Apparently, Catarina thought, they’d been arming themselves to fight the last war, not this one.
Chapter Five
Two weeks after escaping Castillo, Blackbeard and the rest of the newly freed squadron jumped into Nebuchadnezzar. Tolvern was running through post-jump protocols when Lieutenant Capp rushed onto the bridge. The former first mate, currently acting as second mate/assistant pilot, had been off shift, and her uniform was in disarray.
Drake looked up from where he was working with Nyb Pim at the pilot’s console and gave Tolvern a shake of the head with a look that said it was Tolvern’s turn to handle the situation.
“I can’t believe it!” Capp said. She slid into a spare seat and stared up at the viewscreen. “It’s all friendlies, ain’t it?”
Tolvern sighed. “Shouldn’t you be getting some rest, Lieutenant?”
“How was I gonna sleep coming through the jump with all them ghouls waiting for us on the other side?
“Except there aren’t any ghouls. It’s all clear.”
“I know!” Capp rubbed a hand over her scalp. “Only I never figured it happening that way. I figured them aliens would be all over us. I know I’m off shift, but I want to stay and watch this, yeah?”
“Fine, but shut up, will you?” Tolvern said, but with no heat. She was amused by Capp’s giddy response. “I’m doing your blasted job here, and it’s not as easy as I remembered.”
Truth was, Tolvern didn’t mind the semi-demotion, not if it meant having her husband back on the bridge. She was happy to let Drake make the big decisions while she took care of the first mate duties. Right now that involved getting information from the other ships already in-system.
Drake had sent a message to the Admiralty after the escape from Castillo, which confirmed receipt and passed it along to Catarina Vargus somewhere back toward Scandian space. Void Queen hadn’t arrived in Nebuchadnezzar yet, nor had Fox’s battle cruiser, HMS Citadel.
What they did have was a naval squadron under Lucy Pearson of HMS Vigilant. That was the same ship name as the cruiser captained by Nigel Rutherford, who’d sacrificed himself and his crew fighting Lord Malthorne’s coup attempt. The reborn Punisher-class cruiser was joined by three war junks, two Hroom sloops, and a small flotilla of torpedo boats. Without destroyers or missile frigates, it comprised a motley task force. And no corvettes or star wolves, either; this was apparently the remnant or vanguard of some larger fleet.
No matter. Now that Blackbeard and her fleet had arrived, they had enough firepower to hold the system and await further reinforcements.
But something had Pearson’s ships agitated. She was several hundred million miles away from Blackbeard and her escorts, one gas giant inward from the system’s outer rim and about fifteen degrees around the solar orbit. Blackbeard’s AI seemed to think there was a jump point near that position, which was part of what Drake and Nyb Pim were trying to work out. Was that back toward Xerxes or Zoroaster, and did that mean Vargus was in trouble as she readied to jump Void Queen through?
“What are they going on about, Cap’n?” Capp said.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Tolvern said. “Pearson will have spotted us by now—we’ll get our answer in about forty-five minutes if it’s not an emergency. Faster if it is and they send a subspace.”
“That ain’t the Persia jump they’re looking for, is it?”
Drake looked up. “Now that’s a thought. Might explain why we can’t find it yet, because they’re still searching. Tech, what are Pearson’s war junks up to?”
“Seems like they’re hitting with active sensors,” Smythe answered. “A regular search pattern. Want me to tell our own beetles to spread their wings?”
Drake deferred to Tolvern, who studied the main screen before making a decision, her first concern being the reassembly of their own forces.
“Hold that order,” she said.
Wang’s war junks were in no position to join the search; they were still trying to get their bearings and move clear from the jump point. The Fourth Wolves had spread in a half-moon above Blackbeard. They had Apollo through, and the corvette maneuvered into position off starboard and slightly below them. That left only Peerless and Bailyna Tyn’s sloops to make the jump.
