The Road of Danger-ARC

by David Drake

  Daniel will be interested. I must remember to tell him.

  Tovera pulled around in a half turn on the shoreline before she stopped, so that the vehicle was positioned to drive away without hesitation. Adele’s smile barely touched her lips: there was very little chance that the Feursnot did not carry marksmen as skillful as Hogg with a stocked impeller. Nonetheless, the principle was sound.

  The Alliance vehicle rolled up beyond the surf line on its broad tires and stopped twenty feet from Adele and Tovera. A man of about fifty got out of the cab. As soon as he was clear, the driver—his only visible companion, though the body of the vehicle would hold a squad of twelve—began backing around also. Adele wondered if the fellow had been in the same class as Tovera during 5th Bureau training.

  Adele climbed out of the borrowed car. The bin where she rode was generally used to haul a surf fisherman’s catch, but Adele’s present drab black clothing—cut like RCN utilities but without the mottled pattern—was intended for hard service. She walked toward the Alliance official with Tovera—unexpectedly—following a pace behind and to the left.

  “Lady Mundy?” the official said. His civilian suit was a single shade of brown, but a subtle pattern of gloss and matte varied the surface. “I am Adolf Storn, who left the message for you. I’m glad you could meet me at this short notice.”

  “I’m Mundy,” Adele said, letting her fingertips rest on the data unit in its thigh pocket. “How do you wish to proceed?”

  She consciously kept her left hand at the small of her back lest it absently stroke her pistol. Reflexes had saved her life a number of times, but there were times that they could be fatal because they sent the wrong signal.

  “The briefing materials told me not to expect small-talk,” Storn said with a faint smile. “I’m glad to see that our information is accurate.”

  Without any change in tone, he continued, “There are various ways of handling this matter, Lady Mundy. I would prefer to do so informally, avoiding discussions between Pleasaunce and Xenos. Is that possible?”

  “It should be,” said Adele. “Go on.”

  The Leelburg Docks could service no more than ten moderate-sized ships at a time. The Macotta Squadron frequently operated from harbors no more developed than those here, so they were prepared. A construction crew had laid mooring buoys and floating quays along the bayfront to the south of the permanent facilities. The seafront in that direction was sloping and easily accessible.

  The Feursnot had landed a mile to the north. The beach wasn’t a great deal worse than that in the other direction, but there was a steep escarpment just north of the docks and settlement, making it inaccessible at high tide—except by sea or to vehicles like the one Hogg had found for Tovera.

  There could be no privacy in Leelburg, packed with outsiders as it was, and Storn didn’t want Adele and her data unit within his ship any more than she wanted to be there. Their beach was a good location for the meeting, as well as being the only location possible.

  “If you don’t mind handling the matter quietly,” Storn said, “then…can we expect your republic’s navy to remain neutral?”

  “This is in the interests of both nations,” Adele said. “The RCN will provide support if you request it.”

  She considered for moment, then added, “It will take me a little time to make arrangements. A few hours, perhaps.”

  “Thank you, your Ladyship,” Storn said, with a smile as faint as Adele’s own when she considered the sort of matter which he was probably planning now. “I don’t believe additional personnel will be necessary except for traffic control, but I appreciate the thought.”

  “Very well,” said Adele. “I’ll get back to the Princess Cecile and change uniform, then take care of the RCN part of the arrangements.”

  Storn dipped his head to her in acknowledgment, then looked at Tovera. “Did you know,” he said lightly, “that there’s a price on your head?”

  “Do you plan to collect it?” Tovera said. Her tone was politely interested.

  Storn chuckled. “Not now,” he said. “Another time, perhaps.”

  Tovera followed Adele to the vehicle at the same proper distance, then got into the saddle. She closed and latched her attaché case, then hooked it to the steering column at her feet.

  The Alliance vehicle was already snorting into the water. Adele watched it for a moment and said, “I’m glad Hogg didn’t put us in a boat. Things are working out rather well, I believe.”

