“Put him on.”
Forkbeard appeared on the screen. True to his name, he sported a long black beard streaked with gray that had been knotted into separate braids, each one held together with gold rings. A tattoo of a war hammer stretched across his shaved scalp. Forkbeard studied Olafsen with narrowed eyes.
“I expected you to be injured, Olafsen. Your brother is bandaged up. Figure he’ll have some more scars. Longshanks collects them like trophies. As do all real warriors.”
Forkbeard held up his left arm, which was a mechanical claw. Olafsen had done that, and remembering past glories renewed his swagger.
“Do you have something to say, or do you just want to gloat?” Olafsen waved his hand. “Go ahead, attack the enemy, if you wish. They’re waiting for you, just keep on in the direction you were headed. They’ll give you all the battle you can handle.”
“I told you to wait. You didn’t listen.”
“You didn’t tell me to wait, you told me you were coming for my plunder. Forgive me, but I didn’t want to share.”
“So now you get nothing.”
“As I said, it’s waiting for you. Practically unguarded. The enemy will barely have time to bring more batteries online.”
“You are a fool,” Forkbeard said. “We’d have won this battle if you hadn’t blundered into the fight undermanned.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Now you’ve given the enemy time to dig in and . . . maybe not?” Forkbeard said, interrupting himself. His eyes bulged. “Damn you, Olafsen! I have eight atomic warheads on my ship. That’s right. We’d have flattened that fort and overwhelmed the enemy ships.”
“Destroying all the supplies the Albionish have been unloading on the surface.”
“They dispersed most of the goods across the surface of the asteroid, as anyone could see. And the enemy ships themselves would have been prize enough. But that’s not the point,” Forkbeard said. “The Great Bear System is Scandian territory. Now there’s an Albion base and it’s going to take the devil himself to root it out. We should be raiding into their territory, not the other way around. What’s next? A base on Viborg? How about Roskilde? You want to see their so-called Royal Navy bombarding our yards right on our home worlds?”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, it’s more than possible, it’s likely. They’re on their way to the inner systems. Straight toward Old Earth, looking for the birds and their fleets. And we’re in the way. Our worlds have enough trouble without welcoming in Albion fleets and Albion control.”
Olafsen scoffed. “What are you, some kind of patriot?”
“More than you, you miserable thrall.”
Olafsen didn’t care one bit about Albion’s wars against Apex, the Hroom, or internal factions. And who was Forkbeard to go on about threats to the Scandian systems? Half the destruction in the sector came from the man’s own raids. It was men like Ragnar Forkbeard who had laid low the once mighty Scandian civilization.
Olafsen fell back on the only argument that seemed to matter. “It wasn’t my duty to attack Albion warships. I did it for glory and riches, as did every other man in my fleet. If you want to fight for other reasons, go ahead. I’m returning to Viborg to repair my ship and letting the others go their own way.”
“I already spoke to your brother.”
“Sven can go to hell. It was his lack of discipline that led to this debacle.”
“Actually, Longshanks has agreed to join me. And so will you. Once I have the Olafsen brothers, the rest will follow.”
“You want us to go back into battle?”
“Not right this moment, but yes. We’ll return to Viborg—you can patch up your ship. I will gather the rest of the star wolves—by force if necessary—and we’ll come and finish off these intruders. Then, we’ll take our combined fleet and ravage the Albion home worlds.”
“Not likely.”
“You have two choices,” Forkbeard said. “One is to resist. Your shields are battered, your engine leaking plasma. Your brother says your pummel guns are offline.”
He did? The traitor.
“Try to run and I’ll hunt you down,” the other man continued. “I’ll harpoon you and send over boarding rockets. How many raiders did you lose attacking the fortress? When I’ve taken you, I’ll give you the blood eagle as an example to the other marauder captains. Once they’ve heard you scream for mercy as we draw your lungs out through your shattered rib cage, they will be eager to obey me.”
