The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) (28 page)

O
ver the next several days
,
Belial
fell into a routine. If, that is, hours of back-breaking effort to repair damage to the hull followed by minutes of terror and unleashing horrible violence can be called routine.

With every orbit, Oakman was out onto the hull with a crew to examine and repair weakened portions. His fabrication plant in the hold was working full time to create replacement parts, sensors, and hull sections. Alexis allowed him his grumbling that it would be easier and safer to simply build a new ship from scratch, confident that he’d tell her specifically if there was a true danger.

Alexis spent the time while
Belial
dove into Giron’s atmosphere each orbit with one hand clutching the edge of the navigation plot in fear and the other caressing it as she whispered promises to her ship that if
Belial
stood just a few minutes more of this indignity, she’d soon be back in vacuum and her crew would see to the wounds inflicted.

Her guncrews met, and even exceeded, her demand for three broadsides in each pass, sometimes managing four, and putting sixty or more shots into the Hanoverese lines. Malicoat sent her images of the destruction that caused Alexis to clench her jaw and harden her heart.

She hated that her strikes were delivered so randomly upon the common Hanoverese soldiers, as it was impossible to identify where the officers kept themselves. Then she told herself that these were the soldiers who would obey the orders to sack and burn a town like Courboin, slaughtering the inhabitants indiscriminately, and readied herself for the next pass.

Alexis stayed on the quarterdeck throughout. She managed to catch a brief nap through some of the orbits, but she kept the deck through each dive upon Giron. Also she kept the guns firing by broadside and on her order alone. She’d not put that on anyone else.

The Hanoverese reacted quickly to this new threat from above. They spread out their columns more and more, so that their soldiers wouldn’t be clumped together. But they also learned Alexis’ limitations.

Though she varied the length of her orbits, there was still a minimum amount of time after each pass before she could return for another. The Hanoverese would rush forward after each of her passes, coming together again to engage Malicoat’s columns, then fading back and dispersing before her next pass.

With each orbit came a short time before
Belial
dove where Alexis would communicate with Malicoat. He’d give her the coordinates to fire on that he thought would do the most damage to the Hanoverese.

Alexis entered the latest set of these and viewed the images of where Malicoat wished her to fire next. Her eyes widened and she keyed them in second time, thinking her fatigue had caused her to make a mistake, but the images remained.

“General Malicoat,” she said, “there’s active fighting at these coordinates.”

Malicoat had grown more and more haggard as time went on, Alexis had noted. His hair was in disarray, smudges of dirt covered his face and uniform, and his uniform jacket was torn in places. He nodded wearily.

“I’ve a rear guard keeping them engaged,” he said. “Not allowing them to fall back and disperse.”

“Sir, if I fire on this … sir, our own men are there!”

“There’re fewer of them than it appears.” Malicoat closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “They’re volunteers and of the French … most from homes that don’t exist any longer.” He swallowed heavily. “God forgive me what I thought of them at the start of this … but those lads have found their mettle and more.”

“But —”

“The Hanoverese come closer and closer to overruning us with every engagement. If they make it through our lines and into the civilian columns … those lads know what’s coming, Carew. They understand.”

Alexis met his eyes. She could see they were as haunted as her own thoughts.

“Aye, sir.”

Alexis confirmed the coordinates to target.
Belial
dove into atmosphere once more. Alexis watched the counter tick down, one hand caressing the navigation plot. She closed her eyes and whispered, promising
Belial
that the burden fell on Alexis herself and not her beautiful, faithful ship.

“Fire.”

“
T
ransition
, sir! At L1.”

At first, Alexis wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
Belial’s
world seemed to have become just a long repetition of fatigue and butchery. She blinked and made her way to the tactical station. There was little information about the newcomer, just the image of a ship as the light reached them. It was flying no colors.

“Make sure we’re flying New London colors on the hull, Chevis,” she called to the signals console.

With no masts stepped there as little in the way of signaling
Belial
could do, and she’d never been made a proper ship of the New London fleet, in any case, so she had no number to identify her. There was little she could do to flee, either, with her masts in the hold and her rudder and plane still left at a higher orbit. The best they could do was flee in normal-space.

“Aye, sir.”

Alexis studied the plot.

“It’s gone, sir, transitioned back out.”

Alexis tensed. “Set us a course out of orbit,” she ordered. For a ship to transition to normal space and then back to
darkspace
so quickly, it had to be expecting trouble. What they’d do now that they’d gathered enough information to know
Belial
was the only ship in system would determine Alexis’ next action — either greet a force from New London, or hope to flee the Hanoverese again.

“Transition!” Leyman called out. “Same ship and it’s clearing the Lagrangian point, sir! Still no colors.”

Alexis started for the tactical console, but had hardly taken a step before Leyman called out again.

“Transition, L1,” he said. “Two masts, square-rigged.”

“Mister Dobb, pipe
All Hands
, if you please,” Alexis said. “If they’re Hanoverese we may ha —”

“Transition …
multiple transitions!
” Leyman all but yelped. “L1, multiple transitions … L4 and L5, multiple transitions!”

