the escape pods had been badly mangled as well…

And we could be close to the planet, he thought.  There was no way to know for sure, but he knew that all planetary defences would fire, automatically, on large objects threatening to enter the planet’s atmosphere.  The dead hulk of his ship, with barely any power left, would be treated the same way as a large asteroid.  If the gravity hadn’t failed, it would be impossible to make their way through the damaged and blocked corridors, but as it was they were finally able to reach an escape pod row.

“Sophia, you and the rest of the injured first,” Hassid ordered.  He ignored their protests.  The Captain should be the last one off the ship.  He’d had preferred to search for other survivors, but it was impossible to know how much time they had before the hulk was destroyed.  They were helped into the pod and he triggered the escape sequence.  The pod, lucky, was working enough to blast into space.  “Now the rest of you.”

He took the last escape pod for himself.  He’d had a vague idea of trying to search the remainder of the ship, but it would have been suicide.  The pod’s interior was bare, barely cushioned against the pressure of being launched into space, but he fired the rockets anyway.  There was a long moment of nothing – and he wondered, grimly, if he’d chosen the only defunct pod – before he was blown into space…

…To find that the battle was already over.

The pod’s radio buzzed.  “This is the Hawkbird,” it said.  Hassid remembered.  The Hawkbird was one of the light cruisers.  “You all remain tight in there and we’ll pick you up as soon as we can.”

Hassid scowled as he peered down at the display.  The pod wasn't stealthed in any way – indeed, the Imperial Navy built them to be obvious to anyone interested in looking – and it actually had quite good sensors.  The Imperial Navy ships seemed to have vanished, along with the other two cruisers…

As he watched, the wreckage of the Marble was blown into shreds.  If anyone remained alive on the ship, they were dead now, killed by friendly fire.  His imagination showed him trapped and wounded, isolated from the escape pods, victims of his mistakes.  

The Admiral is going to crucify me for this, he thought, dimly.  Even the approaching signature of a light cruiser failed to cheer him.  I failed them all.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The summons had been clear, specific and to the point.  Tiberius hadn’t expected to have to face another meeting of the ten most powerful Clans – or nine, now that Roosevelt was tearing itself apart – but he had no choice, but to attend.  As he linked his mind into the computer network that hosted the meeting, he almost wished it was in person.  He could have looked into the eyes of his fellow Clan Heads and tried to see which of them had framed him for murder.

No one knew, yet, who had killed Lord Roosevelt.  The surest sign that it hadn’t been a member of the Roosevelt Family was that no one had stepped forward to take control, the most logical step to take after perpetrating a successful assassination.  Instead, the innermost circles of the Family were struggling for supremacy, but whoever inherited the reins would inherit a corpse.  Roosevelt’s subordinate Families were breaking free, linking with other Clans to form their own associations, while the main Family struggled for supremacy.  If someone among their numbers was the murderer, they had to become Clan Head, or the investigation might identify them.  Worse, the others might be blamed, so they couldn’t abandon the struggle either.  It wouldn’t be resolved soon…

And perhaps it might even be resolved by bloodshed.  The Thousand Families, by long agreement, limited the number of armed soldiers available to each of the Families, but the old rules were breaking down everywhere.  It was quite possible that Roosevelt, or another Clan, would break the agreement and bring additional troops to Earth, sparking off another paralysing power struggle.  Tiberius hadn’t seen, yet, any traces of such a move, but that hadn’t stopped him making silent preparations to match it, if it occurred.  He’d even wondered about moving first, knowing that the others would move as soon as they felt they had no choice.  The High City was on the brink of a power struggle that would dwarf anything before the rebellion.

Of course, when we had an Emperor, we were always united against him, he thought, coldly.  From time to time, the Thousand Families had considered the virtues of a constitutional monarch, but the idea had always been dismissed.  A figurehead for the loyalty of the Imperial Navy, instead of the drab Thousand Families, might have been useful, but such power would always be tempting to some.  Now we’re all equals and suspect that everyone else is out to get us.

He opened his eyes and saw the simulated room.  It was bland as always, but as the different images flickered into the simulation, he was surprised to see that they were actually representing the person accurately.  The new chairperson – Tiberius himself couldn’t serve, not while he was under suspicion of murder – had ordered the computer to project accurate images, which meant…what?  Perhaps it was intended as a reminder, or perhaps it had a more sinister purpose…or perhaps someone was just trying to discomfort them.  He wouldn’t have put any of those motives past his fellows.

“Lord Roosevelt’s successor will not be joining us,” Lady Madeline Hohenzollern said.  “Paul’s death has not yet been solved, nor does the Roosevelt Clan have a representative ready to take his place.  In that case, Roosevelt’s vote will be recorded as having been abstained, unless there are any objections.”

There was a long pause.  Back when Tiberius himself had succeeded his father, it had taken less than a day to confirm him as the Cicero, whereupon he had been accepted as the Head of a powerful and intact Clan.  Roosevelt’s successor, whoever it turned out to be, wouldn’t be anything like as powerful.  It was quite possible that they would never be offered another position on the council.  The Hannibal Clan or the Mikado Clan, both wealthy and powerful in their own right, would probably be offered the seat.  Personally, Tiberius would have suggested leaving it empty, allowing an uneven number of votes, but at the moment, his opinion counted for little.

“I hear no objections,” Madeline said, finally.  She paused again, gazing around the simulated room.  “This meeting is hereby called to order.”

Tiberius nodded impatiently.  He hadn’t been able to glean any clue as to what the meeting was about…and that worried him.  Normally, the agenda was listed in advance, but this time it had been kept, apparently, from everyone.  Madeline herself, the chairperson, knew…but no one else did.  Under more normal circumstances, there would be uproar at such imprudence, and Madeline might find herself in hot water, but now…what had she concealed?

“We have received a worrying update from Imperial Intelligence,” Madeline announced.  “As you are doubtless aware, we have ordered Imperial Intelligence to keep a sharp eye on the first-rank worlds for signs of contact between them and the rebels, an obvious step for both sides.  The rebels need friends, allies and the industry we allowed the first-rank worlds to develop outside our control, while the first-rank worlds require protection and military support.  Naturally, it was believed that none of the first-rank worlds would be so imprudent to actually go through with making a contact, but at least ten of them actually have.”

She smiled upon them all.  “We have confirmed reports that rebel starships visited at least ten first-rank worlds and made contact with their leadership,” she said.  “The governments of the first-rank worlds, despite being under strict instructions to report any such contacts to us at once, did not do so.  Indeed, they have said nothing about rebel contacts to us, even through they have been sharing information and intelligence between themselves.  I believe that this represents a worrying turn of affairs.”

Tiberius scowled.  The Empire’s worst nightmare was an organised rebellion among the first-rank worlds.  They possessed enough ships and industry to be a serious problem, particularly if they got organised as a unit, and while the Imperial Navy was far stronger, it was also scattered across the Empire.  Home Fleet might be able to defeat the combined first-rank world defence forces in a stand-up battle, but that required Home Fleet to be concentrated and operating as a unit.  He’d run endless simulations and, depending on the underlying assumptions, the first-rank worlds inflicted severe damage on the Empire before being defeated and destroyed.

That would have been bad enough, but allied to the rebels and their Shadow Fleet, it would be devastating.  They could add enough firepower to the Shadow Fleet to take out Morrison, and then turn on Earth.  Instead of being won, the war might be on the verge of being lost…unless the Empire reacted quickly.  He knew, with a sickening feeling in his heart, just what Madeline intended to propose…and why she’d kept the purpose of the meeting to herself.  She wouldn’t want organised objections.

“I have consulted with Admiral Porter and others within my Family and they have concluded that this is a challenge we cannot allow to pass unchallenged,” Madeline said, getting into her stride.  “If we allow one of the first-rank worlds, let alone all of them, to thumb its collective nose at us, what price the Empire then?  We allowed them, in our generosity, to act as autonomous worlds.  Look at how they have rewarded us!  They have treated us as if we were nothing, but impotent Socialists and Democrats!  We must move at once to punish this imprudence.”

Tiberius took a breath.  “I must advise caution,” he said, carefully.  He wanted to scream at her, but that wouldn’t have accomplished anything beyond amusing her and completing the destruction of his reputation.  “The first-rank worlds are a vital component of our economy.  If we move against them harshly, as you seem to propose, we run the risk of inflicting considerable damage on ourselves. This is not the time to add a second series of problems to the first…”

He broke off, horrified.  It hadn’t occurred to him at first, but he was wrong.  It wouldn’t be all the Families that would suffer if there was a second economic crisis, one centred around the first-rank worlds, but only the ones who were tightly bound to them.  Cicero bought, literally, billions of components for starships from first-rank manufacturing plants, most of which were better or cheaper than the Empire could produce, and losing them would hurt.  Some of them didn’t even have any secondary sources, although he had contingency plans to replace them by constructing his own plants, if necessary.  There would be other Clans so affected, but he hadn’t even been allowed a chance to coordinate with them to prepare a joint response.  Madeline had carefully not allowed him the time.

“You are correct, of course, that caution is required,” Madeline said.  Somehow, he was certain that she didn’t mean it in the same way.  The odds were that she intended to put the boot in as hard as possible.  Some of the stories about what happened to her prior husbands now seemed alarmingly plausible.  “Regardless, we cannot allow this to pass unchallenged.  We chose not to bring the first-rank worlds into the Empire, we chose not to control and shape them directly…and that policy has failed.  We must respond…and harshly.”

She gazed around the room.  “The timing issues are of interest here,” she said.  “The first world to receive a rebel party was Gaul, near Morrison, while the others received their visits over the next few days.  Logic suggests, therefore, that Gaul is the prime world and the key to any united rebellion among the first-rank worlds.  It is the head that we must cut off to eradicate any possibility of a second rebellion.”

Her eyes were sharp, triumphant.  “I propose that we order Admiral Wachter to scorch Gaul at once and nip this rebellion in the bud,” she concluded.  “I call for a vote at once.”

“Seconded,” Lady Mecklinbourgh said.  She, like Madeline, had no real interests in the first-rank worlds.  Madeline had always wanted to bring them into the Empire, distrusting any world that showed too much independence of thought, while rebuilding them in her own image.  Her colonies were the least successful of all.  “Can I hear a vote?”

“No,” Lord Bernadotte said, firmly.  He stared back at Madeline, his old eyes not giving an inch.  “The issue has not been properly debated.”

“There is, of course, another issue,” Lady Mecklinbourgh added.  “Would Admiral Wachter scorch a world if ordered to do so?”  Her voice rose slightly.  “He has already favoured rebel prisoners and denied Imperial Intelligence the chance to interrogate them.  Would he carry out a scorching if asked to do so?”

“Then we can place the burden on Admiral Allmanritter,” Madeline said, firmly.  “We need to make a horrific example of Gaul.”

“Horrific is the key world,” Tiberius said.  He forced as much calm and reason into his voice as he could.  “Historically, scorching has been used as the final resort when a world is completely beyond recovery.  Apart from the Dathi War, we have only scorched nine worlds, one of which bore host to an utterly lethal disease that laughed at species barriers.  In all of those cases, we were talking about millions of people at most, but Gaul has a population of five billion lives.  Do they all deserve to die?”

“They’re on the verge of rebelling against our rule,” Madeline said, sharply.  “You’re young and inexperienced, Lord Cicero.  The only thing the rabble understands is a sharp burst of pain.  If we scorch the world now, we eradicate the germs of rebellion and send out a salutary lesson to the remainder of the first-rank worlds.  We are not weak and we are not willing to tolerate anything less than one hundred percent adherence to the laws and guidelines of the Empire.”

Lady Mecklinbourgh added her voice to the discussion.  “And if we do not scorch the world, it raises the spectre of having to scorch several worlds, once the rebellion gets under way,” she said.  “How many worlds are you prepared to see destroyed because you flinched from doing the right, but painful thing at the start?”

“Please do not make a virtue out of necessity,” Lord Rothschild said.  “The destruction of Gaul alone would have a significant effect on the entire economy.  Even if the asteroid manufacturing complexes and other facilities remained intact, and the inhabitants…ah, convinced to continue to work for us, we will experience a significant decline in overall economic health.  How many more Families do you wish to see ruined at once?”

“True,” Madeline agreed.  She tapped the table once to underline her words.  “Would you wish to lose just Gaul, or all of them?”

Everyone started talking at once.  Tiberius sat back and listened, trying to gage who stood where.  The argument seemed to be between the clear and obvious dangers of scorching Gaul, and therefore losing the economic benefits it brought, or allowing Gaul to survive and risk a second major rebellion.  It got more heated and theoretical, including a suggestion that if the first-rank worlds went over to the rebels, the rebels wouldn’t need to punch out Morrison to take Earth and win the war.  Madeline thumped the table with verve and vim, but the Family Heads were too busy arguing, trying to formulate complex arguments.  They weren't listening to her any more.  

“Perhaps I could propose a compromise,” Lady Ngyuen said, finally.  She gave them all a look of careful calculation.  “I understand that if we hit Gaul, several Families and Clans are going to get hit badly, almost disproportionately.  I therefore propose that we put together a spending plan, one drawn from all Families equally, to keep the damaged Families afloat.

This triggered off a second round of arguing.  The Clans rarely helped one another out unless there was something in it for them.  It was probably true that if five or six Clans went under the remainder would go as well, but no one actually knew for sure.  It was completely uncharted territory as far as the Families were concerned and no one in their right mind would want to go there.  Tiberius certainly didn’t want to experiment with the good of the entire Cicero Clan.  If the other Family members found out, they might vote him out and replace him with someone else.

He silently did some sums in his head.  Losing Gaul would cost, at least, several hundred billion credits.  The sum of money was almost unimaginably high, but it wouldn’t end there.  There would be knock-on consequences that were, literally, unimaginable.  Cicero could end up going the same way as Roosevelt.  It wouldn’t be much of a consolation to know that other Clans were falling as well.

But they were adamant.  “Fine,” Madeline said, angrily.  Tiberius almost smiled to himself.  If some of the reports about her Clan were accurate, trying to bail out even one other Clan would be disastrous.  The spending plan might take down the remainder of the Thousand Families as well.  If he hadn’t been the Clan Head, he would have found it funny.  “We will establish a shared pool of resources and we will increase the taxes and tithes from the colonies, as well as extracting additional funding from the first-rank worlds.”

She glared around the room.  “Need I remind you all,” she asked melodramatically, “that we are debating our very future?”

Tiberius sighed.  “When our forefathers established the first Families, they did so in the knowledge that while great men and women might stride onto the stage for a few years, the economic base of the Empire would remain intact and under their control,” he said, softly.  “They never understood just how rapidly we would expand or how badly we would misuse what they’d left us.  They predicted that everyone would always act in their own best interests, as defined by them, and were careful not to squeeze too hard.”

“Your father said the same,” Madeline said, almost angrily.  She glared at him, unfazed by his anger.  “Even he, though, knew that the Empire must remain intact for the good of the human race.”

The memory hurt.  Tiberius had never spent enough time with his father before his death and…there were times when he missed it.  There were some fathers – and mothers, for that matter – in the High City who were unpleasant to their children and heirs, but Tiberius’s father had never been unpleasant.  He had pushed Tiberius and the rest of his family hard, but he had never abused them or, in one unpleasant case, wiped their minds clean.  His father had never done anything like that in his life.

“We assume that…commoners will always know what is in their best interests,” Tiberius said, pushing the painful memories to the side.  It was galling to know that Madeline knew his father better than he ever had.  “If we scorch Gaul, we assume that the remainder of the first-rank worlds will bend over and spread their legs for us” – he smiled inwardly as Madeline flushed at the crude reference – “but really, how do we know that?  Will we convince them to surrender and submit, or will we convince them that we have become nothing, but wild dogs, who need to be put down before they can do anything worse?”

“And then, at least, we will know the worst,” Madeline said.  Her voice became soft, almost earnest.  “We will have tried to avert it.  That is all that counts.”

She smiled, grimly.  “Can I have a vote?”

The votes were tallied quickly.  Tiberius hoped, but his hopes were dashed as the votes came in, five to four in favour of scorching Gaul.  If Roosevelt had been there, perhaps the vote would have been deadlocked…or maybe they would have merely made it six to four.  Gaul’s death sentence had been passed.

“We’re going to regret this,” Tiberius predicted.  “This is a dreadful mistake.”

“Doubtless,” Madeline said, sardonically.  “I will dispatch a message to Admiral Allmanritter at once.  Gaul will die and the rebellion will die with it.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Captain, we have a courier boat incoming,” the sensor officer said.  “It came out just on the edge of the gravity shadow and it is requesting a secure link to the Admiral.”

Penny frowned from the command chair.  Joshua had insisted, for a reason of his own, that she gain experience in actually commanding the Admiral Clive, although the superdreadnaught hadn’t done anything, but floated in orbit since the Battle of Morrison.  It had been a welcome refresher course – she hadn’t realised just how much she’d forgotten since she’d left the standard command track to become Percival’s aide and mistress – but apart from the simulations, it was also as dull as mud.

“Accept it,” she said, puzzled.  A courier boat that risked coming out so close to the gravity shadow had to be carrying something important and, judging by the vector, had come straight from Earth.  She pulled up a display and studied it for a long moment.  Unless she was gravely mistaken, it had come directly from Earth.  The message was very important…or the courier boat was commanded by a certifiable lunatic.  She wasn't sure which one would have been preferable.

”They’ve tacked on a second request,” the communications officer said, suddenly.  “They want to copy the message to the General Arnold.”

“Odd,” Penny said.  Theoretically, Joshua and Admiral Allmanritter were equals, but no one had any doubts as to who had the real power in the system.  If there had been any doubts, they had been firmly banished by the 2nd Main Strike Fleet’s complete failure in the exercises.  They’d been drilling for weeks with no sign of real improvement.  She seriously considered refusing the request, but legally she didn’t have a choice.  “Allow them to copy the message.”

She leaned back in the command chair, feeling the thrumming of the superdreadnaught’s drives, maintained permanently active in case of rebel attack.  The wear and tear on the systems was staggering – and the engineering crew had to work desperately hard to remain ahead of the degrading components – but there was little choice.  If they shut down for repairs, or even went to a partial power-down state and the rebels attacked, the superdreadnaught would be a sitting duck.  The rebels wouldn’t be able to believe their luck.

Joshua had remarked, in a moment of whimsy, that the designers tuned the engines specifically to produce that thrumming sensation.  It wasn't just to signify that the ship was moving, although it served that purpose, but to remind the Captain that he or she commanded a living ship, crewed by living people.  Penny wasn’t sure if she believed him – the effect took weeks off the life of expensive systems – but it sounded more likely when she sat back in the chair.  A Captain, even one who was effectively subordinate to a Commodore on their own ship, had a heavy responsibility.

Her communicator chimed.  “Penny,” Joshua said, “report to me at once.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  The message, whatever else it had been, had clearly been important…and short.  “I’m on my way.”

She paused long enough to hand over command to the duty officer and then left the bridge, walking quickly through the maze of corridors that was Officer Country, before entering Joshua’s quarters.  She’d half-expected to be called to an urgent meeting, but they were the only people in the cabin.  Joshua had been looking better over the last two days, but now he looked worse, almost old.  No amount of cosmetic treatments could hide the age in his eyes.

“Admiral?”  She asked, concerned.  “Are you alright?”

Joshua swung the terminal on his desk around for her to see.  The message would have been encrypted heavily, but it wouldn’t have taken long for Joshua to unlock it using his private key.  She read it quickly and swore aloud.  It was an instruction for Admiral Allmanritter, ordering him to take two squadrons of superdreadnaughts to Gaul and scorch the planet, at once.  Nothing less would be accepted. She checked the headers, half-hoping that it was an insane joke, but they read out correctly.

“There are five billion people on Gaul,” Joshua said, flatly.  “Five billion people who will die if the scorching is completed and the world turned to radioactive ash.”

Penny winced.  “That’s why they wanted to send the message to Allmanritter directly,” she said, in shocked realisation.  “They didn’t want to give you a chance to hide the message, or simply decide not to follow it.”

“How true,” Joshua agreed, calmly.  He sounded angry, but he was holding it under perfect control.  “This isn’t a good decision on their part, Penny.  If they destroy Gaul, the rest of the first-rank worlds will decide they’re damned anyway and rebel against the Empire.  Morrison will become untenable.”

“But…”

She broke off, thinking it through.  Earth was, effectively, surrounded by first-rank worlds, most of whom had a fairly powerful defence force. United, they could blast Earth and hundreds of other worlds before the Imperial Navy could put them down…and Joshua’s force would be out of position.  Allied with the rebels, they could probably take Morrison, punch out Joshua’s forces and then advance on Earth before the Imperial Navy could react.

“They haven’t thought this through,” she said.  It was the closest thing to condemnation she’d spoken of the Empire…and, under a less understanding commanding officer, an punishable offence.  “Can’t you stop it from happening?”

Joshua nodded at the display, which showed Admiral Allmanritter’s ships slowly powering up their drives and preparing to leave orbit.  “My guess is that he’s already issued orders for an immediate transit,” Joshua said.  “His officers and men might detest him, but they will do that much…and, once he takes all three squadrons of superdreadnaughts there…”

“But they ordered him to take two squadrons,” Penny protested.  “Why is he disobeying orders like that?”

“He probably thinks I’m going to steal the remaining squadron out from under him,” Joshua said, sardonically.  “I don’t blame him for wanting all three squadrons along, either.  That would pretty much ensure victory without taking serious losses, although Gaul will probably claim at least two superdreadnaughts before he breaks through the defences and starts annihilating the planet.  The only consolation is that he was ordered to spare the planet’s orbital industry and the odds are he’ll fail at that.”

He smiled, without humour.  “That would ensure his fall from grace, unless his patrons actually want to bring down most of the Empire,” he said.  “The only question is simple.  Are we going to allow it to happen?”

Penny watched as the squadrons slowly made their way out of the gravity shadow.  In simulations, several ships had actually collided with each other, something that should have been effectively impossible.  No crews worth their salt would actually crash two ships together unless it was intentional, but the training program had been so lacking that such an incident was not only possible, but plausible.  Admiral Allmanritter wielded a grievously flawed weapon…and, despite Joshua’s lectures, didn’t even know it.

His face appeared in the terminal.  “Joshua,” he said.  As another equal, he could call Joshua by his first name, although in his voice it sounded like an insult.  “I trust that you have read my orders?”

“Of course,” Joshua said, evenly.  Penny would have been shouting at him by now.  His tone dripped with mock humility.  “You’re off to kill a world.”

“I have my orders,” Allmanritter said, firmly.  “I have…”

“I was only obeying orders,” Joshua cut him off.  “The oldest and most contemptible excuse in the book.  If you won’t think about anything else, then think about this; what are the rebels going to do to a man who scorches a world with five billion innocent civilians?”

“The last man who refused to scorch a planet, Jason Cordova, was forced to flee to the Rim,” Allmanritter said.  “I won’t risk losing everything because of a bunch of rebels and traitors.  They should have stopped their leaders from making any contact with the rebels, let alone allowing the rebels to operate freely in their systems.  I will not disobey orders because of a bleeding-heart liberal who thinks that we should be nice to the poor little rebels.”

He scowled.  “When this is done, Joshua, and I take my place as the foremost commanding officer in the Imperial Navy, I will not hesitate to insist that you are removed from command and replaced with myself,” he swore.  “I will launch the decisive attack that you have been delaying and punch out both Yanasaxon and Harmony, then defeat the rebel scrum in open battle – if they dare to offer it!  What have they done since I arrived?  They have raided the system, but none nothing to threaten Morrison itself!  They will not dare to trifle with my ships.”

