Tolvern tapped her console to bring up a calendar, and was surprised to see that tomorrow was All Fool’s Day. She may have been counting days between Apex attacks, but the passage of time was otherwise a blur, and several weeks seemed to have slipped away from her. Surely the admiral’s fleet couldn’t be far out now. If not him, then Vargus or Broderick. Would help arrive before the next breakout attempt? It had better; she was only holding on by her fingernails here.
Manx still looked worried. “It’s just those corvettes. I hate to lose them.”
“So do I. But we’re only talking about three days. We’ll survive. We have to.”
Chapter Two
Catarina Vargus was surprised to come onto the bridge of Void Queen at the beginning of her watch and discover Lieutenant Capp at the helm. Capp hunched over the console, muttering to herself. She spotted the captain and looked up, blinking.
“The watch schedule says that Paulson is at the helm,” Catarina said. “And yet here you are, Lieutenant.”
“What time is it?”
“Time for my first mate to get some sleep so she’s well rested before the jump.”
Capp rose to surrender the seat to Catarina. “Them wolves is up to something, Cap’n.”
“Something new, or is it the blackfish fleet again?”
“Yeah, the smaller warships. They been sending blackfish out, and they didn’t bring none of the star wolves with ’em.”
“Olafsen is probably running tests, seeing how the blackfish operate.”
“He didn’t say nothing about that before we left Viborg.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the Scandians like to do their own thing. Anyway, I can’t send Olafsen a message asking what he’s up to—even if I wanted to micromanage him, which I don’t—because there will be no communications until we’re out of the Damascus System. We’re traveling silently.”
Capp grunted. “Maybe we are, but they ain’t.”
“Lieutenant, what are you talking about?”
“Bloodaxe launched something—that’s Olafsen’s wolf, Cap’n.”
“I know that, Capp. What do you mean, Bloodaxe launched something? Mines, countermeasures?”
“More like a probe. It flew off on its own power, then it sent a signal.”
“We’re well into the inner frontier. He’s doing his part to scan for enemies. Not keen about a probe talking back to him—Apex might intercept the signal—but like I said, the Scandians are hard to stage manage. And they’re always worried about ambush.”
“I wish your explanation made sense, but it don’t. It wasn’t the probe talking back to the Viking fleet. The blasted thing is sending signals out front.” Capp rubbed a hand over her buzzed scalp, nodding vigorously. “That’s right, Cap’n. That probe, or whatever it was, sent a radio signal into the asteroid belt. It’s talking to someone else, someone out front of us already.”
Catarina wasn’t yet willing to accept that Olafsen was up to something treacherous, but she was irritated by the news that he was breaking radio silence so blatantly, and wanted to know why.
“Pilot, does our course take us through the asteroid belt?” Catarina asked.
Nyb Pim looked up from his work and met her gaze with his big, liquid eyes. “No, sir. Our target jump point is on this side of the belt.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The Hroom pilot tapped at his console, and a chart of the system appeared on the main screen, with the trajectory of Catarina’s mixed Albion, mercenary, and Scandian fleet marked as a blue streak from one jump point to another. The course took it through the exterior portions of the uninhabited system, well outside the asteroid belt.
“It appears as though we approach within seven million miles of the asteroid belt, and no closer,” Nyb Pim said.
“Smythe, has Bloodaxe or any of the other star wolves altered course?”
The tech officer consulted his workstation. “Negative, sir. They’re maintaining position relative to the rest of the fleet.”
“So why the devil is he messing around with probes?” Catarina said. She shook her head. “Whatever it is, it won’t affect us.”
“What about them blackfish?” Capp asked. “They’re out on patrol, ain’t they?”
“And have been flying routine maneuvers so far.” Catarina hesitated. “Let’s run the numbers just in case.”
She said this mainly for Capp’s benefit. The first mate was going to stay suspicious no matter what. Could anyone blame her? At this point in the war, the bulk of Void Queen’s combat experience came from fighting Scandian star wolves, not Apex warships.
