The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

by J. A. Sutherland

  She struggled and sound echoed through her helmet. A new sound. Someone was saying something, but she couldn’t understand. Someone was talking and holding her, keeping her from her gun, and in a moment the frigate would sail off. They’d sail off and more of her little ships would fall, more men would die because she hadn’t been strong enough or quick enough or clever enough to save them.

  “— struck, sir!”

  “We’ll not strike, damn your eyes!” she yelled. “Get back to the guns and fire or I’ll cut you down myself!”

  The arms held against her struggles, spun her around, away from the gun.

  “Sir!” She recognized Dobb’s voice. “It’s the frigate what’s struck, sir! Not us, the frigate!”

  Alexis shook her head.

  “You’re mad,” she whispered. “They can’t have …”

  Slowly she stopped struggling. The arms around her loosened, tentatively, as though Dobb was unsure of her and prepared to grab her again. She set her feet on the deck, feeling the click as the magnets in her boots met the deck. She turned and peered out.

  The Hanoverese frigate lay a bare fifty meters away, gunports dark and silent. The stubs of its masts flashing white in surrender.

  Alexis staggered back from the port and stared around her, starting to grin with elation at what Belial and her crew had accomplished. She stopped, blinked, and her grin fell away.

  What little she could make out in the dim glow of the emergency chemical lights was a horror. All the guns but one were overturned, their tubes shattered and breeches twisted. Dobb stood beside her, Oakman and Chevis near the one remaining gun, but the deck everywhere was littered with bodies. Some moved feebly, but most were still.

  “Dear lord, what have I done …”

  Chapter 58

  Alexis made her way onto Belial’s hull by the simple expedience of stepping through the gaping hole that had once been her ship’s gunports. She pulled a small, still figure along behind her and made her way to Belial’s stern.

  She supposed she should leave Artley’s body with the rest being retrieved from throughout the ship and laid out on the gundeck, but couldn’t bear to leave him there alone. She owed him a moment’s time — time she’d not had to spare aboard Shrewsbury or even to keep him safe on Belial, nor to notice the moment of his death.

  She settled into place at the stern and attached one of Artley’s lines to the guidewires.

  “Damn you, Sterlyn. Why’d you come back? You could have stayed safe at Alchiba. Not … not come back so I could get you killed.”

  She settled into place and gazed off past Belial’s rudder and planes.

  Dobb and the others still alive were reviewing the damage, but there was little any of them could do. Belial was so holed that Alexis was afraid to try and reach any of the areas that might be undamaged — the magazine was still aired and only portions of the engineering spaces.

  Most of the engineering spaces had been holed at the same time Belial’s gravity had failed. It was only by some miracle that Belial had survived, as the casing around the fusion plant was pocked and creased where shot had struck it, though never quite directly enough to breach it.

  Her brief tour of the space had left her sick, as none of the civilians she’d sent there had been suited. Three had been shoved into a small compartment by the engineering crew and had miraculously survived, but the rest were dead. As were all of those who’d remained in Belial’s hold.

  Other than those three only the seven who’d been able to fit into the ship’s magazine with Oakman had survived, including both Marie and Ferrau. She supposed she should be grateful for that, but it was hard to be grateful for anything when faced with such devastation.

  Of her crew, there was only herself and four others, Dobb, Oakman, Chevis, and Hunsley, left alive. With no surgeon aboard to treat them during the action and with no one to be spared from the guns to take them below, most of those injured had been left on the gundeck where they fell, only to be struck again by enemy shot.

  A hundred meters away the Hanoverese frigate sat still and silent as well, battered as much or more than Belial herself. A handful of suited figures were out on the hull there, and Alexis had to wonder what their butcher’s bill had been. She should send someone over to take charge of it, but there was hardly anyone to send. It would have to wait until the end of the fleet action and for some ship from whichever side won that to come along.

  And if there is any justice, her captain will have survived, that I might see him hang.

