That was sobering. Grim looks all around, as they contemplated two full days of enemy attack without support.
But it could be worse. Assuming Smythe was right, and McGowan would arrive via Nebuchadnezzar, it meant the fleet had beaten back the first Adjudicator invasion. Had it been an all-out assault, or were the aliens still probing, testing the navy’s strength since isolating a good portion of the Alliance fleet in Persia?
“Listen to me,” she said. “This is no green crew. Our crew, our ship, has fought worse and won. We’re not some piddling trade federation or the desperate defenders of a backward, low-G planet. This is an Ironside-class battle cruiser with the best crew in the Royal Navy. Best nav, best techs, best gunners. We’ve got generations of tactics and tech backing us up, and we’ve taken the best from our former rivals, too, incorporated what they had to teach us.
“I don’t know who these bastards are, or why they think they can judge us or our civilization, but by the time this battle is over—this battle, here and now—they’re going to regret picking a fight with the Royal Navy and the Human-Hroom Alliance.”
A lusty cheer sounded across the bridge, and Tolvern leaned back on her heels, feeling proud of herself. Yeah, that was a good speech, almost worthy of Admiral Drake.
Except then she noticed that the doors had swung open and a figure had stepped onto the bridge, and it was him that they were cheering.
Nyb Pim was roughly seven feet tall, tall and slender, and with a calm, noble look on his face. His skin was dark purple, almost indigo, but bright pink splotches covered his arms and neck where it had burned off. A long strip of pink stretched up the side of the pilot’s face as well, nearly to one of his black, pupil-less eyes.
One of Wang’s war junks had a partial Hroom crew, and she’d sent over her Hroom medical staff, who had peeled off Nyb Pim’s burned skin and grafted on a replacement.
Tolvern saluted him, then held out her hand. “You, sir, are a hero.”
Nyb Pim made a hum deep in his throat that sounded embarrassed and pleased at the same time. “I was relieved to hear that Drake survived,” he said in his high, almost hooting voice. “But I am sorry that he is still in stasis.”
“The medics say he can be healed—assuming we get him to proper medical facilities—but if you hadn’t dragged him out of the bridge, he’d be dead.” Tolvern licked her lips, remembering that horrible moment when she’d heard that her husband was burned and might not survive. “We’ll always be grateful to you for that. I’ll be grateful.”
Another hum, a whistle through his nose slits. “May I resume my position, sir? My mind feels sluggish, and I need to run diagnostics on my nav chip.”
“Of course. We are very glad to have you.”
“Lieutenant Capp?” Nyb Pim said.
“With pleasure, mate,” Capp said. She moved out of the oversized chair by the nav station and swiveled it around for him to sit.
Nib Pym took the handrests with his long fingers and eased himself down. There were bad burns on his legs, Tolvern knew, and the muscles would need time to regenerate. The medics would have to go in there and repeatedly clean scar tissue to keep it from knotting up. But the pilot was too dignified to express his pain. The only sign was that stiffness and a twitch along the jaw when he clenched his muscles.
“Careful there, mate,” Capp said, her tone gentle. “Let me get that station adjusted.” She was usually so rough around the edges that Tolvern found her concerned tone charming. “I was only just filling in. You know I ain’t half the pilot you are.”
“That sounds like human exaggeration. You are very capable, Lieutenant.”
Tolvern glanced around the bridge. It was still torn up, and by rights, Drake should be here overseeing it all, but she was a different officer than she’d been before the mutiny, the civil war, and the fights against pirates, Scandians, and Hroom cultists. And Apex. Especially that.
This was her bridge, her fight. And she trusted everyone here. Everyone below, too. They could win this thing.
A quick glance at the viewscreen to mark the relentless progress of the Adjudicator fleet, then a nod at Capp.
“Lieutenant, you have the bridge.”
#
Tolvern should have been resting up for battle, but her mind was too active running over the knowns and unknowns. She went to the mess, had a drink with Barker and Carvalho—there was a time she wouldn’t have fraternized with enlisted crew or engineering types, as funny as that seemed now—then retreated to her quarters.
