A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Not that it would matter that much, he thought, as he silently worked through the vectors in his head. They’d have plenty of time to concentrate their forces before the task force arrives.

  “The carrier is running a regular active sensor sweep,” Tara added. “I don’t think we can slip into weapons range without being detected.”

  “They’d be worried about space junk,” John said. There was no shortage of tiny pieces of debris orbiting the gas giant. The last time he’d been in the system, the scientists had speculated that a moon had broken up millions of years ago and most of the remains had entered stable orbits. There’d even been an interesting argument over just why the moon had broken up in the first place. “But it does make it easier for us to keep tabs on where they are at any given time.”

  “Unless that’s what they want us to think,” Howard offered. “We don’t have eyeballs on the target.”

  John nodded. The Indians could fake a carrier, if they wanted; the real carrier could be concealed under stealth mode while the fake carrier drew fire from any incoming ships. There was no way to tell the difference, save for watching the carrier launch starfighters or move out of orbit. And even the latter could be faked, if the Indians were prepared to put in the effort. Given the value of a supercarrier, John wouldn't have cared to bet against it.

  “We’ll slip a platform as close as possible to the carrier on the way out,” he said. The original settlement hadn't included any stealthed platforms; there'd seemed no reason to prepare the system for enemy occupation. But really, who would have imagined the chain of events that led to the war? “Helm?”

  Armstrong looked up. “Yes, sir?”

  “Keep us inching towards the moon,” John ordered. “We’ll deploy the first set of platforms once we get close enough.”

  “Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.

  John keyed his console. “Major Drake” - the SAS officer had been granted a courtesy promotion while onboard ship - “we should be at the deployment zone in two hours. Is your team ready for deployment?”

  “We’re ready to man the shuttle,” Drake confirmed. “I’ve just got the lads having a brief rest until the mission commences. All we need to do is get out there and cast off.”

  “Good,” John said. He’d thought himself a brave man - he still had nightmares about the final desperate attack on a Tadpole ship, just after Canopus had been destroyed - but the planned deployment to Clarke III sent chills down his spine. “We’ll alert you thirty minutes prior to shuttle launch time.”

  He closed the channel and turned his attention back to the main display. A handful of automated miners were coming into view, marking yet another Indian effort to assert their control over the system. It would probably take months, at the very least, to set up a full-scale mining operation - and that would raise the question of just what they intended to do with it - but it was a potential nuisance. Besides, as Ark Royal had proven, mining asteroids for raw materials that could be turned into mass driver ammunition wasn't particularly hard.

  And that carrier will be bristling with mass drivers, he thought, coldly. They’ll have been planning to fight the Tadpoles, if necessary.

  It wasn't a pleasant thought. Mass drivers didn't throw their projectiles at the speed of light - it was impossible for anything with mass to travel at the speed of light - but there would be very little warning before a mass driver shell slammed into Warspite. His ship was nimble - certainly when compared to a carrier - yet it would be hard to evade the projectile before it was too late. The only other countermeasure, besides moving the ship, was hitting the projectile with something hard enough to destroy it and taking the shot in time would be difficult. He couldn't recall it ever having been tried outside simulations.

  Wonderful, he mused. We’re going to be testing all the war-fighting theories of the past five years for the first time.

  John forced himself to relax as the moon grew closer. The Indians were clearly establishing an orbiting station, rather than relying on their ships; it looked, very much, as though they were planning to establish a habitable asteroid too. They were definitely planning to stay. John was surprised they were prepared to make the investment, but overshadowing the British commitment would be one way to make their control stick. Even so, it was about as odd as setting up a mining operation. The investment might be completely wasted, if the Royal Navy took the system ... and, if the Royal Navy was defeated, it would still be a long time before the investments started to pay off. It was quite possible the Indians would be going into debt, even if the war ended with them in control of both Pegasus and Cromwell ...

  They must be very confident of victory, he told himself. Or are they holding out for a share in the system regardless of who wins the war?

  He considered the point for a long moment. Terra Nova was the only human-settled star system where the locals didn't exert any control beyond their planet’s atmosphere. Even if they did manage to unite their world and start building a navy, the other interstellar powers would object. There wasn’t a single nation that didn’t have interests, directly or indirectly, in the Terra Nova System. The standard rules of ownership simply didn't apply. But Britain owned the rights to Pegasus ...

  Unless they plan to assert that their investments aren't connected to the war, he thought. And that capturing them would be naked theft.

  He made a mental note to discuss the possibility with the Admiral - it was well above his pay grade - and then turned his attention to reports from engineering. The recon platforms were ready for deployment, each one crammed with passive sensors and completely undetectable unless the Indians got very lucky. Once emplaced, the Royal Navy would have a record of every Indian starship that went active, as well as shuttles flying to and from the colony on Clarke. The intelligence staff would be able to make a number of very good guesses about just what the Indians were planning ...

