“Good,” Ted said. He rose to his feet. “Dismissed.”
* * *
“It must have been horrifically dangerous down there,” Barbie said.
“It was,” Markus said, dramatically. “And the worst of it was jumping out of the shuttle in a combat suit.”
The Marines had gone out of their way to tell him how horrific the whole experience was — and, if anything, they'd understated. Maybe there were people who skydived for fun, but Markus had already decided he wasn't one of them. He’d taken one look at the ground coming closer, his sense of perspective so badly screwed up that he’d been unsure if he was falling or rising, then closed his eyes tightly. The whole experience had left him trembling in his suit, permanently hovering on the verge of throwing up until he’d finally hit the ground.
But there hadn't been any real danger, he knew, once they'd actually reached the ground. The aliens hadn't tried to prevent them from landing or even reinforce the guards on the penal camp. It was almost as if they wanted the POWs to be rescued. But why?
He thought back through the recordings he’d taken — or borrowed from the Marines. Was the whole world a subtle trap? Or had the aliens simply decided not to risk more than a token attempt to defend the camp with Ark Royal hovering high overhead, ready to pour fire down onto alien defensive stations? But if it was a trap, the aliens would have had to know that Ark Royal had survived Russia…
The XO entered the briefing room, looking businesslike. “Mister Yang, I need to speak with you,” he said, bluntly. “Come with me.”
Markus smiled as he followed the XO out of the compartment, feeling several reporters staring at his retreating back. No matter how they pretended, they knew that they weren't really capable of understanding what was going on. No, the only way to do that was to have friends and allies — sources, rather — among the military crew. Markus’s status within the group, already high because he had been allowed to embed with the Marines, would rise even higher if they thought he had the XO’s ear.
“I understand that you took recordings from the prison camp,” the XO said. It wasn't a question. “We would appreciate it if you kept them to yourself for the moment.”
“As you wish,” Markus said, quickly. There was no point in arguing. Besides, they weren’t trying to confiscate his recordings. “Do you think the aliens wanted us here?”
“It's a possibility,” the XO conceded. “If they believed we survived New Russia, there aren’t many other places we could go. But why?”
“The POWs,” Markus suggested. “They could have been conditioned…”
“We thought of that,” the XO said. Markus let out a sigh of relief. “For the moment, they will remain confined.”
He smiled, rather dryly. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Just one,” Markus said. “Where are we going next?”
The XO hesitated, clearly weighing the question in the balance, then shrugged. “There are a handful of systems with tramlines that lead back to human space,” he said. “We’ll pick our way through them, trying to avoid contact with the aliens — if possible.”
Markus frowned. “We’re not heading further into alien space?”
“Not yet,” the XO said. “We need to report in to Earth and…”
He broke off as the alert howled, bringing the ship to battlestations. “I need to go to the CIC,” he said. “You get back to your compartment. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” Markus said.
* * *
“Apparently,” Gladys said, “they were all naked. The aliens and prisoners alike, I mean.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. Gladys was older than Rose, younger than him… and queen of the chatterboxes. When she wasn't flying her starfighter or resting, she was chatting to everyone from junior crewmen to Royal Marines. It made her very well informed of what was actually going on, although she heard too many rumours for them all to be true. Kurt rather doubted that anyone would have the nerve to organise a striptease onboard ship with the XO on the prowl.
“Maybe they were molested,” one of the older male pilots grunted. “Wasn't there a film about Mars needing women?”
“That was about the shortage of women on the first colony,” Rose reminded him. “There was an accident and twenty-seven colonists were killed, twenty-three of them women. It had Jeremy Underline in his first starring role. And Nasty Mildew.”
Kurt smiled, despite the tension of being so close to Rose and yet pretending that everything was normal. Jeremy Underline was a heartthrob movie star; Penny had spent a year with her room utterly plastered in pictures of the handsome actor. It was odd to realise that Rose would have fancied him too… but then, she was only five years older than Penny. Nasty Mildew was worth watching, he recalled, yet the general theory at the time had been that she didn't really exist in reality. The unions might have objected to VR actors — they took work from real actors, they felt — but surely no living human could have boobs that big and still walk upright.
“There was a great nude scene,” the male pilot said. “I remember it well…”
“I’m sure you did,” Kurt said. He recalled, now, Molly throwing a fit at the filth Penny had been watching. Penny had been thirteen at the time, too young to watch anything even remotely sexual — and there had been nothing remote about Nasty Mildew. “But I don't think that was what the aliens had in mind.”
“They'd have to work hard to find the wretched actor,” the male pilot said. “I always knew she was a fake.”
“You’d think a VR composite character could actually act,” Rose said.
“I don’t think anyone cared about her acting,” Kurt said. “Coming to think of it, Underline couldn't act his way out of a paper bag either. Maybe he was a composite too.”
Gladys cleared her throat, noisily. “Maybe the aliens just don’t wear clothes and don't understand why we wear them,” she suggested. “There are colonies where people walk around in the buff.”
