David Drake - When the Tide Rises

She felt her face muscles relax minutely.

"-Rene has provided context from his knowledge of Phoenix Starfreight. That's proved very helpful."

She cleared her throat and continued, "Although contact between the cluster and the Alliance has been embargoed on both sides, Bagarian ships meet Alliance vessels on Dodd's Throne and trade normally. Generalissima DeMarce may not be involved, but all six of her ministers are."

Adele looked around her. Pastel light on the bright clothing gave the crowd a sinister look, but that probably came out of her mind rather than reality. "I dare say two-thirds of the guests here at least are members of companies which are currently trading with the Alliance."

"Dodd's Throne…," Daniel repeated, his mind sorting files. Adele started to bring out her data unit, but for this sort of question Daniel's way was faster. He would, of course, have committed to memory places that might be used as bases by either side. "Right, lies outside the cluster proper. Red sun, normal gravity, adequate atmosphere; no water to speak of, though. Some cobalt and nickel mining, but food has to be imported and it's a miserable place."

He smiled brightly. "Well, that's very interesting," he said. "How large-scale is it?"

Adele felt herself frowning. "At present there's eight ships here in Morning Harbor which arrived from Dodd's Throne with Alliance cargoes," she said. "That's about average over the past three months. Where we can check the manifests, the cargoes arrived on ships of larger capacity; therefore presumably fewer of them."

She cleared her throat, wondering if drink had fuddled Daniel more than it usually did. More than it ever had before… which would be a much worse problem than this business alone.

"Daniel, this means that the government we're here to support doesn't want to rock a profitable boat," she said carefully. "They won't support-whatever they may say-actions that would prevent the Alliance from reinforcing its fleet in the Jewel System."

"Yes, I see that," Daniel said, still smiling. He swirled the remaining liquor in his glass but didn't taste it for the moment. "But I prefer to think of that as a problem for the past. Thanks to you and Master Cazelet-"

He dipped his head in a half-bow.

"-I can start working on a solution. And since that's Minister Lampert there by the roast ox, I believe I'll do that right now. Thank you, Adele!"

Daniel strode off toward the barbeque pits. He began whistling. As the first few notes drifted back to her, Adele recalled the song: "Roll me over, in the clover…"

Morning Harbor on Pelosi

If Daniel had been able to stand outside himself, he'd be the first to say that theLadouceur would be a joke in a squadron of modern warships. At thirty-eight hundred tons she was smaller than any light cruiser built for a generation and more; she had a mixed armament of two six-inch guns in a dorsal turret amidships and four four-inch guns in lateral turrets offset to bow and stern; and her antennas, instead of telescoping within themselves, folded parallel like the yards.

The arrangements of armament and rigging had proved unsatisfactory in service. Rather than rebuild the ships involved, the Financier class had been relegated to colonial service, showing the flag on planets where a kerosene lamp was high technology. At some point in its history theLadouceur had passed into Alliance ownership; beyond a notation by a clerk in Navy House, the RCN wouldn't have noticed her passing.

But the old cruiser was now Daniel's flagship, and it was with pride that he gestured toward her with his left hand and said, "Generalissima and gentlemen, with theLadouceur rerigged to my satisfaction and the crews of the whole squadron worked up properly, we'll have a force to keep the Alliance well away from Bagaria. Guarantor Porra has enough problems that he won't care to spend his resources in cracking as hard a nut as he'll find us to be!"

Captain Seward of theGeneralissima DeMarce snorted; Captain Hoppler, who'd brought theIndependence down from orbit this morning, shot his right cuff and ostentatiously studied his shapely fingernails. DeMarce exchanged a grimace with Minister Lampert, though both smoothed their expressions back to neutrality when Daniel glanced over his shoulder at them.

Because of Adele's warning, Daniel had couched his praise more defensively than his personal taste might've formed it in other circumstances. In truth, the chance of Bagaria mounting offensive operations with the means at hand would've been pretty slim, were it not for the equally low caliber of the opposing Cluster Command. And though the government might not want to disrupt trade, the undoubted greed of his present audience offered another means of manipulating them.

"And the amount of loot that'll come to the Republic when we take Churchyard and then Conyers…," Daniel said with bland enthusiasm. "Why, even the poor of Morning City will be wearing crowns!"

Mygoodness but that was a lie! but it wouldn't lie heavily on Daniel's conscience. From the feral looks on the faces of his companions, they had no intention of letting the imaginary loot trickle that far down the social scale.

"That's all very well to say, Admiral," said Seward, a girlishly-slight Kostroman whose moustache turned up in spikes at the end. "But the crews are a problem. We seem to recruit only the dregs, I'm afraid, and not many of them. True patriotism is absent from the lower orders."

The Bagarian navy paid a common spacer eight ostrads per day; commercial vessels in the cluster paid eighteen. All the petty officers and most of the leading spacers were foreigners whom the new republic had recruited with promises of premium pay. Unfortunately that pay hadn't materialized, so desertions among skilled spacers were even more frequent than by the Bagarian natives.

"Well, I hope that self interest will supply the place of patriotism once we get matters in hand," said Daniel in a tone of determined cheerfulness. "When they see the loot their fellows return with, I mean. But for now, we need to be sure that the major elements of our squadron can work together. That's theLadouceur and your ships, gentlemen-"

He bowed to Seward and Hoppler.

"-theDeMarce andIndependence."

"If by work together you mean maneuver in concert in the Matrix, wecan't," said Seward in a tone of scorn. He'd expected to retain command of the light cruiser he'd brought back from Schumer's World; his pique at the Cinnabar officer who'd been placed over him was understandable. "We're practical captains, Leary. We're not trained in this silly folderol that you Cinnabargentlemen set such score by."

Daniel nodded pleasantly. "I understand that coming from a merchant background you wouldn't have experience in the concerted action that's necessary for successful naval operations, Captain," he said. "It's certainly no reflection on your skills."

That was no more than the truth; the only justification for taking it as an insult was that it replied to the Kostroman's own hostility. Mind, Danieldid intend it as an insult. Even if failure could be justified, it was nothing to brag about.

"I've allowed for that problem," Daniel went on smoothly while the reddening Seward spluttered toward finding words. "I'll put officers I've brought with me aboard theIndependence andDeMarce as astrogators. It's not that they're more skilled than you gentlemen, of course-"

He nodded again toward the two captains. Vesey certainlywas a better astrogator than either of them, and Blantyre might well be. Of course that left Cory as First Lieutenant of theLadouceur, but at worst the midshipman knew how to use the astrogation computer.

"-but they've worked with me, and my little foibles won't throw them off. I propose to lift from Morning Harbor at 0600 tomorrow."