Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  “Sir, we’re just finishing Number Five,” Pasternak came back instantly. “The sheathing—” the electromagnetic tape that kept the stream of antimatter centered until it reached the nozzle to interact with the spray of normal matter “—burned through but the tube and nozzle were all right. The feeds to Ten and Twelve are fine, but they shouldn’t be run till the nozzles’re replaced. Fifteen minutes apiece if we’re lucky, but if the ion stream welded the fittings we’ll have to cut them loose. I can’t promise much then. Over.”

  Daniel looked at his calculations. With three more nozzles on line, just possibly …

  Aloud he said, “Pasternak, finish up on Five soonest and bring your crew aboard. Break. Woetjans, we’ll be increasing thrust to one point six gee as soon as engineering has Nozzle Five ready. Nozzles Ten and Twelve may fail at any moment, so watch yourself around Frame Sixty.”

  Daniel stared at his display for a moment, then added, “Woetjans? I recommend you bring your crews aboard now, unless you’re convinced their work over the next five minutes is crucial. It’s possible that we’ll be maneuvering violently. Over.”

  “Roger,” Woetjans said. There was physical strain in her voice. Daniel suspected the bosun was bracing herself with the grip of one hand and using the other to put as much force on the end of a come-along as three ordinary crewmen could’ve managed. “You handle the bloody course, we’ll handle the bloody rig. Out!”

  “Task accomplished, coming aboard,” Pasternak said crisply. “Engineering out.”

  Daniel cut in the additional High Drive nozzles. The icons for Ten and Twelve went solid green under dint of Daniel’s overriding command, but they pulsed to show the computer’s displeasure.

  Daniel smiled faintly. They’d never build a computer that could fight battles successfully: to win, sometimes you had to do things that made no logical sense. You had to be willing to die as well, but an RCN officer was just as willing to die as any machine was.

  On the attack screen, three Alliance missile tracks intersected that of the Petty. The destroyer was braking at three gravities, thrust that was certain to ripple plates and start seams. The scale was too small for certainty: to the last Daniel was able to hope that what looked like a hit was in fact a narrow miss.

  The Petty’s image deformed. A ball of gas puffed around the destroyer like blood pooling beneath a corpse. The fusion bottle failed then, devouring everything astern of the blast wall in a white flash. Debris from the bow section shotgunned away. Some of the fragments might be suited crewmen, but there was no possibility of them being rescued.

  “Sir!” Mon said urgently. “We’re accelerating on our previous course. I’ve figured thrust to produce the greatest possible tangent. Shall I take the conn?”

  “Negative, negative!” Daniel said. “Mr. Mon, I’ll determine the Sissie’s course!”

  He checked his display to make sure that he hadn’t handed off control to the BDC at some past moment and failed to retrieve it. It was absolutely critical that the course remain exactly as he’d set it.

  Even if he’d guessed wrong. A ship could have only one captain, and Daniel Leary was the Princess Cecile’s at present.

  One of the stern airlocks cycled with a hesitation noticeable to a spacer experienced in the Princess Cecile’s patterns. The inner valve had warped, though it must still be sealing adequately or Pasternak’s crew wouldn’t have been able to use the lock without authorization from the command console.

  An RCN missile hit the Yorck forward. Three seconds later, a missile from Der Grosser Karl spitted the Alliance heavy cruiser at virtually the same frame but from starboard instead of the port side.

  The Yorck continued on its previous course. A bubble of atmosphere surrounded the vessel, expanding slowly. That the cruiser stayed centered in the ball of gas showed that its High Drive had shut down: until the double impact, the Yorck had been braking hard in a desperate attempt to avoid the kill zone.

  The Winckelmann was so distant from the Alliance battleship that missiles the ships launched at one another burned all their fuel, then continued on ballistic courses. At burnout the missile separated into four segments, closely spaced but nonetheless increasing the coverage area considerably. Though the difference didn’t show at the scale of Daniel’s display, he knew that the missiles about to intersect both flagships were more likely to achieve hits than those launched at closer targets.

  “Tube Alpha ready!” Betts shouted. Daniel’s finger was already stroking the firing switch. The thump! of the missile launching was simultaneous with the whang! of Bett’s team breaking free the outer door of Tube Beta with a charge of explosive.

