The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) (17 page)

The
Völund,
Oaxian
space

“…
three,
two, one, dropping out.” Lieutenant Franklin chanted.

Carol leaned toward her monitors as they came back to life.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “How the hell did he know they’d be there?”

“Captain?” The weapons officer frowned back at her.

“Never mind, Wally. Just keep everything spun up and ready
to fire.”

“Aye ma’am. We’ve got tracks on twenty-eight hostiles. None
of ‘em seem to be taking any interest in us beyond the usual medium-range
scans.”

“They’re preparing to land ground forces from that big
bastard of a troopship.” She opened the icon on her screen, ensuring the
accuracy of the data entered by the targeting systems. “They won’t reduce their
covering force to send a ship all the way over here.”

“Uh huh.” Wally sounded unconvinced. He made a show of
looking out of every window on the bridge. “You did say the rest of the task
force was coming, right?”

“Any second now, Wally.” Carol kept her eyes on the tactical
display, hoping she was right about the enemy’s need to cover the landing.
It’s
like we fell into the tiger enclosure at the damned zoo. Any sudden moves and
they’ll pounce.
“Keep the mains spooled up – just in case.”

The shadow of the window frames fell across her screen and
faded quickly. She looked up out of pure instinct but, at five thousand
kilometers, there was no chance of seeing ships. She looked back at her screen
and let out a breath that she hadn’t even known she was holding.

“That was one hell of a drop-out!” Wally enthused. “Took the
heart out of their formation, from the looks of it.”

“Franklin, bring us to full bias,” Carol ordered. “Drop us
in there before we miss the whole fight.”

The
Salamis
, Oaxian
space

“R
eading
eight hostile frigates and five corvettes under power,” the sensor coordinator
announced as the screens began to populate with data. “Incoming trace from the
Völund
indicates an original force of fifteen frigates, thirteen corvettes or lesser
class, and one troop ship.”

Harry and Colonel Adams joined Prouse at the trace table.
Its glass surface was littered with moving icons.

“Launching the drones,” a weapons officer announced. The drones
were little more than mobile Mosquito launchers with heavy shielding, and the
Alliance was eager to test them in combat.

“Let’s try two ships for boarding,” Harry suggested as he
reached out to touch icons for the nearest two enemy frigates. “No sense in
getting greedy, especially since we have to let ‘em keep firing at us until our
Marines can seize control.”

“Agreed,” Prouse looked at Adams and, having received a nod
from the colonel, released an update of the trace, declaring the two ships off
limits for fleet gunnery.

Two more icons turned orange as the rumble of weapons fire
began to echo through the hull. “Midgaard requesting boarding targets as well.”
Prouse looked up at Harry, one eyebrow slightly raised.

Harry nodded. “Their fire doesn’t overlap with the inbound
ordinance coming from our targets,” he said. “Let them try.”

Prouse authorized the two icons and released the trace to
the fleet a second time. “Looks like the troop ship lost its entire engineering
section from the
Xi
drop wash. She’s drifting.”

“Keep everyone well clear of that ship,” Harry ordered. “Get
too close and you’ll find a hundred pods filled with troops burrowing through
your hull. We’ll fight the effectives first and then smash her when we hold the
orbitals.”

Prouse and Adams shared a glance. “You mean to destroy her
with all hands, sir?” The fleet captain asked. “She’s combat non-effective with
at least a hundred thousand souls aboard…”

“You’ll find them combat effective if you try to put a
boarding party on her,” Harry snapped. “They’re not going to surrender and
they’ll try any dirty trick in the book to get aboard our own ships and kill
every last one of us.”

“Boarding teams away,” the sensor coordinator announced,
breaking the uneasy spell that was hanging over the trace table.

“Fire the decoys,” Prouse commanded.

They watched as the sledges, originally designed to punch
through enemy hulls in the first war, made their way to the targets under full
acceleration. The hydraulically dampened inner hull would slide forward as the
outer hull tore through the fabric of the enemy ship, reducing the impact
forces to tolerable levels for the Marines inside.

