The Alliance destroyers on station above Diamondia were theT 65 andT 72. Adele was waiting for their panicked interchanges when one or the other watch officer realized that their entire squadron had sallied from Z3 and they were for the moment alone in the Jewel System.
That didn't happen. Though the two ships exchanged desultory signals, neither was paying the least attention to their base. A pair of lieutenants who'd been in the same class at the Fleet Gymnasium were discussing their chances of returning to Pleasaunce in time to attend the wedding of a third classmate.
The Alliance destroyers had been holding the usual 1 G acceleration to mimic gravity while they patrolled safely outside the planetary defense array. They'd normally be replaced on station by another pair of destroyers after thirty hours or so, more because of the tedium of the job than because they needed to replace reaction mass. Even though destroyers had relatively small tanks, Adele knew from her database that T Class vessels could easily have held station for eight or nine days at that level of consumption.
The sight of the Diamondia Squadron lifting in unison from Port Delacroix got their attention, though. Though the alarm bells on the destroyers wasn't audible through vacuum-of course-the rhythmic sound made the hulls themselves vibrate, and that in turn registered on theSissie 's rangefinding lasers.
"Captain, the Alliance pickets have spotted Admiral James," Adele reported calmly. "They're not aware as yet of Admiral Guphill's movements, however. Over."
"Roger, Signals," Daniel said. "Keep me informed, out."
Adele peeped at his display: he was working on attack plans involving thePrincess Cecile alone engaging the Alliance destroyers and also thePrincess Cecile engaging them in company with theEclipse andEcho. RCN picket destroyers might well have launched long-distance missile attacks on an enemy squadron rising into orbit. There wasn't much chance of a hit under the circumstances, but it could disrupt what was presumably a careful enemy plan.
Adele smiled coldly. She'd learned a great deal while she served with Daniel Leary; one of the things she'd learned was what it meant to be RCN. There was very little chance of the Alliance destroyers reacting as their RCN counterparts would, but if they did, thePrincess Cecile and her fellows were ready to give them something more immediate to think about than Admiral James' squadron.
Both pickets began to accelerate. Adele couldn't overhear their internal communications at this range and she didn't have the expertise to judge the details of what was happening. Even she could tell from the iridescent plume streaming from theT 65 that it was using not only High Drive but its less efficient plasma thrusters as well to get up to speed as quickly as possible. The combined thrust not only would make movement and even breathing uncomfortable for the destroyer's crew, it created greater strains than the vessel's rigging was braced to withstand.
It didn't take an expert to realize that, either. One ofT 65 's starboard antennas carried away, followed moments later by the ventral antenna of the same ring. Adele guessed that the second'd been fouled by lines from the first to go, but the details didn't really matter.
The Alliance destroyers began to chatter to one another, using microwave links. These were directional, but at this distance theSissie 's sensors picked up reflections from the vessels' hulls. TheT 72 was using the squadron's current code, but Adele's equipment converted the signals as quickly as they could be read on theT 65; and as for theT 65, she was transmitting in clear.
ThePrincess Cecile 's bridge personnel were furiously busy; indeed, the whole crew probably was, though the bridge hatch was closed and dogged to limit damage if the corvette was hit. Daniel was projecting courses both through the Matrix and in sidereal space.
Adele had started to pipe the Alliance communications directly to the command console-that's the way she'd have wanted the information-but she realized in time that the captain of a warship in action had more on his mind than his signals officer did. She instead sent her own summaries as a voice message transfigured into a text crawl across the top of his screen: the captain of t72 is senior. she has ordered t65 to hold station near diamondia while t72 returns to z3 to report. t65 protests.
Moments later the image of theT 72 began to blur and fade into the Matrix. The process took nearly forty-five seconds, a matter of perfectly neutralizing the ship's electrical charge. It had to cease to be a part of the sidereal universe so that it could shift into the Matrix, becoming a miniature universe of its own.
To Adele's brief amazement, theT 65 started to shift also, even before its consort was gone. The junior captain had been more than intemperate in his discussions with his senior officer; in the RCN, at least, there'd have to be a duel after the battle if both captains survived.
She hadn't expected the junior officer to simply ignore a direct order, however. He might believe that it was properly the job of theT 72 to remain behind rather than running to safety with a message, but surely he could see that one of them should stay, couldn't he?
Adele's lips bent in a hard smile. There was a great deal of contempt among Cinnabar civilians for the quality of the Alliance Fleet's personnel. RCN officers were much more reserved in what they said about their enemies: no, the Fleet wasn't the RCN, but neither was it a collection of farmers and cowards who lacked both skill and courage.
