With the Lightnings (29 page)

It'd be simpler just to tie a boat anchor to Ganser's ankles and those of the ten surviving members of his gang before dropping them into the harbor. There'd be nothing to watch but bubbles in that case, however.

"I didn't promise them anything, sir," Woetjans said. "Come on, Dasi, let's get this lot over the seawall."

Several prisoners began to scream or plead, but to Daniel's surprise most of the Kostromans continued to lie in numb silence. They'd been sure they were going to die from the moment they'd surrendered. It was the only sensible course for their Cinnabar captors to take.

And Daniel couldn't do it.

Woetjans rolled Ganser over on his belly and gripped the wire that bound the prisoner's wrists and ankles behind his back. She walked toward the harbor, hunching as she dragged her burden over the slick, wet bricks.

Adele Mundy walked out of the office. She'd been cleaning the pistol she'd used to end the attack almost before it started.

"No," she said. "Put them down."

Woetjans slacked the wire and looked at Daniel. "Sir?" she said.

Dasi stepped back from the two thugs he'd started to lift. They babbled in high-pitched voices. He kicked them to silence, one and then the other, as he waited for Daniel's response.

"I watched your other delegates executed earlier today," Adele said. "I don't want to see anything like that again. And I'm certainly not going to be a party to it."

She returned the flat pistol to her tunic pocket. She apparently carried it all the time, though Daniel hadn't had the least notion of the weapon's presence. He'd been surprised, but not nearly as surprised as the majority of the Kostromans who'd died here tonight.

"No," said Daniel Leary. "I'm not going to be party to it either."

He stood. "Woetjans," he said, "the
Ahura
isn't particularly spacious but there's room for more ballast. We'll carry this lot in the bilges and off-load them on an island when we're a good ways out."

Daniel smiled. A door in his mind had closed. He was very glad not to be looking at what lay behind it anymore.

"I wonder how well the bilge pumps work?" he added cheerfully.

Adele sat cross-legged on the yacht's bow, out of the bustle of sailors carrying equipment aboard and striding back for more. She tested the system once more, then switched off her data unit with a sigh of relief. She'd hoped she would be finished long before the
Ahura
left harbor. She'd made that personal deadline, but the business had taken nearly an hour longer than she'd expected.

Her expectations had been unrealistic. She should've known that Kostroma's comsat switching protocols would be as ineptly designed as the government data network had been. It was harder to overcome incompetence than it would have been to defeat deliberate protection.

She stood up with the care that her cramped thigh muscles required. She slid the little computer back in its pocket. She'd changed into her own clothes as soon as she'd finished cleaning her pistol. This way she didn't have to worry about the computer falling over the side unless she was going with it; in which case she didn't think she'd care.

The yacht rocked as two sailors boarded carrying a large piece of equipment slung to a pole between them. Adele didn't have any idea what it was. More batteries, perhaps, though she'd have thought the crew had by now stripped every vessel in the harbor that had a compatible electrical system.

Adele stepped around the forward solar sail; its furling mechanism was under discussion by three sailors. The sky was still an hour short of true dawn, but the crew needed to learn how to operate the equipment on which their lives would depend.

She entered the open cockpit just as Hogg left Daniel with a wave and a loud, "Okay, sir, you leave it to me!" Woetjans had been about to speak, but she nodded to Adele in deference.

"Daniel, you said you didn't trust the ship's navigation equipment," Adele said. "The Alliance fleet dropped a geopositioning system in orbit as soon as they arrived. I've tapped it. On a minute's notice I can tell you our location within three meters."

"You can?" Daniel said. "You did? That's wonderful! Woetjans, tell Racine to stop worrying about harmonizing the gyros and go help the team rigging the charging system shunts."

"Right," said the petty officer as she left the cockpit at a gliding run. After a lifetime among academics, it amazed Adele to see people who moved fast as a regular practice.

"I also modified the satellite controller to void all record of our use of the system," Adele added. "There's no risk of anyone tracing us back through our queries."

"What?" Daniel said in a tenser version of his previous surprise. "Is that really possible? I didn't think it was."

