David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Besides, there was no rush. The courier was arriving nine days after the Bagarian raid on Castle Four, exactly when Daniel had calculated it would. Even if it brought the expected orders, though, it'd take Admiral Guphill a minimum of twelve hours to put ships in condition for a voyage to Pelosi. Landing with the message rather than signaling from orbit would add no more than half an hour to the time the word got to Admiral James.

Daniel hadn't closed the transmission to the crew. He grinned broadly: they were his Sissies. They'd been the point of the RCN's spear often enough that they deserved to get the news now rather than when the rest of the squadron did.

"We'll be filling our reaction mass tanks, Sissies," he continued, "but we'll be returning to orbit as soon as I get back from a visit to Admiral James, because I don't trust any other ship to keep as close a watch on the Alliance squadron as we will. And I strongly suspect that before the day's out we'll be giving the signal for the fleet action that kicks the Alliance out of the Jewel System with their tails between their legs! Six out."

The cheers were spontaneous. Daniel's grin spread wider yet.

Above Diamondia

The signal from Rene threw a red wash over Adele's display. She shut down what she was doing and began processing the imagery seeping back to thePrincess Cecile from Zmargadine orbit.

She'd been compiling crew lists for the entire Diamondia Squadron. It had no obvious value, but no information was completely valueless.

"Captain to the bridge!" she announced over the PA system. "Daniel, we have a signal. Get here at once."

Daniel'd gone to his space cabin adjacent to the bridge for a couple hours sleep. In the event he was getting less than a full hour: Admiral Guphill was lifting with his squadron barely ten hours after the courier vessel arrived, not the twelve Daniel'd considered a minimum.

Adele smiled coldly. Guarantor Porra must've beenvery angry.

If Adele hadn't been at her console, her personal data unit would've pinged sharply at her. She disliked audible signals, but there'd been slight risk of her not being at the console under these circumstances. Daniel reasonably thought he should get some sleep, but Adele had decided that she'd relax better if she was working.

Sleep had never been a priority with her. It was even less attractive now that so many faces were likely to visit her in the night.

Often she hadn't really seen them when she was squeezing the trigger; they'd merely been pale blurs against which her sights were silhouetted. There was plenty of time in the night for her to stare at the details, though: the pores, the broken veins, and the gasps of surprise. Flesh deformed around the bullet like a pond hit by the first drop of a rainstorm.

Daniel strode onto the bridge. He was fully clothed, but his boots weren't sealed. He'd kept his clothes on while he napped, but he'd loosened his boots; otherwise blood would've pooled in his feet.

Rene's transmission was encrypted with a pattern generated by cosmic ray impacts. It was common only to the transceiver in the escape capsule and to the signals console of thePrincess Cecile. If something had happened to either Adele or the corvette, no one in the greater universe could read the information Rene was sending.

That wasn't arrogant confidence on Adele's part. It'd be better that Admiral James not get the information than that he get it and the Alliance forces to know what he had. In the latter instance, James would sortie against the Alliance base, and Guphill would be in a position to ambush him by shifting his forces in the Matrix and returning in full strength after the RCN squadron was committed.

That said, whatever decision Adele made was a gamble whose probabilities she couldn't really assess. This way if she guessed wrong, no one would be complaining to her personally.

Daniel settled onto his console and brought up the imagery Rene was transmitting. Because of the low-power sending head and interference from debris over the long distance, there was a noticeable delay for even an astrogation computer to process the data into meaningful results.

There was no voice with the transmission, though speech would've absorbed infinitesimal bandwidth compared to the imagery. The images meant more to an expert than they would to Rene Cazelet; Commander Leary was an expert, arguablythe expert, so Rene simply kept his mouth shut. He consistently demonstrated good judgment for a young man.

Adele frowned at herself. Rene showed good judgment, period; regardless of age or gender.

"Ship, this is Six," Daniel announced. "Condition Two, I repeat, Condition Two. Section chiefs, issue energy rations. Get your area squared away, spacers, but we won't be going to Action Stations for another half hour or more. Six out."

Despite the excited bustle all over the ship, there was no sign of haste or concern. Sun had been at the gunnery console. To Adele's surprise, he got up and left the bridge. Moments later he reappeared, lugging a rigging suit.

There was an air suit in the cushion of each console, but Sun preferred a hard suit despite its bulk and awkwardness. The equipment wasn't authorized for his specialty, but Adele had learned during her first days with the RCN that old spacers could not only find anything, they could find a place to stash it despite the limited room on a corvette.

Data continued to stream from the distant escape capsule as more ships rose from Z3. They tried to use Zmargadine to shield them from RCN observation, but a number came into view as they accelerated and spread their sails. Even so only a third of the vessels were directly visible, though that would've been enough to indicate a large-scale operation was under way.

"Signals, we've got them!" Daniel said. He glanced toward her, putting his broad smile in profile on her display. "Transmit to Admiral James, Most Urgent: Anston. That's the code word we chose for the operation. And let me know when he acknowledges in person, out."

Adele nodded and waited ten seconds for thePrincess Cecile to come far enough over the horizon to have a line of sight to Port Delacroix. She could've relayed through theEclipse -and done so without the destroyer's crew knowing about it, very probably-but ten seconds wasn't long to wait.

"Diamondia Control," she said. She transmitted a text message simultaneously, but the verbal would reach Admiral James more quickly if his staff was properly trained. "This is Rascal for Pitcher Six, Most Urgent, Anston. I repeat, for Pitcher Six, Most Urgent, Anston. Pitcher Six will acknowledge receipt, over."

"Roger, Rascal," the controller said. Hers was the same crisp female voice which'd cleared theSissie into Port Delacroix on their first arrival. "The message is on the way, Most Urgent. Diamondia out."

Daniel wore a look of glee as he manipulated images. Figures scrolled and transmuted in a box on the lower left quadrant, but the bulk of his display rotated images of the Alliance squadron one ship at a time. When the figures reached a solution and froze, pulsing, he shifted to a different vessel and began again.

At last he stopped and leaned back in the console. Rene continued to send imagery, but no additional ships were lifting from Z3.

The Alliance squadron was forming down-system from Zmargadine. Save for a single light cruiser, all the ships the size of a sloop or larger had lifted. It was reasonable that at least one ship out of twenty-odd would be unable to lift with so little time to prepare.

Adele wondered if the Alliance destroyers observing Diamondia knew what their main force was doing. She suspected they did not. There'd been no signal from Zmargadine orbit that she'd noticed-which realistically meant no signal. Nor had Admiral Guphill sent a vessel in-system to alert his pickets. The latter would've been quicker than relying on light-speed communication over such a distance, but the Alliance admiral might've feared that ade facto courier would also alert the RCN.