Ark Royal

by Christopher Nuttall

  Normally, you would be transferred, a mocking voice at the back of his head pointed out, sardonically. Or she would be transferred ... but she’s already been transferred once, hasn't she? What sort of reputation will she get if she transfers again?

  And no one will blame you ...

  Kurt nodded to himself as he passed a small group of crewmen carrying a box of spare parts in the other direction. Rose’s file might not be too detailed, but the world of starfighter pilots loved its rumours. One transfer might go unnoticed, a second would be all-too-noticeable ... unless, of course, there was a valid excuse.

  He shouldn’t touch her again, he knew. But he knew that all of his resolve would melt when she met him again, soon enough.

  His communicator buzzed. “CAG,” the XO said, “report to Briefing Compartment A. I say again, report to Briefing Compartment A.”

  Kurt’s blood ran cold. Did the XO know?

  “Understood,” he said, bracing himself. He couldn't afford to walk into the compartment looking guilty. The XO, the general disciplinarian on the ship, would notice and start wondering why. “I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “They haven't moved at all, sir,” Farley said. “I think they’re drones.”

  Ted gave him a sharp look. “Are you sure?”

  “... No,” Farley admitted. “But it’s been five days and they haven’t moved, not once.”

  “It’s possible,” Ted considered. Humanity had used ECM drones against the aliens with some success. There was no reason why the aliens couldn't use ECM drones themselves. It even made a certain kind of sense. Rather than tie up several starships hunting for a carrier that might already have been destroyed, the aliens could leave a handful of drones in place and rely on their presence to keep the carrier intimidated. “But we will not take the risk.”

  He looked over at the helmsman. “Signal the fleet,” he ordered. “We will proceed to Tramline Two in ten minutes.”

  A dull quiver ran through the carrier as her drives slowly came to life. If there was an alien fleet lying doggo, Ted knew, they might well pick up the carrier’s emissions, even if they were rigged for silent running. But the alternative was staying where they were for months, even years, while the war raged on countless light years away. No, they had to take the chance, he told himself. And at least they’d had time to do more repairs.

  Score one for the Old Lady’s designers, he thought. All military starships were modular, despite the best efforts of some of their designers, but Ark Royal was more modular than any modern carrier. Replacing the damaged or destroyed weapons hadn't taken more than a few days, although their supplies of spare parts had been stripped to the bone. We could launch a long-range raid into enemy territory with only a handful of ships in support.

  “All systems online,” Anderson reported. The Chief Engineer sounded tired, but happy. Ted and Fitzwilliam had practically dragged him into a sleep machine, just to ensure that the engineer got a few hours rest before the carrier started to move. “Our repairs are looking good, Captain.”

  “I knew they would be,” Ted assured him. The other advantage of commanding the older carrier was that it’s technology was well understood by its users. There was nothing radically new on her hull, nor would there ever be. “And our weapons?”

  “Powered up, ready to engage targets,” Fitzwilliam said. “Our starfighters are ready to launch; point defence crews are standing by.”

  Just in case there is a prowling enemy carrier, Ted thought. “Excellent,” he said, instead. “And the fleet?”

  “Ready to go,” Fitzwilliam assured him. “Kiev is ready to carry out her duty.”

  Ted settled back in his command chair. “Then take us out,” he ordered. “Inform Kiev that she may make the jump as soon as we reach the tramline.”

  Long hours ticked by as Ark Royal and her accompanying ships crawled across the useless system, every passive sensor primed for the faintest hint of an enemy presence. Ted forced himself to stay alert, reminding himself that the enemy could be anywhere. If they’d been fooled, all well and good ... but if they hadn't been fooled, they could just be biding their time. Why bother sweeping vast reaches of empty space for the carrier when they could just wait for the carrier to show itself?

  “The enemy ships haven’t moved at all,” Farley reported. “Either they haven't seen us or they’re definitely drones.”

  Ted scowled. One disadvantage of widening the distance between them and the enemy ships – or drones – was that it took time to see what the enemy were doing ... and, by then, the enemy might have started to do something different. The enemy ships were helpfully identifying themselves, which added some credence to Farley’s theory that they were actually drones. No manned starship would identify itself so openly to a stealthed enemy. But there was no way to know for sure.

  He shook his head. “We remain in silent running,” he said. He’d never seen a drone that could jump through the tramlines, but the aliens might well have devised one. They might be automated, yet they could still alert the aliens at New Russia if the humans threatened to return. “Concentrate on Tramline Two.”

  There was a long pause as the small fleet crawled closer to the tramline. “No enemy ships detected,” Farley said, finally. “But if they’re in stealth ...”

  Ted nodded in understanding. A single enemy ship could be lying doggo ... he forced the thought aside as he studied the console, reminding himself that they were committed. He couldn't keep his ship in the useless system indefinitely, nor could they hope to fight their way past the aliens at New Russia. They’d already come alarmingly close to trapping and destroying Ark Royal once.

