A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6)

by Christopher Nuttall

  John turned. “Miss Schneider? What are you doing here?”

  The reporter looked disgustingly fresh and pretty, he noted, as he motioned for her to precede him out of the compartment. If he’d swung that way, part of his mind suggested, he might even have found her attractive. Blonde hair, long legs, a balcony one could recite sonnets from ... it was no wonder that half the crew had been competing to speak with her when she collected interviews for her post-war book. The darker side of his mind wondered if her mixture of hard-hitting questions and touching naivety had led to her assignment to Warspite, whose commanding officer could be guaranteed not to fall for her. It wouldn't be the first time the PR department had done something absurd in the desperate quest for good press.

  “I was looking for you,” she said, guilelessly. She pulled a datapad off her belt and held it out to him. “I wrote the first report on the Battle of Pegasus.”

  John took the datapad and read through the story, shaking his head in amusement. The bare facts were accurate - someone must have talked her through the entire battle - but she’d made them far more dramatic than he recalled. He didn't think he’d stood up and quoted lines from Moby Dick before pushing a big red button dramatically ...

  “It wasn't quite this exciting,” he said. Tara had pushed the button; he’d just issued the orders to fire. “I would have thought that evading their missiles and then the starfighters would be enough to make any story dramatic.”

  “It will be by the time the feature film comes out,” Penny said. “Would you rather be played by Carlos Rotherham or Danny O’Toole?”

  “They don’t look anything like me,” John protested.

  He vaguely recalled watching them in the movies, back when Colin and he had been able to sneak a few hours of shore leave from the Academy. Rotherham was a long-haired galoot who hammed up his lines; O’Toole could at least deliver his lines convincingly, but everything he said was always far too understated, making him more suitable for playing the elder statesman than a starship commander. And neither of them looked remotely like him, unless they went in for intensive plastic surgery. It seemed a great deal of effort for a crappy movie that would be forgotten within the year.

  “Trust me on this,” Penny said. She gave him a regretful look that wasn't particularly convincing. “By the time they bring out the movie, you won’t know what you actually look like either.”

  John sighed. It was a good thing, in some ways, that Admiral Smith hadn’t survived the First Interstellar War. There were no less than seven movies and four biopics featuring Ark Royal and her crew; none of the lead actors looked anything like the images in the files. Hell, several of them had even confused Ark Royal with a modern fleet carrier and an American carrier at that. A few hundred years down the line and everyone would have forgotten which nation Admiral Smith had served.

  “I should be able to sue,” he muttered.

  Penny shook her head. “As a military officer, your life is theirs to sell for PR purposes,” she said. “I think they can turn you into a bronzed hulk with naked girls dangling from your legs and you wouldn't be able to complain about it.”

  “That would probably explain why we had so many recruits after Starfighter Pilots Gone Wild II came out,” John said. There had been an upsurge in new recruits, if he recalled correctly. “I suppose the fact that trying to fit three girls and a pilot in a starfighter cockpit is completely impossible didn't deter the filmmakers from trying. And I don’t think I could command the ship if everyone on the bridge was naked.”

  Penny giggled. “I suppose they’re a little unrealistic.”

  “Just a little,” John confirmed.

  He checked the datapad again, thoughtfully. “I’d ask you to make it a little less dramatic, as the recordings from the bridge will come out sooner or later, but if you have to have it like that ...”

  “They’ll want to use it as a recruiting tool,” Penny said. “It’s not easy to recruit trained manpower these days.”

  John rather thought she was wrong, but he kept that to himself. “I need to catch forty winks,” he said, instead. “Send this report to the censors, if you must, and we can try and do a proper interview later.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Penny said. She paused. “Off the record, though ... the Indians still have a carrier, don’t they? And our carrier is damaged.”

  “They’d be risking a great deal more, proportionately speaking, if they tried to retake the offensive,” John assured her. “They may try to reclaim control of the system, but they’ll never keep it. We can hit them where it hurts.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Penny said. “Thank you, Captain.”

  John smiled back. “You're welcome,” he said. “Goodnight.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Clarke III, Pegasus System

  Colonel Vasanta Darzi was not a happy man.

  He hadn't been a happy man, really, since he’d been given his orders, which were so contradictory they just had to have been drafted by politicians. On one hand, he was to hold Clarke Colony in an iron grip; on the other, he was to make damn sure that his troops committed no atrocities against the British settlers. He had no particular inclination to commit an atrocity, to be fair - it wasn't as if the British were secessionists or jihadists - but keeping them under tight control and ensuring there was as limited contact with his troops as possible was impossible. The only way to square the circle had been to keep the colony’s life support systems under control, put the colonists to work and hope the Indian Navy never lost control of the system.

