A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I’ll do my best,” Lillian promised. “And thank you.”

  “Don't tell anyone about us,” the leader warned. “No one.”

  “I won’t,” Lillian said.

  “Good luck,” Percy said.

  He waved cheerfully as he rose and headed for the hatch, followed by his superior. Lillian took the driver’s seat again and smiled to herself as she heard the hatch opening and closing behind her. The SAS wouldn't have any problems if they jumped down, she was sure. It wasn't as if the transport was moving particularly fast.

  Good luck, she thought, feeling better than she had for weeks. I’ll see you again soon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  HMS Theodore Smith, Hannibal System

  “Welcome onboard, Captain,” Commander Sally Acorn said. “The Admiral is waiting for you in the briefing compartment.”

  “Thank you,” John said. He would have liked a tour of the giant carrier - he hadn't had a chance to visit a Theodore Smith-class carrier - but he had a feeling there was no time. The task force had been delayed long enough, giving the Indians far too much time to dig into the Pegasus System and ready their defences. “Please show me to him.”

  He looked around with interest as the commander led him through a maze of corridors. It had been years since he’d served on any carrier and he had to admit that many of the lessons learned during the war had been integrated into Theodore Smith. Her hull was armoured, her interior was designed to seal compartments and make life difficult for boarders and everything was massively over-engineered. He had never met Admiral Smith, but if what he'd heard was true, the old man would probably have approved. His namesake was definitely a direct descendent of Ark Royal.

  The CIC was massive, crammed with consoles and holographic displays. He took a moment to study the one showing the task force, then followed the commander through a hatch and into a small briefing room. It was still large, certainly by Warspite’s standards; he couldn't help wondering if a small army of officers were expected to attend the briefing. The compartment was just too large for two officers.

  “Captain,” Admiral Fitzwilliam said. He rose and held out a hand. “Congratulations on your successful cruise.”

  “Thank you, sir,” John said. He shook the Admiral’s hand and sat as the Admiral indicated a chair. “I’ll pass your kind words on to my crew.”

  “The tactical staff are already analysing your sensor records,” the Admiral said. “I concur, however, that the Indians are trying to muddy the issue of who owns the facilities within the system as a fallback measure. However, from a tactical point of view, we can probably either claim everything we seize as the spoils of war or compensate the Indians for it afterwards.”

  “That will cause political problems, sir,” John said. “There could be another Terra Nova incident.”

  “We’re not Terra Nova,” the Admiral said, curtly. “And it’s pretty damn cheeky for the Indians to be investing in our system without our permission. I don’t think the other powers will be particularly interested in setting a very dangerous precedent. What’s to stop the Chinese from setting up a mining facility in New Washington if the Indians get away with doing it to us?”

  “Nothing legal,” John said.

  “The Chinese have every interest in keeping the Indians from creating such a precedent too,” the Admiral added. He shrugged. “All this will be moot, of course, if we fail to evict the Indians.”

  He keyed a switch, activating the holographic display. “You noted thirty-seven starships in the system, including one fleet carrier and twenty-two warships,” he added. “That gives them a slight advantage in numbers and perhaps technology, although we do have more experience. They may also have brought in reinforcements from Vesy.”

  “Yes, sir,” John said. “They have a second carrier battle group lurking there.”

  “Which can be in Pegasus within two hours of deployment,” the Admiral mused. “And if we let them unite the two fleets, we may be in some trouble.”

  “That would let us snap up their settled worlds,” John pointed out. “We’d have bargaining chips for the moment the war stalemated.”

  “They wouldn't be particularly useful,” the Admiral pointed out. “Ideally, we need to deal with the carriers separately.”

  “Yes, sir,” John said.

  He had his doubts. The Indians presumably knew that they faced only one British carrier - and that her destruction would be enough to end the war. In their place, he would have brought the second carrier into the Pegasus System and forced an engagement on favourable terms, relying on superior numbers to triumph over experience. It would cost the Indians badly, but if they won the engagement they’d win the war. Unless, of course, they lost both of their carriers in the fight ...

  “And we also need more data from the surface,” the Admiral added slowly. “I assume the recon platforms were placed correctly?”

  “Yes, sir,” John said. “There was no sign they were detected.”

  “Then you’ll be returning to the system soon,” the Admiral said. “You’ll be needed to collect data from the platforms - and the ground. We need to know what we’re likely to encounter when we enter the system.”

  He took a breath. “This is pretty much the last chance the Indians have to avoid hostilities, Captain. Either they pull back and concede the systems or they prepare to resist attack.”

  “They won’t pull back, sir,” John said. “They’ve already made a sizable investment in the system.”

  “I know,” the Admiral said. He studied the display for a long moment, allowing his anger to show. “Such a fucking waste.”

  “Sir?”

