by David Drake
Rene was a clever young man, and he learned quickly.
The orbiting ship was . . . “Daniel, the unfamiliar vessel is the freighter Moore County out of Rodham,” Adele said. She’d keyed the command channel manually, which meant she should’ve called him Captain; or perhaps Admiral? Well, they all knew that she’d meant no disrespect; and she was in a hurry. “It’s just lifted with a cargo of holographic entertainment centers from Mine Compound 73, which appears to be the trading rendezvous on Dodd’s Throne. It’s not a guardship, and there doesn’t appear to be a guardship. Over!”
“Acknowledged, Signals,” Daniel’s voice said coolly. “Over.”
She’d put too much emphasis on “over” because she was embarrassed at calling Daniel by his name in public. Will I never get it right?
Another ship appeared, the Generalissima DeMarce. Blantyre was nearly a minute behind schedule, but she’d brought her charge even closer than the 21,000 miles above the planet where Daniel had extracted the Ladouceur.
Adele’s wands assembled and analyzed data from Dodd’s Throne, then collated the results and transmitted them as a text block to Daniel’s display. “Captain,” she said, “there are six Bagarian ships on the ground at MC 73, which I’ve highlighted. They’re exchanging cargo with two Pleasaunce-registered ships, the Vieux Carree and Babanguida. The Alliance ships each have two single 10-cm guns, but they don’t appear to be manned at present, over.”
“Roger, Signals,” said Daniel. He didn’t sound excited, but Adele heard a quiver of hopeful enthusiasm in those few syllables. Perhaps she imagined it. “Connect me with our squadron mates, over.”
“You’re connected, Captain,” Adele said, trying to keep her voice free of the irritation she felt at being asked to do something she’d set up within seconds of extraction. And within seconds of the DeMarce’s extraction, of course, but that delay wasn’t her fault.
She’d chosen the 20-meter short-wave frequency rather than laser or microwave links. SW transmissions were easy to intercept, but Adele didn’t trust the personnel or equipment of the converted merchantmen to pick up the tight-beam communications she preferred.
“Squadron, this is Squadron Six,” Daniel said. “The pair of 5,000-ton freighters on the planet below—”
He transmitted a map file marked with the location of MC 73. He hadn’t bothered to ask Adele to create it for him as some captains might’ve done.
“—are Alliance-owned and therefore legitimate prizes. I want both of you to take your ships down, secure the enemy vessels, and put prize crews aboard. There shouldn’t be any need for violence since we’ve caught them without hope of escape. Remember, this is about making us all rich, not about killing people. Do you understand, over?”
While she gave Daniel her partial attention, Adele monitored communications among the merchant vessels. None of them—including the Moore County—seemed to have the slightest awareness, let alone concern, regarding the warships’ arrival.
“I bloody well won’t be doing that, Leary!” Seward snapped back immediately. “There’s no proper harbor down there, just bare rock that’s bound to be irregular. It’s not safe for a ship the size of the DeMarce. And just what do you propose to do while we’re on the ground, can you tell me that, over?”
“The Ladouceur will be in orbit making sure no one surprises us on the ground the way we’re about to surprise the Vieux Carree and Babanguida,” Daniel said. He sounded calm, almost bored. “Break. Captain Hoppler, do you see your way clear to obeying orders, over?”
The blue glint of the Independence’s High Drive brightened, dragging a hiss across the short-wave spectrum. “Why yes, of course, Admiral,” Andreas Hoppler said with studied nonchalance. “Newbern is a real planet, not a spherical soup bowl like Kostroma where my colleague comes from. I’m used to landing on solid ground. I’m setting down now. Guard us well, Admiral. Hoppler out.”
“Squadron Six, this is DeMarce Five,” announced Midshipman Blantyre, who’d presumably awarded herself the first lieutenant’s call sign according to RCN protocol. “I’m ready and willing to bring her in, sir. As you know, I’ve got hard-surface experience, over.”
Is that true? Adele thought. She started to bring Blantyre’s record up as a sidebar on her display, then realized that written documentation wouldn’t go into that level of detail. Besides, Blantyre’d said that Daniel knew she had experience. If that’d been true in any meaningful sense, Adele would’ve known it too.
