And all the marines who boarded her are dead, he thought, grimly. We may never know how they died.
“We’re breaking through,” Anisa said. “They can’t block us any longer.”
Stephen nodded. The enemy fleet was still scattering. It would save some of their ships - he didn’t have the time to chase them down, not when his priority was still saving as many of his ships as possible - but it would also keep them from interfering with his retreat.
“Order the carriers to punch their way through the gap,” he ordered. “And head straight for the tramline.”
He took a long breath as the enemy starfighters started to reform, then hurl themselves on his ships. The confusion - whatever had happened - was starting to wear off. But the virus didn’t have time to reorder its fleets. Too many big ships had been destroyed, or crippled; too many smaller ships simply didn’t have the authority to take control. He thought he understood, now, something of what had happened. The command ship had been more than just a command ship. Losing it must have been akin to a human losing his head. It wasn’t impossible for a headless body to survive, but it wasn’t easy.
And even if it did, the intelligence guiding it would be gone, he thought. There would be no hope of growing another head.
He smiled at the thought, then sobered as the alien starfighters hurled themselves on his ships. Their coordination was shot to hell, but the damage started to mount anyway. They threw themselves away, dozens of starfighters ramming themselves into his hulls ... he cursed under his breath as Invincible shuddered, again and again. The virus seemed to have targeted his ship for specific attention. Did it know Invincible was the command ship? Or did it merely remember Invincible from previous battles? It was a level of vindictiveness he would have thought beyond the virus’s ken.
“Their remaining ships are forming up,” Anisa said.
“Order our starfighters to rearm,” Stephen ordered. A smart enemy CO would fall back until he could link up with the oncoming ships, but the virus might be too confused to try. Or it might consider the remainder of the ships expendable, if their destruction weakened the human fleet. “And prepare to launch counter-strikes.”
He sucked in his breath, sharply. Two-thirds of his starfighters were gone. The remainder needed to be rearmed and reorganised before they could be sent back into battle. Nearly every wing commander and squadron leader had been killed ... he shook his head, telling himself to worry about it later. There would be time to mourn after the battle.
“The fleet is to keep moving,” he ordered. “And we’re to head straight for the tramline.”
He forced himself to think as his ships struggled to pick up speed. In theory, there should be nothing between them and friendly space. They’d punched their way through the only blocking force ... the only force known to exist. His imagination warned the virus could easily have sent ships the long way round, trying to get reinforcements to Zheng He before he passed through the system ... he put the thought out of his mind. The virus would have to survey the star systems between Alien-One and Zheng He before it could risk sending a fleet into unexplored space. Even if it knew where to go, the timing would be chancy. The plan would defy the KISS principle and suffer for it.
“We’ll cross the tramline in two hours, assuming we can maintain our current speed,” Anisa said. “And then we’ll be home.”
“We’ll have to keep running,” Stephen said. It was unlikely that Earth had managed to rush a relief force to Zheng He, not when the inner worlds needed to be defended. “I think ...”
The display bleeped. The enemy ships were breaking off.
Stephen allowed himself a moment of relief. They would live. It wasn’t perfect - he would have liked to smash the remaining ships before they could link up with their fellows and resume the offensive - but at least he’d gotten his ships out of the trap. The operation had worked, almost perfectly. Alien-One was in ruins, over a hundred alien ships had been destroyed - and more crippled - and he’d managed to get most of his ships home. Or he would, when they actually got home.
He sank back in his chair as the damage reports started to come in. Hardly any of the capital ships had escaped damage, even the carriers. Two of the larger fleet carriers could no longer launch or recover fighters, one of the battleships was on the verge of losing her drive nodes and falling behind. The MNF had taken one hell of a beating. And yet, they’d destroyed far more than they’d lost. They hadn’t won the war, but they’d made sure it wouldn’t be lost in a hurry either.
It felt like days before they crossed the tramline and jumped into Zheng He. Stephen waited, bracing himself for an attack. But the system was empty, at least of enemy starships. The virus had shot its bolt -- and lost. It would be months, perhaps, before it could resume the offensive. And humanity would make good use of that time. He’d seen the plans. Newer weapons, newer starships, newer tactics ... the virus wouldn’t know what hit it.
And our allies will have joined us by then, he told himself. The virus will be facing three interstellar powers, not one.
Stephen waited until he was sure the alien fleet hadn’t followed them into Zheng He, then stood.
“Signal the fleet,” he ordered. He felt tired, but happy. And guilty for feeling happy, knowing how many lives had been lost in the last few hours. “We’re going home.”
“Aye, sir.”
Chapter Forty
“The First Space Lord will see you now.”