  She hoped Belial’s logs might be intact, and that the recordings of the Hanoverese firing into helpless, unarmed ships could be put to that purpose.

  Alexis left Artley at the stern and crossed under Belial’s keel to the other side of her ship for a moment. Here the hull was largely intact; only a few of the frigate’s shots had managed to burn all the way through the gundeck to exit the far side. That, somehow, didn’t seem right — the horror inside shouldn’t be hidden like that.

  In the distance she could see the lights of other ships and wondered what the outcome of the fleet action had been.

  Then, a moment later, she supposed her question was answered. She stood and watched as, to leeward, a frigate beat her way against the wind toward Belial, New London’s colors bright against her undamaged hull.

  Alexis couldn’t tell what ship — she was flying her number, but Alexis had no way of looking it up and didn’t immediately recognize it — but the frigate’s other signal sent her to her knees. First in manic laughter, then in wracking sobs.

  Do you require assistance?

  * * *

  The frigate, HMS Magnanime, hove-to to windward of Belial and the Hanoverese frigate. Both ships were so damaged that there was no way a boarding tube could be attached to either. Magnanime worked her sails to drift and edge broadside downwind until she was close enough for lines to be shot across the void between the ships.

  Alexis and Dobb made the lines fast to whatever parts of Belial’s hull seemed least likely to snap off if force were applied.

  No sooner had they made the lines fast than Magnanime’s crew began hauling the two ships together, but Alexis watched in surprise as spacers from Magnanime scrambled across the lines as well, risking exposure to darkspace away from the protective influence of the hull.

  A suited figure with lieutenant’s insignia on his arms reached her and touched his helmet to hers.

  “Lieutenant Whitefield, Magnanime. Is your captain about?”

  Alexis had to work her mouth for a moment to be able to respond. Her lips were dry and parched, and she’d finished all of her suit’s water long before.

  “Belial’s mine.” She looked around at the damage and shook her head. “Was mine.” She fought down her feelings and tried to focus. “We’ve —” She closed her eyes and cringed at the number. “We’ve seven civilians in the magazine without vacsuits. Will you have some sent over so that they may board your ship?”

  “You took refugees into action? Against a frigate?”

  Alexis’ temper flared. “And where were you, sir? Behind the lines playing postman, with never a glance this way to see what was happening?”

  Her vision seemed to darken as she spoke and her head spun. She grasped Whitefield’s arm to steady herself.

  Whitefield looked from her to the Hanoverese frigate and back again.

  “Your pardon,” he said. “I should not have spoken so. Come, let me get you across to Magnanime.”

  * * *

  Alexis and the others were taken first aboard Magnanime, where she made her report to the frigate’s captain, Captain Hutchings, and was told the outcome of the fleet action.

  Magnanime was not a part of Admiral Chipley’s fleet that had come to Giron, it seemed. She was with a fleet under Admiral Cammack, whose fleet and flagship, HMS Royal Sovereign, a massive, 100 gun three decker, had arrived at Alchiba to reinforce Chipley, only to find that neither Chipley nor the original transports for the invasion
force had ever returned to Alchiba, and that a ragtag fleet of little ships had sailed to bring New London’s boys home.

  Cammack had set out immediately for Giron, arriving in the midst of the action.

  The Hanoverese fleet, now vastly outnumbered, had disengaged and fled.

  “Admirals Chipley and Cammack exchanged some signals about the best course of action,” Hutchings said. “Admiral Chipley believed an aggressive pursuit of the Hanoverese was in order, while my Admiral Cammack felt it was best to see these transports safely home.”

  Alexis eased herself in her chair and blinked. She was having a bit of trouble focusing on Captain Hutchings’ words. She was dressed in a too-large jumpsuit borrowed from one of Magnanime’s lieutenants. The smallest of them, but still several centimeters taller than she. Her own things were somewhere in the wreck of Belial or in her cabin aboard Shrewsbury, which was off with Admiral Chipley.

