Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  “Yes, yes,” Pettin said. He waved toward the hatch. “We’ll enter the Matrix in an hour and a half, so you’d better get moving. I fear that your ship’s company wouldn’t be able to function without you to lead them.”

  Daniel froze. “Sir,” he said in a voice he hadn’t meant to use, “the officers and crew under my command are the equal of any in the RCN. Sir.”

  Pettin grimaced. “No doubt they are,” he snapped. “Now get the hell back to your own ship. After you’ve had two weeks freezing your feet on Tanais, I’ll see if your deportment has improved to the point that I won’t feel required to mention it on your next fitness report. Dismissed!”

  Daniel stood, saluted, and walked out of the cabin as quickly as he could without running. He reclosed the hatch behind him; he’d had no orders on the subject, and it certainly made him feel better to know that there was a steel panel between his back and the commodore.

  He threw a smile toward the startled lieutenant at the console. Daniel regretted being sent to Tanais for the crew’s sake, but to be perfectly honest the recreation available there was about what most of them would have chosen on Strymon proper.

  Adele might miss the lack of museums to tour, but Daniel was pretty sure that her real work was expected to begin after she reached the Strymon system. She’d be very busy, and the heart of a naval base was at least as suitable a site from which to send out electronic tendrils as the capital would be.

  As for Daniel himself, even two weeks on Tanais would be a vacation compared to the run from Cinnabar to Sexburga. He could take it easily.

  And it was a great improvement over the career-ending efficiency report that Pettin had probably planned to issue at the time the squadron lifted from Sexburga.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Adele echoed the right half of Daniel’s display—a schematic of the Strymon system rather than the astrogation data on the left portion—as a sidebar on her own screen. Frankly, the icons on ghostly orbital tracks didn’t mean a great deal more to her than the abstruse mathematics of Matrix navigation, but she knew Daniel would want to walk her through the display when he had a moment.

  Her communications board was as silent as a snake waiting for prey. Within the Matrix, there was nothing to hear but static; so the experts said. Though sometimes the static formed patterns that almost mimicked communication.

  Once Adele imagined that she heard her sister calling, “Adele …” After that she no longer listened to her equipment until the Princess Cecile reentered normal space.

  “Going to put her right in the slip when we exit, sir?” Betts called from the attack console. His display was a mass of overlying curves in many colors.

  Adele checked for curiosity’s sake and found that the missileer had set up twelve separate attacks for each of his pair of launchers. The first factor in each equation was blank. The actual courses would be determined when the Princess Cecile exited the Matrix and thus had a location in the sidereal universe.

  “No, we’re going to be very discreet and not offend our hosts,” Daniel said. He leaned back in his chair, watching his display but obviously not called on to act at the moment. “They deal with pirates who enter normal space adjacent to their target and use plasma cannon to strip the sails. A ship exiting near Tanais the way a pirate would is likely to be hailed by eight-inch cannon instead of a microwave dish.”

  There was general laughter on the bridge. The corvette was noisy with preparations for its return to sidereal space, but the spacers were talking normally instead of using the helmet intercom. Adele found communication systems interesting, though she felt a mild surprise whenever she remembered that she was no longer merely an observer.

  “Eight minutes to exit,” rumbled the PA system in Lt. Mon’s voice.

  “Adele?” called Daniel. “Are you—yes, of course you are. Do you want a rundown of the Tanais control area?”

  “Yes, Daniel,” Adele said, careful to speak loudly so that she’d be heard. She was vaguely curious about the place they’d be spending the next two weeks, but not nearly as interested as Daniel was in informing her. The layout of the Strymonian naval base was a matter of record. What Adele had been sent to the system to learn was of a subtle and immaterial nature, not concrete and tunnels.

  “The base has three orbital forts, you see,” Daniel said, now switching to intercom to keep private a conversation of no general interest. Carets of red light stabbed into the display. “Because of tidal forces from the primary, that’s Getica, they can’t use an automatic defense array—”

  A constellation of nuclear mines in orbit, each ready to punch a light-speed rod of charged particles through a hostile vessel.

