When the Tide Rises

by David Drake

  “You can’t resign,” said Lampert. He straightened on the bench and his voice grew stronger with each word. “You were dismissed. You’re a pirate!”

  The Minister was wearing clothing from the ship’s stores, a coarse tunic and trousers with soft-soled boots. The dress uniform he’d boarded in was unsuitable for general use, even if it hadn’t been soaked in blood and other matter when authority was transferred back to Daniel. Spacers’ slops were unflattering garments at best, but Lampert looked like a burlap sack half-filled with beans.

  “Well, that’s one for the lawyers, I suppose, Your Excellency,” Daniel said with a bright smile. “In any case, the Ladouceur will be in your hands, yours and Captain Seward’s, just as soon as the last of the prizes have lifted. I brought those crews into the situation, so I feel responsible until they’ve gotten out again. Then I’ll leave with my cadre, the Cinnabar contingent—”

  He’d almost said “my Sissies.” The Bagarians might’ve misunderstood.

  “—on another captured freighter. I wish you and the Bagarian Republic all deserved fortune.” Daniel coughed, then added, “I programmed a course back to Pelosi by way of the Heart Stars, Captain, but that was just a courtesy. I have no desire to influence your actions after the moment I relinquish control.”

  “Sir,” said Blantyre, “Duncan’s closed up the Cimmerian Queen. They’ll be lifting in five.”

  “Ten, I suspect, Blantyre,” Daniel said with a grin, “but I like to see optimism in my officers.”

  His face hardened, though his cheerful smile remained. He looked from Seward to Lampert.

  “Captain, Your Excellency?” he said. “I told you that I don’t wish to influence your actions. I think I should mention, though, that while I’ll be leaving the Ladouceur’s guns in fully operable condition, it might be better if no one goes near that console until after my cadre and I have lifted on the Agave. You see, if there were an accident, well. . . . The Princess Cecile’s in orbit and Captain Vesey—for all her other virtues—is notoriously without a sense of humor.”

  Daniel gestured to Seward. “Captain,” he said, “you might want to explain to His Excellency precisely what it means to try to climb out of a gravity well with a hostile vessel in orbit above you.”

  Seward scowled. “Just leave, Leary,” he said. “Nobody’s asking more than that. Just leave.”

  “Quite,” said Daniel, nodding. “I regret that matters didn’t work out better between us, and I certainly understand your attitude. But one thing, Captain?”

  He cleared his throat, then dipped his left index finger toward the imagery on Seward’s display. It’d cycled around to the Siegfried’s fusion bottle venting again.

  “You’ll recall your guard ship ignoring the Princess Cecile when we arrived above Pelosi,” Daniel said. “Your colleague Captain Hoppler said something to the effect that the corvette was too small to be of concern, even if she’d been hostile. I led the way here in the Ladouceur because she was already in the Alliance books with her authentications in place, but I assure you that the Sissie’s two missiles per salvo would’ve been quite sufficient to eliminate any guardship. They certainly would’ve eliminated a converted transport like the Independence.”

  Seward glowered. Daniel smiled more broadly and said, “A word to the wise, is all.”

  “Sir,” said Blantyre with a touch of urgency. “The Cimmerian’s running up her thrusters and they all read in the green.”

  “Thank you, Blantyre,” said Daniel. “Inform the bridge crew that we’re transferring to the Agave immediately, and inform the Agave that we’re coming.”

  “Done, Six!” said Shearman, rising from the console.

  “Then let’s move, Sissies!” Daniel said, striding toward the hatch. He glanced over his shoulder and added, “Your Excellency? I wish the best of luck to you and the Cluster, but you’re in a real war now. If you ever forget that, it will go very badly for you all.”

  “It’d be kinder for me to shoot them now than leave them for the Guarantor’s amusement,” Tovera murmured as she followed Daniel out of the BDC. “Besides, I’d like to do it.”

  The bridge party was on its way down the corridor from the other direction. Sun led, and Hogg was chivying along Adele and the civilian.

  “I’m sure both those things are true, mistress,” Daniel said. “Just the same, we’re going to leave matters in the hands of the parties involved. Sometimes they’ll surprise you in a good way.”

