Democracy's Right

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Only two more jumps, Captain,” her XO said. “And then we will be there.”

Captain-Commodore Angelika McDonald smiled at the younger man’s enthusiasm. Officially, flying beyond the Rim — the line marking the edge of the Empire’s territory — was forbidden without special permission, but it didn’t take a tactical genius to realise that enforcing that law was completely impossible. The only legitimate reason to pass beyond the Rim was to survey new planets for settlement, a task normally carried out by the Imperial Survey Service. Someone with as much wanderlust as her XO was probably in the wrong branch of the service.

There was no real difference between the stars on one side of the Rim and the other, but there was a sense of isolation, as if they were completely alone. It was illusionary, yet she could feel it herself. The ship’s doctor had been prescribing additional sleeping draughts and pills for the crew, while the illicit stills operating below decks were churning out additional booze. Angelika knew that some captains would have cracked down hard on the stills, or insisted on taking a cut for themselves, but she didn’t care as long as the crew was sober when they reported for duty. She’d had a drunken crewman publicly lashed to make the point clear, along with busting the crewmen operating the still down to the lowest possible grade and confiscating their funds. It had worked, or at least no crewmember had turned up drunk while on duty.

“Good enough,” she said, studying the display. They’d barely had time to complete their repairs at Camelot, but she’d been determined to get out of the star system before another battlecruiser or even heavy cruiser squadron returned from patrol duties and got given the plum assessment instead. Destroying the rebel base and capturing the rebel leadership would go a long way towards making up for the Jackson’s Folly disaster, at least in the eyes of any competent review board. Her connections would make sure of that, preventing Percival from burying his mistakes under a mountain of paperwork and false accusations. “Keep monitoring the surrounding area. You never know what we might find out here.”

She smiled, ruefully. The ban on travelling beyond the Rim had fuelled all kinds of speculation and stories about what starships encountered when they broke the law and travelled deep beyond the Rim. There were strange stories of mysterious bat-shaped starships; encounters with omnipotent entities… even discoveries of ancient super-technology amid the ruins of a dead civilisation. The Empire officially ridiculed all such claims, but Angelika had heard rumours that Imperial Intelligence had a secret department devoted to investigating them. She’d asked a few of her most trusted contacts and they’d either professed to know nothing about it, or had warned her not to ask any more questions. She’d taken the hint.

Centuries ago, after the First Interstellar War, an alien race had somehow become aware of the advancing Empire… and of how it treated non-humans. Possessing a formidable technological infrastructure of their own, the aliens had built a fleet of starships and fled, not before ensuring that their world held nothing the human race could use to find and locate them. The Runaways, as they had been called by the humans who had finally discovered their homeworld, had not been seen since, although there were always rumours. One of them was that they had set up a base somewhere in the Beyond and were preparing to wage war on humanity. That rumour had served as a justification for all kinds of emergency measures, which had somehow never been repealed.

“Aye, Captain,” her XO said.

“And run through a set of combat drills,” she added. She’d wanted to take Marines with her, but Admiral Percival had flatly refused, citing concerns about their loyalty. Instead, she had Blackshirts who were supposed to have been trained in raiding asteroid settlements. She wasn’t too encouraged, although the ones on her ships had been surprisingly civilised. They certainly hadn’t been drugged up like the ones assigned to operations on the ground. “I want to be ready for anything.”

Her XO frowned. “Captain,” he said, reluctantly. “What do we do if we run into the rebel superdreadnaughts again?”

Angelika scowled. “We run,” she said. There was no other answer. “We cannot stand up to superdreadnaughts.”

“And so production levels are estimated to continue to rise,” the Geek said, in his strange mechanical voice. Hannelore barely heard him. She was too awed — and horrified — by how the three Geeks had mutilated their own flesh with implanted systems. One of them was little more than a brain in a jar, mounted on top of a vaguely humanoid robot; the others had replaced parts of their flesh with weapons or tools. They clicked and whirred as they spoke. “The new workers are very enthusiastic.”

“Good,” Hester said. Her whispery voice wasn’t much better, a living reminder of the Empire’s brutality. “I trust that Captain Cordova will also be pleased when he awakens…?”

Cordova looked up as Hannelore elbowed him. Unlike Admiral Walker, Cordova made no pretence of enjoying the meeting, although Hannelore was certain that he was listening and mentally recording everything in his mind. He looked half-asleep, his eyelids closed and his elbows on the table. The Geeks didn’t seem concerned about the rudeness — they had no real social graces themselves — but some of the other rebels looked put out. Cordova was, after all, the designated military commander in the absence of Admiral Walker.

