With the Lightnings (44 page)

"Emer—" Daniel said. An amber bar slashed across the green telltale on his display, indicating that the channel was locked to him. He turned his head in surprise.

Adele sat at the console to his right. Her uniform was splotched with blood, brick dust, and substances Daniel couldn't even hazard a guess at.

He'd thought his own was the master unit and couldn't be overridden. That wasn't true, at least with Adele working in the same system.

"
Princess Cecile
to
Bremse
," Adele said. Her voice was perfectly calm. Anyone who'd had experience with people reacting to crises would assume she was in shock. "We are transmitting data now as we lift off. I repeat—"

She pointed a bandaged left hand to Daniel. He nodded; he was already initiating take-off sequence. Domenico had sealed the
Princess Cecile
as soon as the palace detachment boarded, so it was just a matter of bringing up pressure to the plasma motor feeds and unlocking the outriggers so they could be brought in as soon as the vessel left the water.

"—we are lifting off for safety.
Princess Cecile
out."

The motors rumbled beneath them. The
Princess Cecile
shuddered on a bubble of steam and plasma, then began to rise. She was shorter than the
Aglaia
and therefore wobbled at a higher frequency as she found her balance, but she was a lot steadier than Daniel had expected.

He grinned at Adele, then settled into his seat. His fingers moved across the console's keyboard as he set up the next step on the corvette's targeting display.

One step at a time, until they got home or went off the end of the final cliff.

Adele coughed wrackingly, doubling over in her seat to bring up orange phlegm. Her first thought was that she'd had a lung hemorrhage, but the color came from the brick dust she'd breathed as they shot their way out of the palace. It and the ozone generated by electromotive weapons were irritants, but she didn't think either of them would kill her.

She wiped the sputum on her sleeve and went back to work. The fabric couldn't be much filthier than before anyway.

Starships weren't stressed for high acceleration. The
Princess Cecile
lifted at less than two gravities, making flesh a burden but nothing worse. Sailors moved about, albeit a little slower than they had in Adele's library; and as for Adele, she noted with a cold smirk that many of her plumper contemporaries carried as much weight every day of their lives.

Daniel, instead of using the ship's communication system, turned his head to say, "Adele? The
Bremse
up there's laying a defensive array. Can you find the command node so we can destroy it?"

Adele put down her wands. "The constellation hasn't yet been activated, but I'm changing our identification codes to mimic those of the
Goetz von Berlichingen
. That way we'll be safe if they switch it on."

"Yes, but can you spot the command node?" Daniel said. "We can destroy it with cannon or even a missile if you can just locate it."

Adele heard in his tone the ingrained irritation of a male trying to get information from a female too dense to understand a simple question. She didn't say: "Yes, if you're stupid enough to want to commit suicide that way I can help you do it."

Instead Adele said, "If the command node is destroyed each unit of the constellation will react to any ship within range except the
Bremse
. The command node is—"

She twitched a control wand without taking her eyes away from Daniel. An object on Daniel's visual display changed from an icon distinguished only by number to a pulsing ball as red as murder.

"—here."

"Ah," said Daniel. His face was blank as he assimilated what he'd been told:
all
the things he'd just been told, including the fact that he'd acted like a fool. "Adele—Ms. Mundy. My concern isn't so much for our own safety from the defenses, as for the safety of the Cinnabar force that retakes Kostroma."

His expression was momentarily that of an older man and a very hard one. "As one most certainly will."

He swallowed, settling into a calmer state. "Is there a way we can disable the constellation before we leave the system? Even if it means risk for us. Though not suicide, if you please, not at this point."

Adele's subconscious responded with a surge of pleasure to Daniel's engaging grin. She'd frequently called people fools to their faces. She didn't recall ever before meeting someone who analyzed the criticism, then accepted it because it was valid. Certainly no men had done so in the past.

"If you can put me aboard the node," Adele said, "I can disable it. I can make it change sides, if I've the time."

