Sun King (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  Chapter Twelve

  Catarina’s initial engagement with the harvester in the Xerxes System was indecisive. She’d assigned it almost supernatural powers in her head, ever since hearing of its jailbreak from Persia, and even after destroying the pair of hunter-killer packs escorting it, she’d imagined it to be indestructible, almost godlike in its ability to deliver and absorb punishment.

  Yet in the first attacks, the sheer overwhelming firepower of her fleet of fifty-one warships had held it at bay. One of her war junks, pushed forward to soften the harvester’s armor with a concentrated energy beam, took a beating, then an unfortunate shot into the engines, and had to be rescued and escorted to the back of the fleet. After that initial loss, the allied forces fought for more than three hours without losing another ship. Save for needing to preserve ordnance, Catarina could have fought indefinitely.

  General Mose Dryz and the task force sent along by McGowan continued to rush to her aid, and if she could hold on for five more hours, she’d welcome considerable firepower to the battle, but McGowan himself was long gone from the system. He’d jumped into Damascus to join Olafsen’s blackfish in searching for Apex escapees. A couple of brief subspace messages gave Catarina hints about their progress. As far as she could piece it together, McGowan’s war junks had discovered two more pods making for jump points that would carry them across the inner frontier toward Old Earth. McGowan split his forces to guard the jump points, while Olafsen hunted down and destroyed the pods.

  “Hey, Captain,” Smythe said from the tech console. “What’s the harvester up to now?”

  The enemy ship had withdrawn from close-range combat, and seemed content to throw missiles from a distance, a game that Catarina was happy to play. Keep them at arm’s length, keep Longshanks from slipping his leash and pressing the attack, and hold out for the general.

  But the enemy ship was doing something with its arms, opening and closing them.

  “We must have hit it, Cap’n,” Capp said. “Damaged its arms. No arms, no green eye—maybe them Vikings are right, and we should go in and finish it while we have the chance.”

  “That’s not what we’re looking at,” Smythe said insistently. “Something else is going on. Look!”

  The tech officer brought the front of the harvester into sharper focus. Small ships were popping out of a mouthlike aperture behind the arms, each about the size of a navy falcon. As the ships emerged, they slid back along the harvester’s hull until they blended in among the bumps and protrusions of the larger ship’s hull. Catarina tried to puzzle it out.

  “They’re not escape pods, are they?” she asked. “Like the ones Olafsen and McGowan are hunting?”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re looking at short-range fighters, like what we saw at Singapore,” Smythe said.

  “I forgot they could do that,” she admitted. “How many are we talking about?”

  Smythe consulted with Lomelí. “Fifteen or twenty so far. Hard to say for sure. They’re almost indistinguishable once they get back along the hull, and we didn’t spot them right away.”

  “Capp, call Carvalho and tell him to bring in the striker wing.”

  “Why we bringing ’em back in now?” Capp said. “That’s our defense.”

  “Only to refuel and rearm, then we’ll get them back in the fight.” Catarina studied the screen. “We took out the hunter-killer packs, and we can take these out, too. Any little delay helps.”

  The harvester had been firing casually, just enough long-range ordnance to disrupt allied fleet movements, but began to pick up the pace. Soon, the space between the two forces filled with a massive incoming wave of missiles. The enemy ship advanced behind it, with the small fighters still hugging close.

  Catarina called Orient Tiger. Da Rosa answered.

  “Hey there, old friend. Are you seeing what we’re seeing?”

  “Aye, Vargus,” her former first mate responded. “Fighters. It is just the sort of thing my deck guns can handle.” She couldn’t see his toothy grin, but imagined it easily enough from his tone. “Like hunting rogue smugglers back in Peruano.”

  “The same smugglers who begged us to take all their silver and their ships, too, only don’t kill them? The stakes are just a little higher than that.”

  “Same size ships, same size explosions when you kill them.”

  She turned serious. “Don’t get cocky,” she warned. “Stay behind Pussycat—use your guns and Pussycat’s armor. I’ll get my falcons back up, and they’ll come around to help.”

