Rebellion of Stars (Starship Blackbeard Book 4)

by Michael Wallace

  Blackbeard and her fellow cruisers fired back with everything they had. They were scoring hits all along Dreadnought’s upper decks now, but nothing was getting through. The battleship seemed to be clearing her throat, readying all weapons for another, perhaps final volley.

  Rutherford had almost reached Dreadnought. What possible good could he do? With one of his engines obliterated by a saboteur, he could not maneuver about the battlefield. He might get one shot. The first time Malthorne turned his weapons on Vigilant, she’d be finished.

  Rutherford’s destroyer and frigate peeled away, shooting. Vigilant herself continued doggedly forward.

  “She’s not going to fire, sir,” Smythe said.

  “How do you mean?” Drake said.

  “I mean, Vigilant isn’t exposing her guns. She’s readied two torpedo tubes, but nothing else is online.”

  What could it mean? Rutherford’s shields couldn’t possibly hold, whether his weapon systems were exposed or not. If he was going to take such a terrible risk anyway, why not come in shooting everything he had?

  And then suddenly, Drake’s mouth went dry. He understood.

  “Damn you, Rutherford. No.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  It took only twenty minutes until Tolvern’s base was on the verge of being overrun. Her meager forces were trying to hold both the front and rear entrances against an overwhelming attack, even while other enemies poured out of the forest and hacked through the razor wire. Every human and Hroom in Tolvern’s force was armed and shooting, but they were too thinly placed. The enemy seemed to come from everywhere.

  An armored vehicle pushed up the road toward her guard post. Enemies used it for cover, as it blasted at the guard tower with one gun and struck the defenders of the gate with the other. Tolvern returned fire. Her machine gun was so hot it radiated heat like a pair of tongs pulled from a forge, and Brockett was going up and down the stairs with more ammo, until she thought she’d burn through every last can. But she couldn’t slow the enemy vehicle. It pushed forward relentlessly. And then it stopped without warning.

  Rebel Hroom poured out of the surrounding forest. Most of them were unarmed—not even carrying spears—but about a dozen had assault rifles. Those with guns flanked the armored car and the forces pushing up the road behind it. They unloaded their weapons. She couldn’t see the effect on the enemy hiding behind the armored car, but it must have been devastating.

  But nothing touched the vehicle itself. Bullets pinged off the armored car, and it swung its guns over to engage this new threat. The armed Hroom were only eight or ten yards distant, and they fell in a row, one after the other. The armed rebels tried to retreat to the cover of the forest, but none of them made it. The last one shuddered and collapsed just as he was reaching the trees.

  The bulk of the Hroom—the unarmed ones—had taken advantage of the distraction to run toward the base gates. They came on in long, loping strides. The enemy turned its attention toward them.

  Tolvern slapped her hand against her ear so hard that it hurt. The com link came on. “Get that gate open!”

  It opened at the same moment that the enemy concentrated firepower on the unarmed, fleeing Hroom. The back rank fell, mowed down as from a scythe sweeping through grass. The rest, some twenty or thirty in all, poured through the open gates. Tolvern had doubled her strength in a single moment.

  A ragged cheer went up through the base. The enemy vehicle lumbered forward to force its way through the open gates, but grenades, hand cannons, and a well-placed mine checked its progress. It fell back two hundred yards, where it sat, smoking, as the enemy reorganized.

  Tolvern took advantage of the lull in the fighting. She left Carvalho and Brockett at the guard tower and raced down the stairs to greet the newcomers. One was Pez Rykan. He stared at her through a soot-stained face. He wore a bandage on his neck, and his left hand was heavily wrapped as well, with only the tips of his long fingers pointing out.

  “You’ve had a rough go of it,” she said.

  “That would appear to be a—how do you say it?—an understatement.”

  Yes. She’d personally witnessed at least thirty Hroom slaughtered on the road in just the last few minutes; from the visible injuries to him and several others, this wasn’t their first fight.

  “How many of your force are left in the woods?” Tolvern asked.

  “Perhaps a hundred. But others are gathering in the lowlands. Our numbers will soon be rebuilt.”

