Ark Royal 3: The Trafalgar Gambit

by Christopher Nuttall

  Ted nodded. “We need to know why they’re doing this,” he said, softly. “What do they have in mind?”

  “Sabotage the ship?” Parnell suggested. “Or perhaps make it impossible to come to terms with the aliens?”

  “They’d have to be out of their minds,” Fitzwilliam said. “The war is on the verge of being lost!”

  “Some people rarely believe that disaster, even a lost war with an alien race, can touch them,” Parnell said. “That’s why the Barbary States sometimes send raiders over to Europe, even though they can expect massive retaliation from orbit. Their leaders are so secure in their own power they think nothing and no one can touch them.”

  “... Idiots,” Fitzwilliam said. He smiled, suddenly. “Although I know a number of aristocrats who act like that, I suppose.”

  He met Ted’s eyes. “What do we do with them?”

  “I’d suggest offering a honourable discharge in exchange for cooperation,” Parnell said. He held up a hand before Fitzwilliam could say a word. “I know you will want to throw the book at them, Captain, but we don’t want to discourage others from coming forward.”

  “I see,” Fitzwilliam said. “But if we’re not going to tell anyone about this ... affair, Major, how will they know we were merciful?”

  “Some details may be released later, once everyone is safety dispersed,” Parnell said. “And I would caution you against believing that something will remain secret indefinitely. This affair certainly did not.”

  “True,” Ted said. He looked at Fitzwilliam. “A honourable discharge?”

  Fitzwilliam nodded, once.

  ***

  As a child – back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, according to Percy – Kurt had stolen some money from his mother. He’d had a good reason at the time, he'd thought, but guilt had overwhelmed him almost at once. Eventually, he’d returned the money and made a full confession. His mother had been furious and confined him to the house for the next month, but he’d felt better after admitting his guilt. He’d done something wrong and knew it, no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise.

  He felt much the same, now, as they made their way to the gallery. It was far from private, he knew, but it was rare for pilots to eat outside Pilot Country. He knew his life had been irreparably damaged, that he might have dragged down Rose and his children too, yet he felt better for having confessed. The die had been cast and now he could think clearly again. He led the way into the compartment, took a large cup of coffee from the dispenser and sat down at a table on the far side of the room. Rose sat, facing him, a second later.

  “That was very brave,” she said.

  Kurt snorted. Bravery was one of the defining traits of starfighter pilots, along with a reckless disregard for danger or official flying regulations. Most of them were written by desk jockeys and pasty-faced bureaucrats, none of whom had any real experience flying starfighters. Flying a starfighter into the teeth of alien fire took real nerve. But he’d never really done anything that risked his family before.

  “I suppose,” he said, finally. He wanted to hug her, to tell her that it would be all right, but he knew he could do neither. “And I'm sorry.”

  Rose pointed a finger at him, like the barrel of a gun. “Stop apologising for everything,” she said, tartly. “I made my own decisions.”

  Kurt took a sip of his coffee, grimaced at the taste and then took another sip. “Yes, but I’m the one being blackmailed,” he said. “That makes it my fault.”

  “I think you’re the most vulnerable,” Rose pointed out. “You have a family – and the higher rank. I could just have told them to piss off.”

  She was right, Kurt knew. If she’d been willing to throw him under a bus, she could have claimed he’d pushed her into sex, promising promotion as a reward. It was quite likely it would have worked too. Senior officers were expected to handle themselves better than their juniors.

  He jumped as a hand fell on his shoulder. When he looked up, he found himself staring into the eyes of Major Parnell. The Marine looked ... emotionless, no pity or anger in his eyes.

  “You’re nicked, my lad,” the Marine said. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kurt said. He looked at Rose. “Go put them through another training simulation.”

  He allowed the Marine to lead him through the ship’s corridors and into Marine Country, where he was unceremoniously pushed into a small room. There was nothing inside, but a metal desk, a pair of chairs and a water cooler. The table was completely bare.

  “Sit,” Parnell ordered. He strode around the desk and sat facing Kurt. “I said sit.”

  Kurt sat. The chair was thoroughly uncomfortable.

  “You're in a right spot of bother,” Parnell said, bluntly. “The good news is that the Admiral and the Captain have agreed that you and your ... lover will be offered a honourable discharge at the end of the deployment. Once discharged, any footage your friends might have of the pair of you will become about as worthless as a standard piece of voyeuristic crap.”

  “Oh,” Kurt said. Having footage of a civilian caught in sexual acts on the datanet would be embarrassing for the victim, but hardly newsworthy. It was more than he'd dared hope for, which probably meant it came with a price. “And what is the catch?”

  Parnell smiled. It didn't touch his eyes. “The bad news is that you’ll be expected to do everything in your power to help us identify the people trying to blackmail you,” he said. “And I mean everything.”

