When the Tide Rises: Chapter Thirteen

En route to Churchyard

    Daniel rose from the Ladouceur's command console. The course was set and the cruiser's systems were operating within parameters. Within fairly reasonable parameters, in fact; the ship was in better condition than there'd been any reason to expect. The Financier Class's design failings seemed to have been mitigated by very solid construction standards. The ships were a peacetime series, of course.

    "Captain, this is Dart Six," said Borries, the Chief Missileer. "I'm in Bay B as in boy. I think you better come look at this, over."

    "On the way, Dart Six," said Daniel. "Break. Lieutenant Liu–"

    The Ladouceur's current XO, now on duty in the BDC. Wai Liu was a young man from the Cinnabar protectorate of Rochefort. He'd joined the Bagarian service before the Sissie's arrival. His astrogation was a trifle better than Cory's, but Daniel wouldn't trust him in a fight till he'd seen a different side of the fellow than he had thus far.

    "–I'm going down to the missile bays. You have the conn, but inform me if anything unusual happens. Six out."

    Liu's "Roger, Six," sounded bored. That was legitimate, though Daniel hoped he'd  react quickly enough if anything did crop up.

    He grinned. Adele didn't bother to look up as Daniel trotted past the signals console, but an image of his face grinned from the top of her holographic display. Whether or not Liu kept him on top of events, Adele would.

    Daniel turned into a Down companionway; the missile bays were on B and C Decks, while the Bridge was on G, the dorsal spine. Hogg was following him for no particular reason; their soft boots syncopated one another; like brushes on a drumhead, they drew whispers up and down the armored tube.

    They didn't meet anyone in the companionway; the Ladouceur was undercrewed. Daniel wouldn't pretend to have full confidence in the three-quarters of the complement who hadn't served with him before, but he was sure most of them would be all right once they'd had time to work up under an RCN captain and RCN petty officers. He could only hope he'd have that time for working up, but he kept reminding himself that the enemy personnel in this cluster were at any rate no better.

    The Ladouceur's squadron-mates consisted not only of the Independence and DeMarce, but also eleven light vessels of the Bagarian Navy. These last were tramps of the sort that handled intra-cluster trade in peacetime; the largest was 1,000 tons, and two barely displaced 300.

    They weren't even sparred heavily enough to serve as fast couriers, so under normal circumstances they had no real military purpose. Each could carry between three and six missiles, however, strapped to the outer hull. Working the sails would be even more difficult than usual, and the smaller vessels had been forced to lift with the missiles' reaction mass tanks empty. They'd been filled in orbit by the Ladouceur, whose thrust to weight ratio allowed her to rise from a gravity well carrying much greater incremental mass.

    The B Deck hatch was latched open; rust streaked the mating surfaces. Daniel frowned, wondering if Pasternak had found time to check the seal of the cruiser's internal subdivisions. If the hull were damaged in action–hard maneuvering could open seams, let alone the risk from enemy missiles and ions–everybody aboard would have to shift into suits unless the damage could be isolated.

    Daniel gave a wry smile. Well, in the event they might have to wear suits. Pasternak had enough on his plate in the Power Room. He couldn't be faulted if he let his duties as Chief of Ship go by the boards for the time being.

    B Deck was bulk storage, which included two of the cruiser's four missile magazines. Crew members called to one another in a parallel corridor, their voices gibberish from echoes. The air on this level smelled of old food, old lubricant, and the faint bite of ozone.

    Daniel's makeshift missile boats didn't have the targeting capacity or maneuverability to be useful in a ship-to-ship action, but they could dip into Churchyard's atmosphere and launch plasma missiles at ships tied to the quays. The base certainly had anti-starship defenses, but only in limited quantity: missiles capable of ripping ships from orbit cost more than these ragged tramps did. The Alliance commander couldn't safely expend them on light craft while three large warships waited just out of range.

    The Bagarian squadron was to rendezvous off the unnamed seventh planet of the Churchyard system, a gas giant with no moons to confuse officers who weren't used to trying to identify other ships in vacuum. Daniel would marshal his little flock there, then make the short intra-system hop to Churchyard. His missile craft would bombard the harbor until the Alliance commander either surrendered or sent his warships up to fight.

    Daniel grinned. He didn't expect the Alliance ships to fight. If they did, though, he couldn't think of a better way to give his raw squadron a stunning victory that would boost its confidence.

    The internal hatch to B Magazine had been slid partly open. It was long enough that thirty-foot missiles could be dollied out and rolled to the aft magazines in event the tubes fed by B Magazine were out of service. Daniel hoped he'd never have to do that, because even with a crack crew it was a recipe for death and injury every time the ship changed the amount or angle of thrust. He'd try if he had to, of course.

