McGowan’s crew was in rare form as Peerless slid alongside two star wolves to join a tussle with a trio of dragoons. He maneuvered the cruiser into perfect position to strike against weakened armor, and in a single torpedo salvo, tore the enemy ship in two before Vigilant had even arrived on the scene. Drake struck a dragoon portside, hit another below, and with the aid of HMS Bolt, sent it fleeing from the battlefield, engines sputtering. It made it a few thousand miles and detonated.
Two dragoons, attempting to escape an attack by two corvettes, Swordfish and Meteor, and a star wolf named Longboat, fell back toward the carriers. And the star leviathan. Drake maneuvered Vigilant to hammer them into place.
“Hit the monster with tubes one and two,” he ordered. “Dead-on below the carrier at twenty-seven degrees.”
Pearson raised an eyebrow, but gave the order to the gunnery without comment. Moments later, a pair of torpedoes streaked toward the leviathan. They struck its surface with a pair of explosions. The monster didn’t change course, but multiple tentacles twisted outward, each one fifty feet in diameter and stretching for dozens of miles. Its spore cannon fired and enveloped the dragoons. The tentacles snared them and dragged them in. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only victim.
“It hit Longboat!” Drysdale shouted.
Spores had flown past the dragoons toward the Alliance ships, and two globules hit the star wolf, where they expanded and gummed the engine. A tentacle snaked toward it. Vigilant was only ten miles away, and could have also been hit, if things had gone different.
“Boarding rockets,” Drake said. “Quickly.”
Pearson got his meaning at once. They had marines thawed and suited up as a matter of course, but this wasn’t to board an enemy ship. Two rockets shot out from the cruiser and speared Longboat along its starboard flank. Vigilant hit the engines and gave the injured star wolf a yank. The tentacle flailed and missed.
The first of the captured dragoons vanished into the leviathan’s mouth. The second fired weapons in an attempt to sever the appendage hauling it in, but seemed destined for the same fate. Even while feeding, the monster made as if to pursue Vigilant, who slowly accelerated away from danger with the star wolf in tow.
Vigilant’s instruments flashed with static. The star fortresses had let loose with a massive charge, which Drake initially thought was targeting the allied ships. But when the instruments cleared, the leviathan was back on target, instead of lunging about for its next morsel. Vigilant hauled the star wolf to safety.
Peerless forced another dragoon into danger, where it fell to spore and tentacle like the two dragoons before it. The cruisers Alacrity and Savage were under heavy attack by several dragoons, who were trying to return the favor and force them toward the leviathan. The creature spotted them and blasted its spore cannon. A spore hit Savage along the main battery, expanded, and left it gummed and unable to fire.
But worse hit was Alacrity, one of the newest Punisher-class cruisers out of the Albion yards. A spore caught its engine, two more struck the bridge, and when it made a final attempt to squirm free and reach safety on sheer momentum before its engines failed, three more struck above the escape pod ports and gummed up the whole works. Drake could only listen helplessly to the shouts over fleet com as the leviathan hooked it with tentacles and dragged it down. Alacrity’s captain was still yelling for help for several seconds after the cruiser had vanished down the monster’s gaping throat. And then, silence.
During all of this, Dreadnought had been facing the front of the leviathan, firing missiles and torpedoes in an attempt to lure it off course. The star fortresses guiding the leviathan maintained rigid control, and every time it attempted to turn toward the enticing prize, another jolt of energy flashed from the carriers.
“They’re hitting it with something,” Drake said. “I want to know what it is and if we can block them from doing it.”
“Are we sure we want to free that thing, sir?” Drysdale asked.
“Yes. With any luck it starts by eating those blasted star fortresses. What are they doing to it?”
“The ghouls are jamming our sensors. I can’t get a good view of the surface of the leviathan.”
“I wish we’d kept the war junks around,” Drake said. The ships he’d sent away were making contact with Tolvern’s fleet even as he spoke. “They’d probably be dead by now, though. Do what you can without letting the defense grid slip.”
