When the Tide Rises: Chapter Eleven

Above Dodd's Throne

    The process of extraction, so unpleasant if Adele had time to think about it, passed her unaware or at least unconcerned when she was busy. The Ladouceur's extraction above Dodd's Throne made Adele very busy.

    The planet, sunlit from the Sissie's present position, was an unattractive yellow-orange lump. The Sacred Independence was already in normal space, 147,000 miles from the Princess Cecile and rather closer than that to the planet. Another ship hung in a free-fall orbit some 57,000 miles above the planetary surface. Ordinarily ships held 1 g to simulate gravity, but Rene'd warned Adele that Dodd's Throne might be an exception because it wouldn't be possible to replenish reaction mass upon landing.

    Rene was a clever young man, and he learned quickly.

    The orbiting ship was… "Daniel, the unfamiliar vessel is the freighter Moore County out of Rodham," Adele said. She'd keyed the command channel manually, which meant she should've called him Captain; or perhaps Admiral? Well, they all knew that she'd meant no disrespect; and she was in a hurry. "It's just lifted with a cargo of holographic entertainment centers from Mine Compound 73, which appears to be the trading rendezvous on Dodd's Throne. It's not a guardship, and there doesn't appear to be a guardship. Over!"

    "Acknowledged, Signals," Daniel's voice said coolly. "Over."

    She'd put too much emphasis on "over" because she was embarrassed at calling Daniel by his name in public. Will I never get it right?

    Another ship appeared, the Generalissima DeMarce. Blantyre was nearly a minute behind schedule, but she'd brought her charge even closer than the 21,000 miles above the planet where Daniel had extracted the Ladouceur.

    Adele's wands assembled and analyzed data from Dodd's Throne, then collated the results and transmitted them as a text block to Daniel's display. "Captain," she said, "there are six Bagarian ships on the ground at MC 73, which I've highlighted. They're exchanging cargo with two Pleasaunce-registered ships, the Vieux Carree and Babanguida. The Alliance ships each have two single 10-cm guns, but they don't appear to be manned at present, over."

    "Roger, Signals," said Daniel. He didn't sound excited, but Adele heard a quiver of hopeful enthusiasm in those few syllables. Perhaps she imagined it. "Connect me with our squadron mates, over."

    "You're connected, Captain," Adele said, trying to keep her voice free of the irritation she felt at being asked to do something she'd set up within seconds of extraction. And within seconds of the DeMarce's extraction, of course, but that delay wasn't her fault.

    She'd chosen the 20-meter short-wave frequency rather than laser or microwave links. SW transmissions were easy to intercept, but Adele didn't trust the personnel or equipment of the converted merchantmen to pick up the tight-beam communications she preferred.

    "Squadron, this is Squadron Six," Daniel said. "The pair of 5,000 ton freighters on the planet below–"

    He transmitted a map file marked with the location of MC 73. He hadn't bothered to ask Adele to create it for him as some captains might've done.

    "–are Alliance-owned and therefore legitimate prizes. I want both of you to take your ships down, secure the enemy vessels, and put prize crews aboard. There shouldn't be any need for violence since we've caught them without hope of escape. Remember, this is about making us all rich, not about killing people. Do you understand, over?"

    While she gave Daniel her partial attention, Adele monitored communications among the merchant vessels. None of them–including the Moore County–seemed to have the slightest awareness, let alone concern, regarding the warships' arrival.

    "I bloody well won't be doing that, Leary!" Seward snapped back immediately. "There's no proper harbor down there, just bare rock that's bound to be irregular. It's not safe for a ship the size of the DeMarce. And just what do you propose to do while we're on the ground, can you tell me that, over?"

    "The Ladouceur will be in orbit making sure no one surprises us on the ground the way we're about to surprise the Vieux Carree and Babanguida," Daniel said. He sounded calm, almost bored. "Break. Captain Hoppler, do you see your way clear to obeying orders, over?"

    The blue glint of the Independence's High Drive brightened, dragging a hiss across the short-wave spectrum. "Why yes, of course, Admiral," Andreas Hoppler said with studied nonchalance. "Newbern is a real planet, not a spherical soup-bowl like Kostroma where my colleague comes from. I'm used to landing on solid ground. I'm setting down now. Guard us well, Admiral. Hoppler out."

