Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Alexis grinned as well, as she thought about what that would do to the pirates and their attempts to catch the private ships.

  If they each took a different course in normal-space, the pirates would have five times as many sets of transition points to be concerned over. They’d have to split their own forces even more.

  “We’re still weaker individually,” Pennywell said, “that doesn’t change.”

  “They'll hae tae catch us first.”

  Alexis nodded and Lawson with her.

  “Here in darkspace, they have the wind gauge and better knowledge of the shoals. The gunboats can sail right through bits of the shoal that would rip Mongoose’s keel right off and stick her fast.” She cleared the plot of all but normal-space. “In normal-space, they face the same limitations we do with our engines and shielding — likely more, as they’re mostly converted merchantmen.”

  Lawson nodded. “The frigates will be the only ones faster than us in normal-space, and there’re but two of them, one if we’re right about the one in orbit not being functional.”

  “Einstein wept, but Newton was a right bastard,” Kingston said, echoing the motto of New London’s Darkspace Research Institute, and the caveat its students had tacked on.

  Darkspace might defy the laws of physics and drive some nearly mad, what with its expanding and contracting distances and the very nature of its winds, but normal-space was as rigidly inflexible to those laws as darkspace was contrary.

  Once transitioned, the pirates, if they chose to pursue one of the private ships, would be bound by those same laws — the same limits on acceleration, speed, and maneuvering that applied to the private ships would apply to the pirates.

  In darkspace, a ship with the wind-gauge, or one rigged more efficiently for a given point of sail — or even one whose captain or crew set those sails just a bit better — might catch up to another. In normal-space the conditions were different and the ship which maneuvered first — the one avoiding an action — could lead the pursuer a merry chase for very nearly as long as they liked.

  “Sweet Dark, but they’ll be exhausted,” Kingston muttered.

  Alexis frowned, then smiled as she understood and agreed.

  In normal-space, the massive crews of the private ships would be idle, with no sails to trim or set. The conventional drive would simply push them along without the effort of sailing in darkspace. The pirates, on the other hand, would have to work those sails hard, flitting from Lagrangian point to point and back again in their efforts to intercept Alexis and the others.

  The pirate crews would all be standing watch-and-watch the whole time, while Alexis’ and the others’ would be well-fed and rested when they finally met in an action.

  Alexis looked around and saw that the others were all nodding slightly with thoughtful frowns.

  Malcomson stood again and set his fingers on the lines he’d drawn, then drew them in toward Erzurum’s habitable planet with a mighty clap.

  “An' then reit at ‘em.”

  “Aye,” Alexis said. “We spread them out, tire them, wear them out — then right at them.”

  The frowns turned to grins.

  “It’s decided, then?” she asked. “Good, then let’s be about it.”

  Sixty-One

  The private ships made for the transition point in line ahead, which put Mongoose, as the titular flagship, at the rear.

  The surprise was Oriana, which stayed in line, following Alexis’ signals as closely as any other. They’d flown, briefly, a signal, Interrogatory, perhaps wishing to know the results of the conference, which were more than either Alexis or Creasy could figure to communicate with their limited signals.

  In reply, Alexis had simply had Creasy send Oriana’s number and a repeat of her last signal — Form line ahead. Make for transition.

  Whether it was Wakeling or Spensley in command, she didn’t know — nor did she, mostly, care. They could make their own way or come along with the rest, as they wished, and she’d fill them in on the plan once they were all in normal-space and a proper communications laser could be laid between their ships.

  One by one, the other ships made their way into the Lagrangian point and transitioned to normal-space, all keeping a wary eye on the two nearest gunboats making their way through the shoals. Neither was in range to fire on the private ships, but neither were Alexis and the other captains of any mind to ignore a danger.

  The oncoming frigate and three of the other pirate ships had made it through the nearest shoals and were making their own way toward Alexis and her fleet, as well. Any delay in transitioning only brought those, and the danger they bore, closer.

  “Delight’s through, sir,” Dorsett said.

  “Thank you, Dorsett. Bring us about, Layland, and transition as soon as we’re within the point.”

  “Aye, sir. Come about and transition instanter.”

  Mongoose had been standing off and on as near to the transition point as Alexis dared without interfering with the other ships. Now she came about, sails filling again as she caught the wind on the opposite tack, and headed back toward the point.

  “Gunboats’re putting on sail, sir,” Dorsett said.

  “Of course they are,” Alexis muttered.

  It wasn’t entirely unexpected. With the rest of the private ships gone and facing only Mongoose, the gunboats might think to take her on. They were certainly outgunned and Mongoose was in relatively clear space, not all mired in the shoals as they might like, but if they could delay her, damage her, only a bit, then that frigate might catch up and make short use of her.

  “Alert the gundeck,” Alexis said, “Load the guns with roundshot and if they’re within any range at all before we transition, fire at will.”

  The gunboats were so fragile that she wanted their hulls targeted – a decent hit or two might take one out, and that was one less they need worry about.

  “Aye, sir,” Creasy said, turning to his panel to pass the order along in a whisper through his microphone.

