by David Drake
What Deirdre wouldn't ordinarily do was immediately pay the full amount of the claim with no discount. That's what would happen in this case, because Daniel had directed her to take all fees out of his own considerably greater share.
Dorst had been killed carrying out Daniel's orders. Commander Leary would give those same orders again, because they'd been necessary to defeat the enemies of the Republic. But Daniel was also a Leary of Bantry, and as such he wouldn't leave his retainers in want while there was money in his own pocket. Deirdre would understand.
"Oh," said the older woman. "Oh. Oh." And then she started crying again.
"I can find my own way out," Daniel said, but as he was turning to the hall Miranda caught his hands in hers and pressed them together.
"Please come back," she said. "Please do."
"Yes," said Daniel. "I, ah, I'll be sure to do that."
She was a remarkably pretty girl on third glance.
CHAPTER 2: Southwest of Xenos on Cinnabar
Daniel stood with his hands crossed behind his back as the tram rocked to a halt at the end of the spur line. His convoy's five cars were from the RCN pool. They were made of pressed metal with no pretense of comfort, and the cush drive standard on civilian vehicles had been left off the suspension units in the interests of cost and reliability.
Adele was in the first car with Daniel. She grabbed a stanchion to keep from being thrown forward; he just shifted his angle slightly, keeping his balance by practiced reflex.
Daniel grinned, though not at his friend. Signals Officer Adele Mundy had by now spent a great deal of time on starships under way; a common spacer of comparable experience would probably have been rated Able. Adele was still a landsman in both the RCN and general senses of the word.
The double doors ratcheted open. Daniel didn't let anything show on his face, but he sighed mentally to see that the view was just as bleak as it'd seemed through the grimy portholes that served as windows. He'd known it would be, of course, but he regretted it. Officers on ships as small as the Princess Cecile live too close to their spacers to ignore the fact that they're human.
The slough was an even darker gray than the overcast sky. The reeds were a sullen green that might as well have been gray; likewise the algae-smeared mud from which they grew. The only brighter colors were iridescent patches of scum. The air was muggy even this early in the day, and Daniel smelled the bite of kerosene. They must've used fuel oil as a carrier when they fogged the site with insecticide.
He stepped onto the gravel slip. Well, it'd been graveled once, but that'd been too long in the past: the soft soles of his boots settled noticeably in the mud.
He slapped his cheek to crush a biting fly. The insecticide had been at best a partial success.
"But where are the barracks?" Adele said, her eyes scanning the bleak scene. "That isn't it, is it? It won't house sixty-two. . . well, I suppose it could, but. . . ."
The other monorail cars clattered up, stopping directly behind Daniel's because there was no sidetrack as there would've been in Xenos proper. There wasn't a stretch of double track in the seven miles from where this spur left the great naval facility at Harbor Three on the outskirts of the city. There was very little traffic to this storage facility, and what little there was fell under tight RCN control.
"That's just the guard room," Daniel said. It was a standard modular structure, two stories high with an overhang at both levels. An officer of the Land Forces of the Republic came out the front door; the two soldiers who'd been playing cards on the bench outside got up and ported their stocked impellers.
"Those're the receiving barracks, so called," he said, stretching out his left arm to indicate the starships anchored almost a half mile offshore. "The hulks out there."
The swamps around this backwater of the Ancien River was too muddy to support the heavy structures of a working port without expensive site preparation. They were, however, a good place to store ships that'd reached the end of their useful lives but weren't to be sent to the scrap yard yet. The hulls had considerable storage volume, especially since the fittings and fusion bottles had been removed.
Now they were storing spacers. Admiral Vocaine and his staff viewed RCN crews as goods to be warehoused between periods of use.
"Yes sir?" said the officer of the guard, a lieutenant. He'd apparently donned his tunic hurriedly when he heard the convoy pull up: the press closure down the front was sealed askew.
"I'm Commander Leary," Daniel said, "here to pick up a draft of spacers." He handed over a coded chip but with it the usual printout that was all anybody really looked at. "I hope you got the warning order so that you could have them prepared for transfer."
Daniel knew perfectly well that the guard detachment had received the warning order: Adele had seen to that, as she'd seen to every other electronic jot and tittle of the process. Now that he'd met the officer in charge, though, he doubted that the order'd been read. Though a lieutenant and by several steps Daniel's junior in rank, the fellow was in his late thirties. The RCN didn't hold the Land Forces in high regard in general, but this one—the name on his left breast was Platt—seemed to be dull even for a pongo.
The personnel accompanying Daniel, one per vehicle, were walking toward him down the muddy trail paralleling the monorail line. He'd brought Woetjans, his long-time bosun and Chief of Rig; Pasternak, the engineer and Chief of Ship, plus Midshipmen Cory and Blantyre.
Rather to Daniel's surprise, the middies had volunteered for the mission. They'd been among the personnel of the Hermes, the tender on which Daniel had served as First Lieutenant in the Gold Dust Cluster, but that was the first time they'd served with him.