  “Captain,” Armstrong said. “We have reached the first deployment point.”

  John took a breath. “Deploy the first platform,” he ordered. In theory, the Indians shouldn't be able to detect them, but it wouldn't be the first time someone accidentally radiated a betraying emission. “Now!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Tara said. There was a long chilling pause. “Platform deployed, sir. Laser link established; coordinates set.”

  “Recheck everything,” John ordered, tersely. There was no room for errors. The first platform could not be lost without risking the entire network. “Confirm status.”

  “All systems go,” Tara confirmed. “Live feed coming through the network now.”

  “Good,” John said. “Helm, move us to the second deployment point. Prepare to launch the second platform.”

  “Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.

  It was nearly an hour before all seven recon platforms were deployed, two stealthily making their way towards Clarke III while the remainder held position in orbit around the gas giant, linked together by pinpoint laser beams. There would be almost no chance of the Indians detecting them, John was sure, and in the unlikely event of a miner stumbling across them the platforms would self-destruct, ensuring that nothing fell into enemy hands. The boffins had been very insistent on that, pointing out the dangers of allowing the Indians a good look at British stealth and recon technology. John suspected the Indians weren’t far behind - if at all - but there was no point in arguing. Trying to prevent the Indians from gaining any insight into British capabilities was worth any effort.

  Not that it matters, he thought, glumly. If they stumble across a platform, even if it destroys itself, they’ll know they’re being watched.

  “Move us to the final deployment point,” he ordered. “Keep a direct laser link to Platform One.”

  “Aye, sir,” Armstrong said. “We’re on the move.”

  John nodded, feeling sweat running down his back. He didn't dare take Warspite any closer to Clarke III, not when the Indians had presumably scattered recon platforms of their own around the tiny moon. The
SAS would be running a gauntlet ... and, from what he knew of the stealth shuttles, they’d be dead if the Indians got a sniff of their presence. They were simply designed for nothing more than being undetectable. A single plasma burst would be more than enough to swat them out of existence.

  “Captain,” Tara said. “The carrier is launching a flight of starfighters.”

  John braced himself. The carrier was real. It had to be real, unless the Indians had managed to fake a flight of starfighters. “Are they coming towards us?”

  “No, Captain,” Tara said. “It looks like a standard training flight.”

  “Keep watching them,” John said. He studied the formation for a long moment, then nodded slowly. It did look like a training formation. The Royal Navy - and God knew there was no sign the Indians disagreed - believed in regular training fights and exercises, even during deployments. It was vitally important to keep the pilots at their best. “Let me know the moment anything changes.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Tara said.

  John watched the Indians for a long moment as Warspite made her way towards the final deployment point. The starfighters would have no trouble catching up with his ship if they detected her presence, which would force him to test Admiral Soskice’s theories in real life while he tried hard to put as much distance as he could between Warspite and the Indian capital ships. His ship was crammed with point defence weapons, but how well would they work in practice? The simulations changed depending on what assumptions one fed into the system.

  We may be about to find out, he thought. Another flight of starfighters launched from the Indian carrier, falling into a very definite exercise formation. No one in their right mind would fly in a predictable pattern during wartime, no matter how elegant it was. They’d be blown out of space before they could realise they were in trouble. And then we'd know just which theories actually work.

  The Indian pilots looked to be good, although he thought he could see a certain lack of real experience that would cost them, in a real battle. Exercises, no matter how realistic, were rarely as unpredictable as real combat ... but then, there hadn't been any real combat since the war. And the Indians had only had a handful of officers and men who’d fought in the Battle of Earth. They certainly hadn’t joined the Great Powers in planning ways to take the offensive.

  And no Indian carrier took part in Operation Nelson, he thought. Did they have something planned even as far back as then?

  He shook his head. In hindsight, it might have been a mistake not to take the Indians seriously, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Once the war was over, there would be time to place international affairs on a whole new footing. And that, too, was well above his pay grade.

  “Steady as we go,” he ordered, quietly. Thirty minutes to the final deployment point, then the SAS would be on their way. “There’s no reason to panic just yet.”

  ***

  “Percy,” Penny said, as Percy popped his head into the observation blister. “Are you alright?”

  “I always feel nervous before deployment,” Percy said. His face was so pale that Penny seriously considered dragging him to sickbay. “I’ll feel better as soon as we’re on the way.”

  “You’re going down to Clarke,” Penny said. She hesitated, then told him what she’d found out. “You’ve joined the SAS.”

  “I’m .... just working with them,” Percy said. His eyes narrowed. “How did you find out about them?”

