“Jarn,” he said. “Ready the call. I’m going to slip Travek from his leash in—”
“Message from Icefall!” Jarn burst in excitedly. The young signalman looked up, eyes bulging. “Travek’s off!”
A message from Icefall flashed across Olafsen’s console screen.
Glory and honor is mine!
Blood, spoil, plunder, death.
Olafsen slammed his fist on his console screen. The faceplate cracked, and pain throbbed in his hand. He let out a string of curses. Next to him, Björnman added his own colorful language.
“Shoot that idiot out of the sky,” Björnman said.
“No, hold.” Olafsen wrestled down his anger. “Let’s see what happens. Maybe Icefall stays undetected. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
It wasn’t to be. Travek’s impatience quickly drew the enemy’s attention. The five enemy ships had been decelerating, but now fired up their engines again. Just as quickly, they moved to encircle the missile frigate, recognizing correctly that it would be the first target of the approaching star wolf.
“Orders, sir?” the pilot asked.
More curses from the captain. What choice did he have? If he sat back, the enemy would tear Icefall apart. Then, more wary, they’d scan Moloch until they found the other five star wolves. At that point, the enemy would flee the battlefield, and it would turn into a long-distance chase. Out in the void, anything could happen.
“Get us into the fight.” To Jarn, he said, “Signal the other wolves. Take out the support craft. I want that cruiser intact.”
Shaking his head, furious that Travek had disobeyed orders, he still watched hopefully as Icefall closed with the enemy. Travek was a bastard, but he knew his business, and his ship slid neatly between the two torpedo boats, which fired as he crossed their path. The torpedoes lost Icefall and circled around, looking for a new target. This forced the torpedo boats themselves into evasive maneuvers.
Travek feinted an attack on the cruiser, which rolled to fire a broadside, then whipped by it and came at the frigate. The frigate failed to launch missiles before Icefall’s pummel guns began to strike its thin armor. Unfortunately, the war junk had Icefall on an angle, and blasted at Travek’s ship with energy pulses. Peerless turned about to join the fight. It still hadn’t fired its main cannon. Rather than sit and wait for the blow, Travek’s ship ducked away.
Olafsen’s remaining wolves charged into the fight, Bloodaxe in the lead. The enemy ships, as well as Icefall, had already drifted away from Moloch and toward the star. That served Olafsen’s purpose. The closer the fighting warships were to the star, the more he could negate the enemy’s advantage in long-range firepower; solar radiation played havoc with missile and torpedo tracking systems. At that point it would come down to kinetic weapons, where the star wolves had a clear advantage.
The cruiser, the two torpedo boats, and the war junk turned to face the newcomers. Whatever else Travek’s foolhardy charge had accomplished, he’d thrown their formation into disarray, and Olafsen hoped to take advantage of it. But the enemy began to tighten ranks. Blasted Albion discipline. Why couldn’t Olafsen count on his ships to behave like that?
“Enemy missiles launched,” Björnman said. “A full barrage.”
And what a barrage. Fully twenty missiles squirted into space, one after another, until the sensors struggled to track them all. Olafsen braced himself for a terrible pounding, but here the enemy’s discipline cracked. Instead of targeting the hard-charging star wolves in front, the missiles chased after Icefall. It twisted and jerked and launched burst charges. Some of the missiles corkscrewed away, lost, but the bulk kept in relentless pursuit of the fleeing wolf.
“That fool did some good after all,” Olafsen said. “The enemy frigate will take time to reload. Jarn, send the word. All firepower on those torpedo boats. Let’s sweep them from the battlefield.”
The two smallest ships in the Albion commander’s task force came about and gamely awaited the charge. Olafsen didn’t envy their crew. The mood on the bridges of the two boats must be grim as they awaited the onslaught. At the last minute, they launched torpedoes. A clever maneuver by Olafsen’s pilot let them evade the first one, but the second slammed into Bloodaxe. Alarms blared.
“Damage?” Olafsen asked.
“Thirty percent degradation to the fore shield,” Björnman said.
