HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4)

by J. A. Sutherland

  One after another, the figures in the square fell. Some stopped, apparently confused. Alexis sighted on one of those and fired again — she missed, but adjusted her aim and the figure fell, whether struck by her own shot or another’s, she didn’t know.

  Those exiting the boat could tell now where the shots were coming from and rushed for the side of the square Alexis’ troops were on. She had half of her men in each of two streets on the north side of the square and the boat had crashed opposite them.

  Lasers and flechettes struck the walls around her and she retreated back down the street with Connelly, Nabb, and a few others. Spindler had command of those in the other street and she hoped he had the sense to retreat also.

  She fired back again and another figure fell, but she felt the butt of her rifle vibrate in the signal that its capacitor was discharged. She didn’t think she’d taken so many shots, but must have.

  She pressed the button next to the weapon’s trigger and the spent capacitor dropped to the street — she’d worry about collecting those later, if she was still alive — and pulled a fresh one from her bandoleer. It snapped into place with a satisfying click, and she took aim again.

  The square was littered with bodies from the initial ambush and the mad rush across the open space. There were only, perhaps, a dozen still rushing her position, and some of those fell as she watched.

  It was only as she had him in her sights that she noted the size of her next target and his beardless face — she hesitated, realizing that the attacker rushing her was a boy no older than Spindler.

  The boy fired his own rifle and the flash of light struck a spacer next to Alexis. She had no time to see who it was or how badly he was hurt, only knew that it was one of her own lads the running boy had struck and fired her own weapon.

  She shrugged off the initial horror of what she’d just done, forcing herself to think only of her own Nightingales and the innocent townspeople. Whoever got off the attacking boats, misguided as they might be, they’d chosen this fight — and the alternative was for more of her own to die.

  She fired again, then searched for a new target, but there were no more running figures in the square.

  “Forward!” Connelly yelled. “Check ‘em close, lads!”

  Alexis moved forward with the others, keeping her rifle on the nearest body while she approached, kicking whatever weapons there were away, and seeing if the figure was dead or only injured.

  Most of them were dead, shot through with lasers which struck true or flechette rifles which did such horrible damage that there was little chance of survival.

  A few were still alive and Alexis ordered them dragged to the square’s edge, well away from their weapons.

  She marveled as their own injured were brought there as well. Only three. Both Spindler and Nabb were hale and she closed her eyes for a moment, both resting and giving thanks.

  “Take a rest here, Arington,” Connelly was saying. “There’s some townsfolk coming to offer aid.”

  “Bugger off, lobster,” Arington said, “I’ll follow the captain well enough with one leg.”

  Alexis opened her eyes. Arington was limping, but held his rifle squarely and glared at the Marine as if daring him to question his fitness to go on.

  “Your bloody leg’s shot through,” Connelly said. “Sit for a time.”

  The silence of the square was broken by the distant cracks of lasers and whines of flechettes. Connelly looked up.

  “To the east and west, sir, I’d say the other two boats came in to either side of the town and are working their way inward.”

  Alexis nodded.

  “Spindler!” she called. “With me, lad! Connelly, take half the men and head east, I’ll go west.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Connelly rushed off to gather the men. Alexis spared a glance for Spindler as he rushed over — the boy’s eyes were glassy, as though his mind were somewhere else entirely, and Alexis understood the look all too well. She eyed Arlington, whose left leg wouldn’t hold his weight. The cloth of his jumpsuit was charred where a laser had struck and burned through.

  “Are you hale, Arington?” she asked, hating herself, for she knew what his answer would be and what it should be instead. But she needed every man and every gun. “Will you stand with me?”

  “Aye, sir!” Arington limped forward.

  The sound of more shots echoed through the square, closer now, and Alexis could hear screams as well. Wherever the other two boats had come down, they were working their way through the town and people were dying.

  “With me, then, to the west, man.” She clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll not disappoint me, will you?”

  Arington shook his head. “Never, sir!”

  Alexis strode off to the west, Spindler, Nabb, Arington, and others along behind her. She followed the sounds of shots and screams through the streets.

  The shots and the screams grew louder.

  Alexis peeked around a corner and spotted a group exiting a house, weapons in hand. The group crossed the street to another door and shot at the lock, but Alexis motioned her little band forward quickly.

  She shot, catching a woman in Man’s Fall dress, long skirts and an odd, lacy cap, as she moved toward the now open doorway — a woman no different from those Alexis thought to defend, save for the rifle she carried and fired through the broken doorway. The woman fell, her weapon clattering on the cobbles so that Alexis heard it in an odd moment of silence.

  More shots rang out.

  Alexis felt a burning sensation in her left arm and there was a brush of wind near her right ear.

  She glanced down and saw her uniform sleeve with a charred hole in the left arm. Her hand felt numb, but it moved when she commanded it, so she raised her rifle and fired again.

  She heard no crack, saw no flash, and realized that her capacitor had been spent without her noticing.

  Others rushed by her as she stopped to pull a fresh capacitor from her bandoleer. She slapped it into her rifle, not even remembering that she’d ejected the empty one, and rushed forward. She had no thought in her mind other than her lads were rushing into danger and she wasn’t at the fore.

