by David Drake
“It’s next after the tavern,” Tovera said conversationally as she followed Adele. “Want me to lead?”
Adele sniffed. “No, thank you,” she said. Her left hand was already in her tunic pocket, though neither she nor Tovera had carried a weapon in plain sight after they found the alley behind the Gulkander Palace empty.
They proceeded in single file. The streets of Brotherhood were rarely crowded. Quite a few of them were narrow, however. Adele and her servant had guessed their way along byways instead of proceeding to Central and marching down it. When they had reached Harborside after a few dead ends, they turned to the right and sauntered as though they weren’t in any kind of hurry.
Adele smiled minusculy. They weren’t in a hurry. Vesey and Hale were as safe in the outfitters’ as they would be anywhere, and they would wait for Adele to arrive however long it took.
The Kiesche’s unusual behavior had drawn everyone—including the apron-wearing bartender, though he had gone inside again—out of the tavern. Half a dozen of them, all well on the way to being drunk, continued to stand in the road. Adele started around them, stepping into the tramway.
A short, stocky man saw the movement and caught her right shoulder. His arms were long, as though to make up for his bandy legs.
“Give us a kiss, sweetheart,” he said, drawing Adele toward him.
There was a clunk; the drunk’s eyes rolled upward. Tovera had hit the back of his skull with the corner of her attaché case. Adele skipped out of the way as the fellow toppled forward. His friends didn’t seem to notice.
The front of Beardsley and Owens was windowed, though there was a sturdy steel grating outside the casement and the expanse was glazed with eight-inch by twelve-inch panes instead of two or three rolled plates. The window display was of coiled cable, pipe fittings, and tools—but the items had been dusted recently. It really looked like advertising rather than an assortment of junk.
“Do you want me—” Tovera said.
“No,” said Adele. She pushed the door open with her right hand.
The big store was dimmer than outdoors, but Vesey was directly in front of the door. She stood with her back to a pallet of eight-liter paint cans and her hands crossed in front of her. There were half a dozen other customers in the store and at least two attendants, but Adele didn’t see Hale for a moment.
Motion drew her glance to the right; she saw the muzzle of Hale’s carbine lifting toward the ceiling. The weapon must have been lying across a low counter, covering the doorway by seeming accident.
“Good to see you, Vesey,” Adele said, since the lieutenant hadn’t addressed her until she was sure that Adele wanted to be recognized. “There was some excitement in the harbor. The freighter Kiesche proceeded upriver in surface effect.”
“No doubt her captain had his reasons,” Vesey said in a neutral voice. No one in the store was paying obvious attention to the newcomers.
Tovera had paused in the open doorway. She came all the way in and looked around. Hale walked over to join them also.
“Will they hide us here in their warehouse or the like?” Adele said quietly. “There hasn’t been an alarm, but there may be one momentarily.”
She smiled wryly. “Or however long it takes for the Garrison technicians to realize that the jamming is coming from their own equipment, which might be longer than I expect. We’ve given these people a good order, so they should be predisposed to help us.”
Vesey looked about rather nervously. The paint display hid her completely from the back of the store, so her jumpiness wouldn’t be noticed. Tovera stood at a cross aisle, seemingly relaxed, which was sufficient for any concerns Adele had.
“Mistress, you’re in command, of course,” Vesey said. “But I suggest we go immediately to the Freccia. I’m sure—well, I think—that the navy will be pleased to help us. I’ve been talking with the proprietors here—”
She nodded toward the counter in back, though it and she were mutually out of sight, thanks to the paint.
“—and from what they say, the three militias are just short of being in open warfare. Both the others hate the Garrison, and apparently the civilians in Brotherhood all do also.”
“Yes, we’ll do that,” Adele said, turning. “Thank you, Vesey.”
“We’ll be back with loading instructions,” Vesey called. She waved toward the counter, then followed Adele out of the store.
The destroyer and the buildings which had become the naval barracks weren’t much farther along Harborside. Adele and Vesey walked shoulder to shoulder, ahead of their companions.
