In the Stormy Red Sky

by David Drake

  Daniel gestured toward spacers crowding about the rows of shimmering tents to get closer to the dignitary on the aircar.

  "—Admiral Petersen put his hostages here on Bolton. I'm sending them back to their home planets."

  That would have an additional benefit, because Hydriote shippers carried out commissions in an absolutely trustworthy fashion. Each captain would make his contracted voyage before he set off for New Harmony. That would add at least a week before the news about Bolton reached Admiral Petersen.

  "Hostages?" said Haugen. "What sort of hostages?"

  "There are a hundred or two people from each of the important worlds in the Montserrat Stars," Daniel explained. "They're here on East Continent. Generally they're the sons and daughters of the most prominent citizens, that sort of thing. Officially they're being educated to fit them for high office in the Alliance, but—"

  He shrugged.

  "—the parents weren't given the option of refusing this honor. Fifth Bureau officials—" Guarantor Porra's personal secret police "—gathered them up."

  "They're treacherous bastards, the whole lot of them," Haugen muttered. "But I didn't know anything about hostages. We're all RCN here, and all taken on New Harmony."

  He shook his head. "A bloody awful thing that was," he said. "Bloody awful. We weren't but ten feet up when bang! and we went down again and broke poor Heidi's back on the quay. The Hobbes hadn't even gotten her outriggers out of the water. Bloody awful. I didn't have the faintest bloody notion what had happened, just trying to get everybody off before the fusion bottle failed. Which it didn't, thank the Gods, but you can't count on that."

  "No, you certainly can't," said Daniel, who suddenly liked Haugen a great deal more than he had a moment before. As executive officer, damage control was in his care. With the ship a hopeless wreck, he'd immediately made the correct decision: getting the crew to safety.

  "And it was the wogs stabbed us in the back," the commander said in amazement. "Can you imagine that? Well, they've got themselves to thank for whatever Porra and his Fifth Bureau monkeys do to them, and there'll be plenty done I don't doubt."

  The fact that the battleships had been destroyed on the surface explained why the bulk of their crews had survived. The Locke and Aquinas had fought the hugely superior Alliance squadron to give their lighter consorts a chance to escape; their crews wouldn't have been so lucky. But spacefaring and war were dangerous, and war in space was many times dangerous.

  Daniel could feel good about the many spacers below him in the quarry. They might just as easily have been protoplasm drifting around New Harmony.

  "I hope that by returning the hostages to their home planets," he said with quiet pride, "we'll encourage those worlds to think well of Cinnabar. If that also has the effect of sparking a rebellion or two against Guarantor Porra's flunkies, so much the better. And at the very least—"

  Daniel beamed at Commander Haugen.

  "—it removes the problem of feeding and administering some thousands of civilians at a time when all Cinnabar personnel on Bolton should be concentrating their efforts on keeping Petersen from recapturing the place. Eh, Commander?"

  "By the Gods, Leary!" Haugen said, shaking his head again. "You're a deep one, no doubt about it. Well, you give me my duties and I'll get on with them the best I can. I always have, if I do say so myself."

  Senator Forbes seemed to be running down, though it was difficult to be sure. A good speaker always repeated her points, because his listeners couldn't glance up the page to see what they'd missed. In the particular case the speech was going to be recast completely by editors, so there was even less reason than usual to expect the speaker to be succinct.

  Nonetheless, Daniel assumed it was about time for him to say a few words to the crowd, explaining that they'd be trucked to St. James City to await developments. Whatever ships Navy House managed to send to Bolton would be short-crewed, so the unexpected bounty of trained spacers would greatly help the defense of the planet.

  If Navy House could only get something to Bolton before Admiral Petersen—

  "Daniel," said his commo helmet in Adele's voice. "I need you back here as soon as possible. Can you hear me?"

  She's excited. Adele spoke with her usual disdainful calm, but she wouldn't usually ask if they were connected.

  "Yes, Adele," Daniel said, raising a hand in bar and stepping away from Haugen. "What's the problem, over?"

  The Brotherhood APC which amplified the senator's speech also acted as a satellite downlink for the helmet intercom. Blantyre, her head out of the vehicle's cupola, was looking back at Daniel. She couldn't hear the signal, but she knew it was coming through—and that emergency communications were never good news.

  "I've been going over the dispatches which the Zieten was carrying," Adele said with her usual disregard for protocol. "Some of them are for the squadron detached under Captain Varnell to take possession of the Ponape System. It includes at least one battleship."

  Down on the quarry floor Forbes had raised her hands high; the spacers were cheering her wildly. If things had gone as planned, Daniel would shortly have spoken his own few words to them.

  "From the way the dispatches are worded," Adele continued, "Captain Varnell is expected on Bolton in no more than two days."

  "I see," said Daniel. "In that case, the senator and I will be back as quickly as the aircar can bring us. Six out."

  He started down the ramp, taking long strides. It looked like Lieutenant Blantyre instead of Captain Leary would be representing the Milton to the liberated spacers. That was all right—they'd understand that things came up.

