David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Barnes' mouth dropped open. He turned and slipped back into the outer office, moving as easily as if he weren't wearing the rigging suit.

"Mistress?" said Tovera. "He was upset. He's a good man."

Adele nodded as she synched her personal data unit with the console. She needed secure communications with the transport as well as to be able to access both Fort Douaumont's systems, so she couldn't simply use the console.

She wondered if the bosun was still alive. The hard suit wouldn't stop projectiles, but being shot in the chest wasn't necessarily fatal. As Adele knew.

Tovera returned to the outer office; Rene sat at the end desk and began shuffling through the display. At the moment, Adele was too busy to check what he was doing.

The boy looked greenish and his face was set. That might simply be in reaction to the smell. Smells, rather. The dry sharpness of lime laced with ions could only tinge the effluvium of bodies ripped apart while alive.

Adele found the controls quickly enough. First she changed the password and authentication sequence for all five batteries to a pair of eight-character strings of her own choosing. Next she switched the input option so that the password and authentication had to be entered through her personal data unit in order to be valid. Only when that background was in place did she shift the batteries to director fire so that they couldn't be controlled by the battery officer.

Adele leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. Her wands twitched, using Fort Douaumont's own systems to open communications with theSkye Defender. As she did so, Rene rose from his desk and started for the door.

"Cazelet?" she said. Her eyes were watering from the dust, and the back of her throat was raw. The sound came out as a croak.

"I found a Medicomp in the next bay," Rene said in a harsh voice. His eyes were watering; tears streaked his cheeks. "Maybe if we get the Chief to it… The riggers and me, I mean. You'll be all right with Tovera."

Adele nodded curtly. "Yes," she said, "I will."

Had Tovera really feared that she'd punish Barnes for killing someone who perhaps didn't need to be killed? That was a matter between Barnes and those who visited him in the night.

Adele focused on her display again and connected with the transport.

"Captain, this is Signals," said Daniel's commo helmet as he stood in the transport's forward entry bay. It was Adele's voice, but she sounded odd. Well, goodness knows what sort of rigmarole she'd had to go through to send the signal. "The artillery positions are neutralized. That's the missiles too, I mean. And there hasn't been an alarm yet, but there may be at any moment. Over."

"Roger, signals," Daniel said. As he spoke, he pointed his finger across the bay toward Michael Sayer, the engineer's mate at the hatch controls-he was a Sissie, of course-and chopped it down in a short arc while nodding to the hatch. "Break. Ladouceur, this is Squadron Six. Come down now and land in Grand Harbor according to plan. Nothing fancy, Mister Liu, just bring her down. Over."

The hatch dogs withdrew like a bell chorus. Pumps whined, building pressure in the hydraulic jacks that forced the ramp down. Chatterjee hadn't seen Daniel gesture to Sayer. He looked up, startled; at Daniel's calm nod, he spoke into the mike flexed to his epaulet.

"Roger, Six," Lieutenant Liu replied from the cruiser. "We're approaching the window. We'll begin our descent in ninety seconds. Ladouceurout."

Daniel didn't remark, but if it'd been him at the cruiser's command console he'd have started his descent immediately and recalculated the details on the way down. He grinned. That, of course, was why Liu was in orbit now instead of being here where serious work was in progress.

TheLadouceur 's plasma cannon could've come in handy, but using them would require the cruiser to hover close to Fort Douaumont. Lieutenant Liu's shiphandling ranged from good to better than good; certainly he was skilled enough to hold the cruiser in a safe hover under normal circumstances.

The kicker was the definition of "normal." Being shot at had become normal-or at least not abnormal-for Daniel and his Sissies; that wasn't true for Liu. Daniel couldn't risk learning that an impeller slug clanging from the hull made the fellow throw up his hands and send the cruiser plunging into the ground.

The air roiling in as the hatch lowered was hot and stank of ozone. Daniel slitted his eyes reflexively. He was opening up the ship earlier than he normally would've done following a landing on dry ground, but he hadn't considered that it might be a problem. He realized he was wrong when he heard shouts of fear and anger from the platoon of Skye infantry waiting in the bay with him and forty armed spacers.

"Admiral!" Chatterjee said. "What's happened? Are we on fire?"

"It's all right!" Daniel said. "The ground's hot from the exhaust, but it isn't dangerous. We probably don't have much time before an alarm goes off, so we need to cross to the headquarters building as soon as the ramp's down."

Which would be another minute or more. The boarding hatch weighed twenty tons, far too great a mass to fling around without regard for inertia.

"Admiral, I don't know that we can!" Chatterjee said. "We're not trained for this! Please, cannot we wait till it's cooler, a few minutes at least?"

Daniel thought, his face blank. He should've realized that what spacers took more or less for granted might be impossible to soldiers who weren't familiar with the searing violence of a starship's landing. On the other hand, the reasons for getting into the Alliance HQ as quickly as possible were valid regardless of how unpleasant the process was. Hot, curling ozone wasn't lethal at the concentrations outside, but the automatic impellers which might start firing at any moment would be.

"Right," he said. "I'll take my spacers in now, and you'll follow as soon as you're able to. But don't waste time, Colonel, please don't waste time."

Chatterjee bent over his mike and gave a series of orders. Daniel didn't really care what the Colonel was saying, though he realized with a smile that Adele would've been coupled into the Bagarian net as a matter of course.

His smile faded. I hope you're all right, my friend, he thought.

The ramp thumped down. "Spacers with me!" Daniel said. The hold's PA system boomed his voice out from speakers in the upper molding. Cory wasn't Adele, but he was doing bloody well. "We're not attacking, we're simply marching to our new billets. Until I say different orthey shoot at us!"

"Aw, Six, we gotta march?" Kris Dehaes called, her voice an alto as cracked as a crow's. "You know we're no good at that!"

"Pipe down, Dehaes!" ordered Sun, leading the contingent because Woetjans was off with Adele. "If we keep cool and listen to Six, it'll go just fine."

Well, I don't know about that, thought Daniel, but he stepped off on his left foot. As expected, the spacers clumped down the ramp with him. They looked more like a mob rushing for the jakes between innings than a military unit.

What hehadn't expected was that Colonel Chatterjee would still be at his side. The Bagarian'd tied a kerchief over the lower half of his face and seemed to have squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he was squinting, but it didn't look that way.

Chatterjee touched Daniel's arm, for balance or maybe just to be guided. "I told Major Zaring to bring the men along ASAP," he said, his words making the kerchief puff and flap. "I'm going with you, Admiral!"

Dust and stray ions eddied in the heat shimmering from the ground. The air felt hotter with each step down the ramp, and by the third stride onto the concrete Daniel was thinking that he should've worn something heavier than the soft-soled spacer's boots he had on.