  But not this time, Daniel thought. Not Lampert and Seward. But he’d still leave it to them.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ONE LIGHT-HOUR TO THE SOLAR NORTH OF JEWEL

  “Admiral Guphill’s exercising his squadron off Zmargadine,” said Daniel as he viewed the Jewel System on the Sissie’s command console. The volume of space involved meant that even a gas giant like Zmargadine was an icon rather than a scaled image. “The ability to do that may be a bigger advantage to the Alliance than the numbers are, over.”

  He was speaking on the command channel so that all the commissioned and senior warrant officers could hear, but it was basically a tutorial for the midshipmen.

  With the exception of Vesey, the others on the push didn’t know or care about fleet tactics, and Vesey already knew this lesson.

  Adele was listening also, in fact if not by right. When Daniel came to think, he realized that she might be interested in knowing simply because it was knowledge. Adele was less likely to be directing a fleet in battle than even Woetjans was, but if it ever happened she’d already know the theory.

  Daniel shrank his field of observation by orders of magnitude. The Alliance ships became beads with three-letter designators: PLE and FOR for the battleships Pleasaunce and Formentera, with similar abbreviations for the fourteen lesser vessels exercising with them. They were several light-minutes from Zmargadine, using the bulk of the giant planet to conceal their activities from observers on Diamondia. As Daniel watched—more accurately, an hour before Daniel’s observation—the squadron vanished raggedly into the Matrix.

  Daniel expanded his field of observation again, but for the time being he couldn’t tell where the Alliance ships had gone. Guphill had probably taken them out in a wide sweep, making several doglegs a few light-days out from their base. The exercise would keep his crews sharp, and Admiral James’ squadron wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the brief Alliance absence. By the time the data’d been recorded and analyzed on Diamondia, Guphill’s ships would’ve returned.

  A pair of Alliance destroyers cruised in powered orbits at a comfortable distance from Diamondia while the minesweeping flotilla ground inexorably away at the planetary defense array. Nothing had changed there since the Princess Cecile lifted for Pelosi, except that there were fewer mines. The deterioration wasn’t significant yet, but its slope led inexorably toward the capture of Diamondia by Alliance forces.

  Daniel shrank his field of view again, this time focusing on Zmargadine, its rings, and its dozen moons. The Alliance base was on Z3, an ice moon with standard gravity and easily obtained reaction mass for the squadron. It was at present on the opposite side of its primary from Diamondia, so RCN observers there couldn’t tell when ships lifted or set down.

  “Signals,” Daniel said. He considered shifting to a two-way link with Adele but decided this was legitimately business for the whole command group. “Do you have equipment which would punch a laser signal from Zmargadine’s rings back to Diamondia? That is, equipment that could be used from an escape capsule, over?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Adele with her usual disregard for protocol. Perhaps she felt that the question touched her professional abilities. The Mundys of Chatsworth were—Daniel grinned—notably punctilious of their honor. “For it to work from a capsule, I’d have to operate it myself, though. What do you want me to do? Over.”

  “Signals, I can’t afford to lose you from the Sissie’s complement,” Daniel said, nailing down the important part of the exchange first. �
��I’d like to put an observer in Zmargadine orbit, though. A capsule with everything but basic life support shut down could hide in the rings for months. That’d give us detailed information on how Admiral Guphill reacts when he gets orders from Pleasaunce.”

  He cleared his throat without closing, then said, “Might Cory be able to handle the equipment, over?”

  “No,” said Adele. The edge was certainly there this time. “I told you, I’d have to do it myself.”

  “Mistress, I’d try, over,” said Cory quickly.

  “Yes, of course you’d try,” Adele snapped. “And I’d try to land a starship if I had to. But I’d fail and you’d fail at this, Cory, so stop making a fool of yourself!”

  “Officer Mundy,” a new voice said with a hint of tremolo. “This is Cazelet. I can keep the laser head manually aligned with Diamondia. Ah—what I can’t do, though, is maneuver the escape capsule. I have some basic shiphandling, but keeping station and a line of sight to Diamondia within a ring system is realistically beyond me. If Midshipman Cory can pilot the capsule, though, I don’t see a problem, over.”

