Maybe it’s their version of a survey ship, he thought. Survey ships were built on warship hulls, with armour and weapons, but they were designed more to evade any potential foes than engage them in combat. Or maybe they just threw an experimental ship into the line of battle.
He put the thought to one side, then keyed his console. “Follow me in,” he ordered. “Let’s kill the bastard!”
***
“The enemy warships have been destroyed,” Newcomb reported. “The starfighters did well.”
“Good,” Stephen said. The enemy freighters were trying to scatter, but it was already too late. “Accelerate to flank speed, fire as you bear.”
“Aye, Captain,” Sonia said.
“Engaging the enemy ... now,” Arthur added.
Stephen felt a low vibration running through the hull as Invincible’s main guns opened fire, hammering the closest enemy freighter into a wreck before she finally lost hull integrity and exploded. Arthur didn’t wait for orders, shifting fire automatically to the next target. The secondary guns opened fire as additional targets came into range, tearing their way through freighters that barely had enough armour to stand up to one or two shots. A pair of freighters altered course, as if they had realised they couldn’t escape and intended to ram Invincible before they were destroyed, but they didn’t stand a chance. They were vaporised before they could get anywhere near their target.
If they were humans, we would accept their surrender, Stephen thought. But they’re not human. They literally cannot surrender.
He felt a flicker of guilt, which he ruthlessly quashed. The freighters might be harmless - only three of them were armed, with weapons that might as well be water pistols if they were fired at Invincible - but they carried supplies that would make the enemy ships within the system far more dangerous if they had a chance to reach their destination. Every destroyed enemy freighter made it harder for the virus to supply its forces, winning time for Earth to ready its defences and humanity’s allies to arrive. It felt as if he was stamping on ants, but ... he shook his head. There was no room for scruples when the only two options were victory, or death. Anything was justified if the only alternative was extinction.
And it makes you wonder just what the war will do to us, he thought. The Troubles had done a great deal of damage, more than anyone cared to admit. They’d done what they needed to do to survive, to preserve Britain as an independent society, but ... what had it done to them? He’d read the journals of men who’d fought in the wars. They’d slowly discarded their ... decency ... as the fires of war burned ever hotter. What sort of monsters were they?
“The final freighter has been destroyed,” Newcomb said. “I ...”
He broke off as red icons flared to life. “Captain,” Morse said. “Sensors are picking up a major enemy fleet on approach vector. They’re coming from Tramline Two!”
Stephen nodded, curtly. A planned ambush? No, the timing was too poor. Bad luck, more like. The enemy had been running reinforcements to the system, probably hoping to increase the pressure on Zheng He ... Invincible had simply been unlucky. But not that unlucky. The enemy ships weren’t in range to catch her, not before she broke contact and escaped.
“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome,” he said. “Recall starfighters. Helm, alter course. Tactical, deploy ECM drones. Let them waste their time chasing down the drones while we beat feet back to the tramline.”
“Aye, Captain,” Arthur said.
“And deploy a pair of recon drones towards the new arrivals,” Stephen said. He glanced at the live feed, wondering when - if - the original alien fleet was going to make a move. They shouldn’t know - yet - that the convoy had been attacked. “Let’s see what’s bearing down on us.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“The starfighters are returning now,” Newcomb said. “They sound pleased with themselves.”
“They should be,” Stephen said.
He smiled, grimly, as the alien ships started to pick up speed. They were trying hard, but there was no way they were going to be able to run his ship down and destroy her before he broke contact. They wouldn’t even get close enough to see through the decoys before it was too late. He kept a wary eye on the long-range sensors, just in case they were being driven into a trap, but very few tactical officers would want to risk everything on such a complex manoeuvre. The Royal Navy had learnt - the hard way, in some cases - to keep operational deployments and combat tactics as simple as possible.
And they won’t even get into missile range, unless they’ve designed even-longer-range missiles, he thought. They have to know they don’t have a hope of catching us.
“Captain,” Lieutenant Alison Adams said. “There’s an ... odd ... ship in the alien fleet.”
“Odd?” Stephen looked up. “What is it?”
“She’s about twice the size of a battleship, but ... she’s odd.” An image of an alien ship appeared on the display. “My first thought was that they’d simply scaled up a battleship, but there are a number of oddities. I can’t be sure, sir ...”
“I understand,” Stephen said. “What can you tell me about her?”
“She’s crammed with sensors,” Alison said. “And studded with point defence ... percentage-wise, she’s got more than a fleet carrier. But she doesn’t seem to have any offensive weapons, as far as I can tell. No heavy plasma turrets, no missile tubes ...”
“As far as you can tell,” Newcomb said. “From this distance, we’re lucky we can see anything.”
“Yes, sir,” Alison said. “But, if she was merely an oversized battleship, surely they would have run into the law of diminishing returns.”
