by David Drake
But if the watchmen hadn't been put down certainly from the first, Tovera or Adele herself would've shot them dead. There couldn't be any chance of them getting away or giving an alarm.
Barnes was strapping the watchmen's arms behind their backs with cargo tape while Dasi stood in the hatchway and signaled Vesey with his left hand. One man was snoring loudly; the other lay as slack as a half-filled bladder, his mouth and eyes open. His scalp wound should be bandaged, but perhaps the Sissies coming from the barge could take care of that when they arrived.
"To the bridge," Adele snapped as she stepped into the up companionway. "And Tovera, put that thing out of sight!"
Tovera had taken her little sub-machine gun from its case. If they'd been intending to assault the Rainha, killing everyone they met, that would be appropriate. It wasn't what Adele had in mind, however—as her servant well knew.
Tovera appeared bland on all but the closest contact, but she really did have a personality; she possibly even had a sense of humor. What she lacked was a conscience.
Adele trotted up the companionway past open hatches on three levels. The stacks in the old section of the Academic Collections on Bryce had grated floors and wrought-iron spiral staircases with brass finials. Adele wondered how many times she'd gone up and down those stairs in the years when she was a student of, then assistant curator to, Mistress Boilleau. Those were probably the happiest days of her life before she joined the RCN—and they were very good training for getting from one deck to another on a starship.
She reached the top of the companionway on A Level, traditionally not only the bridge but also the accommodations deck on a civilian vessel. A warship's larger crew usually required that the enlisted personnel be berthed lower down, but of course a warship's interior wasn't given over to cargo holds.
All the hatches along the A Level corridor were open. The sound of snoring came from one of the accommodation blocks toward the stern. Lights were on in the bridge forward; Adele already knew that the main console was live.
She paused, not indecisive but waiting for Barnes and Dasi to come out of the companionway. They were followed almost without pause by half a dozen Sissies who must've run from the barge as soon as they got the signal. Sun was at their head, holding a sub-machine gun at high port with the air of a man who knew how to use his tools.
Adele pointed to the accommodation block, then turned and with Tovera at her side walked silently onto the bridge. The man at the main console was slumped so that she couldn't see his head, but his worn boots were splayed out to either side. There were two flat-plate terminals—not all-purpose consoles—on the right side of the compartment, but their integral seats were empty.
Adele stepped toward the console, then leaned forward quickly and switched off the power. She brushed the man dozing on the couch. He woke up, muttering, "Whazzat?"
"Officer Luntz," said Adele, clearly but without shouting. "Wake up, please."
Luntz was very young. He had pale blond hair and he shouldn't have tried to grow a moustache; it simply made his upper lip look furry.
"What?" he said, straightening. He was fully awake, though he didn't seem particularly alert. "Say, who are you?"
"I'm Mundy from the Chancellor's Planning Office," Adele said calmly, giving the deliberately deceptive title of Arruns' secret police. "You and the entire crew are under arrest until we've gotten to the bottom of the smuggling. Zastrow—"
There must be a dozen Sissies in the accommodation block so Zastrow—a Power Room tech as broad as he was tall—had tramped into the bridge compartment instead. He wore a slung sub-machine gun, but the prybar in his right fist and knuckleduster over his left made clear the kind of fight he preferred.
"—tie him up now."
"I don't know anything about smuggling!" Luntz said. He got up but staggered against the console as his knees threatened to give way. His face was white. "Oh my God, look, I'll tell you everything, you don't have to torture me!"
Tovera giggled. She waggled the muzzle of her weapon toward Luntz as though it were a black finger.
Zastrow'd stuck his bar under his waistband. He grabbed Luntz' wrists with his left hand; the knuckleduster didn't seem to get in his way. He efficiently trussed the weeping Pellegrinian officer with cargo tape from the dispenser on his belt.
"We have four of them, sir!" said Vesey from the hatchway. "One was passed out drunk in the head."
"Officer Luntz, how many crewmen are aboard?" Adele said. "Luntz, answer me!"
"Six," Luntz gurgled through his sobs. "Look, Duval runs the smuggling, I don't get anything out of it. Hardly anything!"
"Put him with the rest of them in the room they sleep in," Adele said. She frowned at her sloppy terminology and said, "The accommodation block. Keep them tied at least for now."
She turned the console back on as two Sissies hustled the Pellegrinian out by the elbows. The crew would probably have to remain tied, taped that was, for the entire voyage. They couldn't be left on Pellegrino where they might be able to give the alarm soon enough for a courier ship to get to Dunbar's World before the Rainha and her escort, and there weren't enough Sissies in the assault party to provide more than an exiguous guard on the prisoners.
"Ma'am, I've sent the dock party out," Vesey said from the hatchway. "Barnes and Dasi are in the entrance compartment."
"Very good," said Adele without looking up from the console display. "I'll leave that to you, Lieutenant."
The console had an infuriating delay, presumably some software problem. She finally found the external optical pickups and focused them on the quay outside. The party of six under Sun sauntered toward Harbor Drive carrying the packing case which held their weapons.
