“And how would you know that?” Tiberius asked, smoothly. “You’re not a military expert.”
“Neither are you,” Goscinny responded, sharply. “You’re sitting here second-guessing someone who risked her life to defend the new order you allied yourself to, once the war was comfortably won! What cause do you have, you… aristocrat, for attacking her?”
“It is the duty of this council to remove any commanding officer who cannot handle the task we assign her,” Tiberius said, flatly. “I have to question…”
“Enough,” Wachter said, flatly. He fixed Tiberius with a look he’d learned in his years of commanding starships and then entire fleets. Colin wouldn’t have chosen to defy Admiral Percival if Percival had had half of Joshua’s undoubted skill. The entire rebellion would have been impossible. “Admiral Garland acted as best as she could, given what she knew at the time… and few sane commanders would have risked sneaking an entire fleet up under cloak. Now…”
Colin listened, grimly. He’d never considered anything so insane, although he had taken his superdreadnaughts to Pollack, pretending to be friendly units until the moment he’d dropped the pretence and opened fire on their command fortress. Admiral Wilhelm had guts, if nothing else, and a willingness to gamble. It worried him, more than he cared to admit to anyone, but David; what if he couldn’t outthink or outfight him? Space warfare was simple, at least at the strategic level, but there was nothing unique about Colin’s own insights. Despite the Empire’s best efforts, no one had a monopoly on military tactics, or insights.
He tapped the table, bringing the remaining argument to an end. “We have some choices to make,” he said, knowing that some of them would prove unpopular. “First, we will gather every major capital ship we can here, at Earth, before sending reinforcements to Admiral Garland and her base, if it holds out long enough.” He doubted that Admiral Wilhelm would suffer it to continue to exist any longer than he absolutely had to tolerate it. “Secondarily, we will focus on enhancing the defences of the worlds in his path as much as we can, without endangering Earth.”
There was a pause. The blunt truth was that it was impossible to defend every world in sufficient strength to protect it from the entire Cottbus Sector Fleet, let alone the combined might of four sectors. Colin knew that — and, indeed, had counted on it when he’d been fighting the Empire — and he also knew that the first-rank worlds wouldn’t take it kindly. If they were lucky, they might even have a chance to survive long enough to protest in Parliament.
“Thirdly, we will dispatch raiding units into the Cottbus Sector to enhance Admiral Garland’s efforts and force Admiral Wilhelm to divert his own units to cover his rear,” he concluded. “Time, for once, is on our side. We merely have to cover three places long enough to bring the new ships into production and then we can drive on Cottbus and bring the war to an end.”
He watched them all filing out of the room, leaving him alone. It all seemed so futile and hopeless, even though he knew that it wasn’t hopeless, not yet. The truth was simple; they could stop Admiral Wilhelm eventually, but would it be in time to save the reformed Empire? If the Admiral came directly at Earth, the cost of stopping him would be horrific, in both blood and treasure… and the Empire might come apart. The first-rank worlds would seek their independence, the second and third-rank worlds would take the remainder of the Family businesses and facilities and chaos would spread everywhere. The rule of law would be broken. The only good aspect of the entire crisis was that it might unite Parliament against Admiral Wilhelm…
The starchart glowed in front of him, almost mocking him. Defeat was unthinkable… and yet, the Empire had thought the same. They hadn’t believed that they could be defeated, until it was too late. Was his Empire going to go the same way… and fall down straight into chaos? Was that how the story was going to end?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Admiral, we have unidentified starships at the edge of the system.”
Admiral Katy Garland nodded from her command chair. The shortage of experienced personnel — and the casualties caused by the Battle of Cottbus — had forced her to take command directly of the Jefferson, while sending Captain Chalker to command the Franklin, which had lost its commanding officer to a lucky hit. Katy was still astonished that the superdreadnaught had been damaged at all, but according to the engineers, the shield generators hadn’t been properly calibrated for the mission. It had been the result of the fleet setting out too early, without a proper period of working up where all such flaws would have been removed, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was a bad omen. The Imperial Navy was desperately short of experienced personnel.
“I expected as much,” she said, trying to paste a confident expression on her face. The once-proud 2nd Fleet had been seriously dented, but the fortnight they’d spent in orbit around Hawthorn hadn’t been entirely wasted. The nine superdreadnaughts they’d salvaged from the battle had been worked up to the best of their ability and had been over-crewed, while the smaller ships had been carefully prepared for the coming engagement. “General signal to all ships; execute Plan Romeo.”
“Aye, Admiral,” the communications officer said. “The fleet is acknowledging. They’re standing by.”
“Good,” Katy said. She looked over towards the helmsman. “Helm, take us to Position Alpha.”
The mighty superdreadnaught thrummed into life as the main drive fields kicked in, pushing it out of orbit and up towards the edge of the gravity shadow, followed by the remainder of the fleet. Katy was mildly surprised that Admiral Wilhelm hadn’t arrived already — by her most optimistic estimate, he should have arrived at least a week ago — but perhaps they’d hurt them worse than they’d thought. Post-battle analysis had suggested that they’d handed out a beating, but hardly enough to deter him from continuing his war against the Provisional Government. He had to know that the Provisional Government wouldn’t allow him to take his winnings and leave the table, so he had little choice, but to continue on to Earth… which meant taking Hawthorn. The same iron logic that had forced Colin to engage Morrison would force Admiral Wilhelm to engage Hawthorn, or risk losing his rear to her attacks.
She tapped her console and called up the intelligence from the Freebooters. It had astonished her to discover just how far the Freebooter intelligent net actually extended, right into Cottbus itself, and she was more than a little annoyed that she hadn’t been given access at once. She wondered, in fact, if Colin himself knew just how far the network stretched, although it was hardly an Imperial Intelligence-style network. It tended to concentrate more on Imperial Navy officers who could be bribed, or who had no objections to selling Imperial Navy supplies to the Freebooters — or pirates, or even rebels — but it did include a surprising amount of political information. One piece of data, linked into clues that Imperial Intelligence had picked up, suggested the location of a supply base. She intended to deal with it as soon as she abandoned Hawthorn.
“The enemy starships appear to have flickered out,” the sensor officer said. “They could be…”
An alarm sounded. “Emergence, multiple starships,” the sensor officer said, as her display updated. “I’m reading three squadrons of superdreadnaughts, with escorts.”
“So we’re only outgunned two to one,” Katy said, wryly. In theory, her nine Independence-class superdreadnaughts should have been able to stand up to two squadrons of General-class superdreadnaughts, but no one had tried in practice. The three squadrons of superdreadnaughts that Admiral Wilhelm had deployed — she wondered, absently, if he was actually commanding the force — shouldn’t have any difficulty dealing with her ships in a straight fight. “Run a tactical analysis and put the results up on the main display.”