Still, stays snapped as the winds pushed at those sails and the sails pulled at masts suddenly stuck fast and dead in space.
Within a bell, though, her sails were lit again and Malcomson worked her free. He signaled, in the private code they’d all agreed upon, that Delight was sound, though Alexis wondered at that. The impact had appeared more severe than he seemed to indicate, and she worried for his foremast’s hinge, for that was where Delight had carried the most sail.
She zoomed in on the images until she could watch a host of blurry figures on Delight’s hull, all clustered around the fore, as she’d expected. She couldn’t make out detail of the hinge itself, that bit which allowed the mast to be unstepped and swung down to rest upon the hull, but so much activity there made her think she was correct.
It would also, she suspected, be as clear a message to any watching gunboats as if Delight had passed her status on with no private codes at all.
Surely the pirates, and she was certain they were out there, ships dark and hidden, but watching all the same, would be assessing the damage each of the private ships might take from the shoals.
As though summoned by her thoughts — and she cast a quick glance to Creasy at that, for his bits of superstitious nonsense were making inroads with the crew — new lights appeared on the plot.
“Gunboats, sir,” Dorsett said from the tactical console. “Seven … twelve … more than last time, at least.”
Alexis nodded. There were already more than the twelve lights appearing, but the full number and scale of what they faced would take minutes to make itself clear as the light from each of the gunboats’ now-charged sails would take time to reach her.
“Pack up the galley and finish putting us at quarters, Mister Villar,” Alexis ordered. “The guncrews to see to their charges, if you please.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Mister Hacking, Miss Parrill, to your places. You are our legs and teeth, I’ll remind you.”
“Aye, sir,” Hacking and Parrill echoed, the latter fitting her helmet in place and heading for the sail locker to oversee the sail crews on the hull, the former to the gundeck and Mongoose’s teeth.
Creasy was muttering at his console as he exchanged signals with the other private ships, each sharing what the others might not be able to see — more gunboats farther away, but lights obscured by the system’s thick dark matter. She caught a familiar sound and listened closer. He muttered the words even as he worked his console, like an incantation.
“Turn for turn and twist for twist — run and hide thee, Nag.”
Alexis closed her eyes and fought back a groan. She recognized the words from a bit at the beginning of the story she’d looked up after Dansby began calling her Rikki — and had hoped the crew, with their interminable fascination with the vile creature, would never discover it.
Oh, sweet Dark, they’ve found the bloody book.
Fifty-Three
The gunboats wasted no time in pressing their attacks, perhaps fearing the size of the oncoming force, despite outnumbering the private ships. There were fifteen in all, when they stopped appearing on Mongoose’s plot — at least fifteen that had showed themselves. There could be others still lying dark and silent amongst the shoals, and no telling how many or what other ships might await the attacking force in normal-space.
The gunboats split up, pairs approaching each of the private ships, with the three extra heading for Scorpion and Osprey.
Those two, sailing almost together, were clearly the first real targets, with the others to be only harried.
“I’m surprised they’ve not used the Hind to attack us,” Villar said. “Why do you suppose that is, sir? She’s guns enough to take on any two of us.”
“Guns, yes,” Alexis agreed, “but we saw what happened the last time she went amongst these shoals. Following a gunboat captain who knows the channels is one thing — that must be how they get their own ships and visiting merchants past this mess at all — but fighting a ship is another. With her guns and stores she’d only become stuck fast again in any kind of action, I imagine.”
She paused.
“I do hope they’ve not put any of the Hind’s spacers aboard their boats, though,” she added.
That was not so uncommon a thing, for pirates to offer captured spacers a place — joining was better than some other fates, but once a man had sailed under the pirate flag, he’d be marked for life by the authorities.
“Or spacers from the fleets,” Villar added, giving voice to a greater fear.
What if there were New London Navy men aboard those ships? There for no other reason than that their ship was disabled in some fight and the pirates came along first.
What if Delaine is there?
Alexis shut down that avenue of thought immediately. It wouldn’t do to think on. Surely Delaine wouldn’t have joined the pirates, even at the cost of his own life?
No … but for his men’s lives, perhaps. Or to stay alive long enough to escape, he might play along …
She clamped down on those thoughts again, furious with herself for following them.
I may not change what I may not change, she reminded herself.
Poulter, on Nightingale, had reminded her, time and again, that one could only do one’s best. Told her to remind herself, rather, for that was the point he’d driven home. Worrying at what was done had no value past the lessons to be learned, and worrying at what might come had less past the planning.
Isom entered the quarterdeck wearing his own vacsuit. He carried her sword and firearms, a chemical propellant pistol for use in any boardings, and her tiny flechette pistol, which would be useless in a ship opened to darkspace, but might be handy if they were somehow captured themselves. Under his other arm he carried the vacuum-tight crate housing the creature, which would soon be secured in the hold near the magazine and fusion plant — the most protected part of the ship.
Alexis stripped off the upper half of her vacsuit, her underthings already damp with sweat from wearing the thing so long. With the stress of an action, she’d soon be soaked through. She slid the flechette pistol into its place within the suit. She might not be able to get to it in vacuum, but if she was ever taken then it might be overlooked in any search that didn’t strip the suit itself from her.
