by David Drake
Walters had seated himself on the back end of Daniel’s bench. He slid closer so that he didn’t have to lower his dignity by shouting and said, “You’re welcome to see President Menandros, but if you want to discuss the war you’ll be very disappointed. If you’re a wine connoisseur, the President is your man.”
Daniel nodded with a smile. For the first time the aide sounded like a real human being instead of the puffed-up retainer of a puffed-up bureaucrat. He said, “Then perhaps I’ll get on better with Master Robin than I feared I would from his summons.”
Walters flushed again. “He is the Minister of War of the Tarbell Stars, Captain Leary,” he said.
“Right,” said Hogg. “And me and the young master is Cinnabar citizens. So now we’ve decided who’s the class act on, what’s the name of it again? Peltry.”
The driver flew them around a large courtyard building, three stories tall like the square structures to either side of it. The front entranceway was covered by a cornice supported on full-height pillars, but the back was an alley not much wider than the aircar. The driver settled to the alley pavement skillfully, keeping a degree of forward motion to steady the vehicle despite the currents eddying between the buildings. She shut off the motors.
“His Excellency thought it would be better for you to arrive without fanfare,” Walters said. “There are spies in Newtown, you see.”
Yes, Daniel thought. We’re working for some of them.
Storn’s officers weren’t the only spies on Peltry, of course. But it was equally obvious that entering by the back door wasn’t going to keep Daniel’s presence a secret from the Upholders and their 5th Bureau backers.
I wonder if Robin is hoping to hide us from his President?
The aircar had landed just ahead of an unobtrusive door in the back wall of the War Ministry. Walters removed an electronic key from his breast pocket and inserted it in the lock. The heavy door opened outward; it wouldn’t have cleared the side of the car if they’d been directly in front of it.
Walters gestured Daniel and Hogg into a dim-lit anteroom. “There’s no guard,” the aide said, “because there’s only this one key. His Excellency keeps it himself. Being entrusted with it was a great honor for me.”
Hogg sniffed, but Daniel was glad that he didn’t say what he was obviously thinking: if you think an electronic lock will keep out anyone but the key-holder, you haven’t met Adele. Which was true, of course.
The anteroom was tight for three people. Daniel wondered what would have happened if he had brought a staff of ten.
Walters pressed a button in the wall. A green light winked above the inner door, which he then pushed open. “Your Excellency, the visitors are here. They’re both male.”
There hadn’t been a lock. The light was simply to indicate that the person within was free.
Christopher Robin had risen from his wooden desk. He faced Daniel and Hogg with a noble expression. The large office beyond was empty of furniture except for three chairs and the smaller desk set near the door to which Walters went.
Robin was large without being really fat. He would have been an imposing man even without the white leather uniform glittering with medals and braid. Adele’s briefing mentioned that Robin was the Marshal Commanding All Military Forces of the Tarbell Stars. Apparently it was in that guise he had decided to meet the Cinnabar advisors rather than as the civilian Minister of War.
In official Tarbell records Robin was a former Admiral of the Kostroman Navy. Kostroman naval ranks didn’t rise to admiral, and the captains had to be members of the ruling families; Robin’s father had been a dockyard welder and his mother a schoolteacher.
Robin had been in the Kostroman navy, as a quartermaster. He had left his position and Kostroma ahead of an investigation. That said, Tarbell’s Ministry of War was well organized and well run—uniquely among the government bureaus.
“Seat yourselves, please,” Robin said, gesturing to the chairs facing the front of the desk. Daniel walked around to take one.
“I’ll stand,” said Hogg. He leaned against the door they had entered by.
Robin laughed and sat down on his own chair though that left Hogg glowering at his back. He said, “Captain Leary, I’ve heard a great deal about you and Lady Mundy.”
“Friends of the Tarbell Stars thought the Princess Cecile could be useful to your government in fighting the Upholders,” Daniel said. He ignored the reference to Adele.