Sometimes, however, you ran into examples that went a distance toward justifying civilian prejudices. This was a good time for that to happen. It would be nice if the rot had penetrated to the officers of Admiral Guphill's battleships as well.
Red light flushed Adele's display momentarily; she opened the incoming message, a resumption of the data stream from Zmargadine orbit. Rene had ceased transmitting when the last of the Alliance squadron inserted into the Matrix…
Adele's wands flashed. She didn't take control of the command console, just inset a pulsing red icon as before, but this time she added verbally, "Captain, this is Signals. Alliance warships are extracting in the vicinity of Z3 base. I repeat, Alliance warships are extracting."
Then she drew in a deep breath and added, "Daniel, Admiral Guphill is back."
Daniel's PPI quivered as the Diamondia Squadron sorted itself in orbit. TheLao-Tze was still climbing out of the gravity well. Her class had been marginal for thruster power when they were built, and rebuilds since that distant date had inevitably increased her mass without adding power. In sidereal space she was no more sluggish than a later battleship, though, and she had the reputation of being notably handy in the Matrix.
He moved the icon from Adele to the lower right quadrant of his screen and opened it. High resolution images of the Alliance squadron began to cycle in his display. They were marvelously sharp: that was thePleasaunce, because her outriggers were shorter by three frames than those of her near sister theFormentera; theFormentera extracted only thirty seconds later.
"Command," Daniel said, verbally keying the channel which linked the officers. His orders were to Adele, but the information would please everybody aboard. "Signals, copy the raw data to all theSissie 's consoles and also transmit them to the flagship, attention CinC. When you've done that-"
At the bottom of the quadrant where Cazelet's imagery cascaded appeared the legend data transmitted. The letters were in glowing puce, a disgusting color which he suspected Adele had chosen deliberately.
Daniel choked to keep from laughing. A good thing I wasn't taking a sip of water, as I was about to. He continued, "Yes, and please restructure the data into a PPI layout centered on Z3 Base if you will. Distribute that in the same way, over."
"Yes," said Adele. He glanced to his side to see her wands dancing; it was like watching a machine, a very intelligent machine. "Shall I transmit the data to the other ships of the squadron also?"
After a minuscule pause she added, "Over."
Daniel winced. He was afraid one of the junior officers would blurt something, but nobody did. He suspected that it wasn't just that they made allowances for Adele's lack of familiarity with naval protocol: they respected her so greatly that there lurked at the backs of their minds the possibility that Lady Mundy was right again.
She wasn't right. Admiral James would react as though Commander Leary had walked into the Admiral's Bridge and taken a dump on his console.
"Negative, Signals," Daniel said mildly. "The Commander in Chief would regard that as an attempt to usurp his authority, particularly since thePrincess Cecile is technically not a member of the Diamondia Squadron. Six out."
The destroyers had their antennas raised and were shaking their sails out. Most of the heavy cruiserAlcubiere 's antennas were up, and the flagshipZeno had begun the process. The light cruiserAntigone was almost as old as theLao-Tze and like her was underpowered for operations in an atmosphere, but she'd be joining momentarily.
"Squadron," said a voice slugged as coming in through the laser communicator. Admiral James himself was speaking, not his signals lieutenant. "We will operate in two elements, Foxhunt and Barnyard. Orders will follow presently-"
An icon winked at the bottom of the command display; the orders had already arrived. Daniel restrained his urge to open them until the Admiral had finished speaking.
"We'll be taking the fight to the enemy, fellow officers," the Admiral continued, "of course. Because the enemy is superior in force, I expect rigid discipline and prompt obedience to my orders. I donotsay that I expect courage and professional shiphandling, because you wouldn't be in the RCN at all if you didn't display those qualities. Squadron Command out."
Daniel nodded approvingly. The Admiral's words were perfectly appropriate, though none of the captains had needed to hear them to understand the situation inside and out. He opened the Orders icon, but before he could begin going over the contents his console flashed an incoming message warning.
"Rascal," said Admiral James again in a harsher voice than before, "this is Squadron Command. You're Foxhunt Nine for the duration of this operation. You'll obey the orders of Foxhunt Command, that's Captain Bussom, without hesitation. Do you understand that Leary, over?"
Daniel stiffened at the console as though he'd been slapped. Does the Admiral think I'm going to hare off on my own in the middle of a fleet action?
"Squadron Command, this is Foxhunt Nine-six," he said as formally as he could manage. "Aye aye, sir. Nine-six over."