Adele smiled without letting her lips move. Vesey had become a very useful naval officer under the tutelage of Captain Leary. And it wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to suggest that association with Lady Mundy had demonstrated to Vesey that a woman didn’t have to become a man to function in a man’s world.
As they approached the Freccia, an officer whom Adele recognized from imagery as Captain Samona was crossing the boarding ramp. Instead of being aluminum or plastic, the Corcyran navy had built a sturdy wooden ramp. It was braced against the dock on one end and the destroyer’s entry hatch on the other; a double hinge in the middle adjusted for the depth of water in the pool.
“How can they lift off with all that lumber?” said Hale, her first words since Adele met her in Beardsley and Owen. “It’d take hours to disengage it!”
“Well, in an emergency they could just ignore it,” Vesey said. “It doesn’t seem to be attached to the deck of the entry hold, so if they raise the hatch, the bridge would fall away.”
She frowned. “The wood would probably burn in the thruster exhaust,” she added. “But in an emergency …”
“I don’t think Captain Samona wants to lift,” Adele said, considering her data and the assessments she had heard Daniel make. “Any more than Admiral Stazi in Hablinger wants to make orbital patrols; or lift, I suppose. This isn’t the RCN, and the Freccia more particularly isn’t a warship under the command of Captain Leary.”
It’s all data. Looked at properly, everything in life is a datum.
Two spacers, a man and a woman, were on guard at the base of the boarding bridge. They were probably more alert than they might have been if their commanding officer hadn’t just passed, but Adele noticed that their uniforms were clean and they handled their submachine guns as though they’d had some training.
Adele strode up to the guards; Vesey halted a step back. The male spacer had two anchors on his sleeve rather than the female’s one, so it was to him that Adele said, “I’m Lady Mundy of Cinnabar. The Garrison has attempted to steal the cargo of arms which the freighter Kiesche—”
She pointed across the harbor without breaking eye contact.
“—brought to Brotherhood. I need to speak with Captain Samona at once.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the spacer said. “He just got back. I’ll tell him you’re coming!”
He pulled the communicator from his belt sheath and broke squelch as Adele and her companions marched past. The female guard stared in amazement; the male spacer prodded at his communicator. It might be a while before he realized that the Garrison’s powerful transmitter was jamming the airwaves.
“A pity,” said Tovera. “I thought we might have to kill them to gain access.”
“What?” said Hale. “I … What did you say?”
Vesey turned her head slightly and said, “Tovera was joking, Hale. She has a dry sense of humor.”
Tovera has no sense of humor at all, nor any emotions. She’s become very good at pretending that she does, however.
By now, Tovera was often better at pretending to be a normal human being than her mistress was. But then, Adele had never seen the point of the exercise.
The wooden bridge might be impractical, but Adele noted that its solidity underfoot was a pleasant change from the queasy uncertainty of most boarding bridges. She was in a mood to find something positive in any situation which would meet her half way. Her smil
e was grim, but the thought did make her smile.
There were several spacers in the entry hold, but none of them seemed to be on duty—let alone on guard. Adele picked one at random and said, “I need to speak with Captain Samona at once. I’m an envoy from Cinnabar.”
“Well—” said the spacer, glancing toward the hatch forward.
“Is someone calling for me?” Samona said, reentering the compartment suddenly. Adele had assumed he’d gone up the companionway to the bridge. “I heard my name.”
“I’m Lady Mundy,” Adele said. Living as a member of society seemed to require a great deal of repetition, though she supposed she shouldn’t complain so long as saying something once to each individual was sufficient. It wasn’t always enough. “Colonel Mursiello has attempted to seize the Cinnabar vessel Kiesche with its cargo of arms. We’ve come here to warn you.”
Living outside human society was cold, damp, and provided less food than satisfied even one of Adele’s limited needs. In other circumstances one might describe it as dangerous, but the slums compared favorably with Adele’s present life in the RCN under Daniel Leary. Danger didn’t concern her one way or the other.
