They were only two days from completing their work when an emergency alert woke Catarina from her slumber. She wasn’t a hard-bitten naval officer, and had happily been sleeping in quarters built for visiting Scandian warlords, in a bed so soft and laden with goose-feather comforters that getting out was like clawing her way out of the world’s most comfortable tar pit. She had her pants on and her boots half laced before she was fully aware that the warning was from the marine perimeter.
By the time she got to the surface from her bunker-like quarters, word through the com had enemy raiders at two hundred feet from the outer perimeter and directing an attack of machine gun and hand cannon fire at a pair of marine bunkers, the last defenses before the enemy broke into the yards and stormed the hangars.
The weather was driving rain—a freezing, sleety mess—and Catarina’s arms and head were bare as she stepped outside. The gunfire was fiercest to her left, and the whole side of the yards lit up with floodlights. An armored vehicle rolled out of a building with its gun turret swiveling and passed next to the long, dark form of HMS Bolt, a Swift-class corvette with a wrecked aft shield. Someone was awake and alert on the corvette’s bridge—maybe even the captain, who had claimed she would stay on board until Bolt was out of the yards, and had exposed her deck gun to use in support. Good thinking, that.
Catarina reached one of the tyrillium-hardened guard towers, snarled at the Scandian guards to get out of her way, and raced up the stairs when the lift proved slow to respond. She reached the top to find her tech officer, Lieutenant Burris, working with the yard commander.
Rodriguez glanced her way, and the gruff Ladino’s eyes were bloodshot, his expression pinched with worry. “Diós mío, I know what you said, but I didn’t believe it. I never thought they’d attack—not from the ocean. We’re eighty miles from the mainland!”
She gave him an acidic look. “A star wolf will cross ten light years to make a good raid. You really think these Vikings care about eighty miles of open sea?”
“They did it without engines,” Burris said. “I checked the readings on those sonar arrays you had me drop offshore, and not one of them picked up a whisper.”
Meaning the attackers must have rowed their way in from several miles offshore. That was a more impressive feat, admittedly.
Burris peered through the rain-streaked window at the flashes of light from the battle below, although the viewscreen, with its cameras and infrared, gave a better view. The lieutenant’s red hair was a wild mop, and he’d mismatched the buttons on his uniform, with one end of his jacket dangling lower than the other. A hastily strapped on sidearm hung from one hip, which was a joke. Did he think if armored mech units made it up here, he’d take them out with a pistol?
A exploding flash of light illuminated the yards. Bolt sat below them, and behind her, one of the destroyers, also exposed to the elements, and a pair of small cargo shuttles, down for repair after being caught in crossfire during the battle with Adjudicator warships. A vast hangar curved to the northwest, almost to the far side of the yards. Void Queen was inside, with only the snout of the battle cruiser nosing into the sleet.
Catarina’s ship wasn’t in position to use her guns, but in that brief glimpse, she saw another armored vehicle roll into position in front, together with a handful of marines or Scandians on foot—hard to tell from this distance—using it for cover. She had several dozen crew sleeping on board—another precaution—and they’d be grabbing arms to defend the ship.
Another flash of light. This time, the explosion shook the guard tower, and this was followed seconds later by an incoming rocket that struck the tower opposite them. It shattered a gun emplacement that had been firing down at the attackers.
Rodriguez touched his ear and frowned. He looked up. “They’ve knocked a hole in the southern perimeter. A second attack—nobody saw them coming from that direction.”
“How long for our own mech units?” she asked.
“I’ve got a dozen men charging in now. But they won’t be able to hold.”
The base commander released a stream of salty oaths in his own language, machine-gunned the way only Ladino could be spoken. A few choice remarks about the king. Vargus had no problem understanding, but Burris and the four marines in the room looked oblivious to the insult against their monarch’s maternal lineage.
The marines were holding fire until the enemy emerged into the open. Burris had his hand computer out and was furiously tapping at the screen while muttering instructions to someone over the com.
