Kurt nodded, wordlessly. The fewer starfighters Ark Royal could deploy, the greater the number of alien pilots that could be vectored onto each starfighter. And the aliens, damn them, didn't need to worry about watching their ammunition. Rose was right; sooner or later, a lucky shot would blow them into flaming debris, ending their lives before they even knew what had hit them. And the odds of the carrier making it back to Earth were very low.
“So here’s my idea,” Rose said. She shifted position until her breasts were pressing into his chin. “We enjoy ourselves now, between duty shifts. If we die, we die; if we live, you can go back to your family and I won’t say a word. This isn't… this isn't a normal situation.”
“I know,” Kurt whispered.
It was a troubling problem. Would he have cheated on Molly — and he knew that was what he was doing — if he hadn't felt trapped by the aliens? Or would he have remained untouched by her blandishments? His hands reached up, almost of their own accord, to pull at her tunic, letting her breasts bounce free. He felt himself stiffen as her hand reached into his pants…
…And knew he was lost.
* * *
The Captain, according to Royal Naval regulations, was the sole source of authority on any given starship. There was, James had learnt at the Academy, plenty of case law to back up the assertion that the Captain had a wide range of authority to reward or punish his crew, even rewrite the specific words of orders as long as the intent remained in place. But, by the same token, involving the Captain in a disciplinary matter meant that it would be recorded in the ship’s log. If the matter was not serious, XOs preferred to handle it off the record and ensure that nothing was ever written down.
He sighed as he studied the three crewmen facing him, both trying not to look guilty and failing miserably. It wouldn't have been a problem, he knew, if they’d kept their wits about them, but they’d been stupid enough to let rumours spread out. Crewwomen Sally Fletcher had lost a bet with Senior Crewman Daniel Meyer and Shuttle Technician Abdul Richardson and, as a result of the terms, had had to perform a striptease in front of a dozen crewmen. Gambling was bad enough — it wasn't technically forbidden, even though there were limits — but the striptease was a definite no-no. Luckily, the Boatswain had caught wind of the plot before Sally found herself humiliated in front of the entire crew.
“It's at times like these,” James announced, carefully not looking at each of them, “that I wish it was the lash tradition that we'd kept, rather than alcohol and sodomy.”
All three of the crewmen flinched. The Captain’s Mast might be official punishment, but there were limits. James had a far wider range of authority to issue punishments, provided he didn't do anything that was brought to the Captain’s attention. Whipping the three of them through the ship was permitted, if someone took a careful look at regulations, but it was normally reserved for thieves or idiots who endangered their fellow officers.
“I confess I have great difficulty in understanding what you were thinking,” James added, sweetly. “Please. What were you thinking?”
He looked from face to face, feeling his temper start to flare. “Let me guess,” he added, when none of them seemed inclined to answer the question. “You reached the limits of what could be legally gambled, so you started searching for forfeits. And one of you two idiots” — he gazed at the two men — “had the bright idea of a striptease. Right?”
“Yes, sir,” Richardson stammered.
James rolled his eyes. Gambling rings existed on almost every large starship, often serving as a vehicle for the younger and more naive crewmen to be separated from a third of their wages. Normally, the Boatswain would supervise to ensure that no one was drained of all their available wages — a third of naval wages were banked on Earth or Britannia, rather than onboard ship — but this particular ring had clearly failed to remain under supervision. He made a mental note to have a few sharp words with the Boatswain, then glared at the two men.
“Here is my judgement,” he said, coldly. He scowled at the two men until they were shifting uncomfortably. “You will return all the money you won over the past two weeks, then report to the Boatswain for shit duties for the next week or so. And, while we are on this cruise, you will refrain from any further gambling until we return to port. Do you wish to dispute my judgement?”
He smiled, inwardly, at their expressions. They could, legally, ask the Captain to review the judgement. It had been known to happen, from time to time, but it was far more likely that the Captain would confirm the punishment and add a few refinements of his own. And it would end up in their permanent records, where it would be a black mark when they applied for promotion or mustang status.
“Out,” he ordered. “Fletcher, stay behind.”
He waited until the hatch had closed, then studied the younger crewwoman. She was a year or two younger than Midshipwoman Lopez; her file stated that she was the youngest child of a merchant family. James was surprised she'd fallen for such an obvious trick — non-money forfeits weren't covered by any rules — but this was her first cruise. And perhaps she was foolish enough to believe that the next round would allow her to make up her winnings.
James rolled his eyes as she twitched under his gaze. If the two men hadn't rigged the game, James would have eaten his uniform hat. She looked too sweet and innocent to deserve the chewing out she was going to get, but he pushed that aside and straightened up.
“Agreeing to that bet was stupid,” he said, sharply. “What were you thinking, precisely?”
“I ran out of money,” Sally said. She sounded on the verge of tears. “I…”
“So you agreed to a forfeit without checking the terms in advance?” James interrupted. “Or were you idiotic enough to believe you could win?”
