David Drake - When the Tide Rises

"Officer Mundy," Daniel said. "Do you agree with the plan, over?"

There was a pause. Then Adele said, "Yes, I suppose I do. I… can vouch for Master Cazelet's skill with the equipment. Ah, over."

"Very good, then," said Daniel, feeling his cheeks crinkle with the breadth of his grin. By all the Gods, he had a crew here! And Cazelet too, it seemed: as surely as Hogg and Tovera were Sissies, so was this boy of Adele's. "Break. Ship, this is Six. We'll be making a quick side-jaunt into Zmargadine orbit to discharge cargo, then jumping straight to Diamondia since we've already got the codes for the defense array this time. It'll be a little hairy, fellow spacers, but nothing to us Sissies, right? Six out!"

He started programming the short insertion that'd take thePrincess Cecile into the third of Zmargadine's four belts of debris. It was the sort of maneuver that'd make most spacers blanch.

But as the cheers he'd deliberately provoked rang through the corvette's compartments, Daniel grinned. What he'd said was the truth, after all: it wasn't an unusual task for the crew of thePrincess Cecile.

"Mistress Mundy…?" said Cory over a two-way link. "Ah, this is Cory, mistress. Ah. I'm watching the sensor display. If you'd like to see your, ah, assistant off, I'm… well, I'm watching the sensors. And we won't be in normal space long, over."

Adele frowned. The fact that Cory'd asked meant he thought it was what she should do. Rene had, after all, taken on a task that was rightly hers. The capsule would be quite uncomfortable, not that a corvette was a luxury liner either, and the job was dangerous.

Likewise staying aboard thePrincess Cecile was dangerous, of course. Still.

"All right, Cory, thank you," Adele said. She rose from her console. Over the command channel she continued, "Commander Leary, I'm going down to the missile bay to see Cazelet before he, ah, leaves. If that's all right? Mister Cory will be on the board in my absence."

"Roger, Signals," said Daniel, turning his head from his display to look at her directly. "We'll be extracting from the Matrix in eight minutes, forty seconds. Over."

Tovera led the way off the bridge; she'd been listening to the exchange. Tovera's technical skills didn't permit her to circumvent the software blocks that protected Adele's console, but she'd put a transponder under the fascia which rebroadcast to her all conversations. Adele was aware of the bug, of course, but there was no reason Tovera shouldn't have complete access to her conversations.

The missile bays were on D level but well forward, so when Adele stepped into the corridor she had only a short further walk to the double-width hatch. Her footsteps and those of Tovera continued to whisper up and down the armored companionway like distant surf.

Inside the bay, the squat, blunt-nosed cylinder of an escape capsule waited to be inserted in the launch tube. The hatch was open, but Rene and the spacer who'd do the shiphandling were already aboard. Beside it stood Chief Missileer Borries, three technicians from his section, and to Adele's amazement Woetjans and Lieutenant Vesey.

Both rigging watches were on the hull, poised to react if anything malfunctioned while the corvette maneuvered in the Matrix. The two short transits that remained-into Zmargadine's ring system and from there into the planetary defense array protecting Diamondia-both required a great deal of precision. Adele'd expected Woetjans to be out with her riggers.

The bosun must've understood Adele's blink of startlement because she replied with an embarrassed smile. "Mistress," Woetjans said, "Six said Riley and Harrison'd do on the hull between them, but he wanted me to make sure the capsule gets away clean. Maybe he thinks there's still a stitch in my side from the slugs but, well, that's not what he said."

"Commander Leary's generally correct," Adele said coolly. Certainly he's right about Woetjans not straining herself on the hull in her present condition, though of course she didn't say that aloud. "I'm glad you and Officer Borries are both here."

Which left the question of what in heaven Vesey was doing in the missile bay instead of being in the BDC. Vesey flushed, but instead of answering the obvious question, she said, "Officer Mundy, I didn't know you'd be seeing Master Cazelet off."

"Cory said he'd handle the signals duties," Adele said. Vesey'snon sequitur seemed to require some sort of response, but the whole situation was baffling. "We'll only be in this location for a matter of minutes, after all. I can examine any new data while we're in the Matrix again."

"Mistress Mundy, I'm honored!" Rene said as he stuck his torso through the low-fitted hatch. He was wearing an air suit with the helmet off for the present. Escape capsules-Adele'd been transported in one above Kostroma-were pressurized, but they were so flimsy that passengers were safer wearing suits despite the discomfort that entailed.

"You're satisfied with the installation, then?" Adele said, kneeling so that she and Cazelet could look at one another without contortions on his part. She resisted an impulse to frown. What did the boy think she'd done to honor him or anyone else?

"Yes, mistress," he said. He stuck his arm outside and gestured toward the bow. "The antenna's welded on a stub mast to the nose. It'd be a problem in an atmosphere, but we won't be in one. And the controls-"

Rene backed so that Adele could see through the small hatch; he pointed to the panel clamped to a rack welded to the curved starboard bulkhead. The capsule's interior was spartan even by the standards of a prison.

"-are here. I've made sure everything moves, and if a joint binds after we're deployed, Matthews assures me we'll be able to go out and clear it."

The spacer sharing the capsule, a stocky woman, gave Adele a flat stare. She wore a rigging suit, again without the helmet. The three parallel scars on her right cheek appeared to be a result of ritual rather than injury.

"Very good," said Adele, straightening. She'd thought she was done speaking, but another point struck her.

"Ah, Cazelet," she said, kneeling again. "I don't expect the Alliance squadron to be keeping close watch for a boat like yours, but there are more than thirty ships including the minesweepers. If only one of them has a Signals officer who's doing her job, there's a chance that your transmissions will be observed."

"Mistress, it's low-power laser," Rene protested with a frown. "Unless they're virtually in line, I don't see how anyone could intercept my signals."

"You're in a ring system," Adele snapped. "That means there's a great deal of dust, which will scatter your signals to a degree no matter how tight they are at the sending head. It'll be faint, I grant you, butI would notice it. Don't ever assume that your opponent is incompetent."

She paused, then added in a softer tone, "Though goodness knows, that's where the balance of the probabilities lies. And not just your opponents."

"Yes, mistress," Rene said. "I apologize."

"Use your own judgment," Adele said, "of course. But I recommend you transmit only when you have something which won't appear to careful observers on Diamondia. I know it'll be difficult to seem to be doing nothing, but you may only get one chance to send information. Make sure it's the information we need."

Rene sucked in his lips and nodded.

"Ship," said Blantyre's voice over the PA system, "we'll extract from the Matrix in sixty, that's six-zero, seconds from-now!"

"Mistress, time to button up," Woetjans said. Adele scrambled back.

As Woetjans started to swing the hatch closed, the spacer inside the capsule called, "Don't worry, mistress. I'll bring your boy back to you!"

"Very good," Adele muttered, though she doubted anyone heard her over the clang of the hatch. It was simply polite chattering, after all, the sort of thing one said in a social situation. The Sissies were her family, so she made an effort to behave the way people were expected to behave in society.