  “Sir, permission to fire?” Sun begged. He was poised over the key that would trigger the four plasma cannon.

  Der Grosser Karl’s Parthian shot continued its track toward the Sissie. It was very close to burnout now, but its twelve-gee acceleration had given it more than sufficient residual velocity to overhaul the corvette in another ninety seconds.

  “Negative!” Daniel said. “I’ll give the order. Not till I give the order!”

  Der Grosser Karl ran through the path of the Winckelmann’s first salvo. There were seven missiles; the eighth had ruptured the Yorck. Either Pettin or his Chief Missileer had done a brilliant job of targeting. It wouldn’t have been possible without Adele’s intercepted course data, but not every officer would have thought to aim so as to threaten two enemy ships at a considerable distance from one another.

  A segment struck the battleship’s port outrigger, retracted since lifting from its berth on Tanais. There was a bright flash: metal blasted to vapor by kinetic energy. The secondary shock wave—the ball of glowing gas exploding from the impact at a significant fraction of light speed—hammered Der Grosser Karl’s hull, whipping the vessel despite its enormous mass.

  Though the battleship’s targeting had been both hastier and less skillful than the Winckelmann’s, her multiple tubes made up the difference. The Winckelmann’s acceleration allowed her to pass well wide of all but three of the twenty-four missiles of the initial launch; regardless, a segment caught her squarely amidships. The flash had an electrical quality to it, high in the ultraviolet.

  The missile aimed at the Princess Cecile reached burnout and separated. Daniel plotted the four tracks, then careted one and ordered, “Now, Sun! Everything you’ve got!”

  The corvette’s plasma cannon rang from both turrets. Surges of ionized nuclei spurted at light speed through the sole opening in the laser array and down the iridium bores.

  Inevitably there was some leakage which the refractory gun-tube had to contain. Sun had the weapons on high rate, the four tubes cycling at a combined rate of six pulses per second. That couldn’t be sustained for long periods because it didn’t leave the guns long enough to cool between discharges.

  It was the only chance the Princess Cecile had of surviving for a long period, however.

  Despite the guns’ enormous energy output, they couldn’t hope to destroy tons of solid metal thousands of miles away. What they could do, if skillfully directed, was to nudge missiles aside by subliming material off one side as reaction mass.

  Tube Alpha showed ready. Daniel launched another missile at Der Grosser Karl. With luck, Alpha would be reloaded again in time for another round, a last round if luck or the Gods decreed. The Sissie’s crew might never know if these missiles too had struck—but they had three certain hits on a battleship, not a bad record to take to a spacers’ heaven.

  The Winckelmann swung into a slow tumble through the void. Her High Drive shut down momentarily, then restarted as Pettin or his replacement aligned the nozzles to counteract the thrust from the missile impact.

  The crippled cruiser launched two missiles, then two more. By God she did!

  “Daniel, the enemy’s going to enter the Matrix!” Adele said. Had he ever heard Adele shout before? “Chastelaine’s signaled ‘All units shape course for Sonderfell immediately.’ Daniel, they’re running!”
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br />   Tube Alpha was loaded. Betts must have set the transport rollers to overspeed.

  Daniel launched again, feeling the missiles in B magazine also starting to move. With Tube Beta in operation, the Princess Cecile was in fighting trim—except for mobility.

  Segments of the incoming missile arrived. Vapor glowing with the fury of Sun’s cannon bathed the corvette for an instant, a flash like lightning across Daniel’s real-time display. There was a click like a distant whiplash; a few gauges jumped.

  The Princess Cecile was end-on to the missile, showing minimal cross-sectional area to the threat. Daniel had aligned her with the center of the pattern formed when the missile separated. Three of the segments missed of their own, and Sun’s plasma cannon thrust the last enough to the side that only thin-spread gas expanding from the flank of the projectile touched the ship.

  Der Grosser Karl blurred off the display. Moments later the destroyers Ihn and Steinbrinck vanished also. They’d rerig in the Matrix before they started the long voyage to Sonderfell.

