Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3

by J. A. Sutherland

  Perhaps more than a handful, if they’re all aimed as poorly as that last. Not that it did Mona’s Queen a bit of good.

  “Mister Artley, has there been any response to our signal?”

  “No, sir, none.”

  Artley’s voice was strained and hoarse. Alexis went to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. She could see on his signals console that Belial was, indeed, still flying the signals she’d ordered, Enemy in Sight and Require Assistance, but it was as though the rest of the New London fleet, now much farther away and engaged in action with the Hanoverese, had all but forgotten about them.

  They were likely too far away now, but Alexis had hoped for some assistance. Even a single frigate let loose from its duty behind the line would have been helpful.

  “They just killed them,” Artley whispered, his voice breaking. “They just …”

  “Steady, Mister Artley.” She looked down and met Artley’s gaze, his eyes were full and red-rimmed.

  “What can we do? We have to … What can we do, sir?”

  Alexis wished she had an answer to that. Belial was at her very best point of sail, she was sure, and every scrap of sail that might help had been bent on. The particle projectors charging the sails were at their highest setting and would likely burn themselves out if this kept on, but she needed every bit of speed she could get from the ship if she was be of any help at all to the convoy.

  And what help can I be?

  Belial was outgunned and the frigate’s guns were heavier as well. They’d blast through Belial’s hull with ease.

  “Fenella has struck, sir.”

  Alexis gave Artley’s shoulder another squeeze and went back to the navigation plot. Fenella, another packet from the same firm as Mona’s Queen, had struck her colors and doused her sails as the Hanoverese frigate approached. She must have seen what the frigate had done to her consort and determined there was no hope but to wish for mercy from the oncoming frigate. She slowed as the morass of dark matter around them dragged at her hull without her charged sails to pull her along.

  The Hanoverese frigate closed, never changing course, and at first Alexis thought it would sail by, accepting Fenella’s surrender. But as it drew level with the packet, the frigate fired.

  Again, many of the shots missed, flying wide of the mark or going above and below Fenella, but enough struck.

  Even one is enough … they’ve holed the main deck and more … and none of those aboard with a vacsuit.

  “Murderous bastards,” Dobb muttered.

  “King Orry is tacking,” Leyman announced, his voice raw and shaking. “She’ll not make it.”

  Alexis looked around the quarterdeck. Her crew’s faces were set, jaws clenched and nostrils flaring in anger.

  She looked back down at her plot. King Orry, another packet and, if Alexis remembered correctly, from the same shipping line as Fenella and Mona’s Queen, was the next in line on the frigate’s point of sail. Alexis could see that Leyman was correct; King Orry’s tack was too slow, she didn’t have the momentum to swing past the eye of the wind and her turn had slowed.

  Alexis closed her eyes. She barely heard Leyman’s announcement that the frigate had drawn even with the helpless packet and fired yet again. There was nothing, nothing at all she could do. She ran the points of sail through her mind over and over again, but nothing changed. Belial might, if she was lucky, be able to bring the frigate to action far up the line of the convoy, but by then how many more ships, along with their helpless cargoes, would be butchered?

  Even then, if she were finally able to bring the frigate to action, Belial would simply meet the same fate. Belial was a warship, though small, and would be able to face more than a single broadside from the frigate, but eventually she’d succumb and the frigate would resume its butchery.

  Still, even a few minutes delay would certainly save some of the convoy. Once outside the immediate area of Giron, the winds would become more variable. Instead of blowing steadily toward the system, they might offer a better opportunity for the convoy to escape, even if it meant scattering in multiple directions.

  None of which would happen if she couldn’t bring the frigate to action.

  “Roll us ten more to port, Mister Dobb,” she said, “and I’ll have a single gun to leeward, if you please.”

  “Aye, sir,” Dobb said.

  The Hanoverese would see that, surely. A single gun, fired to leeward, was a challenge. An invitation to fight. Perhaps she could goad that frigate’s captain into an engagement.

  “No change in course, sir,” Leyman said after a few minutes.

  Alexis shook her head and examined the plot. The next ship in line was larger than the packets, but just as defenseless. An intrasystem ferry called Royal Daffodil — barely qualified to sail the Dark at all and never out of sight of a system’s Lagrangian points, but her crew had set off along with all the others in the convoy and now there were over a thousand men and women stuffed inside that thin hull.

  She took a deep breath and her rage fell away, a deep calmness settling in its place.

  “Mister Dobb, see that all the guns are manned, port and starboard both, if you please.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  As the message was passed, Alexis considered what little German she could remember. Oddly, she found that she’d gleaned something suitable from Marilyn’s crew during their travels.

  “Mister Artley, when the guns fire, I want this signal bent on. Put it on both masts and the hull itself, do you understand? I want that frigate to see it easily.” She tapped a message on the plot and sent it to Artley’s signals console. “You’ll have to spell it out, just as it is.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Wear ship, Mister Dobb,” Alexis said. “Put us on the port tack.”

  Dobb stared at her as he passed the order. Men in vacsuits streamed out of the ship through the sail locker to trim the sails.