  They were RCN, after all.

  St. James Harbor, Bolton

  "Captain Leary's coming up the companionway, mistress," Tovera said. "And Senator Forbes is with him."

  "Mmm," Adele muttered. "Well, I still have more to learn, but I suppose that would be true no matter when they arrived."

  She brought herself fully back to the present; she'd been sunk deep in the aviso's database. The Zieten had been in the heart of Petersen's fleet throughout operations in the New Harmony system and then following.

  "I certainly hope I'll continue to learn things for the rest of my life," Adele said primly to her servant. "I see very little point in life if that were not true."

  And sometimes she saw little point in life, period. Right now, though, she was feeling exhilarated by the challenge of ferreting out and organizing the necessary data from the Zieten's log and dispatches. Exhilarated because she was succeeding, of course; but as a matter of course she expected to succeed.

  Every situation of this sort was new and presented new difficulties. Here Adele was guessing what Daniel would want to know; which meant that first she had to guess what he would want to do, which in turn depended on the factual situation which he would learn from the information she presented to him. It was a lovely circular problem with an infinite number of wrong answers and no certainty of any right one.

  Beaming, Adele turned to the hatchway as Daniel entered. It was the sort of problem that people gave to Officer Mundy, because nobody else could handle it as well.

  Forbes followed Daniel up the companionway, but she did so in a chair-sling carried between her two brawny servants. The pair eased sideways from the armored tube and stood like tree stumps while she got out. Their faces were set in the same deliberate stolidity that they would have maintained if their mistress were on a chest of ease: they weren't present at a scene of embarrassing weakness.

  Civilian vessels sometimes had elevators to move passengers between levels, but warships never did. The process of slipping between universes twisted the fabric of a starship and could bind an elevator in its shaft. A warship not only transitioned more violently than the civilian norm but might also be hammered by plasma or kinetic weapons. What was a doubtful choice in the civilian context would have been absurd on a naval vessel.

  Adele looked back to her data, smiling faintly. Lady Adele Mundy,
whose fellow spacers preferred to carry her through any situation in which a misstep might be dangerous, wasn't going to mock an older woman who needed help climbing slick metal stairs.

  "Eh?" said Daniel, squatting beside her console.

  "I'm rather good at steps," Adele said, stating the thought behind her smile without explaining it. "The elevators in the Academic Collections worked poorly when they worked at all, and the levels of the stack area didn't correspond well to the floors in the support structure anyway. I climbed openwork metal stairs as frequently as a midshipman goes up and down the antennas."

  "Indeed you are," Daniel said, smiling also. "I certainly wouldn't want to race you up a companionway. But now—"

  Senator Forbes entered the compartment, followed by her attendants and finally Platt. She was scowling, but that could have been for any number of reasons.

  "—what's the situation? And—"

  Daniel looked around, his face suddenly set. "Clear the bridge," he ordered.

  The RCN personnel rose as one and shifted toward the door with the apparent organization of sand dripping through a timing glass. Nobody argued or hesitated: Daniel had done this before, so his Millies were prepared for it.

  "Hogg, you and Tovera too," Daniel added sternly. There must have been hesitation in the look one or the other servant gave him, because he said, "If Her Excellency causes trouble, I can club her senseless with my commo helmet."

  The senator's expression became if anything more sour, but she didn't sound angry when she murmured, "You will have your joke, Leary."

  Hogg chuckled as he touched each of Forbes's attendants on an elbow and said, "Come on, boys, we'll wait in the hall. D'ye play poker, by any chance?"

  "I'll follow," said Tovera. She smiled also, which ended any chance of an attendant deciding to argue. She closed the hatch behind them.

  "I could have moved," Adele said, embarrassed by the fuss. "We don't have to be on the bridge."

  She wasn't even sure that the crew shouldn't know everything she was about to say. Though thinking about it—and Daniel had of course thought about it—it probably wasn't a good idea to show them how decisions affecting their lives were really made.

  The Millies knew that Six was brave, and at least some of them probably understood that Lady Mundy's unconcern for her personal safety went beyond mere fatalism. It might disturb them to realize that their own lives would be spent as a matter of conscious planning if the Republic required that choice, however.

  "We'll use the large display," said Daniel, "which I think Her Excellency will find easiest to grasp."

  He stepped to the astrogation console and rotated the couch to face the center of the compartment; the latch was simple but not intuitively obvious, and Forbes would never have used one before. He smiled and said, "Please make yourself comfortable, Your Excellency. Officer Mundy will put information where we can all see it."

  "After Petersen captured New Harmony," Adele said, "he divided his force. He send a squadron under Captain Varnell—"

  She'd waited until Daniel was in the command console and could watch before she threw up the first visual, images of the battleship Direktor Friedrich and its accompanying cruisers and destroyers. A viewer could open tabular data on each ship by touching an icon with the pointer in each console. Forbes probably didn't know how to do that, but neither did she need any information save the hulking mass of the battleship.

