by David Drake
"Father says it was a useful exercise," Deirdre said. "A show of unity now will help the conduct of the war, and this was a cause all factions could support without losing face. He described it to his colleagues as a necessary assertion of Senatorial authority over bureaucrats who were getting above themselves."
She gave the senatorial finery on the dais a professional appraisal. She wasn't a member of the Senate yet, but that would change whenever she and Corder Leary decided that it should. Daniel's elder sister was in all ways their father's proper heir.
The only important senator who didn't stand on the dais was Corder Leary: still Speaker Leary to his colleagues. His absence was more than mere courtesy. If Adele didn't have her data unit, then she probably hadn't brought her pistol either. She could have borrowed something from Tovera, though, and she would have.
The Mundys were just as careful of their honor as the Learys were. If Adele were forced to meet the man who had ordered the massacre of her family, she would act.
"This was worth doing for itself," Daniel said, his mind still back on that former time. "I'm glad it benefits the Republic, but that had no bearing on why I'm doing it."
He cleared his throat. "I, ah, wasn't sure how much difficulty I'd put you to, Deirdre," he said. "The lady in question is formidable, I believe?"
"She wouldn't be of much use to the Republic were she not formidable," Deirdre said with another sniff. "I talked with her myself, though, and found her quite willing to accept the judgment of a united Senate. To tell the truth—"
She looked around, though her modest height—neither child had gotten Corder Leary's craggy stature—prevented her from seeing beyond the second row. Mistress Sand wouldn't have been present anyway.
"—I don't believe she was too deeply disturbed. It seems that the problem you asked me to look into was caused by someone in her organization exceeding his authority and not reporting his action. I know how I react when something like that happens at the bank."
"Ah," said Daniel, for he did understand. He thought for a moment, then said, "I haven't been a notably obedient subordinate myself, but if I'd acted to embarrass my superiors, my career would have been shorter."
"Yes," said Deirdre. "I don't think the fellow will repeat his mistake. So that was no problem, but oddly enough Navy House made some difficulty."
"Ah, Vocaine," Daniel said. It wasn't a surprise that the Chief of the Navy Board disliked Daniel Leary enough to carry the enmity to Leary's friends, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.
"Not really," said Deirdre. "According to Senator Forbes, who handled the negotiations—"
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
Deirdre nodded. "Father thought she provided a suitable mixture of goodwill toward the RCN and a disinclination to be bullied by bureaucrats. And it was the bureaucracy generally which objected, on principle—a concept which Navy House seems to take more seriously than the Senate does."
She shrugged and smiled. "In the end, they decided that because Lady Mundy had been an acting admiral—"
"What?"
"Yes, that's right," Deirdre said in a tone of amused superiority. "I gather it happened during your absence."
Her expression changed. "You have a hard head, brother," she said. "I've never before been so pleased at the fact."
He looked away and nodded. "Yes, well," he muttered.
"In any case," said Deirdre, "the fact that Mundy had acted as a commissioned officer was significant. Mistress Forbes told them that she didn't care what excuse they found, but that she was glad they had found one or there would shortly be empty offices in Navy House."
"I'm glad it didn't come to that," said Daniel quietly.
A slim man in Dress Whites came from a side aisle and took the steps up to the dais. His face was set, and he held a small casket covered in red leather.
Daniel straightened to attention. He was smiling broadly.
The hall grew silent. Adele looked at the pale misery on Lieutenant Commander Huxford's face as he approached. I wonder if he thinks I did this to him?
She smiled at the thought. Her record should have told Huxford that she would either have ignored the matter as she ignored most such matters, or she would have dealt with it in a more direct fashion. But then, if Huxford had bothered to study her record to begin with, he wouldn't have chosen to be so superciliously insulting.
Adele's smile appeared to make the smooth young man even more wretched. Direct action—shooting him—might have been kinder at that.
Huxford transferred the casket to his left hand and saluted Admiral Anston. The admiral returned it, smartly but with a smile that Adele read as one of mocking triumph. Chiefs of the Navy Board had to accept the fact that sometimes intelligence personnel would wear RCN uniforms, but Adele couldn't imagine that they liked the fact.
She was, she hoped, a different animal: an RCN officer involved with intelligence. Not that she cared what Navy House thought, so long as her family accepted her.
She had first seen Anston in person at the funeral of Daniel's uncle, three years before. Then he'd been ruddy, plump, and vibrant; a lively man though one who gave little outward evidence that he was capable of managing the RCN with genius.
Anston was white, now, and the skin sagged from his cheekbones. There was still a spark, but its casing of flesh was tottering toward dissolution.
"Admiral Anston," said Huxford, his voice clear. Though unamplified, it easily filled the hall. The architects of the Celsus had created a temple to human knowledge. To them, knowledge was the greatest of Gods, and to Adele also. You don't skimp your duties to God.
"Senators and fellow citizens of the Republic," Huxford said.
Daniel, resplendent in his medals, flashed Adele a broad grin. She found herself grinning back, because it was funny.
At least Huxford has the decency not to address his audience as "fellow spacers." There were some present who might have tossed him out into the street without his trousers if he'd tried that. And Anston might have been leading them if he managed to get out of his chair. . . .
"I have been chosen to grant the Republic's highest award for bravery to Signals Officer Adele Mundy," Huxford said. "The commendation refers to her activities in bringing Dunbar's World into the Friendship of the Republic. Those of you who are familiar with Lady Mundy's career know that there have been many other exploits, any of which would have amply justified the award."
"Bloody well told!" muttered Hogg in the brief pause. He looked startled, obviously surprised at how good the acoustics were.
