09- We Lead

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I could find a moment, if it’s just about him,” Henry said. The compartment was steadily emptying, but there were still dozens of people finishing off the alcohol. And the snacks that had been shipped all the way from Earth. “There are things I am not at liberty to talk about.”

  She inclined her hand towards the nearest hatch, but Henry shook his head and led her into a quiet corner instead. Being alone with a reporter was like being alone with a young woman, only worse. The latter would have the media reporting they were engaged before they even got to first base, but the former would lead to ‘off the record’ quotes that would be taken seriously by everyone, even though they were a tissue of lies. He eyed the bracelet at her wrist balefully as he leaned against the bulkhead, feeling a dull thrumming echoing through the giant ship. He knew from bitter experience that a skilled editor could forge anything, if it wasn't turned off to facilitate an ‘off the record’ conversation.

  “You knew my father,” Penny said. “What was he like?”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. Penny wasn't that much younger than him. She would have had years with her father before his death. But then, she probably wouldn’t have seen him as anything other than dad. Someone else might have a different perspective.

  “He was a good man,” Henry said, finally. There were details he wasn't going to talk about, even to Kurt’s daughter. Perhaps especially to Kurt’s daughter. She didn't need to know that her father had been having an affair before his death over Tadpole Prime. “He took care of his pilots, treated us” - he broke off, rethinking his next words - “treated us as though we mattered. And he never fawned over me when he finally found out who I was.”

  “Dad wouldn't have,” Penny said. “He was never impressed with titles.”

  Henry shrugged. He wasn't sure what Kurt Schneider had been doing before he’d been called back to the colours, but the military tended to strip a man down to the bare essentials. It was hard to be impressed with fancy titles when no amount of aristocracy would make a difference between life and death. All that mattered, as far as he was concerned, was that Kurt Schneider hadn't treated him any differently from any other pilot.

  “There isn't much more I can tell you,” he said, flatly. “We didn't sit down to chat about our futures.”

  Penny lifted her eyebrow. “Why not?”

  “We didn't know if we had a future,” Henry told her. He frowned, trying to choose the right words. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-six,” Penny said.

  Henry frowned. “You’re maybe a little too old to understand,” he admitted. “Most of us starfighter pilots ... we were big kids. Eighteen-year-old kids ... I think the oldest, save for the Old Man, was twenty-two. Half of us were rushed through the academy and shoved into cockpits because the Admiralty was desperate. We were kids and some of us acted like kids, despite our training. Maybe we were being stupid, maybe we were storing up trouble for ourselves, maybe ... what’s the point of worrying about consequences if there’s no chance of living long enough to face them?

  “Your father ... he was our father, in a way,” he continued. “He kept us going, he led us into battle, he imposed some order ... he was a good man. Maybe him having kids of his own gave him an insight into us that other officers didn't have ... I don’t know. The point is he was good to us. I wish he’d survived, but he died well.”

  He cocked his head. “Why do you ask?”

  “I wish I’d known him better,” Penny admitted. “I was a young woman, I thought; charming, sophisticated, worldly ... of course my father knew nothing.”

  “A common delusion,” Henry said.

  “And now I think I understand him a little better,” Penny added. “But I won’t be able to tell him so.”

  Henry frowned. He’d never been very religious, although looking at the way the stars and planets interacted so perfectly made it hard to believe there wasn't a higher force responsible for ordering the universe. A deeply-religious person would probably have suggested that Penny would see her father again, one day; he wasn't sure, really, if he wanted to say anything of the sort. God alone knew - he smiled at the thought - which way she’d take it.

  “Pass the lesson on,” he said, instead. He met her eyes. “Are you the sole reporter?”

  “I think I’m the sole embed,” Penny said. “There’s a bunch more reporters down near the flag deck.”

  Henry nodded. He’d avoid them like the clap.

  “I do have other questions,” Penny said. “What’s it like, dealing with the Tadpoles?”

  “Strange,” Henry said.

  He hesitated. “It's like talking to someone from a completely different culture, only worse,” he said. “We say that humans are divided by a common language, but we don’t even have that with the Tadpoles. They are so different from us that we can think one thing and they can think another. Their society is very strange, to our eyes; they find ours just as odd, threatening even. We have to triangulate every point with them just to be sure we’re both talking about the same thing.”

  “Like talking to a child,” Penny said, wryly.

  “Or teenage boys talking to teenage girls and lacking the maturity to know that people can sometimes say the wrong thing by accident,” Henry said. “I think we should be grateful that they prefer to live under the waves. There’s little room for accidental contact and conflict. Long may it stay that way.”

  “We both live in space,” Penny pointed out.

  “But we have space to live in space, pardon the pun,” Henry said. “The galaxy is big enough for both of us.”

