Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) (23 page)

“I will tell your story, Lenol Tyn. I promise.”

The colonel made no final pronouncement, but cut the call. Moments later, the fifteen remaining sloops of war broke away from the fleet. Nobody on
Dreadnought
’s bridge spoke as they watched the Hroom turn their ships about.

Most of the officers looked stricken, but none more than Hillary Koh. After what had happened to Singapore and Sentinel 3, she would understand more than most what sacrifice the Hroom colonel had offered.

Drake broke the silence. “I can only keep my promise if we stay alive. And that means no wallowing. We all have work to do.”

#

In the Battle of Ipsum II, a human fleet had hidden behind the guns of an orbital fortress as an overwhelming force of Hroom sloops attacked. The orbital fortress was buried into a small moon, and it was believed that the sloops’ pulse cannons would be unable to penetrate the massive bombproofs that protected the fortress’s guns.

The human commander had intended to keep his ships in reserve while the Hroom battered themselves senseless against the fortress, then swoop in and gobble up the survivors before they could flee.

But the Hroom commander positioned his ships in something known as the “hammer attack,” normally used to break apart massed enemy ships, but now used to focus all firepower on one specific location. They crushed the fort’s main battery, then ran the guns to get at the human fleet. The humans were caught out of position. The Hroom lost three sloops. Total human losses included four Ironside-class battle cruisers, a carrier, three destroyers, and eighteen torpedo boats. In addition, both the fort and the nascent Albion colony on the planet would be abandoned as indefensible.

As Lenol Tyn turned her ships about, they drew closer and closer until they were separated from each other by only a few dozen miles. They would pull in tighter as they finished their approach.

Drake changed the viewscreen to show the Apex forces. The two harvester ships continued their relentless pursuit. The lances and spears were accelerating away from them in preparation for another harassing attack on the human fleet.

“Do you think they’ll take the bait, sir?” Manx asked.

“Doubtful. The colonel has fifteen sloops of war. The harvesters can handle her easily. I expect the lances to ignore them and jump after us again.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

“The same reason they keep launching attacks at us. Sacrificing material to force us to slow down. We have to play the same game.”

During the past several hours, the additional four hunter-killer packs had continued their trek across the system, drawing gradually closer to the action even as they marked a direct course for the jump point into the Manx System. With every jump, they increased their lead on the human fleet, and they were now on their final approach to the jump.

Moments later, they vanished. No doubt the hunter-killer packs would set up on the other side to hammer him while the human forces recovered.

Meanwhile, the lances and spears that had been harassing Drake since Singapore pulled one of their short-range jumps and appeared ahead of his fleet. They reformed packs of four lances and a spear and waited for him to approach.

Drake gave orders. This time, they’d fight it out. Mow down the enemy and leave nothing but feathers in their wake.

Behind him, headed in the opposite direction, the Hroom ships pulled into a tighter formation as they approached the first of the two harvester ships. It was the long, lean ship with the crushing arms that had torn apart HMS
Gibraltar
. The harvesters had such ability to absorb punishment that Drake expected it to rumble through the sloops, blasting with energy weapons and missiles until nothing but Hroom wreckage remained. Would it even slow down?

But the Hroom had proven capable of damaging the enemy. An atomic suicide charge had critically wounded the harvester Drake later destroyed in the Kettle System, and Lenol Tyn’s ferocious assault in the battle outside Singapore had shown her willing to fight. Could Apex be sure that Lenol Tyn didn’t have the capability to inflict more atomic pain? Drake held his breath in anticipation.

And released it with a relieved sigh moments later, as the Apex ship slowed to allow the second harvester to catch up. The slowdown allowed Drake’s forces to stretch the distance between themselves and their pursuers.

Lloyd called over from the tech console. “She’s already bought us twenty minutes, sir.”

“Not enough. We need more.”

Lenol Tyn’s sloops drew tighter, until they flew side by side and bow to stern. This was the fearful hammer formation that had wrecked the orbital fortress in the Battle of Ipsum II. Flown as a single force, they carried enough firepower to inflict pain.

