Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  The Winckelmann dropped majestically toward the bay around which Palia was built. A merchant ship was lifting at the same time. Many of the vessels which had been in the harbor at the start of the riots had already left.

  “I am surprised that Nunes permitted our ships to land, though,” Daniel said. It must have been going through his mind as it was Adele’s that while the remainder of the squadron was settling peacefully onto Strymon, the Princess Cecile had been raked by the Tanais defenses.

  “Observer Mariette contacted the commodore in orbit and demanded he land immediately to provide protection for Cinnabar property during the riots,” Adele said. “As the trouble appeared to be an internal Strymonian matter, the commodore brushed aside objections from the harbor controller and landed as requested.”

  “Another officer might at least have left a destroyer in orbit,” Daniel mused. “I suppose he wanted all the available personnel to bolster his guard detachments.”

  “Observer Mariette was very insistent,” Adele said, though part of her wondered why she was bothering to make excuses for the commodore. She wasn’t the one to judge the military reasons that had put the whole Cinnabar force on the surface, but it wouldn’t have taken information-gathering skills nearly as sophisticated as her own to warn Pettin that more was going on than the Observer realized.

  “Then Vaughn would have claimed the squadron had arrived to support him,” Daniel said. “Which a reasonable Strymonian citizen would find easy to believe.”

  He was stating his analysis rather than asking a question. Adele said, “The whole planet except for Palia and a few regions where Nunes had family connections declared for Delos. Palia is less pro-Pleyna than simply full of rioters looting anything they can. For the most part they haven’t attacked properties guarded by RCN detachments, but there’ve been sniping incidents every day since the squadron landed.”

  Adele pursed her lips, then said, “Daniel, Nunes asked for help again when Pettin arrived, but Admiral Chastelaine still refused. Surely he isn’t going to simply ignore an RCN squadron?”

  “Ah,” said Daniel. “No, he wouldn’t ignore us, but by the same token he won’t venture out of his fortified base before he’s certain his ships are fully repaired. Fully prepared.”

  “But Daniel,” Adele said, struggling to understand a situation devoid of logic. “Their ships are bigger and newer and there’s more of them. Surely Admiral Chastelaine knows that?”

  “Yes, Adele,” Daniel said. “But he also knows that we’re the RCN. No Alliance commander ever forgets that.”

  “Ah,” Adele said. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Sir, there’s a ship rising from the surface,” Lt. Mon said. “It’s a private yacht, the Achilles, and President Delos Vaughn’s aboard. He says he’s coming up to meet with you. Over.”

  He’d broken in on a dedicated link from the Battle Direction Center to Daniel’s command console. It didn’t pass through the signals console, but Adele had set the system to echo everything to her unit regardless of provenance. There was no information that she might not need, some time, some where.

  “Does it indeed, Mon?” Daniel said. “I can’t imagine what Master Vaughn wants of me, but I certainly have some matters I’d like to raise with him. I suppose we’d better bring him aboard. Make the necessary arrangements. Captain out.”

  Adele had called up the message and was running the speech attributed to Vaughn through voice recognition software when Daniel said, “What do you think about this development, Adele?”

  “I don’t have the faintest notion,” she said. “Except that it really is Vaughn; and the heads of Friderik Nunes and Pleyna Vaughn have been stuck on poles in front of Delos’s headquarters in the suburbs of Palia, so I suppose he’s President of Strymon as well.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The Achilles looked to be a dumpy little vessel at present because her rig was stowed. Even when fully telescoped, the masts of the first and last of her four rings stuck out beyond the yacht’s short hull. Extended and wearing a full suit of sails, those masts would give her an area-to-mass ratio equalled by few if any other ships of Daniel’s acquaintance. To him, that was a mark of great beauty.

  The scale of the image was too small to show the boarding line connecting the yacht to the Princess Cecile, though Daniel could have directed the console to emphasize it if he’d had any reason to. Vaughn had asked to board via a tube and to bring several of his aides with him. Daniel had granted neither request.

  The outer airlock dogged home; a moment later the inner valve opened. Woetjans, her faceshield flung open, half dragged, half guided, Delos Vaughn into Corridor C. Vaughn’s expression through the synthetic sapphire of his visor was both irritated and frightened.

