Winds of Marque

by Bennett R. Coles

  Dedication

  To Captain(N) Edward Hooper, Royal Canadian Navy.

  The pluckiest space engineer I know.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Save the rum.

  If nothing else, Subcommander Liam Blackwood thought to himself as he hung on to the arms of his chair, save the rum. He steadied the bottle on the wardroom table as the entire deck shook again. If artificial gravity failed, every untethered object on board would become a missile. And rum was just too precious to risk. Ignoring the concerned glances of the other officers, he pulled himself to his feet and placed the bottle back in its cupboard. All around the tiny space, dishes and other formal trappings of officer life rattled against their restraints.

  The door slid open and he heard the thumps of someone entering the wardroom.

  “XO, sir.” There was a pleading in that voice, he could hear. “The captain intends to continue with full sail.”

  Yes, he did, Liam thought quietly to himself. And the stupid, arrogant bastard was unwilling to listen to his propulsion officer. Why did Liam always get saddled with the idiots?

  “Sir,” came another voice. “Do you think the ship will hold together?”

  Having finally succeeded in neutralizing his expression, Liam turned to his officers. Lieutenant Mason Swift, who had spoken first, stared at him from the wardroom doorway. His complexion had gone ashen, from the tip of his chin to the top of his shaved head. Half a dozen more officers gripped their chairs around the dining table, all dressed in full blue coats and ruffled shirts as befitted a formal dinner. A pair of liveried stewards hung on to the fixed shelves on the forward bulkhead. The meal had started out as a pleasant affair, but what had begun as just an uncomfortable swell of solar winds had grown over the past hour into something far more dangerous.

  Liam cast his eyes around the room, knowing that none of the officers or crew present were senior enough to truly understand how the nobility worked. Military professionalism was what they were used to, and that wasn’t what they were dealing with here. The captain was from one of the great houses, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. He didn’t know how to.

  If the lord captain wanted to get them all killed, that was his prerogative.

  But Liam was the executive officer, and it was his duty to advise the captain whether he liked it or not. Sighing inwardly, he adopted a stern expression and clambered around the shuddering table to grasp for the door. “Sails, with me.”

  Lieutenant Swift followed him out as requested, shutting the wardroom door behind them. He was Renaissance’s propulsion officer, and a damned smart fellow. But he had no ability to filter his speech when speaking to senior officers.

  “Did you brief the captain on the sailing situation?”

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t listen! He doesn’t give a—”

  Liam silenced him with a sharply raised hand. It lost some effectiveness when Liam had to suddenly use that hand to steady himself, the ship rolling heavily. Swift stumbled, but his expression of righteous anger didn’t fade.

  “If we don’t back off the sails,” Swift hissed, “we’re going to lose a mast. In the next thirty minutes.”

  Liam knew that his propulsion officer didn’t exaggerate.

  “I’ll talk to the captain. Get back down there and hold things together.”

  Swift’s look of gratitude helped. But it didn’t change any of the facts of the situation as Liam staggered aft along the main corridor of what had been his floating home for the past six months, the cruiser Renaissance. Fine, swift, and well armed, she was barely a year out of the builder’s yard—a newness clearly portrayed in the polished surfaces and pristine control panels illuminated in the dim passageway that stretched fore and aft most of the length of the vessel. This passageway was the only place inside the hull that gave a true sense of the vessel’s vast size. Impressive, but right now all Liam could see in his mind was that long hull twisting and finally snapping under the unrelenting pressures of the solar confluence.

  He passed a handful of crewmembers as they lurched from handhold to handhold. Their expressions were fixed in professional determination, but Liam could see the fear brewing in their eyes. Even they knew that this wasn’t just another storm.

  Up a single ladder, and then Liam stepped forward onto the bridge. Even through the tinting effect of the broad transparency that formed the bridge top, the glare of a dozen suns forced him to shield his eyes. Long clouds of superheated gas glowed among swirling, dark streams of dust that twisted in the solar winds. Stellar movements in the cluster were well documented and, these days, rigorously tracked, but the vagaries of solar storms were impossible to predict. Quickly studying the bank of consoles to starboard, he saw the false color images of the nearest stars and their current activity levels.

  In that moment, the entire deck heaved. It wasn’t the sluggish rolls of before: it was a hard movement, like a smack against the hull. Members of the bridge crew, strapped into their seats in a semicircle forward, glanced nervously at each other. One of them spotted Liam and looked back, fear reflected on his face in the glow of red and yellow warning lights on his console. Liam gave him a stern nod, then indicated for him to keep his eyes on his station. An XO couldn’t show fear, Liam knew, despite the icy pit in his stomach.

  Liam straightened his uniform and stepped into the central command ring, turning his gaze immediately to the young man seated in the command chair. Captain Lord Silverhawk gave him a disinterested glance before facing forward once again. His narrow, youthful features were molded into what many crewmembers took to be command confidence, but Liam knew to be the fundamental, unshakable arrogance of a lifetime of privilege. A lifetime of only twenty-nine years so far, but more than long enough for Silverhawk to believe in his own omnipotence. If the captain was concerned about the strength of the solar confluence into which his ship sailed, he’d never show it.