A few other ships had remained in Castillo to support Elizabeth Kelly, Fort Mathilde’s commander—five destroyers and a pair of sloops. Kelly was well dug in, with her base ringed with Youd mines and three hundred mechanized marines and raiders in stasis in case of a ground assault. Plus over three thousand rustics brought up from the planet and trained to work the factories, mines, and guns.
“That’s an ugly formation,” Tolvern said, upon further studying Pearson’s ships. “She’s got her war junks out ahead, uncloaked. A couple of sloops to support them, that’s all. And what are her torpedo boats doing?”
This was directed to Smythe at the tech console, and he answered a moment later.
“Zooming back and forth. Covering more territory with their short-range sensors.”
That explained what Peerless was doing, too, apparently. She’d swung wide to ping the search zone from a different angle. But it was a haphazard formation, and Tolvern didn’t like it.
“Looks like chaos to me.”
Drake had been engaged in quiet conversation with Nyb Pim, but now glanced over with a raised eyebrow. “Almost like she’s eager to find it first and hog all the glory. Now where have I seen that before?”
“Touché. But we did find it, didn’t we? Plus, this is Blackbeard, not some wimpy little Punisher-class.”
Capp snort-laughed at this. “You gonna tell ’em to form up proper ranks?”
“Nah, let them search. We’ll be there in a day or two if they haven’t found it yet, and the system looks clear.”
Still, she grew unsettled as McGowan brought Peerless through, followed by the colonel’s sloops. Pearson’s report appeared, having crossed the distance from Vigilant. Pearson had fought two battles during her travels from the Albion yards, or that’s how she described them anyway. Vigilant’s green crew had tested itself against a crippled enemy dragoon discovered in the Great Bear System—a victim of a larger battle against Void Queen’s squadron a few weeks earlier.
The dragoon couldn’t maneuver, had lost most of its guns, and was barely more than target practice. After making short work of the enemy ship, Pearson sent a destroyer and her sole missile frigate to meet up with Citadel after Captain Fox requested support, but chose to continue by herself with her small, largely untested fleet, rather than wait six days to rendezvous with several nearby star wolves.
After that, Pearson came upon another remnant of Vargus’s work in Hillerød, a pair of dragoons left behind when Void Queen forced an enemy fleet to retire after a brief skirmish. Pearson destroyed the enemy ships, but lost her remaining destroyer in the battle. The crippled destroyer withdrew to the Odense yards for extensive repair, but since it hadn’t been lost lost, it barely counted, according to Pearson’s report.
“She had overwhelming firepower,” Tolvern muttered. “Shouldn’t have suffered any casualties at all.”
The entire report seemed overly boastful, and Tolvern was already forming an unfavorable impression of Pearson’s fleet actions when a patch of video came through. She watched it on her personal console, with audio fed privately into her earpiece.
Pearson had a sharp nose and eyebrows that seemed permanently arched. Her hair was swept into a bun, with streaks of gray at the temples. She was an experienced officer, Tolvern thought, fifteen or twenty years in the fleet, but this was her first command of a capital ship. Hadn’t she lost a destroyer in the Apex war or something?
“We’ve found the missing jump point,” Pearson said. “Or very nearly, anyway. Intermittent signals—it’s a question of pinpointing them, nothing more.” Pearson waved a hand. “Meanwhile, we’ve swept Nebuchadnezzar, and it’s clear of enemies. Feel free to move about with complete confidence.”
That
was a bold statement, since according to her report, she’d only arrived in the system five days earlier. In spite of continually searching the Castillo System, Tolvern had still stumbled into those dragoons hiding near the missing jump point. The three ships had remained hidden for nine weeks, undetected.
Drake returned to the captain’s chair and looked down at his console with a deepening frown. He rubbed thoughtfully at his chin.
“Even if the system is clear,” Tolvern said, “there are so many jump points in Nebuchadnezzar that enemies could pop through at any time.”
“I agree. Tell Pearson to realign her forces. If she wants to keep searching, fine, but I want her in a defensive posture.”
“How about this?” Tolvern suggested. “Torpedo boats screening, sloops out front, serving the role of brawler. One war junk cloaked, and the other two searching from the shadow of Vigilant’s guns.”