“Come up to the bridge, if you will, your ladyship,” Samona said, bowing Adele toward the up companionway. She couldn’t judge his capacity as a naval officer, but he was certainly a gentleman.
She climbed the steel stairs at the brisk pace which she had learned in the closed stacks of major libraries. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time that it was good training for an RCN career.
“The Garrison is jamming the RF spectrum to prevent you and the Regiment from communicating,” said Vesey, her voice echoing up the armored tube of the companionway. “Captain Leary sent us to warn you in person.”
That’s not right. Vesey’s lying!
Adele forced her lips into a smile as she stepped through the hatch at the top of the companionway and turned right toward the Freccia’s bridge. She wasn’t a spacer by any stretch of the imagination, but she had enough experience by now to know that a warship’s bridge would be in the bow, on the top level.
Vesey is intelligently lying, to encourage Captain Samona to believe the truth more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.
The truth was that the Garrison had resorted to force in a fashion which might lead and perhaps had already led to a full-scale coup attempt. Vesey had seen her duty and had done it, with less hesitation than Signals Officer Mundy might have shown.
A junior officer started out through the bridge hatch, then stopped and backed in again when he saw Samona following Adele. “Sir!” he called. “Something’s going on! One of the freighters seems to have gone crazy, and the Garrison’s started jamming everything!”
“Right!” said Samona, striding past Adele to sit at the command console. “Castiglione, sound General Recall and Action Stations. Engineering, light the thrusters!”
A klaxon in the outer hall began to hoot. It was unpleasantly loud on the bridge because all the ship’s hatches were open. The PA system was squealing in every compartment, adding to the din.
Bending close to Samona’s ear, Adele said, “Captain? The Regiment has a microwave tower on top of its headquarters building on the plaza. You could warn Administrator Tibbs of what’s going on.”
“Right!” Samona shouted back. “Castiglione, connect me to the Regiment by microwave soonest! Over.”
“And if I can borrow a console with a satellite link,” Adele said, “I believe I can warn both Captain Leary and the Transformationists.”
Samona waved generally to the empty consoles on both sides of the bridge, then went back to his microwave conversation. He was showing himself to be thoroughly competent, which was a pleasant surprise to Adele.
The Freccia shuddered as her pumps began circulating reaction mass. They were some while short of lighting thrusters, but the Corcyran navy was doing quite well so far. Whether or not it was performing well enough was a matter for a later time.
Adele sat at what was probably the astrogation console and got to work.
Pearl Valley on Corcyra
The Kiesche rested on the sports field beyond the Transformationist chapel and the rest of the community. Daniel’s eyes were closed. He had nothing useful to do until the ground cooled enough to open the ship for unloading.
He wasn’t exactly asleep, but he was relaxing. He needed rest more than he’d understood until he handed the conn to Cory and rose from the console.
Three sharp taps snapped Daniel’s eyes open. He hadn’t bothered to draw the curtain of his alcove when he flopped onto the bunk, but Cazelet was standing outside the “hatchway” and knocking on the stanchion with his knuckles.
“Sir?” said Able Spacer—and half-pay RCN lieutenant—Cazelet. “Master Cory says the locals believe the ground is cool enough to begin unloading and ask us to open up. Do you wish to take command?”
“Thank you, Cazelet,” Daniel said, swinging his feet over the side of the bunk and standing up. “Tell Master Cory to carry on, though I’ll probably be talking to the local leadership about matters not concerned with the ship or her cargo.”
Matters like retrieving his personnel from Brotherhood.
Cazelet stepped back and reported to Cory. The interchange had been perfectly formal and proper. The fact that Cory was within ten feet of Daniel and listening to the exchange made it a little silly. Daniel realized that his behavior—collapsing on his bunk—had surprised and probably concerned his veteran shipmates.
