The Right of the Line

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We won’t ever not draw fire,” Stephen pointed out. Anyone who knew anything about naval tactics would target the carriers first. It was page one of the tactical manual. And there was no sign that the virus disagreed. “Unless Washington and Brezhnev draw their attention.”

  “They probably will,” Newcomb predicted.

  Lieutenant Thomas Morse cleared his throat. “Captain, signal from the flag,” he said. “The fleet is to depart in ten minutes, mark.”

  “Understood,” Stephen said. He glanced at the display. “Mr. XO, are the remaining shipyard personnel off the ship?”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said. “A handful did volunteer to stay, but I made sure they were counted off the ship.”

  Stephen nodded. “A shame we couldn’t have taken them with us,” he said. “But they’re needed here.”

  He grimaced. It was easy to look down on military personnel who weren’t starship crew, or starfighter pilots, or even groundpounders. They hadn’t volunteered to put themselves on the firing line. But ... some of them were nothing more than useless oxygen thieves, but others were vitally important. A trained shipyard worker was more essential to the war effort, Stephen knew, than a random starship crewman. He would do more for the Royal Navy on his shipyard than on a starship. But there was no glory in serving in the rear ...

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself, sharply. The needs of the service come first.

  “And they probably wouldn’t bother with a court martial if we kidnapped them,” Newcomb said. “They’d just put us out the nearest airlock the moment they realised what we’d done.”

  “Quite,” Stephen agreed. “It sounds like the plot of a bad novel.”

  “Or a worse Stellar Star episode,” Newcomb said.

  Stephen turned his attention back to the display. The three carriers were at the centre of the formation, with Invincible taking point. Someone would probably make snide remarks about Admiral Zadornov not putting herself in danger, but Stephen knew better. Brezhnev wasn’t in any less danger than Invincible. It wasn’t as if they were separated by a few thousand light years. On an interplanetary scale, it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds for starfighters - or missiles - to fly from Invincible to Brezhnev.

  And anyone attacking us would have to break through the screen, he thought. The smaller ships had been carefully deployed to ensure that no one could sneak up on the fleet without being detected, with a reserve held near the carriers to cut off anyone who tried to punch through and engage the bigger ships. We would have plenty of time to launch starfighters before they landed on top of us.

  He leaned back in his chair, contemplating the possibilities. They hadn’t had anything like as much time for drills as he’d hoped - Invincible and Washington weren’t the only ships that were being hastily readied for deployments - but they’d worked their way through a handful of simulations. There was no hiding the fleet, if the enemy got a sniff of their presence ... he scowled, knowing his concerns had been overruled by higher authority. He would have preferred to remain under cloak at all times, but ... he shook his head. The Admiralty - or its senior officers - had insisted that human starships should not be seen sneaking around in human space. It suggested a lack of security.

  It isn’t as if anyone would see us if we were under cloak. Stephen smiled at the thought, then sobered. And we dare not assume that the virus hadn’t sneaked a ship or two through the tramlines already.

  “Captain,” Morse said. “Signal from the flag. It’s time to leave.”

  Stephen nodded, curtly. “Helm, take us out as planned,” he ordered. A shiver ran down his spine. They’d tested everything - they’d powered up the drives long enough to glide out of the shipyard - but something could still go wrong. “And then hold us in formation.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The humming of the drives grew louder as they powered up. Stephen tapped his console, bringing up the live feed from the drive nodes. They’d been tuned, he’d been assured, but there just hadn’t been the time to ensure that they were in perfect harmony. Military-grade technology was designed to allow some leeway - the carrier was capable of flying and fighting with half her nodes shot out - yet ... a disharmonic now would put additional wear and tear on the drive nodes, something that would come back to haunt them when they went into battle. The irony made him scowl. They finally had a blank cheque to requisition whatever they wanted without having to convince the bureaucrats the expense was actually necessary, but - away from Earth - they couldn’t get it. There was no way they’d be able to replace a failed node once they left the inner worlds behind.

  And we’d have problems doing it anyway, he reminded himself. It wouldn’t be easy to replace a drive node while we were underway.

  “The fleet is moving into formation,” Lieutenant Sonia Michelle reported. The helmswoman sounded edgy, as if she were nervous about the risk of colliding with another starship. It was hard for one ship to accidentally ram another, but the danger could never be entirely discounted. “All systems are optimal.”

  So far, Stephen thought. He would almost have been happier if problems had developed. It might have been possible to fix them and catch up with the fleet if they developed before they made the first jump. But we haven’t brought the drives to full power yet.

  He forced himself to relax as the fleet picked up speed, heading for the nearest tramline. A handful of civilian ships were holding position just outside the shipyard’s security zone ... reporters, he guessed. Or Belters, keeping a wary eye on the fleet. The political situation had grown more poisonous in the last few days, according to the updates from Duncan. Too many accusations of infection - or, worse, open treason - had been hurled in the last few days, with very little in the way of actual proof. Stephen hoped it wouldn’t turn into something more than angry shouting. Humanity couldn’t hope to beat the virus if the situation dissolved into actual civil war.

