When the Tide Rises

by David Drake

  Daniel sipped, focused for the moment on the situation in the Jewel System. Diamondia was defended by a planetary defense array, a constellation of nuclear mines. Each when triggered used magnetic lenses to focus ions through the target; a single mine could destroy even a battleship.

  The array could be swept by projectiles launched from beyond the range of the ion jets, but individual mines had a degree of mobility which made the process time-consuming as well as dangerous. Further, warships from the defended world could attack the sweepers while remaining within the minefield themselves. Knowing Admiral James, the defense of Diamondia was an active one.

  “What sort of time scale are you considering, if I may ask, sir?” Daniel said. The factor controlling how quickly a planetary defense array could be cleared was the number of assets the enemy put to the task.

  “At the present rate . . .” said Britten. He raised his glass, noticed it was empty, and banged it back on the desk. His eyes flicked to the bottle, but he didn’t pour himself another.

  “At the present rate, three months more or less,” he went on. “We’re slipping additional mines through the blockade on light craft, two or three at a time. That doesn’t replace wastage, but it slows the rate somewhat. The Alliance could reduce the time to thirty days with the forces they could muster, according to my guesstimate.”

  He chuckled grimly. “And if you’re wondering what’s going to happen in that extra sixty days, Leary,” he said, “I don’t have a bloody clue. Maybe Porra’ll keel over dead. Or maybe I will, which’ll at least solve my problem.”

  Britten picked up the whiskey after all. “You?” he said, tilting the bottle toward Daniel.

  Daniel swirled the last ounce of his present drink. He could hold his liquor—that was taken as a given for an RCN officer, much like courage—but there was no percentage in tripping in front of somebody who’d run to Admiral Vocaine with a story about Leary being drunk and incapable here in Navy House.

  “Thank you, no, sir,” Daniel said. “What assets can you give me for this mission, please?”

  Britten chuckled again and splashed no more than an ounce in his glass. “‘Bugger all,’ you expect me to say, don’t you?” he said. “Well, you’re bloody near right. But you can have your corvette. She’s free to contract to Navy House, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir!” Daniel said. Learning that he’d be commanding the Princess Cecile again cheered him to an unreasonable degree.

  “And you can have the crew you came back with,” Britten continued. “The ones who’re pretending to be Kostroman laborers working in your father’s dockyard. Admiral Vocaine may not want to pick a fight with Speaker Leary, but he’s not such a bloody fool that he doesn’t know what’s going on, Commander.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, sir,” he said.

  Because there weren’t enough spacers to supply both the merchant service and the RCN on a war footing, Admiral Vocaine had begun sequestering—imprisoning, for all intents and purposes—the crews of vessels arriving on Cinnabar until they could be transferred aboard another RCN warship. Daniel had asked his sister to save his crew from that if she could.

  Deirdre being Deirdre—and Corder Leary being Speaker Leary—there’d been a way. Daniel didn’t trade on his family connections—he’d broken with his father forever when he joined the RCN—but he was a Leary of Bantry. He’d take care of his retainers—which the Sissies were, in his mind—even if that meant bending his principles.

  Britten stared at his empty whiskey glass. “Bloody thing,” he muttered. He clinked it upside down over the mouth of the bottle.

  “Do you wonder where Admiral Vocaine stands on this, Leary?” he demanded. “Of course you bloody well do. Well, he’s approved it. I wouldn’t be giving you the assignment if I hadn’t gotten the go-ahead from him.”

  “I’ll try to justify the admiral’s confidence, sir,” Daniel said cautiously. He didn’t see any benefit in discussing the Chief of the Navy Board, particularly in Navy House. “And yours.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean Vocaine’ll shed tears if you get yourself blown to ions, boy,” Britten said. “He bloody well won’t. But it’s a job that’s going to take flair to carry out, and your worst enemy—which Vocaine may very well be, Leary—will grant you flair.”

  He opened the drawer and slid the bottle away. “The clerk at Desk Five will have your orders,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you the part that won’t be written down.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Daniel said, rising to his feet. He set the glass, now empty, on Britten’s desk. “The Sissie, that’s my corvette, will have a full missile magazine?”

