The Road of Danger-ARC (46 page)

“Daniel—” she said but caught herself. She began again, stating rather than asking, “Captain Leary aimed at the point where the target would extract after the next insertion, not the current extraction. The missiles had broken into segments, and they were at terminal velocity when they hit the
Estremadura
. The
Estremadura
’s crew wasn’t expecting attack from that angle anyway.”

She smiled faintly and added, “I understand now, Cory. Thank you.”

“It wouldn’t have worked without the Alliance pilot being so bloody good,” Cory said, shaking his head at the recollection. “Say, I wonder if he was a Palmyrene? Do you think so?”

“I can check the information from Cremona and possibly find an answer,” Adele said with a shrug. “If he was on the hull when the missile hit, I suppose he’s dead now.”

“I bloody well hope so!” Cory said with unexpected venom. “He just about turned
my
hair white, I’ll tell you.”

The airlock in the rotunda cycled open. Daniel stamped in, holding his helmet, with a lock-full of riggers and technicians behind him. The
Estremadura
’s gunfire had damaged the propulsion system as well as the rigging, though Adele had the impression that it wouldn’t affect them too badly.

“It’ll take a dockyard to get us back to where we want to be,” Daniel said cheerfully, unlatching his hard suit as he entered the bridge, “but in ten minutes we should be ready to insert. I think we can make Tattersall in five days, and just possibly we might be a little luckier than that.”

Adele rose, but she waited for Daniel to get out of his suit. Under ordinary circumstances he would have stripped it off in the rotunda, but he had obviously wanted to get back to where he belonged after fighting the recent battle from the BDC.

A rigger gathered up the sections of Daniel’s suit and went off to stow them. Adele crossed to her proper station, and Daniel settled onto the command console with a sigh of relief.

He opened his eyes and grinned broadly. “By all that’s holy!” he said. “There’s never been a better crew than my Sissies. Never!”

Yes, Daniel
, Adele thought as she reviewed the imagery of the Alliance cruiser flaring into impotent ruin.
The
Princess Cecile
has exactly the kind of crew that its captain deserves
.

CHAPTER 26: Above Tattersall

Ordinarily Adele allowed herself a little time following extraction—a very little time, a few heartbeats or so—to savor the fact that she was back in the sidereal universe. All thought of relaxation vanished when a challenge came from the battleship
Warhol
even before both her eyes were able to focus on the same point. It was like trying to act after being sliced through the middle vertically and glued back together a few millimeters off the correct registration.

Though Adele hadn’t been able to process the words of the signal, she responded by rote. “RCS
Princess Cecile
requesting landing permission from Tattersall Control, over.”

She felt a flash of anger. The battleship must have begun signalling as soon as it picked up the precursor affects of the
Sissie
’s extraction.
Nobody
could be expected to react instantly after transition, and to back up the challenge with pointed guns and missile tubes unshuttered—she had a clear image of the
Warhol
on her display now—was stupidly insulting.

“Princess Cecile,
this is RCS
Warhol
!
” snarled the communications officer on the other end of the microwave transmission. “
You have extracted in the hundred thousand mile restriction zone without obtaining clearance. You’re bloody lucky that you haven’t been blown to atoms already. Do you understand, over?
”

The transition hadn’t left Adele in a good humor to begin with. Her temper was not being improved by this lecture from a lieutenant—or possibly lieutenant commander—who had been posted to the frontier on a ship that was too old to be useful in a real war. She thought of passing her duties up to Daniel or Vesey, then decided not to.

She must have been smiling. Tovera, who had stood up when the corvette extracted, suddenly smiled back at her.

Do I look like that?
I suppose I do
.

“Lieutenant Stefalou…” Adele said, reading the name from the
Warhol
’s complement. That was one of the files she had downloaded at Macotta Base against possible need; the need had arisen. “This is the corvette RCS
Princess Cecile
, five days out from Sunbright and making our first return to sidereal space since we lifted from Hester 27514CH.”

Daniel had paused in what he was doing—plotting the descent to Flounder Harbor on Tattersall—and was grinning at her. Adele supposed that meant he was authorizing her to proceed; but neither he nor she thought she needed authorization.

