Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

  “Damage report, Durris?” I demanded over the clamor.

  “Our engines are damaged, but they’re still providing thirty percent of normal thrust. Shields are gone, all quadrants. The aft hold has been breached, and we’ve lost a number of missiles stored there. We’ve lost a fuel cell too, but that didn’t cause an explosion. None of the decks have experienced major decompression—overall, I’d say we were lucky. There are only six reported casualties so far.”

  My jaws clenched. Six more were dead due to my decisions. I tried not to think about that part of the game. If we didn’t do this right, we would all be frozen corpses soon—floating in hyperspace.

  “Zye, keep hitting their stern,” I ordered. “Give chase, and don’t let up. Stay on their tail.”

  I watched the action this time on the forward screen and caught the critical details as they occurred. Three of our beams converged and penetrated the enemy defenses. There, the armor was thin and their vulnerable engines were exposed.

  The enemy exhaust port array suffered a direct hit. Our beams dug into the ship’s bowels, and something ignited inside.

  “Engine failure!” Durris shouted jubilantly. “We stuck the fork in them that time! I’m surprised they didn’t breach and explode.”

  Rumbold spun around to look at me. “They’re dead in the void, sir. Helpless. What are your orders?”

  I glanced at him, and our eyes met. He and I had worked together for most of my career in Star Guard. I knew what he was asking me: should he steer in for the kill, or not?

  “Stand down, Rumbold. Keep our distance, stay on Okto’s stern. We’ve got them where we want them. Zye, cease fire. Durris, have we got those lower deck fires under control?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes sir… I just can’t believe we beat them. That was excellent maneuvering, Captain. They’ll be impressed back at CENTCOM when they review these logs.”

  I chuckled, suddenly feeling an excellent mood overtake me. I leaned back in my chair and breathed deeply for the first time in two days. “We’ll have to live long enough to reach home for that, XO,” I said.

  Turning to Zye and Yamada, I nodded to them. “Zye, try to talk some sense into them. I see them turning around slowly. They’ve got nothing but steering jets. They must know they’re beaten.”

  Zye shook her head. “I probably can’t, sir. Okto is an Alpha while I’m a Rogue. My words will never impress her.”

  We stared at one another for a few seconds. “You mean they won’t surrender? They’ll keep fighting until we’re forced to destroy their ship utterly?”

  “That’s the most probable outcome now,” she said. “If they’d been damaged badly, but their engines were still operable, they might have run. In this case we’ve crippled them, but left them with fangs. Under these circumstances, they’ll turn like a cornered beast and do what they can to hurt us.”

  My good mood evaporated. Earth captains knew when they were beaten. Any of them would have surrendered honorably. This battle should be over. I’d miscalculated concerning Beta psychology.

  “All right,” I said. “We’re left with two choices: we can pull Okto’s fangs, destroying her weapons and circling her at short range. Or, we can move to a safe distance.”

  “Retreat?” Durris asked incredulously. “But we just won the day!”

  “True enough, to our way of thinking. But destroying Okto’s ship and killing her isn’t going to gain us anything. If we stay in range and try to disarm her, she might get lucky with a punch of her own.”

  As if to make my point for me, the enemy cannons struck another hard blow to our forward shields. The Beta captain was letting me know she was still in this, and she wasn’t quitting.

  “Your orders, sir?” Durris asked sullenly.

  I stood up and walked around the command deck, checking screens. “Get us out of here, Rumbold. Circumvent that minefield and move us beyond Okto’s reach. Zye, hold your fire on all weapons systems.”

  A few minutes later, we slipped away from the enemy. They still fired, of course, as we were within easy reach. But in hyperspace, our effective ranges had been greatly reduced. Their repeated salvos missed.

  Finally, an unexpected development occurred.

  “Sir,” Yamada said, “Captain Okto is hailing us.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe she’s come to her senses. Put her on the main screen.”