  One of her lads fell in the rush, injured or dead, she couldn’t tell, but she rushed on. She fired — more of the enemy fell — and her group overran them.

  She paused, gasping for breath.

  Spindler was at her side. His head cocked to the side.

  “I heard a shot down there!” he cried, pointing.

  Alexis hadn’t heard it, but she nodded and rushed toward the side street he’d pointed at and listened herself.

  “There, sir, do you hear it?”

  Alexis hadn’t, which made her wonder if it was his younger ears that could detect the sounds.

  Then a scream echoed down the street and she caught the scent of something burning.

  “This way!” she called to the others.

  Spindler dashed off ahead of her.

  Alexis followed and the passageway between buildings became hazy with smoke. She could see flames in the buildings to either side and residents were streaming into the street, rushing past them. She thought one of the boats must have landed near here, perhaps harder than the others, and set the town on fire.

  The smoke grew heavier as they followed the crack of lasers and the whine of flechettes. They were also following the sound of screams, but Alexis tried to block the source of those out of her mind.

  “There they are!” Spindler shouted. He raised his rifle to fire and rushed forward, the buildings on either side afire.

  Alexis lost sight of him in the smoke, called out to him to come back.

  Nabb rushed past her, through the intersection and down the path Spindler had taken, just as there was a loud groan and the buildings to either side, as though choreographed, collapsed into the street ahead.

  Alexis stared in horror at the way ahead of her. It was a mass of inflamed timbers from the collapsed buildings.
/>   “Where, sir?” Arington asked, almost shouting to be heard over the roar of the flames.

  For a moment, Alexis couldn’t answer. All she could do was stare ahead, willing Spindler and Nabb to somehow emerge from the smoke and flames. Finally, she shook herself — the whole of this was more important than any two men, no matter what she felt.

  She listened, heard the sounds of shots, and dashed to her left.

  People were in the streets now, fleeing from both the flames and the sound of shots. Most turned and chose another street as they saw Alexis’ band, not knowing which group of armed invaders was which.

  Over to the next street, turn, and she saw an armed group backing out of a building and crossing the street. She raised her rifle, sighted, and fired just as they saw her as well.

  Beside her someone raised his own rifle, then ran his shoulder into her, knocking her aside. She heard the whish of flechettes passing nearby as her hip hit the cobbles hard, but her unarmed training with the Marines took over and flung her forearm out to break her fall. It hurt, but not as much as if her head had hit.

  Alexis scrambled to her feet and found Ruse writhing in pain on the street. His left side, from knee to shoulder was raw where tiny darts of thermoplastic had torn into him.

  She looked around for Sinkey, didn’t see him, and feared he’d fallen too, as the two men were so inseparable.

  “Arington!” she called out, pulling patches from her medical pouch. They’d stick over the wounds, stopping the bleeding and most of the pain. “Help me with him!”

  They slapped more patches on him, Ruse crying out, then sighing with relief as the pain killers took effect, and dragged him to the side of the street and propped him against a building that wasn’t afire.

  Alexis knelt beside him. His eyes were glassy from the pain killers. She squeezed his uninjured shoulder gently.

  “Did I do for the bastard?” he asked.

  Alexis nodded. “I think you did — or one of your mates. They’re all down, I think.”

  Ruse grunted. “Weren’t but a girl, I think.” He grinned at her. “Not that a girl can’t be a right bastard in a fight, eh, sir?”

  “We do our best.”

  He looked around at the smoke. Flames from the next street over cast eerie shadows.

  “Bloody stupid way to fight,” he muttered, eyes rolling a bit. “I’ll take a good vacsuit and a long-nine to fire, me.”

  His voice trailed off and Alexis rose. She hated to leave him, since she needed all her men with her if she was to finish this. There were more shots sounding in the distance. If they could finish it quickly, they could then get Ruse more help.

  The shooters down the street were all down or fled, so Alexis took a moment to look around. She counted her band — they were all panting or coughing from the growing smoke, covered in soot, with red-rimmed eyes, but they were all still with her, save Nabb, Spindler, and Sinkey she saw.

  She pushed aside the thought that she knew too well where Nabb and Spindler were. There’d be time enough for that later.

  “Where’s Sinkey? Did he fall?”

  Arington shook his head and pointed.

  “Ducked low and run that way.” He pointed toward where the enemy had been firing from. “Run right past the bastards and ‘round the corner.”

  Alexis frowned. Past the enemy and around the block back toward the street that was afire. Why would he do that? She had little time to think, though, as she heard more shots in the distance.

  “Come on, lads, let’s after them and finish this!” she called.

  The few men who’d sat down or leaned against a building to rest rose to their feet.

  There was a crash and a tower of sparks billowed into the sky above the buildings. Smoke roiled and flowed around the intersection ahead.

  Out of it, figures emerged, shadowy and indistinct at first, but clearly armed. Alexis raised her rifle, as did her men.

  She shook off the feeling that this image, roiling smoke and shadowy figures, was so much like her nightmares. There was no fire in those visions, but the similarities sent a chill down her spine nonetheless.

