Democracy's Right

Chapter Forty-Five

“Where is she?”

Penny watched as Percival strode around his quarters, repeating the same question time and time again. It had been nearly three weeks since they had expected to hear from the battlecruisers they’d dispatched to attack the rebel base, even if it was just a report of a deserted star system and a piece of misinformation that Imperial Intelligence had swallowed hook, line and sinker. Percival had gathered a powerful force for the execution of Operation Purge, yet he couldn’t deploy the fleet into the Beyond until he knew for sure that the rebel leadership was in disarray and there were few prospects of a renewed offensive against the Empire.

“I’m sure she’s on her way back now,” Penny said, as soothingly as she could. The truth was that she was worried too, for the battlecruisers were dangerously overdue. Perhaps their commander had discovered the location of additional rebel bases and moved to attack them, or perhaps there was a simpler — and less pleasant — explanation. The battlecruisers had encountered the rebel superdreadnaughts and had been destroyed. “She is a reliable officer.”

“Yes, she is, unlike some,” Percival said tightly, scowling as he glared towards the sector display hovering in the centre of the compartment. His paranoia had grown to terrifying heights over the last few days. He’d started reshuffling his command staff, moving officers from one post to another, while combining his two superdreadnaught squadrons into one overwhelmingly powerful force. Using superdreadnaughts to deal with the average rebel ship was like using an atomic bomb to swat a single man, yet he seemed impervious to logic and reason. “No one can be trusted.”

Penny held herself composed, despite the shiver that ran down her spine. How long would it take for Percival’s paranoia to lead him to conclude that she was a threat, that she’d been conspiring with his rival… or perhaps, even, that she intended to lead the lower decks in a mutiny of her own. It would be suicidal, with so many Blackshirts on the command station, yet Percival might believe that she intended to try. His ranting about how the universe was conspiring against him, striving to deny him his rightful place, was growing ever more extreme. He had barely touched her in two weeks.

At one time, she would have been grateful, for even the merest touch of his hand left her feeling unclean, no matter how long she spent in the shower. Now… she couldn’t help, but view it as an ominous development, a sign of his growing paranoia. If he had decided that he no longer wanted her, how long would it be before she found herself exiled to a remote mining station, or simply killed outright? After all, Percival had dispatched Commander Walker to a remote patrol base and look how that had turned out.

“She’ll be back,” Penny said, as gently as she could. “Would you like a drink or perhaps even some other…?”

The alarm sounded before she could complete her sentence. It wasn’t the standard alarm, but one warning of incoming enemy starships, one that had never been sounded outside of drills and exercises. Percival was on his feet at once, grabbing for the white beret that technically should only belong to the commander of a squadron of starships, and heading for the hatch. Penny followed him, surprised at his reaction, before realising that part of him had feared the worst. Commander Walker wouldn’t die that easily. Poor Percival was tormented by nightmares of the monster he’d created, the one that could tear down the place he’d created for himself, even in death.

She followed him through the secured corridors — pausing long enough to nod to the Blackshirts and Household Troops on duty — and into the command centre. The staff were a little disorganised — Percival had broken up the working teams and reconfigured them, seemingly at random — but at least they knew what they were doing. A hundred red icons hovered in the main display, advancing towards Camelot. The rebels weren’t even trying to hide.

“Status report,” Percival ordered, as he took the command chair. He’d had it made especially for him and it reassembled a throne more than anything else. Penny considered it to be in very poor taste, particularly the carvings the artisan had worked into the metal. “What has the bastard brought to the party?”

The Duty Officer turned, unable to quite hide the flinch when he saw Percival. It wasn’t too surprising. Over the last few weeks, Percival had been a looming presence in the background, even though he’d hardly spent any time in the command centre before then. After all, who would dare to attack Camelot? There were nine battle stations and hundreds of automated platforms covering the Imperial Navy’s repair facilities… and that didn’t even count the fleet Percival had been assembling for Operation Purge. The rebels might not have known it, but they’d jumped right into five-to-one odds.

Her lips twitched as she stood behind Percival. The rebels clearly made a habit of running tactical surveys on every system they attacked first — as doctrine suggested — and they would almost certainly know that Percival had additional ships and defences. Their attack, therefore, was suicidal unless they’d come up with something new, but what? It struck her, suddenly, that the battlecruisers might have run into something they couldn’t handle, something new. The Empire feared the Geeks, feared them enough to order them executed on sight rather than even trying to exploit what they’d developed, and Imperial Intelligence had insisted that the Geeks were part of the rebellion.

She looked down at Percival, read the subtle signs on his posture, and knew that there was no point in saying anything. Percival knew the odds — at least the conventional odds — and he was clinging to them, yet… she could see that he felt fear. He knew Commander Walker, knew him far better than Penny; he knew that his enemy was a tactical genius. In his head, she realised, Percival was already defeated.