The chemical pistol went into her suit’s holster and the sword at her left side. It was lighter and shorter than the rough chopping blades the crew was issued — more suited to her small frame and muscles — but she’d become skilled in its use.
“I’ll take Boots below now, sir,” Isom said after he’d helped her shrug and wiggle her way back into her vacsuit.
“Yes, do, and yourself as well.”
Isom was always the last of the ship’s servants below in an action, taking it upon himself to see to both the creature and to ensuring that none of the other noncombatants — the cooks, stewards, and all those who had no place in sailing or fighting the ship — had somehow overlooked the call.
“Signal from Delight, sir,” Creasy said.
“Yes?”
“All ships, sir, then … ah, Engage the enemy more closely, followed by … y - o - u - h-a-c - k - i - t - j - e - s - s - i - e - s …” Creasy frowned. “I have no idea what that means, sir, and the computer tells me it must be an error on their side.”
Alexis grinned. The reminder of the coming fight putting her out of her former melancholy. Whatever else, she was aboard a ship of her own about to engage the enemy — soon her guns would speak for her.
“I’m sure it means something to Malcomson, Creasy, though perhaps it’s best if we not know.” Her grin widened. “Acknowledge the signal and send this: All ships - a hundred guineas that Mongoose takes the first foe.”
Alexis lost her hundred guineas.
Kingston and Lawson engaged the enemy first, with a bit of coordination she’d not have expected from private ships.
Osprey and Scorpion leapfrogged each other through the channels, with never both of
them moving at the same time, and each stopped to cover with her main guns the space the other could not while moving.
Despite this, the gunboats, seven in all, made their way closer until they were within range.
The gunboats fired the first shots of the day, ranging in on Osprey as the weaker of the pair and mapping out how the shoals might warp their shot.
Shot after shot flashed out from the boats with no answer, until finally Scorpion’s sails lit from where she lay still. Just an instance, just a bit, but enough to catch a bit of wind, turn the ship, and present her guns.
While Osprey continued mapping the channel ahead, calmly as though sailing toward a pilot boat, Scorpion’s guns flashed in response.
Whether by chance or whether Lawson had learned something from the gunboats shot, three of her shots struck home.
The gunboat’s bow crumpled and her sails flickered. Their azure light returned for a moment, but dimmer and flashing as though the ship was signaling. Any observer could see that it was not intentional.
“Power routing,” Villar muttered. “Or her projectors.”
“Let’s hope it’s the projectors,” Alexis said.
Those would be harder to repair in darkspace and with so small a crew as the gunboats could carry. Their damage would make the boat more difficult to sail.
That thought seemed to be confirmed when the damaged boat broke off, making, it appeared, for the nearest Lagrangian point and the safer confines of normal-space.
One less to contend with here, but they’ll be waiting for us.
Alexis returned her attention to Mongoose. The gunboats targeting her had come within range and begun firing. These two seemed to have only nine-pounders or so mounted, but their fire was still a danger to the ship and the men working the sails.
Mongoose returned fire from bow and stern, but the captains of those gunboats seemed to have taken previous lessons to heart. They kept their boats out of the worst of the shoals, in the relatively clear space between planetary orbits, and broke off whenever Mongoose made to turn herself and bring her broadsides to bear.
It was a frustrating, time-consuming dance, for each turn to present her broadside lost Mongoose some travel time through the shoals — there was a risk, as well, in the narrow channels she had available — yet she couldn’t simply carry on and allow the gunboats to pepper her without threat.
“Signal from Oriana, sir,” Creasy said.
Alexis glanced at Spensley’s position on the plot and found that quite a lot of time had passed while she danced with those gunboats.
Oriana had made it to the first of her stops, the L3 point of Erzurum’s outermost gas giant, and returned from a transition to normal-space there.
“Two ships,” Creasy continued. “The Hind and … a frigate, sir? That can’t be right, can it?”
“Send Interrogative, Creasy.”
“Aye, sir, I’ll … no, Delight’s beat you to it, sir … Oriana’s responding … frigate confirmed, sir. Oriana says, estimated forty guns.”
Alexis felt a chill. The frigate was here and in normal-space around the planet? They’d planned — hoped — for it to be away on its pirating cruise. Why, if they had the frigate here and could navigate it through this mess, was it not in darkspace and joining the attack now?
Fifty-Four
Mongoose took another hit, this one through her sails and the men working them.
Alexis flinched and closed her eyes at the sight, but opened them an instant later. The quarterdeck crew would be looking to her for orders and she had no time to wonder or worry about who the dead and injured were.
“Steady on,” she said.
“Aye, sir.”
That had likely been the last hit for some time, as the private ships were all very nearly through the worst of this ring of shoals. They’d soon be in the relatively deep and uncluttered space between orbits, and the gunboats were even now pulling back.
“Signal from Delight, sir,” Creasy said. He waited a moment, so the signal must be something they didn’t have codes for, at least in part, and he waited for the letters to be laboriously spelled out. “Note their course and Interrogative, sir.”