A complement of twenty dummy Mosquitoes had been allocated
to each boarding attempt. The one hundred forty sub-munitions would take some
of the heat off each sledge – a nuclear warhead was a bigger threat than
soldiers.

“I’m ordering a concentration of fire on the six eligible
frigates,” Prouse said as he began dragging vectors from Alliance ships to the
enemy. “They’ve got the heaviest guns. Sooner they stop firing the better.”

The entire bridge staff lurched to the side in unison and
every surface in the ship vibrated. Prouse missed his grab at the edge of the
trace table and went sprawling. Alarms blared and the bridge chatter died for a
couple of stunned seconds before returning at a higher intensity.

“Nuclear strike on the starboard beam, ventral surface,” an
officer announced, not quite in a yell but close enough for government work.
“Damage control parties are
en
route, but the effects
don’t seem to have reached any critical systems. Looks like less than half a
megaton.” The Human forces, who relied heavily on nuclear warheads, preferred
to build their own ships with that threat in mind.

The best locked door in any town usually belongs to a thief.

“Where the hell did it come from?” Prouse demanded as he
pulled himself back to his feet.

“Tango charlie-four, sir.” The young woman replied
instantly. If the charlie class corvettes were firing nukes, then the original
plan of concentrating on the enemy frigates would need re-evaluation. A
half-megaton warhead slipping past the shields was a bigger threat than any
linear accelerator projectile.

“Fire control, turn the drones loose on that sumbitch,” he
ordered, his lips drawing back from his teeth in an angry snarl. “Bring the
main batteries to bear on the nearest charlie and open up on it with everything
else while we move. Helm, slave to fire control.”

“Slaving helm to fire control, aye, sir.”

The massive vessel began to turn toward one of the corvettes
but the small vessel was accelerating rapidly toward the center of the enemy
formation. Before the centerline of the
Salamis
had quite reached the
target, two brilliant plumes of plasma erupted from the bow of the massive carrier
barely a tenth of a second apart. One of the five newest carriers in the fleet,
the
Salamis
had four linear accelerators built into her hull.

The first hundred-kilo slug of steel streaked out to slam
into the enemy shield, bucking the small ship back several meters and weakening
the shield. The second slug hit the shield before it could recover and the
corvette, roughly a sixth the size of a Dactari frigate, was turned into a
tumbling cloud of parts.

At almost the same instant, two of the
Salamis’
drones
were in the vicinity of Tango charlie-four and they both fired a three-weapon
salvo. The sub-munitions separated almost instantly before continuing their
four-second flight to the enemy’s shield. Thirty-eight of the original
forty-two warheads made their way inside the shield and group-detonated.

The small corvette’s hull stood no chance against the nearly
four megatons of force contained within its shield. The blast pushed out as the
shield generators were vaporized, smashing the two Alliance drones into atoms.

“
Pandora
and
Porus
have taken out tangos
charlie-one and -three,” the tactical officer announced. “The
Colorado
is
broken up, looks like she got hammered by nukes.”

“Put two drones on charlie-two and let’s get back to the
frigates,” Prouse ordered with a grim look at Harry.

 “We have solid decoy contact on tangos foxtrot-three
and -six,” the tactical officer called out.

Not only did the decoys distract attention from the boarding
sledges, but they also offered the chance of learning the enemy shield
frequencies, assuming any of the swarm made it as far as the shields. In
theory, they could pass the frequencies to the approaching sledges, allowing a
high-speed pass through the shields and ensuring effective penetration of the
sledges into the enemy vessel.

No doubt that theory sounded far more sensible to the
engineering teams than it did to the Marines hurtling toward an enemy shield at
top speed.

Two Midgaard icons pushed out to the flank where tangos
foxtrot-five and -seven were turning to move toward the troop ship. As Harry
watched, the Midgaard icons overlapped their targets. He vividly remembered the
screech of rending metal from an earlier fight in Oaxian orbit.

The term ‘laying alongside’ implied a good deal more awe and
danger in the vacuum of space.
You gotta admit,
he thought,
those
Midgaard are gutsy bastards.

Both of our sledges are through,” the tactical officer
announced, “and they are now deep inside.”

