Legacy Fleet: Avenger (Kindle Worlds) (The First Swarm War Book 2)

by Chris Pourteau

  “Helm, hard a’port!” ordered Preble.

  “Hard a’port, aye!”

  We’ll never turn in time, and we’ll end up with our engines hanging out, he thought. But if we don’t get our port batteries on them, we might as well ram them like the Romans.

  As the great ship swung slowly to port, a distant explosion sounded from somewhere deep inside Independence. A rolling rattle traveled up the thorny length of her tungsten spine, followed by the hull groaning.

  It’s like she’s in pain. The Indy quaked harder than before, and Preble’s fingers screamed at him as he held on. We won’t last long like this. Not with twenty carriers gunning for us.

  “Tactical, report! What the hell was that?”

  “Sir, the Swarm … their fighters are flying straight into our exhaust ports! They’re targeting the engines, sir!”

  They’re flying up our tailpipes? A cold certainty descended over Noah. The Swarm were in a hurry to win, and their first target was clearly the Indy.

  “Concentrate point defenses on the stern. Protect those engines at all costs!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Comms, raise the CAG on meta-space.”

  “Trying, sir. It’s very confused….”

  The engineering station exploded outward, its officer thrown to the deck, her uniform smoking. Preble punched a button on his armrest.

  “Sickbay, medical team to the Bridge.” Only static answered. “Sickbay? Sickbay!”

  The Indy shuddered again, her hull knocking repeatedly as impact waves echoed in the ship’s superstructure. The Swarm carrier trolling forward on the viewscreen suddenly began to turn on its vertical axis. No, it wasn’t the cumrat rotating.

  It was Independence.

  “Captain!—”

  “I know,” said Preble, his stomach lifting in his belly. “We’re losing the lateral stabilizers.”

  “Trying to adjust, sir,” said the helmsman.

  Noah glanced to the useless engineering station and spotted a low fire beginning behind its controls. Then his eyes found the downed officer who’d been sitting there. Preble leapt to her side but found no pulse beneath the roasted flesh of her neck.

  “Enemy carrier is veering off, sir,” said Hayden.

  Preble looked to the screen and found it straightening again, settling like his stomach. He crawled across the deck as the Indy stabilized and resumed his position in the command chair.

  “Comms, did you raise the CAG?”

  “No, sir, sorry, sir. Everyone’s scattered. Unit cohesion….”

  “Status of the engines?”

  “We’re still maneuverable,” reported Hayden. “But not for long. With those suicide runs, it’s only a matter of time before—”

  Preble held up his hand. “Helm, track that sonofabitch that just changed course. Can we catch him?”

  “Catch him, sir?” A few moments of assessing readouts, then the helmsman answered, “I think so, sir.”

  “Then fire as our portside guns bear. And when he alters course again to avoid our fire, aim our nose at his midsection.”

  “Sir?”

  Preble exhaled and stared hard into the young man’s eyes.

  “Ramming speed.”

  Chapter 29

  Britannia Sector

  Behind Enemy Lines

  Bridge, ISS Invincible

  “Independence is flagging, ma’am,” reported Zoe Proctor. “Energy readouts spiking. The fighter strikes crippled her engines.”

  Halsey watched as fire and gases streamed from the Indy while she executed a long, tortured turn to port. She tried to gauge what Noah was doing. She’d hailed him, but comms were down.

  He’s traveling in the only direction he can without sacrificing speed, trying to bring the only batteries he has left to bear, she thought. Exactly what I’d do.

  “Helm, back our engines and bring us around to course one-one-eight-mark-eight. I think Noah’s trying to intercept that carrier before it gets out of range. We’ll add our firepower to his, just like before. Let’s introduce those cumrats to the loving embrace of Mother Universe.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Hold on, Noah, just hold on. None of that heroic crap, you hear me?

  Far from the Indy in one dim corner of the viewscreen, she could see Avenger and Intrepid turning too, but their vector had them too far off to help. They’d widened the hole in the enemy’s line in the opposite direction and had problems of their own as the other half of the Swarm fleet concentrated its firepower on them. It was up to Halsey and Invincible to help Preble.

