“Would I have any support craft?”
“Missile frigates, war junks. Your brawlers and falcons.”
“While the rest of the fleet holds Juliett and Echo at bay, I presume.”
“You presume right.”
The general didn’t answer for a long moment, but stared back, unblinking, with his large, liquid eyes. “Yes, under those parameters, I believe I can win the fight.”
There was no time to waste. Drake put Pearson on the destroyers to have them toss down more mines, then organized a separate engagement with Captain McGowan in command. Peerless and the three corvettes flashed into action. They burst into the collection of massed dragoons and broke their formation. Swordfish and Meteor latched onto one of the dragoons as it attempted to shimmy and come back around to India. It couldn’t shake the corvettes.
The Second Wolves took refuge behind the minefield, together with the destroyers and Drake’s five Hroom sloops of war. At long last, Lieutenant commander Kelly’s three surviving destroyers and the pair of sloops returned from the inner system, where the Adjudicators had scattered them in the initial fight. They came up alongside the star wolves in support.
The whole formation looked like it wanted to face off against Echo, which approached from that flank, but Drake’s threat didn’t yet look credible. India had, after all, just slammed through four cruisers lined up to stop it. Echo would make short work of these lesser craft. Drake needed something more to convince the enemy.
“Time for the torpedo boats,” he said.
Pearson gave him a sharp look. “Against Echo? It will tear them apart. And those dragoons riding its wake will finish the job.”
“Order them to make a cautious approach, drop their load, and get out of there. We’re going to waste a few torpedoes—and that’s fine. All I need is for the enemy to respond.”
That sounded good enough in theory, but Juliett was coming hard into their formation, and three corvettes and a cruiser weren’t enough to disrupt fourteen dragoons for long. More than half had already regrouped. Reluctantly, Drake sent Savage into the battle, hoping the old Aggressor-class cruiser was up for the fight. That left only Vigilant and Alacrity as reserve forces. Two cruisers—it seemed wholly inadequate.
Juliett and Echo forced their way through the outer reaches of the minefield and laid down a barrage of missile and kinetic fire. Alliance ships returned fire, but the enemy attack was too savage. Drake lost a destroyer, then a sloop. Others came under intense fire.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Hold the line.”
Alacrity’s captain called, asking if he could join the fight. Not yet.
Nine torpedo boats swooped in, slipped through the massed Alliance ships, evaded a pair of aggressive dragoons, and launched a mixture of Mark-IV and Hunter-II torpedoes. Every one of the boats escaped back toward friendly lines, and Drake wondered briefly if he should have risked a full charge, instead of this halfhearted measure.
As it was, several torpedoes made it through the first wave of countermeasures, and a trio of the small, but persistent Hunter-II’s broke through the second wave as well. Two hit Juliett, and one Echo. At the same time, three sloops and a pair of star wolves that had moved forward to cover the torpedo boats’ retreat found themselves with an unexpected opening while Juliett tried to break free. They got off a nice barrage of pummel guns and serpentine batteries before the two carriers combined fire and hurled them back. At least two of these allied ships took some hits on their way out.
On the surface, the engagement was a loss. Drake had inflicted slight damage to a number of dragoons and landed three modest hits against the carriers at the cost of two dead ships—their crews being evacuated behind lines—and damage to two others.
But Juliett and Echo were hesitating, and Drake’s destroyers continued laying down mines. India had stalled, as well, but that allowed Dreadnought to close the distance and maneuver herself and her brawlers into a favorable position. The four missile frigates came dangerously forward and launched a heavy barrage, which raced toward India.
Drake cast a final glance at the action with the two cruisers and three corvettes. McGowan’s forces were doing a great job of harassing dragoons and keeping them out of the fight. He was ready to commit his last two ships.
“Chart us a course to come down on India from above,” he told the pilot. “Transmit to Alacrity. And bring in those war junks.”
The general was in close range with his enemy counterpart. The two massive ships stood apart from each other, Dreadnought on one side, all bristling guns, her cannons roaring and her torpedo tubes flashing as one torpedo after another rumbled out of the tubes. India faced her, bigger, the torus ring giving her armor extra strength in spite of lower mass. The carrier launched so many missiles that its hull seemed to be made of fire.
