by David Drake
“There are so many people,” Adele said as Daniel led her into the house. “And they seem happy.”
“Yes they do,” Daniel agreed. “You and Deirdre have done a wonderful job, Adele. I won’t forget it.”
He had missed the point of the comment, which was Adele’s wonder that anyone could be happy when there were so many people around. It was evidence of how distracted she was that the fact surprised her.
A servant with a Leary flash on his collar—not one of the normal house staff—passed them through the plush cord at the staircase. Hogg stepped aside to wait at the base of the stairs, where Tovera joined him. Adele wondered what the two of them discussed. It was good that they got along; it would have been—briefly—disastrous if they had not.
Adele had her personal data unit out even before she was through the door of Daniel’s suite on the first landing. Inside she sat on the nearest chair. Her control wands quivered, manipulating the holographic screen by their attitude and position. Daniel watched, patient if perhaps bemused in the glance she spared him.
“The woman who was speaking to me,” she said, “the tall one. She’s the widow of my father’s brother’s brother-in-law. Her name is Henriet Krause.”
Instead of speaking, Daniel raised an eyebrow. With a shock of embarrassment, Adele realized that he didn’t have—she hadn’t provided—any background to explain why that was worth mentioning.
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she said. “Mistress Krause is probably my closest living relative, and all I could think of while talking to her was how much I wished I were somewhere else.”
She pursed her lips and added, “Mistress Krause isn’t very close, of course.”
Because if she were, the Proscriptions which Speaker Leary had ordered would have led to her execution as well.
“I’m sure you can renew your acquaintance at a less busy time,” Daniel said mildly. For the first time Adele noticed that his 1st Class uniform had been torn along the seams and—the decorative wall mirror gave her a glimpse of his back—between his shoulders as well. “But since we are someplace else at the moment…?”
“I’m sorry,” Adele repeated. “Please tell me what it was you wanted to discuss.”
“There’s a revolution in the Tarbell Stars,” Daniel said. “Rivals in the 5th Bureau are backing—secretly backing, I gather—the opposing parties. Your friend Storn is backing the Tarbell Government.”
I wish everyone knew how to provide information as clearly and succinctly, Adele thought as her wands sent information streaming onto her display. Daniel waited patiently. As a courtesy she muttered, “Ah,” but Daniel knew her too well to imagine that she was ignoring what he had just said.
“General Storn believes that if the government were to hire the Sissie and her crew as mercenaries,” Daniel said, “you and I would be able to advise them usefully.” After a pause, he added, “It seems rather nebulous to me.”
“We would be reporting to President Menandros?” Adele said. She was sorting through material recently added to the suspense folder of her base unit here in Chatsworth Minor. The file came without a provenance, but the format was that of Mistress Sand’s organization.
“I don’t know any details,” Daniel said. “I’m not sure there are any. If Storn is keeping his involvement secret, he may not be able to influence how we’ll be used. It looks like a real mare’s nest.”
“Um,” said Adele, again being polite. Operations beyond the borders of the great powers—the civilized states, Cinnabar and the Alliance—were always mare’s nests. The fact that she and Daniel would be operating under the titular command of a local potentate wouldn’t change that either way, because they would simply ignore any orders with which they disagreed.
She and Daniel had been known to ignore orders from their superiors in the Republic a time or two also. That wasn’t going to change either.
Adele looked up at Daniel, holding the wands still for a moment. “Does Admiral Anston support this involvement?” she asked. She had seen the admiral’s wife arrive at the reception with an escort of RCN officers, but Anston himself had not been present.
“The admiral thinks it’s a foolish and dangerous operation,” Daniel said. “Minister Forbes, on the other hand, thinks that the potential value to the Republic and the great potential value to her political ambitions more than outweigh any dangers to you and me.”
He smiled broadly, suddenly relaxing. “What I think,” Daniel said, “is that if Anston were my age, he’d knock me down to get at the chance. Well, he’d try.”