“Thirty!” He cursed.
That was a vicious strike, harder than he’d thought possible from a single torpedo. One blow from one small boat had weakened one of his two main shields by a third.
“Hit that fool with our guns, show him what we’ve got.”
The pummel guns chugged away at the enemy. A string of fire caught the torpedo boat along its stern. The Albion ship turned to run, but Olafsen ordered pursuit, and they fell in behind it, keeping a continual stream of fire directed at its rear. The enemy’s engine sputtered and bled plasma.
Olafsen called off the guns. The boat would be dead in the water; he could recover it later. But then the torpedo boat, armor cracked and useless, the engine bleeding to death, managed to come about, and it tried to fire a torpedo. The weapon detonated in the tube. When the screens cleared, there was nothing left of it.
Meanwhile, the second of the smaller ships launched a pair of torpedoes, then tried to fall back to the protective guns of the cruiser. Both torpedoes struck one of the star wolves, and it pulled back, bleeding gasses to the void. The ship’s marauder captain sent out an emergency distress signal, then snuffed it as they got control of the damage. But the wolf was out of the fight and withdrawing.
The three remaining star wolves fell on the final torpedo boat before it could escape. They hit it from both sides with their pummel guns. A missile struck its shattered armor and tore it in two.
Next, the Albion cruiser and frigate launched missiles. This time the firepower was more carefully targeted, and swept into the star wolves from above and below just as they finished off the torpedo boats. This forced the wolves to break formation to evade the attack. All three suffered light damage in the barrage.
“Regroup,” Olafsen ordered. “And bring Travek back around.”
“What about Hailstorm?” Jarn asked.
That was the star wolf that had been hit by two torpedoes and nearly destroyed. Hailstorm had pulled away from the star after its brief, damaging encounter, and was only a few tens of thousands of miles from Icefall, which had come about and was preparing for another charge at the frigate.
“What’s Hailstorm’s status?”
Jarn made the call and came back with an answer from the marauder captain moments later.
“Shields are wrecked, engines at seventy percent strength. All guns are operational, though.”
“Tell Hailstorm to get around and support Icefall from a distance. Keep enough pressure from the rear to block a retreat and draw the fire of that frigate. That’s all we need.”
Olafsen’s forces had taken more damage in the initial encounter than expected, but it hadn’t been a disaster, either. One star wolf was badly damaged, and all the ships had taken punishment of some kind, most notably Bloodaxe itself. But he’d eliminated two of the enemy’s five ships. Those torpedo boats were supposed to be maneuverable, able to land blows and escape, forcing the Scandians to be aware of their presence at all times, and now they were gone.
“The gunnery wants orders,” Björnman said as the four nearest star wolves assembled for another charge. “Explosive charge or long range for the pummel guns?”
“We’re going to close with that cruiser,” he said. “All four of us. Do we have raiders on hand?”
“Fifty men in mech suits. Fifty more unarmored.”
“Good. Jarn, spread the word to the fleet. Get the enemy’s main battery offline, and melt those blasted torpedo tubes to slag. Then I want a full boarding assault from all sides.”
He smiled grimly. Two hundred raiders in mech suits. It would be a slaughter. He only wished he could join the assault, bu
t he had his hands full. Even after he got the enemy’s main battery down and her torpedoes offline, the cruiser would have other weapons to strike back with, and Olafsen needed to remain at his post.
Bloodaxe and the other three star wolves set in motion at the same time as Hailstorm accelerated to join Icefall, now creeping back into the fight from behind and below the action. The enemy cruiser suddenly broke from its two remaining craft. Olafsen stared, dumbfounded. The Albion commander had apparently lost his nerve and was going to make a run for it, even though that meant abandoning the two other ships. So much for the vaunted Royal Navy discipline.
“Maximum thrust,” Olafsen ordered. “Catch him before he outruns us.”