“I have no doubt that improving our stockpile of missiles and other weapons systems will be very useful,” Cordova said. He didn’t sound tired, which at least suggested that it had been an act, rather than a serious refusal to pay attention. “I provisionally approve your plans, with a warning that Admiral Walker may have other ideas.”

The Geeks didn’t seem to mind. “We have been studying warship design for centuries,” their leader said. Hannelore had never been able to figure out how they’d chosen their leader, or even how they conducted themselves when away from more normal humans. It was possible, she supposed, that they were real party animals on their own, but she doubted it. They seemed to veer permanently between being loners and seeking the respect and admiration of their fellows. “We can improve upon many of the Empire’s current designs.”

“Any Chief Engineer who actually earned his position could do that,” Cordova said. He seemed fully alert now. “I am reluctant to take untested designs into combat and I suspect that Admiral Walker will feel the same way. A design more complex than the arsenal ships may well have unsuspected flaws.”

“Simulation is not reality,” the lead Geek said. The other two nodded in unison. The effect was almost hypnotic. “We will test the designs thoroughly before we start mass production. Once mass production had begun, we will be producing new units at a speed considerably greater than the Imperial Navy’s shipyards.”

Hannelore sat up sharply as the Geek’s words echoed in her mind. “The Imperial Navy’s construction process is deliberately inefficient,” the Geeks said, flatly. “Their senior officers accept bribes in order to source components. Workers are taught the minimum they need for their work and nothing else, nor are they encouraged to offer suggestions or thoughts, even ones that might boost profits. Our construction process will not suffer from those problems. With the addition of the supplies from the Annual Fleet, we will be able to expand production quite rapidly.”

One of the rebels Hannelore didn’t know leaned forward. “If that is true,” he said, “couldn’t we just withdraw and wait to build up our attack fleet? How long would it take to put together a fleet that would be a significant challenge to the entire Imperial Navy?”

“Twenty-seven years,” a Geek said.

Hester shook her head. “By then, the Empire will have started its own construction program,” she warned. “They know now that their precautions are… insufficient to prevent us from operating almost at will and they will take corrective measures. How long would it take for us to build up a significant challenge if the Empire is aware of our threat and enters the race?”

“Uncertain,” another Geek said. “The Empire’s very structure makes it difficult for them to expand or improve production on a massive scale. Assuming that they push their own rules and regulations aside — and that they start educating commoners, which adds its own risks — they would be able to start a massive expansion program within three to four years. Once they were underway, they could just keep going; bear in mind that their starting point is considerably in advance of our own. We might not be able to out-produce them at all.”

Hannelore sighed as the argument developed, with both sides waving facts and statistics at the other. She rather understood Cordova’s desire to sleep during the meeting, even though it had been partly billed as a chance for her to meet the other rebels and start understanding her duties. It wasn’t anything like a conventional position. The various production facilities scattered through the Beyond were reluctant to disclose their location to anyone, particularly someone who hailed from the Thousand Families. Intellectually, she understood their concern, yet she found it irritating. How was she supposed to do her job if they didn’t trust her to do her job?

“I think it’s time to call a recess,” Hester said, finally. “Jude — can I remind you that you agreed, along with the rest of us, to put political decisions aside until the war was won. This isn’t the time or place for arguing about what is going to happen once we defeat the Empire, or what is going to be done to reform it.”

Jude — a short dark man whose face bore the signs of a botched regeneration — nodded angrily. “I speak for those of us who fled the remains of Paradise,” he said, insistently. “We are not receiving our due! We have fought when you…”

“Enough,” Cordova said, sharply. The entire room looked at him. “We have to win the war before we start arguing over the peace. If you don’t want to take part in the Popular Front, I suggest that you withdraw now and save us some trouble. If you do, then cooperate instead of demanding rights and promises that we are in no position to give you.”

His gaze swept around the room. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? We all came here because it was safe, because it was a place to hide. We lurked along the Rim and, over the years, we became timid. We told ourselves that we would build up our forces and one day retake out worlds. Did we do that? No, we didn’t fucking do that!”

He slammed the table, hard. “No, we found it preferable to sit and dream of the future than to actually do the hard work of overthrowing the Empire,” he added. “If we stop now, we will still be kidding ourselves in twenty years time that we’re still not ready — and that we will never be ready. This is the best chance we are likely to have to reform the Empire and create a universe we can all accept, even if it isn’t perfect. Now tell me — do you want to throw that chance away?”

No one spoke. “I thought not,” Cordova said. He looked over at Hester. “I suggest that we reconvene tomorrow and complete the planning then, once tempers have cooled.”

“Yes,” Hester said, flatly. She tapped the table. “I definitely think we should complete our discussions tomorrow.”

Hannelore followed Cordova as he strode out of the meeting room and back into the network of rocky corridors that made up the rear of the asteroid. He didn’t seem surprised to see her following him, but he said nothing until they reached the airlock connecting the asteroid to the Random Numbers.