“Best shore leave destination ever,” the male pilot exulted.
“Most people who go to nudist camps really shouldn't,” Rose commented. She smiled at Kurt, a secret smile that was just a fraction too bright. “But didn't the alien bodies we recovered after the first battle have clothes?”
“Probably protective gear,” Gladys suggested. She didn't seem to have noticed Rose’s smile, but Kurt knew she rarely missed anything. “The aliens might well need protection, even if they don't wear clothes normally. Can you imagine trying to fly a starfighter in the nude?”
Kurt had to smile. “No,” he said, finally. The very thought was absurd, outside appallingly bad pornographic movies. He'd be lucky if he didn't accidentally castrate himself with the flight stick. “And nor should you.”
The alert sounded before he could say anything else. “To your fighters,” he snapped, thankful to be away from the embarrassing discussion. The enemy had to have finally returned to the system, loaded for bear. “Hurry!”
Rose grinned at him as she ran out of the room. Kurt flushed, then followed her until they reached the fork in the corridor that led to the launch tubes. Nodding at her retreating back, he ran down his own corridor and scrambled into his starfighter. Moments later, he was ready to launch.
* * *
“Twelve enemy capital ships just jumped into the system through Tramline Four,” Farley reported. “Janus sent us a full download before she was overwhelmed. Two carriers, one battlecruiser and nine frigates. Approaching on intercept vector.”
Ted hesitated, then made up his mind. “Set course for Tramline Two,” he ordered, coldly. “Maximum acceleration.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I think we waited too long, sir,” Fitzwilliam said.
Ted nodded, wordlessly. Both of the detached frigates had been destroyed, one of them at the other end of Tramline Four. But the drones were still intact and reporting back to Ark Royal. The alien ships were driving right towards them, not even bothering to leave a picket on the tr
amline. They were definitely out for blood.
“There must be something important on the other end of that tramline,” Farley suggested. “If they managed to scramble a defensive force so quickly…”
“Immaterial at the moment,” Ted said. If — when — they made it home, they could muster a large force to attack the alien system. “Run me the attack vectors, please.”
He watched, grimly, as the display filled with projected courses and attack vectors. The alien craft definitely had a faster rate of acceleration than anything human, which meant they would overrun the flotilla halfway to Tramline Two. Ted briefly considered trying to slip back into silent running, but there were too many alien craft to make it a viable tactic. At best, they would remain undiscovered for a few hours… and at worst, the aliens would manage to get close to their hull before being detected themselves.
“Recall all starfighters,” Ted ordered. It would be several hours before the alien craft entered engagement range. Until then, there was no point in running his pilots ragged. “And then concentrate on getting us towards Tramline Two.”
“Aye, sir,” Lightbridge said.
He didn't ask the question Ted saw on his face. What would they do if Tramline Two proved to have no link to human territory? The tramlines should lead back in the direction of human space, but what if their projections were wrong? Ted knew the answer, even if he was reluctant to say it out loud. They would have to keep going and hope they found a way to escape. If, of course, they even made it to Tramline Two.
The drones were sending back clear visuals of the alien starships now. Ted found himself grimacing as he mentally calculated the number of starfighters the alien carriers could launch, then studying the power curves of the alien battlecruiser. Despite its size, it was faster than any human frigate… and presumably armed to the teeth. Humanity hadn’t bothered to build large military starships, apart from carriers, but the alien point defence gave them the ability to make the ships workable. He wondered, absently, just how badly the aliens had scaled up their plasma cannons before mounting them on the battlecruiser.
He smiled, remembering the handful of alien weapons that had been scooped up by the Marines as they retreated from Alien-One. Perhaps the engineering crew would be able to deduce their operating principles, which would allow the alien weapons to be duplicated. Or perhaps they would expose a weakness which made the aliens vulnerable… if EMP could be used to disrupt ship-mounted weapons, what could it do to handheld pistols and rifles?
Humanity had experimented with EMP weapons — and EMP protections — for over two centuries. The weapons had been quite successful in tests, but so had the protections worked into military technology. Ark Royal’s sensor network wouldn't be badly dented if an EMP warhead went off too close to the hull, let alone her weapons and drives. But the aliens…
They mount their plasma weapons on their hulls, he thought. They cannot protect them without rendering the weapons completely useless.
Shaking his head, he settled back to watch as the alien ships drew closer.
“I’m picking up a stream of signals from the planet,” Annie reported. The communications officer looked surprised. “They’re beamed towards the alien ships, but our drones are picking them up.”
“Probably reporting in,” Fitzwilliam said. “And telling them that we took prisoners.”
Ted tended to agree… which raised the question of precisely what the alien ships would do, now they knew that Ark Royal carried nine aliens as well as the liberated POWs. Would they give chase anyway… or would they pull back, refusing to kill their own kind? Ted had studied such moral dilemmas at the Academy and had been left with the feeling that they depended on circumstances. Would it be wise to fire on a starship carrying prisoners if that starship was also carrying information that could not be allowed to reach enemy territory?
