“But not in tip-top shape,” Admiral Naiser mused.
“Good enough for government work,” Susan countered. She smiled. “The only alternative is trying to sneak our way home.”
“True,” Admiral Naiser said.
He looked back at the display for a long moment. “I believe the fleet can return to ES-12 now, if Vanguard can keep up,” he added. “And Captain Tolliver has extended an invitation to us to dine with him. I took the liberty of accepting on your behalf.”
“Thank you, sir,” Susan said. She wasn't that happy about it, but she knew there was no point in trying to object. Mason had the repair work well in hand. “I’m sure it will be a pleasant dinner.”
“And I’m sure you’ll have many stories to tell,” Admiral Naiser said. He smiled, rather dryly. “I think they’re all sick of hearing about my glorious victories now.”
***
Captain Tolliver’s chef, John decided as he wondered if he could eat another piece of pie or not, was a master of his craft. Tolliver was certainly wealthy and well-connected enough to poach him from a famous hotel, if the chef hadn't worked for his family before the oldest son had grown up and joined the navy. Having one’s own chef wasn't a tradition John really approved of, but he had to admit it had its advantages. A good half - perhaps more - of the meal had been reconstituted, yet no one could have hoped to tell the difference.
And cooking reconstituted roast beef would have been tricky, he thought, wryly. Perhaps the beef wasn't reconstituted.
He pushed the thought aside and took another sip of his wine. Spacers preferred to draw a veil over where their food came from, certainly when there were civilians nearby. They knew it was perfectly safe, yet ... civilians were such doubters about such things. Not, John supposed, that they could reasonably be blamed. There were still rumours of cannibalism in some of the refugee camps, after the Bombardment. It was possible, vaguely possible, that there was some truth in them.
“That was an excellent dinner, Captain,” he said. “My compliments to your chef.”
“I thank you,” Captain Tolliver said. He was a middle-aged man, only a year or two younger than John himself. His ginger beard, grown in semi-defiance of naval regulations, made him look older. John had wondered if Tolliver resented being under John’s command, but there had been no friction between them. “I’ll make sure they are passed on to him.”
“And mine,” Susan said. “That was an excellent dinner.”
“I hired one of the very best,” Captain Tolliver said. “Anatole worked for my Aunt Dahlia before she and her estate were washed away during the Bombardment. Thankfully, Anatole survived and entered my employment.”
“I regret I have, but one stomach to place at his disposal,” John said, wryly. There had been a fashion amongst the aristocrats for cooks called Anatole, back before the First Interstellar War. He’d never cared enough to figure out why. “Is he really a refugee from France?”
Captain Tolliver smiled. “I have chosen not to inquire, sir,” he said. “I prefer to keep my illusions intact.”
He picked a small box off the table and opened it. “Cigar?”
John shook his head, but motioned for the other diners to take one if they wished. Smoking was a dangerous habit in space, even on a battleship. Besides, he’d never had the wealth to purchase any truly good tobacco. The best had come from Cuba, before the Bombardment had washed most of the island nation into the sea. Now, one could practically buy a destroyer for a box of Cuban cigars.
And the cigarettes I used to smoke in school were awful, he recalled. Smoking wasn't a health risk, these days, but he’d never grown to like it. And two of the teachers smoked so heavily you just needed to stay downwind to smell them coming.
He smiled at the thought, then cleared his throat. “Captain Tolliver, please invite the others to join us.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Tolliver said.
John kept his face impassive as a dozen holographic images flickered into view. Inviting Susan - and Commodore Hoover - to the dinner had been risky, even though there was no reason to believe the task force would come under attack. He hadn't dared invite Commodore Solange Leclère or any of his other subordinates, despite the risk they might see it as an insult. And they weren't the only ones involved. Even if they understood the military logic, their governments might not be so understanding. France, India and Russia might believe - and not without reason - that Britain and America were manoeuvring to seize all the spoils of war for themselves.
A pity we will never get a world government, he thought. Just organising a coalition war is hard enough.
He waited until the last of the holograms had appeared, then spoke. “We received the updates from ES-11 as soon as we entered ES-12,” he said. A holographic display appeared in front of the diners. The others would have already seen the reports. “ES-11 is quite heavily populated - and defended.”
That was an understatement. ES-11-2 - the lone habitable world - was surrounded by shipyards, orbital industrial nodes and weapons platforms. ES-11-4, a large gas giant, had no less than four cloudscoops, along with what looked like a series of small colonies on various moons. It was impossible to be certain, but the intelligence analysts believed - judging from their briefing notes - that Planet Two had well over a billion Foxes and Cows living on its surface. John believed it. Planet Two looked to have been settled longer than Britannia.
“Our principal goal will be to destroy their industrial nodes and shipyards,” he added, after a long moment. “We will not be occupying the planet’s surface or striking at their colonies.”
