But he was still going too fast, and at these speeds risked either skipping straight back into space again or slamming into the surface. Drake ordered the engines reversed. All was white on the viewscreen, and then suddenly they were below the clouds and into the purplish-tinted troposphere. They soared above the ocean, heading south, still at ninety thousand feet elevation, but dropping quickly. A jagged coastal range appeared like a five-hundred-mile-long row of granite teeth. The highest mountains soared to twenty thousand feet or higher, but the world was so steamy that not even the tallest peaks were capped with snow.
Then they were past the mountain range and still descending. A forest, blood-red and unbroken, stretched as far as the screen could show. No sugar plantations here; at first glance, this appeared to be primeval jungle, the land never cleared or cultivated. But beneath those towering red ferns, he knew, lay the vine-choked remains of a vast Hroom civilization. What Hroom remained labored to produce the sugar that continued to enslave their people.
A missile streaked past. It detonated in the jungle and sent up a pillar of smoke and fire. Something struck the ship aft, making warning lights flash. Jane chimed her opinion for the first time: eleven percent damage to the deck shield. He could live with that, assuming the attack stopped.
“Bring us down,” he told Nyb Pim. “Closer.”
Soon they were racing along only a few dozen feet above the crown of the highest trees. They hooked over another mountain range, this one not so rugged, with vegetation covering every inch of its surface.
“Tolvern,” he said. “Watch for that destroyer. Is she following?”
“Negative, sir. No sign that any ships have followed us into the atmosphere.”
That made him suspicious, but they’d come in so fast there was a chance that Javelin hadn’t had time to enter the fight before Blackbeard was above the surface and out of sight. That didn’t mean the naval warship wouldn’t suddenly appear. Down near the planet’s surface, the destroyer was a threat. The fortresses, not so much.
Since the forts were positioned to repel assault from space, they were poorly placed to scan the surface. Once Drake had the batteries retracted and cloaking fully online, a zig-zagging course soon shook off the last few missiles and torpedoes chasing them through the atmosphere.
“I’ve located Malthorne’s estate, sir,” Smythe said. “It’s 341 miles to the southwest. Sending over the coordinates.”
That close? That was better than he’d hoped, stabbing in blindly as they had. Even at subsonic speeds, they should get there in forty-five minutes or so.
“Capp, you navigate us. Keep us below two hundred feet.”
“Aye, sir.”
Drake thought about what he’d planned for when they arrived at Lord Malthorne’s estate. May as well get Capp prepared now. “Call Carvalho and Oglethorpe. Tell them to be ready to disembark with the assault team in half an hour.”
“You want me to tell them?”
“Yes, you. The rest of you, into the war room. You, too, Smythe. You’ve been to the estate before.”
That left Capp alone on the bridge as the other four filed their way into the war room. She was rubbing her hand on her scalp again, looking after them with a worried expression.
“Don’t worry, if anything goes wrong, we’ll be out in two seconds.”
“Two seconds is all it will take to crash,” Tolvern muttered as the door closed on the war room.
Drake ignored her and told them all to sit.
“You’re leaving her in charge?” Tolvern pressed. “Better hope you’re right about Javelin. If we’ve got a destroyer on our tail, and that escaped prisoner is the only one on the bridge . . . ”
“You told me yourself that there was no sign of Javelin,” Drake pointed out.
“Yes, well.”
“Capp will be in charge of the bridge while we’re on the surface. Better get her used to the idea.”
Nyb Pim and Smythe gave Drake sharp looks.
“You’re kidding,” Tolvern said.
“Apart from engineering and gunnery duties—that’s Barker’s bailiwick—Capp will be calling the shots. At this point, we either trust her or we don’t.”
“Far be it from me to sound like a coward,” she said, “but doesn’t it make more sense to keep me on the bridge and send Capp in my place? Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be out there by your side, but I can fly this ship in a pinch, and Capp is a former royal marine. Seems to me that our positions on this mission are reversed from where they should be.”
Drake laid it out bluntly. “I want Capp and Carvalho separated. He’s coming with us, so she stays behind.”
