David Drake - When the Tide Rises

He smiled ruefully.

"Unless Porra gives absurdly detailed orders," he continued, "I don't see Guphill sending off more than a couple cruisers and their accompanying destroyers. That won't crush the rebellion, but it'll give him a month or so before Porra notices. And that's long enough for him to finish reducing our defenses here, I'm afraid."

"Ah, sir?" Daniel said very carefully. "My signals officer has a great deal of skill in deception. She-"

"That's Lady Mundy, you mean?" James said, his eyes narrowing.

"Yes sir, Signals Officer Mundy," Daniel said. "She suggested that there are ways to make Alliance observers believe that your major units aren't operational. If that were the case, it'd be much more likely that Guphill would take away his whole squadron or at least detach a major portion of it. Rather than appear to disregard the Guarantor's order, that is. The Guarantor is known to behave very intemperately when he's angry."

James burst out with a laugh. "He shot his Ambassador to Kostroma dead after the debacle there, didn't he?" he said. "And I take your point, because I don't in the least doubt that he's livid about this raid of yours. All right, shall I summon Lady Mundy or can you give me the gist of the plan yourself?"

Daniel rose. "I think you and I are the people to go over the details," he said, "and here in the harbor is the best place to do it. But I'd appreciate it if any report on the operation would give full credit to Officer Mundy."

James rose also. "If this works, Leary," he said, "there'll be plenty of credit to go around, I assure you. And by theGods, I hope it works!"

Above Diamondia

Adele pored over the images thePrincess Cecile was capturing during its powered orbits. The Alliance destroyers had equally good optics and perhaps comparable anti-distortion software as well, but they were 200,000 miles out from the planetary surface to avoid the mines. Adele could be confident that they wouldn't be seeing anything which she didn't.

"Good day, Commander Leary," said Tovera from the jumpseat at the back of the signals console. Adele glanced at the miniature image of Daniel at his console inset onto the top of her display; it was empty. When she turned her head, she found him beginning to squat beside her.

"Good day, Tovera," Daniel said mildly. "And good day, Officer Mundy. I decided to walk over for a visit. Call it the whim of an eccentric captain."

Adele looked at him. The command console was eight feet away from her at signals. If Daniel wanted privacy, an intercom link from his console with active sound cancelling engaged would've been completely inaudible by anyone but the two parties involved. His behaviorwas eccentric, and besides that Adele herself preferred to communicate through an electronic separation.

But he was also captain.

She gave Daniel a wry smile. "Yes, Captain Leary," she said. "Welcome to my-"

What to call it?

"-work space."

Sun pointedly got up from the gunnery console and announced, "I'm going to the head."

"Want me to shake it for you, buddy?" called Borries from the Attack console on the port side of the bridge. The new Chief Missileer was fitting in well with the original Sissies.

Because the High Drive buzzed as it provided the illusion of gravity, no one was likely to overhear them. Well, Tovera would, but that was like saying a passing meteorite might listen in. Not, of course, that it mattered aboard theSissie to begin with.

"I won't take you away from your work," Daniel said, nodding toward the display. The hologram was focused for her eyes, so from his angle it would be a jumble of light as meaningless as the clouds at sunrise.

"There's no rush," Adele said, adjusting the display to make it omnidirectional. "Or more accurately, what I saw at a quick glance is the important thing-and it passes."

Daniel gave the image his attention while Adele watched him. He wasn't an imagery specialist, but he was a very observant officer who knew warships as well as anyone on the RCN list.

"There's no question she's theZeno," he said judiciously. "She's fifty feet longer than theLao-Tze and even in her own class she's the only one with the docking bridge between frames 65 and 68 instead of 32 and 35. And she's got a serious refit under way. Three sections of Power Room plating have been removed. The only reason you'd do that would be to replace the fusion bottle. Besides which I think-"

He gestured. Adele used his index finger as a pointer and increased magnification by one step, then another, on the barge moored to the battleship's starboard side.

"That's enough," said Daniel. "Can you increase the shadow detail, over?"

"Yes," said Adele, making the adjustment. She smiled faintly. Daniel was so used to getting this sort of information over the intercom that he'd lapsed into single-channel communications protocol.

"No question, they're thruster nozzles in the barge's hold," he said approvingly. He looked up at Adele and grinned. "Two and a half visible, and probably twelve aboard if there's as many as could be under the tarps where they can't be seen. And they're real?"

"Yes," said Adele, "but thereare only three of them, and they came from the freighterHollandia in the Outer Harbor."

"Switch back to the missing plates," Daniel said with a wave, "but keep the magnification. If you please."

Adele made the adjustment without comment. Daniel squinted, which of course didn't help, then looked at her again. "I swear I can see the rails that they slid the bottle out on. How in heaven did they dothat?"

Adele ran the image back so that the display area contained the whole battleship. "I'm told they underpainted the details in dark blue on the canvas," she said. "Then they covered the whole surface with dark gray to simulate the shadowed interior seen through the missing plates."

She pursed her lips, afraid that she'd just taken credit which belonged to someone else. "One of theZeno 's officers, Lieutenant Bainbridge, turns out to be an amateur artist of some note. The underpainting was her idea. Also mixing purple with the dark gray; I simply said black."

Daniel shook his head in delighted amazement. "I certainly wouldn't doubt that the plating was off," he said. "That's quite remarkable. Remarkable."

Adele liked to think-she wouldn't say it aloud, of course-that other people's opinions didn't matter: she'd either done a good job or she hadn't. Realistically that wasn't true: shewas human, and however well she concealed her feelings from others, she couldn't deny that she did feel.

Now she smiled a little wider than usual and said, "They glued the underside of the canvas to the hull so that it wouldn't ripple in the wind. I think movement would be assumed to be an artifact of atmospheric disturbance, but I was pleased at the care with which the work was executed."

She cleared her throat. "Daniel," she said. "I'm pleased to be a member of the RCN."

He looked at her. "Speaking as the ranking member of the organization present," he said, "the RCN is very pleased to have you, Officer Mundy."

For an instant Adele thought he was going to say something else; then he gestured toward the imagery and said, "The question I'd have if I were Admiral Guphill is, 'How did they manage to do all that work overnight?' Because I don't care how many personnel you have available, there's limited space to work in."

"I considered that," Adele said. Was this bragging? But shehad considered it, and the fact was germane to the discussion. "My expectation, myhope, is that the analysts on Guphill's staff will first suspect that the destroyers on station haven't been keeping as close a watch on Port Delacroix as they should be. In other words, that the work was done over the course of two days or even longer. That's the first point."