“Admiral,” the communications officer said. “The transports are signalling that they’re casting off now.”
Colin nodded. The orbital manufacturing complexes orbiting Jackson’s Folly were now without the workforce that made them work. They were still intact — Colin hadn’t even taken the opportunity to upload something nasty into their computers — but without their workforce, a whole new force would have to be trained up before the Empire could make use of them. They had the time… but did they have the patience?
“Good,” he said. He hated to cut and run, leaving the system completely defenceless, but there was no other choice. Besides, if they were really lucky, Percival would be diverting his superdreadnaughts towards Jackson’s Folly, allowing Colin to wreak havoc elsewhere. Only a fool would seek to command an interstellar war as if he could micromanage it, so Colin knew better than to count on it, but it would be useful if the superdreadnaughts were distracted. “Order them to flicker out now.”
The display updated rapidly as the transports flashed and vanished into flicker space, reappearing seven light years away at the first waypoint. There, they would be escorted back to the Beyond, where they would be unloaded, adding new strength to the rebellion. In the meantime… the rebel fleet had other plans, plans Colin had drawn up before the council had insisted on raiding Jackson’s Folly. They had been delayed long enough.
Colin smiled. Hester had — reluctantly — agreed to go back on the transport fleet, removing one worry from Colin’s mind. Hester might be too old to lead the fight in person, but she was an inspiration. The rebellion needed her, perhaps more than it needed Colin. Or perhaps that was just a kind of reverse vanity. It hadn’t been Hester who had captured nine superdreadnaughts and given the Empire its first serious fight in centuries.
“Helm, set coordinates for the reserved waypoint,” he ordered, calmly. Behind him, Jackson’s Folly would wait for the Empire to return, like a woman awaiting her rapist with a hidden knife. The Empire wouldn’t have any difficulty reassuming control over the high orbitals, but the ground would suddenly be much harder, if only because they would have to ship in a whole new army. “Take us out of here.”
His smile darkened as the superdreadnaught flickered out of the system, heading deeper into the Empire, heading towards Greenland. The second major Roosevelt-owned system and the perfect target, at least as far as Colin was concerned, for hitting it would drive the Roosevelt Family to fury. And Percival, the failed Admiral, would lose all hope of promotion.
And then Colin would come for him too.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I assume,” Percival said, in a cold hard tone, “that you have an explanation for this?”
Standing ramrod straight, her arms at her side, Captain-Commodore Angelika McDonald slowly counted up to fifty under her breath. She’d transmitted a report to Admiral Percival as soon as Violence had flickered into the system, hoping to discourage him or one of his subordinates from bombarding her with requests for details, but it hadn’t worked. Admiral Percival had ordered her to report to him as soon as possible, using words that clearly meant right damned now.
“Yes, sir,” Angelika said. She knew what Percival meant, but she was damned if she was going to allow him to place the blame on her. “I retreated in the face of superior firepower.”
“You fled in the face of the enemy,” Percival snapped. His piggy eyes glared at her, boring in on her face like twin laser beams. “The board of inquiry will…”
That did it. “With all due respect, Admiral,” Angelika said, “perhaps you would care to explain how a handful of smaller ships are expected to defeat a squadron of nine superdreadnaughts?”
His face purpled alarmingly, but she pressed her advantage. “If you hold a board of inquiry into the battle, the board will discover that I fought as long as I could and then withdrew from the system, rather than getting my command destroyed for no reason,” she added. “Once you ordered the superdreadnaughts withdrawn from the Jackson’s Folly system, the rebels could come knocking on the door any time they liked. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Furthermore,” she said. “I will not accept a tame board of inquiry. As is my right under Imperial Navy Regulations, I demand that the supervising officer be drawn from the nearest sector and made fully appraised of all of the important facts before holding the inquiry.”
Percival stared at her, as if he were hoping that she would wilt under his gaze. Angelika felt, oddly, as if she was in a battle, one she would win as long as she held her nerve. She’d worked closely enough with Percival to know that he was both a coward and, despite his pretensions, alarmingly exposed. His patrons would shift away once they realised that they would be tarred with the same brush of failure, Percival’s failure. He was the man on the spot when the rebels stole nine superdreadnaughts and vanished, never mind that Camelot was far too far away from Jackson’s Folly for him to exercise any real control.
She found herself silently hoping that her patrons wouldn’t let her down, for the regulations she’d cited could be put aside by a senior officer with sufficient patronage, or political clout. Or, for that matter, Percival could try to appoint one of his cronies to run it, just to ensure that it voted the right way. Her career had either been boosted beyond measure, or destroyed. But then, even a tame court-martial would expose Percival’s own failings and his enemies would have a chance to destroy him.
“I realise that you retreated in the face of superior firepower,” Percival said, finally. Angelika grinned inwardly. He’d surrendered, no matter whatever face he chose to put on defeat. “Even so, there is the issue of the loss of Jackson’s Folly or the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Blackshirts, all of which need to be discussed.”
“There’s very little to discuss,” Angelika said, calmly. “The Blackshirts were on a hostile planet when their covering forces had to leave the system.” She thought about pointing out that if she’d stood and fought, the monitors would have been destroyed along with her force, but pushed the thought aside. “The locals will have taken their revenge by now. Imperial Law allows for only one response.”
“There is nothing we can do until we make contact with one of the superdreadnaught squadrons,” Percival said, weakly. “The rebels…”
“…Will have retreated from the Jackson’s Folly system, leaving us nothing, but a rebellious planet and probably a few unpleasant surprises in orbit,” Angelika said, interrupting. Who knew — perhaps Percival could be driven into having a heart attack. His death would strengthen the Empire. “If you send back a squadron of destroyers, you would be able to recover the system without serious losses.”
Percival stared down at his priceless wooden table, muttering under his breath. Angelika took the moment to look over at the Admiral’s aide and wink at her. The aide — a tall blonde woman with a jacket tighter than regulations allowed — looked back at her, expressionlessly. Angelika would have bet half her salary that the aide was smarter than Percival and resented being placed in a position where she had to turn his half-baked ideas into reality. If she could be turned, she would make a powerful ally, but Angelika lacked the patronage or clout to reach out and make an offer.