“Maybe,” Stephen mused. It was an odd design. He’d watched a designer scale up a fleet carrier once, then point out all the flaws with the design. Battleships were cruder than fleet carriers, but Alison was right. At some point, the ship would just become a grossly-inefficient mass ... and an easy target. “But they wouldn’t have built her unless they thought they knew what they were doing.”
“A real Overcompensator class,” Newcomb joked.
Stephen shrugged. The virus had been in space for centuries. It - or whoever had created it - had probably made all the mistakes that newly-spacefaring civilisations made when designing spacecraft and starships for the first time, made them and learned from them. And the virus didn’t seem to have the common human belief that bigger was always better. Even as a missile carrier, the enemy battleship made no sense.
“Keep an eye on her,” he ordered. “Maybe she’ll do something to show us what she can do.”
He leaned back in his command chair as the starfighters landed, the cloaking device engaging seconds later. The virus would have great difficulty tracking his ship, even if it was smart enough to see through the decoys at once. It didn’t matter, he told himself. By the time the virus’s fleet entered starfighter range, his ship would be well away. The enemy would have real problems tracking them down before it was too late.
“The enemy fleet is not altering course,” Alison said, after a moment. “It doesn’t seem to have a solid lock on us.”
“Good,” Stephen said. There was no way they could attack the fleet, but at least they could keep an eye on it. “How many of those ships have we seen before?”
Alison worked her console for a long moment. “Unsure, sir. I think four or five of the ships fought at Second Falkirk, sir, but it’s hard to be sure. The records are not good.”
“Understood,” Stephen said.
He forced himself to relax as the alien ships continued on their course towards Tramline One, clearly intending to rendezvous with the original fleet. And then ... even fresh, the virus didn't have enough firepower to punch its way into Zheng He and smash the MNF to a bloody pulp. It had to know it, too. And yet, the mere presence of the fleet would be enough to keep eyes focused on Margo. The virus might be up to something else, relying on the fleet to divert humanity’s attention. It had become a great deal easier to co
ordinate operations over light years in the last decade ...
Although only an idiot would gamble on such a chancy operation, Stephen thought. Too many fancy plans have come apart because someone tried to be clever.
“Captain,” Newcomb said. “Where do we go from here?”
Stephen hesitated. They could sneak through Tramline Two themselves, heading up the chain towards Falkirk - and even Alien-One. A string of pinprick raids in its rear might convince the virus to divert ships to hunt Invincible down, buying time for Earth to organise its defences. But, at the same time, the MNF had to be warned about the fleet on the far side of the tramline. The Admirals had to know the virus was gathering its strength for another push forward. They might even consider a raid on Margo, just to make sure the virus had other things to worry about. Even a handful of minor attacks would keep the virus busy ...
... If they knew there was a window of opportunity. If.
He scowled. He liked independent command. He liked having one ship - just one ship - under his command. He knew, all too well, he wouldn’t be allowed to remain a captain indefinitely. The Royal Navy would offer him a promotion - the family name would make sure of that, unless he screwed up so badly he was transferred to a mining colony on the other side of explored space - and he would be unable to decline. He’d be moved up the ranks, but he’d never command again. No Admiral had ever commanded a ship as well as a fleet. It simply wasn’t practical. He wanted to head further up the tramline, to remain out of contact with the MNF ...
... But he knew his duty.
“Set course for the tramline,” Stephen ordered. “We’ll jump back to Zheng He and inform the Admirals of what happened here, then return to the offensive.”
“Aye, Captain,” Newcomb said.
And someone will probably say I ran away, Stephen thought, sardonically. Whatever I do, there will be people who say that I made the wrong choice.
He pushed the thought aside as Invincible picked up speed. It wouldn’t take that long to return to Zheng He, report to the Admirals and receive their orders. And they had hurt the virus. A handful of freighters that could barely shoot back ... it was a cheap victory, but one that might have a colossal impact on the war.
And if I tell myself that again and again, he thought, I might even come to believe it.
It felt like hours before they finally approached the tramline, keeping a wary eye out for tiny sensor distortions that might hint at the presence of a cloaked ship. But there were none. Local space was quiet. Stephen didn’t feel reassured. Everything had gone perfectly - well, almost perfectly - and it worried him. He would almost have been happier if they’d been chased to the tramline by a small fleet of alien ships. It would have been hazardous - his lips quirked at the absurd thought - but at least the penny would have dropped. It was better than waiting for it to fall ...
An alarm sounded as soon as they crossed the tramline. “Captain, I’m picking up an emergency alert,” Morse snapped. “A Code Blue!”
Stephen blinked. “Battlestations,” he snapped. A Code Blue? “Set Condition One throughout the ship!”