  ***

  “My brother’s a poor missionary…” Hogg croaked. “He saves fallen women from sin.”

  His voice was a sort of bass growl, even though he’d had enough of the local brandy to really lubricate it. Daniel had drunk a tumbler or two as well. He probably shouldn’t have, and he certainly shouldn’t have while still wearing his Whites, but it had worked out all right.

  “He’ll save you a blonde for a florin…” Hogg sang.

  As Daniel left squadron headquarters, he had run into his Academy classmate Pennyroyal—now Lieutenant Pennyroyal, First Officer of the destroyer Montrose. Because her ship was part of the flotilla based on Tattersall, she had her own car and had offered to carry Daniel and Hogg back to the Sissie.

  Since the ride would save them so much time over what they would have spent waiting for the Fleet-commandeered trucks acting as trams, she suggested they stop at a club where Lieutenant Ames, a mutual friend, was already waiting. Hogg had really wanted a drink—

  And Hogg’s master had felt like celebrating too, since he’d delivered his report and thus ended his association with the Macotta Squadron. Daniel didn’t hold grudges, and Admiral Cox appeared to have handled his duties on Tattersall well. Nonetheless, Daniel would be very pleased to see the last of the region and of the commander of its RCN squadron.

  “My god how the money rolls in!”

  “Steady on, Hogg,” Daniel said, pausing at the base of the floating gangplank. Hogg swam like a fish and indeed, a bath in the chilly harbor might do him some good; but the splash was likely to wet Daniel’s only 1st Class uniform.

  “Want us to give him a hand, sir?” asked Riley, the senior spacer of the entry watch. He was smiling indulgently.

  “I could walk up that gangplank on my hands if I chose to!” said Hogg, striking a regal pose. He relaxed and continued, “However, I do not choose to do so. You may assist me, Technician Three Riley!”

  “Captain Leary,” called the Sissie’s external speakers in what sounded like Adele’s voice. “Report to the bridge at once, if you please.”

  The tone caused Daniel to brace to attention and sobered him more effectively than any of the cures he had attempted at one time or another. “Roger!” he muttered, though of course Adele couldn’t hear him.

  He trotted up the gangplank and through the entry hold to the up companionway. He didn’t know what had gone wrong, but nobody was going to say that Daniel Leary took his time when duty called. The fact that it called in Adele’s voice was an added inducement.

  The off-duty spacers in the hold nodded, but nobody spoke to Daniel as he passed. Either they knew what was up—or at least that something was—or they had made the same assessment of Officer Mundy’s summons as he had himself.

  Daniel climbed the companionway at a swift, steady pace; drunk or sober, it was always the same. Trying to sprint the whole way didn’t work, would never have worked, but neither did he waste time.

  He crossed the rotunda to the bridge where Adele waited. She was wearing a civilian suit of cream on off-white. Instead of being alone—well, alone except forTovera, her poisonous reptile—as Daniel had expected, Vesey was at the command console. Each other station—save for the signals console—was occupied by the proper officer.

  Witnesses. For my sake, Adele has arranged witnesses.

  “Captain Leary,” Adele said. She sounded as she normally did: coldly formal. “You are now under my command, by the authority of the Speaker of the Republic as delegated to the Permanent Secret
ary of the Senate. Would you care to see my authorization?”

  Daniel frowned. “Would you lie to me, your Ladyship?” he asked.

  Adele considered for a moment. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I would.”

  Hogg entered the bridge. Daniel caught the movement from the corner of his eye, but Hogg was moving as silently as only an old poacher could. He too understood the situation.

  Daniel smiled faintly. “Then I’m ready to go,” he said, patting the blouse of his Whites. He wasn’t feeling the brandy, for a blessing.

  “No,” said Adele unexpectedly. “While you’re under my command, Captain, I want you in utilities and wearing a commo helmet. This is dismounted operation. Oh, and wear a sidearm.”

  “Ah—” said Daniel, nonplussed. “Ah, Officer, Lady Mundy, that is, I’m not a good pistol shot. I could draw a sub-machine gun if you think…?”