  On-screen, Independence unloaded her portside rail guns in a broadside of the Swarm carrier she’d been pursuing. A round, fiery flower blossomed in the side of the enemy vessel.

  A flash on the viewscreen, and the Indy’s stern suddenly ignited. The flames erupted into space at first, fed by the pressure of the ship’s fuel. But soon the jutting fire guttered out, retreating back into the ship as the pressure waned.

  “Captain! Independence is down to her last engine! And she’s lost her lateral thrusters altogether.”

  “Damn it, Helm, turn us faster! Weapons, target those coordinates and fire, mag-rail followed by laser.”

  “Aye!”

  She’ll never catch that carrier now. Independence can barely steer….

  With the fire now muted from the Indy’s stern, the enemy fighters renewed their attack on her engines, throwing themselves at the ship’s weakening point defenses. Then the aft guns of Independence suddenly went silent, even as cumrat fighters pressed their attack.

  “What the hell?”

  “Ensign Proctor?”

  “I don’t understand why the Indy’s ceased fire. Maybe her point defenses failed….”

  But then it became apparent to everyone on the Bridge why Independence had gone silent. Renegade had appeared near the Indy’s stern, blasting first two, then a third Swarm fighter into pieces.

  Oh, no, Laz. You were supposed to stay hidden. You were supposed to stay safe!

  The pirate ship swooped low, luring some of the fighters away to chase her, but before the guns of Independence could spin up again, a Swarm pilot flew straight into her one remaining exhaust port.

  The explosion began there, then cascaded forward within the Indy’s superstructure. Fuel, armaments, and atmosphere mixed, and the mighty tungsten hull of the warship fractured from the inside. Fault lines cracked wide and blistering destruction blazed through. Internal pressure blew tiny, spinning crewmen into deep space.

  “Noah!” Halsey’s voice cracked. “Shields to maximum!”

  Independence exploded, and Invincible quaked with the brutal force of it.

  Still dancing with the enemy fighters, Renegade had been much closer.

  Oh, Jesus. Laz?

  Bridge, ISS Avenger

  Sam Avery watched the fireball erupt on the forward screen, her mouth dropping open. Independence was lost. At that exact moment, Avenger’s lasers imposed the same fate on a Swarm carrier Intrepid had just drilled open amidships.

  Oh, God, she thought. Noah?

  There was no celebration now at the enemy ship’s destruction like there had been earlier, when they’d first broken through the Swarm’s battle line. When there’d been hope for a victory against all odds. Now, there was only despair at the death of Independence and a frantic need to keep their own weapons firing, their own engines protected.

  Avenger seemed to vibrate constantly now under Swarm fire. The enemy fighters had long since overwhelmed Fleet pilots, and that had freed up thousands of cumrat birds to concentrate on the larger warships.

  How long till we suffer Noah’s fate?

  “Captain, we’ve lost half our armament on the port side to cumakazies.”

  “Acknowledged. Helm, keep our starboard guns facing,” she said, without having to think about it. Then the throbbing pain in her right arm focused her. “O’Brian, get the CAG on the horn!”

  “McCall’s dead, ma’am. I’m
not sure who’s in charge anymore, there are so few—”

  “Skip it.” Sam Avery stared at the chaos on-screen and, for the first time in her command life, had no idea what to do. Even though he’d failed, maybe Noah’s strategy of ramming was all they had left. Take with them however many Swarm ships they could before it was too late and they died without even that honor to take with them.

  “Ma’am, Admiral Kilgore’s hailing us. She’s ordering the fleet back to Wellington so we can pick up Endeavour’s firepower. We’re falling back!”

  Sam squinted at the screen and the fading fireball that had been Independence. But she couldn’t see Invincible anywhere. Please, Addie, be all right.

  “Very well, spin up the q-jump drive.” Kilgore’s fallback plan had always required a short, intrasystem q-jump, whatever the dangers such a maneuver might carry with it. She’d figured if the battle went badly enough that they needed to fall back, they’d never be able to make it on thrusters alone.

  “Captain, I’m reading….” said Buckland at sensors. “New sensor contacts! A shitload of ships!”