  She took aim. Three of them — perhaps, hopefully, all that was left of the enemy forces at this side of town — rushing forward, two larger and almost dragging a third.

  “Night —”

  There was a crack as one of her men fired. The oncoming figures threw themselves to lie prone on the cobbles.

  “Nightingale! Belay that you sodding bugger!”

  Alexis had never been so glad for those of her crew who were still horrible marksmen as she was as Sinkey and Nabb rose and dragged Spindler to his feet between them.

  Fifty-Three

  6 June, Man’s Fall System

  The aftermath of the battle was almost as arduous as the fight itself.

  Without the sound of shots to follow, Alexis assumed the zealots on her side of the town were defeated and made her way back to the town square to meet up with Connelly and his group. The fires were spreading behind them, but there was little she and her men could do alone – with Man’s Fall’s objection to modern materials, most of the buildings were of wood, some of the smaller ones even had thatch roofs, and burned readily.

  As she reached the town square and saw Connelly, she also saw groups of the townspeople mobilizing now that the sounds of shooting were done. She might think ill of them for that, as she knew her men still did – that they’d been unwilling to defend themselves – but they certainly weren’t cowards in the face of the fires.

  Brigades of bucket carriers formed, with men and women taking turns at hand pumps to fill them and send them in a long, sloshing line towards the flames. Alexis and the Nightingales joined in this, working until long after dark to battle the blaze.

  With daylight and an end to the fires came a more gruesome task – clearing the bodies of both the attackers and their victims.

  The looks on her men’s faces as they helped carry the bodies from streets and houses made her suspect that she wasn’t the only one who’d have nightmares from this business. She saw more than one man step away from the prone form of one of the attackers, perhaps a young boy or girl, no more than a child, in the streets, lean his forehead against a nearby wall, and take deep, wracking breaths. Then a mate would clap him on the shoulder, speak a word, and, with a nod, they’d get back to it.

  She knew each man was wondering, as she did, what could have driven them – and wondering, as well, whether it was he who’d shot them down the day before. Hard as that was, though, it was difficult to feel too much for the children with guns when the home they’d just come out of held a family slaughtered as they huddled over their own children.

  The townsfolk of Man’s Fall were sobered by the scene as well, but no more inclined toward Alexis and her crew than they had been before. Despite the gruesome examples of what awaited them at the hands of the zealots, there were few thanks for having been saved. To their credit, she supposed, they did offer thanks for the Nightingales’ assistance in the recovery.

  Alexis could only give thanks that none of her own, save Rasch, had fallen in the battle. Ruse and Spindler were the worst injured – Ruse with his flechette wounds and Spindler with burns – but they’d recover quickly, even with the limited treatments available to them on the planet, and quicker once Nightingale returned.

  That led Alexis to her worries over her ship and the rest of her crew. Worries which were short-lived, as Nightingale returned to the system that very day, sending a ping to her tablet along with news that the Owl was destroyed, Nightingale whole, and her crew safe, save for one man.

  It struck her odd that both her group and the ship had come through with so little damage – only one man lost from each. That thought was put aside, though, as she returned to assisting the town and waited for Nightingale to make orbit.

  Alexis settled into her chair and smiled at Isom as he slid a glass before her and Villar. She waited until he’d poured the wine, gesturing for Vil
lar to sit.

  “Anxious as I am to hear of your action with the Owl, Mister Villar, have you a written report of it as yet?”

  Villar shook his head. “Some notes, sir, and I updated the log, of course, but I assumed you’d write the reports for dispatch to Admiralty.”

  They drank, Alexis finding the wine soothing to her smoke seared throat. She’d likely have to avoid the bourbon for a time, as she thought that might sting.

  “I think that report should come from you,” she said. “You fought the action, after all.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  His name on the report of a successful action might gain him some attention at Admiralty, and could possibly hasten a promotion to lieutenant.

  “Will you tell me, then? And then be about writing it?”

  “Aye, sir.” Villar settled into his chair and took another sip of wine.

  Before he could begin his recount of the action, though, there was a rustling noise from under the table and a streak of brown fur rushed past her legs, circled the cabin, and darted back.

  “Damn,” Alexis muttered. “Isom! The damnable creature’s loose again, will you come see to it, please? I’m sorry, Mister Villar, but he must have slipped his cage again and – “

  Villar flushed and Isom stood frozen in the pantry’s hatchway, not meeting her eye.

  “What is it, the both of you?”

  Villar reached into a pocket and pulled something out. He went to place it on the table, but before his hand was over its surface a blur of brown fur appeared on the tabletop and resolved into the damned mongoose. The creature sat on its hindquarters at the table’s edge, glanced once at Alexis, then stared intently at Villar’s hand.

  “It’s … well, sir, it’s that we’ve had Boots rather free of his –“

  “’Boots’, is it?” Alexis asked. Were even her officers on the vile creature’s side?

  Villar cleared his throat, then extended his hand to the creature. He had a small piece of ship’s beef between his fingers, which the creature took eagerly and began nibbling on.