Longboat did a controlled plasma flare and burned off the spores. Its engines eased back to life, and Drake dislodged the boarding rockets and reeled in the lines as the star wolf maneuvered to face incoming dragoons.
Mose Dryz called. Drake had spent enough time with Hroom, especially Nyb Pim on Blackbeard, to recognize fear in the whistled greeting. Dreadnought had narrowly missed a tentacle swinging in her direction only moments earlier.
“The star leviathan keeps trying to roll starboard,” Mose Dryz said. “The ghouls are having a hard time controlling it on that side.”
Drake gave it a moment of thought. “Good observation. I’ll hit the carrier holding it from that position. See if we can’t distract the enemy long enough for that monster to make a break for it.”
Mose Dryz made an uncertain humming sound in his throat. “That will take you close to its spore cannons. I had better come around and assist you.”
“Dreadnought isn’t maneuverable enough, and it’s not like I can harpoon you if you get in trouble like I did the star wolf. Support us with long-range missiles, but stay out in front. And by God, be ready to get out of here in a hurry.”
“An excellent plan, James Drake.”
Was it? he wondered as he cut the line. It felt like an act of desperation. As they approached and the three nearest star fortresses started firing missiles, it seemed more desperate still. But they’d done damage to the dragoons, and in spite of Alacrity’s loss, he still had plenty of firepower. Dreadnought’s missiles alone were the equal of two missile frigates’, and the general, though obeying orders to stay out front, swung far enough around to lend the aid of the battleship’s superior countermeasure batteries.
They brought down the first wave of enemy ordnance while landing blows on the carrier in turn. It was Star Fortress Alpha, one of the known ships from the database. Whatever it was doing kept the same side exposed to their weapons, while the other faced the creature. That gave Drake a steady target.
He fought off another dragoon attack. Brought down more enemy missiles, although some were beginning to get through. Bolt and Swordfish charged, dropped torpedoes from close range, and escaped. The attacks were inflicting damage on the carrier. Dreadnought’s missiles kept thundering down from behind, and she was taking few blows in return, with her position ahead of the leviathan ironically shielding her from enemy attack. Mose Dryz kept his brawlers attached, knowing they’d never be able to flee when it came time to run, and their position forward absorbed damage that might have otherwise got through.
And then the enemy gave the star leviathan a shove. It shifted, more abruptly than Drake would have thought possible. A beak-like appendage extended from its mouth, opened, and vomited a huge spray of spores toward Dreadnought.
The general fired countermeasures, exploded a nuclear weapon several miles in front of the ship. But the wave of spores rolled through them and struck the battleship in several places. They expanded, covered the sensors, overran the affixed brawlers, and gummed weapon systems. The engines weren’t affected, and the ship began to pull away even as the star leviathan threw out tentacles. One slammed onto the ship and dug through bombproofs.
Dreadnought was caught.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Drake’s response was immediate. “All ships to Dreadnought’s aid.”
Cruisers, corvettes, and star wolves broke from fighting the enemy carrier. Cannons, missiles, energy pulses—anything and everything they could throw into the fight—struck the grasping tentacle to sever it, damage to Dreadnought’s own armor be damned. If
they couldn’t free her, all the armor in the world wouldn’t save her from being devoured by the star leviathan.
Longboat, recently freed from a similar attack, charged in fearlessly and struck the tentacle with pummel guns. The tentacle snapped in two, the outer part still digging, even severed from the monster. The spore cannon fired again and hit Longboat, engulfing it in a gummy, expanding mass. A tentacle lashed at the star wolf and caught it. A second tentacle caught Dreadnought before she could break free.
Drake now had two ships ensnared. And the leviathan was firing more spores. They hit a star wolf by the name of Flint, and Savage, a cruiser. Tentacles seized them. Meteor was next to be struck, but the corvette was accelerating out of danger, and slipped past a grasping tentacle on sheer momentum.
