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.