Olafsen gritted his teeth because he had no retort. Forkbeard was right; Bloodaxe was too battered to resist Storm Rider, and none of the other star wolves were likely to come to his aid. If Forkbeard was serious, resisting would mean his death.
“Or you can join my expedition,” Forkbeard said. “You will get a reduced share, but there will be plunder beyond imagination. Albion is rich. Vast estates to be taken, millions of thralls to be seized.”
Olafsen glanced at Björnman. The chief mate nodded.
Olafsen turned back to Ragnar Forkbeard, who crossed his arms and smiled, as if already knowing the answer.
“I don’t see as how I have a choice,” Olafsen said. “Very well, my ship—all these ships—are yours to do with as you see fit.”
“They already were, Olafsen. But thanks to your wise decision, you will be allowed to keep your life and serve me.” Forkbeard ended the call.
Lars Olafsen didn’t fully believe in the gods, but that didn’t keep him from cursing them roundly as he stared at the blank screen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Catarina didn’t believe that they were safe from another Scandian attack, not at first. As the two Scandian fleets merged forces several million miles away, she scrambled her crew to patch damaged bulkheads, shore the weakest shields, and repair damaged gun carriages.
She figured they had eight hours, maybe ten. Time enough for the star wolves to rendezvous, share information, and organize their fleet. Then, a renewed attack. The Albion forces had inflicted heavy damage, but absorbed damage, too. Add the battered first fleet to nine fresh star wolves, and the balance would tip in the favor of the Scandians.
That’s what she would have done, anyway, and McGowan concurred. He ordered Ravelin abandoned as indefensible in the short term, and concentrated on fortifying Alliance. He sent every remaining marine in the fleet to the fort—fewer than fifty in total—and ordered Catarina to pull more colonists out of stasis. These were pushed into the tunnels with guns shoved into their hands.
But to everyone’s surprise, the star wolves left the asteroid belt behind and made for one of the jump points back toward settled Scandian worlds. There would not be another attack, not right away.
The crew of Void Queen began to celebrate, but the captain quashed that. Whatever the enemy was up to, surely it was a feint. They were going to rendezvous with yet another enemy force, or they were trying to lose themselves on the scans, using one of the tricks from stolen Singaporean technology to disguise their approach. Whatever respite that bought Fort Alliance and its defenders, Catarina and McGowan agreed to use every moment to fortify their position.
Three days later, the enemy jumped out of the system. Catarina still didn’t trust the news. Several more days passed, and work continued at a furious pace. Colonists dug in five more gun emplacements, and Rodriguez got a rudimentary shipyard in place on Ravelin.
More thawed workers set about digging deeper fortifications into the small asteroid so as to prevent a repeat of the pounding that had reduced its effectiveness to zero. Catarina had more housing for colonists built. Three thousand men and women in total were now working every waking hour throughout the asteroid cluster, with two hundred new crew brought online every day.
Peerless was first in the docks for repair. Four days later, with McGowan’s cruiser partially patched up, Catarina finally pushed Void Queen into the docks. She watched through the viewport in her personal quarters as workers in mech suits peeled off a huge plate from her aft shiel
ds and hauled it by tether to the surface of the irregularly shaped asteroid. The shield was pitted and scarred, with holes the size of a man’s head. Even the intact portions were dimpled as if struck repeatedly by a massive hammer.
Rodriguez’s crew would feed the damaged plating into the forges to melt down the tyrillium and reforge it into new armor. The whole process would be quicker if the crew could strip off more than one piece at a time, but Catarina needed the ship more or less intact. She’d need to slap on some quick patches should the enemy charge back into the system.
Exhausted, Catarina darkened the viewport and was getting ready for bed when Capp called from the bridge. There was a subspace from the Admiralty.
The fleet is underway. Expect my arrival in nine weeks.
Nine weeks was a lifetime. But for the first time since jumping into the Great Bear System, Catarina permitted herself to think that far into the future.
