Lt. Leary, Commanding by David Drake

Mon touched the intercom key. When the attention call sounded, he said, “Officers to the bridge ASAP. Out.”

Mon’s words reached Adele through the helmet, through the air directly from his lips, and in a whispering echo from the ceiling speakers down the corridor. He gave her a smile as tight and sharp as the knots spun into a length of barbed wire.

“I’m supposed to handle your communications,” Adele said apologetically. “I haven’t been communicating very well.”

“I’m more interested in people doing their jobs,” Mon said, “than in them telling me about it. And right now I’m damned sure that Captain Leary feels the same way.”

Woetjans and Taley dropped through the dorsal hatch, reaching the bridge a half step before Betts arrived from his sleeping compartment in the warrant officers’ quarters. Pasternak had been in the Battle Direction Center for some reason. He came running down the corridor, the crash of his boots warning curious crewmen out of his path.

“Go ahead, Officer Mundy,” Mon said. Betts sat at his console where he could import imagery from Adele’s display, but the other officers would have to make do with their helmet visors.

“The Captal’s dwelling is under Berengian exterritorial jurisdiction,” Adele said, “just as the Cinnabar Commission is legally Cinnabar territory. That means neither the Sexburgan local government nor Admiral Torgis can legally demand access to the Captal’s compound. Furthermore, the Captal is far too important a person on Sexburga for the authorities to be willing to ignore the legalities.”

Tovera had gathered much of the background on her own, even before Daniel’s disappearance created a need for it. She apparently liked to know the power structures wherever she was.

“I’m willing to ignore legalities,” Mon said without raising his voice. He was tapping the index and middle fingers of his right hand into the opposite palm with the steady deliberation of a bell-ringer. “I’m willing to hover the Princess Cecile on top of the damned compound and let the exhaust burn it out if that’s the best way to get the captain back.”

“Damn right,” Woetjans said.

An instant later all the other officers nodded. They must know as surely as Adele did that the Navy Office would have to treat any such overt violation as piracy, to be punished by the consequent hanging of the officers and crew of the offending vessel.

“That would not be helpful,” Adele said in a tone of cold disgust. It wouldn’t necessarily be possible, either: the Captal had prepared defenses to meet just such an attack. Saying as much would only inflame the officers around her into an attitude of heroic self-sacrifice. “We need information which we won’t be able to get from a pile of slag and ashes. I—”

The code A501 flashed in red at the upper margin of Adele’s display. It wouldn’t echo on the other displays and she’d toggled off the audio cue; no one knew about it but the Signals Officer. A502 would have meant the call was from squadron command; A501 meant—

Adele locked her display and pointed a wand toward Lt. Mon. “There’s a call to the Princess Cecile from Commodore Pettin’s own console,” she said. She’d lost track of who was on watch; perhaps she herself was. “Shall I take it, or . . . ?”

Mon shook his head curtly and keyed his audio. “Acting captain,” he said without inflection. “Go ahead.”

“This is Commodore Pettin,” the speaker said. Adele might be reading irritation into Pettin’s tone, but the man was certainly not above thundering angrily at any delay in getting the acting captain. Nor was he above regretting a chance to display that righteous indignation. “I haven’t been able to raise your Mr. Leary. Can you tell me what he thinks he’s playing at?”

“No sir,” Lt. Mon said. His face, always angular, changed shape as the muscles tightened over his jaw and cheekbones. “Captain Leary proceeded to South Land via the civilian transportation which you had arranged for him, sir.”

RCN communications were normally voice-only to minimize bandwidth. That was fortunate in this case, because Mon wasn’t a good actor. His voice stayed almost flat, but the fury toward the commodore in his expression could not have been scarcely more obvious.

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