Dreadnought (Starship Blackbeard Book 3) (20 page)

Smythe brought down the long-range sensors to further hush their profile entering the minefield. Drake lost all sight of Catarina’s ship just as
Orient Tiger
came around the planet to face the first attack.

The minefield was a vast, movable field of self-propelled Youd mines that could migrate about the system to choke off entry points. Its current positioning suggested that the navy had recently moved the minefield into place to guard against possible Hroom advances toward Albion, but
Blackbeard
, as a former navy cruiser, had the sensors to detect the mines, and Drake’s pilots had the skill to thread the needle where mine coverage didn’t overlap.

Amazingly, they emerged from the other side of the minefield several hours later without having triggered a single one. That meant they were still undetected, and now only a few hours from entering the near space of Albion herself. He turned the long-range sensors back on long enough to scan for developments since they’d gone black.

Catarina was still alive, thank God. She was too distant to determine if her frigate had suffered damage in the fighting, but her engines were still functioning well enough. She was fleeing Thor toward the outer systems, with a good lead on the two destroyers and their escorts. Unfortunately, a third vessel, this one a larger corvette, was racing to join the chase. Catarina was flying toward one of the gas giants, perhaps hoping to lose her pursuit among the moons or the ring of dust and rock that circled it.

Catarina had successfully distracted two destroyers and a corvette, as well as a pair of support craft. Unfortunately, she’d also drawn naval forces away from the bigger threat now developing in the system.

There was a battle raging between the Hroom death fleet and the navy ships that had gone to intercept it. Two of the six sloops of war had been destroyed, left as floating wreckage far behind the evolving battlefield, but both of the human destroyers were missing from the fight. They had simply vanished. The only thing that Drake could surmise was that pulse cannons or rams had torn apart the tyrillium armor, and the Hroom had finished the job with atomic warheads. Two missile frigates were pursuing the four remaining sloops of war, but they were scarcely delaying the Hroom movement toward the inner system.

Meanwhile, a second Hroom fleet had jumped in and was barreling toward Albion. No Royal Navy forces moved to engage it. The action with the other Hroom sloops was taking place on the opposite side of the system. From Drake’s vantage, it looked as though the Hroom had a clear line straight to Albion and would arrive only a few hours after he did.

“Someone run the numbers,” Drake said. “Can anyone intercept them?”

Smythe spoke up a moment later. “HMS
Philistine
can, if she turns around now. The corvette and the second destroyer are already out of range.”

“Send a subspace to
Philistine
,” Drake told Tolvern. “Tell Potterman—if it
is
Potterman—the situation.
Orient Tiger
was a feint—she’s not his enemy here. He must engage the Hroom. Catarina will come back around to help him.”

“If we send a subspace this close to Albion,” Tolvern said, “we’re likely to give away our position. And Potterman will have plenty of time to send his own subspace to the Admiralty to warn them that
Blackbeard
is on its way to Albion.”

“Smythe, send the message.” Drake gripped the edges of his chair, but didn’t let the worry show on his face or in his voice. “Potterman is a gentleman, and no fool. Surely, he will understand the stakes.”

“And if it’s not Potterman on that destroyer?” she asked.

“We’ll take our chances. Smythe, send it. And send a subspace to Catarina, too.”

An hour later, accelerating rapidly, Drake made the call to the other ships of his flotilla: drop cloaking, assemble the away team, and begin the final approach to Albion. It was time to assault York Tower and free his parents.

Chapter Seventeen

“Three minutes to launch,” Jane said. The computer sounded so soothing, so calm, considering the utter chaos of the situation, all of the dozens of variables that could lead to the death of every person in the away pod.

Tolvern eyed the others in her pod: Capp, Carvalho, Lutz, Oglethorpe, and Thatcher. Lutz sat in the seat opposite and flashed a big, gold-toothed grin, his white scar seeming to wink at her.

He patted one of his weapons, which was lying right across his lap. “Don’t you worry none, Commander, I got a big ol’ cannon here to serve you.”

“Shut yer gob,” Capp said good-naturedly. “Commander don’t want to see your cannon, so don’t you be whipping it out in public.”

