Her reason for holding fire quickly became apparent. Instead of engaging with twenty different enemy ships, Blackbeard had bought herself a few moments of breathing room, and that was all the time needed for other ships to come to her aid. Void Queen fired a volley of missiles that rained down on the battlefield, while Pussycat clawed in from behind with guns blazing. Of the cruisers, Triumph was the first to arrive, followed in quick succession by Repulse and Fierce. Several Hroom sloops fired serpentine batteries, along with energy pulses.
By the time Tolvern pulled them out of their roll, the battle was already even, with more allied ships arriving every minute.
In earlier battles, Apex had proven willing, if not eager, to sacrifice entire formations of warships in order to gain a small advantage. If the battlefield were a chessboard, they would count every lance and spear as a pawn to be thrown away if it could bring down an enemy rook or bishop.
Tolvern had expected the entire force of hunter-killer packs to expend itself in the fight. No doubt they would lose, but leave the battle-cruiser-led fleet weakened ahead of the struggle with the harvesters.
And so she was surprised when they broke off before they could be encircled—before they’d even inflicted any damage—and raced for freedom. Vargus must have given orders to the corvettes, because they came streaking in from behind, but they weren’t quick enough to block the entire enemy force. They caught one lance, already struck by Void Queen’s missiles, and forced it back against the fleet. There, Blackbeard joined in battering the Apex ship until it exploded.
The rest of the enemy ships escaped. Broderick had brought his fleet forward to join the fight, and his ships began to arrive just as the enemy reached jump speed and vanished. The spears and lances reappeared alongside the harvester ships, still accelerating toward the allied fleets.
“What the devil was that about?” Tolvern asked.
“Maybe just testing us out,” Manx said. “Seeing how we respond when they jump in.”
“You’d think they’d know that by now. Anyway, it wrecked their initiative. Don’t know why they’d throw that away with a feint.”
“A message?” he offered. “A warning?”
“A warning about what?” she asked. “That they intend to annihilate our fleet and devour the survivors? That’s hardly a secret.” Something occurred to her. “What about that course correction? Clyde, run the numbers. Where the devil are those harvesters going?”
They soon had their answer. The five harvesters, which had been barreling in a straight line toward the jump into Nebuchadnezzar, had altered course and were charging at Dreadnought. Clyde calculated that the harvesters would have the admiral’s fleet at their mercy for nearly two hours before reinforcements arrived.
Catarina Vargus called. She clenched her jaw, and determination glinted in her eyes. Capp was cursing somewhere in the background, her usual mix of blasphemy and scatological references.
“It was a good trick,” Vargus said. “Threw us off the trail.”
“It buys them two hours,” Tolvern said. “No more. Then we’ll be on the battlefield. Broderick shortly after. Dreadnought can hold out that long, don’t you think?”
“Five harvesters! They’ll smash his fleet, smash us, smash Broderick, and break through for the jump point.”
“We don’t have to stop them all,” Tolvern said. “If one gets through, McGowan and Olafsen are there to stop it.”
“In theory, yes.”
Could they count on McGowan to fight? That was the question. His fleet was pulling in closer than if he expected to sit out the battle, and he’d be in perfect position to hold the line against . . . well, whatever got through. But only if McGowan took a stand.
“We could let Broderick join the battle while we make for McGowan’s position instead,” Vargas said.
“To what end?”
“Drake and Broderick hold as many harvesters near Persia as possible. We fall back and reinforce McGowan. That way there’s no temptation to fall back.”
“You’re in command. Is that your order?”
“No. It’s a request for your advice.”
“Drake and Broderick together—not enough. Not enough by a long shot. The harvesters win that battle, and maybe then all of them make a break for it, not just one or two.” Tolvern took a deep breath. “We have to count on McGowan . . . and Olafsen.”
“Yes, especially Olafsen.”
The two women couldn’t be explicit, not on the open channel. Not with the crew on the bridges of both ships listening in. Tolvern and Vargus had kept the others in the dark about their attempts to manipulate McGowan into taking action.
