Democracy 1: Democracy's Right (13 page)

“Impact in twenty seconds,” the tactical officer said.  “The enemy point defence is engaging our missiles.”

Penny watched, a helpless observer, as the defenders opened fire.  It was immediately clear that their point defence was far better than the Empire had believed, but that it wasn't anything like enough.  She suspected – it would be impossible to prove it, at least immediately – that they had removed all the cut-outs the Empire had built into their datanets, allowing a far greater degree of coordination.  Even if they hadn't built additional starships, they might have had enough...if they’d had more point defence.  As it was, the torrent of missiles simply overwhelmed the defenders and started to slam home.  One by one, the starships of the Jackson’s Folly Defence Force were systematically destroyed.

Their own desperate attempt to strike back at the Empire failed almost at once.  Their missiles ran into the combined point defence of eighty starships, bound together by the most sophisticated datanet that the Empire could produce.  The missiles were scythed down, only a handful surviving to make it through the defences and slam against starship hulls.  They might have had better luck if they had aimed at the smaller ships, but they’d concentrated on the superdreadnaughts and their shields could easily handle the impacts.  Nuclear fire blossomed against the darkness of space and then faded away, leaving the shields unharmed.  Nothing, not even a tiny erg of energy, leaked through the shields to scar the hull.

The main body of the defenders might have been destroyed, but many orbital weapons platforms were still intact, firing desperately towards the Imperial Navy starships – as if they could somehow ward them off.  Brent-Cochrane ordered a second salvo fired, although this one was more restrained.  Some of the orbital weapons platforms were mounted on asteroids and accidentally de-orbiting one would cause a disaster.  The Roosevelt Family would not be happy.  They’d certainly see to it that Brent-Cochrane was never given any other responsible command in his entire career.  The irony wasn't lost on Penny as one by one the remaining platforms were rapidly destroyed.

“Launch the assault sleds,” Brent-Cochrane ordered.  Normally, assaulting and securing the orbital industrial nodes would be a Marine responsibility, but with Marine loyalties uncertain, the task had been given to the Blackshirts instead.  Penny suspected that most of them were going to die in the assaults, yet she knew the Empire’s view; there were always plenty more Blackshirts where they came from.  They were recruited from the poorest of colony worlds or Earth’s undercity, before being indoctrinated into the Security Division.  “I want those facilities secured now.”

Penny shrugged, sitting back in her chair and watching with polite interest.  A handful of positions on the ground were firing on the fleet – ground-based defences were rare in the Empire, officially because it would expose the civilian population to enemy counter-fire – and they were rapidly destroyed by KEWs dropped by the fleet.  The civilian population down below would be terrified, wondering what was going to happen to them when the Empire finally started to land its occupation force.  Penny hoped that most of them had the sense to get out of the cities and remain away from the Blackshirts.  They were not known for being gentle occupiers.

“Shit,” someone snapped.  Penny looked up just in time to see one of the asteroid facilities disintegrate in a towering explosion.  The sheer size of the explosion suggested that someone had touched off a nuke, rather than allow the facility to fall into the Empire’s hands.  “Sir, the facility has been...”

“Destroyed,” Brent-Cochrane snarled.  Penny smiled inwardly.  There went that bonus from the Roosevelt Family.  “Order the remaining facilities to be secured, quickly.”

Somewhat to Penny’s disappointment, the remaining facilities weren’t rigged to blow when the Blackshirts occupied them.  The few remaining Jackson’s Folly personnel were taken prisoner and transferred to one of the troop ships until facilities could be found for them on the surface of the planet.  Brent-Cochrane watched from his own chair as the high orbitals were ruthlessly secured and the debris destroyed or tipped into the planet’s atmosphere, where it burned up harmlessly.  There were no remaining shots from the planet’s surface.

“Land the landing force,” Brent-Cochrane ordered, calmly.  The first assault boats separated from the transports and headed down towards the planet’s surface.  The Commodore himself strode over to Penny and placed his hand on her shoulder, hard enough to hurt.  “You’ll be able to report to the Admiral that we succeeded, of course.  Jackson’s Folly is ours.”

“Of course,” Penny agreed, keeping her voice even.  On the other hand, if the Commodore’s fleet were to be drawn away, the rebels would be able to liberate Jackson’s Folly.  How long would the world remain occupied then?  “Was there ever any doubt about the final outcome?”

Chapter Thirteen

“Anything to report, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Adam looked up as Commander Fox entered the compartment.  “Nothing, sir,” he said.  “Nothing to report...just as there was nothing to report every day for the past few months.  There was nothing at all.”

Fox scowled at him.  The Imperial Navy might have been responsible for maintaining the security of the various penal worlds throughout the Empire, but they were hardly going to waste competent or well-connected officers on the position.  The penal worlds served as a dumping ground in more ways than one, with a joke running through the crews that if they screwed up again it was only a very short flight to their final and permanent posting.  And, if the commanding officer wasn't feeling generous, they wouldn't be given a parachute or a drop capsule. 