Both ships had impressive countermeasures to bring down incoming missiles and torpedoes, but Dreadnought had better support. India had collected a mere three dragoons, which had their hands full with the battleship’s two brawlers. Eighteen falcons streaked in and out of the fight, knocking down incoming missiles, pulsing weak spots in the dragoon armor, and buzzing over India to force it to respond. Added to that was the terrific assault by four missile frigates.
And finally, Vigilant and Alacrity. They were lighter ships than Blackbeard, but an enemy ignored a pair of Punisher-class cruisers at its peril. The pair charged in from above, rolled to present a broadside, and let loose with a combined twenty-eight guns before India responded.
Lieutenant Pearson was showing none of the lethargy that had afflicted her in Nebuchadnezzar, and had the gunnery working with precision, which allowed Drake to concentrate on maneuvering the fleet elements. He made another half-charge at Juliett and Echo when they made as if to join their threatened companion ship, then ordered the general into even closer range.
“Come on!” Pearson shouted over the com to someone in the gunnery. “I need that bloody secondary now!”
The secondary battery fired. Alacrity got off another blow. Dragoons came in from the flank, chased by corvettes and cruisers. Most of the ships flashed through the main battle in a matter of seconds, but McGowan seemed to spot an opening beneath India and couldn’t resist. Peerless soon sat below the carrier, hammering upward with torpedoes.
India was still firing hard, even as explosions tore at her hull. A barrage knocked out one of Dreadnought’s brawlers, and the other fell back under heavy fire. Both were soon forced to dock with the battleship to be repaired. Two falcons down. Back in the other fight, Drake lost another sloop, and Sabertooth, one of the star wolves.
During all of this, Six Tiger and Five Rooster had quietly approached with their armor-softening energy beams. Outgoing fire tried to track them down, and Six Tiger was forced to withdraw at one point when a dragoon located it and moved in for the kill. But she soon resumed position and the Singaporeans continued their work, methodical and relentless.
A big section of armor near the enemy bridge failed. Drake called the general. “You see it? Good. I’ll support. Take it down.”
Vigilant, Peerless, and Alacrity formed a powerful trio of warships to concentrate fire against the enemy weapon emplacements, while Dreadnought eased alongside the big carrier. The battleship positioned her guns, ignored the final, desperate flailing of the enemy, and fired the main battery.
An explosion ripped through the carrier and jetted gas out the other side. One of the engine wings broke off and spun away end over end. The enemy guns fell silent, and India tried to withdraw. Cannon, missiles, and torpedoes kept thrashing it. Finally, Dreadnought fired a nuclear-tipped torpedo into a gaping hole, and there wasn’t enough tyrillium left to absorb the blast. India broke in two.
Juliett and Echo staggered backward, as if in alarm at the death of their companion. The Second Wolves made an attempt to block their escape, aided by several destroyers and sloops. Drake pushed through with the three cruisers that had gathered to support Dreadnought.
But there was no stopping the final two star fortresses, not with the damaged ships littering the battlefield, and so many dragoons still about. He made a strategic decision to regroup, collect survivors, stop the bleeding of engines and life support systems, and see what move the enemy made.
And just like that, the battle ended.
It was soon clear that the enemy was abandoning Castillo altogether. Once the carriers had collected the surviving dragoons, they made a run for a jump point back toward the inner frontier, the same jump Drake had planned to take on his way to rendezvous for the push toward Heaven’s Gate and the main Adjudicator base.
“Thanks for that, Admiral,” Kelly said over the com when Vigilant towed a wounded destroyer to Fort Mathilde. “I thought we were done for.”
“I wish I could stick around and make sure the enemy doesn’t return.”
“Understood, sir. But you’ve got to chase the ghouls back to their holes. Tell you what, leave me some ships and we’ll call it good.”
“I’m leaving you some wreckage. Near wreckage—let’s call it that. You’ll need to patch them up first.”