The sloops fired their pulse cannons. Moments later, Lenol Tyn unleashed a tsunami of serpentines that broke into hundreds of small bomblets. The first wave crashed into the bow of the lead harvester. Each bomb was like a firecracker thrown against a mountain, but as they battered the hull, the harvester veered to the side to show the banks of its main weapon systems.

Drake glanced at the side panel of the main viewscreen, which showed the hunter-killer packs arrayed in his path. He fought the urge to change his own ranks before his destroyers came under fire. Better to get the cruisers in there first, probably
Blackbeard
and
Peerless
. God, he could have used Catherine Caites right about now. Caites could have led the charge, with Tolvern and McGowan on either flank. They’d scatter those blasted lances like foxes among the chickens.

He returned his attention to the fight between the Hroom and the harvester ships. Lenol Tyn’s forces were right upon the longer of the two harvesters, but the formation of Hroom warships didn’t look so fearsome now as they came under fire. The green eye swept its gaze over the lead sloops, and the guns of four different ships fell silent. Energy pulses thrashed the subsequent sloops, and two detonated almost at once. The others took a beating as the rest of the hammer formation swept past.

But Lenol Tyn’s force was intact. The four ships that had fallen under the eye rejoined the Hroom fleet as it swung around. The colonel was down two ships, but she had struck a blow and stayed in the fight.

The two harvesters had slowed dramatically by now, but they were also side by side. The next Hroom attack would face double the firepower.

The human fleet came under fire from the ships that had been lying in wait. Drake couldn’t pull his ships around to use his main cannon, because that would slow him down, and he couldn’t send out torpedo boats or cruisers to scatter the enemy, because whoever he sent would be left behind. And so each ship fired what torpedoes and missiles it could as it crashed through the enemy forces.

One of the rear hunter-killer packs accelerated as the lead human ships entered their midst. It fell alongside the flank of HMS
Carthage
, one of Drake’s destroyers.
Carthage
rolled and got off a barrage from its cannon, which struck one of the lances hard. The other three lances and the spear targeted the destroyer’s engines with energy fire.
Carthage
slowed.

“Damn it,” Drake said. “Someone help her. Who is closest to the action?”

“That would be us, sir,” Lloyd called. “Look at the screen.”

The tech officer showed the fleet, with
Carthage
faltering.
Dreadnought
would be coming alongside only a few tens of thousands of miles out of position in another twenty seconds or so.

“Díaz,” Drake told his pilot, “make a correction—take us there. Manx, call the gunnery. I want torpedoes. A full barrage.”

The engines shifted, and
Dreadnought
veered toward the fight. The massive battleship loomed suddenly behind the enemy ships harassing
Carthage
. Eighteen torpedoes launched in a rolling wave from
Dreadnought
’s port-side batteries. The torpedoes gained speed as they approached the battle.

The enemy ships turned as the torpedoes raced into their midst. They evaded some and brought down others, but several hit home. Two ships suffered secondary explosions and couldn’t escape the missiles raining down on them from other Albion warships in the vicinity. They died in a series of fiery explosions, while the other three enemy ships fled.

But
Carthage
’s engines were dead. She was knocked off course, still racing ahead, but would not make the jump point. Not unless she were snared and brought in against a larger vessel. How long would that take? Hours.
Carthage
sent a distress signal. A light flashed on Drake’s console—a call from
Carthage
’s captain. A weight settled into Drake’s gut.

“Sir?” Manx said nervously.

“Don’t take the call.”

“Tolvern is calling, too.”

“Ignore her, too.” Drake looked around the bridge, at the horror on their faces. “Yes, I know. Sixty-eight crew on
Carthage
.” He gestured at the side screen, where the Hroom fleet was moments from engaging the two harvesters as the colonel prepared her second attack. “And a hundred crew on every one of Lenol Tyn’s sloops. I just sent fifteen hundred Hroom to their death to buy us a few hours. You understand that we cannot throw that away to save our destroyer.”

