The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

N
ewly commissioned
lieutenant Alexis Carew is appointed into
HMS Shrewsbury
, a 74-gun ship of the line in New London’s space navy. She expects
Shrewsbury
will be sent into action in the war against Hanover; instead she finds that she and her new ship are pivotal in a Foreign Office plot to bring the star systems of the French Republic into the war and end the threat of Hanover forever.

“
F
ire
!
”

Alexis Carew, sixth lieutenant aboard
HMS Shrewsbury
, stepped back from the gunport quickly and added her own voice.

“
Fire!
” she yelled.

Her vacsuit’s radio crackled with static as the order was passed on by the two midshipmen with her on
Shrewsbury’s
upper gundeck. The crews of the fourteen guns that lined the ship’s port side stepped back and the gun captains slammed their hands down on the buttons that fired the guns. The crystalline tubes of the guns flashed and, even before the afterimage had faded from her eyes, the crews were in motion to reload the guns with fresh shot.

Alexis ducked her head back to the port and watched as the shot from her guns joined the rest of
Shrewsbury’s
broadside on its way to the enemy ship. Fourteen more from the guns of the main gundeck below them, along with seven from the quarterdeck guns and two from the forecastle, all flashing across the space between
Shrewsbury
and the other ship in the odd way things behaved in
darkspace.
Even light was affected by the presence of so much dark energy and dark matter, with the bolts of the lasers becoming condensed and foreshortened in their path between the ships.

The bolts of light seemed to slow and condense as they moved, until they struck the other ship and the shot splashed against its hull. The light from the bolts illuminating the gases and droplets of vaporized thermoplastic from the other ship’s hull.

“Faster, lads!” Alexis yelled to her reloading crews. “Captain’ll want two broadsides in three minutes, or he’ll know the reason why!”

The carefully choreographed dance of reloading the guns went on.

Before the guns’ tubes had even darkened, the gun captains threw open the breeches to expose the gleaming casings of the gallenium-cased shot. The other two men of each crew knelt and ran their eyes over the gun tubes, checking for any obvious damage from the last firing. A cracked or hazed tube could burst, sending the next bolt in deadly splinters of energy throughout their own gundeck.

The gun captains pulled the spent shot canisters from the breeches and flung them to the far side of the gundeck, then selected new shot from the racks that ran down the middle of the deck. They ran practiced eyes and fingers over the shot to see that the casing was well-sealed. It was early in the action and the gallenium-mesh nets covering each gunport kept out most of the radiation effects of
darkspace
, but that wouldn’t last. More and more would creep in the longer the action went on. Enemy shot would damage the nets, or even hole the hull, allowing in even more. That radiation affected all electronics, save those protected by enough gallenium, and if the shot casing wasn’t sealed well enough the gun wouldn’t fire.

Alexis smiled with a certain pride. She loved the guns. The way her voice and breathing echoed inside the helmet of her vacsuit, the hot, heavy work of hauling shot canisters from the racks to the guns, she even loved the risk.

She knew it would take only one shot, even from the smaller frigate
Shrewsbury
now faced, to end her. Though the hull was thick, it could be breached, and the gunports only had the thin nettings, meant to keep out the
darkspace
radiation and not as any sort of protection for the crews.

But still she never seemed to feel so alive as in action, pitting her lads against those on another ship.

Her crews were working well. The runners were collecting the spent shot canisters for return to the well-protected magazine below, where the capacitors would be quickly recharged. Her two midshipmen, Walborn and Blackmer, were assisting the crews where needed, or at least had the sense to step back out of the men’s way where not.

The guns’ tubes had been checked and the facings inside the breeches, where the shot’s lasing tubes would meet the tubes of the guns, were even now being wiped clean.

Alexis was dimly aware of the other ship firing, but none of their shot penetrated
Shrewsbury’s
hull. She spared a moment’s worry for the spacers working the ship’s masts, then returned to her more immediate concerns.

One by one, the gun captains shoved new cannisters into the guns, slammed home the breech, and raised their arms to signal their readiness. Some of them took a moment to adjust their aim, having their crews roll the heavy gun carriages into a new position or crank the wheel to change its elevation. The work had to be done by hand because no electrical motors or controls would work once the
darkspace
radiation began entering the ship.

