HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Nightingale and Lively Owl were a bare twenty meters apart. Nightingale’s shot flashed across that space, barely visible even with the compressing effects of darkspace. It was a pitiful thing as broadsides went — not only the number and size, being only five guns of four pound capacitors each, but for its ragged nature.

  Spots along the Owl’s hull melted and flowed as the tough thermoplastic absorbed the laser’s energy, but Alexis could see that none of the shots had holed the other ship and none had struck home through the Owl’s now open gunports.

  Nightingale was not so lucky.

  The Lively Owl fired — more guns, ten or more ports, half of which had been disguised somehow during their approach, crowded along her side, Alexis noted, and heavier than Nightingale’s.

  Eight pounders, a dispassionate part of Alexis’ mind noted even as she cringed. More than any merchant should have.

  Nightingale shook from the plastic boiling off her hull.

  “Charge the sails and come about!” Alexis ordered, grasping the edges of the navigation plot. She’d been taken in, lured by the Owl’s easy acceptance of her instructions and their request to sail in company, but there was no time for guilt about that now. “Call the men back from the boarding tube and reload the guns!”

  The Owl had charged her sails as well and was underway — vacsuited figures were visible pulling lines to raise the already glowing sails. More figures than would be working sails on a merchantman and another sign that the Owl was something other than a trader.

  Orders given, Alexis and the rest of those on the quarterdeck were reduced to waiting and watching. They had images from the gundeck where the crews were back from the boarding tube. Men knelt beside the guns, checking the crystalline barrels with eye and following up with instruments to detect cracks and flaws that might cause the gun to burst when next fired. Others swabbed the breech, wiping away any residue accumulating where the shot’s charge met the focusing barrels. Another carried the shot — the gallenium casing which housed the capacitor and lasing tubes.

  None of those crews were down, as Nightingale had been lucky. The hull was damaged, but not breached, and there were no injuries as yet.

  She counted the seconds silently, trying to keep her face impassive so the others wouldn’t realize how very worried she was. Clearly outgunned and likely outmanned, Nightingale’s only chance was to outperform the other ship — something which would require her guncrews to act at a level she hadn’t yet seen from them. If they could load and fire faster than the other ship …

  Both ships paid off the wind, turning to starboard with Nightingale making the tighter turn and opening some space between them.

  “Roll ship,” Alexis ordered. Too much time had passed — the enemy crew would almost certainly have their guns reloaded soon and Nightingale’s guncrews were still working at the tubes and breeches. Crewmen stood by some of the guns with fresh shot, waiting to slot it home.

  This time the helmsman responded immediately, working the controls to adjust the rudder and planes at Nightingale’s stern — massive sheets with no gallenium to offset the morass of dark matter in darkspace, they were able to dig into that dark matter and adjust the ship’s course — and send the ship in a roll to bring her keel around to face the Owl and protect her more vulnerable sails and sides.

  The Owl fired, flashes of light streaking across the space between ships.

  “Guns ready!” Creasy announced.

  “Roll us back! Fire as you bear!” Alexis would prefer to fire in broadside and gain the stronger effect on morale that a massed impact of all Nightingale’s guns would attain, but she had no faith in her crews’ timing. Better to show them what was clearly intended to be independent gunnery than a repeat of Nightingale’s first ragged display, which could only have given heart to the Owl’s crew.

  Two of her gun captains performed better than Alexis hoped — or were simply luckier — and sent shot into one of the Owl’s gunports. Alexis could hope those had overset the gun, cracking its tube or damaging its breech. One shot went low, the gun captain timing Nightingale’s roll too poorly, and wasted itself off into darkspace below the Owl, not even striking the other ship’s extended keel. The others splashed against the hull, damaging but not penetrating the tough thermoplastic.

  “Again, Busbey, show them our keel!”

  “Sir,” Villar whispered, “if —”

  “I know, Mister Villar,” Alexis said just as quietly.

