A grim silence settled over the bridge as Smythe moved to comply. Tolvern had served as Blackbeard’s commander and Drake’s second until a few months ago. She’d been given her own ship after the Battle of Albion, and Lieutenant Oglethorpe had taken her place. They all knew her, and worried.
Drake stared hard at the console and the fading signature of those three destroyers, still accelerating toward Hot Barsa. Three orbital fortresses and now a trio of destroyers.
Jess Tolvern would have to face them all. Only two months at the helm of her first command. It might be her last.
Chapter Four
Two days after receiving the subspace warning from Captain Drake, Jess Tolvern stood in the engineering bay, watching two muscular corporals load the away pod with supplies. The pod was made to hold eight, but would only carry four on this mission. The rest of the space would be stuffed from floor to ceiling with supplies to keep the away team alive while it completed its mission.
Science Officer Noah Brockett stood next to her, rubbing at his stubble. More peach fuzz than stubble, really, a little tuft growing on the edge of his chin. He had bags under his eyes from working so hard the last few days, making him look, for the first time since she’d met him, like an adult and not a brainy teenager. In reality, he was twenty-five, not much younger than herself.
“Glad it’s not me going out in that tin can,” Brockett said.
“It’s not so bad,” she said. “Assuming you don’t die in transit.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. I saw what nearly happened to you at Albion.”
During the attack on Albion, Drake had used two away pods to assemble a rescue team on a small sloop. In calm circumstances, precision equipment and precise computation rendered such ship-to-ship transfers routine. A slingshot flung you toward another ship, and a hook and net brought you in.
But under fire, it was hell. The little sloop had rolled to avoid incoming fire, and one of the pods missed the transfer and fell into the atmosphere. It burned as it went down. The other—Tolvern’s—had nearly suffered the same fate. She’d been inches from death.
“This is safer,” she said. “It’s shielded, so it won’t be destroyed in the atmosphere. It has a parachute. Even if it’s off course, it’s got to land somewhere.”
“That somewhere could be the ocean,” Brockett said. “Or it smashes into the side of a mountain. Or it lands, and the first people to step out are carried off by lurkers. I lived on Hot Barsa. I know what’s down there.”
And Brockett had lived in the highlands, at Malthorne’s laboratories, where he’d been synthesizing the sugar antidote. Even there, it was sweltering, with plenty of nasty creatures hanging about: lurkers, pouncers, mosquitoes the size of birds, carnivorous eels. The lowlands would be a special sort of hell for humans. Only Sal Ypis, the Hroom translator for the mission, would feel comfortable in those conditions. Though she hadn’t seemed overly pleased about her assignment, now that Tolvern thought about it.
One of the corporals drove a forklift containing a flat of refrigerator-size coolers across the cargo bay. Brockett walked alongside, his hand against the coolers to steady them.
“Careful,” he said. “That’s a lot of work in there.”
“Keep back, kid, unless you want your toes mashed,” the driver said.
The corporal had a deep, masculine voice, and the stubble on his face was thick and dark, the kind that seemed poised to bloom into a full-size beard if it weren’t shaved day and night. The contrast with the science officer’s peach fuzz was telling.
But Brockett wouldn’t be dissuaded. “You didn’t tie this down properly,” he said as the forklift stopped and the man jumped down to help his partner load the coolers onto the pod. “Next load, use the straps.”
“Listen, kid, I been doing this since you were in diapers. And I don’t mean two weeks ago. So before you go telling me how to do my job—”
“Do what he says, Corporal,” Tolvern interrupted.
The corporal blinked and stared at her. “Aye, sir. Sorry, sir.” The man returned to his work.
“I don’t know,” Brockett confided to Tolvern. “Maybe I should go down instead of Henry. He’s awfully young.”
Henry Jukes was Brockett’s new lab assistant and even younger than his boss. Nineteen, was that right? Looked about twelve, to be honest. Henry had been a math whiz studying at the Naval Academy in Juneau, but he’d been home on Saxony for semester break when civil war broke out. He’d quickly enlisted to join the rebellion. She didn’t think Henry was overly political, but throw him in a lab full of cool computers and machines that whirred and beeped, and he’d do anything for the cause.