    "Squadron Six, this is DeMarce Five," announced Midshipman Blantyre, who'd presumably awarded herself the first lieutenant's call sign according to RCN protocol. "I'm ready and willing to bring her in, sir. As you know, I've got hard-surface experience, over."

    Is that true? Adele thought. She started to bring Blantyre's record up as a sidebar on her display, then realized that written documentation wouldn't go into that level of detail. Besides, Blantyre'd said that Daniel knew she had experience. If that'd been true in any meaningful sense, Adele would've known it too.

    Blantyre was therefore not telling the truth. She was, in fact, lying in order to deceive Captain Seward who'd otherwise obstruct Daniel's wishes. Adele supposed she ought to feel good about what Blantyre was doing, since it was bringing about a good result; the dishonesty still made her lip curl.

    A smile softened what'd been a sneer of disgust. Her way of dealing with Seward would've been to offer to shoot him dead at his console if he didn't carry out Daniel's orders. Most people–Tovera was an exception–would agree that Blantyre's technique was preferable, and Adele decided that she would join the majority.

    "Yes, all right, DeMarce Five," Daniel said blandly. "Captain Seward, Lieutenant Blantyre will land the vessel in the interests of safety if you like. Command will revert to you when you're on the ground, over."

    "I'll land the bloody ship, Leary!" Seward said. His High Drive already glared with braking thrust. "I don't need a brat who's still got her milk teeth to pilot my ship for me. But I want you to know that it's dangerous–though not for you up in orbit, of course! DeMarce out!"

    Adele kept real-time inserts of the Ladouceur's companions on the upper register of her display. The Independence was already deep in the atmosphere. Even without expanding the image of Hoppler's ship, she could see it was wrapped in a shroud of rainbow ions as its plasma thrusters took over from its High Drive.

    "Adele, can you connect me with the ships on the ground?" Daniel asked quietly over a two-way link. "I want to warn them not to resist, over."

    "Yes, of course," Adele said, adjusting her wands almost without thinking about it. "I can't guarantee that anybody will be manning the signals suite, of course, but if we use the 17-meter emergency frequency it should trip the ships' intercom circuits also. That should rouse somebody."

    She tried to expand Daniel's real-time image on her display. Her attempt failed, though she wasn't sure if it was a problem with the command–she was using her personal data unit as an input device, as usual–or if the console she was using had a malfunction. Instead, she looked at Daniel directly.

 

---

 

    Though the Ladouceur wasn't large even for its class, a cruiser's bridge was still far more spacious than that of the Princess Cecile. The command console sat in the middle of the circular compartment; by rotating on its axis, the captain could face any quarter. Eight junior positions surrounded it with the primary operator's back to the bulkhead. Because Adele's display was live, she leaned to the side to look past. It took her a little aback to see that Daniel was staring directly at her already.

    "Daniel," she said, still using the link. The buzz of the High Drive and the whir/skree/clank of the various systems operating within the cruiser's steel hull made it impractical to talk unaided, even when both parties were in the same compartment. "Would it really be safe for Blantyre to land on rock? That is a dangerous business, isn't it?"

    Daniel shrugged. "It could have its moments," he said. "Thrust reflected between a solid surface and the hull can set up a standing wave if you're not careful. But there's eight ships on the ground now, Adele, and I don't believe that the Bagarian Cluster is that thick with master pilots."

    He cleared his throat and grinned. "I'm just as pleased that Seward decided to take over the job himself, though. All Blantyre's experience has been on simulators, and those were emulating the Sissie. A 5,000 ton freighter is quite different–and I'm afraid much more different than Blantyre would realize until she started down."

    Adele nodded in understanding. It hadn't been a bluff, exactly–Blantyre really would've tried to bring the DeMarce in. It might've been suicidally dangerous, but that was regularly a part of being an RCN officer.

    "We'll be coming out of the shadow of the planet in ninety seconds," she said. "You'll be able speak to the ships on the ground, then. Dodd's Throne doesn't have a system of communications satellites, and though I could've used the Moore County as a transponder–"

    She smiled slightly. She was making what was for her a joke.