“Because our officers are RCN trained,” Adele continued, “we extracted a proper thirty thousand miles above Tattersall. Now that we know about the restriction zone, I suppose we could leave the system and let our bosun bring us back to deliver the time-sensitive material which Admiral Cox sent us to gather. Though even our bosun might be too competent an astrogator to meet the apparent standards of the Macotta Squadron. What are your instructions, over?”

Stefalou was listed as the deputy communications officer; his superior—a lieutenant commander—was female, so Adele was comfortable enough with the identification to chance her hand. An appearance of magical omniscience could prove usefully unsettling.

There was blank silence for fifteen seconds. Stefalou—it must be him—clearly didn’t know what he’d caught, but he was apparently smart enough to realize that he had been pulled out of his depth.

“Princess Cecile
, this is Commander Lowestoff, acting Tattersall Control
,” a deeper, older male voice said. “
State your business, over
.”

A quick check showed that Lowestoff was First Lieutenant of the
Warhol
under normal circumstances. Apparently the battleship—or perhaps this battleship in rotation with the
Schelling
in harbor below—was acting as gatekeeper and orbital defense for Tattersall. The planet was too insignificant to have an Automatic Defense Array, a field of nuclear mines in interlocking orbits.

“Tattersall Control,” Adele said. “RCS
Princess Cecile
requests permission to land in Flounder Harbor with urgent material requested by Admiral Cox. Over.”

Flounder Harbor was a large, natural embayment. Though there was plenty of surface area in the harbor for the ships now present, the port facilities were certainly strained.

According to the
Sailing Directions
, Flounder Harbor was ordinarily a sleepy place for which the arrival of three moderate-sized freighters—root vegetables were the main export—would be a busy day. Now it held seventeen ships of the Macotta Squadron in addition to the
Warhol
and a pair of destroyers in orbit, and twenty-one other vessels. The latter included ships from Rides and Cobbet, the associated worlds of the Alliance which had been planning the coup against Tattersall; and the Alliance heavy cruiser
Marie
, which bore the flag of Admiral Jeletsky, commander the Forty Star Squadron.

The
Marie
had two escorting destroyers, but Jeletsky’s other three cruisers were not present; he hadn’t come to fight. The left the question of why he had come at all, however.

“Princess Cecile,” Lowestoff said, “
you are cleared to land following the vessel currently making its approach. Course and berth data are being sent to you—now
.”

An icon indicating the arrival of a packet of information appeared on Adele’s right sidebar.

“
We will inform Macotta Command of your arrival
,” Lowestoff concluded. “
Control out
.”

“
Princess Cecile
out,” said Adele. She found that she followed commo protocol perfectly so long as it was part of her playacting. It was only then that she concentrated on what she personally felt was nonsense.

“
Command
,” said Daniel, keying the net. “
Officer Mundy, there’s an Alliance cruiser below, I think either the
Marie
or the
Chloe
from the Forty Stars Squadron. Please explain the situation to your fellow officers, myself very much included. Over
.”

Cazelet would be a better choice to explain
, Adele thought. While she had been jumping through bureaucratic hoops with the makeshift Tattersall Control, Cory and the midshipman had sucked data from the ships in harbor, RCN and Alliance both. Cazelet had laid out the necessary information in a neat, tabular fashion which Adele could expand into a left sidebar, though, so she didn’t have to pass Daniel’s question to him.

She smiled again.
A good officer
.

“Instead of simply proceeding in force to Tattersall, as we expected when we left Kronstadt,” Adele said, “Admiral Cox called a regional meeting on Tattersall with a strongly worded hope that Rides, Cobbet, and the Governor of the Forty Stars would attend. Deputy Quinley came in place of the Sector Administrator, but Admiral Jeletsky is here.”

She pursed her lips for a moment before adding, “Jeletsky won’t admit anything, of course, but this is a very public warning for him and for the rulers of Rides and Cobbet.”

After a pause, Adele said, “We, the
Princess Cecile
, were sent here to warn Macotta Headquarters of the plot against Tattersall and to prevent a resumption of war between ourselves and the Alliance. I believe we have carried out that mission.”