  Alexis heard Hacking acknowledge the order over her own feed. It crackled with static, telling her that the gunports were open, strung with gallenium netting to keep out the worst of the darkspace radiations and let the crew’s suit electronics work for at least a while more. Until there was return fire, at least, if that came.

  The feeling on the quarterdeck was tenser than it should be. The gunboats were only a little danger and the frigate was hours away, perhaps more given the winds, which had fallen off some.

  Perhaps it was only anticipation of the coming days trapped in normal-space, playing hide-and-seek with the pirates, that made it so.

  Light flashed across the images displayed on the navigation plot, and a beam raced away from Mongoose toward the gunboats.

  It was a long shot, arcing its way across the intervening space, and pulled this way and that by clumps of dark matter along its way. The two gunboats had come close together and were angling to pass behind Mongoose and take their shots at her stern. The lone shot passed close to the starboard boat — a miss, Alexis thought, until she saw the boat’s sail go slack and realized it must have cut rigging. An impressive shot even without that bit of a strike it made.

  “Up four notches and a spit aft!” Hacking’s voice came over the radios, passing along how that guncrew had laid their shot. “And fire!”

  Not all of the broadside was laid true, of course. A guncrew might have been a bit off in their initial lie, a bit slow or inaccurate in the changes Hacking called out, Mongoose had moved on in her position from the first shot, even as the gunboats themselves had — a broadside at any range farther than one could make out the opposing gunports themselves with the naked eye was always prayer fired nearly blindly into the Dark.

  Nearly every eye on the quarterdeck followed the fall of shot on their monitors, just as Alexis was certain those on the gundeck made more than one glance away from their task of reloading to follow their shots’ path.

  There was a muttered
, “C’mon, Boots,” from the signals console.

  Alexis turned her head to regard Creasy for a moment, opened her mouth to speak, then jerked her head back to the plot as the quarterdeck erupted into cheers.

  She’d have to review the recording to determine how many of Mongoose’s guns had found their mark, but the aftermath showed clearly that it had been enough.

  The gunboat’s sails, what was left of them blowing from the half-mast the boat had left, fluttered and sparked, going first dim and then dangerously bright as whatever damage had been done to the boat’s particle projector ran its course. The holes in the hull itself looked huge, and one had to remind oneself that this was a small boat and not a ship so as not to wonder what it had been struck by.

  The gunboat fell off its course, the winds playing havoc with the remnants of its sails and setting it back toward the shoals.

  “Safe to transition, sir,” Layland said.

  Alexis counted to three, giving her crew a bit longer to savor the sight of an unexpected victory, then nodded.

  Sixty-Two

  Alexis yawned.

  A great, wide-mouthed, throat-aching yawn that seemed to fill her lungs and then expel some block caught in her throat. A great, hulking, dense block of boredom, if she were to tell the truth.

  She blamed Creasy.

  Every ten minutes for this entire watch — she’d broke down at one point and put a timer at one side of the navigation plot — Creasy’s shoulders would hunch. He’d swallow hard, then glance about the quarterdeck, cover his mouth with a hand, and take in a gulp of air. The covering hand did little to hide the sounds of either his breath or his jaw cracking — something Alexis resisted the urge to suggest he see Merriwether about, for no joint should ever make such a sound.

  Creasy’s yawn would make its way to Layland, who made less of an effort to hide it.

  Thence to Dorsett, though, to his credit, he did turn as far away from the rest of the quarterdeck crew as he could.

  Alexis and Villar received it last, and it was a toss-up as to which got it first.

  If they were lucky, and Alexis thought she might consult Dockett for the bosun was certain to have the book odds on it, Creasy would be paying attention to his console and wouldn’t catch sight of the last in the chain. Otherwise he’d be triggered again himself and start the whole mess up for another round.

  This time, as it came around to the navigation plot, it was Alexis who got it first and she watched as Villar struggled against the urge, but there was no use fighting it — nor any denying it.

  Normal-space is bloody boring.

  They were four days in. Four long, idle days, after the initial flurry of unstepping the masts was done. Mongoose had cleared the transition point and the crew swarmed her hull. All sail down, rolled tight, and stored in the forward sail locker; rigging — standing and running, both — down and coiled, also stored away; the masts themselves lowered, each segment telescoped into the one below it, then the last bit folded down to lie flush against the hull.

  They’d have no need of the sails for some time, and all those bits were so very vulnerable to damage.

  Still, she wished the masts were back up and Mongoose back in darkspace where she belonged, not puttering along in a straight line, driven by a conventional drive, never varying in her course or speed.

  All so very predictable.

  Alexis glanced at the plot, then at the quarterdeck crew.

  There were no other ships around them, nowhere one could come from — save the Lagrangian points of the planet ahead of Mongoose, and those were a full watch away. They’d be altering course soon to veer away from those, having calculated just how fast the pirate frigate — the likely fastest of the pirate ships — could accelerate and where they must alter their own course to ensure they couldn’t be caught.

  The plot laid it all out in bright lines.