    "–I didn't think that was necessary."

    "Quite right," agreed Daniel; dryly, she thought. "Break. This is the IBS Ladouceur. Merchant vessels at Mine Compound 73, do not attempt to lift. Warships and troops of the Independent Republic of Bagaria have taken control of the planet. Bagarian registry ships will be examined and released, but the Babanguida and Vieux Carree will be taken to Pelosi for condemnation by a prize court."

    Daniel took a deep breath; his first since he began speaking, Adele thought. In a firm, coolly distant voice he added, "Vieux Carree, shut down your plasma thrusters. If you lift off the ground, you will be infallibly destroyed either by the ships landing at Compound 73 or by the vessels waiting in orbit. Spacers, I'm Commander Daniel Leary of the RCN, and I assure you that you will not escape me! Over."

    Adele didn't recall hearing Daniel boast except when he did it for effect. That included the effect his heroism had on foolish young women, of course, but she supposed that was pardonable. A rational survival plan for the human species would certainly involve spreading the genes of warriors like Daniel Leary as widely as possible.

    She grinned, then made a series of quick commands that burped further information to the Alliance vessels. It wasn't anything she'd planned to do, but she had the clips in her data unit and it seemed a suitable time to disseminate them.

    "Captain," Adele said. "I transmitted excerpts from The Conquest of Dunbar's World to the ships on the surface. I thought it might add point to your threat."

    "Bloody Hell, Signals," Daniel said, but he chuckled. "They'll think I'm a posturing idiot, over."

    "Yes sir," said Cory unexpectedly from the Battle Direction Center. Adele had keyed the command channel rather than a two-way link. "But a very handsome one, sir. Five out."

    He has a sense of humor, Adele thought. Of course Cory may always've had a sense of humor, but when he first met Lieutenant Leary aboard the tender Hermes he wouldn't've had the calm courage to joke in the midst of a tense situation. Daniel might not've been able to make Cory an astrogator, but he had made the boy a man.

    Daniel cleared his throat. "Ship, this is Six," he said. Borries looked at him but Sun, the only other junior officer on the bridge besides Adele, continued to stare at his display. The gunner seemed to be willing a target to approach so that he could blast it.

    "The situation on the ground appears to have settled out peaceably, as it should've done," Daniel continued. "The two Alliance prizes've shut down their thrusters and're waiting to be boarded. Our companion vessels have landed and will take charge of them momentarily. When they've all lifted to orbit, we'll set a course back to Pelosi. You're heroes, fellow spacers, and don't think the folks in Morning Harbor won't know it! Six out."

    "Squadron Six, this is Independence Five," said Vesey. "Emergency, emergency. The crews–the non-RCN spacers–are out of control and are looting ships. Repeat, they're looting the ships, the country craft as well as the prizes. Over!"

    She was speaking through  a laser communicator. The high pitch of her voice might've been an artifact of transmission, but the words rattled out faster than Vesey ordinarily spoke.

    Adele was filtering the cruiser's internal chatter away from Daniel. She'd set outside calls to appear as a text crawl on his display. She highlighted this one in red, then copied Daniel as she replied, "Independence Five, this is Squadron. Hold for the Captain."

    "Vesey, this is Six," said Daniel. "How many men can you dispose, over?"

    "Only the twenty-five I brought with me, sir," Vesey replied, audibly calmer just for the fact of a reply. "And we don't have sidearms. Blantyre's probably the same. The crews are completely out of control, and the Bagarian officers are bloody useless! Over."

    "All right, Vesey," Daniel said. His fingers stabbed buttons, setting up equations on a pilotry screen. "Hold what you've got. If they won't listen to spoken orders, then we'll provide them with something they will listen to. Break, Woetjans? Prepare as large a party as you can trust for dismounted action. Over."

    "Aye aye, sir," said the big bosun cheerfully. She and her riggers were all aboard, though some of them still wore the rigging suits they'd need when the Ladouceur set course for home. "What can you expect from wogs, hey? Rig out."

    "Ship," Daniel resumed. "We'll begin our landing approach in thirty, that's three-zero, seconds. We're going to take charge of the situation on the ground. Six out."