  What? Had the Russians come through after all?

  The raging battle faded as the viewscreen switched to find the sun of Britannia rising bright over the lush green-and-blue silhouette of the sector’s mother planet. And out of the sun, its rays shining like heralds, flew fire on dragons’ wings.

  Bridge, SS Renegade

  Mimi, breathless, stared out Renegade’s cracked viewport.

  “Where the hell did the Chinese come from?”

  Laz raised an eyebrow. “China, I’m guessing.”

  They’d barely avoided the Indy’s destruction and now sat cloaked again apart from the battle, effecting minor repairs. Following Kilgore’s orders, they’d just plotted the jump back to Wellington when dozens of Chinese warships emerged from q-space, their bows painted like the gaping jaws of dragons, to engulf the right flank of the Swarm fleet. With their fighters slamming against the IDF starships at the heart of the battle line, the carriers engaged by the Chinese had zero defenses. Pressed and surprised, the Swarm ships seemed to be lashing out blindly with their lasers, striking true only now and then, as the more maneuverable and elegant Intersolar Republic ships better concentrated their firepower.

  A carrier exploded, and Mimi jumped into Laz’s arms and kissed him full on the mouth. When they parted, they both realized what had just happened.

  “Sorry,” she said, backing away and smoothing her top. “Heat of the moment.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell your girlfriend.”

  “Right.”

  After an awkward moment of watching the Chinese finish their first pass along the flank, Laz cleared his throat. “We’re lucky you upgraded her armor,” he said. “Or Renegade would’ve never survived the Indy’s….” But he couldn’t finish.

  “I’m sorry, Laz, truly I am,” said Mimi. “I know you had a lot of friends on that ship.”

  He looked away from her, focused on the renewed battle beyond Renegade. “Noah Preble gave me a second chance. I owe him.”

  She smiled, though he couldn’t see. “Then let’s give ’em some payback.”

  Laz turned to his old companion in petty crime, his old friend. “Not afraid of dying anymore?”

  “Oh, I’m terrified. But I figure we ought to earn that salvage. It’s dearly paid for, now.”

  Laz grinned at her. “The time for the cloak is over?”

  She winked. “Time now for the dagger.”

  Bridge, ISS Invincible

  The lights flickered again as three Swarm beams hit at once.

  “Drop the shields and divert the power to the engines,” said Halsey. They’d needed the shields to protect them when the Indy exploded. But they were worthless against the Swarm’s green laser fire. Maneuverability was all.

  After the Chinese arrived, Kilgore countermanded her order to redeploy around Wellington, and now the Swarm fleet was down six carriers. The Earth forces were actually holding their own, though the more powerful enemy vessels had destroyed a quarter of the Chinese ships.

  An annoying, beeping came from behind Halsey. It wasn’t a red-alert klaxon. Wasn’t a system warning alarm. What the—

  Invincible was slammed again, and this time the lights stayed off longer before returning to half illumination.

  “Ma’am….” began Proctor at sensors. “Ma’am, I….”

  “Spit it out, Lieutenant.”

  “Ma’am, I think … I think the Swarm ships are leaving.”

  What? Halsey felt her heart leap with hope inside her chest. Then, “Tactical on the viewscreen.”

  The 2D map appeared, a confused collection of tiny avatars, the representatives of huge starships, dotting its surface. The now disjointed group of red Xs in the middle of the screen, what remained of that once seemingly unbreakable line of Swarm carriers, was winking out, one at a time.

  It was then Halsey noted the battering of her own vessel had ceased. In fact, the Bridge had grown deathly silent, with the exception of the odd, intermittent sparking of overloaded circuitry. And that damned, irritating signal from the sensors station.

  “Proctor, what the hell is that noise?”

  “Sorry ma’am,” Proctor answered. Halsey watched her flip a switch, and the noise ceased. As the last of the red Xs winked out, Proctor stared at the forward screen with the strangest look on her face.

  “Lieutenant Nichols, get me Admiral Kilgore on meta-space.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  But Halsey couldn’t take her eyes off Proctor, who couldn’t take hers off the screen. And then she saw Zoe smile.