  “—unless they were willing to renew it every week. The orbital forts are powered, of course.”

  “I see,” said Adele to indicate her presence. As she listened, her wands called up a catalog of the frequencies and codes on which the Tanais forts had operated in the past. The information had been gathered by visiting RCN vessels over six decades.

  The Strymon fleet didn’t pay nearly as much attention to communications security as it should: when a code changed, it generally reverted to one that had already been used in the past. The pirates who were the main threat to Strymon apparently didn’t concern themselves with signals intelligence.

  “The Sailing Directions give a hailing point sixty thousand miles short of Tanais and in a direct line between the satellite and her primary,” Daniel continued. His highlight this time formed a tiny sphere in the blankness, trundling slowly across the screen in concert with the large, peach-colored Getica and the smaller, bluish ball that was Tanais. “We’re going to exit a little farther out than that just to be safe. We’re not expected, and I don’t want to startle some sleepy watch officer into thinking he’s being attacked.”

  Adele created a probability rota for codes and frequencies. There was no reason to hunt for a solution if one were already at hand. With the algorithms Mistress Sand provided, the Princess Cecile’s main computer could turn any intercepted transmission into plain speech within minutes if not seconds, but even short delays could be significant.

  A quarter second was enough time for Adele Mundy to draw her pistol and fire a pellet into the brain of another human being, for example; even less on a good day.

  “Two minutes to exit,” Mon announced.

  “Ah—it appears that Getica is on the other side of the sun from Strymon,” Daniel went on in sudden concern. “When we arrive and during the whole period we’ll be docked there. Will that be a problem for you, Adele?”

  “There’s arrangements for message traffic between the base and Strymon, surely?” Adele said. Her wands quivered, putting her question into electronic form almost without her conscious volition. Data sprang to life on her display. “Yes, of course. A trio of transponder stations at three hundred million miles. There’ll be delays, of course, and probably some corruption, but nothing that will prevent me from carrying out my tasks.”

  “As if anything could, short of death,” Daniel said. The intercom didn’t transmit his chuckle, but she heard it faintly from across the bridge.

  “I like to think so,” Adele said. She allowed herself a smile, though there wasn’t a great deal of humor in it.

  Her work for Mistress Sand would be mostly archival. Conspirators—competent ones, at any rate—would shut down their operations while a Cinnabar squadron was in port, but there would remain vestiges of past activities that they couldn’t remove even if they realized the need to do so.

  Tanais would have a supposedly secure link to all government databases on Strymon proper. Adele would tap it within a few hours of the Princess Cecile’s arrival. Sorting for evidence of treachery would take time, but she was confident that before the squadron was ready to leave the system, the only thing that would prevent her from finding what she was looking for was total innocence on the part of Pleyna Vaughn and her government.

  Adele’s smile grew minutely broader
without gaining much in the way of humor. She didn’t believe in innocence as a concept, save perhaps in children like her late sister, Agatha.

  Any responsible government in Strymon would have opened lines of communication to the Alliance. But if the present one had done so, its members would go the way … Agatha, say, had gone. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  “One minute to exit,” Mon said. Tones echoed themselves up and down the Princess Cecile’s corridors.

  “Good, good, I was sure you’d manage,” Daniel said. In his official voice he continued, “Captain to ship. Prepare to enter normal space. Captain out.”

  The starship shuddered in a pattern that had by now become as familiar as Adele’s nightmares and very nearly as unpleasant to experience. Colors inverted to their visual reciprocals. For an instant Adele saw not one compartment but an infinite series of compartments, each identical—almost—to the others.

  She kept her eyes open. She’d tried closing them the first few times, and the result was even worse.

  Another shudder. It was as disconcerting as the previous series even though Adele’s conscious mind knew that when she was growing up this was the only universe she’d ever expected to know.