    Tovera was sitting at the station next to Adele's, unused because the Ladouceur was so badly under-crewed. She took her little sub-machine gun from its case and slipped it into a shoulder holster, then looked at Rene on the jump seat of Adele's console.

    "How good a shot are you, boy?" she asked.

    "Mistress?" said Rene, straightening and trying to keep his face expressionless. "I've never used a gun."

    He flashed a glance toward Adele, but she remained silent.

    "Then you'll have to get close, won't you?" Tovera said. She giggled. "All right, boy. Stay with me, and I'll make sure you get close."

    The roar of the thrusters cut off any further discussion.

 

---

 

---

 

Mining Compound 73 on Dodd's Throne

    Daniel wasn't worried about landing in the sense of being able to get the Ladouceur safely onto the ground, but that was only half his problem: to succeed he also had to get his people out of the ship. That was going to be very difficult if the plasma thrusters had heated the rock directly beneath the ship white hot.

    He'd much rather have been doing this in the Sissie, but he wasn't and it still had to be done. And bloody hell, he didn't want to do it in the Sissie either.

    "Ship, hang on!" he warned. "This is going to be rough!"

    Instead of bringing the Ladouceur down perpendicular to the surface, Daniel angled two of his eighteen thrusters–One and Nine, the end units on the port side–outboard to induce a slight drift. That in itself wouldn't be enough to do what he wanted, but it meant that he wouldn't have to overcome the resting inertia of thirty-eight hundred tons and change. The nozzles were flared at between 73% and 76% open, greatly reducing their efficiency.

    An instant before the cruiser touched, Daniel irised the petals tight in the same motion that he slammed the throttles closed. The reaction mass already in the feed lines continued to flow for a fraction of a second, lifting the ship momentarily as she continued to edge sideways. The bow of the starboard outrigger touched, shrieking like a damned soul. It sprayed a roostertail of white sparks.

    The Ladouceur landed flat, banging and rattling. Like a ton of old iron, Daniel thought, but it was thousands of tons–and they'd landed, safely if not gracefully.

    The oleo struts hadn't collapsed. They'd scraped a hole in the starboard outrigger beyond question and the impact may've started seams as well, but the very worst that could mean was that the ship started to sink when they landed in Morning Harbor.

    After Daniel took control of matters on the ground, they'd check on the damage, then repair what they could. If quick repairs wouldn't do the job, well, they'd land on firm ground when they returned to Pelosi and sort out the problem at leisure.

    But the first order of business was to take charge here.

    The Ladouceur had entry hatches on both sides, offset toward bow and stern opposite the 4-inch turrets. Daniel switched only the starboard hatch to open, then remembered to wait an interminable thirty seconds to make sure that it did start to open. He'd brought them down bloody hard, and the usual cushion of water hadn't been there to spare the plates from torquing.

    The dogs withdrew with ringing clangs; hydraulic rams whined as they extended, driving the hatch outward to become a boarding ramp. Once the process was started, there wouldn't be a problem that Woetjans and an emergency crew with jacks and sledges couldn't cure.

    Daniel rose from his console. Hogg had slung a stocked impeller and was offering a sub-machine gun; Daniel took it without comment. The weapons were a necessary part of the business. He didn't want a fight, but he knew that when the forces of order arrived heavily armed, the forces of chaos were more likely to choose the peaceful option.

    "Six to Ship," he said. For now his commo helmet was able to transmit through the cruiser's PA system; he heard his words echoing from the A-Deck corridor and the compartments opening onto it. "Those of you in the landing party, obey your section leaders. Don't shoot unless Woetjans or I order you to, not even if you're shot at. Lieutenant Cory commands during my absense. For those of you remaining aboard, be ready for anything, but don't start it. Sun–"

    The gunner's mate, now gunnery officer, was controlling all the guns himself. He'd cranked the 6-inch turret back over the Ladouceur's stern quarter to bear on the Sacred Independence, while the lateral turrets were aimed at the Generalissima DeMarce a quarter mile off the cruiser's bow.

    If the guns fired on their present bearings, they'd toast half the Ladouceur's rigging and maybe even damage her hull. Which didn't mean Sun was bluffing, of course.

    "–I particularly mean you. Do not fire unless I personally tell you to. Now, Sissies, let's get moving! Six out."

