"Here, Leary," said Admiral James, preceding Daniel into the captain's cabin of the heavy cruiserAlcubiere. "I told Bussom to unlock his console before he vacated, so we've got it if you need file access."
The Admiral was wearing utilities; he'd making a Power Room inspection when Daniel signalled from the just-landedPrincess Cecile that he needed to report as soon as possible. The greasy-looking blur on James' left shoulder blade was finely divided heavy metal sublimed from the thruster nozzles. Instead of being expelled, it'd been trapped on the surface of the petals until the admiral touched them.
To get that smudge, James had to've been sticking his head up the throat of a nozzle. His inspection hadn't been a cursory one focusing on how well the brightwork on the control panel was polished.
"Sir, I didn't intend to disturb Captain Bussom," Daniel said. He'd changed into Whites during the minutes before the slip had cooled enough to open theSissie 's hatches. Now that he'd seen James, the difference in their uniforms was one more thing to make him uncomfortable.
Because hecertainly didn't want to offend Richard Bussom. TheAlcubiere 's captain was skilled, senior-senior enough to have commanded a battleship if he hadn't preferred the relative freedom of a cruiser-and notably irascible even in a service which put more of a premium on aggressiveness than on gentile manners.
"You're not, Commander," James grunted as he settled onto one of the chairs around the small table in the center of the compartment instead of behind the desk. "I am, and borrowing his cabin won't disturb him nearly as much as the rocket I was going to give him about the condition of Thruster Port Three. Which-"
He scowled at Daniel and gestured to the chair across from him. "Sit, man!" he snapped. "Do you think I want a crick in my neck from looking at you?"
Daniel seated himself carefully. The chairs and table were made from the red heartwood of Vickery firetops. Vickery had been settled early from Pleasaunce and was a core planet of the Alliance.
"Which, just between us," James resumed, "wasn't really that bad. A flaw in the casting that'd ruptured, I shouldn't wonder, and Bussom's bad luck that I checked when I did. But when we're trapped in port like this, I can't afford to let the crews get slack."
"Yes sir," said Daniel. "Perhaps you won't be trapped for very much longer. Ships of the Independent Republic of Bagaria raided Castle Four a week ago. Besides taking prizes, the raiders destroyed the old battleship on guard duty above the planet. There's no end of evidence remaining on Four to prove that it was a Bagarian raid, quite apart from the fact that Alliance forces have probably recaptured half the prizes by now. I expect Guarantor Porra to be very angry."
James slammed the heel his hand on the table. "By my hope of salvation!" he said. "Angry, you say? I'd judge he was! You may well have given him a stroke and ended the bloody war, Leary!"
He cocked his head and looked straight at Daniel. "It was you, wasn't it?" he said. "That business about the Bagarians is just window dressing, isn't it?"
Daniel glanced aside. Captain Bussom'd had the bulkheads painted a smooth cream color with gilt moldings. On them hung sporting prints in gilt frames, and there was even an imitation fireplace. The decor was closer to that of the office in Speaker Leary's townhouse than to a warship.
"Sir," said Daniel, "I've transmitted an Eyes Only report to your headquarters with full details, but the short version is… the major element involved was a Bagarian cruiser with a mostly Bagarian crew, and the Bagarian minister of the navy was aboard throughout the raid. But yes, I was present also."
"By theGods, Leary," James said, his face hard and his eyes focused on something at a distance in time. "Guphill's squadron's the only Alliance force within three weeks transit of the Bagarian Cluster. If Porra orders them off to swat the rebels back into the stone age, we can destroy the base on Z3 before he gets back. By the Gods, we can!"
"Yes sir," Daniel said. "Unless they strip the Castle System of warships and send them to the cluster instead, of course."
James snorted. "Which is about the last thing they're likely to do after you've shot up Four the way you say you have," he said. "Why, they'd be afraid you'd do the same thing to the Guarantor's Pool on Pleasaunce!"
He looked at Daniel and added sharply, "You were thinking of doing that, weren't you, Leary? Tell me the truth!"
"Well, sir," Daniel said. "The possibility had crossed my mind, yes."
