“I want the woman, the one with the lone starship. The one who fought us at the battle station.”
“Yes, a worthy meal. Very well, she is yours . . . if you can take her.”
“Oh, I will take her,” Sool Em said. “I swear by the blood of our victims I will have her.”
“One of our rivals tried to board her ship already, I understand. Her troops were slaughtered. A pathetic display.”
“And you just lost a harvester ship,” Sool Em said. “Who is more pathetic?”
Ak Ik screeched in anger while her daughter chortled in the back of her throat. Sool Em’s insolence had gone too far.
But rather than show her rage, Ak Ik turned toward her other daughters. “Listen to me, all of you.”
They lifted their heads and stared blearily in her direction. The meals they had been so greedily consuming moments earlier had left them in a bloated stupor, and they would want nothing more than to return to their roosts, tuck their heads, and sleep.
“I have made an alliance,” Ak Ik said.
Eyes opened, heads lifted and bobbed. They squawked questions at each other.
The queen commander continued. “Certain promises have been made. Some we will break, others will bind us until we are more powerful, until rivals have been weakened. But we must work with the other queens to lure the humans into a battle, and we must have their lances, their spears, their harvesters to be assured of victory. There are traps to set, bait to place. All of these things require help.
“The humans are strong, my daughters. Perhaps the strongest race we have faced in generations. Their commanders are clever, their weapons deadly. All the more satisfying when we drive them to extinction. When that happens, the flock shall be reunited, an empress lifted above the others.” Ak Ik spread her wings. “And when I take this lofty perch, my daughters shall all be queens. You will share in my power.”
They flapped their wings and cried out in joy and bloodlust. As they did, Ak Ik cocked her head slightly so as to watch Sool Em joining the display.
Except for you, Sool Em. The only thing you will be sharing is your life’s blood as I tear out your heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Admiral Drake’s fleet had returned to the Manx System and set its sights on a jump on the opposite side of the system, a flight of thirty-three hours, counting acceleration. After that, Singapore.
Unfortunately, there was the small matter of a star leviathan to deal with first. With as much firepower as Drake had, he might theoretically battle the leviathan to a stalemate, but it would cost him. He’d already lost a frigate, and easily conjured scenarios in which he fled for his life while the leviathan snarfed his cruisers and corvettes.
So Drake figured he had two choices to get out of the Manx System unscathed. Most tempting was to simply slink all the way around the perimeter to get from one jump point to the next. He had a rough idea of where the leviathan was lurking, and with a little caution could avoid detection. Unfortunately, that would turn a thirty-three-hour journey into 140 hours. Drake couldn’t lose four and half days.
The other option was to cut straight through. But if he did that, he’d need a little trickery or he’d be back to the “fight-it-out-with-a-leviathan” plan.
He had concocted a scheme and sent Blackbeard and Peerless, Tolvern and McGowan, to execute it. Drake was curious how they would work together. It was no secret that the two despised each other. Would it show in action?
The rest of the fleet slowed so the two cruisers would enter the asteroid belt first. A star leviathan was an insatiable eating machine, half-organic, half-mechanical. They could absorb all manner of punishment—indeed, bombs and missiles seemed to only feed their hunger—and lay in wait to set traps. Once they hauled in a ship, it was done for, as witnessed by the unfortunate frigate.
But they were still animals. There was no sinister intelligence guiding those tentacles and spore cannons.
Blackbeard went in first, approaching the asteroid where the fleet had been ambushed a couple of weeks earlier. Anxious and incapable of affecting the outcome, Drake almost left the deck rather than watch.
McGowan may have been spouting off, but he’d spoken the truth about one thing: Drake and Tolvern did have a history. First on the estate, where Tolvern’s father was steward for Drake’s father, the baron. Then again on Blackbeard, growing close as they faced danger together. And now, admiral and captain were lovers.
That was Drake’s doing, and he didn’t regret it for one moment. His memory of their lovemaking had a lush, dreamlike quality, and when he was alone in bed he thought of her, remembering her scent, her soft skin under his hands. The weight of her body pressing down on his.