  “Hallelujah!” a spacer shouted. Over the intercom, Lt. Mon bellowed, “By God! I don’t think we’re the ship’s length out of our calculated exit. Three cheers for Captain Leary!”

  Adele heard the cheering with a distant part of her mind. The rest of her, body and soul, was busy with the glut of information the Princess Cecile’s communications suite was gathering.

  Signals Officer Mundy was at work.

  *

  “RCN corvette Princess Cecile requests landing clearance for Tanais Base,” Daniel said, feeling expansive. “We’ll need dockyard assistance in removing and refitting our fusion bottle, but the ship will be able to lift to another berth after initial touchdown if necessary. Sissie over.”

  Daniel was glad that Lt. Mon had told the crew about how precisely they’d exited the Matrix, because otherwise he might have said something himself. Daniel didn’t like boastfulness, in himself or in others, but there were some things so uniquely wonderful that they shouldn’t pass without comment.

  “Tanais control to RCN vessel,” an agitated voice said after more than the normal lag for communications over a 70,000 mile separation. “We have no information regarding your arrival here. You are not approved for landing. I repeat, you are not approved for landing! You must land on Strymon and get authorization from the Fleet Office before you can land here. Tanais control over.”

  Daniel frowned, the expression of an RCN officer and Cinnabar nobleman who’d just been told what to do by wogs. He glanced at the course schematic which had replaced the astrogation display when the corvette entered sidereal space. The Princess Cecile retained considerable velocity from the bubble universe from which it had exited. The High Drive was braking at .5 gee, the hardest a reasonable captain would stress a vessel with its sails set.

  Lt. Mon had laid out a complex powered orbit that would bring the Princess Cecile around Tanais alone instead of looping the primary. He’d calculated it to give them time to scrub off momentum during the expected bureaucratic delays an unannounced vessel could expect before being assigned a berth.

  The present business was not at all to be expected.

  “Tanais control, this is RCN, I repeat, RCN, vessel Princess Cecile,” Daniel said. He was handling the communications chores himself, both because he was more familiar with procedures than Adele and because her specialized skills could be put to better use at this moment than routine. “Your response is not satisfactory. Be advised that I intend to dock my vessel at Tanais Base in accordance with Strymon’s treaty obligations to the Republic of Cinnabar. Over!”

  His hand reached for a red button set into the material of the console; not a holographic construct. Before he touched it, General Quarters chimed through the corvette: Lt. Mon in the Battle Direction Center had been a hair quicker than his captain.

  “RCN vessel, wait please,” said the controller. He sounded as though he was on the verge of a coronary or a nervous breakdown. “Please wait. Tanais out … ah, over.”

  The bridge whispered with the motions of officers focusing on their individual domains. In the corridor the riggers who’d come in during exit—it was possible to make the transition with crewmen on the hull, but physical and psychological disorientation made it very dangerous for them—were locking their helmets shut in obedience to Woetjans’ order over the intercom.

  Daniel switched the left half of his display to a real-time image of Tanais. The corvette’s course had already brought her within the forts’ interlocking orbits. The whine of the High Drive gained in volume as it maintained balance between the conflicting pulls of Getica and of the smaller but closer satellite. Tanais Base was a scrawl within the ice sheet, visible from diffracted light. Thermal imaging would make the tunnels even more evident.

  “RCS Princess Cecile, this is Tanais Control,” said a new voice: male, forceful, and very determined. “Return to the challenge point immediately and stay there until you have authorization to close. You are in a restricted area at a time of national emergency. Return to the challenge point or we will fire! Tanais over!”

  Good God, there was a heavy battle squadron down there! Not in the base proper but on the ice on the side of Tanais which eternally faced Getica.

  “Tanais Base, we’re withdrawing immediately!” Daniel said as his fingers typed preset emergency codes. The first of them returned control to the command console from the Battle Direction Center. Lt. Mon might be able to handle this as ably as Daniel could, but it was God’s truth that they couldn’t both be responsible at the same time.

