Ark Royal

by Christopher Nuttall

  He scowled. Humanity hadn't really fought an interstellar war. Sure, there had been the skirmishes between Edo and Ghandi, or the confrontation between Washington and Confucius over a third system, but nothing that had broken out into general war. Hell, there were even agreements that Earth and the Sol System would remain neutral if war actually did break out. No one really knew how the latest military technology would work in open warfare. There were simulations and exercises, but they were never as useful as the real thing.

  And now there was an alien threat. What sort of technology would they have?

  “So far, the media has not caught wind of the threat,” the First Space Lord informed him, shortly. “The Prime Minister and other world leaders has ordered a total blackout. However, I do not expect that to last long. Rumours are already flying around the datanet and it won’t be long before someone breaks the blackout. It will certainly be broken when we start calling up reserves and conscripting civilians.

  “Go back to your ship, taking your new XO with you,” he continued. “Requisition whatever you need; I’ll do my best to make sure you have it. If we’re lucky, this will all blow over, but I rather doubt it.”

  Ted nodded in agreement. The aliens had just attacked. Unprovoked, as far as anyone knew, they’d just attacked – and not one colony, but four. It suggested either unhealthy confidence or careful observation of humanity before opening fire. Ted wouldn't have been surprised to discover that the aliens had surveyed the entire human sphere. There was enough civilian traffic moving through interstellar space to conceal a handful of alien spy ships, if the aliens showed up on sensors at all. Whatever the civilians might think, there was plenty of space between the planets to hide the entire human fleet.

  They think they can win, Ted thought. He shivered at the thought. Only a fool would start a war they didn't think they could win. What do they want?

  “Yes, sir,” he said, pushing his thoughts aside. The prospect of actually taking his ship into harm’s way galvanised him. “I won’t let you down.”

  He rose to his feet and saluted, as smartly as he could. Captain Fitzwilliam – no, he’d be a Commander now – followed, his face blank and unreadable. Ted sighed, inwardly. Fitzwilliam would have a major chip on his shoulder after being told he would be given command – and then watching as it was snatched away from him. Ted wouldn't really blame him for being irked, but he couldn't afford the distraction of a sulking XO. They would have to talk and hash it out, perhaps over a drink ...

  No, Ted told himself, firmly. A drunkard could not take command of a ship that was going into action. That was plain common sense. You are not going to drink until the war is over.

  Chapter Two

  Captain James Montrose Fitzwilliam had to fight to keep his annoyance and disappointment from showing on his face as he followed his new commanding officer through the metallic corridors of Nelson Base. It had seemed so perfect. His uncle – a high-ranking officer – had known about the alert in time for James to attempt to push himself forward as Ark Royal’s commander. A modern carrier would have required an officer with more experience – the old boy’s network went only so far – but Ark Royal didn't have such stringent requirements. He could have taken command – and, in becoming the youngest commanding officer in the Royal Navy, ensured his swift promotion to command of a more modern starship.

  But Commodore – Captain, he reminded himself – Smith had talked the Admiral into leaving him in command of Ark Royal. The hell of it was, James knew, was that Smith might not be too far wrong. James had served on two carriers and a frigate, but all three of them had been modern ships. Britannia had barely been out of the slips when he'd served as her tactical officer. But Ark Royal was over seventy years old. She might well be harder to command than a more modern vessel.

  Resentment bubbled at the corner of his mind, muted by the grim awareness that Smith might have saved him from embarrassment – or worse. He wouldn't gain experience of serving as XO on a modern carrier if he served on Ark Royal – and he wouldn't gain command experience to offset the starship’s age. His career might just have been frozen solid, as solid as Smith’s own ... and he'd done it to himself. How could he reasonably blame Smith for wanting to keep command? He wanted command!

  They entered the shuttlebay and passed a handful of elaborate security checks before boarding the tiny ship. Smith spoke briefly to the pilot, then settled back in his chair and closed his eyes. James eyed him thoughtfully, wondering just what the older man was thinking. Relief, perhaps, that he’d retained his command? Or irritation at having a new XO thrust down his throat? But then, Ark Royal hadn't had an official XO since she’d been placed in the reserves. Smith had effectively been his own XO.

  The shuttle quivered as it floated out of the shuttlebay and headed towards the naval reserve yards, where Ark Royal was waiting. James couldn't help a flicker of excitement as he leaned forward, peering out the porthole for his first glimpse of the massive carrier. Even if he wasn't going to take command, he would still be serving on her – and the first sight of a new starship was always special. Dozens of other shuttles and tiny starships floated through Earth’s crowded orbital space, their sheer multitude a sign that something was badly wrong. It was only a matter of time, James knew, before the news media discovered what was going on. And then ...

  He swallowed, feeling a curious tension at the base of his throat. Unless it was all a big misunderstanding, they were going to be going to war – with aliens. It was a staggering thought. No one had anticipated aliens, not really. The Royal Navy had confronted Chinese and Russian starships over brief disputes over mining and settlement rights, but there had been no major shooting war since the Puller Drive had been invented. And yet ... he wondered, suddenly, just why so many resources had been poured into the military. All of the major spacefaring powers had built up their navies, often at staggering cost. Had they known there was a potential outside threat?