  “There’ll be missiles,” Britten grunted. “Regular naval units’ll have priority . . . but I shouldn’t wonder if you found a way around that.”

  I shouldn’t wonder either, Captain, Daniel thought behind his smile. A few florins to a leading ordnanceman and new-manufacture dual-converter missiles could wind up marked as the sort of off-planet odds and ends that’d ordinarily be issued to a private yacht bought into service as an auxiliary.

  “One thing, Leary, just to be clear,” Britten said. “And maybe so that you understand Admiral Vocaine a little better. This is an open-ended appointment. You’re to remain in the Bagarian Cluster until you’re recalled, and that won’t be before the end of the war.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Daniel.

  “But that’s not all bad,” Britten continued. “There’s going to be a lot of things up in the air in the Bagarian Cluster. Money, for one, but more than that. A clever young fellow could just find himself life ruler of a rich planet. That’s not a bad alternative to being an RCN officer, is it?”

  “There are many who’d agree with you, sir,” said Daniel. He did salute this time, then took himself quickly through the door.

  I might consider that option myself, at some time after Hell freezes over.

  Chapter Three

  BERGEN AND ASSOCIATES YARD, CINNABAR

  The office of Bergen and Associates was built over the shops, so Daniel was forty feet in the air, looking down onto the Princess Cecile, which floated in the pool as the crew completed her outfitting. Behind him, his sister and the representatives of the Navy Office negotiated the terms of the corvette’s lease.

  “Now turn to Schedule 3, Depreciation,” said Deirdre Leary, sitting at what’d once been Uncle Stacey’s desk and now was Lieutenant Mon’s. “You’ll note that we’ve raised the figure by a half of a percent. That’s based on actual wastage of spars and rigging during the previous RCN commission, as listed in the appendix. Now you’ll note that we’ve—”

  She was six years older than Daniel and their father’s daughter in all respects except for physique. Where Corder was tall and craggy, Deirdre was shortish, soft if not exactly fat, and attractive if you liked full-figured brunettes. Attractiveness didn’t matter: what Deirdre needed from a man had nothing to do with romance, so she preferred to use professionals.

  “One moment, mistress,” said Ward Spears, the civilian clerk from the Navy Office, who was seated across from her. “I notice that you’ve increased depreciation on the hull as well, and that you’re using the high figure for hull valuation . . .”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “Ah, Deirdre?” he said. “The missiles have arrived and I believe I’d best oversee their stowage. You’ll call me when you’re ready for my signature?”

  She flicked a hand toward him in dismissal. “Yes, of course we’re applying the additional half percent to the hull, Master Spears,” she said sharply. “While it’s easier to measure the additional strain on the running gear, you surely don’t claim that it doesn’t involve the hull as well?”

  The lieutenant commander who’d accompanied the clerk to represent the uniformed establishment watched longingly as Daniel started down the outside stairs. He must be as bored as Daniel was and, unlike the vessel’s owner, didn’t have the option of leaving the business to people who liked this sort of pettifogger
y.

  Which Deirdre really must. Her bank was leasing agent on the Princess Cecile, but that didn’t mean she personally needed to handle these negotiations. She was haggling over a few hundred florins when she frequently dealt in tens of millions.

  Better her than me, thought Daniel as he reached the concrete quay where Miranda stood beside Mon. A crew under Woetjans was swinging the fourth of twenty missiles cautiously from a lowboy and through the C Deck port serving the stern magazine. Even empty the missile weighed several tons. Filled with reaction mass—normally water—and accelerated to terminal velocity by its antimatter motors, it could deal a crippling blow to even a battleship.

  If it hit, of course, and a corvette’s small missile magazines made a hit over normal combat distances unlikely. Still, the Sissie had done some good in the past and might easily do so again. The present mission ought to provide a sufficiency of targets, at any rate.

