The Way to Glory

by David Drake

  The vessel the rebels were converting to a warship was on the north side of the mansion. Half its antennas were missing, but it still had a turret with two plasma cannon on the dorsal bow. A 12-tube rocket launcher had been added astern.

  "Daniel?" said Adele in a tinny voice through the miniature radio she'd clipped to Daniel's epaulette like a fourth rank tab. He'd never have worn such an item with his Whites at a Cinnabar function, but he doubted Generalissimo Ma was an expert on RCN uniforms. "The rebels are hailing you, but they're on FM and your vehicle has only AM radio. I'm patching them through."

  Instantly someone else snarled, "Land that car! Land at once or we'll shoot you down, I don't care if you're the whole Cinnabar Senate!"

  "Roger, Big Florida Base," Daniel said, dropping into proper communications protocol by reflex. "This is RCN aircar 5063—"

  He had no idea what the number painted on the vehicle's bow meant. He needed to identify himself some way, though.

  "—approaching Big Florida for negotiations. We'll land at the entrance to the large stone building, over."

  Tovera glanced at him over her shoulder. He nodded. She slanted the aircar's bow down instead of tilting the fans toward vertical while throttling back as a more skilled driver would've done. Gravity accelerated them into a dive toward the mansion rather than them sloping slowly down for a landing as intended.

  That was almost fatal: they flew into a burst of sub-machine gun fire that'd been aimed to miss them ahead. Three pellets popped on the car's underside. One must've hit a fan blade before it sang away.

  "Land at once!" the rebel shrieked. "Land or we'll kill you!"

  "Tovera," Daniel said, "drop her fast but aim for the mansion still. Break—"

  Not strictly correct, but he had to cue Adele as he went on, "Roger, Big Florida Control. We're landing immediately. Please stop shooting at us. RCN aircar out."

  Twenty or thirty people stood outside the mansion and looked up at them. Most of the spectators were armed. More were sauntering from the building or pushing aside the walls of sheeting to look out.

  The aircar plunged downward. Tovera jerked the yoke toward her, then realized she had to add power fast instead of throttling back as she'd started to do. Rebels bellowed and jumped out of the way, some of them dropping their guns.

  Tovera avoided a smashup, but the aircar pogoed upward again instead of settling. She caught the vehicle twenty feet in the air, achieved wobbly balance, and lowered them to the ground in a series of ratchets. The bow dipped first, then the stern.

  "Thank you, Tovera," Daniel said, rising to his feet before he stepped out of the vehicle. He set his hat on his head and straightened it by feel. "That was more than good enough."

  Which was true. Tovera'd been thrown out of her planned approach by the radioed orders and hadn't managed a smooth transition to the change. Nonetheless they were safely on the ground, which is all that was required. Barnes would likely have landed on the first pass, but in a doughnut of grit and with a bang that'd threaten the frame if he didn't break it.

  Tovera didn't reply. Daniel looked at her. She was white with fury—at herself, apparently. She hadn't met her own standards, even though she'd exceeded his.

  An extremely tall man with pale skin and blond hair ran toward them from the mansion. His uniform was as ornate as Daniel's and a great deal more colorful. He was dressed all in orange, but each garment—tricorne hat, tunic, sash, trousers and dyed leather boots—was a different shade of orange.

  Daniel blinked at the fellow. Hogg would be envious, he thought, but that was a warning as well. Hogg's flamboyant taste didn't make him a harmless buffoon, so the same might be true of this fellow.

  "You Cinnabar goat-fuckers!" the blond screamed. He wasn't a Yang native, obviously. "Didn't you hear me tell you to land at once? By God, you'll know to do what I tell you the next time!"

  He lifted his right hand for what was obviously intended to be a full-armed slap. He was rangy rather than bulky but he was also six-eight or nine, a good foot taller than Daniel.

  "Pardon me, sir," Daniel said in a voice loud enough to be heard. "I'm a Cinnabar gentleman and an RCN officer. Don't presume—"

  The blond swung. Daniel caught his wrist with his right hand and stopped the blow in the air.

