As calmly as she could, she returned to his work and waited. There would be a chance to slip back onto one of the more well-known asteroids soon enough, and then she could make contact with an Imperial Intelligence undercover team. And then, the spy told herself, there would be a chance to stop the rebellion dead in its tracks.
Chapter Twenty
For a crazy few minutes, just after Onslaught had flickered into the Jackson’s Folly system, Penny had thought that the mutineers had returned to the system and engaged the Imperial Navy. Five superdreadnaughts were posturing at a smaller task force of four superdreadnaughts and assorted smaller ships, going through a ballet that was both complex and extremely simple. The absence of weapons fire and the IFF signals transmitted from the superdreadnaughts revealed — to her slight embarrassment — that the starships were doing something rarely seen in the Imperial Navy, random drilling.
It wasn’t, she noted as her battlecruiser linked into the datanet serving as umpire for the duel, a live-fire exercise. The Imperial Navy frowned on live-fire drills, both because of the cost and because of the danger. Penny had been a child when the crew of a superdreadnaught had accidently armed a missile within the launch tubes — they’d somehow cut it free of the safety systems that should have prevented the missile from arming before it was launched — and detonated it inside the ship. The superdreadnaught had survived the blast — it was lucky that the other warheads had not detonated, as that would have vaporised the entire ship — yet her Captain had been unceremoniously cashiered from the service and her entire surviving crew had been blacklisted. Imperial Intelligence, according to some of the files she’d seen ever since she’d become Percival’s aide, had suspected it was deliberate sabotage, but the people responsible had died in the blast. There was no way to know for sure.
By the time she was welcomed onboard Commodore Rupert Brent-Cochrane’s command ship, she was actually quite intrigued by the results of the exercise. Everyone knew that superdreadnaughts couldn’t be beaten by anything less than a matching force of superdreadnaughts, yet Penny had wondered before if that was actually true. The Imperial Navy’s sole combat duties for the past few centuries had been swatting pirates, hunting rebels and raining missiles on helpless planets. It didn’t exactly encourage innovation and creative thinking, while the rebels — already badly outmatched — had one hell of an incentive to get as creative as possible. She barely noticed when the shuttle landed in the superdreadnaught’s shuttlebay and only looked up when she realised that Commander Figaro, the superdreadnaught’s XO, was waiting with a party of senior officers. Penny, who had never been piped onboard a ship before, accepted his salute with some surprise and allowed him to escort her to the Commodore. Brent-Cochrane, it seemed, was not in the CIC, but in one of the smaller compartments, chatting to his subordinate commanders over the datanet.
The nine superdreadnaught commanders didn’t look happy, even before Figaro opened the hatch and announced Penny, before withdrawing at speed. Penny could understand their unease; quite apart from an unprecedented set of war games, they were holding the post-battle assessment over the datanet, rather than meeting in person. Some of them, she realised, looked particularly unhappy. She guessed that they’d been on the losing side.
Brent-Cochrane looked at her, winked at her as soon as his eye was out of sight of the various holograms drifting in the compartment, and then turned back to his subordinates. “We will be holding another comparable drill tomorrow,” he warned, dryly. “I expect that each and every one of you will do better, or else.”
He tapped a switch and the holograms vanished. “Captain,” Brent-Cochrane said, turning so that he could look up towards Penny. His face split into a remarkably skewed grin. “Would you believe that four superdreadnaughts could beat five?”
Penny wouldn’t have, but there was no point in disagreeing with him. Brent-Cochrane might be a mere Commodore, yet he had connections that reached back into the Empire, connections that would allow him to squash an uppity commoner-born officer, even if she was an aide to an Admiral. Besides, the part of her that remained a professional naval officer was keenly interested. The fleet was rarely allowed to hold any kind of unformulated war games.
“It turns out that they can,” Brent-Cochrane said, waving her to a chair. His grin only grew wider. “You see, the four superdreadnaughts were backed up by swarms of smaller ships, all of which added their own point defence fire to the battle — and all of which were deemed expendable. The five superdreadnaughts simply lacked the firepower to punch through that wall of point defence before it was too late.”
He clicked his fingers as his stewardess arrived. “Natasha,” he sang out. “A glass of the finest Amber Dark for me and another for my guest, at once, if you please.”
Penny frowned inwardly as the stewardess vanished out of the hatch and returned with two wine glasses and a tall thin bottle, from which she poured a blue liquid into the glasses. Penny was mildly surprised to see her — stewards and stewardesses were one of the perks of being a senior officer, yet they normally stayed in their master’s quarters and away from the CIC. The stewardess was short, which very pale hair and a near-golden face. It was fairly certain, Penny was sure, that she was Brent-Cochrane’s lover.
She took one of the glasses and sniffed it carefully, as tradition dictated, although she was sure that someone as well connected as Brent-Cochrane would never stoop to serving an inferior brand. Amber Dark originated on one world — the vines couldn’t be transplanted to another world — and was so expensive that only the highest of the high were able to afford it. Penny had only tasted it once before, when she’d been at a formal ball with Percival, and she had been impressed. It was the finest wine in the Empire.
Brent-Cochrane lifted his glass and met her eyes. “Confusion to the rebels,” he said, and took a sip. No one would swill Amber Dark as if it were a cheap beer. “I trust that you like it?”
Penny took a sip of her own, using the motion to mask her confusion. Brent-Cochrane was being friendly, too friendly. He’d welcomed her onboard, had her piped onto his ship by no less than the ship’s XO and even invited her into his private flag compartment. If she’d been a very well-connected person, she would have suspected that Brent-Cochrane wanted to impress her, yet why would he bother? Penny had nothing that Natasha — or plenty of other women — had. Why, then, was he attempting to seduce her… and, for that matter, just what did he want?
“It’s very sweet,” she said, honestly. She took a second sip, feeling the silky taste billowing over her tongue, and then put the glass down on the nearest table. Natasha moved in to refill the glass. “The Admiral has some orders for you and your squadron.”
“Let’s be honest, shall we?” Brent-Cochrane asked, taking another sip himself. “You’re the one who gives the Admiral ideas he turns into orders, are you not?”
Penny swallowed several responses that came to mind. Somehow, having Brent-Cochrane — of all people — put it into words cut through all of her defences. Percival was a known problem; he was a brutal sadist and incompetent, yet she knew him. Brent-Cochrane was someone she knew far less well. She dared not show him any hint of her real feelings, but somehow she was certain that they had already moved far past that stage.