So, no, Catarina didn’t exactly trust the Scandian marauder captains, either, even though the current alliance gave every sign of holding. There was something opportunistic in the way Olafsen and his brother Longshanks, had thrown in their lot with Albion after the fighting in the Odense System. Yes, they were anxious to defeat Apex and eager to rebuild Scandian civilization from a collection of warlords and fractious marauder captains into something unified and strong. But she had no doubt that when those two objectives were realized, they’d try to throw off Albion domination.
Let them. Catarina was no patriot herself, and had her own schemes for grabbing independence from the crown. Meanwhile, she thought she understood the Scandians, and it was hard to imagine them pulling a treacherous move out here. Void Queen was at full strength and traveling with a powerful collection of Albion, Singaporean, and mercenary ships that would tear Olafsen’s fleet apart if he tried anything.
The main viewscreen showed HMS Repulse. A small tech ship was hovering behind the cruiser, trying to seal a cracked outer containment shell on one of the engines while cruising along at three percent the speed of light. Catarina shunted her view to the side, moved past the powerful flotilla of warships stretching behind Void Queen, and brought up the star wolves.
Led by the two brothers on Bloodaxe and Thor’s Hammer, the wolves jostled for position at the vanguard of the combined fleet. Five smaller Scandian ships—the so-called blackfish—had veered off at an angle. These newer ships had not yet seen action in battle, and it seemed reasonable that they would take advantage of the delay caused by Repulse’s repairs to run maneuvers.
But any maneuvers would be short, given the course set by the fleet. If the blackfish veered too far afield, they’d be left behind, and Catarina would be irritated if she had to hold up the jump while she waited for them. In fact, she wouldn’t do it; she’d jump anyway and force them to catch up with her in the next system.
“Captain?” Nyb Pim said. “I have some preliminaries on the course set by the Scandian blackfish.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Yes, sir. It would appear that they are following the probe Lieutenant Capp detected earlier.” The Hroom hummed deep in his throat. “They are turning toward the asteroid belt.”
#
Catarina retreated to her war room and called Olafsen to demand an explanation. The marauder captain appeared after two or three long minutes. He gazed back at her with an insolent expression. He’d been growing out his beard for months, and it gleamed, freshly brushed and oiled. He wore a heavy silver chain with a silver rune hammer pendant and a cloak swept over one shoulder. It was a dignified look, and the scar crossing from his forehead to his upper cheek only made the marauder captain look more impressive.
Yet his expression made Catarina bristle, especially in light of how long she’d waited for him to take the video call. She let the displeasure show on her face.
“Well? What have you to say for yourself?”
“Nothing, Vargus.”
“You must think I’m an idiot.”
“Not really, no. You are clever enough for an Albion captain. I knew you’d figure out sooner or later that I was mounting a side expedition.”
“Oh, is that what you call it? A side expedition? And how do you explain why you’re not at the helm of Bloodaxe?”
Something flickered acros
s his face—a hint of surprise, perhaps—but he recovered quickly.
“That’s right,” she continued, “I know you’re on one of these blackfish ships yourself. My tech officers are not idiots, either. Whatever you’re doing out there, it requires your personal attention. Well, are you going to explain yourself, or not?”
“There’s something I need to examine in the asteroid belt. What does it matter to you the reasons?”
“Because you’re dividing our forces. Because we’ve got a rendezvous to keep, and I can’t both follow you and meet McGowan at the prearranged time. And because I’m in command of this fleet, not you. Are you suggesting I follow you into the belt?”
“Absolutely not. It is, as I said, a side expedition. As for breaking up the fleet, you’ll have plenty of firepower when you meet up with McGowan. Now, I know it’s important for you to have a bigger fleet than your old lover”—Olafsen chuckled, as if he’d been especially witty passing along navy gossip—“but you’ve still got him beat even without my blackfish.”