“Indeed, indeed,” Robin said. He took off his saucer hat—leather as well, it appeared—and set it on the desk. “The Upholders have three modern destroyers, one of which has a crew of Fleet veterans. Not so very impressive, you might say, but we have only three destroyers which are really serviceable, plus the destroyer which recently came to us when Nabis decided to join the Tarbell Stars.”
That hadn’t been in the briefing materials, Daniel thought. Aloud he said, “When did Nabis join? I’d understood they were taking a strongly independent line?”
“The former ruler, Peter Langland, certainly was independent,” Robin said with a chuckle. “He asked for help from us and from Karst to resist pressure from the Upholders. Karst sent a regiment—which promptly assassinated Langland and started looting the capital. The locals rose up and slaughtered about half of them. The provisional Nabis government was happy to join Tarbell when our troops arrived.”
That was too recent to have been in the briefing materials. No doubt Adele would be getting an update from her sources right now.
“Anyway,” Robin said, “I’d like you and your officers to transfer to the Nabis destroyer, the Katchaturian, and whip her into shape. I’ll provide Tarbell officers for your corvette. I think that’s the most efficient way to use the available resources.”
A number of ways to respond riffled through Daniel’s mind like the pages of a flipbook. “I don’t think we’ll do that,” he said mildly. “I think we’ll be able to work out something satisfactory when I’ve got a little more information, though.”
Daniel coughed into his fist, enough of a pause to allow Robin to absorb the idea but not to respond, then said, “You mentioned the Upholder destroyers but you didn’t say that the rebels are also believed to be negotiating for a heavy cruiser. Can your own cruiser be readied in time to meet it?”
Both of Adele’s sources were certain that General Krychek was arranging the transfer of an Alliance cruiser to the Upholders. On paper the rebels were buying a hulk for scrap value. The reality was that the paperwork had been switched with that of a sister ship which was old but fully functional.
Robin certainly knew that. Either he was testing how much Daniel knew, or he was simply trying to hide the real situation from his new advisor.
“The Maria Theresa can’t be returned to use,” Robin said without hesitating. “What I can do is configure a pair of modern transports as missile ships. The Upholders can’t fight a battle of maneuver. If we can overwhelm the cruiser they may be getting, then any surviving ships will lose heart and flee. The war’s over then.”
That’s a good plan, Daniel thought. His opinion of the Minister was going up.
“We’re getting the missiles from Cinnabar stocks,” Robin went on. “I suspect you may know more about that than I do.”
You’re wrong, Daniel thought.
“Anyway, they’re Alliance missiles captured in the recent war and being shipped to us as scrap. I’ve just been informed that they’ve arrived on Danziger, which is the usual transfer point for the cluster.”
“My crew and I can help in refitting the transports as warships,” Daniel said.
Robin grimaced and spread his hands in a dismissive gesture. “We have dockyards here,” he said. “Perhaps when it comes to fitting the fire control a specialist might be helpful. The Katchaturian is too important a ship for me to just hope that Langland did a good job of maintaining it and training its crew!”
Daniel pursed his lips. Robin was being forceful, but he didn’t repeat his initial error
of trying to give orders to someone who wasn’t under his command.
“I think we can find a useful compromise,” Daniel said. “Give me command of the Katchaturian. I’ll treat her and the Sissie as a small squadron and work them up together. That is, if I have a free hand with the Katchaturian’s crew?”
Robin snorted. “You have it,” he said. “Hang a few of them if you think that’ll wake the others up. The officers are Nabis gentry, so that might be a good idea. The crew is whoever signed on, of course. Some Nabis, most not.”
“All right,” said Daniel, rising. “You’ll arrange that I have any authorizations I need?”
“Walters, see that Major Berners gives Leary whatever he wants,” Robin said. “And guides him around personally.”
“Yes, your Excellency!” Walters said. “I’ll take him straight to Berners.”
