Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “The fleet is making transit,” Staci said. “They’re cloaking ... now.”

  Mitch nodded. The drones should look like starships - like the entire fleet - if the enemy hadn’t been watching carefully. The sensor fuzz should have made it hard for the virus to spot the switch, but its mere presence should have warned any watching eyes to be careful. Why would anyone bother, unless they had had something to hide?

  “Bring us about, then set course to the tramline,” he ordered. “Make sure the drones follow us.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Staci said. She grinned. “Do you think they’ll follow us right through the transit?”

  “Good question,” Mitch said. He grinned back. “A pity we can’t count on it.”

  He leaned forward as the cloaked fleet - the real fleet - departed, heading towards the other tramline. There wasn’t much time before the enemy fleet arrived, although it would have to think carefully before making transit. Standard tactical doctrine - and there was no evidence the virus thought differently - insisted one shouldn’t follow an enemy fleet through the tramline. Not too closely, at least. There was too great a risk of being caught with one’s pants down, with sensors and weapons offline as the enemy reversed course and pounded your hulls at point-blank range. Mitch would have urged an ambush if he’d thought the scheme workable. In theory, it was. In practice, it only worked if one had a friendly scriptwriter.

  Someone tried it at the academy, hoping it was such a dumb concept no one would expect it, he recalled. It didn’t work.

  His lips twitched at the memory - the instructor had been particularly sarcastic - then thinned as the enemy fleet began to make transit. The virus had pushed its luck to the limit, balancing the desperate need to get through the tramline with the grim awareness the human ships might be lying in wait. Mitch had to admit it had done well. It had come through close enough to track the fleet - or the decoy drones - without running straight into a wall of fire. And it was taking its time, too. The fleet was coming through piece by piece. It clearly didn’t intend to rush straight into the fire.

  “Keep us on course,” he ordered, quietly. “Let them get our scent.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Staci said.

  Mitch studied the display, silently calculating the vectors. The enemy ships could - in theory - run the drones down. Unicorn could break contact, at the cost of losing the drones and revealing the deception ahead of time. And yet ... he felt his heart start to race as the alien fleet assembled before it started to advance. Had it seen through the deception already? Had it realised it had been conned? Or was it biding its time, allowing the human ships to fly straight into an ambush? There was no way to tell. The system might not be as empty as it looked. There could be anything between the decoy fleet and the tramline, lying in wait for them.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Hannah Avis said. “The enemy fleet is starting to move. It’s coming after us.”

  “Oh, what a pity,” Staci said, with a deadpan look on her face.

  Mitch snorted. It was good news, but still ... millions upon millions of tonnage bearing down on a single frigate - and a fleet of ghosts - didn’t really feel like good news. How long would it be before the virus realised it had been fooled? The deception wouldn’t last, once they ran into the enemy fleet. Even a complete idiot wouldn’t miss the simple fact that the ships weren’t returning fire. They were drones. They couldn’t.

  “Hold us on course,” he ordered. The real fleet was heading away from them, so sharply that the icons on the display were nothing more than guesswork. By the time the enemy realised they’d been had, the admiral and her ships should have broken contact completely. “And deploy two additional sensor drones. If there’s something waiting for us, I want to know about it first.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Mitch forced himself to relax as the two fleets - the ghosts and the real ships - crawled towards the tramline. The enemy thought they were outgunned, but ... he was still a little surprised they hadn’t tried to close the range. There was just no way to know what they were thinking. They didn’t seem to have a brainship with them, but mounting antishipping strikes didn’t require one. The more he thought about it, the more he recalled being forced to go shooting on Captain Hammond’s estate. The game-beaters had driven the pheasants towards the shooters, providing all the targets they could possibly want. It hadn’t struck Mitch as funny at the time - drugging the poor birds would have been kinder - and it was even less funny now. He had the nasty feeling he was the one being driven towards the shooter.

  At least the rest of the fleet is safe, he thought. There was no way to be sure they’d get through the tramline without revealing the deception, but the enemy would be badly out of position once they realised they’d been conned. They’ll have plenty of time to make their escape.

  He sent Staci off for a quick nap, then waited - grimly - as the hours ticked by. The enemy fleet kept its distance, not even trying to close the range as they neared the tramline. Mitch ordered the ghostly fleet to alter course, randomising the precise location they’d pass through the tramline. The enemy fleet started to accelerate, too late. Mitch breathed a sigh of relief, then started to snap orders. There was only one thing that could have convinced the enemy to speed up, now. They’d been flying straight into an ambush.

  “Fuzz the drones again,” he ordered. They were too far from the remainder of the fleet to be sure they could signal it ... and, of course, the virus might start wondering who he’d been signalling. “And then take us through the tramline.”