  But it had. The tactical briefing he’d been given before the remainder of the fleet scurried off to Vesy had been blunt; the navy had been defeated, the British now held control of the system and they were likely to move on Clarke at any moment. And when they did, he was expected to retain control of the planet despite being cut off from India. No, he was expected to defeat the British. And the hell of it was that he knew it probably wasn't possible.

  He glared at the display, thinking hard. He had the mass drivers, of course; he could make sure that any British ship foolish enough to venture into range didn't live long enough to regret it. But they wouldn't be enough to keep the British from blockading the colony indefinitely or heading off to Gandhi to wreak havoc there. The only real hope was that the British didn't know about the mass drivers, but he had his doubts. If they could sneak a ship close enough to a carrier to deliver a killing blow, they could sneak a recon satellite or two over Clarke ... and the mass drivers weren't particularly concealed. And if they knew about the mass drivers, what would they do?

  We do have orbital space under tight control, he told himself. It was true; there were ninety-seven active sensor satellites in orbit, backed up by thirty passive sensor arrays. The British would have real problems getting anything near the planet without being detected, all the more so now as the remaining Indian ships had abandoned the system. We could let them get in close and then blow their ships to bits.

  He tapped a switch on his console, studying the orders he’d been given by the government before departing Earth. They were masterworks, he had to admit; he had orders to hold out as long as possible, consummate with honour and dignity. But ... he was to try to avoid putting the British settlers in danger, another impossible task. If the British bombarded the colony, or somehow managed to land an army on Clarke, the settlers would be caught in the crossfire. The only way to avoid a massacre would be to surrender at once, which would not be commensurate with either honour or dignity.

  Bastards, he thought, bitterly.

  It had seemed a good idea, back on Earth. Give the Great Powers a poke in the eye, secure control over the two most vital systems for future expansion over the next few decades and - if the British put up a fight - give them a bloody nose that would make anyone think twice about challenging India. But now the navy had been defeated, he was cut off from his superiors and the British were gathering their strength for the final battle. The grand idea had
failed completely.

  And all we can do is die bravely, he thought. Governor Brown and his scratch defence force had tried to put up a fight, even though the outcome had been inevitable from the start. He could do no less ... and he was far better equipped to give the British a fight. It wasn't a reassuring thought. At least we will hurt them before we go down.

  He gritted his teeth as he rose to his feet. The deep-space tracking network insisted that the British were closing in on Clarke, their ships nosing their way into the halo of space junk that orbited the massive gas giant. One way or the other, it would all be over soon.

  Gather my officers, plan a defence and keep the colonists under control, he thought, bitterly. A piece of fucking cake.

  It wouldn't be easy, he knew. The mass drivers would start to run out of ammunition very quickly, forcing him to send them more from the British-built ore processors at the colony. It was an inconvenient position, but the British had probably never expected to have to supply fifteen mass drivers spaced out over the entire moon. He’d even have to press some of the settlers into shifting the projectiles ... which was, technically, a war crime, depending on how the British chose to look at it. They’d already carried weapons, but they hadn't known what they’d been carrying. It would be a great deal harder to prevent them from finding out once the fighting actually began.

  He strode into the small office and waited for his officers to arrive, tapping the table in irritation. Maybe he should just shoot off his mass driver ammunition and surrender. No one could reasonably claim he could have held out, once the British took the high orbitals, although he knew all too well that some armchair admiral would try to insist that he could still have won the battle. But that still smacked of defeatism to him. Cold logic said one thing; hot emotion said another. He couldn't give in as long as there were cards left to play.

  “We can expect to be attacked within hours, at best,” he said, once his officers had finally assembled. None of them looked very happy either. “I want all production switched to mass driver projectiles. Draw up a shipment rota and get the settler drivers busy moving them to the outposts.”

  There was no disagreement. But then, he hadn't expected any.

  “Up the patrols around the colony and make sure the defences are manned at all times,” he added. Having the settlers dig trenches had led to a great deal of grumbling and even a formal protest - which he’d ignored - but at least it would make it difficult for any attacking force to guess which ones were actually manned. “If they manage to land a force on the surface, I want to give it a bloody nose before it can take the colony.”

  And even if we can't stop them, at least we can make sure we’re not seen as weaklings, he added, silently. Losing the war would embolden others to challenge India on Earth. By the time we have to give up, we’ll have created a new legend.

  ***

  “There was a great battle,” Majors said, quietly. “The Indians were defeated.”

  Lillian gave him a sharp look. Majors had been very respectful over the past few days, after she’d taken his transmitter out of the colony; indeed, he’d gone so far as to say she was the bravest person he’d met in his entire life. Given that she’d actually taken the transmitter to the SAS, Lillian hadn't been able to avoid being more than a little embarrassed by his constant praise. The only real consolation was that his message had been forwarded to the fleet.

