Blackbeard Superbox, page 80
“I’m sitting here like an idiot. Gamma has lost her main battery, and her torpedo tubes are getting pounded. I have to bring the fight to Dreadnought. I’ve still got one engine. Let me do something with it.”
“Malthorne is turning,” Drake said. “Gamma can catch a breather in a few minutes.”
“But you won’t,” Rutherford said.
No, he wouldn’t. Caites fired off two long-range missiles. Her guns were warming. Potterman clawed his way free of the destroyers and knocked out two torpedo boats, but he was too harried to give Drake aid.
The enemy corvette streaked past Blackbeard, but Barker had finally got the secondary cannon online. They fired all three guns and cracked the corvette a hammer blow to the upper decks as she passed. Explosions rippled along her surface.
Lindsell still came at him with Churchill, together with a full complement of support craft, but Drake swung around with the main guns just as Caites lanced in at the enemy’s left flank. Drake’s own support craft were maneuvering expertly into position. It was an encounter Drake now believed he would win, given enough time.
This small victory didn’t change the basic equation. The battle was turning against them. Drake could match Lindsell, blow for blow, but here came Dreadnought. The battleship lumbered out from Hot Barsa, abandoning the attack on the forts.
Drake sent out a general order to the fleet. “Direct all fire at Churchill.”
He’d meant to break Lindsell before playing his last card. Get past these powerful forces before taking on Dreadnought. But that wasn’t going to happen in time. So he sent a message to Isabel Vargus. Now.
The mercenary fleet had been lingering just out of Dreadnought’s range and was already following the battleship as she pulled out of orbit. But now Vargus accelerated and moved to cut off Malthorne’s flagship. It might buy Drake a few minutes.
Blackbeard gave the enemy cruiser a broadside. Calypso joined Blackbeard from below, unleashing her own torpedo boats. Caites screamed in at the helm of Richmond. Suddenly, Captain Lindsell, who’d been landing most of the blows to this point in the battle, found himself under concentrated fire.
He let loose with his guns, and one of Drake’s torpedo boats broke apart. Next, two of Lindsell’s torpedoes slammed into one of the rebel destroyers. The first torpedo blasted an opening for the second one, which cut right through the heart of the ship. The rebel destroyer vented a brilliant plume of plasma and rocked with explosions before breaking in two. Escape pods jettisoned. Screams for help came across the com.
But while the enemy was attacking, concentrated firepower ripped apart Churchill’s armor both above and below. Lindsell rolled away in a desperate maneuver to save his craft. Drake hit Churchill again with his belly guns, and Calypso landed two more missiles. Lindsell fled, crippled and chased from the battlefield while the injured corvette and two destroyers tried to guard his retreat.
Instead of giving pursuit, Drake directed fire against the other ships of Lindsell’s task force, now in disarray. He’d cornered a destroyer and was hammering it into submission when Dreadnought appeared.
Malthorne’s battleship dwarfed every other ship on the battlefield. With more armaments than an orbital fortress and nearly as invulnerable, she scattered rebel ships ahead of her. They came to take shelter behind Blackbeard. Not that Blackbeard could provide much protection. Drake braced his forces.
Vargus had been pursuing in the mercenary fleet and now attacked. Outlaw led the charge, followed by several smaller schooners and frigates. The heavily armed but poorly maneuverable Pussycat swung wide and directed fire at Dreadnought’s bridge from a different angle.
Drake had hoped to force Dreadnought to confront this threat. But the battleship continued forward, turning on a small secondary battery and a few missiles to deal with the mercenaries. Even this was more than Vargus could handle. Cannon ripped apart two schooners, mauled a frigate, and knocked a hole in Pussycat’s formidable armor. Vargus pulled back from her run, her own ship emerging unscathed, but unable to continue the attack for lack of fire support.
The three rebel cruisers swung wide in end-to-end formation to attack Dreadnought with enfilading fire. When the battleship closed, they let loose with broadsides. Explosions flashed all along her surface. Dreadnought let loose with her own guns.
