But they’re still dangerous, he reminded himself, firmly. We must not allow ourselves to become complacent.
“We’ll think of something,” he said, firmly. “And we’ll see what our crews have to suggest.”
“I can’t think of anything,” Kaminov said. “Katy? Jonathon?”
“We could punch one of our ships up to maximum speed and try to ram,” Captain Jonathon Linguine suggested. “But they would see us coming, wouldn’t they?”
“They’d certainly be well-placed to stop us,” Kaminov agreed. “And there’s no way we could punch a ship close enough to light-speed to give them no time to react.”
“We’ll think of something,” Stephen repeated. “We’ll reconvene once the freighter has been sent on her way. After that, we’ll devise a plan.”
“Our best bet might be to leave the system now and whistle up some help,” Katy said. “I don’t see any way to take the shipyard out without getting killed.”
Stephen was starting to suspect she was right. The alien installation was far too heavily defended for anyone’s peace of mind. But it wasn’t in him to give up. There had to be something they could do. The virus knew Invincible was in the sector. Who knew how long it would be before it started to expand the shipyard’s defences? God knew it had the resources to make the shipyard completely impregnable.
“Good luck to us all,” he said. “Dismissed.”
He keyed his intercom, ordering Newcomb to start emptying the freighter, then returned his gaze to the shipyard. It didn’t look as if there was any way to get close without getting blown out of space ... the conclusion, as much as he disliked it, echoed around and around before he finally managed to dismiss it. There had to be a way. But what?
***
Alice had seen her fair share of mega-structures before, of course, although she had to admit that the alien shipyard was hellishly impressive. And yet, there was something about it that struck her as fundamentally foolhardy. The aliens had placed all their eggs in one basket, even though that basket was heavily defended. A lifetime of training and experience told her that they’d made a mistake. There would be a weak point. She just had to find it.
She chewed on a pencil as she worked her way through the torrent of data. The captain, for better or worse, had made the intelligence available to every off-duty crewman, no doubt hoping that one of them would come up with a solution. Alice suspected that most of them would fail. They were starship crewmen, not marines. They’d see the sheer size of the alien structure - and the massive defences - and back off in horror. Alice, on the other hand, had invaded military bases during her training. She knew there were weak points. The virus, for all of its power, had blind spots. It was just a matter of finding and exploiting them.
Slowly, very slowly, a plan began to form in her mind. It would be risky, very risky, but she saw no alternative. At best, it would cripple or destroy the alien shipyard; at worst, only a handful of lives - all marines - would be risked. Her life too, true. She was damned if she was letting her people, her former subordinates, take the mission without her. She would do whatever it took to ensure she accompanied the marines into battle.
She tapped her wristcom. “Major, this is Alice,” she said. “I’ve had an idea.”
“Understood,” Major Henry Parkinson said. “Do you want to present it to the captain?”
“Yes, sir,” Alice said. She hesitated. She was uneasily aware that there were lingering question marks over her loyalty. It was galling, all the more so because she would have felt the same way if their positions were reversed. “Unless you think he’ll take it a little more seriously if it comes from you.”
“I’m not in the habit of stealing ideas,” Parkinson said, dryly. “And besides, you should get the credit. And the blame.”
If the idea fails, I will be dead, Alice thought. And I will be past caring about who gets the blame.
“I’ll inform the captain,” Parkinson told her. “Meet me outside his Ready Room in five minutes.”
Alice stood. “Yes, sir. I’m on my way now.”
***
Stephen felt a flicker of ... something as Alice Campbell stepped into the compartment, followed by Major Parkinson. It wasn’t that she looked intimidating, or so he told himself firmly. There was just no way to be entirely sure that she was uninfected. Stephen had no doubts that Alice Campbell was as loyal as they came - she wouldn’t have reached her present rank if there had been any doubts at all about either her loyalty or her competence - but he wasn’t sure just who was looking out of her blue eyes. Alice Campbell ... or a viral cluster that had turned her into a mindless slave? He simply didn't know.
The paranoia alone is going to kill us, he thought, as he motioned for them to sit down. He couldn't help thinking that Alice looked as if she would rather stand. We’ll be shooting ourselves soon enough.
“Captain,” Major Parkinson said. “Thank you for seeing us. Alice” - he stumbled slightly over her name, a reflection of her anomalous position on the ship - “has a plan that may solve the problem of attacking the alien shipyard.”
Stephen straightened up. “I see,” he said. “Alice?”
Alice leaned forward and tapped the display, bringing up the image of the alien shipyard. Hours of observation had added more and more data to their records, absolutely none of it encouraging. Stephen had the nasty feeling that it would take every ship at Falkirk to punch through the alien defences ... and losses, he suspected, would be staggering. Admiral Weisskopf was unlikely to authorise the mission unless things got really desperate. But they were already desperate.