  The display blanked, then rebooted. A cluster of red icons held station on the tramline, far too close for comfort. Mitch allowed himself a grin, even though the enemy fleet was already turning towards them. The admiral would have been in deep shit if she’d flown straight into their welcoming eyes. He had to admit the virus had very nearly pulled off an unprecedented ambush. And it might just have worked if the admiral hadn’t seen it coming.

  “Alter course, then redeploy the drones,” he ordered, tracing a line on the display. They might just have enough time to put some distance between them before it was too late. If they were really lucky, they might convince the virus the fleet had cloaked. Better that than the virus realising the fleet hadn’t existed at all. “And prepare to deactivate the drones on command.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Staci rejoined them as the ship - and the drones - picked up speed. The alien carriers were launching starfighters, but the ghostly fleet was right on the edge of their effective range. Or were they? The virus might see value in expending the fighters, as long as they kept contact with the fleet. Mitch cursed under his breath. They’d suddenly run out of time. The deception couldn’t be sustained for much longer, if at all.

  “Deactivate the drones and trigger their destruct cycles, then take us into cloak,” he ordered, calmly. The Admiralty would reassign him to an asteroid mining station in the middle of nowhere if he allowed a drone to fall into enemy hands. The decoys were designed to be difficult to open, without the proper codes, but there was no way to be sure. “And then set course for the next tramline.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Staci said. “Drones deactivated ... now.”

  Mitch grinned. The virus was going to be in a real mess. If it thought the fleet had cloaked, it was going to waste a lot of time searching for it. Even if it realised the truth, it was going to have to relocate the real fleet or ... or what? He didn’t know. His ship quivered as she accelerated, speeding away from the alien position. It was unlikely anything would get in their way, he thought. They could carry out a series of brief surveys as they passed through the enemy systems, noting targets for later destruction. The admiral would be pleased ... and, even if they didn’t make it back to the fleet, they could take their information all the way back to Earth. And who knew? They might come across targets they could destroy.

  “They’re blundering,” Hannah commented. “They don’t know what happened to the fleet.”

 
; “They may not want to admit they were fooled,” Mitch said. He’d met humans who allowed themselves to be tricked time and time again because they didn’t want to admit - even to themselves - what had happened. “Or they simply haven’t realised what we’ve done.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “And now we’ve lured them away, we can proceed as planned.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Long-range sensors are clear, Captain,” Sibley said. “We appear to have broken contact.”

  Thomas nodded, curtly. They’d jumped through the tramline into another uninhabited - as far as they could tell - system. The enemy ships hadn’t returned in time to track them down, suggesting they were still chasing Unicorn and her escort of decoys. Thomas had to smile at the thought, although it wasn’t funny. That much firepower would atomise the frigate if the virus realised what had happened, if she didn’t manage to break contact in time. Captain Campbell had a remarkable talent for getting on Thomas’s nerves, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die.

  “Good,” he said. He glanced at the fleet status display. The admiral was ordering them to maintain course and speed, hidden under the cloak. If they were lucky, they could remain undetected until they reached the war front ... or, more likely, they encountered a target worth attacking. Thomas would have liked to believe they’d given the virus a black eye, and perhaps destroyed its ability to make war, but that was wishful thinking. “Hold us in formation.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Thomas sighed, inwardly. It was going to be a long time before they reached the next tramline, let alone made it back to safety. The fleet was still undergoing repairs - the endless series of alerts and updates suggested the Chinese personnel would be shuttled to another ship soon enough - but some of the ships needed a shipyard. He wondered, morbidly, what he would do if he was ordered to abandon and scuttle his command. Obey orders? Or beg for permission to try to sneak home? It wasn’t as if he’d get another command. Given his age, and social rank, it was far more likely he’d be promoted, even if he didn’t want it. His experience was valuable, he’d be told; it was important that he shared it with up-and-coming officers who needed to learn from his mistakes, before they went off and started making their own. Thomas was morbidly sure they would. God knew he’d made quite enough mistakes, too.

  “I’ll be in my ready room,” he said, standing. “Commander Donker, you have the bridge.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  ***

  The porno movies, Tobias reflected sourly, hadn’t been a very accurate depiction of real life at all. They hadn’t shown just how hard it was to fit two people into a washroom, let alone have a quickie without one or both of the participants developing a cramp or otherwise embarrassing themselves. He had no idea how Stellar Star had managed to have sex in an even smaller compartment, unless it had been dimensionally transcendent or something. Just getting inside and lowering their pants had been quite hard enough.

  He groaned as he slipped out of the washroom and back to the bunk. Marigold needed to wash first, just in case the alarm sounded again. The privacy tubes had been closed and locked ever since the fleet had begun to move, even though they were needed. Tobias knew he should be relieved they’d made it out of the system, but as time started to tick by ... he shook his head in annoyance. They could be attacked at any moment. It wasn’t as if they could wait until they got back home. There was no way to be sure they would get back home.