  “Oh, there’s Daniel!” called Miranda happily. She was wearing green pastel slacks and a tunic with a floral pattern, cheerful without being garish. She was pretty rather than a classic beauty, but her personality made her the center of men’s attention in almost any group. “Daniel, did you realize that these missiles are dual-converter RCN units? The manifest says they’re a mix of single-converter foreign missiles.”

  Mon coughed and turned away in mild embarrassment. He’d been a good but unlucky officer during fourteen years of service with the RCN. When Daniel learned he owned the shipyard upon his Uncle Stacey’s death two years before, he’d hired Mon to run it.

  Mon now had a contented expression and an additional twenty pounds of comfortable fat. Daniel had a completely trustworthy manager who saw to it that Uncle Stacey’s longtime employees were well treated. And the shipyard was making money hand over fist.

  Of course, renewed hostilities with the Alliance had something to do with profitability. Navy House was getting first-rate workmanship on jobs that it hired done in the Bergen yard, though, so Daniel felt no embarrassment about being paid better as a civilian contractor than he was as a commander in the RCN.

  “Well, Miranda,” Daniel said, turning so that she could give him a friendly kiss on the cheek. “There may be some problems with paperwork, and it’s even possible that I encouraged some problems with paperwork. But as I see it, missiles I ship aboard the Princess Cecile are very likely to be launched against enemies of the Republic. It’s to everybody’s advantage that they be modern units that accelerate quickly, don’t you think?”

  “Oh,” said Miranda, looking stricken. “Oh, you must think I’m a fool!”

  “Mistress, nobody thinks you’re a fool!” said Mon fervently. He looked from her to the corvette, cleared his throat, and went on, “Well, what do you think of her, Commander? I don’t mind saying that I think we did a good job.”

  The corvette’s access ports were open while she was on the ground. Vesey—Lieutenant Vesey, Daniel’s first officer—looked out from the bridge and waved.

  “She’s checking the astrogational updates,” Mon said quietly. “Will Lady Mundy be able to help with the crewing situation, sir? Seeings as this really will be a combat mission.”

  Daniel grimaced. “We decided against pressing our luck,” he said. Adele’s ability to enter RCN databases at will and change assignments had been very useful in the past and might be again. Repeating the trick that’d gotten the Princess Cecile a crew when last she lifted from Cinnabar raised the risk of being caught to an unacceptable level. “And we’ve got eighty, that’s enough to work and fight a corvette. They’re all veterans, and they’ve sailed with me before.”

  “That’s including the Pellegrinians, isn’t it?” Mon said.

  Daniel shrugged. “They’re good men,” he said. “And perfectly trustworthy.”

  A number of enemy spacers captured on Dunbar’s World had preferred to join the RCN rather than return home and explain to Chancellor Arruns how they’d survived a disaster which’d claimed the life of his son and heir. In practice all members of the crew of a starship did their best in combat, regardless of their nationality or politics. That was their only chance of survival.

  “Oh, they’ll do, I know,” said Mon. He laughed and added, “They’ll have Captain Leary commanding them, after all. But a hundred and twenty would be better than eighty, even if it makes the berths a little tight.”

  Daniel tried to look at the Princess Cecile critically; to his surprise, he couldn’t. Oh, he could rattle off the statistics: a three-hundred-foot cylinder with rounded ends; six rings of four antennas each, telescoped and folded along the hull while she was on the planetary surface. The plasma thrusters which drove her in an atmosphere were on the lower hull, clear of the water. High Drive motors annihilated antimatter to provide thrust more efficiently in a vacuum; they were recessed into the outriggers which steadied the ship after she’d landed.

  The Sissie mounted paired 4-inch plasma cannon in turrets on the dorsal bow and ventral stern; the latter was inboard at the moment because it’d be under water if it were extended. For choice a starship always landed in water, which damped the flaring plasma exhaust and cushioned the process of settling many tons (1300 in the corvette’s case, and she was small) onto a surface. Thrust reflected from rocky soil could flip a vessel if her captain were careless or unlucky.

  “I think she’s beautiful,” Miranda said softly. “Generally I think Kostroma-built ships look stumpy, but the Sissie’s lines are perfect.”

  “I’m glad you think so, dear,” Daniel said, choosing his words carefully.