She pulled up an old textbook to review tactics of battles fought before she was born. The First Hroom War, the Barsa Incident. Stuff from Queen Maud’s reign. Then she brought up records of later battles, some of which she’d participated in. Already, they were teaching her maneuvers at the battle for Sentinel 3 in the war college.
But what was she looking for now? An angle? If only she knew what she was facing.
The knowns were few. The unknowns many.
Joneson, the poor sod. Once he’d found out he was the sole survivor, not only of the ghost ship, but apparently of his entire civilization, he’d begged her to kill him. What was left for him? He didn’t even have legs to walk on.
But of course Tolvern couldn’t let him die. Too much knowledge in his head. She’d ordered him back into stasis. A couple of days had passed since then, and something that Capp said in the briefing was still bothering her.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Capp had said later. “They come in, yeah? And they smash your planet. Wreck everything and carry off most of the people. And then they collapse your jump point. Do I got it about right?”
“That’s what Joneson reported,” Tolvern had said. “And I have no reason to doubt him. They carry off the majority of the population to work them to death—excuse me, to a special reserve—and leave the survivors stranded forever.”
“Yeah, but why? Just religious stuff or what?”
“Maybe the Adjudicators don’t want competition from other races. The ‘judging’ part is an excuse.”
“Except that’s kinda funny, ain’t it? Wouldn’t you want them jump points open so you could settle the planet yourself? If you don’t want competition, I mean.”
Capp had grown up on the rough streets of York Town, followed by a stint in the marines, with maybe some smuggling thrown in on the side. She looked and sounded so different from the typical navy officer that it was easy to dismiss her way of thinking. But the wheels were always turning in her head.
“I don’t know, Capp. They’re aliens—you can’t always figure out their motives.”
“All right, then. Think about it. They knock you down and collapse your jump point. This Joneson bloke was pretty clear on that. So how do you explain Castillo?”
That was right. Castillo. Or what Joneson had called Novosibirsk. Unless they were completely wrong in identifying it as such—and all evidence pointed to the two systems being the same—then this was a case where the Adjudicators hadn’t collapsed the jump point. The cul-de-sac system had the same stable jump point as before the attack. The same as what the old, the very old, charts reported.
And that brought up another interesting point. They’d knocked down the Persia jump point before reducing the planet. Tolvern had assumed that the aliens had done it merely to keep McGowan and Mose Dryz’s powerful fleet bottled up and unable to fight in the war, but it was another data point that messed with the overall narrative about what the Adjudicators were about, and what tactics they used.
She was finally in bed, drifting off, when Smythe called from the bridge. The Singaporeans had a good scan, and a clearer picture of the incoming alien fleet had appeared.
Eleven destroyer-sized dragoons. Two star fortress carriers. It was a formidable fighting force. Tolvern thanked him and cut the com, determined to snatch a few hours of sleep.
Two days. Forty-eight hours of fighting. Then your reinforcements arrive. All you need to do is survive until then.
Chap
ter Twelve
Svensen was back on Boghammer, in orbit around the planet with Wasteland and Icefall, when reinforcements jumped into Castillo. Svensen had five locals on ice—no hard feelings about all those people we killed, right?—and a haul of mech suits. Most of them still had dead aliens in them—ghouls, everyone was calling them. Svensen sent everyone and everything through decontamination—the alien stuff, twice—in case the attackers had used biological agents to destroy the planetary civilization. The Scandians had too much experience with plague to take chances.
Kelly got a subspace and told him where to look; otherwise, he might not have spotted the newcomers. A pair of Royal Navy cruisers had already jumped into the Castillo System by the time he spotted them. Punisher-class. They threw down a screen of mines and took a defensive posture while waiting for more ships to jump after them.
Boghammer, Wasteland, and Icefall set out for the asteroid belt to reunite the Fourth Wolves at the new base, but Svensen was mostly interested in the recent arrivals, and stayed in the command room long after he should have gone down to quarters for rest, eager to see what else came through. Kelly stayed with him, gnawing a thumb and pacing.
