In the Stormy Red Sky

by David Drake

  Still, there was no point in giving the senator all the details of her reasoning. If the Milton were destroyed by a mine, the death of everyone aboard would be instantaneous. There was nothing to be gained by worrying about the possibility.

  Daniel had shifted to the captain of the third cruiser, the damaged Arcona. It would have company before long.

  "We can expect damage, certainly," Adele went on. "In the past I've been on ships that were badly hit but not, now that I think about it, one that took a direct hit by a solid projectile. We're—well, Admiral Leary is the one to discuss the likelihood of that, not me."

  Forbes glanced toward the command console, where Daniel was going over his orders with a destroyer captain. The destroyers were to loose at the six Alliance cruisers. The two heavy cruisers each were to be the target of three destroyers, but the four light cruisers would also have incoming projectiles to prevent them from using their plasma cannon as offensive weapons.

  "If I were to attempt to disturb Master Leary, whom I promoted to admiral," Forbes said with the least touch of asperity, "I fear that his man would shoot me. I'll hear your opinion instead, if you please."

  Adele blurted a laugh. She didn't often do that, not even this brief gulp of sound that could have passed for a cough if she were willing to lie. The thought of Hogg firing a powerful impeller on the bridge was as ludicrous as the image of Tovera in a tutu.

  "Hogg has that impeller as a security blanket, I think," Adele said. "It certainly isn't for use inside a steel box like this compartment. But you're right, trying to talk to Daniel wouldn't have a good result."

  Tovera might have shot her. The light pellets of the miniature sub-machine gun in Tovera's case wouldn't exit from Forbes's skull. But that sort of speculation might not amuse the senator as much as it did Adele.

  Aloud she said, "The Milton is the second most powerful ship in Force Anston, and we identified ourselves as the squadron's flagship when we first arrived. It's probable that we'll be the target of two or more cruisers and possibly even an Alliance battleship. I think. We may be destroyed, we may be damaged. The only circumstance I can imagine our not receiving some damage is if you're notably devout, Senator, and the Gods choose to spare you."

  Forbes smiled, but the expression dripped like warm gelatin; there was no sincerity behind it. "I can't claim that, Mundy," she said. After a pause, she said, "Then we're probably going to die?"

  Adele shrugged. Daniel was nearing the end of his list of captains, but there was still more than enough time for Forbes to get back to her seat in safety.

  "It's very possible that we'll die," Adele said. "I don't know enough to say that it's probable, but you may be correct."

  She looked directly at the older woman instead of keeping one eye on her display; the console would beep if her input was necessary.

  "Mistress Forbes," she said, "the title of Senator of the Republic of Cinnabar is one of weight and honor everywhere, as surely in Pleasaunce as in Xenos. That's true because we of the RCN demand that your title be respected."

  Adele smiled, but she knew that her sadness must show through it. "You're about to learn firsthand how we make them respect you."

  Senator Forbes rose to her feet; she'd been keeping an eye on Daniel's proceedings also. She said, "I'm a fortunate woman, then, Mundy."

  "If we both survive this day," said Adele, "then we can claim to be fortunate."

  But in her heart she knew that dying in the company of her friends and family was better fortune than she'd dreamed of in the years before she met Daniel Leary.

  CHAPTER 26

  Above Cacique

  Daniel only noticed the extraction—as opposed to the fact the Milton's sensors were again feeding him information regarding the sidereal universe—some minutes after it was complete. For a shivering moment he'd felt as though his body had been sectioned on a microtome and the layers were being shuffled. Normally that would have been excruciatingly unpleasant, but he was concentrating on the battle. He just paused for an instant until his vision cleared.

  Oh, yes; the battle.

  Admiral Petersen was bringing his squadron up in a spiral around Inner, gaining height with each circuit as additional ships joined. The battleship Oldenburg led, followed by the heavy cruisers Sedan and Elisabeth. The Heimdall, his other battleship, was fourth in line, just ahead of the light cruisers.

  Normally a squadron lifting in an emergency would put the heaviest ships in the lead. Alternatively the commander might decide to bring all his ships up together despite the risk of collision; starships were notably unwieldy while operating on plasma thrusters. Likely the Heimdall had been slow to get ready, so Petersen had sent the cruisers up out of the planned sequence rather than delay the process.

  Daniel couldn't fault either decision, though he would probably have ordered his ships to lift as soon as each was able, hoping to organize them in orbit. They'd be badly disarranged if the enemy squadron returned while the process was going on, but at least he'd have all the possible missile tubes available for a salvo, however ragged.

  Borries and Chazanoff were handling the missiles without interference from their commanding officer. Daniel might feel—and in his heart, he did feel—that neither of them had quite the touch with an attack board that he did, but he'd be the first to agree that they were very good.

  And he was squadron commander, operating without a flag captain. He'd like to be controlling the plasma cannon and to be out on the hull helping Woetjans and the rigging watches get the antennas in, but Admiral Leary had to focus on the squadron and let others get on with their proper business.

