The Lion and the Unicorn

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  He forced himself to scan the rest of the datapacket. The new sensors had performed well, too well. It was only a matter of time until the virus duplicated them, either through its own R&D program or through capturing and duplicating a sensor platform. The boffins had promised the sensor platforms were impossible to capture, that they’d self-destruct if they were discovered, but Thomas had heard such promises before. The virus had time to experiment, to learn what worked and what didn’t from infected engineers and technicians. It could have found all sorts of ways to circumvent the security protocols and take possession of a piece of advanced technology …

  You’re woolgathering, he told himself, sternly. There’s no point in worrying about it now.

  The tension continued to rise as they approached their firing position. The crew spoke as little as possible, as if they were afraid the virus could hear them. Thomas understood, all too well. They were creeping up on an alien fleet that outgunned them twenty to one, a fleet that could run them down effortlessly if they got a sniff of Lion’s presence and carefully prepared to give chase without emitting any betraying emissions. The virus’s sensor masking was good, Thomas acknowledged sourly. It was possible its fleet could alter position, bringing the ships around to give chase. And if they did … Thomas waged the coming battle in his mind, time and time again. They’d have no choice, but to ramp up the drives and run for their lives.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Sibley said, quietly. The tactical officer didn’t take his eyes off his console. “I have rough locks on the enemy brainships.”

  Thomas frowned. “Just rough locks?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sibley said. “Their drive signatures are too close to battleship signatures for me to be entirely sure, at this range. We’ve confirmed their locations with the records from Unicorn, but they could have changed positions in the last two hours.”

  “The gunboats will do more precise targeting,” Thomas said. It would be unfortunate, ironically so, if they accidentally targeted a battleship instead. They’d have a better chance of taking the ship out - enemy battleships mounted less point defence than brainships - but they’d run the risk of leaving one of the brainships intact. “Are they ready to launch?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Donker said. “They’re ready to depart at once.”

  “Begin launching missiles on ballistic trajectories,” Thomas said. “And then clear the gunboats to depart.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sibley said.

  Thomas sat back in his chair, trying to present an image of unflappable calm. The die was cast. They were about to succeed brilliantly or fail ingloriously. He keyed his console, bringing up the live feed from the gunboat hatches. The ships were coming to life, readying themselves to depart. They were supposed to be stealthy - they’d tested the stealth coating time and time again, during the long voyage from Earth - but it wouldn’t take more than a single emission to betray them to watching enemy sensors. It was possible the enemy would ignore a single emission, yet … Thomas shook his head. A vague flicker might be ignored, but no human sensor officer would take the risk. Better to sound the alert and launch starfighters than dismiss the sensor contact and risk having an enemy ship slip into firing range. One couldn’t go wrong by being paranoid.

  And even paranoids have enemies, he reflected. Or so they say.

  ***

  I’m going to die a virgin, Tobias thought.

  He followed Marigold through the hatch, suddenly wishing he’d had the nerve to ask a girl - or a dozen girls - out when he’d gone home on leave. The navy uniform had to be good for something, right? Or he could have gone to Sin City instead. He’d heard all the stories, of everything from vanilla sex to weird fetishes that didn’t sound physically possible, but he’d never dared go. An entire colony devoted to pleasure had no place for him. They’d point and laugh from the moment he stepped out of the tube ‘til he turned and went back home.

  The hatch banged closed behind him. The gunboat started to power up, a dull quiver running through the craft as the tiny drive nodes came online. Tobias hurried to his seat and strapped himself in, his thoughts running in circles. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen combat, but … in a sense, it was. He hadn’t expected to encounter real alien ships during the war games. There’d been no time for fear, let alone terror … his mouth was suddenly dry. He looked at Marigold and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was scared, too. They were about to put the gunboats to their first real test.

  “Hey,” he started to say, then stopped himself. It was no time to ask someone out. It really wasn’t. And besides, Marigold would probably say no. “Are we … are we ready to launch?”

  “Just about.” Marigold shot him an odd look, then turned her attention back to her console. “Make sure the missile communications links are up and running, but stay passive until we enter attack range.”

  Tobias started to make a sarcastic response, then stopped himself before the words left his mouth. Marigold was in command, at least for this operation. It was her duty to make sure everything was in order, although - if something wasn’t - they probably wouldn’t live long enough to explain themselves to Bagehot. Or Captain Hammond. Tobias had only seen the commanding officer once, but the man hadn’t struck him as someone who’d forgive a minor blunder. The fact that the blunder would probably get a lot of people killed would be icing on the cake.

  He won’t bother with a court-martial, Tobias thought. He’ll just strangle us with his bare hands.

  “Missile links are up and running,” he said, as a low clang echoed through the gunboat. He almost wet himself. The sound was so penetrating he was sure the enemy had heard it. He’d been told that, in space, no one could hear him scream … but he didn’t believe it. Besides, in the movies, everyone had heard the screams. “I have control of our cluster. Back-up links are in place, ready to take over.”