  Sharon leaned forward. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Majors said. “I was listening to a couple of their conversations on the radio - I managed to set up a receiver. The Indians lost a carrier and the remainder of their fleet is retreating. It won’t be long before we’re free!”

  “They still have the mass drivers,” Lillian pointed out, warningly. She understood his feelings, but she didn't really want him to do something stupid. The Indians were still in control of the colony, the settlers were still unarmed and the Royal Navy was still light minutes - perhaps hours - from the moon. “We may not be liberated in a hurry.”

  Majors snorted. “They have to surrender now, don’t they?”

  “They could gamble the Royal Navy wouldn't be willing to bombard the colony,” Sharon pointed out. “There’s very little they could do if they can't land troops themselves.”

  Lillian couldn't keep herself from glancing upwards. She’d never had any sympathy for terrorists or rogue states, but she thought she understood now how they must have felt, confronted by drones and KEWs dropped from low orbit. One moment, everything was fine; the next, the KEW had struck and the area was devastated. There wouldn’t have been even a second of warning before it was too late. On Clarke, they could be targeted and destroyed ... and they wouldn’t even know what had hit them. Their own side would have fired on the colony.

  “We have to do something,” Majors insisted. “Really ...”

  “Like what?” Lillian asked. “Can you think of anything we can do?”

  “We could seize the power plant,” Majors said, after a moment. “Cut the power to the colony ...”

  Lillian sighed, loudly. “The Indians have the power plant under heavy guard,” she said, tapping off points on her fingers. “Even if we somehow beat a dozen soldiers, without weapons, we will have to shut down the fusion plant and render it useless, before the Indians launch a counterattack. I don’t have the control codes - do you? And even if we succeed, the Indians have generators of their own. We’d be unable to do anything to them.”

  Majors glared. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Lillian said. She looked at Sharon. “I don’t suppose you could infect them with something, could you?”

  Sharon scowled, revolted. “I swore an oath to do no harm,” she said.

  “They’re occupiers,” Majors protested.

  “There is no way I can whip up a disease that only targets Indians,” Sharon snapped. “And even if I did, the Indians would have no trouble recognising what I’d done and countering it.”

  “And we couldn’t infect all of the Indians,” Lillian said.

  “We’d be more likely to infect ourselves,” Sharon said. Her voice was still angry. “There’s no real difference between us and the Indians, certainly not enough of a difference to keep a disease targeted on them from spreading to us. Our basic immunisations probably aren't any different from theirs.”

  Lillian nodded. Genetically-engineered diseases had caused a considerable number of deaths during the Age of Unrest - and would probably have caused more, if the Great Powers hadn't concentrated their efforts on keeping the diseases from spreading. Sharon had every reason to be horrified at the thought of creating a new disease herself, even if it wouldn't guarantee her immediate execution when the colony was liberated. The genie had been stuffed back in the bottle and no one would thank her for letting it out again.

  “So what do we do?” Majors demanded. “Just wait?”

  “Yeah,” Lillian said. “We wait.”

  A low chime rang through the air. “All personnel, report to the main hall,” a voice said. “I say again, all personnel report to the main hall.”

  “You go first,” Lillian said to Majors. They didn’t dare be seen together. “We’ll follow in a couple of minutes.”

  Majors nodded and hurried out of the tiny compartment. Lillian gave Sharon a look and saw she was clenching her fists, trying to get her anger under control. It was hard to blame her, Lillian knew; the risks of creating a disease far outweighed the possible advantages. And Majors would have happily deployed such a disease if he’d had one. The hell of it was that she understood them both quite well. Sharon was horrified at the thought of creating such a weapon; Majors was frustrated, helpless and just wanted to hit back at the Indians, no matter who got hurt along the way.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, as she reached for the door. “I’m sure we’ll be liberated soon enough.”

  Sharon nodded and followed her through the maze of corridors into the main hall. There
were more Indian soldiers this time, wearing powered combat armour. Lillian rather hoped that was a sign of nervousness; the Indians had to know that combat armour was still overkill against unarmed and unarmoured settlers. They could charge forward, flailing their arms, and tear the settlers to bloody chunks. The thought made her hesitate; she wanted to back out, but she knew she didn't dare. The Indians would turn on her if she tried to flee.

  “There has been a battle,” the Indian Governor said, once he’d called for attention. “The situation is still fluid. However, this moon may come under attack ...”

  ***

  “So,” Lewis said. “Are you still mooning over your girlfriend?”

  Percy ignored the sergeant’s sally as he peered through the binoculars towards the Indian patrol. The Indians had been patrolling more and more over the last couple of days, although there was no way to know if they’d detected the SAS troop or if they were just being paranoid, following the naval defeat. It hardly mattered, Percy knew; they’d had to abandon the first camp completely and slip over five kilometres from the colony before they dared set up a second. If this went on, their ability to keep an eye on the Indians would be seriously impaired.