Anisa cleared her throat. “Sensors are picking up starships moving from Tramline Two to Tramline One.”
“From Alien-Five?” Stephen cursed under his breath. They wanted - they needed - to survey the remainder of infected space. But that would take time he didn’t have. “Or from somewhere else?”
“Impossible to determine, sir,” Anisa said. He caught an edge in her voice. It wasn’t a question she could answer. “There are several possibilities.”
It could be anything from a supply convoy to a reinforcement fleet, Stephen thought. And normally it would be a very tempting target.
He studied the cluster of icons for a long moment, thinking hard. He could bring a chunk of the fleet through - perhaps all of it - and smash the alien convoy ... and, in doing so, alert Alien-One to his presence. He had no doubt they would win the brief engagement - he was sure his fleet outgunned the small alien formation - but it might cost them the war. And yet ... he gritted his teeth in frustration. There was no way to know just what was being shipped to Zheng He. Taking the convoy out might prevent the virus from attacking Earth.
“Detach two drones to keep an eye on the convoy,” he ordered, stiffly. The window of opportunity was already closing. “We’ll have to let them go.”
“Yes, sir,” Anisa said.
Stephen nodded, feeling the full weight of command pressing down on him. It wasn’t enough to have opinions, not now. Anyone could have an opinion, from the XO to the lowest crewman or embedded reporter. A commander had to make decisions and stick to them, despite knowing that the wrong decision could lead to utter disaster. If he was wrong ... if he was lucky, people back home would castigate him for failure. And, if he was unlucky, there would be no one back home to castigate him. Letting the convoy go might prove to be a mistake.
But if we can take out even a handful of the virus’s productive facilities, he told himself, we’ll buy time for the navy to build more ships and design more weapons.
“My compliments to Captain Newcomb,” he said. It felt odd, addressing his XO as Captain, but it was necessary. “Inform him that we can proceed with the operation as planned.”
“Aye, sir,” Anisa said.
Stephen felt the indecision nagging at him as Invincible slipped further into the infected system. No, it wasn't indecision. He’d made his decision before they’d even jumped into Alien-One. It was the grim awareness that he might have made a mistake, that he might have time - barely - to change his mind. His training told him it was better to make a decision quickly, even if it was the wrong one, rather than sit on his hands and wait for something else to happen, but his emotions suggested otherwise. Better to play it safe ... he shook his head, angrily dismissing the doubts. They weren’t fighting a genteel war, with no threat to the homeland ... to the homeworld. They were fighting for their very survival.
Defeat means the end of the fucking world, he reminded himself. And we cannot allow ourselves to hold back.
More and more data slid into the display, the analysts overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the alien system. Stephen was grudgingly impressed. Only Earth and Tadpole Prime came close to matching what the virus had built, although he was fairly sure that the uninfected worlds were more efficient. It looked as though the virus had copied the Belter philosophy - there were technologies from several different eras, working side by side - but on a far greater scale. He felt numb as the true immensity - and horror - of the virus’s achievement started to sink in. It had overwhelmed and infected dozens of alien races, then put its new host-bodies to work. The virus itself was nothing more than a giant hermit crab.
Then we’ll crush it beneath our feet, he told himself.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. The asteroid mining stations might be primitive, by human standards, but there was nothing primitive about the defences. He didn’t understand why the virus hadn’t pushed through a whole series of technological upgrades; he could see plenty of places where the mining system could be improved ... it didn’t matter. The virus had the firepower to defend the important sections and that was all that mattered. It could rebuild the remainder of the system from scratch as long as it protected its industrial base.
And wiping out every last industrial miner will be a long and tricky task, he thought. The tactical staff were already picking out targets for ballistic projectiles, sorting out the timetables to ensure that the virus wasn’t alerted to the threat until the main attack was launched, but there were just so many targets. We may have to sterilise the entire system.
The console bleeped a warning. “Commodore, the sensor analysts warn that we may be getting too close to the shipyard,” Anisa warned. “We may be detected at any moment.”
“Particularly if the system is filled with passive sensor platforms,” Stephen mused. There were so many active sensor pulses bombarding through the system that a passive platform might catch wind of Invincible. “My compliments to Captain Newcomb, Commander; we’re to pull back to the RV point at once.”
He felt his lips twitch. It was astonishing to think of just what could be done, if the Royal Navy didn’t have to worry about budgets. Fleet Carriers that were twenty or thirty kilometres from bow to stern, battleships so loaded with armour that they were practically invulnerable ... endless waves of missiles, starships the size of small moons ... he shook his head. The virus could have seeded the entire system with passive sensor platforms, in the certain knowledge that none of them would be detected save by sheer random chance. It wasn’t as if the virus had to do battle with beancounters in the accounting department if it wanted to get anything done.