"Well, it's not going to happen," James said, returning Daniel's smile with a harder one of his own. "Not least because I don't think destroying half a dozen Alliance merchant ships would be worth losing you to Cinnabar."
He sobered and added, "Admiral Anston spoke very highly of you, you know."
Daniel touched his lips with his tongue. "Sir," he said, "I'm very glad to have the respect of Admiral Anston. He's a great man. A very great man."
He felt a pang as he spoke. Anston's heart attack and retirement had caused career difficulties for Commander Daniel Leary, but he could honestly say that he didn't regret that at all compared with how he felt about the RCN's loss.
"We'll keep our fingers crossed," James said. He waved a hand at Daniel. "Don't think I'm devaluing what you've accomplished, Leary, I'm not doing that at all. But Guphill's an able man, as I know to my cost. I couldn't have handled the blockade of Diamondia any better myself."
He smiled ruefully.
"Unless Porra gives absurdly detailed orders," he continued, "I don't see Guphill sending off more than a couple cruisers and their accompanying destroyers. That won't crush the rebellion, but it'll give him a month or so before Porra notices. And that's long enough for him to finish reducing our defenses here, I'm afraid."
"Ah, sir?" Daniel said very carefully. "My signals officer has a great deal of skill in deception. She-"
"That's Lady Mundy, you mean?" James said, his eyes narrowing.
"Yes sir, Signals Officer Mundy," Daniel said. "She suggested that there are ways to make Alliance observers believe that your major units aren't operational. If that were the case, it'd be much more likely that Guphill would take away his whole squadron or at least detach a major portion of it. Rather than appear to disregard the Guarantor's order, that is. The Guarantor is known to behave very intemperately when he's angry."
James burst out with a laugh. "He shot his Ambassador to Kostroma dead after the debacle there, didn't he?" he said. "And I take your point, because I don't in the least doubt that he's livid about this raid of yours. All right, shall I summon Lady Mundy or can you give me the gist of the plan yourself?"
Daniel rose. "I think you and I are the people to go over the details," he said, "and here in the harbor is the best place to do it. But I'd appreciate it if any report on the operation would give full credit to Officer Mundy."
James rose also. "If this works, Leary," he said, "there'll be plenty of credit to go around, I assure you. And by theGods, I hope it works!"
Above Diamondia
Adele pored over the images thePrincess Cecile was capturing during its powered orbits. The Alliance destroyers had equally good optics and perhaps comparable anti-distortion software as well, but they were 200,000 miles out from the planetary surface to avoid the mines. Adele could be confident that they wouldn't be seeing anything which she didn't.
"Good day, Commander Leary," said Tovera from the jumpseat at the back of the signals console. Adele glanced at the miniature image of Daniel at his console inset onto the top of her display; it was empty. When she turned her head, she found him beginning to squat beside her.
"Good day, Tovera," Daniel said mildly. "And good day, Officer Mundy. I decided to walk over for a visit. Call it the whim of an eccentric captain."
Adele looked at him. The command console was eight feet away from her at signals. If Daniel wanted privacy, an intercom link from his console with active sound cancelling engaged would've been completely inaudible by anyone but the two parties involved. His behaviorwas eccentric, and besides that Adele herself preferred to communicate through an electronic separation.
But he was also captain.
She gave Daniel a wry smile. "Yes, Captain Leary," she said. "Welcome to my-"
What to call it?
"-work space."
Sun pointedly got up from the gunnery console and announced, "I'm going to the head."
"Want me to shake it for you, buddy?" called Borries from the Attack console on the port side of the bridge. The new Chief Missileer was fitting in well with the original Sissies.
Because the High Drive buzzed as it provided the illusion of gravity, no one was likely to overhear them. Well, Tovera would, but that was like saying a passing meteorite might listen in. Not, of course, that it mattered aboard theSissie to begin with.
"I won't take you away from your work," Daniel said, nodding toward the display. The hologram was focused for her eyes, so from his angle it would be a jumble of light as meaningless as the clouds at sunrise.
