Capp rubbed the lion tattoos on her forearm, face scrunched as if she were still deep in thought. She brightened. “How about the King Arthur System? And this here planet is Merlin. He’s a good English wizard, ain’t he?”
“When we get to Rasputin,” Tolvern said, emphasizing the word, “our only job is to stay alive until Fox gets here with the main fleet. The enemy will try to finish us off before that happens.”
After all these weeks, Tolvern couldn’t quite believe the reinforcements would actually arrive. In the back of her mind, she worried her task force would be stuck fighting it out against four star fortresses and their riders. Outnumbered and outgunned as always.
Ten minutes later, when Smythe said excitedly that a large ship had jumped into Lenin, she half-expected it to be another enemy. But scans confirmed. It was the battle cruiser HMS Citadel. She drifted, systems coming online, vulnerable while her crew recovered from the jump.
Blackbeard’s falcons had already arrived at the jump and were pulsing their way through the enemy’s minefield. They kept up the work even as Citadel nudged clear. A Punisher-class cruiser jumped in next. HMS Trafalgar. Then a pair of destroyers.
Within an hour, Fox had enough firepower that it would have taken more than a single star fortress to dislodge him. And there were no enemy ships nearby.
Meanwhile, Tolvern’s squadron was still an hour away from Rasputin and exchanging missile salvos with Bravo and Foxtrot. November and Oscar had closed faster than expected, and entered the outer range of their missile batteries.
She sent a video message to Fox. “I’m happy to see reinforcements, Captain, but we’ll be quite pressed at this pace. Dispatch all available forces at once. Leave only enough strength to guard the jump point for your remaining arrivals.”
She wasn’t keen on forcing Fox to divide his fleet like that. But right now, she could not handle the ships coming in against her. Bring in Citadel and her plasma ejector, plus several other smaller craft, and the odds looked more promising. The rest of the fleet, when it finally arrived, would be the hammer blow to win the battle.
Carvalho’s falcons had cleared a path through the minefield. Citadel and the other eight ships through formed a line to thread it. As they did so, the battle cruiser scooped up Carvalho’s striker wing and carried them into her acceleration after they’d safely docked.
Tolvern had her hands full positioning her own forces, as two destroyers and a star wolf took blows that forced them into a safer position, and Void Queen was absorbing more fire than she liked. She wanted to order Vargus to pull back, too, but needed the other battle cruiser to hold her ground. If Void Queen yielded, Foxtrot would roll up the entire Z-axis flank.
Even so, she kept casting glances at the scans from the jump point. She’d given Fox some leeway, but he hadn’t left so much as a single destroyer, trusting that she’d cleared the jump point for him. Which she hadn’t, not really. Only swept a few mines. If dragoons were nearby, they could wreak havoc on whoever jumped through next.
And that proved to be Colonel Bailyna Tyn on the first ship of a flotilla of sloops of war. Quite vulnerable indeed. Tolvern held her breath, waiting for the Hroom ship to come under attack. It didn’t. A second sloop jumped into Lenin.
Rasputin approached. Tolvern had fought enough battles in and around gas giants that it felt like security. Get in among those moons, use them as shields, to hide forces, to slingshot into action—all manner of possibilities.
But that feeling was deceptive. With four star fortresses closing, two could sit in wide orbit around Rasputin to hem in the allied warships while the other two, plus dragoons, chased them back and forth and forced them into the planet’s gravity well.
Instead of pressing down, Tolvern got the fleet near one of the larger moons, a pale, crater-pocked planetoid of roughly .08 G. She positioned it at their rear and made her stand.
“Four hours, people. Then we get reinforcements.”
She’d been exchanging information with Void Queen, and Vargus suggested they concentrate firepower on Foxtrot. Of the two star fortresses they’d played cat and mouse with these past few days, it was the one that had suffered the most damage in the previous engagement, victimized by the star wolf feint and attack.
Maybe the ghouls had patched up its wounds since then, maybe not. Tolvern still wanted to get at Bravo, but couldn’t argue with Vargus’s logic. Hit the weaker ship first, knock it out of commission, and improve the odds by the time November and Oscar threw their muscle into the fight.
