Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  The breakfast was perfect, of course. The cook hadn’t been content to make simple scrambled eggs. She’d worked chopped bacon and herbs into the mix, then poured it onto fancy bread. Mitch wondered, once again, just how much money had been wasted on the breakfast. Eggs weren’t expensive, even during the war. Bread was even cheaper. But that would have been far too plebeian for the estate. The cooks would sooner have died than work with cheap ingredients.

  He picked up his wristcom and skimmed through the messages as soon as he’d finished his breakfast. There was nothing new, save for a handful of general alerts. The BBC didn’t seem to have sent out any new updates, nor had the handful of news services he followed. He wondered just what they thought he was paying for, if not the news. There were people who followed the comings and goings of aristocrats and rock stars with surprising interest, but he didn’t care who was cheating on who ...

  You might have to care, he thought, sourly. Are you going to say no if she invites you into her bed again?

  He tried to convince himself that the answer was yes. He didn’t have to come back to the estate. It wasn’t as if there weren’t a hundred and one tasks waiting for him when he returned to his ship. He could make an excuse, if he was invited; he could claim everything from urgent repairs to a prior engagement. And yet ... he shook his head. Charlotte had been good, very good. He didn’t want to turn his back. The sheer risk involved, to both of them, was part of the fun. What was the point of gambling if you could afford to lose?

  And she’s probably bored with her husband, Mitch thought. It was an unworthy sentiment, one he knew he shouldn’t allow himself to hold, but it was impossible to brush it away. He’s not the type to be adventurous in bed.

  There was another knock at the door. “Come in!”

  The maid stepped into the room. “Captain, Lord Thomas has been ordered back to Nelson Base,” she said. “A shuttle has been dispatched to transport him. He requests the pleasure of your company for the trip.”

  Mitch glanced at his wristcom. There were no new messages. Did Captain Hammond suspect something? Did he know he’d been cuckolded? Or did he merely want to assist Mitch in returning to his ship? Hell, for all he knew, they’d both been invited to the base. HMS Lion and HMS Unicorn were supposed to operate in tandem. Neither ship was really designed to operate alone.

  “Inform him I would be honoured,” Mitch said. In a way, it was almost a relief. He’d be out of temptation’s way. And it wasn’t as if it would take long to pack. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”

  The maid curtsied. “Yes, Captain.”

  Chapter Five

  “So,” Doctor Farah said. “How do you feel?”

  Tobias tried not to glare at the older woman. “If I wasn’t ill when I was escorted into this facility,” he said, “I sure as hell am now.”

  The doctor gave him a sharp look. “Explain.”

  “I’ve been here for days,” Tobias said. He thought it had actually been hours, but it was hard to be sure. “You have poked me and prodded me and jabbed me with needles and injected me with so many different drugs that it’s a wonder I haven’t bled to death.”

  His stomach growled, menacingly. “And you haven’t given me anything to eat.”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “As you may recall, you were near the epicentre of a biological attack. Ground zero, to all intents and purposes. If you had been infected, we might have been able to do something if the infection hadn’t already reached your brain and taken control. Denying you food also denied the infection resources it needed to turn you into a zombie.”

  Tobias shivered. The doctor was right, but he still felt abused. “And am I infected? Is Marigold infected?”

  “Not as far as we can tell,” the doctor said. “You were lucky you thought to put on your masks. We found traces of viral particles in your hair and clothes. Thankfully, the UV lights kept them from spreading once you were out of the hotel. You two were the only survivors from that building.”

  “Shit,” Tobias said. “Why did it happen so fast?”

  “As near as we can tell, you faced an enhanced viral package,” the doctor said. “Perversely, it is actually too lethal. The infection killed a number of victims before they could become zombies, burning through their bodies so quickly they didn’t even become contagious. We’re sweeping the area now, with UV lights and flamethrowers, but we think we have the outbreak under control.”

  “You think,” Tobias said. He rubbed his forehead. The shackles had been removed once they’d passed the first battery of tests, but the room still felt like a prison cell. The walls were bare, the lights were too bright ... his skin itched under the glare. He was imagining it - he knew he was imagining it - but it felt real. “How can you be sure?”

  “We can’t,” the doctor admitted. “Not completely. However, the viral package doesn’t seem designed to step down so it can perform a stealth takeover. If you were infected, you would either be dead or a zombie by now. There’s certainly no trace of viral matter in your bloodstream.”

  “Thank God,” Tobias muttered. “What an end to vacation.”

  “It could be worse,” the doctor said. “You’ll never guess where I spent my honeymoon.”

  Tobias shrugged. The days when the average citizen had travelled halfway around the world for a quick holiday, or a honeymoon, were long gone. He didn’t recall any of his schoolmates ever going on a foreign holiday, although he supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him. Getting to Europe or America had been tricky even before the virus had shown the human race that it needed to tighten the borders, again. It would be a long time before anyone went to North Africa or Turkey for a simple vacation.