“Agreed,” Vargas said at last. “We’re joining Drake and Broderick. An all-out push to stop the enemy before they break free.”
#
The die had been cast, Catarina thought. The pieces positioned. Watching it develop was witnessing slaughter and destruction in slow motion as the various fleets crossed millions of miles of empty space to reach the battlefield.
And as it happened, Admiral Drake was able to choose the setting of that battle.
He pulled the bulk of his forces into place near the outermost of the rocky inner worlds, a cold gray planet that the charts called Sheol. The planet was about one-third standard gravity according to mass, and had a small oblong moon that orbited in a short eleven hours.
Drake positioned Dreadnought and his cruisers about sixty thousand miles above Sheol, while he sent his destroyers streaking out at an angle, where they dropped dozens of mines in a massive screen, like a net that would funnel enemies toward the clear spot next to the planet. As an added deterrent to flanking maneuvers, he shielded his three missile frigates behind the minefield, where they hemmed themselves in with more mines.
Drake was taking a gamble, based on the same assumptions Catarina and Tolvern had already made, that the enemy was attempting a final massive breakout attempt, rather than trying to defeat the allied fleet down to the last ship. If they were wrong, the harvesters and their accompanying lances and spears might ignore the funnel altogether and do something else, thus wasting dozens of mines, and leaving Drake’s forces spread out.
On the other hand, Catarina realized, the sight of the human flagship sitting there, inviting battle, must be a great temptation. The queen commander fed on high-ranking prisoners, and there was no prize greater than Admiral Drake himself.
“Looks like they’re taking the bait,” Smythe announced as the harvesters made a clear decision to avoid the minefield and the missile frigates and charge at Dreadnought.
“Lucky us,” Catarina said.
The harvesters were decelerating, the hunter-killer packs alongside them. No short-range jump for the hunter-killers; the enemy commander was clearly too wary of the battleship and the powerful forces arrayed nearby to divide her forces.
Dreadnought and her cruisers launched a volley of missiles, as did the frigates standing to one side. The missiles were at the edge of their range—the frigates soon to be out of range entirely as the harvester fleet bypassed them—and enemy countermeasures brought them down immediately.
But that signaled the beginning of the fight, and soon long-range ordnance was flying back and forth between the two opposing forces. Countermeasures knocked down most of it, but the harvesters drew first blood, slamming a pair of missiles against a destroyer as it returned from laying mines. So much firepower from those harvesters. It wouldn’t be long now until the enemy was inflicting a good deal more damage than a few pinpricks.
Hold on, Catarina thought. Help is on the way.
“We’re now only fifteen minutes behind Broderick,” Smythe announced.
“Only fifteen minutes?” Catarina said. “I thought it was thirty.”
“Aye, but we got a better pilot than Broderick,” Capp said, puffing out her chest, “and the rest of our blokes are following his course.”
Nyb Pim let out a modest-sounding hum. “It was a straightforward calculation.”
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Smythe and Lomelí suddenly cried out in alarm, and Catarina looked up at the screen to see an unknown fleet racing in from her fleet’s starboard, midway between the harvester ships and the arriving reinforcements.
“Twenty ships!” Smythe said.
“What are they?” she demanded.
“They’re still cloaked—can’t exactly tell yet. Only picked them up at all because of reflections bounced off Broderick’s ships.”
“Aye, mate,” Capp said, “but you got their numbers, yeah? So make a bloody guess.”
The tech officer nodded. “Got to be spears and lances. Nothing big enough in there to be a harvester.”
Small comfort. And blast it all, where had they come from?
The fleet had been scanning the system hard, hitting everywhere with active sensors, and it beggared the imagination that a fresh force of hunter-killer packs had crept onto the battlefield undetected. Terrible timing, too. Broderick’s fleet and the joint Void Queen-Blackbeard force would come under fire far short of the main battlefield, potentially delaying them by hours.
And then two things happened almost simultaneously. First, the harvesters and their accompanying forces changed course again, as if turning about to take the battle to Catarina, Tolvern, and Broderick, instead of the admiral. Then, the newcomers dropped their cloaks.