“Calmly, Leyman,” Alexis said.

She rested her hands on the navigation plot and narrowed her eyes. So many ships, so whose fleet was it? Hanover or New London? The hands were rushing to respond to the bosun’s call, but Alexis was at a loss for what to do next. If the fleet, whoever it belonged to, was using those three Lagrangian points, then they’d surely be using L2 and L3 as well, or at least have ships there to stop her from escaping. They’d see L3, opposite the moon on the planet’s far side, when their orbit took them around — L2 was out behind the moon and they’d not see what might be transitioning there until it came around the moon.

Even if
Belial
could break orbit and escape, though, she had nowhere to go. Her masts were unstepped and her rudders were in a higher orbit. There was nowhere to run.

“Sir, I can’t keep up,” Leyman said. “They’re no sooner transitioning than they clear the Lagrangian point and more come.”

“Any signals at all, Chevis?”

“Nothing, sir. No signals and no colors.”

There were over thirty ships on the navigation plot, with more appearing every moment as the light from their transition reached
Belial
. Alexis tried to make sense of the plot. If they were Hanoverese, then
Belial
was well and truly caught. With multiple enemies at each Lagrangian point there was no way they could escape.

Thirty ships
…
how so many? Our fleet was no more than forty-five without the transports and Hanover’s was no larger … Is it another fleet of Hanoverese transports?

“Sir,” Leyman said, “there’s some’at odd about these …”

“What?” Alexis asked, studying the plot, looking for some way, any way, to retrieve her rudder and planes and then get her ship to a Lagrangian point if the incoming fleet proved hostile.

Leyman hesitated. “It’s … well, sir, there’s nary a frigate nor a ship of the line in the lot, sir. It’s all barques and sloops and smaller stuff, you see.”

Alexis ran her fingers over the plot, bringing up what details
Belial’s
computers could determine. Leyman was correct. There wasn’t a ship larger than a sloop-of-war in the lot and few of them. Most were pinnaces, cutters, and even smaller. Some were the size of pilot boats, so small they had no business sailing the Dark and should have been limited to intrasystem sails.

What on earth …

Alexis stared at the plot in awe, watching as the computer’s count of ships in-system grew. It was over a hundred already and more ships continued to stream in, each quickly engaging its drive to clear the Lagrangian point for the next.

“I’ve a transmission from that first one … it’s Mister Artley, sir!”

A
lexis stared
at the image on her plot for a moment in stunned silence. She wasn’t at all certain what was most astonishing. The sheer number of ships — over two hundred fifty filled the plot now — their small size, Artley’s presence, or the grinning face of Avrel Dansby behind Artley’s in the transmission.

“Heard you had a grand bunch of lads needing a ride, Carew,” Dansby said.

“How —”

“Your lad here.” Dansby rested a hand on Artley’s shoulder. “Pestered every captain of every bloody ship stopping at Alchiba with some utter rot about standing up and doing the right thing. Next thing we know, there’s a bloody fleet forming. Stripped everything with sails from a two dozen systems around Alchiba. Pilot boats, ferries, ore barges, the lot of them.”

Alexis watched the count of ships in system rise again as more transitioned. Her eyes burned at the sight of all those ships, so many captains and crews who’d left their safe, comfortable trade routes to put themselves in harm’s way for others.

She met Dansby’s eye on the screen.

“‘And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here,’” she whispered.

“Sir?” Artley asked.

Alexis smiled. “We’ll have to see about the entertainment options in the gunroom, Mister Artley. A bit of the classics never goes amiss, I think.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alexis had to smile more at the puzzled look on Artley’s face, which only grew more puzzled when she spoke again.

“I’ll see you back aboard
Belial
once you’ve got this lot herded into proper orbits, Mister Artley.”

“Me, sir?”

“It’s your bloody fleet, isn’t it? It’s upon you to see they’re squared away.”

The next few hours were both chaotic and a revelation.

Alexis watched with growing satisfaction as Artley began transmitting orders to the arriving ships, slotting them into orbit with ease.

“It’s a bit like stocking shelves, sir,” he said when she commented on it, then quickly, “A moment, sir …
Guide of Dunkirk
, your orbit is ten degrees following
Sundowner
, please fall back.”

Alexis hid a smile and put Artley’s transmissions to the side of the navigation plot, so that she could continue watching him. He’d certainly matured from the hesitant, unsure midshipman he’d been when
Shrewsbury
had arrived at
Nouvelle Paris.
Though they’d both, Artley and herself, had birthdays since then, so she should expect a bit of growing up from him.

She smiled again, caught Dansby’s eye where he still stood behind Artley on
Marilyn’s
quarterdeck, and set herself to contacting General Malicoat to tell him the situation might not be quite so hopeless any longer.