  “We were in Bournemouth,” the doctor said. “It wasn’t so bad, but the company ...”

  “The rain must have been lovely and warm,” Tobias said. “Or did you get some sun?”

  “We did,” the doctor said. She let out a heavy sigh. “You’re cleared to leave. Make sure you have tracker packages enabled on your wristcoms, at least for the next forty-eight hours or so. I’d prefer you didn’t deactivate them until you report back to your ship. The ship’s doctor will probably insist on checking you out, just to be sure there’s no problem. Give them as much time as they need. They can’t risk a viral outbreak on a starship.”

  “Even though it should be easy to contain, on a starship,” Tobias said. “I thought that’s what all the emergency drills were for.”

  “In theory, yes,” the doctor said. “In practice ... we weren’t expecting a fast-burning viral outbreak. It’s either evolving or modifying itself to present us with a harder challenge. It’s quite possible it’ll find a way to hide within the human body, sooner or later, and remain undetected long enough to get onto a starship and spread widely. There’s no point in sealing off a compartment if the infection is already on the wrong side of the airlocks.”

  She stood. “The orderly will escort you down to the lobby,” she said. “Make sure you have your wristcom enabled before you go.”

  Tobias nodded. “Yes, doctor.”

  He frowned as he keyed his wristcom. It was hard to forget, sometimes, that the wristcom was a very effective tracking device. It wasn’t as obvious as the standard ankle-bracelet provided for prisoners on parole, a device designed to be as uncomfortable as possible just to remind the wearer it was there, but ... it was far more effective. Tobias was all too aware that it could be used to track him, or to allow the government to trace his movements back in time to the moment he’d first purchased the device. It bothered him, more than he dared say out loud. Sure, he’d been told the device didn’t broadcast location data unless the function was enabled, but was that actually true? He doubted it. Even if the locator beacon itself was turned off, the wristcom announced its location every time it checked the datanet for new messages or accepted an incoming call.

  And no one really knows where all the data is going, he thought, grimly. Who’s really tracking my every move?
r />   He brought up the menu and enabled the tracker package. In theory, if he was infected, the wristcom would sound the alarm. He wasn’t sure that was true - the wristcom wasn’t designed to serve as a biological sampler - and he’d heard horror stories of armed police turning up to arrest people who’d accidentally triggered the alarm. The device was designed to monitor someone’s vital signs. It wouldn’t take more than an unaccustomed jog to speed up one’s heartbeat beyond the norm ... he shook his head. He’d just have to make sure he took it off before he did anything too strenuous. The thought made him smile. One thing he liked about being an adult, and a gunboat pilot, was that no one made him go to PE class any longer.

  The orderly poked his head into the room. “Richard Gurnard?”

  “Tobias, please,” Tobias said. There were times when he cursed his parents for naming him Richard. The jokes had practically written themselves. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  The orderly grinned. “I know how you feel,” he said. “I can’t wait for my shift to be over too.”

  Tobias nodded as he stood and followed the orderly down a long white corridor. The medical centre felt like a maze, as if a dozen buildings had been woven together into a single complex. Doctors and nurses hurried past on urgent business, the orderly motioning Tobias against the wall whenever a trolley or stretcher was rolled past. A handful looked completely sealed, their occupant little more than a dark shadow behind the translucent cover. Tobias shivered, remembering the body bags he’d seen on Lion. It was hard not to believe he’d wind up in one himself, one day. Cold logic insisted he’d be blown to bits, if his gunboat was hit, without enough left to fill a teaspoon - let alone a coffin - but the thought refused to leave.

  He cheered up as the orderly showed him into a small cafe. Marigold was sitting at a table, looking frazzled. Tobias waved and ran towards her, giving her a quick hug before sitting down. She looked as if she hadn’t slept or showered or so much as brushed her long hair in hours. Tobias doubted he’d win any awards either. He wasn’t sure just how long they’d been in the medical complex, but he was fairly certain it had been more than a day or two. It was easy to lose track of time in a hospital.

  “I feel rotten,” Marigold said. An empty paper mug rested in front of her. “I ... fuck.”

  Tobias nodded. He didn’t feel great either. He wanted to find a hotel and sleep until the time came to report back to the spaceport ... he swallowed, hard, as he checked his wristcom. They’d been in the medical centre for a day and they were expected to return to the ship tomorrow. He checked his bank balance, already knowing what he’d see. He didn’t have the money to book a hotel in London. His lips twisted. There was little hope of recovering the money they’d paid the last hotel. God alone knew if the insurance company would pay out or not. Even if it did - and he was morbidly sure the firm would fight tooth and nail to keep from paying a penny - it would be weeks, if not months, before everything was processed. It wasn’t as if the company would be able to visit the hotel and perform an investigation. For all he knew, the hotel had been burned to the ground.