Obviously James did think that, and it was most unfair. Daniel'dalways obeyed orders in the past.
Well, almost always. And anyway, he respected both James and Bussom.
"Sorry, Leary," James said in a much softer tone. "I thought I needed to say that. We've got bloody little margin on this one, and if anybody gets creative it'll confuse everybody else. No matter how clever a notion it might've been on its own, over."
"Aye aye, sir," Daniel repeated. His mouth was open to close the transmission-he needed to look at the orders and he was sure the Admiral had something better to do than chat with the captain of the least powerful ship in his squadron.
Before he could do so, James said, "Bloody hell, Leary! Where did you get this imagery? It's not real, is it? It's a computer simulation, right, over?"
"Squadron," said Daniel, opening the file which Adele must've forwarded to him and the Admiral simultaneously, "the imagery and the derived PPI are real-time, transmitted from Zmargadine orbit some seventy-one minutes ago. You can take it to the bank, sir, over."
Admiral Guphill's reduced force had extracted in the vicinity of Zmargadine; now they'd begun striking their sails to set down on Z3. If they were keeping anything approaching a proper watch, they'd become aware when light from Diamondia reached the gas giant within the next few minutes that the RCN squadron had sallied.
"By the Gods, Leary," James said in a reverential whisper, "they've laid their balls on an anvil and we're holding the hammer. Judging by their sail plans, a visit from Guarantor Porra wouldn't surprise them as much as we're about to."
The Admiral paused, then went on, "Foxhunt Nine-six, head this material 'On behalf of Squadron Command' and distribute it yourself. I want everybody to know it came from you, just in case I'm not around to tell them myself after things settle out. Squadron out."
"Aye aye, sir!" Daniel said. "Foxhunt Nine-six out!"
He didn't need the bright pink transmitted legend to tell him Adele would've sent it even before Admiral James finished speaking. The legend nonetheless flashed.
He looked for the first time at the orders which the Squadronstaff had sent at the same time Admiral James himself was reading Commander Leary the riot act. They were headed captain's eyes only.
Daniel realized his lips had squeezed together into what he'd have called a pout if he'd seen the expression on someone else's face. Chuckling, he forwarded the orders to the BDC before he started going over them in detail.
"Captain's eyes only" was the sort of nonsense which staff officers came up with. Did they think a Sissie was going to send the plans on to Admiral Guphill? And didn't it occur to them that the whole purpose of the separated Battle Direction Center was to provide a backup command structure in case a missile sliced off the corvette's bridge?
The two battleships formed Barnyard, under Captain Clinton of theZeno. Admiral James was aboard theZeno, but he commanded the whole squadron rather than just the Barnyard element. The remaining vessels-Alcubiere, Antigone, six E-Class destroyers, and thePrincess Cecile -were Foxhunt.
Breaking the squadron into a heavy element and a screening element gave James a degree of flexibility, but the orders directed they stay together at least through the initial maneuvering. When all the ships were ready, they were to insert into the Matrix and extract in line ahead, heavy vessels leading, thirty light-minutes in-system of Zmargadine.
They were to be offset ten degrees system west of the line connecting the gas giant with Diamondia. Daniel nodded approvingly. If Admiral Guphill made his initial jump in a direct line toward Diamondia, the RCN squadron would be positioned to rake the Alliance ships with all missile tubes.
It'd take theLao-tze about ten more minutes to complete her rigging. The squadron was to spend seventeen sidereal minutes in the Matrix. Daniel was sure theSissie could make the run in less; theAlcubiere, a heavily sparred vessel under Captain Bussom who-like Daniel-had been trained in shiphandling by Commander Stacy Bergen, might be able to do it in twelve minutes or less. They'd both extract in seventeen, because synchrony was important and absolute speed was not.
Viceroy Adelbert has reported RCN movements, announced a text at the bottom of the quadrant in which the Alliance ships maneuvered for landing. Daniel's screen indicated that Vesey and Blantyre were both trying to call him-with the same news, he had no doubt, and Adele must not doubt it either because she was blocking their interruptions until Six decided he had time to talk to his subordinates.
Daniel checked the full message, then manually cut in the PA system. "Squadron," he said, his voice booming through the speakers in every compartment. "Foxhunt Nine-six. CruiserViceroy Adelbert has observed RCN movements and reported us to Alliance Command. Nine-six out."
Blantyre immediately withdrew her summons. Vesey did not, so Daniel touched that icon with his cursor and said, "Six, go ahead. Over."
"Sir, I have a series of solutions for the Alliance squadron," Vesey said. "Over."