“So you bring her and leave him. I’m not sold on Capp’s reliability, but I trust her a lot more than that pirate. And if I stay behind, I can keep an eye on him. Don’t tell me you trust him?”
“Carvalho came to our aid during the spaceyard attack, but no, I don’t trust him entirely. Not yet. I want him with me, not behind on my ship, together with all the other riff-raff he recruited on San Pablo.” Drake fixed Tolvern with a look that he hoped was both stern and sympathetic. “These are the options that remain, Commander.”
Her eyes flickered, and she dropped her gaze. She was remembering her own role in this, he could see. Tolvern had set the original mutiny into motion, and while Drake no longer thought that had been a monumental blunder, given his new suspicions about Malthorne and the rest of the Admiralty, it wouldn’t hurt for her to remember that these decisions had consequences, sometimes deadly.
“I assume there is a reason you’ve called us in here,” Nyb Pim asked in his soft, high voice. “And it wasn’t to tell us that you’re leaving Ensign Capp in charge. Have you made a decision?”
“About the antidote? No. I still don’t know what I’ll do. We have to get our hands on it, first. Then I’ll decide.”
“I see.”
Nyb Pim’s goal, Drake knew, was to distribute the antidote from one end of the sector to the other, freeing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of his fellow Hroom from sugar addiction. And likely dooming Albion and the other human worlds, as well, since they would lose their one advantage over the ancient alien race.
“We don’t have much time,” Drake said. “Less than an hour. How should we approach the lord admiral’s estate?”
“Is there a need for strategy?” Tolvern said. “We land right in the middle of the estate and use the ship’s guns to defend us as we approach the laboratories.”
“Is that possible?” Nyb Pim said. “I thought there was a small airport, but no spaceport. Where would we land the ship? Maybe Smythe knows.”
The tech officer looked up from his hand computer, blinking. “What? Oh, right. No, there isn’t a spaceport, but I can’t see why that matters. We’ll burn up the tarmac or wherever we put her down, but we’ll have no problem getting airborne again.”
This was not new information to Drake, who had been turning over the details of their final approach for the past few days. The problem wasn’t the condition of the airport.
“Too conspicuous,” he said. “Landing so close to the manor house and other buildings would alert Malthorne’s security forces, and they’d send a distress signal. If Javelin finds us, she can bomb us from orbit. I’d rather land some distance off and make the final approach on foot. Get right in there before we’re detected.”
“That will be tricky,” Smythe said. “Malthorne’s estate is in the highlands, where it’s cooler. There aren’t any sugar plantations around, or other flat, uncleared terrain, only jungle.”
“Nothing suitable?” Drake asked. “Not even a stretch of bare rock or gravel?”
“It’s wet and warm and sunny,” Smythe said. “Every inch is covered with vegetation. We could burn out a landing zone, I suppose. Pass over a few times with the plasma engines until we’re sure we’ve found a flat spot.”
Drake thought for a moment. “Burning a landing zone will attract attention. Not the same as landing a
warship in the middle of the estate, but someone will surely spot a big column of smoke and fire out in the jungle.”
“Could be that it helps us,” Tolvern said, “if the estate sends a few men to investigate and we can thin their ranks before we approach.”
“Unless they’re expecting us already,” Drake said. “If they’ve heard that a ship blasted its way past the forts, they might send a message to the fleet instead. Then we’re back to facing the destroyer coming after us.”
“Doubt they’d be that alert,” she said. “Smythe said the estate is guarded by private security, not royal marines. Chances are, they haven’t heard anything about us, and even if they have, maybe they’d figure they can handle it.”
“Our plan can’t rely on the incompetence of Malthorne’s forces in order to succeed.”
She shrugged. “They’re civilians. Incompetence is my default assumption.”
“Tell me about the admiral’s estate,” Nyb Pim said to Smythe. “You said the manor and the outbuildings are built on some sort of platform. What kind of stone is this platform?”
“How do you mean?” Smythe asked.