  "—back to Bolton to refit, but by way of Ponape where there'd been a rebellion of sorts. Captain Varnell's ships were in relatively poor condition but they were thought to be capable of overawing rebels, especially since news of the disaster to Admiral Ozawa's fleet would have reached Ponape by way of merchants whom the locals would trust."

  "It would appear that we owe a vote of thanks to the courageous citizens of Ponape," Daniel said in a tone of irony. "I'm not sure exactly what would've happened if we'd reached Bolton just after a squadron that size had arrived, but I'm confident that it wouldn't involve us controlling the planet."

  "Based on my knowledge of how the Alliance deals with rebels," Adele said, "I doubt that any of the really courageous citizens are alive to thank. You may think it proper to pray for their souls, of course."

  She paused to recover the thread of her exposition, then said, "Petersen took the remainder of his force—"

  A much larger body headed by three battleships replaced the imagery of Captain Varnell's squadron. Forbes's eyes narrowed as she watched, but she didn't speak.

  "—to Cacique, which had been Admiral Ozawa's base of operations. He assumed that the surviving elements of Ozawa's fleet would have fled there, and that they would quickly surrender when he arrived in overwhelming force. Cacique has a planetary defense array, but—"

  This explanation was for Forbes. She knew Daniel was up to date on all naval resources in his area of operations, both friendly and hostile.

  "—beyond that the facilities are rudimentary. Don't imagine something like you see here, Senator. Stores are transferred by lighters, not docks and cranes."

  Forbes slammed the side of her fist on the console's armrest. Nonetheless it was in an even tone of voice that she said, "So Cacique has fallen also? Then there's no world among the Montserrat Stars which isn't under the Alliance or ready to go over to the Alliance as soon as Admiral Petersen gets around to taking its submission?"

  "No, Senator," said Adele.

  "No, Your Excellency," said Daniel. They had spoken simultaneously and at once.

  With a cold smile, Adele nodded the precedence to Daniel. He bobbed his head twice.

  "Twenty-odd ships including three heavy cruisers escaped from New Harmony," he said. "They may not all have gone to Cacique, but that would be the default choice of any RCN captain under the circumstances. It's the nearest friendly world with a defense array, which is the only present safety from a fleet the size of Petersen's."

  He shrugged. "And they won't surrender, Your Excellency," he said. "Whoever's the senior captain will take command. He may not be much good—there are captains in the RCN that I wouldn't trust with organizing three other people into a bridge game. But whoever takes charge will be RCN. He won't surrender, and if he even suggested it, his fellow captains would hold a drumhead court-martial and have him shot on his own bridge."

  Daniel rapped out the final words with a vehemence that obviously surprised him when he stopped and realized what he'd done. He coughed and straightened.

  "Sorry, got a bit carried away, I'm afraid," he muttered.

  "Regardless, Senator," Adele said, "Captain Leary is correct in how the forces on Cacique behaved. The prime reason that Admiral Petersen sent a courier to Bolton was to countermand his previous orders and order Captain Varnell to rejoin him off Cacique immediately. Having judged the situation, Petersen feels that he wants all the force he can muster to prevent the RCN squadron from inflicting embarrassing reverses on his blockaders."

  "Since we are in control here on Bolton," Senator Forbes said, leaning forward slightly, "you think we can hold out against this Captain Varnell? Long enough for Cinnabar to get reinforcements to us?"

  Adele turned to Daniel and lifted an eyebrow. She thought she knew the answer, but it wasn't her place to speak for the military commander.

  "Yes, Your Excellency," Daniel said, "I think we could hold out for a very long time. A planetary defense array can't be swept quickly at best, and the warehouses here on Bolton include several hundred additional mines which we could use to replace those the Alliance clears."

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  "But I don't intend to fend off Captain Varnell's squadron," he continued. "I have a very different plan."

  He smiled. Seeing his expression, Adele realized the first time the similarities between Daniel and Tovera.

  CHAPTER 21

  St. James Harbor, Bolton

  Daniel was in the head of his space cabin when the summons came. He was wearing his commo helmet, but for this he wanted the big dis
play.

  "Go ahead, R12," he said, tugging his trousers up as he ran—well, stumbled—toward the bridge. "Over."

  Whoever was on duty in the BDC rang the deep bong of Action Stations over the PA system. Hatches began to clang against their coamings, a process that would continue for some while since the Milton had been completely opened up to the pleasant day outside.

  "The heavy cruiser Treasurer Johann and the destroyers Z44 and Pigafetta have extracted approximately one and a half million miles from Bolton," Adele's voice stated. Communications algorithms which were designed to counteract the effects of sideband transmission and atmospheric distortion had the odd result of making her sound livelier than she would have been if she'd been giving Daniel a similar report face-to-face. "There are indications that at least a dozen more ships are following. Full data is being streamed in accordance with Alliance standard operating procedures. R12 over."