Lt. Leary, Commanding (61 page)

Adele looked at her friend. She didn't remember ever having seen Daniel so bleak. It was as though she were again staring up the bores of the
Aristotle
's great plasma cannon in Harbor Three.

She hand-cued the intercom and said, "Daniel?"

Daniel's face changed in a way she couldn't have described even though she watched as it happened. The planes of muscle over bone fractured into minuscule slivers, then reformed into the smiling young man she'd known—for months only, but the most important months of her life.

"
We'll be making four shifts on this approach,
" he said. "
The last 'll be a long one, four minutes twelve seconds; we'll be building velocity for our return to normal space.
After we exit at the end of the run, we won't need riggers topside, and I
won't
throw them away.
"

As he spoke, the
Princess Cecile
trembled between universes. Within the bubble of space-time formed by the ship's electric charge, nothing palpable changed; but the pressure of the universe beyond was different.

"Daniel?" Adele asked. "I, I'm glad that you're bringing the riggers in, I don't mean that. But are you sure that you won't need them on the hull?"

They shifted again. The first three stages must be intended simply to align the corvette with its target. Adele no longer noticed the feeling of her body falling into four separate infinities.

Daniel smiled again, though there was a rueful quality to it this time. "
Chastelaine will be ready for us this time,
" he said. "
We won't need riggers topside because after those eight-inch cannon hit us, we won't have any sails left.
"

_D
aniel whistled "Been on the Job Too Long" as he computed
tracks for the eighteen missiles remaining aboard the
Princess Cecile
. It was quite a cheerful tune, though the words were another matter. That was true of a lot of catchy songs, come to think.

When the women all heard that King Brady was dead—
 

The
Princess Cecile
would pass through the Alliance squadron at high velocity. That wouldn't affect the plasma cannon, of course, except to minimize the corvette's exposure to the bolts, but it did mean that Alliance missiles would have a long time catching up even at twelve-gee accelerations.

They went back home and they dressed in red.
 

The converse was that the
Sissie
's own missiles, save for the pair already loaded in the tubes, would be fighting a great deal of negative inertia as they struggled back toward their target.
Der Grosser Karl
would be able to avoid them easily.

All Daniel's missiles were aimed at the battleship: if
Der Grosser Karl
were damaged, the powerful remainder of the squadron would be more concerned with defending the cripple than in chasing down Commodore Pettin's force. A big "if," of course.

They come slippin' and aslidin' up and down the street—
 

Light flickered as the
Princess Cecile
shifted onto the final leg of her approach. Daniel's course calculation had taken fifteen minutes, three times as long as so short a voyage would require, because he'd added a fourth parameter to the mix.

Usually an attack was made with a minimum of rig aloft so that the vessel could maneuver on High Drive without damaging its antennas. This time Daniel wanted every possible—every surviving—mast raised to its full height and all sails spread. That was a strikingly inefficient way to navigate the Matrix; but in a portion of normal space bathed with the point-blank output of eight-inch plasma cannon, it was the corvette's only hope of survival.

In their old Mother Hubbards and their stocking feet!
 

Daniel paused in his calculations—for rounds fifteen and sixteen, and if the
Sissie
survived to launch them she and her crew would be very fortunate indeed—to watch the sail schematic change to reflect the new rig. Starboard Three and Four didn't budge at the thrust of the jacks. Though undamaged at the quick glance which alone was possible after the initial attack, a splash of plasma had welded their base hinges.

Woetjans must have expected that, because at least six mauls slammed rhythmically into the masts within seconds of the jam. Both began to lift. S3 continued normally, but the pump pressure driving S4 flatlined when the antenna had only elevated a few degrees. A hydraulic line—scored by plasma, fractured by an injudicious hammerblow, or simply filled with the cussed determination of machines to fail—had broken.

Brady, Brady, Brady, don't you know you done wrong?
 

The mast resumed its rise, again within seconds of the initial failure. The bosun must already have rigged tackle to blocks at the head of adjacent, previously extended, masts.

