“Back to the Sissie, Barnes,” Daniel called across the courtyard to those waiting with the concern in their eyes hooded. “And see if you can’t get us up a hundred feet or so before you give us forward impulse, will you?”
“We are going to attack Gehenna ourselves, aren’t we, Daniel?” Adele said in an undertone as she got into the car. “A force from Cinnabar can’t possibly reach the North in time to save our traders from massacre.”
“Yes, I rather think we are,” said Daniel, smiling faintly as possibilities spun through his mind. If he could only grasp the right ones, in the right sequence. . . .
“But not directly,” he continued. “The Sissie can’t bull through the base’s outer defenses the way a battleship might, so we’re going by way of Morzanga.”
CHAPTER 26
“All Alliance personnel!” Adele said. “This is RCS Termagant, ordering you in the name of Admiral Arnold Plumly to surrender or face extermination. War has been declared between the Republic of Cinnabar and the Alliance of Free Stars.”
The Alliance castaways might have working sensors, and even a good telescope could distinguish between a corvette and a battleship in orbit. Daniel had decided that the Princess Cecile could pass for a light cruiser scouting for a powerful squadron, however. They were broadcasting the message on four different radio frequency bands which were or had been used by the Goldenfels. With luck, some of the castaways were monitoring the RF spectrum still, or at least were wearing their commo helmets. They must have hopes for rescue, after all.
“Gather without your weapons in the center of the native village near the wreck of the Goldenfels,” Adele continued. “Keep clear of the wreck itself: we will vaporize it from orbit before we land on Morzanga to collect prisoners. Anybody who doesn’t surrender will be killed.”
The Princess Cecile’s low orbit whisked her over the horizon from the nameless village where the Goldenfels lay on its side. Adele broke the transmission and straightened in her couch to meet the eyes of the others on the bridge.
“I don’t get it, sir,” Sun said to Daniel in a troubled voice. “They must know that even if we really were a squadron big enough to rate an admiral commanding, we couldn’t track ’em down in the bush. That’d take a regiment of ground troops with jungle training, not a couple hundred dismounted spacers. They’re going to hide, not come traipsing out in the open to be thrown in a cage. Aren’t they?”
Daniel rotated the command console so that he could smile at the gunner while still keeping an eye on the Plot Position Indicator which told him what was in the immediate neighborhood of Morzanga. At the moment nothing was, but that could change in a heartbeat.
“Quite right, Sun,” Daniel said, grinning past him to acknowledge Adele at the Signals console. “They probably will run, most of them anyway. I suppose there’ll be a few who prefer a Cinnabar prison hulk to living in the wilderness with a tribe of savages.”
Adele’s sensors picked up scatter from emitters on three of the four Alliance bands. The signals were low power and unintelligible over the horizon; all she knew for certain was that her transmissions had stirred the Goldenfels’ castaways to talk among themselves.
“But my purpose is to get them away from the wreck itself,” Daniel continued. “It’s immaterial whether they hide in the jungle or stand in the middle of the village with their hands in the air. We’ll be leaving them here when we lift off.”
He looked at Adele again. “Officer Mundy, how many orbits should we make before going in? I want to be sure they’ve heard the warning.”
“They’re talking among themselves,” Adele said. “I won’t be able to tell what they’re saying till we come over the horizon again, though, so perhaps you’ll want to wait until I can pick up the content.”
Daniel’s sunny smile brightened the bare steel walls of the bridge. “Oh, I think we can assume that they’re not setting up to defend the Goldenfels when they reasonably believe that we’re going to blast it with plasma cannon or a nuke, don’t you? And after all, we’re in rather a hurry.”