Ted felt a desperate flash of hope as he saw one of the alien carriers staggering out of formation, having taken a bomb-pumped laser to her main hull. He found himself torn in two as the aliens struggled to save their ship, torn between praying for them to succeed and praying for them to fail. There was a brotherhood between human spacers, no matter what interstellar power they served, but did that brotherhood include the aliens? For all he knew, they didn't even have the concept of brotherhood. But he couldn't help feeling torn in two…
The display blinked, then replaced the icon representing the alien carrier with an expanding sphere marking a cloud of debris. “Target destroyed,” Farley reported. “I say again, target destroyed.”
“Good,” Ted said. The aliens had to feel the loss of a carrier… although God knew they’d killed almost ten alien carriers since they’d gone to war. But would it be enough to force them to take a step backwards and let Ark Royal escape? “Target the other carrier and continue firing.”
On the display, the alien craft converged, then flashed back towards Ark Royal with murderous intent.
* * *
Kurt was finding it hard to keep track of everything that was going on in the combat zone, despite his best efforts. His carefully-planned formations had fallen apart as soon as the battle had begun, forcing pilots to fly with whatever wingmen they could find. The aliens seemed to have definitely learnt from experience, filling space with thousands upon thousands of plasma bolts that threatened to wipe the human starfighters from existence. At least one of his pilots, he’d noted savagely, had died because he’d flown right into the path of one of the plasma bolts, his craft exploding before he'd even recognised his mistake.
He took a shot at an alien fighter, then gave chase… but the alien pilot rapidly outpaced him, then flipped around and came darting back. Kurt braced himself, allowed the computers to take the shot as soon as it became possible, then yanked his starfighter to one side. Warning lights blinked up as plasma blasts flashed past his position, but none of them managed to score a hit. The alien pilot wasn't so lucky. A direct hit smashed his starfighter to atoms.
“Good shot, boss,” Gladys called. “A little help over here, perhaps?”
Kurt nodded, barking orders as he flipped his starfighter around and moved to her assistance. The aliens were taking ruthless advantage of their numerical superiority, ganging up on the human pilots and forcing them to scatter. Kurt drove at one alien craft and had the satisfaction of seeing its pilot jumping out of the way, then broke through to cover Gladys as she turned to make the run back to the carrier.
Clever bastards, he thought, sourly. The aliens knew the human pilots needed to reload, so they were trying to make it impossible for them to return to the carrier. He ordered Beta Squadron to cover the incoming fighters, but he was rapidly running out of pilots with loaded weapons. The entire wing was running low on ammunition.
“Alpha and Gamma, prepare to return,” he ordered. Both squadrons were low, but most of the pilots still had some ammunition left. “Let them come close before you open fire.”
He felt a moment of unwilling admiration for the alien pilots as they streaked to block their path back to the human carrier. They’d already picked off the point defence weapons covering the landing deck, allowing themselves to lurk there and pick off human starfighters trying to land. It was clever, he admitted, although they weren't trying to fire into the carrier. The armour would prevent a series of explosions that would destroy the ship, but they could easily render the landing bay effectively useless. Or were they more interested in picking off the starfighters?
Kindred, he thought. Successful starfighter pilots were neither the wild untamed dogs the movies made them out to be or slavishly obedient servants of the military. It was strange to realise that they might have something in common with the alien pilots…
“Fire,” he ordered.
Caught by surprise, five alien starfighters were picked off before they even realised that their intended prey was far from toothless. The remainder scattered, just long enough to allow the human pilots to land and rush through the reloading cycle. Kurt slumped in his seat as the ground crew went to work, feeling utterly exhausted. They were in deep trouble and it was far from over. He’d have to go back out within moments…
He looked over at Rose’s starfighter, then cursed himself angrily. Whatever else happened, he wanted her to survive… and that was the kind of emotion he could not allow.
Moments later, the starfighter lurched as it was shoved back into the battle.
* * *
“The starfighters are down to three squadrons worth of starfighters,” Farley said, quietly.
Ted nodded. Only three frigates remained intact and largely undamaged, allowing the aliens to concentrate their efforts on Ark Royal herself. The repairs they’d carried out had made it harder for the alien pilots to get into range, but not impossible. Ted had deduced that the aliens had no tradition of actually repairing their ships outside a shipyard, as the alien pilots seemed to have assumed that weapons damaged or destroyed at New Russia hadn't been replaced. And they were still thirty minutes from Tramline Two.
“Understood,” he said. They needed time to recuperate, then reorganise their squadrons. The CAG had done an excellent job, but the pilots needed more guidance than could be provided in the middle of a battle. “And our mass drivers?”
“Down to one-third projectiles,” Farley said. “We haven’t scored a single hit.”
“I know,” Ted said. “But keep firing.”