  “Prime our passive sensors,” he ordered. “Then order Kiev to pass through the tramline.”

  On the display, there was a brief gravimetric flicker as Kiev vanished from the dull system, jumping directly to Vera Cruz. Ted watched, half-expecting an alien fleet to appear at any moment, but nothing happened. Cold suspicion prickled at the corner of his mind. The aliens seemed to have left the backdoor open, which meant ... what? Did they believe the humans to be destroyed or were they setting up a trap further into unexplored space?

  Kiev returned in another flicker of displaced gravity. “They’re transmitting now,” Farley reported. The display changed, showing the Vera Cruz system. “No enemy starships detected.”

  Ted frowned. If he’d overrun an alien-settled planet, he would have been sure to leave at least one picket in the system, just in case. But the aliens knew that Vera Cruz had never been very important ... at least not as far as the pre-war human sphere had been concerned. If the system had been richer, it would probably have been snapped up by the stronger interstellar powers. Mexico wasn't a microstate, but it couldn't compete with any of the major powers ...

  “Take us through the tramline,” he ordered, running one final check on his ship’s systems as he spoke. They were ready for anything. “Now.”

  Space twisted around them as they vanished from the useless system and reappeared in Vera Cruz, where the war had begun. Ted stared at the display, half-expecting to see a wave of missiles lancing towards them, followed by clouds of alien starfighters, but saw nothing. A chill ran down his spine as he realised that the entire system was as dark and silent as the grave. There might be no one left alive on Vera Cruz, he realised, and there had never been any settlements established off-world. The aliens had seen, destroyed and moved on.

  “No contacts detected,” Farley reported.

  “Launch two drones,” Ted ordered. Vera Cruz’s other tramline, the unexplored one, rested at the other side of the star. They’d take hours to reach it, no matter what else happened. “If there is any alien presence in the system, anything at all, I want to know about it.”

  He waited until they were well away from the tramline, then keyed his console. “Alpha Shift, get some rest,” he ordered. As always, it was a nightmare deciding when he and his senior officers could rest. “Beta Shift wi
ll take command.”

  Given their location, it would be several hours before they learnt anything from Vera Cruz itself. Passing command over to Fitzwilliam – with a muttered order for him to take some rest himself in a few hours, Ted stepped back into his office and lay down on the sofa. Sleep overwhelmed him within seconds and he fell into darkness.

  ***

  Piece by piece, the display built up a picture of the Vera Cruz system. James knew, from the files, that the system had never been considered particularly interesting, lacking even a large asteroid belt or a gas giant. Without them, it was unlikely that Vera Cruz would ever develop into a major industrial node. But the Mexicans hadn't cared, he knew; they’d merely wanted to establish themselves as an interstellar power. They’d invested billions of pounds in setting up the infrastructure to take thousands of colonists ...

  And then lost it all, James thought, sourly. For Britain – or any of the other major interstellar powers – such a disaster would be bad enough, but for the Mexicans it would be catastrophic. Somehow, he doubted that they’d insured themselves ... and even if they had, there would be years of legal wrangling before anything was paid. No insurance company had offered a policy against alien attack, prior to First Contact. It was probably covered under Acts of God.

  The aliens, it was clear, hadn't been particularly interested in the system either. There was no hint that they’d surveyed the handful of asteroids in the system or landed a settlement on Vera Cruz. It was an empty world, now that the humans had been exterminated; logically, the aliens could have taken it for themselves. But maybe they had good reason to hold off on landing colonists, he decided. After thousands of humans had been slaughtered, it was unlikely that the human race wouldn't retaliate against alien settlers.

  Landing colonists on New Russia makes sense, he told himself. Human shields. We couldn't bombard the planet without killing millions of Russians.

  He scowled. If there was one thing the human race had relearned over the past two centuries, it was that such tactics couldn't be tolerated. Showing weakness, even an understandable reluctance to accidentally kill friendly civilians, only encouraged the terrorists and insurgents who had fought and died fighting the civilised world. They were evil, of that James had no doubt, but were the aliens? Were they deliberately using the population of New Russia as shields or ... or were they utterly unaware of what they were doing?

  It seemed impossible, but the aliens weren't human. They might be humanoid, yet their thinking might be very different. It was possible that they regarded themselves as completely expendable, let alone human captives and civilians. Or that they were willing to leave human civilians alone as long as the civilians did as they were told. But the silence from Vera Cruz suggested that the entire planet was dead.

  Unless they’ve decided not to risk using radio, he told himself. But he wasn't optimistic.

  “One of the drones is entering orbit now,” the sensor officer reported. “It’s still picking up no trace of alien starships.”

  “Put the live feed on the display,” James ordered. “Let's see what happened here.”