  Daniel glanced again at the image of the Achilles. To Adele across the bridge he said, “That yacht’s far too fine a vessel to be used for an orbital ferryboat the way our guest just did. They could’ve found a cargo lighter easily enough.”

  Adele shrugged. “You can’t hold a landsman to a spacer’s standards, Daniel,” she said. With the bosun’s help, Vaughn was struggling out of a rigging suit meant for someone a size larger, shooting frustrated looks toward her and Daniel but for the moment unable to join them. There was too much ambient noise for him to overhear. “I doubt whether he could, let alone does, understand that he’s done anything questionable.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, “but that’s rather a picture of his life, don’t you think? The ability to do whatever’s expedient without knowing or caring about anyone else’s viewpoint?”

  Vaughn kicked out of the suit’s right leg and stepped to the hatchway. “Permission to enter the bridge, Captain Leary?” he said in a clear voice.

  “You may enter the bridge, Mr. Vaughn,” Daniel said. Then, because he didn’t want to seem petty, he corrected himself: “President Vaughn, that is.”

  ” ‘Mister’ is quite sufficient between old shipmates,” Vaughn said with his familiar engaging smile as he strode forward. “And present allies, I’m pleased to say.”

  Sun looked over his shoulder, then went back to his display; Betts never paused in obsessively computing missile courses. Adele continued to listen to the snips of intership and surface communications which her software culled out for her, but her eyes and her primary attention were on Delos Vaughn.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again, sir,” Daniel said. “Not after the way you left us on Sexburga.”

  Facing Vaughn, he found it hard to be sure of how he felt about the man. Not hatred, certainly, nor even anger. There was a sort of admiration, Daniel had to admit, for a person who was so pure an example of the thing he was; and disgust as well, at what that thing was.

  “I won’t bother to apologize for the way I tricked you, Captain,” Vaughn said, bluffly disarming. “Nothing I could say would be enough, and you wouldn’t accept it anyway. I’ll make up for the trouble in every way possible, however. One of the estates Nunes confiscated has been put in your name already. You may well want to spread the largess among those of your servants who were left on South Land with you. You’ll be able to make them very happy without noticing the cost, I assure you.”

  Tovera watched from just inside the captain’s suite; her right hand rested lightly on the grip of her submachine gun. Hogg was in the bridge hatchway, toying with a loop of fishing line and grinning.

  “I’m a Leary of Bantry, sir,” Daniel said quietly. “We understand cost very well, but the term rarely has anything to do with money when we use it.”

  “I take your point, Captain,” said Vaughn; and he did, the tightness around his nostrils showed that clearly. “I’ve come for help clearing up the final patches of resistance to my assumption of the presidency. The two sons of the usurper Nunes are forted up in the family residence in the Tatrig Mountains. They’ll require heavy weapons to blast them out, and—”

  “President Vaughn,” Daniel said. “I’m aware of your claims that the Republic backed your r
ebellion. You and I both know there’s no truth to that. I won’t become involved in what is clearly an internal Strymonian matter.”

  Vaughn’s smile was crystal hard. “Well, Lieutenant, so far as Strymon knows, your Observer Mariette included,” he said, “you’re already involved. Pleyna Vaughn came out of Palia to discuss settlement terms because my military liaison, Lieutenant Daniel Leary of the RCN, guaranteed her safety. Of course I’ll be able to correct this misapprehension as soon as you—”

  Sun rose from his console in a fluid movement. His face was red. Adele grabbed his wrist. Sun jerked loose, but Hogg now stood between the spacer and Vaughn, and Tovera was behind him with her gun’s muzzle a millimeter from his spine.

  Everyone was looking at Daniel. “I’m not concerned with the lies of foreign rabble, Officer Sun,” he said mildly. “Return to your duties, please. The Winckelmann’s lighted her thrusters, so we can expect further orders shortly.”

  Vaughn was a brave man to have boarded the Princess Cecile now. Despite that, he wasn’t a fool, so he must need Daniel’s help very badly.