“Are there any restrictions on how you’re to act after you reach the Tarbell Stars?” Adele said as she returned to her screen.
“Not that anyone has mentioned,” Daniel said. He shrugged. “Anyway, if I’m to be operating as a private citizen with no support from my government, I’m bloody well not going to be taking orders from politicians.”
“I presume you would be given a full briefing if you were willing to undertake the task?” Adele said.
“I’ll certainly get a briefing before I hare off to the Tarbell Stars,” Daniel said. “Off-planet somewhere. If I’m not, we’re not, satisfied with the terms, then the matter is closed and nobody needs know that it was even raised.”
He cleared his throat again and said, “Adele, we’ve talked about what other people think. What do you think?”
She continued to go through the file which Mistress Sand had supplied. There were points which would require clarification, but for the most part it was remarkably complete—given the physical and political distance between Cinnabar and the Tarbell Stars.
“I was told to use my judgment,” Adele said. “I see no disadvantage to me in attempting the task.”
“Well, you might be killed,” said Daniel, frowning.
Adele shrugged and continued to work. “I see no disadvantage to me,” she repeated.
“In that case…” Daniel said. “I’d like to make an announcement from your balcony. With Miranda. She said that she’d support any decision that I made.”
“Yes, she would,” Adele said. She looked up, then put the data unit away in its pocket. “And of course you may use the balcony. The acoustics of the close are very good, as I remember from hearing my father addressing his supporters here.”
She wondered what Lucas Mundy would think about Corder Leary’s son speaking from the balcony from which Lucas had so often roused Popular Party supporters.
It doesn’t matter: Lucas Mundy was dead. His surviving daughter was pleased at the current use.
* * *
The main stairs of Chatsworth Minor were wide enough that Daniel and Miranda could walk up side-by-side. She pulled him closer and said, “Don’t worry about the dress. It won’t crush. Mother and I know fabric.”
“You’re lovely,” Daniel said, a safe thing to say but not exactly true. Miranda was striking and extremely fit, but she wasn’t a classic beauty. Her hair was usually brown, though bright sun brought out auburn highlights; her features weren’t quite regular; and her torso would be described as sturdy rather than curvy.
Daniel Leary had known a good number of women. He’d never known one who was more alive than Miranda, and he’d never known one who made him feel more alive.
Adele was already waiting on the fourth floor, in what was now her library. It had been the master suite during her father’s lifetime. While Daniel was fetching his bride, Adele and Tovera had moved piles of information in various forms off two chairs.
That hadn’t been necessary: all Daniel cared was that there be a path to the wrought-iron balcony facing the close and the crowd there. Still, it showed that Adele was trying to be hospitable.
Daniel turned to Miranda and said, “Now, you’re sure—”
That was as far as he got. Miranda touched his lips with her right index finger and said,”Yes, I’m sure. I told you I was sure. Now let’s do what we planned.”
Adele’s face was as still as glass, but Tovera grinned.
Daniel thought about it and grinned back.
He opened the balcony door and stepped out, holding Miranda’s hand. The crowd noise built to a roar as people looked up at the couple above them.
Daniel raised both arms to their full length. After a calculated moment, he brought them down abruptly. The result wasn’t complete silence, but it was close enough that he could expect to be heard when he called, “Shipmates!”
The response was shriller and even more enthusiastic, though the volume may have been reduced from its earlier peak. Daniel heard someone Yee-hah! quite clearly.
He gestured for silence again, grinning. There was an enormous number of people below. More were pouring out of the houses—or at least they were trying to get out—when they realized that Daniel was speaking. The small porches were already clogged by people talking in the doorways.
“And friends!” Daniel said. He was used to making himself heard on a starship under circumstances in which lives depended on people doing what he said. The tuned acoustics of the close helped, but he was doing his part now.
“In two weeks my bride and I are making a honeymoon cruise to Jardin,” Daniel said. “We’ll be travelling on the Princess Cecile, and for that we’ll need a crew.”