“Ready forward!” Walborn yelled, his arm going up in concert with his last gun captain’s.

That’s twice he’s ready first
, Alexis thought.
There’ll be a shilling or two changing hands if Blackmer’s crews don’t show better
.

Walborn was an inveterate gambler, though for small stakes, and had roped Blackmer into his bets. The younger boy had likely lost a month’s pay since joining
Shrewsbury
. It was a practice Alexis discouraged, but couldn’t stop. Not because of Blackmer’s losses, but because they were betting on the actions of their crews.

As though they were nothing more than horses in a race
.

The last gun captain’s arm went up, Blackmer’s following quickly.

“Aft ready!” Blackmer’s voice sounded over the radio.

“Upper ready!” Alexis called, her own arm going up. The quarterdeck would hear her report, but if the radios became inoperable due to radiation creeping inboard there was a spacer at the aft hatch to relay the signal as well.

“
Fire!
” came the order from the quarterdeck.

Again shot flowed across the space separating the two ships and struck the enemy.

Alexis eyed the damage to the other ship. There were several holes in the frigate’s hull where
Shrewsbury’s
shot had penetrated. Three masts projected outward from the ship’s bow, not quite equidistant, as the Hanoverese preferred to rake their fore and mizzen masts a few degrees closer to the mainmast that projected straight up from the bow.

Metal mesh sails on the main and mizzen masts gleamed with the azure glow of the charged particles that allowed them to harness the dark energy that flowed through
darkspace
like winds.

Most of the foremast, though, was missing, shot through and cut away early in the action.

The Hanoverese frigate was much smaller than
Shrewsbury,
a 74-gun third rate, and no frigate had any business tangling with a ship of the line. It was just the Hanoverese captain’s bad luck that had allowed the engagement.

The frigate had been trailing the convoy of merchantmen
Shrewsbury
was escorting for some time, always staying far enough astern or to windward so that
Shrewsbury
, a much larger and slower ship, couldn’t bring it to action.

Then it had tried sneaking in on the convoy of merchantmen
Shrewsbury
was escorting under cover of a
darkspace
storm, hoping to make off with a prize or two. But the storm had cleared with the two ships surprisingly close together, putting paid to the frigate’s plans and leaving it no choice but to engage
Shrewsbury
at least long enough to escape. Though that hope for escape hadn’t survived the first broadside, when
Shrewsbury’s
fire had shot through the other ship’s foremast and left its rigging a deplorable mess.

The action had really been decided then, but the frigate’s captain had refused to strike his colors and surrender.

Another broadside or two and he’ll have no choice but to strike
, Alexis judged.

The frigate’s hull was pocked with holes where
Shrewsbury’s
guns had eaten away at it. Four of its gunports were merged into a solid line of open space, where the hull between them had been burned away by
Shrewsbury’s
guns. The frigate fired and Alexis noted that at least three of the other ship’s guns were no longer firing, though they were still attempting to fire in broadside.

Soon now, and Captain Euell will have a prize to join the convoy.

“Load, lads,
load!
” she yelled. “They’re all arse-up and begging for it!”

She straightened from the port just as the other ship’s broadside arrived. Perhaps the frigate’s guncrews had adjusted their aim, or perhaps just bad luck, but the shot found
Shrewsbury’s
upper gundeck for the first time.

One bolt flashed through the number two gun’s port, narrowly missing a spacer examining the gun’s tubes. The man froze for a moment, as though not believing what had just flashed between his face and the tube, then resumed his examination as though nothing had happened.

The other shot, though, struck through the number nine port aft. There was a flash of vaporizing metal as it came through the netting that covered the port, then it struck Midshipman Blackmer full in the chest.

The energy of the heavy laser burned a hole the size of Alexis’ hand through the boy’s vacsuit, body, and out the other side to finally strike and dissipate against the darkly colored starboard bulkhead.

Alexis rushed to Blackmer’s side, but saw that there was no point. The vacsuits could seal against something small that pierced nothing vital, but this had killed Blackmer outright. She grasped his body by the arms and dragged him to the starboard side of the gundeck where he would be out of the way of the gun crews.

“Ready forward!” Walborn’s voice echoed in her helmet.

Alexis watched the aft guncrews, waiting until the last gun captain flung his hand up.

“Upper ready!” she yelled.

“
Fire!
”