WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(104)

The Ahura's lifeboat floated in the lagoon, turning slowly in the still water. A slick of pollen and bits of foliage drifted behind the boat. The Alliance soldiers were barely visible past the treetops as they squirmed to free themselves, while on the other island some of the Kostromans were already standing upright.

"Starboard watch," Woetjans ordered over the intercom. "Aim at the liferaft."

Sailors jostled one another in cheerful surprise, thrusting submachine guns captured from the commandoes over the railing. Adele remained at the rail but she didn't bother to draw her pistol. Sailors on the other side of the compartment complained good-naturedly.

"Open fire!"

Water exploded in a spray that completely hid the little boat. The air filled with ozone and ionized aluminum even though the troop compartment was half-open. The crackling gun mechanisms echoed like logs splitting.

"Cease fire!"

The raft was a tatter of flexible red plastic in the center of foam which spread a hundred feet in all directions. The sailors weren't marksmen—some must be amazingly bad shots, judging from where their rounds hit—and the light pellets weren't intended for work at this range. Nonetheless the target had been completely destroyed.

The APC pulled through a figure-eight that reversed its direction. "Port watch," Woetjans ordered, "aim at the yacht."

There were loud cheers. Most of the remaining sailors had already bent over their railing, hunched and squinting in a variety of distorted notions about how to shoot accurately. One of them—inevitably—jerked his trigger an instant before Woetjans said, "Fire!"

The upturned stern didn't vanish, but it began to crumble like a sand castle in the rain. Again Adele saw water spout thirty yards from the intended target, but a submachine gun with a 300-round magazine didn't require a crack shot to be effective.

"Cease fire!" Woetjans ordered. "Cease fire, Dasi, or I'll take the fucking thing away and feed it to you!"

There was a moment's silence. The plasma cannon roared. What was left of the Ahura erupted into an iridescent mushroom cloud. The APC rocked with recoil from the one-second jet of ions, each of infinitesimal mass but accelerated to the speed of light.

Adele heard the cupola hum as it rotated. Nevertheless the second spurt of plasma startled her. Steam and shimmering fire enveloped the remains of the lifeboat.

The lagoon danced briefly with fairy light as ions recombined to their normal atomic state. That passed, but vari-hued fish, scalded by the manmade hellfire, floated to the surface.

Daniel stepped out of the cupola. "Barnes," he ordered on a general channel, "follow the programmed course and speed to Kostroma City. Gambier will spell you two hours out."

He grinned at Adele and said—not using the intercom, "Communications Officer Mundy, take over and make sure we're not getting into something we don't expect. What we do expect is bad enough, right?"

Adele shrugged. "So far," she said, "it appears that it's better to be on our side than against us."

She settled herself on the cupola seat. The vehicle's extensive sensor and communications suites were arrayed in a ring attached to the hull below the cannon in the dome. Adele logged onto the Alliance military net, using the codes of a cutter hanging out of service aboard a destroyer in the Floating Harbor. As soon as she had access, she searched for any sign that the Aglaia's officers had been moved from cells in the basement of the Elector's Palace where she'd located them the night before.

She smiled as she worked, her touch certain despite the unfamiliar system. Communications Officer Mundy.

Adele Mundy. One of us.





* * ** * *

"Tarnhelm, this is Mike X-ray Five Three Nine," Adele said with the formality of a scholar reading a script. "Over."

She was a scholar reading a script, Daniel knew, but he controlled his desire to wince. Adele might not sound like an officer tired after a long, boring mission, but she could put on a Bryce accent that wouldn't set off alarms the way Daniel might if it were him on the radio.

"Go ahead Mike X-ray Five Three Niner," the Alliance harbor control authority replied. He sounded bored, which was good.

If the military command had gotten concerned about why its commandoes hadn't reported back from dealing with the reported Cinnabar sailors, it might have careted the APC's number and identification transponder with harbor control. Daniel preferred to be one of the day's several hundred indistinguishable movements through the air about Kostroma City.

"Mike X-ray Five Three Nine requests permission to land at Dock Twenty-Five to pick up a passenger," Adele said. "Over."

She didn't sound worried. She probably wasn't worried, which put her one up on Daniel Leary right at this moment. But he suspected Adele couldn't be less than precise if life depended on it.