    The light craft carried a total of forty-six plasma missiles. The squadron's three heavy ships had only partial loads of High Drive missiles, so Daniel had split the remaining twenty-four bombardment weapons among them as reloads–half on the Ladouceur and six each on the converted freighters. It seemed to him that he had a good chance of destroying the Cluster Command's remaining ships, and an even better chance of frightening Churchyard Base into surrender.

    Except–

    "Captain," said Borries, standing in the hatchway and looking down the corridor, "we got a problem."

    The Pellegrinian had a long face. He'd look like he was in mourning on the happiest day of his life, but this wasn't that day. "I been looking at these half-assed missiles we took aboard on Pelosi."

    "Right, Borries," Daniel said, following as the missileer stepped into the magazine. A Bagarian spacer, originally from Mistral–Daniel couldn't remember his name, Robert Canedo or Caneta he thought–was already inside. "The reloads for the bombardment fleet."

    The magazine was a wilderness of steel and hard lines. It'd originally been painted white, but generations of oil film and the friction of missiles, dollies, and spacers in hard suits had left it in layered gray shades picked out by patches of rust.

    To its deck was welded a double rank of missile cradles, twelve and twelve, but only the forward set was filled. Borries had removed several plates from the round on the inboard end. Mechanics' lights glared into the openings, and tools littered the deck.

    "I didn't realize these missiles had access ports," Daniel said, surprised at this level of effort from David Power. Captain Burke's plans didn't include such refinements, and nothing Daniel had seen on Pelosi would've caused him to complicate a project he was giving to the locals.

    "They do if you got a diamond saw," said Borries grimly. "Now, don't worry, Captain, I'll weld it back neater'n it was. Which won't be hard."

    He gestured to the spacer with him. "Go on, Canedo," he said. "Tell the cap'n what you told me."

    "Well, it's like this, sir," the fellow said nervously. "Look, I don't want you to think I'm not loyal to the Bagarian Republic, sir?"

    Daniel frowned. He wouldn't have spoken, but Canedo had stopped with a statement his tone turned into a question. He obviously wasn't going to proceed without encouragement.

    "I don't expect loyalty to the Bagarian Republic, Canedo," Daniel said. "I can assure you that the spacers I brought here in the Sissie aren't loyal to the Bagarians."

    "Too right, sir," said Borries with an enthusiastic nod.

    And true of me as well, spacers, Daniel thought, but it wouldn't do to say that. Aloud he continued, "I do expect you to do your job to my satisfaction and to the satisfaction of my officers. If you can manage that, then the Bagarian Republic is going to get a lot more than its money's worth out of you. Now, tell me what you know."

    "Well, you see I'd been a gunner's mate on the Vickie Lu when the wogs grabbed her on Schumer's Pisspot," Canedo said. "The wogs let common spacers enlist, but since I had a rating they kept me behind barb wire even though I wasn't an Alliance citizen. After you lot arrived, though, Ship and Rig went through the camp and pulled out folks they figured were okay. And I am, sir, I swear it!"

    "Go on," Daniel said, smiling faintly. He'd made Woetjans and Pasternak responsible for crewing the heavy ships of the squadron. He had enough to do himself without worrying about the crew situation unless somebody brought it to him as a problem. His senior warrant officers were too competent and too proud to do that.

    "Well, you see," Canedo said, "what the wogs put us prisoners to doing was making these missiles–"

    He rang his knuckles on the partially opened round beside him.

    "–if you want to call 'em that. And sir, there's some of the crew from the Vickie Lu as think the sun rises outa Guarantor Porra's butt every morning. I told Mister Borries that–"

    "He's got missile training, cap'n," Borries said eagerly. "I'd like to make him my striker, if you don't mind."

    "Granted," Daniel said. "Go on, Canedo."

    "Well, Mister Borries thought we oughta take a look for ourself. And we did."

    "Take a look here, Cap'n," Borries said, leaning into the access port and pointing with his right index finger. Canedo reached in through the next opening to the left and lifted the trouble light so that it better illuminated the feed line to which the missileer was pointing. "Just look at this!"

    The line was extruded from light metal; not as good as copper or the high-density polymer which RCN missiles would use, but adequate for the present purpose. The lines wouldn't have time to fracture from vibration in the intended use.

    Somebody'd crushed this one flat in the middle with a pair of heavy pliers. No water would flow through it to feed the thruster.

    "I figure they're all like this, sir," Borries said. "This or something else as bad. Only I wanted to tell you before I started taking the rest of 'em apart."