“Say, Leary?” Robin said. “I know the destroyer’s under strength. How would you like to take over the Nabis ground troops too? I shifted the Nabis Capital Regiment to Peltry and put a Tarbell regiment on Nabis, just for safety. The Nabis troops really are from Nabis, you see—Langland was trying to make the planet great, the way it was before the Hiatus.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. There were many questions, many ways that could go wrong. His assumption was to assume he could deal with whatever luck or the gods threw him. There were always too many potential side-effects to prepare for all of them.
“Then I think we’re done here, Leary,” Robin said. “Walters, take him to Berners.”
They left by the front door of the office. Daniel wondered how he was going to get back to the Princess Cecile, but he would deal with that when the time came.
CHAPTER 11
Newtown on Peltry
Adele stared at the text from Guy Mignouri, the 5th Bureau Resident in Newtown, for some seconds longer than the words themselves required: it is not suitable to meet now. i will inform you further in a few days.
Adele cued the link to Tovera, who sat opposite her on the striker’s seat of the signals console. “Tovera, we’re going visiting. It’s possible this will involve forced entry.”
“Should I bring something bulkier than the usual?” Tovera said.
“No, it’s likely to be very short range if it comes to that,” said Adele. Neither she nor Tovera was skilled with long arms, and Tovera’s miniature sub-machine gun had always proven as satisfactory as one throwing heavier slugs could have been. “But now that I’ve thought about it, I should have backup. Break. Captain Vesey, this is Mundy.”
Adele did not refer to herself as “Signals” or “Signals Officer Mundy” as she might have done at other times when she was being formal. Her present request had nothing to do with her RCN duties.
“Go ahead, Mundy,” Vesey said. Though Vesey was in command of the Princess Cecile during Daniel’s absence, she chose to remain at her normal duty station in the Battle Direction Center in the stern.
“I’m going to visit associates,” Adele said. “They didn’t respond as I expected when I informed them of my presence. It’s possible that there’s something wrong. I would like a squad to back me up at a short distance. Six should be enough. I hope to wave them off after the door is opened to me normally.”
“Do you want Woetjans to lead?” Vesey said. “And what sort of tools? Over.”
“I’ll have Hale to lead if you don’t mind,” Adele said, adding the junior midshipman and sending her the early part of the call. “She’s here at the navigation console at the moment. Woetjans is checking the A Ring antennas, and I don’t see that I need her for this.”
That was true, but it was also true that Woetjans tended to act quickly and with great force, as a bosun was required to do. Hale was cool in a crisis, but she was much less likely to get physical.
“And I don’t want to march through the city like an assault force,” Adele said. “I don’t want any weapons visible. I truly don’t expect serious violence.”
“We’ve got collapsible handcarts in a locker,” Vesey said. “One of them will hold guns politely, over.”
Hale was already alerting spacers for the duty, pinging them individually instead of using the general push. She was the kind of officer which the RCN needed.
“That will be very satisfactory,” Adele said, rising to her feet. “I’ll inform you of the results on my return. Over, that is out.”
“Sun is opening the arms locker,” Hale said. Sun was the gunner’s mate—the Sissie didn’t rate a Gunner—and doubled as armorer. “And I told Evans to bring a long-handled maul. That will fit in the cart also. We’ll meet the squad in the entry hold.”
Evans was a short, broad Power Room technician who was good-natured and extremely strong. Almost as strong as he was stupid, Adele would guess.
“There shouldn’t be any shooting,” Adele said as she strode quickly to the down companionway. “If there is, Tovera and I will start it.”
Unless they’ve shot both of us in the head, Adele thought. She couldn’t help being precise, but at least she had learned not to say everything she was thinking. At that, she could imagine Tovera shooting back after being killed the way a headless chicken ran about.
Barnes was still closing his boots as he stumbled into the boarding hold a moment after Adele. Dasi, his partner and fellow bosun’s mate, was helping Sun shift two sub-machine guns, two stocked impellers, and a carbine—Hale’s weapon of choice—into the cart which Evans and Bledsoe had assembled. The maul was already there.
