Lt. Leary, Commanding by David Drake

Daniel thought of his short, dumpy servant and the rangy bosun. Under the circumstances the two were an ideal pair: they understood one another perfectly. Missed communications had killed more people than ever malice dreamed of doing.

“Daniel?” Adele said. She’d waited until she saw his attention drawn away from the calculations on his display. “When we return to normal space, I intend to direct the other ships, the escort ships? Direct them to return to Tanais in the name of Admiral Chastelaine. I doubt they’ll obey, but I thought it might confuse them. Is that all right?”

Daniel opened a window in his holographic display so that he could meet Adele’s eyes without a fog of light between them. She looked worried, concerned about having overstepped her proper authority.

“Great heavens, yes!” Daniel said. “But won’t they—oh, I see. You will be sending it in the proper Alliance code.”

Adele smiled faintly. “Yes, that’s my greatest question,” she said. “Less than half the flagship’s communications are encrypted properly, so it might be more believable if I introduced errors in my transmissions. Doing that offended my sense of rightness, however, so unless you require me to . . . ?”

“Quite all right,” Daniel said. “I’d hate for your last act in this life to be one you found to smack of impropriety.”

“One minute to reentry to normal space,” announced Mon. “Prepare for action.”

“What do you mean, prepare for action?” shouted someone—shouted Delos Vaughn coming up the corridor toward the bridge. The helmet of his emergency suit was hinged open, bouncing on his chest. “We’ve escaped, I saw us escape! We’re safe now!”

There was a display in the wardroom. Tovera must have set it to receive real-time data during the attack. She’d have known how, after all.

Daniel frowned. He’d ordered Hogg to release the president, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Vaughn would then choose to interfere with the business of war.

He noted with further irritation that Tovera walked just behind Vaughn. Her smile could easily be described as mocking, though one had to admit that Tovera’s expressions were pretty much a blank slate for the viewer to color with emotion.

“Mister Vaughn—” Daniel began.

Vaughn strode onto the bridge, either oblivious of Daniel’s orders or in defiance of them. He said, “I won’t let you kill us all!”

“Secure the civilian!” Daniel said.

He actually didn’t see Tovera’s hand move, gripping Vaughn by the left ear and twisting. Vaughn screamed, then stopped as he, turning his head to reduce the pain of his ear, brought his right eye into contact with the muzzle of Tovera’s submachine gun.

They backed off the bridge. Adele nodded to Daniel and put her pistol away.

“Reentry into—”

Der Grosser Karl, broadside and apparently huge as a planet, filled the real-time display. Her sails were ragged, torn both by the missiles and by gouts of plasma from her own cannon. She was of the latest Alliance design, mounting thirty-two 21cm plasma cannon in quadruple turrets.

Thump! First missile away.

Hellfire vaporized the Princess Cecile’s sails and antennas, dressing her in a glowing ball of her own rig. Plasma continued to rip from at least eight yawning muzzles, but the vapor of destruction protected the corvette from worse.

Thump!

The Princess Cecile yawed with a world-filling crash. Her hull whipped, frames warping and plates in the double hull gaping apart. Cabin pressure dropped and Daniel reflexively closed his faceshield.

There hadn’t been enough time for the battleship to plot trajectories for her own missiles, but at such short range the heavy cannon had virtually the impact of solid projectiles. As the corvette punched clear of the expanding cloud, one bolt or possibly two had struck her well forward on the underside.

The first missile entered Der Grosser Karl amidships, like a pin through the thorax of a fat-bodied butterfly with tattered wings. Gas puffed from the point of impact; sparkling fire exploded where the remains of the missile, liquescent from friction, tore its exit. A gun turret, almost complete, lifted from the hull. Three of the heavy iridium gun-tubes spun away on separate trajectories.

Daniel’s display flared, but the volley that overloaded the hull sensors didn’t actually strike the corvette. Close doesn’t count—

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