    "You did right, Borries," Daniel said. "And you did very well, Canedo."

    After a momentary pause he said, "You can fix them? I'll tell Pasternak to give you technicians if you like."

    "I guess Canedo and me can do it, Cap'n," the missileer said. His expression didn't look happy so much as it did anguished, but Daniel was willing to bet it was meant for a smile. "I'll tell Ship if we need help, then."

    "Then I'll get out of your way, Borries," Daniel said, turning on his heel. As he started back toward the bridge, began whistling, "When I was a young man, young man, young man…."

    He could either become furious at Master David Power, whose fiddle had saved him a few hundred florins in labor charges and bid fair to cost his nation a major victory; or he could smile cheerfully because his make-do crew was shaping up so nicely.

    He was Daniel Leary: he smiled.

    "Then I met a young girl, young girl, young girl…." he whistled.

 

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Above Churchyard

    Adele sat poised at her console. Because she used her own data unit as an interface, she wasn't handicapped when she changed from the Sissie's recently upgraded electronics to the cruiser's much older systems.

    Realistically, differences in displays, input devices, and operating systems never slowed her down when she was on the track of information; not to a degree that any onlooker would've noticed it. Still, she was a conservative person and would rather have things the same than not.

    "Preparing to extract from the Matrix in thirty seconds," Liu announced from the BDC.

    Adele felt the quiver of charges building as the Ladouceur neared the end of its short hop from the outskirts of the Churchyard System. The Independence and DeMarce had reached the rendezvous without difficulty; that was almost a given with Vesey and Blantyre plotting the courses. Only seven of the eleven light craft had arrived, though Daniel seemed to think they'd be sufficient. She smiled: indeed, he'd said he'd be amazed to find as many as nine.

    Adele smiled more broadly; almost as broadly as what an ordinary person would call a smile. One change that she didn't in the least regret was being adopted into the RCN family. There were costs to the association, physical and mental ones both, but Daniel Leary and the RCN had saved her life. More important, they'd given her a reason to live.

    "Extracting-g-g…," moaned a voice dehumanized by the process of returning to the sidereal universe. The interior lights sharpened, the displays swelled to life now that the Ladouceur wasn't in a bubble universe shut off from every other human artifact, and the five turrets squealed as Sun slewed them toward real targets.

    Adele didn't care what Sun did or Daniel did, and for that matter she didn't care very much about whether a missile was about to blast the Ladouceur into dust and ions. Other people, friends and enemies alike, had duties for which they were responsible; that was fine. Adele Mundy would focus on her duty, which right now involved learning everything possible about Alliance ships on and about Churchyard.

    The Ladouceur was 103,000 miles out from the planet and displaying very little proper motion to it. Daniel had placed them a little east to the perpendicular of Hafn Teobald, the Alliance naval base, so that Churchyard's rotation would keep the target in view for the longest possible time even if the cruiser didn't maneuver.

    That was Daniel's problem; Adele's first act was to tap into the planetary network of weather satellites. That gave her day and night coverage of Churchyard's surface at a level of detail that was more than adequate for the present purposes. The system could be shut down but probably wouldn't be, at least not before she'd found another path to continuous surveillance.

    With the future provided for, Adele surveyed the ships in harbor below. That hadn't been her first priority because she knew it'd be Daniel's. He was better at optical identification than she was anyway. In this case, the electronic signatures would only confirm what the captain'd already learned.

    Three freighters, one of them gutted for use as a warehouse and accommodation ship, were anchored parallel to the harbor's northern shore. In two of the six slips on the south side were a large modern destroyer, the Cesare Rossarol, and the missile boat S81.

    The latter was a 300-tonne vessel built to do the job for which Daniel had jury-rigged the lighter vessels in his squadron. It could carry two High Drive missiles on external mountings, and unlike the Bagarian country craft, it had full targeting equipment.

    Adele'd seen enough space battles by now to know that a pair of missiles wasn't a threat to a ship which could maneuver normally; doctrine recommended use of missile boats in squadrons of six or twelve, making possible a volley which could in theory overwhelm the defenses even of a battleship. In the present case, S81's missiles weren't mounted. A quick dip into her electronic log suggested that General Auguste, the Commander of Cluster Forces, had been using the ship as a courier to and from Conyers.

    The remainder of the Bagarian squadron appeared in bits and pieces–the Independence and a moment later the DeMarce, then three light craft, followed by two more light craft. Adele focused on entering Hafn Teobald's the main database now that she was sure there were no orbiting Alliance warships, but she was glad to note on an inset that Cazelet, using the otherwise-empty console across the compartment, was keeping track of friendly vessels.