As if to show off Dreadnought’s power and even indifference to the combined might of the rebel fleet, Malthorne didn’t target any one ship, but fired cannon at a frigate, torpedoes at the three cruisers, missiles at the destroyers, and secondary batteries at everything else. Showing, as she did so, that she could fight everyone and everywhere at once.
The result was minimal damage to the three cruisers. But one of Drake’s remaining destroyers was in trouble, hit by missiles and stumbling from the battlefield straight into the remaining ships of Lindsell’s fleet. A rebel frigate took three torpedoes. Her ordnance detonated, and when consoles cleared, there was nothing left of her. Another frigate lost her engines and drifted aimlessly. A torpedo boat flew off, venting gasses, the crew preparing to eject.
While Dreadnought was knocking around various enemies, the mercenaries took advantage of the loss of attention. This time, Vargus seemed to catch the enemy off guard. Outlaw landed two blows right above the bridge. Pussycat landed another before Dreadnought chased them off a second time. Jane analyzed damage. Twenty-two percent degradation of Dreadnought’s secondary bridge shield.
“Capp, get us up there,” Drake said. “Oglethorpe, I want the rest of the fleet following. That’s our chance. Hit that shield with everything we’ve got.”
But Admiral Malthorne called in two destroyers to stand a few hundred miles off his bridge as a secondary defense. His main battery was hot and ready to fire again.
Another ship approached the battlefield. “It’s Vigilant, sir,” Smythe called.
And so it was. Rutherford’s cruiser was firing her remaining engine and pulling away from Fort Gamma’s protective guns. Followed by a destroyer and a frigate, Vigilant accelerated toward the battlefield.
“Balls of steel,” Capp murmured in an appreciative tone. “Bloody fool, though.”
Drake raised his old friend. “You have your orders, Rutherford. You are to stand down and protect those forts.”
“The devil take your orders.” Rutherford’s tone was unusually stiff. Almost afraid, if that were possible. What had gotten into the man? “You have no hope. Dreadnought will tear you apart.”
“And how is your death going to help that? You are the last defense of the planet. Do what I say. Get back there at once.”
“No, Drake. I will not.” Rutherford cut the link.
Malthorne’s battleship was taking fire from three sides now, but still calmly positioning herself. Another broadside from the enemy. Calypso took a pounding. Two of her shields suffered so much damage it was a miracle the cannon fire hadn’t blown through her entirely. One of Drake’s last two destroyers fled, hunted by missiles. She launched desperate countermeasures, but two of the missiles came through. More heavy damage.
Vargus was still fighting furiously, but her support vessel, Pussycat, was fleeing the battlefield, a long trail of smoke and debris pluming out her backside. Another schooner was lost. The two destroyers Malthorne had called in now turned their guns on the mercenary flagship itself, and Vargus was about to be overwhelmed.
Blackbeard and her fellow cruisers fired back with everything they had. They were scoring hits all along Dreadnought’s upper decks now, but nothing was getting through. The battleship seemed to be clearing her throat, readying all weapons for another, perhaps final volley.
Rutherford had almost reached Dreadnought. What possible good could he do? With one of his engines obliterated by a saboteur, he could not maneuver about the battlefield. He might get one shot. The first time Malthorne turned his weapons on Vigilant, she’d be finished.
Rutherford’s destroyer and frigate peeled away, shooting. Vigilant herself continued doggedly forward.
“She’s not going to fire, sir,” Smythe said.
“How do you mean?” Drake said.
“I mean, Vigilant isn’t exposing her guns. She’s readied two torpedo tubes, but nothing else is online.”
What could it mean? Rutherford’s shields couldn’t possibly hold, whether his weapon systems were exposed or not. If he was going to take such a terrible risk anyway, why not come in shooting everything he had?
And then suddenly, Drake’s mouth went dry. He understood.
“Damn you, Rutherford. No.”
Chapter Twenty-six
It took only twenty minutes until Tolvern’s base was on the verge of being overrun. Her meager forces were trying to hold both the front and rear entrances against an overwhelming attack, even while other enemies poured out of the forest and hacked through the razor wire. Every human and Hroom in Tolvern’s force was armed and shooting, but they were too thinly placed. The enemy seemed to come from everywhere.