“What a disappointment,” General Horace Ross commented.
“There's nothing to be gained by being drawn into a ground war,” Prince Henry said. “If we take out the industrial nodes - and we will - the system becomes harmless, at least for the duration of the war.”
John nodded. “Thankfully, they appear to have sent most of their mobile units forward to respond to our incursion,” he added. “The largest single starship within their system is a heavy cruiser, unless we’re missing something. We will assume the worst, of course, until we know they’re not hiding an entire fleet somewhere within the system.”
“And they’ll also be trying to rush forces back from the front,” Captain Tolliver commented.
“Yes,” John agreed. “We must assume that they will be doing everything they can to block our advance.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment, remembering the last time he’d studied the starchart in his quarters. He’d looked at it so often that the tramlines - and the least-time courses between the war front and the enemy homeworld - were burned into his mind. In theory, they still had time to punch through ES-11 and make their way to ES-1. But in practice ... there were too many variables. The FTL communications system ... he thought he'd taken it into account, along with every other surprise the enemy had shown them, but what if he was wrong? What if the enemy had another surprise in store?
We’ll deal with it, he told himself, as he opened his eyes. And we will survive.
“We will cross ES-12 and launch our invasion of ES-11 as soon as possible,” he added. “The basic operational plan is already loaded into the command datanet. Like I said, we will reduce the system’s ability to threaten our rear and support their war effort before leaving.”
He paused. “Does anyone have any concerns?”
“Merely that we only have two fleet carriers and three escorts,” Captain Rani Saran said. “I took the remainder of Formidable’s fighters onto my ship, but launching every starfighter in a hurry is going to be difficult.”
“I can take half of them,” Captain Mulhouse offered. “Eisenhower ... alas ... has far too many empty berths.”
“See to it,” John ordered. Rani had a point. British and Indian starfighters used the same components - and everything had been designed to be interchangeable - yet some of their flight routines were very different. If they’d had time, the problems could be smoo
thed out, but they didn't have time. “And see how many we can rotate through the escort carriers too.”
“Not many,” Rani said. “Even the biggest escort can only carry two squadrons.”
“We could delay the offensive long enough to hold a proper set of drills,” Captain Mulhouse suggested. “My crews have more cross-training, but not enough to speed up our fighter launch patterns.”
“We don’t have time,” John said. He sighed. “Anything else?”
“Merely that we are running short of supplies,” Commodore Peter Garrison grumbled. His image seemed to flicker with the force of his annoyance. “We may not be able to sustain the offensive much longer.”
Hoover snorted. “Despite all the whining from the beancounters?”
“Yes, sir,” Garrison said. The logistics officer leaned forward. “There are shortages in several vital categories. I have forwarded a full list to the command datanet.”
John looked down at the table, crossly. The bureaucrats never seemed to understand that operational usage never matched predictions, particularly predictions drawn up by people who wanted to avoid spending money. He’d had to argue heavily to requisition as much as he had - and he’d had to forward some issues to the Unified Military Command - and it still wasn't enough. Running short of armour plate, sensor blisters, point defence weapons ... the list of potentially devastating shortages was endless.
“We will attempt to limit our expenditure,” he said, although he knew it was pointless. If they held back in a knife-range fight, they might not live long enough to use the next set of supplies. “And if we really do run short we’ll have to break contact and evade.”
“They can't know how we got here,” Susan pointed out. “They’ll have to assume that all of our ships are FTL-capable.”
“Then we wouldn't be using the tramlines,” Hoover countered. “They’ll probably assume they missed an alien-grade tramline back in ES-19. Not impossible, I think, if the survey was cursory. We don’t know precisely when they stumbled across that system.”
John nodded. Humanity hadn't detected the alien-grade tramlines for decades - and even when they had, the working assumption was that they were inaccessible. It had taken the Tadpoles to show humanity just how dangerous that assumption had been. It was possible, reasonably possible, that the Foxes had made the same mistake. Watching them waste time trying to find a non-existent tramline would be amusing. But he didn't dare assume they would. They were depressingly innovative.
“That’s not a concern at the moment,” he said. “The principal concern is winning the coming engagements.”
He leaned forward. “We’ve adapted our tactics in light of the enemy’s latest innovation,” he added, “but my tactical staff are concerned. Gunboats offer a number of advantages, none of which we even considered until it was too late. Launching shipkillers at point-blank range allows them to practically guarantee a hit, while their point defence makes them dangerous to starfighters as well as countermissiles. Their ECM, furthermore, make them alarmingly hard to hit.
“The good news is that we can use our main guns to thin the herd. We can also defocus our point defence weapons to some extent, giving us some extra oomph. The impact may not be enough to take the gunboat out - we don’t have a solid read on their armour - but it should cripple them. We won’t know for sure until we actually do it.”
