by David Drake
“Six!” Sun said. The dorsal turret rotated slightly, making the hull shiver. “Tanks!”
Daniel inset the gunnery screen on his own display. A pair of four-wheeled armored cars were driving up the road from the camp to the east, one ahead of the other. They had just come into sight of the Sissie’s dorsal turret.
“Upholder vehicles!” Daniel said. He hoped the cars had their own communications system, in which case he was bellowing directly to the crews. “Stop immediately and abandon your vehicles. Get out immediately!”
The second armored car stopped on the road. They didn’t have turrets, just open-topped fighting compartments with an automatic impeller mounted on a pintle. They were police, not military vehicles and they were armored at most against small arms.
“Abandon your vehicles!” Daniel repeated.
Two people in uniform got out of the rear car and started running back the way they had driven. The leading car tried to turn around.
“Guns, hit ’em!” Daniel ordered.
The left 4” cannon CLANGed. The leading armored car detonated. The bolt of ions had ignited everything in the vehicle which could burn, including the steel armor at the point of impact. The initial white flash swelled to an orange fireball twenty feet in diameter.
The plasma cannon’s heavy iridium tube recoiled in its carriage, which in turn shook the whole ship like a giant sledge hitting a 1200-ton anvil. The shells loaded into the breech contained a bead of tritium in the center of a circular array of lasers whose only gap aligned with the center of the gun bore. When the lasers tripped simultaneously, they compressed the tritium into a tiny thermonuclear explosion vented out the barrel.
In hard vacuum, the jet of charged particles was very nearly as linear as a beam of light. In air, as here, the plasma scattered and quenched in a matter of hundreds or thousands of yards depending on the size of the bolt and the density of the atmosphere. The armored car was near the edge of the Sissie’s effective range—but still within.
The right-hand gun fired an instant after the left, a second aimed shot rather than a burst as Sun would fire if he were trying to nudge an oncoming missile out of its course toward the Princess Cecile. That was the strictly defensive task for which the plasma cannon were intended, but Daniel had realized early in his career that the ion bolts were devastating on ground targets.
Use in an atmosphere eroded gun bores very quickly, which Daniel regarded as simply the cost of doing business. Lethal business.
The halted vehicle exploded. Both running men fell down. One rose and staggered on, but the other continued to lie in the road. His uniform burned with smudgy black flames.
“Cease fire!” Daniel ordered. “Cease fire!”
Sun had already locked his tubes on Safe. Jets of liquid nitrogen were injected into the bores to cool the iridium and clear the tubes of debris.
Several houses were afire near the road where the cars had exploded. They could have been ignited by either side-scatter along the plasma track or by flaming fragments of the targets.
“Citizens and garrison of Combrichon!” Daniel said. “Surrender immediately or face complete annihilation!”
There was movement at the town hall. Somebody was waving a white cloth, probably a jacket. It had no pole, but it was good enough for the purpose so far as Daniel was concerned.
“All Tarbell forces, cease firing!” Daniel ordered. So far as he could tell, the Princess Cecile had done all the shooting there had been, but his words were as much to reassure the locals as they were for his own forces. “Break. Citizens of Combrichon, we’ll open the ship in a few minutes. Prepare to send a delegation to make your surrender. Tarbell Navy out!”
Brownsville on Chevalier
Adele sat at the head of the table in the Legislative Chamber. Master Jenshotz, Secretary to the Legislature, sat at her immediate left; Masters Plantin and Trenody, the President of Chevalier and the Upholder-appointed Governor, sat in the bottom two of the four chairs to her right; and the figures on the huge, clumsy mural of Chevalier’s settlement stared down at Adele from the end wall.
“The wife of the third-previous president, that was Henrik Hondius, painted it,” Jenshotz said. He was a cheerful little man, a civil servant rather than a politician. “She was paid three thousand gulders, if you can believe that.”
“I’m no judge of art,” Adele said, looking hard at the painting. At least she understood now why it was there.