  Where each planet was and would be, where each of the private ships was and was headed — provided they each stuck to the plan, dim, oblong shapes showed how close Mongoose could come to each planet and not be caught up by the pirates, the effective range of each ship’s guns — further than in darkspace and they’d fire true, with no jerking and veering about, only the calculable degradation of power over such and such a distance.

  It was all, as Dorsett said, just maths.

  Bloody boring.

  “I’ll be in my cabin, Mister Villar, you have the deck.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Outside her cabin, she caught sight of Isom and Nabb, along with Dockett, and the trio were, once again, huddled in heated discussion. She’d noted that several times the last few days and it worried her because she relied on those three so much — tension amongst them could mean nothing good for Mongoose.

  The trio broke up before she drew close enough to query them, with Dockett heading down the companionway and Nabb forward. Isom remained at the hatch to her quarters and opened it as she arrived.

  “Cook’s made a bit of an early supper, if you like, sir,” Isom said.

  “I would, I think,” she answered. Eating would relieve the tedium of their watch standing.

  Isom nodded and went to leave, but she stopped him.

  “Isom, do you and Nabb have some sort of issue with Mister Dockett?”

  “‘Issue,’ sir?”

  “I’ve noted the three of you in discussion several times — heated discussion, if I’m any judge.”

  Isom shook his head. “No issue, sir, not at all. We’ve some things to settle is all.”

  “That sounds very much like an issue to me.”

  “Nothing to worry you, sir.” Isom stepped out and began to slide the hatch closed. “I’d best check with Cook and let him know you’d like your plate.”

  Sixty-Three

  The feints, the dancing about, as Hacking had named it, were done, and Mongoose and the other private ships were on to the attack on Erzurum itself.

  The planet was mere hours away, with all of the ships streaking toward it — slowing, so as to make orbit.

  They’d feinted at the planet itself twice before, but turned aside, in efforts to draw the pirates more off guard. If they thought this, too, was a feint, then they might not commit their full force.

  Soon, though, it would be clear that this was no feint, and any ships within range of Erzurum in darkspace would be rushing to its defense.

  On the plot, the pirate gunboat at Erzurum’s L1 point winked out of existence as it transitioned to darkspace to make its latest report. Hind was disappearing behind the planet’s bulk while the frigate they all hoped was ill-manned and damaged came into view. It was possible Mongoose would be the first to see if their hopes were in vain, for they were very nearly within range of the orbiting frigate’s long guns.

  “Begin evasions, Layland,” Alexis said.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Mongoose’s thrusters fired, edging the ship away from her previous course, then again, changing that.

  Alexis clenched her jaw, then forced it to relax.

  This was not what she and her ship were meant to do. Not this flying into the teeth of the enemy with little in the way of firing back.

  She glanced at the images of the other private ships on her plot, those visible to Mongoose’s optics, at least — the others, coming in on the far side of the planet, were merely icons on the plot.

  Each was a bare hull, as hers was. No sails, masts, or suited figures. For all the world appearing dead and lifeless as they hurled stern-first toward the planet.

  Every bit of her being balked at that, too. Proper ships put their broadsides to the enemy and attacked. The stern was the most vulnerable — even with the ship’s rudder and plane folded flat to provide a bit of extra protection. The conventional drive engines were still exposed and vulnerable and that was where her fusion plant was located.

  But stern-first it had to be, in order to slow the ship enough to make orbit around Erzurum. Newton, the right bastard, demanded it.
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  “Three minutes’ time and we’re in range of a frigate’s guns, sir,” Dorsett said.

  The number was a bit arbitrary, as they’d been in extreme range for some time. The number was picked for when a strike from those guns might have enough power left behind it — not dispersed by distance and particles of dust — so as to do Mongoose actual damage and not merely tickle a few nanometers of thermoplastic from the hull.

  Alexis watched the frigate, the image held steady by Mongoose’s optics, despite the ship now being edged about by her thrusters. With luck, that would throw the guns off enough to miss, as their knowledge of where Mongoose was at any given moment was out of date. The light from her latest maneuver wouldn’t reach the planet for some time. Until they were closer, the frigate would be firing with a guess and a wish.

  She realized that while her jaw was unclenched, her hands were gripping the edge of the plot hard enough to leave her knuckles white.

  “I bloody hate normal-space,” she muttered.

  “Amen, sir,” Villar said, making her realize she’d voiced her thought aloud.

  There was no warning of the attack. Lasers in normal-space were not so visible as they were in darkspace, where the light was compressed and made coherent by the ever present dark matter. No, here, the best one got was an instant’s flicker, and that only if there were significant amounts of dust or other matter in the way to flare as it was destroyed.

  Mongoose’s sensors were able to detect the shot as it arrived, but most of the crew would see nothing unless they were struck.

  “A full broadside, sir,” Dorsett said.

  Alexis nodded. She could see the traces of the shot laid out on the plot now as well as he. She pursed her lips.

  “Well, that answers the question of how damaged the orbiting frigate was, and how well-manned,” Villar muttered.

  “Not entirely,” Alexis watched the plot intently. “They might have moved surviving guns all to one side, we’ll know in a mome —”