Joshua said nothing.  “Fine,” Allmanritter snapped, finally.  “When I return, we will have a reckoning.”

His image vanished from the display.  “Oh dear,” Joshua remarked, seemingly unbothered by the entire conversation.  “Was it something I said?”

Penny snickered, despite herself.  On the display, the superdreadnaughts flickered out, one by one.  They should have flickered out as a group, but instead they were leaving individually.  She wondered if that was the fault of the poor training, or if Allmanritter was trying to make a point.  After a moment’s thought, she decided that it was the former.  The ships couldn’t be relied upon to make a point.

“Admiral, he’s going to…”

“I know,” Joshua said.  He ran a hand through his air.  “I know.”

He keyed his communicator.  “Sergeant, I want Commodore Garland brought to me at once,” he ordered.  “You are cleared to bring her up on an assault shuttle if there is no other choice.”

“Yes, sir,” the Household Trooper said.  “We’re on our way.”

Joshua smiled thinly.  “It’ll probably take them a fortnight to get to Gaul anyway,” he said.  “I doubt he’ll be smart enough to allow the navigation programs to handle it.”

Penny blinked, puzzled.  “Sir – Joshua – what are you doing?”

“A desperate gamble,” Joshua said.  “I suppose it’s all I can do.”

***
It had been a long three months in captivity.

Commodore Katy Garland had expected everything from mass torture to mind-rippers, but instead it had been mainly boring, locked inside a prison camp guarded by Household Troops.  They had been well-treated and the food, although bland, was plentiful.  The injured had been treated in medical clinics and returned to the camp once they were healed.  She’d thrown herself into organising the camp, if only to keep her mind clear of what would happen to them if the Empire lost the war, or if Joshua was removed from his position.

The POWs had watched in disbelief when the SDs and Imperial Intelligence’s goons had been turned away from the camp, but they’d all known that it wouldn’t last.  Under the Moscow Accords, POWs weren't allowed to escape, but Katy hadn’t been able to find a way to escape anyway.  They had nothing, literally, but the clothes on their backs…and even if they did get out of the camp, Morrison was an Empire-ruled world.  A person without valid identification would be picked up very quickly.  An ID chip would be needed for everything from paying for food to entering an apartment block.  Without help and support – and she didn’t even know if Morrison had a rebel underground – remaining at large would be almost impossible.  It was almost a relief when the guards called her out and transported her to an assault shuttle.

They didn’t talk to her, but otherwise they were civil, not even bothering to shackle her hands and legs before they escorted her into the shuttle.  It might have been a gesture of contempt – it wasn't as if she could have flown the shuttle without the command codes – but as it rose up through the atmosphere and set course for a superdreadnaught, she started to realise who must have summoned her.  There was only one person who would have had the nerve and the authority.  The remainder of the trip to the superdreadnaught was almost an anticlimax.

“Welcome back,” Joshua said, as she was escorted into his cabin.  His aide was present, but there was no one else in the room.  Even the guards left after escorting her to a chair.  They’d be somewhere close enough so that they could burst back in if Katy did anything stupid, but she welcomed the sense of freedom.  “I trust that the camp meets with your approval?  Is there anything else your people need?”

He sounded almost nervous, as if he were in two minds about something.  “Freedom would be nice,” Katy said, carefully.  “Otherwise…I think we’re fine in the camp, although better food would be very welcome.”

“The farmers on this world resent having to send anything to the prison camps,” Joshua said, absently.  “I can twist a few arms if you would like, but…”

He looked her in the eye suddenly, coming to a decision.  “I need an answer to a very important question,” he said.  “Answer yes or no.  Do you know any rendezvous waypoints for your fleet?”

Katy hesitated.  “Under the Moscow Accords…”

”I’m not asking for the coordinates and the timings, if you know that,” Joshua snapped, desperately.  “I just need to know if such points exist.”

Katy bowed her head.  “Yes,” she said, finally.  They wouldn’t do Joshua much good, even if he extracted the coordinates from her next.  They weren't the Shadow Fleet’s main bases, but points that were kept under observation, just in case the fleet got scattered.  “They do.”

“Good,” Joshua said.  He looked down for a second, and then transfixed her with his gaze, trying to convince her of his honesty.  “Second question, then.  Could you find one if you had a ship?”

“Yes,” Katy said, flatly.

“Thank God,” Joshua said, relieved.  “Listen very carefully.  My…superiors at the High City” – he didn’t have to spell out Thousand Families – have sentenced the world of Gaul to death.”

Katy stared at him.  “Why?”

“You wouldn’t know,” Joshua said, as if he were reminding himself.  “The short version of the story is that your...Shadow Fleet has been visiting various worlds, all first-rank worlds, and Gaul was the first to be visited.  My superiors have ordered Admiral Allmanritter, a serious Empire-loyalist and a completely ruthless bastard…”

“I know the type,” Katy injected.

“…To scorch the world from orbit, after destroying its defence forces, pour encourager les autres,” Joshua concluded.  “its absolute madness, but I can’t stop it.  They were very careful and gave Allmanritter legal authority to…”

He shook his head.  “That doesn’t matter now,” he said.  Katy suspected that there was a long story hidden there, but didn’t pry.  “If I gave you a courier boat, could you crew it from the POWs?”

Katy considered it.  In theory, a courier boat could be handled by one person, but any serious problem would rapidly become impossible to fix.  They normally had five to seven people as crew…and she could pick POWs who could operate the boat.  Indeed, with a little care, she could ensure that genuinely useful people were sent back to the Shadow Fleet, assuming that it wasn't a trick of some kind.  If Joshua had managed to convince them that they were locked out of flicker-space, what else was he capable of doing?

“Yes,” she said, finally.  “What exactly do you want me to do?”

Joshua seemed to struggle with himself for a long moment.  “I want you to take that courier boat, find your fleet, and allow them to intercept Admiral Allmanritter before the world is scorched and five billion people are killed,” he said.  “If you can stop him from committing such a vast crime…”

“Why?”  Katy asked.  It didn’t make sense to her.  Joshua was asking her to help him commit treason.  It occurred to her that it might be a trap, but why would he bother?  He had her and her fellow prisoners at his mercy.  “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I don’t want the Empire to end its existence with such a crime on its hands,” Joshua said.  It was as if a dam had broken.  “I believed in the Empire, I really did, but now…now, what’s going to become of my Empire?  Even if we win this war, we’ll bring the galaxy down in flames…and it will be all my fault unless I try to stop it!”

He caught himself.  “Will you take the ship and do this for me?”

“Join us,” Katy said.  It seemed the simplest solution.  Joshua would be more than welcome in the Shadow Fleet.  “Why don’t you come with us…?”

“No,” Joshua said, flatly.  There was something in his voice she couldn’t quite place, a yearning that reminded her of Colin himself, years ago.  “I can’t, not yet…”

He shook his head.  “Will you go?”

Katy considered it.  If it were a trick of some kind, she would have to watch for it, even abandon the courier boat after they were picked up – if they were picked up.  The timings and schedules might have changed after the defeat, just in case they had been extracted from the heads of the POWs.  It might be a trick…and yet, she couldn’t see how Joshua would benefit.  He wouldn’t distract Colin for long and the gravity shadow trick wouldn’t work twice.  If he were setting up an ambush, why not set one in Morrison itself?

And if there were five billion lives at stake…?

“Yes,” she said, finally.  There was no other choice…and besides, it was a chance at freedom.  She would have risked everything for that.  “I’ll take your message.”

“Good,” Joshua said.  “Select your people.  I’ll have the boat prepared at once.”

***
“Sir,” Penny said, afterwards.  “You do know this is treason?”

Joshua smiled.  “If this be treason,” he said, “then let us make the most of it.  Besides…”

He smiled, as if at a private joke.  “Why does treason never prosper?  Why, because if it does, not dare call it treason.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

It was a curious, and often inexplicable, fact that a voyage between the stars often took longer if there were more than a handful of starships in transit.  Admiral Jörg Allmanritter’s 2nd Main Strike Fleet shouldn’t have taken long to reach Gaul, but the twenty-seven superdreadnaughts took almost two weeks to reach the system.  He was painfully aware that Joshua’s ships wouldn’t have taken anything like as long to complete the voyage, something that only increased his humiliation.  He’d relieved his Flag Captain and two other officers, choosing to blame them for the delays, but somehow it hadn’t improved performance.  When the fleet finally massed on the outskirts of the Gaul System, he would have been surprised if Gaul didn’t have all the warning it could possibly require.

He scowled down at the tactical display, hoping to force it into a more useful configuration by sheer force of will, but it didn’t work.  The training he’d put the entire fleet through, ever since Joshua had pointedly remarked that it was desperately required, had improved some departments, but others remained at the low level he’d inherited from the former commanding officer.  He’d dreamed of flying complicated manoeuvres that would have left his foes floating in his dust, but realistically he had to admit that there was little hope of that from his fleet.  It would be much more likely to lead to disaster…

And that was unthinkable.  Years ago, he’d learned that the path to advancement in the Imperial Navy consisted of sucking up to everyone above him and pissing on everyone below him…and it had won him an Admiral’s uniform.  Now, of course, he had to prove that he could handle a simple mission…and somehow he suspected, from the tone of the message, that failure would not be tolerated.  If Joshua didn’t relieve him for incompetence, his former patrons would be lining up to chop off his head.  He’d won the command because, as a member of a very junior Clan, no one expected him to show real potential, or indeed, to do anything, but what he was told.  The problem was that he didn’t really know how to do what he was told…and he couldn’t admit that to anyone.  He couldn’t even take an advisor into his confidence.

The thought nagged at him even as the remainder of the ships checked in with his flagship.  The General Arnold was one of the newest ships in the fleet, barely out of the yards when the rebellion began, but it seethed with mutinous thoughts.  His crew had taken a private delight in their own failures, knowing that they reflected badly on their commander, and he was sure that if they were given half the chance, they would turn on him and mutiny.  A victory at Gaul would boost their morale, and ensure his own promotion – after such a victory, they couldn’t deny him a promotion – and even put paid to the rebellion.  Who would dare to rebel after he made a horrible example of the Gauls?

His tactical officer looked over at him.  She was yet another who was conspiring against him.  He was sure of it.  Her performance had definitely been substandard and she worked her console as if she were a newcomer, rather than a person with seven years experience in the tactical department.  She was pretty enough to overlook some of her failings, but he didn’t dare get too close to her.  The SD troopers on his ship would prevent open mutiny, but what if she decided to stab him when he called her to his bed?  It had happened in the weeks following the first reports from the Rim.

“Admiral, the fleet has finally checked in,” she said.  “We can make the final flicker at your command.”

Allmanritter flushed as he looked up at the display.  He should have known that at once, but instead he’d been wool-gathering, allowing his dark thoughts to steer him away from his duty.  He pushed the thoughts aside and straightened up in his command chair, trying to paste a proper expression on his face.  He might not feel like a proper Admiral, one who always knew what to do, but he would try his best to look like one.  His impressive uniform, carefully tailored by an expert to hide his girth, presented just the right image.

“All ships,” he ordered, clearing his throats.  “All ships…flicker!”

The sensation of a jump through flicker-space made him retch.  “Report,” he snapped, as the display updated itself.  “Are we in the correct coordinate?”

The helmsman nodded.  “Yes, Admiral,” he said.  “We are now approaching the Planet Gaul.”

Allmanritter realised, in a frisson of horror, just what he’d forgotten.  “Battle stations,” he ordered.  Commanding the superdreadnaught and the entire fleet at the same time had been a dreadful mistake.  He thought, seriously, about calling the Flag Captain to the bridge, but it would show weakness and indecision to the crew.  “All hands to battle stations.  This is not a drill!”

***
Admiral Albert Uderzo had been on high alert ever since the rebel ships had visited Gaul, expecting the Imperial Navy to come calling at any time.  The long patrols had actually taken some of the edge off his crews, although the practice was always worthwhile; they couldn’t afford to become complacent, not now.  He’d argued that the Empire would almost certainly know that the rebel fleet had visited – superdreadnaughts weren't easy to hide, after all – and that there was little point in trying to hide anything, but his advice had been overruled.  Everyone on Gaul suspected what the Empire intended to do to the first-rank worlds…

Uderzo swore as the first Imperial Navy superdreadnaught flickered into the system.  They were showing an unusual ragged formation, with starships scattered everywhere rather than in a tightly compact arrangement, but there was no mistaking their deadly intent.  Even as he watched, they were powering up their shields and weapons, closing in on his world.  They hadn’t even transmitted an ultimation.

“Charlene, have the fleet put on alert,” Uderzo ordered, softly.  He would have welcomed threats and even bombast from the Imperial Navy, rather than the haunting and threatening silence.  “I want all of our units formed up for Alpha-Five and ready to move at my command.”

He ignored her acknowledgement as he concentrated on the display.  A year ago, he would have sworn that even the massed might of Home Fleet, the greatest concentration of firepower in the Empire, would have had problems punching through the defences.  Now, with arsenal ships and other unpleasant developments, the odds were that most of his defences would be rapidly and cheaply destroyed.  He’d kept the fleet drilling, time and time again, but the three superdreadnaught squadrons bearing down on him had enough firepower to take out his entire force.  They might be able to damage or destroy a handful of the ships, but the remainder would defeat his force…

And then…what?  Somehow, he was sure that their silence was ominous.

“Hail them,” he ordered, quietly.  “Ask them…what they want.”

There was a long pause.  “No reply, sir,” the communications officer said.  “They’ve gone to laser communications themselves.”

Uderzo winced.  Laser communications meant that a battle was about to begin.  “I see,” he said, quietly.  It would be easy to surrender, to abase himself before the Imperial Navy, but it wasn't in his blood.  If Gaul went down without a fight, the Empire would merely do the same to some other unsuspecting world.  “Call the President and inform him…that we’ll do our best.”

He leaned back in his chair and watched as his ships gathered around his flagship.  His world had an unusual attribute that made it an interesting place to attack, the presence of five moons, all large enough to generate their own gravity shadow.  The Empire would have to come far closer before they could attack, but by the same token, his ships were trapped.  They couldn’t hope to escape.

“And send out a general all-ships message,” he concluded.  “Tell them that we may be destroyed, but we won’t break.”

Uderzo came from a long line of warriors.  He could trace his history back to the Federation, back to a nation called France, a very long time before France had creased to exist.  His family had always been warriors, fighting and dying for their country, often struggling against impossible odds.  He would be, he feared, no different.  

On the display, the Empire’s ships grew closer.

***
Allmanritter tried to force himself to remain calm, but it was growing harder.  Gaul’s curious gravity shadow, twice again the size of a more normal planet’s gravity shadow, was allowing the defenders time to concentrate their forces against him.  Part of him welcomed the development – it meant that he would not have to waste time hunting down stragglers later – but the rest of him was nervous.  He hadn’t really anticipated how many ships there were in the Gaul System’s fleet; the Gauls must have been keeping secrets from the Empire.  Seventy battleships, fifty battlecruisers, and over two hundred cruisers faced him, a concentration of firepower on a scale he’d never faced before.  It would be his first real battle…and he was already scared.

If I win this battle, I will become unchallengeable, he reminded himself, desperately.  He wouldn’t – couldn’t – show fear in front of his subordinates.  The slightest trace of weakness could prove fatal.  He had to act as if he knew what he was doing, but the sweat running down his back and the endless clenching and unclenching of his fists gave the lie to the act.  He cursed his own mistakes, even as he cursed Joshua and his superiors for giving him the assignment, one that he could lose.  He didn’t dare lose…

“Lock weapons on enemy ships,” he ordered, hearing the tremor in his voice.  He didn’t sound like Joshua, or even his old friend Admiral Percival, merely a very scared man.  He’d been told that it was natural to be scared of combat, but this…he hadn’t considered it before, but he could die at Gaul.  If the Gauls figured out that he was on the General Arnold…

Oh, come on, he reproved himself angrily.  Its not as if they have superhuman strength or anything, is it?

“Weapons locked,” the tactical officer said.  “We will enter firing range within seven minutes.”  There was a long pause, almost as if she were expecting an order.  “Do you wish to engage the point defence network?”

“Yes,” Allmanritter said, flatly.  He was sure that the tactical officer was laughing at him behind his back.  She probably thought he was an idiot, not just inexperienced.  How could anyone forget the point defence systems?  “If the enemy open fire, engage them at once.”

“They’re hailing us again,” the communications officer said.  “They’re demanding that we stand down and leave their system at once.”

“Ignore it,” Allmanritter said, flatly.  He wouldn’t waste time debating with the Gauls.  Their world would die so that the Empire could live.  He’d blast it to radioactive ashes and ensure that nothing would ever live there again.  “Tactical” – the next line was right out of the tactical manual – “you may open fire when ready.”

The final minutes ticked down.  It dawned on him, slowly, that he might have made a mistake.  He’d ordered the fleet to race into the gravity shadow to confront the enemy ships, rather than standing off and trashing them with his superior missile fire.  He could have ensured their defeat with only scratches on his ships, but instead…instead, he had wilfully risked an energy weapons range duel.

“Weapons locks engaged,” the tactical officer said.  Her voice rose slightly as the display started to flash an alert.  “We are now engaging the enemy.”

The superdreadnaught fired a single massive salvo right into the teeth of the enemy forces.  Allmanritter watched the wave of missiles, joined by missiles from all of the other superdreadnaughts, flew towards their targets, wondering how the enemy could stop them.  A handful might be stopped, but all of them?  There were so many missiles that the display had real problems showing them all, breaking down into numbers rather than individual icons.  The enemy fleet flickered and launched its own missiles at the same time, but their fire was paltry at first, before they launched a stray wave of missiles towards his ships.  The tactical display projected an update, showing their targets, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief.  They hadn’t targeted his ship.

“Launch a second salvo,” he ordered, knowing that it wasn't necessary.  He wanted to hurt the Gauls badly.  They had dared to fire on him!  He would destroy their fleet, and then their orbital defences, and finally he would set their world on fire.  “Pound them until they give up and surrender!”

The superdreadnaught shuddered again as it launched a second spread of missiles, targeted on other enemy starships.  He watched in delight, not bothering to try to hide his feelings, as the first wave of missiles punched through the enemy point defence and rammed into enemy ships.  The updated warheads struck home and, one by one, enemy ships began to die.  A battlecruiser, struck by nine missiles in quick succession, vanished in a ball of flame, followed rapidly by two battleships and a heavy cruiser.  The missile seeker heads updated, locking onto targets that were already damaged and directing themselves to follow up and complete their destruction.  The proud fleet was being destroyed before his eyes.

“Yes,” he hissed, as a battleship exploded with all hands.  He wouldn’t have bothered to pick up lifepods anyway, but the Gauls hadn’t had a chance to escape.  “Yes…”

The enemy missiles struck home on a trio of superdreadnaughts, pounding them badly and breaking down their shields.  He watched in stunned disbelief, all delight shattered, as the superdreadnaughts lumbered out of formation, their prows broken and shattered by the pounding.  For a moment, he thought that they would survive, but as he watched, the lead superdreadnaught vanished in a ball of flame.  They’d killed his people!

The tactical officer looked over at him.  “Sir, I respectfully suggest that we detail two other ships to escort the cripples out of the gravity shadow,” she said.  There was little respectful in her tone.  “They’re unable to defend themselves and if they remain there, they will be destroyed in short order.”

Allmanritter didn’t even bother to argue.  “See to it,” he ordered.  That could have been his ship bleeding its life away, or maybe being consumed by unstoppable fire.  Perhaps her suggestion had merit after all.  “Keep pounding the Gauls before they can retreat…”

There was little point in worrying, he saw, as the display updated its projections.  The Gauls were losing badly, but they were still pounding his ships, although their point defence had improved remarkably.  The prospect of sudden death, he thought coldly, had probably concentrated a few minds.  The superdreadnaught switched to rapid fire as the two fleets converged, trying to destroy as many of them as possible before the range fell enough to allow energy weapons to be used, even though it risked bringing them into range of the orbital platforms.

No, he thought, despite his urge to turn and flee.  I can still win this.

***
Their escorting battleship blew up in a ball of expanding plasma.

Uderzo barely noticed.  The defence force had trained hard for the day they would have to face the Empire, developing new tactics they could use to stand off the attackers, but they were taking a terrible beating.  They’d practiced standing off a wave of superdreadnaughts, but they hadn’t expected to have to face someone who was either a complete madman or a tactical genius.  Somehow – and Uderzo knew that he would never have the nerve to do the same – he had thrust right into the gravity shadow, where his missiles could wipe his fleet out before they closed to energy weapons range.

We should have pushed ahead with the arsenal ships, he thought, bitterly.  A handful of arsenal ships would have smashed the entire force and ended the threat for good.

It was water under the bridge now.  His beloved homeworld was doomed.  The silence from the Imperial starships could only mean one thing.  They were already throwing missiles around with a casual disregard for where they were targeting, but it was going to get worse.  They were going to destroy his home and scatter the ashes far and wide, just to convince the other first-rank worlds to be good little subjects.  He wished, just for a moment, that he had taken advantage of his rank to speak with his wife and daughter, but what could he have told them?  How could he have told them that they were all going to die?

“New orders,” he said, bitterly.  He still had forty battleships, but most of them were damaged, while the others were already running short of missiles.  The expenditure was well above projected numbers.  “On my command, all starships will execute Beta-Two.”

The tactical officer stared at him.  “Sir…”

“See to it,” Uderzo snapped.  There was no other choice.  It would at least ensure that the Empire never forgot what had happened.  “That’s an order, damn it!”

He settled back into his chair, knowing that he was about to die, along with all of his men.  How could he tell them that he was proud of them all…and, in the end, all their valour had counted for nothing?  Firepower, as an old military hero had once said, killed.  “Prepare to execute…”

“Sir, I have new contacts,” the sensor officer said.  There was a new excitement in his tone.  “There are at least two more squadrons of superdreadnaughts coming in…”

Uderzo shook his head in dismay.  “Two more squadrons?”  He asked, of no one in particular.  Three squadrons of superdreadnaughts were systematically destroying his entire fleet and he could barely touch them.  “How many more do they think they need?”

Chapter Forty

Colin brought the Shadow Fleet out of flicker-space fast enough to cause severe nausea for much of the crew, but there was little choice.  He hadn’t been convinced, at first, by Katy’s story, but the chance of a clear shot at three squadrons of superdreadnaughts couldn’t be passed up.  He’d suspected a trap and had deployed the Shadow Fleet accordingly, but when they arrived, he realised that it if were a trap, it was a surprisingly incompetent one.

“Admiral, I have three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, pushing their way through Gaul’s defences,” the sensor officer said, as the display updated itself rapidly.  Colin couldn’t believe his eyes at first.  Katy hadn’t exaggerated when she had told him that the Imperial Navy commanding officer was incompetent.  Joshua had probably planned it deliberately to get rid of a headache.  “The defenders are losing ground.”

Colin nodded thoughtfully as he studied the position.  Ironically, Admiral Allmanritter had hit on a tactic for forcing the Gauls to stand and fight, although it was going to cost him more than he actually needed to spend.  By coming in, about as subtle as a punch in the face, he forced them to intercept him and meet him before he punched out the high orbitals and took possession of the planet.  He might not even bother to do as much.  If Joshua had been telling the truth, Admiral Allmanritter had ordered to scorch the planet…and leave its orbital installations alone.