Platt scratched his groin as he peered at the document doubtfully. He could read, couldn't he? After a moment he turned and shouted back toward the open door of the building, "Higby! Ready sixty packages now!"
"Your orders state sixty-two spacers, not sixty, Mister Platt," Daniel said. He didn't raise his voice, but there was a rasp to his tone. "And they're named individuals, not random personnel."
"Look, spacehead," said Platt, starting back toward the building. "We got a system here, and you're not in my chain of command. First in, first out, and you'll take who we give you.
"One moment, Lieutenant," Daniel said. The metal in his voice stopped Platt in mid-stride and turned his head.
To emphasize the expected distinction in ranks between him and the Land Force officer, Daniel'd worn his Whites with award ribbons instead of utilities like Adele and the others. There shouldn't have been a problem in getting the draft of spacers, but there generally were problems when you had to deal with base personnel.
That the administration of the receiving ships had been transferred to the Land Forces made the situation worse. The fact that the new head of the Navy Board chose pongoes instead of RCN Shore Police to enforce his regulations damned him utterly.
"You're right, I'm not in your chain of command," Daniel said, quietly again though he could feel the muscle at the back of his jaw twitching. "And I'm not in the chain of command of your battalion commander, Major Joinette."
He paused, giving time for Platt to realize that Daniel knew his CO; if Platt was smart enough to understand the implications, of course. It'd been Adele's idea and her research as well, of course. Daniel'd come to believe what Adele had always claimed, that there was no useless information.
"But Marshal of the Land Forces Leaver does report to the Senate Defense Committee under Lord Manco," Daniel continued, smiling now, "and the mission for which these spacers are required is one decreed by Lord Manco personally. Now, Lieutenant, why don't you just carry out your orders so that we don't have to look at each other any longer than necessary."
"I'll give the orders," Platt muttered, tracing a figure-8 in the ground with the toe of his boot. "I'll send a signal to the Hopeless and they'll have your, ah, spacers ready by the time the barge gets there. Except—"
He frowned at the hardcopy again.
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"—it'll take fuck knows how long to enter all these names."
"Don't bother," said Adele. "I've already sent the request. You have, that is."
Daniel glanced at where his friend had been standing a pace behind while he dealt with the Land Forces officer; then he looked down. Adele'd seated herself cross-legged in the mud and taken out her personal data unit; her slanted wands flickered like the forked tongue of a snake, licking information out of empty air. With a nod of self-congratulation, she shut down the unit and slipped the control wands back into the case.
Platt gaped at her. "What're you doing there?" he said.
Daniel hid a smile. Adele was wearing utilities; they were meant for this kind of use, but Daniel knew perfectly well that she'd have done the same in a dress uniform. Funnier still was the fact the lieutenant was more amazed at seeing a spacer sitting on the ground than what she'd just told him: that she'd entered his command console and issued orders in his name, albeit much more efficiently that Platt could have managed on his own.
"Got some trouble to sort out, Captain?" asked Woetjans, a little ahead of the others because she'd been in the second car. Her big hands clenched and opened again.
The bosun was six-and-a-half feet tall, raw-boned rather than bulky, and immensely strong. She was just as plain as the vehicles they'd arrived in. When Woetjans taught newbies the rigging on the ground, she used a starter of flexible cable that raised welts through utilities; in a brawl, her weapon of choice was a length of high-pressure tubing that broke bones with every stroke. She didn't carry anything now, but she wouldn't need tools for the likes of Platt.
"Not at all, Woetjans," Daniel said. "They appear to keep the ferry on this side, so we'll ride over to the hulk with it. Lieutenant, would you like to come along?"
He was going to offer Adele a hand up, but Pasternak was already doing that. He wasn't a man for a fight, and helping the signals officer gave him something to do with his hands in case Woetjans belted somebody.
Pasternak was in late middle age; his service cap hid the fact he was bald above a fringe of red hair. He never moved fast, but neither did he waste motion or hesitate. His skills and seniority rated a post on a heavy cruiser if not a battleship, but he'd chosen to accompany Daniel on an unrated private yacht—which was all the Sissie was now.
He liked serving under Daniel because he understood the details of the Power Room and propulsion machinery better than most captains; but Pasternak was an officer who took the long view as well. Lieutenant, now Commander, Leary had a remarkable record of taking prizes from the enemy, and the spacers who'd served with him had earned more florins than any other crews in the RCN. Pasternak was one of the exceptions who'd saved his money, and at least one element of his calculation must've been how much he was likely to get from another voyage with Mister Leary.
That was perfectly all right with Daniel. He was lucky to have so able a Chief Engineer, even if the fellow's thinking was completely foreign to him.
"You can't go over to the Hopeless!" Platt said to the backs of the spacers who'd walked past him toward the ferry—a double-ended tub, originally a barge for carrying bulk cargo. "That's not allowed."
"Of course it is, my good man," Daniel called brightly over his shoulder. "Come along with us, please."