  “Everyone on the ship knows,” Penny said, sarcastically. It hadn't taken her long to discover that there were no secrets on a small warship. “And they know I’m your sister too.”

  “As long as they’re not sharing nude photographs of you,” Percy muttered. He cleared his throat before she could demand to know what he meant. “Don’t put that in your reports, ok? The censors will not be amused.”

  “I won’t,” Penny said. She’d written a handful of articles, but most of them had been puff pieces. Neither she nor Stevenson had been permitted to watch from the bridge as Warspite made her approach to Clarke. She was tempted to complain it wasn't the full access she’d been promised, but she had a feeling that complaints would get her nowhere. “You owe me an interview when you get home.”

  “If I do,” Percy said, morbidly. “Penny ...”

  He shook his head. “This could be the last time we see each other,” he said. “I wish you hadn't come.”

  Penny felt her temper flare. “Would it have been better if I’d stayed on Earth and only heard about your death months or years after it happened?”

  She glared at him. “At least this way I’ll know what happened!”

  Percy smiled. “But you could make up something far more impressive to tell your children,” he pointed out. “Percy, my brother, who died in the arms of a dozen women after ingesting a large meal of oysters and injecting himself with super-boost. We should all try to pass that way.”

  “I hate you,” Penny said. “And I wouldn't tell my children that you died in bed like that. I’m not Uncle Al.”

  “I’m pretty sure Uncle Al was making up most of his stories,” Percy said. “Mum always said he was a braggart, a liar and a pain in the ass.”

  Penny had to smile. Uncle Al had been their mother’s brother; he’d died two years before the war. He’d been fun, she had to admit, although the tales he told of adventures in faraway lands had been completely unsuitable for children. Their mother had regularly shouted at him for telling Percy and Penny about how he’d met strange women and courted them. Percy had once made the mistake of telling their mother that he wanted to be like Uncle Al and wound up grounded for a week.

  “I’ll tell them they should be proud of you,” Penny said. “But I think you’ll be fine. You’re like a cockroach. You just don’t die even when you get smacked with a shoe.”

  Percy shuddered. “Don’t joke about cockroaches,” he said. “The barracks in Malaysia were full of the damn things. We had to resort to a flamethrower just to keep them from crawling on our bunks.”

  “I hope you’re joking,” Penny said. Burning down a barracks was probably worthy of a court martial, not reassignment to Edinburgh. “I didn't hear anything about you being booted out of the military for gross stupidity.”

  “It could be worse,” Percy said, refusing to rise to the bait. “We were doing battle with huge scorpions in the Middle East. Some of them were so large and nasty we used to joke they’d been mutated by radioactivity. There was a Yank base next door and we pitted our scorpions against theirs in duels to the death ...”

  His wristcom bleeped, once. “I have to go,” he said. “Penny, take care of yourself, all right?”

  “I’ll try,” Penny said. She gave her brother a hug. “And good luck, Percy. Come back alive.”

  She watched him go, feeling cold ice crawling through her heart. Percy ... had always been strong and confident, even before he’d joined the military, but now ... he’d always been overprotective, yet now he was overdoing it. Had her near-death on Vesy affected him so badly? She was the only blood relative he had, after all. And they’d been forced to struggle together to escape the floodwaters during the war.

  “I’ll see you again, Percy,” she whispered. “But I can’t stay out of danger.”

  ***

  “We’re holding position at the final deployment point,” Armstrong reported.

  “There are no signs we’ve been detected,” Tara added. “The SAS should be able to deploy without problems.”

  John nodded. Getting out wouldn't be hard, unless the Indians decided to radically expand their exercise schedule. It looked as though they were practicing dogfighting rather than search and locate patterns. They didn't seem to be doing too badly, as far as he could tell; he was already making notes in a file for the Admiral’s tactical staff. But any weaknesses he saw in their formations would probably be corrected by the time the task force arrived.

  “Very good,” he said. He keyed his console. “Major Drake?”

&
nbsp; “We’re ready, Captain,” Drake said. “Thank you for the lift.”

  “You’re welcome,” John said. He wanted to tell the SAS officer to make sure he kept a laser link to the platforms, but he knew Drake would know his job. No one passed Selection without being very capable, even at the start. “Have a good one, Major. You may undock at leisure.”

  “Just make sure you get home alive,” Drake said. “The task force is going to need your intelligence too.”

  John nodded. The connection broke.

  “Captain,” Tara said. “The shuttle has undocked.”

  “Hold our position,” John ordered. “We’ll let them get some distance before we take our leave.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Stealth Shuttle Sneaky Bastard, Pegasus System

  “You know,” Jimmy said, as he sat down in the stealth shuttle. “This ship needs a name.”