  He stopped, embarrassed to be so completely at sea. Adele smiled—broadly, for Adele—and said, “Thank you, Captain. The pistol will send a signal to Admiral Cox. A sub-machine gun would send a different signal, which I hope won’t be required.”

  “I trust her Ladyship will delegate any shooting to her household servant,” said Tovera. She smiled also. “Since I enjoy it.”

  “Yes,” said Adele, the humor gone from her face. “Tovera will accompany us and will drive the staff car which Squadron Headquarters is sending here. Hogg—”

  She glanced at him, but she continued to address Daniel.

  “—will not accompany us.”

  Hogg touched his forelock and bowed. “Yes, mum,” he said. “I will go look for a sheep to dip or some other employment proper to a simple countryman.”

  “I’ll get changed,” Daniel said, turning to go to his quarters just forward of the Battle Direction Center. He was smiling.

  But he was very glad that Hogg had understood that this wasn’t a time to argue with Lady Mundy.

  CHAPTER 28: Leelburg on Tattersall

  Adele strode toward the entrance of the school with Daniel behind and to the left like a mottled gray shadow; Tovera balanced him to the right. The car sported the metal pennon of Squadron Headquarters. It remained in front. It had been dispatched in response to a signal coded to Admiral Cox. It was unlikely that anyone—else—on Tattersall would be able to trace to call’s origination back to the Princess Cecile’s bridge.

  Adele had reviewed the imagery of Daniel reporting to the temporary headquarters a few hours earlier. The sergeant commanding the Marine detachment on guard had saluted not Daniel, whom he hadn’t known from Adam, but the RCN captain in Whites. Lady Mundy would have to work harder to breeze through.

  She had never minded hard work.

  The sergeant cupped his hand over his right ear as an order came through the bud. He shouted, “Atten-shun!”

  As his squad stiffened and threw their weapons to their shoulders, the sergeant snapped out a sharp salute, then pulled the door open. “Ma’am!” he said.

  Adele nodded regally as she passed him. Inside the building, and muffled by the echoes of chattering and feet on concrete, Daniel said, “How did you do that, if I may ask?”

  “Cory directed the guards to admit the Navy Board plenipotentiary and her aides,” Adele said. “He’s watching through your helmet.”

  Then—it might be considered bragging, but it was important to her to be accurate—she added, “I could have done it by keying a preset message as we approached, but I thought having a human in the loop was preferable in case anything went wrong.”

  They crossed the central rotunda. The enlisted clerks watched but didn’t speak. The supervising lieutenant, who hadn’t been present when Daniel arrived on his own, said, “Mistress? Mistress! You can’t go through there!”

  He lifted the gate in the circular counter. Daniel shifted to block him. He didn’t

  raise his hands, but Adele had seen how quickly Daniel could move when he wanted to.

  “Lieutenant!” said the senior clerk. From the urgency in her voice, she had predicted correctly what was going to happen if her superior tried to push Daniel out of the way. “They’re authorized! The message just came through! They’re from Xenos!”

  That was true only in the most general sense, but Adele didn’t feel obliged to correct the clerk on her way to the door marked Headmaster. Cox had taken that office and the associated meeting room for his temporary headquarters.

  The lieutenant said, “What?” but he allowed the clerk to tug him back within the counter. Plaintively he added to no one in particular, “The admiral’s in conference with Captain Butler, though.”

  Butler was regional head of Naval Intelligence. Well, that wasn’t a problem.

  Adele touched the door. It was locked. She felt a flash of cold fury and turned to Daniel.

  “Ma’am?” the senior clerk said. “Please, I’ll call through and—”

  The latch plate clicked; the door not only unlocked, it slumped open a finger’s breadth. Cory must have figured out how to shut down the lock system completely. Perhaps because it was a school, the doors had to open if the facility lost power in an emergency.

  Her good humor restored, Adele strode into the suite. She must have been more on edge than she had realized to have turned immediately to the alternative of having Daniel kick the door down.