Huxford opened the casket and took from it the small red-enameled star on a gold ground. The ribbon's vertical red stripes framed the blue stripe in the center. An RCN Star would reverse the colors. . . .
Adele's eyes blurred. She hoped she wasn't going to cry.
"Signals Officer Mundy . . . ," said Huxford. "As agent for the Republic, I hereby award you the Cinnabar Star."
She felt the pressure of his fingers above her left breast. His face was out of focus, a blob of white.
Huxford stepped back. The cheers were immediate and stunning. The hall couldn't hold more than two hundred people, but they sounded as if there were thousands. And it went on. . . .
Adele made a decision. She raised both hands, a gesture she didn't recall having made in the past. The noise didn't stop but its level reduced, and finally it stopped.
Adele swallowed. "Fellow spacers," she said. She'd been afraid that the words would choke her, but she got them out.
Turning enough to look back at the robes figures behind her, she said, "Senators of the Republic of Cinnabar."
If anybody had a problem with her priorities, that was regrettable. She felt a smile of sorts lift the corners of her lips. But not very regrettable.
"I cannot accept this honor for Signals Officer Mundy," she said. "And certainly not as Mundy of Chatsworth."
There were puzzled expressions in the audience. Good.
"I will accept it,
however," Adele said, feeling her voice grow firmer with each word, "as the representative of the many thousands of common spacers, and of—"
Huxford had stepped to the side. She turned to him, nodded, and faced the audience again.
"—of all the other unseen personnel who sacrifice and often die to maintain the Republic's freedom."
And me among them. Not me alone, but me also.
Adele couldn't see anything for the tears filling her eyes. "RCN forever!" she shouted.
The hall echoed her a thousandfold.
Acknowledgements
Dan Breen is back on the job as my first reader, thank goodness. The remaining mistakes are my fault, but there are significantly fewer of them than there would be without Dan's help.
Dorothy Day and my webmaster, Karen Zimmerman, archived my texts. I started to write, "I didn't blow up any computers this time," and then realized that I haven't run off the final yet. I hope I don't have to change this line when I read the proofs.
Incidentally, at least one of the reasons I haven't blown up a computer (yet) is that I went back to composing longhand when the temperatures got into the Nineties, then typed up the day's work in the evenings when it was cooler. Another alternative would be air conditioning, but I prefer to avoid that for a number of reasons. I repeatedly had respiratory problems when I worked in a climate-controlled building. Nowadays they recur only when I'm at conventions in climate-controlled hotels.
Dorothy and Evan Ladouceur were (as generally on this series) my continuity checkers. Again, the mistakes are mine; but because of my friends, I fall on my face less often than I otherwise would.
I owe a particular debt to Rana Van Name, who replaced a piece of my own very early childhood. It appears in this novel, but my debt to her goes much deeper than that.
My wife Jo continues to keep the house and yard in shape, and to feed me superbly. I'm not easy to live with, and my focus is generally on the current book. The fact that I live in a clean house is not my own doing, and I appreciate it.
My books would be different and much less good without my friends and family; so would my life. Thank you all.
Author's Note
I learned with the first book of the RCN series, With the Lightnings, that I have to explain that I use English and Metric weights and measures as a convenience to readers, not because I think the same systems will be in use three millennia hence. To me, that went without saying. Here as often, I was wrong.
There are many snatches of song in this novel, as generally in my work. They're all my paraphrases of real music ranging from The Handsome Cabin Boy to the Carmen Saeculare of Horace. I do this for my own amusement—but people do sing, and I think it gives the work resonance to use pieces that people have sung instead of pieces that I've invented.
My fantasies are generally based on folk tales. My science fiction (and this is true of both Military SF and Space Opera) almost always grows from historical events, more often than not from ancient history.
That's certainly true of In the Stormy Red Sky, where I weave together three separate incidents which took place in the Mediterranean Basin during a five-year period (216 bc to 211 bc):
1)
The death of Dionysius II, whose grandson Hieronymos succeeded to the throne of Syracuse.
2)
The successful revolt (or coup, if you prefer) of a group of young aristocrats in Tarentum, aided by Hannibal.
3)
The successful assault by Scipio (later Scipio Africanus) on the fortress city of Cartagena.
On the face of it these events had nothing in common, but in another sense they're woven about one another like strands in a sweater. They were aspects of the war which decided who would rule the Mediterranean Basin for the next thousand years.
The unseen impetus of all three situations was the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal's crushing defeat of a large Roman army in 216 bc. Cannae was the epitome of the decisive battle except in one crucial aspect: it decided nothing, beyond the fact that certain individuals would die that day instead of dying later.
Cannae affected the attitude of the teenaged boy who suddenly became the Tyrant of Syracuse. It affected political calculations within the Greek cities of Southern Italy. It affected the choice of an initial field of operations made by perhaps the best Roman strategist of all time.
What Cannae didn't do was determine the outcome of the Second Punic War, any more than the Battle of Chancellorsville determined the outcome of the American Civil War.
In history as in life, big events aren't as important as the way people react to those events. Rome couldn't go back and undo the mistakes that led to the disaster at Cannae, but the Republic could and did buckle down and deal with the consequences, both good and bad.
I write about people who deal with consequences. I try to be one of those people as well. I don't hold myself out as a role model generally, but I think the world might be better off if more people accepted responsibility and dealt with consequences.
— Dave Drake
david-drake.com
And we came to the Isle of Witches
and heard their musical cry—
"Come to us, O come, come!"
in the stormy red of a sky. . . .
—The Voyage of Maeldune
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
THE END
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In the Stormy Red Sky
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
Author's Note