“Admiral,” the Duty Officer said. “There are nine superdreadnaughts, three battlecruisers, fifty-two cruisers of indeterminate class and a number of smaller ships, including a force of freighters. They’re advancing on Commodore William’s position as we speak.”

Penny nodded. Commodore William wasn’t known for being imaginative, but he was known as a safe pair of hands, someone who would never rise above command of a superdreadnaught squadron. Percival had granted him command of the forces assembled for Operation Purge because he would never seek to unseat his superior officer… unless, of course, that was an act. No one survived for years in the Imperial Navy without developing the remarkable skill of dissembling.

“Nine superdreadnaughts,” Percival repeated. “They are all in full working order?”

“As far as we can determine,” the Duty Officer said, carefully. Public Information’s version of the Battle of Greenland had five rebel superdreadnaughts battered to the point of near-uselessness. Questioning the official version could have terminated a career. “We are too far away for effective scans.”

“Order Commodore William to close with the enemy and destroy him,” Percival ordered, settling back in his chair. Penny wondered, in a moment of insight, if Percival had started to believe his own propaganda. He no longer looked defeated. The Imperial Navy had sixteen superdreadnaughts and supporting ships; the rebels had only nine, including some which might be too badly damaged to operate at full capacity. “They are to be destroyed!”

“All ships have arrived in the system,” the tactical officer said. “The enemy has detected our presence.”

Colin nodded. That hadn’t been unexpected. Camelot had the best sensor network in the system and, really, he hadn’t been trying to hide. He wanted Percival looking right at him. The main display was updating as the probes flared away from his ships, rocketing down towards the planet and the fleet forming up in a position to intercept his ships. The enemy didn’t know it, but the live feed from the probes was far superior to anything they could develop for themselves. Colin could practically count the scars on some of the superdreadnaught hulls facing him.

He’d run through a dozen different possibilities for Camelot’s defenders. In Percival’s place, he would have kept his ships near the planet and combined their point defence with that of the fixed defences. Even with arsenal ships, that would have been a hard nut to crack… which was part of the reason he’d shown Percival his hand so blatantly. If Percival wanted a decisive victory, Colin would offer him one, before snatching it out of reach.

“Deploy the fleet into Formation Alpha,” he ordered. Tension was running down his spine. What if there was something he had failed to take into account? What if he’d underestimated the opposition? The enemy commander he’d faced at Greenland had been smart, smart enough to be dangerous even without having a numerical advantage in superdreadnaughts. “Prepare to activate the drones.”

“All drones are linked into the datanet system,” the tactical officer confirmed. “They’re ready to go.”

Colin took a breath. It was important to appear calm and unworried — or so he’d been taught, back when he’d been a young and ruthlessly ambitious officer — even though they were sailing blithely towards certain destruction. He wondered what was going through Percival’s head, or even if Percival had quietly decided to board a gunboat and command the defence from the nearest star system. It didn’t matter. One way or another, the entire future of the Empire — if it would be reformed or if it would continue to decay until it collapsed from within — would be decided here.

“Open a channel,” he ordered. The communications tech nodded. As they’d planned, the message would be broadcast in clear, allowing Percival’s subordinates to hear it. “Admiral Percival, this is Admiral Walker, representing the Popular Front to Reform the Empire. You are ordered to stand down your ships and prepare to be boarded. Your time as commander of this sector is over.”

Colin smiled before he continued. If he knew Percival, the message would both infuriate and terrify him.

“…Speak now to the men and women on the defences,” the voice rolled on. “Ask yourself this; can the Empire long survive? Join us; join the one effort to reform the Empire, rather than breaking it up or…”

“Shut it off,” Percival ordered, harshly. The voice vanished from the command centre. Penny wondered, absently, if he had realised that everyone in the system was hearing the message. There was no way to jam the emergency channel, even if doing it hadn’t been a direct violation of Imperial Navy regulations. “Order Commodore William to continue his advance and engage the enemy.”

Penny looked down at him. “Admiral,” she said. “Do you not wish to make a response?”

“No,” Percival snarled. His face had purpled alarmingly. “I will make my response in missile fire!”

Penny nodded, bitterly. The rebels had offered to allow Percival to go anywhere he wanted, even all the way back to the Core Worlds, but that would be a disaster for the Admiral. His patrons would desert him, he would get the blame for the disaster and he would finish his days on a penal world, if they didn’t simply execute him for gross incompetence. The Roosevelt Family wouldn’t breathe a word in his defence. Penny doubted that anyone would even try to defend him. They’d want to bury him as quickly as possible before turning their attention to crushing the rebels.

She shook her head slowly. Percival was caught between two fires. Only destroying the rebel fleet — perhaps not even that — could save him from nemesis. He couldn’t even accept the rebel offer and hide somewhere in the Beyond.

To a man like Percival, being cut off from the Empire and its power structure would be a fate worse than death.