Manx’s face was gray, but his voice was steady. “Sir,
Carthage
deserves a response anyway.”

“Yes, they do.” He took a deep breath. “But not until I compose myself.”

By now, the fleet had fought its way through the enemy ships with no additional losses. Two of the hunter-killer packs chased after the crippled destroyer. They would catch it in a few minutes. The other lances and spears fell in behind the Albion fleet to continue their pursuit. There was no longer enough time to organize for another short-range jump; Drake’s ships would reach the jump point without another battle.

“Open a channel to
Carthage
,” Drake said.

He steadied his nerves and straightened his uniform, then squared up and faced the viewscreen. Inside, he was raging in frustration. The captain of the other ship appeared. Drake gave the man his final orders. There was no argument. The man was a professional to the very end.

#

Lenol Tyn’s last charge was as magnificent as it was futile. The hammer again came crashing down on the Apex forces, but this time there were two harvesters lying in wait. The squat one absorbed the bomblets and returned fire, while the other flashed the beam of green light across the ships. They fell silent when hit, which allowed the harvesters to target them unobstructed.

Five sloops died in fiery explosions in the initial barrage. Three more fell before they could get past the harvesters, and several others lost engines or suffered hull breaches and raced off, losing their atmosphere to the void, soon to be ghost ships.

Only three ships survived the initial encounter, and these three only because they’d been disabled by the harvester’s eye. One of them was Lenol Tyn’s own ship. The sloops had been rapidly decelerating, and began to move again only a few thousand miles from the enemy ships. They reorganized for another charge.

“Get out of there,” Drake murmured. “There’s nothing more you can do.”

But the colonel instead clustered her final three sloops of war as the monstrous enemy ships closed from either side. Working in concert, the harvesters targeted one ship and quickly disabled it. Then they swept their eyes across the remaining two ships, which stopped moving.

Drake was millions of miles away, racing toward the jump point, with a large number of enemies between himself and the colonel. There was nothing he could do but watch helplessly as the harvesters seized the remaining sloops and chewed them apart to get at their crew.

Simon’s voice came across the general com link. “Warp point engine online. Jump point approaching in five minutes at current velocity.”

First
Richmond
, then
Carthage
. Finally, the entire Hroom fleet. He could only hope that Lenol Tyn had died before the buzzards took her prisoner.

Tolvern must have read Drake’s gloomy thoughts from across the void, because moments later a text communication appeared on his console.

You did what you had to, James, and so did the colonel. She bought us passage to the other side. Now it’s up to us not to waste her sacrifice.
 

Jess

And then the fleet began to jump.

Chapter Twenty

Tolvern jerked awake on the other side of the jump with sickening fear, like shaking off the effects of a nightmare only to discover that the dream was real. They’d entered the Manx System knowing that four hunter-killer packs were lurking on the other side and would have several minutes to blast away at the fleet before the humans could fight back.

The buzzard version of the eliminon battery. Leave us dead in the water and pick us apart before we can wake up.
 

Except that when she brought her gaze to the screen, the enemy was retreating. Rather than engaging, they were accelerating away from the jump point. But they weren’t as far ahead as Tolvern would have expected. It must have taken the enemy considerable time to recover.

“They’re mortal after all,” she told Capp. “The jump must have hit them hard.”

Capp blinked and shook her head, then rubbed her hand furiously over her buzzed scalp as if hoping to generate enough static electricity to jolt herself awake.

“Yeah, but look at ’em,” Capp said at last. “Taking our same path. Them buzzards know right where we need to go.”

“No doubt they’re planning to set a trap for us. But look, if we were to go around, like we were trying to evade them, where would that take us?”

Capp grinned. “Right through the bloody asteroid belt.”

“Smythe, do we have a read yet on how that last jump point is migrating? I want to mine the thing before we set off.”