  "I say, this behavior isn't—"

  The other rebels were watching, jabbering among themselves more in interest than anger. The blond was obviously a leader of some sort, but he was also a foreigner.

  The fellow drew back a leg to kick. Act harmless and a little stupid, Adele had said. Daniel could see the logic of that, but he was a Leary.

  He still held the blond's wrist. He let go of it. The fellow'd been straining to pull out of Daniel's grip, so he jerked himself off balance. Daniel grabbed the blond's raised boot with both hands and twisted hard. Because of the considerable leverage, the knee popped before the ankle did. He toppled backward, screaming.

  Daniel bent to open the flap of the fellow's cross-draw holster. He grabbed Daniel by the shoulders. That might've been a response to pain rather than from a desire to continue the fight, if you wanted to call it a fight. Daniel backhanded him absently and tossed the fellow's small pistol into the aircar without looking behind him. That motion only looked accidental.

  "There, that's all right, then," Daniel said, straightening to smile brightly at the circle of watching rebels. Bloody hell, he'd burst the left shoulder seam of his tunic. Thank the good fortune of the RCN that the sash of the Order of Novy Sverdlovsk would conceal most of the damage. "Will one of you gentlemen—or ladies, that would be fine—please take me to Generalissimo Ma? We have an appointment."

  A husky male rebel with a rocket launcher stepped to the fallen blond and jabbed bare toes into the injured knee. "What price your pretty clothes now, Platt?" he said over the victim's screams.

  Tovera switched off the aircar's fans. She sat primly with her hands on the steering yoke instead of reaching for the pistol on the seat behind her. She hadn't shut down before: even without scythes, the vehicle was a weapon. Sweeping unexpectedly into the arc of spectators, it could've been a very effective one.

  "Really, can anyone help me?" Daniel said, looking hopeful and innocent. "Then shall I just go in by myself?"

  "I'll take you to His Nibs," said the man with the rocket launcher. "Say, it was a treat watching you break Platt's leg. You want to break the other one before you go?"

  "I hardly think that'll be necessary," Daniel said, dabbing at his medals as if to dust them. He wanted to suck air through his open mouth, but for the sake of appearances he was forcing himself to breathe normally.

  He followed the rocketeer into the mansion. The rough stone interior walls made it look like a prison, but it must've been a very fancy place in its day. The plaster that'd fallen to litter the floor—nobody'd bothered to sweep it out during the current reoccupation—had been frescoed.

  Light sockets were spiked into cracks in the walls and connected by wire that hung in swags between them. They threw harsh shadows across what would've been ugly enough even with soft lighting.

  Most of the other spectators trooped in behind Daniel and his guide. He was apparently the best entertainment on offer this evening. None of the rooms they passed had doors, but quick glances to either side showed only tangled fabric—clothing, bedding; who knew?—and not infrequently sprawled people.

  The place stank. Most if not all of the hundreds of inhabitants were using the nearest corner as a latrine instead of going outside to void their wastes against the exterior walls as the better classes did on Yang.

  The rear of the original building had been a garden enclosed in a pillared court. It'd been covered with plastic panels and turned into the Generalissimo's headquarters. Fifty or more armed people stood about, while Ma filled a raised stone bench that would've held three men Daniel's size. A woman, striking though she wasn't in her first youth, sat on a stool at the Generalissimo's feet. She had an olive complexion and lust
rous, curly hair the color of polished coal.

  In one corner of the garden was a modern communications console. The technician sitting at it looked over her shoulder at Daniel with an unreadable expression. She wore a one-piece beige garment, possibly a uniform though it had no insignia and Daniel didn't recognize the cut. If—as seemed likely—she and Platt had come with the console to handle the rebels' information services, she was going to be working a double shift for the next long time.

  "Why are you here, Cinnabar?" the Generalissimo squeaked. "Go away now! You have no business with the Light of Free Yang movement."

  Daniel had the odd feeling that Ma's rolls of fat were squeezing his voice into a high-pitched chirp. He didn't suppose human physiology worked that way, but the notion had the seductive plausibility of a good urban legend. . . .