#
A little more than two months later, Catarina stood by Drake’s side as he strolled the length of the alien artifacts laid out in the engineering bay. There were miniature trucks, hand tools that looked like jackhammers or electric drills, and a number of oblong computers, ovaloid screens, and other bits of unidentified technology. She was seeing most of this stuff for the first time herself; Catarina had been too busy building her base to worry about the alien tech.
Drake bent and picked up an object about the size and shape of an ostrich egg, with two dangling wires and a small oval screen up top. “Whoever they were, they seemed to like ovals.” He set it down. “Any idea what this thing is?”
“No clue. Your old science officer is studying it—you might ask Brockett what he’s come up with.”
“And this is everything you’ve found?”
“The tunnels were pretty scoured by whoever dug them in the first place,” she said. “Could be more objects deeper in, where we don’t have antigrav yet. But I’d expect any weapons to have been nearer the surface, and there aren’t any.”
“Send crews down,” Drake said. “I’m always interested in this old alien stuff. You never know when you might get an advantage.”
He looked her over. “How does she fight?”
“Void Queen? Well enough. We’re still working things out, still breaking in the crew.”
“It will come.”
“I hope not. I hope there’s no need to test it out.”
“Hmm.” Drake wore a thoughtful look as the two of them made their way to the lift. “And Captain McGowan?”
“He got his destroyer back. Went down to Moloch and retrieved Forge unopposed. No sign of the crew, of course, and the ship is gutted, but Rodriguez said we can get her patched up and back into the fight.”
“I mean personally,” Drake said.
“McGowan is a jerk. We were at each other’s throats the whole time.”
“He said you were insubordinate. That he wasn’t surprised.”
“I was laboring under the delusion that I wasn’t expected to be.”
“To be what?” he asked.
“Subordinate! Not to him, not to you. If you thought that’s what you were getting, you were asking the wrong person. Or should I say coercing the wrong person.”
They stepped onto the bridge. Capp, Smythe, and Lomelí sprang to their feet to salute the admiral and greet him with excited chatter. Nyb Pim proclaimed in solemn tones how grateful he was that Drake had graced them all with his presence.
“All right,” Drake said, visibly embarrassed. “Back to your work, all of you.”
Catarina cleared her throat. “Anyway, it’s done,” she said. “A few more months and I’ll have this fortress built. Let’s call it six, to be safe. Then you can get someone else to take over—what about Jess Tolvern?—and I’ll take my money and go back to settling the Vargus System. A grand duchy of Segovia, remember?”
“I think you mean New Albion.”
“Just seeing if you’re paying attention.”
“Hmm.”
Drake settled into the captain’s chair and tapped the console, as if this were his ship. The way his old crew had tripped over themselves to greet him, it was no wonder.
The viewscreen shifted to show his fleet. There was Dreadnought, the massive battleship, gleaming ink black against the distant star illuminating its back. Below it, six cruisers, spread across several hundred miles of space, each as powerful as HMS Peerless. Drake moved the viewscreen again, and came across various missile frigates, fleets of torpedo boats, destroyers and corvettes, as well as four war junks from Singapore and seven Hroom sloops of war.
“Impressive,” she said, not sure if he was showing off his fleet or obsessively checking to make sure everything was in its place. “Would have been nice to have them on hand a few weeks ago.”
“The economy of Albion is bent to producing ships as fast as it can. Few of these ships have been tested yet, but I have a number of experienced officers, and the crews aren’t entirely green. We’ll toughen up quickly, much like you have.”
“It’s a beautiful fleet,” she said. “You sure you want to go smash it up?”
He eyed her. “No, I don’t want to smash it up. I want to sit and build my forces and wait for the enemy to come and find us, to attack us on our turf, not theirs. But they are birds and hive animals. They lay eggs, they grow their armies of drone warriors faster than we could hope to expand.
“We have no idea how many Apex harvester ships escaped,” he continued, “and we can only guess what resources they can draw. And what about the human worlds lying in their path? Will we leave them to be devastated?”