"There's no rush," Adele said, adjusting the display to make it omnidirectional. "Or more accurately, what I saw at a quick glance is the important thing-and it passes."
Daniel gave the image his attention while Adele watched him. He wasn't an imagery specialist, but he was a very observant officer who knew warships as well as anyone on the RCN list.
"There's no question she's theZeno," he said judiciously. "She's fifty feet longer than theLao-Tze and even in her own class she's the only one with the docking bridge between frames 65 and 68 instead of 32 and 35. And she's got a serious refit under way. Three sections of Power Room plating have been removed. The only reason you'd do that would be to replace the fusion bottle. Besides which I think-"
He gestured. Adele used his index finger as a pointer and increased magnification by one step, then another, on the barge moored to the battleship's starboard side.
"That's enough," said Daniel. "Can you increase the shadow detail, over?"
"Yes," said Adele, making the adjustment. She smiled faintly. Daniel was so used to getting this sort of information over the intercom that he'd lapsed into single-channel communications protocol.
"No question, they're thruster nozzles in the barge's hold," he said approvingly. He looked up at Adele and grinned. "Two and a half visible, and probably twelve aboard if there's as many as could be under the tarps where they can't be seen. And they're real?"
"Yes," said Adele, "but thereare only three of them, and they came from the freighterHollandia in the Outer Harbor."
"Switch back to the missing plates," Daniel said with a wave, "but keep the magnification. If you please."
Adele made the adjustment without comment. Daniel squinted, which of course didn't help, then looked at her again. "I swear I can see the rails that they slid the bottle out on. How in heaven did they dothat?"
Adele ran the image back so that the display area contained the whole battleship. "I'm told they underpainted the details in dark blue on the canvas," she said. "Then they covered the whole surface with dark gray to simulate the shadowed interior seen through the missing plates."
She pursed her lips, afraid that she'd just taken credit which belonged to someone else. "One of theZeno 's officers, Lieutenant Bainbridge, turns out to be an amateur artist of some note. The underpainting was her idea. Also mixing purple with the dark gray; I simply said black."
Daniel shook his head in delighted amazement. "I certainly wouldn't doubt that the plating was off," he said. "That's quite remarkable. Remarkable."
Adele liked to think-she wouldn't say it aloud, of course-that other people's opinions didn't matter: she'd either done a good job or she hadn't. Realistically that wasn't true: shewas human, and however well she concealed her feelings from others, she couldn't deny that she did feel.
Now she smiled a little wider than usual and said, "They glued the underside of the canvas to the hull so that it wouldn't ripple in the wind. I think movement would be assumed to be an artifact of atmospheric disturbance, but I was pleased at the care with which the work was executed."
She cleared her throat. "Daniel," she said. "I'm pleased to be a member of the RCN."
He looked at her. "Speaking as the ranking member of the organization present," he said, "the RCN is very pleased to have you, Officer Mundy."
For an instant Adele thought he was going to say something else; then he gestured toward the imagery and said, "The question I'd have if I were Admiral Guphill is, 'How did they manage to do all that work overnight?' Because I don't care how many personnel you have available, there's limited space to work in."
"I considered that," Adele said. Was this bragging? But shehad considered it, and the fact was germane to the discussion. "My expectation, myhope, is that the analysts on Guphill's staff will first suspect that the destroyers on station haven't been keeping as close a watch on Port Delacroix as they should be. In other words, that the work was done over the course of two days or even longer. That's the first point."
She looked at the image, wishing that they were having this conversation electronically. There were far too many variables for certainty, and it would be easier to keep her tone of dry detachment if she weren't side by side with one of the many people who would die if her assumptions had been faulty.
"Competent people are very conscious of their own failures, their own mistakes," Adele said. "What they-"
She turned and met Daniel's eyes directly.
"What tends to escapeus is the fact that our opponents have human limitations also. Daniel, what would you think if I told you that the crew of the Alliance flagship, thePleasaunce, had removed twelve thrusters and all the starboard plating from the Power Room overnight?"
