by David Drake
Cory lowered his head into his hands but continued to sob. It didn’t appear that he would come around quickly enough to save the Princess Cecile either.
At the signals console, Adele continued to carry on a conversation with someone beyond the volume included within Daniel’s PPI. It would take only a light pressure on a virtual control to increase the PPI volume and display the other ship. Daniel couldn’t move a finger for that purpose either.
The Palmyrene missiles had reached terminal velocity and were splitting into three segments each. It wouldn’t be very long before they destroyed the Princess Cecile.
Adele felt sharp, fully in control of herself. That was her normal state, of course.
She realized that she had very little control over anything except herself. She had learned long since that she could shoot other people, but short of that she couldn’t really affect their behavior; not even threats of shooting worked very well. She didn’t let that concern her so long as she could depend on herself.
Now, after her experience in the Matrix, she felt particularly good. For the first time in her life she had a vision of a better existence that wasn’t simply oblivion. She hadn’t met God, but something or Somebody had vouchsafed her a view of a heaven in which Adele Mundy could believe.
She smiled wryly as she checked the electrooptical spectrum for incoming signals. Perhaps she would in the future preach a gospel of Deified Information. That, coupled with occasionally killing people, might prove even more fulfilling than her RCN duties. She wondered how Daniel would react.
But she had work to do now. She switched from text to audio as one of the three recently-arrived ships ten light-seconds outsystem from Zenobia said, “ . . . repeat, RCN Qaboosh Squadron calling Alliance Control in the Zenobia System, requesting immediate consultation with Admiral Mainwaring, over.”
The ship—the patrol sloop Dotterel—was transmitting on 9.275 kHz in the shortwave band, a standard commercial frequency. The beam was directed toward the Alliance destroyers, but the Piri Reis would be receiving it as clearly as the Princess Cecile did. Adele suspected that the cutters, or at any rate most of the cutters, didn’t have shortwave receivers.
Adele directed a bow laser emitter toward each of the new arrivals—the sloops Dotterel, Penguin, and Espeigle; she had probably seen them in the naval basin on Stahl’s World, though even now one ship was very like another ship to her—and also, using the stern cluster, prepared to copy the message to Captain von Gleuck’s vessels. They were still fighting a handful of Palmyrenes, but most of the surviving cutters—and there were over a score of them—had scattered when they took in the behavior of the Autocrator’s flagship.
“Princess Cecile to RCN squadron,” Adele said calmly. “We have been attacked by Palmyrene pirates who are also attacking the local Alliance squadron which came to our aid. We request immediate assistance against the pirates, over.”
That was a compressed statement of the facts, and a strict literalist might even have described it as a false statement. Adele would make peace with her conscience later; or simply live without peace. She was used to that, after all.
The delay was only slightly greater than the doubled transmission lag. Then the voice of Admiral Mainwaring announced, using tight-beam microwave, “Palmyrene ship Piri Reis, this is Admiral Eliot Mainwaring of the RCN. I direct you in the name of the Republic of Cinnabar to cease fire immediately. Acknowledge at once, over.”
Simultaneously over modulated laser a voice that Adele didn’t recognize said, “Squadron to Princess Cecile. Put Captain Leary on at once, over.”
I wish that I could, Adele thought, but it didn’t bother her to take charge of matters when they were within her competency. At this moment she appeared to be the only fully competent person aboard the Sissie. Even Tovera, seated at the back of the signals console, slumped against her restraints with a line of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth.
Aloud, Adele said, “Squadron, this is Signals Officer Mundy. The rest of the crew including Captain Leary has been incapacitated in action with the pirates. As agents of the Republic we attempted to forestall a pirate attack on an Alliance vassal, in accordance with our treaty obligations. The pirates thereupon attacked us. Over.”
That was true in every jot and tittle. Intellectually, Adele didn’t believe that telling the truth wiped out the stain of an earlier lie, but she felt better nonetheless.
