Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5)

by J. A. Sutherland

  A thick ship’s line trailed from the boat back to Hind and was now looped through the kedge and doubled upon itself as the spacers made their way back to Hind and threaded its other end through the ship’s stern to within the hull.

  Hind’s hull fairly burst into light as the ship’s particle projectors were turned to full upon it with an effort to enhancing the embedded gallenium’s repulsion of dark matter, and within her stern’s engineering spaces a heavy winch began to draw upon the line.

  Now it was a test of strength. On the one hand, the block of the kedge held fast to the far shoal; on the other, the far more massive Hind held fast to hers.

  The ship was larger, with considerably more mass than the kedge, but she was lightened by the charged gallenium in her hull.

  There was, of course, a third hand beside the kedge and Hind, which was the line itself, and in the battle between the three, that was the one which finally lost.

  It was hard to tell if the Hind had moved at all, perhaps she had or perhaps it was only a bit of shifting in place, a realignment of the hull within the shoal. The line drew tauter, strained, and broke, its ends snapping back toward ship and kedge as all of that energy of attempting to pull the two together was released at once.

  For the kedge, it was no matter, for the Hind it was another small disaster in a day of them.

  The snapped line came snaking back to the ship, coiling and tangling about itself as it drew its whole length through darkspace. Spacers dodged and flung themselves across the hull in an effort to avoid it, but the ship’s masts and rigging had no such recourse.

  From what Alexis could see at the end, no spacers had been killed or even injured, but the Hind’s rigging was a lamentable mess. The towline draped and wrapped the sails and yards. She thought two or even three of the mainmast’s standing lines might have been snapped by the force of the incoming towline — or perhaps that was simply bits of the towline itself she was seeing floating free in the image of the other ship.

  She sighed. It had been a valiant try, she agreed. Perhaps with two kedges and two lines to distribute the mass better, it might be done. Or perhaps not, given the Hind’s size. It was not only the ship itself, but all of those stores and supplies aboard, adding to the ship’s mass and being drawn on by the surrounding dark matter of the shoal.

  “Gunboats making another run, sir,” Dorsett said.

  And they were. Three of them this time, closing with the Hind — closer than before, and three at a time, but not so close as to have any real chance of their shot striking true.

  Lights, signals, flashed on the middle boat, perhaps in some attempt to coordinate fire, but the shot when it came was ragged, with first the middle, then the left, then finally, some few seconds later, the right boat firing.

  All of their shot went wide, with none coming so close as to even threaten Hind, but there was a message to it, Alexis thought — the gunboats might be content to harry the larger ship from afar, but only so long as she remained stuck fast. Skanes had likely got the message as well, and knew that her crew was not so large as to be able to both work the ship, even with the help of another kedge to wiggle out of the shoal, and fight her. The gunboats might hold back for fear of the Hinds’ guns, but they were smart enough to know when those guns weren’t manned as well.

  What they would do as Mongoose drew nearer, Alexis wondered at.

  Forty-Six

  “Well, there’s that question answered,” Alexis muttered.

  As Mongoose neared a particularly tricky stretch of the shoals she’d mapped the day before, four of the gunboats moved as well.

  The pirates clearly knew Erzurum well.

  The four boats sailed around the Hind, out of range of her guns, and took position between Mongoose and the larger ship, bracketing the bit of shoal Mongoose would next need to traverse. Their own small ships allowed them to set themselves nearly within the worst of the surrounding shoals, both where Mongoose herself could not go and where her shot would be warped and nudged by the surrounding dark matter so as to make aimed fire nearly impossible.

  The gunboats’ shot would be affected as well, but once Mongoose entered the coming channel she’d be traveling slowly, stern and bow to the gunboats, and unable to respond with any but bow- and sternchasers.

  “An hour here and another when we make the turn,” Dockett said, having come in from the sails to consult. Villar had returned to the quarterdeck as well, as Alexis had Mongoose lying idle — out of range of the gunboats, but moving no closer to Hind.

