Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch

by Christopher Nuttal

  “Glad to hear it,” Ted snapped. Part of him wished the Prince was his son, so he could disperse some fatherly advice. The rest of him was adamant that he’d better disperse some advice anyway. “You have some choices to make, young man.”

  The Prince looked up, surprised. No one who knew who he actually was, Ted suspected, had spoken to him in that tone of voice. But then, it was always difficult to discipline a Prince, particularly when the media was always watching. If Prince Henry had been sent to bed without supper, the media would have started howling about child abuse. But then, what was the endless observation from the media? Beatings would definitely have been kinder.

  “If you’re serious about her, and you certainly seem to be, you need to tell her the truth,” Ted said. “Tell her before we get home, before the media starts scouring the ship for ribald stories about your service. She has to know what she’s getting into before she actually gets a very nasty surprise. And if she decides, knowing what happened to some of your other girlfriends, that she doesn't want to stay with you, I suggest you let her go and respect her privacy.”

  Henry flushed, again. Ted didn't blame him. Anyone, male or female, whose name was romantically linked with one of the Royal Family had the unwanted attentions of the media, tearing his or her life apart. Princess Elizabeth had actually lost a boyfriend after the media uncovered more than a few uncomfortable facts about his past behaviour, back when he’d been a young boy. No one deserved that level of scrutiny just because they might be dating the wrong person.

  “Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I didn't mean to cause problems ...”

  Ted allowed his anger to show on his face. “You’re a Prince,” he snapped. “You knew, perfectly well, what happens to people who date someone from the Royal Family. At best, you acted in a very poor manner, one that I find despicable. You want to be normal, you want to be common, but you will never be either. I think you could have destroyed her life and career, just by not telling her the truth.

  “It’s not fair, I know it isn't fair, but it’s what you’ve got. Deal with it!”

  He met the Prince’s eyes. “I respect what you’re trying to do,” he said. “I respect your desire to earn awards and plaudits for your achievements, not for an accident of birth. And you’re doing very well. But you cannot get away from your birth, Your Highness. And anyone involved with you will become an object of scrutiny when the truth finally comes out. Because it will!”

  “I know, sir,” the Prince said, lowering his eyes. “But ...”

  Ted sighed. The Prince seemed to range between mature behaviour and an immaturity that was shocking, at least in someone who was meant to be a responsible naval officer. But it was understandable, Ted knew. The Prince had never been allowed to grow and mature at a normal rate. He'd been expected to be mature at a very early age – or at least to act mature. It wasn't a surprise that it caused long term problems ...

  ... But they were problems that couldn't be tolerated on a starship.

  “We will discuss this matter further when we escape Target One,” Ted concluded. There wasn't time to give the Prince a proper lecture, no matter how much he might deserve it. “And I suggest that you decide how to tell her, soon. Or I will have to handle it myself.”

  Henry looked down at the deck. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “And you will report for punishment duty during the voyage home,” Ted added. “You wanted to be normal, didn't you?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Prince said. “But what do I tell her?”

  Ted sighed. No one sane would ask his advice on relationships. The last true relationship he’d had had been years ago, before he'd climbed into the bottle. After that, there had just been the occasional visit to Sin City whenever he’d felt the urge for some female company.

  “I suggest you tell her the truth,” Ted said. “And that you grovel one hell of a lot.”

  He met the Prince’s eyes, willing him to understand. “Dismissed.”

  “Poor bastard,” Captain Fitzwilliam said, as soon as the hatch had hissed closed behind the Prince. “Can't ever get a break.”

  Ted rounded on him. “Do you think this is funny?”

  Fitzwilliam sobered. “I sometimes think that we walk backwards into pitfalls with our eyes firmly shut, loudly protesting all the time that that wasn't what we meant to do,” he said. “I can't fault the Prince for wanting a normal life and normal relationships, but at the same time ...”

  He shrugged, expressively. “Poor bastard.”

  Ted scowled. He understood the Prince’s desire to prove himself to be more than just a title, one granted by an accident of birth, but starting a relationship with anyone would cause its own problems. And the fact he’d started dating the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant would stink like the starship’s waste disposal tubes ... and if it didn't now, it sure as hell would by the time the reporters and their editors were done with it. He wondered, absently, just how long it would be before they started casting nasty aspirations at Lopez herself. She was certainly in a good position, at least to civilian eyes, to realise who Charles Augustus actually was and set her cap at him.

  “Yes, sir,” the XO said. “Should we take steps to keep them apart?”

  “I don’t know,” Ted confessed. “Do we have any right to do so?”

  The hell of it, once again, was that no regulations were actually being broken. Starfighter pilots who ended up in bed together could expect to be reassigned to different squadrons; command staff who slept together could be dismissed from the service ... but people from different sections were allowed to form relationships. Given the sheer size of any carrier and the time they spent away from Earth or Britannia, no amount of regulations could hope to prevent relationships from forming. All they could do was try to ensure that they caused the minimum disruption to the ship and the rest of the crew.

