Into the Dark (Alexis Carew Book 1)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “Done,” Alexis agreed, smiling. Then her smile faded as the images of the day returned, images she felt certain would never leave her. The pirate’s shot severing the yard, sending Jeffreys and Hadd loose from the ship, her frantic scramble down the keel, the horror she’d felt when her shot had gone awry, and the desperate struggle to hold on as Jeffreys had been dragged behind the ship. Added to that the latest vision of merchantman’s crew murdered and left behind, as well as her own certainty that, regardless of Acker’s words, she’d failed to save both men as she should have.

  It seemed this new world had costs in addition to its rewards. High costs and high stakes that she wasn’t entirely sure she was prepared for.

  “Would you be so kind as open those bottles and share a drink with me, Philip?”

  He picked up one of the bottles and began working on the cork. “Two bottles, Alexis? Even shared that’s quite a lot for you — I thought you had little head for wine?”

  “Yes, well, you see — the advantage to that,” she told him, grasping his half-full glass and draining it before holding it out for him to refill. “Is that it will take only a little time for me to become very, very drunk.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Alexis, along with everyone else on the quarterdeck, scanned the images flashed up on her monitor for any sign of a ship. Merlin was lying still and dark, sails furled and uncharged, her colors and signal lights dark, just off the Lagrange-5 transition point of yet another empty, nameless system. A system so unremarkable that it was deemed unworthy of being known by anything other than its catalog number in the navigation charts. Its sole points of interest to Merlin were that it was near enough to two likely shipping lanes to Eidera and its sole planetary body, an airless rock orbiting an anemic sun at a distance of almost two hundred million kilometers, was stable enough that it could be used to store cargo and supplies by a band of pirates.

  This was the fourth such system Merlin had inspected since taking the pirate off Eidera, and Alexis was already viewing the task as routine. They would wait for a time, then she would man the signals console as Merlin transitioned from darkspace to normal-space at one of the system’s Lagrange points. Merlin would then cruise the system, and Alexis would monitor the signals console’s computer for any alert to a man-made emission while the spacer at the tactical console looked for any other indications of human presence, and then Merlin would depart, having found nothing, and move on to the next.

  Which Lagrange point Captain Grantham would choose would be an easier decision in this system, as there was only one orbital pair and thus, only five points to choose from. Unlike other systems having multiple planets, each potentially having one or more moons, and each orbital pair offering five distinct Lagrange points to choose from. L1, L2, and L3, though, were generally transited only by military ships — L4 and L5 were preferred by merchant and other civilian vessels, due to the higher volume of space that made up their transition zones.

  Most inhabited systems enforced this, going a step further to require all incoming traffic to transition at L4, while outgoing made for L5, thus creating clear and open lanes of traffic in and out of the system. In Captain Grantham’s view, pirates would be lazy and creatures of habit, therefore, they had been entering each system at L5 transition points, hoping to transition on top of any pirates leaving the system.

  For the time being, though, they would wait in darkspace, hoping to catch the pirates coming or going. Captain Grantham’s preference was to catch them in darkspace where Merlin’s superior speed and gunnery would give her the advantage over the more complex maneuvering in normal space. Alexis scanned yet another image presented on her console, the computers having decided that this one, out of the hundreds per second brought in by the optics, could potentially contain a pattern that represented another ship and required human attention. Around her on the quarterdeck, others on watch performed the same task.

  Almost unnoticed as she examined the image for any sign of a ship’s sails or lights, there sounded the paired ding-ding of the ship’s bell, followed by a second, calling out the time, four bells of the morning watch. Lieutenant Caruthers heard it well enough, however, and straightened from his own scanning of images on the navigation plot.

  “Four bells, Mister Carew,” he said. “Time to go in and look about this place. Signal the captain, if you please.”

  “Aye sir.”

  Alexis was reaching for her console to wake the captain when the spacer at the tactical console suddenly straightened and peered at his monitor.

  “Transition, sir! At the L5 point.”