Daniel felt a rush of affection. By God! he wasn't going to let Woetjans throw her life away. Not even if saving her required a sincerely offered threat to blow her head off if she didn't obey.

Antenna Starboard 4 locked into place and, without further hesitation, unfurled its suit of sails. The
Princess Cecile
was wearing nearly eighty percent of her rig, an unusual event made more remarkable by the battle damage that alone prevented the figure being even higher.

Atoms stripped of electrons and accelerated by repulsion up the bore of a plasma cannon had velocities little short of light speed, but negligible mass. Their ravening touch would destroy the first layer of any matter they collided with, but they wouldn't penetrate. Damage beyond the target's outer layer was a result of transmitted impact—which in the case of sail fabric was almost zero.

After the battleship's initial volley had removed the sails, further bolts would scour the hull. At point-blank range, fluxes intended to change the course of missiles approaching at .6 C would make short work of a corvette.

You bust into my bar when the game was on . . .
 

The astrogation computer changed the sails' potentials as programmed; Daniel checked the results against the plan and his instinct. All was well.

He grinned. If that was the phrase to use under the circumstances.

"
Three minutes to reentry to normal space!
" Dorst said.

The riggers, their job completed, were clanging back within the
Sissie
's hull. The inner airlock opened outside the bridge. One figure stepped through, Lt. Mon lifting off the helmet of his rigging suit. He closed the hatch behind him.

You sprung my latch and you broke my door . . .
 

Catching Daniel's eye, Mon shouted, "Hogg's staying in the lock with Woetjans. Says it's as good a place as the next, he figures."

Daniel thought of his short, dumpy servant and the rangy bosun. Under the circumstances the two were an ideal pair: they understood one another perfectly. Missed communications had killed more people than ever malice dreamed of doing.

"
Daniel
?" Adele said. She'd waited until she saw his attention drawn away from the calculations on his display. "
When we return to normal space, I intend to direct the other ships, the escort ships? Direct them to return to Tanais in the name of Admiral Chastelaine. I doubt they'll obey, but I thought it might confuse them. Is that all right?
"

Daniel opened a window in his holographic display so that he could meet Adele's eyes without a fog of light between them. She looked worried, concerned about having overstepped her proper authority.

"Great heavens, yes!" Daniel said. "But won't they—oh, I see. You
will
be sending it in the proper Alliance code."

Adele smiled faintly. "
Yes, that's my greatest question
," she said. "
Less than half the flagship's communications are encrypted properly, so it might be more believable if I introduced errors in my transmissions. Doing that offended my sense of rightness, however, so unless you require me to . . . ?
 

"Quite all right," Daniel said. "I'd hate for your last act in this life to be one you found to smack of impropriety."

"
One minute to reentry to normal space,
" announced Mon. "
Prepare for action.
"

"What do you mean, prepare for action?" shouted someone—shouted Delos Vaughn coming up the corridor toward the bridge. The helmet of his emergency suit was hinged open, bouncing on his chest. "We've escaped, I saw us escape! We're safe now!"

There was a display in the wardroom. Tovera must have set it to receive real-time data during the attack. She'd have known how, after all.

Daniel frowned. He'd ordered Hogg to release the president, but it hadn't occurred to him that Vaughn would then choose to interfere with the business of war.

He noted with further irritation that Tovera walked just behind Vaughn. Her smile could easily be described as mocking, though one had to admit that Tovera's expressions were pretty much a blank slate for the viewer to color with emotion.

"Mister Vaughn—" Daniel began.

Vaughn strode onto the bridge, either oblivious of Daniel's orders or in defiance of them. He said, "I won't let you kill us all!"

"Secure the civilian!" Daniel said.

He actually didn't see Tovera's hand move, gripping Vaughn by the left ear and twisting. Vaughn screamed, then stopped as he, turning his head to reduce the pain of his ear, brought his right eye into contact with the muzzle of Tovera's submachine gun.

They backed off the bridge. Adele nodded to Daniel and put her pistol away.