Daniel grimaced, then smiled broadly. "I'd think that Admiral Guphill had a crack crew," he said. "Yes, I take your point."
Daniel was bracing himself with his right hand on Adele's console. He drummed his index and middle fingers momentarily, then said, "It recently occurred to me that I regretted Admiral Anston's illness for the RCN's sake, not my own. You can understand that, I'm sure."
She frowned. "Of course I can," she said. "Daniel, your worst enemy wouldn't suggest that you'd put personal gain ahead of your duty."
"Yes," Daniel said. "But now, sitting here-"
He grinned.
"-squatting here, better, I realized that I most of all wish Admiral Anston were healthy for his own sake."
His smile faded. "I didn't know Anston well, but I knew him well enough to like him a great deal. The RCN will manage, just as I'm managing. I wish the same were true for him. Which brings me to another point."
Adele waited without comment, without expression. She didn't need to prod Daniel to speak, so she didn't prod.
"I said the RCN was pleased to have you, Adele," Daniel said. He rose to his feet. "But not nearly as pleased as I am personally."
Daniel strode back to his console. Adele resumed her examination of the seemingly out-of-serviceZeno. A very neat piece of work by the RCN, if she did say so herself.
Above Diamondia
Daniel had split his main display between the Plot-Position Indicator centered around thePrincess Cecile in Diamondia orbit and a large-scale equivalent which covered the region surrounding the Alliance base on Z3. The latter was as much conjecture as fact: distance and the enormous bulk of Zmargadine denied certainty, despite the specious confidence that the image instilled. A hologram looked the same whether or not it represented more than a computer's imagination.
Though imperfect, the display gave Daniel some information on what was happening near the Alliance base. A bright orange caret winked, highlighting the ship that'd just extracted from the Matrix almost 600,000 miles in-system from Zmargadine. It was too far for the corvette's sensors to have registered the precursors of an extraction, the distortions to the fabric of sidereal space-time caused when a portion of another bubble universe intrudes. It was too far as well for Daniel to identify the incoming vessel even by class.
He had a pretty good idea, though. He felt his palms start to sweat with anticipation.
"Signals, this is Six," Daniel said. He started to say, "A ship has extracted near Zmargadine." That'd be comparable to Adele telling him that theSissie 's thrusters had lighted. While she probably wouldn't say that in so many words, he'd heard the dry sneer in her voice often enough that he didn't have any difficulty imagining it again.
Instead he continued, "Will our outpost send us details of the visitor in the neighborhood of Zmargadine? I can't come closer than a rough idea of the tonnage, and even that's going to be a guess, over."
"I don't expect a report, no," Adele said. Her wands twinkled as she spoke; she was carrying on the conversation with a very small portion of her attention, which explained and even justified the way she ignored protocol. "I told Rene not to risk revealing himself unless there was something we needed him to tell us. Which the arrival of a courier at the Z3 base isnot, to my mind. Here, this is a 63% probability."
A pulsing red icon appeared on Daniel's display where the two screens met. Adele's skill would've permitted her to squelch the existing content in favor of the information she was forwarding, but though she was brusque, Daniel'd never found her discourteous by accident.
He opened the icon to an image of an Alliance aviso of the Hela Class. Adele's processing algorithms were obviously more subtle than those the RCN provided to the captains of its warships.
"The supply shipsBalrumandHiddenseekeep a three-week rotation from the Fleet base on Eisernberg," Adele said, anticipating Daniel's next question. "Presumably they carry normal communications as well as replacement personnel and food. This is the first time a courier ship has been sent to Admiral Guphill."
The caret marking the aviso faded from Daniel's display as the vessel itself reentered the Matrix. Now that her captain had oriented himself in the sidereal universe, he'd bring his vessel as close as possible to Z3 before making his final approach on High Drive and finally thrusters. If he judged his distance properly, he'd extract the next time with Zmargadine between him and RCN observers on Diamondia.
Daniel checked his PPI. The destroyersEcho andEclipse were in orbit with thePrincess Cecile.
"Signals," he said, "have our fellow friendlies noticed the courier's arrival? They don't show any sign of it, but then I suppose we don't either, over."
