Lords of Space (Starship Blackbeard Book 2) Read online

  Lords of Space

  by Michael Wallace

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  The Starship Blackbeard Series

  Book #1 – Starship Blackbeard

  Book #2 – Lords of Space

  Book #3 – Dreadnought

  copyright 2015 by Michael Wallace

  Cover Art by Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe

  Chapter One

  Henny Capp lay in bed, counting the minutes until Carvalho arrived. She knew he’d be tired after getting off shift, as he’d spent ten straight hours on a spacewalk, while he and his fellow engineers worked outside in the vacuum to repair a problem with the new shields. They weren’t retracting properly, which made it impossible to deploy the underside battery. Carvalho would come to her room wanting to collapse.

  Capp didn’t care how exhausted he was. She was horny, and she meant to get some before she let him sleep a wink. If he didn’t come to her straightaway, she’d threatened, she’d hunt him down in the crew berths and drag him out by his stones.

  This was the first night ever that Capp would enjoy a private berth, and she meant to put it to good use. A perk of her promotion to officer. The room was cramped, it was true, barely long enough for her cot and a toilet—she was a lowly ensign, after all, and didn’t have so much as her own shower—but it was quiet. And private.

  No more hot-bunking, where you showed up in the crew quarters just as the previous bloke rolled out of bed. Climbed into bed to find the mattress still warm, the sheets carrying some jerk’s sweat and body odor. Others snoring above and below, coughing, farting, talking in their sleep, tossing and turning, and doing every other imaginable thing to annoy and aggravate.

  As for hooking up with a fellow crew member, forget it. Capp and Carvalho made love anywhere they could steal a moment of privacy: engineering closets, an away pod, even inside an empty torpedo tube. Technically, so-called fraternizing was against regulations, but even Captain Drake had lightened up since leaving the spaceyards of San Pablo. Hard not to, them being fugitives and all, their crew rounded out with pirates and smugglers.

  The clock showed 0515. He’d sent a message swearing he’d be off by 0500. So where the devil was he?

  Capp was on the verge of springing up and grabbing her jumpsuit to go track him down in the crew berths when a light tap sounded on her door.

  “That you?” she asked.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Better be,” she said. “I’m naked and ready to jump the first bloke I see.”

  His sigh was audible through the door. Capp grunted. This might be harder than expected.

  She didn’t bother to cover herself with the blanket as the door slid open and Carvalho slipped inside. The hall light showed streaks of grease across his cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot. Then he was inside, and the door closed, leaving them in the dim light of her bedside lamp.

  “It is you, luv,” she said with a smile. “You kept me waiting so long I didn’t much care anymore. Another twenty minutes and I woulda reached into the hall and grabbed the first warm body I could find.”

  Carvalho sat on the edge of the bed, barely looking at her as he yanked off his boots. “It’s a mess out there. Captain was right. We left San Pablo too fast. Should have stuck around the yards a few more days making sure everything was in order. Lot easier than working the repairs out here.”

  “Stick around and get blasted by the Royal Navy? No, thanks. You heard Rutherford is bombarding San Pablo, right? That’s us he’s trying to kill.”

  “Scoot over,” Carvalho said.

  “No room. You’ll have to lie on top of me.” She reached a hand down between his legs. “Got something down there for me, luv? How about you let me have a look?”

  Carvalho took her hand and pulled it away. “Come on, Capp, I’m knackered.”

  “You don’t seem that tired to me.”

  “And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  He started to say something, then stopped himself. “Look, I shouldn’t have come.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’re not that deep, luv. So don’t go pretending you’re keepin’ secrets and whatnot.”

  Carvalho grunted. He was still sitting up, and strangely, he really did seem to have something eating at him. That was new and unwelcome. If Capp wanted some bloke who needed to pour his heart out with angsty crap, she wouldn’t be with Carvalho. But she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to listen, so long as he didn’t make a habit of it.

  “You can tell me while you take your clothes off,” she said.

  “Don’t you think about anything else?”

  “When I haven’t seen you in thirty-six hours? No, not really.” She pouted. “I ain’t fooling around here. And I know you’re plenty capable unless you been dippin’ your oar in other waters.”

  “I haven’t, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I don’t much care, anyhow, so long as you keep enough for me.”

  Her hands worked at his jumpsuit while she spoke. She unzipped it and peeled it off his broad, muscular shoulders. She trailed her fingernails down his chest with one hand while she worked the suit off him with the other. As she’d told him, he really wasn’t that complex, and he was soon doing what she wanted him to.

  But he seemed distracted, and she had to do most of the work. It wasn’t the best lovemaking, that was for bloody sure, but it sufficed for her needs. Later, as she lay on top of him, her head against his shoulder, drifting to sleep, he cleared his throat.

  “You know what Vargus gave them on Captain Kidd?” he said. “Half for the officers, and half for the crew. Then the crew divvied up the loot however they wanted. Guy gets injured, they give him a double share. Loses an eye or a limb, they double it again.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” she asked.

