David Drake: When the Tide Rises

She paused, watching as a delegation from the government of Dunbar's World begged Commander Leary for his support in their struggle against tyranny. Makeup and artfully torn garments emphasized their wretchedness, and the holographic imagery had apparently been manipulated to reduce the height of the civilian players in comparison with the stalwart spacers of the RCN.

Adele snorted. "Goodheavens!" she muttered. "They're in uniform."

"The uniforms are wrong, you mean?" Cazelet asked.

"What?" said Adele. She'd forgotten him again. "No-well, yes, that too. But it's the fact the spacers are wearingany uniform. They'd be in slops of some color that wouldn't show grease too badly. Unless they were going on liberty, of course, and then they'd be covered in so many ribbons and bangles that you'd be hard put to tell what the fabric was underneath."

"I wondered about that," Cazelet said. "Crews in the Fleet dressed the same as those who signed with us in Phoenix Starfreight. I thought it might be different in the RCN, though."

Adele looked at the boy-hewasn't a boy-sharply. Simply by listening to her, Cazelet had picked up on something that civilians almost never got: it wasn't "our navy" or even "the Cinnabar navy," it was the RCN to those who lifted on the Republic's paybill. And that brought her to another point.

"The other and better reason that Daniel wouldn't call his crew 'citizens…,' " Adele said. She didn't ordinarily refer to her friend as Daniel rather than Commander Leary in public or among strangers. She was doing so consistently tonight, and she decided to stop fighting the tendency. "Is that they'd take it as an insult. Citizens are civilians. RCN crews arespacers and proud of it."

Signals Officer Mundy couldn't properly claim to be a spacer, despite what by now was very considerable experience aboard RCN vessels on active service. When she was on the hull of a ship under way, she was always clipped to a safety line. Nevertheless everyone in sight watched her nervously.

Despite Adele's awkwardness, she'd been adopted by the crew of thePrincess Cecile and by every crew since which theSissie 's veterans leavened. She'd been a studious child and never really one of the politically focused Mundies, but she was truly part of the RCN family.

Mistress Mundy had various skills which even the toughest spacer could appreciate. She'd demonstrated them again on Dunbar's World…

On the stage, thePrincess Cecile -a computer image too sparklingly perfect for even an admiral's yacht-battled a cruiser/minelayer with plasma cannon. The guns were primarily defensive armament intended to divert incoming missiles, but they could damage rigging or even worse if the range was really short.

TheSissie 's 4-inch weapons weren't sufficient to harm a cruiser's hull, of course. When her opponent exploded in a fireball swelling to fill the stage, Cazelet snorted in derision.

"I realize it's fiction," he said, "but couldn't they try to make it at least vaguely believable?"

"That's real imagery," Adele said. "Oh, it didn't happen off Dunbar's World, and of course it wasn't theSissie 's guns that were responsible. TheBremse detonated one of her own mines."

"By the Gods," Cazelet said softly. He turned to meet her eyes. "There are safety devices, are there not?"

The false Commander Leary was making another speech. In fact Daniel was a very effective orator, but Adele was sure that hadn't affected the 'documentary' in the least.

"The lockouts were disconnected," Adele said. I disconnected them, thereby killing several hundred Alliance spacers. Though I'm not sure it counts unless you watch them over your gunsight as they die.

Riggers danced up and down theSissie 's antennas in light air suits, probably because the rigging suits they really wore were too stiff and depersonalizing for properly dramatic effects. Commander Leary-who wore Dress Whites under his translucent air suit-leaped into the void to save two spacers who'd slipped from the yard.

The computer-generatedPrincess Cecile was back in action, this time against a heavy cruiser. The enemy vessel crumbled under the lash of incoming missiles.

"That's true too?" Cazelet said. "I'll admit it looks like real imagery, but I don't see how it could be."

Adele smiled faintly. "It can be real if you realize that there's an allied battleship launching from out of the image area," she said. "That was two years ago and nowhere near Dunbar's World. But it was real."

The battles-and the heroic speeches, none of which mentioned loot or sexual partners like the speeches Daniel was in the habit of making to his crews-continued. Adele clipped scenes and made notes, feeling a grim fascination.

Almost no part of the documentary was 'right' except for the historical images, but they could only have come from the RCN archives. There was nothing unusual about Navy House surreptitiously releasing documents and imagery to enhance the RCN's reputation or to do a favor to a powerful politician. There was vanishingly little chance of Admiral Vocaine providing information to make Daniel Leary a national hero, however.

On stageDer Grosser Karl limped into the Matrix, badly injured by theSissie 's missiles. That was true too, in part. Adele had been present, but she couldn't say that she really remembered the battleship's 8-inch cannon raking them at point-blank range. At the time her duties had kept her too busy to worry about whether or not she was about to be killed. Besides, the chance of death wasn't something that'd have greatly exercised her even if she weren't occupied.

Assuming that the play had climaxed when thePrincess Cecile chased away a battleship, Adele straightened. She looked forward to returning to Chatsworth Minor where she'd have privacy to explore the questions which the performance raised.

Rene Cazelet had lapsed into silence. He was watched the stage intently, though occasionally he glanced sidelong at Adele. Her control wands flickered, gathering images and comparing them with stored data.

"There was still one hurdle for Commander Leary and his heroic crew," boomed Michael Beasley in a voice over.

On stage thePrincess Cecile swept low across the single continent of Dunbar's World, then braked hard. They won't show that, surelythey won't!

"They had to capture the Alliance base and disable the missile battery there!"

They were going to show it.

The corvette landed on a muddy island, crushing barracks and military equipment beneath its outriggers. The main hatch crashed down immediately-Adele wondered whether that was dramatic license or if the producers simply didn't understand how slowly a multi-ton section of hull plating had to move if it weren't to be battered to scrap metal. The supposed crew of theSissie rushed down the ramp without waiting for the ground baked by the plasma jets to cool. Commander Daniel Leary was in the lead.

Please. Please. Please.

Adele didn't know who she was speaking to. Praying to, she supposed, though she didn't believe in gods or Gods or anything at all except the working of blind chance.

Commander Leary held a sub-machine gun in one hand and a stocked impeller in the other. He raced toward the berm protecting the pit where ship-killing missiles were emplaced, using both weapons as he ran. For some reason the Alliance troops jumped out of their bunkers before they shot at him; they spun artistically and fell.

The gate into the emplacement was of razor ribbon stretched on a frame. Just like the real gate.

Commander Leary sawed through the obstruction with a burst from his sub-machine gun. Alliance projectiles hitting wires, hitting tubing; howling, ricocheting in neon colors. Occasionally a wire parting with a sickening jangle.

"Follow me, my heroes!" Commander Leary shouted as he ran through the gap in the gate. The corvette's whole crew was with him. Bunched like that, a single automatic impeller would slaughter the lot of them. They'd be dead!