The others laughed. It was nervous, strained laughter. The pod was vibrating from outgoing fire from
Blackbeard
’s torpedo bays and cannon batteries. Shortly, they’d be taking shots of the incoming variety, too. She wished the captain was in here with her, but all of his skills were needed on the bridge, which had left Tolvern in charge of the assault company. She understood it, but she didn’t like it. Instead of Drake’s company, she was left with this lot.

I am trusting my life to these people. Wonderful.
 

Apart from Oglethorpe, they were all pirates and ex-prisoners. Oglethorpe was a former special forces guy, but he had a messed-up shoulder and was mostly there for tactical support. The other away pod was similarly constituted, filled by the newer, rougher crew. The two pods from
Blackbeard
would be joining similar sorts on Paredes’s schooner, and Tolvern would be expected to lead them all against the royal guards at York Tower. Good luck with that.

“Ninety seconds to launch,” Jane said. A yellow light began to flash on the airlock door.

Tolvern had been avoiding looking out the port window, but now she couldn’t help herself. Aguilar’s frigate,
Pussycat
, sat several miles distant, her heavy guns turned against the nearest orbital fortress, which was also the target of the guns of
Blackbeard
and
Outlaw
, although Tolvern couldn’t see the older Vargus sister’s frigate from this vantage. The fortress returned fire with a punishing array of weapons, starting with missiles and torpedoes, but they would shortly be in range of its cannon, as well.

Appearing to float quietly between
Blackbeard
and
Pussycat
(if you could call racing at thirty miles per second floating), was Paredes’s slender schooner. Swiftly moving capsules glinted with reflected light from detonating missiles as they soared from
Pussycat
to the schooner, where they were snared and hauled in. Paredes was quiet, hiding even, because his was the vessel that would take the assault team into the atmosphere. His shields also couldn’t take much abuse. The schooner swung her hook around, ready to snare the pods coming from the other direction. All looked normal, and Tolvern took a deep, steady breath to calm herself.

“Twenty seconds to launch,” Jane said. “Prepare for rapid acceleration.” The yellow warning light flashed faster now.

No more banter; the others gripped their harnesses. Some closed their eyes. Lutz, of all people, began to chant the Lord’s Prayer in Old Earth English as Jane began the final countdown. What the absolute hell? Was that heathen a member of the church?

Tolvern didn’t have a chance to finish this thought. A hand slammed into her chest as
Blackbeard
launched them. The pod spun a lazy rotation before it stabilized, and she got her first glimpse of Albion. It glowed blue and green and beautiful below them. They were passing over Canada now, on the far side of the planet from their target on the continent of Britain, and she spotted the Zealand Islands stretching into the ocean, achingly beautiful, like green gemstones laid in a row.

There was Auckland! Her home island. An aching nostalgia wrenched something deep in her chest. There, only a few thousand miles away, lay the Drake estate. Home. Her parents, her brothers. Her dogs, were they still alive? Even old Rufus? He’d be almost thirteen now.

Colonel Fitzgibbons is master of the Drake estate now,
she thought, and her heart hardened with anger at him and Admiral Malthorne.

“Pod two launched,” Jane said. “Life support readings normal. Docking with schooner in twenty-seven seconds.”

The other pod had launched first and was midway to the schooner already. The navy fortress loomed, the asteroid into which it was built squatting in orbit like a giant, warty toad, bristling with guns. The fort was firing full volleys now, and Drake’s fleet was also taking fire from a second fortress, this one in an orbit closer to the equator, to the southeast.

Something detonated nearby, and the pod shuddered violently. It spun end over end, the crew inside shouting and cursing. By the time it stabilized, the schooner seemed in a different position above the planet, and Tolvern watched with horror as the first away pod sailed toward the schooner, out of position. The hook moved, trying to snare the pod in its net, but it missed. The pod zipped past, on its way toward the atmosphere. Out of reach. Tolvern’s pod followed in what seemed to be the same trajectory.

Jane’s voice came on. “Pod two stabilized. Docking with schooner in . . . recalculating . . . recalculating. Unable to calculate.”