He scowled. The aliens were aware of the danger now and were taking precautions, even if it meant withholding some of their starfighters from the swarms tearing the human fleet apart. They'd come close to scoring a hit on the other carrier, but there was no such thing as proximity damage where mass drivers and inert projectiles were concerned. They either scored a hit or they didn't. There was no middle ground. But, he told himself, if they kept spitting projectiles towards the carrier, the aliens would be forced to keep some of their starfighters back to cover their ship…
The only consolation, he told himself, is that we wiped out six of their frigates with nukes.
Farley swore, suddenly. “Sir, the Rubicon…”
Ted blinked, then stared at the display. The Italian frigate was lurching out of formation, her drives spluttering madly… but she didn't seem to be damaged. Beside her, the French and German frigates followed, altering course until they were plunging back towards the onrushing alien ships. Ted stared, not understanding — at first — what he was seeing. And then the frigates opened fire. Their weapons seemed puny compared to the alien energy cannons…
“They’ll be in range of the plasma gun,” Fitzwilliam said, in shocked disbelief. One of the alien frigates glowed, then vanished from the display. The German frigate followed moments later, blown apart by a direct hit from the battlecruiser. “Call them back!”
Ted shook his head. The French and Italian crewmen were committed now, he knew. There was no way they could reverse course again and escape before it was too late. He watched, torn between horror and respect, as the Italian frigate and the remaining alien frigate killed each other… and the French frigate rammed the alien carrier directly. Both starships vanished in a colossal explosion.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Dear God,” Farley said, very quietly.
Ted was stunned. It was rare, very rare, for one starship to try to deliberately ram another — and to succeed in ramming her target. No matter what civilians might say, it was about as likely to happen as crashing into an asteroid while flying through an asteroid belt without bothering to keep a careful eye on the sensors. But the frigates had sacrificed themselves to give the carrier — and the POWs — time to escape.
The aliens seemed equally stunned. Their starfighters flipped backwards, away from Ark Royal, even though they had nowhere to go. Could the one remaining alien craft, the giant battlecruiser, take them onboard? Or could they retu
rn to the planet and land under their own power? Intelligence’s best guess was that the alien starfighters were no more capable of landing on a planet than humanity’s starfighters, but what if they were wrong? Ted shook his head, dismissing the thought. As long as the starfighters stayed away from his ship, it didn't matter what happened to them.
“The ship-mounted plasma cannon must have a recharge period,” Anderson muttered, through the intercom. “That would make sense, I think; they’d need to refill the containment chamber between shots…”
Ted couldn't disagree. If the aliens had been capable of firing multiple shots without pause, all three frigates would have been destroyed as soon as they entered firing range. Instead, they’d taken out a carrier and damaged the alien chances of catching their target.
“Recall our starfighters, then keep us heading towards Tramline Two,” he ordered. “Target the battlecruiser with the mass driver, then open fire if you believe you have a reasonable chance of scoring a hit.”
“Understood,” Farley said, although he sounded doubtful. The alien battlecruiser was surrounded by a swarm of starfighters, buzzing around like angry bees. It was unlikely that a projectile would get within kilometres of its target without being engaged and deflected or destroyed by the starfighters. Or an unpowered missile, for that matter. “I’ll watch for a suitable opportunity.”
Ted kept one eye on the alien ships as his starfighters reloaded, then repositioned themselves in the launch bay. His pilots needed a chance to rest and recuperate, but they were unlikely to get it; silently, he made a mental note to insist on training up new starfighter pilots if the war threatened to go on for much longer. There was no reason why a carrier the size of Ark Royal couldn't carry more than one starfighter pilot per starfighter, allowing the starfighters to be turned around and pushed back into combat quicker than before.
The aliens kept their distance as the giant carrier moved rapidly towards Tramline Two. Ted couldn’t help wondering if they’d learned caution… or if they were merely waiting for reinforcements. His imagination provided too many possibilities, including the very real danger of running into an alien ambush as soon as they jumped through the tramline. But if there was an ambush waiting for them, the optimistic side of his mind pointed out, why had the aliens sought to bring them to combat already? They could just have herded Ark Royal and her flotilla towards Tramline Two without coming close enough to engage the carrier.
No way to know, he reminded himself.
He keyed his console, instead. “James, make sure that everyone has a bite to eat,” he ordered. “I want them as alert as possible when we jump through the tramline.”
“Understood,” his XO said. “I’ll see to it at once.”
Ted wondered, in a moment of mischievous amusement, just how badly the reporters were taking the running battle. Had they learned to read the display well enough to realise that all of the frigates were now gone? Or had they concluded that Ark Royal had actually won the battle outright, rather than scoring a victory on points? He considered, briefly, calling their compartment and asking them, before dismissing the thought as unworthy of him. There was no point in wasting time…
Midshipwoman Lopez appeared with a tray of food packets, which she passed around the bridge. Ted took his gratefully, silently impressed that the young woman was bearing up well under the stress of combat — and dealing with reporters. He made a mental note to ensure she was promoted when they returned to Earth, perhaps with a transfer to a more modern starship if it was what she wanted. Or maybe she’d prefer to stay on Ark Royal. Unless the human race made a definite breakthrough in point defence — and light armour — the modern carriers were little more than death traps.