She wasn’t sure what Daniel had intended her to say. Admiral Cox should reasonably release the
Sissie
immediately; but then, Cox should not have shipped them off to Sunbright on what was certainly meant to be a wild goose chase. Adele could only hope that the admiral would be as glad to see them lift for Cinnabar as they would be to do so.

“
Thank you, Mundy,”
Daniel said.
“Officers, prepare for landing. Six out
.”

Other officers certainly would have continued the discussion had not Daniel closed it so abruptly. Adele was puzzled only for a moment, because Daniel continued on a two-way link, “
Adele, what can you tell me about the ship that’s landing just ahead of us, the
Feursnot
, over?
”

Adele checked the only available data, the clearance form the
Feursnot
had filed with the
Warhol
before braking to land. The lack of corroboration from the ship’s log was puzzling; Cory, who had taken the Alliance ships as his province while Cazelet examined the friendly vessels, should have been able to enter the database of a freighter easily.

“The
Feursnot
is a fast freighter under contract to the Alliance diocesan headquarters at Port Sanlouis,” she said. “That’s the headquarters which oversees the Funnel Sector
and
the Forty Stars Sector—and several others—for the Alliance. The ship is bringing—it claims to be bringing—foreign ministry personnel to the conference, which would be reasonable.”

“
You’ve obviously got your doubts
,” Daniel said. “
My doubt is this: Port Sanlouis is seven days from Kronstadt by the fastest ship that was in Harbor Holm when we arrived there. If Admiral Cox sent an invitation to the diocesan officials immediately, and if those officials reacted immediately, the
Feursnot
could not have arrived here in the available time unless her crew is better than ours.
Much
better than ours. I would hate to think that the Alliance has spacers that good, and a captain so much better than I am
.”

His image grinned at Adele. “
Over
.”

Ah
, thought Adele. And that also explained why the freighter’s electronic security was so good.

Aloud she said, “Daniel, I believe that the
Feursnot
may have come in response to information which I provided to Alliance intelligence officials on Madison and which those officials would have passed on to their superiors on Port Sanlouis. That is, the
Feursnot
has not come to Tattersall at the request of Admiral Cox.”

“
Alliance intelligence officials?
” Daniel said, frowning. “
Do you mean Commander Doerries of Fleet Intelligence? Because I suspect
…”

He let his voice trail off as he remembered who he was talking to. “
Over
,” he said.

“I do not mean Commander Doerries,” Adele said flatly. “I think that if there are foreign ministry officials on the
Feursnot
, they are present as cover for officers of the Fifth Bureau.”

“
Is that a problem, Adele?
” Daniel said.

“No, Daniel,” Adele said, letting her smile show itself on her lips. “Quite the contrary. That is, not a problem for
us
.”

Leelburg on Tattersall

“All I can say about this…” said Hogg, looking around the circular room. The walls between the radiating hallways were decorated with children’s watercolors and flat-plate displays, which for the moment were blank instead of listing schedules and room assignments. “Is that Cox seems to have found the place where he belongs.”

“Perhaps,” said Daniel, smiling despite himself. “But we won’t need to broadcast our opinion too widely, I hope.”

The arrival of the Macotta Squadron along with representatives of local powers would have stretched the facilities of a more developed world than Tattersall. Admiral Cox had taken the Leelburg Primary School for his headquarters.

Only senior officers and officials were billeted in permanent facilities. For the most part, the others remained aboard the ships that brought them; the nightly storms that blew in from the sea did not encourage sleeping rough.

One of the three ratings within the central secretarial station looked up, nodded to someone on the other end of the signal on her commo helmet, and called, “Captain Leary? Commander Ruffin will see you now.”

She pointed. “The door marked Deputy Master.”

Daniel started to say, “I’d hoped to see Admiral Cox,” but that would be pointless and
particularly
pointless to say to a Clerk 2. Cox knew Daniel wanted to see him; Ruffin knew that Daniel wanted to see Cox; and Daniel had known before he arrived that what Captain Leary wanted was of no concern to the leaders of the Macotta Squadron.