For a moment, there was horrified silence in the pod. Tolvern’s heart hammered in her chest, and she felt lightheaded, like she would pass out.

“Unable to bloody calculate!” Capp said in a low, horrified voice. “We’ve been knocked off course. We’re going to die!”

#

Captain Rutherford jumped
Vigilant
into the Albion system. As he shook his head to clear it, he thought that they were safe, that they’d arrived in time. The instruments were dark, nobody was shouting instructions. Nothing alarming was coming through from the rest of the fleet, and Malthorne wasn’t screaming orders in a dozen directions.

And then he realized that not only was
Vigilant
the first ship of the fleet through, but he was apparently the first person on the deck to come to his senses. The jump had been looser than expected, which meant that it took less energy to get through, but it also left people disoriented longer. But such effects were unpredictable, and he’d pulled out of the jump concussion sooner than anyone else. He got to work.

Rutherford had the nav computer and the defense grid computer online before Pittsfield, Caites, and Norris could so much as stammer a confirmation that they were conscious. HMS
Lancelot
was next through, and, following the corvette, two destroyers and a handful of torpedo boats. By this time, Rutherford had seen enough to understand the dire situation into which he’d stumbled. There were battles raging across the home system, and although he didn’t yet have enough information to fully understand the ramifications, it was clear that the situation would call for energy and initiative.

“Call
Lancelot
,” he told Pittsfield. The corvette was the second-strongest ship on this side of the jump. “She will join us in the vanguard. Everyone else who is already through will follow us. Anyone coming after will wait for
Dreadnought
. Malthorne can give further instructions when he arrives.”

“But sir,” Norris said, as Pittsfield moved to obey. The tech officer still sounded groggy, and his eyes were bleary like a man who was hungover from a long night of drinking gin. “The lord admiral said to wait until the entire fleet was assembled.”

“That will take several hours,” Rutherford said, “and we don’t have a moment to spare.”

“We can’t go against the Hroom with a cruiser, a corvette, and a pair of destroyers. We need
Dreadnought
’s guns.”

Heat rose in Rutherford’s face. “I want a full scan and report from you in ten minutes, Norris. Is that understood? And if you insist on being insubordinate—”

“It’s not me who is being insubordinate,” Norris interrupted sullenly.

“Lieutenant Caites,” Rutherford snapped, “if this man says another word outside of his duties, you will remove him from my bridge at gunpoint and see him to the brig.”

“Yes, sir,” Caites said.

Rutherford had had enough of Malthorne’s spineless sycophants. A cell was too good for Norris. If he didn’t shut his mouth and do what he was told, he deserved to be shot for battlefield cowardice.

By the time Rutherford received Norris’s report, he had his cruiser, a corvette, two destroyers, and five patrol boats in motion. If he’d had a missile frigate or two, he’d have called it a full task force, but he didn’t have time to wait, and those slower craft would only bog him down, anyway.

As for Norris’s report, there was a force of several ships rapidly approaching Albion on the far side of the system, only a few hours out. That had better be James Drake and
Blackbeard
. If it was one of the death fleets, heaven help them, because there was nothing defending the planet except for the orbital fortresses.

Farther out from the home world, pirate ships appeared to have attacked the York Company mining colonies on Thor, to be chased off by a couple of destroyers and support vessels. That must be Drake, too, but what the devil was he doing attacking Thor? It was nowhere near Albion, and he had only succeeded in distracting warships that otherwise could have been engaging the Hroom.

At least the naval forces had disengaged from the fight with the pirates. These ships, led by Captain Potterman on HMS
Philistine
, were now racing to engage one of three Hroom death fleets now in the system. Even so, this task force was nowhere near strong enough to fight off several sloops of war.

That observation was supported by the results of a battle that had been fought with another Hroom fleet. The enemy had obliterated two destroyers at the cost of two of their sloops and were flying toward Albion with four ships, hassled, but not slowed, by two navy missile frigates. Potterman’s task force was of similar size to the one already defeated, and Rutherford expected a similar result.