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

by Michael Wallace

  The star wolves didn’t wait to be hit, but spread in formation as they accelerated. They fired their own missiles, all of them directed at Void Queen. But it was a weak effort, no more than two missiles per ship, and not as well coordinated as Catarina’s salvo. The two waves of missiles crossed toward each other.

  “Pirates versus Vikings,” Catarina said. “Take them down. Pilot, execute evasive maneuvers.”

  Lomelí at the defense grid computer was already at work baffling the incoming fire, and Barker’s team in the gunnery launched bursts and other countermeasures. They took out the missiles one by one as they streamed in. In the end, Void Queen was able to abort her evasive maneuvers and stay in proximity to fellow defenders.

  Unfortunately, Catarina’s own barrage hadn’t done as much damage as she’d hoped. Five missiles broke the enemy’s defensive efforts, but only two hit the same ship, and one of those was a dud that did little damage. The Hroom serpentines had better luck getting through, but each of the little bomblets by itself was insufficient to inflict serious pain. Catarina wished she had backed the missile barrage with torpedoes, but she’d held her long-range Hunter-IIs in reserve, given that she could only fire them from two tubes. Maybe that was a mistake.

  Then again, she’d have had to know which enemy ship to target, and that hadn’t been obvious.

  “Fall back,” she said. “Lure them in.”

  “Luring, is it?” Capp said. “Is that what you call it when a rabbit dives into his hole ahead of the fox?”

  “I believe she wishes you to execute the course maneuvers I sent you earlier,” Nyb Pim said. He looked at the captain with his large, liquid eyes. “Is that not correct, Captain Vargus?”

  Capp was already working. “Don’t be so literal, mate. I know what she means. Already on it, Cap’n.”

  Catarina ignored them both, keeping her eye on the viewscreen. This was where she tested her theory. If the enemy commander’s main goal was grabbing goods, he would charge straight to the center of the asteroid cluster, break any feeble efforts from Ravelin, and land his raiders on Fort Alliance. From there, encircle the main asteroid with his ships and fight off Catarina’s attempts to dislodge him until the other Scandians arrived.

  But if Longshanks wanted her ship, she had a chance.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Void Queen rolled inward toward the fortress, but not directly. Instead, the ship edged upward, which would take it past the small asteroid Carvalho and Greeves had cleared of debris so Catarina could site guns. If they survived the battle, she could make it another small fortress like Ravelin, but for now it was nothing but a hunk of rock. What lurked nearby was of more interest.

  Orient Tiger and Pussycat hugged Void Queen as she retreated. The rest of Catarina’s forces dropped back toward Ravelin. With their thin armor and undersized cannon, these smaller ships were too vulnerable to enemy fire. The pummel guns would burst them like so many rotten pumpkins.

  The enemy made its move. Several of the star wolves changed course to follow Void Queen and her escort ships, and at first it seemed as though they’d sheared off from the others. But after a bit of jostling, the others followed.

  “Good,” Catarina said. “Just what I was hoping for.”

  “Ain’t we lucky,” Capp said dryly. She got on the com. “Drop torpedoes on my mark.” Then, touching her console to change the channel, she said, “Carvalho, you there? Get ready to launch.” She glanced at Catarina. “Now, Cap’n?”

  “Hold until we see which way they approach.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  Catarina waited for the enemy ships to draw closer. Soon. She gripped her handrests in anticipation.

  “Now! Fire torpedoes.”

  Mark-IVs rolled away from the ship. The torpedoes released bursts of propellant, stabilized, then raced toward the enemy. Orient Tiger and Pussycat fired missiles in support.

  The Mark-IVs weren’t as sophisticated as the Hunter-IIs, but they packed a wallop, and the star wolves were forced to launch kinetic and electronic countermeasures. One of the torpedoes broke through and hit a star wolf, and a missile from Pussycat cleared the defenses as well to strike home.

  “They’re going to charge up on us from the z-axis,” she decided as she watched the enemy ships maneuvering. “We’ve got a chance. Send out the falcons.”

  Capp touched her ear and gave Carvalho his orders.

