“Ground defenses,” Woetjans explained; she wriggled her finger momentarily in the hologram, disrupting the five silvery streaks which slashed up and past the vanished cutter. “One of the missile crews was quick enough and lucky enough to get home.”
She chuckled. “Not lucky enough to be home in bed when about a dozen rockets landed on their pit, though, I’ll wager,” she added.
The remainder of the Dalbriggan fleet appeared in orbit with the suddenness of raindrops spattering a dry surface. Unlike the initial attackers, these cutters had used the Matrix to greatly reduce their relative motion. Plasma thrusters flared, braking them down to Falassa’s surface.
“See the antennas come down already?” Woetjans demanded in a mixture of envy and delight. “They had their riggers topside when they transitioned. There’ll be a empty few berths tonight or I’m a virgin.”
The bosun shook her head and added, “But God love me, mistress, what spacers these bastards are!”
The guardship, wrecked beyond repair but still mostly complete, passed through the image area. Several of the gun turrets were intact. The plasma cannon had been elevating at the moment of the Princess Cecile’s attack; Adele noted with surprise that now the weapons were lowered and realigned with the guardship’s axis. That meant that portions of the Hammer’s crew and armaments were in full working order.
Adele highlighted the guardship in red, using a flick of her wands instead of poking her finger through the image. “Isn’t it dangerous to leave the Falassans that way?” she asked. “Couldn’t they shoot?”
The bosun’s eyes narrowed. “Damn if I’d want an Alliance cruiser where the Hammer is,” she said, “but I’d guess it’s a matter of local rules. They could make themself unpleasant, but they couldn’t change anything much—not with their central fire control screwed for sure. They’re being quiet so somebody’ll take them off the wreck before they run outa air. Which won’t be long, not the way they been hit.”
“On the ground in three minutes!” the PA system blared in Daniel’s voice. “Boarding party to the entryway!”
Woetjans straightened. “That’s us, mistress,” she said. She patted the length of tubing under her belt.
“Yes,” said Adele, rising and taking her own equipment rather than permitting Tovera to buckle it about her. The bosun’s cudgel seemed superfluous, given that the stocked impeller would make a satisfactory club if one were required; but more than logic determines the choices one makes when setting out to kill or be killed.
Adele checked the little pistol in her side pocket, making sure that it was still easily accessible. It was.
“Ready, Adele?” Daniel asked, adjusting his helmet slightly. He wore his visor down as a matter of course, a practical technique that made Adele feel caged.
“Yes, of course,” Adele said. Sandwiched between Woetjans and Daniel, she trotted toward the companionway. Tovera and Hogg had gone ahead. The corridor was clear: all crewmen who weren’t necessary to the immediate needs of the vessel stood on B Level, armed and ready for ground combat.
“We’re landing at the north side of the Homeland community,” Daniel explained cheerfully. “The Dalbriggans came down at the spaceport to the south and secured the ships there. They’ll be pushing what resistance there is toward us, I suspect.”
“Make way for the captain!” Woetjans bellowed. The entryway was crowded. If there’d been an attempt to leave an aisle, spacers equipped for ground deployment had filled it like sand in a mold.
In the delay before shoving wider the crack the crewmen tried to form, Woetjans said over her shoulder, “You don’t think the fighting’ll be over by the time we’re on the ground, sir?”
If Daniel answered, his words were lost in the blast of the thrusters doubled by reflection from the surface. The corvette bucked violently. Adele would have fallen and then been bounced like a ball except for Daniel’s firm hand on her shoulder.
She smiled, an expression she knew by now would have frightened anyone who saw it. In this crush, nobody would.
Even as a child, Adele Mundy had known the fighting would never be over. If there wasn’t a battle raging at this place now, there were battles going on elsewhere and would always be battles until there was no longer a species called Man in the universe.