Catarina voiced the suspicion that had been growing in her. “This had better not be personal, Olafsen. If you’ve found holdouts from Viborg in some secret base and want to teach them a lesson, you’d better tell me now.”
“I will do what it takes to consolidate my command over the rebellious Scandian warlords and marauder captains. I’ve never made a secret of that.”
“So it is personal.”
“Those are your words, not mine.” Olafsen raised an eyebrow, making his scar uncoil across his face. “I will catch up before the rendezvous if I can. If not, I will meet you in the Persia System.”
He cut the line, leaving Catarina alone in the empty war room, fuming.
#
She kept a wary eye on Olafsen’s five blackfish as his ships approached the asteroid belt, even as she maintained her course across the system toward the entry into the Zoroaster System with the rest of her large fleet.
They’d begun their final approach to the jump point when Olafsen’s small force arrived at the asteroid belt. She thought she’d have two or three hours to watch and see what he was up to before Void Queen exited the system, but he decelerated until he was at a complete stop just outside the belt, where he entered into a slow orbit around the sun.
Catarina’s curiosity grew with every passing minute, but to bring a halt to the fleet now would force a lengthy delay. In addition to Void Queen, the flagship of her fleet, she had twenty-three Scandian star wolves, six mercenary ships, eight Hroom sloops of war, and seventeen other Royal Navy warships under her command. Fifty-five craft in all to shuttle through the jump point and into the uncertainty that lay beyond. Reluctantly, she ordered the jump to proceed as planned.
She came to on the other side with a mild headache and Void Queen drifting away from the jump point. The rest of the crew on the bridge shook themselves from their lethargy with the groans and muttered curses of the hungover. Smythe and Lomelí got instruments up and running as HMS Fierce, one of the other two cruisers, flashed through the jump point to join the battle cruiser.
Next came a pair of destroyers, followed by one of the war junks. It spread its wings and hit the system with active sensors. The second war junk appeared, followed in quick succession by a corvette, four Hroom sloops, and Catarina’s old pirate frigate, Orient Tiger.
She was still fuzzy headed, and had to glance at the star chart on her console to remember the name of this godforsaken wilderness. Zoroaster. A binary system with so much radiation pulsing off one of the two stars that it messed with the sensors and made detection difficult. No habitable planets, but numerous planetoid objects loaded with fissionables and other valuable ores. A lot of territory to search.
Wonderful. Well, that was why Drake was sending her through here, wasn’t it? It was a good place for a beleaguered fleet to hide and rebuild strength, and she had to make sure the enemy hadn’t done just that.
Earlier, a pair of Apex spears had broken through Drake’s quarantine of the Persia System and fled into deep space before they could be hunted down and destroyed. You could hardly blame Drake; his forces had been fighting for their lives at the time, during that final battle when Dreadnought had taken so much damage that the admiral was forced to bring his battleship back to Viborg for repairs.
Since then, Tolvern had successfully bottled up the enemy, but Drake worried that the escaping spears had been carrying princesses or queens. If so, they could give rise to new flocks, which made it imperative that they be tracked down before that could happen.
The admiral had given Catarina a circuitous route to the front lines to make sure the system was clear, which was how she’d ended up first in Damascus, and now in Zoroaster. And so, as her ships kept coming through, her pilot and tech officer were working out various courses through the system that would allow them to hit the major hiding places in case the war junks couldn’t find anything with their sensors.
That meant dividing up the fleet, which was another reason she was unhappy to see Olafsen take off with his blackfish. It looked like she’d need three separate forces. Put Void Queen with the star wolves so Catarina could keep an eye on the Scandians, set Fierce and Repulse at the head of two other forces, and forget about the blackfish for now.
Catarina was transmitting fleet orders when a subspace came through from Olafsen, still presumably messing around in the asteroid belt of the previous system. She knew even before reading it that the subspace would contain all sorts of valuable intelligence for Apex, should the enemy intercept it, but little new information for herself. A quick glance confirmed her assumption.
Am engaging the enemy and cannot make rendezvous. I will meet you at Nebuchadnezzar if I survive.