Blantyre was therefore not telling the truth. She was, in fact, lying in order to deceive Captain Seward, who’d otherwise obstruct Daniel’s wishes. Adele supposed she ought to feel good about what Blantyre was doing, since it was bringing about a good result; the dishonesty still made her lip curl.
A smile softened what’d been a sneer of disgust. Her way of dealing with Seward would’ve been to offer to shoot him dead at his console if he didn’t carry out Daniel’s orders. Most people—Tovera was an exception—would agree that Blantyre’s technique was preferable, and Adele decided that she would join the majority.
“Yes, all right, DeMarce Five,” Daniel said blandly. “Captain Seward, Lieutenant Blantyre will land the vessel in the interests of safety if you like. Command will revert to you when you’re on the ground, over.”
“I’ll land the bloody ship, Leary!” Seward said. His High Drive already glared with braking thrust. “I don’t need a brat who’s still got her milk teeth to pilot my ship for me. But I want you to know that it’s dangerous—though not for you up in orbit, of course! DeMarce out!”
Adele kept real-time inserts of the Ladouceur’s companions on the upper register of her display. The Independence was already deep in the atmosphere. Even without expanding the image of Hoppler’s ship, she could see it was wrapped in a shroud of rainbow ions as its plasma thrusters took over from its High Drive.
“Adele, can you connect me with the ships on the ground?” Daniel asked quietly over a two-way link. “I want to warn them not to resist, over.”
“Yes, of course,” Adele said, adjusting her wands almost without thinking about it. “I can’t guarantee that anybody will be manning the signals suite, of course, but if we use the 17-meter emergency frequency it should trip the ships’ intercom circuits also. That should rouse somebody.”
She tried to expand Daniel’s real-time image on her display. Her attempt failed, though she wasn’t sure if it was a problem with the command—she was using her personal data unit as an input device, as usual—or if the console she was using had a malfunction. Instead, she looked at Daniel directly.
Though the Ladouceur wasn’t large even for its class, a cruiser’s bridge was still far more spacious than that of the Princess Cecile. The command console sat in the middle of the circular compartment; by rotating on its axis, the captain could face any quarter. Eight junior positions surrounded it with the primary operator’s back to the bulkhead. Because Adele’s display was live, she leaned to the side to look past. It took her a little aback to see that Daniel was staring directly at her already.
“Daniel,” she said, still using the link. The buzz of the High Drive and the whir/skree/clank of the various systems operating within the cruiser’s steel hull made it impractical to talk unaided, even when both parties were in the same compartment. “Would it really be safe for Blantyre to land on rock? That is a dangerous business, isn’t it?”
Daniel shrugged. “It could have its moments,” he said. “Thrust reflected between a solid surface and the hull can set up a standing wave if you’re not careful. But there’s eight ships on the ground now, Adele, and I don’t believe that the Bagarian Cluster is that thick with master pilots.”
He cleared his throat and grinned. “I’m just as pleased that Seward decided to take over the job himself, though. All Blantyre’s experience has been on simulators, and those were emulating the Sissie. A 5,000-ton freighter is quite different—and I’m afraid much more different than Blantyre would realize until she started down
.”
Adele nodded in understanding. It hadn’t been a bluff, exactly—Blantyre really would’ve tried to bring the DeMarce in. It might’ve been suicidally dangerous, but that was regularly a part of being an RCN officer.
“We’ll be coming out of the shadow of the planet in ninety seconds,” she said. “You’ll be able speak to the ships on the ground, then. Dodd’s Throne doesn’t have a system of communications satellites, and though I could’ve used the Moore County as a transponder—”
She smiled slightly. She was making what was for her a joke.
“—I didn’t think that was necessary.”
“Quite right,” agreed Daniel; dryly, she thought. “Break. This is the IBS Ladouceur. Merchant vessels at Mine Compound 73, do not attempt to lift. Warships and troops of the Independent Republic of Bagaria have taken control of the planet. Bagarian registry ships will be examined and released, but the Babanguida and Vieux Carree will be taken to Pelosi for condemnation by a prize court.”
