The Road of Danger-ARC Read Online Free PDF Page A

on-the-job training with Adele had honed to a fine edge.
    As a practical matter, everyone aboard the Princess Cecile jumped when Adele forgot herself and said, “Jump!” She tried to hold to RCN proprieties, though—when that didn’t interfere with her accomplishing the task before her.
    “Yes, of course,” said Daniel, rising. While at rest he looked pudgy, but he didn’t need to use his arms to help lift him from the uncomfortably deep bench. “Ah—I realize it isn’t properly our concern any more, but do you think the local Naval Intelligence section will be able to handle the business on Tattersall?”
    “Yes, of course,” Adele said—more curtly than she intended. Her mind was on the next several stages in the process of locating Freedom and getting him off Sunbright. “When two RCN battleships appear over the planet, the plotters will fall all over themselves to inform on their friends before their friends inform on them. That’s what happened when the Three Circles Conspiracy unravelled, you’ll remember.”
    That’s what happened when your father unravelled the Three Circles Conspiracy, she thought. And in the process of doing so wiped out the Mundy family—with the exception of the elder daughter, Adele, who was studying off-planet .
    “I bow to your expertise,” Daniel said, mildly.
    Adele felt her lips form a tight smile again. Hunting down Freedom was a proper task for a person of her skills, so she would do it. But she hadn’t forgotten Admiral Cox and his aide, either. They had behaved discourteously to fellow RCN officers.
    And one of those officers was Mundy of Chatsworth, who was no longer a helpless orphan.

CHAPTER 3: Holm on Kronstadt
    The vehicle Hogg had found for them was a surface car with friction drive—a roller on a single central strut—but an air cushion suspension. Adele, in the back seat with Daniel, didn’t know what the advantage or claimed advantage was over vectored thrust like the armored personnel carriers which had become familiar to her, but no doubt there was one.
    “It rides very smoothly,” Daniel said, approvingly but perhaps with a touch of wonder.
    Adele sniffed. Hogg had a remarkable facility for finding vehicles, but they never rode smoothly when he drove them. This car had the logo of the Macotta Regional Authority on its front doors. She doubted that Hogg had simply stolen it, but anything was possible with that old poacher.
    “And just in case you was wondering how this happened to show up—” Hogg said, patting the fascia plate with his left hand; they swerved toward but not quite into a heavy truck speeding along the other lane of Dock Street with a load of frozen sheep carcasses “—we’re testing her for the repair depot and it’s all open and above-board.”
    “I’m glad to hear that, Hogg,” Daniel said, smiling but definitely sounding as though he meant the words. “And I’m also glad not to have to walk back from headquarters.”
    We were apparently all thinking the same thing , Adele realized. Well, by now we know one another well enough to be able to predict certain responses .
    “Ah…” said Hogg, this time without turning his head toward his master in the back seat. “Your liquor cabinet’s short of a couple bottles of that apple brandy you picked up on Armagnac. There wasn’t time enough to get into a poker game, but I can find something to replace the booze by tomorrow morning, I figure.”
    Adele’s personal data unit balanced on her lap while she sorted the information which she had trolled in squadron headquarters. She shifted to a cultural database with her control wands, then said, “The local liquor is plum brandy. There appear to be better brands and worse ones, but from commentaries I’ve found, I think absolute alcohol from the Power Room would be a better choice than the low end of the spectrum.”
    She scrolled further down and added, “In fact, I think paint stripper would be a better choice than the low