The Garstang System was officially off-limits to all civilian starships, but from time to time starships used it as a rendezvous point or a recovery location if their drives started to show signs of trouble.  The Imperial Navy stations in the system didn’t usually bother to waste time tracking down the intruders, because there was nothing of value in the remainder of the system.  As long as they didn't try to breach the security stations surrounding the planet itself, Fix didn't give a damn.  It wasn't as if he cared enough to waste time patrolling a handful of dead worlds.  The system didn't even have a gas giant or an asteroid field.

“Very good,” he said, finally.  He’d managed the remarkable feat of nearly crashing his starship into another ship, disaster only being averted by quick thinking on the part of the ship’s commanding officer.  He’d half-expected the Captain to execute him on the spot, but instead the Captain had promoted him and sent him to the penal world.  It hadn't taken long for Fox to realise that it was, in effect, a life sentence.  The promotion was meaningless outside the system itself.  “You stand relieved.”

Adam threw him a sloppy salute and headed out of the compartment, passing through the secured hatches and down into the interior of the station, while Fox settled himself down in the command chair.  Standard Operating Procedure – SOP – insisted that at least three officers be on watch duty at any given time, but he just didn't have the manpower to follow SOP to the letter; besides, it wasn't as if they were a front-line station.  His crew might be the Imperial Navy’s cast-offs and rejects, but he trusted them not to screw up too badly.  Besides, he hadn't been joking when he’d warned that some transgressions would result in the offender being dumped on the planet below.

Garstang had been an odd planet when the Imperial Navy had discovered it, a desert world orbiting a variable star.  A runaway greenhouse effect combined with the occasional radiation bombardment from the local primary had resulted in a nearly-dead world with low levels of oxygen, habitable only to heavily-engineered settlers.  The terraforming crews had, instead, dumped a massive biological packet on the planet’s surface and gone away to leave it to ferment.  All of their computer models, they’d claimed afterwards, had said that the planet should have become a more habitable world.  Ironically, they’d succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 

The terraforming crews hadn't realised – or had professed not to realise, as there were billions of credits wrapped up in every terraforming mission – that Garstang wasn't anything as close to dead as they had thought.  The tiny signs of life on the planet’s surface - hardened lichen and comparable plant-like life forms - were only the tip of the iceberg.  Deep underground, other forms of life struggled for survival, perfectly adapted to their environment.  The sudden infusion of higher levels of oxygen and Earth-based forms of life provided a massive boost to the natives and, over seventy years, the planet flourished.  Forms of animal life that had lived deep underground came up to the surface, where they established themselves as part of a new ecosystem.  The entire planet had been reshaped.  It was also unrelenting hostile to uninvited guests.

After the first attempt to plant a colony on the surface of the planet had failed miserably, the Ministry of Settlement had given up and converted the world into a penal colony.  Every month, the freighters would arrive, carrying the human waste of the Empire – everything from rebels to murderers and paedophiles.  The convicts were given a small amount of survival equipment, loaded into drop capsules – accompanied by their families, if they chose to accept permanent exile – and shot down to the surface.  What they did after that, as far as the Empire was concerned, was their own affair.  If they tamed the planet, the Empire could put in a garrison and take over; if they all died, the Empire had been saved the cost of an execution.  Even criminals could be made to service the Empire.

The thought made Fox smile, because there
were
some benefits to serving on the orbiting platforms.  Once they realised where they were going, convicts – particularly female convicts – became desperate to escape.  There were no less than thirty female convicts on the orbiting platform, doing everything from cooking and cleaning to entertaining the prison guards.  If any of them displeased the guards, or refused to do whatever they were asked, they could be transported down to the planet’s surface and abandoned.  Indeed, they would eventually have to be sent down anyway, for they had all been sentenced to death.  The Empire might start asking questions if they were found away from the system.  It was a shame, Fox considered, for some of the guards were genuinely fond of their whores, but there was no help for it.  If they hadn't wanted to be sent to a penal world and abandoned, they wouldn't have committed the crimes in the first place.

He leaned back and stared at the display.  It was blank, of course; there was nothing else within the system, at least nothing emitting anything the array of passive sensors surrounding the planet could detect.  He had sometimes wondered if there was a black colony hidden within the system – perhaps down on the planet itself – yet if there was, it would be very good at hiding.  And besides, Fox didn't care.  They didn't pay him enough to give a damn about black colonies or the many thousands of others who wished to hide from the Empire. 

A
ping
emitted from the tactical console and he looked up sharply.  Every month, the bulk freighters arrived, carrying their convicts...but few others visited the system.  They might have been warned to remain alert, for fear that someone would try to liberate the convicts, yet no threat had ever materialised.  No rebel group possessed the firepower to break into the system and recover prisoners from the planet’s surface, not even the legendary Captain Cordova.  It was probably a freighter having drive problems, or an Imperial Navy warship come to call.  His face twisted into a smile.  The last time a warship had passed through the system, they’d had a great time.

He keyed the console and scowled as the icon popped up in front of him.  It wasn’t a warship, but a bulk freighter; an old one, judging by the weird curves in its drive systems.  The sensors insisted that its flicker drive was breaking down, although Fox couldn't see any signs of it himself.  Years ago, when he had been a promising naval officer, he’d been told that any jump where all the pieces appeared in the right order was a good jump; this freighter crew appeared to have been lucky.  After all, their ship was intact.