"The destroyers have only basic reconnaissance software," Adele said. "Even if they had something more advanced, they don't have specialists to use it properly. They'll have gathered the data, but it won't be processed till they're replaced on station in nine hours and download their logs to the Staff computer at Port Delacroix. I very much doubt their officers are concerned with anything beyond the space immediately neighboring Diamondia. Over."
Daniel considered the situation for a moment. Strictly speaking, thePrincess Cecile wasn't part of the Diamondia Squadron. She was operating under the orders of Navy House, which took precedence to those of the theater commander.
In more specific terms, the captains of the two destroyers were lieutenant commanders, junior in rank if not length of service to Commander Daniel Leary. Nevertheless, it was politic as well as courteous to tell them what he intended to do. So "Signals, please make immediate landing arrangements with Diamondia Control," Daniel said. "Break. Poultice Two, Poultice Three-"
TheEclipse andEcho respectively.
"-this is Rascal."
ThePrincess Cecile 's designator while operating with the Diamondia Squadron.
"We are setting down to refill with reaction mass. Good hunting, spacers. Rascal out."
TheEcho simply acknowledged. From theEclipse came, "Roger, Rascal. If you can scare up something to hunt, we could use the exercise, out."
Daniel believed it was the voice of Captain Gibbs, who'd been a Senior when Daniel entered the Academy. They'd chatted in friendly fashion earlier when they met in Squadron HQ. Jennifer Gibbs hadn't been unduly harsh to Entrant Leary at the Academy, and she seemed to regard their present reversal of status philosophically.
So did Daniel: the fortunes of war. But he couldn't help smiling.
"Captain, you're cleared to Berth Twelve in the Main Harbor," Adele announced crisply. An icon clicked alive at the bottom of Daniel's display; he expanded it into a half-screen schematic of both harbors, with Berth 12 highlighted.
"Ship," Daniel said, "this is Six. We'll commence our landing approach in three minutes."
He could probably have sent the message down safely with a coded microwave signal, but he was pretty sure that an Alliance signals officer of Adele's quality would be able to read that message in real-time. The Alliance probably didn't have an officer of Adele's quality-and the RCN probably didn't have another-but this wasn't the time to take chances.
Besides, there was no rush. The courier was arriving nine days after the Bagarian raid on Castle Four, exactly when Daniel had calculated it would. Even if it brought the expected orders, though, it'd take Admiral Guphill a minimum of twelve hours to put ships in condition for a voyage to Pelosi. Landing with the message rather than signaling from orbit would add no more than half an hour to the time the word got to Admiral James.
Daniel hadn't closed the transmission to the crew. He grinned broadly: they were his Sissies. They'd been the point of the RCN's spear often enough that they deserved to get the news now rather than when the rest of the squadron did.
"We'll be filling our reaction mass tanks, Sissies," he continued, "but we'll be returning to orbit as soon as I get back from a visit to Admiral James, because I don't trust any other ship to keep as close a watch on the Alliance squadron as we will. And I strongly suspect that before the day's out we'll be giving the signal for the fleet action that kicks the Alliance out of the Jewel System with their tails between their legs! Six out."
The cheers were spontaneous. Daniel's grin spread wider yet.
Above Diamondia
The signal from Rene threw a red wash over Adele's display. She shut down what she was doing and began processing the imagery seeping back to thePrincess Cecile from Zmargadine orbit.
She'd been compiling crew lists for the entire Diamondia Squadron. It had no obvious value, but no information was completely valueless.
"Captain to the bridge!" she announced over the PA system. "Daniel, we have a signal. Get here at once."
Daniel'd gone to his space cabin adjacent to the bridge for a couple hours sleep. In the event he was getting less than a full hour: Admiral Guphill was lifting with his squadron barely ten hours after the courier vessel arrived, not the twelve Daniel'd considered a minimum.
Adele smiled coldly. Guarantor Porra must've beenvery angry.
If Adele hadn't been at her console, her personal data unit would've pinged sharply at her. She disliked audible signals, but there'd been slight risk of her not being at the console under these circumstances. Daniel reasonably thought he should get some sleep, but Adele had decided that she'd relax better if she was working.