  He tapped the table. “I wish you’d brought this to us before we left Earth,” he added. “We could have followed up leads right there and then. Instead ... we will only be able to focus on this ship and crew. Tracking down the people behind your friends will be tricky.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kurt said.

  “I know you probably weren't thinking too clearly,” Parnell added. He jabbed a finger at Kurt to make his point. “You’d just been shocked badly. However, this is the time to think clearly. We are going to go over everything.”

  He settled back in his chair. “You’re not under arrest,” he warned. “However, I am obliged to warn you of several things. This conversation will be recorded and it will be entered into the official investigative log. Should you be caught in a lie, it will be held against you when the Admiralty and MI5 consider your position. My very strong advice would be to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth.”

  He paused. “I suggest you pour yourself a glass of water,” he added. “This could take quite some time.”

  Kurt nodded and obeyed. When he returned to his chair, Parnell had a datapad open in front of him and was skimming the pages, clearly looking for questions to ask. Or was he just pretending to be distracted? It was impossible to tell.

  “First question, then,” Parnell said. “Precisely what happened on the day you were told that someone else had footage of your sex life?”

  Kurt braced himself, then went through the entire story. Parnell was a good interrogator, he rapidly discovered; every time he was unsure about a detail, he asked questions until it was clarified to the best of Kurt’s ability. Kurt hadn't realised how much he’d seen or heard until Parnell teased it out of him, although much of what he hadn't realised he’d forgotten was largely useless. Fred’s identity was still a complete mystery.

  “It sounds like a professional,” Parnell said. “Did you hear an accent?”

  “No, sir,” Kurt said.

  “Definitely a professional,” Parnell said. “You probably wouldn't have noticed an accent if he worked his tones to sound like you. Chances are his face was the result of some cosmetic surgery too. He’d change again as soon as he left Luna City, making it impossible to track him down.”

  Kurt swore. “Is it hopeless then?”

  “I wouldn't say that,” Parnell said. “Where was the footage taken?”

  “I think it was in Sin City,” Kurt said.

  Parnell lifted his eyebrows. “And what were you doing in Sin City?
”

  Kurt glared at him. “What do people normally do in Sin City?”

  “They don’t normally bring their partners,” Parnell pointed out.

  “We wanted to share a hotel room without having to be discreet,” Kurt said. It had been a fine weekend, marred only by the fact they’d had to split up to return to the Academy. And by the fact the hotel manager kept offering to send a girl – or a boy – up to their room. “You know their reputation for secrecy.”

  Parnell snorted. “That is a joke, right?”

  “... Yes,” Kurt said.

  “Tell me,” Parnell ordered. “How do you know the footage was shot in Sin City?”

  Kurt took a breath. “It was the hotel room,” he said, firmly. “It wasn’t my office or quarters at Luna Academy.”

  “There are – there were – no shortage of intelligence officers prowling through Sin City,” Parnell muttered. He glared down at the desk, then looked up. “How long did you spend there?”

  “A weekend,” Kurt said. “We booked in Friday evening and left Sunday, mid-afternoon.”

  “And where else did you go?” Parnell asked. “Or did you just stay there?”

  “Yes,” Kurt said. They’d been reluctant to go anywhere else, knowing they might be seen by someone else from the Academy. “We ordered room service and stayed together.”

  “She must really like you,” Parnell said. “Of course, losing Sin City means following up that angle of investigation won’t be easy.”

  Kurt cursed. The aliens, deliberately or otherwise, had destroyed Sin City. Anyone who might have been involved in planting cameras in hotel rooms was probably dead.

  “Maybe they did it deliberately,” he mused. “What if the blackmailers are working for the aliens?”

  Parnell shrugged. “It seems unlikely,” he said. “They wouldn't need to blow up Sin City to cover their tracks. All it would take is a knife in the back.”

  He stood. “We’ll be doing this again tomorrow,” he added. “I suggest you make sure you free up some time on your schedule. We will be going over this time and time again until they actually get in touch.”

  Kurt nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Wake,” an atonal voice said.

  Henry jerked awake, his eyes snapping open. Four aliens stood in the prison cell, their massive eyes watching him warily. Three of them, he noted with some surprise, wore clothes that resembled wetsuits, while the fourth was as naked as always. Jill started – she’d cuddled up to him as they slept – and sat upright, no longer bothering to try to cover her breasts. It was all Henry could do to keep his body from betraying his awareness of her nakedness ...

  But then, being stared at by alien perverts would cool anyone’s lust, he thought, as he stood. The aliens had never entered the compartment while the humans were sleeping before, as far as he knew. I couldn't perform under their gaze.

  “Put. On,” one of the aliens said. It pointed to a large bag on the floor. “Now.”