Next through was a Singaporean war junk, followed by a missile frigate, a pair of destroyers, a star wolf, and three Hroom sloops of war. Several long-haul merchanters without guns. The ten ships and the merchant vessels accompanying them were a good representation of the nations and species of the Alliance, but a fraction of the force he’d hoped would come through.
The incoming task force made contact, first with the base in the asteroid belt, and then with Svensen’s trio of wolves. The two cruisers were HMS Peerless and HMS Triumph, with Captain Edward McGowan on Peerless in command. Every ship in the small fleet had suffered damage, and McGowan was requesting immediate support from the new base’s facilities.
“What the devil?” Kelly asked.
Svensen snorted. “As if we have any facilities. That’s what they’re here for. To build out this base and give us proper yards. We’re just cleaning up for their arrival.”
“That’s not what I mean. Peerless and Triumph—they were supposed to support Blackbeard. What are they doing here? And where’s the rest of their task force?”
“Based on the damage reports I’m reading,” Jörvak said, looking up from his console, “I’d say the rest of their task force no longer exists.”
“For that matter, where’s our blasted task force?” Svensen said. “If these aren’t our guys, then where are they?”
“Probably the same place as the rest of McGowan’s squadron,” Jörvak said. “Tiny bits of debris scattered across a star system or two.”
That was sobering, but Svensen couldn’t afford to feel sentimental. A text report arrived from the newcomers that confirmed part of Jörvak’s theory. McGowan had set out from Odense with twenty-three ships and several dozen supply craft. They’d very nearly run into an ambush—the war junk had detected the attackers just in time—and fought a brutal, no-holds-barred struggle against a carrier-type ship and a large number of support warships in a straight-up battle.
“McGowan claims they won,” Kelly said, having read farther than Svensen. “Hate to see what losing would have looked like.”
“What ships did our side lose?” Jörvak said. The reports were written in English, and he’d been staring at his console with a frown.
“Six destroyers, two wolves, a corvette, a missile frigate, and four sloops of war,” Kelly said. “Not all are destroyed. Some can’t jump and are holding to wait for relief.”
And yet McGowan had pressed on. They must be desperate to hold these outer systems. Again, Svensen thought they should fall back toward Scandian territory. That would shorten supply lines, keep ships like Blackbeard and Boghammer from dangling out here on the inner frontier, waiting to be picked off.
“I can’t believe they’d abandon the admiral,” Kelly said. “Why didn’t McGowan go on to Fortaleza? Drake and Tolvern must be shouting for help out there.”
“Maybe Blackbeard didn’t make it,” Svensen said. “Maybe she was destroyed already, Fortaleza lost, and that’s why McGowan came here instead.”
Kelly’s scowl and crossed arms showed just what she thought of this idea. All these Albion sorts were so loyal to their admiral, yet wasn’t this whole mess Drake’s fault for stirring up trouble across the inner frontier?
The first video came through a few minutes later, having crossed the void from Peerless’s surviving ships. It was McGowan, a bandage around his head, his eyes bloodshot. Clean uniform, though, and freshly shaven. Another stiff aristocrat, Svensen thought.
“We lost the jump point into Fortaleza—” the recording began.
“Lost it?” Svensen said. “Where did you see it last? Maybe if you retraced your steps . . .”
Kelly hushed him.
“—and we don’t know what happened to the surviving enemy carrier. It’s intact, though, and it’s got serious firepower. If they follow us here . . .” McGowan shook his head. “I’ve picked up data from your base, and I don’t like what I’m seeing. No missile batteries, barely any guns. Where are your defenses, man?”
Svensen growled. “Where were we supposed to get them? Scavenge the ruins of the planet?”
“I’ve got some goods,” McGowan continued, “but we need time. Get your ships out to the base as soon as possible. As for the other task force . . .” McGowan sighed. “We might have lost it, too. I don’t know. The enemy is jamming our subspaces. I can’t get a message through to the admiral—or whoever is in charge there—might be Jess Tolvern. The void is eating my messages. Expect further communications as soon we’ve thoroughly scanned the system. Meanwhile, assemble in the belt with all haste.”