  Caruthers smiled. “Do let the captain know that as well, Mister Carew. It appears our wait is over.”

  As Alexis called the captain and passed along the message, she heard behind her, “A second transition. Also at L5.” A pause and then: “The first ship has her sails up, bearing away from us four points off the starboard bow and down twenty. Twin masts, I make her a sloop, sir. The second’s charged sail as well, but only one mast — I make her a pinnace.”

  “Very good, Stein.”

  Within moments, Captain Grantham strode onto the quarterdeck. He took in image of the other ship’s and their course.

  “We’ll give them a few minutes to settle on a course,” he said finally. He stepped to the tactical console. “Replay their transition for me, Stein, I’d like to see their sail handling.”

  “Aye sir. It’s sloppy, sir,” the spacer said, playing the recorded images.

  “Quite so,” Grantham agreed. He returned to the navigation plot. “Rouse the men, Lieutenant Caruthers, I’ll have all plain sail and add the royals for good measure.” He turned to the helmsman. “We’ll parallel their course for a time and make up distance when they have to tack at the system’s edge.” He waited while the orders were passed and until the bustle of activity across the quarterdeck from men called to man the sails faded.

  Merlin’s mains, topsails, topgallants and royals went up quickly and were charged. Alexis added a small copy of the navigation plot to a corner of her own monitors, watching as the ship settled onto a course that paralleled the two others and, perhaps, four kilometers behind. Within minutes of Merlin’s sails being charged, lights began flashing on the masts and yards of both ships.

  “They’re signaling, sir,” she announced. She watched the lights for a moment but didn’t recognize their meaning, or for those she did, they had no business being strung together like that. “I can’t tell what their saying, though, sir. Neither can the computer.”

  “An organized bunch,” Caruthers said, “to have their own private signals.”

  “Yes,” Grantham said. “Raise our colors, Mister Carew, and signal Heave To, if you please.”

  “Aye sir.” Alexis watched her console for a response from either of the other ships but there was none. “Nothing sir. They’re still signaling but it’s gibberish.”

  “Very well.” Grantham looked up from the plot. “Bring the hands in by divisions for breakfast, Mister Caruthers, we’re in for a long stern chase, it appears.”

  * * *

  They were, indeed. A chase that stretched out over several hours as Merlin slowly but steadily closed with the two other ships.

  At one point, it had appeared that the two might separate, forcing Merlin to choose which to pursue, but they soon came back together. Captain Grantham mused that they might have been merely testing the winds, using the smaller, somewhat handier, pinnace to see if another point of sail might not allow the pair to begin pulling away from Merlin.

  Slow as it was, Merlin did close with the pair, finding the pinnace at the rear, the faster sloop clearly hanging back with reduced sail to stay nearer her slower consort.

  Captain Grantham gave the order to open fire with the bowchasers at their extreme range. Bolt after bolt of the wide chainshot flying across the space between the ships, its path clearly visible, and behaving as no laser Alexis had ever seen in the odd conditions of darkspace. The captain
had ordered chain, hoping to disable the smaller ship quickly and take it out of the fight before they engaged the larger sloop, a vessel almost Merlin’s equal in firepower and certainly so in the size of her crew, pirates tending to be severely over-manned in order to take vessels whole by boarding and man their prizes.

  At the extreme range, few of Merlin’s shots hit home, and far fewer of the pirates’, once they were in range of the pinnace’s smaller guns. But as the range closed, shots began striking home on both ships, and Alexis winced inwardly at any that came close to Merlin, worrying about the men working the sails and even a bit over Roland in the exposed compartment of the bowchaser. More and more of Merlin’s shots struck the smaller ship, holing sails and slicing through rigging — every bit of damage slowing the other ship and allowing Merlin to gain more quickly.

  Ahead of the pinnace, the larger sloop showed no signs of coming to her consort’s aid. She sailed blithely on, not pulling away from Merlin, but leaving the other ship unsupported.