Daniel took a deep breath; his first since he began speaking, Adele thought. In a firm, coolly distant voice he added, “Vieux Carree, shut down your plasma thrusters. If you lift off the ground, you will be infallibly destroyed either by the ships landing at Compound 73 or by the vessels waiting in orbit. Spacers, I’m Commander Daniel Leary of the RCN, and I assure you that you will not escape me! Over.”
Adele didn’t recall hearing Daniel boast except when he did it for effect. That included the effect his heroism had on foolish young women, of course, but she supposed that was pardonable. A rational survival plan for the human species would certainly involve spreading the genes of warriors like Daniel Leary as widely as possible.
She grinned, then made a series of quick commands that burped further information to the Alliance vessels. It wasn’t anything she’d planned to do, but she had the clips in her data unit and it seemed a suitable time to disseminate them.
“Captain,” Adele said. “I transmitted excerpts from The Conquest of Dunbar’s World to the ships on the surface. I thought it might add point to your threat.”
“Bloody Hell, Signals,” Daniel said, but he chuckled. “They’ll think I’m a posturing idiot, over.”
“Yes sir,” said Cory unexpectedly from the Battle Direction Center. Adele had keyed the command channel rather than a two-way link. “But a very handsome one, sir. Five out.”
He has a sense of humor, Adele thought. Of course Cory might always’ve had a sense of humor, but when he first met Lieutenant Leary aboard the tender Hermes he wouldn’t’ve had the calm courage to joke in the midst of a tense situation. Daniel might not’ve been able to make Cory an astrogator, but he had made the boy a man.
Daniel cleared his throat. “Ship, this is Six,” he said. Borries looked at him, but Sun, the only other junior officer on the bridge besides Adele, continued to stare at his display. The gunner seemed to be willing a target to approach so that he could blast it.
“The situation on the ground appears to have settled out peaceably, as it should’ve done,” Daniel continued. “The two Alliance prizes’ve shut down their thrusters and’re waiting to be boarded. Our companion vessels have landed and will take charge of them momentarily. When they’ve all lifted to orbit, we’ll set a course back to Pelosi. You’re heroes, fellow spacers, and don’t think the folks in Morning Harbor won’t know it! Six out.”
“Squadron Six, this is Independence Five,” said Vesey. “Emergency, emergency. The crews—the non-RCN spacers—are out of control and are looting ships. Repeat, they’re looting the ships, the country craft as well as the prizes. Over!”
She was speaking through a laser communicator. The high pitch of her voice might’ve been an artifact of transmission, but the words rattled out faster than Vesey ordinarily spoke.
Adele was filtering the cruiser’s internal chatter away from Daniel. She’d set outside calls to appear as a text crawl on his display. She highlighted this one in red, then copied Daniel as she replied, “Independence Five, this is Squadron. Hold for the Captain.”
“Vesey, this is Six,” said Daniel. “How many men can you dispose, over?”
“Only the twenty-five I brought with me, sir,” Vesey replied, audibly calmer just for the fact of a reply. “And we don’t have sidearms. Blantyre’s probably the same. The crews are completely out of control, and the Bagarian officers are bloody useless! Over.”
“All right, Vesey,” Daniel said. His fingers stabbed buttons, setting up equations on a pilotry screen. “Hold what you’ve got. If they won’t listen to spoken orders, then we’ll provide them with something they will listen to. Break, Woetjans? Prepare as large a party as you can trust for dismounted action. Over.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said the big bosun cheerfully. She and her riggers were all aboard, though some of them still wore the rigging suits they’d need when the Ladouceur set course for home. “What can you expect from wogs, hey? Rig out.”
“Ship,” Daniel resumed. “We’ll begin our landing approach in thirty, that’s three-zero, seconds. We’re going to take charge of the situation on the ground. Six out.”
Tovera was sitting at the station next to Adele’s, unused because the Ladouceur was so badly undercrewed. She took her little sub-machine gun from its case and slipped it into a shoulder holster, then looked at Rene on the jump seat of Adele’s console.
“How good a shot are you, boy?” she asked.
“Mistress?” said Rene, straightening and trying to keep his face expressionless. “I’ve never used a gun.”