Sleep had never been a priority with her. It was even less attractive now that so many faces were likely to visit her in the night.
Often she hadn't really seen them when she was squeezing the trigger; they'd merely been pale blurs against which her sights were silhouetted. There was plenty of time in the night for her to stare at the details, though: the pores, the broken veins, and the gasps of surprise. Flesh deformed around the bullet like a pond hit by the first drop of a rainstorm.
Daniel strode onto the bridge. He was fully clothed, but his boots weren't sealed. He'd kept his clothes on while he napped, but he'd loosened his boots; otherwise blood would've pooled in his feet.
Rene's transmission was encrypted with a pattern generated by cosmic ray impacts. It was common only to the transceiver in the escape capsule and to the signals console of thePrincess Cecile. If something had happened to either Adele or the corvette, no one in the greater universe could read the information Rene was sending.
That wasn't arrogant confidence on Adele's part. It'd be better that Admiral James not get the information than that he get it and the Alliance forces to know what he had. In the latter instance, James would sortie against the Alliance base, and Guphill would be in a position to ambush him by shifting his forces in the Matrix and returning in full strength after the RCN squadron was committed.
That said, whatever decision Adele made was a gamble whose probabilities she couldn't really assess. This way if she guessed wrong, no one would be complaining to her personally.
Daniel settled onto his console and brought up the imagery Rene was transmitting. Because of the low-power sending head and interference from debris over the long distance, there was a noticeable delay for even an astrogation computer to process the data into meaningful results.
There was no voice with the transmission, though speech would've absorbed infinitesimal bandwidth compared to the imagery. The images meant more to an expert than they would to Rene Cazelet; Commander Leary was an expert, arguablythe expert, so Rene simply kept his mouth shut. He consistently demonstrated good judgment for a young man.
Adele frowned at herself. Rene showed good judgment, period; regardless of age or gender.
"Ship, this is Six," Daniel announced. "Condition Two, I repeat, Condition Two. Section chiefs, issue energy rations. Get your area squared away, spacers, but we won't be going to Action Stations for another half hour or more. Six out."
Despite the excited bustle all over the ship, there was no sign of haste or concern. Sun had been at the gunnery console. To Adele's surprise, he got up and left the bridge. Moments later he reappeared, lugging a rigging suit.
There was an air suit in the cushion of each console, but Sun preferred a hard suit despite its bulk and awkwardness. The equipment wasn't authorized for his specialty, but Adele had learned during her first days with the RCN that old spacers could not only find anything, they could find a place to stash it despite the limited room on a corvette.
Data continued to stream from the distant escape capsule as more ships rose from Z3. They tried to use Zmargadine to shield them from RCN observation, but a number came into view as they accelerated and spread their sails. Even so only a third of the vessels were directly visible, though that would've been enough to indicate a large-scale operation was under way.
"Signals, we've got them!" Daniel said. He glanced toward her, putting his broad smile in profile on her display. "Transmit to Admiral James, Most Urgent: Anston. That's the code word we chose for the operation. And let me know when he acknowledges in person, out."
Adele nodded and waited ten seconds for thePrincess Cecile to come far enough over the horizon to have a line of sight to Port Delacroix. She could've relayed through theEclipse -and done so without the destroyer's crew knowing about it, very probably-but ten seconds wasn't long to wait.
"Diamondia Control," she said. She transmitted a text message simultaneously, but the verbal would reach Admiral James more quickly if his staff was properly trained. "This is Rascal for Pitcher Six, Most Urgent, Anston. I repeat, for Pitcher Six, Most Urgent, Anston. Pitcher Six will acknowledge receipt, over."
"Roger, Rascal," the controller said. Hers was the same crisp female voice which'd cleared theSissie into Port Delacroix on their first arrival. "The message is on the way, Most Urgent. Diamondia out."
Daniel wore a look of glee as he manipulated images. Figures scrolled and transmuted in a box on the lower left quadrant, but the bulk of his display rotated images of the Alliance squadron one ship at a time. When the figures reached a solution and froze, pulsing, he shifted to a different vessel and began again.