  “You’re her boss,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. “You could keep her busy, at least until we leave Target One behind.”

  Ted nodded. There were two hours before they slipped through the tramline and re-entered the system. By then, it was quite possible that Force Two had realised the drones were nothing more than decoys and moved back into Target One themselves, hoping to intercept the fleet. And they would succeed. The only other way the fleet knew that would take them back to human space involved passing through the front lines.

  “I think I will,” he said. “And you can let Kurt know to keep an eye on him.”

  ***

  Henry barely noticed his surroundings as he made his way back to the starfighter ready room, caught up in a whirlwind of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. Control was one thing he'd learned early, but it was also something that frayed regularly as he came to grips with the reality of his situation. It just wasn’t fair! Why should he be treated as a role model for young men and women when all he'd done was choose the right set of parents? And why should he be condemned for doing something other young men did regularly? It wasn't fair!

  But the Admiral was right, he knew; he’d been selfish.

  Bitter self-disgust threatened to overwhelm him as he paused, just outside the hatch. He’d wanted a normal relationship, he’d wanted a normal life, but he wouldn't get either, no matter what he did. Even the Royals who had walked away from their titles were still hounded by the media, as if anyone really gave a shit what they did with their lives. Henry had no illusions any longer about the ravenous monsters men called reporters, subhuman vermin who fed on misery and created it wherever they went. Janelle’s life would be torn apart, dissected and then broadcast to the entire universe.

  And what if she had something in her past that made her ... unsuitable?

  It had happened to his sister, Henry knew. His parents and the Privy Council had put their foot down, after the media had reported the facts to the world. Elizabeth had sulked for weeks afterwards, refusing to attend to any of her ceremonial duties – and how could he blame her? Her life had been torn apart because of something the media
had discovered. But was anyone truly without sin?

  Henry had few sins in his past, but then he'd always been aware that anything he did would be discovered and used against him. The ever-present threat of exposure had kept him under control, even as his father had retreated into his regal persona and his mother had become a neurotic mess. But what might Janelle be hiding in her past?

  It might not even be a real sin, he knew. If she’d had a relationship with another woman, it would be used against her. After all, the Queen had to be willing and able to bear children. It was tradition. Anyone else could sleep with whoever the hell they wanted, at least as long as they were sixteen or older, but not the Royal Family. They had to pick their partners with extreme – and pointless – care.

  He tried to compose a speech to Janelle, to tell her the truth, but found it impossible. What could he tell her? Would she think he’d been leading her on? Or would she become one of the crawling women who wanted to be Queen ... and didn't realise, until it was too late, that it was nothing more than a gilded cage?

  Silently, he cursed it all under his breath. It just wasn't fair.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  If she realised that something had happened after the XO had dragged her lover away, Lopez showed no sign of it as she stepped into the CIC and took her seat near the Admiral’s command chair. Indeed, she looked remarkably happy – and young. Ted felt a stab of envy, remembering when he’d been that young himself, and then put the thought out of his mind for the moment. The Prince could talk to her after they escaped Target One, when they would have several days to come to grips with the sudden change in their relationship. Until then, it could wait.

  “The fleet has checked in, sir,” Lopez said. “They’re standing by.”

  “Good,” Ted said. The damage had been repaired as best as possible, but he was grimly aware that there was a large gash in the Old Lady’s armour – and the other carriers weren't heavily armoured in the first place. “Order War Hog to make transit.”

  He leaned back in his command chair as the frigate vanished from the display. As far as they could tell, they hadn't been tracked as they’d sneaked through the alien-occupied system, but the aliens had been alarmingly successful in tracking them before. The analysts had wondered if the aliens, with their far greater understanding of gravity, had a way of monitoring tramlines at a distance, although it seemed impossible. But then, so much else the aliens had shown to humanity had been deemed impossible.

  If they had perfect sensors, like something out of science-fiction, they’d have hunted us down by now, Ted thought, coldly. They can't be much more advanced over us.

  “War Hog has returned,” Lopez reported. “She’s detected hints that Target One is under siege.”

  Ted nodded, relieved. If the aliens had successfully reasserted control over the high orbitals, they would have smashed the Rhino and his forces in short order. Hell, given how little use they made of the land surface, they could just have rained down projectiles at random, heedless of the damage they were doing. But if the planet was under siege, there was a chance to retrieve the groundpounders and escape before Force Two made its unwelcome reappearance.

  “Take us through the tramline,” he ordered. “Best possible speed.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lopez said. “Transit in five minutes.”