A low quiver ran through the ship. “We’re pulling back now,” Anisa said. “The tactical staff have completed their projections.”
Stephen keyed his console, bringing up the suggestions. They hadn’t changed much, although they had been updated ... he accepted one of the better ideas, made a handful of tiny modifications of his own, and sent it back. The plan had too many working parts for his peace of mind - and too many concepts borrowed directly from the virus itself - but it should be workable. And, if the plan failed to work, he could cut his losses, lay down covering fire and break contact.
And run for our lives to the tramline, he thought. The enemy doesn’t have any bases to block our flight to friendly space.
He gritted his teeth. The virus might not have any bases along the Raleigh Chain, as far as anyone had been able to tell, but it did have a flicker network. It could forward orders to the fleet that had taken Zheng He, instructing the ships to take up position to block Stephen’s escape. And it might just succeed, too. Ten years ago, it would have been a race. Now, there was no hope of outrunning an FTL message. The flicker network had changed the face of warfare.
“Signal Rose and Stanley,” he ordered. The two destroyers had remained on station near the tramline, watching from a safe distance. “They are to return to the fleet, with instructions to put Plan Alpha into effect immediately.”
“Aye, Commodore,” Anisa said.
Stephen allowed himself a tight smile. By the time Invincible reached the RV point, the bulk of the fleet would already be there. They’d be ready to launch the offensive as planned ... if, of course, everything went to plan. And if it didn’t ... Stephen shook his head. The tactical staff had devised as many contingency plans as they could, but some things had to be left to chance. They’d done their best to prepare for the unexpected. Now ... all they could do was begin the plan and be ready for any surprises.
He glanced at the chronometer. Ten hours, more or less, before they could begin. There would be time for the entire crew to take a nap - to rest or pray or simply grab some downtime before the shit hit the fan. And then ... he wanted to pray himself, for the men and women risking their lives for their homeworld. And for the plan to succeed.
Newcomb will have to tell the crew to take a break, Stephen thought, as Invincible put more distance between herself and the alien shipyard. He won’t need to be prompted to do that.
“Hand your position to your relief,” he ordered Anisa. “And get some rest, before it’s too late.”
“Yes, sir,” Anisa said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“We’re ready, sir.”
Commander Tomas Patel nodded as he surveyed what remained of the alien engineering compartment. It hadn’t taken him long to decide that there was nothing to be gained by trying to reactivate the alien bridge, not when half the components and control systems had been so tightly spliced into the virus that they simply couldn’t be trusted. His imagination kept suggesting the viral cells would come back to life and retake control of the ship at the worst possible time, even though they’d vented the entire interior to kill the virus once and for all. Everyone knew the virus was tough, harder to eradicate than the common cold. His crew slept in their suits, breathed recycled air and ate ... he didn’t want to think about what they ate.
He studied the console carefully, making a final check. There were no great mysteries in the alien hardware, although the virus seemed to be rather less concerned about safety than any human designer. The starship’s drives were easy to understand. The software, on the other hand, was either glitched beyond repair or completely incompatible with human technology. Tomas and his crew had wound up having to run their own command and control links into the hardware, just to get the ship moving in the right direction. It would have been a great deal easier, he told himself, if they’d simply been trying to get the ship home.
And now we’re trying to fool the virus into believing that nothing is wrong, he reminded himself. And too much really can go wrong now.
“Here we go,” he said. He wished, suddenly, for a big red button. Instead, he simply tapped the command into the keyboard. “Let’s move.”
A low shudder ran through the ship as her drives came to life, pushing her towards the tramline. Tomas watched, carefully monitoring the power curves. The ship appeared normal - and they thought they’d duplicated the IFF signal - but there was no way to be sure. Tomas was experienced enough to understand the danger of an intruder on a military base, someone wearing the same uniform and speaking the same language as the defenders, yet ... it struck him as unlikely the virus would allow the captured ship that close to the shipyard without inspecting her thoroughly. The virus knew a ship could be captured and turned against her former owners. Dezhnev had been turned against the MNF ...
We didn’t think it could be done until the virus did it, Tomas thought. The virus, on the other hand, knows what it can do.
“The power curves are nominal,” Lieutenant Fellows reported. “We’re ready to jump.”
Tomas nodded. “Take us through.”
He sucked in his breath as the tramline came closer. He’d spent most of his adult life exploring the wonders of alien science, breaking it down to see what new insights humanity could glean from alien technology. It had been a rewarding job, even though there hadn’t been many new discoveries since the First Interstellar War. The technological specialists had learnt a great deal from finding new ways to look at the world. They’d even gathered data from the Vesy, who’d barely discovered the wheel before learning that there were far more advanced races out there. It had definitely been an interesting career ...
... But now it had turned deadly.
