Lt. Leary, Commanding by David Drake

A corridor opened through the crowd, caused in part by Dalbriggans going into the Hall ahead of the strangers. The game was over. The locals had pushed, the Cinnabars had pushed back; there was no longer any point in standing out on the porch when the real business would take place inside.

Adele stepped close and said, “They aren’t frightened.”

Daniel nodded. “Well, no more than we are,” he said with a grin. “I assure you, tossing around hydrogen charges scares all thought of sin right out of me. . . . ”

He felt his grin broaden into a sunny smile. “Well, perhaps not all thought,” he added. “Did you see the little blonde in leather dyed the color of her hair?”

“The one with the right side of her scalp shaved and the hair on the left side down to her waist?” Adele said. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did notice her. Though I obviously lack the eye of a connoisseur.”

“Let’s go!” Woetjans ordered, starting the party forward again. Hogg had stopped juggling. He slipped two of the bombs into his pockets and held the third in his left hand with his thumb though the safety ring. His grin showed he’d gotten over his ill-temper of a few minutes before.

The Hall had a cathedral ceiling forty feet high at the ridgepole. Clear panels set in the roof lighted the interior during daytime, but Daniel noted that a system of cold-discharge illumination ran along the roofbeams. Though the Hall appeared rustic, its fittings were as advanced as those of the Senate House in Xenos . . . which also held to the appearance of past times for tradition’s sake.

The Hall’s only furnishings were a curving, five-step dais at the end opposite the opening and a lectern at one side of it. A score of Dalbriggans stood at various levels of the dais, a hierarchy that both Daniel’s interests in natural history and his experience in the RCN fitted him to understand. The man alone in the center of the top row was tall, thin, gray-haired, and as surely in charge as Speaker Leary at the height of his power a decade before.

“Astrogator Kelburney,” Adele said, speaking into Daniel’s ear. She avoided using the intercom except when there was no other choice.

With the spreading nonchalance of water poured from an overturned bucket, locals entered the Hall around and behind the Cinnabars. Occasionally a Dalbriggan would join the leaders on the dais, but for the most part they stood in self-defined groupings on the open floor. At a quick glance Daniel judged about a third of those present were women, though their numbers on the dais formed a lower percentage.

A middle-aged woman in severe black, the only person Daniel saw who wasn’t armed, stood at the lectern. She spoke, her voice filling the vast room from scores of speakers hidden in the roofbeams. “Captains and officers to the front, common crew in the body of the Hall! No exceptions!”

Daniel turned his head with a smile. “Boarders,” he said. The Hall was alive with sound. “Officer Mundy goes with me, the rest of you take your places in the front of the crowd. Over.”

“Sir, I’m an officer!” Woetjans said, her face screwed tight with concern. She held the length of alloy tubing that was her weapon of choice in any circumstances that permitted it.

“Yes,” Daniel said. “And I’m your captain. Carry out your orders, Officer Woetjans.”

Those closest could hear them, but this discussion wasn’t over the intercom. Woetjans wasn’t concerned about status. She simply wanted to be beside Daniel if trouble started.

Halfway up the pillar which supported the roof at the open end was a platform holding a life-sized statue of the man at the top of the dais. It was of gold; not a significant cost increment to a spacefaring nation which could gather metals in any volume in asteroid belts, but nonetheless an untarnishable assertion. Its blue-glinting eyes were faceted sapphires.

Daniel smiled. His father hadn’t gone to quite that length, but he would certainly have appreciated Astrogator Kelburney’s gesture.

Hogg nudged Woetjans in the ribs. “Hey,” he said. “Stick by me, cutie, and I’ll let you hold one of my bombs.”

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