  An image of destruction flashed into existence. The enemy command deck was more or less identical to ours, but it was in a state of severe disarray. There were two bodies in evidence, smoke hung in the air, and Okto herself had one eye closed due to a gash across her face.

  Her expression wasn’t a happy one. She glared at us with her good eye, generating such a gaze of hatred it was like a force of nature.

  “Sparhawk,” she said, “you’re a vicious fighter, but you lack honor.”

  “We came on a peaceful mission of exploration and trade,” I said. “We didn’t steal this ship, we salvaged her. You attacked us, so we defended ourselves. Where in this series of events have I acted dishonorably?”

  “You’re leaving us here to die in hyperspace. You lack the decency to come back to us and finish what you started.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’m sure another Beta ship will come along sooner or later. We’ll release emergency supplies in our wake. Find them and you’ll keep breathing until your sister ships can come to help.”

  She sneered. “Charity? From a Basic? You further stain my honor.”

  “Do as you see fit,” I said, “but every captain’s first duty is to her ship and her crew. Put yours back together again. Live to fight another day. Remember Captain: the true enemy is the Stroj. They attack us both, and they’ll never show you any mercy. If we come back this way another time, please talk to us before attacking.”

  Her expression was still as malevolent as ever as she stabbed the disconnection button, and we were cut off.

  My Aunt Grantholm came forward and nodded to me with pursed lips. She’d been hanging back during the battle, content to let me execute my plans while she watched from a crash seat.

  “Not bad,” she said. “It wasn’t effective, but I doubt anyone could have turned that woman into an ally with mere words. I’m impressed, William. I didn’t know you had the heart of a diplomat beating in your chest in addition to the cold logic of a spacer captain.”

  “Thank you, aunt—if that was meant as a compliment.”

  “It was,” she said, then she smiled and retreated below decks.

  I sat back down in my command chair and watched as the image of Okto’s ship shrank steadily down to size of a credit coin, then disappeared entirely.

  We’d escaped the Betas, but we had no idea where we were heading next. Still, it was hard to count today’s action as anything less than a victory.

  As we tried to find a way out of hyperspace, we found our star charts were useless here. The Connatic had provided us with a list of ER bridges and where they led to, but most of the itemized breach points were connected to the Gliese-32 system directly. There were only a few jumps listed in the Beta system, all of which were apparently major trade routes.

  I realized after studying them at length that the Connatic’s knowledge was useful only in her local area. The farther we got from her system, the less useful they’d become.

  “If only we’d been given the time to take one of the known routes,” Durris complained. “We wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “How’s the math to determine our exit point going?”

  “Miserably,” he said. “This chunk of hyperspace seems to be more warped than usual.”

  Rubbing my chin, I considered his numbers. “What about all the firing and targeting data from our battle?”

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “We recorded every hit and miss, right? The angle of projection, the final landing point of each plasma beam? If you patch all that into the computer as raw data, then begin extrapolating to number-crunch out a formula—
”

  He grabbed my arm and grinned. “You’re right!” he shouted. “I’m a fool. We’ve got reams of raw data just waiting to be analyzed. I’ll come up with a pattern-detection algorithm right away. Good thinking, sir.”

  I nodded tiredly as he rushed to talk to the data people. The man was practically unstoppable. I’d found the battle had left me drained, but he was fresh, despite the streaks of dried blood on his face.

  Taking my leave of the command deck, I headed down the main passages toward my cabin. It was my intention to take that shower I’d been cheated of hours ago.

  To my surprise, I heard heavy footsteps in my wake.

  “Zye? What is it, Lieutenant?”

  “I wanted to thank you, sir,” she said.

  I cocked my head thoughtfully. “For what, exactly?”

  “For sparing Okto’s ship. I know that was a difficult decision, but I’m grateful. All Betas are.”

  Narrowing my eyes in confusion, I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but thanks and gratitude were rare things in Zye. I was more than willing to take them whenever I could get them.