  “Why did you send them to the lowlands? We need them here.”

  “Those are new recruits. The rest are either dead or in front of you now.”

  Tolvern looked around. There might be fifty Hroom in the base. A hundred more still in the woods, apparently fighting it out with the enemy the best they could. That meant that Pez Rykan had lost more than two-thirds of his entire army in the course of a few days.

  “We have plenty of arms,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow. “There is that.”

  Indeed, Hroom had already raided the armory and were handing out rifles, hand cannons, and other arms. Some of Pez Rykan’s newcomers turned the weapons over like they’d picked up a venomous lizard from the jungle. That would be a problem; there was no time to train them.

  Others, however, had clearly handled firearms before, and these she sent to reinforce positions around the base. None too soon. The enemy renewed its assault moments later.

  #

  “Get Rutherford on the screen,” Drake told Oglethorpe. To Capp, he said, “Bring us in.”

  “Dreadnought is preparing her main battery,” Smythe said. “If we go in—”

  “Do it!”

  Even as he spoke, Dreadnought’s main battery let loose a fiery blast. Blackbeard fired desperate countermeasures and performed evasive maneuvers, but it wasn’t enough. Shot slammed into them. The ship shuddered, anti-grav failed, and they went flying. Drake closed his eyes, waiting for the final explosion.

  Then the systems came back on. He fell hard to the floor.

  By the time he and the others were climbing shakily to their feet, Jane was already on the com giving him the grim news: “aft shield, twenty-seven percent, starboard shield thirty-four percent . . . ”

  She continued on, but the damage report became a drone. No need for specifics; Blackbeard had been savagely mauled. Engineering scrambled to put out fires, the gunnery reported cannon off their carriages and torpedoes being dumped into space to keep from detonating in their tubes.

  Calypso and Richmond rushed in to aid Blackbeard’s retreat.

  Meanwhile, Vigilant kept plowing ahead, coming straight at Dreadnought. The battleship had paid it no attention, fired not a single shot at the cruiser, though the two ships were now within range. Rutherford wouldn’t respond to Drake’s demands that he open a link. Only moments now, and it would be too late.

  “He’s bloody gone over, hasn’t he?” Capp said. She sounded angry, hurt, and full of despair. “That bastard turned on us.”

  She was so wrong that Drake didn’t have a rebuttal. Vargus sent a desperate message to try to get Drake’s attention, but he didn’t have time for her, either. He tried to reach his old friend one last time.

  “Rutherford, for the love of God and Albion. Answer me. You don’t have to do this. Nigel!”

  Dreadnought had been readying another devastating attack. This time, Calypso and Richmond were within range too, as well as the rest of the fleet. Captain Lindsell’s surviving forces formed a tight knot and made a move on the mercenary fleet.

  But suddenly, the enemy seemed to recognize the threat. Vigilant was aimed right at Dreadnought, but hadn’t fired a shot. Rutherford’s auxiliary craft moved into position, but didn’t fire, either.

  Too late, Dreadnought swung around to show its main battery. The cannon fired before they were all in position. Vigilant took a hard blow. Explosions rippled along her surface, bits of armor and entire bulkheads blowing off. Plasma drained out the engine like blood from a severed arter
y. She came at the battleship on sheer momentum.

  Vigilant fired a pair of torpedoes at the last moment. There was no time for Dreadnought to deploy countermeasures, and they smashed into the battleship one after another. The cruiser, burning and venting gasses, plowed in after it. Directly into the tyrillum armor damaged by the torpedoes.

  For a moment there was nothing, only the crippled and much smaller Vigilant crushing itself against the seemingly immovable battleship. Then a flash of light that blanked out the viewscreen. Radiation washed over Blackbeard, bringing down instruments.

  They were only down a moment. When they came back on, Drake saw for himself the devastating result of Rutherford’s final charge.

  Vigilant was no more. No sign of her, not even so much as a gutted section of the hull. In her place was a gaping hole in the side of the battleship. A hundred feet wide, it cut through armor, bomb proofs, and bulkheads to reach deep into the ship’s guts and expose them to the void. Explosions rippled along the surface, blasting new holes all along the battleship’s upper decks.

