Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Thank you,” she said, again. “Please continue studying the sensor footage. You may find something new.”

  “I could fly a starfighter,” Prince Henry pointed out. “You might find me more useful out in space.”

  “No,” Susan said, quickly.

  She shook her head firmly, cutting off his argument. Prince Henry hadn't been a starfighter pilot for thirteen years and she rather doubted he’d kept his skills current. The new generation of starfighters were more advanced than the Hurricanes and Spitfires that had fought the First Interstellar War and he’d need at least a few days in the simulators before he could be cleared for action. Besides, she’d hate to explain his death in action to the Admiralty ...

  Her own thoughts mocked her. Along with everything else?

  “Dismissed,” she said, rising to her feet. “Mr. Mason, take command. I’ll be on the bridge after I finish speaking to the other commanding officers.”

  ***

  “The alien FTL communications system changes nothing,” Harper said, an hour later. “Yes, I know it’s a major tactical headache, but we have other problems.”

  “Unless the aliens have an FTL drive too,” Captain Beasley pointed out. “They’ve already done one thing we believed to be impossible.”

  “Then they would have followed us to this system and finished us off,” Harper said. “The long-term issue of their FTL communications is something for our superiors to address.”

  He tapped a switch, activating a starchart. “We have done all the patching up we can do over the last two days,” he continued, before anyone else could say a word. “Accordingly, it is now time to proceed back towards friendly space. I’ve divided the remaining fleet into three squadrons; Roosevelt, London and Vanguard. London will serve as the communications hub with the remaining Tadpole ships, which will be assigned to that squadron. Vanguard will take point.

  “We will proceed as I have outlined, under full stealth. If we don’t encounter the enemy before Tadpole-98, we will reveal ourselves to the Tadpoles at that point and pass on the data we’ve collected. The Ambassador can head directly for Tadpole Prime while we join the defence force, save for the ships that desperately need a shipyard.”

  He paused. “If we do encounter the unknowns, we’ll do our best to evade contact unless the odds are solidly in our favour,” he added. “If they are ... well, we need to see if we can get our hands on some of their technology. And I want some payback.”

  Susan nodded in agreement. She wanted some payback too,

  Captain Jackson cursed. “And what happens if they have more superweapons up their sleeve?”

  “They are not gods,” Harper said. “Yes, they kicked our butts and yes, we’re not used to having our butts kicked. But they are not so advanced that we cannot beat them. If nothing else, human treachery and sneakiness will win the day.”

  He tapped a switch and the starchart vanished. “You all have the updated point defence programs,” he added. “We should be able to give a better account of ourselves, when we next encounter our new enemies. For now, the fleet will move out one hour from now, in the formation I have designed.”

  And good luck to us all, Susan thought. Vanguard taking point was logical, although she suspected she’d have problems with her subordinates. She might not be a legal Captain - and even if she was, she was barely two days into her rank. A destroyer commander might be her technical superior. Let’s hope we make it home safely.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Jump complete, Captain,” Reed said.

  “The cloaking system didn't flicker,” Mason added. “We should be invisible.”

  Should, Susan thought, as the display began to fill with icons. But if they have FTL communications, what else do they have?

  She told herself, firmly, that there was nothing she could do about it and turned her attention to the tactical display. The new system looked to be habitable; there was a G2 star, a couple of gas giants and at least two rocky worlds within the life-bearing zone. Neither one appeared to be emitting radio waves, but that proved nothing. The enemy might have a system that was undetectable, at least by her technology, or - more likely - the system might have gone dark.

  Not that that worked too well during the Battle of Earth, she reminded herself. Too many people just didn't get the word.

  “We’ll hold position here, as planned,” she said. Harper was determined not to sail blindly into a second ambush, a determination shared by every other commanding officer on the fleet. “Inform me the moment you detect any artificial emissions.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  “One of the planets is definitely habitable,” Mason offered, after a moment. “I’d call her a ninety-percent match for Earth.”

  Susan leaned forward. It was prime real estate, only a handful of jumps from Tadpole - or enemy - space. “Can you pick up any signs of life? Any at all?”

  “No, Captain,” Charlotte said. “At this distance, nothing smaller than the orbital towers would be visible to passive sensors. The Great Wall of China might as well not exist.”

  “We could always go look,” Mason suggested.

  Susan fought down temptation. The prospect of laying claim to an unexplored Earth-type world was not one to be dismissed automatically. Britain’s claim would be recognised by both the other human nations and the Tadpoles - and, as the discoverer, Vanguard’s crew would be entitled to a share of the proceeds. But so close to enemy space, the risk was not to be borne. The priority was to get the fleet home safely, not attempt to lay claim to a world that might well lie within enemy territory.