  “Good.” Marigold sounded tense as the gravity field flickered and shifted. “Here we go.”

  Tobias swallowed hard. A quiver ran through the gunboat. He turned his attention to the near-space display and watched, a lump in his throat, as the gunboat accelerated away from the mothership. The remainder of the gunboats were almost invisible, even though he knew where to look. He was fairly sure they wouldn’t be able to locate them at all, if they weren’t linked together by communications lasers. There was no way to know if the virus could track them, until they tried. The simulations had started with the assumption the gunboats were basically invisible and ended with them practically shouting their location at the top of their lungs. It hadn’t escaped his notice that the latter simulations had ended with the entire squadron getting wiped out for nothing.

  We’re meant to be expendable, he thought. He understood the logic. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one and all that jazz. But that’s not so easy to take when you’re the one considered expendable.

  It was hard to convince himself to touch the console as the gunboats picked up speed, steadily catching up with the missiles. The slightest mistake might reveal their presence before the missiles went active, alerting the enemy … he was tempted to step back from the console, just to make sure he didn’t touch anything. Cold logic told him he was being stupid - they’d played the hunters as well as the hunted in simulations - but he simply didn’t believe it. The slightest mistake …

  “You know what we need?” Marigold turned to look at him. “A soundtrack. And a theme song.”

  Tobias couldn’t help himself. He giggled. “We could always put music on the speakers,” he said. He’d been told there were marines who went into battle playing rock and roll music, but it seemed a little unlikely. It wouldn’t be easy to hear orders from one’s superior if one was being deafened by a headache-inducing racket. “Something nicely dramatic, perhaps.”

  Marigold smiled. “What kind of music did you like, back then?”

  “Nothing popular,” Tobias said. The conversation distracted him from the impending violent encounte
r. “I never liked any of the imports.”

  He made a face as she laughed. There’d been a craze for rock and roll music when he’d been a teenager, despite the best efforts of parents and teachers alike. They seemed to believe kids should only listen to folk music and hymns, certainly nothing imported from France or the United States. Tobias had a feeling it was a cunning plot to channel rebellious children and teenagers into doing something relatively harmless, instead of something more dangerous. It was possible, but the Beast had never struck him as being that subtle. He preferred to avoid spoiling the children by not sparing the rod.

  Maybe someone a bit higher up the food chain came up with it, he mused. And the arsehole just had to follow orders.

  The display updated rapidly as they flew towards the alien fleet. He felt his stomach churn unpleasantly as the passive sensors picked out the enemy ships, telling him things - from their sensor emissions - he honestly hadn’t wanted to know. The brainships sat at the near-centre of their formation, surrounded by dozens of battleships and smaller ships … it seemed impossible to slip even a single missile through their defences, let alone enough firepower to take out every last command ship. He felt sweat trickle down his back as the missile clusters updated rapidly, command links and sublinks taking shape as they picked out their targets. The enemy hadn’t spotted them yet, but it was just a matter of time. A single sensor sweep locating a missile would be enough to put the entire fleet on alert.

  Marigold coughed. “Missile activation in five minutes, barring detection,” she said. “I say again, missile activation in five minutes.”

  “Understood.” A timer appeared on Tobias’s display, counting down the seconds. He found it hard to speak. “All targeting and counter-targeting systems in stealth mode, ready to go live.

  “Understood,” Marigold said.

  Tobias winced, inwardly. Marigold knew the systems were in stealth mode, if only because they were still alive. Going active would have told the enemy the gunboats were out there, even if the enemy couldn’t get a solid lock on their hulls. The gunboats were tiny, designed to be hard to locate and hit, but it might not matter. There were so many point defence weapons on the enemy ships that they could fill space with plasma bolts. A single hit might not be enough to kill a gunboat - they had some armour, unlike starfighters - but he wouldn’t care to stake his life on it …

  I am staking my life on it, he thought. They hit us, we’re dead.

  He had to fight to calm himself. Would anyone miss him, if he died? His mother? His sister? His mother would be able to claim she’d lost a son as well as a husband to the war … he hoped, suddenly, she’d have no trouble drawing two sets of benefits. There might be legal issues if she tried, from what he’d read. The government talked about supporting the troops and their families - God, it was hard to believe he was one of the troops - but only as long as it didn’t cost money. His mother might be told she could only draw one set of benefits. And his sister … he hoped she’d miss him. Someone should miss him, just one person should miss him …

  Mum will miss me too, he told himself. Won’t she?

  Each second felt like an hour. He could practically feel time passing, each second ticking past with a thud he felt in his very bones. He could barely move. It felt as if they were flying into a trap, charging madly towards certain death … he thought he understood, now, how the Light Brigade had felt when they’d charged the Russian cannons. And yet … they had to have known they were about to get themselves killed for nothing. He … he wasn’t about to die for nothing. If they took out a single brainship, it would be worth the cost. Right?

  “Fifty seconds,” Marigold said. She might as well have said fifty hours. “Get ready.”

