"The heavy cruiser is of the Marshal
class," Daniel continued, "but she isn't any of the previously described members of that class. Presumably she's also a newly built vessel on her first commission, so we can hope that she's crewed largely by green personnel and hasn't been properly worked up as yet."
Everybody nodded. Adele didn't need Mon's editorializing to realize that the same could be said about the crews of Commodore Pettin's three vessels.
"The destroyers are R class, and they appear to have made a hard voyage to reach Strymon," Daniel said. "Two are missing masts, and a third has hull damage that may have been caused by thruster failures during landing. My guess is that the Alliance commander plans to refit his squadron on Tanais before proceeding to Strymon proper. The anti-Cinnabar faction in the government can seal off a naval base, but as soon as an Alliance squadron appears above Strymon, there's a certainty of word getting out."
"If Pettin catches the Alliance ships on the ground, he can handle them with even what he's got," Woetjans said. "It's suicide to lift when the other guy's shooting down a gravity well into your throat. Even a bloody battleship."
"There's the Tanais forts," Mon said. "Go back on the hull and look around if you've forgotten about them."
"More to the point," Daniel said, "there're normally four Strymonian frigates in orbit over Strymon. Because of the orbital positions of Strymon and Tanais I can't be sure, but we have to assume that the conspirators are being at least normally careful at this time."
"One moment," Adele said. Her wands called up the data she'd swept from the electromagnetic spectrum during the corvette's minutes in the Strymon system, then sorted it according to times and naval slugs. Among the officers behind her swirled a discussion of the danger even to a cruiser if she tried to lift with hostile frigates in orbit above her.
Tanais was 712 million miles from Strymon—somewhat closer to their common sun—when the
Princess Cecile
had approached the base. Rather than using the relay satellites, routine information was passed by courier vessels which shuttled back and forth through the Matrix, using microwave to cross the final 100,000 to 250,000 mile leg instead of landing at either end. Adele's data included the latest pair of transmissions.
It struck Adele that the crews of the courier vessels probably found the duty very boring; though her realization was based on what the spacers she served with would feel rather than any personal distaste for such duty. So long as Adele had a sufficient database to occupy her, she really didn't care whether she was on the ground or in a ship moving in a repetitive circuit.
Adele pulsed an amber caret across the top of Daniel's cabin-center display. She didn't want to break into the discussion, but she
did
have information the spacers might need.
"Yes, Adele?" Daniel said, interrupting Mon's gloomy assessment of Pettin's chances if he met the Alliance squadron on equal terms.
"Here are the four vessels on picket duty above Strymon," Adele said, replacing the Tanais display with her own. "Here are their officers and crew lists."
Amber sidebars hung beneath the holograms of four vessels—
101, 122, 124,
and
203
. Each was the shape of the
Princess Cecile
and approximately nine-tenths the size.
"Here are the armament inventories for the vessels," Adele continued. She frowned. "They appear to be complete, but I don't see any listing for missiles."
"Almighty God, I wish
I
didn't," Pasternak said. "I forgot those bastards were optimized to hunt pirates."
Daniel touched a key, highlighting in red a line in all four tables. "Strymonian frigates don't carry missiles the way you're used to thinking of them, Adele," he said.
He smiled, perhaps thinking as she was of the concept of Adele being used to anything naval. "What they have instead are chemical rockets that actually accelerate faster over the short ranges required than missiles powered by the High Drive. They carry a great number of them because the rockets are so much smaller."
"Ah," said Adele in understanding. Three hundred and twelve rockets apiece, launched in clusters of twenty-four at a time. "Yes, well I'm glad that my data were accurate."
Mon looked as though he were going to blow steam out of his ears, but Woetjans guffawed and said, "By
God
you're something else, mistress!"
"Yes, she is," Daniel said through his own laughter. "And she's pointed out why I'm not going to go orbit Strymon to warn the rest of the squadron. We can't do that safely until we're able to clear the picket vessels at the same time as we give Commodore Pettin the alarm. I have the greatest confidence in the fighting ability of my ship and crew—"
His voice trembled a little. Emotion was never far from the surface of Daniel's mind. Sometimes like a porpoise it broke into plain sight when he clearly would rather keep it hidden. Adele smiled with sudden affection.
