Anderson needs a reward, James thought. And so do the people who designed the ship before she was built. All that damage and she’s still operational.
He looked down at the status display, then up at Lieutenant Annie Davidson. “Signal the Admiralty,” he ordered the communications officer. “Inform them that we are departing on schedule.”
“Aye, sir, Davidson said.
“And then signal the remainder of the flotilla,” James added. “Give them a countdown to our departure.”
He settled back in his chair, feeling the starship quivering around him. Anderson had tested and retested everything, but he’d expressed private concerns over some of the components they’d had to hastily repair or replace. The Old Lady was built for constant modification – her designers had assumed naval technology would continue to advance indefinitely – yet some of her older systems were completely incompatible with newer systems. Anderson had said it time and time again, hammering the point home. There had been no attempt to modify and modernise Ark Royal while she’d been floating in the Naval Reserve and they were paying for it now.
The ship quivered again, a feeling that echoed through his bones and then faded away into nothingness. He couldn't help feeling a quiver himself, recalling just how blithely he’d turned down Uncle Winchester’s offer of a way out of the nightmare. He’d meant every word he’d said to the older man – he was damned if he was deserting Admiral Smith now – and yet part of him wondered if he’d made a mistake. But there was no going back now.
Maybe they’ll send the fleet out anyway, he thought, sourly. Whatever else happens, things are going to change for humanity.
He took a breath. “Bring the drives up to full power,” he ordered as the countdown reached zero. “And then take us towards the tramline.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lightbridge said. A low hum echoed through the ship, growing in power as the drives started to propel the Old Lady forward. “We are underway.”
“Prepare to launch the drones as soon as we cross the tramline,” James ordered the tactical officer. “Do it just like we practiced.”
“Aye, Captain,” Commander Keith Farley said. “The drones are ready for immediate launch.”
James nodded, feeling sweat trickling down his back. The aliens hadn't tried to occupy Terra Nova, but they might well have pickets in the system, watching humanity’s starships as they moved towards the front lines. Ideally, the drones would pose as Ark Royal and her flotilla long enough for the fleet to slip away under cloak and then make its way towards the very edge of the Terra Nova system. Once there, away from any alien pickets, they would start advancing towards Target One.
Again, he thought, wryly. But will they have bothered to repair the defences and station war fleets in the system to meet us?
It was the old question, he knew. Just how many ships did the aliens have? There was no way to know, yet he suspected that if the ships Ark Royal had encountered during Operation Nelson had been assigned to the attack on Earth, Earth would have fallen. It suggested that the aliens either had publics that refused to allow home defence to be minimised or internal security problems of their own. Perhaps there were several alien groups and the one fighting humanity had to watch its back at the same time.
Are they watching the back doors into their space, he asked himself, or are they gathering their forces for one last try at Earth?
James had never considered himself a strategist. Uncle Winchester was the long-term thinker in the family. But he thought he understood the alien tactics. They’d devised a weapons mix they’d thought would be sufficient to overwhelm humanity – and they would have been right, if Ark Royal had been scrapped. Their advance through humanity’s star systems had been smooth, clearly intended to mop up resistance as they went along, rather than a blitzkrieg towards Earth. And then they’d been slapped back by Ark Royal and had been forced to reconsider their options.
And the bastards are alarmingly innovative, he thought, remembering the nightmarish moment when laser warheads had burned into his ship’s hull. Just like us.
“Captain,” Lightbridge said, breaking into his thoughts. “We are approaching the tramline.”
James nodded, feeling his gut twist uncomfortably. He would have preferred to sneak through the tramline to Terra Nova, but it had been unlikely that the aliens wouldn't be watching the Old Lady and her fleet ... if, of course, they had pickets in the Sol System. It was what James would have done, if he’d had the ships to spare – and as long as they remained stealthy, there was little fear of detection.
“War Hog is to jump,” he ordered. The frigate already had her orders. “And the remainder of the fleet is to go to tactical alert.”
Alarms howled through the giant carrier as, on the display, the icon representing the frigate crawled towards the tramline and vanished. It was unlikely, James knew, that the aliens were preparing an ambush. They probably didn't have an entire fleet under cloak in the next system. But he knew better than to take anything for granted, not now. He silently counted down the seconds in his head until the icon snapped back into existence, seemingly untouched.
“Captain,” Davidson said, “local space is clear.”
James nodded, relieved. “Take us through,” he ordered. “And then launch the drones.”
He hated the moments when he couldn't do anything, when all the orders were issued and all he could do was wait for them to be carried out, but there was nothing he could do about them. The carrier shivered as she passed through the tramline, then the lights automatically dimmed slightly as the cloaking device activated. As long as the aliens didn't have a picket alarmingly close to the tramline, they shouldn't have noticed the carrier cloaking. Her signature had been replaced by a drone.