  Maybe that’s the real danger. It was a perverse thought, but he contemplated it anyway. There were so many isolated asteroid settlements, from religious communes to tiny mining stations and corporate fiefdoms, that no one could be sure the virus was gone. We can test for the virus, we can capture or kill any poor infected bastard we can find, yet we can never be entirely sure we wiped them all out.

  The drive hum grew louder, just for a handful of seconds, then faded back into the background. Stephen glanced at the live feed - the power curves were well within acceptable limits - and forced himself to relax. Again. The engineering crew would have sounded the alert if something had gone seriously wrong. Instead ... he sighed inwardly. He was going to be on edge for hours, if not days. No naval officer was unaware of just how unforgiving space could be, how easy it was to make an innocent mistake that snowballed into utter disaster. And all he could do was keep his guard up, be wary of anything that might start the snowball rolling ... and hope for the best.

  “Captain.” Newcomb’s voice broke into Stephen’s thoughts. “All departments have checked in. They are all operating within acceptable parameters.”

  “Good,” Stephen said. He studied the display for a long moment. “And our final messages?”

  “They’re held in the buffer, ready for transmission,” Newcomb said. “The tradition lives.”

  Stephen had to smile. A few short years ago, the final transmissions - the last messages a starship would send before it crossed the tramlines and fell out of contact with Earth - had been a vital part of the navy’s traditions, a symbolic cord-cutting when the full weight of power and responsibility fell on a commanding officer like the hammer of God. But now, with the flicker network, it was no longer necessary. A message that would once have taken weeks, if not months, to reach its destination could be there in a few short hours. The boffins were even promising that real-time conversations would be possible within the next few decades ...

  “The tradition lives,” he echoed. It was important to remember that they would still be hundreds of light years from Earth. Hopefu
lly, the Admiralty would remember it too. If they started to micromanage ... that was going to be a problem in the next few years. He was morbidly sure of it. “Transmit the messages when we reach the tramline.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Stephen forced himself to wait as the fleet crawled towards the tramline, the formation slowly tightening as the flagship issued orders. A civilian would have said the formation was sloppy, Stephen suspected, but it hardly mattered. No one in their right mind would risk a tight formation when they might be plunged into battle at any moment. The risk of a collision would grow considerably higher if the entire fleet had to take evasive action at a moment’s notice.

  He keyed the display, bringing up the long-range sensors. The solar system hummed with activity, from tiny mining ships prospecting within the asteroid field to giant colonist-carriers transporting vast numbers of people from Earth to their new homeworld. Stephen rather suspected that interest in colonisation had declined over the past few months, as people realised that a stage-one colony world would be almost defenceless if the virus came knocking. The old certainties - that colonists could go underground and hide until their planet was liberated - no longer applied.

  And yet, anyone who manages to get in on the ground floor is sure to bequeath a strong estate to his descendants, Stephen thought. The rewards for paying one’s own way to a colony world are huge.

  Sure, his own thoughts answered. If you live long enough to claim them.

  He pushed the thought aside as his sensors picked up a handful of military ships leaving Earth. It looked as if they were going to Mars, although it was impossible to be sure. The Red Planet wasn’t heavily defended - Mars had become a backwater when the tramlines had been discovered - but the virus would have great difficulty establishing a presence on the planet. And yet ... the analysts had pointed out, time and time again, that the virus didn’t need to care about cost-benefit assessments. It could afford to spend all the time it liked infecting and absorbing Mars.

  And it probably knows better than to risk leaving Mars alone, Stephen thought. The planet might not be an industrial powerhouse, but it isn’t completely harmless.

  “Captain,” Sonia said. “We are approaching the tramline.”

  “Signal from the flag,” Morse added. “Lead elements are to jump when they cross the tramline. We’re to follow on command.”

  “Understood,” Stephen said. “Follow the Admiral’s lead.”

  He braced himself as the tramline grew closer. It was unlikely, according to all the tactical manuals, that there would be an ambush on the other side of the tramline. They were deep within human space, with heavy reinforcements only a few short hours away. It was hard to imagine any human strategist proposing such an operation, still less any tactical officer taking the suggestion seriously. Any power strong enough to mount a deep strike mission without risking unacceptable losses wouldn’t need to. Still, it was best to be careful. No one really knew how many ships the virus could afford to lose.

  The Tadpoles hit Earth, he reminded himself. But they thought they held an unbeatable tactical advantage.

  He sucked in his breath. It was hard to believe that a major enemy fleet could have slipped through the defence line and taken up position at Terra Nova, but it was easy to consider a number of possible scenarios. None of them were particularly viable, from a human point of view, yet ... there was no way to predict what the virus would do. It had to know that it needed to take out the human navies to win, didn’t it? The Royal Navy didn’t have that many ships in reserve. It wouldn’t take that many major losses to cripple the navy and render further resistance futile.