Barnes and Dasi would deal with the crewmen as they returned to the ship, barring the lower end of the companionway while a large armed party waited at C Level, the next deck above the entrance hatch. Their story, that they'd just signed on to the crew, was flimsy, but it should be adequate for drunks who were doing well to stagger aboard. Sun's party was ready to deal with anybody who made it out of the ship and ran for the street.
"Sun, this is Mundy," Adele said. She used the Rainha's FM intercom but passed the signal through an RCN scrambler to Sun's tiny plug earphone. "The man coming toward you is Wilkes, the chief engineer."
Sun didn't have a sending unit with which to reply, but he made a hand signal behind his back. The display was too blurry and distorted for Adele to see more than the fact of the signal—but that was enough.
She let out her breath slowly. So far, so good. Perhaps in eight or nine hours, they'd be off this wretched planet—and on their way to Dunbar's World, which was even more wretched and where she would kill an uncertain number of people.
Adele smiled wryly. Family obligations often require a degree of personal discomfort.
CHAPTER 20: Ollarville on Dunbar's World
"All right, Colonel," said Councilor Corius. "Begin loading now."
Colonel Quinn wore a fist-sized communicator clipped to his bandolier. He pulled it to his mouth on a coiled lanyard and said, "Red One, this is Rainbow. Execute Evolution Brick, over."
Daniel wondered if he'd get a better idea of how the loading was proceeding if he were on the Greybudd's bridge instead of standing with Corius and Quinn in the cage of Port Eastern's only gantry. He'd have plenty of opportunity to try other locations, he supposed, since they were drilling only one of the four battalions at a time.
Officers below on the dock trilled whistles. Five hundred of Corius' Volunteers burst out of the warehouse where they were billeted and double-timed down the dock toward the transport. They carried only their personal weapons and small packs with ammunition and a day's rations.
The Greybudd's three boarding ramps were lowered, but the soldiers—the 2nd Battalion—were supposed to use only the one at the bow. The man on the left of the first rank started toward the stern ramp instead, taking twenty-odd of the nearby troops with him.
An o
fficer ran up screaming—the tone was audible in the gantry though the words weren't—and batted at him with a swagger stick. The misdirected men turned and rejoined the head of the main body just as they started up the correct ramp.
Hogg, leaning through a side window of the cage to get a good view, shook his head. Fallert was sitting on top of the cage; a burst of his clucking laughter rattled from there.
"Red One, don't let them bunch on the gangplank!" Quinn snarled into his communicator. "Bloody hell, Bancks, we don't want to drown them here in the harbor!"
He glanced sidelong, obviously worried about how Commander Leary was going to react to the confusion. Daniel leaned forward slightly. He kept his eyes on the loading and clasped his hands behind his back.
"They're accomplishing the business in quite good time, Colonel," he said cheerfully. "Lots of enthusiasm! It's not as though they've been selected for their skill in drill and ceremony, after all. And that's basically what this is."
"Thanks, Leary," Quinn said gruffly. "The opinion of a man like you counts."
Daniel's opinion was that the drill was less of a ratfuck than it might've been, but saying something so qualified wouldn't make the boarding process go more smoothly nor improve his working relationship with the Colonel. Besides, Daniel preferred to give people the benefit of the doubt. Often that caused them to do better in the future, though he didn't suppose that really had much to do with why he behaved the way he did.
Daniel grinned. Adele's tart criticisms no doubt improved the performance of both victims and also people who didn't want to be similarly skewered. But that was Adele, not Adele's considered plan to make the universe more efficient.
"These aren't our best troops, you know," Corius said. He'd managed to smooth the frown off his forehead but his lips still pursed as he watched the loading process. "We've got our shock troops in the 1st Battalion, but they'll load last to be first out for the assault."
"Right," said Daniel in a tone of approval. The benefit of the doubt, after all. "A very sensible plan. Our safety and that of my friends on the Rainha depend on a quick victory by the Volunteers."
Corius' mercenaries were an assortment of men who'd lost their farms or their businesses, people wanted for crimes in one or more jurisdictions, and a leavening of veterans. Few if any were first class soldiers—but neither were the Pellegrinians they'd be facing. An army like that of Chancellor Arruns got all of its experience in internal security activities: dragging dissidents out of their houses in the middle of the night and breaking heads if anybody dared demonstrate against the ruler.
The Volunteers would have surprise and numbers both on their side when Daniel landed them on Mandelfarne Island. He hoped that would be enough; the difference between victory and defeat was less a matter of what advantages you started with than how you used what you had.
Colonel Quinn made quite a decent training officer for the motley raw material Corius had hired. Quinn wasn't, however, the man Daniel would've picked to lead the Volunteers across an enemy base in a rush.
The smile never far from Daniel's lips spread again. Corius noticed it and said, "Yes, Commander? You have a criticism to offer, that you smile about?"