  And we were the only survivors, Tobias thought. He hadn’t seen many of the other guests - it was that sort of hotel - but he’d seen a couple. A middle-aged man with a young woman - a girl, really - no older than Tobias himself. Tobias had been sure he’d been a sugar daddy with his sugar baby ... his stomach churned in disgust. Wherever they’d been, they were dead now. Dead, or worse. We got incredibly lucky.

  He felt sick as he stood and poured himself a cup of coffee. It tasted ghastly, but it helped to wake him up. He’d thought himself used to flying a gunboat, to pretending - in the privacy of his own mind - that the starfighters and capital ships he engaged were nothing more than lights on the display, no more real than opponents in computer games. He’d never seen himself as a groundpounder, he’d never dared imagine himself fighting hand-to-hand ... it had been easier to pretend he had superpowers than the muscles or training to stand up for himself. And he’d hated it and ... his head spun. He hadn’t wanted to really hurt someone. He hadn’t wanted to ...

  “I killed him,” he muttered. “Fuck.”

  “The virus killed him,” Marigold pointed out. “If he hadn’t been infected, he wouldn’t have threatened us.”

  “I know that,” Tobias said. He swallowed, hard. “I just don’t believe it.”

  He swallowed, again. There’d been a child, a dead child. The manager’s kid? Or a guest? Or ... it didn’t matter. The poor kid was dead, dead and gone ... their body might never be identified. He’d told the doctors what he’d seen, but ... for all he knew, the body had got up and walked away before the armed police and soldiers arrived. It wasn’t impossible. He’d hit the manager’s body several times, hard enough to stop a regular human in his tracks. And yet the zombie had tried to keep coming ...

  Marigold touched his hand. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “If we’d had the money ...”

  “... We’d have gone somewhere else,” Tobias finished. He shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going to do tonight.”

  He glanced at his wristcom. There was no point in asking for an advance on his next paycheck. The military disliked offering advances, from what he’d heard; it was far too easy for a CO to find himself acting as an unpaid collections agent when a soldier or spacer had bought something he couldn’t afford. His mother didn’t have the money to loan, even if he wanted to ask her ... he cursed under his breath. It was starting to look as though they’d have to risk the spaceport barracks. They were free to military personnel, but ... he couldn’t think of anything else. He certainly didn’t want to ask Marigold’s family to pay.

  “We’ll have to go to the barracks,” Marigold said. She’d clearly been thinking along the same lines. “Unless you know anyone in London who’d put us up for the night.”

  Tobias shook his head. He didn’t know anyone who’d put him up anywhere, except perhaps his mother. If they were in Birmingham ... he considered, briefly, catching the monorail to Birmingham and asking his mother to let them stay the night, but the timing wouldn’t work out. The only reason they’d booked a hotel in London was so they could head to the spaceport in the morning, without using the barracks or spending most of the day travelling back to the ship.

  “Joy,” he said. His stomach growled. “Do you think we can get something to eat before we head to the barracks or ... should we just go?”

  Marigold keyed her wristcom. “I’ll let the barracks know we’re coming,” she said. “You check to see if there’s anywhere open right now.”

  Tobias nodded, cursing his luck under his breath. He’d hoped they’d have one more day in bed together. There were privacy tubes on the ship, but ... it wasn’t quite the same. He liked waking up in bed with her, as well as everything else. It was hard to believe she felt the same about him. A wave of despondency threatened to overwhelm him as he keyed his wristcom once again. It was just a matter of time before she found a far superior man and left. He was sure of it.

  Don’t be a wanker, he told himself, sharply. She could have had her pick of men if she’d wanted. And she chose you.

  He frowned as the wristcom bleeped. “The city is still in lockdown,” he said. It looked as if they’d have to travel quite some distance, just to get something to eat. He eyed the rows of ration bars on the counter, free to all comers. It was easy to see that none had been taken in the last few hours, if at all. “Essential services only.”

  “We might be able to get something to eat at the barracks,” Marigold said. “Or find somewhere open closer to the spaceport. We can probably find a taxi outside.”

  “Lockdown or no lockdown,” Tobias muttered. He stood, walked over to the counter and collected a handful of ration bars. They might taste like cardboard - the good ones, at least - but they were short on options. They’d be glad to have the ration bars if they couldn’t find somewhere better to eat. “Shall we go?”

  He held her hand as they walke
d out of the medical complex. It felt like a military base - or a prison. Armed guards stood everywhere, their eyes sweeping from side to side as if they expected to be jumped at any moment. Tobias shivered as he noted their uniforms. They weren’t reservists, but regulars. The medical complex was either a military facility in all but name or ... someone thought it might come under attack at any moment. A chill ran through him as they made their way through the gate and the checkpoint beyond, the guards waving them through after a cursory look at their naval IDs. Tobias was entirely sure it would be a great deal harder to get into the complex. The guards probably had orders to shoot first, if they had any doubts, and ask questions later.

  “There.” Marigold pointed to a taxi waiting by the road. “Let’s go.”