Lt. Leary, Commanding (29 page)

Daniel's hand lay on Ms. Lully's back, but he had become still. A servant offered Torgis an urn of consomme she'd plucked from the serving table; another servant held the ladle ready to fill his bowl. The admiral ignored them.

Adele felt the rumble, though she wouldn't have noticed it for another minute or more had not the spacers' attitude shown her there was something
to
notice. Almost simultaneously the voice of Woetjans, the duty officer tonight, said through a roar of static in Adele's ear, "
Bridge to Signals. The
Winckelmann
's on her way down with two destroyers waiting in orbit to follow. Warn the captain that Pettin's arrived, mistress. Bridge out.
"

"The thrusters are set to pulse in triple sequence," Admiral Torgis said, "and they're just as far out of phase as they always were on the
Maspero
when I was her third lieutenant. That was the sort of idea that only a naval constructor who'd never tuned a thruster himself would've come up with."

"She's Archaeologist class, all right," said Daniel, rising to his feet. The poor servant barely avoided sloshing herself with an urn of soup. "That means Commodore Pettin's here in the
Winckelmann
, and
that
means, Admiral, that my officers and I need to return to the
Princess Cecile
at once."

"Of course you do, Lieutenant," Admiral Torgis said, also rising. "The service of the Republic is a hard life, I'll tell the world—but by God, I wish I had a real command myself instead of being a damned chair-bound politician like they've made me!"

"But Danny . . . ?" Ms. Lully said with a stricken pout. "You were going to come out in the desert with me tonight to watch the moons rise."

Daniel bent down and kissed her forehead, right at the part from which the red hair flared to either side like a boat's bow wave. "Sorry, child, and you can't imagine how sorry I am, but I need to get back to my ship ASAP or sooner yet."

"We can get there fastest if I fly you," the woman said. "Remember, I have my aircar here."

Just possibly she wasn't the bubble-brain Adele had assumed. At any rate, Lully had grasped the salient point of the situation and responded to it with impeccable logic.

"Yes!" Daniel said. "How many seats does it have, dear one?"

"Well, four," Lully said through a recurrence of the pout. "But I thought you and I could—"

"Right!" said Daniel. "Lieutenant Mon! Front and center! We've got to be aboard the
Princess Cecile
before the commodore opens his ports."

Mon had already pushed in through the double doors from the balcony. He walked with the studied earnestness of a man who was sure that his head would fall off if he didn't keep it centered squarely over his spine.

Daniel grimaced and turned to Adele. "And you as well, Officer Mundy," he said. "If we get back in time, you'll take over as duty officer from Woetjans. I'm certain that the commodore will expect the duty officer to be sober, and I'm equally certain that Woetjans is even less likely to meet that standard that I am myself."

Lifting Ms. Kira Lully, now chauffeur, in much the same fashion that he'd carried her up the stairs earlier, Daniel said to the room, "Good citizens, duty calls! May my every landing find people half so generous as you!"

He strode to the stairwell, the redhead clutched against him like pirate's booty. Though unburdened, Adele struggled to catch up. Even so Lt. Mon was treading on her heels as she reached the door. Real spacers were amazingly surefooted when moving through clutter.

"By God, we'll all go greet the squadron!" Admiral Torgis cried behind them. "Gerson, get my car ready!"

Kira Lully held her trim red-and-gold aircar in ground effect just above the pavement until a roar of steam drowned the snarl of the
Winckelmann
's plasma thrusters. Only then did she drop the vehicle's nose over the cliff edge and plunge toward the
Princess Cecile
in spirals so tight that centrifugal force pressed the occupants outward.

Daniel had thought of suggesting he take the controls himself, but he'd kept his mouth shut for fear that the redhead would order them all out of the vehicle in a fit of pique. As it turned out, Kira was a much better driver than he was.

Also his fear that she'd blind herself by looking into the heavy cruiser's exhaust was remarkably silly when he used his head—which wasn't the part of Daniel Oliver Leary most often to the fore when he was dealing with pretty girls. Obviously, nobody living adjacent to Flood Harbor could be ignorant of the dangers of starships landing and lifting off.