The main batteries roared again as the ship, still slaved to
the fire control officer, came to bear on one of the enemy frigates. The rounds
streaked toward the large, black ship but her shields were far stronger than
those of the corvettes and she continued to move toward the stricken troop
ship.

“Looks like they’re taking up defensive positions,” Harry
mused. “Maybe they’re going to try taking the men off?”

 “Distortion alert,” the sensor coordinator yelled.
“Sir, it’s the enemy frigates: they’re creating some kind of group distortion
around the troop ship.”

A green icon began to blink below the label on tango
foxtrot-seven.
Well at least that’s one less frigate for the enemy,
Harry
thought.
And one more for us. That had to be less than five minutes. How the
hell did they neutralize her so fast?

Even as he thought it, a similar icon began to blink for
tango foxtrot-five. Both Midgaard ships broke away from their prizes and began
moving toward the enemy formation, weapons blazing.

“That’s it,” tactical announced. “They’re gone.”

Adams pounded his fist on the trace table. The two ships
boarded by his Marines had departed with the enemy. To his credit, he refrained
from any complaints. Harry respected him for that. If you were unable to change
something, it was no use moaning about it. It would only show your people how
powerless you were.

That was never good for morale.

“Distortion alert,” sensor shouted. “Six thousand klicks
out.”  

Harry fought to keep his shoulders from sagging as he turned
to the trace table.

“Papa foxtrot-five is falling into the planet’s gravity
well,” tactical called out. “She appears to be suffering an engine failure.”
Now that the frigate was in friendly hands, its primary designator had changed
from
tango
for target, to
papa
for prize. If it was falling into
the gravity well, then so was its Midgaard prize crew.

What the hell else could possibly go wrong right now,
Harry
seethed. He ignored protocol and opened the icon for the
Pandora
,
activating a video link to Captain Shelby without bothering Prouse, who was
desperately trying to bring the fleet back to some semblance of order to meet
the new inbound threat.

“Captain Shelby, do you think you can lay the Pandora
alongside papa foxtrot-five? We need someone to take off that prize crew and
nobody else can match your agility.”

Shelby turned from Harry to one of her data screens. “Well,
sir,” she answered, “we’ll sure as hell try.” The screen went blank.

Harry closed the window and looked at the trace of the new
arrivals. It was a small force. Six frigates, a corvette and…”

“That’s the same force,” Prouse looked up at Harry.

“They’re jumping again,” sensor advised. “Individually, this
time. I’m reading distortion building for four frigates and one corvette.”

“Our boarding team…” Adams hissed. Eyes glued to the trace.

“One of the frigates is standing down her jump engines.”

“Do they have her?” Prouse wondered aloud.

“Hails coming in from foxtrots-three and -six,” the comms
officer said in surprise. “Requesting permission to join the fleet!”

As the bridge crew cheered themselves hoarse, Harry offered
his hand, first to Prouse and then to Adams. Both men were grinning widely.
They had lost the
Colorado,
but they had gained three frigates in the
process. For once they had come through a battle stronger than they had begun
it.

“Launch shuttles,” Prouse barked. “Have them take off any
survivors from the
Colorado
.”

Harry suddenly turned back to the table, cursing himself as
he remembered they still had an emergency on their hands.

Pandora…

Papa foxtrot-five, Oaxian space

F
enris
shook his head.
I wouldn’t want to lay one of our own ships alongside this
frigate now that it’s in the atmosphere. That Human captain is out of her mind
– I like her already!
He issued a curt command, directing his prize crew to
the port lander bay where, if nothing went wrong, they would be taken off by
the
Pandora
.

The remaining Dactari crew could have their ship back – for
the few minutes it took to break up. He had to admit a grudging respect for
them. When it had become clear that they would lose their ship to the Midgaard
boarding party, they had scuttled the engines after aiming the ship straight
down at Oaxes.

They knew they were killing themselves, but they had at
least denied a frigate to the enemy.

He ran to a vertical shaft and timed his jump so that he
entered while falling. His momentum carried him down one deck and into the far
corridor where he hit the gravity plate running. Three of his men joined him
from a side corridor and he heard another two, at least, hitting the decking
behind him.