Adele sniffed. Her smile mirrored the cold pride within her. "I could do it," she said. "Though since the trace would have to be done through the Kostroman grid, I couldn't do it very easily."

Daniel laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. She blinked. That sort of friendly contact wasn't a part of academe either. "Well, we're getting there," he said. He seemed to relax to a degree as he talked to her. "I want to get under way as soon as the sun's up enough to power the engines, but . . ."

He shrugged, grinning like a little boy. "Until it happens, I won't be sure," he said.

Palfrey walked down the quay toward the yacht with fishing rods over one shoulder and a large case of some sort in the opposite hand. "The material you're taking," Adele said, nodding toward the sailor. "We're taking . . . ?"

She let her voice trail off in question.

"As of earlier today," Daniel said, "Cinnabar is at war with the Commonwealth of Kostroma." His voice now had no more give in it than a stone block does. "I won't countenance looting by any person under my command, but I'll cheerfully seize any material of military value."

His mouth quirked up at one corner; the expression was nothing at all like Daniel's normal friendly smile. "And if it's necessary to destroy civilian property to disrupt the enemy's military objectives," he went on, "I'll do that too. One of their objectives being to neutralize my detachment."

"Ah," said Adele. "Yes, I see that."

She wasn't used to thinking in military terms. She wasn't a member of the military herself, of course. She wondered if that meant she'd be hanged as a—what, pirate?—if she was captured.

Daniel cleared his throat. He'd turned his head to examine the automatic impeller mounted at the right rear of the cockpit. With his eyes still on the weapon he said, "You know, if that was really the first time you'd used a pistol, you're a very fast learner."

He met her eyes and grinned shyly. "And a good thing for us, too."

"Yes, I'm sorry about that," Adele said. She caught herself turning away and overcame that embarrassed reflex by effort of will. Fiercely she continued, "I'd misunderstood your original question and I didn't correct my statement when I
did
understand. The Mundys of Chatsworth have always been great duelists. That tradition, at least, was one to which my father subscribed."

"He taught you well," Daniel said, nodding approval. "My family wasn't much for duels. I suppose if I'd lived in town I'd have had some training, but in the country it wasn't the thing. I'm a good wing-shot for bird hunting, but it's not the same thing."

"No," said Adele, "it's not. As you say, dueling is a skill of urban life, like eating with ruffed sleeves, that I'd prefer never to need. Never to have needed."

Hogg trotted down the quay, paused, and jumped the narrow gap to the
Ahura
's stern. He stumbled as he landed but two sailors grabbed him before he fell.

"It's all set, master!" Hogg wheezed. "Transmit on fifteen point five for three seconds, that's all it takes."

"Woetjans?" Daniel called.

The busy confusion of moments before on the yacht's deck was past. Lamsoe took the grip of the automatic impeller and rotated it to point toward the buildings. Dawn was already lighting the roofs of the little community. The tiles were fiery orange, and the topmost windows reflected the sun in opalescent splendor.

"All present and accounted for, sir!" Woetjans said. She stood beside the cockpit, splitting her attention between the vessel and the shore. Sailors held the bow and stern lines, which were looped around posts but no longer tied.

"I have the helm," Daniel said, gripping the
Ahura
's joystick control. He squeezed the thumb button; the two masts squealed as they rotated, aligning the solar sails with the rising sun.

"Twenty percent," Racine called from the power board readouts on the left side of the cockpit. "Thirty-two percent."

The sailors had rigged four analog dials in addition to the original light-column display. The
Ahura
was designed for one-man operation if necessary, but Adele wouldn't have wanted to be that single man even without the equipment the Cinnabars had added.

"Cast off," Daniel ordered. Sailors whipped the lines they were holding away from the mooring posts.

Daniel's index finger touched another button on the joystick; a pump began to whir without load. "Fend us away from the dock."

Barnes and Dasi leaned into poles—cut-down jackstaffs. The yacht quivered, then inched sideways into the harbor.