"She's been running on eighty percent of her masts, and four of her thrusters are out of service too," Lt. Mon remarked from the rear seat beside Adele. "Christ, I'd forgotten what a bucket the
Winckelmann
was."

"How do you tell?" Adele asked over the echoes still hammering around the cliffs. "About the masts, I mean, since they're all withdrawn for landing."

Mon liked and respected Adele, but he had an abrasive manner at the best of times . . . which didn't include times he was as drunk as he was tonight. Before he could snap, "Use your bloody eyes, woman!" or the like, Daniel said, "Antennas five, six, ten, and twelve in each row haven't been unbound at least since the
Winckelmann
lifted off from Cinnabar, Adele. You can see the pitting from micrometeorites is uniform over the hinges and locking pins."

Kira dived into the warm salty fog which the
Winckelmann
's thrusters lifted from the harbor. The big cruiser was indeed a sad sight to anyone who knew ships: a clumsy design, now overage and poorly maintained in the long interval of peace. Commodore Pettin could see that as well as any other officer of his seniority, and it would gall him like a boil on the butt.

"I'm going to miss you tonight, Danny," Kira said plaintively as she fluffed them to a featherlight landing on the dock where the
Princess Cecile
's gangplank terminated. The harbor's surface was twitching from the nearby arrival of 13,000 tons of heavy cruiser, but the concrete slips kept other vessels from bouncing around unduly.

Adjacent to the corvette was the depot ship Admiral Torgis had moved there this morning. It was a freighter, now nameless save for its pennant number: SDN 3391. All but four antennas had been removed, and its High Drive had probably been cannibalized in the distant past to equip some warship that had limped down to Flood Harbor.

Under normal circumstances the depot ship provided stores, power for vessels whose fusion bottles were deadlined, and a repair shop. Tonight her cavernous bays were decked out with bunting, food, and liquor for the
Princess Cecile
's crew.

"Not half so much as I'll miss you, sweet thing," Daniel said, knowing as he framed the words that the truth was a little more complex. True, he'd been looking forward to the night and morning—and who wouldn't, after the run the
Princess Cecile
had just made? But it was even more true that Daniel would willingly forego the redhead's charms if there was just some way he could avoid the interview with Commodore Pettin he knew was coming. Why in the name of all that's holy did the pulpit-pounding commodore have to land in the middle of the Resident Commissioner's party for the crew?

Daniel hopped over the side of the aircar without bothering to open the door. "Mon," he said, "roust the crew as best you can—they'll understand it's an emergency. Adele, get onto the bridge soonest and take over. With luck we'll have the anchor watch sorted before—"

"Christ on a crutch!" Mon snarled. "The sanctimonious old bastard's making a hot exit!"

The
Winckelmann
was opening up in the usual fashion of airing ship on arrival. Hatches were lifting, the turrets for the secondary battery of plasma weapons were being cranked out to provide more room within the hull, and crewmen double-timed onto the outriggers to unlock access plates that couldn't easily be reached from inside.

Normally no one would disembark until the process was complete. This time, as soon as the hatches serving the water-level stern hold had clamshelled wide enough open, the twelve-place aircar assigned to heavy cruisers as a utility vehicle—the
Princess Cecile
had a jeep that could carry four if they were good friends—roared out.

Mon, not sober but used to functioning with a heavy load aboard, swung his legs over the side of Lully's car and ran for the depot ship with a rolling gait. The
Winckelmann
's arrival had called a good half the crew out already. Those who were vaguely sober were mustering less-steady comrades and helping them to the quay.

Adele tried to jump out of the aircar. She tripped, which was so likely a result that Daniel had already turned to grab her when he realized what she intended. He swung her to her feet, then tucked her into the crook of his arm and trotted for the corvette. It was much the way he'd carried the redhead, Kira, in what now seemed the dim past.

"But
Danny
. . ." the girl called. He heard the words and instantly discarded them as being of no importance under the present circumstances.

Daniel's reason for carrying his signals officer was quite simple. Adele
had
to be on the bridge when Commodore Pettin came aboard. Woetjans wasn't going to pass Pettin's standards of Ready for Duty, though the bosun would have the liquor bottles hidden and other evidence of good-fellowship out of the way.