  The drone wasn't as advanced as an orbital recon platform, not like the systems that kept Earth’s surface under 24/7 surveillance. But it was advanced enough to pick out the remains of the colony ... and note the places that had once been human settlements. Now, they were nothing more than blackened ruins. Even the handful of farms, carefully primed to feed the main body of colonists when they finally arrived, had been destroyed. One of the analysts dug up the original files from Vera Cruz and placed them on the display, next to the images from the drones. It was all too clear just how badly the settlement had been hammered by the aliens.

  “Interesting,” Major Parnell said, through the intercom.

  James jumped. He hadn’t realised that the Royal Marine was watching the live feed from the drones ... which was stupid, he rebuked himself. The Royal Marines would be very interested in alien conduct on the ground.

  “Yes,” he agreed, sardonically. “Why?”

  Parnell didn't respond to the sarcasm in his tone. “There should be much more devastation,” he said, instead. “If the aliens took out the colony from orbit, there should be nothing more than a giant crater in the ground. Instead ... they seem to have raided the surface rather than simply destroyed it.”

  James hesitated. As a junior officer, he had watched targets on Earth being destroyed from orbit ... and he had to admit that Parnell had a point. The aliens could have dropped a handful of kinetic strikes and obliterated the colony from orbit, but the evidence suggested otherwise.

  “Point,” he agreed, finally. He shivered as he studied the images of the settlement, the old file showing a standard colony arrangement, the newer ones showing destroyed buildings and ... he cursed as he realised what was missing. “There's no bodies.”

  “No,” Parnell agreed. There was no hint of triumph or amusement in his tone. “Sir, I believe we should attempt to determine what precisely happened to the settlers.”

  “You want to go down to the surface,” James said, slowly. “Are you completely out of your mind?”

  “This is the first chance anyone has had to examine the remains of an alien attack,” Parnell pointed out, smoothly. “I don't think we can pass it up.”

  James considered it, rapidly. The Captain would have to make the final decision, of course, but Parnell was right. There were strong reasons to make a quick examination of the remains of the colony. On the other hand, however, if the aliens returned in force the carrier might have to withdraw rapidly, leaving the Marines completely alone. The aliens would send troops down to the surface to finish them off ... or simply leave them to fend for themselves.

  “I will advise the Captain that we should make the attempt,” he said. They would certainly need to mine some raw materials from the handful of asteroids in the system. It wasn't something they had dared in the last system, not when there were a handful of alien ships – or drones – hanging around the tramline. “I suggest that you prepare your men.”

  He smiled as an evil thought struck him. “Could you take one of the reporters too?”

  “One of the experienced embeds,” Parnell said. Surprisingly, he didn't try to argue. But then, the Royal Marines had plenty of experience dealing with embedded reporters. “Not one of the newcomers.”

  James sighed. The thought of abandoning the reporters on Vera Cruz was hellishly tempting.

  “Understood,” he said, instead. He checked the timer and decided the Captain needed a few more hours of sleep. “Prepare your men. You’ll have to move quickly once the Captain gives permission for you to go.”

  ***

  Marcus Yang had been sleeping when his terminal buzzed, dragging him out of an uneasy sleep. But at least he’d been able to sleep, he told himself; several of his fellow reporters had requested drugs from sickbay to help them sleep after they’d realised that the carrier was trapped for the foreseeable future. Lacking any real training, some of them had even started to panic ... Marcus privately suspected that half of his fellows were on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Very few of them had truly understood the dangers of serving on a carrier until it was too late.

  He pulled himself off the bunk and stood up, reaching for his tunic and pulling it on over his nightclothes. The other reporters in the compartment stirred, but didn't awaken, thankfully. Marcus smiled at them, then walked out of the hatch and down towards the briefing compartment put aside for the reporters. None of the others had realised – at least, not yet – that it wasn't the briefing compartment. It was merely a piece of window-dressing to impress them.

  Inside, he blinked in surprise as he came face-to-face with a Royal Marine, wearing full battledress. It was hard to be sure, but the man looked to be around thirty, with a rough-hewn face that bore the marks of a lifetime in the service. He wore no rank stripes – they were uncommon on active service, where the enemy could use them to identify the commanding officers – but
he had an air of authority that marked him as a senior officer. Marcus nodded politely to him, then waited. His experience told him that explanations would be presented soon enough.

  “We’re going down to the planet,” the Marine said, finally. “Do you wish to accompany us?”

  Marcus swallowed, nervously. The carrier wasn't going to enter orbit, unless the Captain had changed his mind. There would be several hours in a cramped shuttle, hopelessly vulnerable if the aliens returned to the system or merely if they’d left a few surprises in orbit for anyone who wanted to inspect the destroyed colony. But it would be a chance to get some real recordings, ones that would be exclusive to himself. He could dictate his own terms to his superiors, when – if – they returned to Earth.

  “I do,” he said, finally.

  The Marine smiled. “Then come with me,” he said. “There's no time to alert your fellows.”

  Because they will all want to come, Marcus thought.

  “I understand,” he said, out loud. “Let's go.”