Colin sat back as he finished making his speech. He would have been astonished if Percival had surrendered, even after Colin had offered to guarantee his safety and free passage to anywhere he wanted to go in the Empire. Perhaps he didn’t trust Colin to keep his word. Hell, Colin wasn’t sure if he trusted himself to keep his word; having Percival in his hands would be a great temptation. He could draw his pistol and put a bullet through his head, or torture him to death, or even just crush his skull with his bare hands. The possibilities were endless.

He smiled and shook his head. They hadn’t won the battle yet. He watched the display as the enemy fleet started to pick up the pace, heading right towards Colin’s fleet on a least-time course. The red spheres that marked weapons range were growing closer. So far, not even the Geeks had been able to devise missiles with longer ranges than standard-issue Imperial Navy designs, although they swore that they were working on it. Colin suspected that they wouldn’t change the face of space warfare as much as might be expected, although they would make assaulting a planet easier.

Colin shifted in his chair as the timer ticked down towards zero. He was aware, on some deep primal level, of the hopes and fears of his entire fleet. The ones who had joined the mutiny, the rebels who had known their cause was hopeless and fought on anyway, the men and women he had rescued from the penal world… they all knew that this would be the moment when the rebellion became a true threat to the Empire, or was destroyed, shattered beyond repair. Colin had never been a gambler — he had regarded it as a poor habit, although he had sometimes taken money off Percival at the gaming tables — yet he knew that this was a gamble. It was easy, looking at the oncoming enemy fleet, to wonder if the naysayer factions had been right.

“Activate the drones,” he ordered.

There were seventy-two drones deployed in a rough shell in front of the fleet, each one configured to present an image of a superdreadnaught to any passive sensors, or even active sensors at long range. The Geeks had invented them and Colin had tested them extensively against the best sensors his superdreadnaughts had, making sure that the Empire couldn’t separate a drone from a real ship. It seemed that it required active sensors at very close range to penetrate the deception.

Percival would know that it was a deception, of course. Colin might have had a low opinion of his intelligence, but it wasn’t that low. There was no way the rebels could have gotten their hands on seventy-two superdreadnaughts — eighty-one, counting the original ships — or Colin would have smashed Camelot and advanced on Earth, with very little in his way to stop him. But then, Colin had expected that too.

“All drones are active,” the tactical officer said. “They’ll be seeing them… about now.”

“Admiral,” the duty officer said, as the screen suddenly lit up with red icons. “We have new contacts… seventy-two additional superdreadnaughts!”

Percival’s voice cut through the chaos. “It’s a bluff,” he said, savagely. Penny blinked at the sudden decisiveness in his voice. “That’s how the bastard won at Khartoum.”

All of a sudden, it made sense. Back when Percival had been a mere Commodore, desperate to prove himself and win the coveted promotion to Admiral, he’d used Commander Walker to win an exercise. Penny had studied the battle and had been impressed; Commander Walker had used drones to lure the enemy forces out of position, then hit them when they were least expecting it. It had been a tactical masterstroke and Percival, at least, had good cause to remember it. Except…

“Admiral,” she said, slowly. “Wouldn’t he expect it too?”

Percival turned his chair to look up at her. “What do you mean?”

“He can’t have so many superdreadnaughts,” Penny said. “We know he can’t have so many superdreadnaughts, even if he had captured the entire sector fleet. So why is he playing a bluff he knows is going to be called?”

Percival said nothing, so she pressed her advantage. “Admiral, pull back the ships and combine their point defence with the battle stations,” she said. “If it’s a bluff, it won’t hurt us and if it’s covering for something…”

Percival slapped her, hard enough to send her rocking back on her heels. “He knows he’s walked into a meatgrinder,” Percival snarled. Penny barely heard him through the pain. He’d slapped her right in front of the entire command staff! He couldn’t have made her position as the Admiral’s Whore any clearer if he’d bent her over the tactical console and raped her from behind. “He’s trying to bluff us to win time to recharge his drives and flicker out. You are dismissed from my service. You will report to your quarters and wait there for reassignment. I will deal with you once the battle is won.”

Penny pulled herself to her feet, held herself ramrod straight, and strode out of the command centre, refusing to look at anyone or rub her face. Oddly, part of her felt relieved. Wherever Percival sent her, at least she wouldn’t have to put up with his presence any longer.

And, as much as she hated to admit it, there was a good chance that the bastard might be right.

“They think they’re calling our bluff,” Colin said, with heavy satisfaction. Truthfully, it might not have made any difference if the Imperial Navy starships had started to retreat, but at least this way it prevented any possibility of having to fight both sections of the defences at once. “Prepare to fire.”

He settled back into his chair as the datanet updated, with the arsenal ships in the lead. It had taken a great deal of careful planning to program the firing sequence, although Colin privately suspected that at least some of that effort had been wasted. The KISS principle had to be observed.

“Fire,” he ordered.