  “Hold position here,” she ordered, firmly. “There’ll be time to come back and survey the system later.”

  She kept her expression under firm control, even as she sensed disappointment rippling around the giant compartment. Fortunes had been made by crews lucky enough to serve on starships that had made discoveries - or, in one case, brought home an alien battlecruiser largely intact. Susan was not adverse to risk - she’d picked the wrong career if she wasn't willing to take risks from time to time - but there was little to be gained by risking the entire fleet. Better to avoid contact with the new enemy as much as possible.

  And we might discover an enemy colony, she added, silently. And then we would have to make a very hard choice.

  She gritted her teeth at the thought. There were ROE for peacetime operations and ROE for wartime, but none of the planners had ever imagined the fleet running into an ambush - and then remaining unsure if they were at war or if the whole affair had been a terrible ghastly mistake. The diplomats would find it harder to patch the whole affair up if the fleet found an alien world and laid waste to it, yet if they were at war wrecking an alien world would hardly make matters worse. Perhaps it was her duty to check the world for alien life, yet there were no signs of any space-based industry. If the planet was solely restricted to low-tech, bombarding the settlements from orbit wouldn’t cripple the enemy’s ability to make war ...

  And you don’t have the slightest idea if there actually is an enemy presence on that world, she reminded herself. The planet might be new and unclaimed.

  “We’ve picked up nothing,” Mason said, fifty minutes later. “The entire system is as dark and silent as the grave.”

  “Bad metaphor,” Susan said, absently. “Communications?”

  Parkinson looked up. “Yes, Captain?”

  “Order one of the ships to jump back through the tramline and inform Captain Harper that the way appears to be clear,” Susan said. Harper would want to sit on the tramline for a while longer, just to check for himself, but afterwards the fleet could proceed onwards to its destination. “And ready a full datapacket for his attention, when the remainder of the fleet arrives.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Parkinson said.

  Susan nodded and settled back into her chair as the remainder of the fleet flickered into existence, one by one. Her tactical crews knew where to look, she told herself; the fl
eet’s cloaking systems should render the fleet undetectable except at very close range. And yet the uncertainty created by the alien FTL communications pervaded her thinking. If they could do something that humanity considered to be impossible - had considered to be impossible - what else could they do?

  They don’t seem to have FTL drives, she noted, grimly. Or else they could have followed us and finished the job. We didn't hurt them that badly.

  “Signal from the flag,” Parkinson said. “The fleet is to proceed directly to Tramline Two at best possible speed, consummate with keeping us undetected. Vanguard and her squadron are to take point.”

  “Good,” Susan said. Harper evidently didn't want to remain in the unexplored system any longer than necessary. “Order the screen to fan out as planned, maintaining a passive sensor watch for any enemy targets.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Parkinson said.

  “Helm, take us out on a direct course for Tramline Two,” Susan added. “But be ready to take evasive manoeuvres at any moment.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  She felt the hull vibrate, slightly, as the drives came up to full power. It might have been smarter, if stealth was their only concern, to dogleg through the system, rather than making a run for the tramline. A single enemy starship, watching their movements from a distance, would have no trouble setting up another ambush if the fleet was following a predictable flight path. And yet, she found it hard to disagree with Harper’s orders. There was a chance - a realistic chance - of getting back to Tadpole space before the enemy managed to get a blocking force in place ...

  Unless they have control of tramlines we don’t know about, she thought. Or if they have something else up their sleeves.

  “Inform me the moment you pick up any traces of enemy activity, any at all,” she ordered, after a moment. “I want to know if they so much as pass wind within this system.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Mason said.

  Susan scowled, then forced herself to sit back and relax. There was nothing to be gained by panicking - or showing the crew just how nervous she felt. None of her early commanding officers had ever sounded anything but confident, even when their ships had run into dangerous waters. In hindsight, she wondered just how many of them had been faking it. A commanding officer was responsible for the entire ship and all aboard her ...

  Fake it until you make it, she recalled. It was a piece of advice she’d heard at the academy, back when she’d started. A show of confidence can often be worth more than actual competence.

  Her scowl deepened as some of the implications sunk in. And that, she thought darkly, probably explains why Captain Blake remained in command for so long.

  ***

  “The enemy starfighters are definitely not as good as ours,” Lieutenant Shelia Roscoe said, as she brought up the display. “As you can see, they’re actually inferior to Mark-III Spitfires; I’d place them as being roughly equivalent to Russian-designed Katyusha-class starfighters.”