  But humans aren't known for being peaceable, he thought, snidely. If we didn't keep up with our defences, our human enemies would overwhelm us.

  The shuttle quivered again as Ark Royal came into view. James sucked in his breath, drinking in the details; the giant carrier was larger than he’d realised ... and cruder. The elegant lines of modern carriers – to say nothing of civilian starships – were missing. Instead, she was a boxy hulk, studded with weapons and sensor blisters. Four fighter launch tubes protruded out of her hull, each one wrapped in heavy armour. Ark Royal was as much battleship as she was carrier, he recalled from the briefing notes. The naval doctrine of her time had insisted that carriers had to be able to take damage as well as dish it out. It was one of the reasons her rate of acceleration was so slow.

  “Half of the weapons have been replaced over the years,” Smith said. “Our tactical system had to be modified extensively just to handle them.”

  James jumped. He hadn't realised Smith was watching him. The back of his neck heated as he turned to face his commanding officer, realising that he had no choice, but to do his job to the best of his ability. Connections, no matter how highly placed, wouldn't be enough to save him if his commanding officer wrote a negative review. And besides, he had asked for it.

  “She’s magnificent, sir,” he said, and meant it. “How well does she handle?”

  “Like a wallowing pig,” Smith said. “There aren’t many real improvements we could make to the drives without tearing the whole rear section apart and replacing them completely.”

  The shuttle altered course, allowing him to see every last detail of the carrier’s hull. James had to admit that she looked good, if crude. She might have been in the reserves, but her crew hadn't been allowed to slack off ... even if they had felt they’d been exiled to the ass end of nowhere. He felt an odd flicker of admiration for Smith. The man might have a reputation for drinking, yet he'd managed to keep his command in shape.

  Smith keyed his terminal as the shuttle straightened out and headed towards the shuttl
ebay. “I’m calling the senior crew to the shuttlebay,” he said, by way of explanation. “There won’t be a formal welcoming party, I’m afraid, but I’ll introduce you to the senior officers. You can meet the others later, once we’re more organised.”

  “Yes, sir,” James said. There were senior officers who would be furious if the formalities were ignored, but he saw Smith’s point. Ark Royal’s reserve crew didn't have the manpower to put on a display. He swallowed again as he realised the depth of his own ignorance. Ark Royal’s crew knew far more than him about their starship’s condition. “I look forward to it.”

  Smith smiled. The shuttle landed – there was a faint shiver as the shuttle’s artificial gravity field merged with the starship’s internal field – and the hatch hissed open. James rose to his feet and followed Smith out of the hatch and into the shuttlebay, looking around with considerable interest. The shuttlebay looked as crude as the starship’s interior, but it was clearly kept in good shape. Two more shuttles, both partly cannibalised for spare parts, sat on the other side of the giant compartment. They looked oddly pitiful to James’s eyes.

  It took him a moment to realise that something was missing ... and several more moments to realise what it was. The omnipresent background noise from the starship’s drives was simply absent. James felt his eyes narrow, then realised that most of the drives and their fusion cores would have been shut down while the starship remained in the reserves. There was no point in placing further wear and tear on equipment that was effectively irreplaceable.

  They stepped through the airlock and into the welcoming lounge. James saluted the flag, then straightened automatically as he saw four officers waiting for them. All four of them looked alarmingly dishevelled, as if they’d only just climbed out of their bunks. They didn't seem to have much pride in themselves, he realised grimly, and yet there was something about them that kept him from dismissing them automatically. He couldn't place his finger on it.

  “Welcome aboard,” Smith said. “Commander Fitzwilliam, please allow me to introduce Alan Anderson, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Daniel Lightbridge, Helmsman, Lieutenant Commander Keith Farley, Tactical Officer and Midshipwoman Janelle Lopez.”

  There was a long moment as they exchanged salutes. James studied them, silently promising to read their files as soon as possible. Anderson looked tough; his left arm had been replaced with a metallic prosthetic that made no attempt to pass for natural flesh and blood. Like most senior engineering crew, James knew, he would have spent most of his career on Ark Royal, working his way up the ranks to Chief Engineer. Chances were that he wouldn't have a hope of another posting, even if Ark Royal were to be permanently decommissioned. His experience would be years out of date.

  Lightbridge was a tall black man, his bald head gleaming in the cold light from overhead. He held himself so still that it seemed almost unnatural, although there was a hint of easy competence in his stance. All helmsmen, at least in James’s experience, resented not being starfighter pilots and tended to put their ships through exaggerated manoeuvres purely to prove they could. Ark Royal probably wouldn't be able to tolerate it, he guessed, making another mental note to check the files. Just who had Lightbridge pissed off to be posted to the ancient carrier?