“I never signed up for this military stuff,” Rodriguez said. “This isn’t a little pirate raid like we used to face on San Pablo or Peruano. These Vikings mean business.”
“None of us signed up for this,” she said. “But I don’t see how that observation helps us here.”
Catarina was supposed to be settling the Omega Cluster. A duchess with her own planet—that was Admiral Drake’s promise after she helped defeat Apex. Captain McGowan, the idiot, hadn’t liked it, and she’d rubbed it in his face on the way out.
So what the blazes was she doing back here, thirty jumps from her new home? It wasn’t even a question of obligation to the crown. She could have handed over her battle cruiser to another commander and stayed with her fragile colony while the Admiralty defended the inner frontier against the Adjudicator fleets.
She turned to her tech officer. “Burris, have you got that info yet?”
“Almost, Captain. One second, I need another report from . . . there it is. Sending it up now.”
Rodriguez scowled. “Sending it up to orbit? Wait, you are? Hold on, don’t do that!”
Catarina ignored him and activated her own com, quickly voicing through to the right channel. A man growled on the other end, the line fuzzy as the signal passed back and forth through the atmosphere. “I just saw your numbers, Vargus. Fed ’em to the gunnery. You’re sure about this?”
“Do it.”
“Aye, you’ve got it.”
The man was Lars Olafsen, commander of the First Wolves. His ship, Bloodaxe, was in orbit above the yards with its pummel guns pointed toward the surface. Better hope his gunnery was top-notch, because she’d just fed him coordinates, some of which were only a few dozen yards from her current position, not to mention that Void Queen and several other navy vessels remained in the yards, vulnerable to stray fire.
Rodriguez cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we at least, you know, get underground?”
“You’ve got tyrillium scale on the roof of this thing, right?”
“It can’t bloody well take a sustained pounding from orbit.”
“Then let’s hope Olafsen’s gunnery is on target,” she said.
Light flashed, and the skies poured streams of fire. The ground shook and thundered, and it felt like the island would peel open. They’d have never made it below in time anyway, and there was nothing to do but brace themselves.
Trails of pummel gun fire moved to their left, then further east, along the spine of the island. She turned about to see more fire lighting up the perimeter where the enemy had come close to breaking through, and the whole horizon near the beach glowed. On and on the bombardment continued, for what seemed like an hour, though it couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes.
Finally, it stopped. Dust and debris and smoke and flames filled the air, and through the infrared sensors it seemed as though a third of the base was on fire, and the whole beach-side of the island was scorched and pounded into oblivion.
“Oh, my yards,” Rodriguez said with a groan. “Did they have to hit it so hard?”
Burris consulted his computer to check incoming reports. “Nothing that can’t be fixed,” he said, “A destroyer took a couple of shells, but none of the hangars were damaged. And the marines are saying that the raid is done for, nobody and nothing shooting.”
“It’s going to take days to get that perimeter secured again,” Rodriguez said.
“You’ll have time for that later,”
Catarina said. “First, you’re going to get my ship back into orbit.”
#
The next morning, when the storm had cleared, Catarina went to the beach to see the destruction for herself. Mangled landing craft and damaged mech suits mingled with the shredded corpses of water dragons. Several of the huge, scaly beasts had been caught in the bombardment, torn apart while heaving themselves ashore to complete their spawning. Old Earth gulls wheeled overhead, and some sort of leathery, penguin-like creature with a beak full of teeth scrambled over the corpses, squawking, squealing, and tearing off bits of flesh.
She found one of the water dragons still alive and bellowing on the rocks, half in and half out of the water. Pummel guns had torn off a flipper and opened a gaping wound on its back, and it was in obvious pain as the surf battered it while the gulls and the penguin-like creatures picked at its flesh. She felt sorry for the thing, and made her way warily across the rocks to its side, careful to stay clear of its snapping jaws.
