“I’ve kept you aboard the Sissie to avoid accidental problems,” Daniel said, glancing around the room. “Astrogator Kelburney’s giving a party to keep his crews occupied while we—”
He nodded.
“While Officer Mundy and the midshipmen assisting her, that is, provided me with the information I needed to plan the operation. You all know the trouble drunken spacers can get into.”
He grinned broadly. The crewmen broke into appreciative hoots and laughter. More spacers were entering the galley, summoned by word—and how delivered?—that the captain was holding an informal ship’s meeting and giving everyone the scoop.
“On the other hand, I thought it would be good to make sure nothing untoward was going on,” Daniel continued, “so I sent Hogg to make purchases for my private stores. He’ll report back with anything he finds interesting. And I believe Officer Mundy’s servant went out also. With my blessing.”
“With or without,” a spacer muttered. He was far enough back in the room that Adele couldn’t have seen him if she’d tried. “That one’d squirm through a cable port like a snake.”
“Yeah,” said Liebig, who’d watched Tovera in action at the Captal da Lund’s fortress. “But she’s our snake, Smokey.”
Adele munched the last of her bacon. Tovera would be amused.
“All right, sir,” said Matahurd. “We’ll follow you anywhere, you know that. But what is it we’re going to be doing?”
The cacao had cooled enough for Adele to finish the mug, though she didn’t know that doing so was any better an idea than the bacon appeared to have been. It was staying down for now, but the long-term prognosis was no more than even. She stood, needing to stretch her legs.
“Falassa depends on a dismasted heavy cruiser for its defense,” Daniel said, rising beside her. “It mounts sixteen four-inch plasma cannon in quadruple turrets and carries a quantity both of missiles and of multilaunch rockets for use against pirate cutters. We’ll eliminate her to permit the Dalbriggan forces to assault the planet proper. I’m going out in a minute to inform Astrogator Kelburney that we’re ready to lift at his convenience.”
There was silence in the galley. Sun, standing near the doorway where he’d just entered with Woetjans, said, “Yeah, all right, we can do that. But when’re we going to pay back them bastards back on Strymon, sir?”
“That’ll be our next concern, Sun,” Daniel said cheerfully. “After we’ve shown these pirates that going into battle at the side of the RCN is the shortest route to loot and victory!”
He gestured Adele to the doorway with a lift of his eyebrows. They exited together, followed by the cheers of the assembled crew.
Chapter Twenty-six
Adele clumped down the companionway between two spacers of the escort who’d been equipping from the arms locker. They looked wary, but Daniel was pleased to see that Adele was getting the hang of walking on the boot-polished steel surfaces of a warship’s interior.
He was also glad to see Lott and Tavastierna were looking after her.
“Ah, if you’d rather get some sleep, Officer Mundy,” he said, “that’s quite all right. I thought it best to see the Astrogator in person, but the meeting shouldn’t require your special expertise. Any of them.”
Adele gave him a smile that could have passed for a nervous tic. “I find it hard to predict the future,” she said. “Accurately, at any rate. I just went back to my room to dress for the occasion.”
She patted the butt of the service pistol belted over her utility uniform in an open-topped holster. Adele wore the weapon in the middle of her abdomen instead of hanging by her hip. There the holster, canted for right-hand draw, would have interfered with her personal data unit in its pocket.
“Hogg found me the holster and belt,” Adele added. “Ah, do you think it’s appropriate?”
“Indeed I do,” said Daniel. “I’m sure Kelburney will appreciate the gesture. Shall we go, then?”
Kelburney, having seen Adele shoot, would also appreciate that the pistol was more than a gesture when she carried it. Daniel had said that there shouldn’t be any difficulty, and there shouldn’t; but he agreed with Adele about the difficulties of predicting the future. He nodded to Woetjans.