It took longer than Colin had expected to secure Morrison, even though the Blackshirts had clearly lost whatever cohesion they’d had after the Imperial Intelligence structure had been overrun. In the end, however, the stations had been secured, the superdreadnaughts had been evacuated and the remaining starships had been moved to a safe distance. Given enough time, according to the engineers, they could all be pressed back into service. But not soon enough, they’d added, to make a real difference.
“We might need to jump out again, once the orbital fortifications are secure,” Colin commented to his XO. “They’ll certainly try to recover Morrison.”
The XO smiled. “With what?”
Colin had to admit he had a point. The Imperial Navy had concentrated its forces at Earth, Morrison and Terra Nova. Now, one of those fleets had been shattered and the other two were tied down. And they were close enough together that one of them could probably be lured out of place, with a little effort.
“True,” he agreed. He looked up at the display for a long moment. “Do we have an updated repair estimate?”
“Four days,” the XO said. They’d only taken minimal damage from the battle, thankfully. “And then we can resume the offensive.”
Colin nodded. By any standards, it had been the most one-sided battle since the end of the First Interstellar War — and yet the same trick wouldn’t work twice. Earth’s defenders would know to expect their point defence systems to be jammed and prime their systems to overcome it. Earth would be a far harder nut to crack.
“Good,” he said. “Once we return to the RV point, I want you to bring our two aristocratic guests back onboard. I want a few words with them.”
“Yes, sir,” the XO said.
“And have all of the prisoners moved to the planet’s surface,” Colin added. “We can’t afford to trust them, not now.”
He scowled. It had become clear, very quickly, that some of the rebel POWs had been abused. The files had been destroyed, though, and no one who had personal knowledge of the abuse victims had been captured. But Colin suspected that anyone who hadn’t been held on Morrison itself had been shipped back to Earth.
“And then I need a few words with the Admiral too,” he said. “I want to know which side he’s on.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Colin had not been taught to have respect for senior officers. Most of the Imperial Navy’s officers were appointed for loyalty, connections or incompetence, not anything Colin could have respected them for possessing. Even before Percival had betrayed him, Colin had never really respected him. The man’s flaws had been too obvious, even to someone who had hoped to use him for his own advantage.
But Admiral Wachter was different. Colin hesitated outside the hatch, feeling an odd mixture of nervousness and admiration. If he’d served under such a man, he had asked himself, would he have ever been driven to mutiny? And, if he had never been driven to mutiny, would the Empire just have continued expanding outwards until it collapsed under its own weight? Would no one have stood up and said enough?
He pressed his hand against the sensor, opening the hatch. The Marine guard nodded at him, then stepped aside as the hatch opened, allowing Colin to step into the compartment. It had once belonged to one of Stacy Roosevelt’s aides — Colin had never been entirely certain what the man had done for her, but he’d accepted exile with almost indecent speed — and had been swept of anything that might be dangerous or valuable. But at least it wasn’t a cell in the brig, Colin told himself, as Admiral Wachter sat up on the sofa. It could have been a great deal worse.
“Commander Walker,” Wachter said.
“Admiral Walker,” Colin countered, recognising the verbal gambit. To let it pass would be to implicitly recognise the Empire as the source of all promotion. “I trust that the quarters are acceptable?”
“It would be nice to have something to read,” Wachter said. “Your people took out the workstation and everything else.”
“I’ll have some books dug up and sent to you,” Colin assured him. He took a seat facing the sofa and smiled at Wachter. “You fought well.”
“Thank you,” Wachter said. “So did you.”
Colin glanced up as the hatch leading into the bedroom opened, revealing a woman with long blonde hair and a face that seemed oddly nervous. It reminded Colin of the poor bastards they’d rescued from Imperial Intelligence, back when Camelot had fallen. They’d twitched nervously too after spending months having the Mind Techs probing their brains. The woman, according to the files, was the person Admiral Percival had chosen to replace him. It didn’t look as though she had enjoyed the experience.
She sat down next to Wachter and stared at Colin, unable to quite meet his eyes. Colin smiled, inwardly. She might not know it herself, but she had one hell of a crush on the Admiral, even though they weren’t orienting on one another like lovers. Nor was she cringing away, as she might well have done for Percival. Somehow, Colin doubted that it was love that had lured her into Percival’s clutches. More like intensive pressure to open her legs for the man who could save or damn her career with a single word.
Bastard, Colin thought. But Percival was on a penal world, assuming he had survived. Colin wouldn’t have put money on him surviving more than a few days. There was no point in dwelling on his fate.
“We won the battle,” he said, shortly. “It is our intention to move on to Earth as soon as we have patched up the damage.”
Wachter said nothing. Nor did his aide.
“I have a question,” Colin said. “Why are you loyal to the Empire?”
“The Empire is not perfect,” Wachter said. “But what would happen to humanity without it?”
His voice was calm and reasonable. “There would be chaos,” he said. “Old disputes would lead to civil war, the economy would fragment, the Imperial Navy would be broken up… no, we need the Empire.”
“But the Empire has committed millions of atrocities to keep its power,” Colin pointed out, struggling to keep his voice calm. “Lives have been ruined just for daring to question the way things are. People have been destroyed merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He remembered Hester and shuddered. She’d been captured, abused, raped and then sentenced to a penal colony, just for daring to seek independence for her homeworld. And her story was far from unique. God alone knew how many people had been killed by the security forces, or sentenced to penal worlds and abandoned to die there. Hester had merely been lucky enough to be rescued before she could be dropped to the surface. And then there were the independent worlds that had been swept out of existence because the Empire wanted their land. What had Jackson’s Folly done to deserve being annexed by the Empire?
Wachter looked down at the deck for a long moment. “I didn’t say the system was perfect.”
Colin indicated Penny. “And what about her?”
He pressed on before Wachter could say a word. “She had nothing to do with the mutiny or Admiral Percival’s ham-handed response,” he said. “But she was still interrogated badly, just so they could find a scapegoat for the whole affair. What did she do to deserve that?”
“Nothing,” Wachter said. He met Colin’s eyes, holding them. “And what is the point of this discussion?”
“Join us,” Colin said, simply.
“To destroy the Empire?”
“To reform it,” Colin said. “The Empire is dying — it was dying even before I launched the first mutiny. You know that to be true, I think. The Thousand Families were running out of worlds to annex, their economic system was threatening to collapse and they were starting to turn on each other. It might have fallen apart completely by now if I hadn’t given them a common enemy. Even if we were to surrender tomorrow, the Empire wouldn’t survive the next few decades.”