“Mainwaring, this is Autocrator Irene!” the Piri Reis replied using modulated laser. “The Zenobia System has requested to come under Palmyrene protection, which I have graciously granted to them. Return to your base immediately or it will be the worse for you.”
The Princess Cecile had the best optics available: Daniel had at his own expense replaced the excellent RCN-standard units with a special order from a Pantellarian shop which he believed to be even better. Thanks to them, Adele was able to intercept the laser message even from well off the axis of the sending head.
Adele brought up the particulars of the three RCN vessels. Daniel would have known their statistics off the top of his head, and even in her case the details confirmed her suspicion: patrol sloops had no more business engaging a heavy cruiser than a corvette did. Less if the corvette was the Princess Cecile, since the Sissie and its crew had experience with such attacks in the past.
Each sloop carried six 4-inch guns in separate mountings. For most warships the plasma cannon were defensive weapons, primarily intended to nudge projectiles off a collision course with the vessel. Twin mountings worked best for that purpose, permitting the gunners to hammer a target in close succession before the effects of previous bolts had worn off.
Patrol sloops were relatively large—bigger than destroyers, let alone the Sissie—but they were expected to deal with pirates and disturbances on the ground. Pirate cutters might appear in considerable numbers, but they were individually far less resistant than a solid projectile. The single mountings gave better coverage for single shots.
Each sloop was equipped with two launching tubes and supposedly ten missiles. Adele had seen enough of reality on the fringes of civilization to wonder if the whole Qaboosh Squadron had ten missiles among the three of them. The vessels’ most common usage was to land parties of troops or armed spacers, to put down riots or to cow local chieftains into paying taxes and refraining from killing and devouring Cinnabar merchants.
Throwing such ships against a modern heavy cruiser would be suicide. Not pointless suicide, however. The action would be another heroic legend to be taught in the RCN Academy, more useful in a way than a victory. Would-be officers had to learn that one’s duty wasn’t limited to the way one behaved in battles which could be won.
“All RCN vessels, prepare to engage the pirate cruiser,” said Admiral Mainwaring in a tone of bored nonchalance. The statement was a bit of theater: the Dotterel continued to use laser commo with one of the emitters directed toward the Piri Reis. “Break. Your Excellency, I must direct you to lay to and await boarding by officials of the RCN, over.”
“You bloody little worms!” Irene said. Even screaming in a complete fury and with her voice compressed for transmission, there was a melodious power to her words. “I will wipe you from the universe! The Qaboosh is Palmyrene, and I am Palmyra! I will execute every Cinnabar citizen in the region and stack their heads—”
The Autocrator’s rant stopped abruptly. Adele frowned, wondering whether her own equipment or the cruiser’s was at fault. She still had a tracking signal, the laser equivalent of a carrier wave, from the Dotterel, so—
“Bloody hell!” Admiral Mainwaring blurted. “They took a direct hit! Where did those missiles come from? Milch, who launched those missiles?”
Ah. Because Adele was echoing the command console on her own display, she’d had the answer to what had happened to the signal in front of her all the time. She backed up the image of the Piri Reis to the point the cruiser exploded from hydrostatic shock, then let it track forward again.
“Squadron, this is the Princess Cecile,” she said. She was being quietly polite because at the moment she was a librarian answering an information request. “Captain von Gleuck fired missiles as soon as he extracted into his current location. Because the range was so long, I suppose the Palmyrenes lost track of them in the press of other business.”
Adele frowned and pursed her lips. “I wonder,” she said, “if that was what Daniel had in mind all along? Captain Leary, that is, sorry.”
By this time Adele had more firsthand experience of watching missiles strike starships than most officers in the RCN. The death of the Piri Reis was an unusually vivid example, however, because the projectile had been at terminal velocity—a significant fraction of light speed.