  Another shot flashed out from Merlin’s bow and cut through the pinnace’s maincourse. The sail sagged, then filled again and shredded into tatters that arced and flashed with azure sparks before going dark. The ship’s other sails went dark as well, and her signal lights went a solid white along her masts, yards and hull. Striking her sails and colors in a signal of surrender.

  “She’s doused her sails, sir!”

  “Inform Mister Roland to cease firing and Mister Easely to reload the main guns with solid shot, Mister Carew.”

  “Aye sir.” Alexis turned to the signals console and spoke into her microphone. She held her earphone to her head tightly, listening for their acknowledgments over the static-filled suit radios of the two on the gundeck and bowchaser. “They’ve acknowledged, sir.”

  * * *

  “She’s turning, sir.”

  Alexis watched as the sloop, close enough after the continued chase that she could see vacsuited figures in her rigging without magnification, turned slowly to port, presenting more and more of her side to Merlin. The pirate ship had seen the futility of running and begun furling sail in preparation for battle. Merlin had followed suit, and both ships were sailing under well-furled main courses on both the main and mizzen masts, tops and topgallants furled and doused.

  “Steady on,” Grantham ordered. “We’ll see if their broadside gunnery is anything like their sternchasers, and we’ll be up beside her before she can come about a second time.”

  Indeed, the exchanges between Merlin and the other ship so far had been quite one-sided, with Merlin’s bow gunners sending bolt after bolt into the other ship’s stern while being struck only a single time in return. That shot had splashed harmlessly off her bow, ‘with nary a scratch’, as the carpenter had happily reported. Now the other ship was turning, giving up the scant lead she still held in the hopes of raking and possibly disabling Merlin with a single broadside.

  “For what we are about to receive,” Alexis heard the helmsman mutter, receiving a sharp glance from Caruthers in return.

  The broadside, when it came, was more of a stuttering sparkle than a single flash, with first one gun then another firing with no pattern and no two guns at the same time. Only two actually struck Merlin, one grazing her port side and the other coming in along the bowsprit, narrowly missing the fore-stays and crashing into the sail locker’s outer hatch, though the hatch held and the shot failed to penetrate the locker itself.

  “Steady on,” Grantham repeated as Merlin continued to close the distance.

  Merlin’s bowchasers fired in unison, both shots slamming into the other ship’s hull above her gunports, some ten meters apart, but there was no indication they’d penetrated. Another shot came from the other ship as one of its guncrews seemed faster at reloading than the others. The bolt, perhaps from the same crew that had struck the sail locker, flashed into the upper bow.

  Alexis heard bursts of static and confused voices from the bowchasers and when it was finally sorted out, she got a report from the port bowchaser, with only silence from the starboard where Roland had been stationed during the chase. She gestured to one of the spacers designated to relay messages.

  “Get me a status from the starboard bowchaser, please,” she said, then to the captain as the spacer rushed off the quarterdeck, settling his vacsuit helmet over his head. “I’ve lost communication to the starboard bowchaser, sir. I’ve sent a runner.”

  “Thank you, Mister Carew. Let me know as soon as you have a status, please. And inform Mister Easely, he’ll have work to starboard in a moment.”

  Even as Alexis was contacting Philip to relay the order, Grantham was saying to the helmsman, “Hard to port and keep the distance thus. Undermanned as we are, I’ve no wish to try a boarding against a pirate crew.”

  Merlin had no sooner begun her turn when shots flashed out from the other ship again. With Merlin closer, more of them struck home and one of them struck and parted two of the forestays before striking the mainmast just below the sails.

  “That guncrew becomes tiresome,” Grantham said. “Lieutenant, please see to the sails — we must maintain this distance, but still be able to catch her up if she tries to run.” Caruthers donned his helmet and headed for the sail locker. “Mister Carew, please inform the gundeck that there’ll be a guinea from my own pocket for the crew that disables that ship’s number four gun.”

  Merlin turned easily, coming to parallel the other ship’s course, and Alexis could hear Philip on the gundeck, calmly ordering the crews to wait, to hold their fire until all of Merlin’s broadside could be brought to bear at the same time. The turn completed, and now both ships sailed next to each other, no more than two hundred meters separating them.