The transmission ended, and Svensen glanced at Kelly, who was gnawing her thumb with increased vigor.
“You’re going to chew that thing right off,” he said.
She dropped her hand. “Dammit, McGowan,” she told the screen. “What do you think we’re doing down here, goofing around? It was the blasted admiralty that ordered us to the planet. Stupid move, anyway. We weren’t going to find anything, and all we did was divide our ships.”
“That’s what I told you,” Svensen said. “You weren’t listening.”
She wheeled on him. “I had my orders!”
“Anyway, we did find something. We found the remnants of the space elevator, orbital bases that can be rebuilt. We grabbed alien tech, put some survivors in stasis to question as soon as we get a Singaporean translator.”
“The other task force is missing,” Kelly continued. “Nobody can get to Blackbeard. We’re bloody well cut off, and McGowan no doubt led the enemy here.”
“But we have something of a fleet now. We’ll give them a fight.”
“Maybe he’ll let us withdraw to the planet,” Kelly said. “That way if the enemy collapses the jump point, we’re at least somewhere we can survive. I don’t want to be trapped in the asteroid belt as they hammer us.”
Svensen was feeling surprisingly calm about the prospect. “The tunnels are deep. The aliens would have to dig us out. They have mech units, we have mech units. They have ships, we have them, too. What about this McGowan? Can he fight?”
“He’s defensive minded, at least with his own ship. Likes to keep his ship clean, but he’ll fight if he has to.”
“So he’s a chess player, not a gambler.” Svensen shrugged. “Not my style, but it might be called for this time.”
Kelly glanced around the command room and switched from Scandian to English. “I only wish we had Vargus or Fox. McGowan just took a beating. Is he going to turtle in down there, or use his ships to full effect?”
“That sounds like insubordination,” Svensen said, also in English. Several crew glanced his way, scowling.
Kelly looked glum. “Yeah, it does.”
“He’s already turtling down, the way I see it. Man had his orders, didn’t he? Was supposed to relieve Blackbeard, but
he came here instead.”
“You heard him. They collapsed the jump point.”
“All of them?” Svensen brought up the chart of Fortaleza, where Blackbeard was holding out, waiting for Peerless and the rest. “Three blue jump points and four yellows. It’s riddled with entries and exits. It’s the opposite sort of place as Castillo. There’s got to be another way into Fortaleza—why doesn’t he find it?”
“McGowan must have figured that one frontier outpost is as good as another. Now that our reinforcements were destroyed, we need his ships as badly as Blackbeard does.”
“Our reinforcements are out of contact. That’s different.” Svensen switched back to Scandian. “Come on, Kelly. There’s no reason for McGowan to come here except that it’s an easier, more defensible location, and he thought we’d protect him from attack.”
“Forget the planet, forget the base.” Also in Scandian. “We should get out of here before they trap us like they trapped the Persia fleet.”
She sounded badly rattled. Svensen didn’t like that turn, didn’t want it to spread to his men.
“And what? Run home with our tails between our legs?”
“As if you have any clue,” she said. “What are you? A raider—you don’t have experience in this sort of fight.”
“You’re the one who told me it was mutiny to ship out. We had our chance, but it’s too late now. We’re out here, there’s a fight on our hands. Running away is cowardice, and you know it.”
She bristled. “Don’t call me out in front of the men.”
“I’ll call you out when and where I want. You’re a blasted torpedo specialist who thought she’d take command of my ship and my fleet. You have the gall to say that I’m inexperienced? Look in the mirror, woman.”
“You are an ugly, brutish space Viking. A dumb cripple, and you stink.”
He kept his temper, though the others were staring, wide-eyed. “Yes, exactly. That is who I am, Kelly. And if you don’t like it, then get the hell off my ship.”
The Alliance Trilogy Page 12