Dreadnought (Starship Blackbeard Book 3) (16 page)

“We can’t just sit here, doing nothing.”

“We need the bows. That will even the odds.”

“Bows?” It was one thing to hunt wolves by daylight, stalking them, shooting them from a distance on the back of a horse, but another thing entirely to attempt it at night.

“Any better ideas?” Rutherford asked.

“No, I guess not. All right then, on my mark.” Drake checked to make sure the path was clear. “Go!”

The two men broke for the saddlebags. Drake put down the lantern when they arrived, and he and Rutherford groped for their bows. Drake still had the can of bear spray from the tent, and now grabbed a second from his saddlebag and shoved it into Rutherford’s hands. A snarling shape launched itself from the shadows, and Drake dropped his bow and aimed the bear spray. The can hissed as it launched the peppery liquid.

He gave the wolf a snootful of it, blasting until the animal fell back snarling and howling. Another wolf came at Drake, and he hit this one, too. Rutherford fired an arrow, and a wolf yowled in pain.

“Got you!” Rutherford said. He notched another arrow. This time, he missed, cursing his bad aim.

Drake didn’t have time to watch Rutherford—he was too busy with the bear spray. He hit a third wolf, then a fourth, but the can was already sputtering and spuming. Rutherford tossed him the other can. He turned on the nozzle just in time to hit a huge wolf in the mouth and eyes.

Rutherford had shot at least one of them with an arrow, and Drake had now blasted five different wolves with the bear spray. The whole pack should have been retreating in disarray and confusion. Instead, they circled the two men, snarling, feinting, staying moving and hidden in the darkness. The horses behind the two men snorted and stamped in their protected enclave. A wolf darted forward, and Drake expended more bear spray driving it off.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “We’re almost out of spray.”

“What about the horse paddock?” Rutherford asked. “Get inside, shut the gate, and wait it out.”

“What’s to keep them from climbing the rocks and jumping down on us?”

“You’re right. Dammit.” Rutherford’s voice was tight and nervous, which in turn filled Drake with alarm.

“Can you ride bareback?” Drake asked. “We’ll make a run for it. God knows, there’s enough light to see.”

“And leave all our gear?” Rutherford said.

“We’ve got to get out of here. We’ll be killed if we don’t.” There were more wolves than ever, what seemed like fifteen, twenty of them moving, snarling, and howling in the shadows.

“They’ll chase us,” Rutherford said. “The horses will panic and throw us off in the darkness. We need a diversion. Cover me!”

Before Drake could contemplate what Rutherford meant by this, the man had thrown down his bow and was racing back toward the tent. Drake ran after him. A wolf sprang out of the darkness, and he gave it a taste of bear spray. It fell back, snarling.

Rutherford unzipped the tent. Oxnard burst out with a roar. Another wolf had come slinking in from the right, and Drake turned to see it crouching to spring at him. But the wolfhound slammed into it and drove it to the ground, his huge jaws clamping on the wolf’s throat. Other wolves poured out of the darkness to attack the dog.

Rutherford made a run for it, and Drake followed. A wolf attacked them while they were opening the paddock, and Drake used the last of the bear spray on it. Another wolf jumped for him as he scrambled onto the panicky horse’s back, but he kicked its ribs and sent it flying. Most of the pack was fighting Oxnard, who was still baying and snarling.

Rutherford and Drake rode toward the fighting dog and wolves and scattered them as they made for the caribou trail they’d followed to get into the river valley. Drake looked back, hoping to see Oxnard shake off the wolves and run after them, but the dog couldn’t get free of the pack. Rutherford rode relentlessly forward through the night, trying to put distance between them and their attackers, and Drake had no choice but to follow.

Behind them, the wolfhound kept fighting until the men had ridden out of earshot.

#

Dawn found the two young men cold, hungry, and sore several miles along the road back toward Juneau. Drake mentioned the dog, a comment he meant to be sympathetic, how Oxnard had died defending them, but Rutherford told him to shut up, he didn’t want to talk about it. Anyway, it was done. It was obvious that Rutherford was upset to have lost his wolfhound, but he seemed to have no question in his mind that the sacrifice had been necessary and expedient.

