“Good enough,” she said, studying the display. They’d barely had time to complete their repairs at Camelot, but she’d been determined to get out of the star system before another battlecruiser or even heavy cruiser squadron returned from patrol duties and got given the plum assessment instead. Destroying the rebel base and capturing the rebel leadership would go a long way towards making up for the Jackson’s Folly disaster, at least in the eyes of any competent review board. Her connections would make sure of that, preventing Percival from burying his mistakes under a mountain of paperwork and false accusations. “Keep monitoring the surrounding area. You never know what we might find out here.”
She smiled, ruefully. The ban on travelling beyond the Rim had fuelled all kinds of speculation and stories about what starships encountered when they broke the law and travelled deep beyond the Rim. There were strange stories of mysterious bat-shaped starships; encounters with omnipotent entities… even discoveries of ancient super-technology amid the ruins of a dead civilisation. The Empire officially ridiculed all such claims, but Angelika had heard rumours that Imperial Intelligence had a secret department devoted to investigating them. She’d asked a few of her most trusted contacts and they’d either professed to know nothing about it, or had warned her not to ask any more questions. She’d taken the hint.
Centuries ago, after the First Interstellar War, an alien race had somehow become aware of the advancing Empire… and of how it treated non-humans. Possessing a formidable technological infrastructure of their own, the aliens had built a fleet of starships and fled, not before ensuring that their world held nothing the human race could use to find and locate them. The Runaways, as they had been called by the humans who had finally discovered their homeworld, had not been seen since, although there were always rumours. One of them was that they had set up a base somewhere in the Beyond and were preparing to wage war on humanity. That rumour had served as a justification for all kinds of emergency measures, which had somehow never been repealed.
“Aye, Captain,” her XO said.
“And run through a set of combat drills,” she added. She’d wanted to take Marines with her, but Admiral Percival had flatly refused, citing concerns about their loyalty. Instead, she had Blackshirts who were supposed to have been trained in raiding asteroid settlements. She wasn’t too encouraged, although the ones on her ships had been surprisingly civilised. They certainly hadn’t been drugged up like the ones assigned to operations on the ground. “I want to be ready for anything.”
Her XO frowned. “Captain,” he said, reluctantly. “What do we do if we run into the rebel superdreadnaughts again?”
Angelika scowled. “We run,” she said. There was no other answer. “We cannot stand up to superdreadnaughts.”
“And so production levels are estimated to continue to rise,” the Geek said, in his strange mechanical voice. Hannelore barely heard him. She was too awed — and horrified — by how the three Geeks had mutilated their own flesh with implanted systems. One of them was little more than a brain in a jar, mounted on top of a vaguely humanoid robot; the others had replaced parts of their flesh with weapons or tools. They clicked and whirred as they spoke. “The new workers are very enthusiastic.”
“Good,” Hester said. Her whispery voice wasn’t much better, a living reminder of the Empire’s brutality. “I trust that Captain Cordova will also be pleased when he awakens…?”
Cordova looked up as Hannelore elbowed him. Unlike Admiral Walker, Cordova made no pretence of enjoying the meeting, although Hannelore was certain that he was listening and mentally recording everything in his mind. He looked half-asleep, his eyelids closed and his elbows on the table. The Geeks didn’t seem concerned about the rudeness — they had no real social graces themselves — but some of the other rebels looked put out. Cordova was, after all, the designated military commander in the absence of Admiral Walker.
“I have no doubt that improving our stockpile of missiles and other weapons systems will be very useful,” Cordova said. He didn’t sound tired, which at least suggested that it had been an act, rather than a serious refusal to pay attention. “I provisionally approve your plans, with a warning that Admiral Walker may have other ideas.”
The Geeks didn’t seem to mind. “We have been studying warship design for centuries,” their leader said. Hannelore had never been able to figure out how they’d chosen their leader, or even how they conducted themselves when away from more normal humans. It was possible, she supposed, that they were real party animals on their own, but she doubted it. They seemed to veer permanently between being loners and seeking the respect and admiration of their fellows. “We can improve upon many of the Empire’s current designs.”
“Any Chief Engineer who actually earned his position could do that,” Cordova said. He seemed fully alert now. “I am reluctant to take untested designs into combat and I suspect that Admiral Walker will feel the same way. A design more complex than the arsenal ships may well have unsuspected flaws.”
“Simulation is not reality,” the lead Geek said. The other two nodded in unison. The effect was almost hypnotic. “We will test the designs thoroughly before we start mass production. Once mass production had begun, we will be producing new units at a speed considerably greater than the Imperial Navy’s shipyards.”
Hannelore sat up sharply as the Geek’s words echoed in her mind. “The Imperial Navy’s construction process is deliberately inefficient,” the Geeks said, flatly. “Their senior officers accept bribes in order to source components. Workers are taught the minimum they need for their work and nothing else, nor are they encouraged to offer suggestions or thoughts, even ones that might boost profits. Our construction process will not suffer from those problems. With the addition of the supplies from the Annual Fleet, we will be able to expand production quite rapidly.”
One of the rebels Hannelore didn’t know leaned forward. “If that is true,” he said, “couldn’t we just withdraw and wait to build up our attack fleet? How long would it take to put together a fleet that would be a significant challenge to the entire Imperial Navy?”
“Twenty-seven years,” a Geek said.
Hester shook her head. “By then, the Empire will have started its own construction program,” she warned. “They know now that their precautions are… insufficient to prevent us from operating almost at will and they will take corrective measures. How long would it take for us to build up a significant challenge if the Empire is aware of our threat and enters the race?”
“Uncertain,” another Geek said. “The Empire’s very structure makes it difficult for them to expand or improve production on a massive scale. Assuming that they push their own rules and regulations aside — and that they start educating commoners, which adds its own risks — they would be able to start a massive expansion program within three to four years. Once they were underway, they could just keep going; bear in mind that their starting point is considerably in advance of our own. We might not be able to out-produce them at all.”