As Bloodaxe accelerated, its three accompanying wolves sprang into motion to join the hunt. Suddenly, the cruiser took a sharp turn on the x-axis and came directly at Hailstorm. The Scandian captain barely had time to turn his pummel gun before Peerless was swinging about to show a broadside. Even as it fired its cannon, torpedoes and missiles streaked out the other side toward Icefall, which turned sluggishly with its damaged engines to evade.
Hailstorm took the brunt of Peerless’s cannon fire and was forced to withdraw after a light salvo from its pummel guns. Icefall dumped countermeasures in a desperate attempt to shake off the enemy fire. Two missiles penetrated the screen and cracked it on the bow. While Olafsen watched in disbelief, Peerless slipped past the two star wolves and fled for deep space.
Bloodaxe and its accompanying wolves soon had their own problems, as the enemy frigate let loose another barrage that broke in a wave over the tightly packed formation. Countermeasures filled the sky, and the resulting explosions lit up the viewscreen. By the time the screen cleared, both the war junk and the missile frigate were fleeing to join Peerless. All three ships were soon streaking away from the battlefield.
“Pilot, follow those ships!” he roared.
Five of the six star wolves were soon chasing the fleeing enemy ships. Only Hailstorm lingered behind, its engines too damaged to keep up. Olafsen was soon cursing in frustration. The enemy had too much of a head start, and the star wolves were falling behind. The enemy was headed straight toward the asteroid belt, ready to join the battle brewing there. Within an hour, the data confirmed what Olafsen had already guessed. His star wolves couldn’t catch the enemy.
He stared at the screen, his face burning and a vein throbbing in his temple. The Albionish had been tricked into approaching Moloch, had been outnumbered and overmatched. Olafsen’s initial attack had wiped out two torpedo boats. Even with Travek’s blunder, all advantage had been with the Scandians. Yet the Albion commander had outmaneuvered him and escaped.
He stood up and clenched his fist, ready to smash his console to fragments. But his right hand was still throbbing from when he’d struck it earlier, and he stopped himself before he could do it, and himself, more damage. Instead, he grabbed his chair and clenched it so tightly his knuckles turned white. He turned around, barely able to control his breathing.
“Um, Olafsen?” Jarn said gingerly.
The marauder captain’s words came out in a snarl. “What is it?”
“There’s a message from Longshanks. I don’t suppose you want to . . . um, that is . . .”
“Put it up, damn you.”
Sven’s mocking smile greeted them. “Looks like I’ve won the bet, Brother.” He chuckled. “Ah, how you were outwitted. I know you must be worried for my well-being, attacking this base all on my own, but please, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll have things mopped up well ahead of time, and can turn my attention to dealing with your friends as they arrive. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two, don’t you think?”
The message ended, and Olafsen was left fuming. “How long until Longshanks engages the enemy?”
Björnman consulted his console. “Six hours, maybe seven. That will give him a full day to win the battle and loot the camp before we arrive. Plenty of time.”
Groans sounded across the bridge, and no doubt similar sentiment was being expressed throughout the Scandian forces as their marauder captains made similar assessments.
“I’m not so sure,” Olafsen said after further reflection. “Thirty hours sounds like a long time, but it’s a strong enemy force. My brother will have his hands full, and the battle might still be raging when we arrive. Anyway, we can expect that the Albionish will fight like the devil and that the fighting will leave my brother bloodied. There might still be a chance for us to take that cruiser.”
The other crew on the bridge looked doubtful, even discouraged, but he glared at them in turn until confidence returned to their faces.
Fresh news reached them about an hour later. Ragnar Forkbeard had arrived in the system on board Storm Rider, together with eight other star wolves. He sent an offer/demand to Olafsen, and presumably to Sven as well.
My ships and warriors are at your disposal in this great raid. I will be happy to share in the risk, the glory, and a one third share of the plunder.
Forkbeard would arrive at the battlefield a few hours after Olafsen, but apparently intended to participate, whether the Albion fleet had been defeated or not. Given the weakened state of Olafsen’s forces and the condition his brother was likely to be in once he’d taken that battle cruiser, it didn’t seem that either brother was in a position to refuse the man’s offer.