  Alexis could understand his confusion. The port tack would put them on a diverging course from the frigate, still moving upwind, but edging in the opposite direction. Wearing ship instead of tacking would set them to losing even more ground to the frigate and the rest of the convoy. But it would also put them, for a moment, with Belial’s stern pointing directly at the frigate.

  “Both broadsides, on my mark.” She waited until just before Belial was showing the frigate her stern. “Fire.”

  Belial emptied her guns into darkspace. While a single gun to leeward might be a challenge, emptying one’s guns and showing the enemy her vulnerable stern was a gesture of contempt.

  “What’s that mean, sir?” Dobb asked, brow furrowed as he studied the signal spelled out on Belial’s mast and hull.

  “Feigling means coward, if I remember correctly.”

  “And the other? What’s that, arschficker?”

  Alexis felt herself flush. “Something somewhat less complimentary. If that frigate’s captain has no honor, then perhaps he has some small bit of pride.”

  Alexis stared at the plot, willing the other captain to react.

  Have a shred of pride, damn you, Alexis thought. At least deal with me before you kill more of the helpless.

  Not that Belial was so far from helpless herself, not in comparison to the frigate’s guns.

  Yet nothing happened as Belial continued her turn and settled on the port tack, now widening the distance from the frigate.

  Then the frigate’s sails seemed to shudder. It fell off the wind, just the tiniest bit, perhaps to gain a bit more speed, and began to turn toward the wind’s eye. Its bow crossed the eye of the winds and the frigate fell back onto the port tack.

  Away from the convoy and towards Belial.

  Fifty-Six

  Alexis kept Belial on the port tack as the Hanoverese frigate approached. She could sail closer to the wind than the larger ship and took advantage of that. Though the frigate had started more to windward of Belial, the loss of speed in tacking and Belial’s ability to angle more sharply toward the w
ind had forced it to cross her path astern.

  Allowing that was a risk, as the frigate was able to fall of the wind a bit as it crossed Belial’s path and fire at her vulnerable stern, but Alexis had noted the Hanoverese’s gunnery in the attacks on the transports. In those, the frigate had held its fire until it was quite close and even then many of the shots had missed. She was also confident that Belial was more nimble than the larger frigate and she’d have a chance to protect her vulnerable stern.

  She looked up from the plot as the hatchway opened and Dobb entered. He made his way to her side.

  “I’ve shuffled them around as best we can, I think,” he said quietly. “Some in the engineering spaces, the magazine, and up forward in the hold where it’s most protected.”

  Alexis nodded. She was trying not to think too much about the unsuited civilians aboard Belial. She’d promised them safety and then taken them into battle, but she had to weigh those thirty lives against the hundreds aboard each of the transports.

  “That Marie and the babe I sent to the magazine.”

  “Thank you, Dobb.”

  The magazine was the most protected part of the ship. Deep in the center of the hold, just forward of the fusion plant, and wrapped in a bulkhead just as thick as the plant’s. It was where the capacitors in the shot for the guns would be recharged and it was designed to be able to do so even if the rest of the ship were holed and opened to the electronic-suppressing radiations of darkspace.

  She turned back to the plot, forcing the thought of those women and children from her mind, and watched the image of the frigate, brought inboard by the ship’s optics, closely. She could just make out the suited figures of the frigate’s crew on the hull, ready to pull on the lines to keep the sails full of wind.

  In a moment, there it was, the suited figures began moving, the frigate’s sails seemed to shiver as its course began to change.

  “Now! Hard to starboard!” she ordered quickly.

  The helmsman responded and Belial seemed to pivot in place. She fell off the wind, turning toward the frigate.

  “Fire!” Alexis yelled just as Belial’s starboard side squarely faced the frigate.

  Bolts of shot lashed out and a moment later the frigate’s port side lit up with its own fire.

  “Hard to port! Put us back close-hauled!”

  “Close-hauled, aye,” Boothroyd acknowledged from the helm.

  The frigate’s shot arrived before Belial began to turn back toward the wind, most of it passing above or below and only two of the twenty bolts striking home. Alexis had no time to see where Belial’s fire had struck, though, because one of the frigate’s hits was directly on the quarterdeck’s starboard side.

  A spot on the starboard bulkhead the size of a man’s fist seemed to soften and bulge as the laser spent its energy into the tough thermoplastic of Belial’s hull. It wasn’t enough to burn its way entirely through, but it was enough to soften and melt the spot for a moment. And to form at least one small hole, as the high-pitched whistle of escaping air filled the quarterdeck.

  Before Alexis could even speak to give the order, Leyman was in motion. He grasped one of the patches kept around the quarterdeck and rushed to the bulkhead, slapping it in place to seal the breach, then returning to his station as though nothing at all had happened.

  Boothroyd, at the helm, had barely twitched at the damage, staying steady and settling Belial back on her previous point of sail.

  Alexis’ lips curved in a fond smile as she looked around the quarterdeck at her crew. They were such good lads, calm and steady at their stations, though she did note that more than one had edged his vacsuit helmet a bit closer to his station. Even young Artley, after an initial jump of startlement, was calmly scanning his signals console.