    Adele was starting for the hatch, looking, well, dissociated. Beside her were Tovera and the Cazelet boy; Tovera had found full-sized sub-machine guns for both of them, while her small personal weapon hung in a shoulder holster.

    "Officer Mundy?" Daniel said. He barely caught the "Adele" that his tongue was starting to form. "I believe you can handle the communications duties better from your console here."

    Adele shrugged and said, "Yes, perhaps I could. I'm going to the DeMarce with my associates." She nodded to Tovera and Cazelet. "Vesey's taken over the bridge of the Independence, but it seemed to me that Blantyre could use some help. Besides, the DeMarce's commo suite is in better condition."

    "Right," said Daniel as they all turned into the down companionway. It'd be four decks, not three, to the Ladouceur's entrance hold. Tovera followed her mistress while Cazelet led. The sub-machine gun banged the boy's ribs because he hadn't snugged up the sling properly, but he was as sure-footed as a rigger on the worn steel treads.

    Adele was right, of course. Three slightly built people, two of them women, weren't going to impress a mob of spacers who'd probably already broken open the liquor cabinets as the first stage in the process of looting.

    These particular women could take charge of a warship's bridge, though, even if they had to shoot the present occupants out of the way. Daniel hoped that wouldn't happen, but he didn't trust the judgment of Captain Seward and his henchmen while they remained in control of the DeMarce's plasma cannon.

    Woetjans was forming her teams at the foot of the boarding ramp when the group from the bridge arrived. Adele set off with her companions for the DeMarce. She didn't say anything further nor look over her shoulder, though Cazelet did. The boy didn't seem frightened, but he obviously didn't know how to handle a sub-machine gun and the blankness in his eyes was probably a sign of being completely at sea.

    Daniel grinned and gave him a thumb's up. The now-Commander Daniel Leary had been just as lost many times in his life, and he wouldn't pretend he knew how matters were going to work out in the next hour or so. They'd work out better because he had people like Adele and Rene Cazelet supporting him, though. Yes, and Tovera's support too.

    "Sir, I put Barnes in charge of the section that sorts out the Babanguida," Woetjans said, turning when she heard Daniel's boots on the ramp behind her. "I figured to take the Carree, myself, all right?"

    Daniel eyed the eighty or so spacers in two straggling clumps. Fewer than two-thirds of them were former Sissies, which meant the bosun had more confidence in the Bagarians than Daniel himself might've. Woetjans was closer to the Ladouceur's personnel than her new captain'd had time to become–a truth Daniel regretted, but a truth nonetheless.

    There'd be a few Sissies staying on the cruiser. Pasternak, Woetjans' counterpart as Chief of Ship, was notable among them. You could be a first-rate spacer and still not be somebody your captain wanted to take into a fight. That was all right: Sissies were needed to leaven the hundred and fifty Bagarians aboard also.

    Each of the landing party carried a sub-machine gun or a stocked impeller, but they had lengths of pipe, rods, and knuckledusters as well. Some, even of the Sissies, couldn't be trusted with firearms; for example, Daniel hoped the impeller which the hulking Skrubas carried was unloaded. But he's seen Skrubas use the stock of an impeller, and he couldn't think of a quicker way to end a brawl than that combination.

    At least half the personnel carried rolls of cargo tape, intended to snug down objects in the holds when there wasn't time to use more complicated restraints. It had a multitude of uses aboard a starship. One use was to immobilize people who you didn't want wandering around.

    "Right," said Daniel, shuttling quickly through the options in his mind. "The country craft can wait. Barnes, Hogg and I will accompany you, if you don't mind. Now let's get going."

    He suited his action to his words by striding off in the direction of the Babanguida some three hundred yards away. Half the spacers followed him in a jostling mob; they'd never been taught to march in unison and Daniel didn't imagine it'd make them any more useful to him or to Cinnabar if they could.

    He frowned. He really must institute firearms training on a more regular basis than the rudiments that Sun and Hogg had been giving interested personnel in the entry hold on long voyages. His crews regularly saw more dismounted action than many Land Forces regiments did.