"
Bremse
to Kostroman vessel
Princess Cecile
," growled the communicator. "Orbit at thirty thousand kilometers. Do not leave that assigned level or we'll destroy you. Over."

A different officer was handling the
Bremse
's communications now. This one was female and had an upper-class Pleasaunce accent. Senior personnel had been recalled to duty when chaos broke out in Kostroma City.

Daniel bobbed his head as he considered. "Tell them we acknowledge but we're having trouble with our reaction mass shutoffs," he said.

He waggled a finger toward his console. The four quadrants of the main display were now split into separate screens which he kept in the corner of his eye. "Actually, the fuel feed's about the only part of the drive system that seems to be working to spec. Three of the plasma nozzles should have been replaced a couple maintenance cycles ago."

"
Princess Cecile
to
Bremse
," Adele said. "We acknowledge your orders. We'll orbit at thirty thousand kilometers as soon as we've repaired the reaction mass shutoffs.
Princess Cecile
over."

The
Bremse
was laying a defensive array at 44K kilometers above Kostroma's surface, geosynchronous level. Adele didn't doubt that the cruiser was willing to destroy a Kostroman vessel that disobeyed its orders, but there were other things going on that might well seem more pressing to the Alliance officers.

Killing a ship was a complicated business. Very different from squeezing a trigger and seeing a face swell, eyes bulging and the first spray of blood from the nostrils . . .

"
Bremse
to
Princess Cecile
!" the communicator said. "You'd better stabilize where we tell you, you wog morons, or you'll be lucky if enough of you gets home that your families can breathe you!
Bremse
out."

Daniel's expression was one that Adele wouldn't have liked to see had she thought it was directed at her. "The node is big enough to board?" he asked. His left hand on the keyboard was making corrections to the targeting display.

"Big enough for a dozen technicians at once," Adele said. "I've checked the design drawings. There'll be a programming crew aboard it at least until the whole array is deployed. A boat can take me there using the codes that the shuttles for the work crews use."

"How big a party do you want?" Daniel asked. "We don't have combat suits, though."

Adele sniffed. "There'll be three or four Alliance programmers," she said. "Give me somebody to drive the boat and another sailor or two to keep the programmers out of my way."

Daniel nodded. His finger touched the general call button. "Woetjans, Barnes, Dasi, and Lamsoe to the bridge," he said, his voice syncopating itself through speakers in every compartment.

Adele noticed distortion. The
Princess Cecile
, though clean and fit-looking, wasn't as tight a collection of systems as it might have been if its present crew—communications officer included—had longer to work on the vessel.

"And the
Bremse
?" Daniel asked. "Can you . . . ?"

"I doubt it," Adele said. "As a safety feature there's a lockout chip common to the
Bremse
and every mine of the constellation. It's an infinite nonrepeating sequence, not a code I can break. The system won't even permit me in the node to command a mine to attack the
Bremse
so long as the lockout's in place."

The four sailors came at a shambling run. The weight of continued acceleration showed in the taut lines of their faces, but not in the speed of their arrival. Woetjans didn't even look strained.

"You're to take Ms. Mundy in the cutter to track Kay-Kay One-Four-Three-Oh," Daniel said with perfect enunciation and economy. "That's the command node of the defensive constellation under construction. There'll be Alliance personnel aboard, but they shouldn't expect trouble. In any case, you'll protect Ms. Mundy and provide her with any assistance she requires. Do you understand?"

Woetjans grinned broadly. "Yes
sir
," she said.

"You'll launch when we're opposite the planet from the
Bremse
," Daniel said to the bosun's mate. "That's about seven minutes, so don't waste time."

Adele raised herself from her seat, trying not to stagger under the strain of her added mass. Without comment Barnes and Dasi stuck hands under her elbows and lifted her with easy grace.

Lamsoe murmured, "Proud to be chosen, mistress. There's always something happening where you are."

"It's an occupational hazard for librarians," Adele said with a feeling of amusement that surprised her.

They started down the corridor to one of the circular stair towers. The sailors continued to carry Adele though she dabbed her feet to the deck in stubborn determination not to seem completely helpless.