It sounded good in theory, but the first two star fortresses pulled up short and remained out of reach of the battle cruisers’ cannon, which kept the engagement a missile-only affair. The Adjudicators massed their dragoons and charged, which forced Tolvern to send out destroyers and star wolves, but this time it was the enemy that was feinting. The dragoons withdrew at the first sign of fight from the allied fleet.
“We can take ’em,” Capp said. “Send us in, Cap’n, before the rest of them ghouls get here.”
It was the best strategy in the short to medium term. But anything Tolvern did to preserve her strength until Citadel arrived was even better.
She made as if to force the engagement, then slipped clear of the moon and shot toward the planet. As Rasputin exerted its strength to drag them down, Nyb Pim altered course a few degrees, and they hooked over the top of its gravity well. They almost broke free and caught November and Oscar by surprise as they approached from that direction.
But enemy dragoons blocked their path. Blackbeard and Void Queen fired torpedoes at the massed ships, and ten star wolves let loose with pummel guns. A dragoon caught the full force of it and lost its torus ring in the first thirty seconds. Moments later, pummel gun fire tore a gaping, flaming hole in its flank, and it spun away from the battlefield.
At the cost of one dragoon, the enemy carriers had held the allied ships in place long enough to bring their own guns to bear. Void Queen bore the brunt of the initial attack, and if Vargus hadn’t expertly swung her brawler into position, she’d have been overwhelmed. As it was, Badger took a series of blows, first missiles, then kinetic fire. Vargus’s falcons and a trio of destroyers shot down some of the ordnance, but not all of it.
Tolvern’s first inclination was to send Warthog in, get a second brawler into position, but she was facing her own challenges from the rear. Foxtrot and Bravo had closed to within cannon range, and let loose with a blast. Blackbeard answered with torpedoes, which bought her a few minutes as the enemy fought them off with countermeasures.
She called Wang. “I can’t see your war junks. Where are they positioned?”
“First Dragon and Three Rooster off your starboard. The other two with Void Queen, sir.”
“Target Foxtrot. Call in as many destroyers as you need.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And give your counterparts at Void Queen the same orders. There’s no holding back now.”
“Understood, sir.”
Wang looked and sounded calm, almost bloodless. Her ships were the most vulnerable in this entire fleet, now that the enemy had proven capable of detecting their energy beams. Too slow to evade dragoons, and too thinly armored to survive bombardment.
The star wolves cornered a dragoon, blasted it with pummel guns, and sent it spiraling into the thick Rasputin atmosphere, which crushed it like a tin can. A destroyer hit another dragoon with missiles, and the enemy ship raced below Blackbeard in an attempt to reach the safety of Foxtrot’s guns. Tolvern got off a blast with the secondary battery, which ripped it in two.
Foxtrot flailed about, hunting Wang’s ships, who were beginning to weaken its armor. The enemy located the pair of war junks, only to find them cleverly positioned behind destroyers that had appeared to be gathering for another charge at a dragoon formation, but were really serving to screen the Singaporean vessels. The star fortress rumbled forward and let off a barrage of missiles.
That left an opening for Blackbeard, who advanced
under heavy fire. Lomelí was back on the bridge, working with Smythe and Ping. Tolvern ignored their increasingly frenetic activity and the warnings from Jane. She brought her ship alongside the enemy carrier and fired a broadside with explosive shot. Foxtrot shuddered and vented gas. The torus ring seemed ready to blow.
Unfortunately, Bravo had stalked Blackbeard during this, pushed aside Warthog and a pair of destroyers, and landed blows on the six and seven shields. Tolvern had to withdraw in frustration to face this threat before she could finish the job against Foxtrot.
She ordered Wang to go dark and evade. It was time to reconnect with Void Queen, who was pushing dangerously close to the planet. Her brawler skimmed the icy rings, trying to maintain contact with the mother ship while fighting off three dragoons. Two destroyers came to the brawler’s aid, but they’d suffered damage in the fight and were of limited effectiveness. November struck Badger with three missiles, even as the carrier kept fighting the battle cruiser herself.
“Vargus is going to lose her brawler,” Smythe warned. “Aft shield is under twenty percent. The fore is not much better.”