“Don’t micromanage her, Captain. She’ll come to that conclusion on her own.” Drake shrugged. “And if she doesn’t, that will tell you something else.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nevertheless, Tolvern thought the situation warranted a bold statement, and that meant a subspace, not the casual back and forth of light speed communication across distance. This was a command, not a suggestion.
She made it short and sharp and had Smythe send it. Then she told Capp the fun was over and to get down to quarters and sleep. The lieutenant was yawning, the situation seemed to have stabilized, and she went off without complaint.
Blackbeard and her supporting ships came into formation, with the battle cruiser in the vanguard and McGowan’s light cruiser guarding the rear, then set off to rendezvous with Captain Pearson’s forces.
Who were remarkably slow about obeying orders. First the sloops came in, sluggish, almost reluctant. Then one of the war junks drifted into place. The torpedo boats were all over the place, and the other two Singaporean vessels dangled in front, right in the line of fire of Vigilant’s guns, should those be necessary.
Drake looked put out. “She’s taking her own blasted time. You might need to micromanage after all.”
“There, they found it,” Smythe said. He tapped his screen. “Got a strong hit, right there, drawn out by the junks.”
“Tell Wang to confirm,” Tolvern said.
She felt almost disappointed, and realized that it was pride. It didn’t diminish her work—make that Brockett and Smythe’s work—but surely the missing Persia jump point should have been rediscovered under more disciplined conditions.
Two of Pearson’s torpedo boats swung around to close in on the sector of space Smythe identified as the source of the signal. Everything was pinging off that space now, and the boats would be the first to arrive. Not much point in sending them. A torpedo boat was too small to run the containment field needed to safely haul in the alien tech, unless Pearson intended to destroy it.
Suddenly, Smythe cursed. The viewscreen flickered with incoming data from all the hits, and several long, dark shapes materialized near the torpedo boats.
“Dammit,” Tolvern said. “Didn’t she read my report?”
Just like in the Castillo system, it appeared that the enemy had stashed several dragoons near the jump point hiding device. They must have been sitting there for months, silent and waiting. Maybe the ghouls had even been in stasis, waiting to be awakened, the dragoons practically ghost ships until they were needed.
The enemy ships were active now, illuminated by Alliance scans and positioning themselves for attack. Five ships in all—hardly an overwhelming force—but Lucy Pearson’s forces couldn’t have been more poorly placed.
The two torpedo boats stumbled into the enemy’s jaws. Before the Albion warships could get their tubes opened, the Adjudicators were firing missiles, pulse fire, and exploding kinetic shot from either flank, as well as from below them on the Z-axis. The first boat broke apart and detonated within the first twenty seconds of combat.
The second torpedo boat accelerated in an attempt to run the gauntlet before the dragoons could redirect fire. For an instant it looked like it would squirt safely out the back side, and the alert boat-commander even had his aft tubes ready to fire back a return blow. But enemy pulse fire disabled the engine and a stray missile struck the tube just as a torpedo was being launched. The Mark-IV detonated next to the torpedo boat and obliterated the entire port side of the small ship. It spun like a rolling log, with fiery gasses venting into space.
The battle had been raging for maybe three, four minutes, and already Pearson had lost two of her five torpedo boats. The other three were way out in front, moving in the opposite direction from their command ship, and slow to come about.
The dragoons accelerated rapidly toward HMS Vigilant, which would have sat unguarded if Pearson hadn’t moved her sloops of war into position following Tolvern’s orders. The Hroom commanders, at least, were ready. Hundreds of small bombs corkscrewed out from the sloops’ serpentine batteries.
And here the dragoon commanders flinched. Instead of charging through the bombardment, maybe losing one of their ships, and then falling on the unprepared cruiser like a pack of hungry lions, three drew up and attacked the offending sloops, while the final two peeled away to attack the nearby war junk. That bought Pearson valuable time to get Vigilant into the battle. Or should have. The cruiser still had not fired a single shot.
