The Right of the Line

by Christopher Nuttall

  And that might be wishful thinking, he thought. I have to assume they’re undamaged.

  “Approaching Point Alpha,” Arthur reported. “Our drones are ready for deployment.”

  “Launch on my command,” Stephen said. They were too far from the alien ships for them to maintain a close watch on the fleet, unless they were being shadowed by a cloaked scout. If there was a spy out there ... the whole scheme would be worse than useless. “And then take us into cloak as soon as the drones go active.”

  “All ships report ready, sir,” Newcomb said. “They’re standing by.”

  “Launch the drones,” Stephen ordered. “Cloak us, now!”

  The lights dimmed, slightly. “Cloaking devices engaged, sir,” Arthur said. “We’re covered.”

  Hopefully, Stephen thought. “Alter course, as planned.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sonia said. A low rumble ran through the ship as she started to alter course towards Tramline Four. “The fleet is falling into formation.”

  And the drones are convincing the enemy that we’re still trying to sneak our way to Tramline One, Stephen thought. The virus might have its suspicions - it had seen humans use drones to advantage before - but it would have to take the threat seriously. It should give us time to put some distance between us and both enemy fleets.

  “There’s no hint they’ve seen through the deception,” Arthur said. “Both enemy fleets are concentrating on the drones.”

  “Let us hope it stays that way,” Stephen said. “Continue on our current course.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Stephen felt cold as the range steadily widened. The Book insisted on evasive courses, just to confuse any watching spies, but he didn’t have time. There were too many damaged ships under his command. A single piece of electromagnetic noise might be enough to betray their location to a prowling starship. He had few illusions about just what the virus’s lack of concern for economics meant, now it had used a Catapult - more than one Catapult - in wartime. It could fill the entire system with scansats if it wished.

  And none of our beancounters would agree to do the same, he thought. They’d never agree to spend billions of pounds on something we might never need.

  He scowled. They’d need it now.

  “Captain, we will begin crossing the tramline in seven hours,” Sonia said.

  “Understood,” Stephen said.

  “They’ll overrun the drones well before then, no matter how carefully they evade.” Newcomb sounded frustrated. “And then they’ll know we escaped.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Stephen said. “But they would still have to assume that we’d be trying to sneak through the tramline.”

  He glanced at Morse. “Did the Admiral manage to get a message to Earth?”

  “I believe so,” Morse said, after a moment. “But I’m unsure when the flicker station was destroyed. It may have been taken out before the message was relayed through the tramline.”

  Stephen winced. “Detach three destroyers from the fleet,” he ordered. “Two of them are to remain on station near the tramline, when we arrive; the third is to sneak through the tramline and hurry up the chain to the first intact station. They are to inform Earth of what transpired here.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  ***

  Richard let out a long breath as he slowly clambered out of his cockpit and lowered himself to the deck. The flight crews ran around, trying to rearm starfighters from a dozen different carriers before they had to be pitched back into battle; Richard heard people chattering in three different languages as they swapped rumours and lies about what had happened outside the hull. He hoped they could reorganise the remaining squadrons before it was too late, whatever regs said about starfighters and their pilots being technically interchangeable. Invincible had only one semi-intact squadron left and he’d already ordered it to prepare for immediate launch, if the shit hit the fan ...

  They’ll be handing out stims for real, he thought. It seemed morbidly funny, even though he knew it was no laughing matter. The squadron commander had already requested medical intervention. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

  A hand caught his arm. He turned, already knowing who he’d see. Monica stood there, looking angry. Her flight suit was dank with sweat, her hair gleaming under the light ... he would have smiled at her if she hadn’t looked so angry. There was no way in hell he should have been flying and he knew it. She knew it too.

  “We need to talk,” Monica hissed.

  “I’m coming,” Richard said.

  He checked his wristcom for a status update, then ordered his remaining pilots to snatch some rest. The next few hours were going to be hell for everyone, but it looked as if they might be able to have a brief rest ... unless, of course, there was a third alien fleet out there. Richard had heard the rumours about endless enemy fleets. If the virus had millions of ships under its command ...

  We would have been smashed flat by now, he thought, as they walked back to his cabin. He wanted - he needed - a shower. It wouldn’t need to play games if it could just steamroller its way to Earth.

  Monica rounded on him as soon as the hatch closed. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that I was needed out there.” Richard jerked a thumb at the bulkhead. “And I was right.”

  “You could have zoned out at any minute,” Monica snapped. “Did you take another ... another stim?”

  “I threw them down the flusher,” Richard said, curtly. “It was the only way to get rid of them.”

  Monica glared. “You’ll forgive me, of course, for not taking your word for it.”