Tolvern clenched her jaw and looked for a solution. The only nearby Alliance ships were in the thick of it, either fighting to keep Void Queen from being overwhelmed by November and Oscar, or tangling with dragoons. Blackbeard couldn’t help; her own brawler was at risk, her strikers were millions of miles away with Citadel, and she didn’t have enough support craft or countermeasures to keep the enemy from landing blows.
Badger made a desperate charge into the rings, plowing through ice and rock and trusting the debris to knock down enemy shot. The thickly armored brawler pulled out of the rings with November straight ahead, and flipped over to show the more lightly damaged underbelly, while pushing engines and antigrav systems to the max.
She almost got free. But as she turned about, her entire underside lay exposed for several seconds, and in those seconds, the enemy commander pulled the trigger. Cannon roared with kinetic shot. It plowed into the brawler, blasted through the armor, and knocked out the engines. Badger spun helplessly, her guns still active, but engines offline.
Dragoons pounced. November and Oscar hit with missiles. And Catarina Vargus’s brawler exploded. All hands lost.
Void Queen had lost her main support vessel and was more vulnerable than ever. She fell back toward Blackbeard, but Tolvern could only provide limited defense. All four star fortresses closed in on the two battle cruisers and the handful of support craft surrounding them. Boghammer and several other wolves tried to fight their way in, but dragoons mauled one star wolf, chased off two others, and the counterattack failed.
And then Citadel arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Catarina almost gave way to despair when Badger died. The brawler had held off November almost single-handedly for more than ninety minutes while Void Queen attacked Oscar. There were plenty of other Alliance ships in and around the gas giant they were calling Rasputin, but the enemy used their dragoons effectively, and the destroyers and star wolves struggled to break apart enemy formations.
War junks slowed Oscar for a stretch, and Catarina had landed several good blows, even getting a pair of Mark-IVs through. A couple of star wolves briefly took position above the enemy bridge and thundered with pummel guns before falling back under heavy fire. Oscar absorbed these blows and kept pushing Void Queen away from her brawler, and that left Badger to fight alone against November. The brawler’s final death, when it came, was a psychological blow, followed shortly by a very real strategic problem.
Void Queen was alone against two enemy carriers. She could no longer even protect her war junks. Dragoons discovered one, savaged it with missile and kinetic fire, and forced the second to go dark. She brought her falcons close before they, too, suffered the same fate.
At the moment when it looked like Catarina’s best bet was to dive through Rasputin’s upper atmosphere and flee the battlefield—which would mean certain death for Blackbeard—Burris shouted from the tech console that incoming fire was striking Oscar and November from behind.
It was the third battle cruiser, HMS Citadel. Captain Algernon Fox, commanding. Accompanying him, two Punisher-class cruisers, HMS Trafalgar and HMS Polaris, plus three destroyers and three Swift-class corvettes: Sprint, Gazelle, and Apollo.
Of these three, Captain Dwiggins and the crew of Apollo were already legends for their actions in Castillo, and Dwiggins led the corvettes and the two light cruisers in a charge across the battlefield. They scattered dragoons and got off cannon shot at the carriers. Fox’s destroyers swung into position ahead of Void Queen and threw down mines.
With corvettes and cruisers taking the heat off, Olafsen reorganized the star wolves and brought them together to hit Bravo so Blackbeard could concentrate on Foxtrot. On the second front, Citadel dropped her brawler, spat falcons from the launch bay, and swung into position alongside Void Queen.
Fox called her bridge. Ice-blue eyes stared across at Catarina, and he looked cool and calm for such a young officer entering a battle that had already been raging for the better part of a day. He reminded her of a younger, less arrogant version of McGowan.
“Tell me where to hit them, Vargus.”
“The shorter one is weakened along the port shields, just fore of the engine fin. Designation, Oscar. I’ll have my war junks target the armor. Hit it hard—explosive shot to start. After that . . . is your plasma ejector ready?”
“Fully charged, Captain.”
“Hold until needed. The first time will be a surprise, and then they’ll adapt. If you can save it for another day, do so.”
“Understood.”
“Move your brawler to pin November against Rasputin . . . that’s what they’re calling the gas giant. If November breaks free and enters the fight, we’re in trouble.”