At last he stopped and leaned back in the console. Rene continued to send imagery, but no additional ships were lifting from Z3.
The Alliance squadron was forming down-system from Zmargadine. Save for a single light cruiser, all the ships the size of a sloop or larger had lifted. It was reasonable that at least one ship out of twenty-odd would be unable to lift with so little time to prepare.
Adele wondered if the Alliance destroyers observing Diamondia knew what their main force was doing. She suspected they did not. There'd been no signal from Zmargadine orbit that she'd noticed-which realistically meant no signal. Nor had Admiral Guphill sent a vessel in-system to alert his pickets. The latter would've been quicker than relying on light-speed communication over such a distance, but the Alliance admiral might've feared that ade facto courier would also alert the RCN.
Adele smiled again. His concerns would've been valid, had the RCN not gotten much better information by other means.
"Captain," she said. "I've transmitted your message. I'll inform you when we have a response from Pitcher Six. Over."
She was a little embarrassed at the informal way she'd summoned Daniel from his sleep, though she knew that nobody-least of all Daniel-would complain or even refer to it. Still, in RCN terms she'd behaved unprofessionally. She'd do better now that time wasn't pressing.
"Thank you, Adele," Daniel said, using her first name in subtly crafted absolution. "Master Cazelet has earned himself a medal. Unfortunately, he's not a member of the RCN so I can't recommend him for one. Ah-"
He gestured to his display. Information still fed in from the escape capsule. It refined the holographic ships, providing details which fleshed out what'd been conjecture.
"I have all the data I need, I believe. I'm concerned that if he continues to transmit to us, an Alliance ship will spot him. And there's no longer any need, over."
"Unfortunately," Adele said, pleased but a little surprised to find that her voice remained dispassionate, "I'm afraid that if I contact Master Cazelet from here, I'll make his detection almost certain. A signal from Diamondia, even a laser beam, will be scattered significantly by the time it reaches Zmargadine orbit 71 light-minutes away. It'll paint Alliance ships at the same amplitude as it does the capsule, and I don't believe thatall Guphill's signals officers will be asleep. Over."
"Ah," said Daniel. "Yes."
Adele thought that he might say they were all sharing the danger or something else pointless, but in her concern… in heranger, anger at the situation and at herself for allowing Rene to put himself into the situation; and anger at Daniel, because he'd quite correctly said that it should be done. In her concern and anger, she'd done a disservice to Daniel's intelligence.
"We're going to crush Guphill, you know, Adele," he said instead. His voice was calm, but she heard the excitement underlying it; he was already trembling with the urge to drive in, to strike, and to keep on striking so long as there was an enemy standing.
As she'd watched Daniel do, and helped Daniel do, many times in the past.
The Alliance squadron was beginning to vanish from the imagery Rene sent back. The ships, singly and in pairs, were inserting into the Matrix. It appeared that they were too intent on their own activities to notice that they were under observation by an RCN outpost. Rene might come through this safely after all.
Coughing as much to clear her mind as her throat, Adele said, "Do you mean that because he's taking his entire force to the Bagarian Cluster-presumably, that is-that we can destroy the base on Z3 and effectively end the blockade? Over."
"Ah, but that'snotwhat's happening," Daniel said with the enthusiasm of a man who was enthusiastic about just about everything: an insect, a planet, or a thought. And very often enthusiastic about a bimbo, of course, though there seemed to have been a change since he met Miranda Dorst. "Look here, Adele. Look at the sail plans of thePleasaunceand theEitel Friedrich. Notice the differences, over."
Adele was ready to say that she was no more competent to discuss sail plans than she was to plot a course through the Matrix. That was true, of course, but because she didn't dismiss things without examining them, she looked at the images Daniel had forwarded to her: a battleship and a battlecruiser respectively at the moment they inserted into the Matrix.
And she did see the difference; it required no more specialized expertise than telling a bull from a cow. "Captain," Adele said, "the battlecruiser has almost all its sails set. The battleship has only eight-"
Of forty-eight.