 

---

 

    The ground was a rusty slate, hard enough that thin plates cracked off under Daniel's weight. There was no sign of water or vegetation. Scores of starships had lashed the stone with their plasma thrusters; piles of trash marked the landscape and blew across it. Some pieces of printed cardboard had been here long enough to bleach white.

    Though the Babanguida was big to be trading out here in the boondocks, it was rigged with only sixteen antennas. It needed only a small crew, but it'd wallow through the Matrix. On a given voyage it'd take half again as long as ships which were better able to shift between bubble universes and take advantage of varying energy gradients.

    As Daniel approached the boarding ramp at the head of his band, a spacer carrying a double armload of women's dresses stumbled down it singing, "Come you lads of great Pelosi, lift the old song once a–"

    Daniel caught the looter by the elbow. "Hold on, my good man," he said, trying to sound cheery but firm. "Carry that back to the hold, if you will. It's the property of the Republic, not ours as individuals."

    "Who the bloody hell are you to give me orders, shithead?" the man said. He'd been drinking something with a mint flavor and enough alcohol content that his breath would've burned.

    "Wrong answer, wog," Hogg said as he reversed his impeller. He butt-stroked the looter in the belly. The fellow collapsed on his face, vomiting yellow bile and chunks of undigested meat. The dresses were of some metal-smooth cloth; they spilled across the ground with a sheen as iridescent as an oil slick.

    "Now he can't carry the loot back, Hogg," Daniel pointed out mildly.

    "Oh, the bugger was too drunk to be any use to us," Hogg said as he continued up the ramp. "Anyway, we can worry about it later."

    In the entry hold were three more spacers–all male; on the fringes of civilization women generally weren't considered sturdy enough for the work. One had an armload of entertainment modules, while his companions had piled a score of similar units on a tarpaulin which they were dragging toward the hatch.

    "Hold it!" Barnes said, stepping in front of them. "Turn around and take the crap back, boys. You been naughty."

    "Hey, who says?" demanded the Bagarian at the leading edge of the tarp.

    Dasi grabbed the fellow by the throat left-handed and lifted him off the deck. "Mister Leary says," he said. "Me and my friend say so too."

    He tapped the muzzle of his impeller against the looter's mouth. Blood splattered from a cut lip.

    The lone Bagarian dropped the modules he was carrying. Daniel pointed to him and said, "Where's the ship's crew?"

    "They, they're in the forward hold, s-sir," the Bagarian said. "It was generator sets in there, too big to carry, so we locked the crew out of the way."

    Then he said, "Who in bloody hell are you?" That wasn't a protest but rather a bleat of amazement.

    "All right, take me to the forward hold," Daniel said, ignoring the question. He looked over his shoulder. "Four of you–Asnip, Ward, Bolden and Suplinski–come with me. Barnes, police up the rest of the looters. Tape who you have to but try not to shoot them."

    "Move!" Hogg said to the Bagarian. He poked a finger into the fellow's ribs to make sure he was listening.

    Daniel could–any of the spacers with him could–find a freighter's holds in his sleep, but the Babanguida was big enough that she might well have them split along her axis as well as transversely. A guide saved searching for the correct hold. Besides, it didn't hurt when they met Bagarians on the way that one of their shipmates was leading the armed strangers.

    The guide took them to a locked accessway; half a dozen looters lay taped like chickens along their route. The hatch was stenciled F3, a complex enough designation to make Daniel pleased that he'd played safe.

    Hogg pushed hard on the latch plate. It didn't move. He backed away and presented his impeller, saying, "Want me to shoot it open, master?"

    "No, I don't think that'll be necessary," said Daniel, twisting the plate ninety degrees and then pushing it. The dogs withdrew, ringing like an ill-tuned bell chorus. In the set position the hatch could've been locked from the bridge so that personnel in the corridor couldn't break in. Daniel had very much–and correctly–doubted that the looters had been that organized.

    He'd expected the imprisoned crew to burst into the corridor when the hatch opened, but instead there was silence relieved only by the sound of somebody whimpering in the hold's chill darkness. What in heaven's name was going on?

    "Come on out!" Daniel called; his words echoed. The hold was two decks high. The hull-side cargo hatch was on the level below, and a slatted staircase led down from this portal. "This is Commander Daniel Leary of the RCN–"

    He figured that was a better claim to make under the circumstances than "Admiral Leary of the Bagarian Republic."