Olafsen
Chapter Three
Tolvern stood on the bridge of Blackbeard, anxiously watching the viewscreen as her three corvettes nudged through the icy ring around the gas giant planet the crew was calling Big Greasy, for lack of an official name. The cloud banding around the planet looked like streaks of burned oil left across a gray metal frying grill, which had given rise to the informal name.
The jump point where Blackbeard remained with the bulk of the fleet remained quiet, and Tolvern was second-guessing her decision. Not second-guessing the corvette mission to look for Stratsky’s captors, but that she should have sent more ships in case something turned up.
“I’ve been reading Drake’s logs,” Manx said. The first mate was three hours over shift, but remained at his station. “The two enemy spears most definitely jumped clear of the Nebuchadnezzar System, and we’ve been watching the jump points, so it’s not like they could have slipped back in.”
“Understood.”
“But I’ve figured out how there might be something else out there,” Manx said. “That last battle was a mess. Full-on chaos. Drake had half his force in Persia at one point, including Dreadnought, and the ships he left behind got mauled. Half the task force was destroyed in the battle, and most of the rest were shipped back to Viborg and Fort Alliance for repair as soon as the battle was won.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that plenty of stuff happened that didn’t make the logs because nobody saw it.”
“You think another ship or two escaped the battle besides the ones noted?”
Manx looked uncertain. “I’m not saying that, not necessarily. Nothing was noted, and those jump points were watched. But there were five ships—a spear and four lances—that disappear from the record at some point. All five suffered heavy damage, and were deemed too crippled to jump. They were presumed destroyed, the wreckage joining the derelicts and random bits of flotsam cluttering the system.”
“But nobody has tracked down or verified the wreckage, am I right?” Tolvern asked.
“No. There’s too much of it, and we’ve been too busy to send patrols.”
Tolvern rubbed her hands together and looked up at the screen to watch the corvettes at work.
“So what we�
��re talking about,” she said, “is at least one lance or spear that survived the battle, was too damaged to jump, and has been hiding out by Big Greasy ever since. The enemy spotted Stratsky’s falcon on patrol and grabbed him without thinking twice.”
HMS Streak pulled away from the other two corvettes and dipped into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. Her companions lurked within striking range, engines hot, active sensors hammering. Millions of miles away at the jump point, Tolvern’s war junks were listening with equal attention.
Without warning, one of the two corvettes outside the ring let loose a pair of torpedoes. Streak burst out of the atmosphere, plasma engines flaring as she shot away from the planet. Following closely behind was an Apex warship.
“A spear!” Oglethorpe shouted from the tech console, quite unnecessarily, Tolvern thought.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” she said dryly. “So it would appear.”
“Not that one, Captain! Look.”
Bayard joined the cry from the defense grid station, and Tolvern paid more attention to what the two men were going on about.
The two officers had maintained a watch of the jump point on a side screen, and it was here that the more important action was taking place. An Apex spear had materialized nearby, drifting on auxiliary power away from the jump point, and was sliding helplessly right toward Blackbeard.
Tolvern instantly forgot about the action taking place at Big Greasy and got on the com to the gunnery. Gunnery Chief Finch was already preparing to launch torpedoes, but Tolvern ordered her to hold torpedoes and ready a broadside instead.
“We’re still retracting shields, Captain. They won’t be ready in time.”
“Hold your nerve, Finch.” Tolvern glanced at her console. “There’s plenty of time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tolvern cut the call and ordered Manx to bring them closer. The spear was still drifting, its Apex crew as vulnerable to the disorientating effects of a jump as any human or Hroom.
Other ships of the alliance fleet were moving to attack, but none were as well positioned as the battle cruiser. It was fantastic luck that the enemy ship had come through drifting in just this precise direction, and luck had been hard to come by in the war. Tolvern could crush the spear with a broadside from close quarters and still have her torpedoes hot in the tubes for anything else that might come through.
Sun King (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 3) Page 2
