The Cinnabar sailors waited in respectful silence, listening to their commander with as much interest as the Kostromans showed. They knew their lives depended on Daniel making the right decisions.
“On the other hand, you may decide to report exactly what happened here,” Daniel continued with a smile. “I’m sure your lieutenant will be particularly pleased to give her version of events. It’s your choice.”
He turned. “Everybody ready?” he said. “Adele? Then let’s mount up. Police armbands in the gun truck, the rest of you as before. Hogg leads in the van and our police escort follows.”
“Duty stations!” roared Woetjans, who wore a Shore Police brassard herself. She climbed behind the steering yoke of the gun truck.
Adele had barely settled herself on the other seat in the cab before Hogg pulled the laden van past them. Gunning her engine, Woetjans fought the truck through a turn and roared onto the roadway in pursuit.
Adele wondered what a lieutenant was supposed to do. As for what Adele Mundy was supposed to do—her computer was under the seat, ready for use.
And her own pistol was in the side pocket of the borrowed jacket.
Candace’s uniform was too tight on Daniel’s shoulders and thighs despite being loose at the waist and decidedly baggy in the butt. It might have made Daniel feel as though he was in better shape than he’d given himself credit for; in his present mood, he just felt uncomfortable.
A starship was landing in the Floating Harbor, waking echoes and ghostly reflections from the marshy landscape. Under the circumstances, this was probably an Alliance vessel concerned with the coup: a warship, or another transport loaded with troops and heavy weapons.
Daniel’d almost fallen backward when he climbed into the cab carrying a case of brandy. That didn’t impress him with what it said about his physical abilities.
Hogg glanced over at the liquor balanced on Daniel’s knees. “There was room enough in back, you know, even before the six of them transferred to the cop car.”
“This is for our friends at the gate,” Daniel said. “I don’t want to open the back up when we stop for them.”
“Ah,” said Hogg. The road ahead wobbled like a topo map where seepage had softened the bedding layer; Hogg slacked the hand throttle slightly. “Seems to me,” he went on with his eyes on his driving, “that changing styles after you find one that works isn’t generally very smart.”
“We could’ve locked the police patrol in the warehouse,” Daniel agreed. “And we could bull our way out the way we got in, more or less.”
He smiled to think about that. He’d treated the gate guards as he would have done a gang of recruits too raw to understand discipline of any but the most basic sort. An officer rarely had to use his hands on a properly manned ship, because the experienced personnel hammered insolence out of a cocky recruit during the first “lights out.”
“But you know, if the whole complex is looted while the guards are drunk,” Daniel continued aloud, “or better still by drunken guards, nobody will even know we existed. I prefer that to leaving a trail of bodies and pissed-off survivors behind. You take more flies with honey than vinegar, Hogg.”
Hogg snorted. “And what’s a fly’s pelt worth, young master?” he said. “For the things that are worth the trouble of skinning, I find a wire noose generally works best. But I take your meaning, sure.”
The three-barred gate, backlit by the pole lamp forty yards down the approach road, was closed again. There was a small light on in the brick guardhouse that formed the east gatepost.
Kostroman ratings moved to either side of the roadway as the vehicles approached. They lifted their impellers but didn’t point them.
Hogg downshifted and crawled the last hundred feet to the gate in the van’s bottom gear. The cab doors were front-hinged. Daniel unlatched his and let inertia swing it fully open as the van finally halted. He put his foot on the running board, swung the brandy to his shoulder—no problem, thank God—and stepped to the ground.
“Here you go, my friends,” Daniel said breezily as he walked toward a Kostroman. He deliberately chose the rating he’d choked unconscious when they arrived. “This case was broken in transit, you know the sort of thing.”