Queen of the Void (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 1)

by Michael Wallace

  Black Serpent was a schooner with a crew of thirty-four, light guns, and a wide cargo hold. Said hold was transporting explosives from a barge to Fort Alliance. Surprised wasn’t exactly the word she’d use when the schooner instantly vaporized.

  “Then I suppose it’s a good thing the guns are retracted,” she said. A glance down the line. “And inoperable,” she added dryly. “Not much risk to anyone at the moment, are they?”

  “They’ll be online, Captain. You can count on it. Anyway, look.”

  She stepped up to the console, which showed the schooner lying exposed and unsuspecting off starboard, silhouetted against the much larger barge. A broadside from this angle and distance would be like hunting a duck with a 12-gauge shotgun. Rip a nice hole in the barge, too.

  She glanced at the range finder and frowned. “Why does it say forty-two thousand miles? That can’t be more than ten, twelve miles away.”

  “Exactly right, Captain. Forty-two thousand is so far outside our range, in fact, that the range finder is just guessing. You’d need the actual defense grid computer to make estimates at that distance. The problem is the sensor array for the targeting computers on the number two and number four torpedo tubes. We need it to keep the Hunter-IIs on track, but as soon as the array extends from the hull, the active sounding messes up our targeting computer for the main cannon.”

  “So you’re saying the number two and four tubes mess up the main battery? Sounds like a design flaw.”

  “I’ve seen worse, believe me. When Dreadnought was still in the yards, they installed a personnel lift rated at fifteen hundred pounds to load six ton shells for the main guns. That’s why you run your tests, go through all the battle simulations before you wing off looking for enemies.”

  “Apparently, we did not have time. And anyway, I don’t care about Dreadnought, I care about this battle cruiser. What’s the fix? Move the sensor array?”

  “Aye, that’s right. Problem is time. In dock, I could get her done in five, six hours. We don’t have those facilities yet, so we’re talking spacewalk. We’ll get Carvalho or one of those other fellows out there who doesn’t mind a glimpse of the void and move the blasted thing. But we’re looking at two full days’ work. Meanwhile, we’ll lose those tubes. So I guess I need to know how long we’ve got until we’re in the fight.”

  “Not long enough.” Catarina shook her head. “I won’t risk it. You said only the Hunter-IIs are affected?

  “Aye, we don’t need that sensor array for the Mark-IVs.”

  “So we’ll stick to Mark-IVs for those tubes,” she said.

  “I don’t like it. That only leaves us two tubes that can fire the advanced torpedoes. We got plenty of Hunter-IIs—no point in saving them for the next fight if we don’t live to see it.”

  “Nothing to be done for it now. You have your orders, Chief.” She glanced down the line. “Meanwhile, get these guns back online. I’m moving the fleet in five hours.”

  #

  Capp cleared her throat when Catarina returned from the gunnery. “Hey, Cap’n. You gonna look at this message McGowan sent us? It’s been sitting here all day.”

  “I’m not interested in his lame excuses, but I suppose I’d better. Give me one second,” she added as the lift opened on the far side of the bridge and her pilot entered.

  Nyb Pim crossed the room with his long, gangly walk. The Hroom settled himself in his specially designed pilot’s chair, where he seemed to fold up like a giant praying mantis as his long fingers worked the console.

  “Pilot, plot us a course that will take Void Queen toward that first cluster of star wolves,” Catarina said. “We’ll move when they’re five million miles out and beginning their deceleration.”

  “We will be mounting an attack, sir?” Nyb Pim asked.

  “It’s a feint. I want to see how they respond. If they continue, we fall back into a defensive posture.”

  “Ah, human deception.”

  Catarina glanced at Capp, who was still giving her a significant look. She sighed. “All right, Lieutenant. Let’s see how that pompous blowhard tries to justify himself. This should be good.”

  Whatever he had to say apparently took some time and self-justification, and he’d sent a video message instead of a shorter, faster subspace.