“Does Henry know how to synthesize the antidote?” she asked.
“Not yet, no. So far as I know, I’m the only one who can, unless that Hroom general has figured it out.”
“We don’t know if Mose Dryz has managed or not, but he’s got his other troubles to worry about. He’s still fighting his own civil war, and Apex is biting at his haunches.”
There was another consideration. In addition to internal struggles with the Hroom death cult and the attacks by the savage alien race known as Apex, the military commander of the Hroom Empire was himself a sugar eater. Captain Drake had given the empire the antidote—a great weapon in its struggle against human slavers—but it was unclear if Mose Dryz had done anything with it.
In any event, the sugar world of Hot Barsa was inaccessible to the empire. It was up to Drake’s fleet to spread chaos behind Albion lines.
“I could do it,” Brockett insisted. “I’ve been on Hot Barsa. I’ve dealt with Hroom before. I could explain how the antidote works better than Henry.”
“Henry will go down,” Tolvern said. “We can’t risk losing you.”
“Yes, Captain.” In spite of his brave words, Brockett sounded relieved.
The com link warned Tolvern that they were beginning their deceleration as they approached Hot Barsa. Once they arrived, Tolvern had less than an hour to send the away pod to the surface and get out. Then the three destroyers Drake had warned her about would arrive.
Tolvern touched her ear and told the gunnery to man all stations. Cloaking would shortly come down, and they’d better be ready to go hot.
When that was done, she called Henry Jukes, Sal Ypis, and the two marines who’d be accompanying them to the surface. “Collect your armaments and personal gear and make your way to engineering. I want you strapped down by oh-eight-hundred.”
#
The orbital fortresses held their fire as Philistine approached. She was one destroyer, and though her cannons were warm and her missile batteries exposed, she wasn’t shooting. The rebel craft wasn’t strong enough to slug it out with a fort, and so the individual commanders seemed content to wait.
Tolvern’s tech officer failed to decode the navy transmissions, but she could easily imagine what they said. Perhaps the destroyer wished to surrender—several vessels had changed allegiances since the civil war began. Or perhaps it was a feint, and there was a heavier force cloaked and approaching from the opposite direction.
Either way, the forts were strong enough to pummel Philistine into submission, yet they had no support craft of their own, since these were out fighting the multiple attacks on the system. Better to sit and wait, they seemed to be thinking. Another hour, no longer, and three loyalist destroyers would come to Hot Barsa’s aid.
Tolvern was happy to encourage this thinking as long as possible. She didn’t need long. In fact, she didn’t want to fight at all, only drop the pod into the atmosphere and scoot for cover. And so Tolvern brought her ship straight in, as if she had nothing to hide. She sent a communication to the orbital defenses, but garbled. Meant to sow confusion, nothing more. At first, it seemed to work.
But when she was a hundred thousand miles out and approaching one of the planet’s small moons, the enemy opened fire. It was a probing attack, a single missile from Fort Gamma. Meant to flush out her int
entions, no doubt.
She ordered countermeasures, then squawked a protest. This time, ungarbled. Don’t shoot at us! We’re peaceful.
The enemy didn’t buy it. Fort Gamma resembled a giant, lumpy baked potato about ten miles long, and missiles and torpedoes now launched along a broad front.
Tolvern clenched her handrests on the bridge of Philistine. This was it, her first combat at the helm of her own ship. For a moment, panic came clawing up from her gut, threatening to leave her frozen in terror and indecision. But she heard Captain Drake’s calm voice in her mind, imagined how he would respond. Her fear vanished as quickly as it had arisen.
At the same time, her crew was already performing as ordered. The pilot changed the angle of approach to minimize their vulnerability. The tech officer and the gunnery launched countermeasures. Fire control systems answered fire with fire. Soon, missiles were detonating on the surface of the fort.
“Hold the cannon,” Tolvern said. Her voice sounded calm, authoritative. A voice to be obeyed. “I want them to think we’ll be swinging past for another attack.”
