Ted smiled, calculating the vectors. If the alien battlecruiser didn't make its appearance, he would be tempted — very tempted — to pause long enough to lay waste to the system. The outcome of modern wars were largely determined by the production war, with one side out-producing its rival and crushing its enemies under the sheer weight of its produce. But the aliens knew where humanity’s industrial centres were located, allowing them to target their attacks on facilities that had taken years to produce, while the human race had no idea where to hit their enemy’s industrial base. A few deep-strike raids, Ted realised, and the human race would lose many of its industrial complexes. And the war itself would be lost with them.
“Continue on our present course,” he ordered, finally. Where was the damn battlecruiser? Surely the aliens would want to keep tabs on Ark Royal, rather than let her wander through alien-controlled space without supervision. “Alert me when we make our closest approach to the planet.”
He glanced at the timer. Nine hours to go. Fitzwilliam was right. He did need to sleep.
Once he’s had his shot in the sleep machines, I’ll take mine, Ted thought. He disliked the sleep machines — they just didn't feel right — but there was no alternative. And then I might feel more alert.
* * *
“They reacted rather oddly, sir,” the Marine reported. “As soon as we jumped, they started keening.”
Charles frowned, studying the alien prisoners through the surveillance sensors. The aliens hadn't shown much reaction to the quarantine compartment or the human observers, but that could be nothing more than lessons from an alien version of the dreaded Conduct After Capture course. What would the aliens, who had presumably known about humanity long enough to devise protocols for any of their race who happened to be taken prisoner, have told them to do? Humans were supposed to restrict themselves to name, rank and serial number… although if the captors felt like conducting a more rigorous interrogation, it was unlikely that any of the prisoners could have held anything back.
Not that it matters, he thought, wryly. They can't speak English and we can't speak their language. We might have captured the King of all the Aliens and we’d never know it.
“Interesting,” he said. The human observers had retreated hastily, complaining about their ears hurting. “Have they done anything else?”
“No, but they must have sensed the jump,” the Marine said. “They know there’s no hope of recovery now.”
Charles sighed. No one had seriously considered having to deal with prisoners from an alien race, not until Vera Cruz… and, as far as he knew, no real protocols had been developed to handle the situation. The planned First Contact bore no resemblance to what had actually happened. Between them, the doctors and the Marines were making it up as they went along.
“It would give them a reason to talk to us,” Charles said. “But if they can't…”
He shook his head. These days, human prisoners were either treated under the laws of war or rated as terrorists, depending on when and where they were captured. The Third World War had left massive scars on the human psyche, sweeping away much of the idealism that had marked the previous century. POWs could expect to be held until the end of the war — unless someone arranged a prisoner exchange — or to be interrogated and then shot. Aliens, on the other hand… even if they’d merely captured the alien version of junior crewmen, they still needed to be treated carefully.
“I’ll discuss it with the Captain,” he said. “Have they managed to master their cell?”
The Marine smiled. “They didn't have any problems with the knobs,” he said. “Turns out they like the cell warm, but moist. Feels like Kuala Lumpur in there, sir. I think they would put it even higher if they could.”
“We’ll have to build them a better cell, when we get them home,” Charles said. He looked up as Doctor Hastings stepped into the observation sector. “Doctor.”
“Major,” the doctor responded.
Charles looked at her, thoughtfully. She looked as tired as everyone else felt, but there was a curious excitement pushing her onwards. “What have you discovered?”
“I’ve been trying to work out a baseline for this race,” the doctor said. She smiled as she pushed past him to look at the aliens. “Of our nine captives, I believe that four of them are actually female.”
“Oh,” Charles said. He looked back at the aliens, puzzled. As far as he could tell, there were no physical differences beyond skin colour. There were no breasts or penises. “How do you tell the difference?”
“There are none, on the surface,” the doctor said. “But internally there are some quite significant differences. That one there” — she pointed to a green-skinned alien who looked identical to the others — “is female, with an organ that seems to produce eggs for expulsion into the water. Males” — she nodded to another alien — “produce sperm, which is also expelled into the water.”
“Tadpoles,” Charles said, in sudden understanding.
“Indeed,” the doctor said, giving him a smile that made her tired face look strikingly pretty. “My best guess, Major, is that they reproduce by ejaculating into warm water, rather than direct sexual contact. It’s quite likely that they don’t have any real concept of physical love as we understand the term, or bastardry for that matter. Their society might well be very different from ours.”
Charles had a sudden vision of the aliens leaving sperm and eggs everywhere they went, hoping that they would match up and produce children. Once conceived, what would happen to the child? Instead of one parent… who would take the children in? Their society must have people trained to serve as mothers and fathers, even if they weren't biologically related to the child’s parents. Hell, the child’s parents might never even have met!
“There are no other major differences between the sexes,” the doctor added. “I think that they won’t have invented any form of sexual discrimination, not when females are fully as strong as males.”
“But they miss out on a lot,” Charles mused. “No sex.”
“It would seem perfectly normal to them,” the doctor pointed out, tartly. “And besides, do you know how much time is wasting having and rearing children?”
