“Ignore it,” she ordered, and pretended not to see the looks of shock on some of their faces. Their innocence had died back at Cottbus, when the 2nd fleet had been ambushed and reduced to a third of its strength. “Continue the attack.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Charlie looked around the small room as their escorts closed the door behind him. It was a fairly basic storeroom, with a handful of chairs and a table placed in the centre, which suggested it was one of the hundreds of unofficial clubs for junior officers. The practice was fairly common, all over the Empire, and he’d even heard that it was encouraged, if only because of tradition. A junior officer was too lowly to club with the officers and too high-ranking to club with the enlisted men. Creating a club for themselves was regarded as a sign of something, although Charlie could never remember what. Knowing the pre-revolution Imperial Navy, it might just have been a willingness to stay out of the senior officers collective hair.
The handful of young officers in the club seemed to agree with that assessment. They were all around eighteen to thirty, all apparently Midshipmen. They wore civilian clothes in a colourfully garish display, for all the world as if they were carefree young men and women, but it was hard to disguise what they were. They hadn’t yet learned to hide their military training from an experienced eye. Peter, it seemed, had done them proud.
“We cannot trust them,” a woman said. She looked barely out of her teens, her voice suggesting an origin somewhere in the outer sectors. “We don’t even know who they are.”
Charlie kept his face blank as Sasha spoke calmly into the silence. Being so exposed worried him, but there was little choice; besides, no one in the room would be safe if they were discovered. They had to make use of whatever rebel structure existed on Cottbus, hiding from Admiral Wilhelm and Imperial Intelligence alike, if they wanted to end the war quickly. If that meant taking a risk…
“We’re from Earth,” Sasha said, calmly. “I admit that we cannot prove that easily to you, but yes, we represent the Provisional Government.”
“The same Provisional Government whose fleet just got its ass convincingly kicked at Wakanda,” someone said, from the back of the room. Charlie had seen him, barely, with his enhanced eyes. A more baseline human might have missed him completely. “The same Provisional Government whose ships were forced to retreat from this world. Why should we ally ourselves with you when you could betray us at any moment?”
“The fleet was lured into an ambush set by your commanding officer,” Sasha replied, her voice still calm. They could have cut their way out of the meeting, using the weapons implants buried under their skin, but that would have cost them the chance to make contact with the rebels. “Do you want to serve permanently under him, or do you want a chance to rise in a new system?”
Quinn smiled. “We received word about the rebellion nearly a year ago,” he said, flatly. “By the time we had anything set up to take advantage of it, the Admiral had made his move and locked up the aristocrats in their own cells.”
Charlie blinked. “The aristocrats?”
“The Hohenzollern and some other silly bitch,” the female doubter said. There was a note of dark amusement in her voice, somehow chilling when compared to her pretty face. “The Admiral used them and then dumped them in their own cells.”
Charlie nodded. That answered one question, at least. The reconstructed Imperial Intelligence had been trying to locate Lady Hohenzollern, and hundreds of other Family Members who’d fled Earth after its fall, but they’d found little trace of them. Had they all made their way to Cottbus, or the Rim, or somewhere else?
“And he clamped down hard,” Quinn agreed, unaware of Charlie’s thoughts. “He disrupted some of our cells and scattered others, sending some of the most important cell leaders to different star systems. He didn’t purge us, so I doubt that he knew what he was doing, but he disrupted us quite effectively.”
His voice was sour, bitterly amused. “We’re only just pulling back together again,” he said. “Why should we trust you to help us?”
“Because we’re the only ones who can,” Sasha said. “You can’t take the planet now, or you would have done so already. With our help, you could secure the orbital fortresses, the shipyard, and the other vital targets. That’s enough firepower to deter even four sector fleets.”
Charlie nodded, thinking hard. It was difficult to safeguard any system from internal sabotage, but Colin and the remainder of the original conspiracy had had an unfair advantage. They’d had years, while waiting for the Empire’s decision to carve up Macore as a favour to the Roosevelt Clan, to lay their plans and make them as foolproof as possible. Quinn and his fellows might not have been suspected — their very freedom was proof of that — but they had been rendered powerless, long enough to allow Admiral Wilhelm to secure his own grip on power. He’d done it without even knowing who they were.
“Perhaps,” the male doubter agreed. He came into the light, revealing a scarred face, marked for life. A series of regeneration treatments would have removed the scar, but he’d chosen, instead, to keep it. It said something about his character. “And what happens to us, if we rebel and manage to convince the Admiral not to attack at once, when he finds out the news?”
“And why should we rebel?” The female doubter added. “The Admiral doesn’t have a few hundred relatives who have to get posts because of who their great-uncles fucked one cold night a century ago. Where do our interests lie?”
Sasha smiled dryly. “You already know the answer to that, or you wouldn’t be meeting with us,” she said. “Admiral Wilhelm intends to impose military rule. You know that — hell, you’re part of it, just as much as the reprogrammed SD Troopers and the policemen he’s been recruiting to help garrison worlds that he takes from the Empire. He wants a war of conquest against the remainder of the Empire, shattering systems that have existed for hundreds of years, just for his glory — and your deaths.”
She leaned closer. “You’re all junior officers,” she said. “In the old Imperial Navy, you would be lucky to rise above Commander, unless you found a powerful patron. In the new Imperial Navy, the one created by Colin Harper, you would rise to the levels your talents allowed. You wouldn’t have to suck up to senior officers, or spend time sucking the cocks of the powerful, not when your own competence could get you into high rank. Is that not worth fighting for?
“And even if you decide not to rebel, what then? What happens when Admiral Wilhelm needs new crewmen for his new ships? He’s taking on the entire galaxy, for God’s sake! What are the odds of any of you surviving the next ten years?”
She looked around the room, her eyes moving from face to face. “And consider this,” she concluded. “Military rule never ends well. The Empire is far too complex for the Imperial Navy to dictate the rules and expect them to be kept. There’s already been one rebellion and Admiral Wilhelm won’t even have the legacy of thousands of years to keep him in power. What happens when he dies, or when the four Admirals begin scrabbling over who gets to be Emperor, or… how many possibilities can you think of? Where do your loyalties lie?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “We swore loyalty to the Empire,” Quinn said, finally. “We were younger then. We didn’t know what the Imperial Navy was really like…”
“But you know now,” Sasha pressed. “You have the choice between supporting Admiral Wilhelm in his attempt to burn down the Empire and replace it with his rule, or join the Provisional Government.” She looked over at the two doubters. “The Imperial Navy and the Shadow Fleet have accepted thousands of people who started out on the wrong side, even including Admiral Wachter. You would be free to join at your current ranks and work your way up the ladder. If you managed to take Cottbus, you would have one hell of a bargaining chip.”