  A ship’s keel board contained no gallenium to offset the effects of the dark matter in darkspace. It was extended and retracted to increase or reduce the drag of that dark matter on the ship, allowing Nightingale to do more than simply run before the dark energy winds. While the rudder and planes at the ship’s stern allowed for changes in the ship’s orientation, it was the keel which kept her on a track once set. If the keel were shot away, or even damaged so that its extension could not be changed, then Nightingale would be less able to maneuver — left to her enemy’s mercy.

  “I do know,” Alexis said again, “but we’re outgunned in both number and weight, not to mention speed. They’ll batter us to nothing if we try to trade broadsides.” She keyed the navigation plot to allow her to speak directly to those on the guns. The broadcast would be full of static, with the deck open to darkspace and the gunports hung only with the gallenium nets that kept out the worst of the radiation, but there was not so much radiation inboard that the radios would cease working altogether. “You sent a couple right through them, lads! A guinea from my own purse to each of the crews who just put shot through this bastard’s gun ports, and the same to any crew who can do it again!”

  Alexis shook her head at the scratchy, staticy cheers that sounded in response. They might be fighting for their lives against a stronger foe, but the chance for a bit of coin always seemed to spur a gunner. She turned her attention back to the navigation plot and the images of the other ship.

  “Roll with her, Busbey, she’s trying to get over on us.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Owl had started a maneuver of its own, turning toward Nightingale while moving above the two ships’ original path and rolling as well. The result would be the Owl sailing in a corkscrew pattern around Nightingale and offsetting the latter’s roll — it also meant that the Owl would require more sail and more frequent sail changes to maintain position with Nightingale, making those sails more vulnerable.

  “Have guns four and five loaded with chain, Mister Villar, and target her sails. Perhaps we can draw some crew from her guns to repair damage.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The chainshot, which channeled the gun’s laser in a wide bar instead of a focused beam, could slice through sails and rigging, slowing the enemy ship and making her less maneuverable.

  Alexis waited, teeth grinding, through yet another broadside from the Owl which crashed against Nightingale’s keel, until word came from the guns that they were ready.

  “Back, Busbey, quick as she’ll come! Fire as you bear!”

  Nightingale reversed her roll, quickly coming into line with the other ship as it corkscrewed around her. Lasers lashed out, stuttering from the gunports in an uneven pattern, as each gun captain chose what he thought the best time to fire. The chainshot missed, spending itself off into darkspace past the Owl, as did two of the other guns — but one struck home, miraculously, through a gunport again.

  The quarterdeck speakers erupted in scratchy, echoing cheers from the suited men on the gundeck, followed by Midshipman Spindler’s higher-pitched, “Belay that and reload! We’re far from done!”

  Alexis nodded, though she felt a bit like cheering herself for it would take many shots for Nightingale’s shot to penetrate the other ship’s hull, but a bolt through the gunport might splinter on a gun’s tube or some other reflective material and cause untold havoc.

  “Roll to port, Busbey.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Back to rolling away from the other ship and back to w
aiting for their broadside while her own guns were slowly reloaded, Alexis gripped the edge of the navigation plot tightly.

  As she expected, the Owl was ready to fire first and shot splashed against Nightingale’s keel. The ship shuddered as the force of vaporizing thermoplastic shook the hull.

  “A point to starboard, Busbey,” Alexis said, “we’ll edge up on them then turn to fire when the guns are reloaded.”

  “Aye, sir.” Busbey frowned, running fingers over his console. “She’s sluggish, sir.”

  Alexis nodded. “A party to the keel, Mister Villars, to determine the damage.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Nightingale rolled more slowly this time, but eventually began to present her broadside to the other ship.

  “As you bear,” Alexis said, dividing her attention between scanning images of the Owl and those from around the ship as she examined the damage done so far. A party of men from the sails was on the keel, working to free the massive keelboard where its telescoping segments had been damaged and locked it in place.