  Aloud he said, "Sir, I'm here as representative of my republic. I understand you're detaining one of our citizens, Mistress Maria Mondindragiana. I've come to request her release on behalf of my people."

  The pretty woman at Ma's feet had been watching Daniel in a speculative way that he was familiar with; so familiar, in fact, that he'd been sucking in his gut in what was closer to instinct than reflex. When he spoke, her face went completely blank, as still as a bust stamped onto a coin.

  "My Maria, detained?" Ma giggled. "What a joke! She's with me because I'm six times that man that eunuch Shin was. Maria loves me and loves my loving! Tell him so, Maria."

  That last was beyond any question a command. The woman formed her mouth into a professional smile and said, "Me want to get out of here? What reason could there possibly be that I'd want to get out of here, Mister Cinnabar Officer? The Generalissimo's troops came to my villa, and I never had any thought but to go with them."

  So she really did want to leave, Daniel thought. He hadn't been sure till he heard her carefully worded response. In a way that was a pity, because part of him would much prefer to lift from Yang at once and head straight back to Nikitin with word of what was happening on Big Florida Island.

  "Very well then, Generalissimo," Daniel said. Instead of saluting, one military officer to another, he made a bow so low that it was just short of an obeisance. This was the tricky part. "I'll tell you frankly that from the very beginning I was more than a little doubtful about what President Shin claimed. Between us as soldiers, I'd be doubtful if that fellow walked in the door wet and told me it was raining."

  Ma piped like a teapot at a hard boil. His eyes were closed and waves rippled through his fat from his calves to his swollen jowls. It was only by deduction that Daniel was sure the Generalissimo was laughing: if it'd been having a fit or in a rage, his retainers wouldn't still look bored.

  Mind, Generalissimo Ma could have a fatal stroke while laughing. Although Daniel didn't think the universe in general would be worse for that occurrence, it'd make his own task even more complicated than it already was.

  "Since that's the case . . ." Daniel continued when he thought the squealing laughter had dropped to a point that the Generalissimo could hear him again. "I'll go straight back to the city and give that Shin a piece of my mind. I'll show him that he can't lie to a Cinnabar officer and get away with it! If he doesn't turn over his prisoners to me at once, he'll live to regret it!"

  It was obvious—and inevitable—that the rebels had spies in the Presidential Palace. By telling Ma what he already knew, that Shin had sent him, Daniel could look like a dimwit who blurted secrets—without in fact giving anything away.

  It was very important that he seem to be a dimwit, because any visitor with half a brain must inevitably know too much to be allowed to live. The only reason the rebels had allowed Daniel to approach was that shooting an RCN officer really would bring massive retaliation. Admiral Milne might be delighted with the result, but she wouldn't let it go unpunished; no Cinnabar official would. Since he'd come in unexpectedly high, they might decide they had to shoot him anyway.

  The information would reach Milne regardless, through the data the car's spy suite had already transmitted to Adele aboard Cutter 614. Daniel, giving the Generalissimo a sappy smile, had personal reasons to want to bring it back himself. It was nice to know that he'd be avenged, of course, but that wasn't his first choice of outcomes.

  Ma grew still. He looked around the room. "Where is Platt?" he said in dawning irritation. "Is Platt not here?"

  "Naw, he decided to take a lie-down outside, boss," said the rocketeer who'd brought Daniel in. "You know them stuck-up foreigners."

  The rebels who'd come in with him laughed. Ma's frown turned to puzzlement, then back to anger before blanking again. He fixed Daniel with his eyes. In a falsely jovial voice said, "I wonder, Lieutenant . . . I'm building a new fort on the north of the island. Did you notice it, perhaps?"

  "Haw!" said Daniel, wondering if he was overdoing it. "I'm not much for architecting, your lordship. I leave that for the other chappies, the Land Forces of the Republic we call them, you know. Mind, I like a spot of hunting and fishing when I'm on leave."

  "Too bad," Ma said. "I'd have been pleased to give you a tour if you wanted one. Well, you'll want to be getting back to that traitor to Yang in Heavenly Peace, won't you? Only one thing, Lieutenant—stay low when you leave here. Very low. As if you were a boat on the water. Otherwise there might be an accident."