  “Bloody Hell, Cazelet, this is the Princess Cecile!” Daniel said. “Half the crew can plotz about in Zmargadine’s rings without dinging anything badly. Woetjans, take care of it! Over.”

  “Roger, Six,” said the bosun. She’d lost twenty pounds while hooked to the Medicomp, but her voice was strong and she’d made it clear that she was still the Sissie’s bosun. “And it’s more’n half I’d say. All my riggers anyhow, over.”

  “Officer Mundy,” Daniel said. “Do you agree with the plan, over?”

  There was a pause. Then Adele said, “Yes, I suppose I do. I . . . can vouch for Master Cazelet’s skill with the equipment. Ah, over.”

  “Very good, then,” said Daniel, feeling his cheeks crinkle with the breadth of his grin. By all the Gods, he had a crew here! And Cazelet too, it seemed: as surely as Hogg and Tovera were Sissies, so was this boy of Adele’s. “Break. Ship, this is Six. We’ll be making a quick side jaunt into Zmargadine orbit to discharge cargo, then jumping straight to Diamondia since we’ve already got the codes for the defense array this time. It’ll be a little hairy, fellow spacers, but nothing to us Sissies, right? Six out!”

  He started programming the short insertion that’d take the Princess Cecile into the third of Zmargadine’s four belts of debris. It was the sort of maneuver that’d make most spacers blanch.

  But as the cheers he’d deliberately provoked rang through the corvette’s compartments, Daniel grinned. What he’d said was the truth, after all: it wasn’t an unusual task for the crew of the Princess Cecile.

  * * *

  “Mistress Mundy . . . ?” said Cory over a two-way link. “Ah, this is Cory, mistress. Ah. I’m watching the sensor display. If you’d like to see your, ah, assistant off, I’m . . . well, I’m watching the sensors. And we won’t be in normal space long, over.”

  Adele frowned. The fact that Cory’d asked meant he thought it was what she should do. Rene had, after all, taken on a task that was rightly hers. The capsule would be quite uncomfortable, not that a corvette was a luxury liner either, and the job was dangerous.

  Likewise staying aboard the Princess Cecile was dangerous, of course. Still.

  “All right, Cory, thank you,” Adele said. She rose from her console. Over the command channel she continued, “Commander Leary, I’m going down to the missile bay to see Cazelet before he, ah, leaves. If that’s all right? Mister Cory will be on the board in my absence.”

  “Roger, Signals,” said Daniel, turning his head from his display to look at her directly. “We’ll be extracting from the Matrix in eight minutes, forty seconds. Over.”

  Tovera led the way off the bridge; she’d been listening to the exchange. Tovera’s technical skills didn’t permit her to circumvent the software blocks that protected Adele’s console, but she’d put a transponder under the fascia which rebroadcast to her all conversations. Adele was aware of the bug, of course, but there was no reason Tovera shouldn’t have complete access to her conversations.

  The missile bays were on D Deck but well forward, so when Adele stepped into the corridor she had only a short further walk to the double-width hatch. Her footsteps and those of Tovera continued to whisper up and down the armored companionway like distant surf.

  Inside the bay, the squat, blunt-nosed cylinder of an escape capsule waited to be inserted in the launch tube. The hatch was open, but Rene and the spacer who’d do the shiphandling were already aboard. Beside it stood Chief Missileer Borries, three technicians from his section, and to Adele’s amazement Woetjans and Lieutenant Vesey.

  Both rigging watches were on the hull, poised to react if anything malfunctioned while the corvette maneuvered in the Matrix. The two short transits that remained—into Zmargadine’s ring system and from there into the planetary defense array protecting Diamondia—both required a great deal of precision. Adele’d expected Woetjans to be out with her riggers.

  The bosun must’ve understood Adele’s blink of startlement because she replied with an embarrassed smile. “Mistress,” Woetjans said, “Six said Riley and Harrison’d do on the hull between them, but he wanted me to make sure the capsule gets away clean. Maybe he thinks there’s still a stitch in my side from the slugs but, well, that’s not what he said.”