  Richard felt a hot flash of anger mingled with shame. Of course she wouldn’t take his word for it. A drug addict couldn’t be trusted. He would do anything for his fix. Richard liked to think that he was a strong-minded bloke, but common sense suggested otherwise. A strong-minded man might not have started taking stims in the first place.

  “I do.” He sat down on the bed, suddenly aware of just how sweaty he was. “I have to shower and ...”

  “Not yet,” Monica said. “Go to the doctor and tell her everything!”

  “I can’t,” Richard said. “Right now, the ship needs me.”

  “Right.” Monica rested her hands on her hips. “You expect me to believe that this ship will go straight to hell if you’re not flying your starfighter? You are not irreplaceable.”

  “That would be true, under normal circumstances,” Richard said. He stripped off his jacket and dumped it in the washing basket. “But now ... we’re short on everything from personnel to starfighters.”

  Monica took a long breath. “And ...”

  “And I didn’t need stims just now,” Richard added. “I flew just fine without them.”

  “You took one barely ... what? Thirty minutes before we went into battle?” Monica turned away as Richard removed his trousers. “You know as well as I do that stims can be unpredictable, if you take so many of them. You were damn lucky you didn’t zone out in the middle of the battle.”

  “I know.” Richard couldn’t dispute it. “But if I hadn’t gone into battle, everything would have fallen apart.”

  “I don’t think it would have been that bad,” Monica said. “What now?”

  “When this crisis is over, I’m going to report to sickbay and tell them everything,” Richard said. He stepped into the washroom, leaving the door open. “And they can decide what to do with me.”

  “You’re a bastard,” Monica said. “One condition, then. No more stims.”

  “I threw them out,” Richard said.

  “You could get more,” Monica said. She stood in the door, watching as he washed himself. “You stay with me. All the time, even when you’re on the head. One hint that you’re taking stims, just one, and I’ll go to the XO and let the consequences fall where they may. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” Richard turned off the water and began to dry himself. “I do.”

  “Good.” Monica’s
eyes were bright with unshed tears. “And if you feel unwell, or unfit for duty, for God’s sake tell me before it’s too late.”

  Richard felt a pang of guilt. “I will.”

  “Hah,” Monica said. “If you can beat this ... if ... you’d still be at risk.”

  “I know,” Richard said. “But I have to deal with it.”

  “Yes, you do.” Monica leaned forward. Her voice was hard. “But everyone else does not, do they? You can’t be a selfish prick when other people are involved.”

  “I suppose not,” Richard said.

  ***

  Stephen was tired.

  He hadn’t dared leave the bridge, not even after he’d convinced himself that the fleet had broken contact with the alien ships. Force One and Force Two had united, then run down the drones ... it was hard to be sure what the virus was doing, as Invincible was restricted to passive sensors, but it seemed as if the alien ships were quartering space near Tramline One, hoping to stumble across the fleeing ships before it was too late. They were nowhere near Tramline Four, thankfully ... Stephen just hoped that would continue long enough for the fleet to make its escape. If they put a little distance between themselves and the tramline, they’d be almost impossible to find ...

  “The fleet is ready to jump.” Newcomb sounded tired, although Stephen had ordered him to take a nap during the long transit. It probably hadn’t been very restful. “There’s no hint of enemy presence.”

  And they’re not trying to run us down, Stephen thought. It was what he would have done, if he’d been in command of the alien fleet and knew where the humans were heading. The fleet was already damaged. Running it down now would prevent its crews from repairing their ships and returning to the war. Unless they’re trying to lull us into a false sense of security.

  It wasn’t a reassuring thought. His imagination offered all kinds of suggestions, worrying thoughts about what the virus might be doing. HMS Raleigh hadn’t detected any alien ships on the far side of the tramline, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. The virus might have deduced the existence of the unknown tramline chain even if it hadn’t surveyed the chain itself. Or it might have been looking for a new route into the Human Sphere itself.

  “Take us through the tramline as soon as possible,” he ordered. His ship - his fleet - was girding itself for battle, unsure what it might find on the far side of the tramline. A deserted star system? An alien fleet? Or something in-between? “And be ready for anything.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Five minutes later, the battered remains of the fleet vanished from Zheng He.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The fleet was a battered ruin.

  It wasn’t that bad, Stephen told himself. They’d saved the freighters. They’d saved the engineering crews and their equipment, allowing them to start work on repairing the damage before they went back into action. The fleet was still formidable, if it was given a chance to heal before it was too late. But they’d been soundly whipped. The roster of destroyed ships and dead lives was terrifyingly long.