Though Daniel hadn't expected it, he was pleased when Platt followed. The guard officer's mere presence might be useful in convincing his staff that what was going on was proper even if it was unusual.
Adele, either reading Daniel's mind or having decided Lieutenant Platt's spine needed a little stiffening, said in a mildly testy voice, "This has been approved at the very highest naval authorities, lieutenant, and they are RCN personnel, after all. Admiral Vocaine simply wanted a picked crew for the mission."
"Right, well. . .," Platt muttered. He didn't look happy, but he seemed to accept the explanation. It was completely true, except that Commander Leary rather than the Chief of the Navy Board had made the decision.
Two soldiers wearing utility trousers but undershirts rather than tunics were taking the boardwalk from the back of the building toward the barge. They were obviously surprised to see the spacers and their CO walking across the mud to meet them.
"Sir?" one of them asked. The other tucked his khaki undershirt into his trousers with a sidelong glance.
"It's quite all right," said Daniel with a breezy confidence that he knew reassured other people more than words alone could do. "We're all going over together."
He waved cheerfully. It reassured him, to tell the truth.
A twelve-inch outside-diameter steel tube had been driven deep in the bank of the slough to anchor a heavy line of beryllium monocrystal. The rest of the line was coiled on one of two large drums in the center of the barge; a similar line ran from the second drum to the hulk, though it lay in the water for most of the distance. An electric motor drove both drums through a gear train so that one line paid out while the other was taken up.
The barge's interior was empty except for the drive train, the controls—a six-foot lever, now in neutral, which could be thrown into forward or reverse positions—and metal ladders welded to both sloping ends.
Water pooled in places on the deck plates. It'd probably slosh onto Daniel's boots and possibly his trousers when the barge got under way, but that couldn't be helped. He grinned as he boarded after the two soldiers: if they got through this business at no worse cost than him replacing a pair of dress trousers, he'd count it a win.
"I'll give you a hand, lieutenant," Woetjans said. Daniel glanced back. Platt must've hesitated on the landing stage after Pasternak and the midshipmen clattered down the ladder. The bosun picked him up with one arm and followed, facing forward into the barge like the other spacers instead of back toward the ladder. Platt yelped, but he had better sense than to squirm.
Daniel grinned more broadly. Adele'd come down the ladder facing the bulkhead. She was RCN though, even if she wasn't a spacer!
"Cast off if you will, my good man," Daniel said to the soldier at the controls. He wished the pongoes were wearing proper uniforms so he could address them by their ranks, but behaving as a good-natured noble toward menials would do in a pinch. "The sooner this is over, the sooner we can all go back to doing things we prefer."
Daniel thought the soldier'd check with his CO, but he just threw the lever forward. The motor whined and the drums began to rotate in opposite directions with a hollow thumping. The line running over the bow and through an eyelet added a high-pitched squeal to the general racket.
It didn't bother Daniel: a starship under way frequently had as much equipment working at the same time, and there the noise was enclosed in a steel tube. The ferry was open to the sky.
On the other hand, the cable snaking up from the slough sprayed everybody aboard with algae and dirty water as it wound onto the take-up spool. Cheap at the price. . . .
The other soldier'd climbed the ladder at the bow end. To conn the barge, Daniel supposed, since the hull was too deep for anyone in her belly to see the surface. The receiving ship would be a looming presence ahead as they neared her, but Daniel supposed there could be some floating object in the way.
He couldn't imagine what—and the ferry couldn't maneuver around such an object anyway—but no doubt having a lookout was the proper procedure. Besides, it wasn't as though the guards had something better to do.
"That's a battleship, isn't it?" Adele said, making a visor of her hands to keep the filthy spray out of her eyes. She reached for her data unit, then caught herself.
The flying droplets were probably why she wasn't sitting in the bilges with her wands flickering. Her data unit was sealed—Daniel'd seen it dunked in salt water and perform flawlessly moments later—but Adele nonetheless lavished care on the tool that she'd scorn to expend on her own person.
"She was," Daniel agreed. They stood close enough together that he didn't have to shout to be heard over the noise of the ferry's jolting passage. "The Lucre
tius, built before my father was born."
Not that Corder Leary knew or cared about any aspect of the RCN unless one of his companies was making money from it. Which they might well be, even here.
"She served as a guardship on Plenty for a decade," Daniel went on. "Longer than that, I believe. They brought her back to Cinnabar some five years ago when she'd become too decrepit even for a guardship, but instead of scrapping her they stripped her for a hulk. They renamed her when she left service, the Hope. And of course either the guards or more likely the spacers billeted here renamed her again unofficially."
"Yes," said Adele. "The Hopeless. Well, perhaps not for the Sissies."
"'Ware the dock!" shouted the lookout. "Twenty yards, Feeley!"
Daniel put his arm around Adele's shoulders, correctly anticipating that the bow wave rebounding from the battleship's outrigger would make the ferry lurch violently. He felt Adele tense, then relax as intellect overcame instinct. For a moment she didn't know why Daniel was bracing her, but she knew there must be a reason.