Star wolves. Twenty of them. For a moment, Catarina allowed a wild hope to rise in her breast. And then, even as Capp cheered and pumped her fist, she realized what they were seeing.
“No, Lieutenant. It’s that old Viking trick.”
“Huh? What? Oh. Dammit.”
“Will someone please explain?” Nyb Pim asked. “I do not exactly understand.”
“They’re Olafsen’s ships, all right,” Catarina said. “But he’s not here. He’s projecting their signals to make it look like his fleet—or rather, that a second fleet—is swooping in to attack the enemy.”
“Then there are no ships?” the Hroom said. “I had hoped for unexpected reinforcement.”
“Afraid not, mate,” Capp said. “It’s nothing.”
“I thought there was something funny about the signal,” Smythe said.
“You didn’t say nothing of the sort,” Capp grumbled. “You was fooled like the rest of us. Bet if the Cap’n hadn’t—”
“Look at that,” Smythe interrupted. “We weren’t the only ones fooled.”
The harvesters had been changing course, all right, but it was to meet the phantom fleet of star wolves, who rushed them as if they were going to throw themselves against the enemy in a suicide charge.
“It’s perfect,” Catarina said. “Remember how Broderick pulled Tolvern out of the fire? Must look just like that to the buzzards.”
The supposed star wolves were even firing their pummel guns, or so it appeared. The enemy ships responded with their own kinetic fire and energy pulses. And then . . . nothing. The pummel gun shot vanished like water drops on a hot skittle at the moment they were to have hit. Moments later, the phantom ships flashed through the enemy fleet and vanished.
The harvesters resumed course, apparently realizing they’d been duped. Too late. They’d lost valuable time.
“I wonder if that was McGowan’s idea,” Catarina said.
“Captain Piss Nozzle?” Capp said.
“It’s not his imagination that’s lacking.”
Instead of closing with Drake outside Sheol, the Apex ships pulled up short, within missile range, but not yet close enough to hit back with heavier firepower. The delay was crucial. Broderick’s forces were already arriving at the edge of the battlefield, and his cruisers threw out a few missiles to test range.
“Signal the fleet,” Catarina said. “I want our own missiles in the air the instant we’re in range.”
“We’re still way out there,” Capp said. “We’ll be wasting ammo.”
“Those harvesters are near indestructible, but there are only five of them. We need to flood the battlefield—that’s our big advantage.”
Of the five, one of them stood out from the others. It was a long, roughly rectangular shape, with a flattened tail, five large grasping arms up front, serrated with thousands of bulkhead-chewing teeth, and a pair of eyes on either side. Twin paralyzing rays.
“That big one,” Catarina said. “I’m guessing that’s the flagship. The queen commander’s.”
“You mean the shark-looking one?” Capp asked.
“Looks more like a squid to me.”
“Nah, look at the way the eyes stick out on them stalks, like a hammerhead, yeah?”
“Fine, we’ll call it Hammerhead,” Catarina said. “The smaller one flying next to it we’ll call Tiger, because of the stripes.”
“That’s an artifact of the sensors,” Smythe said. “It doesn’t really have stripes. We’re detecting different armor bands.”
“Tiger it is, mate,” Capp told him.
In quick succession, they named the other ones Rhino, a big, bulky one without arms at all; Donkey, for its ear-like protrusions; and Manta Ray, which had a generally flattened appearance, a bulbous center, and three grasping appendages up front. Manta Ray was the harvester that had chased Tolvern out of the system two weeks earlier.
“Send those names out to the fleet,” Catarina ordered Capp. “They’ll be easy enough to identify, and we’ll be better able to coordinate our attacks.”
Rhino, Manta Ray, and Tiger had resumed closing ranks with Dreadnought, while Hammerhead and Donkey turned about to face the two reinforcing fleets.
“Incoming missiles,” Smythe said. “They’re targeting us. And Blackbeard. And Repulse, and Arrow, and . . . pretty much everyone.”