  “Bit of a blow, sir,” Liam said with as much casualness as he could muster. “I’ll send the roundsmen to secure for storm sailing.”

  “Very well,” Silverhawk replied.

  Renaissance tipped to starboard as another wave of solar wind particles smashed invisibly into the hull. Antigravity compensated quickly, but not fast enough to stop Liam from slamming into the command chair. His eyes instinctively shot up to inspect the top mast through the transparent canopy, stretching high above the hull with a full sheeting of solar sails. The mast swayed visibly even as he watched, the giant sails straining in the flow of particles. That last wave had struck the top mast hardest, based on the motion of the hull, but even a cadet could have read the mast status board by the captain’s left arm and seen the building pressure on all four. Looking out to his left, Liam could see the taut sails of the port mast, and to his right he saw the wild dance of the starboard sails as they caught random eddies.

  Captain Silverhawk paid no attention, either to the visual chaos outside or the intricate readings on his consoles insid
e. His eyes were forward, staring toward the distant pocket of darkness ahead that indicated where Renaissance would break out of this particular subcluster and back into open space.

  “That fop Longridge thought he could get the jump on us,” Silverhawk said suddenly, “by detaching Celebration from the squadron while we resupplied. Bet he thinks he can claim the first dance with Her Royal Highness.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be the case, sir,” Liam replied, steadying himself as the ship rocked again. So that was the captain’s motivation for this suicidal run—a dance with a bloody princess.

  “I can picture his jaw hitting that polished floor when he enters the ball and sees me already standing there.” Silverhawk’s wolfish grin turned momentarily curious as he finally looked at Liam. “Does the local lord have a ballroom with a polished floor?”

  The ball was taking place at the home of Lord Grandview on Passagia, which also happened to be Liam’s home world.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I hope it’s hard. For when Longridge’s chin hits it.”

  So it was a race, Liam realized. And Lord Longridge’s Celebration was too far away to be actively tracked, leaving Renaissance nothing but dead reckoning to try to guess her position. No doubt Longridge was taking the longer, safer route to reach Passagia—so Renaissance was cutting the corner through an area of the cluster routinely classified as off-limits for sailing ships.

  Liam noticed the main screen of the command console in front of Silverhawk was a navigation assessment of the two warships, with projected arrival times for each ship. What a bunch of nonsense.

  The deck rattled once again. Liam studied the mast status panel.

  “Looks like we might need to break out a replacement set of sails, sir.”

  “So long as we don’t reduce speed, Lord Blackwood.” Silverhawk turned threatening eyes toward Liam. “I’ve already told that odious little man, Swift, that we are not slowing down.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Renaissance is the newest, fastest ship in the fleet,” Silverhawk continued. “I will not question her might just because of a storm. We will carry on at full speed.”

  Here in deep space, the ship didn’t really have a “speed” that could be accurately measured, since there was nothing close enough against which to measure it. What Silverhawk really cared about, Liam knew, even though his captain didn’t, was Renaissance’s velocity relative to its target, Passagia. And even that was only relative to the main star, not the second planet—Passagia II—upon which the royal ball was to be held. The only number that actually mattered in this fool’s game was the computer-calculated time it would take for Renaissance to reach orbit around Passagia II—and whether it was less than the estimated time for Celebration to do the same.

  Liam glanced out through the transparent deckhead again, assessing the now-steady lean of the top mast as solar wind from a dozen stars channeled into a maelstrom against it. Silverhawk hadn’t even noticed.

  But now that Liam knew where the captain’s main focus lay, a plan coalesced in his mind.

  “Sir,” he said, “I recommend we batten down completely for this transit. I wouldn’t want Renaissance’s lines to be marred by wind damage, especially if we end up being moored next to the royal yacht.”

  “Good idea, Blackwood. Let’s keep her looking pretty as we set a new speed record for the Navy.”

  Liam barked the order to one of the bridge crew, who in turn relayed it to propulsion. Battening down meant that an outer layer of plating was extended over all exposed areas of the hull, including the bridge canopy. At least that would help secure the ship against the maelstrom—until she was ripped in half.

  Liam knew there was no further point in him being on the bridge. He needed to get somewhere that could actually affect the ship’s fate.

  “I’ll supervise propulsion, sir. Make sure they don’t slacken off.”

  Silverhawk didn’t reply. That usually meant he didn’t object, and Liam didn’t wait for more. He lurched forward to ensure that the crew had begun deploying the thin shield of armor over the bridge’s transparent canopy. Once that was done, the captain wouldn’t be able to see what Liam did next.