  The office proper was empty but the door to the adjoining conference room was open. Admiral Cox sat at a console which was part of the school’s furnishings; Commander Ruffin and a portly captain who must be Butler sat to either side of him with their personal data units on the long table.

  “What’s this?” Cox said. “Who are you?”

  Ruffin got to her feet with an angry expression. Captain Butler by contrast stared at his holographic display, scrolled down it, and looked at Adele in amazement. He said, “You’re Lady Mundy, that’s right?”

  “Yes,” said Adele. “Now get out.”

  She gestured to Commander Ruffin and added, “You too. My business is with Admiral Cox.”

  She smiled, more or less. “My aides will stay.”

  Butler rose, scooping up his data unit and dropping it into the briefcase beside him on the table. He closed but didn’t bother to latch the case. Carrying it in both hands, he moved quickly around the table.

  “Whoever you are,” said Cox, “get out and get out now! We’re discussing security matters!”

  “Admiral?” Butler called over his shoulder. Daniel stepped to the side to leave a path to the door. “Check your console, sir. It’s on your console too, I’m sure.”

  Which of course it was, thanks to Cory. Butler was proving quicker off the mark than Adele would have expected to find filling a Naval Intelligence slot in the Macotta Region, but not infrequently a person who was smart but lacked influence ran into someone influential who wasn’t smart. In Adele’s experience, influence generally won.

  Cox was staring at his display; Ruffin was staring at Cox. Do they think they’re posing for a wax tableau?

  Adele sat in the chair across from Cox—he and his aides had been in line on one side of the table—and took out her data unit. She said, “Captain Leary, put Ruffin out of the room, since she doesn’t appear to understand words of one syllable.”

  She twitched her wands and cut the power to the console Cox was using. His eyes didn’t focus on her at first.

  “This way, Commander,” Daniel said, reaching for Ruffin’s elbow.

  Tovera patted the aide’s cheek and said, “It’s better if he does it, sweetie. But my way will be quicker if you decide to make a problem.”

  “Get out of here, Ruffin!” Cox said hoarsely. He appeared to have realized that his aide was the only person present against whom it was safe to release his frightened anger. “Just get out!”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” muttered Ruffin. She stepped back as if unaware of Daniel’s hand and followed Butler out of the office. When she closed the outer door behind her, it latched and probably locked.

  Cory con
tinues to be a credit to his training.

  “Admiral Cox,” Adele said, raising her eyes to meet the Admiral’s. Daniel and Tovera remained standing to either side of her chair. “You chose not to deal with Captain Leary; therefore you’re dealing with Mundy of Chatsworth. Do you have any questions about your present situation?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Cox said. With a little more vigor he added, “I don’t have any bloody idea!”

  “Then let me rephrase that,” Adele said. She thought of adding, “because you appear to be as thick as two short planks.” She did not, because that was what Hogg would have said. Hogg was an estimable servant, but for Daniel rather than for her; and anyway, he was not a suitable role model for Lady Mundy.

  “You have read my credentials from Admiral Hartsfeld, authorizing me to issue orders to naval personnel in the name of the Navy Board and to supersede any officer in the Macotta Region without recourse. Do you understand that?”

  “But how?” Cox said. He sounded hurt rather than angry. “You came from nowhere and now you’re giving me orders!”

  Adele’s tongue touched her lips in exasperation. After a moment’s pause while she determined how to handle this, she said, “I’m sure that Admiral Hartsfeld hoped his own personnel would be able to handle the situation without need for the representative of the Senate to step in. I hoped that myself, to be honest. Unfortunately, Admiral, you and your staff have shown yourselves to be too parochial to be trusted with the safety of the Republic in a situation so delicate.”

  Cox flushed, then swallowed. He did not speak.

  “Now,” said Adele. “Will you accept my orders quickly and without cavil? Or shall I replace you with Captain Leary, here?”

  She tilted her head slightly toward Daniel. She didn’t gesture with her hands because she was holding the wands.