  McGowan appeared on the viewscreen, looking surprisingly unruffled. He’d lost two torpedo boats, and only a bit of luck had kept the Scandians from wiping him out entirely. Yet, he wore the same calm, almost arrogant expression that she’d spotted the first day she met him, when he’d been straddling her wild boar in the middle of a forest stream.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Gloat and smirk all you like. That’s right, I don’t have to see your face to picture your expression. You were right—you are justified in looking smug.”

  “You are so bloody full of yourself,” Catarina muttered. She paused the recording and stared at his face, which was frozen in an expression of disdain. “I haven’t given you two thoughts since the star wolves gave you a mauling. Gloating? Hah!”

  “He’s got a point though, don’t he?” Capp said, studying the captain’s face. “You do look kinda smug.”

  Whatever expression Catarina had been wearing, she wiped it off now. A scowl took its place. “Don’t you have work to do, Lieutenant?”

  “I want to hear what the bloke has to say. He’s on his way here, and I been anxious to hear what he wants.”

  Catarina grunted and started the recording again.

  “I admit it,” McGowan continued. “The trap, in retrospect, was obvious. They apparently captured HMS Forge, set it down on Moloch, and had it send a distress signal. And I fell for it. You would have, too, if it had been your old ship with your old mates. I know you don’t credit me with any loyalty, Vargus, but I am an honorable man.”

  Capp piped up again. “You and McGowan have some sort of history together? I’m good at sniffing out these things, you know, and it seems to me—”

  “Quiet,” Catarina told her as McGowan started up again.

  “I’m returning to Fort Alliance,” he said. “I would make a run for the nearest jump point and lure some enemies out of the system if it would even the odds. But it is clear that these villains have their sights set on our entire fleet and the goods we’ve carried into the system. If I abandon you to the fight, my pursuers will most assuredly let me go so as to better concentrate firepower against your position.”

  “We are in agreement there,” Catarina said. “If only you had more firepower to lend me than a missile frigate, a war junk, and a cruiser. Say, a couple of torpedo boats, for example.”

  “The enemy ships are powerful,” he continued. “I learned that to my detriment. They have stout armor and excellent kinetic weaponry. But I noted two weaknesses in our initial encounter.”

  Catarina leaned forward in her seat, paying more attention now. From this range, it had been hard to see every detail of the fight at Moloch; long-range scans had had difficulty following the action as it played out in real time, and the tech people were still analyzing the vast quantity of data that had been collected. But it had seemed to her like a rout.

  McGowan stumbled in, lost his torpedo boats, saw his frigate attacked from the rear, where it should have remained aloof from the battle, free to pummel the enemy from afar. He’d slipped away after another near miss, and managed to stay just ahead of the enemy by no virtue other than the strength of his engines.

  “First,” he said, “their pummel guns may be a match for our cannon, but they do not possess the same offensive capability at distance. If Fort Alliance were fully operational and supported by enough ships to keep the enemy at arm’s length, we could pick them apart before they closed ranks. They are strong, like armored knights, but we have knights and archers. That’s a decisive advantage.”

  “Thank you for that metaphor,” she said. “But how exactly does one keep them at arm’s length?”

  McGowan’s recorded message continued. “You may be wonderi
ng how we keep them at arm’s length.” He paused. “The answer is, I don’t know. They are aggressive and quick to charge. By my calculations, we’ll be facing two dozen star wolves. Even if Fort Alliance were fully operational, that would be more than a challenge.”

  “Two dozen?” Catarina exclaimed, stopping the recording. “Is there a third wave?”

  “I’ve been looking,” Smythe said. “Haven’t found anything yet.”

  “Find them, Smythe. No excuses.”

  A cold stone settled into the pit of Catarina’s stomach as she continued to play the message. McGowan must have spotted something. He wasn’t the type to exaggerate.

  “But their aggression leads to the second weakness I noted,” he said. “The first ship that charged me and nearly wrecked my frigate jumped the gun, I’d swear to it. Another few minutes and I’d have been dropping to the surface of the planet, and they could have fallen on me from above. I hadn’t spotted them yet. Why spoil a carefully laid trap?” McGowan nodded solemnly. “Lack of discipline. That is my assessment. These marauder captains are all independent actors, and sometimes they slip the leash. Perhaps you can put that to use, Vargus.