“Neither was she!” Jenshotz said with a cackle. “But by reputation she was a shrewd judge of a gulder!”
Another starship was landing in Chevalier Harbor. The Triomphante half an hour earlier had been deafening, but this lighter ship was merely background noise.
“Look, did you drag me out of my bed to discuss art?” Plantin demanded. His short beard and what hair remained behind his receding forehead would have looked better gray than the glossy black he had dyed them.
“No, Master Plantin,” Adele said. She shrank her display so that she could look directly at the former official. It was a bit of theater prompted by her irritation at Plantin’s attitude; she had a job to do, but if the former president had been courteous and perhaps contrite, she wouldn’t have chosen to remind him of what and where he was. “First, because I’m informed that you were dragged out not from your bed but from your mistress’ closet—”
“So true!” called one of the spacers from the legislators’ seats on a dais above the central table for the officers. “And she was a right pig, too.”
There was general laughter. Adele hadn’t closed this interview. Most of the spacers whom Cazelet had directed to the officials’ hiding places had stayed to listen to what happened next. There were others in the audience as well, including half a dozen civilians.
“Besides that obvious point,” Adele said, “you’re here to discuss gulders. Both of you appear to maintain several accounts which, though they draw from the Treasury, are for your private use.”
“I knew it!” said Jenshotz. “But however were you able to find it so quickly, your Ladyship?”
“I’m told that it wasn’t difficult,” said Adele, “and that I could have found the accounts myself. In fact it was the work of Lieutenant Cazelet, who has accounting experience from his civilian career.”
She nodded to Cazelet. He sat in the upper tier of seats with the spectators.
Plantin was swallowing repeatedly. Trenody, a younger man, leaned forward with a guarded expression. “Your Ladyship,” he said. “Without discussing the possibility of accounting errors…”
He paused and raised an eyebrow.
Adele nodded. “Go ahead,” she said.
“Wouldn’t questions of past finances be matters for the local government?”
“Yes,” said Adele. “Now that Chevalier has returned to the jurisdiction of the Tarbell Stars, I represent that local government until—”
“Ma’am?” called Sun from the chamber’s outer door. “Robin’s here from the Triomphante, the minister, you know? You want we should let him in?”
“Yes, thank you, Sun,” Adele said.
Sun lowered his sub-machine gun. A moment later Minister Robin bustled in with medals glittering on both breasts of his white uniform. He was obviously working to compose his lips into a smile.
“Your guards take their job seriously, Lady Mundy,” Robin said as he walked past the spectators. He was trying to speak in a light tone, but his face was flushed.
“Yes,” said Adele. “They aren’t skilled in ceremony, but the four at the door are all good shots. And if they’re afraid of anything, I haven’t seen the evidence.”
“That’s as it should be, of course,” Robin said. This time the smile was more or less real. “For a fighting man like Captain Leary, that is.”
He looked at the civilians and said, “Speaking of Captain Leary, I expected to find him here.”
“Captain Leary is reviewing the military side of the previous administration,” Adele said. “These gentlemen—” she
nodded to Trenody and Plantin “—are about to transfer all their private assets to the Government of the Tarbell Stars. What further punishment they’ll receive depends on your decision, Minister, and that of the President.”
“All assets?” Plantin cried, jumping to his feet. “Now, there may be some question about—”
Onofrio, a rigger who’d been in the arrest squad, leaned over the railing and jabbed his stocked impeller like a spear. The muzzle prodded Plantin onto the table.
“Watch your tongue when you’re talking to the mistress, wog!” Onofrio said.
Spectators laughed and cheered. The most enthusiastic were three old civilians who sat together.
Plantin edged around to the left side of the table without speaking. He seemed terrified.
Robin sat down across from Jenshotz. He looked at Adele and said quietly, “I suppose he would do the same to me?”
Adele glanced at Onofrio, who was chuckling with the other Sissies. “I don’t know,” she said. “Certainly my mother wouldn’t have approved of Onofrio’s manners or bearing.”