The lander bay was fifty feet ahead and another of his men
came from a side corridor and stood at the door lintel, keeping it open so his
approaching comrades wouldn’t have to slow down.

Thorstein,
Fenris made a mental note. That was the
kind of warrior you wanted on a mission like this. Not someone who boasts about
great deeds, but someone who thinks of the little things that make the
difference between life and death.

The view outside the bay door was obscured by a shock layer
of extremely hot, ionized gas. Fenris knew the blast that had scuttled the
engineering section had left the vessel on backup power. When it failed, the
shields would fail as well. Dactari design philosophy relied heavily on
shields.

Without them, Fenris might as well be standing in a paper
bag.

Nine more of his crew entered the bay and he saw Arnleif
among them.
Forty-seven.
He raised an eyebrow.

Arnleif shook her head. “Freylaug and Vidar both died in the
explosion.” She looked around, counting silently. “This is all that remain.”

It was maddening. So close to having his own ship. The enemy
frigate was shockingly undermanned and her crew had surrendered almost
instantly. The explosion in the engine compartment had taken the boarding party
completely by surprise.

He threw himself to the deck as a seam opened in the shield,
sending a brief blade of superheated gas against the ship before closing again.
As he sat up, he could see a jagged edged cut in the fabric of the ship. The
gas had cut through hull plating, conduits and stanchions as though they were
carved out of styrene foam.

As he stared at the damage, his eye caught sight of a
darkness in the shock layer. The shielding turned orange with a bright red line
at the seam and then the red line split, sliding apart as the shield of the
Human vessel forced its way through.

With the ionized gas pushed out of the way, Fenris could
clearly see into the forward shuttle bay of the
Pandora
. Several crewmen
in EVA suits and safety harnesses stood near the outer lip of the decking,
ready to grab anyone who might lose their footing during the deadly transfer.

A seam opened in the Human shielding and Fenris waved his
crew forward. “The Norns aren’t done with us yet!” he yelled as they leaped
across the constantly shifting gap.

The frigate was dying. On either side of the shield
interface, there was enough of a gap for the shock layer to infiltrate. Jets of
superheated gas shot through the hull behind Fenris and roared down the
corridor toward the center of the vessel.
Time to go.

 He looked across at Arnleif, her nod indicating that
he was the last one left. A captain should be the last to leave a stricken
ship. He grinned.
That didn’t include the fornicating Dactari who scuttled
her, of course.
He waited until Arnleif drifted closer. When she started to
drift back again, he knew that the gap was at its narrowest and leaped lightly
over to the Human vessel.

Behind him, the frigate began to tear apart as the
Pandora’s
shields closed up and she withdrew from contact. The gap in the Dactari
shields must have stayed open, allowing even greater access for the deadly
atmospheric enemy.

He feigned complete indifference. Acting as though he did
this sort of thing every day.
No need to let the Humans know how terrified I
was,
he thought, pleased with the impression he was making on his rescuers.
He retracted his helmet, but before he could speak, the sound of a whistle
assaulted his ears and the Human crew came to attention.

He had been among Humans enough to understand the
compliment, even if he’d only been a captain for a matter of minutes. The
captain of this ship had an eye for the little things. Things that made big
differences.

A young man approached. “Welcome aboard the
Pandora,
Captain.” He stepped to the side and extended a hand toward the door at the
rear of the shuttle bay. “Captain Shelby’s compliments, sir, and she’s
currently occupied with getting us back into space. I’m to escort you to the
bridge.”

The top of the grav-free shaft opened on the bridge. The
black of space was already coalescing as he looked out to starboard at the
orange fireball that represented his first command.

A young woman unstrapped from her chair – he still couldn’t
bring himself to approve of sitting on the bridge of a warship – and walked
toward him.
Even for a Human, she looks young.
At just over three
hundred, Fenris was considered something of a youngster himself, but this woman
seemed very young to be in command of her own ship.

Then she smiled, and Fenris forgot his own name for half a
heartbeat.