  Daniel gave him a goggle-eyed stare. "Ah?" he said. "Right, right, whatever you say, your lordship. The girlie driving me said we should stay high so we didn't look like we were sneaking up on you, you see. Might've known whatever a girl said was wrong, what?"

  He bent over with laughter. Ma squeaked companionably for a moment, then fell silent.

  Daniel turned, called, "Cheerio, then," over his shoulder, and sauntered back down the hall. The rebels standing there made way for him. He thought he heard his guide say, "Remember, break the other one!"

  He walked from the mansion without challenge. Platt had disappeared. A few rebels stood outside, chewing and spitting what was probably a drug. They paid Daniel no attention.

  He got into the car. The pistol wasn't on the seat any more. In a low voice he said, "Head due south, keeping the headquarters building between us and the construction to the north. And stay right on the surface. That's very important."

  Tovera had switched the fans on when Daniel came out of the building. She slid the car forward under power, scraping the underside along the pebbly soil for the first twenty feet. She started slowly, but as they crossed the margin of the island she increased power so that the occasional waves they touched gave the car solid slaps.

  "You succeeded, then?" she said.

  Daniel had been lost in his thoughts. "What?" he said. "Yes, I think I did. Even if the sensors you installed on the vehicle fail, I believe I have enough information to create a workable plan."

  "The sensors won't fail," Tovera said. She glanced back at him and smiled. Daniel had seen bare skulls with more humor on them than this woman's expression.

  "I succeeded too," she said. "I've learned which of those people it was who shot at us on the approach. I'll make it a point to meet him again."

  Tovera laughed. Daniel kept his face blank. She had a right to be angry about being shot at, but he'd rather that she didn't make her intentions so clear in the sound of her cruel laughter.

  CHAPTER 19

  Fishhead Cove on Yang

  Daniel stood on the cutter's port outrigger, just to the right of the hatch. "Well, fellow spacers," he said to the crew gathered in an arc on shore facing him. "We've got our work cut out for us this time."

  Insectoids whirred in the darkness, and occasionally something larger swooped over the cove with a whick-whick-whick of wings. Yang had no visible moon, but the system was located in the center of a globular cluster that turned the night sky into a milky haze.

  "We're going up against hundreds of rebels," Daniel said. He paused deliberately before going on in a deadpan voice, "The best soldiers Yang has to offer."

  Woetja
ns guffawed. Harsh, delighted laughter rang from the assembled spacers.

  "Not only that," Daniel continued in feigned portentousness, "but there's an Alliance naval base going up in the north bay of the island. From the look of it there's probably a hundred or so people in the construction crew, and they may be from Alliance planets."

  There was more laughter. Daniel had always hated politics: the deals, the lies, and so often the truth stated in a false way. That's what he was doing here, setting out the dangers "honestly" but making a joke of them.

  Speaker Leary would be proud of his son. Well, it had to be done.

  A hologram ten feet in diameter hung in the air over Daniel's head. It showed a direct overhead view of Big Florida Island, corrected from the slant image recorded by the aircar's sensor suite as Tovera approached. A saffron highlight now pulsed over the jaws of land and the water beyond where the pilings were going in.

  Harrison and a team of riggers had shifted 614's console into the airlock so that Adele could project images that the whole crew could see without depending on their helmet visors. That'd be perfectly adequate in a technical sense, but it'd mean an additional distance between Daniel and the crew when he wanted—needed—to fire them up for a very dangerous mission.

  The down-side was that Daniel couldn't lift the cutter until the console had been returned to its normal position in the bow; indeed, they couldn't board the cutter until they'd shifted the console so it didn't block the hatch. That was a chance Daniel was willing to take, because the operation he'd planned was going to need all the verve and enthusiasm his crew could muster.

  "We're doing this to rescue a girl from Waystation . . ." he continued. An image of Maria Mondindragiana appeared above him. Daniel had no idea how Adele had gotten that visual, since there'd been stone walls between the woman and the aircar's sensors all the time that he knew of. "And she's not even my type!"