After considering the matter, she added, “On the other hand, I don’t think you would try to badger me the way Master Plantin did.”
Robin grinned across the table at Plantin. “No, Lady Mundy,” he said. “I would not.”
An alert flashed red on Adele’s display. She brought the screen back to full size. Cazelet’s purple-bordered text crawled across the bottom: Major Grozhinski is leaving the harbor. Requests urgent private meeting with you.
Adele shut down her data unit and rose from the chair. “Cazelet, inform him that we’ll meet at the Founder’s Statue in front of the building, then take my place here. And tell Captain Leary to join me!”
She started up the steps toward the door out of the chamber. Tovera silently fell in behind.
“Is there a problem?” Robin called from behind them.
“I don’t know,” Adele said without looking around. “If there is, we will deal with it.”
CHAPTER 24
Brownsville on Chevalier
“Ma’am, anything up?” Tech 3 Mullins called as Adele strode past.
“I need to meet a man,” Adele said. “I don’t expect that it will break the monotony. Sorry.”
Mullins was in charge of the squad of armed spacers on the porch of the Legislative Building. They were a mixed group of Sissies and Tarbells, including two whom Adele recognized from the Triomphante’s crew.
Daniel had placed the guards there “in case.” Chevalier had never been a rebel planet in the sense that any of the locals cared who was running the cluster government, but Adele agreed that some of the functionaries sent here by the Upholders might become violent if they saw the opportunity.
The reality Adele had found was that the Upholders had sent these particular functionaries to Chevalier to get rid of them. As far as she could tell from a quick pass over the records, Trenody was the only one who had enough ambition to steal on a large scale. There wasn’t going to be a counter-coup against the Tarbell government.
The rectangular plaza in front of the Legislative Building had several flower borders—Adele assumed they would be flowers when they were blooming—and trees at the four corners. There was a gazebo at one end; at the other was a statue of Carlos Dumont, Knight of Benoit—the settlement leader.
Adele had picked the statue as a meeting place because she hadn’t remembered the gazebo. When Grozhinski and Daniel arrived, they could move there or wherever her colleagues wished.
The trees at the four corners of the park had straight trunks and limbs that angled upward at a sharp angle. Wispy foliage covered the upper surfaces like fine reddish fur.
Adele suddenly wondered if the trees in the park at Combrichon had been of the same species. The Sissie had totally destroyed them in landing, but the video log should have a record.
She called up the log on her data unit. It was suddenly very important to her that there still be some record of what was gone, what was dead, what had been blasted to blazing splinters.
“Adele?” called Daniel from close at hand.
She looked up. They were alone save for servants, so he hadn’t bothered with the polite formality of calling her Officer Mundy. There was guarded concern in his expression.
“Daniel,” she said, “are these trees—”
She nodded toward the nearest corner.
“—the same as the ones where we landed in Combrichon?”
“No,” Daniel said, looking over his shoulder. He didn’t ask why she wanted to know. “These are native to Grenadine. That park in Combrichon was all local vegetation. I guess they’ll have to replant now, and they might want to haul in dirt. We tore up what was there pretty bad with the thrusters.”
He faced Adele again and said, “I’ve seen trees like these on other planets, mostly Alliance worlds. They don’t grow higher than forty feet or so, they don’t spread, they’re really very adaptable to weather—you probably think the limbs would break in heavy snow, but they just bend down and clear themselves. And I suppose some people like the color better than I do.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” Adele said. “Those trees at Combrichon still exist so long as you do.”
He frowned. He said, “Well, there was nothing very important about them to begin with, you know. Or these either—”
He gestured with his thumb.
“—to tell the truth.”
“That’s quite true,” Adele said, thinking of Colonel Colmard’s body flying backward in a spasm. “No one needs to be concerned about it, not really.”