An armored vehicle pushed up the road toward her guard post. Enemies used it for cover, as it blasted at the guard tower with one gun and struck the defenders of the gate with the other. Tolvern returned fire. Her machine gun was so hot it radiated heat like a pair of tongs pulled from a forge, and Brockett was going up and down the stairs with more ammo, until she thought she’d burn through every last can. But she couldn’t slow the enemy vehicle. It pushed forward relentlessly. And then it stopped without warning.
Rebel Hroom poured out of the surrounding forest. Most of them were unarmed—not even carrying spears—but about a dozen had assault rifles. Those with guns flanked the armored car and the forces pushing up the road behind it. They unloaded their weapons. She couldn’t see the effect on the enemy hiding behind the armored car, but it must have been devastating.
But nothing touched the vehicle itself. Bullets pinged off the armored car, and it swung its guns over to engage this new threat. The armed Hroom were only eight or ten yards distant, and they fell in a row, one after the other. The armed rebels tried to retreat to the cover of the forest, but none of them made it. The last one shuddered and collapsed just as he was reaching the trees.
The bulk of the Hroom—the unarmed ones—had taken advantage of the distraction to run toward the base gates. They came on in long, loping strides. The enemy turned its attention toward them.
Tolvern slapped her hand against her ear so hard that it hurt. The com link came on. “Get that gate open!”
It opened at the same moment that the enemy concentrated firepower on the unarmed, fleeing Hroom. The back rank fell, mowed down as from a scythe sweeping through grass. The rest, some twenty or thirty in all, poured through the open gates. Tolvern had doubled her strength in a single moment.
A ragged cheer went up through the base. The enemy vehicle lumbered forward to force its way through the open gates, but grenades, hand cannons, and a well-placed mine checked its progress. It fell back two hundred yards, where it sat, smoking, as the enemy reorganized.
Tolvern took advantage of the lull in the fighting. She left Carvalho and Brockett at the guard tower and raced down the stairs to greet the newcomers. One was Pez Rykan. He stared at her through a soot-stained face. He wore a bandage on his neck, and his left hand was heavily wrapped as well, with only the tips of his long fingers pointing out.
“You’ve had a rough go of it,” she said.
“That would appear to be a—how do you say it?—an understatement.”
Yes. She’d personally witnessed at least thirty Hroom slaughtered on the road in just the last few minutes; from the visible injuries to him and several others, this wasn’t their first fight.
“How many of your force are left in the woods?” Tolvern asked.
“Perhaps a hundred. But others are gathering in the lowlands. Our numbers will soon be rebuilt.”
“Why did you send them to the lowlands? We need them here.”
“Those are new recruits. The rest are either dead or in front of you now.”
Tolvern looked around. There might be fifty Hroom in the base. A hundred more still in the woods, apparently fighting it out with the enemy the best they could. That meant that Pez Rykan had lost more than two-thirds of his entire army in the course of a few days.
“We have plenty of arms,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow. “There is that.”
Indeed, Hroom had already raided the armory and were handing out rifles, hand cannons, and other arms. Some of Pez Rykan’s newcomers turned the weapons over like they’d picked up a venomous lizard from the jungle. That would be a problem; there was no time to train them.
Others, however, had clearly handled firearms before, and these she sent to reinforce positions around the base. None too soon. The enemy renewed its assault moments later.
#
“Get Rutherford on the screen,” Drake told Oglethorpe. To Capp, he said, “Bring us in.”
“Dreadnought is preparing her main battery,” Smythe said. “If we go in—”
“Do it!”
Even as he spoke, Dreadnought’s main battery let loose a fiery blast. Blackbeard fired desperate countermeasures and performed evasive maneuvers, but it wasn’t enough. Shot slammed into them. The ship shuddered, anti-grav failed, and they went flying. Drake closed his eyes, waiting for the final explosion.
Then the systems came back on. He fell hard to the floor.