Charles shrugged. “It used to be that the best years of a woman’s life were the ones where she was expected to have children and bear the burden of raising them,” the doctor explained. “By the time the children were old enough to flee the nest, their mother couldn't really do anything else. It was only since the development of technology that the women could go back to work — and now, with life-extension treatments, the women have more years to play with. How many female geniuses were lost to the ages because of the demands of childbirth?”
The alarms howled before Charles could reply. He glanced at his terminal, then swore.
“They’re back,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ted jerked back to full awareness as the alarms sounded.
Shit, he swore, inwardly. He'd committed the cardinal sin of almost falling asleep on the bridge. A young midshipman who dozed off while on watch would be lucky if he wasn't demoted all the way back to cadet by his outraged CO. Ted forced himself to put the thought aside, then stared at the display. A single red icon was emerging from the tramline they’d taken to reach Alien-Two.
“The battlecruiser, sir,” Farley said. If he’d noted Ted’s near-collapse, he said nothing. “They must have assumed that we were planning an ambush.”
Ted nodded, silently giving thanks for the alien commander’s paranoia. He’d taken the time to enter the tramline at a different point, thwarting any planned ambush… but, incidentally, giving Ark Royal some time to put distance between the two ships. He watched, coldly, as the alien ship started after them, without waiting for any sensor reports. It took his tired mind a long moment to realise that the aliens already knew their destination. There was literally nowhere else the human ship could go.
“They’re keeping their distance too,”
Farley added. “They could overrun us well before we reached the tramline, if they pleased.”
“True,” Ted agreed.
He ran his hand though his hair, considering the possibilities. Maybe the aliens weren't as confident of their predictions as they acted. Or maybe they thought the human ship was powerful enough to best the battlecruiser, even though her starfighter squadrons had been shot to ribbons. Or maybe they were still herding her towards a final ambush. He silently cursed the alien FTL drive under his breath. With a bit of luck, the aliens could muster an ambush while Ark Royal followed a predictable path.
“Continue on course towards the tramline,” he ordered. There was no point in trying to hide, not now. The aliens knew roughly where they were. “And draw up a strike pattern for targeting the alien facilities in orbit around the planet.”
It was risky, he knew; if the aliens had a major colony on the surface there was a very definite possibility that one of the human projectiles would strike the planet’s surface and carry out an atrocity. But there was no time to target their weapons more precisely — and he had no intention of wasting irreplaceable missiles on targets that couldn't shoot back. He simply didn't have enough to spare.
“They didn't bring any starfighters,” Fitzwilliam said. He sounded disgustingly alert after half an hour in the sleep machine. He’d pay for that later, but for the moment he could carry out his duties without tiredness blunting his edge. “What happened to them?”
Ted shrugged. Maybe the alien pilots had made it back to Alien-One, maybe they’d been picked up by the battlecruiser… or maybe they’d expired in the merciless reaches of outer space. There was no way to know.
“Take command,” he ordered, surrendering to the inevitable. “I’m going to take some rest in the sleep machine. Alert me if the aliens start to run us down.”
* * *
Kurt cracked open the lid and sat up, feeling his head spinning slightly. It wasn't quite a headache, but it was bad enough to blunt him. His chronometer stated that he’d been in the sleep machine for barely an hour, nowhere near enough to replenish his reserves. But there was no more time to rest, not now. A quick look at the status display showed the alien battlecruiser, tracking Ark Royal with murderous intent.
He sighed as the other sleep machines opened, revealing two-thirds of his remaining pilots. The remainder, waiting in the launch tubes, were even more tired than the rest of them. Kurt forced his head to start working, thinking hard. The squadrons needed to be reorganised — Delta Squadron was effectively out of service, having one surviving pilot — but he was too tired to do it properly.
“Dave, Gus, Gladys and Mike, take the ready starfighters,” he ordered. “You're now classed as Beta Squadron. Everyone else in this compartment is part of Alpha Squadron.”
Rose looked irked — he’d effectively demoted her — but she looked too tired to argue in front of the others. If they made it home, Rose would probably be given a whole new starfighter squadron on a different starship, one where her experience could be passed on to starfighter pilots who had never even seen an enemy starfighter. Kurt allowed himself a moment of relief, then pushed it aside ruthlessly. Their relationship, their secret relationship, meant nothing. All that mattered was staying alive long enough to give the aliens one final bloody nose before they were overwhelmed.
“Alpha, go get a shower,” he added, after taking another look at the display and calculating the vectors in his head. The aliens, unless they sped up, would need at least two hours to overrun the carrier. By his assessment, the aliens were keeping tabs on their location rather than attempting to actually stop Ark Royal. “You all stink like…” — his imagination failed him — “a very stinky thing.”
“Same to you, sir,” Oxford said. “You shouldn't have worn your socks in the sleeping machine.”
It was a measure of how tried he was, Kurt decided, that he found himself giggling helplessly for several seconds. “Shower,” he snapped, when he could finally talk again. “Now.”