  Tobias nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The missiles moved to the very brink of activation, powering up everything they could without emitting anything that might betray their location. He frowned as the display picked up a hint of their presence, cursing under his breath. The emissions were too low-key to attract attention, normally, but they were in an enemy-held system. The virus knew it might be attacked at any moment. He keyed his console, sending the sensor records back to Lion. If he didn’t make it back, Bagehot and the others would have a chance to learn from Tobias’s experiences. The next set of pilots would know what not to do.

  Sure, he reminded himself. And you can do everything right and still lose.

  “Going active in five,” Marigold said. She sounded as if she’d moved beyond fear. “Now!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The missiles have gone live, sir,” Sibley reported. “I don’t think the enemy saw them coming.”

  Thomas nodded. There was a slight time delay - the missiles and gunboats had rocketed ahead of the mothership - but not enough to matter. The display was rapidly filling up with sensor ghosts and distortions, hopefully confusing the enemy tactical sensors long enough for the missiles to get within attack range. He wondered, grimly, just how alert the enemy ships had actually been before the shit hit the fan. No military force could remain on alert forever, no matter what politicians claimed … no human military force. The virus was so interconnected that it might be perfectly capable of keep its host bodies on alert forever.

  Which might explain why so many hosts looked emaciated in the later stages of infection, he thought, grimly. Their bodies aren’t so much taken over as hollowed out.

  He frowned as the enemy point defence weapons opened fire. The virus - or its automated servants - hadn’t been on a hair trigger, then. That was uncommon for the virus, he thought, although it made a certain kind of sense. It couldn’t want to run the risk of accidentally firing on its own ships. God knew the Royal Navy was paranoid about blue-on-blue incidents. The enemy fire was a little scattered, although it was getting more intense as more and more weapons came online. He cursed as he saw a handful of missiles casually blown out of space. He wanted to believe the enemy had only blasted sensor decoys - and it was possible - but he couldn’t allow himself to do more than hope. He had to assume the enemy had hit real missiles.

  Commander Donker glanced up from his console. “The gunboat command links are holding steady.”

  “Good.” Thomas wanted to issue orders, to do something, but there was no point. By the time his orders reached the gunboats, it would be too late. He was nothing more than a passive observer. “Have the missile tubes been reloaded?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sibley said.

  “Then prepare to fire,” Thomas ordered. This time, the enemy would know what was coming. The gunboats would have to establish the new command links while the virus was trying to kill them. “On my command …”

  He took a breath. “Fire!”

  ***

  There was no more time for fear, no more time for anything but doing his job. Tobias felt as if he’d stepped back in time, back to the days he’d spent playing Naval Command endlessly until he’d mastered even the hardest missions. His fingers danced across the console, adjusting the sensor decoys one moment and retargeting the missiles the next. A tidal wave of data flowed into the console as more and more enemy sensors came online, allowing him to project sensor ghosts where they’d do the most good, then pass control to the automated guidance systems. No human could handle the pace, once the distances dropped to practically point-blank range. The windows of opportunity grew so slight that they opened and closed before he even noticed they were there.

  “The enemy carriers are launching starfighters,” Marigold warned. “They’re fanning out towards us.”

  Tobias barely heard her. The missiles were entering their attack sequence. The virus seemed unsure if it should be focusing all its efforts on the missiles or not, although it was starting to look as though it had made up its mind. The brainships were too important to leave unprotected, even though they were bristling with point defence weapons. He frowned as he saw a pair of missiles vanish, despite his best efforts. It felt like a game, but one that had worse consequences than embarra
ssment if he lost. His lips quirked at the thought. He’d joked, once, that death would be preferable to being laughed out of the league. The computer game club was the closest thing he had to a community. And yet, the joke didn’t seem so funny now.

  He watched as the missiles struck home. A handful of laser warheads exploded, stabbing beams of deadly light into alien hulls. He smiled, coldly, as one brainship was riddled with laser beams until it exploded into plasma, disrupting the enemy command and control network. Two more took lighter damage, yet lost chunks of their point defence. He steered more missiles into the newly created blind spots, directing a handful of nuclear-tipped missiles to slam into the alien hulls. The alien ships exploded violently. Tobias tried not to think about the host bodies, human and alien, that had died with the ship. The briefing officers had made it clear that the bodies were no longer human, little more than living robots who could no longer be liberated, but … he shook his head. He couldn’t afford to worry about it. The host bodies - and the intelligence directing them - wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if it got a chance.

  The damage mounted up rapidly. Two missile clusters lost their targeting locks on the remaining brainships, then locked onto a carrier and blew it into atoms. Tobias scowled, even though part of him wanted to hoot and holler like a demented football fan. The carrier had been an important target, but she hadn’t been one of the real targets. There were three brainships left and they all had to die. He watched an enemy destroyer place itself between a brainship and another cluster of missiles, practically evaporating when the missiles struck home. If the crew had been human, saving their ships …

  “The second wave is inbound,” he said. “I’m uploading the modified orders now.”