  “Fire!” Alexis heard Philip call, and all six of Merlin’s guns fired as one, all striking home and sending gouts of vaporizing thermoplastic flashing from the other ship’s hull.

  The pirate crew returned fire raggedly, a shot or two into Merlin’s hull, one into the rigging and the rest missing entirely.

  The spacer she’d sent to check on the starboard bowchaser returned. “Inner hatch is fused, sir,” he told her. “Shot must’ve come straight in and melted it right shut.” Alexis’ heart fell as she thought of Roland and Breech, along with their crew, in the cramped space of that compartment with a shot coming inboard. “Carpenter’s working on the hatch, but no word as to what’s inside.”

  “Thank you, Humphrys,” she said and turned to pass the status on to the captain.

  “I heard, Mister Carew, thank you.”

  More fire was exchanged, Merlin’s broadsides striking home again and again, but the pirates seeming to improve with time and more and more of their shots found the ship’s hull and rigging.

  Alexis sat the signals console, passing messages and orders throughout the ship, but feeling her stomach clench with anxiety and frustration. There was still no word from the bowchaser about Roland or the gunner. She could hear Philip exhorting the guncrews, urging them to reload and fire faster.

  A shot from the pirate’s number four gun, still firing despite the best efforts of Merlin’s guncrews to take the captain’s guinea, struck the mainmast just at the crosstrees and the suddenly free yardarm was pulled forward by the wildly flagging sail. Merlin lost way and the pirate began pulling ahead, taking advantage of the situation to edge closer and closer to Merlin in preparation for boarding where her larger crew would give her the advantage.

  “My compliments to Lieutenant Caruthers,” Grantham said, “and I should like my main course back instanter. Barring that, let loose the topsail and topgallants — I’ll not have that broadside at our bow again.”

  Alexis nodded to one of her runners and he headed for the sail locker even as she began entering the order to display outside, wanting to ensure that Caruthers received it.

  “Sail, sir!” Stein on the tactical console announced. “The pinnace has charged her sails and she’s coming up to port.”

  Alexis’ eyes widene
d in shock at this announcement. A ship struck its colors to acknowledge defeat and avoid undue death and destruction. To reenter the action once struck was to act without any honor whatsoever. Of course, they’re pirates though, so what else should we expect?

  Grantham narrowed his eyes. “Please inform Mister Easely that he’ll soon have to fight both sides of the ship, Mister Carew.”

  “Aye sir.” Alexis passed along the order, wondering how Philip would manage it with only enough men to fully man the guns on one side. There were no more to spare with the sails in such disarray and every man on the sail watch needed to put them to rights.

  She watched her copy of the navigation plot, seeing the pinnace draw closer, almost up to the, as yet, unmanned port side. The other ship edged closer, Merlin as far up into the winds as she could come with her damaged sails and unable to turn away any further to maintain the distance.

  More fire was exchanged, and Alexis saw plumes of vapor spew from the other ship.

  “We’ve holed her upper deck,” Stein said.

  Alexis grimaced. It was damage, but she knew the pirate crew, like Merlin’s own, would be concentrated on the gundeck, quarterdeck and outside manning the sails. It was unlikely that holing their gunroom and masters’ cabins would cause them any real distress during the action.

  Suddenly Merlin seemed to surge ahead, though Alexis knew she couldn’t feel any difference, but the main topsail had dropped, filling and sparking with azure lightning as it was charged and began pulling the ship forward.

  “A point to port,” Grantham ordered the helmsman. “Keep our distance steady.”

  The distance between Merlin and the larger pirate vessel steadied, neither able to come up more to the winds without being caught aback and losing way completely. Though with the pinnace to port, Merlin would soon be caught between the two other ships. Unable to turn away from either without giving the other a chance to board. The pinnace might have a smaller crew, but if they could come aboard the port side with all Merlin’s gunners engaged to starboard, they’d hold the advantage.