  “If we win,” the Admiral said, “we will probably have destroyed at least one Indian fleet carrier - one human fleet carrier. If they win, Theodore Smith will probably have been destroyed or - at least - severely damaged. She’s built to take punishment, but the Indians can dish out a hell of a lot. And that, Captain, weakens the entire human race against alien threats. How can we unite against a new threat if we’ve wasted our strength in civil wars?”

  John frowned. “Is there a new threat?”

  “Six years ago, the thought of aliens would have been laughable,” the Admiral commented, slowly. “The highest form of life we’d encountered, away from Earth, were the neo-dogs of New Washington, creatures so easy to domesticate that they became popular pets for American children. They certainly didn't possess any real intelligence. We told ourselves that we were alone in the universe. There were even cults that believed we were destined to spread through the galaxies, spreading intelligence far and wide.

  “Now, Captain, there are two known intelligent races,” he added. “One of them believed it had good reason to wage war against us, one of them was so primitive that contact with us proved disastrous to their society. How do we know that the next race we encounter won’t be as far above us as we are above the Vesy? Or that the next race we encounter will be so alien that direct communication is impossible? That nothing short of total war will be enough to answer the threat they pose?”

  John considered it for a long moment. The Tadpoles were hard to understand, certainly when it came to talking about anything beyond hard science and numbers. Their outlook on the universe was very ... alien. The Vesy, by contrast, were understandable, perhaps too understandable. They fitted into the same ecological niches as humanity ... indeed, in many ways, they were alarmingly close to humans. Their resentment at looking up at the stars and knowing they were taken was easy to understand. And they had good reason to want human technology for themselves.

  “We don't,” he said, finally. “There's no way to know what’s on the other side of the next tramline.”

  “Exactly,” the Admiral said. “I’ve actually tried to convince the Admiralty to put a freeze on further exploration until we rebuild our fighting power. The Admiralty understood my point, I think, but it was impossible to convince the rest of humanity. India ... among others ... objected to a
freeze that would leave them permanently disadvantaged.”

  John scowled. “That probably didn't help their attitude toward us.”

  “No,” the Admiral agreed, regretfully. “It probably didn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Grab yourself a cup of coffee, Captain,” he added. “We’ll start the main briefing in thirty minutes.”

  ***

  The briefing compartment on Theodore Smith was designed to hold, if necessary, the commanding officer of every ship in the task force. James, in order to keep the meeting under some kind of control, had ruled that commanding officers were to attend via hologram, rather than in person. It was a breach of etiquette, at least as it applied on Earth, but he preferred to be efficient rather than polite. Besides, there was a very real danger of the Indians launching a pre-emptive strike and, if they did, he needed his commanding officers on their ships. The only officers who were attending in person were himself, his tactical staff and Captain Naiser. Even Susan was attending via hologram.

  “You have all seen the tactical situation,” he said, once the final holograms had blinked into existence. Looking at them made his eyes hurt, but he ignored the slight discomfort. “The Indians have occupied the system thoroughly and show no sign of being willing to withdraw peacefully. Assuming the timetable holds true, they will be receiving the final ultimatum today, on Earth. Ten days from now, the war will begin in earnest.”

  He kept his expression blank with an effort. The politicians hadn't quite realised that attempting to synchronise military and political operations across interstellar space was impossible. There was no way to guarantee that the task force had reached its destination on time, no matter how much delay one built into the system. By the time the Indians on Pegasus received their orders, they would have had plenty of time to prepare themselves for the inevitable attack. He rather doubted they would do anything but fight.

  But we do have to give them the chance, he reminded himself, sternly. It was so much easier when we were fighting the Tadpoles.

  “We will assume, of course, that they are aware of our position,” he said. Given the number of foreign ships that had followed the task force, much to his annoyance, it was pretty much inevitable. “Accordingly, we will move up the tramline to J-35 and establish ourselves there after this meeting. That will cut down on the warning time before we advance into Pegasus itself.”

  There was a long pause. “Warspite will travel ahead of us and make contact with the recon platforms, allowing us to obtain up-to-date information,” he added. “Should the Indians not back down, we will commence offensive operations without further ado. Smaller flotillas will raid the outskirts of their system, allowing us to gauge their strength and determination to fight. We will also work to cut the Indians off from their supply lines. I imagine the Indians will feel the urge to take the offensive sooner rather than later.”

  He gritted his teeth in annoyance. Every instinct told him to take the task force directly into the system and challenge the Indians to open battle, carrier against carrier. Theodore Smith carried more starfighters, he was sure, and his pilots were more experienced. But there were strong reasons against such a step, reasons he could not afford to discard. Let the Indians be tested first, let their technological advancements - if they had any - be parsed out before he took the offensive.