Alexis nodded. She’d been wondering much the same herself.
The gunboats were falling back past the next line of shoals, their course through the maze of dark matter clear to anyone with decent optics. That would show the way, or at least one particular way, but it was a way for the light, shallow-drafted boats. With so little mass they could go through bits of dark matter that would stall or damage one of the larger private ships.
It would be just the thing for the pirates if they could lure one or more of the attackers into getting stuck fast.
“Send Be wary,” she said.
“Aye, sir.” His fingers slid over his console, then stopped. “Signal from Oriana, sir. All ships, Captain to repair on board, then our number at the end, sir.”
Alexis frowned and damned the slow, laborious signaling of darkspace. One couldn’t just flash and set one’s lights too quickly, as the dark matter between ships bent and blurred even the lights of a ship’s hull and masts. The more highly spread photons of a ship’s light might be affected less than the concentrated bundle of a laser, but they were affected nonetheless.
Just what did Spensley mean with that? For her to come aboard his ship, Mongoose’s number should properly precede the signal, not All ships.
“Is he proposing some sort of meeting, do you suppose?” Alexis asked.
“That would be my interpretation, sir,” Villar said.
Alexis frowned. It was an odd time for it and would pull all of them out of position as the private ships would have to be very near for a ship’s boat to safely go between them — too far and it would give those gunboats time to attack.
“Creasy, send this. Oriana’s number, All ships. Form line ahead. Interrogative.”
“Aye, sir.”
Alexis caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried at it as she pondered if she’d got Spensley’s meaning or was only embarrassing herself.
“Affirmative, sir,” Creasy said a few moments later.
“Very well, then, he thinks we should all have a bit of a chat.” She frowned, then shrugged — if he had some concern he wished to voice, then she’d have to hear him out. None of the other captains were under any obligation to be here, and it wouldn’t do to offend him. Delaying a bit more wouldn’t necessarily be a harm to them either. It would give them all a bit of time to repair what damage had been done — better than they could while under fire — and the gunboats wouldn’t attack them. Not concentrated together where they could maneuver.
“Layland, come about. Put us on the starboard tack, a beam reach, and keep us there.”
“Aye, sir.”
That would set Mongoose running perpendicular to the system winds, sailing easy down the center of what passed for clear space between planetary orbits. It would also, not accidentally, allow all of the private ships to present their full broadsides to the gunboats further in-system. Even if the gunboats went off the ecliptic plane, the little fleet would have but to roll and take them under fire.
“All ships. Form line ahead. Captains to repair on board. Send that, Creasy.”
She had to admit to a certain thrill at that. For a moment, she imagined herself a proper commodore, with a real fleet under her command and not this ragtag lot of private ships. Would that ever happen? It would mean years more in the service, of course, and she’d not be able to manage the lands on Dalthus during that time. The question of that still gnawed at her.
She loved both, but the nearly overwhelming urge to throw up a new signal once the other ships formed their line caught her a bit off guard.
Fly Engage the enemy more closely, Creasy, she thought, careful not to give voice to it. Set her lads and her ship against the enemy and shoulder the challenge.
Much as she loved her grandfather and her home, she loved this more — it filled som
e void she doubted anything else could — and that would break her grandfather’s heart.
Villar caught Alexis’ eye and grinned.
“Perhaps you ought to have borrowed a pennant from Skanes, sir.”
Fifty-Five
The captains and their first officers were all aboard and seated around Alexis’ table, Spensley wasted no time in getting to his point.
“I’ll not take Oriana back into that muck!” he yelled before the wine was even served.
Lawson nodded, while Kingston shrugged — Osprey was the lightest of the private ships and he appeared content to follow along with Lawson, who, for herself, was nodding along with Spensley.
“My hull and masts are at risk with every turn, it’s a wonder this system was ever settled to begin with! Any sane transport captain would have run for an easier place at the very sight of it! Transport, hell, the surveyors should have written it off as a bad bet from the start!” He snatched his half-filled glass from beneath Isom’s pour, nearly dumping the wine in the process. “This lot should give off pirating and sue the buggers who sold their ancestors the sodding place!”
“Captain Spensley,” Alexis said as he paused, “perhaps something stronger — to settle your nerves? You seem … overwrought.”
Spensley slammed his glass down and waved his finger at her. “No, none of that! You’ll not get me in the cups and going along with this madness again, that’s what you did the first time!”
Alexis caught herself before responding. As she remembered it, Spensley had been well into his cup and excavating the bottom so that it would hold more when she’d just arrived at that meeting, so there was no cause for the man to blame her if he regretted going along now.
“Yer committed,” Malcomson fairly growled, his accent thicker with irritation. “Nae sense girnin' abit it noo.”
“I’m committed to nothing!” Spensley shot back. “And speak Queen’s bloody English, you highlands bog-monger.” It was a measure of Spensley’s upset that he didn’t notice the lowering of Malcomson’s brows and ease off a bit. “Oriana is a private ship — I’ve letters of marque which allow me to seek out pirates. Allow. At my bloody discretion and judgment as to what I do with my own ship! This is madness now!”
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 31