  Daniel shook his head. Sonderfell! That route to the Sack was four months of sailing for well-found vessels. No wonder Chastelaine’s squadron had managed to avoid being spotted en route! But how friendly the Khans of Sonderfell would be to a force so obviously defeated … ?

  Daniel smiled. He had a degree of sympathy for Chastelaine as a fellow captain and spacer; but he couldn’t say he was sorry about the result, no.

  The admiral’s decision made perfect sense. Der Grosser Karl was a new battleship, many times more valuable than the entire RCN squadron. She’d been badly damaged already and could with further bad luck—Chastelaine would think it was luck—be destroyed. It was his duty as a prudent commander to avoid further losses by withdrawing.

  A computer would have agreed to the depths of its electronic soul.

  The order to flee caught the Koellner and Giese with their antennas stowed. Both destroyers cut their thrust to zero to make the riggers’ job easier, proceeding on a ballistic course. The Giese slipped into the Matrix within three minutes, a very creditable time, but her sister ship barely struggled out ahead of the missiles that the Winckelmann and Active launched at them for want of a better target.

  Daniel shut down the High Drive, then let out his breath and felt all the strength drain from his body. Goodness, he’d merely been sitting at his console for the past hour. It felt like he’d been breaking rocks!

  He switched the intercom manually. “Lieutenant Mon,” he said. “Take the conn if you please. Coordinate with Engineering as to the best way to proceed toward the flagship while refitting our High Drive and plasma thrusters. Break. Mr. Pasternak, you may resume repairs. Coordinate with Lieutenant Mon.”

  The Princess Cecile was still streaking toward the rim of the Strymon system and the void beyond. The velocity at which she’d entered sidereal space would take days to brake with the High Drive, even if all the nozzles were operating. If Woetjans couldn’t get some sort of rig operable with the corvette’s own spares, Daniel would have to beg help from the Active.

  “Daniel?” said Adele. “The Yorck is signalling that it surrenders. Commodore Pettin’s ships are much closer than we are, but I’m not sure they’re monitoring the open channels at the moment. Would you like me to retransmit on the squadron’s command link?”

  “What?” said Daniel. “Yes, if you would please, Adele. There’s no point in having hundreds more of the poor devils die when there’s no reason for it.”

  “Captain?” Woetjans said. The bosun was breathing hard. “We’re getting three antennas on each of the aft rings rigged. Forward we’re fucked, maybe even in a shipyard we’re fucked, but you’ll be able to crawl into the Matrix inside of ten. Over.”

  Daniel beamed. “Woetjans, I’d marry you if I thought I were worthy!” he said. “Break. Lieutenant Mon, the Chief of Rig says we’ll have partial sails available in ten minutes. Plot a course toward the flagship, if you please; and also a course back to Strymon, where I expect we’ll be directed as soon as the commodore learns who our passenger is. Captain out.”

  Daniel stood carefully, using the back of his chair as a support until he was sure that his legs weren’t going to fail him. When he sat at the console he locked one leg under the chairpost. During the battle just over, he’d clamped it firmly enough that he’d cut off circulation.

  “Adele?” he said. “Would you care to come with me to the wardroom? I think it’s time to release President Vaughn and offer our apologies. I’d like some company.”

  Offering Adele his hand, Daniel added—smiling but truthful nonetheless, “In addition, I prefer to have you beside me when I talk to Tovera.”

  Daniel had left a short imagery loop running on the command console. Der Grosser Karl hung in a black field, gouting plasma from its turrets—

  Then spewing gas and flame from both flanks as the Princess Cecile’s fourth missile struck.

  Cinnabar forever!

  EPILOGUE: Xenos

  Barnes and Dasi, hired to bring Adele’s personal gear from Harbor Three, walked ahead of her like a noble’s retainers. They were joking with one another and whistling, either man able to carry both duffle bags without noticing the weight. Civilians watched them curiously: this wasn’t a district that saw many of their sort.

  Woetjans and Pasternak both had offered Adele a real escort, as many spacers as she wanted from the crew of Frigate 204—renamed Little Sis while in RCN service. She’d refused. Adele had an increasing disdain for empty state, and to appear with forty or more servants would be making a boast to her neighbors that the reality of her purse couldn’t live up to.