By now, they’d nearly cleared the first fortress and had somehow avoided taking any damage to their shields. In a moment, they’d come into range of two more forts, but she didn’t intend to wait for them to appear.
She opened a channel to the away pod, poised for launch in the engineering bay. “We start the countdown sequence in three minutes.”
“Ready and waiting,” came Corporal Martin’s gruff voice. She was the marine leading the surface expedition.
While the channel was still open, Tolvern heard Henry Jukes’s high, nervous voice. Brockett’s young assistant sounded terrified. Hard to blame him. He was about to be slingshotted in an unpowered away pod toward the planet’s surface at three thousand miles an hour, while enemies tried to blow him to smithereens.
“Captain!” someone broke in from engineering over the com. “We have incoming hostiles.”
Incoming hostiles? What? Where?
Tolvern’s fingers worked the console. Couldn’t be the destroyers. They were still too far out. Ground craft? Something hidden on the far side of the planet? Drake’s entire fleet had been studying Hot Barsa from a distance for weeks now, and there should be nothing here. Not so much as a frigate.
“What the devil are you talking about?” she demanded. “Where?”
“The fort!”
She’d been ignoring the red lights, the flashing warnings, and the heat signatures along the schematic of the small moon. The fort was throwing all sorts of destruction their way, but it was the responsibility of other crew members to neutralize those attacks. Except this.
Now Tolvern understood why the fortress had seemed so calm. It had been hiding a secret. Three torpedo boats, each a third the size of Philistine, launched one by one from a hidden hanger on the side of the moon. They must have been hiding there, already manned and engines hot.
In deep space, torpedo boats of this size escorted larger ships. They were not swift enough or powerful enough to brawl with even a modest-size ship like the rebel destroyer. But here, protected by the massive guns of orbital fortresses, their maneuverability and acceleration made them a lethal addition to the battle.
Tolvern didn’t have time to curse the intelligence failure that had dropped the three ships into her lap, she was crying for evasive maneuvers. One of the enemy craft descended immediately into the stratosphere over Hot Barsa’s northern continent and blocked the destroyer’s descent toward the surface. Launch the pod from here, and it would merely be target practice for enemy guns.
The other two torpedo boats came at Philistine from the rear, forcing her toward a second fortress, now swinging around the planet, already launching missiles.
Philistine shuddered. Class three detonation, the computer said in a dry voice. Thirty-two percent damage to the shields. Kinetic fire raked her underbelly. Missiles and torpedoes raced out to meet her.
“Pull up!” Tolvern cried to her pilot. “Get us out of here.”
The pod was unlaunched, still in the engineering bay where she’d left it. And there it would stay. The mission was already aborted.
She slammed her fist on the handrest. “Dammit!”
Then, embarrassed about her outburst, she concentrated on getting out alive. The engines had taken a hit, and they’d suffered a slow leak to the plasma containment system. She had to build a whole lot of speed before she lost too much juice. With no other options, she pointed away from the three incoming destroyers and accelerated at top speed in the opposite direction. She held her breath, waiting for the torpedo boats to follow, or worse, for scans to reveal new enemies incoming from this direction. No, thank God.
Once they’d escaped the final, pursuing fire from Hot Barsa’s forts, she sent an emergency subspace to where Drake and Rutherford were rendezvousing. She’d failed. Worse, she’d taken so much damage that she’d need help getting out of the system alive.
Finally, Tolvern called the away team to give them the bad news. They’d been down there, quietly waiting out the shuddering attacks in the isolation of the pod. Unsure whether they’d be blown apart or launched without warning toward the planet to complete their mission, all while taking fire. Henry must be white with terror, poor kid. Corporal Martin and the others must be ready to strangle him.
There was no answer. Great. The pod systems must be fried. She told engineering to send someone to give the away team the bad news in person and assess damage. Was the pod even salvageable?
Someone from engineering responded a few moments later. “Multiple hull breaches along the engineering bay. We’ve almost got it contained, but . . . yeah, it don’t look good.”
Tolvern’s mouth went dry. “Tell me.”
