“Greetings, Catarina Vargus. With the departure of Captain McGowan, I have been left in charge of the remaining allied forces. Congratulations, you have slowed the harvester ship and, I have been told, disabled its warp point engine. It is now trapped in the Xerxes System.
“Your forces have fought with great bravery and suffered terrible losses. I beg you to stand down until we arrive with reinforcements, and together we will finish what you have so nobly begun.”
#
The general’s assessment was soon confirmed as the harvester ship slowed and veered away from the jump point and toward a gas giant, as if hoping to hide in its thick atmosphere. The gas giant was ten hours away, Nyb Pim informed the captain, and there would be plenty of time to catch the enemy before it arrived.
Catarina had been on her feet for several hours, and she staggered to her seat in relief.
“Pull back, disengage. We’ll follow from a distance.”
The relief force joined them about ninety minutes later. Even without McGowan’s cruisers and corvettes, it was still a powerful addition to her fleet, which had lost fourteen warships in crippling the harvester. Mose Dryz brought nearly thirty ships to the fight, mostly sloops and destroyers, and Catarina kept them as a unified force, while she gathered her own ships together with the Scandians into a second.
Together, the two fleets took turns charging and retreating as they harried the harvester, absorbing as few blows as possible in return. The enemy ship finally turned around to face them head-on, and here the missiles and torpedoes from the combined fleet began to overwhelm its defenses.
Mose Dryz lost a pair of sloops and a destroyer, and Catarina lost one more star wolf, an already damaged ship that she’d ordered to stay out of the fight with the other crippled warships, but whose marauder captain hadn’t obeyed.
It took two more hours of combat, but the enemy weapons fell silent one by one. Finally, the harvester was nothing but a wreck, bleeding gasses from a hundred wounds. Longshanks wanted to send in raiders to be sure, but Catarina thought that was insane.
Instead, she set her war junks to melting holes through the armor until they could find no more air pockets to release into the void, then allowed Longshanks and his boys to enter the ship.
To the Scandians’ disappointment, they found no living enemies on board. It had come at great cost, but their victory was complete.
Chapter Thirteen
Tolvern returned to the bridge of Blackbeard to find the other officers dragging themselves in, as she’d left a skeleton crew in command so the rest could sleep. Oglethorpe gestured impatiently for an ensign to move out of his position at the tech console. Clyde eased into his seat with a groan.
The harvester was still pursuing them from Persia, joined by several lances. The lances were damaged and few in number, and didn’t concern her, but the harvester was more than she could handle. Not with the remnants of her fleet, battered after so many encounters with the enemy.
Memories from the most recent battle hung over her like a bad dream. Chief among them was the image of Stratsky making a suicide charge with his atomic payload.
You did that. You authorized that mission and sent Stratsky in to die.
Tolvern had had no choice. It was the only way to get through with a nuclear torpedo, her one hope of bringing down the space elevator. But it had failed. The elevator was damaged, but not destroyed, and more harvesters would soon rise into orbit.
Even more harrowing was the memory of HMS Champion caught in the jaws of the harvester while screams for help came over the com. Tolvern had made the call to abandon Champion and her crew to their fate. Again, what else could she have done?
Tolvern had lost so many warships in the battle that to attempt to free the cruiser would have been futile, would have led to the deaths of hundreds more men and women. She’d used Champion’s death as a distraction to make her escape.
Only now, waiting for information about the new ships reported by the excitable young ensign, she worried that it would all amount to nothing. She’d be caught and killed anyway, long before she could escape the death trap known as the Persia System.
Manx entered the bridge carrying two huge mugs of steaming tea, one of which he gave to Tolvern, who took it gratefully.
“Thought you could use some waking up, Captain.”
“Thanks, it’s a start.”
“I’m afraid this will wake you up more,” Oglethorpe said from the tech console.
He cleared the viewscreen of the harvester, and showed a number of shadowy forms approaching from the outer rim of the system.
“They’re still cloaked,” Tolvern said. “What are we looking at?”
“Can’t see what they are, sir, not unless we stop the junks and let them spread their wings.” Oglethorpe paused. “But I count twenty ships, sir.”
Tolvern licked her lips. Twenty. The math was almost too simple.
“Four hunter-killer packs, is that what you’re saying?”
“Sixteen smaller ships and four larger ones. It matches. Sixteen lances and four spears.”
Four hunter-killers, blast it. One pack she could sweep through with no problem. Two, probably. Three would force her to slow and fight. Four hunter-killer packs was a match for her weakened fleet. And while she fought them, the harvester would close and finish matters.
“How long have we got?” This question was directed to Clyde, the pilot.
“About an hour.”
Tolvern cursed.
“And the harvester is only ninety-eight minutes behind us,” he added.
“An hour and a half to defeat the hunter-killers, and then we fight the harvester, too.” She turned to her first mate. “Manx, I want a strategy for dropping a minefield.”
“To slow the harvester, sir?”
“We need to buy some time. Even an hour would help, two is better.” She took a deep breath. “Get with the gunnery, and run the numbers with the rest of the fleet. The destroyers should still have a fair number of mines. I’m giving you half an hour to start the drop.”