“They bypassed the Scandians,” she pointed out.
He flushed. “Those villains could have fallen on the Apex ships as they passed through.” There was heat in Drake’s voice. “Saved us all the trouble. But the Scandians are cowards and traitors to the human race. To all civilized races in the sector. When Apex returns, stronger than ever, they’ll regret the lost opportunity.”
He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, he sounded calmer. “I can’t relieve you, Vargus. You haven’t earned your grand duchy yet.”
“I’m not asking you to. Not until this base is operational and I can take my fleet, replenish my goods at Albion, and be on my way. Like I said, six more months.”
“There are roughly a dozen jumps between here and the suspected Apex colony,” Drake said. “Maybe as many as fourteen. Nobody knows for sure. That’s a long way to come for resupply, back across lawless worlds filled with Scandian marauders and who knows what else.”
“Look at your fleet! There’s no way the Scandians would attack you. Give them thirty star wolves and they’d still think twice.”
“Sure, when I’m headed in this direction. And when I come back to your yards, battered and in need of relief, harassed by Apex lances and spears, my ordnance depleted and my ships riddled with holes? You’re too far out, Vargus. I need you closer to the action.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it will be to dig up and start over?”
“I don’t want you to start over. Fort Alliance is a critical stop, a port and spaceyards for repair and resupply. I need this position, but I need an even more forward operating base, too.”
The others on the bridge had been listening to all of this, and as Drake began to hint at what he intended, they edged away from their stations to gather around the admiral and captain. There was concern on their faces.
“Meanwhile, we’ll use Alliance as a resupply and redoubt for the more forward operating position,” he added.
“I used my entire colonization fleet to build Fort Alliance,” Catarina said. “My men and women, my equipment, my prefab factories, foundries, and forges. That was kind of the point, remember? You didn’t have the gear, and you needed mine.”
“Equipment is on the way,” Drake said. “And replacement crew for the fort. You’ll take your best personnel and use Alliance as a springboard for the next Royal Navy outpost.”
&nbs
p; “We almost died here, Admiral. And this is the outskirts. There’s no way we fight our way through Scandian space with Void Queen and handful of converted pirate ships.”
“That’s been taken care of, too.”
“You mean McGowan.”
“I do. Not just McGowan, though.”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t believe this. It’s insane.” She looked around her, seeking support from her crew.
Capp cleared her throat. “Well, Cap’n, it sounds pretty rough going up against them Scandians again. But we got to find the buzzards and beat them. And if Drake says this is the way to do it . . .” She shrugged.
“And the rest of you?” Catarina asked.
There were nods and mutters of “aye, Captain” all around.
“Now I get it,” she told Drake. “Now I know why you stuffed my ship with all your old people. They’re loyal to Albion, to you. Not to me.”
“You want to go back to the pirates?” Drake asked. “Is Da Rosa your man? Nix? Bergerand? Or would you rather have these fine people by your side next time you go into battle?”
“Whether or not I go into battle at all is kind of the whole point.” She shook her head. “I won’t have McGowan ordering me around again. Nothing is worth that.”
“Don’t worry, this time I’m sending you an ally.” Drake rose to his feet, an enigmatic smile on his face. “Someone who doesn’t always see eye to eye with Captain McGowan either. What’s more, I believe that it is necessary to make explicit that which I only implied last time.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Void Queen must be flagship, and her captain must be the commanding officer of the fleet. So it’s either you and McGowan swap ships or he take the subordinate position. I assume you have a preference in the matter.”
Catarina had already felt the pull of Drake’s mission. It wasn’t just the admiral’s magnetism, the way his desires so easily became one’s own. But to finally stand officially at McGowan’s head, to be his superior . . . well, that was damn near irresistible. She could satisfy her desire to see Apex defeated at the same time, and take her revenge on the Scandians who had already tried more than once to kill her.
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