  Dreadnought turned, wounded, but not yet dead. She tried to fire torpedoes to guard her escape, but they detonated on launch, causing further injury. Drake ordered his remaining forces to attack.

  The remaining cruisers abandoned all caution. They pursued the wounded monster, firing away. Calypso and Richmond tried to disable the engines, while Blackbeard targeted the massive hole left by Rutherford’s sacrifice. Vargus and her surviving support craft raked the remains of Lindsell’s task force to keep them from coming to Dreadnought’s aid.

  The battleship lost one engine, then another. The final two engines couldn’t build enough speed, and a single torpedo boat swooped in and knocked them out.

  Again and again, Drake hammered the battleship, until it was a gutted wreck. Long after Lindsell’s forces had fled the battlefield entirely, the rebel ships pursued Dreadnought, pounding away. Still, it wouldn’t break apart. At last, drifting and helpless, someone on the helm cried desperately for terms. It was Vice Admiral Thomas Lord Malthorne himself. Or, as he’d styled himself since the destruction of York Town, King Thomas the Second.

  The battle was over, Malthorne said. The rebels had won. What terms would James Drake offer?

  Drake replied with his terms: unconditional surrender.

  #

  Tolvern was almost disappointed when the enemy offered to surrender. With the arrival of Pez Rykan’s forces, she’d gained the upper hand. It hadn’t been apparent until the afternoon the following day, when they’d repelled three separate attempts to break through. But the third attack, had faltered so quickly that she began to plan a breakout. Next time the enemy came, she planned to spring an ambush before they could retreat.

  Then a man named Captain Betts approached under a flag of truce. He delivered stunning news. The battle in space had ended a few hours earlier. Captain Drake had apparently won, and Malthorne was taken captive. Betts, an employee of the admiral, wanted an end to the fighting on the surface, but he needed generous terms.

  “How generous?” Tolvern asked warily.

  Betts wanted to surrender to humans, not Hroom. He demanded a guarantee that any security forces on Hot Barsa would be allowed to surrender as combatants, that they would be free from reprisals, and that they would be safely repatriated to Albion.

  And if not?

  If not, Betts promised, they would fight on as long as possible. They might still be defeated, but they wouldn’t fall into the hands of vengeful Hroom.

  Tolvern took this offer to Pez Rykan with her recommendation. He agreed. The hope of slavery collapsing across Hot Barsa was too much to deny, even if it meant forgiving bitter enemies. The terms were acceptable.

  She’d won a stunning victory. Jess Tolvern had somehow overthrown the slaveocracy of Hot Barsa with an away team of four, several crates of sugar antidote, and hundreds of former sugar slaves willing to die for the cause.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Four weeks after the battle, Drake stood in the hallway outside the prison block with his arms crossed. Tolvern, looking smart in her new captain’s uniform, stood on one side, with Nyb Pim and the Hroom emissary on the other. Carvalho and Capp opened the door to the detention cell. Drake had warned them not to rough up or mishandle the admiral as they brought him out, but there was plenty of rude language. Drake let it pass without comment.

  A month in detention hadn’t altered the admiral’s arrogance. He moved stiffly into the hallway, sized up those waiting for him with a barely disguised sneer, then looked at Drake.

  “What are these Hroom doing in my presence?” Malthorne spoke as if he were referring to something foul to be scraped from the heel of one’s boot. He glanced at the emissary. “This one is an eater.”

  “I wouldn’t presume to tell General Mose Dryz who to send to negotiate,” Drake said.

  “Negotiate? So you will capitulate to the ones who are responsible for the atomic annihilation of York Town?”

  Drake smiled. “You mean yourself? I should think not.”

  Malthorne sputtered at this, and for a moment, the long weeks of isolation seemed ready to send him into an outburst. He regained control with visible effort.

  “Where is my advocate?” Malthorne said.

  “You have no need of an advocate at this point.”

  “Then there is to be no trial? What is it you want, Drake?”