He flashed a glance toward Adele, but she remained silent.
“Then you’ll have to get close, won’t you?” Tovera said. She giggled. “All right, boy. Stay with me, and I’ll make sure you get close.”
The roar of the thrusters cut off any further discussion.
MINING COMPOUND 73 ON DODD’S THRONE
Daniel wasn’t worried about landing in the sense of being able to get the Ladouceur safely onto the ground, but that was only half his problem: to succeed he also had to get his people out of the ship. That was going to be very difficult if the plasma thrusters had heated the rock directly beneath the ship white hot.
He’d much rather have been doing this in the Sissie, but he wasn’t and it still had to be done. And bloody hell, he didn’t want to do it in the Sissie either.
“Ship, hang on!” he warned. “This is going to be rough!”
Instead of bringing the Ladouceur down perpendicular to the surface, Daniel angled two of his eighteen thrusters—One and Nine, the end units on the port side—outboard to induce a slight drift. That in itself wouldn’t be enough to do what he wanted, but it meant that he wouldn’t have to overcome the resting inertia of thirty-eight hundred tons and change. The nozzles were flared at between seventy-three and seventy-six percent open, greatly reducing their efficiency.
An instant before the cruiser touched, Daniel irised the petals tight in the same motion that he slammed the throttles closed. The reaction mass already in the feed lines continued to flow for a fraction of a second, lifting the ship momentarily as she continued to edge sideways. The bow of the starboard outrigger touched, shrieking like a damned soul. It sprayed a roostertail of white sparks.
The Ladouceur landed flat, banging and rattling. Like a ton of old iron, Daniel thought, but it was thousands of tons—and they’d landed, safely if not gracefully.
The oleo struts hadn’t collapsed. They’d scraped a hole in the starboard outrigger beyond question and the impact might’ve started seams as well, but the very worst that could mean was that the ship started to sink when they landed in Morning Harbor.
After Daniel took control of matters on the ground, they’d check on the damage, then repair what they could. If quick repairs wouldn’t do the job, well, they’d land on firm ground when they returned to Pelosi and sort out the problem at leisure.
But the first order of business was to take charge here.
The Ladouceur had entry hatches on both
sides, offset toward bow and stern opposite the 4-inch turrets. Daniel switched only the starboard hatch to open, then remembered to wait an interminable thirty seconds to make sure that it did start to open. He’d brought them down bloody hard, and the usual cushion of water hadn’t been there to spare the plates from torquing.
The dogs withdrew with ringing clangs; hydraulic rams whined as they extended, driving the hatch outward to become a boarding ramp. Once the process was started, there wouldn’t be a problem that Woetjans and an emergency crew with jacks and sledges couldn’t cure.
Daniel rose from his console. Hogg had slung a stocked impeller and was offering a sub-machine gun; Daniel took it without comment. The weapons were a necessary part of the business. He didn’t want a fight, but he knew that when the forces of order arrived heavily armed, the forces of chaos were more likely to choose the peaceful option.
“Six to Ship,” he said. For now his commo helmet was able to transmit through the cruiser’s PA system; he heard his words echoing from the A Deck corridor and the compartments opening onto it. “Those of you in the landing party, obey your section leaders. Don’t shoot unless Woetjans or I order you to, not even if you’re shot at. Lieutenant Cory commands during my absense. For those of you remaining aboard, be ready for anything, but don’t start it. Sun—”
The gunner’s mate, now gunnery officer, was controlling all the guns himself. He’d cranked the 6-inch turret back over the Ladouceur’s stern quarter to bear on the Sacred Independence, while the lateral turrets were aimed at the Generalissima DeMarce a quarter mile off the cruiser’s bow.
If the guns fired on their present bearings, they’d toast half the Ladouceur’s rigging and maybe even damage her hull. Which didn’t mean Sun was bluffing, of course.
“—I particularly mean you. Do not fire unless I personally tell you to. Now, Sissies, let’s get moving! Six out.”
Adele was starting for the hatch, looking, well, dissociated. Beside her were Tovera and the Cazelet boy; Tovera had found full-sized sub-machine guns for both of them, while her small personal weapon hung in a shoulder holster.