  Carvalho rested one of his hands on her butt and rubbed the other idly over her freshly buzzed scalp. “Common knowledge. That’s the way pirates work.”

  “Well, we ain’t pirates. So we’ll do whatever Captain Drake decides. You heard what he said.”

  “All those guys didn’t join us in San Pablo so they could earn navy wages. What’s that, two pounds a week for an enlisted man like me?”

  “Too late for that now. Twenty hours and we’ll be in battle. Let’s get in and out of there alive before we start bellyaching about pay.”

  “It’ll be too late, then.”

  “King’s balls, will you leave it alone? Ain’t got no choice now, not here in the void with half the damn navy searching for us.”

  “We got a choice. A big one.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” she said.

  “Ah, forget it. I’m going to grab some shuteye. Things will look better in the morning, I’m sure.”

  Capp pushed herself up. She’d shut off the light after they finished their lovemaking, but now turned it on again. “Spit it out. What are you going on about?”

  “Never mind.”

  She slapped a hand against his chest. “Enough of that crap. What’s this all about? And where did you get that stuff about how Vargus paid his crew? We killed that bastard at the yards, wiped out most of the rest of them, too.”

  “Didn’t kill his daughter.”

  Capp frowned, thinking of the dark-haired, flashing-eyed daughter of the pirate captain. “Catarina Vargus?”

  “She sent me a message. Couple of days
ago, right after we shoved off.”

  “King’s balls. And you didn’t tell me? And what’s she got to offer, anyway? Her daddy’s ship was stripped for spare parts. She’s nothing without a ship, just another gun for hire.”

  “What if we say, for the sake of argument, that she had her own ship? That sometimes she flew with her old man, and other times she set off on her own?”

  “Now you’re just making stuff up,” Capp accused.

  “Fine, whatever. Believe what you want.”

  “And what does she want, revenge?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, then?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, forget it. You’re in a mood, and I’ve decided to settle for two pounds a week till I see how things shake out.”

  “Dammit, Carvalho, will you tell me?”

  “Forget it. I know how you’re sweet on him.”

  “For the cap’n?” she scoffed. “What a bloody fool you are. Let Tolvern pine after Drake, I ain’t at all keen on him.”

  “How am I supposed to tell otherwise, the way you’re talking about him all the time?” Carvalho said sullenly.

  “It’s called loyalty, you idiot. Drake gave me a chance as pilot—weren’t nobody else who did that. Coulda shoved me off on San Pablo, or when he got back that Hroom, but he didn’t. You should be feeling something yourself. If it weren’t for the captain, we’d both be in the mines.”

  “And I pulled his stones out of the fire on San Pablo, so that makes us even. Except I’m getting two pounds a week, while he takes what he wants. Anyway, I don’t believe you. I think you are keen on him. That’s what all that needling of Tolvern is about. You’re telling the commander what you’re really feeling yourself.”

  “Hah!”

  Capp didn’t know if she should be impressed that Carvalho was actually thinking about stuff a little deeper than usual, or annoyed that he was so wrong about her feelings for the captain. Capp was the sort of woman who knew exactly what she did and didn’t want, and if she’d been hot for the captain, she wouldn’t have been pining hopelessly for him like Jess Tolvern was. She’d have done something about it.

  “Are you jealous?” she asked. “Is that what this is about?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You are, aren’t you? Listen to me. Drake is the son of a baron. He’s a stiff, upper-class son of a bitch. That’s pretty much the opposite of what I want, and that’s the bleeding truth. Now what’s this about Catarina Vargus? What did she tell you? What does she want?”

  “Nope, I’m not talking about it anymore.”

  He thrust out his chin and narrowed his eyes. She’d seen that stubborn look before and knew he meant business, but she had no intention of letting it go herself, either.

  Capp started to press on, only to be interrupted by the chime of her clock, warning that she was shortly expected on the bridge. Was it that late already?

  “Good,” Carvalho said as she climbed out of bed. He pulled up the blanket and made a show of rolling over to face the wall. “Now maybe you’ll let me sleep.”

  “Did you send Catarina Vargus a return message?” she asked. “Look at me. Did you?”

  “Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

  “Don’t you dare. I’m serious. We’re going into battle, and the last thing we need is that pirate wench knowing where we are. Who knows what she’d do, or who she’d tell?”

  He looked troubled at this, and this only deepened her suspicions. “You didn’t, did you? Because if she knows that we’re on our way to Hot Barsa, and the fleet were to somehow find out—”

  “Why would she tell anyone? She’s not exactly on friendly terms with Albion herself. Her old man shot up a Royal Navy cruiser.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Capp said, as she pulled on her underwear and grabbed for her jumpsuit where it lay crumpled in a pile. “How about, ‘Hey, Captain Rutherford, give me a thousand guineas and I’ll tell you where you can find Drake and the rest of the fugitives’? Catarina Vargus gets her revenge and a nice payoff at the same time.”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  Capp studied him as she zipped up her jumpsuit and swatted at the worst of the wrinkles, before picking up her socks and shoes. “You better be telling the truth.”