"Do you bloody indeed!" said Daniel. By the Gods, I did train this lady well! "Forward them, if you will, Vesey, over."
He'd expected her to say that she'd done a course plot which would bring thePrincess Cecile into her place at the tail end of the RCN line after their jump. Of course she did; so did Blantyre and Cory, and Shearman, the spacer who was striking for a master's rating.
But Daniel'd assumed he was the only person aboard theSissie who was calculating what the enemy would or might do. Two of James' lieutenants on theZeno would be doing that, cursing it as an empty exercise because there were too many variables for prediction. That was true, of course: you couldn't really predict an enemy's movements unless you had his sail plan at the moment he entered the Matrix, and even then you had to be both good and lucky.
But the exercise forced you to thinklike the enemy, and that wasn't empty at all. Getting into the enemy's head was more important than predicting his next move in detail.
Vesey'd never be a real fighting officer; frankly, she didn't have the instinct to go for the throat. Vesey had to think through her attacks, and though her solutions would always be proper ones, she'd never have the flair of her late fiance, Midshipman Dorst. Everything that effort and study could do, however, shewould do.
Daniel opened her three solutions. The first showed the Alliance squadron reforming forty light-minutes out from Z3 but offset at fifteen degrees to the Zmargadine/Diamondia axis, putting them equidistant from the two bases. The second showed Guphill's squadron in a line anchored at one end by Z3 and at the other by the two battleships. At the scale of the holographic display the ships looked close to their present locations, but they'd still have to maneuver through the Matrix to achieve the formation in less than a week.
The final solution was the most interesting of all: Admiral Guphill's ten ships formed a loose globe just outside Diamondia's planetary defense array. Daniel highlighted this one and said, "Vesey, explain the purpose behind this plan, over."
"Sir!" replied Vesey, her voice suddenly without character but half an octave higher than it normally was. "The enemy will believe he's cut us off from our base by encircling Diamondia. He'll realize that we can extract within our own array, but when we brake to land we'll become predictable targets for missiles even though they're launched from the minimum safe distance. Over."
"All right, Vesey," Daniel said. "But why will the enemy assume we're going to run for our base, over?"
"Sir," she said, "they'll project their own motivations onto us, sir! Over."
She's so very clever, Daniel thought. But she has noinstinct for this at all. Well, neither did Uncle Stacy, and there was never born a better astrogator.
Midshipman Dorst would've said, "Sir, they'll be afraid to go far from their own base. Likely they'll ball up around it. Let's us come at them from one side and grind them all to hell, eh?"
He'd have been wrong too, but he'd have understood what was possible. Vesey was so good an astrogator herself that the idea of ten ships englobing a planet in perfect formation didn't strike her as absurd. Dorst, who couldn't have managed even that modest intrasystem distance in less than three sequences of insertion and extraction, had a better grasp of normal human capacity.
"I think he'll do this, Vesey, over," Daniel said, forwarding his solution to her console in the BDC. He didn't need the image inset on his display to imagine her frowning in frustration.
"But sir, why would he divide his squadron?" Vesey said. "That allows us to concentrate superior force on either one, doesn't it, over?"
Daniel showed the Alliance squadron forming initially ten light-minutes in-system from Z3 because Guphill knew his ships would scatter widely if their initial jump was of any length. They were split into two wings of equal strength, each led by one of the battleships.
"Vesey, Guphill'll do this because he's commanded in four engagements and he's split his force every time," Daniel said. "I think if asked to justify the formation, he'd say that it permits him to catch his enemy between two fires. In reality I don't think he's comfortable with a single large force, but it worked out well for him when he fought a fleet from Novy Sverdlovsk while commodore of a squadron in the Sponsor Stars, over."
"But sir!" Vesey said despairingly. "That was Novy Sverdlovsk. Surely he doesn't think he can do that with the RCN, over?"
"We've caught him off balance," Daniel said. "I don't believe heis thinking; he's reacting because he doesn't have time to think. And Vesey?"
He paused, flashing through several ways to phrase what she needed to understand.
"If a missile's well-aimed, the target's planet of origin doesn't matter. Admiral Guphill started as a missile officer and a very good one; his ships got seventeen direct hits during that fight in the Sponsor Stars. We don't have seventeen ships today. Out."
"Squadron, this is Command," said Admiral James. "Prepare to insert in five seconds."
Daniel's finger poised over the Execute button.
"Insert!"
He pressed the button. ThePrincess Cecile began to shudder out of sidereal space, heading again for the enemy.