Miranda had mentioned several times during their relationship that her father had loved Jardin. Her delight when Daniel suggested that they honeymoon there proved that he’d been right to hear wistfulness in that recollection of her father.
Jardin was independent and a popular destination for people—for wealthy people—from all across human space. It was a perfect location in which to meet the envoys of General Storn for a detailed briefing.
“All former Sissies are welcome to sign on for the voyage,” Daniel said. “I can’t promise prize money this time—”
More cries of enthusiasm, but they died back before he had to quell them.
“—but I’ll pay honest wages. I’ve been told that Jardin’s a good landfall for a spacer with a little pocket money.”
When the noise settled again, Daniel said, “I hope that sober Sissies will in the morning pass my offer on to their shipmates who’ve already got a load on. If there are any sober Sissies here!”
He turned to Miranda. They embraced as the crowd roared and continued to roar for a very long time.
CHAPTER 4
Bergen and Associates Yard, outside Xenos
Daniel eyed the Princess Cecile in her slip and felt the usual rush of…well, love was the best word he could come up with. He smiled at Lieutenant Vesey and said, “The first time I saw her, she was passing overhead and shooting off fireworks in a parade on Kostroma. That was probably the only sort of action she’d have seen if she’d stayed in Kostroman hands.”
“I came out of the Academy…” Vesey said. She was also looking at the corvette. Her eye might have been more critical, but it was affectionate also. “Thinking that unit-body construction was so much stronger than modular that no one in her right mind would use modular construction for a warship.”
She grinned at Daniel. “A voyage on the Sissie convinced me that I’d been wrong,” she said.
Because the Princess Cecile was a private yacht in this commission, she was being fitted out and stocked by civilians. Vesey, Daniel’s long-time First Lieutenant, was waiting for dry stores to arrive from the suppliers she had chosen with only cursory oversight by the owner and captain.
Foodstuffs would have to wait for Chazanoff and his crew of missileers to finish striking down the main armament. The Sissie carried two missiles in her launch tubes and twenty reloads when her magazines were full. A corvette couldn’t put out the volume of metal that a larger warship could, but a direct hit from a five-ton projectile at terminal velocity would wreck even a battleship.
The chance of a corvette’s missile getting through a battleship’s defensive armament was very slim: a bolt from an 8” plasma cannon vaporized enough of a projectile to shove the rest of it off in a harmless direction. Even so, a skilled missileer—or a lucky one—even in a corvette was a threat. Daniel was both skilled and lucky.
“How’s the crew coming along?” Vesey asked.
The question—from Vesey—meant more than the words themselves; but it was a polite way to ask, and there was no reason not to give her the full background. Daniel smiled until the lengthy crash crash crash of missiles rolling from a lowboy into the Princess Cecile’s magazine hatch had died away.
“I’ve got Rene in the office to take the names of any latecomers,” Daniel said, “but we’re already staffed at war complement and maybe a little beyond.”
He said “Rene” instead of “Midshipman, Passed Lieutenant, Cazelet” because on the ground Vesey and Cazelet lived together. Cazelet had come to the Sissie as Adele’s protégé, but he had from the first been an asset to the ship and to the RCN generally. With the present peacetime reduction in the RCN establishment he might have a very long wait before he got the lieutenant’s commission which his abilities amply justified, but the prize money which had come the way of Daniel’s crews meant that Cazelet was better off than many senior officers who didn’t have family money.
“Rene said that you’d accepted some applicants who hadn’t been on the Princess Cecile herself,” Vesey said. “The Milton had the complement of a heavy cruiser.”
Daniel’s grin went hard. Not all of the Milton’s crew had survived the battle above Cacique, of course, but far more had than a corvette could carry.
“Of course, you can afford the paybill, sir,” Vesey said, embarrassed to have pushed for what had not been volunteered. “I’m not prying.”