The war junk had its sensor arrays extended, was not cloaked, and could only manage ineffective pulse fire. The dragoons realized they had a helpless victim and pulled short, picked their shots, and began to hammer the Singaporean ship with slow, methodical blows.
Tolvern gritted her teeth, watching helplessly from millions of miles away as the enemy blasted apart the junk’s sensor arrays, broke the plasma containment field around the engines, and finally pierced the war junk’s bridge armor. The ship died from a dozen bleeding wounds.
The sloops were making a good fight of it, but they were outnumbered three to two, and one of them took a hard blow that forced it to withdraw. The remaining sloop dangled alone, and it suffered an even greater bombardment. It lost its serpentines.
“Damn you, Pearson,” Drake said. “Are you ever going to return fire?”
Still, they were extremely lucky. If the dragoons had attacked Vigilant instead of the war junk and the sloops, they’d be down a cruiser. There was no doubt of it.
At least Vigilant was finally moving about to present her big guns. There seemed to be action in the torpedo tubes. One of the dragoons had taken damage in the fight against the sloops, and Pearson’s final three torpedo boats were closing in. The other two war junks were concentrating their armor-softening energy beams on the two lead dragoons.
If only Vigilant could get her guns into the fight. What the devil was wrong?
The dragoons, seeing that they were about to be hemmed in, threw up cloaks and tried to vanish. That was hard to do with so many Alliance ships hitting the area with active sensors, and they were still visible as they threaded the gap between the injured Hroom sloops and the Albion cruiser.
It was a final chance for Pearson to do some damage, but Vigilant’s main battery remained silent as the dragoons slid past. Groans and curses sounded across Blackbeard’s bridge, and Tolvern clapped her hands to her temples in frustration.
“Oh, sure, now,” Smythe said. “Not much point to it.”
She looked up to see a handful of missiles finally emerging from Vigilant’s batteries. They were too few in number, and the enemy dropped burst charges to baffle the attack. But then an exceptionally lucky shot slipped through the countermeasures and hit the dragoon wounded by the sloops.
It must have been more badly damaged than Tolvern thought, because the missile broke down the blue torus ring shield generator and forced a plasma release. The incoming torpedo boats put shots into the air and blasted it apart before it could join the other four dragoons.
Who made a clever maneuver and vanished from the screens. A war junk found the d
ragoons briefly about ten minutes later, racing in a rough trajectory toward Blackbeard’s incoming task force. That caused momentary excitement, but the dragoons changed course again and disappeared for good. All further searches came up fruitless.
Two obliterated torpedo boats, a war junk destroyed. Two sloops mauled and nearly put out of action. Hundreds dead.
“That is the most shameful display of fighting I have ever seen the Royal Navy engage in,” Drake said once the matter was settled. Tolvern had never heard him sound more disgusted.
Nyb Pim pinched his nose slits closed. “I thought we were getting the upper hand in this war. I suppose I was wrong.”
Drake glared straight ahead without answering, and Tolvern thought it best not to add more fuel to his anger. That task fell on Edward McGowan.
He called from Peerless, which was a few thousand miles behind Blackbeard at the rear of the task force. McGowan looked incandescent as he appeared on the viewscreen.
“By God, have you ever seen such a thing?”
“No,” Drake said.
“I saw her forming ranks, and I figured someone had told her to shape up—”
“Someone did.”
“—but then there was that bloody awful inaction. Was her entire gunnery in the mess hall? Was Pearson drunk? What is wrong with her?”
“She was overconfident, I think.” Drake sounded calm, but Tolvern saw the vein pulsing in his forehead. “Her crew is green, and they were apparently unprepared.”
“That is the fault of their commanding officer, Admiral.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well? Are you going to do something about it?”
“Yes, McGowan. I will.”
“Oh.” Some of the flush left the man’s face. “Well, then.”
“Do you have anything else to say?”
A dangerous edge had entered Drake’s voice, and McGowan seemed to realize that he was the immediate target of the admiral’s anger. When he spoke again, his voice was meek.
“No, sir.”
The Alliance Trilogy Page 31