He paused, long enough for her to pull herself together. “I know; idiotic gamblers will agree to idiotic forfeits. And I'm sure they would have pushed you into it if you tried to back out. But there are regulations against such matters, young lady, and you would have been left holding the bag. You could have been summarily charged with breaking those regulations and booted out of the navy.
“Which might not matter,” he added, “if we don't make it home.”
She flinched, again. “You will not recover whatever money you lost to them,” James said. “Instead, it will go into the kitty — which should win you some plaudits from your comrades who might otherwise be disappointed. And, for the rest of this cruise, you will be barred from any further gambling, with anyone.”
He paused. Chances were she no longer had the money to gamble with, whatever else happened. “I would suggest, in addition, that you never played for forfeits again,” he added. “You are not experienced enough to tell the difference between something tolerable and something that will pose a threat to good order.”
“Yes, sir,” Sally said. “Thank you, sir.”
James smiled. He had let her off lightly… but it was her first cruise. Maybe she’d learn a lesson, without needing to face more formal punishment.
“One other thing,” he added. He glanced down at the duty roster, then looked back at her suddenly nervous face. “I'm assigning you to work under Deputy Boatswain Harrison. You will find her a good mentor, if you learn to listen.”
He watched her go, then sighed. Seven hours to the jump into unexplored space, seven hours until they knew what was waiting on the other side… and he was busy dealing with disciplinary problems. But at least it was a distraction from worrying about the future. His lips quirked as he realised that was probably what the gamblers had had in mind, too.
But she had been idiotic, he knew. Naval life could be hard for a woman, particularly one who went out of her way to make it plain she was a woman. Poor Sally would have lost all the respect she’d earned if she'd gone through with the striptease, her status plunging instantly from fellow crewmember to whore. Even now, her status had probably been weakened. At least she’d shared in some of the punishment the two men had earn
ed. It would save her from losing everything.
But enough of a punishment, he decided, ruefully. She didn't deserve additional punishment duties — shit duties, as they were called — let alone a public whipping. Hell, jokes aside, there had only ever been four since the Royal Navy had become a space-based service. It was far more common for someone to be dumped in the brig and then discharged as soon as the carrier returned to port. Maybe Sally could be transferred to another starship, one where her new reputation wouldn't follow her.
Shaking his head, he made a note in his private log of what had happened, then stood. The reporters had been badgering for a briefing and he couldn't put it off any longer. Maybe answering a few silly questions would help him relax.
And if they didn't, he told himself, he could always discuss the odds of them reaching home, once again. The reporters always found it alarming to hear the odds from a naval crewman.
* * *
“Kiev is in place, sir,” Farley reported. Ahead of them, the tramline glimmered on the display, waiting. “They’re reporting ready to jump.”
Ted sucked in a breath. They’d repaired the damage, reloaded the mass drivers and reorganised the starfighter squadrons. But they weren't at tip-top condition, he knew, and they wouldn't be until they gained an additional handful of starfighter pilots, as well as some additional repairs.
“Order them to jump,” he said, finally. He couldn't help a thrill of excitement, even though he knew it was dangerous. This was real exploration, the sort of work he'd hoped to do as a younger man. But instead he'd been assigned to Ark Royal… he shook his head, amused. It was funny how the world worked out, sometimes. “And then power up the Puller Drive.”
Kiev vanished from the display. Long seconds passed before she popped back into existence, signalling urgently. There was no alien fleet waiting for them, Ted saw to his relief, but there was a source of radio signals orbiting the G2 star. An alien settlement? There shouldn't be anything human on the other side of the tramline.
He smiled to himself. No one had explored the tramline, according to the latest records. In hindsight, that had clearly been a disastrous mistake. Who knew what precautions could have been taken if the aliens had been discovered before the first encounter? But now… One way or another, they were definitely going where no man had gone before.
“Jump,” he ordered, quietly.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Disappointing, isn't it?”
Ted had to smile at Fitzwilliam’s judgement. The first alien star system — the first star system humanity had ever discovered belonging to another intelligent race — was disappointing, in one sense. It didn’t look any different from a human-occupied star system. In many ways, it reminded Ted of Vera Cruz, except the alien system was lucky enough to have a gas giant for later mining. But it was an alien world orbiting an alien star and that made all the difference.
He looked up at the display, watching as the passive sensors sucked in data from across the star system and channelled it down to the analyst section. A number of signal sources — strong signal sources — on the planet itself or in close orbit, a handful of smaller signal sources scattered across the star system and very little else. If it was a forward alien base, Ted decided, feeling an odd hint of disappointment himself, the aliens had been criminally lax about fortifying it. But another part of him was relieved for the very same reason. A fleet of alien battleships would not be a pleasant discovery, not now.
“Locate the other tramlines,” he ordered. Tramlines were largely predicable, but there were times when reality didn't follow the laws laid down by human theorists. Ted had always been amused by how shocked the scientists sounded when they realised there was something in the universe they hadn't accounted for in their models, no matter how elegant they seemed. “Where do they go?”