  “There was no need to take more lives,” I said, “the entire battle was unfortunate.”

  “No, Captain!” she boomed. There was a strange gleam in her eye. “The battle was glorious. Don’t let anyone take that from you. Defiant won victory even though we started out with a huge disadvantage. No Alpha will look at Earthmen with contempt ever again.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing, as Okto’s overconfidence had helped me win, but I nodded encouragement.

  “Why, exactly…” I asked, “do you believe the decision was so difficult for me?”

  She huffed. “Well… it was a dishonorable finish. Any Beta would have blasted a crippled opponent to atoms with glee. Instead, you ran like a kicked dog the moment you could.”

  “You really think that’s how the Betas will see this action?”

  “How else could it be viewed?”

  “As a reluctance to kill. As an attempt to make an ally out of an enemy.”

  She shook her head. “That would never occur to any of my sisters, especially not an Alpha. They’re all about winning at any cost. If you’d beaten Okto and destroyed her—”

  “I did defeat her,” I pointed out.

  “No, not really. That impression was erased by your reluctance to finish the task. You showed weakness in the final moments. Your hand trembled, and you felt fear overtake you as you wavered. Imagine… fearing to deliver a deathblow, even upon a helpless enemy… That fear—that’s what will be remembered by my people.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out again as a sigh. “I did it because our sense of honor is different. Slaying a helpless foe is dishonorable to an Earthling.”

  She looked at me quizzically. “That would explain a lot.”

  “Well, in the future, perhaps we’ll come to fully understand one another.”

  “No sir,” Zye said confidently. “The Alphas know all they need to know about you now. They’ll adjust their tactics accordingly.”

  This whole conversation was beginning to make me very tired. Nodding, I turned to go. I took my shower in a disquieted mood. Could it really be the way Zye had described it? Were the Betas so bloodthirsty they couldn’t even fathom a man who wasn’t?

  She’d thanked me for sparing the Beta ship, but at the same time informed me that I’d doomed myself to the role of a coward in the eyes of her people. The truth was, we still didn’t entirely understand one another. Our cultures were too different.

  After my shower, I passed out on my bunk again. My dreams were troubled affairs. They were full of warped, moving volumes of space and madwomen hell-bent on my destruction.

  -22-

  The following day I learned Durris had found a way out of this slice of hyperspace. The angle was sharp, but we adjusted our course and found the exit a mere fifty hours of having entered here.

  The exit point was still some distance away, but at least we now had a goal firmly in sight. That fact alone allowed everyone aboard to rest easier.

  I thought about the six crewmen we’d lost. I considered performing the funeral and jettisoning them out of the ship, as was our tradition, but I passed on the idea. Old superstitions bothered me. They frowned upon leaving a crewman in hyperspace—even a dead one. Since I had the option to wait until we reached normal space, I took it.

  Why did people fear these strange places? Perhaps it was because people still wondered about the journey of the soul after death. For those uncertain of a soul’s destination, beyond a shadow of doubt, the loss of a life in space evoked a terrible respect for both the living and the dead. If you joined that with the incomprehensible magnitude of hyperspace, the usual protocol wasn’t going to lead to a good night’s sleep for any of us. In short, nobody wanted anything to do with dumping our dead peers into limbo.

  Another negative to hyperspace burials was the extreme finality of the act. If jettisoned into space anywhere near a star, a corpse had at least some possibility of falling into the fusion furnace at the center of that system. Eventually, the star would collapse and oftentimes explode, seeding new stars with the matter expelled.

  Every human being contains within their body elements which had long ago formed in the center of stars. From those raging infernos came the forged heavy bits of matter required to make any known life form function.

  In a way, every living thing that died could be recycled into new life. Some part of us was therefore immortal. But, to leave them out here in the nonexistence of hyperspace, a theoretical void that could never support life or even a single star—that was a true punishment. No bit of matter could ever hope to escape.

