Alexis watched the images of the other ship and the few — too few, she thought — figures of crewmen in vacsuits on the ship’s hull. There was little active work being done on the sails, as though the captain, having set a course that would eventually bring him into contact with Nightingale, was unwilling to put forth the effort to change it.
Or as though they have no clear idea what to do, outside a few basic bits of sailing.
“Well, we can see those crew well enough,” she whispered back, “so I’ll have no talk of Dutchmen with this action.”
The distance closed more. They were within range of the guns now, but Alexis waited. Nightingale was ahead of the Crown, while the other ship approached at an angle. Either ship could bring the other to bear with a bit of a turn, but neither fired.
What the other captain was thinking, Alexis didn’t know, but she wanted her first, best laid broadside to have the greatest chance of damaging the other ship significantly. Her guncrews had improved, but they were still nowhere near what she could wish them to be.
The Crown fired first, not with a turn and a broadside, but with a bowchaser. The smaller gun at the ship’s fore could bear on Nightingale without maneuvering.
A bolt of condensed light sprang across the space between the ships, missing low and ahead of Nightingale. She waited for a second bowchaser to fire, but none did.
“Take in two reefs and cut the particle projector by ten percent,” Alexis ordered. Doing so would reduce Nightingale’s speed, letting her fall back a bit and put her broadside directly in line with the other ship’s bow.
“Aye, sir.” Villar passed on the necessary orders to the sail crew, while Busbey adjusted the power to the projector.
As the ship slowed, the Crown’s bowchaser fired again, the shot was high, but not high enough to miss. It flashed through Nightingale’s sails, cutting lines and punching a round hole through the metal mesh of the sail itself.
The azure glow of the sail flashed white around the edges of the hole, but the sail held and didn’t tear.
“Now,” Alexis said, simply, judging the positions of the two ships.
“Signals away, sir,” Creasy said, almost immediately.
Along Nightingale’s hull and mast, lights flashed. Her number, identifying her as a Queen’s ship, and the simple, common command of a revenue cutter. Heave-to. Inspection.
For a moment, nothing happened, and Alexis opened her mouth to order the alternative to the plan and maneuver Nightingale for a full broadside.
“A moment, if you please, sir,” Villar whispered, watching the plot intensely.
Alexis held back.
Somewhere in the Crown’s signals console, her former captain’s orders took effect. Nightingale’s number was recognized. A buzzer sounded on the helm — enough to wake a drowsing helmsman, alone on the quarterdeck late in the middle watch. A second buzzer sounded in the captain’s cabin.
And, so as not to irritate a surly customs and revenue lieutenant should those two worthies not react quickly enough, the helm executed its preprogrammed orders.
“Bless all the lazy fools,” Alexis whispered.
The Crown’s sails went dark, projector off completely, and her rudder turned hard, bringing the ship’s bow up to the wind — hove-to and waiting for inspection — directly into Nightingale’s broadside.
“Fire!”
It was still a bit ragged, Alexis noted, but well-aimed directly at the other ship’s bow. Light flashed across the intervening space and seemed to splash against the Crown’s bow as thermoplastic vaporized and the shot lit the fog of particles.
Alexis counted down the seconds, willing the other ship’s sails to remain dark and her target to sit, dead in space. She could well imagine the chaos on the Crown’s quarterdeck while the captain and helmsman attempted to determine what had happened.
She could see the damage the first broadside had done to the other ship on the images splayed across her plot. The outer hatch of the bow sail locker was simply gone, shot away all entire, and she could just make out the inner hatch. It was possible that had been holed as well, or it could be only a shadow. She leaned closer to the image to see and —
“Man over!” Dorsett called.
Alexis spun to the tactical console.
“What?”
“Here, sir,” Dorsett showed her the image.
Two vacsuited figures were at the ship’s stern near the tall rudder. Beyond them, drifting, was another. His safety line must have been cut when the Crown’s only hit had run through Nightingale’s rigging. Now he was behind the ship and, though Nightingale was barely moving herself, he was too far away for a line to reach him.
“Ready!” came the call from the guns.
Alexis forced her thoughts away from the man. Whoever it was, she had a battle to fight still and couldn’t risk the ship for one man.
“Fire! Then independent fire! Pour it on them, lads!” She turned again. “Keep him in sight Dorsett.”
“Aye, sir.”
The second broadside did for the inner hatch and Alexis suspected some of the shots had made it through entirely and run the length of the Crown’s gundeck. That would make the deck a scene of chaos and horror. Raked like this from the bow, there’d be nothing to stop the incoming shot but bodies and the guns themselves.
“Creasy, make the stern lights bright as can be, you hear? So long as he’s sight of the ship, he’ll keep hope.”
“Aye, sir.”
Alexis hoped that would be true. Spacers hated the thought of being left behind in the Dark, with the weight of dark matter pressing in on them, unprotected by the field of gallenium in a ship’s hull. They’d dump their air and suffocate themselves rather than suffer that fate, but if he could see the ship, he might keep the hope that Nightingale would return for him.