Now, years later and facing both the orbital forts and the Hroom death fleets, Drake was aware that he might have to fight Malthorne, too. Rutherford needed to stop the Hroom, and it didn’t matter if it left Drake and his ship exposed to the guns of HMS
Dreadnought
.

You are the wolfhound. Rutherford is going to sacrifice you to save Albion.
 

Chapter Thirteen

The assault on the pirate settlements of the Gryphon Shoals proceeded as soon as Rutherford was back at the helm of
Vigilant
. The bulk of the admiral’s fleet, barring
Nimitz
,
Calypso
, and a handful of destroyers and corvettes to protect the damaged cruisers, raced toward the innermost of the system’s three asteroid belts. Rutherford led
Vigilant
,
Churchill
, and nine destroyers in setting a blockade around the asteroid cluster protecting the pirates. Malthorne approached at the helm of
Dreadnought
and laid down a punishing fire on the main port and colony. When the pirates tried the same trick that had damaged
Nimitz
and
Calypso
, Rutherford’s forces swooped in and blasted the rear fortifications to rubble.

Three pirate frigates appeared and attempted to break the siege, but HMS
Lancelot
, a corvette, held them at bay until she could be supported by a pair of nearby navy missile frigates.
Lancelot
sustained several hits, but destroyed one of the enemy ships and drove the other two into Rutherford’s destroyer screen, where they were shortly finished off.

Soon, ships were fleeing the pirate redoubt like rats from a sinking ship. Navy torpedo boats obliterated a frigate and two schooners, while
Vigilant
came alongside a pair of merchant galleons making a run for it. They immediately tried to negotiate, offering up holds stuffed with bullion and loot as payment. Rutherford ignored the request. Now the galleons tried to surrender unconditionally. Rutherford didn’t have time to take prisoners, and called the admiral for instructions.

Destroy them.
 

Rutherford took on the faster of the two galleons first. He needed to preserve his long-range arsenal for the fight against the Hroom, so he pulled along starboard and presented his cannon. The first broadside left the galleon crippled and venting gasses. The second blew her apart.

The slower galleon sent off escape pods, but Rutherford ignored these and focused on the ship herself. The galleon held
Vigilant
at bay for nearly an hour with a powerful deck gun and two rear torpedo tubes, but as soon as she seemed to exhaust her defenses,
Vigilant
swooped in, took out her engines, and then circled back around to punish her with cannon fire. The first broadside ignited ammunition stores on the quarter deck, and a terrific blast tore the galleon in two. One piece spun away, end over end, while the other drifted a few hundred miles and then detonated in a final explosion.

Vigilant
returned to the fleet to find
Dreadnought
silencing her guns, the pirate operation demolished. Rutherford gathered the rest of the fleet and withdrew cautiously, alert for counterattack until they were safely clear of the asteroid belt and in open space again.

The entire operation was textbook for how to deal with rebellious elements on the frontier. This untidy nest of piracy and smuggling had been a thorn in Albion’s side for years, taking advantage of the Hroom wars to prey on shipping, harass legitimate mining operations, and raid refueling and resupply stations. York Company shipping had been taking costly detours through the fringes of the Shoals to avoid it, which had added nearly three days to their voyage every time they traversed the system.

Now, the main pirate base was routed, its fortress obliterated, its spaceport in ruins, and some twenty pirate ships destroyed. Explosions continued deep underground on the hollowed-out asteroid as they departed. This victory came at the cost of one lost torpedo boat, minor damage to two destroyers, and a total of eleven lives lost. Malthorne’s communication to the fleet was jubilant, boastful, promising a return expedition in the near future to finish the job against the other pirate outfits in the system. If not for more pressing business, the admiral said, they’d do it now. Another few weeks, and the Gryphon Shoals would be cleaned up for good.

Unfortunately, by the time they made it back to where the rest of the task force waited, performing emergency repairs on
Nimitz
and
Calypso
to get them battle ready, forty-three hours had passed since Malthorne’s tantrum. That was nearly two days that could have been spent racing toward Albion to establish a defensive cordon against the Hroom assault.