  Propulsion control was three decks down from the bridge and forward—in the exact center of the ship’s hull. As Liam scrambled down the last ladder he could hear the swell of noise growing from the orders and shouts of a crew working frantically over the steady, awful creak of the masts shifting against their braces. Here, in the heart of the ship, the four masts came together into a massive, cross-shaped thrust block where all the forces pressing into the sails were transferred into the forward motion of the ship. Each arm of the cross was designed to have some, usually microscopic, flexibility as the forces differed on each mast. As Liam descended the ladder he heard a mighty, metallic groan as the highest arm of the cross visibly shifted.

  He stepped down to the hard deck and pushed his way forward.

  Lieutenant Swift was hunkered over his control panel in front of the main display. The sailing table was a broad surface where a tracing of the ship’s hull and all four masts was dotted with a galaxy of sensor lights meant to give an overall survey of the health of the propulsion system. Liam expertly noted the series of lights up each of the four masts and the sail points strung along each yardarm. There were far too many yellow readings on the projection, and a growing number of reds.

  “Sails, XO,” he said loudly, clapping a hand on Swift’s shoulder. The gesture caught the attention of most people in the room.

  Indignant surprise melted into relief as Swift turned to look at him.

  “Sir, good. Have you talked some sense into him?”

  The comment was much too loud with sailors present. No officer could be seen to question the captain—even if the captain was a buffoon like Silverhawk.

  “Don’t waste my time with stupid questions!” Liam roared, getting right into Swift’s face. “Get this ship battened down and ready for the storm!”

  Crewmembers scurried at his command, thankful that the XO’s wrath wasn’t being directed at them. Another shake of the deck knocked many off balance, but they frantically continued their work. Behind the mass of bodies, the heavy crosspiece of the thrust block groaned dangerously.

  Liam turned back to Swift, leaning in close.

  “Don’t say things like that out loud,” he muttered. “Now give me your status.”

  “Battening down is forty-five percent complete, and security rounds are sixty percent complete. In about four minutes this ship will be as tight as she can be. But that won’t solve this.”

  He gestured broadly at the main sailing table. Liam’s eyes followed, noting again the multitude of stress indicators.

  “Top mast is already past allowable limits—it could snap at any time. Bottom mast is not far behind. Port and starboard are strained but holding, but if we lose top mast, it’ll drag us hard to starboard and put unpredictable stresses on the other three.” Swift lowered his voice. “If we don’t short those sails, we risk losing all four masts. And port in particular could pierce the hull if it cracks.”

  Liam looked down at the main panel display for the ship’s internal damage-control condition. He recognized the signs of battening down in effect, but didn’t have the expertise to pick out individual actions.

  “Master Rating,” he said to the sailor seated at the display. “Has the bridge been shielded yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied immediately, continually tapping in changes to the display as reports came in through her headset.

  She wore, Liam noted, the shoulder patch of a supply tech, not a propulsor. But she spoke into her headset with a practiced efficiency and manipulated the display controls like she’d designed them.

  With the bridge shielded, the captain couldn’t physically see the top mast, even if he happened to look up.

  “Short-sail the top mast,” he ordered Swift. “Enough to get the strain under control but not so much as to
leave it with no tension.”

  Swift was barking orders even as Liam’s final words were uttered. Propulsors leaped into action, scrambling up through the access chutes that lined each mast. Far above, Liam knew, they were reeling in sails and tying off loose sheet. The massive thrust block groaned as tension fled from the top mast. Slowly, on the main projection, red indicator lights for the top mast began to switch to yellow. Or at least enough of them did to reduce Liam’s worry that he was going to lose a piece of the ship.

  “That should do it,” Liam said.

  “For now,” added Swift quietly. “But with three masts still at full sail the imbalance from the top is just going to create new stresses. We need to shorten all masts.”

  “The captain requires us to get to Passagia with all haste. Short sailing will surely be noticed, even by him.”

  Swift hung on as the deck rocked again, but Liam could sense his mind churning the problem. The propulsor’s eyes flicked between a variety of display boards.

  “So what we need,” Swift said slowly, “is a way to maintain the bridge’s perception that we’re at full sail?”

  Liam glanced down at the master rating still seated at her display. She probably couldn’t hear the conversation with her headset on.

  “Ideally, yes,” he replied to Swift. “What I really need is for our estimated arrival time to stay ahead of Celebration’s.”

  Spotting a general-purpose console, Liam brought up the navigation assessment that the captain was monitoring on the bridge. It showed ETAs for both ships. Renaissance’s was being fed by real-time information and fluctuated every second, but even in its fluctuations the ETA remained sooner that its rival’s.

  “You’re kidding me,” Swift muttered. “That’s our mission—to beat Celebration to the ball?”

  “Shut up,” Liam snapped. “We have our orders. Tell me how we can do it and get there in one piece.”

  Swift considered.

  “Internally, I can manually go into the sail parameters and reset them so that the readouts will make it look to the bridge like we’re still at full sail even if we aren’t.” He tapped the navigation display. “But I can’t change the laws of physics—our ETA will still be delayed.”