Bastards, he thought, beyond being shocked by the Empire’s excesses.  He’d seen the same pattern at Macore, he’d heard the stories from those who had been forced to flee to the Rim, but it never lost its horror.  The Gauls were lucky that the Empire had never developed a way of eradicating a planet’s population without wrecking havoc on the infrastructure, or they would all have been exterminated like rats.  Once the planet had been turned to a radioactive desert of ash, the Empire would take the orbital installations and add them to their productive base.  It could not be allowed.

“Helm, take us in after them,” he said, scowling.  Admiral Allmanritter, intentionally or otherwise, had forced his hand.  He had to intercept him short of the planet, or Gaul’s defenders would be wiped out before Colin could intervene.  “Maximum speed.”

“Admiral, are you…?”

Colin waved away David’s concern.  It was possible, perhaps even probable, that they were being lured into a trap, but there was no choice.  If the rebels successfully defended Gaul, it would give the other first-rank worlds something to think about…and perhaps convince them to join the rebellion.  If Gaul being scorched by the Empire weren’t enough to convince them, perhaps a final desperate attempt to save the planet would suffice.

He scowled as the fleet moved closer to the planet.  Admiral Allmanritter would be using shipkiller missiles on the surface of the planet, targeting every significant habitation from orbit and using enough firepower to ensure that the missiles got through the orbital defences.  Ideally, he’d want to overwhelm them or destroy them first, but it depended on how he wanted to react to the Shadow Fleet.  The smart course of action would be to fire on the planet and then break off, confident that the planet would take significant damage, but even that would run the risk of engaging the Shadow Fleet…

“3rd Squadron, move to a blocking position,” he ordered.  He wouldn’t allow Allmanritter any chance to escape engagement.  “Prepare to engage.”

The display ticked steadily down.  The main body of the Shadow Fleet would enter engagement range within five minutes, holding the range open so they could smother their enemy with missiles.  The arsenal ships alone would blow hell out of the Imperial starships.  Colin watched as the firing patterns steadily updated…and prayed, grimly, that none of his missiles would strike the planet.  It was supposed to be impossible…but that would be no consolation.  They couldn’t save Gaul by destroying it.

“Entering firing range,” the tactical officer said, finally.  “All missiles are locked and primed.”

“Fire,” Colin ordered.

***
It’s a trap, Allmanritter’s mind gibbered at him, as the Shadow Fleet flickered out behind him.  The rebels had either been incredibly lucky or had planned it in advance with the planet’s government – which proved that the Empire was right to scorch the treacherous bastards – and had come out on a course and speed that would allow them to intercept him.  He tried to figure out the vectors in his head, using exercises he hadn’t used since he had been at the Academy, but nothing suggested itself as a possible escape route.

The General Arnold rocked as another missile slammed home and he thought, for a moment, that the rebels were hitting him at an impossible range.  The sight of the Shadow Fleet was mesmerising – he hadn’t seen so many superdreadnaughts since Home Fleet’s last review – and the speed they were bearing down on him suggested confidence or madness or both.  He wanted to escape, or to simply avoid engagement, but even he knew that that was impossible.  The rebels had trapped him against the planet…and it’s fleet.

He cleared his throat.  “Tactical,” he said, far too aware of a quaver in his voice, “time to…ah, when they can fire on us?”

The tactical officer looked almost as alarmed as he felt, although it might have been because he had messed up a simple order.  “Seven minutes at their current course and speed,” she said, grimly.  “Admiral, if I may make a recommendation?”

“Please,” Allmanritter said.  He was out of his depth and knew it.  “What do you recommend?”

“We have to realign our point defence network,” she said, calmly.  Allmanritter made a mental note to promoter afterwards – if there was an afterwards – or perhaps send her to the far side of the Empire.  No one must know that he’d almost panicked on his own bridge.  “We have it primed and ready to intercept missiles from Gaul, but Gaul doesn’t have anything like the throw weight of those superdreadnaughts and arsenal ships.”

The name sent chills through him as he stared at the display.  The blocky shapes of bulk freighters, each one almost as large as a superdreadnaught, were completely out of place in the battleline, unless they were arsenal ships.  He should have recognised them before, but the mere sight of the enemy superdreadnaughts had been riveting.  They had distracted him from the real threat…

“See to it,” he ordered, and cursed another mistake.  He hadn’t brought along any escorts, not even a single destroyer to scout, while the Shadow Fleet had brought along enough escorts to significantly double their point defence capability.  In time, he was sure, he could wear it down, but they were going to tear hell out of his ships until he destroyed them…or they destroyed him.  The urge to flee rose up again…but there was nowhere to run.  He even considered surrender, but it would have meant the end of his career…and he couldn’t face that.  “How long until we can target the planet?”

There was a long pause.  “Ah, we don’t have proper targeting information yet,” the sensor officer said, finally.  Allmanritter barely heard him, still staring at the closing fleet.  “We need to be closer to the planet to properly target our attacks…”

“Never mind,” Allmanritter snarled.  He suspected that the sensor officer was stalling, but he couldn’t prove it.  “We’ll discuss your incompetence later.  I assume you can target enemy ships, so lock onto the enemy superdreadnaughts as soon as they enter range!”

He scowled as the display updated with targeting patterns.  “And bring up the energy batteries,” he added.  “I want the gallant defenders of Gaul blown out of the sky as soon as they enter energy range!”

The display suddenly sparkled with thousands of malevolent red icons.  Allmanritter stared, almost unable to believe his eyes, even though he’d seen similar barrages before in recorded sensor imagery.  There was a vast difference between seeing recordings – and wondering how much had been altered to cover up incompetence in high places – and facing it in real life.  The Shadow Fleet had fired enough missiles to wipe his entire command out of existence.

“Alert all point defence gunners,” he said, his voice rising in pitch.  It was almost a scream.  “I want those missiles shot down!”

The deck rumbled as the superdreadnaught launched its first volley against the enemy starships.  The timing was almost perfect…and yet, he suspected it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.  They might get off as many as three volleys before the massive wave of missiles swept into his formation, but once they arrived, his force would literally disintegrate.  They might take down half of the incoming wave…and would yet have too many missiles left to strike home.  Judging from the enemy deployment, they would barely be touched by his volley.  They’d certainly brought along enough point defence ships to ensure that they would soak up their fair share of missiles…

It’s all the Admiral’s fault, he thought, already composing arguments he would use in front of a Board of Inquiry.  His patrons wouldn’t be able to save him from one after this failure, although they still possessed enough clout to ensure that it was nothing, but a whitewash.  He was sure that they would see his side of things and place all the blame on Joshua – after all, he should have told Allmanritter to take escort ships along in his fleet.

The deck rumbled again as a second volley launched from the superdreadnaught’s tubes.  The tactical officer was placing her missiles carefully, massing them against a handful of targets, but it would ensure that the remainder of the enemy ships could concentrate their fire on his ships.  Allmanritter stared, sure that she was making a mistake…and wondered, grimly, if she were a rebel.  It was almost as if she wanted them to win!

“Countermand,” he ordered, sharply.  Having someone to blame improved his mood remarkably.  “Spread the fire across the enemy formation.”

She stared at him.  “Sir…Admiral, they will use their own point defence to thin out our missiles,” she protested.  “We have to concentrate our fire or…”

“That’s an order, damn it,” Allmanritter shouted at her, feeling all his fear and terror boiling down to rage.  “Spread out the fire or by God I’ll have you relieved on charges!”

She met his gaze squarely for a long moment, and then she lowered her eyes.  “As you command, sir,” she said, altering the instructions with quick practiced commands.  “It shall be done.”

I’ll have you investigated by the SDs afterwards, bitch, Allmanritter thought, coldly.  He didn’t say it out loud.  She'd need to concentrate on carrying out her orders.  Afterwards, the SDs would slowly open up her mind and discover if she were a rebel, or merely incompetent.  If there were an afterwards…

His mind shied away from the thought.  He always escaped.  Always.

***
“What the hell are they doing?”

Colin nodded, puzzled.  The enemy fire had been conventional, trying to get as many missiles off as they could before his first massive volley struck home, but now their missiles were thinning out.  They couldn’t have abandoned their only hope for causing his forces significant damage, could they?  Was there a rebel somewhere on their ships that had programmed the missiles…or had they risked everything and brought antimatter warheads to the fight?

The thought wasn't a pleasant one.  The Imperial Navy disliked and distrusted antimatter and using it for anything, but the most vital missions was strictly forbidden.  A single fluctuation in a containment field and a mighty superdreadnaught would be nothing, but atoms.  The Geeks and Nerds had offered the Shadow Fleet antimatter warheads, predicting that they would have a far deadlier effect than standard nuclear warheads, but Colin had refused them.  The same risks held true for the Shadow Fleet.

And if they weren't antimatter…what the hell were they doing?

“Signal the point defence ships,” he ordered.  If it were antimatter, they’d know soon enough.  One of the other hazards it caused was that any ruptured warhead would explode with astonishing force.  It might even wipe out a few dozen other missiles in the blast.  “Prepare to engage.”

***
“Here they come,” the sensor officer said.  “Sir, I recommend that you issue a warning for all hands.”

Allmanritter stared at him uncomprehendingly.  “A warning?”  He asked, honestly puzzled.  He had never been on a ship in danger before.  The sight of the missile swarm was terrifying, but surely it wasn't all that bad.  “A warning about what?”

“The impact,” the tactical officer said.  She sounded broken, almost as if she was aware of her fate, once the battle was over.  He’d have a few SD troopers have their way with her.  That always broke the arrogant bitches and reminded them of their proper place in society.  “There are at least seven hundred missiles bearing down on this ship in particular.”

“I see,” Allmanritter said.  He keyed his console.  “All hands, brace for impact.”

The wave of missiles lashed into the massed point defence of the superdreadnaughts, flying right into their cone of fire.  Allmanritter watched in glee as icon after icon vanished from the display, but there were so many missiles bearing down on them that every destroyed missile seemed to be replaced by two or three newcomers.  The swarm came closer and closer and lunged at his ship.  He closed his eyes as the starship shuddered, time and time again, from the impacts.  A shield fell, and then another…and then a missile punched into the hull.  The entire starship screamed in pain.

He caught himself and looked up at the display, trying to comprehend what had happened.  It had switched automatically to displaying internal damage, but he couldn’t understand what all the icons actually meant.  The starship seemed to be battered beyond recognition, it’s entire prow destroyed, or maybe he was misreading the panel.  He hadn’t practiced since leaving the Academy…

His private display switched back to the fleet view when he tapped it.  When it finally cleared, through all the electronic haze, it showed disaster.  Half of his fleet was simply gone.  The remaining ships were all showing some kind of damage, from minor damage that any superdreadnaught could simply shrug off to enough damage to require the services of the shipyard…or the breakers.   Two of them would be lucky if they didn’t hit the planet; they were drifting towards it in ironic obedience to his orders.

He keyed the display until it showed the enemy fleet.  What he saw shocked him right to his very soul.

***
They weren’t antimatter, Colin realised, as the first missile failed to explode in a shattering burst of light and fury.  They were standard nukes…and someone had programmed them to give the Shadow Fleet the best possible chance of taking them all down without losing any ships themselves.  They were spread out, trying to target all of his ships, even the tiny escorts…and as he watched, the point defence network systematically burned them out of space.

“Someone over there likes us,” the tactical officer said, almost spellbound by the results of the sabotage, if sabotage it had been.  Colin honestly couldn’t think of any other explanation.  The massed firepower of twenty-seven superdreadnaughts was nothing to laugh at, but it had been completely wasted.  If they’d targeted five or six of his ships exclusively, without worrying about the cost, they’d have almost certainly destroyed them.

“So it seems,” Colin said, looking at the remains of the enemy fleet.  He’d only fired one massive salvo in the hopes that they would surrender, once they realised how badly they were trapped.  Only a handful of the ships would be worth salvaging – clearly, their training was worse than anyone had implied – but they would still be useful.  If nothing else, the Empire wouldn’t be using them.  “Communications, send the demand for surrender.”

He’d thought hard about simply destroying them, if they were there to scorch Gaul, but it would have forced them into desperate resistance…and they might have fired on Gaul anyway.  Instead…they would have to see if they would see sense and surrender.

***
The voice was as cold and harsh as space itself.  “You are ordered to surrender your ships at once or be destroyed,” it said.  “You have no way of escape, no means of resistance.  Further attempts at fighting will result in the inevitable destruction of your vessels…”

I can’t surrender, Allmanritter thought, desperately.  He tried to think of options, but all he could think of was how the High City would reward him for the failure.  They would make his death legendary among their clients.

“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, carefully, “we don’t have a choice.”

Allmanritter stared at her, malice written in his eyes.  “We always have a choice, you bitch,” he snapped, angrily.  “We can’t go back to the Empire and tell them…”

“We’re not going to go back to the Empire,” the tactical officer said, desperately.  “They can destroy us all, one by one, easily.  They have us in a trap and they know it.  We cannot escape!  We have to surrender!”

Allmanritter reached for his communicator.  “No,” he said.  “You are under arrest.  I will…”

He stopped.  She was pointing a small laser pistol at him.  For a moment, his mind refused to accept what it was seeing; there was no way she should have had access to such a weapon.  Only the Captain should have been armed on the bridge…but somehow she’d obtained a weapon and brought it with her, hidden somewhere in her uniform.

“Surrender,” she said.  He knew, with a moment of sudden insight, that she was enjoying his shame.  How could he command a ship or a fleet now?  There was no way that this could be covered up.  “Call the rebels now and surrender.  It’s your only hope to live.”

Slowly, hating himself and yet relieved, he did as she commanded.

Chapter Forty-One

“All right, Boss, what are we going to do with them?”

Colin nodded.  There had been a few tense moments with the SD troopers, some of whom had refused to surrender and had had to be blasted out of their compartments with the enthusiastic help of the surrendering crewmen, but overall the surrender had gone smoothly.  Nine of the superdreadnaughts were still in fighting shape, although they would need some time in a yard sooner rather than later, while five more might be repairable within a few months, particularly if the remaining two ships were cannibalised to supply spare parts.  Gaul had, at Colin’s request, started establishing a prison camp for them…and then someone had found Admiral Allmanritter’s orders.

There was absolutely no dispute over what they meant, which was, in Colin’s experience, unusual.  Orders from the Imperial Navy Headquarters or the High City tended to waffle, the drafters either aware that the person on the receiving end would have to do as they saw fit, or lacking any basic understanding of the situation.  These orders were clear.  Admiral Allmanritter had been ordered to commit genocide and then, in a ghoulish mood that must have shocked some of his subordinates, to take possession of the remainder of the system’s industry – for the benefit of his patrons.  It wasn't enough to slaughter the population as if they were Dathi, or all rebels against the Empire, but they were trying to turn a profit.  There was something utterly sickening about it…

And it had hit Gaul the hardest.  Colin had turned the seven damaged ships over to them and their defence force had immediately begun going through the files, just to discover what the Imperial Navy had known about their defences.  Instead, they’d discovered Admiral Allmanritter’s orders…and a tense standoff had resulted.  They wanted Allmanritter and his entire command staff turned over to their custody for trial and execution.

“I wish I knew,” Colin said.  He looked over at Marine General Neil Frandsen and frowned.  The man seemed disgustingly awake and eager, although he had been in the thick of the fighting against the holdouts.  “What do you suggest we do with them?”

“I volunteered to shoot him myself,” Frandsen said, dryly.  “I don’t think we gain anything from keeping him around, Boss.”

“Except we lose our right to be treated under the Moscow Accords,” David said, from his chair.  He sipped a mug of hot tea as he spoke.  “Katy made one thing clear; Morrison, under Admiral Wachter, is treating our people well.  If we start mistreating their people, they have every right to start mistreating ours…and that will be devastating.”

“And it may not last,” Colin said.  The other sections of Admiral Allmanritter’s orders had made that clear.  Admiral Wachter might not be able to protect them for long.  He had carefully refrained from thinking about the new possibilities that seemed to be opening up in front of them, but if Admiral Wachter intended to defect, or surrender Morrison without a fight…what else could they do?  “What happens if they start mistreating our people after this?”

“We seem to have the choice between starting the cycle of mistreatment or hoping that they don’t start the cycle themselves,” David said, practically.  “I understand that Gaul wants Admiral Allmanritter, at least, for trial…but technically speaking, he is under our protection, according to the Accords.  As for the others…”

Colin smiled darkly.  Unsurprisingly, given what Admiral Allmanritter had put them through, thousands of the surviving crewmen had been more than willing to volunteer for the Shadow Fleet, but it created a new security nightmare.  Imperial Intelligence had had plenty of time to insert its own covert operatives among the crews…and, now that they had a chance to join the Shadow Fleet, would be perfectly placed to use it as a chance to gather intelligence.  He was confident that such agents would be detected, in time, but they could do considerable damage before they were caught.

“I suspect that we don’t really have a case for rejecting anyone,” he said.  “Put them though the standard lie detector test, and then prepare them for induction into the Shadow Fleet.”  He shook his head.  “Ten gets you twenty they’ve picked up some bad habits while under Allmanritter.”

“No bet,” David said, dryly.  “I saw those ships.”

Colin shook his head in disbelief.  The mere fact that the superdreadnaughts had kept moving, let alone fighting, was nothing short of a miracle.  Admiral Allmanritter’s attitude had trickled down to the lower decks, where his patronage had created dozens of little problems for discipline.  The ships had practically been run by gangs of feral crewmen, while newer recruits had been bullied and harassed until they fell into line, and the state of the ships reflected their internal reality.  The engineers had taken one look at the ships, even the barely-damaged vessels, and concluded that they would need weeks of concentrated effort before they would be serviceable again.  

And it hadn’t been a rebel sympathiser after all, but Admiral Allmanritter himself.  He still couldn’t believe that anyone would make such a basic mistake, even in the heat of battle, let alone an Admiral.  Percival, to give him due credit, had never done anything like that…but then, his fleet had seen near-constant service if not combat action.  The fleet would have fallen apart if officers like Colin himself hadn’t worked to keep it going, and that meant proper discipline.  Admiral Allmanritter…hadn’t bothered to discipline his crews.

We’re going to have to keep an eye on them, he thought, coldly.  The Shadow Fleet took a dim view of indiscipline, but under the right – or rather the wrong – circumstances, it could be disastrous. The crewmen would have learned bad habits that Colin could not allow to infect the Shadow Fleet.  They’d have to be split up and distributed around the remainder of the ships.

“We don’t seem to have a choice,” he said, finally.  “We cannot allow Admiral Allmanritter to stand trial here, at least…not now.  If he had carried out the scorching, he could have been tried under the Moscow Accords as a war criminal, but as it was…he didn’t scorch the planet.”

“He would have done,” David said, flatly.  “If we hadn’t arrived for another hour or two, we would have arrived to find a dead world.”

“He seems to be blaming that on Admiral Wachter,” Frandsen said, suddenly.  “We put him into a private cell, for obvious reasons, but he was ranting and raving at my people for hours.  He seems to think that Admiral Wachter sent him out here with inadequate support.”

They shared a long look.  It would have been so easy to put Allmanritter in with his former crewmen and look the other way.  It would have solved so many problems…but, in doing so, it would have created far more.  The Empire probably wouldn’t care about the fate of ordinary crewmen, even if Colin threw them all into space, but they’d be furious if Colin mistreated Allmanritter.  The man had connections everywhere.

“Interesting,” Colin said, finally.  Did Allmanritter know that Joshua had betrayed him, or was he one of those personalities that refused to accept personal blame?  If the former, how could they take advantage of it, while if the latter…?  He scowled.  There was something oddly distasteful about rewarding Joshua’s courage in returning five prisoners to the Shadow Fleet by sending Allmanritter back to stab him in the back.  “Did he say anything actually useful?”

“Very little,” Frandsen said.  His face twisted with distaste.  “There was an elaborate rape-revenge fantasy for his poor tactical officer, the one who forced him to surrender to us at gunpoint.  Apparently, he wants to…”

“I don’t want to know,” Colin said, quickly.  A man in Allmanritter’s position could get away with anything, including paedophilia and rape, provided only that he preyed on commoners.  “The poor girl saves his life and those of his crews and he wants to hurt her?”

“Yep,” Frandsen said.  He paused.  “You may be interested to know that she’s one of the most determined recruits for the Shadow Fleet.”

“I won’t hold her service with Allmanritter against her,” Colin reassured him.  If she had had the moral courage to force him to surrender, she would be a valued component of the Shadow Fleet.  He steepled his fingers thoughtfully.  “I think the best thing we can do with Allmanritter is send him back to Earth.”

“You must be joking,” David burst out.  Frandsen looked equally shocked.  “Sir…”

“I’m quite serious,” Colin said.  He started to list the points, one by one.  “First, sending him back isn’t doing the Empire any favours, which is why we sent Stacy back as well…”

“Who does not seem to have been entrusted with a second combat command,” David pointed out.  Of all of them, he had the greatest reason to remember her with scorn and loathing.  Stacy had commanded his squadron and had lost it to Colin’s Marines.  “How do we know that they won’t shoot him out of hand?”

“We don’t,” Colin said.  “Of course, if they do shoot him it will be them shooting him and not us, no matter how richly he deserves it.  We won’t be held accountable under the Moscow Accords.  Second, it allows us a chance to spread a little misinformation.  I intend to tell him that we made it here in time to meet him through the use of a faster-than-light communications system…and force them to redeploy their forces in anticipation of a perfectly coordinated attack.”

David frowned.  “They might see through the bluff,” he said.  A faster-than-light communications system had been the Holy Grail for centuries, but no one had ever managed to find a workable theory, let alone a practical system.  The Geeks and Nerds had come up with a theory involving directed neutrinos, but so far they hadn’t managed to actually put it into practice.  “Or they might panic and do something stupid.”

“They already have,” Colin said, nodding towards the image of Gaul.  The Empire had crossed a line when they’d ordered the scorching of a first-rank world.  The results would be unpredictable, but very bad.  “Thirdly…they might just put him in command of the Home Fleet.”

He shrugged.  “Perhaps that would be too much to hope for, but we can hope,” he concluded.  “If nothing else, it will panic them…while we go to Morrison and settle scores with Admiral Wachter.”

“He gave us the key to this victory,” David pointed out.  “He might be on our side.”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Colin admitted, “but he did give us a bloody nose at Morrison.  We’ll go in loaded for bear, just in case.”

He nodded over at David.  “Please make arrangements for Admiral Allmanritter to be given a courier boat for the flight back to Earth,” he said.  “You’d better see that it’s programmed to be completely automated, or it won’t be there for years.”  He smiled.  If Admiral Allmanritter hadn’t been late, the Shadow Fleet would have arrived and found a dead world.  Colin still wasn't sure just how he’d managed that particular display of incompetence.  “I have to talk with our new allies.”

***
“This does not…please us,” René Goscinny said, an hour later.  Beside him, Admiral Albert Uderzo nodded firmly.  “We demand that you hand Allmanritter over for trial.”

“I can’t do that, legally,” Colin said, equally firmly.  “I sent him back to Earth in the full expectation that they will execute him for this failure.”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Goscinny snapped, although it wasn't clear if he was talking about Earth or Colin.  “He had orders to destroy our world!”

“I know,” Colin said.  “When we take Earth, and we will take Earth, we will hold him and his patrons to account for their crimes.  For the moment, however, handing him over to you for certain death would have been…counterproductive.”

There was a long pause.  “And if that bothers you,” Colin added, “think about what the Empire might do to any of your personnel who were caught, after you executed one of their officers!”