  “Two hours of raking fire, if they can reach us,” Villar said.

  Alexis caught her lower lip between her teeth and chewed on it for a moment before speaking.

  “Dorsett,” she asked, “do we know the armaments on these four boats?”

  “No, sir,” Dorsett said. “These four haven’t fired yet — the boats themselves are a bit larger than the others, though.”

  “Saved their best for us, do you suppose, sir?” Villar asked.

  Alexis nodded. “Or their largest.”

  It made a bit of sense. She’d got the impression that the pirates really hadn’t been trying to strike the Hind with their repeated attack runs, merely harry her. They fired from so far out that a hit would be difficult in the best of conditions, which Erzurum’s shoally space was certainly not. The dark matter of the shoals affected the light shot of the gunboats almost as much as it did that of the leadsmen — warping and arcing the fall of shot so that it might land anywhere other than where one’d aimed.

  Larger shot, though, with more energy behind it, would track truer. Mongoose’s main guns, for instance, or that aboard these larger gunboats.

  Mongoose would spend nearly two hours sailing slowly through the coming morass, able to bring only her two pair of bow and stern chasers to bear on the gunboats. Even if Alexis were to move pairs of the ship’s heavier main guns to replace the lighter in bow and stern, it was still only the two that could fire from each, while each of the large gunboats might have a pair of equally matched guns to fire back at her.

  Outgunned two to one, at best.

  At worst, those gunboats might mount a single, larger gun. The thought of what a twenty-four or, Dark forfend, thirty-two pounder might do to Mongoose in a raking strike to bow or stern wasn’t to be thought on long.

  “Signal from Hind, sir,” Creasy said.

  “If it is Captain to Repair Onboard, I feel I should be quite cross, Creasy,” Alexis said.

  Her officers laughed at the weak joke, if joke it was, for she could very well see Skanes making such a signal and expecting Alexis to make her way there somehow.

  That she would be disappointed would not put her off, I am certain.

  “No, sir,” Creasy said, “it’s Engage the Enemy More Closely, sir.”

  Alexis sighed.

  Darkspace around Mongoose was fairly blossoming with laser shot. What with the leadsmen firing to either side and ahead with only the interval of reloading, and her bow and stern chasers doing the same, all added to the shot from four gunboats, and with all of those making a stronger, if not much more effectual, attempt to actually strike her than their brethren had with Hind — one would almost think two ships were exchanging broadsides, rather than mere chasers.

  Not that there was much mere about two of those gunboats — one to either end of Mongoose and both with what Alexis did judge to be thirty-twos aboard.

  That shot stayed truer to its course than any other, and, though none had struck home so far, each was closer than the last.

  “Steady, Layland,” Alexis murmured to the helmsman.

  “Aye, sir.”

  She needed his, and the whole crew’s, attention on the upcoming turn, where Mongoose would come about, reversing direction and ending the first of their two hours in this narrow bit of shoal.

  Mongoose’s own guns were speaking in return, of course, but the gunboats were so small, barely three meters across at the fore, that the target was nearly imp
ossible to hit as shot was warped and drawn aside by the dark matter shoals.

  The boats had crept ever closer, perhaps emboldened by the misses. They seemed curiously less hesitant to actually hit Mongoose than they were of Hind. Perhaps they wished to take the larger ship whole, as it was the more valuable.

  The quarterdeck was blissfully quiet and uncrowded for once in the endeavor, for all her officers were fully engaged in the maneuver. Parrill was on the hull with Dockett, working the sail to ensure it came around lively and caught the winds for their reverse of course. Villar and Hacking, though, were on the gundeck, ready for their part in the turn themselves.

  “On my mark, Layland,” Alexis said.

  A groan from the hull close to the turn, Mongoose’s bow already nearing the heavier collection of dark matter ahead which they’d be turning from.