  #

  Carvalho ripped into space, and immediately found himself under attack. The nearest star wolf was almost on top of Void Queen, and it unleashed fire from cannon on either side of its snout. They flashed like a pair of enormous Gatling guns, spewing shot against the battle cruiser’s rear shield.

  But as the five falcons launched, one after another, the two cannon turned to cut down the striker wing instead. The instrument panel flashed red warning lights, and Jane’s comforting voice gave the computer’s assessment.

  “Kinetic shot incoming. Estimated damage at impact, 100 percent. Evasive maneuvers recommended.”

  “Thanks for the advice, lady, but I figured that out.”

  Carvalho jerked the stick, and his engines flared as he rolled away from Void Queen. The other four ships followed him into a dive. Kinetic shot flared by, uncomfortably close. The lead star wolf kept chasing after the battle cruiser even as it tried to pluck him out of the sky with one of its guns.

  Capp’s voice came over the com. “You all right out there?”

  “For now.” He maneuvered again as more shot from the pummel gun tracked his flight. “You have those coordinates for me?”

  “Sending ’em over now.”

  Numbers flashed across his screen, and he read them into the nav computer. A course plotted on his screen. All eight star wolves were closing the distance to the three Albion ships, and gunfire began to hit the battle cruiser, with additional shot hitting the two supporting frigates.

  The small, rocky shape of Ravelin loomed above them, and Fort Alliance was a cool white sphere behind. The three Albion ships were running out of room to maneuver.

  “All right, boys and girls,” he said to the other falcon pilots. “We’re going to push these fools into a trap.”

  Greeves laughed. “How are we gonna do that, huh? Charge into the crossfire and throw a few spitballs?”

  “He wants us to slug it out with a star wolf,” Judkins said.

  “We’re not slugging it out with anyone,” Carvalho said. “We’re going to give them a sharp sting and make them follow.”

  “So yeah,” Stephenson said. “Charge into the crossfire. Slug it out.”

  “We’re all going to die,” Judkins said.

  “Shut up, all of you,” Carvalho said. “Hard and fast, then get out of there. Follow my lead.”

  He said it with a lot more confidence than he felt. It was getting warm out here, and while the falcons were able to dart and maneuver in a way that kept the enemy baffled, all it took was one mistake, one error.

  He charged at the lead star wolf, and the others followed. He pulled the trigger. Pulse cannon fire raced ahead and struck it on the nose.

  “Blasted engine,” Greeves said. “Stupid—”

  “Watch it!” Carvalho said as she streaked past a few yards off his wing.

  “I’m trying!”

  He waited until he was a few hundred yards out and launched his three small missiles. The others did the same, and then their engines flared to send the falcons careening away. Fifteen small explosions rippled across the nose of the massive enemy warship.

  It turned toward them, even as secondary explosions continued to flare along its surface. The pummel guns snarled to life. The other star wolves followed. Pummel guns filled the sky with kinetic fire, all of it directed toward the five small striker craft.

  “Get out of here!” Carvalho yelled.

  The enemy was following them. It was going to work.

  Then things went wrong. Greeves, still trying to get control of her balky replacement engine, even wh
ile fleeing for her life, rolled past Carvalho, which forced him to duck to the side. Judkins was now in the way, and overcorrected. He careened toward a stream of fire from one of the enemy warships.

  The enemy fire caught the small striker craft and ripped it apart. Greeves cried out. Others shouted in dismay, including Carvalho.

  His console display blinked red. “Warning,” Jane said. “Entering minefield. Seventy-one mines detected.” A pause. “Eighty-six mines detected. Ninety-four mines—”

  Carvalho turned off the AI.

  “I killed him!” Greeves called. “I can’t believe it. I killed Judkins. I did that. It’s my fault.”

  “Shut up and stay together. We’ve got to get through this field as soon as—”

  A mine rolled by just off his canopy. Its engine glowed, and it tried to slam him. But he was past it in an instant, and still accelerating. The falcons flashed past Fort Alliance and hooked back around the asteroid.