“Fine,” Goscinny said, finally.  “We accept what you have done under protest.  Now…”

He smiled, slightly.  “It is my great pleasure to inform you that you and your fleet have been nominated for the greatest award my planet can offer,” he said.  “You saved us all from destruction.  I can’t say I’m pleased to be at war with the Empire, but…”

“We have no choice,” Uderzo said.  “We beat their fleet in open combat and they’re not going to let that go unpunished.  The crime of winning carries a death sentence, it seems.”  He smiled with black humour.  “Admiral…Colin, can we discuss something with you in the strictest secrecy?”

“I kept my secrets for years,” Colin said, dryly.  “I think I can keep your secrets to myself as well, unless they affect the performance of my fleet…”

“They may well,” Uderzo said.  He looked at Goscinny.  “May I?”

“There seems to be no choice,” Goscinny said.  He studied the table’s surface for a long moment, before looking up and meeting Colin’s eyes.  “For around seventy years, there have been classified communications – very highly classified communications – between the oldest human-settled worlds, the first-rank worlds, to use the Empire’s term.  The communications had to remain a secret because the Empire, if it had ever found out, would have reacted harshly.  We were discussing means of resistance.”

Colin listened carefully to the story.  The Empire had been squeezing the first-rank worlds more and more as time went on, eroding their independence to the point where some of them were virtual colonies, owned by one of the Clans.  They had made some covert contacts through the Freebooters – and Colin thought cold thoughts about that little titbit; Daria had never mentioned that to him – and developed an agreement to take collective action if any of them were ever threatened.  The only thing that might deter the Empire from plundering them completely was the threat of a combined rebellion.

“And now Gaul came very close to being scorched,” he said, finally.  “Do you intend, then, to rise against the Empire?”

“There’s no choice,” Uderzo said.  “The Gaul Defence Force lost fifty percent – fifty percent – of its combat power in twenty minutes of fighting!  The courier boats went out hours ago, summoning the others to the flag and warning them to mass their forces…”

He paused.  “Originally, we intended to use them to deter the Empire,” he said.  “We were never able to construct superdreadnaughts – and we never thought of arsenal ships – but we built up quite a force of battleships between us.  Originally, we merely intended to deter” – Colin nodded impatiently – “but combined with the Shadow Fleet, we could take out Earth in a lightning strike.  The war could be won before the Empire could react.”

Colin considered it thoughtfully.  If the offer was genuine – and, to be fair, the die had been cast when the Empire had sentenced Gaul to death – it would solve a great many of his problems.  Home Fleet was the strongest fleet in the Empire, numbering over one hundred superdreadnaughts…and would have been decisive if the Empire had committed it to battle.  Instead, they’d kept most of the superdreadnaughts at Earth, leaving Admiral Wachter to fight with scraps…and, if most of their superdreadnaughts were in the same state as Allmanritter’s ships, Colin wouldn’t give much for their fighting power.  

But how much would the Empire know in advance?  “I see,” he said, carefully.  “How long would it take you to mass the force…say, here or Morrison?”

“You intend to take Morrison, then,” Uderzo said.  “Roughly a month, I think.  We couldn’t practice, for obvious reasons, and there will be plenty of old ladies of both genders who will object to sending so much of their combat power away, but…”

He shrugged.  “Call it a month,” he said.  “Can you take Morrison by then?”

“I believe so,” Colin said, absently.  He wasn't going to discuss Admiral Wachter’s involvement with the Battle of Gaul until he’d sorted out where the Admiral actually stood.  Even if he decided to fight to hold Morrison, Colin had the firepower to take it off him…unless he produced another surprise from his sleeves.  He had a feeling he was going to miss Admiral Allmanritter.  “You mass your forces somewhere near Morrison – here, for example – and then we combine forces and drive on Earth.  Yes, it could work…”

“Be very certain,” Goscinny said, slowly.  He didn’t seem to share the growing excitement, but then, he was responsible for five billion people on the planet below.  They had to be panicking, if they had any idea what they’d narrowly missed…and soon that panic would turn to anger.  It wouldn’t change the fact that the Empire was still awesomely powerful.  “If this fails…”

Colin smiled at him.  “It will not fail,” he said.  He was confident of it.  The combined firepower would be enough to smash even Home Fleet, even if it were in perfect condition…and then the war would be over.  “Now, Admiral, shall we discuss tactical planning?”

***
Joshua put down the datapad and scowled.  “As I expected,” he said, simply.  “The rebels beat Allmanritter with ease.  One salvo.”  He laughed humourlessly.  “One single salvo and Allmanritter begs to be allowed to surrender.”

Penny frowned.  “Admiral,” she said carefully, “are you having second thoughts?”

“Not really,” Joshua said.  The records had been carefully altered.  Katy Garland and her companions had been recorded as dead, the result of a prisoner interrogation.  No one, even with Joshua’s rules on how prisoners were to be treated, would be particularly surprised.  If anyone looked, afterwards, they might put two and two together, but then it would be far too late.  “They’re going to be coming here next.”

He smiled, darkly.  “We’d better get ready to make them welcome,” he added.  There was a thoughtful, almost pensive, tone to his voice.  “This will be the last battle of the old Empire.”

Chapter Forty-Two

From two and a half light years away, Morrison’s parent star looked like any other star, blazing silently into the darkness of space.  The display annotated it with details covering everything Colin could have wanted to know about the system – Morrison had been inhabited long enough for every little gravity eddy to be carefully surveyed and pinpointed – but he barely saw them.  He was thinking about the last time the Shadow Fleet had flown into the Morrison System, haughty and confident, only to be defeated and broken by Admiral Wachter.  The Shadow Fleet was confident again, having won a great victory at Gaul, but he knew that that victory had been against an incompetent idiot.  Admiral Wachter was no incompetent.

He smiled slightly as he considered the massive bulk freighters accompanying the Shadow Fleet.  They hadn’t had time to wait for the new superdreadnaughts, due in a fortnight, but the Geeks had forwarded their new design of arsenal ship…with the new weapons.  They’d never been fired in combat before and while they were logical extensions of standard weapons, Colin was fairly hopeful that they would be a surprise to Admiral Wachter, if it came down to a fight.  Part of him hoped that Admiral Wachter intended to surrender as soon as the Shadow Fleet entered the system for the second time, but if not, Colin had the firepower to crush his fleet and force Morrison to surrender.  They couldn’t wait any longer.

By now, the news of the defeat – the debacle – at Gaul would be winging its way to Earth, convoyed by an unrepentant Admiral and two of his favourites, from the handful of crewmen who hadn’t volunteered to join the Shadow Fleet.  Colin had seriously considered delaying them, just long enough to take Morrison, but there was little point.  The handful of commercial starships – and perhaps cloaked picket ships – that had observed the battle would already be spreading the news far and wide.  They had to move on Morrison before the defence fleet was either recalled to Earth or reinforced.

“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, breaking into Colin’s thoughts.  “I have the download from the picket ships.”

Colin nodded as he looked up at the display.  Admiral Wachter seemed to have decided on a more standard defence formation this time, with his two squadrons of superdreadnaughts floating in orbit around the gravity shadow, while smaller flotillas searched the system.  They might have caught a sniff of one of the picket ships, although that was supposed to be impossible, or maybe they’d simply decided to run a series of exercises.  It hardly mattered.  As soon as the Shadow Fleet made its appearance, they would flicker back to Morrison and join the defenders.

“Yes,” he said, finally.  “Copy the data packet to all other ships.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.  He keyed his console.  “Done.”

Colin leaned back in his chair.  “Excellent,” he said.  “On my command, all ships prepare to flicker out and engage the enemy.”

***
Joshua was studying a display of a system when Penny entered, stroking his chin thoughtfully.  He looked over at her as she straightened to attention and blanked the display, but not before Penny had a chance to realise that he had been studying Earth’s defences.  The Solar System, birthplace of the human race, was the most heavily defended system in history, but Penny knew that no defence was perfect.

“Captain,” Joshua said gravely.  “Have the scouts run down any trace of their sensor ghost?”

“No, sir,” Penny said.  If Joshua was going to be formal, she could match it.  “The squadron commander is requesting permission to broaden the search parameters.”

“Denied,” Joshua said, flatly.  It wasn’t a tone that would brook protest or disagreement.  “If they didn’t locate the source of the sensor ghost quickly, the odds are that the enemy ship – if ship it was – has managed to elude them completely and vanish within the outer system.  Recall them to the base.”

Penny nodded.  The destroyers on outer defence duty had picked up a vague sensor ghost, a hint of gravimetric turbulence that could indicate the presence of a cloaked starship, and had started to run active scans, attempting to locate the newcomer.  Any cloaking device, subjected to such a pounding, would likely fail, allowing the hunting ships to open fire before their victim could raise shields or escape.  Their search had been futile, which suggested that the enemy ship had been very good, or lucky…or hadn’t been there at all.

She said as much.  “They might have been having flights of fancy,” she said, softly.  “They could have…”

Joshua shook his head.  “Perhaps, but I don’t believe it,” he said.  “The rebels would be fools not to have this system under very close observation and there’s enough shipping, even now, to make hunting any pickets much harder than normal.”  He chuckled harshly.  “Impossible rather than merely very difficult.”

“Yes, sir,” Penny said.  She looked at where the display had been.  “Admiral…what are you considering?”

“The defence of this system,” Joshua said.  “The rebels are coming here, Penny, because they have no choice.  When they come here, I intend to meet them.”

Penny nodded.  Joshua had quietly ordered her to have almost all of the picket ships and escorts pulled back to Morrison, where they’d been added to the defences, but she didn’t fool herself that they could stand up to an all-out rebel attack.  The rebels had successfully taken a number of ships from the 2nd Main Strike Fleet – the fool in command hadn’t even managed to get all of his ships crippled beyond use – and had probably added them, and the crews, to their forces.  That hadn’t been a consideration of anyone who had fought in the Dathi War, not where the alternatives had been victory or extermination; they certainly hadn’t had to worry about their officers and men switching sides.  The rebels might have as many as seven superdreadnaught squadrons bearing down on them…and Joshua had two, along with the orbital defences.

“Sir,” she began.  “You could always…”

An alarm rang.  “All hands to battle stations,” a young and rather excited voice called, through the intercom.  “This is not a drill.  All hands to battle stations!”

Joshua keyed his console.  “This is the Admiral,” he said.  By now, everyone in the fleet and probably the entire Imperial Navy would know his voice.  They would if there was any justice in the universe, Penny thought, although justice seemed to be in short supply in the Empire.  “Calm down and report, calmly.”

“This is Commander Patel,” the voice said.  “We have four superdreadnaught squadrons and escorts flickering into the system.”  His voice rose slightly.  “Admiral, they’re rebel ships.”

Joshua and Penny shared the same thought.  Was I ever that young?

“I’ve sounded the alarm and I’ve triggered the flash-alert systems for the automated defences,” the Commander continued.  “Sir, I…”

“You’ve done well,” Joshua said.  He stood up and pulled on his jacket.  “We’ll be on the bridge in two minutes.”

Penny concealed a smile as she followed him out of his quarters.  He’d started a program of allowing junior officers to command, if briefly, their starships, just to give them a taste of command.  They hadn’t been trusted with anything serious, but poor Commander Patel had found himself, if only for a few minutes, the supreme commander of the system…and faced with a rebel attack.  He had to have been practically wetting himself.

“Patel is a good man,” Joshua said, as if he were reading her thoughts.  “His chief weakness is a lack of experience and an exaggerated sense of his own failings.  He may make a good commander once he gains the former and loses the latter.”

He led the way onto the bridge.  “As you were,” he ordered, before anyone could rise.  Percival, on the rare occasions when he had deigned to take command of one of his squadrons, had demanded the full ritual, but Joshua didn’t seem to care.  There were even officers who expected their subordinates to prostrate themselves in front of them, although most of them had been weeded out of Morrison.  “Commander Patel, report.”

Penny listened, keeping her face under firm control, as Patel completed his report.  “You have done well,” Joshua said, finally.  “Take your position and prepare for battle.”

He sat back in his chair as Penny took her position directly behind him, studying the display.  The rebel fleet had appeared well away from the gravity shadow – it would take them at least thirty minutes to even enter it, let alone close to engage with the fortresses – but it was already forming into a simple cone formation and clearly preparing to advance.  The squadrons that had been hunting for the mystery contact were already flickering back to the planet, avoiding the enemy fleet by passing through flicker-space, while the remainder of Joshua’s force was preparing for action.  They might have been outgunned, at least without the fortresses, but they were confident.  She would have bet on a single superdreadnaught from Joshua’s force against all that Allmanritter had had at his command.

“Interesting deployment,” Joshua commented, calmly.  “They’re not wasting time trying to lure me out to fight, but are instead manoeuvring to pin me against the planet.  Those freighters they have with them have to be arsenal ships, which makes a great deal of sense…”

Penny followed his eyes to a cluster of icons in low orbit.  If Allmanritter had been paying attention, he would have realised that a new batch of arsenal ships were ready and primed, perhaps even demanded them for his force.  Instead, Joshua had deployed them with his own defence force, preparing to use them in Morrison’s defence.  Their presence wouldn’t be a surprise to the rebels, not after they’d been used to hammer their fleet at the First Battle of Morrison, but they could hardly avoid engagement.

Joshua looked over at the tactical officer.  “Unless they’ve invented something new, we might actually have firepower parity, if we wait here for them to engage us,” he added.  “Compute their total missile throw weight, if you please.”

The tactical officer worked his console.  “It’s hard to say for sure, as arsenal ships are non-standard vessels, but they could throw upwards of a hundred thousand missiles in the first volley,” he said.  “There’s no way to be certain until they actually open fire.”

“Of course,” Joshua agreed.  If he was discomfited by the sheer volume of missiles the rebels might be able to fire, he refused to show it.  “Track their arsenal ships and forward their coordinates to the outer missile field.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said.  “Do you want me to bring the missiles online now?”

“Not yet,” Joshua said, calmly.  He looked up at Penny and winked.  “We’ll wait until the range falls a little more.”

Penny nodded.  There was no such thing, yet, as a stealth missile, although she was fairly sure that Imperial Intelligence was working on them.  Joshua, whose plants had been producing far more missiles than an arsenal ship or ten could fire at once, had distributed them around the edge of the gravity shadow, powered down and completely inert.  They would be impossible to distinguish from any other form of space junk until they brought up their drives and lunged at their targets.

“Ignore the superdreadnaughts for now,” Joshua added.  “I want you to target them only on the arsenal ships.  If we can take them out…”

“We might be able to hammer them in the coming exchange of fire,” Penny concluded.  She ran the calculations in her head.  If they could take out the arsenal ships, the Imperial Navy would have the firepower advantage…with the rebels committed to a missile duel inside the gravity shadow.  The results would be interesting…and disastrous for the rebels.  She looked up at the display.  “They’ll be in prime engagement range in ten minutes.”

Joshua nodded.  “Once they reach prime engagement mode, bring up the missiles and launch them, unless they detect them and react first,” he ordered.  “If they detect the missiles, fire them at once.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.

***
Colin had deliberately brought his fleet out some distance from the planet, allowing for a slow and stately approach to the gravity shadow…and the enemy forces, massing in orbit within the field.  He had seriously considered coming in closer, but it would have risked losing several ships, while making the crews uncomfortable.  The slower approach ensured that the flicker drive’s effects were actually minimised.

“Keep launching the probes at thirty-second intervals,” he said.  He knew better than to overestimate an opponent, but it was very hard not to do so with Admiral Wachter.  He might have an ambush set up already, or he might be developing any kind of cunning plan to take advantage of more flaws in the design of Colin’s ships, or…there was no way to know in advance.  “I want to know if a space ghost appears anywhere near us.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said.  The display kept updating as the results of the tactical scans started to flow into the system.  Morrison itself was surrounded by enough icons to hide the planet itself, while the other planets in the system had their own automated defences, even handfuls of starships on patrol.  As he watched, most of the starships flickered out, hopping across the light-hours and appearing near Morrison, fleeing down into the gravity shadow.  “I am detecting no trace of any turbulence near our ships.”

It all looked normal the last time we approached this planet, Colin reminded himself.  There was no point in recalling old defeats, except as a warning not to allow himself to be surprised again, but it was impossible not to remember the last time.  Admiral Wachter had gathered his forces in the gravity shadow…and, in doing so, had tried to force a dangerous decision on Colin.  If he followed Admiral Wachter into the gravity shadow, he would expose his ships to the concentrated fire of the enemy’s superdreadnaughts, arsenal ships, and fortresses.  If he didn’t, he would have to lay siege to Morrison permanently, which would mean delaying the assault on Earth.

My own need for a quick decision forces me to take the risk, he thought, wryly.  I wonder if he knows that.

He smiled, thinly.  “Contact the special arsenal ships,” he ordered.  “Tell them that their targets are the enemy arsenal ships and fortresses.  We will fire as soon as they enter their firing range.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.  Commands uploaded…”

An alarm sounded.  “Sir, they’re powering up objects along the gravity shadow,” he snapped, as the display snapped back to the near-orbit view.  “Battle comp says they’re missiles!”

Clever, Colin thought, coldly.  He'd been lured into impaling himself on Admiral Wachter’s spare missiles.  “Bring the point defence craft forward,” he ordered, realising just how perfectly timed the entire operation had been.  He couldn’t sweep the missiles out of space before they powered up, nor could he avoid them without flickering out and enduring the inconvenience of having to reform his fleet.  “Engage as soon as possible.”

The missiles flared to life, one by one, and roared towards his ships.  The tactical computers ran an analysis, but Colin already knew the answer.  The missiles were targeted on his arsenal ships, rather than the superdreadnaughts.  He might not have known it – and it was impossible to be sure with Admiral Wachter – but if he succeeded, Colin would have little choice, but to abandon the offensive.  The loss of the arsenal ships would make breaking the Morrison System too expensive.

“Point defence is engaging now,” the tactical officer said.  “The tactical network is up and running.  They won’t get many through.”

Colin watched as the missiles started to wink out, one by one, and hoped he was right.

***
“Smart of him,” Joshua said, watching as the rebel fleet picked off the advancing missiles.  “He hasn’t allowed me to lead him by the nose, or panic him into a retreat.”

Penny frowned.  “I thought our objective was to smash his fleet, not to force him to break off,” she said.  “Do you want to change the objective?”

Joshua shrugged.  “I want to keep Morrison intact as a threat to his rear,” he said, grimly.  Penny had heard him talking – ranting might have been a better word – about the long-term effects of the defeat at Gaul, but he'd also admitted that if Morrison remained in Imperial hands, perhaps the effects of the defeat could be neglected.  “If we can smash him, well and good.  If not…”

He smiled.  “I won’t lose any sleep if we force him to retreat,” he added.  “The objective is to win the war, remember?”

Penny said nothing, thinking hard.  How can we win a war if we don’t even know who the enemy actually is?

The last missile flickered and vanished.  She tailed up the results and scowled, sensing Joshua’s silent displeasure beside her.  They’d destroyed two arsenal ships, damaged a third and forced two more to flicker out and flee, but the remainder were still there, bearing down on Morrison.  She ran through the calculations in her head, unwilling to ask the tactical officer, and realised that the rebels still had enough firepower to ensure that Morrison paid a high price for its defiance.

“I had hoped for better,” Joshua said.  He wasn't smiling any longer.  There would be a pause in the battle as both sides manoeuvred to bring their weapons to bear on the other, but there wouldn’t be an uncontested massacre.  The odds were slightly in favour of the Imperial Navy, but even so, they were going to get hurt.  “Run tracking on their superdreadnaughts.  Ignore the arsenal ships for now.”

The tactical officer looked up as the rebel starships started to enter the gravity shadow.  “Sir,” he said, slowly, “I’m getting some mighty odd readings from their remaining arsenal ships.”

Joshua looked over at him.  “What kind of readings…?”

And then all his plans went badly wrong.

Chapter Forty-Three

One of the odder facets of the Empire’s technology was that it wasn't really possible to develop missiles with additional speed or range.  The technology behind missile power plants suffered from so many limitations that it simply wasn't possible to improve it.  The Geeks had studied the problem carefully and had developed a fairly simple improvement that allowed missiles extra range and firepower.

Colin smiled as the arsenal ships fired their missiles.  The missiles looked larger and more powerful than standard missiles on the display, but to all intents and purposes they looked to be nothing more complicated than scaled-up missiles and standard drives, running into the law of diminishing returns.  They would be easier to target and hit…if they ever got anywhere near the enemy’s point defence network.  A moment later, the superdreadnaught shuddered, launching the first missiles from its external racks.

The concept was so simple that Colin couldn’t believe that no one had thought of it before, but a quick check through the history files had revealed that the concept had failed several times during the Dathi War, when missiles and technology were less advanced and the external racks had failed during combat, leaving the parent ship unable to continue firing.  The advanced missiles simply wouldn’t fit in the superdreadnaught’s missile tubes, but they could be fired from external racks, which were even now disintegrating as debonding fields reduced them to dust.  The drive field, running over the hull, would sweep the dust away before it could threaten their missiles.

He smiled, tightly.  He was sure that Admiral Wachter hadn’t expected that.

***
“They’re firing,” the tactical officer said, in absolute disbelief.  “They’re out of their minds!”

“Are they?”  Joshua asked, calmly.  He studied the display as if it were nothing more than a boring history program.  “If they’re firing from that range, they’re either firing at ghosts or they’re damn certain they can hit something, which means that they’re not insane after all.”

He leaned forward.  “Sensors, get me a breakdown on those missiles,” he ordered.  “Where are they targeted?”

Penny watched grimly as the vectors appeared on the display.  The missiles were large, overpowered for their size, although unless the Geeks or Nerds had invented something completely new, they were still going to burn out uselessly long before they entered point defence range.  Joshua had drilled the point defence crews until they were as good as possible, but it didn’t look as if they were going to be needed at all, unless…the quiet nagging doubt grew in her mind.  They didn’t think they were being silly, did they?

“They have to be capable of hitting us,” she said, grimly.  The puzzle seemed insolvable.  No one in their right mind would simply waste so many missiles merely to unnerve the opposition.  “How are they doing that?”

Joshua shrugged.  “I have no idea,” he said.  “Note that they don’t appear to have perfect target locks on our ships, or the fortresses, despite the fact that obtaining the locks at such a distance shouldn’t be a problem.  They will blaze into our formation, but without precise locks…they’re going to go for targets of opportunity.”

He looked up at her.  “Have the arsenal ships move back in the formation and bring the point defence ships forward,” he ordered, calmly.  “Link them all into the point defence datanet and prepare to engage.  I highly doubt that they will actually burn out…”

Penny watched the missiles coming closer, feeling a growing sense of unreality.  She’d been under fire before, but she’d never faced such a…strange attack.  Everything she knew told her that the rebels had simply wasted forty thousand missiles…and yet Joshua was right.  They had to have a trick up their sleeves.  The timing, even, was off; they had plenty of time to react to the missiles.  At least they weren't breaking the normal speed limits for missiles…

“I’m picking up some unusual emissions,” the tactical officer said.  His brow furrowed as he worked his console.  “It’s almost as if there were other drive fields inside the first drive field.”

Penny and Joshua exchanged a puzzled glance.  Two drive fields couldn’t coexist for longer than a few seconds without destabilising.  It was hard enough to fire missiles from launch tubes, let alone maintaining a shuttle’s drive field inside a superdreadnaught…and in both cases, the second drive field was tiny.  The missiles couldn’t be that much larger than standard, could they?

“Ah,” the tactical officer said, as the display sparkled with new icons.  “Admiral…”

“I saw,” Joshua said, cutting him off.  “Interesting.  I’ve seen that proposed, but no one has actually been able to perfectly align the two drive fields, let alone three or four.  I wonder if that’s how they do it.  If they used two additional drive fields to balance each other, while winding the first drive field down…”

He shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter at the moment,” he said.  “Tactical, it seems that they can hit us after all.  The point defence network is cleared to engage.”