Stephen nodded, forcing himself to stand. The last month had been grim, even though the retreating ships had been lucky enough to reach friendly space - and reinforcements - before the virus had resumed the offensive. He’d been relieved of fleet command once he’d linked up with the reinforcements, then given orders to take the damaged ships home. The flight back had been uneventful, giving him time to work on his report. He had no idea if he’d be given a medal, or put in front of a firing squad. The reports from Earth had been decidedly mixed. And the orders to report to Nelson Base hadn’t provided any warning of what he might be facing.
He saluted as he entered the office. “Captain Shields, reporting as ordered.”
“Take a seat, Captain,” Admiral Sir John Naiser said. The First Space Lord nodded to a steward, who produced two mugs of coffee. “Thank you for coming.”
Stephen nodded. He hadn’t really had a choice and they both knew it. The coffee was a good sign, he supposed, but he’d heard too many contradictory broadcasts from Earth to feel any assurance about his future. Or humanity’s, for that matter. The human race seemed perfectly capable of fighting both itself and the virus at the same time. It made him wonder if the human race deserved to survive.
“First things first,” the First Space Lord said. He picked up a box from his desk and passed it to Stephen. “You’re a full Admiral, as of today. I tried to convince the Promotions Board to backdate it to the moment you took command of the MNF, on the grounds that that was when you proved yourself worthy of the rank, but they weren’t inclined to agree. They weren’t happy that ... political considerations ... mandated that they had to promote you so early in your career.”
Stephen opened the box and blinked in surprise. An admiral’s bars? He’d only been a captain for a couple of years. Being jumped up so quickly was almost unheard of. Even Theodore Smith had been a commodore, by time in grade if nothing else, when he’d been promoted to admiral. And he had single-handedly saved the human race.
“You’ve become a global hero,” the First Space Lord said. “You have medals from just about every nation under the sun, all of which will be awarded at the ceremony next week. The Prime Minister had to promote you, particularly as you’re one of the rare officers who has commanded a multinational task force in battle. There isn’t a nation that will be reluctant to place its ships and men under your command.”
Stephen felt a little overwhelmed. “I did what I could ...”
“You saved the fleet,” the First Space Lord said. “And, when you could have
sneaked back to Earth, you went on the offensive instead. You blew hell out of an alien system, destroying its industrial base, and then - and then - you smashed an enemy fleet too. You deserve a reward. Everyone agrees on it.”
“I lost so many people,” Stephen mumbled.
“Yes, you did,” the First Space Lord said, bluntly. “And it will weigh you down, from time to time, but ... you did what you had to do. I said as much at the inquiry.”
He shrugged. “There are some people who are accusing you of everything under the sun, from disobeying orders to committing genocide, but they’re keeping it very quiet. They want to stay alive! No one has any tolerance for half-measures, not now. You may come across a few cranks and weirdoes who hate you, Stephen, but the vast majority of the human race sees you as a hero.”
“I wish I felt that way,” Stephen admitted.
“I’m glad you don’t,” the First Space Lord said, frankly. “And we can talk about that later, if you like. Right now ...”
He leaned back in his chair. “You’re off Invincible. She’ll be in the yard for the next six months, at least. Commander Newcomb is due a promotion, as you advised; he’ll either be offered Invincible or Formidable, depending on which ship is ready first. Haig was scheduled to take Formidable, but Captain Archer suffered severe heart problems last week and Haig has been transferred to take his place. I’m afraid you probably won’t see starship command again.”
Stephen looked down at the admiral’s bars. “Is there no way to decline promotion?”
The First Space Lord smiled, humourlessly. “No. Everyone wants you promoted. Sorry.”
“Bugger,” Stephen said.
“You’ll probably be given fleet command, once we put another fleet together,” the First Space Lord told him. He smiled, rather thinly, at Stephen’s reaction. “The Tadpole and Fox units have arrived at the front, so we can take a breath and plan our next move. Ideally, we’ll go on the offensive as soon as possible, but ... we have to rebuild our ships, train more crew and produce more missiles. It should be doable, if we have time. You may well have won us that time.”
“At a cost,” Stephen said.
“Yes,” the First Space Lord agreed. “But the cost of failing, Stephen, would have been far greater.”
“I know that.” Stephen met his eyes. “But it doesn’t help.”
“We will remember the dead,” the First Space Lord assured him. “And so will everyone who is only alive today because of them.”
Stephen winced. He hadn’t known most of the dead, even the ones who’d died on his ship. They had been ciphers to him. Even the ones he’d worked with, back before the fleet had been attacked, had been his subordinates. They hadn’t been his friends. He knew very little about them. Wing Commander Redbird had been a good man, but what had he been like ... really? And poor Alice Campbell, doomed to spend the rest of her days as a lab rat ... she’d been lucky, in a way, to die. He’d already received - and ignored - a string of complaints from the biological warfare experts. They’d had plans for her future. The fact that she’d chosen to leave their clutches - twice now - meant nothing to them.