Hogg and Tovera stood side by side at the base of the statue, but facing in opposite directions so that they looked both ways as they chatted. It was a fortunate thing for everyone, not least the Republic of Cinnabar, that the two very different servants got along so well together. So long as their masters worked as a team, so did Tovera and Hogg.
“Good morning, Major,” said Daniel, calling Adele’s attention to the man in spacers’ slops walking briskly toward them. She tended not to notice people unless they were images on a display. “I gather there’s a problem?”
“You might say that,” Grozhinski said. When he stepped close enough to be able to talk quietly, Adele noticed the bite of ozone clinging to him. “Krychek has provided the Upholders with a battleship.”
“Umm,” said Daniel. “Which battleship is that?”
“The Almirante from Karst service,” said Grozhinski. “In fact she’s still in Karst service officially, but she’ll be cooperating with the Upholder forces. She has a Karst crew—Krychek wouldn’t otherwise be able to crew her and work her up in less than six months.”
Adele projected holographic data on the Almirante for them. She chose to use RCN files for the purpose. When the battleship came into service fifteen years ago, Cinnabar and Karst had been close allies for decades. It was possible that the Alliance had better data on the ship’s current state, but Adele was supplying the first ten years of its history.
Grozhinski looked at her in surprise. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I was given files to deliver to Captain Leary, but they aren’t—well, they certainly aren’t more complete.”
“What do you know about her crew and condition?” Daniel asked.
“Undercrewed, probably by about 20%,” Grozhinski said. “The captain, Staples, is one of Karst’s most senior officers and has combat experience as a lieutenant.”
He smiled faintly and added, “Against Fleet destroyers in the Battle off Sugarball.”
“20% short is as nearly a full crew as any RCN battleship could manage during the recent war,” Daniel shrugged. “They may not be as maneuverable over a long run than they might be, but it won’t affect their combat effectiveness in the sidereal universe.”
“And their magazines are only half full,” Grozhinski said. “Of course, that was true of the Upholder as well.”
“And still is true of the Triomphante,” Daniel said, “but…”
He grinned at Adele. She smiled back, though she knew that Grozhinski might not be able to read her expression.
“Major,” Daniel said, “you can tell your principal that I have an idea, but it will take some planning to execute. And I’ll need to meet with the Minister of War before I put it to my officers, because there’s a degree of risk to this. Are you willing to join me in the discussion with Robin? Because I’d like him to be sure that his backers are fully behind me when I talk to him. If you are?”
“Captain Leary,” Grozhinski said. “General Storn directed me to support you in any way I could. I’ll do anything you request.”
He smiled broadly. “Besides,” he added, “I trust you as completely as the general does. Let’s find the Minister.”
* * *
“Hello, Sun,” said Daniel as he walked out of the elevator ahead of Adele, Grozhinski, and the servants. “Is Minister Robin still in the chamber?”
“He sure is,” said the gunner. “He’s talking to the secretary; the other two went off to the brig under guard.”
He scowled with sudden concern. “Say, that’s all right, isn’t it, ma’am? I mean the secretary, I don’t guess any of us care about wogs going to the brig.”
“That’s fine, Sun,” Adele said. “I’m sure Master Jenshotz has entertained the Minister usefully.”
Daniel stepped into the doorway. The discussion had caused Robin to turn from the table where he and the Secretary were looking at something on the integral display.
“Minister?” Daniel called. “We’d like to discuss something with you in the reviewing balcony facing the park.”
“We?” said Robin without rising. Grozhinski moved into the doorway so that Robin could see him.
“Ah, yes. I didn’t know you were here,” said Robin. He got to his feet and followed Daniel across the lobby to the glazed double doors opening onto the third-floor loggia. The minister entered with Daniel, Adele and Grozhinski, while Hogg and Tovera closed the doors behind them waited in the lobby.
Daniel glanced over the railing and into the park thirty feet below. He turned to his companions and said, “I suppose someone could train a parabolic microphone on us, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I see only two men in the gazebo, and they’re passing a bottle back and forth.”