  “Commander Leary’s generally correct,” Adele said coolly. Certainly he’s right about Woetjans not straining herself on the hull in her present condition, though of course she didn’t say that aloud. “I’m glad you and Officer Borries are both here.”

  Which left the question of what in heaven Vesey was doing in the missile bay instead of being in the BDC. Vesey flushed, but instead of answering the obvious question, she said, “Officer Mundy, I didn’t know you’d be seeing Master Cazelet off.”

  “Cory said he’d handle the signals duties,” Adele said. Vesey’s non sequitur seemed to require some sort of response, but the whole situation was baffling. “We’ll only be in this location for a matter of minutes, after all. I can examine any new data while we’re in the Matrix again.”

  “Mistress Mundy, I’m honored!” Rene said as he stuck his torso through the low-fitted hatch. He was wearing an air suit with the helmet off for the present. Escape capsules—Adele’d been transported in one above Kostroma—were pressurized, but they were so flimsy that passengers were safer wearing suits despite the discomfort that entailed.

  “You’re satisfied with the installation, then?” Adele said, kneeling so that she and Cazelet could look at one another without contortions on his part. She resisted an impulse to frown. What did the boy think she’d done to honor him or anyone else?

  “Yes, mistress,” he said. He stuck his arm outside and gestured toward the bow. “The antenna’s welded on a stub mast to the nose. It’d be a problem in an atmosphere, but we won’t be in one. And the controls—”

  Rene backed so that Adele could see through the small hatch; he pointed to the panel clamped to a rack welded to the curved starboard bulkhead. The capsule’s interior was spartan even by the standards of a prison.

  “—are here. I’ve made sure everything moves, and if a joint binds after we’re deployed, Matthews assures me we’ll be able to go out and clear it.”

  The spacer sharing the capsule, a stocky woman, gave Adele a flat stare. She wore a rigging suit, again without the helmet. The three parallel scars on her right cheek appeared to be a result of ritual rather than injury.

  “Very good,” said Adele, straightening. She’d thought she was done speaking, but another point struck her.

  “Ah, Cazelet,” she said, kneeling again. “I don’t expect the Alliance squadron to be keeping close watch for a boat like yours, but there are more than thirty ships including the minesweepers. If only one of them has a signals officer who’s doing her job, there’s a chance that your transmissions will be observed.”

  “Mistress, it’s low-power laser,” Rene protested with a frown. “Unless
they’re virtually in line, I don’t see how anyone could intercept my signals.”

  “You’re in a ring system,” Adele snapped. “That means there’s a great deal of dust, which will scatter your signals to a degree no matter how tight they are at the sending head. It’ll be faint, I grant you, but I would notice it. Don’t ever assume that your opponent is incompetent.”

  She paused, then added in a softer tone, “Though goodness knows, that’s where the balance of the probabilities lies. And not just your opponents.”

  “Yes, mistress,” Rene said. “I apologize.”

  “Use your own judgment,” Adele said, “of course. But I recommend you transmit only when you have something which won’t appear to careful observers on Diamondia. I know it’ll be difficult to seem to be doing nothing, but you may only get one chance to send information. Make sure it’s the information we need.”

  Rene sucked in his lips and nodded.

  “Ship,” said Blantyre’s voice over the PA system, “we’ll extract from the Matrix in sixty, that’s six-zero, seconds from—now!”

  “Mistress, time to button up,” Woetjans said. Adele scrambled back.

  As Woetjans started to swing the hatch closed, the spacer inside the capsule called, “Don’t worry, mistress. I’ll bring your boy back to you!”

  “Very good,” Adele muttered, though she doubted anyone heard her over the clang of the hatch. It was simply polite chattering, after all, the sort of thing one said in a social situation. The Sissies were her family, so she made an effort to behave the way people were expected to behave in society.

  The capsule rattled down its track, then vanished into the launching tube. Borries himself threw the switch for the hydraulic ram that closed the breech.

  “I figured they’d be cooped up bugger knows how long,” Woetjans said quietly to Adele. “That’s why I left the hatch open to the last, you know? Besides for you, I mean.”