Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  Tolvern had doubted McGowan’s readiness to fight, had doubted the courage of the man’s entire task force, to be honest. Her doubts faded as the other captains and commanders executed perfect maneuvers, firing weapons and using their target baffles to dodge Apex fire, even as they closed with the enemy in orbit around Singapore.

  Now, the Hroom came, too. A fleet of seventeen sloops of war, bunched into a mass charge, the kind that had struck fear into generations of Royal Navy captains. By themselves, Hroom attacks had more often proved destructive to their own fleets than to Albion’s, but all the same, she was glad to have them on her side.

  One of the enemy spears drifted away from its supporting lances as it went after Peerless. That left its engines exposed to Blackbeard’s guns.

  “Target that spear,” Tolvern ordered.

  “Aye, Cap’n. We’ll settle her good.”

  They fought off a lance swooping in from port, which broke off under fire, then was chased away by a pair of torpedo boats.

  Tolvern brought Blackbeard up behind the spear, which was trading blows with Peerless, the two sides only a few dozen miles apart.

  “Hunter-IIs on my command,” Tolvern said. She waited as her ship swung to. “Fire!”

  Four torpedoes burst from their tubes. They targeted the spear, accelerating as their engines engaged. The enemy ship turned its attention toward the oncoming weapons, but too late. The first two torpedoes detonated under energy pulses, but the other two slammed one after another into the enemy’s engine shields. A secondary explosion burst out the underside, and the spear turned clumsily away, engines sputtering.

  Blackbeard and Peerless pinned it in place. McGowan’s ship got off the first broadside, but Tolvern’s hit harder. Working together, they cracked the spear open like a nut in a vise. It died via explosive decompression, holes venting along both sides.

  McGowan sent a short video message. “Thanks for that, Tolvern. I thought I was done for. Be careful with those spears—they hit hard.”

  “Was that humility in his voice?” Tolvern said when the message ended. “I think it was.”

  “I still say he’s a piss nozzle,” Capp said.

  “But with a definite reduction in piss. We’d have to query Jane to get an exact percentage.”

  Capp grinned at this, but before she could answer, Smythe called over from the tech console. The first of the two remaining waves of hunter-killer packs was arriving.

  Task Force Bravo had nearly fought its way to the battle surrounding the harvester ship. Dreadnought and the harvester were hammering at each other, both sides landing blow after blow, neither backing down. The rest of Task Force Alpha had its hands full with the remaining lances and spears, which fell back toward the Apex mother ship to protect it.

  Night had fallen over this hemisphere of the planet. The continental mass below was nearly black, except for several glowing red spots that indicated massive forest fires, the smoke of which had been visible during the day in huge plumes. But no lights of civilization stood out to mark cities. If there were electricity in isolated pockets, the people had the sense to observe complete blackout conditions.

  If Tolvern didn’t know better, she’d think Singapore uninhabited. But Koh insisted there were still millions of Singaporeans in hiding, living their furtive lives while they waited for the buzzards to seek them out in their caves and mountainous redoubts. To gather them for the harvest, to finish extinguishing Singaporean civilization and devour the remnants of its people.

  Were there people on the surface looking into the night sky and watching the flash of lights, the debris that plummeted burning to the earth as ships caught fire and were dragged down to their final destruction? Was there a stirring of hope, unfamiliar after all these years of living in terror and hopelessness?

  Two of Tolvern’s corvettes came under fire from the newly arrived enemies, and this forced her to respond. Not to stop the enemy, only to make a plausible effort to deflect them before they burst into the battle. She sent her torpedo boats on a delaying sweep and ordered her frigates to target the lead lances in the formation.

  Throughout the battle, one of Tolvern’s torpedo boats had lingered behind, out near where the frigates remained behind a pair of destroyers. The torpedo boat pulsed its engine, as if having trouble achieving full power, but this was just a feint to conceal its cargo. One of the approaching lances went over to investigate, perhaps eager to destroy a small ship that appeared to be struggling. Before it could arrive, the torpedo boat burst into motion and charged toward the battlefield.

