“No, sir,” Colin said. There was no way to know if Howell had already seen the private message or if he just hadn’t checked his terminal yet. “We are merely waiting for the next update from Admiral Percival.”
Howell nodded again. Colin kept his face blank, even though inside he was seething. Howell wasn’t remotely suited to command a starship and it showed; hell, part of the reason Colin had been offered the post of XO had been because Howell had wanted an XO who could, effectively, run the ship. It was lucky that Jackson’s Folly seemed determined to avoid provoking the Empire, perhaps under the assumption that the Empire needed a legal pretext to invade; Colin wasn’t at all sure that the Observation Squadron could have handled itself as a unit. On paper, Captain-Commodore Howell had more than enough firepower to defeat any attack on his squadron; in reality… none of the starships had worked together before they had been thrown into a squadron and hastily dispatched to the independent system. Colin had run any number of drills since then, but most of the Captains seemed opposed to learning to work as a team.
The first emergency drill, conducted three days after their arrival at Jackson’s Folly, had been a disaster. In the weeks and months since then, Colin had worked to train the crew to the point where he felt that they might be the finest battlecruiser crew in the Imperial Navy — and, more importantly from his point of view, be able to take control of their ship very quickly. The battalion of Marines carried onboard would be deployed to secure the most important compartments of the ship, while Colin’s inner circle would take command of Shadow and the other ships in the squadron. He resisted the urge to glance at his wristcom. The time was ticking away to zero hour.
He looked up, instead, at the massive orbital display, a hologram floating in the centre of the bridge. Jackson’s Folly was surrounded by hundreds of icons, each one representing a man-made construction in orbit around the planet. Orbital stations — all being hastily armed after the Empire had stumbled across the planet — floated in high orbit, while hundreds of starships flickered in and out of the system. The independent traders were allowed to operate freely within the system, although that wouldn’t last. Once the Roosevelt Family had secured control of Jackson’s Folly, their private shipping line would be the only one allowed to service the new colonies. The independent traders would be driven out of the market though legal manipulations and naked force.
His eye tracked a small number of red icons, although he kept his face impassive. Tyler Jackson had lived just before the Great Interstellar War and his descendents hadn’t known about many of the developments in military technology, back when humanity had fought and exterminated the Dathi. Jackson’s Folly had no superdreadnaughts. The largest ship in their fleet was a battleship, a design that had been outdated centuries ago. Jackson’s Folly had improved on the design, Colin had to admit, but they lacked the throw weight to stand up to superdreadnaughts or even battlecruisers, when the battlecruisers were operating as a team. No matter how he worked the problem, Colin knew the truth; Jackson’s Folly would belong to the Empire when the Empire chose to take it. The only question was if they knew that their resistance would prove futile.
“I will be in my quarters, meditating,” Howell said, grandly. He had spent so long in his quarters that the Observation Squadron had started to wonder if it had a commander. Colin didn’t mind too much, although it offended his sense of the rightness of things. The thought made him smile inside; a more alert commanding officer might have noticed his XO drawing up a plan to take the squadron and turn it against the Empire. “You have the bridge.”
Colin watched as Howell left the bridge and settled back into the command chair, keying the console and bringing up reports from all over the ship. The emergency drill was underway now, with Marine parties fanning out to secure vital compartments and connections, while all non-essential crewmembers were hurried back to their sleeping quarters. Oddly enough, it had been considering what Jackson’s Folly could do to the Observation Squadron that had given Colin the idea, although only a handful of people knew that this drill was different. The Marines carried loaded weapons and had orders to prevent any attempt to retake the ship, using lethal force if necessary. One by one, the various compartments fell under his control, isolating any remaining loyalists. It all seemed to be going according to plan.
He keyed a command sequence into the console and brought up an isolated section of the datanet, the interlinked computer network that coordinated joint operations within the squadron’s ships. He’d secured it weeks ago with Anderson’s help, ensuring that his teams would have access to communications while the loyalists would lose their own ability to use the datanet. The crew were used to disruptions caused by the emergency drill — Colin had even taken sections of the datanet down to ensure that they knew how to operate without the relay system connecting them to the remainder of the ship — and there should be nothing to alert anyone that there was a mutiny underway. Even if they did realise, it was already too late; the Marines had secured the armoury and the only supply of firearms on the starship.
Colin forced himself to remain calm and to avoid showing any signs of his own tension. He had put the mutiny — the rebellion — in motion, yet now its success or failure was all out of his hands. If Imperial Intelligence had an undiscovered agent within the conspiracy, he might well have signed his own death warrant. If… he shook his head inwardly, studying the display as various Marine units reported in with innocuous codes, ones that would raise no hackles if a suspicious mind happened to intercept them. The mutiny was under way and the die was well and truly cast.
His wristcom buzzed once, a pre-arranged signal from the Marine Colonel. The ship was effectively completely under their control — and helpless. If Murphy chose to put in an appearance — and he did have the inconvenient habit of appearing when he was least wanted — the Observation Squadron would find itself in serious trouble. He stood up and nodded towards the tactical officer as a fire team of four Marines appeared on the bridge. If any of the uninvolved bridge crew chose to side with the Empire, they would have no opportunity to cause havoc.
“Commander Finnegan, you have the bridge,” Colin said. Lieutenant-Commander Ian Finnegan was another member of the conspiracy, a tall dark-skinned man with a long-standing grudge against the Empire. His homeworld had been devastated for refusing to pay its taxes several years ago, a bombardment that had taken the lives of his mother, father and three of his siblings. “I will be back momentarily.”
He stepped off the bridge through the connecting door into Officer Country, the quarters that served the starship’s senior officers and were barred to all junior ranks. The Marine sentry on guard saluted as Colin headed through the airlock and into his own compartment. He’d never bothered to collect items to fill his quarters — his only real decoration was a painting his mother had done of him on his graduation day — and so he walked across to a sealed drawer and opened it with his fingerprints. The cold metal of the chemically-propelled pistol gleamed at him as he unearthed it from the small pile of clothes and placed it on his belt. He was suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat as he loaded the pistol and checked the clips. His mouth was very dry. He’d built cut-outs into the operational plan, just so he could abort if necessary, but now he was committed.
“Idiot,” he told himself, swallowing hard. The sheer enormity of what he was about to do hit him like a sledgehammer. Whatever happened, his life would never be the same. “You were committed from the moment you started pulling people into your plot.”