You volunteered for this job, he told himself, as his vision darkened. He felt, absurdly, as though the entire universe was going to have a sneeze. An invisible fist slammed into his stomach, hard enough to make him gag and swallow hard to keep from throwing up in the suit; he heard his team coughing and retching over the open channel. You could have said no ...
He tasted bile in his mouth. He had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Status ... status report?”
“Jump completed,” Fellows said. “That bloody hurt.”
Specialist Li muttered something in Chinese, before clearing her throat. “The jump harmonics were poor, by our standards. We all got hit pretty hard.”
“Sound off,” Tomas snapped. “Is anyone unable to continue?”
He waited for answers, then allowed himself a sigh of relief. The jump had hurt - clearly, the virus saw no reason to minimise the jump shock - but no one had been knocked out or otherwise crippled. He checked the status board, noting - to his amusement - there wasn’t a single red light on the panel. The starship seemed to regard the rough jump as routine. Tomas suspected it didn’t notice. The viral base cells might not be affected by the jump.
“Set course for Target One,” he ordered. “And alert the fleet to follow us.”
Another quiver ran through the ship as she picked up speed. Alerts popped up on his display, warning him the modified control routines his crew had installed didn’t have perfect control of the drive field. They couldn’t manoeuvre properly, no matter what they did. He considered it for a moment, then dismissed the problem. If they came under fire, the entire mission was thoroughly screwed anyway. He’d already calculated the odds of getting out alive and decided they were terrifyingly low.
“The fleet is moving into position,” Lieutenant Hammond offered. “They’ll be giving chase in a moment.”
“Then get ready to take off the safety locks, such as they are,” Tomas ordered. “We don’t want the fleet to catch us.”
“No, sir,” Hammond agreed.
“I have the communications package online,” Li reported. “Should I transmit?”
“No,” Tomas ordered. “We don’t want them smelling a rat too early.”
***
“The captured ship is picking up speed,” Anisa reported. “Force One is moving in pursuit.”
Stephen nodded. The plan was simple enough, although he was all too aware that too many things could go wrong. The captured alien ship would look, to all intents and purposes, as if it were being chased by a massive human fleet. Ideally, the virus would move to block Force One while allowing the captured ship through the defences ... if, of course, the planned sign and countersign worked. The planners had been unable to guarantee anything, naturally. They’d hemmed and hawed, when Stephen had pressed them, before admitting that their work was based on guesswork.
“Deploy drones,” he ordered. “They’re to go active on my command.”
He smiled, coldly. The virus knew - now - that human ECM was far superior to theirs. He’d taught them that during the Battle of Alien-Five. But, at the same time, they couldn’t allow Force One to close with their shipyard, not unless they wanted it blasted to atoms. He studied the display, silently running through the variables. Enemy One - the fleet holding station near the planet - would have to move to intercept. They’d have no choice.
And yet, if they ignore the threat, they actually win, Stephen thought. Invincible and the handful of real escorts surrounding her simply didn’t have enough firepower to break into the shipyard and destroy it. They just have to gamble I’m bluffing.
He leaned forward, wishing he knew which way the virus would jump. No human admiral would want to take the risk of calling his bluff ... assuming, of course, that he didn’t know it was a bluff. The virus had scattered the system with so many sensor platforms that it was vaguely possible that one of them had picked up hints that most of Force One was nothing more than sensor ghosts ... he shook his head. They’d know, soon enough. And then they’d give the enemy a nasty surprise.
Time passed, slowly. Stephen forced himself to move about the compartment, rather than stay in his chair and keep his eyes glued to the display. It would take hours before the shipyard - and Enemy One - knew they had incoming, hours more before Stephen knew what they were doing in response. And hours more before Stephen knew what had happened to Force Two. He silently kicked himself for agreeing to the plan, when it had been put before him. There were too many moving parts, too many places where a single failure could lead to utter disaster ...
“Signal from the pods, sir,” Anisa said. “The ballistics are on their way.”
“Good,” Stephen said. If nothing e
lse, the virus would know that the system had been attacked. “Order them ...”
The console bleeped. Red icons flickered to life. “Commodore, Enemy One is moving,” Anisa said. “She’s coming to meet us.”
“And she’s been on her way for some time,” Stephen said. He felt a thrill of excitement. The tactical staff would be running projections, displaying probability cones of where the alien ships might be, but it didn’t matter. He knew where the alien ships had to be. “Warn the fleet to be ready to execute Breakaway on my command.”
“Aye, Commodore.”
Stephen watched, grimly, as the range narrowed. Enemy One was circling the shipyard, rather than flying through the installation ... an interesting choice, given that the odds of ramming something were incredibly low, but it hardly mattered. The virus knew it had to bring his fleet to battle as far from the shipyard as possible, if only to ensure the facilities weren’t damaged in the crossfire. Any normal opponent would sacrifice Enemy One to buy time ...
The Right of the Line Page 33