He watched them go, then looked over at Rose. “I understand,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed his lips hard, then strode past him into the shower. Kurt glared at her back, then forced his body back under control. She called back to him as her clothes hit the deck. “Come on, sir. The water’s fine.”
Kurt gritted his teeth, realising that he’d lost his detachment once and for all. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes off her, covering himself by scrubbing thoroughly at his feet and legs as the water ran down his body. As soon as he felt clean, he stepped back out of the shower, towelled himself down and checked the display. The alien battlecruiser hadn't moved any closer. Indeed, it seemed to have decided to match the carrier’s speed even though it could have easily moved a great deal faster.
It's precisely what we want them to do, Kurt thought, as he pulled on a clean flight suit. They’re being very obliging. And that’s what bothers us.
“Stay here,” he ordered, as the other pilots scrambled out of the shower, water running off their bodies. “If the alert sounds, go to your fighters at once.”
The hatch opened as he reached it, revealing Gamma Squadron’s pilots. They looked even more haggard than the other pilots, unsurprisingly. And they stank too, just like the others before they’d showered. None of them really cared to remain in the cockpits for so long.
“Have your showers, then get a nap,” Kurt ordered. “And then join the remaining pilots here.”
He walked down to his office, closed the door firmly and brought up the squadron rosters. It seemed absurd to be doing the paperwork now, when the aliens were tracking them, but it helped keep his mind off other things. He could record a message for Molly and the children, yet it was unlikely they would ever hear it. Or he could call Rose…
Angrily, he shook his head. The aliens were in hot pursuit. They couldn't afford to be caught with their pants down, not now.
* * *
Ted didn't feel much better after several hours in the sleep machine — Fitzwilliam had evidently decided to let him sleep longer than he’d planned - but one glance at the display was enough to reassure him that the alien battlecruiser was still keeping its distance from the carrier. Unfortunately, it had also launched a spread of drones of its own, ensuring that Ark Royal couldn't hide without being detected.
“We have a lock on several targets in orbit around the alien world,” Farley informed him, when he stepped back onto the bridge. A shave and a shower had made him feel much better about himself. “I don't think there is a major risk to the planet itself.”
Ted nodded, studying the reports from the drones. There were dozens of large structures in orbit, most of them clearly industrial nodes. But there were relatively few defences, as far as he could see. Was it possible, he asked himself, that some of the nodes were actually drones or ECM beacons? If human technology could fool the aliens long enough to let Ark Royal launch an ambush, why couldn't the aliens do the same?
“It’s impossible to be certain at this distance,” Farley admitted, when Ted asked. “”But they would have had to set up the trap well before we arrived in the system.”
“True,” Ted agreed. “Are you ready to open fire?”
“The mass drivers are armed and ready,” Farley said. “We can fire on your command.”
Ted nodded. Given the distance between themselves and the planet, they would be past the perfect firing location before they knew if they’d hit their targets or not. But it didn't matter, he told himself. If they missed, or if the alien point defence was sufficient to stop the projectiles, he had no intention of wasting any more. Besides, the aliens were unlikely to give them time to stop and reload from the local asteroid belt.
“Fire,” he ordered.
Long hours ticked away as the silent projectiles rocketed towards their targets. Ted watched, keeping one eye on the alien battlecruiser, until the first reports started to come back into the display. Four facilities had been hit and destroyed, seven had turned out t
o have a surprisingly heavy concentration of point defence weapons and two more were missed outright. Under the circumstances, Ted decided, it was the best they could reasonably hope for.
The alien battlecruiser showed no reaction, no inclination to accelerate and enter engagement range. Indeed, the distance it was keeping was safe by several orders of magnitude. Ted puzzled over it, wondering just what the aliens would think of a CO who didn't try to save the facilities. A naval officer would understand that there was nothing the battlecruiser could have done, but his civilian superiors would have complained loudly at the absence of any actual attempt to save the planet. They wouldn't understand the realities of naval combat… he wondered, with a sudden flicker of envy, if the alien government was composed of naval officers. God knew there was a human colony that believed that military service was the only way to gain the vote.
He turned back to look at the tramline, stretching out ahead of them. At this rate, the aliens would let them leave the system without interference… and he couldn't help, but wonder if that was what the aliens wanted the human ship to do. It was easy enough to project the destination of the tramline, yet there was no way of knowing what might be waiting for them at the other end. And, with a stealthed picket ship, the aliens would have plenty of time to note Ark Royal’s course and set an ambush.
“Prepare two more drones,” he ordered, looking over at Farley. “I want to cause as much confusion as possible as we come out of the tramline.”
It might be wasted effort, he knew. Given enough time, the aliens could have seeded space with beacons and detectors. But he had to try.
Shaking his head, he picked up the latest report from the doctors and started to read. The aliens were very alien, unsurprisingly. But there didn't seem to be any threat of disease, thankfully. God alone knew what would happen if the Admiralty believed Ark Royal to be compromised. They’d probably insist on flying the carrier right into the nearest star.
But there was one thing the report couldn't answer. How, precisely, did the alien thought processes differ from human ones?
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