  “A combination of those who oppose the new president …” Adele said. Her left hand came out of her pocket; Sun was at his console again and the two servants had backed off the bridge.

  ” … and the large percentage of the population who resent their president being chosen by Cinnabar,” she continued, her eyes on something far distant in time, “will make it difficult for the regime to stay in power if there’s a center of armed resistance.”

  She looked at Daniel, then at Vaughn. She added, “We on Cinnabar know something of conspiracies also, Mister President.”

  Vaughn swallowed. He said, “All I want from you, Captain, is a word to the frigates who’ve surrendered to you. The Fleet was thoroughly in Nunes’s camp—and intriguing with the Alliance as well, that’s no fable. If those ships enter the atmosphere and use their rockets against the Nunes positions, my mercenaries will have no difficulty in mopping up what remains. I don’t trust the captains to obey me, however, and there’re no other Fleet elements on Strymon. They all lifted for Tanais when your commodore landed.”

  Adele looked at Daniel sharply. He nodded. Vaughn knew his rivals had plotted with the Alliance, but he didn’t realize that Admiral Chastelaine had reached the Strymon system.

  “President Vaughn,” he said, “you’ve entered a realm of politics that’s properly the business of the Cinnabar Observer. If you prefer to raise the matter with Commodore Pettin, my superior, feel free to do so—his flagship will be in orbit shortly. For my part, I must request you return to your own vessel immediately, because I have—”

  “Daniel!” Adele said. She’d rotated her seat to face her console again. “I’m cuing this to you!”

  Vaughn’s mouth opened, probably to protest. He was suddenly between Hogg and Tovera, backing quickly to the hatchway. Woetjans and the riggers with her in the corridor watched in amusement, but they didn’t get involved where they would so clearly be superfluous.

  “RCN, this is Kelburney,” said the Astrogator’s voice. “I left the cutters where the relay satellites used to be, just in case something came through that I’d like to know about. Ten minutes back, Strete outside Tanais Base picked up a transmission saying that Admiral Chastelaine was lifting for Strymon with his whole squadron. I guess you know more about what that means than we do, but we know it means we’re headed back home soonest. If you’re smart, boy, you’ll do the same. Kelburney out.”

  Daniel glanced at the Plot Position Indicator. The pirate cutters were beginning to vanish like dewdrops in the sunlight. Captain Strete had brought word through the Matrix to his fellows, then fled only moments ahead of them. Daniel really couldn’t blame the Selmans; not that it would have mattered if he had.

  He hit the alarm button. “Ship, general quarters,” he ordered. “All riggers topside. Riggers will remain on the hull during transitions until recalled. Captain out.”

  The Winckelmann’s plasma thrusters covered the RF frequency with thunderous white noise, but the laser communicator should punch through the exhaust iridescence clearly enough to get the point across. Another hour would have been enough; but the RCN didn’t depend on luck or prayer, either one.

  “Adele,” Daniel said. “Give me maximum emitter output and a tight focus to the flagship.”

  He cleared his throat and continued, “Princess Cecile to Squadron. We have an emergency… .”

  *

  Somewhere behind Adele, Delos Vaughn squealed briefly. She’d guess that Hogg was trussing and gagging the president rather than cutting his throat. Hogg being Hogg, you couldn’t be sure; nor was it a question about which she could raise much concern.

  Both Strymonian frigates were sending increasingly shrill questions toward the Princess Cecile as they watched the pirate cutters disappear into the Matrix. The Achilles’s captain sounded querulous also, but since the yacht was unarmed—Adele had looked up the registry description—that wasn’t a matter for present concern.

  The patrol vessels were. Daniel and the officers in the Battle Direction Center were concerned with the ship and Commodore Pettin; but Adele was the signals officer, after all.

  “Strymonian vessels Two-Oh-Four and One-Twenty-Seven,” she said, using microwave because Daniel was on the modulated laser. “This is RCN Flagship Princess Cecile. You have your orders. If you violate them, we will destroy you without compunction! Ah, out!”

  Were you supposed to say “flagship” if you were claiming to be a flagship? She’d ask when there was leisure, so she’d know the next time the question arose. For now, the terrified babbling of the Strymonian officers was sufficient.