  His back cramped. He bit off a curse, hoping he hadn’t damaged himself badly enough to need a doctor. Bagehot would laugh his arse off, before screaming at them both for fucking around - literally - in the face of the enemy. Tobias groaned at the thought. It was sheer goddamned luck no one had said anything about their hasty emergence from the privacy tubes, when they’d sat in their gunboat for hours without being actually launched. He scowled in frustration. If only they’d dared to do it there ...

  Don’t be a fool, he told himself. You’d get in real trouble if you were caught fucking in a gunboat.

  He rubbed his eyes, tiredly. It had been five days since they’d broken contact with the enemy fleet, but it felt like the virus was still breathing down their necks. The admiral had insisted on maintaining full stealth protocols, powering down everything that wasn’t strictly necessary even though the cloaking device should have been able to compensate. Tobias didn’t blame her. They’d passed through two systems, both of which had been effectively uninhabited. The slightest hint of radiation - even something as tiny as a radio beacon - might lead the enemy to the fleet. Tobias would have been glad of the break, if it hadn’t left the gunboat pilots with little to do. He was fairly sure he and Marigold weren’t the only ones who’d partnered up. It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do.

  Exercise, he thought. There were things he could do, but he didn’t want to do them. He was meant to study textbooks, in preparation for something, yet ... he shook his head. It seemed pointless. If they got back to New Washington, he could study on the way to Earth. Or even go see Colin.

  The thought comforted him more than he’d expected, although he knew he couldn’t actually go. The marines were training too, readying themselves to board an enemy ship or repel an enemy boarding party. Tobias wondered, idly, who’d they’d gotten to help them. The gunboat pilots had other concerns right now. They might have to launch at any moment.

  Marigold stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her. Tobias had no time to stare. He had to wash before something - anything - happened. He smiled, blew her a kiss and hurried past her into the washroom. There’d been no hope of taking a shower together. The compartment was barely large enough for a grown man. He was glad he’d lost weight over the past six months. He’d seen men fat enough to get stuck if they tried to use the shower.

  And they wouldn’t have a hope of getting into a gunboat, Tobias thought, as he stripped and turned the water on. They’d be stuck on Earth.

  He frowned as he washed quickly, not daring to stay under the water for more than five minutes. He hadn’t expected to join the navy. He’d worked desperately to earn one of the coveted university slots, in hopes it would keep him out of the military. God knew there was no way he’d get into a decent billet, when he was conscripted. He’d thought he’d be lucky if he didn’t find himself digging ditches for his National Service. It had never crossed his mind the navy might want him, that it might have a role for him ... and that it would turn his life around.

  Someone banged on the hatch. “Are you decent in there?”

  “Just coming out,” he called back. He intended to turn a blind eye if any of the other pilots wanted to use the washroom for a quickie. They’d hopefully do the same for him. “Give me a moment.”

  He shook his head. No, it wasn’t where he’d expected to find himself. Yes, the thought of being blown to bits still scared him. And yet ... he was glad he’d accepted the offer. He wouldn’t have met Marigold, not in real life, if he hadn’t joined the navy. She made a great many things worthwhile.

  And when we get home, we can go somewhere nice, he thought. They’d have more money in the bank, when they returned to Earth. It wasn’t as if they had to spend anything while they were on active duty. Somewhere where it will be just the two of us.

  ***

  Susan could feel the tension pulsing through the immense battleship, even though it had been over a week since they’d sighted the enemy. The crew might have been happier if they’d known where the enemy was, even if the enemy happened to be bearing down on them with enough ships to crush them effortlessly. Susan had to admit she would be happier, too, if she knew what the enemy was doing. How much time had they wasted, trying to track Unicorn and her ghostly fleet? It was hard to believe they were still fooled. The drones simply wouldn’t have lasted long, even if the ghosts had maintained their distance from the enemy fleet. Susan’s best-case estimate, which she admitted - privately - was almost insanely optimistic, was that the drones would have started to fail f
ive days ago. The virus would know it had been conned.

  She sat in her office, looking at the starchart without actually seeing it. They’d gone through the details time and time again, hashing out the plan - and a series of contingencies - until they were practically dreaming of the coming struggles. She was almost sick of looking at a chart she’d memorised, a chart that was useful and yet not useful enough. There was no way to know what was waiting for them, no way to be sure there wasn’t an entire enemy fleet in their path. She hadn’t dared order the fleet to take the time to search for the flicker stations and destroy them. The virus would have known something had happened to the stations, even if it hadn’t known precisely what. It wouldn’t have found it hard to guess, she reflected. It might well have assumed she’d detached ships from the fleet even if it hadn’t realised it had been had.