  She thought of those on the far more vulnerable gundeck, going about the business of reloading the guns in the face of a much more dangerous foe. None of them had balked at her orders nor questioned the need to engage the frigate. She couldn’t help but feel pride in them, nor feel fear for what she was about to lead them into.

  Alexis was able to dance with the frigate twice more in that way, turning Belial with it to take its broadside on her starboard side while returning one of her own. Between each exchange, she returned to sailing as close to the wind as she could, each time opening up just a bit more distance between the two ships. Slow and poor as the frigate’s gunnery was, she began to have some hope that Belial could delay it for some time.

  With that third exchange, though, the frigate was either lucky or more clever than she. The frigate’s captain had switched to bar shot, a type that sacrificed strength in favor of spreading the laser’s force along a long, narrow line instead of focusing it into one spot as the roundshot did.

  Again, most of the shot missed, but one found Belial’s mizzen mast close to the hull. It failed to slice through completely, but it weakened the mast enough that it began to bow, and Alexis was forced to reduce sail. That slowed Belial and, while she could still sail as close to the wind as the frigate, the enemy would be able to outpace her. If the frigate could gain enough room ahead of Belial, it could tack and pass in front to rake her bow, while the reduced sail and weakened mast would make it more dangerous for Belial to tack in response.

  “Let us fall two points off the wind, Boothroyd.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Alexis concentrated on the plot before her. She sought some clever maneuver that would avoid the inevitable, but found none. Now the frigate had the advantage both in speed and how close to the wind it could sail. It would rapidly narrow the gap and, with a shorter range, its gunners would surely improve.

  As though in response to her thought, another shot struck the hull outside the quarterdeck and Leyman leaped to patch yet another pin-size breach.

  “Mister Dobb, take charge of the men on the sails. If the quarterdeck is breeched we’ll lose the helm. I wish you to keep us even with that frigate, even if it means closing the range, but not so closely that they could board us.” A boarding would be disastrous, as the frigate likely had a crew of hundreds.

  “Aye, sir.”

  She scanned the plot. They were moving farther and farther away from the main action and still none of the other New London ships had acknowledged her signals, nor were any sailing away from the battle to render her aid.

  “Mister Artley, I believe the time for signals is well past. Take charge of the gundeck, please. Fire as you bear, targeting their sails first and the gundeck second. I should admire it if our rate of fire were somewhat higher than that frigate’s.”

  “Aye, sir.” Artley rose, pulled his vacsuit helmet over his head, and left the quarterdeck.

  Dobb made his way back to her side and spoke softly. “With no one on the signals, sir, what if you should need to signal … what if we must strike our colors?”

  Alexis turned her head and met his eyes. She shook her head slowly. “Every minute we delay that frigate may mean another of those transports well away.” She watched his face carefully to see that he understood. “This is where we stand.”

  Dobb took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Aye, sir.”

  He grasped his helmet and left the quarterdeck.

  Alexis ground her teeth together in frustration as she found herself with surprisingly little to do. Boothroyd kept his eye on both the winds and the Hanoverese frigate, adjusting his helm as she’d ordered to keep the enemy ship from closing the distance any faster than could be avoided. Still the range closed though. The guns were firing independently as quickly as they could be reloaded, so she had no need to order the firing by broadside.

  With each exchange of fire, a runner came to the quarterdeck to report on damage. Most was not nearly so bad as she’d feared, but the Hanoverese gunners were becoming more accurate as the range closed.

  Then, as though the frigate’s gunners had found their preferred range, the quarterdeck was struck again. Leyman managed to slap another patch on the bulkhead
in short time, but Alexis ordered her quarterdeck crew to seal their helmets. It would make communication more difficult and they’d be uncomfortable from the heat and stuffiness, but they’d be safe from decompression.

  Just as she sealed her own helmet, the quarterdeck was hit and breached again. The frigate must have fired in broadside, but Alexis couldn’t tell just how many shots had struck. The weakened bulkhead gave way and shot lanced across the compartment, splintering into smaller bolts reflected from any surface that couldn’t absorb its energy.

  Droplets of molten hull material spattered through the compartment, damaging men and equipment without regard. Some consoles were destroyed by the shot itself, while others simply dimmed and went out from the influx of darkspace radiation.

  Alexis’ helmet went silent as her radio died, leaving her with only the sound of her own breathing. The quarterdeck still had lighting — that was distributed throughout the ship by optics and would only go out if the fibers were cut — but all of the consoles and controls were dead. Men were down all around her, some moving feebly, others still, and those who were uninjured, or only slightly so, rushing to their aid.

  Her right leg stung where something had struck her, either a beam splintered off the shot or a molten drop of hull material, she didn’t know, but a quick glance showed her that her suit had sealed. Her leg would hold her weight and there were both others more in need of aid and more important tasks.

  In any case, Belial had no surgeon aboard to see to the wounded. The best that could be done was to take them down to the orlop above the hold and hope they weren’t struck again. Anyone who could move at all would be needed on the sails and the guns.

  Alexis grabbed the nearest spacer who looked whole and pressed her helmet to his.

  “The quarterdeck’s lost! Send the ablest to the sails and the rest to the guns!”

  “Aye, sir!”