"
Reentry into—
"

Der Grosser Karl
, broadside and apparently huge as a planet, filled the real-time display. Her sails were ragged, torn both by the missiles and by gouts of plasma from her own cannon. She was of the latest Alliance design, mounting thirty-two 21CM plasma cannon in quadruple turrets.

Thump!
First missile away.

Hellfire vaporized the
Princess Cecile
's sails and antennas, dressing her in a glowing ball of her own rig. Plasma continued to rip from at least eight yawning muzzles, but the vapor of destruction protected the corvette from worse.

Thump!
 

The
Princess Cecile
yawed with a world-filling crash. Her hull whipped, frames warping and plates in the double hull gaping apart. Cabin pressure dropped and Daniel reflexively closed his faceshield.

There hadn't been enough time for the battleship to plot trajectories for her own missiles, but at such short range the heavy cannon had virtually the impact of solid projectiles. As the corvette punched clear of the expanding cloud, one bolt or possibly two had struck her well forward on the underside.

The first missile entered
Der Grosser Karl
amidships, like a pin through the thorax of a fat-bodied butterfly with tattered wings. Gas puffed from the point of impact; sparkling fire exploded where the remains of the missile, liquescent from friction, tore its exit. A gun turret, almost complete, lifted from the hull. Three of the heavy iridium gun-tubes spun away on separate trajectories.

Daniel's display flared, but the volley that overloaded the hull sensors didn't actually strike the corvette. Close doesn't count—

The
Princess Cecile
's second missile clipped the battleship's stern and converted itself and a thousand tonnes of its target into white fire. The corvette had exited the Matrix at .1 C; her missiles added that to the kinetic energy of their own acceleration when they struck.

The
Princess Cecile
was through the squadron, dismasted and with half her High Drive nozzles unserviceable. She was going nearly directly away from
Der Grosser Karl
and should have been an easy, low-deflection, target for the battleship's cannon.

Der Grosser Karl
had stopped firing.

And now you're lyin' dead on my barroom floor!
 

Daniel switched his display to the Plot Position Indicator. The
Princess Cecile
was already off her programmed course. A glance at the systems sidebar showed why: red dots for nine of the sixteen High Drive nozzles, red circles for three more. The four nozzles which the sleet of ions had spared weren't sufficient to warp the corvette around the curve of Getica and out of line with
Der Grosser Karl
.

The rumbling of missiles within the corvette's belly had stopped. Daniel knew unconsciously there was something wrong. His own mind hadn't put a cause to it till a heartbeat later when Betts leaped up from his console and shouted over the general channel, "
The fucking outer doors are fucking welded shut! All fucking missile personnel to the fucking tubes! We'll draw the fucking ready rounds and blow the fucking doors open!
"

The Chief Missileer disappeared down the forward companionway. His lips were still moving, but his words no longer filled the general channel. Either he'd switched his helmet to his unit push or—more likely—Adele had switched it for him.

Either way, both Missiles and Signals were in good shape; at any rate, as good as human effort could make them. As for the rig . . .

The battleship hadn't resumed firing, and the remainder of the Alliance squadron was too distant for plasma weapons to be a serious threat. There was still risk; but then, there was always risk.

"Riggers topside!" Daniel ordered. "Woetjans, do what you can—I'm not expecting much. Break. Engineering, send as many techs topside as you can spare. I want the three nozzles with minor damage repaired soonest, and if it's possible to replace any of the others, that too. Captain out!"

Daniel doubted replacement would be possible. The rosette of nozzles must have taken a direct hit. Pasternak had shown himself to be a good man in milder conditions; now he'd have a chance to test his mettle against battle damage.

Sun was twisted around in his chair, staring at Daniel in anguish. He said on the command channel, "
Sir, I could've raped her sails, raped them! I can still hurt her bad, sir.
"

Daniel looked at his gunner. "Could you have done
Der Grosser Karl
a tenth the harm she did herself trying to claw us? You know you couldn't. And I know that if we need your cannon, I won't want their bores shot out from playing games."