Penny braced herself as the wave of missiles roared into the fleet’s defences, targeted- she saw now – on the arsenal ships and the fortresses, ignoring the superdreadnaughts.  The rebels hadn’t just invented a two-stage missile, but a multiple-warhead missile, each of the large missiles carrying at least three smaller missiles.  If they were standard, and there was no reason why they shouldn’t be, they were about to get badly hurt.

The missiles ignored the smaller ships, choosing instead to try to pick on the fortresses, and her eyes burned as missile after missile was burned out of space.  Fortresses were larger even than superdreadnaughts and, lacking any drive compartments, they packed enough firepower to give a superdreadnaught squadron pause, although Colin Harper had once sneaked a squadron close to one under a false flag and blown it to dust.  They tore great swathes out of the swarm, but hundreds of missiles survived to complete their suicide run…and, one by one, fortresses started to die.

“Sir, we lost seven of the arsenal ships,” the tactical officer reported, his face ashen.  “Five fortresses are gone, two others are badly damaged and will have to be abandoned.”

Joshua nodded slowly.  “I see,” he said, looking up at the display.  The rebel fleet was closing in rapidly, now that their missiles had softened up the defenders.  “Years ago, it was considered impossible to take a planet until the mobile forces were destroyed.”

Penny followed his logic.  If the rebels could bombard planetary defences at extreme range, accepting the risks of accidentally hitting the planet itself with a multi-megaton warhead, there wasn't a planet in the Empire, including Earth itself, that was safe.  They’d changed the face of warfare, again, and the Empire would have little time to adapt.  The missiles would have to be duplicated, if only to force the rebels to keep their distance from the targeted planets, but that would take time, too much time.

“Sir,” she said.  “We should send the information out of the system.”

Joshua shook his head.  “I dare say that the observers will see to that,” he said.  “We don’t have to worry about it.”

He looked up at the display.  “There’s no longer any point in concentrating fire on their arsenal ships,” he said.  Penny nodded.  By the time the arsenal ships reached firing range, they’d have their missiles on their way and destroying them would be pointless spite.  “Target their lead superdreadnaughts and prepare to engage.”

***
Colin smiled grimly as the results of the strike started to come in.  It was hard to make out anything from the haze of electronic distortion, but the probes were slowly isolating the real damage, revealing that five fortresses had simply creased to exist.  The missiles had punched right thought their armour, overloading their damage control terms, and finally exploded deep within the fortresses, destroying them.  He’d studied the fortresses they’d captured at Harmony and Yanasaxon carefully and had been ruefully impressed.  They had had twice the firepower of a superdreadnaught and were actually more capable of surviving a battle.  If anyone had bothered to equip them with drives…

“Steady as we go,” he said, calmly.  In seven minutes, they would enter standard missile range…and he had the firepower advantage.  Admiral Wachter had deployed enough point defence to significantly weaken his opening strikes, but he still had five unexpended arsenal ships to bolster his superdreadnaughts.  He would smoother them with missiles before they could force an energy weapons-range engagement.  “Prepare to engage.”

He studied the enemy formation thoughtfully.  He doubted that Admiral Wachter had had time to develop a dedicated point defence platform, but looking at the remote platforms and sensor drones that had been deployed, it would be problematic to crack without superior firepower.  If it had just been two squadrons facing two squadrons, he might have had to withdraw, but he had enough firepower – he hoped – to crack that formation.  And if he didn’t…well, there was always the second trick to play.

The enemy ships came closer as the Shadow Fleet settled down into the approach vector.  An engagement was now inevitable, he saw, and he welcomed it.  They would finally take Morrison, wipe the stain of the last defeat from their collective souls, and turn on Earth.  The war had to be won soon, or not at all.

***
“Two minutes to missile range,” the tactical officer said.  “I have tracks on all of their superdreadnaughts, missiles targeted on…”

Penny looked over at Joshua.  “Lock the remaining fortresses into the firing pattern,” he added.  “If they refrain from firing before they enter their missile range, we will add the fortresses firepower to our own.  If not, we will have to fall back on their position.”

“That means leaving Morrison’s main defences open,” Penny reminded him.  It was her role to warn him of possible issues.  It also wasn’t a role she welcomed, not when she was praying for him to pull another rabbit out of his hat.  The superdreadnaughts might have survived undamaged, but neither she nor anyone else had any doubt as to how long that would last.  “What if they start to target the planet itself?”

“They won’t,” Joshua said, confidently.  He steepled his fingers as the enemy starships grew closer.  “They’re determined, as determined as I am, to avoid atrocities.  They won’t target the planet purposefully.”

Which wouldn’t, Penny knew, be any consolation if one side, or another, accidentally dropped a shipkiller on an inhabited planet.  The enemy ships were growing closer and closer, barely touching the red line on the display that marked engagement range, unless they had another surprise up their sleeves.  The long-range multiple missiles, or whatever they ended up calling them, had already torn hell out of Joshua’s position.  The more standard bombardment would only make the damage worse, even if they did give as good as they got.

She leaned closer to him.  “Sir,” she said, very quietly, “we could break off the engagement…”

“No,” Joshua said, flatly.  There was something in his voice she couldn’t challenge, a certainty that there was no choice.  “We have to engage them here.”

The enemy ships entered missile range…and then sparkled with malevolent red icons.

“They have opened fire, Admiral,” the tactical officer said, shortly.  “I request permission to return fire.”

“Granted,” Joshua said, simply.  “Fire at will.”

The superdreadnaught rumbled as it launched the first spread of missiles, the deck shaking under her feet.  Penny winced, remembering just how dangerous the entire procedure of launching missiles could be, even though she hadn’t seen an accident since her middy cruise on a light cruiser.  The surviving arsenal ships added their firepower to the mix, before turning to attempt to avoid further engagement, although she was confident that the rebels would simply let them go.  They were no threat any longer, now that they had unleashed their missiles.  

“Interesting,” Joshua commented, thoughtfully.  Penny would have welcomed almost any distraction, even Joshua dissecting the enemy actions.  “They’ve only fired one barrage of missiles.  They should have been able to fire off at least one additional barrage before our missiles strike home.”

Penny stroked her chin.  “I take it we’re not going to extend the same courtesy?”

“Not really, no,” Joshua said, dryly.  He chuckled.  “Holding back missiles for a later engagement normally leads to there never being a later engagement.”

“Unless they’re confident that their missiles can destroy us in a single wave,” Penny said.  The thought had to be faced squarely, even though they were launching their third barrage of missiles.  “Could that be possible?”

“I doubt it,” Joshua said.  “Unless they’re using antimatter…”

***
“Two minutes to point defence engagement range,” the tactical officer said, grimly.  “They’re firing a fourth salvo now.”

“I miss Allmanritter,” Colin said, wryly.  Allmanritter’s ships probably couldn’t have launched a second salvo in time.  “Bring up the deception platforms and activate them…now!”

***
“Sir, the rebel fleet is…changing,” the tactical officer said, alarmed.  “My missiles are losing their locks and…my god!”

Penny stared at the display.  A thousand superdreadnaughts were bearing down on Morrison.  The sensors were insisting that they were present, even though cold logic said that if the rebels had really had so many superdreadnaughts, they wouldn’t have bothered to play games when they could have smashed Morrison, Earth and most of the sector.  It had to be a sensor illusion…

“It’s a trick,” Joshua said, flatly.  “There aren’t a thousand superdreadnaughts in the entire Empire.”

“Sir, the missiles have lost all of their locks,” the tactical officer said.  “They’re going to retarget and that will mean…”

“That some of them won’t go after real superdreadnaughts,” Joshua said, coldly.  Penny followed his logic and swallowed.  The rebel fleet was moving closer together, confusing their sensors further, ensuring that they were losing all their hard sensor locks on the real superdreadnaughts.  They could have picked out the real ones at closer range, she was sure, or the rebels would have simply deployed the decoys from the start, but the entire wave of missiles would be almost wasted.  “Track their point defence and refocus the missiles on any superdreadnaught that engages the missiles.  The decoys won’t be able to deploy any point defence.”

Clever, Penny thought.  The rebels couldn’t risk losing too many ships, just to keep the Imperial Navy confused.  “Might I suggest that we launch probes?”  She added.  “They might be able to pick out drive fields and turbulence.”

“Good thinking,” Joshua said.  Penny smiled.  Praise from Joshua was rare.  “Tactical, launch a full spread of sensor probes at once.”

“Probes launched,” the tactical officer said.  “Sir, enemy missiles are closing in.”

Joshua keyed his console.  “All hands, brace for impact,” he snapped.  “All hands…”

The torrent of missiles threw itself on the formation, blazing right through the defences, even as thousands of missiles fell to the point defence network.  Several hundred more were decoyed away by the decoys – not as good as theirs, Penny thought sourly – and exploded harmlessly, leaving ‘only’ a few thousand to fall on the superdreadnaughts beyond.  Hundreds more were wiped out by the superdreadnaught’s point defence, their paths ending in brief bursts of energy, but the remainder struck home.

General Clive rocked violently as four missiles impacted in quick succession, knocking down the prow shield and allowing a fifth missile to strike the unprotected hull.  Alarms rang through the massive ship as damage reports flooded into the Flag Deck, even as two more missiles struck home before the shields were restored.  Penny was knocked to the deck as the second missile shook the entire ship, exploding within one of the missile launch sections.  The damage would be bad, but not critical.

“Stay there,” Joshua advised, tightly.  General Clive didn’t seem to have drawn any special attention – which suggested, if nothing else, that the rebels hadn’t interrogated Allmanritter and his staff to discover the identity of Joshua’s flagship – but it hardly mattered.  Two more missiles struck the shields, shaking the ship again and again, even as the tactical officer managed to fire a much-reduced salvo towards the enemy ships.

Penny ignored him and pulled herself to her feet, looking at the display.  The rebel fleet looked undamaged, almost as if all of their missiles had missed, or had been decoyed away.  She doubted it, but the sensors were hopelessly spoofed and they didn’t have time to correct them.  The live feed from the probes wasn't encouraging.  The rebel trick would require rewriting entire sections of missile command codes.

And the rebels were just holding there, waiting.

She called up a fleet list and swore.  Seven superdreadnaughts were simply gone, without leaving any trace, while four more were derelict, drifting out of formation and spewing lifepods into space.  A hundred smaller ships, specifically targeted, had been wiped out of existence, along with one of the surviving fortresses.  The remaining capital ships were all damaged…and, to all intents and purposes, the Morrison Sector Fleet had been utterly destroyed.  If Allmanritter hadn’t taken his ships away, she was sure, the battle would have gone the other way…

“Admiral?”  She asked, desperately.  Joshua would know what was going on, surely.  “What are they doing?”

“Waiting,” Joshua said, simply.  The final salvo from the Imperial Navy ships was being worn down now.  Too late, she realised that they could pick out the real ships from the decoys…too late.  The tiny brains in the missile warheads simply weren't capable of compensating for the deception.  Some of them would target real ships, by the luck of the draw if nothing else, while too many others would simply be wasted.

Penny stared at him.  “Waiting for what?”

“The inevitable,” Joshua said, calmly.  He studied the display, his face an expressionless mask.  She couldn’t see his thoughts at all.  “They’ve made their point…and now they’re waiting.”

He cleared his throat.  “Communications, raise the rebel flagship,” he ordered, calmly.  Only Penny heard the bitterness underlying his voice.  “Inform them…that we surrender.”

Chapter Forty-Four

“I must say that I’m surprised to see you here,” Colin said.  “I didn’t expect you until after Earth fell.”

Daria smiled.  “There wasn’t actually much to do back at Harmony and the Freebooters League runs perfectly well without me,” she said, mischievously.  “The Prime Minister and I don’t get on so well when you’re not there, so I decided that I was going to come and join the fleet, along with Jason and the Cicero representatives.”

“I hope you didn’t allow them access to any navigational databases,” Colin said.  Morrison might have fallen, and he’d brought the Shadow Fleet to the world to cover the first-rank forces as they assembled, but the information would still be useful to Imperial Intelligence.  “What did you do with their ship?”

“Powered her down and carried her attached to a superdreadnaught,” Daria assured him.  She gave him one of her mockingly open smiles.  “I do know what I’m doing, you know.”

“I know,” Colin said, ruefully.  She was right, of course.  While he’d been plotting to steal an entire fleet from out under the noses of its commanding officers, Daria had been hiding out on the Rim, building the Freebooters League into a real power base, one that gave her enormous influence.  Basic security precautions would be second nature to her.  “How are Jason and the others?”

“A little surprised, I think, that you moved in on Harmony without waiting for them, but they’re rather pleased to have all the facilities and databases under their control,” Daria said.  “Salgak vanished into one of the command fortresses and hasn’t been seen since.  Now you have the first-rank worlds…”

“Yeah,” Colin said.  The question had reminded him of something.  “Answer me a question.  Why didn’t you tell me that you had links with the first-rank worlds?”

Daria paused, considering her answer.  “Security,” she said, finally.  “We – the League – didn’t have links with them, so much as we carried covert messages from world to world for them.  It wasn’t something I could talk about, even to you.”

Colin frowned.  “And you didn’t think that it was worth mentioning that they had contingency plans to wage war on the Empire?”

“I didn’t know what plans they had,” Daria replied, evenly.  “The Freebooters League keeps secrets, Colin, including yours.  Had I told you, without their permission, my position would have become untenable.  The only advantage we had over the planetary or Empire-wide shipping lines was that we were discreet.  It was not something to be thrown away lightly.”

“I suppose,” Colin said, finally.  “Do you have any other surprises waiting for me?”

“Not really,” Daria said.  “I brought you a small birthday gift, if that counts…”

Colin laughed.  “Thanks,” he said, although his birthday wasn't for another month.  “I’m glad to know that someone cares enough about me to send me a birthday gift.”

Daria laughed, breaking the tension in the room.  “You’re welcome,” she said.  “So…Earth?”

“There’s little choice,” Colin said, shaking his head.  “They’re going to learn that Morrison has fallen within a week, and then…well, they may know about the first-rank worlds as well.  We either have to assault Earth as soon as possible or raid worlds closer to Earth, but given the current balance of power…”

He shrugged.  “We have a window to hit Earth,” he concluded.  “If they try to recover Morrison while we’re moving on Earth, it will only make the Battle of Earth easier.”

The display flickered to life and he studied it thoughtfully.  The examination of the superdreadnaughts that had surrendered at Gaul suggested interesting things about the current state of Home Fleet, although he knew better than to count on it.  The superdreadnaughts that had been captured at Morrison had been in much better condition and it wouldn’t take a team of competent engineers long to repair the basic problems, if Home Fleet’s commander decided to make it a priority.  Jupiter had thousands of trained and competent engineers who could have been assigned to repairing the ships…

“I think I want a few words with Admiral Wachter,” he said, standing up.  “Coming?”

Admiral Wachter’s surrender had been accepted without loss of life, although he’d been disheartened by how few crewmen had accepted the offer of a place on the Shadow Fleet.  Joshua had managed to win loyalty from them by caring about them – and executing the worst offenders from the Sector Fleet – and only a handful wanted to join the war against the Empire.  Most of the survivors had been shuttled down to Morrison itself, which had had no choice, but to surrender once the rebels controlled the high orbitals, while the former POWs had been recovered and brought back to the Shadow Fleet.  They’d been treated well by their captives, although Colin had been amused to read the long list of complaints from the SDs and Imperial Intelligence about how Joshua had denied them access to the prisoners.

He’d had Admiral Wachter himself brought onboard the General Montgomery, along with his aide, who had refused to be separated from him.  A quick check had revealed that she was the same person who had worked for Percival and masterminded the ambush at Macore, but Colin found himself perversely pleased that she had survived.  If she had chosen to join the Shadow Fleet, Colin would have been delighted, but even if she stayed out of the fighting until after Earth fell, he would still be delighted to welcome her back to the new fleet.  There just weren't enough competent officers.

“Come in,” a voice said, when Colin keyed the panel.  The pair of Marines on duty nodded as the door hissed open.  Colin had given Admiral Wachter the guest quarters on the superdreadnaught, where visiting Admirals and Commodores would have normally stayed, instead of simply putting the pair of them in the brig.  That would have been, he had decided, pointless spite.  Admiral Wachter deserved better.

He was shorter than Colin had expected, and actually wore his age on his face, but he looked almost pleased to see Colin.  Penny Quick, sitting on the other side of the cabin reading a datapad, looked much less pleased to see him, although Colin wasn’t sure if that was because she was nervous around him or because he had interrupted her time with her Admiral.  He could have been wrong, but it looked like a love match to him…

“Admiral Wachter,” he said.  They hadn’t met in person before.  “Welcome to the Shadow Fleet.”

“Just Joshua, please,” Joshua said.  He held out a hand and Colin shook it firmly.  “Between you and the folks back home, I would have been stripped of my rank and title soon enough.”

“The Russell Family isn’t a particularly important one,” Colin said.  He’d had Kathy brief him once he’d learned that much about Joshua.  “Were the others jealous of your success?”

“I threw one of the most patronised” – he smiled, as one does at a joke that isn’t really funny – “officers in the service out an airlock,” Joshua said.  “I imagine that they would have turned on me, sooner or later, just for doing that and promoting the competent.”

Colin nodded.  “I know,” he said.  The entire conversation felt awkward to him.  He wondered, absently, how Joshua must be feeling.  He’d lost an entire fleet and sector headquarters to him.  Colin had imagined the meeting, expecting fury and rage and shouted justifications, rather than a quiet, almost sad conversation.  “Why did you serve the Empire?”

“I believed in it,” Joshua said, softly.  Colin could hear the conviction in his words.  “You’re too young to understand, but the Empire…the Empire keeps the human race united and prevents wars between human factions, while keeping us safe from alien threats.  Your rebellion will shatter the Empire and bring it to its knees.”

“I certainly hope so,” Colin said, sharply.  “I do intend to try to replace it with a democratic system and…”

“And what happens when people decide to go their own ways?”  Joshua asked.  “I had had hopes, at one point, that the Empire could be reformed, but even the Empire as it is…is preferable to chaos and destruction, war on a scale unseen in centuries.”

“It was inevitable,” Daria said, calmly.  “The Empire was sucking the life out of the entire galaxy.  We have been long overdue for a change, even at such a high cost.”

Colin studied Joshua’s face for a long moment.  “Join us,” he said.  “We’re going to go to Earth and take the Empire.  If you joined us, you could help us prevent the Empire from falling apart…”

Joshua smiled.  “You don’t understand,” he said.  “How will you prevent worlds from leaving the Empire?  If you use force to keep them in the Empire, you’ll end up just as bad as the Thousand Families, perhaps worse, because you at least offered people hope of a better future.  And if you don’t stop worlds from leaving the Empire, the Empire will disintegrate.  How many worlds do you know that…want to leave the Empire?”

“We have to try,” Colin said.  He closed his eyes.  “The Empire was keeping so many uncounted billions down.  You know my story, I imagine, and I think I know yours.  I was told I would never be allowed any chance at promotion…and my guess is that you were competent enough to scare them.  If you stick with us, you might…”

Joshua held up a hand.  “Perhaps,” he said.  He shook his head.  “I had a plan that, once I defeated you, I would force the Empire to change.  Now…I have an offer for you.  I have information you need, desperately, and I want something in exchange.”

Colin frowned.  “What kind of information?”

“I want your word that you will try and keep the Empire together,” Joshua said.  “You might succeed if you offered worlds local autonomy, but even if not…I want you to try.  In exchange, I will give you detailed intelligence on Earth’s defences, so that you can win the final battle with minimum loss of life on all sides.”

“They’re going to hate you for that,” Colin said, carefully.  “Why are you offering us that?”

“Because the Empire cannot carry on now and you’re the only hope for a replacement, unless the Empress comes back from nowhere with a private battle fleet,” Joshua said.  He sounded tired and bitter.  “You’re not going to want to lose your entire fleet cracking through Earth’s defences, not when you can avoid it…and you’re going to need your fleet for the chaos that will follow the fall of Earth.”

He shook his head tiredly.  “It all seems so futile now,” he said.  “Do we have a deal?”

Colin exchanged a long glance with Daria.  It would have been easy to try to extract the information from Joshua’s mind, but somehow that seemed wrong, even without the protection of the Moscow Accords.  Joshua had played by the rules, even if they were unfamiliar to the Empire’s servants, and deserved respect for that, if nothing else…

And he did want to save the Empire, even though the new Empire wouldn’t be anything like the previous Empire.  Joshua might be right, and yes, thousands of worlds would want to leave, but could they all survive without the Empire and the support of the other worlds?  They might have a brief few years of independence, followed by asking to rejoin the Empire, or maybe the new governments would be overthrown and the newer governments would ask to rejoin, or maybe…

“I have a condition of my own,” Colin said.  “If I agree to this, I want you to agree to serve as an advisor, if nothing else.  Will you agree to that?”

Joshua locked eyes with him for a long moment.  “Very well,” he said, “but you’re going to have to listen.”

“Men,” Daria said, shaking her head.  She winked at Penny.  “Do you think we should get out the measuring tape?”

Colin laughed, feeling the tension in the room fading away.  “Very well,” he said.  He held out a hand and Joshua took it.  “I accept your offer.”

***
An hour later, Colin faced the two Cicero Ambassadors.  “As you know,” he said, “we have taken Morrison and we intend to move on Earth.  They will already know this so sending you back there will not actually betray anything, while I want you to pass on a message.  We are coming to Earth.”

Lady Gwendolyn Cicero frowned at him.  “If they already know that,” she said, in a voice like lilting honey, “why do you want us to tell them that?”

“You will tell them that I am demanding that they surrender,” Colin said, flatly.  “I intend to come into the system and break through the defences, taking Earth and as many members of the Thousand Families as possible.  If they refuse to surrender, I will be forced to take possession of the entire system, including everything the Families own and operate.  The devastation will be on an appalling scale.”

He paused.  “If they surrender, I will give them a place in the new order,” he continued.  “There are already some members of the Thousand Families in my fleet, or working behind the lines…”

“Traitors,” Gwendolyn burst out.

“And others as competent would be welcome,” Colin said, ignoring her digression.  It didn’t matter any longer.  He doubted, personally, that there were very many competent Family members, but anyone half as good as Kathy or Joshua would be very useful.  “We will also guarantee the lives of the remainder of the Families, provided only that they do not wage war against us.  Do you understand my terms?”

Gwendolyn swallowed twice.  “And what about our factories, or shipyards, or worlds, or debts, or…”

“They will all have to be sorted out after the end of the war,” Colin said, flatly.  He doubted that the Thousand Families could adapt to a free market environment, not after they’d systematically suppressed all competition and shared the pie out amongst themselves, but they’d have their chance.  The colonies they’d settled and ruthlessly exploited would find themselves free for the first time.  The Families would still be wealthy, but powerless.  “Do you understand my terms?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Pompey said.  There was a kind of numb hopelessness in his voice.  If he had offered to defect to the Shadow Fleet, Colin would have accepted.  Anderson had expressed admiration for Pompey’s skills and praise from Anderson was rare.  Colin didn’t envy him – they would have to tell the Families to surrender or else – but there was little choice.  If a battle above Earth could be avoided, Colin would avoid it.  “When do you intend to attack?”

Colin smiled.  “Soon,” he said, dryly.  “I trust that you understand a slight lack of precision?”