  Daniel grinned. At least he didn't believe that he was a better rigger than Woetjans.

  The heavy ships of Force Anston, now the Green element, had extracted as planned on the opposite side of Cacique from the Alliance squadron. The dispersion was much greater than Daniel had intended, though. The Treasurer Johann in particular was 17,000 miles out of position, which was absurd in a one light-hour transit.

  The Arcona had taken three minutes above calculation to arrive, but that was understandable given the unbalanced state of her rigging. She was echeloned neatly off the Milton's starboard quarter.

  Daniel ran his time projection, superimposing missile tracks on the courses of the ships of the two squadrons. It would be tight, but it would work. If a few of the RCN ships were late, that would usefully add to Petersen's uncertainty. At least I can tell myself that.

  "Anston, this is Anston Six," he said. Adele would see to it that the signal was encrypted and transmitted in whatever fashion would most reduce the chance of interception. "One hundred and five seconds after the time hack, all ships will launch one salvo at their assigned targets. Prepare—now, out."

  The only way to certainly avoid interception was to maintain communications silence. That would mean giving up control of a squadron whose crews were unfamiliar with their ships and whose captains had never worked together. Daniel was too proud of his own tactical skills to do that, and anyway Admiral Petersen wouldn't gain anything from the signal that he couldn't deduce from the salvo itself.

  The Milton's rig was coming down in a range of sounds from creaks to clangs with a general background of shudders. Everything loose on and in the hull rattled in sympathy. Occasionally Daniel heard the bang-bang-bang of an impact wrench, and once there was even the brief scream of a rotary saw's diamond teeth biting steel: Woetjans was cutting a stuck cable instead of taking the time to clear it.

  There wasn't time. The greatest advantage Admiral Petersen had in a long-range engagement like this was that his ships already had their antennas and yards stowed.

  That didn't affect the ease of launching missiles because the tubes ejected straight out from a few fixed locations, but the turrets rotated 360 degrees. The plasma cannon—nothing else appearing—swept the whole area upward from a plane balanced on the ship's hull. If the rigging was stowed it didn't get in the way, but any stick of antenna raised above the
hull could block the angle from which a projectile was screaming down on the vessel.

  In a short-range combat where plasma cannon were themselves offensive weapons, spread sails could protect the hull from charges of ions which could otherwise damage hulls; Daniel had used that technique himself. Against incoming missiles, though, the rigging was a blindfold rather than a shield.

  Admiral Petersen would have been aware of the RCN squadron even before the ships extracted fully into the sidereal universe. A starship was a micro-universe while it was in the Matrix. Precursor effects as it began to penetrate normal space distorted the electromagnetic spectrum and were noticeable at several light-minutes distance by a warship's sensors.

  Despite that, the Alliance squadron hadn't adjusted its course from the calculations Daniel had made using the time slices of Alliance patrols as Force Anston approached Cacique and from Captain Robinson's after-action visuals. Petersen apparently believed that the RCN ships were extracting too far out for an immediate attack to be worthwhile.

  Daniel grinned. Petersen's record showed him to be more of a politician than a tactician. That had stood him in good stead at New Harmony, but now he had a space battle to fight and he didn't have the skills for it.

  He had the weight of numbers, though.

  "Launching four," announced Borries.

  "Launching—" said Chazanoff, but his "four" was lost in the bang! of a missile launching from the first of Borries's B Level tube sets. Chazanoff's own rounds syncopated those of his Chief.

  Daniel brought up the Milton's dorsal and ventral visuals as horizontal bars to frame his screen. He caught sight of one missile lighting, a blue glitter against the background of stars. The missile's body was a shadow, unnoticed at the scale of the display.

  Missiles continued to eject and light. The quick cycle made the cruiser's hull ring like a giant jackhammer. A jumpseat against the starboard bulkhead cocked sideways; one of the bolts holding it had cracked.

  Daniel hadn't liked to launch while the riggers were out; loose atoms of antimatter could splotch a face-shield or possibly puncture a suit. There hadn't been any choice, though, because the rig wasn't coming down as quickly as it needed to.

  There had been a dust cloud in the volume of space where Force Anston reformed after the initial attack; it was uncharted and ordinarily of no real concern. Joints and bearings of ships which swept through it were a little more likely to stick the next time they were used, however; and if those ships were plunging straight into a battle, the slight delay of clearing the jammed rigging could be serious.

  The Milton's missiles were all away, or anyway the launches had ceased. A stutter within a sequence would've been subliminally obvious, but Daniel might not have noticed if the first or last round of eight hadn't launched.

  The other heavy RCN ships were improving their alignment on the PPI, though the Johann was hopelessly out of position. Daniel's plan had been to keep his battleship and cruisers as the Green element; in the event, they were a smaller element accompanied at a distance by a lone heavy cruiser.