"—but I don't believe we'd succeed if we alone engaged four frigates as well-crewed and maintained as Officer Mundy shows us these are."
"Back to bloody Sexburga, then," Woetjans said. She turned her head, looking for something harmless to slap with her gloved hand. There was nothing in arm's reach of where she stood; Pasternak watched the movement with more than idle interest.
"If that was the only other choice, Woetjans," Daniel said, his voice almost musical with his effort to keep it calm, "then we'd try the odds on Strymon. I'm not leaving Commodore Pettin to be massacred by an Alliance squadron during the time we limp to Sexburga. Fortunately, there are other options."
He switched the image to a navigational display. It probably meant as little to Woetjans and Pasternak as it did to Adele, but Mon nodded and slipped his visor down over his eyes.
"The navigational computer has located us, I'm happy to say," Daniel said, keying a red highlight in the middle of the projected starfield. "You'll appreciate—"
He grinned at Adele, who hadn't really given the matter thought.
"—that my concern at Tanais was to go away rather than to go somewhere in particular. The damage to our sails during entry would have thrown us off course anyway."
"Seven light-years from Strymon?" Mon said, showing that he hadn't just been making a show of understanding.
"Yes, and just over twenty-four light-years from Dalbriggan," Daniel said. "That's the seat of government of the Selma Cluster. I make it approximately ninety minutes to Dalbriggan in the Matrix with our present rig. Once repairs are complete, of course."
"Dalbriggan?" said Pasternak. "The
Pirate
Cluster, sir?"
"Now, five years ago the Selma Cluster became a client state of the Republic," Daniel said, smiling like a little boy given the gift of his dreams. "The treaty's quite clear. They've sworn to eschew piracy and devote themselves to trade and other wholesome pursuits."
"Right," said Mon. "And my little girl was an immaculate conception, being born just before I got back from a two-year cruise."
"I'm aware that there may be quite a difference between what treaty signatories agree to and what they'll actually do," Daniel said. He pressed his palms together and seemed on the verge of rubbing them in the pleasure of his thoughts. "But it also seems to me that not-quite-reformed pirates might make willing allies against a pirate-hunting world like Strymon. Especially if the pirates are told they have the weight of the RCN on their side."
Daniel sobered slightly. "Not the full weight, I'll admit," he said, "but they'll have the
Princess Cecile
."
"By God!" Woetjans said. She stepped sideways—Pasternak, prepared, gave her room—and slammed the bulkhead between the missile and gunnery consoles with her hand. Spacers passing along the corridor glanced into the bridge in concern.
"By God, who wouldn't that be enough for?" Woetjans said. "And by God, before we're done it'll be enough for those sneaking bastards that shot at us too!"
"I certainly hope so," Daniel said, his face beaming with anticipation. "I certainly do."
The riggers came inside with the thumps and crashing of even greater haste than their usual. Before the inner lock was closed, Woetjans unlatched her visor and shouted, "Sir! We're battle-rigged and ready to roll!"
Daniel looked at his display—he'd trust his bosun over whatever the electronics said, but spacers become old spacers by double-checking everything—and saw that the schematic too believed the corvette was rigged for immediate action. The sixteen antennas on the rings nearest the bow and stern—A, B, E, and F—were folded along the hull. That gave free traverse to the gun turrets and permitted missile launches without the risk of losing sails to the antimatter exhausts.
The
Princess Cecile
would handle like a pig on entry and exit from the Matrix, but this was a hop of short duration: S1, the sun about which Dalbriggan rotated, was noticeably brighter than other stars in a hullside view of the corvette's surroundings. Daniel had entered the system to within 200 million miles of Dalbriggan, then paused to rerig.
"Preparing to enter the Matrix . . ." Daniel announced over the warning chimes. He felt forces shifting, finding a balance that wasn't of the human universe. "
Now!
