Most of what she’d gathered wasn’t obviously useful, but if Daniel ever wanted to know—for example—the name of the leading rigger on the Bluecher’s starboard watch, she’d have him the information in a few flicks of her wands. And you never knew what Daniel would need.
Rigging suits were designed for extended use, but most of the crew—Adele included—were in general duty airsuits instead. Fortunately the damage control parties had managed to keep pressure in one of the heads, though they’d had to jury-rig a sailcloth airlock to do so. And if they hadn’t—
If they hadn’t, worse things happen in wartime. That was one of the many RCN cliches Adele had come to understand were the basic underpinnings of any capable military force: the ability to look at situations and call them by their right names, but still to function.
Adele smiled as her wands moved, segregating files involving Alliance contacts with members of the Commonwealth government and bureaucracy. Mistress Sand would want to know that information, but she probably wouldn’t want it spread about Cinnabar generally or even the whole RCN. Many times information was most effective when it wasn’t used. The same was true of any other weapon.
“Ship, this is Six,” Daniel said. He sounded alert, but his voice had an edge as ragged as that of hack-sawed steel. “We’ll be transferring to the Princess Cecile in orbit, Sissies. Our riggers will cross first and set lines, then the rest of us. Those who’re less familiar with vacuum—”
Adele grimaced. She counted as “less familiar” and was awkward besides, but some of the Power Room crew had never been outside a ship above the atmosphere.
“—will be tied to more experienced personnel. Let me emphasize: we don’t have a lot of time, which is why I’m making this transfer in orbit rather than on the ground as I’d intended and Mr. Chewning expects. But nobody gets left behind, Sissies. We’ve come this far, we don’t leave anybody behind. Six out.”
When she looked down the corridor, Adele saw a Tech Two from the Power Room marshalling the other six personnel from the port watch. The starboard watch was on duty, so these superfluous crewmen would be the first to follow the riggers across to the Princess Cecile.
“Six, this is Six-one,” said Vesey on the command channel. “We’re scheduled to return to normal space in one minute. Do you have any further orders for me, over?”
“Bring us toward the Princess Cecile on thrusters at one-gee acceleration, Mistress Vesey,” Daniel said. His voice was getting back to normal, like a door that doesn’t squeal as loudly after use knocks the rust off its hinges. “I’ll take the conn for the final approach. When I do so, get yourself and your people up on the hull for transfer. Break.”
Adele glanced over her shoulder toward Daniel. She couldn’t see his face because of his rigging suit, but she could easily imagine the smile with which he contemplated the future. It struck her as odd that Daniel genuinely expected to succeed at whatever risky plan he embarked on, and that his belief in success rubbed off on everybody following him—even gloomy cynics like Signals Officer Adele Mundy.
That general, completely illogical, expectation was at least part of the reason why Daniel and those he commanded usually did win through—if not by the path he’d chosen, then by another path that opened for them because they’d kept their heads when all Hell was breaking loose.
“Ship, this is Six,” Daniel said. “We’re returning to normal space—”
Adele felt every atom of her body turn inside out. The experience was horrible, worse than any pain and almost as bad as what she felt when leaving sidereal space.
“—now!”
She had her work; that drew Adele back from disorientation at once. Occasionally she wondered how people who didn’t lose themselves in their work managed; but part of her noted that they didn’t manage very well, and the other part of her dismissed those people as being beneath a sensible person’s concern.
There were various ways to find a starship orbiting an uninhabited planet like the one above which the Goldenfels reentered sidereal space. Because Adele was a signals officer, and because the Goldenfels was a spy ship outfitted with receivers just as sensitive as those Mistress Sand’s people had installed on the Princess Cecile, she simply searched for RF sources.