  He glanced at the list, noting the names at the top. Admiral Jimmy Weisskopf, USN. Admiral Svetlana Zadornov, Russian Navy. Commodore Louis Metcalfe ... an endless list of names, from the highest-ranking officer in the fleet to the lowest crewman on a tiny patrol corvette. Hundreds of thousands of dead, most of whom wouldn’t be memorialised in a shipboard ceremony. Stephen and the survivors simply didn’t have time! They had to repair their ships before it was too late.

  “And then we have to decide what to do next,” he mused.

  He sucked in his breath. Thankfully, for better or worse, he was the senior surviving officer amongst the fleet. There were others who’d been in naval service longer, but he was higher up the chain of command than them. They might try to unseat him ... he shook his head. There was no time for a struggle over command either. His lips quirked, humourlessly. Fleet command normally looked good on an officer’s resume, but not when the fleet had taken one hell of a beating. The appointment was definitely something of a poisoned chalice. It was quite possible that several career-minded officers would be trying to come up with imaginative reasons why they shouldn’t take command.

  And it would be hard to blame them, he thought. I’d prefer to be somewhere else, too.

  The latest set of reports from Zheng He burned on the display. Over the last four days, he’d had five destroyers constantly rotating through the system, keeping a wary eye on the virus as it searched for the remains of the human fleet. So far, the virus appeared convinced that Stephen was still trying to escape through Tramline One ... it would have been a tempting opportunity for a counterattack, if there hadn’t been only one real target in the system worth the risk. And he didn’t have enough firepower to risk engaging the alien fleet in a straight battle. The analysts might believe that the virus had shot its missile ships dry - and Stephen would have liked to believe it - but a straight fight could still go either way.

  And the virus still has reinforcements, he reminded himself. What would it profit us to smash one fleet if it leaves us unable to stand against another?

  He studied the reports from the analysts carefully, trying to tease out an opportunity for striking back. The big starships - the Overcompensator moniker seemed to have stuck, as everyone was using it now - were definitely command ships. The virus had shown a significant loss of coordination when Admiral Zadornov had rammed the command ship and destroyed her. It was possible, the analysts noted, that taking out the other command ship would throw the rest of their fleet into confusion ... possible, but uncertain. And impossible to prove, at least until they had a clear shot at the wretched ship. Stephen doubted it would be easy. The virus had learnt a hard lesson at Zheng He.

  His intercom bleeped. “Captain,” Morse said. “I’ve finished setting up the command conference. The other commanding officers are ready to come online.”

  Stephen sat back in his chair. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  “I’m ready,” he lied. “Bring them online.”

  He watched as dozens of holoimages snapped into existence, blurring together as the holographic projectors struggled to compensate for the sheer number of participants and the limited space in the compartment. The compartment seemed to grow larger as more and more projections were pushed into a simulated rear, threatening to make his head hurt as it tried to grapple with the illusion overlaying reality. It was easy to understand, he supposed, how holographic environments could be so convincing, as long as you didn’t actually try to touch anything. Solid-light holograms remained the stuff of far-future fiction.

  And bad romance videos, he reminded himself. And speculative nonsense.

  He cleared his throat for attention, once the last of the holograms had taken its assigned space, and kicked himself a moment later. It made him sound weak. He’d taken public speaking in school - his family had insisted on him taking the class - but he’d never been very good at it. The Navy hadn’t judged him by how well he could sway an audience to his point of view.

  “You’ve seen the reports,” he said, quietly. “There is very little hope of sneaking back through Zheng He without being detected, unless we take a very roundabout route. If we are detected, we will be brought to battle by superior force and - probably - crushed. Do any of you have any reason to believe otherwise?”

  There was a long pause. Stephen had served under captains and admirals who’d been very unreceptive to ideas from their juniors, but he had no qualms about borrowing a workable idea even if it came from a lowly acting midshipman. He would have been delighted if someone had proved him wrong. But no one said a word. They knew the score as well as he did. Their ships were in no condition to fight and win a battle against the virus’s main fleet.

  “We have two options,” Stephen said, once he’d waited long enough to make it clear that he had given his subordinates a chance to speak. “First, we can attempt to find a tramline chain that leads back to human space. The astrophysicists
believe there should be at least one or two possible chains that go in the right direction, but - as you know - they may be wrong. We cannot rely on finding a usable chain. At best, it will take us weeks to get home; at worst, we will waste months searching for something that isn’t there, forcing us to eventually turn back and try to sneak through Zheng He anyway.”

  “And in that time, the virus will have invaded Earth,” an American said. The holographic caption identified him as Captain Nicolson. “We cannot afford to be out of contact for so long.”