  The two pirate frigates maneuvered into position while she called Longshanks and Knutesen. The Scandians were guarded, perhaps thinking she was going to hold them in reserve for mop-up duty. She had something else in mind, and the two men shouted their approval when she shared her battle plans.

  Catarina still believed that what the enemy really wanted was to get its claws on Void Queen. Next to Dreadnought herself, Catarina’s battle cruiser had more experience and success against Apex harvesters than any other human or Hroom ship. She’d fought successfully at Odense, had destroyed a harvester in Zoroaster, and had already knocked this one’s escorting hunter-killer packs out of the fight. The princess or queen commander inside would be ravenous for Catarina’s flesh and eager to feed Void Queen’s crew to her lieutenants.

  And so Catarina retreated into the protective embrace of her fleet as the enemy approached. Repulse and Fierce fired torpedoes, then fell back to guard Void Queen. Other ships in the fleet stayed clear, while firing to slow the enemy’s approach.

  As expected, the fighter craft peeled off from the harvester and leaped ahead to force Void Queen to respond. Orient Tiger and Pussycat cut short their advance. At the same time, twenty-one star wolves peeled away from the fleet and sliced between the advancing enemy fighters and their mother ship, where they came under immediate attack from the harvester. Pummel guns exchanged fire with missiles and kinetic shot. Catarina’s three missile frigates hurled explosives onto the battlefield to support the wolves.

  Catarina waited until the harvester slowed to fight the Scandians, then ordered Void Queen, Repulse, and Fierce to come about and mount a swift counterattack. The gunnery swatted away several fighters that had broken past the pirate frigates, opening enough space for Carvalho to relaunch his falcons, now rearmed and refueled.

  Catarina had successfully surrounded the enemy ship by luring it into their midst with a fake retreat. Missiles and torpedoes and pummel guns slammed it from every side. War junks and sloops of war added firepower to the attack.

  “Time to finish the job,” she said. “Capp, where are the nukes?”

  “Two on Void Queen, one in a Mark-IV and the other in a Hunter-II. One each on Repulse and Dart. Mark-IVs. Don’t do us no good until we break through the tyrillium, though.”

  “Then it’s up to the fleet to open some holes.” Catarina called the gunnery. “How you holding up down there?”

  “All good,” Barker said in his scratchy grumble. “Guns on carriages, targeting computers getting through the enemy baffles.”

  “Load the nukes in the number four and five tubes.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “And ready the main battery. We need to soften up that armor first.”

  Void Queen and the two smaller cruisers muscled in past the smaller navy ships. They arrived just in time to relieve Longshanks, who was taking a beating. A pair of wolves had already fled the battlefield with armor shredded, making for deep space.

  Two more wolves had broken through the harvester’s defenses and taken position a few miles below the enemy ship, where they concentrated fire on the hull. One of these, Snakebite, got a little too close, and a harpoon shot out and impaled the ship. It struggled to free itself, while its companion, a smaller wolf named Venom, rushed in to free it. Another harpoon shot out and impaled Venom in turn.

  The harvester was fighting dozens of enemies, but seemed almost casual as it hauled in the harpooned star wolves, which fought and strug
gled to get free, but with no success. One ship after another disappeared into the biting arms, while Longshanks charged and retreated, furiously trying to mount a rescue operation. The harvester cast aside the wreckage of the two ships and looked about for new victims.

  The once-mighty Scandian fleet of twenty-three star wolves had lost six ships in total, and only the arrival of the three big Albion warships absorbed enough of the enemy’s attention to allow Longshanks to withdraw to a safer distance.

  Catarina sent in her remaining torpedo boats, supported by Hroom sloops. The harvester fired missiles and twisting bombs in what was almost a casual attempt to knock them out while concentrating its firepower on the star wolves.

  A torpedo boat exploded before it could drop its load. A sloop took a blow on the weak part of its armor, then detonated as shot penetrated the ship’s armory. The resulting debris struck one of the other sloops, which sent it careening away. Two more sloops fell back, damaged, before they could close.