Aloud he said, to Cazelet but therefore to everyone on the bridge, “I’ve handled ships at low altitude before, Cazelet, but I hadn’t previously tried these particular games with a tramp freighter. Heaven willing, I’ll never do it again. It would be easier to balance an egg on my nose—and an egg wouldn’t kill us all if it toppled over.”
Cory turned in his seat as the main hatch began to shudder open. He said, “We knew you could do it, sir.”
Daniel could have given a number of different responses. The one he chose was the one that came most naturally. He smiled and said, “I hope your confidence in me is never misplaced, Cory.”
He glanced over Cory’s shoulder at the main display’s real-time imagery. The upper band was the quadrant of their immediate surroundings centered on the main hatch; the band below it showed a reduced panorama of the remaining 270 degrees.
Figures in gloves and work clothes were laying sheets of perforated steel planking across a stretch of sod seared dead by the freighter’s plasma exhaust. In the background was the forklift whose prongs held the remaining sheets of PSP. To the side, out of the work crew’s way, stood an older man and woman, each holding a briefcase. They weren’t dressed much differently from the laborers.
Nor was Daniel. He tugged at the utilities he’d been dozing in—the left trouser leg had ridden up to his knee—and donned the worn saucer hat which had been lying around the Bergen and Associates’ office.
The whine and vibration of machinery ended with a shudder and a heavy thump. The hatch was now a boarding ramp, its edge bedded firmly in the ground. The work crew placed the final section of PSP so that it mated with the ramp’s lip.
“Time to greet the local authorities, I think, Cory,” Daniel said. He followed his acting captain into the entry hold and walked beside him down the ramp. The air was still sharp with ozone and thick with burned sod, but the usual steam bath of a water landing wasn’t present.
“That’s Brother Altgeld, who’s still the community coordinator, I guess,” Cleveland said quietly. “And beside him is Sister Rennie, who was a colonel. She’s acting as the community’s military adviser.”
“And doing a good job, from what I can see of the defenses,” Daniel said, smiling as though he were discussing the bright sunlight. There were two racks of eight-inch bombardment rockets on gimballed mountings positioned to cover the field from either long side. In the center of the far end was an automatic impeller, dug in with overhead cover and camouflage
.
The field was the only clearing for several miles in any direction in the forested expanse. Apart from Pearl Creek itself—twenty feet wide at this point—there was no other landing zone for anyone arriving by air.
“Sir, are you ready for us to begin off-loading?” called a workman in a cultured Pleasaunce accent.
“I’ve got it, Six,” Cory said, walking toward them. The Kiesche’s crew waited aboard for orders as to how they would best help.
Daniel slanted left and joined the older couple. “I’m Daniel Leary, captain of the Kiesche,” he said. “We have your cargo safe—”
All but the single carbine with Hale, he suddenly remembered.
“—but I had to leave four of my shipmates in Brotherhood to prevent Garrison troops from seizing the guns. I hope I can depend on your help to get my people back.”
“They’ve been in touch with us, and they’re all safe,” said Altgeld. “You will have our help, though I hope you’re not planning a head-on assault.”
Rennie gave her colleague a hard smile. “Captain Leary’s reputation isn’t founded on head-on assaults, Robert,” she said. She turned to Daniel, still smiling, and added, “But I think we could manage even that if it were necessary. These guns mean that none of the parties will attack us without a great deal of thought.”
“Sorry,” said the man, offering his hand. “I’m Brother Altgeld, and I used to be a ship’s captain—in the merchant service, which I gather is not your normal field, Captain Leary. I’ve been chosen community coordinator, and I tend to worry about everything which could go wrong. Much of which has gone wrong in the past two years, I’m afraid.”
“I’m Rennie,” said the woman, also shaking hands. “Sister Rennie at present, but Colonel Rennie of the Alliance forces in the not too distant past.”
She raised an eyebrow as she stepped back. “I hope that’s not a problem?”
“It isn’t,” said Daniel. “I was just commenting to my colleagues that your heavy weapons are very well placed for defense against a sudden assault.”