  “So you’re not a Star Wanderer fan, then,” Penny said.

  Henry snorted in resigned amusement. Star Wanderer was a relatively new show, he’d been told, featuring a crew composed of multiple alien races. He’d watched one episode, then given up in disgust. The producers had evidently never set eyes on a Tadpole when they’d crafted their crew roster - there were plenty of inexcusably inaccurate details - but that wasn't the worst of it. A Tadpole simply didn't think like a human. To have one sitting down for a friendly chat with his human comrades ...

  “I don’t think we’ll ever be close,” Henry said. It was regretful, but it was true. And it was something he needed to make clear, time and time again. “We have certain interests in common, to be fair, but we’re really quite different. Both of us would probably be more comfortable keeping our distances from the other.”

  “I see,” Penny said. “Thank you for your time, Your Highness.”

  Henry watched her go, wondering just how much of their chat had been genuine. She was Kurt Schneider’s daughter - he could check that, easily - but the rest? Had she been genuinely interested or was she trying to develop a relationship, one she could use to ask him more worrying questions? He had no way to know. He’d met too many reporters to relax completely around them.

  And maybe you’re being paranoid, he told himself, firmly. Kurt’s daughter is an established reporter. She doesn’t need cheap tricks.

  But he knew, as he turned and headed for the hatch, that he’d never be entirely sure.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Status report,” Susan ordered.

  “All systems report ready, Captain,” Paul Mason said. The XO looked up from his console and glanced at her. “Local space is clear.”

  “Shipyard command has cleared us to depart,” Lieutenant Theodore Parkinson said. The communications officer worked his console for a long moment. “I have established a direct communications link to Texas and Duquesne.”

  Susan drew in a long breath. The majority of the task force had assembled just outside the shipyard, waiting for them. Nine battleships, three fleet carriers, over seventy smaller ships from a dozen different nations ... it was the most formidable fleet humanity had assembled, save - perhaps - for the fleets that had fought the Battle of Earth. And those fleets, Susan suspected, would have been given a very hard time, if they’d had to face Task Force Cromwell. The battleship armour would hav
e shrugged off most of the pre-war weaponry without even being scratched. Admiral Naiser had been entrusted with a terrifying amount of power and responsibility.

  And if we don’t make it back, Susan thought, the war may be lost.

  “Bring the drives online,” she ordered, pushing her fears aside. “And prepare to take us out of the shipyard.”

  A low hum echoed through the ship, growing stronger and stronger with every passing moment. Susan listened, knowing she’d grow accustomed to the background noise soon enough. Some engineers swore they could detect problems merely by listening to the thrumming of the drives, although Susan suspected they were exaggerating. But then, it was true that subtle drive problems did tend to change the background hum ...

  “Drives online, Captain,” Lieutenant David Reed said. The helmsman looked excited. He’d been running simulations, of course, but nothing quite matched reality. It wouldn't be the first time the simulations had overlooked a set of major problems. “We are ready to depart.”

  Susan glanced at Mason. “Confirm that we have severed all links to the shipyard and that all shipyard personnel have left the ship.”

  There was a pause. “Confirmed,” Mason said. “All non-crew are accounted for.”

  “Good,” Susan said.

  She allowed herself a tight smile. Stellar Star might be able to get away with accidentally kidnapping shipyard workers because she had to depart immediately, but the real world was rarely so accommodating. Any unintentional stowaways would be returned to the shipyard, of course, where a lot of sharp questions would be asked. An intentional stowaway ... she wasn't quite sure what would happen to him. It would be largely unprecedented.

  “Helm,” she ordered. “Take us out.”

  The thrumming grew stronger as Vanguard inched forward, picking up speed as more and more drive sections came online. Susan keyed her console, bringing up the raw feed from the sensors monitoring the engineering compartment. It looked as though everything was perfect, but she kept a sharp eye on it anyway. A rogue drive harmonic at the wrong moment would completely ruin their day. And, with so many foreign ships in close proximity, it would be impossible to hide what had happened. Britain would be embarrassed in front of the entire world.

  And I’ll probably take the blame, she thought, dryly.

  “Passing the inner defence layer now,” Reed reported. “All systems nominal.”

  Susan nodded, slowly. It definitely looked perfect. Vanguard had never been the most manoeuvrable of starships - she handled like a wallowing pig, rather than a bird in the air - but she was picking up speed. And her helmsman was very experienced, capable of pushing her right to her limits. No one would ever mistake Vanguard for a light cruiser or a destroyer, but the battleship might surprise her enemies. Or her critics.

  Funny how they stopped complaining about the cost when we discovered we needed her, she thought. Her lips curved in a moment of amusement. If we hadn’t started building battleships, the war would probably have been lost by now.