“About time I put my new yard workers to the test.”
Drake left Kelly eight destroyers, sloops, and star wolves, three more warships than she’d begun the fight with. Only three could actually fly at the moment, but he thought he’d secured Castillo long enough to get the rest back into the fight.
Eleven hours after the battle, they were in motion, pursuing Echo and Juliett across the system. Drake had more warships to push through the jump, as well as a number of slower ships, which meant the enemy would gain time on him. Theoretically, the Adjudicators could keep running until he lost them to cloaking or because they took an unknown jump and escaped him for good.
Theoretically. In truth, he had little doubt that he’d soon face those two again. If not here, then in Lenin or Heaven’s Gate. Good, let it happen. The Alliance was racking up victories, and he had yet to see a weapon, tactic, or fleet formation from the other side that could defeat allied firepower.
“We didn’t ask for this war,” he said, to nobody in particular. “But we’re going to finish it.”
Chapter Twenty
Blackbeard came through the jump, followed by First Dragon. During the final approach, Tolvern had wrestled with whether or not to leave Wang’s ship behind. It would be useful to maintain a listening post in Heaven’s Gate to count how many enemy ships gathered, and to see what those star fortresses were doing in orbit around the planet.
But she’d received a trio of brief subspace reports from Lenin, including word of Nine Tiger’s fiery death. The enemy had apparently targeted the war junk directly and destroyed it with a missile barrage. Did the Adjudicators know Wang was in Heaven’s Gate? Would they be able to track her ship and kill her? Tolvern decided not to take the risk.
Bravo and Foxtrot were well clear of the jump by the time she arrived, together with ten of the twelve dragoons they’d carried through with them. The final two dragoons were gutted wrecks, savaged by Vargus’s forces while they recovered from the jump.
Data streamed across, a full assessment of the battle. And what a victory. Vargus had obliterated an entire fortress—designation Kilo—knocked out a few dragoons, and chased the rest off. Rather than take a risky foray across the system, she had wisely gathered her forces and scuttled several damaged ships; the victory had come at a serious cost: two star wolves, two destroyers, and the war junk.
A merchant frigate, too, that had been cowering with the rest behind the battle lines. A dragoon, in a final act of spite, hit it with missiles as it fled the scene.
The only consolation of the lost warships was that Vargus had saved hundreds of crew, including Olafsen and his officers from the bridge of Bloodaxe. Only Nine Tiger had been lost with all hands. Tolvern made a quick assessment. Counting London’s loss in Heaven’s Gate, they were down five warships.
Vargus was now playing with Foxtrot and Bravo, leading them on a merry chase around the system while she waited for Blackbeard. Time for the two battle cruisers to rendezvous and scoot back across the star systems until they met Fox and his larger armada.
And then . . . Drake and the general? Where were they? Not enough information from the Admiralty. They were counting on Dreadnought and all those corvettes to win this battle.
Catarina Vargus called over from Void Queen. Tolvern expected the former pirate to have her swagger on. In spite of her losses, Vargus had won a victory and opened the way for allied ships to retreat. But the woman’s dark eyes were more somber than triumphant, and worry lined her forehead.
“My pilot has a good rendezvous point,” Tolvern told her counterpart. “We can bypass the ghouls, meet up, then shoot for the jump to Moscow. We’re not strong enough to take them on, but they’re not strong enough to pin us here, either.”
Vargus was several million miles distant, and there was a lengthy delay waiting for the response. When it came, the other woman shook her head grimly.
“I got in a skirmish early on when a pair of dragoons slipped in and hit me. It was annoying, but nothing serious—or so I thought. After the battle, engineers got down there for a closer look. The enemy had a couple of lucky shots, followed by a fire we didn’t get put out in time. The end result is that I’ve lost the sealing rings for the warp point containment cycler.”
“We have spare rings around here somewhere.”
“We had them. Not anymore.”
Vargus explained. In a second piece of unfortunate luck, the destroyed merchant freighter had been carrying the spare parts for a warp point cycler.