  “I know what you think of me,” he added, “but I will arrive ready to fight. Even die if necessary. The odds are grim. We can expect no reinforcements, and no quarter if the enemy overwhelms us. These brutes are barbarians. Those who don’t die will be sold into slavery. Don’t make the same mistake I did and throw away your support ships. Whatever you lose, sell it dearly.”

  “Well, then,” Catarina said as the transmission ended. “We have new information. Let’s put it to use.”

  #

  When the enemy was ten hours out, Catarina made the call to Rodriguez on Fort Alliance. Time to wrap up work, hunker down, and ready himself for the assault. Work could continue in the tunnels, but she needed the surface cleared of personnel and explosives. Meanwhile, it was time for an accounting of what had been accomplished in the last two days of frantic work.

  There was good news and bad news in the report.

  First, the good. Capp was back on Void Queen and gave a positive assessment of the work. Her crew had further explored the extensive network of alien tunnels below the surface. They plunged hundreds of yards into the rock, far beyond the reach of the antigrav systems set up near the surface. The deepest parts were inaccessible until the antigrav was extended, but even the upper reaches were deep enough that they’d be invulnerable to bombardment from space.

  Boring equipment had widened the upper tunnels to a height suitable for human and Hroom, but the bulk of the excavation had focused on burrowing places for weapon systems. They had two semi-exposed batteries on opposite poles of the moonlike main asteroid, plus a full battery dug into the main crater itself.

  In addition, she’d begun to dig fortifications on one of the small rocky asteroids in orbit around Fort Alliance. They’d named it Ravelin, after the triangular-shaped fortifications built on the edges of castles during the age of cannon and gunfire. Ravelin’s guns could theoretically bombard enemies from behind as they attacked the main fortifications.

  The bad news? There was plenty.

  The tunnels beneath Fort Alliance were well positioned for surviving bombardment, but not so great for fending off a ground assault. The Scandian raiders in their mech suits would be able to penetrate as deeply as they wanted. Capp’s marines had set up various choke points, but there were no bombproofs, fortified bunkers, or even cameras to track an invading enemy. No time for any of that. Nor was there sufficient life support to bring more than a few hundred marines out of stasis. The undermanned, underarmed defenders could fight and retreat, fight and retreat, but eventually, they’d be overwhelmed.

  The best defense for Fort Alliance was to deny landing. And here there was more bad news. Most of the installed defensive capability was either long or medium range. As soon as the star wolves silenced the gun batteries lining the crater, they could land in the middle of the fort and offload raiders at leisure. And once they were lodged on the surface, there’d be no force strong enough to root them out.

  Catarina’s goal became simple. She had to disrupt any landing attempt. And to accomplish that, she only had the outer guns on Ravelin, the shaky defenses of Fort Alliance itself, one powerful, but solitary battle cruiser, and a dozen irregularly armed and armored support vessels. Oh, and McGowan’s small force, if they managed to arrive in time. Against that, how many Scandian warships?

  Smythe looked up from his console with a triumphant shout. “Found them! Must have entered from a different jump point. Yup, it’s nine more enemy ships, sir.”

  Right. Against roughly two dozen star wolves.

  “Heaven help us,” Capp moaned. “Cap’n, please tell me you’ve got a good battle plan worked out.”

  “I’m working on a plan,” she said. “Whether it’s a good one or not, we’ll soon see.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The first of the three enemy fleets arrived a few hours later. Eight star wolves, none of which had yet faced the Albion forces, so far as she knew, began to decelerate when they were still several million miles out.

  Catarina’s ships faced them in a half-moon formation on the outer edge of the asteroid cluster, ready to sally forth or fall back according to orders. She hoped the posture of her ships would tantalize the enemy into charging. Backed by the ground-based guns, she could make a fight of it against eight wolves. If they waited for the others to arrive, she was in trouble.

