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Leonfeld quaked with hopelessness, continued to load his flintlock—which took quite a few steps—but did not fire again.

Alexander said, “Captain …”

Picard looked, and noticed the boy speaking to him but still staring not at the ship, not at the water or the battle, but at Sergeant Leonfeld. Picard instantly understood. Alexander wanted him to let this strapping young man, whom now the boy “possessed” as a relative, take action. Any action; but that would not be appropriate. Picard could only guess about his own participation in this scenario, but surmised what the officer whose place he was taking might have done. If the boy’s hero worship fit poorly into that scheme, so be it.

The screams of their shipmates and their enemies alike splintered the night. Justina’s crew kept up a valiant fight, but the ship was lost. Surrounded. Either she would burn, or her captain would strike his flag, put out the fire, and surrender.

“Why are those boats so determined?” Alexander asked. “Why are they attacking us again and again!”

“They’re defending the boatyard,” Midshipman Nightingale told the boy. “They want to be sure the British assault fails. They must’ve known we were coming somehow.”

“How would they know?”

“Spies, likely. Traitors.”

Alexander shook his head, confused. “Why do the British want to attack a boatyard?”

Edward Nightingale peered with his youthful eyes through the trees at the battling ships, wincing each time a puff of cannon smoke burst into the moonlit haze, then pausing until seconds later, the accompanying poom would reach them. His soft English accent added a certain lilt to his sentences. “Delaware Station Boatyard specializes in converting working ships to fighting ships in mere weeks. American vessels are built low and narrow, without much room for provisions. After all, they rarely have to cross the ocean. They’re built—”

Suddenly hell’s gates opened before them as Justina’s port broadside cannons lit off all at once, instantly shattering one of the spider catcher boats, but completely missing the single-masted ship that quickly dodged around her stern and fired a raking shot.

Nightingale winced and swallowed hard, then spoke with a terrible struggle. “American ships are built primarily … primarily for coastal trade or fishing. As such, they’re considerably faster and more maneuverable than … ours.”

Alexander prodded, “What does it take to make one into a fighting ship? What’s the difference?”

Picard almost spoke up to say the differences were essentially the same as in their time, but Nightingale was still clinging to the conversation, even as his hands trembled on the branches he clutched. “The bulwarks must be pierced with gun ports, certainly, and the decks reinforced for the weight of cannon. Shot lockers and an antifire magazine must be built, and the crew quarters enlarged, because a fighting crew is so many more men than a cargo crew. Such alterations convert a beast of burden into a fighting rig …”

The midshipman’s voice trickled off as he paused, deeply disturbed by what he saw out on the water.

“Interrupt holoprogram, code Riker Zero One.”

Around Picard and Alexander, the old-style holoprogram slowed to a crawl, but this time, due to its partial incompatibility with the modern holosystem, didn’t entirely freeze. A cannon puff from out on the water groaned toward the Justina, its flash of fire and violence slowed to a long bright yellow slash, and there it seemed to stay.

To their right, the door to the holodeck appeared, opened, and William Riker strode through.

“Sorry to interrupt, Captain.”

“Mr. Riker,” Picard sighed heavily, shaking himself back to his other world. “Are you dead yet?”

“Yes, sir, I’m dead. Everything went as you planned. The patroller trick was a good one, sir.”

“Thank you. Alexander, why don’t you go get lunch while I speak to Mr. Riker.”

Alexander glanced furtively out at the ship and the battle, clicking along very, very slowly, then