It was a remarkable performance. Aloud Adele said, “It makes me proud to be a Sissie.” Or at least it would have if she hadn’t already been proud.
“Can you tell us what to expect, mistress?” Hale said. Other spacers were looking toward the group from hatchways and the quay; that was inevitable and not a problem.
“What I’m afraid of,” Adele said, “though I don’t expect it, is that agents of the 5th Bureau have taken over the office of my associates.”
She didn’t bother explaining that her associate was also a 5th Bureau agent. The details didn’t matter to the Sissies; all they needed was to be told the situation they might be facing.
“It’s only three blocks,” Adele added. “And I hope just to knock on the door and be admitted. If you stay fifty feet behind me, you’ll be close enough to call if I need you.”
Adele was wearing a civilian suit in light green, cut much the same as a set of utilities. Tovera’s suit was on the tan side of cream; her attaché case was brown and looked like leather even from quite nearby. The material was actually an expensive composite and would stop anything short of a slug from a stocked impeller.
The ground floors of the buildings facing the harbor were ship chandleries and bars, while the upper stories were spacer’s lodgings, brothels, and pawn shops. The next block inland was inexpensive shops below civilian apartments. By the third block back from the water, the buildings were duplexes and private residences, many of them with a ground vehicle parked on gated driveways.
The Residence looked like a single-family residence—and probably was that as well as containing communications equipment. The walls were of dark blue brick, fired from a local clay, and the curtained windows seemed normal unless you recognized the frames as being much wider than the outer glass alone would have required.
Tovera pushed the button on the call plate and said, “Mistress Simmons and her secretary to see Master Mignouri.” When she got no response, she rapped sharply on the panel—and still got no response.
Adele was holding her data unit. She keyed the Execute button to signal the door’s electronic latch. There was an internal clunk and the panel swung open. It was five centimeters thick and made of armor plate.
Both Adele and Tovera had their weapons out, but beyond was only a second door, this one opening inward. It had a latch but no visible lock. The handle rotated easily, but the panel rattled against a bolt on the other side when Tovera shoved against it.
Adele turned and called, “
Evans!” The squad of spacers was only ten feet back instead of fifty, but there hadn’t been much traffic on the street—and anyway, it didn’t matter.
Hale had removed the tarpaulin covering the handcart, but Evans didn’t bother to reach in for his maul. He rushed to the door, lowered his shoulder, and slammed into it. The panel broke lengthwise in the middle.
The halves dangled—one side by the hinges and the other by the bolt near the top edge of the panel. Evans’ mindless straight-ahead smash had been the best way to deal with the problem, which Adele found disturbing.
A cabinet had been slid against the inside of the door, but Evans rolled it back—it was on casters—in the same rush that had taken him through the door panel. Beyond was a reception room with chairs against the walls and a small table holding a vase of flowers probably picked in the front garden. A woman leaned on the table, weeping into her hands.
“Don’t shoot!” Adele shouted as Barnes and Dasi rushed past her brandishing weapons. Evans was picking himself up from the floor when the cabinet—a musical instrument, Adele now saw—rolled back.
Tovera took the weeping woman by the hair and shouted, “Who else is in the house?” while looking up the staircase. The woman continued to sob.
“Bledsoe, with me!” Hale said and started up the stairs, holding her carbine forward in both hands. The tech following her had one of the sub-machine guns.
“Don’t shoot my husband!” said the woman who had been crying, the first intelligible words she had spoken.
“Hold up, Hale!” Adele said. “Tovera, let her go.”
Tovera released the woman’s hair and stepped against the wall. She kept her weapon raised, but she had stopped pointing the muzzle at the stairs when Hale started up.
“Who are you, mistress?” Adele said. “And who is your husband?”
“I’m Yvette Mignouri,” the woman said. She closed her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She was younger than Adele had guessed—probably mid twenties—and would be attractive after she washed her face and calmed down. “My husband is Guy Mignouri. Please, why have you attacked us? There’s nothing here to steal!”