“Looks like it punctured the away pod,” the man said. “No life readings on board. Afraid we lost ’em, Captain.”
Chapter Five
A few weeks later, Captain Drake waited in the war room as the other members of his council arrived one by one. He had to control the tempo of this meeting—he couldn’t give out all of the information he was sitting on. If he did, the loss in the Barsa system and their subsequent flight to San Pablo, harried and pursued until friendly mercenaries showed up to tip the balance, would seem like the beginning of Lord Malthorne’s final victory.
Tolvern arrived first, her eyes averted, shamefaced. From her perspective, it had been a debacle. She’d not only failed to launch the pod, but seen her away team killed. Her destroyer, Philistine, had barely escaped and was now being towed to San Pablo for extensive repairs. A few months in command, and she was already bereft of a ship, her crew scattered to other vessels in the fleet.
Rutherford came next, alone. He’d wanted to bring Pittsfield, his second in command, but the war room was already going to be crowded, and Drake didn’t need the distraction. Rutherford’s mouth formed a grim line, and he grumbled the barest greeting at the other two.
Next came Catherine Caites, now captain of her own cruiser. She was roughly Tolvern’s age, and during the initial fleet organization on Saxony, there had been a discussion of whether to put Caites on the cruiser and Tolvern on the destroyer, or vice versa. It was a major promotion for both women. Caites had at least commanded a torpedo boat before, and that settled it. She was given the powerful HMS Richmond.
Rutherford had first elevated the young woman, and his decision now looked prescient. Caites had fought with distinction in the most recent action, single-handedly holding off enemy forces while the rest of Drake’s fleet jumped for safety, and then coming through unscathed herself. Rutherford now greeted Caites as if she were a full peer, in contrast to how he’d addressed Tolvern.
Finally, Drake called in three others from his crew: his pilot, Nyb Pim, Science Officer Noah Brockett, and Henny Capp.
Capp looked nervous as she entered, uncomfortable. She was from a low background, raised in the working-class neighborhoods of York Town. On Saxony, Rutherford had barely tolerated her. Dr
ake willed both of them to hold their tongues.
Rutherford leaned back in his chair. “Well? We’ve failed. Now what?”
Drake considered how much of his new intelligence to admit, and how quickly. Best to start with the good news.
“Not a failure. We lost two mercenary frigates, but we picked up another cruiser.”
Lost didn’t mean destroyed. It meant they’d abandoned the fight, taken their money and run. No doubt they’d return to piracy. They might even prey on Drake’s own shipping out of Saxony.
“You mean Melbourne?” Rutherford asked. “Will she even fly? Six months in the docks, and how will we pay for it?”
“That’s the good news,” Drake said. “We got a communication from Rodriguez in the yards. He’ll fix her for eight thousand pounds.”
Rutherford stared. “After the beating we gave her? Are you certain the villain doesn’t intend to steal her from us? And when?”
“Several months, admittedly.”
Rutherford threw up his hands. “There you go.” He grunted. “And I suppose Tolvern will captain it? She got her first horse shot out from under her, so why not give her a better one?”
“More good news,” Drake said. “Philistine is in better shape. Most of the damage proved superficial. He says three weeks, and she’s back in space. We do some final in-orbit repairs, and she is good to go.”
Tolvern was shifting in her seat, and he was already getting off track. He needed to cut this off before she offered to resign her commission and Rutherford tried to accept.
“We’ve got other worries,” Drake said. “First among them, Dreadnought.”
This got their attention. The word hung in the air. Vice Admiral Thomas Lord Malthorne’s battleship had taken a beating, first at the hands of the Hroom sloops of war, and then from the rebellious ships fighting his attempt to destroy his former allies. Floating in orbit around Albion, it was still the most powerful ship in known space, but they’d assumed it would be in repairs for the better part of a year. Malthorne was fighting on multiple fronts, and the atomic bombing had destroyed the planetside headquarters of the Royal Navy, together with much of the material and personnel who could have done the repairs.
Rebellion of Stars (Starship Blackbeard Book 4) Page 3