Countermeasures went out, but there were so many missiles that she couldn’t bring them all down. Jane warned of a pair of class-one detonations, and soon they were absorbing multiple blows.
The smaller harvester—small being a relative term—ignored the allied ships swarming around it and made straight for Void Queen. It was Donkey. The ears seemed to widen, spreading somehow, and a barrage of kinetic fire burst out of them. Cannon arrays. Catarina forced herself to remain calm.
“Pilot, bring us about. Capp, I want those falcons in the air. Smythe, get me the gunnery. I need a full broadside on my mark.”
The ship shuddered, and the shield display lit up with damage reports. The enemy ship was looming now, a monster, with those ears firing bursts of ordnance. Racing in from behind was a hunter-killer pack, energy weapons pulsing.
Barker got on the line and awaited orders.
“Target the right ear,” she said.
“The what?”
“The starboard cannon array,” she said. A glance to her console—the range was closing rapidly. “Ready? Fire!”
Chapter Nineteen
“Vargus is all alone,” Tolvern said sharply. “I want us in there, by God, and I want us in there now.”
The harvester Vargus had named Donkey let loose a barrage of explosive shot from a pair of huge protruding ear-like appendages on either side of the ship. Rumbling in behind was a second harvester, the largest of the five, which had a pair of paralyzing beams on either side. Hammerhead.
Tolvern stared at the screen with alarm as Blackbeard’s sister ship fell under attack. Void Queen, rather than firing off missiles and torpedoes, rolled to present a broadside, even as she absorbed blows up and down her upper decks.
Blackbeard, together with dozens of other ships, was closing fast. Cruisers and destroyers fired torpedoes and cannon, while corvettes streaked in ahead of torpedo boats. The heavily armored mercenary frigate Pussycat waded into the fight, trying to draw some of the fire.
Void Queen fired a broadside. It smashed into Donkey’s starboard cannon batteries. Explosions burst like a dozen tiny suns along the inner wall of the ear-like array.
Blackbeard swung up alongside her sister ship. Tolvern called Finch to confirm that the main battery was ready to go.
“Target starboard cannons,” Tolvern
told her. She studied the console, waiting as Donkey continued forward. “Fire!”
More explosions burst along the cannon array. That got Donkey’s attention, and its port cannon array rotated to target the second battle cruiser. Meanwhile, an impossible number of missiles were racing out from along its spine, battering any and all ships that fell within its range.
Blackbeard fired at the secondary cannon array. After that, it was a melee. Clyde and Manx worked to stay clear of Donkey’s sweeping green eye, while Oglethorpe and Bayard fought off enemy fire with physical and electronic countermeasures.
Donkey caught a torpedo boat with the eye. It spiraled out of control, chased by missiles. One of them smashed through the boat’s deck, and it exploded.
To Tolvern’s alarm, three more torpedo boats were drifting, listless, caught in the paralyzing eye while Donkey targeted other enemies. A hunter-killer pack leaped into the fray and began to savage the helpless ships.
One of the fleet elements Vargus had left under Tolvern’s command was the force of six destroyers, with Captain Fox in the lead aboard Ninevah. Tolvern ordered him in to relieve the stranded boats.
Crispin’s falcons were in the air, and went racing in alongside the Carvalho-led striker wing from Void Queen. They cut up along the Z-axis, then dove back down to get behind the harvester’s paralyzing beam. The falcons struck with a barrage of small missiles and pulse fire as they went past in an attempt to blind the eye. Minimal damage, but they did manage to distract the lances and the spear, who moved to cut off the falcons’ escape instead of finishing the helpless torpedo boats.
Void Queen launched a second broadside. Blackbeard followed moments later.
“That blasted cannon array,” Manx said. “We can’t take it down.”
“It’s only firing at thirty percent of its initial strength,” Oglethorpe said.
“Thirty is not enough,” Tolvern said. “Get the gunnery. I want all firepower on that array.”
Even knocking it out entirely would still leave the port cannon array, which had been blasting away all this time, to say nothing of the other missiles emerging from launch bays along its spine.
Sun King (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 3) Page 18
