David Drake: When the Tide Rises

"Yes, mistress," contritely muttered Cory, who must've heard the lash in her voice. "I, well, I want to thank you for the guidance you've given me since you came to theHermes. I know I'd never have gotten to be as good as you are, but, well, I don't think many signals lieutenants in the RCN know their jobs better than you've taught me. I think bloody few do! "

Adele frowned. "You're welcome, Cory," she said. "You were willing to learn, and you've learned very well. Very few midshipmen would've recognized that there was anything to the job besides watching the software route signals."

And from what she'd seen over the past several years, very few signals officers had any greater interest, despite having the rating.

She cleared her throat. "If I may ask, Cory," she went on, "why did you bring this up now?"

TheSissie shook as the inner airlock door opened in the forward rotunda. Though the bridge hatch was closed, stiction made the airlock's mating surfaces release with a highcling! recognizable to anybody who'd heard it once.

The riggers were coming in. Both watches had been on the hull, so it required a double cycle of the airlocks to complete the business.

"Well, mistress," Cory said in embarrassment. "I thought you'd seen the battle plan. Ah, I don't… I mean, I'm not afraid, and I know Six'll bring us through as well as anybody could. But you know, the formation…"

Adele imported the battle plan from the command console. Daniel was busy with the third in a series of projected attack boards, but the initial layout from Squadron Six was there, wedged into a sidebar on the screen.

She stared at it. "All right, Cory," she said. "I see the battle plan but I don't see the problem with it. We'll be placed between the two enemy formations. They won't be able to launch missiles for fear of hitting their own ships. Wewill launch missiles and then reinsert before they can maneuver out of their own way. It seems a simple and effective plan. Not that I could've created it, but on looking at it now. What am I missing?"

"Mistress, they'll be using their plasma cannon, we're so close," Cory said. "The big ships, maybe even the destroyers, chances are they'll make out all right. But theSissie-we don't have the hull to take the hammering they'll give us. It's nobody's fault, I don't blame the Admiral or anything. But it's… well, I've been honored to serve with you and with Mister Leary, mistress."

"Ah," said Adele. Beads on a holographic display looked the same no matter what the scale was; she hadn't considered that this time the actual range was short enough to make plasma bolts a real danger. "I take your point, Cory."

The outer airlock rang; the second rigging watch was coming in. Adele understood why Daniel wouldn't want personnel on the hull during the coming sleet of ions, though as Cory said-it probably didn't make any difference.

"And as for them not being able to use missiles themselves, mistress?" Cory went on. "That's saying they shouldn't use missiles, but I'd be surprised if one of them didn't. There'll be some missileer who's eager or scared or who just doesn't think about there being friendlies on the other side of us. They'll launch, I'd bet you."

"Thank you, Cory," Adele said. "I agree that one can usually predict that people won't think through the results of their actions. Or anything else."

She was more than usually disgusted with herself to be educated by Cory on two separate points in a short conversation. The second matter involved the behavior of normal human beings, though, and that was a subject about which Adele had never imagined herself to be a competent judge.

Hatches clinged again; the aft airlock provided a faint distant echo to the one just outside the bridge. The riggers didn't have electronic links in their suits, so Woetjans keyed the flat-plate communicator beside the lock to report, "Six, this is Rig. Both watches are ship-side, sir."

"Roger, bosun," Daniel said. "Break. Vesey, are you forward or aft, over?"

There was no response. Adele folded two of the corvette's three microwave horns into their travelling position against the hull. From what Cory suggested, they wouldn't survive in the extended position. If the hull was breached-again as Cory suggested-it didn't matter a great deal whether or not the transceivers were functional, but it was a matter of pride to Adele that she took care of her equipment.

"Sissie Five, report at once!" Daniel barked. The demand echoed itself through the PA system.

"Ship, extracting in thirty-five seconds," called Blantyre from the BDC. After a pause, "Extracting in thirty seconds."

There was no response from Vesey. Woetjans called, "Six, this is Rig. Polatti was last through the aft hatch. He says the Lieutenant told him she was going forward. Sir, I swear I didn't see any sign of her when I closed the lock and brought in the port watch. I'm going out to get her. Rig out."

"Negative, Woetjans!" Daniel said. "Do not-"

"Extracting!" called Blantyre.

"-exit the ship! Do not leave the ship!"

The inner airlock clinged open. Then Adele saw flashes of heat and her nose smelled purple as thePrincess Cecile returned to normal space, in the jaws of an Alliance squadron.

Daniel framed his display with the six attack boards and gave pride of place in the center to the Plot-Position Indicator, even though at the present instant it was a pearly blankness. The universe now bathing thePrincess Cecile 's sensors had different physical constants from those of the universe of men. The very concepts of matter and energy as the PPI understood them would be meaningless until extraction was complete.

Extraction…

For an instant, Daniel felt that his hair had turned inward to grow through his body, licking every nerve with a tongue of fire. Then theSissie was back in sidereal space and rushing straight down the throat of a dragon.

TheExpress andEscapade had extracted early again. Both wings of the Alliance squadron were swinging their plasma cannon onto those first targets blurring out of the Matrix. If the destroyers' captains survived, they'd have to expect Admiral James calling them on the carpet.

The precursor effects to an extraction didn't hint at the size of the vessel which was disturbing space-time; the Alliance ships were reacting as though the new arrivals were RCN dreadnoughts. It didn't surprise Daniel as he refined theSissie 's attack on thePleasaunce to see that theRip Waechter was launching a spread of eight missiles. The captain of the Alliance light cruiser must've ordered the attack the instant he saw that the enemy was appearing so close by; he'd lacked the time or inclination to countermand those orders when instead a pair of destroyers materialized.

"Six, I have a solution!" Borries said. "I have a solution, over!"

Daniel had a solution also, but as his finger reached for the Execute button his eye followed the projected tracks of theWaechter 's missiles overlaid on his attack board. The heavy cruiserVineta and the flagshipPleasaunce herself were already engaging the destroyers with their cannon. Quite apart from the damage plasma bolts would do, the bath of ions would prevent the targets from inserting before the missiles crossed their tracks.

"Negative!" Daniel cried as his fingers relegated the presetPleasaunce attack in favor of another of those waiting at the sides of his display. "Negative! Hold for new solution, over!"

A 20-cm plasma bolt from theFormentera hit theSissie 's starboard B-ring antenna, vaporizing it and the yards, rigging, top and topgallant sails. The corvette both jumped and slewed, slammed by the expanding fireball as well as twisting in the side-thrust transmitted through the antenna in the instant before it vanished.