  “—the Princess Cecile will therefore proceed to the neighborhood of Tanais,” Daniel was saying, “and screen the remainder of the squadron while your crews board. Leary over.”

  The corvette shivered as hydraulic jacks extended the antennas and spread the sails. For a moment Adele heard clang-clang, clang-clang. Riggers on the hull were freeing a jammed tube with their mauls.

  “Leary, this is Pettin,” a voice replied on a laser beam from the Winckelmann. Despite the initial tight focus and the voice sharpening provided by the Princess Cecile’s communications suite, static roared through the commodore’s words. “You are not, I repeat, not to engage the enemy. You will proceed with utmost dispatch to Cinnabar and warn the authorities there of the situation in the Sack.”

  Adele glanced at the image of Daniel inset at the top of her screen. His fingers hammered at his virtual keyboard while his eyes flicked back and forth at the data appearing on the display before him. Daniel was a sure and reasonably fast typist, but he put as much effort into his keystrokes as he would in splitting logs.

  “Leary, there’s nothing a corvette can do to affect a squadron of that weight,” Pettin continued. “You’ve shown how fast you can push your Princess Cecile. Get home, get help, and tell Anston to get back here before the Alliance has the Sack sewed up. Acknowledge and get moving! Pettin over.”

  “One minute to entering the Matrix,” Midshipman Vesey’s voice warned over the PA system. The signal lights pulsed.

  “Princess Cecile to squadron,” Daniel said. His fingers and eyes continued to move as though controlled by an entity outside the person who responded to Commodore Pettin. “Sir, your transmission is breaking up. I’m therefore maneuvering as previously described. Princess Cecile out.”

  He broke the connection. The eyes of his image met Adele’s.

  “Daniel?” she said. “I’ve downloaded a report on the Strymon system into both our message cells. If you set them for Sexburga, there’s a sixty percent chance one will arrive. The authorities there can send a courier vessel to Cinnabar.”

  “Thank you, Adele,” Daniel said, calling across the noisy bridge so that the other officers could hear as well. “But that’d mean shifting the ready-use missiles out of their tubes. I believe we’re going to have more use for them than Cinnabar has for a message.�
��

  “Entering the—” Vesey said, and Adele’s world everted itself in what was becoming a familiar fashion.

  “Lieutenant Mon,” Daniel said, “I’m going topside. Please take the conn. Out.”

  He stood, feeling the Princess Cecile heel through the soles of his feet. The ship was a living apex of the infinite directions and forces of the Matrix. Adele turned from her console and said in a tone of inward-directed anger, “There’s nothing to add to the bare message! If Captain Strete had any imagery of the Alliance fleet, he didn’t transmit it to the Astrogator; and now he’s gone.”

  “Come up on deck with me if you would, Adele,” Daniel said. “We have twenty minutes before the next exit, and the Sissie’s wearing almost her full suit of sails. It’s not something you’ll often have a chance to see.”

  “For a variety of reasons, perhaps,” he added. He tried to sound solemn, but he didn’t manage very well. “Regardless, it’s a lovely sight.”

  “Captain?” Betts said, looking over his shoulder as Daniel followed Adele toward the suit locker. “You’ll be taking down Four Dorsal and Four Ventral to clear the tubes, right?”

  “I won’t know till we have a plot of the enemy formation, Betts,” Daniel said. Tovera and Hogg were in the corridor, readying Adele’s rigging suit. Hogg’s face was a thundercloud; Tovera seemed, as usual, mildly amused. “I will say that I’ll launch through a sail if necessary, though. Make your solutions regardless of the rig.”

  “You’ve got no business going out right now!” Hogg snarled to Daniel, his face turned aside as he lifted Adele without ceremony for Tovera to pull on the legs of the suit. “That’s Woetjans’s job. You’re just full of yourself ‘cause you spit in Pettin’s face, you know. You’re going to take a chance too many one of these days, young master!”

  “I’m checking the rig, Hogg,” Daniel said quietly as he donned his suit in a practiced reflex: legs, arms, and then close the plastron; three simple movements that he could do in the dark or so hungover that he could scarcely stand. “Which is my business.”