  She sobered, remembering a position paper she’d read while she’d been XO. It had been the Tadpoles who'd first started building battleships, rather than humanity. And they’d put their dreadnaught design into production at terrifying speed. The writer had wondered if humanity, far from being supremely innovative, was actually at risk of losing the innovations race. Fear of being effortlessly crushed had led to billions of pounds - and other currencies - being ploughed into next-generation weapons programs.

  But there’s also the risk of accidentally crippling herself, she recalled. The armoured carriers were useless until they suddenly weren’t.

  She leaned back as Vanguard slid into position, flanked by HMS King Edward and USS Alabama. The American battleship was larger than Vanguard - the Americans always seemed to build on a greater scale than anyone else - but she had a private suspicion that the design had its limitations. Alabama’s power curves were so high that losing even a single fusion core might cripple the ship. And she was so massive that she might well draw most of the enemy fire. Susan couldn't help wondering, cynically, if the reason Admiral Naiser had chosen to fly his flag on Vanguard was because she might attract less fire.

  Unless the Foxes remember us from previous engagements, she reminded herself. They might see us as the more desirable target.

  “Full command datanet established, Captain,” Parkinson reported. “Command datalink is up and running; tactical primary and secondary networks up and running. We are good to go.”

  Susan frowned. “No difficulties with the interface?”

  “None, Captain,” Parkinson confirmed. “We can talk to them without problems.”

  “As long as we can fight with them,” Mason commented.

  “There shouldn't be any problems, Commander,” Parkinson assured him. “The datanet is designed to adapt to any problems.”

  Susan exchanged a glance with her XO. They both knew that command datanets could be weakened, if not crippled, in the real world. The enemy would do everything in their power to disrupt them, using everything from ECM drones to warhead detonations to create confusion. Directly hacking the command network was probably impossible, but nothing could be taken for granted. There were some downsides to standardising everything. One of them, she had to admit, was that someone who learned to crack one system would probably be able to crack others.

  But we don’t have a choice, she thought. We have to fight together as one.

  “Signal from the flag,” Parkinson said. “The task force is to proceed as planned.”

  Susan nodded. “Take us out in formation.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  Susan felt a flicker of cold ice running down her spine as the task force began - slowly - to pick up speed, heading straight towards the tramline. There was no reason to assume they were under observation, no reason to believe the enemy was massing to stop them, but she knew she wouldn't feel comfortable until the deployment was over. The die was cast, assuming they managed to pass the naval base without being redirected to the war front.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment. She’d sat down last night and read through her will, trying to decide if anything should be changed. She had no direct heirs, no close relatives save for her father; no close friends who weren't already on Vanguard or serving somewhere in deep space. It was hard to decide who should inherit her possessions, such as they were, let alone her savings. In the end, she’d ordered the former to go to her father, with a request that he distributed them as he saw fit. The latter could go to the naval fund. Maybe the money would help a struggling family survive after the breadwinner was injured or killed.

  “Captain,” Reed said. “We will be crossing the tramline in five hours, forty minutes.”

  Susan opened her eyes. “Very good,” she said. She nodded in approval. Admiral Naiser clearly wanted to move as quickly as possible, even though it would take six weeks to reach UXS-566. But then, they did have a lot of work to do, work that was better done away from their political superiors. “Commander Mason, please remind the crew that this is their last chance to record a message before we cross the tramline.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Mason said.

  Susan concealed her amusement at his tone. Everyone on the ship knew that they wouldn't have another chance to send a message home, not directly. Sending messages with homeworld-bound ships was easy, but it could take weeks - if not months - before they reached their destination and a reply came winging back. She still recalled with some embarrassment the time she’d received several messages from her father, only to discover that they were all the same message, sent in several different ways. It was one of the minor annoyances of serving away from Earth.

  And far too many officers received a ‘Dear John’ message, she thought, sourly. Their partners didn't even wait until they got home to break the news.

  She pushed the thought aside. The task force was on the way. And that was all that mattered.

  ***

 
Commodore Solange Leclère, John Naiser considered, was beautiful, in the same sense a lion or a tiger might be considered beautiful. Honey-dark hair, dark eyes, perfect skin and a body her uniform didn't quite conceal ... if he’d played for a different team, he had the feeling it might have been hard to deny her anything she wanted. Her file made it clear that she also had a mind like a steel trap, something that really wasn't a surprise. Beautiful or not, Solange would not have risen to command rank - and then to flag rank - without being extremely competent. The French, like the British, had learned hard lessons about aristocratic entitlement.

  Although they’d insist they didn't have an aristocracy, he thought. And they’d deny the suggestion they did have with vigour.

  “I see no flaw with the tactical plan, John,” Solange informed him. “But I do wonder at the deployment decisions. Would it not be better to fight the fleet as a unit?”