  “Smythe, a broadcast to the fleet.” When he’d opened a channel, Tolvern sent the information they’d been waiting for. “Buckle yourselves in. Here’s where it gets interesting.”

  That was their signal. Crew on the bridge (and hopefully throughout the ship and the overall fleet), strapped themselves down. Smythe and Lomelí brought down the antigrav.

  There was a moment of disorientation, where the entire universe seemed to be tilted on its side. The torpedo boat lumbered through the fleet, dragging its cargo behind it. Inside that cargo, three men, Singaporeans, who’d been living in a confined space on short rations and water filtered from their own urine. Waiting to be flung into battle, used as a weapon and then, if they were fortunate, picked up. But prepared to die otherwise.

  The enemy seemed to understand. They broke from engagements to chase after the torpedo boat.

  “Protect that ship!” she shouted.

  Corvettes rushed to the torpedo boat’s defense. Frigates rained missiles on attacking enemies. Destroyers maneuvered to block lances from jumping.

  Within moments, the entire fleet—Task Forces Alpha and Bravo together—had wrecked their carefully placed formations, and all was chaos. But they fought off the enemy and protected the torpedo boat and its precious cargo.

  The small ship was a few thousand miles from the planet when it came to a halt and swung its backside around until it had completely reversed directions. The eliminon battery kept soaring past, and at the last moment, the torpedo boat cut the tether and let it fly toward Dreadnought. The battleship turned one of her auxiliary engines toward the incoming eliminon battery, and the blast of plasma slowed the battery further until it fell into orbit between the battleship and the harvester.

  A giant hand shoved on Tolvern’s shoulders and chest, and she sank into her seat with a groan. Her head was so heavy it felt like it had been replaced with a granite stone, and she lifted her eyes to the viewscreen with effort.

  The enemy ships were out of control. Two lances hurtled toward Singapore. Unable to change trajectory, they skipped over the top of the atmosphere like stones across the surface of a lake, then went spinning off into space. Another lance, slightly lower in the atmosphere, fell burning. Yet another continued straight at Dreadnought’s cruisers, which had gathered in support of the battleship, joining their guns in attacking the harvester. Other enemy ships sat dead, barely drifting.

  The harvester continued firing through all this, and though Tolvern’s brain felt scrambled and sluggish, she realized with horror that it must be immune to the gravity sphere around the eliminon battery. But within two or three seconds, the bombs and energy pulses diminished, then died.

  Drake appeared on Tolvern’s personal console. His eyes squinted as if against a terrible headache, and he pressed his lips tight together.

  “This is a general message for the fleet. All firepower on the harvester ship.”

  The human ships began to move sluggishly. Lenol Tyn’s sloops, too. Continuing as a pack, the Hroom changed trajectory and came at the harvester. Serpentine batteries fired a mass of bomblets that corkscrewed toward the massive enemy ship.

  Tolvern gave orders to the gunnery. Blackbeard pulled alongside Peerless, and the two cruisers decelerated, then swung about to present broadsides. The harvester loomed, a monstrosity that seemed as large and indestructible as a mountain.

  Meanwhile, three of the four cruisers in Task F
orce Alpha—Repulse, Richmond, and Formidable—came in from below. Zealand, the final cruiser in the fleet, finished destroying a lance blocking its path, then moved to join.

  Soon, all six cruisers were unleashing hell on the harvester ship. Torpedo boats howled in from the flanks. Mark-IV and Hunter-II torpedoes rolled out in waves. Corvettes and destroyers came up from below. The sloops of war rumbled past, and hundreds of small bombs lit up the exterior of the harvester. Four frigates launched waves of missiles.

  Dreadnought had paused, seeming to catch her breath after trading blows with the harvester, but now her main guns thundered. Cannon fire crashed into the enemy ship, and explosions lit up along the warty protuberances. It seemed impossible that anything could stand up to this punishment, but when the barrage ended, the harvester ship was still in place, barely scarred from the assault.

  Tolvern had given commands to the ship’s AI to time the eliminon battery and warn her when they would lose its effects, and now Jane’s calm voice sounded on the com link.