"-antennas raised, and only a portion of their sails have been unfurled."
She cleared her throat again and added, "I don't know what that means, however. Over."
As Adele spoke, her wands sorted the imagery according to the pattern Daniel had just pointed out. She was embarrassed not to have seen it for herself. Intellectually she knew that no one, no matter how careful, could notice everything; emotionally she felt that she herself should be the exception.
"A portion of the squadron headed by the battlecruisers is rigged for a long voyage," Daniel said. "These are generally the faster, more maneuverable vessels. The remaining ships, roughly half the total-"
Without interrupting verbally, Adele transmitted the sort she'd just completed to the command console. The two battlecruisers, one of the three light cruisers which had lifted from Z3, the four destroyers-all members of that class in the squadron save the pair on picket around Diamondia-and six sloops had shaken out most of their sails. The two battleships, the four heavy cruisers, and the two remaining light cruisers were only partially rigged.
Daniel chuckled, then continued, "As I say, half the total is planning to insert into the Matrix, then extract almost immediately. They're going out purely to provide cover for the force being sent to gut the Bagarian Cluster like a fish. Guphill's counting on the fact that Admiral James can't be certain what may have happened behind the screen of Zmargadine."
He paused. "But Guphill's wrong," he said, "because of our outpost in the rings. I assure you that I'll jump Matthews a rate for this, and if Master Cazelet would care to become a midshipman backdated to the day he boarded theSissie, it's a done deal. I don't have the clout to arrange that, but Navy House'll grant Admiral James any favor he asks if he breaks the siege of Diamondia."
"I see," said Adele. But because she didn't trust any news until she'd confirmed it and didn't trust good news even then, she said nothing more for a moment while she manipulated a different two columns of data.
"Daniel," she said. After hesitating a moment, she echoed her present display onto the command console. She resumed, "Daniel, you're very confident in victory, so I realize there's something that I'm missing. It appears to me, however, that even with half his strength sent to the Cluster, Admiral Guphill has a far stronger fleet than Admiral James does. Where's my mistake, over?"
"I'm afraid that this tabular comparison is quite correct," Daniel said. He snorted. "Of course it's correct, it came from Signals Officer Mundy. In terms of tonnage, throw weight, crew size-any quantifiable measure of value-the remaining Alliance squadron is greatly superior to ours. Each of their four heavy cruisers is individually stronger than theAlcubiere, and theLao-Tze's older than my father. She's scarcely comparable to brand new battleships like thePleasaunceandFormenterawhich she'll be facing. But."
Daniel adjusted the display. Adele wasn't sure he was acting consciously rather than letting his fingers act by rote while he gathered his thought, but the tabular arrays sorted themselves into opposing fleets formed in three dimensions within the holographic volume.
"First," Daniel said, "the Alliance squadron will return from its feint without any expectation of fighting, while our ships are at action stations even now as they lift from Diamondia. That's a very considerable benefit to the RCN. And second-"
He looked at Adele and grinned.
"The second advantage is even less tangible, Adele," he said, "but it's more important. It's the fact wearethe RCN. We know it and they know it. Every Alliance spacer from Guphill to the Landsmen in Training knows that no matter how many ships they have, they've always got to expect us to go for their throats. Deep in their hearts, they're afraid and they know we aren't. We're the RCN."
"I see your point," said Adele. She wiped the lopsided tables of ships and missiles, ofmateriel. "More to the point, Daniel, I feel it. Signals out."
"Six, this is Five!" Vesey announced over the command push. Her voice was rarely excited, but this time was an exception. "Eight ships are lifting together from Port Delacroix. The squadron's coming up, over!"
"Ship, this is Six," said Daniel. "Action stations, Sissies. We're very shortly going to get stuck into an Alliance squadron again. Up Cinnabar!"
"Up Cinnabar!" Adele shouted with the rest of the crew. She felt a little silly shouting patriotic nonsense, but she'd have felt even sillier not shouting at a time like this. Her adoptive family, the RCN, was very patriotic.