She kicked one of the penguins when it tried to take a bite out of her calf, then drew the pistol she’d brought in case she encountered a wounded raider with thoughts of revenge. She aimed at the water dragon’s head and emptied the clip. That put it out of its misery.
It smelled awful, and the scavengers were driving her crazy. She returned to higher ground and spotted her first mate, Marco Azavedo, coming down the trail toward the rocky beach. He gave a wave, and she made her way to meet him halfway.
Azavedo wore an assault rifle over his shoulder and carried a machete, which he used to prod at the toothy penguins when they got too close. When she drew near, he gestured at one of the creatures with the blade.
“Be careful, Captain,” he said with a slight Ladino accent. “Those things will eat a human, you know.”
“And I’ll eat them, too. So we’re even.”
He grinned at this.
Azavedo was a good officer, respected by the crew and young enough to be flexible in battle, but Catarina missed Henny Capp. The lieutenant and several others who’d been on Void Queen during the Apex war had left to serve with Drake and Tolvern during Blackbeard’s mission across the inner frontier toward Earth.
Catarina didn’t take their defections personally; she’d supposedly been on a one-way mission to settle New Segovia, and that didn’t sound adventurous to the likes of Capp and Carvalho, or sufficiently martial to the more traditional officers and enlisted crew.
But Catarina hadn’t wanted to replace her lost personnel with standard naval crew. The ones trained at the academy reminded her of McGowan, all stiff and formal and classist. The kind to raise an eyebrow when you gripped your teacup wrong or they overheard you speaking Ladino.
She’d always been more comfortable in New Dutch and Ladino space, anyway. Felt at home with the Hroom. So when she got the naval relay urgently recalling her to the inner frontier, she’d felt comfortable keeping crew like Azavedo around. So long as she didn’t insist on formalities like being called “sir” or “Captain.” Sometimes it occurred to him, more often not.
The wind picked up and made her coattails flap. They tugged their knit caps over their ears. Azavedo’s nose was red from the chill, and Catarina guessed hers looked the same.
“Coming down to take the fresh sea breeze?” she asked. She took a deep breath. “Smells like seaweed and water dragon guts at the moment, but at least with the chill it won’t be rotting in the sun.”
“You’re on the sheltered side of the island, and I couldn’t get you on the com, not with the tower Bloodaxe knocked down.”
“This is the sheltered side? What’s on the other side, a hurricane?”
“You got a subspace from the Admiralty.”
“Yeah? And they want me back in the air ASAP?”
“For a start,” Azavedo said.
“Don’t need a subspace to tell me that. Who was it, the general?”
“Drake, actually.”
“You should have led with that. What did he say?”
“He’s out of Castillo.”
“What?” Catarina stiffened. “Read the damn thing already.”
Out of Castillo? How? Details had been sketchy—there was only so much you could communicate via subspace—but Drake, Tolvern, McGowan, and a small fleet had been holed up in the Castillo system for more than two months, their jump point collapsed by the departing Adjudicator fleet. Four other jump points had gone down in the sector, all of them critical for moving ships and goods from the Hroom Empire and the Kingdom of Albion, through Scandian territory, and toward the battlefield. The most damaging was the loss of Persia’s single jump point, of course, which had left them without Dreadnought and scores of other warships.
Azavedo cast a final, suspicious glance at a couple of nearby penguins, but they were fighting gulls over some grisly prize and paid the humans no attention. Catarina hoped it was a bit of water dragon, not a dead Scandian raider. Azavedo sheathed his machete, pulled a small computer from his hip pocket, and thumbed at the screen.
“Task force has escaped Castillo. Void Queen and Citadel to rendezvous in Nebuchadnezzar. Bring all possible corvettes and war junks. Leave others to patrol as needed to secure lanes.”
Catarina held out her hand. “Gimme that.”
He handed over the computer. That was the message all right, with lots of abbreviations that Azavedo had expanded. The better to get a quick message through. But curiously, there were tags emphasizing the part about specific ships to gather: >all possible corvettes and war junks.<
“That’s strange,” she said. “I mean, great news about breaking out of Castillo, but why those particular ships?”