The impact was on the cruiser’s starboard quarter, coursing forward. The upper stern turret remained attached to the hull; the lower turret was whole but was spinning clear because the frames supporting the turret ring had been blasted away.
Everything ahead of the projectile’s entry point was a glare of white-hot gases. The forward portions of the cruiser’s hull hadn’t burned: kinetic energy had caused them to sublime instantly.
The remnants of the stern flattened as the shock wave of expanding gas flung them away. Acceleration must have killed any personnel in that portion even if the fireball hadn’t cremated them.
“Princess Cecile,” said the officer speaking from the Dotterel. “You are under attack! By all the gods, spacers! A salvo of missiles is tracking toward your location! Over!”
Ah.
Yes, of course. While there would be a certain justice in the Sissie being destroyed by long-range missiles just as her opponent had been, Adele didn’t require that her data be symmetrical; just that they be properly filed.
She looked at her display. Though she could duplicate the functions on it, Daniel might have some obvious markers at his own station.
If not—and “not” was certainly more probable—she could look for a suitable menu. Acceleration? Maneuvering? Precisely how would the spacers who designed the system have indexed the necessary information? She doubted that she could articulate a question at this level in a fashion that the officers of the Dotterel could answer.
With a slight smile, Adele rose and walked to the command console. This was an unusual information request. It promised to occupy her fully during what would probably be her last minute or minutes of life.
CHAPTER 27
Zenobia System
Daniel wondered what condition the Z 42 and Z 46 were in. Most of the Palmyrene cutters had followed the Princess Cecile, but fifteen or sixteen had remained at the previous stage to batter the destroyers.
The Alliance gunners weren’t quick enough in laying their sights on high-deflection targets. They had destroyed a handful of the cutters, but several of those had gotten off a volley of rockets before taking a 13-centimeter bolt.
The pounding from rocket warheads would have stripped most of the antennas and yards from the destroyers. Their outriggers had probably been hammered to scrap by now, and with them all the High Drive motors. A destroyer would carry one or two spare motors, but the level of damage these ships had received meant it might take them days to reach Zenobia orbit without outside help.
Daniel could fault the Alliance gunners, but the missileers who had programmed the attack on the Piri Reis had done a faultless job. At the range of the launch, the missile segments spread significantly. Even so, the hit wasn’t a fluke: the cruiser was squarely in the center of the pattern.
If Daniel’s lips could move, he was smiling; he couldn’t be sure. Even with a perfect launch, there was a great deal of luck if a destroyer’s meager salvo hit a target at that range. Well, he wasn’t going to complain about that. The gods knew that Zenobia’s defenders had needed luck.
The cruiser’s twenty-one rounds wouldn’t require luck to destroy a corvette at a comparable distance, unfortunately, and they bid fair to do just that. It was really a pity that Daniel hadn’t managed to drop the Sissie back into the Matrix as he’d intended rather than completing their extraction. They wouldn’t even be able to claim the Piri Reis as a final victory: that was the Z 46’s work, pure and simple.
Though the chances were that Cinnabar historians describing the action would shade reality and say otherwise. That’ll leave Adele turning in her grave. Well, cause her vaporized atoms to spin more quickly on their axes.
Adele walked briskly into Daniel’s field of view. She adjusted his couch to the left, making room for her to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of his display, then took out her personal data unit and slaved the console to it.
Daniel suspected that the command console couldn’t be taken over that way, at least if you listened to the manufacturers and RCN security personnel. Well, they would never learn otherwise, given the sleet of projectiles approaching the Princess Cecile.
Adele was . . . great gods and little fishes! She’d called up a Help menu and was asking what commands to give to maneuver a starship in sidereal space! What did she think she was going to find: Shiphandling for Toddlers? Every Boy’s Book of Space Combat?
Daniel began to laugh. He was really laughing: gusts of laughter were racking his body.
Adele looked up at him. “Well, can you do better?” she snapped.