“Aye, sir,” Newcomb said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Condition One is set throughout the ship,” Newcomb said. “We’re ready.”
“Communications, alert System Command to our return,” Stephen ordered. There didn’t appear to be an actual battle going on, but it was impossible to be sure. The light-speed delay could be covering up a full-scale engagement. “Helm, take us into the system.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Stephen forced himself to think as he waited for a response. A Code Blue meant only one thing, now. A starship - a human starship, one reported missing or lost - had reappeared in the system. And that meant ... it was possible, he admitted privately, that the ship had simply lost contact with the rest of the MNF during the engagement, but they had to assume the worst. Dezhnev had done a great deal of damage, when she’d been used to sneak an attack force into engagement range at Falkirk. Stephen hated to think what another infected starship could do at Zheng He.
We haven’t had anything like enough time to fortify the system, he thought, numbly. There was an entire fleet massing on the far side of the tramline. If the virus is willing to take the losses, it can take the system.
He glanced at Newcomb as more and more information flowed into the display. It didn’t look as though a battle was going on, although the MNF had moved into a force-protection deployment that would have saddened Nelson, Cunningham or any of the other admirals who’d made their name through aggressive tactics and a determination never to admit defeat in the face of the enemy. It was a formation that practically surrendered the initiative, although it did have some advantages. The enemy would have to close with the formation or risk leaving a powerful fleet in their rear.
“They’re not evacuating the system,” Newcomb said, quietly.
“No,” Stephen agreed. He’d seen the contingency plans. It didn’t look as if any of them were being put into action. “The threat, if there is a threat, cannot appear too big.”
He puzzled over the mystery as they waited for contact. The virus had used Dezhnev as a Trojan Horse, but it had to know that tactic would never work twice. There were a dozen plans for inspecting any ship that went missing, only to reappear later. No ship that had lost contact with her fellows would be allowed inside the defence perimeter until she was inspected from top to bottom ... and, if she powered up her weapons, she would be unceremoniously blown out of space. Stephen disliked the idea of firing on a friendly ship, but he knew there was no choice. The infected would probably be relieved, if something of the original personality still lived on in the host body. They wouldn’t be unwilling traitors any longer.
“Captain,” Morse said. “I have an update from System Command. Sir ... it’s Raleigh!”
Newcomb started. “Does it think we’re idiots? First Dezhnev and now Raleigh?”
Stephen glanced at him. HMS Raleigh had split off from the main body of Task Force Drake, shortly before Invincible and her remaining cohorts had headed up the tramline chain to Alien-Five. He’d wondered at her absence, when it became clear that Raleigh had neither waited for Invincible nor headed straight to Falkirk herself, but there had been no way to know what had become of her. A survey ship was hardly an assault carrier, let alone a battleship. Captain Hashing and his crew might have died in an unexplored alien system, their fates a mystery to everyone they’d left behind. He’d long since given up hope of seeing Raleigh again.
And yet, here she was.
“Orders from System Command, sir,” Morse said. “We’re to intercept and ... assess ... Raleigh for any signs of contamination. If she is infected, we’re to blow her out of space.”
Stephen tapped the display. Raleigh was holding station several light minutes from the planet ... in fact, looking at the vector, Raleigh appeared to have popped out of one of the unexplored tramlines, rather than sneaking her way through Falkirk and Margo to reach Zheng He. He keyed his console, bringing up the forwarded message packet. So far, Raleigh had cooperated with every order she’d received. System Command seemed torn between dispatching the marines or launching an immediate attack.
This enemy doesn’t just wear our faces, Stephen thought, grimly. It can pretend to be us, for a while. And it knows precisely how to fool us.
“Helm, intercept course,” he ordered. “Tactical, monitor Raleigh closely as soon as we get into range. She is not to be given a chance to do any damage.”
“Aye, sir,” Arthur said.
“It can’t be the real Hashing, can it?” Newcomb looked worried. “They’ve been gone for months!”
“Raleigh was designed for long-term operations,” Stephen said, slowly. He’d never considered transferring to survey operations - and his family probably wouldn’t have let him - but he’d studied Raleigh and her sisters when she’d been placed under his command. If there were any starships that could have endured such a l
ong voyage without returning home, it was the survey ships. They had more redundancies worked into their systems than a fleet carrier. “And she came out of the wrong tramline.”
“And they could be lulling us into a false sense of security,” Newcomb pointed out. “We have to be very careful.”
“Very careful,” Stephen agreed. He allowed his eyes to linger on Raleigh’s icon. The range was closing steadily. Soon, they would know. “Order the marines to prepare to board.”
And hope to hell, his thoughts added silently, that I’m not sending them to their deaths.
***
“You know,” Hammersmith said, “we could have boarded one of the alien freighters.”
The Right of the Line Page 22