  Chapter 30

  Britannia Sector, near Calais

  Wellington Shipyards

  Ready Room, ISS Invincible

  “Explain,” said Halsey.

  Proctor sat across from her as Invincible pulled into her old berth at the Shipyards for repairs. The Swarm fleet, which had attacked not only Britannia but other sectors as well, had suddenly and completely evacuated their forces. While the Battle of Glastonbury Tor, as it was already being called, had broken almost evenly at the end, elsewhere Earth forces had not fared so well. And yet, the Swarm had retreated as one unit from every sector of friendly space, all at the same time.

  “Remember when you and the Renegade crew went aboard the Swarm vessel? After Lagrange Station?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the device you found in the control room?”

  “You mean the chapel? The room with the hieroglyphics?”

  Addison thought back on that experience—creeping through the Swarm vessel, grey goo everywhere. Finding the control room that looked more like a holy place of worship with its seven quadrants feeling distinctly individualized yet uniquely connected. Laz’s constant worrying for her safety like a mother hen…. That sentiment was something she could certainly relate to. At least I know he’s okay, she thought, her heart filling again—feeling again.

  She met Proctor’s gaze. “We thought it was a clock of some kind.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been decoding the hieroglyphics, and I think your first guess was exactly right. You were watching a countdown.”

  “Wait, Lieutenant, who authorized you to—”

  “No one, ma’am.” Proctor looked sheepish. “It was a pet project on my own time, Captain. I—I was curious about the data you brought back.”

  Well, now. “A” for initiative.

  “Go on, Zoe.”

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly decode the hieroglyphics, but I created an algorithm that established a sort of proxy mathematical language for them. The hieroglyphics were a way to track time, though not in the conventional way we do, by seconds and minutes. But it was definitely a countdown clock.”

  “Countdown to what?”

  Zoe hesitated. “Well, ma’am—to when they vacated our space.”

  “What?” Addison considered what Proctor was saying. The Swarm had invaded UEF space on a time clock?<
br />
  “That alarm you heard on the Bridge—I’d set a personal timer to let me know when the time, as my algorithm had translated it, ran out.”

  Halsey nodded. “And it was right after that alarm that the Swarm started retreating.”

  “Right, ma’am.”

  After a few moments, Halsey asked, “You think you can reverse-engineer that algorithm of yours to figure out when the countdown started?”

  “Um … maybe, ma’am. It really is just a proximal language that estimates—”

  “Pretty good estimates so far, Zoe.”

  “I guess so, ma’am.” The embarrassed look returned, tinged with a bit of self-conscious pride. “To what end, though, Captain?”

  “Well, assuming your theory of the Swarm attacking on a schedule is right—and if you can tell me what the starting point of the countdown was, and convert that to how we measure time—it might tell us when to expect the cumrats to come back.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “And that would give us time to prepare. We’d be ready for them this time! I’ll get right on it, ma’am!”

  Halsey smiled. “I have every confidence, Lieutenant.”

  Britannia Sector

  Churchill Station, Upper Orbit, Britannia

  The Crow’s Nest (IDF Officers Club)

  “To Noah Preble and John Richards,” Sam said, raising her glass. “And to all the fine captains and crews who served and sacrificed in defense of Earth’s peoples.”

  Laz and Addison raised their glasses as well. Richards had passed away during the battle. The sad news had reached them before they’d even docked at Wellington.

  “Ship. Shipmates. Self,” added Halsey. “They exemplified the finest qualities of the service.”

  “Hear! Hear!” said Laz before downing his whiskey.

  “So, where to next for you, Laz?” asked Sam, nodding to the Renegade’s crew a few tables over. “Back to being a pirate?”

  Laz shared a look with Addison, and Sam thought there was a volume of communication in that simple glance.

  “The pirate’s life is not for me,” he said with a smile which, Sam noticed, also tugged at Addison’s lips. “I’m a Fleet man, now—finally, I guess. Kilgore was spitballing some ideas a couple of hours ago. Talked about putting together an arm of the service that concentrates on advanced scouting missions in the outer reaches. Wants me to talk my crew into helping set it up.”