  Catarina placed her strongest frigate, Orient Tiger, off Void Queen’s starboard and Pussycat below and to port. Pussycat was an ugly, squat shape on the viewscreen, but bristled with guns. Together, the three ships presented a formidable array of armor and firepower strong enough to smash apart an enemy formation.

  Catarina had stripped two of the smaller schooners of their guns—little peashooters adequate for piracy, but not enough to damage a star wolf—and turned them into missile platforms. An enemy barrage would wipe the schooners out in minutes, but she’d send her striker wing to protect them.

  The sloops of war stretched down on the z-axis, with their mixed Hroom and human crews, these two guarded by more schooners. The sloops looked intimidating with their pulse guns glowing and their ram-like noses, but sloop armor would be vulnerable to sustained bursts from the Scandian pummel guns. Catarina doubted the enemy commanders had any experience fighting Hroom, though, given the empire’s position on the far side of Albion-controlled space, so maybe the sloops would provide a wild card in a fight. At the very least, their serpentine batteries gave her one more long-range attack.

  The rest of Catarina’s ships were a motley collection of converted tramp frigates and schooners. Cannon fodder in the fight; she mixed them among the other ships to make the forces look more solid, but doubted the Scandians would be fooled.

  She stared at the screen as the enemy continued to decelerate. Would they hold off the attack until the other wolves arrived? Charge her directly? Try to break through for the surface?

  “We’re getting a message, sir,” Smythe said. “The enemy commander is hailing us. Should I put it through?”

  “Why not?” Catarina said. “I’m happy to stall for time if they’ll give it to us.”

  The marauder captain appeared on the screen. He had a massive, scraggly beard, hair in braids, and an eye patch, with a scar bisecting the ruined eye from forehead almost to his jaw. He stared at her.

  “Who you be, woman?” he growled in heavily accented English.

  She thrust out her chin and said in her coldest voice, “Your belligerent actions threaten open warfare with the Kingdom of Albion. I demand that you withdraw your ships at once.”

  He stared without answering. No way to tell if he’d even understood her.

  “Well?” she demanded, losing her patience. “What do you want?”

  He pounded his chest with his fist. “Me Sven Olafsen.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Catarina pounded her own ches
t. “Me Catarina Vargus.”

  “Me marauder captain.”

  “It’s ‘I,’ you idiot. ‘I am a marauder captain.’ And I am the captain of HMS Void Queen, an Ironside-class battle cruiser that is going to smack you upside the arse if you do not withdraw your ships.”

  “You surrender now. If not, you die.”

  “And what would be your terms?”

  He stared at her blankly. “Surrender now.”

  “So you’ve called to parley, but you don’t have the ability to communicate in English?” She spread her hands. “Alas, I am out of translators who can speak your barbarian tongue.”

  “Surrender, yes?” This time it was a question, but angrier sounding, as if he recognized he was being mocked.

  “Thank you for your generous offer. I will give you an answer shortly.” When that, too, brought a blank stare, she added, “Wait. Soon.” Catarina gestured to Smythe, who cut the call.

  Capp was grinning. “Wasn’t you going to stall for time, Cap’n?”

  “Turns out I don’t have the patience to deal with congenital idiots.”

  “I found him in the database,” Smythe said. “Sven Olafsen, otherwise known as Longshanks. A notoriously brutal marauder captain. His brother is Lars Olafsen, if anything, more brutal.”

  “I can be brutal, too,” Catarina said. “Capp, call the ships. Give these fools their answer.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  The message went out. There was a long pause, as the fleet seemed to be drawing its breath for a big heave. The surrounding space suddenly filled with a barrage of firepower. Void Queen fired from all missile batteries, and the two converted sloops added missiles. Orient Tiger fired two more missiles, and Pussycat three. The Hroom sloops fired their serpentine batteries, sending a swarm of bomblets corkscrewing toward the enemy ships.

  “Not bad,” Smythe said as he tracked the outgoing fire. “I’m sure McGowan or Drake would have criticism, but for a bunch of former pirates, it was a pretty coordinated effort.”