  Keith Farley, by contrast, seemed permanently uncertain of his capabilities. The name was oddly familiar, but it took James several moments to remember a naval bulletin that had named and shamed an officer who’d managed to ram an asteroid, a feat that should have been impossible. No doubt part of the story had been missing, he decided, as he eyed Farley carefully. He should have been kicked out of the navy if he'd actually rammed an asteroid.

  Midshipwomen Lopez was a surprise. She was tall and slim, with a dark complexion and long dark hair that fell down her back. Naval uniforms were far from flattering, but James couldn't help noticing the swell of her breasts and the shape of her hips. What was she doing on the ship? James wondered, sourly, if she was having a relationship with one of the other crewmen. Being assigned to Ark Royal was career death, to all intents and purposes. The thought made him scowl, bitterly. His own career might have been killed ... and he'd done it to himself.

  “You can meet everyone formally later,” Smith said. He raised his voice, addressing his officers. “Briefing Room A, ten minutes.”

  James nodded and followed Smith through the starship’s interior. The corridors were bare; every few metres, a hatch lay open, revealing the starship’s innards. James cringed, remembering just what his first CO had said when a hatch had been left open accidentally, then realised that Ark Royal’s crew didn't have much choice. There was so much to do and so few of them to actually do it. He was mildly surprised that there was no dust in the corridors; indeed, it seemed that the whole ship was surprisingly clean.

  He paused as he heard a dull rumble echoing through the ship. “What was that?”

  “Test cycle for Fusion Five,” Smith said. “We test one of the six fusion cores each day, just to make sure that they are still operational. Losing one of them would be irritating.”

  “More than irritating,” James said, recalling his earlier thoughts. “Could they be replaced, if necessary?”

  “We’d have to have the cores built specially for Ark Royal,” Smith said. He smirked, as if something amusing had just struck him. “Not the only such problem, of course. We couldn't get the different generations of computer cores to work together, no matter what the manufacturer claimed. In the end, we had to splice in a Chinese system we scrounged up from somewhere, just to provide a bridging system. If we have to replace the cores, we can probably improve on the design and cut out half of the cost.”

  James stared at him. “You have a Chinese computer system attached to the ship?”

  “Among others,” Smith said. He seemed to be enjoying James’s discomfort. “As I told you, we’ve had to improvise.”

  Briefing Room A looked as though it had been reassuringly normal, once. A large table sat in the middle of the compartment, surrounded by chairs ... half of which were piled high with boxes. Judging by the markings, James decided, Smith and his crew had laid claim to thousands of outdated spare parts that would otherwise have been sold to civilians or simply discarded for scrap. Probably the former, he told himself, after a moment. Even outdated military surplus would be useful for civilian starship crews.

  “Find a seat,” Smith said. “We’ll start in a moment.”

  James hesitated, then took one of the handful of empty seats and watched as Midshipwoman Lopez entered, carrying a tray of mugs. There was a large bottle beside the mugs, he noticed as she put the tray down on the table, but it was completely unmarked. If it came from a still on Ark Royal – technically against regulations, yet he’d never served on a ship that didn't have a still – it might well be very strong indeed.

  “Be seated,” Smith ordered as his officers entered the compartment. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

  It seemed remarkably informal to James, but he realised – as the officers sat down and reached for their mugs - that they shared a camaraderie that bound them together, no matter how poor their grasp of naval discipline seemed to be. Smith had forged a good team, he suspected, although they had never been tested in the fire. But then, very few officers had any experience with interstellar combat. A great many officers and men were going to be tested soon.

  “There have been developments,” Smith said, quietly. He briefly ran through what the Admiral had told them, ending with the statement that Ark Royal was going to return to active service. “We have a month – perhaps less – to ready ourselves for combat.”

  “Aliens,” Anderson repeated. “Not another race of Alien Space Bats, I hope?”

  James had to smile. The Alien Space Bats had been a hoax, perpetrated by bored asteroid miners years ago, back when humanity hadn't yet left the Sol System. By the time the miners had finally confessed to the hoax, countless academics had been taken in and wasted thousands of hours trying to make contac
t with the enigmatic aliens. The affair had dented so many otherwise reputable careers that many scientists had refused to believe it when spacers had reported discovering non-intelligent life forms on several extra-solar worlds.

  “There have been deaths,” Smith said. “And it isn't just us. Every spacefaring power is bringing its military to full alert.”

  There was a long pause as they contemplated the end of peace. James knew that MI6 knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other human interstellar powers ... but they knew nothing about the enigmatic alien threat. Unless he’d been right, he told himself, and enough people had known to start preparing the human race for contact. And yet ... surely the secret would have leaked out by now. Humanity’s governments were very poor at keeping secrets.

  “We should have our new crewmen assigned to us within the week,” Smith said, before anyone could start discussing the potential nature of the threat. “Once we do, I want to move ahead with a full rejuvenation of the ship.” He looked over at Anderson. “We’ll go with Option Alpha, I think, and concentrate on our war-fighting capabilities first.”

  “Understood,” Anderson said, gruffly. “We will need to clear the launch bays before we can start taking on new fighters.”