“Good morning, My Lady,” Colin said, mockingly. The years seemed to fade away and he remembered being younger, sitting in Admiral Percival’s quarters and hearing her contempt and distaste for the common-born Lieutenant. It should have warned him, yet even though his ears had burned with humiliation and determination to prove himself, he hadn’t realised how reluctant Percival had been to confront her. She might have been his subordinate, but which one of them was truly the patron? “I trust that you had a pleasant sleep?”
Stacy stared at him. He had wondered if she was going to give him one of her famous tantrums, but she seemed to have more self-control than that. Or perhaps she was just stunned. Her entire universe had turned upside down.
“I could have killed you,” Colin continued. “God knows I wanted to kill you, for everything you’ve done over the years. I spared your life for one reason and one reason only. I want you to take a message back to Admiral Percival at Camelot.”
“I can’t go back,” Stacy said. Her voice was raw, as if she’d been crying. Colin had left her in the care of a pair of armoured Marines, who had orders to keep an eye on her, but not to offer her any help unless she asked for it. He hadn’t asked for a report on what she’d done since she’d recovered from the stun bolt. “My family…”
Colin felt no pity, even though she looked young and innocent. She had used the power of the Roosevelt Family to get whatever she wanted from life, be it a genetically-engineered boy-toy or command of an entire superdreadnaught squadron. Now that power would turn on her… although he doubted that they would kill her, or disinherit her. It wouldn’t do for the commoners to see the Thousand Families turning on one of their number. It might give them ideas.
“The alternative is worse, trust me on that,” Colin said, dryly. “You can’t stay here. If you refuse to go back and give them my message, you will be sold into slavery somewhere along the Rim. We’ll remove your indent and anything you could use to prove that you are who you are, leaving you trapped forever. Do you still want to stay?”
Stacy shook her head with an audible gulp. “No,” she said. “Please…”
“The message will be on a datachip for Admiral Percival’s eyes only,” Colin continued. He was tempted to insist that she called him sir, but that would have only been a distraction. “You and the loyalists will be sent back on a transport ship. Once you arrive, the ship’s controls will be unlocked and you will be able to steer her into dock. You can give him the message and then… do whatever the hell you want.”
He looked up at the Marines. “Take her to the transport,” he said, tightly. Stacy’s eyes widened as she realised that she was being dismissed. “Put her onboard with the others…”
“Wait,” Stacy said, desperately. “I can give you anything you want…”
“I’m afraid that it’s too late for that,” Colin said. Quite apart from the fact that over two hundred thousand people were now depending on him to keep them alive and free, there was no way he could trust her. She would betray him as soon as she could and laugh afterwards, once she was safety back with her family. “Goodbye, Stacy; God grant we will never meet again.”
He watched the Marines drag her out and then keyed his wristcom, issuing orders for the prisoner transfer. Stacy might have failed to bribe him, but she could offer everything, up to and including a whole planet, and someone less responsible might be tempted. Anderson would see to it that she was sedated until the transport pulled out of orbit and flickered back towards Camelot. She could wake up then for the trip. She’d hate spending the time in close quarters, with hundreds of commoners for company, but it wouldn’t kill her.
Colin shook his head and turned back to the near-orbit display. The nine captured superdreadnaughts hung together, work crews scrambling to outfit them with external racks and load the racks with missiles. By Colin’s most conservative estimate, they had at least two more days before they had to depart in order to make the rendezvous with the Annual Fleet, but they’d need the time to shake down the crews and get back up into fighting trim. They’d moved too many crewmen around the fleet for them all to fall together without heavy drilling.
A handful of other icons remained dark red, mocking him. The heavy troop transports, loaded with enough Blackshirts to conquer and occupy an entire planet — at least if backed up by orbital fire, as the Marines had pointed out — represented a major problem. Colin had ordered the Blackshirts back into stasis, where they could wait until the heat death of the universe if necessary, but he had no idea what he could do with them. He didn’t want to commit mass slaughter by opening the ships to space and suffocating the soldiers, yet he didn’t want to return them to Admiral Percival or keep them prisoner 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!