A few hours later, Rutherford left Pittsfield at the helm and retreated to his quarters. He had only slept fourteen hours in the past three days and desperately needed rest. But he was angry, furious even. He got up and paced the room.

“Forty-three hours,” he muttered. “Wasted, thrown away.”

He punched up the viewscreen above his entertainment nook and looked at the long, empty space until the jump point that would take them to Albion. From
Vigilant
at the vanguard to
Dreadnought
and her screen of destroyers in the rear, the fleet stretched eleven million miles, but as Rutherford drew the map out to the scale needed to see the entire distance they needed to traverse, those eleven million miles could not be differentiated from a single point on a map. A pinprick in space.

The fleet was on the wrong side of the sun and had to reach the far outer fringes of the system, a few billion miles away. They’d be forty-three hours closer if Malthorne hadn’t insisted on this revenge mission. Meanwhile, suicidal alien forces were converging on Albion. Damn Malthorne. Damn stubborn, vainglorious Lord Malthorne.

But Rutherford’s rage couldn’t burn forever, and soon enough, he found himself crawling into bed, the lights out, as exhaustion took hold. He fell asleep and dreamed that Malthorne was king. In the dream, Rutherford was at the coronation ceremony in the royal palace at York Town, while the admiral smugly approached the archbishop of York, who held aloft the crown. Rutherford stood next to Drake in a long line of fleet officers in red and black. He was trying to tell Drake that this wasn’t right, that the admiral was only the king’s cousin, only sixth in line for the throne. Together, they had to stop Malthorne before the archbishop placed the crown on his head.

Rutherford woke with the sense that something was wrong. The smooth hum of the ship through the walls and floor was unchanged, there were no warning lights, and nobody had awakened him. He checked the clock, but it had only been nine hours. A long, long sleep by his standards. He had showered and was drinking his coffee before he recognized what was off. Pittsfield’s early-shift memo was missing. It was normally a green, blinking light on Rutherford’s handheld computer, greeting him the moment he awakened. Pittsfield always sent a brief, bullet-pointed status report for Rutherford to read while he drank another scalding cup of coffee. Where was it?

Rutherford came warily onto the bridge, convinced that his commander would be gone, and possibly Catherine Caites, too. In their place, more Malthorne loyalists. More
incompetent
loyalists.

But both officers were there. Pittsfield sprang from the captain’s seat and stepped aside to let Rutherford take his place. The commander’s lips were pressed tightly together in the way that indicated worry.

Rutherford frowned as he sat down, still wondering what was wrong. “What happened to my memo?”

“Apologies, sir. The situation could not be easily summarized, and as there is no urgency, I thought it best to explain to you in person.”

“Well, then,” Rutherford said impatiently. “Explain it already.”

He glanced up as he said this, and noticed the viewscreen for the first time. A long, spear-nosed Hroom sloop of war filled it.

Rutherford jumped to his feet. “What is this?”

Pittsfield quickly filled him in on the developments of the past nine hours. The fleet had been hauling across the system at close to maximum speeds. Admiral Malthorne had apparently repented of his unnecessary attack on the pirates and decided that they should arrive at Albion as soon as possible, even if that meant leaving some of the slower ships behind. So he’d ordered the swifter cruisers to lead
Dreadnought
to the jump point, while allowing the destroyers, corvettes, and support craft to form a second flotilla that would jump through a few days after the initial force.

Under other circumstances, Rutherford would have argued to maintain the proper fleet arrangement, with destroyer screens protecting the larger capital ships. But it was hard to imagine an enemy fleet strong enough to challenge
Dreadnought
and six cruisers, even with
Calypso
and
Nimitz
damaged. The second force had eighteen destroyers and corvettes, and thirty-three frigates and torpedo boats. Surely, either force could defend themselves long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Rutherford agreed with the decision. Get
Dreadnought
and the cruisers into the home system. Defeat the Hroom if possible, but otherwise hold them off until the rest of the Royal Navy warships arrived.

Unbeknownst to Malthorne, Rutherford, or anyone else in the fleet, there had been another force traveling through the Gryphon Shoals. They were well cloaked, and nearly on the edge of the system, passing through the outermost of the three asteroid belts, where they would be especially hard to detect.