He didn’t disagree, but a cloud crossed his face as he cut the com. No doubt he was thinking of what had happened to the last brawler to face November. But this time they had better support ships along that flank, seven destroyers and two star wolves that Olafsen sent back to aid them. Tolvern still had her hands full with the final two star fortresses, but one of the cruisers, Polaris, had dropped free from the hunting pack to come alongside in support. Blackbeard was holding her own for the moment.
Meanwhile, developments continued elsewhere in the system. The rest of Fox’s fleet had finished jumping and was underway to join the battle. Led by Colonel Bailyna Tyn and her sixteen Hroom sloops of war, they also counted two wolf packs, four war junks, roughly a dozen more destroyers, nearly two dozen torpedo boats, seven more corvettes, and six additional light cruisers.
It was more than enough firepower to finish the job against the existing star fortresses. Unfortunately, four more carriers had entered the system. Two emerged from the Heaven’s Gate jump, designation Delta—an old foe from Castillo—and Lima. Two more followed from the second Lenin-Moscow connection, designations Juliett and Echo.
War junks accompanying Citadel’s fleet relayed fresh information from across the inner frontier. Admiral Drake had fought Juliett and Echo in Castillo, and destroyed a third carrier, India. He’d followed Juliett and Echo out of Castillo, which meant that Drake, General Mose Dryz, and the rest were nearly at hand as well. With them, the battleship HMS Dreadnought, the mightiest ship in the Alliance fleet.
Eight surviving star fortresses, with six more still in Heaven’s Gate. Were they still in orbit above the planet? Catarina didn’t understand why. The Alliance fleet could defeat eight of the big enemy carriers with skill, energy, and initiative, but fourteen? That would be a nightmare.
In the short term, Catarina, Tolvern, and Fox had enough to worry about. War junks softened Oscar’s armor, and the carrier, already damaged, tried to disengage and fall back toward November, which in turn attempted to link with the two star fortresses battling Blackbeard and her support vessels.
The tables had turned, and it was the ghouls’ turn to try to end the fig
ht and regroup with a larger, more powerful fleet. But the same planet and moons that had pinned the Alliance ships earlier now kept the enemy hemmed in as well.
“I wasn’t so sure about Tolvern’s plan,” Catarina told Azavedo. “Thought she was going to trap us in a kill box. But her strategy is looking brilliant.”
“Aye, she’s got some pirate cunning in her,” Azavedo said.
Citadel struck Oscar with two torpedoes and a broadside, then rolled away to allow Void Queen to take her turn. Catarina spent some Hunter-II torpedoes chasing off dragoons and maneuvered into position for a broadside. Explosive shot shredded the ring generator. The blue torus uncoiled and bled into the void.
“Penetrating shot. All cannon.”
Together, Void Queen and Citadel struck the star fortress again and again. They blasted off one of its engines, raked the upper decks, and slagged weapon systems. Destroyers, star wolves, and falcons attacked from close range. November tried to come to Oscar’s aid, but the latter was nearly disabled, and couldn’t return fire, so they had more than enough weapons to hold its companion at bay while they finished the job.
Finally, Void Queen sent a nuclear torpedo through a gaping hole in the armor. A massive detonation rocked the interior, and the enemy carrier broke in two. Cheers sounded across the bridge and over the fleet channels.
With Oscar dead, November pulled back, harassed by smaller warships. It joined the other two carriers, but support ships held Bravo at bay while Blackbeard, her brawler, and Polaris pounded the wounded Foxtrot. Void Queen and Citadel came in from below and port and landed cracking blows against Foxtrot’s hull. Gaping wounds opened in its armor. Gas vented. Secondary explosions burst like blisters through the spine. One enemy weapon system after another fell silent.
Catarina called Fox and ordered him to stand down. This was Blackbeard’s victory, and Tolvern should be allowed to capture the well-earned glory. The other two battle cruisers moved to stop November and Bravo, who were attempting to escape the battle. The remnants of the dragoon fleet collected into a core of eight ships, ignored the murderous fire from corvettes and light cruisers, and attempted to shield the pair of star fortresses as they made a run for it.
The Alliance Trilogy Page 48