“
I
need seven days
,” Malicoat said. He frowned as he examined the map board at the rear of his tent, tracing lines and plans on it. “In seven days of hard travel, with your ship pounding away at them as you have been, the army can be here.” He tapped the screen along a broad plain, then turned and nodded to Alexis. “It will be difficult, but we should be able to string the Hanoverese out chasing us so that they fail to notice the civilians and the bulk of the French recruits streaming off back to their homes.”

Alexis nodded in turn. She understood the need.

No matter the number of little ships Artley had managed to arrive with, there weren’t nearly enough of them to evacuate an entire planet’s population. There was room for the New London troops and many of the French recruits who might choose to leave with the intent of returning one day with a larger force, but there was no room for the civilians of Giron who’d rushed to the New London forces looking for protection from the Hanoverese.

“It galls me to abandon them,” Malicoat continued, “but with no sign of our own transports or fleet there’s little good we can do here. I can’t run forever, and if another fleet of Hanoverese transports arrives with more troops we’re finished. If I had the full forces I’d asked for it would be different, but as it is …” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “It is what it is.”

“I’ll do everything I can, sir,” Alexis said.

“Seven days,” Malicoat repeated.

In the end, they had three.

B
elial
was halfway
through another orbit, gun crews resting and preparing to feed the guns in another dive into Giron’s mesosphere, repair crews on the hull replacing what had been burned away in the last pass.

The announcement of a ship’s transition into normal space surprised everyone on the quarterdeck, as the last of Artley’s parade of little ships had been slotted safely into orbit around Giron or its moon days before. The announcement that the ship was a New London frigate was met with first relief and then horror as the newcomer broadcast its message.

Both fleets, New London’s and Hanover’s, were on their way toward Giron, each maneuvering for position against the other, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, least of all Alexis’, what even a few Hanoverese warships could do to the unarmed civilian ships gathered around Giron. Moreover, the Hanoverese fleet was far larger than they’d thought when Admiral Chipley had sailed off in search of it. Perhaps it has been all along or perhaps a second fleet had joined it, but the Hanoverese now outnumbered New London in
darkspace
as well as on Giron’s surface.

Malicoat agreed. The risk of the Hanoverese defeating New London’s fleet and turning their attention to Giron, or of even a few of their ships slipping around the ends of a fleet action and getting amongst the transports was too great. Far better to evacuate all they could immediately, rather than risk the New London army being trapped on Giron with no transports at all.

Malicoat drove his forces mercilessly toward a new location that would allow the ships’ boats to land and load troops.

Alexis drove
Belial
and her crew just as mercilessly to fire on the approaching Hanoverese troops and force them back from the New London columns.

Boats streamed down from the waiting ships and returned full of whatever mixture of troops, New London’s and French, were ready to board. Any plan for order in the evacuation was abandoned.

Artley, back aboard
Belial
, was at the signals console continuously throughout, ordering the captains of the civilian ships about as though he were a senior post captain himself and their obedience was nothing but his due.

“Captain Gardy, you’ll load when
Belial
orders it and not a moment sooner, sir,” Artley said calmly into his microphone. “No, sir, I understand your concern, but your ship is a faster sailer and we’re loading the slowest first so they can be off.” He paused and sighed, turning from the console. “Sir? Captain Gardy of
Randall's Wand
wishes a word.”

Alexis glanced over from her place at the navigation plot to find Artley looking to her. His face showed the fatigue she felt, with dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes. The actual loading of boats had gone on for well over twenty hours now and both she and Artley had been on the quarterdeck throughout.

This Gardy wasn’t the first captain to give him trouble over the order of loading, nor the first to demand to speak to Artley’s superior. She moved to the signals console where she’d be visible in Artley’s pick up.

“Mister Artley has full command of the loading order, Captain Gardy,” she said, not bothering to hear what Gardy had to say. “Send down your boats when he orders or break orbit and leave Giron empty. It’s entirely your choice, sir.”

She turned her back and walked back to the navigation plot. She could understand Gardy’s worry, with the Hanoverese fleet growing ever nearer and no guarantee that Admiral Chipley’s fleet could bring them to action. She’d expected, in fact, some of the little ships to flee, but none had — and neither would Gardy’s, she suspected. The mettle that would drive a man to sail so far for others might be tested by the approaching enemy, but she doubted it would break.

“No, sir,” she heard Artley say, “that’s Captain Carew.” She was called captain as a courtesy by virtue of commanding
Belial
and they’d decided that was how she should be named to the civilian captains. “She’s the senior Naval officer in-system, sir … I suppose you could go in search of Admiral Chipley, if you like.” There was a long pause. “Thank you, sir. I’ll see that it’s your turn to load as soon as possible, I assure you.”

Artley sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Alexis returned to his side and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you need a rest, Sterlyn?” she asked.

Artley shook himself and sat up.

“No, sir, we’re nearly done — only a few hours more.” He took a deep breath and scanned his console, lists of ships ordered by their sailing speed and capacity. “
Azure Rose
,” he said, keying his console, “proceed to L5 and transition.
Sewall’s Folly
, release your boats for the southwest section of the landing field — blue lights mark it.”