  Meanwhile, the star wolves had stumbled into the minefield and were struggling to escape. Drawn in by the much larger signatures of the Scandian warships, a mine swarm soon rained down on them. The enemy shot down some, and baffled others with electronic countermeasures, but plenty got through the defenses. Explosions burst along their hulls.

  The star wolves finally clawed their way out of the minefield only to find Void Queen waiting. She fired a broadside. Cannon fire ripped the lead star wolf, which had already taken blows from mines. Explosions rippled across the port-side armor, all the way to the rear. One engine glowed bright, and looked like it would blow, but the ship vented plasma in time.

  Carvalho thought it was done for, but it managed to limp away, chased by missiles from Captain Vargus’s two frigates. The other star wolves slowed to shoot at Void Queen, but they were now directly in the line of fire of the battle cruiser’s torpedoes, which lumbered out of their tubes. More blows landed. The two pirate frigates unloaded with their cannon.

  All the advantage was on Vargus’s side. If she’d had more ships to support her—the task force McGowan had led merrily away, for instance—she’d have finished it. But she couldn’t hold them long enough for another broadside with the forces she had at hand. The remaining falcons rushed to join the fight, but didn’t arrive in time. Carvalho could only watch in frustration as the entire fleet of Scandian warships slipped away from the battle.

  Captain Vargus’s voice came over the general channel. “All forces hold your positions. Repeat, hold position.”

  She sounded exhausted, but relieved. Carvalho shared the emotion. It wasn’t a decisive engagement, but they had won the encounter. Not without loss.

  He scanned space, looking for an escape pod, some bit of wreckage from Judkins’s falcon. There was nothing left.

  #

  Olafsen was in his quarters when his brother called, resting before his rendezvous with Longshanks’s fleet. Sleep had proven elusive. Instead, he stared through a small portal next to his bed, which showed the stars outside, neither filtered nor amplified by a viewscreen. Only the vast galactic waste, an endless sea of light, hard and glittering. He’d visited a handful of the stars. Others lay hundreds or thousands of light years distant, surrounded by planets no human had seen or would likely ever see. Unexplored worlds, some barren and dead, others teeming with life. Civilizations were rising and falling out there. Wars being fought.

  Other lights, more distant still, were entire galaxies. Who knew what wonders they contained?

  When the call came, he rose and grabbed for a shirt, but it was crumpled in a heap near the door, so he pivoted a small viewscreen and activated it, then leaned back against the wall, scratching at the mass of scars on his chest as he waited for his brother to come on.

  “Dammit, where are you?” a voice growled from the blackened screen. Several seconds passed—the delay in transmission across more than a million miles of space—and the demand repeated.

  Olafsen didn’t answer, and soon enough his brother appeared on the screen, stomping back and forth across his bridge. Sven was mouthing the words now. It took one more repetition before audio and video synced up.

  “So, you’ve been bloodied,” Olafsen said.

  “So were you,” came the delayed response. “How far out are you?”

  “Roughly a million miles from the sound of it.”

  “You’re going too fast. You’re going to overshoot my position.”

  “Oh, was I supposed to stop for you? Maybe bandage you up?” Olafsen smiled, enjoying the moment. “Guess I warned you, didn’t I?”

  The scowl on Sven’s face turned ugly as the message reached him. “Gloat if you want, but your target escaped, too. That’s right, I saw your little fight. You lost your nerve, Brother. The Albion captain got the best of you.”

  Now it was Olafsen’s turn to bristle. “I didn’t lose my nerve. That blasted Travek. He charged in like an idiot and spoiled the ambush. I took out the torpedo boats, though. How many ships did you destroy? How much damage did you inflict on the battle cruiser?”

  “Plenty.” Sven grinned. “And what about Hailstorm? Took so much damage that it fled the battlefield. You’re down to five wolves against my eight.”

  “My five could thrash you,” Olafsen said. “Don’t test me.”

  “Is that your intention?” Sven came to a halt in front of his viewscreen, put his hands on his hips, and stared with his good eye. “You’re going to turn on me?”

  “And then you let Peerless slip past you,” Olafsen said. “Could have managed that much, couldn’t you? Now the lady commander has another cruiser, a missile frigate, and a war junk that she didn’t have before.”