  Not that it matters, he thought, as the seconds ticked away. We can’t come to any sort of accommodation with the virus. It would be better to turn our own worlds into radioactive nightmares.

  The timer reached zero. The first ships vanished from the display. Stephen tensed, his eyes slipping to the timer. The ships had standing orders to scan for possible threats, then send a courier back while they secured the far side of the tramline. It shouldn’t take long ... he was aware, terrifyingly aware, of every passing second. If there was a hostile force on the far side, waiting for them, it might just have been able to take out the lead elements before they could reverse course and escape. It might ...

  A yellow icon blinked back into existence. It turned blue a second later.

  “Captain,” Morse said. It was easy to hear the relief in his voice. “Signal from the flag. The emergence zone is clear. We’re to proceed as planned.”

  “Take us through,” Stephen ordered. He allowed himself to relax, just a little. He’d faced the virus too often to be entirely sanguine. There might well be a cloaked ship trailing the fleet from a safe distance. “And then set course for the next tramline.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sonia said. “Jumping ... now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alice brooded.

  It wasn’t something she should be doing, she knew. She’d never been particularly introspective, at least until she’d recovered from the first infection. In hindsight, a little more introspection - and forethought - would have kept her from getting into trouble so often at school, although she rather suspected that introspection wasn’t considered a desirable trait in a Royal Marine. How many people would throw themselves into a firefight if they had time to think about all the many horrible ways it could go wrong?

  She glared down at the latest message from her father, wondering - again - why he thought he had any claim on her. She was his daughter, but ... he’d murdered her mother. She would have found it easier to forgive a man who had abused her, she thought, rather than a man who had robbed her of both mother and father in a single catastrophic act. He could have filed for divorce, in the certain knowledge the courts would have sided with him. People did not cheat on deployed military officers. It was socially unacceptable. It was simply Not Done. Alice’s mother would have been an instant pariah ...

  But at least she would be alive, Alice thought. And we wouldn’t have had to stay with our grandparents.

  She paced the tiny cabin, cursing under her breath. She had never liked being still, let alone being forced to wait on the sidelines while others did the work. She hadn’t been ordered to stay in the cabin, but she was still - technically - on detached duty. She’d been told that she was a mission-critical package, a person who was supposed to be escorted and protected by the marines ... a person who could not be allowed to take care of themselves. She muttered a whole string of curses as she remembered the people she’d escorted, once upon a time. Who did they think she was? The Prime Minister?

  The Prime Minister cannot influence alien behaviour, she reminded herself, rather sarcastically. There was a good chance that her life was more important than the Prime Minister’s. She understood the logic, just as she understood the military necessity. God knew she would have probably made the same decisions herself, if things had been reversed. But it wasn’t easy to bear. Am I just going to stay here until I get to play?

  The terminal pinged. She felt a surge of hope as she tapped the screen, which rapidly faded as yet another message from her father appeared in her inbox. She clenched her fists, somehow - barely - resisting the impulse to put a fist through the device. Perhaps ... perhaps he intended to start a new career as a datanet spammer. She couldn’t think of anyone else who would have sent so many messages when the lack of a reply should have been more than enough proof that the recipient wasn’t interested.

  Damn him, she thought.

  She sat back on the bed, tiredly. She’d forced herself to look into her father’s post-war life, if only to make sure he wasn’t in a position to bring pressure to bear on her or her superiors. It hadn’t made encouraging reading. Her father had somehow inveigled his way into a Belter polyamorous marriage - the mere thought was sickening - and worked his way up to command his own freighter. It was hard to believe that a man who’d murdered his own wife could command anything, even himself, bu
t ... her thoughts ran in circles. The Belters kept their own law and enforced their own justice instead of relying on planetside courts. Perhaps murdering one’s wife was socially acceptable amongst the Belters. Or ... she cursed, once again. Maybe they saw the wife as the villain because she’d gone behind her husband’s back, rather than openly entering a polyamorous relationship. Who knew?

  Her wristcom bleeped. “Captain,” Patterson said. “Report to Bay One. Immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alice said.

  She jumped up and headed to the hatch. Captain. That was a joke. Technically, she had the rank ... but she didn’t have the duties to go with it. She’d been effectively beached. Her record was going to be a nightmare. God knew how she’d be paid. She made a mental note to look into it, then decided it didn’t matter. They hadn’t formally beached her, which meant she should be paid the standard rate. They’d certainly have some problems arguing otherwise if the matter reached a court.

  Marine Country was crowded as she hurried down the corridor, glancing from side to side. A dozen marines were working out in the gym while others slept or studied the records from Invincible’s last voyage. She stepped to one side to allow a platoon to jog past, their leader snapping off a salute without ever breaking stride. She didn’t recognise the bootnecks following him. They had to be newly-assigned to the ship. Her heart twisted as she finally admitted, deep inside, that she would never be a normal marine again. There was no way she could ever return to the ranks.