David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Because theVictoria Luise had been a Cluster Command vessel instead of a unit of the Fleet proper, she carried single-converter missiles, none of which had been manufactured on the advanced planets of the Alliance. They'd reach the same terminal velocity as first-line missiles which had dual antimatter converters feeding twin High Drives, but they accelerated at only half the rate. At the short range from which Daniel'd launched at the guard ship, that was a significant handicap But not a crippling one. Besides, theLadouceur 's closing velocity with the battleship added something to the kinetic energy. Daniel's first missile struck a little below theSiegfried 's center of mass, on Deck G instead of E. The flash of rending metal preceded by an instant the fireball of friction-heated steel burning in the gush of escaping atmosphere. It dwarfed the yellow-white lash of Sun's plasma bolts licking the bow.

Daniel ran theLadouceur 's High Drive motors up to full thrust, braking her toward the planet's surface. The cruiser's old 6-inch guns required a minute between discharges, so the dorsal turret was silent; the four-inch turrets were now whining to life, however. Daniel was sure they wouldn't bear on theSiegfried soon enough to be of any service, but he was equally sure that Sun was going to fire them anyway.

The second missile slammed into theSiegfried forward, scalloping away the bridge in another flash and flare. Captain Dunn had been wrong about there being no authority higher than his in Four orbit.

"Sun, cease fire!" Daniel said. "This is Six. Cease fire or I'll break you back to wiper, I swear I will, over!"

The third missile struck the Power Room. Like the previous two, it punched a hole through the plating instead of vaporizing a thousand tonnes of hull the way it'd have done if it'd been at terminal velocity.

The difference wasn't noticeable this time. When the fusion bottle ruptured, the stern third of theSiegfried vanished in a scintillating ball of gas.

"Sun, you heard me!" Daniel shouted. "Acknowledge or I'llbreak you, I swear I will. Cease fire! Cease fire!"

He thought the last missile was going to miss because the Power Room explosion had devoured the part of the battleship it was aimed at, but the blast shoved what remained of the hull into the projectile's path. The impact was almost delicate in comparison to the fusion bottle's rupture, but it'd certainly killed another hundred or so spacers.

It was war, and Commander Daniel Leary hadn't gotten his reputation by being unwilling to go for an enemy's throat. Even so, if Daniel could've been certain that his first three missiles would eliminate all danger from theSiegfried, he'd never have launched the fourth. His bellowing fury toward Sun wasn't because he knew the gunner was so focused on the chance to use his weapons that he didn't care that his bolts'd be killing harmless spacers who might otherwise survive; it was because Commander Leary himself had just killed all but a handful of the six hundred or so human beings aboard theSiegfried.

It was war, and it'd been necessary; but it was regrettable nonetheless.

TheSiegfried, debris tumbling in a gas cloud, drifted overhead as theLadouceur plunged toward Four's surface. Plumes of sparkling ions made the wreckage look as though it were burning.

The cruiser's motors began to ping. "Ship, shutting down High Drive," Daniel said. It was all rote and reflex, now; he could probably land a starship in his sleep, so ingrained were his responses to sensory inputs. "Lighting thrusters… light."

Because Four's atmosphere was so thin, they were closer to the surface than they'd have been on a fully habitable planet. In only a few minutes theLadouceur would be on the ground. Very likely more people were going to die in the process of capturing a score of Alliance prizes and destroying others by gunfire.

"Ship, prepare for landing!" Daniel ordered.

It was war, and it was necessary.

But it was also regrettable.

CHAPTER 23: Minehead North on Castle Four

"IBSLadouceur toDieEhre Muenchens," Adele said. Normally she ignored the external world while she was heavily involved in message traffic, but of present necessity one quadrant of her console showed a real-time view of a new-looking Alliance freighter. Plasma and Four's friable soil rose in a shroud as the vessel ran up its thrusters preparatory to lifting. "Shut down immediately. If you attempt to lift off, we will destroy you. Over."

Her voice was as dry as the plain outside. She felt a degree of exasperation at theEhre 's captain for being a pigheaded fool, but she'd learned not to let that concern her. Somany people were pigheaded fools.

Rene was at the console beside hers. It was intended for the sailing master, but the closest any crew of Daniel's had ever had to that senior warrant officer was a common spacer being trained to handle the ship's boats.

He'd been echoing Adele's display while she kept track of the boarding parties and channeled relevant information to Blantyre in the Battle Direction Center. He was handling those duties alone, now, while she dealt with the freighter which was trying to escape.

TheEhre started to lift. Her shining hull rose, free for the moment of the plume of dust. The captain herself must own the vessel; surely no hireling would risk her life to avoid a mere monetary loss for an absentee owner?

"Ehre, this is your last chance," Adele said. Would she be more effective if she sounded excited? Surely the words were clear enough in themselves. "Shut down or we will destroy-"

The freighter was half a mile away, and there was a score of other grounded vessels between it and theLadouceur. It'd now risen twenty feet in the air, however, which meant Sun had a direct line of sight to it from the cruiser's dorsal turret.

"-you certainly."

The freighter continued to rise. Sun stabbed his gun switch. The six-inch guns fired, right tube and then left. The miniature thermonuclear explosions seemed to echo; weight anchored theLadouceur firmly to the ground through the outriggers, so the hull didn't flex as it would while under way.

The streaks of plasma lifted vortices of dust through the thin air; if boarding parties were outside in the vicinity of the track, they'd be cursing the gunner. The Bagarians were wearing suits, however, so they shouldn't be in real danger.

The first bolt stuck theEhre on A Deck, a little forward of the midpoint. Telescoped masts flew up in a geyser of steel. The vessel started to roll away from the thrust of her own vaporized fabric, so the second round struck a little farther down.

TheEhre 's bow tilted; Adele couldn't tell whether that was a direct result of damage or if the captain had simply jerked her controls in shock. The stern slammed into the ground. When the thrusters shut off or failed a moment later, the bow dropped with a terrible crash. The freighter bounced upward, rolled onto its port side when one outrigger collapsed, and hit the ground again.

"Six, I shoulda let her get a little higher and used the lateral turrets on her," Sun crowed happily. "I mean, we don't know that the four-inchers even work, right? But praise theGods, didn't the big boys do a job on that dumb sucker, over?"

Adele blocked the transmission; the gunner was just chattering in his joy at the destruction he'd achieved. Daniel was busy programming courses for the merchant vessels which boarding parties from theLadouceur were capturing all across Four's northern port area.

Adele had been amazed at how quickly the Bagarians spread out on their mission, given that on the voyage from Pelosi they hadn't shown anything like the spirit she'd been accustomed to in crews under Daniel's command. After a moment's reflection, though, she saw that these spacers understood they were in the home system of the Alliance. They were simply trying to get away.