  Nightingale fired again, Alexis struggling not to snarl in frustration as most of the shot missed, though one wide line of chain cut through the Owl’s rigging and sent the other ship’s jib to streaming forward, pulled wildly by the darkspace winds until the crew doused its particle projector and could haul it in.

  Alexis ordered Nightingale into another roll, but the ship’s poor response was more pronounced now. She cut her eyes between the image of the Owl and twin timers she’d set at the edge of the navigation plot — one for Nightingale’s gun crews and the other for the Owl’s. The enemy ship was far too close to having fresh shot in its guns than Alexis would like.

  The other ship’s captain must have seen Nightingale’s trouble with her keel as well and ordered his crews to fire as they were ready.

  One after another, shot flew out from the Owl’s side, striking well before Nightingale completed her roll. None made it through the ship’s hull or into a gunport, but one — which Alexis thought at first would miss entirely — flew over the ship and struck the mast midway up its height.

  It wasn’t enough to cut through the thick pole of thermoplastic and gallenium, but the damage was visible, a pock where material vaporized and flowing distortions where the mast had partially melted and reformed.

  “Fish a spar to that, Mister Villar, instanter!” Alexis ordered.

  “Aye, sir —” Villar paused. “I’d best see to it myself, sir, with Mister Ousley busy on the keel.”

  Alexis nodded. “Go.”

  Villar rushed off, pulling on his vacsuit helmet.

  They’d need a smaller spar from the sail locker laid over the damaged portion of the mast, then made fast with loops of line and a few welds with tools encased in gallenium to keep them operational in the face of darkspace radiation. With luck, such bracing would keep the mast in place and whole through the rest of the action.

  Dorsett, on the tactical station and with little to do while everyone’s eyes were focused on the Owl, sat up straighter.

  “Work on her sails, sir,” he called, then paused. Alexis’ own eyes went to the images of the Owl where suited figures hauled on lines to pull on the ship’s sails. “She’s coming about … no, she’s falling off … running, sir.”

  Alexis watched as the other ship turned, the crew hauling the long boom of her sails, and began making way on a course perpendicular to Nightingale’s.

  She thought she understood. It had never been the other captain’s intention to take Nightingale, he’d simply wanted to escape. Faced with what he must have thought was a faster, better-crewed Navy ship, he’d lured Nightingale in with seeming acquiescence, then fired in the hopes of damaging her enough to allow his escape. Now, with her keel and mast damaged, he had that opportunity.

  Still, whatever contraband he was hauling must be of great value for him to take such risks.

  Or he’s been involved in worse than smuggling — escaping the noose for an attack like that on Man’s Fall would be worth the risk.

  “Come about, Busbey, and after him — once Misters Ousley and Villar have the mast and keel repaired I think we’ll have the legs on him.” She grinned. “To run and be chased like the target of hounds will prick any feeling of pride they have at a landing a few on us, eh?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Busbey worked the helm, Nightingale’s rudder turned, biting into the morass of darkspace and changing the ship’s course. The crew on the sail responded to the orders, relayed outside the hull by lights and optics, and pulled on the lines to swing the sail’s boom across the deck. The glowing azure sails swung from one side of the ship to the other, flagging and flopping as they passed in line with the winds, then billowing again. The winds caught the sails, filled them, and pulled the boom forcefully against the newly secured lines.

  Then the mast, weakened midway up its length — Villar and his crew still at its base with a spar to strengthen it, but not soon enough — swayed, shivered, and began to bend.

  “Douse the sails!” Alexis cried, but it was too late.

  The mast bent forward, the sails spilled wind, rigging twisted into a cat’s cradle of lines. Men leapt aside to avoid being caught up in the chaos.

  Busbey doused the sails, cutting the particle projectors which allowed the fine mesh of gallenium to capture the darkspace winds. Their azure glow flickered and died.