  “Two minutes estimated until the collapse of the gravity shield.”

  Damn it!

  “Where the hell are my cannon?” Tolvern said. “I need another broadside, now.”

  Even before the words had come out, the cannons fired. Zealand and Richmond fired at the same time. The torpedo boats made another pass, and the Hroom swooped back into the fight.

  Something was happening where the bulbous head of the harvester began to narrow. Gases jetted out, and when Smythe zoomed the viewscreen, it showed fire, burning in a gaping hole, where oxygen ignited as it vented into space. Tolvern could scarcely imagine the shields and bombproofs the buzzards must have to survive such a pounding, but the fleet had finally broken through them.

  Tolvern called the gunnery. “Barker! Do you see it?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Shove some torpedoes right down its gullet.”

  “Already on it.”

  Blackbeard launched four torpedoes and a pair of missiles. The belly cannon fired while the main cannon were being reloaded. Other ships in the fleet seemed to spot the enemy weakness at the same time. Two destroyers drew dangerously close and lashed at it with their heaviest guns. The explosions continued to grow in the weakened spot in the enemy hull, but not fast enough.

  “Thirty seconds to collapse of the gravity shield,” Jane said.

  And then Dreadnought fired another broadside. Hundreds of tons of kinetic fire smashed into the enemy’s wound. A massive jet of flame and debris burst from the ship’s guts. A secondary explosion burst a hole in its spine. The destroyers kept hitting the wounded ship even as debris came blowing past them.

  “Get away from there,” Tolvern said. “Move.”

  Blackbeard and the other ships pulled back from the self-destructing harvester ship.

  “Five seconds to collapse of gravity shield.” Jane paused. “Gravity shield now offline.”

  Almost instantly, the lances and spears of the enemy fleet began to move. At the same moment, another explosion burst out the side of the harvester ship, and a full cruiser worth of debris spewed into space. Such was the force of the explosion that it shoved the massive ship toward Singapore, where it began to lose altitude.

  Soon, it hit the upper atmosphere, where it caught fire. It descended into the night sky over the planet like a flaming sun. Cheers erupted across the bridge. Hugs, back slaps. Nyb Pim let out a high, keening hoot, a song of celebration.

  Tolvern allowed them a moment to enjoy their victory, then addressed the tech console. “Give me an active sounding. I want to know where all of those ships are. It’s time to do mop up, and I don’t want to miss anyone.”

  A flashing light alerted her of at least one enemy of immediate concern. One of the spears—itself a match for a cruiser—came in with energy weapons pounding. They lit up the starboard and deck shields. But McGowan’s cruiser was at hand, and swung in from the opposite side of the enemy ship. The spear soon fled under the combined assault of Blackbeard and Peerless.

  The battlefield had devolved into a series of struggles. Here a pair of destroyers and a frigate fought two lances, while a few thousand miles away, three corvettes broke apart a gathering hunter-killer pack. The cruisers paired up, sometimes with torpedo boats, to target and destroy stray lances. Dreadnought caught the spear Blackbeard and Peerless had damaged earlier and tore it to shreds.

  Meanwhile, something curious was happening with the final group of lances and spears. They’d loitered a few tens of thousands of miles away as events played out following the use of the eliminon battery. It made perfect sense that they’d stayed out of range, but the gravity shield was down and they hadn’t yet joined the fight in orbit around Singapore. This force held sixteen lances and four spears, plenty of firepower to tip the battle. Instead, they lingered outside the battlefield, doing nothing as the combined human and Hroom fleet mauled the surviving lances and spears in orbit.

  “Look, Cap’n,” Capp said. “Some of ’em are getting away.”

  Several lances were fleeing the battlefield and joining this final group of enemies. Others tried the same thing, but were blocked before they could reach jump speed, and forced to fight.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll finish these off, then take care of what’s left.”

  The fleet had been in combat for several hours. A torpedo boat had been destroyed, and several other ships had taken significant damage. Zealand’s guns were savaged, her torpedo bays melted into slag. She’d been forced to draw in next to Dreadnought for protection, and couldn’t even manage to launch missiles.

