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“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Oh, and while we’re at this, best we station a boat midway between ourselves and Mr. Picard on the shore, to relay communication.”

“Very good, sir.”

Pennington summoned his resolve, mastered his pain, and hustled away, carrying all that on his shoulders, as the captain peered briefly at the shore, then also went aft.

Picard at once felt sympathy and admiration for these people, who had to come up with clever ways to do the simplest things, even communicating over short distance. In his time, he had only to push a button, and unthinkable technology allowed him to communicate through billions of kilometers of spatial vacuum. As he watched these officers try to work out their problems, he realized he was standing upon their accomplishments. Things were easier for him because things had been so hard for them.

On the other hand, they knew their enemy. The last man standing would be the winner. Picard never knew ahead of time whether the strange alien he encountered would befriend him, kill him, marry him, or eat him. In his universe, a person could step into a faulty transporter, and come out in the shape of a turnip.

Well, every generation had its burdens.

Short minutes later, he was in a row boat with Alexander, Nightingale, two deckhands who were acting as oarsmen, and the sergeant of the marine grenadiers, with his loaded rifle.

The sergeant wore a formal scarlet coat with white facings and brass buttons, but beneath that he wore a sailor’s checked shirt and rather loose trousers, probably because he had been living aboard ship and the typical tight breeches and waistcoats were taxing in that environment. Picard had noticed that the grenadiers were usually indistinguishable from the sailors, except when engaged in battle. Then they put on their red coats and stiff-fronted yellow headgear with the embroidered letters GR— George Rex.

Of course. King George the Third.

The sergeant was a tall young man in his mid-twenties, perhaps a little over six feet, his hair as blond as Mr. Nightingale’s was dark, and he possessed enviable cheek bones and a set of very Aryan blue eyes. He seemed a bit nervous, glancing at the dark shoreline, probably worried about snipers or a trap. He was not sitting, as the others all were. Instead he rested a knee on one of the slat seats, and balanced as well as possible there, with his rifle at the ready.

For a few precious minutes, while rowing toward the broccoli-bunch trees of the shoreline, there seemed to be peace in the bay. Behind them, a faint moon glowed through the haze, casting little light, but enough to make out the ghostly image of the ship against the gauzy night.

Picard paused for several minutes and just watched the ship, taking in the shape of the hull, the high transom, the heads’ls slapping loose, and the phantomish movement of dark, small men along her deck.

“It’s so pretty …” Alexander was watching the frigate, too. As a child of space travel, he wasn’t used to seeing the ships he lived upon except from the inside, and this was a whole different perception.

“There’s the repair party,” Picard said quietly, noticing a small boat with four men who appeared at the stern of the Justina.

“They’re getting ready to fight again, aren’t they?” the boy asked.

“Yes, repairing the damage to the rudder. The ship has to be able to maneuver or she’s lost. The captain thinks another wave of attacks is coming.”

“He thinks this is … a trap?”

“A wave of targeted attacks, yes. The colonists know they can’t win against an armed frigate of Royal Navy seamen and soldiers with a direct attack. They have to weaken the enemy first.”

Alexander scowled. “Doesn’t seem honorable to me. They should come out in the open and fight.”

“How would you fight against an enemy far larger, better trained, better armed, and well-financed? Come out and stand before him?”

“Isn’t that better?” The boy turned to him. “Isn’t that more honorable?”

So at least he hadn’t forgotten why they were doing this.

Picard seized the moment. “Let’s start with this—what