    Surely the final two ships couldn't have gotten lost in the course of an intrasystem transit, could they?

    Of course they could. Some of the Bagarian captains had as little astrogation experience as Signals Officer Mundy did, and they were using hardware which hadn't been checked ahead of time by Commander Leary. But with luck the ships weren't permanently lost; and anyway, Daniel'd make do. Daniel always made do.

    Adele found the information she needed and forwarded it to the command console. Over a two-way link she said, "Captain, the base has a triple launcher for anti-starship missiles. There're three more missiles to reload in a bunker attached to the launching pit. The launcher's active, and it's isolated from the headquarters communications system that I can enter. I'm afraid that I'm not able to attack the launcher. Ah, electronically."

    She stumbled over the thought, remembering the pit on Dunbar's World that she'd shot her way into. That wouldn't be possible here either, because the Ladouceur couldn't land close enough to permit a ground assault.

    Razor ribbon singing as bullets cut the tensioned strands.

    Osmium pellets ricocheting from posts like streaks of neon light.

    Faces framed in her sight picture.

    "Signals, are you all right?" Daniel's voice was saying. "I repeat, what's the status of the two warships, over?"

    "S-sorry," Adele said. "Sorry, Daniel, I…. It doesn't matter, sorry. The S81 is fully crewed and was scheduled to lift for Conyers within the hour with dispatches. The Rossarol has only a skeleton crew though it seems to be fit for operations as soon as it's manned. Over."

    She'd remembered to close her speech according to RCN protocol. Good, good… but that didn't make up for the way she'd drifted into nightmare when people were depending on her.

    Though Adele's left side occasionally knotted where the bullet'd hit her during the assault on Dunbar's World, the physical twinge wasn't the worst damage she'd received that night. Everything has costs, and the benefits of being part of the RCN family were worth everything she'd paid thus far–and everything she'd continue paying to the day she died.

    She smiled faintly. She'd heard Sissies bragging about how Mistress Mundy'd cleared the missile pit, putting two rounds through the same eye of every member of the launch crew who'd dared to show himself. That was pretty much true, as a matter of fact.

    And no one except possibly Daniel suspected what it cost her in the hours before dawn to have done that. To have done so many things of that nature, because they were part of the job.

    Not complaining was part of the job too, at least as she saw it. She was Mundy of Chatsworth.

    "Roger, Signals," Daniel said calmly. "Link me to all ships in the squadron soonest and inform me when you're ready, over."

    Adele frowned. Does he think I'm too worn out to do my job? Aloud she said, "You're connected to the whole squadron as soon as you speak the keyword, Captain Leary. Would you prefer that I manually connect you? Out."

    She meant, "Over." It was all childish nonsense anyway, boys playing games.

    "Squadron, this is Squadron Six," Daniel said instead of–pointlessly–answering her. "I'm sending the approach information and order of attack to the bombardment force."

    Adele transmitted his words on 15.5 KHz, the frequency to which the whole squadron was supposed to be tuned, as well as via individual laser heads aimed at each of the other vessels. She could guarantee that a modulated laser painted each Bagarian ship, but in her wildest dreams she didn't imagine that all of them had working receivers or that they'd bothered to turn them on if they did.

    "The initial order of attack," Daniel continued, "is Columbine, Forsyte 14, and Stager Brothers. These leading vessels will rendezvous with the Ladouceur, Independence, and DeMarce respectively after they've launched their initial loads. Clinton and Burke Trading, wait for further orders. Are there any questions, over?"

    "Who the hell do you think you are to be giving me orders, boy?" said a voice. Adele identified it as Captain Michael Stout of the Stager Brothers, a 600-ton tramp whose plating rattled at anchor. She slugged the information to the command console in text. "I'll go in when I decide I'll go in. Out!"

    "Stager Six, this is Squadron Six," Daniel replied mildly. "I sincerely hope you'll attack when your orders from the commanding admiral direct you to attack, Captain Stout. Your vessel is within 18,000 miles of the flagship, and our guns are trained on you. Do you understand, over?"

    There was a hiss of static across the shortwave spectrum: the 800-ton Columbine was braking hard with her High Drive to drop her into Churchyard's gravity well. Almost simultaneously the squadron's two missing ships reentered the sidereal universe.

    Adele fed the information to the command console and went back to eavesdropping on the increasingly panicked Alliance HQ. The personnel on duty were beginning to realize what was happening. It wasn't her place to judge, but Adele allowed herself a tiny smile.

    Things seemed to be going according to plan.