Woetjans's taste ran to men who could make her look frail, though like most spacers she'd make do with what was available after a voyage like the past one. Daniel fleetingly wondered how lucky she'd been here on Sexburga.

Though, by the living God! absolutely nothing harmful to the good order of the RCN was going on here. The problem was that Commodore Pettin wouldn't see it that way; and thank God—thank Admiral Anston—for an experienced crew which could react to changed circumstances without the captain's orders.

Barnes and Inescu were on guard at the main hatchway. They'd managed to get to their feet and lift the stocked impellers they'd been issued for the duty. "Here comes the captain!" Inescu called cheerfully as Daniel pounded over the narrow gangplank with Adele in his arms.

It was a tossup in Daniel's mind whether Pettin would be more infuriated by a drunken officer of the watch or by one who was soaking wet from falling into the harbor in her haste to board. Adele was a solid weight, tall and not as slender as she looked from a distance. She didn't speak and held herself as stiff as a balance pole. Daniel suspected she didn't understand what was going on, but early in her contact with the RCN she'd learned how to keep from getting in the way in a crisis.

Daniel saw three earthenware jugs floating between the corvette's hull and the starboard outrigger. Barnes also noticed them and leaned over the hatchway, pointing his impeller.

"No!" Daniel shouted over the howl of the
Winckelmann
's car landing on the quay beside the redhead's. Barnes was too drunkenly focused to hear anything. He squeezed the trigger—

WhackWHOCK
 

—and the weapon spat a fifty-grain pellet of osmium into the water at five times the speed of sound.

Daniel half-turned, trying to shield Adele, but the waterspout was thirty feet high and drenched both of them. There were bits of shattered pottery in with the froth and flotsam. Daniel couldn't say much for Barnes's judgment, but he shot straight despite being pie-eyed drunk.

Daniel set Adele onto the
Princess Cecile
's entryway. Barnes blinked in horror at what he'd done. "Sorry, sir," he mumbled. He lowered the impeller's muzzle so that it pointed at Daniel's feet instead of in line with his belt buckle.

Adele headed for the bridge without further direction. The soles of all RCN footgear, even the shiny half-boots Daniel wore with his whites, were of high-hysteresis rubber that gripped wet or dry. Adele squelched with each step, but she didn't fall down.

Daniel took the impeller from Barnes, switched the power off so that the coils couldn't accelerate another slug—into the harbor, into Daniel himself, or into God knew where—and returned it to the spacer. He could hear shouts echoing through the corvette as crewmen faced the sudden emergency.

"Steady on, Barnes," Daniel said quietly. "Try not to shoot the commodore."

Though that possibility had a degree of attraction just at this moment.

Daniel turned and braced himself to attention, facing the three RCN officers and the sergeant of marines tramping down the gangplank. Captain, acting Commodore, Josip Pettin was in the lead. He was a lean, white-haired man, fifty but looking older. Normally his face would merely have been pale, but at this moment Pettin was so angry that his expression could have been carved from sun-dried bone.

Daniel saluted. He'd never managed anything so crisp during his years at the Academy. He might as well have mooned the commodore for all the good it seemed to do.

"Sir!" Daniel said. "Welcome aboard RCS
Princess Cecile
! I'm Lieutenant Leary, reporting to you in accordance with my orders."

"Leary . . ." Commodore Pettin said, his nostrils flaring as though he detected a horrible stench. Maybe he did: even Daniel noticed Barnes's breath, and it wasn't that there was no alcohol on his own. "I queried Condor Control from orbit when I saw a corvette in the harbor. The controller told how it came there. Furthermore, they very kindly added that your splendidly handled ship left Cinnabar ten days behind my squadron and still arrived on Sexburga well ahead of me!"

Oh, God, that
had
torn it. No wonder Pettin looked mad enough to gnaw a junior lieutenant down to his boots.

The officers with Pettin were a plump, worried-looking commander—probably the
Winckelmann
's executive officer—and a lugubrious young woman with the single collar flash of a midshipman detailed as an aide with the rank of acting lieutenant. The sergeant of marines was just that—and it was instructive that Pettin hadn't brought a marine
officer
instead. This was a burly fellow whose nightstick had gotten real use in the past.