He’d sent ten crew under a petty officer as the Klimovs’ escort. The assigned spacers escaped maintenance duties and might be able to relax some themselves, depending on circumstances.
Lamsoe and Tulane were on guard at the main hatch as part of the anchor watch. They joined Daniel on the quay, holding their sub-machine guns so that they were ready but not threatening. They didn’t look worried, but they obviously weren’t happy with the situation. No spacer is happy with a surprise, even if it’s a fresh meal twenty days out.
The tractor stopped. The statuesque, gorgeously-dressed woman in the box glanced over the corvette and the three spacers on the quay. She settled her gaze on Daniel, and said, “Daniel Leary, son of Corder Leary, of Bantry? Governor Sakama Hideki sends his greetings and says he’ll be pleased to accept your visit at once.”
Three servants who’d walked behind the vehicle set the boarding ladder they carried against the side of the box. “If you’ll mount,” said the woman, “we’ll be off immediately.”
“Yes,” said Daniel. There were quite a lot of things he could’ve said, all of which would’ve been a waste of time and breath. “Ship—” cueing his commo helmet “—this is Six. I’m calling on Governor Sakama. Mr. Chewning is in charge until I return. Six out.”
He looked at the two spacers, then pointed to the flag hanging limp from the mast eight feet overhead. “Lamsoe?” he said. “Can you and Tulane get me that flag now? Don’t hurt it any more than you need to.”
“Roger,” Lamsoe said, slinging his weapon over his neck. Tulane, a beefy man who’d won squadron trophies for all-in wrestling when he was younger, laced his fingers into a stirrup. Lamsoe settled his foot into it and said, “Go!” Tulane hurled his partner onto the mast.
Lamsoe locked his legs around the tube and snicked out the blade of his multitool. The lanyard was of woven boron monocrystal, nothing an ordinary knife would cut. Two quick strokes left the grommets still reeved to the line and the corner-cropped flag fluttering down into Daniel’s hands.
Daniel tied the vivid silk as a sash around the waist of his mottled gray fatigues. The Governor probably meant to put him off-balance by not giving him time to dress for a formal reception. That was a clever move of its kind; as a tactician himself, Daniel could respect the subtlety of the mind which had devised it. But an RCN officer ought to be able to teach wogs a thing or two about field expedients!
“I’m very glad for the chance to meet his excellency the Governor,” Daniel said as he strode to the boarding ladder. He mounted, glancing over his shoulder at the Princess Cecile.
Only someone very familiar with the corvette would have noticed the change from ten minutes earlier. The dorsal turret was still aligned with the ship’s axis, but the twin plasma cannon were minusculely elevated from their locked position. In the best tradition of the RCN, Sun had his guns ready for whatever happened next.
CHAPTER 12
“Sit down, Mistress Mundy,” said Admiral O’Quinn, gesturing Adele to a place that’d obviously been saved for her on a low circular bench draped with rugs. In the center was a small serving table holding glass carafes of wine and platters heaped with fruit, most of it unfamiliar. Two women and two men besides O’Quinn and Cousin Adrian were already seated. They wore RCN-style dress uniforms with the starburst of the Cluster replacing the winged sandal of Cinnabar; each had a chestful of garish, dangling, medals.
Adele’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the lattice-shaded loggia. She kept her face emotionless, but the appearance of the others, the senior officers of the Aristoxenos, shocked her. Certainly it’d been sixteen years—and she herself was no longer the girl who’d just arrived on Bryce to study in the Academic Collections—but the officers gathered here looked not only older but unhealthy.
When Adele last saw her cousin, he’d been a noted fencer; now he was distinctly pudgy and the collar of his formal tunic pinched deep into the fat of his neck. Broken veins spiderwebbed Admiral O’Quinn’s nose; he was drinking wine from a twenty-ounce mug. The other four, the surviving members of the battleship’s second through sixth lieutenants, were in comparable condition.