“Drones are deployed, sir,” Farley reported. “Everything looks nominal.”
Unless the aliens attack the drones, James thought. They’d learn very quickly that nothing was remotely nominal about them.
“Send the drones off on their cruise,” he ordered. “And keep monitoring them for glitches.”
He rose to his feet and walked over to Farley’s console as the drones moved further and further away from the ship. Terra Nova hadn't even tried to hail the fleet, even though the planet was within a few light minutes of the tramline. According to the last report, Terra Nova had gone underground, with all radio transmitters confiscated by the various governments. James rather doubted the governments had managed to secure all the transmitters, but it hardly mattered. The aliens knew perfectly well where Terra Nova was, if they wanted it. And the planet was effectively defenceless.
“The drones appear to be working perfectly,” Farley said, after ten minutes had passed. The display updated as the drones curved away from their mothership. “They’re starting their loop around the system now. They’ll return to the tramline in three days and go silent. It’ll look like they jumped out of the system.”
“Good,” James said. He returned to his command chair and sat. “Helm, take us towards the transfer point, under cloak. Be sure to keep a distance from any contact, no matter how weak.”
“Aye, sir,” Lightbridge said.
James settled back into his chair. It would take hours to reach the planned transfer point, then days to cross the alien-held system to the next tramline. Normally, starships sought out the least-time courses, but they were the easiest ones to predict and picket. The aliens would have their work cut out for them if they tried to picket all possible courses. They’d need thousands of ships or sensor platforms to make it workable.
Which won’t stop them leaving listening posts in a few sensible locations, James thought. That’s what we do, after all.
He keyed a switch. “All hands, this is the Captain,” he said. “We will remain under cloak, as planned, for the foreseeable future. I expect all of you to remember the silent running protocols.”
Closing the channel, he thought rapidly. The crew would be tense, he knew, but there was nothing he could do
about that. There was something about being under cloak that made it harder for people to concentrate and left them whispering to one another, even though everyone knew sound didn't travel through space. The XO would do her best to arrange activities for the crewmen, once they ran out of repair work to do; he hoped it would keep everyone distracted.
And stop our guests from complaining, he thought. The Ambassadors had taken their quarters in stride, but their aides had complained loudly. Perhaps they just hated the thought of having to share a cabin with their superiors. James, who had to share a cabin with his XO, found it hard to be sympathetic. And he was quite prepared to murder Uncle Winchester if he suggested that something untoward had developed between him and Commander Williams.
“Keep us on course,” he ordered, pulling up a tactical exercise. At least they had even more data on just what the aliens could do. But who knew what they’d kept hidden from humanity until it was too late? There was too much speculation and not enough hard facts. “Inform me the moment anything changes.”
Shaking his head, he activated the exercise and went to work.
Chapter Thirteen
“That was a major balls-up,” Kurt said, glowering at the assembled newcomers. Half of them looked as though they were going to start crying. “If the aliens had attacked us like that, you would all be dead. And so would the crew of this ship.”
He sighed, inwardly. Why was it a surprise, he asked himself sarcastically, that the trainee pilots had bigger egos than piloting skills? There was an old joke, after all, that if a pilot didn't know who was the best pilot in the sky it sure as hell wasn't him. But it couldn’t be tolerated, not now.
This was a bloody stupid decision, he thought, morbidly. But he still couldn't see any workable alternative, save drafting pilots from the remaining home defence squadrons. And most of these pilots are going to end up dead when we first face the aliens.
“Get some rest,” he ordered, “then we will have a proper debriefing session and go through each and every one of your mistakes. In particular, you might want to think about the simple fact that there is no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ You are part of a team and if you can't act as part of a team, you’ll be put on the benches and flogged. Dismissed!”
He watched them sidle out the room and sighed, bitterly.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to flog pilots,” Rose said, as soon as the compartment was empty. “There are regulations against making yourself or someone else unfit for military service.”
“It’s amazing what regulations permit, if you look at them in the right way,” Kurt said, shortly. Rose was the last person he wanted to speak to at the moment. “It’s semi-legal to put someone in an airlock and threaten to decompress it to teach them a lesson.”
Rose snorted, then strode over to the hatch and locked it. “We need to talk,” she said, turning to face him. She rested her hands on her hips as she glared. “What is wrong with you?”
Kurt started. “Wrong with me?”
“You’ve been moping around like a depressed donkey for the last week,” Rose snapped. “I think I’ve been doing a shitload of your work in getting those incompetents ready for battle and cleaning up their messes. You’ve barely been present at training sessions that don’t involve you personally and ...”