Chapter Sixteen
Catarina ignored McGowan’s message for three hours. She was too busy laying a minefield, and had plenty of other tasks to keep her occupied. She was short of time, short of warships, and short of fortified positions on Fort Alliance and the surrounding asteroids, but she had plenty of ordnance, including mines.
Void Queen circled the asteroid cluster at a diameter of a quarter million miles, where she spat out clusters of dumb mines. They needed to be charted, because they would float toward any object, friendly or not, and blow up on impact. These were cheap and temporary; over time, they’d drift into the vast emptiness of space, where their explosives would degrade so as not to provide a hazard to the shipping lanes for the next thousand years.
Next came the more sophisticated Youd mines, placed in a thin shell at a diameter of fifty thousand miles. When a ship passed, the mines would ping its hull, looking for a deactivation key. If the ship failed to supply the key, the entire minefield could sweep into motion.
By themselves, the mines were unlikely to alter the course of the battle, and in fact, space was so vast, even on these local scales, that the approaching star wolves could zip straight through without being detected. But the longer the enemy ships lingered, the more charges they made at the fort, the more likely it was that they’d hit one of the minefields. That could prove devastating. Also, the converging enemy fleets would be watching from a distance and making guesses about her behavior. That would hopefully make them cautious when they approached.
Hard to say. The Scandians were reckless fighters. McGowan’s recent battle had shown that. She’d watched it from afar, muttering about how he’d stumbled into a trap, shaking her head at the loss of two torpedo boats, but relieved in the end that Peerless had escaped, together with a war junk and a missile frigate.
A call from the gunnery with complaints about the main battery reminded Catarina of Void Queen’s ongoing deficiencies. Her ship was now battle tested, but not everything was working properly, and these issues were exacerbated by the fact that this was the first battle cruiser built in decades and it represented a melding of old function and new design. Catarina went down to the gunnery to see the problem for herself.
The main battery was housed behind a massive bulwark on the starboard side of the ship, where a crew of twenty managed the loading of ordnance, the disposal of spent shells, and the electronic fire control. They also interfaced with the defense grid computer, which could be controlled from the bridge as well. Catarina walked the length of twenty-two cannon, about a third of which were under some state of repair, with everything from solitary technicians tw
eaking the instruments to crew working on guns that had been opened from the rear, with precision components laid out.
Chief Barker was accompanying her, and she turned to him in alarm. “You’ve taken apart my guns.”
His walrus mustache waggled. “I’m inspecting the interior, that’s all.” His voice was gruff, the tone of a man who has spent twenty years shouting over machinery. “That was the first time these boys had been fired in combat, and they didn’t do so well.”
“Isn’t that a question of instruments? Why have you stripped them open like this?”
“Got to make sure the tyrillium boring is holding up. If it starts to fuse with the underlying substrate—”
“Cut to the chase. How soon will they be online?”
“I could have these guns up in twenty minutes in a pinch. Believe me, you want this test. If one of those guns hasn’t been firing clean, we could blow up the whole gunnery. Once we’ve been through a couple of scrapes, I’ll do a sample instead of a complete analysis.”
She was somewhat mollified by this answer, although it alarmed her to have the battery offline for even five minutes, given the current circumstances. “So what’s the problem with the fire control?”
“Let me show you.” Barker touched his ear. “Smythe, are you at the defense grid computer? Captain, open your own channel. You’ll want to hear this.”
She did, and her tech officer’s voice came through mid-sentence. “. . . only those two tubes?”
“Aye,” Barker said. “Tubes three and four. Only the Hunter-IIs. The Mark-IVs don’t do it.”
“There, you’re good to go,” Smythe said. “I’ll hold online in case you need anything else.”
“Let me show you,” Barker said to the captain. He stepped over to a fire control console. “Now, look, here’s the targeting computer. I’ve got the guns trained at Black Serpent.” He chuckled. “Who is at the helm? One of your pirate friends? Wouldn’t he be surprised if I let loose with a full broadside?”
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