“I’m going onboard my ship for a break,” he said. “The crew needs some drills and I intend to oversee them. And I need a drink and a nap, perhaps not in that order. Politics always leaves me feeling dirty.”

“So do I,” Hannelore said, too quickly. She hadn’t realised what she was planning until the words came tripping out of her mind. “Perhaps we could take a nap together.”

She felt her face flush as Cordova looked back at her, as if he were half-expecting her to change her mind. The boys in the Imperial City on Earth were very forward, particularly the ones who were born to the most powerful of the Thousand Families, and they had considered girls like Hannelore their rightful prey. She’d had to punch one of them out once for pushing his luck too far, not something that had pleased her family. Cordova… she was sure that he was attracted to her, yet he’d done nothing about it. And if she were wrong, she’d just destroyed their chances of developing a working relationship.

“I would like that,” Cordova said, slowly. He reached out and pulled her into a hug. His lips touched hers, first softly and then with increasing force. Hannelore felt her body respond to his caress, even though his beard was tickling her lips. His tongue slipped out and into her mouth, drawing her close to him. It was suddenly very hard to breathe properly. “Coming?”

He pulled her towards the airlock and through the hatch, both of them giggling like schoolchildren. The guard on the far end of the hatch saluted Cordova, but kept his expression carefully blank as Cordova escorted her through the corridors and up into Officer Country, where he opened his cabin and invited her inside. The cabin was warm, but his lips were warmer. From the urgency of his hands as he started unfastening her jacket, it had been a long time for him, perhaps longer than it had been for her. There had been no one she could risk taking to her bed at Tyler’s Star.

She gasped in delight as his lips roamed over her breasts, kissing, licking and sucking them, even giving them tiny bites. Cordova was a far more experienced lover than the callow boys back on Earth and it showed. It was suddenly urgent to get out of her trousers and panties, even though her hands were occupied trying to get his own clothes off. He took his hands off her for a second to pull off his jacket and she took the opportunity to start kissing her way down his body. His chest was covered in scars, as if someone had whipped him badly long ago and the scars had never faded away.

Gently, he picked her up when they were both naked and carried her over to the bed, laying her down and kissing her before mounting her body. Hannelore felt his hand slide between her legs, stimulating her just before he slid deep inside her, his lips coming up to meet hers. She cried out, clutching him to her, and then all thought was forgotten, lost in the pleasure roaring through them both.

Hannelore was, at first, unaware of where she was or what she had been doing. The lights in the room were dim, reminding her of too many adventures as a young girl, when she’d been experimenting with her peers and ending up in too many strange beds. The noise that had awoken her echoed again and she sat up, memory coming back in a sudden flash. She was in Cordova’s cabin, on the Random Numbers, and she’d just had sex with him. She giggled as Cordova turned over — his back, too, was covered with scars — and sat up, reaching for the communications terminal. He hoped he had the sense to only use the vocal function, although, if the truth were told, she didn’t much care if his crew got an eyeful. She felt sore, but good.

“Captain,” a voice said, “we are holding position as per your orders. Do you wish to commence the drill now?”

Cordova looked vaguely guilty, even though the speaker couldn’t see him. Hannelore had to cover her mouth to stop another fit of the giggles. She had wondered how he would treat her in the morning afterwards — if it actually was morning — and now she would probably never find out. Her mother had told her that that was the true clue to a man’s character, but for men like Cordova, duty always came first. Or perhaps not; he had delayed the drill for his own gratification, after all.

“Not yet,” Cordova ordered. “I want the gunnery crews to work on their deployments and the engineering crews to work out what we need from Fabricator. We may as well try to upgrade the ship before Colin returns with the superdreadnaughts.”

The terminal clicked off and Cordova turned to look at her. Hannelore didn’t manage to prevent the giggles this time and, a moment later, he joined her. He had a deep throaty laugh. She reached out and ran her hand down one of the scars, feeling it against her fingertips. It didn’t feel pleasant.

“What happened?” She asked. Had someone tortured him in the past? “Why…?”

“I’ll tell you one day,” Cordova said. His hand came up and caught hers, bringing it to his lips. “It’s a long and complicated story and I wish to do it full justice.”

His other hand reached out for one of her breasts and stroked it gently. “And you’re unmarked,” he mused. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are?”

Hannelore wasn’t certain how to answer, but the howl of the alarm saved her. Cordova let go of her at once and dived for the terminal. “This is the Captain,” he said, sharply. “Report!”

“Captain, we have a full squadron of battlecruisers dropping in on us,” the XO snapped. Hannelore felt her blood run cold. “They’re heading right towards Sanctuary! They’ve found us, sir.”