David Drake - When the Tide Rises

The capsule rattled down its track, then vanished into the launching tube. Borries himself threw the switch for the hydraulic ram that closed the breech.

"I figured they'd be cooped up bugger knows how long," Woetjans said quietly to Adele. "That's why I left the hatch open to the last, you know? Besides for you, I mean."

"Very thoughtful, bosun," Adele said. She knew there were RCN bosuns with a reputation for knocking a spacer down to make sure he listened to the order that followed, but Woetjans clearly cared about her personnel. Not that she was slow to knock somebody down if she thought the circumstances called for it.

"Extracting…," Blantyre said. "Now!"

Adele's body vanished and her eyeballs turned inside out to engulf a whole universe of frozen crystal. Why did Blantyre think she had to inform anybody of the hell of extraction?

"Stand by to launch," Daniel said. "Launching."

With the word, the bay rang loudly. Adele had never been standing near a launch tube when a jet of live steam shoved an object out of the ship. From that standpoint, an escape capsule was no different from a missile.

"Preparing to insert into the Matrix," Daniel announced. "We will insert in three minutes thirty seconds. Repeat, we will insert in three minutes thirty seconds, out."

"We'll return to the bridge, Tovera," Adele said. She really had no idea of where the capsule had been placed, nor what was around it. Her instrumentation would have stored that information for her.

Vesey was staring at the launch tube. She didn't move. Adele couldn't see the lieutenant's face, but her hunched posture made her look anguished. Adele frowned, but it was none of her business unless Vesey brought a problem to her.

"Ah, mistress?" Woetjans said. "I know what you're maybe thinking with your friend and Matthews cooped up for so long, but you don't have to worry. Bird ain't going to get ideas, and if your friend maybe does-I'm not saying anything, but you know what men are like-Bird'll convince him otherwise. And likely without breaking anything major."

"I don't-" Adele said, the creases of her frown tightening. Then suddenly shedid understand. "By the Gods, Woetjans, you don't think…?"

She couldn't go on. She stared in opened-mouthed horror at the bosun.

Tovera giggled and touched Adele's sleeve. "Come along, mistress," she said. "You've business on the bridge."

Tovera was still giggling when they reached the companionway.

"Here, Leary," said Admiral James, preceding Daniel into the captain's cabin of the heavy cruiserAlcubiere. "I told Bussom to unlock his console before he vacated, so we've got it if you need file access."

The Admiral was wearing utilities; he'd making a Power Room inspection when Daniel signalled from the just-landedPrincess Cecile that he needed to report as soon as possible. The greasy-looking blur on James' left shoulder blade was finely divided heavy metal sublimed from the thruster nozzles. Instead of being expelled, it'd been trapped on the surface of the petals until the admiral touched them.

To get that smudge, James had to've been sticking his head up the throat of a nozzle. His inspection hadn't been a cursory one focusing on how well the brightwork on the control panel was polished.

"Sir, I didn't intend to disturb Captain Bussom," Daniel said. He'd changed into Whites during the minutes before the slip had cooled enough to open theSissie 's hatches. Now that he'd seen James, the difference in their uniforms was one more thing to make him uncomfortable.

Because hecertainly didn't want to offend Richard Bussom. TheAlcubiere 's captain was skilled, senior-senior enough to have commanded a battleship if he hadn't preferred the relative freedom of a cruiser-and notably irascible even in a service which put more of a premium on aggressiveness than on gentile manners.

"You're not, Commander," James grunted as he settled onto one of the chairs around the small table in the center of the compartment instead of behind the desk. "I am, and borrowing his cabin won't disturb him nearly as much as the rocket I was going to give him about the condition of Thruster Port Three. Which-"

He scowled at Daniel and gestured to the chair across from him. "Sit, man!" he snapped. "Do you think I want a crick in my neck from looking at you?"

Daniel seated himself carefully. The chairs and table were made from the red heartwood of Vickery firetops. Vickery had been settled early from Pleasaunce and was a core planet of the Alliance.

"Which, just between us," James resumed, "wasn't really that bad. A flaw in the casting that'd ruptured, I shouldn't wonder, and Bussom's bad luck that I checked when I did. But when we're trapped in port like this, I can't afford to let the crews get slack."

"Yes sir," said Daniel. "Perhaps you won't be trapped for very much longer. Ships of the Independent Republic of Bagaria raided Castle Four a week ago. Besides taking prizes, the raiders destroyed the old battleship on guard duty above the planet. There's no end of evidence remaining on Four to prove that it was a Bagarian raid, quite apart from the fact that Alliance forces have probably recaptured half the prizes by now. I expect Guarantor Porra to be very angry."

James slammed the heel his hand on the table. "By my hope of salvation!" he said. "Angry, you say? I'd judge he was! You may well have given him a stroke and ended the bloody war, Leary!"

He cocked his head and looked straight at Daniel. "It was you, wasn't it?" he said. "That business about the Bagarians is just window dressing, isn't it?"

Daniel glanced aside. Captain Bussom'd had the bulkheads painted a smooth cream color with gilt moldings. On them hung sporting prints in gilt frames, and there was even an imitation fireplace. The decor was closer to that of the office in Speaker Leary's townhouse than to a warship.

"Sir," said Daniel, "I've transmitted an Eyes Only report to your headquarters with full details, but the short version is… the major element involved was a Bagarian cruiser with a mostly Bagarian crew, and the Bagarian minister of the navy was aboard throughout the raid. But yes, I was present also."

"By theGods, Leary," James said, his face hard and his eyes focused on something at a distance in time. "Guphill's squadron's the only Alliance force within three weeks transit of the Bagarian Cluster. If Porra orders them off to swat the rebels back into the stone age, we can destroy the base on Z3 before he gets back. By the Gods, we can!"

"Yes sir," Daniel said. "Unless they strip the Castle System of warships and send them to the cluster instead, of course."

James snorted. "Which is about the last thing they're likely to do after you've shot up Four the way you say you have," he said. "Why, they'd be afraid you'd do the same thing to the Guarantor's Pool on Pleasaunce!"

He looked at Daniel and added sharply, "You were thinking of doing that, weren't you, Leary? Tell me the truth!"

"Well, sir," Daniel said. "The possibility had crossed my mind, yes."

"Well, it's not going to happen," James said, returning Daniel's smile with a harder one of his own. "Not least because I don't think destroying half a dozen Alliance merchant ships would be worth losing you to Cinnabar."

He sobered and added, "Admiral Anston spoke very highly of you, you know."

Daniel touched his lips with his tongue. "Sir," he said, "I'm very glad to have the respect of Admiral Anston. He's a great man. A very great man."

He felt a pang as he spoke. Anston's heart attack and retirement had caused career difficulties for Commander Daniel Leary, but he could honestly say that he didn't regret that at all compared with how he felt about the RCN's loss.

"We'll keep our fingers crossed," James said. He waved a hand at Daniel. "Don't think I'm devaluing what you've accomplished, Leary, I'm not doing that at all. But Guphill's an able man, as I know to my cost. I couldn't have handled the blockade of Diamondia any better myself."