Manx’s expression was dark as he moved to obey, and Tolvern didn’t attempt to cheer him. No sense pretending—this wasn’t much of a chance. But they had to try to survive, and if not, to sell their lives dearly.
She kept thinking aloud. “There are no other jump points into Persia, so we’ll have to get through the hunter-killers somehow.”
“If we had some star wolves, we could do one of their decoy runs,” Oglethorpe said. “See if we could lure the buzzards away from the jump point.”
“The enemy wouldn’t bite anyway. There’s nowhere else we can run, so no feints and decoys are likely to work.” Another glance at the screen. “Makes me wonder why they’re not simply guarding the jump point.”
Manx looked up from his work. “Could be navy forces are on the other side and chased them through.”
Tolvern cheered slightly. That was a possibility she hadn’t considered.
Lieutenant Manx was on top of his work. Twenty minutes later the two remaining destroyers joined with a corvette and began dropping mines. They were Youd mines, capable of tracking enemies, so the harvester would be forced to either maneuver around or plow through and take damage.
“Well done,” she told Manx. “One way or another, that should help. Keep them coming.”
Oglethorpe called over. “Communication coming through on navy channels. From outside our fleet.”
“Send it through to my console. I’ll read it in a minute.”
“Not a subspace, sir, a video call. It’s coming from within the system.”
Tolvern shot to her feet. “Put it up.”
A heavyset man with an ill-fitting uniform filled the screen. He had meaty jowls and heavy bags under his eyes. Harold Broderick, Captain of HMS Sledge, and the second-highest ranking officer in the Albion fleet.
“My God, am I glad to see you,” she said. “Is that you that scared the spit out of us just now? Please tell me it is
, and there’s not four hunter-killer packs bearing down on us.”
There was a delay as the transmission crossed the distance between them and came back.
“As a matter of fact, it is. Let me give you an ironic salute for your bravery.” He lifted his stump where he’d lost his right hand and saluted. “I still owe the buzzards for that one. Today looks like a good time for payback, don’t you think?”
She started to give her answer, but stopped when she realized he wasn’t finished.
“Sorry about scaring you just now, but I was pretty sure the enemy hadn’t detected us yet, and I wanted to keep my cloaks up until the last possible minute. When I saw you dropping mines, I guessed that you’d spotted us and thought I’d better save you the ordnance. Youds can be helpful in many situations.”
“My God, the mines,” she said to Manx. “Put a stop to that.”
“Already done, sir.”
To Broderick, she said, “Can you blame me? You’ve got twenty ships there. It’s a nice round number.”
“Understood. I’ve got a strategy, but since feathered ears are listening, let me just tell you to think about the numbers some more. Can you see what I’m bringing to the fight, or are you just seeing shadows?”
“Mostly shadows.”
“Good, then hopefully that’s all the enemy sees, too.” Broderick raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t enjoyed a real fight since I returned from Fort Alliance—I’m looking forward to plucking a few turkeys. Call me back when you’ve got it figured out.”
With that cryptic remark, he cut the channel.
Manx threw up his hands. “How are we supposed to figure out a strategy from that?”
“It’s something more than simply turning around and attacking,” she said.
“Twenty more ships will make a big difference.”
“Those four big ones that I thought were spears must be Sledge and three more cruisers,” Oglethorpe said. “The rest are most likely a mix of destroyers and corvettes.”
“Add them to our fleet, and we could probably win a straight-out fight,” Manx said.
“Maybe,” Tolvern said doubtfully, “but he sees we’re battered, and knows about the fight back in Nebuchadnezzar, too. He’s guessing that we’d lose a bunch more ships in a straight-up fight, and he’d be right.”
“What was the comment about numbers, anyway?” Manx asked.
“What was Broderick’s fleet strength? Get me that, will you.”
Manx typed on his console. “Assuming Admiral Drake didn’t change up the composition of Broderick’s force—always a possibility—we’re looking at eight cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and seven corvettes.”
“Right,” she said, remembering now. “It was a fast attack task force. For hunting rogue Apex ships as it crossed the inner frontier, then using Sledge and the rest to smash into battle as reinforcements.”
“That’s what he set out with,” Manx added. “No idea that’s what he’s left with. There’s been a lot of fighting out there, and Drake sent people to track down the harvester that made the jailbreak from Persia.”
“Except that Broderick made a point of saying he hadn’t had a good fight since his repair and resupply in the Fort Alliance yards,” Tolvern said, growing excited as it started to come together. “Are you sure about those scans, Oglethorpe?”
“Aye, Captain. Twenty ships. Four big ones, sixteen smaller ships.”
“Four cruisers here,” she said, “which means there are four cruisers back in Nebuchadnezzar, together with—what would it be?—five destroyers and corvettes left behind, too?”
Manx looked excited. “He said ‘Youds can be helpful in many situations.’”
“Which means his reserve force is laying down a minefield,” Tolvern said. “Youds. They’ll get our signal when we jump through, know we’re friendlies, and then slam into the harvester as it comes in after us.”