"Baylor to the bridge," the general call ordered in Daniel's voice.

"I've never worn an atmosphere suit," Adele warned. "I'll need help putting it on."

She'd need help with more than that, and she'd need luck as well. Thus far she'd had both.

And the greatest luck in Adele Mundy's life was that now for the first time she
did
have help.

Chief Baylor entered the bridge. He'd barked his left knuckles; his right arm to the elbow was a black smear of congealed lubricant; and his expression was furious enough to face down a fox terrier.

"Sir," he said, "I've got fucking work to do so I'd really appreciate you getting to the fucking point!"

"You've become Attack Officer," Daniel said calmly. "That's your console."

He pointed to the navigator's console, empty since Adele's departure. "I've programmed the first two missiles but you'll launch any others. There are others, I hope?"

"Oh," said the warrant officer. "I—"

Baylor seated himself. He typed with the power of somebody driving nails expertly: far harder than necessary for the job but absolutely precise. The PPI switched to a targeting screen, similar in gross essentials but vastly different in detail and the keyboard functions associated with it.

"Well, not so very different from ours," he said with something short of approval.

Baylor looked back at Daniel. "Sir," he said, "we've got ten missiles aboard, all of them in the ready magazines now and I think they'll at least launch. Those wog cretins just let them sit in the grease they got them in from the factory. I swear! They're Pleasaunce built, though, and they seem to power up all right."

He shook his head. "They're low-acceleration models. Seven gee max. I wish to God we could've transferred some of my babies from the
Aglaia
before, before . . ."

The
Princess Cecile
was over Kostroma City at this point in its orbit. A quadrant of Daniel's display showed an enlarged view of the scene below. Dawn had broken over the capital, but fires blazed beneath trails of smoke. Explosions flashed in the Floating Harbor.

A warship on the surface fired plasma cannon in quick, nervous flickers. So far as Daniel knew there was no real enemy for the bolts to engage.

"Yes," Daniel said. "I regret that too."

If
he'd
been wishing for things, he'd have started some distance beyond a chance to transfer missiles between ships. That was an all-day job and they didn't have the heavy equipment to carry it out besides. He knew, though, that Baylor was mourning the loss of what were "his babies" in every sense but the biological.

Baylor gave him a faint, thankful smile. "I guess worse things happen in wartime, sir," he said. He reached for the commo key as he added, "I'll put Massimo in charge at the tubes. She's a good man. I got a good team."

Message traffic was passing from the
Bremse
to the ground at an increasing level of frustration, and from the ground to the
Bremse
with frequent contradictions caused by a complete collapse of the civilian communications net. Since the Alliance forces hadn't yet built an alternative net, commo was unit to unit rather than through a multilateral system which could analyze the data from all points simultaneously.

Locking bolts withdrew with a clang. The cutter spurted clear of the hold. The
Princess Cecile
shuddered in reaction. Bolts rang again to reseal the corvette.

Daniel wondered if the confusion in Kostroma City was a result of something Adele had done but hadn't bothered to mention, or if it was a chance result of the burgeoning disaster. People talked about the fog of war, but the truth was a much harsher thing. In war a fire swept across all sources of information. Equipment failed and humans, trying to balance dozens of competing crises, lost them all in crashing shards.

"I thought you'd be handling the Attack Board, sir," Baylor said. His hands were spread across the virtual keyboard. He faced the display with an expression as solidly determined as the nose of one of his beloved torpedoes.

Daniel looked at him. The missileer was setting up course data based on possible locations of target and tube. The courses would have to be refined when it came time to actually launch, but having a setup in the computer made that simpler by a matter of seconds or even minutes.

"If shooting starts, chief," Daniel said, "I'm going to have my hands full with the ship. If things go better than I expect, we'll just wait here for the cutter to return."

A particularly bright flash lit Daniel's display. When he turned to view the image directly the Floating Harbor was completely shrouded by steam. The fusion bottle of one of the moored vessels had failed catastrophically.