09- We Lead

by Christopher Nuttall

  We see how many of them we can kill before they get out of range, she thought.

  The red icons moved closer, their sensor sweeps blasting through space. There was something odd about their sensors, she mused, almost as if they were deliberately overpowering them. Perhaps they expected an ambush. Or perhaps they were trying to draw every last scrap of data they could, even though it was futile. Passive sensors would tell them more about the task force, at least until they got a lot closer. Commodore Hoover was holding the range open, daring them to pick up speed. It might annoy them to the point they threw caution to the winds and tried to close faster.

  “Missile engagement range in seven minutes,” Jean reported. “Energy engagement range in nine.”

  “Fire as soon as they enter energy engagement range, unless they detect us or reverse course,” Susan ordered. She would be astonished if the aliens didn't spot them in far less than seven minutes. Their sensor sweeps were coming alarmingly close, even though Vanguard was doing her level best to pretend to be a hole in space. “Helm, prepare to ramp up the drives.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  Susan braced herself as the ships reached the edge of Vanguard’s missile envelope, still coming closer ...

  ... And then the display washed with red light.

  “They’ve seen us,” Jean snapped. “The cloak is fading.”

  “Fire,” Susan ordered. “Helm, take us into engagement range!”

  Vanguard belched a wave of missiles, targeted on the lead enemy ships. King Edward and Alabama followed suit a moment later, spreading their missiles across the other ships. The alien carrier seemed to hesitate, then launched two squadrons of starfighters even as the cruisers were scrambling to respond. Susan mentally tipped her hat to the alien CO - he’d clearly had his pilots ready to launch at a moment’s notice - and then scowled as the alien ships returned fire. Individually, their salvos were pathetic; collectively, they posed a very real danger.

  “Enemy missiles are targeted on King Edward, Captain,” Jean reported.

  “Move us up to offer point defence support,” Susan said. Theoretically, King Edward could handle such a barrage without assistance, but Susan saw no reason to take chances with Vanguard’s sister ship. It wasn't as if they had easy access to a shipyard. “Continue firing!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  “Alabama is moving up too, Captain,” Charlotte said. “Enemy starfighters are entering engagement range.”

  “Order the point defence to engage,” Susan said.

  She watched, grimly, as the alien starfighters closed in on her ship. Logically, she was dealing with second-line units ... or reservists. Converted freighters that had become carriers rarely got the best units, at least in the Royal Navy. The aliens might feel the same way, or they might have trained up more starfighter pilots. God knew the Royal Navy could produce pilots far faster than either starfighters or carriers.

  We go to war with what we have on hand, she reminded herself. Not what we would like to have.

  The alien pilots might have been reservists - she cautioned herself, sharply, against assuming that she was correct - but there was nothing wrong with their skills. They corkscrewed through her point defence, firing madly and picking off dozens of point defence units before they were picked off themselves. There was no way they could do more than warm her hull, she noted, but they could weaken her defences. It was, she had to admit, the sole hope the alien squadron had ...

  “Captain,” Jean said. “The enemy ships are closing on our position.”

  Susan blinked in surprise. The missiles had destroyed two alien ships and crippled a third, but the remainder were making no attempt to escape. Instead, they were closing rapidly, pushing their drives to the limits. Cold horror ran through her mind as she realised what they had in mind. They’d decided they couldn't escape, so they were trying to take three battleships down with them.

  “Target them as soon as they enter energy weapons range and open fire,” she ordered. The situation had just become very dangerous. Hell, the enemy ships were still firing missiles of their own - and, in moments, they would be in range to open fire with their own plasma cannons. “Take them all out.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Jean said.

  Susan gritted her teeth as the main guns opened fire, spewing plasma bolts towards the enemy ships. They weren't particularly well-armoured compared to Vanguard, she noted, but they were angling themselves to absorb as much of the damage as they could. Their bulk would keep going unless it was atomised ...

  A new icon flared to life as the aliens opened fire with their own plasma cannons. Lances of fire stabbed towards Vanguard and Alabama, Vanguard’s hull quivering as the bolt slammed into her armour. Susan cursed under her breath, then looked at the status display. It looked as though the armour had absorbed the blast, but she knew it would have to be checked. A simple plasma lance had destroyed a carrier, seven years ago.

  “The task force is launching starfighters,” Parkinson reported. “They’re racing to our assistance.”

  Susan shrugged. Starfighters were the fastest things in space, but the engagement would be over by the time they arrived. The converted freighter exploded under her guns, followed by two cruisers picked off by Alabama. A third cruiser nearly slammed into King Edward before the battleship’s guns smashed her into atoms. And then a cruiser spun past Vanguard, bleeding plasma from her drive nodes. It seemed to have lost main power, so Susan ignored it for the moment. Either the crew would restart the power cores - in which case she would blow the alien ship apart at leisure - or they’d be trapped on a powerless hulk. They could be dealt with later, if they weren’t simply left to die.