  So we held onto our dead. We froze them—a simple matter on a spacecraft—and carried them with us for burial in a more hospitable place.

  Instead of holding a funeral, I decided to hold a celebration instead. Despite Zye’s gloomy opinions, I thought I’d done rather well against Okto. I called my officers to my private table for a formal dinner in compensation.

  The only bad thing about my plans was the automatic inclusion of my intractable aunt. I couldn’t very well leave the most important personage aboard out of the party, so I invited her with gritted teeth. In preparation for possible difficulties, I ordered that a double-ration of wine be served. As part of the final course, three bottles of brandy from my private reserve were uncorked and poured with unusual liberalness.

  Everyone was already smiling by the time the brandy came out. Even Aunt Grantholm, bless her soul, seemed to be enjoying herself.

  “I propose a toast!” Rumbold announced loudly, rising to his feet.

  “Another?” Durris demanded. “What’s your excuse this time, old man?”

  Rumbold hushed us with a hand. “To a fine ship, the loveliest vessel in Earth’s navy.” He leered at my aunt pointedly. “And the Defiant ain’t so bad herself!”

  He finished his toast, squeezing off a deliberate wink toward my aunt. His face displayed a broad, self-satisfied grin. He lifted the glass, and the rest of us, eyes wide, lifted ours as well.

  Everyone was glancing at Lady Grantholm to see how she was taking Rumbold’s boisterousness. There was a moment of tension, during which she eyed the assembly thoughtfully.

  At last, she smiled and raised her glass to join the rest. Everyone sighed in relief. We clinked and gulped. The brandy burned all the way down.

  I’d yet to turn on my implant to metabolize the alcohol at an increased rate. To do so would remove my heady glow—but more importantly, it seemed like a crime. What was the point of celebrating with fine drink if one immediately erased the effects in the name of duty?

  So, I let my head swim, and I let my mind wander. Lieutenant Commander Yamada sat to my left side. She’d grabbed that spot when she’d shown up ten minutes early.

  “Rumbold is making his move!” she hissed to me in delight.

  I looked across the tabl
e, and it was true. The old buzzard had his arm draped casually around the back of my aunt’s chair. He was talking to her animatedly, and she was eyeing him in amusement.

  “Now, that’s a sight,” I said, chuckling. “I don’t recall seeing my aunt locked in flirtation for years—maybe it hasn’t happened in my lifetime.”

  “She’s not married?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s outlived three husbands. Rejuv only takes one so far, and not everyone reacts the same way to it.”

  “How old do you think she is?” Yamada asked. “I mean, really.”

  I glanced at her. She grinned conspiratorially in return. We were all getting drunk, I realized, and having a good time. I couldn’t blame any of my crew. We’d had precious little to celebrate on this long journey thus far.

  “She confesses to one-seventy,” I said, “but some whisper it’s more like two hundred.”

  “Wow,” Yamada said, sipping her drink, “like it makes a difference!” She sprayed a fine mist of red wine and merriment through pursed lips, but quickly recovered herself.

  I smirked at her, realizing that she was adorable.

  “Two hundred years, maybe…?” she said, staring at my aunt again. “She looks pretty good, I guess. It’s to her advantage that birth records were lost in the purges after the Cataclysm. No one will ever know for sure. I mean, what would Rumbold say if he knew he was chasing a significantly older woman?”

  “I don’t think he cares, to be honest with you.”

  We watched the courtship continue. I began to suspect my aunt had switched on her metabolic implants at some point, sharpening her mind. I was just as certain that Rumbold had elected not to do likewise. I supposed it was for the best on both counts.

  In time, the guests began leaving the party. Soon, it was down to myself, Yamada, Rumbold, my aunt—and Zye.

  My aunt declared first. She rose, putting the back of her hand to her forehead.

  “I think the wine has gone to my head,” she fibbed. “Will you escort me to my cabin, helmsman?”

  “Certainly,” Rumbold said, springing to his feet like he was a century younger.