  Henry picked up the bag and opened it. Inside, there were a pair of masks attached to a set of canisters. It reminded him of the scuba gear he'd used as a child, before he realised that that was precisely what they were. If the aliens wanted him to swim outside the prison cell, they’d have to give him a source of breathable air as well as a mask. But ... he looked up, through the transparent ceiling. Just how deep below the water were they? It was far too easy to imagine them being struck by the bends as soon as they reached the surface ... and he had no idea how to explain the prospective danger to the aliens. All they could do was endure.

  “Pass me one of them,” Jill said. She took it from him and pulled it over her face with casual ease. She’d used the masks before, Henry recalled, although the aliens had never let her keep them. “You put it on like this.”

  Henry followed her lead, wondering just where the aliens had found the gear. Had they taken it from Heinlein, one of the other colonies or had they simply produced it for themselves. He pushed the questions aside seconds later as he felt the mask seal itself around his face, then heard a hiss as he started to draw air from the canisters. The air smelt slightly moist, but it was breathable. Or so he hoped. It would be the height of irony if the alien attempt to keep him alive ended up killing him.

  One of the aliens splashed down into the water and vanished in the murky water. The others beckoned for Henry to move forward and enter the water himself. Henry hesitated, but – knowing there was no choice – he made his way forward and jumped down. The water was warmer than he’d expected, like dropping into a warm bath, but it felt faintly slimy against his skin. Perhaps it was just his imagination, he told himself firmly, as Jill jumped down beside him. He certainly wanted to believe it was his imagination.

  Jill glanced at him, her face unreadable behind the mask, then lowered her head until she was under the water completely. Henry followed, cursing mentally as his vision blurred and then cleared as the mask started to compensate. It was hard to see much in the gloom, apart from lights in the distance, but he could at least keep sight of Jill. Something about the water bothered him, although he couldn't place it. Moments later, the aliens swam past and motioned for the humans to follow. Henry braced himself – it had been years since he’d swum outside a swimming pool – and forced himself to swim after them. It rapidly became clear that the aliens were far better swimmers than humanity. They clearly needed to hold back just to keep the humans with them.

  The alien city slowly came into view as they swam overhead. It reminded him of images of sunken towns and cities on Earth, except it was clearly a thriving metropolis. Aliens were everywhere, swimming in groups of three or more, surrounded by fish that hovered near them as though they were daring the aliens to try to catch and eat them. From time to time, an alien did just that, snapping a fish out of the water as easily as a shark would catch a minnow. Other aliens would roll over in the water and stare at the humans, their enormous eyes tracking their alien guests with ease. Several actually swam alongside the humans until they lost interest and turned away.

  We’re being paraded, Henry realised. He’d been in enough parades to know they weren't always about the person in the lead car. But why?

  He pushed the thought aside and started to study the alien buildings, trying to see how they worked. Some of them were made from stone, carefully assembled below the waves; others were made of something that looked like emerald, although he suspected it wasn't real emerald. It could easily have been a trick of the light. He thought he saw hundreds of tiny crab-like creatures scuttling along the seabed, moving in and out of the houses as if they owned the place. The sheer diversity of life below the seabed was remarkable.

  A hand caught hold of his and pulled him forward. He looked up into the eyes of an alien, who seemed more annoyed at the delay than anything else. There were no threats, at least as far as Henry could tell, but he got the message anyway and forced himself forward. Jill and her escort had almost vanished in the gloomy distance.

  It felt like hours, his arms and legs aching in a way they hadn't since Basic Training, before they finally reached their destination, a tiny craft sitting on the seabed. It looked like a weird shuttle, one of the lunar buses that could only operate in low gravity, or perhaps a minisub. Henry felt himself yawn, despite the mask, as the aliens pushed him towards the hatch and forced him into the ship. Jill was already there, her mask discarded and lying at her feet. Her hair was so damp that it clung to her shoulders and breasts. But Henry was too tired to stare.

  There were no aliens in the compartment, Henry realised, as the hatch slid closed beneath them. It was a prison, just as much as the prison cell they’d been forced to leave. A dull whining echoed through the craft as it came to life – for a moment, Henry was convinced his first impressions had been right and it was a shuttlecraft – and then started to move. It shivered from side to side as it passed through the water, his ears popping within seconds. They were clearly r
ising up towards the surface ...

  “The bends,” he said, cursing his own ignorance. He wasn't even sure what the bends were, let alone how to cope with them without a pressure chamber. “If you feel pain ...”

  Jill looked bleakly at him. “What can we do about it?”

  Henry swallowed. “Suffer,” he said.

  His ears popped again as the craft shook violently, then started to rock steadily. He couldn't help being reminded of a motorboat on the ocean ... had the alien craft already reached the surface? If so, maybe they’d only been a few dozen metres below the waves, not deep enough to make the bends a serious danger. But would the aliens have known to show their captives so much consideration? God knew a couple of aliens humanity had taken captive had died soon afterwards, their captives utterly unable to treat them properly.