  Meanwhile the destroyers, the Blue element, had extracted on the other side of Inner, complicating Alliance maneuvers and forcing them to split their defensive fires. There was at least some chance that Petersen would detach cruisers to deal with Blue, since it outnumbered the remaining Alliance destroyers. Putting the Alliance squadon in a pincers more than made up for the disadvantage of Force Anston arriving fully rigged.

  Petersen must finally have projected the tracks of the initial RCN salvo. At the time of launch, Green was on a reciprocal course with where the Alliance squadron would emerge from a further circuit of Inner when the projectiles would arrive.

  The Alliance column broke apart, each ship dodging to avoid a concentration of massive projectiles. The Alliance vessels weren't taking time to calculate their individual courses, much less trying to keep their formation intact. Admiral Petersen had lost control of his squadron at the very start of the battle.

  Alliance ships began launching. The process was ragged enough that Daniel wondered if Admiral Petersen had ordered a salvo or if the captain of the Sedan had acted on his own and other captains had followed suit. The light cruiser Agadir was even aiming at the Blue element.

  The rumble of reloading ceased. There was a distant cling as the inner lock of an F Level launching tube closed over its missile. Borries and Chazanoff were recalculating courses, preparing for the moment Daniel would order a second salvo.

  He took a deep breath. He'd thought that commanding a squadron in battle would be a larger version of a single-ship command. It wasn't. When he gave orders to separate ships, he might be sending their crews to their deaths and sparing himself.

  Realistically, taking a corvette like the Princess Cecile into action meant that the captain and crew would live or die together. Though the Milton's risk today was the same as that of, say, the Arcona, its fate might not be. That would only matter if the Milton did in fact survive, of course.

  "Green, this is Anston Six," he said. The Blue element was under the maneuvering control of Commander Potts in the Z44, though the destroyers were not to launch save on Daniel's orders. "On command, turn fifteen degrees starboard—"

  Toward the enemy.

  "—and increase thrust by point two, I repeat point two, g. Prepare, execute! Six out."

  The added acceleration would strain antennas which hadn't yet been folded. There were two still up on the Milton and the Gods only knew how many on the recently captured ships. That couldn't be helped.

  The 8-inch turrets rumbled, this time with the separate whine of elevating screws adjusting the guns to meet incoming projectiles. It was time.

  Daniel thrust the execute button, sending the queued recall signal to the hull. Each semaphore would extend its six arms equidistant, then collapse them all to the post. The riggers should begin coming in within less than a minute. They would all be safe inside the hull before the plasma cannon began to fire.

  If Woetjans or any of her crew disobeyed, the side-scatter from the big guns would very probably fry them despite their rigging suits. Daniel very much hoped the bosun would obey.

  But it couldn't be helped. This was war.

  Adele's equipment read bolts from Alliance plasma cannon as radio signals. She could have filtered them, of course, but instead she was recording the bursts with the intention of later synching them to the visual imagery to determine rates of fire for individual Alliance ships.

  It didn't appear to her that the information had any practical utility, but one can never be sure of the future. Adele was of the opinion—she believed, as a religious fanatic believes in her God—that one couldn't have too much information.

  The twin forward airlocks on the Milton's spine were placed on the rotunda not far aft of the bridge. They opened almost together, the dogs ringing as they withdrew and sticky hisses as the valve seals broke. Riggers clashed into the rotunda, bringing with them the chill of a hostile environment.

  "Clear the lock, you bloody fools!" snarled a bosun's mate in an urgent voice. "D'ye want to leave your buddies out there to fry?"

  The inner valves sucked closed; the sound of the dogs sliding home was subtly different from that of the same bolts withdrawing. The remainder of the rigging watches would be able to get off the hull now.

  Adele smiled faintly as she worked. "To get to safety," she'd thought momentarily, but there was no safety aboard the Milton today. The cruiser was second in line of a squadron which was closing with an enemy of twice its strength.

  Cory handled normal communications while Adele attempted to read the enemy traffic. Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, even for her. All ships of the Alliance squadron were exercising proper communications security, running their messages through a generator which converted them to the squadron's own separate day code.

  Cracking the day code in real-time became a theoretical possibility because the Milton had Alliance equipment and the captured sh
ips of Squadron Varnell had been part of the same unit as the present enemy only a few weeks before. That provided Adele with a seven-month record of the squadron's code transformations as a base. The increasing number of messages from the present engagement were the goal of her calculations.

  The information she had didn't allow Adele to predict the sequence of changes in Petersen's day code, but a computer capable of calculating courses within the Matrix could bring a great deal of brute force to the problem. Adele was simply running alternative solutions in hopes of finding one which turned the current Alliance messages from gibberish to—

  The alphanumeric string at the top of her display became enemy in sight. one bb four ca.

  The airlocks opened again. Shoulders and boots clacked as the airlock emptied its human cargo into the hull. The preceding watch had remained in the rotunda; they might at any moment be ordered back out. Along with the new arrivals—and all wearing bulky rigging suits—even that large compartment became crowded.