WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(128)

"If shooting starts, chief," Daniel said, "I'm going to have my hands full with the ship. If things go better than I expect, we'll just wait here for the cutter to return."

A particularly bright flash lit Daniel's display. When he turned to view the image directly the Floating Harbor was completely shrouded by steam. The fusion bottle of one of the moored vessels had failed catastrophically.

"They didn't do so bad, did they, sir?" Baylor said with a wistful smile, looking at the display over Daniel's shoulder. "My b— Our missiles from the Aglaia, I mean."

"No, chief," Daniel said. "They taught some wogs what it means to go up against Cinnabar."

He said the words to console the missileer, but as they came out Daniel felt his own pulse surge. It was childish and for that matter uncivilized to feel this sort of murderous patriotism. That didn't make the reaction any the less real.

The Aglaia's missiles were of the twin thruster design with dual antimatter conversion systems. They were the only type in first-line use in either of the major navies.

Kostroma had purchased single-thruster missiles to equip its warships. These were much cheaper, since the High Drive was the system's only expensive component. Guidance was loaded before launch. Complex sensors and terminal guidance equipment would have been a waste of money due to the high velocities involved and the fact that missiles were ballistic at normal engagement ranges.

The Princess Cecile's missiles were the same size and would reach the same velocities as those of the Aglaia—or the Bremse—but they did so at a leisurely rate by comparison. This was a particular handicap at short ranges; and if it came to a fight with the Alliance cruiser, it would be very short ranges indeed by the standards of interstellar warships.

"What do you think our Alliance friend has to send us, chief?" Daniel asked. "If it comes to that."

Baylor wrinkled his nose. "Four tubes only," he said. "The fire director's the same type they fit in the Krestovik class with twice the tubes, though, so they can keep rounds coming at ten-second intervals as long as there's anything in the magazines."

He spread his small, muscular right hand above his keyboard without touching it. "The magazines, though, that's a guess, but carrying a full defensive constellation I'd guess thirty-six missiles. Maybe thirty-eight if their missileer knows his business, and maybe only twenty if some dickhead with a lot of braid thinks, `They're not coming to fight, so let's use the stowage for something useful like fancy rations.' "

Baylor cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Not meaning to insult you, sir," he added.

"I wouldn't feel insulted even if I had a lot of braid, chief," Daniel said. "Which I most certainly do not."

"Thing is, sir," Baylor said, "they'll be high-acceleration types and ours aren't. There's no getting around that."

"Bremse to unidentified vessel at thirty-nine thousand kilometers!" the communicator snarled. The Alliance cruiser had noticed the cutter at last. Too bad, but Daniel had expected it. "Cut power and identify yourself immediately or we'll destroy you. I repeat, identify yourself immediately! Bremse out!"

Daniel touched a console button whose protective cage he'd flipped back even before the Princess Cecile reached orbit. The vessel's general alarm, sets of three treble pulses, sounded in all compartments.

He lifted his finger from the button and said over the communicator, "General quarters. Prepare for action."

To Baylor Daniel added, "Well, chief, let's see what we can do with the present equipment, shall we?"

Covering a mind full of doubt with a tight smirk, Daniel stroked the firing toggle to launch the corvette's first pair of missiles.



"—repeat, identify yourself immediately or we'll destroy you!" said the voice from the communicator. "Bremse out!"

"You'll do wonders," Woetjans muttered reflectively, glaring at the cutter's minimal display. "Put us in the shadow of one of the mines they been dropping, Lamsoe. If you can, anyhow. I'd say put the command node between us, but we're too fucking far."

Here aboard the cutter, Adele had no feeling whatever for distances or even directions. Because of space restrictions the Plot-Position Indicator was projected on a concave combiner lens in front of Lamsoe, the pilot, rather than as three real dimensions in the air above the console. Adele wasn't even sure whether the cutter was one of the points on the curved display or if they were instead the center of the display's lower horizon.

She turned to Dasi, strapped into the fold-down seat beside her, and said, "Will they fire at us?" It didn't occur to her until after she spoke that the sailor might think she was frightened.