  Ted waited as the display blanked out, then reformatted itself, displaying the familiar sight of Target One. He braced himself, half-expecting to encounter a welcoming committee even if the frigate had detected nothing, then settled back in his command chair as no enemy ships materialised. Data started to flow in from the handful of passive recon platforms they’d scattered across the solar system, but it was considerably out of date. At least the fleet train had survived without detection.

  “Order them to remain where they are,” Ted ordered. By the time they received the message, the fleet would be halfway to Target One. “The Marine Transports are to prepare to pick up the soldiers as soon as we force our way into orbit.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lopez said.

  Ted nodded, hastily running through calculations in his mind. They’d have to take the shortest route to the planet, which shouldn't be a problem as all indications suggested they hadn't been detected. But once they reached the planet, the aliens would scream for Force Two to come to the rescue. By his calculations, they would have less than five hours to re-embark the troops ... assuming that Force Two didn't arrive before Ted’s ships entered orbit. There were too many variables for him to relax comfortably.

  He caught himself looking at the back of Lopez’s head as she turned away from him, working her console with grim determination. The Prince was a lucky man, Ted decided, despite his accident of birth. Maybe they would be happy together ... angrily, he dismissed the thought. There was no time to think about it, not when a battle was about to take place. Instead, he looked down at the reports from the other ships, wondering just how much creative editing had gone into some of them. If it had been up to him, the damaged ships would have been withdrawn to a shipyard.

  But if you don't get out of this system, he reminded himself, there’s no hope of ever returning to a shipyard.

  The hours ticked by slowly. Ted occupied himself with studying the reports from the long-range probes as they neared the planet, picking up and reporting the presence of alien ships keeping their distance from the ground-based plasma weapons. There was an odd moment of Déjà Vu as he looked at their formation, something that puzzled him until he realised that it was the exact same formation his forces had used, after they’d battered their way into the system and attacked the planet’s defences. The aliens, it seemed, thought along similar lines to humanity. It made him wonder why they just couldn't or wouldn’t talk.

  “They haven’t cleared the space junk,” Lopez said, in some surprise. “It's still in orbit.”

  “There isn't really time to clear it all,” Ted pointed out. “They’d need weeks to get most of it headed out of orbit or swept up into a mobile factory. As long as the bigger pieces are smashed they might not be immediately worried about the rest of it.”

  He leaned back in his command chair as they neared the enemy fleet. Oddly, there were no carriers, merely seven frigate-sized craft and two battlecruisers. Ted smiled to himself; the aliens might have extremely good point defence, but without fighters of their own they’d have no real cover against his starfighters. They were about to get thoroughly smashed without even a chance to fight back.

  “Launch starfighters at Point Trafalgar,” he ordered, keying the display. “The CSP is to cover the carriers; the remaining starfighters and bombers are to target the alien ships and take them out as rapidly as possible.”

  “Understood,” the CAG said. “They’ll see us coming the moment we launch starfighters.”

  “By then, it shouldn't matter,” Ted said. He briefly considered trying to engage with mass drivers instead – it should be possible to aim at the alien craft without threatening the planet itself – then dismissed the thought. They’d need the mass drivers if – when – Force Two arrived in the system. “Launch starfighters at Point Trafalgar.”

  He smiled to himself, tiredly. The aliens had hammered humanity in a curbstomp battle more than once. It was time to return the favour.

  ***

  “Launch fighters,” a voice barked. “I say again; launch fighters!”

  Kurt smiled to himself as he blasted out into the darkness of space, then glanced down at his display. Thankfully, everyone was following orders, despite the addition of foreign pilots to their squadrons. The CSP fell back to cover the carriers – the aliens would know they were there, now – while the bombers and the remaining starfighters advanced towards the alien ships. It became clear, very quickly, that the aliens hadn't had the slightest idea the humans were anywhere near until it was far too late.

  “They’re bringing up their drives and weapons,” the sensor tech noted. “But I think they’re having to flash-wake some of their
systems.”

  “Good,” Kurt said. He felt his lips draw back into a cold smile as he contemplated blowing his way through unprepared alien craft. “Unless it’s a trap, of course.”

  The alien commanders clearly seemed to think that discretion was the better part of valour. As soon as their drives were online, they turned and started to head away from the planet, pouring on all the motive power they could muster. It would have allowed them to avoid engagement if they’d been facing human starships, but not when facing starfighters. No starship could match a starfighter for sheer rate of acceleration.

  “Target the battlecruisers first,” Kurt ordered, as they closed in on the alien craft. Their point defence was already firing, although the odds were staggeringly against hitting any of the human craft at extreme range. On the other hand, it did make holding a steady formation almost impossible. “Aim for their drive sections.”

  See if we can take another ship intact, he thought, coldly. He smiled, remembering how Molly had spent almost all of his share of the reward from the last battlecruiser they’d captured. It would definitely bring in more prize money.