Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) (24 page)

Smythe sent over the data, and
Blackbeard
and
Peerless
spent the next twenty minutes dropping Youd mines as the rest of the fleet came through, programming the mines to follow the drifting jump point. The mines wouldn’t stop the harvesters, but might slow them down.

Drake organized the fleet from the bridge of
Dreadnought
, and soon the humans were underway. The hunter-killer packs continued to race away from the jump point, staying well ahead.

The harvesters jumped through a few hours later, followed by about twenty lances and spears—the surviving ships that had fought in what the
Blackbeard
crew was already calling the Battle of Singapore. Within minutes, they, too, were moving on the same course as both the original hunter-killer packs and the Albion fleet.

“I hate them buzzards,” Capp said. “The harvesters ain’t even damaged none. Look at ’em, Cap’n.”

“Fifteen sloops of war,” Nyb Pim said gloomily. The pilot had barely spoken in hours, not since Lenol Tyn began her final charge. He’d gone off shift and returned just as glum. “All dead. Perhaps it is hopeless.”

Tolvern tried to think of an encouraging comeback, something about avenging the Hroom deaths, or that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain, but anything that occurred to her sounded hollow, and she didn’t speak for a long moment.

“It isn’t hopeless.” That was the best she could think of. “We’ve destroyed two harvesters already, and these two aren’t invincible.”

“And how many more harvesters are in orbit around Hroom worlds?” Nyb Pim said. “Do we have the firepower to defeat them all?”

“Apex respects strength. It’s the only thing they
do
respond to.”

Smythe looked up from the tech console. “We’re running for our lives. That’s a funny way to show strength. And wait until they board us. Then what?”

“Enough with the defeatism. If they board us, we’ll fight back. Is everyone here armed?”

Capp wore a hand cannon strapped to one hip and a pistol on the other, and she patted them proudly. “You better believe it, Cap’n.”

Lomelí sheepishly raised a hand. “I didn’t think it would come to that.”

“King’s balls, woman,” Capp said, “what are you thinking? Them buzzards come, you don’t want to be hitting ’em with your fists. Next time you go off shift, get yourself to armory, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Capp glared. “That goes for the lot of you. Don’t be coming back here without a weapon.”

Tolvern settled into her seat and nodded at Nyb Pim, who was still watching her solemnly. “Pilot, I need a course. We’ll be breaking off from the fleet as soon as we get to the asteroid belt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Smythe, anything turn up yet on the scans?”

“The system looks empty. Well, apart from two harvesters and forty other assorted enemy ships,” he added. “But no sign of the leviathan.”

“It’s lurking around here somewhere. Let’s hope we find it before it finds us.” She forced a smile. “See, now you’ve got something else to occupy your minds besides a couple harvesters.”

It was funny, though, how Apex could put things in perspective. A star leviathan was a massive beast that dwarfed other life forms—giant toads, Apex walkers, even battleships and harvesters seemed puny in comparison—but if a leviathan caught you, what was the worst that could happen? You died. A short, gruesome end. You were not tortured and consumed alive like if you fell into Apex’s clutches.

#

For the next ten or twelve hours it seemed as though the enemy ships would be content to escort them all the way through the system. The ones in front led by several million miles, and the ones to the rear followed the humans without jumping forward to engage.

But Tolvern returned to the bridge after her sleep cycle to discover that the advance enemy ships were decelerating and forming ranks of hunter-killer packs. The Albion fleet was still more than ninety million miles from the asteroid belt.

Tolvern settled into her seat and studied the data. “Perfect timing. As soon as
Dreadnought
shifts course, we’ll make our own maneuvers. Lomelí, make sure all hands will be ready in the gunnery. Smythe, alert the other ships of our task force. And can someone get Capp back up here?”

Drake veered the fleet outward on the x-axis a few minutes later, and Tolvern nudged
Blackbeard
into the lead. Two others cruisers followed her: HMS
Peerless
, led by McGowan, and Woodbury’s ship, HMS
Repulse
. In addition, she brought in two other ships for support: HMS
Pace
, a corvette, and the missile frigate HMS
Catapult
. They would have a vital role to play.