  She’d barely had time to change out of her vacsuit before Hutchings was asking for her and she felt the dire need for a bit of time in the head to rinse the sweat from her body.

  And a bunk. I should dearly like to make the acquaintance of one of Magnanime’s bunks. With the crew on the gundeck, even, just anywhere I might go to sleep.

  “Carew?”

  Alexis jerked, her eyes springing open. “I’m sorry, sir, I —”

  Hutchings waved it away. “No, I wasn’t thinking. After what you … I can’t imagine.” He frowned. “Whitefield!”

  Alexis jerked awake again at his bellow as Lieutenant Whitefield appeared in the hatchway.

  “Sir?”

  “Put Carew in a cabin until we can transfer her to Royal Sovereign. The admiral will want to speak with her.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Captain Hutchings,” Alexis said, “I don’t want to put anyone out of their cabin.”

  Hutchings shook his head. “No trouble. We’ll be up with the flagship as soon as another frigate arrives here to take charge of the Hannie prize. No more than a watch.” He frowned. “I suppose Chipley will have all the prize money if he ever catches up with those that fled. With both Chipley’s fleet and mine In Sight here, the prize money for those that surrendered in this action will be spread thin as cucumber slices at tea.”

  Alexis struggled to smile, knowing it was expected of her at a senior captain’s jest. The money for prizes was divided between the crews of all ships in sight of the action when the captured ship struck. With two New London fleets here near Giron there’d be many ships to divide what prize money resulted from the action, including whatever came of the frigate which had struck to Belial.

  As for Belial herself? Alexis winced at the thought. With the damage so great, likely her ship would be scuttled in place, her fusion plant set to be breached and left to devour the hulk Alexis had turned her into.

  * * *

  It felt like she’d barely had a moment’s rest before she was shaken awake and sent through a boarding tube to the flagship. Dobb and the other survivors from Belial’s crew, Marie, Ferrau, and the other civilians included, remained aboard Magnanime, or possibly were transferred to other ships in Cammack’s fleet. Alexis was never sure.

  Alexis was whisked straight from the tube to the admiral’s day cabin where she again told her story, this time to Admiral Cammack and Royal Sovereign’s captain, Captain Wixson. There she related her experiences on Giron and during the action once more. Word came from the prize crew sent aboard the Hanoverese frigate, and Alexis learned what had occurred there during her action.

  Apparently, the Hanoverese captain, furious that a ship so small as Belial was standing up to his ship and that his guncrews were performing so poorly, had left his quarterdeck for the gundeck just as one of Belial’s broadsides had arrived. He’d been struck down in the midst of haranguing his guncrews. In the confusion after his loss, the frigate’s guncrews had become even more haphazard until Belial’s fire had destroyed fully half the frigate’s guns. Further fire from Belial had struck the frigate’s quarterdeck, penetrating it and killing both the first lieutenant, then acting as captain, and fourth lieutenant. The second lieutenant took command, but, seeing the arrival of Cammack’s fleet, had determined to put paid to a bad bit of business and ordered the colors struck.

  Alexis listened to the report in silence. She was torn between satisfaction that the frigate’s captain was dead and disappointment that he’d escaped further justice for his actions.

  Finally she was shown to a cabin and left to rest — and that was the worst of all.

  Dobb and the others were quickly absorbed into the fleet’s crews. They had the support of new mates and tasks to keep them busy. Alexis was left idle — she had no place in Royal Sovereign’s watch schedule and no duties.

  At least fatigue and having to make her report of the action had kept her either occupied or left her mind muddled. Once she had time to rest and her mind was clear, she found herself left idle and with far too much time to think about the action.

  Worse, the other lieutenants aboard the flagship either treated her with kid gloves or avoided her altogether. They seemed unsure of her status or of how to deal with her, which Alexis couldn’t blame them for. She’d not only lost a ship, but the refugees aboard and nearly all her crew as well. What did one say to such an officer?