And those are the ones I know, he thought. I didn’t know anything about the others.
“I hope so, sir,” he said. “I’ll do my best to make sure they don’t forget.”
“If we survive,” the First Space Lord said. “Everyone is terrified now - and rightly so. If the virus can expend resources on Catapults, what else has it been building?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Stephen predicted. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. But then, in hindsight, most surprises shouldn’t have been anything of the sort. “Right now, though, I imagine it’s adjusting its tactics and rebuilding its fleet.”
“Almost certainly,” the First Space Lord agreed. “Alien-One wasn’t the only industrial node under its control. We’re going to have to find the others.”
“And then scorch a number of planets clean of life.” Stephen shook his head. “Will we ever be sure that we really exterminated every last trace of the virus?”
“No,” the First Space Lord said.
He looked Stephen in the eye. “This war is going to be different. You know that, better than I. There won’t be any peace talks, no formal borders ... no agreements, even, to share a handful of colony worlds. The war could drag on for years, with no possible outcome save for total victory and total defeat. It has only just started to sink in, down there” - he jabbed a finger at the deck - “that we might be entering a war that will last as long as the Troubles, a war that will change us even if we win. The laws of war, the laws of common decency, may be thrust aside by the dictates of survival. We will not be the same.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said. “I’ve studied the Troubles.”
“And you will do everything in your power to fight and win the war,” the First Space Lord told him. “You will do whatever you need to do, from fleet command to a stint in the forward planning department to political hustling. You will tell people what we’re facing, you will tell them the truth ... you will kiss babies, if that is what you need to do to make it clear that the choice lies between victory -- or death. We cannot afford anything less than total commitment.”
Stephen felt hollow. “And Amalgamation?”
“That’s going to go ahead,” the First Space Lord said. “Make no mistake, Stephen. We cannot win this war alone. We cannot even win as a loose alliance of human and alien powers. We must combine our forces. And that, Stephen, you will help with too.”
“What will we lose if we do?” Stephen looked back at the First Space Lord. “What will be lost?”
“What will we lose if we don’t?” The First Space Lord shrugged. “There was a story, one of the Stellar Star spin-offs ... basically, the choice was between allying with the greatest force of human evil known to exist, at that time, or letting the human race be destroyed. The author got in trouble for stealing the concept from a far older book ...”
He sighed. “It was meant to be a moral question. Do you ally with evil, or accept utter destruction? Point is, it was a cheat. There isn’t a choice at all. Allying with evil might be bad, and you’ll have to hold your nose, but at least you’ll be alive. Someone in the future may accuse you of being a collaborator, with all the bad things that implies, yet ...”
“You’ll be alive,” Stephen finished, quietly.
“And they’ll be alive to do it,” the First Space Lord agreed. “Amalgamation will go ahead because the choice is to amalgamate, or perish. And you will help.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“The Board of Inquiry will probably want to speak with you at some point,” the First Space Lord said. “And there will be questions from both America and Russia about their respective commanding officers ... but you, personally, are in the clear. There won’t be any official questions raised about your conduct.”
Because it would be too embarrassing to court martial a global hero, Stephen thought, morbidly.
“You’ll be assigned to the Admiralty on Earth, from tomorrow.” The First Space Lord gave him a droll look. “Technically, you’ll be on call; practically, you’ll be on leave. Go see your family, go do whatever you like ... your life will get busy again soon enough.”
“And I’ve lost my ship,” Stephen said.
“I’m afraid so,” the First Space Lord said. There was nothing but sympathy in his voice. He’d been a commanding officer himself. He understood. “You can return to collect your possessions, and pass command to your XO, but otherwise ...”
“I understand,” Stephen said. “Thank you, sir.”
“No, thank you,” the First Space Lord said. “You did well, Stephen. And no one will forget it.”
Stephen stood, saluted and walked out of the office. There was a shuttle waiting, to take him back to his ship, but ... he sighed, feeling grim as he walked down the corridor to the observation blister. He’d won, but it felt as if he’d lost. He would never be a co
mmanding officer again. He would never be sole master of his ship. He would ... he would always be a guest, when he was onboard ship. He’d done well, and his reward was losing the thing that gave his life meaning.
He shook his head as he stepped into the observation blister. Earth floated below him, a blue-white orb seemingly untouched by human hands. Even the orbital tower was hard to spot, a thin thread that looked no bigger than a piece of human hair. It was hard to believe it was a true tower, home to hundreds of thousands of residents as well as the giant elevators for moving goods in and out of the gravity well. And there were four of them.
And this will be lost, if the virus wins, he thought. He hadn’t needed the First Space Lord to tell him what was at stake. Defeat means the end of the world.
The Right of the Line Page 40