"What?" said Daniel, surprised by the sharpness of the Councilor's tone. "No, though I suggest that if you place officers at the base of the entry ramps, they can reduce the amount of bunching on the ramp itself. Officers with white batons, perhaps."
He cleared his throat. "I was smiling," he lied, "to think of how surprised the Pellegrinians are going to be to have your men land in their rear that way. If you keep your men moving, Quinn, you'll sweep through the base without anything like a battle. Though you'll need to keep moving, of course."
What Daniel'd really been thinking was that he himself was the best person available to lead the assault—and he wasn't available, even if Corius asked him. He knew his duty as a Leary and an RCN officer, but even if the Volunteers managed to hit the ground running, they were ill-trained and as dangerous to their friends as they were to the enemy. Daniel was willing to risk his life in a good cause, but being shot in the back by a farmer who shuts his eyes when he jerks the trigger wasn't the way he'd choose to go.
Corius and his military commander nodded sagely in agreement. Perhaps the comment would even help Quinn execute the plan in the only survivable fashion.
"Right, they've got a lot of spirit," Quinn said with false enthusiasm. Well, maybe not false: say rather exaggerated enthusiasm. "And remember, they're not our best battalion by a long shot."
The troops were milling their way aboard the transport. It was a moderately difficult job, as the holds of an ordinary freighter had been fitted with temporary decking so the ship could carry the maximum number of human beings. Access from deck to deck was by vertical ladders. Climbing them was an awkward task for men carrying packs and slung weapons. Until the first to board had cleared the entry hold, the later ranks could only wait on the ramp and quay.
"And of course while we want to load promptly," Corius said, "the only thing that matters is that we reach Mandelfarne before Arruns' spies warn him that we've put the whole force on a single ship. That'll take hours, don't you think?"
"I think it'll be at least hours before the Pellegrinians understand the significance of what's happening," Daniel said; limited agreement, but agreement. "It's very important that we arrive as soon as possible after the Rainha touches down with our friends aboard, though. I want to make it clear—"
He heard the change in his voice. So did Corius and Quinn, turning from the mob scene below to meet Daniel's gaze with sudden wariness.
"—that we will lift off before the full complement of troops has boarded if I deem that necessary."
"Now, see here, Leary—" Corius began, his face a sudden cloud.
"Councilor!" said Daniel.
Fallert dropped like a scaly gray cat from the roof to the pierced-steel platform at the back of the cage. Hogg was already facing him, twirling a short length of his fishline across the doorway as if by chance.
"If we wait too long," Daniel continued, "the Pellegrinians will recapture the missile battery before we arrive. In that event, we'll all die when they destroy the ship as we approach. I don't mind taking risks—"
In all truth, he rather liked it. Otherwise he'd be in another line of work, or at any rate wouldn't have had so distinguished a career.
"—but I'm not going to commit suicide and throw away another two thousand lives besides. Yours among them, I should point out."
He smiled broadly, taking away the sting he knew was in his tone.
"Ah!" said Corius. He forced a smile which quickly softened into reality. "Yes, I see that. I perhaps hadn't considered all the risks when I agreed to the plan. If you think it's too dangerous. . .?"
"It's not," said Daniel. "It's perfectly workable. I just want everyone to realize that I'll do whatever is necessary to make it work, even if other parties haven't fully executed their own duties. Right, Colonel?"
"My men'll be aboard," Quinn said stiffly. "Never fear that. Look, they're loaded already."
That wasn't quite true—the last thirty or forty troops were still on the entry ramp, waiting for those ahead of them to move. On the day of the real operation, the 1st Battalion still would be waiting to load behind the other three so that they'd be first off the transport when it landed on Mandelfarne Island. The 1st Battalion might not deserve to be called shock troops, but they were at any rate the best men in the Volunteers.
Daniel wasn't really concerned about the time it took to load in Ollarville. The real worry was how quickly the troops would disembark under hostile fire. There was no way to practice that.
"Not bad!" Quinn said with the artificial verve he'd shown before. "And a first drill! Now we'll see if the 3d and 4th battalions can better their time."
The troops had finally vanished into the ship, though Daniel was sure they'd still be packing the entry hold for another several minutes. Nonetheless, quickl
y enough.
"Well, I'm glad to hear you say you're still in favor of the plan, Commander," Corius said, patronizingly expansive again. "Because I don't mind telling you that I'd hate to cancel the operation and come up with another method of defeating Arruns. That wouldn't be an easy job, I'm afraid."
"I don't think you need worry about that, Councilor," Daniel said diplomatically. "So long as we continue to work on execution, we'll be fine when the time comes to do the job for real."
Colonel Quinn was talking to his battalion commander again. Daniel heard a tone of qualified approval in his voice, which the event scarcely justified.
We can't cancel the operation, Councilor, Daniel thought grimly, because we can't get word to Adele and her detachment. I'm going to be taking a ship into the Pellegrinian base one way or another, even if it's the Princess Cecile with a skeleton crew.