But the unfortunate result was that his normal battle nerves were practically vibrating now. Jess was no longer just another captain in the fleet, if she ever had been. As Blackbeard approached, he braced himself for the dreaded sight of spores gumming her engines and a tentacle snaking out to snare her.
Blackbeard peeled away at the last moment, dropping Youd mines as she did so. The mines had been preprogrammed to form a minefield, and began to maneuver into a matrix. Peerless came up behind and turned to follow Blackbeard, spitting her own mines, which moved to join the first batch. Peerless launched a torpedo as the two ships fled. This had better work; the rest of the fleet was approaching quickly and would soon be in danger.
Lloyd’s hooded eyes widened. “There she is, sir.”
Drawn by the plasma signature of the two ships, the star leviathan slipped out from behind one of the asteroids. No, it practically was the asteroid, curled up around a hunk of rock that wasn’t much bigger than itself. It turned its head and bunched its body in the way that indicated it was going to fire its spore cannon. Both cruisers were still in range.
The torpedo detonated near the makeshift minefield. This set off one of the mines, which exploded. The leviathan whipped its head in that direction. It launched from the asteroid, tentacles waving, plasma jetting out the backside.
Once clear of its perch, the creature hesitated, clearly torn between going after the cruisers and investigating whatever had detonated. Surely it could see that the cruisers were big, full of all manner of tasty goodies, and their engines were giving off tantalizing signatures. Two cruisers would be an enormous meal that would let the leviathan molt and spawn, if it hadn’t already. Keep it fed for years.
On the other hand, the mines were just a snack. But they weren’t fleeing, either.
“Take the snack,” Drake muttered. “The meal is going to escape, you may as well go for the sure thing. Come on, take the bait.”
The leviathan turned toward the minefield. Drake let out his breath. The relief on Dreadnought’s bridge was palpable.
The leviathan reached the mines and stuffed them in its mouth like so many marshmallows. When one detonated against its tentacles, that only seemed to whet its appetite. A few minutes later, the rest of the fleet slipped past.
#
Tolvern was first through the jump, but she wasn’t alone for long. By the time she roused herself on the other side and was verbally shaking the others awake, McGowan was through, as well as several torpedo boats and a corvette.
Details came back to her. She was in the Singapore System. At long last, the chance to fight a decisive naval battle. But first, she needed the lay of the land.
“Smythe, where the devil are those scans?”
The tech officer was still rubbing his temples. “I’m sorry, Captain. Blast it, these last few jumps have hit me hard.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Lomelí said. “First scans coming through now.”
“We’re not hiding anymore, so hit them with the active sensors,” Tolvern said. “Shine a big light and see if we can drive the vermin out of the shadows.”
“Already doing it, sir,” Lomelí said.
“Well done,” Tolvern told her. “Smythe, either snap out of it or haul yourself to the sick bay.”
“Yes,
sir. Give me a minute.” He was still gray, but responding coherently.
The main screen showed the other ships popping through the jump and drifting away on auxiliary power to make room for the next vessel. Lomelí changed the view, focusing on a rocky world two hundred million miles away.
Tolvern was still woozy from the jump, just disoriented enough that for a split second she thought she was looking at Albion. It was blue and cool, with green continents stretching limbs into the ocean, and an archipelago of islands like jewels scattered across the water.
But the continent facing them wrapped around the equator instead of the northern latitudes. And the poles were ice free, as often happened when there wasn’t enough land in the polar regions.
She was staring at Singapore. It wasn’t her home world, but it was someone’s. Was Swettenham staring at the feed being piped into the eliminon battery? If so, he must have a lump in his throat. Koh, too, on Dreadnought. Here, on Blackbeard, the Singaporeans would be swelling with hope to be back in their home system. But fear would settle into the pit of their stomachs when they saw what else the scan revealed.