“The enemy defences are ... substantial,” Alice said, without hesitation. “I believe we can be reasonably sure that they will spot a cloaked ship as it attempts to slip through the sensor network, as well as providing fire solutions to intercept and destroy any mass drive projectiles we might fire at them from a safe distance.”
Stephen nodded impatiently. He knew all that already. It had been discussed time and time again.
“They do, however, have one glaring weakness,” Alice said. “A handful of very small objects - marines in combat suits, for example - might be able to get through the defences without being detected. Indeed, there is enough debris orbiting the shipyard that they might be mistaken for a few pieces of harmless space rock, if they are detected at all. If we got through the defences, we would be in a position to do a great deal of damage.”
“If,” Stephen said. “And what if you get caught?”
“We would be killed,” Alice said, emotionlessly. “Battlesuits are tough, sir, but they can't stand up to weapons designed to kill starfighters and starships. However, I believe the plan has a reasonable chance of success. We’d certainly have a clear shot at their shipyard and do a great deal of damage.”
“Perhaps,” Stephen mused. He hadn’t considered sending in the marines. “Have you done anything like this before?”
“We did sneak around the Clarke and Hamilton Yards, sir,” Alice told him. “The operation was a complete success.”
Stephen’s eyes narrowed. “How come I have never heard about this before?”
Major Parkinson cleared his throat. “Perhaps I can answer that, sir,” he said. “It was decided, at the time, that the outcome would not be commonly advertised. Security procedures were tightened up considerably after the results of the first exercise were finalised and future attempts to penetrate the yards were frustrated. However ... it was felt that sharing the data would give our enemies ideas.”
“And instead it gave you an idea,” Stephen said, nodding to Alice. He had to admit it was a neat solution, although it would need some modification. The aliens needed to be distracted to keep them from realising that their shipyard was being infiltrated. “They may not see you coming. But ... you would still be taking an immense risk.”
“I am aware of the dangers,” Alice said. “I volunteer for the mission. And I believe that most of my old platoon will volunteer too.”
“We will all volunteer,” Major Parkinson said. “We know what is at stake.”
“We all do,” Stephen said.
He looked at the display, thinking hard. It was risky, but it was also better than anything else he’d been able to devise for himself. And if it failed, he could extract everyone - apart from the marines - and make a run back into Alien-3 or Alien-1. It was worth a try.
“We’ll have to distract them,” he said, putting his earlier thoughts into words. “Let them think that we are an invading fleet, poking around the edge of their system. They’ll come after us and miss you in the confusion.”
“As long as you keep the range open,” Major Parkinson pointed out. “You’ll have problems if they overpower you.”
“True,” Stephen agreed. Problems was understating it. They’d be blown out of space if one of those battleships got into firing range. Even starfighters and smaller ships would be a major headache. They’d just have to do the best they could - and hope. “We can keep the range open as long as necessary.”
“Yes, sir,” Alice said. “It would keep them moving their defences around. They’d definitely have trouble keeping track of what they’re doing.”
And if you’re wrong, you’ll be dead before you know it, Stephen thought. It was a gamble, like everything else. This time, the marines wouldn't even have the flimsy protection of a stealth shuttle. And we will never know what happened to you.
He felt a pang of guilt, which he ruthlessly suppressed. Compared to the prize, compared to the chance to take out the shipyard before it could finish the ships on the slips, the marines were expendable - and they knew it. But he didn’t want to send them into a danger he couldn't share ... he shook his head, tiredly. He’d just have to get used to making such decisions, time and time again. At least this time there was a very definite prize to be won.
“Major, select a team of volunteers and make sure they are armed and prepared for the mission,” he ordered. “I’ll brief my senior officers, then make preparations to distract the aliens from seeing you coming from the other direction. You may have to be transferred to one of the destroyers - or Yuriy Ivanov - so you can be inserted properly.”
He paused. “You’ll still be in those suits for hours. Are you sure you can cope?”
“I was in one of those suits for a week, sir,” Alice said. “I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I survived. A few hours will not be fun, sir, but we will survive.”
She smiled, rather wanly. “It can’t be as bad as the Conduct After Capture course. That was terrible.”
“Yes, it was,” Parkinson agreed.
“Very good,” Stephen said. He found himself liking Alice. Up close, it was hard to believe that she was infected. Perhaps he was just being paranoid. But it was a kind of paranoia, he told himself firmly, that was entirely justified under the circumstances. “Good luck, both of you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alice said. “We won’t let you down.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“This plan is utter madness,” the zampolit muttered once again, as they stood outside the airlock hatch. It felt as if he’d made the same complaint several times in a row, ever since they’d been briefed on the British plan. “They’re sending us to our deaths.”