  The next shot from the leadsmen showed the heavy shoals close ahead and Alexis nodded.

  “Now, hard a’port!”

  Layland played his controls and Mongoose’s bow swung around, pivoting nearly in place so hard did he put the rudder over.

  “As you bear — fire!” Alexis ordered, and Creasy passed that along to the gundeck.

  While the bare three-meter target of a gunboat’s bow across such an expanse of shoals might be difficult for a single gun to hit, it was not so for a full broadside. Two targets, as both Mongoose’s flanks rippled with action as her gunports came up.

  Crystalline barrels poked forth and paused for the barest moments as gun captains carefully adjusted their aim, guessing at the effect of the intervening shoals, stepped back, and slapped hands on the buttons to discharge their guns.

  Bolts of light exploded from Mongoose, streaking away toward the gunboats to either side. Their course was neither straight and true, nor the more expected gentle curve of light being bent by the ever present dark matter.

  No, these put on a show across the shoals, twisting and curving around each other and the masses of the shoals as though dancing to some tune only they could hear.

  Most would miss — drawn aside as all the rest had been — but two, finally, struck home. Both on the nearer gunboat to port, one of those with a thirty-two, and that would be no more worry to Alexis and her ship.

  The first bolt struck the gunboat’s bow dead on, possibly through its own open gunport. Alexis could only imagine the chaos that might cause. If it struck the gun’s barrel then the bolt would fracture, its light splintered by the tube’s crystal and split into dozens of smaller bolts, each of which was perfectly capable of killing a man or destroying some part of so small a boat.

  The second struck near the boat’s stern, wafted away and then back in a gentle curve that was at first lucky and then decidedly un-so for the little boat. Any strike away from the bow would be fatal for the fragile craft, decimating the helm or destroying the air supply, it would certainly send the boat scurrying back to the safety of a system and repairs.

  This boat would never have the chance, as that shot struck far enough aft to find the fusion plant, coming in from the side as it did, the heavier hull gunboats had to the fore of the plant did no good at all.

  There was a moment’s cheering on Mongoose as the quarterdeck crew and the gun crews saw they’d struck one of the boats at all, then silence as the boat’s fusion plant went in a ball of released plasma that consumed the little boat all entire.

  After that the cheers redoubled, but combined with grunts of effort to reload the guns. They’d not have time for another broadside before Mongoose completed the turn, but they’d be ready for the next.

  Forty-Seven

  That bit of luck, though, was the last bit Mongoose had.

  The gunboats, as though angered by the loss of one of their number, increased their efforts — and, as though learning something from the success of Mongoose’s broadside, they increased their numbers as well.

  All but two of the boats, those left to continue harrying Hind, made their way out-system to join in firing at Mongoose.

  Now fire was coming in not only from bow and stern, but from multiple angles as the gunboats spread out in a cone to either end of Alexis’ ship.

  They were making hits now, too. Not so very damaging ones, but Mongoose’s hull occasionally thwumped with a resonating blow as its thermoplastic vaporized under the pirates’ shot. The respite for the sail crews between the evolutions necessary to slow or hasten the ship or to make the myriad little turns of the channel, became fewer and shorter as they were also called on to splice rigging and repair sails struck by the gunboats’ shot.

  Outgunned three to one now, Mongoose’s answers went largely in vain. Some few of her return shot struck home, but not with the success of her broadside. Those gunboats hit took the blows, for the most part, on their heavily armored bows and shrugged them off to continue their harassment of their larger foe.

  Alexis more and more felt the constraints of the Erzurum shoals. It was as though her ship were stuffed into a basket, unable to move and beset from all sides. She longed for open space where she might twist and turn at speed to come at her attackers and bring her full armament to bear.

  Instead she was stuck nearly immobile, creeping along at such a petty pace that she could barely tell their movement on the plot.