Daniel twisted his joystick slightly and squeezed the throttle lever. The pump throbbed as water entered it and spewed out the rear. The
Ahura
drove forward, her bow swinging to port and Woetjans adding her strength to Dasi's pole to prevent the stern from rubbing.

"Fifty-nine percent!" Racine called.

"All right, Hogg," Daniel said. His servant touched a key of the cockpit radio.

A white flash lit the underside of Ganser's truck, still parked beside the ruined harbormaster's office. The sharp
bang
an instant later was simultaneous with the billow of orange fire enveloping the front of the vehicle. Hogg's small explosive charge had ruptured the fuel tank and ignited the contents.

The
Ahura
drove toward the harbor entrance at increasing speed. The blaze on the waterfront would hold the attention of those in the houses. Lamsoe kept the automatic impeller trained on the community; other sailors had their weapons ready as well, but the yacht might have been leaving a city of the dead for all the response Adele saw.

The masts adjusted automatically so that the solar panels gathered the maximum available sunlight. Daniel was giving orders and the Cinnabar crew seethed with meaningful activity as the shore receded, but Adele's mind was in a place of its own.

The boy she'd killed had haunted her dreams for fifteen years. Now that accusing corpse would have five fellows for company.

"We're at a hundred percent and rising, sir," Racine called. "Shall I bring the charging system on line?"

Racine was a fitter from the
Aglaia
's power room and seemed comfortable with the inside of delicate electronics. The riggers who made up the bulk of Daniel's detachment were resourceful and extremely good with their hands, but they tended to think in terms of breaking strain rather than impedances.

"Not yet," Daniel said. "I want her up on the skids first."

He turned toward Woetjans and said, "Prepare to deploy skids!"

"Grab hold, everybody!" Woetjans bellowed.

Daniel wasn't concerned about the ratings knowing what to do, but he glanced over his shoulder in the other direction to make sure that Adele had obeyed. She held one of the handgrips bolted to the cockpit sides. Her hair, almost as short as that of the naval personnel, ruffled in the twenty mile per hour breeze. This was the best speed of which the
Ahura
was capable with its hull wet.

Daniel grasped the lever in front of him with his left hand. He drew it back firmly.

The two narrow skids made a grinding noise as they rotated out of their housings in the forward hull. Miniature ball lightnings appeared to port and starboard, six feet from the cockpit. Daniel's hair rose on end. He'd been aboard electrofoils a dozen times, but this transition phase always made him wish he'd stayed on shore.

The
Ahura
lurched onto her skids with a crackling roar. Without the drag of her hull the yacht jumped ahead, though for the moment the waterjet continued to provide the propulsion.

The
Ahura
was levitating on static charges induced in the sea beneath her and precisely equal charges in the skids. Unlike a hydrofoil, the electrofoil could hover at a dead stop without any portion of the vessel touching the water.

"No drop in power, sir!" Racine said. "She's clean and the current's still going up. Shall I—"

"Not yet!" Daniel repeated. He set the automatic pilot for 60 mph, then engaged it while watching the bubble level.

The waterjet, the vessel's last contact with the sea over which she floated, retracted into the lower hull.

The
Ahura
surged ahead again, her speed continuing to build. The electrical charges were no longer in balance: the induced field migrated sternward by a matter of a few centimeters. The difference meant that the charges' repulsion thrust the hull forward instead of merely lifting it.

The yacht reached sixty miles an hour and steadied. Windthrust was a serious force, particularly for the ratings on the open deck. Daniel was sure he could increase speed by another twenty miles an hour, perhaps more, but the punishment the crew would take wasn't worth the increment.

The
Ahura
was as sweet a craft as a man could wish. She handled this heavy load with a smooth ride and perfect docility in the controls.

"Engage the charging system, Racine," Daniel ordered. "Cafoldi, come take the helm."

The batteries would charge from the excess of solar power over the needs of the foils. With luck the
Ahura
would be able to continue all night without reducing speed.

Cafoldi squirmed into the cockpit. He'd been a fisherman before he enlisted in the RCN. He placed his hand over Daniel's, then took control as Daniel stepped back.

Daniel relaxed with a great sigh. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been for how long.