  “Well?” Sven demanded. “Are you? Is that what you’re going to do, break our alliance and attack me?”

  “Of course not. Ragnar Forkbeard is in the system. Once we were done killing each other, he’d pick us over, take what was left, and still go in and capture the Albion base.” Olafsen sat up in bed, retrieved his shirt and pants, and got dressed while he continued. “We’re going to take that base, you and I. We’re not going to share with Forkbeard, either.”

  Sven cocked his head and stared with his good eye. “Yeah?”

  The transmission delay was only a few seconds now. A glance at Olafsen’s console showed that Bloodaxe had decelerated to two percent the speed of light. He’d soon reach his brother’s position.

  “That’s right,” Olafsen said. “We still have thirteen wolves between us. Albion only has two ships that are worth anything—take them out and the rest will fall.”

  “Plus the fortress.”

  “What of it?”

  “I never faced its guns,” Sven said. “I don’t know what it’s capable of.”

  Olafsen scoffed. “That’s what’s worrying you? That asteroid? Albion has been here less than a week. Maybe they have some guns installed, maybe not. A few hundred marines on the surface . . . what does that matter? We’ve got raiders in mech suits to handle the ground assault, and plenty of wolves to bombard their guns from space.”

  Sven’s good eye narrowed. “What about our wager?”

  “Off the table. It was that dumb bet that kept us from winning.”

  Olafsen didn’t point out that it would have been unnecessary had Sven not taken eight ships and broken the fleet in two. In neither case was the enemy strong enough to win the battle, but Albion had used a bit of luck and clever thinking to force a pair of stalemates. Now, with all firepower concentrated, the Scandians would make quick work of it.

  “Forkbeard will be furious,” Sven said.

  “Screw Ragnar Forkbeard. We’ll have the plunder, a defensible position on the surface of the asteroid, and more ships than him. His marauder captains will be unruly, not anxious to fight and die. Our captains will be defending what is rightfully theirs. Given to us by the gods. And when a man fights for what the gods have bestowed, he fights to the death. We’ll take the fort before Forkbeard arrives, I guarantee it.”

  “You make it sou
nd simple,” Sven said.

  “Have you lost your nerve, Longshanks?” Olafsen demanded.

  His younger brother bristled visibly at this. “The gods take you, I have not. But these Albionish can bite. And that . . . woman.” He growled.

  “It’s a real enemy,” Olafsen agreed. “We’ve spent too much time raiding civilians. The Albionish fight with discipline. It only makes me more determined.”

  “We’ll lose men. Probably another ship or two. Maybe several. Raiders will die assaulting the fort.”

  “No way around that, Brother.”

  “But I’d rather hold my strength for Forkbeard if we can,” Sven said. “Give the enemy commander a chance to surrender. Offer her slavery—it’s better than death.”

  “Didn’t you do that already? What did she say?”

  Sven turned away to pace again. “You know I don’t speak that gibberish. Only a few words. But she mocked me, that was clear enough. And then she shot me when we were still negotiating.”

  “What would make her change her mind now? She won, she beat you.” Olafsen chuckled at the rage that flushed over his brother’s face. “If she wouldn’t surrender before, what would encourage her to do so now?”

  “You’re right. Treacherous little bitch. She’ll pay for that.” Sven slammed a fist into his palm. “All right, let’s do this. We won’t have much time. A few hours to settle matters before Forkbeard arrives. Here’s my plan—”

  “Your plan can go to hell. We do this my way.”

  “No. I’m the one who formed this fleet. I’ll be in charge.”

  “It’s your fault we’re in this situation, you fool,” Olafsen said, unable to hold his temper any longer. “That’s right, you heard me. If you’d stayed put at Moloch, we’d have taken Peerless and could face Void Queen alone. Your arrogance already cost us a chance to win, and there’s no way I’ll let you screw up again.”

  Olafsen reached beneath his bed and jerked out his boots, which he began to put on. “You either obey my command,” he continued, “or I’m leaving you on your own. You can make a deal with Ragnar Forkbeard if you’d like. Maybe he’ll give you and your ships a tenth share.”