Dreadnought was still firing, and her engines pushed with such thrust that they were dragging the leviathan along, even though the monster was venting huge jets of violet plasma from its nozzle to pull in the opposite direction. The tentacles were dragging it inexorably closer, and even a full broadside did nothing to slow that movement. A third tentacle struck the battleship.
The tentacle holding Savage dragged it in, and the cruiser launched escape pods. The rear of the ship disappeared into the monster’s mouth. The cruiser hadn’t even gone all the way down when Flint joined it, and unlike Savage’s crew, the Scandians couldn’t abandon their ship though the mass of spores gumming its bays.
The star leviathan devoured them both, even as it continued to haul Dreadnought closer. Tentacles drew Longboat and a captured dragoon against its body as if holding them for dessert after it finished off the battleship. Dreadnought kept fighting, but it was inevitable now.
Drake watched in horror, aware that he was witnessing his old ship’s death. The battleship had survived war, mutiny, and combat against harvester ships and star fortresses. But nothing could survive a fight with a star leviathan. Three tentacles had it now. Even after devouring several other ships, the monster seemed hungrier than ever.
Dragoons and star fortresses pummeled the surviving Alliance ships, hitting them with impunity. The only thing keeping them from complete destruction was the monster’s wild flailing about as it fed; the ghouls seemed on the verge of losing control, and kept hitting it with pulses in an attempt to bring it back in line.
“General!” Drake called. “Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship! General! Do you read me?”
There was no answer, or at least none he could pick out over the chaos that had become the fleet com. Dozens of escape pods launched from the surface of the doomed battleship. But there were thousands of crew and marines on board, and only a few hundred could have possibly escaped before the leviathan swung the battleship around, opened its mouth wide, impossibly wide, and shoved the bow inside.
A massive explosion went off, perhaps one final attempt to shove nukes down the star leviathan’s gullet, but when the viewscreen cleared, the monster was unharmed, and the front third of the ship had already vanished, like a wild boar going down the throat of a python. Another handful of escape pods launched, and then HMS Dreadnought, the mightiest ship in the Royal Navy, was gone.
#
The ghouls lost control of their monster as it ate Dreadnought. Temporarily, at least. It flailed about, snaring dragoons and going after one of their carriers on the weak side, even while it gulped down other captured ships, including Longboat.
The star fortresses jolted it with charges, and gradually began to hem it in as they reformed a diamond shape around its body. Tentacles retracted. The leviathan seemed more circumspect as it chewed at the final ships. Or perhaps it was nearly sated after its gluttony. The cone shape bulged in the center, with glowing, sparking explosions along its surface. The blasted thing seemed to have indigestion, or maybe that was only wishful thinking.
Drake used the enemy confusion to join a scramble in scooping up escape pods. There were a few dragoons buzzing about, but the enemy command structure seemed to be shattered, and Drake took advantage of their disarray. Vigilant snared two final escape pods, these filled with survivors from Longboat. The stunned Scandians dragged out of their pods had survived not one, but two spore and tentacle attacks, and the final destruction of their star wolf.
Hundreds of human and Hroom had survived the death of their ships, but thousands more had died.
Among the dead, Mose Dryz. Crew from one of the final pods to launch from Dreadnought confirmed that the general had gone down with his ship, fighting to the very end to help others escape.
Drake wouldn’t let the sacrifice go to waste. He gathered his ships and accelerated with all haste toward Tolvern’s fleet. The three battle cruisers had left the final two star fortresses crippled, and were winging toward one of the two Moscow jumps. They were going to make it, as it was already too late for the leviathan to intercept them.
After a few minutes of separation from the enemy, who had yet to give pursuit, Drake’s pilot confirmed their own course. Vigilant and the other surviving ships would join Tolvern in escaping Lenin and its graveyard of human, Hroom, and Adjudicator ships.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
As soon as Blackbeard entered Moscow, Tolvern led the three battle cruisers in forming a half-moon around the jump point while the rest of the fleet came through. Two days after breaking off with the star fortresses, she was still in shock, exhausted and continuing on pure momentum.
