In The Stormy Red Sky - David Drake

In the Stormy red sky is the seventh book in the RCN series.

Daniel Leary has been promoted to Captain and also given the command of a heavy cruiser that he had captured in battle. This has been repaired and outfitted. He has to have a new ship as his corvette has been damaged in battle, again.

Daniel has to use this craft to transport a Senator and her aide to several systems that are proving rather a problem for Cinnabar.

Here we have a four strand story. A senator who lost an election but is still a powerful figure, a new boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks himself a god, a planet where the most savage beast is human and a powerful enemy base that needs to be sorted out, a base that is the home to a powerful squadron that recently defeated a republican squadron.

In the world of the Daniel Leary stories, the Cinnabar republic is rather more reminiscent of ancient Rome than any modern democracy. Here it is a world where patronage rules. Power is concentrated into the hands of certain families who can arrange for certain supporters to get jobs or contracts. A certain amount of graft and corruption is expected. So when a senator fails to win an election for a particular post, her opponent bought more votes than she did, she is still a powerful force who can do great damage to others in her anger.

For a ruler to be a supreme autocrat whilst still a young boy is a daunting prospect. His advisors will be falling over themselves for power and to avoid getting on his bad side. Here it appears that this young ruler doesn't have a good side.

Slavery is an abhorrent institution and it can easily brutalise master and slave. When slaves escape if they have no civilised place to go and are hunted like animals then it’s no wonder that they can become as animals. But animals with a very cunning brain to guide them.

In these stories we have starships that use masts and sails. These need repair and maintenance and to do that requires bases. Just consider the network of bases that was maintained by various nations during the 18th and 18th century. Often naval forces would have to be despatched by one nation to lay siege or to capture an enemy’s base. That could alter the whole balance of trade. Ships would be unwilling to sail to places where there was greater risk of capture and no safe place to repair and re-provision the ship.

The ships of these stories use water as a reaction mass and so can set down on any world that has water even if that water is in the form of ice. Ships may be able to replenish their stocks of water and air but then they also need food and that normally requires a certain amount of human effort to obtain. In these stories we are not told about the sailors rations other than some captains cheat their sailors with poor foods. It appears that the RCN doesn't go in for that practice though. Poor food and conditions have caused mutiny in the past and space is a very dangerous place to be anyway. Accidents have been known to happen.

For this story Daniel has to act as a diplomatic courier and be rather diplomatic himself when he has to transport an angry senator about. For Daniel, his first duty has always been to the republic. He can be relied on to attack the enemy when ever he can see the opportunity to do so. He isn't the reckless type of commander but will expend the lives of his people where necessary. He will regret having to do so but will not shirk from such.

Adel Mundy is his friend and a librarian by training. She acts as signal officer for any ship commanded by Daniel. She has great ability to gather data and draw conclusions from that data. Such is her skill that she is also employed as a spy by the intelligence service. Sometimes that can cause a certain amount of friction with the uniformed navy. Adel may appear to be a friendless and rather lonely person. But she now considers Daniel a friend and the RCN as her adopted family. The sailors have also adopted her as part of their family. Adel does not often openly show emotions as she doesn’t always understand them. Many times people do not make sense and she is happier acquiring and analysing data. She is however very conscious of her honour and she was trained as an expert pistol shot by her parents. She is equally adept with either hand though she generally uses her left. In the course of her duties she has killed many people whose faces will return to haunt her in the early hours of a day. She is fiercely loyal.

Here we have another rousing tale. The people who make up the republic look down on other races as 'wogs' though there is no actual racism or discrimination. These others are just not as good as Cinnabar persons. But as a starships crew can be made up of persons from many a planet, when they reach the same general level of competence they all display the 'wog' attitude to others. On several occasions Daniel has referred to others races as 'wogs' when talking to the general spacers and has also rebuked his man, Hogg, for his use of the word. There is certainly no discrimination based on a persons colour. Rather than racism that we may understand the attitude is more 'esprit de corps' and pride in themselves and their accomplishments. They consider themselves better than others as they have often proved to be so. As the society is based on ancient Rome then the attitude is quite understandable. You were either a Roman citizen or a barbarian to be looked down on. Ancient Greece had similar attitudes though they sometimes tended to look down on Romans even though they had been conquered by Rome's armies. You only have to read the histories of that time to get the flavour of their attitudes towards other races. There is no general racism or discrimination of any sort in these stories. The various planetary nations are not thinly veiled references to nations that exist here on this planet.

In these stories weapon barrels are made of iridium and larger guns fire a slug of osmium. Both of these are platinum group metals and are extremely dense. Osmium is almost twice as heavy as lead and iridium is extremely resistant. Here we have only little but it appears that these metals exist in larger quantities in asteroids. So it’s not too unexpected that in future ages we would make use of them. For small pistols a ceramic pellet is used. This makes a great deal of sense. Suck a projectile would smash and vaporise on impact. I t would be deadly to humans and other life forms but wouldn't puncture a ships hull. Certain weapons here on this planet use kinetic energy to destroy their targets, certain armour piercing rounds for instance, so the use of such even missiles in any future setting make a great deal of sense. There are weapons under development that use electromagnetic forces now, i.e. the rail gun and the coil gun. This just assumes that we can develop a miniature power source for such as there is no practical problem with hand held weapons other than the power requirements today.

The main weapon of these ships is a missile that kills by kinetic energy. To achieve a hit the warhead is solid metal that splits into three parts when the motor burns out. Each piece weighs over 1 ton. Powering the missile is a matter-anti matter reaction. Think of a giant hot water tank where some of the water is converted into anti matter and that is sprayed into a mist of ordinary water at the nozzle area. The resultant reaction would produce great thrust. Rather a sensible idea for a missile, though we are not told how to convert matter into anti matter. That’s the fictional part. The rest is just good engineering.

Of course these stories are all fictional and the hero is going to come out on top but some of the plot elements are not as far fetched as people may think. Acting boldly in a desperate situation can sometimes save the day. A powerful enemy force cannot believe that a weaker force would boldly attack unless it was supported by stronger units just out of sight. This can have the result that the original enemy will break off the engagement fearing those other forces trapping it. A case in point is the WWII Battle of the River Plate where, I understand, Captain Langsdorff thought the three British cruisers were the scouting and advance screen for heavy units. Similarly I believe towards that wars end a German army corps surrendered to a jeep with three men in it, the highest being a Captain.

This is a good, page turner of a story. We have some espionage and a rather good battle sequence. Whilst this is a part of an ongoing series, I find that you could read this without having read any of the others first, but to get the full picture and enjoyment they should be read in order. I recommend this book

Getting hold of a copy.
This work was first published in 2009 by Baen books. As it is an American import you may not find many copies in high street booksellers. You should still find copies in specialist shops.
Amazon has it listed at £16.14 from the RRP of £18.99 for new hardcover and £5.85 from the RRP of £6.50 for paperback. There will be used copies available where price depends on condition. As ever, shop around to get the bargain that suits you.