“I’m at fault for not being more honest with my officers,” Daniel said, a polite way to say that he expected her to talk with Cazelet. “I’m signing extra personnel now in case some want to leave when we make landfall on Jardin. I’ll arrange passage back to Cinnabar for them, of course.”
Vesey frowned, but she didn’t ask why he thought they might lose more than the usual few spacers who might overstay liberty because they were jail, in hospital, or dead.
“As soon as we’re in orbit,” Daniel said, “I’m going to explain that I expect the Princess Cecile to take a contract as a mercenary warship in the navy of the Tarbell Stars. I won’t expect personnel who signed on for a honeymoon voyage to accept a posting to a civil war.”
Vesey’s frown didn’t change. “You’re concerned,” she said in a deliberate voice, “that spacers who’ve served with you are going to balk when you tell them that you may be taking them into battle?”
“Put that way it does sound pretty silly,” Daniel admitted. “Still, I think they ought to have the choice.”
A gondola marked McKimmon Cereals had arrived at the entrance to the yard. The driver of the tractor pulling it had gotten out of his cab to continue his discussion with Midshipman Hale from the ground.
He might as well have stayed where he was. Shouting in Hale’s face wasn’t going to make her change her mind, and the train of lowboys hauling missiles was in the way regardless.
People like to think that their convenience is important. Daniel had found that as a general rule the universe didn’t agree, and that other human beings tended to be a subset of ‘the universe’ in this regard.
“I think the crew expected that they were signing on for more than a honeymoon cruise,” Vesey said, looking toward the cereals vehicle and then away: it would come when it came, and she would check the supplies in when they arrived. “With the exception of Pasternak I think they’re all hoping for action again. And Pasternak was probably the first to sign on.”
Vesey had mousy hair, an excellent mind, and an earnest personality. Her features were unremarkable, but they were sharpening as she aged. Surprisingly that added character and made her more attractive.
“Pretty close,” Daniel agreed. “I’m lucky to have him. We’re all lucky.”
Chief Engineer Pasternak was a quiet man with the skill and seniority to run the Power Room of a battleship
at a much higher base pay. He would have been subordinate to a commissioned officer on a large warship, however, whereas Daniel left him to his job.
The fact that he had earned a fortune in prize money as a senior warrant officer under Daniel Leary seemed to bemuse Pasternak From what he had said, though, it was very important to his wife that he was the richest and most important man in Wassail County. The risk that came with being Chief Engineer to a fighting captain was for Pasternak far outweighed by his freedom from the social demands of staying home.
“I saw Lady Leary come on board yesterday,” Vesey said. “Is that really all her luggage?”
“Mistress Leary,” Daniel corrected mildly. “I’m not the heir, thank heavens, and I’m sure my father feels the same way. And yes, Miranda insisted on packing like a midshipman. I told her she had all the volume she wanted—I’d land a missile if I needed to and pick one up for ready money on route to Peltry, that’s the Tarbell capital.”
“A strong willed woman,” Vesey said, looking toward the gate and speaking without emphasis. “I suppose she’d need to be.”
“I suppose she would,” Daniel agreed.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that—how he felt about Miranda or even about marriage. He’d always taken his duties seriously, but he’d lived his personal life at his own convenience. Over the years since Daniel met Miranda when he delivered the news of her brother’s death, he’d found that he was happier with her presence in his life. Keeping her there imposed reciprocal obligations, not because Miranda demanded them but because he was a Leary of Bantry and honor demanded them.
Needing something means that I might lose it. Daniel cleared his throat because he didn’t like the direction his thoughts had been going.
He said aloud, “I’m glad to have so many qualified officers, because I’m not sure what we’ll find in the Tarbell Stars. You may find yourself in command, Vesey, as you’re more than capable of being.”
Vesey turned to face him. “Sir,” she said. “I studied every battle in the Academy syllabus, and I’ve watched you a dozen times ripping the heart out of enemies that should have flicked you away, flicked us away. But I’ll never be as good as you are. I’ll never be as good as Tim was when he was a midshipman, because he had the instinct and I don’t!”