The Road of Danger-ARC by David Drake Page B

The bridge was armored, but he was willing to bet that everybody in the rotunda beyond the closed hatch had heard the bosun’s shout.
    The three officers sat upright at their consoles, their eyes straight ahead and their lips tightly together. No one spoke. Adele’s smile was too slight for anyone but a close associate to have recognized the expression, but it was enough to make Daniel grin broadly in return.
    “Thank you, fellow spacers,” he said politely. “I will visit Calpurnius Trading myself. If this excellent plan works out, the representative will continue from Madison to Cremona and then on to Sunbright. Officer Mundy’s virtues are too well known for me to bother listing them in this group, but I do not believe she could pass as a working spacer on a blockade runner.”
    Vesey’s face went blank; Cory and Cazelet stared at one another in surprise. It took Woetjans a moment to put Daniel’s deadpan words together with their meaning; then she laughed as loudly as her shouted command of a moment before.
    “Sir?” said Cory. “You can’t take a risk like that yourself—it wouldn’t be proper. I can—”
    Cazelet and Vesey had their mouths open to object and doubtless to offer their own proposals. Daniel stopped all three of them with a cold smile and a raised finger. He said, “I’d hate to think that my bosun had more authority aboard the Princess Cecile than I do. But I’m sure Woetjans would be willing to restore order,eh?”
    “Sorry, Six,” Vesey muttered to her hands, though she hadn’t actually spoken. Cory and Cazelet just nodded.
    “You’re good officers,” Daniel said, looking again around his command group. “You wouldn’t be aboard the Sissie if I didn’t trust you, you know that.”
    He paused and felt his grin harden before he went on, “But I’m Six, and you know that too. I’m going to do this because I think I’m the right choice for the job, and the Princess Cecile isn’t going to become a democracy on my watch.”
    Adele rotated her seat so that she faced the other officers. For her to do that could only be a piece of theater, as everybody on the bridge knew. She said, “I would appreciate it if you explained your logic, Captain Leary.”
    Nobody else would have asked , Daniel realized, so Adele had asked. You never had to wonder if Adele Mundy would do whatever she thought was necessary.
    But not in this case necessary for her . She understood already, which is why she had made such a circus turn out of her question.
    “Of course, Adele,” Daniel said. He never treated Adele casually when they were on duty in public. His choice of address created a deliberate balance to her over-formality.
    “First…” he said to the group. “I personally, and the Princess Cecile through me, have been tasked to remove from Sunbright a presumed Cinnabar citizen going by the name of Freedom. This is our sole duty at the moment; we have no greater purpose. Not so?”
    Cory was blushing in embarrassment; Vesey looked pale and miserable; and Cazelet had a withdrawn expression as though he had just been told the date of his execution. None of them spoke, but Woetjans nodded vigorously.
    “I can easily play an RCN lieutenant beached on half-pay by the Treaty of Amiens,” Daniel continued. “That’s what I’d be now if I hadn’t been extremely lucky.”
    For an instant he thought that both Vesey and Cory were going to protest, but neither of them did. Adele’s sniff had a suggestion of humor in it, though, if you knew her well.
    “Any of the three of you—”
    Daniel gestured to the commissioned officers. Even Cazelet had passed the tests for lieutenant, though he hadn’t been—and, if the present peace continued, might not be for a decade—granted the rank.
    “—can command the Sissie in my absence. A yacht owner would be lucky to hire a captain as skilled.”
    “And the mistress can be the owner, right?” Woetjans said, excited as the concept came into focus in her