  For the most part she stayed in her cabin — Royal Sovereign’s eighth lieutenant had been moved to a midshipman’s cabin and those worthies had evicted a master’s mate from his — or alone at the wardroom table. Both Admiral Cammack and Captain Wixson invited her to dine with them nightly, but she was poor company and knew it. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  For hours she studied her tablet, searching for some tactic that would have changed the outcome of Belial’s last action, but found none. At last, she was forced to admit that once she’d determined to engage the frigate, Belial’s fate was sealed. As the alternative had been to allow more of the transports to be destroyed, she accepted that she’d had no choice.

  That knowledge did little to alleviate the loss.

  * * *

  Alexis jumped, startled by the sudden rap on her cabin’s hatch.

  “Come,” she said.

  The hatch slid open and one of Royal Sovereign’s midshipmen stuck his head in. There were so many of them about the massive ship that Alexis had yet to keep them straight.

  “Admiral Cammack’s asking for you to come to the quarterdeck, sir,” the boy said. “We’ve spotted the Alchiba pilot boat, I hear.”

  Alexis frowned. Why would she be needed on the quarterdeck for that? Still and all, a summons from an admiral was not to be ignored. She rolled off her cot and straightened her jumpsuit. The midshipman slid the hatch open and Alexis frowned as she saw that Dobb, Oakman, Chevis, and Hunsley, all of those, at least who were in the Navy, who had survived Belial were also with him.

  “Admiral’s asked for them, as well,” the midshipman explained.

  Alexis led the way, more curious than ever as to why they’d all been summoned. They made their way to the quarterdeck and entered.

  “Ah, there you are, Carew,” Cammack said as they entered. “Come over here, please, all of you.” He gestured to the spacers behind her. “Here around the plot, if you will.”

  Alexis shared a glance with Dobb and Oakman. The space around the navigation plot was generally an officer’s purview.

  “Pilot boat’s signaling again, sir,” the midshipman on the signals console announced. Alexis realized she didn’t know his name either, despite having been aboard Royal Sovereign for so long. “Asking for our numbers and they’ve added Imperative.”

  Alexis stepped up to the navigation plot — Cammack had invited her to after all — and stared at it in puzzlement. In addition to the plot of each ship’s course, Admiral Cammack had it displaying images of the Alchiba pilot boat and arriving fleet — both Cammack’s ships and the hundreds of little ships bearing the evacuees from Giron. She felt Dobb and the others step up beside her.
r />   What’s going on?

  No wonder the pilot boat had added the Imperative signal. None of the ships in the fleet were flying New London’s colors, much less their numbers. Their masts and hulls were dark, as though they were all waiting for something. With hundreds of unidentified ships so close, the pilot boat must be wondering if this were the start of an invasion.

  “There’s little enough we can do to honor your ship and men, Carew,” Cammack said. “I’ll hope this is a start.” He nodded to the signals station.

  Alexis frowned and looked down at the plot. First Royal Sovereign’s masts lit up, then that signal was taken up by the other ships of the fleet — from ships of the line to frigates to sloops to the smallest pinnace that had made the trip — spreading out from Royal Sovereign in an expanding wave, each ship displaying the same signal.

  Not a ship’s number, for the ship named in the signal had never received one. Instead the signals spelled out the name, laboriously, letter by letter.

  Alexis’ eyes filled with tears and she blinked hard to clear them, wishing so many men could be here to see the honor the fleet was paying them.

  Dobb laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “She were a good ship, sir.”

  “And the finest of crews,” Alexis agreed, laying her hand over his and squeezing hard.

  The pilot boat had asked a simple question: What ship?

  And the fleet, as one, had answered.

  Belial.

  Epilogue

  Alexis rose from her bunk sweating and shaking. The last tendrils of the dream, nightmare, still had hold of her and even the bright lights couldn’t dispel it. She leaned over the small table her compartment sported, one palm flat on its surface, and poured a drink. She noted that her hand was shaking and the bottle’s neck rattled against the glass. She’d have to ensure that had stopped before her next meeting with Lieutenant Curtice.