  But in addition to the fiery death of the harvester ship, another dozen or more lances and spears had been completely destroyed or rendered helpless, and most of the rest had suffered under Royal Navy fire. Even if Drake were to order a retreat, the battle would be counted as a success, but things were rapidly progressing to a full rout, the enemy annihilated. Total victory was at hand.

  “More ships, sir,” Smythe said, “and . . . oh, no.”

  The main screen showed Richmond. Caites was mauling one lance and holding off another. Tolvern had ordered some of Bravo’s ships to join her in the fight, but they weren’t yet in position.

  Smythe changed the view to the four hunter-killer packs that been milling outside the battlefield. For a moment, Tolvern blinked, confused. The number of enemies had grown, and not just from the lances fleeing to join its protection, but from several other ships that hadn’t been on the scans earlier.

  And then, Tolvern spotted what had drawn Smythe’s alarm. Coming up from behind was not one, but two harvester ships.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Drake stared at the viewscreen. The crew on the bridge followed his lead, staring and quiet. Simon, the ship’s AI, broke the silence. He warned of damage to the hull and shields. A light blinked on Drake’s console, with a faint, but insistent chime, and there was a throbbing sound like water hammering in a rusty pipe that radiated up through Drake’s feet.

  Two more harvester ships. The first was long and stretched, with a bulbous tail and three short arms up front that looked more like scythes than grasping tentacles. The second was shorter in the body, but with eight long, hooking arms. Jagged spikes ran along the inside of each arm. A large protuberance glowed like a blue eye where the arms met the body.

  The harvester ships came directly at Dreadnought. Several Albion vessels moved to intercept. The first to arrive was Catherine Caites, at the helm of Richmond, which had been battling a pair of lances. Captain Woodbury on Repulse moved to join her. A pair of corvettes, a destroyer, and two torpedo boats rushed into the fight.

  Caites and her support ships were too late to intercept the first harvester, which barreled forward, but they managed to block the second, larger one. The two cruisers pulled about and delivered a broadside, while other Albion warships fired missiles and torpedoes.

  This second harvester pulled up and let loose a fireworks display of flashing energy weapon
s and exploding bomblets. One of the destroyers fell into its direct line of attack. Explosions rippled along the hull and tore it to pieces moments later.

  The massive eye swiveled. A beam of green light stabbed out and caught Richmond in its glare. The light seemed to spread over the hull, but it didn’t stop the cruiser, which kept pounding away, now with torpedoes, as it reloaded cannon. The other ships hammered away, but concentrated fire from the harvester forced the corvette and the torpedo boats to withdraw.

  “Caites, sir,” Lloyd called from the tech console.

  The woman appeared on the viewscreen. Her eyes were flashing and a flush had come to her fair complexion. Her lips pinched together, and the furrow of her brow gave her an eager, almost wolfish look. This was Catherine Caites in her element.

  “I’ll hold this monstrosity here,” she said, “but I need more firepower. Give me Task Force Bravo, and by God we’ll tear this thing apart.”

  Drake glanced at his first mate. “Manx, call Tolvern. Get Bravo into the fight.” Then, back to Caites. “What the devil is that energy beam?”

  “Don’t worry about that, Admiral. Looks like the tyrillium is spreading it over the hull, diffusing whatever effect it may otherwise have.”

  “Yes, but what is it?”

  “Some old weapon, no doubt, maybe—”

  She never finished the sentence. Instead, her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she slumped over, then slid out of view. There was nothing left on the screen but a shot of her captain’s chair. Nobody else took over in her place.

  Alarmed, Drake shunted her feed to one side and put the larger view back front and center. Richmond sat motionless, weapons dead. No evasive maneuvers, no attempts to fight back as the harvester ship turned toward her. All the while it kept that green light focused on the cruiser.

  As Drake watched in horror, the harvester stretched its arms and grabbed Richmond. The serrated edges tore into her hull, cracking through armor, ripping open bulkheads and bombproofs. When the cruiser began spewing gases, the arms turned the ship around and pressed it against a mouthlike aperture, where it seemed to be disgorging something into the captured warship.