Free Rebellion of Stars (Starship Blackbeard Book 4) by Michael Wallace Page A

miniature volcanoes. The fort fired back, but the response was subdued.
    “They’re still holding back,” Drake said. “What is going on?”
    Perhaps if Tolvern had been there, she might have had a response, but nobody on the bridge seemed to have any suggestions. Never mind—he’d take the weak response and hope it lasted.
    With Blackbeard guarding the pirate fleet’s rear, Pussycat and two schooners got into a scrape with the polar fortress. That left Vargus’s own Outlaw free to hunt the torpedo boats. The torpedo boats had been shooting their guns at something now entering the upper atmosphere, but had to abandon the chase. They bobbed and weaved, trying to come back toward the protection of the fortresses.
    Outlaw caught one of them, disabling her engines. Drake drove off the other two with missiles.
    “Where’s that pod?” Drake asked. “Is it in the atmosphere yet?”
    “Must be,” Smythe said. “I can’t detect it, anyway. Not giving off any sort of signal, either.”
    Was it supposed to? He couldn’t remember what Outlaw had been carrying. Navy tech, he thought, the pod modified to double for both away missions and escape. Those torpedo boats had been tearing off shot from their Gatling guns. A small pod plummeting through the atmosphere hardly made an easy target, but they’d thrown a lot of metal out there. One on-target burst would tear through that pod like it was a tin can.
    He couldn’t worry about that now. Tolvern was either safely descending, or not. Nothing he did here would change that. It was time to pull free of the planet. Rutherford’s forces were now fully engaged with Lindsell’s larger fleet and barely holding on.
    Blackbeard swung toward Outlaw , now pulling up with her schooner escort. Still exchanging fire with the nearest fortress, the combined force now fought their way to Pussycat . Once Blackbeard and the entire mercenary fleet had formed a single unit, they broke clear.
    He braced himself for a final surprise from the orbital fortresses. A nasty departing gift that would explain why they’d held back during the battle. But no, the forts seemed content to let them depart. How strange.
    A thought occurred to him. What if—? No, there would be time to worry about that later.
    For now, he had to worry about Captain Lindsell. The man was proving an able commander. His own ship, Churchill , was the equal of Vigilant and Blackbeard , and he used his armaments to full effect, while sending in his destroyers and corvettes to drive off Vigilant ’s support craft. The smaller ships Drake had left behind were helpless to intervene. In fact, Lindsell’s advantage was growing with every passing moment. He’d already wounded several craft, while suffering minimal injury himself.
    And then Drake came roaring into the fight. He brought Blackbeard straight at Lindsell, while Outlaw and Pussycat targeted his vulnerable left flank. That left the enemy cruisers pincered between Blackbeard and Vigilant . The two sides exchanged blows for several moments before Lindsell ordered a retreat. He first tried to get past Blackbeard to reach the protection of the fortress guns. Drake landed two torpedoes against the lead enemy destroyer. Explosions rippled along her surface.
    Lindsell now ducked down on the vertical axis. Destroyers formed a protective screen to guard his rear. Drake and Rutherford weren’t able to prevent the enemy’s escape, but they pounded Lindsell’s destroyers as they fled. All of them suffered damage, some serious. One lost its entire rear shield, and if the rebels could have landed one more blow, they’d have either destroyed it or forced its surrender.
    Unfortunately, Drake’s forces were all out of position, and he was unable to give chase. By the time he regrouped, Lindsell was gone.
    But it was a victory. Only four crew members had died across the entire fleet, these lost when a shell penetrated a schooner’s bridge and killed her officers. The schooner itself