  Nightingale slowed, the pull of dark matter acting immediately now that there was no force to counteract it. On the hull, men struggled to untangle themselves from the rigging, or crept back from where they’d leapt for safety.

  The Lively Owl showed Nightingale her stern and sailed on.

  Thirty

  11 December, aboard HMS Nightingale, darkspace, an unnamed system

  Nightingale limped slowly across darkspace with never more than half her sails set. With every increase in the wind’s intensity, Alexis ordered more sail taken in, as the jury-rigged mast bent and worked against the spars fishing the two pieces together.

  Some repairs could be performed in darkspace, but not easily. Alexis wanted a new mast, not one joined of pieces, before she encountered the Lively Owl, or any other foe, again. For that, they’d need to empty a good portion of Nightingale’s hold and that was best done in normal-space where electronics would work properly.

  The thought of her crew attempting to empty the massive containers in the ship’s hold without radio communications chilled her.

  They should, a proper crew should, be able to, but damned if I’ll risk it with this lot.

  Transition to normal-space, though, meant they needed a star system with Lagrangian points — and not Man’s Fall, where she suspected the Owl had just attacked, nor Al Jadiq, where the pirate ship seemed bound.

  The system she chose bore no name, just a numeric designation in the navigation notes. It had four planets, none of them habitable and none with enough mineral wealth to make visiting the system worthwhile. Still, she approached cautiously. Both because of Nightingale’s poor handling — poorer, now, with the damaged mast — and an overabundance of caution. It wasn’t unheard of for pirates to use such systems as a base, needing an uninhabited system for their own repairs, and she didn’t want such an encounter.

  When she finally ordered the transition to normal-space, after slowly and carefully working Nightingale through the system’s dark matter halo of shoals to the Lagrangian point, they found it as empty as the navigation notes said.

  Then the work began.

  Nightingale’s mast was very nearly as tall as the ship was long. Unlike a larger, square-rigged ship, where the masts were of segments which telescoped into each other, Nightingale’s was all of a piece for strength. For the ship’s carpenter to print a replacement, it meant she needed space for that mast to be extruded.

  The crew not repairing other damage was set to work on other repairs set about emptying the hold, clearing space from the carpenter’s shop at the rear all the way through to the
forward airlock. Barrels and crates of supplies were all moved outside the ship and secured in place — anything that couldn’t be exposed to vacuum was moved elsewhere in the ship. Then the pieces of the broken mast and rigging were recycled into the printer’s material vats and the process of fabricating a new mast began.

  Though the actual fabrication went quickly and was done in vacuum, by the end of it Alexis was certain the entire ship reeked of melted thermoplastic. Then came the equally arduous task of stepping the mast and returning all of Nightingale’s stores to their original places.

  By the time it was done, both the crew and officers were exhausted, short tempered, and ready for a break, which Alexis couldn’t give them. This tail end of Nightingale’s patrol, first Man’s Fall and then the upcoming stop at Al Jadiq, wouldn’t allow for the crew to have liberty in port. Both worlds forbade it.

  Nor will there be any ‘wives’ coming aboard at Al Jadiq.

  From what she’d read and what Villar had told her, the Jadiqis forbade that practice as well — allowing merchants and any woman a man said was his wife access to the ship if the crew was to be confined there.

  Near the end of the job, Alexis went out on the hull herself to observe the work. She stood on Nightingale’s bow, looking aft to the mast jutting up three-quarters of the way back, not at the bow itself as on a ship-rigged vessel. Nightingale’s fore-and-aft rig allowed for the sails to be worked by a smaller crew, though, and that she was grateful for.

  Some of the crew were busy bringing crates and vats of stores back into the ship through the bow’s sail locker. They pulled gently on the lines to bring each clump of stores, netted together to keep them from floating off, toward the ship. Slowly, so as not to gain too much momentum.

  Beside her, Ousley looked on as well, keeping an eye on both the men and their task, and his own mates who were supervising each individual job.