“What color are the stones? How big are they?”
Drake wasn’t sure how this was relevant, but he was curious how the tech officer would answer the Hroom’s questions.
Smythe furrowed his brow. He’d been out on Malthorne’s estate when the lord admiral had taken Dreadnought into the system, but he could be remarkably unobservant at times. It depended on the situation. If it was computer equipment, software, or anything that could be assembled and electrified, Smythe remembered every detail. This was not one of those cases, and Drake knew that he would eventually come up blank.
“Didn’t we already establish that this was a temple to the god of death?” Drake asked the Hroom. “Are you having second thoughts about that?”
“I want to be certain. It could be some other ruined structure the lord admiral used as his foundation. A temple to Lyam Kar—the god of death—is always built atop giant blocks of basalt. To represent the sleep of death.”
Drake didn’t quite follow, nor did he understand how this detail mattered, but something in Nyb Pim’s voice made him press forward. “Think, Smythe. Black basalt. Is that what you saw?”
“Maybe? Yes? There were vines and things growing from it where they hadn’t been burned down, but that sounds about right.”
“Only now I worry that I put that thought into your mind,” Nyb Pim said. “Humans are susceptible to misremembering details.”
“It was flat on top, I’m certain of that.” Smythe sounded more confident this time. “And there was a steep staircase of dressed stone leading to the jungle floor.”
“We’re pressed for time,” Drake cut in impatiently. “Is this important?”
“It may be, yes,” the Hroom said. “If it is a temple to the god of death, then there will be a second, smaller temple a few miles away, this one made of white marble. A temple to Lyam Kar’s brother, the god of rebirth. They are always constructed in pairs and at a predictable distance.”
“Would it be big enough to hold the ship?” Drake asked.
“I think so, yes. Nice and flat up top.”
“Sounds perfect,” Drake said.
“It should be easy enough to scan for it,” Smythe said.
“We might be flying over the jungle looking for something that doesn’t exist,” the Hroom said. “That seems risky, given the circumstances.”
“As is everything in this mission,” Drake said. “So we’re all set.” He rose. “The three of you go to engineering and check gear, make sure that the rest of the team is assembled and prepared. Damn, if we only had a helicopter to bring us in the last few miles. But I suppose we’ll have to do it on foot.”
“Where will you be, sir?” Tolvern asked.
He tried not to grimace and forced confidence into his voice that he did not feel. “On the bridge, coaching Ensign Capp as she brings us in for a landing.”
Chapter Four
Captain Rutherford of HMS Vigilant had pursued the Hroom frigate for two days from San Pablo. The alien ship had made several attempts to lose them, had made a feint toward one jump point, then tried to slink away toward a second while cloaked. Before attacking the Hroom spaceyards on San Pablo, Rutherford had seeded the system with detectors so he could get advance warning of a Hroom counterattack, and one of these caught the escape attempt. Rutherford continued his relentless pursuit.
The Hroom was only an hour ahead of Rutherford’s task force when it reached the second jump point and disappeared from the system. Rutherford sent an order for the other ships to run checks on their warp point engines in preparation to follow him through.
Worried messages came back to him from the rest of the task force. Captain Harbrake on HMS Nimitz seemed especially concerned about stumbling into a trap. Harbrake was rubbing his hands together nervously when he appeared on the viewscreen, his big, hound-dog eyes adding to the effect of a man who would rather be drinking a snifter of brandy in front of a peat fire on Albion than entering battle. A gentleman warrior. Only never mind the warrior part.
“Are you sure this is wise, Rutherford? It’s a Hroom system on the other side of that jump.”
“Nominally,” Rutherford said. “A few mining colonies overrun with sugar eaters. Practically abandoned. Slavers come and go at will. No, I don’t think we’ll be under much threat, and if we are, this fleet has more than enough firepower to respond.”
“But the next few systems have enemy naval bases,” Harbrake whined. “If the Hroom on San Pablo sent distress signals, that’s about where the enemy would be by now. We might come out the other side to find half the Hroom navy waiting for us.”