Daniel pressed the Execute button, toggling the corvette back into the Matrix. It would be close, but there was just enough time before the missiles arrived.
“No, my dear friend,” he said. “Without you, I couldn’t have done nearly as well.”
Transition felt like a bath in ice water this time, causing Daniel to shudder. It was good to feel his muscles moving again, after the bodiless horror of the recent past.
At the moment of transition, Adele felt as though her skull was being split with the back of an axe. That or equally unpleasant sensations were among her mind’s usual responses to entering and leaving the Matrix, so she supposed she ought to be pleased that things were returning to normal. She got to her feet.
The crew of the Princess Cecile was coming around—the members Adele could see, at any rate. She had been willing to accept them as a representative sample when they were unconscious or psychotic, so it was only proper to assume that the recovery was general also.
Fiducia sat at his console again. He looked up, then away with a shamefaced expression when he noticed Adele standing beside the command console.
She frowned. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. An event had occurred which had damaged most of those involved with it. One might as well apologize because one’s bullet wound is dripping onto the carpet.
Hogg squatted on the deck; he’d laid the impeller across his knees so that he could rub both cheeks with his fists. He looked angry and unhappy, but he didn’t seem to have suffered the physical injury that Adele had feared when she saw his stiff body.
As for Cory, he had rotated his seat back toward the display and was reviewing the record of the minutes before the Princess Cecile retreated into the Matrix. That was a very sensible, very professional, thing to do. Adele felt a surge of pride which intellectually she didn’t believe was justified.
She smiled; a tiny expression, but more than she would have managed a few years ago. She had a great deal of experience in controlling her emotions, but that didn’t prevent emotions from stirring her. It still surprised her to feel anything besides the red fury which had been so long and so close a companion.
“Barnes,” Daniel said. Adele wasn’t wearing a commo helmet, but since she was standing beside the command console she didn’t need amplification. “Take out the starboard rigging watch. I don’t have a course yet, but I expect to determine one after I’ve had a chance to consult with Vesey, over.”
He looked up at Adele and grinned. “I was afraid that insertion was going to drop me back into whatever state it was that you laughed me out of,” he said. “Instead it seems to have brought all the rest of us back to proper form. Rather lik
e pulling the power and then rebooting to reset a computer, isn’t it?”
Adele thought about the analogy. Computers weren’t nearly as similar to human minds as people seemed to think they were . . . but it wasn’t a matter to argue about, at least not now.
“Yes,” she said, keeping her qualifications to herself. “And as for courses, Daniel, I believe we need to return to Calvary as quickly as possible. Though—will we be able to land in the harbor with the damage?”
Daniel frowned. “A few sheets of structural plastic around the starboard outrigger and it’ll hold air well enough to allow a real fix,” he said. “But I’m sure Admiral Mainwaring will want to be brought up to speed immediately. Certainly before any RCN vessel lands on Zenobia, at any rate.”
Adele made a dismissive gesture with her left hand. “The Admiral can wait,” she said. “Commander Gibbs escaped from Zenobian custody during the confusion. He’s in Cinnabar House and has taken Commissioner Brown and his family hostage. They’d gone back after the end of the emergency.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What are the local authorities doing, Adele?”
“Founder Hergo has ordered his own forces to seal off the area but to take no action,” Adele said. “He’s waiting for someone from either Cinnabar or the Alliance to take charge of the business so that the Zenobian government won’t be blamed for the outcome.”
“Ah!” said Daniel, nodding his understanding. “Yes, we should be able to put down within three hours. If there’s more of a problem with the starboard outrigger than I foresee, we can use the plaza fronting the Palace. Presumably Hergo can have that cleared. And then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
Adele felt her lips smile. “I felt that Tovera and I should be put in charge of the negotiations,” she said.
“And me,” said Hogg, suddenly cheery again. “Neither of you are worth squat beyond pistol range, and I—”
He hefted the powerful impeller at the balance.
“—bloody well am.”