For a moment, she thought to drop a ship’s boat. While ill-suited for any long trek through the dark, the boats did carry a small lug-sail for use in emergencies or if a ship was destroyed. But with Nightingale so short-handed, she couldn’t spare the men to crew a boat, not with one enemy ship already engaged and another nearby. She steeled herself and hoped the man, whoever he might be, would hold on to hope until she could return for him.
Her guncrews began firing independently, shot after shot raking the Crown. Most struck into the bow and worked their way through the interior of the ship. A few missed, sliding along the ship’s hull, and some struck the masts and rigging.
“Belay firing,” Alexis ordered, seeing the Crown’s mast shot through. It drifted and twisted, caught in its own rigging and quickly became a gnarled mess.
She looked from the navigation plot to the tactical console and cursed silently. The Crown was a battered hulk, not going anywhere without repairing her mast, but the Owl was still sailing away. She might be able to catch the other pirate, but it would be a close run chase — and not close at all if she delayed even a moment.
Alexis shared a look with Villar, wondering what decision he might make — but knew it was hers alone. Her gaze went to the retreating image of the Owl, then to that of the spacer who’d gone overboard. The choice was between any future victims of the Owl and certain death for one of her crew.
“Raise sail and charge the projector,” she ordered, knowing it would allow the Owl to escape, but unwilling to leave any member of her crew to that fate. “We’ll come about and collect our man, then board the Distant Crown.”
Forty-Seven
17 May, aboard HMS Nightingale, darkspace, the Remada Straits
Alexis gripped the edge of the navigation plot, knuckles white. She felt torn between conflicting duties. As Nightingale’s commander, her place was on quarterdeck, watching over the ship. On the other hand, she was not so far removed from her time as a midshipman and lieutenant aboard a larger ship that she could shake the feeling that her place was with her lads. All of Nightingale’s crew were her lads now, but she felt especially concerned about those in the boarding parties — s
he was sending them into unknown danger aboard Distant Crown, no matter the other ship had been battered into submission and now sat still and silent waiting for them.
What if this Distant Crown has the same ability to transition as Silver Leaf?
She’d been taken in by more than one ruse since boarding Nightingale and was determined to avoid another.
It was Spracklen, one of the miners pressed on Dalthus, who’d gone over to float behind the ship, and he’d shown not a bit of gratitude when he was brought back aboard. He was badly shaken, no doubt, but glared at Alexis as though he blamed her for the entire ordeal, and stalked off with his messmates.
After collecting him, she brought Nightingale about again and approached the Crown. The Owl was out of sight, but she hoped there’d be survivors aboard the Crown who might give her some insight into where to find the other ship.
Alexis saw that Villar was gripping the navigation plot’s edge just as she was, his eyes darting to his vacsuit helmet then to her. It should be him leading the boarding party, as it would be a chance for him to distinguish himself in an action and perhaps gain some attention from Admiralty.
No, her place was on the quarterdeck. Villar’s with the boarding.
Alexis took a deep breath to order him to the boarding tubes.
Bugger it.
“Mister Spindler, you have the quarterdeck — bring us alongside Distant Crown, maintain that position, and support the boarding as you think best.”
“Wha — aye, sir!”
Alexis raised her vacsuit helmet.
“Mister Villar, you are to take the forward boarding tube, I will take the aft.” She wasn’t certain, but it appeared to her that Villar was suppressing a grin. “Pass the word to be careful of any ruse or trap, mind you.”
“Aye, sir!”
Villar clamped his helmet over his head and nearly beat Alexis to the hatch.
As though he’d read her mind, Isom met her halfway down the companionway ladder with her weapons. She felt the click as he placed a holstered, chemical-propellant pistol against her vacsuit’s side, the strong magnet in the holster gripping a metal plate in her suit tightly. The sword she took from him and held ready. It was a longer blade than the common crew would carry, partly to make up for her short stature and shorter reach.
She’d use that until she was aboard the other ship — and after, if Distant Crown’s gravity had failed — it being so difficult to control a firearm without some gravity to help with it. Her flechette pistol, no matter that it would be easier to control, wouldn’t work outside a ship’s hull and field in darkspace — the radiation would interfere with the electronics, much as they did with the vacsuits’ radios. With the Crown so holed, the main decks would be awash in it.
Her own suit’s radio sounded with nothing but garbled static, already affected by the radiation allowed in by the open gunports, and she shut it off.
The guns were still manned — undermanned, as most of their crews were at the boarding tubes, ready for when Midshipman Spindler brought Nightingale alongside the other ship — but enough to send yet another broadside in the Crown if there were any attempt at treachery.
The crowd around the aft airlock and boarding tube was restless. Men worked their hands on the hilts of their weapons and shuffled from one foot to the other, impatient to be about their business.
Alexis came to the back of the crowd. She clapped a hand on the nearest man’s shoulder and pressed her helmet to his.
“Make a lane!” she shouted.
The man touched his helmet to those in front of him and repeated her order. Those men did as well, parting to let her through.
The boarding crew was already armed with the heavy bladed cutlasses handed out by Corporal Brace and his men. One or two, the better trained, had firearms.
Alexis was nearly at the front of the crowd when the deck lights flashed in the signal that Nightingale was near enough the other ship.