She took a breath. “And you declined my advances over several days,” she added, her voice softening. “Kurt ... what is wrong with you?”
Kurt stared down at his hands. He wanted to tell her ... and yet he didn't dare. But that, his conscience prodded, was a cowardly attitude. Her career was at stake too. Hell, for all he knew, the people who were blackmailing him had also made advances to her, although that would have been harder. He’d been the only one to leave the ship and go to Luna City. In hindsight ...
His blood ran cold. In hindsight, how had the blackmailers known he was going to go to Luna City?
Rose took his hands and guided him towards a chair, then pushed him into it. His mind blurred, part of him remembering him kneeling before her and taking him in her mouth, part of him recognising her concern as friendly, rather than sexual. He wanted to cry, to lose control completely and start screaming at the bulkheads, but somehow he held himself under control. She didn't deserve to watch him come apart at the seams.
“Kurt,” Rose said, quietly. “What happened on Luna?”
Kurt swallowed, then decided to be honest. “I was ambushed,” he said. “And blackmailed.”
Rose’s eyes suddenly went very hard. “Blackmailed with what?”
“Us,” Kurt said. “Our relationship. They said they’d tell the entire universe if I didn't do as they said.”
Rose stood upright, letting go of his hands. “Shit,” she said, as she started to pace the compartment. “What else did they say?”
Kurt ran through the whole story from start to finish, then put his head in his hands. It was over. He’d ruined her life as well as his own. God knew it would have been smarter to desert and take her with him. Or perhaps ...
“They say they have proof,” Rose said, slowly. “What proof do they have?”
“Footage of us ... making love,” Kurt said. “They must have been spying on us for quite some time.”
“Or maybe they got lucky,” Rose said. “Where was the footage taken?”
Kurt hesitated, trying to place it. He should have studied it more carefully when Fred had waved it under his nose, instead of trying to recoil in horror and denial. If he’d taken the terminal and its compromising recording for himself ... he thought hard, trying to recall the details. It had looked like a hotel room ...
“The hotel we went to in Sin City,” he said, finally. “I think ...”
Rose snorted. “Such footage can be faked,” she said, snidely. “How many times did you go to Sin City as a young man and fuck the latest entertainment star in a VR environment? I believe that fucking Princess Elizabeth is quite common among some of the younger generation of pilots. They just plug in the right simulation and fuck away.”
“The footage would be perfect,” Kurt reminded her. “They’d have everything just right, from your breast size to my hairy chest.”
“My breasts are a matter of public record,” Rose sneered. “I had to be measured for the flight suit, remember? Given sufficient access, it would be easy to come up with footage that would be practically perfect in every way.”
She walked back over to him and patted his shoulder. “It might seem bad,” she said, “but it isn't a total disaster.”
“It is,” Kurt said. “The allegations will trigger another investigation, just like the one into Prince Henry’s death. They will uncover time we spent together, more than could reasonably be justified. And then they will put us on the stand and ask us if we were in a relationship ...”
“We’re also heroes,” Rose said. She snorted. “Ok; they find out proof we’ve been fucking during our off-duty hours. They try to charge us with breaking regulations. The public crucify them. They’d be much smarter to ask us both to resign with honour and bury the entire scandal under the rug.”
“I wish I shared your optimism,” Kurt said. “The evidence could also make it suggest the regulations were bent for us. That would also be a political headache.”
He sighed. The British Aristocracy had learned, the hard way, just how dangerous favouritism – or even the appearance of favouritism – could be. Kurt and Rose might not be aristocrats, but they were heroes – and the appearance of letting them off lightly because of their heroism could cause the government a whole series of problems. It was a toss-up if the government would let them resign gracefully, throw them out on their ears or send them to a work crew in the worst-hit parts of the country.
“Let’s go through this,” Rose said. “Someone is trying to blackmail you. What do they want?”
She went on before he could say a word. “They don’t want money,” she continued, “or they would have demanded it before you left Earth.”
“I don't have m
uch,” Kurt said. “And money is practically worthless right now.”
“So whatever they want,” Rose said, “is more likely to be a major headache. Did they give you any specific orders?”
“Merely that I would receive a message,” Kurt said. “And that when I received the message, I was to go to the observation blister and ... see who met me there.”
“That means they have someone on the ship,” Rose said, slowly. “Did they realise we were fucking during Operation Nelson – or earlier?”
“Or the newcomer is part of the ambassadorial party,” Kurt said. It hadn't occurred to him that someone on Ark Royal had betrayed them. It should have, he knew. Someone had ratted out Prince Henry and Janelle Lopez, after all. “And whoever it is has a great deal of access in places that are meant to be secure.”
Ark Royal 3: The Trafalgar Gambit Page 13