“Corvettes and war junks?” Azavedo shrugged. “Who can say?”
The war junks made some sense. The enemy ships carried excellent cloaking, while war junks boasted the best sensors in the Alliance fleet. But to bring all possible ships of that kind seemed overkill. Could it be for their armor-softening capabilities?
And what about the corvettes? They were stronger than destroyers, but weaker than cruisers. And limited in number. She’d had one on hand during her own battle, and it hadn’t done much.
Of course, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t used it to maximum effectiveness, that being to run down wounded dragoons. Early in the fight, the star fortress had tried to get at a trio of missile frigates and armed merchanters, all of which were vulnerable and too valuable to lose. Catarina muscled into combat against the big carrier, alongside Olafsen’s six star wolves, while her destroyers and torpedo boats held off the dragoons.
The problem was that the two Punisher-class cruisers that were supposed to provide fire support had been on the other side of the system when the battle began, and so she’d thrown her corvette into that role. Bolt took a few blows and was forced to withdraw behind the protection of Void Queen’s brawler, then spent the rest of the battle darting out to fire her cannon and withdrawing again.
By the time the two cruisers arrived, together with destroyers of their own, the enemy star fortress was withdrawing, the result being a stalemate. Catarina had lost a single torpedo boat and suffered damage to her own ship and several others, including Bolt, of course, which remained in the yards with Void Queen and the rest.
“Hard to say what Drake wants with corvettes,” she said, “but let’s hunt down the numbers, figure out if we’ve got any at hand.”
“I already did,” Azavedo said. “The general has four in his fleet, for a start.”
“Forget those, for now. I assume Drake has a way of getting Mose Dryz out of Persia or we wouldn’t be gathering outside the system, but we can’t do anything with them yet. What else is there?”
“Fox is bringing a corvette up with Triumph. There’s another in the Roskilde System. Two running patrol at Albion, but they’re needed to guard the home system. Three in Hroom territory, doing the same thing, and besides, they’re too far away to get here in time. And another one with your colony at New Segovia, guarding supplies.
”
“If you’re talking about HMS Streak, that was already called up,” she said. “It’ll be somewhere near Samborondón, by now.”
“Point is, a long, long distance from here,” Azavedo said.
“The message says all possible, not all available. We’ll bring everything forward and ride into battle the ones that make it in time. Any others?”
“Bolt, of course. That makes nine corvettes, not counting the general’s four and HMS Apollo, which is flying with Bailyna Tyn, and the admiral presumably brought them out of Castillo with him.”
She frowned. “We had more corvettes on the eve of the final Apex battle.”
“I guess we lost some,” he said, “but the bigger question is why Albion isn’t building any more. Plenty of other ships have rolled out of the yards.”
“A corvette’s an awkward size. Nearly as expensive as a cruiser, but without the firepower. Mostly, they were useful because they were so fast out of the blocks. Good for running down smugglers and pirates.”
“I remember that,” Azavedo said with a wry smile. Like Catarina, he’d been on the wrong side of that sort of chase in the past. “Useful for fighting Scandians, too. But now the Vikings are all pacified.”
She glanced at the mangled armor of a mech suit raider lying facedown a few yards away. “I wouldn’t say all.”
“Remember the Apex battle?” he said. “The corvettes didn’t do much good. It was all Dreadnought and Blackbeard and Void Queen, plus a zillion smaller ships.”
“For that matter,” she said, “the Singaporean stuff only played a minor role. It was their plasma ejectors and eliminon batteries that we used.”
“I haven’t counted up the war junks yet,” he said. “But I don’t think we have any great fleet of them, either. Maybe a few more than the corvettes.”
And yet there had to be a reason why those were the two ships Drake specifically wanted her to gather, while leaving other forces to her discretion. War junks and corvettes must have proven useful. If only they had more of them.
The Alliance Trilogy Page 30
