Free The Road of Danger-ARC by David Drake Page B

her display. because she didn’t worry about what might happen to the ship. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
    Pasternak shut down his thruster, then lit the next in sequence. The Power Room boards were echoed in miniature on Adele’s display, but the numbers and gauges meant nothing to her. She put them up simply from a desire for completeness.
    “ Adele? ” said Daniel over a two-way link. “ Do you perhaps have something that a half-pay lieutenant could do while the ship’s officers are preparing for liftoff? ”
    Adele expanded the little image of Daniel set into the top of her display along with those of the Sissie ’s other officers. He was now in profile.
    She smiled again, tightly: that meant he was looking at her, kitty-corner across the compartment. Even at so short a distance, the holographic image was sharper.
    “I don’t have any duties at present, Daniel,” she said, continuing to use the intercom. Even without the roar of the thrusters, the bridge of a starship preparing for liftoff was too noisy a place to easily call from one console to another. “I’m just studying the situation on Sunbright. Ah—you’re really giving up command for the sake of your role as Lieutenant Kirby Pensett, then?”
    A roar that was louder but more diffuse shook the corvette, rocking her from side to side and slapping water violently against her pontoons. A larger ship must be lifting from a berth nearby. Adele switched the top third of her display to an optical panorama to see what was going on.
    “ That’ll be the Blanche,” Daniel said. He hadn’t bothered to check anything but what memory and his ears provided. “ Admiral Cox put the Blonde in orbit instead of the usual destroyer as soon as we sent down the orders to proceed to Tattersall. Now he’s sending her sister ship up to replace her while she lands, loads consumables for the voyage, and tops off her reaction mass .”
    He cleared his throat and said, “ I, ah, have a tendency to take charge, you know. If I happen to do that while I’m supposed to be a passenger on the, ah, House of Hrynko , the results might range from bad to very bad. I’m trying to avoid that. And besides…well, it’s a bad habit. Any of my officers can handle this mission without me looking over their shoulders .”
    Adele sniffed. “ My officers in that case, I believe, Lieutenant Pensett,” she said.
    She checked to be sure that her automated systems were harvesting communications: between Macotta HQ and the ships of the squadron, and among the ships themselves. The systems were, of course, and she wouldn’t lose anything by waiting to review the data until they were in the Matrix.
    She said, “All right, since we’re both superfluous to the vessel’s requirements at the moment, I propose to brief you on Sunbright.”
    “ I’m in your hands, Lady Hrynko ,” Daniel said, then chuckled. “ During the voyage I’ll read the files you’ve compiled, but I’d appreciate an oral précis .”
    This is my duty , Adele thought as she hesitated a moment to organize the data in her mind. Not to brief Daniel, but to entertain him when he’s feeling uncomfortable because he’s removed himself from his normal duties .
    Pasternak had completed his individual thruster checks. He and Vesey—Captain Vesey—were discussing Unit E with a minuteness that irritated Adele despite the mere shadow of attention she gave it.
    The ship’s officers were obviously just as uncomfortable performing in front of Daniel as he was in watching them do so. She hoped that Vesey and the others would shed that over-caution when they were on their own; even a signals officer/librarian could see that E’s three-percent below average output was insignificant in any real sense.
    “The administrative capital, Saal, is the part of Sunbright which is really under Alliance control,” Adele said as strands of data settled into place. “Saal includes the starport and the logistics