  Her com link opened. It was the captain. “Are you up, Ensign?”

  “Aye. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Make it two. We’ve got a situation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line went dead, and she turned back to Carvalho with a scowl.

  “I am telling the truth,” he insisted. “Now get going. Forget I said anything.”

  “You keep saying that,” Capp muttered as she slipped out of the room.

  The corridor was empty, which was good. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Carvalho would be sleeping in her room, but she didn’t want to make a spectacle of it, either.

  Blasted Carvalho. Now he’d put her in an awkward position. Should she tell Drake and Tolvern what he’d said about Catarina Vargus, or not?

  It was a favor Drake had done her, and make no mistake. Once the captain had his precious Hroom pilot back, out of detox for his sugar addiction, what did he need her for? She could navigate about five jump points, and another eight or ten with some difficulty. Using great concentration, she could interface her nav chip with the nav computer and maneuver the ship around any given star system. But compared to Nyb Pim, her piloting skills were rubbish.

  Not to mention that she could barely read and write—which had been displayed to humiliating effect when the captain insisted that she write up the specifications of a jump point. Capp was the daughter of a stevedore in the York spaceyards and a barmaid. Her type didn’t get much schooling as a general rule. The captain didn’t need much more excuse to dump her at the first opportunity and pick up someone better as Nyb Pim’s subpilot. She didn’t want to give him another reason to doubt her.

  By the time Capp got to the bridge, she’d decided. Probably Carvalho had nothing. Catarina Vargus must have got her hands on a new ship, probably some crappy little tramp frigate outfitted with a deck gun or two. The woman had sent Carvalho—and a bunch of other riff-raff, no doubt—a message asking if he wanted to join her new crew. Made all sorts of promises about treasure and the like. Trying to raise a crew on swagger and wishful thinking. If Capp told Drake, it would amount to nothing except to remind the captain that she herself was of the same lowly origins as Carvalho and the rest of the scum they’d scraped up in San Pablo.

  And so when she came onto the bridge, she made her way to the pilot’s chair without saying a word to the captain, the commander, or anyone else about what she’d heard about Catarina Vargus.

  Chapter Two

  Drake glanced up as Capp came slinking onto the bridge. Her clothing was rumpled, and she had the look of someone who had rolled out of bed three minutes earlier.

  He could see Commander Tolvern scowling as she looked over the subpilot’s disheveled appearance, and hoped that Tolvern would mention it to her the next time they were alone. The two women had gotten off to a rocky start, but seemed to be forming an unusual friendship since their time on San Pablo.

  Capp toggled screens on the nav computer. She looked distracted, didn’t seem to understand yet why he’d called her to the bridge early. Drake wondered which she’d notice first, the missing pilot on the bridge or the minefield they were approaching at nearly four thousand miles per second. He turned back to his terminal, where he’d been reading Barker’s latest report about fixing the shield retractors.

  “What’s this red thingy we’re coming up on?” Capp asked at last.

  “About time,” Tolvern said. “Thought maybe we’d blast right through it before you noticed.”

  “So what is it, sensors or something?”

  Tech Officer Smythe looked up from his own terminal. “That red thingy is an array of Youd mines.”

  “What’s a Youd mine? Captain?”


  Drake was glad neither he nor the commander had mentioned Capp’s slovenly uniform, as it appeared there were more critical deficiencies to correct in the recently promoted subpilot. “Didn’t you read your briefing?”

  “What briefing?”

  Drake sighed and turned to Tolvern. “Commander.”

  Tolvern looked peeved. “Aren’t you reading your memos?”

  Capp looked back and forth between the three others on the bridge, before finally returning her gaze to the commander. “I was off shift.”

  “Off shift isn’t the same as offline,” Tolvern said. “You’re supposed to check your memos and briefings.”

  “Even when I’m sleeping?”

  “You set an alarm. You wake up and check your messages midway through. We’re only a few hours out from battle. Or worse, if you don’t get us through these mines.”

  “But where is Nyb Pim?” Capp sounded almost desperate. “Why can’t he do it?”

  “He’s in detox with the shakes,” Drake said. Now she understood, but her reaction wasn’t inspiring confidence.

  “Again? Did he get hold of some sugar or something?”

  “He might be in and out for weeks. Anything he can give us, I have to save for Hot Barsa itself. That means I need my subpilot—that is to say, you—to get us through this minefield.”

  Jane’s calm computer voice helpfully chimed in. “Thirty minutes to minefield. At present course, nineteen class-two detonations expected.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’re not taking the current course, isn’t it?” Drake said, still staring at Capp.

  She started to respond, but Barker came through on the com link, asking if Drake could come down to engineering. Barker had a possible fix to the shield retractor that would allow them to use the newly installed battery of cannons on the belly. No, Drake said, he could not. Not right now.

  “What about those mines?” Capp asked when he’d ended the call. “I don’t even know what a Youd mine is. Isn’t anyone going to tell me?”

  Drake forced himself to remain calm. “Tolvern, take the helm. Capp, come with me to the war room.”