    –and I need to talk to your captain." If he'd been thinking ahead, he'd have asked Adele for the commanding officer's name. It was the sort of thing she learned automatically, rather like breathing.

    Nothing happened, except that the whimpering became open sobs.

    "Bloody hell!" Daniel said. "I want your captain now. Don't make me come in after you!"

    "I'm coming out," somebody called from behind one of the fusion bottles. They were electric generators, the sort of thing an outlying farm would need–or, on a fringe world like Pelosi, a rich man's home even if it were in the center of Morning City. "Don't shoot, please! I've done you no harm. Please!"

    "Great heavens, man!" Daniel blurted. "We're not going to harm you. I told you, I'm an RCN officer. You're a legitimate prisoner, but I see no reason for you and your crew to be locked up so long as we can come to an agreement. Come on up here!"

    He thought for a moment, then added as the first figure started shuffling up the stairs, "All of you come out. Why in heaven did you think you were going to be shot?"

    The captain wore a blue uniform jacket which, like the Babanguida, was cheaply made and rather the worse for wear. The pin clipped over his right breast pocket read Robinson or Robertson; the gilt had rubbed off the right side.

    "I'm Ian Robertson," he muttered without meeting the eyes of anyone in Daniel's party. Then, "If you're RCN, why're you with pirates?"

    "Buck up, Robertson," Daniel said, trying to sound jolly. The merchant captain had the right of his claim, but with luck he could be cajoled to forget the past. "I know how it seems, but a little indiscipline is easily put right. You're a legitimate prize of war. Now, we'll repatriate your crew at the earliest opportunity, but I'm sure that some of your people would rather sign on with me rather than spend weeks or even years in a prison compound."

    He looked down at the figures gathered at the base of the stairs. He could see only a dozen, which meant some were still in hiding.

    "How does it strike you?" he called to the spectators. "Who of you'd like liberal pay and the best spacers in the human galaxy for your fellows?"

    "What d'ye mean about pay?" called one of the figures below. The voice was cautious, but the concern this time was over money instead of drunken Bagarian pirates planning to cut the throats of their captives.

    This was the result Daniel'd hoped for: even the Alliance citizens in the crew were likely to be from conquered planets with no affection for Guarantor Porra. Treated well, they'd be as happy to join the Ladouceur's complement as they would to continue aboard an Alliance-registered tub like the Babanguida.

    He leaned over the railing. "Come on up and we'll discuss it like spacers," he said cheerfully. "Regular pay is eighteen ostrads a month, but you'll also take a share in the prize money. You can talk to any of the Sissies who came with me from Cinnabar about what prize money's meant in the past, and you can look at today for proof that it'll keep on in the future. While you've been slaving on this ship, my crews are going to be splitting her value in prize cash!"

    He was shading the truth and he knew it, but until these folk signed on, their welfare didn't touch the honor of a Leary of Bantry. It wasn't such a bad offer regardless. Daniel was sure–well, he was hopeful–that he could convince the Navy Minister to raise pay when the squadron returned after this triumph; if he couldn't, he'd enlist the new personnel into the RCN under his authority as commander of the Princess Cecile.

    Spacers began to shuffle up the stairs; additional figures drifted out from behind the dense lumps of fusion bottles. He'd move them all to the Ladouceur, adding those who enlisted to the cruiser's crew and confining the remainder away from temptation to take back control of their own ship. Prize crews for the two Alliance freighters required a tricky balance between Sissies and Bagarians or he'd simply be transferring the looting from Dodd's Throne to the Matrix, but with Woetjans' help it could be worked out.

    The smile Daniel gave the Alliance captain was harder than his usual expression. "Now, sir, if you and your officers will come up to the bridge with me, we'll settle details while I get back in communication with my squadron."

    "I don't understand this," Captain Robertson muttered. Now that he wasn't terrified, he was willing to complain. "We're just trading with you. If you capture us like this, there won't be any trade!"

    "Exactly, my good man," Daniel said. "People in the Bagarian Cluster don't seem to have quite grasped what war means. They're about to learn."