  “Except for the plasma cannons,” Henry said. The Russians had mass-produced the Katyusha-class during the latter stages of the war, sacrificing armour and other essentials for starfighters that packed a nasty punch. “Their plasma cannons are almost as good as ours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shelia said. She had a faint Australian accent, suggesting she was either a transfer officer or had spent a great deal of time Down Under. “In fact, in some ways, I’d say they were better. Their magnetic containment fields are less efficient than ours, but their cannons actually have a longer range. Useless against starship armour, of course, yet dangerously effective against our starfighters. I suspect we lost quite a few starfighters because the pilots assumed they were out of range.”

  “Probably,” Henry said. He’d been a fighter jock himself and he knew the arrogance that ran through the breed, combined with a grim awareness that death could come at any moment. A starfighter couldn't hope to survive a hit that wouldn't even scratch a destroyer’s hull. “It can’t be the safest of systems, surely.”

  “They probably do run the risk of overloading their plasma containment chambers,” Sheila said. “That was a common problem with our own upgraded starfighters.”

  “Yes, I know,” Henry said, rightly.

  Shelia missed the undertone - Henry had nearly been killed when one of the plasma containment chambers had exploded - and carried on.

  “Given everything else we’ve seen, sir, they must have made the deliberate decision to accept the risks,” she added. “I do not believe they don’t have the ability to make their weapons safer to the user. They chose to sacrifice safety for a little extra range.”

  Henry couldn't disagree. Civilian firearms, at least in Britain, were designed with all kinds of safeguards built into them, despite objections from owners who believed that disarming the safeguards ate up precious seconds. Military firearms were much easier to use, yet there was no additional risk to the shooter. But if it was possible to boost the weapon’s range, at some risk to the person who fired it, would the military accept the risk?

  It might have to, he thought.

  Shelia evidently agreed. “Extending the range of our own plasma cannons shouldn't be hard, but it would mean risking the same problem,” she added. “I’m not sure how much we can scale up our guns without running into other issues.”

  “The boffins will come up with something,” Henry said. He was sure of it. The Battle of New Russia had been bad, but the successive engagements had been a great deal more even, once each side knew a little about the other. “And the FTL communicator?”

  “Nothing, as yet,” Shelia said. “The computers have been sifting through every last byte of data, but they haven’t identified anything that might be an FTL signal. It might have been moving too fast for our sensors to detect.”

  “Or it might have been something our sensors are not designed to detect,” Henry said. “Do you have any theories?”

  “None,” Shelia said. “They may have solved the problem of producing intensive gravity waves, on cue, but every attempt to do it in a lab met with failure. The gravity wave simply didn't remain in existence for more than a second and, more irritatingly, the range was miniscule.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. “On an interplanetary scale?”

  “On a lab scale,” Shelia said, flatly. “The prospective range, at best, was ten kilometres. It would be quicker and simpler to use radio waves.”

  “I see,” Henry said.

  Shelia looked up at him. “Does this tell you anything new about the aliens?”

  “Only that their attitude to risk is different from ours,” Henry said.

  He scowled. He’d been forced to study hundreds of different human societies, back when he’d been preparing for the assignment to Tadpole Prime, even though he’d argued that it was a waste of time at best, openly misleading at worst. The Tadpoles weren't human and trying to judge them by human standards was an exercise in futility. And yet, there had been bits of it that he’d found interesting. The West, the cradle of true civilisation, had veered between being restrictive, to the point of almost being fascist, to being far too permissive and, at the same time, violently opposed to risk. Heading off the Troubles - and the Age of Unrest - would have been easy, if the governments had worked up the nerve to act before it had almost been too late.

  But they thought they had a great deal to lose, he reminded himself. It didn't occur to them that they risked losing everything anyway.

  “That proves nothing,” Shelia said. “We don’t know anything about them, do we?”

  Henry shrugged in agreement. There was no hard data on the size of the enemy fleet; therefore it was impossible to say just how badly the enemy had been hurt in the brief engagement. Only a handful of capital ships had been destroyed by the Tadpoles ... had they taken out fifty percent of the enemy fleet, ten percent or one percent? There was no way to know. The enemy had lost more starfighters, but that was meaningless. It wouldn't take them long to replenish the
ir losses.

  Unless their industrial base is far inferior to ours, he told himself. But that’s an assumption we dare not make.

  “No, we don't,” he said, finally. He tapped a switch, bringing up the image of one of the enemy warships. “What do you make of this proud beauty?”

  ***

  “I’m surprised they let you come,” Barton said, as George slipped into sickbay. “It’s been rather crowded around here.”

  “You’re lazing around in bed,” George said. She sat down next to him and held out one of the chocolate bars. Fraser had given it to her without an argument when she'd told him what she wanted it for. “I’m lucky to have a few free to come down to see you.”