“Good. I hope so.”
“Good? Captain Rutherford, pray let’s not do anything hasty.”
How could Harbrake be so craven? Anyway, that worry about the Hroom navy was nonsense. Albion had extracted all manner of concessions after the latest war, and Rutherford personally knew, after fighting that final, decisive engagement at Drake’s side, that the Hroom navy was decimated. They hadn’t materialized another fleet or two in the past few months.
“Yes, good. Excellent, in fact. The lord admiral ordered us to destroy all enemy ships in the San Pablo system,” Rutherford said. “To prevent any from escaping, should they make an attempt.”
“But they’re no longer in the system. And anyway, it’s only one little frigate. Barely armed. Captain Crispin says—and I agree with him—that a more prudent course would be to return to the Barsa system and resume the search for Captain Drake and his mutinous crew.”
Harbrake continued with the excuses, but his words soon turned into a drone. The more excuses he gave, the less weight they carried. It sounded like cowardice, plain and simple.
Rutherford let him go on for a few more minutes before cutting him off. “If you wish to send a message to the lord admiral to complain that we’re pursuing the enemy too ruthlessly, go ahead. Perhaps Malthorne will elevate you to the flag officer of the expedition. Until then, we’ll continue as ordered. Is that understood, Harbrake?”
A moment of silence as Harbrake looked back at him. A vein pulsed on the man’s forehead, and his jaw clenched. “Yes, sir.” The screen went blank.
Rutherford turned back to his console. There was nothing to do now except verify that the other ships in his task force—two cruisers, besides Vigilant and Nimitz, plus six destroyers and eleven torpedo boats—were ready for the jump. It was a formidable force, and he was only short a battleship or carrier to make it the most powerful fleet he’d personally commanded. If any Hroom warships were dumb enough to be waiting on the other side, he would smash them to bits.
Maybe he should have kept Harbrake on the screen for a few more minutes. The older officer’s whining kept Rutherford’s thoughts from returning to the battle at San Pablo. If one could call it a battle. He’d come into orbit around the planet and done a quick scan of both the
human and the Hroom continents to search for Drake’s ship, which had supposedly been under repair in one of the spaceyards on the surface. Malthorne said the Hroom continent. Rutherford had his doubts. Even more doubts when he finished the search.
There had been no sign of either Drake or HMS Ajax. The Hroom had detected Albion warships in the system in defiance of the recently signed treaty and sent protests. Rutherford dropped one of his destroyers into the atmosphere and buzzed it provocatively over the Hroom cities. Someone foolishly fired a couple of missiles in an attempt to drive off the destroyer. That gave Rutherford his pretext, his cause juste.
Rutherford had set up in orbit for thirty-six hours, bombarding the Hroom cities with atomic bombs. He hadn’t carried a large arsenal—a little over fifty small warheads. But he fired them all. When he was finished, the major Hroom cities lay in smoking, radioactive ruins. Protests came raging in from the Hroom Empire before he’d finished, and even the human governor—some Ladino—had complained angrily, though his continent was protected from fallout by a wide ocean.
Rutherford issued a curt response to human and alien alike. The Hroom had attacked first; he had had no choice. Inside, he was twisting with anger that Malthorne had pushed him to this.
It was a bloody ruse of war, is what it was. There had been nothing honorable in his actions. He hadn’t come to San Pablo to track down a missing royal warship and bring its renegade captain to justice. He’d come to start a war.
Upon leaving San Pablo, Rutherford had attacked and destroyed two Hroom merchant ships and then set off in pursuit of a third. It had no armaments, was not even smuggling sugar. There was no reason to attack it except to follow orders. He was inclined to let it escape, if not for his damn orders.
If there was a massive Hroom fleet on the other side of that jump, so be it. It was nothing more than he deserved. He almost wished such a thing were possible. Fighting real enemies would be a relief.
The viewscreen chimed again with more communication from Nimitz. Harbrake was back, looking through with those droopy eyes.
Lords of Space (Starship Blackbeard Book 2) Page 3