“Thank you,” he said. The packaged food had no taste, as far as he or anyone else had been able to determine, but it did help him to become more alert. He ate the two ration bars — they had the consistency of fudge, although not the taste — and then passed her the empty package. “How are the reporters coping?”
Midshipwoman Lopez smiled. “They’re coping about as well as can be expected,” she said. “I don’t think they understand the situation.”
Ted smiled. It was a very diplomatic answer. “Good,” he said. “Keep an eye on them, once you have finished with the food.”
He turned back to the display as Tramline Two loomed up in front of them. The aliens might well have left a stealthed picket somewhere along the tramline, watching the human ships as they fought their desperate battle for survival. They'd clearly had a ship at Tramline Four, so why not one at Tramline Two. And they’d have a very good idea of where — precisely — the human ships would jump into the system. There was no time to do anything to make their jumping coordinates more random. If the aliens had an ambush waiting for them, it would be impossible to avoid. They’d just have to hope they could fight their way through it.
“All starfighters are ready to launch,” Fitzwilliam reported. “The pilots are standing by.”
Ted scowled. The pilots had waited for hours, then fought savagely… and all the best studies agreed that starfighter pilots should have hours of rest between bouts of combat. But the scientists who had carried out the studies weren't on the carrier. He had no choice, apart from sending his exhausted pilots back into the fight. Assuming, of course, the aliens were lurking in ambush.
“Jump,” he ordered.
He braced himself as the display went dark, then flickered back to life as they materialised within the new star system. The aliens could be waiting… but nothing materialised, apart from a single icon that was drifting five hundred thousand kilometres from their position. It looked like a monitoring satellite, Ted decided, which was confirmed when the satellite started to send a stream of data into the inner system. Ted ordered its immediate destruction — a single blast from a railgun would suffice — then turned his attention to the sensor reports. There was one source of signals within the inner system… and only one other tramline.
“It isn't jumping back towards human space,” Annie reported.
Ted shrugged, briefly considering their options. He could launch an ambush himself, when — if — the alien ship came through the tramline, but it would be too risky. God alone knew what was lurking within the alien system, yet if they’d left Alien-One largely undeveloped to avoid alerting human survey ships, there was no guarantee that they'd done the same for Alien-Two. At some point, he knew, they would have to fortify their worlds to prevent the humans from accidentally stumbling over their settlements and then escaping to alert the human race.
“Take us towards it anyway, best possible speed,” he ordered. Turning, he looked over at Farley. “Launch two of our remaining drones towards the alien world. I want to know what — if anything — is there, waiting for us.”
There was a chime from his console. “I'd like to withdraw half of the pilots for a rest in the sleep machine,” Fitzwilliam said. “They need it, desperately.”
Ted cursed under his breath. They were still too close to the tramline for him to be sanguine about stripping half of the starfighters from the launch roster. But, at the same time, he knew his pilots were exhausted.
“Hold for ten minutes,” he said, studying the tramline as it fell behind them. “I want to see what the aliens do.”
“Understood,” Fitzwilliam said.
He didn't say anything else, for which Ted was grateful. Maybe he had wanted to steal command for himself, once upon a time. Ted couldn't really blame him for wanting to promote himself by any means possible. But he was smart enough to know that they couldn't afford internal bickering, not now. The minutes ticked away with no sign of the alien battlecruiser.
“Launch another drone,” Ted ordered. The further they moved from the tramline, the harder it would be to pick up a transit signature when the alien ship finally made its appearance. “I want to know when it arrives.”
“Yes, sir,” Farley said. He hesitated, noticeably. “We only have three drones left.”
“Aye, sir,” the XO said. “And you should get some rest too, sir.”
Ted rubbed his eyes. The XO was right, he knew. But he was unwilling to leave the bridge until the battle was over.
“You get some rest,” he ordered, instead. “I need to stay here.”
Oddly, Fitzwilliam didn't argue.
Ted leaned back in his chair and watched the reports from the drones plunging into the inner system. The second tramline was on the other side of the source of alien signals, a Mars-like world that seemed to have nothing going for it apart from a surprisingly large number of small moons orbiting it. Ted found himself wondering if the aliens had actually captured hundreds of asteroids and steered them into planetary orbit, producing a vast network of habitats and industrial nodes. But the world seemed surprisingly undefended for an industrial complex… and besides, it was far too close to the front lines.
But the Russians wanted to turn New Russia into a centre of industry, he thought. They didn't know that the aliens might come on the offensive at any moment.
He puzzled over the issue as the data continued to flood into the computers. The analyst section identified a handful of small mining complexes, all disappointingly comparable to human systems. It seemed the aliens didn't bother to waste ultra-advanced technology on mining camps, any more than the human industrial complexes. Most of the technology used to mine the asteroids and the lunar surface predated the general advance into space itself.
“Curious,” he muttered, out loud. “All that industry and hardly any defences.”
“We might not be able to see the defences, sir,” Farley pointed out. “We’re operating at quite some distance from the planet.”
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