  An alien starfighter slammed into the hull. Susan felt nothing, not even the tiniest quiver running through the ship, as the last of the alien pilots died. She wondered, sourly, just what the aliens had been thinking when they’d ordered the attack. Maybe they’d thought they couldn't escape. Or maybe they’d assumed they could do more damage than they had.

  Or maybe their superiors would kill them, if they returned home failures, Susan thought. If so, perhaps they sought a death in battle instead. Humans have done stupider things.

  “Status report,” she ordered.

  “Minor damage to hull plating,” Mason said. “I believe damage control teams have it in hand. We’ve also lost seventy-two weapons mounts and sensor blisters.”

  “King Edward took a more serious battering,” Parkinson added. He sounded grim. “She lost an entire armour plate to the aliens. Luckily, they didn't have the chance to get a missile into her hull.”

  “Inform Captain Tolliver that we will provide whatever help he requires,” Susan said. A flight of starfighters roared past, too late to do more than provide comfort. “Scan the hulk.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Charlotte said. She paused. “The ship is largely intact, but her main power is gone. I think battery power has taken over, but that won’t last.”

  We must have crippled her power core, Susan thought. It was odd for a ship to lose power so suddenly. Her drives had spun right out of control before she’d lost them completely. Maybe we hit something delicate ...

  ***

  “Admiral, this is an opportunity,” Prince Henry said. “That ship must not be destroyed.”

  John gave him a sharp look. “Are you aware of the risks?”

  “Yes,” Prince Henry said. He sounded confident, insanely confident. John didn't particularly dislike the prince, but there were times when he found him irritating. “I’m also aware that we can cow the aliens into submission.”

  “Really,” John said. “And if you’re wrong?”

  “I can join the boarding party,” Prince Henry said. “I would share the risks.”

  John wondered, briefly, if it would be worth going to jail if he punched Prince Henry in the nose. The prince had been a starfighter pilot - and he didn't seem to have matured since then, even though he’d been an ambassador. There was n
o way he could justify sending the prince with the marines - hell, he wasn't sure he could even justify sending the marines. He wasn't blind to the opportunity a drifting alien ship presented, but he was all-too-aware of the dangers. The aliens had redeployed one squadron to face them. It wouldn't be long before they dispatched others.

  And he knows that I can't send him too, John thought. He knew he was being unfair - there was nothing in Prince Henry’s war record to suggest he was a coward - but there was too much at stake. He needs to stay here.

  “I’ll dispatch some marines,” he said, finally. It would be risky as hell, even if the aliens offered to surrender. The last major boarding action had been over ten years ago. It had surprised everyone, including the Royal Navy. “And you will concentrate on sending them the right signal.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” Prince Henry said. He looked pleased. “I’ve already taken the liberty of asking the xenospecialists to draw up a suitable message.”

  John snorted, then glanced at the preliminary reports. King Edward damaged, Vanguard and Alabama hit hard ... losing the point defence weakened the ships, even if the armour was untouched. The repair crews were already swarming over the battleships, but it would take time - time he didn't have - to complete the work.

  “I suggest you make the message very clear,” he added. “Because if the aliens greet the marines with loaded weapons, I’m going to blow that ship to hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “The message is pounding over the airwaves,” Corporal Roberts said. “Can they hear it?”

  “They should be able to hear it,” Sammy said. “And they should be able to understand it.”

  George gritted her teeth as she piloted the shuttle towards the alien craft. They were far too close to its weapons for comfort, if the aliens decided to spit in humanity’s eye. A point defence cluster could blow the shuttle out of space before she even knew she was under attack. Vanguard and the rest of the task force would take a terrible revenge, of course, but it wouldn't matter. The marines - and her - would still be dead.

  The alien ship took on shape and form as George’s sensors probed its hull. It reminded her of some of humanity’s earlier designs: a collection of modules attached to a drive unit, crammed with weapons and sensor blisters. She couldn't help comparing it to a destroyer, although even Russian or Chinese destroyers looked smoother than the alien ship. Oddly, she was almost disappointed. Tadpole ships looked more alien, even though they too were bound by the laws of the universe.

  And they found similar answers, she thought, wryly. We won’t have beautiful starships until we find a way to violate more of the laws of physics.

  “I’m picking up a beacon,” she said, as a new light flashed on her console. “They’re opening an airlock.”

  “Take us in,” Sergeant Tosco said. His voice showed no trace of concern, let alone fear. The Foxes appeared to be obeying orders, so far. “If you can dock us properly, do so.”

