“I won’t say much more at the moment,” he added, checking his wristcom. “We need to gather a group to take the weapons locker and then take the starship’s vital compartments… and then scream for help from the rebels.”
Stanford took a breath. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “The odds are very much against us. The chances are good that we will all die, but at least we will be dying for something, dying so that others might live. Our home planets might survive long enough to be free.”
The thought was enough to keep him going, he told himself. His own homeworld had been settled by the Empire and swiftly turned into a clone of a thousand other worlds. There had been nothing there for a young lad without connections and he’d joined the Imperial Navy in the hopes of seeing some action. It hadn’t worked out as he had planned, but if he survived the next few hours perhaps it wouldn’t all be in vain. He’d seen enough to understand just why his homeworld hadn’t been allowed to develop in its own way. It was all about power.
He gathered four teams of crewmen and explained, quickly, what he had in mind. Four objected and were rapidly subdued, knocked to the ground, tied up and left in the hidden compartment. None of them had been on his list of potential spies and indeed, they probably weren’t spies, they were just afraid. He apologised to them personally and promised that when the mutiny was over, they would be freed. The remainder of the groups went along with his plan.
By the time the starship jumped into the Camelot System, he told himself, they would be ready.
An ally on the bridge had granted him access to the live feed from the datanet, a stream of information that was normally only available to officers. It showed that the Admiral intended to take them into the system some distance from the planet, something that puzzled Stanford, but it didn’t matter what the Admiral had in mind. Stanford was trying to organise a mutiny at the last second and he needed all the time he could get. As the dull throbbing of the flicker drive grew louder, he found himself smiling. This, at last, was real action.
His grin only grew wider as he saw his two volunteers. They glared daggers at him.
“Don’t worry,” Stanford said. He sobered. The two volunteers had the most dangerous task in the mutiny… and everything depended upon them. “We will be there to back you up.”
Brent-Cochrane watched, concealing his impatience, as the Admiral checked in with each and every station personally. Normally, the duty officers would do that and report to the Admiral, but Admiral Quintana seemed to feel the urge to micromanage. He hoped that the Admiral wasn’t going to waste his time by assigning counter-missile targets personally. No human mind could handle the rapid calculations involved.
“All stations report ready, sir,” the CIC officer reported, finally. “We are ready to jump.”
“Good,” Admiral Quintana said. He took his chair and sat down, placing his fingers in his lap, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Helm, you may begin jump preparation.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said. His hands tapped a combination into the keyboard. “All ships, this is the flag; jump in two minutes. I say again, jump in two minutes. Slave all control systems to the flagship.”
Brent-Cochrane concealed his amusement. Few commanders would enjoy having their ship slaved to another ship, whatever the reason. It was the only way to handle a mass jump without having the fleet scattered, yet it took some control out of their hands. He doubted that Admiral Quintana would listen to any complaints. No micromanager could endure being upbraided by his subordinates.
“All ships have checked in,” the helmsman said, a moment later. “The flicker drives are powering up. Jump in ninety seconds; I say again, jump in ninety seconds.”
The big timer appeared on the display and began to count down. Brent-Cochrane felt the old excitement welling up within him, even though he was not in command. He had tried to convince the Admiral to give him a squadron, or even a ship, but Admiral Quintana had been resolute. No clients of Admiral Percival would be honoured by him. Brent-Cochrane had tried to explain that he wasn’t one of Percival’s clients, yet the Admiral refused to believe him — or perhaps it was just an excuse. Perhaps he didn’t want to risk upsetting his subordinate Commodores.
Brent-Cochrane gasped as the jump shock hit him. It always surprised him, even though he had been expecting it. The display flickered and reset itself, revealing that they were floating within the Camelot System. No starships lay in wait for them. The rebels, thankfully, had not added precognition to their list of surprises.
“All ships, this is the Admiral,” Admiral Quintana said. His face had settled into a frown as he studied the display. “Ahead of us are rebels who have seen fit to launch an uprising against the Empire, the Empire that is all that stands between us and disaster. We will advance on the planet and put the rebellion down with all necessary force. They will be crushed for their pains.”
He clicked off the general broadcast and looked over at the helmsman. “The fleet will advance,” he ordered. “Take us directly towards the planet.”
Chapter Fifty-One
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, very quietly. “I am detecting three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, two squadrons of battlecruisers, three squadrons…”
Colin listened as the words echoed in the air, heralding doom for his rebellion. Percival had finally called for help and reinforcements had arrived, only two weeks after Camelot had fallen and Colin had become the master of Sector 117. The chances were good that it would be a very short mastery; even with the arsenal ships, defeating the advancing force was not going to be easy.
He studied the display, keeping his expression as calm and composed as possible. Showing his subordinates his shock and dismay would have been unhelpful at best, disastrous at work. His crew was working away at their consoles, confident that Colin would find a way to get them out of this fix. Only a day ago, he’d overhead two crewmen refer to him as the Old Man and he’d thought that his heart would burst with pride. It hadn’t been a conventional ascent to Admiral’s rank, but he’d made it and he was accepted by his crew. Now all of his dreams were threatening to turn into dust.
The enemy fleet had actually jumped into the system some distance from the planet, so far away that part of Colin wondered if they’d had a major navigational error. It would have been believable if the fleet had arrived scattered all over the system, or if they’d been using commercial-grade computers and drives, but these were Imperial Navy warships. The enemy commander had flickered into the precise location he’d designated and Colin had a sneaking suspicion that he knew why. The enemy superdreadnaughts would have more than long enough to recharge their flicker drives before they entered missile range. They might not have deduced the true nature of the arsenal ships, but they had certainly deduced that most of the superdreadnaughts orbiting Camelot simply didn’t exist.
“We are picking up a transmission from the enemy fleet,” the communications officer said tonelessly. “They’re transmitting it to the entire system.”
“Let’s hear it,” Colin said. He doubted that the enemy commander’s words would make any difference. They all knew what the Empire would do to them if they were captured alive. “Put it through on speakers.”