By the time he and the others were climbing shakily to their feet, Jane was already on the com giving him the grim news: “aft shield, twenty-seven percent, starboard shield thirty-four percent . . . ”
She continued on, but the damage report became a drone. No need for specifics; Blackbeard had been savagely mauled. Engineering scrambled to put out fires, the gunnery reported cannon off their carriages and torpedoes being dumped into space to keep from detonating in their tubes.
Calypso and Richmond rushed in to aid Blackbeard’s retreat.
Meanwhile, Vigilant kept plowing ahead, coming straight at Dreadnought. The battleship had paid it no attention, fired not a single shot at the cruiser, though the two ships were now within range. Rutherford wouldn’t respond to Drake’s demands that he open a link. Only moments now, and it would be too late.
“He’s bloody gone over, hasn’t he?” Capp said. She sounded angry, hurt, and full of despair. “That bastard turned on us.”
She was so wrong that Drake didn’t have a rebuttal. Vargus sent a desperate message to try to get Drake’s attention, but he didn’t have time for her, either. He tried to reach his old friend one last time.
“Rutherford, for the love of God and Albion. Answer me. You don’t have to do this. Nigel!”
Dreadnought had been readying another devastating attack. This time, Calypso and Richmond were within range too, as well as the rest of the fleet. Captain Lindsell’s surviving forces formed a tight knot and made a move on the mercenary fleet.
But suddenly, the enemy seemed to recognize the threat. Vigilant was aimed right at Dreadnought, but hadn’t fired a shot. Rutherford’s auxiliary craft moved into position, but didn’t fire, either.
Too late, Dreadnought swung around to show its main battery. The cannon fired before they were all in position. Vigilant took a hard blow. Explosions rippled along her surface, bits of armor and entire bulkheads blowing off. Plasma drained out the engine like blood from a severed artery. She came at the battleship on sheer momentum.
Vigilant fired a pair of torpedoes at the last moment. There was no time for Dreadnought to deploy countermeasures, and they smashed into the battleship one after another. The cruiser, burning and venting gasses, plowed in after it. Directly into the tyrillum armor damaged by the torpedoes.
For a moment there was nothing, only the crippled and much smaller Vigilant crushing itself against the seemingly immovable battleship. Then a flash of light that blanked out the viewscreen. Radiation washed over Blackbeard, bringing down instruments.
They were only down a moment. When they came back on, Drake saw for himself the devastating result of Rutherford’s final charge.
Vigilant was no more. No sign of her, not even so much as a gutted section of the hull. In her place was a gaping hole in the side of the battleship. A hundred feet wide, it cut through armor, bomb proofs, and bulkheads to reach deep into the ship’s guts and expose them to the void. Explosions rippled along the surface, blasting new holes all along the battleship’s upper decks.
Dreadnought turned, wounded, but not yet dead. She tried to fire torpedoes to guard her escape, but they detonated on launch, causing further injury. Drake ordered his remaining forces to attack.
The remaining cruisers abandoned all caution. They pursued the wounded monster, firing away. Calypso and Richmond tried to disable the engines, while Blackbeard targeted the massive hole left by Rutherford’s sacrifice. Vargus and her surviving support craft raked the remains of Lindsell’s task force to keep them from coming to Dreadnought’s aid.
The battleship lost one engine, then another. The final two engines couldn’t build enough speed, and a single torpedo boat swooped in and knocked them out.
Again and again, Drake hammered the battleship, until it was a gutted wreck. Long after Lindsell’s forces had fled the battlefield entirely, the rebel ships pursued Dreadnought, pounding away. Still, it wouldn’t break apart. At last, drifting and helpless, someone on the helm cried desperately for terms. It was Vice Admiral Thomas Lord Malthorne himself. Or, as he’d styled himself since the destruction of York Town, King Thomas the Second.
The battle was over, Malthorne said. The rebels had won. What terms would James Drake offer?
Drake replied with his terms: unconditional surrender.
#
Tolvern was almost disappointed when the enemy offered to surrender. With the arrival of Pez Rykan’s forces, she’d gained the upper hand. It hadn’t been apparent until the afternoon the following day, when they’d repelled three separate attempts to break through. But the third attack had faltered so quickly that she began to plan a breakout. Next time the enemy came, she planned to spring an ambush before they could retreat.