  “Yes, sergeant,” George said.

  She took the shuttle closer, hastily evaluating the alien airlock. It wasn't that different from a standard human design, but she doubted it would be compatible with the shuttle. The Foxes hadn’t been consulted when the international design teams had produced the standardised airlock - or anything else. She tensed as the gravity field flickered as she pushed the shuttle up against the alien hull, then activated the universal airlock. The marines had had plenty of time to plan ways to match airlocks, even if the minds that had devised them came from two different worlds.

  “Reading an atmosphere within the airlock,” she said, as hatches started to flow open. “It seems safe.”

  “Keep your helmets on,” Sergeant Tosco told his men. “We don’t know it’s safe.”

  George nodded in agreement. The prospect of going through decontamination, when they returned from the alien ship, was unpleasant, but she knew there was no way to avoid it. In theory, an alien disease couldn't spread to humanity; in practice, there was no way to be sure. Besides, the Foxes had captured enough humans to allow them to experiment with creating species-specific biological weapons. Better to take precautions than accidentally release something lethal into Vanguard’s ecosystem.

  She took one last look at the sensors, fearing she might have missed something. But there was nothing. The alien ship was almost completely powerless, although she couldn't tell why it was powerless. A lucky hit could have taken out the power distribution network, she supposed. Something of the sort had happened on Vanguard, years ago. But the battleship had multiple redundancies built into her hull to ensure that losing one network didn't mean losing all of them. The aliens hadn't been so careful.

  Their ship is smaller, she reminded herself. There’s a limit to how much redundancy they can build into their systems.

  The marines flowed through the hatch, weapons at the ready. George felt cold as she turned to watch them go, knowing they could easily be walking into a trap. Ship-to-ship boarding actions were rare, almost unknown. Only one alien ship had ever been stormed successfully in nearly two hundred years of spacefaring. And the aliens knew precisely which way the marines would come. Sweat trickled down her back as she reached for her rifle, silently grateful for all the times she’d been forced to practice while wearing the suit. If the aliens had treachery in mind, she’d make them pay.

  And then die, she thought, as the minutes started to crawl. And then the aliens will die, too.

  Her radio bleeped. “Fitzwilliam, come forward,” Sergeant Tosco ordered. “The water’s fine.”

  George relaxed, slightly, as she rose and walked to the hatch. Telling her that the water was fine was a way of telling her it actually was fine. Something else - anything else - would have served as a cue to hit the emergency alert, then cast off before the aliens had a chance to storm the shuttle. She stepped into the alien airlock - there was something oddly crude about the design, as if they’d hacked it out of solid metal - and through the secondary hatch, into the alien ship.

  It seemed smaller than she expected, based on the handful of hulks that had been examined during the war. George wasn't claustrophobic - a claustrophobe wouldn’t have been allowed to serve, even on giant Vanguard - but she still found the alien ship a little oppressive. The light was tinted red, there was a faint heat haze in the air, the bulkheads were too close and there was something subtly wrong about the proportions, as if the world was slightly out of phase. It was a jarring reminder, if she’d needed one, that the Foxes were alien. They were not humans in funny suits.

  The Foxes themselves were ... she couldn't escape the impression that they were grovelling, prostrating in front of their captors. They were pushing their heads into the deck, practically inviting the marines to step on them; they were wrapping their tails under their haunches, as if they half-expected to have them cut off. George was used to servants, to men and women who bowed and scraped in front of her, but this was different. There was something almost sickeningly servile about the whole display.

  They know they’re beaten, she thought, numbly.

  She’d read the briefing notes, when she’d had a moment, but seeing it in person really brought it home. Humans would be resentful; humans would be planning an escape or finding a way to turn the tables, even though Vanguard was just waiting for an excuse to blow the ship out of space. But the Foxes knew they were beaten. They’d surrendered, far more completely than any human ever would. It boded well for the future.

  Sammy’s voder produced a hail of barking sounds. One of the Foxes rolled over, exposing his neck, then answered with more barking, mixed with a handful of English words. George stared in disbelief, more astonished that the Fox knew any English than at the mangled pronunciation. But she supposed it made sense. They’d need a way to communicate with any humans they captured, even if they hadn’t expected to be captured themselves.

  “Like a set of dogs,” Corporal Roberts muttered.

  George shrugged as the discussion continued, hoping a
gainst hope that the translation software wasn't misleading them. The Foxes did look like dogs, she supposed. She couldn't help thinking of the Jack Russell she’d owned as a child, the mischievous dog that had torn up the flower beds or chased rabbits all over the estate. And yet ... she reminded herself, sharply, that the Foxes were thinking beings. Their familiar appearance was very - very - deceptive. Looks aside, they had almost nothing in common with their terrestrial lookalikes.