  “Two points to port and down thirty, Layland,” she ordered as they came to the next twist in avoiding the masses of dark matter that surrounded them.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Mongoose swung ponderously, more so than could be accounted for by her low speed and the surrounding shoals. Alexis frowned and instinctively reached for navigation plot to steady herself before the ship lurched. A long, low grinding sound echoed from the hull.

  “It weren’t me, sir!” Layland said quickly. “The helm’s off — she’s slower to answer.”

  “A message to Mister Dockett, Creasy,” Alexis ordered, wincing as another moaning shudder ran through the ship. “The helm is slow to answer and he’s to discover to me why.”

  “A damned unlucky shot, sir,” Dockett said, pointing out the damage on images displayed in Alexis’ cabin.

  He and Mongoose’s officers, along with the carpenter, Mister Marton, were clustered around her table. The images were of the ship’s stern, deep inside the massive plates of rudder and planes, where the broad, flat surfaces were hinged to the hull. Those surfaces, with no embedded gallenium, were, along with the keel, what allowed Mongoose to maneuver. Where the hull itself allowed Mongoose to glide through the dark matter with ease — when it was not so thick as within these shoals — those surfaces dug in. They turned the ship, in the case of the rudder and planes, or offered resistance, as with the keel, to allow the ship to sail somewhat into the winds rather than solely with them. Without those, the ship was entirely at the mercy of the winds.

  In this case, the hinges and mechanical aids, some of the only ones aboard, and one reason a ship’s stern was so vulnerable, had been damaged by a single shot from one of the gunboats. Rather than spending itself on the rudder where there’d be only the loss of some easily replaced thermoplastic to deal with, it had somehow made its way in past to strike at those more vulnerable parts.

  “Indeed,” Alexis murmured.

  One of the hinges was shot through and the mechanicals were damaged, leaving the rudder with less range of motion than it should have, and that slower as the parts ground together.

  “How much will it affect our maneuvering?” she asked.

  Dockett sighed. “It’s not just that, sir, but this here.” He pointed. “The mechanicals are wearing with every turn, and the rest of the hinges and pinions as well.” He traced two lines with his fingers. “Here’s where she should set, and here’s where she is, see? The mechanicals’ll seize from the stress after a time, and have to be replaced.”

  “How long will that take?”

  Dockett looked to Marton, who frowned. “No more’n a bell for the mechanicals t’be replaced — we’ve a ready-made in stores. Just a matter o’pu
lling the old and sliding in the new, but the new’ll last no more than a watch. Two, if we’re lucky.”

  Dockett nodded. “That’s the thing, sir. With the rudder so far off true, it’ll only put stress on the replacement as well, and the wear’ll do the same to it. If we weren’t in such a place as this, with only the normal pressures of the dark matter on things, then the replacement would last longer. But as it is, here, it’ll wear faster with every turn.”

  “And how long to repair it entirely?”

  Dockett took a deep breath and shared a look with Marton.

  “We’ll be a full day, sir — have to unhinge the rudder, pull it out, replace the bits on the hull, see it true again —”

  “Might be another day for that, sir, if she’s as bad as I fear.”

  “Could be two days, then, sir,” Dockett said. “Then to rehang the rudder and work her in.”

  “Gentlemen, we cannot be a single bell, much less two days, lying idle here while those gunboats are about,” Alexis said.

  “Work’d be hard here, sir, and longer, I think,” Dockett said. “Have to pull the rudder away and work it — that means lads in suits, away from the hull. They’d rather do it in normal-space, certain, out in the deep Dark, if they must, but here?”

  Alexis closed her eyes for a moment and ran through a litany of curses she’d heard from a parade of bosuns over her career. She found the exercise calming and hoped the others would think she was finding some solution, rather than what she was about.

  For there did seem to be no solution — no good one, at least.

  “What are our chances of it holding until we’ve cleared this shoal, and the next, and can give some assistance to pulling the Hind off of hers?”

  The silence was much the answer Alexis suspected she’d receive.

  Forty-Eight