He leaned forward. “Can you decipher it?”
“No, sir, not with the technology we have,” Annie said. “My computers are still analysing the signal, but we don't have an understanding of the alien language, let alone whatever encryption programs they might be using.”
Ted sighed. Once, years ago, he'd taken part in an exercise where one side had been forced to send messages in the clear. Most such exercises had the leaders devising codes to pass messages without being understood by anyone who might want to listen in, but this particular leader had taken advantage of having a handful of Gaelic speakers in his company by using them as code-talkers. His opponents had claimed he was cheating, afterwards, yet the umpires had ruled in his favour. If someone wasn't making the best use of his personnel, they’d pointed out, he was failing.
But it was unlikely that combat decryption would ever be a viable tactic in its own right, he knew, even without adding the complexities of an alien language and alien encryption programs. It just took too long to decrypt even a short message, by which time the window of opportunity for using the message might have already closed…
“The alien ships sent a short reply,” Annie said. “Nothing else.”
Somehow, Ted wasn't surprised when the aliens just kept coming.
* * *
“Enemy carriers are launching starfighters,” Farley reported, four hours later. “Alien frigates are spreading out, but otherwise keeping their distance.”
At least we taught them respect, Ted thought. It was still another hour to Tramline Two, he calculated, by which time the aliens might well have overwhelmed them completely. If nothing else, he privately resolved, the aliens were going to know they’d been kissed. Hell, trading two of their modern carriers for Ark Royal would cost them dearly.
“Launch starfighters,” he ordered. “And then prepare to engage with mass drivers and unpowered missiles.”
The aliens would know their tricks by now, he knew. But they’d still have to be careful. One hit from a mass driver would shatter their carriers .., maybe even their battlecruiser. It might just allow him time to get his ship to the tramline…
“First enemy attack force inbound,” Farley added. “Targets; our frigates.”
Ted nodded, unsurprised. Strip the carrier of her escorts first, then close in and wipe her weapons and sensors off her hull. It made sense, he knew, which didn't make it any less irritating. The alien weapons, combined with their speed and agility, would ensure that that the following hour was going to be very unpleasant. He wished, suddenly, that he’d spent more time talking with the other commanders, rather than just issuing orders through his subordinates. But he had never commanded a multinational force before…
Hell, he thought. There has never been a multinational space force until the aliens arrived.
“Keep one squadron of starfighters to cover our hull, then direct the remaining craft to cover the frigates,” he ordered. “And then target the mass drivers on the alien carriers and open fire.”
On the display, the cloud of alien starfighters split up into several smaller formations as they entered engagement range, screeching down on the human frigates like a pack of wolves on helpless sheep. Ted noted, absently, that they were clearly taking precautions against nukes or EMP-weapons, although there were limits to how much space the alien pilots could put between themselves and their fellows. The frigates opened fire, picking off a handful of alien fighters as they closed in, then shuddered under the weight of alien plasma fire.
Ted silently thanked God for the armoured warships. Old they might be, primitive and slow they might be, but they were tough enough to stand up to the aliens. But damage was mounting rapidly on their hulls as their weapons and sensors were stripped away. One frigate stumbled out of formation as her drive failed, another vanished in a ball of fire when a lucky alien shot slipped through a gash in the hull and triggered an explosion. Ted noted lifepods launching from the stricken ship, knowing that they were futile. Unless the aliens saw fit to recover the human survivors, they were going to die in the vastness of interstellar space.
Poor bastards, he thought. He cou
ld launch shuttles to recover them — and there would definitely be volunteers to mount SAR missions — but the aliens would simply fire on the shuttles, assuming them to be warships. There were protocols among human powers for recovering stranded personnel, yet the aliens had probably never even heard of them. Besides, why would they allow humanity to recover personnel who could be turned around and sent right back to the war?
“Franco is taking heavy damage,” Farley reported. “Her drives are being targeted specifically.”
Ted winced as he peered down at the display. The alien starfighters had converged to the rear of the frigate and were pouring fire into her, shattering her armour piece by piece. There was no escape, he saw; even as his starfighters raced desperately towards the frigate the aliens finally succeeded. A series of explosions blew the frigate into a ball of radioactive plasma. Her tormentors slipped away and vanished into the distance, then turned and zoomed back towards another frigate. The human starfighters moved to block them.
“Beta Squadron needs to reload,” Fitzwilliam said. “Alpha Squadron is running dry too.”
“Call them back,” Ted ordered.
Gritting his teeth, he mentally cursed the aliens for having such effective weapons — and for not needing to reload in the middle of an engagement. If Ark Royal had been a modern carrier, recalling her fighters to reload would have been disastrous. Even with her heavy armour and heavier weapons, it still wasn't particularly safe for Ark Royal to have a quarter of her remaining starfighters out of the battle. But there was no alternative…
“Hit,” Farley exulted, suddenly. “We got one of the bastards!”
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