“So I’m trapped here until Fox arrives. He’ll have the parts I need. Take the ships and go on without me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tolvern said. “We’re not going to abandon you here. For one thing, Capp would kill me.”
“Damn right, I would,” the first mate said loudly. “None of the rest of these blokes’d stand for it, neither. Half the bloody crew did time on Void Queen, yeah?”
“You hear that?” Tolvern asked. “Anyway, they’re just sealing rings. We’ll take a freighter, unload her supplies, strip down the cycler, and bring the parts over.”
Vargus’s response was curt. “That will cost eight days, minimum.” The transmission delay shortened as Blackbeard and Void Queen closed distance.
“Four days, max.”
This brought a bitter laugh. “You’ll never get it done in four days while two blasted star fortresses and a dozen dragoons are trying to kill us all. Oh, and the rest of those enemies that escaped the battle—they’re still out there somewhere. That doesn’t even count the six carriers at the planet, if they ever stop navel gazing and jump out of Heaven’s Gate.”
Vargus ran her fingers through her dark hair. Her eyes were bloodshot. Tolvern started to speak, but the other woman wasn’t finished.
“Look, Tolvern, I appreciate the loyalty, but your plan will never work. We could evacuate my crew—I suppose—then scuttle Void Queen, but a better plan is to go dark, hope we can stay undetected, and when they find us, make sure we give them a good beating before we go down. Maybe we’ll get a miracle, like you pulled off in Fortaleza.”
“Totally different situation, far less grim.”
Vargus shrugged. “It is what it is. Here are the facts. I can’t jump, and you can’t stay here or you will die. So pick your poison—order me to abandon my battle cruiser or let me go down in a blaze of glory.”
“Make the rendezvous,” Tolvern ordered. “If Bravo and Foxtrot attempt to engage, form a defensive position and wait for Blackbeard to arrive.”
She scowled, but didn’t contradict the order. “And then what?”
“By then I’ll have it figured out.”
#
Later, in her quarters, Tolvern should have been sleeping, but was staring out the viewport instead. A swath of stars stitched the void outside. Positioned at eleven o’clock, one of Lenin’s red gas giants se
emed to glow, eye-like, brighter than any star. Positioned at three o’clock, three of Carvalho’s falcons flew in tight formation as the striker wing maintained patrol.
Wang would be on the opposite side of Blackbeard, First Dragon silent and vigilant against sneak attack. That could come at any time; several dragoons had slipped free when Catarina Vargus destroyed their carrier and had yet to be located.
Of course Vargus didn’t want to abandon Void Queen—it was very nearly her personal property after surrendering an entire colony fleet to the Royal Navy. Vargus’s reward for her cooperation in the Apex war had been the battle cruiser and a duchy on New Segovia. Thousands of colonists, and the provisions to supply them.
But surely she wouldn’t want to die in a fruitless last stand, either. And no way could Tolvern allow that to happen. Neither could she order Void Queen scuttled. She wasn’t some freighter or torpedo boat, she was an Ironside-class battle cruiser. The navy only had three of them, and together with HMS Dreadnought, they were the only ships that could go toe-to-toe with an Adjudicator capital ship.
So don’t do it. Stay and fight. Figure something out.
The only thing they were missing was a single warp point engine. Other ships could come and go, if that looked strategic. Make it look that way, at least, like someone was leaving. Or coming. Trick the enemy, buy more time.
Even counting for the loss of Devil’s Tooth, and the even more shocking destruction of Lars Olafsen’s Bloodaxe, Tolvern had the better part of two companies of star wolves. Projecting a ghost fleet of wolves wouldn’t fool the enemy for long, but it might buy a few hours. What else? How could she put Wang’s war junks to best use? It wouldn’t be easy given that the enemy had shown themselves more capable of detecting the Singaporean warships than they had been in the past, but surely there was something.
What’s more, this task force was built for speed and maneuverability. They’d left all of the slower ships in the fleet. Even the merchanters were the swiftest in the Alliance. Void Queen couldn’t jump, but there was nothing wrong with her plasma engines.
The Alliance Trilogy Page 44