  The final four torpedo boats dropped their Mark-IVs, and what was left of the sortie retreated under heavy fire. Two of the torpedoes got through, and smashed one after another into a segment of armor behind the enemy ship’s bridge. Several of the bulbous protuberances burst like blisters, spilling their contents into the void.

  “Full broadside,” Catarina ordered Barker. The ship rocked as the cannon fired.

  The shot struck the enemy another blow behind the bridge. More of the bulbous sections burst. Gasses flamed into space for several seconds before ceasing.

  “There goes their bloody larder,” Capp said.

  The words were grim. Everyone knew that hundreds of Persians had been frozen in stasis in those chambers, carried off to be devoured at a later date.

  “That got their attention,” Smythe said. “It’s coming about again.”

  Void Queen, Repulse, and Fierce had taken up position above the harvester, and were taking limited incoming fire while the harvester used the bulk of its weaponry against the Scandians. Now it rolled and sent missiles and energy pulses toward them.

  Catarina called the other two cruisers and ordered them to target the harvester’s damaged armor with everything they had. That was code for Repulse to fire her nuclear torpedo. Catarina called the four remaining corvettes and destroyers, and gave them the same order. That was a similar message for Dart. The two corvettes and two destroyers had come in with the war junks to reinforce Longshanks’s faltering attack, but now charged to mount a direct assault.

  The cruisers and corvette-destroyer force dropped thirteen torpedoes between them.

  “Fire Mark-IVs,” Catarina said. She hesitated. “But not the nukes.”

  Void Queen fired three torpedoes of her own—conventional only—to chase the other thirteen and further confuse the battlefield.

  Catarina held her breath as they accelerated toward the enemy ship. Countermeasures burst from the side of the harvester and exploded. Torpedoes faltered, spun out of control, or detonated prematurely. A torpedo got through and slammed into the side of the ship and exploded. Not a nuke.

  Another torpedo got through and struck the same spot. Again, not what she needed. A final torpedo penetrated the screen. Again, nothing. In all, only three of the sixteen hit their target, and all three carried conventional explosives.

  “King’s balls,” Capp said. “It’s like the bloody universe hates us.”

  Catarina let out her breath and released her grip on her seat. “Capp, confirm that Dart and Repulse fired their nukes.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” Capp said a minute later. “They been used up.”

  Meanwhile, the harvester had picked up the pace, and was plowing through the rest of her fleet as it resumed its move toward the jump point that would carry it out of Xerxes. Catarina was so bloodied by the encounter that she didn’t see how she could stop it.

  “Three hours until reinforcements arrive,” Smythe said.

  “And the jump point?” Catarina directed this to her pilot.

  Nyb Pim came back with an answer moments later. “The enemy reaches it in five.”

  “If we wait for reinforcements, we’ll have two hours to bring it down before it escapes. No way that happens. We’ve got to slow it down and buy more time.”

  Catarina rose from her seat and paced the bridge as Capp called Repulse and Dart with orders to get out ahead of the enemy. That was a stopgap, but it wouldn’t hold Apex for long.

  And why should it? Everything she’d tried so far had failed. The harvester absorbed blow after blow, and Catarina had spent two of her four nuclear torpedoes and lost numerous ships as the enemy mauled her fleet with every encounter. Already, sustained fire was forcing Fierce to retreat, and her destroyers and corvettes had fallen back to rejoin Longshanks, where they gained a brief reprieve.

  “It’s got to be the nukes or nothing.” She called Orient Tiger. “Da Rosa, get around and help Longshanks. Take Pussycat and the schooners with you. I need those guns off me so I can get inside their countermeasures.”

  “Consider it done, Vargus.”

  At least the enemy fighter threat had nearly been eliminated. That gave Catarina breathing room to the rear, so she ordered the missile frigates to approach the battlefield, where they could get more ordnance through the enemy countermeasures.

  Void Queen fired another broadside, followed by two powerful blows struck by her companion cruisers. The cruisers were taking heavier fire now, especially Void Queen, fighting off explosive shot, concentrated energy fire, and a steady hail of small missiles.

  “Warning,” Jane said. “Shield number two at twenty-four percent. Shield number one at fifty-four percent. Shield number six . . .”