He looked from face to face. “The gunboats were completely new,” he warned. “There’s a good chance, a very good chance, that we won’t see them again. They may well have been working up their squadrons in peace, in what they thought was a secure rear area, before committing them to the front. However, we dare not take that for granted. We must assume that future engagements will include gunboats and adapt our tactics accordingly.
“Furthermore, I will be detaching a stealth ship with orders to sneak back to the front,” he concluded. “The Unified Defence Command must be warned. If any of you have dispatches you wish to include, have them forwarded to my staff by 1900.”
“There won’t be any response,” Commodore Hoover warned.
“I think we have to proceed on the assumption we’re still on our own,” John agreed. There was no guarantee the stealth ship would make it back to Unity. The Foxes were certainly on the alert now. Merely avoiding all the obvious places to cross the tramlines would add weeks to the ship’s journey. “But then, we knew that was true right from the start.”
He rose. “We’ll speak again in ES-11,” he said. “Until then ... good luck to us all.”
***
Susan felt pleasantly full as she made her way back to the airlock and boarded her shuttle back to Vanguard, even though she knew they’d be going back into combat within a couple of days. She opened her datapad and downloaded the operational plan, opening the file and scanning it even as the pilot undocked from King Edward and took them back into space. It was bold, she had to admit, but it should be doable. Using Black Hunter as a Trojan Horse might just give the aliens pause.
Unless they think we cheated in some way, she mused. Breaking their rules might encourage them to do the same.
She put the datapad aside for later contemplation and leaned forward, watching as Vanguard came into view. Hundreds of engineers swarmed over her scorched hull, carefully removing the burned-out components and replacing them with new systems drawn from the logistics freighters. Commodore Garrison had a point, Susan had to admit. Their expenditure of just about everything was already well above projections.
Good thing no one takes them seriously, she thought. The shuttle altered course, heading towards the nearest airlock. The projections are always far too optimistic.
She keyed her wristcom as the shuttle docked. “Commander Mason, meet me in my ready room in thirty minutes,” she ordered. The hatch hissed open. It smelt of Vanguard, not of any other ship. She couldn't help feeling that she was coming home. “We have an operation to plan.”
Chapter Thirty
“Entering ES-11,” Sammy said. “Transmitting our IFF ... now.”
George sucked in a breath, feeling dangerously exposed. Cold logic told her they were entire light-minutes from anything that could reasonably hurt her, but cold logic was out to lunch, leaving her uncomfortably aware that they were about to walk, buck naked, into a dragon’s lair. They were, as far as she knew, the only humans in the entire star system.
“Let me know the moment they respond,” she ordered, finally. “And then ready the ballistic projectiles.”
“Aye, Captain,” Sammy said. He sounded like he meant it. George couldn't help wondering just how he managed to sound convincing. “They should respond in a few minutes.”
“Assuming we’re right about how the FTL system works,” George reminded him. “The boffins could be wrong.”
“And then they’ll come up with a better theory,” Sammy told her. “I think ...”
He broke off. “They sent a response,” he said. “They’ve granted us permission to head to ES-11-2.”
George felt cold. “Take us there,” she ordered. “And keep our active sensors stepped down.”
She couldn't help shivering as Black Hunter slowly moved away from the tramline and set course for her destination. Normally, even the massive sensor arrays orbiting Earth, Mars and Jupiter wouldn’t have a hope of spotting a single starship crossing the tramline and entering the Sol System. She’d studied the Battle of Earth at the academy, where she’d been told - time and time again - that it had been sheer luck the alien fleet had been spotted before it got into firing range. A day or two either way and the Tadpoles could have struck without anyone being aware of their presence until it was far too late.
But the Foxes could detect ships crossing the tramlines ...
That must be how they detected the contact fleet, she thought. She still had nightmares, sometimes, about how close she’d come to death. Maybe they even detected the survey ships when they stumbled upon ES-2. UXS-469 must have been completely useless, by their standards, but
keeping an eye on the tramline would have been common sense.
She wondered, absently, just how a working FTL communications system would change the universe. The Admiralty didn't have a hope of directing operations from Earth, not when it could take weeks to get a message from Earth to Unity or Faraway World. They had to give their subordinates wide latitude to do as they saw fit, then wait and pray until word finally arrived from the front. But if there was an FTL communications system, even a limited one ... the Admiralty could watch over their shoulders and micromanage to its heart’s content.
That won’t be my problem, she told herself, sourly. She ran her hand along the alien throne, shaking her head tiredly. This is the closest I’ll get to actual command.
She studied the display, wishing that the Foxes had seen fit to install holographic technology in their starships. It wasn't as if they didn't have the capability. Instead, she had to peer at flatscreen monitors like something out of the dark ages, so poorly designed that it was difficult to keep track of three-dimensional combat. The design puzzled her more than she cared to admit. It wasn't as if they were in the wet navy, for crying out loud! The Foxes knew that space was a three-dimensional environment.
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