The other reason for sending the Ambassadors back, now, was simple.  In a day or two, maybe less, the first ships from the first-rank worlds would arrive…and he wanted the Ambassadors well away by then.  It was possible that Morrison was under surveillance by cloaked picket ships, and in that case the precaution would be useless, but he had to try.  They’d have, by his rough calculation, around three days to pass on their message before the Shadow Fleet arrived at Earth…and all hell broke lose.

“We understand,” Gwendolyn said, finally.  Her body really was a masterwork, Colin noted, admiring the skill of the unknown surgeon.  She even pouted attractively.  It was possible that Gwendolyn lacked the confidence in her own abilities that Kathy, or Joshua, had shown, but at her age he suspected the effect was deliberate.  There was a very sharp mind hiding under that body.  “We will convoy your message to the Families.  I should warn you, however, that they may not accept it.”

“And in that case,” Colin said pleasantly, “I will have absolutely no interest in keeping them alive, will I?”

***
“He was telling the truth,” David said, later.  The image of Earth’s defences hung in front of them.  At a glance, Colin could see just how tough and nasty they were, layer upon layer of fortresses and orbital weapons platforms.  The swarm of asteroids orbiting Earth, providing the system with some of its industry, were armed to the teeth, in defiance of standard custom.  “If we have to go through that, sir, we’re going to be bled white.”

Colin nodded grimly.  It was hard to say if Joshua’s ship figures were accurate – the Empire was probably rushing everything it could towards Earth – but they couldn’t expand the fortresses so rapidly.  Even with the new multi-stage missiles, breaking through the defences was going to be a bitch and a half.  The Shadow Fleet might break Home Fleet, but after that…

On the other hand, they can’t allow us free reign in the rest of the system, he thought.  Joshua had confirmed, finally, that the strike on Jupiter had been successful, but the remainder of the industrial plant remained intact.  The Shadow Fleet would be able to take most of it and isolate Earth…and the Families.  The long-term effects would be utterly devastating to the economy.

“I know,” he said, grimly.  He looked down at the timer, grimly.  The remainder of the fleet and the first-rank defence forces had yet to assemble.  “One week…”

The display sparkled in front of him.  “One week, David,” he said, “and then onwards to Earth.”

Chapter Forty-Five

“This is…disastrous,” Tiberius said, angrily.  “I cannot believe that you can put any other word to it.”

He glared around the electronic conference room.  There were times when he had derided it as being useless, but now he saw one positive aspect; he couldn’t strangle some of the other Clan Heads.  The news from Gaul had been bad enough, but the news from Morrison had been worse…and that meant that Earth was next.

“Your Admiral” – he glared at Lady Madeline Hohenzollern in the hope, however futile, that looks could actually kill – “not only failed in his mission to scorch Gaul, but managed to allow them to discover that his mission was to scorch Gaul.  What do you think they’re going to do now?”

He ignored Madeline’s attempt to interrupt and continued.  “They know we intended to slaughter every last man, woman and child on the planet,” he snapped.  “They’re going to rise against us and join the rebels.  The other first-rank worlds might join them as well.  The only thing more worrying than the threat of a scorching is an actual scorching…but your Admiral managed to make us a laughing stock!”

“Admiral Allmanritter had no reason to suspect that the rebel fleet was going to intercept his force,” Madeline protested.  “According to his own report, Admiral Wachter failed to provide support and allowed him to be shadowed to Gaul…”

“Bullshit,” Tiberius snapped, too furious to remember the normal precise manners shared by the Families.  “It should have been a day between Morrison and Gaul, but Admiral Allmanritter manages to take two fucking weeks to cross the gulf of space!  The rebels could have launched from Gaul and raided Earth before returning to engage Allmanritter!  He had three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, for fuck’s sake!  He should have been able to scorch Gaul before the rebel fleet could even get involved, but no, he had to mess that up as well!”

He glared around the table.  “Because of you and yours playing politics at the worst possible moment, we face the very real risk of Earth itself being attacked,” he thundered.  “Morrison has fallen.  The remaining worlds between Morrison and Earth may be heavily defended, but lack anything beyond small mobile forces…and we can forget about the first-rank worlds.  Even if they don’t sign up with the rebels – and God knows we’ve given them precious little choice – they’re not going to come to our assistance!  For the first time since this war began we don’t have the advantage – they do!

“We should have supported Admiral Wachter to the hilt after his defeat of the rebels and left Allmanritter permanently subordinate to him.  Instead, you – we – played politics and now the rebels are going to come to Earth and challenge Home Fleet.  Let me remind you all, ladies and gentlemen, that if we lose Earth, we lose everything!  We cannot hope to set up elsewhere.  If we leave Earth – as I notice that some of you are making arrangements to do – we will not be able to establish a new Empire.  The remains will collapse and all our power, our wealth, our influence…will collapse with it.  This could be the end!”

There was a long pause.  “You are being alarmist,” Lord Bolivar said, finally.  He’d lost heavily when Morrison had fallen, but somehow he managed to remain upright.  “Yes, the rebels have knocked out Morrison and either captured or killed Admiral Wachter, but they have yet to face the defences of Earth and Home Fleet.  If they dare to challenge us here, right in the centre of our power, we will break them.”

Tiberius took a breath.  “I read Admiral Wachter’s report on the state of Home Fleet very carefully,” he said.  “The three superdreadnaught squadrons that formed the core of the 1st Main Strike Fleet were the best that Home Fleet could provide…and they required a month of work before they could be considered serviceable.  He urged that Admiral Porter begin an urgent program to refit the remaining ships, but has such a program been implemented?  No.  Home Fleet may have the numbers, but does it have the firepower and experienced crewmen?”

He smiled thinly, wanting to scream at them, or to rant until they finally understood.  “Sixty years ago, so long ago that only half of you remember, the Empress used Home Fleet to place herself in the Imperial Palace and rule over the Empire,” he said, his voice softening slightly.  “Ever since then, we have been careful to prevent Home Fleet from becoming a power base for anyone else – and we made damn certain that it never received a competent commanding officer.  If we had given it to Admiral Wachter, or even the unimaginative Admiral Quentin…but really, does it matter now?  The plain truth is that we have lost the war!”

The room burst into conversation.  “Enough,” Madeline snarled.  “You seem to have forgotten that we cannot do as you seem to propose.  We built the Empire and we did so because we knew best, far better than the elected politicians or the Outsiders and their childish demands for independence.  We knew what had to be done…”

“No, you didn’t,” Tiberius snapped.  “Our ancestors built the Empire on the remains of the Federation, after the end of the Dathi War, because there was no choice.  It was Empire or anarchy.  We merely inherited what they’d built and discovered that their tools were insufficient to maintain permanent control.  We created enemies by the billion and had no way to defend against them.  We created…”

He shook his head tiredly.  “They’re coming here,” he said, grimly.  “Even if we win the ensuring battle, we’re still doomed.  Everyone has seen the Empire shake now, giving hope to all those billions upon billions who hate us and – now – no longer fear us as much as they hate!  It’s time to start considering the future.”

Madeline glared at him.  “Do you believe that commoners can act in their own best interests?”

“I thought you cared for them,” Tiberius mocked.  He allowed his tone to sharpen, no longer caring at all.  “How many commoners are going to die in our service when the rebels arrive to challenge us here?”

Lord Rothschild spoke before Madeline could come up with a response.  “I concede that the situation is bad,” he said, softly.  He was the oldest person on the council, old enough to remember the days before the Empress rose to power, and commanded respect from all of them, even Tiberius.  “I do not concede that it is irreparable.”

He looked over at Admiral Porter, who had been trying not to be noticed.  “Admiral, assuming we defeated the rebel fleet, could we recover control of the rest of the Empire?”

“Of course, My Lord,” Admiral Porter said, quickly.  “The rebels would have to commit their entire force to this system to even have a chance of defeating Home Fleet…”

Lady Ngyuen snorted.  “According to the sensor records from Morrison, the rebels have over a thousand superdreadnaughts,” she said.  “They have Home Fleet outnumbered ten to one.”

“No, they don’t, My Lady,” Admiral Porter said, very calmly.  Tiberius could hear the tension underlying his words and wondered how many others could hear it, although it didn’t matter.  Admiral Porter had never commanded a ship, or even a fleet in space.  “I have had the sensor records from Morrison carefully analysed by the best sensor crews in Home Fleet.  They are unanimously of the opinion that the rebels have simply created an improved form of sensor decoy, creating far superior sensor ghosts.”

He laughed, briefly.  “If they had such a fleet, they wouldn’t be playing games,” he added.  “They would have come to Earth and dictated terms.

“But the analysis proves that they did deploy sensor ghosts, rather than real ships,” he continued.  “It is quite possible that we will be able to alter our own sensors to compensate and my techs are following up several possible lines of research even as we speak.  The turbulence caused by a superdreadnaught’s interaction with the fabric of space-time is simply absent…”

“Spare us the technobabble,” Madeline snapped, her lips compressing down to a thin line. “Can you guarantee a victory when the rebels attack Earth?”

“I believe that such a victory is possible,” Admiral Porter answered, carefully.  “I am confident that…”

“He’s telling you what you want to hear,” Tiberius interrupted, angrily.  “The time to negotiate is now, when we still have a card to play, not afterwards!”

“Negotiate?”  Lady Ngyuen demanded.  The tabled united, for a long moment, in glaring at him.  “You would make concessions to such scrum?”

“If they take something we can hardly give it to them,” Tiberius sighed.  He should have known better than to expect them to see reason.  Admiral Porter was telling them exactly what they wanted to hear…and Tiberius was not.  “Can we not at least consider what we have to offer them?”

He stared Lady Ngyuen down and continued.  “We own almost all of the industry in the Empire,” he said.  “We control the banks, the shipping lines, the trading firms…we could bring the entire Empire crashing to a halt with a handful of commands in the wrong places.  The rebels wouldn’t be able to begin sorting out the chaos, could they?  Hell, now that Roosevelt has finally crashed and burnt, it is taking the combined and coordinated efforts of all of us just to prevent a major crash anyway!

“We have leverage,” he concluded, “but we have to use it now, or lose it forever.  I propose that we send an envoy to the rebels now.”

Another wave of discussion broke out.  Some were adamantly opposed to any form of negotiation with the rebels, if only on general principles, although Madeline firmly believed that it would be disastrous.  Others were interested, but feared what might happen if they lost control of large parts of the Empire, or faced honest competition for the first time since the Federation.  The discussion raged backwards and forwards and finally a vote was taken.

“Three in favour, three against and three are abstaining from the vote,” Madeline said, finally.  She gave Tiberius a triumphant look.  “The motion appears to have failed spectacularly.”

“Maybe not,” Lord Rothschild said.  He had been one of the abstainers.  “I wish to propose a compromise.”

Silence fell.  “We cannot offer to surrender under terms too easily,” he began.  “If we can, and do, beat the rebels in honest combat, we would be fools to offer concessions, nor should we offer anything until we know that there is no choice.  I therefore propose an alternative.  Should the rebels arrive, and should they win the coming battle, we will offer to surrender under terms.”

Tiberius scowled.  “And why should they accept them when they do not have to accept them?”  He demanded.  “They could just float along at the edge of the gravity shadow, cutting us off from the remainder of the Empire, and bombard us with their new missiles.  Eventually they’d either break through or the Empire would fall into their hands anyway.”

“Regardless, we cannot concede unless there is no choice,” Lord Rothschild said.  “As you yourself pointed out, however, we would still be able to threaten them with an economic disaster.  They would have no choice, but to accept us – or else lose the Empire to chaos.”

“I hope you’re right,” Tiberius said.  “Can we have a vote, please?”

The vote passed, seven to two.  “Good,” Tiberius snapped.  “I really hope you’re right, because if you’re wrong…”

“You are still young,” Lord Rothschild said, dismissively.  “You lack the sense of time and patience that was used to build the Empire.  The High City was not built in a day.”

“But it could be knocked down in seconds,” Tiberius snapped, “and that is exactly what the rebels want to do.”

He disconnected from the electronic meeting space and fell back into his own body, feeling his heart racing and sweat trickling down his back.  He had never spoken that way before to any of the Clan Heads, let alone the nine – no, the eight now – most powerful people in the Empire.  His father would have handled it better, he was sure, but what else could he do?  The Empire was on the verge of falling apart.  His Family was on the verge of losing everything.

It had struck him, years ago, that the headship was a prison as much as anything else, one that hadn’t even been intended for him.  His oldest brother had been primed for the role, but instead he’d died with their father, leaving everything to Tiberius.  It was more than just the title and the wealth, but also the acuminated debts and promises and patron-client relationships that the Family had collected over the millennia.  He was still paying off the interest, metaphorically speaking, on debts that had been old when the Empire was new.  There were times when he seriously considered climbing into the Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and vanishing into the Rim, leaving it all behind.

“Idiots,” he snarled, as he pulled himself to his feet and walked into his private washroom.  The pleasure slaves – he was about the only Clan Head still to use them after Lord Roosevelt’s unexplained murder – helped him to undress and take a long shower.  He was tempted to pull one of them into the shower with him, but there just wasn't time.  He needed to meet with Gwendolyn and Pompey.  They passed him a simple dressing robe and he pulled it on before stepping out of the washroom and walking down towards the library.  They would be waiting for him there.

Gwendolyn was chatting happily to Alicia when he arrived, much to his surprise; he’d almost forgotten that Alicia was staying with him.  Her Family hadn’t complained – they would have been delighted if their relationship became something more permanent, insofar as permanent meant anything to the Thousand Families – but now, with serious Family business to discuss, he couldn’t have her in the same room.

“Gwendolyn was just telling me about Paradise Rest,” Alicia said.  “I could have sworn that the rebels had invaded that world.”

Tiberius smiled, absently.  The rebels had forced the abandonment of Paradise Rest after Gwendolyn and Pompey had departed on their mission.  It was a detail he had overlooked at the time, for the simple reason he hadn’t expected the rebels to waste their time hitting a pleasure planet.  Ironically, if he had used it as a chance to claim that they had been taken legitimately by the rebels, it might even have worked in his favour.

“They were quite lucky,” he agreed dryly, and gave her a kiss.  “I’m afraid that I do have to discuss family matters…”

“You’re sleeping on your own tonight,” Alicia said, and flounced out dramatically, overacting all the way.  Tiberius watched her go and then turned back to Gwendolyn.

“Nice girl,” Gwendolyn said, absently.  “Smart too, I must say.  Do I detect the sound of wedding bells in your future?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tiberius said.  His relationship with Alicia wasn’t really Gwendolyn’s business, although as she was close to the first-tier of the Family, she would probably claim that it was her concern.  A wedding, with all that implied, was far more than just a simple sexual relationship.  “What happened to you two after I sent you to Harmony?”

Gwendolyn ran through the story quickly.  “And then they sent us back here,” she concluded.  “They’re basically demanding surrender…or else.”

“And they’re not going to get it,” Tiberius said, angrily.  “The Council made that quite clear.  The entire war stands or falls on the performance of Home Fleet against the rebels.  A battle-hardened force against a fleet that has barely done more than ceremonial formations.”

“I see,” Gwendolyn said, finally.  “There’s little hope then, isn’t there?”

Pompey frowned.  “Can’t you talk sense into them?”

Tiberius shook his head.  “They don’t believe that this is the end,” he said, grimly.  “They don’t think that this rebellion is any different from the others.  They just think that they’re going to defeat the rebels at Earth, because thinking about the alternative is too painful.”

He sighed.  “This may be the end of the Empire,” he concluded, “and they’re too busy whistling in the wind.”

“Playing fiddles while the High City burns,” Pompey added.

“Whatever,” Gwendolyn said.  “What do we do now?”

Tiberius had no answer.

Gwendolyn stood up.  “I'm going to check in with a few of my friends and see what’s happened since we left,” she said.  “I’d advise you to start thinking about how serious you are about Alicia and decide if her name should be put forward at a Family meeting.”

“You always used to be bossy,” Tiberius said, remembering her when he’d been a child.  “Now who’s fiddling while the High City burns?”

Chapter Forty-Six

From nearly a light year away, Sol – The Sun – looked brighter than any other star in the galaxy, although Colin had to admit that he probably couldn’t have picked Sol out of the multitude of burning stars without the aid of the navigation computers.  It had taken nearly a week of frantic preparation and careful planning, but the great offensive against Earth itself – and the Empire – was about to begin.

“It looks great, doesn’t it?”

Colin smiled as Daria’s voice came through the private command network.  She had insisted on accompanying the fleet, flying in her own private starship, serving as part of the Volunteer Fleet.  She had smilingly dismissed both Colin’s and Cordova’s concerns, noting that both of them were preparing to ride their flagships into the coming battle and claiming that she could do no less.  Personally, Colin suspected she was trying to add to her own legend, but he wasn’t going to prevent her from joining the fleet, although he wished that she was riding a superdreadnaught.  If the Imperial Navy picked her flagship out from the fleet, she would become a priority target.

“Yes,” he said, shaking his head.  “It looks fantastic.”

The display was glowing like a Christmas tree, lit up by hundreds of light codes, each one indicating the presence of a starship squadron.  There were seventy-one superdreadnaughts, eighteen of them of an entirely new design, and over two hundred battleships, all from the first-rank worlds.  There were hundreds of escorting ships, from battlecruisers to point defence destroyers, flanked by wave after wave of gunboats.  The Geeks had sent hundreds of them forward, convoyed in heavy bulk freighters, claiming that they had worked some of the bugs out of the concept.  Colin had barely had time to skim through the details, but if they worked as advertised, they would make a significant contribution to his force.  

He keyed his console.  “Launch the recon ships…now,” he ordered, watching as nine destroyers flickered out.  Their arrival would alert the Imperial Navy, but with such a fleet, any attempt at a tight formation would be a joke.  Besides, the Thousand Families would know that they were coming.  He’d hoped that the two Ambassadors would have returned to the rendezvous, but neither of them had ever returned.  “On my mark, start the final countdown…mark.”

The display updated, again.  “You’re right,” he said, slipping back to talk to Daria.  “The largest and most powerful rebel fleet in history.  Everything we have that can fire a missile or energise a beam.  Here…for victory or death.”

Daria laughed.  “So far, my life and I have been together,” she said.  Colin smiled thinly at the joke.  “I don’t want to start breaking the habits of a lifetime now.”

The recon destroyers flickered back into existence.  One of them hadn’t returned.  The Imperial Navy was either on high alert, or it had tried to come out into a gravity shadow.  “Download their records,” he ordered, dismissing the loss.  The ninety officers and men on the destroyer would be merely the first to die.  “Update the tactical display, now.”

His eyes followed the updates.  There weren't many changes from Joshua’s records, although Home Fleet seemed to have lost a squadron of superdreadnaughts somewhere and had deployed additional patrols of scouting destroyers on random vectors.  Jupiter was protected by its own formation, but he suspected that that would last until the Imperial Navy saw the Shadow Fleet and called them back to Earth.  The defences surrounding the planet looked as formidable as ever.

“Copy the data to all ships,” he ordered, and keyed his console.  “All hands, this is Admiral Harper.”

His mouth was suddenly dry.  “This is the dawn of a new age,” he said, knowing that every officer and crewman would be listening to his words.  “For the first time since the Empire arose from the ashes of the Federation to impose its will on the universe, it faces a force strong enough to destroy it.  If we win, we will build a new heaven and a new earth.  If we lose, we will go down fighting and destroy, once and for all, the myth of the Empire.  They will see that we are free men and women, not slaves, not debt-peons, not engineered workers…but people willing to die in the quest for freedom!

“The Empire has sucked us dry over the years,” he continued.  “They have crushed us and held us down and forced us to serve them.  They have looted, raped and pillaged entire worlds.  They have crushed the few who dared to stand up and say enough, no more!  Today, we all say enough, no more…and we will make them see that their Empire was based on sand!  Today, we win our freedom, or go down fighting.  Today, we challenge them right at the heart of their power!

“And if we win, we will no longer be slaves, but free men and women, bound together by a common destiny and a shared victory, united as one.  We will be the heirs of the Empire…and, because of us, the Human Race will know freedom.  For as long as mankind remains in this universe, they will remember this day as one where we stood up, as one, and recovered what was stolen from our ancestors, long ago.”

He paused.  “These line are part of our heritage, stolen by the Empire,” he concluded.  “They chose to hide them from us, fearing what we would do, but no more.  

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,
“For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
“Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
“This day shall gentle his condition;
“And gentlemen in England now-a-bed,
“Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 
“And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks,
“That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

The display flickered and updated as the fleet settled into its final position.  “All ships,” Colin said, “flicker!”

***
Tiberius was barely aware of the pleasure slave as she entered, until she stopped right in front of him.  It was so unusual for one of them to enter his office without his permission that he looked up, and stared at her.  She looked normal – a physically perfect human female, wearing only a bikini set and panties – but there was a curious intentness to her gaze that sent shivers down his spine.  A pleasure slave wasn't human – their intellects, though careful design, were retarded at best – but he knew that a pleasure slave had killed Lord Roosevelt.  

“Yes?”  He demanded, feeling cold ice forming along his spine.  He was alone and had no weapons, apart from his fists, and pleasure slaves were stronger than they looked.  “What are you doing here?”

Her face twisted slightly, almost as if she were in conflict.  “I have been ordered to bring you a message,” she said.  Her hands were held behind her back, but he knew that she could move like lightning, if ordered to do so.  The concept of a freethinking pleasure slave was not a pleasant one.  She pulled her hands out from behind her back, revealing an old-style letter in a plain white envelope.  “You must take it and read it.”

Tiberius took it, puzzled.  He recognised the crest on it, the icon of the Cicero Family, crossed with a neat line of writing addressed to the Cicero.  The only person authorised to use the icon for correspondence was Tiberius himself, but he knew that he hadn’t written such a letter.  Even if he had, he would hardly have written to himself.  He checked it quickly and solved part of the mystery; his father had written the letter, years ago.

“Good,” the pleasure slave said, and fell to her knees.  When she spoke again, her voice was disquietingly normal.  “What is thy bidding, my master?”

“Go to the medical centre and ask them to check you over,” Tiberius ordered, thoroughly spooked.  She shouldn’t have been able to do any of that.  Her only use was as a sexual partner and the line was very popular with young aristocrats, but someone had been playing games.  “I’ll read the letter…”

He broke off.  It was clear that she didn’t even remember the letter.

As soon as she left, he locked the door and sealed it with a command from his implants, before he started to open the letter.  It was odd to use plain paper for anything, although paper did have the advantage that it couldn’t be hacked, but his father had always been a little eccentric.  If he hadn’t died, along with Tiberius’s elder brothers, he would still have been alive when the rebellion broke out.  He might have been able to convince the Thousand Families to seek terms.

The letter was addressed, he saw when he started to read the single sheet of paper, to his elder brother, not to him personally.  If Lucas hadn’t died along with his father, and his other two brothers, he would have gotten the letter instead.  If his father had meant to speak to him from beyond the grave…

He swore as he read it quickly.  It wasn't what he had expected.

My Son

If you are reading this letter, I'm dead, probably some years ago.  I don’t know, of course, just what happened to me, but I suspect that whatever ‘accident’ took my life was anything, but.  I became involved in a power game for the highest of stakes – the Empire itself – and at such levels, even murder is an acceptable move.  I should have primed you properly, but if you are reading this letter, I probably failed to do so.

An alarm rang in the room.  “My Lord,” the Butler said, “there is an alert signal from the Earth Defence Network.  Unknown starships are flickering into the system, hundreds of them.”

“Open the bunker and have everyone go down there,” Tiberius said, absently.  “Place the complex into lockdown and then go down yourself.”

The Butler’s voice sounded shocked.  “But what about you?”

“Never mind me,” Tiberius snapped back.  “Your duty is to see to the complex.  I’ll take my emergency lift if I have to leave in a hurry.”