  To him the corvette was simply right: not pretty, not functional, just the way the universe had made her. He felt about the Sissie the same way he did about his nose. He knew there were many women and not a few men who obsessed about the details of their physical appearance, but not Daniel Leary; and the corvette was part of him.

  He chuckled. Miranda looked at him and cocked an eyebrow in question. “I was thinking about the Sissie the way I do about my nose,” Daniel said, wondering if that made any sense to the others. “Actually, she’s more like my right hand, isn’t she?”

  The first lowboy was crawling down the quay to find room to reverse; a second, loaded with a further quartet of missiles, pulled up in its place. A stake-bed produce truck drove with a crashing of gears past the three more waiting lowboys and stopped beside Daniel and his companions.

  Hogg got out of the cab. “All right, Bantries,” he bellowed. “Hop down and wait till the master tells you where he wants you!”

  He turned to Daniel, looking pleased, and said, “Good morning, young master. Woetjans thought you could use a heftier crew, so I went back to the estate and brought you twenty tenants that I was willing to vouch for. They’ll need training before you can call’em spacers, but it seems to me some of what you need in this business is folks who’ll jump when the master says jump. Aye, and knock heads when they’re told, that too. This lot qualifies.”

  The men—and a few women—climbing from the back of the truck dipped their faces and touched forelocks to Daniel before shuffling into line. Most were young and one freckle-faced boy didn’t look to be more than fourteen years old. If Hogg’d picked him, though, there was a reason.

  Hogg was Daniel’s servant. Hogg’s ancestors had served Learys of Bantry for as far back as records ran. He looked dirty, unsophisticated, and almost bright enough to count to ten on his fingers.

  In fact Hogg was dirty. He was also a skilled poacher, as clever—and ruthless—as a ferret, and utterly loyal to the young master.

  Hogg had been the man in Daniel’s life while he was growing up. Loyalty and devotion didn’t mean that Hogg wouldn’t whale the living daylights out of a boy he thought needed it. They’d both known that if Daniel had complained to his gentle mother, Hogg would be turned off the estate in disgrace.

  Hogg had continued to raise the boy according to his standards of conduct, because it was his duty to do so. That willingness to put duty first had been the gui
ding light of Daniel’s life ever since. It’d served him well in the RCN.

  Daniel looked critically at the new recruits. It’d been nearly a decade since he’d been back to Bantry, so he didn’t recognize many of the faces. Michael Polucha, though, had the streak of white in his hair where he’d fallen into the fish processor back when he and Daniel were both eleven.

  “You, Stripey!” Daniel called. “Why did you decide to join the RCN?”

  “Well, it’s what Hogg told us, Master Daniel . . .” Polucha said, his eyes turned down toward his bare toes. “More money than anybody on Bantry ever seed—in the cottages I mean, saving your presence. And everybody bowing and scraping to us, ’cause we b’long t’ Captain Leary.”

  Daniel scowled, wondering how to handle this. These folk were his responsibility, and the Learys didn’t lie to their retainers. On the other hand, he had responsibilities to the Princess Cecile and the RCN also, and another twenty recruits could be very helpful . . .

  “Just hold on before you say the wrong thing, young master,” Hogg said. He turned to the Sissie’s main hatch, where Richard Campeny, the armorer, was chatting with the two power room ratings on guard with sub-machine guns.

  “Campeny!” he called. “You heard what Polucha says I told him. Is it the truth?”

  “Hell, yes, Hogg,” said Campeny, straightening when he realized everybody—including Miranda—was watching him. “Though I won’t pretend much of the money stuck to my fingers; I guess there’s more could say that too. It’s a bloody good time whenever we’re on the ground, though, and they learn we’re Sissies. A bloody good time!”

  Hogg bobbed his head, then faced Daniel again. “Now, young master,” he said forcefully. “Now what do you say?”

  “All right, Campeny,” Daniel said. “Since you seem to have time on your hands, take charge of this draft until Woetjans gets through stowing the missiles. Tell Lieutenant Vesey to set up the watches and make bunk assignments.”