  As the litany continued, more worrying news came in from several ships in the fleet. Between this battle and the fight in Zoroaster, they’d expended vast quantities of missiles, cannon shot, and torpedoes. Forget carrying the fight all the way to Persia; they were running dangerously low on the armaments needed to finish this battle here.

  “By my calculations,” Smythe said, “we’re inside the primary ring of enemy countermeasures.”

  “Make sure. Get us closer.” Catarina returned to her console to check on the shields. Number two had dropped to sixteen percent. “Roll us over first. We can’t take any more hits on the upper port shields.”

  The Scandians renewed their attack from the opposite side with such ferocity that the harvester once again turned its attention in that direction. And not a moment too soon, as Fierce was falling back, shields in tatters, weakening Catarina’s flank.

  The two pirate frigates had hung back, waiting for an opening. Now, accompanied by the remaining mercenary schooners and a handful of sloops, they peeled away from their position of relative safety above the battle cruiser and flew in front of the harvester, as if trying to reinforce the Scandians on the far side.

  The harvester spotted them. It sent out a hail of missiles, which blasted a schooner apart and crippled a sloop. It fired at the two pirate frigates, but without enough strength to bring them down in time. They were about to slip past.

  “Capp, get the gunnery. Fire both nukes on my mark.”

  Even as the words came out of her mouth, a harpoon shot out of the harvester’s prow and snared Orient Tiger. Catarina watched in horror as it dragged her former ship in.

  “Vargus!” Da Rosa screamed over the com. “They’ve got us. Help me, for God’s sake!”

  The arms opened to embrace the pirate frigate. Pussycat pulled up and fired desperately at the arms to free her companion, but then a second harpoon fired out, and only a quick maneuver kept Pussycat from being hooked as well. The arms crunched down on Orient Tiger.

  “They’re on the ship!” Da Rosa cried. “Taking prisoners. Here they come.” Screams and birdlike shrieks.

  “Cap’n, what do I do?” Capp said desperately. “Them nukes is ready. Barker wants go or no go. Cap’n!”

  Catarina steeled herself. “Fire!”

  The nuclear-t
ipped torpedoes launched from the side of Void Queen, together with four conventional torpedoes. Their engines ignited, and they raced toward the enemy ship. Catarina watched, hoping that the buzzards were too occupied with devouring their meal and fighting off the assault from the allied forces on the opposite side to notice the incoming torpedoes.

  No such luck. Countermeasures flared once more. A torpedo detonated, then a second. Four more closed on the enemy ship and broke through the last defenses. She held her breath. Had the nukes survived the countermeasures?

  Four torpedoes slammed into the enemy battleship. Two bright nuclear flashes blanked the screen. The officers on the bridge cheered, except for Catarina. All she could think about was Orient Tiger, Da Rosa, and the rest of her former crew.

  And even before the sensors cleared, she knew that the harvester had survived, because incoming fire kept hitting Void Queen, hitting Fierce, and striking at the Scandians.

  But when they finally got the harvester back on the screen, her hopes lifted. Two massive black scars gouged the armor behind the enemy bridge, where earlier fire had torn through the protective tyrillium. The weapon systems on that side of the ship had melted to slag, and the grasping arms were broken and dangling.

  The wreckage of Orient Tiger drifted clear, a blackened, gutted, radioactive wreck. Catarina stared, her throat tight.

  “Poor bastards,” Capp said. “May God have mercy on their souls.” She glanced at Catarina. “You did what you needed to, Cap’n. Saved ’em from worse.”

  Catarina didn’t have an answer for that, and no time to grieve, either. She ordered Longshanks to pull out of range before he suffered more losses, and fell back with Repulse to draw fire from the battered HMS Fierce. The enemy ship stopped attacking, apparently needing to lick its own wounds for a spell.

  A video message came through from the relief forces, which had continued charging toward the fight and were beginning a deceleration to combat speed.

  It was General Mose Dryz, supreme commander of the Hroom military forces. He stared through the viewscreen with his large, liquid eyes, his features drawn and haughty in appearance.