She could feel the vibration of the men’s shouting as they surged forward. No real sound, but it transferred right through their suits, from body to close-packed body.
This was what she lived for, this and the guns themselves. It was difficult to admit, but she’d missed being amongst the guns during an action. Missed the rasp of her breath in the vacsuit’s helmet, the trickles of sweat as heat built up inside the suit, the hard, heavy work of hauling shot canisters from the garlands to the guns. Missed the boardings, as well — the feel of her lads around her, jostling for position as ships neared each other.
A part of her — distant now — knew she’d regret these feelings later, when memories of the battle came in the night. But for the moment, as she flowed along with her lads through the lock and flung herself down the boarding tube which was blasted by compressed air to extend between the ships, felt herself knocked about by arms and legs around her as the crowd forced its way through a breach in Distant Crown’s hull — for this moment, she felt alive.
Alexis made it through the breach, felt her feet connect with the other ship’s deck, raised her sword, ready to block a blow or start her own … and froze.
No trap or resistance met them, only a few vacsuited figures still on their feet, and those standing still, arms raised in surrender.
The damage done by Nightingale’s repeated raking of this ship was a horror. Only a third of the other ship’s crew appeared to be standing, the rest were on the deck, some moving feebly, others still. The hull was stoved in all the way forward to the bow and nearly every gun showed some damage.
Nightingale’s crew milled about, as though uncertain of how to proceed. Even without resistance, they should have been moving to secure the other ship’s crew — the whole and healthy, at least. Those who were injured would have to wait a bit longer for care.
What gave them pause, and Alexis herself, was the nature of the Crown’s crew.
Not the rough, hard men of a pirate ship she’d expect. The faces she could see through the enemies’ vacsuit helmets were very different than that — more than half of them women, old and young, along with older men and those so young she’d call them boys.
Alexis hesitated, taking in the scene, and wondered at the sight, then she pressed her helmet to that of the Nightingale next to her so that her voice could be heard.
“Pass the word,” she said loudly. “Round them up before they have a chance to regain their senses.”
Alexis opened her eyes at the click of a glass being set in front of her. She and her officers, still in vacsuits, for they’d all been back and forth to the Crown repeatedly.
“Thank you, Isom,” she said, taking the glass and a long gulp. The bourbon burned a trail down her throat and seemed to explode in her stomach. “Don’t stand on ceremony, gentlemen.”
The others all followed suit, even Spindler, young as he was, could stand a drink after what they’d seen aboard the other ship.
“I’ve never seen the like,” Villar muttered.
“Never bloody heard of the like,” Ousley said. He drained his glass entirely. “A pirate band of women and children and oldsters?”
He winced and eased himself in his seat. More than half the Crown’s “crew” might have been women and children, but some had been viciously persistent, waiting, apparently passive, until a Nightingale came to offer assistance and then striking with whatever weapon was at hand.
Ousley had taken a sword thrust to the thigh from a boy younger than Spindler.
Their rescue efforts had turned less gentle after that, moving to ensure that each person aboard the Crown was disarmed and well-bound before bringing them across to be treated by Poulter or locked in a hold compartment they’d chosen as a makeshift brig.
Once the Crown was somewhat repaired, they’d move the captured crew back to that ship and put a prize crew aboard.
“Any word on what was done to the helm?” Alexis asked.
Ousley shook his head. “Verley and Nabb are looking at it.”
“Nabb?”
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Ousley nodded. “Lad’s a dab hand with the electronics.”
They’d had to breach the quarterdeck hatch, as its occupants had locked it up tight. There were only two men on the quarterdeck, one dead, the other nearly so, and apparently by each other’s hand.
The helm showed similar modifications as those on the gallenium transport they’d encountered, and Alexis wanted to see what her crew could make of those themselves, rather than simply forwarding them to Admiralty as she had at the start.
If the pirates did have a way of transitioning outside of a Lagrangian point, she’d need that capability to pursue the Owl. Why the Crown hadn’t, and why the two men on the quarterdeck had fought each other, was still a mystery.
“I left word with Mister Poulter that you wanted the quarterdeck survivor here and conscious instanter,” Villar said. “He was displeased.”
“My concern for Mister Poulter’s displeasure is less than I imagine he could wish,” Alexis said. “I want answers and I’m certain someone who was on the Crown’s quarterdeck will be the one to supply them — lord knows we’ve had no luck with the others.”
“An idea of where they’re from, at least?” Alexis asked.
Ousley grunted.
The most they’d gotten out of many of the survivors was a curse or a bit of spittle.
“Never seen the like,” Ousley muttered.
“Cooksun, sar!” Clanley called from the hatchway.
Alexis stared at Nabb standing in the opening and laughed aloud. She knew it was more the aftereffects of the battle and not the Marine’s accent that made it seem so funny, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Come in, Nabb.”
“Aye, sir,” Nabb said, coming to stand near the table.
“Did you and Verley find anything in the helm?”
Nabb nodded. “Nothing good, sir, but we found it and made sense of it, I think.”
“Nothing good? So is this method of transitioning not something we could duplicate?”
HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4) Page 34