And they shouldn’t be in the system at all, he reminded himself.  His grin grew wider as he considered the bribes he could extract from the crew, in exchange for not revealing their visit to higher command.  The Sector Commander would be very suspicious of any freighter that went into a restricted system without authorization.  He might even issue a warrant for the crew to be hunted down and arrested as rebels.  Who knew – perhaps the ship included some young and attractive female crewmembers.

He tapped the console and sent a standard challenge to the freighter.  It was unlikely that the freighter posed any kind of threat – freighters weren't warships, no matter how many weapons the foolish or desperate crammed into their hulls – but, just in case, he also sent the activation commands to the weapons platforms.  It would at least suggest that he and his crew were on the ball if an inspection mission ever arrived although he’d been stuck on the platform for over ten years and there had never been a single inspection.  The penal worlds were out of sight, out of mind; exactly how the Empire liked it.

The image of the freighter grew sharper as his sensors started to ping off its hull.  It was terribly damaged, not by pirates, but by age and ill-use.  Fox was mildly surprised that it was still intact, even though starships didn't just decay.  It looked as if the freighter crew were going to be very poor, which was unfortunate – for them.  He was just going to have to do his duty and detain them as possible rebels.

Chuckling to himself, he keyed the intercom and ordered a boarding party.  The men wouldn't be too happy at being dragged away from their beds – if nothing else, the orbiting station had enough room for even a lowly crewman to have a large set of quarters – and their whores, but who cared what they thought?  Besides, there might even be a reward in it for them. 

***

“Yep, they’ve definitely got us,” Markus announced.

He looked over at his wife.  Carola was young, but her face was already showing signs of age and stress, the same age and stress he knew his own face displayed.  Gunboat pilots tended to live fast and die young, an inevitable consequence of the role, and those who survived grew old quickly.  Gunboats were the smallest starships in existence – the smallest craft to carry an independent flicker drive – and they were almost defenceless.  Even a glancing hit from a rail gun would destroy a gunboat.  The Imperial Navy used them as scouts, rating the tiny ships and their crewmen expendable, not something that endeared them to their pilots.  Markus, knowing that he was reaching the point where he would be removed from flight duty, hadn't hesitated when he’d been invited to join the rebellion.  At least his death would be meaningful.

“And they’re getting stroppy,” Carola agreed.  “They’re demanding that we shut down our drives and prepare to be boarded.”

Markus grinned at her.  While he was the prime pilot, Carola was co-pilot, communications, sensors and tactical officer rolled into one.  If they’d been flying a standard mission, he would have been concentrating on evading enemy pursuit and point defence while she concentrated on actually gathering the information the fleet needed.  As it was, they could actually afford to relax.  Admiral Walker’s grand idea had seen to that.

He glanced down at the tiny console, watching as information flowed across the screen, right in front of him.  The files hadn’t been too detailed on just how much firepower the Empire had installed to guard the penal world, but as the freighter limped closer to the planet, more and more orbiting weapons platforms came into view.  There wasn't enough firepower to deter a superdreadnaught, he was relieved to see, yet there was clearly enough to prevent any of the rebel groups from recovering their people.  Judging from the planet itself, Markus couldn’t have sworn that any of the rebels would still be alive, or that they could be sorted out from the murderers or rapists or others who had thoroughly deserved the sentence to the penal world.  He hoped that the Admiral had found a way of sorting through the convicts, or else their mission was going to be for nothing.

“Keep stalling them,” he said.  The Imperial Navy officers on the platform were unlikely to be the sharpest pencils in the box.  The chances were good that they wouldn’t be too worried about a simple bulk freighter, even if the crew balked at being inspected.  The Empire wouldn't care if the bulk freighter was rammed right into the planet, causing an impact equivalent to that of a medium-sized asteroid.  They’d probably be delighted that all the convicts were dead.  “Tell them that we’re having major systems failures.”

Carola laughed as she removed her earpiece.  “They’re offering to make our systems failures worse unless we shut down the drives now,” she said.  “I think they mean it.  He’s roaring at us and everything.”

“What a melodramatic asshole,” Markus observed.  He keyed a switch, transferring everything the freighter’s sensors had picked up into the secure storage node onboard the gunboat.  “I’m flash-waking the drive now.  Tell them that we’re attempting to recycle the flicker drive and shut it down.”

A dull hum echoed through the gunboat as the flicker drive came to life.  Markus hadn't admitted it – gunboat pilots never showed their fear, not even in front of their lives – but this was the part of the mission that most worried him.  The weird energies released by an activated flicker drive couldn't be shielded – or concealed - by anything short of a planet.  If they were lucky, the platform would mistake the gunboat’s flicker drive for the freighter’s drive – the data packet they’d transmitted had warned that the drive was unstable – but if they weren't lucky...actually, there was very little they could do.  The bulk freighter might have been within missile range, yet the crew would have plenty of warning.