He turned back to the letter.

***
Colin caught himself as the fleet flickered back into existence, somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars.  Oddly enough, the two planets were as close as ever they were, although in interplanetary terms they were still very far apart.  A starship could flicker between them in seconds – at such short range, the drive would be surprisingly accurate – and any defenders that had been assigned to Mars would be at Earth almost before the Shadow Fleet had finished arriving.

“Emergence successful,” the tactical officer said.  “I am reading a squadron of destroyers within sensor range, running for their lives.  I’m afraid they’re outside our effective range.”

“Are they?”  Colin asked, dryly.  “And Home Fleet?”

He watched as the display focused in on Mars.  The Red Planet – the former Red Planet – was the most heavily populated world in the Solar System, with over five billion inhabitants crowding the surface.  Long ago, back when humanity had taken its first tentative steps into space, Mars had been the dream…and then the nightmare.  The corporations that had taken control of the settlement had become the Thousand Families and Mars had become a corporate police state.  It was one of the most rebellious worlds in the Empire and yet also one of the most productive.

“They’re massing,” the tactical officer said.  “I’m picking up busts of flicker radiation indicating that they’re massing their forces at Earth.”

“As anticipated,” Colin said.  The defenders would know that the Shadow Fleet had no choice, but to force an engagement as quickly as possible.  The forces rushing towards Earth from the other Sector Fleets would reinforce Earth as long as it held out.  “And the fleet?”

“They have all emerged,” the tactical officer said.  “The point defence network is up and running.  We are ready to engage the enemy.”

Colin settled back in his command chair.  “Communications, transmit our surrender demand to Earth,” he ordered.  “Helm…take us towards our homeworld…and prepare to engage.”

He smiled.  It would be nearly an hour before the two fleets entered engagement range, but he'd planned that purposefully, even though he could have probably risked a short-range hop through flicker-space.  The commander of Home Fleet, Admiral Porter himself, would have plenty of time to concentrate his forces…as Colin had planned.  The chance to crush Home Fleet in a single battle was too good to miss.

***
Tiberius was cleared for a direct feed from the command fortress, orbiting Earth, but he barely paid it any heed.  The increasingly frantic orders from Lady Madeline Hohenzollern and Lord Rothschild for Home Fleet to engage the rebel fleet at once were ignored.  All his attention was fixed on the letter…and the coincidence of its arrival.  He knew, from long experience, that a coincidence that was so precise was no coincidence.

You will have realised by now, being my son and with access to raw data from all across the Empire, that the Empire is slowly collapsing under its own weight.  By the time I became the Cicero, the process was already well advanced…and the Thousand Families were actively aiding the process.  In a very real sense, they – we – are the cause of the process.  At the same time, we could not actively stop the process – it was a matter of life and death for the Family and the Clan.  According to our projections, depending on the exact data we fed into the simulations, the Empire would be on the verge of collapse within one hundred years.  The exact date of the collapse, of course, was beyond calculation.

This should not surprise you.  The Empire looked strong, but we had actively prevented any serious threat from arising to challenge our power.  The most significant challenges came with the three Emperors, but they came from within our ranks, outside calculation.  No external power would threaten the Empire.  Instead, there would be a long slow decline into chaos as the life was sucked out of the remainder of the galaxy.  I will not discuss the exact process.  If you are my son, with access to the unfiltered data, you will know it well.  

It could not be allowed.

***
“They’re spreading out into a point defence formation,” the tactical officer observed.  “I think they’re launching additional stealthed recon platforms.  I don’t know what they think they’re doing.”

“I think it’s a first stab at a doctrine for handling our new decoys,” the sensor officer injected.  “They’re running through one hell of a lot of active sensors, even at this range, and I think they’re trying to make damn sure that they have locks on our ships.”

“I hadn’t expected it to fool them a second time,” Colin said.  The post-battle analysis had revealed that Joshua, at least, had been able to devise a basic countermeasure and Home Fleet, with plenty of warning, should have been able to come up with their own.  He studied the display thoughtfully.  “Lock the 22nd Squadron ships on their targets and inform them to prepare to engage.”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.  The 22nd Squadron was composed of the new arsenal ships, with the new missiles.  “They’re ready to engage.”

Colin nodded.  The countdown was still ticking away.  “Good,” he said, calmly.  It was hard to maintain even a semblance of calm, but he had to try.  If he could fool his crew, he might be able to fool himself.  Had it really been two years ago when he’d been a lowly Commander, denied promotion for the crime of being too competent and embarrassing his superior officer?  “Stand by…”

***
We formed a coalition to attempt to reshape the Empire to prevent, somehow, the complete disaster that we foresaw coming.  Our leader was Janice Featherstone, but you know her better as the Empress Janice.  We placed our pieces carefully and allowed her to seize the throne.  This was, of course, our intent.  With Home Fleet, a sizeable force on the ground and our covert backing, Janice should have been able to force through the changes that the Empire desperately required.

It failed.  We underestimated the opposition.  They hadn’t realised that we were behind it, but they dared not tolerate an Empress too long, or the structure of the Empire – the structure that they depended upon – would collapse.  They moved against Janice and, finally, she was forced to flee.  We planned that in advance too.  If we could not build a power base to reshape the Empire from inside, we would have to build one from outside the Empire.  My son, the Empress is not dead.  She still has links to the Thousand Families…and us.

***
“Now entering final countdown,” the tactical officer said.  “Sixty seconds to engagement range, multiple warhead missiles only, I repeat…”

***
Tiberius flinched as pieces started to click together in his mind.  He knew, now, who had killed Lord Roosevelt, and why.  The Empress was still out there somewhere…and that meant either a final opportunity for survival, power and influence, or complete disaster.  It was hard to tell, looking at the letter’s crisp damning prose…

If you are receiving this letter, she is making her return, using a covert line of contacts we set up years ago.  If you wish to reshape the Empire, to prevent further destruction, join with her and serve her to the best of your abilities.  If not…please think of the Family and the Empire before you make any final decision.  Hopefully, this will never be needed at all, but just in case…

I remain, faithfully yours…

Lord Julius Cicero 

Tiberius swore.  He knew what he had to do, before it was too late.

***
“Engage,” Colin ordered.

The arsenal ships spat their cargo of death towards Home Fleet.

The Battle of Earth had begun.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Grand Admiral Joseph Porter was aware, all too aware, of the watching eyes of the Family Heads as Home Fleet assembled for battle.  The rebel fleet had offered them one advantage, coming out so far from Earth, allowing him to concentrate his forces to face them…and, in theory, he should have had the advantage.  One hundred superdreadnaughts to seventy…the victory would be bloody, but it would be a victory.  He dismissed the battleships and the smaller capital ships; they weren't serious combatants, not when superdreadnaughts were involved.  The rebels, however, had shown themselves to be disgustingly innovative in the past, in ways that had defeated lesser men…and Porter had few illusions about himself.  He was a lesser man.

His own words came back to haunt him as he watched the rebel fleet’s stately progress towards Earth.  He had risen high, right to the post of Grand Admiral, the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the service, though doing whatever he had to do for his superiors.  He had served them unquestioningly and had been richly rewarded, but now he suspected they wanted the impossible.  He’d honed his skills at infighting, not combat out on the Rim, even against mere pirates.  He had never even commanded a ship, let alone an entire fleet.  Home Fleet should have had the most capable officer in the Imperial Navy in command, but the last time that had happened the Empire had ended up with an Empress.  Porter commanded a fleet he didn’t fully understand, or trust.  There might be any number of rebel cells on his ships.

“Put the rebel fleet on the main display,” he ordered, trying to sound like a real commander.  The two fleets would converge within minutes, but the rebels were still out of range.  If their commander wanted a conventional engagement, Porter would have to oblige him, or retreat back down into the gravity shadow.  If that happened, he would be effectively ceding control over the remainder of the Solar System…and Mars already seethed with rebellion.  “Show me their command network.”

“We are unable to locate the rebel flagship,” the tactical officer said.  He sounded briskly competent, but Porter had no idea if he’d gained the post through experience or Family connections.  He didn’t even know the man’s name!  “Admiral, they have a new class of superdreadnaught within their ranks.”

Porter felt his blood run cold.  Only a few months ago, he had informed the Council that it was highly unlikely that the rebels would be able to build their own superdreadnaughts, let alone improve on the design.  He pulled up the sensor readings – at least he knew how to do that – and examined them thoughtfully.  It had been a long time since he had studied shipbuilding – he had majored in political history – and he knew little beyond the most basic concepts, but it seemed that the newer design were not only half again as large as the standard superdreadnaughts, but twice as powerful.  He made a few estimates in his head and didn’t like the answer.  The rebel fleet might actually outclass his entire fleet!

“Designate those ships as priority targets,” he said, cursing the oversight that had left him without any arsenal ships.  The Council had decided to assign resources to building new superdreadnaughts instead, rather than any quick fixes, and the last arsenal ships in Imperial service had been destroyed at Morrison.  Their additional firepower would have come in very handy.  “Lock weapons on target…”

The rebel fleet seemed to explode on the display.  “They have opened fire,” the tactical officer said.  He sounded far calmer than Porter.  “They have fired around thirty thousand long-range missiles, apparently of the same type as they deployed at Morrison.  Impact in nine minutes and counting; time to engagement range, twelve minutes and counting.”

Porter took a breath.  “Bring up the point defence,” he ordered.  They’d practiced that, at least, at Joshua’s very strong insistence.  Porter missed him badly.  He would have known what to do when the rebels arrived and led Home Fleet to victory.  “When the enemy ships enter missile range, open fire.”

He felt his hands clenching and unclenching as the missiles roared closer.  There was something almost surreal about the situation, a burning insistence at the back of his mind that the missions should simply burn out long before they reached his ships, despite the images and records from Morrison.  Before Colin Harper had started the rebellion, most space battles had been quick brief encounters, not long drawn-out engagements.  The fighting during the Dathi War, centuries ago, had been comparable, but technology had been far more basic.  Now…such a slow development was almost offensive.

We’ve given up too much, he thought numbly.  There was no way of telling, yet, which ships the rebels had targeted, but at least he’d kept his command network as diffuse as possible.  They shouldn’t be able to locate him or any of his other commanders except through luck, but the rebels had been very lucky in the past.  When the missiles launched their multiple warheads into the fight, they would have only minutes to react and save their targets.  

The display seemed to explode again as the wall of missiles became a torrent.  “They have separated,” the tactical officer said.  Now, at least, there was a faint hint of tension in his voice.  Porter was almost relieved.  The young man was human after all.  “They are selecting their targets and closing in for terminal attack vectors.  Point defence is online and engaging…now!”

Porter couldn’t see it, but he could imagine it in his head.  The command missiles, a handful of command and control units rather than actual warheads, would be directing their charges towards their targets.  Each of their targets would receive at least fifty missiles, if the point defence failed to knock them all down in time, seriously damaging the superdreadnaughts…except they weren't.  As he watched, unable to believe his eyes, hundreds and even thousands of missiles fell on the smaller ships like wolves on the flock.  One by one, the cruisers and destroyers – even a handful of gunboats – started to die.

“They’re attempting to strip away our point defence,” the tactical officer said, anticipating the question that Porter was unable to form.  It might have made him look ignorant…although he rather suspected that it was too late to hide that.  “They’re killing our escorts first…”

Space blazed with fire as superdreadnaughts and battlecruisers added their fire to the mix, trying to cover their smaller weaker consorts, but there were too many missiles.  The smaller ships didn’t have the armour or defences of superdreadnaughts, nor the ability to take multiple hits and keep on fighting.  They were hit, time and time again, and vanished in glowing balls of plasma.

I should have ordered them to flicker out, Porter realised, too late.  The rebels had planned it well.  They’d trapped him…but what had really trapped him had been his own preconceptions.  The battle had barely begun and they’d already lost most of their escorts.  They’d even gone after battlecruisers and a handful of superdreadnaughts!

“They won’t get away with that,” Porter snarled.  On the display, the time to engagement range ticked down steadily.  “As soon as we enter missile range, all ships…fire!”

***
“I have confirmation,” the tactical officer said, as the final missile icons flickered out on the display.  “We wiped their point defence escorts clean!  The only survivors were ships that flickered out and ran.”

I just killed thousands of men, Colin thought coldly, and laughed inwardly at himself.  It was a bit late to be having such doubts.  Those ships had had no place in such a clash of the titans, but if Colin hadn’t brought along the new long-range missiles, their presence would have made far more sense.  He could afford to target and degrade his enemy’s point defence because they wouldn’t be taking a free shot at his superdreadnaughts.  They couldn’t even return the favour…or he would take a free shot at their superdreadnaughts.  The enemy commander – it might even be the Grand Admiral himself – would be furious.

“Prepare to engage with standard missiles,” he ordered, as the range continued to shrink.  “Assign targets to firing groups in line with Fire Plan Alpha.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said.  The display updated as the targets were assigned.  “Weapons locked and ready.  Two minutes to engagement range.”

Colin gripped the side of his command chair.  No one had ever seen such an engagement, not ever.  One hundred and seventy superdreadnaughts and innumerable smaller ships were about to clash…and he wasn’t sure of the outcome.  The simulations had been inconclusive, ranging from near-mutual annihilation to a clearer victor.  The massed fire of the remaining arsenal ships and the first-rank battleships would be barely noticed.

“Deploy the gunboats,” he ordered, calmly.  The display updated yet again as the final seconds ticked down.  “Engage!”

The enemy fleet blossomed into a hail of red icons, rapidly climbing upwards into the thousands, before merging into a single onrushing mass of red light.  The combined firepower of a hundred superdreadnaughts was enough to lay waste to an entire sector, perhaps even the entire Empire…and he wasn't blind to the implications.  Home Fleet wasn't going to surrender.  They wanted to destroy his force.  He’d hoped, vaguely, that their arrival would precipitate a new series of mutinies, but so far none appeared to have materialised.

Probably got SD troopers on those ships, he thought, darkly.  They’d seen that ever since the first mutinies.  In many cases, the presence of the SDs had merely triggered a second round of mutinies.  I bet that’s popular…hell, I bet that’s why so few of the smaller ships flickered out and vanished.

“Targets locked,” the tactical officer said.  “Engaging.”

The deck thrummed under his feet as the superdreadnaught’s external racks flushed the first wave of missiles, followed rapidly by the second wave from the internal tubes.  The Geeks had improved and perfected the technology now, allowing them to throw almost double their standard throw weight towards the enemy, although so many missiles were actually threatening to overwhelm the control links.  Some of the missiles would be falling back on their internal targeting systems, weak and inefficient as they were, while others would lose their locks altogether and self-destruct to avoid striking Earth.

I don’t know why we bothered, he thought, with a sudden flicker of humour.  Earth’s about the one place in the universe where a random bombardment would be certain to get the bad guys…

He shook his head.  Kathy had come from the High City, as had Jason Cordova…and both of them had turned out fine.  Without Kathy, organising Sector 117 for war would have been much harder, while Cordova ensured that the Volunteer Fleet remained in line.  He looked up, briefly, at the Random Numbers’ icon and winced, hoping that Cordova would have the sense to keep out of the exchange of fire.  There were over five hundred thousand missiles racing through the same area of space…

And one struck another, the two missiles vanishing from the display.  The odds against such an occurrence were astronomical, but with so many missiles, perhaps it became possible after all.  The two wavefronts of missiles separated, racing onwards towards their targets, and he braced himself.  The Shadow Fleet had never faced such a bombardment before, not even back during First Morrison.

“The gunboats are in position,” the tactical officer said.  “They’re engaging now.”

Colin watched, keeping his emotions under firm control, as the gunboats opened fire.  The tiny starships were too small for the missiles to target, unless specifically instructed, but they could put out a surprising amount of plasma fire, targeted on the missiles.  Their firing wasn't that accurate – plasma cannons rarely were – but they were pumping out so much that they had a very good chance of hitting something.  Hundreds of missiles fell to their attacks, allowing thousands more to pass through the network and run into the point defence destroyers, falling prey to their combined network and point defence fire.  The datanet wove them all together into a single weapon, slicing missiles from the sky as if they were nothing, but dust.

“Admiral, I have a target analysis,” the tactical officer said.  “They are targeting the Independence-class ships in particular.”

Colin frowned.  He had wondered if the Empire would be able to pick the new ships out from the remainder of the superdreadnaughts at such a distance…and the answer was clearly that they could.  There were still thousands of missiles bearing down on them now, even as they belched another volley of missiles towards the Imperial Navy starships…

The missiles flew into the final line of defence, the point defence fire of the superdreadnaughts themselves.  The Geeks had finally ironed out the problems with combining the point defence systems of so many starships and now it was finally tested in battle, weaving all of the starships into a single point defence system.  Colin watched and allowed himself to hope that they could actually stand off the attack without losing a single ship, but the sheer weight of fire told against them.  The Imperial Navy had already launched its second and third salvos, while the remainder of the first salvos struck home…

Macore’s Revenge died fired, followed rapidly by Honour, Freedom and Glory.  Four other Independence-class ships were hit badly, damaged badly enough for him to order them to flicker out and retreat, while several of the newer General-class ships were hit badly as well.  He keyed his console and called up a brief analysis from the battle computers and was relieved to see that the Independence-class superdreadnaughts had behaved as well as the Geeks had predicted.  Several of them had soaked up enough damage to wreck the General Montgomery and just kept going.

“Impressive,” he mused.  “Helm, steer us directly towards the enemy ships.”

His grin sharpened.  “Let’s see how they like a combat at knife-range, shall we?”

***
Porter caught onto his command chair as the single missile struck home, sending shuddering vibrations though his ship and threatening to knock him to the floor.  It wasn't a dangerous hit – only one missile had made it through the point defence network to strike home – but it was intimidating enough to make him seriously consider fleeing.  Instead, not quite knowing how or why, he pulled up a fleet status chart and swore.  His fleet had taken a beating.

The rebels had spread their fire a little further than his own attacks, despite their superiority in firepower, and they'd only destroyed ten of his superdreadnaughts, although seventeen more were damaged, some of them badly enough to require months in the shipyards.  They’d also shot their arsenal ships empty and, he guessed, their external racks.  The tactical officer’s analysis had to be spot on.  If they’d somehow managed to double the broadside of a General-class superdreadnaught, they outclassed him badly.

“Their new superdreadnaughts have roughly a thirty percent improvement on our own ships,” the tactical officer reported.  Porter was coming to depend on him more and more, even as he feared the possibilities.  “Their point defence is vastly superior to anything we have…”

Porter ground his teeth together.  Now that the arsenal ships and external racks were out of the game, the two sides were almost on even terms, but if the rebels could absorb more damage than he could, they had the advantage.  It was hard to tell just how good the new ships were, without having a sample to examine, but logically they doubled or perhaps even tripled their combat power.  Their point defence network was hellishly good, far better than his own…and his ships risked losing their part of the network along with the command ships.  The rebels had distributed the command network around their ships…and, in doing so, had won themselves a new advantage.

“Continue firing,” he ordered, grimly.  “Assign a handful of missiles to take out their point defence ships, even the gunboats…”

“I would advise against it,” the tactical officer said, firmly.  His voice seemed to brook no argument.  He had probably worked out that Porter wouldn’t dare get rid of him in the middle of a battle.  “The standard shipkiller missiles would have real difficulties locking onto something the size of a gunboat.”

“Damn it all,” Porter swore.  “What do we normally use to take out gunboats?”

“Point defence,” the tactical officer replied.  He paused.  “If I may make a suggestion.”

He outlined it quickly and simply.  “See to it,” Porter ordered.  It would mean certain death for several thousand officers and men, but he no longer cared.  If he lost the battle, he was dead, either at the hands of the rebels or the Thousand Families.  “Engage!”

A battlecruiser squadron flickered forward, appearing amidst the gunboats, their weapons already blazing out as they locked onto the tiny vessels.  Their appearance was a shocking surprise to the gunboats, which hadn’t expected serious opposition, and their scattered, while the rebels fought to retarget their weapons.  Porter watched, praying that the battlecruisers would recharge their drives in time to escape, but it was too late.  The rebels blew them into blazing plasma, but they’d succeeded in their mission.  The rebel point defence network had been badly weakened.

“Press it on,” Porter snapped.  The rebels would be manoeuvring to cover the breach in their defences, but there would be a window of opportunity to inflict real damage.  They might even force the rebels to retreat.  “Hammer the bastards…”

“Admiral, I am picking up a signal from the rebels,” the communications officer said.  He gave Porter a puzzled look, as if expecting Porter to know the answer to an unasked question.  “Sir, it’s just a carrier wave, no transmission at all.”

Porter frowned.  “What’s the point of that?”  He demanded.  He would have understood an offer of surrender, or even a surrender demand, but a carrier wave alone…?  Maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was a message to someone on his fleet.  “Can you trace the signal…?”

The tactical officer swore suddenly.  “Admiral,” he said, “four of our superdreadnaught squadrons have just flickered out!”

Chapter Forty-Eight

“What the fuck?”

Colin leaned over towards the sensor officer.  “Problem, Charlene?”

She didn’t even flush.  “Admiral, four entire squadrons of enemy superdreadnaughts have just flickered out,” she reported.  “They’re not trying to sneak up on us either, they went a long way away.”

Colin pulled the sensor data onto his private display, puzzled.  The sudden movement of the battlecruisers had worked out well for the Empire, although whoever had thought of it had to be a cold-hearted son of a bitch.  No one, not even Percival, had demonstrated such an utter lack of concern for his own people combined with an urge to make their deaths meaningful.  Their suicide mission had actually worked, as insane as it had been.  He already had to move other ships forward to replace the ones destroyed by the battlecruisers during their death throes…

But she was right.  The four squadrons had flickered out for at least seven light years, even if they had overloaded the drive to confuse him.  If they intended to materialise in the midst of the Shadow Fleet and start lashing out with energy weapons, they would have been there before Charlene had opened her mouth, but they hadn’t materialised at all.  No one in their right mind would try to coordinate an operation over light years, so…had they decided to desert, or what?

He examined the data and frowned.  Imperial Navy officers were trained to assimilate vast quantities of raw data quickly, although the sheer weight of data often baffled and confused civilians, but nothing made sense.  The thirty-six superdreadnaughts had been in the rear; they’d been barely touched by the rebels.  They weren’t damaged, they didn’t have any pressing reason to flee…and if they wanted to switch sides, why hadn’t they opened fire on the Imperial Navy from the rear?

“Leave it for the moment,” he ordered, grimly.  The ships would be out of the battle for at least an hour, even if they turned around at once and headed back to Earth…was it possible that it had been a vast mistake by an inexperienced officer?  It should have been impossible, but he'd read the report on the captured ships at Gaul carefully and it was possible…but if that were the case, why had the other ships accompanied the first superdreadnaught.  “General signal to all ships.  Press the offensive as hard as possible.”

He leaned back in his chair and watched as another wave of missiles screamed towards their targets.  Losses would be fairly even from now on…or they would have been, if the ships hadn’t departed so fast.  They’d given him an opportunity to crush the remainder of Home Fleet and that, alone, was worth everything.  

“I’m picking up a small fleet of ships leaving Earth,” Charlene added, as the two fleets converged.  “They’re on the other side of the gravity shadow from us, but we could intercept…”

Colin pulled up the data and shook his head.  Earth’s gravity shadow was a teardrop, pulled out of shape by the presence of the Moon, impeding a direct flight to the retreating starships.  They were probably Family members trying to escape justice and retribution, he decided, although going after them would be difficult.  By the time he brought a battlecruiser squadron or two around to cut off their retreat, they would be out of the gravity shadow and flickering away.