“Not precisely true,” Captain Pavel Kaminov said, keeping his own doubts carefully hidden under a dour mien. The British plan was daring, but not insane. “We should be able to break contact and escape if we’re spotted.”
“Should,” the zampolit repeated.
Pavel resisted the urge to say something cutting that would probably end up with him in his own brig, awaiting a show trial and unceremonious exile to the gulag. Or simply having his throat cut one night. His family connections were strong, after all, and anyone as politically-minded as the wretched zampolit would know that the show trial might not be as showy - and the outcome not as preordained - as usual. There was a reasonable chance that the zampolit, not Pavel himself, would have the pleasure of watching trees grow in Siberia. But there would be at least one or two people amongst his crew with orders to put the zampolit’s orders ahead of their legitimate commanding officer, if push came to shove. The zampolit might calculate that he had a better chance of surviving if Pavel died in deep space.
“The plan is sound,” he said, firmly. “And we will do our part.”
He smiled as he contemplated the British plan, even though he was irked he hadn’t thought of it. Indeed, there was something about it that was almost Russian. The British and their allies would normally prefer to use missiles and projectiles, rather than risk lives ... even if the lives, technically speaking, were cheaper than ultra-smart long-range missiles. But the technology to glide a missile through the network of sensors - and the haze of electronic noise - surrounding the alien complex simply didn’t exist, as far as he knew. His crew hadn’t been able to come up with any way to get a missile close enough to guarantee a hit, let alone put the complex out of operation for the foreseeable future. No, the British plan was the only option that offered a reasonable chance of success. He had every intention of doing everything in his power to make it work.
“As you say, Captain,” the zampolit said.
Pavel kept his irritation hidden behind a blank mask that, he suspected, fooled the political commissioner as little as the man’s constant air of superiority fooled him. The man had been smart enough to have the discussion somewhere other than the bridge, at least, but his constant nagging and questioning couldn’t be good for morale. Pavel was the ship’s commanding officer, yet he had no way of knowing which way his crew would jump if the zampolit defied him openly. The zampolit was not popular - it had been only a few days ago that he’d confiscated an illicit bootleg of an American pornographic movie and ordered its owners flogged for corruption - but he was powerful. His backers would support him even if they disliked him. They couldn’t afford to let a zampolit’s authority be called into question.
His wristcom bleeped. “Captain,” his XO said. “The British shuttle is docking now.”
“Very good,” Pavel said, as he heard a dull thud on the other side of the airlock. Everything was standardised these days - his airlock could have been switched out for one of Invincible’s airlocks without difficulty - but it was the first time his ship had played host to a British stealth shuttle. The craft were cumbersome, even if they were hard to detect. And costly as hell. “Open the hatch.”
He felt his thoughts darken as the hatch slowly started to hiss open. The stealth shuttles were relatively simple, compared to their bigger brothers, but they were also expensive. Mother Russia had only a handful, all reserved for FSB covert incursions. The navy hadn’t been able to scrounge one up for Pavel, even though he’d done his best to argue for a stealth shuttle being assigned to his ship. It was galling to realise that Captain Shields would probably not even have to answer some hard questions if he managed to lose one of the expensive shuttlecraft. It was yet another reminder that Russia, for all of its size, was terrifyingly poor.
The zampolit straightened up as the first of the British marines stepped through the hatch. He - no, she - looked intimidating, although Pavel wasn't too impressed. He’d grown up with bodyguards who’d fought in Central Asia and the Middle East before they’d been called back to Moscow to join his close-protection detail. He reminded himself, sharply, not to underestimate the Royal Marines. His bodyguards might have claimed that the westerners were more reliant on technology than they should be, that they lacked the simple toughness of Russia’s commando forces, but the marines had a long string of victories to their name. And, despite the zampolit’s sniping, they’d done well on Alien-3. It wasn’t as if Mother Russia hadn’t had her fair share of covert deployments that had been blown wide open, forcing the commandos to retreat in a hurry.
Pavel smirked, inwardly, as the remainder of the marines followed, each one carrying a heavy-looking box. He hadn’t bothered to tell the zampolit that the female marine had been infected, once
upon a time. It would only have upset him. And the simple fact that the zampolit hadn’t made a fuss about bringing her onto the ship suggested that he hadn’t bothered to read the woman’s file either. The British had stripped out all the classified information, naturally, but they hadn’t concealed her experience during the last deployment to Alien-1. Pavel wanted to laugh. If nothing else, he could build a case suggesting that the wretched man had been negligent in his duty. It wouldn’t be that hard. And it would give him a shot at the man’s neck.
“Welcome aboard,” he said, in careful English. It was the common spacefaring language these days, something that didn’t irritate him as much as it did his older peers. There were definite advantages to having to speak someone else’s language during international operations. “I trust you are ready to deploy?”
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