  “I was a fool to ask for this house back,” Adele said to Tovera beside her. “I can’t afford basic maintenance, let alone the kind of staff it requires to be run properly.”

  Tovera shrugged noncommittally. She might not have responded even if she’d been asked a real question. Money simply wasn’t something that Tovera cared about.

  Adele smiled faintly. Tovera was quiet, self-effacing, and abstemious. Viewed from the correct angle, she was a saint.

  “The one with the guy in blue out front, ma’am?” Dasi asked. He gestured with his free hand, an underhanded motion as though he were lobbing a ball.

  Adele leaned to look past the two burly spacers. There shouldn’t be—

  But there was, a well-set-up man in a tunic of blue with silver piping. Adele hadn’t hired servants to replace those who’d left with the Rolfes. The deed to Chatsworth Minor had been waiting for Adele in a message locker at Harbor Three, along with the—expected and unnecessary—summons to see Mistress Sand at her earliest convenience, day or night.

  “Yes, that’s the house,” Adele said.

  The doorman, seeing Adele coming up the street, stepped back and rapped on the panel. “The mistress has arrived!” he said in a voice that could be heard from one end of the block to the other. Doormen who’d sneeringly ignored the passing entourage now focused on the RCN warrant officer and her companions.

  The door panel was now plain beewood, sandblasted to emphasize the distinctive grain. It opened from the inside; a blue-liveried footman bowed Deirdre Leary out.

  “Perhaps it’s not my place to welcome you to your own home, Mistress Mundy,” Deirdre said with a sweep of her hand. “But welcome anyway. I’m delighted to be here when you arrive; I’d been held up by business and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to greet you.”

  “I also had business to take care of,” Adele said without emphasis. Chances were that Corder Leary’s daughter knew Adele was connected with Mistress Sand, but if so that was an even better reason not to discuss it. “With that out of the way, I decided to visit the house; though I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I arrived.”

  “Ma’am?” Barnes said, bouncing the laden duffle bag in the palm of his hand to call attention to it.

  “Hoskins, show Mistress Mundy’s servants where to put her things, if you will,” Deirdre said. The words and even the tone were
polite, but Deirdre’s manner brooked no more discussion than her brother would when snapping out orders in a crisis.

  Smiling as Barnes and Dasi followed the footman into the townhouse, Deirdre went on, “May we be Adele and Deirdre, mistress? I prefer terms of friendship with those for whom I act.”

  Adele stopped on the threshold. The hideous mosaic was gone and the ancient flooring shone with a high gloss. She didn’t even want to think about what that must have cost.

  But she didn’t grudge the expense, not even if it meant she had to miss meals again. A Mundy stood again in Chatsworth Minor. What did money matter in comparison with that?

  “I’m not used to informality,” Adele said. “Still, your brother’s been training me into an appreciation of it, and I dare say I’ll be able to extend the process to you. Deirdre.”

  Adele was finding it hard to speak through the lump in her throat. Things don’t matter! But at one time not so far in the past, she’d thought people didn’t matter either, only knowledge. People did matter. And it seemed that Chatsworth Minor mattered as well, at least to Adele Mundy.

  She stood in the entrance hall, entranced by the rich familiarity of the beewood underfoot. It wasn’t home any more, but it was as surely a part of her as the skills and knowledge she’d gained in the years she’d lived here.

  That thought led to another. Adele said, “Ah, I don’t know how much you’ve heard—” how much Deirdre understood was the real question; she certainly had access to the bare facts “—about your brother’s situation. The ship he commands, the Princess Cecile, was seriously damaged in action and is being repaired by the Tanais shipyards. Daniel accepted a temporary appointment to bring Commodore Pettin’s dispatches to Cinnabar aboard a Strymonian vessel commandeered for the purpose.”

  Adele could see furniture through the doors opening off the hallway; not the Rolfes’ furnishings. These were tastefully chosen antiques and extremely expensive. She cleared her throat and added, “The dispatches credit Lieutenant Leary with a major part of the victory our forces won over an Alliance squadron. Well-deserved credit, I’m happy to say.”