Free Democracy 1: Democracy's Right by Christopher Nuttall Page A

himself.  Where could he put them all?  It would be easy to leave them on the ships, but then he wouldn't have the ships for later use himself.
     
    He glanced up as the door chimes rang and keyed the switch.  The hatch hissed open to reveal Daria, with Mariko following right behind her.  Colin got to his feet and held out his hand, but Daria surprised him with a hug, throwing her arms around him and holding him tightly.  Mariko, as always, was more dignified, but Colin was sure that he saw a glint of amusement in her eyes.
     
    “You did it,” Daria said, without letting go of him.  “You actually did it!”
     
    “I did,” Colin said, gently disentangling himself from her arms.  It had been a long time since he had been held by anyone, but he didn't have the time to think of a woman.  He hadn't even patronised the brothels down on the planet below.  “Nine superdreadnaughts...a force that will make even Admiral Percival sit up and take notice.”
     
    Daria frowned as she threw herself into one of the seats.  “And how long will it be until he gets reinforcements?”
     
    Colin shrugged.  “If I know Percival,” he said, “it will be a long time before he even asks for reinforcements.  The Imperial Navy wouldn't look kindly on him for losing the ships in the first place and if he needed to ask for help...well, it would look very bad on his record.  Even if he receives no formal punishment for his stupidity, his career will be frozen, unable to progress any further.  His patrons will desert him and his clients will start heading away.”
     
    He grinned.  “And even if they do send him reinforcements, it will take them time to send additional superdreadnaughts into the sector, and even then it will be hard for them to find us, let alone bring us to battle,” he added.  He nodded towards the star chart, which was displaying an expanding sphere where his fleet could be, a sphere already over fifty light years in diameter.  The entire Imperial Navy could hide within that region of space and be completely undetectable.  “As long as we don’t get careless...”
     
    “And I’m sure that carelessness is not a trait one would apply to you,” Daria agreed, dryly.  “I’ll start making the preparations with the Geeks and Nerds.”
     
    Colin nodded.  It had taken several years to build up the contacts with the various hidden colonies and organisations beyond the Rim, a task that would have been impossible without Daria and the Freebooter League.  The Empire had literally billions of enemies, but without a focus they had been unable to pose more than a minor threat at best, one that could be safely ignored by the Thousand Families.  He looked up at the superdreadnaughts and smiled.  There was no way they could ignore that threat, once Admiral Percival deigned to tell them that it existed, and combined with the Annual Fleet...well!
     
    “You go there and get them ready to receive us,” Colin said.  “We’ll take the fleet and come meet you at the rendezvous point.”
     
    He turned back to the display.  “One additional point,” he added.  “Do you know what we can do with five hundred thousand prisoners?  We have to put the Blackshirts somewhere.”
     
    Daria considered it.  “Kill them all and the universe would smell a little better,” she said, darkly.  “There isn't a single person along the Rim who would condemn you for killing them, not even slightly.”
     
    “I don’t want to start with a mass slaughter,” Colin explained.  “We’re going to have to start accepting surrenders and that won’t be easy if they think they’re just going to be killed out of hand.”
     
    “They’ll probably wind up thinking that anyway,” Daria pointed out.  “Public Information will turn you into a mass murderer without any bother at all.  They’ll start claiming that you have slaughtered the entire crew and replaced them with pirates drawn from a Rogue World – or