David Drake - When the Tide Rises

"Six, this is Five!" Vesey announced over the command push. Her voice was rarely excited, but this time was an exception. "Eight ships are lifting together from Port Delacroix. The squadron's coming up, over!"

"Ship, this is Six," said Daniel. "Action stations, Sissies. We're very shortly going to get stuck into an Alliance squadron again. Up Cinnabar!"

"Up Cinnabar!" Adele shouted with the rest of the crew. She felt a little silly shouting patriotic nonsense, but she'd have felt even sillier not shouting at a time like this. Her adoptive family, the RCN, was very patriotic.

The Alliance destroyers on station above Diamondia were theT 65 andT 72. Adele was waiting for their panicked interchanges when one or the other watch officer realized that their entire squadron had sallied from Z3 and they were for the moment alone in the Jewel System.

That didn't happen. Though the two ships exchanged desultory signals, neither was paying the least attention to their base. A pair of lieutenants who'd been in the same class at the Fleet Gymnasium were discussing their chances of returning to Pleasaunce in time to attend the wedding of a third classmate.

The Alliance destroyers had been holding the usual 1 G acceleration to mimic gravity while they patrolled safely outside the planetary defense array. They'd normally be replaced on station by another pair of destroyers after thirty hours or so, more because of the tedium of the job than because they needed to replace reaction mass. Even though destroyers had relatively small tanks, Adele knew from her database that T Class vessels could easily have held station for eight or nine days at that level of consumption.

The sight of the Diamondia Squadron lifting in unison from Port Delacroix got their attention, though. Though the alarm bells on the destroyers wasn't audible through vacuum-of course-the rhythmic sound made the hulls themselves vibrate, and that in turn registered on theSissie 's rangefinding lasers.

"Captain, the Alliance pickets have spotted Admiral James," Adele reported calmly. "They're not aware as yet of Admiral Guphill's movements, however. Over."

"Roger, Signals," Daniel said. "Keep me informed, out."

Adele peeped at his display: he was working on attack plans involving thePrincess Cecile alone engaging the Alliance destroyers and also thePrincess Cecile engaging them in company with theEclipse andEcho. RCN picket destroyers might well have launched long-distance missile attacks on an enemy squadron rising into orbit. There wasn't much chance of a hit under the circumstances, but it could disrupt what was presumably a careful enemy plan.

Adele smiled coldly. She'd learned a great deal while she served with Daniel Leary; one of the things she'd learned was what it meant to be RCN. There was very little chance of the Alliance destroyers reacting as their RCN counterparts would, but if they did, thePrincess Cecile and her fellows were ready to give them something more immediate to think about than Admiral James' squadron.

Both pickets began to accelerate. Adele couldn't overhear their internal communications at this range and she didn't have the expertise to judge the details of what was happening. Even she could tell from the iridescent plume streaming from theT 65 that it was using not only High Drive but its less efficient plasma thrusters as well to get up to speed as quickly as possible. The combined thrust not only would make movement and even breathing uncomfortable for the destroyer's crew, it created greater strains than the vessel's rigging was braced to withstand.

It didn't take an expert to realize that, either. One ofT 65 's starboard antennas carried away, followed moments later by the ventral antenna of the same ring. Adele guessed that the second'd been fouled by lines from the first to go, but the details didn't really matter.

The Alliance destroyers began to chatter to one another, using microwave links. These were directional, but at this distance theSissie 's sensors picked up reflections from the vessels' hulls. TheT 72 was using the squadron's current code, but Adele's equipment converted the signals as quickly as they could be read on theT 65; and as for theT 65, she was transmitting in clear.

ThePrincess Cecile 's bridge personnel were furiously busy; indeed, the whole crew probably was, though the bridge hatch was closed and dogged to limit damage if the corvette was hit. Daniel was projecting courses both through the Matrix and in sidereal space.

Adele had started to pipe the Alliance communications directly to the command console-that's the way she'd have wanted the information-but she realized in time that the captain of a warship in action had more on his mind than his signals officer did. She instead sent her own summaries as a voice message transfigured into a text crawl across the top of his screen: the captain of t72 is senior. she has ordered t65 to hold station near diamondia while t72 returns to z3 to report. t65 protests.

Moments later the image of theT 72 began to blur and fade into the Matrix. The process took nearly forty-five seconds, a matter of perfectly neutralizing the ship's electrical charge. It had to cease to be a part of the sidereal universe so that it could shift into the Matrix, becoming a miniature universe of its own.

To Adele's brief amazement, theT 65 started to shift also, even before its consort was gone. The junior captain had been more than intemperate in his discussions with his senior officer; in the RCN, at least, there'd have to be a duel after the battle if both captains survived.

She hadn't expected the junior officer to simply ignore a direct order, however. He might believe that it was properly the job of theT 72 to remain behind rather than running to safety with a message, but surely he could see that one of them should stay, couldn't he?

Adele's lips bent in a hard smile. There was a great deal of contempt among Cinnabar civilians for the quality of the Alliance Fleet's personnel. RCN officers were much more reserved in what they said about their enemies: no, the Fleet wasn't the RCN, but neither was it a collection of farmers and cowards who lacked both skill and courage.

Sometimes, however, you ran into examples that went a distance toward justifying civilian prejudices. This was a good time for that to happen. It would be nice if the rot had penetrated to the officers of Admiral Guphill's battleships as well.

Red light flushed Adele's display momentarily; she opened the incoming message, a resumption of the data stream from Zmargadine orbit. Rene had ceased transmitting when the last of the Alliance squadron inserted into the Matrix…

Adele's wands flashed. She didn't take control of the command console, just inset a pulsing red icon as before, but this time she added verbally, "Captain, this is Signals. Alliance warships are extracting in the vicinity of Z3 base. I repeat, Alliance warships are extracting."

Then she drew in a deep breath and added, "Daniel, Admiral Guphill is back."

Daniel's PPI quivered as the Diamondia Squadron sorted itself in orbit. TheLao-Tze was still climbing out of the gravity well. Her class had been marginal for thruster power when they were built, and rebuilds since that distant date had inevitably increased her mass without adding power. In sidereal space she was no more sluggish than a later battleship, though, and she had the reputation of being notably handy in the Matrix.

He moved the icon from Adele to the lower right quadrant of his screen and opened it. High resolution images of the Alliance squadron began to cycle in his display. They were marvelously sharp: that was thePleasaunce, because her outriggers were shorter by three frames than those of her near sister theFormentera; theFormentera extracted only thirty seconds later.