More than twenty Alliance warships had met their deaths in the Lenin System. Thousands of crew dead from across two races and multiple civilizations. Dreadnought’s final destruction, even witnessed from afar, had shocked them all into silence. An even bigger blow was the death of Mose Dryz.
Ships kept pouring through the jump, and Tolvern set Vargus and Fox to organize them for a rapid flight through Moscow while she concentrated on keeping the jump point secured. As if that were at all possible in the face of a star leviathan should it come through.
In spite of their losses, the ships joining her carried so much firepower that it was hard to believe they were fleeing. They’d destroyed multiple star fortresses and dozens of dragoons, inflicting what should have been a crushing defeat on the enemy. By now they should be in Heaven’s Gate, bombarding Adjudicator colonies. Forcing them to their knees, into an unconditional surrender, revenge for starting an unprovoked genocidal war.
Instead, the humans and Hroom were on the run. The enemy facing them could not be defeated.
Vigilant jumped through, the first of fewer than ten surviving ships from the leviathan battle. Tolvern gratefully handed over command to Drake and retreated to her quarters to collapse. By the time she dragged herself out of bed six hours later, the entire fleet was underway.
Two hours after that, six star fortresses entered Moscow. With them, the star leviathan. Any hope the monster would break free, bury itself on some asteroid or moon, and spend the next two decades digesting, molting, or spawning vanished. Instead, it was clear that the Adjudicators intended to drive it across the inner frontier until it either caught the fleet or descended on the home systems.
Their only advantage was that the enemy didn’t have full control over the monster. It tried to break free at the jump, and then again a few hours later. By the time the Adjudicators reasserted control, Drake’s fleet had increased the distance between them and the enemy. He sent Tolvern several proposed pathways to lose the pursuit, and asked if Nyb Pim would evaluate them.
They picked up more time on the following jump, and escaped from there into a system known as IF-VI before the enemy had entered. The enemy now had no idea where the fleet had gone. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, Tolvern pointed out when Capp expressed her relief. What would keep the ghouls from driving the leviathan into one of the home systems and tearing it apart? Maybe even to Albion itself? They had to stop it before it reached inhabited Alliance systems.
Several days later, when they’d reached yet another poorly explored system and were still groping their way back toward Fortaleza, N
oah Brockett called Tolvern down to the science lab. She arrived to find Lieutenant Smythe already there, with the tech and science officers bent over a console. Petri dishes, slides, and other evidence of Brockett’s work lay strewn around his lab. Various machines whirred, separating and analyzing tissue samples.
“Please tell me you’ve engineered a virus to kill the leviathan,” she said as the door slid shut behind her.
Brockett turned toward her and fumbled for the glasses he’d propped on top of his head. “As a matter of fact, my professor at the university did research on the parasites that live on a star leviathan. There’s an entire ecosystem there. It’s what got me interested in ancient xenobiology in the first place. But no. Impossible.”
She spread her hands. “Well?”
“This one’s been around a while,” Brockett said. “Based on decaying isotopes, the leviathan that ate Dreadnought is at least 740 thousand years old.”
“How do you know that?”
“A raider cut off a bit of tentacle when Longboat went down,” Smythe explained. “I wish you could chalk it up to quick thinking, but it sounds like he wanted a souvenir, nothing more.”
“And he had time to cut it off, get to an escape pod, and flee his ship while it was being devoured by a star leviathan?” Tolvern shook her head. “Sometimes I think the Scandians are all a little mad.”
“Olafsen heard of the trophy and passed the sample along to Drake, who sent it here,” Smythe said.
Tolvern had caught wind of this already; nobody was flinging cargo at her ship while humming along at several percent light speed without her knowing of it.
“Brockett’s point is that the star leviathan is far older than the ghouls,” Smythe continued, “who’ve been around a while, but not that long.”
“So they must have captured it later,” Brockett said. “Forced it to do their bidding. They didn’t raise it from a microscopic spore or anything.”
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