There was a long pause as the passive sensors measured the gravimetric flickers around the local star. “Four tramlines,” Farley said, finally. “One leading back the way we came; two heading further into unexplored space, one dogging back along the edge of human space.”
Ted found himself seriously considering taking the tramlines that led further into alien territory, then quashed the impulse ruthlessly. “Launch probes towards the alien world,” he ordered, once he was reasonably sure that they weren't about to be attacked by alien starships guarding the tramline. “And then take us towards” — he glanced at the display — “Tramline Two.”
Fitzwilliam’s voice echoed in his ear. “You don’t mean to engage the planetary defences?”
“It depends on what kind of defences there are,” Ted replied. “We will just have to wait and see.”
The thought made him scowl. He couldn't blame Fitzwilliam for wondering; they had, on the face of it, a rare chance to attack an alien-settled world and rock them back on their heels. But the sheer lack of noticeable defences was worrying him. Had the aliens only discovered humanity when they’d stumbled across Vera Cruz and attacked at once? Where they facing the equivalent of a quick-reaction force? If that was true — and he doubted it — what would they face when the enemy actually mobilised?
Or would they make a deliberate decision not to fortify Alien-One? The thought was odd — in their place, he would certainly have insisted that the sole known point of contact between human and alien was heavily fortified — but perhaps it made a certain kind of sense. We might survey the system before they were ready to meet us.
He had a sudden mental image of humanity’s territory reaching out further and further, spreading the levels of deployable military forces ever thinner as their responsibilities grew rapidly. Perhaps, sooner or later, their ability to respond to a crisis before it got out of hand would be completely lost. He shook his head, putting the thought aside for later contemplation. Now humanity knew it was no longer alone in the universe, it was unlikely that petty nationalism could be tolerated any longer.
But we have aliens to hate now, he thought, cynically. There’s no point in hating humans when we have aliens to hate.
Hours passed slowly as the display continued to fill up with data. There was an asteroid belt in the system, several worlds that could have passed for Mars or Venus… and one Earth-like world, the source of the radio signals. Analysis indicated that the world rated at least 80% Earth-like; the atmosphere was breathable, the sea water was suitable for fish from Earth… from afar, it seemed the perfect colony. The drones kept creeping closer, boring their way through space on ballistic courses, sending data back via laser link to the carrier. There was no way — yet — to get pictures of the surface, but the alien orbital facilities were all too clear.
“It looks like a transhipment hub,” Anderson said. He sounded a little disappointed too, perhaps by the sheer normality of the alien structure. It was a boxy mass that looked too like some of Ark Royal’s contemporaries for comfort. But it was necessary. Humanity’s giant colonist-carriers couldn't land on planetary surfaces; judging by the presence of the station, nor could their alien counterparts. “I don't even think its armed.”
“We have to be careful,” Fitzwilliam reminded him. “The aliens might have different ideas about arming their settlements against possible attack.”
Ted couldn't disagree. Now, with alien attack a very real possibility, even the smallest colony worlds were bolting weapons to their orbital stations. Few of them had any real chance of standing off an alien attack, even one carried out by a single starship, but there was no way they would agree to leave themselves defenceless. Just before they’d left Earth for the second time, he’d heard that stocks in companies producing war material had skyrocketed. It almost made him wish he'd taken the time to invest some of his salary in such corporations. God knew he wasn’t doing anything with it.
He shook his head, studying the display. “Is there anything else in orbit?”
“A handful of satellites, but nothing else,” the analyst said, firmly. “Unless they have a way to cloak an entire battlestation from our vi
ew.”
He paused, looking down at the live feed from the drones. “Sir,” one of the drones just got into orbit,” he said. “It found a camp on the surface. “I think it’s a POW camp.”
Ted leaned forward, alarmed. “Show me,” he ordered. “Are you sure?”
He scowled as the images appeared on the display. The settlement was encircled by solid metal walls, guarded by aliens… and, inside, there were humans. They wore nothing, but the clothes they were born in; listlessly, they wandered around the camp.
“Two hundred and forty-seven men, women and children,” the analyst said, with heavy satisfaction. “Source unknown.”
Fitzwilliam coughed. “Are there any other alien settlements on the planet?”
“Not as far as we can tell,” the analyst said. He paused. “There is a handful of buildings outside the camp’s walls, but I don't think they’re large enough to be a full-scale settlement.”
“We’re missing something,” Ted mused. The aliens had installed a transhipment hub; clearly, they'd intended to settle the world. Had they changed their minds when they’d discovered Vera Cruz or were the human observers missing something? “But what?”
Fitzwilliam spoke rapidly. “Sir,” he said, “we cannot let this opportunity go to waste. This is a rare chance to recover a number of human prisoners from alien hands!”
“I know,” Ted said, rather more tartly than he intended. “But this could easily be a trap.”
He looked down at the display, contemplatively. Fitzwilliam was right; this was a rare chance to give the aliens a bloody nose, as well as removing human prisoners from their hands. But if it was a trap… he looked over at Major Parnell’s image on the display, quirking his eyebrows. The Major nodded, accepting the challenge.
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