  And besides, he thought darkly, we do have strong reason to keep the Indian fleet intact, if we could just stop them trying to take our worlds.

  “When they do,” he added, “we will be ready to meet them.

  “This will, of course, require us to keep our distance from our foreign friends,” he warned. “Once we enter J-35, we will go into stealth mode and conceal as much as possible; we’ll issue warnings to the observers, ordering them not to approach within one light minute of the task force. Legally, we do have authority to drive anyone away if they get too close, but for political reasons we would prefer to avoid it. Are there any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Morrison said. “What do we do if we discover proof the Turks are spying for the Indians?”

  James scowled. “Legally, again, we can drive their ships away or arrest them,” he said. “It may not be practical, however. We may just have to endure their presence.”

  It wasn't a pleasant thought. The Indians would already know far too much about the task force, no matter what precautions he’d taken. Given up-to-date information, they could plot ambushes or simply avoid his probes until his crews were run ragged. And being unable to do anything about the spies would be immensely frustrating. But he understood the problem facing the politicians. An incident that led to the death of foreign nationals, even ones spying on British ships, could lead to calls for peace based on the status quo. The Indians would win by default.

  He cleared his throat. “If the Indians refuse to accept the bait, even though we are weakening their position,” he added, “we will move the task force into the system and advance towards Clarke, forcing them into an engagement on our terms. They will almost certainly call for the second carrier, allowing us a chance to destroy both carriers ... assuming, of course, we can deal with one before the other arrives. We will be simulating the engagement extensively over the next couple of days.”

  There was a long pause. “Any other questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” Commodore Blake said. “What happens if they do manage to concentrate their forces against us?”

  “We avoid engagement,” James said, simply. He actually had a couple of ideas for dealing with the carriers, but he would prefer to avoid facing both of them at once. “If worst comes to worst, we simply fall back down the tramlines and wait for a second carrier of our own.”

  He looked from face to face. “We leave in two hours, gentlemen,” he said. “Good luck to us all.”

  One by one, the holograms blinked out. James rubbed his forehead as the tactical staff - and Captain Naiser - took their leave, leaving him alone. Getting the task force to Hannibal had been a masterwork of logistics, but they were already seeing problems. Many of the support ships in the RFA had been destroyed during the war and never replaced, a mistake that might cost the Royal Navy dearly. And yet, what choice had they had? There was no value in beans without bullets, coffee without fuel. They’d thought they’d needed to rebuild the warship squadrons as quickly as possible and they’d been right.

  He tapped the console, bringing up the near-space display. A handful of yellow icons hung in space, keeping their distance from the task force. Foreign observers, media representatives ... it was a given that some of them were spying, directly or indirectly, for the Indians. James had no doubt of it. The Turks were the prime suspects, but they weren't the only ones. He was one of the few people alive who knew why the Russians had become international pariahs ... and just how far the Russians would go to recover their former position.

  They’d ally with the Indians if they thought it would get them back to where they were, he thought, coldly. The truth couldn't be allowed out, not when it might restart the First Interstellar War. It wouldn't be long before the Russians decided that Britain - and every other Great Power - had as strong an incentive to keep the secret as themselves. And the Indians would probably pay through the nose for their support.

  He sighed. He’d contemplated suggesting trying to bring the Russians back into the fold, but he’d known it was a political non-starter. Too much had been at risk for anyone to feel comfortable with the proposal, even though nothing had ever been written down. He felt a stab of guilt and shame for Percy and Penny, the former trapped on Clarke until liberation or death; they would never know how their father had died. The secret had to remain secret.

  “Admiral,” Susan’s voice said. He looked up to see her standing at the hatch. “Warspite did well, didn't she?”

  “Yes, she did,” James agreed. He knew better than to assume the Indians would continue to hold the same dispositions - they’d probably concentrate their forces as soon as they knew the task force wa
s in J-35 - but it was a start. Getting the SAS down to the moon would give them something they lacked, too: solid information on just what the Indians were doing. “I think Admiral Soskice scored one, there.”

  “It would look that way,” Susan agreed. She closed the hatch and took a seat facing him. “Is that good news?”

  James shrugged. “I spent the last five years battling Admiral Soskice’s theoretical concepts of new ways of war,” he said. “And Warspite may have proved that at least some of them are solid.”

  Susan smiled. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I wish I knew,” James admitted. “If one idea works, does that mean the next idea is certain to work too?”

  “No,” Susan said. “But an idea failing doesn't mean you should dismiss them all.”

  James nodded, tiredly. Susan had never hesitated to tell him when she thought he was wrong, even though he outranked her. It was one of the reasons he’d worked to keep her with him as they’d both climbed up the rank ladder. Hell, Uncle Winchester wanted him to marry someone; perhaps, just perhaps, he should consider asking her. It wouldn't be a love match, but they worked well together.