“Except that Broderick is continuing on his present course,” Oglethorpe said. “He’s not turning around to jump through. He’s going to go right past us and right past the harvester, too.”
“That’s because he wants to come in behind. The Youds won’t destroy that monster—not enough explosive power for that—so we’ll need to pin the enemy against the jump point before it make another jailbreak.”
It was still chancy, but Tolvern liked her odds a lot better. The force bearing down on them was a fleet of friendlies, not four hunter-killer packs bent on extermination, and there were more friendlies on the other side of the jump.
Tolvern carefully worded her response before she called Broderick back. Again, she had to operate with the assumption that Apex would be listening and formulating their own battle plans.
“Sorry for snapping at you a little bit earlier, sir. As you can imagine, I was on edge. You made the right call, though, dropping radio silence so I wouldn’t waste any more mines. They were Youds, and I’d just as soon hold on to them for the next time I return to the Persia System.”
The last part contained redundant information, and hopefully Broderick would pick up on it. There was less of a delay now, and his answer returned shortly, accompanied by a bit of a smile.
“Yes, it’s not like they grow on trees. Glad I could save the trouble. I’m going to pull around now to guard your escape. With any luck, that ugly thing will stay in Persia. Looks like you could use some patching up before your next fight.”
Misdirection from Broderick, now, since that wasn’t their intention at all. Tolvern studied the viewscreen as the call ended. He’d begun to swing his fleet wide so as not to tangle with the harvester. Bayard joined in from the defense grid computer to help Clyde calculate courses and determine how much of a delay Tolvern would face on the other side of the jump between when the harvester came through and when Broderick joined from behind.
The harvester reached the mines that Tolvern had stopped dropping when the call came from Sledge. She’d been wondering if it would try to maneuver around or plow straight through. There weren’t many, so she guessed it would take the hits instead of delaying.
If so, the encounter would give a good indication of the effectiveness of Youd mines. If, after it had passed through, Oglethorpe could detect damage to the enemy hull, he could calculate the likely effects of a full minefield on the other side of the jump, and they’d know how much of a fight would be left in the harvester.
So even though her original intention had been to slow the harvester, Tolvern wasn’t happy to see it swing wide to avoid the mines. Even more surprisingly, it shortly increased the angle of its deviation from course, looking first like it would try to cut off Broderick’s force streaking by a few hundred thousand miles away, and then slicing up on the Z-axis to avoid his fast attack fleet altogether.
“I don’t believe it,” she said when she could no longer deny the obvious. “It’s giving up the fight. It’s running back to Persia.”
Broderick called back about twenty minutes later. His face was flushed, and he spoke with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
“Slow your fleet, let me catch up. We’ll go through together.”
About an hour later, when his fleet had rejoined hers, he pulled Sledge right up next to Blackbeard and called when the likelihood of intercepted communication was low. She took the call alone in the war room, putting him up on the screen over the table.
“Thank God,” he said. “That was a close call.”
“Yes. Yes, it was.”
“You sound glum, Tolvern.”
“The enemy figured us out before we could spring the trap. I thought we’d finish it off on the other side.”
“Or be finished off ourselves. Even with the trap, that was a distinct possibility.” His eyes narrowed. “You do realize that without my arrival, you were most likely dead, all of you. Possibly captured and eaten, for that matter.”
“I know,” she said, feeling like an ingrate. “I’m incredibly grateful—we all are. It’s just that . . . well, I’ve suffered two bad los
ses—you can see the state of my fleet—and I could have used a win. Also, we made a bad discovery in the Persia raid.”
“About that. I’m curious what you were hoping to accomplish, what you discovered.” He glanced to one side. “We’re close enough, and I’ve installed one of the new Singaporean jammers. I think we’re safe to talk.”
Tolvern first briefed him on the battle in Nebuchadnezzar, where she’d fought hard, inflicted plenty of damage, but lost several ships and failed to prevent a jailbreak. A harvester had broken quarantine and fled for safety.
“Don’t worry, Vargus and McGowan have plenty of firepower to bring it down. By now, it will have been destroyed.”
“It was still my loss.”
“Understood. But yours was a desperate stopgap until reinforcements arrived. I’ll review your logs, but based on your past service record, I’m sure it will show that you fought well with what ships you had available.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And so, assuming that the enemy had expended a good deal of its resources in the breakout attempt, you thought to mount a raid on their base. Is that right?”
She nodded. Broderick was a shrewd tactician.
“Tell me what happened.”
She explained how when she’d arrived at Persia she thought she could trap any harvesters on the surface by destroying the space elevator. Maybe she could have. . . if she’d managed to pull it off. Instead, she’d only inflicted temporary damage while failing to keep another harvester from rising to join the battle. That was the ship now returning to Persia.
“Champion was taken in, the crew presumably captured,” she said. “We lost a corvette, too. HMS Race.”
“Good ships, good crews.”
“Yes, sir. Plus boats, sloops . . . you can see.”
“And enemy losses?”
“We destroyed a bunch of lances and spears.” Tolvern shrugged. “Not enough.”
“You survived, you inflicted damage. You turned back the harvester before it broke out of Persia.”
Sun King (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 3) Page 13