  If Daniel had had time, he’d have prayed that he didn’t miskey … but if he’d had time, he’d have been able to check his work. “I repeat, RCS Princess Cecile is withdrawing immedia—”

  “Daniel,” said Adele’s voice over the intercom. She didn’t sound nervous but her tone was as joyless as a slaughterhouse. “Base Command has just ordered the forts to open fire on us.”

  With the command console locked down the way it was, no one should have been able to break in. No one but Adele could have.

  “Shit!” Daniel shouted. That probably startled Tanais Control, but a lot of people were getting surprises today. Daniel’s left hand chopped the High Drive while his right engaged the sequence that would return the Princess Cecile to the Matrix.

  “Ship!” Daniel said. “Spacers, we’re under attack by Tanais Base. I’m inserting us into—”

  The forts each mounted eight-inch plasma cannon in turrets on the north and south axes. The Princess Cecile’s course had carried her planetward between two of the forts. Their guns fired as pairs within microseconds of one another. The bolts—dense, thigh-thick gouts of charged particles—tore through vacuum a hundred yards behind the corvette. They made their own light, like sections ripped from a star’s corona.

  “—the Matrix where—”

  Daniel could feel the Princess Cecile start to shift out of sidereal space. The hair on his neck tingled and a trembling in his gut mimicked the onset of panic.

  “—we’ll be able—”

  The forts missed because Daniel had shut off braking thrust as he prepared to reenter the Matrix. The gunnery computers calculated lead based on the rate of change in the corvette’s progress—and therefore fired short. The delay between discharges for heavy cannon was fifteen to twenty seconds; otherwise heat buildup in the chamber would cause a catastrophic failure when lasers compressed and detonated the second tritium pellet. The Princess Cecile was safe from the guns that had already engaged her.

  The third fort came around the curve of the satellite on a combination of the corvette’s momentum and the fort’s own orbital velocity. The Princess Cecile’s vector above the surface of Tanais carried her directly toward the fort, giving the guns a zero-deflection shot.

  Sun co
uldn’t fire his own pairs of four-inch cannon because of the Princess Cecile’s sails. When set they draped the hull like shrouds and would absorb the vessel’s own discharges in fiery cataclysms.

  “For what we are about to receive …” the gunner said, shouting because words were the only response he could make to a situation he appreciated even more clearly than his captain. “The Lord make us thankful!”

  Two eight-inch plasma bolts ripped through the portion of the Princess Cecile which hadn’t yet trembled out of sidereal space. Their scouring impact flared across Daniel’s display.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Well, things could be a great deal worse,” said Daniel in a pleased tone, leaning back in his console.

  The words and tone were perfectly predictable, Adele thought as she looked across the crowded bridge at the captain. Daniel would say the same thing—and mean it—if he’d just had both legs amputated. If Daniel Leary had a motto, it would be While there’s life, there’s hope.

  On duty, at any rate. Off duty his motto would probably involve the age of suitability for girls.

  Adele smiled faintly. Her own motto would be more along the lines of While Daniel’s alive, there’s hope. The Princess Cecile’s crew was a normal assemblage of human beings, some more sanguine than others; but not a soul of them would disagree with Adele there.

  Woetjans and Pasternak stood in the center of the bridge. Even without Betts and Sun at their consoles—they were on the hull, checking the launcher hatches and gun turrets respectively for external damage—the chiefs of rig and ship filled the compartment. Condensate dripping from metal fittings of their rigging suits shrouded them in a clammy reminder of the environment from which they’d just returned.

  “It’s bloody well bad enough!” Woetjans said. “The sails, all right, we can patch and pair so that with the spares we’ve got pretty much a full set. They’ll be the devil to furl where we’ve double-hung a yard to get full coverage out of rags, but we’ll cope. The masts, though, the masts are fucked good.”