The enemy strategy became apparent as soon as the Albion forces changed course. First, the leading enemy ships moved to intercept them, and then the trailing lances and spears accelerated for a short-range jump. They vanished and reappeared ahead of Admiral Drake’s forces and in positions both above and below on the y-axis. If Drake continued his course, the enemy ships would box them in somewhere in the asteroid belt while the harvesters thundered in from the rear.

Drake continued course.

“We need to swing around the belt another thirty or forty million miles,” Smythe said.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. There’s a residue of radiation in that direction.” He brought up a map and highlighted a section. It was a big swath of territory, several million cubic miles in area. “I can give you a more precise location if you let me use the active sensors.”

“Passive scans only. We need to find the leviathan before the buzzards do, and that means no banging around.”

“What if it’s asleep?” Smythe asked. “Digesting its meal or something?”

“We brought a missile frigate. I’m sure we can wake it up.”

So many assumptions here. First, that the leviathan was still in the area, either molting or laying its eggs after its last meal, and hadn’t already wandered off. Second, that Apex didn’t know the creature was in the system, and finally, that the enemy’s sensors were too weak to pick up the creature until it was too late.

Depending on the moment, Tolvern had varying degrees of confidence about the answers to all three of these questions.

Capp returned to the bridge as Tolvern changed course to swing them along the rim of the asteroid belt. The other ships of her task force followed her lead, with
Dreadnought
and the entire fleet doing the same minutes later. The enemy forces merely shifted their entire formation ahead of the humans.

Capp spent a few minutes looking at her console, then leaned back in her chair with her hands behind her head. “I get what we’re trying to do here, Cap’n, but ain’t the harvesters too far back? These little ships don’t mean nothing if we can’t take out the big guns.”

That was a good point. The harvesters would need nearly two hours to catch up once the fleet entered the box trap being set up by the lances and spears. No doubt the enemy expected Drake to try to fight his way through, and would be suspicious if he didn’t.

“We need an excuse to slow down,” Smythe said. “A ship with engine trouble or something.”

“No good,” Capp said. “We left all them Hroom to die, and
Carthage
, too. The buzzards saw that. They know Drake would jettison any one of us if it meant getting away.”

“There’s one ship he wouldn’t leave behind,” Tolvern said. “Call the flagship. I need to talk to the admiral.”

According to Drake’s first mate, the admiral was in the war room with several officers from his gunnery. It took a few minutes to get him on the line. He looked curious but guarded when he finally took the call.

Tolvern held his gaze, making sure he had a few seconds to think about the reasons why she’d risk calling and having their conversation intercepted by the enemy.

“I understand
Dreadnought
is suffering some engine trouble, Admiral,” she said slowly. “How long until it’s repaired?”

A frown creased his brow, but vanished almost at once. A slight nod, as if acknowledging her deception. “Hard to say. You’ve seen the data?”

“My engineers think you’ll need a couple of hours,” Tolvern said, “that you’ll ease up on the damaged engine to do the work. Question is, are the harvesters going to catch us before we pass through the belt?”

Another slight nod. “I’m afraid so. We’ll have to fight it out—there’s no other choice.”

Tolvern let out an exaggerated sigh. “In that case, let’s make it count.”

“Get ahead of me, make sure there’s nothing in the way. Flush out enemy ships if they’re lurking. We can’t have any surprises when we get in there.”

“Got it. Good luck, Admiral.”

“You, too, Tolvern.” He ended the call.

“That went well,” Capp said. “He seemed to get what you was saying, right?”

“Let’s hope so.”

“
Dreadnought
is slowing down,” Smythe confirmed from the tech console. “And the admiral is messing around with one of his engines.”

“Very good. Nyb Pim, I want our task force at these coordinates relative to the main fleet.” She sent him some numbers.

“Yes, sir,” the Hroom said.

“Capp, give
Catapult
her orders. Let’s flush out the hidden fleet.” Tolvern smiled. “Or whatever else might be lurking. Say, a star leviathan, to pick one crazy example.”

Capp gave a toothy smile. “Aye, sir.” She called the missile frigate.