  “You have already been tried and found guilty of treason.”

  “Outrageous. An illegality of the highest order.”

  “Under subsection 14.8 of the Navy Code, we assembled a tribunal. Evidence was presented. You had an advocate appointed for you, and she determined it unnecessary to call you as witness. She was apparently worried you would harm her case.”

  “Who the devil is this advocate? One of your confounded pirates, no doubt.”

  “You were charged with levying war against the realm,” Drake continued calmly, “hindering the lawful succession, and effecting the death of our lord and king. These are charges of treason. You were found guilty on all counts.”

  “What do you want, Drake? What are you asking of me? To agree to place you on the throne? Is that what you are after? To seize my lands and wealth?”

  These questions were so ridiculous that they didn’t merit an answer. Blackbeard and the fleet had only come into orbit around Albion two days earlier. Drake’s only thought was to secure the peace as soon as possible.

  They were no longer a rebel fleet, but neither had their victory been unanimous. Captain Lindsell was still loose in space with his wounded cruiser and a flotilla of support vessels. While the fighting at Hot Barsa had raged, General Fitzgibbons had landed fifteen thousand marines on Saxony and seized control of the continent of Suffolk. He refused to surrender, although he hinted that he might retire from the battlefield with the right offer.

  No offer would be forthcoming. Fitzgibbons was a traitor and the servant of a tyrant. And if Drake had any worries his refusal was fueled by the vicious attack on his family estate and how Fitzgibbons had murdered his sister Helena, they were put at ease by the reaction of others in the fleet. Catherine Caites proposed launching an atomic bombardment of Fitzgibbons and his forces.

  No atomic bombing. There would be time to deal with Fitzgibbons later.

  Albion itself was in turmoil. Several influential dukes and earls had come over to Drake’s side and pledged allegiance to the Duke of West Mercia, who had finally accepted the crown. But there were at least three other claimants to the throne, all of them on the home planet. No fighting yet, but Drake wasn’t about to bring Malthorne to the surface and give someone an excuse to kidnap him as part of some plot or other.

  And so, he set up in orbit during the trial. General Mose Dryz’s emissary came, demanding that Malthorne be charged for war crimes before the Hroom Empire would consider any deal to jointly fight Apex. That was something Drake could not agree to. But he could make other promises.

  “Well
?” the admiral demanded.

  “Your insulting questions deserve no answer,” Drake said. “But you are wrong. I want nothing but justice and peace for Albion. The Duke of West Mercia will be the new king. Your slaves shall be freed, and—”

  “Madness.”

  “—and your former plantations opened to free settlers where appropriate. I am the son of a baron and an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I ask for no other honor.”

  “So what will it be? Imprisonment in whatever passes for York Tower these days? Is that to be my fate?”

  “I wouldn’t need these witnesses for that,” Drake said. “And certainly not the Hroom emissary, who remains wary of deception.” His mouth formed a grim line. “Vice Admiral Thomas Lord Malthorne, you have been sentenced to death.”

  Malthorne’s composure vanished. The blood drained from his face, and Capp and Carvalho grabbed his arms to keep him from collapsing.

  Drake said, “That sentence shall be carried out at once.”

  #

  Tolvern had returned to her old spot in the commander’s chair. She relished the smooth contours, made especially for her body. Oglethorpe had always seemed ill at ease sitting there. Nevertheless, he’d made way for her with obvious reluctance.

  The fortress formerly known as William passed below the ship, its lights glittering. It had been renamed Fort Rutherford, in honor of the sacrifice of one of the navy’s bravest officers and gentlemen. A hero, really. His death, and the death of his valiant crew, had brought about Drake’s final victory against the traitor and usurper. Dreadnought, a crippled hull, sat tethered to the fort. One couldn’t see them from this distance, but hundreds of mechanics, engineers, and boatswains were laboring around the clock to repair the massive damage to the battleship.

  Drake was eager to return Dreadnought to service in their fight against Apex, but Tolvern wondered if the repairs could be completed in time. The predatory aliens had been ravaging through the border worlds and would soon enter Albion-controlled space.