He smiled, suddenly.  They might even be trying to flee to the Rim, while their servants suffered and died under his fire.  Once he destroyed Home Fleet, the planet would be naked, apart from its formidable fixed defences.  Earth would be at his mercy.

“Leave them,” he ordered.  The superdreadnaught shook as it unleashed another round of missiles.  “We’ll pick the remainder of the bastards up later.”

***
“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” the tactical officer said, grimly.  His console was showing nothing, but disaster.  “They just flickered out and vanished!”

Porter saw, with the insight granted only to those who were about to die, a fraction of the truth.  The squadrons that had vanished had had only one thing in common; they’d been active squadrons fifty years ago, back when the Empress had ruled the Empire.  Somehow, and he couldn’t imagine how, she’d kept her links to their commanders, who would have been junior officers under her, and at the right moment…they’d betrayed him and fled.  God only knew what would happen now.

He pulled up a tactical display and shivered.  The rebels had fifty-three superdreadnaughts left, but they had the battleships as well…and, for the first time, he began to understand why they’d been kept around by the first-rank worlds.  They might not have had the speed of the battlecruiser, the agility of the destroyer, or the firepower and protection of the superdreadnaught, but they were additional missile platforms, pouring their ammunition into his ships.  They would burn through their entire stocks soon enough, but by then Home Fleet would be little more than flaming plasma.  Worse, by then the arsenal ships would probably have reloaded and returned to the fray.  The betrayal might have cost them the battle…and the war.

They have the advantage now, almost two-to-one, he thought, bitterly.  The tempo of rebel firing was increasing, but the real threat wasn't their missiles, not yet.  The real threat was them closing the range and simply smothering Home Fleet with missiles, overwhelming the remaining point defence and hammering the superdreadnaughts out of existence.  I can’t stop them, unless…

“Pull us back towards the planet,” he ordered, coldly.  “Contact System Command and inform them that I want to link us into the planetary defence network.  This isn’t over, not yet.”

The tactical officer shrugged.  “Sir,” he said, “that will give them the remainder of the system almost without a fight.”

“If we stay here, we’ll give them the remainder of the system anyway, along with Earth.” Porter said.  “Fire one final volley and then pull us back, now!”

The superdreadnaught shuddered as it unleashed its final volley, seemingly pitiful compared to the massive barrages that both sides had unleashed during the early moments of the battle, and then started to fall back.  The range would open, at least, Porter thought, trying hard to see the bright side.  They’d have a chance, if combined with the orbital defences.  They might manage to stand the rebels off from the planet itself…

“Oh, and tell them to bring up the free-floating missiles,” he added.  “I want them deployed as soon as the enemy ships come into range.”

***
“They’re falling back towards the planet,” Charlene reported, as the probes reported on the enemy movement.  “I think they’re bringing up the orbital defences.”

Colin snorted.  “They would be fools not to bring them up,” he said, dryly.  He would have been astonished if they hadn’t had the network up and running from the first moment the Shadow Fleet announced its arrival, but maybe the Thousand Families were feeling paranoid.  Whoever controlled the orbital defences would be in a position to turn themselves into the fifth monarch of the Empire.  “Launch a series of probes; get me an updated report on the defences.”

He smiled as the probes were launched, both sides drawing slightly apart as the range opened, the fighting cooling down for brief seconds.  The Empire could never trust anyone, even the people who ran the Empire, for fear of what they would do.  No one, not even Admiral Percival and his ilk, could be trusted completely, not with the health of the entire Empire at stake.  No wonder the Empire had been taken so completely by surprise when he had rebelled.  They hadn’t been expecting him; they’d been too busy watching the ambitious and competent aristocrats!

“I have the data,” Charlene said, finally.  “It matches the data we obtained at Morrison, but I am picking up faint discharges that suggest there is an additional defence network of missiles that isn’t mentioned in the intelligence packet.”

“They must be desperate,” Colin said.  Earth was so heavily defended that he was surprised that they’d even been able to imagine a requirement for additional fixed defences, instead of starships.  A few dozen more superdreadnaughts would have made Earth completely impregnable.  “Bring up additional point defence squadrons…”

He leaned forward, smiling coldly.  “And take us into the gravity shadow.  Fire at will.”

***
“Remote missiles online now, sir,” the tactical officer said.  “The enemy ships will enter range within one minute.”

Porter frowned.  “Are the rebels aware of their existence?”

“Unknown,” the tactical officer replied.  “They may be able to pick up faint signatures from their drives, but picking them out from all the rest of the electronic chaos would be difficult, even if they are superhuman.”

“Then hold fire until the rebels pick them up,” Porter ordered, feeling almost like a real Admiral at last.  “Let’s see how low the range can become before we open fire.”

The minutes ticked by slowly.  The two fleets were still exchanging fire, but with less enthusiasm, although Porter was sure that the rebels would pick up speed once they had determined that he truly had nowhere else to go.  Home Fleet was linking into the fortress command network now, patching through the deliberately-designed limitations in the system – a result of paranoia about what Home Fleet and System Defence Command could do together – and that alone would boost their point defence, but fortresses suffered from real limitations.  They were below his fleet…

“They’re launching additional gunboats,” the sensor officer said, suddenly.  “I think they’ve seen the missiles.”

“Fire them,” Porter snapped.  “Now!”

***
“They’re launching the missiles now,” the tactical officer said.  “Point defence is cleared to engage; weapons hot, I repeat, weapons hot!”

“Target the superdreadnaughts now, full salvo,” Colin ordered, flatly.  The superdreadnaught buckled as it unleashed yet another salvo, causing another problem that no one had anticipated.  The Shadow Fleet was on the verge of shooting itself dry.  The arsenal ships would be back soon, but by the time they arrived, Colin might have had to break off the engagement and climb back out of the gravity shadow…or press inwards for an energy-range duel with the fortresses.  There were easier ways to commit suicide.  “I want them destroyed, now!”

The wave of oncoming missiles seemed endless, but the Shadow Fleet had had time to prepare.  The gunboats snuffed out hundreds of missiles – this time, within the gravity shadow, there would be no ambush – and the point defence starships wiped out hundreds more, leaving mere thousands to throw themselves against the Shadow Fleet.  Drones and decoys attracted hundreds of missiles to spend themselves uselessly, burning out in space far from their original targets, while hundreds more were scythed out of space by the superdreadnaught’s point defence…

General Montgomery shuddered violently as three missiles struck home, followed rapidly by two more, digging into the hull.  Colin swore as the entire ship rocked, red icons flickering up on the display, before it steadied.  The starship would need at least a month in a repair yard, he realised, after that beating.  The starboard missile tubes had been badly damaged by the final blast, tearing hell out of the hull.

“Damage control teams to Sector 7-5-7,” David snapped, over the intercom.  Colin found himself, oddly, on the verge of laughter.  Would he have come all the way to Earth, leading thousands of starships in a desperate rebellion against overwhelming odds, to die within sight of the blue-green sphere that had given birth to humanity?  “Starboard damage control centre is inoperative, coordinate through reserve…”

Colin tuned him out and focused on the enemy starships.  “Coordinate with the other ships,” he ordered, as the enemy ships slotted into the fortresses and their point defence networks.  They would be far more formidable if he allowed them time to adapt and overcome.  “Take them down, now!”

The superdreadnaught, its tubes badly damaged, could barely muster a salvo, but it was joined by thousands of other missiles from the remaining superdreadnaughts, all concentrated on the enemy starships. The fortresses might be adding their missiles to the chaos now, but it wouldn’t matter.  Once the starships had been destroyed, the fortresses could be reduced at leisure.  They had to know that too.

“Time to impact, seventy seconds,” the tactical officer said.  His voice had become inhumanly calm.  “They’re entering terminal attack vector now…”

***
“Fortress #23 is opening fire now,” the tactical officer reported.  Only five fortresses were in range to add their missiles to those of the remains of Home Fleet, but they lacked drives and all the other requirements for a superdreadnaught.  They had the firepower of ten superdreadnaughts, all driving right into the teeth of the rebel formation.  “They’re…”

“Incoming fire,” the sensor officer snapped, interrupting him.  Porter opened his mouth to issue a rebuke, but it died in his throat.  “They’re concentrating on this ship!”

Porter swore.  Somehow, the rebels had worked out the identity of his flagship…or maybe it was just a coincidence, but it hardly mattered.  They were going to hammer his ship with hundreds of missiles, maybe even kill him…and he had trapped himself within the gravity shadow.  Escape was impossible…

“General signal,” he shouted, and heard the fear in his voice.  It shamed him, for he knew that everyone would not forget that he had shown fear in combat, but he couldn’t help it.  “The defence of this ship is to be the ultimate priority for the fleet…”

The rebel missiles raged through the point defence and screamed towards their position.  It was easy to imagine them targeted on him personally, although cold logic told him that that was unlikely, and panic bubbled up at the back of his mind.  The fortresses were out of place for more than limited point defence, although the automated platforms did as well as they could, and the missiles kept coming.  There were hundreds of them, targeted right on his ship…

“All hands, abandon ship,” the Captain ordered, sharply.  “All hands…”

The missiles slammed home and ripped the superdreadnaught apart, leaving only atoms floating in space.  There were no survivors.

***
Tiberius had watched as the battle raged through the system, hoping that Admiral Porter could produce a victory, but after the Admiral’s death he had to admit it was unlikely.  The rebels had effectively wiped out Home Fleet, apart from the mysterious disappearance of four squadrons of superdreadnaughts, and they didn’t have to push against the fortresses.  Their ships pulled back to the edge of the gravity shadow and waited.  It didn’t take a genius, or even a space warfare expert, to know what they were waiting for.

Arsenal ships, Tiberius thought coldly, but with a hint of fear.  They’re waiting for their arsenal ships so that they can burn their way through the fortresses and take our world.  We have almost nothing left to bargain with.

Accidentally, or deliberately, the rebels had left the relay stations alone, allowing the Thousand Families to listen to the disintegration of their Empire in the Solar System.  Mars was in the grip of a violent rebellion, while Jupiter’s moons and even the handful of floating cities in the clouds looked to be going the same way.  Luna was on the verge of rebelling itself, even thought they had been treated well by the Thousand Families and given everything, but freedom.  The rebels only had to wait and the entire Solar System, including Earth itself, would fall into their hands.

Purely out of interest, Tiberius had had the Clan’s researchers study the question of what would happen if Earth were completely cut off from the galaxy.  Assuming that they continued to maintain control over the orbital asteroids, they would be fine for a few years…and then the shortages would really start to bite.  Without the asteroids, they would barely be able to feed themselves, unless they lowered themselves to eating synthetic foodstuffs.  It would mean the end of everything.

He came to a decision and accessed the private communications network.  “I think we can safely agree that we have lost this battle,” he said, once the Council had assembled.  A flickering data pulse warned of the arrival, finally, of the arsenal ships.  “It’s time to bargain…and see what the rebels will let us keep.”

***
The blue-green globe of Earth hung in front of them as the Shadow Fleet prepared for its final battle.  Colin had taken advantage of the pause in hostilities to send the most damaged starships back to the first waypoint, where the Geeks would start repair efforts, while concentrating his remaining ships into a powerful strike force.  The combination of superdreadnaughts and arsenal ships, properly handled, would be decisive.  Earth would fall.

He looked up at the holographic image and felt…something within his heart.  Earth had once been the birthplace of the human race, the focus of all their aspirations and even the centre of a religion.  Colin had read about that in history class, although the Empire’s slant had been different to that of its adherents, the handful of survivors who hid out along the Rim.  According to them, the only reason why they hadn’t been tolerated, as opposed to Aryan Pride, the Giant Sheep Faith and Manpower, was because they wanted everyone to make at least one trip to Earth.  The Thousand Families had refused to even consider a compromise.

“The arsenal ships have finally arrived,” the tactical officer said.  Colin didn’t respond.  “Admiral…”

“I heard,” Colin said.  He’d been absorbed by the blue-green globe.  “Link them into our network and prepare to advance…”

“Admiral,” the communications officer said, “I’m picking up a signal from the planet.  They want to parlay.”

Colin bowed his head.  “Tell them to stand down all of their defences and any remaining spacecraft,” he ordered.  He was tempted to engage anyway, to force a complete surrender, but how could he justify the loss of life?  “And tell them…to send a representative to us.  Let’s see what they want to offer us…and what we can take.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

The superdreadnaught grew closer and closer as the shuttle floated towards it, a massive cylinder, studded with weapons blisters and sensor nodes.  Tiberius, who had never seen a superdreadnaught before, drank it in greedily, even as his imagination suggested gun ports moving to cover the shuttle and gunners contemplating a quick shot at the Head of the Cicero Family.  He’d never been allowed to join the Imperial Navy, not even as one of the Clan’s clients, because he was too close to the headship, but he hadn’t realised how much he had missed until now.  Joshua had tried to explain to him, once, why it was so important, but Tiberius had never understood.

The rebels had invited him onboard one of their new superdreadnaughts, merely to make a point.  Look at what we have done without you, they seemed to shout.  We don’t need you, we don’t want you and if you don’t satisfy us, you won’t exist any longer.  He shivered as the shuttle glided towards a small hatch on the side of the superdreadnaught, opening up to reveal a hanger deck, and winced.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  The rebels might have summoned him merely to discuss surrender terms.

He closed his eyes as the shuttle passed through the forcefield keeping the air inside the ship and lowered itself to the deck.  He half-hoped that he might see something that the Imperial Navy could use against the rebels, even though cold logic told him that the war was over, but he knew that that was unlikely.  He was no expert in space technology, no experienced navy officer who might have recognised something important; the rebels might show him the superdreadnaught’s greatest weakness and he wouldn’t recognise it if he saw it.  The gravity shimmered slightly as it synchronised itself with the superdreadnaught’s gravity field and he stood up.  It was time to meet the rebels.

The hatch hissed open, revealing a single person, wearing a uniform that Tiberius didn’t recognise.  “Welcome onboard,” he said, calmly.  Tiberius was just relieved that they had chosen to forgo a standard ceremony for anyone of high rank.  It would have been too surreal.  “I have been asked to escort you to meet with the leadership of the Freedom Alliance.”

“Thank you,” Tiberius said.  He felt insanely exposed now, away from the Household Troops and the other protections that normally fitted him like a glove, but there was no choice.  “I am at your service.”

They passed through a sealed hatch and into a small conference room.  The small group of people waiting for him rose to their feet as he entered, allowing him a chance to study them before the negotiations began.  There was a tall, fairly handsome officer, recognisable as Colin Harper, although he looked older than the images in the Navy’s database suggested.  His dossier had warned of crowning ambition mixed with ability and denied him promotion, but he’d taken it anyway.  A slightly shorter man, wearing a flashy outfit that actually hurt Tiberius’s eyes and a beard, was easy to recognise as Jason Cordova, although Tiberius was careful not to spend too much time looking at him.  It wasn't time to play that card yet.  His attention was caught by an older man, his face twisted and warped by metal implants, and he looked away before the sensation could overwhelm him.  His implants were buried within his skull, but the Geeks wore their mutilations for all to see.  There was something uniquely sickening about the sight.

“Welcome onboard the Independence,” Colin said, calmly.  There was no trace of gloating in his voice, much to Tiberius’s relief, but there was a faint undertone of amusement.  He’d effectively won the war and knew it.  “I have little patience for long drawn-out negotiations, certainly not like the ones your two representatives offered back at Harmony, so…why should we let you live?”

Cordova added his own point.  “And why should we trust that you speak for all of your people?”

Tiberius took a breath.  “I represent the Thousand Families,” he said, as calmly as he could.  Cordova would be ignored, for now.  “They have recognised that the war situation has…taken a turn not to their advantage.  They have empowered me to negotiate on their behalf.”

“I understand that,” Colin said.  “I also understand that this fleet is composed of people who have suffered at the hands of the Thousand Families, either directly or indirectly, and thirst for revenge.  Why should we not tear you up, root and branch, and dump you all on one of your own penal worlds?”

“The Thousand Families own, between them, almost all of the Empire’s industry and resources,” Tiberius said.  “The Cicero Clan alone holds something like thirty percent of the entire shipbuilding industry in the Empire, including the first-rank worlds as well.”

Colin waved a languid hand at the bulkhead.  “As you can see, your shipbuilding facilities are not entirely irreplaceable,” he pointed out.  “Even if we needed them, why should we not hand them over to your workers and leave you to starve?”

“Because we own everything,” Tiberius said.  “There are literally billions upon billions of people who are dependent upon loans and support from our banks.  There are worlds uncounted that are dependent upon support from our industries.  There are trillions of people who work, directly or indirectly, for us.  They all depend on a massive infrastructure that, ever since the Roosevelt Clan collapsed completely, has been shaking like a leaf.”

“I bet Stacy was proud to see what happened to her Clan,” Cordova muttered.

Tiberius ignored him.  “There are already billions of people right on the edge of destitution because their patron, Clan Roosevelt, is gone,” he said.  “The other Clans have been doing whatever they can to try to keep at least some semblance of Roosevelt up and running, but it’s like pouring money down a black hole.  We thought we controlled the Empire’s economy, but as long as we were fighting you, it was slipping out of our control.”

He leaned forward.  “The point is simple,” he said.  “If you move to crush the Clans, and you can do that if you want, you will plunge the Empire into a new dark age and utterly shatter any hopes you have of reform.  Trillions upon trillions of people will find themselves out of work and blame you.  Thousands upon thousands of starships will turn pirate just to survive…and their victims will blame you.  Billions upon billions will simply starve as the economy collapses…”

“You’ve made your point,” Colin said, sharply.  He held Tiberius’s gaze.  “Here are our terms.

“You will abandon your pretence at controlling the Empire and it’s institutions, including the Imperial Navy,” he said.  “You will abandon all the anti-competition laws that you have instituted to protect yourselves.  You will institute new laws to take better care, much better care, of your workforce, including unions and other protections.  Those of you who have mistreated or harmed commoners will be held to account for it and prevented from doing any further harm.  In time, the ticking time bomb you’ve presented us with will be defused…and then those of you that can adapt to the new realities will survive.”

He leaned forward.  “Everything is about to change,” he whispered, “everything.”

“I understood that,” Tiberius said, defensively.  “What about protection for our assets and debts?”

“There will be no more debt bondage,” Colin said, flatly.  “The colonies you held under your thumb will pay back what you gave them, without interest, and then they will be free of you and you can deal with them as equals.”  He smiled without any real humour.  “I’d tighten my belt if I were you.  It’s going to be a hard few years.”

Tiberius wanted to argue further, but knew that it would be counterproductive.  He hadn’t expected anything, but harsh terms…and they could have been worse.  Colin was right, in a sense; given time, the Families’ threat to the Empire could be neutralised, leaving them to compete on even terms.  It would be a real challenge at last.  He was almost looking forward to it…and to seeing Madeline’s face when she found out what had happened.

Even she recognises that there is no choice, he thought.  Not now…

“Very well,” he said.  “We accept your terms.”

“Good,” Colin said.  His voice became sardonic.  “While you go back and break the bad news, I take it that you have no objection to my people taking up positions on the fortresses and the orbital defences?”

Tiberius bowed his head.  “No,” he said.  “Welcome to Earth.”

***
“Can you believe it?”  David asked.  “We won!  We fucking won!”

Colin shrugged.  Now that the Cicero was on his way back to Earth, bearing the bad news for his fellow Heads, it was easy to realise just how much remained to be done.  They’d have to call a new Parliament, have elected representatives from each of the Empire’s worlds come to Earth, figure out some new form of government…there were countless tasks to carry out before they could claim to have won.

“I suppose,” he said, finally.  Earth’s globe still hung in front of him on the display.  “Now all we have to do is actually govern.”

It seemed impossible to recall the man he had been, years ago, when Percival had knifed him in the back and left him with no choice, but rebellion.  He’d become a war leader, a politician – no matter how much he might detest the term – and a symbol to uncounted trillions yearning for freedom.  He’d been a callow youth at the time, back when he’d plotted his first steps to defeating the Empire…and now, the responsibility fell squarely on his shoulders.  There would no longer be anyone to take the blame, but him.  He would purge the Imperial Navy of everyone like Percival, allowing competence to rise to the fore, knowing that he was creating a whole new series of risks.

After all, he thought, with a sudden flicker of humour, I showed them how easy it was to take a ship and rebel.

He looked up at Earth and shivered.  “Once they accept our terms formally, we can celebrate then,” he said.  He turned to look at David.  “And then the real work begins.”

***
It was later that evening when Tiberius came onboard a different starship.  The Freedom Alliance – as he supposed he had to think of the rebels now – had insisted on him touring the fleet, visiting ships from each of the different factions and signing the surrender documents there.  It was intended to rub the humiliation in, he knew, but that didn’t stop it from working.  They wanted to remind him, firmly, of who was in charge from now on.  The only consolation was that they understood that dismantling the Families completely would mean complete disaster.

The Empress met him onboard her ship.  He’d known that he would meet her, but it was still a shock to be in the presence of living history.  There were older members of the Thousand Families, such as Lord Rothschild, but they hadn’t been anything special, not to him.  After all, they'd only ever been his social equals.  The Empress, however, was something very different.  No one he'd met had ever had quite the same combination of charisma and certainty.

“You may rise,” she said, as he knelt before her.  The gesture of respect had been automatic.  He hadn’t even been briefed on the protocol for meeting a monarch.  The Empire did have some protocol – four monarchs had developed it, over the years – but it was very basic.  There was little in the way of grovelling.  “You have done well, even if you did not know that you were serving me.”

Her full mouth quirked into a smile.  “And you have served me, and your father, and the cause of reform,” she said.  “He would have been proud of you, I think.”

“Thank you,” Tiberius stammered.  He looked up into a face framed by long red hair.  She hadn’t changed herself too much, he noted, merely the hair.  The Empress Janice had had long dark hair.  “You sent the superdreadnaughts away and ensured victory?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted Colin to lose,” the Empress said, her voice dripping amusement.  “I never even expected to find him in the first place, but when we first met and became allies, I realised that there was a chance to speed up the process and start reforming the Empire.  It was risky – there wasn't time to completely subvert Home Fleet, or it would have surrendered rather easily – but I needed to keep close ties on him.  I couldn’t have him destroying the Empire instead of trying to save it.”

She leaned forward and frowned.  “I always wondered if Lady Tyler had seen through me,” she added.  “Your cousin, of course, knew who I was.  She was always part of the…group.”

“The conspiracy,” Tiberius said flatly.

The Empress laughed.  “Conspiracy implies that you’re doing something wrong,” she pointed out.  “We were – and are – trying to save the Empire.  What could be more right than that?”

“And Gwendolyn was working for you, all that time,” Tiberius said, shaking his head.  He hadn’t even realised that she had it in her, even though he knew that she was far more intelligent – and cunning – than she chose to pretend.  “How many others were working for you?”

“Enough,” the Empress said.  “I couldn’t share too many details, not now.”

“Ah,” Tiberius said.  He looked into her green eyes and wondered.  “What now?”

“Now?”  The Empress said.  “We watch, and wait, and push the Empire towards reform.  What else would you have me do?”

Tiberius stared at her.  “I assumed that you would take the throne…”

“The throne?”  Maybe, but not now,” the Empress said.  “Besides, haven’t you realised?  The Throne is a prison.  You should know that, by now.”

She shook her head.  “Besides, Colin and the Freedom Alliance would never allow it,” she added.  “This way, we can push forward the required reforms, without anyone seeing our hand in affairs, until it’s too late.”

And Daria smiled.

The Story Will Conclude In

Democracy’s Light

Coming Soon!