A harvester ship loitered above Singapore. Its main bay was open, with a continual stream of pods dropping out to descend into the atmosphere, while others returned with their harvest. Several smaller Apex ships hovered nearby.
Like the others, Capp had looked up from her work as the scans came into focus, and she snorted as she took it in. “Don’t look so tough from here, Cap’n. Where’s the rest of them buzzards hiding, that’s what I want to know?”
“You can bet they’re out there,” Tolvern said. “Keep looking,” she urged the tech officers. Smythe was finally at work alongside Lomelí. “Nyb Pim, get us in there. We’re leading Task Force Bravo, so it’s on your shoulders.”
“I am charting a course now, sir,” he said.
“Enough gawking, the rest of you. We need to get positioned to protect the flagship as she comes through. Capp, get us out front. I’ll put McGowan to our rear.”
“Just where he likes it,” Capp said. “Keep his toys shiny back there. Don’t want nobody kicking dirt on them or nothing.”
Dreadnought had just jumped into the system when Smythe detected a second force of Apex ships, then a third. A dozen ships ranged between the orbit of Singapore and the final rocky planet in the system, and four more hunter-killer packs lurked near the jump point to the Padang System.
“Anything else?” Tolvern asked.
“Not that we can see,” Smythe said, “but who knows? We’ve been surprised before.”
She ran some mental math. “What does that add up to? Six spears and about forty lances? Plus the harvester?”
“We can take ’em easy,” Capp said. “They’ve got a harvester, but we got Dreadnought. They got six spears, but we got six cruisers. Thirty-whatever lances, but we got about fifty other ships counting the Hroom. We’ll beat ’em.”
“And I’m sure it will happen, just like that.” Tolvern snapped her fingers.
“Don’t need to sound so sarcastic, Cap’n. We won battles like this before, ain’t we?”
#
It took two hours to get the entire fleet through the jump and arranged into their component parts. Task Force Alpha set off first, led by Dreadnought and her cruisers. Tolvern was so impatient to follow that she retreated to the war room so she could pace in privacy until it was time to get underway.
But soon enough, Task Force Bravo was following. Drake wanted Tolvern’s ships back far enough to be seen by the enemy as a reserve force, but close enough that the two elements of the fleet could quickly converge if someone sprang a trap.
As for holding her in reserve, Drake assured her he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. When they got to Singapore, he was going to send his own cruisers to scatter the lances and spears while Dreadnought pinned the harvester against the planet. Task Force Bravo would wait behind to see how this played out.
If the lances and spears abandoned the harvester to its fate, Tolvern was to join her forces with Drake’s cruisers and hunt them down. But if the enemy circled the wagons around the harvester, Drake wanted her to charge in, discharge the eliminon battery, and then mop up the crippled remnants.
Tolvern made a pair of calls before she left the war room. The first was to Lenol Tyn, the new commander of the Hroom fleet. The colonel looked haggard, eyes drooping. An iron circlet rested on her smooth scalp.
“I am sorry about what happened to the general,” Tolvern said. “I hope when this is over we can thaw him out and find a cure.”
Lenol Tyn whistled through her nose. “I blame myself. I should have trusted him and not the high priestess.”
“Mose Dryz also could have told you what was happening to him instead of leaving you to guess why he wouldn’t take the antidote.”
“If we’d known, we’d have removed him from power.”
“And probably for the best,” Tolvern said. “He must have met with the buzzards, or else how did he get that serum he was going to give the admiral?”
“True, true.”
“Mose Dryz was an honorable man, whatever became of him later, and if there’s ever a lasting peace between our people, it will be because of his efforts.”
“Your words are honorable, Jess Tolvern.”
“Should I call you general now?”
“No, I am still a colonel. Only the empress can bestow that honor on my head, may she live forever. Perhaps if I distinguish myself in battle, she will see fit to elevate me to the position. Or maybe if I just survive.” A hum, and Lenol Tyn sounded amused. “There aren’t many candidates left. And the honor, such as it is, may be fleeting, given the state of the empire.”