"
The
Princess Cecile
and her crew entered the Matrix. To Daniel it was the motion of a coin flipping in some fourth dimension,
obverse/reverse/obverse/reverse
, though he knew others described the experience in very different fashions. The reality was beyond human understanding, so no analogy could be more than partial.
Almost as the
Princess Cecile
entered, the clock began counting down seconds to exit. The intermediate appearance within the S1 system didn't constitute a risk of detection: the
Princess Cecile
would be arriving above Dalbriggan before the light of her previous exit had reached observers on the planet.
"Action stations!" Daniel ordered, but of course the crew had been at action stations for most of the past hour. Betts and Sun were intent on their displays; Adele alone was watching Daniel. The tension at the corners of her eyes was due to the Matrix, not because of fear of what they would meet when they returned to sidereal space. "Prepare to exit the Matrix!"
Vibration at his nerve cores, the feeling of wires drawn to the point of rupture—
Exit!
Gasping, suddenly aware that he'd been holding his breath for the past minute or more, Daniel keyed his transmitter. It was set to 15kH, the hailing frequency here in the Sack in contrast to the 10kH push used generally on the worlds outside.
"RCS
Princess Cecile
to Dalbriggan Control," he announced. "We're scrubbing velocity with a circuit of your planet, then we'll land at Council Field. Wake your chief up. This is his lucky day, whether he knows it or not. RCN over."
They were a hundred thousand miles out from Dalbriggan. They'd returned to sidereal space squarely over Council Field, which the
Sailing Directions
said served as a capital for as much of the cluster as was under unified control at the moment. It was a dry-land site. Daniel counted thirty-seven ships on the ground, though some of them were probably hulks as incapable of star travel as his own left boot.
None of the vessels was the size of the
Princess Cecile
, and few were more than half her size. They bristled with light plasma cannon, sometimes in fixed mountings of four and eight tubes like a bank of organ pipes. At close range a rack like that could strip a merchantman's sails in a matter of seconds without endangering the hull and valuable cargo.
"
RCN ship, this is Dalbriggan,
" responded a voice promptly. "
You want to wake up the Astrogator, you go right ahead. Maybe if he's feeling kindly, he'll cut your throat before he stuffs your balls in your mouth.
"
There was a pause before the voice continued,
"
There's a ship lifting whenever Hesseltine gets her thumbs outa her ass, but I don't guess that'll happen before you're on the ground. If you don't set down on the first go-round, though, you better check back with me. Out.
"
"Riggers topside!" Daniel ordered. The bosun had already opened the inner hatch of Bow Dorsal airlock. The High Drive keened, slowing the vessel. Working in a haze of not-quite-complete matter-antimatter cancellation was unpleasant for the riggers, but the quicker Daniel was on the ground confronting the Astrogator, the better. Surprise and the name of the RCN were the best weapons Daniel had at the moment.
Course vectors for landing filled the right half of Daniel's console, set by Lt. Mon from the Battle Direction Center. Daniel switched the real-time display on the left to a Plot Position Indicator. Three vessels were in eccentric orbit around the planet. There was no certainty that they were guardships rather than hulks, but Dalbriggan Control seemed quite competent, albeit eccentric by the standards of more settled worlds.
"
Captain, I've got set-ups on the three pickets,
" Betts said as he concentrated on his attack console. The missileer's fingers continued to type in coordinates, though his words had claimed the courses were already planned. "
If we don't watch out, they'll be all over us like stink on shit! Over.
"
Daniel smiled faintly. Obviously Betts shared his belief that the pirates were keeping a proper guard. Instead of replying, however, he said, "Dalbriggan Control, we'll land after one circuit."
The schematic showed all the sails were furled and most of the masts had been unlocked. Woetjans would have her riggers back aboard well before the corvette had completed its forty minute orbit.
"Have you assigned us a particular berth? RCN over."
Daniel was emphasizing his association, the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, rather than the name of his vessel. The folk who ran the Selma Cluster didn't care about ship names, but by God! they knew to care about the RCN.
"
RCN, you can land any bloody place you want,
" the controller said. "
Just remember we don't run to limousine service here, so if you don't have your own ground transport you're going to do a lot of walking.
"