Catapult
was soon launching missiles ahead of the fleet as they entered the asteroid field. The frigate didn’t target any one asteroid, but struck the largest of them one after another. The asteroids looked wormy, moth eaten from where the leviathan had torn into the crust looking for fissile material and other heavy metals, and one missile hit hard enough to break an asteroid into chunks.

By now, the harvesters were within range of the rear elements of the human fleet. Drake’s ships seemed to lose discipline as the enemy approached. They accelerated to stay in front of the admiral’s flagship, which left
Dreadnought
exposed. Her engines strained, as if struggling to gain speed.

All a feint.

The harvester ships didn’t fire, even as
Dreadnought
fell in range. Instead, the claws seemed to be flexing, as if eager to get the battleship in their grasp. The harvesters jostled for position as they closed on Drake’s ship.

Tolvern’s heart was thumping. “Where the devil is that leviathan?”

Smythe and Lomelí cried out at the same moment.

“Look!” Smythe said. He tapped his console and the view on the big screen changed.

There it was, using its tentacles to crawl out of a hole dug into the side of one of the asteroids. Dust and chunks of rock hung in the air above the asteroid where
Catapult
’s missile had struck, and the monster threw up more rubble as it tore itself free.

As the human and Apex ships approached, the creature gave a final heave and threw itself into space. Green gases jetted from its propulsors. Its mouth opened to reveal spore cannons. Tentacles hundreds of kilometers long uncoiled until they were a waving, Medusa-like mass. It jetted toward the human fleet.

A star leviathan. Hungry and ready to feed. Heaven help them.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Pull up!” she ordered. “Show the main battery.”

Blackbeard
slowed rapidly, and the floor vibrated as the antigrav compensated for the extreme deceleration.
Peerless
and
Repulse
followed her maneuver, as did Tolvern’s corvette, HMS
Pace
. The missile frigate, its job done, fell back toward
Dreadnought
, where the rest of the fleet was forming into ranks, even as the battleship’s sputtering engine suddenly flared to life.

The Apex capital ships, with their inferior detection capabilities, didn’t seem to have noticed the leviathan yet. They kept charging forward, even as the box of lances and spears that had maintained formation the past few hours began to fall in from all sides. This, the enemy seemed to grasp, would be the decisive battle.

“Just not the way they think,” Tolvern muttered. “Capp, get me
Pace
.”

The captain of the corvette, a woman named Gilchrist, appeared moments later. Her face was lean, almost aquiline, including a sharp, aristocratic nose. Her hair had turned an iron gray, though her face had few wrinkles. Sharp eyes carried a natural suspicion.

Tolvern glanced at the other half of the screen, which showed the leviathan jetting toward them. It didn’t seem to have a target yet.

“You’re the fastest out of the blocks,” Tolvern told Gilchrist. “I need you to bring our friend in. Can’t have him roaming about unsupervised.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do your best to stay clear, but if you need to take risks, do it. It won’t be a party without our special guest, and you’ll do what you need to.”

“Understood.”

Pace
pulled away from the three cruisers. The sleek corvette flared her engines and accelerated rapidly toward the leviathan, firing long-range missiles as she did so. The creature swiveled toward the incoming missiles, and its tentacles waved as if welcoming their approach.

The harvesters had begun shooting, but not at
Dreadnought
, which they seemed to want to capture rather than kill. Instead, they blasted at the swarm of torpedo boats and destroyers that had fallen in behind the battleship to guard its rear.

The leviathan was now moving directly toward the corvette, which turned sharply just as the creature let loose with its spore cannon.
Pace
narrowly avoided flying into a mass of the spores, which would have choked her engines and checked her momentum.

“There we go,” Smythe said. “The buzzards have spotted it.”

The harvesters had reversed thrust. They turned to maneuver away from the battlefield. Even as they came about, lances and spears jumped into the fray. Two hunter-killer packs darted into the midst of a dozen torpedo boats and savaged them with energy pulses. Another cluster of enemies mixed it up with the cruisers on Drake’s flank, led by
Formidable
, and backed by the damaged
Zealand
, which still couldn’t fire missiles or torpedoes, but had her cannon back online. Two corvettes rushed to aid the cruisers, and the four human ships were soon pounding the unsupported enemy craft.