“You probably don’t want to be a general, anyway,” Tolvern said. “I’m sure there are menus being drawn up across the Apex fleet with our names prominently displayed. Why make it worse for yourself by claiming an even higher title than you’ve already got?”
“You are amusing, Captain.” Lenol Tyn hesitated. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”
“God, I hope so.”
“So do I. It’s either a funny joke or an unpleasant reminder of our ultimate fate.”
“In that case, let’s call it a wry observation. I sent over our battle plans. Are you in agreement?”
“The operation is direct. Pin down the enemy and crush them. That suits Hroom sensibilities. Usually, humans prefer to lurk and avoid a direct fight.”
“We prefer a direct fight when the odds favor us. When they don’t, we’d rather not throw our lives away.”
“Is that a reference to the death fleets?” Lenol Tyn asked.
“Not at all. It means you’ll be used the same way I would use any of my other ships, except that the sloops will fight as one unit. I don’t trust myself to keep the other Hroom commanders in line. I hope you can.”
“So do I.”
“Hmm. All right.” Tolvern felt she should make some final pep talk to cheer the Hroom commander, but couldn’t think of anything to say. “That’s all I needed, Colonel. Best wishes to you.”
“And to you, Captain.”
When the call ended, Tolvern settled into a seat at the end of the table, took a deep breath, and called Captain McGowan. His face appeared on the war room screen moments later.
He eyed her with distaste. “What is it, Tolvern?”
“I want to discuss plans.”
“You do realize the enemy can monitor our transmissions, right?”
“We’ve flooded the airwaves with fake signals—”
“A tactic Apex has already cracked wide open.”
“—and we’re transmitting with a weak signal that can barely cross the fifty miles between our ships.”
“Not a guarantee, Tolvern. Not at all.”
She fought down her irritation. “What do you propose we do? How are we going into battle if we can’t talk? We have to coordinate or we’ll fall apart the moment the buzzards start shooting. Or is that y
our plan, to stay out of this fight, too?”
“You want to know why I’m hostile?” He folded his arms. “It’s not because Drake gave you command—I don’t care tuppence for that. It’s because you keep laying on that cowardice crap. Do you realize how offensive that is?”
“You didn’t show up, McGowan. That’s why people are talking. You want to end the talk, you get yourself into the fight next time.”
“Look at my records. I’ve fought before and fought hard. If you want to blame me for standing off instead of rushing in to help the battle station, go right ahead. But when you drop these insinuations, you’re not only insulting me, you’re insulting every officer and enlisted person on HMS Peerless. No, more than that, you insult every man and woman on this entire task force, barring your own crew. Not one of us was in the last battle, and it aggravates us all when you claim that it’s because we are cowards.”
Tolvern blinked, surprised by the aggression in his tone. Was he right? Had she let her personal distaste loosen her tongue?
“I’ll drop it. And with my apologies, too. I was wrong.”
This time it was McGowan who seemed taken aback. He sputtered a little. “Never mind. That’s in the past. What’s this call about?”
“How are we going to get the eliminon battery into battle?”
“Can’t you just tow it in there and fire up the darn thing as soon as it’s close to the harvester?”
“Not really,” she said. “First, we don’t know for sure that’s how it will play out. What if we end up chasing lances and spears around? We’ll be dragging this large, obviously important object behind us. The enemy might not know what it is, but they’ll start shooting at it, just in case. But that’s not the biggest problem.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s no antigrav in the battery—the Singaporean crew is just floating around. That’s fine so long as we’re on a straight trajectory, but as soon as we start maneuvering, things get dicey. Won’t take long for our Singaporean friends to get a bad case of interstellar whiplash.”
“Ah, got it. We’re not going to be firing up the battery if those guys have been turned into meat puree.” McGowan tapped the side of his nose, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I have a spare inertia engine in my hold. Could we send over a crew and hook it up? Do you think we have time?”
Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) Page 14
